(I name only three Presidential candidates because they represent 82% of the Democratic Party electorate).

The big news, for readers who want the U.S. out of Iraq soon, is that the Senate Democratic Party leadership plans to reject our party's "short leash" House bill. It wants instead to compromise with Republicans, and plans to put an Iraq funding bill 'that he can sign' on President Bush's desk by May 24. (Evidence below fold).

But compromise means fully funding the war for another year plus. Wouldn't you rather we get out of Iraq in 2007? Wouldn't you rather have two months of funding and then another vote that might lead to withdrawal? Okay, a little compromise on the number of months may be necessary, but basically a "short leash" bill like the House bill could get us out of Iraq by Christmas, 2007!

One way to get the Senate Democratic leadership to back a "short leash" bill is to put pressure on our Presidential candidates ...

The House has sent to the Senate a 2-month (we wanted short term, they gave us very very short term!) supplemental that requires a vote at the end of July on two more months of funding. Realistically, this bill is a godsend to the antiwar movement: it would keep the Iraq issue front and center three times in the next four months (now, July, and September), and would repeatedly force pro-war Congresspeople to make votes for the very unpopular war, until some of them (many of us think) just couldn't do it anymore.

Now, as for Senator Obama, and since ...

Obama has made his opposition to the war in Iraq a central theme of his campaign.

...

I was struck by this portion of an asiatimes.com essay by Pepe Escobar, Inside Sadr City, particularly the sentence I've highlighted:

Take Hussein Maheidel, from Amara in Shi'ite southern Iraq, who has been living in Sadr City for the past 30 years. He was a construction worker, but has been handicapped for the past 12 years because of a nerve problem in his back. All the best Iraqi doctors have left the country, so an operation might not be successful.

He has no pension to support his family of nine children. So he's being helped by the office of Muqtada, who pays his monthly rent of $100 ...

The Maheidel family lives in bleak poverty and sleeps in the same small room. But the head of the household is not complaining. He hopes his children "will not be workers, like myself". They are all in school; the unfortunate exception is his six-year-old daughter, who spends the day caring for her father (he walks on crutches). The expression of infinite sadness in her eyes is extremely disturbing. There are polite smiles in Sadr City - but ...

[This diary grows out of a discussion in the comments]

To help us understand the latest news -- Murtha and Stoyer's fighting new proposal on Iraq (see * below for more) -- it helps to remember how far to the left the Democratic Party base is of party/pundit conventional wisdom. I think the House leadership is responding to the base, which means us, which is a damn good thing in my humble opinion.

I went to pollingreport.com and there are no questions there on withdrawal by the end of 2007. The proposals for withdrawal by sometime in 2008 always get huge majorities. But here's the one question on de-funding, and the only one breaking down the Democrats-only results:

So the Washington Post lied with that 'Dems already caving on withdrawal headline'? Thanks awol, and hey, let's remember the role played by Bob Woodward and his Washington Post in the 2004 Bush re-election campaign. Taking the focus off Bush and Cheney, the WaPo in April '04 targeted George Tenet and his (December 2002) "slam dunk" remark as the scapegoat for invading Iraq on the false WMD claim. The remark had played a big role in Woodward's Bush-fawning 'Plan of Attack' and played the starring role in the William Hamilton's WaPo front-page coverage of Woodward's book.

But making Tenet and 'slam dunk' the scapegoat never made any sense, as Bob Somerby writes:

1. Rapid legalization of all who can (more or less) 'prove' they have been here since May 1, 2007.

2. Immediate and massive reduction of legal immigration.

3. Enforcement through employer's sanctions, but under no expectation that federal or state governments will do the job the working people of the U.S. need them to do. Therefore, enforcement through empowering working people to bring triple-damages class action law suits against employers to enforce their right to compete fairly for jobs at good pay/benefits/conditions that employers have given to illegal immigrants at bad pay/benefits/conditions. (Damages would be calculated at 3 times the money equivalent of one year of the prevailing regional union wages & benefits for the jobs that have been held by an employer's illegal immigrants.)

4. Enforcement would be made possible through a secure ID program that more or less requires state governments to employ technology that makes state IDs (more or less) unforgeable.

A much-needed self-examination of American policy in the Middle East has started in this country; but it can't make much headway as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties.

-- George Soros

I couldn't agree more. The United States, the Democratic Party in particular, needs a new pro-Israel lobbying group. The AIPAC replacement would be able to actually think independently instead of knee-jerking "Israel right or wrong" no matter how bullying, no matter how neo-conservative Israel is toward its neighbors and the Palestinians.

Last but not least, of course, an AIPAC replacement would know that torture and deadly force bullying of dehumanized 'evil outsiders' along with scarifying your own population to go along with that is not good for Israel. And yes, Bush regime haters, that sounds familiar, since ...

(This post is an expanded comment derived from mcjoan's Why Message Matters, enhanced by Deep Dark's response to my comment)

Barack Obama is one of several Democratic leaders who have seemingly capitulated to President Bush's desire for a no-conditions supplemental Iraq occupation bill. But let's assume that is a dirty water under the bridge and ask, "The threat of a conditional supplemental gone, what can Barack Obama still do to rein in President Out-of-Control and improve his standing as an anti-occupation Democrat?" My opinion: he needs to lead the effort to put a very short-term supplemental on Pres. Bush's desk.

We know, of course, that at least since April 1 Obama has been pondering the possibility of a short-term Iraq supplemental bill (my bold):

Did you know this? Britain's Sky TV on Thursday released video of the man in charge of the famous 15 sailors and marines, admitting 5 days before capture that his patrol was gathering intelligence on, spying on, Iran. Here's Euronews (emphasis added):

Captain Chris Air described their contact with local fishing boats: "(We're here) just to introduce ourselves, let them know that we're here to protect them, protect their fishing, stop any terrorism, or any kind of piracy in the area. Secondly it's just to gather int (intelligence) because if they do have any information, because they're here for days at a time, they can share it with us if it's about any piracy or any sort of Iranian activity in the area, because obviously we're right near the buffer zone with Iran. This dhow (fishing boat) had been robbed by some Iranian soldiers about three days ago, had some money taken off them and apparently that's happened quite a few times in the past, so it's good to gather int on the Iranians ..."

This directly contradicts the stance by the British government, that the patrol was on a routine patrol.

(more below)

Whether she mentioned the crisis to Syrian President Assad or not, my guess is that her presence in Syria gave a positive push to Syrian efforts to resolve the crisis. Here's the AP:

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told reporters that "Syria exercised a sort of quiet diplomacy to solve this problem and encourage dialogue" between Britain and Iran.

Al-Moallem, who also did not give any details on the Syrian mediation, spoke at Damascus international airport before the departure of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for Saudi Arabia.

Last Wednesday Circuit City fired 3400 of its best paid and longest-serving employees, 9% of its workforce. Scary, and I hope Toyota doesn't have similar plans for employees at its Georgetown, Kentucky plant.

But maybe it does; more below.

See over the fold -- for the "UN inspectors in Iran were spies for the US" history lesson -- for why Iran would think anything they show/tell the IAEA goes straight to the CIA. Anyway, here's the headline and first paragraph:

Iran: Attack fears spurred nuclear block

Iran, in a confidential letter posted Friday on an internal Web site of the U.N. nuclear monitor, said its fear of attack from the U.S. and Israel prompted its decision to withhold information from the agency. In the letter, Iran said the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency had repeatedly allowed confidential information crucial to the country's security to be leaked.

more below...

So it's confirmed now. Our war has killed, give or take a couple hundred thousand, 655,000 Iraqis. As a few of you know, the BBC found out that the top scientific advisor to Britain's Ministry of Defence told the government the Lancet estimate (published last October) of 655,000 Iraqi deaths was well-done, pretty damn accurate, and that it should not be attacked. As joejoejoe among others (but few in the 'real' reporting world) relayed to us yesterday: "...the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust". ... Another expert agreed the method was "tried and tested".

So, okay, now what do we do with this knowledge, as Americans, as a people?

According to The Hill.

No or leaning no:

Dan Boren (Okla.) (leaning no)
Keith Ellison (Minn.) (leaning no)
Dennis Kucinich (Ohio)
Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas)
Barbara Lee (Calif.)
John Lewis (Ga.)
Jim Marshall (Ga.)
Pete Stark (Calif.)
Edolphus Towns (N.Y.)
Lynn Woolsey (Calif.)

The eight in bold are heroes, in my humble opinion. Boren and Marshall don't make the cut because, according to Booman, they "oppose the bill because it has benchmarks. The rest of them oppose the bill because the benchmarks are non-binding."

By the damn way, can someone tell me why it is progressive to fight for a bill that fully funds the occupation and has non-binding benchmarks?

Are we just gonna let this happen?

Are we just gonna let the Democrats vote to prolong the war, $100+ Billion for quagmire that mercilessly hurts the U.S., Iraq, our soldiers and the Democratic Party?

If you live in or near Chicago, you can call B.S. tonight, it'll do you good and maybe save some lives:

June 2007 is the tragic milestone of 40 years of Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The American Friends Service Committee’s educational/advocacy series "40 Years Under Occupation: West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza (1967-2007)" runs from March through June in Chicago. Below are events taking place in March:

Sorry to make light of the US Republic of Torture, but perhaps that explains the long delay (he's been in custody for over four years) in getting his thirty or so 'confessions'. As an ABC News report told us in 2005:

... CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

The old ABC article reprises the six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" used by the CIA since March 2002, likely (especially?) on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: