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John Edwards on the Pernicious Influence of Lobbyists on US Politics: Yearly Kos Thanks to David Sirota & YouTube. See also Dennis Perrin’s detailed and sometimes dyspeptic account of his Yearly Kos experience at Huffington Post. And Manan Ahmed gives his impressions here; Manan had a slight disagreement with the Obama camp over Pakistan.

Analysis of al-Maliki’s Cabinet Regarding the collapsing al-Maliki government, an informed observer writes: “The analysis of the current composition of the Council of Ministers is now complete. There are 38 Cabinet-level positions, not 40 as sometimes reported in the mainstream press-media. If the AP-reported number of 17 Ministers is correct, the non-participating Ministers would be […]

Bonaparte’s Proclamation on Overthrowing the Ottoman Beys of Egypt Just one day until the book is out!. From the Napoleon’s Egypt Blog today, Bonaparte’s June 1798 proclamation to his troops on the rationale for attacking Ottoman Egypt. Main points: 1. The Ottoman-Egyptian Beys (“Mamluks” or slave-soldiers) were favoring British commerce over French. 2. The beys […]

Iraqi Sermons on the Sunni Withdrawal, Saudi Calls for Destruction of Shrines The USG Open Source Center translates select passages from Sunni and Shiite sermons from last Friday in Iraq. Many of the Shiite preachers condemned the recent fatwas of Wahhabi Saudi clerics calling for the destruction of Shiite shrines. (Wahhabi Islam, like radical Protestantism, […]

Candidates at Yearly Kos Reactions to Arc of Crisis Panel Alas, although I heard the Democratic candidates for president at Yearly Kos and attended the break-out meeting afterward with Sen. Barack Obama, the controversy over his and Sen. Hillary Clinton’s remarks about Pakistan never came up. So, nothing new to report on that score. Here […]

Cole Interview from Yearly Kos An interview with me at Josh Marshall’s Talkingpointsmemo from the Yearly Kos conference. (Top video frame.) Thanks to Josh’s staff for the good questions! Plus Yearly Kos in the headlines.

News from Yearly Kos The Yearly Kos netroots convention is celebrating grassroots democratic activism. The Sun-Times covers the events Thursday evening. Howard Dean spoke with perceptiveness and passion about grassroots democracy and the internet. I was even impressed by Dick Durbin’s appearance by video (he was leaving for Iraq and Afghanistan). He was on top […]

Quote of the Day “A major power can afford a military debacle only when it looks like a political victory.” – Friedrich Dürrenmatt

April 12, 2007 Destruction of Sarafiya Bridge, Baghdad My American readers often tell me that they have difficulty gauging the scale of death and destruction in Iraq or are numbed by the daily barrage of bombings and the dead and injured. My heart goes out to the people of Minneapolis (I talked at the University […]