http://www.getunderground.com/underground/features/article.cfm?Article_ID=2257 Other than vague and easily dismantled assertions about Hillary’s “Big Government” healthcare plan and a small penis suspicion that she might take their guns away, they had nothing of substance, but the conclusion was firm:  Hillary was a non-starter and the Democrats were toast if she became the candidate. Hatred of Bush is often portrayed by mainstream and right-wing pundits, the expansive overlap therein, as a nervous condition, a neuroses, despite Bush's overwhelming stench of illegitimacy and the staggering amount of suffering he has unleashed, which make his formidable personal inadequacies seem quaint by comparison.          Hillary-haters, on the other hand, often have no beef with her policy positions.  They simply don’t trust her and never will. …and yet, despite a ‘personality gap,’ Hillary maintains a 20-point lead over Obama, a lead which grew after the recent Democratic debates.

A Gilroy company's recall of Chinese fresh ginger contaminated with a toxic pesticide is the latest scare involving imported ginger and other food products from China. No illnesses were reported as of Monday, a day after California officials first issued a public warning to advise consumers against eating fresh Chinese ginger. State and federal health officials are now working to determine how the ginger got into this country and how widely it has been sold. It's not the first time that contaminated Chinese ginger has been a problem. U.S. port inspectors in Seattle have turned away shipments of Chinese ginger that contained pesticides in recent months, according to news reports. And Japanese authorities acknowledged this month that they mistakenly allowed 25 tons of Chinese ginger laced with pesticide into their country. This time, California officials said they found potentially harmful levels of the pesticide aldicarb sulfoxide in a batch of fresh ginger from China that was distributed earlier this month by the Christopher Ranch food company of Gilroy. It was shipped to retailers and wholesalers in California, Michigan, Oregon, Louisiana and Washington. The contamination was discovered in samples gathered randomly from an Albertsons grocery store in Roseville, near Sacramento. The samples were collected by the state Department of Pesticide Regulation, which routinely tests produce for pesticide residue.

If New York dollars were used to fund a Christain school, all hell would break loose - so why isn't the Main Scream Media reporting this: "Some New York parents are upset their tax dollars are being used to fund the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a secondary school that will purportedly teach students Arabic culture and language. (See earlier story) The school is scheduled to begin classes next month in Brooklyn. Pamela Hall, a member of the Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition, contends that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his schools chief, Joel Klein, have been ignoring residents' concerns about the school's principal, Dhabah Almontaser, and her ties to organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "She has an advisory board that is all religious; she has no academics on her advisory board. She has three imams ... and they're associated with the more radical mosques as well -- there's nothing moderate about them," says Hall. "And one of [those imams] represents seven mosques in Harlem. I mean that's an awful lot of Muslim/Islam influence on an advisory board for an academic public school."

Max Blumenthal, The Nation, August 7, 2007 Actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest member of the famous Baldwin brothers, is no longer playing Pauly Shore's sidekick in comedy masterpieces like Biodome. He has a much more serious calling these days. Baldwin became a right-wing, born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks, and now is the star of Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military. As an official arm of the Defense Department's America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a "Military Crusade in Iraq" in the near future. "We feel the forces of heaven have encouraged us to perform multiple crusades that will sweep through this war torn region," OSU declares on its website about its planned trip to Iraq. "We'll hold the only religious crusade of its size in the dangerous land of Iraq." The Defense Department's Chaplain's Office, which oversees OSU's activities, has not responded to calls seeking comment. "The constitution has been assaulted and brutalized," Mikey Weinstein, former Reagan Administration White House counsel, ex-Air Force judge advocate (JAG), and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told me. "Thanks to the influence of extreme Christian fundamentalism, the wall separating church and state is nothing but smoke and debris. And OSU is the IED that exploded the wall separating church and state in the Pentagon and throughout our military." Weinstein continued: "The fact that they would even consider taking their crusade to a Muslim country shows the threat to our national security and to the constitution and everyone that loves it." Read More Here

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/07/3058/ * Hillary has the highest disapproval ratings * The woman thing * Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton * She's a political "weathervane” * She thinks winning votes are found in the “center” * She is clearly not the people’s choice * Kucinich's and Richardson's views coincide more with public opinion ...yet she's going to be president - she must be good. Is anybody betting on her to lose? I'm hearing lots of Nancy Grace Guarantees...    Vegas-sportsbetting.com lists Her as the favorite. Those Vegas boys bet like it's real money.

 http://hempfest.org/drupal I wish I'd known. I'd rather be in Seattle in August than San Francisco in July.

 Link The old establishment parades to the cable networks and editorial boards on behalf of their candidate, telling the world that the Democratic nomination is over and decided. That's a bad thing for OUR side? Rubbish. Looking at polls today, it is very possible that Hillary Clinton loses Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada and could even come in third in more than one of them. In this case, either one of her opponents sweeps Super Tuesday after she comes in second and third in the four preliminaries, or we are headed to a brokered convention, which is far more possible than the pundits think. Brent, you say it's possible that She'll lose - everyone agrees. But her odds are better - money will follow the better odds. Why should we bet on a Jack instead of a Queen?

 Link The old establishment is composed of the Democratic pollsters and consultants who told Democrats to support the Iraq war and, only days ago, to let Republicans gut the American Constitution. I don't agree. The pollsters showed the top tier what would happen to their careers if the GOP could succeed in labeling them as "Al Qaeda enablers." All things considered (not that I'd have the brains to do that) the fastest way to stop the monsters is to let them destroy themselves in the next 15 months. Sure, they could "do the right thing" and challenge Bush now, but then the whore press would paint Bush as the victim and suddenly 2008 isn't looking so good for us.  That's the same reason Bush isn't getting impeached - because that effort might convert his Nazi ass into a sympathic and popular hero  - who wants that? If you have a better idea, as John said, "We'd all love to see the plan," but saying, "I wish the facts were different" helps nobody.

The Economist, August 9, 2007 For George Bush, the presidency is becoming a tragic tale of unintended consequences. In foreign policy, the man who sought to transform Iraq, the Middle East and America's reputation has indeed had revolutionary effects, though not the ones he was aiming for. Now something similar seems to be happening in domestic politics. The most conservative president in recent history, a man who sought to turn his victories of 2000 and 2004 into a Republican hegemony, may well end up driving the Western world's most impressive political machine off a cliff. That machine has put Republicans in the White House in seven of the past ten contests. At times it has seemed as if the Democrats (oddly, given their status as the less Godly party) have had to rely on divine intervention to get elected. Watergate helped Jimmy Carter in 1976, just as the end of the cold war and Ross Perot's disruptive third-party campaign helped Bill Clinton in 1992. Better organised and more intellectually inventive than their "liberal" rivals, American conservatives have controlled the agenda even when they have lost: Mr Clinton is best remembered for balancing the budget and passing welfare reform, both conservative achievements. In a country where one in three people see themselves as conservatives (against one in five as liberals) and where the South and West have grown far more quickly than the liberal north-east, it is easy to see why Mr Bush and his strategist, Karl Rove, dreamed of banishing Democrats from power for a generation. Now they would settle for a lot less. Having recaptured Congress last year, the Democrats are on course to retake the presidency in 2008. Only one Republican, Rudy Giuliani, looks competitive in the polls, and his campaign is less slick than those of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Voters now favour generic Democratic candidates over Republican ones by wide margins. Democrats are more trusted even on traditional conservative issues, such as national security, and they have opened up a wide gap among the young, among independents and among Latinos. For this, he is not guilty Read More Here

 Link Howard Dean in the 2004 campaign; Al Gore as the effective leader of the Loyal Opposition; and now Barack Obama challenging the tired and decadent national security establishment — these are the first true voices of 21st century politics. If you believe supporting the Iraq war for five years was right; that America is safer under Bush; and that special-interest lobbyists are the heart of America who do not buy laws with money, Hillary Clinton, the leader of the old establishment, is your girl (as she said). Horsehockey! Brent is talking about The Way Things Oughta Be. Logic dictates we talk about The Way Things Are - it's called reality. Dean tried and he lost. Gore tried and he lost. They didn't know how to win - even with the Big Dog's blueprints. Obama might be great someday, but this isn't his year. And as long as sticking to reality isn't required, why don't we dig up and run FDR?

