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$21.50
By Brad Kessler
$16.32
$18
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commons.wikimedia.org
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If there is any doubt that John McCain is gulping down the neocon Kool-Aid on Georgia, one need only read his new manifesto in The Wall Street Journal, where he once again flaunts his Wikipedia-sourced foreign policy expertise.
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By William Pfaff — History—not democracy—provides the explanation for the crisis in Georgia, in which the United States is recklessly involving itself.
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First the showdown with Russia, now the U.S. media tour: Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili paid a virtual visit to American news shows on Wednesday, telling CBS News anchor Katie Couric that the Russians were violating the newly instated cease-fire agreement with Georgia, then being buttered up by CNN’s Glenn Beck, who reminded his audience that there are streets in Georgia “named after our president.”
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You’ve seen the quotation, now watch the clip of Sen. John McCain, either in deep denial or completely irony-impaired (those being the more generous of many possible interpretations), giving his pronouncement that “... in the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.” Oh.
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By Joe Conason — The discovery that John McCain’s remarks on Georgia were derived from Wikipedia is, to put it politely, disturbing and even depressing—but not surprising.
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AP photo / Jeff Chiu
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It’s just too bad that the only Americans apparently qualified to advise John McCain on how to deal with the world are those hopelessly corrupted by hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent payments from foreign countries, such as beleaguered Georgia. Good thing that guys like Randy Scheunemann (above, left), whose two-man lobbying firm took in a cool million from Georgia since 2004, have a superhuman ability to separate their analysis from any financial considerations.
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Wikipedia Commons
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They aren’t as big, and their iconography is nowhere near Soviet-grade, but according to columnist Anne Penketh of London’s The Independent, the Russians’ Georgia invasion can only be seen as a rank humiliation of the West by a triumphant Vladimir Putin.
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Upping the ante in Moscow-Washington tension over the border war between Russia and its former satellite state, Bush announced Wednesday that the U.S. military is flying humanitarian aid to Georgia, with his secretary of state to follow. Georgia’s president, however, is spinning this as the first step in a U.S. military intervention.
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John Stewart says it’s the “geopolitical equivalent of the fortune cookie [plus] ‘in bed’ ”: U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalizad (above) trashing Russia’s aggression but limiting comparison to the Iraq invasion by adding a qualifier that tells us we’re talking about someplace that matters to civilized people. Follow-up questions for extra credit: Is Georgia really in Europe? And how many Americans are worried right now the Russians will take Atlanta?
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AP photo, Mary Altaffer / Irakli Gedeniedze, pool
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By Robert Scheer — Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
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AP photo / Georgy Abdaladze
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Early Wednesday morning, Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili agreed to a plan to stop the fighting that flared up Friday. However, the crisis isn’t over and the terms of the agreement aren’t all clear.
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By William Pfaff — British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was the man who said the first three rules of warfare are “Do not invade Russia,” repeated three times. A footnote to that rule would be that while the disputed Georgian districts of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not parts of Russia today, they were yesterday, and probably will again be tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.
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AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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John McCain comes off as the tough-talking hard-liner in this Financial Times story about the Russia-Georgia conflict. Even more of a hard-liner than President Bush, who ever-so-reluctantly came around to agreeing with McCain on Monday after initially taking “a much more diluted stance” (just like Barack Obama), as John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, put it in the FT article’s completely unsurprising conclusion.
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Right, so Vladimir Putin’s criticism about the Western media’s coverage of the ongoing clash between Russia and Georgia is certainly not completely unfounded, but media bias isn’t confined to the West. Consider this recent story from Russian news source Pravda.ru, headlined “Russia: Again Savior of Peace and Life.”
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martinfrost.ws
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made his position vis-à-vis his country’s ongoing conflict with Georgia eminently clear on Monday, lamenting how, as he put it, the “aggressor” has been painted as the “victim” in the Western press (hint: said “aggressor” ain’t Russia).
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In case you missed it, here’s part of President Bush’s sit-down with NBC’s Olympic host Bob Costas on Sunday, during which a somewhat squirmy Bush talked about what he said to Vladimir Putin during the opening festivities, lamenting how the fighting in Georgia was conflicting with the spirit of the Olympics.
