Spread the word and this link to this NEWSWEEK online article about Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's son. There is a pattern of ugly and reprehensible cases of animal abuse and animal torture episodes that are linked to Republicans. We hear these stories over and over again and the letter "R" goes after their name in each and every case I've found to date.

This is the party of waterboarding, Abu Ghraib, black prison sites, "extraordinary rendition," GITMO BAY, illegal wiretapping of Americans, and more. Let me be 100% fair here and note for the record that the Democratic Party is utterly complicit in each and every case I mentioned here regarding human torture occurring under the Bush administration. If they are too cowardly to stand up for what is right, then they should be voted out of office forthwith. -- Claudia

http://www.newsweek.com/id/78241

CAMPAIGN 2008

A Son’s Past Deeds Come Back To Bite Huckabee

By Michael Kickoff and Holly Bailey | NEWSWEEK

Dec 24, 2007 Issue | Updated: 2:51 p.m. ET Dec 15, 2007

Pulaski County Sheriff-AP

Dogged: An incident involving his son David could hurt Huckabee

As Mike Huckabee gains in the polls, the former Arkansas governor is finding that his record in office is getting more scrutiny. One issue likely to get attention is his handling of a sensitive family matter: allegations that one of his sons was involved in the hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark. It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney— bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group—to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws. The state police never granted the request, and no charges were ever filed. But John Bailey, then the director of Arkansas's state police, tells NEWSWEEK that Governor Huckabee's chief of staff and personal lawyer both leaned on him to write a letter officially denying the local prosecutor's request. Bailey, a career officer who had been appointed chief by Huckabee's Democratic predecessor, said he viewed the lawyer's intervention as improper and terminated the conversation. Seven months later, he was called into Huckabee's office and fired. "I've lost confidence in your ability to do your job," Bailey says Huckabee told him. One reason Huckabee cited was "I couldn't get you to help me with my son when I had that problem," according to Bailey. "Without question, [Huckabee] was making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son," says I. C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock, who worked closely with Bailey and called him a "courageous" and "very solid" professional.

Huckabee called Bailey's account "totally untrue" and described him as a "bitter" ex-employee. "I asked him to resign because he had so alienated the entire state police," he said. "It had nothing to do with my son." Brenda Turner, Huckabee's then chief of staff, and Kevin Crass, the Huckabee family lawyer, also disputed Bailey's account, although both acknowledged talking to him about the dog killing. "I asked him, 'Is it normal for the state police to … investigate something that happened at a Boy Scout camp?' " Turner says. "We wanted the same treatment that anybody else would get." (Animal cruelty in Arkansas is a misdemeanor, not a felony.)

The details of the incident remain murky. The Animal Legal Defense Fund got an anonymous fax that summer alleging that David Huckabee and another youth had been involved in the hanging of a stray dog at the camp on July 11. A local animal-rights activist, Joyce Hillard, later contacted the camp director. Notes of Hillard's report to the defense fund read, "Boys confessed & were fired. Dir. is making excuses, saying dog was sic & boys were putting him out of his misery." (The director told NEWSWEEK only that a stray dog was "put down" and that the counselors were fired for violating the Scout credo to be "kind.") The father of the other counselor was quoted by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in August 1998 as saying that his son found the dog "hung over a limb and choking." David Huckabee did not respond to requests for comment. (In April of this year, he was arrested—and paid a fine—when he forgot to remove a loaded gun from his carry-on luggage at Little Rock airport.) His father told NEWSWEEK that his son did not engage in "intentional torture." "There was a dog that apparently had mange and was absolutely, I guess, emaciated." A campaign official says David "regrets" the incident and notes that he later made Eagle Scout.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^< title="mailto:cddstarcats@yahoo.com" href="mailto:cddstarcats@yahoo.com">cddstarcats@yahoo.com

The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their 'vital interests' are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the 'sanctity' of human life, or the 'conscience' of the civilized world: James Baldwin [From chapter one of "The Devil Finds Work" (orig. pub. 1976), page 489 of Collected Essays (1998)]

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

From Oil Wars to Water Wars

http://www.alternet.org/environment/70448/

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded this week, in Oslo, Norway. Al Gore shared the prize with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which represents more than 2,500 scientists from 130 countries. The solemn ceremony took place as the United States is blocking meaningful progress at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, and the Republicans in the U.S. Senate have derailed the energy bill passed by the House of Representatives, which would have accelerated the adoption of renewable energy sources at the expense of big-oil and coal corporations.

Gore set the stage: "So, today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.

"As a result, the Earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong. We are what is wrong, and we must make it right."

He went on: "Last Sept. 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the north polar ice cap is 'falling off a cliff.' One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as seven years. Seven years from now."

How will climate-change skeptics explain that one? (Already, big business is celebrating the break up of the polar ice cap, as a northern sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific is opening, creating a cheaper route for more needless shipping.) It is hard to imagine the north pole, the storied, frozen expanse of ice and snow, completely gone in just a few years. Lost as well will be the vast store of archeological data trapped in the ice: thousands of years of the Earth's climate history are told in the layers of ice that descend for miles there. Scientists are just now learning how to read and interpret the history. The great meltdown will surely have catastrophic effects on the ecosystem in the north, with species like the polar bear already edging toward extinction.

Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian scientist, accepted for the IPCC. He is a careful scientist with the political finesse to chair the work of the IPCC despite the enduring antagonism of the United States. He pointed to the disproportionate effect of climate change on the world's poor:

"[T]he impacts of climate change on some of the poorest and the most vulnerable communities in the world could prove extremely unsettling ... in terms of: access to clean water, access to sufficient food, stable health conditions, ecosystem resources, security of settlements."

Pachauri predicts water wars and mass migrations. "Migration, usually temporary and often from rural to urban areas, is a common response to calamities such as floods and famines."

Gore invoked the memory of Mohandas Gandhi, saying he "awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called 'Satyagraha' -- or 'truth force.' In every land, the truth -- once known -- has the power to set us free." Satyagraha, as Gandhi practiced it, is the disciplined application of nonviolent resistance, which is exactly what Ted Glick is doing back in Washington, D.C.

Glick heads up the Climate Emergency Council. On his 99th day of a liquids-only fast, the day after the Nobel ceremony, he joined with 20 people in the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for a sit-in. The Senate Republicans are now blocking a federal energy bill that would create funding for the development of renewable energy sources in the U.S., while stripping away billions of dollars worth of tax breaks for big oil and coal.

Glick told me: "We have to be willing to go to jail. Al Gore, himself, a couple of months ago talked about how young people need to be sitting in in front of the coal plants to prevent coal plants from being built. That's true. Young people need to be doing that. Middle-age people need to be doing that. Older people need to be doing that. And Al Gore needs to be doing that. Let's get serious about this crisis."

While Glick was sitting in, news reports began to circulate about Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani's law firm's lobbying activities against the energy bill. According to Bloomberg news, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP was hired by energy giant Southern Co. to defeat the bill. At a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser last August, addressing members of the coal industry, Giuliani said, "We have to increase our reliance on coal."

As Giuliani's coffers get fat with money from big oil, gas and coal, Glick has lost more than 40 pounds, and the Earth's temperature continues to rise.

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
To make an appointment email: cddstarcats@yahoo.com

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." -- Samuel Adams - (1722-1803), was known as the "Father of the American Revolution."

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

I WANT UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.IF I HAVE TO PAY FOR CHENEY, I WANT SOMETHING FOR MYSELF OUT OF THE DEAL!! PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE!

Nurses: Cheney 'would probably be dead' but for government health care
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Nurses_Cheney_would_probably_be_dead_1211.html

Campaigning for politicians to address universal healthcare, a nurses' group purchased provocative newspaper ads that warn Vice President Dick Cheney would "probably be dead by now" if he was not part of a single-payer government run health care system that keeps his oft-adled heart ticking.

The California Nurses Association purchased the eye-catching ads in 10 Iowa newspapers Tuesday, pointing out what the group says is another irony of the heatlhcare crisis -- that politicians receive health coverage from a government-run program, not insurance companies.

"Dick Cheney, with his heart trouble, would probably be dead now if he were an ordinary American forced to search for cardiac care in a thicket of mercenary insurers and heartless HMOs," Shum Preston wrote on the Nurses' association blog. "Cheney gets guaranteed healthcare; we get squat."

“The patient’s history and prognosis were grim: four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, angioplasty, an implanted defibrillator and now an emergency procedure to treat an irregular heartbeat,” the ad states, referencing Cheney’s lengthy medical chart, according to the Wall Street Journal. “For millions of Americans, this might be a death sentence. For the vice president, it was just another medical treatment. And it cost him very little.”

The vice president's office apparently was not amused with mentions of Cheney's mortality.

