Ted Stevens Under Investigation!

Senator Ted Stevens, (R Alaska) is being investigated for corruption. This should come as no surprise to those who have followed the pugnacious, right wing zealot who has become the longest serving Republican in the history of the U.S. Senate.
Among notable moments of Stevens' recent career is the famous "bridge to no where" for which Stevens captured federal pork barrell funds. He is also known for his famous explanation of the internet as being "Just a bunch of tubes!"
His fierce opposition to the Artic National Wildlife Reserve has earned him a special place in the hearts of animal rights activists and environmentalists.
Maybe we will soon see him no more.

Cheney Puts Bush In Charge For A Day!

Bush Continues Lies About Al Qaeda, Iraq, War On Terror...

Speaking at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina President Bush
today, Tuesday, July 24, lied, distorted and engaged in some kind of
bizarre attempt at hypnotizing listeners with a mantra like repetition of
the term "Al Qaeda in Iraq!"
Bush repeated the term 95 times in the speech in which he
attempted to claim that Al Qaeda in Iraq is the same Al Qaeda that attacked
us on 9-11. He also attempted to convince the public that Osama Bin Laden
is calling the shots in Iraq. From the start of the invasion and occupation
of Iraq Bush and his minions, Cheney, Rumsfield, et al, deliberately
tried to confuse the public into connecting Saddam Hussein and the invasion
of Iraq with the war on terror initiated by the 9-11 attacks.
President Bush said Tuesday that al Qaeda in Iraq is part of Osama bin
Laden's terrorist network.
"Al Qaeda is in Iraq and they're there for a reason," Bush said.
"Surrendering the future of Iraq for al Qaeda would be a disaster to our
country."
"The facts are that Al Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they're
fighting us in Iraq and across the world, and they're plotting to kill
Americans here at home again."
Bush made one statement that was so dumb, so incredibly stupid it staggers the brain! He said "There is a reason they are called Al Qaeda in Iraq, that's because they are Al Qaeda....in Iraq!" Say what? He wants us to believe that this is the same network led by bin Laden. It's simply not true. Bush is again deliberately misleading the American people.
The facts are that the insurgents in Iraq are a mixed bag and the war is
a beacon for recruiting and inspiring more terrorists than ever.
The war by the Mujahadeen against the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan
basically created the current jihadist war. And the U.S. helped get it
going. We backed the jihadi movement then with weapons, most notably
Stinger missiles, equipment, training and material support. Osama Bin
Laden and other current jihadis were recipients of that aid.
The notion that we can "fight them over there" so they wont come here
is patently absurd. This war has made us less safe, not more so.
"Winning," whatever that means, will in no way lessen the terror threat
to America or any other country.
American troops are ging to be in Iraq for a long time. There will be
no peace there until we can have talks with, and come to agreement with
Iran, Syria and the other nations of the area.

Ralph Nader; It's Not Easy Being Green

Ralph Nader is making noises indicating another possible run for President in '08. He assails the Democrats for not being tough enough on corporations and for accepting money from basically the same corporate entities as the Republicans.
He is right about these and other issues. But does that mean he should run for President? A Nader candidacy would very likely have the same result as ocurred in 2000 when he cost enough votes from Al Gore to ensure the victory by G.W. Bush. Imagine if Nader had not run what the world might be like today!
Nader has no chance of winning, he can only be a spoiler, again!
Ralph should go back to being a tough consumer advocate. Why doesn't he go after SUV's?

It's Time To Do Away With Electoral College

"The electoral college is a ticking time bomb within the constitution," Michael Young, USA Today, May 1998

It's time to get rid of the electoral college. It's an anachronism, a holdover from an era when communications took days, weeks and months.
The year 2000 saw the electoral victory handed over by the Supreme Court to the candidate receiving the smallest number of votes.
Twice before in U.S. history the winner of the popular vote lost the elctoral tally.
This is just wrong and should not happen in these times.
In each election cycle there are calls for the end to this system but after the elections these fade away.
It's time to put an end to this outdated elctoral relic.

Cheney Is Temp Prez During Presidential Colonoscopy

David Vitter; "God and my wife said it's OK."

Local Taxes

Iraqi War; The Tar Baby

Bush Trade Agreement With Colombia Would Aid Death Squads

The following is an article by Mark Weisbrot. Weisbrot writes often on Latin American news and affairs.

Congress Should Reject Trade Agreement with Colombia
By Mark Weisbrot

A May 22 news report in the Washington Post summed up Colombia's ever-widening scandal: "Top paramilitary commanders have in recent days confirmed what human rights groups and others have long alleged: some of Colombia's most influential political, military and business figures helped build a powerful anti-guerrilla movement that operated with impunity, killed civilians and shipped cocaine to
U.S. cities."
Yet the Bush Administration wants to sign a "free trade" agreement with Colombia, which is the Bush Administration's closest ally in Latin America and receives $700 million annually in mostly military aid.
Congress is threatening to block the agreement, and they should.
The word "paramilitary" is a euphemism. In the 1980s, when the Reagan Administration was supporting the mass murder of tens of thousands of civilians in countries like Guatemala and El Salvador, these organizations were called "death squads."
The Colombian death squads - which are classified as terrorist organizations by the US State Department -- were mostly demobilized in recent years under an agreement that allows lenient sentences for the murderers in exchange for telling the truth about their crimes. But the truth has shown increasingly close ties between the death squads and high-ranking allies of President Alvaro Uribe.
More than a dozen legislators, mostly Uribe allies, have been arrested, and his foreign minister has resigned. As the investigation progresses, including to President Uribe's home state, it is becoming clear that the death squads have been an integral part of the government.
One of the most sinister revelations has been the government's role in the murder of trade unionists, which continues despite the incomplete demobilization. Last year 72 trade unionists were killed, making Colombia the most dangerous place in the world by far for a union activist. According to witnesses co-operating with the Colombian Attorney General's office, the government's intelligence services provided names and security details of union activists to the death squads. The former chief of the
intelligence service - who managed Uribe's 2002 presidential campaign in the state of Magdalena - has been arrested and charged with conspiring with the death squads to kill union leaders and others.
Over the past three decades the United States has greatly expanded trade with -- and moved factories to -- countries where workers have limited rights to form unions or bargain collectively. One of the main purposes of such commercial agreements as the NAFTA and the WTO has been to reduce wages here by throwing US workers into competition with their much lower-paid counterparts throughout the
world. Partly as a result of these policies, the average real wage in the United States has hardly moved over the last 30 years, despite productivity increases every year. These "free trade" agreements have therefore become increasingly unpopular, and this issue helped tip the balance of Congress to the Democrats in the 2006 election.
These agreements have also lost popularity in Latin America, where the governments of Ecuador and Bolivia - accountable to their voters - cannot sign the kind of agreement that Colombia and Peru are willing to accept. All four countries currently have access to US markets under the ATPDEA (Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act). But some Republicans in Congress are threatening that duty-free access in order to punish Ecuador and Bolivia for not signing a "free trade" agreement, and for not being sufficiently subservient to foreign investors. This kind of bullying will not force these governments to ignore their electoral mandates and will only increase resentment against the United States in the region.
Congress should allow a two-year extension of the current ATPDEA, and reject the agreements with Colombia and Peru. Approving the Colombian agreement would send an especially chilling message to the world that Washington is seeking access to cheap and repressed labor - and doesn't care how much violence is used to terrorize workers into submission.

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC

Lieberman Says We Have Enemy On The Run In Iraq

Senator Joe Lieberman, U.S. Senator from Connetticut, has been on TV telling us that we "...have the enemy on the run..." and that "We are winning." These incredibly optimistic remarks echo V.P. Cheney's declaration of the enemy being in "It's last throes..." several years ago. This is in addition to his talking about nuking Iran lately.
This is dangerous speculation.

Wear Furs?...There But For The Grace Of God...

Live Earth Concerts A Great Success!

Sting at Live Earth at Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey

The Live Earth concerts held yesterfay, July 7, 2007, were an historic and meaningful event, despite the carping of the many critics. Some of the critics were a bit of a surprise, such as a writer from Rolling Stone magazine. Others were predictable, the many right wing and other critics of former Vice President Al
Gore are in this group.
Many pointed out much electricity was required for so many shows of this size, others compained about "rich rock stars jetting around in private planes," Others cited past "cause" concerts such as Farm Aid and Food Aid and others, many of which did little or nothing to provide direct aid to those supposedly beneffitting from the shows. One media critic said these type of events were now a bit "out of style" and on and on came mostly petty, petulant parsings from self appointed social watchdogs.
Get over it! This event puit environmental causes on the radar for many who are totally dis-connected from politics or social movements. And for the others who are involved it provided an energizing boost. And for politicos of all stripes it reinforces the message that is being pushed by not just Al Gore but a growing number of people around the world.
That message might be distilled to a few words. Wake up people!

Links:
http://midlifemutations.blogspot.com/
http://www.ostroyreport.blogspot.com/
http://fuzzyandblue.blogspot.com/
http://orwellsgrave.blogspot.com/
http://jcdesigns.blogspot.com/
http://majikthise.typepad.com/
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
http://www.slate.com/
http://www.dailykos.com/
http://www.impeach07.org/

Pardon Me?