I did not make this up:
John,
My mom was a delegate in Dallas this past weekend. She arrived at 7AM and didn't get to leave until 8PM. She said that it appeared the Clinton delegates were trying to drag things out so long that people would have to leave. She thought they challenged about 3,000 delegates and each of them had to go through the credentialing committee.
One of the Clinton delegates from her group challenged the validity of entire precincts. One of the precincts she challenged was almost entirely African American. Towards the end, after this group was credentialed they came by and shook their fists at the Clinton delegate and chanted "we're still here" in her face. My mom said it was a little tense.
She also said that it was sad to see all of the elderly there having to sit in stadium seats for 13 hours. She didn't know of anyone leaving without an alternate to replace them though. A very pregnant woman in her group had to lie on the concrete floor at times.
I don't know why this didn't make bigger news. She said it was obvious to everyone there what was going on and she thought Clinton had made many enemies from inside the democratic party that day.
If the Hillary campaign is so "concerned" about the disenfranchisement of our voters in Michigan and Florida, the least they can do is speak out against this petty thuggery in Texas. What we are seeing more and more of is a campaign that is willing to say and do anything to get elected. Refusing to pay for services rendered. Widespread vote suppression. Throwing long-time allies under the bus. Lying with a straight face.
This is really the same struggle that we fought back in 1968, when we were fighting Daley's machine and protesting the nomination of Hubert Humphrey. The names and faces may be different, but this is the same battle for the heart and soul of the party that we fought and lost back in 1968. The more the Hillary campaign drags this on with their scorched-earth policy, the more they become revealed as thugs who want to remake the Democrats into another version of the GOP, where blind loyalty is valued over competence.
Please suppport Darius Shahinfar for Congress. On my blog, I will begin endorsing candidates for Congress and linking to their sites. One of the hard lessons we learned from 1992-94 and what FDR learned after 1936 is that we can't effectively govern unless we elect better Democrats as well as more Democrats. In both Clinton's and FDR's cases, the Republicans and Blue Dogs effectively stymied much of his agenda in Congress.
My criteria for endorsing will be simple -- a lot will depend on whether they sign the Responsible Plan to End the Iraq War, whether they update their site frequently (showing that they are a serious candidate), whether they take this place seriously or not, and whether they have a strong Progressive record. In all these cases, Shahinfar passes the test with flying colors.
And Shahinfar is not ashamed to identify himself with the anti-war movement in this country; for instance, he links to a peace march from Albany:
Speakers and signs called for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq and urged no war with Iran. One sign said "No to Afghan war," and another denounced President Bush as a war criminal. You could buy a bumper sticker for $2 saying "Speak out for peace" or one with the message "I’d rather be smashing imperialism." Buttons, on sale at the same booth, proclaimed "Islam is not the enemy," "World peace," "Impeach Bush" and "Wal-Mart sucks." One man’s T-shirt was emblazoned with: "Anything war can do, peace can do better."
The crowd of all ages gathered on the west side of the Capitol. The singers and speakers stood in front of a statue of George Washington with the Alfred E. Smith Building looming behind.
At a display in the park there, the names of thousands of dead U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians appeared on pieces of paper. The papers snapped back and forth in the cold wind.
Michael Gorla of Niskayuna held a banner from the First Unitarian Society of Schenectady. Fellow member Kevin O’Connor, also of Niskayuna, stood next to him, holding a wooden peace sign.
A sign from United University Professions, the union representing state university professors, said: "Money for education, not for war." A banner advocating peace was held by several Roman Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph from Latham.
Leila Zand, an Iranian-American from Niskayuna, was one of the speakers and said the United States should leave Iran alone. "I say enough to the axis of evil. I say enough to the great Satan. I say enough to war," she concluded. Zand said later she meant to oppose the harsh rhetoric used by both sides.
The soldier who snapped the Abu Girhab photos speaks out:
At first it was funny but these people are going too far. I ended your letter last night because it was time to wake the MI prisoners and "mess with them" but it went too far even I can’t handle whats going on. I cant get it out of my head. I walk down stairs after blowing the whistle and beating on the cells with an asp to find "the taxicab driver" handcuffed backwards to his window naked with his underwear over his head and face. He looked like Jesus Christ. At first I had to laugh so I went on and grabbed the camera and took a picture. One of the guys took my asp and started "poking" at his dick. Again I thought, okay that’s funny then it hit me, that’s a form of molestation. You can’t do that.
They started talking to this man and at first he was talking "I’m just a taxicab driver, I did nothing." He claims he’d never try to hurt US soldiers that he picked up the wrong people. Then he stopped talking. They turned the lights out and slammed the door and left him there while they went down to cell #4. This man had been so fucked that when they grabbed his foot through the cell bars he began screaming and crying. After praying to Allah he moans a constant short Ah, Ah every few seconds for the rest of the night. I don’t know what they did to this guy. The first one remained handcuffed for maybe 1 ½-2 hours until he started yelling for Allah. So they went back in and handcuffed him to the top bunk on either side of the bed while he stood on the side. He was there for a little over an hour when he started yelling again for Allah. Not many people know this shit goes on.
