Friday, May 16, 2008

The Half In Ten Campaign

 
 
THE PROGRESS REPORTby Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, Benjamin Armbruster, and Sarah Dale


The Half In Ten Campaign

On Tuesday, a coalition of four national advocacy organizations --  the Center for American Progress Action Fund,  ACORN, the Coalition on Human Needs and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights -- launched the Half in Ten campaign, a vigorous and concerted effort to cut the number of Americans living in poverty by 50 percent within ten years. Currently, one in every eight Americans, or 36.5 million people, live in poverty. Under the leadership of former senator John Edwards, the campaign, Half in Ten: From Poverty to Prosperity, seeks to unite a broad range of groups and individuals across the country in order to make this goal a reality. The foundation of the campaign rests on basic fundamental principles: promoting decent work, providing opportunity for all, ensuring economic security, and helping people build wealth. Combining federal, state, and public education agendas, the campaign is guided by the policy recommendations of the Center for American Progress's 2007 Poverty Task Force Report, which issued twelve recommendations including expanding tax credits, eliminating predatory lending, and ensuring that workers have the right to form unions through the Employee Free Choice Act. Half in Ten will advocate expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, raising the minimum wage, increasing the availability of child care assistance to low-income families, and increasing eligibility for unemployment insurance. In his kick-off speech in Philadelphia last Tuesday, Edwards spelled out the essence of campaign: "This is not just about highlighting the problem. It is also about highlighting the solutions -- because this is a problem we can solve." 

CHANGING THE GOVERNMENT: The very policies designed to prop up low-wage workers, unemployment insurance and tax credits, typically don't reach the poorest Americans who most need them. Restrictive rules often prevent part time and temporary employees -- the lowest paid and most poor workers -- from receiving unemployment benefits. Half in Ten recognizes that unemployment reform would bring an additional 560,000 largely low-income people into the system, distributing $1.03 billion in benefits and job training. The Child Tax Credit (CTC) currently excludes many of the least affluent Americans. Restrictions on the CTC mean that claimants with low or no tax liability, who make the most meager wages, are unable to receive any assistance. The Urban Institute estimates that 21 million children and 1.1 million parents would break through the poverty line if the federal CTC were made fully refundable. Finally, Half in Ten will work to provide childcare assistance. The campaign will work to obtain a federal-state guarantee of child care assistance for all working families with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty line and an expansion of the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. These expansions of childcare assistance would lift 2.7 million Americans out of poverty, reducing poverty by almost 8 percent, according to estimates by the Urban Institute. Half in Ten will continue to push the Senate, the House and the presidential candidates until they commit to these important federal changes.

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Gay marriage: The California high court’s gift to conservatives?


Davis Osterkamp (L) and Larry Martinez celebrate the ruling.
(AP Photo/Ron Lewis)
 
What happened
The California Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage. The decision makes California the second state where same-sex marriage will be legal, after Massachusetts, and it doesn't directly affect couples outside of the state. The Massachusetts high court's ruling to allow gay marriage in 2003 was used to rally gay-marriage opponents to vote in the 2004 election, which some analysts credit with helping President Bush win reelection. Republican presidential nominee John McCain has opposed a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, while Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama support same-sex civil unions but oppose same-sex marriage. (USA Today)

What the commentators said
The California Supreme Court's ruling came just as the Republican Party was "gasping for air," said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, and the party "certainly hasn't done anything to deserve such luck." But despite "the popular spin," there really isn't an "all-or-nothing war between Democrats and Republicans" on gay marriage—Americans mostly back civil unions but not marriage. The problem is judges. Just like with Roe v. Wade, it's the "berobed judiciary" that has created a divisive "wedge" issue, by usurping democracy and creating law. That should be the "campaign issue."

The expected "backlash" against the Massachusetts ruling "never came," said Emily Bazelon in Slate. And actually, five years later, public opinion has come around to the judges' point of view. In 2003, state residents opposed gay marriage, 53 percent to 35 percent; by March 2005 they supported it, 56 percent to 37 percent. In Massachusetts, though, changing the constitution to overturn the judges would have been hard, and time allowed residents to get used to the idea. "California voters can overturn the decision with a single vote." And if they get the chance to try in November, it might "hurt Democrats nationally in this presidential election just as the Massachusetts decision did in the last contest."

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Photographers stand up for your rights in LA, June 1

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Discarted sez,

One June 1, photographers throughout Los Angeles will gather at the Hollywood and Highland Metro Station to peacefully protest against the unnecessary treatment they have received from security guards (particularly the white shirts), LAPD, and LASD while photographing in public places, and on the Metro.

Make signs, T-shirts, and be sure to bring your cameras (still and video). Sign ideas as well as other ideas should be posted here. We need things that will make us stand out as a cohesive group.

Start Time: 11:00am, June 1
Location: Hollywood and Highland, 6801 Hollywood Los Angeles, CA 90028

At about 1:30pm we will board the Metro and travel to Union Station

Start Time: 2:00pm
Location: 800 N Alameda St Los Angeles, CA 90012
Contact: info@discarted.com

Link, Link to Flickr group

See also: Taking pictures on LA's Red Line violates the "9/11 Law"

(Image: Photographing the photographer, a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike photo from Naixn's Flickr stream)

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AntiPhormLite - Key Features in detail

Your alter ego surf buddy..

Surfing Simulation

AntiPhormLite is a unique application that intelligently self surfs the internet and generates natural surfing information to confuse anyone who is spying or tracking your internet activity

It is a stand alone application that can be left to run on it's own or in parallel with your own surfing sessions and can be run as either a hidden background process, a desktop console application or in conjunction with your favorite browser, which ever you prefer.

