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January 19th, 2009:

A Second Look: Iraqi Shoe Thrower To Seek Swiss Asylum

Jan 19th, 2009
by Tom.
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via Iraqi Shoe Thrower To Seek Swiss Asylum.

GENEVA — A Swiss lawyer working on behalf of the Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush said Monday his client will seek political asylum in Switzerland.

Good! If anyone deserves asylum, it’s this guy. If only he had anticipated the direction in which Bush dodged the shoe.

Geneva-based lawyer Mauro Poggia said Muntadhar al-Zeidi’s life is in danger if he stays in Iraq.

Al-Zeidi’s gesture of anger at Bush turned the employee of a minor TV station into a national hero to many Iraqis fed up with America’s six-year presence in the country. But concern has been raised about his safety after allegations that he had been severely beaten and tortured in detention.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi

The biggest insult is to the Iraqi people. The neo-con free market philosophy has been implemented as planned.  Mission accomplished. All their government run enterprises such as their oil industry has been given away to free enterprise.

From Green Left online:

Agence France Presse reported on June 12 [2004] that Washington planned to “privatise the first of Iraq’s 100 or so state-owned firms within a year as it begins overhauling the centralised economy of Saddam Hussein without waiting for a new government”.

The coalition government handed over the state-owned entities, such as the  government controlled banking sector and other services like the national oil company, to private enterprise. This also included the pharmaceutical industry. Instead of low-cost safe drugs, the Iraqis get what we get – dangerous drugs that include death as a side effect at the highest prices possible. You can thank Rumsfeld and Cheney for “improving” Iraq.

A member of Medecins Sans Frontiers, the international medical relief agency, responded: “Kimadia [the Iraqi state-run pharmaceutical company] may not have worked efficiently, but it made low-cost medicine available to patients who needed it.”

They should line up all the neo-cons including Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Wolfowitz, Kristol, and the rest down a long street in Baghdad and let all the people walk by and slap them with shoes.

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A Second Look: Obama Reaches Out for McCain’s Counsel – NYTimes.com

Jan 19th, 2009
by Tom.
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via Obama Reaches Out for McCain’s Counsel – NYTimes.com.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R) SC

Over the last three months, Mr. Obama has quietly consulted Mr. McCain about many of the new administration’s potential nominees to top national security jobs and about other issues — in one case relaying back a contender’s answers to questions Mr. McCain had suggested.

Mr. McCain, meanwhile, has told colleagues “that many of theseappointments he would have made himself,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a close McCain friend.

http://varifrank.com/archives/2008/04/index.php

Get off my lawn!

Mr. McCain, meanwhile, has been lying to bolster his image. He would not have appointed Hillary Clinton as Sec. of State. He would not have appointed Eric Holder as Attorney General. He would not have appointed Tom Daschle as head of Health and Human Services. How can anyone, at this point in the game, trust anything any of these neo-nut-jobs say? Why are the MSM even asking them questions? Republicanism is dead, dead, dead.

It is “trademark Obama,” Professor Greenstein said, noting that Mr. Obama’s impulse to win over even ideological opposites appeared to date at least to his friendships with conservatives on The Harvard Law Review when he was president.

For Mr. Obama, cooperation with his defeated opponent could also provide a useful ally in the Senate, where Mr. McCain has parlayed his national popularity and go-his-own-way reputation into a role as a pivotal dealmaker over the last eight years. But on the subject of Iraq, in particular, their collaboration could also raise questions among Mr. Obama’s liberal supporters, many of whom demonized Mr. McCain as a dangerous warmonger because of his staunch opposition to a pullout.

Keep your friends close, then make friends with your enemies. Keep them close, too. This is how you get things done in Washington. You can filibuster the opposition if you have the votes, but when it comes time to get your intrests served, there’s no cooperation a’la “you scratch my back”. The Republicans deserve to be reminded that elections matter and this is a diplomatic way of doing that. Barack wants a strong coalition and it looks like he has the savvy to build it.

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A Second Look: CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – No Bush moving trucks needed Inauguration Day « – Blogs from CNN.com

Jan 19th, 2009
by Tom.
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via CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – No Bush moving trucks needed Inauguration Day « – Blogs from CNN.com.

The Bushes are nearly all moved out of the White House.

Goodbye and Good Luck!

WASHINGTON (CNN) – On Inauguration day, there’s one scene at the White House that won’t be playing out exactly as it has during past transitions: the traditional moving of the outgoing First Family’s belongings. Anita McBride, Chief of Staff to First Lady Laura Bush, tells CNN that the Bushes have moved almost all their things out of the White House ahead of schedule.

Begone! Begone I say ye mites and ticks and small pestilence! Begone ye mice and rats and filthy vermin! Begone I say!

Note to the staff: Make sure you spray the corners with roach killer and spray the beds and the chair seats with Lysol disinfectant.

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