Chocola gets TV stations to yank ads against him

Click & bookmark for future reference.

Poll: Donnelly Ahead in tight race in 2nd congressional district--South Bend Tribune

Click here for full article. It's about 10 days old but I found it on another site. I think Joe is looking good right now but we must keep our nose to the grindstone. A little over a month from an election is like an eternity in politics. Much can happen. However, right now, if yard signs could determine the vote, Donnelly would be winnign in a landslide. If that's what it takes to get name recognition, it's what we've got to do.

I also heard on the radio this morning that Joe Donnelly was endorsed by the Democrat Pro-Life group. I bet many of the one-issue voters never realized he was a pro-life candidate. I remember campaigning in '04 for Donnelly and I knocked on the door of this one home in my precinct to canvass for Donnelly. The occupants didn't want to hear anything from me because I was Democrat. They were obviously staunch religious right-wing Republicans. I saw allusions to this by the stickers in their window and their bumper stickers on their car. The next week they had Chocola signs in their front yard. Little did they know they were supporting the opponent of a pro-life candidate. I tried to tell them!

More Signs of Dissent from the Military

What started out as a few retired Generals publicly criticizing the preparation leading up to the war has now spread inside the Pentagon. Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, who has in the past weeks made pointed criticisms, has refused to submit the Army's 2008 budget. After Secretary Rumsfeld limited the Army's budget to $114 billion Schoomaker responded:

On Aug. 23, at a speech before the National Press Club, Schoomaker publicly threw down the gauntlet: "There is no sense in us submitting a budget that we cannot execute … a broken budget."

The problems with Rumsfeld's budget cap?

A month earlier, Government Executive reported that Schoomaker had told a group of congressional staffers about grave backlogs at the Army's repair depots. Nearly 1,500 Humvees, M2 Bradley fighting vehicles, and other vehicles were awaiting repair at the Red River Army Depot in Texas. The same was true of 500 M1 tanks at the Anniston depot in Alabama. None of the Army's five largest depots was operating at more than 50 percent capacity—all because of a shortage of money.

The cost to repair the Army's equipment damaged in Afghanistan and Iraq is in excess of $17 billion. Due to the budget shortfalls the Army's 3rd ID, the group that so successfully charged to Baghdad currently faces a situation where half of it's brigades have no armored vehicles and only half it's troops.

The war in Iraq has taken a toll on this country, the loss of over 2500 young men and women, thousands more wounded. This war has become a recruiting poster for Al Qaeda, failed to find any of the WMDs that Iraq once had, and further destabilized the region. Now we are finding that it is eroding the military, leaving us with an Army that is increasingly struggling to meet it's duties, and leaving America less safe then it was before.

Does anybody really want to argue that the GOP is the party of national security?

Lesson in Honor from the Military

Somewhere along the line the people who run this country failed to learn some valuable lessons about honor and integrity. What is stupefying about that is for all of the "reverence" they have for the military, they've never seemed to absorb any of the morals to the stories they love to tell. The fact that so many retired officers have spoken out in the last 2 years should be telling them something, but it isn't. What are they missing?

The retired officers believe that the negative consequences of the president's anti-terror policies could have been avoided if the administration had followed traditional military practices. Retired Marine Maj. Gen. Fred E. Haynes, 83, is a veteran of World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars. In 1945, he was a captain in the regiment that seized Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima and raised the U.S. flag there. In March of that year, his unit found two U.S. soldiers dead, apparently victims of torture. On March 17, about 10 days before the battle ended, a Japanese soldier, wearing nothing but his boots and a cotton jock strap, stepped out of a cave with his hands up. He had read one of the leaflets Americans were distributing in artillery shells that promised that anyone who gave up would get his wounds treated and his stomach filled.

The Moral?

"The moral of the story," said the general, "is we Americans have been so thoroughly imbued with the idea that you have to treat prisoners humanely — and this [story] is an example of why. It is an illustration of how by treating an individual decently you are much more likely to get any information you might want — and it's more likely to be correct."

How are things done today?

Retired Brig. Gen. James P. Cullen was chief judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. "I grew up in an Army where the rules were very clear and where serviceman and women had no question about what their obligations and responsibilities were under both the Geneva Convention and our domestic law," he said. "When you have a winking-and-nodding policy [as was the case at Abu Ghraib], that just brings about the consequences that we came to view at [the prison]."

What further fuels the officers' outrage is that the policies they believe have undermined the military were mostly formulated by men, like Bush, who have not seen combat.

"[Vice President Dick] Cheney made mention in the days after 9/11 that he wanted to operate sort of on the dark side," Cullen said. "Here was a guy who never served, and now something terrible had happened, and he wanted to show that he was a tough guy…. So he's going to operate outside the rules of law. Bad message."

