Will Bush Compromise on Iraq?

Political

Bush urges talks over war funding, warns clock is ticking
Source: Agence France Presse 04/10/2007
FAIRFAX, Virginia, April 10, 2007 (AFP) -

US President George W. Bush on Tuesday invited leading US lawmakers to talks to end a stalemate over funding the unpopular war in Iraq, warning there was no time to lose.

Leading Democrats, while not refusing the invitation outright, said they would reject any talks with preset conditions in the dispute over a war spending bill that includes a schedule for troop pullout from Iraq.

"When it comes to funding our troops, we have no time to waste," Bush said, inviting "leaders from ... both political parties, to meet with me at the White House next week."

"I know we have our differences over the best course. These differences should not prevent us from getting our troops the funding they need," he said during a visit to war veterans in Fairfax, Virginia, close to Washington.

Democrats, who control both houses of Congress, are trying to end the war in Iraq by tying military funding to a withdrawal of US troops in 2008.

The House and Senate, which have both passed bills with different deadlines, must iron out the differences between their bills and send one to the president for his signature to become law.
With Iraq this week marking the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would reject any talks with preset conditions.

"The president is inviting us to the White House with preconditions. It's not the way we should operate. He must deal with Congress, we are an independent branch of government," Reid said.

The White House was careful to make clear that the invitation did not signal any readiness to compromise, and Bush repeated his vow to veto any legislation that ties release of war spending funds to a timetable for troop withdrawal.

"We can discuss the way forward on a bill that is a clean bill, a bill that funds our troops, without an artificial timetable for withdrawal and without handcuffing our generals on the ground," Bush said.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino stressed that the president's invitation was "not a meeting in order to compromise."

"This is a meeting to discuss the way forward. Because the Democrats have to admit that they don't have the votes to override the president's veto. And at the same time they say that they want to fund the troops," she added.

"Maybe they need to hear again from the president about ... why he thinks that it is foolish to set arbitrary timetables for withdrawal."

In a joint statement Reid issued with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, they said "any discussion of an issue as critical as Iraq must be accomplished by conducting serious negotiations without any preconditions.

"The president is demanding we renew his blank check for war without end ... we renew our request to work with him to produce a bipartisan bill that provides our troops and our veterans with every penny they need, but in turn, demands accountability."

Perino called the Democrats' statement "a knee-jerk reaction that's unfortunate."
Bush has called on a skeptical public to give his new "surge" strategy time to work, saying the commanders on the ground in Iraq were already seeing "encouraging signs" that an extra 25,000 troops being deployed in the country were helping to secure Baghdad.

"The Democrats who pass these bills know that I'll veto them, and they know that this veto will be sustained. Yet they continue to pursue the legislation. And as they do, the clock is ticking for our troops in the field," Bush warned.

He said the military would soon notify Congress, which holds the power of the purse, that the army would need to transfer 1.6 billion dollars from other military accounts to cover the shortfall.

This was on top of 1.7 billion dollars already transferred in March, the president said.
If by May no bill on funding the war has been passed into law, the army could have to slow or freeze funding for depots where equipment is repaired and mull a delay to military training programs, Bush said.

"These actions are only the beginning. And the longer Congress delays, the worse the impact on the men and women of the armed forces will be," Bush said.

Obama's Hilary Youtube video

Barrack Obama's campaign produced a negative video opposing Hilary Clinton on youtube. If this is the "hopeful" tone his campaign expects to take along with his zero results as a Senator then I'd advise Mr. Obama today to drop out of the race for president.

Snoop Dogg Says: ''F*ck Bill O'Reilly!'' TBOHipHop.net

Bill O'Reilly definately is a prick. Snoop Dog has a Constitutional right to own a gun.

Bill O'Reilly spends all this time critizing others while he is a sexual harraser. O'Reilly needs another job.

U.N. Climate Report on Global Warming

"There is a 90% of certainity behing global warming. " This finding was not produced by a meeting of tree huggers but it was reached through international consensus, including the United States.

After five days of debate and an all-night, down-to-the-wire battle, scientists and government officials from around the world agreed Friday to a new report outlining the effects of global warming on the planet.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations scientific group, released its findings Friday in Brussels, Belgium. Although haggling over the fine print diluted some of the original language, the final report is stark in its depiction of what's in store for the planet: flooding, droughts, extinctions of plants and animals, and high costs for everyone.

This is the fourth report from the U.N. climate panel in 17 years, and it has proved to be one of the hardest-hitting ones. The first chapter came out in February after tough negotiations. It said that scientists are more than 90 percent sure that humans are warming the planet.

In the latest report, the panel addressed the impacts of global warming, and what their assessment turned up is troubling: Many coastal communities will flood. Severe droughts will damage crops, and there will be stronger storms, hurricanes and heat waves. Many coral reefs will die, and many of the world's plants and animals will be at higher risk of extinction.

But scientists who wrote the report wanted to say they had "very high confidence" in their findings. That means they think they have a nine out of 10 chance of being right. That started a fight, according to Patricia Romero Lankao, one of the scientific authors, who works at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

"Some countries, like China and Saudi Arabia, didn't want to accept our statement that it was very likely that global warming was causing those impacts on physical and biological systems," Lankao said.

China is expected to pass the United States as the leading emitter of greenhouse gases that warm the planet. Saudi Arabia owns the largest reserves of oil. Officials representing China and Saudi Arabia won that fight, striking the word "very" and reducing certainty to eight out of 10.

Lankao says European scientists also wanted to stress how seriously the economies of poor nations in particular would be damaged, and how little they actually contributed to warming compared to industrialized countries. Lankao says the U.S. delegation sought to tone down that language.
Despite the compromises, the final document makes it clear that big impacts are on the way, and that the world is already changing.

"Examples are earlier melting of lake ice in the Great Lakes and later freezing; plants, flowers blooming sooner; the migratory patterns of birds changing — mostly distinctly through the second half of the 20th century," says climate scientist Linda Mearns, also from the atmospheric center in Colorado, who contributed to the study.

Friday's report moves the climate debate into new territory, she added.
"The real heart of the climate change issue is now shifting more from the climate science, the physical science, and more into the impacts, and then also issues of mitigation, about how we reduce greenhouse gases," she said.

The IPCC report isn't all dire news. Some temperate regions, such as North America, will see longer growing seasons for crops, for example. But effects will differ regionally. In a study published this week in the journal Science, climate researcher Richard Seager at Columbia University says the southwestern United States could see the kind of long-term drought that caused the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

"The overall pattern, if you were going to distill it down to something very simple, is that the drier regions get drier and the wet regions get wetter," Seager said.
Many of the hardest-hit regions are where the poor live — in Africa and in many other parts of the tropics. But climate scientist Mearns says wealthy countries such as the United States shouldn't think they'll escape.

"Poor populations within a country will probably suffer more," Mearns said. "And of course, one can take the example of Katrina — and the people who suffered most there were the poorer residents."
There's more to come from the U.N. panel. They'll report in May on what kinds of things can be done to lessen the impacts of climate change.

NPR Reports: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9433825

Commentary: The G.W. Bush administration asserts that technology will solve problems with climate change. Such a policy is baseless with no sincere intention to address the issue. At the end of 8 years of Republican governance the United States has produced nor promoted any significant technology to combat glaobal warming. Policy must be change now, it is possible for government and business to lead such a change in far less than 8 years.

Wherever I Go - Ron Winans

Happy Easter America.

What’s up in Dubai

American business is far to concerned with setting up shop in Dubai (Middle East).

First they were involved in a political matter of controlling a U.S port . , then Halliburton moved its headquarters there and now GE is boasting of its investments in Dubai.

Call me a protectionist but I will be the first to say that globalization and outsourcing are robbing Americans of high paying jobs.

India clearing economic zones

Political


India to restart clearing economic zones
Source: Agence France Presse
04/05/2007


"NEW DELHI, April 5, 2007 (AFP) -

India lifted a freeze on scores of economic zones on Thursday imposed following deadly protests, but promised there would be no forcible acquisition of land for the enclaves.

The government suspended land clearances for special economic zones (SEZs) last month following clashes between protesting farmers and the police who were sent to clear land for a petrochemical hub in the Marxist ruled eastern West Bengal state.

Fourteen people were killed when police opened fire in Nandigram, a village 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of West Bengal state capital Kolkata.

"We are not stopping any (SEZ) process," Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said.

But following the protests at Nandigram and other proposed SEZ sites, Nath told reporters "no state can compulsorily acquire land from farmers" and said the onus had now shifted onto the developers.

Instead of the government acquiring land, promoters would have to approach landowners and acquire property at commercial rates.

The government said permission would be now be given for 83 SEZs and India's Board of Approvals will consider 162 SEZs which already have initial approval, along with 140 new applications.

Approval would be given to applications where there was no land dispute, the government said. 63 SEZs have already received final clearance.

The SEZ scheme to give foreign firms Chinese-style tax-free enclaves to push industrialisation has met with massive protests from landowners.

Nath also announced a cap of 5,000 hectares (12,350 acres) for SEZs.

The farmers' protests have sparked a debate over whether farmland should be used for industry in India, where some two-thirds of the billion-plus population live off agriculture.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said last month that his government would not reverse plans to create SEZs although the federal government has promised to come up with a compensation package for displaced villagers.

In eastern Orissa state which borders West Bengal, 13 protesters died last January when authorities forcibly tried to clear land of tribal people.

Industry lobbies hailed the government's move, but the communists criticised it.

The Confederation of Indian Industry said it hoped it would "end the ambiguity about the future of SEZs."

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said the decision "will clear uncertainties and give a clear signal that SEZs are here to stay."

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry president Venugopal N Dhoot said clearing the SEZ proposals "will accelerate economic activities for increased production and exports."

But India's Communist Party of India -- lending crucial support to the Congress-led government in New Delhi and partners of the Marxist administration in West Bengal -- slammed the decision.

"How can the empowered group of ministers take a decision in such an ad hoc manner" when a parliamentary committee is still debating the SEZ policy, a report quoted Communist Party of India's national secretary D Raja as saying.

"We do not think that this sort of ad hoc decision ... will help in any way," Raja said. "

Bush vs Reid on Iraq

While President G.W. Bush threatens a veto of legislation containing timetables for withdrawing soldiers out of Iraq, the Democratic Leader Senator Harry Reid finds his balls. His response to the President is a threat to completely cut off funding for the Iraq War. This is truly good politics. Much better than the corrupt rubber stamp Congress of old. I believe the Democrats are finally finding some back bone. "Give 'em Hell Harry"!

Political

Bush to push back at Democrats over Iraq deadline
Source: Agence France Presse 04/03/2007
WASHINGTON, April 3, 2007 (AFP) -

President George W. Bush is expected to remain defiant Tuesday one day after Democrats hardened their position on linking Iraq war funding to a troop pullout deadline.

Bush is scheduled to make a statement on the over-100 billion dollar Iraq and Afghanistan war budget legislation at around 10:10 am (1410 GMT) after weeks of demanding the funding without the Democrat's added requirement for a timetable to end the US presence in Iraq.

For weeks Bush has threatened to veto the legislation which has passed the House of Representatives and the Senate in two versions, and now awaits reconciliation into one bill before being forwarded to Bush.

On Monday Senate Democrats raised the stakes in the bitter fight themselves, unveiling a new bid to cut off nearly all funding for the Iraq war after March 31, 2008 if Bush vetoes the bill they plan to submit to the White House.

Co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Russ Feingold, the new Democrat measure would cut funding for most Iraq war operations after March 31, 2008, the date already set as a goal for withdrawal of most combat troops in the 122 billion war budget bill passed by the Senate.

It would permit funding only for operations against Al-Qaeda, training and equipping Iraqi troops and protecting US personnel and installations.

"If the president vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period," Reid said.

Feingold said in an email message to supporters that the bill would use "Congress's constitutional 'power of the purse' authority to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008."
"Our bill funds the troops, it just de-funds the war," he said.

The legislation, to be officially unveiled on April 10 when the Senate returns from its Easter break, would almost certainly face a veto by Bush.

But it is a high-stakes poker game: Democrats lack majorities required to overcome a Bush veto, and they are depending on widespread fatigue over the war to keep the public on their side.
But the White House is playing strongly to the public as well, declaring that Congress was going to deny US soldiers adequate funding to do their jobs, and meanwhile give the enemy a timetable to take over.

Vice President Dick Cheney warned Monday the United States faced defeat in Iraq if Democrats succeed in imposing withdrawal.

It's time the self-appointed strategists on Capitol Hill understood a very simple concept: You cannot win a war if you tell the enemy you're going to quit," Cheney said in prepared remarks.
"When members of Congress speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines, or other arbitrary measures, they're telling the enemy to simply watch the clock and wait us out," he charged.
"It's time for Congress to stop the political theater and send the president a bill he can sign into law."
But Democrats said it was necessary if Bush fails to bow to the public will.

"We'll fund the war in three month increments. We're going to keep you on a tighter string," said Senator Barack Obama.

Reid's spokesman Jim Manley said the public no longer supported the war.
"As more and more Americans demand to see the troops get out of what is clearly a civil war, this administration stubbornly continues to stick its head in the sand," Manley said.
Democratic and Senate negotiators are spending the current recess in Congress reconciling the House and Senate versions of the budget bill that can be sent to Bush's desk.

The House version of the war budget contains a withdrawal deadline of August 31, 2008.

Feature:Bush aide says faith was misplaced

I believe this article to be significant insight and persuading information in support of those of us who are so firmly opposed to the policies and presidency of G.W. Bush. These statements are from Matthew Dowd, a former lead participant in putting Bush into the White House. It seems that Dowd needed “spring cleaning for his soul”.

Matthew Dowd slams president's actions, isolationism
Jim Rutenberg, New York Times
Sunday, April 1, 2007

(04-01) 04:00 PDT Austin, Texas -- In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush's early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.

A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Bush's political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president's chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Dowd now says his faith in Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview in Austin, Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Bush's leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Bush still approached governing with a "my way or the highway" mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.
"I really like him, which is probably why I'm so disappointed in things," he said. "I think he's become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in."

In speaking out, Dowd became the first member of Bush's inner circle to break so publicly with him.
He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Bush's presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Bush gain and keep power.

Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Sen. John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled "Kerry Was Right," arguing that Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

"I'm a big believer that in part what we're called to do -- to me, by God; other people call it karma -- is to restore balance when things didn't turn out the way they should have," Dowd said. "Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election."

Dowd's journey from true believer to critic in some ways tracks the public arc of Bush's political fortunes. But it is also an intensely personal story of a political operative who at times, by his account, suppressed his doubts about his professional role but then confronted them as he dealt with loss and sorrow in his own life.

In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Dowd's prematurely born twin daughters died; he and his second wife divorced; and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests to which anti-Bush fervor is so central.

Dowd, 45, said he hoped in part that by coming forward he would be able to get a message through to a presidential inner sanctum that he views as increasingly isolated. But, he said, he holds out no great hope that he will succeed.

Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said Dowd's criticism is reflective of the national debate over the war. "It's an issue that divides people," Bartlett said. "Even people that supported the president aren't immune from having their own feelings and emotions."

He said he disagreed with Dowd's description of the president as isolated and with his position on withdrawal. He said Dowd, a friend, has "sometimes expressed these sentiments" in private conversation, though "not in such detail."

Dowd said he decided to become a Republican in 1999 and joined Bush after watching him work closely with Bob Bullock, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas, who was a political client of Dowd's.

"It's almost like you fall in love," he said. "I was frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides. And this guy's personality -- he cared about education and taking a different stand on immigration."

Dowd established himself as an expert at interpreting polls, giving Karl Rove, the president's closest political adviser, and the rest of the Bush team guidance as they set out to woo voters, slash opponents and exploit divisions between Democratic-leaning states and Republican-leaning ones.

He said he thought Bush handled the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks well but "missed a real opportunity to call the country to a shared sense of sacrifice." He was dumbfounded when Bush did not fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after revelations that American soldiers had tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Several associates said Dowd chafed under Rove's leadership. Dowd said he had not spoken to Rove in months but would not discuss their relationship in detail.

Dowd said, in retrospect, he was in denial. "When you fall in love like that," he said, "and then you notice some things that don't exactly go the way you thought, what do you do? Like in a relationship, you say, 'No, no, no, it'll be different.' "

He said he clung to the hope that Bush would get back to his Texas style of governing if he won re-election. But he saw no change after the 2004 victory. He describes the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina, and the president's refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war protester whose son died fighting in Iraq, as Bush entertained the bicyclist Lance Armstrong at his ranch in Crawford as further cause for doubt.

"I had finally come to the conclusion that maybe all these things along do add up," he said. "That it's not the same, it's not the person I thought."

He said that during his work on the 2006 re-election campaign of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, which had a bipartisan appeal, he began to rethink his approach to elections.
"I think we should design campaigns that appeal not to 51 percent of the people," he said, "but bring the country together as a whole."

He said that he still believed campaigns must do what it takes to win, but that he was never comfortable with the most hard-charging tactics. He is now calling for "gentleness" in politics. He said that while he tried to keep his own conduct respectful during political combat, he wanted to "do my part in fixing fissures that I may have been part of."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/01/MNGKDOVOSA1.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 10 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Edwards's Campaign Leads In Social Networking Sites

Political

Grass Roots Planted In Cyberspace; John Edwards's Campaign Leads the Field In Political Use of Social Networking Sites
Source: The Washington Post 03/30/2007

If there's a social networking site that John Edwards is not a part of, we'd like to know what it is, pronto.

No one's sure exactly what role these sites -- a.k.a. socnets -- will play in the upcoming election. But whatever it is, Edwards isn't taking any chances. The man's flooding the zone. He's on the big ones: Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, et al., where supporters and well-wishers are sending their best to his wife, Elizabeth. Writes a fan on MySpace this week: "Washington State sends you love and health. Lots of love to you and Elizabeth. Stay strong!!!" Edwards is also on some of the newest, somewhat obscure, mostly unheard of URLs. Blip.tv, anyone? He's there. 43Things.com? There, too.

In fact, the former senator is signed up in at least 23 socnets -- more than any other presidential candidate. And that's not counting John Edwards One Corps, his own networking site that campaign officials say has 20,000 members and 1,200 chapters across the country.

On Wednesday night, One Corps held its first National House Party Day, with at least six gatherings in the Washington area. Holly Shulman threw a soiree in her cramped Northwest studio for eight friends and co-workers. "I'm on Facebook, I'm on MySpace, I'm on OneCorps," says the 24-year-old. "And Edwards is reaching out to all three groups."

All the presidential hopefuls are online. Everyone's got a Web site. A few hired full-time bloggers and videographers. Most have MySpace profiles, just a click away from "friending" a supporter. Yet Edwards has taken his Internet presence a step further, fully exploiting the unknown possibilities (and known pitfalls) of the social Web, online strategists say. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), judging by the number of friends on MySpace or number of views of his YouTube videos, may be the most popular online candidate, Republican or Democrat. But Edwards arguably has the most dynamic Web presence -- he's everywhere, doing everything.
Mathew Gross, Edwards's chief Internet adviser, says: "We're just all over the Net."
A good thing, a bad thing, who knows?

"I call it 'the throwing-spaghetti-on-the-wall' strategy. Try what you can. See what sticks," says David All, who runs the David All Group, an online consulting firm that works with Republicans. (All was communications director for Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga.). "He's leading the pack in this regard, and I think it's a smart move," All says of Edwards.

Adds Ruby Sinreich, an online consultant who works with nonprofits and writes the progressive blog OrangePolitics.com, "What you have to remember is that signing up for these social networking sites is free, and it shows that he's open to new ideas and open to the openness of the Internet. Look, voters are swayed by the people they know. That's not new. That's not about technology. But what we have now is a new technology that is all about building relationships."

Still, what's left unproven is how these online relationships translate to winning elections. Valdis Krebs, a social network analyst for 20 years and based in Cleveland, has closely followed how politicians are using the Web. He points to the lesson to be learned from Howard Dean, the first Internet candidate.

"Dean was good on technology, but he wasn't good at sociology. Take what happened in Iowa. Instead of capitalizing on the social networks that are already in Iowa, he brought in volunteers that he recruited on the Internet. The result: It was strangers talking to strangers," Krebs says. "So Edwards has to be mindful that being ubiquitous and staying connected online is one thing. It's quite another to mix the online and offline activism.

"But I do have to hand it to him. He's doing the most online."
Elizabeth Edwards is largely responsible for this. When their teenage son, Wade, died in 1996, Elizabeth Edwards turned to online support groups. A couple of years ago, staffers say she was the one who turned to her husband's team and asked, "What do you know about podcasting?"
"A lot of people are involved in some sort of online networking community, and going to Flickr, to wherever, is just like going to union halls and county fairs," says Gross, who launched Dean's campaign blog four years ago. "Not everyone is on the same group -- some are Facebook people, some are MySpace people -- and we have to go where the people are. And joining all these groups is really very much like retail politics circa 2007."

And as Gross is figuring out, online retail politics is also a lot of work.
A campaign staff member is assigned to maintain Edwards's presence on the socnets. Gross pitches in, too. And though the former senator's Facebook and Flickr profiles are regularly updated, some accounts -- on lesser-known sites such as essembly, a nonpartisan, political socnet, and TagWorld, a flashier, much smaller MySpace -- remain stagnant. Essembly has about 17,000 registered users, and TagWorld about 2 million.

It's the usual quantity vs. quality argument, Gross knows, and he says the challenge in all these sites is to "keep people engaged."
For the next 19 months. "