Yesterday evening I was sitting in a meeting with some folks. Everything was going great towards meeting our objectives till at the end when somebody dropped the Barney bomb.
"Barney Frank wants to cut Defense spending by 25%"..
Liberals, moderates, conservatives alike in that room, all knew what it meant..significant job losses in the defense and aerospace industry, the last surviving, yet flourishing bastion of American manufacturing. I was taken aback..when back at home later in the night, searched for Rep. Frank's brilliant revelation..looks like the news spread like wildfire in the conservative blogs and media. So it did, sending a cold shriver in the military, defense and aerospace World...
In a meeting with the editorial board of The Standard-Times, Rep. Frank, D-Mass., also called for a 25 percent cut in military spending, saying the Pentagon has to start choosing from its many weapons programs, and that upper-income taxpayers are going to see an increase in what they are asked to pay.
The military cuts also mean getting out of Iraq sooner, he said."The people of Iraq want us out, and we want to stay over their objection," he said. "It's extraordinary." The Maliki government in Iraq "can't sell (the withdrawal deal with the U.S.) because it sounds like we're going to stay too long."
"I was teasing (U.S. Rep.) Jack Murtha (a key supporter of military budgets) and I said to him, 'For the first time, somebody else has got a bill that's almost as big as yours.' We don't need all these fancy new weapons. I think there needs to be additional review."
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=20081024/NEWS/81024033 2-1/NEWS10
Although he also talked about the cost reduction from getting out of Iraq but the cat is out of the bag and Republicans were already coming out of the woodwork...
Just the suggestion brought a prompt response from two Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee, which is focused on equipping troops who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rep. John McHugh of New York and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland are the two lawmakers in line to replace the retiring Rep. Duncan Hunter of California as the committee's Republican."Talking about a 25 percent spending reduction in the defense budget with troops on the ground is reckless and, if enacted, could have immediate and long-term consequences for America and those individuals who risk their lives daily to defend our nation," McHugh said. "Rather than talking about dramatic spending reductions, we instead need to ensure that our baseline defense spending provides the necessary equipment, materiel, and force protection for our armed forces."
Bartlett called Frank's statement "grossly irresponsible."
"A 25 percent cut in defense spending will endanger our troops deployed in harm's way and America's national security for years to come," Bartlett said. "It's even more astonishing considering that congressional Democratic leaders want to increase the deficit by spending twice as much, $300 billion, for a second stimulus package of domestic spending."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/2 4/politics/politico/thecrypt/main4544997 .shtml
I know it is great news for some, as for them defense industry is the favorite evil bogeyman that is the root cause of everything from Iraq war to proverty in inner cities. On the flip side, things from Internet development to advanced aircraft materials owe their existence primarily to the defense spending.
American military currently is fighting in two war theaters. Both Obama and McCain agree on the fact that the military needs to expand with more warfighters. The logistical needs also include large scale replenishment of equipment, aircraft, rotorcraft, carriers et al which are suffering huge wear and tear and losses from the two Wars. A 25% budget cut would have devastating effect in military readiness in the next years. Pentagon budget from 2010 is under scrutiny right now, and Frank's statement doesn't bore well for its future.
European and Asian markets have tumbled once again today. Nikkei saw its worst crash today in 20 years. This is definitely a global economic crisis....
http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/m arkets/worldmarkets/worldmarkets.asp
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/i dUSTRE4991VK20081010
US Markets futures are down, today may not be a good day. We haven't seen the bottom yet...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=2601087&sid=afFlGdXQutAs&refer=home
Iceland is on the verge of bankruptcy. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hJdb2RwrEg_X8yNRHcVvn_OE9vKwD93LRO8O1
Sorry folks, not good news today...Market don't really have any confidence currently on Paulson, Bernanke et al to be able to handle the crisis. Paulson bailout plan haven't really made any difference yet. And the financial instruments that the Central Banks can use for stemming the market fall and then recovery are getting limited...expect more interest rate cuts.
Cross posted at C4O
The Wilson sisters from the 70s and 80s music sensation group Heart condemned McCain-Palin campaign's unauthorized use of the song "Barracuda" at the Republican convention. The campaign was playing up the high school nickname of Sarah Palin as Sarah the Barracuda to spotlight her Alaskan fighting spirit . However this apparently didn't go down well with the Wilson sisters. Nancy Wilson (one of the Wilson sisters from the Heart group) issued an email yesterday afternoon asking the campaign to desist from unauthorized usage of the song.
But after McCain finished his speech accepting the GOP's presidential nomination tonight, Palin joined him on stage, and the song was used again: Heart's "Barracuda" played as balloons fell. With that elephant in the room, Heart's Nancy Wilson felt compelled to personally respond. "I think it's completely unfair to be so misrepresented," she said in a phone call to EW.com after the speech. "I feel completely f---ed over."She and sister Ann Wilson then emailed the following exclusive statement:
"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there."
Read more here at Entertainment Weekly
McCain-Palin campaign had been served with a cease and desist notice by Universal Music Publishing and Sony BMG.
Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart said Thursday night that Universal Music Publishing and Sony BMG have sent a cease and desist notice to the McCain-Palin campaign over their use of 'Barracuda.'"We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored," the group said in a statement that said they "condemn" the use of the song at the Republican convention.
Read more at CNN
CBS4 at Denver is reporting that four people are under arrest for plotting to kill Senator Obama at the convention. The African American community had been extremely scared of this possibility. It is very difficult to realize that there are really evil folks out there who are committed to do only harm to others. Atleast one of the plotters had links to white supremacists.
As we still bicker amongst ourselves over Obama-Clinton feud, please do not forget the bigger picture. Beyond everything we are humans and that's what bonds us as liberals, progressives, moderates, conservatives, liberatarians, Democrats ....
Please stop this silly infighting and sieze this historic opportunity of building a permanent Democratic majority for a longtime to come.
CBS4 has now learned at least four people are under arrest in connection with a possible plot to kill Barack Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver. All are being held on either drug or weapons charges.CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass reported one of the suspects told authorities they were "going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a ... rifle ... sighted at 750 yards."
Law enforcement sources tell Maass that one of the suspects "was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama. He responded in the affirmative."
Sources told CBS4 police found two high-powered, scoped rifles in the car along with camouflage clothing, walkie-talkies, a bulletproof vest, a spotting scope, licenses in the names of other people and methamphetamine. One of the rifles is listed as stolen from Kansas.
Subsequently authorities went to the Cherry Creek Hotel to contact an associate of Gartrell's. But that man, who was wanted on numerous warrants, jumped out of a sixth floor hotel window. Law enforcement sources say the man broke an ankle in the fall and was captured moments later. Sources say he was wearing a ring with a swastika, and is thought to have ties to white supremacist organizations.
A third man -- an associate of Gartrell and the hotel jumper was also arrested. He told authorities that the two men "planned to kill Barack Obama at his acceptance speech."
That man, along with a woman, are also under arrest.
The Secret Service, FBI, ATF and the joint terrorism task force are all investigating the alleged plot.
http://cbs4denver.com/investigates/assis ination.plot.obama.2.802827.html
Rocky Mountain News is reporting the same:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/20
08/aug/25/police-investigate-possible-pl
ot-kill-obama/
Crossposted at C4O
We would be addressing each of the possible smears that GOP/McCain/Bush attack machine are likely to use against Obama/Biden ticket. The objective is to research and get to the truth so our answers are ready to hit back GOP smear machine's falsehoods. GOP supposedly have started a weblog tracking Biden's so called gaffes. This diary tracks one of Biden's comments about the Indian community that had been twisted and is likely to be used to attack him. In various forms (which are alive in Youtube and other host sites) this video has been used to falsely smear Biden as a racist.
In reality nothing can be further from the truth. TimesofIndia, one of India's foremost English newspaper, decided to address this smear head on.
In a 2006 campaign appearance, when he was still in contention for the presidential ticket, Biden, boasting about his strong relationship with Indian-Americans in his state, said ''You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.''The remark was misconstrued as being politically incorrect, but Biden quickly put it in perspective saying it was meant to demonstrate his ''incredibly strong'' relationship with Indian-American.''I was making the point that up until now in my state, we've had a strong Indian community made up of leading scientists and researchers and engineers,'' Biden explained later. ''We're having middle-class people move to Delaware, take over Dunkin' Donuts, take over businesses, just like other immigrant groups have, and I was saying that ... they're growing, it's moving.''''I could have said that 40 years ago about walking into a delicatessen and hearing an Italian accent in my state,'' he added.
