republican convention

I’m sorry but it has been awhile since I’ve done my news Roundup. Work has been extremely busy.

• Let’s start in Iraq when the US government is negotiating with the Iraqi government over our terms for stay in Iraq. First of all, I find this relatively funny. Iraqis really didn’t ask us to come invade their country. The majority of Iraqis have ordered us to leave for some time. But yet we’re negotiating to stay. Iraqi officials are calling for a significant reduction in our scope and the number of troops that we have in Iraq. The Bush administration, of course, wants us to stay and do whatever we want for as long as we want.
• Car bomb in Baghdad kills 50. Again, it seems like we don’t have enough troops to do the job adequately. We can clearly control the battleground. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough troops to cover the whole country. Just yesterday, four civilians were killed in a suicide attack in northern Baghdad.
• The underbelly of the Republican Party continues to raise its ugly head. A campaign button has shown up at the Texas Republican convention which asked the question — if Obama is president will we still call it the White House. Now, tell me racism does not run rampant in the Republican Party.
• On the campaign trail, John McCain’s delegation has labeled Barack Obama’s approach to foreign affairs in terrorism as they “September 10 mindset.” The Barack Obama campaign has responded by sending Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar for Clinton and Bush. Richard Clarke does not seem to back down from anyone. Clark, again, restated Obama’s comprehensive antiterrorism plan which states that he is willing to act on actionable intelligence and even to pursue Al Qaeda into Pakistan. Remember that the Republicans recoiled when Obama said that more than six months ago.
• For reasons that are unclear, at least there are unclear to me, our veterans can’t get a break. It seems that our veterans are being asked to enroll in pharmaceutical drug trials but are not being told of all of the potential side effects of those drugs. First, let me say that actual patient trials, are extremely important in developing new drugs and testing old drugs. Secondly, patients should be and must be informed of all the known potential side effects. Then, let me go one step further, every side effect is not have equal risk. The wrists or the potential of a side effect actually happening to that person needs to be related. I understand the difficulty of informed consent. It is hard to inform a patient or a patient’s family when a patient is psychotic. Yet, every effort must be made.
• DNC continues to push for John McCain’s campaign to obey the campaign laws. They are pushing for an official investigation.