28 June 2007

Twenty headless bodies found on river bank, twenty more die in car bomb blast..

Twenty beheaded bodies were discovered Thursday on the banks of the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, while a parked car bomb killed another 20 people in one of the capital’s busy outdoor bus stations, police said.

The beheaded remains were found in the Sunni Muslim village of Um al-Abeed, near the city of Salman Pak, which lies 14 miles southeast of Baghdad.

The bodies — all men aged 20 to 40 years old — had their hands and legs bound, and some of the heads were found next to the bodies, two officers said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Meanwhile, a parked car bomb ripped through a crowded transport hub in southwest Baghdad’s Baiyaa neighborhood at morning rush hour, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 50, another officer said on the same condition.

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The Bush administration continues to stonewall, while confirming that their statements of WH "non-involvement" were totally bogus...

President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. Congressional panels want the documents for their investigations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' stewardship of the Justice Department, including complaints of undue political influence.

The Democratic chairmen of the two committees seeking the documents accused Bush of stonewalling and disdain for the law, and said they would press forward with enforcing the subpoenas.
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"Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He portrayed the president's actions as "Nixonian stonewalling."

His House counterpart, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said Bush's assertion of executive privilege was "unprecedented in its breadth and scope" and displayed "an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government."

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Pot, meet Kettle...

Democratic and Republican appropriators are accusing President Bush of urging Congress to pack spending bills with pet projects despite his high-profile crackdown on earmarks this year.

A House Appropriations Committee report accompanying legislation funding the Department of the Interior shows that Bush requested 93 of the 321 earmarks in the bill. A panel report for the financial services and general government spending bill showed that Bush requested 17 special projects worth $947 million, more than any single member of Congress.

Senate appropriators have identified more than 350 earmarks in the military construction spending bill requested by the president.

Lawmakers say these lists of earmarks are inconsistent with Bush’s tough talk on earmarks this year.
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Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said yesterday that Bush has requested the overwhelming majority of earmarks — over 800 — in the energy and water appropriations bill. In a floor speech delivered last week, Obey said that in fiscal 2006 Bush asked for 987 specific earmark projects in the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers. As a result, Obey said, 77 percent of the Army Corps’s budget went for projects earmarked by the administration. Obey added that he would highlight the Bush administration’s requests for special projects in the coming weeks.

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Also making news.. the sun will rise in the East...

Suppose all of the world's wealthiest people got together and pooled their assets into one lump sum. How much money would that be?

According to a report released Wednesday, the combined wealth of the globe's richest individuals rose more than 11 percent to a grand total of $37.2 trillion last year.

The rise marks the first double-digit increase in seven years.
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Those accumulated trillions give these individuals control of about a quarter of the world's total wealth, or nearly three times the United States' gross domestic product.

If the rich decided to combine their assets and split the money evenly among all 9.5 million of them, they'd each be left with nearly $3,915,789.
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Wealth among the world's rich is expected to hit $51.6 trillion by 2011, growing at an annual rate of 6.8 percent, the study stated.

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Think Progress has the goods on the fillibustering ways of the republican minority..

Senate conservatives in the 110th Congress are obstructing and blocking legislation at a rate more than double that of the past two Congresses combined.

During the first six months of the current Congress, there have been 13 cloture votes on motions to proceed — “each one wasting days of Senate time.” In comparison, there were just four cloture votes on motions to proceed during the the first sessions of the 108th and 109th Congresses combined.

The result: The House of Representatives has passed 239 pieces of legislation during the 110th Congress yet few have made it through the Senate, with conservatives “objecting to just about every major piece of legislation” that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has tried to bring up.

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Another failed legacy-changer for the Decider...

The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.
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The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.
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The vote was a stinging setback for Bush, who advocated the bill as an imperfect but necessary fix of current immigration practices in which many illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the United States.

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Or is it just whistling in the dark...

America’s No. 2 diplomat in Iraq predicted progress by fall on bringing together Iraq’s feuding factions as violence claimed more lives Wednesday, including 14 people killed in a late night car bombing near a Shiite shrine in the capital.

In all, at least 60 Iraqis were killed or found dead Wednesday across the country, most of them in the Baghdad area, according to police reports.

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worst.president.ever

Unease with American foreign policy and President Bush has intensified in countries that are some of the closest U.S. allies and around the globe, while Russia and China also face growing international wariness, a survey released Wednesday said.

In one measure of Bush's unpopularity, the poll showed he is less trusted on foreign policy than Russian President Vladimir Putin by allies Britain, Germany and Canada, even as faith in Putin has plummeted. About half in the United States say they have little or no trust in either leader's conduct of foreign affairs.

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Strapped his dog to the roof of his car on a family vacation -- seriously...

Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. He'd built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.
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As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ''Dad!'' he yelled. ''Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.

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Ouch...

A large nationwide poll of Republican voters shows that an increasing number consider themselves conservative, that about half favor universal healthcare and allowing gays in the military, and that the vast majority say spreading democracy shouldn’t be the United States’ top foreign policy goal.
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The survey of 2,000 self-described Republican voters, titled “The Elephant Looks in the Mirror 10 Years Later,” showed that 71 percent consider themselves conservative, a 16 percent increase over the 1997 numbers.

Fifty-one percent of the GOPers said universal healthcare coverage should be a right of every American, and 49 percent favored allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

nod TPM Cafe

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Crooks and Liars has the video...

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Crooks and Liars has the hilarious video..

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Reporters skip work in protest of potential purchase by Murdoch...

WSJ reporters “across the country chose not to show up to work this morning” to protest the potential sale of Dow Jones to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. The paper’s “long tradition of independence…is threatened today,” a press release states.

Think Progress brings the goods..

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27 June 2007

Judge doubled his sentence...

A federal judge chastised the Interior Department's former No. 2 official and doubled his proposed prison term to 10 months Tuesday for lying to senators in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and making excuses about it in court.

J. Steven Griles was the department's deputy secretary and is the highest administration official sentenced in the probe. He pleaded guilty to obstructing a congressional investigation, but on Tuesday his lawyers tried to deflect blame for his faulty testimony.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle was not pleased.

"Even now you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct," she told Griles before doubling the five-month prison term he and prosecutors had agreed on.

Griles admitted to lying to Senate investigators about his relationship with Abramoff, the central figure in a corruption investigation that has led to convictions of a former congressman, legislative aides, lobbyists and officials in the Bush administration.

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The last of a four-part series -- Leaving No Tracks...

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Score one for the good guys...

"While Media Matters for America is pleased with PBS' announcement this morning that discredited Republican pollster Frank Luntz will not appear on its Thursday-night programming, PBS has yet to address the fundamental problem with its choice of Luntz to participate in analysis of the PBS forum."

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As mentioned earlier, Deadeye Dick made the ridiculous claim that the VP was not part of the Executive branch. Now we have video of Cheney contradicting himself...

Think Progress brings the goods

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26 June 2007

- A Different Understanding With the President...

- Pushing The Envelope...

- A Strong Push From Back Stage...

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A suicide bomber apparently targeting a meeting of U.S.-allied Sunni sheiks penetrated layers of security and blew himself up in a hotel lobby on Monday, killing four tribal leaders and at least eight others, police reported.

The sheiks were associated with the Anbar Salvation Council, which had taken up arms to help drive extremists of al-Qaida in Iraq from the western province of Anbar.

The attack was among a surge of five suicide and other bombings Monday that killed at least 45 people across Iraq. In an unrelated incident, the U.S. command reported a U.S. soldier shot to death Monday in south Baghdad or its outskirts.

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Duncan has the memo...

Washington, D.C. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued the following statement regarding his amendment to cut funding for the Office of the Vice President from the bill that funds the executive branch. The legislation -- the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill -- will be considered on the floor of the House of Representatives next week.

"The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch. However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice President's funding is consistent with his legal arguments. I have worked closely with my colleagues on this amendment and will continue to pursue this measure in the coming days."

Update: Emanuel's amendment should be up for a vote Wednesday or Thursday

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Eighty percent of Democrats voted in favor for the immigration bill, while eighty-five percent of Republicans voted against it -- guess which party Broder blames for it not passing...

"Well, the Democrats have taken the position that they now will do with the nation's business. And if they're not doing that business, and clearly the immigration issue is very much on people's mind, I think they will suffer the same consequences that the Republicans suffered a year ago. People are fed up with seeing Washington bickering, fighting, infighting and never dealing with the issue."

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Almost six years later, and 40% of Americans believe Iraq was involved in the attacks on 9/11 (up 5 points since 2004), and one out of five believe we found WMD in Iraq...

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Will attend a fundraiser hosted by a "dishonest and dishonorable" SwiftBoat Liars funder..

Think Progress brings the goods...

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Sen Richard Lugar says the "surge" isn't worth it... calls for new direction...

Sen. Richard Lugar, a senior Republican and a reliable vote for President Bush on the war, said Monday that Bush's Iraq strategy was not working and that the U.S. should downsize the military's role.

The unusually blunt assessment deals a political blow to Bush, who has relied heavily on GOP support to stave off anti-war legislation.

It also comes as a surprise. Most Republicans have said they were willing to wait until September to see if Bush's recently ordered troop buildup in Iraq was working.

"In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved," Lugar, R-Ind., said in a Senate floor speech. "Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term."

Think Progress has the video of Lugar's speech on the Senate Floor..

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Earlier this month, Rudy's former South Carolina chair, Thomas Ravenel, quietly stepped down from the gig after getting indicted for conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

Today, Rudy's campaign announced that Ravenel's father, Arthur Ravenel, Jr., would serve as the state's campaign co-chair. But now Rudy isn't faring a heck of a lot better with Ravenel the Elder, either.

On October 18, 2006 The Post and Courier of Charleston, SC wrote " Arthur Ravenel Jr., who is running for an East Cooper seat on the board, caught flack 16 years ago when he was in Congress and made a comment about white committee chairmen who operated on 'black time,' which he said meant fashionably late."

As recently as January 2000, the Post and Courier reported in an article headlined "Ravenel stepped outside 'civility,'" that Ravenel called the NAACP the "National Association For Retarded People."

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Former top aide turns over campaign finance documents....

California GOP Rep. John Doolittle's former chief of staff is providing documents to federal prosecutors investigating Doolittle and his wife in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, the aide's attorney told The Associated Press on Monday.

The aide, David Lopez, who was Doolittle's longtime chief of staff until 2005 and continued to work for him as a campaign consultant for about a year after that, has turned over several hundred pages of campaign finance records to the Justice Department under subpoena, said his attorney, Bill Portanova.

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Opposes the release of the Senate report on Iraq's (lack of) WMD because it would make them look bad...

The White House is resisting a move by both Republicans and Democrats to fully declassify a Senate report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Republicans say the public disclosure would help show that the CIA made honest mistakes in its 2002 assessment that Iraq owned stockpiles of WMDs, when in fact it no longer did.

But the White House believes the declassification would trigger another round of negative news media coverage and Democratic-led congressional hearings, said a Senate Republican, who asked to remain anonymous because of ongoing private discussions.

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Imagine that....

A New Jersey tire importer has notified federal highway safety officials that a recall may be needed of up to 450,000 tires it sold from a Chinese manufacturer.

Foreign Tire Sales Inc. of Union said an unknown number of the light truck radials it imported since 2002 from Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. Ltd., of Hangzhou, could suffer tread separation, a problem that led to the nation's largest tire recall in 2000.

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President Bush was presented with a letter Monday signed by 50 high school seniors in the Presidential Scholars program urging a halt to "violations of the human rights" of terror suspects held by the United States.

The White House said Bush had not expected the letter but took a moment to read it and talk with a young woman who handed it to him.

"The president enjoyed a visit with the students, accepted the letter and upon reading it let the student know that the United States does not torture and that we value human rights," deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

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Crowd becomes unruly during the hearing...

Ex-EPA chief Christie Whitman was bombarded Monday with boos, hisses, and a host of accusations at a congressional hearing after making assurances it was safe to breathe the air around the ruined World Trade Center.

The confrontation between the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency and her fiercest critics grew heated at times, with members of the audience shouting out in anger, only to be gaveled down by the hearing chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler.
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"Was it wrong to try get the city back on its feet as quickly as possible in the safest way possible? Absolutely not... We weren't going to let the terrorists win," she said, which led to catcalls from the crowd.

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The ad on Meet the Press said: "She's ignited controversy across America. But can Ann Coulter stand the heat in the Hardball hot seat, going head-to-head with Chris Matthews?" During Coulter's last appearance on Hardball, however, Matthews repeatedly complimented Coulter -- referring to her as writing "beautifully" and having a "brilliant brain."

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The NY Times takes a look at the tactics of Rupert Murdoch, and comes up with some interesting tidbits..

Congress was on the verge of limiting any company from owning local television stations that reached more than 35 percent of American homes. Mr. Murdoch’s Fox stations reached nearly 39 percent, meaning he would have to sell some.
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One leader of the Congressional movement to limit ownership was Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi. But in the end, he, too, agreed to the compromise. It turns out he had a business connection to Mr. Murdoch. Months before, HarperCollins, Mr. Murdoch’s publishing house, had signed a $250,000 book deal to publish Mr. Lott’s memoir, “Herding Cats,” records and interviews show.

and this...

Mr. Murdoch has an army of outside lobbyists, who have reported being paid more than $11 million since 1998 to address issues as diverse as trade relations, programming decency and Internet regulation.

One firm focuses almost exclusively on parts of the tax code that affect the News Corporation. By taking advantage of a provision in the law that allows expanding companies like Mr. Murdoch’s to defer taxes to future years, the News Corporation paid no federal taxes in two of the last four years, and in the other two it paid only a fraction of what it otherwise would have owed. During that time, Securities and Exchange Commission records show, the News Corporation’s domestic pretax profits topped $9.4 billion.

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25 June 2007

Crooks and Liars has the video of Tucker's fill-in host, David Shuster, not taking any crap from Cheney/Libby apologist Ron Christie...

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Seven soldiers killed...

Roadside bombs killed seven American troops in Iraq on Saturday, including four in a single strike outside Baghdad, the military said, as U.S. and Iraqi troops captured two senior al-Qaida militants in Diyala province.

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22 June 2007

Fifteen soldiers killed over the past 72 hours...

The U.S. military said on Thursday it was setting a trap to “eliminate” militants near Baghdad, where 15 American troops died in the past three days, including five slain Thursday in a single roadside bombing that also killed four Iraqis.
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Elsewhere, a suicide truck bomber struck the Sulaiman Bek city hall in a predominantly Sunni area of northern Iraq, killing at least 16 people and wounding 67, an Iraqi commander said.
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Several mortars or rockets slammed into the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, raising fresh concerns about the thousands of Americans who live and work in the heavily fortified area in central Baghdad.

The explosion in Sulaiman Bek occurred about 10:30 a.m., and killed 16 people, the local Iraqi army commander said.

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Newsweek has his approval at 26% (Nixon bottomed at 23%)...

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Cheney not a member of the Executive Branch...

Crooks and Liars has video of Olbermann's take on the situation...

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Rudy bailed on the ISG so he could continue on his lucrative speaking tour...

If you don't read Newsday, you might not know (I didn't until this week) that Rudy Giuliani was an original member of the Iraq Study Group—the blue-ribbon commission co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton—but he was forced out after failing to show up for any of the panel's meetings.

The day after the Newsday story appeared, Giuliani explained that he'd started thinking about running for president, and his presence on the panel might give it a political spin. "It didn't seem that I'd really be able to keep the thing focused on a bipartisan, nonpolitical resolution," he said.

The more likely reason for Giuliani's no-shows is much plainer—money. Craig Gordon, the Newsday reporter who wrote the story in the Long Island paper's June 19 edition, discovered that on the three days of meetings that Giuliani missed (before quitting), he was out of town, delivering highly lucrative speeches.

On April 12, 2006, he was giving a keynote address at an economics conference in South Korea for a fee of $200,000. On May 18, he was giving a speech on leadership in Atlanta for $100,000.

At that point, Baker gave Giuliani an ultimatum: Start showing up for sessions, or quit. On May 24, he quit, noting in a letter (provided to Gordon) that prior commitments prevented him from giving the panel his "full and active participation." (He was replaced by former Attorney General Edwin Meese, a puzzling choice for the job; maybe he was the only public figure Baker could find on such short notice. According to someone I know who attended one session, the elderly Meese "was barely conscious.")

Meanwhile, Giuliani was raking in exorbitant speaking fees around this time—according to Gordon, $11.4 million in the course of 14 months, $1.7 million for 20 speeches during the monthlong period that coincided with the Baker-Hamilton sessions.

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Squirrel catapult... with a follow-up reaction from a concerned distant relative...

nod Eric Alterman and Countdown w/Keith Olbermann...

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With the help of a Republican filibuster in the Senate...

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a $32 billion package of tax breaks for renewable energy that would have been financed mostly by new taxes on major oil companies.

Democrats came three votes short of overcoming a threatened GOP filibuster that was keeping the measure from being attached to a broader energy bill. Republican senators argued that the nearly $29 billion in additional taxes on major oil companies would have led to reduced production and higher gasoline prices.

Because of Republican opposition, Democrats needed 60 votes to allow the $32 billion tax package to come up for a vote, but fell short, 57-36. With a number of senators not voting, Democrats could resurrect the measure later, though there was no immediate indication of that.

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As a reward for all of the good work he's done for Alaska, some businessmen brought him on as an investor, where he made a cool 566% profit over just five years...

Anchorage real estate developer Bob Penney, who testified before a grand jury about the bribery scandal in Alaska, is good to his friend Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK).

So good that he brought Stevens in on a real estate deal that fetched the senior senator a 566% return on a $15,000 investment in just five years. The investment, reported by The Anchorage Daily News in 2004, sheds some light on the financial ties between the two (via Nexis):
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The group of investors purchased a 96-acre plot 30 miles outside of Salt Lake City, Utah in a growing area with a plan to sell off individual pieces over the course of ten years. Stevens' $15,000 ballooned to at least $100,000 and possibly as much as $250,000.

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Her detractors get an ovation during a going-away party for one of her staff...

On Tuesday afternoon, about 70 employees of the U.S. attorney’s office and other guests gathered in a big conference room to recognize the departure of Assistant U.S. Attorney Perry Sekus. Sekus is leaving to join the legal staff of UnitedHealth. Paulose was present.
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When it was his turn to address the group, Sekus deflected the compliments that had been sent his way and said that those who deserved the praise were the former supervisors who had resigned their posts, because their actions had required courage.

At that, the room erupted with loud, sustained applause that could not be taken as anything other than solidarity with Paulose’s internal critics and appreciation for the sacrifice they had made to protest against her — clearly a spontaneous release of the tensions within the office. According to a witness, the ovation was so loud that it had to represent the applause of 90 percent or more of those in the room.

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Says there was indeed strong disagreement about the illegal domestic spying program...

Think Progress is all over the story...

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South Carolina state campaign director indicted on crack cocaine charges...

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Sounds like the House Judiciary may join in on the fun...

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Vetoes another Stem Cell bill...

Today President Bush issued the third veto of his presidency and his second on stem cell research on a bill that would lessen restraints on federally funded embryonic stem cell research.

It's a subject that most Americans support, according to an April 2007 ABC News poll that found 68 percent of Americans support stem cell research

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Think Progress (along with Media Matters) brings the goods on Glenn Beck's latest shame... chuckling with a guest about the prospect of the Clinton's getting whacked...

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19 June 2007

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Yep... another badge of honor for the Bush administration..

E-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials who had electronic message accounts with the Republican National Committee, the House Oversight Committee said Monday.

The Bush administration may have committed "extensive" violations of a law requiring that certain records be preserved, said the committee's Democratic chairman, adding that the panel will deepen its probe into the use of political e-mail accounts.
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The administration has said that about 50 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts during Bush's presidency. But the House committee found at least 88.

The RNC has preserved e-mails from some of the heaviest users, including 140,216 messages sent or received by Bush's top political adviser in the White House, Karl Rove. However, "the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials," said the interim report, issued by committee chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

The 51 include Ken Mehlman, a former White House political director who reportedly used his RNC account frequently, the report said.

"Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails," the report said, "the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive."
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The report especially criticized Alberto Gonzales, now the attorney general, for actions when he headed the White House Counsel's office. There is evidence that under Gonzales the office "may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records," the report said.

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Abramoff casualty Griles not shy about shooting for the moon...

As part of Griles’s plea, he is supposed to receive “10 months — five months in jail and five months in a halfway house or in home detention.” His lawyers are now arguing that Griles should receive no prison time and instead be allowed to perform “community service.”

But one of the two organizations he wants to do “community service” for — the American Recreation Coalition (ARC) — is actually a major lobbying firm that apparently benefited under Griles’ tenure in the Bush administration. ARC leads the “Wonderful Outdoor World” (WOW) program, which has close ties to various federal agencies and the Walt Disney Co. Griles helped ARC set up WOW during his tenure at the Interior Department.

Think Progress brings the goods...

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As mentioned earlier, the Republican Senator from Alaska is in a wee bit of trouble...

A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., heard evidence last month about the expansion of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' Girdwood home in 2000 and other matters connecting Stevens to the oil services company Veco Inc....

The existence of the Washington grand jury investigation is the strongest indication to date that Stevens himself has become a subject of the wide-ranging federal probe that surfaced with FBI raids on state legislative offices last August. Former State Sen. Ben Stevens, Ted Stevens' son, was among the legislators whose offices were searched. Ben Stevens has denied wrongdoing.

TPM Muckraker has been all over this story...

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Compared to Sudan...

Iraq has emerged as the world's second most unstable country, behind Sudan, more than four years after President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, according to a survey released on Monday.
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Iraq suffered a third straight year of deterioration in 2006 with diminished results across a range of social, economic, political and military indicators. Iraq ranked fourth last year.

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The crotchety old guy goes after the "democracy in the middle east" rhetoric...

Cafferty:”When there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, President Bush immediately seized on the idea of bringing freedom and democracy. How’s that workin’ out for you, Mr. President? The United States also pressured the Palestinians to hold elections.They elected Hamas, a terrorist organization. How’s that workin’ out for you, Mr. President? Hamas has now seized Gaza. The Abbas government has been dismantled and Hamas militants have been on a rampage, pillaging government institutions. It’s very unlikely they’ll be dipping their fingers in ink wells there, any time soon.”

Crooks and Liars has the video...

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Defense lawyers are now using the motives of USAs in their defense...

Defense lawyers in a growing number of cases are raising questions about the motives of government lawyers who have brought charges against their clients. In court papers, they are citing the furor over the U.S. attorney dismissals as evidence that their cases may have been infected by politics.

Justice officials say those concerns are unfounded and constitute desperate measures by desperate defendants. But the affair has given defendants and their lawyers some new energy, which is complicating life for the prosecutors.
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There has long been a presumption that, because they represented the Justice Department, prosecutors had no political agenda and their word could be trusted. But some legal experts say the controversy threatens to undermine their credibility.

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Gov't agencies follow signing statements 30% of the time, the law the other 70%..

Federal agencies ignored 30 percent of the laws Bush objected to in signing statements last year, according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office. In 2006, President Bush issued signing statements for 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills passed by Congress, claiming a right to bypass a total of 160 provisions in them.

In a sample set of 19 provisions, the GAO found that “10 provisions were executed as written, 6 were not, and 3 were not triggered and so there was no agency action to examine.”

via Think Progress

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Duncan has the goods on Gen Odierno's missed prediction...

About a Friedman ago:

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, says the current surge of 21,500 troops is not "open-ended" and warned that "time is running out" for the United States to turn things around in Iraq.

Now:

As he boarded the helicopter after his afternoon trip he said that Washington politicians need needed to give the effort more time.

"We need more time, they've got to give us time here," he said. "It's just too early."

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18 June 2007

The latest -- Michael Elston...

A senior Justice Department official who helped carry out the dismissals of federal prosecutors said Friday he is resigning. Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the dismissals of the prosecutors.

Elston was accused of threatening at least four of the eight fired U.S. attorneys to keep quiet about their ousters. In a statement Friday, the Justice Department said Elston was leaving voluntarily to take a job with an unnamed Washington-area law firm.
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House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers said the resignation raises a red flag for investigators.

"When yet another significant player resigns in the U.S. attorney scandal, it only deepens the mystery of who targeted U.S. attorneys for firing, why they did it, and what exactly is going on in the highest reaches of the Justice Department and who is filling the vacuum of leadership that has developed there," said Conyers, D-Mich.

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15 June 2007

Five soldiers killed, Green Zone shelling, Basra curfew...

Five American soldiers died in Iraq, the U.S. military announced Friday, a day after extremists fired shells into Baghdad’s Green Zone during a visit by the State Department’s No. 2 official.
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Meantime, Al-Maliki has imposed an indefinite curfew on Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city and gateway to the Persian Gulf, after bombers leveled a Sunni shrine just outside the city.
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Thursday’s barrage of rockets and mortars included one that hit on a street close to the Iraqi parliament less than a half hour before U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte passed nearby.

The attack again showed militants’ resilience — including their ability to strike the heavily protected zone — despite a U.S.-led security crackdown across the city that began four months ago.

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Has he no shame?

Does [Fred Thompson] have sex appeal? I'm looking at this guy and I'm trying to find out the new order of things, and what works for women and what doesn't. Does this guy have some sort of thing going for him that I should notice? . . .

Gene, do you think there's a sex appeal for this guy, this sort of mature, older man, you know? He looks sort of seasoned and in charge of himself. What is this appeal? Because I keep star quality. You were throwing the word out, shining star, Ana Marie, before I checked you on it. . . .

Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever.

Greenwald has the analysis...

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Neocon idol Chalabi appears responsible for lack of progress in political reform...

Sunnis supported the overhaul, and Shiites and Kurds were expected to fall in line after the Shiite prime minister and the Kurdish president announced the plan on March 26.

But the law was stymied by Ahmad Chalabi, who headed Iraq’s de-Baathification commission. Mr. Chalabi, the former Pentagon protégé, relies on the commission for an official role in Iraq’s government. Having just renovated a spacious office in the Green Zone, he has strongly opposed any effort to weaken his position or the country’s policy on former Baathists.

According to a senior official with the commission, Mr. Chalabi and members of his organization sabotaged the American-backed plan by rallying opposition among Shiite government officials in southern Iraq, then taking their complaints to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric.

On April 1, Mr. Chalabi visited the ayatollah’s office in Najaf. He later appeared at a news conference, declaring that Ayatollah Sistani told him the law was incomplete and that “there would be other drafts.”

A day later, an aide to the reclusive cleric confirmed that there was “a general feeling of rejection” about the proposal.

Since then, the original draft has gone nowhere. The Americans have met with several groups responsible for additional drafts that address de-Baathification. Iraqi officials said they were working on a compromise law combining various elements of the American law and other proposals, primarily a softer alternative backed by Mr. Chalabi.

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Asks Ethics Committee to review financial report...

Sen. Ted Stevens, dogged by a federal probe of political corruption in Alaska, disclosed Thursday that he has asked the Senate Ethics Committee to review his latest financial disclosure report.
...
Ethics reviews of lawmakers' financial reports are unusual unless they are under a legal cloud. A source close to Stevens' office said he has requested such reviews before, although this is the first time it has delayed the report's release.

Stevens, in his sixth term, recently disclosed that he has been asked to preserve financial records in connection with a Justice Department bribery investigation of several leading political figures in Alaska, including his son, former State Senate President Ben Stevens.

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Rarely inspires confidence, especially not when the DoJ is involved...

The Justice Department is investigating whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales sought to improperly influence the testimony of a departing senior aide, two of its senior officials said yesterday, adding a new dimension to the troubles already besetting the nation's chief law enforcement official.
...
Gonzales and many of his senior aides have recused themselves from the matter, but some Democratic congressional aides and legal experts said the existence of the inquiry strengthens the argument that an outside prosecutor should be appointed to investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the prosecutor firings.

"It's remarkable that he's under investigation and that he's still attorney general," said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University School of Law. "At some point, it can no longer be done internally. This cannot be done by Gonzales's subordinates."

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Bush sneaks in one more "Bushie" before bill signing...

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed today that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had once again bypassed the Senate and used an obscure Patriot Act provision to appoint an interim U.S. attorney in California.

The authority Gonzales used was at the heart of the U.S. attorney scandal, and was banned in a bill that passed both chambers of Congress with strong bipartisan support earlier this year. The legislation was sent to the President for his signature on June 4.
...
But now President Bush has what he wanted. Thanks to his delay, Alberto Gonzales was able to install George Cardona as an interim U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California.

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14 June 2007

Assuming Dubya doesn't violate DoJ guidelines and pardon him...

A federal judge said Thursday he will not delay a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a ruling that could send the former White House aide to prison within weeks.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton's decision will send Libby's attorneys rushing to an appeals court to block the sentence and could force President Bush to consider calls from Libby's supporters to pardon the former aide.

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Priceless...

Q: Are there any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war?
SNOW: Yeah, the President. The President is in the war every day.
Q: Come on, that isn’t my question –
SNOW: Well, no, if you ask any president who is a commander in chief –
Q: On the frontlines, wherever...
SNOW: The President.

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As mentioned earlier, the WH claimed some 5 million emails "accidentally" vanished. Senator Leahy reports the missing emails have been found, but not turned over...

Now that their claim of “lost” emails has been proven false, the White House must turn them over to Congress. Claims of executive privilege are not sufficient to deny these emails to congressional investigators as the use of “Republican Party-sponsored” email addresses significantly undermines any claims to such privilege.

via Think Progress

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Josh talks to Al about the situation in Iraq....

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Not so good...

Violence in Iraq, as measured by casualties among troops and civilians, has edged higher despite the U.S.-led security push in Baghdad, the Pentagon told Congress on Wednesday.

The required quarterly report, which surveyed violence from Feb. 10 to May 7, found that the average number of Iraqi civilians killed or wounded each day was more than 100, nearly double the daily toll from the same period one year ago. The number of daily U.S. casualties was about 25, slightly higher than a year ago.

The average weekly number of attacks across Iraq for the reporting period surpassed 1,000, compared to about 600 weekly attacks for the same period one year ago. More than 75 percent of the attacks were aimed at U.S. forces, according to the report, which also examined political and economic developments in Iraq.
...
The report offered a less-than-optimistic outlook for political reconciliation among the rival sectarian groups in Iraq. It said Shiite fear of a Sunni return to power and splits within the Shiite community “will continue to impede formation of a ‘Shiite consensus’ and complicate reconciliation with the Sunnis.”

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Petraeus says mosque attack a "serious blow to the military effort"...

In an exclusive interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, called today's attack on a holy Shiite shrine near Baghdad a "serious blow" to the military effort in the region and the work of al Qaeda.

"But frankly, it is our hope that this can galvanize the Iraqi leaders to unite against this form of extremism," Petraeus said from Baghdad.
...
This was the second attack on the golden-domed al-Askariya mosque in Samarra, 65 miles north of Baghdad and the burial place of two imams that had been guarded by dozens of Iraqi commandos since the first attack.

U.S. military officials told ABC News the mosque's minarets appear to have been toppled by explosives placed inside the structure, which suggests a serious security lapse.

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New lows in three polls...

NBC/WSJ -- 29%

Quinnipiac -- 28%

LA Times/Bloomberg -- 34%

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TPM Cafe has the story (with help from Think Progress) of Rudy's latest flip-flop...

Now: We can fall back easily into what the Democrats are talking about. It sounds very appealing, you know? Don’t react, let things go, kind of act the way Clinton did in the ’90s.

Sept 06: "The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don't think he deserves it."

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Inquiry suggests the FBI violated the law covering NSLs at least 1,000 times...

An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.

The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews. The earlier report found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling.

The vast majority of the new violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect. The agents retained the information anyway in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities.

But two dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved agents' requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have, according to the audit results provided to The Washington Post. Only two such examples were identified earlier in the smaller sample.

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So much for the September showdown...

Iraq’s political leaders have failed to reach agreements on nearly every law that the Americans have demanded as benchmarks, despite heavy pressure from Congress, the White House and top military commanders. With only three months until progress reports are due in Washington, the deadlock has reached a point where many Iraqi and American officials now question whether any substantive laws will pass before the end of the year.

Kurds have blocked a vote in Parliament on a new oil law. Shiite clerics have stymied an American-backed plan for reintegrating former Baathists into government. Sunnis are demanding that a constitutional review include more power for the next president.

And even if one or two of the proposals are approved — the oil law appears the most likely, officials said — doubts are spreading about whether the current benchmarks can ever halt the cycle of violence gripping Iraq’s communities.
...
The challenges to reconciliation include the personal, the sectarian and the systemic. Two of the stalled laws — regarding a constitutional review and de-Baathification — highlight the distrust over the petty and profound disputes that have undermined the process.

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Threaten to shut down Congress if earmarks are harder to come by...

For the second day in a row, the House of Representatives was “held hostage” today by conservative leaders threatening to block vital homeland security and domestic spending bills because they disagree with the new process for handling earmarks.

Led by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), this is the same crew that oversaw that “extraordinarily irresponsible explosion of congressional earmarking that began shortly after the Republicans gained control of the Congress in 1995 and lasted until the voters tossed them out this past November.” They now claim to be champions of good government.

Here are the facts: on its first day, the 110th Congress passed the strictest rules governing earmarks ever. The new Congress did not place a single earmark on any of the nine FY2007 spending bills they completed in January, and pledged to cut the number of earmarks in the FY2008 spending bills to half the number that the previous Congress has enacted in FY2006.

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Josh interviews the next Senator from Minnesota, with Part 2 to follow Thursday...

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Will Bush stonewall to protect the WH and Rove in particular, or will a deal be struck?

Two Democratic congressional sources say they decided not to subpoena Rove because they are building their case by talking to and gathering information from lower level witnesses and officials, before they get to the more senior, more important witnesses.

"We want to build up and get documents to have basis to ask questions of Rove," one of the sources said. "It's the way you do it in any investigation."

Having said that, the source said the reality is that this will end up in a constitutional showdown and they will never get a chance to talk to any of the White House witnesses.

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She falls back on the tried and true "hortatory subjunctive" defense...

TPM Muckraker has the video...

more video can be found here...

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If at first (or second) you don't succeed...

The FBI is seeking $12 million for the [National Security Branch Analysis Center] in FY2008, which will include 90,000 square feet of office space and a total of 59 staff, including 23 contractors and five FBI agents. Documents predict the NSAC will include six billion records by FY2012. This amounts to 20 separate “records” for each man, woman and child in the United States. The “universe of subjects will expand exponentially” with the expanded role of the NSAC, the Justice Department documents assert.

Think Progress is all over the story...

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13 June 2007

Says his support for the unwanted jet had nothing to do with contributions...

Rep. Duncan Hunter on Tuesday defended his role in helping steer tens of millions of dollars to a La Jolla-based aerospace firm to develop a military jet the Pentagon did not want. Hunter aggressively supported the program over decades even though the Pentagon repeatedly questioned the jet's feasibility and lambasted the contractor's work.

La Jolla-based duPont Aerospace rewarded Hunter for his support for the program since 1988 with $36,000 in campaign contributions. The Alpine Republican had been chairman of the Armed Services Committee before Democrats regained control of the House earlier this year. He currently is running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

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12 June 2007

Just like Manhattan...

Violence persisted on Tuesday, with at least 45 people killed or found dead, including nine soldiers and civilians killed in clashes and drive-by shootings. Police said 15 al-Qaida militants also were killed in fighting with joint U.S.-Iraqi forces, although the military did not immediately confirm that.

Suspected Sunni insurgents also bombed and badly damaged a span over the main north-south highway leading from Baghdad on Tuesday — the third bridge attack in as many days in an apparent campaign against key transportation arteries.

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Joe Sixpack subsidizes the rich...

Summers’s favorite statistic these days is that, since 1979, the share of pretax income going to the top 1 percent of American households has risen by 7 percentage points, to 16 percent. Over the same span, the share of income going to the bottom 80 percent has fallen by 7 percentage points. It’s as if every household in that bottom 80 percent is writing a check for $7,000 every year and sending it to the top 1 percent.

The rich get richer...

In 2004, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest official analysis, households in the lowest quintile of the country were making only 2 percent more (adjusted for inflation) than they were in 1979. Those in the next quintile managed only an 11 percent rise. And the middle group was up 15 percent. Do you sense a pattern? The income of families in the fourth quintile — upper-middle-class folks with an average yearly income of $82,000 — rose by 23 percent. Only when you get to the top quintile were the gains truly big — 63 percent.

nod Eric Alterman

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Tainted water at Camp LeJeune poisons marines and their familes for 3 decades...

Marine families who lived at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina over three decades drank water contaminated with toxins as much as 40 times over today’s safety standard, federal health investigators said Tuesday.

The government disclosed results from a new scientific study on the same day that some families testified for Congress about cancers and other illnesses they blame on drinking tainted tap water at the sprawling training and deployment base.

The House Energy and Commerce panel, which held the hearing, described the sickened Marines as “poisoned patriots.”

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Call me a skeptic...

A senior U.S. diplomat accused Iran on Tuesday of transferring weapons to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan — the most direct comments yet on the issue by a ranking American official.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking to reporters in Paris, said Iran was funding insurrections across the Middle East — and “Iran is now even transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

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Veterans twice as likely to commit suicide than non-veterans...

Male U.S. veterans are twice as likely to die by suicide than people with no military service, and are more likely to kill themselves with a gun than others who commit suicide, researchers said on Monday.

The findings indicate that doctors and others who may treat U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan should be alert for signs of depression and suicidal tendencies, said lead researcher Mark Kaplan of Portland State University in Oregon.

The study tracked 320,890 U.S. men, about a third of whom served in the U.S. military between 1917 and 1994. The rest had no military background.

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Idiots...

On May 28, Politico’s senior political writer David Paul Kuhn wrote an article with the headline “Social conservatives bite bullet, back Rudy.” Kuhn’s lead declared the conservative base was increasingly falling for Giuliani because he was perceived as “most electable.”
...
In just two weeks time, Politico’s Kuhn turned the story on its head and wrote a piece with exactly the opposite lede. In an article entitled, “Conservatives would bolt over Rudy,” Kuhn declared the conservative base was threatening to take flight from the Republican Party if Giuliani were to win the nomination.

Think Progress does the heavy lifting...

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Tauzin found to have boosted the credibility of iGate, the company Jefferson delivered contracts to... Dirty is as dirty does...

Former Louisiana Rep. Billy Tauzin (R) is the mystery lawmaker referenced in last week’s 16-count indictment against Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.).

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Think Progress has the goods on the Pentagon's dumping of chem weapons and nuke material into the ocean...

“The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.”

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Reverses his statements about the ACORN indictments...

TPM Muckraker brings the goods...

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Think Progress has Oh'Really's reaction to the lack of Iraq coverage on Faux News...

Now the reason that CNN and MSNBC do so much Iraq reporting is because they want to embarrass the Bush administration. Both do. And all their reporting consists of is here’s another explosion. Bang. Here’s more people dead. Bang. […]

They’re not doing it to inform anybody about anything. The terrorists are going to set off a bomb every day because they know CNN and MSNBC are going to put it on the air. That’s a strategy for the other side. The terrorist side. So I’m taking an argument that CNN and MSNBC are actually helping the terrorists by reporting useless explosions.

Do you care if another bomb went off in Tikrit? Does it mean anything? No! It doesn’t mean anything.

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As mentioned earlier, Sleepy Joe is all gung ho for bombing Iran -- General Wesley Clark sets him straight...

Only someone who never wore the uniform or thought seriously about national security would make threats at this point. What our soldiers need is responsible strategy, not a further escalation of tensions in the region. Senator Lieberman must act more responsibly and tone down his threat machine.

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Taking one for the team...

Edward W. Gillespie will step down as Republican Party of Virginia chairman today to become counselor to President Bush in the White House.

He will replace Dan Bartlett, who resigned recently to return to his native Texas. Several GOP sources, requesting anonymity, confirmed the move.

Sources said Gillespie, a longtime power broker on Capitol Hill, was reluctant to leave as state party chairman after a tenure of only six months, but he answered the president's pleadings.

nod to Think Progress

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Office of the Special Counsel recommends GSA chief be "disciplined to the fullest extent". I won't say I told you so... but...

The head of the main federal contracting agency, a longtime GOP supporter, should be "punished to the fullest extent" for violating a ban on political advocacy on government time, a watchdog agency concluded.

The Office of Special Counsel, in a letter to President Bush released late Monday, said General Services Administrator Lurita Doan engaged in "the most pernicious of political activity" banned by the 1939 Hatch Act when she asked, at a meeting of General Services Administration political appointees, how they could help Republican candidates.

"I recommend that Administrator Doan be disciplined to the fullest extent for her serious violation of the Hatch Act and insensitivity to cooperating fully and honestly in the course of our investigation," wrote Scott Bloch, special counsel for the independent investigative and prosecutorial agency.

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Transportation Department shills for the auto industry...

It is not an appropriate use of federal resources to lobby members of Congress to oppose state efforts to protect the environment. It is especially problematic on an issue that is pending for decision before the Administration and that is supposed to be decided based on an independent assessment of the merits. At the very least, Ms. Shamoradi's call suggests the presence of an improper hidden agenda.

via TPM Muckraker

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11 June 2007

This time, in northern Baghdad...

Suspected al-Qaida bombers stepped up attacks on key transportation arteries, striking a bridge north of the capital Monday a day after shutting the superhighway south of Baghdad with a huge explosion that collapsed an overpass and killed three U.S. soldiers.

The latest attack, a parked truck bomb, blew apart the bridge that carries traffic over the Diyala River in Baqouba, police said on condition they not be identified by name because they feared retribution. There were no casualties, but motorists and truckers now must use a road that runs through al-Qaida-controlled territory to reach important nearby cities.

Baqouba is the capital of Diyala province, which is swarming with al-Qaida fighters. Those militants were driven out of Baghdad by the four-month-old U.S. security operation and out of Anbar province west of the capital by Sunni tribesman who rose up against the terrorist group.

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Not so good...

An apparent suicide car bomber took aim at a U.S. convoy carrying demolition experts on Sunday, collapsing a major highway overpass south of Baghdad and trapping American soldiers in the rubble.

The vehicle detonated beside a support pillar, bringing down an Army checkpoint and a tent that had been on the collapsing span, dubbed “Checkpoint 20” by the U.S. military. The overpass, one of two crossing over Iraq’s main north-south highway in the region, appeared to be closed to all but military traffic at the time.

A U.S. Army quick reaction force and the staff of Armor Group International, a private security firm that was in charge of the passing convoy, worked for some 45 minutes to pull trapped men from the rubble about six miles east of Mahmoudiya.
...
A roadside bomb killed a U.S. airman and wounded another Sunday in southern Iraq, the military said. The death raised to at least 3,504 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

A suicide explosion on the outskirts of Tikrit at a police building killed 10 people, most of them officers, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. Tikrit is 80 miles north of Baghdad.

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Sleepy Joe was among those saving Gone-zales..

Republicans blocked the Senate's no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Monday, turning back a symbolic Democratic effort to prod him from office despite blistering criticism from lawmakers in both parties.

The 53-38 vote to move the resolution to full debate fell seven short of the 60 required. In bringing the matter up, Democrats dared Republicans to vote their true feelings about an attorney general who has alienated even the White House's strongest defenders by bungling the firings of federal prosecutors and claiming not to recall the details.

TPM Muckraker has more...

The Republicans voting in favor were:

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
Sen. John Sununu (R-NH)
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA)
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)

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Maybe there's hope our Constitution will survive this presidency after all?

The Bush administration cannot use new anti-terrorism laws to keep U.S. residents locked up indefinitely without charging them, a divided federal appeals court said Monday.

The ruling was a harsh rebuke of one of the central tools the administration believes it has to combat terror.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the president calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country,” the court panel said.

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Will they ever learn?

With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.
...
But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans’ arming both sides in a future civil war. The United States has spent more than $15 billion in building up Iraq’s army and police force, whose manpower of 350,000 is heavily Shiite. With an American troop drawdown increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the weapons could be used against the Americans themselves.

Keep in mind Bush's previous policy...

With the agreement to arm some Sunni groups, the Americans also appear to have made a tacit recognition that earlier demands for the disarming of Shiite militia groups are politically unachievable for now given the refusal of powerful Shiite political parties to shed their armed wings. In effect, the Americans seem to have concluded that as long as the Shiites maintain their militias, Shiite leaders are in a poor position to protest the arming of Sunni groups whose activities will be under close American scrutiny.
...
“The government’s aim is to disarm and demobilize the militias in Iraq,” said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a political adviser to Mr. Maliki. “And we have enough militias in Iraq that we are struggling now to solve the problem. Why are we creating new ones?”

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The WaPo takes an in-depth look at the CIA's use of contractors...

Acting under pressure from Congress, the CIA has decided to trim its contractor staffing by 10 percent. It is the agency's first effort since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to curb what critics have decried as the growing privatization of U.S. intelligence work, a circumstance that has sharply boosted some personnel costs.

Contractors currently make up about one-third of the CIA workforce, but CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said that their work has not been efficiently managed. Associate Deputy Director Michael Morell said in an interview that he does not think the CIA has become a revolving door, but "Director Hayden has said we don't want to become the farm team for contractors."
...
"Over the past three years or so, a fairly significant number of those individuals who resigned -- not retired, but resigned -- from CIA end up coming back as contractors within a short period of time. We want to decrease the number of people who do that. That is what is behind the 18-month rule that we have put in effect," Morell said.
...
The committee questioned the additional costs involved in using contractors, citing an estimate that a government civilian employee costs on average $126,500 a year while the annual cost of a "fully loaded" core contractor, including overhead, is $250,000.

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Assuming Cheney-like behavior is the goal...

Iraq’s leading political blocs on Sunday agreed to replace the speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud Mashhadani, a Sunni, after hearing accusations that his bodyguards assaulted a Shiite lawmaker as the speaker cursed him and then dragged him to the speaker’s office. [...]

The scuffle on Sunday was the third time this year that Mr. Mashhadani or members of his staff have been accused of physically assaulting members of Parliament. Last month, Mr. Mashhadani slapped a Sunni lawmaker who questioned his decision to rush out of a legislative session in disgust after a Shiite colleague questioned the government’s sensitivity to the plight of displaced Shiite families.

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Not to stop nukes, but for allegedly aiding "terrorists" in Iraq...

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."
...
"If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."

"But they can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans," he said. "We cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home."

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At least if you want to be appointed as an immigration judge under Dubya...

The Bush administration increasingly emphasized partisan political ties over expertise in recent years in selecting the judges who decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, despite laws that preclude such considerations, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

At least one-third of the immigration judges appointed by the Justice Department since 2004 have had Republican connections or have been administration insiders, and half lacked experience in immigration law, Justice Department, immigration court and other records show.

Two newly appointed immigration judges were failed candidates for the U.S. Tax Court nominated by President Bush; one fudged his taxes and the other was deemed unqualified to be a tax judge by the nation's largest association of lawyers. Both were Republican loyalists.

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Paris Hilton deserves jail for being a "rich twit"... punishing Libby for perjury isn't worthy of our tax $$...

But jail time for Hilton, however "unfair," strikes me as a public service--it is exemplary: It sends the message, as Gilmore suggests, that even rich twits can't avoid the law.

I have a different feeling about Libby. His "perjury"--not telling the truth about which reporters he talked to--would never be considered significant enough to reach trial, much less sentencing, much less time in stir if he weren't Dick Cheney's hatchet man.
...
But jail time? Do we really want to spend our tax dollars keeping Scooter Libby behind bars? I don't think so.

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Duncan brings us the sad details of Broder's hero Mike Leavitt and the departed Senator Craig Thomas...

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Dubya gets a little confused....

Saturday --
Bush: In terms of the deadline, there needs to be one. This needs to come — this needs to happen.

Sunday --
Bush: Thanks. A couple of points on that. First of all, I don’t think I called for a deadline. I thought I said, time — I did? What exactly did I say? I said, “deadline”? Okay, yes, then I meant what I said.

courtesy Crooks and Liars

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09 June 2007

Had a stomach "virus" the morning following the picture above...

Hours after sharing a laugh and a cold beer with Tony Blair, U.S. President George Bush was forced to miss a G8 session on Africa as he came down with stomach ailment.

But the president has already recovered from his illness, according to reports. He rejoined the gathering by lunch and prepared for talks in Poland on a missile defense system.

"He feels well enough to continue with his full activities," White House counselor Dan Bartlett told reporters. "He feels terrible about any disruption he may have caused."

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No so good...

Three months after additional U.S. troops began pouring into Baghdad in the most recent effort to stanch violence in Iraq's capital, military observers are fretting that the same problems that torpedoed last summer's Baghdad security plan are cropping up again.

Violence is on the rise, Iraqi troops aren't showing up to secure neighborhoods, U.S. troops are having to revisit neighborhoods they'd already cleared, and Iraq's politicians haven't met any of their benchmarks.
...
One thing is already clear, however: The additional U.S. troops haven't yet had a major impact on reducing violence.

The number of bodies found on Baghdad's streets declined in March and April after the surge began on Feb. 15, but it shot back up to an even higher level in May. So far this month, 206 unidentified corpses have been found in the capital, compared with 176 in the first eight days of May.

Think Progress has more...

Bayh disclosed that in the closed-door hearing, the intelligence officials emphasized that a sustained U.S. presence will not aid political reconciliation nor quell sectarian violence in the near future:

Their overall consensus was that the trend in Iraq is negative.

… Their assessment was that the prospect for political steps in Iraq toward meaningful reconciliation among the different parties, that those steps toward reconciliation — the political steps — would be marginal at best through the end of this calendar year.

… We were also told that the state of the insurgency — the level of violence and that sort of thing — was in all likelihood going to be about where it is today a year from now.

Bayh quoted “the top CIA expert on radical Islam,” who told him recently that the U.S. presence in Iraq is generating more terrorists:

[I]n his opinion, our presence in Iraq is creating more members of Al Qaida than we are killing in Iraq.

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Et tu, Howard?

Oh, and this comment about Giuliani, from the same show, is just precious:

FINEMAN: He doesn‘t—he looks like a guy who, if he had had the opportunity to grow up as a hunter, would have been a great one.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

FINEMAN: He just gives off the aura of a guy who wouldn‘t be afraid to use a gun, you know? That‘s just—and that‘s the record that he had in New York.

courtesy Digby

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Where the rubber meets the road...

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They should try telling the truth the first time...

A Justice Department lawyer under fire for bringing criminal voter-fraud charges on the eve of the 2006 election may revise his Senate testimony about the case, which angered other U.S. prosecutors, officials familiar with the matter said.

Bradley Schlozman, who as U.S. attorney in Kansas City obtained indictments charging workers for an activist group with submitting fake voter-registration forms, defended the timing of the case to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week by saying he acted ``at the direction'' of the department's Public Integrity Section.

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Dumps Pace and Giambastiani.. blames the outrage over the Iraq war for the move...

The Bush administration sidelined Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Friday, announcing plans to replace him as the nation's top military officer rather than reappoint him and risk a Senate confirmation struggle focusing on the Iraq War.

"It would be a backward looking and very contentious process," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a Pentagon news conference where he announced he would recommend Adm. Mike Mullen to replace Pace.

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Judge Reggie Walton addresses the letter writers pushing for Libby leniency...

It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics’ willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.

via Think Progress

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The gift that keeps on giving...

A Republican activist will plead guilty to obstructing Congress in the influence-peddling scandal centered around former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, her lawyer said on Wednesday.
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Federici had close ties to senior Interior Department officials as head of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, or CREA, a nonprofit group founded by former Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

According to criminal charges filed by the government, Federici in 2001 introduced Abramoff to her sometime boyfriend, ex-Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles.

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Judge Robert "Tort Reform" Bork sues the Yale Club for $1 million+ after slipping on some stairs...

Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they “wantonly, willfully, and recklessly” failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.

Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs’ ability to recover through tort law. In a 2002 article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy–the official journal of the Federalist Society–Bork argued that frivolous claims and excessive punitive damage awards have caused the Constitution to evolve into a document which would allow Congress to enact tort reforms that would have been unconstitutional at the framing:…

courtesy Crooks and Liars

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08 June 2007

Sends his buddy Dan Bartlett off with a little ditty...

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to Hardball. Dan Bartlett is counselor to President Bush. He has been with President Bush back since his first campaign for governor 14 years ago. Today, he announced he's stepping out into that cruel world known as the private sector.

MATTHEWS [singing]: For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow.

Dan, all these years --

BARTLETT: Appreciate that.

MATTHEWS: -- and months of trying to get me in to see the president, and I know you did your best. So, I forgive you.

Media Matters has the video...

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07 June 2007

The first step is admitting you have a problem...

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has admitted he is involved in the FBI’s probe into Alaska lawmakers' dealings with oil services company Veco Corp.

TPM Muckraker is all over the story..

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Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill to restore Habeas Corpus..

Guantanamo prisoners and other foreigners got a step closer to regaining the right to challenge their detention in the U.S. courts in a bill approved in a U.S. Senate committee on Thursday.

The Judiciary Committee voted 11-8 to send the proposal to the full Senate for debate, with Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania the lone Republican joining the Democratic majority

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Despite miserable ratings, it seems like everyone wants him...

Think Progress brings the goods

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Republican Don "Bridge to Nowhere" Young, the infamous representative from Alaska, snuck in a $10 million earmark for a road in Florida, mere days after a real estate developer raised $40k for his campaign...

A consultant who helped push for the project spelled out why its supporters held the fund-raiser.

“We were looking for a lot of money,” said the consultant, Joe Mazurkiewicz. “We evidently made a very good impression on Congressman Young, and thanks to a lot of great work from Congressman Young, we got $81 million to expand Interstate 75 and $10 million for the Coconut Road interchange.”
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When he was approached near the House floor by a reporter, Mr. Young responded with an obscene gesture.

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Says debating the war doesn't undercut morale..

LEVIN: Do you believe, General, that the debate that we’ve had in the Congress on amendments that call for troop reductions starting at a certain point or — that those debates undermine the troops?

LUTE: Senator, I know of no evidence of that.

I believe the sort of people that are serving in American armed forces today understand the democratic process. And, in fact, that’s what we’ve sworn to protect and defend.

And when they see it play out here in Washington, they understand that. And they’re driving on with the mission they were given.

LEVIN: So is it your answer, then, you do not believe that…

LUTE: I don’t believe it undercuts their morale.

via Think Progress

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The inspectors were doing their job in Iraq...

“After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq.”
-- IAEA's Muhammed ElBarradei

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Four more soldiers killed.. 47 tortured bodies found...

The military also announced that four more U.S. soldiers were killed. The deaths raised to at least 3,498 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
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Police also found the bullet-riddled bodies of at least 47 men showing signs of torture, 34 of them in Baghdad, the apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by Shiite militias.
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The militants have shown increasing impatience as the U.S. and the Iraqi military fail to stop the suicide attacks and car bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents led by al-Qaida in Iraq — despite the influx of troops and stepped-up security measures.

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worst.administration.ever

Vice President Dick Cheney blocked the promotion of a Justice Department official involved in a bedside standoff over President Bush's eavesdropping program, a Senate committee learned Wednesday.

In a written account, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey said Cheney warned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that he would oppose the promotion of a department official who once threatened to resign over the program.

Gonzales eventually decided against trying to promote Patrick Philbin to principal deputy solicitor general, Comey said.
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"Mr. Comey has confirmed what we suspected for a while that White House hands guided Justice Department business," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading the Senate's investigation. "The vice president's fingerprints are all over the effort to strong-arm Justice on the NSA program."

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Poor little Tucker Carlson...

MSNBC host Tucker Carlson, whose father, Richard Carlson, is on the advisory committee for the fund set up to help pay for Libby's defense, told Salon that he believes the CIA was defining Plame as covert at the time of Novak's column, but questioned the definition.

"If it is in fact true that she had served under nonofficial cover and was then working at Langley, the story is why was CIA calling her covert? ... I'm covert too, how does that sound? What does that mean?" Carlson said. "CIA clearly didn't really give a shit about keeping her identity secret if she's going to work at fucking Langley."

Carlson also challenged the assertion made in the unclassified summary released by Fitzgerald that Plame had continued to travel under nonofficial cover while working from Langley.

"I call bullshit on that, I don't care what they say. ... That cannot happen, that does not happen, you cannot work there every day and then pretend that you are a businessman or that you are an investment banker. That's too dangerous, that's crazy, they wouldn't do that. That's just not true."

At least he's got Hindlicker watching his back...

John Hinderaker, a blogger at Powerline, echoed some of Carlson's concerns.

"If you want to talk about the word covert in its popular meaning, there's nothing covert about someone who drives in to Langley every day and sits at a desk. That does not fit anybody's popular definition of what covert means," Hinderaker said. "The context of [Powerline's] discussion of that issue has always been the statute, and the indications have always seemed to me to be reasonably strong that she was not covert, because she had been working at a desk at Langley for years. If that turns out to be wrong, I'll say so."

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So much for the "September Showdown"...

NPR: Whole areas of Baghdad have been ethnically cleansed, turned entirely Shia or entirely Sunni. Is there any indication that those fighting are tired of this war? Last week, former Gen. Barry McCaffrey told us that the stakes are higher than ever before because every side is positioning itself for the end game. Is he right?

CROCKER: Sometimes I think that in the U.S., we're looking at Iraq right now as though it were the last half of a three-reel movie. For Iraqis, it's a five-reel movie, and they're still in the first half of it. I don't see an end game, as it were, in sight.

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Another sheep has left the Bush flock...

So much for loyalty, or decency, or courage. For President Bush, loyalty is apparently a one-way street; decency is something he's for as long as he doesn't have to take any risks in its behalf; and courage--well, that's nowhere to be seen. Many of us used to respect President Bush. Can one respect him still?

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They deny Kokesh an honorable discharge, yet appove of Pace's support for a convicted felon who lied about the case for war..

A military panel recommended this week that Iraq war veteran Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh, “who wore his uniform during an anti-war protest, should lose his honorable discharge status, brushing away his claims that he was exercising his right to free speech.”

While the Marine Corps was actively working to repudiate “opposition groups and individuals” like Kokesh, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was advocating — in his official capacity — on behalf of “Scooter” Libby.

After Libby was convicted of “lying to investigators and a federal grand jury examining the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity,” Pace wrote a letter endorsing Libby’s character, specifically noting his “selfless” nature and his penchant for examining decisions “legally and morally.”
...
The administration appears to oppose the political advocacy of uniformed officers, except when they’re advocating on behalf of administration policy.

Think Progress has the goods...

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Sure looks that way...

“A leader of an influential conservative legal group recommended a replacement candidate for the U.S. attorney in San Diego just days after the sitting prosecutor’s name was secretly placed on a Justice Department firing list, according to a document released Wednesday.”

via Think Progress

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Not so good...

Maliki is the man U.S. officials are counting on to bring Iraq's civil war under control, yet he seems unable to break the government's deadlock.

Even Maliki's top political advisor, Sadiq Rikabi, says he doubts the prime minister will be able to win passage of key legislation ardently sought by U.S. officials, including a law governing the oil industry and one that would allow more Sunni Arabs to gain government jobs.

"We hope to achieve some of them, but solving the Iraqi problems and resolving the different challenges in the [next] three months would need a miracle," Rikabi said.

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The man who touched off Purgegate is now associated with the GOP's 'savior'...

Even before the official announcement of candidacy by former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), an all-star team of GOP operatives is gathering around him — Lawrence Lindsey, Ken Khachigian, Tim Griffin, Dave Bossie and Victoria Toensing, with more to follow.

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Think Progress points out a memo where Goodling instructs a coworker to bypass official communcations procedures and send a sensitive document "outside the system"...

New Justice Department communications released tonight include an email from Monica Goodling, former counsel to Alberto Gonzales, directing another official to draw up a directive giving her unprecedented authority to hire and fire political staffers. Goodling tells the official, assistant attorney general Paul Corts, to “send [it] directly up to me, outside the system.”

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The Iraqi Parliament voted again to control the presence of coalition forces...

While most observers are focused on the U.S. Congress as it continues to issue new rubber stamps to legitimize Bush’s permanent designs on Iraq, nationalists in the Iraqi parliament –now representing a majority of the body — continue to make progress towards bringing an end to their country’s occupation.

The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the UN mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.

The law requires that any future extensions of the mandate, which have previously been made by Iraq’s Prime Minister, be approved by the parliament. It is an enormous development; lawmakers reached in Baghdad today said that they do in fact plan on blocking the extension of the coalition’s mandate when it comes up for renewal six months from now.

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An Ethics Committee investigation will become mandatory within 30 days of an indictment or charged with a crime....

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06 June 2007

- Rudy breathlessly stating that Libby's life is at stake
- Hunter proudly proclaiming he'd use tactical nukes to preempt Iran from manufacturing nukes
- Brownback saying he'd use Dubya as a Disaster Ambassador

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05 June 2007

Gets 30 months, $250k fine, two years probation, and must surrender in 6-8 weeks. Keep in mind that, under DoJ guidelines, he wouldn't be eligible for a pardon (serve at least 5 years, express remorse)...

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Think Progress documents the atrocities prior to his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee...

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Media Matters is documenting the consistency of questions between the Dem and Repub debates...

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Josh breaks it down for us on TPMtv...

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Explains his arrest after the Dem debate on Hardball...

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He needs to resign...

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Business are writing off billions more in tax deductions than on their books...

There is a multibillion-dollar gap between what public companies book as expenses for their executives’ stock options and what they report to the IRS under two different sets of rules, according to Senate investigators and a key senator who is seeking to change the reporting system.

The discrepancy, with far greater deductions for stock options being reported to the Internal Revenue Service, is costing the Treasury billions of dollars, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Monday. He is proposing that the gap be closed in legislation requiring uniform regulations.
...
That means U.S. public companies legally avoided billions of dollars in taxes for that period by claiming $43 billion more in tax deductions for options awards than the compensation amount for options recorded on their books, said Levin, the subcommittee’s chairman.
...
Backdating options make the rewards even more lucrative by retroactively setting the exercise price to a low point in the stock’s value. Usually, a stock option’s exercise price coincides with the market value at the time of a grant to give the recipient an incentive to drive the price higher.

If companies backdate options without properly disclosing and accounting for the move, it can cause profits to be overstated and taxes to be underpaid.

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Educated Iraqis compare staying in Iraq to committing suicide...

Four years later, Iraq’s college graduates are ending their studies shattered and eager to leave the country. In interviews with more than 30 students from seven universities, all but four said they hoped to flee immediately after receiving their degrees. Many said they did not expect Iraq to stabilize for at least a decade.

“I used to dream about getting a Ph.D., participating in international conferences, belonging to a team that discovered cures for diseases like AIDS, leaving my fingerprint on medicine,” said Hasan Tariq Khaldoon, 24, a pharmacy student in Mosul, in the north. “Now all these dreams have evaporated.”

Karar Alaa, 25, a medical student at Babil University, south of Baghdad, said, “Staying here is like committing suicide.”

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Fourteen soldiers killed in the first three days of June...

Fourteen American soldiers were killed in three deadly days in Iraq, the U.S. military said Sunday, including four in a single roadside bombing and one who was struck by a suicide bomber while on a foot patrol southwest of the capital.

The blast that killed the four soldiers occurred Sunday as the troops were conducting a cordon and search operation northwest of the Iraqi capital, according to a statement. Two other soldiers from Multi-National Division — Baghdad were killed and five were wounded along with an Iraqi interpreter in two separate roadside bombings on Sunday, the military said.

Update: Three more today... seventeen in 4 days...

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Arkansas Republican party chairman says "we need" another 9/11...

He said he’s “150 percent” behind Bush on the war in Iraq.

“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country,” Milligan said.

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Three months in, and we control less than 1/3 of Baghdad...

Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city’s neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.

The American assessment, completed in late May, found that American and Iraqi forces were able to “protect the population” and “maintain physical influence over” only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods.

In the remaining 311 neighborhoods, troops have either not begun operations aimed at rooting out insurgents or still face “resistance,” according to the one-page assessment, which was provided to The New York Times and summarized reports from brigade and battalion commanders in Baghdad.

The assessment offers the first comprehensive look at the progress of the effort to stabilize Baghdad with the heavy influx of additional troops. The last remaining American units in the troop increase are just now arriving.
...
When planners devised the Baghdad security plan late last year, they had assumed most Baghdad neighborhoods would be under control around July, according to a senior American military officer, so the emphasis could shift into restoring services and rebuilding the neighborhoods as the summer progressed.

“We were way too optimistic,” said the officer, adding that September is now the goal for establishing basic security in most neighborhoods, the same month that Bush administration officials have said they plan to review the progress of the plan.

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All charges dropped against Hamdan...

Military judges dismissed charges Monday against a Guantanamo detainee who chauffeured Osama bin Laden and another who allegedly killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, marking a stunning setback to Washington's attempts to try detainees in military court.

In back-to-back arraignments for Canadian Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, of Yemen, the U.S. military's cases against the alleged al-Qaida figures dissolved because, the two judges said, the government had failed to establish jurisdiction.

They were the only two of the roughly 380 prisoners at Guantanamo charged with crimes, and the rulings stand to complicate efforts by the United States to try other suspected al-Qaida and Taliban figures in military courts.

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Can't tell one black Congressman from another...

Talking Points Memo has the video...

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As mentioned earlier, the latest propaganda coming out of the WH is their vision of a Korean-like long-term occupation of Iraq. The problem -- the supplemental bill Bush just signed explicitly stated that no funds can be used for a permanent base....

SEC. 3301. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this or any other Act shall be obligated or expended by the United States Government for a purpose as follows:

(1) To establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq.

(2) To exercise United States control over any oil resource of Iraq.

via Liberal Oasis

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Former U.S. Commander in Iraq, Lt Gen Rick Sanchez...

“I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will — not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat,” Sanchez told the San Antonio Express-News. “It’s also kind of important for us to answer the question, ‘What is victory?’, and at this point I’m not sure America really knows what victory is.”

via Think Progress

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- Glenn Beck claims Kucinich's wife is victim of date rape drug

- Oh'Really blames secular progressives for the TB scare

- Faux's Hume calls former Senator John Glenn a "partisan spear-chucker" while defending Fred Thompson

- Dobb's lobs another bit of misinformation... this time the approval rating comparison of the current and prior Congress

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Sixteen counts... faces up to 235 years in jail if convicted...

Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, money-laundering and soliciting more than $400,000 in bribes in connection with years of trying to broker business deals in Africa.

The charges came almost two years after investigators raided Jefferson's home in Washington and found $90,000 in cash stuffed in a box in his freezer.

The indictment in federal court in Alexandria, Va., lists 16 alleged violations with prison terms totaling as much as 235 years. Jefferson is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.

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Dem governor to appoint republican replacement...

Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas, a three-term conservative Republican who stayed clear of the Washington limelight and political catfights, died Monday. He was 74.

The senator's family issued a statement saying he died Monday evening at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He had been receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia.

Just before the 2006 election, Thomas was hospitalized with pneumonia and had to cancel his last campaign stops. He nonetheless won with 70 percent of the vote, monitoring the election from his hospital bed.
...
Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, will appoint a successor from one of three finalists chosen by the state Republican party.

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04 June 2007

Threatens to dishonorably discharge Cpl. Adam Kokesh 2 weeks before his 8-year obligation is up...

An Iraq war veteran accused the Marine Corps on Monday of causing a “disgusting waste of government resources” by holding a hearing about whether he should be punished for wearing his uniform during a war protest.

Marine Corps officials argue they are enforcing military codes in the case of Cpl. Adam Kokesh.

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01 June 2007

Another look into the classification of Cheney's visitor logs...

A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration.

Over the past year, lawyers for President Bush and Cheney have directed the Secret Service to maintain the confidentiality of visitor entry and exit logs, declaring them to be presidential records, exempt from a law requiring their disclosure to whoever asks to see them.
...
During the Clinton administration, Republican-controlled congressional committees obtained Secret Service visitor logs while conducting investigations of the president and first lady.
...
"It is important that the president be able to receive candid advice from his staff and other members of the administration," Fratto said. "To ensure that he receives candid advice, it is essential as a general matter that the advice remains confidential."
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"The scary thing about this move by the vice president's office is the power grab part of it," said Tom Blanton, head of the National Security Archive, a private group which uses the FOIA law to pierce government secrecy.

"We're looking at a huge problem if the White House can reach into any agency and say certain records have something to do with the White House and they are presidential from now on," Blanton said. "This White House has been infinitely creative in finding new ways and new forms of government secrecy."

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Surgeon General nominee hopes to "cure" gays...

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Another defection from the posse from Texas...

Dan Bartlett, one of President Bush's most trusted advisers and his longest-serving aide, said Friday he is resigning to begin a career outside of government.
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Bartlett said he was leaving for no other reason than to get a job in the private sector and concentrate more on his family.

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We all knew it.. but here is proof...

Originally developed as training for elite special forces at Fort Bragg under the "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape" program, otherwise known as SERE, tactics such as sleep deprivation, isolation, sexual humiliation, nudity, exposure to extremes of cold and stress positions were part of a carefully monitored survival training program for personnel at risk of capture by Soviet or Chinese forces, all carried out under the supervision of military psychologists:
...
In the letter to Secretary Gates, dated May 31, 2007, the non-profit Physicians for Human Rights cites an appendix of the current Army Field Manual that "explicitly permits what amounts to isolation, along with sleep and sensory deprivation." The letter, signed by retired Army General Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist and former senior medical commander, and Leonard Rubenstein, the organization's executive director, also points out that the current Field Manual remains "silent on a number of other SERE-based methods (including sensory overload and deprivation) creating ambiguity and doubt over their place in interrogation doctrine."

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As entertaining as the first hearing was, the second should be worth the wait...

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