Category: Politics

Topic Header

Protests on Saturday in DC, LA

Jon Ponder

Los Angeles Times:

The Los Angeles protest is to begin at noon outside the California Democratic Party’s Los Angeles office at 888 S. Figueroa St., with participants marching past City Hall to the federal building at 300 N. Los Angeles St.

Emboldened by the Democratic takeover of Congress and shrinking public support for the Iraq war, antiwar groups are planning what they hope will be a massive protest Saturday on the National Mall.

Similar events are planned in dozens of cities around the country, with some of the largest expected in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Organizers said they aim to put pressure on both the White House and Congress to end the war.

“The message will be ‘Mr. President, bring our troops home,’ ” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma), one of several politicians, activists and actors scheduled to speak in Washington.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow/Push Coalition, one of the rally sponsors, is also scheduled to appear on the mall, organizers said. Others on the lineup are Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, a longshot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, and actors Jane Fonda, Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

“We’re predicting this will be one of the largest demonstrations since the war began,” said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, the umbrella group organizing the Washington protest…

In Los Angeles, about 100 groups are planning to gather downtown. Organizers expect tens of thousands of marchers, including many bused in from Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Rallies are also planned in San Francisco, San Diego, Mount Shasta and Palm Springs.

The Los Angeles protest is to begin at noon outside the California Democratic Party’s Los Angeles office at 888 S. Figueroa St., with participants marching past City Hall to the federal building at 300 N. Los Angeles St.

Speakers will include Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq and became a symbol of the antiwar movement after camping out in protest near President Bush’s Texas ranch, and Ron Kovic, the antiwar activist and Vietnam veteran who wrote “Born on the Fourth of July.”

About 300 soldiers from California have been killed in Iraq, more than from any other state.

Sen. Tim Johnson Continues to Recover

Buck Banks

Six weeks after suffering a brain hemorrhage, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is responding well to therapy, but his return to work still looks like a distant prospect. Why it matters — Johnson’s continued absence from the Senate gives the Democrats only a 50-49 voting majority over the Repugs.

“Senator Johnson is showing evidence of more functional, spontaneous speech and is indicating preferences. He is answering questions and following commands appropriately,” said Dr. Philip Marion, medical director of the hospital’s Department of Rehabilitative Medicine, where Johnson is being treated as an inpatient.

Johnson was moved from the intensive care unit Jan. 11.

According to a statement released by his office Thursday, Johnson’s has been watching movies with his family when he is not working with physical and speech therapists. He has asked that his television be tuned to CNN, and his wife Barbara said he is aware that President Bush mentioned him in the State of the Union address.

“Tim is following the news closely and was honored that the President remembered him,” she said.

Well, if he’s “answering questions and following commands appropriately,” he’s already doing better than George W. Bush.

Pelosi Says Bush Did Not Consult Her on War Escalation

Jon Ponder

George W. Bush is not the only American aristocrat in office today. But Ted Kennedy, Jay Rockefeller and others see themselves as public servants. On the other hand, Bush sees himself as a king, with all the royal entitlements thereto ascribed:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that President George W. Bush did not consult her before announcing his new strategy for the war in Iraq — a sign that, despite the cozy rhetoric, the relationship between Washington’s two powerhouses has already had its share of friction.

In an interview, Pelosi also said she was puzzled by what she considered the president’s minimalist explanation for his confidence in the new surge of 21,500 U.S. troops that he has presented as the crux of a new “way forward” for U.S. forces in Iraq.

“He’s tried this two times — it’s failed twice,” the California Democrat said. “I asked him at the White House, ‘Mr. President, why do you think this time it’s going to work?’ And he said, ‘Because I told them it had to.’ ”

Asked if the president had elaborated, she added that he simply said, ” ‘I told them that they had to.’ That was the end of it. That’s the way it is.”

Cheney Refuses to Defend Gay Daughter Against Rightwing Attacks

Jon Ponder

Despicable: Vice Pres. Dick Cheney is apparently deeply ashamed of his gay daughter, Mary. In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer yesterday, the vice president refused to defend Mary against Christian extremist smears directed at her pregnancy. Instead, Cheney resorted to attacking Blitzer for asking the question:

“I think that family members ought to be off the limits.”
— White House spokesman Tony Snow

BLITZER: You know, we’re out of time, but a couple of issues I want to raise with you: your daughter, Mary. She’s pregnant. All of us are happy she’s going to have a baby. You’re going to have another grandchild. Some of the — some critics are suggesting — for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family, “Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for children. Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean that it’s best for the child.” Do you want to respond to that?

CHENEY: No.

BLITZER: She’s, obviously, a good daughter —

CHENEY: I’m delighted I’m about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf. And obviously I think the world of both my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you’re out of line with that question.

BLITZER: I think all of us appreciate —

CHENEY: I think you’re out of line.

BLITZER: We like your daughters. Believe me, I’m very sympathetic to Liz and to Mary. I like them both. That was a question that’s come up, and it’s a responsible, fair question.

CHENEY: I just fundamentally disagree with you.

BLITZER: I want to congratulate you on having another grandchild.

What a horrendous man Dick Cheney is. There are any number of ways he could have fielded this question — a gentle punt, for example, “We’re all entitled to our opinions, Wolf. I just respectfully disagree with the criticism” — but instead he chose a political tactic: Attack the messenger, Blizter, a representative of the purported liberal media, which will play well with his troglodyte base.

