The Political Voices of Women

Here is a guest post by community member Moi, she also blogs at Bloggg.

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

Did you notice Dumbya’s eyes last night? Red. More beady than usual….but instead of idiocy, the characteristic smirk has a snicker behind it. And he seemed zoned out. Something is going on. It could be drugs, but I think it’s something else…..

Here’s the text of his speech from last night.

Outside of FEAR! and DANGER!, he is blaming the people for buying houses and things - not that he WANTED people to do this, ya know - for the problems the economy is having. That’s Delphi. Turn stuff around, blame it on the victim, and make it sound feasible. Delphi is what Hitler used. How many times have Dems compared the Bush administration to Hitler’s?

I keep mentioning Delphi lately in my posts. We parents of special needs kids know from Delphi. All politicians use it in some form, too, but I’ve never seen it used as much as I have this election. Obama’s used it, successfully, in the primary. Saul Alinsky, the guy who developed the Delphi technique, was the subject of Hillary Clinton’s thesis. So that makes the primary even more pathetic. But I digress….

What Fearless Brainless Leader didn’t explain to the American people was how the Fed is desperate because they are overextended, and China pretty much owns us. Their butts are in a sling, no matter what else is going on….and they are counting on the wimpiness of the Dems to bail them out.

Of course, there were no solutions in his speech that would benefit the American people, like paying off everyone’s credit cards and loans, or giving everyone in the country a million dollars and then requiring them to pay off their loans….which would be a lot less than them giving all that money to the institutions. Institutions, heh, that is a good name for them. That’s where the people who run these things belong…. But Heaven Forbid the Fed bail out real people, instead of real assholes.

The flip side of the coin? We’ve all joked at some time that Bush/Cheney would probably pull a martial law stunt, just so the Republicans could stay in office. It seems that that might not be such a joke.

Think about it. McCain suspending his campaign. When Hillary and Edwards suspended theirs, they basically quit. But - Is McCain not suspending, and just getting out of the way in preparation for a major move by the guy he supported 90% of the time? Is this our October Surprise?

Actually it’s probably more of a Dicktator Cheney move. Bush is too dumb for a move like this. People, in our zeal to return the pResidency to the Dems, and with Bush/Cheney keeping a low profile, we are not thinking about them. HOW many times have we all talked about this kind of thing?? We must never turn our back on scum. All these little things I am about to mention have happened in dribs and drabs. They’ve been easy to miss, or put aside. There is too much to truly be coincidence, especially with the timing….

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Dear Readers,

If the last few days have left you with the same feelings that you had during the run up to the Iraq War you’re definitely not alone.

Remember the WMDs that posed an imminent threat to America?

Remember the statements that implied that the Iraqi oil revenue was going to pay for the war?

Now the Bush Administration and The Fed are saying that we have a financial crisis that needs an immediate $700 billion infusion from the American taxpayer. Did you know that some of that money could be used to bail out foreign owned banks?

Within the next 24 hours, Congress is expected to make an historic choice in addressing America’s financial crisis:

Cut the Bush administration a $700 billion blank check for Wall Street
OR
demand sensible public checks and balances in the $700 billion bailout.

Well, before you let them cut that blank check think about this?

Remember the brave US service men and women who were sent to war in Afghanistan and Iraq without proper body armor.

Remember the appalling conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center.

Remember that the US embassy in Iraq which cost in excess of $600 million to build and is projected to have an annual operating cost of $1.2 billion.

Remember that President Bush vetoed a $35 billion expansion to the SCHIP program which would have provided health insurance to millions of America’s uninsured children. He said that we couldn’t afford it.

Remember the devastation caused by hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and now Ike. There are still parts of New Orleans’ 9th Ward as well as many parishes in Western Louisiana which have yet to have all of the debris removed.

Remember that five years after the worse blackout in US history, the energy grid is still “in dire straits“.

Americans, Get Over The Shock Already!

Are you going to let The Fed, the Bush Administration and Congress rush through a $700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street and the banking industry when all of the aforementioned have put America and Americans last time after time after time after time?

