Wesley Clark: 'Big Blog' Debut
See the Clark Community Network for more information.
Gen Clark claims the "internet made him do it" ( run for Prez, that is :)
I'd like to see Clark and Dean ( and their campaigns) limit a lot of future squabbling and run together.
What a marvelous team they'd make.
Molly Ivins Proudly Invites You To: "Call Me a Bush-Hater"
"....Among the more amusing cluckings from the right lately is their appalled discovery that quite a few Americans actually think George W. Bush is a terrible President...."
GO FIGGER! ;)
".....Poor Bush is in way over his head, and the country is in bad shape because of his stupid economic policies.
If that makes me a Bush-hater, then sign me up...."
HEY-PASS THAT PEN AND PAD OVER HERE WHEN YOU'RE FINISHED!
ART ZIMMER- Central New York Resident Finds Success His Own Way
Farmboy Turns Into Millionaire
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 12, 2003
Mr. Zimmer is owner of the Syracuse New Times, one of the best alterative newspapers in America.
Read his story.
US Senate backs Syria sanctions
After Iraq, I would have hoped the Senate would know better than to give unbridled authority
to the already-proven untrustworthy Bush administration.
Damn if they haven't done it again.
We are taking the wrong path.
Cutting off our own noses to spite our American faces.
Blowing an opportunity for cooperation and creating a resentful and hungry people instead.
When the hell will we learn?
In 2002, Syria provided the United States with much information on potential terrorist attacks and was one of the CIA's most effective intelligence allies in the fight against al-Qaeda. The hawks of the Bush Administration are willing to
shut down this major channel of information... even though al-Qaeda remains a serious threat.
CIA Director George Tenet has allegedly fought a losing battle to keep Syria as an intelligence source against
members of the Bush Administration who'd obviously prefer confrontation with Damascus over help against al-Qaeda. Bottom line, they regard Syria as a problem because of its support for Hezbollah, the organization that forced
Israel out of southern Lebanon.
Yet they will likely come out the loser for it when it comes to stopping al-Qaeda.
And our Senate are willing to let them do it...no questions asked.
The vote was 89-4.
Senators Byrd, Jeffords, Chaffee, Enzi were the only ones with brains and guts enough to dissent.
Read Seymour Hersch's New Yorker piece titled "The Syrian Bet" for more information.
Jack Straw is breaking ranks with us over Iran.
Seventeen Italian soldiers have died in Nasiriyah. I'm certain this will affect Italian resolve regardless of
what Berlusconi is saying this morning.
Bremer's probably on his way out of his position and the UN and Red Cross have scattered and gone from Iraq. General Sanchez is realistically telling us it's bad..he's worried.
I fear the policies of the Bush administration are not taking us toward any meaningful resolution anywhere in
the Middle East. Just the opposite, matter of fact. Seeing the good organizations of the world fall away from
Iraq while even Britain is beginning to distance themselves from Bush on Iran is not a good indicator of a war
that is going well.
No Mama-No Papa-No Uncle Sam:
A Veterans' Day Tribute to my Uncle Paul Nagurney
To Paul: a Veteran; a Patriot; a Great Man
~~~~~~~
"It is wrong to place our military in harm's way and not support them.
May God forgive those who did so in Bataan, and may God forgive those who forget the sacrifices of Bataan,
and those other Americans who rest here."
Maj. Richard M. Gordon (USA Ret.)
Adjutant
Battling Bastards of Bataan
Remarks at the Manila American Cemetery
-Ft. Bonifacio, Makati, Manila, Philippines-
April 2, 2002
Senator Inouye, Senator Stevens, Ambassador Ricciardone in attendance
~~~~~~
On this Veteran's day I wish to thank my Great Uncle Paul who died in 1981 at the age of 67...and whose sacrifices and stories I will not forget.
He was a survivor of the Bataan Death March of WWII.
He served 20 years with the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force.
He was wounded December 10, 1941 while stationed at Nichols Field in the Phillipines.
He was evacuated to Bataan and then to Corregidor.
When Corregidor fell to the Japanese, he was taken prisoner.
He survived the Bataan Death March, thanks to his sheer will and a secret stash of quinine, which he shared with others to
help sustain them.
Hundreds of Americans died or were killed in that Death March.
Uncle Paul survived over three more years imprisonment by the Japanese. He was later awarded the American Defense Service Medal with a bronze star, a Distinguished Unit Badge with two oak-leaf clusters, the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with a bronze star, the WWII Victory Medal, the Purple Heart, and the Phillipine Defense Ribbon with a bronze star.
"Ghost Soldiers" by Hampton Sides tells one of the best stories about the Bataan incident.
Fourth Marine Mel Sheya, a Bataan survivor, wrote a first-hand accounting of Bataan in "The Battling Bastards of Bataan".
I am lucky enough to have an autographed copy of the book.
In one section of the book, Sheya writes:
"In our short stay at Cabanatuan, we had seen our comrades face the firing squad, hundreds die from dysentery, malaria, malnutrition, and shot by guerillas who were after the Japs.
When we left, the camp was in a precarious state, for many
men were lying around about to die. The camp looked more like a graveyard than a prison camp. Men weighed from sixty to eighty pounds and were unable to hold anything on their stomachs.
We bid them adieu, knowing that soon many would be buried.
Some of the dying would give buddies their sentimental valuables and ask them to give them to their wives or families when Uncle Sam liberated us.
The time for departure came and we lined up ready to march.
You wouldn't realize men could become so close in friendship until you could see the tears shed by the men whose close friends were leaving...."
He also wrote:
"Many nights I would dream of home..my Mom and the friends I would love to see, then I would be awakened by the sobbing of some boy that was less fortunate than I in concealing his emotions. There was alwas some one of us prepared to comfort and try to console these men that were still human enough to cry..."
and....
"Old Glory, to me, really means the flag of freedom and democracy.
May it forever fly proudly.
Damn the men that ever try to depreciate it."
Mr Sheya and my Uncle survived a living hell in captivity for
42 months under the Japanese. Corregidor was not only the bloodiest battle in the WWII Pacific, but was possibly the worst form of defeat ever inflicted in the U.S. armed forces.
There were very dark moments when these prisoners would feel they were forgotten and abandoned by the American generals. Lorcha Dock was where General MacArthur (realizing too late that he had spread his troops too thinly) uttered the words "I Shall Return", before departing for Australia. He had ordered a general retreat of his troops on Luzon to the Bataan Peninsula on the western side of Manila Bay. The American and Philippine Army troops scattered across eight of the other large Philippine islands were abandoned to the Japanese.
How might YOU have felt if you were one of those left behind?
Uncle Paul learned that, when all is said and done, we only have ourselves on which to rely upon for our own survival.
He was not angry at his nation for what happened to him.
He held no grudge.
He believed in the cause of true American democracy and freedom.
Yes, through it all, my Uncle Paul loved America for what he believed she stood for.
Freedom and democracy.
I learned many important lessons from Uncle Paul through the years I was lucky enough to have his
company and his counsel.
His thoughts, his patriotic love run through me and through all the words you see here on this page.
I intend, as long as I live, to never let his memory die.
The bottom line on Howard Dean and the Confederate Flag Issue:
"I intend to talk about race during this election in the South
because the Republicans have been talking about it
since 1968 in order to divide us...
and I'm going to bring us together!"
Howard Dean
Yes, this is me...a Northern girl who
came up through Connecticut Yanks over the past
375 American years. Just take a look at me..
posing in front of the "dreaded" symbol of
our nation's once-fragile and fractured unity.
How can I possibly be smiling, you ask?
Some would call it hope.
My hope for America rests with the People...
and for a leader who will help them understand how
to heal and find strong enough common ground
for the mending of our tattered civil and civic fabric.
We will never make the world a better place when
we cannot find a spot our own land solid enough to stand together.
Morton H. Halperin: Safe at Home
From: TAP/American Prospect online
11.1.03
-At the dawn of the Cold War, America's leaders created new institutions that made us safer.
Fast forward to the present.
Why isn't the Bush administration following their example?-
In this article, there is a definitive list and brief review of what we have done over the past two years which provides a basis for determining what needs to be done from this point forward to make the nation safer.
Excerpts:
"....President Bush got one thing right: The greatest threat to American security is a rogue state providing a terrorist group with a weapon of mass destruction and the means to deliver it in the United States. Unfortunately, almost everything he has done since September 11 has made this problem worse rather than better. We need new policies, new approaches and new institutions to reduce this risk...."
"....None of this argument is based on altruism. It is a straightforward claim that the administration's policies to date have failed to make us safer, and that a new approach is more likely than the path we are now on to prevent rogue states from sharing true weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery with terrorists who would wish us harm."
George Soros Rocks!
Soros's Deep Pockets vs. Bush
Financier Contributes $5 Million More in Effort to Oust President
~~~~~~
"We were disappointed. We thought a guy like George Soros could do more.
No....no....kidding!
It was thrilling."
Steve Rosenthal, CEO, America Coming Together
~~~~~~~
"...It is the central focus of my life," Soros said, his blue eyes settled on an unseen target. The 2004 presidential race, he said in an interview, is "a matter of life and death."
"....Neoconservatives, Soros said, are exploiting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a preexisting agenda of preemptive war and world dominion. "Bush feels that on September 11th he was anointed by God," Soros said. "He's leading the U.S. and the world toward a vicious circle of escalating violence."
"..Soros believes that a "supremacist ideology" guides this White House.."
*OH, SWEET IRONY-
THE RNC: A TASTE OF THEIR OWN MEDICINE--
"...It's incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money group to do it," Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson said. "George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party."