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AP photo / Musa Sadulayev
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For those who never heard of South Ossetia before fighting between Russians and Georgians erupted there, the BBC’s Paul Reynolds provides some needed background and analysis, including this pearl of wisdom: “Do not punch a bear on the nose unless it is tied down.”
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A BBC team in Georgia was busy reporting on the conflict there when a Russian plane turned toward the journalists and opened fire.
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AP photo / George Abdaladze
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Despite calls from international officials late in the week urging Russia to hold its fire against neighboring Georgia, Russian forces showed no sign of backing off over the weekend, nor had the United Nations managed to make headway in curbing the conflict. Update
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guardian.co.uk
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Georgia bombed separatists in the country’s South Ossetia region Tuesday evening, killing 25; Russia rolled an estimated 150 tanks into Georgia in retaliation, ostensibly to defend the region’s high Russian immigrant population. Georgia pleads its case as a “freedom-loving” nation to garner U.S. support; any semblance of logic retreats.
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Flickr / Svadilfari
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If you plan on speeding through Holly Springs, Ga., be warned: The police chief there has decided to start charging the pulled-over a fuel surcharge. Cop houses around the country are struggling with the high cost of gas. The chief in Holly Springs said he got the idea from businesses, such as airlines, that pass their troubles on to the consumer.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia has been chosen by Libertarians to carry the party’s banner in November, beating out Mary Ruwart, former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel and others. Given John McCain’s trouble with conservatives and Barack Obama’s focus on Georgia, Barr could be something of a spoiler in the general election.
Posted on May 25, 2008
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AP photo / Lori Cain
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The former president and superdelegate wouldn’t tell a Nigerian reporter which of the Democratic candidates he intends to support, but he offered a pretty good hint: “Don’t forget that [Barack] Obama won in my state of Georgia. My town, which is home to 625 people, is for Obama. My children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama.”
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Veteran rocker and self-described “queer artist” Michael Stipe has made a startling announcement about his two bandmates, Peter Buck and Mike Mills, ending, as Stipe put it, “years of awkward speculation” about their sexual orientation.
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AP photo / Jim Roshan
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President Bush offered prayers and government assistance Wednesday to the Southern communities hit hardest by devastating storms Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. At least 50 people were killed, twice as many were injured and crews rushed to try to save others trapped in the rubble.
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AP photo /J ohn Bazemore
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Record numbers of African-Americans came out to vote for Sen. Barack Obama in Georgia’s Democratic primary on Tuesday, giving Obama a big win at the kickoff of a long evening of waiting for other states’ results.
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cnn.com
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In a 4-3 decision, Georgia’s Supreme Court ordered the release of 21-year-old Genarlow Wilson, whose case drew national attention after he was sentenced to 10 years for engaging in oral sex with a consenting 15-year-old girl when he was a 17-year-old high school student.
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firesigntheatre.com
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A Diebold whistle-blower has cited a mysterious patch that possibly swung the 2002 Georgia election as evidence that the company can’t be trusted. Days before the vote, Democrats in both the Senate and governor’s race were ahead in the polls by 5% and 11%, respectively, only to lose by a narrow margin on election day. (h/t: Engadget)
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From digi-hound.com
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Unable to distance himself from scandal-tarred lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Reed conceded defeat in Georgia’s Republican race for lieutenant governor.
C-e-e-e-e-e-e-l-e-brate good times, come on!
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Erik S. Lesser / The New York Times
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The former head of the Christian Coalition, who is running for Lt. Gov. of Georgia, is now finding himself trailing at the polls, largely as a result of his connection to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
It’s gratifying to see that after playing in the muck for so long with Abramoff, Reed can’t separate himself from the stink of corruption.
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Just when it appeared that there might be a glimmer of hope in the darkness…New York and Georgia go and remind us that when it comes to gay marriage, the USA is still in the Dark Ages.
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The FBI obtained Mexico’s voter lists via the same contractor that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush used to scrub alleged felons from the voter rolls. The FBI supposedly obtained the lists as part of counter-terror operations, but there’s reason to suspect those lists will end up helping President Bush’s favored candidate into office in Mexico…. (more)
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Any municipality in the state apparently can post the commandments as long as they’re displayed alongside other historic documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Mayflower Compact.
Didn’t the Supreme Court have something to say about this recently?
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Don’t get too excited. The judge made the ruling on procedural grounds—not on a question of civil rights.
Posted on May 17, 2006
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