Suzie-QSuzie-QLiberal politics and some humor. Current events, war, scandals, corruption, and other world affairs. Suzie-Q is Fighting for the Republic against all Enemies Foreign and Domestic! Articles
Vice-President Job Has Come A Long Way Since It Was A ?Warm Bucket Of Spit?
2008-05-14 21:05:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 12:05 PM MST From: Carpetbagger Report VP job has come a long way since it was a ?warm bucket of spit? Posted May 13th, 2008 at 4:30 pm John Nance Garner, a former House Speaker who became one of FDR?s vice presidents, is widely credited with having said that the VP?s office isn?t worth ?a ... More About: President , Long , Vice President , Vice , Spit
Afternoon Jukebox? Burning Down The House
2008-05-14 21:00:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 12:00 PM MST Talking Heads- Burning Down The House More About: Video , Jukebox , Afternoon
Hamas condemns the Holocaust
2008-05-13 17:35:00 Sudhan @17:35 CET We are not engaged in a religious conflict with Jews; this is a political struggle to free ourselves from occupation and oppression Bassem Naeen |The Guardian, May 12, 2008 As the Palestinian people prepare to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba (”catastrophe”) - the dispossession and expulsion of most of our people from our land - those remaining in Palestine face escalating aggression, killings, imprisonment, ethnic cleansing and siege. But instead of support and solidarity from the western media, we face frequent attempts to defend the indefensible or turn fire on the Palestinians themselves. One recent approach, which seems to be part of the wider attempt to isolate the elected Palestinian leadership, is to portray Hamas and the population of the Gaza strip as motivated by anti-Jewish sentiment, rather than a hostility to Zionist occupation and domination of our land. A recent front page article in the International Herald Tribune followed this ... More About: Holocaust
The Truth About Veteran Suicides
2008-05-13 17:02:00 Sudhan @17:00 CET Aaron Glantz | Foreign Policy In Focus, May 9, 2008 Eighteen American war veterans kill themselves every day. One thousand former soldiers receiving care from the Department of Veteran s Affairs attempt suicide every month. More veterans are committing suicide than are dying in combat overseas. These are statistics that most Americans don’t know, because the Bush administration has refused to tell them. Since the start of the Iraq War, the government has tried to present it as a war without casualties. In fact, they never would have come to light were it not for a class action lawsuit brought by Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth on behalf of the 1.7 million Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The two groups allege the Department of Veterans Affairs has systematically denied mental health care and disability benefits to veterans returning from the conflict zones. The case, officially known as Veterans for Common Sense vs. Peake... More About: The Truth
Poll: U.S. Outlook Worst Since 1992
2008-05-13 16:00:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 7:00 AM MST U.S. Outlook Is Worst Since ‘92, Poll Finds Results Give Democrats Edge By Jon Cohen and Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, May 13, 2008; Page A01 Americans are gloomier about the direction of the country than they have been at any point in 15 years, and Democrats hold their biggest advantage since early 1993 as the party better able to deal with the nation’s main problems, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Despite more than eight in 10 now saying the country is headed in the wrong direction, coupled with growing disaffection with the Republican Party, Sen. John McCain, the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, remains competitive in a hypothetical general-election matchup with Sen. Barack Obama, the favorite for the Democratic nomination, and he runs almost even with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Those findings indicate that McCain continues to elude some of the anger aimed at his party and at President Bush...