Maybe if the administration spent more time listening to them and less parading them around like show ponies they could learn something.

Instant Terrorist, Just Add Ill-Conceived War

A leaked intelligence document shows that instead of fighting and destroying the terrorist threat with the war in Iraq, instead the opposite is occurring.

"They conclude that the Iraq war has made it worse," said a government official familiar with the document who spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature.

"It paints a fairly stark picture of what we all know, and that this is a movement that is spreading and gaining momentum around the world," said the official familiar with the document. "Things like the Iraq war have given the terrorists recruiting tools and places to ply their trade and a training ground."

It will be interesting to see how the GOP and the White House try to spin this, explicit acknowledgement by it's own people that the war has in fact not made the world safer from terrorism. My guess is they'll try and attack the leak first, before eating their own.

The Week in Cartoons

Dubai Still Owns US Ports?

From NPR:

Six months ago, Dubai Ports World reached an agreement with Congress to sell its North American operations to a U.S.-based firm within four to six months. Six months later, the company still owns those ports, but says it will sell soon. Democrats say they will make it a campaign issue if a sale isn't completed before the November elections.

(Link includes audio.)

So apparently the GOP's plans to improve border security is to allow foreigners to own our ports, but not vote in our elections. I feel safer already.

They Come Here to Vote?

You know the Republicans in Congress are out of touch with reality, I know it, we all know it. But I'm still astounded at the ways in which they find to demonstrate this.

The House and the Senate moved yesterday toward a piecemeal crackdown on illegal immigration, pushing forward separate bills to require photo identification to vote, build vast fences on the U.S.-Mexico border and speed the deportation of undocumented workers.

Whatever you think about illegal immigration, I think most sane people would agree that nobody comes here so they can vote. I'm guessing the jobs are a big reason, not the chance to choose the next township constable in Marion county (yeah somehow they still have them).

So are they crazy or crazy like a fox? Sure the photo ID bill was upheld in Indiana (so far) its been struck down in Georgia and Missouri. And with the furor over immigration, we have an environment similar to the time when the PATRIOT Act was passed where reasonable dissent is seen as weakness. So it looks like the GOP has pulled a fast one, launching Strom Thurmond's revenge on the electorate in the name of national security, and getting away with it right? I have faith that the voters will see through this, they'll realize that this has nothing to do with their safety. They may not see the wrong being perpetuated by disenfranchising voters, but they'll see that this is the most hollow of security measures.

Spy for Hire?

The La Times today has an article on how the US intelligence operations are now largely dependent upon private contractors. Not just for operational support, or technology, but intelligence gathering. It would appear that it has gotten to the point where the agencies can't even control the situation.

The proliferation of contractors has outstripped the intelligence community's ability to keep track of them.

Former intelligence officials said most U.S. spy agencies did not have even approximate counts of the numbers of contractors they were employing — although several officials said the number at the CIA had nearly doubled in the last five years and now surpassed the full-time workforce of about 17,500.

"So What" you say?

"We have to come to some conclusion about what our core intelligence mission is and how many [full-time employees] it's going to take to accomplish that mission," Sanders said, adding that the growth in contracting over the last five years had been driven by necessity and was extremely haphazard.

"I wish I could tell you it's by design," he said. "But I think it's been by default."

Senior U.S. intelligence officials said that the reliance on contractors was so deep that agencies couldn't function without them.
"If you took away the contractor support, they'd have to put yellow tape around the building and close it down," said a former senior CIA official who was responsible for overseeing contracts before leaving the agency earlier this year.

Do we really want to create an environment where its pay for play on national security? If the administration is doing everything it can to make the nation more secure, then why has it allowed the intelligence agencies to wither on the vine to the point that they need this much outside help?

I Feel Your Pain

The week in political cartoons.

Have We Run Out of Troops?

In an op-ed appearing in the Washington Post this week William Kristol and Rich Lowery called on the White House to send more troops to Iraq. Calling for a return to the show of overwhelming force that has been a trademark of the US military since the Whiskey Rebellion (Washington personally lead 13,000 troops, a force nearly the size of the entire Revolutionary Army) would seem like common sense. We can't leave Iraq unstable, but we can't stabilize it with current troop levels. So whats the catch?

According to in-house assessments, fully two-thirds of the Army's operating force, both active and reserve, is now reporting in as "unready"—that is, they lack the equipment, people, or training they need to execute their assigned missions. Not a single one of the Army's Brigade Combat Teams—its core fighting units—currently in the United States is ready to deploy. In short, the Army has no strategic reserve to speak of.

The White House's reaction?

