Thursday, May 08, 2003

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030507-070813-2361r
Analysts weigh options for change in Iran
By Christian Bourge
Published 5/7/2003

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http://www.madison.com/captimes/news/stories/48445.php
Meetup for Dean is a hit
Internet used as campaign tool

By Aaron Nathans
May 8, 2003
No one is expecting Howard Dean to raise more money than his Democratic rivals for the presidential nomination, but his supporters are taking advantage of the Internet to energize supporters from the ground up.
About 50 Dean supporters gathered at the Lakefront Cafe at the UW Memorial Union on Wednesday for a "Dean Meetup" organized through the Web site Meetup.com.
It was a remarkable turnout for a progressive Democratic event going on at the same time as TV's "The West Wing."
.... "Dean, who supports universal health care and opposed the war in Iraq, has much of his support from academic hotbeds like Cambridge, Mass., and Madison."
...."Dean is "the only candidate who could possibly convince the Green Party not to go on their own," said Don Jones, 67, who was executive director of the state Democratic Party in the 1980s."

SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE

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http://www.cmonitor.com/stories/news/local2003/0507_dean_2003.shtml
Dean promotes foreign labor unions
He says fair trade can deter terrorism

By DANIEL BARRICK
CONCORD MONITOR

Excerpt:
"Speaking at a luncheon with New Hampshire labor leaders, the former Vermont governor mentioned the recent war just once - and then only briefly, accusing President Bush of waging "a war with no way to pay for it." Instead, Dean proposed his own theory of foreign affairs: organized labor as a buffer against terrorism.
"Trade is not just about money, it's about defense," Dean told 50 or so union workers at the Barley House restaurant in downtown Concord. "If you help create middle class countries that believe in democracy . . . you have created a country that is not a threat to the U.S., nor will they willingly harbor a group like al-Qaida. They have too much to lose."

SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE

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KARL ROVE REMEMBERS NEW HAMPSHIRE DIDN'T SUPPORT HIS MAN GW BUSH-----
KARL WANTS TO MAKE THEM PAY!!!! (OR: HOW DOES ONE JUSTIFY "AMERICAN TRADITION"?)


http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/128/nation/Bush_aide_casts_doubt_on_N_H_primary_role+.shtml

..."Returning to the site of his most embarrassing political defeat, senior White House counselor Karl Rove questioned the primacy of the New Hampshire primary process yesterday.
While the administration supports the tradition, there are signs it may not remain intact beyond 2008, Rove said in a speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.
''I'm not certain how good a predictor it is,'' he said, adding that he has sensed ''a lot of resentment'' around the country for the state's exalted political role.
New Hampshire may need to justify its monopoly on the early primary season, or the two parties might seek another solution, Rove said. "

SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE
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http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030507/1/3at95.html

Thursday May 8, 11:11 AM
US lifts some sanctions against Iraq, examines suspicious truck

Excerpt:
"The United States announced it was immediately lifting some economic sanctions against Iraq and urged the world to follow suit........"

"The regime that the sanctions were directed against no longer rules Iraq, and no country in good conscience can support using sanctions to hold back the hopes of the Iraqi people," President George W. Bush said after meeting Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

Bush said United States, Britain and Spain -- the three main allies in the war on Iraq -- will soon introduce a new resolution to lift the sanctions imposed by the United Nations."
SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE

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From Reuters, 5/8/03:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20030508/ts_nm/iraq_usa_un_dc

U.S., Britain Want Power to Spend Iraq Oil Money

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -

The United States on Thursday proposed ending U.N. sanctions on Iraq
and giving Washington and its allies the power to spend Iraq's oil
money to "help the Iraqi people."

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TIME OUT!!

LET ME JUST SAY THIS:
Bush has complained of the Security Council's
dragging their feet on the vote to remove Iraqi sanctions.
He has threatened..and is obviously now..acting unilaterally as he did with the attack last month.
He has stated: "No country with a conscience can want these cruel sanctions
against the Iraqi people."

Excuuuse meeeee......HELLO?
Does anyone happen to recall which nation, until last month when they took over the country in a preemptive attack, enforced cruel
sanctions against the Iraqi people for 12 years PRIOR...and threatened to veto
every effort to remove them????
Removing the sanctions that limit oil exports will allow Bush
to pump out that ol' oil in a much shorter time.

What does this administration care about the plight of the
Iraqi people when all's said and done? Is it...could it be OIL that is and has always been the priority?

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-state8may08,1,467133.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dheadlines

May 8, 2003
Diplomats on the Defensive
State Dept. loyalists say the Pentagon is usurping foreign policy and undermining Powell. Conservatives say 9/11 has changed the rules.


By Sonni Efron, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON -- Diplomats are paid to have cool minds and even cooler temperaments, but inside the State Department, plenty of America's elite diplomats are privately seething.
They are up in arms over what they see as the hijacking of foreign policymaking by the Pentagon and efforts to undercut their boss, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell."

SEE LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE
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If only the departing Mitch Daniels would take tax-cutting congressional Democrats with him.
By Mary Lynn F. Jones

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/05/jones-m-05-08.html
Yellow Streak
The Democrats would rather lamely call for apologies than actually fight.

By Michael Tomasky


Excerpt:
"It just so happens that September 11 is a Thursday -- historically, the evening on which the party's nominee gives his convention speech. Do they really have the cojones to . . . one supposes they'll probably do it the week before, but why wouldn't they choose the 11th? It's OK with the Democrats!
Here's what the Democrats could do, but probably won't:
One: As many Democratic senators as possible -- and it has to be senators; House members don't get press coverage, so they don't really matter -- stand together at a press conference and denounce this rancid politicization of tragedy. Maybe Hillary Clinton can round up that guy from the international firefighters' union who has become such a supporter of hers, and she and Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) can persuade some survivors of 9-11 victims to join them. Fifteen senators and a half-dozen family members would amount to a critique of a different order than a press statement you have to seek out on the party's Web site.
Two: Announce that, because the Republicans have tossed 150 years of history and decorum out the window, Democrats are reconvening their own convention committee and exploring the possibility of rescheduling their convention for late August.
Three: Get really creative and declare that the era of the convention is over -- which is something we've all known to be true for about 20 years anyway -- and then announce that they're not even having a convention in the traditional sense. Maybe a mini, two-day gathering, so the nominee can make his speech with network coverage. But otherwise, take the money saved and spend it more wisely on other things, especially as they're running against a guy who destroyed another agreed-upon tradition (albeit only 30 years old this time) by refusing to abide by established spending limits and who will therefore have "more money than God," as the Republicans have lately become fond of saying. (Odd locution for such pious types, no?)
Four: Plan, or encourage others to plan, a serious, thoughtful, humble, dignified series of counter-events for the week the Republicans are in New York that show how real Americans -- Republicans who wish to participate included -- commemorate somber occasions.
Of course, none of this will happen. The Republicans will have their way, and Bush will maul them on the security issue. But, by God, Democrats will have the gay vote......."


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May 5, 2003, 12:00PM
Big-dollar Bush donors revealed in court documents