Letters to the Editor
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Drop in Civilian Dead in July: Success or Failure?
unc70:
As CNN correspondent Michael Ware noted yesterday, the UN reports that 50,000 Iraqis are fleeing their homes every month, joining the 4 million that have already left. Ergo, more neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed, and there are less people to kill.
Naturally, the Administration will spin that as proof that "the Petraeus Plan" is working, and thus redeemable for a few more Friedman Units.
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@WT
To be clear, I'm not assailing you, nor solely defending Kucinich, but also offering the concept (poorly) that no vote, when cast, is thrown away.
Uh, unless they actually throw it away after you've cast it. But that's a whole nother problem...
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casual_observer
Ohio, anyone?
In Violation of Federal Law, Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election Records Are Destroyed or Missing:
http://www.alternet.org/story/58328/
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Asquith and Balfour, Balfour and Asquith
Count me as one who has not only been disillusioned by the Democratic Party for a while, but who doesn't think they will matter much in the long-run, at least in their current incarnation.
If we were in 1908 England, why should I care between Asquith and Balfour who both fail to see that the Empire is doomed and had indeed begun its collapse within the next decade.
Of course, I'll vote Asquith because he is the Liberal candidate and, in domestic matters, certainly preferable to Conservative Balfour, but historically, who among us today can see a great difference between the two? Who cares who ran the Committee of Imperial Defence?
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H. Res. 589
Inslee's Impeachment bill (re: Gonzales) has a number and has been referred to rules committee. Hit the floor with 15 co-sponsors, which is not bad. Those who like the bill might want to contact their Reps and ask them to cosponsor.
To track the bill, try this link:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d110:2:./temp/~bdC3V1:@@@L&summ2=m&|/bss/d110query.html|
If this link is just temporary, you'll need to go to THOMAS main page and search under Inslee's name.
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Sucker Punched Again
Well, I just read the Juan Cole piece where he notes that AP is reporting a 23% increase in civilian deaths in July from the previous month, contradicting what O'Hanlon said on CNN Sunday, and to which Ware was responding.
Nonetheless, Ware's argument that there are less neighborhoods to ethnically cleanse and fewer people to kill stands. Or as old Calgacus put it:
To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.
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Don't sit back and get too comfortable about Democrats winning in 2008
Everyone who has fought these battles in the past understands that you cannot take elections for granted. Republicans are smart enough and have the facilities to do serious damage to anyone who drops their guard. This article from the current "New Yorker" is most telling:
“Two weeks ago, one of the most important Republican lawyers in Sacramento quietly filed a ballot initiative that would end the practice of granting all fifty-five of California’s electoral votes to the statewide winner. Instead, it would award two of them to the statewide winner and the rest, one by one, to the winner in each congressional district. Nineteen of the fifty-three districts are represented by Republicans, but Bush carried twenty-two districts in 2004. The bottom line is that the initiative, if passed, would spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes—votes that it wouldn’t get under the rules prevailing in every other sizable state in the Union.”
“If California does what No. 07-0032 calls for while everybody else is still going with winner take all by state, the real-world result will be to give Party B (in this case the Republicans) an unearned, Ohio-size gift of electoral votes. In a narrow sense, that’s good if you like Party B, but not so good if you like Party A (in this case the Democrats). Or if you think that in a democracy everybody ought to play by roughly the same rules. Nor, by the way, is Party B the only offender. Last week, the Democratic-controlled legislature of North Carolina, a state that has gone Republican in every Presidential election since 1976, enthusiastically took up a bill to do the same mischief as the California initiative. The grab would be smaller—it would appropriate perhaps three or four of North Carolina’s fifteen electoral votes for the Democrats—but the hands would be just as dirty.”
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/08/06/070806taco_talk_hertzberg
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@ DrEyeball (p. 1, bottom)
Exactly my thoughts. Scorched earth approach. It would explain a lot; why suddenly admit all your wrongdoings when there's nothing to lose?
It would mean though the republicans already consider the next election as lost, and I am afraid that's not the case.
While it looks like the democrats are waiting to cash in on the Iraq disaster and Bush low polls around election time, they would make a much stronger impression in the eye of the voters now when they'd start tackling Bush with every possible legal means there is.
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Thought Conyers
had ordered an investigation inot this most recent NY Times spy program. I find the timeing of the leak suspect and don't buy it either. But, yes, I do think there are other programs. Since Cheney was involved in Iran-Contra and teh the NSC-not NSA. Could it be that these programs which may gather internet acivity and possibly ship it to a 3rd-party country for storage-like New Zealand, UK-EU members.That would make this war crimes. Is this why Cheney keeps trying to make the ridiculous claims he is not part of the Executive Branch? If it came to war crimes-he would hang it on GW in a heartbeat.
All of these programs have been judicated in court to be violations of the 4th.Congress had already giving explicit instuctions-according to FISA (that was violated).with such a program in place, there are no rules, and anyone could be rounded up for interogations: kids, innocents,....
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van der hei
Isn't Van Der Hei married to some mid-level wingnut--a Hill staffer or lobbyist? I'm sure that helps him get these silly tidbits.
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@casual_observer
Mr. Timberman, I know rat-holes. They are holes, in a variety of matrices, within which rats are to be found. Dennis Kucinich, Mr. Timberman, is not a rathole.
No, but his campaign is, for the simple reason that throwing money to it will not get either his views represented in the Executive branch or his person into the White House.
His problems come from a completely different place than those for which you can blame big media. If he really wants to get attention to his ideas, maybe get himself elected president, he would go and sit at the knee of Robert Byrd, or at least read all his old speeches, then take a long look at video of oratory by John Kennedy (including that sentence ending up-turn that works so well), and possibly study every last public utterance that Abraham Lincoln made. Then he would go join toastmasters for a month and practice, with Mario Cuomo sitting in the front row offering pointers.
There are many ways of getting your message heard that don't involve prostituting yourself to media message massagers. Kucinich should choose one and learn how to present himself in public. Or he should find someone who can, and back that person 150%.
No offense to him, personally. I believe the same thing about Harry Reid, believed it about Tom Daschle, and others. The Democrats could, if they put the will into it, redefine the quality of political discourse to suit the messages they need to promulgate. That's what the Republicans did over the last thirty years, and how they were successful. We don't have Democrats that can wield the power of the voice like Tip O'Neill or even Lyndon Johnson used to, and that's a problem.