How To Get The Shaft By The Navy

The Article: Why was a Navy adviser stripped of her career by Jeff Stein in the Washington Post.

The Text: Gwenyth Todd had worked in a lot of places in Washington where powerful men didn’t hesitate to use sharp elbows. She had been a Middle East expert for the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. She had worked in the office of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in the first Bush administration, where neoconservative hawks first began planning to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

But she was not prepared a few years later in Bahrain when she encountered plans by high-ranking admirals to confront Iran, any one of which, she reckoned, could set the region on fire. It was 2007, and Todd, then 42, was a top political adviser to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Previous 5th Fleet commanders had resisted various ploys by Bush administration hawks to threaten the Tehran regime. But in spring 2007, a new commander arrived with an ambitious program to show the Iranians who was boss in the Persian Gulf.

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Mitt Romney And The Infinite Sadness

Romney doesn’t like vampires personally, but professionally — hellz yeah!

Obama Chainz

Drops November 6th.

Crazy Repubs, Useless Dems And A Missing Middle Class

The Article: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafted by Bill Moyers in TruthOut.

The Text: After a tremendous response to his commentary on Truthout, Mike Lofgren has released a new book, “The Party Is Over.” In it he explores what he calls the “company town” of Washington DC, where “the company’s products are politics and military hardware.” Receive a copy from Truthout with a minimum donation of $35 – or a monthly donation of $15.

Bill talks with Mike Lofgren, a long-time Republican who describes the modern dysfunction of both the Republican and Democratic parties. In Lofgren’s view, Republicans have become overly obsessed with obstructing President Obama, and the Democrats suffer from political complacency. Lofgren’s new book is The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted.
Transcript

Bill Moyers: The growing power of the religious right is one reason my guest left the Republican Party and became an Independent. “The mixture of politics and religion,” he says, “debases both, and has turned the GOP into an apocalyptic sect.” He has his problems with Democrats, too. For one thing, he says, both parties “are captives to corporate loot.”

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Your Party Track For TNGHT

If you’re looking for a song to add to your next party playlist, TNGHT’s “Higher Ground” is the one.