From 23/6 via the Huffington Post:
(Click on image to enlarge.)
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
No Dough.
From Democrats.com (not the political party):
Out Of Iraq:
On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will force the House to approve $163 billion more of our tax dollars for the occupation of Iraq - nearly $100 billion for 2008 plus nearly $70 billion more for 2009.
We are outraged. This Democratic Congress was elected to end the occupation, not fund it forever.
On Monday, a new Democrats.com poll found an overwhelming 68% of Americans want to bring our troops safely home within 6 months - a significant increase from 54% last September. Support among Democrats increased 14% to 85%, while support among Independents increased 20% to 78%. Why is the Democratic Congress defying the will of the overwhelming majority of Democrats and Independents?
Each day's news underscores how disastrous the occupation is. April was the deadliest month for U.S. soldiers since last September. One in five Iraq and Afghanistan veterans - roughly 300,000 - report symptoms of PTSD or major depression. The V.A. covered up the fact that 12,000 veterans attempt suicide each year while under V.A. treatment. As Cindy Sheehan asked, "for what noble cause" are our sons and daughters suffering and dying?
To make matters worse, Bush continues to use our occupation of Iraq as a reason to wage a covert war against Iran that could quickly turn to a wider and even more disastrous war. We know the Iraq War "marketing" was timed for the 2002 election - if John McCain is behind in the polls, will Bush "bomb bomb Iran" as an "October Surprise" to keep Republicans in power?
On top of it all, as our economy tanks, we simply cannot afford to waste $163 billion more of our tax dollars for Iraq on top of the $562 billion we've already wasted and the $3 trillion overall cost, including the tripling of the price of gasoline.
It's urgent for everyone to call our Representatives today with a simple message: Not One More Penny for Iraq.
This battle is not impossible. On January 16, 42 progressive Democrats voted against the last $70 billion blank check. Most Republicans oppose Pelosi's bill because it includes some domestic spending, so a large bloc of progressive Democrats can defeat it.
Call the switchboard at 202-224-3121 or find your Representative's name and direct dial by entering your address on usalone.com.
Please report the results of your call here: http://www.democrats.com/iraq-sellout-alert-call-congress-today
I just called my representative, Jane Harman.
I told the guy that answered the phone that I am a constituent, and that if Jane Harman votes for this tomorrow, I'll never vote for Jane Harman again.
He seemed non-plussed.
UPDATE:
I decided to call Rep. Harman's office back and ask some questions.
There will be two votes tomorrow; one for the money, and one for a timeline.
I am pleased that Rep. Harman--with close ties to aerospace and the defense industry--plans to vote against the funding. She does plan to vote "yes" on the establishment of a timeline for withdrawal.
Pick up your phone. Call your representative. Ask him or her what they plan to do with their votes.
They work for you, and this is your country.
You can't HANDLE the truth!
That seems to be the message our flaccid Corporate Media is sending by sweeping the retired-military-officer-as-TV-pundit scandal under their tattered rug.
Writer David Barston's excellent piece in the April 20, 2008 edition of the New York Times helped expose these on-the-take military-mouths-for-hire, yet few mainstream media outlets have given it much more than a wink and a nod.
Many of their military "experts" are retired officers who are on the payrolls of various military contractors, yet these officers claim to be seriously analyzing the same jokers signing their hefty checks. And the networks don't bother to mention those conflicts of interest.
I learned the journalistic standard of "full disclosure" in my one illustrious semester at SUNY Morrisville at 18 years old, just before I took off for Happy Hour.
(Full disclosure: much like these military analysts, I'd be happy to teach this standard to FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC for a nice, fat consultation fee.)
So the next time you see the fools pictured here on your TV screen, just change the channel. Bought-and-paid-for bullshit-as-"analysis" isn't "news".
It's not even Reality TV.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
From Variety, via the Huffington Post:
...Celebrity ambulance-chaser "TMZ" argued that it contained genuine news value similar to that of "Entertainment Tonight," which received bona fide newscast status in 1988.
The FCC also considers whether a program "reports news of some area of current events, in a manner similar to more traditional newscasts," according to the agency. CBN argued "The 700 Club" does precisely that.
In both cases the commission agreed.
A mind-numbingly stupid ruling.
(An FCC specialty.)
Monday, May 5, 2008
Kitchen Table Talk.
From People:
Elizabeth Edwards likes Hillary Clinton's plan for universal health insurance. Husband John Edwards doesn't much care for Clinton's "old politics."
So goes the his-and-her debate in the Edwards household (their kitchen, to be specific), as they spoke exclusively to PEOPLE Monday on the eve of primary voting in their homestate of North Carolina – the latest must-win state in this year's protracted Democratic presidental nomination fight between Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.
In their first joint interview since John, the Democratic former senator and 2004 vice presidential nominee, dropped out of the race in January, the couple named what they liked and disliked about each of the remaining Democrats – and Mrs. Edwards didn't hesitate: "I like Hillary's health care plan." What doesn't she like about the senator from New York and former first lady? "The lobbyist money," she adds.
On Obama, she says: "The fact that he has motivated so many young people to be involved, I think is fantastic."
But, she adds: "I don't like his health care plan or his advertising on health care, which I think is misleading." Her husband, who said he got yet another phone call from Obama as recently as last week (both Clinton and Obama have heavily courted the Edwardses' endorsement, and Mrs. Edwards said she had an email from one of the campaigns that very morning), also weighed in on the pros and cons: On Clinton: "I like something different about Hillary. I think her tenacity shows a real strength that's inside her." What doesn't he like about Clinton? "Um, still a lot of the old politics," John Edwards said.
As for Obama, he says: "Sometimes I want to see more substance under the rhetoric."
But he cited two things he likes about the charismatic young senator from Illinois: "One is, I think he really does want to bring about serious change and a different way of doing things. And secondly, I think it's a great symbolic thing to have an African-American who could be president." At that, Mrs. Edwards rolled her eyes and, gripping the arms of her kitchen chair with some exaggeration, seemed about to lunge from her seat. "What about the great symbolic thing about a woman ..."
"It's important. It's important," her husband said. "I know it."
"It's important. It's important," her husband said. "I know it."
Bottom line: the couple said they will not endorse either remaining candidate, saving their political capital for their own causes – his, fighting poverty; hers, fighting for universal health care.
At the start of this never-ending primary season, I told my sister Julie that I'd vote for the person with the best health care plan. I can't get a personal health insurance policy because of my "pre-existing" condition, epilepsy.
"Pre-exisiting", what? The invention of health care?
I was under the impression that a "personal health insurance policy" was a good way to help care for a person's health.
Unless, of course, you actually need some care.
We are born, we die, and in-between, we'll all need a touch-up and a little paint.
Too bad Earl Scheib doesn't sell anti-seizure meds.
I've read the broad outlines of both Clinton's and Obama's plans. On its surface, I like Hillary's a little more, too.
But I like Obama's overall message more; I admire his organization's performance in attracting new voters and individual donations, I trust his pledge to push for "change" far more than Hillary's position of Washington entrenchment, and I respect what I sense is his higher road in the dirty, ditch-filled path to the nomination.
I also like the idea of a president that has not just traveled the world, but has lived in other parts of it, too. Living overseas, not fighting there. Being currently connected to other parts of the planet, and not just via a fly-by photo-op.
I want a President of the United States that's worldly this time.
The (Washington) "experience" factor isn't much of a concern for me. Obama is a first-term U.S. senator; Clinton, a two-termer. Sorry. I don't see "First Lady" as the trump card in Hillary's hand.
Nancy Reagan was First Lady, too.
Besides, Dick Cheney has far more "experience" than most, and we've seen how that's worked out.
No candidate is perfect. Money continues to make prostitutes of everybody. But I'm a pragmatic realist and a big boy. I think Obama's health care plan can be improved. And with Hillary Clinton's help in the Senate--and maybe with John Edwards as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services--perhaps real progress can be made.
We all have a "pre-existing" condition. It's called "life".
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Bang bang, I shot you down...
Hillary Clinton's latest ad.
Who knew she was Charlton Heston in drag?
