The Blue State

Liberated, Right Into Refugee Camps

Until you hear the stories from the people living in a warzone, it's hard to imagine what that life would be like.  So far we havefailed in truly liberating the Iraqi people. PresidentBush read us a few lines of an Iraqi blog that has received some less thanfavorable reviews. Here are some excerpts from the Iraqi blog Treasureof Baghdad.

"TheDay of Your Liberation is Near" Bush Said Three Years Ago (click to read full story)

The day was Monday 17, time was 10 p.m., but the year was 2003. Sitting closeto the radio, I was listening to the news on the BBC. Silence filled the room.My mother and sister were like me, concentrating on every word. Most of the newswas about the coming war, later called “Operation Iraqi Freedom”.

For us, war means a lot. Destruction, killings, more suffering and sorrow.The war with Iran, Gulf war and its aftermath uprsing caused a lot of pain and anegative image of the west and east inside Iraqis’ hearts.

"Theykilled us. They displaced us." (click to read full story)

On the eve of the US-led invasion to Iraq, my aunt and I were standing in front of the metal, dark-blue kitchen doorfacing the garden. We stood there after the last drive I did in Baghdad with myfriend M. As we stood together, she sighed and said, “We’ll be likePalestinians one day and say ‘They killed us. They displaced us.’” Ikept wondering if what she said would happen. I knew that the situation in Iraq is completely different although Saddam kept saying “Iraq and Palestine are one case.”

Refugee camps? What a disgrace to the Iraqigovernment. Is that what people were waiting to get out of this democracy? Ishumiliation and displacement is the reward of those who sacrificed themselves tovote in the elections? Is that how you build the new Iraq? After living in their own houses, having jobs and businesses, and sendingtheir children to schools. After living in their country with their pride. Nowthey will be sent to refugee camps?!! And not only this? The Jarab Arabs don’twant these camps to be on their lands! Huh! Where are these officials? Won’tthey say something? Oh! They will. They will thank the International Communityfor their kindness.

After reading these two stories, it's evenharder to listen to the pro-war minority tell us how great this is for the Iraqipeople. Maybe it looked good on paper, but at this point our governmentshould start being honest with themselves and realize the war just isn'tworking. It's time for plan "E" (I think we're up to E by now)

3.30.07 Blue Radar

Each morning I post some of the miscellaneous politicalstories thatmight not deserve their own posts, but are still news-worthy:

• Global warming skeptic Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is trying to block a bill that would allow Al Gore's Live Earth Concert to be performed on the Capitol steps this July 7th.  There will be one concert on each continent that day, including Antarctica.  It will be the first concert ever in Antarctica.
• Conservative leader James Dobson went on the offensive against Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson.  "Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for thethings that the pro-family movement stands for," Thompson said.  "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's myimpression."  Almost immediately, Thompson's Campaign responded.  "Thompson is indeed a Christian," a campaign spokesperson said. "He was baptized into the Church of Christ."  (Oops!)
• New evidence has surfaced that Monica Goodling, the Justice Department official who pleaded the fifth, might not have even passed the bar exam.  Yet, she was a high-level official in the Justice Department when the eight federal prosecutors were fired.
• According to Politico, Democrats will not give Monica Goodling immunity.  One scenario was that Democrats could get her to testify by agreeing to give her immunity (not make her be under oath).  However, as this report says, Democrats will not let her off easy.
• Fox News reached an agreement with the Congressional Black Caucus to host a Democratic presidential debate on September 23rd in Detroit, Michigan.  This comes just one month after the Fox debate in Nevada was cancelled when Roger Ailes compared Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden.
• On Saturday night, all '08 campaigns will report their fundraising totals for the first quarter of 2007 to the FEC.
• American Research Group Iowa Poll: Hillary Clinton 34%, John Edwards 33%, Barack Obama 16%.  The bottom line is that John Edwards has benefited the most from Tom Vilsack's departure.  The former North Carolina Senator gained 15 points from last month.  Obama lost nine points from last month.
• In just one week since Elizabeth Edwards announced that her cancer had returned, the Edwards Campaign received a surge in donations -- $540,000 to be exact.  To put that in perspective, it took Edwards two months to raise just $1 million.
• There is a new book out called Jeb: America's Next Bush.  On the book jacket it says that Jeb "is a detailed-oriented workaholic, a policy wonk who is brilliant,articulate and, at a towering six-four, an intimidating presence whoelicits unquestioning loyalty from his supporters and fear andtrembling from his opponents."  (This is beginning to creep me out.)
• John McCain is expecting very low fundraising numbers for the first quarter.  His new strategy is to court conservative bloggers.

If these stories are old news to you, let me know.  Feel free to add any new stories in the commentbox.

