By Dave Lindorff

Bill Clinton was the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party
and to progressives since that racist warmonger Woodrow Wilson won the
presidency and dragged the US into the utterly pointless and incredibly
bloody First World War.

Clinton, by posing as a progressive, confused and undermined, and
ultimately betrayed the liberal/progressive wing of the party,
shattering what was left of the New Deal coalition and leaving the
American left adrift and riven by the conflict between those who
thought the Democratic Party was the only viable vehicle for
progressive reform and those who thought it was hopelessly in the grip
of corporate interests.

Barack Obama offers the hope of bringing that era of debilitating confusion to an end.

By David Swanson

In November 2008, then President George W. Bush and then Puppet Nouri al-Maliki negotiated an unprecedented, unconstitutional treaty to "legalize" three more years of war in a manner not unlike the "legalization" of invasions, detentions, torture, and warrantless spying by secret decree of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice.

This treaty was public, but it was not called a treaty. Instead Bush presented it as a "Status of Forces Agreement" or SOFA, even though it went far beyond what any other SOFA had previously done. The U.S. Constitution requires that two-thirds of senators present consent to any treaty. A certain Senator Barack Obama favored upholding that requirement. Another senator by the name of Joe Biden introduced a bill (S. 3433) that, had it been brought to a vote and passed, would have cut off any money for U.S. operations in Iraq authorized only by an unconstitutional treaty.

By Dave Lindorff

If this were the democracy that the Founding Fathers thought they
were creating, word from CIA Director Leon Panetta that his agency had
lied to Congress and specifically that it had lied repeatedly from
9-11-2001 through the end of 2008 concerning an as-yet undisclosed
secret program, would have virtually every member of Congress in a
state of rebellion, demanding answers.

After all, the CIA is required by law to report to at least the
majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees and to the majority and minority leaders of both houses of
Congress about such things.

But not only did the spy agency not report on what it was up to; it lied about what it was up to.

By David Swanson The executive director of something called the National Security Network, named Heather Hurlburt, offers -- I kid you not, and that's really her name, so try not to hurl -- Six Reasons to Love the Supplemental and Celebrate Progressives in Government. Hurlburt begins with her own warning not to vomit:

"Usually, there are lots of reasons for progressives not to love supplemental spending bills. And I won't argue that this one is perfect. But before you get too queasy, consider six ways that progressives in Congress and the man at 1600 Pennsylvania turned 'more of the same' into 'change.'"

Book Can Now Be Ordered, Book Tour Being Planned

You can now pre-order my book at Amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/daybreakbook

It's a thick book containing everything I know - and then some - for $10 (pre-order discount price).  And you can support a good cause by pre-ordering it now.

You can also call or visit your local bookstore right now and ask them to be sure to stock the book.

If you're in California, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, or Ohio please see below.  I'm only coming once to any given state, so please schedule more events for the times I will be in yours! Please don't ask me later why I didn't come to your town!

If you're in another state, please contact me re dates in 2010. -- David Swanson

By David Swanson

The largest military budget in the history of the world is being increased. Certain weapons are being cut back, others expanded. But the overall budget is going UP. However, you don't need me to tell you that. You've learned it from these fine news sources:

FoxNews.com:

"With Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposing broad cuts in Pentagon spending, a new war over the president's budget has begun. While critics already are warning that the plan could compromise U.S. security, the greater resistance appears to be coming from lawmakers worried that the cuts threaten thousands of jobs in their states."

There really are cuts and critics and chicken littles, but nowhere does Fox tell you that the overall budget is INCREASING. Then again, if Fox didn't lie, how would we know what was true?

By Dave Lindorff

It may not be obvious today, and certainly it’s not how the corporate media reported it, but future historians are likely to look back at March 13, 2009 as the day that American imperialism began it’s inexorable decline. That’s the day that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that his country was “worried” about its holdings of over $1 trillion in US treasury securities, and warned that he wanted the US to assure China that it would maintain its good credit and “honor its promises” and “maintain the safety of China’s assets.”

On TV, President Obama declared:

Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end... Through this period of transition, we will carry out further redeployments. And under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

President Obama may "intend" to order the removal of all U.S. troops," but the Pentagon has does not "intend" to follow their Commander-in-Chief's order.

By Dave Lindorff

Barack Obama’s first address to Congress provided Americans with
yet another example of competent speechmaking, and I suppose, given
that we’ve just endured eight painful years of oratorical farce, being
able to listen to your president without wincing is something.

The problem is that the way forward proposed by the president as
laid out in this address was almost always half-hearted, wrong-headed
or doomed.

Obama declared at the outset of his address that the economic
crisis was the major issue confronting the country, and while one could
argue that this crisis is merely a symptom of much bigger issues, like
the nearly completed deindustrialization of the nation, the death grip
of militarism, and the growing political power of corporations, one
could also concede that there is an urgent need to deal with the
deepening recession.

President Obama caved in to pressure from the Pentagon to delay the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Obama campaigned on a promise of removing combat troops in 16 months (May 2010), but the Pentagon extended the withdrawal to 19 months (August 2010). And the Pentagon insists on keeping up to 50,000 non-combat troops until 12/31/2011, which is the final deadline in the Bush-Maliki Withdrawal Agreement.