I'd sure like to see some kerry commercials making an issue out of Bush requiring people to sign loyalty oaths in order to attend Bush rallies.

Drudge links to this:

but not to this:

By Gary at 08:59 PM in World | Comments (0)  

Mark June 14th as the first day I saw a Bush 2004 ad in Texas. Of course, I saw these back in Ohio months ago. Apparently, pessimism never created a job and John Kerry spends his time talking about the Great Depression.

By Gary at 10:37 PM in World | Comments (1)  

I saw the Richard Clarke interview on 60 minutes tonight, some pretty damning stuff. Here's a blatant attempt at spin on Clarke which I found linked on Drudge ...humorously shoddy journalism. Overall, Clarke seemed only to want to overstep bonds of loyalty given the extremely poor job Bush is doing running the country. In fact, it almost smacks identical to what Paul O'Neill discussed in his Price of Loyalty interviews.

And yet, despite the bipartisan bureaucrats, battle lines are certainly now being drawn and the race is on. As daypop.com just told me, this is no better illustrated than at the nascar themed (can nascar dads be found in these donation lists?) fundrace.org. Either enter the name of the person you want to see donation amounts for, or enter a zip and see all the donations from that area. It's clear where Microsoft stands. Also seems like brother Jeb better pony up that other 1000 dollars like ma and pa did. Interesting stuff:

John Ellis Bush - Governor - State Of Florida
George W. Bush - $1,000
700 N Adams St / Tallahassee, FL 32303

Barbara Streisand - Actress/Singer - Self-employed
John Kerry - $1,000
John Edwards - $1,000
21650 Oxnard St / Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Sean Combs - Entreperneur - Bad Boy Entertainment - Self
Al Sharpton - $2,000
1440 Broadway / New York, NY 10018

William H. Gates - CEO - Microsoft Corp.
George W. Bush - $2,000
1 Microsoft Way / Redmond, WA 98052

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By Gary at 12:43 AM in World | Comments (0)  

Today marks the one year anniversary of my blog. I've been neglecting this site as I've been blogging lately at linux.dell.com/blog, but tonight I'm up in arms over the primary coverage of these Tuesday 7. Sure, Kerry did great winning 5/7. But where is the "earned media" due Wesley Clark for placing 1st or 2nd in over half of today's primaries? I am simply baffled over how Edwards gets the secondary media love while Clark is left in the dust.

Place	1	2	3	4
Kerry	5	1	1	0
Clark	1	3	0	2
Edwards	1	2	1	3
Dean	0	0	4	1

 

Of course the refrain, as I started a year ago today, is Anyone But Bush, but certainly Clark deserves more media credit than what he is receiving.

By Gary at 12:22 AM in World | Comments (0)  

Earlier this week just as Clark began testifying at the Hague in the Milosevic trial, Drudge conspicuously posted a story about canadaforclark.com accusing the campaign of trying to subvert election laws in seeking foreign donations.

To this they responded. Drudge is even linking to their response right now. Is this how drudge apologizes? It's about time.

By Gary at 10:55 PM in World | Comments (0)  

I read about this interesting anti-Dean ad on the Dean blog. Here's their take on it.

The ad was paid for by Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values. A little googling later, I found an article from yesterday about it and the spot is set to air in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Gephardt and Kerry say they know nothing. No mention of Clark.

Meanwhile, Dean is trying to use the ad to rouse their supporters and raise money (400,000 by Tuesday), but while it hadn't have been for his blog, I wouldn't have even heard of the ad. Sounds a little double-edged. Hopefully the Sunday shows will discuss tomorrow.

By Gary at 05:16 PM in World | Comments (0)  

Wesley Clark has got a new official blog called Generally Speaking. There was some shake-up last week regarding WesleyClarkWeblog.com as it was originally listed as the official Clark Blog. Looks like they came to their senses and created something they could control ... officially.

Though, I'd prefer if they posted their entries under real people names as opposed to "Blog Team". I'd be interested to see how much Clark has raised in Q3 in these 2 short weeks.

By Gary at 06:12 PM in World | Comments (1)  

Over the last week, I have observed a large amount of anti-Clark story postings on the Drudge Report. This is, of course, to be expected-- not only from someone like Drudge, but just in general given the prominence of Clark's rapid rise.

