But, of course, this was originally Ahhnold's plan

Republican's war on kids

Proposal to go before the full Senate would cut $1billion more than the Assembly version and remove aid from thousands of families.
By Evan Halper and Jordan Rau, Times Staff Writers
July 25, 2007

After holding up the state budget nearly a month past deadline, Senate Republicans offered Tuesday to end the impasse if Democrats would move tens of thousands of poor families off welfare and make dozens of additional program cuts.

The linchpin of the plan, Ackerman said, is a $324-million cut in the state's welfare program. The cut was initially proposed by the governor in January, but Schwarzenegger had not been aggressively pushing for its inclusion in the spending plan adopted by the Legislature [...]

Advocates for the poor were alarmed to see the governor's January proposal revived. They said it would result in as many as 40,000 families losing state assistance.

California Republican Senators Target Kids

By Hayley Leventhal
Reporter
California Progress Report

Despite the expectations, the California Senate met for mere minutes this morning, just long enough to postpone any vote on the state budget another day. Republicans, who were given four days to propose a budget of their own, provided only a list of possible cuts. Their proposal has not yet been written in bill form that can be voted on, but is expected to be presented tomorrow morning when the Senate reconvenes at 9 a.m.

Think racism is gone? Religious persecution? Think bigotry is a thing of the past? Think the killing of Satender Singh was an anomaly? That only a few misguided individuals went too far ... Think again; it's never gone away, it's only hidden better. Read on ...

Neocons on a Cruise: What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren't Listening

By Johann Hari, Independent UK. Posted July 17, 2007.

The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth and Guantanamo Bay is practically a holiday camp. The annual cruise organized by the 'National Review,' mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. "Is he your only child?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Do you have a child back in England?" she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. "You'd better start," she says. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."

I am getting used to these moments - when gentle holiday geniality bleeds into… what? I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, " Of course, we need to execute some of these people," I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. " Then things'll change."

Click

In this photo, six American soldiers and an Iraqi translator are burning to death inside the armored vehicle. Cpl. Joshua Lake from Apache Company told Sean Smith, “It’s a joke. We will have spent 14 months in contact, basically fighting all 14 months…first week in Baghdad we lost two guys in our battalion, and it hasn’t stopped since.”

(Sean Smith/Guardian)

A Violent, 'Normal' Day in Baghdad

Lake and his fellow soldiers then raided a nearby house to search for the attackers. He said on a day like that, troops are given four to six hour breaks after these kinds of grueling assignments, which leaves little time to truly calm down.

Nearly unnoticed Congress (Democratic majority) yesterday (Wednesday June 20th) declared all but open war on Iran. The House passed Resolution 21:

Calling on the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Only two representatives voted against the resolution. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.
Paul said:

This resolution is an exercise in propaganda that serves one purpose: to move us closer to initiating a war against Iran. Citing various controversial statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, this legislation demands that the United Nations Security Council charge Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Having already initiated a disastrous war against Iraq citing UN resolutions as justification, this resolution is like déja-vu. Have we forgotten 2003 already? Do we really want to go to war again for UN resolutions? That is where this resolution, and the many others we have passed over the last several years on Iran, is leading us. I hope my colleagues understand that a vote for this bill is a vote to move us closer to war with Iran.

Clearly, language threatening to wipe a nation or a group of people off the map is to be condemned by all civilized people. And I do condemn any such language. But why does threatening Iran with a pre-emptive nuclear strike, as many here have done, not also deserve the same kind of condemnation? Does anyone believe that dropping nuclear weapons on Iran will not wipe a people off the map? When it is said that nothing, including a nuclear strike, is off the table on Iran, are those who say it not also threatening genocide? And we wonder why the rest of the world accuses us of behaving hypocritically, of telling the rest of the world “do as we say, not as we do.” ...

What exactly did Ahmadinejad say?

Professor Juan Cole explains

Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don't Apply to Him
By Justin Rood | ABC News | Thursday 21 June 2007

Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to Cheney.

Bill Leonard, head of the government's Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), told Waxman's staff that Cheney's office has refused to provide his staff with details regarding classified documents or submit to a routine inspection as required by presidential order, according to Waxman.

In pointed letters released today by Waxman, ISOO's Leonard twice questioned Cheney's office on its assertion it was exempt from the rules. He received no reply, but the vice president later tried to get rid of Leonard's office entirely, according to Waxman.

