The Cons live in a very strange world. It’s a world in which the “free-market” supposedly fixes everything by itself and so is pursued with religious vigor that would make Orthodox followers scratch their heads. It’s a world in which every dark-skinned person in a viable, current threat to the safety and security of the Cons’ gated communities, except for the ones that are rich (see: Saudi Arabian royalty, etc). It’s a world in which the term climate-change is a far-left conspiracy theory that has somehow grabbed power in nearly every country’s government, that nearly every scientist is somehow a part of and that nearly every media outlet is somehow a part of to boot. It doesn’t have to make sense to the rest of us – the Cons excel at cognitive dissonance.
In this fantasy land, the daughter of the last Vice-President Puppet-Master is somehow considered to be a leader in developing Con opposition to President Obama’s foreign policy initiatives. Never mind that saying the President’s foreign policies weren’t in America’s interests got you labeled “traitor” and “terrist-lover” by the same Cons just one short year ago. The difference was the “President” was a Con, so his directives comes down from up-high, don’tcha know? Now that the President is a half-black man, all that is out the window. Nothing President Obama can or will do will ever be good enough for these rigid ideologues.
No matter what the issue, Cons have demonstrated that their only party platform is whatever anti-Obama happens to be. In a growing number of cases, this holds true … until the Cons end up working for the opposite of what they initially “stood for”. Confused yet? Don’t be – let’s look at the latest example. The Cons were entirely against the stimulus funding late last year and early this year. They issued their typical free-market-religious talking points that made no sense and patted themselves on the back for opposing anything that President Obama wanted done.
Now, a different story emerges. The same Cons who voted against the stimulus are now begging for some of those stimulus dollars to be doled out to NASA instead of other places. Now, don’t get me wrong. They certainly haven’t had an epiphany about the role that science should play in our society. No, we’re still a looooong way from that. Like everything else, this beg-session is all about politics. In this case, they can bring home some federal money (since they refuse to pay for things themselves, socialists that they are) and pat each other on the back about that.
The best part? They continue to slam the stimulus funding while begging for it to be redirected toward NASA. Two opposing viewpoints in the same request! How uniquely conservative of them.
It would make more sense for these clowns to request an increase in NASA’s operating budget for FY10 or FY11, if they’re really so concerned about the space program. But that won’t happen. They’re anti-public-investment, anti-health care reform, pro-rich tax cuts and pro-occupation. You see, Trillions of future taxpayer dollars can be spent occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. Billions and billions of taxpayer dollars can be redistributed from the middle class to the rich. But health care reform and stimulus? Not a chance! Unless they can get something out of it politically. That’s immoral.
The recent Mumbai attacks led Tom Brokaw to pose a very serious question to Barack Obama. Obama’s response is worth examining. Here’s the exchange:
MR. BROKAW: I want to move now to international affairs, the war on terror. Obviously, we have all been stunned by what happened in India at Mumbai. It is still playing out in that part of the world. You have said that the United States reserves the right to go after terrorists in Pakistan if you have targets of opportunity. Does India now also have that right of hot pursuit?
PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Well, I’m not going to comment on that. What, what I’m going to restate is a basic principle. Number one, if a country is attacked, it has the right to defend itself. I think that’s universally acknowledged.
The acceptance of the Bush Doctrine by Democrats will continue to stymie Democrats foreign policy for years to come. It stymied what should have been an otherwise straightforward answer by Obama. Common wisdom inside the D.C. punditry will compare everything Obama does to Bush’s policies because Obama and other prominent Democrats didn’t speak out forcefully against them during the past six years plus. When Democrats didn’t speak out against them, I wondered why. Would it be because they agree with it but don’t want to be seen as similary lawless and morally bankrupt as the Cons have been? Obama’s response tells me that that very well could be the case.
He did comment on that by stating that country’s can respond to attacks, much like the U.S. did after 9/11. He didn’t qualify his answer to indicate that any response would arise from moral underpinnings. His answer is disturbing. The U.S. should in no way encourage Indian and Pakistani tesnsions to escalate. Both have nuclear weapons. A nuclear disaster should be avoided at all costs. Any oblique non-response to Brokaw’s question moves the world further down a slippery slope we shouldn’t be on. Russia recently identified the Bush Doctrine as an open door to their invasion of Georgia earlier this year. How many cases should be allowed to happen before the policy is emphatically rejected by Obama and other future U.S. Presidents?
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Also in foreign policy news, the planned strategic deployment of Marines in Afghanistan is likely to change. Instead of being posted close to the Afghan/Pakistan border, some Marines will instead be posted closer to Kabul, the capital. That’s in response to this year’s Taliban advancements through Afghanistan. It’s a situation that deteriorates every day. President-elect Obama won’t have enough troops available to him to sufficiently take care of events in both Iraq and Afghanistan. One has to take priority. To boot, Bush is leaving Obama a severely depleted military – personnel and materiel have been significantly weakened.
The modern emergency room, as most people think of it, has an emergency of its own: It’s packed, costly, noisy, and overrun by uninsured freeloaders who can’t legally be turned away once they walk through the ER doors. If you’ve actually been in an ER in the past few years, you know the first three things are true—but how much do you know about the rest of the people in the waiting room? As it turns out, they’re not disproportionately uninsured patients with nowhere else to turn. They’re more likely to be people who do have insurance.
A number of myths are taken apart in the interview with Dr. Manya Newton, an emergency physician at the University of Michigan. Here’s just one: 85-90% of all emergency room visits are people with insurance. The uninsured aren’t clogging the ER.
The impacts of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq won’t be known for years. Already, the seeds of future problems in Iraq are being laid. John McCain likes to talk about how Iraq is one big happy country. The truth: ascendent, new tribal leaders have been splitting up provinces into their own private fiefdoms, weakening the central government’s power and directly challenging the “democratic” system the neo-CONS put in place. Almost 100,000 Sunni fighters are being paid by the U.S. to not attack U.S. military forces. As Iraq’s government moves to expand its role, it has refused to accept these fighters into the official Iraqi military and police forces. What happens when the Sunni fighters take up arms against the elected Iraqi government? The U.S. created a situation where Iran will likely become a much stronger regional player.
The corporate media still loves Pickens’ (Insane) Plan. Switching from oil to natural gas makes no sense. It will enrich Pickens and it will do nothing to alleviate the climate crisis. The U.S. needs to take bold steps toward zero-emission transportation. Pickens would have us wait 10-30 years before doing so. Meanwhile, the climate continues to be forced by humans.
One of my pet peeves in the arena of politics is pollster’s phrasing of questions. More often than not, they’re phrased poorly. Case in point today: a Pew poll asking about Iraq, specifically the Iraq “war”. The problem I have is with the larger message. Are we battling the Iraqi government and military today? No. Our military is fighting against guerilla elements, only some of which having an association with the Iraqi government. No, the United States is occupying Iraq, against their will and against the will of Americans. Nobody in the corporate media and its lackeys is willing to admit to this, however.
And here is why it matters: if the debate about Iraq centered around our occupation and not a war against its forces, more Americans would demand an end to that occupation. Admittedly, a majority of Americans continue to think the Iraq invasion was a bad idea and a majority also want American troops to come home. In the face of Bush’s Bailout, which could cost $700 billion or more, Americans would be quite adamant about returning troops stateside, recognizing the continuing costs of occupying Iraq are too much to handle.
The quixotic wording of Pew’s questions has led to 58% surveyed saying the Iraq “war” is going well and 58% saying the U.S. is winning. It’s the winning question that really gets to me. We won the war, a very, very short time after we invaded. Since Mission Accomplished, U.S. forces have been occupying Iraq. The Iraqis continue to have no successful political progress, despite the escalation Bush ordered last year. As such, how is America winning the occupation? What is the end goal of that occupation that America is theoretically moving toward? Organizations like Pew won’t ask those questions. And this country continues to bleed $12 billion per month as well as more servicemember casualties because of it.
Help Jared Polis get to 100 donors by this Friday. As of Wednesday afternoon, he has 40 donors. Donate whatever you want. A progressive voice that understands the importance of the netroots can go to Congress if we all chip in a little! Also, visit his campaign website.
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I thought Iraq was supposed to be the central front of the ultimate war between the civilized Western world and the extremist terrorist jihadists. If so, then why in the world would our media devote 181 weekday minutes to coverage of Iraq in just under six months? That’s way down from 1,157 minutes in all of 2007 by the major networks. Throw out the liberal media junk before you try to excuse this away. The networks are wholly owned by right-leaning mega-corporations. And there is the answer: if the network news had covered the actual events within Iraq during the past year, Republicans would have been bodily carried out from office by now. As long as the media pretends nothing bad happens in Iraq, people in the States can concentrate on other things.
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Gov. Ritter’s Energy Office announced four utility companies that will begin offering rebates for Small Wind Turbine installations. They are:
Highline Electric Association
Contact: Jason Depperschmidt, 970-854-2236, jason@hea.coop
Sangre De Cristo Electric Association, Inc
Contact: Bill Bennett, 719-395-4590, bennett@myelectric.coop
Southeast Colorado Power Association
Contact: Jack Wolfe, 719-384-2551, jackw@secpa.com
Town of Estes Park
Contact: Michael Mangelsen, 970-577-3583, mmangelsen@estes.org
Homeowners and businesses can arrange with these utilities to install a small wind turbine. The partners listed above will issue the rebates, not the state government.
If you want a similar program in your area, contact your local elected officials and ask them to get in touch with your Regional Representative about the Small Wind Incentive Program. The more interest we can demonstrate, the larger programs like this can become. Even small scale systems reduce our dependence on polluting energy sources like coal and natural gas.
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President Bush is whining that Democrats keep blocking his energy plans. He keeps trying to stick Democrats with part of the blame for the current price of oil and gas because they oppose opening up millions of new acres to leases to energy corporations. First: Bush need look no further than his own secret energy policy developed by energy lobbyists as to why oil and gas cost so much (not that he really even cares what most Americans have to pay anyway). Second: Quit your whining, Bush. There’s a reason you keep reaching record lows in polls. Your record on energy is a small part of the reason why only 71% of Americans don’t support you. Perhaps if Bush had concentrated on running the country instead of his legacy, Americans might still back him.
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2010 will be primary season, as Markos details. There are a large number of Democrats who have voted too many times against Democratic principles. Some folks are balking at that number, but I think it gives progressive activists choices. We don’t need to target every single one of them, just some of them. I would like to see a better Democrat than John Salazar in CO-03. Yes, he’s better than a Republican some of the time. I want someone who is better than a Republican more often.
This morning, Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald spoke with the morning talk-show host for the Denver/Boulder area, Jay Marvin on AM760. Joan is running to represent Colorado’s 2nd congressional district (CO-02). Her Democratic opponents include Jared Polis and Will Shafroth. There is an Aug. 12th primary election that will decide who the Democratic nominee for the seat will be. Then in November, the winner will face off against other party opponents. As CO-02 is solidly Democratic, the primary really constitutes the only meaningful race. The current CO-02 representative, Mark Udall, is running for the open U.S. Senate seat. Thus, there is no incumbent.
Joan started the conversation by telling Jay she has a sense of urgency about the state of the country that she doesn’t see in other members of Congress. She spoke about inertia in our political system. I think this was likely in reference to introducing “new” concepts/policies and getting them implemented. My opinion? Democrats have had a harder time than Republicans. Look at what Republicans passed in the six years from 2001 to 2006. Will Joan lead the charge to introduce progressive policies if elected?
She was asked to list her top three issues. She named the war, the economy, and health care as top concerns CO-02 residents identify. Then she went into some detail about each.
She said she was the only candidate who supported immediate withdrawal. I don’t consider this to be true. Jared Polis helped craft something called “The Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq“. Currently, 54 Democratic House candidates have endorsed it. Joan Fitz-Gerald is not one of them. She has said it is a bad plan, that it won’t accomplish what it says it will. I’m not aware of any specific points she disagrees with. And I definitely haven’t heard any specifics on how she would propose we immediately withdraw from Iraq. Unfortunately, this sounds just like climate change delayers: criticize everybody else’s plans, but don’t come up with your own. I don’t consider that to be leadership.
A group of folks running for Congress released a plan for Iraq yesterday. Entitled “A Responsible Plan To End The War In Iraq“, it starts by recognizing that helping Iraq move forward is no longer in the hands of the military. In fact, a military-led solution hasn’t been viable for some time now. Maintaining our military presence in occupation fashion will not lead to a situation in which the Iraqis will be able to take complete control of their country. It also addresses examining what went wrong in the lead-up and execution of the invasion and resulting occupation. In order to not make similar mistakes in the future (ahem, Iran), we need to understand how we got to this point.
Darcy Burner (WA-8), Chellie Pingree (ME-1), Donna Edwards (MD-4), Jared Polis (CO-2), Tom Perriello (VA-5) and Sam Bennett (PA-15) were in attendance at the unveiling of the detailed strategy document at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC. Other challengers participating in the effort but unable to attend the event included Eric Massa (NY-29), Larry Byrnes (FL-14), George Fearing (WA-4) and Steve Harrison (NY-13).
From the press release: “Originating outside the Beltway and based on consultations with retired generals and other national security experts on a path forward to end the war, the challengers’ document lays out a series of actions for Congress to take to end United States military involvement in Iraq, strengthen America and improve our standing around the world, restore accountability and checks and balances to our government and work toward energy independence.”
It’s about time we’ve had some leadership displayed on the most critical foreign policy issue this country is facing.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign suddenly doesn’t like how the Texas Democratic Party conducts their caucus-primary. Funny that they had no arguments when polls showed them likely to win. I’ll say again she’s doing nothing to endear herself to me. With regard to November: if she continues on this path of scorched-earth policy, I will not vote for her. I levied complaints against how Bush got into office. It would be disingenuous of me to forgive Hillary for doing similar things.
Turkey continues military operations in northern Iraq, with the U.S. providing intelligence and tactical support. This is a clear indication of destabilization of the region. Some irony: “U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who arrived in Ankara, the Turkish capital, Wednesday night, told reporters he intended to advise Turkish leaders that their incursion into northern Iraq must last no more than a few weeks. He also planned to tell them that the military operation should be complemented by political efforts to resolve the grievances of the Kurdish minority in eastern Turkey. But Turkey ruled out specifying a timetable for an end to the offensive.”
It’s interesting that the U.S. is demanding an arbitrary timetable for Turkish operations, something they refuse to consider for their own. “Do as I say, not as I do” is typical from a strict-father world-view.
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Update
I totally forgot to include this juicy piece: $4 gasoline is news to Bush. Color me surprised that Mr. 29% has no idea what most Americans are facing. His solution? Make his tax cuts permanent. It’s got to be hard to ignore reality to this degree.
