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?