Group to endorse Schaffer may have actually helped him on war profiteering
For Immediate Release
October 14, 2008
Contact: Michael Huttner
(303) 931-4547 cell
Denver - ProgressNowAction called on ex-Congressman Bob Schaffer to fully disclose his relationship between his oil company and a controversial group that plans to endorse him tomorrow in Colorado Springs.
"We call on Schaffer to disclose whether he ever worked on Iraq oil contracts with this controversial group before they endorse him," stated Huttner.
Schaffer is planning to be endorsed by Moving America Forward (MAF), which originated in a public relations firm that worked to attract international oil companies and other firms to do business in northern Iraq against U.S. policy. (GJS, 10/14/2008)
"This relationship doesn't pass the smell test," stated Huttner. "We want to know whether Schaffer worked with any one involved in MAF on his war profiteering."
Schaffer was one of several executives from Denver based Aspect Energy who went to northern Iraq to lay the groundwork for an oil deal between his company and the regional government, in violation of U.S. State Department Policy recommendations. (RMN, 10/14/2008)
The controversial endorsement is set for 10:00am Wednesday in Colorado Springs.
# # #
This was not the one-word headline I expected to see in this morning's Foreign Policy magazine Morning Brief email. Similarly, the Financial Times brought gloomy articles confirming the depth of the current fiscal decline.
"Falling by more than 20 percent over seven straight trading days, the U.S. stock market's recent performance now meets the standard definition of a crash." - FP Morning Brief, 10 October 2008
this is the first attention grabbing fact from FP. Realistically a seven point consecutively repeated 20% downward trend line is what I've always called a "death-slide."
It's a very effective way to get the attention of executive decision-makers and mid-level managers. I've seen motivation and attention to detail factors show a marked increase.
"Investors have lost an estimated $8.4 trillion dollars so far this year, with the Dow Jones industrial average sinking another 678 points or 7.3 percent Thursday." - FP Morning Brief, 10 October 2008
My proposal is to add this figure to the existing National Debt burden enacted by the current occupant of the White House. In addition to being a condemning legacy of this presidency, it should be a lesson in who, and how, to elect the next president.
Personally, I'm watching the value of my supposedly solid Federal employee Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) account in a similar decline. Holding a large percentage of my shares in a Standard & Poors 500 fund isn’t such a happy place at the moment.
One of the most disagreable experiences I've had during this year's political campaign came when national, and local, groups viciously attacked the integrity, motivations and message of General Petraeus. Yet, on Wednesday the conservative Heritage Foundation heard policies and concepts from Petraeus that confirm the campaign platform of Barack Obama.
The complete story from the "Washington Independent" is in the Extended Post Text (via Foreign Policy magazine's Daily Brief service). This is an online news outlet associated with Colorado Confidential.
This can't stay a minor story. Petraeus' comments must be shared, and the Obama campaign should advertise these policies and tactics with enthusiasm.
Part of the value in this this is seeing a competent national leader, Obama, openly discuss a strategic vision and mission for the US military. Now we're seeing that a widely praised general is able to accept that mission and describe the operational policies and tactics to accomplish what is apparently Barack Obama's security policy in opposition to McCain's irrational Iraq fixation.
Read More »According to Galbraith, the surge has not been the main reason for the decline in violence. Rather, it is the rise of the Sunni "Awakening" that, supported by the Americans, have driven out al-Qaeda from the Sunni areas and diminished the awful attacks on the Shiites. This enabled the Shiite Moqtada al-Sadr to order his Mahdi Army to stand down, thinking that the US presence was temporary, and keep his powder dry for a subsequent renewed civil war with the Sunni.
But once the Shiite party most closely aligned with Iran assumed power in the central government under Maliki, the Shiite national army with American help was used to oust the Mahdi Army from most of Basra and reduced their power in Sadr City, Baghdad's Shiite slum. So in 2007 and 2008, according to Galbraith, Sunnis and Shiites fought civil wars, the Awakening (not the Americans) emerged to defeat al-Qaeda, the ruling Shiites undercut the Mahdi Army. So it was not the Shiite Iraqi army defeating insurgents but the Sunnis.
Maliki wants the US to withdraw so that he can turn his forces against the Sunni and the Kurds because he leads a Shiite party that wants to turn Iraq into a Shiite Islamic state, allied with Iran. Until 2007, the Americans fought alongside the Shiite-led Iraqi army, but under General Petraeus backed the Sunni Awakening that is deeply hostile to the Shiite government. So Maliki want the US to get out. With Americans gone, the Iraqi army and police could attack the Awakening. And Iran would back them up.
Meanwhile the Kurds in the north, who are secular, pro-western and democratic according to Galbraith, have been attacked by the central government forces at Khanaqin. Although the forces withdrew later, it was a danger sign to the Kurds, who have opposed us slaes of F-16s to Iraq because they fear they will be used against them.
Meanwhile, the political reconciliation that was supposed to happen once the surge bought some time has not occurred. For Maliki, the Kurds and Sunni are obstacles to achieving a Shiite Islamic state. Iran, not the US, is his primary ally, and he is a hard lineShiite militant from the Dawa Party, having spent twenty years in Iran and Syria.
John McCain says often that due to the surge, we are winning the Iraq war and that he wants to continue supporting a government and Iraqi factions that are Iran's closest allies in the Middle East. "He praises the Awakening and but [sic] seems not to have realized that the Iraqi government is intent on crushing it." His denunciations of Obama and Biden offer no protection to Iraq's Kurds.
"George W. Bush has put the United States on the side of undemocratic Iraqis who are Iran's allies. John McCain would continue the same approach. It is hard to understand how this can be called a success - or a path to victory."
Is this what the neocons want? Where the enemy is "known" and "understandable" with conventional hard force use that the military-industrial complex can create weapons for? Cold war strategies based on war gaming studies of "Fulda Gap" utilizing an NBC combat environment would be "comforting" to the neocons because it is based on the past fifty years of mutually assured destruction philosophy of Herman Kahn and his ilk.
(h/t to Buzzflash.com)
From Novosti, Russia News and Information Service, press release:
MOSCOW, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russian strategic bombers will conduct training flights with full combat payloads and live fire all cruise missiles on board for the first time in over two decades, an Air Force spokesman said.
The live firing exercises in Russia's northern latitudes on October 6-12 are part of the Stability-2008 strategic maneuvers in various regions of Russia and Belarus with the goal of practicing strategic deployment of the Armed Forces, including the nuclear triad, to counter potential threats near the Russian border....
Is the eastward expansion of NATO a wise decision? Wouldn't Russia see this as provocative due to it's history with western Europe?
Is SARAH PALIN For real? Read More »
We now have the answer why she has been so distant and untouchable for the past few weeks. The McCain team has been prepping and coaching her at an unprecedented level.
She did not demonstrate the depth and scope needed to rise to the level of serious consideration of filling the job of VP, and certainly not reach any level of assurance that she is competent to follow fragile John McCain into the Oval Office. The GOP is so off-course to continue to promote her presence on the ticket as qualified in any sense of the word.
The dodge and weave she demonstrated throughout the night was infuriating. The WingNuts succeeded in their pre-emptive intimidation of Gwen Ifill. Necessary and justified follow-ups and clarifications were obviously by-passed by Ifill to avoid post-debate vilification by the Radical Right.
Palin's few clear pronouncements on security and foreign policy issues were deplorable. The casual mention of moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem is a toxic position that surely pleases the American Radical Religious Right (i.e., Talibangelist Mullah Dobson), but is an idea that has been known for decades to be immeasurably inflammatory to every Muslim influenced government in the world.
By side-stepping the question on nuclear weapons and nuclear non-proliferation she definitively disqualified herself in this election. The balance between deterrence and pre-emption has been horrifically blurred by the current mis-adminstration. Sarah made it even murkier.
Sarah Palin's performance last night was too close to the narrow, partisan message of the GOP Convention and totally devoid of any promise of potential to serve in the highest executive office. The best that could be offered is that she's now completed the crash course of study to be a good spokesperson for the McCain campaign. Competently reciting talking points with no further depth or capability.
• Texas has a well-deserved reputation as having a frontier ethos, characterized by god, guns, and football as well as an anti-intellectualism that solves complex issues with simple, easy - to-understand answers that are wrong. Arizona and the O.K. corral is not far behind, but the only place that is more rabid along these lines is Alaska. I've had enough of "common sense" and ideology driving the definitions of problems and their solutions. So no votes for the shoot-from-the- hip types.
From a note that I saw on Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory:
...Robert Farley responds and objects to my post of yesterday concerning the first permanent, standing deployment of a U.S. Army brigade inside the U.S. for law enforcement purposes since Reconstruction.
Looking backward this is what Glenn wrote on NorthCom's activity:
The decision this month to permanently deploy a U.S. Army brigade inside the U.S. for purely domestic law enforcement purposes is the fruit of the Congressional elimination of the long-standing prohibitions in Posse Comitatus (although there are credible signs that even before Congress acted, the Bush administration secretly decided it possessed the inherent power to violate the Act). It shouldn't take any efforts to explain why the permanent deployment of the U.S. military inside American cities, acting as the President's police force, is so disturbing. Bovard:
"Martial law" is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. . . . Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree.
Again:
The point is that the deployment is a very dangerous precedent, quite possibly illegal, and a radical abandonment of an important democratic safeguard. As always with first steps of this sort, the danger lies in how the power can be abused in the future.
The real danger is that the "tools" are left to be used in the future by any executive who deems them to be "in the national interest" even if it only for the "One Percent" doctrine.
The Fools on the Hill......
I love that those all-knowing Grand Wizards of all things important, sitting on the Hill in D.C., are JUST figuring out what many have known for 10 friggin' years.
The so-called housing bubble, that churn and burn growth of a market based on air, was the ONLY thing propping up an economy that has needed to do an adjustment since 1998; Staved off by the Republicans in their bids to keep the sleazy corporatists going without oversight.....
UNFETTERED GROWTH without any natural controls is called CANCER....
Read More »We in Colorado have waged a tough campaign to get our four Democratic Congressmen to support impeachment.
We have pressured Rep. Udall because he is in contest for the Senate in a race considered "too close to call" in a battle ground state. As a result of our pressure his recent replies to his constituents indicate he is coming closer to calling for impeachment.
Today the Denver Post published this article about the new poll by the Associated Press and the National Constitution Center.
"WASHINGTON--Americans strongly oppose giving the president more power at the expense of Congress or the courts, even to enhance national security or the economy, according to a new poll.
Two-thirds of Americans oppose altering the balance of power among the three branches of government to strengthen the presidency, even when they thought that doing so would improve the economy or national security. People were more evenly split over giving Congress more power in the same circumstances."
You can read the entire AP poll article here:
as well as Our Challenge to Rep. Udall
to Call For Immediate Impeachment Hearings
and for extension of this session of Congress
or the calling of a special session.
Our challenge to Udall:
This is the defining moment for Rep. Udall.
"Two-thirds of Americans oppose altering the balance of power among the three branches of government to strengthen the presidency, even when they thought that doing so would improve the economy or national security", The Associated Press-National Constitution Center poll
Speaker Pelosi of the US House is suppressing impeachment resolutions and trying to quietly but quickly end this session of Congress without dealing with the massive fraud of the WMD Lies foisted on the Congress and the American people by President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Pelosi has led the incumbent House Democrats so poorly that they have worse positive poll ratings than Bush. The Democrats desire for a filibuster proof Senate and a veto proof Congress are now at stake. The effort by Pelosi to suppress any little discussion of holding Bush and Cheney liable for misleading Congress and the American people may cost the Party the majorities they so desperately desire.
This election is still too close to call in all respects.
The Congress and the American people need a Champion now. A courageous congressman who will stand up immediately and call for impeachment hearings to begin prior to the election and who will also call for the extension of this session of the House or for a special session to deal solely with impeachment. Starting the hearings now will send a message to the entire world that the American people do not agree with the methods of the Bush Administration and that we do not wish to be perceived to be as reckless as Bush and Cheney have been. Finishing the hearings prior to the election is not as important as getting them started before the election.
As scary as they are, neither the turmoil in the markets or the War on Terror are are the greatest threat to democracy. The expansion of Presidential Power if left unchecked by the incumbent House Democrats is the great threat to our republic in our lifetime.
Incumbent House Democrats are also at a defining moment. They have in their hand the power to end the Bush war of terror against our US Constitution. The incumbent House Democrats took their Oath OF Office on the Holy Bible and made a pledge to protect Our US Constitution Against All Enemies including those "domestic", Bush and Cheney. The incumbent House Democrats must not be let off the hook on this holy responsibility.
The Impeach Colorado Coalition has opposed the promotion of Udall to the US Senate because he continues to refuse to protect the US Constitution and the power of Congress against Bush and Cheney. We believe that congressmen and congresswomen who cover up for an obviously corrupt President and Vice President are perhaps themselves corrupt.
However, careful analysis of Udall's recent reply emails to his constituents reveals he is in fact debating with himself whether or not to support impeachment hearings.
We believe that Udall will rise to the immediate need, seize this opportunity, stand up for Congress and Our Constitution and place his name high in the Annals of American History.
Please see this link link to video of Bush and Cheney's statements on WMD.
John H Kennedy, Denver CO
43 yr Democratic voter,
Obama delegate to the Denver County Convention and
organizer of the
IMPEACH COLORADO COALITION http://ImpeachCO.com
Fear of sexism, fear of appearing to beat up on the poor little lady....
The poor little Sarah, that sweet lil' thang.....that fighter for femininity and the rights of women everywhere in a sea of male domination....
Claiming the title of Feminist and the woman that will pick up the mantle dropped by Hillary so she can blast through that glass ceiling Read More »
Apparently, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin really liked that movie:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin left open the option Thursday of waging war with Russia if it were to invade neighboring Georgia and the former Soviet republic were a NATO ally.
"We will not repeat a Cold War," Palin said in her first television interview since becoming Republican John McCain's vice presidential running mate two weeks ago.
Palin told Charles Gibson of ABC News that she'd favor including Georgia and Ukraine, both former Soviet republics, in NATO despite opposition by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Asked whether the United States would have to go to war with Russia if it invaded Georgia, and the country was part of NATO, Palin said: "Perhaps so."
Because, like, you didn't have enough wars or something.
The president of the Republic of Georgia eats his tie on national television. BBC
$1.1 Billion Giveaway for the Republic of Georgia Announced:
"The United States Supports The Recovery, Stability,
And Continued Growth Of Georgia's Economy"
The White House, Sept. 3, 2008
(Wash. DC) We're not talking about the great state of Georgia, which deserves everything it has coming to it and more. We're talking about the Republic of Georgia, a nation of 4.5 million people wedged between Russia and Turkey.
On Wednesday, September 3, the White House announced a comprehensive aid package valued at $1.1 billion dollars to help the Republic of Georgia recover from the whipping it took after it attacked Russian peace keeping forces in South Ossetia, a breakaway province of Georgia near the Russian border. That region experienced a major war in 1991 and varying tensions since.
Russian personnel were in Georgia as part of a multi-national peace keeping regime created by the United Nations and endorsed by the European Union in 2006.
Read More »It is time to call McCain a traitor. Why?
Because McCain has stated that he has a "plan" to capture/kill OBL. If that is so then why wait? Americans are being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. What moral reason does he have in not telling Mr. Bush his "plan"?
Call our elected representatives and demand that McCain give his "plan" to Mr. Bush and not wait for an election.
