Senator Feingold's peace effort
Senator Russ Feingold (D., Wisc.) is preparing to give the Republicans in the Senate two more opportunities this week to grandstand and filibuster in favor of the occupation of Iraq. They will, of course, do so; and they will, of course, win.
Feingold cannot possibly have any doubt of that as he introduces his bills. As far as I know, he's not even trying to get the House to pass the same things, since they're guaranteed not to pass the Senate.
One of Feingold's bills proposes a delayed partial beginning of a withdrawal from an occupation that the vast majority of Americans (not to mention Iraqis) want completely ended. The other asks Bush to produce a report on his strategy for accomplishing the mythic mission that he uses to justify that same occupation. Both bills are written in Bush-Cheney vocabulary, promoting the very ideas they are intended to oh-so-weakly oppose.
Feingold cannot possibly have any doubt of that as he introduces his bills. As far as I know, he's not even trying to get the House to pass the same things, since they're guaranteed not to pass the Senate.
One of Feingold's bills proposes a delayed partial beginning of a withdrawal from an occupation that the vast majority of Americans (not to mention Iraqis) want completely ended. The other asks Bush to produce a report on his strategy for accomplishing the mythic mission that he uses to justify that same occupation. Both bills are written in Bush-Cheney vocabulary, promoting the very ideas they are intended to oh-so-weakly oppose.
Losing the future
A certain reverence is required just to approach the book’s title: “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict” by noted economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes. I can see why they understated it.
The pulse of outrage beats behind the cold calculations in this concise volume, newly published by Norton. We’re not just “losing” this tragic, arrogantly unplanned war in the conventional sense of failing to subdue our enemies — we’re committing slow socioeconomic suicide with its open-ended pursuit, losing, as we plunge recklessly into debt over it, our options, our ability to choose. We’re losing the future.
“Because of the war, the national deficit is $2 trillion higher,” Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001, told me. “At 5 percent interest, that’s $100 billion a year, year after year after year — forever!”
Such numbers are beyond the scope of the human imagination. To begin putting the war into financial perspective, Stiglitz suggested that we need a new unit of account: “Think of what things would cost in terms of hours, days, weeks of fighting.”
The pulse of outrage beats behind the cold calculations in this concise volume, newly published by Norton. We’re not just “losing” this tragic, arrogantly unplanned war in the conventional sense of failing to subdue our enemies — we’re committing slow socioeconomic suicide with its open-ended pursuit, losing, as we plunge recklessly into debt over it, our options, our ability to choose. We’re losing the future.
“Because of the war, the national deficit is $2 trillion higher,” Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001, told me. “At 5 percent interest, that’s $100 billion a year, year after year after year — forever!”
Such numbers are beyond the scope of the human imagination. To begin putting the war into financial perspective, Stiglitz suggested that we need a new unit of account: “Think of what things would cost in terms of hours, days, weeks of fighting.”
The war election
Maybe it sounded good when politicians, pundits and online fundraisers talked about American deaths as though they were the deaths that mattered most.
Maybe it sounded good to taunt the Bush administration as a bunch of screw-ups who didn’t know how to run a proper occupation.
And maybe it sounded good to condemn Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush for ignoring predictions that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to effectively occupy Iraq after an invasion.
But when a war based on lies is opposed because too many Americans are dying, the implication is that it can be made right by reducing the American death toll.
When a war that flagrantly violated international law is opposed because it was badly managed, the implication is that better management could make for an acceptable war.
Maybe it sounded good to taunt the Bush administration as a bunch of screw-ups who didn’t know how to run a proper occupation.
And maybe it sounded good to condemn Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush for ignoring predictions that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to effectively occupy Iraq after an invasion.
But when a war based on lies is opposed because too many Americans are dying, the implication is that it can be made right by reducing the American death toll.
When a war that flagrantly violated international law is opposed because it was badly managed, the implication is that better management could make for an acceptable war.
If you think Karl Rove is evil, make phone calls today
I don't know when Hillary Clinton and her advisors started channeling Karl Rove, but it's happened and it's ugly. If you want to stop them from tearing the Democratic Party apart, then get on the phones today and volunteer to turn out the Obama vote in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Her campaign's been sleazy since Obama first emerged as a serious challenger. I've written about it here and here. But in the past week, it's escalated. She's just run a radio ad on NAFTA that pretends to be a news report. Meanwhile, Canadian television reported that Clinton's campaign offered the same disavowals she just accused an Obama advisor of making. Her 3:00 AM ad echoed the worst of Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. When asked if she'd "take Senator Obama on his word that he's not a Muslim," she left the door open to the right wing lies by saying "there's nothing to base that on. As far as I know."
She just handed McCain his campaign script by saying, "I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."
Her campaign's been sleazy since Obama first emerged as a serious challenger. I've written about it here and here. But in the past week, it's escalated. She's just run a radio ad on NAFTA that pretends to be a news report. Meanwhile, Canadian television reported that Clinton's campaign offered the same disavowals she just accused an Obama advisor of making. Her 3:00 AM ad echoed the worst of Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. When asked if she'd "take Senator Obama on his word that he's not a Muslim," she left the door open to the right wing lies by saying "there's nothing to base that on. As far as I know."
She just handed McCain his campaign script by saying, "I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."
Obama & Clinton: who's more likely to confront global warming?
If we ignore global warming much longer, we'll face a world of perpetual disaster, so there's no larger question for presidential candidates than who is more likely to tackle it successfully. Although Obama's and Clinton's positions are similar, he seems far more likely to. The key difference is their ability to mobilize a grassroots base to demand that the necessary changes get passed.
How much damage will Clinton do before she folds?
In the wake of ten straight losses, Clinton's going to need some miracles to win, and Mike Huckabee's already ahead of her in line for divine intervention. But the question is how much damage she'll do to Obama and the Democratic chances before she quits.
If the fight goes to the convention, we know the answer: Unless she totally routs Obama in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, her sole remaining path to the nomination depends on convincing the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters, and convincing the credentials committee to honor the problematic Michigan and Florida elections. So she'll have to practically destroy the party to save it, or more accurately to save herself. Assuming a possible breaking sex scandal doesn't bring down McCain, he already beats Clinton by 12 points in the latest poll, while Obama defeats him by 7. If the young voters, independents, and African Americans who Obama's enlisted in droves stay home in November because they feel they've been betrayed, Clinton's chances would be slim to none.
If the fight goes to the convention, we know the answer: Unless she totally routs Obama in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, her sole remaining path to the nomination depends on convincing the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters, and convincing the credentials committee to honor the problematic Michigan and Florida elections. So she'll have to practically destroy the party to save it, or more accurately to save herself. Assuming a possible breaking sex scandal doesn't bring down McCain, he already beats Clinton by 12 points in the latest poll, while Obama defeats him by 7. If the young voters, independents, and African Americans who Obama's enlisted in droves stay home in November because they feel they've been betrayed, Clinton's chances would be slim to none.
Will Clinton's advisors tell her the hard truths?
I know it seems a geological eon ago, but do you remember the resignation of Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle? In the wake of Clinton's major Wisconsin defeat, I remembered how Doyle never told Clinton about the campaign's massive hemorrhaging of cash. And how Clinton similarly kept Solis in the dark when she took out her $5 million personal loan. Given that Hillary Clinton's campaign has now been reduced to a nonstop mantra of "ready to lead on day one," it made me wonder what that incident reveals about her competence, transparency and trust—the essence of her ability to lead.
The Hillary nutcracker
Oh, come on, do we need this? I know, I know, it’s cute. STAINLESS STEEL THIGHS! FEEL THE SQUEEZE!
Perhaps the fact that a major party is about to nominate either a female or an African-American male to be president of the United States is so lacking in controversy, so quietly ho-hum, that a little adolescent gender humor on the side is no big deal, either.
Enter — stage right? stage left? — the Hillary Nutcracker, a hot-selling novelty product of the 2008 political season that has gotten some fawning and even enthusiastic press, with right-wing MSNBC pundit Tucker Carlson so moved by the nutcracker he all but confessed his castration complex regarding Ms. Clinton, all in fun, of course. This is political discourse in America.
Perhaps the fact that a major party is about to nominate either a female or an African-American male to be president of the United States is so lacking in controversy, so quietly ho-hum, that a little adolescent gender humor on the side is no big deal, either.
Enter — stage right? stage left? — the Hillary Nutcracker, a hot-selling novelty product of the 2008 political season that has gotten some fawning and even enthusiastic press, with right-wing MSNBC pundit Tucker Carlson so moved by the nutcracker he all but confessed his castration complex regarding Ms. Clinton, all in fun, of course. This is political discourse in America.
Rep. Leonard Boswell signs onto Cheney impeachment
Congressman Leonard Boswell, right-wing Democrat from Iowa'a third district, would apparently like to avoid the fate of Congressman Al Wynn in Maryland. Al Wynn nearly lost a primary in 2006 to a challenger from his left, Donna Edwards. He transformed himself from one of the most corporate and militaristic members of Congress into one of the most responsive to his constituents, reversing his position on the occupation of Iraq and signing onto articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney. It wasn't enough to save him, as Edwards showed Wynn the door in the 2008 primary earlier this month.
Boswell is being challenged by Ed Fallon, who - like Edwards - seems to inspire more courage in the incumbent than he himself actually exhibits. Fallon's website says nothing about impeachment. Edwards said she was for it when asked, but never brought it up, and kept it off her website.
The Iowa Independent quotes Fallon as responding to Boswell's cosponsorship of H Res 333:
Boswell is being challenged by Ed Fallon, who - like Edwards - seems to inspire more courage in the incumbent than he himself actually exhibits. Fallon's website says nothing about impeachment. Edwards said she was for it when asked, but never brought it up, and kept it off her website.
The Iowa Independent quotes Fallon as responding to Boswell's cosponsorship of H Res 333:
Behind Obama's wave of victories: the more they know him…..
In a race where Clinton seemed to have every advantage, why has Barack Obama now won eight primaries and caucuses in a row? If you look at the rhythm of the campaign, this is the first point where most of America's voters have a chance to consider him as a candidate with a serious chance of victory, and to genuinely engage his message. Democrats passionately want a candidate they can believe in, but also one who can win--and reverse the Republican disasters. As the presumed nominee, Clinton did everything she could to play on this, proclaiming herself as tough, experienced, and capable of taking everything the Republicans could throw at her. She lined up massive insider support, including commitments from 154 superdelegates (versus 50 for Obama) before a single vote was cast.