Could it be?
Bush planning to use Hispanic immigrants for a new draft?
"....The masses rarely catch-on until it is way too late in the game to go back. Every alien, illegal or not, denoted immediately above, that registers for the new three year immigration status will be simultaneously (though likely without knowledge of it) be registering to be selected for service in the United States Army or Marines. They will, along with other Americans chosen, be selected by a lottery system most are familiar with. Their tour of two years minimum will lighten the load on America’s Reserves and National Guard forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan presently, and it seems likely in Syria and Iran (but anywhere U.S. forces are deployed) later on in 2004-2008. It hasn’t helped any that there has been some 1,700 deserters from the Iraq war alone. Bush is having trouble convincing the youth of America that to enlist in the Armed Forces is the patriotic thing to do; enlistments is all branches of the military are off drastically. So reinstitution of the draft is a necessity if Bush and Pentagon are to continue their plans for an extended Pentagon “footprint” throughout the world. While there are some 12 million aliens in the United States presently (illegal and legal) Mr. Bush isn’t likely to overlook this unregistered pool of draftees for long..."

"...One can already hear Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity squealing: “If they want the benefits of the American dream they have to accept the obligations which come with these freedoms.” Of course nearly every single talk show host in America has never served their country either and will not be subject to the new draft as they will fall over the 25 year age limit (initially at least)..."

Toronto Star/Tom Harpur:
NASA photo captures sacred
"...One icon, one transcending image towers above all others at this hour--not the cross, not the steeple, not the minaret, not the dome, nor all the sacred books of all the faiths. It is the image of the Earth itself as portrayed by the NASA photo of the planet taken from outer space a few short years ago. A huge reproduction of it should hang prominently in every place of worship, of every creed, denomination, faith, sect, or "ism."



-There are no borders in that world. There are no divisions. Meditating on it leaves all claims by this group or that to have a monopoly on God's truth exposed as absolutely silly; or, even worse, perverse. It speaks transformingly of one God, one world, one brotherhood and sisterhood of all humanity. It trumpets both the beauty and the fragility of our sacred trust in being given stewardship of such a miracle. It convicts the sins of arrogance, avariciousness, indifference, and injustice wherever they are rampant. It evokes a reverence and awe beyond that contained in any temple or shrine. By it, the Great Spirit speaks..."

Universal fascism, freedom betrayed: What is Mr. Bush doing?
".....Bush may be neither a Christian nor a conservative. He is something all-together different; something the world hasn’t seen for many decades, but all-together dangerous and maybe worse than history portends. Yes, for the true believers of the Left, there are much worse things than your skewed view of a Christian conservative. And for Christians on the Right, your views are not held in esteem at this White House. There is a not-so-new breed in charge these days..."

"[Michael] Ledeen has gained notoriety in recent months for the following paragraph in his latest book, The War Against the Terror Masters. In what reads like a prophetic approval of the policy of chaos now being visited on Iraq, Ledeen wrote,

'Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence-our existence, not our politics-threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission'..."

"...What are we to make of all this? Is this just the isolated mad ramblings of an overwrought mind, an intellectual masturbatory rant the likes we would expect from Michael Savage rather than an American Enterprise Institute intellectual? I fear we must take this all-too-seriously...."

"..There is much to ponder from authors like Detlev J.K. Puekert, Zeev Sternhell, Sebastian Haffner, and the masterwork of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, who, each in their own way, their own research or memoirs, finds the German people of the inter-war years, like the American people today post 9/11, seemingly, willingly prepared to throw away liberty, the U.S. Constitution, be harangued by a president whose language increasingly fills {mine if not
yours) my ears with a Towering Babel of rant, obfuscation and mediocrity; language better suited to a lower ranking non-commissioned officer. Come-on? “Bring ‘em on!”
-This is not the language of a statesman but a tyrant; language of “you’re either with us or against us.” This is language not befitting a free republic based upon democratic principles and liberty; a nation founded upon dissent and discourse not defamation and vitriol. But like it or not, left or right, free or bond this is the language of the new world order..."

