In our latest email regarding Eric Massa we forgot to mention the great treatment he received from the Balboa Naval Hospital.

Thanks,

Wes

Blogosphere Day -- Time to Invest in Our Future

When I entered the 2004 presidential race, it was with the support of tens of thousands of Americans organizing online (and later translating it offline) to create a movement to change America. It opened my eyes to the power of the internet. Through message boards, email, blogs, etc., the barriers to entry to participate in the ongoing discourse that is democracy had been lowered, and millions of Americans joined in the conversation.

Some of the "guardians" of our political discourse have bemoaned this development. I welcome it. The netroots have opened up the table to new players, enriched our political discourse, and dismantled long-standing barriers to participation in media and politics. How can anyone deny these are positive developments in a democracy?

That's why today is so important. Today is Blogosphere Day -- a day that realizes the great promise of our democracy: people coming together from across America to change the direction of our country. In the past, the progressive blogosphere has united on July 19 to support a specific candidate, and I was proud to support Blogosphere Day candidates Paul Hackett and Ned Lamont.

Now on the 4th annual Blogosphere Day, it's time to invest in our infrastructure, and that means supporting ActBlue. This isn't just about 2008, 2010, or any specific election. It's about building support for activists, for new ideas, and for candidates from the local to national level. Supporting ActBlue not only strengthens the progressive movement, but it strengthens our democracy.

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Our nation's troops need your help, right now!

This week, the Senate will consider an amendment offered by military veterans Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) that puts on paper one of the greatest things we can do to support the troops and the military -- guaranteeing them proper time on the homefront, to improve our readiness.

Call your Senator at 202-224-3121 and tell them to support the Webb-Hagel Readiness Amendment.

Their amendment simply says that active duty troops should have as much time home as they had on deployment, and that National Guard and Reserve troops should have three years at home after their one-year deployment. Besides being a just and fair thing to do for those who are making tremendous sacrifices for all of us, it is just good military policy.

The war in Iraq is breaking our fine Army and Marine Corps. You've heard the stories about deployments being extended again and again, and troops coming home only to turn around and head right back. It has led to our troops being depleted and exhausted. Not only that, but it has seriously damaged our ability to defend this nation. Many units are simply not combat ready, and God forbid an attack by a rogue nation necessitates opening up a new war front, our forces would be unable to respond. Further, extended and frequent deployments of our National Guard has left us much more vulnerable at home.

As Major General Batiste, a former commanding general in Iraq said, "In addition to our country's lack of strategic focus and failure to mobilize the country, our military is at a breaking point. The Webb-Hagel Amendment is a step in the right direction to force our leadership to come to grips with the gross mismatch between capability and requirements."

Tomorrow, we're going to be on Capitol Hill, to speak out in strong support of this bill. But we need you to back up our efforts.

Call your Senator's office at 202-224-3121 and tell them to support the Webb-Hagel Readiness Amendment. If you served in OIF or OEF, be sure to note that to the staffer you speak with. Remember, be polite with the person answering the phone, but firm in saying you support the troops, General Clark's WesPAC, VoteVets.org, and Senators Webb and Hagel.

Let's make this happen, and really support the troops!

Sincerely,

Peter Granato

Iraq War Veteran

Veterans Outreach Coordinator, VoteVets.org

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Normally I’d say, “That’s a rhetorical question.” But, it seems there really are quite a number of people out there - voters - who are having difficulty understanding why other people, especially supporters of other candidates and some members of the media, are talking about the former senator less than favorably.

Well, since the man I would be supporting isn’t currently a candidate, and none of the others candidates of any party are as yet even remotely interesting, I’ll take a stab at answering the Edwards question with us much impartiality as I can muster. The short answer is, when you’re running on the predominantly anti-poverty platform of “Two Americas,” it might be a good idea to a) forgo spending more than $100 bucks a month on personal primping, and b) not charge said primping to your campaign!

So why should what a political candidate chooses to spend for a haircut be an issue, you ask? I agree, it shouldn’t be…except:

• when it’s paid for by the public

• when it demonstrates by its excessiveness that the candidate doesn’t seem to practice what he/she preaches

• when it demonstrates poor judgment

• when it demonstrates such a degree of narcissism that it distracts the voters and media from the candidate’s policies, illustrating a definitive character flaw

• when it demonstrates, by the repetition of the act, either an inability to grasp that voters may find such extravagances objectionable and disingenuous to one’s platform (tin ear), or a lack of concern of such, or both

• when it’s excessive even by most womens’ standards

And just when I thought $400 was obscene, I hear MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson say, today while discussing this very issue, that Edwards also spent something in the neighborhood of $1200 for a similar haircut…because he had to fly to Atlanta to get it. Say what?! Carlson didn’t mention from where Edwards flew. It didn’t matter. How many public servants have you ever heard of flying anywhere simply for a haircut?! If you did - I’m guessing you probably didn’t vote to re-elect them.

June 26, 2007, 11:58PM
Team closer to finding Iwo Jima Marine

By ERIC TALMADGE Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

IWO JIMA, Japan — The U.S. search team looking for the remains of a Marine killed after filming the iconic flag-raising on Iwo Jima has found two possible sites and will recommend a larger team excavate them, officials said Wednesday.

“Our investigation has been very successful,” U.S. Army Major Sean Stinchion told The Associated Press, the only civilian media with the search team that had been surveying and digging on the island for 10 days.

“We found two caves and tunnels. We will recommend a follow-up team be brought in to use heavy equipment,” he said.

He said the team did not find the remains of sergeant William H. Genaust, who filmed the flag-raising nine days before he was killed during combat on the island.

“We are the initial investigation. We surveyed the hill. We will need to return to actually dig for specific remains,” Stinchion said.

The seven-man team, including an anthropologist, focused mainly on surveying Hill 362 A where Genaust was believed to have been killed.

It was the first U.S.-led search on Iwo Jima — one of the fiercest and most symbolic battlegrounds of World War II — in nearly 60 years.

The seven-member team arrived on Iwo Jima on June 17 and began slashing its way through thick, thorny brush on the island’s interior in search of the area where Genaust is believed to have been killed.

A combat photographer with the 28th Marines, Genaust filmed the raising of the flag atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945, standing just feet away from AP photographer Joe Rosenthal as he took the photograph that won a Pulitzer Prize and came to symbolize the war in the Pacific.

Genaust, then 38, died nine days later when he was hit by machine-gun fire as he was helping fellow Marines secure a cave, said Johnnie Webb, a civilian official with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, headquartered at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

Some 88,000 U.S. service members are listed as missing from World War II, and JPAC conducts searches throughout the world to find them.

Iwo Jima — inhabited only by a small contingent of Japanese troops — continues to be an open grave.

Though most of the American dead were recovered in 1948, some 250 U.S. troops are still missing from the Iwo Jima campaign. Many were lost at sea, meaning the chances of recovering their remains are slim. But many others died in caves or were buried by explosions.

Japan’s government and military are helping with the search on Iwo Jima, which this month was officially renamed Iwo To — the island’s name before the war.

Japan sent its first search parties to the island in 1952 and others have followed every year since Iwo Jima was returned to Japanese control in 1968. They have recovered sets of 8,595 remains — but, to date, no Americans, said Health Ministry official Nobukazu Iwadate.

The U.S. officially took the tiny volcanic island on March 26, 1945, after 31-day battle that pitted some 100,000 U.S. troops against 21,200 Japanese. Some 6,821 Americans were killed; only 1,033 Japanese survived. Of 82 U.S. Medals of Honor won by Marines in World War II, 26 were won on Iwo Jima.

Genaust paid the ultimate price.

On March 4, 1945, Marines were securing the cave, and are believed to have asked Genaust to use his movie camera to light their way. He volunteered to shine the light in the cave and was killed by enemy fire. The cave was secured after a gunfight, and its entrance sealed.

As a combat photographer, Genaust was trained to use a firearm, and he and another Marine protected the AP photographer as they climbed 546-foot Mount Suribachi. Genaust did not need to use his weapon; under heavy attack, the Japanese did not fire on the three men.

Genaust’s footage also helped prove that the raising — the second one that day — was not staged, as some later claimed. He got no credit for his footage, however, in accordance with Marine Corps policy.

In 1995, a bronze plaque was put atop Suribachi to honor Genaust, who before coming ashore on Iwo Jima fought and was wounded in the battle on the Pacific island of Saipan. An actor portraying him appears in the Clint Eastwood movie “Flags of Our Fathers,” and the annual Sgt. William Genaust Award has been established to honor the best videotape of a Marine Corps related news event.

The search was prompted in large part by information provided to JPAC by Bob Bolus, a Scranton, Pa., businessman who became intrigued by Genaust after reading a Parade magazine story about him two years ago. Using his own money, Bolus put together a team of experts, including an archivist, forensic anthropologist, geologist and surveyor, that was able to pinpoint where Genaust’s remains were likely to be found.

JPAC officials stressed that searchers came to the island hoping to find other remains as well.

“Our motto is ‘until they are home,’” said JPAC spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Brown. “‘No man left behind’ is a promise made to every individual who raises his hand.”

Like Genaust, few of the troops involved in either of the flag-raisings survived the battle.

The last known surviving flag-raiser, Charles W. Lindberg, who helped put up the first flag, died Sunday in the Minneapolis, Minn., suburb of Edinaone. He was 86.

But there remain lingering disputes over the identity of at least one man in the first flag-raising.

A California veteran of Iwo Jima, Raymond Jacobs, has said he believes he is the man with a radio on his back who had usually been identified as Pfc. Gene Marshall, a radio operator with the 5th Marine Division who died in 1987. The other men involved in the raising all have died.