score one for howard!!!

87. Michael Ellis

Well, looks like Biden has the nomination and Presidency locked up with this major critical move
=============

LOL Morning Mike, was reading in my book this morning that in 1948 most of the intelligensia and middle class Palestinian leaders of Palestine left the country, reminds me of Iraq.

It was explaining why there was so little political activism and legal challenge for the first 30 years or so among Israeli "Arabs" who are virtually second-class citizens, and are more like permanent residents - all they really get out of the deal is a passport and voting rights, which don't really help because it is like a liberal Democrat voting in a State where only conservative Republican can run. When they tilt a close election, their influence is challenged as "illegal"

http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/22544...
last thread

fyi, local North Shore MA, special election to replace dem US Rep Martin Meehan's vacant seat (he left this past July to become chancelor at UMass Lowell) is for tonight between dem Nikki Tsongas (wife of the late Senator and presidential candidate Paul) and repub Jim Ogonowski   (brother of one of the pilots killed on 9/11 as the plane slammed into the WTC towers):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts%27s_5th_congressional_district

Massachusetts Congressional District 5 is a congressional district in northeastern Massachusetts. It contains the city of Lowell. It was most recently represented by Martin T. Meehan, who has served the district since 1993. The district's Congressional seat is currently vacant, with a special electon called to fill it on October 16, 2007.

...

The district currently contains the following municipalities:

In Essex County:

In Middlesex County

In Worcester County:

FRED from OR
Tue, 10/16/07
3:03 pm
__________________________________________________________________________

Yeah..some PM silly humour.....things heating up now in the ME with Russia and Iran.......interesting counterbalance to the US and its puppet..................someone is gonna make a mistake though from either or both sides, then we will REALLY see some action then...........

 Biden's plan to divide Iraq into three federal regions is a more responsible plan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

other than the Senate vote for it was a thumb in one or Turkey's eyes and now the House stuck one in the other with the genocide vote, historians will look to the spread of a regional war as having been Congress provoking Turkey, and here we all thought it was about Iran

issue the gas rationing coupons, and call up the draft, here we go

6. Phil Specht

other than the Senate vote for it was a thumb in one or Turkey's eyes
===============

I don't know, Phil, maybe it was time for the Congress to stick it to Turkey, to put them on notice that they'll be no special treatment if they screw with the Kurdish State of Iraq.

With regard to the Biden plan, hearing that "Iraqis don't need us to tell them how to form a government..." I've been inclined to agree, until this morning.

I started reading a book about Palestinians living in Israel. Most of the middle class, leaders and intellectuals left in 1948, like they did in Iraq. It made the remaining Palestinians extremely docile and unable to protest many of the human rights abuses against them, because they were not educated enough to understand the legal process.

I think you can see the parallels with Iraq and why they may need some sincerely well-intentioned educated progressive Americans or Europeans, or Middle Easterners, to help them break the sectarian gridlock and help them form a better government, especially a Federation, which is probably a novel idea in the region.

14 year old eye witness to boot camp beating talked to the Miami Herald last year.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1584

GAO report on boot camp abuses October 10 2007...read it and weep.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1583

Erik Prince, CEO Chairman of Blackwater, Interview with Charlie Rose last night for the hour, on streaming video

http://www.charlierose.com/home

Tonight on Charlie Rose

A conversation with Mark Penn chief strategist for Hillary Clinton

http://www.charlierose.com/home

Also tonite on Charlie Rose

Samantha Power

Samantha Power is a journalist, writer, and professor. She is currently affiliated with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. From 1993 to 1996, she covered the Yugoslav wars for "U.S. News & World Report", "The Boston Globe", "The Economist", and "The New Republic". She is a scholar of foreign policy especially as it relates to human rights, genocide, and AIDS. Her book "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide", won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2003.

Power spent 2005-06 working in the office of U.S. Senator Barack Obama as a foreign policy fellow. She has been involved with efforts to increase media attention about the Darfur conflict in Sudan.

Source-Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Po...

http://www.charlierose.com/home

Primaries in 2008 are our best opportunity to make sure that real Democrats will represent us in Congress - and also locally.

The Democratic Party seems destined to capture a sizable majority of both houses of Congress. Let's make sure they are NOT Democrats who embarass our country.

A,AA,IISVGTBHAF.