Here is Obama's statement on torture:
"The secret authorization of brutal interrogations is an outrageous betrayal of our core values, and a grave danger to our security. We must do whatever it takes to track down and capture or kill terrorists, but torture is not a part of the answer - it is a fundamental part of the problem with this administration's approach. Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it. It's time to tell the world that America rejects torture without exception or equivocation. It's time to stop telling the American people one thing in public while doing something else in the shadows. No more secret authorization of methods like simulated drowning. When I am president America will once again be the country that stands up to these deplorable tactics. When I am president we won't work in secret to avoid honoring our laws and Constitution, we will be straight with the American people and true to our values," said Obama.
Obama gained two delegates from Mississippi. We first thought that Obama would only get a 19-14 split. However, when they went to certify the totals, it turned into a 20-13 split.
Al Gore will launch a new $300 million climate change campaign. Also, he has already signed up 1 million supporters to help in this effort. First of all, this suggests that he is not in the running to either influence this race or act as a compromise candidate. Secondly of all, Gore's thinking is that he can influence the process better outside the system than inside the system. We should endorse his efforts for several reasons.
The first is that when Clinton and Gore were in power, we did not have the kind of noise machine that would influence the process and lobby effectively for progressive legislation. Well-intentioned efforts such as Hillary's healthcare initiative were torpedoed because we did not have the kind of infrastructure to combat the lies of the right. The second is that once he gets into power, we need to be able to hold Obama's feet to the fire -- even though we supported him with our time and money. People like Obama want that kind of lobbying -- that way, they can turn around and say to the special interests that the people won't let him cave into their bullying. The more we engage and lobby for change, the stronger position Obama will be in to resist the lies of the right.
And this is why Gore is working from outside the process rather than inside the process. If he were to run for office, he would have beaten Clinton. However, that would have been at the expense of putting together the infrastructure that is needed to get meaningful climate change legislation passed. The whole point is to create our own noise machine so that we can bypass the lies of the right. After all, why listen to Hannity when we can listen to Air America or NPR? Why watch CNN or FOX when we can watch Current TV, Link TV, or Free Speech TV? Why subscribe to the local rag home delivery when we can get IPS News or McClatchy online for free?
I'm not saying that we should totally ignore MSNBC, or ABC, but if we do listen to them, we should tread with caution and always have our Media Matters or FAIR or Columbia Journalism Review or Cursor handy so that we can innoculate ourselves from the lies of the right.
Obama at an economic town hall meeting in Lancaster, PA:
Tom Trimarco, a prominent Massachusetts Republican, endorses Obama:
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Someone in the media finally gets it; the Post's Eugene Robinson:
Please note that throughout this episode, you haven't heard the name al-Qaeda. According to Bush and McCain, isn't Iraq supposed to be the central front in the war on terrorism? Wouldn't the only plausible reason for continuing the occupation of Iraq be to fight terrorists -- rather than help one Shiite leader against another? And what's the strategic reason for backing Maliki, who recently gave Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a red-carpet welcome to Baghdad, over Sadr, who is believed to be living in Iran, enjoying Ahmadinejad's hospitality?
Bush's troop surge, remember, was supposed to buy time for two things to happen: Iraq's political leaders were to achieve reconciliation, and Iraq's armed forces were to improve to the point where they could conduct operations on their own. On both counts, we see the results.
If Democrats are going to take several more months to settle on a presidential nominee, they had better find some way to stop giving John McCain a free ride on Iraq. He should have to explain why he wants to keep us on George Bush's long, winding path to nowhere.
Rasmussen -- Clinton 47, Obama 42. This undermines the claims by Clinton's advisers that Obama is somehow losing support among Whites. They have consistently tried to define Obama as the Black candidate unsuccessfully. But in fact, Obama can and does win White votes in places like Iowa, Kansas, WI, Nebraska, North Dakota, Idaho. And there is no reason why Obama can't win Pennsylvania as well.
Patrick Murphy's speech on why we need a change of direction in Iraq:
Superdelegates are starting to concede that Obama will win the primaries:
"If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say Barack Obama is going to be the next president," Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said in a Canadian public radio interview this weekend. "I will be stunned if he's not the next president of the United States."
Cleaver, an African-American, endorsed Clinton's White House bid last year and formally remained aligned with the New York senator even as other black leaders shifted their support to Barack Obama.
But after his district voted for Obama in the February 5 primary, Cleaver did indicate he would consider voting for the Illinois senator at the party's convention if the delegate count was extremely tight between the two candidates.
In the Canadian radio interview, Cleaver made clear he doesn't expect Clinton to overtake Obama, comparing his support of the New York Democrat to that of his hometown losing football team.
Barack Obama in Scranton:
One person asked Barack how he would restore our image in the international community and build alliances with other nations. He said:
When you don't have allies, it's a lot harder to get stuff done. U.S. interests are not met. That's why it's so important to build alliances. Building alliances means listening to other countries. A lot of our European allies are concerned about climate change. We should be too, but for the first seven years that Bush was in office, he said it was a hoax.
...There's no magic formula for creating allies. It's like dealing with anyone else. We're going to listen to their concerns, show them respect and dignity. That's what I'm going to do as President of the United States.
Another person asked Barack how he will protect the environment and reduce pollution. He responded:
I'm going to set up a cap and trade system on the emission of gases. If you pollute, then you've got a pay a price. If you stop polluting or you reduce your pollution, you can make money. It's worthwhile from an investment perspective to be environmentally sound.
We put a cap and trade system in for sulfuric acid and basically ended acid rain. American ingenuity is always up to the challenge. I'm going to make sure that natural gas companies should not be able to simply pollute when the rest of us bear the costs of it.
The nightmare of weapons, blood, and human flesh in Iraq:
I started seeing Iraqi Army trucks burned, and bodies lying in the streets. Weapons were everywhere, blood, human flesh... It was a nightmare.
The women started to cry and so did the kids, and I was just driving and driving without saying a word.
We finally got to my brother’s house and he was there He started describing to me how everyone was shocked seeing the American tanks coming into Baghdad, and how the tanks started firing at anything that moved in front in them, no matter what it was, even if it was a car with civilians in it.
It was a horrible day for everyone. Nobody has seen such firepower before. He told me about this Iraqi soldier who jumped in front of the American tank trying to aim his R.P.G. at it, but he was killed when the tank fired a cannon shell at him.
My brother was telling me how he started collecting the flesh of that soldier, and cried: "It was total madness — Ahmad, in a matter of minutes, everything was burned and everyone was dead. I still cannot believe what happened."
When I first saw that crushed pickup truck, in a way I was happy. I was happy that the Americans are finally here and they are going to save us from Saddam, but after a few hours, and after all the death I saw, I started wondering whether saving us from Saddam was a good idea, because we weren’t expecting such a thing, and I know that using violence in Iraq does not generate anything else but more violence.
Five years after the invasion and occupation of Iraq, stories of those horrific first few days are beginning to be heard. Those horrific first few days, seared in the consciousness of Iraqis, are starting to be relived and told again. Iraq was a dumb war because it needlessly inflicted suffering on fellow human beings for purposes of revenge and for gaining control of the world's oil supply. It was, as John Kerry said, the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, take this snippet of human suffering, picture your children going through this, as well as your grandchildren. That is the kind of suffering that John McCain proposes to inflict on people.
Over 100,000 new voter registrations have been turned in in North Carolina alone in just the first two months:
New voter registrations in North Carolina for the first two months of 2008 were roughly triple the number of new registrations for the same two months in 2004, said Gary Bartlett, executive director of the N.C. Board of Elections.
... Perhaps not surprisingly given the enthusiasm created by the Democratic presidential primaries, the number of new voters registering as Democrats is outpacing the number registering as Republicans.
... In 2004, overall primary turnout was 16 percent of registered voters.
... Bartlett is expecting heavier than usual turnout in the May 6 primary, though he said turnout is hard to predict.
Among Democrats, Bartlett is expecting turnout of 38 to 46 percent.
"There will be some places that might go higher than 50 percent," he said.
The Basra Offensive is shaping up to be a major embarrassment for the Bush administration and a major defeat for the McCain Doctrine:
As it became clear last week that "Operation Knights Assault" in Basra in south Iraq was in serious trouble, the George W Bush administration began to claim in off-the-record statements to journalists that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had launched the operation without consulting Washington.
The effort to disclaim US responsibility for the operation in which government forces battled with the Shi'ite - Mahdi Army - militias is an indication that it was viewed as a major embarrassment just as top commander General David Petraeus and ambassador Ryan Crocker are about to testify before Congress.
Behind this furious backpedaling is a major Bush administration miscalculation about Muqtada and his Mahdi Army, which the administration believed was no longer capable of a coordinated military operation. It is now apparent that Muqtada and the Mahdi Army were holding back because they were in the process of retraining and reorganization, not because Muqtada had given up the military option or had lost control of the Mahdi Army.
There are some painful similarities here with Vietnam. In the same vein, the Johnson administration thought that the Viet Cong, at one point, were no longer capable of conducting the kind of offensive military operations that would sustain them. They learned the hard way -- through the Tet Offensive -- that the Viet Cong was alive and well and that they were not going anywhere. In the same way, the McCain Doctrine was supposed to effectively defeat any and all enemies of the US as a fighting force. But the Battle of Basra could prove to be a turning point because now, the Bush administration can no longer claim that the McCain Doctrine is working or that Sadr's forces are no longer effective as a fighting force.