The facts are that Indian-American community in the mid-Atlantic and NorthEast region has a strong relationship of respect and friendship with Biden. Biden in his comments was actually making the point about his closeness to the Indian American community. The community had continued to enthusiastically support Biden in his political life including his current selection as the VP nominee by Obama.
Most Indian-Americans in Delaware, where indeed there has been a boom in small business growth by the community, did not take Biden's remark amiss. Many of them, especially those involved in businesses relating to motels, liquor stores, and gas stations, are Biden supporters and contributors who have held fund-raisers for him and reeled him into events like the local Navratri garba hosted by the Gujarati community.''He's a great guy, very experienced. We love him,'' Pravin Patel, president of the Delaware Asian-American Business Association, said on Saturday after news broke of Biden's selection. ''He will be good for U.S-India relations.'' Patel said he and his associates celebrated the e-mail announcement at 3 a.m.
Please get the message out.
BBC is reporting the famed Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn passed away at the age of 89. This brought back the memories of long hours of entranced reading of The Gulag Archipelago, The Cancer Ward, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denosovich et al.
His son Stepan was quoted by one Russian news agency as saying his father died of heart failure, while another agency quoted literary sources as saying he had suffered a stroke.He died in his home in the Moscow area, where he had lived with his wife Natalya, at 2345 local time (1945 GMT), Stepan told Itar-Tass.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent his condolences to the writer's family, a Kremlin spokesperson said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy described him as "one of the greatest consciences of 20th Century Russia".
"His intransigence, his ideals and his long, eventful life make of Solzhenitsyn a storybook figure, heir to Dostoyevsky," he said in a statement.
Alex Solzhenitsyn was sent to the Stalin's Gulag after he criticized Stalin. This experience when turned into the classic of The Gulag Archipelago made Solzhenitsyn the famous author he is. Solzhenitsyn was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and expelled from Russia. He settled in Vermont in the mid seventies and continued a very active penmanship and opposition to Soviet Communist rule. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970. He finally returned to Russia in 1994.
He spent the next eight years in the Soviet prison system, or Gulag, before being internally exiled to Kazakhstan, where he was successfully treated for stomach cancer. Publication in 1962 of the novella Denisovich, an account of a day in a Gulag prisoner's life, made him a celebrity during the post-Stalin political thaw. However, within a decade, the writer awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature was out of favour again for his work, and was being harassed by the KGB secret police. In 1973, the first of the three volumes of Archipelago, a detailed account of the systematic Soviet abuses from 1918 to 1956 in the vast network of its prison and labour camps, was published in the West. Its publication sparked a furious backlash in the Soviet press, which denounced him as a traitor. Early in 1974, the Soviet authorities stripped him of his citizenship and expelled him from the country.
Jerome Corsi was out in Hannity and Colmes peddling his Swiftboating book of lies namely "Obama Nation".
The book is peddling lies like Obama had used drugs and admitted doing so..more lies about his ties to supposedly radical extremists, rightwing frames about Black Liberation Theology..he was peddling some stories about Black Jesus et al...I simply don't have the mental power to write the odious lies being peddled..
http://fromtheleft.wordpress.com/2008/07 31/two-new-books-will-attempt-to-swiftb oat-obama
More on the state of SwiftBoaters..
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080107/ha
yes
MediaMatters are already pushing back on the lies..
