When you put it that way, Monolycus, I don’t feel as betrayed by our leaders. At least they are being more honest now. Which unfortunately is more than I can say for our so-called opposition party.

Posted by: gylangirl | May 31 2006 13:01 utc | 4

SPIEGEL interview with Ahmadinejad in English: “We Are Determined”

Ahmadinejad: We’re fundamentally opposed to the expansion of nuclear-weapons arsenals. This is why we have proposed the formation of an unbiased organization and the disarmament of the nuclear powers. We don’t need any weapons. We’re a civilized, cultured people, and our history shows that we have never attacked another country.
SPIEGEL: Iran doesn’t need the bomb that it wants to build?
Ahmadinejad: It’s interesting to note that European nations wanted to allow the shah’s dictatorship the use of nuclear technology. That was a dangerous regime. Yet those nations were willing to supply it with nuclear technology. Ever since the Islamic Republic has existed, however, these powers have been opposed to it. I stress once again, we don’t need any nuclear weapons.
We stand by our statements because we’re honest and act legally. We’re no fraudsters. We only want to claim our legitimate right. Incidentally, I never threatened anyone – that, too, is part of the propaganda machine that you’ve got running against me.

Check it out.

Posted by: b | May 31 2006 15:51 utc | 6

Someone somewhere said that the US (actually now US plus NATO) won’t be able to hold Afghanistan. I disagree. The new colonialism is so devastating .. and the new colonisers are not much interested in ‘holding’ much except key resources on their own, gathering means and money from ‘abroad’ at the same time.
The model is: set up a puppet Gvmt. for In’tl consumption, and give them, as individuals, a seemingly important role to play, and crumbs, of course, from the truck fulls of dollar feasts.
Second, maintain divisions, play the good guy against the bad guy, get some of whatever band on board at the Gvmt. and also ensure that some ‘insurgents’ are always about.
That way, a low grade ‘war’ persists, and with luck, an ongoing ‘civil war’ takes place.
So the West has to send soldiers and resources (buy arms ..), and bombing is always going on. Disorder and chaos are perpetual, it is all the fault of the natives. Those natives slowly grow ill (DU, no clean water, smashed agriculture, criminality, aids, etc.), starve, give up or join one or another band of ‘insurgents’. Literally millions die untimely deaths. They soon are living in ‘badlands’ – arid, broken down, dangerous at every turn.
Third, Hold small parcels of territory – Kabul, or a Green Zone – as confort and safety are necessary for the bigwigs. Co-opted natives, private security forces, and national armies from abroad take care of the security and live off trickle down. (The ‘fools’ here appear to be US army soldiers who are so indoctrinated and keen on playing Rambo that they mostly eschew money-making schemes.)
Fourth, Slowly expand that territory with bases, ‘safe roads’, fences, guards, but only as needed, or as profitable. ‘Clean out’ the territory. Take it slow and easy.
If worst comes to the worst, leave.
New markets, heh. Often carved out by Gvmts.
They can’t do it at home. (..or not yet, or only in a different way…)
— One reading, there are others.

Posted by: Noisette | May 31 2006 16:20 utc | 8

@Noisette – that would fit for some oil rich country, but Afghanistan? To keep western troops there is expensive. What is there to gain?

Posted by: b | May 31 2006 17:39 utc | 10

What the World Definitely Needs More Of:
Imperialistic Leftists

Posted by: Groucho | May 31 2006 21:44 utc | 12

Well Sloth:
I could have said “Leftist Neoconservatives, latte imperialists, and assorted do-gooders , utopians, and fellow travelers”.
But it is too long, in my opinion.
I’ll be happy to change it,though, if you so desire.

Posted by: Groucho | May 31 2006 22:55 utc | 14

as someone said recently fuck Al Gore

Posted by: gmac | May 31 2006 23:47 utc | 16

High Court Trims Whistleblower Rights

In a victory for the Bush administration, justices said the 20 million public employees do not have free-speech protections for what they say as part of their jobs.

Wasn’t there a Whistleblower Rights commission or some such? wonder what they have to say about this.
Ordinane by ordinance, law by law, secret file by secret file the creep to authoritarian despotism continues. The above and the following are just mere
steps.

FCC plans relaxation of media ownership rules, watchdogs say

The Federal Communications Commission is poised to propose new media ownership rules that will allow media companies to own newspapers, television and radio stations in the same city, according to media watchdog groups

.
The proposed rule would dissolve a longstanding policy that prohibited corporations from owning a television station and a daily newspaper in the same market. The “cross ownership” rule, promulgated in 1975, was enacted to ensure media diversity.
Wait! there’s more:
Terrorism invoked in ISP snooping proposal

In a radical departure from earlier statements, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said that requiring Internet service providers to save records of their customers’ online activities is necessary in the fight against terrorism, CNET News.com has learned

.
They’re Not an Administration
They’re management. Bush isn’t the President. He’s the boss.
Till somebody forcibly tells him otherwise.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 1 2006 0:27 utc | 18

Ceballos holding:

