Archive for April 4th, 2008
Nat King Cole
“The Very Thought of You”
John Conyers slams John McCain on MLK
 Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) (L) and her husband former U.S. President Bill Clinton look over the menu in Des Moines on the day of the Iowa Caucuses. (Reuters.) |
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Roughly eight years at $109 million… not too shabby!
Clintons Release Tax Returns
Bill and Hillary Clinton earned a combined $109 million between 2000 and 2007, with the former president and first lady parlaying their White House years into hefty publishing paydays, and with his oratorical gifts bringing in more than $51 million from paid speaking engagements.
The figures came with the release this afternoon of the Clintons’ joint tax returns, a move Sen. Clinton made after promising during a televised presidential debate to comply with requests from journalists and her Democratic rivals to share details of her family’s financial dealings.
The returns reveal how the Clintons turned global fame into a successful commercial brand, particularly through the former president’s speaking fees. The two also collected more than $30 million from book deals, the returns show.
Why do they bother? Do they think we’ll buy into it that they can’t end this war? If they REALLY didn’t want the next president to be handed this mess they would stop funding it. Like writing a letter to this dope will do any good, other than giving him and his pals a really good belly laugh.
Democratic leaders told President Bush on Friday that it’s not too late to change course in Iraq and pleaded with him not to hand the war off to the next president.
“We believe there is still time for you to recognize that a change in strategy is necessary to repair the grave damage done to our nation’s security,” the Democrats wrote.
More at Yahoo News
Maybe Bush is planning on being around and in control in 2009, whether in person or by proxy.
Gates: U.S. to send more troops to Afghanistan
Troops will be deployed regardless of Iraq situation, defense secretary says
ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. intends to send many more combat forces to Afghanistan next year, regardless of whether troop levels in Iraq are reduced further.
It’s the first time the Bush administration has made such a commitment for 2009.
Gates was speaking to reporters on Friday while flying to Muscat, Oman, from a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania. The Pentagon chief said that President Bush made the troop pledge during the summit.
Gates said Bush was not specific about the number of additional troops that would go to Afghanistan. The U.S. now has about 31,000 troops there.
And this comes as a surprise to… WHO?
81% in Poll Say Nation Is Headed on the Wrong Track
 Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.
In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.
Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.
I love Elizabeth Edwards.
Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. John McCain has had cancer in the past. Last weekend, Mrs. Edwards bluntly pointed out that neither of them would be able to get insurance under Mr. McCain’s health care plan.
It’s about time someone said that and, more generally, made the case that Mr. McCain’s approach to health care is based on voodoo economics - not the supply’side voodoo that claims that cutting taxes increases revenues (though Mr. McCain says that, too), but the equally foolish claim, refuted by all available evidence, that the magic of the marketplace can produce cheap health care for everyone.
As Mrs. Edwards pointed out, the McCain health plan would do nothing to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to those, like her and Mr. McCain, who have pre-existing medical conditions.
More at the NY Times
I received an email asking if I could post this job alert. Happy to do it.
Field Organizer for local Working Families Win Project
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) is the nation’s most experienced independent advocacy organization whose lobbying philosophy is based on democratic action - motivating our grassroots members to lobby their Senators and Representatives as constituent-advocates.
Working Families Win is ADA’s community-based organizing project. The program is based on the belief that for working families across the country, the economy is not working. Good jobs continue to leave our communities and are replaced by lower wage jobs, often without benefits. Daily living costs are skyrocketing, yet wages for most workers are stagnant at best. Many of the workers who are suffering the most from the current economy are not meaningfully engaged in the political process.
Americans for Democratic Action believes that when working people are organized to support real alternatives to today’s economic policies, demand that candidates support these alternatives too, and persuade their neighbors that we have a clear choice, real change will occur.
Read more »
From the WSJ:
Nonfarm payrolls fell 80,000 in March, the Labor Department said Friday, its biggest decline in five years, after falling by 76,000 in both January and February. Both were revised to show even bigger losses.
Had it not been for a rise in government jobs last month, payrolls would have fallen by around 100,000.
“The Whole Nation Flinched”
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Marchers to Honor King in Memphis Today
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Presidential candidates, civil rights leaders, labor activists and thousands of everyday citizens are coming together Friday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the 40th anniversary of his death.
On the 40th anniversary of his assassination, King is to be honored as a champion of peace in the city where he died.
“Here was a man who understood nonviolence at a depth that I had never known before,” said C.T. Vivian, a former King associate.
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