Progresssive columnist Sarah Littman, whose essays are carried in Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate (both publicatins owned by Hearst Newspapers), was fired by publisher John Dunster on Thursday for having written a column critical of Loony Lee Whitnum while having held a "meet-and-greet" for Jim Himes last year.  According to Littman, Dunster maintains that criticizing Loony Lee while having held a "meet-and-greet" for Jim Himes last year "compromises the integrity of the paper".  

What's the truth?  This is a right-wing rag that has been shilling for Whitnum for months.  In virtually every article about Jim Himes, Greenwich Time's political reporter Neil Vigdor has been boosting Whitnum's candidacy, covering up her whacky utterances and essentially portraying Whitnum as a courageous fighter against the Democratic machine.

But this appears to have been nothing but a pretext.  

Republican congressman Chris Shays (CT-04) has been permitted to host the annual picinic of the Connecticut Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Association (CT RPCV) at his house in Bridgeport next weekend, a politicization of the Peace Corps that I believe is blatantly wrong.  The RPVC organization is an official affiliate of the national organization, which is in turn a non-profit, non-political 501(c)3.  CT RPCV president Maureen Shanley has stated that official Peace Corps business will be conducted at Shays' house during the picnic.  Peace Corps recruiters have been invited to come from New York, and prospective Peace Corps volunteers have also been invited.  Holding an official Peace Corps meeting at the home of a partisan  elected politician, even when it is a  meeting of returned Peace Corps Volunteers, especially just a few short weeks before that politician stands for re-election, constitues a blatant, ompletely unacceptable politicization of the Peace Corps.  

Faux moderate and Bush Neocon Chris Shays (Rep-CT's 4th district) will appear on John Dankosky's "Where We Live" live call-in show tomorrow morning (Friday, July 11) on Connecticut public radio's WNPR.  In Fairfield County, it is carried on 88.5 FM.  Please call in or email your questions for Both Ways Shays.  If you live or are travelling outside Connecticut, please send in your pointed questions by email.

Call during the Show:

(860) 275-7266

Or email questions and comments to:

wherewelive@wnpr.org

You have to get on the phone early, because Dankosky actually doesn't take many calls from listeners.  Shays is opposed by a great progressive Democrat- former Rhodes Scholar and Harvard grad Jim Himes.

This is the oped I authored that appeared last week in Greenwich Citizen (sorry, but it's not been placed online):

"Lord, I want a timeline!", Republican Congressman Chris Shays blurted out toward the end of a rambling speech on the floor of the House early this month.  But does Mr. Shays really want to establish a firm timeline for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq?  If one looks closely at his pronouncements on the Iraq War, the answer is: "doubtful."  

Yep, Neocon Chris Shays (R, CT-04) at a town hall meeting this morning in Greenwich, Connecticut actually said that General Petraeus is "our Peace Corps general."  Now Shays is so whacky to begin with, and his reasoning so goofy that I couldn't possibly explain to you why he made that statement.  But as a former Peace Corps volunteer myself, I'm offended.  And although Shays was also a Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji in the late '60's, he should be ashamed of himself.

It is unfathomable to me what sort of mentality could possibly conflate the killing, bombing and destruction of the Iraq War with the efforts of Peace Corps volunteers in developing countries around the world to improve the lives of ordinary people.  Does Republican Chris Shays even understand the irony of calling a general of the United States Army the "Peace Corps" general?  I suppose that if Ronald Reagan can name an intercontinental nuclear missile "The Peacemaker", then I suppose another Republican conservative like Shays can make an equally idiotic statement like calling the top military commander in the Iraqi theater of war the "Peace Corps general".  But to decent, dedicated, hard-working Peace Corps volunteers around the world, past and present, his expression is inexplicable and reprehensible.

Republican Congressman, chickenhawk, and conscientious objector Chris Shays (CT-04) admitted today that he never bothered to read the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate that was made available to every member of Congress prior to the vote on the use of force resolution in October 2002.  And he further admitted that he has never bothered to try to read it since, either.

