July 2008 archive

The Fourth Amendment

Takes Its Leave

Founders Seen

Spinning In Graves

Pakistan Is Said to Be Attracting Insurgents



By ERIC SCHMITT

Published: July 10, 2008

WASHINGTON – American military and intelligence officials say there has been an increase in recent months in the number of foreign fighters who have traveled to Pakistan’s tribal areas to join with militants there.

The flow may reflect a change that is making Pakistan, not Iraq, the preferred destination for some Sunni extremists from the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia who are seeking to take up arms against the West, these officials say.

The American officials say the influx, which could be in the dozens but could also be higher, shows a further strengthening of the position of the forces of Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, increasingly seen as an important base of support for the Taliban, whose forces in Afghanistan have become more aggressive in their campaign against American-led troops.

China’s Silencing Season

Activist Journalists and Lawyers Jailed, Harassed in Far-Reaching Pre-Olympic Operation

By Jill Drew

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, July 10, 2008; Page A08

BEIJING — Outside the small restaurant where he was having dinner, Huang Qi saw men he recognized, plainclothes police officers. He got on his cellphone to alert colleagues: Something might happen tonight, he said. We were followed.

Huang, who had already served a five-year prison term for political material posted on his Web site, had just published an article about China’s latest forbidden topic: shoddy construction of school buildings in Sichuan province, where more than 9,000 children were killed when their classrooms collapsed in the May 12 earthquake.

Editors Note:

An article published in Sunday’s Guardian about this same issue was part of that mornings Docudharma Times as is another story in today’s Asian news section. It’s important that people realize just how far the Chinese government is willing to go to protect its image.

USA

Senate Approves Bill to Broaden Wiretap Powers



By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: July 10, 2008

WASHINGTON – The Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a major expansion of the government’s surveillance powers, handing President Bush one more victory in a series of hard-fought clashes with Democrats over national security issues.

The measure, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, is the biggest revamping of federal surveillance law in 30 years. It includes a divisive element that Mr. Bush had deemed essential: legal immunity for the phone companies that cooperated in the National Security Agency wiretapping program he approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Join us at Netroots Nation, next Friday, room 19, 9 am, for Energizing America:  Setting an Agenda for Progress.  This panel will range far and wide across our energy challenges and opportunities.  

Part of the discussion: the Freshman Energy Smart Acceleration (FESA) Act.  

FESA is a package of suggested programs that could provide a rallying point for the freshmen (and women) class of 2009, to join together for passage a set of legislative initiatives to help spark an Energy Smart renaissance across the United States.

Things are looking bleak for the Progressive Movement.  We’ve been saddled once again with a corporate-conservative Democrat whose willingness to drop popular policy positions to placate the far right will likely cost his political party — and, by extension, the rest of the country — the presidency; we’ve been threatened and bullied by increasingly uncritical sycophants from within the Democratic Party who refuse to acknowledge that their candidate isn’t what far too many Americans have pretended he is; and we’ve been denied by the corporate establishment any and all presidential candidates truly representative of the Progressive Movement.

Our options are few and dwindling by the day.  On one side we have Republican John McCain, who represents plainly and simply an extension of the Bush regime.  He is unacceptable.  On another we have Barack Obama, who has tacked so far to the right from the mythical “center” that his policies now show little or no practical difference from his opponent’s — or, for that matter, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s.  On yet another side, we have independent and third party candidates running for president: Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney (on the Green Party ticket), and Bob Barr (for the Libertarians).

Perhaps the single biggest limitation on our options is the elimination and marginalization of candidates whose records and rhetoric go against the status quo.  The establishment, from the corporate masters to their propagandists in the media to a large portion of the very electorate itself, actively discourages the voicing of that dissent which is expressed in the form of votes.  We are threatened with another Republican regime if we dare “waste” our ballots, if we dare presume to think that voting our beliefs might truly make a difference.  After all, the brainwashing campaign dictates, Democrats are better than Republicans by far.  By what standard, though?

Of the two major political party presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, which one has moved to the right of the shrub — let me repeat and emphasize that for you: to the right of the shrub — on Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel?  Obama, that’s which one.  Not even McCain or the boys holding his leash have guts enough to state that position publicly.  On this issue, is Obama better than McCain or worse?  The answer, of course, is “worse.”

On a host of other issues, an Obama administration offers the following:

No health care reform,

Publicly subsidized slums,

No end to the occupation of Iraq on his watch,

Continuation of NAFTA and other disastrous trade deals,

All hope for a return of the Fairness Doctrine dead, and

Continuing erosion of civil liberties.

