HEADLONG INTO HELL

Why are we spending $100 billion a year in Afghanistan?

Simple question...

We demand an answer from our members of Congress....and when they tell us they agree with us ,we have to then ask them why in hell do they keep voting for the $$$ for the quagmire?

Last December our two Maine representatives in Congress (Pingree & Michaud) voted in favor of the $138 billion for more war in Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan. How did your representative vote?

TRUE COSTS OF WAR

A must see report on how GI's struggle with PTSD after being deployed in war.

After nine years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq the numbers of GI's suffering with PTSD is just astronomical.

What do we do? We escalate the wars and escalate the madness.

You, the citizen at home, will pay for this in ways you can't begin to imagine.

THE CULT

Our Governor in Maine, John Baldacci (Democrat), lived in this cult house when he was in Congress. Harpers Magazine reported that some years ago.

THE SWORD AND THE SHIELD

Aegis destroyers launching SM-3 "missile defense" systems
Army Ground-based "missile defense" interceptors

The latest word is that Romania will be hosting the U.S. Army's ground-based "missile defense" systems. Russia is not pleased with these developments.

News that the U.S. is also about to deploy a PAC-3 missile battery in Poland led Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, to recently state: "Do they really think that we will calmly watch the location of a rocket system, at a distance of 60 km from Kaliningrad?"

The deployment of SM-3, with several times the reach of the Patriot, on land and sea (the SM-3 will soon be converted to be deployed on land like the PAC-3) in the same Baltic Sea neighborhood will only makes matters more dangerous.

These same Army Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) systems are going to be deployed in Taiwan as the U.S. continues its military encirclement of China. U.S. PAC-3 systems have already been deployed in Japan and South Korea.

The Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), now deployed in the Persian Gulf and soon to be permanently based on Navy Aegis destroyers in the Baltic, South China, Mediterranean and Black Seas, has a range of 500 kilometers but can be enhanced for longer distances. The missile was used by the U.S. Navy to destroy a satellite 130 miles above the Pacific Ocean in February of 2008 in a test viewed by Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. "The satellite was unlike any target the system was designed to go after....The satellite was in orbit rather than on a ballistic trajectory. Also, the satellite was traveling at incredible speeds," Mullen said.

Translation: the SM-3 also has "anti-satellite" (ASAT) weapons capability. That means the Pentagon can use the Aegis-based missile to knock out Russian or Chinese satellites as part of a first-strike attack.

The official authorization of Patriot transfers to Taiwan - the missiles are produced by Raytheon Company headquartered in Massachusetts, whose former vice president of Government Operations and Strategy William Lynn is now Obama's Deputy Secretary of Defense - resulted in China's vice foreign minister, He Yafei, saying "We believe this move endangers China's national security." Luo Yuan, senior researcher with the Chinese Academy of Military Science, added "The U.S. action gives China a justified cause to increase its national defense expenditure, to enhance the development and purchase of weapons, and to accelerate its modernization process in national defense....China did nothing to threaten the U.S., why should the US challenge our core strategic interests?"

Deputy Secretary of Defense Lynn delivered a speech in Washington, DC on January 21, where he demanded that Congress "put the Defense Department on a permanent footing to fight both low-intensity conflicts to maintaining air dominance and the ability to strike any target on Earth at any time....The next air warfare priority for the Pentagon is developing a next-generation, deep-penetrating strike capability that can overcome advanced air defenses."

The new Prompt Global Strike system is designed to accomplish just those objectives.

So the strategy is clear. Surround Russia and China with mobile "missile defense" systems whose job is to take out their retaliatory capability after a U.S. first-strike against their nuclear weapons. Russia and China then build counter-measures to the U.S. missile defense systems and then the Pentagon in return counters with the new "global strike" systems that are today under development.

All this means one thing - an extended arms race with Russia and China which will mean huge profits for the weapons industry and the very likely reality that no effective arms control treaties will be negotiated during this administration. Why would Russia and China negotiate to seriously reduce their nuclear arsenals when the U.S. is surrounding them with missile defense and building new global strike systems?

The U.S. war state (supported and funded by Democrats and Republicans) has become a pariah on this planet. You can dress it up nice with a smiling Obama but in the end one has to judge the U.S. by its deeds.

(Parts of this were written by Rick Rozoff in a piece called U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf)

VERY IMPORTANT HISTORICAL REVIEW OF CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF DEMOCRATS

Jeff Cohen is a media critic and lecturer, founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, where he is an associate professor of journalism. Cohen founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986.

BRITS STILL WANT BLAIR IN JAIL

The UK government is holding an inquiry about their nations participation in deceiving the public about the reasons for entering into the Iraq war.

Wouldn't it be great to have the U.S. Congress hold such an investigation. But sadly the Democrats don't have the courage to do such a thing.

NEW ENGLAND UNITED ANTI-WAR CONFERENCE

GREAT SONG

Peter Woodruff and I play this song by James McMurtry "We can't make it here" often on our weekly radio show on WBOR at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

Our show is each Wednesday night from 6:00-7:30 pm. You can listen via the Internet. Just click on the WBOR link and then hit the yellow Listen Now button at the top right-hand side of your screen.

RESISTANCE TO U.S. BASE IN ITALY

Fifty women and men of Vicenza entered today in the construction site of the new US military base at Dal Molin and chained themselves to the cranes and the working machineries used to build the foundations of the military installation, and that every day are damaging the “vicentina” groundwater. Recent surveys have produced evidence of unjustified increase of water level in some residential areas.

"Today we want set legality as first priority – they declared passing the fence of the site – the construction site must stop in order to defend health, safety and history of the 'vicentina' community: groundwater resources and archeological findings must be preserved. Since the early days of this story we stated that this territory has a priceless value for the local community; but, at the same time, it's particulary fragile, delicate, because under the green carpet it preserves one of the essential elements of life, water."

Yesterday they met in an extraordinary assembley open to all the citizens of Vicenza, at the Presidio Permanente (permanent camp). Today (Monday) they will get together for a torchlight march in the streets of the city center in solidarity with the action and with the request to STOP the construction site. A file with a photo service of the condition of the construction site (under water) has been delivered to Mr Variati, Mayor of Vicenza.

You may see immages and video on http://www.nodalmolin.it/spip.php?article765

Presidio Permanente No Dal Molin

Vicenza , Italy

PEACEFUL PROTESTERS ROUGHED UP, ARRESTED BY OBAMA'S PENTAGON

The front gate signs at Vandenberg AFB in California covered up by the military during a previous peaceful protest

Is this how Obama thanks those who are taking his call for the abolition of nuclear weapons seriously? He has them roughed up and arrested for standing with signs outside Vandenberg AFB in California while his Pentagon fires “missile defense” tests in the sky above the Pacific Ocean?

For years people have been protesting outside Vandenberg AFB when the base launches missiles. Now and then the military police would grab one of the organizers and arrest them but often nothing was done at all. But on January 31, just as another $150 million “missile defense” test was launched from the base, the Obama led Pentagon had virtually everyone who was at the protest, legally standing outside the base, arrested. In one case the military police threw Judy Evered onto the ground where two security guards held her with one soldier's knee in her back. Her subsequent booking was interrupted because she had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance for a shoulder injury she sustained after she was already in custody. Evered, a member of WILPF, is in her 80’s.

This was a particularly important “missile defense” test because the Pentagon promoted it as a practice to simulate “a nuclear attack by Iran”. Of course Iran has no nuclear weapons today nor does it have any launch vehicles capable of reaching the continental U.S. But truth and facts don’t matter when you are out to create a new enemy in the minds of the American people. Fiction becomes reality, war is peace. Brainwashing it is called.

In the first test of its kind involving Vandenberg, an ICBM launched from the Marshall Islands (known as the Ronald Reagan Test Range) was aimed at southern California. The Ground-Based Interceptor launched from Vandenberg, about 60 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, lifted off at around 3:45 pm, but did not succeed in shooting down the target missile (supposedly from Iran) which was launched six minutes earlier from the Reagan Test Range.

“They completely dismantled the demonstration,” said protest organizer MacGregor Eddy who is a WILPF and Global Network member. She went onto reiterate that the base was told well in advance of the demonstration which was initially scheduled for January 21, as was the interceptor test, both of which were grounded due to large southern California storms at the time.

Since November, the new base commander has decided to require I.D.s from demonstrators. There is no way that a base commander, on his own, is going to start demanding ID’s from legal public protesters and make such a decision to completely disrupt and arrest eight out of the eleven people at a peaceful vigil. These orders have come from higher up and in the end the president of the U.S. has to be held responsible for escalating this provocative attack on peaceful protest outside a U.S. military base.

Obama talks big about wanting disarmament but then he qualifies this by saying that it might not happen “in his lifetime.” Then he moves, two years in a row, to increase military spending and continues the Bush administration policy of surrounding Russia and China with “missile defense” systems that are actually part of the U.S. first-strike program. The U.S. “missile defense” systems would pick-off any retaliatory missiles fired by Russia or China after the U.S. had launched the initial attack. The U.S. Space Command has actually been computer war-gaming such a first-strike attack on China for the past several years.

In a statement prior to the January 31 missile launch Western States Legal Foundation Director Jacqueline Cabasso said, “Further, U.S. development of missile defenses endangers prospects for deeper U.S. and Russian nuclear arms reductions and threatens to scuttle agreement on a follow-on to the START treaty. To add insult to injury, every U.S. test launch from the Marshall Islands causes tremendous environmental damage to surrounding land and water areas and compounds the historical injustice to the indigenous Marshallese people.”

Obama can’t have it both ways. He can’t go around talking nice about nuclear disarmament and then continue taking active steps to develop and test new generations of advanced war fighting systems and expect that Russia and China will just sit back and watch without reacting. And if Obama was serious about real nuclear disarmament he would not allow his Pentagon operatives to harass, rough up, and arrest activists who are legally opposing wasteful and destabilizing missile tests. You don’t treat your political allies in such a manner.

Once again we see the clear evidence that Obama is the quintessential magician – he says one thing but if we closely watch his other hand we see the revelation of his real agenda, which is nothing more than a continuation of the Bush war making program, but this time with a friendly smile and a well-turned phrase.

HOWARD ZINN LIVES ON

Howard Zinn on Obama: "I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president — which means, in our time, a dangerous president — unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction."

REGIONAL ANTI-WAR CONFAB A WINNER!

Over 300 turned out at MIT NorthEast regional conference

I had the great honor to be invited to speak this past Saturday at a wonderful "New England United Antiwar Conference" held at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There was a stellar cast of speakers at the event which drew well over 300 highly motivated folks from throughout the Northeast region. Students from New Hampshire and Connecticut were particularly abundant as well as black activists who called Obama a fraud. Independent candidates for Congress and large delegations of Latin American activists were also present.

I spoke on a plenary panel called "The Drive Towards Empire and Endless War" and had the pleasure to share that panel with one of my favorite journalists - Glen Ford from the Black Agenda Report. In speaking about the U.S. drive for expanded war Ford said, "They must intensify their military operations because they have no other options."

One particularly moving speaker was Pardiss Kebriaei who is an attorney from the Center for Constitutional Rights that represents many of the 200 still being held at the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo. One client she told us about is from Syria and is in his ninth year of detention. Kebriaei said she "had nothing good to say about Obama" who continues the Bush administration policies of detention, torture, and assassinations.

Kebriaei reminded us about the U.S. "detention" facility at Bagram, Afghanistan that holds 600-700 prisoners. The lawyers, she said, don't know who the prisoners are, where they are from, what they have been charged with, and Obama takes the Bush line that these people "have no rights."

She told us that just "closing" Guantanamo, and moving them to another maximum security prison in some other state, will not end this immoral and illegal policy. If these prisoners went to court any charges would not hold up because their "confessions" came from torture. Thus the decision to keep them locked up in suspended animation.

Peter Dale Scott (see blog entry just below) spoke via Internet hook-up from California and talked about "deep events" in U.S. history that clearly reveal that the corporate oligarchy that runs our country today has a long track record (Modus Operandi) of fabricating justifications for entering into war. Whether it was the Vietnam War Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or 9-11 today, the U.S. controls the minds of the people by creating fear and using it to enable endless war. He talked about COG (Continuity of Government) which is planning for suspension of the constitution at some point when they feel that the public has begun to revolt against our corrupt government.

In a workshop called "Redirecting Military Spending to Meet Human Needs" one man introduced himself as a "53 year-old who works as a loan officer for a large national bank." He said his job is to approve small business loans. He told us that the banks are not loaning to these small businesses and that they are going under in droves. He expressed his "total frustration" and said we have to keep making the connection between economic collapse here at home and massive spending on endless war.

Another person spoke about their effort to bring anti-war spending resolutions to their city government. One activist reported that the Mayor of Boston has endorsed a call for a 25% cut in current military spending.

After having seen the big turnout at a peace movement meeting in New York City a couple nights before, and then this great conference at MIT, it is clear to me that the energy is coming back into the peace movement. Most folks are moving beyond Obama's false "hope and change" rhetoric and recognizing that we've got to move quickly to step up the pace of our organizing.

The best part of the conference though was seeing once again the integration of the issues into a larger critique of U.S. military policy - economic collapse at home - climate change - corporate dominated media - and solidarity with people's movements in Palestine, Latin America, Asian-Pacific and other parts of the world.

We can't have a singular focus (a myopic focus) for our message. We need to create a big picture and big tent movement and this conference was one of the best attempts at doing this that I've ever seen.

WHO REALLY RUNS THE SHOW?

Peter Dale Scot a former Canadian diplomat and Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, is a poet, writer, and researcher. His most recent books are Drugs, Oil, and War (2005), The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (2007), The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11 and the Deep Politics of War (2008) and Mosaic Orpheus (poetry, 2009).

PLANNING UNDERWAY FOR BIG EVENTS IN NEW YORK THIS SPRING

I am staying at the home of long-time anti-nuclear activist Alice Slater in NYC. Last night we went to a meeting to plan for the April 30 - May 2 international grassroots conference and protest that will happen just before the United Nations Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference gets underway.

About 150 folks showed up last night and it was good to see many old friends there. The events are being called "For Peace and Human Needs - Nuclear Disarmament Now!" See the website here

I have been involved in the planning process on the international committee which has been meeting for about a year via conference calls. Dave Webb (CND Vice-Chair in England and our Global Network Chairperson) and I have volunteered to coordinate one of the workshop tracks for the April 30-May 1 international conference that will be held at Riverside Church in NYC. We will also be doing a workshop on space issues.

Then on May 2 a march and rally will be held in the city. Many groups are now involved and thousands of activists will be coming from all over the world. It should be exciting.

One of the really good things that is happening is that the whole program is going to be about connecting the dots between militarism, human needs, and climate change. Nuclear weapons of course will be a key component of the event, due to the NPT Review Conference, but we are putting the nukes in the larger context of U.S. militarism. One point made at the meeting last night is that we have to talk more about how national (homeland) security needs to be redefined. How can we be secure when jobs, education, and social spending are being cut and we are not effectively dealing with climate change? How can we be secure when our civil liberties are in danger?

Housing will be a premium next May. If you are planning to come to NYC and need to get a cheap hotel room you might want to deal with that soon. You can find info on "cheap" rooms here

OBAMA SAYS "SEND ME INFO"

The magician at work again - send me info if you have a good idea on how to deal with health care he said last night. But for the last 6 months he has done everything possible to ignore and discourage the single-payer community.......I call it bloviation.

UPDATE: The very next day Dr. Flowers gets arrested in Baltimore for once again trying to give the magician information on single-payer, since he does not seem to know anything about it!

ASSORTED BITS

* I am in New York city doing some advance work on our May 9 Global Network annual membership meeting that will be held here during the NPT Review Conference events at the United Nations. Just found a good catering service for the lunch that day. Hard to guess-timate how many will be there so far in advance. Am writing this from the huge public library on the 3rd floor where they have wifi connection. There is a wet snow outside.

* My trip to Jeju Island for next week has been cancelled since the Navy base construction "ceremony" appears to have been postponed for another month or so. No one is completely sure the reasons for the postponement of the ceremony but all the recent international solidarity very well could have had some impact on that decision. The South Korean government might think in a month or so most folks will have forgotten about the conflict. It gives the Gangjeong village a bit more time to continue expanding their base of support. I am hopeful that the wonderful video they made will soon be available to us in English. I would imagine it would help the cause alot to get that video out to supporters around the world.

* I watched Obama's speech last night and felt like the magician played it just as would be expected. He talked about creating jobs and then went on to talk about more tax breaks for corporations and of course refused to even go near the military budget. He introduced his freeze on everything except the military so I can't see how he is going to be able to create jobs while freezing spending and cutting taxes on the corporations. More of the same slight-of-hand.

* Another reason I came to NYC is to go to a basketball game on Friday night with my son. We will go see my lowly Wizards play just over the river in New Jersey. Then on Saturday morning I will fly to Boston where I will speak at an exciting New England Anti-War Conference. See more info about it here

* The Feb 13 Draw-a-thon, poetry reading, pot luck supper that will be held at 5:00 pm in Bath, Maine at the UCC church is getting more exciting every day. More artists are signing up to be involved as the word gets out. You are not going to want to miss this event. The event is being organized to support our statewide Bring Our War $$ Home campaign.

THE CRUEL FOOTPRINT OF THE MILITARY BOOT

This time it is Guam, but it is just another sad example of what happens when the U.S. military doubles its presence in the Asian-Pacific region and decides to build more bases.

In this video University of Guam Professor Michael Lujan Bevacqua details the environmental and societal devastation ahead for Guam if the U.S. proceeds to expand its military bases there (they already cover 1/3 of the island).

What happens to the people who are displaced? What happens to the land that is destroyed? What happens to the plant and animal life that is destroyed?

In America it is easy for activists to find ways to avoid dealing with the military boot print that is impacting people living near the 1,000 U.S. bases around the world. Sure we need to take personal responsibility by reducing our consumerist life style back here at home. That is an important step. But that does not alleviate the suffering that is happening today.

We also must find ways to stand in solidarity with people around the planet who are literally pleading with us to help them deal with the U.S. military machine that is being paid for with our tax dollars.

We must get real. Why can't we do more to call for an end to U.S. militarism?

HOPIUM DRUG WEARING THIN

Obama's announcement that he will propose a three-year spending freeze on all federal programs except for "military, veterans affairs, homeland security, and certain international programs" [read CIA] is just more of the slight of hand we are growing accustomed to seeing from the magician.

The good cop - bad cop corporate dominated Congressional scene in Washington DC wants us to believe they now care about the "middle class". We know they gave up on poor people long ago. But these little mid-course adjustments are just intended to calm the voters down. There is no real change going to be coming our way. The only change we are going to see are the few pennies that fall on the ground while the corporate banksters are looting the national treasury.

The fact that Obama, the Democrats, and the Republicans all agree that the Pentagon budget must have a firewall built around it to protect it from any cuts is all the evidence any of us need about where this country is really heading. Obama is now preparing his 2011 budget and the weapons industry publication Defense News ran a headline on January 20 called "Defense Contractors are Confident About Fiscal 2011 Budget."

The word has already gone out from Obama and the Democrats who control Congress. The military industrial complex does not need to worry during this economic collapse. You will be taken care of. It is everyone else in America that needs to be worried.

The U.S. now spends more than the rest of the world combined on the military but still Obama is going to increase military spending in 2011, just like he did in 2010.

We will see more cuts in social spending but the military will be protected, just the way the Democrats and Republicans have taken good care of the banks and are now going to take good care of the insurance companies. And as their reward, following this bad Supreme Court decision on campaign finance reform, the corporations will kick some money back to the compliant political hacks in both parties who play the game the right way. It's called "the free market."

Right now the corporate agenda is putting us all into a box. They are reducing our options to make effective political change possible. It is without a doubt a return to feudalism - the 21st century variety where we get a car and a color TV.

The oligarchy is having fun right now watching us scramble around as we try to figure out what we will do in response to their policies. More people everyday are saying they are done with the Democrats, which is good, but Mr. Big has a trump card. They will throw out a Sarah Palin and watch the frightened liberals run back to Obama prior to the 2012 national elections. And the oligarchy will sit and laugh over that one and slap each other on the back and take a swig of their expensive champagne and take a deep draw on their fat Cuban cigars.

In the meantime the oligarchy will fund the likes of Glenn Beck on Fox News who has become adept at following his instructions to seed hatred among the people. His latest gambit is that "progressives" are the new version of the 1950's "commies under every rock" trying to subvert the nation. Beck is stoking the fires of hatred and making sure that the growing legions of working class poor people keep their eyes off the real enemy - the rich corporate fat cats who pay Glenn Beck's salary.

Obama is much like Glenn Beck in that he sold his soul to the corporations. He is doing their bidding and willingly selling his political base down the river for a chance to grace the halls of the White House. The power structure knew he was ambitious and they had thoroughly vetted him long ago and had nurtured his meteoric rise in American politics. He too is doing what he has been told to do.

The similarities between Obama and Glenn Beck are that neither of them seems to have a conscience.

Our only hope is that people reject both of these cards in the deck. We have to reject the good cop and the bad cop. We should boycott both parties. The Democrats are showing us daily (in Washington, in our state legislatures, and in our town governments) that they will not fight for the people. Why should we stand and fight for them any longer?

I see that the hopium drug is wearing thin out there in TV land. The people are finally waking up from their long sleep. We must make sure that once they fully awake that they see some real political organizing going on in their communities that is ultimately relevant to their lives. That is our job. Increase the political options. Increase the level of political dialogue. Articulate a vision for the future that offers real hope to the people.

LETTER TO SOUTH KOREAN EMBASSY

Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space

January 26, 2010

Ambassador Yang Song-Chol
South Korean Embassy
2450 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington DC 20008

Dear Ambassador Yang:

We write in order to send you the enclosed list of 800 names [see blog entry below for the final list] from 31 countries representing peace, justice, environmental, religious, and education organizations. These signers of the “Appeal to Stop Navy Base Construction on Jeju Island” strongly urge your government to cancel all plans to build the proposed Navy base in the village of Gangjeong because of the obvious environmental damage it will do to the village, the water supply, the shore line, marine life, and to the UNESCO recognized coral just off the shore.

In addition it is our strong belief that the deployment of Naval Aegis destroyers (outfitted with so-called missile defense systems) and other warships on Jeju Island will be a destabilizing factor in the Asian-Pacific region as the U.S. and its allies (particularly Japan, Australia, and South Korea) are now moving to militarily surround China’s coastal region. This provocative action will only make the Asian-Pacific increasingly unstable as China today imports 80% of its oil on ships through the waters alongside Jeju Island. Your plan for the Navy base will help create the conditions that will lead to a new arms race in an already dangerous part of the world.

We also know with full confidence that the U.S. Navy will utilize any Naval base on Jeju Island as a port for its own Aegis destroyers and other warfighting ships which will in the end make Jeju, known as the “peace island”, a prime military target.

The signers of this appeal, all key activists and concerned citizens in their communities, are now pledged to follow this case closely on Jeju Island and to alert others about the dangerous plan to build the Navy base in Gangjeong.

By signing the appeal all the signers send their solidarity to the villagers of Gangjeong who are now struggling to protect their fishing and farming way of life from the devastation that would result from the construction of the Navy base.

We demand that the South Korean government immediately cease all plans for the Navy base. We call on your government to leave the people of Gangjeong to continue their peaceful way of life without further interruption or harassment from the police or the military.

We look forward to your prompt reply to our appeal, which we will forward, to our contacts around the world.

In peace,

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator


Copy to: President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

SOME TRUTH AND ENERGY FOR ONCE

Some interesting words from MSNBC TV's Ed Schultz who recently spoke at Minnesota progressive talk radio Blue State Bash at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

During his remarks, Schultz revealed that he recently had a testy confrontation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (Gibbs appeared on Schultz’s show this past Thursday). “Mr. Gibbs and I had quite a conversation off the air the other night,” he revealed:

SCHULTZ: I told him he was full of shit.... is what I told him.… And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb. … I told Robert Gibbs, I said “And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?”

Shultz sounds like a real populist and while I think he has more faith in the Democrats than I do, this is an interesting video. I appreciate his passion.