I’m relaunching my “Grill Rats” comic strip that I started many moons ago. I posted it to Zencomix about a year and a half ago, but I’m expanding the story and adding some New Characters. Also, I’ve improved the scanning job. Some of you readers might recognize some of the strips from previous postings. There were only a couple weeks worth, so bear with me as I re-introduce the old characters and introduce the new ones along with new story elements.The Freeper’s not gonna let that War On Halloween go with out a fight!

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Reporters are hereby alerted that a report on the report is here. The report on the report of the study will now be studied. Welcome to the doorway of the anteroom of the foyer of the room where the people who have decided on some decisions will now pass them along to The Decider who is still in charge of those who have been charged to advise him with advice he will promptly decide to look over while people look over his shoulder and once they are not looking, he will promptly disgard them.

The troops will pull back but not so far that Bush will feel pushed. Bush will push on and will never pull our troops off the battlefield even as he wishes he could pull news of the troops on the battlefield, pull them off the front pages of the newspapers. Bush needs this shooting war even if it only proves he has shot himself in the ass. A Global War on Terror Everything TM without bullets and blood and bombs going off must be tied to Iraq or Bush would be tied to a terror without much bang.

Um? “Whatever other cliches are currently available for the situation?“ Sob, sob:“the wisdom of the Baker group is revealed in an officially unofficial way.”

Don’t tell Murtha:”It’s basically a redeployment.“

Did somebody say base intentions?

Study Note Number One from Mike Allen (R-TIME magazine): “Bush’s aides have begun to chafe at the idea that Baker is needed as some sort of savior for Iraq.”

Governo Kulongoski (OR) just toured Iraq for two days with Governors Pataki (NY), Corzine (NJ) and Huntsmen (UT):

“I don’t think we’re getting ahead,” he said. Traveling in Baghdad has become much more dangerous than it was just two years ago, when Kulongoski made a similar trip to visit troops. He said he noticed less optimism about Iraq’s future, and he said he sees little progress in establishing a working government that can restore order.

“Anybody who thinks democracy is easily transplanted into the Middle East, they’re going in for a big surprise,” Kulongoski said.

He indicated it’s much worse than he saw on his visit two years ago, in that troops no longer can go to downtown Baghdad without being part of a well-armed group.

He had more to say, as did an Oregon father of a soldier in Iraq, in my local paper. That’s not yet online, but I’ll post that info as soon as it appears, as it offers a whole lot more.

Newsday has similar comments from Pataki and Corzine.

What Bush wants, Bush gets: complete control of the timing of the Iraq War.

“I think everyone felt good about where we ended up,” one person involved in the commission’s debates said after the group ended its meeting. “It is neither ‘cut and run’ nor ‘stay the course.’ ”

“Those who favor immediate withdrawal will not like it,” he said, but it also “deviates significantly from the president’s strategy.”

The report also would offer military commanders — and therefore the president — great flexibility to determine the timing and phasing of the pullback of the combat brigades.

Throughout the debates, Mr. Baker, who served as secretary of state under Mr. Bush’s father and was the central figure in developing the strategy to win the 2000 Florida recount for Mr. Bush, was highly reluctant to allow a timetable for withdrawal to be included in the report, participants said.

Mr. Baker cited what Mr. Bush had also called a danger: that any firm deadline would be an invitation to insurgents and sectarian groups to bide their time until the last American troops were withdrawn, then seek to overthrow the government. But Democrats on the commission also suspected that Mr. Baker was reluctant to embarrass the president by embracing a strategy Mr. Bush had repeatedly rejected.

Committee members struggled with ways, short of a deadline, to signal to the Iraqis that Washington would not prop up the government with military forces endlessly, and that if sectarian warfare continued the pressure to withdraw American forces would become overwhelming. What they ended up with appears to be a classic Washington compromise: a report that sets no explicit timetable but, between the lines, appears to have one built in.

As one senior American military officer involved in Iraq strategy said, “The question is whether it doesn’t look like a timeline to Bush, and does to Maliki.”

First, military commanders can’t overrule Bush.

Second, catering to Bush is a continuation of the ’spoil the brat’ strategy of parenting that has made him stomp his feet around the globe saying: “I want, I Want, I WANT !!!”

Third, the American political schedule will trump this plan, forcing most troops to be withdrawn within 22 months.

Fourth, Iraqi militias, will trump that political schedule, as will mass protests of the Iraqi people. At least 1,000 US troops will die that didn’t need to.

The bottom line? The Study Group passed the ball to Shia militias. It amounts to too little too late. And the next 14 months will be especially bloody. The Iraq public and the American public will compel the decisions of the politicians, especially if half the troops aren’t pulled by next summer.

And the genius of James Baker, like that of Karl Rove, will fade in mythology, dispelled by the blood on the ground.

Update: Harold Meyerson describes the reality quite well.

Y’all will love this. Michael D. Shear writes in today’s Washington Post:

At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia’s newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn’t long before Bush found him.

“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”

“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

Be still, my heart.

At The Moderate Voice, Michael van der Galien sniffs that Webb should have been more civil. To which I say, bleep that. I can only imagine the grinding, prolonged anguish a parent feels when a child is off fighting in a war. When in fact that child is in danger only because of the corruption and incompetence of politicians, is that parent supposed to bow and scrape to the politician-in-chief like some bleeping courtier?

Bleep that, I say.

Webb didn’t seek the President out to start a fight, note. He spoke up only after Bush was rude to him. Emily Heil writes for The Hill:

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

Not getting slugged is more respect than The Creature deserves. As Glenn Greenwald says,

It is difficult to fathom the hubris and self-indulgence required for someone to ask a parent of a soldier in Iraq how their son is doing only to then snidely tell the parent that the answer isn’t what he wanted to hear.

Of course, the righties can’t see that Bush was out of line, and are already foaming at the mouth about the “Bush hater.” Like they’re so into civil discourse.

Tristero:

I want to focus entirely on the unspeakable callousness Bush displayed here.

Folks, political enemy or friend, that is no way - ever- for anyone to talk to the father of a kid who’s in a combat zone.

This is the same man who reminisced about his hell-raisin’ during a speech at the worst natural disaster in American history. This is the same man who, when, asked to name his greatest achievement while president, “joked” that it was when he caught a large fish in his fake pond on his Crawford estate - sorry, ranch. This is the same man who, when informed that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center in less than 10 minutes, sat reading “My Pet Goat” in a children’s classroom. This is the same man who, in front of a supporter who he assumed wouldn’t report it, mockingly imitated a woman about to be executed in his state.

Sickening.

Tristero mentions “stunted social skills.” I still think we’re looking at some degree of sociopathy here.

There’s been a lot of arguments about wars lately. What to call them and what other wars they’re like keep us entertained in these modern days, replacing the quaint old discussions of how to win one or why one should start one.

Here’s a handy guide for this popular pursuit. After just one reading, you should be able to impress your friends and persuade US intelligence directors to twist their findings to support any crackpot ideology, even those composed by substance abusers going through delirium tremors.

Q: We keep hearing reports that White House officials think the War on Iraq can’t be won because its current government is too weak. And that we need to send in more troops and provide more advice to make the war winnable again. Is that true?

A: Wars can’t be won by discussions of unsubstantiated facts and leaked truths. So we still expect to defeat Saddam Hussein and help Iraqis gain a democratically elected government and then we can will have won.

Q: When is a violent conflict between opposing armies not really a war?

A: When it’s merely a police action. We lost 58,000 troops in the last one, as their police were acting a lot, apparently. At the conclusion, nobody stood up and said “Guess what? We fooled you! It really was a war!” It’s a good thing, too, because we sure would have been embarrassed. It was bad enough to be embarrassed for believing General William Westmoreland’s estimate that we had successfully killed elebenty billion kazillion Vietnamese people in the first 43 minutes of that war police action.

Q: Is the War on Iraq like the Vietnam Police Action?

