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Illustration: It was created just after the election when we all felt better about things, for a week or so. Now, Nancy manifests her mother image would be a better caption and this is why Cindy Sheehan has vowed to run against her if she does not let the impeachment bill go forward at least for consideration. I am left with what I can find of our illustrator’s corpus until AT&T apologizes to him. Meanwhile, he could put new ones on floppy and upload them from the library.
Speaking of apologies, Moore is back on his crusade against CNN. I’ve included a copy of his “Open Letter” to them.
During this week, Harry Reid kept the Senate in session all night. I’m sure an MP3 of the entire debate can be found on the web somewhere. It was on Cspan-2. (No, I don’t have a copy nor do I want one.) The main Republican argument was that we should wait until September for a report before setting up guidelines. The bill was pulled completely.
Just yesterday, someone at the Pentagon said, “Maybe November would be a better time.” All of this is too predictable.
Cindy will probably announce on the 23rd.
It has been finally established as a matter of fact that at least 50 Israelis are working in northern Iraq, helping towards Kurdish separation. Turkey may invade.
Reports are that Cheney wants to attack Iran and Bush thinks it’s a good idea.
I heard Colin Powell on the radio the other day, but didn’t know it was him at the time. He sounded a bit like Kucinich from his policies, but the voice was not quite right. He was aksed if he would run for the Presidency and said “It’s not in my genes.” It was only at the end that the announcer identified him.
Below is Michael Moore’s letter and the article on Cheney and what is happening to Rice.
BTW: The Guardian is a British Newspaper and available online. It is more tolerable than what is available in US media.
*Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran*
*· * Military solution back in favour as Rice loses out
*· * President 'not prepared to leave conflict unresolved'
*Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger*
*Monday July 16, 2007*
*Guardian*
The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted
back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves
office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the
Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush
administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran.
A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave
office with Iran still in limbo."
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has
increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a
nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of
military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of
state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with
Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on
Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department
last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and
Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for
concern," the source said this week.
Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a
career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told
the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be
continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr
Cheney and Mr Bush.
"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his
capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick
Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for
Strategic Studies.
The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any
potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to
deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry
out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.
"The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is
adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action," Mr
Cronin said. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or
do the job yourself."
Almost half of the US's 277 warships are stationed close to Iran,
including two aircraft carrier groups. The aircraft carrier USS
Enterprise left Virginia last week for the Gulf. A Pentagon spokesman
said it was to replace the USS Nimitz and there would be no overlap that
would mean three carriers in Gulf at the same time.
No decision on military action is expected until next year. In the
meantime, the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route.
Sporadic talks are under way between the EU foreign policy chief, Javier
Solana, and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, on the
possibility of a freeze in Iran's uranium enrichment programme. Tehran
has so far refused to contemplate a freeze, but has provisionally agreed
to another round of talks at the end of the month.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei,
has said that there are signs of Iran slowing down work on the
enrichment plant it is building in Natanz. Negotiations took place in
Tehran last week between Iranian officials and the IAEA, which is
seeking a full accounting of Iran's nuclear activities before Tehran
disclosed its enrichment programme in 2003. The agency's deputy director
general, Olli Heinonen, said two days of talks had produced "good
results" and would continue.
At the UN, the US, Britain and France are trying to secure agreement
from other security council members for a new round of sanctions against
Iran. The US is pushing for economic sanctions that would include a
freeze on the international dealings of another Iranian bank and a
mega-engineering firm owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Russia
and China are resisting tougher measures.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*ZNet | Social Policy*
*An Open Letter to CNN*
*by Michael Moore; Michael Moore.com
15, 2007*
Dear CNN,
Well, the week is over -- and still no apology, no retraction,
no correction of your glaring mistakes.
I bet you thought my dust-up with Wolf Blitzer was just a cool
ratings coup, that you really wouldn't have to correct the false
statements you made about "Sicko." I bet you thought I was just
going to go quietly away.
Think again. I'm about to become your worst nightmare. 'Cause I
ain't ever going away. Not until you set the record straight,
and apologize to your viewers. "The Most Trusted Name in News?"
I think it's safe to say you can retire that slogan.
