John McCain’s Medical File Is A National Secret — Death To The Traitor Who Leaks Medical Details Of America’s Oldest President

A little noticed remark in the press is generating heat for McCain’s presidential campaign. On Wednesday, McCain’s campaign told CNN that the Arizona senator’s medical file would be produced May 15. Trouble is, they previously said they’d be released April 15, and they’ve refused to turn the records over to the New York Times on at least three occasions. This has led some on the left to question, “What’s he hiding?” — as is the banner headline on the politics section of liberal blog, The Huffington Post. “Mr. McCain has yet to make his full medical records or his physicians available to reporters,” the Times veteran medical correspondent Dr. Lawrence Altman penned in March. “At least three times since March 2007, campaign officials have told The New York Times that they would provide the detailed information about his current state of health, but they have not done so. The campaign now says it expects to release the information in April.” McCain’s previous encounter with skin cancer: The Times has taken issue with McCain’s health before. In early March of this year, the paper ran a Sunday splash titled “On the Campaign Trail, Few Mentions of McCain’s Bout With Melanoma.” “Along with his signature bright white hair, the most striking aspects of Senator John McCain’s physical appearance are his puffy left cheek and the scar that runs down the back of his neck,” Altman wrote. “The marks are cosmetic reminders of the melanoma surgery he underwent in August 2000. Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, sometimes tells audiences that he has ‘more scars than Frankenstein.’” The recent ducking of questions on his medical history stands in contrast to his release of detailed files in 1999, “In 1999, during Mr. McCain’s first race for president, he gave the public an extraordinary look at his medical history — 1,500 pages of medical and psychiatric records that were amassed as part of a United States Navy project to gauge the health of former prisoners of war,” Altman wrote in March. “This reporter, who is a physician, interviewed the senator’s doctors in 1999 with his permission.” The CNN report was featured in a blog post on their political ticker Wednesday. It was not picked up by news agencies or even the subject of a CNN report. The Carpetbagger blog, however, caught the CNN blog post and raised a storm. McCain said he’d release files on 60 Minutes. The Times report “was the standard line in early March. McCain sat down for an interview with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, and was asked about his health. McCain said it’s ‘excellent’ (three times), and said his campaign would be ‘doing the medical records thing’ soon,” Carpetbagger’s Steve Bennen wrote. “Pelley followed up, “There has been some criticism that you have not released your medical records. You’re saying in this interview that you’re about to do that. McCain replied, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll do it in the next month or so, yeah.’” “For a candidate who has nothing to hide, he’s acting like he has something to hide,” he continued later. “And given that McCain is running to be the oldest president ever elected, and he has a history of medical problems including melanoma, this is a little unsettling. “If McCain had a history of secrecy,” he added, “it’d be easier to just chalk this up to a character flaw. But his previous disclosures actually make the problem worse. He was an open book during his first campaign, and now he can’t even explain the delays in releasing his records. “As I said,” he concluded. “There’s probably nothing to this. But the campaign’s conduct on the issue raises questions, doesn’t it?”

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_delays_releasing_medical_records_again_0404.html

http://www.johnmccain.com/

POLL —- Is the USA a Vote-Counting Nation?

Yes.
Not Sure / Undecided
No.

http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=84121

Note: The question is NOT “Is the USA a democracy?”

Election Year Sex Scandal — Video Of What Happened In The Bedroom

This Sort Of Thing Is Good Journalism During A Presidential Election Year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbAsUJaNTag

POLL —- Should smart people be allowed to vote more times than stupid people?

No, because I’m stupid.

Yes, because I’m stupid.

Yes, because I’m smart.

No, because I’m smart.

I’m too stupid to understand the question.

I’m too smart to answer the question.

http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=83559

POLL —- Elections. The Person, The Party, His/Her Own Policy. Which is the most important to you?

The character of the candidate is the most important to me.

The party he/she represents is the most important to me. I would not vote for a different party.

