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Grumpy McSame Knows All The Tricks

post from American Street on 09 May 2008 07:00:00 PM. © American Street

So he doesn’t need to learn new ones.McCain aid, Mark Saller: “We have all become familiar with Senator Obama?s new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest [...]

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icks-2/

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And your little dog too

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 09 May 2008 07:00:00 PM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

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Winter Soldiers - Congress - May 15th

post from Military Spouse Press - Recent Diaries on 09 May 2008 06:54:31 PM. © Military Spouse Press - Recent Diaries

Mark your calendars, History on our Military Occupations will, sadly, be made once again, as the Conflict Rages, the Truth be told!

Below you will find cuts from an IVAW Newsletter along with some well deserved recognition on the airing of the 'Winter Soldier Testimony' on March 14th to the 16th 2008.

On Thursday, May 15th, IVAW members will testify before Congress, under oath, about the realities of the occupation.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus will host Thursday's testimony in the Rayburn House Office Building in DC, and will hear testimony on the rules of engagement, the killing and abuse of civilians, the use of drop weapons, and the true consequences of the "surge." Bios of the testifiers, including veterans who served during the surge, are available on our website. You can get more information about next Thursday's hearing on our website, and find out how you can support this important event by helping us pay for travel expenses for the testifiers.

Winter Soldier goes local

Winter Soldier was a watershed event for IVAW, and our members continue to bring the testimony we collected, along with new testimony, to people around the country.
Our Gainesville chapter recently organized a local Winter Soldier at the University of Florida, with six veterans testifying, and they signed up several new members in the process. You can read about the Gainesville edition of Winter Soldier here. Other chapters are planning local events as well. We'll announce future events through this newsletter, and on our website.
There's also a great article in the Houston Chronicle about IVAW members and their thoughts on speaking out at Winter Soldier. And the Christian Science Monitor has an audio slideshow of IVAW members at Winter Soldier.
(And don't forget, you can watch all the Winter Soldier testimony yourself on our website. And broadcast-quality video is now available for download on our site, as well.)

Veterans and Active Duty speak out

IVAW members have found many ways to speak out about why they're standing against the war. From bus tours to leafleting, books to concerts, movies to works of art, our members raise their voices both to spread the word and to let our brothers and sisters in the military know that they, too, have the right to express their opinions.

Once again, mark Your Calendars, drop C-Span a line and tell them you want this televised, write about this on your sites, let your local papers know about this historic event and testimony to the Congessional Record, testimony on the Failed Policies of War and Occupation of this countries recent history and Failed Incompetent Leadership!

Speaking of the Media.

There was only One Media Outlet that carried the March 14th-16th live broadcast "Winter Soldier 2008: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations" on War Comes Home. That outlet was KPFA & Pacifica radio. But they didn't only broadcast this on their radio station, they streamed it live, audio and video, across the internet for any and all to view, in real time, as the soldiers gave their testiimony!

I found the following over at After Downing Street Winter Soldier Wins a Project Censored Award

The letter sent to KPFA:

Dear Aaron Glantz and Aimee Allison,
Your hosting of the live broadcast "Winter Soldier 2008: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations" on War Comes Home, by KPFA, March 14-16, 2008, has been selected as a finalist for the Project Censored "Most Censored" News Stories of 2007-08 Awards. Hundreds of news stories were nominated this year and your story has been ranked in the top twenty-five most important under-covered of the year.
All of the top twenty-five stories have been forwarded to our national judges for final ranking. We will be in touch soon to let you know the results of that ranking and to invite you to take part in the Fall 2008 Project Censored lecture series.
Over 250 faculty and students at Sonoma State University reviewed your story and voted on it on April 15. A synopsis of your story will appear in Chapter 1 of the book Censored 2009: Media Democracy in Action, scheduled for release in October from Seven Stories Press. Please be sure to include your mailing address and contact information below so we can send your award and a copy of Censored 2009 upon release.
We would like to include an update on your story as part of Chapter 1. This is intended to give readers additional information and suggest possible ways to become proactive on the issues presented in your story. Following each synopsis we give space for you to write a short (under 500 words) summary updating your story. Please address the following in your update summary:
* the importance of this story,
* any relevant information that has developed since publication of your article,
* mainstream press response to your story,
* How a person might get more information on the subject of your story.- Please include contact information for relevant proactive organizations, sources or web sites.
Your update is an important part of keeping your story alive. The Project Censored stories go on to receive national attention from the mainstream and alternative/independent press in the United States and abroad. Millions of additional people will hear about your work. Please help us keep on schedule by e-mailing (blanking) your update by June 1. Please also complete and return the enclosed information form at your earliest convenience.
On behalf of the Project Censored staff, faculty and students, we thank you for your courage and professionalism in investigative reporting. Congratulations and welcome to the Year 2008 Project Censored program.
Sincerely,
Tricia Boreta
Project Censored

Now if you go over to Project Censored you will find this about the 'Winter Soldier Testimony' and it's airing, Censored by everyone else.

Nominations for April 2008

#019 Iraq Vets Testify
Researched by Kat Pat Crespan and Erica Elkington
Iraq Veterans Against the War brought together more than 300 war veterans on March 13-16, 2008 to discuss soldiers' actions and the impact of the ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. At the "Winter Soldier" event, dozens veterans publicly testified about crimes they committed during the course of battle - many of which were prompted by the orders or policies set down by superior officers. Some international law experts say the soldiers' statements show the need for investigations into potential violations of international law by high-ranking officials in the Bush administration and the Pentagon. The event was designed to demonstrate that well-publicized incidents of US brutality, including the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha, are not isolated incidents perpetrated by "a few bad apples," as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the organizers said, of "an increasingly bloody occupation." Though BBC predicted that this event would dominate international news, there was a near total back out on this historic news event by the US corporate media.
In June 2007 The Nation also published interviews of 50 Iraq vets in a comprehensive investigation into the effects of the occupation on Iraqi civilians.
"Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan- Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations"
Live Broadcast Pacifica Radio. March 14-16, 2008,
"US Soldiers 'Testify' About War Crimes" Aaron Glantz, One World.net, 3/19/2008
"Why Are Winter Soldiers Not News?" FAIR, 3/19/08
"The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness" Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, The Nation, 7/30/2007

You will also find some of the other articles of under reported news they picked, as well as archived reports of their past Censored, or under reported, Features.

