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Trenchant Political Comment, Videos and More…

 

~Note: Articles & commentaries contained herein may have hotlinks, emphasis and formatting added to afford an additional perspective.~

 

Monday, May 07, 2007

 





THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES... The Rise of the Politics of Fear -- A BBC Special Presentation...

 

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Monetary cost of the War in Iraq - thus far

$413,076,434,019

 

  

 

To see more details, click here.

 

 

 

 

 

The Gross National Debt

(Real-Time)

 

SPECIAL REPORTS - SPECIAL REPORTS - SPECIAL REPORTS - SPECIAL REPORTS - SPECIAL REPORTS

BLOODY SUNDAY

12 GIs, 1 Briton, 81 Iraqis Killed; 125 Iraqis Wounded  

 

Monday: Two Suicide Car Bombs Kill 25 Near Ramadi

 

 

 

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Newsweek Poll: Bush Approval Hits All-Time Low of 28 Percent

 

End-of Presidency Job Approval Ratings

President

Rating (%)

Election Results

Bill Clinton
(2 terms, D, 2001)

65

VP Gore (D) wins popular vote but Bush (R) wins electoral college vote

Ronald Reagan
(2 terms, R, 1989)

64

VP Bush (R) defeats Dukakis (D)

Dwight Eisenhower
(2 terms, R, 1961)

59

Kennedy (D) defeats Nixon (R)

John F. Kennedy
(partial term, D, 1963)

63

(VP) Johnson (D) defeats Goldwater (R)

George Bush
(1 term, R, 1993)

56

Clinton (D) defeats Bush (R)

Gerald Ford
(partial term, R, 1977)

53

Carter (D) defeats Ford (R)

Lyndon Johnson
(1+ terms, D, 1969)

49

Nixon (R) defeats Humphrey (Johnson did not run) (D)

Jimmy Carter
(1 term, D, 1981)

34

Reagan (R) defeats Carter (D)

Richard Nixon
(partial term, R, 1974)

24

Carter (D) defeats (VP) Ford (R)

 

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Los Angeles Times: Bring US Troops in Iraq Home

 

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Virginia massacre linked to U.S. policy

By Ed Lanfranco
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 6, 2007

 

(Excerpt)

 

BEIJING -- Chinese news reports linking the Virginia Tech massacre with American foreign policy, sexism and the war in Iraq have put China's Foreign Ministry in an awkward position -- defending press freedom in a nation where the press is considered an organ of the communist government.

 

More…

 

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The Devil Made Me Do It!

Nasrallah: US Pressured Israel Into Lebanon War

 

YnetNews.com - Yedioth Group, Israel

 

(Excerpt)

 

The Hizbullah leader also alluded to Second Lebanon War, and accused the United States of being behind it.

 

The United States ordered the Zionist regime to invade Lebanon last summer, Nasrallah said.

 

Israel went to war with Hizbullah to serve American ambitions in the Middle East, he said, adding that the Winograd report must have contained secret information on collaboration between the Zionist regime and some regional (Arab) states during last summers war.

 

Nasrallah told Alalam that if published, the information would reveal that the Bush administration made the decision to launch the war against the “Lebanese resistance” and Hizbullah as part of its plan to rebuild the Middle East in accordance with Israeli and American interests.”

 

He said that Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups, as well as Syria and Iran, have foiled the US plots in the region".

 

More…

 

 

 US Marines Unlikely to Report

Civilian Abuse: Study

Reuters

(Excerpt)

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Only 40 percent of Marines and 55 percent of U.S. Army soldiers deployed in Iraq say they would report a fellow serviceman for killing or injuring an innocent Iraqi, a Pentagon report released on Friday shows.

 

More…

 

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Iraq Regional Conference a Flop

The Sham at Sheikh

By Ranni Amiri

Counterpunch.org

May 7, 2007

 

(Excerpt)

The recently concluded Iraq regional conference held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt started with high expectations: reconciliation between Iraq and her neighbors, debt relief, and the first high level contact between the US Secretary of State and her Syrian and Iranian counterparts. On all these fronts, it flopped.

 

Much hype surrounded the 30-minute meeting between Condoleezza Rice and Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem, dubbed by the New York Times as "politically very significant."

 

To call it that is a stretch. If a rabid Zionist like Congressman Tom Lantos can meet with President Bashar al-Assad himself as he did several weeks ago, hoopla over the Bush administration's realization that Syria has a foreign minister with whom to exchange pleasantries seems somewhat misplaced.

 

More…

 

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Where is the U.S.S. Nimitz?

Michael T. Clare and Renato Redentor Constantino
May 03, 2007

In the latest flurry of media coverage on U.S.-Iranian standoff, the mainstream media has neglected to mention that the United States is massing warships in the Persian Gulf. Why?

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Nicolas Sarkozy has defeated Socialist

Party candidate Segolene Royal.
Photo: Reuters

PROFILE: Nicolas Sarkozy, France's new conservative president

By Siegfried Mortkowitz

dpa

(Excerpt)

 

Paris (dpa) - France's new president-elect, Nicolas Sarkozy, represents a new type of leader for the country in many ways.
 

Nicolas Paul Stephane Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa was born in Paris on January 28, 1955, to an exiled Hungarian aristocrat and the daughter of a Greek-Jewish doctor who had converted to Catholicism.

Sharp-tongued and unabashedly ambitious, Sarkozy famously announced his intention to run for the presidency in 2004 on a television talk show. When asked if he ever thought about becoming president of France, he replied "Whenever I look into the mirror."

A tough-talking defender of law and order, a workaholic who wants to make the French work more, Sarkozy won Sunday's runoff election against Socialist Segolene Royal because he made the French voters believe he deserved to be president on merit.

After a falling out with his former mentor Jacques Chirac because he supported a rightist rival in the 1995 presidential election, Sarkozy spent seven years in the political wilderness after Chirac was elected.

But a strong showing by right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002, because of law-and-order concerns by a nervous French electorate, prompted Chirac to name Sarkozy interior minister, in an attempt to attract far right-wing voters.

Sarkozy carried out that mission with relish. In a 2005 visit to a suburban ghetto north of Paris, he vowed to rid it of crime by using a high-pressure industrial cleaning machine.

Several months later, during the riots that shook these rundown neighbourhoods throughout the country, he referred to rampaging minority youths as "scum."  

 

More…

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Current News & Views

·        No One Wants Pentagon’s ‘Sh_ _ _y’ Stick! White House Still Searches for War Czar

·        U.S. toll in Afghan invasion reaches 319 AP

·        Afghan Soldier Kills 2 GIs in Top Security Prison

·        Most Canadians Want Troops Out of Afghanistan

·        Six German Soldiers to Deploy to Southern Afghanistan

·        Paranoia, Great Destroyer…’ U.S. feared Canadian poppy quarter by Ted Bridis, The Toronto Star

·        Israeli Rights Groups Release Report on Torture of Palestinian Detainees

 

 

 

 

An extraordinarily prescient TV interview with General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert Gates - Deputy National Security Advisor to Former President George Bush Sr.

 

Why Invading Iraq Was A Very Stupid Idea…

 

(Click on blinking dot above for video)