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Military Personnel lost faith in Bush
From the Army Times:
By Robert Hodierne
Senior managing editor
The American military — once a staunch supporter of President Bush and the Iraq war — has grown increasingly pessimistic about chances for victory, according to the 2006 Military Times Poll.
For the first time, more troops disapprove of the president’s handling of the war than approve of it. Barely one-third of service members approve of the way the president is handling the war.
When the military was feeling most optimistic about the war — in 2004 — 83 percent of poll respondents thought success in Iraq was likely. This year, that number has shrunk to 50 percent.
Only 35 percent of the military members polled this year said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42 percent said they disapproved. The president’s approval rating among the military is only slightly higher than for the population as a whole. In 2004, when his popularity peaked, 63 percent of the military approved of Bush’s handling of the war. While approval of the president’s war leadership has slumped, his overall approval remains high among the military. [Read more →]
James Brown’s politics
Please read some of my earlier posts on James Brown. I try to explain the importance of this entertainer to the Black community. This is a nice video on his politics.
Ava’s Christmas Video
Her videos are getting better in my opinion. I like this one, a lot.
3000
Today we have lost 3000 soldiers in Iraq.
Just one question, what did they die for? To Kill Saddam? I hope there’s more. I hope and pray that they died for more than that.
Was Getting Saddam Worth it?
This is one of these questions that doesn’t really have an answer. At least we can’t answer this question until we find out what the final cost will be. We have to get out of Iraq and Iraq will have to have some sort of stable government before we can completely answer this question. Of course, $350 Billion to get Saddam Hussein seems to be a little too much for my pocketbook but to be fair we really have to wait until we see what Iraq will be.
Did Saddam receive a fair trial?
I have said it before and I’ll say it again - How can you have a fair trial if 3 of your lawyers get killed during the trial?
Excellent discussion on this by Glenn Greenwald who has been a consistent legal voice of reason.
Spain Airport Bombing
I’m not a terrorism expert but I do read. Although many may up on this bombing as an Al Qaeda bombing, I don’t think so. At least the early reports are not consistent with the Al Qaeda MO. This was a single bomb with warning. Al Qaeda likes multiple bombs with no specific warning. We’ll need more information. Still the world has to get a handle on this kind of random violence.
Update from CNN.com (1/2/06):
Spain has blamed a powerful bomb explosion Saturday at the country’s busiest airport on Basque separatist group ETA, declaring it a violation of a nine-month cease-fire.
The bomb at Barajas International Airport is “absolutely incompatible with the permanent cease-fire that ETA declared nine months ago,” Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said during a nationally televised news conference.
He ordered the government to halt any peace efforts, but he declined to say that the attack “breaks the cease-fire,” which was the way Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba described it to reporters a few hours earlier. (more…)
LD - Culture of Corruption
I have had this vid for some time. I just haven’t had time to post it. Lou Dobbs is investigating the culture of corruption in Washington. The culture really isn’t a Republican thing although they really perfected it. Both R’s and Dem’s have shown that they can be bought. Lou Dobbs has been looking out of the little guy, the average Joe. I think for the most part he is 100% correct. Corporate America has cut out the middle class. They haven’t shared the wealth. They have bought silence from Congress. This is a nice report. (relatively poor quality. sorry.)
TCR - A Small World
Department of Homeland Security has turned to Disney to polish its image, Stephen Colbert has a few things to say about this. Colbert is funny as usual.
Apple admits to funky accounting
From WaPo:
Apple Computer disclosed yesterday that it had falsified approval of 7.5 million stock options for its chief executive and innovative co-founder, Steve Jobs, raising new questions about the role he may have played in a scandal that has swirled around the dynamic technology company for months.
Apple said in a pair of overdue earnings filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had recorded a fictitious meeting at which Jobs’s options were ratified and that he may have recommended the dates for some of the stock options issued to company employees. The company repeated yesterday that Jobs did not benefit from the options.
Apple’s board, which includes former vice president Al Gore, gave Jobs its full support. “The board of directors is confident that the Company has corrected the problems that led to the restatement, and it has complete confidence in Steve Jobs and the senior management team,” said the statement by Gore and Jerome York, who heads Apple’s audit and finance committee. (more…)
GOP in Kansas is splintering
If you haven’t read the book, What’s the Matter with Kansas? You should. It is great. Anyway, this article shows that Kansas has figured out that the Republican Party is not doing the kinds of things that they have said that they were going to do.
From WaPo:
Phill Kline is not one to slink away — and the ideological wars inside the Kansas Republican Party show no sign of ending.
The fiercely antiabortion Republican attorney general in Kansas lost his reelection bid in November when moderate Republicans voted in droves for Paul Morrison, a longtime Johnson County district attorney who became a Democrat in hopes of vanquishing Kline.
Statewide, Kline got barely 4 in 10 votes. In Johnson County, the state’s most populous county, his loss was more dramatic. That made it especially shocking after the election when Republican precinct leaders in the county chose Kline to finish the final two years of Morrison’s term as prosecutor. [Read more →]
Saddam Executed
From CNN.com:
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been executed, according to two Arabic language media outlets.
Hussein was hanged before dawn on Saturday in Iraq, at about 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET), the U.S.-backed Al-Hurra television reported.
Earlier, Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld the former dictator’s death sentence, and an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki each confirmed the paperwork needed for Hussein’s execution had been prepared late Friday. (more…)
More from James Brown
I’m sorry, I really didn’t like Rocky IV. I thought Rocky was done at III. I won’t even talk about VI.
James Brown began acting in the middle 80’s. His career got a big boost (as did many other artists - Cab Calloway, John Hooker to name a few) by being in the Blues Brother movie. Livin’ in America was part of this push. It was a typical James Brown song with the energy, horns, bass (became a part of his sound in the late 60’s) and ad libs. I found many versions of this video. This one was the best.
Richard Ben-Veniste on Nixon’s pardon
From WaPo:
By Richard Ben-Veniste (commissioner on the 9/11 Commission)
Friday, December 29, 2006; A27
Gerald R. Ford was a decent and honorable man. Under his steady hand, the nation began the process of recovering from the terrible trauma of Watergate — the lies, distortions, coverups, misuses of federal agencies to exact political revenge, illegal wiretapping, burglaries. . . . The list went on and on — all in the midst of the deeply divisive Vietnam War. Did Ford make the right decision in pardoning his predecessor? The answer to that question is more nuanced than either the howls of outrage that greeted the pardon three decades ago or the general acceptance with which it is viewed now.
When Richard M. Nixon resigned and Ford became the 38th president of the United States, the Watergate Special Prosecutor’s Office, of which I was a member, was preparing for the criminal trials of Nixon’s top aides — H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell. We had accumulated significant evidence showing Nixon’s active participation in a conspiracy to obstruct the FBI and grand jury investigation of the Watergate break-in and the related “White House horrors,” to use Mitchell’s famous description. Nixon himself had been named an “unindicted co-conspirator” by the grand jury — even before the Supreme Court compelled disclosure of the “smoking gun” tape.
It was our collective view that so long as Nixon held the office of president, the constitutionally sanctioned process of impeachment should trump any suggestion that a sitting president be indicted. But there was considerable disagreement within the special prosecutor’s office on the proper way to discharge our responsibilities vis-a-vis private citizen Nixon. [Read more →]
Saddam to hang soon
From NYT:
Preparations for the execution of Saddam Hussein began taking on a sense of urgency late Thursday as American and Iraqi officials suggested that he could be hanged within a span of days rather than weeks.
After upholding the death sentence against Mr. Hussein on Tuesday for the execution of 148 Shiite men and boys in 1982, an Iraqi appeals court ruled that he must be sent to the gallows within 30 days. But Mr. Hussein may not have even that long to live, officials said.
A senior administration official said that the execution would probably not take place in the next 24 hours, but that the timing would be swift. “It may be another day or so,” the official said.
Another senior administration official said later Thursday night that Iraqi officials had told the White House to expect the execution on Saturday, Baghdad time. more …
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Don’t misunderstand me, I know Saddam Hussein is a “bad” guy but how can you have a fair trial if your lawyers keep turning up dead. It was seem to me that it is in the interest of the United States for the trial to be as fair as possible.
President Ford on the Iraq War
President Ford was from a different time. A time of modesty. He would never stand up and denounce a sitting president. It didn’t matter if the President was Republican or Democrat. He understand the niceties of politics from an era before Tom “the Hammer” Delay and Newt Gingrich. So, I find it interesting that he did an interview with Bob Woodward and asked for it to be published after his death. President Ford was a practical man in my opinion. He believed in negotiation something the neo-cons don’t believe is necessary. Therefore, it is no surprise that he didn’t support the invasion.
From WaPo:
“Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction,” Ford said. “And now, I’ve never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do.”
In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.
Happy Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa - a celebration of family, community and culture. Enjoy.
Gerald Ford Dead at age 93
Gerald Ford was the perfect president for the time. We needed someone to calm the waters. He was honest in a time of dishonesty. Ford was never the brightest bulb in the room but he wasn’t the dullest either.
The one thing that I’ll throw out there is Ford was on the Warren Commission which whitewashed President Kennedy’s death (much like some of our commissions today Robb-Silverman comes to mind). I think that Ford took some secrets with him to the grave.
From CNN.com:
Former President Gerald Ford, who became president in 1974 after the resignation of Richard Nixon, died Tuesday at age 93.
Ford, the oldest surviving former U.S. president, died peacefully at 6:45 p.m. PT (9:45 p.m. ET) Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, according to a statement from his office. The cause of death was not given.
A statement from Ford’s wife, Betty, said: “My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age. His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.” more…
The Errington Thompson Show 12/23/06
My Christmas Show. I don’t talk about politics much. Most of the show is about music and the music of Christmas. I grew up with music but around the holidays it was nothing but music. Tons and tons of wonderful music. Soul, pop, standards, gospel and jazz. That’s what I listened to but since my show is only an hour, you’ll hear just a little taste of what I grew up with. Enjoy and Merry Christmas, Happy Hanakkah and Happy New Year.
(Posted late.)
Remember I’m on iTunes and several other podcasting services.
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Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, fulltime sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