To an ISP It is indistinguishable from a real person. It performs intelligent decisions about where to surf and combines multiple search engines with millions of contextual search subjects and general interest links.

The engine features cross references in subject threads, back peddles along re-searching threads, revisits history during a session, recursive branching, subject thread and page lingering, gone-away modes and exhaustive search abandonment. It uses natural time delays based on search interest, page size and link return quality and it is throttled to prevent heavy traffic recognition or misuse. 

- download here -

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Mississippi Drug War Blues: The Case of Cory Maye

 
At 11p.m on December 26, 2001 police in Prentiss, Mississippi raided the residence of Cory Maye, a 21-year-old father who was at home with his 18-month-old daughter Ta'Corriana.

The cops were looking for drugs and smashed through the back door. In the ensuing chaos, Maye hunkered down with his daughter in a bedroom and when the police broke down that door, he fired three bullets, one of which killed Officer Ron Jones. Maye testified in court that the police did not identify themselves until after they had entered his residence; indeed, he testified that they did not identify themselves until after he had fired his shots. Once they did, he said he put his weapon on the floor, slid it toward police, and surrendered.

The police, who refused to talk with reason.tv, tell a different story. They claim that they identified themselves multiple times before entering Maye's house and bedroom, and that there was no way Maye couldn't have known who they were. A jury rejected Maye's case that he was acting in self-defense and he was sentenced to death for the murder of Office Ron Jones.

"Mississippi Drug War Blues" is a story about the intersection of race (Maye is black and Jones was white); the war on drugs; the disturbing increase in the militarization of police tactics; and systemic flaws in the criminal justice and expert-testimony systems.

It is a tragedy in which one man is dead and another may spend his life in prison.

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350 Palestinian children are suffering inside Israeli prisons

Please sign this petition

Iqbal Tamimi, Palestine Think Tank

12child-arrested.jpg


The Palestinian Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Centre ADDAMEER, declared that the Israeli Zionist forces have arrested almost 6200 Palestinians since the last Intifada started in September of 2000. 350 of those languishing in prison are children who, against international conventions, are still imprisoned in Israeli jails and detention centers.

Those youngsters undergo severe punishment and mental stress, living an extremely horrifying health and mental situation. Being subjected to torture, interrogation, beatings, humiliation, insults, degradation, and regular terrorizing, "such conditions will affect their mental well being forever, and will accompany them through their adult life," the report said.

The report published by the Palestinian centre on Friday 9 May 2008 revealed that hundreds of children were arrested while they were quite young, and detained in prisons. Some of them are now over 18 and still are imprisoned.

The Zionist occupation is enforcing military rule in those prisons, thus they consider a Palestinian child of 16 as an adult. They are willingly depriving them of their rights as children according to International agreements. According to international law, minors should be protected whilst detained.

350 prisoners are females, 20 are young Palestinian girls. Some children were born inside the Israeli prisons, and they are experiencing health problems. Mothers experience extremely difficult mental depression being subjected to humiliation, having to give birth while being chained by the wrists and feet. Such inhumane treatment is a clear breach of human rights.

Newborn babies are still in Israeli prisons, an example is 3-month-old Yosif Alziq, the child of the prisoner Fatima Alziq from the Shujayyeah neighborhood in Gaza. Another example is Noor, the child borne to the prisoner Manal Ghanem from Tolkarem camp; she was imprisoned while she was pregnant, and gave birth inside the prison in an extremely difficult situation.

The prisoner Khawla Zitawi also gave birth to her little girl Ghada inside the Israeli prison, and they are still imprisoned.

The freed prisoner Samar Subaih has delivered her son Bara'a inside the prison while her hands and feet were chained. Mervat Taha is another Palestinian mother who gave birth to her son Wael inside the prison.

The children are kept in an overcrowded place that is unsuitable for human living. Their needs are not provided for. The rights of imprisoned children are breached by Israeli forces according to all laws and international agreements for that matter, especially breast fed babies and toddlers.

Children prisoners are subjected to torture and investigations
The young Palestinian children are subjected to torture and investigations inside Zionist jails like Ofer, Megiddo, Etzion, the Negev, Jalama, Petah Tikva, and Ashkelon.

The children inside the prisons are not safe, as this torture is both physical and psychological. Their living circumstances are difficult and they cannot grow in serenity, as the frustration they experience is constant.The cells where they are kept are less than 1 meter x 1.5 meters in dimensions. Chained by their hands and feet and blindfolded, they are not provided with mattresses or covers. Living in the darkness, they are deprived of sunlight. The children suffer the humidity and lack of ventilation, except for a small hole used to provide them through it with small quantities of food.

Torturing children
The interrogation of children begins after 3 days of detention. Upon the 3rd day, the child is deprived of all human necessities, besides being subjected to lengthy, successive, repeated sessions of interrogations. At such times the child is deprived of his right to sleep and is prohibited from using the toilet for long periods.

The study reveals that the children complained that they were subjected to pressures and negotiations to offer them relief in return of their cooperation and becoming their spies. Some children confessed they have already given in and just done that. They were told if they would not cooperate and become their spy, they would remain in prison forever.
Palestinian children in Israeli prisons in numbers
105 are younger than 15
322 are from the West Bank
22 are from Jerusalem
6 are from Gaza
156 have been convicted
187 are waiting for a trial
7 are under 'administrative detention' - contradicting all laws and international agreements.
80 are very sick and are in need of medical treatment

Beatings, intimidation and organized terrorism against Palestinian children
The imprisoned Palestinian children have suffered greatly from beatings during arrests and investigations. Most children have been arrested from their homes in the middle of the night. The armed forces of the Zionist occupation use terrorist methods such as police dogs and other terrorizing methods are used to raise the children's fear and cause their parents to panic, not to mention the huge number of insults received by the child during the arrest.