One remarkable aspect of the current disarray is how the administration has refused to face up to the problem. The military's funding requests to improve readiness were reduced by the Office of the Secretary of Defense when the Pentagon was putting together its budget request because of the costs of operations in Iraq and, to a much lesser degree, in Afghanistan. (Those costs are the major reason why the current national defense spending of $562 billion is higher in dollar terms than in any other year since World War II except 1952, the height of the Korean War buildup.) On top of that, the Office of Management and Budget cut nearly $5 billion more from the budget submission that emerged from the Pentagon.

So in a world where Afghanistan isn't yet stable, Iran wants the bomb, and North Korea has it, we're tapped out. Is this supposed to be how we make the US safer from terrorist? Do we really believe that our current strategy is going to defeat terrorism?

"Bad Presidents Happen to Good People"

Video of Bill Maher's appearance on Hardball last night.

Voting Machine Irregularities in Ohio? That's Unpossible!

In the first thorough study of a paper-backed system -- often seen as an answer to concerns about touch-screen voting -- the nonpartisan Election Science Intistute (sic) found that about 10 percent of the paper ballots sampled were uncountable. And in Ohio, that's a big problem: The paper ballot is the official ballot if there's a recount.

If Diebold's ATM machines failed to record a transaction 10% of the time they'd be out of business, and would have the Feds breathing down their necks. But voting machines fail? Meh. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I think incompetence can explain most things like this, but do we really want incompetence deciding an election?

Lag Time

A report from the International Telecommunications Union ranks the US as 16th in the world in broadband access. The sad thing is, that's the good news, the not so good?

The U.S. has the fourth highest level of students who have never used a computer, among these nations, exceeded only by Turkey, Slovakia and Mexico

For being the country that invented both the computer and the internet, that's not great company to be in. Why should we care? I'll let FCC Commissioner Michael Copps answer that one:

The reason is that we do not have a national strategy to get broadband out to our people. I think we're probably the only industrialized country on the face of the earth that lacks a coherent national strategy to build this infrastructure, and it's damaging for all Americans. It's damaging for small businesses who are unable to compete, and most of all, it's damaging for minorities and diversity communities, people who live in the inner cities and people who live in rural America, where the market, I don't think, is just going to automatically take all of this infrastructure.

More National Exposure

The American Enterprise Institute takes up the story of the imperiled Indiana Republicans. But I think its this quote that deserves noting:

In addition to the poor political climate, Democrats have fielded a very strong group of conservative Democrats. Baron Hill and Ken Lucas lost to Sodrel and Davis in 2004. In the 108th, Hill’s voting record was among the most 25 percent conservative for Democrats. Lucas was the fourth most conservative Democrat in the House. Hostettler faces elected sheriff Brad Ellsworth. Chocola faces a popular businessman Joe Donnelly. All are running significantly to the right of the national Democratic Party.

Remember all those Chocola ads calling Joe a liberal? Not so much, but what do you expect from somebody as desperate as Chris?

No ZZ Top isn't Holding a Tryout

Gary Weddle says he won't shave until Osama bin Laden is caught.

Makes you wonder how long it will get before he can cut it? If he can ever cut it. Anybody want to guess what the odds are we'll find Osama in Iraq?

Olbermann

If you have a broadband connection watch the video.

Ethanol production comes at a high price

Click here for the Rutland Herald, Vermont, aticle.

I am all for the local ethanol plant to be built here. However, this is no cure for our present dilemma of oil addiction. This article explains, in part, why. I advocate the ethanol be used within the region and locally. I fear the politcians advocating for these ethanol plants to be built have this big utopian scenario in mind. Wide-scale use, purchase, and consumption of our ethanol plant products will deplete many of the resources we have locally. As an alternative in thinking, each region in the United States should require its own regional-type of energy production in order to become more self-reliant within the region.

In the same manner as other addictions, sometimes the best way to stop an addiction is to go cold turkey. If one can't go cold turkey, the next best thing is to cutback. What does this mean in terms of oil addiction? Conserve, conserve, conserve! (bet you thought this "librul" would never say that word!) The worst thing one can do to combat an addiction is to replace it with another addiction that is unhealthy. Forfeiting the resource depletion of one form of finite energy for the depletion of multiple other locally derived finite resources is not the answer!

In the spirit of conservation and replacing one addiction with another, I support local biking trails whereas more people can cut driving and rather walk and ride bikes! Buy locally grown food rather than having it grown, shipped, and packaged 2000 miles away! Support local mass transit with things such as buses, light rail, and trolleys! These are healthy substitutes, people!

These things listed above are the REAL answers to oil addiction. Not subsidies given to special interests with taxpayer money. In other words, technically, we will be fitting the bill for these plants that will suck our aquafiers dry. If you don't want the cost of your water to skyrocket 10-20 years from now, then please understand what this article is saying. Water wars are already happening in other parts of the U.S.

