Saturday, April 26, 2008

Other Items

A deputy sheriff was waiting for Leif Kamunen when he and his girlfriend pulled out of the Carlton driveway on Friday morning in her grandfather's red Tacoma pickup truck.
His girlfriend, Angela Martini, said that Leif, 22, had gotten wind the military was after him and was planning to turn himself in to an Army office in Duluth after being AWOL for nearly 16 months.
The Carlton County Sheriff's Office saved him the trouble, arresting him about 7 a.m. on a desertion warrant.
Kamunen is one of three brothers from northern Minnesota who went AWOL from the Army at virtually the same time about 16 months ago, not returning to basic training after a Christmas break in 2006.

His twin brother, Luke, was spotted during a traffic stop in spring 2007 and arrested on a desertion warrant. He was flown to Fort Knox, Ky., where he was given an "other than honorable discharge" last year. He is now working and attending Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet.
The whereabouts of the third brother, Leo, remained a bit of a mystery on Friday night.


That's the opening to Randy Furst's "Deputy nabs second of three AWOL Minnesota brothers" (Minnesota Star Tribune). The Kamunen brothers self-checkedout in December of 2006 and quickly went public about it. If you never heard of them in all this time, take it up with the lousy 'independent' media in this country. Amy Goodman never interviewed or mentioned them. In fact Joel Bleifuss (In These Times, June 2007) was the only one to cover about them. All the outlets and only Joel?

The Kamunen brothers were class of 2007 and class of 2007 was completely ignored.


Charlie notes "HUBdate: 'A Rock Star Welcome'" (HillaryClinton.com):

"A Rock Star Welcome" Hillary received "a rock star welcome" from more than 3,000 supporters gathered last night in East Chicago, IN. "Amanda McKinney...said she entered Friday's event as a skeptic and left as a believer. 'I thought it was very informative. It wasn't just about charm and charisma,' McKinney said, officially renouncing her former support for Obama." Read more.
"Talk is Cheap" Yesterday, Sen. Obama renewed false attacks on Hillary for not standing up to the oil industry while he is the only candidate to have voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill and has taken more money from oil company executives than any other candidate in the race. Hillary's response: "When it came time to stand up against the oil companies and stand against Dick Cheney's energy bill, my opponent voted for it and I voted against it. And that bill had billions of dollars in giveaways to the oil companies. It was the best bill that the energy companies could buy."
Read more and read Hillary's response.
"It's Time for Leadership" Yesterday, Hillary launched a new ad airing in NC and IN highlighting her plan to take on oil companies and lower the cost of gas for Hoosier families: "These days it costs fifty bucks to fill up the tank. How can Indiana families afford that? ...With gas this expensive, talk is cheap. It's time for leadership."
Watch it here.
The Tide is Turning: A new Gallup poll shows "support for [Hillary] is significantly higher in…post-primary interviews than...just prior to her Pennsylvania victory...Obama's lead dwindled steadily all week, falling from a high of 10 percentage points." Hillary and Sen. Obama are statistically tied, and Hillary now leads nationally against Sen. McCain (47-45).
Read more.
Striking a Chord in NC: Hillary’s NC economic solutions have "struck home in the mountains, where working people feel the pinch from the state’s highest housing and fuel costs, thousands of workers have lost high-paying manufacturing jobs, and scores of local soldiers have served multiple tours in Iraq or Afghanistan...'I don’t know how anybody who listened to her tonight could vote for anybody else,' said Madison County resident Charles Tolley."
Read more.
Previewing Today: Hillary campaigns across Indiana, holding "Solutions for the American Economy" rallies in South Bend, IN and Fort Wayne, IN.
On Tap: Hillary will meet with voters across North Carolina this Sunday evening through Tuesday morning. Monday, Hillary will attend a Club 44 event in Charlotte, NC.


The following community sites have updated since yesterday morning:

Rebecca's Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Cedric's Cedric's Big Mix;
Kat's Kat's Korner;
Betty's Thomas Friedman is a Great Man;
Mike's Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine's Like Maria Said Paz;
Wally's The Daily Jot;
Trina's Trina's Kitchen;
Ruth's Ruth's Report;
and Marcia's SICKOFITRADLZ

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.















Iraq

On the front page of today's New York Times, Mark Mazzetti, Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker that isn't reporting. It's entitled "Questions Linger on Scope Of Iranian Threat in Iraq" and appears to exist solely to soften up Americans to the idea that the Iranian government is doing things. What things? Never proven things. Again, it's just advancing the whispers while pretending to refute some of them. No links to trash.

CNN reports on the continued assault of Sadr City:

Overnight in Baghdad's Sadr City killed eight people -- including two children -- and wounded 28, Iraqi officials said, and insurgent attacks across Iraq killed six people and wounded 26.
A U.S. military spokesman denied an Interior Ministry official's report that airstrikes and clashes involving U.S. forces caused the casualties in Sadr City.
"There were no 'fierce' clashes between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. involving U.S. forces or those Iraqi security forces we are partnered with," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. "So we do not know who killed those women and children."
U.S. and Iraqi forces have been battling Shiite militias in Sadr City for a month.
Saturday saw a wave of suicide and car bombings across Iraq.


BBC notes: "A fire which broke out at an Iraqi oil pipeline south of Baghdad injuring at least eight security guards was accidental, the US military has said." And they note: "A series of co-ordinated bomb attacks has killed at least seven people and injured more than 20 in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul."

Lewis notes "HUBdate: Fair is Fair" (HillaryClinton.com):

Fair is Fair: In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Clinton campaign strategist Geoff Garin writes: "The bottom line is that one campaign really has engaged in a mean-spirited, unfair character attack on the other candidate -- but it has been Obama’s campaign, not ours. You would be hard-pressed to find significant analogues from our candidate, our senior campaign officials or our advertising to the direct personal statements that the Obama campaign has made about Clinton." Read More.
$$$: "Hillary Clinton raised $10 million in the 24 hours after winning the Pennsylvania primary, aided by contributions from 80,000 new donors." Read more and keep it going at http://www.hillaryclinton.com/.
An Open Letter From Dr. Maya Angelou: Poet and activist Dr. Maya Angelou wrote an open letter about her commitment to Hillary’s candidacy. "Hillary does not waver in standing up for those who need a champion.... I am supporting Hillary Clinton because I know that she will make the most positive difference in people's lives and she will help our country become what it can be." Read More.
In Case You Missed It: Paul Krugman writes in today's NYT: "From the beginning, I wondered what Mr. Obama’s soaring rhetoric, his talk of a new politics and declarations that 'we are the ones we've been waiting for' (waiting for to do what, exactly?) would mean to families troubled by lagging wages, insecure jobs and fear of losing health coverage. The answer, from Ohio and Pennsylvania, seems pretty clear: not much. Mrs. Clinton has been able to stay in the race, against heavy odds, largely because her no-nonsense style, her obvious interest in the wonkish details of policy, resonate with many voters in a way that Mr. Obama's eloquence does not." Read more.
Bringing Troops Home with Honor: Yesterday, Hillary highlighted policies for veterans at "Solutions for America" events in Fayetteville and Asheville, NC. It’s rare for a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to endorse a candidate but General Hugh Shelton is backing HRC. In NC yesterday, he said: "Unlike any other candidate, [Hillary] understands that maintaining a well-prepared armed forces goes beyond providing dollars....She is the only candidate who has offered a responsible plan for bringing our troops home with honor." Read more.
Electable...Without FL or OH? The Obama campaign released a memo yesterday on electability, but as Chris Cilizza highlights, "two states that are not mentioned in the Obama memo are Florida, the key battleground in the 2000 presidential race, and Ohio, the Florida of the 2004 contest." Read more.
Debate Watch: Hillary is willing to debate Sen. Obama in North Carolina, Oregon, and Indiana while Sen. Obama continues to resist. His excuse today: "It's not clear that another debate is going to be the best use of our time." Meanwhile Sen. Evan Bayh said this yesterday: "We have thousands of people in Indiana who...deserve an opportunity to see both candidates stand side by side...We in Indiana don’t want to be treated as second-class citizens." Read more and more.
Today on the Trail: In North Carolina, Hillary hosts a "Solutions for America" event in Jacksonville, NC. In Indiana, she hosts "Solutions for the American Economy" events in Bloomington, East Chicago, and Fort Wayne. She also meets with steelworkers to discuss creating and protecting jobs in Gary.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.





Friday, April 25, 2008

Iraq snapshot

Friday, April 25, 2008.  Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, an oversight exploration announces Iraqi Forces figures are wrong, the VA scandals continue and more.
 
Starting with war resistance.  Claudia Feldman (Houston Chronicle) reported a week ago on consientious objector Hart Vines and his participation at Iraq Veterans Against the War's Winter Soldier (IVAW's Ronn Cantu who started the first IVAW chapter in Texas, at Fort Hood, is also covered in the article).  Feldman reports:

 
One of his jobs in Iraq was to stand guard with a .50-caliber machine gun while his buddies searched houses supposedly inhabited by insurgents and enemy combatants. At the conference, searches of that kind were described vividly. Sometimes soldiers kicked in the front doors. Sometimes they upended refrigerators and ripped stoves out of walls. Sometimes they turned drawers upside down and broke furniture.
One day Viges was instructed to search a suspicious house, a hut, really, but he couldn't find pictures of Saddam Hussein, piles of money, AK-47s or roadside bombs.
"The only thing I found was a little .22 pistol," Viges said, " ... but we ended up taking the two young men, regardless."
An older woman, probably the mother of the young men, watched and wailed nearby.
"She was crying in my face, trying to kiss my feet," Viges said. "And, you know, I can't speak Arabic, but I can speak human. She was saying, 'Please, why are you taking my sons? They have done nothing wrong.' "
 

 
And after I came home I've come to realise that we've got to make better choices,  I applied for Conscientious Objector [status]. I was able to remember the Sermon on the Mount. I'm a Christian, what was I doing holding a gun to another human being? Love thy neighbour. Do good for him. Pray for those who persecute you, don't shoot them. 
I get my Conscientious Objector packet approved. I'm alone. I'm free, I'm done. It's all gone now, right? 
No! I still swerve at trash bags
fireworks. I'm looking at everyone's hands and faces [tonight] to see who's going to want to shoot me.  
I can't express anything, I can't express love. All my relationships are falling apart because they can't f**king understand me. How do they know the pain that I've gone through or the sights that I've seen, the dead bodies? The innocence gone, stripped, dead?  
I couldn't do it myself. I couldn't stand the pain. People were leaving me. I was alone. I couldn't cut my wrists. So I called the police. They come stomping through my door. I have my knife in my hand. "Shoot me. Shoot me". 
All of a sudden I was the man with the RPG, with all the guns pointed at him. Misled, miseducated, thinking that "Yes, we can solve all the world's problems by killing each other". How insane is that?  
Lucky enough I lived through that episode as well. See, you can't wash your hands when they're covered in blood with more blood. It's impossible; the wounds carry on. Families are destroyed.

 
Meanwhile, in Canada, many US war resisters are currently hoping to be granted safe harbor status and the Canadian Parliament will debate a measure this month on that issue. You can make your voice heard. Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use.         

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Jose Vasquez, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.

Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
 
Turning to the Dept of Veteran Affairs.  Pia Malbran (CBS News) reports that, "While on the stand in California federal court" yesterday, "where the VA is facing a lawsuit filed by veteran advocates who are demanding better health care, Dr. Michael Kussman, the VA's Under Secretary for Health, said, 'I Disagree with the premise that there was some effort to cover up something.' On March 10 of this year, Everett Chasen, the chief communications officer for the VA's Veterans Health Administration (VHA) sent an e-mail message to several top agency officials including Kussman.  At the time, CBS News was preparing a report about attempted suicides among VA patients.  Chasen wrote, 'I don't want to give CBS any more numbers on veteran suicides or attempts than they already have -- it will only lead to more questions'."  CBS News has been covering this story for some time.  Today Peter Hart (FAIR's CounterSpin) explained:
 
Sadly, there's no end of examples of US journalists accepting and parroting official government statistics without challenge so when we find a case of an outlet actually questioning an official source and bringing that challenge to the public it seems worth taking note of.  Last year CBS Evening News reported what they and others have called an "epidemic of suicides" among those who have served in the US military. The network noted that there were more than 6,200 such suicides in the year 2005.  Those numbers were challenged however by the Department of Veterans Affairs head of mental health Dr. Ira Katz who insisted that CBS had it wrong, the suicide rate for vets was actually no higher than normal.  In a distrubing April 21st follow-up, however, CBS provided evidence that those numbers were not wrong and evidently that's why the VA didn't want the public to know them.  CBS reporter Armen Keteyian noted that the VA recently provided date indicating just 790 attempted suicides by vets in all of 2007; however, Keteyian had access to an e-mail  Katz sent to his top media advisor in which the VA official said something dramatically different acknowledging that "our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities."  That's pretty far removed from the 790 a year the VA had reported to CBS and consequently to the public.  Even more disturbing is the evidence that Katz knows he's actively misinforming the public on this critical issue.  His e-mail was titled "Not for the CBS News interview request" and the opening line was "Sh!"  The note closed with Katz' concern: "Is this something we should carefully address before someone stumbles on it?"  Clearly this is a story that will require further follow-up to find out what else the VA would like to hide from the public about yet another of the devastating impacts of the war on Iraq.  We certainly hope CBS will continue in the way they've started out and that they won't be alone.
 
Note on the above, all links in Peter Hart's commentary go to CBS News which has text and video for each link and the e-mail itself, PDF format warning, is hereBob Egelko (San Francisco Chronicle) reports that Kussman stated on the stand yesterday, "The number of patients who have adjustment reactions to the experience that they have in Afghanistan or Iraq is very important, but we don't believe that's mental illness.  It would be unfair and inappropriate to stigmatize people with a mental health diagnosis when they are having what most people believe are normal reactions to abnormal situations."  There is no care or concern, just a desire to cut down on expenses.  Diagnosis the mental health disorder requires that it be treated.  Dropping back to IVAW's Winter Soldier Investigation last month:
 
Adrienne Kinne: And then they went to go to the next step, to actually make this happen. And I was actually on a conference call when someone said, "Wait a second. We can't start this screening process. Do you know that if we start screening for TBI there will be tens of thousands of soldiers who will screen positive and we do not have the resources available that would allow us to take care of these people so we cannot do the screening." And their rationale was that medically, medical ethics say if you know someone has a problem, you have to treat them. So since they didn't have the resources to treat them, they didn't want to know about the problem.
 
That's the reality for refusing to diagnose, Kinne's point that the VA would then be ethically bound to treat.   If you missed Winter Soldier you can stream online at Iraq Veterans Against the War, at War Comes Home, at KPFK, at the Pacifica Radio homepage and at KPFA, here for Friday, here for Saturday, here for Sunday. Aimee Allison (co-host of the station's The Morning Show and co-author with David Solnit of Army Of None) and Aaron Glantz were the anchors for Pacifica's live coverage.  Kinne testified Friday afternoon.  Wednesday saw the VA's deputy chief Gordon Mansfield facing questions from the Senate's Veterans Affairs Committee.  Armen Keteyian and Pia Malbran (CBS News, link has text and video) reported that Senator Patty Murray questioned  him about how anyone could have faith in statements from the VA since "every time we trun around we find out that what you're saying publicly is different from what you're saying privately?"  Les Blumenthal (Seattle Times) quotes Murray stating, "I used to teach preschool, and when you bring up a 3-year-old and tell them they have to stop lying, they understand the consequences.  The VA doesn't. They needed to stop hiding the fact this war is costing us in so many ways."  Murray also noted, "I am very angry upset that we find out this week that several inernal VA e-mails that were made public -- not becuase you wanted them to, but because of a lawsuit that ws ongoing -- showed that the VA downplayed significantly the number of suicides and suicide attempts by veterans in the last several years.  Just a few months ago in November the VA was confronted with an analysis that said there were 6,250  veterans who had committed suicide in 2005 an average of 17 a day.  VA officials said that number was inaccurate, it was much lower.  These e-mails that were uncovered this week show that Dr. Katz, who is the VA's top mental health official, not only backed up those alleged numbers but he acknowledged that the numbers were much higher than that.  So what they were telling us in November and December  was that the number was lower but inside the VA   everyone knew it was higher.  And there are e-mails saying that and showing that".     Thursday on the Senate floor, during a vote on the Veterans' Benefits Enhancement Act, Murray stated the following:
 
 
And just this week, we got more evidence that the Administration has been covering up the extent of the toll this war has taken on our troops.  Internal e-mails that became public in a court hearing show that the VA has vastly downplayed the number of suicides and suicide attempts by veterans in the last several years.  Last November, an analysis by CBS News found that over 6,200 veterans had committed suicide in 2005 -- an average of 17 a day.  
When confronted, VA officials said the numbers were much lower.  But according to the internal e-mails from the VA's head of Mental Health -- Dr. Ira Katz -- 6,570 veterans committed suicide in 2005 -- an average of 18 a day.  The e-mails also revealed that VA officials know that another 1,000 veterans -- who are receiving care at VA medical facilities -- attempt suicide each month.            
Mr. President, these numbers offer tragic evidence that our nation is failing thousands of veterans a year.  And they reflect an Administration that has failed to own up to its responsibilities, and failed even to own up to the true impact of the war on its veterans.   
What is most appalling to me is that this is not the first time the VA has covered up the problems facing veterans who sacrificed for our country.  Time and again, the VA has told us one thing in public -- while saying something completely different in private.  It is outrageous to me that VA officials would put public appearance ahead of people's lives.  Yet, Mr. President, it appears that is what has happened again.  
When we -- as members of Congress -- sit down to determine the resources to give the VA, we must have a true picture of the needs.  And if there's a problem, we have to act.  It's our duty -- and the duty of the Administration -- to care for veterans.  By covering up the true extent of that problem, the VA has hindered our ability to get those resources to the veterans who need them.  That is irresponsible, and it's wrong. 
 
Senator Daniel K. Akaka has joined Murray in calling for Ira Katz' resignation.  Meanwhile C.W. Nevius (San Francisco Chronicle) reports on the attorney handling the lawsuit against the VA, Gordon Erspamer: "He's a rainmaker attorney for a major firm in the city who has set aside time to take legal action that doesn't earn a penny. And besides that, he's got a compelling and personal back story and a chip on his shoulder to prove it.  Erspamer's cause since the late '70s has been the rights of armed forces veterans, and this week's trial has the VA squirming over a shocking rate of suicides among vets and has captured the national spotlight."   Aimee Allison and Aaron Glantz hosted a live report on KPFA about the trial Tuesday and  Gordon Erspamer was interviewed in the first hour.
 
Yesterday, the Office of the Special Inspector General For Iraq Reconstruction released a report entitled [PDF format warning] "Intermim Analysis of Iraqi Security Force Information Provided By The Department Of Defense Report, Measuring Stability And Security In Iraq." Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times) reports, "The U.S. military does not have an accurate tally of the number of Iraqi security forces who have been trained or who are present for duty . . . The study says some Iraqi soldiers and police who were killed or wounded in action remain on the payroll so their families can receive financial compensation, skewing the statistics. . . . Reinforcing earlier findings, Special Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen Jr. and other officials said the data being provided to the U.S. military were inaccurate."  William H. McMichael (Army Times) adds that "thousands of others counted as present for duty are not showing up for work because they're injured, on leave or absent without leave  . . ."  The 21-page report (13 of text and then additional notes) also states, "Evolving changes in reporting methodology make it difficult to compare information from one report to earlier reports." Page five notes of the Defense Dept's most recent report, "Although the March 2008 Section 9010 report, as well as earlier ones, presents an array of numbers, other information in the 9010 reports and elsewhere indicates (1) uncertainty about the number of Iraqi personnel who are present for duty at any one time; and (2) uncertainty about the capabilities of the police force because the police have greater capacity to recruit that to train -- this limits the number of police on the rolls who have been trained.  In addition, shortages of officers and/or non-commissioned officers in both the police and defense forces remain a significant long-term challenge that could take a decade to address."
 
Which fits in with Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times of London) observation that Nouri al "Maliki's campaign" assault on Basra "has resulted in US troops deploying to Basra and left the UK with no choice but to provide additional support to the operation.  One person familiar with US military planning in Iraq said the 'fiasco' started by Mr Maliki had 'forced the hand of the British' to support the Iraqi government, in addition to the current core mission of training Iraqi forces."  And the strain comes as Daniel Bentley (The Scotsman) reports, "British troop numbers in Iraq will only be futher reducded 'if conditions allow', Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said yesterday."  The numbers also matter in terms of The Petraeus & Crocker Variety Hour earlier this month.  Repeatedly the numbers now known to be non-reliable were cited as 'proof' of 'advances'.  Gen David Petraeus'  seven-page prepared remarks always cited the numbers of Iraqi Forces:
 
A number of factors have contributed to the progress that has been made. First, of course, has been the impact of increased numbers of Coalition and Iraqi Forces. You are well aware of the U.S. surge. Less recognized is that Iraq has also conducted a surge, adding well over 100,000 additional soldiers and police to the ranks of its security forces in 2007 and slowly increasing its capability to deploy and employ these forces.
[. . .]  
A second factor has been the employment of Coalition and Iraqi Forces have grown significantly since September, and over 540,000 individuals now serve
in the Iraqi Security Forces. The number of combat battalions capable of taking the lead in operations, albeit with some Coalition support, has grown to well over 100 [Slide 10]. These units are bearing an increasing share of the burden, as evidenced by the fact that Iraqi Security Force losses have recently been three times our own. We will, of course, conduct careful after action reviews with our Iraqi partners in the wake of recent operations, as there were units and
leaders found wanting in some cases, and some of our assessments may be downgraded as a result. Nonetheless, the performance of many units was solid, especially once they got their footing and gained a degree of confidence, and certain Iraqi elements proved quite capable.
Underpinning the advances of the past year have been improvements in Iraq's security institutions. An increasingly robust Iraqi-run training base enabled the Iraqi Security Forces to grow by over 133,000 soldiers and police over the past 16 months. And the still-expanding training base is expected to generate an additional 50,000 Iraqi soldiers and 16 Army and Special Operations battalions throughout the rest of 2008, along with over 23,000 police and 8 National Police battalions.
 
Meanwhile AFP reports, "Iraq's hardline Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Friday called upon his followers and security forces to stop the bloodshed a week after he warned of 'open war' against the government."  Deborah Haynes (Times of London) quotes him stating, "I call upon my brothers in the army, police and al-Mahdi Army to stop the bloodshed.  When we threatend an open war, it was meant against the occupation and not against our people.  There will be no war between Sadrists and Iraqi brothers from any groups."   And the UN human rights envoy, Radhika Coomaraswamy declared today of Iraqi children, "Many of them are no longer go to school, many are recruited for violent activitis or detained in custody, they lack access to the most basic services and manifest a wide range of psychological symptoms from the violence in their everyday lives."
 
In some of today's reported violence . . .
 
Bombings?
 
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Tikrit car bombing that claimed the life of 1 police officer, a Falluja mosque bombing that claimed 1 life and left four people wounded and notes two US air bombings of Baghdad after night fall yesterday that claimed the lives of 13 people and wounded forty (those numbers are US military numbers). 
 
Shootings?
 
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an armed clash in Baghdad with three Iraqi soldiers wounded and 5 "gunmen" killed.  CBS and AP report: "Assailants on Friday gunned down an Iraqi journalist who had been working for a local radio station run by a Shiite political party that is the chief rival of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the station and police said. Jassim al-Batat was killed by gunmen in a speeding car as he left his house in the town of Qurna in his own car, said Adnan al-Asadi, the head of the local al-Nakhil radio station based in the southern city of Basra. Qurna is 55 miles north of Basra."  Reuters quotes al-Asadi explaining, "His only concerns were his work and his family.  He was liked by all his colleagues, and we don't know any reason why he should be killed."  Reuters also notes 1 adult male shot dead outside his Iskandariya home, 1 fisherman shot dead in Mosul (another injured), 1 police officer shot dead in Mosul and 2 people shot dead in Iskandariya.
 
Corpses?
 
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
 
The US military announced today: "A Multi-National Division -- Center Soldier was killed in an improvised explosive device attack south of Baghdad, April 24." The announcement brings to 4052 the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war.
 
Turning to US politics.  First up, Wednesday's snapshot referenced Big Tent Democrat's post (TalkLeft) on the nonsense of Tom Hayden -- the latest nonsense from a lifetime of nonsense but the link was wrong.  My apologies.  The correct link is here.  Wednesday night, Elaine provided the letter Hayden needs to write -- the public letter -- and why no woman need listen to him until he does. (Not that they need to listen to him after, for that matter.) Wednesday night, Taylor Marsh also weighed in on Tom's nonsense and, let me repeat something here, Tom invents things.  He invents conversations that allegedly happened years ago when he needs them for modern times.  We've avoided commenting on his current wife here because who knows what the woman did or didn't know.  Tom loves to embellish a tale.  But the point is that he's a longterm sexist and no women needs him speaking for her.  On the topic of sexists, Keith Olberman of MSNBC, as Jeralyn (TalkLeft) points out, made a comment on air that has some wondering if he was calling for Hillary Clinton to be assaulted or murdered: "Hyperbole? A figure of speech? Sexist? Or a call to snuff her out?"  Joan Walsh (Salon) explains Olberman has 'apologized' -- he still doesn't get how offensive his statement was and how his add-on only more so.  He gets that it sounded to some like murder but he still doesn't get (and Walsh doesn't appear to either) that the "apology" is still stating a woman needs to be taken into a room and forced "politically" out of the race.  It's undemocratic and, with his pattern, it's sexist.  Susan UnPC (No Quarter), writing before the 'apology,' gets it very clearly, "Take notice of his use of the pronoun 'he'."  Meanwhile Paul Krugman (New York Times) examines the working class support for Hillary Clinton and how Obama still -- all these months later -- can't connect with those voters?  Jonathan Mann (CNN) explains, "Hillary is back.  Until now, Hillary Clinton's campaign hd one consistent quality -- it kept coming up short. . . . The biggest question about her campaign was when it would finally succumb to being so second-place. This week that changed. She won the Pennsylvania primary by 10 percentage points, a margin that convinced contributors to flood her Internet site with $10 million."
 
Seth Bringman (HillaryClinton.com) explains "Hillary Clinton's Plan to Address the Student Loan Crisis:"
 
Over a year ago, Hillary Clinton called on the Bush Administration to address the growing problems in the subprime mortgage market.  Instead of listening, President Bush stood by as the subprime crisis spiraled into a larger housing and credit crisis that is driving our economy downward. This economic crisis now threatens to claim another victim: student loans.  As the result of the credit crunch, more than 50 student lenders, accounting for almost 14% of private student-loan volume, have already withdrawn from the guaranteed student loan program [Wall Street Journal, A3, 4/24/08]. Hundreds of thousands of students who are actively considering how to finance their college educations could be left in the lurch, without the ability to pay for college.  And when those students are not able to college, that is not only tragic for them but a loss for our economy as a college graduate earns $1 million more over the course of their lifetime than someone with a high school diploma.        
Now is the time to act to prevent a student lending crisis. In Indiana, where six of every ten students graduate with debt, and that debt averages $21,000, it is vital that we ensure that every Hoosier student can count on the loans they need to attend school in the fall [Project on Student Debt].  Today, Hillary laid out her plan for addressing the student loan crisis. She urged the Bush Administration to support her plan, and act swiftly to head-off this growing crisis.
 
