The Nobel prize-winning president of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, is in critical condition, breathing on a ventilator.  Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao survived an attempted coup against him and Ramos-Horta. Ramos-Horta was shot in the back of the head and the stomach...  Now Gusmao has declared a 48 hour state of emergency.

Rebel leader Major Alfredo Reinado and another insurgent are dead.

Much more below...

On Sep 6, 1989 Rep. Don Edwards, D-CA said that if then President George H. W. Bush's proposals for punishing drug users and expanding drug testing in the work place were passed into law then  ``American would become a police state.``

Well it passed almost unanimously I might add and Edwards proved to be a visionary because we do indeed live in a Police State. In fact it's far worse today than what the first President Bush pushed through 17 years ago. Due to the hysterical climate created by the Reagan-Bush drug war CA Rep. Edwards was one of the very few voices of reason left in Congress at the time.

[Cross-posted at ProgressiveHistorians, Daily Kos, My Left Wing, and TalkLeft.]

For some time, there has been a meme in political discourse indicating that Republicans choose their Presidential candidates based on some notion of whose "turn" it is to win the nomination.  I have found evidence of this meme from both the right (William F. Buckley) and the left (a MyDD commenter).  Given the pervasiveness of this meme, I decided to test the historical evidence behind it by examining Republican presidential nominations from 1960 -- a full twelve years before the first election in which primaries played a deciding role in the delegate count -- through 2004.

According to most versions of this theory, there are three ways that one establishes one's "turn" in line: 1) by being a sitting or former Vice President; 2) by running in a previous year, losing but doing better than expected; or 3) by attaining some sort of formal institutional leadership, i.e., serving as Senate Minority Leader or Speaker of the House.  I aim to show that criterion #1 is both natural and common to both parties, and that criteria #2 and #3 are simply not the hard-and-fast rules they have been made out to be.  In fact, in the past twelve election cycles, there has been only one instance where a Republican presidential primary was decided by anything close to the concept of "turn," and even in that instance the outcome was far from certain until well down the stretch.  Essentially, the Republican presidential "turn" is a myth with no predictive value for the 2008 GOP primary.

I met former UN Weapons Inspector and marine Scott Ritter four years ago, as a college freshman. It was two or three months before the invasion of Iraq, and I was naive enough to think that the Bush administration hadn't already made its mind up. On campus, I had started a discussion group to help other students better understand all the information swirling around in the news. Ritter had come to town to answer questions -- mostly about Iraq's weapons capabilities, which he said were nil. But he also said, "I hope I'm wrong and they're right."

But one thing really stuck out in my mind then, and now. He said that in our culture, if you live in Maryland but get a job in Florida, you pick up and move. Not so for Iraqis, where moving is viewed through a tribal lens and is generally not accepted. Ritter told me that the matter could be a factor in the invasion.

Now, well into the tumultuous occupation, too many Iraqis have no other choice but to leave their homes.

The recently passing of, former President Gerald Ford who said, "Our Constitution Works, We The People Rule", reminds us that our government is of law, one that represents WE The People, and it does work.

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln

One cannot look at the durable wisdom of our Constitution, and recall the deep commitment that unites our country, but one must think about the times that this same Constitution has come under attack.

Reprinted from The Satirical Political Report http://satiricalpolitical.com

Tired of Bill Safire's annual "Office Pool" column in The New York Times? -- the 2007 version of which appeared today. Sick of his not-so-subtle slants to reflect his right-wing wish list? Well, here then, is the only Office Pool you need, the First Annual "Office Satire Pool" for 2007:

1. George Bush will:

(a) stay the course, (b) give in to his urge to surge, (c) cut and run, (d) cut his wrists.

I hope for (d), but fear it'll be (b).

2. Dick Cheney will push for the invasion of:

(a) Iran, (b) Syria, (c) Iraq, all over again, (d) The Democratic-controlled House and Senate.

My pick: All of the above.

3. Osama bin Laden will:

(a) be captured while dining with Pakistan President Musharraf, (b) take over as the lead anchor on Al Jazeera, (c) be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bush, for ensuring W's re-election.

The answer is (a), but you won't hear about it, since Bush needs both Musharraf and bin Laden.

4. Which politician's platform to battle the E. coli threat will be most ridiculed:

(a) Hillary Clinton's centrist-tacking "All meat should be safe, legal and rare," (b) John McCain's "Send in more bacteria," (c) John Kerry's "How do you ask a man to die for a last steak."

Obviously (c), which will be played to death by the Swift Meat Company veterans.

5. Which position will the extreme Right-Wing do a dramatic reversal on:

(a) abortion, (b) tax cuts for the wealthy, (c) global warming, (d) human cloning.

The correct answer is (d) human cloning, which has already occurred, based on the fact that Pat Buchanan appears simultaneously on every cable news station.

CONTINUED at: http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=491

Like most, I've got mixed feelings, but no malice, about President Ford.  He will be known as the guy who pardoned Nixon and the first & hopefully the last unelected President.  Sure, he gets high marks for being a good guy, in contrast to the guy he pardoned.  He was honest.  Everybody knows about the pardon, but few know that he gave the go-ahead green light to Indonesia before the bloody invaision of East Timor.  It was not Ford's idea, but he did not do anything about it -- though his options were few.