#OWS Update:
Occupy Protesters Interrupt Ron Paul During Campaign Event: "Why Do You Hate Gays?" Via Alternet.org, December 29, 2011
Yesterday we reported that Occupy protesters were making their way to Iowa to hold a "People's Caucus," interrupt candidates, and camp out at campaign offices. And last night Ron Paul got his first taste of that plan.
Update "Drone Wars"
Under Obama, a Deadly Drone Network Grows by Greg Miller Washington Post via CommonDreams, December 28, 2011
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..Other commanders in chief have presided over wars with far higher casualty counts. But no president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals.Update Iraq:
The rapid expansion of the drone program has blurred long-standing boundaries between the CIA and the military. Lethal operations are increasingly assembled a la carte, piecing together personnel and equipment in ways that allow the White House to toggle between separate legal authorities that govern the use of lethal force.
In Yemen, for instance, the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command pursue the same adversary with nearly identical aircraft. But they alternate taking the lead on strikes to exploit their separate authorities, and they maintain separate kill lists that overlap but don’t match. CIA and military strikes this fall killed three U.S. citizens, two of whom were suspected al-Qaeda operatives.
The convergence of military and intelligence resources has created blind spots in congressional oversight. Intelligence committees are briefed on CIA operations, and JSOC reports to armed services panels. As a result, no committee has a complete, unobstructed view.
...Nevertheless, for a president who campaigned against the alleged counterterrorism excesses of his predecessor, Obama has emphatically embraced the post-Sept. 11 era’s signature counterterrorism tool.
When Obama was sworn into office in 2009, the nation’s clandestine drone war was confined to a single country, Pakistan, where 44 strikes over five years had left about 400 people dead, according to the New America Foundation. The number of strikes has since soared to nearly 240, and the number of those killed, according to conservative estimates, has more than quadrupled.
The number of strikes in Pakistan has declined this year, partly because the CIA has occasionally suspended them to ease tensions at moments of crisis. One lull followed the arrest of an American agency contractor who killed two Pakistani men; another came after the U.S. commando raid that killed bin Laden. The CIA’s most recent period of restraint followed U.S. military airstrikes last month that inadvertently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border. At the same time, U.S. officials have said that the number of “high-value” al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan has dwindled to two.
...Nevertheless, for a president who campaigned against the alleged counterterrorism excesses of his predecessor, Obama has emphatically embraced the post-Sept. 11 era’s signature counterterrorism tool.
...When Obama was sworn into office in 2009, the nation’s clandestine drone war was confined to a single country, Pakistan, where 44 strikes over five years had left about 400 people dead, according to the New America Foundation. The number of strikes has since soared to nearly 240, and the number of those killed, according to conservative estimates, has more than quadrupled.
The number of strikes in Pakistan has declined this year, partly because the CIA has occasionally suspended them to ease tensions at moments of crisis. One lull followed the arrest of an American agency contractor who killed two Pakistani men; another came after the U.S. commando raid that killed bin Laden. The CIA’s most recent period of restraint followed U.S. military airstrikes last month that inadvertently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border. At the same time, U.S. officials have said that the number of “high-value” al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan has dwindled to two.
Nouri al-Maliki: A Shia Saddam?
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister accuses Nouri al-Maliki of acting like "a dictator" amid fears of "chaos and civil war".by Dahr Jamail Al Jazeera , via CommonDreams.org, December 28, 2011
A bit of Irony as Russia slams the U.S. for its human rights record.
Russia Scolds United States for Human Rights Abuse by reuters via CommonDreams, December 28, 2011
MOSCOW - Russia sought to undermine the authority of the United States as a global judge of human rights on Wednesday with Moscow's first report to detail allegations of torture, phone tapping and abuse by the U.S. government.
Criticising the United States for double standards, Russia said President Barack Obama had failed to shut the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and accused the White House of sheltering officials and CIA operatives from prosecution.