That's the opening use the link for the itemized list.  Marlon Marshall offers a photo essay of Hillary at the "Solutions for the American Economy" in Indianapolis.  And we'll go out with this from Geoff Garin's "Fair Is Fair" (Washington Post):
 
What's wrong with this picture? Our campaign runs a TV ad Monday saying that the presidency is the toughest job in the world and giving examples of challenges presidents have faced and challenges the next president will face -- including terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mounting economic dislocation, and soaring gas prices. The ad makes no reference -- verbal, visual or otherwise -- to our opponent; it simply asks voters to think about who they believe is best able to stand the heat. And we are accused, by some in the media, of running a fear-mongering, negative ad.
The day before this ad went on the air, David Axelrod, Barack Obama's chief strategist, appeared with me on "Meet the Press." He was asked whether Hillary Clinton would bring "the changes necessary" to Washington, and his answer was "no." This was in keeping with the direct, personal character attacks that the Obama campaign has leveled against Clinton from the beginning of this race -- including mailings in Pennsylvania that describe her as "the master of a broken system."
So let me get this straight.
On the one hand, it's perfectly decent for Obama to argue that only he has the virtue to bring change to Washington and that Clinton lacks the character and the commitment to do so. On the other hand, we are somehow hitting below the belt when we say that Clinton is the candidate best able to withstand the pressures of the presidency and do what's right for the American people, while leaving the decisions about Obama's preparedness to the voters.
Who made up those rules? And who would ever think they are fair?
 


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Other Items

The U.S. military does not have an accurate tally of the number of Iraqi security forces who have been trained or who are present for duty, according to an oversight agency's analysis of Pentagon reports that was released Thursday.
The study says some Iraqi soldiers and police who were killed or wounded in action remain on the payroll so their families can receive financial compensation, skewing the statistics. The study was done by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
Reinforcing earlier findings, Special Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen Jr. and other officials said the data being provided to the U.S. military were inaccurate.
Reinforcing earlier findings, Special Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen Jr. and other officials said the data being provided to the U.S. military were inaccurate."If you say you have 10 people ready to fight but three are injured or killed, you don't have 10 people ready, you have seven," said Kristine R. Belisle, a spokeswoman for the inspector general. "So it is a very misguided and misleading number."


The above is from Julian E. Barnes' "Data on Iraqi forces unreliable, study finds" (Los Angeles Times) which notes, PDF format warning, the report is available here. On the same topic, from William H. McMichael's "IG: Dead count toward Iraq force strength" (Army Times):


Some of the troops on the rolls of the Iraqi Security Forces aren’t reporting for duty.
That is because they're dead.
And thousands of others counted as present for duty are not showing up for work because they’re injured, on leave or absent without leave, according to a new audit of the Pentagon's most recent quarterly report on Iraq by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a temporary federal agency created by Congress to provide oversight of U.S. dollars spent for Iraqi relief and rebuilding.
All told, the review of the March report and earlier quarterly reports on Iraq indicates, the IG said, "uncertainty about the number of Iraqi personnel who are present for duty at any one time [and] uncertainty about the capabilities of the police force because the police have greater capacity to recruit than to train." The latter limits the number of police on the rolls who have been trained, the IG said.
"The number of assigned and trained personnel presented in the [quarterly] reports does not present a complete picture of force capabilities," the IG said.

If you're not grasping why it matters consider the snow job earlier this month. Gen David Petraeus testified to Congress. What was one of his selling points? The numbers, the Iraqi security forces numbers! April 8th, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

A number of factors have contributed to the progress that has been made. First, of course, has been the impact of increased numbers of Coalition and Iraqi Forces. You are well aware of the U.S. surge. Less recognized is that Iraq has also conducted a surge, adding well over 100,000 additional soldiers and police to the ranks of its security forces in 2007 and slowly increasing its capability to deploy and employ these forces.
[. . .]
A second factor has been the employment of Coalition and Iraqi Forces have grown significantly since September, and over 540,000 individuals now serve
in the Iraqi Security Forces. The number of combat battalions capable of taking the lead in operations, albeit with some Coalition support, has grown to well over 100 [Slide 10]. These units are bearing an increasing share of the burden, as evidenced by the fact that Iraqi Security Force losses have recently been three times our own. We will, of course, conduct careful after action reviews with our Iraqi partners in the wake of recent operations, as there were units and
leaders found wanting in some cases, and some of our assessments may be downgraded as a result. Nonetheless, the performance of many units was solid, especially once they got their footing and gained a degree of confidence, and certain Iraqi elements proved quite capable.
Underpinning the advances of the past year have been improvements in Iraq’s security institutions. An increasingly robust Iraqi-run training base enabled the Iraqi Security Forces to grow by over 133,000 soldiers and police over the past 16 months. And the still-expanding training base is expected to generate an additional 50,000 Iraqi soldiers and 16 Army and Special Operations battalions throughout the rest of 2008, along with over 23,000 police and 8 National Police battalions.

Actually, he gave that song and dance at every committee hearing (the 7 page prepared statement, read word for word, over and over) except the US House Committee On Foreign Affairs where chair Howard Berman noted at the start of the afternoon hearing, "Our witnesses are in the home stretch of a congressional testimony marathon; to some, this hearing may even seem like the fourth time around an endless loop. That's why we are asking both Ambarassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus more or less to summarize the main points of their testimony, at their discretion, a report to Congress that has been heard once in the House and twice in the Senate already. This way, we'll move along more quickly to the questions posed by members of the committee." Petraeus' claims depend upon the numbers being correct and, it turns out, they weren't.

Marci notes Howard Wolfson's "HUBdate: The Tide is Turning" (HillaryClinton.com):

Today on the Trail: Hillary highlights policies for veterans at "Solutions For America" events in Fayetteville and Asheville, NC. Hillary will be joined on the campaign trail by American hero and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Hugh Shelton, Ret.
$$$: USA Today reports "One day makes $10 million difference for Clinton." Keep going to
www.hillaryclinton.com. Read more.
Superdelegate Watch: Congressman John Tanner announced his support of Hillary: "in my opinion, the best person to lead this critical effort is Hillary Clinton...Hillary is a smart, pragmatic leader who understands the grave situation our country faces" Read more.
"No Brainer" OH Gov. Ted Strickland said on a conference call yesterday: "This is for me a no-brainer...If we're going to plan to win in November, we need to choose the candidate that has the greatest strength in the states that are necessary to get us the electoral votes we need...I hope the superdelegates are paying attention." On the same call, NY Gov. David Paterson said "I don't think the tide is turning, I think the tide has turned.
Read more and more.
Sen. Obama Calls Debates a "Game:" The Indianapolis Star is calling on Sen. Obama to accept an invitation to debate Hillary in the Hoosier State....In OR, Clinton "proposed two debates, including one on the challenges facing rural Oregonians." Sen. Obama responded "call[ing] Clinton’s challenge 'an old, Washington game.'" Since when did debating the issues and giving voters a choice become a "game?"
Read more and more. Watch the challenge here.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Yesterday in Indianapolis, Hillary said: "This campaign for me in Indiana is about jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs…This is not about speeches. It is about solutions."
Read more.
Oregon Compact: Yesterday, Hillary "issued the most detailed, on-paper description to date from any of the presidential candidates on their intentions for Oregon. The 13-page document gave specific descriptions of how she intended to deal with each issue." Read more.
Montana Momentum: "Montana for Hillary announced the endorsements of seven more Montana legislators, leaders and Democratic activists, demonstrating [Hillary’s] growing support throughout Montana."
Read more.



