Iraq Government Has No Control Over Its Own Country

On Sunday, September 16, 2007, employees of the Blackwater Company who provide security for Americans in Iraq were accused of killing several Iraqis. This is not the first time that Blackwater has been involved in such incidents. Yet, under regulations adopted when the provisional coalition authority ran Iraq, employees of such firms cannot be prosecuted for such attacks.

Not only is the Iraq government barred from prosecuting Americans who, in their opinion use unjustifiable force, but the Iraqi government is not in a position to disarm sectarian militias. This means that the Iraqi government is in the unenviable position of having to tolerate armed forces it can't control in its own country.

What this means to the United States is that a government that can't protect its citizens from violence won't have those citizens' respect. It also means that if getting our troops out of Iraq depends on political reconciliation among the Iraqis, they are going to be there for a very long time.

Voinovich Backs Bush, Screws Troops Again

Senator Jim Webb, (D-VA), sponsored legislation to require that troops spend as much time at home as they spend in Iraq. The bill came up for a vote today. Webb needed 60 votes to cut off debate on this bill. He got 56. Among the 43 voting against his legislation was, you guessed it, Ohio's own George Voinovich. Despite the fact that last week he indicated he might vote for the Webb legislation, in the final analysis he couldn't just bring himself to do something that Bubble-Boy didn't want him to do. Good to know where Voinovich stands when it comes to really supporting the troops.

Netherlands Approach to Health Insurance: Would it Work in Ohio?

The Netherlands has adopted a very intriguing approach to health insurance. First of all, it uses private insurance companies. Second, it requires all citizens to get health insurance. Third, it makes all health insurance companies accept all applicants. Fourth, it makes all health insurance companies offer the same basic policy with the same benefits. People can buy supplemental insurance, but the same standard policy with the same benefits has to be offered to everyone. You can read more about the Dutch approach to health insurance here.

One thing that should be kept in mind is that the Netherlands is bigger than the State of Ohio, but not a lot bigger. Ohio has a population of 11 million plus while the Netherlands has a population of 16 million plus. The advantage of such an approach is that it people who have health insurance would probably be able to keep such coverage, increasing their comfort level with the concept. Another advantage for doctors and other providers of health services is that there would be a universal insurance policy with a standard amount of benefits. Consumers wouldn't have to worry about being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Another advantage of this program is that insurance companies would be forced to compete with each other by becoming more efficient. Right now there is a big difference between the administrative costs for private insurance companies and Medicare. The administrative costs, as represented by the percentage of health care dollars going to such costs, are much higher for private insurance companies than for Medicare.
The change would be politically difficult, but probably easier than establishing a state-run insurance program. Democrats should think about adopting the Dutch model as the model for Ohio.

Check Out OhioMoneyTree.org

Want to find out who gets political money from who? Check out www.ohiomoneytree.org. You can check either by contributor names or by candidate/committee names. It is pretty interesting and is very comprehensive.

Alan Greenspan Says Iraq War is About Oil

Alan Greenspan has a new book out in which he is quite critical of the Bush Administration. Most of the press coverage of the book has been centered around his complaints about Bush and his disappointment with Cheney, who he served with in the Ford Administration. There is, however, a fascinating quote about Iraq. Here is the quote:

"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

Now, apparently, he doesn't go into an explanation of what this quote means or why he believes that the Iraq War is about oil. This could just be speculation, but if it is, it is speculation coming from a man who is wired into both Republican and Washington power circles. The next time that some Bush loyalist tells you that this war was started because of weapons of mass destruction or to spread democracy, or any of the other discarded reasons we have been given, give them Greenspan's quote.

Western Colorado Trending Democratic Because of Environmental Concerns

The Washington Post posted an article on its website dated Sunday, September 16, 2007, about the growing Democratic vote in western Colorado. The Democratic vote is growing because of environmental concerns brought on by the Bush Administration's plans to vastly increase oil and natural gas drilling in Western Colorado. According to the residents of western Colorado, this increased drilling is destroying the beauty of the area. The natural beauty is one reason why many people have moved to the western part of the state.

This is a quote from the article:

At the behest of the White House, which made accelerated oil and gas leasing the top priority of the Bureau of Land Management, the gas industry has in the past five years transformed huge tracts of an iconic Western landscape into something resembling an industrial zone. As Coloradoans struggle to adjust to the changes -- a steady flow of heavy rigs on back roads, powerful odors from evaporation ponds and a small army of roughnecks gobbling methamphetamine to work 12-hour shifts -- disquiet grows over federal plans to open the spigot wider yet.

If you haven't visited western Colorado, you may want to schedule a visit before Bush turns the state into one great big oil and gas drilling field.

Voinovich's Iraq Position: Troop Withdrawal Good, Deadlines Bad

Ohio's other United States Senator, George Voinovich, gave an interview to WOSU radio in which he came out for the Bush Administration developing a plan to withdraw from Iraq, but, according to WOSU, he will not vote for a deadline. He says that he believes that a deadline of one year would be disastrous.

This is classic Voinovich: Do just enough to look like you are listening to Ohio's voters, but, when the chips are down, support Bubble-Boy's Iraq policy. This way he gets the praise of moderately conservative Ohio newspapers like the Plain Dealer and the Columbus Dispatch for being realistic about Iraq, but doesn't earn the animosity of the wing-nuts who vote in Ohio's Republican primaries.

This is always the problem that Cuyahoga County Republicans have in Ohio politics. Since they are from Cuyahoga County, they tend to be much more reasonable than some of the downstate Republicans. They have to be because Cuyahoga County, even in its Republican areas, will only tolerate a certain amount of right-wing craziness. This tendency toward reasonableness makes them hard for Democrats to beat in general elections, but makes them vulnerable in Republican primaries.

Look what happened, for example, to Jim Petro. Here he was a successful state-wide vote getter, a winner of races for Ohio Attorney General and Ohio State Auditor, a proven vote getter in the biggest Democratic county in the State, and he gets whacked in the primary by a right-wing nut job named Ken Blackwell. You can be sure that Voinovich took note of that election, especially if he is thinking about running for re-election in 2010.

Iraq, though, is different than other problems Voinovich has faced in his political career. The cost in human suffering and financial treasure to the United States is high compared to the importance that most of us who aren't oil company executives attach to the country. Voinovich's political balancing act may come to a crashing end over this issue if he decides to run in 2010.

Pelosi Goes After Bush's 10 Year War

Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi issued a statement today, September 14, 2007, claiming that Bush's plan means a 10 year American presence in Iraq. Although the Republicans are going to deny it, her statement is based on comments that General Petraeus made to Congressional delegation.

This is a theme that has some legs. Bush spoke in his statement on Thursday evening, September 13, 2007, about creating an "enduring relationship" with Iraq's government. Of course, that assumes that Iraq will have a functioning government, but that is another matter altogether. We have already been in Iraq for over four years, and have actually increased the number of troops in Iraq over the last 12 months. So the American public might be very willing to believe that Bush and his neo-con friends would actually be in favor of a 10 year war.

Conservative Columnists Greatly Outnumber Progressive or Liberal Columnists

Media Matters has a report out that shows the tremendous conservative advantage in columnists that are published by American newspapers. This is a quote from the report:

Sixty percent of the nation's daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists. Only 20 percent run more progressives than conservatives, while the remaining 20 percent are evenly balanced.

In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million.

When you consider the tremendous advantage that conservatives have in the electronic media with their own network, Fox News; the advantage they have on talk radio; and the advantage they have in newspaper columnists, it is remarkable that they sincerely believe that there is such a thing as a "liberal" media. It is also remarkable that in spite of all these advantages, they still can be beat in honest elections.

Did Petareus Arm Both Sides of the Iraq Civil War?

Here is another view of General David Petraeus and his role in Iraq. In this article, the person being interviewed by Amy Goodman argues that Petraeus has helped arm both Shia death squads and now Sunni death squads. These death squads are basically private militias under the control of tribal leaders and religious leaders in Iraq. They are definitely not under the control of the Iraqi government. It is well worth the time it takes to read it.

Fact Checking the Prez

Salon Magazine's Tim Grieve has a post out that fact checks Bubble-Boy's speech last night about Iraq. You can read it here. Needless to say, BB stretched the truth last might and that is being charitable.