*******************************************************

Is Oganowski's stump speech akin to Rudy "Gentleman Fascist" Giuliani's speeches - which for many months were a game to see how many times he could say "9/11" .

Now that the media has pronounced Hillary Clinton the presumed Dem candidate - he repeats "Hillary" as often as possible.

on cnn, jc watts, a repug, just pointed out that edwards is "the only" presidential candidate that has put out an education policy???

On the way to PillowLand, I'm afraid, but TIME has a good piece on Putin and how he's quite riled up with us ... as we certainly would be with him if the shoe were on the other foot.

And Monica, yes, in my book, your theories about the ultimate preoocupations being with Russia and China are right on. Why is it that a woman (an intelligent one, to be sure!) in New Hampshire *gets* it while our so-called pros in Congress do not? Certainly, the *talking heads* either do not or they have simply been paid to spout the putzCo talking points.

Stupid putz, stupid prick, and most stupid Condi. Russia was supposed to be the area of her *expertise.* Some *expertise!*

How poorly we have been served by this sorry lot.

A good night to all!

========================
Monday, Oct. 15, 2007
The Point of Putin's Tehran Trip
By Tony Karon

That Russian President Vladimir Putin is hopping mad with Washington has been obvious for some time now. In a speech in Munich last July, he lambasted the U.S. for its "unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions," claiming that "the United States has overstepped its national borders in every way" and slamming its "greater and greater disdain" for international law. Enraged by U.S. moves to station a missile defense system on his doorstep, Putin withdrew Russia from a Cold War-era treaty governing the size of conventional military forces in Europe, and ordered its old turbo-prop Bear bombers out of mothballs to fly nuclear patrols along old Cold War frontiers. Last week in Russia, he made the U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense wait 45 minutes for him before delivering them a tongue-lashing over the missile defense plan. Another jab follows on Tuesday, when Putin becomes the first occupant of the Kremlin since Stalin to visit Tehran, a capital Washington would very much prefer to keep isolated. The Russian leader's message is plain: If the U.S. continues, as he sees it, to tread on Russia's toes, Russia has little interest in helping Washington achieve its strategic goals.

Putin arrives in Iran at a moment when the U.S. and its key European allies are pushing for a new round of sanctions aimed at persuading Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment. But the likelihood of the U.N. Security Council approving new sanctions right now appears remote, given the veto power of China and Russia — both of whom differ substantially with the West on the nature of the problem with Iran, and on how to deal with it.

Nor are the differences merely tactical: Russia agrees that Iran has, in some of its activities, failed to meet the transparency requirements of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is the basis for the Security Council demand that it suspend enrichment until it can clear up questions raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and restore confidence in its intentions. But the IAEA and Tehran have agreed to a "work plan" and timetable for Iran to resolve the outstanding questions, which is why further U.N. action has been tabled pending the outcome of that process.

[...]
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816...

Back for a sec to post yet another truly great Nance Greggs rant.

For the fella who is as unlike Al Gore in every possible way that he can be.

Now really gone!

====================
And the Non-Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Is ...

Hey, George:

I understand that you, along with some of your party members and your dwindling supporters, are truly disappointed that your own efforts in the area of promoting peace throughout the world have again gone unrecognized by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

I thought I would take the time to explain to you, as best I can, why you have been passed over yet again.

You see, George, your chances of ever winning a Nobel Peace Prize are slim to none – and here’s why:

They don’t award Nobels to cheats, men who only attain their position through the use of hackable electronic voting machines, expunging eligible voters from the rolls, and engaging in caging to prevent minorities from exercising their rights as citizens.

They don’t award Nobels to liars, men in positions of trust who fabricate, cherry-pick or skew intelligence in order to launch an unnecessary war based on the greed of the few who stand to benefit financially from such a conflict.

They don’t award Nobels to warmongers, who invade sovereign nations on the premise of liberating people who, after all is said and done, wind up living in worse conditions than they did under a regime that is replaced with more violence, destruction and death than existed previous to their so-called liberation.

They don’t award Nobels to torturers, even if they obfuscate their conduct with creative language like enhanced interrogation techniques. The Committee especially frowns on the torture of innocents, like women and children, who are made to suffer pain and humiliation, or even death.

[...]
http://www.democraticunderground.com/dis...

