JoeWo Joe Wosik Blog

Despite being promised benefits our war Veterans are called to now balance the budget.  Video is located here

For more than half (55 percent) of elderly beneficiaries, Social Security provides the majority of their cash income. For one-quarter (26 percent), it provides nearly all (more than 90 percent) of their income. For 15 percent of elderly beneficiaries, Social Security is the sole source of retirement income.[15] (See figure below.)

Dependence on Social Security increases with age, as older people are less likely to work and more likely to have depleted their savings. Among those aged 80 or older, Social Security provides the majority of family income for 64 percent of beneficiaries and nearly all of the income for 33 percent of beneficiaries.[16]

Story is located here

The author of the blistering Vanity Fair profile on Sarah Palin says he wanted to write a positive piece, but was shocked by what he learned as he researched his story.

“The worst stuff isn’t even in there,” Michael Joseph Gross said on “Morning Joe” Thursday. “I couldn’t believe these stories either when I first heard them, and I started this story with a prejudice in her favor. I have a lot in common with this woman. I’m a small-town person, I’m a Christian, I think that a lot of her criticisms of the media actually have something to them. And I think she got a bum ride, but everybody close to her tells the same story.”

In the profile, Gross paints Palin as an abusive, retaliatory figure with an extreme ability to lie.

“This is a person for whom there is no topic too small to lie about,” he said. “She lies about everything.”

Asked about Palin’s political future, Gross said it depends on what the media lets her get away with.  Story plus video is located here

“…A small but growing number of ‘moderate’ Democrats are balking at boosting taxes on the rich. Some represent areas that are loaded with wealthier taxpayers.” ?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/01/99992/democrats-unlikely-to-repeal-tax.html?

“Giant U.S. companies and their multi-millionaire CEOs have stepped up their lobbying to block Democrats’ plans to let the Bush tax cuts on wealthier Americans expire at year’s end.

Republicans and business say that letting the Bush tax cuts expire will choke off the economic recovery, and they are demanding that Democrats commit to hearings, a mark-up of legislation and then a movement to the Senate floor for a vote to extend the tax cuts for the very rich.

As Paul Krugman notes in his opinion piece yesterday, this would be the equivalent of 120,000 wealthy people getting $3 million each every year.

The Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires have added, when including interest, over a trillion dollars to our national debt, money which will have to be re-paid by you, me, and our children.

Now Republicans want to extend these billionaire tax cuts for a single and a simple reason: the billionaires fund the Republican party and it’s candidates.”  ~Thom Hartmann?

http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2010/08/leave-no-billionaire-behind

“And where would this $680 billion go? Nearly all of it would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, people with incomes of more than $500,000 a year.”http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/opinion/23krugman.html?_r=3&ref=opinion%EF%BB%BF

“Fat-Bottom Snowman”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wDdWJcpJj0%EF%BB%BF

“A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year — and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation’s millionaires, according to a congressional analysis released Wednesday. ”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/11/AR2010081105864.html

James Parrish site is located here

Story is located here

Workers are now earning only 83 cents of every dollar they earned more than 35 years ago, while their productivity has increased a dramatic 80%. This is the central explanation for the explosion in corporate profits and the growing income gap in America, and the reason workers in America still believe the economy is moving in the wrong direction.

On balance, the two laws’ health care and revenue provisions are estimated to reduce the projected deficit in 2020 by $28 billion, and the education provisions of the Reconciliation Act are estimated to reduce the projected deficit in 2020 by $2 billion. [...]

Finally, you asked what the net deficit impact would be if certain provisions of PPACA and the Reconciliation Act that were estimated to generate net savings were eliminated—specifically, those which were originally estimated to generate a net reduction in mandatory outlays of $455 billion over the 2010–2019 period. The estimate of $455 billion mentioned in your letter represents the net effects of many provisions. Some of those provisions generated savings for Medicare, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and some generated costs. If those provisions were repealed, CBO estimates that there would be an increase in deficits similar to its original estimate of $455 billion in net savings over that period.

Story is located here

Beck also invoked Washington while describing the inspiring experience of visiting famous tourist destinations around the nation’s capital. “I have been going to Mt. Vernon,” he explained. Holding out his hands for emphasis, he declared with emotion, “I went to the National Archives, and I held the first inaugural address written in his own hand by George Washington.”   Story is located here

It is a lot of work to think like a Teabagger!!!  Video is located here

The reasons kept changing. Video is located here

On the eve of the President declaring officially the combat portion of the Iraq War was over Paul Begala brings some truth to Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.  Video is located here

David Gushee of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good said politicians who were using the mosque issue for political gain “deserve neither our sympathy nor our acquiescence, but only our condemnation.” His words for Christians who opposed the mosque were just as pointed.

“For those mainly conservative Christians who are responding to this and other mosque projects with open expressions of anti-Muslim hatred, and open rejections of the principles of religious liberty from which Christians themselves daily benefit, shame on you! As a fellow Christian, I say that you bring dishonor to the name of Jesus Christ, you directly disobey his command that we love our neighbors, and you drive the watching world even further away from any interest in the Gospel message!” said Gushee.

Support for the mosque has been a hot topic on Sojourners’ God’s Politics blog. In one of the more popular posts, Troy Jackson, senior pastor of University Christian Church in Cincinnati, wrote that it was unloving to oppose a mosque.

“Ultimately, the Christian church should focus our energies on sharing the grace and love and mercy of Jesus, not fighting the construction of buildings and worship centers of other faiths. Hate and revenge are not Christian values,” said Jackson. “Fear and intolerance are not fruits of the Spirit. Instead, Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, and to even love our enemies. Love doesn’t fight mosques. The love of Jesus demands that we love Muslims. Period. For in the end, love wins.”  Story is located here

The first step in broadcast deregulation was removing any pretense that broadcasters “served” the public.  Story is here.

The second phase in broadcast deregulation was the removal of many ownership rules.  Story is located here

The Act was claimed to foster competition. Instead, it continued the historic industry consolidation begun by Reagan, whose actions reduced the number of major media companies from around 50 in 1983 to 10 in 1996^[19] and 6 in 2005.^[20] An FCC study found that the Act had led to a drastic decline in the number of radio station owners, even as the actual number of commercial stations in the United States had increased.^[21]

For the record, in citing 1 John 4:1-3, Moore is saying that Beck’s effort to unleash revival in America is operating under the spirit of the Antichrist:  Story is located here

So one of the better Twitter people is @OakFoSho.  Instead of doing the ususal “IS TOO…IS NOT” arguing seen on Twitter he brings the facts.  So one of his discussions with an obvious Teabagger who has been listening to too much Glenn Beck had @OakFoSho aka Spence…bring out a series of facts about Nazis.  His series of Tweets basically eviscerated any concept that Nazis could have been leftist-Socialists.  The concept of Left-Leaning Nazis has been a rewriting of history as sought by Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Beck and others on the Right.  Somehow they claim every tyrant was a lefty.  Spence’s messages from 8/31/10 are below and thoroughly amused me as to their correctness…simplicity…and destruction of the meme of Hitler being left leaning in any way shape or form.

http://twitter.com/OakFoSho

# SORRY TWEEPS! Had 2 drop lesson on @ResistTyranny. The “Nazis were socialists” thing has the greatest generation rolling in thr graves.

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing – Goebbels joked abt inclusion of “Socialist” in the party title as “convenience”.

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing — “Socialist” in party name was leftover frm a merger of European parties in 1919.

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing – They murdered what left wingers remained on 6/30/34. “Night of the Long Knives”

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing – Came 2pwr in coalition w/othr conservatives & suppressed socialists & Communists

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing — #Hitler outlawed trade unions within 120 days of taking office in 1933.

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing — They nationalized no industries.

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing – In Mein Kampf Hitler lambasts “social democrats” (socialists) on almost every pg

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing — Nazi “Charter of Labor” gave employers complete power over their workers.

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing — #Hitler abolished the worker’s right to strike.

#Nazis were FAR Right Wing — Hitler ordered SA 2 arrest all union leaders, & made forming unions illegal.

OK TWEEPS! Time for a History lesson for #RWNJ @ResistTyranny who thinks the Nazis were “Socialists”

Joe Madison talked with Glenn Beck and Glenn admits a few things that he had no concept of as his upbringing was not one of dealing with people who were directly kept out of society’s riches.  Audio is located here

A bit of the show had a transcript here at Alan Colmes’ site.

ThinkProgress has a good outline of the interview as well linked here

“By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) “It’s providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.”  Story is located here.

