Then the US military decided to look the other way over corruption in Afghanistan, I objected. But even that was not enough for Hamid Karzai, the former Bush puppet, appointed because he worked for the US energy industry.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai intends to impose rules restricting international involvement in anti-corruption investigations, a move that U.S. officials fear will hobble efforts to address the endemic graft that threatens support for his administration in Afghanistan and the United States.
Karzai wants to circumscribe the role of American and other foreign law enforcement specialists in two key anti-corruption organizations in the Interior Ministry by not allowing them to have direct involvement in investigations.
"The management will be Afghan, and the decision-makers will be Afghan, and the investigators will be Afghan," Mohammad Umer Daudzai, Karzai’s chief of staff, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. Foreign advisers, most of whom work for the U.S. Justice Department, will be limited to "training and coaching, but not decision-making," he said… [emphasis added]
Karzai must have learned well from Bush, because he’s fo0llowiung the Republican example, putting his own foxes in charge of investigating the chicken coop. This move is bound to make his government even more unpopular with Afghanis. Since strong popular support for the client government is a necessary element to any COIN (counter insurgency) effort, I say again that Petraeus strategy in Afghanistan cannot succeed as long as Karzai is in power.
Yesterday I fell further behind, because I co-facilitate a therapy group for former prisoners, so I have two of comments needing replies and visits needing to be returned. I’ll get on that today.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:10. To do it click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football:
Tonight is the first game of the regular season. Players, check your line-ups.
From Politico: Spending by conservative third-party organizations surged in August, as Republican-aligned groups plunged millions of dollars into key Senate races, potentially neutralizing the strong financial advantage Democrats have enjoyed this campaign season.
Republicans have no shortage of corporate campaign cash. They’re just end-running it around Michael Steele.
From Right Wing Watch: In February, four Religious Right activists in Michigan – Levon Yuille, Rene Ouellette, James Combs, and Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan – represented by the Thomas More Law Center filed suit against Attorney General Eric Holder over the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, claiming that protection for gays "creates a special class of persons who are ‘more equal than others’ based on nothing more than deviant, sexual behavior."
Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington dismissed the suit.
Republicans are quick to claim that Democrats do not support the troops when some of us don’t want to support Republican wars of greed and conquest, but when the troops needed equipment, health care, a raise, family support, and educational benefits, Republicans said no. But the most recent example of their ‘support’ is positively shameful.
The pastor of a tiny, fringe evangelical church in Florida on Tuesday rebuffed a plea for restraint from Gen. David H. Petraeus, who warned that a plan to burn the Muslim holy book could provoke violence against American troops and citizens overseas.
"Instead of possibly blaming us for what could happen, we put the blame where it belongs — on the people who would do it," Pastor Terry Jones of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., told the Associated Press. "We should address radical Islam and send a very clear warning that they are not to retaliate in any form."
Jones also said he was still praying over his decision and hinted that he might change his mind. "We understand the general’s concerns and we are taking those into consideration," he told WOFL-TV in Orlando.
A coalition of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders held a news conference in Washington on Tuesday to condemn Jones’ statements and other slurs aimed at Muslims nationwide.
"The threatened burning of copies of the Holy Koran this Saturday is a particularly egregious offense that demands the strongest possible condemnation by all who value civility in public life and seek to honor the sacred memory of those who lost their lives on Sept. 11," said a statement by religious leaders organized by the Islamic Society of North America… [emphasis added]
In the past, I have said that I oppose burning the American flag, but I defend the freedom to do so. I also defend my own freedom to speak out against it. In the same way I am speaking out against burning the holy book of Islam. In my opinion, burning it is just as wrong as it would be for Muslims to burn Bibles.
Although I oppose the war in Afghanistan, I don’t want out troops put in unnecessary danger, and I don’t want Al Qaeda, Islam’s version of the Tea Party, to have this recruiting tool. So if I, an opponent of the war, support the troops in this, where are the Republican leaders on the issue?
Keith Olbermann and veteran Todd Bowers have the answer.
Why are the Republicans silent? The answer is simple. They fear offending the very people whose hatred they have so carefully cultivated for political advantage. If American soldiers die as a result of their silence, they do not care. They only express support for the troops when it serves their end to use war to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the rich.
Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!
I have no love for the Chicago political machine, run by the Daley family. Why? I was one of the many who helped organize the demonstration at the Democratic Convention in 1968, and I was there when Daley’s father refused to honor the demonstration permit, that we had procured in good faith, and ordered his storm troopers to attack the demonstrators in what a later Congressional investigation would call a “police riot”. I ended up with three stitches in my head and a separated shoulder that day. But I cannot deny that Richard Daley has given us a priceless gift.
Richard M. Daley’s 21-year run as mayor will end next spring with the city broadly reshaped by his vision and unprecedented grip on power, but with his image as Chicago’s sure-handed leader increasingly challenged.
He stepped off the political stage in stunning fashion Tuesday, with the city in a time of great transition, years of recession taking its toll on his reputation as a shrewd manager, and money running out to keep Chicago moving forward.
His rule was defined by bold strokes and secretiveness, traits that brought him his greatest successes but gradually undermined his effectiveness.
Daley leaves a legacy of broad accomplishments, such as Millennium Park and neighborhood revitalization. Other initiatives remain incomplete, such as the ongoing efforts to improve Chicago public schools and expand O’Hare International Airport.
Daley often spoke of how his passion for leading the city remained strong, so his decision to pull the plug led to questions about his underlying motivation… [emphasis added]
While I do not agree with the Tribune’s high praise of the man, and think that he is leaving, because Chicago’s economy is in the tank, but that is not where I’m going with this. Why is the decision a gift to the left?
The political computer in the White House has been plagued with defective Rahm. Rahm Emmanuel wants Daley’s job, and although not formally announced, will be leaving the White House. Frankly, Obama should have fired him long ago as the person most responsible for crafting and persisting in Obama’s failed attempts at bipartisanship, and promoting the appointment of other corporate Democrats at key posts. I hope that Obama looks to his base for his next Chief of Staff.
Countless examples abound of Republican hypocrites, who rail against the spending in Obama’s initiatives, even though it is deficit neutral or better, but are first pigs at the trough at feeding time. Republican presidential hopeful, Tim Pawlenty, is no exception.
After criticizing Congress for passing a $26 billion aid package to state governments, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has sent a formal request to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for $236 million for Medicaid from the very same funding bill he blasted as a “reckless spending spree.” After pronouncing that “the federal government should not deficit spend to bail out states,” the governor and likely presidential candidate even offered clues that he won’t accept any new money from the federal government (unless that money was for abstinence-only programs).
Pawlenty decided to relent like other “principled” Republican governors before him such as Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford, who proudly disparage government programs and threaten to refuse the federal aid meant to protect the jobs of public employees and salvage state budgets—then agree to accepting stimulus dollars when it’s politically convenient. Similar to the Republican members of Congress who proudly vote against the stimulus and later publicly take credit for providing stimulus dollars in their districts, Pawlenty is attempting to both please the anti-government zealots in the GOP base while also benefiting from Democratic efforts to govern responsibly… [emphasis added]
This demonstrates the the spending in question is desperately needed to help soften the impact on states of this Republican recession. Were it not, lying hypocrites like Pawlenty would not take it at all to reap the political advantage of refusing it.
Yesterday my trip to the doctor took over four hours, as anticipated, and I had no time to reply to comments or return visits. Today will likely be the same, as I’m doing volunteer work with former prisoners. Tomorrow looks better.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:27. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Alaska Daily News: The five-member executive committee of the Libertarian Party met Aug. 29 and unanimously voted against considering allowing Murkowski on its ticket.
Why am I not surprised, Could it be that, if Murkowski is Libertarian, then John “Agent Orange” Boehner is Muslim?
From The Guardian: French protesters furious over the government’s proposals to change the pensions system flooded the boulevards of cities from Paris to Marseille today as Nicolas Sarkozy’s embattled labour minister presented the reform to a parliament echoing with jeers.
Huge numbers of people – 1.1 million according to the government, 2.7 million according to the leading CGT union – turned out throughout France to demonstrate against plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.
This makes it crystal clear that we Americans could take a lesson in civics from the French.
From Common Dreams: The European Union will prolong the global downturn if policymakers in the bloc’s big economies insist on austerity measures to cut budget deficits, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said on Tuesday.
Stiglitz’ view applies equally to the US. Now is not the time for austerity.
Republicans leaders love to wave their little Constitutions about, but the things they use it to defend and the policies they propose indicate that, if they have ever read it at all, they are hell bent on using it as toilet paper. To expose their lies, I recently posted a series of articles including the entire Constitution, all its Amendments, and my commentary explaining each Article and Amendment, with emphasis on how Republicans ignore it at best and try to trash it at worst. It was very well received, and I received multiple requests to put it in some more permanent form. I have collected the entire series into a single forty two page file in PDF format. You may download it free of charge.
Clicking the link will open the file in your browser. Use the file menu to save it. Or right-click the link and choose ‘save target as’ to download it without opening it.
Yesterday’s speech could not have been more different from his Iraq speech of 8/31. That was a scripted speech in which Obama displayed none of his normal passion. This was full of fire and wit. He presented good ideas and took off the gloves to blast Republican obstruction. Here it is, about 45 minutes worth. If short on time, watch parts two and three.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai intends to impose rules restricting international involvement in anti-corruption investigations, a move that U.S. officials fear will hobble efforts to address the endemic graft that threatens support for his administration in Afghanistan and the United States.
