News from Other Dems

I have a soft spot for the Chequamegon Bay Area of Wisconsin. I love the place. I keep in touch with the Chequamegon Democrats and receive their monthly Newsletter, The Chequamegon Democrat. I thank Jim and Joanne for sending it to me. I received the latest edition today and found (like always) an active and committed membership and lots of activities.

One thing really caught my eye. On January 26, their Executive Committee met and finalized the workding of their own resolution on the escalation of the war in Iraq and urging members of Congress to vote agains appropriations that would expand the war.

The resolution was sent to Senators Feingold and Kohl and Congressman Dave Obey, and, according to the newsletter, the letters "...mentioned the costs of the war in terms of lives, lost opportunities and treasure, noting Wisconsin taxpayers will pay over $6 billion for the war in Iraq."

Here is the resolution:

Resolved ,the Chequamegon Democratic Party of Ashland and Bayfield Counties implores Congress to heed the undeniable will of the American Citizenry and the overwhelming majority of Iraqis to end the misguided, reckless military involvement in Iraq. We support all necessary funding to protect our troops and to bring them home safely, BUT we urge you to vote against "emergency supplemental" funding and other requests for extra funds beyond the regular budget that prolong or escalate the war. Congress must exercise its budgetary responsibility. It owes that to America's brave fighting men and women and it owes the American public legislative honesty and accountability.

Interesting. This is almost identical to what Senator Feingold has been saying on the talk shows recently.

Best wishes to our fellow Democrats. Hope to see you at the 7th CD Convention in April.

Like pulling teeth!

After several irritating attempts, this blog has been successfully converted to "new blogger"

Members of the blog team who have original posting rights will be required to get a new google account but you won't need to do so just to add a comment to the post.

At any rate: mission accomplished.....

"I have the feeling we're not in Kansas anymore"

Thanks to LoLo for her indespensible help earlier this evening......

A few things for Wednesday Morning

I'm having trouble switching this site over to "new blogger" so there may be a few interruptions on the blog.

In the meantime:

Over at This Space Reserved)http://mwprogressive.blogspot.com/ I posted about the testimony and interviews where the Coalition Provisional Authority couldn't account for $9 BILLION...(Yep, that's a "B" and not an "M") of our tax dollars. This morning I found out I was wrong.

IT WAS $12 BILLION!

The "money shot" was this comment:

This is from a recorded interview with David Oliver, the former Director of Management and Budget of the agency(The Coalition Provisional Authority)when he was asked by the BBC about what happened to the money.

"I have no idea, I can't tell you whether or not the money went to the right things or didn't - nor do I actually think it is important," Oliver says on the tape . "Billions of dollars of their money disappeared, yes I understand, I'm saying what difference does it make?"

If you want to see just how reckless the handling of our money was, take a look at this from Reuters (via CNN)this morning:

The Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said Tuesday.
The money, which had been held by the United States, came from Iraqi oil exports, surplus dollars from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and frozen assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime.

Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did," the California Democrat said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.(Editor note: possible answer shown in picture on right)

363 tons? Wait a minute, let me get out my calculator here.....

let's see that's 363 times 2,000 pounds per ton that equals 726,000 pounds of CASH!

and then, a semi-trailer (18 wheeler) can legally haul 40,000 pounds (Net weight) on the highway, so that means that it would have taken 18.15 SEMI TRAILERS OF CASH????

That's one helluva a convey folks.......

The magnitude of this is breath-taking....absolutely breath-taking....

Repubs...be afraid...be very afraid!

Cross-posted from THIS SPACE RESERVED

It just takes two words...

or actually one name...

DAVE OBEY

THEY BETTER BE AFRAID...BE VERY AFRAID......

Why? Because President Bush submitted his budget today and now the control of the house is in the hands of the Democrats and the APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE is chaired by the meanes bulldog in the pack.

Dave has spent over 30 years in Congress and he's spent the last six years being kicked around, ignored, marginalized, insulted and steam-rolled by the Republican majority. Now, Dave is Chairman of the Appropriations Committee...

can you say PAYBACK TIME?

I met Dave Obey over 30 years ago and think I know him as ...ummmm...fiesty....actually as pretty tough customer when you piss him off....

Bush submitted his budget today and now it gets turned over to Obey...it's his sandbox and the Repubs are in for a rough time. Obey doesn't put up with lies or b. s. and this budget has a lot of both!...from the New York Times

The proposed basic budget for the Defense Department is $481.1 billion, a 62 percent increase over 2001, Mr. Bush’s first year as president, and an increase of $49 billion over what Congress provided for this fiscal year. But the figure does not include more than $93 billion in supplemental money in this fiscal year and about $145 billion in the next fiscal year for the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.

Or, if you want to see just how phoney Bush's numbers really are, take a look at this from The National Journal:
It is also unthinkable that the Bush administration does not intend to fully fund the cost of activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, in light of the statements the White House has made in recent weeks excoriating anyone who dared to have such thoughts, no one should assume the president won't be first in line to make sure the additional spending is provided.

However, the FY08 Bush budget only includes a $50 billion placeholder for Iraq and Afghanistan in FY09 and nothing for FY10 through FY12. The White House has already made it clear that additional spending will likely be required.