Lieberman Helps Collect Cash for Collins
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/05/lieberman_helps_collect_cash_f.html

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) is never going to win any popularity contests among his party's liberal base -- a fact he seems decidedly unconcerned about despite his 2006 Democratic primary loss to Ned Lamont.

Democrats' 2000 vice-presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, left, is helping raise money for Republican Susan Collins of Maine, right. (Getty Images)

Not only has Lieberman endorsed Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine.) -- one of Democrats' biggest targets in the 2008 cycle -- but he's planning to co-host a fundraiser for her on June 21 in Washington, D.C.

Petraeus: “Historically, Counter-Insurgency Ops Have Gone At Least 9 or 10 Years”

In his first interview on a Sunday talk show, (who could have predicted he’d go to Fox, first?) Top U.S. Commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus talks to Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” about the progress of the ongoing military surge in Iraq. With the recent revelation that U.S. forces only control 40% of Baghdad, Wallace contends that this operation will take a long-term commitment (see the Korean model) and asks Petraeus if it’s time for the government to “square up” with the American public about how long the occupation will last. The General’s response lays the groundwork for lowered expectations for the upcoming deadline in September when he is to report to Congress…

Petraeus: ” I think just about everybody out there recognizes that a situation like this with the many, many challenges that Iraq is contending with is not one that’s going to be resolved in a year or even two years. In fact, typically - I think historically, counter-insurgency operations have gone at least nine or ten years.”

What's a Friedman Unit?

Glad you asked

The Friedman, or Friedman Unit (F.U.), is a tongue-in-cheek neologism coined by blogger Atrios (Duncan Black) on May 21, 2006.[1] A Friedman is a unit of time equal to six months.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The Huffington Post cited it as the "Best New Phrase" of 2006.[9]

A Collapse for Democrats - UPDATED
by Senator Russ Feingold : Tue May 22, 2007 at 09:28:13 AM PDT

I wanted to link to a couple really good posts that I’ve seen in the past few days about the Democrats’ strategy on the Iraq supplemental spending bill. They drive home what a mistake it is to just give up and pass a supplemental that doesn’t include language to stop the war:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/...

This situation is a collapse for Democrats. We had a strong start, pushed back against the President’s failed policy and held our ground that the supplemental should include binding language to end the war. But now, as Congress gets ready to send the President a bill that does nothing to get our troops out of Iraq, we are just folding our cards. As one person commented under Greg Sargent’s great post at TPM cafe, "Send the Congressional Dems over to my place for some poker - I could use a windfall right now."

This is no time to back down. This fight to end the war isn’t something that we can just put off or kick down the road. As mcjoan pointed out, it doesn’t make any sense to wait until this "mythical September" when Republicans will suddenly decide that we need to get out of Iraq. Why should this wait until September? First Americans had to put up with a Republican Congress that did nothing, and now we are faced with a Democratic Congress that is giving the President exactly what he wants – continuing his failed policy and leaving our troops stuck in the middle of a civil war. Some strategy. We can’t back down when the stakes are so high. I know you’ll keep ratcheting up the pressure, and that’s exactly what we need right now. Now is the time to be pulling out all the stops to end the war.

UPDATE:

Why do I have sense of foreboding? I'll point it out below

ABC News: Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran

This evening, ABC’s World News Tonight reported that the “United States has opened a new front in its showdown with Iran.” According to the report, President Bush has directed the CIA to carry out covert operations both inside and outside Iran “aimed directly at weakening the Iranian regime.”

ABC’s investigative correspondent Brian Ross said the CIA’s “non-lethal” program had received “secret presidential approval.” Officials told ABC the CIA plan “takes the place of proposed U.S. military action against Iran, reportedly advocated by Vice President Cheney.”

The Blotter has more coverage:

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a “nonlethal presidential finding” that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions.

[…]

“Vice President Cheney helped to lead the side favoring a military strike,”

Yet another reason we need Clean Money campaigns in CA.
--Bill

Big Oil buys Sacramento
Why You’re Not Hearing A Peep From California Politicians on Record-High Gas Prices.
by Jamie Court and Judy Dugan : Published on Monday, May 14, 2007 by The Los Angeles Times

Who’s afraid of Big Oil? Apparently, California’s elected officials. Gasoline prices are stuck well above last year’s record highs and about 50 cents above the national average. Yet state politicians are not saying or doing a thing, except for raking in political cash from the oil companies and flying around the world on their dime.

Take Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once claimed that he was so rich he did not need anyone else’s money - and who isn’t running for another office. Yet as gasoline prices were breaking last year’s record of $3.38 a gallon, Schwarzenegger collected a $100,000 check May 1 from Chevron, the West’s largest refiner. The company certainly had the cash on hand. Just three days earlier, it reported a $4.7-billion first-quarter profit, up 18% over the same period last year.

Bush Changes Continuity Plan

Administration, Not DHS, Would Run Shadow Government

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 10, 2007; Page A12

President Bush issued a formal national security directive yesterday ordering agencies to prepare contingency plans for a surprise, "decapitating" attack on the federal government, and assigned responsibility for coordinating such plans to the White House.

[...]

It is designated National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20.

Read this slowly and carefully. Thomas PM Barnett is one of them - and by that I mean someone who thinks the military is the only answer for world problems. This Esquire interview is directly from his website. As you look at the picture, notice the dark blue areas, those are the areas targeted for domination and control, and when he talks about the gap, he means the blue areas. Here's how he describes it ...

DISCONNECTEDNESS DEFINES DANGER Problem areas requiring American attention (outlined) are, in the author's analysis, called the Gap. Shrinking the Gap is possible only by stopping the ability of terrorist networks to access the Core via the "seam states" that lie along the Gap's bloody boundaries. In this war on terrorism, the U.S. will place a special emphasis on cooperation with these states. What are the classic seam states? Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Indonesia.

THE PENTAGON’S NEW MAP

IT EXPLAINS WHY WE’RE GOING TO WAR, AND WHY WE’LL KEEP GOING TO WAR.

BY

THOMAS P.M. BARNETT, U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE

Esquire, March 2003 issue

Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been trying to come up with an operating theory of the world—and a military strategy to accompany it. Now there’s a leading contender. It involves identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them. Since September 11, 2001, the author, a professor of warfare analysis, has been advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense and giving this briefing continually at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community. Now he gives it to you.

As expected...

Sullivan would consider running for Doolittle's seat
By David Whitney - Bee Washington Bureau: Published 11:44 am PDT Thursday, May 10, 2007

WASHINGTON - Sacramento radio host Tom Sullivan said Thursday he will "seriously consider" running for Rep. John Doolittle's House seat if the beleaguered Roseville Republican were to resign because of the ongoing federal investigation into the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

"I've had a lot of calls," Sullivan said in an interview. "I don't know what to do. I will seriously consider it."

From today's San Diego Union Tribune

May 09, 2007
Debate TV Ratings

Twice as many people watched SpongeBob last week than viewed last Thursday's Republican presidential debate.

According to Nielsen Media Research date, 1.8 million viewers tuned in to MSNBC to watch the 10 Republican presidential candidates go at it at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley Thursday night.

The previous week's Democratic debate at South Carolina State University attracted 2.3 million watchers.

Before Democrats get carried away gloating, they should consider that more than 3.6 million people watched that underwater yellow block of foam last week. And 5 million watched wrestling.

Will Doolittle Do Time?
By Ralph Brave : NewsReview.com : Monday 07 May 2007

Does the downfall of a local congressman mean something more than the latest corruption of a politician?

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the U.S. Department of Justice's ongoing investigation into Congressman John T. Doolittle and his wife, Julie-and it's been going on for three years now-clearly his political career is over. Even if he and his wife unexpectedly locate some loophole to avoid indictment or imprisonment for the two corruption cases in which their fund-raising activities are inextricably entangled, the Doolittles' unsavory skimming of campaign contributions and personally pocketing more than a quarter-million dollars have forever finished off their reputations among their own conservative kith and kin. From Sacramento to Washington, the only discussion of the Doolittle case by political insiders from both parties regards strategy over when and how and by whom he should be replaced.

Wait a minute, I thought he was The Decider,™ now he's The Commander-Guy™?

Iraq's Civil War

James D. Fearon
From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2007

Summary: The White House still avoids the label, but by any reasonable historical standard, the Iraqi civil war has begun. The record of past such wars suggests that Washington cannot stop this one -- and that Iraqis will be able to reach a power-sharing deal only after much more fighting, if then. The United States can help bring about a settlement eventually by balancing Iraqi factions from afar, but there is little it can do to avert bloodshed now.

James D. Fearon is Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.

NO GRACEFUL EXIT

As sectarian violence spiked in Baghdad around last Thanksgiving, Bush administration spokespeople found themselves engaged in a strange semantic fight with American journalists over whether the conflict in Iraq is appropriately described as a civil war. It is not hard to understand why the administration strongly resists the label. For one thing, the U.S. media would interpret a change in the White House's position on this question as a major concession, an open acknowledgment of dashed hopes and failed policy. For another, the administration worries that if the U.S. public comes to see the violence in Iraq as a civil war, it will be even less willing to tolerate continued U.S. military engagement. "If it's a civil war, what are we doing there, mixed up in someone else's fight?" Americans may ask.

The News and Review has a great cover story that asks the question (Will Doolittle do time?), and gives reasons for the estranged feelings for the sardonic, rapacious Representative from CD-4. What follows is part of his political bio from the article ...

Avalanche of animus

First, the personal qualities and character of Doolittle must openly and frankly be dealt with, for there is no figure currently on the California political stage who has consistently engendered as much overt loathing and disgust as Doolittle--as much from members of his own party as from his ideological counterparts. When he was fined by the Fair Political Practices Commission for laundering money to swing his 1984 election, his defeated opponent, former Senate Republican colleague Ray Johnson, foresaw that it would not be an adequate penalty to stop future misbehavior. “Oh God,” Johnson lamented in 1987 in the California Journal, “can’t we just drown him and get it over with?” A year after that comment, on the verge of Doolittle winning re-election based on another vicious campaign, Sacramento Bee columnist Pete Dexter couldn’t constrain his contempt. In print he pronounced Doolittle “a lying, unprincipled, crooked piece of human garbage.” Even for Dexter, this was strong stuff.

What evoked these and other expressions of outrage was the combination of characteristics that arises with regularity in American political life: the religious hypocrite, the sanctimonious scumbag. In Doolittle’s case, it is the devout Mormon with a highly selective ethical compass, which since the very beginning of his career consistently has drawn out such a continuous avalanche of animus toward him.

From Doolittle’s perspective, there must have been some considerable measure of spite and vengeful malice that motivated him and bridged the contradiction in his character. While many of the 1960s youth were struggling for political and cultural and personal liberation, the teen-aged Johnny Doolittle was dreaming of Richard Nixon. When he graduated as a history major from UC Santa Cruz in 1972, the town of Santa Cruz voted 96 percent for George McGovern. In the 1970s, while South America was in the throes of overcoming a century of colonialism and imperialism, Doolittle landed in Argentina as a Mormon missionary. Read the Doolittle-opoly.

Click the picture for the video


[This picture is a photoshop, not real]

They think it's all fun and games and a boat party. That's what they think but really it's like this

In the Black(water)

JEREMY SCAHILL
June 5, 2006

Tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims remain without homes. The environment is devastated. People are disenfranchised. Financial resources, desperate residents are told, are scarce. But at least New Orleans has a Wal-Mart parking lot serving as a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center with perhaps the tightest security of any parking lot in the world. That's thanks to the more than $30 million Washington has shelled out to the Blackwater USA security firm since its men deployed after Katrina hit.

Soldier: Army ordered me not to tell truth about Tillman

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by superiors not to divulge -- especially to the Tillman family -- that a fellow soldier killed Tillman.

O'Neal particularly wanted to tell fellow soldier Kevin Tillman, who was in the convoy traveling behind his brother at the time of the 2004 incident in Afghanistan.

"I wanted right off the bat to let the family know what had happened, especially Kevin, because I worked with him in a platoon and I knew that he and the family all needed to know what had happened," O'Neal testified. "I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to speak with Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him."

Asked who gave him the order, O'Neal replied that it came from his battalion commander, then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey.

"He basically just said ..., 'Do not let Kevin know, that he's probably in a bad place knowing his brother's dead,' " O'Neal told House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman. "And he made it known I would get in trouble, sir, if I spoke with Kevin on it being fratricide."

The military instead released a "manufactured narrative" detailing how Pat Tillman died leading a courageous counterattack in an Afghan mountain pass, Kevin Tillman told the committee. ...