A: No way. In Vietnam, there were Commies with dominoes. In Iraq, there’s terrorists with WMDs and IEDs. The first was a jungle; this one’s a desert. In Vietnam, a democratic election would have let Ho Chi Minh become President. In Iraq, a democratic election permitted Bush to get elected. Hippie peaceniks surrendered our country to the Viet Cong in the police action. The Patriot Act specifically outlaws the wearing of bellbottoms and tie dyes in Iraq. John McCain refused to sell out his fellow troops in Vietnam and was tortured for that. In Iraq, he’s permitted torture and sold out the new generation of troops so they can enjoy the longterm benefits he obtained from that torture thing.

Q: Why is Iraq not really being rendered by a civil war?

A: Nobody’s wearing gray uniforms or whistling ‘Dixie’ in Iraq.

Q: In Vietnam, we tried to get the South Vietnamese to stand up so we could stand down. Now we’re trying to get the Iraqis to stand up so we can stand down. Are you sure there’s really a difference between the two?

A: Sure. Because Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, and John McCain have always been perfectly clear about that and nobody’s ever been able to discredit their record of accuracy on these kind of things.

Q: The majority of Americans want us to get our troops out of Iraq. The majority of Iraqis want our troops out of Iraq, too. Shouldn’t our president respond to the will of those majorities?

A: No, because he thinks it’s more important to establish a democracy in Iraq, so the popular majority can decide these things without being overruled by a strongman ruler who approves the torture and deaths of thousands of Iraqis.

Q: We were told if the Democrats win back Congress, then the terrorists would win in Iraq. Now that the Democrats won back Congress, have the terrorists won?

A: No. Ever since Donald Rumsfeld retired, we’ve been able to see things more clearly, reassess our strategy, consult with a bipartisan study group, make strategic adjustments accordingly, mock Nancy Pelosi for lacking testicles, retain a Republican Congress through December, and have settled on a certain strategy for victory when our mission has been completed.

Q: And that mission is?

A: Staying the course through December, then if the Democrats overthrow Congress and let the terrorists win, we intend to spend two years saying “Neener-neener, we told you so.” After which, we’ll blame it all on the dumb Iraqis, because victimizing victims has always been a winning strategy.

He can’t designate which groups are terror groups.

LOS ANGELES - A federal judge struck down President Bush’s authority to designate groups as terrorists, saying his post-Sept. 11 executive order was unconstitutionally vague, according to a ruling released Tuesday.

The Humanitarian Law Project had challenged Bush’s order, which blocked all the assets of groups or individuals he named as “specially designated global terrorists” after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“This law gave the president unfettered authority to create blacklists,” said David Cole, a lawyer for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Constitutional Rights that represented the group. “It was reminiscent of the McCarthy era.”

The case centered on two groups, the Liberation Tigers, which seeks a separate homeland for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, and Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan, a political organization representing the interests of Kurds in Turkey.

U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins enjoined the government from blocking the assets of the two groups.

Both groups consider the Nov. 21 ruling a victory; both had been designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organizations.

Cole said the judge’s ruling does not invalidate the hundreds of other designated terrorist groups on the list but “calls them into question.”

Next: The judge has to determine whether he has sufficient power to identify his ass from his elbow.

After the military refuted the report of 6 Sunnis burned alive, the commonly mistaken ideological bloggers who think the media’s facts don’t square with their hallucinations went on the attack earlier today.

And the AP has now fired back, using that terribly destructive weapon: cluster-facts.

Provoking these current responses, via Memeorandum:

Mark Memmott / On Deadline:
AP, U.S. military spar over atrocities report — The Associated Press is standing by its report that six Sunni men were burned to death in Baghdad Friday by Shiites, even though U.S. military officials have accused the wire service of relying on a source who “is not who he claimed he was,” an Iraqi police captain.

