A vocal minority of opponents of Israel's occupation of Palestine and the US-Iraq war are under the impression that AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, and the rest of the “pro-Israeli” lobby are dictating the Bush Administration's foreign policy in the Middle East. AIPAC is thought of as a nearly omnipotent lobbying group in Washington, DC.

Some of this impression is undoubtedly based on the self-promotional materials on AIPAC's web site. An example follows:

For these reasons, The New York Times has called AIPAC “the most important organization affecting America's relationship with Israel,” while Fortune magazine has consistently ranked AIPAC among America's most powerful interest groups.

Through more than 2,000 meetings with members of Congress—at home and in Washington—AIPAC activists help pass more than 100 pro-Israel legislative initiatives a year.

AIPAC makes itself sound quite impressive. At the same time, there is an understanding that Bush's and Congress' Mideast policies are not in the public interest of the United States. Where people can go wrong is merely tying these two threads together without considering other interests in US politics.

Arab and Muslim countries control much of the world's remaining oil. Oil companies have an obvious interest in keeping control over the resource that determines their profit margins. Control of the flow of oil also provides leverage over other countries who depend on it, including the newest big oil junkies on the petroblock, China and India. Considering how much money the US public and private sectors owe Chinese interests, it is hardly surprising that policy makers would want some source of power over China.

Also, wars in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter, provide opportunities for contracts for the Bush regime's corporate cronies. Some of those contracts even are absent of those oh-so-distasteful bidding processes. Then, there are plenty of arms contractors who love to sell more weapons.

Wars also are good for ratings. Corporate media help their bottom lines and the bottom lines of many of their advertisers by stirring up war fever.

Then, there is the Christian Right. They get sick pleasure out of the subjugation, torture, and murder of Muslims. More importantly, they are getting increasingly impatient with a Rapture that never comes and are trying to stir up a Mideast War that they think is prophesied to bring the End Times.

When you see the constellation of extremely powerful interests supporting the Israeli government's policies for their own reasons, it is easy to see why AIPAC is so darned convenient. AIPAC's lobbyists are pushing for things that corporate interests and Christian fundamentalists want. No wonder AIPAC feels so effective when they lobby in Washington.

AIPAC isn't an almighty power.

AIPAC is a pawn.

One should also dispute the claim that the policies AIPAC supports put Israel's interests ahead of those of the United States. The policies of the Israeli government are no more in the interests of Israel than the policies of the Bush regime are in the interests of the United States.

The US-Iraq war has severely weakened Israel's most powerful ally, while strengthening the Islamic extremists who pose the greatest threat to Israel. The pro-settlement policies of Israeli governments have kept that country in a perpetual state of war and have isolated it internationally, outside of the US. Expansionist policies in Lebanon have weakened Israel militarily while creating and empowering Hezbollah.

The more you think about it, AIPAC is more pathetic than anything else.

Let's face it. There are no legitimate reasons for an honest person to continue supporting the war and occupation in Iraq. It was obvious even in 2004 that the Bush regime had already lost the war from a military standpoint. Everyone now knows that the Bush regime defrauded Congress and the American people in order to get into the war. Many of us knew this before the war even started. Even the Bush regime has admitted, in its National Intelligence Estimate, that this war is helping al Qaeda's terrorist recruitment and training. The presence of a foreign, occupying troops is increasing the violence while doing nothing to even slow down the civil war. Invading and occupying a foreign country which posed no threat to America in order to make some CEO's and wealthy investors even richer goes against every value this nation was founded on.

The real reason that any politicians continue to support the war is simple: blatant political corruption. War-supporting elected officials are in the campaign-contribution pockets of Big Oil, Halliburton, Blackwater, and other war profiteers. If we had public financing of elections, this war never would have happened in the first place.

Clearly, integrity is meaningless to politicians that continue to support the war. The only thing that will change their behavior is the realization that they will lose their offices if they continue to vote for this illegal, senseless, and genocidal war. It is past time to cut off all money and votes to any politician who sells his or her political office to the highest bidders rather than taking the honorable and patriotic course of voting to cut off all money for Bush's evil war in Iraq.

We are seeing some real progress in the political establishment, at least as far as facing the truth about Bush's humiliating military defeat in Iraq.

Powell: We Are Losing In Iraq
Exclusive: Former Secretary Of State Says More Troops Are Not The Answer

This near-candor about the war in Iraq is quite refreshing.

Now, if our political establishment would finally admit something that was obvious in the spring of 2004. The Bush regime has lost its war in Iraq.

I will be doing a posting on this topic soon, and it seems like a good idea to seek out suggestions on who belongs on the list. Here are some nasty corporations that come to mind, in no particular order.

Exxon-Mobil
Wal-Mart
Halliburton
Monsanto
Taser International
GE
News Corp
Disney
Lockhead Martin
Blackwater
Diebold
Various telecoms and cable companies
Best Buy
E-Bay
Microsoft

Please post your suggestions, along with your reasons so I'll know why you think your choices are deserving of such a dubious distinction.

Let's face it. Ann Coulter is hideous. Her hair looks like an oversized mop from a Barbie doll. Her limbs protrude outward in a way that reminds one of the legs of a deformed spider. Her facial features are similar to those of Osama bin Laden.

Ann Coutler Pics

Osama bin Laden pics

A question that might naturally pop into your mind is:

“So what?”

After all, corporate media pundits tend to be mirror breakers, regardless of gender or political persuasion. Why should the Queen of Mean be any different? The answer to why anyone should find her frightful appearance even remotely interesting lies in her status as a sex symbol among some rightist wingnuts.