Later, White House spokesman Tony Snow had this outrageous reaction:

“People should not be trying to draw family members in,” Snow said on Fox News Channel. “I think that family members ought to be off the limits.”

Unless the “people” drawing family members in are Republicans, and the families in question belong to Democrats such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Call to Arms for Young Conservatives: Bush Needs You! (Last Chance)

Jon Ponder

Now Is the Time for All Young Republicans to Come to the Aid of Their Dear Leader

Sign up! Sign up! Be part of the surge. Pres. Bush needs young Republicans to volunteer for service in Iraq. He especially needs the sons and daughters of members of his administration, his appointees and of Republican members of Congress to help him fight “the enemy” in Iraq.

Last night, in his State of the Union speech, Dear Leader sent out a call to arms:

Tonight I ask the Congress to authorize an increase in the size of our active Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 in the next five years. (Applause.) A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.

It’s time for all GOP Dead-enders and One-Hundred-Percenters — the 30 percent of Americans who support this president and his war — to get their kids off their duffs, into uniform and onto streets of Baghdad.

Come on, boys and girls! Show us liberals that he is right and we are wrong.

To arms! To arms! To arms and Iraq!

CIA Leak: Ari Fleischer Took the Fifth, Testified Under Immunity

Jon Ponder

I have long suspected that Ari Fleischer was up to this eyeballs in the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity to Bob Novak. Yesterday, during the lawyers’ opening statements in the perjury trial of Scooter Libby, Fleischer’s activities at the time were revealed — as was new information that Fleischer testified about his involvement under a grant of immunity from prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald:

Fleischer was a short-timer when Plame’s name was leaked to Novak. He was replaced by Scott McClellan on July 15, 2003, the day after Novak’s column was published.

[As] the two legal teams began their courtroom battle, new information was disclosed about the leak affair, including the revelation that Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary at the time of the leak, had identified Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer to NBC News reporter David Gregory a week before the leak appeared in Robert Novak’s July 14, 2003 column, and that Fleischer, during the subsequent criminal investigation, took the Fifth Amendment and demanded (and received) immunity before testifying to Fitzgerald’s’ grand jury.

Fleischer told the grand jury that he had learned about Valerie Wilson’s CIA affiliation first from Libby and then from Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. (This directly implicated yet two more White House officials in the scandal.) Gregory, though, did not report the information, and he later declined to talk to Fitzgerald about his conversation with Fleischer. Fitzgerald never subpoenaed him. (In a response to an email from a colleague asking about today’s disclosure, Gregory emailed, “I can’t help you, sorry.”) The first day of the trial also brought the news that after the Justice Department opened an investigation of the CIA leak in fall 2003, Cheney pressured the White House press office to make a statement clearing Libby of any wrongdoing.

What prompted all this was former Amb. Joe Wilson’s column on July 7, 2003, in the New York Times, titled, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” in which he accused Pres. Bush of lying about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program in his State of the Union speech in January 2003. It appears that Fleischer gave reporter David Gregory Plame’s identity within a day or two after Wilson’s article appeared.

Fleischer had announced his resignation in May 2003, and was a short-timer when Plame’s name was leaked to Novak. He was replaced by Scott McClellan on July 15, 2003, the day after Novak’s column was published.

SOTU: Jim Webb for President

Jon Ponder

There couldn’t have been a starker contrast between Pres. Bush’s pre-packaged pablum in the State of the Union speech last night and the Democratic response from Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia. In particular, what he said about Iraq was devastating to Bush’s tissue of lies and homilies:

This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night.

[This] country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues – those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death – we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm’s way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us – sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable – and predicted – disarray that has followed.

The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering: Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world. The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism. And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq’s cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

Newt Gingrich — High Roller

Buck Banks

Snake eyes: Newt brings a whole new meaning to “craps”:

American Solutions for Winning the Future, a Section 527 group set up in October by former Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), reported receiving $1 million on 11/14/06 from Sheldon G. Adelson, chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, a hotel and gaming company. The group’s goals are “To build a movement which focuses on developing and implementing a generation of solutions for winning the future both here at home and abroad.” Also contributing to the group was Rayna Casey of Atlanta, GA. ($25,000 on 10/10), and Michael G. Berolzheimer, director of California Cedar Products ($35,000 on 11/1).

Muslim Clerics Urge Sunnis, Shiites to Unite in the Fight Against Foreign Aggression

Buck Banks

Invasion persuasion: It’s happened — the mullahs have figured out the only way to get us out of Iraq is to get the Shiites and Sunnis to stop torturing and killing each other and to join together to torture and kill Americans. One wonders why it took them three years to figure that out.

It came down at a kind of cleric’s convention in Qatar last weekend:

We have an obligation to fight foreign occupation of Muslim countries and we should be united against foreign aggression.

A prominent Sunni Muslim cleric on Monday called on warring Sunnis and Shi’ites in Iraq to stop sectarian violence and fight U.S.-led “foreign occupiers”.

“It is a taboo for Muslims to kill each other,” said Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric living in Qatar.

The call to unite against “foreign occupiers” came after a three-day religious forum in Qatar grouping more than 200 Sunni and Shi’ite scholars from more than 40 countries.

“We have an obligation to fight foreign occupation of Muslim countries and we should be united against foreign aggression,” Qaradawi added.
[…]