I would switch to a different candidate if his/her own policy was important to me.

http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=83474

“My fellow Americans, due to this catastrophic emergency, power has been transferred from FEMA to me……

……and in order to protect national security during this catastrophic emergency, all elections are suspended, and I shall rule at my own discretion”

It’s springtime in American politics. It’s only early March, but there’s a giddy, hopeful feeling to this election season, a sense that new leadership is blossoming. We could have a Democrat in the White House next year. But winter isn’t over yet and we need to balance our hope with a little fear. In 2000 Bush and Cheney stole the election in Florida. In 2004 they played dirty tricks in Ohio. In 2008 could they go one step further — and suspend the election altogether? The necessary architecture may already be in place. On May 4 last year, the White House issued the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, key parts of which remain classified and hence shrouded from public view. The directive outlines procedures to respond to a “catastrophic emergency,” defined broadly as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.” Of course previous administrations also had emergency plans. But the Bush directive transfers power from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the White House, where the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism is assigned the job of “National Continuity Coordinator”. The unclassified part of the directive reveals little about who would have the authority to invoke emergency powers during a catastrophe. Nor does it refer to existing laws, such as the National Emergencies Act, that establish congressional checks on the executive’s power to impose martial law or other extraordinary measures. Its wording is ambiguous - the directive shall be implemented “consistent with applicable law,” without making clear which laws are “applicable”. “The Bush legal team has pushed a controversial theory that the Constitution gives the president an unwritten power to disobey laws at his own discretion to protect national security,” writes Charlie Savage in the Boston Globe. He quotes legal specialists who describe the vagueness of the new directive as “troubling”. Also troubling is the Department of Homeland Security’s $385 million contract awarded to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root in January 2006 to build temporary detention facilities. According to a Halliburton press release, the contract provides for augmenting existing immigration detention facilities in the event of “an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.” It also includes the development of a plan “to react to a national emergency, such as a national disaster.” Construction would commence only after an “emergency” is declared. While immigrants appear to be the main target, one cannot rule out the possibility that the detention centers could be used as holding pens for dissidents during a proclaimed emergency. Recent crackdowns on illegal immigrants have included military-style night raids on homes and factories. Are we getting softened up for the expansion of police state tactics? But perhaps the most important card the Bush administration holds in its deck is a stacked conservative majority on the Supreme Court. In 2000 the Court turned a blind eye to the theft of Al Gore’s electoral victory in Florida. Should we expect better today? Just last month the Court refused to review the ACLU’s legal challenge to the Bush administration’s warrantless electronic surveillance program. Can we depend on the Court to challenge emergency rule and a suspension of elections? Even with this architecture in place, the Bush administration would need a trigger to declare a state of emergency. One can imagine several possible scenarios: War with Iran - unfortunately, not so far-fetched. The National Intelligence Estimate released in December concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program back in 2003. But when have Bush and Cheney ever based their foreign policy decisions on evidence? Moreover, the most important reason they want to attack Iran is to control the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf, nukes or no nukes. The assassination of a presidential candidate. Obama evokes memories of JFK and Martin Luther King. The bullet could come from a lone racist, a terrorist, or an agent of a state. The threat is real. The Secret Service knows it and so should we. A terrorist strike, on the scale of 9/11 or worse. Again, not so far-fetched. Bush and Cheney have been Osama bin Laden’s greatest recruiters, making the U.S. appear to be the enemy of millions across the world. Al Qaeda may consider that regime change in the U.S. is not in their interest. With the right spin, any of these events might be construed as a “catastrophic emergency.” These worst-case scenarios probably will not come to pass. We’ll probably all be able to sleep peacefully in our beds in the early hours of November 5, after watching the election results on TV. The value of worst-case scenarios lies not in their accurate prediction of events, but rather in what they tell us about the risks we face. We shouldn’t let hope make us naive. We need to be alert, our vision razor-sharp. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. It could be the price of elections, too. Let’s not count our spring flowers before they bloom.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/06/7525/

Points to debate:

(a)
Common Dreams automatically assumes that a “catastrophic emergency” would never happen while a Democrat is in the White House.
(b)
Common Dreams automatically assumes that a Democrat president would never rule as Lord Protector (or Lady Protector).

http://www.hinchhouse.org.uk/civilwar/oliver.html

One-Eighth Of All U.S. Troops Killed In Iraq Are From Ohio/Texas

Two big states holding presidential primaries Tuesday have something more tragic in common — high numbers of military casualties in Iraq. Combined, Ohio and Texas have sustained roughly one-eighth of all U.S. troop deaths in a war that’s certain to shape the general election as candidates with two vastly different approaches — stay or go — compete for votes in communities that have been personally touched by the conflict that began with a U.S.-led invasion five years ago this month. “This strategy is succeeding,” insists Republican Sen. John McCain, the likely GOP nominee who plans to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for the near future and who daily derides his Democratic rivals as defeatists. Countering, Democratic presidential contenders Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton want the military out now and argue that the Republican would keep the country’s armed forces entangled in Iraq indefinitely. “We cannot wait to bring this war in Iraq to a close,” argues Obama at every turn while Clinton frequently promises, “I would begin pulling the troops out in the first 60 days.” With such disparate positions, the Iraq war is certain to be a dominant topic, perhaps the defining issue, in the election as U.S. military deaths near 4,000 and the cost approaches $500 billion. In Ohio and Texas, both party’s contenders are courting a constituency that while war-weary also is deeply supportive of U.S. troops embroiled in a conflict that has intimately affected small towns like McConnelsville, Ohio, and military bastions around Fort Hood, Texas, as well as every place in between. Ohio and Texas are among states with the largest numbers of military installations, deployments and war casualties. Ohio has lost 166 while Texas has mourned 366, the second highest death total behind California’s 428. There and elsewhere, people appear confounded by Iraq and struggle to see a way forward. “We need to come home, but we need to get the job done,” said Jan Slowter, working at her hair salon in this southeast Ohio town. An undecided voter, she said the war will affect her decision whether to stick with the Republicans as she has most of her life or choose a Democrat. Some 1,200 miles away in Texas, retired Air Force veteran Robert Zahirniak says he has always thought the war was unnecessary and is supporting Clinton. He looks forward to new leadership in the White House. “Get out of there the first chance you get,” said Zahirniak over his morning coffee at a bakery in his hometown of West, Texas, near Fort Hood. In Republican primaries and caucuses so far, only 18 percent of voters rated Iraq their most important issue behind the economy and immigration. The number was higher — 28 percent — among those voting in Democratic primaries and caucuses but Iraq still trailed the economy. Nevertheless, three in four people recently called the war an important issue to them personally. That result, plus the gulf between the GOP and Democratic positions will combine with an expected debate in Washington this spring over an additional $100 billion for the war to give Iraq a high-profile role in the months to come. McCain, a prisoner of war during Vietnam, has signaled Iraq will be a major part of his campaign while Obama and Clinton appeal to public sentiment that long ago soured on the mission. In an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll in December, nearly half of all respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports immediate withdrawal of troops, while just over a third said they would be less likely to do so. Only 15 percent said a candidate’s war position would make no difference. Backing for the war divides sharply along partisan lines. A staggering 92 percent of Democrats in that poll said they opposed the war while 65 percent of Republicans favored it. Another result could bode ill for McCain: 77 percent of independents also said they oppose the war. That swing voting group is critical in the general election. The change in public sentiment about the war over the last five years is evident in McConnelsville, Ohio. As the war began in March 2003, this sleepy Appalachian town bid farewell to what was then the largest single deployment of Ohio Army National Guard troops in a single unit, some 433. Several thousand people jammed a send-off ceremony and crowds lined the streets as buses packed with soldiers rolled through town. Crisp new flags and bright yellow ribbons hung from nearly every tree and lamppost. Iraq dominated chatter at the Blue Bell 50’s Diner and people stood proudly behind the troops even as they questioned the need for the invasion. Now, the town has mourned the loss of one of its own, killed when a roadside bomb exploded near his tank 36 hours before he was to come home. Fewer ribbons dot the main drag; those that remain have faded. Anti-war candidate Ron Paul’s campaign signs hang from storefronts and in some yards. In the diner, people are no less supportive of the troops. Only now, they question how to get out without making the past five years for naught. With Ohio’s presidential primary looming, the talk among the Saturday midmorning crowd inevitably turned to the election and war politics. “We should stay there for 100 years or more like McCain said and get all the terrorists out,” said George Kenney, 67, a registered Democrat who plans to vote for the Republican largely because of the war. As for the Democrats, he said: “I don’t think they’ll have the guts to pull out.” Over a platter of sausage, gravy and biscuits, David Allen, 64, a registered Republican, said he’s undecided on who to support but Iraq will be part of the equation. “Everyone knows we’d like to have everyone back,” Allen said. “But we’re there and it would be a travesty for everyone who has lost their lives to just pull out.” Beth Cole, 49, is a registered Republican who calls herself an independent. She says she will choose a candidate based in part on the war. “I personally don’t think we should be over there. When you stop to think about the casualties, is it really worth it?” she said. “I don’t know the answer yet.” At the Target store in Killeen, Texas, young men with Army haircuts stand out among the mostly female shoppers, many of whom say they too are soldiers or military wives when stopped to talk. They are personally familiar with the devastation in Iraq and worry that it will fall into chaos after U.S. forces leave. Whether that means the U.S. has a responsibility to stay elicits different answers. “I don’t know,” says 25-year-old Maria Lopez, ordering a frozen drink for her little girl at Target’s cafe. “All I know is that we are committed to serve and will follow whatever plan our commander in chief has for us.”

