DiFi and Riordan as candidates in recall?

As expected, and as Peter Camejo has predicted, Democratic unity is splintering as two Democrat House members are now calling on Senator Dianne Feinstein to run in the recall election. Over a month ago Camejo said at a Green Party meeting that mainstream politico insiders were assuming Feinstein would run, and will appoint current California Lt. Gov Cruz Bustamente to her Senate seat, so he won’t run.

If a major Democrat runs, then Gray Davis’ fate is sealed, he will be recalled. On the Republican side, now that Mr. Action Hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has apparently decided he couldn’t take the real-life pressure of a campaign, former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan looks to be planning to a run.

Arianna Huffington will decide next week whether she will run as an independent. The deadline to file is August 7, eight days from now.

Ex-Governor Jerry Brown may run. Long time gadfly and acquaintance Jan Tucker says he is running on the Peace & Freedom Party, something which has honked of the leadership of the party as they are opposed to the recall. Steve Lopez, political columnist for the L.A. Times says that campaigning for Governor is his game and S Lo will be his name.

Given that, for minor parties, only 150 signatures are needed to run, and for major parties just $3,500 and 65 signatures will get you on the ballot, well, who knows what surprises we will discover on the ballot come Aug 8 when we learn who is running.

In fact two friends of mine have each pledged $500 after I, as a joke, mentioned to them I might run. I have NO IDEA whether they are joking or not! However if I do run, and by some tragic consequence, am actually elected, I promise to appoint PoliZeros readers to major posts. If Steve Lopez can run as S Lo, then I could run as BoMo (BOb MOrris, get it?), I suppose.

Rumors that I plan to run both my cats and several of my houseplants are probably inaccurate.

OK, PoliZeros readers, should I run for Governor???

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Your Baghdad weather forecast

The cooling trend continues. Temperatures for the next ten days will drop to 108-113, down from 117.

Large portions of the city still have no electricity or water.

Chance of precipitation remains at 0%.

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Woman banned from Borders for criticizing Bush’s legs

“Fredericksburg, Va. — A Borders Books & Music store has banned a Baltimore singer-songwriter from performing there after she made an unflattering comment about President Bush’s physique during a concert at the store last week.”

Via the wonderful Bitter Shack of Resentment

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Liberia

People in Liberia are starving and dying while civil war rages around them. Should the US, as some suggest, send in the military to “restore order” then give humanitarian aid?

The Bushies do not want to get involved, they’ve made this quite clear. You don’t suppose the business connections the American Right, among them Pat Robertson, has with Liberia leader Charles Taylor has anything to do with this, do you?

If the Bush Administration genuinely wanted to get help, they’d be  asking African leaders and Liberians themselves what they could do. I don’t recall hear them asking though.

If they eventually do invade (and that’s what it would be, an invasion) I doubt much humanitarian aid would be given - just look at Iraq or Afghanistan for instructive examples of how little they care for the innocents of countries they’ve invaded.

And wouldn’t you know it, there’s been a huge new oil find discovered in the ocean near, now here’s a coincidence, Liberia.

Who woulda thunk it?

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This ain’t the Summer of Love

It’s a knife fight. So get in there and fight.

End the liberal voluntary extinction movement is a most amazing rant, which I’ve briefly excerpted here. You must read the whole thing.

“The extreme right wing can’t be reasoned with. They don’t give a shit about right and wrong and whether they make any logical sense. Ann Coulter doesn’t care if she has 780 footnotes of pure bullshit. She’s selling books, getting on TV and invited to all the snotty DC cocktail parties. The fact that she is wrong and dishonest doesn’t even enter into the calculations.

These people don’t need to be scolded, or persuaded, or convinced otherwise. They need to be destroyed. They need to be removed from the debate by pointing out their lies, dishonesty and mercenary attitude towards truth. It’s not nice, it’s not pleasant and there won’t be a fucking group-hug afterwards.

These pundit punks accurately reflect the thinking, or lack thereof, of the conservatives now in power and using that power to gut the social contract, whore the United States military for Bush’s inner-circle of contractors and, in the process, kill a whole bunch of foreigners that the American people can’t even bother to give lip service to caring about.
…
“Constructive discourse” my ass. People are getting screwed. People are dying. And some liberals still don’t realize that this isn’t a dialectic. This is a knife fight. If Liberals can’t fight for their own survival (and if they won’t, then perhaps Liberalism deserves extinction) it would be nice if they could hold their nose and get over their prim dislike of unpleasantness and self-serving bullshit about “constructive discourse” in order to fight for other’s survival.”

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US troops turn botched Saddam raid into a massacre

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

“Obsessed with capturing Saddam Hussein, American soldiers turned a botched raid on a house in the Mansur district of Baghdad yesterday into a bloodbath, opening fire on scores of Iraqi civilians in a crowded street and killing up to 11, including two children, their mother and crippled father. At least one civilian car caught fire, cremating its occupants”

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Vote To Impeach

Lots of new features and a redesigned interface on Vote To Impeach make it even easier to spread the Impeach Bush meme.

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Saudis ‘outraged’ at 9/11 secrecy

“Saudi Arabia says it is an “outrage” that a US report about the 11 September attacks has raised suspicions about Saudi involvement.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal also expressed dismay at a US refusal to publish a classified section of a report into the attacks, and launched a strongly-worded defence of his country’s record in fighting terrorism.”

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Is America becoming Fascist?

Asks AdBusters

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Greeks accuse Blair of war crimes in Iraq

“Tony Blair and other British ministers are accused of crimes against humanity in prosecuting the war against Iraq in a case lodged with the international criminal court by Greek lawyers yesterday.

The Athens Bar Association accuses the government of breaching almost every international treaty and the entire spectrum of human rights in the 47-page complaint.

“The repeated, blatant violations by the United States and Britain of the stipulations of the four 1949 Geneva conventions, the 1954 convention of the Hague as well as the charter of the international criminal court, constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the lawyers said in a statement.”

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