Held: When public employees make statements pursuant to their offi-cial duties, they are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communica-tions from employer discipline. Pp. 5–14.(a) Two inquiries guide interpretation of the constitutional protec-tions accorded public employee speech. The first requires determin-ing whether the employee spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern. See Pickering, supra, at 568. If the answer is no, the em-
2 GARCETTI v. CEBALLOS
Syllabus ployee has no First Amendment cause of action based on the em-ployer’s reaction to the speech. See Connick, supra, at 147. If the answer is yes, the possibility of a First Amendment claim arises. The question becomes whether the government employer had an ade-quate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public. See Pickering, supra, at 568. This consideration reflects the importance of the relationship be-tween the speaker’s expressions and employment. Without a signifi-cant degree of control over its employees’ words and actions, a gov-ernment employer would have little chance to provide public services efficiently. Cf. Connick, supra, at 143. Thus, a government entityhas broader discretion to restrict speech when it acts in its employer role, but the restrictions it imposes must be directed at speech thathas some potential to affect its operations. On the other hand, a citi-zen who works for the government is nonetheless still a citizen. The First Amendment limits a public employer’s ability to leverage the employment relationship to restrict, incidentally or intentionally, theliberties employees enjoy in their capacities as private citizens. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 597. So long as employees arespeaking as citizens about matters of public concern, they must face only those speech restrictions that are necessary for their employersto operate efficiently and effectively. …

a bit more complicated than one might think. this analysis mines the confusion of the decision.
weird.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 1 2006 0:55 utc | 20

here’s another more disarming analysis from balkinization.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 1 2006 1:03 utc | 22

Really makes it more difficult.
But really nothing much to disagree about, at this time.
It will play out and then we’ll see.

Posted by: Groucho | Jun 1 2006 1:18 utc | 24

Brothers are fine GMAC:
“One could argue that Operation Iraqi Liberation destabilised the nation and that that was the intent”
The intent as I see it, from reading, was to decapitate the regime, install a puppet government, keep most everything intact, leave a small occupation force, and move on.
Wes Clark, in his book, Winning Modern War, recounted a conversation that he had, as a CNN correspondent in early winter 2002, with a senior Army general at the Pentagon, on the Army staff.
Apparently, as a result of the “great successes” that had been achieved in Afghanistan, the Pentagon leadership was developing plans to knock off the governments of seven more Islamic countries, in the next five years, including Iraq and Iran.
The general thought this was somewhat of an overreach.
They got stopped on #1, unfortunately for the Iraquis.
The account is abt P. 192 in the book.

Posted by: Groucho | Jun 1 2006 2:08 utc | 26

Not what I was saying, and not what I think they were envisioning, BReal.
It was going to be Real easy.

Posted by: Groucho | Jun 1 2006 2:57 utc | 28

mononyclus
the “directness” of the decision?
are you high?

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 1 2006 3:13 utc | 30

And just as an aside…
You’ve been consistently misspelling my name the same way for more than a year now, slothrop. Is there a joke here that I’m missing?

Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 1 2006 4:13 utc | 32

@Modocylops,
there’s something about your moniker that just attracts typos. Perhaps you could go for something easy like “qwerty”

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jun 1 2006 5:51 utc | 34

@anna missed: given that Juan Cole’s posts which always sound well informed can be rather, shall we say, subjective, it is impossible to read from that post how well integrated the Virtue Party and the GOEB actually are.
Perusal of the Oil Workers Union site shows little if any interest in non-secular issues, but a strong desire to ally with oil workers in other parts of Iraq, so it may well be that the union and the virtue Party’s alliance is purely one of convenience.
That said the Virtue Party’s electoral success in Basra, a city whose major industry is the oil sector certainly implies that many oil workers support that party.
That makes it likely that Virtue Party officials have discussed any potential cessation of oil supply or diversion of the oil revenues with the GOEB officials.
To me that implies al-Maliki is either far smarter and more devious than either the US or the other factions can conceive or he is a power crazed naif.
The fact he bowed to US pressure to keep the Oil Ministry out of the hands of the ‘commies’ but couldn’t force the factions to accept his decisions on either the Defence or the Interior Ministries unfortunately suggests the latter.
The smart move for the central government to make in this situation would be to give the GOEB officials a carrot, not to unite the Virtue Party and GOEB even more by threatening them with a stick.
The obvious way to encourage GOEB officials, while luring them away from Virtue Party synergy would be to encourage/force the oil workers unions in other parts of Iraq to merge in with GOEB.
That will effectively give GOEB an interest in issues beyond parochial Basra ones whilst opening the organisation’s leadership up to influence from other parts of Iraq.
The only party who would strongly object to that course of action would be the USuk, determined to attempt to force neo-con individual work contract style industrial relations practises onto the Iraq oil industry.
Now IMHO that is a course of action doomed to failure, for reasons too lengthy to go into here.
But al-Maliki’s willingness to toe the USuk line must reflect his investment in USuk influence. That is unfortunate since it is becoming increasingly apparent that whatever that BliarPlc and BushCo may desire, their star in Iraq is definitely on the wane.
Events on the ground in Iraq will supercede any desisions made in Washington or London.
In fact the artificial construction of an ersatz guvmint actually speeds up that process, especially considering BushCo have spent so much time and effort proclaiming it’s legitimacy.
Let’s play sets for a moment.
Set A is the people within Iraq who can successfully win office in any halfway representative electoral process.
Set B is the people in Iraq who believe that Iraq’s successful future depends on continued USuk influence over Iraq’s affairs.
That makes set AB those capable of being elected in a halfway representative electoral process who believe that continued USuk influence over Iraq’s affairs is beneficial.
Apart from Nuri al-Maliki who owes his position to USuk intervention in Iraq’s affairs and who may in fact have great difficulty in ever being successful in any future halfway honest electoral process, it is difficult to conceive of many others in the paradoxical Set AB.
I suspect that if Nuri al-Maliki’s assertions are intended to be anything more than a sop to USuk whining, this guvmint will last little longer than Big Minh’s reign in South Vietnam.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 1 2006 10:32 utc | 36

