AntiWar.com
The Prime Directive
Excerpt: It looks like the War Party is victorious, at least according to Philip Giraldi writing on The American Conservative blog:
by Justin Raimondo
12 May 2008 at 2:00am
Politicizing the Tragedy in Burma
Excerpt: From the administration that used the 9/11 tragedy to violently pursue an unrelated vendetta against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, we get Round Two.
by Ivan Eland
12 May 2008 at 2:00am
Ex-Gitmo Suicide Bomber Fuels Pentagon Propaganda
Excerpt: Rather horribly, it seems, a former Guantanamo prisoner, Abdullah al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti who was repatriated in November 2005 and who later married and had a child, blew himself up as a suicide bomber in Mosul, Iraq, last month.
by Andy Worthington
12 May 2008 at 2:00am
The Long Night
Excerpt: Have you ever wondered how human beings can be so cruel? And how cruelty crosses all the boundaries -- national, racial, and ethnic? I have. Rereading an autobiography published in 1941 by a communist agent reminded me of the dark side of human nature.
by Charley Reese
12 May 2008 at 2:00am
Sunday: 37 Iraqis Killed, 38 Wounded
Excerpt: Updated at 12:13 a.m. EDT, May 12, 2008 Casualties in Sadr City have tapered off as the truce between the Iraqi government and Shi'ite militiamen appears to be holding. Still, at least 37 Iraqis were killed and 38 more were wounded in violence across Iraq. Meanwhile, Turkey launched air and artillery attacks into northern Iraq. No Coalition deaths were reported.
by update
11 May 2008 at 2:00am
Saturday: 2 US Soldiers, 50 Iraqis Killed; 147 Iraqis Wounded
Excerpt: Updated at 9:32 p.m. EDT, May 10, 2008 The Iraqi government and Mahdi army sources have apparently reached an agreement to suspend fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City suburb; however, the U.S. military continued air strikes. At least 50 Iraqis were killed and 147 were injured in the latest attacks. Also, one American soldier died of non-combat injuries yesterday and a second soldier died in a vehicular accident in Anbar.
by update
10 May 2008 at 2:00am
Who Are the Afghans Just Released from Guantanamo?
Excerpt: For the five Afghans who returned home on the same flight as al-Jazeera journalist Sami al-Haj and the other three prisoners described in my previous article, the future is disturbingly uncertain. As I reported last December, when 13 of their compatriots were released from Guantanamo, they, like the other 19 Afghans released in August, September and November, were not freed outright, as was the case with the 152 other Afghans previously released, but were instead transferred to Block D, a wing of Pol-i-Charki, Kabul's main prison, which was recently refurbished by the U.S. authorities.
by Andy Worthington
10 May 2008 at 2:00am
Senator Rambo
Excerpt: Sen. John McCain has said he will be Hamas' worst nightmare. It's a juvenile thing to say. The line sounded more convincing when Sly Stallone said it in one of his Rambo movies.
by Charley Reese
10 May 2008 at 2:00am
Can P5+1 Offer Break Iran Nuclear Stalemate?
Excerpt: The P5+1 -- the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany -- will present Tehran with a secret incentive package in the next few days to convince Iran to suspend its enrichment program and enter negotiations.
by Trita Parsi
10 May 2008 at 2:00am
Iraqis Running Out of Water in Rising Heat
Excerpt: BAQUBA -- The water supply is drying out in what was once the agriculturally rich Diyala province north of Baghdad. Baquba, the capital city of Diyala, is now running out of water both for drinking and for irrigation.
by Ahmed Ali
10 May 2008 at 2:00am
Huffington Post
I was playing basketball over the weekend and one of the funniest moments in trash talk history happened. We were playing pick up ball at a park in LA. A guy drove into the lane and got his shit swatted ("his shot was blocked" for the basketball illiterate). He called a foul.
This happens often in pickup ball when someone gets their shit sent (again, when their shot is rejected). They feel embarrassed and insist on calling a non-existent foul, as if they wouldn't have been sent so badly if they weren't fouled at the same time.
Now, this was a little unusual because even his own team didn't have his back. Everyone on the court pretty much agreed that he was not fouled. But nonetheless he insisted. Then someone came up with a line bound for the trash talking hall of fame, "This guy is pulling a Hillary."
That, of course, means he won't let it go when everyone else can plainly see that the argument is over and he is the only one who still believes he is right. They called him Hillary for the rest of the game. And I laughed and laughed.
The only thing worse than getting rejected is not fessing up to it. That's called "pulling a Hillary."
Young Turks on You Tube
by Cenk Uygur
12 May 2008 at 2:05am
Mark Green: 7 Days with Arianna: This Week's Political Scandals Don't Touch a...
This week three below-the-fold scandals threatened three politicians while Sen. Obama stayed "clean," in the good meaning of Sen. Biden's adjective of a year ago. Because Barack Houdini easily escaped the chains of Rev. Wright and because of "the math" after the North Carolina romp, it certainly looks like it's too late for Clinton to stop him- just like when the Phillies couldn't make up seven games with only 14 to play in the National League East race in 2007. Remember?
First came Vito Fossella, as of this writing a five-term congressman from Staten Island-Brooklyn. A good-looking, buff Republican with a reputation, said a colleague, of being "the Paris Hilton of Congressmen," he lived down to his reputation when, driving drunk, he made the mistake of spilling the beans to cops at 3 am where his mistress and previously unknown love-child were sleeping. If you're a public figure urging that the 10 Commandments be posted in public places, it's probably a good idea to live to #4 about coveting other women. And "if you're going to be in the party of family values," said commentator Doug Muzzio, "you shouldn't have more than one."
Second was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who appears likely to soon join Fossella in the ex-category. It was widely reported this week that a Long Island businessman, Morris Talansky, personally gave Olmert hundreds of thousands of dollars while he was mayor of Jerusalem and running against Ariel Sharon for leadership of the Likud Party. Olmert, suffering his fifth financial investigation in recent years, denied the money was a bribe but said that he'd quit his position if indicted.
(And if he leaves office, it appears likely that he'd be succeeded by a former Labor PM, Ehud Barak, which would delight tabloid headline writers when the likely leaders of the U.S. and Israel meet in 2009.)
Third, President Bush is refusing to reappoint the Republican chair of the Federal Elections Commission, David Mason, apparently because he previously indicated that Senator McCain may have violated the law by first saying that he'd participate in the public financing system in order to get a loan to salvage his campaign, and then getting out of the system. Bad enough that Bush says that he'll do whatever his generals ask of him in Iraq, while conveniently firing generals who don't agree with him. Here he's corruptly firing judges who don't agree with how his nominee is gaming the campaign money system. Since McCain's hypocrisy is as obvious as Fossella's -- admittedly less sexy but far more consequential -- let's see if the mainstream media lets their favored McCain off the hook when he violates the campaign finance system he brags about.
Which brings us to a politician this week who rose above his predicament - viz., a big loss in Pennsylvania, Rev. Wright's notorious pronouncements and his "bittergate" gaffe lead many observers to question Barack Obama's prospects. And these signs of weakness were occurring at the very moment that most pundits were kvelling at Hillary Clinton's newfound energy, confidence and luster as a candidate on the offensive in Indiana and North Carolina. Yet her balloon popped when he outperformed polls by 7 points in each state, allowing Obama to go from near-toast to toast of the town, as discussed by our 7 Days in America panel of Joe Klein, Arianna Huffington, Ron Reagan and me. (Listen to the show here.)
The near unanimous view was that "we know who the nominee's going to be," according to Tim Russert of NBC Tuesday night. Indeed her fault-lines and his trend-lines were impossible to deny. Clinton needs two-thirds of the remaining 460 or so elected and super delegates to be the nominee, just as the tide among supers is flowing entirely Obama's way - for example, he surpassed her in super-delegates this week, for the first time ever. It sure appears to be over.
But.
Beyond the phenomenon of her base rallying whenever she's counted out and beyond her likely upcoming big wins in West Virginia and Kentucky, she's down to arguing, clumsily and racially, that she can more easily win white Reagan Democrats. There are plenty of answers to that: he can make up for lost white blue-collar votes by enlarging his young and black base (as Huffington argues); losing such Democrats to her doesn't mean that he'll lose them to McCain (as Reagan argues); it should be inconceivable for the party of Jefferson and FDR and Kennedy to snatch the nomination away from the first black man to have won the most pledged delegates (as nearly all talking heads argue).
Yet it's also inconceivable that a party wanting to avoid Bush III at all costs would nominate the weaker candidate by the math of the (alas, undemocratic) Electoral College. Can Clinton at this 11th hour convince remaining delegates that based on a poll of polls, she's winning the presidency, say, 330-230 electorally while Obama is only tying McCain 270-270? In fact, this week on RealClearPolitics, Clinton is running 8-10 points better against McCain in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
What if that's true after all the primaries are concluded June 3? All pundits tell us that it's too late for such speculation, that he's reached the tipping point, that she can't get 67% of remaining delegates. And so far Obama's IQ, EQ and tone have risen to and surmounted every test. Hence a level of political unanimity that hasn't been seen since, well, since a Newsweek poll in the Fall of 1948 found that national commentators by 50-0 agreed that the math was impossible for Truman.
They call it political science, but it ain't science.
Excerpts for 7 Days in America, May 10th, with Joe Klein, Huffington, Green & Reagan
To listen to the whole show please go here.
KLEIN: Q: Why was the media so wrong before North Carolina and Indiana by writing that Clinton was climbing and connecting while Obama was faltering? "Well, I think that she overreached, in retrospect. I copped to having made a mistake privately in my own mind in the days before those two primaries because she did seem like she was on fire, and the gas tax holiday is the kind of issue that has worked before in general elections. But what I wasn't doing, and what many of us in the media weren't doing, was separating out the fact that this was a Democratic primary and Democrats tend to take policy pretty seriously. In this case it was clear that the gas tax holiday was a scam."
KLEIN: Q: Was it being factually honest or racially clumsy for Hillary Clinton to state that Obama was doing poorly with 'hard-working white voters'? "I think it's a mistake to say it, but I'll give her the right to make mistakes, especially at this point. I think the Clintons need grief counseling at this point more than anything else. When you're in a kind of state of shock and denial, you'll say foolish things although in this case it was a classic Michael Kinsley gaffe, meaning that she was just saying the truth."
KLEIN: Q: Any doubt the two Clintons wouldn't go all out to help Obama this fall, if he's the nominee? "No, I don't think there's any question at all. And in fact I think that the Democratic Party is going to be totally united."
HUFFINGTON: Q: Why does Clinton appear to be on the brink of defeat -- his strategically smart campaign or her campaign miscues? "I think it is a combination of the moment that is really favoring Barack more than Hillary in terms of the absolute extraordinary longing for real change. The outrage over the last, almost eight years has meant that people want to really close this chapter and move on, and Obama embodied that. On the Hillary Clinton side, I think Mark Penn miscalculated. I think the idea of running her as the inevitable candidate was simply faulty and in the end she could not recover from that."
GREEN: "Let me just say, this will probably be the last time a presidential campaign's key strategist will also hold another job. Mark Penn was simultaneously running a major public relations firm: he was on a book tour. Perhaps he wouldn't have made the mistakes attributed to him if the candidate had said, [as Bush did to Rove, 'I want to be your only client'."
REAGAN: Q: Is it legitimate to worry that Obama may not carry 'Reagan Democrats' this fall? "Just because someone doesn't vote for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in a primary doesn't mean that they're not going to vote for him instead of John McCain. On the other hand, we all know that there are pockets of white voters in this country who simply are not going to vote for the black guy. Now what Obama has to do is convince them not to vote for McCain either."
HUFFINGTON: "There are obviously racists in this country, but Obama's appeal is to go beyond the traditional likely voters in an election. And if you think of it, we normally forget about the 50% of eligible voters who don't vote, and if he can appeal to 5%, 7%, a percentage of them, that's going to make up for any number of racists in America."
REAGAN: Q: Has this long primary contest helped or hurt the Democrats? "I think so far it has been a net gain for them. There have been some down moments, no doubt about that. But by and large it's energized the base of the Democratic party, it's brought new voters into the Democratic party, and there's just an excitement and a buzz around the, let's just say, the Obama candidacy that doesn't exist around McCain's candidacy."
by Mark Green
11 May 2008 at 11:07pm
John Tepper Marlin: McCain and Myanmar
Senator John McCain told Katie Couric on May 8 that Myanmar has "a very bad government" and that the United States should "ask the other countries in the region as well as China" to "really put some pressure on the junta" to accept humanitarian aid for cyclone victims.
"Very bad"?
The Burmese junta is worse than "very bad" - in its response to the disaster it is murderous of its own people. According to a story in the May 12 NY Times by a reporter from Burma whose name is not disclosed for obvious reasons,
- the junta is accepting only one-tenth the humanitarian aid that is being offered to cyclone victims,
- an estimated 1.5 million Burmese are at risk of death from starvation or disease,
- Burmese residents are forbidden to offer help, and
- one volunteer even had her car confiscated along with rice she was carrying to victims.
