Subtitle: Where are real investigative reporters when we need them?

If you saw or heard headlines like MSNBC's

Navy releases McCain's military record
Unadorned paragraphs bestow some of nation's top military honors

reporting the story by JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer, you might believe that the Navy has released McCain's military records.

If you do, you would be wrong.  The main stream media propaganda being what it is you would be understandably wrong but still wrong.

According to Kuhnhenn,

The Navy recently released McCain's military record most of it citations for medals during his Navy career after a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press.

If you look at the link to the records that were released you will see that Kuhnhenn was misrepresenting the facts by calling this small collection of only 19 pages McCain's "military record".  

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

In my recent daily post from PortsideI received the recent essay at In These Times by Ken Brociner titled The American Left: What Progressives Can Learn from Obama

Brociner begins by saying,

One of the trademarks of Barack Obama's presidential campaign has been his commitment to a new style of politics. Last year, in answering a question about negative campaigning and ad hominem attacks on opponents, he said: "My preference going forward is that we have to be careful not to slip into playing the game as it is customarily played."

Dennis Kucinich is introducing a bill with Articles of Impeachmentagainst George W. Bush.   Conyers already presented the bogus argument that there wasn't enough time to impeach Cheney last year so we can expect to hear the same baloney from him about the Bush impeachment.   However there is plenty of time as impeachment can be completed in four months as Clinton's was.

The most important reason for impeachment now is not remove Bush in order to get a new leadership but to establish the historical record for the deterrence and prevention of Bush-like tyrants in the future.  

I am very grateful for Kucinich doing this now and I hope it becomes a campaign issue in every Congressional district.

Adding to the post mortems of the Clinton campaign, in my view Clinton lost because she didn't have the good judgement to win.  She didn't have the good judgement to know who is in the Democratic Party and what their issues were.  Clinton didn't have the judgement to see past her own issues. She didn't have the judgement to know that a leader doesn't ignore the base of the Party in fundamental issues.

At every crucial fork in the road, she misjudged the Democratic base.  No amount of "experience" can make up for poor judgement unless it is used to transform poor judgement into good judgement. Unfortunately for her, Clinton just couldn't or wouldn't admit that her poor judgement on the war needed transformation. She did not have the judgement to lead herself out of the corner she had painted herself into. A leader needs the judgement to know the difference between pandering and following, and while Clinton showed no reluctance to pander on certain issues, she was incapable of following the majority of the Party's base on the most important concern of the day, and without demonstrating the judgement of responsive leadership she doomed herself and couldn't win.

Obama missed an opportunity in Puerto Rico to show leadership.  Clinton out of campaign necessity went to Puerto Rico. Obama should have gone there out of leadership.

Obama should have used the opportunity to make an important statement about Puerto Rico statehood and said it is now time to fish or cut bait and to have a referrendum on either independence or statehood with no continuation of the status quo limbo of territorial commenwealth status with no say in the federal government.

That would have shown leadership and resolve.

To show leadership, what should Obama be saying now about his priorities in the first 100 days after being elected president?

I haven't seen this diaried yet, apologies if it has.
This is reported in the The Daily News:

Officials: Obama begins veep search
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Updated Thursday, May 22nd 2008, 10:22 AM

WASHINGTON - Likely Democratic nominee Barack Obama has begun a top-secret search for a running mate, fresh signs that the general election campaign is well under way and the primary race against Hillary Rodham Clinton is basically over.

Obama has asked former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson to begin vetting potential vice presidential picks, Democratic officials said Thursday. Johnson did the same job for Democratic nominees John Kerry in 2004 and Walter Mondale in 1984.

My immediate reaction is that if Obama has picked Jim Johnson to do the VP vetting and Kerry and Mondale both dis "so well", how can Obama be expected to pick the right VP?

Fantasy sports' leagues allow the participants to pretend they are team owners, managers, and coaches.  To a large degree, DKos and other blogging websites are fantasy political leagues where we get to pretend we are advisors, campaign managers and speech writers.  

