June 18, 2008 archive

ENVIROFASCISTS!!! AAAAAIIEEEAAAGHHH!!!!

OMG, these Republican morans never learn.

Some of you with memories longer than a fruit fly’s may recall that, oh, last week (and, for that matter, every week since September 11, 2001), every right-wing neocon legislator screamshow host Supreme Court justice  BushCheney clone was fulminating about how Islamofashionists posed an imminent  threat to your personal safety and that of your children and dog.

Four at Four

  1. Mixed reports about the situation in the Arghandab distrct are coming from Afghanistan. Reuters reports the Taliban win tactical success near Kandahar. “The infiltration of hundreds of Taliban militants this week into an area close to Afghanistan’s second city was a tactical success for them and a setback for NATO, a NATO general said on Wednesday.”

    While in follow-on fighting, the Washington Post reports Afghan and NATO troops move against the Taliban. “Hundreds of Afghan and Canadian troops launched a major attack Wednesday against Taliban fighters who have moved into several southern Afghanistan villages in recent days”. The Canadian Press reports that according to the Afghan Defense Ministry, the joint offensive killed at least 36 Taliban fighters with no NATO casualities. And, according to the report in the NY Times, the operation against the Taliban is just beginning.

    The operation, which NATO officials said would last several days, is to clear out Taliban insurgents who have swarmed into the northwestern part of the district, causing villagers to flee and threatening government control. The security of the district is critical to that of Kandahar city, the capital of southern Afghanistan…

    Helicopters flying high over the Argandab River valley fired rockets at Taliban positions just a mile or so west of the river, indicating that insurgents were much closer to the district center than NATO and Afghan officials have admitted.

    In related news, The Guardian reports the First female British soldier has been killed in Afghanistan. Her name has not yet been released, but she was killed by an explosion that hit a British convoy and killed three other soldiers.

Four at Four continues with a deadly bombing in Baghdad, the five men behind the Bush administration’s use of torture, and an op-ed on bananas.

Bait and Switch

Here’s a thought.

The Republican Party has used Evangelical Christians over the past 30 plus years to help them win power. The Republicans held out the promise of overturning Roe v Wade and outlawing abortion. The promised public school prayer legal, to remove evolution from textbooks, to prevent same-sex marriages, and champion other conservative Baptist values.

But success never quite has come for the Evangelical agenda. The Republicans were always a few Congressional seats short, a few judges short, even when they controlled all three branches of the government, they still were not enough Republicans to make good on the promises they made to the Evangelicals.

Now take the Democratic Party. The mantra coming from many of the people in the Democratic leadership is elect more Democrats in order to make possible the progressive agenda. A liberal progressive that includes providing universal healthcare, leaving Iraq, restoring civil liberties, rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and securing energy independence, and protecting the environment all seem tantalizing within reach with more Democrats in Congress.

But, we had Democratic control of Congress when Clinton took office in 1993. But, universal healthcare was sabotaged, we stayed in Iraq, civil liberties were eroded, the infrastructure continued to crumble, and despite a Vice President Al Gore little was done to fight climate change and move to a renewable energy economy.

Are Progressives to Democrats, the same as Evangelicals are to Republicans? Just so many useful idiots to keep the wealthy and corporatists in power?

Help Greenwald Target Hoyer on FISA

Glen Greenwald is launching a major new campaign to target Hoyer and other key members of Congress for their impending sell out to the Telcoms and Bushco. Read about it here.


In order to raise as much money as possible for this campaign — far more than the $85,000 raised (and still being spent) in Chris Carney’s district as a result of his support for warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty — we are working to create an alliance with numerous organizations and factions across the ideological spectrum which oppose civil liberties erosions, as well as with as many blogs as possible (modeled vaguely after the ideologically diverse alliance that has arisen in Britain in opposition to the sprawling and lawless surveillance state there).

We hope to announce details about the participating individuals and groups very shortly, as well as the exact details of what we’re doing. But given the time pressures, it’s vital to be able to have as many resources as possible, as quickly as possible, for this campaign. The more money raised, the greater the disruptive impact will be.

For the moment, contributions can be made here. All the money raised will be spent exclusively on ad campaigns aimed at the short-term vulnerabilities of those in Congress responsible for delivering this indescribably tyrannical package of surveillance powers to the President and the accompanying corrupt gift to lawbreaking telecoms.

 

Clear Evidence of Torture : Now What, Democrats?

The evidence continues to mount. We are rapidly moving from speculation into the territory of hard, clear, indisputable evidence. What happens when the truth comes out…as it is clearly beginning to do? What happens if there is clear evidence that the Bush Administration authorized Torture?

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Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.): “Some have suggested that detainee abuses committed by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and at Guantanamo were the result of a ‘few bad apples’ acting on their own. It would be a lot easier to accept if that were true…”

“Senior officials in the United States government sought out information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.”

WASHINGTON – A Cambridge-based human rights organization said it has found medical evidence supporting the claims of 11 former detainees who were allegedly tortured while in American custody between 2001 and 2004, in what a former top US military investigator said amounts to evidence of war crimes.

more stories like this

Medical evaluations of the former inmates found injuries consistent with the alleged abuse, including the psychological effects of sensory deprivation and forced nudity as well as signs of “severe physical and sexual assault,” Physicians for Human Rights said in a report scheduled for release today.

The report also alleges that in four of the cases, American health professionals appeared to have been complicit by denying the detainees medical care and observing the abuse but making no effort to stop it – charges that, if true, represent gross violations of medical ethics.

The longest day: Make it count

This Friday, June 20th, marks the Summer Solstice, the longest day in the year.

Unfortunately, it will be just one more grueling day in what is already the third longest war in US history.

June 20th is also the tenth monthly observance of the Iraq Moratorium, held on the Third Friday of each and every month until this horrific war is over.

“It’s got to stop! We’ve got to stop it!” has been the watchword of the Iraq Moratorium from Day One. The majority of this country’s people want this war over, pronto. But the politicians keep hedging, media coverage keeps shrinking, and US troops and Iraq men, women and children keep dying.

It really will take all of us, acting together, to force an end to the tragedy. On Friday, please break your daily routine and take some step to end the war. You can act with others-there are around 100 scheduled events taking place from coast to coast listed for Moratorium Day #10 at the Iraq Moratorium website website. You can act on your own – there’s a list of things you might want to do linked from the home page as well. Or use your imagination, but do something.

Amy Goodman Video

I know I’ve probably overdone the stories about my experience at the National Conference on Media Reform last weekend. But I just couldn’t help doing one more quick essay. That’s because they have finally produced a video of Amy Goodman’s speech at the plenary session last Sunday morning. And I wanted to provide the opportunity for you to witness the brilliance of what she had to say.

In a room of over 3,000 people, you could have heard a pin drop as Amy tells her story at the beginning of this speech. So I’d encourage everyone to take the 18 minutes or so to watch and know that it will be time well spent. In the end, I promise that you will be inspired to continue your work. What you do, no matter how large or small, is THAT important!!!

Amy Goodman Video

I know I’ve probably overdone the stories about my experience at the National Conference on Media Reform last weekend. But I just couldn’t help doing one more quick essay. That’s because they have finally produced a video of Amy Goodman’s speech at the plenary session last Sunday morning. And I wanted to provide the opportunity for you to witness the brilliance of what she had to say.

In a room of over 3,000 people, you could have heard a pin drop as Amy tells her story at the beginning of this speech. So I’d encourage everyone to take the 18 minutes or so to watch and know that it will be time well spent. In the end, I promise that you will be inspired to continue your work. What yo do, no matter how large or small, is THAT important!!!  

Pony Party

Top o’ the morning!



skedonk flickr creative commons

This is an open thread.  

The Morning News

The Morning News is an Open Thread.

Surprise! I’m filling in for ek this morning and it’s Mishima’s day off. So to start your day, here’s 28 stories from home and around the globe. What else is happening?

USA

  1. WaPo – Halliburton Subsidiary Faulted For Hurricane Work

    Reports of problems with defense contractor KBR Inc. just keep piling up.

    The Houston-based company’s efforts to repair Navy facilities following Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina were deemed shoddy and substandard, auditors say, prompting one technical adviser to claim that the federal government “certainly paid twice” for many KBR projects because of “design and workmanship deficiencies,” according to a report (see PDF here) released today by the Defense Department’s inspector general.

    The report, released following a Freedom of Information Act request, says the U.S. Navy hired KBR, Inc., then known as Kellogg, Brown and Root, in July 2004 to repair Defense Department facilities after Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. The federal government agreed to pay the company $500 million over five years.

  2. Des Moines Register – Some Cedar Rapids residents finally getting back into homes

    The record-breaking floodwaters are not holding Cedar Rapids hostage anymore. Water has cleared out of many downtown streets, which resembled rivers just two days ago. The Cedar River has fallen to 20.06 feet and continues to drop.

    Major highways, including I-380 and U.S. Highway 30, have reopened and so have some neighborhoods. City officials today finally opened some neighborhoods to residents after days of stops and starts. Only neighborhoods where water and debris had been cleared from the streets, and homes had been inspected for safety, were open.

    The city remains under a mandatory evacuation order, but residents got into their homes to gather belongings, size up damage and start cleaning up layers of mud and stench.

  3. WaPo – Red Cross Disaster Fund Is Depleted

    The American Red Cross said yesterday that it has depleted its national disaster relief fund and is taking out loans to pay for shelters, food and other relief services across seven Midwestern states battered by floods.

    Officials at the charity estimated that efforts in the Midwest will cost more than $15 million and warned that the total could surpass $40 million if the Mississippi River creates floods in St. Louis later this week.

    On the cusp of hurricane season, Red Cross executives said the charity has raised just $3.2 million for the Midwest floods and painted a dire picture of its overall disaster relief finances.

  4. The Hill – Clinton takes month off

    Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is taking a month off from Congress to recuperate after her marathon run for the presidency.

    She is not expected to return to the Senate until July 7 or July 8 after the Independence Day recess, according to two Democratic sources.

    Clinton’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate are taking a sympathetic attitude toward her extended absence, which comes after a grueling 18-month formal bid for the White House and, according to some calculations, a decade or more of planning and positioning since the days when her husband was president.

Follow the money … into McCain’s pockets

Recall Deep Throat (All the President’s Men), that basic piece of advice: “Follow the Money.”  As we listen to the George W. Bush’s, John McCain’s, the Republican Party’s, and the RWSM’s response to what George W. Bush described as America’s “addiction to oil”, remember those words.

In face of addiction, is the Republican Party fighting to get us (the US) to a treatment center? Struggling to help us (the US) get off the addiction? Preparing us (the US) for going cold turkey?  No, they are struggling for ways to feed the addiction and keep us hooked.  Hooked, that is, as the problem worsens even more such that the inevitable crash truly will be a crash and burn of our nation.

John McCain went to Houston Oilers’ territory for his first major energy speech. Totally apropos, because the best he could come up with was to argue for putting drills everywhere one can imagine.

Obama, Cornyn on Veterans Drug Testing

The report:

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