Kenny, the Original Pop-In Guest (Blog)
Kenny, the Original Pop-In Guest (Blog) welcomes Bernie King:
Waitin' On The Bus:
Mickey Kantor, former Bill Clinton aide (wasn’t Monica Lewinsky a Bill Clinton aide?) and current Hillary Clinton adviser, expressed outrage late last week after a videotape from the 1993 movie War Room surfaced on You Tube allegedly showing him describing Indians as "white niggers." Kantor is insisting that the video is a doctored fraud. Additionally, War Room director D A Pennebaker says Kantor “does not say that. He does not say that”.
Having seen the movie “The War Room” from which it was excerpted I think I would remember if Kantor used that language but I don’t and the audio from the tape is so garbled as to be nearly unintelligible. Well at least the audio I heard on the Ed Schultz radio show was but that's not keeping the Fargo fat ass from going off the deep end.
In another War Room excerpt Kantor with Bill Clinton staffers James Carville (you may know him as Skellator from his role in the He-Man cartoons) and George Stephanopoulos (Sean Hannity’s current hand puppet) says, "Look at Indiana…42-40. It doesn't matter if we win, those people are shit." Pennebaker says Kantor was referring to the 1992 George H.W. Bush White House. On this account I tend to believe Pennebaker and thus, have to agree with Kantor that the GHW Bush administration was shit.
So you would think it’s just a big misunderstanding based on bad audio quality and context so the corporately controlled media and politicians will move on. Fat f’ing chance!!! The media pundancy is already howling like an ape with it’s ass on fire about how Hillary needs to distance herself from Kantor and “throw him under the bus”.
While I am no fan of Democrats or Republicans, I do kinda have a thing about fairness and justice (two ideas very contrary to both major parties and the media) and the rights of Mickey Kantor need to be respected. Take some time to honestly analyze the tape and if the claims against him have foundation then throw him under the bus. But if they are not the howling media apes all need put down their fecal matter, stand in the road, and wait for the bus.
The Best Lookin' Man in Show Business Today (tip o' the hat to Little Richard)
Bernie King is a Minneapolis-based musician whose latest release, "King", is available at:
www.myspace.com/bernieking (or) http://cdbaby.com/cd/bernieking.
(JackRabbit Café is investigating whether King is, in fact, the "Best Lookin' Man in Show Business Today", or if Carrot Top can--once again--claim that crown.)
Shape-Changers.
From IndyStar.com:
Pressed to name an economist who supports her plan to temporarily suspend the federal gas tax, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said today that commuters, truck drivers and other gas customers know it would make a difference.
“We have to get out of the mindset where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans,” Clinton said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists because I know if we did it right ... we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.”
Let's boil this down:
Hillary Clinton and John McCain think this plan is what voters want to hear. Who knows if they really think it's good policy?
Barack Obama is against it, as are the vast majority of economists who have been asked for their analysis.
Why is Hillary Clinton singing from the GOP songbook, using this year's Swift Boat word, "elite"?
She suddenly remembered guns in Scranton, had a shot and a beer in Indiana, and a man's man steelworker dude actually touted her "testicular fortitude".
Hillary? Railing against "elites"?
According to her tax return, Hillary Clinton is worth at least $109 million. John McCain's wife has all my friend's beer money.
She'd probably have mine, too, but I hate Bud.
Barack and Michelle Obama only recently paid off their student loans.
These are not "elite opinions"; these are facts.
I don't have any real dislike of Hillary Clinton, but it's my "elite opinion" that she'd sell Chelsea to the Chinese to win this nomination.
Send Bill to Beijing instead.
Even Lou Dobbs uses Spell-Check!
My spelling suffers when I let anger and bitterness get the best of me, too.
Thomas Friedman's column from the Sunday NY Times:
An excellent piece, in its entirety:Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.
They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.
Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.
We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”
That’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: “You go to war with the army you have.” Hey, you march into the future with the country you have — not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II. (JackRabbit Café editor's note: this is my experience, too, as LAX is a trash heap compared to Tokyo's Narita, Taipai, or Guadalajara. The Flintstones/Jetsons analogy is apt.)
How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans.
And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in “downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.” Today, she added, “China, India, Singapore ... have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.”
Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.
Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.
I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”
It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
