Yesterday Bill Clinton said Hillary Clinton’s number one priority as president would be to
send "[him] and former President Bush and a number of other people around the world to tell them that America is open for business and cooperation again." As I said yesterday, that’s a bold statement for several reasons. The former President Bush said no thanks.
In a statement sent to CNN Tuesday afternoon, former President Bush’s chief of staff Jean Becker said that he “wholeheartedly supports the President of the United States, including his foreign policy. He has never discussed an ‘around-the-world-mission’ with either former President Bill Clinton or Sen. Clinton, nor does he think such a mission is warranted since he is proud of the role America continues to play around the world as the beacon of hope for freedom and democracy.
I could not imagine Poppy Bush admitting Junior had royally screwed the world up. Junior may be a tyrant, but Poppy still sees him as Junior. What father wouldn’t?
There is nothing that gives more pleasure to the neocons and Republicans in Congress when they wrongly characterize and slander those who oppose them as terrorists, terrorist-sympathizers, and accuse them of not-supporting the troops. They promote themselves as the true patriots and oftentimes to the level of deity. We know that’s a bunch of crap and it’s just outright lies. They don’t know patriotism or a patriot when they see it.
In the FISAdebateyesterday, Chris Dodd did what few will even consider. He stood up for a just cause. He spoke for the people who desperately wanted to be heard in Congress. He sacrificed personally by suspending his important campaign activities in Iowa so he could be in Washington. He defied the majority of his party and Congress as a whole. Most importantly, he took action based on what he thought was right and what the people were telling him, and did so knowing the potential personal risks.
While Barack Obama has a nine-point lead in Iowa, and conventional wisdom puts the focus on Obama and Clinton, I see it as anything but a two-person race. John Edwards is still very much in the game in Iowa, especially if you consider what the majority of the media doesn’t tell you.
First, the current poll: Barack Obama is at 33, and Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are tied at 24. Ok, I’ll go along with that, but there is an element not reflected in those numbers that should be considered — campaign strategies. Strategy is why Newsweek featured John Edwards as “The Sleeper” in its current edition.
In a five-page feature article, Newsweek points out that a major element of Edwards’ campaign strategy in Iowa is not just the more populated areas, but includes every one-stop-light town in Iowa. Other candidates have not, at least not as long or with as much intensity. The salient point is a small town with a population of 2,800 can deliver as many votes in the caucuses as a city with 100,000 people. They both get to send 25 people to the caucuses.
For months, Edwards has been rounding up support in the state’s rural precincts where the front runners have paid less attention. While Obama and Clinton have drawn crowds in the thousands in places like Des Moines and Ames, Edwards has been winning over people in tiny towns like Sac City (population: 2,189). That’s important, the strategists say, because under Iowa’s arcane caucus rules, a precinct where 25 people show up to vote gets the same number of delegates as a place that packs in 2,500. In other words, even if he loses to Obama and Clinton in the state’s bigger cities, he can still win by wrapping up smaller, far-flung precincts that other candidates have ignored. “The bulk of our support is in small and medium counties,” says Jennifer O’Malley, Edwards’s Iowa state director. O’Malley says Edwards has visited all 99 counties in the state; the campaign has so far trained captains covering 90 percent of all 1,781 precincts. Rural voters are sometimes reluctant to caucus, so the campaign has been enlisting respected community leaders to encourage first-timers to get past their apathy or fear.
MSNBC and CNN provide little, if any, coverage in places like Sac City, therefore few outside of Iowa see the wheels in motion. If Edwards’ strategy is right and the residents of the small towns commit to Edwards, it could be a substantial factor.
So, now the U.S. is assisting the Iraqi government strike the Kurds. By and large, the Kurds have not been a problem, except for being a thorn in Mailiki’s side. One of the main reasons Iraq has not been able to implement an oil-sharing revenue law is Maliki’s dislike, to put it mildly, of the Kurds.
When Bush signed the virtual treaty with Iraq (see
"U.S.-Iraq Declaration of Principles for Friendship and Cooperation"), many believed it was Bush choosing sides with the Shiites, amongst other things. So, maybe Maliki gets his proxy-war with the Kurds via the U.S. and Turkey??
Civil Defense - does that even exist anymore? Who knows, but be prepared, Dick Cheney’s prophecy is coming true. And they’ve landed in Monkey Point, Nicaragua!
That’s what the San Antonio Express-News is reporting, and of course FOX News is featuring the paper’s exclusive.
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) is calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney and he is deadly serious. Wexler has joined three other members of the House Judiciary Committee in support of a resolution Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced last month (H. Res. 799), and unbelievably made it to the committee for review. The resolution has obviously not received the attention some members of the committee would prefer, therefore Wexler has joined the group and taken the matter to the public via a new Web site.
Wexler appears to be leading this group now (it is his Web site), which includes, Representatives Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). The three Representatives wrote an op-ed on the merits of impeaching Cheney’s impeachment and reportedly sent it to several major news outlets, such as the New York Times, but were turned down by every news organization. Hence, the justification for the Web site.
The Web site, wexlerwantshearings.com, opened December 13 and received a stunning 50,000 responses the first day. As of this post, 87,111 people have signed the online petition. up to join their campaign. Ralphlopez at MyDD believes Wexler “could easily get closer to 500,000 signatures over the next few days.”
This is the video Wexler features on the site.
Check it out.
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