"Project censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcast outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism."
- Walter Cronkite

Project Censored - Sonoma State University

Read The Full Article:
http://www.milspousepress.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=654

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CNN military analyst Shepperd on trip to Gitmo:
"Did we drink the government kool-aid -- of course"

post from Media Matters for America on 09 May 2008 06:53:19 PM. © Media Matters for America

Followingthe publication of the April 20 New York Times front-page article on thehidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon, the Department ofDefense (DOD) released to the public numerous documents regarding the analystprogram. One of the documents released is a June 23, 2006, email from DODofficial Dallas Lawrence to severalDOD officials that contains a report written by retired Air Force Gen. Donald Shepperd, a CNN military analyst, about a DOD-sponsored trip he tookto the[...]

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http://feeds.mediamatters.org/~r/mediamatters/latest/~3/287116238/200805090008

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Dove Real Women Ads Retouched

post from Moue Magazine on 09 May 2008 06:53:07 PM. © Moue Magazine

The New Yorker has an interesting profile of Pascal Dangin- “the premier retoucher of fashion photographs”. Dangin is a talented artist creating the photo manipulation supply to meet the demands of the smoke and mirrors fashion and beauty[...]

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http://mouemagazine.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/dove-real-women-ads-retouched/

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Krugman A Must Read Today: What Obama Must Do

post from TalkLeft on 09 May 2008 06:48:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Big Tent Democrat wrote about this earlier, but I want to add my thoughts. Paul Krugman's column today, Thinking About November, is excellent. If Obama is the nominee, he says there are a lot of reasons Democrats should sail to an presidential win November. Then he says there is one stumbling block and opines it's a big one:

the fight for the nomination has divided the party along class and race lines in a way that I believe is unprecedented, at least in modern times. Ironically, much of Mr. Obama’s initial appeal was the hope that he could transcend these divisions. At first, voting patterns seemed consistent with this hope. In February, for example, he received the support of half of Virginia’s white voters as well as that of a huge majority of African-Americans.

But this week, Mr. Obama, while continuing to win huge African-American majorities, lost North Carolina whites by 23 points, Indiana whites by 22 points. Mr. Obama’s white support continues to be concentrated among the highly educated; there was little in Tuesday’s results to suggest that his problems with working-class whites have significantly diminished.

In other words, [More...]

Mr. Obama appears to have won the nomination with a deep but narrow base consisting of African-Americans and highly educated whites. And now he needs to bring Democrats who opposed him back into the fold.

Among his solutions is one you read all the time in the comments at TalkLeft.

More tirades from Obama supporters against Mrs. Clinton are not the answer — they will only further alienate her grass-roots supporters, many of whom feel that she received a raw deal.

Nor is it helpful to insult the groups that supported Mrs. Clinton, either by suggesting that racism was their only motivation or by minimizing their importance.

He also has an accurate warning for David Axlerod and Donna Brazile:

After the Pennsylvania primary, David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, airily dismissed concerns about working-class whites, saying that they have “gone to the Republican nominee for many elections.” On Tuesday night, Donna Brazile, the Democratic strategist, declared that “we don’t have to just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics.” That sort of thing has to stop.

And about Michigan and Florida:

One thing the Democrats definitely need to do is give delegates from Florida and Michigan — representatives of citizens who voted in good faith, and whose support the party may well need this November — seats at the convention.

Let me just add, they need to count the delegates from these states in the vote and pledged and superdelegate totals before the nominee is chosen.

Krugman concluded:

The point is that Mr. Obama has an extraordinary opportunity in this year’s election. He should do everything possible to avoid squandering it.

On a related note, I'm getting a lot of e-mails asking whether TalkLeft will begin advocating against McCain once the nominee is chosen. The answer is, of course. We have always said that we will support whoever the Democratic nominee is. Any Democrat is light-years better than McCain.

There is no nominee yet. There is a "likely" nominee. But it's not a done deal and Hillary is still in the race.

Anything can happen and so long as she remains in the race, I'll keep writing about why she's a great candidate and why I think she's the better candidate to beat McCain.

Should Obama become the nominee, not just in the opinion of the media, but in reality, then I'll start concentrating on defeating McCain. It's not time yet. The problem that Krugman describes is one worthy of consideration before the nomination is decided.

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime/~3/287119157/6678

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Lieberman Claims He 'Checked McCain's Bearings'

Offered without comment: Tags: John McCain, Joe Lieberman (all tags) [...]

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Global Suicide Pact: Transnational Maoism

Suicide (n) - The most preventable type of death.This is the ongoing story of a species whose[...]

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Mahdi Commanders Ready to Make a Deal

While the fighting in Sadr City that has raged for weeks between US-Iraqi forces and suspected elements of the Mahdi Army militia has not showed any signs of abating, rumors continue to circulate in Iraqi media of possible deals between the Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army leadership to end the standoff.

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http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/5803

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McCain: Not Old, Just Lost

Commenter cinnamonape: : "Lost his bearings?" Now we know why McCain almost flunked out of Annapolis. How can a third-generation Navy man not know that this is a NAVAL TERM that means an individual has lost sight of their navigational standards. It has[...]

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http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/09/mccain-not-old-just-lost/

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