Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (20780)	6/8/2005 3:38:19 PM
From: SiouxPal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 361382

You are a radical....http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=21399307

To: American Spirit who wrote (20780)	6/8/2005 3:46:24 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361382

The Memo Comes In From the Cold washingtonpost.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (20780)	6/9/2005 1:28:47 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 361382

Bob Novak on west coast resistance to Hillary: No to Hillary By Robert Novak June 9, 2005 LOS ANGELES -- Back east, well-placed Democrats have agreed that the party's 2008 nomination is all wrapped up better than three years in advance. They say that the prize is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's for the asking, and that she is sure to ask. But here on the left coast, I found surprising and substantial Democratic opposition to going with the former first lady. Both the Hollywood glitterati and the more mundane politicians of Los Angeles are looking elsewhere. They have seen plenty of Sen. Clinton over the past dozen years, and they don't particularly like what they've seen. Two far less well-known Democrats -- Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh -- were hits on recent visits to California, mainly because they were not Hillary. The concern here with Clinton is not borne in fear that she might fail to carry California. Almost any Democrat would be likely to win in the nation's most populous state, where the advent of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is an exotic event that has not changed the GOP's minority status in California. Rather, the fear here is pronounced that Clinton cannot win in Red America, guaranteeing a third straight Republican term in the White House. Party insiders in Washington and New York, including many who ran the last two losing Democratic presidential campaigns, say they have never before seen anything like the way Clinton has sewed up the nomination. In particular, they say, she has cornered Eastern money in a way nobody else ever has done at such an early date. At a dinner party in a private room of a Los Angeles restaurant attended by eight Democratic politicians (including City Council members and a county supervisor), I was asked to assess the political scene. I concluded with a preview of the distant events of 2008. While there had not been so open a race for the Republican nomination since 1940, I said, Clinton was dominant for the Democrats. For someone who is neither an incumbent president nor vice president to have apparently locked the nomination so early is without precedent. As I made this analysis, the liberal Democratic functionary across the table from me shook his head in disagreement. He left his seat between courses, and then returned with this announcement: "There are eight Democrats in this room. I've taken a little poll, and none of them -- none -- are for Hillary for president. They think she is a loser." Talking to some of them, I found concern that Hillary carries too much baggage from her turbulent marriage and her husband's presidency to do any better than John Kerry did last year. One female office holder was looking hard for another Southern moderate who could bite into the Confederacy as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton had done. Another woman office holder was hostile to a Clinton candidacy on a more personal basis. "Don't think that Hillary has the women's vote," she told me. "I will never forgive her for sticking with her husband after he humiliated her. It's something I can't get over." Eight Democrats, no matter how prominent, constitute a tiny sample. But I checked with Democratic sources in California and found broad early resistance to Clinton. Warner wowed listeners on a recent trip, though he was not as big a hit as Bayh on his L.A. sojourn. The Hoosier senator may be a dull, moderate Midwesterner to the party cognoscenti who already have bestowed the nomination on Clinton, but he looked like a winner to the Hollywood crowd. These anti-Clinton Democrats are not reassured by what Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." Moderator Tim Russert asked: "Do you think that Sen. Clinton would be a formidable presidential candidate?" "I do," Mehlman replied, adding: "Sen. Clinton is smart. She's effective." As Mehlman himself said, Republicans don't want to repeat the 1980 mistake of the Democrats when they relished the nomination of Ronald Reagan as an easy mark. Nevertheless, in private, Republicans say they would much rather run against Hillary Clinton, who votes a straight liberal line, than an unknown moderate from Virginia or Indiana. Savvy Democrats in Los Angeles agree. townhall.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (20780)	6/9/2005 8:56:19 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361382

Kerry, Bush, and the Downing Street memo bostonphoenix.com THE SMOKING GUN? BY DAN KENNEDY From the moment the so-called Downing Street memo was revealed by the Sunday Times of London on May 1, anti-war voices — especially on the Internet — have complained about the lack of attention it’s received in the United States. The memo, which strongly suggests that the Bush administration had decided to go to war with Iraq a good seven months before hostilities actually commenced, has been cited by Ralph Nader, in a Boston Globe op-ed piece, as proof that George W. Bush should be impeached. Yet the document has received little attention in the mainstream media. So expectations were raised when the New Bedford Standard-Times reported last week that John Kerry would soon broach the matter on the floor of the Senate. "When I go back on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," Kerry was quoted as saying. "I think it’s a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home." But despite hyperbolic claims made by some that the memo constitutes "smoking gun" evidence that Bush lied about his reasons for going to war, there’s actually not much new in it. Written in July 2002 by Matthew Rycroft, a foreign-policy aide to British prime minister Tony Blair, the document says, "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." Rycroft also wrote that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," and that there "was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." This is important and disturbing, but it’s hardly a breakthrough. After all, Time magazine reported in March 2003 that one year earlier — that is, one year before the war — Bush stuck his head into a meeting that Condoleezza Rice was holding with three senators to announce, "Fuck Saddam — we’re taking him out." Ron Suskind, in his book on former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill, The Price of Loyalty, wrote that Vice-President Dick Cheney talked about overthrowing Saddam Hussein from the first days of Bush’s presidency. And James Robbins recently noted in National Review Online that London’s Observer carried a story on July 21, 2002, quoting anonymous British-government sources, that was remarkably similar to the Downing Street memo, which was written two days later. In a statement e-mailed to the Phoenix on Tuesday, Kerry spokesman Setti Warren said, "Senator Kerry believes every American deserves a thorough explanation of the Downing Street memo. The Administration and the Washington Republicans who control Congress insult Americans by refusing to answer even the most basic questions raised in this memo about pre-war intelligence and planning for the aftermath of war. That’s unacceptable, especially with the lives of America’s sons and daughters on the line. John Kerry will demand answers in the Senate. Stay tuned." Kerry is right to demand answers. And though the Downing Street memo tells us little we didn’t already know, maybe it will prove to be the catalyst to finally holding the Bush administration to account. On Tuesday, both Bush and Blair attempted to play down its importance during a joint news conference, a sign that the issue may finally be gaining traction. Kerry — like a majority of senators — made a mistake when he voted to give Bush the authority he needed to go to war. But it was Bush who failed to follow through on the diplomatic front by building a genuine international coalition around the issues of Iraq’s alleged weapons capabilities and terrorist ties, as he had promised to do. The memo is further evidence, if any were needed, that Bush never even intended to try. Issue Date: June 10 - 16, 2005