Raspberry for Barry
by Maureen Dowd
In grim times, a bitter Hillary clings to bitter voters who in grim times supposedly cling to guns, religion and antipathy to people who aren’t like them.Mining that antipathy, the New York senator has been working hard to get the hard-working white voters of hardscrabble Appalachia so she can show that a black man can’t yet be elected president. |
Detainees drugged against their will for deportation
by Raw Story
In day 4 of a Washington Post series, Careless Detention, it is revealed that the United States has injected hundreds of foreigners without their consent with dangerous mind-altering drugs for trips returning them to their home countries, according to government documents, medical records, and interviews with some of the actual people who were drugged. |
Carville says 'great likelihood' Obama will be nominated, but 'still hears some dogs barking'
by Raw Story
Longtime Clinton associate James Carville admitted in a speech in South Carolina that the Democratic presidential race is all but over, but the colorful Democratic strategist suggested that Hillary Clinton "should fight until the last dog dies," according to The State. |
Climate Policy: From ‘Know How’ to ‘Do Now’
by Herman E. Daly
Recent increased attention to global warming is very welcome. But much of it is misplaced.We focus too much on complex climate models, which ask things like how far emissions will increase carbon dioxide concentration, how much that will raise temperatures, by when, with what consequences to climate and geography, and how likely new information will invalidate model results. Together these questions can paralyze us with uncertainty. |
Is Who Becomes the Next President All That Matters?
by Danny Schechter
I know. I know. How this is the most important election in history, and why the next occupant of the White House will not only be answering the red phone at 3 AM but possibly be saving these not always United States from the decline that even TIME Magazine has announced the country is facing. |
Did the Limbaugh Effect Also Flip Michigan?
by Paul Rogat Loeb
With Hillary Clinton rejecting the compromise that Michigan Democratic leaders just crafted, the Democratic Rules Committee has a dilemma. Clinton keeps demanding that Michigan’s delegates be apportioned according to the January 15 vote, where she was the sole major candidate on the Democratic ballot. But there’s another twist that no one has raised — the impact of a Rush Limbaugh-style crossover on the Michigan vote. Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” quite likely gave Clinton Indiana, provided much of her 4-point Texas margin, buttressed her Ohio win, and decreased Obama’s margin in Mississippi. But no one talks about the impact of crossovers on Clinton’s self-proclaimed Michigan victory, without which her unopposed candidacy would still have gotten less than 50 percent. |
Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause
by Kevin Merida
Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama campaign headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call list in the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing laceless sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It was the day before Indiana's primary, and she had just been chased by dogs while canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst thing to occur since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle Tennessee State University, in part to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama. |
West Virginia? Who cares?
by Doug Thompson
So, Hillary Rodham Clinton won the West Virginia Democratic primary by a huge margin.And your point is?Of course she won West Virginia. Hillary was in her element, pantsuit deep in old, uneducated, white people – the kind of people who hate blacks and change and will vote for anyone as long as they’re white and willing to pander to their needs. |
Slaughterhouse Beirut
by Christopher Dickey
If you want to know what Iraq will look like 25 years from now, look at Lebanon today. The similarities and differences—but mainly the similarities—raise a lot of painful memories and questions forAmericans.This fact hit me once again when I was talking to Mike Sheehan, who is one of the more clear-eyed analysts of terrorism and the way we react to it. The subject came up of Beirut as it is now, a bloody mess, and as it was when Mike and I first focused on it a quarter-century ago, when it was even bloodier. |
Some Unsolicited Advice for Barack Obama
by Ernest Partridge
TO: Barack H. Obama, Presumptive Nominee, Democratic Party.FROM: Ernest Partridge, Philosopher at Large, Incorrigible Gadfly.RE: The Campaign: How to Learn from the Past and Avoid Repeating It.Congratulations on your long, hard-fought and well-executed (presumptive) victory in the pre-convention campaign! |
"Shock Doctrine" Spin in U.S., Burma and Beyond
by Bernard Weiner
Suppose you have a controversial project you wish to push through, but you're afraid that if you come right out and say what you're up to, there will be so many objections from other officials and ordinary citizens that you might never get a chance to implement your agenda. |
McCain "Spiritual Adviser" Claims America Created in Part to Destroy Islam
by Bill Hare
As Sean Hannity and others make clear, the Republicans would like to toss all the real issues away and run against Barack Obama’s former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.One point needs to be abundantly clear to Hannity and all the other right wing propagandists exploiting the “Wright issue.” These well paid zealots harp on an extreme compilation of over 30 years of Wright sermons into a 10 to 15 second sound bite. Even they needed to be taken out of context to deliver the intended resounding message. |
McCain and the 'Unitary Executive'
by Robert Parry
If John McCain wins the presidency – and gets to appoint one or more U.S. Supreme Court justices – America’s 220-year experiment as a democratic Republic living under the principle that “no man is above the law” may come to an end.To put the matter differently, if a President McCain replaces one of the moderate justices with another Samuel Alito – as McCain has vowed to do – then Justice Department lawyer John Yoo’s extreme vision of an all-powerful Executive could well become the new law of the land. |
Fog Facts: Petraeus' Fog of War
by Larry Beinhart
General Petraeus is being promoted. Now in charge of the war in Iraq, he will take charge of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.Here's a quick summary of the media's opinion of the man, as taken from Wikipedia:"Time has named Petraeus one of the 100 most influential leaders and revolutionaries of 2007 as well as one of its four runners up for Time Person of the Year. He was also named the second most influential American conservative by The Daily Telegraph as well as The Daily Telegraph's 2007 Man of the Year, and "America's most respected soldier" by Der Spiegel in 2008. In 2005, Petraeus was selected as one of America's top leaders by US News and World Report." |
McCain's Murderers Row
by Cliff Schecter
A new website (firethelobbyists.com) has been created by the pro-campaign finance reform organization Campaign Money Watch, to convince Senator McCain to fire three lobbyists in the top levels of his organization that have lobbied for ruthless dictators. You may recall that over the past two days, two McCain aides have resigned because of their willingness to do public relations work for the Burmese Junta. |
Polite Fascism Contracting the Vote
by Michael Collins
They wear their robes but leave the hoods off, the polite justices of the Supreme Court. They write decisions then issue them in a formal setting, behind the columns of a capitol monument, with a history that confers a dignity not deserved. The Court embodies the dilemma of our modern culture. The most awful acts are committed with bland justification by polite people who hide behind institutional trappings; for the sake of the few, at the expense of the many. |
GM Crop Foes March In Germany As UN Summit Starts
by Reuters
About 5,000 activists marched through the German city of Bonn on Monday to protest against genetically modified food at the start of a U.N. conference to discuss risks linked to the technology.Campaigners, many waving colorful flags and banners with slogans such as “Biofuel Creates Hunger” and “Good Food Instead Of GM Food”, walked and danced through the western German city. Some drove tractors and floats. |
The Post-Bush Climate
by The NY Times
John McCain has been engaged in the fight against global warming for years, even at the expense of breaking with Republican orthodoxy and with President Bush on the issue. But it was still an important moment this week when Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, decided to raise the profile of climate change in the 2008 campaign. We have clearly entered the post-Bush era of policy and politics on climate change. However this election turns out, the United States will have a president who supports mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases. It is possible to begin to believe in the prospect of serious Congressional action. |
