by mcjoan [courtesy of Daily Kos]

Still the face of the House GOP, Newt arrives to save the day:

He led Republicans into government shutdowns in the 1990s, and now, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich indicates his party is seriously considering another shutdown threat to force a vote on offshore oil drilling in September....

Gingrich did attract more camera crews, and he used the opportunity to point to what may be the GOP's next strategy: If Democrats refuse to hold a separate vote on oil drilling, Republicans could try to block the votes needed to keep government running past September 30.

Because that worked so well for them the last time they tried it. Of course, this time they've got a seriously unpopular President in office, but this time he's actually, you know, one of them. Except that even the Bush White House is smart enough to know this is a loser of a cause, and has refused to engage in the theatrics by rejecting calling for a special session of Congress over the issue.

But, by all means, Newt & Co. should try it again. Maybe a repeat of past failures will remind the voters of the good old days of stupid Republican stunts and provide just the kickstart they need to widen the 18 point deficit they've got in polling against the Dems.

by kos [courtesy of Daily Kos]

Ahh, when you've served in the Senate 200 years, I guess you get to rewrite the criminal code whenever it suits your interests.

"This is an indictment for failure to disclose gifts that are controversial in terms of whether they were or were not gifts. It's not bribery; it's not some corruption; it's not some extreme felony."

We all thought that felonies were felonies, but apparently that's no longer the case. We now have:

Maybe we can add a few categories:

And yeah, some gifts are controversial. Like when oil company execs add a $250,000 addition to your house, complete with Viking gas grill and other fancy furniture, and top it all off with a shiny brand new Land Rover. Merely "controversial".

That's not corruption or bribery. And it's certainly not an "extreme felony". Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, campaigning for Stevens this week, would certainly classify the charges as "felonies hardly worth worrying yourself over." So would the rest of the GOP Senate caucus. And Joe Lieberman.

But to everyone else interested in good, clean, and ethical government, it really is time for Mark Begich.

On the web:
Mark Begich for Senate
Orange to Blue ActBlue page

by bmaz [courtesy of Firedoglake]

Via the Washington Post, the verdict has been rendered at long last in the Cobell litigation

A federal judge ruled Thursday that American Indian plaintiffs are entitled to $455 million in a long-running trust case, a fraction of the $47 billion they wanted.
...
Robertson's final number is close to government estimates and far from the billions sought by plaintiffs in the 12-year trial. The lawsuit _ filed on behalf of a half-million American Indians and their heirs _ claims they were swindled out of billions of dollars in oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887.
...
At issue was how much of the royalty money was withheld from the Indian plaintiffs over the years, and whether it was held in the U.S. treasury at a benefit to the government.
...
Because many of the records have been lost or destroyed, it has been up to the court to decide how to best estimate how much the individual Indians, many of whom are nearing the end of their lives, should be paid.
...
The government proposed paying $7 billion partly to settle the Cobell lawsuit in March 2007, but that was rejected by the plaintiffs.

In a January decision, Robertson said the Interior Department had "unreasonably delayed" its accounting of the money owed to landholders and that the task was ultimately impossible. He called the June trial to consider whether money was owed, and, if so, how much was owed.

The class-action suit deals with individual Indians' lands and covers about 500,000 Indians and their heirs.

This is a giant, landmark case that has been screwed up and slanted against the Native plaintiffs from the start. The US government has been dishonest, dismissive and disingenuous every inch of the way. In fact, this is so true that the original judge assigned to the case, Royce Lamberth, not necessarily a bleeding heart understand you, not only had the following to say, he literally made it part of a formal interlocutory opinion in the case. Lamberth stated that the United States Government, and it's Department of the Interior was

...a dinosaur -- the morally and culturally oblivious hand-me-down of a disgracefully racist and imperialist government that should have been buried a century ago, the pathetic outpost of the indifference and anglocentrism we thought we had left behind.

For this singular demonstration of honesty and perspective, the Bush Department of Justice had Lamberth removed from the case. For more on the case of Cobell v. Kempthorne, see here and here.

The Native Americans have been screwed once again by the white man. It is disgraceful.

