The corporate media and the Clinton smear campaign have been trying to sell people on contradictory narratives.

One is meant for white voters. In that frame, Obama, who is half white, is the "black candidate." Blacks who vote for Obama are supposedly voting for him based on his race, while whites who vote for Clinton are supposedly not voting for Clinton based on her race. Never mind that a centrist like Obama has policies that are more favorable to people with lower and middle class incomes than the policies of a conservative like Clinton. It should be obvious that many African-Americans voting for Obama are voting based on their eoncomic interests. This frame also includes the claim that anyone who is voting against Clinton is rejecting her for her gender, but people voting for Clinton are in no way rejecting Obama's gender.

The other frame is meant to be seen by blacks. In that frame, Bill Clinton was more supportive of African-Americans (despite "welfare reform," attacks on affirmative action, the shabby treatment of Joycelyn Elders etc.) than any politician could ever be. Therefore, African-Americans should go along with older politicians in that community who are supporting Ms. Clinton.

The frames don't fit together, and each one is self-contradictory. Democrats aren't necessarily buying it. Many prominent women in the party are supporting Obama.

Caroline Kennedy's endorsement of Obama was delivered with the best political writing I've seen in a long time. It takes a lot to move someone as cynical as me, but Ms. Kennedy certainly did just that. Of course, an often published author should be expected to do better than the hack pundits and political speech writers so common today. Here is a gem from her endorsement Op-Ed in the New York Times:

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

Elizabeth B. Moynihan, widow of the Senator who actively promtoted Ms. Clinton's first Senate campaign, just endorsed Obama.

“The hope that John Kennedy characterized for Americans spread across the world, then faded with his death,” Mrs. Moynihan wrote. “I believe Obama, like Kennedy, has the gift to transcend obstacles and to inspire Americans to bring out the best in themselves. I firmly believe the election of Barack Obama would help restore hope and America’s image in the world.”

Prominent female Democratic officials are supporting Obama such as Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who is appearing in his campaign ads. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius also has given Obama the nod. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and Minnesota Congressmember Betty McCollum also have indicated their support for Obama.

Support for Obama among Democratic women crosses color lines and questions the narratives we are being handed. Of course, so does support for Ms. Clinton among African-Americans. We need to think critically at what we are being told by the media and the Clinton smear campaign.

People need to face reality. A vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary is a vote for Ralph Nader in the general election.

Listening to radio interviews with Ralph Nader over the past year or so, it has become apparent that Nader is much more likely to run an independent presidential candidacy if the money people succeed in getting Clinton the Democratic nomination. Nominating someone as right-wing as Ms. Clinton would practically force Nader to run.

Also, there are plenty of liberals like myself who will refuse to vote for a Republican, even a Republican like Hillary Clinton who pretends to be a Democrat. Some will vote for Nader. Personally, I will vote Green to use my vote to help build a third party (second party?) alternative to the right-wing garbage flung at us by many of the Democrats and all of the Republicans. Nevertheless, Nader has enough name-recognition to capitalize on the nomination of Clinton, should it occur.

What gets bizarre is seeing highly partisan Democrats who rant on about people who voted for Nader yet are pushing people out of the Democratic Party by supporting Clinton.

A choice between Clinton and McCain is no choice at all. It would be better to let Clinton lose and try to nominate a Democrat in 2012.

Dennis Kucinich really tells the truth about the influence of money in politics. Here is his House campaign message:



In a recent campaign email, he discussed the role of the corporate media in US politics with candor rarely seen from a US politician.

Over the past several weeks, the alphabets of corporate media dug their heels in the court system and in the federal agency established to protect and advocate fairness on the public airwaves (FCC), to keep Dennis Kucinich from bringing his ideas – your ideas – to the Democratic Presidential debates: ABC ... NBC ... GE ... MSNBC ... CNN.

On Sunday, another major media corporation, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer newspaper, followed the lead established by the national media, and demanded that Dennis Kucinich should be removed from his office as Congressman in the 10th District of Ohio. Why? "his defiance" of Congressional go-along, get-along policies.

It's time fight back against the powers that are trying to steal your power as citizens of the United States of America.
http://kucinich.us/contribute.html

So far, the corporate media have succeeded in setting the agenda. They have argued, for their own profit-driven and self-serving interests, that private corporations are exempt by the First Amendment from providing full and fair and non-pre-selected information to you, the people -- even though freedom of speech is your right under the U.S. Constitution.

They have manipulated the political and judicial process to ensure that private media corporations will decide what you can hear, what you can see, what you can read, and what you are allowed to know.

One of the reasons America needs Kucinich in Congress so desperately is that he keeps telling the truth when the corporations want politicians to just play along.

 

After Kucinich received only 2% of the vote in New Hampshire, I was open to supporting other candidates. The Clinton's use of Karl Rove style tactics convinced me that defeating a political dynasty whose campaign style is as Republican as its policies was the most important priority at the moment. I have supported Obama's presidential campaign since then while enthusiastically supporting Kucinich's reelection campaign for his House Seat.

I'm not the only one who is disgusted with the Clintons.

Obama's doubling of Clinton's vote in South Carolina shows that Democratic primary voters are disgusted with the Clinton smear campaign. But, primary voters are not the only people frustrated by Clintonism. Frank Rich skewers the Clintons in his latest column and questions Ms. Clinton's electability in the present context.

IN the wake of George W. Bush, even a miracle might not be enough for the Republicans to hold on to the White House in 2008. But what about two miracles? The new year’s twin resurrections of Bill Clinton and John McCain, should they not evaporate, at last give the G.O.P. a highly plausible route to victory.

Amazingly, neither party seems to fully recognize the contours of the road map. In the Democrats’ case, the full-throttle emergence of Billary, the joint Clinton candidacy, is measured mainly within the narrow confines of the short-term horse race: Do Bill Clinton’s red-faced eruptions and fact-challenged rants enhance or diminish his wife as a woman and a candidate?

Prominent Democratic functionaries have expressed their frustrations to the Clinton smear campaign.

The war of words raged between the two campaigns amid media reports prominent Democratic figures, Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative Rahm Emanuel, had recently phoned Bill Clinton and demanded to stop bashing Obama.

Emanuel's involvement is telling, since his policy positions are almost as conservative as the Clintons'. He runs the Democratic House campaign operation and knows a divided party will get in the way of his work.

Ari Melber, writing for The Nation and posted at the Huffington Post, attacks the Clinton's strategy.

An AP article after the victory reiterated the claim by Clinton strategists that Obama has been branded "the black candidate" - a supposedly negative development that "could hurt him" as the campaign continues. This "black candidate" strategy was advanced by a "top adviser" to Clinton in another article this weekend, concluding that recent attacks have "marginalize[d] Obama as 'The Black Candidate.'" And one more top adviser to Hillary, former President Bill Clinton, flatly claimed that Obama is "getting votes" because of his race, leaving Hillary with no chance to win South Carolina. The strategy turns on the unstated premise that Hillary will get votes for her race, too, and a lot more of them are available on Super Tuesday.

The Shakesville blog has the harshest words I've yet seen for the Clintons' tactics.

I've defended your wife from harsh attacks based on her gender. But I'll defend Barack Obama no less vigilantly from attacks on his race. When your wife's campaign is saying that they're pleased you've branded Obama as "the black candidate," well, all I can say is fuck you, Bill.

And while we're at it, fuck you too, Hillary, for authorizing and endorsing and supporting these attacks. I don't for a second think Bill's just out there saying stuff, without your approval. This is your campaign, and you're using Bill as the attack dog, so you can keep your hands clean. But this stuff is beyond the pale. You've taken a lot of crap in this campaign from the media and from allies of you opponents. You don't deserve it. But that hasn't come from the Obama campaign itself, and certainly not from Obama himself, nor from his wife or anyone close to him.

Bill, you need to STFU, and Hillary, you need to repudiate these attacks, and make clear once and for all that you are not a campaign for whites only. That crap works in the Republican party, but our party kicked the racists out in the sixties, and thank God. If you want to pander to the racists, fine -- but the rest of us, the vast majority of the Democratic party, will find someone else to vote for.

