An article in today's NYTimes reported the calculation of the non-partisan Congressional research branch of the monthly cost of maintaining military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. They estimated the cost at $8 billion a month, which comes out to roughly $260 million a day. Unbelievable.

An old man came up to me yesterday when I was out campaigning with Jonathan and said, "You'll regret this."

"Regret what?" I asked.

"Bringing our troops home from Iraq," he said. "You don't understand that we need to protect America." And he walked off.

I don’t think I’ll regret this. These wars aren’t protecting America and the cost is just too high. What I do regret is that for my generation the majority of our taxes will go to paying the debts from this war. At some point in my life, I had hoped to see the establishment of universal health care coverage, large public investment in green energy technologies, and functional public financing of elections. With each day this war continues, the possibility of witnessing any of those reforms realized becomes a more distant fantasy.

NEW YORK, NY – Local television station NY1 has quietly cancelled its scheduled August 22nd Town Hall meeting for the U.S. Senate race. Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini condemned the cancellation.

NY1 had previously refused to invite Tasini to the event because, although he had met the ballot certification and polling requirements, he had not passed the arbitrary financial barrier set by NY1 of $500,000 either raised or spent on the campaign.

“NY1 is continuing to undermine democracy and fair political discourse,” said Tasini. “Rather than rescind its undemocratic and anti-free speech position, the station is closing off debate.”

PRESS RELEASE: TASINI RELEASES 5 ISSUE-BASED INTERNET ADS

Click here to view Tasini on the Issues - five short campaign ads for Jonathan Tasini.

NEW YORK, NY – Today progressive Democratic candidate Jonathan Tasini released five issue-based internet ads. Each video focuses on a different core issue for the Tasini campaign: the Iraq war, healthcare, labor, Israel, and discrimination against same-sex couples.

“The Iraq war and the growing tensions in the Middle East were not mentioned once in Hillary Clinton’s new television ad,” said Tasini. “This is a critical issue to New York voters and Hillary Clinton has chosen to remain silent in an attempt to draw the focus away from her support of an increasingly unpopular war.”

The Nation
This is What Democracy Looks Like? - by Katrina Vanden Heuvel

"Celebrity is no substitute for an honest and vigorous debate on a matter as fundamentally important as war."

That is what antiwar Senate candidate, Jonathan Tasini, told New York Times columnist Bob Herbert last May in describing his rationale for making a Democratic Party primary run against incumbent-Goliath, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

NEW YORK, NY – Yesterday the New York Post editorialized about NY1’s refusal to let Jonathan Tasini in the Senate Primary debate. The editorial called for NY1 to allow Tasini in the debate and said that Clinton’s stand on Iraq “could stand a little clarification,” and that “Tasini has a point: 70 percent of New York Democrats consider Iraq to be a major Election Day issue, and, as he says, they can only benefit from a spirited debate on the issue.” The editorial is reproduced below in its entirety. Newsday also published an editorial calling on NY1 to include Tasini last Wednesday, August 9th.