OK, he is up there, not all that far from Martin Luther King, Jr.
To get a historic perspective on this campaign, read Robert A. Caro's op-ed piece Johnson’s Dream, Obama’s Speech in New York Times. It's one of the best pieces I've read about this campaign, and there has been many good ones.
The House Juciciary Committe voted on Wednesday, July 29, to recommend that Karl Rove is cited for contempt of the Congress.
AP writes:
"Voting along party lines, the House Judiciary Committee said that Rove had broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations of White House influence over the Justice Department, including whether Rove encouraged prosecutions against Democrats."
The Send Karl Rove To Jail campaign yesterday delivered 127,000 signatures demanding that the House Judiciary Committe take action against Karl Rove.
"I think it's ridiculous that Karl Rove thinks that he doesn't have to follow the law, and nobody in this country should be above the law," said House Judiciary Committee member Linda Sanchez (D-CA) when she received the petition from Brave New Film's Editorial Director ZP Heller.
Watch Brave New Films take on Karl Rove:
It's a mean question, and I don't want to pick on him because he is old. There are many old men and women who are smart and vital, but John McCain is not one of them. He may be shrewed, and he has charm, but he doesn't seem clearheaded enough to run anything but his golf cart.
Remember when Joe Lieberman had to wisper in his ear about the Sunni and Shia thing, which McCain had confused when he said that Iran (Shia) was training Al Qaeda (Sunni) fighters?
Remember when McCain talked about Iraq's border to Pakistan?
And now he is so giddy about the relative calm in Iraq that he ascribes it all to "the surge", which as I'm sure you remember by now, he supported.
But as Ilan Goldenberg writes in today's Huffington Post (my italics):
John McCain made a mistake this evening, which as far as I'm concerned, disqualifies him from being president. It is so appalling and so factually wrong that I'm actually sitting here wondering who McCain's advisers are. This isn't some gaffe where he talks about the Iraq-Pakistan border. It's a real misunderstanding of what has happened in Iraq over the past year. It is even more disturbing because according to John McCain, Iraq is the central front in the "war on terror." If we are going to have an Iraq-centric policy, he should at least understand what he is talking about. But anyway, what happened.
In an interview with CBS news anchor Katie Couric on Tuesday night McCain said:
McCain: I don't know how you respond to something that is as -- such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane [phonetic] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn't make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.
Watch the interview here:
But, writes Ilan Goldenberg - echoing Keith Olbermann at MSNBC - there is a slight problem here:
The surge wasn't even announced until a few months after the Anbar Awakening. Via Spencer Ackerman, here is Colonel MacFarland explaining the Anbar Awakening to Pam Hass of UPI, on September 29, 2006. That would be almost four months before the President even announced the surge. Petraeus wasn't even in Iraq yet.
With respect to the violence between the Sunnis and the al Qaeda -- actually, I would disagree with the assessment that the al Qaeda have the upper hand. That was true earlier this year when some of the sheikhs began to step forward and some of the insurgent groups began to fight against al Qaeda. The insurgent groups, the nationalist groups, were pretty well beaten by al Qaeda.
This is a different phenomena that's going on right now. I think that it's not so much the insurgent groups that are fighting al Qaeda, it's the -- well, it used to be the fence-sitters, the tribal leaders, are stepping forward and cooperating with the Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda, and it's had a very different result. I think al Qaeda has been pushed up against the ropes by this, and now they're finding themselves trapped between the coalition and ISF on the one side, and the people on the other.
He also adds a quote from Colin Kahl in Foreign Affairs:
The Awakening began in Anbar Province more than a year before the surge and took off in the summer and fall of 2006 in Ramadi and elsewhere, long before extra U.S. forces started flowing into Iraq in February and March of 2007. Throughout the war, enemy-of-my-enemy logic has driven Sunni decision-making. The Sunnis have seen three "occupiers" as threats: the United States, the Shiites (and their presumed Iranian patrons), and the foreigners and extremists in AQI. Crucial to the Awakening was the reordering of these threats.
Maybe Ol' Bush could spare John McCain a room at the Kennebunkport compound, and the world another president who knows nothing about the world.
Hans Sandberg
The madness of the Bush administration yet has to find it's Shakespeare.... Until then we can only keep watching TV and read the papers and blogs, and wait for the day when he is dumped in history's garbage bin.
So much went wrong during his two periods of power misuse that one feels numb. But we must preserve our ability to feel outrage and spell it out, like Bob Herbert did in his New York Times column today (my italics):
When the constraints of the law are unlocked by the men and women in suits at the pinnacle of power, terrible things happen in the real world. You end up with detainees being physically and psychologically tormented day after day, month after month, until they beg to be allowed to commit suicide. You have prisoners beaten until they are on the verge of death, or hooked to overhead manacles like something out of the Inquisition, or forced to defecate on themselves, or sexually humiliated, or driven crazy by days on end of sleep deprivation and blinding lights and blaring noises, or water-boarded.
To get a sense of the heights of madness scaled in this anything-goes atmosphere, consider a brainstorming meeting held by military officials at Guantánamo. Ms. Mayer said the meeting was called to come up with ways to crack through the resistance of detainees.
"One source of ideas," she wrote, "was the popular television show ‘24.’ On that show as Ms. Mayer noted, “torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis."
Ms. Mayer is Jane Mayer, the author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.
Bob Herbert continues:
Ms. Mayer noted that Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the late historian, believed that “the Bush administration’s extralegal counterterrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history.”
After reflecting on major breakdowns of law that occurred in prior administrations, including the Watergate disaster, Mr. Schlesinger told Ms. Mayer: “No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world — ever.”
Americans still have not come to grips with this disastrous stain on the nation’s soul. It’s important that the whole truth eventually come out, and as many of the wrongs as possible be rectified.
Hans Sandberg
Click here for a review of Mayer's book.
New York Times' columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote a sharp rebuke of President Bush's energy policy, if we are going to call it that. It's well worth reading.
"Two years ago, President Bush declared that America was 'addicted to oil,' and, by gosh, he was going to do something about it. Well, now he has. Now we have the new Bush energy plan: 'Get more addicted to oil.'”
The problem with Bush according to Friedman is that he is acting like a drug pusher struggling with his image, but always pushing his slimy slithery dark dope.
"It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: 'C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.'”
The occasion for Friedman's sarcasm is President Bush's recent attack on the Democratic Party for not allowing the oil companies to drill wherever they want, disregarding environmental concerns. Listen to Bush as quoted by Friedman:
“I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past. Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions. If Congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act.”
Your President has spoken.
Which makes Friedman mad, and righteously so:
"This from a president who for six years resisted any pressure on Detroit to seriously improve mileage standards on its gas guzzlers; this from a president who’s done nothing to encourage conservation; this from a president who has so neutered the Environmental Protection Agency that the head of the E.P.A. today seems to be in a witness-protection program. I bet there aren’t 12 readers of this newspaper who could tell you his name or identify him in a police lineup.
But, most of all, this deadline is from a president who hasn’t lifted a finger to broker passage of legislation that has been stuck in Congress for a year, which could actually impact America’s energy profile right now — unlike offshore oil that would take years to flow — and create good tech jobs to boot."
But wait, it gets better...or worse, if that's possible:
Ever wondered why so little is done to promote alternative energy in the U.S.? There is a very sensible proposal (H.R. 6049, “The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008”) to extend for eight years the investment tax credit for solar energy installations, for one year a wind power production tax credit, as well as a three year extension of tax credits for geothermal, wave energy and other renewables. "These critical tax credits for renewables are set to expire at the end of this fiscal year and, if they do, it will mean thousands of jobs lost and billions of dollars of investments not made," Friedman writes and adds:
"People forget, wind and solar power are here, they work, they can go on your roof tomorrow. What they need now is a big U.S. market where lots of manufacturers have an incentive to install solar panels and wind turbines — because the more they do, the more these technologies would move down the learning curve, become cheaper and be able to compete directly with coal, oil and nuclear, without subsidies."
The only pump that President Bush wants to prime belongs to Big Oil. What else to expect from an oilman without a clue? We're counting the days... and hoping that he doesn't try to pull the trigger on Iran in another miscalculated attempt to "save the world," or at least save the upcoming election for John McCain.
Hans Sandberg
National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, June 7, 2008
More about the conference at http://www.freepress.net/conference
(New York) The Swedish expat soccer team Blatte United FC beat Bowery FC 2, 1-0, in the Semi Finals of the Bowery Invitational Cup on Saturday, June 7 in Chinatown. It was a tough match under a scorching sun, but neither team buckled. After a short rest, Blatte United went on to defeat Bowery FC 1 by 3-0, and ultimately winning the Finals.
Marcus Samuelsson scored the goal for Blatted United in the final minutes of the game against Bowery FC 2. Oskar "Mohammed" Tilly shot the first goal against Bowery FC 1, while Medufia ”Keke” Kulego delivered the final two goals.
Watch Snippets From the Game and Blatte United's Victory Celebration!
Keke took a pretty bad fall, but kept fighting after a short break.
Marcus Samuelsson and Keke performs a victory dance.
Blatte United and friends.
Text & Photo: Hans Sandberg