"No End in Sight, a film directed by filmmaker Charles Ferguson, finds a unanimous consensus among his interviewees that the McCain Doctrine has produced no lasting benefits whatsoever to Iraq. It has now become a 641-page book.
And we were warned by Obama in 2002 that this would happen...
Hillary Clinton's unwillingness/inability to pay off her debts is pissing people off:
But only now is the worst of this coming to light. Rebekah Walker and Meagan Gardner are also on that list. They are not caterers though and they aren't an event production company. They are Girl Scouts. They are owed $1,325 by the Clinton campaign and they are plenty angry about it.
"We were so excited about this at first", said Rebekah. "We were helping their campaign by selling them our delicious cookies and delivering it to their building. Meagan even sold them 5 boxes of Do-si-dos she had already promised to her uncle. She heard Senator Clinton liked Do-si-does."
Their volunteer advisor, Jill Sweeney, explained that Girl Scout Cookie season was long over and the money was almost 2 months overdue. The girls were trying to stay positive but it was challenging.
Meagan explained, "One of our mottos is: Girl Scouting is all about leadership." We think Senator Clinton should join the Girl Scouts to learn how to better organize her campaign, pay her debts and treat people better."
Meagan's anger transformed into tears and the interview ended.
Your tax dollars at work:
The classified budget of the Defense Department, concealed from the public in all but outline, has nearly doubled in the Bush years, to $32 billion. That is more than the combined budgets of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Those billions have expanded a secret world of advanced science and technology in which military units and federal contractors push back the frontiers of warfare. In the past, such handiwork has produced some of the most advanced jets, weapons and spy satellites, as well as notorious boondoggles.
Budget documents tell little. This year, for instance, the Pentagon says Program Element 0603891c is receiving $196 million but will disclose nothing about what the project does. Private analysts say it apparently aims at developing space weapons.
Trevor Paglen, an artist and photographer finishing his Ph.D. in geography at the University of California, Berkeley, has managed to document some of this hidden world. The 75 patches he has assembled reveal a bizarre mix of high and low culture where Latin and Greek mottos frame images of spooky demons and sexy warriors, of dragons dropping bombs and skunks firing laser beams.
This is a stark contrast between the Obama and Bush administrations. Barack Obama has been one of the foremost advocates of openness in government, passing the Obama/Coburn bill to create a website showing where taxpayer money was going. The Bush administration has been one of the most secretive administrations in US history, and John McCain would be more of the same. And Barack Obama has been one of the foremost champions of Net Neutrality as well as an opponent of media consolidation, fighting for more access for us so that we can see where our taxpayer dollars are going.
Elizabeth Edwards continues on the assault against John McCain's blame the victim approach to healthcare:
Senator McCain likes to start speeches with a litany of questions that, presumedly, less plain-spoken politicians would refuse to answer. Well, here are some questions he does not ask but, as that plain-spoken politician, he might want to answer:
- Under your plan, Senator McCain, would any health insurer be required to sell you or me (or those like us with pre-existing conditions) a health insurance policy?
- You say your plan is going to increase competition to the point that it actually lowers costs. Isn’t there competition today among insurance companies? Haven’t costs continued to go up despite that competition?
- You say that under your plan everyone is going to pay less for health insurance. Nice words, I admit, but they are words we have heard before. You must know when American families calculate the actual cost of health care, they have to include those deductibles and co-pays and not just the cost of the insurance. Are you talking about cheaper overall or just a cheap policy that doesn’t kick in until after thousands of dollars of deductibles have been paid?
- Isn’t the type of competition you are talking about really a rush to the bottom? As long as you allow insurers to underwrite and deny access, you encourage insurers to offer plans that may be cheap, but that get that way by avoiding people with cancer or other high-cost diseases or by limiting benefits and treatments, particularly if the treatment is expensive or might be needed for a long time. We all live in the real world; those of us lucky enough to have health insurance have seen how insurers cut coverage and up co-pays or deny particular treatments. The insurance company makes money when it doesn’t have to pay for our health care. (I suspect that if they could, they would write obstetrical-only policies for nuns.) Doesn’t your plan really encourage insurers plans to compete to avoid people with cancer or other high-cost diseases? Don’t you think that the kind of competition that starts with a decent level of required coverage, that doesn’t exclude the care we actually need, would be better?
I am not confused about your reputation: you are the straight-talker, you like to say. This is about health care, Senator McCain. Doesn’t the American voter deserve some straight answers to these questions? As one of those with a pre-existing condition, I sure would like some straight talk.
John McCain is trying to sell you a bunch of soundbytes. Wouldn't you rather have a Universal Healthcare plan?