The Matthew Lee two-day browbeating of an inept, stooge at the State Dept. is how a reporter should treat a despicable PR flack, particularly when a war is raging - and a war is raging in Gaza.

It is hard to fathom that a reporter, who demonstrated such a firm grasp of the pandomonium now taking place in Gaza, would write such a weak, tepid story as AP published on Wednesday. No doubt a team of editors took a hatchet to the "rough" draft - probably without the reporters consent.

AP = American Pravda.

while any self-respecting human being who can muster any degree of objectivity, can see the obscene travesty of Israel's illegal, immoral, and brutal attack on the Palestinian, you add an important, personal voice to the Middle East dilemma. I appreciate your comments here. And not just because I proudly don my Oaklandish t-shirt. : )

I wear it with pride.

AFAIK the phrase "Soviet Canuckistan" was at least popularized by Pat Buchanan. Apparently that guy Ann Coulter hates us too. About abhorrent Annie... I will never for Ann telling a CBC guy that Canada was not all bad, at least we helped out in Vietnam. When the interviewer gently pointed out that he was pretty sure no Canadians fought in Nam, she corrected him. He told Ann that no, sorry, Canada did not participate in Vietnam, she replied, I'll get back to you on that. She did not of course.

I just found out from the article below that even Fred Phelps and his friend God hate us, because we stopped burning fags alive back in 71 I think it was...

Meh, I much prefer the term "frostbacks" which I first saw used in an old National Lampoon "True Facts" section.

Another "True Fact" for any Americans visiting Canada; Canadian restaurateurs believe that parsley is poisonous and only use it for decoration, so if you are ever eating in a Canadian restaurant, please don't eat the parsley as they will call an ambulance to pump your stomach.

From Wiki

"Soviet Canuckistan" is one unflattering epithet for Canada, used by Pat Buchanan on October 31, 2002, on his television show on MSNBC in which he denounced Canadians as anti-American and the country as a haven for terrorists. He was reacting to Canadian criticisms of US security measures regarding Arab Canadians.[3] At least one reference to the term can be found on-line as far back as April 2001.[4]

Buchanan has a history of unflattering references to Canada, having said in 1990 that if Canada were to break apart due to the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, "America would pick up the pieces." He said two years after that "for most Americans, Canada is sort of like a case of latent arthritis. We really don't think about it, unless it acts up."[3]

In the wake of Canada's refusal to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as its turning down of the Missile Defense Plan (CMDP), conservative commentators Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson have become prominent American critics of Canadian policies. Coulter has during interviews proposed extreme solutions to Canadian dissent (such as a military invasion of Canada), and has said that Canada should be grateful that the US "allows" it to exist on the same continent, while Carlson has mocked that "without the US, Canada is essentially Honduras, only less interesting". [5]

Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church is strongly anti-Canadian. He operates a website entitled "God Hates Canada," criticizing gay rights in Canada.[7] Phelps is a highly controversial figure who claims that God hates homosexuals, and thus, by extension, hates the United States, Sweden, Ireland, and any sort of entity that is tolerant of homosexuality.

I already respected you but, as Derbig said the other day, your patience and tolerance is really quite astonishing.

It's a pleasure to know you (even if it is just online).

This is the direct consequence of a corrupt pay to play system of electing public officials. Only the voices of those who fund political campaigns are heard and heeded. That this runs against the larger interests of the Untied States as a whole matters not to the obsequious officials who only care about the funds for their next election campaign. It is common knowledge that AIPAC has a number of wealthy members who give the maximum legally possible to political campaigns and media commercials based only on their single issue of interest -- Israel. AIPAC is a formidable lobby working against US interests.

George Washington warned about this kind of special interest pleading by domestic supporters of foreign interests in his farewell address. Historically, many republics have been fatally undermined by blind obedience to special pleading from narrow interests who hold the key to winning office, but whose methods and goals undermine the foundations of the society. Look who was most supportive of Bush the Younger's policies of: torture, invading Iraq, overthrowing governments, extraordinary rendition, domestic NSA spying, and other nefarious acts, all of which subverted the Constitution. It was especially supported by the neoconservatives, AIPAC, and Christian Zionists. For the politicians so suborned, they subverted the Constitution they were sworn to protect. Remember the role of the mainstream media in promoting all of this.

The US started behaving less like a republic and more like a corrupt oligarchy when the pay to play system began back in the 1870's. There have been some loophole filled reform efforts. The US is bankrupting itself financially, politically, culturally, and morally by continuing these policies. Once the US is bankrupt, the ability of to support any foreign project or entity will be at an end. Right now, the pumping of money to prop up the banking and investment business has created so much credit and cash, that the stage is set for hyperinflation in the future. This has the potential to render the US dollar worthless both domestically and internationally.

It would be nice if US politicians actually cared more about the long term viability of the US than about their own reelections. If they did, they would reform the campaign finance system, to end the pay to play system that is destroying the country. I doubt the ability of anyone in Washington to accomplish reform because they are creatures of the corrupt system that must be reformed. It is most likely that any serious reform effort will have to originate outside Washington, from either the public or the states.

For the supporters of Israel, it appears to be based on the assumption that the United States will always be able to support Israel; an assumption I find fallacious. The blind supporters of Israel are craven, but not stupid. They know that the US may be greatly diminished as a world power in as little as a few years, so perhaps this is a case of achieving what is possible while they still have influence over the government in Washington. Eventually there will be a conflict in Washington over this. The general public will not always support the misuse of precious resources to support foreign interests once the domestic situation becomes dire. This sets up an eventual collision course between the public who choose the politicians and the politicians’ financial backers.