So Shays, who voted to invade, and served as one of George Bush's biggest cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, and who has steadfastly supported keeping troops there for years after, didn't know any more about Saddam's WMD's than anyone else in the country who was reading the newspapers, and probably a good deal less.

Greenwich Time/Stamford Advocate's editorial last week, "Lawmaker right to target homelessness", praises Republican state senator John McKinney for setting "his sights on effectively ending homelessness in Connecticut."

"A rich state", it continues, "Connecticut is beset by persistent problems with people who can't find a home, can't keep a home or are in danger of losing a home.  Mr. McKinney, hte Senate minority leader, is proposing what he calls a potential solution to the problem, vowing to commit significant state resources to building hundreds of affordable and permanent supportive housing units across the state"

Great.  The problem is that the paper’s paean to Republican McKinney completely fails to make any mention of Democratic congressional candidate Jim Himes, a Greenwich resident running against Republican chickenhawk Chris Shays, who has spent the past four years of his life working full-time to solve precisely the housing problems that the newspaper says need to be addressed.  

Mr. John Dunster
Publisher- Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate

Dear Mr. Dunster,
When Greenwich Time cleaned house a few weeks ago, we Democrats in this town hoped that the long era during which the newspaper actively denigrated and insulted Democrats might just come to an end.  Sadly, we were wrong.  One had only to glance at the December 3 edition of Greenwich Time to understand that dissing Democrats remains an honored tradition at the paper.  That edition, under the front page headline "Inauguration day 2007", highlighted large color photos of the new Republican first selectman Peter Tesei and his family and, just below that, Republican selectman Peter Crumbine and his family.  Where was Democratic selectman Lin Lavery's photo?  Predictably, Greenwich Time buried her black-and-white photo showing her being sworn in by Connecticut's attorney general and Greenwich resident Richard Blumenthal on page four.  Never mind the fact that Lavery soundly defeated Crumbine in their head-to-head race, winning in the process nine of the town's twelve electoral districts, and almost winning a tenth.  In typical Greenwich Time style, she was predictably dissed by having her photo shunted into the paper's inner recesses.  

Look very closely at Congressman Chris Shays' recent actions on the renewal of the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and you'll understand how he really operates. In September, Mr. Shays joined with 45 Republicans and 220 Democrats to pass the renewal and extension of SCHIP (HR 976, Roll Call #906, September 25), which had just passed the Senate by an overwhelming and veto-proof majority. The bill extends health insurance to the children of poor and working class Americans who can't afford private health insurance, and was credited with sharply reducing the number of uninsured children over the past ten years. Naturally, George Bush vetoed the measure, for which he became the butt of jokes from Jon Stewart, and drew the ire of the AARP, American Medical Association, American Federation of Teachers, Catholic Health Association of America, the March of Dimes, and American Cancer Society, among many others. Following Bush's veto, Mr. Shays promised he would vote to override it, calling the SCHIP extension, "a good, bipartisan bill that is worthy of passage." But as always with Mr. Shays, one has to look behind the curtain to find out what he's really up to.

The whole cast of Nutmeg state Democrats turned out in Greenwich today for the Greenwich DTC's annual picnic.  There were Shays challenger Jim Himes, Ned Lamont, AG Blumenthal, BET member (and nearly state representative) Ed Krumeich, Democratic candidates for first selectman and selectman Frank Farricker and Lin Lavery, and Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Biezewics.  And.. oh, yes, Lee Whitnum put in an appearance (oh burruther!).

Chris Shays was quoted by the Hartford Courant as saying that he will not run again in 2008 if he is not promised the top post in the Government Oversight and Reform Committee.

Shays Says He'll Not Run Again If Denied Chairmanship

11:48 AM EDT, September 14, 2007

  Rep. Christopher Shays said today he will not seek another congressional term unless House Republican leaders support his bid for the job of top GOP member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

He is meeting with leaders and other key members now.

If they do not give him significant backing "I'm absolutely not going to run," said Shays, who said he is giving no one any deadlines.

Even if he runs and wins, and somehow gets denied the top Republican spot anyway in 2009, "I will resign," Shays said.

"I'm 61 years old. I've been in Congress 20 years. If I have to fight to become chairman of a committee, given the job I've done, I need to move on," Shays said in an interview this morning.

Chris Shays, Republican congressman from Connecticut, has visited Iraq more than any other member of Congress or the Senate- he just returned from his 18th trip to that battlefield.  He has also served as one of George Bush's most stalwart supporters of this senseless war.

Sadly, last week's report by Laura Kenyon in New Canaan Advertiser on Congressman Chris Shays' press conference and published in the New Canaan Advertiser and Greenwich Post, read like one of Mr. Shays' press releases rather than a news article.  Neither Ms. Kenyon nor, apparently, any of the other local reporters in the room attempted to ask Mr. Shays any difficult questions.  Furthermore, she didn't bother to solicit any reactions from Mr. Shays' announced Democratic opponent in next year's election- Jim Himes.

Contrary to the military's claims that coalition casualties are falling, a claim that is being parrotted in the as-usual servile and unquestioning mainstream press, including this article from McClatchy, coalition deaths in Iraq have risen sharply.  For the last three months during which the "surge" has been in full force, American deaths totalled 261, which compares with 169 killed in the same period last year.  That translates into a 54% increase in American troops killed in action. 

Basically, yes.  The Washington Post carried an article this morning with comments from both Petraeus and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih to Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky who was visiting Iraq,  that directly contradicted Republican chickenhawk Chris Shays' happy talk about the war.  Both stated  that it will be many years, if at all, before this war is resolved:

Lt. Colonel Gian P. Gentile (retired), who commanded American troops in West Baghdad through last year, penned an oped in the Washington Post today titled "In the Middle of a Civil War."  Pulling no punches and clearly not one of George Bush's many Pentagon "yes-men" who've said what Bush wanted them to say, Gentile outlined the futile situation in Iraq this way:

The war that I faced was an insurgency within a civil war. I wish it had been the other way around. Had it been a civil war within an insurgency, the extremes could have been targeted and controlled and the large center of the people moved toward local compromise.

The war is pointless.  The troops know it; their commanders know it; the folks back home know it.  But how much do ya wanna bet that faux moderate and pacifist war-hawk Chris Shays (CT-04), who is over there on his- get this- 18th trip to Iraq comes back spewing another pile of mindless drivel about how "we're making progress" and how "we need to give the surge a chance" and other typically vacuous Shaysian double-talk?

The Washington Post's online political blog The Fix by Chris Cillizza yesterday listed Connecticut's Jim Himes as one of the nation's top ten congressional candidate recruits for 2008:

Jim Himes, Democrat for Connecticut's 4th District: Fundraising isn't everything in politics but it's close. So, when Himes, the chairman of the Greewich Democratic Committee, showed $353,000 raised in the 2nd quarter we were impressed. Yes, we know it's not that difficult to raise money in the wildly affluent 4th District, but it is still a very solid sum. Himes has cleared the primary field, another positive sign for national Democrats. Rep. Chris Shays (R) is the last Republican House member left in the upper northeast thanks to his willingness to buck his own party and the costliness of the New York City media market that covers the district. It looks like the incumbent is in for another tough and costly race in 2008. Can he withstand a continually deteriorating national environment?

While all of those Republican Neocons have been singing General Petraeus' praise and even using Democrats' vote to approve his appointment as commander in Iraq as an endorsement of the war's escalation, Iraqi president Nuri al-Maliki has been trying to get Petraeus fired.

Is it any wonder that Maliki wants Petraeus gone when Petraeus has been trying to get at the Shiite militias who support Maliki, while at the same time arming Sunni militias who are attacking Shiites as well as foreign al Qaeda?  Anyone surprised?

This is very ho-hum news to most conservatives and Neocons like Chris Shays and Joe Lieberman who are keeping their own military-aged children far away from service in the U.S. military and combat in Iraq.  But for Americans who care, July is already the deadliest of the five Julys since the Iraq War began.  66 more young Americans have been killed this month with five days remaining.  In the previous four Julys, 54 killed was the highest monthly total.

Again, for those who care about Americans killed and wounded in that pointless conflict, 147 more were wounded last week.  30,598 young Americans have now been killed and wounded "over there."