Prince Andrew Rebukes Bush for Iraq War Mistakes

Even the rarely politically outspoken Prince of England is trashing our joke of a President. What a disgrace:

The United States could have avoided some of the problems it is experiencing in Iraq if it had listened to Britain's advice and learned from its experiences, Prince Andrew said in an interview published Tuesday as he began a trade mission to the U.S.

In a rare airing of political opinion by a senior member of the British royal family, the prince said the invasion and its aftermath had created a "healthy skepticism" in Britain about what was said in Washington and led many to ask, "Why didn't anyone listen to what was said and the advice that was given?"

Queen Elizabeth II's second son, a former Royal Navy helicopter pilot who now promotes British business abroad, told the International Herald Tribune that Britain's history as an imperial power meant it had valuable experience to share.

The United States was Britain's chief ally, he said, but, there were "occasions when people in the U.K. would wish that those in responsible positions in the U.S. might listen and learn from our experiences."

Britain, which has about 4,500 troops in Iraq, down from a 40,000 during the 2003 invasion, has a long military history in the region; British troops invaded what was then Mesopotamia in 1914 during World War I, and fought insurgents until Iraq gained its independence in 1932.

"If you are looking at colonialism, if you are looking at operations on an international scale, if you are looking at understanding each other's culture, understanding how to operate in a military insurgency campaign — we have been through them all," the prince said in comments confirmed by Buckingham Palace.

"We've won some, lost some, drawn some. The fact is there is quite a lot of experience over here which is valid and should be listened to."

Proposed Military Spending Is Highest Since WWII

Apparently Bush wants to go down in American history as the warmonger. He wants to go out with a bang. It also means that the neocons have him under their spell. Let's see if the feckless Democratic controlled Congress will go along. Will they give us more bullets and less butter, so that they can go into the election in November looking tough on national defense. The American people be damned:

As Congress and the public focus on more than $600 billion already approved in supplemental budgets to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for counterterrorism operations, the Bush administration has with little notice approached a landmark in military spending.

The Pentagon on Monday will unveil its proposed 2009 budget of $515.4 billion. If it is approved in full, annual military spending, when adjusted for inflation, will have reached its highest level since World War II.

That new Defense Department budget proposal, which is to pay for the standard operations of the Pentagon and the military but does not include supplemental spending on the war efforts or on nuclear weapons, is an increase in real terms of about 5 percent over this year.

Overall since coming to office, the administration has increased baseline military spending by 30 percent, a figure sure to be noted in coming budget battles as the American economy seems headed downward and government social spending is strained, especially by health-care costs.

Let them eat cake:

President Bush today unveiled a tough-minded, $3 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2009 that would slice $14.2 billion from the growth of federal health care programs, eliminate scores of programs and virtually freeze domestic spending--but would still record a $407 billion budget deficit.

[...]"What he is proposing to do would dismantle after-school programs," said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance.

Under the plan, a $301 million program that trains 4,700 pediatricians and pediatric sub-specialists at children's teaching hospitals also would be eliminated, at a time when pediatric sub-specialties, such as rheumatology and pulmonology, face critical shortages.

"The request to eliminate funding to train the doctors that care for kids comes on the heels of the president's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program," said Lawrence McAndrews, president and CEO of the National Association of Children's Hospitals. "I don't think the president could be any clearer about his intentions towards children's health care. 'Wrong' doesn't begin to describe his actions."

Defense Dept.'s Weapons Programs Wasteful

What have Hillary Clinton and John McCain done to change this corrupt system. Nothing, of course. And if either one is elected you can expect more of the same. The military-industrial complex is alive and well. And that won't change unless we force from power the two-party system:

The Defense Department's major weapons programs have suffered cost overruns in the billions of dollars, years-long delays and quality shortfalls because of poor acquisition practices by the department, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO warned that the cost of designing and developing weapons systems could "continue to exceed estimates by billions of dollars" if the Defense Department doesn't improve its acquisition practices.

The report, which focused on 11 troubled weapons programs, said contractors had "poor practices" for systems engineering and relied on "immature designs, inadequate testing, defective parts and inadequate manufacturing controls."

