The Non-sense of the Senate: It's Iraq, Stupid, Not Iran

Fed up with the Democrats who voted for the Kyl-Liberman Amendment? Wondering what the purpose of the non-Sense of the Senate amendment was?

Well, the purpose of the amendment was not really about Iran. It is about continuing the war in Iraq based on the lies of the Bush administration, now officially adopted by the Democrats, about Iran. After all justifications for staying the course in Iraq have proven empty, by now labeling Iran a terrorist organization (weird, huh?) the Democrats join with the Republicans to provide next justification for the continuation of the war in Iraq.

The non-Sense Amendment exposes the underlying structure of the duopoly, the two-party dictatorship, that rules the USA today.

Only Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are outside the political pack of this duopoly mindset. It is up to the regular grass roots Democrats to face this uncomfortable and inconvenient truth.

Yes, the Kyl-Liberman Amendment was modified so the "military instruments" sections were removed from the amendment. So what? The whole amendment is false, and becomes the prelude to another amendment that does include military instruments. And yes it is a provcation against Iran but that is distraction only and not the real purpose at this time.

The real point is that is is an inflamatory escalation of the war in Iraq, not an amendment to end or even cool down the war. It is adopted to justify remaining in Iraq as long as they, both Democrats and Republicans, can sell the falsehood of "terrorist" Iran being there.

The amendment is really for domestic consumption and tells the people of the US that Iran is attacking Iraq, so we have to stay the course in Iraq to protect Iraq from Iran. This has been the Liberman mantra all along.

What about Hillary Clinton supporting it? This amendment contains exactly the same pack of lies that Clinton believed from Bush in the beginning of Iraq. Now she is "believing" them for Iran all over again. Or is she? As I see it she is a direct participant in the plan, not a dupe.

From the text of the version that seems to have been adopted:

The amendment endorses Gen Betrayus' false testimony to Congress (as bad as Powell's lies to the UN) claiming there is evidence that Iran is somehow sending weapons to Iraq. It is the USA that is sending most weapons, and Saudi Arabia that is sending weapons, Not Iran.

The amendment endorses Ambassador Crockers corkers of lies too. Plus all the other lies about so-called "evidence" of Iranian interference.

Not one argument of the 6-pages of introduction used in the bill to support the amendment is truthful or accurate. It is all opinion and supposition.

Then after six pages of lies we get to the resolution itslef on page 7. The Sense of the Senate says:

#1: That Iran poses a threat to Iraq (false) and that the US will keep a military presence in Iraq to counter Iran's influence. (That is prolonged war, not ending the war.)

#2: Says it is a critical national interest of the US to prevent Iran from turning the Shia Militias into a "Hezbollah-like force". (That is false. First, we don't have a national interset, critical or otherwise in Iraq. Second, Iran can't "turn" Iraqis into any thing. The Iraqi Shia militias think for themselves and don't all agree with each other. Third, Hezbollah is a nationalist defense force with representatives in parliament. They are not a terrorist organization like the US claims. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran has invaded and occupied anyone. The US has.)

#3 and #4 which were the worst are crossed out.

#5 says the US should designat Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp "a foreign terrorist organization". (What a joke. That has absolutely no basis in fact or evidence. That's like saying the US Marines are a terrorist organization....opps, I guess that's a bad analogy because the US Marines are a terrorist organization. It's like saying the National Guard is a terrorist organization. The REvolutionary Guards have not invaded and occupied anyone nor engaged in any terroriat activites.)

#6 Says the US treasury should implement sanctions consistent wtih these findings. (only the findings are all false.)

###

With this statement of the non-sense of the Senate, the leaders of the Senate, including Clinton and the majority of the Democrats siding with the Repubicans, are leading Congress right where they want to lead us: continued war in Iraq.

Why? Because this is right where the plutocracy wants them to lead. Sorry to have to be the one to inform you, but we live in a Fascism-lite nation that controls both parties through a two-party dictatorship run by a plutocracy that uses the two parties as a shell game to keep the voters confused.

Check out the Political Compass link (thanks to GreenSooner for posting it) to the picture of political reality. This is a great tool to see what the two-party dictatorship is all about.

The picture of nearly all the candidates in the upper right quadrant is exactly what I mean when I say we have a two-party dictatorship that allows for a small range of argument between the two wings of the "business as usual party" about where to stand in their quadrant.

Only Kucinich and Gravel stand outside this duopoly-certified pack of candidates in another quadrant of political reality. Kucinich's not-for-profit Health Care plan compared to Clinton's for-profit mandatory Health Insurance plan, is the perfect example of the difference in political outlook of the two quadrants of political perspective. And we see how the candidacies of Kucinich and Gravel are treated by the powers-that-be behind and supporting the pack.

I believe Kucinich and Gravel stand with the majority of the people, but that that majority is so dispirited and alienated that they won't look up from being entangled in the weeds of confusion caused by the fake opposition between the two parties.

This Political Compass grid also shows that the elections in Iran are about equal to the elections in the USA as far as giving the voters a real choice between candidates. In Iran the ruling council vetts and chooses the candidates, and in the USA the ruling elite do the same.

The two-party sham works for both parties. The Republican Party does not live up to the Republican PR about small government, no foreign regime change or entanglements, free trade, etc, any more than the Democrats live up to their PR. The Republicans don't deliver on anti-abortion any better than the Democrats deliver on anti-war. But the two parties use their PR organs to divide up the voters, and then the leadership of the two parties vote to keep the plutocrats in power. The two wings only differ on the minor tactics of how to accomplish their common strategy of keeping the rich in control.

For example, the question "should we drill in ANWAR or not?" is jsut a "minor tactic" -- a bump in the road -- to the people who own America. The Republicans say "sure we should drill and get profit everywhere we can." The Democrats say "if you drill in certain places then the people will grumble and maybe become too socialist and nationalize the oil industry, so you have to give them some environmental protections to keep them pacified." That becomes the big shell game that keeps the voters occupied and too confused to see who is making the real decisions and collecting the profits.

For another example, the Democratic Leadership always has been in favor of the War in Iraq and still is, but because the grass roots are not, the Leadership had to shift its PR statements to oppose the war. But the Democratic leadership doesn't really want to end the war and the Kyl-Liberman Amendment is an example of that truth. The Democrats want to "win" the war in Iraq as much as Bush does, so they argue over strategy, such as the bogus Biden-Brownback-Boxer amendment, rather than just shuting down the government until the troops are withdrawn. The Democrats plan is to win the election in 2008 so they can be the party that won the war, not the party that ended the war.

The truth, that is, the Big Con, that this amendment exposes yet once again, is that the majority of Democrats in the Senate are Republican-lite. Like Bill Clinton said, "I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans."

Now this amendment on Iran becomes the vehicle that Democrats can distract the voters from the Democratic refusal to stop the Iraq war. Now the Democrats can say "we approve of the war on Iran even though we were lied to by Bush on Iraq." Of course they are supporting this amendment by the same lies now about Iran, but that doesn't matter in the long run. Why. Because the voters live in the United States of Amnesia well known to the likes of Goering, Hitler, Schwartzenegger, and Bush where USA Fascism-lite is as simple as the alphabet:

A. "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
- Hermann Goering, Luftwaffe Commander, From his cell at Nuremberg Trials 1946
- from Nuremberg Diary by G M Gilbert (Signet, New York, 1947)

B. "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out."~ Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, chapter six.

C. “People need somebody to watch over them. . . . Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger from a 1990 profile in U.S. News and World Report

D. "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
~ George W Bush, 5/24/05

The majority of Democrats, the ones voting for the amendment, are playing from this same play book. They know exactly what they are doing to continue the war in Iraq, which is the real purpose of the Kyl-Liberman amendment.