In what way is Obama fundamentally different from, or better than, his Republican counterpart?  From where I’m sitting he is absolutely no better, and in some respects he is much worse.  Why, then, should progressives throw away their ballots on him?

Desperate times require desperate and drastic measures.  Democrats blew their chance to hold Barack Obama accountable during the primaries, but it’s not too late to force him to run to the political left and stay there, lest he cost us the election like John Kerry and Al Gore before him.

A couple of weeks ago I received junk mail from the Obama campaign in the form of a contribution request.  Instead of enclosing money (which I don’t have anyway), I instead inserted a note stating that until Obama met certain requirements, he would receive no money or vote from me.  Those requirements were:

– Immediately demand that Pelosi allow impeachment proceedings against the shrub and his gargoyle to proceed,

– Stand up to the shrub on FISA, filibuster the amnesty bill, and filubuster all of the shrub’s nominees,

– Push for single-payer health care, and

– Push for cutting off funds for the occupation of Iraq and bringing our troops home.

You might share my positions on these and other issues.  I declared my intention to vote for Dennis Kucinich as a write-in if Obama does not get his act together.  You may wish to vote for Nader, McKinney, or the write-in of your choice.  The point is not to try to win the election for these independent and third party candidates, but to send a message to Obama that his cynical political games will not be tolerated by progressives.  This is the last, best chance we have of holding him accountable.

Democrats will only take their party’s progressive base seriously if they know in their hearts that alienating it shall only cost them more and more elections.  If they choose not to learn their lesson, then we progressives must break from the Democratic Party, abandoning it to its Republican masters, and start anew.  Either way, unless we act, Obama will surely blow it for us — and America — in November.

Weapons of Blog Destruction!

h/t   Net Disaster

Docudharma attacked by Ants!

Watch this for a little while and notice what the ants are carrying around.    I have no idea how this works!

How about a good old fashioned Daily Kos Pie Fight!

Here’s something I’ve always wanted to do… Tomatoes!

The bloggers are getting restless. Taking it to the streets – Protest!

OMG!  This is even cooler than the ants.  Check out the signs!!!

Here’s a fun one too:   God Almighty strikes RedState.  Use your mouse to point the finger and click to launch fire balls.  

Want to launch a WBD at your favorite (or least favorite) sites?  Go to the Net Disaster home page linked above.  Or, from any of the pages that I linked above, you’ll notice a tool bar at the top of the web page.  You can enter any URL  you want and select a disaster.  Choose from Floods, Chainsaws, Dinosaurs, Spilled Coffee and lots more.  There are sounds that go with it too.  Have fun!  

1. The LA Times reports Six people are dead in attack on U.S. consulate in Istanbul. “Gunmen today attacked the U.S. consulate here, sparking a gun battle that left three Turkish police officers and the three assailants dead… It was the most serious attack in several years on a foreign diplomatic mission in Turkey.”

   According to the Washington Post, the American ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, call the attack “‘an obvious act of terrorism’ … ‘This was an attack on the American diplomatic establishment here,’ Wilson said in an appearance before reporters in Ankara, the Turkish capital. ‘… Our countries will stand together and confront this, as we have in the past.'” Abdullah Gul, the president of Turkey, also describe it as a terrorist attack.”

   “Neither U.S. or Turkish officials would speculate on who was responsible for the attack… Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay told reporters late this afternoon there still was no claim of responsibility. He said all of the attackers were Turkish nationals.”

2. The NY Times reports the Federal Reserve sees economic turmoil persisting deep into next year. “Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, publicly indicated on Tuesday that he believes the problems will persist into next year when he outlined a series of steps the Fed is considering in the coming months… Bernanke also recommended that Congress grant the Fed broader authority to monitor and supervise the financial markets to assure greater stability in the future.”

   The economy will continue to do badly for all the known reasons: cratering housing market, skyrocketing oil prices, and titanic federal debt brought about by the worst president ever and his wars.

   The Washington Post reports that “Some outside experts argue that changes such as the ones Bernanke advocated yesterday could create more problems than they solve.” No doubt. The Fed wants more authority to clean up the mess they made and fed. This economic misery was done on purpose to shock the system in order to increase liquidity for easier looting. Do not trust Bernanke or Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The bailouts are and will continue to be for the wealthy.

Four at Four continues with the unmitigated missile threat to airplanes and Guantanamo appeals.