Pentagon Document Dump: E-mailer Requested ’Softball’ Interview With Ge
2008-05-13 05:30:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 8:30 PM MST Pentagon document dump: E-mailer suggested ’softball’ interview with top general.» Last month, the Pentagon released an extensive document dump with details on its military analyst propaganda program. TPM Muckraker notes that in a 2006 e-mail, someone (with a redacted name) e-mailed Pentagon officials stating that Jed Babbin, a participant in the analyst program, would be guest hosting for right-wing radio talker Michael Medved. Babbin requested an interview with Gen. George Casey, then top commander in Iraq. Pitching the request to interview Casey to the Pentagon officials, the e-mailer said: “this would be a softball interview and the show is 8th or 9th in the nation.” Allison Barber, a Public Affairs official at the Pentagon, responded: Thanks for sending this. Just fyi, probably wouldn’t put “softball” interview in writing. If that got out it would compromise jed and general casey. The e-mailer wrote back: “check, check.” More About: Interview , Mailer , Document
Hillary Clinton sows the seeds of destruction
2008-05-12 18:52:00 Sudhan @18:50 CET The Clinton s have never understood how to exit the stage gracefully. By Bob Herbert | The New York Times, May 10, 2008 Their repertoire has always been deficient in grace and class. So there was Hillary Clinton cold-bloodedly asserting to USA Today that she was the candidate favored by “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” and that her opponent, Barack Obama, the black candidate, just can’t cut it with that crowd. “There’s a pattern emerging here,” said Mrs. Clinton. There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way — any way — back to the White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train. He can’t win! Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black! The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brai... More About: Destruction , Seeds
China Earthquake: Powerful 7.8 Magnitude… Thousands Dead
2008-05-12 16:12:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 7:15 AM MST Local residents search for their belongings in the debris of a collapsed house after an earthquake in Dujiangyan, Sichuan province May 12, 2008 in this picture distributed by China ’s official Xinhua News Agency. REUTERS/Xinhua/Chen Xie China Earthquake Buries 900 Students, State Media Reports May 12, 2008 08:57 AM EST | BEIJING — Chinese media say the earthquake death toll in one Sichuan county is estimated at 3,000 to 5,000 people. The powerful earthquake struck central China on Monday, trapping nearly 900 students after their school collapsed, state media reported. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit central China, but sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand. The official Xinhua News Agency reported that four of the dead were ninth-grade students killed when their high school collapsed. Photos showed ... More About: Dead
Forget the two-state solution
2008-05-12 10:36:00 Sudhan @10:35 CET Israelis and Palestinians must share the land. Equally. By Saree Makdisi | The Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2008 There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forget the endless arguments about who offered what and who spurned whom and whether the Oslo peace process died when Yasser Arafat walked away from the bargaining table or whether it was Ariel Sharon’s stroll through the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that did it in. All that matters are the facts on the ground, of which the most important is that — after four decades of intensive Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories it occupied during the 1967 war — Israel has irreversibly cemented its grip on the land on which a Palestinian state might have been created. Sixty years after Israel was created and Palestine was destroyed, then, we are back to where we started: Two populations inhabiting one piece of land. And if the land cannot be divided, it must be sha... More About: State , Solution
Blunt: McCain ‘Would Be’ A Third Bush Term On Economy…
2008-05-12 02:00:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 5:00 PM MST Blunt : McCain ‘Would Be’ A Third Bush Term On Economy , ‘And I Think That’s A Good Thing’» On CNN’s Late Edition today, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) claimed that the argument that John McCain would, in effect, be a third Bush term “isn’t going to stick”: BLITZER: [Obama] says he welcomes a debate with John McCain on the issue of the economy, taxes, spending policy because John McCain would simply be more George W. Bush. … Does John McCain want to continue what Obama called the failed policies of the Bush administration? ROMNEY: Well I think you’re going to hear that time and again, Wolf, throughout the campaign season. And I just don’t think it’s going to stick. But earlier on the same program, a leading McCain surrogate — Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) — conceded that McCain is indeed promising a third Bush term on the economy: BLITZER: So it would be in effect a third Bush term when it came to pro-growth tax policies? BLUNT: It woul...
Happy Mother’s Day!
2008-05-12 00:30:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 3:30 PM MST Kanye West - Hey Mama (Live Grammys 2008 ) More About: Happy , Mother
The Curious Myth of Hillary Clinton’s Senate Effectiveness
2008-05-11 20:02:00 by Geezer Power…11:02 am VIDEO Bill Clinton Argues With Voter “CBS News RAW”: While campaigning in Fayetteville, W.Va., Bill Clinton argued with an audience member over claims made by Hillary Clinton that she improved health care during his administration. Huffington Post Frankly, I’m tired of listening to Senator Clinton portray herself as being in the solutions business — as boasting a nice, fat resume of accomplishments — while mocking Barack Obama for being a rhetorical empty suit. Is she truly a beacon of experience? Because I couldn’t think of a single piece of legislation that has her name stuck proudly on the front of it, no equivalent of McCain-Feingold, for example, I headed straight for her campaign website to see what glorious aspects of her vaunted experience I was missing. Actually, I was missing nothing. There is not one single example of any legislation with her name appended to it. In fact, the page devoted to her Senate b... More About: Curious
Sending Felons Off to War
2008-05-11 18:12:00 Sudhan @18:10 CET By Ivan Eland | ConsortiumNews, May 2, 2008 Editor’s Note: George W. Bush, who once saw himself as a modern-day Alexander bestride the Middle East, now presides over two military quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan – and has to scrounge around for Americans willing to fight. The growing unpopularity of Bush’s open-ended wars, especially the one in Iraq, has forced the U.S. military to recruit more and more felons with potentially disastrous consequences, as the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland notes in this guest essay: Enmeshed in two military occupations that have turned into well-publicized quagmires, the Army and Marines are understandably having trouble enlisting new recruits. Their answer: vastly increase the number of convicted felons and other societal miscreants accepted into their ranks. According to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, from 2006 to 2007 the Army more than doubled its felonious recruits and the Marine Corps incr... More About: Sending , Felons
Four Years Later: Why Did It Take So Long for the Press to Break Abu Ghraib
2008-05-11 11:37:00 Sudhan @11:35 CET Charles J. Hanley, Pulitzer winner for the Associated Press , uncovered abuses at the infamous prison months before the scandal really exploded. Why were so many others so slow to act? By Greg Mitchell | Editor & Publisher, May 8, 2008 Four years ago this month, as May unfolded, each day brought fresh horrors, images, or details about the Abu Ghraib prison abuses in Iraq. Pictures of shackled and hooded prisoners gave way to detainees on leashes, cowering before snarling dogs, or just plain beaten and bruised. On May 10, 2004, an Iraqi human rights official charged that American overseer Paul Bremer had been repeatedly informed about abuses at Abu Ghraib. The New Yorker revealed that Donald Rumsfeld personally okayed a set of procedures that led to the abuses. Several major newspapers called for Rumsfeld to quit.At that time, in a column, I disclosed how Pulitzer-winning correspondent Charles J. Hanley at The Associated Press had actually “broken” the Abu Gh... More About: Break , Years , Long
The Lucrative Art of War
2008-05-11 11:18:00 Sudhan @11:15 CET The New York Times, May 9, 2008 The Editorial Congress is finally moving to shut one of the more egregious forms of Iraq war profiteering: defense contractors using offshore shell companies to avoid paying their fair share of payroll taxes. The practice is widespread and Congressional investigators have been dispatched to one of the prime tax refuges, the Cayman Islands, to seek a firsthand estimate of how much the Treasury is being shorted. No one will be surprised to hear that one of the suspected prime offenders is KBR, the Texas-based defense contractor, formerly a part of the Halliburton conglomerate allied with Vice President Dick Cheney. According to a report in The Boston Globe, KBR, which has landed billions in Iraq contracts, has used two Cayman shell companies to avoid paying hundreds of millions in payroll, Medicare and unemployment taxes. Unfortunately right now there is nothing illegal about this. The House has approved legislation to plug the dodge b...
Reid: Bush Said ‘Bring ‘Em On’ As Recently As 2007
2008-05-10 22:02:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 1:00 PM MST Reid : On Six-Year Anniversary Of 9/11, Bush Again Declared, ‘Bring ‘Em On’» On July 2, 2003, President Bush cavalierly dismissed violence in Iraq when he infamously proclaimed, “There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring ‘em on. His comments were swiftly criticized. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) called them “irresponsible and inciteful.” The UK Guardian dubbed the remarks a “gesture of presidential bravado.” Even Bush himself seemed to regret his comments, telling reporters in January 2005: Sometimes, words have consequences you don’t intend them to mean. ‘Bring ‘em on’ is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. […] I don’t know if you’d call it a regret, but it certainly is a lesson that a president must be mindful of, that the words that you... More About: Recently
McCain And The Keating Five Scandal
2008-05-10 19:41:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 10:40 AM MST From: Carpetbagger Report Is the Keating Five scandal off limits? Posted May 10th, 2008 at 12:20 pm Last night, at an Obama town-hall event in Oregon, Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-Ore.) was rather candid in his criticism of John McCain, and broached a subject we generally hear very little about. DeFazio, an Oregon superdelegate who endorsed Obama today and introduced him at the event, went on an extended critique of McCain, saying voters could not “underestimate the threat that John McCain poses in this election to our future.” DeFazio said McCain’s Straight Talk Express should be called the “trojan horse express.” And then, DeFazio raised the Keating Five, a 1980s savings and loan scandal in which McCain was implicated. The Senate Ethics Committee later concluded that McCain used “poor judgment” in the matter. “John McCain has already told us he doesn’t know much about economics,” DeFazio told the crowd of 3,000. “He says we need less regu... More About: Scandal