3.30.07 Blue Political Clips for Nightowls

Congrats.  You survived the work week.  Can you make it one more day?  To hopefully lighten the mood, as I post each night, here are some of the political clips circulating throughout the blogs at this hour:

1. Lou Dobbs goes off on the Administration.  But because it's Lou Dobbs, you know what he's criticizing.  Interesting story though.  How about increasing the standards for ALL trucks, not just ones from Mexico?  Some of the trucks I see on I-5 in Seattle each day are an accident waiting to happen.
2. Sampson says he would not have fired David Iglesias.  See, that was not so painful, was it?  It's called telling the truth.  No wonder the Administration does not want their people under oath.
3. Sampson admits that prosecutor Carol Lam, who was fired for reasons regarding immigration, never received any complaints from the Justice Department about her record on that issue prior to her firing.  Again, this shows why testifying under oath is important.  Think about all that we could learn if Rove testified under oath.

More clips later today and tomorrow.

Sampson suggested firing Patrick Fitzgerald

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Alberto Gonzales, admitted that he discussed firing special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald during a 2006 meeting with then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers:

"On one occasion, in 2006, in discussing the removal of U.S. attorneys,or the process of considering some U.S. Attorneys that might be askedto resign, that I was speaking with Harriet Miers and Bill Kelley, andI raised Pat Fitzgerald. And immediately after I did it, I regrettedit. I thought-- I knew that it was the wrong thing to do. I knew thatit was inappropriate," Sampson said, in response to a question fromSen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

When askedby Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, whether White House Deputy Chiefof Staff Karl Rove had anything to do with his suggestion to fireFitzgerald, Sampson said, "I don't remember anything like that. I don'tthink so." When pressed, he said, "I don't remember ever speaking toKarl Rove about anything related to Patrick."

I would be very surprised if Kyle Sampson was the only one to bring that up.  Perhaps we will never find out.  Below is the video of that exchange with Senator Durbin:

Bush Quotes "Pre-Escalation" Blog Post

It seems that the blog entries that Bush quoted from in his speech the otherday, were a little stale. The posts were written weeks ago and re-published inthe Wall Street Journal on March 7.

Editor& Publisher has the complete story here.

So the bloggers weren't even talking about currentconditions in Baghdad. That left it to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, former Baghdadbureau chief of The Washington Post -- and author of the heralded 2006 book"Imperial Life in the Emerald City" -- who appeared on MSNBC's"Countdown" tonight to debunk this idea of a newly-safe Baghdad."I talk to Iraqis all the time," he said.

He revealed that there had been steady insurgent mortar shots falling in thesupposedly safe "Green Zone" all week, at least two Americans had diedthere in recent days, and U.S. Embassy staff had been instructed, in a switch,to wear their protective armor and helmets outside at all times. He alsodisclosed that the embassy's pool, scene of much partying in the recent past,has now been declared off-limits. All of this and more appears in a Post"Green Zone" article on Thursday.

Bush was pointing out some of the success's so far due to the escalation, theonly problem with that is the blog posts were "pre-escalation". Iguess we can tack that on to the presidentslist of Lies.

On a personal note: Why I blog

I started this site on March 31, 2004 in hope of doing something proactive to help get George W. Bush out of office, as opposed to just sitting on the sidelines as usual.  I got such a positive response that I decided to keep at it after the election.  From the GOP's effort to cut guaranteed benefits for seniors by dismantling our Social Security system, to the Iraq war, to Katrina, to the debate about common sense energy reform, I have tried my very best to add some depth to the news stories that the traditional media barely touched on each day.

Relatively speaking, I am a new guy when it comes to following politics.  But on September 11, 2001, just two weeks before I began my college career as an 18-year-old, I reevaluated my previously materialistic outlook on life.  The prosperity of the latter Clinton years produced a lot of high school students, such as myself, whose defining concerns rested more on who was performing at the next VMA's than who we elected into office to serve at the pleasure of taxpayers.  Until 9/11, I had a very sensationalized view of reality.

After the attacks on America, a light went on and I started to follow politics.  I thought about switching my affiliation to Republican because for about three months I was a die-hard Bush supporter.  Once the emotion wore off and objectivity slowly set in, I watched Bush squander our worldwide support, and use 9/11 to fulfill the desires of a Vice President who spent the previous 30 years being disgruntled about the depreciation of Executive power immediately following Watergate.  Each day, I noticed examples of hypocrisy.  I asked the same questions that many other young people were asking:

• If the GOP stands for smaller government, how come they increased federal spending and passed the Patriot Act?
• If Al Qaeda is our enemy, how come we took resources out of Afghanistan and put them in Iraq?
• How come our leaders chose not to inform the American public about the differences between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi Ba'ath Party?
• If the media has a left-wing bias, then how come they didn't ask the tough questions in the run-up to war with Iraq?
• As democratic citizens, how are we emboldening the enemy by having a substantive disagreement with the President regarding foreign policy?

Eventually, I took action and started this site in 2004.  Within a short span of time, when you combine daily blogging with my political science studies at the University of Washington, I quickly transformed myself into a politically savvy young adult (although the hate mail I receive each day informs me otherwise).

I graduated in December in 2006, and was thankful for my studies in political science and American history because they gave me a sense of hope that no matter what comes our way, we can look to our past mistakes and learn from them.  Today, I work off and on as a political contractor (I like "operative" better because it increases my chances of being outed).  I hope to continue this site, regardless of what I choose to do in politics.  When I was younger, I had no idea that it would be this fun to read and write each day.

To all the young people out there, please at least consider studying political science in college.  If not a major, then at least minor in that field.  You might not realize the extent of it now, but you are growing up at the same time that our nation is at a crossroad.  We need you.  Years from now, historians may look back at generation-y, our generation, and compare us to the World War II generation -- not in terms of bravery, but due to the challenges that lie before us.  The National Debt, international peace, our constitution and the future of populist democracy in the world are all at stake.  What becomes of those four issues in the next ten years will make or break our future.  There is good news.  The future is in our hands more than ever before because of the power of the internet.  Ordinary people, from Seattle to Beijing, have the power to make a difference.  That is why I encourage younger people to get involved.  That is why I blog.

Iraqi Death Toll: 60,000 or 600,000?

According to the UN,  the number of Iraqi's killed since the beginning ofthe war is approx. 55,000,  IraqBody Count .org puts the min. at 60,187 and the max at 66,050

The Lancet Medical Journal published a survey that was conducted by the John Hopkins School of PublicHealth that puts the death toll at over 600,000

According to the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser, the survey's methods were"close to best practice" and the studydesign was "robust". The BBCNews has the complete story here.

That's some difference.

(Video) Nixon Counsel: Democrats could hold Bush in contempt of Congress

Monica Goodling, who was supposed to testify before Congress on Thursday, has decided to plead the Fifth Amendment.  So the question most people want answered is whether that is legal?

John Dean, former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon, explained that you can not just plead the fifth unless your testimony might lead to self-incrimination.  Dean spoke about that last night, and hinted that she might be immunized by Congress and then be forced to testify.  Or, quite possibly, the Judiciary Committee could declare the Justice Department or White House in contempt of Congress.  The showdown is just beginning:

Translation: the Justice Department is digging itself a huge hole by having Monica Goodling plead the Fifth Amendment.

In the end, in my opinion, something else is going on.  A commenter on Youtube had a logical insight on this matter:

You can't plead the 5th unless your testimony self-incriminates. Ifshe's trying to plead the 5th because she doesn't want to get caught ina lie after-the-fact.. then she should be locked injail until she testifies. Besides, she can't plead the 5th for herentire testimony, it is only pertaining to specific questions whichrelate to her actions that the 5th can be invoked. So, either herlawyer is a complete idiot or she thinks she did something illegalalready.

This will not be over after today.  Alberto Gonzales will testify before the Judiciary Committee on April 17th -- under oath!

(Video) Karl Rove's Rap Performance @ correspondents dinner

This deserves its own post.

Last night at the TV-Radio Correspondents Dinner, Karl Rove took to the stage with David Gregory and a few others and participated in a rap performance.

A 32% presidential approval rating, a lost 2006 election, facing a possible Congressional subpoena, and this guy is still partying it up.

3/28/2007 Iraqi Police Execute Dozens in Retaliation

The day after two truck bombs went off in the Iraqi city of Tall Afar, Shiitegunmen and police killed as many as 60 people in what appeared to be a retaliatoryattack. Tall Afar was cited by President Bush as a success a year ago that the "exampleof Tall Afar gives me confidence in our strategy."

The Washington Post reported the story:

But parts of the city reverted to chaos and carnage Wednesday as gunmen wentdoor to door assassinating as many as 60 people in revenge for the previousday's truck bombings, Iraqi military and government officials said. The attackwas startling for several reasons, including the alleged participation of policeofficers in the killings and the implication that the six-week-old Baghdadsecurity plan might be allowing violence to metastasize outside the capital.

But perhaps most ominous was the resurgence of reprisal killing at a timewhen U.S. and Iraqi officials have noted optimistically that Shiites haveresponded with restraint to recent insurgent bombings. The violence in Tall Afarfollows Shiite reprisal attacks on three Sunni mosques south of Baghdad onSunday, and it suggested to some Iraqi officials that Shiites are losingpatience with government security forces.

Iraqi police are alleged to have been affiliated with death squads in thepast. British troops have arrested police officers accused of leading deathsquads. That story can be found here  ABCNews .

How can we possibly have victory with this type of retaliation and behavior going on?