[1]
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h_bA_0c63a5WTrdoVGRsSj6l-GBwD8V6625O2
[2]
http://news.rgj.com//apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080304/NEWS19/803040345/1321/NEWS
[3]
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14616065
[4]
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080043013
[5]
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?epi_menuItemID=887566059a3aedb6efaaa9e27a808a0c&ndmViewId=news_view&ndmConfigId=1000108&newsId=20080303006387&newsLang=en
[6]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/05/2180677.htm

Panama Hats — Determining Quality

A “Panama” hat is a reference to the straw material that a hat is made from. It is neither a style nor a quality, but rather a hat - in any style and of any quality - made from the plant carludovica palmata, which grows in the coastal lowlands of western South America (not in Panama). Therefore, wide ranges of hat styles in a never-ending range of qualities are rightly sold as “Panama hats”. The rub is that a fair price for a Panama hat can be $5 or $5,000. A knowing shopper usually begins by examining the fineness of the weave. These hats are hand woven, primarily in Ecuador, and the straw itself can continually be made thinner, or finer, by dividing the strand of straw in half. Every time the straw width is halved (via fingernail), the amount of work required to weave the hat is multiplied four times. Obviously - on this basis alone - a fair price for this handiwork can be dramatically different from one hat to another. No matter the fineness of the straw, the work of the weaver needs examination. Look for tightly woven consistency in the straw – the fewer the gaps, holes, or bumps, the better. Look for evenness in the weave. The rows should be straight and resemble, what you may know from woolen or cotton fabrics, a small herringbone or diamond pattern. The color of the hat, per se, does not have a large bearing on the price, however there are some important things to consider. In the North American market, one mostly finds Panama either in natural straw or bleached white. (Colored straws are achievable via dying; these hats do turn up in stores.) Many people like the white hats, but the buyer should know that the bleaching process weakens the hat and it will likely not last a long as the unbleached natural straw. In natural straw hats, the more consistent the color is throughout the hat, the better. But remember that this is a natural material and differences in hue (sometimes slightly more gray or more reddish) are to be expected. Each hat is unique. Not all hats advertised as Panama hats are in fact Panama hats. The phrase, “Panama hats”, is not regulated. Materials from all over the world, some of which closely resemble carludovica palmata, are sold as “Panama hats”. Some of these materials are quite nice and the hats are fairly priced. Others are not. Buyers beware. Without the experience of comparing one hat to another, much of what is discussed above will have limited service to the novice Panama shopper. When someone comes into one of our Village Hat Shops and wants a quick education with regard to these hats, we simply line up a half-dozen or so hats in various qualities and much of what is discussed above becomes readily apparent. Because, however, each hat is hand woven and unique, quality is therefore always different from one hat to the next. This exercise in relativity is not the last word on value and fair price. Most people need to see many hats and know this fluctuating market well before feeling comfortable with a purchase that may run hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. Therefore - if you don’t know Panama hats, know your Panama hat seller.

