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“All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know …Until Now.”

In The News: The War - 3500 troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the month with a net gain on the ground of 5000 troops. There will be approximately 140,000 US soldiers in Iraq then, and the mayhem continues from the Green Zone on out into the hinterlands. Details.

The military spending bill is introduced with a troop withdrawal condition and a number of earmarks for domestic spending. Just call it veto bait. More.

Primary elections - Barack Obama takes North Carolina with a 10% margin and Hillary Clinton in Indiana with a 2% squeaker. The candidates are campaigning in West Virginia today for next Tuesday’s vote with Kentucky, Montana, South Dakota and Oregon coming up shortly.

In Russia, a new president, Dmitry Medvedev, one of Vladimir Putin’s top aides, is elected, and he immediately appoints Putin as Prime Minister. As a ‘gift’, the US signs onto a civilian nuclear technology exchange program with the former Soviet Union…

Remember that the next time we accuse the Russians of trickling down their nuclear programs to our current boogeyman cf. Russia >> North Korea >> Syria… Add the US to that chain of supposed ‘outlaw nuclear proliferation’.

House hearings yesterday accuse the Veterans Administration Mental Health program of criminal neglect due to under-reporting soldier suicides by more than 11,000.

In the Senate, The Republicans kill a bill to relieve passengers stuck on the ground in airliners. The bill included other aviation infrastructure related upgrades to air traffic control and safety. Enjoy the flight!

In regard to the mistakes discussed in the commentary, a reiteration of something previously posted:

The World According To Bill Fisher

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The Fierce Urgency of How
By William Fisher

My reaction to the news that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have agreed to yet another debate, this one on April 16, in Philadelphia:

Be still my heart!

Having forsworn ever watching another so-called debate for fear of dying from Trivialitis – but apparently having a strong self-destructive urge – I fear I will once again find myself hunkered down in front of my television to watch the candidates swap one-liners.

Barack will promise to bring us all together so that the nation can move forward. He’ll again assert his prewar opposition to Iraq and promise to bring our troops home. He’ll tell us yet again that we have to be as careful bringing them home as we were careless sending them in. He’ll assure Pennsylvania voters that he’s going to renegotiate NAFTA. And, of course, he’ll promise us universal health care, middle-class tax relief, better schools, secure borders, a rescue plan for victims of Katrina and sub-prime mortgages, and energy independence. And no doubt we’ll hear yet again about how John McCain would have us stay in Iraq for the next hundred years.

Hillary will tell us how ready she is to be Commander-in-Chief on Day One. She too will repeat all the lofty goals she and her opponent share – universal health care (but leaving no one out), energy independence, better teachers and smaller classrooms, an exit strategy for Iraq (two brigades a month), the NAFTA riff, secure borders, and of course middle-class tax relief, better schools, a rescue plan for victims of Katrina and sub-prime mortgages, energy independence, and John McCain’s 100-year-war.

But unless they have some kind of joint epiphany, neither candidate will talk about how they view the Constitution, the limits of Presidential Power, secretive government, how they will reach consensus with the Congress, separation of church and state, Guantanamo, Bagram, the CIA’s secret prisons, warrantless wiretapping, the respective checks-and-balances roles of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government — and a host of other mismanaged issues that have arguably assured George W. Bush one of the most pitiful legacies of any President in our history.

Our two Democratic contenders – and the TV anchors who moderate these colloquies — apparently believe that discussion of such issues is so far down in the weeds that viewers’ eyes will instantly glaze over and the entire nation will scramble for the remote.

But if they think of what a lot of the rest of us see as existential issues as being beyond the voters’ comprehension, I wonder how they view an equally important question: How?

By which I mean that lofty visions and even good strategies don’t answer the question of how you’re going to go about actually getting things done – swiftly, efficiently, responsibly, accountably.

Like HOW you’re going to avoid another Heck-of-a-job-Brownie moment.

HOW you’re going to bring us energy independence.
HOW you’re going to secure a peaceful Middle East.
HOW you’re going to end aggressive extremism.

HOW you’re going to execute your health care plan, put better teachers in smaller classes, and all the rest.

Dealing with the HOW is arguably even more important than figuring out the WHAT. [In Full]

–30–
[May 07 2008] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: $0.5 Billion Dollars And Counting - The Democratic Presidential Campaign And It’s Primaries… Maybe I’m Just Getting Old But I’ve Seen These Mistakes Before

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