However, this evening, Drudge added the following red headline: "General Clark's Campaign Website 'Issues Area' -- Is Empty!"

The link pointed here. This, I cannot understand. Drudge has pointed his site to a temp page on Clark's site which in no way indicates that it is an issues page. In fact, there is no link to an issues section on Clark's site. Regardless, I find this to be shamefully unprofessional of Matt Drudge. In effect, he has invented a headline to Clark's detriment. Muck-raker!

By Gary at 07:41 PM in World | Comments (0)  

Wesley Clark today officially announced that he is seeking the democratic nomination for President. His official site is at http://www.americansforclark.com. If you don't want to see Bush re-elected, put your money where your mouth is and donate. I was contribution #523.

By Gary at 07:06 PM in World | Comments (0)  

Just got home from the Wesley Clark Meetup at Opal Devine's on 6th Street. While the gist of the meeting was organizational, the whole thing was pretty fascinating. There were roughly 75 people crammed onto the deck, and this all for a candidate that has yet to announce that he is indeed running. Ages ranged across the board from 20 - 70 and not only were there at least a handful of people that switched over from the Dean Meetup, a couple people actually raised their hands as Republicans.

The word at the Meetup was that Clark was going to announce between September 15th and September 19th. As more proof that his entrance is imminent, this statement was released by Clark today to his volunteers thanking them for coming to their last "draft" Clark meetup.

So now I'm pumped to move onto the elect meetup. While Texas is a shoe-in for Bush in the national election, Clark still needs to win the democrat nomination first -- and Texas has some 243 primary votes to decide who that democrat will be. Personally, I'd prefer they go to Clark instead of Dean.

By Gary at 09:11 PM in World | Comments (0)  

Wesley Clark today announced on CNN that if he runs for president, it will be as a democrat. This makes me wonder whether he really will run or whether he is just posturing for the VP slot. Why not just announce already?

By Gary at 06:57 PM in World | Comments (1)  

The draftwesleyclark folks have commissioned a poll by Zogby to assess the viability of a Clark bid for the presidency. Of note:

* Clark comes in first in a blind-bio match-up versus six key Democratic candidates (Dean, Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, and Graham)
* Clark wins 49.4 percent to 40.2 percent in a blind-bio match-up versus President Bush among a national poll of likely voters

"...the poll results tell us that Clark has the qualities to compete against the elite of the Democratic field, and to challenge and potentially defeat President Bush in 2004."

By Gary at 06:32 PM in World | Comments (1)  

Checking my referrer logs, I just discovered I'm the second google result returned for "Wesley Clark Howard Dean" (or vice versa). Meet the Press today was talking quite seriously about the Clark campaign as it appears Washington insiders are almost sure his hat is going into the ring.

Further, I just learned from the Wesley Clark blog that apparently the Dean and Clark camps are already talking to each other. Great news to me (though I think Clark is the more electable president than Dean). These two in combination, I believe, are set to roll over Bush. Here's the key:

* Push for the UN takeover of operations in Iraq
* Make an issue out of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan
* Huge deficts / Fiscal irresponsibility of the tax cuts (burdens put on state's budgets)

By Gary at 02:27 PM in World | Comments (7)  

Interested in the Wesley Clark for President movement?

The grass roots efforts in Clark's favor are mobilizing. If you are interested in learning more or becoming an active participant, check out their yahoo group site. Of course, for all the latest news, there's also the Wesley Clark blog.

By Gary at 08:23 PM in World | Comments (0)  

I just finished watching Wesley Clark on the Meet the Press this morning. Among other things, Tim Russert gave a plug for draftwesleyclark.com mentioning the grass-roots efforts to make him a candidate. Clark did not say he would, but he did say he would have to "seriously consider" it and went on to give his views on all sorts of matters. Bottom line, it truly sounded like he's running. My guess is that he'll announce at the end of the summer.

By Gary at 11:12 AM in World | Comments (0)  

With the fiscal hardships facing state governments today, the NYTimes is reporting on the imperilment of health coverage for the poor.