You have an occasional segment called "Keeping Them Honest." But
who keeps you honest? After what the public saw with your report
on "Sicko," and how many inaccuracies that report contained, how
can anyone believe anything you say on your network? In the old
days, before the Internet, you could get away with it. Your
victims had no way to set the record straight, to show the
viewers how you had misrepresented the truth. But now, we can
post the truth -- and back it up with evidence and facts -- on
the web, for all to see. And boy, judging from the mail both you
and I have been receiving, the evidence I have posted on my site
about your "Sicko" piece has led millions now to question your
honesty.
I won't waste your time rehashing your errors. _You know what
they are_
What I want to do is help you come clean. Admit you were wrong.
What is the shame in that? We all make mistakes. I know it's
hard to admit it when you've screwed up, but it's also
liberating and cathartic. It not only makes you a better person,
it helps prevent you from screwing up again. Imagine how many
people will be drawn to a network that says, "We made a mistake.
We're human. We're sorry. We will make mistakes in the future --
but we will always correct them so that you know you can trust
us." Now, how hard would that really be?
As you know, I hold no personal animosity against you or any of
your staff. You and your parent company have been very good to
me over the years. You distributed my first film, "Roger & Me"
and you published "Dude, Where's My Country?" Larry King has had
me on twice in the last two weeks. I couldn't ask for better
treatment.
That's why I was so stunned when you let a doctor who knows a
lot about brain surgery -- but apparently very little about
public policy -- do a "fact check" story, not on the medical
issues in "Sicko," but rather on the economic and political
information in the film. Is this why there has been a delay in
your apology, because you are trying to get a DOCTOR to say he
was wrong? Please tell him not to worry, no one is filing a
malpractice claim against him. Dr. Gupta does excellent and
compassionate stories on CNN about people's health and how we
can take better care of ourselves. But when it came time to
discuss universal health care, he rushed together a bunch of
sloppy -- and old -- research. When his producer called us about
his report the day before it aired, we sent to her, in _an
email_
all the evidence so that he wouldn't make any mistakes on air.
He chose to ignore ALL the evidence, and ran with all his
falsehoods -- even though he had been given the facts a full day
before! How could that happen? And now, for 5 days, I have
posted on my website, for all to see, every mistake and error he
made.
You, on the other hand, in the face of this overwhelming
evidence and a huge public backlash, have chosen to remain
silent, probably praying and hoping this will all go away.
Well it isn't. We are now going to start looking into the
veracity of other reports you have aired on other topics.
Nothing you say now can be believed. In 2002, the New York Times
busted you for bringing celebrities on your shows and not
telling your viewers they were paid spokespeople for the
pharmaceutical companies. You promised never to do it again. But
there you were, in 2005, talking to Joe Theismann, on air, as he
pushed some drug company-sponsored website on prostate health.
You said nothing about his affiliation with GlaxoSmithKline.
Clearly, no one is keeping you honest, so I guess I'm going to
have to do that job, too. $1.5 billion is spent each year by the
drug companies on ads on CNN and the other four networks. I'm
sure that has nothing to do with any of this. After all, if
someone gave me $1.5 billion, I have to admit, I might say a
kind word or two about them. Who wouldn't?!
I expect CNN to put this matter to rest. Say you're sorry and
correct your story -- like any good journalist would.
Then we can get back to more important things. Like a REAL
discussion about our broken health care system. Everything else
is a distraction from what really matters.
Yours,
Michael Moore
_mmflint@aol.com_
_www.michaelmoore.com_ <http://www.michaelmoore.com/>
P.S. If you also want to apologize for not doing your job at the
start of the Iraq War, I'm sure most Americans would be very
happy to accept your apology. You and the other networks were
willing partners with Bush, flying flags all over the TV screens
and never asking the hard questions that you should have asked.
You might have prevented a war. You might have saved the lives
of those 3,610 soldiers who are no longer with us. Instead, you
blew air kisses at a commander in chief who clearly was making
it all up. Millions of us knew that -- why didn't you? I think
you did. And, in my opinion, that makes you responsible for this
war. Instead of doing the job the founding fathers wanted you to
do -- keeping those in power honest (that's why they made it the
FIRST amendment) -- you and much of the media went on the attack
against the few public figures like myself who dared to question
the nightmare we were about to enter. You've never thanked me or
the Dixie Chicks or Al Gore for doing your job for you. That's
OK. Just tell the truth from this point on.
That’s enough for this week.
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