Does anybody really think that Obey is going to let Bush get away with that?

Pass the popcorn.....

We'll Leave Eye-Rack!

Reposted from This Space Reserved

I grew up in the heyday of Mad Magazine and, like my peers of the time, damn near memorized every issue.

One I particularly enjoyed was an issue that spoofed college fight songs and cheers. One spoofy cheer I remember went something like:

WE’LL GET A TOUCHDOWN!
WE’LL GET A TOUCHDOWN!

To which the student body would reply:

WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!
WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!

I thought about that in terms of a current “cheer” for Democrats

WE’LL LEAVE EYE-RACK!
WE’LL LEAVE EYE-RACK! (spelling changed for ..poetic? reasons)

To which the administration replys:

WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!
WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!

Just how can I make such a claim? Because I remembered something that came up early in the invasion of Iraq and has since been forgotten, glossed over or just plain covered up.

We’re building “enduring bases” in Iraq. There has been some quibbling over just what “enduring” means but apparently, it means much more than just a tent city and judging from what little information there is, these are a long, long way from “tent city”.

Here’s what Mother Jones Magazine had to say about it all the way back in March of 2005:

When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters last December that he expected U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for another four years, he was merely confirming what any visitor to the country could have surmised. The omnipresence of the giant defense contractor KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root), the shipments of concrete and other construction materials, and the transformation of decrepit Iraqi military bases into fortified American enclaves—complete with Pizza Huts and DVD stores—are just the most obvious signs that the United States has been digging in for the long haul.

Even then, Mother Jones noted the contradiction of “withdrawing troops” versus what was actually happening on the ground

It's a far cry from administration assurances after the invasion that the troops could start withdrawing from Iraq as early as the fall of 2003. And it is hardly consistent with a prediction by Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, that the troops would be out of Iraq within months, or with Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi's guess that the U.S. occupation would last two years. Take, for example, Camp Victory North, a sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport, which the U.S. military seized just before the ouster of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

Over the past year, KBR contractors have built a small American city where about 14,000 troops are living, many hunkered down inside sturdy, wooden, air-conditioned bungalows called SEA (for Southeast Asia) huts, replicas of those used by troops in Vietnam. There's a Burger King, a gym, the country's biggest PX—and, of course, a separate compound for KBR workers, who handle both construction and logistical support.

This was, of course (naturally) just after Donald Rumsfeld said on February 17 of the same year:

2/17/2005, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense globalsecurity "We have no intention, at the present time, of putting permanent bases in Iraq.'"Permanent bases? We have no idea"source: zfacts: ttp://zfacts.com/p/263.html

The Christian Science Monitor said that although information was hard to come by, they could glean this in all the way back on 2004.

But a dozen is the number of so-called "enduring bases" located by John Pike, director of GlobalSecurities.org. His military affairs website gives their names. They include, for example, Camp Victory at the Baghdad airfield and Camp Renegade in Kirkuk. The Chicago Tribune last March said US engineers are constructing 14 "enduring bases," but Mr. Pike hasn't located two of them.Note the terminology "enduring" bases. That's Pentagon-speak for long-term encampments - not necessarily permanent, but not just a tent on a wood platform either. It all suggests a planned indefinite stay on Iraqi soil that will cost US taxpayers for years to come.

Combine that information with the information on the incredibly huge U. S. Embassy compound in Baghdad and there isn’t much doubt that our leaders intend to stay in Iraq for quite a while.

Maybe this “surge” crap is really a subterfuge. Maybe the real game is to keep 50,000 or 75,000 troops stationed in Iraq permanently in these “enduring bases”.

Maybe I should just go back to reading my MAD MAGAZINES...I think MAD is closer to the truth....

Fox News is Biased? Who Knew?

After you wipe the sarcasm off your screen, read this snippet courtesy of Juan Cole at Informed Comment:
Also credit to ePluribus Media

Murdoch was asked if News Corp. had managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq. His answer?
"No, I don't think so. We tried [...] We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East...but we have been very critical of his execution."

Let me repeat this: "We Tried!"

After hearing this confession, how can anyone ever again take seriously Fox News or any of Murdoch's other instruments of bias? How can News Corp. continue to pretend that they are "fair and balanced?" How can any other media company exhibit the slightest expression of respect or patronization

That's a confession and outright lie all in one concise sentence, Rupert. The only way you've been critical of the execution of the war is by criticizing Democrats......Nevertheless, the admission is quite breath-taking for Fox...

Juan riff's on those quotes in a way that resonates deeply with me, and I suspect, with the vast majority of our local party members. The snippets:

"Murdoch's remarks are a good reason for which the news conglomerates should be broken up so that a wider range of views can be published..."

and the "money shot":

:Murdoch's media have done more to cheapen American values and drive the country toward fascistic ways of thinking than anything since the McCarthy period in the 1950s. The airwaves belong to the public, and this man only licenses them. When will the public take them back and use them for purposes of which Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin would have approved?"


on edit, there's more on this subject here

Note: I've looked back at a few posts and realized that I tried to get more than one thought/topic at a time into them. I think it's confusing, sooooooo
I'm going to leave this post as a single subject and I'll post more on another "single subject post later.

Little help here.....

Does anybody remember the name of our 7th CD rep to the DNC?

Let me know.