As some of you may know, I am gainfully employed.  In fact, I work several jobs:  Mother, employee, artist and writer.  

Which is why it is personally important to me that Senator Obama supports the arts.

I really don't know what to make of this news from Reuters. This is a "I have good new and I have bad news." He wins funding on one hand, but may loose his halo with the other.

According to what Seymour Hersh told us during Fresh Air on NPR today, the war with Iran has already begun.  Our democratic leadership has funded it.  Meanwhile, life goes on as usual.  I'm not really able to comprehend people any more.  Does everyone think it is not happening?  Do they not understand the magnitude of what is going on?  Hersh made it clear that the caving in by North Korea was the final step in paving the way for Bush to go ahead.  Why are we just going about business as usual?  Will it matter who wins the election (IF there is one)?  Maybe I have lost my sense of perspective.  I think not.  Here is Hersh's New Yorker article: Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.  Hersh is reasonbly sure that the operations are already being carried out and that the funding is flowing for them.  Look below the break for more.

Cross posted at MyDD.

There's a lot of people pissing and moaning about the alleged flip-flop on the part of Senator Barack Obama regarding his opting out of public funds for the General Election.

Now, I am all for holding Obama's feet to the fire when the criticism is warranted (such as in the case of Telco Immunity), but the amount of concern trolling going on in certain circles is simply astounding. With all the hand-wringing going on you'd think that Obama just announced that he was going to take Joe Lieberman as his running mate and run on a platform of expanding the Patriot Act for another 20 years.

I think most people are smart enough to figure out what these people's motives are, but just in case anyone here is actually buying into the faux outrage being expressed by a small but vocal group of community members here, I will attempt to set the record straight....

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpoi...

This political detonation by Barack Obama, shuttering quite possibly the most effective, well funded, and well known 527 on the left or the right, completely douses the incoming fire that John McCain and the Republicans have been throwing his way for the past several weeks regarding campaign finance reform.

CNN reports that the DNC convention committee faces a funding shortfall of $15 million.

Political Graffiti

Hey Progressives,

What can you do to get your representatives on the local and Federal level to sign on to the California Democratic Party World Peace platform plank?

Also below, please see the National Priorities website to see the cost of undeclared war and trade-offs for your city, county, state.

Here's to Kucinich for his latest impeachment issues!!! See CSPAN now for his grounds.

In Peace,

Colleen Fernald

As this is not a candidate diary, I'm sure it will go largely unnoticed. However, let it be known that if you do continue to read this, in the two minutes that it takes you, an estimated 10 people will die from AIDS. I promise I'll keep it short and to the point.

The house just voted down any additional funding for the war. According to CBS Radio, the house republicans, in an effort to protest a vote, voted "present" on a $163M Iraq War funding bill. In response, House Dems voted AGAINST the bill, which -- tada! -- failed!

^{(edited to reflect what really happened)}

UPDATED with a hat tip to notquitedelilah's comment which inspired me to create the following little piece o' artwork when she wondered if the repubs were "turning blue."

This is the obly kind of Blue that I can see Boehner as...

That's the headline you may be reading in the coming weeks and months.

From Yahoo:

President Bush sent lawmakers a $70 billion request Friday to fund U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring, which would give the next president breathing room to make his or her own war policy.

Just as we would love Congress to spine-up and reject funding the war, the Administration throws in a marginally good thing.

From WaPo:

President Bush asked Congress yesterday to approve $770 million in new global food aid for the coming fiscal year, the centerpiece of an evolving administration response to a crisis that has sparked increased violence and hunger around the world.

According to Time, both Democratic candidates for president had lighter fundraising totals in March than in February, with Obama continuing to outraise Clinton.

In his speech last night on the racial divide in the USA, one important issue is not getting the attention is deserves today. That is inequality in our public school system.

Obama was quite clear about why one reason poverty still exists in the USA. Our educational system is still not equal or fair to poor people.

Excerpts from the speech...

Some things always reach out and provide perspective on things that are truly important in this world. While all the bickering and squabbling is happening between the camps. While Senator Obama feels the need to give a speech to try and blunt criticisms, and everyone discusses the implications of Geraldine Farraros' comments, there is a War that is costing life, limb and treasure.

Linda Bilmes co-author of the Three Trillion Dollar War, which I diaried here, has an op-ed, Another Year, Another $300 billion that provides a little focus. >>>>>>  

It seems obvious that we need to fundamentally change the funding model for community organizing. But how?

This is a follow-up to the "Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing in Urban America" diary I posted a few days ago.  

I argue that a different approach to funding, the creation of permanent endowments, might be part of the solution to the perennial problem of sustaining organizing over the long term.  I speculate that a minimum of around a $10 million permanent endowment in a small city might be enough to fundamentally change the ecology of organizing there.  (I actually posted this in the comments, but it seems useful to put it here as well).

More on the flip.  See www.educationaction.org for more.