mono
sorry bout that

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 1 2006 14:45 utc | 38

i’m so conflicted… what year is this?
eno is reuniting w/ roxy music (studio only), while the reunited mission of burma rants on

Roxy Music came to save the world
And all I got was this lousy T-shirt
And I’m haunted by the freakish size of Nancy Reagan’s head
No way that thing came with that body

Posted by: b real | Jun 1 2006 17:18 utc | 40

William Arkin is pretty good today:
LINK

Posted by: Groucho | Jun 1 2006 18:46 utc | 42

some couple items on rwanda (pet peeve: phonetically similar to rhonda, not ruh-wanda) and africa
peacock report: Pursuing U.S.-Based Fugitives of Rwandan Genocide Takes Backseat to Bush’s African Energy Ventures

President Bush today [may 31st] promised to help track down fugitives who participated in the 1994 slaughter of more than a half-million people in Rwanda — a manhunt contingent upon whether Rwandan President Paul Kagame requests such assistance, that is. Following an Oval Office meeting of the two leaders, a Rwandan journalist asked Bush about the estimated 50 fugitives of the genocidal horror whom are believed to be living in the U.S. and in Europe. The journalist, after initiating discussion of the genocide, was cut off in mid-sentence by Bush, who said that “to the extent that [President Kagame] wants our help in finding certain perpetuators of crimes we’ll be glad to do so.” Bush neither agreed with nor rejected the reporter’s claim that fugitives of the genocide were at-large in the U.S.
Kagame offered a brief statement before Bush took questions from reporters, but he did not — or could not — chime in on the issue of Rwandan fugitives in the U.S. at any point during the press conference.
…
Although AP and other media outlets provided superficial reporting on this meeting of the two heads of state, The Peacock Report has discovered an underlying force behind the growing relationship between Washington, D.C., and Kigali, Rwanda: oil and methane gas.
TPR likewise has learned that a U.S.-backed plan to develop an “ecotourism” industry in Rwanda — a noble project in itself — may serve as a convenient smokescreen for the Bush Administration’s growing appetite for U.S. taxpayer-supported energy-industry endeavors in Rwanda as well as across Africa.

that exchange at the oval office was

Q I’ll ask a question — I’m a journalist from Rwanda.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Welcome.
Q Can I ask you a question on the genocide of Rwanda? It’s been 13 years after the genocide of Rwanda, but many perpetrators of the genocide, many people who did it, who carried out the genocide are still at large. One estimate is about over 50 of them in Europe and the U.S., others in the Congo. What’s the U.S. going to do to help run — to get these people to —
PRESIDENT BUSH: The interesting thing about Rwanda today is that you have a President who understands that part of a successful society is for people to work hard on reconciliation. There’s no question the genocide in Rwanda was a real tragedy. It’s one of the most significant tragedies in modern history. And, yet, your President and his government has worked hard to reconcile, help people reconcile the tragedy at all levels of society.
To the extent that he wants our help in finding certain perpetuators of crimes we’ll be glad to do so. But the way I look at the situation is that Rwanda can serve as an example for other societies…

plenty of info on the u.s. & kagame’s role in the genocide – such as kagame training at ft. leavenworth, etc… – has already been posted here in the past, so i’ll tie in this grim article, originally published in the independant, on the congo
Congo’s Tragedy: The War the World Forgot

Once the Congo was drenched in death, the UN commissioned a panel of international statesmen to travel the country and uncover the reasons behind the war. They found that the … Rwandans had one motive, right from the beginning: to seize Congo’s massive mineral wealth, to grab the coltan mine I am standing in now and thousands like it, and to sell it on to us, the waiting world, as we quickly flicked the channel away from the news of this war with our coltan-filled remote control. The other countries came in not because they believed in repelling aggression, but because they wanted a piece of the Congolese cake. The country was ravaged by “armies of business”, commanded by men who “carefully planned the redrawing of the regional map to redistribute wealth,” the UN declared.
The UN experts knew this because the Rwandan troops did not head for the areas where the genocidaires were hiding out. They headed straight for the mines like this one in Kalehe, and they swiftly enslaved the populations to dig for them. They did not clear out the genocidaires – they teamed up with them to rape Congo. Jean-Pierre Ondekane, the Chief of the Rwandan forces in Goma, urged his units to maintain good relations “with our Interhamwe [genocidaire] brothers.” They set up a Congo Desk that whisked billions out of the country and into Rwandan bank accounts – and they fought to stay and pillage some more. The UN found that a Who’s Who of British, American and Belgian companies collaborated with this crime. The ones they recommended for further investigation included Anglo American PLC, Barclay’s Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and De Beers. The British government barely followed up the report, publicly acquitting a few corporations like Anglo-American who Human Rights Watch have shown to be “in league with some of the worst killers in the region”, and leaving others like De Beers in an “unresolved” and unpunished category.
Oh, and the reason why this invasion was so profitable? Global demand for coltan was soaring throughout the war because of the massive popularity of coltan-filled Sony Playstations. As Oona King, one of the few British politicians to notice Congo, explains as we travel together for a few days, “Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms.”

