Selise at 119, I am in awe of your command of the facts! How do you do it? Even down to the details of Kucink’s aborted attempt to read the true translation into the Congressional record. Can you give me a link?

Marilyn – thanks, but no secret here. i just read juan cole every day. he’s where i first read about kucinch’s attempt on the house floor. here’s the link juan cole gave.

at the time, i did go and check the congressional record to confirm.

hope that helps.

sadly, capitulation by congress on iran has been an ongoing story for the 110th.

1. in march – pulling the iran language from the iraq supplemental funding bill, as jane reminds us of.

2. speaker pelosi promised a stand alone bill as a replacement for this action – i even had it directly from my representative (jim mcgovern) that she had made this promise.

3. no stand alone bill, that i’m aware of, was ever brought to the house floor. however, in may, we did get a later amendement proposed to a defense authorisation bill – one that failed with 100 democrats voting against it and speaker pelosi not voting.

4. h.con.r.21 – the house’s version of the lieberman iran amendment. a thoroughly irresponsible bill based on lies. passed on 6/21(background here and here) bottom line – virtually the entire house of representatives (only 2 “no” votes – kucinich and paul) voted to ask the UN security council to charge ahmadinejad with “violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and United Nations Charter” based on basically 1) his calling for the genocide of israelis and 2) because “Iran has aggressively pursued a clandestine effort to arm itself with nuclear weapons”.

only problem is that the first is a lie (mistranslations) and there is no evidence for the second (see IAEA). when kucinich tried to enter into the congressional record the correct translation, he was prevented from doing so.

…and that’s just the house

Selise at 119, I am in awe of your command of the facts! How do you do it? Even down to the details of Kucink’s aborted attempt to read the true translation into the Congressional record. Can you give me a link?
Marilyn in San Antonio

How is the Iran language a Blue Dog issue?

i don’t think it primarily is a blue dog issue. unless we have a hundred blue dogs in the house. (see my 119 and 133 above)

something much bigger going on…

wow. I never heard about him, thanks for sharing that.

Bernard Fall

He earned the doctorate from Syracuse in 1966 and taught for a time at American University in Washington before accepting a post at Howard University in 1956. Fall interspersed trips to Vietnam, funded now by Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, with his teaching duties. As time went on, he became the leading academic critic of the war in Vietnam, as well as the first serious student of Indochinese military operations. The Defense Department awarded him a Certificate of Appreciation in 1961 in thanks for his “tireless efforts to secure the facts and data as they are, and not as one wishes them to be.” As American involvement in Vietnam became deeper and more politically sensitive, however, the government became less comfortable with Fall’s often prickly writing about the war.

Fall was ‘Tillman’d’ . . . .

One blip on the radar screens in Iran reading incoming, and they lob a bunch of stuff right into Iraq and Israel.

We have NO exit ground wise outta Iraq . . . we gotta go thru Basra, and the Brits are gonna bail outta THERE soon.

Shitting ducks.

ONE fu’d ‘adventure’ into Iran, and Shittin Ducks.

Pure slaughter.

At LEAST one carrier, in the water, too . . .

Military knows this . . . they won’t let it happen.

And LONG before this shit even starts, Russia and China are gonna speak up . . . so let’s kewl the jets, and remain somewhat calm ‘midst the clusterphuKbia BoyKing and Shooter are trying to frenzy us up into . . .

They is just rallyin to try and stop the GOP from frogmarching them OUTTA there . . . and I’m thinkin, that march is close and getting closer . . . the GOP can’t EVEN think about 2012 . . . they are hosed for a generation at this point.

They gotta dump BoyK and Shooter sooner than later, despite the fact that they are doomed for ‘08 and ‘12 and a few more after that . . . . .

And IF they don’t do it, and BoyK/Shotsy DO try and pull the trigger, then the paybacks are gonna be enuff to set the USA back a generation or two on the global scene.

And we will have earned it, thru and thru . . .

Once upon a time, the only constitutional body that could legally declare war was the U.S. Congress.

But now we have entered the preemptive war era of the Bush administration, who will use any excuse that they can find to start wars, while bypassing the U.S. Congress, and constitutional constraints, if at all possible.

It is obvious that neither Bush nor the “culture of corruption” Republicans are going to give up control of the White House either easily or willingly.