The report said the Defense Department did not provide effective oversight as projects were being developed, and often entered into weapons-development contracts before engineering of the project had been analyzed, driving up costs.

In addition, the report said, the Pentagon often pays the cost of the contractors' mistakes, providing the companies with little incentive to perform higher-quality work. "Risk," the report said, "is not borne by the prime contractor, but by DOD.

Bush Proposes Budget With $400B Deficit

Bush's going away gift to the nation:

The spiraling growth of Medicare and the high cost of renewing President Bush's tax cuts are squeezing popular education, health, housing and anti-poverty programs in the budget blueprint that he hands lawmakers Monday.

Even with difficult-to-digest proposals to curb Medicare costs and kill programs to repair dilapidated public housing, fund community action agencies and provide food to the elderly poor, Mr. Bush's $3 trillion budget will project deficits around $400 billion this year and next.

Mr. Bush's submission is already absorbing brickbats from Democrats castigating him for inheriting a government in surplus and leaving Washington with a budget deficit that is likely to break the $413 billion record set four years ago, once war bills and the cost of giving the economy a fiscal jolt with tax rebate checks are factored in.

"The next president is going to inherit a colossal mess because of the fiscal irresponsibility of this president," Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the Budget Committee said Saturday.

Mr. Bush's budget will demonstrate a way to produce balance in four years and still renew tax cuts on income, investments and people inheriting large estates - cuts now scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. The cost of renewing those tax cuts exceeds $300 billion by 2013, according to congressional scorekeepers.

Poll: Clinton, Obama Neck-and-Neck

It looks like the Democratic race will continue after Tuesday's primaries. Both Clinton and Obama will split most of the delegates, which means there will be no clear cut winner. On the contrary, Obama is surging. And the longer the race continues the better for the Illinois Senator. He has plenty of money and he is getting major endorsements. African-Ameicans are increasingly believing that Obama can win, and the Clinton race-baiting has backfired. The more the American people listen to Barack Obama the more they like him. As for Hillary, she is running out of dirty tricks. Although, expect a few fake tears between now and Tuesday:

Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are running neck-and-neck in California, New Jersey and Missouri two days before the sprawling "Super Tuesday" presidential showdown, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday.

Obama has a slight lead in California and is virtually tied with Clinton in New Jersey and Missouri heading into the biggest day of voting in a U.S. presidential nominating campaign, with contests in 24 states from coast to coast.

"It looks like we have some serious horse races going on with Clinton and Obama," said pollster John Zogby said. "However it turns out, we can be pretty sure it is too close to be resolved on Tuesday."

Japan finds Insecticide on Bags of Chinese Dumplings

Now Japan has been hit by a free trade mentality that ignores China's disregard for human life, and puts profits above the same. It is only a matter of time before Americans start dying before we wake up to our dangerous trade policies. We know now our government can't be trusted to protect us:

Investigators found insecticide on the packaging of six bags of Chinese-made dumplings among millions being recalled after a tainted batch sickened 10 people in western Japan, police said Sunday.

Chinese and Japanese food safety officials meanwhile prepared for Sunday evening talks in Tokyo on the tainted dumplings that prompted a nationwide scare over imported food.

Investigators detected methamidophos on the outside of six bags of dumplings made by Tiangyang Food Processing Ltd., and found that one of those bags had two tiny holes, a Hyogo prefecture (state) police official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity citing policy.

Whether the dumplings inside are contaminated is under investigation, the police official said.

The bags were among items that were recalled from Sojitz Food Corp., a wholesaler, he said, adding that investigators have yet to determine how the products were delivered to Sojitz.

Predictably the Chinese are stonewalling:

China's product safety agency announced Saturday that tests on the ingredients of dumplings made by a Chinese company found none of the insecticide cited by Japanese authorities.

Japanese authorities say dumplings made by Tianyang were contaminated with methamidophos.

Chinese experts tested 30 ingredients in dumplings from the same batch as those exported to Japan and found no trace of the insecticide, said the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Related:
- Chinese dumpling scare hits Japan (CNN)
- Insecticide-Tainted Dumplings From China Sicken 175 in Japan

Keith Olbermann Ridicules Hillary Clinton on her Iraq Vote

Now Hillary is getting it from the sympathetic press. Keith Olbermann regularly denounces George Bush and Bill O'Reilly on his nightly MSNBC program. And you can't dismiss him as some radical anti-war extremist. So Olbermann derides Hillary Clinton's "revisionist" explanation, during Thursday's debate, for voting for war with Iraq, he ain't buying it. These comments by Olbermann and his guest, MSNBC political analyst,Richard Wolffe, was on Friday:

U.S. Loses Jobs For First Time In Five Years

More signs of a recession:

The nation shed jobs in January, the government reported yesterday, the first monthly loss since 2003, providing fresh evidence that the housing downturn and credit crisis have spread to the job market.

Economists have been counting on steady growth in wages and the number of jobs to keep American households afloat even as their homes become less valuable and the stock market slumps. The net loss of 17,000 jobs in January undermines that expectation, putting even more pressure on Congress to agree on a stimulus plan. Economists had forecast a gain of 70,000 jobs.

President Bush acknowledged the weakening economy. "There are certainly some troubling signs," Bush said yesterday in Kansas City, Mo. "There are serious signs that the economy is weakening, and that we've got to do something about it."

Hollywood Democratic Presidential Debate Transcript 1-31-08

It was one-on-one for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. There was no knockout and the tone was civil. Barack gave his typical thoughtful performance. Hillary gave her usual talking points/memorized/all-things-to-all-people presentation. Unfortunately, this automaton will win the nomination. Whether she can beat McCain is another question. The American people once again have no choice from among the two parties in November. There is an alternative choice.

Here are some excerpts. Read the entire Transcript:

MR. MCMANUS: A question about the issue of Iraq. Senator Clinton, you've both called for a gradual withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, but Senator Obama says he wants all combat troops out within 16 months of his Inauguration, and you haven't offered a specific end date. Why shouldn't voters worry that your position could turn into an open-ended commitment?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, because, Doyle, I have been very clear in saying that I will begin to withdraw troops in 60 days. I believe that it will take me one to two brigades a month, depending upon how many troops we have there, and that nearly all of them should be out within a year.

It is imperative, though, that we actually plan and execute this right. And you may remember last spring I got into quite a back-and- forth with the Pentagon because I was concerned they were not planning for withdrawal, because that was contrary to their strategy or their stated position. And I began to press them to let us know, and they were very resistant and gave only cursory information to us.

So I've said that I will ask the Joint Chiefs and the secretary of Defense and my security advisers the very first day I'm president to begin to draw up such a plan so that we can withdraw.

But I just want to be very clear with people that it's not only bringing our young men and women and our equipment out -- which is dangerous; they've got to go down those same roads where they have been subjected to bombing and so much loss of life and injury. We have to think about what we're going to do with the more than 100,000 American civilians who are there, working for the embassy, working for businesses, working for charities.

And I also believe we've got to figure out what to do with the Iraqis who sided with us. You know, a lot of the drivers and translators saved so many of our young men and women's lives, and I don't think we can walk out on them without having some plan as to how to take care of those who are targeted.

At the same time, we've got to tell the Iraqi government there is no -- there is no more time. They're out of time. They've got to make the tough decisions they have avoided making. They've got to take responsibility for their own country. (Applause.)

And, you know, I think both Barack and I have tried in these debates, and sometimes been pushed by some of our opponents, to be as responsible as we can be, because we know that this president, based on what he said in the State of the Union, intends to leave at least 130,000, if not more, troops in Iraq as he exits. It's the most irresponsible abdication of what should be a presidential commitment to end what he started.

So we will inherit it. And therefore, I will do everything I can to get as many of our troops out as quickly as possible, taking into account all of these contingencies that we're going to have to contend with once we're in charge and once we can get into the Pentagon to figure out what's really there and what's going on.

Barack on Iraq:

MR. BLITZER: Senator -- look, I want you to respond, Senator, but also in the context of what we've heard from General David Petraeus, that there has been some progress made lately, the number of U.S. casualties has gone down, there has been some stability in parts of Iraq where there was turmoil before, and that any quick -- overly quick -- withdrawal could undermine all of that, and all of that progress would be for naught. What do you say when you'll hear that argument?

SEN. OBAMA: I welcome the progress. This notion that Democrats don't want to see progress in Iraq is ridiculous. I have to hug mothers in rope lines during town hall meetings as they weep over their fallen sons and daughters.

I want to get our troops home safely, and I want us as a country to have this mission completed honorably. But the notion that somehow we have succeeded as a consequence of the recent reductions in violence means that we have set the bar so low it's buried in the sand at this point. (Cheers, applause.)

We -- and I said this before -- we went from intolerable levels of violence and a dysfunctional government to spikes and horrific levels of violence and a dysfunctional government, and now two years later we're back to intolerable levels of violence and a dysfunctional government. And in the meantime, we have spent billions of dollars, lost thousands of lives; thousands more have been maimed and injured as a consequence and are going to have difficulty putting their lives back together again.

So, understand that this has undermined our security. In the meantime, Afghanistan has slid into more chaos than existed before we went into Iraq.

I am happy to have that argument. I also think it is going to be important, though, for the Democrats -- you know, Senator Clinton mentioned the issue of gravitas and judgment. I think it is much easier for us to have the argument when we have a nominee who says, "I always thought this was a bad idea, this was a bad strategy."

(Applause.) It was not just a problem of execution -- it was not just a problem of execution.

I mean, they screwed up the execution of it in all sorts of ways. And I think even Senator McCain has acknowledged that.

The question is, can we make an argument that this was a conceptually flawed mission from the start, and that we need better judgment when we decide to send our young men and women into war, that we are making absolutely certain that it is because there is a imminent threat, that American interests are going to be protected, that we have a plan to succeed and to exit, that we are going to train our troops properly and equip them properly and put them on proper rotations and treat them properly when they come home?

And that is an argument that I think we are going to have a easier time making if they can't turn around and say, but hold on a second; you supported this. And that's part of the reason why I think that I would be the strongest nominee on this argument of national security. (Cheers, applause.)

Report: U.S. Military not Ready for WMD Strike

Its been six years since 9-11 and we are no closer to being prepared for a terrorist attack. Maybe the $1 trillion wasted on Iraq has something to do with that. It is an unforgivable failure on the part of "our" government:

The U.S. military isn't ready for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces don't have the equipment or training they need for the job, a commission charged by Congress reported Thursday.

Even fewer Army National Guard units are combat-ready today than were nearly a year ago when the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves determined that 88 percent of the units were not prepared for the fight, the panel said in its report.

The commission's 400-page report concludes that the nation "does not have sufficient trained, ready forces available" to respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear weapons incident," an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk."

Clinton Remained Silent As Wal-Mart Fought Unions

Barack Obama alluded to Hillary's Walmart ties in a recent debate. Many Americans, tragically, believe Ms.Clinton is a friend of working people. She is not. She refuses to criticize her husband's bringing us NAFTA:

In six years as a member of the Wal-Mart board of directors, between 1986 and 1992, Hillary Clinton remained silent as the world's largest retailer waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers.

Clinton has been endorsed for president by more than a dozen unions, according to her campaign Web site, which omits any reference to her role at Wal-Mart in its detailed biography of her.

Wal-Mart's anti-union efforts were headed by one of Clinton's fellow board members, John Tate, a Wal-Mart executive vice president who also served on the board with Clinton for four of her six years.

Tate was fond of repeating, as he did at a managers meeting in 2004 after his retirement, what he said was his favorite phrase, "Labor unions are nothing but blood-sucking parasites living off the productive labor of people who work for a living."

[...]An ABC News analysis of the videotapes of at least four stockholder meetings where Clinton appeared shows she never once rose to defend the role of American labor unions.

The tapes, broadcast this morning on "Good Morning America," were provided to ABC News from the archives of Flagler Productions, a Lenexa, Kan., company hired by Wal-Mart to record its meetings and events.

A former board member told ABCNews.com that he had no recollection of Clinton defending unions during more than 20 board meetings held in private.

Lobbyists Find More Ways to Bond with Lawmakers

The best government money can buy. And lobbyists don't represent us. It is why We The People are not charge, as it should be:

Most of the thousands of lobbyists work across the city, in and around K Street. In the past decade, 18 lobbying firms, corporations and labor unions have purchased town houses or leased office space near the Capitol, joining more than a dozen others that had operated there for years, according to real estate records.

Despite a strict new ban on gifts to lawmakers, lobbyists routinely use these prime locations to legally wine and dine members of Congress while helping them to raise money, campaign records show. The lawmakers get a venue that is often free or low-cost, a short jaunt from the Capitol. The lobbyists get precious uninterrupted moments with lawmakers — the sort of money-fueled proximity the new lobbying law was designed to curtail. The public seldom learns what happens there because the law doesn't always require fundraising details to be reported.

"It's a nice added bonus to say, 'Hey, we're going to host it at our house,'" said Jeffrey Shoaf, chief lobbyist of the Associated General Contractors of America, which opened its doors for nine fundraisers — and others that he says went undisclosed — last year at its redbrick town house two blocks from the Capitol.

The receptions, which can range from small breakfast meetings of five to large catered parties of 100 or so, are only a sliver of the fundraising universe.

Even so, they illustrate that lawmakers still are allowed to accept valuable favors from special interests willing to pay for access, despite promises by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers that the restrictions on gifts and trips would "break the link between lobbyists and legislators."

The role of lobbyists in fundraisers wasn't addressed in the lobbying law signed last September. As long as they don't exceed the federal cap on campaign donations — $10,000 per two-year election cycle for political action committees — lobbyists can underwrite an event for a favored senator or representative at a resort, on a golf trip or at their town house.

USA TODAY counted more than 400 congressional fundraisers at lobbyist-, corporate- or labor-owned Capitol Hill facilities last year through November, benefiting 214 lawmakers — 40% of Congress. Those numbers, based on invitations, interviews and Federal Election Commission records, capture only part of the total because many events go undisclosed. The figures don't include fundraisers hosted by lobbyists at their K Street offices, which are subject to the same rules but don't offer similarly convenient geography. USA TODAY also found examples of lawmakers helping the interests of the lobbyists who hosted them.

Chris Mathews: Democratic Machine Behind Hillary

It is friends in high places that make the fraudulent campaign of Hillary Clinton possible. It is those connections that possible the election of Hill Senator of a State she did not live in, with no qualifications. Billary is all about whoring. As Mathews points out, the Clintons are calling on all those connections to make her Presidential bid so formidable. That establishment doesn't mind that Hill and Bill would revert to race-baiting. As long as she wins, they profit. Principles and patriotism take a back seat to power:

It's Over: McCain has it Locked up, Despite Pundits

Listening to the "experts" you would think there is still a race going on the Republican side. Is it wishful thinking? Do they hate McCain? Or are they just wrong? They were wrong (as I was) about Obama after Iowa and before New Hampshire, when they predicted Hillary's demise. McCain won big in Florida. It was a death blow to Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee. Despite spending having spent approximately $40 million to date, Mitt Romney has not been able to stop the McCain momentum. McCain beat Romney on his strongest issue--the economy. But the biggest winners are the establishment. Why do you think he got all the endorsements:

Senator John McCain’s victory in the Florida primary came in the face of considerable odds and suggests that his chief rival here, Mitt Romney, faces tough going in what has effectively become a two-person Republican field.

This was a battlefield where Mr. McCain was supposed to be at a disadvantage, the first competitive contest open only to Republicans. (The others allowed independents to vote.) “An all-Republican primary!” Mr. McCain said in his victory speech here.

Even though voters here overwhelmingly said their top concern was the weakening economy — the issue that Mr. Romney sought to turn to his advantage, asserting that he was far more qualified than Mr. McCain to manage the country back to prosperity — exit polls found that Republicans were more likely to chose Mr. McCain as the best candidate to deal with economic problems.

The weak performance of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, means that Mr. McCain will now face diminished competition for moderate Republican voters. To compound Mr. Romney’s challenge, Republicans said that Mr. Giuliani was on the verge of throwing his support to Mr. McCain, an endorsement that could help Mr. McCain achieve what will be his main goal in the days ahead: getting the party to rally behind him.

What is more, Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who came in fourth Tuesday night, declared that he was staying in the race, suggesting that he would continue to compete with Mr. Romney for conservative Christian voters.

Barack Obama Denies Snubbing Hillary Clinton

It was the top story for 2 days in the press. And it followed the humiliating defeat of Hillary in South Carolina, the race-baiting allegations, and the Kennedy clan endorsement of Obama. Do you think the establishment is trying to help out Hillary? Or do they love the squabbling? The press likes to ridicule politicians for negative campaigning and the war of words they frequently engage in. What they don't mention is that gossipy coverage gets big ratings or sells papers. Informing the public about the issues, what the state of the economy is, or the details of the Washington tax stimulus package, take a backseat (unless you watch CSpan only):

Sen. Barack Obama today sought to quell talk that he deliberately snubbed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination for president, during Monday night's State of the Union address.

Accompanied by Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill as he traveled to his grandfather's birthplace of El Dorado, Kan., and then on to Missouri, Obama, the Illinois freshman senator, sought to downplay the incident, saying he was surprised by the reports and photographs showing Obama turning away when Clinton approached to shake hands with Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy.

"I was turning away because Claire asked me a question as Sen. Kennedy was reaching for her," Obama explained to reporters aboard his campaign plane. "Sen. Clinton and I have had very cordial relations off the floor and on the floor."

A Shameless Hillary Declares Victory in Florida

The Clinton's are without a doubt the lowest form of political animals. Once again they've demonstrated they will do anything to gain power. Despite a vow to not seek the votes of Florida, not only does Hillary seek their votes but promises to steal the delegates, whom have been told would not be counted. In the process, Hillary has plenty of press coverage for "winning the primary" in Florida. She gets free media coverage and diverts attention from the South Carolina fiasco and the Kennedy snub. Never mind that the candidates didn't campaign in Florida. Is that fair? The Clintons are not about fair. If it comes down to a brokered convention Florida delegates could be counted. The Clintons are committing a fraud for all to see and will probably get away with it:

The sanctions make Tuesday night's results largely meaningless to the Democratic presidential race. Obama described the primary as a "beauty contest" Tuesday, and his campaign issued a statement declaring the race a tie in the delegate count: "Zero for Obama, zero for Clinton."

But Clinton has pledged to fight to have the state's delegates seated at the August convention in Denver, and has increasingly stressed the state's importance since losing Saturday's hotly contested primary in South Carolina to Obama.

[...] Though Democrats agreed to leave the state off their itineraries in a show of solidarity with the national party, Clinton attended permitted fund-raisers in Florida on Sunday and planned to appear with supporters there after polls closed.

And turnout was high for the race even though no delegates were at stake. Nearly 400,000 people cast early or absentee ballots ahead of the primary, and Tuesday's vote was expected to top the nearly 800,000 who turned out in 2004.

Donna Brazile, who managed former Vice President Al Gore's presidential bid, said many Democrats were likely to turn out to vote on a state constitutional amendment that would limit property tax increases and expand homestead exemptions.

"People are very afraid this will cut public services, cut back education," said Brazile, a CNN analyst. "So the Florida Education Association and all of the unions are spending millions of dollars to get voters to turn out."

Study: Afghanistan Could Fail as a State

What we need is a surge for Afghanistan. Expect to hear this call from that half-wit occupying the White House. Or is he busy looking for war with Iran? Then again there isn't much oil in that country:

Afghanistan risks sliding into a failed state and becoming the "forgotten war" because of deteriorating international support and a growing violent insurgency, according to an independent study.

The assessment, co-chaired by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones and former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, serves as a warning to the Bush administration at a time military and congressional officials are debating how best to juggle stretched warfighting resources.

The administration wants to re-energize anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where al-Qaida is regenerating. But the U.S. still remains heavily invested in Iraq, and officials are sending strong signals that troop reductions there will slow or stop altogether this summer.

[...]Sen. John Kerry said it was "past time for wakeup calls" and that a "comprehensive, thoughtful approach" in Afghanistan was urgently needed.

"The same extremist group which plotted the attacks of 9/11 are reconstituting themselves on the Afghan border and grow more organized by the day, making the stakes higher and higher," said Kerry, D-Mass., a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Jones-Pickering assessment, slated for public release on Wednesday, says the U.S. should rethink its military and economic strategy in Afghanistan in large part because of deteriorating support among voters in NATO countries.

Bush, Neocons Taking Over Government in Afghanistan

Bush is trying to consolidate his conquests before he leaves office. The latest includes installing a American citizen as the next President of Afghanistan:

Senior Foreign Office officials believe the Afghan-born US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, is planning to stand for the presidency of Afghanistan and played a complex role in advising the current president, Hamid Karzai, to block the appointment of Lord Ashdown as the UN envoy to the country.

Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader who became the international community's high representative in Bosnia, withdrew his application for the role on Sunday in the face of Afghan objections, leaving western policy in chaos.

America and Britain had been lining Ashdown up for a senior role since October, and believed they had the support of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, and Karzai.

High-level British sources believe that Karzai changed his position as he faced mounting objections from Pashto-speaking warlords and after advice given to him by Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Khalilzad is himself a Pashtun. British sources suggested that contrary to the official US position, Khalilzad had been warning Karzai that Ashdown was an interventionist figure and would weaken his authority still further.

Pat Buchanan: McCain Presidency Would Mean War with Iran

Buchanan tells it like it is on the Morning Joe program. He makes it clear that John McCain will get us into more wars if he becomes President. Lets not forget that he is the biggest booster of the surge. This means he doesn't care what the people think. Just like Bush.

Superdelegates May Determine Nominee, Not the People

It could turn out that Barack Obama wins a majority of the votes in the primaries and ends up not winning the nomination. That is because a group of party hacks have been given the status of 'superdelegate'. And they can support whomever they want. This means that a handful of well-connected individuals would horse trade in the proverbial smoke-filled room as to who represent the Democratic (most likely) and Republican parties in the general election. The most likely beneficiary of a brokered convention would be the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton. The people's will would be thwarted, again. Just another reason to oppose the two-party and support something that comes from the people:

National party rules give special status to a select political group, including members of Congress, governors, members of the Democratic National Committee, past party officials, and former elected leaders like Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and their vice presidents, Al Gore and Walter F. Mondale.

Officially designated unpledged party leader and elected official delegates, members of this high-powered group are usually known by a catchier term: superdelegates.

If the primary season does not settle the nomination fight and it turns into a hunt for individual delegates, it is conceivable that this group of politicians and party insiders could hold the balance in awarding the nomination.

[...]Superdelegates were created after the 1980 election and were intended to restore some of the power over the nomination process to party insiders, keeping a lid on the zeal of party activists. They immediately came in handy for Mr. Mondale in his 1984 presidential bid, when they gave him a cushion over the upstart campaign of Gary Hart.

Since 1984, they have constituted 15 to 20 percent of the delegates at Democratic conventions, where they have historically supported the front-runner.

According to a recent telephone survey of superdelegates by The New York Times and CBS News, about one-third have expressed no preference in the 2008 race, about 25 percent support Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and about 10 percent favor Senator Barack Obama. The remainder did not return calls or refused to comment.

But nothing in the rules binds any of the superdelegates, and they are free to shift positions, unlike pledged delegates who are committed to support a particular candidate at least through an initial convention vote. That creates a situation that political aficionados dream about: a deadlocked convention up for grabs until a bloc of superdelegates comes together and anoints a nominee.