http://www.villagehatshop.com/panama_hats_quality.html

The Number One Issue Facing The Next President Will Be The Re-Investigation Of September 11th

……Too many anomalies, contradictions, distortions and cover-ups have clouded the official story. Too many questions remain. I do not claim to know what happened that awful day but I do not believe the “official story.” First, everyone should read the 9/11 Commission Report in its entirety. You will be amazed and depressed to learn of all the important things they did not investigate. Crucial testimonies were not included in the final report and information that contradicted the official story was not included. Next, everyone should read Without Precedent, the book written by the co-chairmen, Kean and Hamilton. They state outright that the 9/11 Commission was obstructed, misled and stonewalled by: Bush, Cheney and the White House, the CIA, the FAA, the NSA and the Pentagon. In January of THIS YEAR, Kean and Hamilton wrote an Op Ed in the New York Times that threw the entire 9/11 Commission Report into doubt. Please read it. 01/02/08 This is not easy to discuss. I am a patriot and I love our country. But it is clear to me after doing much research on the subject that we do not know the full truth about 9/11. Another truly independent investigation is urgently needed. This will be the biggest issue facing our next President, in my humble opinion……

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/joeruwe/gGggxL

Points to debate:
(a)
Barack Obama has not promised to re-investigate 9/11. If he had made such a promise, it would have flashed from one side of the Internet to the other in minutes.
(b)
None of the presidential candidates have made such a promise.
(c)
It’s possible that the re-investigation of 9/11 is too hot an issue, for any of the main presidential candidates to handle, at the present time.
(d)
It’s also possible that a future president might surprise everybody with a re-investigation of 9/11. Whether that might be soon, later, or many years later, is a matter of conjecture.
(e)
Be generous by allowing the politicians to continue the pretence that the official account of 9/11 is the truth. Don’t be harsh with the politicians on this issue. This is an extremely difficult issue for them to handle at the present time.
(f)
Allow the ordinary people to know that the official account of 9/11 is false.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

http://roydonkin.blogspot.com/2008/02/too-close-to-true.html

You Haven’t Begun To See Evil Until You’ve Seen The Pentagon Sodomization Videos

July 2004 — The government at the time was terrified of the videos being seen by the American public. Iraqi women were arrested with young boys. Horrible things were done to the children of the women prisoners as the cameras ran. Boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst part is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking.

[1]
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107946/2004/07/14.html
[2]
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=5668
[3]
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/15/hersh-children-raped.html
[4]
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kids_sodomized_at_abu_ghraib.php

Point to debate:

They say voters have short memories. Is this something voters should give a thought to when they enter the polling station?

Seattle billboard: “When you vote, remember 9/11″ — Seattle drivers, what do you make of this?

A new billboard recently went up near Western Avenue and Denny Way, about 100 feet from the Seattle P-I. Text along the bottom reads that it is paid for by “Concerned Citizens for a Better America.” The billboard, which faces south from the corner of Western Avenue and Denny Way, states that it was funded by something called “Concerned Citizens for a Better America.” You won’t find the group’s name on Google, except in a wayward comment thread or two. The group is not registered as a Political Action Committee or with the Washington Secretary of State’s corporation division. Nor does it have to be, based on this billboard, anyway, because the billboard’s message neither mentions a candidate by name nor appears too close before an election. Democratic consultant Frank Greer said he “had no idea” who “Concerned Citizens For A Better America” might be, but he’s surprised any group would use a billboard to spread a political message. “Candidates do not use billboards and they’re rarely used in politics,” Greer said. “I do not know of a campaign, in my professional experience, where billboards have been effective.” The exception, he said, is when a billboard is used to create buzz that leads to another campaign. Still, the Western and Denny billboard left him puzzled. “It seems to be somebody who wants to begin a conversation or a dynamic or ask questions about America’s response to 9/11,” he said. “The thing about it is, we know the one candidate that relied on 9/11 — Rudy Giuliani — never made it past the first primary. “Whoever did it chose the location carefully — ’cause it was next to you,” he said, referring to the P-I. Staff at the Seattle Clear Channel Outdoor office referred my questions about billboards to the corporate office in San Antonio, which was not staffed by an operator nor taking messages at 6 p.m. central time. I’ll let you know if I get through tomorrow. The billboard’s new message went up only recently; it stands about 100 feet from the Seattle P-I building on Elliott Avenue and I drive past it on my way to work. Clear Channel Outdoor’s national Web site says “bulletin” billboards like this one typically go up on Mondays. What do you make of the billboard? Do you think it could have an impact in how Seattleites vote in the general election this fall? If you’ve seen other billboards paid by “Concerned Citizens For A Better America,” let us know.

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/thebigblog/archives/132767.asp?source=rss

Haecus: “When you vote, remember 9/11″ — The problem with this election slogan, is that the meaning can be interpreted in two opposite ways. This will have opposite meanings to different people, depending on their opposite ideas about 9/11. I’m surprised the “Concerned Citizens for a Better America” didn’t see and understand this.

Early Voting For Russia’s Presidential Election Kicks Off

Special Report: Russian Presidential Election 2008

A man casts his ballot as he takes part in early voting for Russia’s presidential election in the Tundra region, near the village of Yar-Sale, located in the Yamal peninsula above the polar circle, some 2,150 km (1,336 miles) northeast of Moscow, Feb. 25, 2008. Early voting in Russia’s presidential election has started in some of the vast country’s remote regions, one week before Russians officially go to the polls on March 2. The Nenets are indigenous people in Russia’s artic region north of the Urals. Election authorities walk to a village with ballot boxes for Russia’s presidential election in the Tundra region, near the village of Yar-Sale, located in the Yamal peninsula above the polar circle, some 2,150 km (1,336 miles) northeast of Moscow, Feb. 25, 2008. Election authorities walk to a village with ballot boxes for Russia’s presidential election in the Tundra region, near the village of Yar-Sale, located in the Yamal peninsula above the polar circle, some 2,150 km (1,336 miles) northeast of Moscow, Feb. 25, 2008.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/26/content_7670254.htm

Noam Chomsky: Why is Iraq Missing from 2008 Presidential Race?

The report didn’t mention some other good news, so I’ll add it. Iraqis, it appears, accept the highest values of Americans. That ought to be good news. Specifically, they accept the principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal that sentenced Nazi war criminals to hanging for such crimes as supporting aggression and preemptive war. It was the main charge against von Ribbentrop, for example, whose position was—in the Nazi regime was that of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. The Tribunal defined aggression very straightforwardly: aggression, in its words, is the “invasion of its armed forces” by one state “of the territory of another state.” That’s simple. Obviously, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan are textbook examples of aggression. And the Tribunal, as I’m sure you know, went on to characterize aggression as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself all the accumulated evil of the whole.” So everything that follows from the aggression is part of the evil of the aggression. It’s also attributable to the new counterinsurgency doctrine, Washington’s decision to support the tribal groups that had already organized to drive out Iraqi al-Qaeda, to an increase in US troops, and to the decision of the Sadr’s Mahdi army to consolidate its gains to stop direct fighting. And politically, that’s what the press calls “halting aggression” by the Mahdi army. Notice that only Iraqis can commit aggression in Iraq, or Iranians, of course, but no one else. It allows US forces to remain indefinitely in Iraq in order to “deter foreign aggression”—well, the only aggression in sight is from the United States, but that’s not aggression, by definition—and also to facilitate and encourage “the flow of foreign investments [to] Iraq, especially American investments.” I’m quoting. That’s an unusually brazen expression of imperial will.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/26/noam_chomsky_why_is_iraq_missing

What Part Does God Play In Elections?

1Samuel 9:16 “About this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin. Anoint him leader over my people Israel; he will deliver my people from the hand of the Philistines. I have looked upon my people, for their cry has reached me.” 17 When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the LORD said to him, “This is the man I spoke to you about; he will govern my people.” …14 But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command.” 1 Samuel 25:30 When the LORD has done for my master every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him leader over Israel, 1Kings 14:7 Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `I raised you up from among the people and made you a leader over my people Israel. Micah 3:9 Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right; 10 who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with wickedness. 11 Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD and say, “Is not the LORD among us? No disaster will come upon us.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1971493/posts

Haecus: Junta boss of Burma says God does not approve of elections.