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee held a hearing on contractor waste, fraud and corruption in Iraq.  The testimony demonstrated not only that incompetence and greed have resulted in the wide scale theft of taxpayer money, but also that the lack of accountability and corruption is directly tied to the instability in that country:

Judge Al-Radhi Said Corruption Keeps Millions of Iraqis in Poverty and Funds Violence. "Corruption in Iraq today is rampant across the government, costing tens of billions of dollars, and has infected virtually every agency and ministries, including some of the most powerful officials. Corruption has been part of the failure of the government of Iraq to control the militia that control parts of government. Unfortunately, today in Iraq, corruption has infected our biggest source of money:  oil. Corruption has infected those who have the guns to restore law and order.  And corruption has infected the very government officials who promise a new, better Iraq. Corruption keeps millions of Iraqis in inhumane living conditions and it funds the killing of U.S. and Iraqi forces." [Judge Al-Radhi’s Testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee, 3/11/08]

Corruption and wasted taxpayer money in Iraq is certainly not limited to American contractors.  Rather, as Congress submissively keeps sending billions upon billions into the black hole of unaccountability that is post-invasion Iraq, it's become clear over the last several years that everyone and anyone in Iraq is clamoring for cash.  The tragic outrage of it all? Except for a hearing here and there on Capitol Hill, under the "leadership" of President Bush, the American government doesn't seem to give a damn.

Last fall, Vanity Fair published a must-read article on the shocking incompetence which lead to the missing money:

[A]fter the money was delivered to Iraq, oversight and control evaporated. Of the $12 billion in U.S. banknotes delivered to Iraq in 2003 and 2004, at least $9 billion cannot be accounted for. A portion of that money may have been spent wisely and honestly; much of it probably wasn't. Some of it was stolen.

Once the money arrived in Iraq it entered a free-for-all environment where virtually anyone with fingers could take some of it. Moreover, the company that was hired to keep tabs on the outflow of money existed mainly on paper. Based in a private home in San Diego, it was a shell corporation with no certified public accountants. Its address of record is a post-office box in the Bahamas, where it is legally incorporated. That post-office box has been associated with shadowy offshore activities.

The article is filled with outrageous anecdotes of waste, fraud, and corruption.  Some infuriating examples:

An Iraqi hospital administrator told The Guardian of England that, when he arrived to sign a contract, the army officer representing the C.P.A. had crossed out the original price and doubled it. "The American officer explained that the increase (more than $1 million) was his retirement package." Alan Grayson, a Washington, D.C., lawyer for whistle-blowers who have worked for American contractors in Iraq, says simply that during that first year under the C.P.A. the country was turned into "a free-fraud zone."

Once the cash passed into the hands of the Iraqis or any other party, no one knew where it went. The C.P.A. turned over $1.5 billion in cash to Iraqi banks, for instance, but later auditors could account for less than $500 million.

Of 8,206 "guards" drawing paychecks courtesy of the C.P.A., only 602 warm bodies could in fact be found; the other 7,604 were ghost employees. Halliburton, the government contractor once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, charged the C.P.A. for 42,000 daily meals for soldiers while in fact serving only 14,000 of them.

The difference it made was that some American contractors correctly believed they could walk off with as much money as they could carry. The circumstances that surround the handling of comparatively small sums help explain the billions that ultimately vanished. In the south-central region of Iraq a contracting officer stored $2 million in a safe in his bathroom.

Custer Battles had billed the government $400,000 for electricity that cost $74,000. It had billed $432,000 for a food order that cost $33,000. It had charged the C.P.A. for leased equipment that was stolen, and had submitted forged invoices for reimbursement—all the while moving millions of dollars into offshore bank accounts.

This is what retired admiral David Oliver, the C.P.A.'s director of management and budget had to say about what happened to the billions of dollars sent to Iraq:

"I have no idea—I can't tell you whether or not the money went to the right things or didn't—nor do I actually think it's important."

Over the last few years, stories about the greatest mishandling of taxpayer money n the history of the United States have peppered the media landscape.  Three years ago, we learned that some $9 billion were "lost" in Iraq.  In May of 2005, it was reported that 100 million dollars  was missing ("worse case scenario, someone took it home," an official said).  Last fall, some 1.6 billion, meant for the training of Iraqi troops, was reported "unaccounted for."  About three months ago, we learned that $1 billion in military equipment was lost in Iraq.

There are so many questions yet to be answered about who stole or misused American money in Iraq, and yesterday's hearing is good first start.  How many billions have been lost? Were did they go? Why is this happening?  How can we prevent it in the future? Who should be held accountable?

But the greatest question of all:  how can Congress in good conscience continue to appropriate billions for this mess?  How can Congress continue to give this president blank checks which are being cashed in by the greedy, the corrupt, and the incompetent?  

In short, how can this government justify its irresponsible handling of taxpayer money?

The answer? It can't.

Last night one of the talking heads on MSNBC commented about the "contrarian" position among Democrats, to wit:  the longer the primary process continues, the more press the Democrats get, and the better their chances in November.  This position was generally discounted, on the grounds that McCain and the Republicans would spend that time building their campaign machine.

As I've noted earlier, I'm a simple man, and I generally have trouble seeing beyond surface reality.  It seems to me, however, that if money is the mother's milk of politics, publicity is its oxygen.  And if all the publicity is going to the Clinton-Obama race, the McCain campaign will suffocate.

In a surprising display of courage, the House Democratic leadership last week stood up to Bush and the weak-kneed Senate and refused to bring to the floor a bill that would allow Bush to continue to spy on the people of this country without a warrant. Can this newfound courage last?