Bart: It feels like I'm living in a James Bond film.  The freest country in the world is being held hostage by a bunch of very bad people who want to control everything and no one is stopping them. Who the hell is going to be our hero and where the hell are they?  We're running out of time.  Help!!!   Mary in Seattle Mary, either the GOP will stand up or the new Democratic president will. Their best chance to hold onto a sliver of power is to dump Bush now.  He's  P-O-I-S-O-N  and whoever sticks with him will be gone.

Bart, you said: >  "Just stab the bitch so we can GO HOME!" I thought it was one hilarious comparison. Thanks, Bart.  Gino R 

 WhorePost You might have thought that now isn't the most opportune time for the elected leaders of both the United States and Iraq to pack up and head to the beach, ranch or villa for a nice long vacation. Silly you. You probably reasoned that with 162,000 U.S. troops sweltering in the war zone, with the Iraqi government fracturing along sectarian lines and with what is billed as a make-or-break report from Gen. Petraeus, due next month, maybe tradition ought to be ignored and the summer heat withstood just this once. You doubtless pointed out that no matter how uncomfortable triple-digit temperatures might be for the grandees of Washington and Baghdad, soldiers burdened with body armor and combat boots -- and the constant threat of getting shot or blown up -- have it a bit worse. You were right, of course -- it's unbelievable that the Iraqi parliament is taking a month-long vacation, that Congress has left for its traditional August recess and that Bush is beating off in Kennebunkport and then in Texas. None of this really matters because the war in Iraq is on autopilot.

Bart, what about Mike Gravel?   I listened to the pod cast of the Diane Rehm Show yesterday.   http://wamu.org/programs/dr/07/08/08.php#13288  I find Mike refreshingly honest and sincere. He also has some good ideas that seem to make sense to me. I already know what the MSM think of him, Id like to know what you think of him?    FidgetyFeet Spofford, NH

FF, the only thing I know about Mike Gravel is that he's not going to be president.
It's hard for a complete unknown to win.

The Carpetbagger Report, August 8, 2007 A couple of weeks ago, actor/senator/lobbyist Fred Thompson, a leading GOP presidential contender despite not having launched a campaign, lost his campaign manager, research director, and spokesperson in the course of a couple of days. Apparently, he fired his economic advisor, too. In his latest column, Thompson argues that Bush's economic policies are superior to those of Bill Clinton's. Economist Larry Kudlow calls today's American economy, "the greatest story never told." If you're generally predisposed to not support tax cuts and economic growth, you're probably satisfied that the U.S. economy isn't bragged on more. But you'd also be out of step with Americans [sic] traditional optimism, and out of step with reality, too... Since the spring of 2003, the economy has had average growth of over 3%, 8.2 million jobs have been created, and the inflation rate has stayed low. The current unemployment rate, 4.6%, is a full percentage point below what it averaged during the 1990s, and there have been 47 consecutive months (almost four years) of job growth. In the last three years, workers' salaries have risen by $1.2 trillion, or $8,000 per worker, and consumer confidence recently reached its highest level in almost six years. People have pointed out that journalists were trumpeting economic statistics during the Clinton administration that were not as good as those we have now, hence the "greatest story never told." I think they want to play down how well we've done with lower tax rates, because it interferes with the ability of their friends in Congress who believe that a virtuous society is one that divides the economic pie, taking more out of taxpayer pockets and letting government do more with those dollars. To them, growing the pie means taxing the people more, which then gives the government more money to transfer to others. But conservatives know better. Wow. It would be surprising enough for a presidential candidate to say such nonsense out loud, but to put it in print is rather remarkable. Thompson has already developed something of a reputation for having a limited intellect, but writing such tripe is only going to make matters worse. Read More Here