Let the local media know about this despicable tactic of McCain to let our soldiers die while he plays politics with his "plan to get OBL".
I hope my mother, my wife and my teenage daughter will excuse this one - but, my initial reaction holds that McCain is having a post midlife crisis moment here. Now he gets to spend the rest of the campaign on stage with either a blonde or a brunette former beauty queen; sometimes both.
Considering the depth and experience available to him in the rest of the GOP universe I am completely baffled that there can be any other reason for this decision. I am now even more appreciative for the intelligent and practical decision by Barack Obama to grab Joe Biden as his VP running mate.
The supposed VP Debate won't be. With this line-up it is clear that candidate Palin will carefuly recite radical right wing talking points fed to her by the McCain handlers. Even if Biden were allowed in the format/rules to challenge her on any issues we'll hear nothing original.
Thus there could not be a more distinct choice between the two tickets. Looking at the "rap-sheet" provided by MoveOn, American voters can have no doubts of the radical and destructive policies and positions John McCain is accepting by filling the GOP ticket with Palin. Read More »
Is this what a Republican in the oval office has come to?
Matt, Thinkprogress.org, writes:
On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that President Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he believes Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is going to be elected.
However, “if the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out,” Kristol said, reinforcing the fact that McCain is offering a third Bush term on Iran.
So it has come down to: Vote Obama and Bush will bomb Iran.
I usually scan Buzzflash.com once a day, and this little item came up which is a continuation of the assassination plot by four people. Chris Stephen, News.scotsman.com, writes:
THE three men arrested over a reported plot to kill the US Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, have ties to the white supremacist group Aryan Nations, police said last night...
All three belong to Aryan Nations, according to Victor Ross, the police chief in Glendale, a suburb of Denver where one of the suspects was arrested. The other two were held in Aurora, another suburb.
"We don't usually have that number of Aryan Nations people here,'' Mr Ross said. "It was suspicious to us. We turned everything over to the federal authorities."
I completely agree with the comments written to my previous post by Steve and RalphT that U.S. Attorney Troy Eid to resign by downplaying the seriousness of an assassination plot to kill Barack Obama. In Eid's own words, from the Herald Sun:
US Attorney Troy Eid said the men -- who were all high on the drug methamphetamine when arrested -- were not capable of carrying out an assassination.
"The law recognises a difference between a true threat -- one that can be carried out -- and the reported racist rantings of a drug addict," Mr Eid said. Their plan was "more aspirational, perhaps, than operational", he said.
Remember:
Thursday's nomination acceptance takes place on the anniversary of the "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King, and King's campaign for racial equality saw him assassinated 40 years ago
While many people do not place a huge significance on dates of important events there are fanatics who do. Tim McVeigh and his ilk do place huge significance on the dates of certain events...like Ruby Ridge and Waco tragedies for their own ideological ends.
From the Anti-Defamanation League website about Aryan Nations:
Aryan Nations is one of the country's best-known enclaves of anti-Semitism and white nationalism. While founded as a Christian Identity outpost, the organization also incorporates neo-Nazi themes; its founder and longtime leader, Richard Girnt Butler, openly adulates Hitler.
I will point out this from the Souther Poverty Law Center's 2006 report on racism and racist activity in the military:
Department of Defense investigators estimate thousands of soldiers in the Army alone are involved in extremist or gang activity. "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," said one investigator. "That's a problem."
Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen urged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to adopt a zero-tolerance policy regarding racist extremism among members of the U.S. military.
McVeigh was a decorated combat veteran from Operation Desert Storm, and afterwards he was also a meth addict. In interviews, Timothy McVeigh suggested that much of his inspirations stemmed from the racist thinking and the beliefs of the Aryan Nations group. Meth appears to have been no impediment to carrying out a terrorist attack.
But the above referenced report had to appear in a foreign news source not here in America. What does that say about our nation's press and the willingness of the American people who are blindered and being lead around by the nose?
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