Bush's War

Bush signs $162 billion war spending bill
The legislation will bring to more than $650 billion the amount Congress has provided for the Iraq war since it began more than five years ago. For operations in Afghanistan, the total is nearly $200 billion, according to congressional officials.

Yes, that means $850 Billion...with $1 Trillion in sight, which will be passed by next year at this time. So I can go with the $200 Billion in Afghanistan but the $650 Billion in Iraq...where is the value for the USA in this Treasury expense?

Quote of the Day

“There is a sense in this country that in my belief is anti-intellectual. There is almost a case to be made against smart people and that has penetrated I think from the top leadership in this country right through the ‘hood’ where people look down on folk who are academically prepared gifted and we’ve gotta change this culture,” he said. “America is fascinated by whether you can drink a beer. That’s not, that should not be the qualification for a president. A president ought to be able to lead the nation in a direction where young people aspire for the kind of genius that’s around this table.”
Geoffrey Canada, the president and CEO of Harlem Children's Zone at Carnegie Mellon University, Competitiveness Summit

NFL, Breaking Down the AFC North

2nd Amendment

In a dramatic moment on the last day of this term, the Supreme Court declared (5-4) for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to self-defense and gun ownership.

For most of the last century, the interpretation of the Second Amendment has been that the right to bear arms is a collective right, such as with military service; Thursday's ruling says gun ownership is an individual right.

In Thursday's ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit

"the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home." He added, however, that nothing in Thursday's ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority of justices

"would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons." Stevens said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."

NBA Draft...Go Blazers!

Kevin Pritchard leading up to Thursday's draft

Gallup Poll: The Issues

Click below to see Gallup Video (2:13) for the details

UN classifies rape a 'war tactic'

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of a resolution classifying rape as a weapon of war.
The document describes the deliberate use of rape as a tactic in war and a threat to international security.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said violence against women had reached "unspeakable proportions" in some societies recovering from conflict.

The UN is also setting up an inquiry to report next June on how widespread the practice is and how to tackle it.

Human rights groups hailed the resolution as historic.
To read full article Bounce 2 BBCNews Click for BBC NEWS Video

One Day in Darfur

Who Owns The West?

This map details the percentage of state territory owned by the federal government. The top 10 list of states with the highest percentage of federally owned land looks like this:

Nevada 84.5%
Alaska 69.1%
Utah 57.4%
Oregon 53.1%
Idaho 50.2%
Arizona 48.1%
California 45.3%
Wyoming 42.3%
New Mexico 41.8%
Colorado 36.6%

Notable is that all these states are in the West (except Alaska, which strictly speaking is also a western state, albeit northwestern). Also notable is the contrast between the highest and the lowest percentages of federal land ownership. The US government owns a whopping 84.5% of Nevada, but only a puny 0.4% of Rhode Island and Connecticut. Courtesy Strange Maps

The Stat That Counts

Is this one:

Among independents — the group that usually determines election outcomes — Obama leads 48%-36%.

Obama's First General Election Ad: "Country I Love"

Obama on FISA

Obama on the FISA 'Compromise' ...

"Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.
"That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.

"After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act.

"Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

"It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people."

Courtesy Talking Points Memo

Another look at FISA from Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald

Do you Teach or Do you Educate?

Obama’s Public Funding Opt-Out

CQ Politics addresses the questions concerning the state of public funding within the context of Obama’s decision.

1. How does the presidential public financing system work?

There are separate public financing systems for the primary and general presidential elections. Both are optional, and a candidate is free to participate in one or the other, or both, depending on qualifications.

The general election financing program covers the period of time between the candidate’s official nomination at the party convention and election day in November. The presidential nominee for each major party is automatically eligible for public funding. Minor party candidates may also qualify for partial funding, determined by their party’s vote totals in the preceding presidential election. If he or she chooses to participate, the candidate receives a grant adjusted for inflation. For 2008, that amount is approximately $84.1 million. The candidate may not raise or spend any additional funds, except to cover legal and accounting expenses.

2. Why did Obama decide to opt out of the public financing system?

Obama said he made the decision because “the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system.” But the bottom line is the campaign does not want to stop raising and spending its own money. The soon-to-be Democratic nominee has already shown the capacity to raise much more than $84 million over the same roughly two-month period that would be covered in the general election campaign. He raised $56.8 million in February, alone. Given his fundraising abilities, and considering Sen. John McCain ’s own funding struggles, Obama is likely to have a huge advantage over his Republican rival by the time the conventions roll around. Taking public funding would neutralize that.