“Something this outrageous does not warrant a response,” Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, snipped.

The CNA defended its ad, and the shock-value content.

“The ad is about the substance of the debate. The ad says Democrats are bad, and Republicans are worse,” Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of CNA, told the Journal. “Dick Cheney is just the exemplar of what it means to have a double standard.”



Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
To make an appointment email: cddstarcats@yahoo.com

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." -- Samuel Adams - (1722-1803), was known as the "Father of the American Revolution."

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

Santa, please? This is what I want:

CHENEY MUGSHOT

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^< title="mailto:cddstarcats@yahoo.com" href="mailto:cddstarcats@yahoo.com">cddstarcats@yahoo.com

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." -- Samuel Adams - (1722-1803), was known as the "Father of the American Revolution."

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

CHENEY HAS IRREGULAR HEARTBEAT!

Nov 26 04:37 PM US/Eastern


Cheney has a heart? WHO KNEW!? Everybody, on the count of three, hold up a magnet and turn on your microwave ovens! Aim them towards Washington, DC! Let's see what happens to his pacemaker!! -- CDD

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2007-11-26_D8T5IU802&show_article=1&cat=breaking

http://player.clipsyndicate.com/view/279/455016?cpt=8&wpid=97

WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney experienced an irregular heartbeat Monday and will be evaluated at George Washington University Hospital.

The condition was detected when Cheney was seen by doctors for a lingering cough from a cold.

"During examination he was incidentally found to have an irregular heartbeat, which on further testing was determined to be atrial fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of the heart," said spokeswoman Megan Mitchell.


Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^< href="mailto:cddstarcats@yahoo.com">cddstarcats@yahoo.com

"As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right." ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

GEORGE W. BUSH

We Hate To Bring Up the Nazis, But They Fled To South America, Too

Our paranoid friends over at Bring It On have put together a story that hasn't exactly made Washington Whispers.It's real short and real simple.

• The Cuban news service reports that George W. Bush has purchased 98,840 acres in Paraguay, near the Bolivian/Brazilian border.

• Jenna Bush paid a secret diplomatic visit to Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte and U.S. Ambassador James Cason. There were no press conferences, no public sightings and no official confirmation of her 10-day trip which apparently ended this week.

• The Paraguayan Senate voted last summer to "grant U.S. troops immunity from national and International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction."

• Immediately afterwards, 500 heavily armed U.S. troops arrived with various planes, choppers and land vehicles at Mariscal Estigarribia air base, which happens to be at the northern tip of Paraguay near the Bolivian/Brazilian border. More have reportedly arrived since then.

What the hell, after the jump. Plus a BREAKING UPDATE involving, of course, The Moonies!

Now, Prensa Latina is a Cuban-government operation that is not exactly friendly toward Washington, what with Washington trying to kill Castro for 50 years and all.

But Prensa Latina didn't invent the story. It's all over the South American press' and not just Venezuela and Bolivia.

Here's a version from Brazil.

Here's one from Argentina.

And here's one from Paraguay itself.

As far as we can understand, all the paperwork and deeds and such are secret. But somehow the news leaked that a new "land trust" created for Bush had purchased nearly 100,000 acres near the town of Chaco.

And Jenna's down there having secret meetings with the president and America's ambassador to Paraguay, James Cason. Bush posted Cason in Havana in 2002, but last year moved him to Paraguay.

Cason apparently gets around. A former "political adviser" to the U.S. Atlantic Command and ATO's Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, Cason has been stationed in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama; basically everywhere the U.S. has run secret and not-so-secret wars over the past 30 years.

Here's a fun question for Tony Snow: Why might the president and his family need a 98.840-acre ranch in Paraguay protected by a semi-secret U.S. military base manned by American troops who have been exempted from war-crimes prosecution by the Paraguayan government?

Here's a little background on the base itself, which Rumsfeld secretly visited in late 2005:

U.S. Special Forces began arriving this past summer at Paraguay's Mariscal Estigarribia air base, a sprawling complex built in 1982 during the reign of dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Argentinean journalists who got a peek at the place say the airfield can handle B-52 bombers and Galaxy C-5 cargo planes. It also has a huge radar system, vast hangers, and can house up to 16,000 troops. The air base is larger than the international airport at the capital city, Asuncion.

Some 500 special forces arrived July 1 for a three-month counterterrorism training exercise, code named Operation Commando Force 6.

