Category Archives: newsworthy

Debate Discussion 2/26

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Not as much blood splattering as one would have expected last night. Both candidates remained cool, calm and collected. And they were both very much on top of their game.

Is it just me or were these “mediators” very antagonizing? Russert was asking stupid questions and the candidates handled him well. He tried to draw parralels to the life and times of Farrakhan to Obama, trying to bring about some guilt by association. He also tried to put over crazy hypotheticals and expected the candidates to have policy issues for rediculous situations (such as re-invading Iraq, or Iraq telling us to immediatly withdraw from their country). He’s a moron.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJkU1e-_r3w[/youtube]

Thanks, TPM

Hillary was stupid for complaining about receiving the first quesetion all the time and referencing an SNL skit. I don’t know what she was trying to do, but she got booed. It was also poor decision making to try and say “Well I think we need to be stronger and say reject and not denounce,” in referencing Barack’s position on Farrakhan. And Barack said, “Sorry, waht’s the difference? Okay, I denounce and reject Farrakhan.” 

My favorite moment of the debate was after the clip of Clinton making fun of Obama for being a dreamer and creating a painting of a world uniting and problems being solved (“and the clouds will open up and the sun will shine” … etc etc.), the clip ended Obama said “Sounds good” then credited her with a great performance and solid delivery.

To end the night it was Obama to start in with the feel-good moment which I thought was a great way of saying, it’s been good Hillary, it’s been real … but it hasn’t been real good, but now I have to go win the general election.

Debate Tonight

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Just so you ninjas know. There will be another debate tonight between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It will go from 9 – 10:30 and will air on NBC. Be sure to check back here for a run-down of the important aspects of what should be a bare-knuckle assault on Obama from Clinton.

The impending doomsday for team Hillary is one week from today when Texas and Ohio will have their primary elections.

I love that picture.

What a Surprise

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Old news by now, but just in case you missed it. Raul Castro was unanimously elected as Cuba’s new preisdent yesterday. Raul has been acting as President since Fidel’s intestinal surgery in 2006 sidelined him from official duties. The vote yesterday just made his title official. Many hope that Raul with at least begin to open Cuba up to state-run capitalism (oh-so different from socialism?) and help create a connection with the international community that was not allowed to exist because they didn’t want to deal with Fidel.

[pictuerd above: Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Raul Castro, Fidel Castro]

al-Sadr’s Militia to Continue Ceasefire

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A very powerful Shia cleric in Iraq, Maqtada al-Sadr, with a very powerful following has proclaimed that his militia’s ceasefire against rivals and the US will be extended for another six months. He will be a crucial figure in the future of Iraq.

Moqtada’s father was a very powerful and respected Shia cleric throughout the Muslim world. He was murdered along with Moqtada’s two brothers, supposedly on the orders of Saddam Hussein. In 2003 Sadr’s creation of the Mahdi army gained much support in Sadr City, a neighborhood of Baghdad, and beyond. It has a reported following of thousands of Iraqis. This is the force that recognizes the ceasefire.

Since the new Irarqi governmnet has been formed al-Sadr has not lent to its credibility, denouncing it’s legitimacy and refusing to get involved. He invisions a cleric run state (a la Iran). He says the purpose of this new ceasefire is so that his group might further an ideological stance within the Iraqi system. 

One thing that both candidates left out of the debate last night when talking about the sucess of teh US military surge in Iraq is that it has coincided with this ceasefire. This has been a huge reason why there has been such successful surge results. al-Sadr knows that the longer he holds out of taking his own action, the more he can contribute to temporary stability and, hopefully, the withdrawl of foreign troops. 