+Discussion: Michelle Malkin, Flopping Aces, PrairiePundit, Romenesko and UNCoRRELATED

–Discussion:
Michelle Malkin: Fake news vs. real news from Iraq
Curt / Flopping Aces: Getting The News From The Enemy, Update II
Merv / PrairiePundit: Another AP story questioned by Centcom
Jim Romenesko / Romenesko: US questions AP report about Sunnis being burned to death
Dave Calder / UNCoRRELATED: Hitting Rock Bottom (again)

RELATED:
Steven R. Hurst / Associated Press:
Witnesses detail immolation attack on six Sunnis in Baghdad last week

+Discussion: Democracy Project, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, CBS News, The Jawa Report and Wake up America

–Discussion:
Bruce Kesler / Democracy Project: (UPDATE:AP REPLY) CBS’ Blog Not Ready To Believe AP Stringer Exposes
Allahpundit / Hot Air: AP calls Centcom accusation “ludicrous,” stands by its story
Michelle Malkin: Burning Six update: The AP responds (to USA Today) …
CBS News - Public Eye: Questioning Reports Out Of Iraq
Dr. Rusty Shackleford / The Jawa Report: Sameer N. Yacoub: AP’s Terrorist Supporter or Lazy Green Zone Reporter?
Spree / Wake up America: Enemy Propaganda Update

What’s cool is, I know I need read none of them to guess what they all say, accurately.

I just feel sorry for all of them, because I still recall when hallucinating was fun, and sometimes included getting well-laid.

Now some say mutual masturbation is fun, just like some used to swear huffing glue was ‘boss’. But I don’t understand why they’re even bothering with this one, while ignoring phosphorous attacks, cluster bombs and all of the legal horrors that get unleashed in war.

Six Sunnis were burned alive by Shia militias after 200+ Shias were murdered by Sunnis.

For some reason, these rightists feel compelled to prove Shias were not vengeful like that. And the White House is worried these same Shia militias are supported by the e-e-evil Iranians.

It sure is confusing trying to figure out if the rightists are with Bush or against him.

Which is why I think they’d be better off if they quit sniffing the Elmer’s and start sticking to mutual abstinence.

Update: Bob Geiger reports on the mass hallucination, too.

Barbara O’Brien fells their weak claims with the things where their faith is weakest: the facts.

Dennis Prager, wear your crown of scorns with pride, because otherwise, you’re wearing no threads, man, and your ’small man syndrome’ is showing. Barely.

Ahhhhh, the bastard just keeps on proving that there are racist enclaves where the Nazis still vote in Amerikkka.

Miami is not a third world nation, Tom. You have to go to Mississippi Delta country, for that.

But the way to measure is not by the number of non-Aryans you see in either place. It’s because of the economic oppression of capitalists whose capital was built on the backs of the poorest, which in Mississippi, usually means the whites who keep on oppressing the blacks.

In 2004, Mississippi was #49th in health, 4th in high cancer rates, #1 in infant mortality. Today it’s the worst in children’s well being for the third straight year. It’s the poorest state. It’s 48th in teacher’s pay. 47th in spending-per-pupil. 45th in high school graduation rates. It’s #1 in states with women killed by men and #2 in domestic violence.

It actually ranks low in overall violent crime, but it’s #1 in corporate crime.

For most of these categories, it often alternates with Louisiana for the lowest of the low. Which has a bit to do with the way both states were treated before, during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Go visit it. It LOOKS like the place where the American dream was suffocated.

As for Tom Tancredo, if he’d actually go visit third world countries, we’d all be better off. Until he returns.

One cannot expect to be considered a serious player in foreign policy arenas by being spectacularly, wankerifically wrong.

Say goodnight, Jane.

Intelligent intelligence should rule.

Kevin Drum:

That said, I hope the liberal blogosphere doesn’t get into the habit of automatically trashing centrist positions simply out of pique against some of centrism’s more annoying practitioners. After all, trying to govern solely via populist intuition won’t work any better than relying on a bunch of blue ribbon commissions.

Look at me, for example. I’m a nice, often liberal guy. I occasionally like liberal populism. And I’ve seen enough centrism to know what ‘centrist’ positions work and which ones are little more than mealy-mouthed positioning rooted in “I don’t have an effing clue”.

I don’t make it a habit to trash centrists. In fact, I’m kept so busy refuting Nazis, racists, show dogs and rightist blowhards, that I rarely have a moment to mention centrists. So I’m not at all sure who Kevin’s referring to here.

I am aware of a few who attack centrist positions frequently. But I don’t see enough to consider it problematic for centrists. They hardly are an endangered species.

I also know that the health of a political system REQUIRES extremists. Smart negotiating means one should never ask for the minimum that they want. Always ask for more, then allow the other side to negotiate for some middle position. You might even gain more than you initially thought you could get that way.

But some centrists fail to see this. They ask for the middle and end up with a compromise tilting rightward. If the public square is dominated by rightists and centrists - as it has been for the past 15 years, at least - society loses.

We lost the best chance for an affordable healthcare solution that way in 92-93. We gained a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ disaster of a policy that way. We had a centrist president impeached that way. We went to war in Iraq that way. Our unionized manufacturing job force was decimated that way. We got a flawed Patriot Act, an illegal wiretapping program, and the legalization of torture via the Military Commissions Act that way.

But I don’t label my analysis as an attack on centrists. I label it an attack on losing things Americans hold dear. And I hope centrists can figure out how to stop contributing to those losses.

Liberals and centrists should be a team. But centrists who keep viewing liberals as opposites don’t seem to understand the dynamics that make such teamwork effective. And when centrism works the arena without benefit of liberals and an occasional radical, we get watery mashed potatoes without any gravy and are told that’s a four star meal. At best.

At its worst, we get dry potato flakes, unheated and unseasoned, while extremists on the right feed on the spoils of the system and gnaw on the carcasses of barbecued centrists, as well.

I’m not content with that. I’m not content with a few liberals pushing for change in the blogosphere. I want millions of fed-up Americans in the street insisting that elections won’t be stolen, that civil liberties aren’t surrendered, that the mass murder of societies like Iraq will not be acceptable. I want the ‘haves’ to feel worried so they’ll stop being so greedy and inhumane, and they’ll stop viewing their consolidation of capital and power as civilly acceptable.

And someday, when we get back to a real middle, I might calm down a bit. But I’m not buying the centrist argument while people are dying, rights and decent wages are disappearing, while 88 year old women are being SWAT-teamed to death for marijuana possession, while New Orleans and Gulfport are drowning, while rightwing assholes like McCain are touted as legit leaders because they can tell a good joke while sticking a shiv in the women of America, and make torture the American Way.

Centrists don’t create those ills, but at times, they surely enable the wackos that make democracy dysfunctional. And when they think it critical to attack liberals with regularity, they should recognize that they do so at some risk.

And that risk is they may be sidelined from the debates, for being too stupid to recognize who their natural allies are and shitting on them once too often.

I’m not saying everything should be polarized into “either you’re with us or against us.” But centrists who are almost NEVER with us are CERTAINLY against us. And centrists like that, if they have any political sense at all, should know - as I know about my own political beliefs - that sometimes the best way to gain any progressive advances is to STFU.

While the disaster of Iraq is ongoing and an economic recession looms is a perfect case in point. Moderation in defense of ego is a vise at such times, that can squeeze the dangling nuts in the center.

Update: Go liberal populists!

The zombie Newt is back from the grave, attempting a Sister Souljah moment by telling a freedom of speech dinner:

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism.

Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a “different set of rules” may be needed to reduce terrorists’ ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.

“We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade,” said Gingrich….

My response was, if we really will be forced to reexamine someone’s freedom of speech, can we please start with his?

But John at Americablog made an even better point:

We already lost a city, Newt. It’s called New Orleans. And it was your party, the Republicans, who lost it.

Nancy Pelosi, as most party leaders in Congress do, is timidly tiptoeing her way along.

I was disgusted when she said impeachment was off the table, thus going to a gunfight with no weapon at all. (Some are trying to put it back on the menu.)

I was revolted when she went to the White House “for George Bush posing as a bipartisan” (to revise the phrase of the 9th Marquess of Queensberry). She should have responded to that invitation by pointing out that this man has accused her party of treason, and he has not withdrawn, apologized for, or even promised not to repeat this grossly un-American charge. When he publicly does that, then he knows where to find her. To meet with him without his repudiation of his conduct would be to sanction it — which is just what her meeting with him did, even before his patronizing decorating remarks.

Now I’m sickened that she is delaying a vital decision and letting the war party takes shots at her. The right wingnuts are denouncing her for even considering putting in someone else as Chair of the House Intelligence [sic] Committee instead of Jane Harman. That Bush puppet is either an incompetent fool or a willing warmonger. Bite the bullet and get rid of her. No, not for Hastings (who actually was not guilty of crimes that merited impeachment any more than Clinton was, but he’s irrevocably been tarnished by the accusaions anyway; fortunately, word is today he is withdrawing from consideration) but for somebody else, like Rush Holt.

Nancy, you are not in the divine Sarah’s class. Stop auditioning for Hamlet and charge ahead full speed.

Trying to raise funds for the needs of the blog and the team is always the hardest. Yes, I feel envious when I see blogs say “We need to raise $5,000″ and $10,000 pours in in hours.

We’ve never exceeded $800 in an appeal, and that usually includes donations from team members.

I’ve asked three times in the past two weeks. Our contributions remain zero.

I’m not going to stop. I feel it’s necessary to our ongoing operation that upcoming blog expenses be paid, and that assistance be given to the medical needs of some team members.

I ask you to help. I don’t like fundraising, but it’s necessary to make things go and to support our community’s needs.

I really expected it’d draw some commentary, because it’s such a cool find.

Or is it just that I’m old and irrelevant, and too easily entertained?

It was good. However, it sometimes felt like I was in such a deep end of the pool that my flippers barely kept my head above water.

Since my training is more journalism-centered, I try to find a way to simplify the verbiage to reach the broadest audience, while seeking a way to do so without being condescending.

Which is to say: erudite is decipherable, but it makes smoke come out my ears. And it’s hard to win a debate where the crowd awards the points if half the crowd is thinking: “Huh?”

If anyone doubts what I suggested - that Moqtada al-Sadr has the capacity to gain the leadership role in the new Iraqi government (or play the kingmaker role from the backroom), and that he could well display a benevolent and moral capacity that runs counter to the CW about post-withdrawal genocides and such - then they should consider this latest glimpse of the way he plays the game.

I view him as the head of ‘Tammany’ Mosque: capable of brute force, yet sufficiently wise enough about human nature to avoid the stereotypes the White House tries to define him by.

He’s hardly my kind of democratic governor, but he’s not the pawn of Al Qaida or Iran. In short, he’s an acceptable alternative to the chaos, death and destruction that will continue till our troop withdrawals begin.

Couldn’t ask for a better book review than this:

…When he spoke, I wanted to believe him. I can’t remember another politician ever having that effect on me. One friend, who knows Barack and who also knew Bobby Kennedy, said he had not seen anyone like Kennedy until he met Barack.

Anyway, all of this is just a long prelude to the fact that I picked up his book The Audacity of Hope and was blown away at how well written it is. His stories sometimes make me laugh out loud and at other times well up with tears. I find myself underlining the book repeatedly so I can find the best parts quickly again in the future. I am also almost certain he wrote the whole thing himself, based on people I know who know him. I have no interest in politics, yet I am devouring this book. If you aren’t giving Freakonomics as a Christmas gift this year—probably you gave it to everyone on your list last Christmas

I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised at what a good writer he is because I read his first book Dreams from My Father two years ago and loved that one as well. But unlike that first book, written 15-20 years ago before he had political ambitions, I thought this new one would just be garbage. Rarely does a book so exceed my expectations. Also, I should stress that I don’t agree with all his political views, but that in no way detracts from the enjoyment of reading the book.

If he has the same effect on others as he does on me, you are looking at a future president.

Is he the next Kennedy? Maybe.

A revealing article in the Washington Post about KStreet with this little snippet about Big Pharma:

“We woke up the day after the election to a new world,” said Ken Johnson, spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “We’re going to have tough days ahead of us.”

