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Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sun, 05/18/2008 - 6:32am.
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A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTIBUTION By Kristina Borjesson Here we go again. President Bush goes to Israel. He talks to the Israeli Knesset about standing "together against terror and extremism." He cites the example of Osama bin Laden teaching that "the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties." The next day, yet another unauthenticated bin Laden tape surfaces. "In a tape marking Israel’s 60th anniversary," reported the BBC, "the speaker pledged to continue fighting the Israelis and not give up a ‘single inch of Palestine.’" Once again, the lead was followed by what has now become the standard second line, "The tape’s authenticity could not be verified." Once again, the timing is interesting. Bin Laden’s message was just in time to help President Bush make his point. Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Bush bin Laden Tapes
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 05/15/2008 - 8:36am.
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A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Susan J. Demas WARREN [MI]- John McCain left the door ajar in Michigan last week with a lackluster town hall - and Obama busted right through it with his own here on Wednesday. Fresh off a walloping in West Virginia on Tuesday, Obama hit Macomb County to talk trade and jobs with those elusive Reagan Democrats. He'd obviously had a heart-to-heart with former U.S. Rep. David Bonior, the patron saint of organized labor who endorsed him last week and started a stampede of superdelegates. Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Obama MIchigan Bonior Edwards Unions Yob McCain
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 05/13/2008 - 10:19am.
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A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Michael Winship Hell hath no fury like a convert. Or so it seemed back in the early 90s, when the political career of Senator John McCain almost went down in flames during the savings-and-loan scandal.
Senator McCain, you'll recall, was one of the notorious Keating Five, a group of U.S. senators accused of using their clout to help bail out Charles Keating, chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan. All had received campaign contributions and other perks from Keating.
The collapse of Lincoln Savings cost the American taxpayer $3.4 billion. Charles Keating went to prison. Mr. McCain got off with a mild rebuke for "questionable conduct" from the Senate Ethics Committee, but so embarrassed was he, the senator vowed that from then on, he would be above reproach, the Caesar's wife of Capitol Hill. A changed man, he would fight for truth, justice, and the American way; battling special interests, crusading for ethics and leading the way for campaign finance reform with the evangelistic zeal of the born again.
Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Michael Winship John McCain land deals hypocrisy lobbyists Arizona
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 5:58am.
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A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Jeff Fleischer
With Tuesday's result in Indiana going Hillary Clinton's way by an ultra-narrow margin and her resultant decision to stay in the race, the Democratic primary contest is going to continue for at least another week. And with only six primaries to go, there will inevitably be another round of hysterical stories about how the ongoing process will doom the party's eventual choice come November. That's possible, but not nearly as likely as the 24-hour news channels would suggest. In reality, the November electoral math still looks quite good for Barack Obama. As long as he emerges as the nominee (and the numbers say this primary is now even more over than it already was), the scars of this primary season will almost certainly heal about as well as they do every four years and give him enviable odds of putting the White House back in Democratic hands. Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Jeff Fleischer Barack Obama John McCain electoral map
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 8:56am.
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A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Michael Winship
As the candidates engage in an ultimately pointless, fruitless debate over whether or not to give the gasoline tax a summer holiday, the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney secretly has been developing a quaintly 19th century solution to the energy crisis.
Whaling.
At least, that's one possible conclusion you might draw from last week's report out of Congressman Henry Waxman's (D-CA) House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
According to documents leaked to and released by the committee, for more than a year Cheney's office and the White House Council of Economic Advisors, coordinating with the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, have been holding up a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rule that would protect the North American right whale, one of the most endangered animals in the world.
Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Michael Winship right whales Dick Cheney government scientist
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 05/05/2008 - 3:10am.
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A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Larry Beinhart Did you know there is an "official arbiter of when recessions begin"? It's called the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a "private, non-profit, non-partisan," organization. It boasts that 16 of the 31 American Nobel Prize winners have been researchers there.
The president of NBER announced on March 15 that we are now officially in recession. "It will last longer and be deeper than the last two recessions, which lasted only 8 months from peak to trough. It could well be longer and deeper than the recession in the early 1980s that lasted 16 months."
The reality - for ordinary people - is that the economy has actually been in recession since 2001. It began with an official recession. Which officially lasted but eight months. Then there was a "recovery."
Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Larry Beinhart economic recession recession trade deficit George W. Bush
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