Gladio: Nato-sponsored State Terrorism in Europe
2008-05-10 18:08:00 anthony @ 17:07 BST On August 4, 1974, while I was travelling around Italy on an Interrail ticket, a bomb exploded in car 5 of the Italicus Express running from Rome to Brennero on the Florence-Bologna line as it left the tunnel of San Benedetto Val di Sambro. Twelve passengers were killed and 44 were wounded. Mario Tuti, Pietro Malentacchi, and Luciano Franci of the Revolutionary National Front were accused of the attack, though when they came to trial years later they were aquitted for lack of evidence. Days earlier I had travelled through the same tunnel on my way by train from Venice to Naples. A few days later, I would travel through the same tunnel on my way to Florence. Had my schedule been different, I may well have found myself a victim of the attack. I became aware of the event through the lurid artist’s reconstructions on the covers of Italian news magazines outside newsagents on Rome’s Corso Vittorio Emanuele. I was seventeen at the time. On August 2, 1980, ... More About: Terrorism , Europe , Sponsored , State , Nato
Principles of the Imperial New World Order
2008-05-10 11:30:00 Sudhan @11:30 CET By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson | Electric politics We have to recognize that in the Imperial New World Order (INWO), with the Soviet Union gone, and an aggressive and highly militarized United States projecting its great power across the globe, destabilizing and devastating in all its major areas of operation in the alleged interest of liberation and stability, a revised set of principles should be discernible. Most of these are hardly new, but even more audaciously than in the past they translate power relationships into affirmations of rights or the denial of these very same rights, with the ensuing double standards applicable pretty much across the board. The real-world significance of these INWO principles thus depends on three factors: (a) whether Washington affirms them for itself (and directly or by implication for its close allies, clients and hangers-on); (b) whether Washington denies them to its enemies; and (c) whether Washington doesn’t care o... More About: New World Order , New World
Thinking globally, acting locally
2008-05-10 10:33:00 Sudhan @10:34 CET With the Bush administration angling for war with Iran, the city of Chicago is considering going on record opposing it Michael Lynn, The Guardian, May 9, 2008 More than 7,000 miles separate Chicago and Tehran. But on May 14, the city council of the American city will consider whether to take a stand on an event that would have far reaching consequences for residents of both: a US attack on Iran. A resolution introduced into the council by one of its members, Alderman Joe Moore, would put the city on record as opposing a preemptive strike against Iran by the US. The resolution urges all congressional representatives whose districts include parts of the city to “clearly express the will of the people of Chicago in opposing any attack on Iran, and urging the Bush administration to pursue diplomatic engagement with that nation.” The resolution is the result of an initiative launched by Chicago’s No War On Iran Coalition, a broad-based grouping of local anti-war, ... More About: Acting , Thinking
Cindy McCain Won’t Release Tax Returns… Awww… C’m
2008-05-09 21:05:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 12:05 PM MST From: Carpetbagger Report We’ll ‘never’ see the McCains’ tax returns? Posted May 8th, 2008 at 3:15 pm The Obamas released tax returns for both Barack and Michelle. The Clintons released returns for both Bill and Hillary. But when John McCain released his tax returns a few weeks ago, Cindy McCain’s tax documents will remain private. It’s not too hard to understand why. The McCains are extraordinarily wealthy — one might even be tempted to call them “elites” — and Cindy McCain’s assets are estimated to be about $100 million, including a private jet, which her husband has been borrowing at a reduced rate. Given the other candidates’ disclosures, and McCain’s own alleged commitment to transparency, will we ever see Cindy McCain’s returns? She was asked on the “Today” show this morning, and said, politely, “Never.” I’ll tell you a little secret: at first blush, I’m not inclined to care. The McCains have more money than... More About: Release
Afternoon Jukebox… Working For The Weekend
2008-05-09 21:00:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 12:00 PM MST Loverboy - Working For The Weekend More About: Jukebox , Afternoon
David Vitter Cleared By Senate Ethics Committee
2008-05-09 18:30:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 9:30 AM MST Senate Ethics Committee Clears David Vitter By Paul Kiel - May 8, 2008, 4:44PM The Senate ethics committee has dismissed a complaint against Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) for soliciting prostitution. The complaint was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The group had charged that Vitter’s solicitation of prostitutes in Washington, D.C. and Louisiana had broken the law and thus was “improper conduct” that ought to be punished. Vitter reportedly used the D.C. Madam’s escort service, in addition to repeatedly visiting a prostitute in New Orleans back in 1999. The committee dismissed the complaint, according to the letter, because “the conduct at issue” occurred before Vitter’s run for the Senate, he was not charged criminally, and because it “did not involve use of public office or status for improper purposes.” The letter, signed by all six members of the committee, adds: “T...
Rumsfeld Says The Generals Are To Blame For Poor Pre-War Planning
2008-05-09 16:00:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 7:00 AM MST Rumsfeld blames the generals for poor pre-war planning.» In February 2003, Gen. Eric Shinseki famously predicted that “several hundred thousand” troops would be needed for post-war hostilities in Iraq. According to documents recently released by the Pentagon in response to The New York Times’s expose on its propaganda program, however, Donald Rumsfeld claimed in a 2006 briefing that the reason why he did not support a larger invasion force was because commanders did not request it: RUMSFELD: Now, it turns out he [Shinkseki] was right. The commanders–you guys ended up wanting roughly the same as you had for the major combat operation, and that’s what we have. There is no damned guidebook that says what the number ought to be. We were queued up to go up to what, 400-plus thousand. Q: Yes, they were already in queue. RUMSFELD: They were in the queue. We would have gone right on if they’d wanted them, but they didn’t, so life goes on. In reality,... More About: Planning , Poor , Blame , Generals
Palestine: Liberation Deferred
2008-05-09 11:14:00 Sudhan @11:14 CET Rashid Khalidi, The Nation, May 8, 2008 The “Palestine Question” has been with us for sixty years. During this time it has become a running sore, its solution appearing ever more distant. Whether the events sixty years ago that created this question solved the previously perennial “Jewish Question” is once again open to debate. This is the case after many years when the apparent triumph of Zionism stilled doubts and drowned out the protests of those who argued that what purported to be the solution to one problem had created an entirely different one. It is considered by some to be a slur on Israel and Zionism, and indeed even tantamount to anti-Semitism, to suggest that these events sixty years ago should be the subject of anything but unmitigated joy. Commemoration, or even analysis, of what Palestinians call their national catastrophe, al-Nakba–the expulsion, flight and loss of their homes by a majority of their people sixty years ago–is thus consid... More About: Liberation
A Secret Afghanistan Mission Prepares for War with Iran
2008-05-09 10:25:00 Sudhan @10:25 CET William M. Arkin | The Washington Post, May 8, 2008 Those predicting war with Iran or some Bush-Cheney October surprise attack on Tehran are constantly looking for signs of military preparations: a B-52 bomber that mistakenly takes off from North Dakota with nuclear-armed cruise missiles; a second or third aircraft carrier entering the Persian Gulf; a B-1 crashing in Qatar. Since the most likely path to war with Iran is not Marines storming the beach but a strike on nuclear facilities and “regime” targets, signs such as these can often just be mirages. The true strike is not necessarily going to come with any warning, and the U.S. military has developed an entire system called “global strike” to implement such a preemptive strike. A secret mission conducted last August over Afghanistan caught my eye because it tells us everything we need to know about the ability of the U.S. military to conduct a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack in Iran. It also tells us how use... More About: Secret , Mission
Meet Rev. Rod Parsley: McCain’s “Spiritual Guide” Who Wan
2008-05-09 04:35:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 7:30 PM MST From: Brave New Films McCain’s “Spiritual Guide ” Wants America to Destroy Islam a Brave New Films video posted about 12 hours ago by robertgreenwald You may have heard of Rev. John Hagee, the McCain supporter who said God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its homosexual “sins.” Well now meet Rev. Rod Parsley, the televangelist megachurch pastor from Ohio who hates Islam. According to David Corn of Mother Jones, Parsley has called on Christians to wage war against Islam, which he considers to be a “false religion.” In the past, Parsley has also railed against the separation of church and state, homosexuals, and abortion rights, comparing Planned Parenthood to Nazis. John McCain actively sought and received Parsley’s endorsement in the presidential race. McCain has called Parsley “a spiritual guide,” and he hasn’t said whether he shares Parsley’s vi... More About: Meet
Four Marines Were Killed Last Friday In Anbar
2008-05-05 16:00:00 By- Suzie-Q @ 7:00 AM MST From: Think Progress May 4, 2008 By Matt at 8:50 pm Four marines killed by roadside bomb in Anbar . The military reported today that a roadside bomb attack in Anbar Province killed four marines on Friday in ?one of the deadliest? attacks in months on American troops in the province. Though violence has ... More About: Marines , Killed
How under-the-gun Iran plays it cool
2008-05-05 11:24:00 Sudhan @11:20 CET By Pepe Escobar | Asia Times, May 2, 2008 More than two years ago, Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker how President George W Bush was considering strategic nuclear strikes against Iran . Ever since, a campaign to demonize that country has proceeded in a relentless, Terminator-like way, applying the same techniques and semantic ... More About: Cool , Plays
Clinton: I would still ?obliterate? Iran
More articles from this author:2008-05-05 10:52:00 Sudhan @ 10:50 CET Press TV, May 4, 2008 Democratic hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton says she has no regrets over her threats to ‘totally obliterate’ Iran if Israel is hit with a nuclear bomb. “Why would I have any regrets?” Senator Clinton said Saturday in response to ABC News’ question as to whether she had any regrets about threatening ... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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