A post-election e-mail to executives at the drug company GlaxoSmithKline details just how tough. “We now have fewer allies in the Senate,” says the internal memo, obtained by The Washington Post. “Thus, there is greater risk over the next two years that bad amendments will be offered to pending legislation.” The company’s primary concerns are bills that would allow more imported drugs and would force price competition for drugs bought under Medicare.

The defeat of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) “creates a big hole we will need to fill,” the e-mail says. Sen.-elect Jon Tester (D-Mont.) “is expected to be a problem,” it says, and the elevation to the Senate of Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) “will strengthen his ability to challenge us.”

Can you believe Glaxo is afraid of price competition? How easy all of these corporations had it with unscrupulous Republicans like Santorum running the place. I am looking forward to Sen Brown challenging these greedy corporations every step of the way. Someone needs to stand up for American consumers, the Republican have been throwing us under the bus for too long.

Because his takedown of their narrative about Pelosi is absolutely right. The score is Glenn: 1, The MSM: Subzero.

On Late Edition:

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: …I think we’re talking about 20 to 50,000 additional troops to embed them with the Iraqis, so that when we clear areas, we can actually secure them.

Then we need to disarm the militias. We need to arrest al-Sadr and make sure the government has a monopoly on the use of legal force.

Of course, they already do have a monopoly on the use of legal force, which proves that is worth nothing in the middle of a full-scale civil war. As for trying to arrest al-Sadr, he is surrounded by lots of armed fanatics who will die to protect him. There would be lots of American casualties and even more Iraqis, probably including al-Sadr himself. Killed, wounded, or just captured, he becomes a martyr and tens of thousands of his supporters take to the streets with guns and mortars and bombs. The U.S. forces would have no choice but to slaughter thousands of them in self-defense as they retreat to no-longer secure bases, and then we’ll see pictures of the last stragglers trying to grab onto the landing gear of the helicopters leaving the embassy roofs as we abandon the country.

Let me tell you this as a Texan and one of your constituents: Senator Cornyn, you are stark, raving mad. This idea is beyond delusional, it is criminally insane. In a just world, the International Criminal Court would sentence you to personally dig graves for all the Americans and Iraqis your bloodthirsty proposal would destroy. With a short shovel. In the Iraqi sun. Shown live on Al-Jazeera television.

“Why would we force feed this monster that steals our children and bleeds our pocketbooks dry? We should never force our children into the mouth of the behemoth, but we should also do everything in our power to stop them from volunteering for the same duty. Putting more of our bodies under the control of irresponsible maniacs, is just, well, irresponsible!”

- Cindy Sheehan on the topic of military conscription in the age of the Bush Wars

The above quote is from a bulletin that was written by Cindy Sheehan on MySpace today with her opinion of the recent chatter about reactivating the draft.

An excerpt:

Although I admire Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), who himself, served during the Korean conflict and has been serving America , honorably, as a Congressman for many years, I am 100%, categorically opposed to forced conscription and think that Mr. Rangel is seriously misguided on this issue.

First of all, we had forced conscription during the entire outrage that was the Vietnam War. That war lasted 13 years and cost the lives of millions of people. A draft didn’t stop that war and, in fact, provided fresh and continual cannon fodder for the war profiteers. Escalation of that conflict was horrific as the proposed escalation of Iraq will only beget new slaughter on a heretofore unprecedented and unimaginable scale. Forced conscription deals out the death and destruction at a greater and more deadly pace.

Secondly, a draft will never be fair and balanced. The children of the wealthy (who oftentimes are war profiteers themselves) will always be able to get out of war. Children of presidents, future presidents, Congressional Reps and Senators will never be forced to serve in the wars that their fathers and mothers commit other children to. A draft will not equalize what we have for the most part in our country, now, a poverty draft. The children of the poor and marginalized of our society are the ones who always have to pay for the greed of a very few.

Finally, a draft will only give the war machine more of our children to consume to generate its wealth. As Rep. Rangel said, we can’t fight wars in North Korea and Iran without a draft. I say “Amen!” We can’t fight wars in North Korea and Iran without a draft! More bullet sponges for two more needless wars: Please, God, no!