The children are blindfolded during the arrests, their hands and feet are tied. And according to testimonies of detained children themselves, they were also kicked, slapped on their faces, beaten repeatedly by soldiers, and sometimes hit by the soldiers' rifles while being pushed inside the military cars.

Terrorizing the children during investigation is a breach of their human rights. The parents reported that their children were handcuffed, crouching down in the cold for many hours waiting to be interrogated, thus weakening their morale. Sometimes they are kept in solitary confinement to put the child under mental pressure. Children were beaten up at different stages of interrogation, slapped on their faces by the interrogator, deprived of food and drink for periods of 12 hours. The guards were swearing at them, cursing them, and preventing them from using the toilet, or from changing their clothes for days.
Some children were terrorized by being threatened to be sexually attacked and some were touched in an inappropriate way. Such acts are a direct insult and clear harm to their innocence. Some physicians said that some of those children will never recover from what they have been subjected to. Especially some of them witnessed the beatings of their family members, and others witnessed the humiliation of their parents in their own homes by the soldiers.

PLEASE, SIGN THIS PETITION!!


:: Article nr. 43990 sent on 13-may-2008 19:08 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=43990

Link: palestinethinktank.com/2008/02/29/release-11000-palestinians-in-israeli-jails-pl
ease-sign-this-petition/
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What the earthquake tells us about China


Rescue workers respond in China.
(AP Photo/Wang Jiaowen, ColorChinaPhoto)

What happened
China's state-run media reported that the death toll from Monday's magnitude 7.9 earthquake had reached nearly 15,000, with 26,000 more buried under debris and another 14,000 still missing. China has mobilized some 20,000 soldiers in Sichuan province, with another 30,000 on the way, and Premier Wen Jiabao is heading up the relief effort. (CNN.com)

What the commentators said
China's leaders "have marshaled an impressive rescue," said the Toronto Star in an editorial, and the one edict from Jiabao, "Save the people," even extends to "welcoming the world's offer of help." That makes China's effort stand out even more from "Burma's criminally incompetent generals, who were more interested in their constitutional games than in helping their nation cope" with the deadly cyclone there. Still, "even China's speedy response cannot undo" such a tragedy "as the nation prepares to stage the Olympic Games this summer."

Given the "relentless coverage of Tibetan clashes and human rights abuses" leading up to the Olympics, said Barbara Demick in the Los Angeles Times (free registration), this tragedy actually gives China "an opportunity for a dramatic image makeover." The "new China" that is appearing in state TV coverage is "both compassionate and competent," and manages to strike the "delicate balance" between "eliciting sympathy and depicting China as a developed country."

The response has certainly been much better than in 1976, said The Miami Herald in an editorial, when "the Communist Party tried to hide the fact that a massive earthquake had struck in eastern China and killed more than 240,000 people." But amid all the other pain is the "double tragedy" for parents who lost their children, especially when a middle school collapsed. "Because of China's policy of limiting couples to just one child, many parents lost their one hope for their family's future."

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Americans Go Splurge-Crazy With Their Stimulus Checks!

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Olbermann To Bush: "This War Is Not About You...Shut The Hell Up!"

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This is not a joke

 
Courage Campaign

Get this: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to headline a "yacht party" on Friday in San Francisco.

This is not a joke.

Josh Richman, an Oakland Tribune reporter, broke the unbelievable news last night. A mere 48 hours after announcing devastating state budget cuts -- but failing to call for ending the appalling yacht tax loophole -- the Governor will be the star attraction Friday at the St. Francis Yacht Club.

Just like us, Richman was bewildered:

"In the same week that he has rolled out a May budget revision based mainly on borrowing billions while enacting deep social-services cuts to close the state's massive deficit?

Wow."

Wow is an understatement. 

I got this news while moderating a "Courage Campaign Conversation" conference call with Arianna Huffington about the yacht tax loophole and other examples of why the "Right is Wrong" (the title of her new book). Arianna, a Cambridge-educated economist, expressed her disgust that Arnold would be politically tone deaf enough to party with the same super-rich yacht owners who are getting off tax-free while teachers receive pink slips.

It's time to put the heat on the Governor and his cronies -- the small minority of Republicans inside the state legislature that we are re-branding as the "Yacht Party".

On Monday, Arianna asked Courage Campaign members to support "Yacht Party 2" -- an extremely provocative 60-second TV ad we produced to expose the California Republican Party's shocking priorities. The ad, funded by the California Nurses Association, inspired an overwhelming response, becoming the most popular video we have ever released on YouTube, with 52,430 views and counting. 

Now Assemblymember Anthony Portantino -- impressed by your people-power -- is challenging our grassroots community to an urgent matching campaign that can change the conversation inside Sacramento and put pressure on the Governor.

If our dynamic donors can raise a total of $5,000 by Monday at 12 p.m., Assemblymember Portantino will double your impact with a matching $5,000 donation. You got "Yacht Party 2" (click here to watch it) on the air in Sacramento. Now, can you help us expand our ad buy for one more week and keep up the pressure? Please meet this special $5K match challenge by donating $25, $50, $100 or more by Monday at noon:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/YachtParty2

On Tuesday, I was in Sacramento to witness the swearing-in of Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, the first African-American woman to lead a state legislature in American history. It was a wonderful moment for California and for our nation, a day that portended a new era for progressive politics in California.

But, just yesterday, that hope took a hit when Governor Schwarzenegger announced his ridiculous budget-balancing scheme to gamble on California's future with lottery funds while refusing to take leadership to close this embarrassing tax loophole for yacht and private jet owners.