Trina notes Paul Krugman's "Self-Inflicted Confusion" (New York Times):

Let me offer an alternative suggestion: maybe his transformational campaign isn't winning over working-class voters because transformation isn’t what they’re looking for.
From the beginning, I wondered what Mr. Obama's soaring rhetoric, his talk of a new politics and declarations that "we are the ones we’ve been waiting for" (waiting for to do what, exactly?) would mean to families troubled by lagging wages, insecure jobs and fear of losing health coverage. The answer, from Ohio and Pennsylvania, seems pretty clear: not much. Mrs. Clinton has been able to stay in the race, against heavy odds, largely because her no-nonsense style, her obvious interest in the wonkish details of policy, resonate with many voters in a way that Mr. Obama's eloquence does not.
Yes, I know that there are lots of policy proposals on the Obama campaign's Web site. But addressing the real concerns of working Americans isn’t the campaign’s central theme.
Tellingly, the Obama campaign has put far more energy into attacking Mrs. Clinton’s health care proposals than it has into promoting the idea of universal coverage.
During the closing days of the Pennsylvania primary fight, the Obama campaign ran a TV ad repeating the dishonest charge that the Clinton plan would force people to buy health insurance they can't afford. It was as negative as any ad that Mrs. Clinton has run -- but perhaps more important, it was fear-mongering aimed at people who don’t think they need insurance, rather than reassurance for families who are trying to get coverage or are afraid of losing it.
No wonder, then, that older Democrats continue to favor Mrs. Clinton.
The question Democrats, both inside and outside the Obama campaign, should be asking themselves is this: now that the magic has dissipated, what is the campaign about? More generally, what are the Democrats for in this election?



The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.









What the VA's concerned about

The plaintiffs' lawyer asked Kussman about a speech in 2006 by Frances Murphy, then one of his top deputies, who said the number of veterans seeking care for behavioral conditions was rapidly increasing and that some VA facilities did not provide mental health care or had long waiting lists. Murphy's job was eliminated shortly afterward.
Kussman said 35 percent of troops who are screened by the VA after returning from Afghanistan or Iraq show symptoms of possible depression or other mental conditions. But he said the problem shouldn't be exaggerated.
"The number of patients who have adjustment reactions to the experience that they have in Afghanistan or Iraq is very important, but we don't believe that's mental illness," Kussman said. "It would be unfair and inappropriate to stigmatize people with a mental health diagnosis when they are having what most people believe are normal reactions to abnormal situations."


The above is from Bob Egelko's "Official defends VA's mental health effort" (San Francisco Chronicle) . As you read the above, you may recall the first full day of Iraq Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier Investigation a panel was held entitled The Crisis in Veterans' Healthcare and, specifically, the testimony of Adrienne Kinne. Think about that testimony as the claim's put foward that the VA worries about "stigmatizing" veterans. That's not their concern. The VA's issue is they don't want to pay. Here's Kinne speaking about her time as a civilian following her second discharge and specifically, from that time period, of being a research assistant at a VA where she helped on a group that devised a way to screen for PTSD and TBI in such a way that there would be no confusion in diagnosing. Here's her testimony on what happened after they had study ready to be implemented.

Adrienne Kinne: And then they went to go to the next step, to actually make this happen. And I was actually on a conference call when someone said, "Wait a second. We can't start this screening process. Do you know that if we start screening for TBI there will be tens of thousands of soldiers who will screen positive and we do not have the resources available that would allow us to take care of these people so we cannot do the screening." And their rationale was that medically, medical ethics say if you know someone has a problem, you have to treat them. So since they didn't have the resources to treat them, they didn't want to know about the problem.

That's the reality and why the VA's 'concerned' about how they 'diagnose.' Labeling it as the illness it is would require their paying for its treatment.


The US military announced today: "A Multi-National Division -- Center Soldier was killed in an improvised explosive device attack south of Baghdad, April 24." The announcement brings to 4052 the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war.

Lloyd notes Geoff Garin's "Fair Is Fair" (Washington Post):


What's wrong with this picture? Our campaign runs a TV ad Monday saying that the presidency is the toughest job in the world and giving examples of challenges presidents have faced and challenges the next president will face -- including terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mounting economic dislocation, and soaring gas prices. The ad makes no reference -- verbal, visual or otherwise -- to our opponent; it simply asks voters to think about who they believe is best able to stand the heat. And we are accused, by some in the media, of running a fear-mongering, negative ad.
The day before this ad went on the air, David Axelrod, Barack Obama's chief strategist, appeared with me on "Meet the Press." He was asked whether Hillary Clinton would bring "the changes necessary" to Washington, and his answer was "no." This was in keeping with the direct, personal character attacks that the Obama campaign has leveled against Clinton from the beginning of this race -- including mailings in Pennsylvania that describe her as "the master of a broken system."
So let me get this straight.
On the one hand, it's perfectly decent for Obama to argue that only he has the virtue to bring change to Washington and that Clinton lacks the character and the commitment to do so. On the other hand, we are somehow hitting below the belt when we say that Clinton is the candidate best able to withstand the pressures of the presidency and do what's right for the American people, while leaving the decisions about Obama's preparedness to the voters.
Who made up those rules? And who would ever think they are fair?

And we'll note "Montana for Hillary Announces Lena Belcourt as Indian Affairs Coordinator: Belcourt hails from Rocky Boy Reservation" (HillaryClinton.com):

Billings, MT -- The Clinton campaign today announced that Lena Belcourt, a Chippewa Cree Tribal member, is the new Indian Affairs Coordinator for Hillary Clinton's campaign in Montana. Belcourt is a health policy analyst and consultant who advises elected Tribal Leadership on local, state and national policymaking.
Belcourt makes her home on the Rocky Boy Reservation in north central Montana.
"Indian people need a candidate who will hit the ground running, who has links to Indian Country and has supported legislation important to Indian Country. We need someone who knows who we are. That's Hillary Clinton."
In 2004 Belcourt served on then Governor-Elect Schweitzer's transition team as a policy advisor, and in 2005 she was detailed by the Chippewa Cree Tribe to the Office of the Governor of Montana, serving as the Governor Schweitzer's Policy Advisor on Health and Disability. Belcourt also staffed Alvin Winy Boy, Sr., former Chairman of the Chippewa Cree Tribe, on his health policy agenda.
Belcourt intends to make Indian healthcare a focus of her work for Montana for Hillary.
"We as Indian people have been left out of the American dream by our lack of access to accessible, affordable healthcare. I believe in accessible, quality healthcare for Montana Tribes and I know that Hillary Clinton will work her hardest to make it a reality."
Belcourt assisted the Northern Arapaho Tribe in the planning and development of their SAMHSA Indian Country Methamphetamine Initiative in 2006-2007. She has also worked on the development of the Chippewa Cree Tribe's Medicaid Eligibility Determination contract, the CCT Medicaid Administrative Match Cost Allocation Plan and the CCT's SAMHSA Indian Country Methamphetamine Initiative.
Belcourt attended the University of Montana and the University of North Dakota.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.






Thursday, April 24, 2008

I Hate The War

Tonight let's just focus on lies. Lies got the US into an illegal war. Lies continue it. And frauds shouldn't be allowed to get away with their lying.

Which is how we come to the current issue of Ms. magazine (I don't know if it's onsale yet or not, I packed it Sunday, it's the Spring 2008 issue). Ms. magazine has no business publishing the homophobe Donna Brazile. I know, I know, Andrew Sullivan outed her as a lesbian. If she is one, she's a self-loathing one and Ms. doesn't need to send that message to women, it doesn't need to endorse it by printing her bad writing (that is bad on the most basic level: it's not worth reading, it's dull and plodding).

But Ms. lets the homophobe waste an entire page every issue. That may not seem like much but try to find the Iraq War in the current issue. Equally true is Ms. now only publishes four times a year. That's four pages they don't have to spare.

This quarterly issue, Brazile choses to waste her space by lying and Ms.' senior editor is either too uninformed or just doesn't give a damn. Ms. is infamous for publishing articles that feminists disagree with and that has led to lively debates that have defined and shaped the feminist movement. That's not the issue here.

The issue here is no writer published by Ms. should ever be viewed by other feminists as a liar but Donna Brazile manages to pull off that feat. Her article is titled "Black. Woman." Donna wants the world to believe (not know, because she's lying) that she's impartial in the Democratic race and that she's there fighting on 'both' fronts (there are many fronts but Brazile just sees dualisms -- another reason her centrist, non-feminist ass should never have been allowed to stink up Ms. magazine to begin with).

Donna tells you she's no traitor. She's not. On that she's telling the truth. Donna has always sold out to whatever would benefit Donna. This is the trashy woman who ran to the press (souring the press on Dukakis before they completely turned on him) and started insisting that George H. W. Bush was having an affair! Now Michael Dukakis wasn't accused of having an affair. It's not as though Donna could claim that she was attempting to level the coverage and make it equal. It was just more trash from a woman known for so much trash.

She made ridiculous statements about the American people having a right to know whether or not Barbara Bush would be sleeping in the White House with her husband. Yeah, that's feminism, Donna. (NO, it's not.)

So trashy scribbles a lot of nonsense. Trashy wants you to know that that we should all demand that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are treated the way any White, straight, male candidate would be. She then tries to crib from Sojourner Truth (almost word for word) but assumes she can steal a little without crediting. (That Ms. thinks a feminist pioneer like Truth can be ripped off indicates Ms. needs to regroup very quickly.) Donna explains that "we" -- don't you love writers who try to speak for you when they haven't earned the right? -- "must be very careful not to attribute all criticism of either candidate to base motives, or blame the media" blah, blah, blah. We must be careful not to blame the media? Donna's worthless columns always run the page before "No Comment" which is where Ms. has historically taken sexist advertisements to task. Donna's column appears to argue against that; however, suggesting that she is doing that would require believing that any real thought went into her latest scribbles and Donna Brazile exists solely to underscore that thought and writing do not need to have a close, or even working, relationship.

Donna Brazile wants us ("we"?) to know that she is offended by sexist attacks on Hillary. Well that's news. She certainly hasn't spoken out before. In fact, she's more than added to it with her own sexism. As Hillary Is 44 observed, "We assume that Donna is blaming the victim, Hillary, here when she confusingly writes 'no one who provoke this kind of anger in voters deserves to be President'." No, blaming the victim isn't feminism. But Donna's never been a feminist. She's just a bad writer who happens to be a woman and she got lucky that Ms. decided to publish her.

Possibly Michelle Kort (the current senior editor) will read the quote from Donna and say, "I never knew!" She should have. She damn well should have.

Does Kort have no idea of what Brazile's been saying. Is she unaware that Brazile's e-mails slamming Hillary have been printed online?

Does she think that doesn't matter and, as long as Donna scribbled a column, it's worth publishing? Does she have no respect for what Ms. is supposed to stand for, does she have no respect for the readership? It is so insulting that this crap got printed.

Brazile's wasting everyone's time trying to portray Obama's campaign as a feminist break through. Really? A man who votes "present" on abortion issues? A man who lies about it and gets a surrogate who left Chicago's NOW chapter and wasn't even there when the present votes were made to lie and slime Chiacog's NOW chapter? No, that's not feminism. Feminism also isn't putting homophobes (or even one) on stage at a South Carolina campaign event and then bragging that you got what you wanted out of the event (as Obama's campaign did).

Hillary's campaign? The one Brazile's trying to pretend she's happy about in Ms. magazine? Donna Brazile in November of last year reduced Hillary's campaign to her husband and her remarks were no different than Chris Matthews' insulting comments:

"I think it's going to come down to: Do you really want Bill Clinton back in the White House?" said Donna Brazile, who ran Democrat Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign.

That ran in the Des Moines Register and is now a "page unfound" but you can search what's in bold and you'll find multiple sites and blogs that excerpted it. That's how Donna Brazile reduced Hillary's historic run last November. She then slimed futher with a lie I'm not even going to repeat here. But Kort is the editor and should damn well be aware of what columnists for the magazine are saying to other outlets. When they turn in lies for Ms., she should reject the submission. By not doing so, it's not just Donna Brazile insulting Ms. readers, it's Kort doing that as well.

Now in January, Donna was all over the place falsely suggesting racism (by Bill Clinton, Donna insisted) but where has Donna been anywhere calling out the very real sexism against Hillary? She hasn't. And that was the first clue (long before her unhinged e-mails were published) that Donna Brazile was not only in the tank for Obama (and she is) but that she didn't give a damn about the sexist smears against Hillary.

Kort also should damn well be aware of what ATLJay (MyDD) pointed out recently, Brazile accused Hillary of "not caring about the Democratic Party" in a column for the Wall St. Journal. In her published e-mail, 'feminist' Donna declares, "You cannot blame the media for Clinton being behind or running out of money." Actually you can blame the media. You can and you should. I have no idea what happened before Iowa. But the writers strike and all the attacks meant that Ava and I had to grab 'news' and public affairs programming and the reporters (MSM) were all falling over one another, week after week, to explain that Barack wasn't the front runner before but now he was and they were going to be just as tough on him as they were on Hillary. That still hasn't happened. He can lie and say he was eight-years-old when Weather Underground did their "detestable" actions. Who points out that Weather Underground existed from 1969 to 1976? If Hillary had said that, she would have been villified. As Ava and I noted Sunday, the man's an idiot when it comes to the law (when you don't grasp what "versus" means in a court title, you're a legal idiot) so we'll assume that he really didn't know the difference between "commuted" and "pardoned." But which did the press run with? And without checking it out?

As Ava and I wrote Sunday:

Despite Professor Patti Williams public orgasms over Barack's legal 'knowledge,' we've long noted the man's an idiot who can't even grasp what "verus" in the title of a court case means. We have no idea how he ended up president of the Harvard Law Review (not much of a credit in our eyes) but it was due to something other than a grasp of the law. So we'll assume that he wasn't trying to lie, he just truly doesn't know (idiot) whether Clinton pardoned or commuted the sentences of Linda Evans and Susan Rosenberg. He commuted them. They were not pardoned. We pointed that out Thursday morning. Sadly, it required pointing out again Thursday night. No pardons took place. But if you need a better example of the bias the press has in favor of Obama and against Clinton, you need look no further. Barack declared that Bill Clinton "pardoned or commuted" and the press ran with what? Pardoned. Given the choice to run with either, they went for the one that painted the Clintons badly and excused Barack's friendship with a domestic terrorist.
That tells you a lot. What a journalist actually does -- a real one -- is examine that charge, research it. In doing so, it would have been obvious that the two women had their sentences commuted, not that they were pardoned. But why bother to actually do your job when it's so much easier to repeat a lie -- one that benefits Barack and one that his campaign repeated on Thursday and as late as Friday. Barack's campaign is lying, there was no pardon.
David Corn, who used to pride himself on the facts, had a screaming meltdown when he took part in a media conference with the Clinton campaign. He insisted that "you guys obviously know, we all know, that President Clinton pardoned two Weathermen . . . uh . . . activists, terrorists, whatever you want to call them." No, David, we didn't all know that because it never happened. But when you're spoon-fed by the Obama campaign, when you're willing to publicly disgrace yourself to trade journalism in for campaign booster, you're prone to make mistakes.
Apparently not content to sound stark raving mad in front of his peers, David Corn then took to Mother Jones (aka Consumer Reports for the faux left) to brag, "I asked an obvious one: Did Hillary Clinton believe that it had been appropriate in 2001 for President Bill Clinton to have pardoned two members of the Weather Underground as he left office?" No, David, you didn't ask an obvious question, you embarrassed yourself by flaunting the fact that you've sold yourself out to the Obama campaign and are now letting them do the 'research' for you. It's nothing to take pride in.
It really was amazing to watch so many outlets -- presented with two possibilities of what Bill Clinton had done -- run with the more extreme and do so on the basis of the Obama campaign. Again, there bias was showing and they should all apologize.

Yeah, you can blame the media.

We saw Bill Moyers explore racism over and over. We never saw him explore gender. We did hear him tell Dr. Kathy that he wasn't sure Hillary's 'tears' (there were no tears) were sincere. We caught him replaying Jesse Jackson's smears suggesting Hillary only cried about her appearance (yes, that is the same Jesse Jackson Jr. who had surgery to lose fifty pounds -- vanity, they name is Junior). We saw that didn't make the transcript but it did make the broadcast. And it wasn't questioned on the broadcast, it was presented as 'fact.' (For those wondering, no action or statement by Obama has ever been questioned by Bill Moyers. We caught that show every week during the writers strike.) Even during Women's History Month, Moyers wasn't interested. Blame the media? Yeah and we'll get back to that topic. But let's return to Donna Brazile.

The woman who wrote "Blacks have been deeply wounded by the duplicity of the Clintons" and "It's personal and the Clintons have shown their darker demons" wants to show up in the new issue of Ms. pretending she's thrilled with both Democratic candidates. And Michelle Kort thinks this garbage is worth printing.

Brazile's e-mails do contain a bit of honesty: "And if I counted who has helped me since 2000, it's Republican men and not Democrats." Thereby explaining her partying at Dick Cheney's assistant's private home because what good Democrat doesn't let her hair down around Republicans?

Donna Brazile is a columnist at Ms. magazine and for what reason? Her writing is bad and lifeless. She's a woman who, if she is gay, is in the closet. That might fly at Newsweek, but Ms. has never been a publication that didn't include lesbians. What message is sent when they publish a woman whom many consider to be a closet-case? And are we really supposed to be overjoyed by her (bad) columns telling us about running to the drug store to get Right On! as a child? Isn't the next question whose photos she studied, who she fantasized about? But we can't go there because she's closed that section of her life off. It goes to a lack of authenticy and no columnist for Ms. should ever lack authenticity.

While they provide Donna Brazile's garbage, grasp what they don't provide. Susan J. Douglas is one of the finest media critics around. (Her column runs in In These Times.) Where's Ms. magazine's media critic or are we all supposed to be satisifed that they call out advertisements? Ms. used to call out a lot more. In the current climate and getting close to two decades after Susan Faludi's amazing Backlash was first published, how does Ms. excuse not offering media criticism each issue?

In the current issue, we can read about problems sleeping. Gee, that's helpful. My own biggest problem with sleeping is not having the time and I'd imagine that's true for most women. Ms. globe hops and it's doubtful a woman in India, for example, whoops with joy about the paragraph in an issue. By all means, have an international scope, but cover the home bases. Ms. is a US publication and that's where the bulk of its audience is.

Elaine recently wrote (actually more than once) about how lousy Ms. is today and I (of course) share her opinion. Publishing the homophobe Donna Brazile doesn't make it any better. Wasting a full page it doesn't have to waste doesn't make the magazine any better. Those who have been there for Ms. over and over, year after year, have every right to look in horror at the current version of the magazine. I agree with Elaine that, as it exists today, the only question to be asked is: "Why did we spend so much time and effort saving this magazine?" If this current stage continues much longer, Ms. should close shop. It could have a glorious history as opposed to the tepid present. One thing feminism should never, ever be is boring. Someone send a memo to Kort on that.

But when Donna Brazile can lie in the pages of Ms. magazine, when she can claim she's excited by both Democratic campaigns, and Ms. either doesn't care that she's trying to put one over on readers or they want to take part in that lie, you have the proof you need a culture where the media not only failed but continues to fail.

When the sisterhood's most famous magazine can't even strive for honesty, it's no surprise the country can't get it together to end the illegal war.

It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh--
"I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)

Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4037. Tonight? 4050. Up 13 since last week not that the press coverage indicates that. Just Foreign Policy lists 1,201,597 up from 1,199, as the number of Iraqis killed since the start of the Iraq War.

The following community sites have updated since yesterday:

Rebecca's Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Cedric's Cedric's Big Mix;
Kat's Kat's Korner;
Mike's Mikey Likes It!;
Wally's The Daily Jot;
Ruth's Ruth's Report;
and Marcia's SICKOFITRADLZ

An e-mail from a visitor asked why Wally and Cedric didn't post yesterday or the day before? Tuesday was the Penn primary and Wally's working on getting out the vote for Hillary (he and Marcia are now doing that together and Marcia writes about that tonight). So that's Tuesday. (They also didn't post, I believe, the night of the Texas primary -- Cedric and Wally were both in Texas getting out the vote. When the results finally come in, it's draining.) As for last night, they actually did do a joint-post. They e-mailed it. It never hit their site so they posted it sometime today. (And shortly after they did, the e-mailed posts hit their sites -- both are still up currently.) The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.