McCain Is Concerned With Iraq-Pakistan Border While Dissing Obama
July 21, 2008 6:14 pm

Matthew Yglesias

John McCain, like all decent Americans, is concerned about the trouble on the Iraq-Pakistan border. Ali Frick, like a typical liberal, derides this on the grounds that there is no such border. But if she had McCain's years of foreign policy expertise and extensive conversations with John McCain she would have access to this double super-secret map of the CENTCOM AOR:

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

Downsizing government to death
July 21, 2008 6:15 pm

By Eric Lotke, LA Times

Last week, consumers were worried about salmonella in their fresh tomatoes. Before that, it was E. coli in their spinach. Something is wrong. Eating a salad is not supposed to be a high-risk activity

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

Obama in Iraq
July 21, 2008 6:15 pm

Juan Cole

Despite all the talk about Iraq being "calm," I'd like to point out that the month just before the last visit Barack Obama made to Iraq (he went in January, 2006), there were 537 civilian and ISF Iraqi casualties. In June of this year, 2008, there were 554 according to AP. These are official statistics gathered passively that probably only capture about 10 percent of the true toll.

That is, the Iraqi death toll is actually still worse now than the last time Obama was in Iraq! (See the bombings and shootings listed below for Sunday). The hype around last year's troop escalation obscures a simple fact: that Obama formed his views about the need for the US to leave Iraq at a time when its security situation was very similar to what it is now! Why a return to the bad situation in late 05 and early 06 should be greeted by the GOP as the veritable coming of the Messiah is beyond me. You have people like Joe Lieberman saying silly things like if it weren't for the troop escalation, Obama wouldn't be able to visit Iraq. Uh, he visited it before the troop escalation, just fine.

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

Chris Matthews Makes Emotional Appeal For Voters To Be Racially Open
July 22, 2008 6:17 pm

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

Robertson Advocates Israel Striking Iran Before The 2008 Election
July 22, 2008 6:25 pm

Think Progress

On yesterday's edition of The 700 Club, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson sharply criticized the "moderate tone" the Bush administration has allegedly taken toward Iran and its nuclear weapons program. Robertson advocated that Israel look out for the "survival of its nation" and "make some kind of a strike" against Iranian nuclear facilities. He also predicted that it will likely happen before the 2008 elections:

But nevertheless, I think we can look in the next few months for Israel to make a strike - possibly before the next election - because I think George Bush -- to use the term an "amber light" - he?s given the amber, the yellow light, saying, "Caution, but go ahead."

Watch it:

Robertson's predictions often turn out to be wrong. In 2004, Robertson claimed that the Lord told him it would "be like a blowout" re-election for President Bush. (Bush ended up receiving just 51 percent of the vote.) In 2006, he incorrectly predicted that "the outcome of the war and the success of the economy will leave the Republicans in charge."

He does, however, have an inside track into the Bush administration. Last year, Robertson?s Regent University estimated that one in six of its graduates were employed in government work. Approximately 150 served in the Bush administration.

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

McCain Gets History Of The Surge Wrong, CBS Doesn't Air Footage
July 23, 2008 6:26 pm

As MSNBC's Keith Olbermann noted (video below), "CBS curiously, to say the least, left it on the edit room floor. It aired Katie Couric's question, but in response, it aired part of McCain's answer to the other question instead." (Ironically, this edit came on the same day that McCain's campaign released a video mocking the media's "love affair" with Obama.)

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

Watch Video: 'Wounded In America' Photography Exhibit Focuses On Gun Violence Survivors
July 24, 2008 6:28 pm

See photos of survivors at woundedinamerica.org

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

Obama the Snob?
July 24, 2008 6:29 pm

By Peter Hart, FAIR

It's safe to assume that Barack Obama knew he could expect certain lines of attack when he decided to run for president: whispers about his religious beliefs, for example, or questions regarding his patriotism. And sure enough, those issues came up almost as soon as the campaign started. But it's difficult to imagine that Obama - whose one grandfather was a high-school dropout and the other a colonial servant - expected to fend off the accusation that he is "elitist."

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

Rendering public opinion irrelevant
July 24, 2008 6:30 pm

Glenn Greenwald

One of the most striking aspects of our political discourse, particularly during election time, is how efficiently certain views that deviate from the elite consensus are banished from sight -- simply prohibited -- even when those views are held by the vast majority of citizens. The University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes -- the premiere organization for surveying international public opinion -- released a new survey a couple of weeks ago regarding public opinion on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including opinion among American citizens, and this is what it found:

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

Obama Berlin Speech
July 24, 2008 6:31 pm

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

How Wall Street Wrecked Your Retirement
July 25, 2008 6:32 pm

By Nicholas von Hoffman, The Nation

Our disfunctional financial system hit a new low last week when Citigroup, the hopeless wreck of Wall Street, announced it had lost $2.5 billion in the past three months -- a cheer went up, and so did the Dow. Only $2.5 billion; people were afraid the losses would be much higher. Happy days are here again......

......For years, the privatization propagandists have been telling people that when the time comes, Social Security will not be there for them. Now many are learning that it's their private savings that may not be there. They are discovering they have been forced into a system in which other people have, in effect, been allowed to gamble with their retirement savings and have lost it.

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)

McCaskill Takes On Military Industrial Complex
July 25, 2008 6:33 pm

The Defense Contract Audit Agency has "gotten caught in what could be the biggest auditing scandal in the history of this town, and I'm not exaggerating here. I will guarantee you, as auditors around the country learn about this, they're going to have disbelief and raw anger that this agency has impugned the integrity of government auditors everywhere by these kinds of irresponsible actions," McCaskill said.

(Go to URL for more.)

(Permalink)