UPDATE: Now would be a good time for those of you not familiar with Cobell to begin to ask yourselves about McCain’s relationship to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and how that relationship fits into the big picture of Cobell.

And then ask yourselves about the connection between Cobell and the demands of the idiot Republicans in Congress who are having a hissy fit about drill, drill, drilling here in the United States.
(These very true words courtesy of Rayne in comments)

by Josh Orton [courtesy of MyDD]

Polls close in just a few minutes at 8PM ET.

Obama put out a statement about the nasty race:

"These incendiary and personal attacks have no place in our politics, and will do nothing to help the good people of Tennessee. It's time to turn the page on a politics driven by negativity and division so that we can come together to lift up our communities and our country."

Predictions? Let's hope this divisive mess will end the right way...

by kos [courtesy of Daily Kos]

Not surprising.

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of Fox News viewers say they are likely to vote for John McCain, while those who watch CNN and MSNBC plan to support Barack Obama in November by more than two to one.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of CNN voters plan to vote for the Democratic candidate versus 26% who intend to go for the Republican. Similarly, MSNBC watchers plan to vote for Obama over McCain 63% to 30%.

Only nine percent of those who watch Fox News say they will vote for Obama.

But we'll have plenty of Democratic concern trolls like Harold Ford, Lanny Davis, Harold Wolfson, and Geraldine Ferraro tell us how important it is for Democrats to go on Fox to reach their "independents".

There is no such thing. Fox News viewers broke for Bush over Kerry in 2004 by a 88-7 margin, so clearly, not much has changed in four years.

Alan Colmes may not like the fact that he's being used as a token liberal in the GOP's official propaganda outlet, but the numbers are quite clear.

Of course, there's one other explanation for the stark numbers -- that Alan Colmes totally sucks at his job. But I don't think that's it. Fox News is what it is, no matter what its token, cover-providing liberals do or say.

by Medea Benjamin [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

La Paz, Bolivia -- On Sunday, Aug. 10, Bolivians will go to the polls to vote on whether or not to recall the president, vice president and the governors of eight of the nation's nine departments. Just two-and-a-half years into the term of President Evo Morales, his government is racked by political crises. This week alone, two miners participating in a protest for higher pensions were killed in clashes with police; a meeting in the Bolivian town of Tarija between the presidents of Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia was canceled when protesters tried to storm the airport; and President Morales will not attend the traditional independence celebration in Sucre on Wednesday, August 6 for fear of anti-government violence.

While the president and vice-president are expected to survive the recall, perhaps even overturning a few opposition governors (seven out of nine governors are in the opposition), the tensions tearing at this divided nation's social fabric will persist.

On one side of this struggle is the impoverished indigenous majority in the western highlands who, along with Bolivia's first indigenous president Evo Morales, are trying to redistribute power and wealth towards poor communities. Pitted against them is a mostly white elite based in the eastern part of the country who want to keep tight control over the nation's wealth and are using their money and control of the media to foment widespread discontent. Sadly, the U.S. government, instead of embracing social transformation in Latin America's poorest nation, is aiding and abetting the opposition.

At the opening meeting of a group called International Intellectuals and Artists for the Unity and Sovereignty of Bolivia on July 26, Bolivian President Evo Morales put the division in simple terms. "Two models of government are on the table," he said. "One is a colonial model where a few families control the nation's resources. The other, which we defend, is based on the nationalization of natural resources for the benefit of everyone."

Morales' government nationalized the nation's most important source of revenue, natural gas and has used the profits for social programs that fight poverty and inequality. These include free school meals and a cash payment to mothers who keep their children in school. Morales has also raised the minimum wage and expanded the number of eligible elderly people receiving pensions from 489,000 to 676,000, providing them with the equivalent of 27 dollars a month. [Nearly 60 percent of elderly people in Bolivia live on less than one dollar a day.] He is also trying to institute a land reform that would take non-productive agricultural land from wealthy landowners and give it to poor, landless families.

Morales has appealed to progressive governments in the region to help with his program of social transformation. Cuba has sent thousands of doctors and teachers to rural areas and is building dozens of hospitals. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Brazilian President Lula da Silva are investing in the expansion of Bolivia's gas industry and helping to construct new highways.

