February 2008 archive

We all remember the fanfare of the Bush administration declaring Iraq a sovereign country. Our war criminal king George stuck his thumbs into his arm pits and crowed.

“After decades of brutal rule by a terror regime, the Iraqi people have their country back,” Mr. Bush said in Istanbul at a gathering of NATO leaders, who agreed Monday to help rebuild Iraq’s security forces.

– Source

And who can forget the touching love note from Condi to Bush announcing that L. Paul Bremer had finished rewriting Iraqi laws and handed over the keys to Saddam’s palaces to the interim Iraqi government.

My question is what does Iraqi sovereignty mean? I have to ask because Iraqi airspace and territory have been repeatedly violated by Turkey, with the United States supplying the Turkish military with intelligence to conduct “incursions” into Iraq.  

During last night’s debate, Sen. Clinton once again tried to make an electoral issue out of Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement of Barack Obama, and the honor given Farrakhan by Obama’s church for his community activism in black communities.

First, let me say that the honor given Farrakhan is meaningless; it was for his activist works alone, which are deserving of recognition and get as little as they do because of all the many odious things Farrakhan says.  And of course, Barack Obama had nothing to do with the decision to give the honor.  So, in my opinion, not an actual issue.

But I want to talk instead about how Sen. Clinton blows her chances, rather than whether the opportunity is deserving.

Here’s part five of the second round of congressional races.  Earlier parts are here

Illinois has 19 representatives, 10 Democrats and 9 Republicans.  The filing deadline was way back in November, and the primary a couple weeks ago, so this is it

Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

The Morning News is an Open Thread

1 Expert details White House e-mail risks

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

8 minutes ago

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

And Iglesia and Rogers hastened down the service corridor (passing a huge bubbling samovar) in a direction that might as well be called (except for folks who are fussy about that sort of thing)…..east.

And Abraham and Rogers hastened down the badly lit, industrial puke green colored service corridor in a direction that was, well,….if you stipulate that Iglesia and Rogers are heading ….east. Then it could only be said that Abraham and Rogers were heading…..west.

There are two spectacular articles (well, perhaps more) over at Counterpunch right now. The first I’ll look at is Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals by Michael Colby:

Surprise.

Sen. Russ Feingold’s bill calling for US troop withdrawals from Iraq to begin within 120 days is being debated by the US Senate — thanks to the Republicans who want to kill the bill but think they have an advantage in talking about Iraq.

Plus, John McCain has just said that if he can’t persuade the American people that staying in Iraq is the right course, he will lose the election.

So, on a 70-24 vote, the Senate agreed to take up Feingold’s bill.  Only 26 Democrats voted to take it up.

Feingold’s bill won’t pass, of course.  No Republican has ever actually voted for it in the past.

But it will be debated, along with amendments, all day Wednesday, apparently, the Washington Post reports:

In five previous efforts during the past 20 months, Feingold has never received even 30 votes to bring his bill to the floor for debate. Not a single Republican had supported Feingold’s withdrawal bills, which have been considered the strictest offered in terms of requiring troop withdrawals from Iraq.

This Feingold bill would mandate troop redeployments out of Iraq within 120 days of being signed into law, while allowing funds to be spent for just a few reasons there: ongoing counter-terrorist operations, protecting the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, training Iraqi forces and on the actual redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq.

“Keeping our troops in Iraq will not solve Iraq’s problems,” Feingold said during the debate today. “And it won’t help us address the growing threat by al-Qaeda around the world.”

Most interesting is the list of Democrats who voted against taking up the bill.  Here they are:

Baucus (D-MT)

Bayh (D-IN)

Biden (D-DE)

Bingaman (D-NM)

Carper (D-DE)

Casey (D-PA)

Conrad (D-ND)

Dorgan (D-ND)

Johnson (D-SD)

Landrieu (D-LA)

Levin (D-MI)

Lieberman (ID-CT)

Lincoln (D-AR)

McCaskill (D-MO)

Nelson (D-FL)

Nelson (D-NE)

Pryor (D-AR)

Reed (D-RI)

Salazar (D-CO)

Tester (D-MT)

Webb (D-VA)

Dems not voting:

Byrd (D-WV)

Clinton (D-NY)

Obama (D-IL)

Remember this:

President Bush laid down the standard of success when he announced the surge more than a year ago: “If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”

Than yesterday we get this:

The Pentagon is projecting that when the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq ends in July there will be about 8,000 more troops on the ground than when it began in January 2007, a senior general said Monday.