Fightin' Dem wants to slug presidency-stealing POTUS (Bush) in nose...!

It is our belief here at C-Dems.blgspt.com that George Bush won neither the popular vote majority OF ALL THOSE WHO VOTED ON ELECTION DAY in Florida in 2000, nor the popular vote majority of Ohio voters in 2004 (and other states as well), which if true would mean that Mr. Bush never truly 'won' the true electoral college majorities in either of his presidential elections.

As to whether Mr. Bush is a squatter in the White House, the jury (on those uncounted votes) may be out for years or decades. But one thing IS CERTAIN: in 2000 Texas Governor Bush made a campaign pledge to run "A MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY," to run as a "UNITER, NOT DIVIDER," and he pledged to bring "A MORE BIPARTISAN TONE TO WASHINGTON" if he won the election.

On all three signature themes of his 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush was lying at his very core. We now know that Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and even Jeb Bush had all three personally signed the PNAC "Project for a New American Century" statement of principles in 1997 (a statement that also included the signatures of Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Paul Wolfowitz), and in 1998 the think-tank formalized its call for US military force in Iraq to displace the Iraqi dictator there (Saddam Hussein) and assert American authority over the area in a letter to then President Bill Clinton- - - what foreign policy academic/intellectual/policy leaders call a "MUSCULAR" or "HARD" foreign policy.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

Thus while Governor Bush was PLEDGING a "MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY" on the campaign trail, he already had his core foreign policy staff assembled around him, those who would soon be the nation's very top foreign policy architects, men who PROUDLY and PUBLICLY advocated a "hard" or military "solution" to "the problem" posed by Saddam' Hussein's rule over Iraq - and, not so incidentally, secretly harbored the desire to extend the same hard-edged unilateralism to ALL of America's other strategic and economic problems in the region.

Today we call adherents to this foreign policy vision (the call for US unilateralism overseas) "neo-cons," although the term "neo-conservative" hardly applies to Dick Cheney and others like him. Cheney has been a through-and-through "conservative" his entire career, no "neo" about it. Even the term "CONSERVATIVE" is a misnomer in this context, because "conservative" implies 'to conserve,' and in actuality the agenda of Dick Cheney and many of those around him - the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond/Jesse Helms/Texas oil billionaire-tycoon school of American 'conservatism - do not want to "CONSERVE" the America we know today - the America of high wages, upward mobility, race and cultural integration, public education and job safety standards and even the mass enfranchisement of mass-participation democracy - but want to REVERT to the America of the pre-New Deal Era, the decades when not only did America have NO "social safety net," but SEGREGATION was the "rule of law" throughout a dozen state, and very cheap, nonunion labor was an essential component of not only agricultural plantations (read sharecropping) but of northern industry as well. (Pennsylvania's steel and mining industries, for example, welcomed new waves of immigrants who all worked for less than those who had preceded them, creating resentments as new minorities displaced established ones.) Note: the 15th Amendment is one of the clearest and most concise amendments to the US Constitution, and thus SHOULD be the "supreme law of the land." But since segregation for over 100 years _did_ "ABRIDGE" or deny the right of citizens of the United States to vote, what we had was a situation where millions of Americans PLEDGED themselves to upholding the CONSTITUTION of the United States, while actually putting LOCAL laws (state laws decreeing segregation) OVER and ABOVE (the 15th amendment to) the Constitution.

This slight digression into constitutional amendments and voting rights _denied_ merely to illustrate that "CONSERVATIVES" often have NO interest in "CONSERVING" the America we know today - the America that nominally abides by the Bill of Rights and the Amendments, voting rights, and constitutional law - and instead the adherents of the radical-right agenda and philosophy prefer a REGRESSION to an earlier, less sophisticated era. In short, far from being "conservative" the ideologues of the Dick Cheney wing of the Republican Party are REACTIONARY, and it has only been because of the massive media BIAS _FOR_ this reactionary right-wing (fusion of corporate and fundamentalist) agenda that that the full extent of that agenda has not been disclosed to the American public more fully and explicitly. (For example, just as the PNAC agenda is the manifesto of the neo-cons and radical-right foreign policy acolytes, the PLATFORM of the TEXAS REPUBLICAN PARTY is practically a manifesto of the reactionary-right social agenda, a platform and agenda which the media/press does NOT disclose fully to the American public.)
http://www.texasgop.org/site/PageServer?pagename=library_platform

In Sum: Mr. Bush probably did NOT "win" the White House in either of his two presidential elections, the "conservative agenda" in America is often REACTIONARY, not "conservative," and despite PLEDGING "A MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY," Mr. Bush and his radical-right/neo-cons have ALWAYS INTENDED TO EMBARK ON A "MUSCULAR" exertion of US foreign policy abroad. All they needed (after winning the election of 2000) was a significant provocation to embark on a war with Iraq, which the PNAC neo-cons of course painted as a mere prelude to invasions of Iran and other countries.

The usefulness of a "new Pearl Harbor" to justify a muscular exertion of the US military (US hegemony) was actually even mentioned somewhere in neo-con circles, but more importantly, within DAYS of 9-11, Donald Rumsfeld (as Secretary of the War Department) was demanding of his aides and advisors that they prepare ways to use the attack on America as a means to launch a war with Iraq. A sentiment that was seconded in other testimony as well, including Paul O'Neill writing after he resigned as Treasury Secretary that the intention to ATTACK IRAQ was one of THE FIRST policy considerations discussed by the new, incoming Bush-Cheney administration early in 2001... That is, months before 9-11 provided the justification for a US war in Afghanistan that would be hijacked to justify the war in Iraq as well.

Mr. Bush's 2000 pledge to exert a "MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY" was a premeditated lie, with Mr. Bush intending at the early possible moment to "undo" his father's policy of not invading Baghdad to eliminate Saddam Hussein at the end of the first US Gulf War against Iraq (1991). In the five years since his "humble" pledge, Mr. Bush has sought to USE American troops and service members as PAWNS in his "GREAT GAME" of extending US HEGEMONY overseas, into regions that empires have fought and bled for over centuries. For example, despite its vaunted greatness, the Roman empire never extended its reach into the far Mideast - into Iraq and Persia and Arabia - though Alexander the great had done so, at least temporarily, centuries before.

Up until this past month, Mr. Bush has avoided any personal responsibility for misleading American citizens into this great scheme, because so many Americans have bought into the notion that the US invasion of Iraq was an urgent necessity and not a premeditated agenda. The pain and trauma of those whose lives have been impacted by Mr. Bush's "untruths" and callow leadership are FINALLY starting to be felt, even within the walls of the stolen White House.

=====================================
Note: One of the laws that Mr. Bush, his neo-cons, and his Reactionary Right-WIng supporters despise and consistently try to undermine:

Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

=============================
Note 2: Eleanor Clift reports that Senator-elect Jim Webb's son narrowly missed being hit or killed by a bomb (IED) in Iraq, the explosion killed 3 Marines in another vehicle next to Webb's.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15990689/site/newsweek/
==============================
Note 3: New Yorker columnist Jeffrey Toobin reports that the 1,000 year principle of Habeus Corpus - that even kings and dictators must show and prove just cause to arrest and detain citizens or subjects - is now all but dead in America, waiting only for the next national emergency to be formally buried and dispensed with.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061204fa_fact

=============================

Son also rises in testy Webb-Bush exchange
By Emily Heil
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/UndertheDome/112906.html

President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats.

Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

“Jim did have a conversation with Bush at that dinner,” said Webb’s spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd. “Basically, he asked about Jim’s son, Jim expressed the fact that he wanted to have him home.” Todd did not want to escalate matters by commenting on Bush’s response, saying, “It was a private conversation.”

A White House spokeswoman declined to give Bush’s version of the conversation.

Bush and the Republicans ENDANGER AMERICA's SECURITY. Dems who FAIL to point this out ARE COMPLICIT.

The Bush-Republicans are so marked by greed, arrogance, incompetence, and corruption, that at every turn they ENDANGER AMERICA's SECURITY.

By now this should be obvious to everyone. The Bush-Republicans hammered away for years that the Clinton White House was dismantling the US military.... then the Bush-Rumsfeld Department of War took that very same Clinton military, and went into Iraq on false pretenses, with a deceptive goal (their ultimate goal, of course, was to establish a huge military presence and control Iraq's oil and other strategic assets in the area), which implied NO_EXIT_STRATEGY.

As a result, the US is now engaged in a CLASSIC guerrilla war/insurgency, where even the most impoverished local young men become EMPOWERED if they become successful at engaging (killing) the occupier. That is, the occupation effectively pits a professional army of less than 200,000, against potentially millions of local insurgents.

Democrats who FAIL TO POINT OUT the Bush administration's DISASTROUS impact on America's national security are COMPLICIT with those massive failures and deceptions.

