side note: This is some cool stuff…..I just can’t imagine a life without contact with the rest of the world. No technology….nothing. Then again, with all the crap going on in our world……living like this may not be so bad! This particular tribe was discovered between the Brazil and Peru border
BBC.com
side note: This is a major step in this long, drawn out process. Hopefully this will get the ball rolling…..
by: Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers
Washington – Twenty former US attorneys, both Republicans and Democrats, urged a federal judge Thursday to intervene in a constitutional battle over whether two White House officials should be forced to testify before Congress about the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.
The former top prosecutors, including two who served under President Bush, argue in court papers that the judge should reject the Bush administration’s assertion of blanket immunity for presidential chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in the congressional investigation.
Democrats in the House of Representatives say they were forced to sue in March, more than a year after they launched the probe, because the administration has refused to allow Miers and Bolten to provide crucial information about the reasons the prosecutors were fired. The case also could determine how former presidential adviser Karl Rove responds to a subpoena in a related congressional investigation.
The lawsuit accuses administration officials of injecting partisan considerations into the firing decisions and making “questionable or outright false statements” in subsequent explanations to Congress. (more…)
MSNBC
Obama picked up the support of West Virginia congressman and superdelegate Alan Mollohan. Obama now actually leads Clinton 4-3 in superdelegate endorsements in a state she won by 41 percentage points. Additionally, the Obama supporters are all elected officials, including Sen. Robert Byrd. Gov. Joe Manchin is the only elected superdelegate not to have endorsed yet.
Clinton got Washington state party vice chair Eileen Macoll, which we reported on earlier. In First Thoughts, we mentioned the Obama pick up of Gail Rasmussen from Oregon.
The NBC NEWS Delegate Counts:
PLEDGED: Obama 1,649 to 1,500
SUPERDELEGATES: Obama 321.5 to 284.5
EDWARDS PL.: Obama 12 to 0
TOTAL: Obama 1,982.5 to 1,784.5
side note: I know I’ve been rough on Scottyboy…but for good reason. He helped create an atmosphere that enabled this administration to sell the war. It doesn’t matter that he was mislead….he was privy to some info and he could have come out earlier. With that being said…….it has been nice to hear confirmations of what we all thought this entire time! It does appear (this interview) that Scotty doesn’t want to put so much blame on dubya…but instead on the culture of Washington. Which I feel is bullshit!! But….a dubya insider with a “tell-all” book is still great to have!! I hope Congress asks Scotty to testify…I think it’s a good idea to get his story on the official record.
side note: Going along with the below article…I wonder if Obama, if he’s elected, will be able to do something about the Pentagon and the role it now plays in just about everything?
By Frida Berrigan
Tomdispatch.com
A full-fledged cottage industry is already focused on those who eagerly await the end of the Bush administration, offering calendars, magnets, and t-shirts for sale as well as counters and graphics to download onto blogs and websites. But when the countdown ends and George W. Bush vacates the Oval Office, he will leave a legacy to contend with. Certainly, he wills to his successor a world marred by war and battered by deprivation, but perhaps his most enduring legacy is now deeply embedded in Washington-area politics — a Pentagon metastasized almost beyond recognition.
The Pentagon’s massive bulk-up these last seven years will not be easily unbuilt, no matter who dons the presidential mantle on January 19, 2009. “The Pentagon” is now so much more than a five-sided building across the Potomac from Washington or even the seat of the Department of Defense. In many ways, it defies description or labeling.
Who, today, even remembers the debate at the end of the Cold War aboutå what role U.S. military power should play in a “unipolar” world? Was U.S. supremacy so well established, pundits were then asking, that Washington could rely on softer economic and cultural power, with military power no more than a backup (and a domestic “peace dividend” thrown into the bargain)? Or was the U.S. to strap on the six-guns of a global sheriff and police the world as the fountainhead of “humanitarian interventions”? Or was it the moment to boldly declare ourselves the world’s sole superpower and wield a high-tech military comparable to none, actively discouraging any other power or power bloc from even considering future rivalry? (more…)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Hilary Rosen
Tonight at the “All Things Digital” conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch — Chairman of News Corp, new WSJ owner, and longtime torchbearer for conservative politics — said this about Barack Obama: “He is a rock star. It’s fantastic” “I love what he is saying about education.” “I don’t think he will win Florida…..but he will win in Ohio and the election”. “I am anxious to meet him.” “I want to see if he will walk the walk.”