Master Narrative of the Bush Presidency

Jay Rosen, who blogs on media matters at Huffington Post, and on his own blog, has an entry on Huffington Post about the missing master narrative of the Bush Administration. That missing master narrative is the effort of the Bush Administration to increase the unchecked power of the presidency. Rosen uses the term "master narrative" to mean the story that drives all other stories. It is a way for the media and its public to make sense of the world around us, a way, if you will, "to connect the dots."

In this case, Rosen says that most political reporters used the master narrative that the Bushies were skilled at politics. The evidence was that Bush had won the 2000 election, although disputed, helped Republicans win the 2002 off-year election, and won re-election in 2004. The theory was that these wins demonstrated the political skill of Bush and Karl Rove.

What such a narrative overlooks, however, is that political campaigns cannot be separated from the political aims of the people conducting the campaigns. It is as if political reporters never asked themselves why exactly did Bush plan to accomplish with his political power. How exactly did he plan to govern? What goals would he try to accomplish with is political power?

Those questions were strangely missing from the media coverage of both the 2000 and the 2004 presidential campaigns. Consequently while Bush would claim a mandate for everything that he tried to do as President, the voters who supposedly gave him this mandate never really was told what he was trying to accomplish as President.

The master narrative suggested by Rosen allows consumers of news to understand what the Bush Administration is trying to accomplish. It explains why he waged a war on the rule of law, why he reacts viscerally to the idea of Congressional oversight, why he feels that it was permissible to start a war using questionable or false evidence, and why he believes that his administration can spy without a warrant on Americans or imprison an American without due process of law. The Bush Presidency is about turning the American presidency into a unchecked instrument for governing.

Ohio's John Boehner Says U.S. Is Paying a "Small Price" in Iraq

So here we have an incredible remark by Congressman John Boehner, who is the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Here is the question from Wolf Blitzer of CNN and Boehner's answer:

BLITZER: How much longer will U.S. taxpayers have to shell out $2 billion a week or $3 billion a week as some now are suggesting the cost is going to endure? The loss in blood, the Americans who are killed every month, how much longer do you think this commitment, this military commitment is going to require?

BOEHNER: I think General Petraeus outlined it pretty clearly. We’re making success. We need to firm up those successes. We need to continue our effort here because, Wolf, long term, the investment that we’re making today will be a small price if we’re able to stop al Qaeda here, if we’re able to stabilize the Middle East, it’s not only going to be a small price for the near future, but think about the future for our kids and their kids.

Only a politician who doesn't have a family member serving in Iraq, who doesn't have to worry every day and night whether his loved one is safe in Iraq, could make that kind of statement. Frankly it is obscene and a hell of a lot more insulting to American soldiers than some ad run by Moveon.org.

Republican Plan for Iraq: Endless Troop Committment

The New York Times has an article dated September 12, 2007, on its website in which the reporters claim that Bush is going to try and portray his so-called troop withdrawal of next summer as a way to bring America together over Iraq. Here is a quote from the article:

With lawmakers openly skeptical of his troop buildup, Mr. Bush will cast his plan for a gradual, limited withdrawal as a way to bring a divided America together — even as he resists demands from those who want him to move much faster.

Now there are all kinds of things wrong with this concept. First, if the United States withdraws the 30,000 troops that were included as part of the surge, that brings us back to where we were before the surge started. Second, the 30,000 troops have to be withdrawn by next summer according to several reports because the Pentagon cannot sustain this kind of commitment. Third, as we noted in an entry posted yesterday, this plan leaves American troops held hostage to decisions made by Iraqis, which we cannot control.

Politically, however, this plan of Bubble-Boy's may work unless Democrats push back with an easily understood counter-message. That message could be that the Republicans are promising an endless troop commitment in the Middle East. Vote Republican for War without End.

U.S. Cannot Control What Iraqis Do or Decisions They Make

One of the most frustrating problems with the Bush adventure in Iraq has been the absolute inability of Bubble-Boy and Dick "the Duck Hunter" Cheney to recognize that the United States cannot control what Iraqis do or what decisions they make. This problem is illustrated by an article that appeared in the Washington Post on Wednesday, September 12, 2007.

Here is a quote from that article:

A little over four years ago, when the Bush administration claimed its mission had been accomplished in Iraq, warnings that it would be hard and maybe impossible to remake Iraq were whispered only in the bowels of the State Department -- by Crocker, a career Foreign Service officer with long Middle East experience, among others. Diplomatic caution was dismissed as timid "clientism" from "Arabists" who were out of step with what the White House saw as the march of democracy in the region.

Now, of course, four years later, we understand that this so-called "march of democracy" depends on the Iraqis and the decisions they make. Now we are told that we can't leave Iraq because there will be sectarian violence that could kill hundred of thousands of Iraqis. Now we are told that only the Iraqis can decided if there will be reconciliation between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Now we are told that only the Iraqis can decide whether there will be a sharing of oil revenues, or whether local militias will be disarmed, or what the shape of a post-war Iraq will take.

The bottom line is that we have put over 160,000 American soldiers at risk because of decisions by Iraqis that we can't control. Does it make any sense to allow them to continue to be in that position?

Petraeus's Plan Kicks Iraq Over into 2008

McClatchey News Service has a story up on its website about how Petraeus is kicking Iraq into the 2008 campaign. This has both good and bad points for both political parties. The good for the Democrats is that the issue of the Iraq War will probably be the number one issue in the 2008 campaign for control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. The bad news is that if Republicans can get Bush to withdraw a significant amount of troops before the 2008 election, the Republicans can try to portray themselves as the Party who actually got us out of Iraq. Of course, for Republicans, the situation is just the opposite.

This is a quote from the article linked to above:

That's where Petraeus creates both opportunity and challenge for the Democrats as well.

His plan would leave 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq until next August at least, as many as were there in January, three months after Democrats won control of Congress largely on an end-the-war platform. That could stamp the Republican brand name even more emphatically on sustaining a woefully unpopular war. And that could be enough to persuade war-weary voters to give Democrats victory next year.

But if Dowd is right about voters wanting some party — either party — to get the troops out, then the Democrats have a problem: They must reconcile their followers' urge to set a deadline now for quick withdrawal with their congressional leaders' calculation that they can't enact a deadline over Bush's veto power without first getting some Republicans to sign on.

That conflict is building strains in the Democratic Party. And Petraeus' presentation put more pressure on that fault line.

The presidential campaign of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., for example, hit rival Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., on Tuesday for not committing to vote for a fixed, enforceable timetable for withdrawal.

L.A. Times Article On How Bush Wants to Leave Iraq to His Successor

The L.A. Times posted an article on its website dated September 11, 2007 on how Bush plans to leave a large military presence in Iraq to his successor. This will ensure that any consequences of an American withdrawal will be on his successor's watch, not his. The author points out that in 2003 Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, said it would take 10 years to stabilize Iraq and, according to a State Department source, that's what it is going to take.

Politically this approach also offers some political cover to Republicans. The thinking is that they will be able to argue next year that the war is winding down and troops are coming home, even though it will be less than 20% of the number of troops are scheduled to come home next year. (That 20%, by the way, apparently is 20% of the number there now, after the so-called "surge" as compared to 20% of the number that were there prior to the "surge.")

This policy is, of course, completely in keeping with Bush's character. He has always left messes for others to clean up. His whole life has been about avoid taking responsibility for his own mistakes. What is irritating about this situation is not just Bush's refusal to take responsibility, but also why Democrats don't point this out to voters. Prominent Democrats, like our presidential candidates, should point this out. They should point out that of course Bush is going to leave it to others to clean up his Iraq mess, because that's what he does and who he is.

Are There Liberal and Conservative Brains?

The L.A. Times posted a story on its website dated Monday, September 10, 2007, about a research study that supposedly proves that liberals and conservatives process information differently. There have been studies that show that liberals and conservatives think differently, but this study goes beyond those studies and explores the processing of information. Here is a quote from the article:

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a flip-flopper for changing his mind about the conflict.

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

"There is ample data from the history of science showing that social and political liberals indeed do tend to support major revolutions in science," said Sulloway, who has written about the history of science and has studied behavioral differences between conservatives and liberals.

If this research study is accurate, then the question becomes whether how such brains are distributed across the United States population. That is, are there more "conservative brains" or more "liberal brains"? Are there differences in where such brains are located? Do people with "liberal" brains tend to live in areas where there is more change? It will be interesting to see how this information develops over the next few years.

UPDATE: Here is an article on the same study that gives more background on how liberals and conservatives differ in their cognitive styles.