Now, I’m not saying that nothing needs to be done to fix this broken economy. But are you going to let them rush to a bailout like they rushed to a war?

I just took action with the Campaign for America’s Future to weigh in for common sense solutions. I wanted to urge you to do the same. Please write an emergency letter to Congress now, and tell them: **No $700 Billion blank check to the Bush administration for Wall Street!**

Enough is Enough!

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Here is a guest post by community member Claudia.

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

Manufacturing terrorism During The Election, Is It Possible?

Yes. I absolutely believe that before the elections this Republican administration will manufacture a terrorism event. I can feel it in my bones. The old boys of the Grand Old Party have one up their sleeve and I think they will spring an attach before the election.

Would you put it past them? Nope, I would not.

These are the same people that told the world Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was ready to attack the USA. Lies, lies and more lies. Bush and McCain, joined at the hip.

This is what I think they will do, when the polls change and Obama is ahead by a lot, probably a few days or week before the election, they will either stop a huge attack or they will actually kill a few of us to make their point.

I just hope that there is time for the American people to see through their lies and deceit. If Obama takes office he will keep us safe, he will make this country strong, and he will improve our way of life.
Why? Because he will surround himself with people that will make a difference and people that will work for all classes and not just the rich class. One thing I am sure of is that the Obama administration would not manufacture terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction.Why? Because if they get in office they would bring in with them the hope of the country on their shoulders and not arrogance like Bush brought.

Why would anyone believe this administration after it failed us so much?

With much of US oil production temporarily shut down due to Hurricane Ike there could not have been a worse time for the US’ relationship with Venezuela to be strained further. But it has.

As reported by The New York Times:

The United States stepped up the diplomatic skirmish with its left-wing adversaries in Latin America on Friday, saying it would expel the Venezuelan ambassador and declaring that Venezuela’s top two intelligence officials had supported the “narco-terrorist activities” of rebels in the region.

The moves heightened the political tensions that have been building between the United States, Venezuela and Bolivia in recent days. On Wednesday, Bolivia’s embattled president, Evo Morales, expelled the American ambassador there, Philip S. Goldberg, accusing him of supporting rebellious groups in eastern Bolivia.

Then on Thursday, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said he was expelling the American ambassador to his country, Patrick Duddy, contending that an American-supported coup plot had been discovered.

The State Department responded by declaring Bolivia’s ambassador to Washington persona non grata. Then on Friday morning, it said it would expel Venezuela’s ambassador, while the Treasury Department accused the Venezuelan intelligence officials of aiding Colombia’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, “even as it terrorized and kidnapped innocents.”

The latest moves represent a low point in Venezuela’s political relations with the United States, which imported more than $40 billion in oil from Venezuela last year. Trade between the countries has remained resilient, topping $50 billion in 2007, despite repeated threats by Mr. Chávez to halt oil exports to the United States, a warning he reiterated on Thursday

In her post “We live in a global village“, Political Voices of Women blogger Paula Hall raises the question of why the US Presidential Candidates have seldom addressed this issue:

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Here is the ABC Charlie Gibson Interview with Sarah Palin. There is also some fact-checking of this interview by ABC, as well as some pundit reaction. Let me know what you thought about the interview in comments. Do you think Sarah Palin is ready to be V.P. or possibly the president of our country? Are you more or less likely to vote for John McCain with Sarah Palin on the ticket?

Sarah Palin Interview with Charlie Gibson (part one)

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Even though Afghanistan has become more deadly for our troops than Iraq, there will be no surge. It’s because of the war in Iraq, that there is just not enough troops available for a surge in Afghanistan. This will be another mess that the Bush administration will leave behind for the next President.

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From Jessica…

First off, let’s be clear about what “surge” was supposed to mean in reference to Iraq. It was supposed to mean that troops would be added to trouble spots in Iraq for a period of six months. The addition of these troops was supposed to bring down violence so that political reconciliation could take place (as the violence levels were being blamed for the lack of political reconciliation). After the six month period, the troops were to be withdrawn, this was why the administration was calling it a “surge” and not what it really was, an escalation. (Keen observers might note that the “surge” has, in fact, lasted an entire year and that the ultimate goal - political reconciliation - is still very far from being achieved.). . .

Afghanistan has needed reinforcements for a long time as the forces there have, for many months, been losing the ground that was initially gained. Resources were directed away from Afghanistan when we went to war in Iraq and we’ve been paying the price for it dearly. This month will likely be the third month that U.S. casualties in Afghanistan are outpacing those in Iraq and considering we a much smaller force in Afghanistan, that’s really not good. Paul Reickhoff, Executive Director of the veteran organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America says that many soldiers that served there call it “Forgotistan.”

So, we hear a lot about how the surge in Iraq is working, and how important it is for us to “win” the war in Iraq. But…Are we winning the war in Iraq at the expense of our troops in Afghanistan? Could we “lose” the war in Afghanistan? Let me know what you think in comments.

Barack Obama meets Afghan leader and discusses terrorism, and he is also going to Iraq. Check out the video clip and let me know what you think? Is this trip going to help or hurt his campaign?

—
From The New York Times…

In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Mr. Obama said: “We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front on our battle against terrorism.

From Politico…

In a presidential campaign where the Democrat faces an especially intense variation of a familiar Republican assault-that he is, in some sense, not “one of us,” the trip abroad represents an opportunity for Obama to assert that he is, rather, not one of them.

He began with stops in which he has been pictured largely in the company of American soldiers. In Kuwait, he examined military vehicles and signed autographs for soldiers on a military base. The first images out of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he landed after a brief visit to a base in Kuwait, show him with two uniformed members of the military, three other American officials, and a large statue of a bald eagle.

From Washington Street Journal…

I believe U.S. troop levels need to increase. And I for at least a year now have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three. I think it’s very important that we unify command more effectively to coordinate our military activities. But military alone is not going to be enough. The Afghan government needs to do more, but we have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front on our battle against terrorism. …

I think one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq.

Let me know what you think about Obama’s trip to Afghanistan and Iraq in comments.

Here is a guest post by Cynthia Samuels from Don’t Gel Too Soon.

OK. What do we think about this? I can tell you one thing. It hurts to look at it, even though I guess I understand what the artist, Barry Blitt, says he was trying to do. Rachel Sklar’s Huffington Post interview with the magazine’s gifted editor David Remnick explains further.

Obviously I wouldn’t have run a cover just to get attention — I ran the cover because I thought it had something to say. What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama’s — both Obamas’ — past, and their politics. I can’t speak for anyone else’s interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some, about Obama’s supposed “lack of patriotism” or his being “soft on terrorism” or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the Oval Office.

The free speech and marketplace of ideas concepts that I’ve treasured all my life clash with my reaction to all of this; I know that. The Constitutional protection of freedom of speech exists to guarantee the right both to speak and to hear not only popular, but also unpopular ideas. We don’t need to protect the popular ones; it’s the ideas that enrage people that need the protection. And I’m all for that.

But for a responsible and respected publication like The New Yorker to abuse that freedom by offering such blatant stereotypes to make its point, particularly when the subjects are the first African American Presidential (Columbia and Harvard-educated) candidate and his (Princeton and Harvard-educated) wife, an accomplished attorney — each of whose life trajectory suggests two stars who did everything expected of them to grow into exciting, productive citizens — seems to me abusive and dangerous. In an effort to make a point about the hate that’s being distributed concerning these two, they’re feeding it.

It will be interesting to see how many right wing websites and publications make use of this image. There’s been plenty of reaction so far and most of it is far more sophisticated than I could dream of being. I’m having too much trouble with my emotional, gut sense of right and wrong to be very thoughtful; this just feels wrong - perhaps even more so because of who printed it. I’ve been a New Yorker groupie since I was a high school kid in Pittsburgh wishing I was in Greenwich Village living the life of Susie Rotolo. Like this - walking through the Village with Bob Dylan.