SF Gate runs article about fellow blogger Kos
"...The city that Markos Moulitsas Zuniga runs isn't named Berkeley. It's called Daily Kos...and it's a city in the metaphorical sense, reached by mouse and keyboard...According to the Truth Laid Bear, a blog that tracks blogs, Daily Kos is the second most popular political blog, with about 70,000 visitors a day, trailing only the conservative Instapundit.

Speaking of fellow bloggers, my vote for the TTLB Showcase this week goes to American Amnesia

FYI:
2004 Primary Schedule- State by State
Alabama---June 1...................Nebraska- May 11
Alaska--- No Primary..............Nevada- None
Arkansas-- May 18.................N.H.- Jan 27
Arizona---- Feb 3....................N.J.- June 1
CA.--- Mar 2.................N.M.- June 1,Cauc-Feb 3
Colorado--- No Primary............N.Y.- Mar 2
Connecticut-- Mar 2................N.C.- May 4
Delaware--- Feb 3.........N.D. Caucus-Feb 3
Florida--- Mar 9..........................Ohio Mar 2
Georgia---Mar 2..........................OK.- Feb 3
Hawaii Cauc-Mar 2...........Oregon -May 18
Idaho-- May 25,Cauc-Feb 24.....PA. -Apr 27
Illinois--- Mar 16........................R.I.- Mar 2
Indiana- May 4..........................S.C.- Feb 3
Iowa Jan 19 (Caucus)..............S.D.- June 1
Kansas No Primary...................TN.- Feb 10
Kentucky May 18.....................Texas Mar 9
Louisiana Mar 9.................Utah No Primary
Maine Caucus-Feb 8..........Vermont Mar 2
MA.- Mar 2.........................Virginia Feb 10
MD.- Mar 2...........WA.-Caucus- Feb 7
MI. Caucus- Feb 7.......Wash D. C. Jan 13
MN.-Caucus- Mar 2...........W.V.- May 11
MS.- Mar 9..................Wisconsin Feb 17
MO.- Feb 3.............Wyoming No Primary
Montana- June 8

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Iowa is tomorrow!

The New Hampshire primary is January 27th.

On February 3, we'll see primaries in the "Super Seven" states: Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, and North Dakota, New Mexico (last two are caucus states).

Michigan Democratic Caucus comes on Feb 7.
Maine Democratic Caucus is slated for Feb 8.
February 10th bring the Tennessee and Virginia primaries.
Wisconsin wil be Feb 17.

Super Tuesday could indeed be super in 2004, with voting in ten states: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont. (Texas was also supposed to vote on March 2, but because of its redistricting brouhaha, it will be delayed until March 30.
Every campaign will find some hope in the March 2 list, with states West, East, North and South, large and small, not to mention liberal, moderate and conservative all up for grabs. It could be argued that a nominee will emerge on March 3 – or that the political world will wake up to a jumbled mess of several candidates with enough delegates to move on for another week.

March 9 is Southern Tuesday – Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi – and with Bob Graham no longer in the race, Florida, and its 228 delegates, is back in play. After the March 9 votes are counted, 82 percent of the delegates will have been determined and the nominee will most likely be known.

Slice of Grassroots Life-
A Dean Campaigner E-mails home from Iowa:

This is from an e-mail from a dedicated Central New York Dean grassroots campaigner. Currently in Iowa, Vicki writes "home" to the Syracuse For Dean group.

Excerpt:
"......Went out canvassing all day, same thing as petitioning in NYS, but you just have to also get the people to their local caucus site. As usual I had a blast. I feel somewhat disconnected because I haven't been able to read any net, or watch news, I just know how the people in Colfax, Iowa are feeling.


Colfax, IA

Louise gave me some of her homemade bread and then promised that she and her husband would caucus for Dean. The bread was out of this world.
Well I must really go and try to get some sleep....."
-Vicki from Syracuse for Dean

Maureen Dowd---Watch her degrade from a snotty sniper to a total b*tch
Howie dared to snub the kibbitzing mockery queen. I'd be upset if she wasn't so yesterday....don't get me wrong... I mean that in the most benign and corporate-journalistic way.

In case you missed what I said about "Her Lameness" on January 7th:
"Maureen Dowd is a sourpuss hiding behing her often-destructive line of humor."

I'll bet she's writing something nauseatingly rotten about Howard Dean as I post this blog entry.
It's anothing Gore-ing from Ms. Bore-ing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update: Here it is. Meow, b*tch.....Meow. ;)

...which leaves me five seconds to care about why Mo's career is sputtering.....

N.Y. Times Editorial:
Heartless Marriage Plans
This goes along perfectly well with my own comments from earlier this week.

Baltimore Sun: Sgt. 'Grandpa' Romero's lessons to a young soldier
by Michael Olesker
Simply, I think this is a wonderfully-written slice-of-life column about a couple of Americans serving in Iraq.
I wish we could know them all..the ones who serve. I wish we could hear all their tales and learn from them...their lessons would be so valuable.

My predictions for the Iowa Caucus
I know.
I shouldn't do this.
Judging from recent poll results, there's really no way of predicting how this will all turn out.
I'm going to use my intuition and try it, anyhow.

Here's my prediction for Top Four:

1. Howard Dean
2. Dick Gephardt
3. John Kerry
4. John Edwards

I think Dean will win by a fairly clean, healthy margin.
Dick Gephardt and John Kerry will be very close..perhaps even tie for second.

Hey-who knows? My guess is as good as yours.
We'll see!

Turkey's new diplomacy

Turkey's new diplomacy is an attempt by the current government to enhance its current relations with the United States by acting as a conduit to Syria and Iran. Let's hope the Bush administration (hopefully in its last year of power) does everything it can NOT to screw this up. We do not..I repeat..DO NOT need or want a war with Iran or Syria. We have enough trouble with Iraq (after being lied to about our reasons for being there). Let's hope Bush no longer relies upon Likud-like Americans such as Richard Perle. America needs hope for far more sane, peaceful, and positive resolutions.

Speaking of trouble with Iraq, I saw Professor Juan Cole last night on Jim Lehrer speaking about the situation with the Shiite ayatollah al-Sistani. Interesting. See this link for the interview.
One particular point Professor Cole drove home was that these Iraqi elections are not caucus elections as we Americans have come to understand them.
"....We're calling them caucus elections but they're not caucuses.
The base of the system has been largely appointed about it Americans and the British. They're hand picked, they're disproportionately Sunni; they're disproportionately ex-Baathists as many of them have been corrupt. There have been demonstrations against them in places recently. So the idea that the United States could have an election based upon its own hand picked constituency and then call that a sovereign Iraqi government was always a little chancy. And Sistani is now calling us on it."--Professor Juan Cole

Shiites are calling for elections, not caucuses, and this complicates U.S. plans for any handover of power.
We need to remember that when we ousted iron-fisted Saddam Hussein, we inherited a fractious nation. Bush hopes to hand over power by June, yet I can't see (in light of all the mistakes we've already made over there) how we WON'T be getting bogged down in a major ethnic power struggle.

The Democratic presidential candidates name their favorite vacation destinations:

Wesley Clark: Ski slopes
Howard Dean: Lake Champlain
Sen. John Edwards: The North Carolina beach
Rep. Dick Gephardt: Northern California
Sen. John Kerry: Cape Cod and the islands off of Massachusetts
Rep. Dennis Kucinich: A few days at home in Ohio
Sen. Joe Lieberman: South Florida
Al Sharpton: The Bahamas

Iddybud: Any place where it's not zero degrees (or lower). ;)

AP: State-By-State Breakdown of U.S. Deaths in the Iraqi Conflict

Breakdown of U.S. casualties in Iraq by state, according to Department of Defense records or family members:

Alabama - 13 Arizona - 13 Arkansas - 3 California - 55 Colorado - 8 Connecticut - 5 District of Columbia - 2 Delaware - 3 Florida - 16 Georgia - 15 Hawaii - 1 Idaho - 4 Illinois - 20 Indiana - 16 Iowa - 9 Kansas - 5 Kentucky - 4 Louisiana - 5 Maine - 2 Massachusetts - 9 Maryland - 5 Michigan - 20 Minnesota - 3 Mississippi - 10 Missouri - 10 Montana - 1 North Carolina - 13 North Dakota - 3 New Hampshire - 1 New Jersey - 10 New Mexico - 1 New York - 21 Nebraska - 6 Nevada - 3 Ohio - 15 Oklahoma - 7 Oregon - 8 Pennsylvania - 28 Rhode Island - 3 South Carolina - 12 South Dakota - 4 Tennessee - 12 Texas - 40 Utah - 4 Virginia - 13 Vermont - 5 West Virginia - 1 Washington - 7 Wisconsin - 9 Wyoming - 4 American Samoa - 2 Puerto Rico - 7

Baltimore City Paper/Brian Morton:
The Naked Emperor
"....The influential Washington, D.C.- based columnist and Weblogger Joshua Micah Marshall has a saying about national politics that goes, "Open secrets only get discussed by the press once a prominent person states them publicly...."
.....The sad thing about all this isn't how the American people have been misled and lied to by this president--all the signs were there for that. It's that the dominant media culture has bought into the idea that intangibles like "character" and "leadership" matter more than anything the president actually does. You can hear it in every official statement about Bush. When 60 Minutes asked White House spokesman Scott McClellan about the book, his response was a classic non sequitur that addressed nothing but put forth all the touchy-feely leadership memes that have become this administration's trademark: "The president is someone that leads and acts decisively on our biggest priorities, and that is exactly what he'll continue to do."
It's a shame that it has taken a fired Cabinet member to point out the obvious. It's a tragedy that it has taken this long for America to actually "hear" what we knew all along--that this emperor has no clothes."

Bohemian Mama Blog -
Political Predictions for 2004
This is a must-see.
Priceless!

Sample:
February 2004: Bitter weather across the nation brings down the voting numbers in the major February primaries. But enough people snowshoe to their voting booths in order to cast their votes for Dean, Edwards and Clark. Unfortunately, they might as well have stayed home, since the Diebold machines they voted on decided instead that Joe Lieberman (or was that Gephardt?) won in every state that held a primary. Meanwhile, broken, rotting 30-year old cans of chemicals are found buried in the desert in Iraq and Sean Hannity almost has a heart attack rejoicing over found WMDs. More soldiers die.

REPRINT: May, 2003
Truthout Interview With Howard Dean
An exclusive interview of Howard Dean by William Rivers Pitt

William Rivers Pitt/Truthout:
The Lies For War Unravel
"...Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski wore the uniform of the United States military for most of her adult life. In the last few years, until her retirement last April after 20 years of service, she has watched the infrastructure of American foreign policy creation rot from the inside out. Her view was not from the cheap seats, from some faraway vantage point, but from the hallways where the cancer walked and talked. Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski worked in the same Defense Department offices where the cadre of hawkish neoconservatives that came in with George W. Bush trashed America's reputation, denigrated her fellow soldiers, and recreated the processes of government into a contra-constitutional laughingstock.."

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski/American Conservative:
Open Door Policy
A strange thing happened on the way to the war. *Part Three of a series*

Part One here

Part II (sorry, not online) shows how the intelligence-gathering process was subverted by the War Party.

Karen Kwiatkowski archive here

American Prospect/Robert Kuttner:
America as a One-Party State
Today's hard right seeks total dominion. It's packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself.
"...The United States could become a nation in which the dominant party rules for a prolonged period, marginalizes a token opposition and is extremely difficult to dislodge because democracy itself is rigged. This would be unprecedented in U.S. history.......the drift toward an engineered one-party Republican state has aroused little press scrutiny or widespread popular protest........
We are at risk of becoming an autocracy in three key respects.
-First, Republican parliamentary gimmickry has emasculated legislative opposition in the House of Representatives (the Senate has other problems)....
-Second, electoral rules have been rigged to make it increasingly difficult for the incumbent party to be ejected by the voters, absent a Depression-scale disaster, Watergate-class scandal or Teddy Roosevelt-style ruling party split...
-Third, the federal courts, which have slowed some executive-branch efforts to destroy liberties, will be a complete rubber stamp if the right wins one more presidential election.....
".....We've seen divided government before, with a Democratic president and a fiercely partisan Republican Congress. It is not pretty. But it is much more attractive than a one-party state."

OnLine Journal:
Edwards, Hootie and me
"..With Madonna for Clark, Whoopi for Dean and now Hootie for Edwards, what is an educated voter to do?"

What fills a person with hate?
I guarantee no one will walk away from this writing-collection feeling satisfied. Rosbalt News' German-based writer Barukh Namir offers five "highly personal views" of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, portraying the depth of feeling that separates the participants. This is not easy to read. Be prepared.

Almost One Year Ago:
A bitterly sarcastic view of the U.S. written just before the pre-emptive strike on Iraq

As the Bush administration lays out its case to crawl back to the U.N. and use her for a mixed purpose of politics and failure, we recognize that the U.N. is no more respected by the U.S. than a well-used trollop.

"....The 'unreality' of this pre-war period emphasizes the irrelevance of those international institutions whose legitimacy was based on the realities of fifty years ago and the pointlessness of some non-American politicians' attempts to observe the decencies and pretend to be 'independent', when it is quite clear that these same politicians have no independence whatsoever and will only be called upon to clear up the mess, like servants, after the first night of war has passed."

Revisionists are already arranging the elementary-school American history books and setting the stage for a monument to Dubya.

".......the USA will never be condemned for making war on Iraq, not in absurd international tribunals, nor by the world in general. Nobody will even consider the worthiness or unworthiness of the victor or whether the USA was right or wrong or think of America's actions from a political, legal or even moral standpoint. Nobody will ask whether war was really inevitable, they will simply accept it, as if war were as integral and inevitable a part of nature as a storm can be after a long, hot summer..."

If I knew this was where the bridge to the 21st Century was leading us, I may well have jumped over the side, swam back to the 20th, and warned the others who'd not yet begun the crossing. Hope is all we really have now that we've crossed the bridge, but there is little hope provided in this writer's strong words. What hurts is that there is a sting of truth in what he says. This next excerpt brings FOX News to mind:

"....Every stupefying technical detail of the upcoming war should help us to forget about who the war is against. This includes fear and hatred. You can't hate the enemies in a computer game and you mustn't think about who will die as a result of the amazing technological power of the US army. Whatever happens, it will be great to watch..."

Here we are, the most powerful nation on earth..using our power most irresponsibly and unwisely. We seem to have dropped our souls at the edge of the 21st Century bridge. Think back..where did we last see them? Are you certain you left home with them? My God, what have we done? Where will all this war lead a soulless people?
Is there a leader who can help us remember what hope meant? Without the ability to be inspired for a hopeful tomorrow, I'm afraid...not afraid of an orange alert or a terror attack...I'm afraid our American liberties will be the next in line to be reduced to nothing more than a well-used political tool by the leaders who are supposed to be protecting them. After too many lies, I do not feel I can trust our leaders to protect what is most precious to us as American citizens...what our fighting men and women are used for...die for.

Using the writer's words about the U.N. and replacing them with the Bill of Rights:

"...The 'unreality' of this post 9-11 period emphasizes the irrelevance of the Bill of Rights whose legitimacy was based on the realities of two-hundred twenty-one years ago and the pointlessness of some citizens' attempts to understand the rights and pretend to 'enjoy them', when it is quite clear that these same citizens will have no rights whatsoever and will only be free enough to obey the state, like servants, after the first night of the Patriot Act has passed."