– – –
thinking of kanye west’s line “george bush does not care about black people”, there’s these two items to think about
in that article i linked to the other day on the results of the bush regime’s HIV/AIDS abstinence policy on uganda, the author points out:

Just in case we wondered whether Bush was serious about confronting AIDS, two more names on the delegate list give us a hint: his daughter Barbara Bush and her party playmate Maggie Betts are both listed as “senior advisors.”

and then, last week i noticed a cover of one of those rags in the supermarket that said that shrub & his wife were having big marriage problems. today, wayne madsen writes

Rocky shoals for Bush marriage? Informed sources Inside the Beltway report that First Lady Laura Bush has established temporary residence in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC as a result of a tiff with President Bush over an extramarital relationship involving her husband. Mr. Bush’s tryst is said to involve Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It is not known how long Mrs. Bush plans to remain at the Mayflower, however, her security detail has been present at the hotel during hours when the First Lady would normally be residing in the White House.

Posted by: b real | Jun 1 2006 19:10 utc | 44

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. in Rolling Stone: Was The 2004 Election Stolen?

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush — and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush’s victory as nut cases in ”tinfoil hats,” while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election.
…
What’s At Stake
The mounting evidence that Republicans employed broad, methodical and illegal tactics in the 2004 election should raise serious alarms among news organizations. But instead of investigating allegations of wrongdoing, the press has simply accepted the result as valid. ”We’re in a terrible fix,” Rep. Conyers told me. ”We’ve got a media that uses its bullhorn in reverse — to turn down the volume on this outrage rather than turning it up. That’s why our citizens are not up in arms.”
…

Posted by: b | Jun 1 2006 20:14 utc | 46

My favorite graf from the stones’ article of stolen election:

A five-month analysis of the Ohio vote conducted by the Democratic National Committee concluded in June 2005 that three percent of all Ohio voters who showed up to vote on Election Day were forced to leave without casting a ballot.(133) That’s more than 174,000 voters. ”The vast majority of this lost vote,” concluded the Conyers report, ”was concentrated in urban, minority and Democratic-leaning areas.”(134) Statewide, African-Americans waited an average of fifty-two minutes to vote, compared to only eighteen minutes for whites.(135)

zzzzzing.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 1 2006 21:51 utc | 48

I’ve never been a Dixie Chicks fan, but this made me smile:

Country radio has been refusing to play the first two singles from the new Dixie Chicks album Taking the Long Way, supposedly because “country people” are still offended by Chicks’ singer Natalie Maines’ anti-Bush comments made in 2003. The new album, which defiantly takes pride in still attacking Bush, has come on the album charts today at number one, selling 526,000 copies. It is also number one on the country album charts, despite the attempted boycott by country radio.

Take that, corporate country music.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 2 2006 1:47 utc | 50

@Rick – sounds like a c-movie plot

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2006 4:08 utc | 52

The puppets are getting nervous:
Iraqi Accuses U.S. of ‘Daily’ Attacks Against Civilians

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.
…
In his comments, Mr. Maliki said violence against civilians had become a “daily phenomenon” by many troops in the American-led coalition who “do not respect the Iraqi people.”
“They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion,” he said. “This is completely unacceptable.” Attacks on civilians will play a role in future decisions on how long to ask American forces to remain in Iraq, the prime minister added.

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2006 4:54 utc | 54

New ‘Iraq massacre’ tape emerges

The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.
The video appears to challenge the US military’s account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.
The US said at the time four people died during a military operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately shot the 11 people.
…
The video pictures obtained by the BBC appear to contradict the US account of the events in Ishaqi, about 100km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, on 15 March 2006.
Map
The US authorities said they were involved in a firefight after a tip-off that an al-Qaeda supporter was visiting the house.
According to the Americans, the building collapsed under heavy fire killing four people – a suspect, two women and a child.
But a report filed by Iraqi police accused US troops of rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in the house, including five children and four women, before blowing up the building.
The video tape obtained by the BBC shows a number of dead adults and children at the site with what our world affairs editor John Simpson says were clearly gunshot wounds.

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2006 5:21 utc | 56

Thanks for the heads up on Chris Floyd’s rebuttal to being banned @dkos jj. A commenter over at floyd’s
summed it all up in two succinct sentences:
“The Democrat Party is the greatest single obstacle to progressive reform in the United States — because it pretends to offer an alternative, but doesn’t. This treacherous dishonesty makes the Democrat Party worse, in a practical sense, than the GOP.”
As has our own Monolycus on several occasions (forgive me for not looking up an example, I simply do not have the time) and I, –much more crudely– myself have long said
that 360° from fucked up is still fucked up.
Dkos is not the model I could ever get behind. One that can not examine itself, reajust to new information, live in flux, is not one that offers progressive growth. The great “gatecrashers” seem to be keepers of their own gate.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 2 2006 11:49 utc | 58

Please Billmon, your comments about the latest war atrocities is badly needed.

Posted by: D | Jun 2 2006 13:54 utc | 60

Dust-ups at DKos? Not surprising. Political agenda (perhaps financial as well I wouldn’t know), no ‘free speech’ as what is politically correct is very narrowly defined and posts are both rated and policed. No egalitarian stance – there are people who have power and are are ‘in’ and others who for whatever reason are branded as ‘trolls’ and forced ‘out.’ Pretty sect-like if you ask me. That kind of community and that kind of management is in direct contradiction to both progressive and internet values. Bound to become difficult. Even Rael is freerer and easier with dissenting opinion, in the ‘do your thing’ style.
I only know what I read here and have my judgment following about 20 visits to that site – btw, did people note that the European Tribune, friendly as it is, has taken over the ‘trusted users’ – or something like that – policy? Trusties, anyone?
I consider that kind of ruckus positive. Maybe some will see that the Democrats are not worth supporting, because their fellow supporters are.. are…just a tad fascistic? (I know that word is abused but I couldn’t think of another right now.)

Posted by: Noisette | Jun 2 2006 14:35 utc | 62

people like me start calling internet boards such as DKos sect-like
i am on a 9/11 listserve that recieves regular updates, sometimes we are forwarded to 9/11 diaries at kos. i always thought it was strange that every time one of these diaries appeared they were immediately attacked quite forcefully. not being a regular commenter there, or following the comment sections i nonetheless read some of the diaries. yesterday i was made aware of the policy at kos that any poster discussing 9/11 other than to confirm the official story would be banned. this seems reasonable as it is kos’s choice and his site, but only if you accept that it is ‘sect like’.
i have huge issues w/the democratic party, but, it is my party. i have 2 choices, work from outside the party, or transform the party into the kind of party i support. i recently read a request on the comment section of a diary about the upcoming vegas kos event about improper attire. (no tie dye etc). just because the republican party acts in lock step doesn’t mean democrats need to fall in line. there are progressive dems like conyers and defazio leading investigations and hearings re /pre emptive nuke attacks on iran, voting irregularities etc. that kos seeks to purge dissenting dems from his site does not legitimate purging us from the party. it can’t be done.
there was some dixie chick news recently about some radio stations in the south banning their music because of the listeners, yet the same listeners caused their album to rise to the top of the country music charts. making claims about what an audience condones, as if one is an authority on perceptions is different than saying “here’s what i think, disagree and you’re out!”. i can respect someone’s wishes when i am in there home, but it may not make me comfortable visiting.
a polarization of society into smaller and smaller segments runs the risk of eventually destroying the fabric. the unity within any group will make it stronger yet isolate people who don’t conform, much the same way the fanaticism of the christian right could be the downfall of the rethugs. or the lockstep amoungst the dem leadership to not challenge the election in retrospect only emphasizes the pathetic weakness that may destroy the dems. kos, by tampering dissent is seeking polarization, dangerous, the best minds are always on the edge. he is not the self appointed representative of the party.
Each person is supposed to find their little confort community with its police and strict rules, its adored – or at least respected and obeyed – leaders?
i feel quite comfortable here, thank you! our leader? hmm, i’ll play leader for the day 😉 . b, step aside!!