The Democratic Party seems destined to capture a sizable majority of both houses of Congress. Let's make sure they are NOT Democrats who embarass our country.

It's very possible that the "NOT Democrats" will drag the whole party down with them, in spite of the pathetic weakness of the GOP.

In the race to the bottom, which party will get there first? 

12.

thanks for the heads up Fred I'm just starting on her book, and for an insight into Hillaryland Penn is the best window

I might like Hillary if  NOT Democrats like Penn didn't advise her

Primaries in 2008 are our best opportunity to make sure that real Democrats will represent us in Congress - and also locally.

I don't get around to other political blogs as much as I once did, but I've seen little interest in reforming the Democratic Party through primary challenges.  Too many still think no more deeply than, "Beat Republicans".

But if it's going to happen beyond a smattering of challengers funded and supported willy-nilly, the blogs and orgs and are going to have to put together an organized plan and effort to do it. But, unfortunately, time has about run out for it with no signs of serious activity in that direction.

Hopefully someone will point out how wrong I am and cheer me up.

A taxista today told me that South America is far enuf away to feel the direct hits when the bombs start dropping.  We'd been talking about Putin in Iran. 

It's just unbelievable unless Anni's thoughts are correct and Pelosi's trying to starve the war.  Actually, maybe the dems and Turkey are in agreement about this and are using the genocide as an excuse.

And why is the subject of talks between a$$hole and the Dalai Lama so secret?  What does a fundi idiot have in common with a Buddhist to begin with?  How can the Dalai Lama, supposedly a lover of peace, even stand to be in the same room with him? 

Absolutely nothing makes sense, and we on the blog could run this country better.  Is this suicide on a massive scale?  Is this country committing suicide along with genocide?

I'll look into the auctioning off of votes...but isn't this basically what happens in IA?  Deals made, votes promised, status quo maintained so that the fix remains in?  If IA goes for Clinton, there could be only two reasons:

Stupid voters............bought off voters. Please let me know if there's a third.  

ABC 

donna

your Congresswoman was stumping for Obama and my brother spent an hour with her in a small group and was pretty impressed

Hope, not Snark.

Howdy from Chicagoland :-)

Phil, donna's Congresswoman is pretty impressive, wish IL-10th had someone like her.

::waving:: atcha David!

12. Thanks for the head's up on Charlie Rose, will try to catch it.

A primary challenger raising $100,000 a quarter is for real, but you are right, it is pretty late in the game to gin one up.

You pick 'em off where you can, Sitka.

Maine hopes to send Chellie Pingree & Rep. Tom Allen to the Senate & House (neither are DLC Bluedogs).

NH will lose Sununu; and CT will hopefully vote in Himes. 

Hope alone won't cut it. And snarking is at least sign of awareness.

Had the pleasure of dining w/ Donna last night ~ always good to see good friends :-D