In making the decision, the Obama campaign no doubt weighed the fact that the Republican National Committee presently has a significant cash advantage over the Democratic National Committee – $40.6 million to $4.4 million at the end of April — putting the Republican party in a position to outspend the Democrats on presidential race.

The parties and other outside interest groups can spend unlimited amounts to influence the election. In 2004, the spending totalled more than $200 million.

Some say it is hypocritical of Obama to have went back on his early statement...he is a politician. If I were advising Obama I would counter this argument by stating, "our campaign is a grass roots network of donors and volunteers. The average donation is less than $100...coming from hard working Americans...the backbone of our great democracy. We are not following the McCain strategy of tapping lobbyists and corporate giants as if they were offshore oil wells."

What Do Teachers Really Make? Taylor Mali Explains...

2 Cents for Drilling in ANWR

John McCain wants to open up Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling in order to provide more energy independence for the United States and alleviate high prices at the gas stations. A recent economic analysis from the Energy Information Administration:

The opening of the ANWR 1002 Area to oil and natural gas development is projected to increase domestic crude oil production starting in 2018. In the mean ANWR oil resource case, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR reaches 780,000 barrels per day in 2027 and then declines to 710,000 barrels per day in 2030 ... Crude oil imports are projected to decline by about one barrel for every barrel of ANWR oil production ... Additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR would be only a small portion of total world oil production, and would likely be offset in part by somewhat lower production outside the United States. The opening of ANWR is projected to have its largest oil price reduction impacts as follows: a reduction in low-sulfur, light crude oil prices of $0.41 per barrel (2006 dollars) in 2026 for the low oil resource case, $0.75 per barrel in 2025 for the mean oil resource case, and $1.44 per barrel in 2027 for the high oil resource case, relative to the reference case.

The median case suggests the effect on gasoline prices in 2025 will be a mere $0.02 a gallon. The immediate effect will be zero as we’ll have to wait a decade to see any oil from ANWR. If this is Bush’s and McCain’s answer to today’s high gasoline prices, it is no answer at all.

McCain's Energy Solutions Impact Environment

By calling for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, John McCain is placing a risky bet. He is wagering that skyrocketing gas prices have finally reached a tipping point, a threshold moment that has led voters to rethink their strong and long-held opinions against coastal oil exploration.

The stakes couldn’t be higher: If he is wrong, McCain will have seriously damaged his chances in two key states with thousands of miles of coastline — California and Florida — and where opposition to offshore oil drilling has been unwavering. And he will have undermined some of his closest political allies in those states and others, including potential fall battlegrounds such as Virginia and North Carolina.

In addition, Sen. John McCain is calling for construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledging $2 billion a year in federal funds to make clean coal a reality. He says the measures will reduce American dependence on foreign oil.

McCain is rolling the dice on these proposals and hoping that people are willing to sacrifice their environments for cheaper energy. I would not be advising McCain in this way but his advisers are feeling the pinch early to curtail Obama's popularity.

These proposals further link John McCain to President Bush see video below.

China's View...

"Indeed, Sen. Barack Obama does not at all represent the white Anglo-Saxon protestants (WASP), those who belong to the group of middle- and upper-class Americans descended from the British or Northern European settlers, generally regarded as the traditional dominant or privileged group in the U.S. His success, nevertheless, is because he does not underscore his racial features, and has even intentionally drawn a clear line with those radical blacks. So, it can be said that Obama triumphs either because of his skin color or not because of it. He has a different skin color (with whites) but shares the "same American background".

Obama represents a superb talent or gifted graduate from a top-rate American university, and he is the representative of the racial merging rather than a symbol for assimilation. So his rise has not done away with privileges for the white Americans but reinforces their privileges on the contrary," For the full read Bounce 2 China's People Daily

Note: The class comments by the Communists Chinese and that American business (Walmart) has tied the American economy to China along with past administrations from Nixon to Bush 43. Should say Made in China by the Communists....

Tiger Eyes 14th Major

What a Father's Day it would be for Tiger Woods to earn his 14th Major Championship...Tiger's highlights from his third round at Torrey Pines.

Sandbagging

Obama filled some sandbags in Southern Illinois yesterday, a moment his campaign was careful to avoid over-hyping as a photo-op, which it inevitably was.
Comments from Andrew Sullivan:

Very deft p.r. from the Obama camp. This is the kind of thing a president would do - and the contrast with Bush after Katrina is powerful:

So was this an obvious photo-op? Yes, but where was President Bush after Katrina, the largest natural disaster in US History...in the White House. Perhaps President Bush is just a cut above all the canned photo-ops or he just prefers the military photo-ops, remember, May 1, 2003 USS Lincoln

Woods' Second Round 68

Impasse in US-Iraqi forces talks

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has said that talks with the US on a long-term agreement allowing US forces to remain in Iraq have "reached an impasse".

Speaking in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Mr Maliki said the American demands infringed Iraqi sovereignty.

With the UN mandate for US forces to be in Iraq expiring at the end of 2008, the White House wants a deal by July.
Bounce 2 BBC News to read more.

Where Gasoline Prices Hit the Hardest

Click on map to enlarge
“This crisis really impacts those who are at the economic margins of society, mostly in the rural areas and particularly parts of the Southeast,” said Fred Rozell, retail pricing director at the Oil Price Information Service, a fuel analysis firm. “These are people who have to decide between food and transportation.”

A survey by Mr. Rozell’s firm late last month found that the gasoline crisis is taking the highest toll, as a percentage of income, on people in rural areas of the South, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and North and South Dakota.

With the exception of rural Maine, the Northeast appears least affected by gasoline prices because people there make more money and drive shorter distances, or they take a bus or train to work.

But across Mississippi and the rural South, little public transit is available and people have no choice but to drive to work. Since jobs are scarce, commutes are frequently 20 miles or more. Many of the vehicles on the roads here are old rundown trucks, some getting 10 or fewer miles to the gallon. Courtesy The Oil Drum

Olbermann: McCain should know better

NBC/WSJ Poll Shows Tight Presidential Race

Bush to Iran: 'All options' are open over nukes

President urges diplomacy over uranium enrichment during European visit
President Bush threatened Iran on Wednesday with more sanctions if it fails to stop enriching uranium and said all options were on the table to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

"Both the chancellor and my first choice of course is to solve this diplomatically," Bush told a joint news conference with Merkel.

Does this hurt McCain or Obama?

The 101 on Oil Supply

Here is just a snippet:
The oil production of Saudi Arabia and OPEC has been sufficiently variable over time that it is difficult to make predictions, simply based on trends. OPEC's production, and in particular Saudi Arabia's production, is down in both 2006 and 2007. It is hard to know exactly what this means.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, Saudi Arabia's highest oil production was in 1980, when it produced 9.9 million barrels a day. Its recent peak was in 2005, when it produced 9.6 million barrels a day. In 2006, Saudi production dropped to an average of 9.2 million barrels a day. In 2007, production from February to August was only 8.6 million barrels a day.

When OPEC agreed to raise quotas near the end of 2007, Saudi Arabia did in fact raise its production. Its highest single month of production in 2007 was 9.1 million barrels a day, in December 2007. This represented a 500,000 barrel a day increase over its earlier low production of 8.6 million barrels a day, but still left production below both the 2006 average of 9.2 million barrels a day and the 2005 average of 9.6 million barrels a day.

One question too is whether this increase will continue, or if it is just temporary. It is sometimes possible to squeeze out a little extra production for a while, but then production drops back to a more normal level. Saudi Arabia originally planned to have an upgraded field (Khursaniyah) on line by late 2007, which was expected to produce an extra 500,000 barrels a day of oil. It may have thought it could make a spurt of extra production until this field came on line. Now the Khursaniyah field upgrade has been delayed until late 2008. Will Saudi Arabia be able to continue the increase, without the assistance of the Khursaniyah field?

Another question is why OPEC refused to raise its quota further on March 5, 2008. Is Saudi Arabia now really at the peak of what it can produce? It claims to have more production available in reserve. We know that Saudi Arabia has some poor quality oil off-line because the oil requires special processing which is not yet available in any refinery. Is this the only Saudi production off-line? Are other OPEC countries also unable to produce more? To read more Bounce 2 The Oil Drum

Midwest Weather

The Joshua Generation

A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File the following:

"The Joshua Generation project will be the Obama campaign's outreach to young people of faith. There's unprecedented energy and excitement for Obama among young evangelicals and Catholics. The Joshua Generation project will tap into that excitement and provide young people of faith opportunities to stand up for their values and move the campaign forward."

The Brody File said awhile back that the Obama campaign would be making a concerted effort to attrack Evangelicals and Catholics to their campaign.

Yes, the Obama campaign understands that the issue of abortion is a problem for some voters of faith. They respect that and understand if some just simply can't come on board because of that. However, they look at this project as a way of broadening the values discussion. Poverty, Darfur, Climate Change and yes, even the war are issues younger Evangelicals may be able to see eye to eye on with the Obama campaign.

Whatever you think of the "Joshua Generation Project," you have to give the campaign their due because they are making concerted efforts to NOT ignore faith voters. In my reporting, I can tell you this is not a contrived effort.

The folks behind this believe in not only the mission of winning over faith voters to Obama but the larger mission of not ignoring faith voters when it comes to politics.

Obama spoke about the "Joshua Generation" in a speech he gave in Selma, Alabama in March of 2007. It will give you an good idea of where the Obama campaign is heading with this effort....

Barack Obama: The winner

I wonder if Americans have yet fully absorbed what they have just done. This past week - 41 years after the Supreme Court struck down the last bans on interracial marriage and only 40 years after black America exploded in riots after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated - a black man became the favourite to be the next president of the United States.

His convention acceptance speech, a date scheduled long before Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee, will occur by exquisite timing 45 years to the day after King’s “I have a dream” speech. The states that were critical to his nomination were Illinois, Lincoln’s home state, and the four southern states most associated with slavery: South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina.

Much has been made, and rightly so, of how Obama’s rise changes America’s relationship to the rest of the world. What has been less appreciated is how deeply Obama’s victory alters America’s relationship to itself.

There is no deeper division in America than race. Slavery was America’s original sin. Even after its abolition, America was effectively in large swathes an apartheid society until the 1970s. It was race that bloodily tore the country apart a century and a half ago in the civil war, killing nearly 2% of the population (only 0.3% of Americans died in the second world war). It was race that convulsed America in the last deep internal crisis in the 1960s. And last Tuesday night, Obama’s first words were a tribute to his grandmother, a white woman who had effectively raised him.

Obama is not just potentially America’s first black president. He would be America’s first bi-racial president, in many ways a more integrative event. The cynics demand that we cease this kind of historical hyper-ventilation. It is deemed a function of drinking the Obama Kool-Aid, of insufficient scepticism, of Obamania.

But you have to have a heart of stone not to see what this has already done to race relations in America. Finish the reading after the Bounce 2 Times Online

Bipartisanship and Obama

The notion that Barack Obama has no bipartisan achievements in the Congress is untrue and unfair, as Hilzoy has definitively demonstrated. Senators Lugar and Obama witness the process of munitions elimination at the Donetsk State Chemical Product Plant(2006).

She Finally Did It...

The Bush Presidency

Rogers Says the Crude Bull Market Has `Years to Go'

Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, said the increase in the price of crude oil has ``years to go'' as known sources of petroleum are dwindling.

``I know that unless someone discovers a lot of oil, it can go to $150, $200'' a barrel, Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview. ``The facts are the world is running out of known oil reserves.''

Crude oil for July delivery rose $1.62, or 1.3 percent, to $123.92 a barrel at 9:51 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier dropping to $121.61, the lowest since May 15. Futures, which reached a record $135.09 a barrel on May 22, are up 89 percent from a year ago.

Rogers said he bought airline stocks around the world today, saying bankruptcies show the sector may be nearing a bottom. ``Bankruptcies are signs of bottoms, not signs of tops,'' he said

Click Video Here

Mugabe's goons threaten to burn U.S. diplomats alive

Apparently you don't have to be an opposition leader seeking democratic reforms to get arrested in Zimbabwe -- just being a foreign diplomat can be enough. U.S. and British diplomats were seized by Zimbabwean police today while visiting victims of political violence carried out by the government of President Robert Mugabe, whom human rights groups accuse of creating famine and starvation for political purposes.

Here's James D. McGee, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, describing the incident to CNN:

Police put up a roadblock, stopped the vehicles, slashed the tires, reached in and grabbed telephones from my personnel, and the war veterans (Mugabe's supporters) threatened to burn the vehicles with my people inside unless they got out and accompanied police to a station nearby."

McGee added that his embassy felt the orders were "coming directly from the top." Whoever gave the orders, threatening to burn foreign dignitaries alive is a step beyond the usual Mugabe bullying. It's sickening.

Will this be the moment when Thabo Mbeki finally stops covering for the crazy man next door? As the leader of the powerhouse, a country with a long history of friendship and cooperation with Mugabe, the South African president has unique leverage on Harare, but he has, if anything, shielded Mugabe from accountability. It's time for President Bush to pressure Mbeki and other African leaders to handle the mess in their own backyards, and if that doesn't work, take matters to the Security Council. The apologetics need to end now. Courtesy Foreign Policy Passport

For The First Time In Her Adult Life ...

"The United States of America is an extraordinary country. It is a country that has overcome many, many, now years, decades, actually a couple of centuries, of trying to make good on its principles. And I think what we are seeing is an extraordinary expression of the fact that 'We the People' is beginning to mean to all of us," - Condi Rice.

Beginning to mean? Where's Hannity?

Obama @ AIPAC

Barack Obama has strongly backed Israel in his first foreign policy speech since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee -- just two days after he was accused of naivety by Republican challenger John McCain.
Obama said:

"Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

John McCain, speaking at the same gathering Monday, attacked Obama's Middle East policy. In particular he criticized Obama's stated willingness to meet with the leaders of countries like Iran, as well as voting against a measure to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Obama said:

"Contrary to the claims of some, I have no interest in sitting down with our adversaries just for the sake of talking. But as president of the United States, I would be willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing -- if, and only if it can advance the interests of the United States,"

Obama Names Veep Search Team

Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential search team will consist of Caroline Kennedy, former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and Jim Johnson, former CEO of Fannie Mae, according to the AP.

Johnson led the vice presidential searches for both Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984.

Ben Smith: "Notably, none of these figures are particularly close to the Clintons, and the choice of Kennedy in particular -- the scion of a different dynasty -- may help damp down speculation that Clinton is in the running."

The Audacity Of Now

Something has already been done, hasn't it? A reader writes:

Tomorrow I will go to the African American cemetery outside of Chicago where my great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, and my mother and father are buried. And I will tell them that they were right -- that if we studied hard, worked hard, kept the faith, fought for justice, prayed, that this day would come.

And it has.

Courtesy Andrew Sullivan

What would Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. think of this day?

The Democratic nominee for POTUS

Numb What? Very Funny...

What Does Today's Primary Mean?

(Q) Not much, according to this reader:

I'm a Puerto Rican reader and I currently live in PR after living a good chunk of my adult life in the US. I've been following the primaries in the US closely. I studied in the States, have a masters degree. Out of my very highly educated friends, I'm the only one who's paying attention to what's going on in this election year in the US.

You cannot use Puerto Rico as a basis for explaining any phenomenon in the US.

We are a colony. We do not participate in any of the US political processes, really. There isn't a general understanding of US national politics, nor of the "Republican" v. "Democrat" mentality. We are consumed by our local politics and whether we should become a state, an independent country or remain as we are.

Clinton's victory here means nothing. There's a lot of name recognition and her husband is a rock star here. That's it. Don't extrapolate the results into anything. We are not Latinos in the same way that Mexican Americans are Latinos. Our vote has nothing to do with Obama's "problem" with Latinos. Anyone trying to frame the PR vote into anything other than name recognition, has no knowledge of PR at all and is, in short, full of it.

Courtesy Andrew Sullivan

US Underestimating Inflation

On Wednesday, Dow Chemical Chief Executive Andrew Liveris made a high-profile announcement that Dow would increase its prices by as much as 20%, starting June 1. Dow, the top U.S. chemical company, said the plan was necessary to offset the impact of rising costs for energy and related raw materials. Over the past year, Dow has already increased its price by about 12%, but those price changes have been phased in gradually rather than implemented all at once.

In the interview, Liveris said he thinks the U.S. is underestimating the level of inflation in the economy and he expects the rise in energy costs is beginning to destroy demand. Liveris expects the price increases his company made will eventually be passed on to the consumer: Bounce 2 CNBC Video

Map Shows All