~~~~~~~~
For more on George Soros, see: "The Bubble of American Supremacy"
Twenty-Six House Democrats Push to Fire Rumsfeld
"...we're willing to stand up and say what so many policy makers know, that the first step to bringing our troops home is to send Donald Rumsfeld home."
Rep Charles Rangel-NY
OH NO----NOT AGAIN!
Condoleeza Rice: ''Most of this country is stable...''
WHERE HAVE WE HEARD THIS BEFORE?
PRESIDENT BUSH: ".. Well, first of all, we're just starting in Iraq. And a lot of Iraq is stable, and the life of the Iraqi people are better now than it was prior to the war.."
Speech at G8 summit May 29, 2003
RIGHT!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a July 8th, 2003 Washington Post editorial "Facing Reality in Iraq", Dick Cheney began: "Most of Iraq is stable..."
RIGHT!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 23, 2003
"Wolfowitz said that despite repeated attacks against U.S. and coalition forces, commanders on the ground report that the entire North and South of Iraq is stable."
Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample
American Forces Press Service
RIGHT!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THERE IS COMMENTARY FROM THE WISE AND SKEPTICAL:
COMMENT FROM BUZZFLASH:
Subj: Iraq Stability
Every administration official comes out and says that most of Iraq is stable and quiet. Or, that problems are concentrated in the Sunni Triangle. I guess this is supposed to make us feel better about the occupation. Kind of like a doctor comforting a patient by telling him that the malignant brain tumor only affects 15% of his brain.
Turk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MAYBE THIS SEEMS STABLE....
BUT FRANKLY, NO ONE LIVES HERE.
NOW, ON THE OTHER HAND, THESE GALS ARE TRIANGLE GALS
WHERE PEOPLE EXIST, WE'RE TENDING TO SEE INSTABILITY.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
THEN THERE'S THE TOTAL MISINFORMATION THAT ALWAYS FOLLOWS:
Exhibit A: " Most prefer to concentrate on the violence taking place in the Sunni-triangle areas, which is Saddam's stronghold. By the way, the sunni-triangle area constitutes about 1% of the entire country of Iraq. *(see my note below*) Despite that American troops are being shot at in this area, the rest of Iraq is stable...."
Exhibit B: "-Most of Iraq is stable. Almost all U.S. casualties have happened in a part of Iraq(Sunni triangle) that makes up only 5 percent of the country..."
From : KEYS TO THE WHITEHOUSE site, 8-31-03
RIGHT!
*My Note- 20% of the Iraqi population lives in the Sunni triangle.
Iraq is not "stable" anywhere.*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frist finds a way to protect his real master - The People be damned.Frist Freezes Senate Probe of Prewar Iraq Data
By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 8, 2003; Page A18
Angry about a leaked Democratic memo, the Republican leadership of the Senate yesterday took the unusual step of canceling all business of the committee investigating prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called on the author of the memo -- which laid out a possible Democratic strategy to extend the investigation to include the White House and executive branch -- to "identify himself or herself . . . disavow this partisan attack in its entirety" and deliver "a personal apology" to Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence.
Only if those steps are taken, Frist said, "will it be possible for the committee to resume its work in an effective and bipartisan manner -- a manner deserving of the confidence of other members of the Senate and the executive branch."
Roberts followed Frist on the floor and said that unless the Democratic members "properly" address the issue, "I am afraid that it will be impossible to return to 'business as usual' in the committee."
A committee meeting scheduled for yesterday was canceled, and none has been scheduled for next week, according to a senior committee staff member.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), the committee's ranking Democrat, said he was "really disappointed" with the Republican action. "Whose advantage is it to derail asking the tough questions on prewar intelligence and the use and misuse of it?" he asked.
The GOP move follows a month of extraordinary maneuvering by Democrats and Republicans to take political advantage of the committee's look at how the intelligence community collected and analyzed intelligence on Iraq over the past decade.
FULL TEXT HERE
The People are supposed to be Frist's primary charge and consideration in his important position as Senate majority leader.
But, nooooo....
Frist is using petty politics to provide the usual escape-from-accountability for the Bush administration.
This is just another case of abuse of power and an abrogation of responsibility to the People.
Pat Roberts looks like nothing more than a drama queen.
I hope people are smart enough to call their Congresspersons to tell them this:
What we suspect the Bush administration has misled us about is far more serious than Pat Roberts' damned PRIDE.
~~~~~~
"It's a very grave issue if the president is manipulating and distorting intelligence. There must be high anxiety about this in the intelligence community, because they are chatting to the press."
Ivan Eland, senior fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California
June,2003
~~~~~~
Lives are being lost in the twisted tangle of the Sunni triangle while these drama queens play partisan politics.
The Dems have NOTHING to apologize for - the memo was completely straightforward in laying out Democratic options to get to the truth while the Republicans are trying to WHITEWASH the Bush's administrations treasonous manipulation of Iraq intelligence.
Good People of this nation:
If you aren't outraged, you simply aren't paying attention.
If Frist cannot lead, he should get out of the way!
Websites worth visiting--often
I found a couple sites today which I found interesting.
I wanted to share them with you.
Sinister Swing, also known as 'The Left Wing of the Web',
is a fantastic collection of current news articles, as well as left-related activism and information. Well-done.
Patriots for Peace is another site that's new to me..and one I highly recommend.
Al Gore: An Intelligent Democrat Criticizes the Patriot Act,
the Power Grab and the
Crisis-Exploiting Tactics of the Executive
What a contrast between the man who so aptly gave today's Moveon.org/ACS-sponsored speech at the packed
DAR Constitution Hall in Washington DC and the bumbling idiot who has reduced our nation to
a shred of what she was since he robbed the steering wheel in 2000.
President Dean
Vice President Clark
Whoops...heh-heh.
Uh..you caught me thinking ahead.
*sorry
Howard Dean Offers New Declaration
WHEN IN THE Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
Two centuries ago, our founders brought into this world a new republic. This republic brought to the world a new era of self-government. It ensured the rights of the citizenry and gave them the vote to elect representatives.
Throughout this nation’s history, the American people have struggled to keep their rights and make their government work for them. We have seen the populists, progressives, women, labor, and civil rights movements.
Today our government has become overrun by special interests. Working with President George Bush, they have turned our government into a system that works for the profit of the few not the benefit of the many.
They have in the last two elections flooded our politics with over 5.1 billion dollars in contributions.
They have walked into the Vice-president’s office and written energy legislation that keeps us shackled to fossil fuels.
They have written health care legislation denying access and affordability, and keeping prescriptions away from seniors.
They have purposely misled this nation into an unnecessary war.
WE, therefore, the architects and builders of Dean for
America, appealing to the Wise Judgment of the American people on our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these United States, solemnly Publish and Declare, the People of these United States are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT OF SPECIAL INTERESTS and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT CITIZENS, they have full Power to participate, deliberate, pursue the common good, protect their own interest from corruption, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT CITIZENS may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, we mutually pledge to each other to write letters, knock on doors, organize our neighbors, self- fund this effort, and vote.
Signed,
Gov. Howard Dean, M.D.
Lanya Shapiro
Aldon Hynes
Kim Hynes
Jasper Hendricks
Peng Her
Susan Hudgens
Jerome Wiley
Add your signature to the Declaration
Today On "ABC News- This Week"....
There was an excellent conversation between Richard Holbrooke and Richard Perle facilitated by "ABC News' This Week" today.
The look on Richard Perle's face while Richard Holbrook (assistant secretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton) pointed out the bare truth to him on the
failed (or ignored) pre-Iraq war / Imad Hage peace-negotiations ..the look on that man's face said it all. Perle really doesn't have a poker face.
He looked down, appeared to be turning a shade of ashen green. Was it shame?
Perle-prince of darkness- ashamed?
Perle called Hage's attempt to stop the war "a trap" due to oil concessions.
Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil.
Oil.
OIL.
Did I say oil?
With the slithery, slippery assistance of George W Bush and Dick Cheney, oil has killed almost
400 American troops in the interest of American corporations.
Oil was the very reason Perle discounted an effort to head off an unnecessary war.
We need to be outraged.
If we're not outraged, we are not paying attention.
If I hear Perle call the Iraqi resistance "bitter-enders" one more time, I think I'll become nauseous.
What kind of "bitter-end" (or ANY end, for that matter) is anywhere near in this war?
The resistance has escalated like a wild fire this past month.
They succeeded in killing so many of our fine young troops...took down a Chinook and now TWO Blackhawk-downs (Where's Mark Bowden and Ridley Scott?)
"Bitter-beginners" may be a more fitting term.
John Edwards
I ran into this post from John Edwards' campaigners.
I would still welcome any discussion about the Edwards campaign.
He's a good man.
He's still in my own 'top-tier' of the Democratic field.
Even though Edwards is from the South and I hail from the North, my own Grandfather worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania in his youth and went on to send his
children to college so they could have a better life than he did.
Our stories are much the same.
I can identify with the place from which Senator Edwards has come and I appreciate his view of where
he thinks we should be headed.
I think he made a mistake recently in his comments to Howard Dean during the "Rock the Vote" debate, but I can
understand why so many of the contending Democrats feel the need to take the front-runner down a few pegs.
I don't think, however, we should make suspicion-generating statements about our geographic differences
when we are talking about leadership and cooperation.
Senator Edwards should emphasize we're in this together.
I look forward to seeing what Senator Edwards has to say on Meet the Press with Tim Russert this Sunday.
