Streams Of Consciousness

Wednesday the Congressional Progressive Cause picks a chair for the 112th Congress. They'll be deciding between 3 outstanding nominees: Raúl Grijalva, Keith Ellison and Donna Edwards. Blue America isn't taking sides; we love 'em all. Donna Edwards will be live at Crooks and Liars tomorrow (Monday) at 7pm (ET) to talk about the race-- and about the lame duck session and where progressives are headed from here.

Wikileaks Annoying World Leaders


That Wikileaks thing is embarrassing a lot of folks, although mostly ones who were up to no good.

The first tranche of more than 250,000 classified cables released by the WikiLeaks site says American officials were also told to spy on the United Nations’ leadership and get biometric information on its secretary general Ban Ki-moon.

The cables detail claims of inappropriate behaviour by a member of the Royal family and criticism of Britain’s military operations in Afghanistan and David Cameron.

The cables include requests for “specific intelligence” about British MPs. The communiques last night threatened a global diplomatic crisis and put America’s relations with Europe and the Middle East under a cloud.

The leaked memos also disclose how American diplomats compared Iran’s President Ahmedinejad with Adolf Hitler and labelled France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy as the “emperor with no clothes."

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel was depicted as “risk aversive,” while the Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin was an “alpha dog" [with ties to organized crime]. Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai was “driven by paranoia.” The unguarded comments were contained in the classified cables from US embassies, details of which were published by several newspapers on the internet last night. Some of the cables were sent as recently as last February.

...One of the most damaging allegations was that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah repeatedly urged America to attack Iran.

The Saudi leader was recorded as having “frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme."

The leak said he told the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake” at a meeting in 2008. The leaks also disclose how leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as “evil” and a power that “is going to take us to war."

...The documents also claimed that Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was known for his “wild parties” while Libya’s president Muammar Gaddafi had a “sumptuous blonde as a nursing sister."

It's just going to be so embarrassing for everyone if Julian Assange wins Time Magazine's Man of the Year. He's ahead so far, beating out Obama, Palin, Lady Gaga, the Chilean miners and... the Unemployed American. My bet is Obama would rather see Assange win than the Unemployed American.

Bush's Brother Hasn't Bothered Reading That Ridiculous Book Someone Wrote For Him... But Gerhard Schroeder Did



Jeb Bush and I have something in common. Neither of us has bothered to read his brother George's idiotic and childish book. Unlike me, though, he bought 40 copies of it, which is after all-- at least in Republicanville-- far more important than actually reading the silly thing, right? I doubt Jeb was turned off to the idea of plowing through the whole thing just because former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder did read it and accused George W. of lying.

In his book Decision Points, published this week, Mr Bush writes that he told Mr Schroeder in an Oval Office meeting on 31st January 2002 that he was determined to make diplomacy work but he would invade Iraq if all else failed.

He quotes Mr Schroeder as saying: "What is true of Afghanistan is true of Iraq. Nations that sponsor terror must face consequences. If you make it fast and make it decisive, I will be with you."

Mr Bush writes that he put a "high premium on trust" and Mr Schroeder was guilty of betrayal. "Once that trust was violated, it was hard to have a constructive relationship again."

Mr Schroeder responded to Mr Bush's claims, accusing him of "not telling the truth."

In a statement, he confirmed that he had told Mr Bush he would "stand reliably on the side of the US" if it was confirmed that Iraq was sheltering those responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"But this link, as it became clear during 2002, was false and contrived. This goes for reasons [for the invasion] given by Bush and [then vice-president Dick] Cheney too.

"As we know today, the Bush administration's reasons for the Iraq war were based on lies."

The reaction of former Schroeder aides was scathing. "We noticed that the intellectual reach of the president of the most important nation at the time was exceptionally low," said Uwe-Karsten Heye, Mr Schroeder's spokesman at the time told German news channel N24.

"For this reason it was difficult to communicate with him. He had no idea what was happening in the world. He was so fixated on being a Texan. I think he knew every longhorn in Texas."

Dieter Kastrup, Mr Schroeder's top foreign policy official, who was at the meeting, said: "In no way did Schroeder express anything that could be understood by Bush as a charter to start a war against Iraq with German assistance."

See, it wasn't just Kanye who noticed something was amiss.

How Do You Know If You're A Republican?

Bruce Linder has 50 tell-tale signs! Here are the first 25. If you want to read the rest... they're here.

You Might be a Republican If…

1. You believe George W. Bush’s redistribution of middle-class tax cuts to the top 1% of tax-payers was good for America, but Obama’s plan to return it to the middle class is ‘socialism.’

2. You believe stem cells are living human beings, but thousands of Iraqi children are ‘expendable collateral damage.’

3. You believe tax cuts for billionaires is a great idea, yet you wonder why the economy has stalled, your job just got outsourced to India, and oil company executives receive $400,000,000.00 retirement packages.

4. You believe the surge worked because the violence in Iraq is back to 2006 levels, which is only horrible, compared to what it was in 2007; intolerable. Besides, Brit Hume said so.

5. You think trial lawyers are harmful to America, yet you support prosecuting some guy in Muncie Indiana who burned his 99¢ American flag that was made in China by forced child labor.

6. You’re all for the ‘rule of law’ when it’s applied to Bill Clinton for lying about his infidelity, but not for prosecuting Karl Rove and Scooter Libby for committing treason.