Now, the Governor is following up his head-in-the-sand failure to take leadership on tax-free yachts by partying with the yachting elite that enjoy this embarrassment of riches.

It's time to embarrass the California Repubublican Yacht Party and shine a spotlight on this travesty inside our state capitol. Can you double our impact by meeting Assemblymember Portantino's $5,000 match, so we can air "Yacht Party 2" (click here to watch it) across Sacramento for one more week? It only takes $25, $50, or $100 each from hundreds of small donors to make this match -- please contribute before Monday at 12 p.m.:  

http://www.couragecampaign.org/YachtParty2

We can kill this yacht-tax loophole like we helped kill the GOP's electoral college "dirty trick" last year. But we can't do it alone -- we need your grassrsoots and netroots people-power. 

If you think your friends will like this 60-second TV ad, please forward this message to your friends and family before Monday at noon.

Thank you for making this statement along with Courage, the California Nurses Association and Assemblymember Portantino. With your support, we can crash the Governor's yacht party on Friday.

Rick Jacobs
Chair

P.S. Save the date: On May 27, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and State Senator Pro-Tem-elect Darrell Steinberg will join us for our next "Courage Campaign Conversation". Be sure to reserve your phone line early though, after we send you the official announcement next week. Last night, we reached maximum capacity and were forced to stop accepting RSVP's for Arianna Huffington's call. 

Meanwhile, Arianna is extending her offer to help put "Yacht Party 2" on the air in Sacramento. If you can contribute at least $100 to fund "Yacht Party 2", she will sign her new book and send it to you ASAP:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/YachtParty2
 

..............

The Courage Campaign is an independent political committee and online organizing network approaching 100,000 members that empowers grassroots and netroots activists to build a progressive California. In 2008, the Courage Campaign will catalyze action to increase California's importance in the race for the White House, hold our elected officials accountable, and block Blackwater's second attempt to build a base of operations on the Mexican border.


Please consider making a contribution to the Courage Campaign: 

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The government's sorta-kinda-maybe logic

By David Harsanyi

It could be argued that the most useless job in Washington, D.C., is held by John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He's otherwise known as the country's Drug Czar.

And when you consider the spectacular number of useless jobs in Washington, that's quite an accomplishment.

No one is saying, of course, that it's easy being a figurehead of a cost-inefficient organization charged with implementing the biggest domestic policy disaster since Prohibition. After all, it means advocating that thousands of non-violent offenders be sent to prison — quite often after paramilitary raids have reeled them in.

It means denying citizens dying of cancer, AIDS and other painful diseases the medical marijuana they claim alleviates their pain. It means ignoring the will of citizens in states like California and Colorado, where medical marijuana was legalized.

Being the Drug Czar means overstating and misleading Americans with so-called studies. He's not alone. From the Centers for Disease Control to the Surgeon General, government agencies are under the impression that when their view of some "greater good" is at stake, concocting studies to propagate flawed policy is acceptable.

Take, if you will, the new report titled "Teen Marijuana Use Worsens Depression: An Analysis of Recent Data Shows 'Self-Medicating' Could Actually Make Things Worse." Scary stuff.

"Adolescent marijuana use may be a factor that triggers psychosis, depression, and other mental illness," explains Walters, who admits "research about causality is still ongoing."

Ongoing, doubtlessly, until Walters unearths the answer he's looking for.

It's not often you see half-baked phrases like "Could Actually" in the title of a study. You'll also notice Walters also says it "may be a factor." Because, in other words, "it may not" be a factor at all.

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Chef Ramsay's 3 tips for the perfect BBQ

News Groper: These Blogs Are Not Real

May 15th, 2008

With the weather heating up, our staff chef Gordon Ramsay would like to offer 3 quick tips for the perfect Kick Off To Summer BBQ ... 1) Don't take short cuts. Slow-braise your rabbit tenderloins in the black grape and olive reduction for all 8 hours called for. 2) Treat side dishes with the same attention as main courses. Instead of chips and salsa try A simple foie gras in a verjus port glaze. 3) It's all about the two "b's" -- brews and bitches! And check out these spicy posts:

Revealed: My cameo in the new Sex and the City movie by Samuel L. Jackson

Final Exit: Escape from '08 by Hillary Clinton

Barack and John: a Bromance Story by Barack Obama

Howie Mandel - A magnet for safety? by Howie Mandel

Your sex life is so my business by Pope Benedict XVI

Timetable? More like guestimate by John McCain

Mississippi Burning? I wish! by Dick Cheney

Regards,

The News Groper Editors

www.newsgroper.com

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Thursday, May 15, 2008

fantastic

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Oil could hit $200 in 'super-spike'

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Oil prices threaten to hit $200 a barrel in a final "super-spike" over coming months as producers fail to keep pace with blistering demand from China and the Middle East, according to a controversial report by Goldman Sachs.

 

An oil rig extracting petroleum in California: Oil could hit $200 in 'super-spike'
US crude prices rose to a new high of $122.35 a barrel yesterday

"We believe the current energy crisis may be coming to a head. A 'super-spike' end game may be in the early stages of playing out," said Arjun Murti, the bank's energy strategist.

Goldman Sachs said a chronic lack of supply would lead to a "dramatic and continuous rise in oil prices", followed at some point by a sharp fall in oil demand as consumers retrench.

US crude prices hit a fresh high of $122.35 a barrel yesterday as rebel attacks on Shell installations in Nigeria and tensions in northern Iraq continued to strain markets already caught in a crunch.

Prices have doubled over the last year in what amounts to a massive transfer of wealth from the Atlantic region to the rising commodity powers.

This week's jump in prices comes despite the partial recovery of the dollar against the euro, suggesting that alleged investor appetite for oil as a sort of "anti-dollar" is no longer driving the market - if it ever was.