Posted by: annie | Jun 2 2006 15:41 utc | 64

We control the horizontal, the vertical, and the voting lever too.
Dear MoveOn member,
The results are in. We’re proud to announce the MoveOn member choice for our new, positive agenda:
Health care for all
Energy independence through clean, renewable sources
Democracy restored
These three goals were nominated, debated, and overwhelmingly selected by more than 100,000 people in local house parties and then online. Most groups would say this is a far too risky way to make such a big decision. But it’s this grassroots consensus that makes this agenda different—and powerful.
So what’s next? This month, we’ll launch a major campaign for a clean energy future, starting by breaking the vise-grip of big oil in Washington with our “Oil Free Congress” initiative. Expect hundreds of local events, advertising, national media attention and accountability at the ballot box—and that’s just for the first of our 3 new goals.
Of course, we won’t let up in our work to end the war in Iraq, and we’ll still respond to immediate threats in Congress. But our new agenda will focus our long-term work, offer voters a positive, inspiring reason to support progressives on Election Day, and push Democrats to think big and fight hard.
Let’s be clear: we’ve chosen big goals here, and seeing them through won’t be easy. There are powerful interests who prefer things the way they are, and we’ll never match them in sheer dollars or backroom deals.
Our strength lies where it always has: the voice, energy, and creativity of 3 million MoveOn members. If we’re going to make health care a right, power America with clean energy, and restore our democracy, we’re going to need as many likeminded folks on board as we can get. So today, we’re turning to you to help build the team.
Can you think of some folks you know who care about these issues and are ready to roll up their sleeves—or even just get their feet wet? You can send them a quick note and invite them to join MoveOn through a simple online form, or just forward this note and ask them to click:
When the polls closed Wednesday night at 11:59, “Health care for all” and “Energy Independence: clean, renewable sources” were the clear winners for the first and second plank, with 82.8% of voters choosing one or both. We’re proud to put these bold, inspiring goals front and center in our work to come.
But for the final plank, things got a little interesting. “Restored constitutional rights” and “verifiable, accurate elections” ended up in a virtual tie for the third slot (0.7% apart) but clearly ahead of the rest of the field.
We took a hard look at what folks were saying about both issues, and realized that they shared a very similar purpose: guarding against anti-democratic abuses of power. When the President puts himself above the law to invade our private lives, democracy is threatened. When thousands of votes are lost or deleted and there’s no way to check the results, democracy is threatened. We believe in a country where our rights are safe, and our votes always count— that’s democracy restored.
It’s exciting to know how united we are—a full 96.8% of voters chose at least one of these top issues.
We’ve set our eyes on a pretty big prize here, and there’s a lot of hard work to do. But our history is full of stories of millions of people uniting behind a vision and fighting together ’til they’ve achieved the unthinkable. And heck, most of them didn’t even have email.
Let’s make it happen.
–Ben, Matt, Adam Green, Marika, Justin, Jennifer, Carrie, Rosalyn, Eli, Adam, Tom, Noah, Wes,
Joan, Tanya, Natalie, Roy and Nita, the whole MoveOn.org Political Action team
Friday, June 2nd, 2006
P.S. The online vote was between the 10 most popular goals that MoveOn members generated and sent in from over 600 house parties last week. Here are all of the “MoveOn top 10” and the final vote count for each:
Health care for all 65091
Sustainable energy independence 61030
Restored constitutional rights 35675
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Posted by: Don Cossack | Jun 2 2006 18:32 utc | 66

basic bankruptcy of the Democrats
yes yes yes i see it r’giap. but there are ‘the democratic leaders’,”the democratic party” and then there are ‘the democrats’ many of the people(all varying kinds) are in the last catagory. i still think we can use the apparatus of the party to accomplish something, fool that i am. i know i may get a pile on, have at it (debs)

Posted by: annie | Jun 2 2006 20:33 utc | 68

we know now change cannot be achieved by casting ballots. that’s clear by now.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 2 2006 20:51 utc | 70

Re:

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. in Rolling Stone: Was The 2004 Election Stolen?

(linked by b above): an account of the following incident is buried on p. 94 of the Conyers Report

In Monroe County, the 3% hand-count failed to match the machine count twice. Subsequent runs on that machine matched neither each other nor the hand count. The Monroe County Board of Elections summoned a repairman from Triad to bring a new machine and the recount was suspended and reconvened for the following day. On the following day, a new machine was present at the Board of Elections office and the old machine was gone. The Board conducted a test deck run followed by the 3% hand-counted ballots. The results matched this time and the Board conducted the remainder of the recount by machine.

Consider the passages of this paragraph that I have emphasized: From the first emphasized passage, it can be deduced that the original machine was not counting votes accurately. On the one hand, it seems highly unlikely that an “accidental” malfunction of the original machine would cause it to return different results on the same set of ballots three times in a row. On the other hand, it seems likely that a scheme for randomly changing small numbers of votes would result in such a phenomenon being observed. The second and third emphasized passages point towards one of the ways that such a scheme would be uncovered: by comparing the various vote tallies of the suspect machine to a “stable” machine operating on the same set of ballots. The fourth passages points towards the other way: by comparing the “unstable” and “stable” vote totals with a hand count of a large sample. These passages also indicate how each of these means of fraud-detection was thwarted in the instance of Monroe Co.
The pitfall associated with a situation like the 2004 Ohio Presidential election, and Kennedy’s article illustrates this danger well, is that there is such a blizzard of questionable incidents and hard-knuckled tactics that well-intentioned but outmatched critics like Conyers and Kennedy don’t necessarily know where to focus. What one tends to end up with (as with Kennedy’s Rolling Stone article) is long “laundry lists” of both weak and strong circumstantial evidence that will convince those who are already sympathetic and open to the idea that massive voter fraud occurred, but allow most people to shrug it off by putting each episode in the category “part of the Darwinian electoral game” or the category of “evidence of mere incompetence on the part of the vote counters”. What is needed, to get something started, is a smoking gun with the potential to put people behind bars. For that one, in turn, needs highly expert people on the ground who know what leads to put aside and what leads to pursue, for example, by actually obtaining–by hook or by crook–all the ballots from a suspect county, scanning them, and posting them to the internet for all to see the discrepancy, if any, with the machine count.
Now, maybe the Conyers people tried to do just that, but were denied access to the original ballots. If so I haven’t heard. It looks more like they didn’t appreciate the significance of what concrete finds they did make, or even worse, didn’t want to really get to the nightmarish bottom of things because of the legal/Constitutional chaos it might unleash. Who knows. But, until the Democrats are willing to put such fears out of their minds and go for the jugular, as the Republicans have been now for almost a generation, they’ll be doomed to irrelevance.