The Hippies have been RIGHT FOR DECADES.  Video is located here

Nothing is more important to Republican politicians these days than jobs and the deficit—at least according to Republican politicians. As House Minority Leader John Boehner put it in a “major economic address” on Tuesday, President Obama is “doing everything possible to prevent jobs from being created” while refusing to do anything at all “about bringing down the deficits that threaten our economy.” Elect Republicans in November, Boehner assured his audience, and we will put an end to this insanity.

There’s only one problem with Boehner’s message: so far, the things that Republicans have said they want to do won’t actually boost employment or reduce deficits. In fact, much the opposite. By combing through a variety of studies and projections from nonpartisan economic sources, we here at Gaggle headquarters have found that if Republicans were in charge from January 2009 onward—and if they were now given carte blanche to enact the proposals they want to—the projected 2010–2020 deficits would be larger than they are under Obama, and fewer people would probably be employed.  Story is located here

h/t http://www.progressivenewsdaily.com/

Video is located here

“MY FAITH MY VOICE” — Official PSA
Video Directed by: David Hawa
Video Producer: HAWA DC [hawadc.com]
Script Written by: Rabiah Ahmad and David Hawa

Description: MY FAITH MY VOICE is a grassroots effort by American Muslims from across the country looking to present their voice on issues affecting Muslims and Islam in America. It is an independent network with no affiliation to any one organization or school of thought. It is a platform for you, me and any one else who wants to reach out and talk directly to America.

Special thanks to Rabiah Ahmad, Antar Hanif, Abdul Malik Ahmad, Nadia Khatib, and all the muslims that came out last minute to support the project.

Here is how to fill up Washington DC.  Picture which loads very slowly is located here

“I noticed some tut-tutting among newscasters that people just don’t listen to the president when he states that he’s a Christian,” said Dalfonzo, who edits The Point blog. “Did any of them consider that maybe some of these people are listening but don’t necessarily trust him to tell the truth? Oddly, there didn’t seem to be nearly as much tut-tutting about Democrats increasingly coming to believe that Obama is not a Christian. If they’re not listening to the president, isn’t that just as bad as the people who believe he’s a Muslim not listening?”

Faith in Public Life’s Dan Nejfelt said the perception that Obama is a Muslim is consequential. He noted that those who believe Obama is a Muslim are more likely to disapprove of the President.

“. … [C]ultivating this misperception is a political strategy meant to discredit the president by appealing to religious bigotry and Islamophobia. Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and other purveyors of fear and prejudice are maligning  religious minority to further the short-term goal of scoring political points,” he wrote. “They should be called out, not ignored.”  Story is located here

Citizens for Tax Justice point out what I was saying just the other day: We only hear all this crying and moaning about the deficit when it’s something for regular working people, and not a powerful lobby. And of course, the Republican’ts are right out there in front of the Hypocrisy Parade:  Story is located here

The Glenn Beck fans on my subway car after today’s rally were a subdued bunch.  They didn’t seem energized by having spent time with their idol and many thousands of fellow fans. Why not?

As Cenk says…this is an automatic dismissal question. 3 real Republican Presidential candidates did not believe in Evolution.  O…..M…..G……!!!  Video is located here

Tomorrow, Fox News host and self-professed “rodeo clown” Glenn Beck will hold his “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, D.C. Beck initially insisted that the rally has no political significance — despite it being located at the Lincoln Memorial and taking place on the 47th anniversary of the “I Have A Dream” speech. He has increasingly claimed to be taking up the mantle of the civil rights movement. Earlier in the week, Beck boasted that the rally will “reclaim the civil rights movement” and called the current civil rights community an “abomination.” While Beck is practically fashioning himself after revered civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and trying to take up the mantle of the civil rights movement, he is ultimately unfit to command such a legacy. The Fox News host’s views and actions are diametrically opposed to everything the late social justice leader fought for.  Story is located here

By Roland S. Martin

Very few things will make my skin crawl more than listening to someone totally misrepresent the famous “I Have A Dream” speech the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave on Aug. 28, 1963.

It’s clear that far too many people haven’t bothered to actually read or listen to the speech. Instead, folks – especially those who likely would have branded King a communist, socialist, Marxist or a racial hell-bent on destroying America – love to tout Dr. King’s “content of character” line in order to push back against a variety of issues, especially affirmative action.

Just today, I saw a press release from Project 21, a coalition of black conservatives, suggesting that a rally planned Saturday by a radio talk show host and Fox News personality is akin to the 1963 march.

Coby Dillard, a member of Project 21, is quoted as saying, “”The dream of Dr. King — that every person be judged by their character rather than their color — is one of the tenets that makes our nation honorable in the minds of people around the world. Dr. King’s legacy is a gift to us all, and no one person or organization holds claim to his work and his message. I can think of no better way to honor him by renewing our shared commitment to uphold those principles that have held our country together throughout history.”

It’s clear that Dillard, and so many others, haven’t read a history book or other publications surrounding the march, and instead, love to continue to spread falsehoods, misrepresentations and outright fabrications stemming from the Washington, D.C. march.  Story is located here.

Relatively little known, this 1657 appeal by some 30 Flushing farmers for freedom to practice their Quaker religion goes on display to the public today in the library at 41-17 Main Street, at Kissena Boulevard. The unveiling will mark the beginning of an abundance of festivities celebrating the 350th anniversary of this precursor to the Constitution.

The Remonstrance “is priceless, and precious,” said Kenneth T. Jackson, the Jacques Barzun Professor of History at Columbia University, and editor of The Encyclopedia of New York City. “It is an elegant and eloquent statement of what we mean to be as a people,” he said. (The text of the Remonstrance is available at flushingremonstrance.info.)

The Remonstrance has not been well publicized, Dr. Jackson said, adding: “Thomas Jefferson gets most of the ink. The Remonstrance is not given enough credit, but it should be in every school curriculum.”  Story is located here

The Flushing Remonstrance was a forerunner to the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution that gives people the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. On December 27, 1657, it was signed by 30 Flushing residents who risked fines and banishment imposed by Governor Peter Stuyvesant in order to state their call for freedom.  Story is located here

And the result is you and me paying for it.  The only plan the GOP has is to go back to the days of George W Bush.  Video is located here

Video is located here

All Glenn Beck needs is a single word to send him into a Nazi Tizzy! Video is located here

Since President Obama’s election, the network has gradually shed even the appearance of trying to live up to their “Fair and Balanced” slogan. In March 2009, Roger Ailes reportedly claimed to see Fox News as “the Alamo,” while Fox executive Bill Shine called the network “the voice of the opposition on some issues.” Over the next months, Fox News began openly engaging in political advocacy against the Democratic Congress and the White House, while seeking to bolster Republican candidates.

More recently, Fox’s corporate parent, News Corp., donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association for the express purpose of defeating Democratic candidates. Asked for comment, News Corp.’s spokesman cited his support for “the RGA’s pro-business agenda.”

And now, the network’s most-watched host is calling the network “anti-liberal,” and the network’s website is trumpeting the column in which he makes the claim.

As Eric Boehlert said on MSNBC, there is “no daylight” between Fox News and the GOP, “and they don’t apparently care who knows it.”  Story is located here

So it’s come down to this. On Saturday, David Stockman, the legendary Reagan budget chief who presided over the Gipper’s supply-side tax cuts, announced that the “debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.” The next day, the former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who famously helped sell the 2001 Bush tax cuts to Congress, declared them simply “disastrous.”

Sadly, Stockman and Greenspan are just about the only voices in the Republican Party speaking the truth about the fiscal devastation wrought by the expiring Bush tax cuts. After all, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again during the tenure of George W. Bush. And as it turns out, the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy accounted for almost half the budget deficits during his presidency and, if made permanent, would contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession – combined. Of course, you’d never know it listening to the leaders of GOP.  Story is located here

Glen Greenwald column is located here

Virtually every Fox News/right-wing-talk-radio controversy relies on scaring economically anxious white Americans into ignoring the prime cause of their economic insecurity — plundering by Wall Street bankers, abetted by the government they own — and focusing instead on some manufactured menace from powerless racial and ethnic minorities:  black people preventing them from voting (New Black Panthers), stealing their elections (ACORN), and treating them unequally (Shirley Sherrod and Eric Holder’s Justice Department); Muslims who want to conquer their country and celebrate over their Christian corpses (the Triumphalist Ground Zero Mosque); invading, marauding Latino armies coming to steal their property and rape their women while their Marxist allies in Government (led by a black Muslim President) disarm the white victims.  Matt Taibbi, in lamenting the takeover of the GOP by the most riled-up of these factions — the Tea Partiers — recounts just some of the lowlights here.

“We are on the right side of history! We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and, dammit, we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement — because we were the people who did it in the first place.” — Glenn Beck, on his nationally syndicated radio program, May 26.

It is Glenn Beck’s most audacious stunt yet: This Saturday, in the company of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the National Rifle Association and others, the Fox News Channel host will stand in the sacred shadow not just of the Lincoln Memorial but of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. himself, near the spot where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years earlier to the exact day.

During this event — billed as “Restoring Honor” — Beck will aim to “reclaim the civil rights moment” for his cause, and in the process he will continue what he’s been doing for the last 18 months: bending the history of 20th-century America like a Philadelphia soft pretzel.  Story is located here

A number of excellent articles written by religious leaders on how Beck is contorting their religion.

Ed Schultz has his radio show and his TV show. When he first started on the local Progressive radio station Green960 in San Francisco he really lacked in his knowledge of Progressive background but he learned and actually became good in his being able to knock down Conservative ideals with facts.  His TV show is a bit of a ranter of a show but that’s a good thing in that he gets worked up about thing on the right side of the topic.  It looks like he is a bit of a hothead and fame may have gone to the top of his red head.

The ginned-up rage over the “ground zero mosque” was not motivated by a serious desire to protect America from the real threat of terrorists lurking at home and abroad — a threat this furor has in all likelihood exacerbated — but by the potential short-term rewards of winning votes by pandering to fear during an election season.  Story is located here

A Wonk Room review of Critical Mention reveals that CNN mentioned the name “Mehlman” 19 times, MSNBC reported on it 12 times (searches for “gay” and “Ken” produced similar results, with Fox News stuck at 0):  Story is located here

Why did Reagan hate America so much?  Image is located here

In fact if you follow Fox News and the Limbaugh/Hannity afternoon radio crew, this summer’s blowout has almost seemed like an intentional echo of the notorious Radio Rwanda broadcasts “warning” Hutus that they were about to be attacked and killed by conspiring Tutsis, broadcasts that led to massacres of Tutsis by Hutus acting in “self-defense.” A sample of some of the stuff we’ve seen and heard on the air this year:  Story is located here

Hotel Rwanda was a great movie that used the politically charged hate rhetoric. This type of rhetoric is exactly what the Teabaggers are saying.  The minority is coming…they are less than human…be afraid of your neighbors.  Listen closely to this video which is the intro to the movie Hotel Rwanda.

As to Republicans, now comes John Boehner, capitalizing on this distrust by blaming the bad economy on government bureaucrats.

In an address billed as a major speech on economic policy, the House GOP leader yesterday (Tuesday) attributed our economic woes to the fact that “taxpayers are subsidizing the fattened salaries and pensions of federal bureaucrats who are out there right now making it harder to create private sector jobs.”

What?

Story is located here

Fox News’ Glenn Beck has spent the past several months relentlessly promoting his upcoming “Restoring Honor” rally, scheduled to take place this Saturday. Beck claims he originally wanted to schedule the rally for September 12, but decided to change the date because he didn’t want to ask people to “work on the Sabbath.” Instead, Beck and his event planners scheduled the rally for August 28, which coincides with the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I have a dream” speech — a fact that Beck insists he only later discovered in a New York Times article.

Nonetheless, Beck seized on the supposed coincidence, which he chalked up to “divine providence.” To Beck, the 8-28 rally is more than just a gathering of like-minded conservatives calling for a restoration of “honor.” Instead, he views the 8-28 rally on a much grander scale. In his words, it will be a “historic” day that will mark a “turning point in America” that your “children will remember.”   Story is located here

Another look at the lives of MLK vs Glenn Beck is located here

Joining the backlash against House Majority leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) economic speech yesterday, Mark Zandi, Moody’s chief economist, said Boehner was “just wrong” to call the $787 billion stimulus spending “a failure.”

If there was no stimulus at all, Zandi said, unemployment would be at around 11.5% rather than 9.5%.

“I think if we had not had the stimulus, estimates put forward by the Congressional Budget Office are absolutely right: we’d have 2.5-3 million fewer jobs than we’d have today,” he said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast briefing this morning.  Story is located here.

John Boehner has had a lot to say about the Stimulus….mostly incorrect things.  Story is located here

Ken Mehlman, who headed the Republican National Committee between 2005 and 2007, has come out in an interview with the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder:

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter’s questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would be asked about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.”It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life,” Mehlman said. “Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I’ve told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they’ve been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago.”

Everyone wants to be part of a winning team. It’s human nature. But I’ve never understood the bizarre jingoism of right-wing America to scream “We’re #1!!!!” without a whole lot of facts to back them up.

In fact, according to last week’s Newsweek, they’d be more accurate to yell “We’re #11!!!”, which doesn’t quite have the cachet of being #1.

It would be nice if we could learn the lessons of how other countries are successful and adapt them to this country. One such country that has been bandied about of late is Germany. At a time where we have economists warning of a double dip recession here, Germany’s economy is growing stronger consistently month after month.

Why?

Story and Video are located here

There’s quite a bit of talk lately about the fact that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is a major shareholder in Fox News, and a business partner of Rupert Murdoch. Some have questioned whether it really matters, though, if the Prince hasn’t tried to influence Fox’s news coverage.

Well, in 2005, LGF noted an interview with Alwaleed bin Talal at Middle East Online, in which he boasted about getting a Fox headline changed with a single call to Rupert Murdoch.  Story is located here

Yesterday morning on Fox & Friends, Fox News contributor Dan Senor observed that The Kingdom Foundation, whose chairman Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (Fox News-parent company News Corp’s second-largest shareholder), is a funder for the Cordoba House Initiative. “The Kingdom Foundation, so you know, is this Saudi organization, headed up by the guy that tried to give Rudy Giuliani $10 million after 9/11 that was sent back, funds radical madrassas all over the world,” Senor said. “And he funds this imam,” Fox host Brian Kilmeade chimed in. Video is located here

If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”  Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party nomination (14 September 1960) TurnLeft:What is a Liberal?

Jane’s Defense – India Joined US led plan against Afghanistan in March 2001.

“India joins anti-Taliban coalition”

By Rahul Bedi

India is believed to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a concerted front against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. [janes.com]

India Reacts – American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JUNE 2001.

In this article published in India in the summer of 2001 the Indian Government announces that it will support America’s PLANNED military incursion into Afghanistan.

India in anti-Taliban military plan

India and Iran will “facilitate” the planned US-Russia hostilities against the Taliban.

By Our Correspondent

26 June 2001: India and Iran will “facilitate” US and Russian plans for “limited military action”
against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don’t bend Afghanistan’s fundamentalist regime. The Taliban controls 90 per cent of Afghanistan and is advancing northward along the Salang highway and preparing for a rear attack on the opposition Northern Alliance from
Tajikistan-Afghanistan border positions.

Indian foreign secretary Chokila Iyer attended a crucial session of the second Indo-Russian joint working group on Afghanistan in Moscow amidst increase of Taliban’s military activity near the Tajikistan border. And, Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (the former KGB) chief Nicolai Patroshev is visiting Teheran this week in connection with Taliban’s military build-up.

Indian officials say that India and Iran will only play the role of “facilitator” while the US and Russia will combat the Taliban from the front with the help of two Central Asian countries, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to push Taliban lines back to the 1998 position 50 km away from Mazar-e-Sharief city in northern Afghanistan.

Military action will be the last option though it now seems scarcely avoidable with the UN banned from Taliban controlled areas. The UN which adopted various means in the last four years to resolve the Afghan problem is now being suspected by the Taliban and refused entry into Taliban areas of the war ravaged nation through a decree issued by Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar last month. [indiareacts.com]

Story is located here

Yesterday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell set the hook in President Obama.

When asked by moderator David Gregory about the controversy surrounding the proposed Muslim community center near Ground Zero, Sen. McConnell took the position, now vacated by the President, that the mosque is a local zoning issue.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, republicans aided and abetted by their friends over at Fox News generated the “mosque-at-Ground-Zero-that’s-not-really-a-mosque-and-not-really-at-Ground-Zero” controversy. They waited and hoped and waited some more for democrats to come to the aid of America’s most unpopular minority.

Lo and behold, the bait worked and they reeled in the biggest democratic fish of them all, President Obama.  Story is located here

Imagine if we had to remove all the churches in the USA that stand on the sites of Native American massacres or burial grounds?