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Show Us Your 1040, Mrs. McCain!

Getty Images

Double standards are endemic in American journalism. But Cindy McCain, wife of the Republican presidential candidate, displayed poor taste in flaunting her family's special immunity from press scrutiny. Declaring on NBC's Today that she would "never" release her income tax returns even if she becomes first lady, the Arizona beer heiress showed no concern that she and her husband will have to meet the same tests as other would-be White House occupants—ever.

Unfortunately, the arrogance of Mrs. McCain is probably well founded.

While her personal net worth is estimated somewhere north of $50 million, she can surely rely upon the discretion of right-wing media organizations and commentators, which so far have given her and her husband a free pass on the income tax question. In contrast to their unrelenting demands for absolutely complete disclosure by Bill and Hillary Clinton over alleged or suspected conflicts of interest, the so-called conservative media have remained mum about Mrs. McCain.

That silence similarly contrasts with the hell raised four years ago over Teresa Heinz Kerry's reluctance to reveal her tax returns alongside those of her spouse, the Democratic presidential nominee and senator, John Kerry. Back then The Weekly Standard ran a smirking headline calling her Mr. Kerry's "sugar mommy" for a column that salivated over the "lavish lifestyle" and "vacation homes" to which her tax returns would draw attention. The Standard editors didn't even pretend to any substantive concern. They just wanted to play the politics of envy and elitism.

But the National Review's editors cited weightier reasons for curiosity, including the very size of the Heinz Kerry holdings and the use of her money to finance her husband's presidential campaign, "at least in its bleaker moments," as well as the "potential … for conflicts (or the perception of conflicts) of interest." So did The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial that said the Kerrys would be "the richest couple ever to live in the White House. … Their assets should be disclosed to the voters so that they can assess whether there are any potential conflicts of interest." The same editorial noted that since Senator Kerry was proposing to raise taxes on higher income brackets, "most people would probably like to know whether the Kerry household uses tax-avoidance techniques to avoid paying its 'fair share.'"

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democratic primaries

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Bird Flu Medicine Toxic for Teens


Students are startled as pigeons flap their wings to fly upward at a park in eastern Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap


By Bae Ji-sook

Concerns are rising over side effect of bird flu drug Tamiflu on teenagers.

Tamiflu is Swiss-based Hoffman-La Roche's antiviral for general influenza A and B but is also used to combat bird flu. However, worries have surfaced about the possibility of the medicine causing mental disorders among teenagers.

With fear of the H5N1 virus sweeping the nation, the government has doubled the quantity of the drug in storage, as it is the most effective treatment against avian influenza.

Whether to prescribe the pills with risks of side-effects such delusions or other disorders is being widely discussed among medical experts.

Although the drug has been the only medicine accredited to be effective against the H5N1 virus strain by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Japanese and Korean governments restricted its being prescribed to teenagers last year.

The Korea Food and Drug Administration announced that the drug should not be prescribed to those between 10 to 19 years old except for emergencies.

According to Roche, there has not been a reported case of side effects here, but the Seoul Shinmun, a local daily, reported that a woman in her 30s said she had nightmares after taking the drug in 2005.

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Rummy and the Generals for Hire

 

Gouge deeper a-hole

More from the DOD document dump shows Rummy & the Washington Generals to be complete sociopaths:

An ongoing exploration of the documents related to the Pentagon's "message force multipliers" program has unearthed a clip of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggesting that America, having voted the Democrats back into Congressional power, could benefit from suffering another terrorist attack, and doing so in the presence of the very same military analysts who went on to provide commentary and analysis of the Iraq War.

Here's the particularly hideous section as Lt. General Michael DeLong bemoans the Democrats victory in the 2006 elections:

DELONG: Politically, what are the challenges because you're not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there.

RUMSFELD: That's what I was just going to say. This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack.

Those in attendance included many of Brian Williams and other talking heads' best military analyst buddies:

...it all went down at a valedictory luncheon Rumsfeld hosted for those analysts on December 12, 2006. Many of the "message force multipliers" named in the original New York Times piece were in attendance, including David L. Grange, Donald W. Sheppard, James Marks, Rick Francona, Wayne Downing, and Robert H. Scales, Jr.

Talking Points Memo has a whole host of bloggers digging into the thousands of pages, you can check it out here.

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Why has the US dropped 9/11 charges?

 

By Adam Brookes
BBC News, Washington


Mohammed al-Qahtani during a hearing in Yemen, 22 February 2006

Mohammad al-Qahtani was a suspect in the first capital case at Guantanamo

The American government has given no reason why charges against the man it has alleged was the "20th hijacker" in the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US have been dropped.

Mohammad al-Qahtani has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, following his detention in Afghanistan.

In February, he was charged with conspiracy, terrorism, and murder in violation of the laws of war, among other offences.

The US alleges he attempted to come to the United States in order to take part in the 9/11 attacks, but was stopped at the airport on his arrival.

An immigration officer suspected he intended to stay in the US illegally, and refused him entry.

The charges were dropped "without prejudice" - which means they could be brought again at a later date.

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Afghanistan seeks $50 billion in aid

By FISNIK ABRASHI

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan will ask international donors next month for $50 billion to fund a five-year development plan, a presidential aide said, despite growing criticism that aid money is being wasted.

About $14 billion is to go toward improving deteriorating security, but the key target is reviving the decrepit agricultural sector, Ishaq Nadiri, senior economic adviser to President Hamid Karzai, told reporters late Tuesday.

The plan will be presented to international donors June 12 in Paris.

"We expect a strong political commitment to Afghanistan," Nadiri said.

Afghanistan is struggling to recover from a quarter century of war. More than six years after the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime, the country is mired in poverty and insurgent attacks are increasing. It also produces about 93 percent of the world's opium, the raw material of heroin.

The slow pace of development is hobbling public support for Karzai's Western-backed government as Afghans grapple with food shortages and the sharply rising cost of living. Official corruption is endemic.

"We are building a state, and that is a costly exercise," Nadiri said. "The country had lost its human, physical and social capital ... the collapse of Afghanistan was total."

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Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation

Immigrants Sedated Without Medical Reason

by Amy Goldstein and Dana Priest

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

"Unsteady gait. Fell onto tarmac," says a medical note on the deportation of a 38-year-old woman to Costa Rica in late spring 2005. Another detainee was "dragged down the aisle in handcuffs, semi-comatose," according to an airline crew member's written account. Repeatedly, documents describe immigration guards "taking down" a reluctant deportee to be tranquilized before heading to an airport.

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Tom Friedman's latest declaration of war

by Glenn Greenwald

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president -- but this cold war is with Iran.

So congratulations to us. After years of desperately searching, we've finally found our New Soviet Union. Nay-saying opponents of the New War (those who Tom Friedman, in March of 2003, dismissed as "knee-jerk liberals and pacifists") may try to point out that it's a country whose defense spending is less than 1% of our own, has never invaded another country, and could not possibly threaten us, but those are just small details. Iran is our new implacable foe in Tom Friedman's glorious, transcendent struggle -- which, in 2003, on NPR, he called "the beginning of World War III . . . the third great totalitarian challenge in the last, you know, 60 years," and which he today defines this way (featuring an amazingly disingenuous use of parenthesis):

That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today -- the struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah. As the May 11 editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan put it, "In the power struggle in the Middle East, there are only two sides: Iran and the U.S."

Friedman laments that "Team America" -- that's really what he calls it -- "is losing on just about every front."

What's most striking about Friedman's formulation is that -- in the 2003 NPR interview -- this is what Friedman said about why 9/11 happened:

I did a documentary last year for the Discovery Channel on the roots of 9/11, and we went with a team all over the Arab-Muslim world for over a period of about six months and interviewed people on what 9/11 was all about. And our conclusion was 9/11 was really fed by three rivers of rage. One was about what we do -- what we, the United States, do, whether it's how we use resources, it's our support for a dictatorial Arab regime so they'll sell us cheap oil. It's our backing for Israel when it does the right thing and when it does the wrong thing. 9/11 is fed, in part, by what we do, OK. . . .

The second and hugely important river of rage feeding 9/11 was a real overpowering sense of humiliation. . . . The Arab Human Development Report told us last year that 22 Arab states, not a single one has a freely and fairly elected government. . . .

And the third river of rage is how much these people hate their own governments, governments that keep them voiceless and powerless and prevent them from achieving their full aspirations in a world where they know how everyone else is living.

So 9/11 was caused by our backing of dictatorial Arab regimes, our unconditional support for Israel, our general interference in the Middle East, and the fact that Muslims aren't free. So what does Friedman want to do now? Have the U.S. wage a "cold war" (at least) for dominance in the Middle East alongside our best friends: the dictators and monarchs of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf States (plus, incidentally, Israel). In other words, Friedman now wants to do everything that he himself said is what caused 9/11 in the first place.

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Mentally unfit but still employed

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Bush: I quit golf over Iraq war

US President George W. Bush said in an interview out Tuesday that he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of US soldiers killed in the conflict in Iraq, now in its sixth year.

"I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he said in an interview for Internet hub Yahoo! and Politico magazine.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them."

The US president traced his decision to the August 19, 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the world body's top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

"I remember when de Mello, who was at the UN, got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. And I was playing golf -- I think I was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it's just not worth it anymore to do," said Bush.

Bush's last round of golf as president dates back to October 13, 2003, according to meticulous records kept by CBS news.

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MS-01: The Backbreaker

This is it, folks. The one. The final piece of straw set atop the shambling camel of the GOP, the one which clove its desiccated humps in two.

Only it's more like a ton of bricks crushing the Republican roach.

Let's take stock of this race to see what I mean:

  • This district has a PVI of R+10. It voted for Bush 62-37 in the last election. Only seven Democrats sit in comparably red seats - and not a single Republican sits in a seat as blue as this one is red. And almost every major prognosticator (at least at the start) treated this as a safe seat.

  • The GOP had a perfectly serviceable candidate in Greg Davis - a standard wingnut with none of the baggage of Woody Jenkins in LA-06 or Jim Oberweis in IL-14.

  • The NRCC spent $1.3 million on this race. Freedom's Crotch spent at least $400K more - and used illegal tactics to boot. And of course Davis himself raised over a million.

  • They sent in Mike Huckabee, Thad Cochran, Trent Lott, Haley Barbour, and Roger Wicker.

  • And when that wasn't enough, Darth Cheney came to town, to stump and raise money.

  • The GOP played up Obama/Pelosi/"librul" fear-mongering to the hilt. They were shameless in exploiting whatever racial angle they thought would work.

And yet what happened? Despite all this, Travis Childers just became the newest member of the Democratic Caucus with a resounding 54-46 win. It's utterly unspinnable. Even Tom Cole knew not to try.

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Maps of Misreading

Michael Chabon fills in the blank spaces

By Anthony Miller

A number of writers have begun to exult in print about the uncanny realms where the influences of pulp and pop (comic books, science fiction and fantasy, mysteries, rock & roll) meld with those "higher" and more established echelons of literature. Michael Chabon, the author of Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and The Yiddish Policemen's Union, relishes secret transactions between authors and their readers. When I realized that the two Japanese students Takeshi and Ichizo in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh bore the same names as the kamikaze pilots in Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, the shock of recognition ushered me into yet another story. Here was one lesson about how one kind of fiction could subtly and surprisingly infiltrate another.

Maps and Legends (McSweeney's, $24), Chabon's first essay collection, unearths some of the author's source texts and offers his exuberant ruminations on the role of the writer as protector and defender of artistic ancestors. His intention to cast us out and off into alternate worlds is made clear from the outset with a deft touch to the book's epigraph, transforming the way we read a Melville quotation about those who have written about whaling before him merely by appending the mischievously explanatory phrase "on the writing of fan fiction." Chabon's 16 essays ponder those landscapes, whether mythological, alternate-historical, or post-apocalyptic, where entertainers and tricksters, ghosts and golems dwell. He is an exacting cartographer of those speculative spaces where only the genre of nurse romances (like Cynthia Ozick's Ruth Puttermesser, R.N.) was allowed to flourish or where one might catch a glimpse of a zeppelin ("that colophon of alternate-world fiction from Ada to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen") screaming across the sky.

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Air Force Aims for 'Full Control' of 'Any and All' Computers

By Noah Shachtman

The Air Force wants a suite of hacker tools, to give it "access" to -- and "full control" of -- any kind of computer there is.  And once the info warriors are in, the Air Force wants them to keep tabs on their "adversaries' information infrastructure completely undetected."

The government is growing increasingly interested in waging war online.  The Air Force recently put together a "Cyberspace Command," with a charter to rule networks the way its fighter jets rule the skies. The Department of Homeland Security, Darpa, and other agencies are teaming up for a five-year, $30 billion "national cybersecurity initiative."  That includes an electronic test range, where federally-funded hackers can test out the latest electronic attacks.  "You used to need an army to wage a war," a recent Air Force commercial notes.  "Now, all you need is an Internet connection."

On Monday, the Air Force Research Laboratory introduced a two-year, $11 million effort to put together hardware and software tools for "Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement."  "Of interest are any and all techniques to enable user and/or root level access," a request for proposals notes, "to both fixed (PC) or mobile computing platforms... any and all operating systems, patch levels, applications and hardware." This isn't just some computer science study, mind you; "research efforts under this program are expected to result in complete functional capabilities."

Unlike an Air Force colonel's proposal, to knock down enemy websites with military botnets, the Research Lab is encouraging a sneaky, "low and slow" approach. The preferred attack consists of lying quiet, and then "stealthily exfiltrat[ing] information" from adversaries' networks.

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Measure for Measure

Literary criticism could be one of our best tools for understanding the human condition. But first, it needs a radical change: embracing science

By Jonathan Gottschall

IT'S NOT SUCH a good time to be a literary scholar.

(STOCK PHOTO/GLOBE STAFF PHOTO ILLUSTRATION)

For generations, the study of literature has been a pillar of liberal education, a prime forum for cultural self-examination, and a favorite major for students seeking deeper understanding of the human experience.

But over the last decade or so, more and more literary scholars have agreed that the field has become moribund, aimless, and increasingly irrelevant to the concerns not only of the "outside world," but also to the world inside the ivory tower. Class enrollments and funding are down, morale is sagging, huge numbers of PhDs can't find jobs, and books languish unpublished or unpurchased because almost no one, not even other literary scholars, wants to read them.

The latest author to take the flagging pulse of the field is Yale's William Deresiewicz. Writing recently in The Nation, he described a discipline suffering "an epochal loss of confidence" and "losing its will to live." Deresiewicz's alarming conclusion: "The real story of academic literary criticism today is that the profession is, however slowly, dying."

Not every literary scholar is so pessimistic, but most would agree that the field's vital signs are bad, and that major changes will be needed to set things right.

Though the causes of the crisis are multiple and complex, I believe the dominant factor is easily identified: We literary scholars have mostly failed to generate surer and firmer knowledge about the things we study. While most other fields gradually accumulate new and durable understanding about the world, the great minds of literary studies have, over the past few decades, chiefly produced theories and speculation with little relevance to anyone but the scholars themselves. So instead of steadily building a body of solid knowledge about literature, culture, and the human condition, the field wanders in continuous circles, bending with fashions and the pronouncements of its charismatic leaders.

I think there is a clear solution to this problem. Literary studies should become more like the sciences. Literature professors should apply science's research methods, its theories, its statistical tools, and its insistence on hypothesis and proof. Instead of philosophical despair about the possibility of knowledge, they should embrace science's spirit of intellectual optimism. If they do, literary studies can be transformed into a discipline in which real understanding of literature and the human experience builds up along with all of the words.

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SUPPORT OUR VETERANS

by Jim Hightower

Politicians should not be allowed to utter the phrase "Support Our Troops" – unless they actually do.

None have shouted this phrase more insistently than the Bushites, yet they've been caught again and again shortchanging our troops on everything from protective gear to family benefits. Most damning has been the abysmal failure of Bush & Company to honor war veterans with adequate treatment here at home, and two recent cases show how empty their words really are.

First is the important, bipartisan proposal made by Sen. Jim Webb to establish a new GI Bill for veterans of Bush's war. The original version, signed in 1944 by FDR, was an enormous success, not only moving millions of vets into the middle class, but also democratizing America's college system. Just in financial terms, the investment paid for itself seven fold. Webb now wants those who are sacrificing so much in Iraq and Afghanistan to make the same gains.

But guess who says no? Bush, the Pentagon, and even John McCain. Why? It would cost too much, say these Washington warmongers, who have already thrown trillions of our tax dollars into the debacle of Iraq.

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Darth Vader Feels Blue

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Stakeholders

 "As it happens, the more time you spend working with real students in a real classroom, the less likely you are to be considered an [education] expert."...  ...Peter Berger.

The Irascible Professor

Guest commentary by Poor Elijah (Peter Berger).

It may get crowded out by super-delegates and candidate gaffes, but public education still makes it into the news cycle once in awhile.  Sometimes it's when test results are released.  Other times it's when politicians announce that that they have a plan to save our schools.

 

It's a toss-up as to whether the numbers or the candidates' sound bites ring more hollowly.  Let's start with the numbers.  From coast to coast the tests mandated by and produced for No Child Left Behind have proven so embarrassingly unreliable, unenlightening, and expensive that the miracle of modern testing is that any public officials are willing to admit they're responsible for them.  Modern assessment is the bastard child conceived by conservatives and businessmen who demanded numbers, and liberals and educators who favored squishy, subjectively scored pseudo-tests.  The result has been a discredited heap of data, an assessment system that, according to a RAND study, identifies not "good" and "bad" schools, but "lucky" and "unlucky" schools, an epidemic of inconsistencies within districts, across districts, and from state to state, and pervasive variations in the difficulty of scoring standards from one grade to the next on the same test in the same state.

 

Naturally, when the data are released, no public official stands up and admits, "My God, these numbers are worthless.  We wasted a helluva lot of money."  Instead, they issue press releases about the need to prepare students for the twenty-first century, and how they stand ready to take action.

 

Yes, armed with meaningless numbers and virtually no experience teaching actual children, the experts and your government are on the case.

 

Why doesn't that make me feel better?

 

Consider the example of one high school here in the Green Mountain State.  Whether it's good, bad, lucky, or unlucky is anybody's guess, but the school in question hasn't fared well on our state's annual assessment sweepstakes.  In an arrangement worked out with the state education department, the school has announced plans to "boost academic outcomes" by hiring a $95,000 a year "director of school improvement."  Although the principal has already written "nineteen school improvement reports," officials felt an additional administrator was needed "to concentrate full time on the school improvement process."

 

Unfortunately, what schools need more are students who concentrate full time on the school improvement process.

 

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Save America's Redrock Wilderness

Tell your senators to protect Utah's wildlands by opposing S. 2834 unless its serious flaws are fixed.

I am a defender of Utah's magnificent redrock country and I urge you to oppose S. 2834, the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2008, unless its serious flaws are remedied.

S. 2834 would protect less than half of the identified wilderness-quality lands in Washington County. More of these spectacular lands should be protected. In addition, the bill does not provide sufficient protection from off-road vehicles for threatened desert tortoise habitat in the Mojave Desert or for currently protected wilderness-quality lands near Zion National Park. Furthermore, it would allow for the sale of up to 14 square miles of public lands, the majority of which have not been identified for sale through land-use planning processes, and would give a significant chunk of the proceeds to Washington County for potentially harmful development projects. In short, S. 2834 is bad for Utah wilderness and would enact into law damaging precedents for future public land bills.

For the sake of present and future generations, please stand up for the spectacular wildlands of southwestern Utah. Oppose S. 2834 unless necessary improvements are made.

- click here to send this letter -

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Comic Book & Cartoon Characters as Senior Citizens

Donald Soffritti has a great series of illustrations showing what some superheroes and supervillains might look like in their old age.

Looking Good

Along these same lines, Spirit Magazine, the inflight magazine for Southwest Airlines, recently published an article on Nickelodeon which includes a wonderful illustration of some popular cartoon and comics characters as senior citizens.

via Neatorama & Cartoon Brew

illustration by Donald Soffritti & unknown

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Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

By ARIEL DAVID

VATICAN CITY - Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."

In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.

The interview, headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," covered a variety of topics including the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and science, and the theological implications of the existence of alien life.

Funes said science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion, touching on a theme of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made exploring the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.

The Bible "is not a science book," Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.

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I'm Bill Hicks and I'm dead now

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Chairman Conyers is worried

 
TrueMajority.org

The drumbeat to war with Iran is getting louder. With only a few months left in the Bush Presidency, it's tempting to sit back and wait until November. But belligerent rhetoric and fear mongering about Iran is on the rise. In the latest example, George Bush's mouthpiece, General Petreaus, claimed that Iran's involvement is "the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq."1

Our progressive friend, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, is so worried that he is now circulating a letter to his Congressional colleagues "to register our strong opposition to possible unilateral, preemptive military action against other nations by the Executive Branch without Congressional authorization".2 Chairman Conyers isn't taking any chances and neither should we.

See the fear mongering and sign the petition:
http://www.truemajority.org/dontbombiran


It's been six months since we started our Not Another War campaign to prevent an attack on Iran. In that time tens of thousands of you have sent messages to Congress opposing another war. And, our "IranMobile" toured eight states leading grassroots demonstrations and congressional petition deliveries, building the national movement.

After Iraq, domestic spying, torture and spy gate, we can't leave the possibility of another war to chance. Congress must tie the President's hands and prevent any more wars without explicit Congressional approval.

Watch the drumbeat to war and sign our petition right now:
http://www.truemajority.org/dontbombiran


Thanks for all you're doing to stop the march to war,

-Ilya

Ilya Sheyman
Online Organizer


 
1 online.wsj.com/article/SB120821715478214431.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
2 afterdowningstreet.org/node/33389



TrueMajority.org is a grassroots group of citizens who believe in America's true values of openness, fairness and compassion. We believe participating in an effective government is the best way to be mutually responsible for our community. TrueMajority is a project of USAction, a 501(c)(4) organization under the IRS tax code.

 

 

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Pulitzer Prize for Bob Dylan



2008

CITATIONworksbiographyjurors

SPECIAL CITATION


A Special Citation to Bob Dylan for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.
 
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