[youtube]McT_P2bpkHY&eurl=[/youtube]

Lily Allen - “Smile”

In honor of Valentine’s Day.

Democrats Press Reform for Military Contracts

Senators Give TSA Screeners Union Rights

Lawmakers Push for Tobacco Regulation

Reid Schedules Saturday Vote on Iraq Resolution

Auditors Tell House Panel $10 Billion in Wasted Iraq Spending

Biden Will Move to Revoke Iraq War Authorization

Feingold Urges Feds to Buy American

Waxman Threatens Subpoena for O’Beirne Testimony and Documents

Waxman Bill Protects Whistleblowers

He said President George W. Bush “will veto the bill” if it is sent to him. (because I’m the real President and I told him to!)
Our administration rejects any attempt to short-circuit the rights of workers. Now that’s the best joke I heard all day!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill to allow workers to form unions by signing up, instead of voting, advanced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday as the Bush administration threatened to veto it.

The Democratic-controlled House Education and Labor Committee voted along party lines, 26-19, to approve the bill, which would require employers to recognize unions after a majority of workers have signed pro-union cards or a petition.

Vice President Dick Cheney declared the administration’s opposition to the measure earlier on Wednesday, saying secret ballots are needed to prevent possible worker intimidation.

“Our administration rejects any attempt to short-circuit the rights of workers,” Cheney told the business-friendly National Association of Manufacturers. “We will defend their right to vote yes or no by secret ballot, and their right to fair bargaining.”

He said President George W. Bush “will veto the bill” if it is sent to him.

Read more at Reuters

The film “The Lark Farm” is sure to stir up controversy at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. It takes a close look at Turkey’s most sensitive taboo — the 1915 genocide against the Armenians. Extra security has been brought in for the Wednesday evening premiere.

All that was missing at the Festival Palace was the wave cheer, given the level of enthusiasm with which Dieter Kosslick, the festival’s director, staged the opening gala of the 57th Berlin International Film Festival last Thursday. Once again, Kosslick has managed to position the German capital as a world-class film city, and this year’s Berlinale again vies with past festivals in its relentless determination to deliver euphoria.

The French film “La Vie en rose,” the first film on the festival’s schedule, matched the effusive mood of the event. In the film, director Olivier Dahan tells the life story of singer Edith Piaf, sumptuously portraying her descent into drug addiction and disastrous love affairs. The president of the festival’s jury Paul Schrader — himself a writer, director and film critic — has said he sees film as a kind of museum, or cultural memory bank. It’s an interpretation that clearly applies to this year’s festival.

Steven Soderbergh’s black-and-white drama “The Good German,” provides a good example. George Clooney portrays an American reporter in post-World War II Germany who is tragically in love with a beautiful but mysterious woman (Cate Blanchett). The American thriller “The Good Shepherd,” starring Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon and Alec Baldwin and directed by Robert De Niro, is a story about the early days of the CIA. In the historical drama “Die Fälscher” (”The Counterfeiters”), Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky describes how inmates at the Nazi concentration camp in Sachsenhausen were forced to print British pound notes in a counterfeiting workshop.
Read more at Spiegel

By Josh Fineman
Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) — Hershey Co., the largest U.S. candy maker, will close more than a third of its assembly lines and eliminate 12 percent of its workforce after sales fell for the first time in 3 1/2 years.

The maker of Hershey’s Kisses and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups will cut 1,500 jobs over the next three years and start production at a new factory in Monterrey, Mexico. The reductions will cost as much as $575 million before taxes, the Hershey, Pennsylvania-based company said in a statement today.

Hershey lost market share last year to Mars Inc., the maker of Snickers, and last month reported a fourth-quarter sales decline of 0.7 percent.

“Hershey is under intense pressure,” said Marvin Roffman of Roffman Miller Associates in Philadelphia, who follows Hershey and manages more than $410 million in assets. “If your costs are squeezing you, you have to find ways to save money.”

Hershey expects the reductions to save it $170 million to $190 million annually by 2010. The company estimates $300 million of the expenses will occur this year. Hershey will close some factories, spokesman Kirk Saville said. He declined to be more specific.

H/T Bur$atil for all his links!

Then there’s this:
WASHINGTON (AP) The Labor Department reports that the number of newly laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 44,000 last week, the biggest gain in 17 months.

This is pretty funny! Gotta love the Brits!

From George Galloway:

Friends,
As you may know we are intent on getting the single War by Tony
Blair’s old band Ugly Rumours into the charts in the week after the
big Stop the War demo in London (Feb 24). You can register for the
chart download now by texting (if in Britain) peace1 to 78789. Do it
and it will be the biggest humiliation ever and will show the depth of
feeling against Blair and this illegal war. The cost of the download
is £1.50.

All of the profits on the single go to the Stop the War Coalition

If you are not in Britain go to www.uglyrumours.com where you can
download the single.

This is a musical referendum on Blair and the illegal war.

Please send this message or your own individual one to all of your
friends and contacts.

George

From the Ugly Rumors site:

Hi Pop Pickers,

You may or may not know that I was in a band at university called Ugly Rumours - which is a coincidence as it was my ugly rumours that got us into the war in Iraq in the first place! The war has killed approximately 650,000 civilians and more than 3000 British and US soldiers, without us finding any weapons of mass destruction.

I’ve joined up with Stop the War Coalition and on the 25/02/07 “Ugly Rumours” - fronted by yours truly - are putting out a cover version of the Edwin Starr classic “War (What is it good for?)”, we are aiming to get the track in to the UK pop charts for March the 19th, the 4th year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq to show the government what people really feel about their actions. (Plus I want to be remembered as the UK’s highest charting British Prime Minister of all time!)

You can buy/pre-order the track NOW or at anytime by texting the word “PEACE1″ to 78789 or by clicking the button below. You can buy it several times if you like, either way the song will only cost you £1.50 (plus standard network charges) with all the profits going to support the good work that Stop the War Coalition do. We only need around 5000 sales to get Ugly Rumours into the charts so please take the time to buy it NOW!

I know I didn’t give you a chance to vote on Britain going to war so please think of this as a musical referendum on me before I leave office!

PLEASE forward this site to as many people as you can and tell them about my great new single and video. (Check out my video below with cameos from my old friends, George Galloway, my real life sister in law Lauren Booth and Brian Hoare). You can join my Ugly Rumours fan club by entering you email address below, we will then send you exclusive video links for our other promos and information on how Ugly Rumours are progressing in the charts.

Yours always,

Tony Blair

I can’t believe you gave us Lieberman, but thanks for this one Connecticut! You can read more about this legislation and about Chris Dodd here.

Yesterday, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) submitted legislation that if passed would restore habeas corpus and outlaw torture in hope of at least doing something to revitalize American image abroad and live up to our belief in the rule of law. Dodd, who is also a 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, went on CNN’s The Situation Room and promoted his legislation:

Under the Military Commissions Act, passed just last year, the government is allowed to hold any U.S. citizen indefinitely if they are even suspected of being a threat to national security. Dodd wants to change that, and make sure that anyone being held has a right to a trial. Most importantly, a vote on this bill will force Republican lawmakers to take a stand: either you support habeas corpus, or you reject it. Either way, take a stand.

H/T Youtuber TheBlueStateDotCom for this video.

What’s true today may be a lie tomorrow. What’s black today may be white tomorrow. You never know from one day to the next the direction this country might take. That’s republican leadership for ya.

“My job is to protect our troops…” -Bush

By sending them into an illegal, immoral war? By leaving them stranded in a (now) civil war? By not outfitting them with the proper safety equipment they need? You’re doing a heckuva job there, Bushie!

Bush backflip on Iran bomb claim

PRESIDENT George W. Bush said yesterday he was certain Iranian agents had supplied Shia militants in Iraq with weapons that had killed American troops, but retreated from earlier claims by the White House and US military commanders that Iran’s highest officials had directed the attacks.

Mr Bush said it was well known that components of improvised bombs, responsible for killing at least 170 US soldiers, had been provided by al-Quds Force, an Iranian paramilitary organisation.

“What we don’t know is whether or not the head leaders of Iran ordered the Quds Force to do what they did. Either they knew or didn’t know. What matters is that (the weapons) are there,” Mr Bush told a White House press conference.

His comments contradict a briefing on Sunday by senior US military officers in Baghdad who said that al-Quds had been operating on instructions “coming from the highest level of the Iranian Government”.
[...]

Mr Bush reacted sharply yesterday to questions implying that his administration was tampering with intelligence material to justify a military strike against Iran.

“The idea that somehow we’re manufacturing the idea that the Iranians are providing IEDs (improvised explosive devices) is preposterous,” he said, emphasising that the claims were “not a pretext for war”.

He said: “My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices in that country that are hurting our troops, we’re going to do something about it, pure and simple.”

Source: The Australian

I received this in an email today. Thought I’d share it. I’ve said all along, while congress is dicking around debating about an escalation, an escalation is occuring.

President Bush’s disastrous plan to escalate the war is no longer just a plan: it’s a reality.

While the Senate was tied up in knots, President Bush extended tours of duty for thousands of our troops, transferred new brigades into the Middle East and ordered more soldiers into Baghdad: The surge has begun.

Bush has escalated the war - now we must escalate our efforts to stop it. Congress must force a change of course by capping funding to stop the surge and mandate a phased troop withdrawal within 12-18 months. We don’t need endless debate; we don’t need non-binding resolutions; we need to end this war. Only Congress has the power to do it, and only you can make Congress act.

Please take a minute today to call your senators and representatives. Ask them to take real, binding action to block the escalation and bring our troops home. Please call the capital switchboard right now at:

(202) 224-3121

Last month I called for Congress to stop the president’s escalation before it began, and nearly 100,000 Americans have since added their name to that call. But now we need to go beyond addressing Bush’s latest misstep and use all the power we have to bring this conflict to a close.

So today, I announced a comprehensive proposal to enact my plan to end the war and I’d like to share the key points with you. I believe Congress must:

Stop the escalation and force an immediate withdrawal by using funding caps to restrict the total number of troops in Iraq to 100,000, which would require an immediate drawdown of 40,000-50,000 combat troops without stranding or underfunding a single soldier still in Iraq. Any troops beyond the 100,000 level should be redeployed immediately.

Block the deployment of troops that do not meet readiness standards and that have not been properly trained and equipped. American Tax dollars must be used to prepare and supply our troops, not escalate the war. It is simply wrong to send our troops into harm’s way without all the training and equipment they need.

Make it clear that President Bush is conducting this war without authorization. The 2002 authorization did not give Bush the power to use U.S. troops to police a civil war. President Bush exceeded his authority long ago. He now needs to end the war and ask Congress for new authority to manage the withdrawal of the U.S. military presence and to help Iraq achieve stability.

Require a complete withdrawal of combat troops in Iraq within the next 12-18 months without leaving behind any permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.

Today, all of us who believe this war is wrong have a profound obligation to speak out. We are still in the early days of an historic new Congress and real change is still possible–even under this president.

But history teaches it will not be the politicians or the pundits who drive the real change - only the people themselves can do that. So let’s get busy.

Please call the Capitol switchboard and ask to speak to your senators and representatives today: (202) 224- 3121

Sincerely,

John Edwards

U.S. TO INTERVIEW 7,000 IRAQI REFUGEES FOR POSSIBLE RESETTLEMENT IN U.S.

SENATE APPROVES $464 BILLION SPENDING BILL

DEBATE IN CONGRESS GOOD, BUT DOES NOTHING TO STOP THE WAR

IRAQIS GET A BLOODY VALENTINE

SECRET NEW U.S. SPY BASE

DEMOCRATS TO FOCUS ON TROOP FUNDING

JUSTICE OFFICIAL AND OIL LOBBYIST BOUGHT HOME TOGETHER

CIA SOUNDED OUT ITALY ON RENDITIONS IN 2001

NEW DOLLAR COIN GOING INTO CIRCULATION

HIGH TECH HEALTH CARE IN IRAQ, MINUS THE HEALTH CARE

MONEY IN POLITICS LOBBYING REPORT