Stupid voters............bought off voters. Please let me know if there's a third.  

~~~~~~~~~~~

A large field of pretty good candidates dividing up the support many ways.

Here's how I think progressive dems could be elected.  Start talking about the republican authoritarian/punishing govenment we have..compare it to stern and punishing fathers many people grew up with...hit the Midwest hard with this theme.  Make it an emotional issue since many people, tho they might not be able to think for themselves when it comes to voting, will not want to be reminded  that their bossy and/or punishing fathers are like bush.   Compare Abu Ghraib to child abuse.  Compare the  family in the BH to the alcoholic families that abound all over the country.

IMO we need to keep using the words, "The republicans are authoritarians who punish people.  (follow with many examples) compassionate governents do not torture people, not spy on them.

Tell the gd truth fer crisis sake!  typo intentional.

If it weren't for the *fix,* (and the media is part of it) Dodd would be way out in front in IA

Firsties must go, altho it may be too late.   

A person's snark-ometer works best when it's kept at a moderate frequency.

Hi Thankful

since donna in evanston is the name on the blog and Jan Schkowsky is from Evanston I just made an assumption, wasn't she for Dean last time?

Tsongas is indeed a netroots candidate (MA-4).

 Hope she wins today.

Hi, Thankful--I'm at home now (was gone all weekend). 

You pick 'em off where you can, Sitka.

A lot more could be picked off with planning and organization. The effort for Ned Lamont was broad and deep, but it was a lone one. Maybe there were some other Dem incumbents challenged. But if so I didn't know about it -- which means neither did a lot of others.

there is a plethorea of moderate candidates and no Feingold so I'm going with edwards but I could understand other choices

the winner that emerges will be everyone's second choice, a distinction Trippi never grasped

Frontline is airing Cheney's Law here tonight.

A person's snark-ometer works best when it's kept at a moderate frequency.

That goes for cheerlead-o-meters too.

Who sets the calibration is always the question. 

33. Phil, yep, you got it. I believe Jan supported Dean but am not positive of that.

Hi mainefem :-)

If it weren't for the *fix,* (and the media is part of it) Dodd would be way out in front in IA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Richardson, Biden, Dodd, and Edwards played the same venue in our county seat.

all drew similar sized crowds Biden was the only one who gave a speech, the others spent their time answering questions

this county will go Obama,Edwards, and then probably Hillary based on the effort by staffers

A lot of Dem candidates that emerged in 2006 were promoted by folks from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. That trend will continue in 2008 - and many of us are prepared to primary against Republicrats in order to clean out the Lieberman wing of the Democratic Party. In fact, there will be many primaries across America that will present challengers that hold one important distinction from their opponents - they favor defending the Constitution through the process of impeachment.

YOU HAVE THE POWER!!!

yyyyyyyeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

somebody say cheerleader?

bbl

Just because Bush was a cheerleader in college, does that make it an ignoble position ?

I too can understand other choices, Phil, but what I can't understand is why so many are even considering Clinton.   I don't consider Clinton or Obama moderate dems, but rather, bush/oil/war  repugs.   This befuddles my already befuddled mind and I'm so disheartened that we don't have a progressive champion up front. 

 "the winner that emerges will be everyone's second choice, a distinction Trippi never grasped."

This sounds like bush's black is white world.  And I don't grasp the concept of caucus either.  To me, it sounds coniving, manipulative, complicated and totally necessary for the *fix* to win. 

42. 43. ♥'s to the positive, constructive, we have the power kind of 'cheerleading' ~ one foot forward at a time.

Head over to Firedoglake more often, Sitka.

Blue America '08 has a great list of progressive Dems (they keep tabs on roll call votes, too--anyone who's ben online more than a yr. should be able to vet their own candidates).

ActBlue has a delete button, 'ya know?!

Here's one report about Randi:

• Digg This!
• del.icio.us

The blogosphere was abuzz Tuesday with reports that the host of a liberal talk-radio show was the victim of an apparent street crime Sunday night, leading another of the network's hosts to speculate that she was targeted by "the right wing" for her political views

Randi Rhodes, whose program airs on Air America weekdays from 3-6 p.m. ET, claims she was walking down the street near her Manhattan home around 8 p.m. when she was struck and found herself face down on the pavement, her lawyer, Robert Gaulin, told FOXNews.com.

"We don't know whether there was a deliberate intention aimed at her or whether it was an accident... she was pretty much, she was hurt badly when she fell and her face hit the ground," Gaulin said, adding that people on the street came to her aid.

Talking Radio, a blog that follows Air America's programming, reported that another host at the liberal network, Jon Elliott, told listeners of his show Monday night that Rhodes had been attacked near Park Avenue and 39th Street.

According to the blog, Elliott then said, "This does not appear to me to be a standard grab-the- money-and-run mugging," and, "Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own?" Elliot also suggested that the act might have been meant to intimidate left-wing radio, the blog reported.

There even was a report that Rhodes had lost several teeth in the alleged attack.

The report spread quickly Tuesday over the blogosphere, with the Google blog search showing hundreds of posts on the subject.

As of Tuesday morning, however, New York City Police told FOXNews.com that they had no record of any attack in the area that Elliott mentioned — Park Avenue and 39th Street — and that Rhodes did not file a report of the incident with police.

"We have no record of her making any complaints whatsoever ... as far back as my computer goes," a police spokesman said. He said the records went back roughly 25 years.

The police spokesman, who asked not to be identified because of department policy, said that police "do not investigate things that are unreported," but encouraged Rhodes to report the incident if she would like police to investigate the matter.

In a brief statement posted on its Web site Tuesday, Air America said Rhodes "experienced an unfortunate incident hindering her from hosting the show. The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded."

Air America said replacement hosts will continue to fill in for Rhodes as she recuperates.

An Air America employee, who was not authorized to speak to the media and declined to be identified, confirmed the reports that Rhodes had been attacked, and said "it was not a hate crime."

The source said that Rhodes had been in contact with several employees at Air America, and Rhodes told them she had suffered chipped teeth from the attack, and would be seeing a dentist.

Rhodes was not hospitalized. The source said the attack was not sexual in nature. It was not clear if Rhodes had been robbed by her attacker.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,302316,00.html 

Maura is p/t field consultant for Jim Himes.

Hallmark has some great movies so tonight I'm going to watch one from England about Niels Bohr and Heisenberg during WW11.  They may have been on opposing sides, altho they were great friends and colleagues.  Should be good.

I rather be dancing!

House aides visiting racetrack
advised to get immunized

...Staff who organized the trips advised the NASCAR-bound aides to get a range of vaccines before attending -- hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza.

Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord, NC, took umbrage when he heard about it.

"I have never heard of immunizations for domestic travel, and as the representative for Concord, N.C., I feel compelled to ask why the heck the committee feels that immunizations are needed to travel to my hometown," Hayes said in an Oct. 5 letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the Homeland Security panel...

http://www.charlotte.com/109/story/31403...

Time for me to go to dinner, people here trying to put a few pounds back on me, lol.

♥'s to all

Kindness is free!

Vladimir Putin issued a veiled warning Tuesday against any attack on Iran as he began the first visit by a Kremlin leader to Tehran in six decades _ a mission reflecting Russian-Iranian efforts to curb U.S. influence.

 Since the Democrats have already caved in to AIPAC and Bush, good for Putin!

Gore would rather do service to his country by remaining at a safe distance from the Grand Guignol presidency, preferring instead to pass the time more efficiently and with far more credibility as a private citizen.

Good decision Al!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-weber/go-time_b_68620.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-solomon/the-prowar-undertow-of-t_b_68660.html

One of the most unusual aspects of the current Blackwater scandal is that it places recent killings of Iraqi civilians front-and-center even though the killers were Americans. This angle is outside the customary media frame that focuses on what Iraqis are doing to each other and presents Americans -- whether in military uniform or in contractor mode -- as well-meaning heroes who sometimes become victims of dire circumstances.

Many members of Congress, like quite a few journalists, have hopped on the anti-Blackwater bandwagon with rhetoric that bemoans how the company is making it more difficult for the U.S. government to succeed in Iraq. But the American war effort has continued to deepen the horrors inside that country. And Washington's priorities have clearly placed the value of oil way above the value of human life. So why should we want the U.S. government to succeed in Iraq?

Unless the deadly arrogance of Blackwater and its financiers in the U.S. government is placed in a broader perspective on the U.S. war effort as a whole, the vilification of the firm could distract from challenging the overall presence of American forces in Iraq and the air war that continues to escalate outside the American media's viewfinder.

The current Blackwater scandal should help us to understand the dynamics that routinely set in when occupiers -- whether privatized mercenaries or uniformed soldiers -- rely on massive violence against the population they claim to be helping.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10162007.html

As a result of Bush's invasion of Iraq, more than one million Iraqis have died, and several millions are displaced persons. The Iraqi death toll and the millions of uprooted Iraqis match the Armenian deaths and deportations. If one is a genocide, so is the other.

It is true that most of the Iraqi deaths have resulted from Iraqis killing one another. But it was Bush's destruction of the secular Iraqi state that unleashed the sectarian strife.

Moreover, American troops in Iraq have killed more civilians than insurgents. The US military in Iraq has fallen for every bit of disinformation fed to it by Al Qaeda personnel posing as "informants" and by Sunnis setting up Shi'ites and Shi'ites setting up Sunnis. As a result, American bombs and missiles have blown up weddings, funerals, kids playing soccer, and people shopping in bazaars and sleeping in their homes.

Not to be outdone, Bush's private Waffen SS known as Blackwater Security has taken to gunning Iraqi civilians down in the streets. How do Blackwater and Custer Battles killers escape the "unlawful combatant" designation?

One can only marvel at the insouciance of the US Congress to the current Iraqi Genocide while condemning Turkey for one that happened 90 years ago.

MORE PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts101620