When Obama becomes the nominee he will have the convention podium from which to launch his campaign.  What should he say to the American People?  Below the jump, is my contribution as a fantasy speechwriter to the nominee about what I think he should include in his acceptance speech. I'm not offering a polished speech nor a comprehensive speech that includes every item that I tiink he should cover.  It is just my "first draft" suggestion aimed at those important controversial issues that I think should not be left out of his speech at the convention. Is Obama a Muslim? Will he be a leader of "a small minority" of Blacks? Is he patriotic? I think Obama needs to address these questions directly and boldly, and very personally.

Like a good political fantasy league, I'd like to see what others consider to be the necessary additions to what the "speechwriting team" has for what should be in Obama's convention speech.   What do you think should be included?

Tonight Obama won the delegates that were up for grabs. That means tonight Obama increased his lead over Clinton.

And of course Obama won NC by more than 200,000 votes and "lost" (as of this time of the night) IN by less than 40,000, so Obama got by far more popular votes.

Will the MSM portray tonight as a "draw" with each winning one state? That would be the way to keep the Clinton delusion going and helping the Republicans.

I'm of a mixed mind about whether Obama is electable. Why? Because the more I like him, the more I realize it is because he is giving the voters the bitter truth that they don't want to know. If he becomes the messenger of truth, as he seems to want to be, then the myopic, parochial, and ostrich-like "in denial" American public, who are largely brainwashed by the Main Stream Media-government collaboration, will turn on and attack the messenger and continue to close their eyes to the truth.  

Rev. Wright.
Not wearing a flag lapel pin.
Comments about bitter people in Pennsylvania.

All good messages of bitter truth that make me like Obama, but they are messages that Obama is being attacked for and feels he must apologize for.

If apologizing works then I'm wrong again and that's fine with me. But personally, I'd prefer to have him be the unashamed bearer of truth and go down in flames rather than being the apologizer who loses anyway.

There have been several diaries here referring to the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Iran proceedings of last week-end.

For example,

http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...

A DKos search will show more.

But if there has been any discussion about the Obama and Clinton campaigns referring to it I have missed them.

My concern is that basically Obama and Clinton are trying to talk about how to bring most of the troops home without really dealing with the issues that are raised by Iraq and Afghanistan. Though Obama flirts with it, neither candidate is actually discussing the fact that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are already lost and they are lost because of the conduct of the military from the Commander in Chief all the way down to the grunt in the field killing civilians simply because his sargent said "open fire."

continued....

This was reported on my local ABC station in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Over $900,000.00 has been spent by the Obama and Clinton campaigns to get superdelegate support. Obama has spent over $600,000.00 and Clinton over $200,000.00 buying up superdelegates. How? By transferring money from their presidential campaign funds to the campaign funds of individual superdelegates who are in elected office such as Congress, state legislature or local offices.  

This is legal under election laws and the Democratic Party rules. But it sure looks like legal bribery to me.

Story below the fold.

Okay, the Hillary Clinton campaign appears to be in meltdown mode, and it is flowing from the top with ex-president Bill whining about not getting any respect from Barack Obama.

It's bad enough when Bill says his wife isn't getting respect, but when Bill starts defending himself he is taking away from his wife's campaign and making himself look like the biggest loser.

Then Bill gets on such a roll that he makes a statement that can only be seen to imply that Obama's camapaign is an evil jaugernaut "taking out" the "good" candidates.

Decide for yourself below the fold if I'm seeing things that aren't there.

I can understand Edwards saying he made a mistake on the Iraq vote. But I can't understand why anyone in their right mind would believe anything from Hillary Clinton after her explanations about her Iraq war authorization vote.  

At the time, Clinton's vote on Iraq showed terrible judgement and lack of intellectual ability and experience, but her explanations afterwards have indicated more than just dissembling; she has shown nothing but outright dishonesty.

If experience is worth anything, it is that experience means you know what things mean. You know what "taking responsibility" means beyond the lip service. You know that "taking responsibility" means you admit you were wrong and you say you are sorry for being wrong. If you don't know that, then you don't have the basic life experience needed to be an adult, much less the president.

After watching what the Democratic Party has done to Dennis Kucinich, it is abundantly clear that the Democratic Party doesn't care a whit about democracy or the principles of fair play.

Rather than conducting a primary election for delegates in which every candidate has an equal chance to collect delegates going to the convention, the Democratic Party has rigged the game so that candidates who represent a minority view within the party are disenfranchised.  

The Democratic Party does this in many ways but the two chief ways are through the manipulation of the voting system using the 15% rule, and the manipulation of the debate system by collaboration with the media-military-industrial corporations.  Just as the Democrats in congress have sold out the Party over the war and impeachment, the Democratic Party has abdicated its own authority over its own primaries and convention by giving control of our public elections to private corporate interests.

This cannot stand if we are to have a viable democracy. It is not the neo-cons to blame only. Instead the Democratic Party is bringing us a neo-fascism that is sold with the expertise of Madison Ave. By having no principles when it comes to the conduct of the primaries and the debates the Democratic Party has shown its true colors.

Tonight the MSM reported a "big win" and a "stunning victory" for Clinton. What a bunch of baloney.

This is a call for sober responses to the primary results. Okay, I'm a Scrooge when it comes to the hoopla. But really it just looks stupid to me when people are calling the outcome of New Hampshire a "win" for Hillary Clintion when is was actually a "tie."  And in fact, Hillary did not come in third in Iowa; she came in second.

What the heck am I talking about? These are PRIMARIES people! You really need to stop looking at the vote results and look at the delegate counts.

All the crowing by supporters of Obama after Iowa and supporters of Clinton after New Hampshire is really a form of self-delusion about the actual results.  

Danny Glover was on Democracy Now! last Friday discussing his support for John Edwards and the mandate for change.

Harry Belafonte has also endorsed John Edwards.  These two gentlemen have impeccible credentials as progressives.  

So far, the only down side to electing Edwards is that he is a European ancestry male.

The Clinton campaign is attacking Edwards specifically and saying it is a two-way race between Clinton and Obama. That seems sure to backfire to me, because everyone they convince not to vote for Edwards will more likely vote for Obama. Glover says if it is a two-person race the two people are Obama and Edwards.

Comparing Huckabee's and Obama's Iowa speeches on change centered on hope, Glover also said, "I had problems distinguishing between Huckabee’s idea of this new America and Obama’s."

I really hope that Edwards can continue through to the convention and gather enough delegates to prevent both Clinton and Obama from getting the 2025 needed for the nomination. I think the best thing the Democratic Party could do is to have a contested convention with Richardson and Kucinich having some delegates also to work with in brokering a compromise platform and consensus candidate.

Link to DN! with Glover and text below.

Dennis Kucinich (and Mike Gravel) is being banned from the ABC Facebook debate. Where is the outrage here? Where is the outrage in the Democratic Party.

I submit to you that the treatment that Dennis is getting now is exactly the treatment that his proposals are getting from the Democratic Party leadership.

Impeachment off the table? Dennis out of the debagtes.
Single payer off the table? Dennis out of the debates.

I'm reading comments in here on DKos diaries that I have commented in that say Kucinich should be banned because he is not polling high enough.  I can't express how sick that makes be feel, that people who call themselves Democrats would act like such self-interested fascists against the principle of democracy.  

As I see it the principle takes precedent over the self-interests of the other candidates or the vested interests of the media like ABC who have a conflict of interest in telling the American people what they can hear or not. ABC is supposed to report the news, not make it.

As long as there is one person in the state of New Hampshire who would vote for Kucinich (or Gravel as one of the 6 national candiates), then Kucinich (and Gravel) should be in the debates and given the fair chance of convincing one more.

For all those who have written off Kucinich I suppose any thing written in his favor just seems like satire or snark. I have such a weird view of politics, I'm wondering how others look at the serioucness of running in the primaries and seeking delegates for the convention. When the other so-called 2nd tier" candidates have left the race, Kucinich will show his determination, sincerity, and seriousness by continuing on to the convention.  

Is this a factor at all in your equations of what makes a "serious" candidate?  I don't see any candidate who isn't willing to go the distance and finish every primary as a serious canidate and since I know Kucinich is the only candidate who has that level of determination I see him as the most serious candidate. But I assume some people would see that kind of determination as just "silly".

I'll vote for the longshot who hits the target 9 out of 10 rather than the shortshot who can't hit the bulls eye but 3 out of 10 tries.