FIRST SNOW

• We are getting our first snow this morning. It's not a huge amount but the lightly swirling white stuff always warms my heart. I went out and played with the wood pile a bit and put snow shovels by all the doors. I'm sitting in the kitchen close to the wood stove - my upstairs office is too cold.

• Maine's Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home met here this past Saturday and sixteen folks attended from around the state. Several new folks came which is always nice because it reflects growing interest and new energy. Local efforts to hold public forums and pass town resolutions is spreading and some big action ideas were discussed. The Republicans have taken over the state legislature in Maine and our new governor is a tea-bag Republican. They are committed to further dismantling social programs. They promise a revitalized state economy but that is a lark. We intend to keep the war spending issue in front of the state legislature. They are the place that the citizens of Maine will be most focused on during this coming period. We've got to encourage everyone connect the dots.

• I am not surprised by the U.S. effort to shut down the WikiLeaks web site but it sure is a sign of desperation by the empire. The demonizing of Julian Assange (who I admittedly know little about) is being done 24-7 by the corporate dominated media and reveals the brutal nature of the U.S. war machine as much as anything else. They try to spin the release of the information as not that damaging, but then turn around and declare that Assange is a "terrorist" who has done the nation great harm. Taking the 20-year view of this I feel the work of WikiLeaks will be remembered as one more significant step in the dismantling of the dangerous and deadly U.S. killing culture. Keep going WikiLeaks!

• Right on schedule the Dems and Repubs (with a helping hand from the magician) are moving toward a "compromise" to assure the richest in America keep their Bush-era tax cuts. I've seen enough of the Obama campaign speech replays to make me sick where he makes the audience cheer as he throws out the red meat of progressivism - in this case his promise to end tax breaks for the rich. What truly amazes me though is to see the numbers of people on Facebook who still defend "their president" in the face of all his betrayals. Incomprehensible. For those worried about the debt - the $60 billion per year that would be saved by not extending the cuts for the rich would save as much as the elimination of earmarks, a federal pay freeze, a ten percent cut in the federal workforce and a 50 percent cut in foreign aid - combined.
  

• Speaking of the magician and his betrayals, I watched a news clip this morning of him doing his best impersonation of George W. Bush (bomber jacket and all) in front of U.S. troops during his "surprise" visit to Afghanisnam.
  

"You will succeed in your mission," Obama told more than 3,500 cheering troops in a huge hangar. "We said we were going to break the Taliban's momentum. That's what you're doing. You're going on the offense, tired of playing defense."

You can count on the fact that the reason Obama went to Afghanisnam is because support for the war is fading back here on the home front. He knows he must keep "selling" the war to the troops and the public at large. For those of you who are interested in seeing Bush reincarnated in action take a look below: