Tensions between Venezuela and Colombia have reached a new peak today as news has emerged the President Hugo Chavez has dispatched 10 brigades to the Colombian border in order to respond to any Colombian violation of Venezuelan territory.

BOGOTA (AFP) — Tensions in northwestern South America escalated sharply Sunday, with Venezuela shutting its embassy in Colombia following Bogota's cross-border raid into Ecuador that killed a top Colombian insurgent.

The raid Saturday by Colombia on a rebel jungle camp killed Raul Reyes, second-in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest leftist rebel group.

Ecuador bristled after the attack that it said violated it territorial sovereignty, while its ally Venezuela on Sunday announced the shuttering of its embassy in Colombia.

"I'm ordering the immediate withdrawal of all our personnel from the embassy in Bogota," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.

His remarks came one day after Chavez alluded to the possibility of war if the Colombian military crosses into Venezuelan territory.

This is not a candidate diary, it's something more important that that.

Regardless of who is elected in 2008, the continuing evasion of personal responsibility by wealthy Americans will mean that working Americans are forced to pick up the bill.  It's dine and and dash for the ruling class. To the money shot.

"Liechtenstein’s LGT Bank, which is owned by the Royal family, has apparently harbored numerous secret accounts which hid the taxable assets of thousands of citizens from around the world. It is my understanding that many U.S. citizens have also hidden assets at this bank, which is a real injustice to the millions of working families in this country who honestly pay their taxes every year.....

Offshore tax evasion produces an estimated $100 billion in unpaid taxes each year.

The time has come.  

Our political system is dominated by big money, and categorizing its influence as the work of "special interests" is misleading.  At its heart the corrosive influence of money on the political process is something far more sinister, it's perhaps the most subtle form of domination of our domestic political order to have ever existed.  As much as pundits lament the excesses of the old days of the Democratic "machines" at least then, candidates were required to earn the support of party activists. In the post war period, this allowed working people the greatest influence that they have ever had on the political process in this country, and paid divdends for the working class.

Those days are gone, but the time has come for change to reduce the influence of money in the system.  The time has come for the Democratic party to impose spending limits for our primary season.

This is going to be an incredibly short diary, something that most of you who've read my writing in the past should know is not my normal writing style.

I'm posting a poll to ask Edwards supporters only who they will cast their vote for if John Edwards is not a candidate in the race.

The presumption is that Edwards supporters go to Obama if he is no longer in the race.  I think that this is dead wrong, and that Edwards supporters will most likely go to Clinton, and more importantly not vote in the Democratic primary (and many I think won't vote for either candidate in the general election.)

So I'm posting a poll, and opening the comments for Edwards supporters to speak their peace (if they want to) about why they would switch to Clinton or Obama.

Due to the frontloading of the 2008 primary season, we are rapidly approaching a scenario in which Democratic nomination will not be decided until August.  Let me start by explaining what superdelegates are, and why they matter. In 2008, there will be 4,040 delegates to the DNC convention in Denver, a candidate needs 2,020 in order to win. Of these 4,040 only 3,248 (80.2%) will be chosen through primaries and causes, the other 792 (19.2%) are elected Democratic Governors, US Senators, US Representatives, DNC members, and distrinquished party leaders.

For many years, South America has been a zone of negative peace, where it appeared that the military competition that had characterized the continent for much of this century had yielded to economic competition. It was living proof of the liberal belief that trade brings peace.  To quote A.O. Hirschmann, the interests (commerce) had tamed the passions (conflict), and one of the most potent political arguments for capitalism was given physical form. Even the backlash against neo-liberalism at the beginning of this decade looked to accept the central premise that the world was a positive sum place, but the political underpinnings had to be moved to allow for economic justice.

This is the third in a series of diaries about Republican post election "ballot security" measures in my hometown, Muncie, IN.  You can see the first and second by clicking on the links.

First, a little background.

In this year's mayoral election, the margin of victory was razor thin.  9 votes of more than 12,000 cast. Less than 1/10th of 1% divided the winner, Democratic candidate Jim Mansfield, from the loser, Republican candidate Sharon McShurley.  After absentee and provisional ballots where counted, Mansfield's margin of victory rose to 11 votes.

In challenging the election, the primary target of the Republican's wrath has been precinct 18, a predominantly black precinct on the city's northeast side.  Today, the GOP is arguing that the results from that precinct need to be thrown out, shredding 361 votes and giving the mayor's office to the GOP.

This diary is a followup to one I wrote last night about the mayor's election in my hometown, Muncie, Indiana.  The only thing that's positive about this update is that at least the precinct being targeted isn't majority-minority. It's just poor white folks.  First, some background.

In this year's mayoral election, the margin of victory was razor thin.  9 votes of more than 12,000 cast. Less than 1/10th of 1% divided the winner, Democratic candidate Jim Mansfield, from the loser, Republican candidate Sharon McShurley.  After absentee and provisional ballots where counted, Mansfield's margin of victory rose to 11 votes.

I want to believe that we live in a country where what matters is not the color of one's skin, nor the class they were born in, but instead the content of their character.  Let's set the record straight before we start with the story I have to tell.  I'm white as the snow, but what I know is that the things going on back home aren't right.  Unless we stand together, we'll fall apart.

Middletown is Muncie, Indiana. My home.  There's trouble back home right now.

"Vicious, closet racism."

Those were the words of Hurley Goodall on Friday night as he gathered with about 100 other local residents, most of them black, to speak out against what they say is an unnecessary and unfair Republican investigation of voting in Precinct 18, a predominantly black precinct.

This is not good. So not good.

The man who devised the Bush administration's Iraq troop surge has urged the US to consider sending elite troops to Pakistan to seize its nuclear weapons if the country descends into chaos.

In a series of scenarios drawn up for Pakistan, Frederick Kagan, a former West Point military historian, has called for the White House to consider various options for an unstable Pakistan.

These include: sending elite British or US troops to secure nuclear weapons capable of being transported out of the country and take them to a secret storage depot in New Mexico or a "remote redoubt" inside Pakistan; sending US troops to Pakistan's north-western border to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida; and a US military occupation of the capital Islamabad, and the provinces of Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan if asked for assistance by a fractured Pakistan military, so that the US could shore up President Pervez Musharraf and General Ashfaq Kayani, who became army chief this week.

Man oh man.

You know that the Republicans have fucked up when you get a poll like this.

Disillusioned with President Bush's handling of the war, the economy and immigration, nearly half of likely voters in Indiana appear poised to buck 40 years of tradition and vote for a Democratic presidential ticket -- if it includes Sen. Evan Bayh, according to a new Indianapolis Star-WTHR (Channel 13) poll.

 
The poll of 600 Hoosiers -- including 449 who say they will definitely vote in the November 2008 election -- revealed a growing sense of pessimism, with nearly three-quarters saying the nation is headed in the wrong direction and 28 percent approving of George W. Bush's performance as president.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for all respondents and plus or minus 4.6 percentage points for likely voters. It was conducted by telephone Nov. 13-16.

It always amazes me when people who present themselves as progressives go off on rants damning the UAW (United Auto Workers) for their own misfortune characterizing them as reactionary and uneducated, and unworthy of the support of educated "progressives."  Earlier today there was a comment in a diary on the strike asking whether UAW should be supported because of the companies its members work for are not building more hybrids.  A statement released tonight shows that this strike isn't about wages or even healthcare.  It's about job security, and in the end American national security.

I've been hoping that someone would take the time to write a diary on this, but I haven't seen anything.  While there's been tremendous focus on the continuing subprime mortgage crisis, there's been little attention given to the looming cataclysmic confrontation between the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and the Big Three automakers (GM, Ford, and Chrysler.)   The current contract between the UAW and the Big Three expires tonight at midnight, and while Ford and Chrysler have indefinite extensions to their contracts, GM has been chosen as the strike target.

DETROIT -- The United Auto Workers union likely chose General Motors Corp. as the lead company in labor talks with the Detroit Three because GM is considered the healthiest and the UAW wants to prevent the nation's largest automaker from moving more manufacturing overseas, industry analysts said.

Two local union officials said they received notice Thursday afternoon that GM would be the lead company in the contract negotiations and the UAW's potential strike target. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.

Union endorsements matter, and nowhere is this more true than in Nevada where the 2004 caucuses saw only 9,000 voters participate, a new record.  In 2008, the role of the Culinary Worker's Local 226 more than 60,000 members will become even more important as a changes in the caucus sructure make it much easier for Strip workers to participate.  

In 2004, the party had only 17 caucus sites, one per county.... Notably, the party will hold eight to 10 at-large precinct meetings for as many as 4,000 shift workers on the Strip who otherwise could not take off time from work to participate in the caucus. Those meetings, which underscore the importance of Culinary Union members in the Democratic caucus effort, could take place in hotel ballrooms, officials said.

Crossposted from Blue Indiana

Anyone who's bee watching the new lately knows that there's something of a property tax revolt going on in Indiana.  Hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers have seen their property tax bills skyrocket, and if you follow the media narrative, you'd think that there's been a massive growth in government spending that's at fault here.  The truth though is that there hasn't been a tax increase in Indiana, but there has been a massive

tax shift.

Thomas over at Blue Indiana has the scoop on underreported story. Last night, the House passed a bill by a 314-97 vote granting public saftey workers the right to unionize.

Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., the bill's author, said firefighters, police officers, corrections officers and emergency medical services workers should be allowed to negotiate for wages, hours and safe conditions.

The bill, which passed 314-97, was backed by every Hoosier House member except Rep. Mike Pence, R-Columbus, who voted against it, and Rep. Julia Carson, D-Indianapolis, who didn't vote.

In the Southern Iraqi city of Basra, a standoff is developing between striking Iraqi oil workers and the Iraqi military. Iraq PM Nouri Al-Maliki has issued arrest warrants for leaders of the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) currently on strike in Southern Iraq to stop the Oil Law that would privatize much of Iraq's oil industry, opening the door to foreign ownership.  Prior to issuing warrants for the union leaders arrest, the Iraqi military surrounding the striking workers as they stopped the flow of oil to Baghdad.  At this time oil exports have not been affected.  

According to a statement released by numerous international solidarity groups working with the oil workers in and around Basra, in southern Iraq, the workers were charged with "sabotaging the economy" and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Tuesday he'd meet "with an iron fist" those who threaten Iraq's oil production.

I originally posted this diary following the House passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (aka EFCA), a piece of legislation that would make it much easier for workers to organize unions.  I've changed a few things to make my writing less time sensitive, and to serve as a long tail blog post. Few Americans(and I suspect sadly fewer Kogs) realize just how greatly American unions have declined in the past 40 years.  I'm used publicly available data from the UnionStats webpage to show you what once was. Below I've mapped out union density as a percentage of the labor force.