7. You think George W. Bush is actually a really smart guy, but his folksy manner just makes him seem dumber than he really is.

8. You believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own, and that those who are born to poverty and never have opportunities for advancement, got what they deserved.

9. You believe Ronald Reagan was a great president who had complete control of all aspects of government, but the Iran-Contra Affair was an insignificant scandal that went on without his knowledge.

10. You believe Democrats tax and spend, but George W. Bush was a fiscal conservative.

11. You believe Oliver North, who was CONVICTED of perjury, obstruction of justice, destroying evidence and accepting bribes, is a patriot. But John Kerry, who saved a man’s life while under enemy fire in Vietnam is a coward.

12. You believe George W. Bush kept us safe from terror, and the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks were Clinton’s fault.

13. You actually believe Fox News is fair & balanced.

14. You still believe Saddam had truckloads of WMDs, and that he somehow managed to sneak them into Syria, right under our noses.

15. You believe Terri Schiavo was sentient all along, and Bill Frist had the ability to diagnose her condition by watching a 5 second video of her sleeping.

16. You’re in favor of stronger prison sentences for drug users, yet your favorite radio personality is Rush Limbaugh.

17. You complain about having to press 1 for English, yet you hire undocumented workers to mow your lawn because they’re cheaper than hiring the kid next door.

18. Homosexuality is abhorrent to you, except when a Republican senator, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and a planted White House journalist get caught having sexual affairs with gay men. Then you suddenly feel sorry for them.

19. The war in Iraq makes perfect sense to you, but any suggestion by Barack Obama that we target al Qaeda specifically is ‘dangerous and reckless.’

20. You don’t mind that president Bush tortured men who were never charged with a crime, yet you’re horrified by the wrath of al Qaeda when they capture one of our guys.

21. You believe the 1/10 of 1% of scientists who claim global warming is a hoax, and reject the 99.9% who say it’s real, because Sean Hannity and his friends in the oil industry have convinced you that science is a part of a greater liberal conspiracy.

22. You believe patriotism means you should support your government right or wrong … unless a Democrat’s in power, then it’s your patriotic duty to call him a closet Muslim, challenge his birth certificate, expose his sex life and impeach him.

23. You’re proud of your party’s ‘culture of life.’ Yet you support the death penalty for minors, you believe 600,000 dead Iraqis is justified because one of them was Saddam Hussein, and you oppose confronting the genocide in Darfur because they don’t have oil.

24. You support prayer in school, as long as your kids aren’t subjected to Muslim prayers.

25. You think Darwin’s theory of evolution is a loony fairy tale, and mankind actually began with two naked teenagers, a magic apple and a talking snake.

Now About That Dangerous Brinkmanship In Korea

I've been reading some of the papers from the '60s recently about how LBJ manipulated the North Vietnamese into the Gulf of Tonkin casus belli he wanted so badly in order to really go in with all we had to kick some ass. That worked out poorly for everyone concerned, especially poor LBJ, whom history might otherwise remember as a great and valiant president instead of a shameful war criminal. Right now I'm getting nervous about that little island that got shelled off the coast of Korea last week. When you hear a mindless warmonger like Jon Kyl on Meet the Press this morning demanding North Korea "be dealt with," you have to look closely.

But what we ought to do is what we’re doing right now. And that is not backing down in terms of having very legitimate exercises with the South Korean Government, which we-- gave plenty of advance notice of. And then see how it-- how it plays out. Obviously, we’re not trying to provoke anything there. But-- with news, the IAEA from the United Nations just released a report a couple weeks ago detailing how North Korea was proliferating nuclear technology to Iran and Syria. And clearly this is a country that needs to be dealt with. And I think we need to focus a lot more on it.

But not everyone is as blasé about the "war games" as Senator Kyl. Peace activist Bruce Gagnon notes that "the U.S. and South Korea have been running aggressive military war games each month since last July and these massive drills are directed right at North Korea. North Korea must each time put their military and their population on alert because they can't take any chances. Having seen the U.S. record of attacking weaker countries they must consider that this time the war games could be for real."

...Like any bully, the U.S. military is poking a sharp stick at North Korea (and China) and basically daring them to fight back. The U.S. (and their junior partners in South Korea and Japan) are out to militarize the region and are just itching for a military response that would then "justify" an overwhelming response.

The U.S. weapons corporations love this game of hardball, or as it used to be called, gunboat diplomacy. The power tripping U.S. government intends to keep pushing North Korea into a corner and will keep pissing on them until they get another response. At the rate things are now going it likely won't take long.

The key factor in all of this is China. How long will China allow the U.S. to keep pouring gasoline on the hot fire in the Asian-Pacific? They hold our debt yet know that if they cut the U.S. loose then the entire global economy will suffer even more. But China is quickly getting fed up with U.S. military bravado in their back yard.

China must support North Korea because if that country is toppled then the U.S. would put military bases right on China's border. This was an important reason for the Korean War in the first place, the U.S. wanted to take control of the entire Korean peninsula and thus have bases right alongside Russia and China.

Rob Krall worries that what we're seeing unfold around the Korean peninsula now is the fabric of lies on which the next American war will be built. He says it's neither Admiral Mullens' theory that North Korea is trying to blackmail the world for more aid nor others' assertion that the new North Korean leader is psychotic that is driving the train here. He agrees with Gagnon that North Korea is just responding to the war games the U.S. is having on their disputed border so very provocatively.