Iraq War Producing Thousands of Brain-Damaged GIs

The AP ran a story on Sunday, September 9, 2007 about how the Iraq War is producing an "epidemic" of brain injuries to American soldiers. These injuries are being caused by bomb blasts and are occurring to relatively young soldiers. Some of them will need life-long care. This care will continue long after American soldiers are no longer serving in Iraq. It will be just one more bitter legacy of Bush's Iraq War blunder. A legacy that neither he nor any member of his immediate family will have to live with, but one that will haunt thousands of American families.

Politics Is Marketing

One of the problems that Democrats seem to have is that all too often Democrats overlook that politics is about marketing. A political campaign markets the candidate who is running. A political party markets its ideas, its philosophy about how a government should be run. A political action commmittee markets itself. All of these efforts are designed to somehow influence the voters when they choose their elected leaders.

Yet, it sometimes seems that while Republicans understand this basic concept, Democrats not only don't understand it, they resist it. Part of this may be that a lot of Democrats don't come from business families and don't have business backgrounds before entering politics. They are not likely to have been business majors in college. Their exposure to marketing concepts is limited.

It is way past time for Democrats to grasp this simple fact: If they want political power in a democratic society, then they have to market themselves, their candidates, and their ideas. Consumers don't usually buy a product they are not aware of and voters don't either.

Biden Criticizes Petraeus on Sunday Talk Show

This Sunday,September 9, 2007, Senator Joe Biden criticized General Petraeus's assessment on how things are going in Iraq. Biden appeared on the NBC's Meet the Press. Challenging Petraeus is crucial to Democrats winning the public relations campaign that the Bush Administration has been running since the Congressional recess in August. The Bushies know that Bubble-Boy has no credibility with the public on Iraq, so they are hiding behind Petraeus, hoping that Democrats will not challenge his assessment on Iraq.

Why does Bush have to hide behind Petraeus? Because as Biden said on Meet the Press,"This president has no plan — how to win and how to leave." As Biden went on to note, Bush's plan is to leave Iraq for the next President to handle. All his life, other people have bailed Bush out of his mistakes. He has been allowed to avoid the draft, bankrupt businesses, and invade a country and not pay any price for his screw-ups. Being George W. Bush means never having to take responsibility.

Public Doubts Petraus Will Give Accurate Report On Iraq

The Washington Post is reporting in its Sunday, September 9, 2007 edition that the public doubts that General Petraeus will give an accurate report on conditions in Iraq during his congressional testimony. This is a quote from the article:

Only about four in 10 said they expect the general to give an accurate accounting of the situation in Iraq. A majority, 53 percent, said they think his report will try to make the situation in Iraq look better than it really is.

This story also reflects how much independents are adopting the Democratic point of view on Iraq. Here is a quote that illustrates that point:

Just 23 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of independents expected an honest depiction of conditions in Iraq. By contrast, two-thirds of Republicans anticipated a straightforward accounting.

The story also reports that the poll shows that Iraq remains the predominant political issue in Americans' minds. This is from the article:

Beyond current policy, the war has clear implications for the 2008 presidential race. More than a third identified Iraq as the campaign's single most important issue. The war received nearly three times as many mentions as the next most frequently cited issue, health care, at 13 percent. Nearly half of Democrats called Iraq the single most important issue, as did a third of independents and 28 percent of Republicans.

The bottom line is that for all of the PR spin about Petraeus's report to Congress that the Bushies have put out, the public remains skeptical. Hopefully Congressional Dems will read this report before the General testifies.

Three Rules for Local Campaigns

This is the year that Ohio elects city, village, and township officials across the state. There are a lot of Democrats running for local office. MCDAC members have a lot of experience running in local elections. Here are three rules to keep in mind when you are organizing your campaign:

1. Not all voters are equal. By that we mean that voters who won't vote in this year's elections are not equal to those voters who will vote. Voter turn-out will be about 50% of the electorate, and in some areas, less. You need to figure out the voting history of voters in your area and concentrate on those voters who will vote in this year's elections.

2. There is never enough time or enough money. Campaigns are captive of things that are finite. Those are money and time. You need to focus on fund-raising and you need to budget your time. Keep in mind that people can only get done about half of what they think they can get done; things will probably cost around twice as much as you think they will; and things will take about twice as long to accomplish as you think they will take. This means that you have to budget both your time and your campaign money.

3. The most valuable resource in any campaign is the candidate's time. Since time is finite, and since the candidate is the person that you want voters who are going to vote in off-year elections to be talking to, you need to make sure that you both protect and maximize the candidate's time. Here's an example: Let's say that a candidate and volunteers are going to do a door-to-door canvas on a street. The candidate should only be hitting homes with voters who are pretty certain to vote. Households with voters who may vote in an off-year election should be covered by other volunteers.

Those are the three rules. Thanks for taking the time to participate in local campaigns and good luck!

Bush Claims We are "Kicking Ass" In Iraq as Seven More Americans Die

This is incredible: The President tells a deputy Australian Prime Minister that we are "kicking ass" in Iraq. Meanwhile the media is reporting that the United States lost seven more troops in Iraq. (As of early morning 9-7-2007). So while "Bubble-Boy" indulges himself with some good old-fashioned down-home Texas talk, American families are constantly being notified that their loved ones have either died or been wounded in Iraq.

Does he think that makes him look tough? Does he think that the insurgents in Iraq are impressed by his language? Does he think that he is making our troops safer? The adolescent posturing of Bush was, perhaps, amusing before people started dying in Iraq. Now it is just sad

Military Deaths in Iraq Higher Each Month of 2007

If you go to this website page, you will see a graph that shows the military deaths of United States forces in Iraq by month for 2003-2007. If you compare each complete month of 2007 compared to each month of 2006, you will see that so far this year each month of 2007 has seen more deaths than the comparable month in 2006. Yet, the Bush Administration is convincing the American media that the "surge" is supposedly working. So, let's see, deaths of Iraq1s are up, deaths of American military personnel are up, yet we are supposed to believe that we have turned the proverbial corner in Iraq. Well, if you believe that line of b.s., we got a bridge over the Euphrates we would love to sell you.

Democrats Work

If you click on the link in this entry's title you can read a article on Huffington Post by Jason Carter, the grandson of Jimmy Carter. He is promoting a concept called Democrats Work. This is an organization dedicated to using Democrats as volunteers for community service projects. This is an excellent idea because it shows how Democrats could be seen as doing more than just asking people for their votes. It would put Democrats in touch with community service organizations and would lead to alliances with local activists who are working in local communities. If you know of such an organization in Ohio, please leave the name and other contact information in the comments section of this entry.

When Pat Buchanan Starts Making Sense.....

you know you are in some seriously deep do-do. Read the column linked to in this entry's title by P.B. He makes more sense on Iran than anyone in this administration. Is this an endorsement of Buchanan's views? No, but his point that no one in the Democratically controlled Congress is stopping W's drive toward war with Iran is a very valid point.

Republicans Discover "Bi-Partisanship" on Iraq

This is a story from the AP about how six so-called Republican "moderates" and five Democratic "moderates" want a bi-partisan solution to Iraq. The story was posted during the evening of September 4, 2007. We can see why Republicans want a bi-partisan solution to Iraq because they are in danger of taking even further losses next year in both the House and the Senate. We can even see why Democrats from "swing" districts are interested in such an approach. The problem, though, is that Bush isn't interested in such an approach, as this story, also from the AP, shows. He is determined to keep as many troops in Iraq until the end of his term as he can and if he ends up destroying the chances of Republicans to retake either House of Congress, that is just too bad.

GOP Troubles Continue as Sen. Craig Reconsiders Resigning

The rumors were out on the Internet over the last two days that Sen. Larry Craig was reconsidering his decision to resign from the Senate due to his arrest for an incident in a airport bathroom in Minneapolis. Now, Politico has two stories up on about Craig's resignation. This report, put up on September 4, 2007, confirms that Craig is looking at his options. This report, also put up on September 4, 2007, points out that his GOP colleagues aren't happy with this turn of events.

One of the problems for the GOP Senate leadership is that the longer this takes to resolve, the more people are going to raise the question about why the difference in treatment between Sen. David Vitter from Louisiana and Sen. Craig from Idaho. Reporters raised this issue yesterday with McConnell, according to this story posted on Politico on September 4, 2007. The situation involving Craig will be interesting to watch over the next few days.

Another Reason to Like Ted Strickland: He Knows When Not to Talk

Buckeye State Blog put us on to this report about Governor Ted Strickland refusing to make public his preference for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008. The Gov told the Cincinnati Enquirer reporter that yes, he had a preference and no, he wasn't going to announce it to the media. That's smart.

First of all, why tick off Ohio Dems who aren't supporting the Governor's choice? Second, why tick off someone who may not be his choice, but who may end up being the nominee. Third, next year when he is campaigning with the Democratic presidential nominee he won't have to answer questions about why the nominee is better than his preference if his preference doesn't make it.

Surprise, Surprise-Bush's Advisers Tell Him to Stay the Course in Iraq

Despite reports like this one from the Monday, September 4, 2007 edition of the Los Angeles Times, or this one from the Monday, September 4, 2007 edition of the Washington Post, the AP is reporting that Bush's advisers are telling him to stick with his current strategy in Iraq. Clearly, the Bush Administration is not going to withdraw any troops from Iraq unless they are forced to do so by two-thirds of the Senate and the Congress. Since that is not going to happen, this means that the 2008 presidential campaign will be dominated by Iraq. We wonder how the Republicans running for President are going to like spending all of next year answering questions about Bush's Iraq War? Our guess is not very much.

The Public Information Paradox: Putting Out Good Information May Just Reinforce Bad Information

Okay, so have you ever wondered why a fairly large percentage of Americans believe that Iraq and Hussein were involved in the attacks on September 11, 2001? Although the Bush Administration shares a good deal of the blame, its deceit isn't the whole reason. Part of the reason has to do with the human brain. Consider the following quote from this article in the September 4, 2007 Washington Post:

The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.

This phenomenon may help explain why large numbers of Americans incorrectly think that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in planning the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi. While these beliefs likely arose because Bush administration officials have repeatedly tried to connect Iraq with Sept. 11, the experiments suggest that intelligence reports and other efforts to debunk this account may in fact help keep it alive.

This research puts politicians and public officials who face opponents who aren't afraid to lie in a bad situation. If they ignore the lie, then people might believe it is true who otherwise wouldn't believe it is true. Taking the lie on, however, by putting out facts refuting the lie might also contribute to the lie being better remembered by people who have heard it. It is a fascinating article and one that you might want to take the time to read.

Wolf Blitzer Confronts Republican Congressman with Reality

This is a very interesting video that is posted on You Tube and was mentioned in the Think Progress blog:



What's interesting about this is that Blitzer is not just accepting the Republican spin that the Bush Administration is putting out in advance of the report that Petreaus is going to make to Congress later this month. It may be that the ability of the Bushies to bully the media into doing their bidding is finally ending.

Newsweek Article on Ethnic Cleansing of Sunnis from Baghdad

Newsweek has an interesting article on how Shia Muslims are forcing Sunni Muslims out of Baghdad. Here is a quote from the article:

The surge of U.S. troops—meant in part to halt the sectarian cleansing of the Iraqi capital—has hardly stemmed the problem. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was slightly higher than in February, when the surge began. According to the Iraqi Red Crescent, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has more than doubled to 1.1 million since the beginning of the year, nearly 200,000 of those in Baghdad governorate alone. Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration, says that the fighting that accompanied the influx of U.S. troops actually "has increased the IDPs to some extent." (IDP refers to internally displaced persons.)

So what about the success of the surge that the right-wing and the major media outlets keep telling us about? Here is an explanation about that from the same article:

When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress next week to report on the progress of the surge, he may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason behind the decline is how far the Shiite militias' cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've essentially won. "If you look at pre-February 2006, there were only a couple of areas in the city that were unambiguously Shia," says a U.S. official in Baghdad who is familiar with the issue but is not authorized to speak on the record. "That's definitely not the case anymore." The official says that "the majority, more than half" of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now Shiite-dominated, a judgment echoed in the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq: "And very few are mixed." In places like Amel, pockets of Sunnis live in fear, surrounded by a sea of Shiites. In most of the remaining Sunni neighborhoods, residents are trapped behind great concrete barricades for their own protection.

This is a very interesting article, and also very sad, because it shows how much havoc our failure to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq has caused for Iraqis. Obviously, things were going to change once Saddam was removed. Sunnis are a relatively small portion of Iraq's population but had been exercising all of the political power. Just as obviously, though, Iraq didn't have to be like this.

According to this article in the Washington Post, taken from a new book that is coming out about Bush he thought that Americans would be greeted as liberators. This was based on three conversations he had with dissident Iraqis before the invasion. Here is a quote from that article:

Several of Bush's top advisers believe that the president's view of postwar Iraq was significantly affected by his meeting with three Iraqi exiles in the Oval Office several months before the 2003 invasion, Draper reports.

He writes that all three exiles agreed without qualification that "Iraq would greet American forces with enthusiasm. Ethnic and religious tensions would dissolve with the collapse of Saddam's regime. And democracy would spring forth with little effort -- particularly in light of Bush's commitment to rebuild the country." We now see how useful that information was for the United States.

British Generals Criticize Rumsfeld Over Iraq Planning

The Washington Post posted a story on its website on Sunday, September 2, 2007, reporting that two retired British generals are criticizing Rumsfeld for the lack of planning that went into the Iraq War. The story is interesting because it is coming from British officers who were involved in the preparation for war with Iraq. It will be hard for the Bushies to blow this off as just more bs from Europeans who are too timid to stand up to the forces of "Islam Fascism."

Eleabor Clift's Column for Newsweek: "Marketing the War"

Here is a link to a great column by Eleanor Clift because it contains an analysis on how the Republicans plan to blame the Democrats when things go wrong in Iraq. This is a quote from the article:

Forget September. April is the real deadline. That’s when the U.S. military can no longer sustain the surge, and the debate will then be over whether to return to pre-surge levels or begin a staged withdrawal. You can guess where Bush will be; he’ll want to keep 130,000 troops (down from the current 160,000) in Iraq until he leaves office. The strategy of the war’s architects is clear: keep enough troops in Iraq to provide a surface illusion of progress, and then when the Democrats (ideally, Hillary) win the presidency in ’08 and pull out of Iraq, Bush and the Republicans can claim they were on the verge of a great victory against Islamofascism when the weak-willed opposition party betrayed the troops and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It worked with Vietnam, crippling Democrats on national security for decades because it was a Democratic Congress that pulled funding from the South Vietnamese government.

This is why Democratic politicians in Washington are not lining up to cut off funding for troops while they are serving in Iraq. They realize that they are going to be blamed if we withdraw rapidly and a bloodbath results. The thing that is not known, however, is whether the American public will care if there is a bloodbath in Iraq. If you want an explanation of why Democrats aren't willing to cut off funding, Clift's column is a good place to start.

Newsweek Reports Democratic Pressure Hasten Rove's Departure

Newsweek has an online story out that quotes an unnamed White House official as saying that Democratic pressure was the reason that Karl Rove, aka Bush's Brain, decided to leave before Bush's term ends in 2009. Apparently Rove thought that after the 2006 mid-term elections he could return to his former role in the White House. A Democratic-controlled Congress changed that by launching investigations of activities that were connected with Rove. Karl apparently then decided that his family needed him to leave his White House position. So not only Gonzales' departure but Rove's as well can be credited to a Democratic controlled Congress. Two good by-products of the country voting Democratic in 2006.

Is Bush Administration Planning Massive Military Attack on Iran?

This online article certainly thinks so. Of course, since there is no way of knowing exactly what "Times Online" is, there is no way of knowing how much stock to place in this report. On the other hand, there is no doubt that Bush and Cheney are crazy enough to try such a stunt. Embroiling the whole Middle East might be the only way they think they can ensure a GOP President gets sworn in on January 20, 2009.

There is also the possibility that the Bushies are putting this story out there as a way to pressure the Iranians and the United Nations into doing what they want. One possible advantage of being considered a war-monger by the rest of the world is that other global actors are inclined to believe such rumors and take them into consideration when planning their moves.

The article does show how they are going to justify this move. They are going to claim that the Iranians are supplying the insurgents in Iraq and if they would just stop, Bush's use of military force would start paying dividends in Iraq. One thing is for sure and that is that Bush won't be swayed by any humanitarian considerations. He is willing to sacrifice our military personnel and an untold number of people in Iraq and Iran to get his way. That's what happens when you turn our country over to a man whose entire life has been all about his sense of entitlement.

UPDATE: This is an article from another UK newspaper's website on the same topic. It is chilling reading to say the least.

DOJ Attorneys Engage in Quiet Rebellions Against Bush Policies

U.S. News and World Report posted a story on its website on August 30, 2007, that reports on how attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice are refusing to do appeals involving the detention of hundreds of people at the Guantánamo Bay naval base. This is yet one more illustration of the way career lawyers at the Justice Department are opposing Bush and his attempts to subvert Justice.

From leaking stories to the media about the reality of the Bush Justice Department to testifying truthfully to Congress, lawyers have been the source for media stories about what is happening at Justice. Since we have two lawyers in our family, we are proud of the role that lawyers have played in bringing the abuses of this administration to light.

This is not to say that all the lawyers at Justice have opposed Bush. Indeed, one of the sad things about the reign of Ashcroft and especially Gonzales has been that many of the abuses of power associated with this administration have been defended by lawyers. John Yoo comes to mind, as well as good ol' Alberto himself, but there are plenty of others.

Still when the sad history of this administration is written, one of the bright spots will be the willingness of many attorneys in the Justice Department willing to risk their careers or worse to expose this administration's war on the rule of law.

Who the Hell is Friedrich von Hayek and Why Should I Care?

Click on the link in this entry's title to get the answers to both questions. You will increase your awareness of the philosophical underpinnings of attempts to do with the social safety net that has been constructed since the Great Depression.

Washington Post Article on how Terrorism Laws are Splitting the Democrats

On August 30, 2007, the Washington Post ran an article on how outrage over Congress's inability to stop Bush's abuses of power is splitting the Democratic Party from it's more liberal members. The article starts out by focusing on an ad that the ACLU is running which depicts Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as sheep. It goes on to explore the anger that the ad represents in more detail.

Not suprisingly, the split is between those Democrats who have to run in more conservative states and districts and activist groups who don't have such restrictions. This is always the problem with a party built around coalitions. The coalitions can be split. The Southern Democrat/Northeast Democratic split started in FDR's time and continues to this day. The question is whether the Democratic party activists will continue to work for the defeat of Republicans or whether at least some of them will take a "pox on both your houses" approach.

John Edwards New Strategy

Salon, an online magazine, is running an article about the change in John Edwards' strategy. The change is that he is beginning to sharpen his attacks on his two main Democratic rivals, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. His populist rhetoric, which has always included attacks on corporate lobbyists and the ultra-rich, now includes attacks on Democrats who accept money from corporate lobbyists and Washington insiders. It is an interesting article. Check it out.

Gonzales Resignation Is Result of Democratic Control of Congress

If you read this article in the August 28, 2007 online edition of the Washington Post, you realize that Gonzales's resignation is the result of Democratic control of the Congress. Without the Dems taking control of the Congress, there wouldn't have been Congressional hearings about the firing of the U.S. Attorneys. Without those hearings the country wouldn't have seen Gonzales lying under oath about his involvement in the firings, as well as his lying under oath about his pressuring Ashcroft during his infamous hospital visit. Without hearings, aides to Ashcroft wouldn't have had to testify under oath about the inner workings of the Justice Department.

There is a tendency these days for writers on various blogs to act as if the Democrats being in control of Congress has not changed anything. Well, if you think that things haven't changed, just ask good ole' Alberto. He probably has a much different perspective.

American Commanding General in Iraq Sees U.S. In Iraq for 9-10 Years

If you click on the link in this entry's title, you can read an article about a anti-war Democratic Representative who visited Iraq with some colleagues. She quotes General Petraeus as saying that American troops would have to be Iraq for the next 9-10 years. Wonder how many Americans would have supported the Iraq War in 2003 if they had been told that the U.S. would be in Iraq for 9-10 years?

Of course, given the fact that N.A.T.O troops, including American troops, are still in Kosovo some 10 years after we intervened in that country, Patraeus's predication seems accurate. Still, though, it gets your attention to read that over the next decade, according to the U.S. Iraq Commander, we will have to continue to pour billions of dollars and risk thousands of American lives because of George W. Bush's mistake.

How Karl Rove Used Washington Media's Desire for "Saviness"

Jay Rosen, a communications professor, had an interesting blog entry on the reaction of political reporters and pundits to Rove's resignation. This is a quote from his entry:

Whereas I believe that the real—and undeclared—ideology of American journalism is savviness, and this is what made the press so vulnerable to the likes of Karl Rove.

Savviness! Deep down, that’s what reporters want to believe in and actually do believe in— their own savviness and the savviness of certain others (including operators like Karl Rove.) In politics, they believe, it’s better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere or humane.

While politicians and political reporters both love politics, there is a profound difference in the results of that love. When politicians and their helpers engage in politics, the purpose is not to be political, it is to gain power. With power comes the ability to make decisions that affect our society.

Political reporters, however, don't engage in politics at all, at least not in the sense of trying to obtain power. They are like sportswriters in that they are covering an activity that they love, but, like sportswriters, they can't play.

This means that they end up focusing on the part of politics that is concerned with winning elections as opposed to actually exercising power. Hence their love of writing about operators like Rove and their dislike for covering politicians who are actually interested in policy.

Combine those character traits with the fact that most political reporters who work for large corporations like Time, the Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and others, don't really need government programs that help the average American, and you end up with a media that is just interested in being "savy" and not interested in actual policy. It is relatively easy for an intelligent guy like Karl Rove to manipulate those personalities.

Click on the link in this entry's title to read Professor Rosen's complete blog entry.

Time Magazine Writers Predicts Attack on Iran, Cites Administration Source

There is an article on the Time magazine website, which can be read here, claiming that an administration source told one of its writers that there will be an attack on Iraq later this year. This is from the article:

Strengthening the Administration's case for a strike on Iran, there's a belief among neo-cons that the IRGC is the one obstacle to a democratic and friendly Iran. They believe that if we were to get rid of the IRGC, the clerics would fall, and our thirty-years war with Iran over. It's another neo-con delusion, but still it informs White House thinking.
And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it's not even a consideration. "IRGC IED's are a casus belli for this Administration. There will be an attack on Iran." (emphasis added).

How dumb do you have to be to start a third war when you have finished the first two wars? As dumb as they get, which means that war with Iran could be around the corner.

Conservatives Read Less Books Than Liberals

According to this article 34% of conservatives as opposed to 22% of liberals and moderates haven't read a book during the past year. After all, why read books when you can watch Fox News?

Is Mitt Romney Against Birth Control Pills?

Read this article that appeared on the Baltimore Sun's website on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 and see what you think.

White House Works to Stop States from Insuring More Uninsured Children

This article in the New York Times that appeared on its website on Monday, August 20, 2007, illustrates the difference between the Bush Administration and Democrats. This administration will spend billions, billions on a war in Iraq, a war that has done nothing to enhance American security and has done so much to damage that security, but it won't spend money on providing more American children with health insurance coverage. The Bush Administration cares more about Iraq than it does about the health of American children.

Why is Rove Attacking Clinton?

This article that appeared on an Australian newspaper's website on Monday, August 20, 2007, raises an intriguing question: why is Karl Rove going on television and saying that Clinton won't win the presidency? Does he worry about her or is he trying to get Democrats to rally to her because he thinks that she is easy to beat? According to the article this is the tactic that Rove used in 2004 because he thought that Kerry would be easier to beat than John Edwards. Of course, it could just be that Rove is, as Clinton herself says, "obsessed" with her.

Run on Banks in LA & Walmart Says Customers Are Running Out of Money

A reader named D.J. McVey puts out his own newsletter and gave us permission to use some of his stuff. Here is a recent article he sent us:

Earlier this week, consumer juggernauts Home Depot and Wal-Mart reported softer than expected earnings. Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. says customers are "running out of money."

Penned the New York Times, "the sober forecasts reverberated across Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index down by nearly 2 percent, with the Dow dropping more than 200 points. Shares of both Wal-Mart and Home Depot fell around 5 percent.

"Economists said the sluggish performance of the chains — Wal-Mart missed its profit forecast and Home Depot’s earnings dropped — could signal broader troubles in the economy."

Buried in the article was a sobering remark indeed: “Many customers are running out of money at the end of the month,” said H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of Wal-Mart.

In Los Angeles, economic concerns hit close to home.

Anxious customers of Countrywide Bank jammed its phone lines, branches and website after the nation's largest mortgage lender -- which owns the bank -- announced it was facing problems from a credit meltdown.

"Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest home-loan company in the nation, sought Thursday to assure depositors and the financial industry that both it and its bank were fiscally stable," wrote the LA Times Friday. "And federal regulators said they weren't alarmed by the volume of withdrawals from the bank."