"Ask the other countries ... to really put some pressure on the junta"?
McCain's first major appointment upon winning the Republican nomination for President was Doug Goodyear, an Arizona PR consultant with just one foreign client... Myanmar.
Picked by McCain to manage the GOP convention, Goodyear heads up a firm that in 2002 collected $348,000 - more than 10 percent of the firm's reported annual revenues - to really put some pressure on the United States to "begin a dialogue of political reconciliation" with the junta. Goodyear's firm attacked Bush administration reports of "deplorable" human rights abuses in Myanmar, describing them as "falsehoods".
Within hours of the Newsweek scoop on Saturday, Goodyear wisely resigned from his McCain assignment.
A YouTube post summarizes the story and concludes with a photo of McCain and the voiceover:
"It's about a lack of judgment."
by John Tepper Marlin
11 May 2008 at 10:38pm
Ben Cohen: Time Magazine Advocates invading Burma
For Time magazine's World Editor Romesh Ratnesar, two failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aren't enough to dissuade him from invading another country. In his ridiculous, irresponsible and downright idiotic article Is It Time to Invade Burma? Ratnesar argues the U.S military should take out the Burmese government for its incompetent handling of the humanitarian disaster.
The military junta in Burma is a disgusting government guilty of vicious crimes against its own people. No one wants to see them continue in power, and everything should be done to help the Burmese rid themselves of the regime.
But invading them unilaterally is not only illegal, but criminally stupid.
"The trouble is that the Burmese haven't shown the ability or willingness to deploy the kind of assets needed to deal with a calamity of this scale," writes Ratnesar. "And the longer Burma resists offers of help, the more likely it is that the disaster will devolve beyond anyone's control."
"That's why it's time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma."
Joining the list of imperialist geniuses that got us into Iraq, Ratnesar's inexplicable faith in the U.S government's ability to nation build defies rational belief.
"As the response to the 2004 tsunami proved, the world's capacity for mercy is limitless. But we still haven't figured out when to give war a chance," he writes.
We still haven't figured out when to give war a chance? Really? Where has Ratnesar been for the last 5 years? War is about the only thing we have given a chance, and it isn't exactly going well. Taking a hammer to every international problem has not only bankrupted America, but destroyed its image around the world. Illegally invading another sovereign nation, no matter how abhorrent it is, would not do much to improve it.
The fact is, invading countries mean people, including Americans, will die. The Burmese government won't sit back quietly while foreign troops take over their country, and neither will the people. As much as they hate their government, they will not take kindly to an American 'liberation,' and the blow back would likely be vicious.
While Ratnesar's intentions may be noble, his cavalier assertion that war is the answer is symptomatic of the arrogance that has led to the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
International law exists for good reason: To protect the weak from the powerful. Unilateral and preemptive aggression is illegal, with a nation's sovereignty being paramount. This particular facet of the U.N charter was written in specific response to Hitler's aggression throughout Europe, and they apply to everyone, including us. The Burmese government may be disgusting, but that does not trump international law, and we have no right to invade.
Ratnesar has an impressive resume of work, having reported from Iraq, Israel, the Hague and the Persian Gulf. Given his international perspective, it seems bizarre he would advocate such blatant disregard for international law. The situation in Burma is dire, and constructive thinking is needed from the international community on how to best aid the people suffering. Regime change and war should be the last thing on anyones mind, and Ratnesar's article is irresponsible to say the least.
Using his logic, if a countries incapability to handle a disaster was grounds for an invasion, China should have launched a war on the Bush government for the humanitarian disaster it would not take seriously in New Orleans. For that matter, perhaps China should have also invaded after the U.S failed to avert massive disaster in Iraq.
There is no record of Ratnesar advocating these positions, most likely because they are ridiculous.
And so too is his.
Ben Cohen is the editor of www.thedailybanter.com and a contributing Mixed Martial Arts writer to www.espn.com. He can be reached at thedailybanter@gmail.com
by Ben Cohen
11 May 2008 at 9:49pm
Frank Schaeffer: Arianna Huffington is Correct: McCain Has Changed
When I add my voice to Arianna Huffington's to say that Senator McCain has changed -- for the worse -- my perspective isn't that of your traditional lefty making some sort of knee-jerk response against just anyone running as a Republican candidate. I went for to bat for McCain in 2000 (in my small way) and later McCain was kind enough to write a glowing endorsement of one of my books on the military. While it was a dual between McCain and Romney I even contributed to McCain's 2008 presidential run. This was at the same time as I was also contributing to Obama's campaign. Talk about being conflicted!
I had been out of the right-wing Evangelical fundamentalist subculture for more than 20 years so I was surprised when Religious Right leader Gary Bauer called me. This was in the heat of the 2000 election. Gary had a favor to ask.
"Frank, I know we haven't talked for many years but will you help me stop George W. Bush from winning the Republican nomination? There are still a lot of evangelicals out there who remember your dad and you from your pro-life work in the seventies and I think the Schaeffer name could help stop the Bush/Rove smear machine from taking McCain down."
Gary had heard that I was a McCain fan. But I had to think long and hard before I agreed to argue for McCain and against Bush on various radio shows, including such right wing staples as Ollie North's program and on a dozen or so big Christian stations. The idea of having to relive my past activism even briefly, was abhorrent. When I'd left the evangelical movement, let alone the hard right, I'd felt as if I'd escaped a living death, the death of a thousand cuts by terminal stupidity and meanness.
I agreed to go on shows Gary booked because I wanted W to lose even more than I wanted McCain to win. You see my family knew the Bush tribe personally, given that my dad had been a welcome evangelical leader in top Republican circles for many years. And everyone close to the Bush family knew that W was the least fit member of that dynasty to elect for dog catcher, let alone president.
A large station in Los Angeles organized a debate between Bush-booster Ralph Reed and me. When Ralph found out who his opponent was going to be he backed out. According to the producer; "Ralph says that he won't debate you. He said he'll debate anybody but you."
I knew why Ralph didn't want to go up against me. In his circles the Schaeffer name was still huge. Reed, Robertson, Dobson, et al. could not have existed (as Republican activists) combining theology and militant (even anti-American) politics without my dad's work paving the way for them. And back in the day I'd been a pretty big deal on the fundamentalist circuit too.
I had been off the "circuit" for years but was still remembered as my father -- evangelist Francis Schaeffer's - sidekick. In the mid eighties I'd fled the religious side of evangelicalism, as well as the political side. I made four terrible Hollywood movies then wrote novels that were well received and started a new life. Blessedly, I fell off the evangelical radar screen.
Then in 2006 I wrote several opinion pieces supporting James Webb against the same Republican attack machine that had tried to take down McCain in 2000. The Rove slime apparatus had called McCain the father of an illegitimate black child. This time Rove and Co. were calling Webb a "pornographer" because of some sexually explicit passages in a few of his Vietnam novels.
I was so disgusted that I re-registered as an independent voter and said so in an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News. Soon after that my anti-Religious Right memoir Crazy for God was published.
My old buddies in the Religious Right (most of whom had long since forgotten I existed) took note and began attacking me. (Depending on which right wing blogs you read these days, I'm now a "heretic," have broken various biblical commandments about "honoring" your parents, never was a "real Christian" and even the fact that my son was a Marine and fought in Bush's wars, still gives me "no right to criticize the President" for his misbegotten war etc., etc.)
I feel genuinely sad observing that McCain is now the most dangerous man in America. He is. He has becomes the enemy of our future.
Here's why:
Both Republicans and Democrats have their versions of a lunatic fringe. The Democrats include people who think they're making a contribution to the country by picketing recruiters' offices in Berkeley or rooting for total pacifism -- whatever. There are plenty of wacky left-wingers running around who don't do much for the Democrats' image with mainstream America but ... the wacky left does not control the heart of the Democratic Party, as the tremendous success of the eminently sane, balanced and thoughtful Senator Obama proves.
The problem is that you can't run for president as a Republican these days without appeasing the insanely bellicose, Republican fringe. As such McCain has had to endorse Bush's war and suck up to the most vile elements to his right.
Today McCain is a man who's thinking has also been so twisted by his quest for power in the shadow of the Republican's "base" and their opposition to him over the years, that he has lied about his real feelings about Bush's Iraq war. McCain knows that we should never have gone to war. He knows his vote for the war was a terrible mistake, He knows that Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until we opened the door. He knows we're losing in Afghanistan because we're in Iraq. He knows Bush is literally a fool. (He has said so to plenty of people I know well personally.) But McCain wants to be president enough to lie about all this.
Now that McCain has adjusted his thinking to continue (and praise) the Bush policies he can't turn back. He hasn't exactly made a bargain with the devil, more like a pact with the village idiot.
As Bush's new lickspittle McCain is now so bent on eternal war, and has gone so far in betraying himself to support Bush, that he's even been agitating against Senator James Webb's new GI Bill, which would (at long last!) improve college benefits for soldiers. The Pentagon says that the new bill is too generous, and would entice young men and women to go to college instead of serving for repeated tours of combat. (These benefits would include McCain's Marine son, but then again if you've got a wife with 100 million dollars who needs college benefits for your military son?)
McCain has also climbed into bed with the Ralph Reed-type scum he once called "agents of intolerance" and who smeared him not only in 2000, but worked this year to defeat him while supporting Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. The only question is: has McCain changed his mind? Does he really believe in the Religious Right's BS, or is he just lying for convenience sake? Either way, forget the old "straight talk maverick."
A vote for McCain is a vote against a viable Republican Party. It's a vote for the poisonous lunatic fringe that's taken over the heart of the Republican Party and driven people like Arianna Huffington and me, and tens of thousands others, out. A vote for McCain is a vote to kill American service men and women, deprive those that survive our failed imperial conquest of benefits and condemn the rest of us to terrorist attacks as Afghanistan--where the real war on terror is--is lost due to our foolish involvement in Iraq.
As Huffington points out in Right is Wrong, the Republican fringe includes an unholy alliance of warmonger neoconservatives, evangelical fundamentalist leaders, and just plain old ignorant haters. This fringe has made the Republican Party into a reactionary, know-nothing habitat for racists, pro-torture sadists, advocates of eternal war and the instigators of a skyrocketing debt for the sake of-and caused by-failed imperial "glory."
McCain's base is putrid. Worse; it's stupid. And the rot has spread to the man trying to appease and "lead" it. But leadership means elevating people, not pandering. And that is what McCain has become: the panderer in chief.
Our job -- whatever party we are in -- is to stop McCain. W can't afford another 4 years of Bush. We need a president, not a panderer. It is also the biggest favor we can do for the Republican Party.
The Republicans need a time out. They need to purge their party of the idiots who gave us Bush II, not be ruled by them once again. I'm not a Republican any more, but if I were I'd be praying for defeat this year for the good of the party, for the good of America. As it is, I thank God that in Senator Obama we have the most inspiring and thoughtful candidate to run for president in my lifetime.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back"
by Frank Schaeffer
11 May 2008 at 9:22pm
Huffpollstrology: Candidates' Horoscopes, Polls And More For May 12
Polls have come to dominate the media's horse race coverage of political campaigns. Pundits and reporters constantly use them to tell us who's hot and who's not -- but skip over the fact that plummeting response rates and variables like undecided voters and margins of error and often render these polls useless as anything other than lightweight diversions on par with horoscopes and political betting lines. Our HuffPollstrology chart helps keep you up to date on the latest poll results, along with the latest horoscope predictions, and the latest online political betting lines - and will hopefully help the polling junkies in the media keep polls in the proper perspective.
Democratic nomination
clinton 45%
Gallup Tracking Poll
(National)
SCORPIOOctober 26, 1947
Awaiting someone's reaction to a recently-sent missive could put you in anxious mode. This is possibly not the only relationship that could cause you stress. The purchase of an item, or arrangements for insurance of something you already own, is likely to require trust on both sides. You might not be sure that someone will do as they promise. Your on-going partnership with a Taurean friend could come under tension - most probably caused by the distance between you.
8.9%chance of
winning
obama 49%
Gallup Tracking Poll
(National)
LEOAugust 4, 1961
There's a real danger that you could go over the top. Sure, you might want to reward someone for their efforts. However, it might not be necessary to break the bank in the process. Someone born under one of the Earth signs (Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn) may have something to celebrate. They might also want you consider making a trip with them.
90.6%chance of
winning Mccain vs obama in the General election
mccain 44%
Gallup Tracking Poll VIRGO
August 29, 1936
A decision may have been reached, yet you may still need to check that your exposure to risk is minimal. Only then might you be happy to celebrate. There IS likely to be good news though. It might even seem you've been rescued by angels when someone (probably an Aquarius) points out the obvious, makes everyone laugh and paves the way to explore an idea that really is 'at the cutting edge'.
37.6%chance of
winning
obama 47%
Gallup Tracking Poll LEO
August 4, 1961
You will find little comfort in your emotions today, dear Leo. You may want to simply stick to business. Concentrate on getting things done in your regular routine. Create a plan and stick to it. This is not a day to deviate from the norm, nor is it a time in which you will find sympathy from others. Stick close to home and take care of your personal business. Time is precious, so don't waste it.
55.6%chance of
winning Mccain vs clinton in the General election
mccain 44%
Gallup Trackng Poll VIRGO
August 29, 1936
Try not to be smothering today, dear Virgo. You may want to seek comfort in the company of others, but you may find that this action only produces grouchiness on the part of all parties involved. Curb your tendency to find fault in the ones you love. Your best bet is to focus your energy on tasks you've had on the back burner for quite some time. Tackle projects that need special attention and the most discipline.
37.6%chance of
winning
clinton 48%
Gallup Tracking Poll SCORPIO
October 26, 1947
It may be hard for you to feel connected to anyone today, dear Scorpio. You are probably better off just keeping to yourself. If you are feeling sad or depressed, it is best to work through these feelings on your own. Other people are not apt to be too sympathetic to your situation. You are better off sticking to your work in order to keep the demons out of your head.
8.0%chance of
winning weather report East Cornish, ME
54 degrees (F), 20% chance of rain. south Decatur, GA
54 degrees (F), 30% chance of rain. midwest Chicago, IL
58 degrees (F), 20% chance of rain. west Los Angeles, CA
65 degrees (F), 20% chance of rain.
Sources:
Democratic Nomination Poll: Gallup Daily Tracking Poll
The Democratic nomination results are based on combined data from May 8-10, 2008. For results based on this sample of 1,285 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
General Election Poll: Gallup Daily Tracking Poll
The general election results are based on combined data from May 6-10, 2008. For results based on this sample of 4,355 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Horoscopes: horoscopes.co.uk and astrology.msn.com
Weather: Weather.com
Betting Lines: Intrade Prediction Markets
by The Huffington Post News Team
11 May 2008 at 9:13pm
Dan Sweeney: Moral Relativism and the Right
One of the more popular phrases used by the Right to describe the Left is "moral relativists."
"Good golly, Chip, these liberals have no sense of good and evil. They have no appreciation for the fact that there is Real Evil in the world, and that stems from their moral relativism! They accept that a bad deed is not quite so bad in certain instances. But we know that evil is always evil, right, Chip?"
"Right you are, Skip. Some things are always evil. Like hating freedom."
(For some reason, I always picture far-right mouthbreathers having cute nicknames for each other, like Skippy or Chip. I blame this prejudice on both Scooter Libby and our president's weird quirk of assigning nicknames to everything and everyone: Brownie, Guru, and the ever-popular Turd-blossom. It seems he's given everything a nickname but the White House Rose Garden. ... Wait, has he nicknamed that too? Maybe he calls it "Roselita" or something. Jesus ... Anyway, enough of the tangent. I believe the Far Right all have goofy nicknames. Enough said.)
But in this case, with all apologies to the title of Arianna Huffington's new book, the Right is right. For the most part, we on the Left side of the political divide -- along with most thoughtful types -- recognize that morality is a mushy subject. Stealing a loaf of bread to feed one's family is not the same thing as, say, draining a pension fund and stealing millions from hapless workers who will then have to steal bread to feed their families.
But the interesting part about the moral relativism of the Left is that, out there on the edge, where man's inhumanity to man becomes truly horrific, we suddenly throw moral relativism out the window and recognize that certain actions are always wrong, regardless of the reasons why. Rape is always wrong. Child molestation is always wrong. And, yes, torture is always wrong.
When it comes to moral relativism, the difference between the Right and the Left seems not one of who practices the philosophy and who doesn't, but in which areas we are willing to concede that, among all the stark black and whites, there is room for shades of gray.
The moral relativism of the Right is found in its specious arguments for torturing the bejesus out of jumpsuit-clad detainees at Guantanamo, many of whom are as deserving of being locked up as anyone reading this. Take, for example, the case of al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj, who was released from the American internment camp in Cuba last week after six years. He was never charged with a crime and, when captured by Pakistani intelligence officers in Afghanistan, he carried a work visa and was on assignment in the oft-war-torn country.
And yet, back when the Republican presidential primary was still sexy, the contenders were falling all over themselves to assure potential voters how far they would go in maiming Guantanamo detainees. Moral relativists like Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani fell all over themselves to see who could win the requisite pro-torture voting bloc.
Now that it's over, and John McCain is the man, the Right has found perhaps its most shameful flunky for its pro-torture message. The coming debate between McCain and Barack Obama (I like Hillary too, but let's be real here.) will be a debate about the future of our country. The Right fears that an Obama administration would "cut and run," "give comfort to our enemies," or "insert focus-group-tested slogan here." It fears that an Obama administration would mean the destruction of America, or at least that's what it screams to make people afraid enough to vote against their own best interests. But America is, of course, too strong for that. The only way America will ever be destroyed is if we destroy ourselves; if we destroy what America means. And tossing out habeas corpus, the Constitution and basic human rights should accomplish that destruction nicely.
Which is why I ask of the moral relativists of the Right: Why do you hate America?
by Dan Sweeney
11 May 2008 at 8:53pm
Norman MacAfee: The Presidency of Al Gore, 2001-2009
[Note: Continually thinking about how disastrous the last seven years have been, I did some imagining and research on what the world would be like if Al Gore had become president in 2001. Such a process is really about how important it is to elect the right president. I asked friends and acquaintances for their ideas, I read books by and about Gore, and I watched again his September 2000 interview with Oprah Winfrey, where I learned about his favorite book and movie and his art teacher. Here are some of my findings.]
The Presidency of Al Gore, 2001-2009
On January 20, 2001, Al Gore, the candidate who won the most votes, becomes the 43rd president of the United States.
President Gore follows up on the many urgent warnings from the intelligence agencies that Osama Bin Laden is determined to strike in the United States. The 9/11 planners are caught, and their plots are aborted.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban warns that it will destroy the two giant 1,500-year-old statues of the Buddha in the Bamiyan Valley. Much of the world sees these serene figures as symbols of wisdom beyond time, but they offend conservative Muslims. Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke talks with the Pakistani foreign minister, who reminds him that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and suggests that if aid to the poor there is increased, the Buddhas will be spared. Gore calls the American Buddhist actor Richard Gere, who immediately raises $50 million for the Afghani poor, and the Gore administration promises $5 billion in direct aid over the next five years. The Taliban agrees to preserve the statues.
Gore's favorite film, Local Hero, the Scots eco-comedy, becomes a best-selling DVD. The film is about how ancient values of subsistence, closeness to nature, and community defeat the rapacious forces of the oil industry. People like quoting the old Scot who puts the kibosh on the oilmen: "The business left, but the beach is still here."
Republicans are squawking that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a threat to the safety of the country, that he has weapons of mass destruction. Gore asks the United Nations to send its weapons inspectors back into Iraq, and after six months of searching, they find none. Saddam is in what Eliot Weinberger calls "the 'autumn of the patriarch' mode: holed up in his palaces writing his trashy novels, and oblivious to the details of government." Gore brokers a deal in which Saddam's novels are translated into English and published and he agrees to slowly loosen up some of the restrictions on the Kurds and Shias and bring them into the government.
In 1998, as vice president, Gore proposed a NASA satellite, Triana, to provide, from a distance of 930,000 miles, a continuous view of the sunlit side of the earth. Triana would measure global warming by measuring how much sunlight is reflected and emitted from the earth and would monitor weather systems. Triana is built and launched in February 2003. In late 2004, it sends back images of the beginnings of a great tsunami that might have killed hundreds of thousands if it had gone undetected in its early stages. But Triana's continual data feed allows people to be warned to flee to higher ground, and only a few dozen perish.
The president's favorite book, Stendahl's The Red and the Black, becomes a bestseller. People like quoting the book's young hero, Julien Sorel: "So there, this is what these rich people are like. First they humiliate you, then they think they can make it up to you by monkey business!"
Recognizing that nothing good can come from the continuing Israeli-Palestinian standoff, Gore sends Holbrooke and Vice President Joe Lieberman to broker a peace. In May the two sides sign a peace accord, in which Israel agrees to go back to the 1967 boundaries, the Palestinians recognize Israel's right to exist, and both sides renounce violence. The Republic of Palestine is founded in 2002.
President Gore has a nightmare: He becomes president on January 20, 2001, but the next day he is incapacitated, and Lieberman becomes president. In the spirit of the close election, Lieberman appoints George W. Bush as vice president on January 22. The next day Lieberman is incapacitated, and Bush becomes president and appoints Dick Cheney his vice president. The Bush-Cheney presidency starts January 23, not January 20. Immediately Bush begins abrogating treaties of long standing that kept the world at peace. Terrorists destroy the World Trade Center on September 14, 2001. Bush enacts draconian laws that make America a police state. People constantly refer to "9/14" as the day that changed everything. President Gore wakes up in his bed in the White House in a cold sweat, the dream disappearing from his conscious mind but the numbers 9 and 14 puzzling and haunting him at odd moments for the rest of his days.
As vice president, Gore signed the Kyoto Accord on Climate Change in 1998, but there were not enough votes to ratify it in the Congress, and there still are not. President Gore, however, is able to implement most elements of the treaty by executive order. He begins a process of education about global warming and publishes a book on the subject. He sponsors twenty-four hours of concerts with rock and pop stars, Live Earth, on every continent, and broadcast on television, radio, and the Web to raise awareness about climate change and global warming. A third of the planet's population watches and hears the concerts and has a pretty good time in the process. Soon every nation has ratified Kyoto, and the climate crisis begins to ebb. The temperatures of the oceans stop rising, and thus the severity of hurricanes stops increasing.
Early in 2001, acting on urgent warnings from the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA, the president directs that the New Orleans levees be reinforced and where necessary rebuilt, and the nearby wetlands protected and expanded. When hurricane Katrina strikes in August 2005, the wetlands absorb much of the flooding, the reinforced levees hold, and New Orleans suffers only minor damage.
People start reading Gore's favorite philosophers, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, and Reinhold Niebuhr. They quote passages like this from Merleau: "We struggle with dream figures and our blows fall on living faces." And this from Niebuhr: "The sin of man arises from his effort to establish his own security; and the sin of the false prophet lies in the effort to include this false security within the ultimate security of faith. The false security to which all men are tempted is the security of power. The primary insecurity of human life arises from its weakness and finiteness."
The United States and the nations of the former Soviet Union agree to destroy the nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons built up during the Cold War. The president halts and junks the Star Wars strategic defense initiative boondoggle. Every nation signs a treaty to begin eliminating their weapons of mass destruction. The military-industrial complex must now make a transition. Converting the country, and the world, to alternative energy sources other than fossil fuel and nuclear becomes a new growth industry.
The special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom continues, as does the close relationship between the progressive governments of Tony Blair and Al Gore, begun under Bill Clinton. As planned, Blair carries through the New Labour vision of the New Jerusalem, with higher quality of life and better public services, similar to those in France. In 2008, he is re-elected for an unprecedented fourth term.
President Clinton had twice shaken hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and now President Gore sends Holbrooke to Caracas to draft a treaty of cooperation with Chávez. Gore arrives in the Venezuelan capital, where he and Chavez sign the treaty. Later, they talk about their mutual love of Victor Hugo's great novel of the dispossessed, Les Misérables. Chávez tells Gore that he was named for its author. They quote from memory lines from the great book. Gore remembers this, about Jean Valjean: "Then he asked himself if it was not a serious thing that he, a workman, could not have found work and that he, an industrious man, should have been without bread." Chávez responds with what Jean Valjean's savior, the Bishop of Digne, says: "Jean Valjean, my brother, you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul I am buying for you." Gore replies with this about the inspector who hunts Valjean: "Javert was always in character, without a wrinkle in his duty or his uniform, methodical with villains, rigid with his coat buttons." Chávez says this about Fantine: "What is this story of Fantine about? It is about society buying a slave. From whom? From misery. From hunger, from cold, fron loneliness, from desertion, from privation. Melancholy barter. A soul for a piece of bread."
Gore and Howard Dean, his Health and Human Services Secretary, begin having regular discussions with Canada's Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, about that country's single-payer health care system. Gore plans to introduce universal health care in the United States step by step. His health care bill, narrowly passed in 2001, covers all those age eighteen and under by 2004, and everyone else by 2007.
The president invites to the White House the person who had the most influence on him, his high school art teacher. The Smithsonian exhibits some of Gore's paintings.
By a few votes in each house, Congress passes Gore's tax cuts for middle- and lower-income people. But also by a few votes in each house, the Congress passes tax cuts for the rich and super-rich, which Gore vetoes. The rich and super-rich continue paying their same rate. Soon, the gap between rich and poor, which has been increasing since the Reagan administration began in 1981, begins decreasing.
The undamming of rivers, begun seriously under Clinton/Gore, continues, and the ancient vibrant river life of salmon, shad, freshwater dolphin, and manatee returns.
U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan becomes a Chaplain's Assistant. In 2005, his tour of duty up, he returns to California to visit his mother, Cindy.
A bird alights on a Bamiyan Buddha.
The polar bears are swimming north and flourishing.
by Norman MacAfee
11 May 2008 at 8:39pm
Jared Bernstein: The Most Important Piece of Paper in America
I hold in my hand one of the most important pieces of paper in America: Table T08-0071, an analysis of candidate John McCain's tax plan.
OK, it's not really in my hand because I'm typing, but I'm looking at it carefully, and you should too. It is a table constructed by the Tax Policy Center's steely-eyed tax analysts, and it reveals nothing less than McCain's secret plan to diminish the US government beyond recognition. If he gets his way, conservatives will finally be able to say they've achieved the goal set out by Grover Norquist: to get government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
The numbers in the table show the revenue loss to the Federal government from McCain's proposed tax cuts. In the far right corner is the 10-year total: -$5.7 trillion.
People deride the Republican candidate as "McSame," implying a continuation of Bushonomics as well as the president's foreign policy. But from the perspective of domestic policy, it's much worse. Sure, McCain extends the Bush tax cuts but that's the least of it. At $1.7 trillion they amount to less than a third of the damage.
Note also that the big ticket tax cuts-eliminating the alternative minimum tax and lowering the corporate tax-both follow on another Bush tradition of exacerbating market-driven (i.e., pre-tax) inequalities by cutting high-end taxes the most.
As I stresshere , McCain's plans to pay for these tax cuts amount to filling a crater with a teaspoon of sand. Earmarks won't get you there, so he'll have to go after discretionary spending. In fact, he's already suggesting a freeze in such spending, excluding defense, of course. Sound inoffensive until you consider that we're talking about kids' health care, education, child care, training for displaced workers, environmental and labor protections, and dozens more programs that lots of people actually need and care about.
Plus, he can't fill the hole he's dug with cuts in these programs either, which leads you to the inevitable punch line of all this: his target is the entitlements, Social Security and Medicare. Those programs have always been the big enchiladas for the Norquist shock troops and they've never recovered from their Social Security privatization defeat. Well, they're back, incognito.
McCain's top economist, a number cruncher of great integrity named Doug Holtz-Eakin, responds to the Tax Policy's analysis here, and he makes a good point or two, especially regarding the way they score the AMT, but his counterpoints amount to little more than quibbles. In fact, one can't help wonder if Doug, who used to inveigh against supply-side nonsense, has been drawn to the economic dark side. When recently asked about the extent to which these numbers fail to add up, his response was: "I think what [critics] ought to do is remember that the proposals are going to engender economic growth, which is the best thing you can do for near-term budget improvement." That's pure hand waving of the type with which the old Holtz-Eakin had no patience.
This story has yet to catch the fire it should, and hopefully will, once the D's get focused on McCain and his dim vision of government. But the point born of these numbers is as simple as it is compelling:
For seven long years, we've tried entrusting our government to those who discredit it, defund it, and fundamentally disbelieve in its role, except when they seek a lucrative contract or a bailout. We gone down the road-and it is a crumbling road, with potholes and failing bridges -- where the solution to every problem is a tax cut, where critical agencies are staffed with cronies at best and opposition lobbyists at worst, where secrecy trumps transparency and cynicism rules, where budget resources are never available for expanding children's health care, but always there for war.
Table T08-0071 is a road map to taking us far, far deeper into this morass. We must not go there.
by Jared Bernstein
11 May 2008 at 8:38pm
New Clinton Team Motivation: Stick It To Naysayers
There's a motivational shift afoot in Hillary nation.
The legions of Hillary Rodham Clinton backers still investing their cash, energy and emotion into her faltering bid for the Democratic presidential nomination seem driven not by the reasonable expectation that she can beat Barack Obama, but by the emotional desire to see her through to the end of voting and stick it to those who have already written her off.
Clinton's campaign is fanning the flames of that backlash -- against the media, against superdelegates who recently backed Obama and against Obama himself. Aides hope to convert the sentiments into protest votes that could deliver landslide victories in West Virginia and Kentucky, Clinton strongholds that are among the next three states to cast ballots.
No matter how big Clinton wins in West Virginia, which votes Tuesday, or Kentucky, which heads to the polls May 20 along with Oregon -- a likely Obama win -- she won't significantly cut into Obama's lead in pledged delegates or popular votes.
by The Huffington Post News Team
11 May 2008 at 8:12pm
AlterNet
Will Durst: It's Over for Clinton
In politics, anything can happen. Except for what needs to happen for Clinton to secure the nomination.
by Will Durst
10 May 2008 at 12:00pm
Will Durst: Welcome to the Nomination Race That Will Not Die
Thanks to Pennsylvania, the Democratic primary circus continues. Meanwhile, McCain is free to roam the country frightening children.
by Will Durst
25 Apr 2008 at 6:00pm
Will Durst: President Whatshisname
Whatever happened to the Decider?
by Will Durst
15 Apr 2008 at 6:00pm
Will Durst: Stop Treating the Candidates Like Newborn Puppies
In the Democratic Party everyone ends up feeling like a winner. Until the general election that is.
by Will Durst
4 Apr 2008 at 12:00pm
David Sirota: Acknowledging the Race Chasm
The pervasive racism that taints our political discourse will persist until we recognize and reject it.
by David Sirota
9 May 2008 at 12:00pm
David Sirota: Potomac Fever
Washington has been debilitated by a horrible disease -- one that inhibits emotions like compassion and integrity.
by David Sirota
2 May 2008 at 12:00pm
David Sirota: The Real Elitists Work in Mainstream Media
The media elite pretend there are not two Americas but only one: theirs.
by David Sirota
24 Apr 2008 at 12:00pm
David Sirota: The Ludlow Massacre
The government's policy toward unions is marked by the same political cowardice and worker repression that brought on the Ludlow Massacre.
by David Sirota
18 Apr 2008 at 1:00pm
Amy Goodman: America's War on Journalists
The Bush administration has engaged in assault, intimidation, and imprisonment to limit the ability of journalists to do their jobs.
by Amy Goodman
8 May 2008 at 11:00am
Amy Goodman: Evangelical Doctor Touts Better Health Care Plan Than Clinton, O...
Unlike Clinton or Obama, Dr. Rocky White, an Evangelical from a conservative background, is promoting a single-payer health care system.
by Amy Goodman
6 May 2008 at 1:00pm
About -> Liberal Politics
Pros & Cons of Gun Ownership & Use Laws
Gun control laws will be to the 2008 election cycle what the abortion issue was to the 2000 and especially 2004 elections: a...
9 May 2008 at 3:20pm
Game Over. Obama Won. Clinton Supporters in Induced Denial.
...
7 May 2008 at 9:06am
Bush's Second Biggest Debacle: No Child Left Behind
...
5 May 2008 at 12:50pm
Rev. Wright Is Irrelevant to Obama's Ability to Be President
...
30 Apr 2008 at 9:19pm
Boredom and the Race Between Obama and Clinton
...
28 Apr 2008 at 11:46am
Disrupting Democracy: Rush Limbaugh Really Is a "Big Fat Idiot"
...
24 Apr 2008 at 7:38pm
After PA, Obama Should Beg Clinton to Be His Running Mate
...
23 Apr 2008 at 7:14am
After Pennsylvania: What's Next for Hillary Clinton?
...
21 Apr 2008 at 1:52pm
Speaker Pelosi Was Right to Block Colombia Free Trade Pact
...
17 Apr 2008 at 3:16pm
Learned in Pennsylvania: Core Truths about Obama and Clinton
We'll look back fondly at this last month's run-up to the Pennsylvania primary as fun political times, filled with folly and fake outrage over...
15 Apr 2008 at 8:28am
Yahoo News Search : Gay News
South Florida: Gay rights group to train activists in Lauderdale (Sun-Sentinel)
The Human Rights Campaign gay rights group plans to hold a "Camp Equality" boot camp today and Sunday.
10 May 2008 at 4:45am
TV Azteca, Televisa Meet With Gay Rights Groups (Marketing Y Medios)
Programming executives at Mexico City-based Grupo Televisa and TV Azteca met late last month with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Movemos organization of Mexico City in an effort to increase the number of fair and inclusive media representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.
10 May 2008 at 6:09pm
Johnson's comment on same-sex marriage riles Sacramento's gay and lesbian com...
Mayoral challenger Kevin Johnson has riled Sacramento's gay community with his statement at a televised candidate forum that "marriage is between a man and a woman." KEVIN JOHNSON In a statement Thursday he says he backs state laws on same- sex civil unions.
11 May 2008 at 5:29pm
Berlin Pays Tribute to Gay-Rights Activist Persecuted by Nazis (Gayapolis)
Berlin renamed a stretch of the Spree River in honor of a gay-rights activist persecuted by the Nazis in the 1930s as the city's biggest hospital opened an exhibition devoted to the sex researcher.
8 May 2008 at 12:27pm
A gay rights ruling that?s not straight to the point (Malta Today)
Can a landmark ruling by the court of the European Union signal a turning point for gay and lesbian rights in Malta? The jury is still out on the matter.
8 May 2008 at 3:35am
From the Daily: Reverse the ban (Michigan Daily)
Last Wednesday, the Michigan Supreme Court actually regressed the equal rights movement. In a 5-2 decision, justices upheld an appeals court ruling that illogically determined that the state's 2004 constitutional ban on gay marriage also prohibits public sector employers from extending domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples.
12 May 2008 at 2:26am
Who's saying what about gay and lesbian issues (Metro Weekly)
"To use this word and to get it imposed internationally constitutes a rape of our historic identity and our human rights."
11 May 2008 at 1:06pm
Actress to keynote rights fundraiser (Deseret Morning News)
Kathy Najimy, actress and activist, will keynote this year's Human Rights Campaign annual Gala Dinner in Orem June 14.
11 May 2008 at 2:08am
Broadband Content Bits: Entertainment Rights; MTVN; SNL Poltiical; CSG-Nation...
-- NBCU launches Saturday Night Live politics minisite : SNL still doesn't have a real contender for Obama impressions but it does have "SNL Politics", newly launched with all the usual gimmicks and then some: e-cards, games, profiles of presidential candidates as depicted by cast members, an election for favorite SNL Presidential Candidate. The best bitsand possibly the worst: video clips ...
12 May 2008 at 1:03am
Fort Lauderdale event helps foes of gay marriage ban (Sun-Sentinel)
Get out. Organize. Care.
11 May 2008 at 11:13pm
Yahoo News Search: Iraq Torture
Taser sales: Free enterprise or torture aid? (The News Journal)
Is selling police equipment to a notoriously brutal government tantamount to assisting in torture?
11 May 2008 at 3:01am
FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, May 11 (AlertNet)
Source: Reuters May 11 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq at 1525 GMT on Sunday: BAGHDAD - U.S. forces killed eight militants on Saturday and Sunday in Baghdad's Adhamiya and Sadr City ...
11 May 2008 at 10:46am
Doug Clark: North Side driving ahead? Pack a lunch (The Spokesman-Review)
All the street repairs being inflicted on Spokane's North Side this spring are like the Iraq war or the Hillary Clinton campaign. They keep sucking up money with no exit strategy in sight.
11 May 2008 at 8:48am
Movie Screener (Palo Alto Weekly)
Errol Morris isn't interested in amassing evidence of orchestrated human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, as Alex Gibney's "Taxi to the Dark Side" does with prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Nor does the Oscar-winning documentarian of "The Fog of War" take Rory Kennedy's scathing approach to expose torture as American government policy in HBO's "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib."
9 May 2008 at 6:38pm
'Standard Operating Procedure': When business as usual breeds horrific acts (...
"Standard Operating Procedure" is not the first documentary on Iraq. It's not the first film on America's embrace of torture as a weapon of choice.
9 May 2008 at 3:53am
Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri captured (Times Online)
Iraqi forces claimed tonight to have arrested the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq during an operation in the northern city of Mosul, one of the terrorist organisation?s last major hold-outs in the country.
8 May 2008 at 6:24pm
Iraq: Will We Ever Get Out? (New York Review of Books)
An article by Thomas Powers from The New York Review of Books, May 29, 2008
9 May 2008 at 3:00pm
Standard Operating Procedure (East Bay Express)
Documentarian Errol Morris arrives at the Iraq war party fashionably late, but his investigation into American torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison adds little to the discussion already begun by Taxi to the Dark Side and No End in Sight . Morris? cataloging of the shocking images shot by GIs deserves some sort of persistence prize, though.
9 May 2008 at 2:30am
Ex-detainee linked to Iraq bombing (Boston Globe)
WASHINGTON - A suicide bomber in Iraq was identified yesterday as a former Taliban fighter who was held for more than three years at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before he was handed over to authorities in his native Kuwait in 2005 and subsequently released.
8 May 2008 at 3:08am
House Votes on Iraq Funds This Week (Time Magazine)
Democrats controlling the House plan to pass legislation this week funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into next year
7 May 2008 at 8:56am