politics gone mad, press following blindly, kerry saying sorry, bush fighting on

so kerry made a mistake, and the question is did he really make a mistake or just said something which he should have probably not said — bush btw does this on a daily basis and no one cares. kerry pretty much told a bunch of students that its better to study than having to fight in iraq, something they probably already know and are quite aware of. did kerry offend soldiers in iraq by saying this? well maybe. did he intent to do so? i doubt this, after all he was a soldier himself, and he actually fought in a war.

bush on the other side, who chickened out of fighting in vietnam, is taking any opportunity to assure soldiers that the US will keep on fighting in the iraq …

“We will not run from thugs and assassins.”

yes, it is easy to say this if you actually don’t have to fight, then you can be the brave one hiding behind all the brave soldiers who actually have to face those thugs and assassins.

and what about the press? yes, they blindly follow bush to make a big deal out of kerry’s mistake, but don’t give a shit about bush sending more and more soldiers to fight a senseless war in iraq. but just like in many wars before, bush is blinded from reality, and sees the only way forward to not change anything.

after running out of policy ideas, president and gop are getting desperate

the washington post reports that during a campaign stop this week Bush Says ‘America Loses’ Under Democrats. the article quotes bush:

“However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses,” Bush told a raucous crowd of about 5,000 GOP partisans packed in an arena at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, one of his stops Monday. “That’s what’s at stake in this election. The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq.”

while it is obvious that this administration has run out of ideas for quite a while, despite the dire need for ideas on how to deal with the iraq mess, how to deal with the afghanistan mess, how to ensure that the US is actually getting safer, how to address the looming social security and medicaid problems, how to address the health care system’s problems …, the grand old party and its grand old chief in the white house don’t even attempt anymore to win over votes by presenting strategies on how to address these issues. instead, the strategy is to lower the campaign discourse to a level that can be found when three year olds fight over toys in kindergarten. it is about sound bites, about brief platitudes that provide no insights what-so-ever. like bush’s remark that the democrat’s strategy is to let the terrorists win. this has nothing to do with reality, it is just plain fear mongering, the same strategy they have used for the last couple of year, starting with mushroom clouds and imminent terrorist attacks here in the US. and, obviously only the party the is completely incapable of even creating a single exit strategy for iraq, is the only party that can ensure winning the war in iraq.

oh, and then bush also added that:

“We will not run from thugs and assassins.”

i guess that is quite easy to say when “we” is not yourself but others that have more or less not choice but to stick it out in iraq. no, “we” already didn’t run from thugs and assassins during the vietnam war, “we” just go hide in a bunker and maybe have some of daddy’s friends help “us” clean up the mess we made. maybe it is time to call in the wolf to clean up the bloody mess.

The Wolf: You’re… Jimmie, right? This is your house?
Jimmie: Sure is.
The Wolf: I’m Winston Wolfe. I solve problems.
Jimmie: Good, we got one.
The Wolf: So I heard. May I come in?
Jimmie: Uh, yeah, please do.

another daily show moment of brilliance

one has to wonder why no other media outlet out there is ever questioning all the crap politicians say on an ongoing basis … like the stupid habit of bush to say what his job is …

a daily show gem on the foley story

in case you haven’t head about the foley story, or you have been bored to death by the mainstream media coverage of it, or have banged your head against a wall way too many times after accidentally watching the fox news coverage of it … then take a couple of minutes and watch this daily show coverage on pretty much the whole story as it stands so far. it is again the best journalistic coverage of this story

new anti-online-gambling law shows all that is wrong with US politics

last week, in the final hours of congress before the mid-term election break, and to the surprise of everyone both the house and the senate passed a law that will more or less make online gambling illegal in the US. after reading several articles about the law it hit me, this law shows everything that is wrong about the american political system.

i am not a gambler, i don’t play online poker and i will extremely likely not be impacted by the law, but just like every other person living in the US chances are they will be impacted by future laws which will be created similarly and that is why this is important. why am i so upset? well here is why:

1. laws are hidden and invisible to the people: the online gambling law that was passed last week, was not openly debated and then put to a vote so that we can go online and see who exactly voted in favor of the anti-online gambling law. no the anti-online gambling law was attached to the safe port act. the safe port act is a law which is supposed to increase security at US ports (that is a place where ships enter the US and mostly unload goods produced in other countries). now increased security at US ports is something good, and should have already happened about five years ago, but what does this have to do with online gambling? well one could argue port workers gamble, but then i doubt that there is a big online gambling problem at US ports, at least not to a higher degree than on US university campuses. so what does online gambling have in common with port security? absolutely nothing. it is just that voting no to a law making online gambling illegal is not really such a big deal for politicians, but just imagine the upcoming mid-term elections in which a senator has to defend his no vote on the US port security law. so why does this happen? well it is more or less hidden pork-trading. it happens all the time and it is how bridges are being funded in the middle of nowhere, because they end up somewhere in the middle of a military budget.

but come on, this is no reason. americans should have higher standards and expect more. you can do pork-trading even if each law is voted on separately.

2. the whole process is corrupt this law just so obviously showcases how much say the little people have in this country and the sleaziness of the politicians. so the argument for banning online gambling is that is a shadow industry. well, why if it is such a shadow industry does reuters (see story link below) report that stock prices of online gambling companies have plummeted. yes, stock prices. the big online gambling sites are publicly listed companies, not shadowy at all. the only problem is that most of them are still either a bit small or as most of them are located outside of the US, and listed at stock exchanges such as the London one.

it would be fair to assume that if those were mostly US companies, listed in the US, with employees here in the US this law would probably never been added to the US port security law and second, would have never passed a vote, but because of its low impact on local people, and its so called high moral “value” it was an easy vote. the hypocrisy of the vote is that online betting on horse races is exempt from the law (what would Kentucky do without horse betting?), and so are state run lotteries. oh, and do you think that these same politicians thought maybe that if online gambling is not really that good let’s just make real, live, casino gambling also illegal, no, that did not happen. why? because some of the large corporations behind those casinos in las vegas, atlantic city, reno … are actually giving money to politicians to vote against the online gambling act since they think that could threaten their business (how stupid they are … haven’t they seen what online poker does to their poker rooms?).

well so it goes to show that politicians do not give a damn about issues, or about their constituencies (you and me), but only to those that will give them even more money for their next campaign spot.

what this country really needs is a campaign finance reform (one that will really make money a non-issue in political campaigns), and a reform of how laws are being voted on (there has to be accountability on who votes on what).

some places that write about this story:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=&storyid=2006-10-02T142430Z_01_WLA3660_RTRUKOC_0_US-LEISURE-PARTYGAMING.xml&src=nl_ustechnology
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/02/1817259&from=rss

and finally colbert’s take on the clinton interview

i posted the original, olbermann’s response, the daily show’s response, and now here is colbert’s response …

olbermann on what makes an american … and it isn’t being a coward mr president

in today’s american there is a lot of talk about the so called liberal media, but in reality there are few non-conservative voices heard, and even fewer intelligent voices. an intelligent voice doesn’t have to be liberal, but it isn’t bill o’reilly and it isn’t to be found on the pages of the wall street journal’s editorial page, or in the washington times.

that is why it is so refreshing to watch the daily show, because in between the jokes there is real analysis, there is real research, there is real insight and questioning of facts. something that is missing from nearly all of the rest of the media.

for some time now keith olbermann on msnbc has started to become a counter weight to fox’s o’reilly and the like. and it was probably o’reilly’s annoyance of olbermann that actually brought olbermann into the spotlight. but where o’reilly and olbermann differ is that olbermann is less focused in spreading a party’s daily sound-bites, but rather question the authorities (which at the moment is the bush administration.

there have been many olbermann commentaries over the last couple of months, and the one he gave yesterday in response to clinton’s interview is just another one brilliantly countering the president’s and fox’s distraction tactics by blaming clinton for 9/11.

as always fox, fair and balanced … oh and stupid

former president clinton gave a fox news interview (the whole interview can be seen here: Clinton Sets The Record Straight On Terrorism, Smacks Down Fox News.

while clinton is certainly aggressive in the way he answers fox’s questions, he certainly has every reason for it since chris wallace is just amazingly unprepared. plus instead of talk about the clinton initiative wallace start off with asking clinton why he didn’t prevent 9/11. after the abc lie-drama and bush’s complete failure to do anything pre or post 9/11 without getting any tough questions (especially from fox) clinton’s reaction is more than understandable. to clinton’s questions about why fox has been so reluctant to play hard ball with the bush administration wallace has nothing to say, just sitting there repeating his sound bites.

but to promote the interview he gave a pre-view on some other fox time slot, in which he couldn’t understand clinton’s reaction, and the other fox news dumb-butt comes up with a lewinsky comment, and both absolutely not getting (or at least not on the air, but maybe they are just as dumb as they seem to be) clinton’s reaction.

another report cheney will not read …

throughout the last six years the current administration didn’t really care about the truth that much, either making up facts as they go (there was a link between saddam and al qaeda) or ignoring reports (saddam did not buy yellow cake in africa). now that these facts and reports also get the official stamp of US congress approval the general excuse of white house staff seems to be to say that they haven’t read those new reports yet.

and now here is another one … and just like the others this new one is not really saying anything new, it is merely putting an official stamp on common knowledge … this one is about the increase in terror threat since the iraq invasion. and not only this, but that the iraq war actually is a direct reason for this increase.

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat

this introductory paragraph says it all:

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

it is not surprising that the report is classified, and that in public the administration is contradicting the report and the intelligence community, but saying that the war is helping in the war on terror. here is a statement from the white house

“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America and its allies are safer, but we are not yet safe,” concludes one, a report titled “9/11 Five Years Later: Success and Challenges.” “We have done much to degrade Al Qaeda and its affiliates and to undercut the perceived legitimacy of terrorism.”

not quite aligned with the new intelligence estimate report…

The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of “self-generating” cells inspired by Al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants.

so i guess we can all sleep well, and expect cheney, condi … to say that they haven’t had a chance to read the report yet.

on torture

president bush is intent to change the geneva conventions unilaterally — although he will say that he is doing the world a favor by clarifying them and allowing all the other countries to use the same interpretation. while i expects other countries not to question his interpretation i have the feeling that he would not do the same if iran for example would implement their own interpretation.

the geneva convention, which was adopted nearly 60 years ago, has been unchanged and accepted nearly universally without question about interpretation. the list of countries that accepted them includes iraq, iran, and china and 191 more including the US.

going back to the initial geneva convention of 1864 this document has been in place as an agreement to protect soldiers. people realizing that wars can bring out the worst in humans wanted to ensure a certain level of decency in the way countries fought wars, treated injured, and treated prisoners. and as i said since 1949 nothing has change, and only little has been added. and despite many wars among treaty signers there has been no debate about interpretation.

by questioning the geneva convention is changing the intent unilaterally, bush is ultimately destroying the document and making it worthless. and the consequence of this is that no US troops nor any other troops will be able to expect fair treatment anymore. and while bush might wave the flag and republicans put stickers on their cars on how they support the troops, they are stabbing them in the back by taking away their rights of fair and humane treatment.

it is not surprising that those most vocal against bush’s attack against the geneva convention are those in the military and those that clearly care about the military — mccain and powell foremost and some outspoken generals.

is it important to remember that the geneva convention was put in place to protect soldiers in war and by questioning the convention bush is actively putting US soldiers in harms way (although that is nothing new i guess since he already did so many times before by sending not enough troops into war and then not providing them with the necessary equipment).