The Foreign Ministry's report "On the situation with human rights in a host of world states," follows China's example in highlighting U.S. failings in an attempt to counter U.S. State Department criticism of domestic human rights abuses.
"The situation in the United States is far from the ideals proclaimed by Washington," Russia's foreign ministry said in a 63-page report posted on its www.mid.ru Web site. "The main unresolved problem is the odious prison in Guantanamo Bay."
"The White House and the Justice Department shelter from prosecution CIA operatives and highly placed officials who are responsible for mass and flagrant breaches of human rights," it said.
Update Republican Presidential Candidates race:
Glenn Greenwald argues that because Obama and Democrats have become so conservative that Republican candidates must show they are more conservative than Obama
Glenn Greenwald: The Real Reason the GOP Primary Is a Pathetic, Incompetent Clown Show via Alternet.org, December 27, 2011
Because Barack Obama has adopted so many core Republican beliefs -- particularly in the realm of foreign policy -- the Republican race is a shambles.
American presidential elections are increasingly indistinguishable from the reality TV competitions drowning the nation's airwaves. Both are vapid, personality-driven and painfully protracted affairs, with the winners crowned by virtue of their ability to appear slightly more tolerable than the cast of annoying rejects whom the public eliminates one by one. When, earlier this year, America's tawdriest (and one of its most-watched) reality TV show hosts, Donald Trump, inserted himself into the campaign circus as a threatened contestant, he fitted right in, immediately catapulting to the top of audience polls before announcing he would not join the show.
also see: How the GOP Tries to Transform America into a Selfish, Souless Place :In the spirit of their self-centered mentor Ayn Rand, Republicans are trying to disfigure America so she resembles Pottersville, the 'bankers town' in "It's a Wonderful Life." by Leo Gerard via Alternet, december 27, 2011
Ron Paul's racism raised as an issue in his bid for GOP Presidential candidate.
Don’t Ask Ron Paul About His Racist Newsletter
By Jonathan Chait New York magazine.com, December 22, 2011
The issue of Ron Paul’s racist newsletters is finally getting some national attention. Yesterday, CNN asked Paul about it — actually just pleaded with him to acknowledge that the question is legitimate — and Paul walked out of the interview.
...Okay, what about the context? There’s his love-in with the John Birch Society. There’s his fierce opposition, even 40 years later, to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And his long, deep intellectual and political ties with neo-Confederates.
So, yes, maybe Paul didn’t personally write any of the many racist passages in his newsletter. And maybe he personally likes black people and wants them to be free. Many segregationists genuinely loved black people, too. It’s not some crazy coincidence that the people Ron Paul hired to write the newsletter propagating his worldview are huge racists.
And Joan Walsh at Salon.com weighs in on Ron Paul's racism .
Ron Paul’s disqualifying racial ignorance
GOP pols and pundits now attack the surging libertarian's racist newsletters, but what took them so long? by Joan Walsh,Salon.com, December 28,2011
The sudden attention to Paul’s ugly newsletters, especially on the right, is a little suspicious, since they aren’t news; their racism and anti-Semitism were exposed in 2008, and even earlier.
In January 2008 the New Republic ran the most thorough exposé of the hateful opinions published under Paul’s name – that the Los Angeles riots stopped only “when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks,” that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “seduced underage girls and boys” and the national holiday to honor him was “Hate Whitey Day,” plus various screeds blaming crime on African-Americans – and Reason revealed that Paul mined far-right groups like Holocaust denier Willis Carto’s Liberty Lobby to build his mailing list. But the newsletter controversy, along with Paul’s hateful friends, drew the attention and wrath of mainstream conservative opinion leaders only when Paul began to surge in the polls.
Why Some Right-Wing Christians Love Ron Paul (And Why Liberals Really Shouldn't) via Hullabaloo/Digby Alternet.org,December 28, 2011
Ron Paul is lining up Christian conservative support, one more sign that many progressives give Paul way too much credit.
... Paul's state chair in Iowa is a member of the Christian Right and an extreme one at that) and he's been lining up social conservative support. One of the Pastors endorsing Paul is the Reverend Phillip Kayser who explains his reasons for supporting him to TPM:
Reached by phone, Kayser confirmed to TPM that he believed in reinstating BIblical punishments for homosexuals — including the death penalty — even if he didn’t see much hope for it happening anytime soon. While he said he and Paul disagree on gay rights, noting that Paul recently voted for repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, he supported the campaign because he believed Paul’s federalist take on the Constitution would allow states more latitude to implement fundamentalist law. Especially since Kayser believes that there is no separation of Church and State under his own interpretation of the Constitution.
(Ron) Paul enjoying view from top of polls Gets spotlight as caucuses near by Stephen Dinan via Washington Times December 28, 2011
NEWTON, Iowa — Ron Paul is no longer being ignored.
Returning to campaign in Iowa on Wednesday as the king of the presidential hill — albeit barely, according to the latest average of polls here — the 12-term congressman from Texas was greeted with a swarm of press coverage and a hail of attacks from his fellow candidates.
“It does look like there are more cameras than there used to be,” he chuckled as he made his first stop in Newton, surveying a standing-room-only crowd of a couple of hundred voters who packed into the Iowa Speedway media tent to hear him speak.
And Bachmann campaign faultering as her Iowa chief kent Sorensen jumps ship and Bachmann accuses him of being paid off by her opponent Ron Paul.
Bachmann’s Iowa Chair Jumps Ship to Join Ron Paul [Updated] By Brett Smiley, New York Magazine.com, December 28, 2011
Kent Sorenson, Bachmann's Iowa chief and formerly Bachmann's state campaign chair, has defected to Ron Paul's campaign only six days before the Iowa caucuses. Ouch. "I'm at their service the next five days," said Sorensen, who felt compelled to abruptly leave for Paul, explaining that Paul is the best hope to defeat "establishment Republicans" Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, and later, Barack Obama.
...The defection has left Bachmann livid. In a statement, she leveled accusations at both the Paul campaign and her former trusted adviser. “Ron Paul is in trouble in Iowa and his campaign is worried about people learning about his dangerous stance on foreign policy and how he will make America less safe."
As for Sorenson, she accuses him of being paid off by her opponent:
"Kent Sorenson personally told me he was offered a large sum of money to go to work for the Paul campaign. Kent campaigned with us earlier this afternoon and went immediately afterward to a Ron Paul event and announced he is changing teams. Kent said to me yesterday that 'everyone sells out in Iowa, why shouldn't I,' then he told me he would stay with our campaign. The Ron Paul campaign has to answer for its actions.”
But Kent Sorenson denies such a charge and argues he is swithing sides because he believes Ron Paul has a better chance of defeating the GOP establishment candidates:
...As for conservatives who are rightly concerned with defeating establishment Republicans Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and – even more importantly – Barack Obama in 2012, Ron Paul has established himself as the clear choice.As for Newt Gingrich he may have been in the lead but now appears to be losing that lead and possibly becoming irrelevant as summed up in the article below.
If you are as frustrated as I am with what’s been done by the ruling class, I urge you to join me in supporting Dr. Paul. We can send the national big government political establishment a message they will never forget by voting for Ron Paul for President in the January 3 Iowa Caucuses.
Out, Damn Newt: 5 Reasons Why Gingrich is Headed for Footnote Status by John Nichols The madison Capital Times via CommonDreams.org, December 27, 2011
1. GINGRICH REACHED HIS SELL-BY DATE IN 1996
2. GINGRICH IS A QUITTER
3. GINGRICH HAS HISTORY AS A "ROCKEFELLER REPUBLICAN" (Too Liberal)
4. GINGRICH KEEPS GOING GREEN ON US
5. GINGRICH CAME UP WITH THE LAMEST EXCUSE (Patriotism) EVER FOR CHEATING ON HIS WIVES (alienating the evangelical voters)
and so it goes,
GORD.
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