Their warped vision of a “unitary executive,” one controlled solely by Republicans or like-minded neo-conservatives (as some of the Blue Dog Democrats are), is a long term project.

My guess is that they think that if they can keep the United States in continual war, they can retain control of the White House indefinitely, thus keeping in place all the neo-conservative changes that Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and Rove have worked so hard (and secretly) to implant while in the White House.

Because, you see, the current residents in the White House are extremely afraid of a Democratic victory in the November 2008 presidential election. Were a Democrat to win, the neo-conservative game would be over. A Democratic president would have all the power of the presidency to delve into what exactly Bush and Cheney have really been doing…and hiding.

But a war on Iran might just save Bush and Cheney’s butts…in their twisted way of thinking. Thus, we see the same pre-war hype that was used before Bush launched unprovoked, preemptive airstrikes against Iraq. Plus, we are seeing the same expansion of spying on U.S. citizens, with the same attempt to hide what they’re doing.

With one twist that they’ve added in the meantime. Bush signed an executive order stating that he can declare martial law and lock down our democracy, with everything and everyone in our nation under his “unitary executive” control, in case there is a terrorist attack anywhere on U.S. soil.

And any preemptive attack on Iran will dramatically and exponentially increase the chance that the Iranians will somehow retaliate and a terrorist attack will occur inside the United States.

And just as in the case of Bush threatening Congress recently with him keeping them in session until he got his way, Bush can keep martial law in place for as long as he wants. Hey, there’s no law placing any limits on him regarding how long martial law can last. Which means Bush could, under his “unitary executive” martial law, cancel next year’s elections.

And with the conservative Blue Dog Democrats siding with the conservative Republicans, the “culture of corruption” conservatives actually control the U.S. Congress, which will make it extremely difficult to stop Bush and Cheney…at least on the federal level. Individual states and their governors, as well as all patriotic U.S. citizens, might have something else to say about a rogue Republican administration pulling such a nefarious and un-American stunt.

Most of our representatives in both parties are rich. Don’t expect them to risk their sweet lives for something called ‘principles.’

I think the Democrats are afraid that someone will actually come along and arrest them if they don’t “go along” with Pres Dubya and the military-industrial-Z*on*st ruling elite. These people don’t just kill people, they destroy whole countries. And they love doing it.

Yup, that’s why we call them Republicrats.

~~~ModNote: Edited for content to clear threads.~~~

A LOT of political campaign money has come to Democrats (at least ever since the 60s Civil Rights fights) from New York City Jews. Well, you know how the Republicans love to fight over money sources and would love to sour relations between Jews and Dems. They tried with Jesse Jackson and when they took on the NeoCons in 1981 they were at it again.

They were happy to let the NeoCons decide foreign policy with Israel in mind and to slow or shut down campaign funds from Jews to Dems. That began a bit of a dry spell for Dems (that and Reagan’s popularity).

Next, you have Bill Clinton and a West Coast Silicon Valley approach to opening new pocketbooks. Of course, he was and is so fantastic with people they gave a lot. He gave a lot back with the good economy. After that I’m not so clear on how things have stood with Dems, but the NeoCons and our foreign policy have certainly got the Republicans in good stead with the Likudists.

Where are things now?

Bush is messing it all up, but the Likudists are back in power and they’re urging total war in the Middle East. They must still be happy with this state of affairs.

I’ve heard Dems are raising a lot of money, so it would be interesting to know where it’s coming from and whether American Jews are still giving more to Dems or more to Repubs.

It’s not wonder A*P*C is powerful and America’s foreign policy seems to be driven by the Knesset (apparently our real 4th branch of government).

If you believe 9/11 was to some extent allowed or contrived to happen by NeoCons, then can it be any surprise the attack would happen in New York City? It’s the perfect place to get the absolute best reaction for their plans.

Today they’re talking about another 9/11, but where would it occur to gain such a visceral reaction that would give them the same kind of political strength that 9/11 gave them?

If they had a hand in 9/11, if only to allow it, then the thing I hate most (aside from the obvious immediate horror of it all) is that they’re manipulating the public, rather than governing. I don’t recall anywhere in the Constitution, Declaration of Independence or anywhere else that we Free People were to be Manipulated rather than Governed.