==========================================


Larry Beinhart: Republicans are Bad on National Security
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sun, 08/13/2006 - 7:03am. Guest Contribution

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/354

A BUZZFL ASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Larry Beinhart, author of Wag the Dog and Fog Facts

Say it loud, say it often, "Republicans are bad on national security." Every Democrat running for national office – and local offices too, why not? – should say, "I'm running because Republicans are bad on national security."

Then they should go on to say, here's why I’m saying it:

1. 9/11 happened on their watch. Of course, we can’t say, absolutely, that it would not have happened if they had not been asleep at the wheel. But we can say that they did not do all they could have done to prevent it. We can say that Bush literally pushed away the warnings.

2. George Bush and the Republicans failed to get Osama bin Laden. We got both Hitler and Hirohito in less time than we’ve been chasing bin Laden. Every day that bin Laden’s out there, he’s proof that you can attack the United States and get away with it. That’s a bad message to send, and believe me, people in the terrorist world have heard it loud and clear. That’s very bad for national security.

3. George Bush and the Republicans gave Osama bin Laden what he wanted. Bin Laden wanted the US to get into a quagmire. He wanted our troops tied down in an Islamic country so that an insurgency could do to them what the Afghanis did to the Russians and to the British before them.

A modern, hi-tech army is very good at invasions. It’s also good for fighting back against other armies. But a modern hi-tech army is not good at occupying a country against the will of the population. Even if the army is as violent and ruthless as the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan were.

4. George Bush and the Republicans squandered America’s power and prestige. Before 9/11 most people in the world probably thought that America’s intelligence services were able and astute, agencies to be feared. The Bush administration has made them appear bumbling and inept. They did this, first, by ignoring their warnings and then, second, by making them the fall guys for 9/11.

After 9/11 most of the world feared America's wrath and America's might. By failing to get bin Laden and his gang, then by attacking the wrong country, unleashing chaos, and getting our armed forces into a situation that they can’t win, the administration showed the world they have less to fear than they imagined.

5. The Bush administration empowered Hezbollah. The 'insurgency' in Iraq was Hezbollah's textbook and their inspiration. If Iraqis could do that to Americans, surely they could do the same to the Israelis. And they have. It's not yet on the record, but it's clear from everyone's conduct, that the administration encouraged the Israelis to 'unleash' their forces against Hezbollah. They probably thought Israel's modern hi-tech armies would quickly smash their enemy.

6. The Bush administration radicalized Hamas. Hamas was elected. Sworn to the destruction of Israel or not, they should have been encouraged to become responsible players with carrots as well as sticks. Instead the administration put them up against the wall, hoping to starve the Palestinian people into voting for a different group. Would that work if someone tried to do it to us?

7. Bush and the Republicans tied down our forces in Iraq while Iran and North Korea invested in nuclear technology. That made North Korea feel secure enough to test ICBMs. If they had been successful, they would have had a delivery system for their nuclear weapons. That would be incredibly bad for national security. Iran, with American forces tied down in Iraq, feels secure enough to defy the UN as well as the US. Very bad for national security.

8. By the way, every major European nation has had successful arrests and real trials of real, dangerous terrorists. People on the level of this group that the British just took down. The most ferocious terrorist arrested in the United States since 9/11 has been the shoe bomber. Ten, twenty, forty, a hundred billion dollars, a trillion dollars, and the best we have to show for it is the shoe bomber?! Republicans are bad on national security.

9. We have trashed the bill of rights. We have trashed the Geneva conventions. We have a president and a vice president willing to go the mat to fight for the right to torture people.

We have spent a fortune on illegal wiretaps.

We have spent a fortune on collecting everyone’s telephone data.

And what have we achieved by all of this?

A quagmire in Iraq. Dishonor. Debts. An empowered al Qaeda. A new war in Lebanon. The inability to stand up to Iran and North Korea. Osama bin Laden at large, an inspiration to extremists everywhere.

Republican are unimaginably bad on national security. Say it loud. Say it often, it’s the truth, Republicans are bad on national security.

NY Times & "Some" (DLC) Democrats whoring that muddled-middle "CONSERVATIVE" election 2006 win again. NOT!

To steal a phrase from Ronnie Reagan, "THERE THEY GO AGAIN!"

Election 2006 isn't even two weeks old, some close congressional seats haven't even been resolved... and ALREADY the New York whore Times and DLC Democrats are out there banging away at their "CONSERVATIVE VALUES WON THE ELECTION!" drums.

Only thing is... "conservative values" most certainly DID NOT win Election '06!

We need no better proof our our assertion than this excellent by Jeffrey L. Austin about one of those still up-in-the-air races, the one for North Carolina's 6th District, where dark-horse, underfunded, wa-ay outsider Democratic challenger is within 329 votes of OUSTING, FOUR-TERM Republican Rep. Robin Hayes.

In case you missed it, that was NORTH_CAROLINA, home of huge tobacco companies, NASCAR race culture, an often rural, conservative ethos, and as many gospel & salvation churches as you can shake a stick at.

<< A social studies teacher and former factory worker, Kissell was a distinct underdog who emerged as the Democratic nominee only after the first choice of party insiders quit the race before the May 2 primary. As of Oct. 18, Hayes had outraised Kissell by $2.1 million to $451,000, and the challenger had expended all but $35 of his campaign treasury.
Yet Kissell, RUNNING ON A PLATFORM OF ECONOMIC POPULISM and OPPOSITION TO THE IRAQ WAR, tied Hayes closely to President Bush and became a serious contender for one of the biggest upsets of the year. >>
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20061123/pl_cq_politics/chanceofupsetremainsinnc8withhandcountsettobegin

GET THAT, DLC 'Dems" and NY TIMES ??

DESPITE a $2.1 million to $450,000 campaign funding disadvantage, going up against the name recognition of a FOUR term incumbent, and despite the POLITICAL INEXPERIENCE of his challenger campaign, Democrat Lawrence Kissell is within 329 votes of kicking out the incumbent, and our guess here at C-Dems is that Kissell would win IF ALL THE VOTES ARE COUNTED CORRECTLY.

SO, how does the NY Times write up the first two weeks of Democratic preparations for their majority in the next (110th) Congress?

ans.- By defining Steney Hoyer and other DLC/Beltway INSIDER positions as being "CENTRIST", and therefore by default the positions of Pelosi, Miller, and successful challengers such as Lawrence Kissell as "LEFTIST" or some degree "to the left."

Even though the VAST MAJORITY of Americans APPROVE of Social Security, the 40 hour work week, a raise in the minimum wage, job safety and health care, stock market oversight and pension security, public education and access to higher education.... despite the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of Ameicans support ALL these programs and more, the Times, the DLC/DC insider Democrats, and most of the "mainstream media" CONTINUE TO PAINT Democratic leaders and challegers who support a CONTINUATION of this moderate but progressive agenda as "LEFTISTS."

THE DEMOCRATS DID NOT WIN election 2006 by running as "REPUBLICAN LITE" which is what the statement "many say... Pelosi [in] carefully nudging her party to the center... helped the Democrats retake the majority" implies.

Notice the Times' use of WEASEL WORDS to butress their notion that Pelosi and Miller are "too leftist":

"SOME SAY"
"RAISED FEARS"
"more centrist candidate" (e.g. the same old DLC Rethuglican lite Lieberman/Zell Millers are "centrists")
"concerns of some Democrats" (here we see the REPETITION of "some say")
"far left would dominate and DESTABILIZE"


OUR advice to Ms. Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership: IGNORE the weasel-words of the Times and MSM ("mainstream media"), stick to the programs that have made America GREAT over the past 100 years... and as PRIORITY NUMBER ONE, make sure that EVERY AMERICAN _KNOWS_ that his or her vote, for even the most rural, out-of-the-way district, is COUNTED CORRECTLY, today and in the future.

(PS: "IGNORE" the weasel-words of the NY Times" is not the correct term at all: "Liberal" Dems must REDEFINE themselves as PROTECTING THE MIDDLE, and that "conservative" Dems such as Lieberman and Zell Miller and Bush-Republicans are actually REACTIONARY Righties who intend to ROB American citizens and Democratic voters of 100 years of hard fought progress.)

========================================

Pelosi’s Ascendancy in House Puts a Close Liberal Ally in the Spotlight
By KATE ZERNIKE
November 25, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/us/politics/25miller.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 — In a friendship stretching over 30 years and many plane trips to Washington from their neighboring California districts, Representatives Nancy Pelosi and George Miller have become so close that, as colleagues say, they finish each others’ sentences.

So it was not surprising that, when Mrs. Pelosi faced the first test of her role as speaker-elect of the House of Representatives, Mr. Miller was in the background, pushing her to back Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania to replace her as Democratic leader over the more centrist candidate, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who had been her No. 2 for four years.

In the week since Mr. Hoyer won the position, Democratic leaders have played down any disharmony created by the leadership struggle. But Mr. Miller’s role raised fears that after carefully nudging her party to the center, which many say helped the Democrats retake the majority, Mrs. Pelosi would let her liberal allies have too much influence.

In the concerns of some Democrats — and the I-told-you-so’s of some Republicans — Mr. Miller represents Mrs. Pelosi’s true liberal soul, and his pushing for Mr. Murtha a sign that the far left would dominate and destabilize the Democrats, after they have emerged from 12 years in the minority.

There is no doubt that Mr. Miller remains one of Mrs. Pelosi’s most trusted advisers. But those who know them both say that he, and his influence, have been wrongly judged.

Now one of the 10 most senior members of Congress, Mr. Miller has proven himself both a liberal lion — an early advocate of an increase in the minimum wage and a champion of the environment — and savvy about working both sides of the aisle. An agitator for higher teacher standards, he was one of the chief negotiators with President Bush on the No Child Left Behind legislation. (Mr. Bush nicknamed Mr. Miller, a burly and now white-haired former high school football player, Big George.)

After Hurricane Katrina, he enlisted Republicans to reverse Mr. Bush’s order that allowed federal contractors working to rebuild the Gulf Coast to pay workers less than the prevailing local wage.

“He is liberal, and that pragmatism is always difficult to achieve when you’re passionate about something,” said Representative Ellen O. Tauscher, Democrat of California and a leader of the party’s more moderate wing in the House.

But, Ms. Tauscher said, Mr. Miller understands what she calls the “very difficult kabuki dance” facing Democrats.

Party members have gritted their teeth for 12 years, she said. And now, “on a napkin, on the back of an envelope, in their BlackBerry, they’ve got lists of what they want to do, and they think their priorities are everybody’s priorities.”

“But in the end, this is about securing a majority for more than two years,” she said. “I don’t expect him to be thrilled about it. But I think he’s sanguine; he’s pragmatic and realistic.”

Mrs. Pelosi, 66, and Mr. Miller, 61, share similar pedigrees. Her father was a Baltimore mayor and congressman; his father served 25 years in the California legislature. When the elder Mr. Miller died in his 50s, his son ran for his seat and lost.

Five years later, after law school, Mr. Miller ran for Congress from a largely working-class district east of San Francisco and won. He arrived in 1975 as one of the Watergate babies, the idealistic Democrats elected on a reform platform.

Mrs. Pelosi, meanwhile, rose through California politics and became chairwoman of the state Democratic Party. She would later take the Congressional seat that had been held by Phillip Burton, who was Mr. Miller’s mentor.

Mr. Burton advised Mr. Miller to pick a committee and stay on it; this, he said, was how Southern Democrats had amassed power. Mr. Miller listened, staying on the House Interior and Education committees, becoming chairman of Interior (now named House Resources) in 1991. (Mrs. Pelosi congratulated him with a gift of Mr. Burton’s chair and a small model of a Burton statue that had been placed in San Francisco.) He has been the senior Democrat on the education committee since 2001 and is expected to become its chairman in January.

He is also known more informally as the dean of the town house on Capitol Hill that has served as a kind of fraternity house for a succession of Democrats. Mr. Miller lived there with his family before they moved back to California; his roommates now are Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Charles E. Schumer of New York, the second- and third-ranking Democrats, and Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts. In long-running Tuesday dinners with a group that included Mrs. Pelosi and other now-senior Democrats, it was Mr. Miller, other members say, who was the first to declare that Mrs. Pelosi would become the nation’s first female speaker.

Mrs. Pelosi calls him “a valued friend and tremendously talented legislator.”

As chairman of the Democrats’ steering and policy committee, he helped shape the platform the Democrats ran on in the midterm elections — including raising the minimum wage, cutting interest rates on student loans and expanding stem cell research.

“He has guided Democrats’ policy agenda that unified the caucus and spoke to the dreams and aspirations of the American people,” Mrs. Pelosi said.

Some who know both lawmakers say that Mr. Miller’s counsel continues to be important to her. “Not only can George give her good advice, but he can also tell her things she doesn’t want to hear,” Ms. Tauscher said. “Sometimes you can only take tough news from somebody that is very close to you.”

But others say that if the relationship was once defined as one of complete trust, it is now more like trust, but verify.

Mr. Miller says his influence over Mrs. Pelosi has always been overstated, showing a misunderstanding of her talent and strength. He calls her “the toughest person you’ve met in politics.”

He backed Mr. Murtha, he said, because he was impressed by his turnaround on the war in Iraq.

“To watch this man take his knowledge, his career, his experience in the military and to see him start to understand the damage that was being done to the soldiers and the institution, was really quite remarkable,” Mr. Miller said.

“When he decided to go public, which is not generally his character,” Mr. Miller said of Mr. Murtha, “he immediately changed the national debate. And then when you saw the role the debate on the war took during the campaign, I think there is a serious debt of gratitude. You were saying back to the voters, ‘We heard you.’ ”

But the other message from voters, he said, is that they want Congress to work in a bipartisan manner, after years of Republican rule.

“There was a conscious decision by Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert to turn the House into a winner-take-all,” he said, where no legislation would be brought for a vote without most of the majority supporting it.

Having seen that, he said, he understands the role Mrs. Pelosi must assume.

“The speaker made a horrible miscalculation that he was the speaker of the Republican Party as opposed to the difference Nancy has drawn, that Tip O’Neill drew — that you are the leader of the Democrats, and speaker of the House,” he said. “That simple understanding can allow a lot of things to happen that provide opportunities for the minority to participate.”

The CIA, Robert Gates, James Baker, Iran-Contra and Carlyle connection: Will Democrats REPEAT the failures of Lee Hamilton's Iran-Contra WHITEWASH??

Because the Democrats FAILED to prosecute the IRAN-CONTRA trial aggressively in Congress and IN THE COURT of PUBLIC OPINION, the Repuglicans were able to storm back in 1994 under the banners of "Democratic corruption," "term limits!" and...."MORAL VALUES"!!

(Notice the STOMPPED, CRUSHED and killed Democratic donkey trampled under foot... is that a malevolent glare in the elephant's eyes?)

-----------------------------------------

This terrific article by William Rivers Pitt manages to tie together most of the sad, sorry details of the top layer of Republican-corporate MISRULE over America these past three decades. His article reveals the nexus between the CIA, the Carlyle group, the Iran-Contra scandal (which should be, make no mistake, the preference of America's right-wing foreign policy elements for DEATH SQUAD DICTATORSHIPS over democratically elected governments), and the tendency of THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, in this case as represented by LEE HAMILTON, to COVER UP, WHITEWASH, BURY and help the Republicans CENSOR the true stories behind America's aggressive, ruthless, and often illegal foreign policy.

If, as Mr. Pitt details in his report, Carlyle does now commands _$44_BILLION_ in assets, then they are obviously a tremendously powerful political adversary who will CONTINUE to use every means possible to CENSOR in depth coverage of their influence, over the government of these United States, from discussion or even mention in the 'mainstream media'.

For an example of the DESTRUCTIVE, censorship powers the players at the top tier of Republican foreign policy making can exert over the 'news', witness simply the destruction of the career of journalist Gary Webb, the reporter who first broke and and reported the story of how the CIA was permitting COCAINE to be smuggled into America airports on the same covert aircraft that were running (flying) guns, supplies, and other illegal assistance to the Contra anti-Sandinista rebels and other armies (America's surrogate death-squad allies) in Nicaragua, Honduras, and throughout South America.

Indeed, not only did journalist Gary Webb's career end in tragedy with his suicide while the "mainstream media" scoffed at his reporting and implied that his stories were loony conspiracy theories, (he was, in the words of this new book "BETRAYED [and fired] by his editors... despite mounting evidence that his stories were correct"), but there is even speculation that he might have been murdered to squelch his bringing attention to the issue - of the CIA's role in IMPORTING COCAINE INTO AMERICA to support a ROGUE, ILLEGAL, covert foreign army in Central America.

(Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb)
http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/402

note: From the perspective of those secretive operatives and administrators at the top tier of the CIA and America's covert foreign policy, allowing cargo planes returning from illegally supplying Contra armies in Central America to bring in a cargo of cocaine is/was practically a no brainer. Cocaine is an agricultral product whose output is measured in tons (most ag products are measured in millions of metric tons); but a product, due to US prohibition and criminal law, that on the streets in America is valuable as gold to US consumers. This transition, the huge jump in value of an agricultaral semi-commodity to precious substance, occurs during the transportation phase, i.e. after successful importation into the US. Given that illegal gun-running flights to Central and South America were returning empty, and given that the American organizers and suppliers of the Contra armies were in an almost "holy war" frame of mind to exterminate the socialist / communist / Sandanista regime and other assorted guerrilla/insurgent armies in Latin America (upwards of 200,000 Guatemala villagers and indigenous natives killed during the death-squad '80s alone), ALLOWING RETURNING FLIGHTS from Central America TO BRING COCAINE back to the United Sates, and thereby earn tens of thousands of dollars to defray fuel costs and other expenses of running a secret air force, WAS A NO-BRAINER.

The other big side of the story - besides the illegal, rogue elements of ultra-right/conservative/Republican foreign policy elements and policies themselves - was the role that DEMOCRATS and official Washington (press, government bureaucrats, media networks) had in DISMISSING THE TRUE EXTENT OF THE SCANDALS, and wet-blanketting, whitewashing, and burying the reports and any efforts at more thorough investigations. This effort BY DEMOCRATS and official Washington TO BURY the TRUE story of the CIA's Iran-Contra cocaine connection led to Gary Webb's disgrace in the journalism field, and of course would contribute greatly to the Republican's presumption of a self-proclaimed "MORAL VALUES" high-ground in the coming decade's elections.

The THIRD branch of the story, not connected in William River Pitt's article, is the SAVINGS and LOAN scandal - the TENS of BILLIONS of dollars LOST BY AMERICAN TAXPAYERS to fraud, corruption, and incompetence in America's S&L and banking industries. While there were of course Democrats involved in the huge S&L scandal (John Glenn, along with John McCain, were two of the most prominent members of the "Keating 7" senators paid large sums to lobby on behalf of failed S&L operator Charles Keating), it was the impact of the S&L scandal on the American economy, more than any other factors, which led to George H.W. Bush's failed re-election campaign in 1992. And even then, the Republican sense of entitlement, power, and corporate fundraising were so entrenched that it took Ross Perot's evening TV lecture charts on busted budgets and deficits, AND Bill Clinton's amazing dark-horse campaign, to oust the elder Bush and his Republicans from the White House and executive office.

As we see here in William Rivers Pitt's article, Mr. Bush (Sr.) and many of his former senior officials (James Baker, George Schultz, and even former British Prime Minister John Major) are now part of a holding company THAT IS MORE POWERFUL than many small countries, a group of senior officials who are only ONE-HALF-STEP-AWAY from the US presidency itself- especially with former Secretary of State and former Carlyle board member JAMES BAKER now heading up the "Iraq Study Group" to offer policy alterantives to America's most important current foreign policy debacle. That is, Mr. Baker probably has almost as much authority over the course of America's foreign policy as the Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who has been all but FROZEN OUT of policy determinations by the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis, and is now notably absent from the discussions over conduct of the Iraq war in the week before and after election 2006.

CARLYLE, James Baker, the Iraq War... it is not "conspiracy theory" to say there is a very short line between these three connections, and that the former Carlyle board member probably has MORE influence over the future conduct of the Iraq war than the current Secretary of State. That the Iraq war has been VERY, VERY, VERY PROFITABLE to Carlyle and other defense contractors, a company at the very apex of what REPUBLICAN President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans about, an overly powerful and anti-democratic MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.

We here at C-dems would like to transition over to "Democrats2008" or some other website, BUT the danger that Democrats will BUCK UNDER to the power of Carlyle and ohter Republican anti-democratic tendencies (so well funded by corporate America) is so strong, we find ourselves continually adding posts to this blog.

NEXT: we promise to post Chapter 1 of Robert Parry's Secrecy and Privilege", detailing how President Clinton and the Democrats underfunded, undercut, and disbanded several on-going investigations into Republican criminality in the Iran-Contra, S&L, and other scandals early in 1993, thereby paving the way for the "Contract on America" Republican House in 1994.


- John Major Appointed European Chairman of The Carlyle Group
http://www.carlyle.com/eng/news/l5-news716.html

- Here's a good introduction to Carlyle member's _extraordinary_ connections-
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Carlyle_Group

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The CARLYLE WHITE HOUSE
by William Rivers Pitt
Wednesday, 15 November 2006, 8:23 pm

The Carlyle White House


It was bad enough when the Carlyle Group bought Dunkin' Donuts last year, forcing millions of conscientious caffeine addicts to look elsewhere for their daily fix. Now, it appears Carlyle has added 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to its formidable portfolio of acquisitions.

The Carlyle Group achieved national attention in the early days of the Iraq occupation, especially after Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" exposed the firm's umbilical ties to the Bush family and the House of Saud. For the uninitiated, Carlyle is a privately-owned equity firm organized and run by former members of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.

Currently, Carlyle manages more than $44 billion in 42 different investment funds, which is an interesting fact in and of itself: Carlyle could lay claim to only a meager $12 billion in funds in December of 2001. Thanks to their ownership of United Defense Industries, a major military contractor that sells a whole galaxy of weapons systems to the Pentagon, Carlyle's profits skyrocketed after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Some notable present and former employees of Carlyle include former president George H.W. Bush, who resigned in 2003; James Baker III, Bush Sr.'s secretary of state and king fixer; and George W. Bush, who served on Carlyle's board of directors until his run for the Texas governorship. One notable former client of Carlyle was the Saudi BinLaden Group, which sold its investment back to the firm a month after the September 11 attacks. Until the October 2001 sellout, Osama bin Laden himself had a financial interest in the same firm that employed the two presidents Bush.

How has Carlyle managed to acquire the White House? The newest edition of Newsweek begins to tell the tale in a story titled "The Rescue Squad": "Bush Senior has been relegated to watching all those political talk shows his son refuses to watch, wincing each time he hears his son's name being mocked or criticized. George H.W. Bush has been, in effect, sidelined by nepotism. He has repeatedly told close friends that he does not believe it is appropriate or wise to second-guess his son, or even offer advice beyond loving support. This time, however, was different. A source who declined to be identified discussing presidential confidences told NEWSWEEK that Bush 41 left 'fingerprints' on the Rumsfeld-Gates decision, though the father's exact role remains shrouded in speculation."

There is much more to this than Big George simply trying to shove Little George in a different direction, because Big George never travels alone. All of a sudden, two of the elder's main men - James Baker III and Robert Gates - are back in the saddle. Baker has spent the last weeks riding herd over the Iraq Study Group, a collection of old foreign policy hands tasked to come up with a solution to the Iraq debacle. Gates was a member of this group until he was tapped to replace Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. The Iraq Study Group is slated to produce some tablets of wisdom come December.

A third member of the Iraq Study Group, former congressman Lee Hamilton, is the rope that ties this curious historical package together. During the Reagan days, Hamilton was chairman of the committee investigating the Iran/Contra scandal that nearly submarined Reagan's presidency and haunted Bush Sr. until his defeat in 1992. In essence, Hamilton took Reagan's people at their word when they assured the chairman that neither Reagan nor Bush were "in the loop" regarding the arms-for-hostages deal.

History and investigation have proven this to be quite separate from the truth, and Hamilton later admitted he should not have bought what Reagan's people were selling. The fact remains, however, that Hamilton let these guys slip the noose during what was, at the time, an investigation into one of the most serious abrogations of Constitutional law in our history. It is worthwhile to note that the man who brought the most pressure upon Hamilton within Congress to be "bipartisan" and avoid a protracted investigation was then-Wyoming representative Dick Cheney.

One of the men spared prosecution in the Iran/Contra scandal, thanks in no small part to the gentility of Mr. Hamilton, was Robert Gates. Gates, then a senior official within the CIA, was widely believed to have been neck-deep in the plot. During the investigation into the scandal, Gates parroted Reagan and claimed not to remember when he knew what he knew about everything that was happening down in Ollie North's office. In 1991, he was nominated and eventually appointed to be the head of CIA by Bush Sr. During his confirmation hearings, according to the New York Times, it was revealed that "Mr. Gates [had] distorted intelligence reports so they would conform to the political beliefs of his superiors."

That sounds familiar.

Gates's nomination to the post of secretary of defense was field-generaled behind the scenes by James Baker III, who has suddenly taken on a muscular role within the Bush White House since the spectacular Republican wipeout during the midterm elections last Tuesday. Baker's return, along with the new prominence of Bush Sr., has been hailed in the mainstream press as a healthy step toward stability and sanity.

One is forced to wonder, however, which masters Mr. Baker is actually serving. Baker's Carlyle Group has profited wildly from the conflict in Iraq, which begs the question: will the bottom line, augmented by Carlyle's defense contracts, trump any attempts to establish a just and lasting peace? It must also be noted that Baker's law firm, Baker Botts, is currently serving as defense counsel for Saudi Arabia against a suit brought by the families of 9/11 victims. The connections between the Bush family and the Saudi royals has been discussed ad nauseam, and Mr. Baker is so closely entwined with the Bush clan that he might as well be a blood relative.

The weakening of George W. Bush, in short, has opened the door for an alumnus of the Iran/Contra scandal, Robert Gates, to gain control of the Pentagon - his nomination, as yet, has met with little Congressional resistance. This process was managed by James Baker, whose Carlyle Group made billions off the Iraq occupation and whose fealty to the American people has all too often taken a back seat to the needs and desires of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. These two, along with Hamilton, have been instrumental in crafting, by way of the Iraq Study Group, what by all accounts will soon be America's foreign policy lynchpin in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.

Behind it all is George H.W. Bush, former employee of Carlyle, who has somehow managed to refashion his reputation into that of a grandfatherly, level-headed, steady hand, a foreign policy "realist" whose mere presence will soothe and calm the troubled waters we sail in. Unfortunately, his "realism" is a significant reason the United States finds itself in its current mess - until the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was a boon confederate of both the Reagan and Bush administrations in their fight against Iran - and the team of experts he has brought with him have done more to undermine the national security of the country than any other three people one could name.

The winner in all this, of course, is the Carlyle Group. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Sen. Webb STANDS UP FOR WORKING American FAMILIES! Exec pay inequity is gross and costs American families their health-care....

In the early days, WAL-MART made some of their workers rich. But 2 or 4 generations downstream from founder Sam Walton, there is now an entire DYNASTY of Wal-Mart heirs seeking to ride the gravy-train of their good fortune... and, in the case of Wal-Mart workers forced to seek STATE-FUNDED HEALTH CARE, receive some of their inheritance income AT THE EXPENSE of BOTH their own workers AND TAXPAYERS!

This is an ABSURD and GROTESQUE distortion of "American values," made possible ONLY by the horrific disparity in the media, i.e. the conservative bias of the media which has made "liberal media" into a dirty word.

(An example of the media's RIGHTWARD BIAS that enables the grotesque executive compensation, often at taxpayers expense, is found in this HuffingtonPost article about how TIME magazine tries to DISTORT the Democratic victory of Nov. 7th as a "centrist" agenda.)



Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard. ]
BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246


The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.





This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the "rough road of capitalism." Others claim that it's the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.
Still others have gone so far as to argue that these divisions are the natural results of a competitive society. Furthermore, an unspoken insinuation seems to be inundating our national debate: Certain immigrant groups have the "right genetics" and thus are natural entrants to the "overclass," while others, as well as those who come from stock that has been here for 200 years and have not made it to the top, simply don't possess the necessary attributes.

Most Americans reject such notions. But the true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.

America's elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other "First World" nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that "unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash" in America that would take us away from what they view to be the "biggest economic stimulus in world history."

More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The "Wal-Marting" of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.


The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to succeed.
With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.

Mr. Webb is the Democratic senator-elect from Virginia.

Sen-elect Webb STANDS UP FOR America's WORKING FAMILIES! He states that pay inequity in America is grotesque and costs families their health-care...!

In the early days, WAL-MART made many of their employee-stockholders rich. But 2 or 3 generations downstream from founder Sam Walton, there is now an entire dynasty or clan of Wal-Mart heirs seeking to ride the gravy-train of their good fortune... and, in cases of Wal-Mart workers forced to seek STATE-FUNDED HEALTH CARE, those Walton heirs receive some of their inheritance income AT THE EXPENSE of BOTH their own workers, and at the expense of state and national TAXPAYERS!

This is an ABSURD and GROTESQUE distortion of "American values," made possible ONLY by the horrific disparity in the media, i.e. the overwhelming conservative bias of the corporate "mainstream media' which has helped right-wing conservatives turn the very label "liberal media" into a dirty word.

An example of the media's RIGHTWARD BIAS that enables the grotesque executive compensation rampant in America today, often at taxpayers expense, is found in this HuffingtonPost article about how TIME magazine tries to DISTORT the Democratic victory of Nov. 7th as a "centrist" agenda, even those those winning Democratic candidates, every single one, believed in such "liberal" policies as raising minimum wage, enforcing environmental regulations, and providing some means to certify and audit America's chaotic voting process.
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-em_b_34246.html
- http://mediamatters.org/items/200611090003
- http://mediamatters.org/items/200611130001?src=newsbox-atrios.blogspot.com

We SALUTE Senator-elect James Webb, and ferverently hopes that he and other Democrats of the Class of 2006 lead Americans to review the bias inherent in America's "money is its own god" agenda - an agenda that if left unchecked, will see America's standard of living DECLINE to that of South America and other regions where average (median) per capita income is only $200 per month - TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS per MONTH.

==========================================

Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard. ]
BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246


The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the "rough road of capitalism." Others claim that it's the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.
Still others have gone so far as to argue that these divisions are the natural results of a competitive society. Furthermore, an unspoken insinuation seems to be inundating our national debate: Certain immigrant groups have the "right genetics" and thus are natural entrants to the "overclass," while others, as well as those who come from stock that has been here for 200 years and have not made it to the top, simply don't possess the necessary attributes.

Most Americans reject such notions. But the true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.

America's elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other "First World" nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that "unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash" in America that would take us away from what they view to be the "biggest economic stimulus in world history."

More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The "Wal-Marting" of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.


The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to succeed.
With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.

Mr. Webb is the Democratic senator-elect from Virginia.

=============================

We include here backup for Senator-elect Webb's notions that this election was far more "liberal," and that gross income disparity is indeed a concern of millions of Americans, than Republicans and their conservative media allies portray.
Here is the MediaMatters.Org SURVEY of those 2006 candidates that some writers in the press (and Republican Party) portray as "CONSERVATIVE Democrats" but who in this survey OVERWHELMINGLY, unanimously SUPPORT "liberal" progressive polices.
(note- only 5 of 27 of these candidates supported the anti-reproductive-health "Right to Life" anti-abortion agenda.)

-------------------------------

2006 Survey of "liberal" and "Conservative" policies for Democratic Election Candidates
http://mediamatters.org/items/200611090003

Following the November 7 midterm elections, Media Matters for America examined the policy positions of those Democratic House candidates who, as of the morning of November 8, had defeated Republican incumbents or been elected to open seats previously held by Republicans. This survey of the Democrats' campaign websites, candidate questionnaires, and statements in news reports found that these incoming lawmakers agree on a set of issues central to the Democratic platform, including raising the minimum wage, changing course in Iraq, and protecting Social Security:

All 27 candidates support raising the minimum wage.
All 27 candidates advocate changing course in Iraq.
All 27 candidates oppose efforts to privatize Social Security.
Only two of the 27 candidates do not support embryonic stem cell research.
Only five of the 27 candidates describe themselves as "pro-life."

WTF?? Senate - SENATE DEMS!! - OK sale of US nuclear tech AND MATERIALS to India's civilian AND "secret" MILITARY reactors!

India, according to this New York Times aricle, is a NON-SIGNER of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and will immediately be using the materials and technology provided by the US this $5 billion deal for MILITARY REACTORS that WILL NOT BE OPEN FOR INSPECTIONS.

Now it is true that you certainly can not believe everything you read in the New York Times, but when the Times reports "India has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," you can be reasonably certain that that particular statement is true.

Which can only lead to the question, "WHAT_THE_**** WERE THEY THINKING?"!

HOW can the United States go before the United Nations, and demand that warlike policies (military enforced embargoes) be implimented against Iran (and, past tense, Iraq) for alleged NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMS, while we, the USA, are making a profit SELLING NUCLEAR WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY TO a nation that can't bother to sign the NPT...?

===================================

Senate Approves Nuclear Cooperation With India
By THOM SHANKER
Published: November 16, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/washington/16cnd-nuke.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 — The Senate gave overwhelming approval late Thursday to President Bush’s deal for nuclear cooperation with India, a vote that expressed that a goal of nurturing India as an ally outweighed concerns over the risks of spreading nuclear know-how and bomb-making materials.

By a vote of 85 to 12, senators agreed to a program that would allow the United States to send nuclear fuel and technology to India, which has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The agreement, negotiated by President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India in March, calls for the United States to end a decades-long moratorium on sales of nuclear fuel and reactor components. For its part, India would divide its reactor facilities into civilian and military nuclear programs, with civilian facilities open to international inspections.

Critics have been unwavering in arguing that the pact would rally nations, such as North Korea and Iran, to press ahead with nuclear weapons programs despite international complaints and threats. Opponents of the measure also warned the deal would allow India to build more bombs with its limited stockpile of radioactive material, and could spur a regional nuclear arms race with Pakistan and China.

Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hailed the measure’s passage as “one more important step toward a vibrant and exciting relationship between our two great democracies.”

His endorsement was significant, coming from a Senator respected for efforts in nonproliferation and whose name is part of sweeping legislation to secure nuclear bomb-making materials in the former Soviet Union. He also expressed “thanks for a truly bipartisan effort” to Senator Joseph R. Biden, the Delaware Democrat set to become Foreign Relations chairman with the new Congress.

While advocates of the measure said it would be an incentive for India to refrain from further nuclear tests, denunciations came quickly from a minority of Senators who opposed it, as well as from critics in the House.

“It is a sad day for U.S. national security when the Senate passes a sweeping exemption to our nonproliferation laws that will allow India to increase its annual bomb-production capacity from 7 to over 40 bombs a year,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey, co-chair of the House Bipartisan Taskforce on Nonproliferation. He said the measure “sends the wrong signal at a time when the world is trying to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.”

After the vote, the White House issued a statement from President Bush praising passage of the bill.

“The United States and India enjoy a strategic partnership based upon common values,” the statement said. “The U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation agreement will bring India into the international nuclear nonproliferation mainstream and will increase the transparency of India’s entire civilian nuclear program.”

As an afternoon debate spun out into the evening, the Senate rejected several amendments that sponsors said would clarify or narrow the deal, including one that would have required India to halt all military relations with Iran. The legislation, as passed, does contain a new provision that requires the president to certify that India has joined multinational efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program in advance of the U.S.-India nuclear deal moving forward.

The Senate legislation now must be matched to the House version, which passed in July by a vote of 359 to 68; both chambers then must approve that final language. Even with Senate approval, the package will not move forward until both houses agree to specifics of a nuclear cooperation accord with India. A complementary deal between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency also must be reached.

At the time the plan was announced, India pledged to classify 14 of its 22 nuclear power reactors as civilian facilities. That would put those reactors under international inspections for the first time. But other reactors would remain under Indian military jurisdiction, and not open to inspectors.

After India and Pakistan conducted surprise nuclear tests about eight years ago, the Clinton administration imposed economic sanctions on both countries. But the Bush Administration’s effort to enlist allies for its global counter-terrorism campaign after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, brought an end to those sanctions, in particular those leveled against Pakistan, viewed as critical in the war in Afghanistan to rout Al Qaeda.

Bravo! Senator Schumer Grills Asst. Atty Gen. Wan Kim about Voting Fraud and discrimination of Voting Rights...

Assistant Attorney General Wan Kim is really on the hot seat today at the Senate hearing on the Justice Department's ovesight of voting fraud and voting rights.

By our count in a five minute period, Mr. Kim invoked "I don't know" or "I'll have to get with my staff on that" at least a dozen times. Fortunately, Senator Schumer refused to take "no" for an answer, and even Republican Committee Chair Arlen Sepcter was not the least impressed with Mr. Kim's testimony.

We hate to be blunt, but Mr. Kim possibly tops President Bush in blatant duplicitousness. On practically every single point, issue, and concern, he espoused justifications for rule and policies of his department that are clearly 100% the opposite of the real intentions of those policies and rules.

A TRIO of PHENOMENAL segments on (liberal) Talk Radio today: Franken, Schultz, and Randi Rhodes.....

Today we saw a trio of phenomenal segments on the airwaves, two on Air-America radio, and one by Big Ed Schultz (www.WeGotEd.com) of the Jones Radio network.

Al Franken had Dem consigliere LAWRENCE O'DONNELL on his show today, O'Donnell a rare Democrat who has mastered the arcane worlds of BOTH Capital Hill back offices and hallways, AND Hollywood/TV production & shooting lots. (O'Donnell was the senior staff member of the Senate Finance Committee, and the producer of the TV series "West Wing.") In short, not only is O'Donnell conversant in show business, but O'Donnell could give Bill Clinton a run for the money in policy wonkishness and budget arcana, if not beat him in one or both. Elsewhere, O'Donnell has written (in HuffingtonPost.com) that the Democrats cold gain a twenty-year majority starting with this term, but NOT if they select John Murtha to be the House (Majority) Whip, a selection that would give right-wing talk show hosts (O'Donnell specifically mentions Sean Hannity) the opportunity to portray Democrats as cravenly corrupt as the DeLay Congress at its worst, i.e. Jack Abramoff's bribery "donations" (which was enforced by the threat of DeLay congressional extortion) or Duke Cunningham's bribery menu. ANYWAYS, Today O'Donnell repeated his strident call for the Democrats to reject Congressman Murtha for such a senior leadership post, but what is even more important is what O'Donnell CHALLENGED Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party to do: to REJECT _ALL_ CORPORATE DONATIONS, DEMAND PUBLIC FINANCING of elections, and COMPELL media outlets (networks, cable, radio) to provide FREE AIR TIME in election season to fulfill their civic duty as gatekeepers of America's democracy. WE HEARTILY SECOND Mr. O'Donnell's challenge, and SHARE his peeve that Democratic voters, activsts, and candidates MUST ENRICH the corporate media barons (or lose elections) EVERY ELECTION CYCLE, by spending MILLIONS on campaign advertisements. Not only MUST Democratic candidates and donors ENRICH the media corporations every election, BUT to CHALLENGE this status-quo is to INVITE AN AVALANCHE OF NEGATIVE MEDIA COVERAGE to BURY YOU, as for example the shameless, wanton, and corrupt coverage of the so-called "White House Trashing Scandal" WITHOUT A SINGLE PHOTOGRAPH of EVIDENCE by the media (led by the Washington Post and New York Times, and followed by all the networks, cable outlets, and other papers across the nation) - a virtual TIDAL WAVE of negative 'news' coverage that tens of millions of dollars could not undo.

From the time of the founding fathers and up to the Civil War, ANYONE could start up a printing press and reach (through the enlistment of at most a few hundred or so volunteers) almost the total population, at least in the towns and cities. Today, because the population is so much larger, candiates MUST use the 'mass media' to reach citizens and voters... and this need has become a CASH COW for the media barons, who used LEVEREGED BUY OUT techniques to GOBBLE UP ALL COMPETITION. (The compettion of the Hearst and Pulitzer papers marked the beginning of the dominance of "major media" outlets.) American business schools teach that, in all cases, PROFIT is the first and sole mission of any business. But this shortsighted and superficial outlook is not always the case, as for example those businesses set up to combat a given disease, organizations that would happily go out of business were that disease to be eradicated. A more "here and now" refutation of "profit uber alles" school of business citizenship would be the US automakers, who for decades enjoyed selling cars with 5 year loan terms, and three year (36 month) warranties. We personally know of THREE women who have been driven into debt by their American auto purchases, cars less than five years old that have required thousand-dollar services. GM chairman ____ is the posterboy of this nearshighted and mercenary outlook, he still hasn't figured out that American auto buyers pick up on this predatory cynicism, and are turning to foreign built cars with 5 year, 100,000 mile warranties.

GM and American automakers are going the way of the dodo, while Toyota and other companies are building factories.. right here in America! And American democracy is also going the way of the dodo, IF Democratic voters and candidates MUST enrich Rupert Murdoch and General Electric Co. (And never, ever say anything that would raise the ire of these companies, such as pointing out that Murdoch makes MILLIONS PROPOGATING Chinese Communist Party PROPAGANDA to China's TV viewers, and that GE has just signed a deal to supply FIVE_BILLION_DOLLARS worth of the MOST UP TO DATE NUCLEAR_PROCESSING_TECHNOLOGY TO INDIA, with the "understanding" that India WILL BE ALLOWED to operate her _SEVENTEEN_ "secret military reactors FOR WEAPONS ENRICHMENT and PRODUCTION!!

As these examples illustrate, IF Democrats CONTINUE to go "business as usual" forcing their own candidates to RAISE MILLIONS each and every election, then Democrats WILL ALWAYS be vulnerable to the NEXT "ABSCAM," "KEATING SEVEN," ABRAMOFF (Abramoff is reported to have mentioned Senator HARRY REID as a "player" in the extended Abramoff pay-to-play scandals), ENRON, & other scandals. (Senator Joe Lieberman may have SABOTAGED the Democratic Senate Majority in 2002, by WET-BLANKET smothering the Senate ENRON investigation in his committe, depriving mid-term Democratic candidates of the opportunity to TIE President Bush to his biggest campaign donors through 4 elections, ENRON Chairman KEN LAY.)

#2. Over on the Big Ed Schultz radio show, host Ed Schultz called in from Washington to discuss the new House and Senate leadership votes, and explained that not only did Senator Trent "We wouldn't have these problems in America if Strom Thurmond has won the presidency in 1948 as leader of the Dixiecrat [segregation] Party" Lott regain a measure of his previous power as the new Republican Senate Whip, but the fact that he could line up those votes meant that Senate Republicans are repudiating President Bush's choice. For some "fly on the wall" background, Schultz explained that Lott and Bush can't stand each other... So much for Mr. Bush's proclaimed desire to "sit on the porch of Lott's Mississippi gulf-coast home, sipping lemonade when they are both in retirement!

AND FINALLY on tonight's show Randi Rhodes bitch-slapped the Bush administration into yesterday. We will confess that at times Randi seems insufferable. Apart from her everpresent tendency to divert into subjects female (in far more intimate detail than Ed Schultz discusses a hunting or fishing trip), Randi has a regretable tendency to make the subject... herself. We can't count the times Randi has had an excellent, informative guest on the show, only for her to rush in and talk all over her guest (about herself being first to an issue), quickly smoothering any extended insight into that particular issue from her guest. But on today's subject, Randi has been so prescient, so clearly vocal, and so solo in her reporting, that we really must forgive her her (at times insufferable) shortcomings. And that subject would be John NEGROPONTE and DEATH SQUADS_in-IRAQ. As Randi points out, the mere selection of Negoponte to be the nations National Security Director means that the Bush-Cheney White House EMBRACE the legacy of DEATH SQUADS from the historical era of when Negroponte was Ambassador to Honduras. Randi explains the history, policy, and consequences far better than we, but what is amazing is that her efforts point out how shallow, ignorant, and biased is the rest of America's media, which are too cowardly and/or stupid to point out that the Bush-Cheney administration has, in the space of one or two years, UNDONE THIRTY YEARS of US policy in Iraq and the Mideast, namely the use of Iraq's Sunni minority (under Saddam's Baathist regime) as a restraint and counterbalance to the Shiite majority... which is now (and this was always the great fear) allied with (synonymous with?) Iran's Shiite theocratic dictatorship.

Randi Rhodes Show today: How Negroponte, Rumsfeld, Gen Miller, and the Bush-Cheney neo-cons have EMPOWERED SHIITE DEATH SQUADS in Iraq, and how every day that we remain in Iraq we ENCOURAGE the fury and savagery of those Shiite death squad leaders, who are now relentlessly exterminating the Sunni minority there.
http://server7.whiterosesociety.org/content/rhodes/RhodesShow-(15-11-2006).mp3

Lawrence O'Donnell on the prospects of a Democratic Permanent Majority.. and HOW IT CAN BE DESTROYED AT INFANCY by the Democrat's abject dependence on CORPORATE campaign donations (the everpresent temptation to CORRUPTION).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/a-permanent-majority_b_34114.html


Chicago Tribune's long story on how Rep. Rahm Emanuel relentlessly & mercilessly whipped Democratic candidates to raise the massive campaign funds needed for election 2006....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-0611120215nov12,1,1560300,print.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Big Ed reports from Washington on Republican Senators spurning Bush-Rove's leadership nominees...
http://audio.wegoted.com/podcasting/111506SchultzEd.mp3

Big Ed's guest host, attorney Norman Goldstein, on the case for impeachment, (or) the case for JUSTICE...
http://audio.wegoted.com/podcasting/111506ShowOpen.mp3

Vote Fraud Florida REMINDS: Dem TOP priorities are to RESTORE RULE OF LAW and US Constitution by INSURING VERIFIABLE elections, and INVESTIGATING

The ongoing Vote Recounting DEBACLE in FIVE Florida counties reminds that the Democrats FIRST order of business... before even choosing party leaders - is to ENSURE THE RULE OF LAW and the primacy of the US Constitution in American politics and jurisprudence. The fact that 13 states in America use voting machines WITH_PAPER_TRAILS, while the other 47 states do NOT use paper trails, indicates that 47 secretaries of state, governor's offices, and state legislatures are guilty of GROSS DERELICTION OF DUTY, if not criminal negligence, if not premeditated COMPLICITY with FRAUD, for NOT insisting that those states have VERIFIABLE, AUDITABLE, RECOUNTABLE vote totals.

This GROSSLY FLAWED voting system across the nation is ONLY there because Republican vote-machine companies and state legislators (& execuctive offices) practically WALLOWED in their ability to NOT provide verifiable, recountable machines and a secure voting process. (With, we are sure, some incompetence or negligence on the part of Democrats in some of those states as well.)

RESTORING THE HONESTY and ACCOUNTABILITY of the American voting process SHOULD BE PRIORITY ONE of the new congressional majorities.

============================


As 5 counties recount votes, candidate files legal petition
by Mark K. Matthews | Washington Bureau
Posted November 14, 2006
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-voteprobs1406nov14,0,7173615.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-state

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL RACE: In 3 other counties using the same ES&S touch-screen machines as Sarasota, an even higher percentage of ballots failed to show any vote cast in the race.

Election supervisors in five Florida counties began recounting votes Monday to confirm the winner in a razor-thin race for Congress -- with the most intense focus on Sarasota County and more than 18,000 disputed ballots there.

But as the review approached the end of its first day, lawyers for Democratic candidate Christine Jennings filed an emergency petition that could draw out the dispute for an indefinite period of time.


Jeffrey Liggio, an attorney for Jennings, said he does not trust the Sarasota County supervisor of elections, the state of Florida or even the sheriff's officials guarding the recount. He wants a completely independent review of the election that does not involve state or local government.

Last week, unofficial returns showed that Republican Vern Buchanan edged Jennings by 373 votes in the House race , triggering an automatic recount under state law because the difference was less than one-half of 1 percent.

For some reason, about 13 percent of all voters in Sarasota County did not cast ballots in that hotly contested race. This high number of "undervotes" dwarfs the 1 percent of Sarasota County voters who skipped races for the governor and U.S. Senate.

Voters immediately complained, and the statistical oddity sparked an audit by state officials, a review by Congress and led at least two groups -- Common Cause and the nonpartisan People for the American Way -- to demand that supervisors scrap the recount and hold another election.

"Clearly, votes were lost, and those voters deserve a chance to have their voices heard," said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Florida's branch of Common Cause.

Ron Labasky, an attorney for the top election official in Sarasota County, Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent, deflected calls for a re-vote, noting there was little precedent for that action. Meanwhile, both candidates were in Washington, D.C., attending an orientation for new members.

Jennings has not conceded, and the action filed by her campaign late Monday seeks to secure all voting machinery and data for possible further investigation beyond what state and local authorities are undertaking this week.

Sally Tibbetts, spokeswoman for Buchanan, said it was unfortunate that Jennings was trying to "litigate our victory."

One potential culprit for the high number of undervotes is the touch-screen voting machines used by Sarasota County. On Monday, state investigators began looking into whether a software glitch caused so many voters to miss the race.

To do that, investigators planned to extract an Election Day log from several machines that registered a large number of undervotes. Officials then plan to use the log to re-create Election Day by duplicating every button pressed by each voter in an effort to find an error.

Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Florida's Department of State, said Monday that she doesn't expect Jennings' legal action to affect the audit or recount.

She also said there were no plans to examine similar problems with touch-screen voting machines in other counties, but she would not rule out such a review, either. In Sumter, Lee and Charlotte counties, there were undervotes between 18 percent and 22 percent for the state attorney general's race -- numbers described as "monstrous" by Rice University psychology professor Mike Byrne.

"Twenty percent undervoting is unbelievable," said Byrne, who heads the Computer-Human Interaction Laboratory at Rice. "When I heard that, I thought it was a mistake."

The counties with a high number of undervotes each used touch-screen machines manufactured by Election Systems and Software. A spokesman for the company said Monday that it was providing technical support for Sarasota County, adding that the ES&S equipment "worked well."

The congressional race was listed on the same screen as the governor's race, which dominated most of the page under the boldface heading "State." The word "State" also was highlighted in blue.

It also could be that the 13 percent undervote number in Sarasota was artificially low because it includes absentee paper ballots. Undervotes among those who used absentee paper ballots was 2.5 percent.

When only touch-screen ballots are considered, the percentage of undervotes in the Sarasota congressional contest rises to almost 15 percent.

It was under this cloud that officials in Sarasota County started their recount. At a warehouse normally reserved for traffic equipment, volunteers and observers checked vote tallies among stacks of black boxes with election results.

A machine recount of the House race is expected to be completed Wednesday.

Under this type of recount, counties with touch-screen machines are required to re-tabulate their figures from Election Day to ensure the numbers are correct. In the Buchanan-Jennings race, Sarasota and Charlotte counties used touch-screen machines. The other type of voting method in Florida is optical-scan ballots, in which voters mark their picks with pencil. For this recount, officials in Manatee, Hardee and DeSoto counties will re-run these ballots through a machine. A manual recount, if needed, would start later in the week.

Optical-scan machines allow election officials to physically examine the paper ballots that voters marked before putting them into the machine. Having such a paper record allows officials to check if any mistakes were made by voters.

The touch-screen machines used in Sarasota County have no such paper trail, so there is no way to show voter intent.

Jim Stratton of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Mark K. Matthews can be reached at mmatthews@orlandosentinel.com or 202-824-8222.

---------------------------------------
RELATED STORIES
Unclear ballot? Glitch? Maybe both, experts say
Nov 12, 2006
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-voterprobs1206nov12,0,6657404.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-state

VOTES: NOT CAST -- OR NOT COUNTED?
HOUSE DISTRICT 13 RACE: In Sarasota County, 13% of voters did not cast ballots or did not have them tallied.

The RACE is on: Dems must INVESTIGATE the Bush admin, before THEY bear the brunt of media and right-wing BLAME for Bush's disatrous policies

Can anyone say "BACKLASH"??!
The RACE is on: Dems must INVESTIGATE the Bush admin, before THEY bear the brunt of media and right-wing BLAME for Bush's disatrous policies.
Already, one element of the media/Right-Wing BACKLASH is on: on the Immus in the morning radio show they were busy rehabilitating GEORGE H.W. Bush (Sr.), and casting HIM in a "Great Leader" light.

What did George H.W. Bush in was his ARROGANCE, his "Read my lips, no new taxes" SNEAR.

Where, we wonder, did W (junior) get _his_ SNEAR of Democrats and non-top 10% Republicans? Well, that one comment ALONE ("read my lips...") indicates that Junior didn't get his scorn and contempt of the unwashed masses from Barbara Bush (his mother) alone.

MORE TO THE POINT, the IRAQ WAR is JUST NOW Starting to unravel.... like any classic INSURGENCY, which is to say GUERRILLA WAR, the INSURGENTS GET BETTER AND BETTER AND BETTER with time, even if the American forces get better with time as well. PART of the reason that so many in America were so quick to support the miserable excuses for the invasion of Iraq was because we Americans WHITEWASHED the TRUE nature of the counter-insurgency war in Vietnam, i.e. the war against the VC (and to a lesser extent the Khmer Rouge), where TORTURE, ASSASSINATIONS and near genocidal "ETHNIC CLEANSING" (aka "free-fire zones") were the order of the day. These tactics (assassinations, torture, and ethnic cleansing) were how Saddam maintained HIS rule over Iraq (with considerable American financial and military assistance), for example, read the first-hand reports of Sadddam's ANFAL campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s as written by Peter Galbraith in his book, "The End of Iraq."

What is important is that Iraq, itself, has been a HORNET's NEST for at least two dozen years, and Rumsfeld, the Neo-Cons, Cheney, and Bush REALLY THOUGHT they could waltz in there, assassinate (or capture) a few Baathist leaders (remember Bush's deck of cards, "Top 50 Iraq's most wanted"?), terrorize "the insurgents" (via torture at US "privatized security interrogator" hands), and in general lord it over the humbled and awed Iraqis like the Wizard of Oz or something.

Indeed, the FIRST thing the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz INVASION of Iraq did was to UNDO TWO DECADES OF US POLICY IN THE REGION, the policy to USE SUNNIS in Iraq (the Saddam Sunni-manned Baathist Party) as a RESTRAINT or constraint on the SHIITE MAJORITY.

THAT is the NIGHTMARE that Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz have CREATED in Iraq, and don't forget, Bush senior's term saw the US first provoke (or at the very least ENCOURAGE) the Shiite REVOLT against Saddam after the '91 war... AND THEN DID NOTHING as Saddam's death squads CRUSHED the rebellion, with estimates of up to 300,000 killed in gunship attacks and mass executions AS THE AMERICANS DID NOTHING, NOT EVEN compel Saddam to STOP using his helicopter gunships. (Again, Peter Galbraith has the short and ugly first-hand details in his book.)
All through the past six years, we have seen the American "major" or "Mainstream Media's" tendency to spin RIGHT-WING TALKING POINTS. (Special mention: Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter whose articles were SO slanted towards justifying the war as to lead to speculation that she is one of the reporters on the CIA's multi-million-dollar US payroll, is now decrying the excesses and trashing of American freedoms by the Bush Republicans.)
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/111106/kan_miller.shtml

The Democratic congressional wave is NOT EVEN A WEEK OLD, and ALREADY the Mainstream Media is casting about in a desperate search for a NEW right-wing savior, and they are HAPPY to REHABILITATE the record of the Bush Sr. administration to do so.

IF they Democrats DO NOT AGGRESSIVELY PORTRAY the Republican record, they will suffer a BACKLASH as the Republicans and media BLAME THE DEMOCRATS for those Republican follies.

===============================================

Dems Should Act Like They Have A Mandate And Then They Will Create One
Miles Mogulescu
11.14.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/dems-should-act-like-they_b_34065.html

The Democrat's wave-like victory was based in large part on rejection of Bush and Republicans, rather than wide-spread support for Democrats. It was also a resounding vote for change.

Now, to accomplish real change, and to solidify support among the broad middle class, the Democrats need to act like they have a mandate on a wide-range of issues, particularly those that focus of poor and middle class voter's anxieties about their future place in the global economy.


By acting quickly and decisively on such programs, the Democrats will give voters positive reasons to vote Democratic in '08.
Many of the easiest measures to pass quickly also unite progressive and so-called "centrist" democrats and can maintain substantial party unity for quite some time. They can receive enthusiastic support from Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Rahm Emanuel and Dennis Kucinich.

First, Democrats' goal for the Republican lame duck session of Congress should be to do no harm. They need to prevent Republicans from passing bad legislation that will be hard to undo.
Among other things, Congressional Democrats should:
--Turn down John Bolton's nomination as UN Ambassador--If there's any single message coming out of the election, it's rejection by voters of the neo-con foreign policy that Bolton represents.
--Block, and filibuster if necessary, any Republican legislation to authorize Bush's domestic wiretapping without a warrant. In the incoming Congress, Democrats can then pass a bill which both defends the nation against terrorists and upholds the Constitution and America's basic liberties.
--Do not allow Bush's energy plan to pass, particularly those portions which subsidize oil companies. In the new Congress Democrats can then focus on a serious program to move America towards energy independence and prevent global warming.
--Strip away earmarks from the spending bills which need to be passed, demonstrating Democrat's determination to stop political corruption, reduce the deficit and use the taxpayers' money responsibly.
--Use the hearings on Robert Gates appointment as Defense Secretary to highlight Bush administration failures in Iraq, and to explore Gates' history of cherry-picking intelligence to suit political needs.
--Reauthorize the special inspector general's office to monitor US spending on Iraq reconstruction.

Then as soon as the new Congress opens for business in January, the Democrats need to sprint out of the gate. For the very beginning, Speaker Pelosi's 100 hour program is a good place to start.
--Raise the minimum wage.
--Cut the interest on student loans in half.
--Allow the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower Medicare drug prices, possibly saving enough to eliminate the so-call "donut hole".
--broaden the type of stem-cell research financed by the federal government.
--clean up Congress and break the link between special interest lobbyists and legislation.

Imagine how the momentum will shift to the Democrats if, by the end of their first week or two in power, the Democrats manage to accomplish almost all of this agenda. These measures are widely supported by both the progressive and "centrist" wings of the Democratic Party and will be popular among the American people. The Democrats can afford to dare senate Republicans to filibuster these programs or Bush to veto them.

That picks off the lowest hanging fruit, but there's much more a Democratic
Congress can accomplish in its first term.
--Pass an Apollo type energy program to make America substantially energy independent within a decade, address global warming, and create tens of thousands of high quality jobs.
--Take the first steps towards national health care. Make everyone eligible to buy into the Medicare program and provide financial assistance to those who cannot afford the full premiums.
--Repeal Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans
--Pass a wiretapping bill that will allow law-enforcement to listen in when necessary to terrorists who wish to harm bus, but will not infringe on the constitutional the liberties of theAmerican peoplle--require the government to get a warrant from a special court and in exceptional cases, allow the wire-tapping to begin immediately but require the government to get a warrant within a few days.
--Restore the full right of habeas corpus.
--Stop the construction of permanent military bases in Iraq.
--Block the nomination of right wing judges.
--Reform federal election law to require that electronic voting machines provide paper back-up which can be used for audits and recounts.

Again, most Democrats, progressive or "centrist", can support such measures and a large-part of the electorate will respect the Democrat's boldness and gain positive reasons to back Democrats in 2008. The Democrats need to create the pressure on Republicans in the Senate not to filibuster such measures and on Bush not to veto them. If the Republicans and Bush do, Democrats have a large part of their program to run on in '08.

Finally there is the questions of Congressional investigations of the Bush administration's misdeeds, including the dishonest use of pre-war intelligence, war profiteering, Cheney's energy task force, the handling of Hurricane Katrina and the appointment of industry lobbyists to head government regulatory agencies. Already, there are some in the mainstream media who are pressing Democrats to forego such investigations on the grounds that they will turn off mainstream America. If carried out responsibly, nothing could be further from the truth. Americans want the light to shine into to the deepest recesses of government. Such investigations are the right thing to do and they will only strengthen Democrat's chances in '08, particularly when coupled with passage of the type of progressive legislation suggested above.

This blog is running long so I will leave Iraq and national security for another blog. The only thing I do want to say is that Democrats must decide what their goal is in Iraq. Is it simply to change tactics in the hope of achieving "victory" (i.e. a stable, secular, unified, democratic and free market capitalist Iraq)? Or is it to admit "victory" cannot be achieved and the goal is to find a rapid way out of Iraq which will leave the least possible damage behind?

In any case, if Democrats act like they have a mandate, they can move quickly to pass important legislation, undo some of the damage of the last six years, move the country in a progressive direction, and reinforce the support of the poor and middle class for the '08 elections.