4) She is also very pretty, sexy, and aggressive which attracts even more attention because, when combined with her intelligence, it makes for a very unusual and interesting combination.

She's pretty, tall, sexy, brilliant (that's Coulter, not Sheehan) and certainly sassy.

I dont know how many of you watch Bill O'reilly, ya he's a little strong on the republican side, but hey, he's got a good show. He had on Ann Coulter, and I hadnt really seen pictures of her just heard of her, but damn. I mean...WoW, She's good looking, she knows what she's talking about, and she supports what our country is doing. I couldnt ask for much more.

However, if Ann Coulter, the sexy Queen of Conservative Mean, has one achilles heel, it's her propensity for overstated hyperbole.

The interesting thing about this is that they are being shallow, but not in the usual looks-matter-more-than-anything way that is typical for men. Her right-wing groupie-wannabes are turned on more by one silly criterion than any other:

They get woodies over being told what they want to hear from women.

So, if you are a heterosexual woman who actually wants to talk dirty to a Republican hetero boy, here's an example of how to go about it.

You're just so big.
George Bush is the best president ever.
You are so hot.
Cindy Sheehan is an Islamofascist.
I love strong men like you.
Liberals are godless traitors.
It's OK that it only lasted 47 seconds. I need to do my nails.

Thanks, Coulter-lusters! You have given us all an insight into the Republican mind.

Moderate Republicans from blue states face serious difficulties. They are tethered to a party that is increasingly unpopular where they live. In the past, they could win general elections by taking occasional moderate stands on issues. However, the defeats of Lincoln Chafee and Jim Leach show that disgust with the GOP often can trump individual political positions when voters are sufficiently angry.

Of course, electorates increasingly hostile to Republicans are not the only problems facing moderate blue state Republicans. The “Club for Growth,” a group of extremely rich Republicans from the far right of that party, routinely runs primary challenges against GOP moderates.

Politicians like Susan Collins and Christopher Shays are ideologically incompatible with the GOP and have been ever since Ronald Reagan swept the Christian Right into party control in 1980. The same is true of Gordon Smith and Arlen Specter, who really do not fit that well with the Democrats either.

There is a simple solution for them. They can switch to being independents. Over 35% of voters are independents. James Jeffords showed that being an independent makes politicians more popular in blue states than being a Republican.

Jeffords ended up caucusing with Democrats in the Senate, but was able to vote pretty much how he pleased. Such an arrangement would be very convenient for many moderate Republicans.

(Note: Olympia Snowe has been excluded from this analysis because her personal popularity trumps her GOP affiliation. She can get away with staying in the GOP as long as she wants.)

Militant Christian fundamentalists have come up with another way to try to harass women who need abortions and add more red tape for their doctors. The "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act" (H.R. 6099) would make it legally required for doctors performing abortions to make scientifically dubious claims to women who are about to have abortions, trying to scam them into getting unnecessary fetal anesthesia, even though there is no credible medical evidence to support the procedure.

If women are bamboozled into doing this, it will raise the cost of abortions. The Christian jihadists are hoping to make abortions more costly to punish women who exercise their fundamental human right to choose on abortion.

NOW has an Action Alert to get people to contact their representatives before the House votes on this latest misogynist nonsense by the lame-duck Republican leadership.

Bigotry and discrimination against atheists has been a core value of the Republican Party. However, that should not blind anyone to the fact that discrimination against atheists sometimes comes from Democrats as well.

Every Democratic Senator who showed up to vote that day joined their Republican allies and condemned an appeals court ruling striking “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Tom Daschle even condemned a ruling restoring the Pledge to the pre-McCarthyist version, calling it “crazy.” As one would expect, his fundraising letters subsequently ended up going into my recycling, unopened.

The latest incident involves the Democratic Party having chosen Rev. Jim Wallis to speak during the Democratic Party's official weekly radio address. Bringing religion into politics discriminates against atheists. This kind of behavior sends a message that atheist voters and atheist money are not welcome in the Democratic party.

Having preachers meddle in politics also endangers democracy. When religion becomes the political coin of the realm, every debate ends up degenerating into a “my god can beat up your god” kind of argument. It makes rational policy nearly impossible to make.

We only need to look at Iran, the Taliban, or the Salem Witch Trials to see that every effort must be made to keep religion out of politics.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

I found out about this one listening to the Sam Seder Show. This shows some kind of B of A sales meeting where they are gloating over their MBNA credit card company takeover. A couple of sales drones are singing their own version of U2's “One” with icky, funny suck up lyrics.

Note: You Tube already took down that version, so you will need to view the Quick Time version.

WFMU page with lyrics and link to audio file.

If you think it is funny, I would save the file to your hard drive. Who knows how long this will stay up.

There is a serious side to all of this. Corporate takeovers and mergers cost jobs and reduce competition. But, it still is fun to laugh at corporate arrogance, and few companies are more arrogant than B of A.

The corporate media have a strong rightist bias, which shows in their fawning coverage of John McCain. Even though he is extremely conservative when you look at his overall record, any isolated "moderate" or "maverick" position he takes is trumpeted by his corporate media bootlickers.

Even worse, "Keating Five" McCain is extremely corrupt, having been involved in one of the most costly corruption scandals in US history. When the corporate media even talk about it, they try to spin it to make his behavior seem less reprehensible than it actually was. Here is a link to an excellent article on "Keating Five" McCain's activities and the text for a suggested "Google Bomb."

http://www.stopjohnmccain2008.com/category/keating/
John McCain

Lest you reach the conclusion that all is well now that Democrats have narrow majorities in Congress, here is a reminder of just who is illegally occupying the White House.

Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.

-George W. Bush