The Debate Discussion

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So the debate tonight between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was interesting. It’s hard for me to say who won. They both performed well. I think it was crucial for Hillary to at least keep up with Obama. Of course, she succeeded at this because she’s stronger in debates than at giving speeches. She had some very positive moments, or at least moments the public wanted to see tonight. I thought she was trying to cry when she started talking about seeing those soldiers walk out to her with their injuries. It seemed a little forced. When confronted with having to stir up the thought of a struggle she immediately referenced to her public humiliation 8 years ago courtesy of her husband, President Bill Clinton. At least she acknowledged that others have gone through worse, she said these are a the people that make her get out of bed everyday. I was reminded of an SNL skit of Hartman as Clinton in a McDonald’s. After having taken a boys French-fries, Clinton says to his father “We’re gonna wake up everyday thinking about you.”

It wasn’t however the only reference to times before Bush. Clinton tried to remind us of how good we had it before GDubz. She assured us that she could get us back on the track we were on before he took over. She wanted us to know that the policies of Bill would carry over into Hillary. Unfortunately, we don’t have the same ingredients for that recipe this time around.

Then there was Barack Obama. He did a fantastic job of keeping up with her considering she needed to really shine tonight. Is it me, or did he sound like he’s had the flu? His single greatest moment was in rebuttal to Hillary’s shrug-off of the question of super-delegates and pledged delegates. Hillary said that she didn’t think it would come to her going after super delegates and possibly upsetting the popular vote over THEIR choice for a nominee. Obama made the argument that the supes ought to strongly consider voting along with he people based on the point that the popular vote being over-turned again would be very disheartening for a population has only increasingly felt alienated from the behaviors of the government. I agree that such a situation would be a call on people to ensure their government is listening. His reference to “silly season” was my favorite part of the night. After being attacked for taking a line from Mass. Governor Duval Patrick (we’re neighbors, no joke) Obama warns of the dangers of negative energies of this kind. His demeanor was good tonight, and I appreciate his tone. I think Obama takes more time to articulate the response he’s looking for in these debates, but I think he goes a lot deeper than she does.

McCain and Lobbyist Too Close

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BREAKING NEWS – Apparently the last time John McCain ran for president his relationship with a certain lobbyist raised some suspicions. Now 40 year old Vicki Iseman was seen around McCain so much that his advisors had to step in and end the relationship. Iseman was representing companies for whom McCain had provided favors for, in the form of letters to federal regulators.

The New York Times has the article.

Again, this isn’t something that is going to sink McCain, it’s just something he’s going to have to deal with in the long run. The long time party boy seems capable of the accused actions. Some people think that the details of his personal life (the relationships he’s had with strippers and hot lobbyists) are inconsequential but this was a lobbyist with clients for whom he did favors. That does not look good on your public service record. Ninjas should could just consider it about the character of a big-whig favor giving Washington pure-bred.

The response from McCain.

The Post also has a piece with more names and games.

Obama’s Weekend Sweep

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Well, my ninjas, what a weekend. Barak Obama won all three contests on Saturday: Nevada, Washington and Louisiana. Then, on Sunday he won Maine too which was supposed to be Hillary Country. Now this sweep is by and large a result of the huge momentum Barak has accumulated as of late and Hillary’s camp is not pleased. Obama has drastically closed the gap between he and Clinton. They have reacted by switching campaign managers and claiming that Barak has been able to spend much more money than they have (his donations far surpass hers in 2008).

 

On the GOP side of things it was quite an interesting weekend. Mike Huckabee is proving to be quite a thorn in the side of John McCain as Huck won two of the three races: Kansas and Louisiana. The third GOP contest this weekend has created some controversy, as the chair of the Reps. in Washington State decided to call the race in favor of John McCain after only 87% percent of the votes had been counted with a discrepancy of less than 2% between the candidates. Huckabee has responded by sending a legal team to investigate the situation. All this adds up to Huck giving McCain a run for his money as he has the nomination all but secured. This really shows the reluctancy many conservatives have with backing McCain and illustrates the struggle he will have to rally the party around him in the coming months.  

Iran, what?

Remember Iran? That country next to Iraq that is enriching uranium and is supposed to be the “Pest to the West” (term hereby copyrighted by MNP)?  It seems that the last major news we’ve seen concerning the clericly run state was back when an NIE (an intelligence report) was released siting that Iran had halted their nuclear weapons development as far back as 2003. Well, they’re back this month, making the front page of the Economist, and American Conservatives are shaking. Stanley Kurtz’s piece from the National Review claims:

Yet, as the truth about the NIE report emerges from decidedly non-neocon sources like The Economist, it’s increasingly clear that the real NIE story is actually a Republican warning come true. Dovish intelligence analysts eager to discredit the administration and tie its hands have not only distorted and betrayed the truth about Iran, they have undercut and infuriated the very European diplomats America’s doves look to for approval and assistance. The NIE lied. Europe’s peacemakers cried. Seizing on this story could bring national security back into the heart of this election campaign — and for all the right reasons.

First and foremost: “the truth” about the report isn’t coming from souces like the Economist being able to analyze it. Now, I’m not going to say that Iran definitely isn’t trying to build nukes-I mean, as recent as yesterday Iran was making international news after the launch of a rocket/long range missle apparatus which would greatly assist their efforts to drop a nuke if they should ever procure one-however, do I think that even if Iran did, somehow, get their hands on a nuke they would turn around and blow us up immediately because they’re just those type of people? My ninjas, please! Of course not. They may be a proud people, but not so much that they’d ensure their destruction to stick it to us. Would it be a security threat, yeah. Would the proper way to deal with that situation be to antagonize them and push them closer to a forging a strong relationship with someone like China (I say this because in the future they might benefit from one another’s relationship with the US)? My ninjas please! Of course not.

So, why is Kurtz arguing for Iran’s importance as an election issue? He doesn’t look like a tough-guy…:

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Because he believes that Iran can get their hands on a nuke in the next four years, and if the military option to engage Iran is off the table for now than he fears the international community has given Iran the green light to take this initiative.  Listen, just becuase we are not eagerly awaiting a time when we can strike Iran for being a punk doesn’t mean we’re playing nice. It’s their move now, and you bet your bottom dollar they understand the international community will not at all tolerate their being a nuclear power. And should that even come to fruition, it won’t be a secret, we’ll know. Right? Neither Obama nor Hillary is willing to comprimise American security for a shot at diplomacy with Iran.

$ Cash Money $

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President Bush released his plans for the ’08 – ’09 national budget today (the fiscal year begins October 1). Naturally, Bush is confused about what ‘spending’ actually means. For the first time in our nation’s history the budget will exceed 3 trillion dollars.

And, true to form, Bush left people in favor of social programs wanting with cuts in education, Medicare and Medicaid, among others.

Mr. Bush said he would cut or terminate 151 programs, saving $18 billion in 2009. One agency, the Education Department, accounts for 47 of the terminated programs and three of the programs to be cut. But he would increase spending in areas that fall under the umbrella of “national security.”

Bush is also suggesting the Pentagon receive a 7.5% increase in their budget, which brings it to $515.7 billion dollars. For those of you ninjas who don’t do that math stuff that means they account for 17% of our total budget (this does not include the ‘Raq).

ALBA

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ALBA, an Economic Alternative for Latin America

by Medea Benjamin

The sixth conference of the Latin American alternative trade alliance known as ALBA-which stands for the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas and means “Dawn” in Spanish-was held in Caracas on January 25-26. The brainchild of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, ALBA was founded by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004 as a fair trade alternative to US-backed free trade policies and is made possible thanks to Venezuela’s oil money.

When Evo Morales was elected in Bolivia and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, they too joined ALBA, which Chavez has nicknamed the Club of “Chicos Malos”, or bad boys, because of its opposition to U.S. domination. At this weekend’s meeting, the Caribbean island of Dominica also joined, and representatives attended from Ecuador, Honduras, Uruguay, Haiti and several other Caribbean nations.

Chavez opened the session talking about the need for a trade system that addresses people’s needs, not corporate profits. His railed against the “dictatorship of global capitalism”, and encouraged Latin American countries to withdraw their international reserves from United States banks, warning of a looming US economic crisis. “Why does that money have to be in the north?”, he asked. “We should start to bring our reserves back home.”

His thoughts were echoed by Daniel Ortega, who blamed the capitalist system for the environmental crisis. “The capitalist model of development is simply unsustainable,” Ortega declared. “If your economy is controlled by speculative capital that only cares about profits, you can’t solve the huge problems affecting humanity. Once we renounce the free trade model, we can begin to address the massive problems of unemployment, poverty and global warming.”

Bolivia’s Evo Morales, who is facing fierce opposition in part because of his efforts to nationalize natural gas and oil, insisted that key public resources such as land, water and energy should not be for private profit but for the common good. He also insisted that Latin America should not look to the United States for solutions, since U.S. aid always comes with strings designed to increase its hegemony.

“In 1990s, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund imposed their disastrous policies, and then the U.S. tried to impose the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas-which should really be called the Free Profits Agreement of the Americas because it is meant to increase the profits of US corporations,” said Morales. “But people of the hemisphere rejected that agreement, so now the U.S. is trying-country-by-country-to get bilateral trade agreements. They are always trying to divide us, but we salute the great resistance to empire that we see throughout the hemisphere.”

The leaders noted that it was no coincidence that just at the time of the ALBA summit, Condoleezza Rice was visiting neighboring Colombia to promote a U.S.-Colombia Free Trade pact. Chavez, who recently called Colombia’s President Urribe a “sad peon of the empire”, laughed at U.S. accusations that he, Chavez, was facilitating the flow of Colombian cocaine through Venezuela.

The talk of drug-smuggling turned into comic relief, however, when Chavez launched into a discourse on the benefits of the coca leaf, which, he insisted, was very different from cocaine. U.S. officials have long tried to eradicate coca cultivation, which has been grown and chewed by Andean Indians for centuries.

“Speaking of drugs,” Chavez turned to Bolivian President Evo Morales, who is himself a former coca farmer and is a strong defender of the coca leaf, “where are the coca leaves you used to bring me?”

A Bolivian Indian sitting behind Morales got up and offered up his personal stash of coca leaves. Delighted, Chavez took a leaf and put it in his mouth. “The sacred leaf of the Inca, the Aymara Indians,” he declared. “Thank you, brother.” Emphasizing the great qualities of coca, Chavez said that he had become used to chewing the leaves every morning and invited the other heads of states to try some.

Read the Rest

Giuliani and Edwards Are Drop-Outs!

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Today we are expected to hear that both Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John Edwards will be dropping out of the race for Presidential nomination. This is rather big news because it means that both the Republicans and the Democrats have a two-person race. In the Donkey’s ring it will be Sen. Barack Obama vs. Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton. These two candidates will now scramble to pick up all the Edwards supporters (I am guessing that the majority of them will go to Barack, and I am assuming that Edwards himself will endorse Obama soon. Just a guess…) On the Elephant side of things Rudy Giuliani is expected to endorse John McCain. I don’t know how his fear mongering managed to gain so much support anyway, and his supporters will probably just follow suit and jump on the McCain wagon. And though Mike Huckabee has not dropped out of the race, I find it hard to imagine a surge of support for him. It looks like he will be a distant third after Super-Tuesday, but he might wait to see anyway.

Get it Together, France

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Wow. 80 police officers injured. dozens of cars set ablaze, along with a police station, a library, schools, and shops. This, my ninjas, is a full fledged serious situation.

For those who don’t know, France has already been in trouble in the past two weeks, losing millions of dollars a day due to strikes coming from the state workers whose pensions will disappear. The Paris metro, the TGV, buses, all these things barely running as a result of Sarkozy’s “mandate” to do something about the supposed waste of money on transportation pensioners. This situation was enough of a problem in and of itself for Parisiennes and the gov’t, but now France has a far more serious something to deal with.

Two nights ago an unregistered motorcycle was apparently being driven recklessly by 15 and 16 year old Algerians in a Parisian suburb, Villiers-le-Bel. Now, it is said that the motorcycle crashed head on with a police car, which was on a routine patrol and was no way in engaged with the bike. The teens, who were not wearing helmets, died. Because the police car and the bike collided head on the youth of the area believes that the police intentionally rammed the teens in some sort of act of aggression. As a result there have been two full nights of intense rioting. Why, you ask? Well, ninjas, allow me:

There are two major factors as to why this incident may have erupted into the large scale riot that has ensued:

1. The departed are teens. Do we all remember 2005, when two teens were being chased by police in another Parisian suburb, Clichy-sous-Bois, they were killed when the fell onto the electric rail of the subway. During the time France’s gov’t was being criticized for a program that would make it easier for employers to terminate “unsatisfactory employees”, namely young folk. The catalyst for action however came as a result of this event, and it resulted in the flipping of cars, and arson, and riots, and going after the police, but it wasn’t this big. So, perhaps, the youth of France sees this as yet another act of aggression from the authorities against the youth, and it’s something they won’t stand for.

2. The departed are Algerians. The Algerian War, which took place over 50 years ago, was the struggle for Algerian independence and the end of France colonization of the country. It is said that France massacred ten times as many Algerians as Algerians did French, far more so according to some sources, and that the torture techniques and bombing of Algeria by the French severely handicapped Algeria. The way France handled the Algerian War has forever been a scar left on the Republic. Some Algerians have yet to let this go (rightfully so). I would say the fact that the two teens killed two days ago were of Algerian decent plays a significant part in the reasoning of the French youth.

So did these cops want to kill these punk teen Algerians for who they were? To be honest ninjas, I think not. I’m gonna have to go ahead and say these kids are acting pretty foolish over there. But, 1. What do you expect? There is nothing to do in these suburbs. By and large they consist of large apartment buildings with no stimulation, a serious unemployment rate and a general lack of shit to do. They are pissed. 2. I think the message here could be a good one, had it not been carried out in such a fucked up way. The youth of France wants respect, they want jobs, they want to be included as members of a society that has left them in the dust, and the only way they feel they can express that notion is by fucking up some police. It sucks, but that’s the way of the world, ninjas. Keep your eyes on this story, we’ll see what comes of it.

Al Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize

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This dude is wild. After eight years of Vice-Presidency he loses his bid to be the head honcho; grows a beard and completely drops out of the lime-light [kind of like the future Nathan Petrelli in Heroes]. Apparently, during his time off he was doing some heavy research in to this whole Global Climate Change thing (global warming IS bunk, people. Just because SOME places are getting warmer doesn’t mean it’s happening everywhere; some places are getting colder. So there.) Gore has devoted much more to this one particular issue than to have it just be a theme of a scheme, or a some means to achieve some end. This man has subscribed to a theory and really wants us to know about it.

So after the flick An Inconvenient Truth he walks away with an Oscar or an Emmy or some shit. Now, finally, he has been rewarded to his dedication of this cause with one of the most distinguishable awards in the world, the Nobel Peace Prize. Good for you Al Gore. If I voted I woulda voted for that dude. Speaking of voting … Wouldn’t it be great to see this give Big Al [this dude has the most unfortunate name: Albert Arnold Jr…. wow] enough confidence to jump on the campaign trail for the Donkeys?

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Don’t get me wrong Barack and Hillary, I love you, you’re ninjas, both of you. But one of you is a black man and one of you might be a woman. These are traits that some people feel the president shouldn’t possess; and we know Al Gore is kind of better bet. We like Al Gore. Would one of you please just be his VP? For the party?

p.s. All you [dumb] *uckers who say that Global Climate Change in phooey should recognize. We can and very well should do what we can to reduce green-house gazes and all the other hub-bub “greening-up” involves. If you’re two lazy you can come up with a better excuse than “Christ is coming back anyway, he won’t make us clean up”, at least blame it on China. They’re *ucked.

[Around here we don't refer to them as right-wingers as some less ninja-inclined blogs would have you believe]