"The rush to withdraw money -- by depositors that included a former Los Angeles Kings star hockey player and an executive of a rival home-loan company -- came a day after fears arose that Countrywide Financial could file for bankruptcy protection because of a worsening credit crunch stemming from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown," the paper continued.

"At Countrywide Bank offices, in a scene rare since the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis ended in the early '90s, so many people showed up to take out some or all of their money that in some cases they had to leave their names," the Times added. "Bill Ashmore drove his Porsche Cayenne to Countrywide's Laguna Niguel office and waited half an hour to cash out $500,000, which he then wired to an account at Bank of America."

"It's because of the fear of the bankruptcy," Ashmore, president of Irvine's Impac Mortgage Holdings, which escaped bankruptcy itself recently by shutting down virtually all its lending and laying off hundreds of employees told the paper. "It's got my wife totally freaked out. I just don't want to deal with it. I don't care about losing 90 days' interest, I don't care if it's FDIC-insured -- I just want it out."

Bush's Justice Department Believes Presidential Authority Trumps Federal Law

This is a very interesting quote from an article in the Sunday edition of the New York Times posted online:

Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.

At the meeting, Bruce Fein, a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, along with other critics of the legislation, pressed Justice Department officials repeatedly for an assurance that the administration considered itself bound by the restrictions imposed by Congress. The Justice Department, led by Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, refused to do so, according to three participants in the meeting. That stance angered Mr. Fein and others. It sent the message, Mr. Fein said in an interview, that the new legislation, though it is already broadly worded, “is just advisory. The president can still do whatever he wants to do. They have not changed their position that the president’s Article II powers trump any ability by Congress to regulate the collection of foreign intelligence.”

And we always thought that conservatives relished the idea of separation of powers under the United States Constitution.

Non-Coms of the 82 Airborne Have Great NTY Op-Ed Piece

Talking Points Memo alerted its readers to an excellent article in the New York Times for Sunday, August 19th, 2007. The article is written by enlisted men and non-commissioned officers of the 82nd Airborne. It is a realistic look at what is going on in Iraq. It is definitely not going to make the White House or its supporters of the Iraq War happy.

This is a quote from the article:

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

Clearly the authors of this piece see this war far differently that politicians like Joe Lieberman or John McCain who go into Iraq for a few days, are heavily guarded, only talk to officers or troops picked by officers, and then come back and tell us how much better things are going. People like Lieberman and McCain don't want to hear that our efforts in Iraq are leading to us being viewed as an occupation, not a liberation, army.

Check out this piece and then see that your friends, relatives, everyone you know gets a link to this article. It is a powerful indictment of where we have been in Iraq and under Bush's leadership, where we are going.

Do You Worry About "Islamists" Taking Over the U.S.? Some Conservatives do.

Roger Simon writes for the conservative website Pajamas Media. He is convinced that America faces Islamist takeover. Such a takeover will result in women wearing burkas, gays being executed, and genocide against American Jews. You can read his article here. As Talking Points Memo has noted, this is apparently a very serious concern about American conservatives.

Now we have no doubt that there are Muslims who would like nothing better than to forcibly and violently convert the world to Islam. We have no doubt that such Muslims would gladly kill others in the pursuit of this goal. We also have no doubt that there are Christians who would gladly do the same. The point though isn't whether such people exist, the point is whether they have any ability to accomplish that goal.

Right now the United States has the most powerful military force in the world. We have a large Army, Navy, and Air Force. We have nuclear weapons. We are the only country in the world that has ever used nuclear weapons in a war, which means that we have demonstrated a willingness to use them. How in the world does such a country get taken over by Islamists? We just don't see it happening.

Driven by that curiosity, we left a comment on Simon's article last night asking him just how he sees Islamists accomplishing this goal. We checked this morning, (8/19/2007), and so far no answer. All this is not to say, however, that we doubt Simon's sincerity.

We think he is very sincere in his fear and we think that other conservatives are equally sincere. We just think that they are wrong. We also think that attributing power they don't have to people like bin Laden plays into their hands because it leads to overreactions. Such overreactions, like say invading a Arab country that doesn't pose a threat to our security, will in the long run harm American security. It will harm our security by radicalizing an increasing number of Muslims. Such radicalization will lead to more attacks on America and Americans. Will such attacks destroy our country? No. Will they lead to Americans dying needlessly in the sands of the Middle East and here at home? Definitely.

Bush "Works the Refs" Over Ranch Clothing Story

A reporter from the Austin Statesman writes this article about the clothing Bush has worn over the years when he is down at his ranch in Texas. It leads to a call from a deputy White House press secretary telling the reporter that Bush was unhappy with the article. (Scroll down for the article.) As a writer at www.talkingpointsmemo.com points out, this is the same George Bush who blew off a briefer who told him that there was indications that bin Laden was determined to attack the United States before September 11, 2001.

This incident is telling for at least two reasons. One is what the writer at Talking Points Memo notes and that is that far from being a nice guy, Bush often comes across as insecure, mean, and arrogant. The other is that this is how the Republicans control the media. They complain when the media does something they don't like. They don't do it because it is going to lead to a correction, they do it so that the reporter who wrote offending story won't do it again, or so that his or her editors won't allow such a story to be written in the future.

Eric Alterman, who wrote What Liberal Media, calls this "working the refs." The term comes from basketball where coaches often complain to referees about calls hoping to get more favorable calls in the future. Why do Republicans do this? Because it works. Over the last 40 years the working press in this country has given increasingly favorable coverage to Republicans because of all the complaining that Republicans do about so-called "liberal bias."

The reason why so many Republicans can do this so effectively is that they really believe that the media shouldn't criticize them. Such Republicans operate from a sense of entitlement when it comes to politics. A sense of entitlement that comes from the belief that they are simply better than other Americans and ought to be in charge of running things. This sense of entitlement allows them to act genuinely outraged when dealing with the media over critical stories.

Most Democrats don't usually have this same sense of entitlement and so it is much harder for them to "work the refs." They have to get over that reluctance. Often liberals, progressives, and Democrats take the attitude that Republicans shouldn't do what they do because it is just not nice. It is the equivalent of stamping your feet in protest. It doesn't work. It makes Democrats look weak.

Now we are not saying that Democrats ought to develop the same sense of entitlement, but what we are saying is that Democratic politicians, consultants, and voters ought to emulate this tactic of Republicans. When the media writes, prints, broadcasts, blogs and you don't like the offending article, make sure that someone knows. Over time it will help restore even-handiness to the media.

Trouble in the Elephant Herd: State Senator Tries to Oust Summit County GOP Chair

The Akron Beacon Journal is reporting that State Senator Kevin Coughlin is challenging Summit County GOP Chair Alex Arshinkoff. You can read the whole article by clicking on the link in this entry's title.

Like all family feuds, this one promises to be bitter. One of Arshinkoff's allies, Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart, refers to Coughlin as being "nuttier than a fruitcake." Coughlin says that Arshinkoff is "too paranoid, too vindictive" and is vengeful and, apparently for those reasons, should be replaced as county chair.

Of course Coughlin didn't mind Arshinkoff's personality traits when he was helping Kevin become a State Senator. It is hard to imagine any Republican office-holder objecting to a person being vindictive and paranoid since Bubble-Boy Bush and his brain, King Karl Rove, built their entire political operations out of fear, mistrust, and vindictiveness.

The only difference is that Coughlin is term-limited in 2010 and doesn't know what he is going to do next. He apparently wanted to run for State Auditor in 2006 but Arshinkoff backed Taylor instead of him. So now he plans to get even by replacing Arshinkoff on the grounds that Alex is too vindictive? Only to a self-righteous Republican like Coughlin would that make any sense. Republicans just don't have a sense of irony.

From the There is a God Department: Feds Pay $80,000 to Married Couple Arrested for Wearing anti-Bush T-Shirts

We can't really add anything to this entry's title, so here is the link.

Washington Post Article on Rove's Use of Taxpayer Dollars for Political Power

The Washington Post has a great story on how Karl Rove used the power and largess of the Federal government to try and bolster the political fortunes of Republicans. The Post also has a map that shows how often two cabinet officials and/or their deputies visted various states before the 2006 mid-term elections. The two cabinet officials were the Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and the Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton. There is an investigation going on by a committee of the House of Representatives to see if this practice violated Federal law.

It Doesn't Matter Who Dems Nominate, Rove & His Allies Will Try to Smear Them

Here is an article that appeared on the Forbes website on Friday, August 17, 2007, about Rove attacking Hillary Clinton. The thrust of the article is that while Rove attacking Clinton may help her in the short term, it could hurt her in the long term by raising her negatives and concerns about her electability.

Look, here is the problem with that analysis: Rove and his allies will attack anyone the Democrats nominate and try to smear them. This is the party that attacked Vietnam vets like Max Cleland and John Kerry to help elect Republicans who avoided service in Vietnam. This is the party that impeached a Democratic president for allegedly lying about private consensual sex. This is a party that launched over 150 investigations of the Clinton administration when it was in office. It doesn't matter who Democrats nominate, they are going to attack him or her.

There are problems with Hillary Clinton as a nominee, but there are also problems with Obama, Edwards, or anyone else. There is no such thing as a the perfect candidate and there is no candidate who won't be attacked by Rovian Republicans. The question for Democrats is whether our candidate can take a punch and whether he or she can deliver a punch.

Good PD Article on Senator Sherrod Brown & How He Won Ohio

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has an article in the Sunday, August 12, 2007 edition about Ohio United States Senator Sherrod Brown. The article points out that Sherrod's populist campaign in 2006 was successful in winning Ohio and defeating a third term incumbent United States Senator. Here is a quote from Sherrod on winning Ohio: "I think that you can stand up for the middle class and stand up for workers and low-income people and win," he says.

As the article by Stephen Koff of the PD's Washington Bureau points out, Sherrod, and not the Republicans, has been proved right over the last several months since he was elected. He was right to be opposed to the Iraq War; right to be worried about healthcare in America; and right to be worried about trade with China. Sherrod Brown far more than Mike DeWine had his finger on Ohio's pulse.

Of course the Republicans quoted in the article disagree with Brown's analysis of why he beat their guy. They prefer to blame it on the ethical lapses of Taft and the other Columbus Republicans. They don't want to face the reality that America has seen how conservatives govern when they have total control and are rejecting it. Americans don't want to destroy government, they want to make it work. Conservative Republicans only want the government to work for them, not for the rest of us. That's why DeWine lost and that's why Democrats can carry Ohio in 2008.

New York Times Article on How War in Afghanistan Went Bad

The New York Times, in its Sunday edition for August 12, 2007, takes a look at the war in Afghanistan and how it went bad. As usual a deadly combination of American hubris, Bush incompetence, and blind focus on Iraq offers an explanation. This is a quote from the article:

President Bush’s critics have long contended that the Iraq war has diminished America’s effort in Afghanistan, which the administration has denied, but an examination of how the policy unfolded within the administration reveals a deep divide over how to proceed in Afghanistan and a series of decisions that at times seemed to relegate it to an afterthought as Iraq unraveled.

Statements from the White House, including from the president, in support of Afghanistan were resolute, but behind them was a halting, sometimes reluctant commitment to solving Afghanistan’s myriad problems, according to dozens of interviews in the United States, at NATO headquarters in Brussels and in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

At critical moments in the fight for Afghanistan, the Bush administration diverted scarce intelligence and reconstruction resources to Iraq, including elite C.I.A. teams and Special Forces units involved in the search for terrorists. As sophisticated Predator spy planes rolled off assembly lines in the United States, they were shipped to Iraq, undercutting the search for Taliban and terrorist leaders, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

One of the amazing things about Democratic statements before the Iraqi war vote in 2002 is why prominent Democrats didn't use the theme that Bush wanted to start a second war before he had won the first one. Such a theme would have made sense to the American people and would have been instinctively understood. How many of us heard our parents tell us when we were growing up not to start a new project until the old one was finished? Yet, although it is hard to remember all that was said about Iraq back in the fall of 2002, Democrats using that theme doesn't stick out.

Granted, given the lock-step approach that the Republicans who controlled Congress took when it came to backing Bush back in 2002, it wouldn't have made much of a difference in policy terms. It could have, however, made a difference in political terms. Such a theme would have given Democrats a way to distinguish themselves from Bush on national security and might have limited Democratic losses in the 2002 mid-term elections. It also would have set up Democrats for the 2004 presidential campaign which Bush and Rove planned to make about national security.

United States Ranks 41st In Life Expectancy

While Americans are living longer, they are not living as long as people in 40 other countries, according to a this article by the Associated Press. The article is based on statistics that are obtained from the Census Bureau. This quote is from the article:

For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles. Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands

There are several causes, but this one is particularly shocking: A relatively high percentage of babies born in the U.S. die before their first birthday, compared with other industrialized nations.

It is also interesting what one expert sees as a reason for America's decline in international health rankings:

Murray, from the University of Washington, said improved access to health insurance could increase life expectancy. But, he predicted, the U.S. won't move up in the world rankings as long as the health care debate is limited to insurance.

So when a politician, like Rudy Giuliani, speaks out against the United States government providing access to health care for all Americans by calling it "socialized medicine" he is really advocating allowing babies to die at a higher rate in this country than in other countries. This coming from a member of a political party that presumes to lecture Democrats on "family values."

Village Voice Prints Article About Guiliani, aka, the Political Transvestite

Village Voice has an interesting article up on the PT and his the truth of his claims about his record on terrorism and 9-11. Click here to read it. Basically the author calls Rudy a liar.

Summer 2007 Issue of Common Sense, Medina County's Only Democratic Newspaper

You can view a larger version of each page by moving your cursor over the page and click on the image. Once you have read a page you can use the "Go Back" button on your browser to return to the MCDAC blog to read another page. On Internet Explorer it is the button with the arrow on the upper left hand side of the screen.

Are GOP Representatives Leaking Classified Information for Political Purposes?

ABC News reported on how two Republican Representatives, including Ohio's own John Boehner, apparently leaked classified information for political purposes. Boehner stated on a Fox News program that the secret court established under the FISA had issued a ruling against the Bush Administration and that was why the FISA needed to be amended. Now "Representative Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., reported the top-secret budget for human spying had decreased -- the type of detail normally kept under wraps for national security reasons."

In both cases the reason for the leaking of apparent classified information was to gain a political advantage. In the case of Boehner it was to help pass the FISA amendment. In the case of Hoekstra it was to take a shot at funding for national intelligence set by a Democratic controlled House of Representatives. In neither case, however, has there been any repercussions for the Republican involved.

Can you imagine the manufactured outrage if Democrats had done something similar? There would be gnashing of teeth at Fox News and condemnations from the White House. This is just another example of Washington Republicans believing that the rules apply to others but not to them.

Is the Era of Americans Using Their Home as a Cash Register Coming to an End?

A friend once remarked that over the last decade or so Americans had stopped thinking of their homes as a place to live and had started thinking of them as giant cash registers. A lot of Americans have second mortgages on their homes which they are using to finance the purchase of consumer goods, vacations, or college tuition. This trend has in turn pumped up the economy and helped George W. Bush get re-elected. This trend, however, may be coming to an abrupt end.

If you click on the link in this entry's title you can read an article from the Washington Post about how the credit crunch in America is spreading into global markets. Yesterday, August 9, 2007, the New York Stock Exchange suffered its second worst decline of the year as the cost of borrowing money for corporations continues to rise. Central banks in the U.S.and Europe pumped more than 150 billion dollars into global markets on Thursday, August 9, 2007. This is a quote from the article:

The first signs of trouble appeared in February after lenders reported record defaults in subprime mortgages, or loans sold to people with questionable credit histories. More recently, companies with poor credit have been denied loans. Now, even credit-worthy borrowers are struggling to obtain access to debt.

This tightening of credit markets will, in turn, affect consumer spending. This is how the article puts it:

The problems are also beginning to affect consumer spending, a key component of the economy. A report Thursday showed that July was a difficult month for retailers, a sign that a slumping housing market may have reined in spending, said Ken Perkins, president of the research firm Retail Metrics. Last month, 61 percent of retailers missed sales growth expectations for stores open at least a year. The norm is 42 percent.

The era of the American home as cash register is coming to an end. It will be interesting to see both the economic and political fall-out.

Free Advice from MCDAC for Representatives Sutton, Ryan, Kucinich, and Senator Brown

There should be a simple theme when dealing with Republicans and Iraq. It's this: Republicans want to spend money on Iraqis but not on Americans. They want to help Iraqis but not Americans. It is simple, it is direct, and it is true. It takes less than four seconds to say.

Are Reublicans Starting to "Stand By Their Man", aka, Bubble-Boy Bush?

If you click on the link you can read a story on the CNN website about how Bush's approval ratings rose to 35% from 32% since the last time they polled his approval ratings. Apparently the poll shows a rise of 16% among Republicans, but no difference in his approval among independents and Democrats. This is a good news/bad news situation for the Republicans. On the one hand they have to have their Republican base turn out next year because if they don't, then Republicans have no chance of winning the presidency or taking back control of either or both Houses of Congress. On the other hand, if his popularity is still in the tank about independents, then their "no chance" is only a "slim chance." A slim chance that will be hard to maintain if the only thing that Bush is doing in D.C. is playing to the Republican base.

Cleveland Plain Dealer's Kevin O'Brien is Nuts

Okay, stop us if you have heard this one before, but according to the PD's own Kevin O'Brien the reason why the bridge collapsed in Minnesota is, are you ready, big government. Yes, that's right, the fallen bridge in Minnesota is a symptom of America's dependence on big government. You see, according to Kevin, big government is doing too much and because it is doing too much, it can't do things right.

Now, of course, the problem with Kevin's take on things is that most people would say that building an interstate highway system to facilitate the movement of people and goods across the country is a function of government. It encourages the creation of jobs, it helps bind the nation together, and it drives down the cost of goods by making it easier to ship them. Well, if that's what they think, then apparently, according to Kevin, their wrong.

You see Kevin is a right-wing kind of guy and these last few years haven't been easy for him. We have seen screw-up after screw-up from the Bushies. Iraq, Katrina, cost overruns in government projects, Republicans going to jail for ethics violations, and generally making a mess of government. So Kevin is in a hard spot. He can either come clean and admit that Republicans, at least this bunch in D.C., aren't very competent or he can write crazy articles apparently calling for the Federal Government to stop maintaining the interstate highway system. He chose the crazy article route.

This is What Control of the U.S. Senate Means

This article in the Washington Post shows what Democratic control of the U.S. Senate means in terms of judicial appointments. While most attention is focused on the U.S. Supreme Court, the various appellate courts in the Federal system are very important courts. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has been a reliable ally of the Bush administration in its so-called "war on terror." That is ending as Republican appointed judges retire and Bush is not able to name reliable conservatives to replace them because of a Democratic Senate. This wouldn't be happening if Democrats hadn't taken control of the U.S. Senate last November. Remember this article the next time you read someone saying that there is no difference between the two political parties.

Republians, not Democrats, Responsible for Passing Bush's Security Plan

This is very interesting. The media, notably the Washington Post and Huffington Post, on their websites portrayed the Democrats as responsible for passing the "Protect America Act". The problem with this portrayal is that it is misleading and totally lets the Republicans off the hook.

In the House 41 Democrats voted with the Republicans to pass the Protect America Act. That is only 17% of the Democratic Congressional delegation. In the Senate 16 Senators joined with the Republicans. There the percentage is greater, 33%, but again less than 50% of the Democratic Senators. In both Houses the majority of the votes necessary to pass this legislation came from the Republicans. It was because Republicans voted nearly in unison that this legislation passed, especially in the House of Representatives.

Now it is true that if the Democrats had voted entirely against the Act in both Houses it wouldn't have passed. How realistic, though, is it to assume that all 285 Democratic members of both Houses were going to vote as a block on this legislation? Given the diversity of the United States, and the diversity of opinions inside the Democratic caucuses of both Houses, not very likely.

As much Democratic activists may want it, the Democratic Party is not nearly as homogeneous as the Republican Party. Sometimes this works for us, as in it is easier for Democrats to attract new people and groups to the party, and sometimes it works against us, as in the recent vote over the Protect America Act.

Why are Democrats being portrayed as responsible for passing this legislation when, in both Houses, a substantial majority of Democrats voted against this act? The reasons probably vary but one reason may be, at least as far as editorial staffs like the Post are concerned, with weakening the Democratic opposition to Bush by dividing activist Democrats from their elected Democratic officials.

None of this is to say that Democrats shouldn't be upset with the passage of this bill. It is very risky to give this particular administration any more power to spy on Americans, especially without getting the resignation of Attorney General Gonzales in return. Putting Gonzales partly in charge of deciding whether surveillance should be undertaken is much, much worse than putting the proverbial fox in charge of the proverbial hen house. Foxes only eat chickens when they have a reason, but Gonzales seems to want to spy on Americans even when he has no reason.

What I am saying, though, is that spreading the idea that Democrats and only Democrats are responsible for the passage of this legislation is playing into the hands of those who support Bush and his war, especially media supporters like the Washington Post.

Chinese Threaten to Dump Dollars if America Increases Pressure to Revalue Currency

Well, the chickens are coming home to roost in the Chinese hen house. The English newspaper, the Telegraph, is reporting that the Chinese government is threatening to dump American dollars if the United States continues to pressure the Chinese to revaluate its currency. The following is the first three paragraphs of the Telegraph's story:

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

The article notes that this threat plays into the campaign of Hillary Clinton who has said that foreign control of 44% of the U.S. Government's debt threatens our economic soverignity.

You can read the whole article here.

Meet the Women of Hillary Clinton's Campaign

New York magazine has an article posted online about the women who are helping Hillary Clinton campaign for the White House. It is a very good article. It points out how Hillary Clinton's team is obsessed with staying on message, avoiding leaks, avoiding "process" stories and making sure that the media doesn't do to her what it did to Al Gore and John Kerry. If you are supporting Senator Clinton, or even if you aren't, this is a great article.

Upset With Congress Over Bush Security Plan? Tell 'em!

One of our readers sent us the following letter about the recent vote over the Bush security plan:

This Friday, everyone needs to call their Congressperson's home office (since they're on recess) and express their outrage over this FISA bill. Let them know how we feel. If they voted the right way, tell 'em good job. If they didn't, tell 'em what you think.

It's not hard. Go to house.gov or senate.gov and find your Senator or Representative, and look for their contacts. It takes 2 minutes or less. And it takes about that long to call, or you can find a comment form on their site if you would rather do that.

We have to make our voices heard.

OHDAVE

Gingrich Tells Young Conservatives that "War on Terror is Phony and We are losing."

Listen to what Newt Gingrich told the Young America's Foundation National Conservative Student Conference:

"Republican political doctrine has been a failure. Look at New Orleans. How can you say that was a success? Look at Baghdad ... We've been in charge for six years and I don't think you can look around and say that was a great success."

"We have got to get beyond this political bologna. I'm not allowed to say anything positive about Hillary Clinton because then I'm not a loyal Republican, and she's not allowed to say anything positive about me because then she's not a loyal Democrat. What a stupid way to run a country."

"How can we tolerate systems more likely to send young Americans to prison than college? Republicans have this maniacally dumb idea of red versus blue. They say Detroit is a blue place, so we're not going to go there."

Then there was this tidbit for the young conservatives regarding Bubble-Boy's "War on Terror":

"None of you should believe we are winning this war. We are in a phony war ... we have not been taking this seriously."

You can read the Salon Magazine story about Gingrich's appearance and the reaction to it by clicking here. Wonder what Fox News will do with this?

MCDAC Blog Stats

Of the last 4000 visitors to the MCDAC blog, 3587 came from the United States and of those 3587, 1268 came from Ohio. In percentage terms, this works out to 89.6% of the last 4000 visitors came from the US and of those 35.3% came from Ohio. Almost half of the visitors, 49.2%, came to our blog came from Google websites.

The story used most often as an entry page was one about the gas boycott planned for May 15th, 2007 and that particular entry was posted on May 3rd, 2007. The local story used most often as an entry page was the one posted about Medina County Democrats visiting the Governor's Mansion in July.

Overall since August of 2006 11361 visitors have come to the MCDAC blog. MCDAC thanks all those who have visited our site. We hope you found it interesting.

Ohio Congressional Dems Split Over Bush's Wiretap Plan

Ohio's Democratic Congressional delegation split over support of the Bush's wiretap plan. Of Ohio's seven United States Representatives, five voted against the bill while two voted for it. The five who opposed it were Jones, Ryan, Sutton, Kucinich, and Kaptur. The two who voted for it were Space and Wilson. Before readers start to condemn Wilson and Space, it should be remembered that both of them will probably be on the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee's target list for the 2008 election. The actual vote results can be seen here. That's also overlooking the fact that both Representatives Space and Wilson didn't back the bill because they agreed with its provisions.