Russ Feingold is honorary chairman of the Progressive Patriots Fund.
Questionnaires such as this one are more about fund-raising than about giving voice to citizens and there are only six questions. However, citizens should use all available means to force our representatives to actually represent us.
Question #5 of this survey is a good place to express your demand for impeachment. I answered that question by writing that impeachment would demonstrate to terrorists and to the world that the actions of our government in Iraq and elsewhere are criminal and the administration should be punished for each one. Question #6 is a good place to demand that the information collected in this survey be presented to our Congressional representatives.

National Priorities Survey - Foreign Policy

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Maura O’Connell…The Blessing

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Drunk 2-Month-Old Baby Dropped Off At Hospital

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A 2-month-old girl is expected to be OK despite having a blood-alcohol content that was more than four times the legal limit for adults who drive.

The baby girl and her mother were dropped off at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs early Sunday morning by the mother’s boyfriend. The man took off and now the Colorado Springs Police Department is searching for him.

The infant was brought in with a blood-alcohol level of 0.364, investigators said.

“I can’t fathom how that can happen. Obviously, there’s quite a concern for the child. There has to be some sort of negligent act here, but further investigation will bear that out,” said Colorado Springs police Sgt. Steve Ward.

The baby’s mother is the focus of the criminal investigation. But police said it’s been difficult to figure out exactly what happened because the mother is telling conflicting stories.

“There have been some accidental ingestions, but with a 2-month-old, they don’t get around very well. It’s hard to believe that it would be an accidental ingestion by the baby itself. I would have to think the alcohol was somehow made available to the baby,” Ward said.

Hospital spokeswoman Sharon Miracle said alcohol is “virtually a poison” at levels as high as those found in the infant.

“Any time you give alcohol to a child, and at that quantity, it is extremely dangerous,” she said.

A similar situation took place in Erie, Colo., this past October when a 17-month-old boy ended up in the hospital with a blood-alcohol level of 0.195. An emergency room doctor 7NEWS spoke with then was in shock.

“Not to be comatose at that stage, they maybe would’ve had to have a tolerance,” said Dr. Kerry Broderick with Denver Health.

source

File this under DUH NEWS THAT REALLY PISSES YOU OFF

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The Iraq Study Group report will be released online 12/6.
Here are links to where you can read it.

The cartoon is a preview.

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The Miniature Earth

This is a remarkable little video. I hope everyone takes the time to watch it.

If statistics of the world stay the same, but its population is reduced to 100…

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Wall Street may be fretting that the U.S. economy is slowing down, but the aerospace and defense industries are hard pressed to figure out when their party will end…

…For defense firms, the main issue is whether a Democrat-controlled Congress will clampdown on Pentagon spending or clear the way for further increases.

“The Democrats are unlikely to want to appear weak on defense, so they’re not going to call for big cutbacks on defense spending,” said Cowen & Co. analyst Cai von Rumohr, in an interview this week with Reuters Television…

…The resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — the chief architect of the Iraq war — may actually prompt a rise in spending, as Congress admits the war is costing much more than expected…

“…Budgeting for the equipment needed to rescue a ground-down, hollow military force … would have contradicted the administration’s ‘mission accomplished’ message,” he said.

complete article

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Wondering where to shop for Christmas gifts? Well, Jerry Falwell has taken some of the stress away by compiling a list of businesses that openly celebrate CHRISTmas, which are labeled Nice, and those that do not are, of course, Naughty.
My browser has its limits and visiting The Liberty Council site is one of them, but, luckily, Pam at musingsofaworkingmom has done the nasty for us in a wonderful post titled Help Save Christmas where you will find not only her delightful wit but the Naughty ‘N Nice (or Nice ‘N Naughty, which I prefer) list.

If you are looking for unique and affordable gifts that bring benefit to both the receiver and the giver, two suggestions:

Heifer International
Syracuse Cultural Workers, Tools For Change

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Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said Iraqi forces will be ready to assume security control of the country in June 2007.

“Iraqi forces will be… fully ready to receive this command,” Mr Maliki said in an interview with US ABC TV, to be aired later on Thursday.

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The UN says Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu will lead its fact-finding mission into Beit Hanoun where 19 Palestinians died in Israeli shelling on 8 November.

The mission aims to “recommend ways to protect Palestinian civilians against further Israeli attacks”, the UN says.

Israel has said the strike, which hit a civilian area in the Gaza Strip town, was due to a “technical failure”.

Mr Tutu - the winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his fight against apartheid in South Africa - will present his findings by the middle of December, the Geneva-based council said.

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Lucas at PrideDepot has a very good post on recently released figures that one in thirty-two Americans are behind bars.

“Today’s figures fail to capture incarceration’s impact on the thousands of children left behind by mothers in prison,” Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group supporting criminal justice reform, said in a statement. “Misguided policies that create harsher sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are disproportionately responsible for the increasing rates of women in prisons and jails.”

Not included in the Justice Department statistics is the increase in prison rapes among inmates. Along with the rapes that go on is the increase in HIV transmission.

Included in the post is an introduction to American Chain Gangs. More clips from the startling and disturbing DVD can be found here.

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From The Hollywood Reporter:

In announcing the competition slate for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, Geoffrey Gilmore, its longtime director, said he sees the beginning of a new era in independent filmmaking. “Filmmakers are undergoing a massive expansion in perspective and aesthetic qualities,” he said. “Where once independence meant a detachment, a kind of navel-gazing, that doesn’t exist right now. Instead, there is engagement and innovation. Filmmakers are going out and engaging the real world in terms of subject matter, vision and innovative storytelling.”

Old categories of films long a staple of Sundance — the coming-of-age picture or the dysfunctional family drama — are no longer applicable to the competition films in the upcoming festival, Gilmore insisted. These new films tend to be more optimistic about the future, both politically and personally. Where once the independent world created its films almost in reaction to Hollywood and its happy endings, the new independents are drawing on the traditions of the American independent film itself. So if one thing characterizes Sundance 2007, Gilmore said, it is “freshness.”

Continue reading for a list of the films and their description.

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In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers.

Noble Americans,

Were we not faced with the activities of the US administration in this part of the world and the negative ramifications of those activities on the daily lives of our peoples, coupled with the many wars and calamities caused by the US administration as well as the tragic consequences of US interference in other countries;

Were the American people not God-fearing, truth-loving, and justice’seeking, while the US administration actively conceals the truth and impedes any objective portrayal of current realities;

And if we did not share a common responsibility to promote and protect freedom and human dignity and integrity;

Then, there would have been little urgency to have a dialogue with you.

The letter in its entirety is here

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Panel Reaches Deal on U.S. Iraq Policy

A bipartisan commission has reached a consensus on new U.S. policies for Iraq and will announce its recommendations next week, the group’s co-chairman said Wednesday.

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., declined to disclose any specifics about the Iraq Study Group’s decisions. The report, much anticipated by the Bush administration and members of Congress, is coming out next Wednesday amid the spiraling violence in Iraq that has raised questions about the viability of the Iraqi government and U.S. policy for a deeply unpopular war

”This afternoon, we reached a consensus … and we will announce that on December 6,” Hamilton told a forum on national security at the Center for American Progress, a liberal group…

…Defense officials, meantime, said the Pentagon is developing blueprints to send four more battalions to Iraq early next year, including some to Baghdad.

The extra combat engineer battalions of Army reserves, would total about 3,500 troops and would come from around the United States, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deployments have not been announced.

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UPDATE: Iraq Panel to Recommend Pullback of Combat Troops.

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel’s deliberations.
The report, unanimously approved by the 10-member panel, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, is to be delivered to President Bush next week. It is a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March, avoiding a specific timetable, which has been opposed by Mr. Bush, but making it clear that the American troop commitment should not be open-ended. The recommendations of the group, formed at the request of members of Congress, are nonbinding.

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LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas

Wesley Clark said Tuesday he wants to avoid waiting too late to make a decision on whether to run for president — a mistake he made in his failed 2004 bid.

“I think it was clear that I got in too late last time,” the retired general and former NATO commander told The Associated Press in an interview.

Clark announced his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in September 2003, just four months before the first votes were cast.

He dropped out of the race the following February, with his only victory in 14 caucuses and primaries coming in Oklahoma.

Clark is considering running again, but he said the late start was one of the mistakes he learned from his last attempt.

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