Turn on the radio or the television these days, however, and you'll hear a different story. A barrage of opposition ads encourage people to vote against the President in the upcoming recall. They scare people into thinking that Morales is going to take away their private property, like their homes or their cars, and paint him as a "Chavez-style dictator" who has indebted the country to Venezuela.

"I apologize to the journalists here," Morales said at the scholars' meeting, "but in Bolivia the press is engaged in media terrorism. I know it's not you, the journalists, but the owners of the means of communication. They manipulate the news and the polls; they lie to the public."

He gave a recent example. He had just come from visiting Camiri, a town in the department of Santa Cruz, which is the home of the opposition. A large group of people came out to welcome him and listen to his speech. At the end of the rally he heard some firecrackers and was told that there were a handful of protesters. On his way back to the airport, however, he heard a local radio station say that the people of Camiri had blocked him from coming to the city. "I had to laugh," said Morales, "because there were perhaps 20 young protesters compared to crowds of supporters. But that's how they reported 'the news.'"

The recall vote comes on the heels of a series of referendums organized by these powerful elites in the eastern departments calling for autonomy from the national government. They have been able to mobilize significant sectors of the population, including people who once supported Morales but have been disillusioned by what they perceive as government corruption and incompetence.

While the autonomy referendums passed, they were claimed illegal not only by the President, but by the Bolivian Electoral Court, the Organization of American States, the European Union or other major leaders throughout the region.

The next vote is the Aug. 10 recall vote. If Morales and Vice President Alvaro Garcia lose, they have to hold new elections within 90 to 120 days. If any of the governors lose, Morales gets to select interim governors until the next election.

Polls indicate that the president and vice president will win, thanks in part the government's massive voter registration drive and the fact that many voters who are critical of Morales will back him so as not to strengthen the right-wing opposition.

A win at the polls is crucial, but it is not likely to stop the growing tensions that have polarized the country, created a crisis between national and local legal institutions, dried up private investment and led to increasingly violent clashes between supporters on both sides.

The following are some of the crises the government will still have to contend with:

* If several opposition governors lose, they and their supporters may refuse to accept the results, which could lead to increased violence and make certain departments ungovernable;

* A new constitution that aims to include Bolivia's historically excluded indigenous majority within a "plurinational" state, with greater state control over natural resources, was passed in December 2007 by an assembly that was boycotted by opposition parties. It still awaits approval in a national referendum that is being blocked by the opposition-controlled Senate.

* Even the location of the nation's capital is in dispute. Sucre, which is in the hands of the opposition, is the historic capital of Bolivia, but all the state powers were shifted to La Paz in the wake of the 1899 Federal War between conservatives in the south and liberals around La Paz. Opposition leaders, however, have been complaining about "La Paz centralism" and whipping up local sentiment for Sucre to become the capital. This has led to violent clashes that will likely continue.

* Tensions with the U.S. government have been rising, as more information comes out regarding U.S. support for the opposition. The Morales administration has accused the US Agency for International Development (AID) of working to undermine it. Vice President Alvaro Garcia said the U.S. was trying to develop "ideological and political resistance." In June the Bush administration recalled its ambassador to Bolivia for several weeks following massive protests outside the US embassy, which the U.S. accused Morales of inciting. As Bolivia continues to strengthen its ties with leftist governments in the region and reject free market economic policies, it will face increasing opposition from the U.S. government.

Back at the gathering of Intellectuals and Artists, Frei Betto, a well-loved liberation theologist from Brazil, spoke on behalf of the group when he told Morales, "We've come from all over the continent to show our support because the future of Bolivia affects the future of all of Latin America. We're inspired by your efforts at social transformation and we hope that the August 10 vote takes place in an atmosphere of peace, tolerance and respect for the sovereign will of the Bolivian people."

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of CODEPINK (www.codepinkalert.org) and Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org).

by Arnold Fisher [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

Traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychological impairment... all medical jargon, are perilous threats to our military personnel. Hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women will return from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan with some form of complex psychological health issue. For this reason, the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF) has undertaken the project of raising $70 million to fund the construction of a state-of-the-art facility to treat soldiers with these disorders. Once completed, the IFHF will turn over the facility to the government to operate.

This is the second project of this kind the IFHF has taken on. In January 2007, the IFHF opened a center to treat physical injuries called the Center for the Intrepid at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. It is now the finest military physical rehabilitation center for military amputees in the world, all privately paid for by over 600,000 Americans.

The new center, to be called the National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (NICoE), will be located at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in suburban Washington D.C. The hope is to have enough funds committed to the project for it to be completed next year. It will be a 75,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art treatment and rehabilitation center and a place where scientists from around the world will gather to share their research.

Unfortunately, this is a much tougher project to accomplish because mental and brain injuries are not visible to the untrained eye. Soldiers can be living with problems that no one can see. And, problems such as post traumatic stress disorder can surface years later if left untreated.

It is only recently that we finally understand that many of the homeless living under our nation's bridges suffered from that abnormality. It is only recently that the Rand report identified the fact that up to 300,000 troops have been exposed to some form of TBI and PTSD and that number may actually be much, much higher. And it is only recently that our country has been galvanized to address this national peril. We are no longer embarrassed to talk about mental health for our brave warriors. They deserve the best care and this Center will be the core of that effort.

The centers will not only provide treatment but will also be research facilities. Improvements in screening, diagnosis, and treatment will be fed back out to the military and VA hospitals and the medical facilities in the field. Long-term follow-up care will also be incorporated into the system plan to ensure that, once soldiers separate from the military, they do not separate from whatever continued treatment they need.

The National Intrepid Center of Excellence will send a message to military personnel overseas fighting for the freedom of others. We will always remember the sacrifices made by our brave, young heroes and their families, and we will continue to support our soldiers by providing them with world-class support when they return.

For further information go to www.fallenheroesfund.org.

Arnold Fisher
Honorary Chairman of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund

by The Real News [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

McCain's campaign hides secret of Iraq surge "success." Real News Network analyst, Pepe Escobar looks at the flipping and the flopping of McCain's "surge" message.

Presidential hopeful, John McCain is adamant about his wartime experience. He has steadfastly stuck by President Bush in his selling of the surge in Iraq, and then changed his mind -- hedged his bets, recovered, retracted, insisted.....

This report examines McCain's position in relation to the Iraq war and his interpretation of the surge's "success." Escobar compares McCain's interpretation to the many overlapping political and military facts on the ground in Iraq before and during the surge.

For more stories from The Real News Network, visit TheRealNews.com

by Mark Levine [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

With few exceptions, it's now possible to say that most everybody everywhere is an environmentalist, especially politicians running for higher office. Even the major oil companies and oil rich Gulf state are sponsoring environmental initiatives and research into alternative energy sources.

Of course, we all want to wean the world, and ourselves, off of fossil fuels to the extent possible. If you've had at least $23,000 to buy a new car in the last year, chances are you've seriously considered a hybrid (and chances are also good that if you have two or more young kids, you decided that the only hybrids that get really good mileage -- the Prius and Civic hybrids -- are just too small to function as family cars. Why haven't Toyota and Honda put out hybrid Siennas and Odysseys?!). Perhaps you've even bought a solar system if you have $15,000 to spare and are spending enough on gas and electricity to recoup the investment within 15 years (note to southern California readers: this is the excuse you've been waiting for to buy that hot tub you don't really need).

But for everyone of us who daydreams -- as do I -- about pulling our plug-in Prius into the garage, filling it up with relatively clean Compressed Natural Gas using our home nozzle (if the Pakistani government subsidizes the conversion of cars to CNG, why can't the US?), and recharging the hybrid batteries using the energy produced for free from our home solar panels, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Americans who have barely enough money to pay for heat in their drafty apartments or homes during the winter, or for gas for their beat-up, 2nd or 3rd hand -- and most likely environmentally incorrect -- 12-year-old Fords.

For the majority of working class Americans, barring an unprecedented and highly unlikely (no matter who wins in November) government investment into creating an inexpensive post-petroleum consumer infrastructure, the majority of their fuel, whether for their homes or cars, is going to come from petroleum and their main concern is going to be how to afford the oil and gas they need to live rather than how to spend enough money to purchase more fuel efficient cars, solar systems, and other costly contraptions that while crucial to saving the environment are still far out of reach for too many Americans.

Enter "Music is Our Oil," a recently created collaborative venture, whose two principals, Mikal Kamil and Dan Levin, are music industry pros who have set before themselves the task of galvanizing the entertainment industry and the energy industry into what they are calling the "Great Collaboration".

As Mikal explained it to me, the Great Collaboration "will manifest itself in the form of a worldwide concert tour/film titled "Music is our Oil" (MIO) whose goal will be to barter American entertainment, goods, and commodities for oil. Specifically, we intend to barter the performances of well-known hip-hop and rock artists for 20 million barrels of crude oil produced by OPEC member nations.

The venture didn't start out as such a complex and far-thinking program. Instead, it started in Philadelphia, where Kamil and Levin are based when the two brought in rap heavyweights like Public Enemy and The Roots to help raise money to pay for heating oil for the city's poorer residents.

"We stumbled into this thing, thought of great way to bring immediate relief to people in community by doing a benefit that combined the entertainment and energy industries, two of the most important and far-reaching business sectors in the world today, whose activities touch the lives of nearly everyone."

We were mentored by other festivals like Farm Aid and Citizens' Energy, who introduced us to the idea of bartering, and then, of all companies, Venezuela's national oil company, Citgo, came in and helped tremendously getting oil to poor inhabitants of Philly and other cities. It wasn't until we began producing events for Barack Obama's campaign in Philadelphia that we learned from his skilled team what our responsibilities as Americans were. We are forever grateful to his campaign for awakening our potential and changing our lives."

I will say that my knee-jerk reaction merely to the suggestion of working with ExxonMobil and other major oil companies was extremely negative. But the tens of millions of poor people in this country can't afford to take principled stands when they can obtain the fuel they need at prices that could spell the difference between making it through the next month or seeing their homes foreclosed or cars repossessed.

As Kamil explains, "The idea is to prove naysayers wrong about grass roots activism," by showing how even two industries as seemingly at odds as the environmentally uber-aware music business and the ultra-polluting petroleum industry can work together to address the urgent needs of millions of citizens, then we an also work together to solve the pressing long term problems associated with global warming.

What struck me as someone who works on issues related to oil and the economy is that the project is neither selling out to the major American oil companies nor merely lending them desperately needed credibility, but going more directly to the source in the countries who produce most of the foreign oil purchases by the US, while at the same time creating linkages to pre-existing infrastructures, industries and technologies to have immediate impact.

On the music side, Kamil has already lined up cooperation from The Roots, Public Enemy, Erykah Badu, Stanley Clarke, Stanley Jordan, Everlast and other acts, and is reaching out to others with the hopes of lining up a tour that can generate millions of barrels of oil -- 20 million barrels, in fact. The oil will be the "barter" with which the OPEC and non-OPEC governments in whose countries the artists play will pay for their services (the artists would donate most of their normal fee,. allowing the oil to be given directly to the needy through the use of a new currency called the Mio, which will be based in gallons of gasoline rather than US dollars and giving out gas cards which can be redeemed at most service stations.

If all goes well, the tour will begin in June 09 in Canada and move on to Norway, Russia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and finally Latin America, before ending six weeks later in the USA. There will also be a film documenting the whole tour, tentatively titled "What The Hell Is Going On."

That is certainly an apt description for what in fact is going on when it comes to oil and the various mechanisms surrounding the huge rise in oil prices in the last few years. At the very least, bringing artists on a grass roots endeavor to engage the peoples of countries that are often in tension with the United States (as are many OPEC nations) can increase international goodwill and ease geopolitical tensions at a time when both are needed. And bartering with governments in the Middle East seems to be an eminently more practical approach to dealing with our need for foreign oil than bombing or occupying them. So even if you already drive a Prius or own a solar system, if you see the MIO tour coming your way, do yourself a favor and check it out. The music will be great, message important, and you'll be helping some of your less fortunate neighbors pay for the gas and heat that is becoming an increasing burden for millions of low income and elderly Americans each year.