Posted by: heatkernel | Jun 2 2006 21:24 utc | 72

what’s this i hear about the army having to undergo ethics training? could this really be the end? i mean, given that the invasion & occupation of iraq & afghanistan is unethical at its core, right, and the troops went in there under pretenses that can only be correctly defined as mendacious, if the troops have to complete ethics training, and assuming that they are expected to pass the course by gaining an understanding of both the theory and practise of ethical behaviour, then it is inevitable that they’ll have to own up to the fact that what they are engaged in is both wrong & evil & that they have no other option but to disengage from these nations, hold their superiors accountable, and act to undo all the wrongs that have commited in their names. am i not correct? ha! let’s just see the army try and get past the MSM on this one.

Posted by: b real | Jun 2 2006 22:00 utc | 74

the military has already cleared the guys @ ishaqi. they followed proceedure, hows that for timing, the same day the story breaks. makes me sick. ethic training, taught by rove?

Posted by: annie | Jun 2 2006 22:03 utc | 76

i was over at raw story, they report nbc is linking to theire story w/photos. i think americans/the world is not stupid enough to think this was some fabrication. what w/the timing. it takes them 7 months to investigated hidatha and the day the story breaks its supposedly under wraps, nada, aint goona fly. one doesn’t have to be a conspiracy minded tin hatter to figure this one out. the raw story site is getting jammed, i couldn’t pull up the photos. baby shot thru the head, oh yeah, what/ they all just happened to be standing in the window during the firefight that left no bullet holes on the exterior of the building?

Posted by: annie | Jun 3 2006 1:32 utc | 78

@C-P-, what one concludes from them “jumping ship”, is that they no longer needed training wheels.
No, he prob. won’t support HillBilly Clinton. but who cares, look at agendas not candidates.
@Don Cossak – we speak English here, not Lithuanian Pig Latin like this:
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Translated into English, this says we’re funded by a handful or rich guys, beginning w/George Soros, one of the foremost Predators of the age. Who else funds this outfit?
Continuing on in English, that agenda you dropped here like so much wet buffalo dung reads like it was devised by a bunch of alcoholics/drug addicts w/a 4th grade education blabbering about the one square foot of the living room floor on which the herd of hippos have not ensconced themselves. I don’t know whether to laugh or howl in pain & despair.
On second glance, it’s far worse than I even noticed w/this real stinko
Global leadership through diplomacy 28912
That’s a call for a World State Of By & For the Pirates.
Are you guys totally insane, as well as being inane?

Posted by: jj | Jun 3 2006 2:46 utc | 80

p.s. Didn’t the initial enquiry into Haditha clear all the US troops and claim they ‘were operating reasonably, within the rules of engagement’?

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 3 2006 3:01 utc | 82

groucho?

Posted by: b real | Jun 3 2006 3:19 utc | 84

debs, thanks for the exclusion
i doubtt but that its a fabricated story and here’s why. the knight rider story i linked to was days old. an iraqi film student and a AP photographer took pictures right after the event. the police that reported the story and took the report were well respected. but, the main reason, people lie when they have something to hide. and it wasn’t a little lie, it was an elaborate lie. why call in the helicopters to blast a house where the people are already dead? he bodies were killed prior to the explosions. it makes perfect sense if you want to cover the evidence.
there is a chance i’m wrong, i doubt it tho. i’m probably right. if they had blasted the house first , why the bullet in head scenario?
plus, i’ve been readin the iraqi blogs, they all say tons of civilians are getting killed by our military. did i read that hersh story from 04 here? they just butched them all. plus, i’ve been reading a marine blog, he says straight up you can’t tell them apart, they are all the enemy, then he kind of backtracks and excludes the kids. am i repeating myself? I’M FURIOUS. kill kill kill. fighting machines. isn’t that what they are trained for. or are they trained for ‘nation building’? its a war god damnit. you can put lipstick on a pig, its still a pig.

Posted by: annie | Jun 3 2006 3:26 utc | 86

@Don Cossack, I’ll try to find time to post a more helpful response this weekend on an Open Thread. Don’t have time now. Sorry 🙂

Posted by: jj | Jun 3 2006 4:01 utc | 88

Well, I kept waiting for a new weekend ot, to post this but it never came…
Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025
i think i’ve about had it today. lets go point by point.
– in the months after 911 it occured to me how terrorism has no military solution. that the root of terrorism must be struck (hatred fueled by ignorance and CIA instigation). instead all the military solution does is cut off the hydra heads that grow back. there is no poison the well solution.
-today i watched the house select intelligence commitee hearing on intelligence leaks and media’s role. this hearing happened during all the mess with gunfire at the rayburn building (where this hearing was taking place) on friday. it was a very interesting hearing, very informative of the age we are in, with the fascist room by room check of legislature’s offices as the backdrop.
-ray mcgovern says Iran Strike Set For June Or July by using Staged terror attacks across Europe, US “probable” in order to justify invasion on alex jones.
-on the forums i’ve been on there’s talk of false flag operations on the world cup.
-i have a feeling kennedy jr’s exposure of voter fraud in ohio is just a ploy to make it appear liberals will fix the voting system when in fact they will offer a non solution.
-the kennedys are part of the PTB and this is a card they can play against the neocons. and maybe this is one big card they can play to thwart a manufactured war with iran because i’m not quite sure they want one. and its also true they couldnt of ‘silenced’ robert jr or rather they havn’t had the chance too.
-the neo cons were put in power to get the ‘dirty work’ done whether they know it or not. they are complicitly involved with the dismantling of america in every way from 911 to the PATRIOT ACT to trillion dollar wars to 10 trillion dollar tax cuts (to starve the government of financial resources) to the devaluation of the dollar to economically crippling gas prices to the stand down of FEMA after the levees were blown after hurricane katrina to raise the death rate and to hire mercenaries to grab the guns from the citizenry because of a disproven hoax of snipers shooting at police. the bush administration is an agent provacteur made to create chaos. a problem that democrats in 2006 and 2008 will promptly provide to the gullible masses a fuzzy little solution to our problems by delivering us another war (all indicators point to yes) and whatever else half promises can be made (pushing for a UN world government and draconian ‘environmental protection’ laws because of increasing natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and weather modification).
what if the increase in ‘natural’ disasters isn’t real? what if global warming isn’t real? what if its actually weather warfare? maybe al gore’s new movie is being used to propagate the meme that us common people did this to ourselves? but in reality its a big military operation through the development of weather modification? to create bigger hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and flooding? does it explain the severe drought the mid west had last summer? it suggests something much worse…
just a thought
Defense Secretary William Cohen:
“Others (terrorists) are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanos, remotely, through the use of electro-magnetic waves…It’s real, and that’s why we have to intensify our efforts”
(April 1997 DOD news briefing, University of Georgis, Conference on Terrorism)
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experimented with cloud seeding to create a second eyewall in a hurricane
Weather manipulation research
New evidence suggests US & Russia are embroiled in an illegal race to harness the power of hurricanes & earthquakes
The Military’s Pandora’s Box
I put nothing past the Military Industrial complex and their out-landish bizarre and strange black budget projects
The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction:”Owning the Weather” for Military Use
by Michel Chossudovsky
Hurricane, Halt!
I mean look, at how they handled the first atomic bomb…they had no ideal what would happen to the atmosphere of the earth and went with it anyway.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 3 2006 5:54 utc | 90

Here, ordinary people marvel at how their president comes across as someone in touch, as populist candidate turned caring incumbent. In speeches, 17-hour workdays and biweekly trips like the one that brought him here to Central Province, Ahmadinejad showcases a relentless preoccupation with the health, housing and, most of all, money problems that may barely register on the global agenda but represent the most clear and present danger for most in this nation of 70 million.

A Man of the People’s Needs and Wants

Posted by: b | Jun 3 2006 6:45 utc | 92

All right, shout outs: to rememberinggiap, hope that little black laptop keeps on ticking, rg. I had one once, the keyboard is notorious … although your meaning is undeterred.
To Uncle, I have a friend who is a major fan of Nicola Tesla, he even knows which building on 14th Street in Manhattan (I think) where Tesla had a lab using the giant electromagnetic thing. I guess NYC had power at that time, and since Tesla’s AC was adopted instead of Edison’s DC, because AC can be stepped up by transformer to a high voltage for long-distance transmission and then stepped down to a safe voltage for local use. That’s why we see those transformer cans on every telephone pole.
Anyway, I speculate that Tesla used his own-designed electric grid to power his giant transformer thingy, I don’t remember what it was exactly but clearly it would be like something out of a Frankenstein movie, with the high-voltage Teslas coils producing sparks etc. Apparently he was onto something, and the Slot guy (is Slot S some computer thing?) suggests that the northeastern power failure of recent years may have been a result of a further experiment.
That’s the power of imaginative thinking!
jj, I’ve thanked you before for turning me onto saltspringnews.com, it is now part of my daily grind; along with debka.com, xe, josh marshal, drudge, cursor, counterpunch, kevin drum, atrios, kos, moon, lespeakeasy, thetyee.com (local BC greenish news) and the geek sites slashdot and theregister. Thanks again it’s a great read.
Did anyone else get the link to the very funny 45-minute video of the english guy and his History of Oil? Wow. If only it would play a bit better through the Google Video thingy, only on IE by the way. As funny as Colbert’s White House Press Corps speech, only in mime and added video, proper job!
Speaking of which, I have a good thought about the blogs — if you wonder what I said the other night after a few beers, you can just google my nickname and the name of the site and up it comes … not the beer, the permanent-ish postings. But if I don’t sign my posts, you will have to remember what (direct quote) I said, or where and when (which site) I said it. Wow! 15 minutes of fame, or eternal anonymity. That one’s for you my son.
Okay, just got back to read y’alls postings and I couldn’t keep you hanging. Especially you, Annie. Keep on keepin’ on.

Posted by: jonku | Jun 3 2006 7:48 utc | 94

jonku, what a rad link! cudos
uncle, as i recall, there was some patten listed to an undisclosed company out of texas for a meter/apparatus that detected the intensity of earthquakes. i believe you linked to it after the huge one in pakistan. it also worked in reverse, to initiate one. can you find the link again? may have been from memory hole

Posted by: annie | Jun 3 2006 9:54 utc | 96