Don't let the Chocola ads trick you. He really IS beholden to special interest groups , and he is a millionaire who has received lots and lots of money from the likes of Tom DeLay. I tried to call, write, and email Mr. Chocola concerning oil depletion 2 years ago and all I received was a response about drilling in ANWR and the wildlife refuge. He didn't have a clue of what I was referring to concerning oil depletion/dependency. He thought I was some enviromentalist who was concerned about the caribou or something. Seriously--he didn't listen to a word I wrote or the references I gave him to read. And I don't know for sure but isn't Mr. Weatherwax tied in with the Andersons that are building the ethanol plant here in Logansport somehow? Follow the money. Follow the money trail if you can.

A Change is Gonna Come?

There has been a lot of news lately on how Indiana has become the epicenter of our chance to take back the House, and a lot of that attention is focused on how Joe is up on Chocola. What has bothered me is that all of these articles seem to always blame Chocola's problems on somebody else, take for example today's column from the South Bend Tribue:

Converging to threaten Chocola are some elements beyond his control, the angry winds whipped up by the Toll Road deal and daylight-saving time confusion. Gov. Mitch Daniels' high pressure system collided with a Washington low as shown by a dropping political barometer for President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress.

All of these articles seem to say the same thing, this isn't poor Chris' fault, its just happening to him.

Bull.

If Chris had taken care of his district this wouldn't be happening. If he had taken care of North Central Indiana on the transportation committee we wouldn't need to sell off the Toll Road to fund new highway spending. If he hadn't so blindly followed Bush he might have known to vote against going into Iraq when we hadn't finished the job in Afghanistan. If he meant what he says about being fiscally conservative, he wouldn't spend government funds franking mailings on government waste. And if he had the maturity to understand the causes of poverty he'd be fighting them, instead of saying incredibly stupid stuff like this. Hey Chris, one in three people living below the poverty line is a child, what choice did they make again?

Dancing with Tom DeLay

Apparently looking to practice his lobbying skills ahead of his big career as a paid shill (or ahead of his 18-24 months trying to not get shived) Tom DeLay has sent out an email asking for people to support Sara Evans (?) on Dancing with the Stars. To quote the Hammer:

One of her opponents on the show is ultra liberal talk show host Jerry Springer. We need to send a message to Hollywood and the media that smut has no place on television by supporting good people like Sara Evans.

Uh, isn't Sara agreeing to promote smut by appearing on the show with Jerry? I've heard about how hard the transition into retirement is, but come on Tom at least try the shuffleboard before you spring straight into crazy old coot.

National Coverage Roundup

Here is a roundup of national coverage of Joe's race to unseat Chocola.

Washington Post (reg. required)

MSNBC 9/6 8:18am

Bloomberg

New York Times (reg. required)

No Wonder They're Praying

After having spent $67,000 of public funds on his personal crusade to make the General Assembly pray his way, Speaker Bosma is now asking for private donations. Setting aside the idea that maybe he shouldn't have spent any public funds, let us focus on the thing the Speaker isn't focusing on himself:

Indiana leads the nation in foreclosures.

In 2005 Indiana's unemployment rate exceeded the national average

The number of Hoosier living below the poverty line grew 13% last year

More then three quarter of a million people now live below the poverty line

The poverty line is a poor reflector of how much income it takes to subsist, a better indicator is the Self Sufficency rate
A lot more people live below that line

Indiana has lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000

Indiana ranks 27th in Median Household Income

600,0000 Hoosiers have no health insurance

The fastest growing segment of the uninsured is the middle class ($50,000 to $74,999)

Though they still trail those making less then $25,000, 1 in 4 lacks insurance

But its not being able to say specific prayers that has Speaker Bosma spending public funds. He can offer prayer, just not the prayer he wants. All the Hoosiers who need good jobs, safer communities, and better education, and this is what the GOP has chosen to focus on. Praying may be the only thing that improves the above stats, the GOP sure isn't interested.

Not So Good News

You remember Afghanistan right? The Taliban, Osama, Al Qaida, any of this ringing a bell? Well the New York Times (reg. required) has a piece out today that paints a not so rosy picture of life in Afghanistan.

Some of the lowlights:

Across Afghanistan, roadside bomb attacks are up by 30 percent; suicide bombings have doubled. Statistically it is now nearly as dangerous to serve as an American soldier in Afghanistan as it is in Iraq.

Afghanistan now produces 92 percent of the worldÂ’s supply of opium poppy, the basis for heroin.

American officials said the country was more destitute than they had envisioned, yet the $909 million they provided in assistance in 2002 amounted to one-twentieth of the $20 billion allocated for postwar Iraq.

American officials calculated that six Afghan policemen were dying for every soldier in the National Army who was killed.

And this was supposed to be our success in the war on terror?