About the presumptive Republican nominee, Murdoch said, “McCain is a friend of mine. He’s a patriot. But he’s unpredicatble. Doesn’t seem to know much about the economy. He has been in Congress a long time, and you have to make a lot of compromises. So what’s he really stand for?… I think he has a lot of problems.”
see original
Reuters | Deborah Charles
Maybe it’s his background teaching constitutional law.
If elected president, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama said one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the constitutionality of all the laws and executive orders passed while Republican President George W. Bush has been in office.
Those that don’t pass muster will be overturned, he said. (more…)
side note: You know, Mr. Blair sat in meetings with dubya and tried to figure out ways to start a war with Iraq…..those Downing Street Memos showed what kind of leader he was. However, I do believe that when people think their legacy is going to be negative….they suddenly change their ways. It may be for selfish reasons, but at least getting the word out on climate change is good for the rest of us as well…..
By Tony Blair
Washington Post
The climate change bill that senators are to begin debating next week is a hugely important signal of intent on behalf of U.S. legislators. Yes, negotiations could still alter the legislation. But the bill’s core proposition is correct: Unless the United States radically reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, along with other major emitters, the damage to the climate will be irreversible.
Radical reduction is unlikely to happen through voluntary action alone. Measures in the bill, through a mandatory cap-and-trade scheme, would reduce emissions 70 percent from 2005 levels by 2050. These cuts would be based on a carbon market incentive system that moves with the grain of action around the globe.
Over the past few years, the debate on climate change has shifted profoundly. The scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming has become overwhelming. The effect of unabated climate change is shocking and, as was shown by the report of Sir Nicholas Stern — the first authoritative study of the economics of climate change, commissioned by the British government in 2006 — it is far riskier economically to ignore climate change than to act to abate it.
New environmental technologies, in fact, already drive a multibillion-dollar industry. Last year, an estimated $148 billion was invested in clean-energy technologies, companies and projects, a 60 percent increase from 2006.
Round the planet, people are developing exciting technologies, changing their behavior and agitating for action so that responsibility on the environment will come in a way that is consistent with necessary economic growth.
Meanwhile, fears over energy security create a synergy with the climate debate. With oil above $130 a barrel, there are reasons to act irrespective of concern for the atmosphere. Reducing carbon dependency also goes to the heart of our basic security needs for the future. I have long thought that energy policy is only a small way behind defense in terms of strategic importance to our way of life. (more…)
side note: What kind of F’ed-up, bizarro world are we living in?!?!?!? Joe Lieberman is going to share a stage with a man who claims the Holocaust was an instrument of God intended to shepherd the Jews back to the Holy Land in order to set in motion the prophesies necessary for the second coming of Christ!!! The freakin’ Holocaust?!?!?!? Lieberman just blows my mind. He is so blinded by Middle East politics that he has sold his soul and his country’s stability to the devil.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Lieberman says he’ll speak at a July conference hosted by Rev. John Hagee, 
whose endorsement was recently rejected by Republican John McCain because of Hagee’s controversial remarks about religion.
Lieberman, one of presumed GOP presidential nominee McCain’s strongest supporters, said Wednesday while Hagee’s comments were unacceptable and hurtful, he will judge him on his life work fighting anti-Semitism and building bridges between Christians and Jews.
Lieberman, I-Conn., will speak at Hagee’s “Christians United for Israel” summit in Washington.
McCain last week repudiated the months-old endorsement by the preacher after an audio recording surfaced in which Hagee said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land.
side note: This is awesome! It can sometimes be a pain not knowing what fruit or veggie is in season. This is a great tool to figure out what is in season. For example: asparagus, cabbage, cherries, cucumbers, leeks, lettuce, peas, potatoes, rhubarb and strawberries are currently in season in Illinois. Enjoy!
epicurious.com
side note: here’s what the journal had today regarding this story. they basically took excerpts from the book.
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com
Scott McClellan worked as a loyal press spokesman for George W. Bush for eight years, ultimately becoming White House Press Secretary . He resigned from that position in 2006, in the wake of the controversy over the Valerie Plame leak scandal.