"Many state officials are pleading for federal help as they face an array of painful trade-offs, often pitting the needs of impoverished elderly people for prescription drugs and long-term care against those of low-income families seeking basic health coverage."

Where are the precepts of "compassionate conservatism" when they are finally called upon? Here we are living in a renewed time of angst where new and emboldened threats have put financial strain on every piece of government from local through federal levels. Yet, at the same time we are pushing through massive federal tax cuts when it seems the state governments couldn't be in any more dire need for this money. Its a classic chicken and the egg problem where Bushies would tell you that you need to stimulate the ecomony through tax cuts in order resurrect state budgets and thus, their programs. The failure in this logic are the interim effects on people and their livelihood. It can be used again and again how September 11th changed everything, but when will this administration stop ducking the added weight this has placed on states, their budgets and their priorities?

And to that end, what percentage of the current economic uncertainty is driven through the fiscal crisises felt by every single state in the union? If all politics is local, then why isn't this angle be explored? I bet moderate republicans are palpably worried about how this might play out in the next election. I know George Voinovich must be.

Mr. Voinovich, why don't you stop being French and Join President Bush's Fight To Cut Taxes and Fix The Economy?

By Gary at 11:51 PM in World | Comments (0)  

I can only hope that General Clark does choose to seek the Democratic nomination for president. Otherwise, we're doomed to 4 more years of Bush. Though, this stunning bit of journalism at CNN claims that "the chances of the Democratic Party nominating a retired general with no political experience are slim at best, given the liberal leanings of the party's rank-and-file". Utter hogwash!

With 4 years to lick our collective wounds over the consequences of going "ideal" and voting Nader (yeah yeah, it's Gore's fault he lost), I think CNN is quite off the mark. Clark is the only electable democrat, we all know it and we all would love to unseat Bush.

Of course, someone should tell the Repubs as they're already licking their chops (scroll down) at the prospect of Jeb in '08. I think someone forgot to tell them that Bush's are renowned one-termers. Or, at least they will be.

I hope. Go to DraftWesleyClark.com and send a letter to the former general convincing him to run.

By Gary at 11:02 PM in World | Comments (1)  

Could taking Baghdad really have been this easy? It seems doubtful. Really, I just wanted to post an entry with the title above. That's all.

By Gary at 11:39 AM in World | Comments (0)  

With each day of the war, I find my trust in all media outlets diminishing. Still, this is scary.

So is this.

By Gary at 08:39 PM in World | Comments (0)  

The Iraqi vice president, Yassin Ramadan, was shown on live TV last night berating the American war effort and now claiming that Iraq was in possession of American POWs. As more of these senior leaders make it known that they are alive, the more it discounts my previous blog that perhaps someone at the top had led a coup against Saddam. I guess it was just wishful thinking.

By Gary at 10:17 AM in World | Comments (0)  

Update: I was obviously wrong here.

I have no real evidence to back this claim. What is known, however, is that someone in Iraq's top circles must have sold out Saddam Hussein in our "decapitation attack". al-Sahaf is the Iraqi Information Minister and I happened to be watching some late night war coverage last night when I caught part of a 20 minute press conference that he led.

First, I must say, I was quite astonished that MSNBC would give an open microphone to the dissident remnants of our enemy. While it was strange to see a full-out press conference, complete with 20 news microphones, given by an Iraqi official, it was stranger given his rather temperate rhetoric. Sure, he called Bush a murderer and a criminal and denied our success stories as propoganda, but at times he seemed almost comical, mocking our technological prowess. He made no claims that Americans had killed any Iraqi civilians and, when asked, flatly stated that Iraqis had been unable to capture any American POWs. While he made repeated claims that we had wounded 207 Iraqi civilians, it never went any further than that. Where was the great Satan propoganda?

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By Gary at 05:23 PM in World | Comments (0)  

In the first Iraq war, Saddam never was put in the situation to play his "I'm going to die" card. I wonder what it will be.

By Gary at 09:43 PM in World | Comments (1)  

I've seen many articles recently about North Korea's belligerence (sp?). They've buzzed our fighter planes, restarted their reactors, embarked on two separate missile tests. This is very shrewd work on their part. Then, this morning, I saw this article on Time about Iran nearing completion of a giant uranium enrichment plant. It all points to the hidden costs of this war.

Of course, to begin with, you cannot really get a good estimate of what this war with Iraq will cost. The Bush administration gives out lean figures that we all know aren't true and won't elucidate at all on what the post-war occupation costs will be (oh wait, we'll suddently remember Iraq is filled with oil and balance our costs that way). But, there are some real non-tangible costs to this war that don't even have anything to do with the losses to our international stature. These are the costs of a forced hand. We want this war so badly and are willing to go to such lengths against such public enmity, that we are forced to sit on our hands as other rogue regimes take advantage of this very opportunity.

And, who can blame North Korea? The actions they are taking right now are part of an extremely well calculated effort to not be our next target. They are taking full advantage of our unilateralism to send out their message now, while they can, that they will not stand to be next. Since we cannot possibly deal with the complexities of both situations, they are, in effect, establishing precedent. With this precedent, our options will be much fewer once the war concludes.

It seems Iran is doing likewise. Will we defeat Iraq and fix the 12 year old loose ends in that nation? Yes. Will we at the same time create a whole slew of new complications in doing so? Also, yes. Will it all balance out? Who knows? I do know that as we all keep getting more and more technologically advanced, we cannot stop nuclear proliferation forever. Eventually such proliferation is inevetible. And once we realize this, it will be like drilling in Anwar with fuel cell cars on our 15 year horizon. Or like attacking Iraq now.

Did I mention Dick Cheney's Halliburton has won the contract for Iraq oil firefighting?

By Gary at 04:41 PM in World | Comments (0)  

Wesley Clark, the former General, was on Meet the Press today. After discussing the situation in Iraq, Tim Russert was badgering him about the possibility that Clark may be exploring a bid for the next presidency. More so, he seemed inclined to run as a democrat.

Well, so I don't know any of his opinions on the economy, conservation, liberal etc., but this sounded like pretty good news to me. I did some googling and found this article on Slate. Apparently, he is a Rhodes Scholar from Arkansas, just like Clinton. Seems I can now stop pinning all the hopes on Howard Dean, the democratic governor from Vermont that had already announced his candidacy.

Maybe Gore dropped out for a good reason. I don't think he'd have won the nomination over Clark.

By Gary at 06:00 PM in World | Comments (8)  

My father, having just viewed this site, thought it was important that I mention that my grandfather didn't willingly drop that 'h' from lehrhaupt. Apparantly, it was in a forced bid to make it less German sounding while they lived in Poland. Somehow, I doubt www.lehrhauptski.com is taken.

We also spoke of the international sentiment against war with Iraq. Its pretty terrible how poorly our foreign policy is run. Though I've never read the Art of War, I'm sure there is something to be said about winning the minds of people-- how even if your cause is correct and the outcome, necessary, that if you can't properly bring people to see from your viewpoint, then you have lost. In our case, we have just alienated everyone. Unfortunately, our simplistic leadership will never quite grasp how snubbing our allies on all sorts of earlier issues (kyoto, steel tariffs, etc), is now rearing its ugly payback today. Or, maybe, its just another chapter in Europe's history of appeasement.

Either way, in America, its all explained as part of the same right-wing conspiracy which brought the shuttle down as my father tells it. I said no, dad, it was the left-wing which brought the shuttle down. And so another "dad joke" comes into being.

And, by the way, someone should have told that dude that pot was a Gateway drug.

By Gary at 06:00 PM in World | Comments (0)  

Check out this article at The Washington Post and then read this one at CNN. So, it seems we are being prepared to accept some pretty heavy casualties. Sure, Saddam is dangerous and I do think he has weapons of mass destruction. But, if this really happens, there is going to be massive suffering and we will have brought this out for our quest for oil and daddy's vengeance. I think what scares me the most is what will happen to Israel. Saddam's only chance will be to go after Israel in hopes that Israel's retaliation will unite the Arab world against the war. Scary scary stuff.

By Gary at 06:00 PM in World | Comments (0)  

Welcome to Bush's America. Not sure of his constituents? Well, then read this article on Salon. Of course, I'm sure the CPACers would have some choice words about Salon itself.

By Gary at 06:00 PM in World | Comments (0)