The Clintons are using the GOP's Southern Strategy. Let's hope it continues to backfire.

There are two big news stories in the wake of the South Carolina Democratic primary now that 99% of the precincts have been counted.

1) Barack Obama received twice as many votes as Hillary Clinton.

2) Barack Obama received the first majority vote in a Democratic Primary or caucus. (Previous victories for Clinton and Obama were pluralities significantly short of majorities.)

Watch the Clinton campaign and the corporate media use dirty tactics to distract attention from the main story of today's primary.

The reason I've kept a link to the Lionboi Blues and News blog, despite the lack of continued postings, is it's last entry. I would strongly recommend you see it.

The corporate media want us to forget the bridge collapse and our nation's crumbling infrastructure because they want more tax breaks and more corporate welfare. Meanwhile, our society is physically falling apart.

The irony of all of the politicians' talk of "stimulus plans" is that none of their plans provide the immediate economic boost that comes from the immediate jobs provided by an emergency public works program. Dealing with a major long-term problem would help ease our current economic mess.

Yet, sanity is trumped by the insatiable greed of the wealthy in this society.

Speaking fees have bothered me for some time now. After presidents leave office, they can get enormous amounts of money for showing up and talking at events for wealthy interests. This has the potential to act as indirect bribery, since politicians know about this source of personal wealth and have a huge incentive to put corporate interests above the public interest when they are in the White House.

Ronald Reagan cashed in on this big time, as did Bill Clinton. The Washington Post itemized the $31 million in speaking fees Clinton got from 2001-2005. A lot of items in the list were disturbing, but something really stood out.

Bill Clinton got a huge amount of money from the banking, brokerage, and financial services industry, the folks who brought us the subprime lending crisis and our current recession. In fact, he received at least $3.5 million dollars from them during that period.

Hillary Clinton has a double incentive to promote corporate interests, since her support of corporations will increase future speaking fees for both herself and her husband, especially if she wins the 2008 presidential election.

Here is an abbreviated version of the speaking fees list, focusing on this particular industry:

Finance/Banking Speaking Fees Received by Bill Clinton 2001-2005

Date	Location	Sponsor(s)	Payment
Feb. 5, 2001	New York, NY	Morgan Stanley Dean Witter	$125,000
Feb. 27, 2001	New York, NY	Credit Suisse First Boston	$125,000
May 10, 2001	Hong Kong, China	CLSA Ltd.	$250,000
July 7, 2001	London, England	The McCarthy Group	$200,000
Sept. 10, 2001	Melbourne, Australia	J.T. Campbell & Co. Pty. Ltd.	$150,000
Jan. 17, 2002	Dubai, UAE	The Dabbagh Group (STARS)	$300,000
Jan. 20, 2002	Jeddah, Saudi Arabia	The Dabbagh Group (Jeddah Economic Forum)	$300,000
April 15, 2002	New York, NY	Warburg Pincus	$125,000
May 22, 2002	Hong Kong, China	CLSA Ltd.	$250,000
Dec. 2, 2002	Monterrey, Mexico	Value Grupo Financiero	$175,000
Oct. 9, 2003	Mexico City, Mexico	Banco de Mexico	$150,000
March 12, 2004	Paris, France	Citigroup	$250,000
Dec. 3, 2004	New York, NY	Goldman Sachs	$125,000
Feb. 22, 2005	Hong Kong, China	CLSA Ltd.	$100,000
April 20, 2005	Kiawah Island, SC	Goldman Sachs	$125,000
May 4, 2005	Baltimore, MD	Deutsche Bank	$150,000
June 6, 2005	Paris, France	Goldman Sachs	$250,000
June 13, 2005	Greensboro, GA	Goldman Sachs	$150,000
Aug. 11, 2005	New York, NY	Deutsche Bank	$150,000
Nov. 9, 2005	New York, NY	Golden Tree Asset Mgmt.	$150,000

 

The Clinton smear campaign, which repeatedly has attacked Barack Obama for one occasion where he was praising Ronald Reagan's communications style, is hoping people won't find out about this. In 1991, Bill Clinton went a major step further, praising Reagan's policies as well as rhetoric.

E.J. Dionne Jr. has a better memory than the Clinton smear campaign would like us to have.

"The idea that we were going to stand firm and reaffirm our containment strategy, and the fact that we forced them to spend even more when they were already producing a Cadillac defense system and a dinosaur economy, I think it hastened their undoing," Clinton declared.

Clinton was careful to add that the Reagan military program included "a lot of wasted money and unnecessary expenditure," but the signal had been sent: Clinton was willing to move beyond "the brain-dead politics in both parties," as he so often put it.

It was common knowledge at the time that the Soviet Union had collapsed on its own, without any help from Ronald Reagan. It already was widely known that the Reagan Administration had intelligence early on that the Soviet Union was collapsing but lied to Congress in order to make military contractors richer.

In other words, Bill Clinton told a whopper of a lie.

But, lying is exactly what one would expect from someone who lied about the military ban, "welfare reform," NAFTA, the WTO, trade normalization with China, genocidal sanctions against Iraq, and so many other substantive issues. Clinton's constant stream of lies is typical for a Republican like him.

No wonder he liked Ronald Reagan so much.

Hat tip to the Genius of Insanity for pointing this out.

Corporate interests are very unhappy about Dennis Kucinich's efforts to end the war and fight corruption in Washington. They are retaliating by funding corrupt Phonycrats in a primary challenge in Kucinich's district in Ohio.

It is important that people who oppose the war, want genuine universal healthcare, impeachment, and an end to the rampant corruption in both major parties support Kucinich and make this attack on American values fail.

From a Kucinich campaign email:

I want to thank you for your support of our efforts to end the war, to create a not-for-profit healthcare system and take America in a new direction, so that we can have a government we can truly call our own. In connection with that, as you know, I'm running for re-election to the United States Congress and I need your help to make sure that I stay in Congress.

Right now I'm under attack by corporate interests, most of them from the city of Cleveland, who have an agenda that has nothing to do with the people of my community, nor with most people in this country. And so what I'm asking you to do is to help me stay in Congress, so that I can continue to represent the people of my community, the state of Ohio and the United States of America.

Donate to Kucinich's Campaign Now!

 

Global Warming certainly is one of the most important issues facing our country, yet reporters rarely ask presidential candidates about it, as you can see in the above video.

Why?

Corporate media don't want the interests of advertisers and their owners compromised. Oil companies, car companies, coal companies, airlines, and many other corporations make money in ways that promote climate change.

They have an online petition calling on political reporters to ask about Global Warming. This is a good step, but the Sierra Club also needs to pressure the corporations that employ them.

The campaign coverage of the New York Times is pushing a common corporate media myth.

Worries about the economy now dominate the voters’ agenda, even more so than the war in Iraq, which framed the early part of this campaign. While change has emerged as an abstract rallying cry in the campaign debate, what the voters mean when they talk about change is clear — new approaches to the economy and the war, according to the poll. Issues that have loomed large in the Republican debate — notably immigration, taxes and moral values — pale by comparison.

The idea that the economy and the war are two separate concerns is typical in corporate press, which wants to do everything in its power to mute opposition to the conflict.

In the real world, the US/Iraq war and the US economy our closely related. The hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on the war are hurting the overall US economy. That war also is increasing the price of oil, which is devastating the world economy.

In a US recession based partly on economic insecurity, deployment in Iraq is vastly increasing economic insecurity for way too many military families. War-inflated budget deficits are being used by the Bush regime to push for cuts in programs for people here at home, adding to economic insecurity and pushing the non-wealthy into further debt.

Stopping the war in Iraq is an important bread and butter issue as well as being the most important moral issue of our time.

The Bush regime, blinded by corruption and rightist ideology, is pushing a stimulus plan with two main components. The first is a one time tax rebate of $300-$600 for all taxpayers. That is largely a smokescreen for the main point of the plan, another tax cut for the rich, in this case, tax cuts for business.

This makes little sense from an economic prospective. Bush's past tax cuts, focused primarily on the wealthy, have been followed with in the weakest economic recovery in US history. Their main impact on the economy, increasing the disparity between the rich on the one hand, and the middle class and the poor on the other, is largely responsible for our current economic crisis.