A July 30 WorldNetDaily.com article about author Jerome Corsi's forthcoming book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (Threshold Editions), asserts that the book "points out" that "Barack Obama admitted using drugs in his autobiography but never revealed if or when he stopped." WND quotes Corsi, who is also a WND staff reporter, asking in the book: "Did Obama ever use drugs in his days as a community organizer in Chicago, or when he was a state senator from Illinois? ... How about in the U.S. Senate? If Obama quit using drugs, the public inquiry certain to occur in a general election campaign for the presidency will most certainly aim at the when, how and why questions George W. Bush successfully avoided." But Corsi's reported allegation that Obama "never revealed if or when he stopped" using drugs is false: Obama wrote in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father (Crown, 1995), that he "stopped getting high" shortly after moving to New York City to attend Columbia University as an undergraduate.From Dreams From My Father (Page 120):
When Sadik lost his own lease, we moved in together. And after a few months of closer scrutiny, he began to realize that the city had indeed had an effect on me, although not the one he'd expected. I stopped getting high. I ran three miles a day and fasted on Sundays. For the first time in years, I applied myself to my studies and started keeping a journal of daily reflections and very bad poetry. Whenever Sadik tried to talk me into hitting a bar, I'd beg off with some tepid excuse, too much work or not enough cash.
As the WorldNetDaily article mentioned, Corsi is the co-author of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, a book that contains false and baseless attacks on Sen. John Kerry's military service. During and after the 2004 election, critics rebuked the media for having taken so long to challenge the smears against Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in Unfit for Command and in the news media, raising the question for the media: Will they have absorbed the lessons of their highly flawed Swift Boat coverage and give more immediate and more thorough scrutiny to Corsi's new book?
http://mediamatters.org/items/2008073100 03
More about Jerome Corsi.
Yeah you read it right..finally the truth is out..George W. Bush is Batman. Have you seen the insignia of BATMAN? It is a Giant 'W'. And that gave him away. George Bush alias BATMAN is flying around the World in his wellknown black cape, squashing the Islamic Terrorists like bugs, protecting folks in Salina, KS from the evils of liberals, gay marriage and abortion, extending his love and protection for kids in Cobb Country, GA from the evils of Evolution and Global Warming Science, you and me from dangers of reason and reality. And you thought, you had seen the end of rightwing dreaming?
Meet Andrew Klavan, the rightwing author in his commentary in the once vaunted newspaper WSJ, now owned by Rupert Murdoch, who wrote,
"A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."
There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.
And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell."
Klavan writes more about how the movie Dark Knight is actually a conservative movie on terror. It is making a fortune today because it depicts the "values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate..."
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB12 1694247343482821.html
So who is Andrew Klavan? According to the AP reviewer Bruce DeSilva while reviewing Klavan's recent novel "Empire of Lies" he is ...
Klavan occupies the portion of the political spectrum commonly known as right-wing crackpot.Through Harrow he tells us, among other things, that the entire media is a left-wing conspiracy, that taxes steal from the rich to give to the poor, that America is in a holy war with Islam, that the truth about darned near everything in the United States is obscured by a blizzard of politically correct lies and that anyone who disagrees with him is deluded.
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Today/Books/ 2008/07/19/6204261-sun.html
Supposedly Klavan had wrote crime novels namely Dynamite Road and True Crime. Klavan has a run of the mill rightwing blog where he fawns over Glenn Beck as a big fan..
Well are you having nightmares by now of George W. Bush alias BATMAN chasing the progressive, liberal you down the streets of City of Gotham? Well, I'm..
But then if Klavan was sane, George W. Bush is BATMAN, I'm Einstein and I've a date with Giselle Bundchen...
· AK SEN: AP CALLS IT FOR BEGICH! (Sandwich Repairman)
· Draft DavidNYC for Senate (Jonathan Singer)
· LA-04: Dick Ain't Done Yet ... (DailyKingFish)
· GA-Sen: Libertarian Allen Buckley Speaks Out on Georgia Senate Run-Off (Senate Guru)
· Wish Gov. Dean a "Happy Birthday" (Matt Ortega)
· IA-Gov 2010: Will any Democrat challenge Culver? (desmoinesdem)
· Young Dems use Facebook to slay cranky old Republicans (MediaCzech)
· OH-15: Debating Provisional Ballots (Sandwich Repairman)
· More 2010 Manuevers in Louisiana (DailyKingFish)
· MN-Gov / MN-01: Walz considers gubernatorial run (MN Campaign Report)
· NV-Sen: Republican Challenger for Harry Reid Emerges (Sven at My Silver State)
· Keith Ellison (D-MN) is up for Progressive Caucus chair (MN Campaign Report)
