CSPAN - Road to the White House

CSPAN - Road to the White House

Be sure to tune in on Sunday at 6:30 pm as C-SPAN's "Road to the White House 2008" continues. This week's installment will feature former Sen. John Edwards' Sept. 18 speech to the 28th Annual Harkin Steak Fry at the Warren County Fairgrounds in Indianola, IA.

Aldon Hynes on Washington DC March

Aldon Hynes on Washington DC March

My Idea Consultants colleague Aldon Hynes has written a blog for Howard Dean's Blog for America website. It begins..

Today, hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in Washington to express their displeasure with the current administration, it's policies in Iraq and the horrible effect those policies are having on people across America....

Aldon says that we'll hear soundbytes about the March, but they will not reflect what is really happening out there in D.C. and on other American street corners.

It wasn't just the national politics that united us. Several of us talked about the importance of races further down the ticket, such as Melissa Berger's campaign for House of Delegates in Maryland. We talked about the importance of reaching out to people in rural America such as Rob at turningblue has been doing in Georgia.

At the end of the day, I spoke with Kim who is up in Burlington and about the importance of campaigns around the country. I write this post sitting in Hypatia's kitchen as numerous bloggers eat, laugh and take pictures.

The way we are going to take this country back is through the friendships that we all share on this blog, when we get together for fun and when we work together on campaigns.

There were 100,000 people who protested the war in D.C. yesterday...and there were a couple hundred anti-peace types who were apparently unaware that there already was no peace in Iraq...

Broussard says: "Get Out of My Face"

Broussard says: "Get Out of My Face"

Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana sent out the message to all ideologues - including rightwing bloggers who Broussard believes have an agenda when accusing him of politicizing Katrina.

"Get out of my face."

On Meet the Press today, Broussard entertained direct challenges regarding the now-clarified details of an emotional story which he'd told Tim Russert about the abandonment of New Orleans by the federal government in the aftermath of Katrina.

Bill Frist's Very Bad Week

Bill Frist's Very Bad Week

Adam Zagorin of Time Magazine, reports that the U.S. Army has launched a criminal investigation into new allegations of serious prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan made by a decorated former Captain in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division.

Senate sources tell TIME that the Captain has also reported his charges to three senior Republican senators: Majority Leader Bill Frist, Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner and John McCain, a former torture victim in Vietnam. A Senate Republican staffer familiar with both the Captain and his allegations told TIME he appeared "extremely credible."..The new allegations [Human Rigts Watch] center around systematic abuse of Iraqi detainees by men of the 82nd Airborne at Camp Mercury, a forward operating base located near Fallujah, the scene of a major uprising against the U.S. occupation in April 2004.

At Think Progress:

On July 27, the same month the Captain came forward, Sen. Frist single-handedly derailed a bipartisan effort — led by Sen. McCain — to clarify rules for the treatment of enemy prisoners at U.S. prison camps. In what news reports at the time described as an “unusual move,” Frist “simply pulled the bill from consideration” before it could be debated.

A suggestion is made that Bill Frist should "come clean: Was his office told of the “systematic abuse” in the 82nd Airborne before he torpedoed the new detainee laws?"

Bill Frist is having a rough week. At the Progressive Zone, David has a thorough blogpost about the questions surrounding Frist's possible insider stock trading.

First Peak Oil Conference in NYC

First Peak Oil Conference in NYC
October 5 9 A.M. - 5 P.M

The first Peak Oil Conference will take place in in New York City On October 5th www.petrocollapse.org. Oil experts and scientists will speak on the local and global consequences of Peak Oil. Speakers include James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency; Dr. John Darnell, Science and Energy Advisor to Congressman Roscoe Bartlett; Jan Lundberg of Culturechange.org, former publisher of the Lundberg Survey; Mike Ruppert, author: Crossing the Rubicon, Fromthewilderness.com; David Pimental, Cornell University, and David Room, Post Carbon Institute. The Moderator is Jenna Orkin, co-founder of the World Trade Center Environmental Organization. The event is sponsored by Culturechange.org and by Continuing Education & Public Programs, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY).

It takes place at the Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist 40 E. 35th Street, New York, NY 10016

The Petrocollapse Conference the participants will ask:

1. What are we facing now as the economy prepares to hit the wall known as resource limits? Will growth suddenly implode?

2. What will be the effects of Peak Oil (a geological phenomenon) and petrocollapse (an economic and social phenomenon) on food supply and other services we depend on?

3. What is the role of the market in determining how severe will be the effect of shortage stemming from geological depletion?

4. Upon upheaval, deprivation, and a restructuring of social relations in a "new" local economics system, will we choose to create a sustainable culture?

5. Is there a "Plan B" to ease a transition to sustainable living in a world without plentiful energy and petroleum's materials? "It is up to us to find solutions that involve everyone in a spirit of solidarity," said Lundberg

Source: PRWeb.com

Katrina’s Wake: Our Government and the Common Good

Katrina’s Wake: Our Government and the Common Good

According to Mark J. Green, Air America is organizing a colloquium Tuesday evening, September 27, at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City entitled “Katrina’s Wake: Our Government and the Common Good” to begin a conversation that will next culminate in November ’06 or November ’08. For information about the guest speakers, please visit their websites : Katrina vanden Heuvel; Billy Sothern; Mark Green; National Priorities Project; ACORN.


SEE: If Poverty is the Question by the late Paul Wellstone:

I will be the first to say that adults in our society need to take responsibility for themselves if they possibly can. But until we come to a real understanding of the structural problems in our economy and society that are getting in our way, we will continue to legislate by bumper stickers and slogans. We need to have an honest national conversation, and an honest conversation in every community, about what is really going on, why we face the unacceptable level of poverty and near-poverty, and what we are going to do about it.