Lower real incomes for most Americans have resulted in an increasing reliance on debt. That debt reliance has become an acute problem now that the housing bubble has burst and people no longer can rely on home equity to buy more crap. Declining incomes have made people reliant on Wal-Mart and other retailers who export jobs out of the US.

Lost jobs and lowered income are not going to be addressed by a modest check from the government. People worried about losing their jobs will be too afraid to spend it on anything but servicing their debts. The only solution to the nation's economic insecurity is to provide more jobs.

In sound economic practice, deficit spending, as would take place in a stimulus plan, would be used for long-term investments in our economic future. Here is a two part plan which would provide real economic stimulus and help our economy grow later on.

1) There should be a bridge-reinforcing plan with immediate funding. This would provide for decent-paying jobs and save the public sector money in the long term.

2) There should be a subway/mass transit building/expansion program with immediate funding. This again would provide good jobs, especially in the hurting construction sector. It also would diminish our dependency on foreign oil and reduce our trade deficits, the latter which are contributing to our country's debt crisis. The reductions in Global Warming will be of future economic benefit as well.

The historical record has shown us that public works programs are the most effective economic stimulus programs. It's time the politicians in Washington learn from history.

Mark Crispin Miller, who has done excellent work exposing GOP election fraud, has posted this important press release on his blog. The opening follows:

9/11 Advocates speak out for Sibel Edmonds
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 17, 2008

September 11th Advocates Statement
in Support of Sibel Edmonds
January 17, 2008

As United States Citizens and 9/11 widows, we wholeheartedly support the whistle-blowing efforts of Sibel Edmonds, former Contract Linguist for the FBI. Like Sibel, we too had hoped that the 9/11 Commission would brihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifng to the fore of the American public's attention the facts that led up to the attacks on that horrific day. We believed that the whistle-blowers would be invaluable assets to the Commission's investigation.

Who would be in a better position to help the 9/11 Commission make recommendations to fix the failures that allowed the 9/11 attacks to succeed than current and former employees who worked in the agencies and had the courage and integrity to report on their shortcomings as well as their successes?

Sibel's testimony and that of other whistle-blowers, if used properly or at all, should have been the basis of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. Then the reforms would have been truly responsive to the problems that existed in protecting our nation's security.

View Entire Press Release

There is a desperate need for an independent investigation to find out what really happened in the September 11 attacks.

It turns out that I wasn't the only one who found the exclusion of Dennis Kucinich from MSNBC's presidential debate highly questionable.

From Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's 1/17/08 Action Alert:

In a bizarre move the network has yet to explain, NBC rescinded an invitation to Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich to appear in its January 15 debate in Las Vegas. The GE-owned media company went all the way to the Nevada Supreme Court to defend its decision--all the while failing to explain its logic to the public.

The network originally declared a straightforward test for candidates wishing to participate in the debate: A candidate had to finish in at least fourth place in either the New Hampshire primary or Iowa caucuses, or finish among the top four in one of six major national polls. Kucinich met the latter standard, and was sent a letter on January 9 acknowledging that he would be participating in the debate, designed to air candidates' views before the January 19 Nevada caucuses.

But two days later, NBC political director Chuck Todd notified the Kucinich campaign that there were new rules: Candidates would have to have finished at least third in either Iowa or New Hampshire. The new standard eliminated Kucinich.

Fair also noted the profit motive:

Does Kucinich's campaign represent ideas that offend either NBC managers or their bosses at General Electric? It's a fair question, given that MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue's nightly show in early 2003 due to the host's opposition to the Iraq War; the company worried that the host would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war" (FAIR Press Release, 4/3/03).

The question is especially apt, given that GE is a major military contractor.

Here is the action FAIR is asking people to take:

ACTION:

Please ask NBC to explain why it changed its original debate criteria to exclude Rep. Dennis Kucinich from their January 15 debate. Also, encourage Meet the Press host Tim Russert to be fair to Kucinich and invite him to participate in the "Meet the Candidates" series.

CONTACT:

NBC/MSNBC

Phone: 212 664-4444
Ask for the Comment Line

Email: letters@msnbc.com

NBC host Tim Russert via Meet the Press web contact form:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6872152/

The Politico has reported on a Nevada robocall where the Clinton campaign keeps repeating Obama's middle name, Hussein, in order to exploit anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia. Hat tip to From the Left for alerting me to this.

Listen to the Robocall

Clinton isn't just a Republican in terms of her policies, she is GOP all the way in terms of her tactics.

I've had mixed feelings about John Edwards during this campaign. His rhetoric this time out has been refreshingly honest and surprisingly progressive. However, he ran as a conservative Democrat in 2004 and had a conservative record during his term in the Senate.

However, he has accomplished something big and admirable recently, putting a major focus on the national shame of so many veterans being homeless.



Of course, Bill O'Reilly deserves credit for unintentionally publicizing the issue by foolishly denying that there are 200,000 homeless veterans in this country. O'Reilly made a jackass of himself as usual, but the controversy he generated is making many face a problem that often has been avoided. The folks at FoxAttacks.com deserve credit for the above video publicizing the controversy, and more importantly, publicizing one of our most hideous national failure.

Here's the latest from a military press release.

LATHAM, NY (01/15/2008; 1001)(readMedia)-- More than 1,400 New York Army National Guard soldiers will bid farewell to New York Wednesday as they prepare to deploy to Afghanistan.

The 27th BCT will head to their Mobilization Station which is Fort Bragg, North Carolina prior to deploying for duties in Afghanistan. The Soldiers will be responsible for training the Afghan National Army in conjunction with other members of the coalition of nations fighting the Taliban and assisting the Afghan government.

Nearly 300 Soldiers of the 27th Brigade have already been called to federal active duty in the fall of 2007 for this mission. A total of 1,700 New York National Guard troops are being deployed for Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix VII in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. The total active duty deployment time is expected to be one year for the entire task force and will include about two months of training at bases in the U.S. and 10 months duty in theater.

Regardless of what you think of the war in Afghanistan, there is a serious problem here. National Guard troops are being sent to fight in a foreign war instead of being here at home like they are supposed to be, available to deal with disasters. This is typical of how the Bush regime is misusing the National Guard. Remember how many National Guard troops and a disturbing amount of equipment were unavailable to help out people after Hurricane Katrina?

But, it gets worse. New York is a major terrorist target, and we may need National Guard to help out in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. Yet, way too many of these people and equipment are doing the jobs of the Army and Marines abroad.

The Bush regime is obstructing our ability to respond to terrorist attacks in the name of fighting the War on Terror.

As you see, I have switched to a new Google template to fix a problem that a bug they created caused with my blog. Interestingly enough, they said that they were making the change to fix a bug fix caused by another bug fix.

This is frustrating.

In an early posting, I mentioned that MSNBC planned to exclude anti-war candidate Dennis Kucinich from their Democratic presidential "debate" because their parent company, General Electric, is a war profiteer.

It turns out they have indeed excluded a presidential candidate because his views threaten their owners' profits. This shows that there isn't even the pretense of journalism at MSNBC. It's just a corporate propaganda network.

I've taken them off of my cable "favorites" and will avoid them in the future. The stench of corruption is simply too great.

Now that Cynthia McKinney is running for the Green Party presidential nomination, the Greens are in danger of nominating a credible presidential candidate. If Ms. McKinney wins, the Democrats better not nominate a conservative presidential candidate like Hillary Clinton.

Liberals are sick of Clinton's pro-war, pro-corporation, and anti-labor record. We are tired of her dirty campaign tactics. People of a variety of political perspectives are tired of the rotating Bush/Clinton family dynasties.

If the Greens get their act together and nominate McKinney, Clinton would be in serious trouble. Liberal support would hemorrhage.

Now that NBC has appealed a court decision guaranteeing Kucinich entry into the next Democratic presidential debate, it is time to discuss why. Kucinich met the original criteria for the debate, yet NBC decided to change the criteria to get the outcome they wanted.

NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world's largest arms makers. They are making windfall profits from the Iraq war and hope to continue doing so. GE would like nothing more than to silence the strongest voice in the Democratic Party for bringing our troops home.