In his new book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” he offers a harshly critical portrait of the president and his administration. Going to war in Iraq was a mistake, he concludes. But an even more fundamental mistake was the administration’s decision “to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”
What follows are excerpts from his book: (more…)
side note: I don’t give a rat’s ass what this SOB has to say now….we needed him to say this stuff while he was still standing behind that podium. It is nice to have all of our accusations confirmed however……
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
The New York Times
PHOENIX — President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and has engaged in “self-deception” to justify his political ends, Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, writes in a critical new memoir about his years in the West Wing.
In addition, Mr. McClellan writes, the decision to invade Iraq was a “serious strategic blunder,” and yet, in his view, it was not the biggest mistake the Bush White House made. That, he says, was “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”
Mr. McClellan’s book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” is the first negative account by a member of the tight circle of Texans around Mr. Bush. Mr. McClellan, 40, went to work for Mr. Bush when he was governor of Texas and was the White House press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006. (more…)
side note: call, email, and pass along. the only way change will happen is if people get up and demand it.
With session scheduled to end this Thursday, May 29, HB 5938 is in danger of languishing in the House Rules Committee without further action.
Here are three things you can do today to help ensure HB 5938 gets the attention it deserves:
#3 (more…)
side note: I wake up this morning and the first thing that catches my eye is this TNR article about MSNBC and the way they cover politics. I was a bit disappointed in this article…..all the shit we’ve uncovered in the past 2-5 years about this administration….and we get this attack b/c a few anchors want to cover it? It’s about god-damn time we had a network actually cover the news! Don’t get me wrong…MSNBC employs Pat Buchanan, Scarbough, and a few other pundits who swing to the right…….and I’ve disagreed with Matthews plenty of times….I am a huge fan of Olbermann, he does a fantastic job night in, night out!
Isaac Chotiner
The New Republic
The pro-Obama case against MSNBC’s pro-Obama political coverage.
Two weeks ago, on the night of Barack Obama’s big win and narrow loss in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, respectively, I turned my television set to MSNBC, as I normally do on election nights. It was early in the evening, and Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann were discussing the first exit polls that were trickling in. Considering that the exit polls in these contests have been–to say the least–a bit unreliable, I assumed that they weren’t going to put much stock in the numbers. Just two weeks earlier, I had watched MSNBC’s coverage of the Pennsylvania primary, where an excited Matthews practically gave the state to Obama, only to acknowledge later that Clinton had easily won. Surely, Matthews and company were not going to make the same mistake again.
They didn’t–but only because the exit polls, predicting a good night for Obama, happened to be right; the coverage itself was exactly the same. And this was only the latest example of the network’s undeniable Obama favoritism. David Shuster’s comment about the Clintons’ “pimping out” their daughter, Chelsea, was clearly boneheaded, but, as Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed out, it caused such a stir among Clintonites because it highlighted the rest of the network’s anti-Hillary coverage. Now, that’s not to say that their slant has been bad for business; to the contrary. And it has certainly made for some enjoyable television–Matthews is often supremely engaging (who, after all, does not enjoy watching someone exclaim that seeing Obama speak gives him a “thrill going up my leg”), and however withering he can be, Olbermann is frequently hilarious. But the network’s coverage has helped create a bubble around Obama supporters that in the end is neither healthy nor desirable. (more…)
by: Peter G. Gosselin, The Los Angeles Times
After years of increases, some fear a tipping point has finally been reached.
Only a few weeks ago, prominent policymakers and economists were cheerfully asserting that the U.S. economy would dodge recession and keep chugging forward despite a housing bust, a credit crunch and continuing job losses.
“The data are pretty clear that we are not in recession,” said President Bush’s chief economist, Edward Lazear. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. declared “the worst is likely to be behind us” and confidently predicted that more than $100 billion in tax rebates would help create half a million new jobs by the end of the year.
But instead of clearing, the skies over the economy have ominously darkened in recent days. The chief reason is oil. And there are signs the nation may have reached an economic tipping point after years of shrugging off the petroleum problem.
“We may finally have crossed the line where the price of crude actually matters for most companies,” said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at New York financial firm Miller Tabak & Co. “The stock market has been in la-la land when it comes to oil, but they got a pretty good dose of reality the last few days.” (more…)
