Weakness, Lindsey Graham told the American people (and the Senate) today was in the US setting a time table for withdrawal.
Funny, I thought weakness was his high-pitched vocals?
Sounding like a castarati every time he opens his mouth doesn't strike Graham as weakness?
As the cracking voice of a pimply stocker in your local grocery, his voice might carry some authority. As a US senator?
Hearing that screech with a southern drawl is to grasp why Rebecca dubbed him a character in a Tennessee Williams play: The Mint Julip Exploded On My Best Dress!
For easy laughs, listen to him quoted on KPFA's Evening News tonight. (Go to the archives.)
Blanche/Lindsey said that "Strength" would be letting Iraq set a time table. Iraqis have been asking the US to leave for some time now. Does he not know that?
Does he not know that on Bully Boy's heavily covered photo-op in the Green Zone, the vice-president of Iraq (with the blessing of Iraq's president) asked for a time table for withdrawal to be set?
Linsdey doesn't know about Watergate or, apparently, anything at all.
The debate on Iraq continues tomorrow in the Senate. They may vote. If they do, there are two pieces of legislation. One, a real plan that calls for troops home by July of 2007, is John Kerry, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold and hopefully many other's plan.
The other one, favored by Di-Fi and Carl Levin, asks for things but isn't binding.
Kind of like the nonsense today that was non-binding. On the one hand the Senate approved that the Iraqi government could not grant amnesty to resistance fighters who'd fought Americans. On the other hand, they recognized that Iraq was it's own government. Both are non-binding (e.g. meaningless).
The amnesty proposal was floated last week, following which, the one floating it was kicked out of the government. Get it? It's not happening. But the Senate could waste everyone's time on something that's not happening while avoiding addressing the reality of Iraq.
I am apparently Larry King, or as powerful. That's what I found out when Jess told me I had e-mails going to common_ills@yahoo.com. Angry visitors wrote me care of the site to tell me how disgusted they were that I'd put up the Globe here.
Oh, so sorry.
I guess I shouldn't be interviewing Jennifer Flowers either? (If that's not how she spells her name, find someone who cares.) Oh wait, I don't interview her. That's Larry King and a host of others. The press embraced her as soon as she told her story (with dubious parts) to the tabloids. (I believe it was The Star.) I put it up because it made a friend of mine laugh. I'll do that anytime I damn well want.
And let's be real clear to the angry Republican who told me "9/11 changed everything!" 9/11 didn't strip Flowers of her network and cable TV duties. She continued to pop up after September 11th. She pops up even now.
I didn't endorse the story, I didn't rebuke it (Bully Boy & Laura). It was a funny cover, I posted it. Unless I've just dropped acid, I'm remembering that the New York Times ran a front page story LAST MONTH about how Bill Clinton MIGHT be having an affair. That was after 9/11.
Find a real problem. Unlike Chelsea Clinton, everyone in the Worst Family (Bully Boy, Laura, the twins) are adults. That's to the Repube weeper who asked, "What about Jenna and Barbara? Even if it were true, do they need to see it?"
I honestly doubt that the twins come here (I don't put up many photos so what would Jenna do if she visited?). But they are adults. They can laugh at it or panic. They're adults. Chelsea wasn't when Rush Limbaugh and others used her as punching bag. And the twins were in college when Bully Boy first occupied the White House in 2001. Chelsea actually was a child. That didn't soften any attacks on her parents or prevent attacks on her.
Chelsea Clinton, like Amy Carter before her, was ridiculed. Both women have held up very well in spite of those attacks. So I don't think The Globe covering suggesting Bully Boy may be having an affair with Condi is anywhere near equivalent to what Amy and Chelsea went through.
If the twins can't handle it, they're as weak as their father. That's not my problem. If there's a problem, maybe you should look to their parents?
I dislike Hillary and that's mild. But Chelsea has, thus far, turned out to be a pretty strong, independent adult. (I'm not using "pretty" in terms of looks in that sentence but since her looks were so ridiculed by Rush, I will note that she's turned into an attractive young woman. Rush, however, still remains a FAT asshole.) I don't recall Chelsea going through college as though she was filming a Girls Gone Wild video. Maybe she lacked Jenna's "zest for life"? (Or maybe she just had some common sense?)
It sure is strange that after all the crap hurled at Chelsea or her parents (including calling Hillary a murderer), suddenly the thought that the Worst Family might have marital problems is "off limits." Fortunately for the e-mailers, the corporate media shares their attitude.
Remember that tomorrow at one o'clock p.m. (Pacific) KPFA airs the latest Guns and Butter.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Iraq snapshot.
Chaos and violence continue in Iraq. Outside of Iraq?As noted by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, "the so-called coalition of the willing continues to shrink:" Junichiro Koizumi, prime minister of Japan, declared that Japanese troops are leaving Iraq by "year's end.". Reuters notes that, although no Japanese troops were "killed or wounded in Iraq," "six Japanese citizens, including two diplomats, have been killed by insurgents in Iraq." China's Xinhau reports that the prime ministers discussed the intended withdrawal "with leaders of the ruling coalition and opposition parties" on Tuesday morning "shortly before the announcement." As Amy Goodman reported, Japan joins Italy with the announcement of pulling troops out by year's end and that "Spain, The Netherlands, Ukraine, Nicaragua, the Philipines and Honduras have already pulled out." Noting "Japan's Kyodo news agency," the Financial Times of London states the withdrawal "process could be completed by the end of July." Xinhua notes the same possibility and credits word on it to "Japanese government officials."
While Japan prepares to remove troops from the ground in Iraq, in the United States, a watered-down, weaker version of John Kerry's call for US troops out of Iraq is allowing for posturing. Caterwauling on the Senate floor today, Bill Frist exclaimed, "We cannot surrender. We cannot go wobbly. The price is far too high." Possibly a mantra he once repeated to himself while dissecting felines? Meanwhile, always one to run from a fight, Harry Reid's less concerned with exit plans for the US, and knowing there's no democracy in Iraq, focuses instead on a possible amnesty plan Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi prime minister and occupation puppet Nouri al-Maliki. Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi was fired/resigned following his comments to the press regarding the potential plan. But it's a nice, dead-hypothetical to rage and rattle about as opposed to dealing with reality. In other news on the spineless, John Walsh (CounterPunch) reports that what recent book sales didn't get across, phone calls might have -- Baby Cries a Lot took three calls complaining about his War Hawk position on the war. Walsh does not note if Baby Cries a Lot attempted to garner sympathy by sobbing, breaking into tears or using his own children to justify an ongoing war (children who do not and have not served in Iraq or, for that matter, the military). In non-spineless news, AP reports that Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold and John Kerry "intend to push for a vote on their own proposal."
In Seattle yesterday, Sara Jean Green reports: "Ann Wright appeared with 1st Lt. Ehren Watada and his parents at a news conference at University Lutheran Church to announce a national day of action June 27, when anti-war demonstrations will be held in cities across the country in support of Watada." Green reports that Wright, "retired army colonel and former State Department official," will appear at a "news conference today at University Lutheran Church on behalf of another Fort Lewis soldier, Suzanne Swift". Watada, whose parents joined him for yesterday's news conference, is the first commission officer to refuse deployment in Iraq. Click here to sign an online petition supporting Watada. Suzanne Swift was arrested last week after deciding she couldn't return to Iraq and going AWOL.
In Iraq, as reported by Jonathan Finer (Washington Post), Kristian Menchaca and Thomas L. Tucker, two US soldiers who were abducted last Friday, were found dead "near a power plant in Yusifiyah." The discovered corpses are said to have signs of "barbaric" torture. Meanwhile, the Mujahedeen Shura Council is claiming credit for the deaths. The Financial Times of London concludes: "The news will tarnish the positive image US and Iraqi officials have been projecting recently of a government that is gradually getting to grips with the security situation and turning the tide against the insurgents."
Other corpses were discovered in Iraq today, Reuters notes that two were found in Hilla ("blindfolded and hands tied") while in Baghdad, five corpses were found ("handcuffed with gunshot wounds in the head").Bombings? Baghdad saw a series of bombings. RTE News reports on one near "a second-hand clothes market in central Baghdad" which resulted in at least two dead and and at least 28 wounded. Al Jazeera notes that roadside bomb as well as a cra bomb "in a a crowded market in the eastern district of Jamila in Baghdad" that left seven dead and 18 wounded. The BBC reports that, in Basra, "at least one elderly woman was killed along with a suicide bomber who blew himself up inside a home for the elderly". Reuters notes that five others were wounded. Another car bomb went off in the Hurriya district of Baghdad "killing at least five people and wounding 11".
Reuters reports that while the US miliatry is saying Ramadi is not the target for a major offensive, the Red Cross has "voiced concern on difficult living conditions in Ramadi". Reporting for IPS, Dahr Jamail and Ali Fadhil write: "A week spent in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad, reveals that residents are suffering from lack of water, electricity, cooking gas and medical supplies for the hospitals. The streets are eerily empty, and it appears that many people have now left the city, althought possibly as many as 150,000 still remain in their homes, either because they are too afraid to leave or they have nowhere to go."
As noted by Sandra Lupien on KPFA's The Morning Show the US military is claiming an exchange was aimed at insurgents with 15 dead while Iraqi witnesses disputing the official (US) account*. The exchange took place in Bushahin ("village . . . north of Baghdad") The AP reports that "AP Television News footage showed blood splattered on the ground and matresses and spent bullet casings inside a poultry farm, where residents said the civilians were killed." Reuters quotes Mohammed Jaba al-Qaduir, father of Jassem and Mazen killed in the raid, "They did not attack any Americans or Humvees. We don't have any problems with the Americans. We don't have any foreigners here." Reuters mentions that one of the corpses, according to a "police source" was that of a twelve-year-old boy."
Finally, Barbara McMahon, Michael Howard and Julian Borger report (for the Guardian of London) that four prosecutors in Rome have signed "[t]he request to charge Mario Lozano, a national guardsman from New York, with the murder of Nicola Calipari." As noted by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!: "Calipari was escorting Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena after she had been released by kidnappers. U.S. troops opened fire on their car killing Calipari and injuring Sgrena. . . . Tune in to Democracy Now on Thursday when Giuliana Sgrena joins us in the Firehouse studio." Also remember that: Sgrena will be in New York City Friday June 23rd for an event with Amy Goodman at Columbia University. (Event starts at 7:30 p.m.)
*Thanks to Zach and Mia for passing on the Lupien item.
