Pentagon Lobbyists Begin Campaign Harvest Season For Defense Budget FY 2011

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09…

Here in Arghandab, the inflow of troops has made it possible to begin trying to pacify an area where thick vegetation, irrigation canals and pomegranate orchards provide good cover for Taliban insurgents, according to Col. Joe Krebs, the 2nd Brigade Combat team’s deputy commander.

No sooner had the 1st Battalion of the 22nd Armored Regiment of the United States Army arrived here than five of its soldiers were killed, in a roadside bomb directed at their convoy. The dead included the first army chaplain to be killed in active duty during the Afghan conflict.

While no official casualty totals have been released for the recent operations in the Kandahar districts, a count by iCasualties.org, which tracks coalition deaths, showed 14 American fatalities in Kandahar between Aug. 30 and Sept. 23, the latest date for which details are available. At least six of them were in Arghandab and two in Zhari district. That compares to 10 American personnel lost during that same period in Helmand Province, where the United States Marines have been struggling to suppress the Taliban in and around Marja, scene of the year’s first major offensive, Operation Mustarak, which began Feb. 14.

   Pomegranates are an important crop in traditional Mediterranean and southwest Asian culture.  

I couldn’t live with myself if my companies were doing damage to the planet.

  – Linda Resnick

A new type of pomegranate, Angel Red, is being tested by Pom Wonderful, Paramount Farm’s parent company, which grows about half of California’s Pomegranates.   Pomegranates and pistachios require lots of irrigation water.

Federal:

http://www.campaignmoney.com/p…

State:  Roll International Corp,  Tens of thousands of dollars to Gray Davis, Steve Westly, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, Chamber of Commerce which is currently fronting the opposition to CA Prop 19

It has to be over $4 million in donations to CA candidates since 1993 by now:

http://californiawatch.org/dat…

  In the middle east, pomegranates are harvested in late September.   Irrigation water is pumped to mountain orchards during the growing season,  and the ripe fruit is carefully hand harvested.  

The United States Agency for International Development, and Development Alternatives Inc have been building irrigation canals in Jalalabad,    but private contractors working for the American government have become the target of insurgents, leading to murders and kidnappings.

 iCasualties.org shows that a total of 538 NATO forces have died in Afghanistan this year, the highest in the 9 year occupation.  354 of them were Americans.  48 soldiers have died this September, with 32 of them being Americans, and 5 British.

Look forward, forward, forward, I said !

Former UK PM Gordon Brown bans any questions or references to former UK PM Tony Blair during visit to Harvard to give speech.  

Former President Bush and wife Laura Bush hold reception in Dallas for local Gold Star and Blue Star mothers Saturday evening.  

“… I wasn’t about to break down.  Not until he asked, tell me about your soldier.Then I lost it! Right before the picture was taken. Great!

We were then asked to take a seat as the President would welcome us and thank us for attending the reception.  He went on to tell us how proud he is of our soldiers and how safe he always felt when being around them.  Getting emotional at times he continued to thank us for raising such strong and unselfish men and women.  He reminded us that our soldiers/children did not die in vain, and that our soldiers freed a lot of people and protected a lot of people for which he is eternally grateful.  There was not a dry eye in the room.  You can tell he is extremely patriotic.

The President then asked if we had any questions or comments.  One mother went on to tell him how much people miss him and love him, he thanked her and in a laughing voice said “all except the guy that threw the shoe at me huh?  Was that crazy or what? ”

 Karl Rove Devises Strategy to Put Republicans Back in Power  

He has taken a major role in helping to summon the old coalition of millionaires and billionaires who supported Bush and have huge financial stakes in regulatory and tax policy, like Harold C. Simmons, the leveraged buyout magnate in Texas whose holdings include a major waste management firm that handles some radioactive materials; Carl H. Lindner Jr., the Cincinnati businessman whose American Financial Group includes several property and casualty insurance concerns; and Robert B. Rowling, whose TRT Holdings owns Omni Hotels and Gold’s Gym.

Their personal and corporate money –   as well as that of other donors who have not been identified – has gone to outside groups Rove helped form with Gillespie, including  American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, which in turn are loosely affiliated with similar groups staffed or backed by other operatives and donors with ties to Rove.

 It’s going to be a bitter fight.