[This blog was cross posted at Daily Kos]

Ahmadinejad Smokes Charlie Rose

President Ahmadinejad was interviewed by Charlie Rose last night and chewed up Rose as bad as he chewed up Mike Wallace previously.

Its hilarious that "journalists" like Rose and Wallace act so differently with a president they don't like than the fawning interviews they do with politicians they like.

Rose thought he could get at Ahmadinejad with pointed questions, but Ahmadinejad was able to point out the fallacies in the assumptions behind virtually every one of Rose's barbs.

I was laughing uproariously to see Rose so befuddled.

For a limited time the video is available at Charlie Rose's website.


It clearly shows that the US spokespeople like the President of Columbia and Rose don't treat Ahmadinejad fairly.

For example Rose gives an introduction that says Ahmadinejad avoids questions and then he shows two clips that prove him wrong where Ahmadinejad is responding appropriately, not avoiding questions.

Ahmadinejad calls for the eradication of all nuclear weapons and has rejected nuclear weapons as useless and outmoded in the today's real world, and points out that the USA won't allow international inspection of USA nuclear weapons facilities while Iran does allow IAEA nuclear inspections. Do you disagree?

Ahmadinejad says that Iraq should be allowed to govern its own affairs and that the US should not interfere. He says that after Saddam's fall that the US should have had a plan to withdraw immediately. Do you disagree?

Rose holds up a newspaper that shows his photo and says "THE EVIL HAS LANDED". What a hoot. Ahmadinejad says, "We want to be friends with the United States." He says "the authorities here are over sensitive." Do you disagree with that?

Rose presents the NY Times as if it is gospel truth. Do you agree with that?

Ahmadinejad asks Rose if the entire West is supportive of the Zionist regime. He says the West does not deal with the plight of the Palestinians. He says the American people are sensitive about how the Palestinians are being treated but the US politicians are not responding to the terror that the Palestinians are living under. Do you disagree?

Rose doesn't know how to deal with a man who wants to be active in a dialogue rather than accept the premise that he should be a passive victim in an interview.

Rose asks "Why don't you agree with your Arab brothers" as if he thinks Ahmadinejad is Arab not Persian.

Ahmadinejad says that he will listen to what the Palestinians want for peace and asks if the US is able to do that? Don't you agree?

I don't agree with every thing Ahmadinejad does or says, but in this interview Rose presents US ideology as innocent questions and Ahmadinejad responds with finesse and doesn't get caught up in the premises of Rose's ideology.

Rose asks if Iran can have friendly conversations with the US and Ahmadinejad asks Rose to ask the US politicians why they backed Saddam's invasion of Iran, and why today they are backing the incursions and attempts to destabilize Iran.

Rose says Iran has supported terrorist organizations, and Ahmadinejad asked which terrorist organization? Rose says, "In the definition of the US Hezbollah." Ahmadinejad says, "Who started terrorism in Afghanistan?" pointing to US intelligence behind al Queda. Ahmadinejad then points out correctly that Hezbollah is a nationalist defense organization and is not doing anything outside of Lebanon or exporting terrorism to anybody. That it was Israel that invaded Lebanon and bombed Beirut.

Rose says, "Israel withdrew from Lebanon" as if that somehow makes everything that they did in their attack on Lebanon was made moot by their retreat. Rose is transparently illogical.

Rose says that Iran can avoid santions if it takes the offer from Russia. Ahmadinejad says "please pay attention to this point. If you were in our place what would you do." He says that Iran had nuclear agreements with five countries including Candada and France but they unilaterally and illegally withdrew from those contracts. So why should Iran be dependent on other countries who can cut their contracts? He has the point.

The Biden-Brownback- Boxer Amendment is Baloney

Yesterday I received an action alert from Senator Barbara Boxer:

Dear Gregory,

After nearly five years of a painful war in Iraq, there aren't any good solutions. President Bush has refused to do the tough diplomatic and political work required to end the war, putting everything on the shoulders of our military, and the Republicans in Congress have been with him every step of the way.

Make no mistake -- this is now a Republican war and the Republicans have walked away from every effort to responsibly end it.

Everyone agrees there must be a political solution. The Biden-Brownback- Boxer amendment pushes to the forefront a political solution in Iraq where each region would be given significant control over its own laws and administration. The Senate is scheduled to vote on this Biden-Brownback-Boxer amendment as early as Tuesday morning, and I need your help to encourage my Senate colleagues to support it.

I love Barbara. She is one of the greatest Senators in Congress. But this call to action is a little silly as she wants to blame the Republians only and doesn't acknowledge that since the 2006 election this is now the Democrat's war as they are the majority in Congress. There is a fundamental detachment from reality by the Democrats in Congress if they think that they can convince the American Public that this is not a Democratic Congressional war.

So, with the Biden-Brownback-Boxer amendment she is dead wrong. Here's my response.

Hon. Barbara Boxer,

I love you Barbara, but this amendment is wrong. The Congress of the USA is not in a position to tell Iraqis what to do -- even if it is the best thing to do.

Congress should make no law regarding the sovereignty of another nation.

Please, just leave Iraq now. Please, filibuster every single bill before the Senate until we start leaving. Shut down the government from doing a single piece of business until the order is given to remove ALL the troops, even the troops in the giant military bases in the desert.

Last night I heard a talk from a civilian attorney who went to Iraq to defend a soldier in a court martial trial who was suffering from PTSD yet had been sent back for another tour and got himself into trouble when he had discharged his weapon on base. Apparently there is enough fragging going on now in Iraq that it is reminding the Brass a little too much of Vietnam, so they wanted to make an example of this poor soldier who had nothing even remotely to do with fragging and who should never have been sent back for another tour, but who was an easy target for the officers to take out their frustration on.

The attorney told of the surreal experience of going to a giant military base in the desert built from the ground up that looks like it could be a town in the California desert near Barstow.

The base has streets with curbs, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, Baskin-Robbins, swimming pools (outdoor and indoor), a stadium (used at night because it is too hot in the day), etc. It's like a movie set of a little USA town plopped down in Iraq. But a movie more like "The Confederate States of America" since all the service "help" are brown faces from the Philippines or India. There is not an Iraqi to be seen. The US Military is simply practicing serfdom-racism under the heading of "maintaining security."

This is exactly what is wrong with the "occupation." The Iraqis are watching not only foreign troops come in as invaders, but they see foreign workers being imported in to get the benefits of occupation service jobs. When the US invaded and occupied Japan not a single contract went to US companies. The Japanese companies got the contracts and the Japanese people got the jobs. That was how the US made friends with the people they were occupying.

The US military, the President, and Congress, and yes, even my hero Barbara Boxer and virtually all of Democrats in the Senate and way too many Democrats in the House, just don't get it that the US can't come in and dictate to the Iraqis how they will govern themselves, all the while not giving them the financial and security benefits of occupation, and also building US military bases as permanent US towns dotting Iraq.

What part of that failed picture don't they see?

Senate Wastes Taxpayers' Time and Money "Condemning" Free Speech.

Here's my letter signing the petition against the Senate's condemnation of the MoveOn.org ad.

Thank you Senator Barbara Boxer for standing up for freedom. And shame on you Senator Diane Feinstein, you have once again shown that you are a Republican posing as a Democrat.

The Cornyn Amendment is an amazing piece of legislation that shames the US Senate on several levels. First it is an unconstitutional and unwarranted attack on the people's First Amendmnent right to criticize government officials. Second, it was a colossal waste of time to vote on a newspaper ad while our troops are dying in combat! Third, the ad was true. Patreaus is a betrayer of the nation, the people, and his uniform when he testifies before Congress with such lies. His own boss, Admiral Fallon said the same thing, only in much more colorful and military language, calling him an "*ss-kisser" and a "chickens**t".

You too can sign the petition.

Here's a fun blog about this at Fire Dog Lake.

Here's who voted and how.

San Diego Mayor has change of heart about gay marriage.

This is an amazing admission of a change of heart for Jerry Sanders the San Diego mayor. He is a courageous man to come out with this. See the video. As a conservtive, in the end he felt that human relationships and equal protection under the law were the most important. How wonderful!

Sulaimaniya: the Tombstone of Iraq.

Yesterday (9/19/07) I heard a radio piece about a Russian who is opening a casino in Sulaimaniya, Iraq, of all places. Apparently he has the first license and is going to be allowed to serve beer but not other types of alcohol. He said men come carrying their K-47s and have to check them at the door like Tombstone, Arizona, in the wild west days. He said he thinks the casino venture will be successful because the customers have good cars.

Okay, that is an interesting story. Apparently the leaders of this town in the Kurd controlled north, including the Mayor, have figured out a way to make gambling capitalism a part of their new "democracy" in a manner that doesn't offend too many rules of Islam. Perhaps, but I'm sure there is more to this story to come.

And perhaps today's (9/20/07) story in the BBC just might be related. The BBC reports the US has announced that it has captured an Iranian officer who is a member of the Quds force that the US is do determined to demonize.

Here's the beginning to the story:

Iranian officer 'seized in Iraq'

US-led forces in Iraq say they have arrested an Iranian officer operating in the north of the country.

They say the man was a member of the Quds Force - an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards - and was detained in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya.

"This individual has been involved in transporting improvised explosive devices," the American military said.

The US has accused the Quds Force of helping arm Shia militias in Iraq. Iran denies any involvement with militants.

A statement by the US military said the arrested man had been involved in the "infiltration and training of foreign terrorists in Iraq".

Did you note the town in whcih the "Iranian officer" was detained, yep, Sulaimaniya.

Okay, they set up the story telling the US press release side of things. We have been conditioned to believe this is an evil man who is involved in "infiltration" and "transporting improvised explosive devises."

But is this real or just more US propaganda passed along by the BBC as a willing conduit?

Let's look at the rest of the story:

According to a spokesman for the regional government in semi-autonomous Kurdistan, he was taken away overnight in a raid on a Sulaimaniya hotel.

A government official in Baghdad said the arrested man had been part of a commercial delegation, but gave no further details.

Tehran says it supports the US-backed Iraqi government, and blames the violence on the continuing conflicts within Iraq since US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Can you do the math? Let's see, he was arrested in a Sulaimaniya HOTEL, not in a camp training people to place IED. And the Iraqi government official says the Iranian was "part of a commercial delegation." That's is as least as reliable and credible as any thing tha tcomes from the US military.

Well now, I don't know, maybe its just my overactive imagination (or maybe its good intuition), but something about these two stories seems to go together. Was this so-called Quds officer actually "on holiday" to go to the new casino in Sulaimaniya? Was he there in cognito as a commercial delegation in a hotel so as not to get caught offending his Islamic community? Or was the commercial delegation there to witness how the new casino was going and possibly become backers or suppliers in the casino?

So far what we can feel is credibly established is (1) that an Iranian guy was kidnapped from his hotel by the US military; (2) the US has until now claimed without any evidence that the Quds force has been supplying IEDs to Iraqi insurgents; (3) the US is now trying to connect the Iranian Quds to provide the missing evidence of their claim, and (4) an Iraqi government official says the Iranian was part of a commercial delegation.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that whatever the Iranian was doing, he wasn't doing what the US military said he was doing.

For comparison with the reliability of the US military version of things, check out Greg Palast's report on the fake Sheik Abu Risha: Bush’s Fake Sheik Whacked: The Surge and the Al Qaeda Bunny and the video reporting that it is based on.

Whatever is going on in Sulaimaniya, it sounds like it is jumping with activity and with promises of get-rich-quick business deals and opportunities under the cover of capitalist democracy. I don't think we've heard the last of Sulaimaniya.