Paraguayan denials that Mariscal Estigarribia is now a U.S. base have met with considerable skepticism by Brazil and Argentina. There is a disturbing resemblance between U.S. denials about Mariscal Estigarribia, and similar disclaimers made by the Pentagon about Eloy Alfaro airbase in Manta , Ecuador. The United States claimed the Manta base was a "dirt strip" used for weather surveillance. When local journalists revealed its size, however, the United States admitted the base harbored thousands of mercenaries and hundreds of U.S. troops, and Washington had signed a 10-year basing agreement with Ecuador.

BREAKING, UPDATE, LITTLE SIREN GRAPHIC:

We've been directed to yet another parapolitical theory here at Rigorous Intuition, where it is reported that Rev. Moon bought 600,000 hectares " that's 1,482,600 acres " in the same place: Chaco, Paraguay.

Another twist: The first story, from Paraguay, apparently refers to the senior George Bush as the owner of the 98.840 acres in Moon's neighborhood.

Bush 41 was the first big shot politician to go prancing around with Rev. Moon in public. Especially in South America: "In the early stages of the Reagan Revolution that embraced the Washington Times and Moon's anti-Communist movement, it was embarrassing to be caught at a Moon event," wrote The Gadflyer last year. "Until George H.W. Bush appeared with Moon in 1996, thanking him for a newspaper that "brings sanity to Washington." That was while on an extended trip to South America in Moon's company. A Reuters' story of Nov 25 of that year describes the former president as "full of praise" for Moon at a banquet in Buenos Aires, toasting him as "the man with the vision" (And Moon helped Bush out with his own vision thing, paying him $100,000 for the pleasure of his company.) Bush and Moon then traveled together to Uruguay, "to help him inaugurate a seminary in the capital, Montevideo, to train 4,200 young Japanese women to spread the word of his Church of Unification across Latin America."

Isn't that special?

Oh, and both the Moonie and Bush land is located at what Paraguay/'s drug czar called an "enormously strategic point in both the narcotics and arms trades." And it sits atop the one of the world's largest fresh-water aquifers.

Bush Family-98,842 acres and a Mule [Bring It On]

Bush Paraguay Land Grab Incites Unease [Prensa Latina]

http://wonkette.com/politics/george-w.-bush/we-hate-to-bring-up-the-nazis-but-they-fled-to-south-america-too-208549.php

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
To make an appointment email: cddstarcats@yahoo.com

"As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right." ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

God help us. Claudia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/11/15/i-see-your-markos-moulits_n_72839.html
Thursday, November 15, 2007

KARL ROVE TO BECOME NEWSWEEK CONTRIBUTOR

New York--Karl Rove, the former White House deputy chief of staff, will become a Newsweek contributor, offering occasional opinion pieces to the pages of the magazine and to Newsweek.com.

"Newsweek has a long tradition of asking practitioners and opinion-makers to offer our readers the benefits of their experience in occasional opinion essays," said Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham. "Whether one agrees or disagrees with Karl, there is no arguing that he has been a critical player in the political world with insights and experiences that we think will give our readers something unique. A great recent example is George Stephanopoulos, who did terrific work for us after he left the Clinton White House in the second term."

# # #

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
To make an appointment email: cddstarcats@yahoo.com

"As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right." ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

Stiglitz warns about the Bush years' economy legacy

http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=11864&formato=HTML

Stiglitz warns about the Bush years’ economy legacy United States president George W Bush will leave his successor a country in debt up to its ears, a depressed dollar as never seen before and a nation with a class
structure closer to that of Mexico or Brazil, according to Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz in an article published in the December edition of Vanity Fair.

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in Economics

“When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties”, but the damage done to the US economy and its “repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page”.

Stiglitz who lectures on economy at Columbia University argues that the fact that the US economy has not been in recession in the almost seven years of the Bush administration and the respectable low unemployment can’t hide the other side: “a tax code hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70% by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-850 billion US dollars trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance”.

Stiglitz recalls that when President Bush took office the US had an anticipated 2.2
trillion US dollars budget surplus, with which the US could have afforded to ramp up domestic investment in many areas. A budget surplus of 2.4 percent of gross domestic product (G.D.P.), which greeted Bush as he took office, turned into a deficit of 3.6 percent in the space of four years. The United States had not experienced a turnaround of this magnitude since the global crisis of World War II.

“But the Bush administration had its own ideas”, and the first major economic initiative pursued by the president was a massive tax cut for the rich, enacted in June of 2001, compounded by a second tax cut in 2003. This meant that those with an income over a million US dollars got a tax break of 18.000 US dollars, more than thirty times larger than the cut received by the average US citizen.

Stiglitz also underlines that inequality is now widening in America, and at a rate not seen in three-quarters of a century. “A young male in his 30s today has an income, adjusted for inflation, that is 12% less than what his father was making 30 years ago. Some 5.3 million more Americans are living in poverty now than were living in poverty when Bush became president. America’s class structure may not have arrived there yet, but it’s heading in the direction of Brazil’s and Mexico’s”.

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
To make an appointment email: cddstarcats@yahoo.com

"As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right." ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^< title="mailto:cddstarcats@yahoo.com" href="mailto:cddstarcats@yahoo.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:cddstarcats@yahoo.com">cddstarcats@yahoo.com

"As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right." ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

How stupid can the "masses" actually be? Well, here's our answer.--Claudia

Bomb Iran, majority of Americans says in new poll
10/30/2007 @ 11:20 am
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Bomb_Iran_majority_of_Americans_says_1030.html
Filed by Nick Juliano


Despite President Bush's perpetually abysmal approval ratings, it appears his increasingly hostile rhetoric against Iran has drummed up enough fear of a "nuclear holocaust" or a World War III that a majority of Americans are in favor of a US strike against the country aimed a curtailing its apparent nuclear ambitions, a new poll shows.

The Zogby International survey shows 52 percent of Americans would support a strike on Iran, while 53 percent expect President Bush to launch such an attack before the end of his second term. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is voters' No. 1 choice to deal with Iran, with 21 percent saying they would like to see her take on Tehran from the White House. Republican Rudy Giuliani was voters' second choice, with 15 percent.

Just 29 percent of Americans think the US should not attack Iran, with one in five people unsure about military action. Of those who would support a strike, 28 percent believe military action should wait until the next president is in office, while 23 percent want to see Bush let lose US missiles against Iran.

The poll results were viewed with a "Here we go again" attitude from bloggers chagrined at the apparent lack of lessons learned by Americans as the war launched against another hostile Middle Eastern regime stretches towards its fifth year.

"It is utterly stunning that, after the great difficulties we have clearly faced in Iraq (a situation far from finished, by the way), that an absolute majority would favor a strike on Iran at this time," writes Dr. Steven Taylor at PoliBlog. "Even if we assume that the die-hard 25%-30% who still approve of the way the President is doing his job also are in favor of such a strike, where do the other 27%-22% come from to get the pro-strike total to 52%?"

The support for an Iranian strike coincides with substantial fears of further terrorist attacks demonstrated in the Zogby poll. More than two-thirds of Americans (68 percent) believe another terrorist attack is likely on US soil and nearly one-in three believe such a strike will come before 2010.

Polls conducted prior to the invasion of Iraq showed larger majorities of Americans in favor of military action, and around 80 percent of Americans believed Iraq posed a threat to the United States in late 2002 and early 2003.

Don Surber, blogging for West Virginia's Charleston Daily Mail compared the speculation over a strike on Iran to another showdown over nuclear proliferation nearly half a century ago.

"I was in grade school when the Cuban Missile Crisis happened 45 Octobers ago. I was gung-ho for taking Castro out. Wiser heads prevailed — in the Soviet Union as well as the United States," he writes. "The security of the world rests on American shoulders. I’d bet against a military strike. There are enough wiser heads on both sides."


Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
To make an appointment email: cddstarcats@yahoo.com

"As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right." ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

Mary McHugh visited the grave of her fiancé, Sgt. James J. Regan, who was killed in Iraq in February. He is buried in the new Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery for those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan....Small cities and towns are suffering a large portion of the deaths in the fighting in Iraq. (NYT comments and photo)

http://www.bushwatch.net/archives-may07.htm#fall

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
To make an appointment email: cddstarcats@yahoo.com

*****************************************************************
"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen." -- Mort Sahl

"A Nation of Sheep breeds a Government of Wolves." -- Edward R. Murrow

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

Spread the Word!

Dogs Against Romney blog!
Sparky the dog has started a blog against
Mitt Romney who is crapwad animal abuser!

http://www.dogsagainstromney.blogspot.com/

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^< href="mailto:cddstarcats@yahoo.com">cddstarcats@yahoo.com

*****************************************************************
"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen." -- Mort Sahl

"A Nation of Sheep breeds a Government of Wolves." -- Edward R. Murrow

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes