January 31, 2009, 10:19PM
Ready fire aim.
All the "leading lights" - Jindal, Crist. Palin's lobbying McConnell this weekend. The single most important parts of the package are those which provide countercyclical help to states and localities in every state now in the grips of serious budget crises.
Most support economic plan that got no Republican votes in U.S. House
January 25, 2009, 11:42AM
Western
governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli
claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated
the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that
Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas's capacity to launch
missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a
global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but
on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this
network.
I am not
aware of a single major American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose
coverage of the assault on Gaza questions this version of events.
Criticism of Israel's actions, if any (and there has been none from the Bush
administration), has focused instead on whether the IDF's carnage is
proportional to the threat it sought to counter, and whether it is taking
adequate measures to prevent civilian casualties.
Middle East peacemaking has
been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of
these claims is a lie
[HT Juan Cole for the London Review of Books link]