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So it’s particularly disturbing to me that something so terribly offensive was pubished by this beloved icon.

The stereotypes don’t fit the Obamas, obviously. That’s what the New Yorker is trying to demonstrate by feeding these stereotypes out there in such a naked way. But even if they did, how many of us who ever cared about anything is willing to stand by every position we adopted in our younger days?

Congressman Bobby Rush was a Black Panther. Now he’s chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, serves on the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet and is a co-chairman of the Congressional Biotech Caucus. Isn’t that what we want? Growth.Even if the Obama’s were flamers back then (and I don’t think they were, by a long shot), isn’t the American way for young activists to rebel, maybe the wrong way, early in their lives then “grow up” to ultimately help to make change from inside? Justice Hugo Black, one of the great justices of the 20th century, started out as a member of the Ku Klux Klan - then went on to be a staunch defender of civil liberties for all. If we deny our future leaders the capacity to grow and question while they’re young, we will end up with leaders who may be what we deserve, but not who we need, by a long shot.I guess what I’m saying is that this effort to force Americans to confront political trash talk by offering up a visual representation of it all is, to me, a terrible mistake. An image that casts a shadow over the remarkable symbolic gift of this landmark candidacy - an image that lingers like a scar.

[cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog]

Also See:

McCain, Obama campaigns agree: New Yorker cover is not satire.

Here is a guest post from my friend Cynthia Samuels at Don’t Gel Too Soon.

Have you seen this movie? I sat in bed watching it early Sunday morning on cable and was just blown away. It’s one of the saddest, scariest, most moving American documentaries I’ve seen in a long time. That’s no surprise, since it was directed by Barbara Kopple, who made Harlan County USA - the landmark documentary about coal mine union battles in Kentucky.

What happened to the Dixie Chicks is infuriating: performing in London just before the start of the Iraq war, lead singer Natalie Maines (married, by the way, to HEROES star Adrian Pasdar,) told the crowd “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” The scene is included in this preview.

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As I watched the film, seeing the rage and cruelty that emerged in the response to this one sentence, my first thought was, “Oh my God, what does this mean for Barak Obama?” The people who went after the Dixie chicks were nowhere near a sense of respect for the First Amendment - and sounded like they would be particularly vulnerable to “elitist” or racist accusations against a candidate. If you remember the exit polls in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania you’ll recall that many respondents just about acknowledged that they would not vote for Senator Obama simply because of his race. Am I unfair to wonder if many of those people are the same ones booing and even threatening Maines’ life? Still “out there” in larger numbers than we wish? Look at these figures:

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It’s been almost seven years, why can’t the U.S. find Bin Laden? Should we still be in Afghanistan? How do you think the “war on terror” is going? Let me know what you think in comments.

From The New York Times…

Late last year, top Bush administration officials decided to take a step they had long resisted. They drafted a secret plan to make it easier for the Pentagon’s Special Operations forces to launch missions into the snow-capped mountains of Pakistan to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda.

. . .

After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a “war on terrorism” and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden’s network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.

Afghanistan: Lowered Priority…

What is the purpose of our troops being in Afghanistan? At first, they were meant to capture Bin Laden, to topple the Taliban, so as to punish a regime that had allowed Al Qaeda to base itself there, and to deny Al Qaeda that base. But now? Presumably, they are meant to prevent the Taliban from coming back to power, and providing Al Qaeda a future base. But it’s one thing to strike at an enemy, another to deploy troops indefinitely to prevent a possible future threat. There is something to be said for defending a friendly Afghan regime, however weak, as opposed to the diplomatic and military costs of toppling an enemy regime once again–but still, the threat from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan must be taken as a diminishing hypothetical. And, yes, honor demands we capture Bin Laden — but we muffed our best chance, and keeping an army in Afghanistan in perpetuity is too great a price to pay.

What do you think?

[cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog]