This video from the USA is called Dan Kovalik – Assassination of Trade Unionists [in Colombia].
From the blog of David Sirota in the USA:
Ten months ago, I posed a very simple question right on this site: Can the Clinton machine deliver another NAFTA? I noted at the time that an army of former Clinton administration officials had been put on the Colombian government payroll to push a NAFTA-style free trade deal. These people — many waiting to get back into government should Hillary Clinton win — are making up to $100,000 a month from a murderous right-wing regime that is one of the worst human rights violators in the Western Hemisphere. Now, today, we see how high up the Clinton machine this corruption really goes.
Update 7 March: Clinton strategy chief resigns in free trade row: here. Mark Penn finally fired: here.
See also here.
A new poll has found that 81% of Americans believe the US is headed in the wrong direction – a measure of dissatisfaction that could weigh heavily against Republican John McCain in his presidential face-off with either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-clintoniraq3apr03,1,3910737.story
Clinton on the sidelines of efforts to end the war
She’s been a vocal critic, but records show she has done little to advance legislation to force a withdrawal from Iraq.
By Noam N. Levey
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 3, 2008
WASHINGTON — Seeking to convince voters that she can end the Iraq war, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has touted her role in the congressional effort to force President Bush to bring the troops home.
“I’ve been working day in and day out in the Senate to provide leadership to end this war,” Clinton recently told an audience at George Washington University, contrasting her experience with that of rival Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
Clinton has been a vocal war critic and introduced three bills last year to curtail the U.S. military role in Iraq. The New York senator has also aggressively questioned administration officials involved in the war.
But since Democrats took control of Congress, Clinton has done relatively little to advance legislation to force the Bush administration to withdraw from Iraq, according to congressional records and lawmakers and staff members who have worked on the issue.
Instead, Clinton largely remained on the sidelines of the congressional debate, her legislation ignored as the Senate focused on measures developed by lawmakers who were more central to the legislative drive to end the war:
* Clinton played a marginal role in Democratic efforts to confront the president’s troop “surge” early last year and later in developing the party’s legislative strategy of tying money for the war to a timeline for a withdrawal.
* None of her war-related proposals — which often mirrored measures introduced by other senators — ever came up for a vote.
* She did not work with moderate Democrats who built GOP support for bipartisan antiwar legislation to overcome Republican-led filibusters.
* And Clinton not only did not develop any measures to mandate a pullout deadline, she actively opposed them until early last year.
“She lent her voice to the Democratic Party’s criticism of the administration, which was important,” said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian who has written extensively about the current Congress. “But she certainly was not at the head of the move to legislate the end of the war.”
Obama was equally peripheral to the Iraq war debate, but he has not claimed a similar leadership role. He has argued instead that his opposition to the war in 2002, two years before he was elected to the Senate, makes him the superior candidate.
In contrast to both Democrats, Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was a leading voice in the debate, arguing for more troops in Iraq.
Clinton, who voted to authorize the war, has made her Senate experience — along with her eight years as first lady — a cornerstone of her argument that she is best prepared to be commander in chief “on Day One.”
In Des Moines last summer, she announced a three-step plan to end the war, discussing her legislation “to begin bringing our troops home within 90 days” and to revoke the war authorization Congress gave President Bush.
“It is long past time that the president ended American combat involvement in Iraq’s multi-sided, sectarian civil war. . . .” she said. “That is what I have been trying to do in the Senate.”
In a March 17 speech in Washington to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion, she explained that ending the war had been her “mission in the Senate.”
And she pointed to another bill she introduced last year. “I’ve started laying the groundwork for a swift and responsible withdrawal beginning in early 2009 by demanding that the Pentagon start planning for it now,” Clinton said.
Clinton has earned the support of some of the war’s fiercest critics on Capitol Hill. Sixteen members of the House Out of Iraq Caucus recently signed an open letter praising Clinton as “the candidate with the stature, strength and experience needed to end this war as quickly and responsibly as possible.” (More than 20 caucus members are backing Obama.)
“For years, Sen. Clinton has been committed to finding any and all possible ways to get the president to reverse his failed policies in Iraq and end the war,” said senior Clinton advisor Philippe Reines, noting her three visits to Iraq, her work on the Armed Services Committee, her speeches in favor of a withdrawal and her legislative proposals.
Yet, while Clinton introduced Iraq-related bills — as have scores of lawmakers — other senators wrote the war-related legislation that was actually considered, handled delicate negotiations over compromise proposals and worked to round up votes.
These included Delaware’s Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Michigan’s Carl Levin, the chairmen of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) early last year asked them to draft a resolution with Republicans opposing Bush’s surge plan to send about 30,000 more troops to Iraq.
Biden and Levin were among a small group of Senate Democrats that Reid regularly convened in his second-floor Capitol office to strategize about Iraq legislation. The group included not only members of the Democratic leadership but other lawmakers interested in Iraq, such as Rhode Island’s Jack Reed, an Army veteran, and Wisconsin’s Russell D. Feingold, a staunch war opponent.
The group did not include Clinton.
Clinton did not work on the anti-surge resolution that Biden and Levin developed, according to Senate aides who asked not to be identified when discussing Senate negotiations. She did sign onto the legislation after it was introduced, as did 17 other senators.
She also did not collaborate with a second bipartisan group of senators led by Republican John W. Warner of Virginia, who drafted an alternative resolution.
On Feb. 16, 2007, as senators were debating the surge, Clinton filed her first Iraq-related bill of the new Congress, a proposal to halt the surge and to link continued authorization for the war to a troop withdrawal.
She rounded up no co-sponsors. And her bill was referred to the Foreign Relations Committee, becoming one of dozens of pieces of Iraq-related legislation that were never debated.
Obama’s only legislation to end the war, which would have stopped the surge and mandated a phased withdrawal, was similarly shunted off to the committee after he introduced it on Jan. 30, 2007.
Most of the Capitol was at that time focused on the next question in the Iraq debate: Would Democrats try to restrict money for the war?
Once again, other lawmakers played the leading roles in that intraparty debate.
Feingold pushed for a withdrawal deadline enforced by a funding cutoff. Levin and Reed drew up an alternative that conditioned additional funding on a withdrawal timeline.
Clinton was simply one of 51 senators who ultimately voted for the Levin-Reed plan. She did not participate in the Senate debate in the week leading up to the March vote on the measure, according to the Congressional Record.
Two months later, in May, Clinton announced that she and Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) would introduce legislation to end the authority for the war in Iraq, an idea that Biden and Levin had explored earlier in the year but then dropped.
Like her earlier legislation, Clinton’s proposal never came up for a vote.
In July, Clinton trumpeted a bill she planned to sponsor that would require the Pentagon to give Congress a report on contingency plans for redeploying U.S. forces from Iraq.
But again, other senators had taken the lead in pushing that concept. Just a week before, Republicans Warner and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana had introduced a measure to do essentially the same thing.
Clinton did not work with the senior GOP lawmakers, however. Her proposal went nowhere.
Nor did she participate in efforts by centrist Democrats, such as Nebraska’s Ben Nelson or Indiana’s Evan Bayh, to write legislation with moderate Republicans. Aides to Maine’s Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, two of the most influential moderate Republicans, said they never heard from Clinton’s office.
By then, Clinton, who was courting antiwar Democrats still angry about her vote to authorize the war, had embraced the strongest antiwar legislation pushed by Feingold. That proposal, which Clinton had voted against a year earlier, would have cut off funding for all but a limited number of military missions.
At a September hearing on Capitol Hill, Clinton told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, that their upbeat reports on the surge required “the willing suspension of disbelief.”
And in December, she attracted eight co-sponsors, including Obama, for her bill calling on the president to seek congressional approval for any long-term security agreements with Iraq.
But when Democrats pushed anew for legislation mandating a withdrawal in December and then again in February, Clinton wasn’t there. She missed the votes.
noam.levey@latimes.com
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Posted by: “bigraccoon” bigraccoon@earthlink.net redwoodsaurus
Tue Apr 22, 2008 5:40 am (PDT)
Michael Moore’s Endorsement of Obama
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=225
April 21st, 2008
Friends,
I don’t get to vote for President this primary season. I live in
Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn’t get
their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.
So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you
please cast my vote — and yours — on Tuesday for Senator Barack
Obama?
I haven’t spoken publicly ’til now as to who I would vote for,
primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I
know) don’t give a rat’s ass whose name is on the ballot in November,
as long as there’s a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the
top of the ballot, and the word “Democratic” next to the candidate’s
name.
Seriously, I know so many people who don’t care if the name under the
Big “D” is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey
Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.
Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the
actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely
disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week
was the final straw. I’ve watched Senator Clinton and her husband
play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but
last Wednesday, when she hurled the name “Farrakhan” out of nowhere,
well that’s when the silly season came to an early end for me. She
said the “F” word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course,
Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator
Clinton, Obama’s pastor does — AND the “church bulletin” once
included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not
the church bulletin!
This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the
following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is
supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is
led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one
thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!
Yes, Senator Clinton, that’s how you sounded. Like you were nuts.
Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I
would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your
life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for
an office you can’t win unless you smear the black man so much that
the superdelegates cry “Uncle (Tom)” and give it all to you.
But that can’t happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this
bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a
moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the
Promised Land.
How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to
the White House. That day will come — but it won’t be you. We’ll
have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in
2016 (you read it here first!).
There are those who say Obama isn’t ready, or he’s voted wrong on
this or that. But that’s looking at the trees and not the forest.
What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound,
massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama
The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.
That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But
what’s going on is bigger than him at this point, and that’s a good
thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama
Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America
is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we
say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to
stand behind him.
I know some of you will say, ‘Mike, what have the Democrats done to
deserve our vote?’ That’s a damn good question. In November of ’06,
the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet
the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line
up happily behind them?
I’ll tell you why. Because I can’t stand one more friggin’ minute of
this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has
done to our people and to this world. I’m almost at the point where I
don’t care if the Democrats don’t have a backbone or a kneebone or a
thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain’t
“Bush” and the word “Republican” is not beside theirs on the ballot,
then that’s good enough for me.
I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8
long years. That’s why I will join millions of citizens and stagger
into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round,
all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the
only thing that matters — that big “D” on the ballot.
Don’t get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago.
It’s foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of
a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this
country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this
acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that’ll
represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal
voice.
Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in
Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his
face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White
America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, “Say it, Obama!
Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties
regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White
House for ‘spiritual counseling?’ THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!”
But no, Obama won’t throw that at her. It wouldn’t be right. It
wouldn’t be decent. She’s been through enough hurt. And so he remains
silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.
That’s why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That’s why
he’ll take us down a more decent path. That’s why I would vote for
him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.
But the question I keep hearing is… ‘can he win? Can he win in
November?’ In the distance we hear the siren of the death train
called the Straight Talk Express. We know it’s possible to hear the
words “President McCain” on January 20th. We know there are still
many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it,
too. She’s counting on it.
Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a
chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like
this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that
Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only “three
fifths” human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a
chance for redemption.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com
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