The first part of this post is especially directed towards those, the greater majority of this country, who do not have any Direct Connection to the Ongoing Occupation Theaters of Iraq and Afganistan, certainly not the Connection of those Serving, Mutiple Tours, and their Families and Close Friends !

The second part will be a Shoutout, and partial repost, with updated information, to All !

MAKE MAYDAY A "NO PEACE, NO WORK HOLIDAY"!

The following was written by Jack Heyman a longshoreman who works on the Oakland docks

Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

Now that the Foreign Policy Experience Argument is Toast, Hillary SHREDS her Economic Credentials Argument with this Money Quote on why she's picked Greenspan to work in her Mortgage Solutions Task Force:

But [Alan Greenspan] has a calming influence still to this day on Wall Street -- don't ask me why because I never understand what he's saying -- but nevertheless people respond to that Delphic oracle approach. I think it would be wise to include him.

In this Gaffe Hillary admits:

1. Including Greenspan would Make Wall Street "calm" which somehow helps you and me avoid foreclosure

2. Forgiving Greenspan's complicity in creation of the entire Subprime mess (See below)

3. Failing to Grasp Greenspan's open and clear advocacy for expansion of the ARM product as recently as 2004/2005

Some have suggested it's an inside Joke... I argue it's indicative of a reckless and naive understanding of Economics 101 to suggest Greenspan should ever be allowed anywhere near the solutions desk.

Finally, the dishonesty is being unmasked. Finally, we see just how much we're being lied to when it comes to economic policy. Finally, we see it hasn't just been Hillary Clinton lying about her role in championing NAFTA, but we see it is the entire Clinton machine.

Did anyone NOT see this coming after another Democratic Congressional Leadership very special "sternly worded letter" to Mukasey (a man that would never have been Attorney General if Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein had any sense of dignity) about subpoenas being ignored by Miers and Rove?

Did anyone NOT think that the House Democrats would ultimately waver for a possible cave on telecom immunity after Reid let Rockefeller’s telecom immunity bill pass the Senate, despite the fact that nearly 60% of people are against telecom immunity?

Did anyone NOT think that the RNC would decide to just stop looking for the emails that were erased on purpose, despite the fact that they were ORDERED to be turned over to Congress?

This is absolutely outrageous:

After the call, the Clinton campaign e-mailed a memo entitled, "Obama Must-Wins": "The media has anointed Barack Obama the presumptive nominee and he's playing the part. With an eleven-state winning streak coming out of February, Senator Obama is riding a surge of momentum that has enabled him to pour unprecedented resources into Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. ... Senator Obama has campaigned hard in these states. He has spent time meeting editorial boards, courting endorsers, holding rallies, and - of course - making speeches. If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there's a problem."

link

Actually, a big stinkin' toxic waste incinerator...

I've written on this before but I feel that it needs more attention that it received because of the upcoming Ohio Primary.
Short and sweet this time:
 WTI wanted to build America's largest toxic waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. The incinerator is located 1,100 feet from an elementary school.
 WTI was owned by Jackson Stephens, who donated $200,000 to Bush #1 to help this project along.
 There were problems and the project was not going to be approved during the Bush #1 administration.
 When Bush's ratings tanked during his bid for re-election, Stephens donated $100,000 to Clinton #1 as well as extending a 2 million line of credit to the DLC when they were tapped out.
Bill Clinton won and with some  serious monkey business (a Hillary crony) at the EPA, the permit was approved.
 more down below....

The decision to pursue the death penalty against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a number of other suspects creates a situation that no doubt was thought through by the Bush administration more than whether to actually use torture against these people in the first place.  I haven’t seen this angle discussed too much in depth but if it has, please forgive me.

Regardless of whether anyone thinks that the death penalty is a just punishment, is "cruel and inhuman", or just plain doesn’t agree with it, I want to at least (for now) leave that out of this post.  If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM" to make it easier for me) is guilty of masterminding the 9/11 attacks, or if he is guilty of any other crimes that can be proven, then he should receive the justice that he deserves.  This is not about whether he should or should not pay for his crimes.

UPDATE 4: PLEASE UNRECOMMEND THIS DIARY. My apologies for the confusion contained in, and perpetuated by, this diary. In my sputtering froth last night about the flurry of FISA voting (much of it, regardless of my confusion, shameful), I linked to a roll call vote that in my haste I neglected to look at closely enough. That was a big mistake. I unfortunately don’t have the time to write a clarification to the diary, tracking all of the votes, and the topic deserves better treatment than this. Please "Unrecommend," so we can free up space on the Rec List for a diary deserving of that position. Thank you – and, again, my apologies. – o.h.

The passage of the Senate version of the FISA bill today - a bill which includes, amazingly, retroactive immunity from civil damages for repeated felonious violations of the Constitution - is a low point for the "Democratic" Senate of the 110th Congress.

And it leaves me wondering, just like the passage of the odious bankruptcy bill before it: Exactly WHICH constituency of those senators who voted in favor of it was clamoring for its passage?

Right after Democrats took control - or maybe in the interim period between the elections and the new Congress - I was invited to participate in two conference calls; one with Nancy Pelosi and one with Harry Reid.

Each of the new leaders told those of us that were on the call that Democrats were not going to keep the same rules the Republicans had imposed; instead they'd go back to giving the minority a voice and a significant ability to shape Congressional actions - whether it be legislation, the agenda, procedural postures, etc.

Personally, I was aghast.  I told Reid that the Republicans "had been flushing his head in the toilet for years" - someone promptly stepped in to rebuke me for being so crass, so I never got to finish the point.

    If there was any lingering doubt, yesterday's news that the economy lost 17,000 jobs in December -- the first month of job losses since 2003 --  should verify that we are entering, if we aren't already in, a recession, the second of the Bush/GOP decade.  The GOP is worried about a popular repudiation of its neoliberal Chicago-school style economic program, and rightly so:  the Bush/GOP economic expansion of 2002-2007 has been the weakest since the Great Depression.
    There is no more hiding from the facts.  In recent diaries I've told you about the how the 1920s credit bubblemirrored this decade, and how the ensuing housing slump looks to be the worst since the Great Depression.  In this diary I will lay out for you simply and clearly just how awful the GOP record of job creation has been, and where the growth has gone.

When it comes to Hillary Clinton, there is no shortage of unfair and unprincipled reasons for disliking her -- and if you listen to AM talk radio for an hour, you'll probably hear them all.

I reject the sexism of those who still think a former First Lady has no place in policy debates, just as I reject the absurd theories of those who think she had a hand in the death of her close friend Vince Foster.

Having volunteered on Clinton's first senate campaign, I get mad when I hear Rush Limbaugh savage her as a liar and an opportunist. I'm also grateful to her for keeping Rudy Guiliani and Rick Lazio out of the Senate.

But you don't have to be a sexist or a conspiracy theorist to oppose Clinton's candidacy.

I don't dislike Hillary; I distrust her. And my reasons are both substantive, and based on direct personal experience.

When a major issue hit the area where I live, New York's Hudson Valley, Clinton was less than honest with her constituents, and all too eager to take credit where none was due.

In January, 2008, 39 American soldiers died in Iraq bringing the total American death loss to 3,943.  The mainstream media treats the loss of these 39 soldiers as some sort of relief since the number of dead is less than in past months.  The January total is the largest monthly loss in the past 4 months.  How many more must die before we end this occupation and bring our troops home?

Every soldier who dies in Iraq leaves behind friends and family.  Many leave children.  The average age of our fallen troops is not much over 20 years of age.  Each and every one had dreams and hopes of their own that will not now be recognized.

At VoteVets, we’re gearing up for a yearlong fight.  An important part of this plan includes the expansion of VetVoice, our community blog for troops and veterans.  So to reach further into this community, we added three new writers this week.  Alex Horton (creator of Army of Dude), LT Nixon (currently in Baghdad), and RockRichard (a Kossack currently in Afghanistan) have all come on board.  You can read their bios here.  

To go with that, we’ve gotten a little publicity in the traditional media.  In fact, today, the Fayetteville Observer (which has 70,000 daily readers in the Ft. Bragg and Pope AFB communities) published a nice piece on VetVoice today.  

But the significant thing about this piece wasn’t just that we were covered.  It’s the quotes they chose to put on the front page.  

I got interested in the whole political cycle once again (I have been involved in politics all my life) when our Hawaii delegation used their Congressional franking privileges to mail distracting and irrelevant flyers which arrived at my mailbox on the day of the vote to support the illegal American invasion of Iraq, another sovereign country.

Primaries are important and who might become President is important, but can we have a truce for a few paragraphs?

After all, it's Christmas.

And in the spirit of giving, the Democrats, so they can get home for the holidays, are about to give George Bush a present.  Actually, a multitude of presents.

Democratic lawmakers and staffers privately say they're closing in on a broad budget deal that would give President Bush as much as $70 billion in new war funding.

Looking at your profile here, it is clear that you are familiar with posting diaries at Daily Kos.  So you know how we like to engage with each other, especially when one posts a diary here.  However, with today’s diary scolding the community as well as the one a few weeks ago actually calling out a respected community member, coupled with the lack of any comments or replies to any of us here for nearly 18 months, I am at a loss as to figuring out what you want from this community.

As you know, we are a passionate bunch.  But we are generally very respectful of our elected representatives, even when we disagree (even vehemently at times) with them.  And we do expect some level of respect back from those who post here.  We are also a very smart community, and know when we are being told the truth, when we are being lied to and when we aren’t being told the entire story.

Hi! I've been lurking around here for a couple of years and have really enjoyed reading many of the diaries. I've been content to lurk until today, when a bunch of somebodies finally said some things that really set me off. Hello cruel world, here I go, hope I don't step on anybody's toes.

I was reading a couple of diaries about Dennis Kucinich's badgering of the Democratic leadership and his fellow presidential candidates to act on many of the issues that progressives dearly want addressed, among them impeachment of the Veep and President, ending the illegal Iraq war (now) and reining in the extra-constitutional power-grabs of the executive branch.