Greg Palast Tells the Truth Again.

The best investigative reporter in the USA does it again by presenting the facts about the phony Sheik who received millions in bribe money from the USA. Palast also exposes the real Sheiks who also are getting the millions but didn't want to share. They are the ruthless murderous "leaders" of ethnic cleansing that the USA have bought to be "friends." Unfortunately, these new friends are criminals of the worst sort.

Bush’s Fake Sheik Whacked:
The Surge and the Al Qaeda Bunny

A special investigative report from inside Iraq
by Greg Palast

Monday, September 17, 2007- Did you see George all choked up? In his surreal TV talk on Thursday, he got all emotional over the killing by Al Qaeda of Sheik Abu Risha, the leader of the new Sunni alliance with the US against the insurgents in Anbar Province, Iraq.

Bush shook Abu Risha's hand two weeks ago for the cameras. Bush can shake his hand again, but not the rest of him: Abu Risha was blown away just hours before Bush was to go on the air to praise his new friend.

Here's what you need to know that NPR won't tell you.

1. Sheik Abu Risha wasn't a sheik.
2. He wasn't killed by Al Qaeda.
3. The new alliance with former insurgents in Anbar is as fake as the sheik - and a murderous deceit.

How do I know this? You can see the film - of "Sheik" Abu Risha, of the guys who likely whacked him and of their other victims.

Rest of story at Bush’s Fake Sheik Whacked: The Surge and the Al Qaeda Bunny

Election Litmus Tests - Why I Will Never Vote for Hillary

Some people don't belive in Presidential Litmus Tests. I do. But not just one, I have several.

That is why I will never vote for Hillary Clinton. She fails too many of my Litmus Tests.

Litmus Test #1: The Iraq war is wrong, immoral, and illegal, and doesn't even achieve the stated goals, so withdrawal as soon as possible is the only viable plan.

Hillary fails this litmus test. By her own admission she actually believed George Bush's lies about the war and wasn't smart enough to know he was lying. Not only that, she still doesn't recognize there was not good reason to go into Iraq and no good reason to stay, yet she is a believer in USA global military hegemony and advocates keeping troops inside Iraq for the long haul This is completely unaccepable.

Litmus Test #2: Health care needs to be single-payer, government supervised payments (not government doctors), not-for-profit, i.e., the plan proposed by HR 676.

Hillary fails this litmus test. Hillary's plan is a mandatory health insurance plan, not a health care plan. Her plan makes criminals out of people who can't afford health insurance if they don't buy it. Her plan lines the pockets of the profiteering medical insurance industry.

Litmus Test #3: As with slavery, the Death Penalty needs to be abolished if we are to become a fully civilized nation. Why should we continue to be in the company of The People's Republic of China, Iran, and the Democratic Republic of Congo as the "most prolific executioners in the world"? The USA is along with these and other dictatorships (such as Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Egypt, etc.) among the Death Penalty club of nations in a "coalition of the killing."

Hillary fails this litmus test. Hillary supports the death penalty knowing that it is flawed yet refusing to admit it is incurably flawed.

Litmus Test #4: Human rights for immigrants is essential. The Border Wall is a travesty. Walls are not the way to deal with border issues. The Berlin Wall was once a symbol of totalitarian oppression, now the Israeli Wall and the USA Wall are the symbols of totalitarian oppression in the 21st Century.

Hillary fails this litmus test. Hillary voted for and continues to support the building of the Wall along the Mexican border. The Wall being only built along Mexico is racist in its conception. And should we even mention the anti-environmental and anti-ecological impacts?

Litmus Test #5: Israel is a spoiled child who is now committing oppression upon innocent Palestinians in a manner all too similar to how the Jews were oppressed. Israel has managed to turn the whole Gaza Strip into one giant ghetto. The inhumanity of Israel's illegal occupation and containment of Gaza and the West Bank are insufferable.

Hillary fails this litmus test. She continues to support Israel blindly without question. She supports Israel's inhumane Wall. She opposes a Palestinian state unless it is dictated by Israel's terms. She would condition aid to the Palestinian's based on their "violence" yet would not do a thing about Israel's violence.

Litmus Test #6: Separation of Church and State is an inviolate doctrine of democracy.

Hillary fails this test as she is a member of the Christian right-wing Senate prayer group run by the religious nuts of "the Fellowship"!

Litmus Test #7: Weapons of impersonal destruction like land minds, cluster bombs, and uranium coated weapons are anti-human, anti-nature, anti-sanity. These weapons must be banned. They alread meet the defiinitions for weapons banned even though the USA refuses to admit it.

Hillary fails this test. She has not challenged the war industry on the fundamental wrong of making these weapons.

Litmus Test #8: Abortion needs to be a universal human right. Anti-abortion legislation is an indicator of fascist tendencies in society.

This is the only test Hillary passes, at least I think she passes, sort of. She has stated, "I have said many times that I can support a ban on late-term abortions, including partial-birth abortions, so long as the health and life of the mother is protected." So even here she doesn't have the guts to challenge the label and instead accepts and uses the right wing's false framing label of "partial birth abortions," and she doesn't go the distance to say that abortion is an issue between a woman and her doctor, period.

Unfortunately, passing only 1 (barely) out of 8 of my Litmus Tests won't get me to vote for her. As Hillary is a certified member of the corporate establishment who bankroll her, I would rather vote for a candidate from a party not in the two-party dictatorship than vote for Hillary. I prefer my fascism as open as possible rather than to have to deal with the stealth fascism of Democrats like Hillary Clinton who only confuse people into voting for their own oppression by the corporate plutocracy.

Who you gonna call, if you want not for profit health care?

How could Rose Ann DeMoro write an article on Hillary Clinton's proposed health care plan, complain that Hillary learned the wrong lesson when she is proposing a plan that lines the pockets of the profiteering health "care" industry, and state Hillary's "plan is a smorgasbord of the worst elements of what we've seen and heard from some other presidential candidates", all without mentioning the name of the one candidate who is proposing exactly the plan that DeMoro wishes?

DeMoro says Hillary "might have decided to cut them [i.e., the health care Incs,] out of the business of profiting off pain, suffering and medical debt, and proposed a very different solution, such as expanding Medicare, Medicaid, or the State Children's Health Program to cover everyone." Well, DeMoro, too, "might have decided" to mention that Dennis Kucinich is the only presidential candidate whose health care plan does exactly that!

One has to wonder why Kucinich, the only truly pro-labor candidate (e.g., for repeal of Taft-Hartly) who is also for a single payer not-for-profit health care plan, is totally absent from the health care discussion by DeMoro who is a nurse and national vice president of the AFL-CIO. Perhaps if the AFL-CIO would support Kucinich and his health care plan, then DeMoro would not be wondering what his name is or act like there is no candidate offering the plan she wants.

Gregory Wonderwheel
Santa Rosa, CA

Votes and Vetos

Portside Tidbits
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007
From: Gregory Wonderwheel
Subject: Votes and Vetos.

A veto by any other name is just as effective. The
Democrats are using a double standard when is comes to
impeachement of Bush and funding the war on Iraq. When
it comes to impeachment, the Dems are vetoing putting
the measure forward because they say they don't have
the votes to pass it. Yet when it comes to funding the
war they put if forward becasue they say they don't
have the votes to override a veto.

In practice, the Congress doesn't have to worry about
the presidential veto if they exercise their "veto" of
the funding bill in the same way that they veto
impeachment. The President's funding bills are
effectively "vetoed" if Congress just doesn't let any
funding measures out of committee. While the Democrats
can't vote to override a veto, they should be able to
not vote at all as long as funds are for continuing the
war and thus their veto defunds the war.