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POPSLawmakers Seek Probe of ‘Media Generals’
‘Not only must the inspector general now account for what it did and did not know about this state-sponsored propaganda effort, but they must also explain why, if they knew about the propaganda campaign, it was allowed to proceed,’ DeLauro said. ‘Additionally, we are calling for the inspector general to launch an investigation to ensure no detail surrounding this programme remains hidden,’ she added. The House members also want to know if the inspector general considers the programme to be illegal. Retired officers who acted as military analysts for major news outlets were given V.I.P. access to the Pentagon, with regular briefings by then-Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a sponsored trip to the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba. The operation was abruptly halted after it was reported by The New York Times. The paper’s massive probe revealed that some 75 retired military officers, prepped by the Pentagon, served as paid television commentators since the run-up to the
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POPS Dumb as We Wanna Be By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN he goes on: Are you sitting down? Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies. These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again — which often happens — investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That’s how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies. The
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POPSEPA Administor Needs firing See site to help fire this jazzbo--I've watched some of his act before congress on C-SPAN and was really disgusted by his stonewalling and lying.
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POPSNew Rule for Toxic Trains: a Disaster Waiting to Happen Within the last year, a coal train derailed in the nation's capital and dumped tons of its load into the Anacostia River that runs through the heart of Washington, DC; had that train been shipping toxic gas, the resulting horrors would probably still be leading our newscasts. Mainline routes through major U.S. cities annually carry more than 110,000 shipments of poison gas railcars. In many cases these shipments could be easily re-routed and are not, so railroads and chemical shippers are in effect recklessly pre-positioning these cargoes for potential derailment or terrorist attack. The new rule utilizes railroad-friendly regulatory techniques to ensure that virtually no protective re-routing will occur
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POPSCartoon Hero Will Save the Day “In the past three months, average consumer spending on energy came to $663 billion, or 6.5 percent of total consumer spending. A year ago, it represented 5.8 percent.” In simple terms: “If gasoline breaks through $4 a gallon by Memorial Day, that would mean spending on gasoline would have risen by $100 billion since the beginning of the year, or roughly the size of the tax rebate checks going out.” According to Monday’s Providence Journal, “The United States, with the lowest fuel efficient vehicles and longest average commutes in the world, is the only major industrialized country to witness a surge in oil consumption since the severe oil shortages of the 1970s and the 1980s.” While European nations have taxed fuel to pay for other more efficient forms of transportation, the U.S. has taken an Underdog approach to the problem; swooping in with borrowed cash to pay the ransom oil companies demand on our transportation and heating needs. Next week President Underdog will begin mai
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POPSShattering the war consensus: Cindy Sheehan stands up to the crack house crowd Pelosi, though she is, like the Clintons, sneered at by the thug right (and thereby gains street cred in ultra-liberal San Francisco, the district she represents), has paved the way for Bush's war-funding requests to pass time and again with her political gamesmanship in the House. Among many other acts of accommodation, she was also secretly briefed, along with a few other members of Congress, on CIA torture practices in 2002, and in the spirit of bipartisan amorality saw no problem with it. "This is a progressive, populist campaign. Every day that we exist and bring up these issues is a victory for us," said Sheehan, the grieving mom who became the public face of opposition to the war in Iraq. Now, with a staff of two, she is turning her challenge to that war into a political campaign. To the extent that politics is about winning and losing, yes, hers is probably a lost cause. But I see it as something else. I see it as a clarion stand for principle and rallying point for all w
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POPSThe United States of Stupidity: We, the people, didn't used to be this dumb What d'you mean "we", Kimosabe? But he goes on: It used to be that just the so-called "Red States" (come to think of it, the Red-Blue thing was pretty stupid) were allergic to facts. But now it's all of us. We just sit here and take it all in, complain about gas prices when oil companies run the White House, wonder why the airlines are collapsing and there is no transportation alternative: It's the stupidity, stupid! While we were sidetracked by John Edwards' haircuts, the oil companies got Congress to destroy Amtrak for them — Bangladesh now has a more efficient passenger rail system than we do. While we sat transfixed by the magnificence of Angelina Jolie's lips and Britney Spears' shaven crotch, Croatia, Latvia and Albania moved ahead of the United States on the global Environmental Sustainability Index. While we munched freedom fries and stockpiled duct tape, our national treasury was looted. And so on. We the people didn't used to be this dumb. Or maybe we're just stupefied b
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POPSGun-running Chinese Scow Turned Away China’s decision to turn the ship around was welcomed by the dock workers, trade unionists, religious leaders, Western diplomats and human rights workers who have been campaigning since last week to block delivery of the weapons to Zimbabwe. They had said the weaponry could be used to carry out an even more violent crackdown on Zimbabwe’s political opposition, which is allied with the country’s unionized workers. “This is a great victory for the trade union movement in particular and civil society in general in putting its foot down and saying we will not allow weapons that could be used to kill and maim our fellow workers and Zimbabweans to be transported across South Africa,” said Patrick Craven, spokesman for the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which represents 1.9 million South African workers.
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POPSSheehan challenges Pelosi for House seat Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said that Pelosi, too, is frustrated with the ongoing war in Iraq but believes that impeachment would be divisive and distract Congress from improving the lives of working families. WTF? If we had impeached the frigggin' criminals, the war could be over!
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POPSMichael Moore Endorses Obama for "Decency" Funny, we have the same name (I had it first) and I usually like Michael's stuff--except when he tries to go "establishment", like wearing a suit and gettin a haircut--just let it fly, man!
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POPSSenator Byrd Wants to End the Occupation: Ask Him to Filibuster the Funding In March of 2003, just prior to the invasion of Iraq, I made a final plea to the administration and my colleagues in Congress to avert a war that I believed would reap sorrowful consequences for our nation. In a speech entitled "We Stand Passively Mute", I expressed my outrage at the fact that the United States Senate -- the world's greatest deliberative body -- stood "for the most part-silent-ominously, dreadfully silent" on this monumental question. Sadly, my worst fears have been realized. The decision to invade Iraq may go down as one of the gravest foreign policy blunders in our nation's history. Yet the war continues. American troop levels are higher than they were the day President Bush flamboyantly swooped onto the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to declare "Mission Accomplished." Four thousand Americans have now lost their lives, including twenty-three brave West Virginians. Almost thirty-thousand Americans have been wounded in action, many gravely, and c
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POPSWexler Pushing for Impeachment While Praising Pelosi see site for video When? Millions of Americans have been calling for impeachment for a long time, Rep. Wexler and I admire you for pushing the issue in the HR....BUT-- I wonder why you praise Speaker Pelosi so highly since she is the person who took impeachment off the table from the start of the movement to take these criminals in the WH down to where they belong--under oath and before a jury of their peers. Get going! Ms. Pelosi shouldn't have to get her butt kissed to do her job defending the Constitution!
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POPSDisaster relief: Does anyone in Washington, D.C. really get what's going on? , such a strategy is inexcusable in the world in which we now live. Here in Reality, the values of homes and retirement savings are plummeting, the climate is changing, people are uninsured and going insane (if this rash of mass shootings is any indication), costs are rising (am I the only person who noticed the spike in milk prices in the last week?), and an illegal war in Iraq is still sending Americans home in body bags
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