This is an example of why media ownership is so important and how corporate profits often trump journalistic concerns in the corporate media.

Pride at Work sent an email notifying people about the United Steelworkers "Stop Toxic Imports" campaign. Here is info from www.stoptoxicimports.org.

On Wednesday, Jan. 16, members of the United Steelworkers and its allies will take its “Stop Toxic Imports” campaign to the nation’s policymakers. In this National Day of Action, the union will demand that Congress take immediate action to protect Americans from the dangerous threat posed by the millions of lead-laced toys and other unsafe products infiltrating our country.

The USW will be joined by dozens of allied community, environmental and health organizations from across the country, as well as the AFL-CIO and other labor groups.

“The massive toy recalls this holiday season drew attention to the much larger problem of the countless dangerous imports – tires, toothpaste, fake drugs, pet food – making their way on to U.S. store shelves,” said USW President Leo W. Gerard, who has spearheaded the USW “Protect Our Kids – Stop Toxic Imports” campaign. “People are starting to realize that we’re paying the price for cheap, imported goods so corporations can make bigger profits. It’s time for our policymakers to fix this broken trade system, repair our regulatory agencies and protect our jobs and families.”

The USW is calling for support for the U.S. Food and Product Responsibility Act, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and in the House by Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind. This legislation would safeguard Americans against toxic food and products by shifting the responsibility on to the backs of the companies producing the goods and the importers importing them.

In a previous post, I addressed the unintentional humor in the latest effort by the Bush regime to create hysteria over Iran. However, there is a more serious side in the effort to bring us to war with Iran. Americans for Democratic Action addressed this in the 1/12/08 edition of ADA Updates.

Once again, the Bush Administration is playing fast and loose with the truth. The news that the tape of the dangerous encounter with Iranian gun boats was, in part, fabricated is but one more example of how this Administration plays a dangerous game to further its own goals. They led us into a badly misguided war in Iraq with spurious claims of weapons of mass destruction.

Now, the Pentagon has admitted that the voice-over they played on the video of the incident in the Strait of Hormuz was recorded separately. The Keystone Cops were more professional.

...

As a nation, we simply cannot countenance such deceptions. At stake are our nation’s credibility and the potential for starting a war which could escalate far beyond anything we have yet seen.

The incident in the Strait of Hormuz was, indeed, dangerous and – before anyone asks – we do not support the current Iranian government. Anything, however, which undermines American credibility in the world undermines all of us.

Contact your Senators and Representative at (202) 224-3121 and demand that oversight hearings be conducted and, then, contact Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at (703) 428-0711 and tell him, in no uncertain terms, that the situation is too dangerous to play games.

There are many reasons why I never have voted for any Clinton for public office. I find the Clintons even more disturbing now that they are starting a family political dynasty similar to that of the Bushes. Family dynasties are antithetical to democracy and represent a monarchial approach to government.

Here are some of the things Ms. Clinton has done that would keep me from voting for her even if she were not part of a family political dynasty.

1. Voted for the Iraq War.



2. Called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" progress.



3. Voted for a use of force authorization for a war with Iran.



4. Has committed to keeping US troops in Iraq until at least 2013.



5. Supports the death penalty.



6. Has refused to promote gun control.



7. Has worked to exclude anti-war candidates in the Democratic Party debates.



8. Supports more corporate trade deals instead of repealing the ones that are destroying our economy as it is.



9. Uses dirty campaign tactics.



10. Pandered to the Christian Right on abortion and birth control.



11. Supports "three strikes" laws that result in life prison sentences for petty offenses.



12. Has not committed to repealing Bush's tax cuts for the rich.



13. Supported Lieberman instead of Lamont in the 2006 Connecticut Senate Democratic primary.



14. Has parroted Patreus's false claims of progress in Iraq.



15. Has supported Israel's illegal settlements in Palestine.



16. Has refused to offer public leadership in the Senate on abortion rights and lgbt issues.



17. Has a cosy political relationship with Rupert Murdoch and other Faux News executives and refuses to return their dirty political contributions.



18. Has refused to repudiate the Republican policies of her husband's administration.



19. Has yet to push for jobs getting rid of tax breaks for corporations that ship US jobs abroad.



20. Has a healthcare plan that fines people for not being able to afford insurance.



21. Has voted to fund the Iraq war every time except once.

Here is a photo from the US Navy photo gallery that displays one of the boats that posed a potent threat to major US Navy ships in the Middle East.

Description: Small craft suspected to be from the Islamic Republic of Iran Revolutionary Guard Navy (IRGCN), maneuver aggressively in close proximity of U.S. Navy ships.

This enormous menace looks as big as the typical suburban recreational boat. The Iranians even used a really intimidating shade of blue for their paint selection.

I bet our Navy is quaking in their boots. The Bush Administration is doing its duty in warning us about the disturbing threat to US shipping.

The ability of the Clinton campaign to sicken me is their most consistent characteristic. When they used surrogates to bring up his Obama's youthful drug use, the hypocrisy of attacking someone for what Bill Clinton also did when he was young was pathetic. Having a sleazeball like Bob Kerrey attack Obama because his name supposedly "sounds Muslim," was both bigoted against non-Christians and absolute political cowardice.

Then, Ms. Clinton and her campaign staffers played a twisted game of constantly "distancing" and "apologizing" so they could keep the non-stories in the media. A conservative Republican like Hillary Clinton has nothing to offer Democrats, so her campaign is forced to engage in misleading and childish attacks against her opponents that have nothing to do with their records or positions on the issues.

And, her campaign's emails to rightist lists and postings on rightist web sites, claiming that Obama is secretly a Muslim and lying to the public show how low the Clinton campaign will go.

For me, the last straw happened just before the New Hampshire primary. The Clinton campaign already has been caught planting questions at campaign events. However, sunk to another low when they planted two men at a campaign event to scream "iron my shirts" at Clinton. Fanning the flames of misogyny in order to gain a short term political benefit from the backlash in New Hampshire is inexcusable.

Barack Obama is not my first choice for who I would like to be President. That would be Dennis Kucinich, the true liberal running for the Democratic nomination. Obama is a centrist and would thus be a mediocre president. However, a mediocre president would be far better than any Republican, including Hillary Clinton.

The Clintons, like the Bushes, are cancers on our political system and our nation's intellectual life. Orwellian claims by Ms. Clinton that she stands for "change" when she supports the same Republican policies as her horrible, horrible husband insults the intelligence of the American people. The Clintons are not just Republicans just by their positions on the issues; they are Republicans by the tactics they use in their campaigns.

Once the Democratic presidential nomination is decided, I'll start embedding Kucinich videos again because he has so much to say, and he is an example of the kind of president America desperately needs and deserves. But, if he can't get over 2% in New Hampshire, he isn't winning this time.

The main thing is stopping the Clintons.

1. Would you support banning Halliburton, its subsidiaries, and any companies spun off of Halliburton from all federal contracts?

2. Do you support including sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability in hate crimes laws?

3. Are you in favor of repealing NAFTA?

4. What would you do to improve US relations with Venezuela?

5. What you eliminate “faith-based” federal funding, which discriminates against religious minorities and the non-religious?

6. Would you create tax penalties for corporations that move their headquarters oversees to avoid taxes?

7. How much longer will you keep any US troops in Iraq?

8. Do you support requiring paper ballots in all US elections?

9. Would you support an SUV tax to fund an expansion in public transportation?

10. What would you do to improve access to abortion?

11. Would you support legislation repealing the legal fiction that corporations are “persons”?

12. Do you support legalizing medical marijuana?

13. Do you support installing solar power systems in military bases to prevent global warming and make the installations more secure from potential power outages?

14) Do you support a windfall profit tax on oil companies to fund solar, wind, and geothermal power?

15) Do you favor repealing the most favored nation trade status for China?

16) Would you cut funding to Israel in an amount equal to the money Israel is spending on illegal settlements in the West Bank?

17) Would you put an acreage limit on farm subsidies so big agribusiness can not get any of the taxpayer money?

18) Do you support single-payer healthcare?

19) Should crack cocaine penalties be kept higher than those for powder cocaine?

20) Should substantial fines be levied against corporations that fire employees for union organizing?