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Historian Said Bush's Use of His Work Perverse By Steve @ 7:50 am -- CST (8-25-07) In his speech on Wednesday, President Bush quoted an interesting observation by one historian on people criticizing U.S. efforts to help Japan rebuild after World War II, as support for his policies in Iraq. Yesterday that historian, MIT professor John Dower, called Bush's use of his work perverse: They [war supporters] keep on doing this. They keep on hitting it and hitting it and hitting it and it's always more and more implausible, strange and in a fantasy world. They're desperately groping for a historical analogy, and their uses of history are really perverse. I have always said as a historian that the use of Japan [in arguing for the likelihood of successfully bringing democracy to Iraq] is a misuse of history.| -------------------------------------------------- Two More Corrupt Republicans to Resign By Steve @ 7:20 am -- CST (8-25-07) Wan Kim, the head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, announced that he is resigning. Kim is set to join nearly a dozen other senior Justice Department officials and aides who have resigned this year. He pursued causes favored by conservatives to the detriment of the Division's traditional emphasis, such as protecting African-Americans from discrimination. After long denying retirement rumors, Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) said yesterday he would not seek reelection. Renzi has been under an ethical cloud ever since a family business was raided earlier this year by the FBI, which is investigating whether he used his federal office for personal gain. | -------------------------------------------------- Is $300K Enough to Become The Next Iraqi Prime Minister? By Steve @ 7:10 am -- CST (8-25-07) IraqSlogger reports that Iyad Allawi, believed to be positioning himself to be Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's successor, is paying Washington lobbyists with close ties to the White House $300,000 to help with Allawi's efforts in the U.S. to promote himself and undermine Maliki. Former intel official Bruce Reidel raised further questions about Allawi's funding: He doesn't have that kind of money....Somebody's paying for it, and it's not him. | -------------------------------------------------- Undisclosed Conflict of Interest by Republican Lobbyist Philip Zelikow By Steve @ 7:00 am -- CST (8-25-07) Republican lobbyist Philip Zelikow had been making TV appearances calling for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ouster without disclosing the fact that he was being paid by Iyad Allawi to lobby for Maliki's removal. Yesterday, ABC News released a statement stating the Zelikow had not informed them of his conflict of interest. ABC also acknowledged that Zelikow's appearances were sullied by the fact that he did not disclose his relationship with Barbour Griffith & Rogers. | -------------------------------------------------- Pro War ads Falsely Link 9/11 to Iraq By Steve @ 7:50 am -- CST (8-24-07) A newly formed non-profit organisation made up of former Bush administration officials is to spend $15 million to run pro-war television and radio ads in more than 20 states which falsely link the 9/11 attacks to the war in Iraq in an effort to strong arm Congress into withdrawing support for a de-escalation. According to its own press release the group, Freedom's Watch, will run the ads as of today and feature an 800-number for the public to call their representatives and urge them not to surrender to terror. One of the founding board members for the group is former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. In addition Freedom's Watch chairman Bradley A. Blakeman was a member of the White House senior staff during President Bush's first term. According to the Politico, the group's board is also riddled with former Bush officials, as is its list of major donors. | -------------------------------------------------- Senate Plans Hearing on Mine Collapse By Steve @ 7:40 am -- CST (8-24-07) The Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees labor issues announced plans for a hearing on the mine collapse when Congress returns from its summer break Sept. 5. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, also demanded a list of documents Thursday from the Labor Department about the Crandall Canyon Mine and its operators. Kennedy wants to review several petitions the mine's co-owner, Bob Murray, made to the Mine Safety and Health Administration for changes in his mining plans at Crandall Canyon, among other documents. Experts have said the proposed changes were risky and could have led to the Aug. 6 cave-in that trapped six miners. | -------------------------------------------------- The Real Iraq Progress Report By Steve @ 7:20 am -- CST (8-24-07) The parade of political tourists to Iraq in recent weeks, during which easily impressed pundits and members of Congress came to be dazzled by the wonders of the troop surge, probably ensures that this murderous adventure will continue well into the next presidency - even if the Democrats win. | -------------------------------------------------- Mortgage Job Losses Surpass 40,000 By Steve @ 7:10 am -- CST (8-24-07) Since the start of the year, more than 40,000 workers have lost their jobs at mortgage lending institutions, according to recent company layoff announcements and data complied by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Meanwhile, construction companies have announced nearly 20,000 job cuts this year, while the National Association of Realtors expects membership rolls to decline this year for the first time in a decade. It's an employment collapse that threatens to rival the massive layoffs in the airline industry that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when some 100,000 employees lost their jobs. | -------------------------------------------------- NIE Report Says Iraq is Unable to Govern Itself Effectively By Steve @ 7:00 am -- CST (8-24-07) The Bush administration released an update to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled, Prospects for Iraq's Stability: Some Security Progress but Political Reconciliation Elusive. The NIE - which offers the coordinated judgments of the Intelligence Community - observed some measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq's security situation, but cautioned that there remains a lack of political progress in Iraq and a failure of the escalation to successfully provide sufficient security for Iraqis. | -------------------------------------------------- Confirmed: Private US Companies Helped Bush Illegally Spy On Americans By Steve @ 11:50 am -- CST (8-23-07) National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell pulled the curtain back on previously classified details of government surveillance and of a secretive court whose recent rulings created new hurdles for the Bush administration as it tries to prevent terrorism. McConnell confirmed for the first time that the private sector assisted with President Bush's warrantless surveillance program. AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies are being sued for their cooperation. | -------------------------------------------------- Former CIA Officer: Bush to Attack Iran Within 6 Months By Steve @ 11:30 am -- CST (8-23-07) Bob Baer said on Tuesday that the Bush administration is "gearing up for a military strike on Iran." Baer has written a column for Time indicating that Washington officials expect an attack on Iran within the next six months. "I've taken an informal poll inside the government," Baer said. "The feeling is we will hit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps." His Time column also suggested that "as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities." | -------------------------------------------------- The Op-Ed The WSJ And The Washington Times Did Not Want You To See By Steve @ 8:40 am -- CST (8-23-07) Retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, the former Commanding General of 1st Infantry Division wrote an op-ed two weeks ago, which neither the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Times wanted to consider. He is a lifelong Conservative Republican, yet they refused to publish his op-ed. | -------------------------------------------------- Bush Admin Caught Lying About FOIA By Steve @ 8:30 am -- CST (8-23-07) The Bush Administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, as part of its effort to refuse the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House servers. The White House website, however, clearly states that the office of Administration is subject to FOIA. | -------------------------------------------------- White House Claims it Can Keep E-Mails Secret By Steve @ 10:30 am -- CST (8-22-07) In the the latest effort by the Bush administration to expand the boundaries of government secrecy, the Justice Department said that records about missing White House e-mails are not subject to public disclosure. Administration lawyers detailed the legal position in a lawsuit trying to force the White House Office of Administration to reveal what it knows about the disappearance of at least 5 million White House e-mails. | -------------------------------------------------- Attorney Charges Rove With Role in Her Firing By Steve @ 10:10 am -- CST (8-22-07) Elizabeth Reyes, an attorney fired from the Texas secretary of state's office for talking publicly about presidential adviser Karl Rove, has filed a lawsuit, saying she is the victim of political pressure. In 2005, Reyes spoke to a Washington Post reporter about voter residency in Texas. Her quotes then showed up in a story about whether Rove was still eligible to vote in the state. Reyes was dismissed after Rove called Secretary of State Roger Williams, a large GOP donor, about her quotes. | -------------------------------------------------- Bush Admin Caught Breaking The Law Again By Steve @ 9:50 am -- CST (8-22-07) A federal judge ruled yesterday that the Bush administration violated U.S. law by failing to produce a study on the impact of global warming and must issue a summary by March. | -------------------------------------------------- White House Manual Details How to Stop Dissent at Presidential Events By Steve @ 9:30 am -- CST (8-22-07) A White House manual released recently discloses extensive instructions given to White House staffers in the art of deterring potential protestors from Bush's public appearances. The manual demonstrates that the White House has a policy of excluding and/or attempting to squelch dissenting viewpoints from presidential events, said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Miller. | -------------------------------------------------- REPORT: 68% of Foreign Policy Experts Favor Redeployment From Iraq By Steve @ 8:50 am -- CST (8-21-07) The Bush administration has regularly claimed that U.S. involvement in Iraq will lead to a much safer world for our children and our grandchildren. America's foreign policy experts disagree. In the third release of the Terrorism Index, a survey conducted by a bipartisan group of more than 100 respected foreign policy experts see a more dangerous world and a war in Iraq that is alarmingly off course. Only 5 percent of the experts believe al Qaeda will be weaker as a result of the troop escalation, only 3 percent believe Iraq will become a beacon of democracy, and 92 percent said the war in Iraq negatively affects national security. While the Bush administration has fearmongered that the terrorist threat will follow us home after withdrawal, the experts disagree. Eighty-eight percent - including 58 percent of conservatives - believe it is unlikely that terrorist attacks would occur in the United States as a direct result of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. | -------------------------------------------------- Fox News Covers Iraq Half as Much as Other Networks By Steve @ 8:40 am -- CST (8-21-07) The Iraq war is the #1 issue in America in all the polls, yet in the 1st quarter of 2007 the cable news networks only spent 22% of their time on Iraq reporting. Now in the 2nd quarter of 2007 it has dropped to 15% overall Iraq reporting. A new study, released yesterday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, finds that while Iraq coverage fell across the board in the second quarter of 2007, the gap between Fox News and its rivals remained, and in some cases even widened. CNN spent 17.6% of their time on Iraq reporting, MSNBC spent 15.1% of their time on Iraq reporting, and FOX spent 7.9% of their time on Iraq reporting. | -------------------------------------------------- Cheney Told GOP-Led Congress It Was Not Allowed To Issue Subpoenas By Steve @ 8:30 am -- CST (8-21-07) Yesterday in a press briefing, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed that the White House had missed its 2:30 PM deadline to turn over documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding legal justifications for the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program. Leahy said that the administration's stonewalling amounted to "contempt of Congress," and pointed out that these subpoenas were passed by broad bipartisan votes. In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee in the conservative-led 109th Congress, chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) also attempted to ask questions about the program's legal justifications. But Vice President Cheney personally barred him from issuing subpoenas. | -------------------------------------------------- Schlozman Resigns From Justice Department By Steve @ 8:10 am -- CST (8-21-07) Brad Schlozman, who politicized the hiring process in the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ and attempted to suppress the votes of minorities, has left his post in the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys. Currently, Schlozman is under investigation by the D0J's Inspector General for his efforts to politicize the Department. | -------------------------------------------------- Minnesota State Officials Knew of Bridge Failure By Steve @ 8:00 am -- CST (8-21-07) Internal MnDOT documents reviewed by the Star Tribune reveal that last year bridge officials talked openly about the possibility of the bridge collapsing - and worried that it might have to be condemned. Plans to reinforce the bridge were well underway when the project came to a screeching halt in January amid concerns about safety and cost. | -------------------------------------------------- Bush & Rove Are Linked to Mine Safety Problems By Steve @ 7:50 am -- CST (8-21-07) Rove's unprecedented use of federal assets for political gain, laid out in the Washington Post, meant that every tool at his disposal was employed to help foster his goal of a permanent Republican majority. "It was all politics the time Rep. Henry Waxman told the Washington Post. But Rove's plan involved much more than having Cabinet officials make election year visits bearing federal goodies to the districts of embattled Republicans; it also meant using the government's regulatory mechanisms to reward major GOP contributors. Major contributors such as Big Coal. Coal mining interests have donated more than $12 million to federal candidates since the Bush-era began with the 2000 election cycle, with 88% of that money -- $10.6 million -- going to Republicans. | -------------------------------------------------- Padilla Jury Opens Pandora's Box By Steve @ 10:20 am -- CST (8-20-07) Jose Padilla's conviction on terrorism charges on August 16 was a victory, not for justice, but for the US Justice Department's theory that a US citizen can be convicted, not because he committed a terrorist act but for allegedly harboring aspirations to commit such an act. By agreeing with the Justice Department's theory, the incompetent Padilla Jury delivered a deadly blow to the rule of law and opened Pandora's Box. The jury, of course, had no idea of what was at stake. It was a patriotic jury that appeared in court with one row of jurors dressed in red, one in white, and one in blue. It was a jury primed to be psychologically and emotionally manipulated by federal prosecutors desperate for a conviction for which there was little, if any, supporting evidence. For the jury, patriotism required that they strike a blow for America against terrorism. No member of this jury was going to return home to accusations of letting off a person who has been portrayed as a terrorist in the US media for five years. | -------------------------------------------------- Rove Used Taxpayer Money for GOP Gains By Steve @ 10:00 am -- CST (8-20-07) According to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Post, enlisting political appointees at every level of government in a permanent campaign was an integral part of the Rove strategy to establish Republican electoral dominance. Under Rove's direction, this highly coordinated effort to leverage the government for political marketing started as soon as Bush took office in 2001 and continued through last year's congressional elections, when it played out in its most quintessential form in the coastal Connecticut district of Rep. Christopher Shays, an endangered Republican incumbent. Seven times, senior administration officials visited Shays's district in the six months before the election -- once for an announcement as minor as a single $23 government weather alert radio presented to an elementary school. On Election Day, Shays was the only Republican House member in New England to survive the Democratic victory. | -------------------------------------------------- U.S. Media Study: Iraq War Reporting Drops Again By Steve @ 9:50 am -- CST (8-20-07) U.S. media reporting of the war in Iraq fell sharply in the second quarter of 2007, largely due to a drop in coverage of the Washington-based policy debate, a study released Monday said. Taken together, the war's three major story lines -- the U.S. policy debate, events in Iraq and their impact on the U.S. homefront -- slipped roughly a third, to 15 percent of an index of total news coverage, down from 22 percent in the first three months of the year. | -------------------------------------------------- Congress Calls For Hearings in Mine Deaths By Steve @ 9:40 am -- CST (8-20-07) Thursday night, three rescue workers died while trying to rescue six men trapped in the Crandall Canyon mine since a massive cave-in on Aug. 6. This second cave-in injured six other rescue workers. Many experts are now questioning why the Mine Safety and Health Administration allowed anyone, including rescuers, into the still-dangerous mine. At the center of this tragic recovery process is the head of MSHA, Richard Stickler. In 2006, President Bush recess-appointed Stickler, a former Murray Energy executive, whom the Senate had twice rejected because the mines he managed incurred injury rates double the national average. Stickler has also stated that he believes no new laws or regulations are needed for mine safety. Despite the Bush administration's promises to improve mine safety after the Sago mine disaster in Jan. 2006, 40 miners were killed on the job last year, more than any year since 2001. Many of the reforms passed after Sago will not go into effect until 2009. | -------------------------------------------------- Rove Caught Lying About Plame Leak By Steve @ 6:00 pm -- CST (8-19-07) During his tour of the Sunday shows this morning, Karl Rove attempted to downplay and dismiss his role in the CIA leak scandal, telling Fox News Chris Wallace that he acted benignly in his conversations with reporters about Valerie Plame's identity: What I did say to one reporter was, I've heard that, too. And what I said to another reporter, off the record, was, in essence, I don't think you ought to be writing about this.Appearing on Meet The Press today, Matthew Cooper, one of the reporters to whom Rove spoke about Plame, said Rove's version of the story was hard to believe. "To imply that he didn't know about Plame's identity, or that he heard it in some rumor out in the hallways, is nonsense. Cooper also contradicted Rove's characterization of their conversation, describing the essence of it as much more than just an attempt to wave him off the story: Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame's identity on July 11, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson [Plame's husband] was in the news that week. I didn't know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD.| -------------------------------------------------- Fed Attempts to Bail Out Bankrupt Wall Street Speculators By Steve @ 9:00 am -- CST (8-19-07) It would appear that the point of Contraction has been reached in the first months of 2007, and that the real or physically productive economy has been in marked decline for some time. This is also the opinion of Richard C. Cook. It is hopeless to rely on the cooked figures of the Bush administration, the most notorious liars of the age. Private associations may well be more accurate. One obvious data series for measuring real economic activity is freight car loadings and trucking ton-miles, which few hedge fund operators have ever heard of. But these real-world physical units are a useful way of estimating overall levels of real economic activity. According to the American Trucking Associations, the truckload industry started 2007 poorly as seasonally adjusted volumes plummeted 5.0 percent from December. | -------------------------------------------------- Patriot Act Used to Search For Evidence in Cockfighting Case By Steve @ 8:40 am -- CST (8-19-07) Just after midnight on May 13, 2004, a small team of FBI agents crept into the legendary Del Rio Cockfighting Pit in Cocke County. The illegal gambling arena was closed, and agents were able to copy a computer hard drive before slipping away. They didn't notify the property?s then-owner, Michael Maynard of Hot Springs, N.C., of the search for another three months. Acting under the authority of the Patriot Act, the agents had obtained a search warrant that allowed them to clandestinely enter the property, search for evidence and not tell anyone about it until the government or a judge was ready to let the owners know they'd been there. | -------------------------------------------------- The Utah Mine Disaster: Don't Call It an Accident By Steve @ 7:50 am -- CST (8-18-07) Three lives are lost and counting in the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah. The flamboyant, camera-hogging mine owner, Bob Murray, has called this a "once in a lifetime" accident, like a car crushed by a boulder suddenly dislodged. These horrors happen. Yes, but when we add one plus one plus one, we don't call three an accident. We call it a product, a sum, the result. And the Utah disaster wasn't random; it is the product of conditions just waiting to be added up. Murray, the owner of the Utah mine, is infamous for routinely opposing safety regulations. "Anything that will cost Bob Murray any extra money, he will find reason to find fault with it," said Phil Smith, communications director of the United Mine Workers, which doesn't represent the workers in Utah. | -------------------------------------------------- FISA Court Tells Bush to Release Secret NSA Wiretap Court Orders By Steve @ 7:20 am -- CST (8-18-07) In an unprecedented order, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has required the U.S. government to respond to a request it received last week by the American Civil Liberties Union for orders and legal papers discussing the scope of the government's authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans. According to the FISC's order, the ACLU's request "warrants further briefing," and the government must respond to it by August 31. These court orders relate to the circumstances in which the government should be permitted to use its surveillance powers to intercept the communications of U.S. citizens and residents," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU's National Security Project. | -------------------------------------------------- Feds Pay $80,000 Over Anti-Bush T-Shirts By Steve @ 7:00 am -- CST (8-18-07) A couple arrested at a rally after refusing to cover T-shirts that bore anti-President Bush slogans settled their lawsuit against the federal government for $80,000. Nicole and Jeffery Rank of Corpus Christi, Texas, were handcuffed and removed from the July 4, 2004, rally at the state Capitol, where Bush gave a speech. A judge dismissed trespassing charges against them, and an order closing the case was filed Thursday. "This settlement is a real victory not only for our clients but for the First Amendment," said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia. | -------------------------------------------------- Navy Tells Vet to Pay For His Own Purpule Heart Medal By Steve @ 6:40 am -- CST (8-18-07) Last week, Korean War veteran Nyles Reed, 75, learned he had earned a Purple Heart for "injuries he sustained as a Marine on June 22, 1952." But instead of a medal, he received a form that said the Purple Heart was out of stock, and he could either wait 90 days and resubmit an application, or buy his own medal. I can imagine, of course, with what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, there's a big shortage, Reed said. | -------------------------------------------------- Bush Wars Cause Police Department Bullet Shortages By Steve @ 6:30 am -- CST (8-18-07) Troops training for and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are firing more than 1 billion bullets a year, contributing to ammunition shortages hitting police departments nationwide and preventing some officers from training with the weapons they carry on patrol. The shortages are also resulting in prices as much as double what departments were paying just a year ago. | -------------------------------------------------- Mueller's Notes Detail White House Attempt To Take Advantage Of Sick Ashcroft By Steve @ 9:30 am -- CST (8-17-07) In a July hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Robert Mueller revealed that he took notes of the infamous White House visit to Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room because the events were so out of the ordinary. Chairman John Conyers wrote to Mueller after the hearing to request access to his notes. Today, Conyers office put out a statement explaining that the Judiciary Committee has taken a look at Mueller's notes, which were heavily-redacted. Mueller's notes indicate Ashcroft was feeble, barely articulate, and clearly stressed. Moreover, the notes indicate Ashcroft was in no condition to see visitors, much less decide whether to authorize the program. | -------------------------------------------------- FBI, CIA And FOX News employees Were Caught Editing Wikipedia Entries By Steve @ 9:10 am -- CST (8-17-07) People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program. Fox News employees have been editing Wikipedia entries of people like Keith Olbermann and Al Franken. And now that they've been caught, Fox News is turning its guns on Wikipedia. Keith Olbermann noted that FOX News reported the story of the FBI and the CIA editing wikipedia entries, but they did not report that FOX News employees were also caught, fair and balanced? | -------------------------------------------------- Pentagon Paid $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers By Steve @ 9:00 am -- CST (8-17-07) The Pentagon paid a small South Carolina parts supplier about $20.5 million over six years for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas. The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq. | -------------------------------------------------- Leading Home Mortgage Loan Company On The Verge Of Bankruptcy Still Running Ads By Steve @ 8:50 am -- CST (8-17-07) Countrywide Financial, the nation's leading mortgage lender, is suffering a liquidity crunch as a result of doling out risky subprime loans in the past few years. The company announced today that it will borrow $11.5 billion in order to keep making home loans. The announcement sent its stock tumbling about 11 percent and prompted one credit rating agency to downgrade its rating to near-junk bond status. Countrywide made one out of every six home loans in the U.S. in the first half of this year. If the company were to declare bankruptcy, it would be a huge shock to the U.S. housing system and the mortgage system as perceived around the world. | -------------------------------------------------- Were Other Attorneys Targeted for Dismissal By Steve @ 8:40 am -- CST (8-16-07) The Justice Department refuses to answer a simple question: Were more top federal prosecutors targeted for dismissal beyond the nine that have been publicly identified? The Blotter reports a new letter from the DoJ dances around the issue, saying only that the answer was contained in information shared earlier. At a July hearing, Gonzales admitted, "There may have been others" besides the nine already identified. If you recall, all the U.S. attorneys were ranked based on their loyalty to Bush and Gonzales. | -------------------------------------------------- Right-Wing Pundits Admit Bush Has No Agenda By Steve @ 8:30 am -- CST (8-16-07) With the departure of Karl Rove, the media is speculating as to how that will affect Bush's domestic agenda. White House deputy chief of staff Joel Kaplan argued that Bush will pursue an "ambitious agenda" despite Rove's departure. Similarly, spokeswoman Dana Perino claimed, "We have a lot of things that we can get done." In reality, Bush's domestic agenda has largely shrunk to veto threats of bills passed by the Democratic-led Congress. Even the White House's faithful conservative allies aren't buying the spin. Last night on Fox, right-wing pundits Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes disputed the White House's contention that it has an agenda: KRAUTHAMMER: When Kaplan talks about an ambitious agenda, he is really taking one for the team. That is absurd, there is no agenda.| -------------------------------------------------- Lost Weapons Now in Hands of Middle East Extremists By Steve @ 8:20 am -- CST (8-16-07) At least three U.S. government agencies are now investigating the massive disappearance and diversion of weapons the Bush administration intended for Iraqi government forces that instead have spread to militants and organized gangs across the region. Thousands of arms have flowed into Turkey through the black market. A report by the GAO last month showed that 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols have gone missing in Iraq. | -------------------------------------------------- Army Suicide Rate Highest in 26 Years By Steve @ 8:10 am -- CST (8-16-07) Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report obtained by the Associated Press. There were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest number since the 102 suicides in 1991 at the time of the Persian Gulf War. | -------------------------------------------------- Memo Shows Mine Already Had Roof Problems in March By Steve @ 3:40 pm -- CST (8-15-07) Operators at the Crandall Canyon mine experienced serious structural problems in the mine in March and entirely abandoned work in an area about 900 feet from where six miners remained trapped. A memo obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune shows that mine owners were trying to work around "poor roof conditions" before halting mining of the northern tunnels in early March after a "large bump occurred.....resulting in heavy damage" in those tunnels. The memo indicates that mine operators knew the tremendous pressures of a mountain bearing down on the mine were creating problems with the roof, and they were searching for a way to safely keep the mine from falling in as they cut away the coal pillars supporting the structure. The memo and mine map both indicate that, along the northern tunnels, there undoubtedly was retreat mining. Murray had initially denied there had been retreat mining done, but MSHA officials said that technique was used in the mine. | -------------------------------------------------- Mine Safety Czar Richard Stickler: Another Bush Fox Guarding the Henhouse By Steve @ 3:20 pm -- CST (8-15-07) The man who will oversee the federal government's investigation into the disaster that has trapped six workers in a Utah coal mine for over a week was twice rejected for his current job by senators concerned about his own safety record when he managed mines in the private sector. President George W. Bush resorted to a recess appointment in October 2006 to anoint Richard Stickler as the nation's mine safety czar after it became clear he could not receive enough support even in a GOP-controlled Senate. | -------------------------------------------------- The Reviews Are In: Major Papers Cast Rove's Record As a Failure By Steve @ 10:20 am -- CST (8-15-07) In the wake of Karl Rove's resignation yesterday, television talking heads were quick to heap praise on the political strategist, lauding him as a "superstar," "the mastermind," and "Boy Genius." But this morning, major print outlets exhibited a more careful analysis of Rove's record of false predictions, scandal, and his failed attempts to engineer a "permanent Republican majority." In both analysis and editorial pieces today, major papers slammed Rove's legacy. | -------------------------------------------------- Hanson: Iran is a Paper Tiger That Must be Bombed By Steve @ 10:10 am -- CST (8-15-07) On the Hugh Hewitt show this week, prominent neoconservative Victor Davis Hanson called for an end to diplomacy with Iran, advocating military strikes against the paper tiger: HH: Ought we to be talking to Iran right now, Victor Davis Hanson?| -------------------------------------------------- Suicide Bombers Kill 400 in Iraq By Steve @ 10:00 am -- CST (8-15-07) In one of the worst single incidents in four years of war in Iraq, three suicide bombers driving fuel tankers attacked a town in northern Iraq, killing at least 400 people while injuring hundreds more. | -------------------------------------------------- Petraeus Report Will Be Written By The White House By Steve @ 9:50 am -- CST (8-15-07) The LA Times is reporting that Gen. David Petraeus upcoming Sept. 15 report on Iraq will be authored by the White House. Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government. In other words, the Sept. 15 report promises to be much like the July mid-term report which purported to show satisfactory performance on 8 of the 18 benchmarks. A closer look into those claims revealed that the progress was purely White House spin. | -------------------------------------------------- Justice Breyer Sees Assault on Reason By Steve @ 10:10 am -- CST (8-14-07) The Supreme Court's most recent term was a difficult one, Justice Stephen Breyer said Saturday, because he found himself on the losing end of several key cases. After the 9/11, attacks, Breyer said: "I began to see that the true division of importance in the world is not between different countries. The important division is between those who are committed to reason, to working out things, to understanding other people, to peaceful resolution of their differences...and those who don't think that." | -------------------------------------------------- Conyers: Rove Still Needs to Come Clean By Steve @ 10:00 am -- CST (8-14-07) House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) released a statement, saying that Rove's departure does not put an end to the investigation into the attorney firings scandal: The need for Karl Rove to explain his role in the firing of the U.S. Attorneys does not diminish when he leaves the White House. Our investigation to date has revealed the White House's contempt for the rule of law and its interest in the politicization of the Department of Justice.| -------------------------------------------------- Media Gushes Over Rove: Calls Him Superstar And Boy Genius By Steve @ 9:50 am -- CST (8-14-07) As soon as Karl Rove's departure from the White House was announced, there was no shortage of talking heads to appear on TV to lavish praise on him. While Rove is undoubtedly a skilled campaign tactician, the hyperbolic image of him as a political genius overlooks his record of bungled political predictions, a series of policy failures and the damage he has wrought on America's political system. Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan argues, "Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency." Washington Post's Dan Froomkin adds, "After years of being lauded as a political genius, Rove nevertheless leaves his party in worse shape than he found it, with his boss profoundly discredited in the eyes of the American people." | -------------------------------------------------- Katrina Aid Going to Inland Luxury Condos By Steve @ 9:40 am -- CST (8-14-07) AP reports that federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos. The Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 granted generous tax benefits available to investors. Now, investors are renting out luxury condos in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which got only heavy rain and scattered wind damage from Katrina. It was supposed to be about getting people...to put housing in New Orleans, Louisiana, or Biloxi, Mississippi. It was not about condos in Tuscaloosa, said a developer. | -------------------------------------------------- Secrecy May Protect Wiretapping From Lawsuits By Steve @ 9:30 am -- CST (8-14-07) The Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program has a built-in feature the Justice Department believes may shield it from ever being challenged as unconstitutional: secrecy. The administration has acknowledged it intercepted some U.S. telephone conversations without warrants as it hunted for terrorists. Whose calls? The government isn't saying. And since only those who were spied on have grounds to sue, it's almost impossible to mount a successful legal challenge. Tomorrow, a three-judge panel will hear arguments on whether a legal battle relating to Bush's NSA spy program "can go forward." The outcome could determine whether the courts will ever rule on the legality of surveillance conducted by the NSA without judicial oversight between 2001 and January 2007. | -------------------------------------------------- Corruption Alert: FBI Investigating GOP Senator And His Son By Steve @ 9:30 am -- CST (8-13-07) Both Ted Stevens and Ben Stevens are under investigation by the Justice Department over their ties to an Alaska businessman who has confessed to bribing public officials. The Alaska home of Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, was raided last week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His son's offices in the Alaska Legislature - he was a state senator until this year - were raided last summer. In court papers in which he admitted to bribery, the Alaska businessman, Bill J. Allen, acknowledged making $243,000 in possibly illegal payments to a state lawmaker identified only as "Senator B." Although he denies wrongdoing, Ben Stevens, who has acknowledged receiving about $243,000 in consulting fees from Mr. Allen's oil-services firm, has not disputed that he is "Senator B." | -------------------------------------------------- Texas to Execute Man For Murder he Did Not Commit By Steve @ 8:30 am -- CST (8-13-07) In less than three weeks Kenneth Foster, an African American man sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of Michael LaHood, is scheduled to be executed in Texas. LaHood's actual killer, Mauriceo Brown, was executed in 2006. Foster, who was in a car about 100 yards from the crime when it was committed, was convicted under the controversial Texas state "law of parties", under which the distinction between principal actor and accomplice in a crime is abolished. The law can impose the death penalty on anybody involved in a crime where a murder occurred. In Foster's case he was driving a car with three passengers, one of whom, Brown, left the car, got into an altercation and shot LaHood dead. Texas is the only state that applies this statute in capital cases, making it the only place in the United States where a person can be innocent of murder and still face the death penalty. | -------------------------------------------------- Video Surfaces of Cheney Warning That Invasion of Iraq Would Lead to Quagmire By Steve @ 8:10 am -- CST (8-13-07) Someone posted a video on YouTube that shows Dick Cheney explaining that trying to take over Iraq would be a "bad idea" and lead to a "quagmire." The on-screen source appears to be the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and the date on the screen is April 15, 1994. Posted on Friday, it had received over 100,000 hits by yesterday morning, after being widely-linked around the Web. | -------------------------------------------------- Court Twice Said Bush Wiretapping Program Was Illegal By Steve @ 7:50 am -- CST (8-13-07) Last week, Congress caved to White House pressure, passing an expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that moved the administration's warrantless wiretapping program "out from under any real legal restrictions." Before the vote, House Minority Leader John Boehner revealed a secret opinion by the FISA court that declared part of the administration's program illegal was central to rush to reform the law. The Washington Post adds more details about the fight over the law, including the revelation that there were actually two court rulings against the program. | -------------------------------------------------- Karl Rove is Resigning By Steve @ 7:40 am -- CST (8-13-07) The Wall Street Journal reports that Bush's deputy chief of staff and senior adviser Karl Rove will be resigning at the end of the month and will return to Texas. Bush is expected to make a statement Monday with Rove around 11:35 am ET. | -------------------------------------------------- Ex-DOJ Employees Fight Back Against Bush Administration By Steve @ 10:30 am -- CST (8-12-07) After months of scandal, firings and some testimony from Gonzales that many on Capitol Hill found wholly unsatisfying, these ex-Justice Department employees are taking a rare step and fighting back. Former employees of the Civil Rights Division are channeling their workplace rage into lobbying force. The government lawyers say they were ignored, disrespected and kicked out by Bush appointees. The attorneys describe an increasingly partisan workplace, where political appointees intimidated career lawyers and undermined civil rights to push political agendas. | -------------------------------------------------- Army to Expand Recruiting Incentives By Steve @ 9:40 am -- CST (8-12-07) Need a down-payment for your home, Seed money to start a business, The Army wants to help, if you are willing to sign up. Despite spending nearly $1 billion last year on recruiting bonuses, Army leaders say an even bolder approach is needed to fill wartime ranks. | -------------------------------------------------- Subprime or Subcrime? Time To Investigate and Prosecute By Steve @ 9:30 am -- CST (8-12-07) There comes a time when the frame of a news story changes. It happened in Iraq when the "war for Iraqi freedom" became seen as a bloody occupation, not a beneficent liberation. It is happening as the war on terror is increasingly perceived a war of error and when voting problems are reframed as electoral fraud. And it will happen in the economic arena too, when we see the "subprime" credit crunch for what it is: a sub-crime ponzi scheme in which millions of people are losing their homes because of criminal and fraudulent tactics used by financial institutions that pose as respectable players in a highly rigged casino-like market system. Suddenly, after years of denial and inattention, the press has discovered what they call "the credit crisis." Vague words like woes are still being used to mask a financial calamity that some analysts are already calling an apocalpyse as lenders go under and the Stock Market melts down. | -------------------------------------------------- Romney Campaign Official Quits After Indictment By Steve @ 9:00 am -- CST (8-12-07) Alan B. Fabian, 43, a Maryland businessman who was the co-chairman of the campaign's national finance committee, resigned this week, said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom. Federal prosecutors have charged Fabian with defrauding companies out of $32 million. He was indicted Wednesday by a Maryland grand jury on 23 counts, including mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice. Fabian faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for each of the nine counts of mail fraud, 10 years in prison for each of the nine counts of money laundering and one count of obstruction of justice, and five years in prison for each of the two counts of bankruptcy fraud and two counts of perjury. | -------------------------------------------------- Gitmo Lawyers File Constitutional Challenge Of Recently-Passed FISA Bill By Steve @ 11:00 am -- CST (8-11-07) Yesterday, lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees asked a federal judge in San Francisco to invalidate the recently-passed FISA law that lets the Bush administration conduct warrantless surveillance on suspected terrorists without first getting court-approved warrants. We are asking your honor, as swiftly as possible, to declare this statute unconstitutional, said Michael Avery, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Neither Congress nor the president has the power to repeal the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirements, Avery said.| -------------------------------------------------- Senate Unanimously Passes OPEN Government Act By Steve @ 10:50 am -- CST (8-11-07) After overcoming a hold placed by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), the Senate unanimously passed the OPEN Government Act last week, which would expedite government agency responsiveness to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. As the first major reform to FOIA in more than a decade, the OPEN Government Act will help to reverse the troubling trends of excessive delays and lax FOIA compliance in our government and help to restore the public?s trust in their government. The report notes that the DOJ is "consistently granted the lowest percentage of [FOIA] appeals of any agency - only 4% in 2006." The DOJ's rate of grant-making is down 70% than that of President Clinton. | -------------------------------------------------- ABA Criticizes Bush's Illegal Torture Policies By Steve @ 10:40 am -- CST (8-11-07) Two American Bar Association committees say that President Bush's recent order on CIA interrogations of terror suspects should be overturned as it still permits harsh treatment in violation of international treaties. The CIA should follow the same rigorous standards adopted by the military that are intended, in part, to ensure that captured U.S. soldiers are extended the same protections, according to an ABA resolution expected to be adopted next week. | -------------------------------------------------- Schakowsky On Iraq Visit: Surge Is A Failure By Steve @ 10:30 am -- CST (8-11-07) Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) just returned from a visit to Iraq, a trip that she called a "PR tour" chaperoned by U.S. Embassy officials. Schakowsky said plainly, "I believe overall the surge is a failure." A member of the House Intelligence Committee, Schakowsky was one of six House members to visit Iraq. Her contingent spoke with Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. She said Petraeus told her the U.S. would be in Iraq for 9-10 years if we want to win, a comment he has made repeatedly. During one of the days she was in Iraq, Schakowsky said four soldiers were killed in the Diyala province, a British soldier was killed in Baghdad, 33 Iraqis were killed in Tal Afar in a residential neighborhood by a truck bomb, six street cleaners were killed by an IED in Baghdad, two people were killed on a minibus, and 17 bodies were found killed by death squads. | -------------------------------------------------- 9/11 Workers Outraged by New Rudy Claim By Steve @ 6:30 pm -- CST (8-10-07) Rudy Giuliani drew outrage and indignation from Sept. 11 first-responders yesterday by saying he spent as much time - or more - exposed to the site's dangers as workers who dug through the debris for the missing and the dead. His statement rang false to Queens paramedic Marvin Bethea, who said he suffered a stroke, posttraumatic stress disorder and breathing problems after responding to the attacks. "I personally find that very, very insulting," he said. Ironworker Jonathan Sferazo, 52, who said he spent a month at the site and is now disabled, runs a worker advocacy group with Bethea and called Giuliani's comments "severely" out of line. | -------------------------------------------------- Air Force Study Contradicts Bush Rhetoric By Steve @ 9:20 am -- CST (8-10-07) A US withdrawal from Iraq may be "impossible to resist" unless violence against civilians falls substantially, a new study funded by the Air Force warns. The US commitment to Iraq should not be open ended. If US forces cannot reduce the violence in Iraq, their continued presence and the further expenditure of US treasure and lives will prove unsustainable, even if their presence is achieving other objectives, the study said. | -------------------------------------------------- O'Hanlon/Pollack Rebuffed By Cordesman By Steve @ 9:10 am -- CST (8-10-07) In their infamous New York Times editorial, Brookings analysts Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack alleged that significant changes are taking place in President Bush's escalation, potentially ushering in a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with in the future. Center for Strategic and International Studies military analyst Anthony Cordesman, who accompanied O'Hanlon and Pollack on the trip to Iraq, recently published a report expressing a difference of opinion. In a briefing yesterday, Cordesman further elaborated on his disagreements with the Brookings analysts and asserted that there has been little real change in Iraq. | -------------------------------------------------- Cheney Wants to Attack Iran By Steve @ 9:00 am -- CST (8-10-07) McClatchy reports that behind the scenes the president's top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Foreign policy experts warn that military action against Iran would worsen violence across the Middle East. The report from a coalition of think tanks, unions and aid groups is the latest of several high-profile appeals to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis over Iran, arguing that military action could be highly dangerous and counterproductive. | -------------------------------------------------- Iraqis United in Opposition to Foreign Control Over Oil By Steve @ 8:50 am -- CST (8-10-07) Despite the ethnic bloodshed in Iraq, majorities of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are united in their disapproval of the proposed oil laws that Washington and Big Oil are pushing. A recent poll of all Iraqi ethnic and sectarian groups across the political spectrum oppose the principles enshrined in the laws. Considering the multiethnic bloodbath we've witnessed over the past four years, it's an impressive display of Iraqi solidarity, writes Joshua Holland. | -------------------------------------------------- Roadside Bomb Attacks in Iraq Reach an All-Time High By Steve @ 9:50 am -- CST (8-9-07) Roadside bomb attacks on American troops in Iraq reached an all-time high last month, accounting for more than one third of all combat deaths. The increase in the number of casualties caused by the explosive devices comes at the height of the surge of US forces which, the Pentagon claims, is broadly a success. | -------------------------------------------------- Media Outlets Went Nuts Over O'Hanlon But Ignore Cordesman By Steve @ 9:40 am -- CST (8-9-07) Here is a list of the big news orgs and network shows that lavished coverage on Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack over their now-infamous Op-ed saying that we just might win the war in Iraq. Pollack: CBS Evening News, CNN Newsroom, CNN Evening News, CNN Situation Room, MSNBC Tucker, NPR Talk of the Nation O'Hanlon: CBS Early Show, CBS Evening News, Fox News Special Report, MSNBC Hardball O'Hanlon and Pollack: Fox News Sunday National security analyst Anthony Cordesman went to Iraq with O'Hanlon and Pollack, and reached a strikingly different conclusion. Here's a list of the media outlets that have covered his statements. CNN, Agence France Press, UPI | -------------------------------------------------- AT&T Censor Anti-Bush Lyrics During Live Webcast By Steve @ 9:20 am -- CST (8-9-07) A live Internet broadcast of Pearl Jam's performance at Chicago's Lollapalooza music festival Sunday went off without a hitch -- until singer Eddie Vedder criticized President Bush. Lyrics critical of the president didn't make it past editors of the show's Webcast, the band complained Wednesday on its Web site. The performance, sponsored by AT&T Inc. and carried on AT&T's "Blue Room" site, omitted the lyrics "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush, find yourself another home" as part of a version of the song "Daughter," according to the Pearl Jam Web site. | -------------------------------------------------- Sen. Stevens Refuses To Answer Questions About Federal Investigations By Steve @ 9:10 am -- CST (8-9-07) Yesterday, Sen. Ted Stevens (R) went home to Alaska for the first time since FBI officials raided his home on July 30. The investigation centers around a remodeling of Stevens's home in 2000, thanks to the help of a top executive at local oil company Veco Corp. Two former Veco Corp. executives recently pleaded guilty to federal bribery and conspiracy charges, which includes paying $242,000 in illegitimate consulting fees to Stevens's son, Ben, formerly president of Alaska's state senate. | -------------------------------------------------- REPORT: 'The Next Few Months' On Iraq That Never End By Steve @ 9:00 am -- CST (8-9-07) The Bush administration and its supporters have pledged to Americans time and again during the past four years that the "next few months" in Iraq will be the decisive, critical period of the war. The implication has always been that U.S. forces just need to hold on a little while longer for things to get better. Using an interactive timeline tool, the Center for American Progress has catalogued the broken record of false claims we've been hearing. | -------------------------------------------------- The Fear of Fear Itself By Steve @ 8:50 am -- CST (8-8-07) It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress - now led by Democrats - caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security. There was plenty of bad behavior. Republicans marched in mindless lockstep with the president. There was double-dealing by the White House. The director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, crossed the line from being a steward of this nation’s security to acting as a White House political operative. But mostly, the spectacle left us wondering what the Democrats - especially their feckless Senate leaders - plan to do with their majority in Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control president. | -------------------------------------------------- 2,000 Iraqis Flee Homes Every Day to Escape Death's Shadow By Steve @ 8:40 am -- CST (8-8-07) TWO thousand Iraqis are fleeing their homes every day. It is the greatest mass exodus of people ever in the Middle East and dwarfs anything seen in Europe since World War I. Four million people, one in seven Iraqis, have run away, because if they do not, they will be killed. Two million people have left Iraq, mainly for Syria and Jordan, and the same number have fled within the country. The numbers are far greater than anything seen in Kosovo in the late 1990s, or Darfur at present. The US and Britain may not want to dwell on the disasters that have befallen Iraq during their occupation but the shanty towns crammed with refugees springing up in Iraq and neighbouring countries are becoming impossible to ignore. | -------------------------------------------------- Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11 By Steve @ 8:20 am -- CST (8-8-07) Nearly six years after 9/11, Rudy Giuliani is still walking through the canyons of lower Manhattan, covered in soot, pointing north, and leading the nation out of danger's way. The Republican frontrunner is campaigning for president by evoking that visual at every campaign stop, and he apparently believes it's a picture worth thousands of nights in the White House. Here, then, is a less deferential look at the illusory cloud emanating from the former mayor's campaign. | -------------------------------------------------- Conservatism Is Politics For Kindergartners By Steve @ 9:00 am -- CST (8-7-07) Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to worry our little heads over politics? Wouldn't it be lovely if we could just turn over control of all those vexing issues, including our health, welfare and very survival, to some nice men in Washington who would take care of all it for us, occasionally interrupting our somnambulance with this week's latest thing - Communists! Terrorists! Lindsay Lohan! - to distract our attention? Unfortunately, for far too many of us, this is actually precisely what is desired. And don't think Karl Rove doesn't know it. | -------------------------------------------------- The Deepening Criminal Cover-Up of Ohio's Stolen 2004 Election By Steve @ 8:40 am -- CST (8-7-07) The illegal destruction of federally protected 2004 election materials by 56 of 88 Ohio counties has become a fraudulent "dog ate my homework" farce of absurd justifications and criminal coverups. The mass elimination of the critical evidence that could definitively prove or disprove the presumption that the 2004 election was stolen has all the markings of a Rovian crime perpetrated to hide another one. Indeed, under Ohio law, that's precisely what must be presumed here. | -------------------------------------------------- Minneapolis Bridge Collapse Reveals Nation's Skewed Priorities By Steve @ 8:40 am -- CST (8-7-07) The bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a human tragedy and an engineering calamity. But it shouldn't surprise anybody. It is a case study of what happens when a nation gets its priorities wrong. Over the past six years, the US has spent trillions of dollars funneling tax breaks to the rich, paying interest on the national debt, and invading other nations in wars of choice. Meanwhile, we have neglected the physical platform - the roads, bridges, dams, rail systems, etc. on which the entire economy operates. If we continue this way, the larger collapse will be of the economy itself. As with the Minneapolis bridge, it will not be a matter whether, but of when. | -------------------------------------------------- New York Police Must Turn Over Surveillance Reports By Steve @ 8:10 am -- CST (8-7-07) The New York Police Department must release undercover police reports on protester activity planned for the 2004 Republican National Convention, a federal judge ruled on Monday. The ruling came in response to two lawsuits filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union for protesters. The police department argued the arrests were justified due to information gleaned from a surveillance operation by undercover officers who attended protester meetings before the convention, but have not released the details. My question is: why is the New York Police Department wasting taxpayer money putting undercover officers in a group of peacuful protesters, when the protest is protected by the 1st amendment of the constitution, nobody seems to have an answer to that question. | -------------------------------------------------- CREW Calls For Leak Investigation Into Boehner By Steve @ 8:00 am -- CST (8-7-07) Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) appeared on Fox News and disclosed a secret court ruling about the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. Yesterday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Department of Justice asking that the Counterespionage Section of the National Security Division initiate an investigation into whether Boehner violated the law by leaking classified information. | -------------------------------------------------- Paul Krugman: The Substance Thing By Steve @ 1:10 pm -- CST (8-6-07) In the fifth year of the disastrous war Mr. Bush started on false pretenses, it's clear who was right. What a candidate says about policy, not the supposedly revealing personal anecdotes political reporters love to dwell on, is the best way to judge his or her character. So what are the current presidential candidates saying about policy, and what does it tell us about them? Well, none of the leading Republican candidates have said anything substantive about policy..., you'll see a lot of posturing, especially about how tough they are on terrorists - but nothing at all about what they actually plan to do. In fact, I suspect that the real reason most of the Republicans are ducking a YouTube debate is that they're afraid they would be asked questions about policy, rather than being invited to compare themselves to Ronald Reagan. | -------------------------------------------------- Neoconservatives Aiding & Advising 2008 Republicans By Steve @ 10:00 am -- CST (8-6-07) Before you vote for another Republican, remember that every single Republican running for President supports George W. Bush on Iraq, and thinks we should keep the troops there, except for one, Ron Paul, and he has no chance of winning the Republican primary. Most Americans (71%) disapprove of the Iraq war and of exporting democracy by force, yet neoconservative proponents of those policies advise the leading Republican presidential hopefuls. Advisers to Sen. McCain include Robert Kagan, co-founder of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC), while Giuliani's policy team includes Norman Podhoretz, a founder of the neoconservative movement, and Mitt Romney gets advice from Dan Senor, who counseled L. Paul Bremer III, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator in Iraq. | -------------------------------------------------- Evicence DOJ Used Prosecutions to Help Republicans Win Elections By Steve @ 9:50 am -- CST (8-6-07) One part of the Justice Department mess that requires more scrutiny is the growing evidence that the department may have singled out people for criminal prosecution to help Republicans win elections. The House Judiciary Committee has begun investigating several cases that raise serious questions. The panel should determine what role politics played in all of them. In the United States, prosecutions are supposed to be scrupulously nonpartisan. This principle appears to have broken down in Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department - where lawyers were improperly hired for nonpolitical jobs based on party membership, and United States attorneys were apparently fired for political reasons. | -------------------------------------------------- Weapons Given to Iraqi Security Forces Are Missing By Steve @ 9:40 am -- CST (8-6-07) The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. The GAO reported that the weapons distribution was "haphazard and rushed" and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David Petraeus. | -------------------------------------------------- Death Tolls in Iraq Questionable By Steve @ 2:10 pm -- CST (8-5-07) Throngs of Iraqis were busily shopping for the weekend when a truck bomb and barrage of rockets ripped apart the market in central Karrada. Iraqiya television and most Western media outlets reported that 25 were killed and 100 wounded in the July 26 attack, of which virtually no images were shown. But less than a week later, the names of 92 dead and 127 wounded were posted on a list taped to a shuttered storefront. It was compiled by municipal and civil defense crews that led the actual rescue efforts. The disparity in official numbers and the ones posted in the market, and apparent differences between government figures and eyewitness accounts after other recent bombings, leaves many Iraqis feeling that the government is intentionally downplaying or trying to cover up the numbers of dead. | -------------------------------------------------- Court Rules FBI Violated Constitution in Jefferson Raid By Steve @ 1:50 pm -- CST (8-5-07) The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The review of the Congressman's paper files when the search was executed exposed legislative material to the Executive, and violated the Constitution, the court wrote. "The Congressman is entitled to the return of documents that the court determines to be privileged." | -------------------------------------------------- Documents Show Army Knew of Exam Cheating By Steve @ 1:40 pm -- CST (8-5-07) The Army was warned at least six years ago that its online testing program was vulnerable to cheating, and has known for nearly a year that soldiers are obtaining copies of exams and answers on the Internet to fraudulently obtain promotion points, according to military documents. The documents show that beginning in September 2006, the Army's own computer technicians began monitoring soldiers usage of shamschool.com, the unauthorized website that is at the center of an investigation into whether thousands of soldiers are cheating on the Army Correspondence Course Program, known as ACCP. less than a week after ordering Chrysler to remove the material from his website, copies of the tests and answer keys have appeared on at least three other websites. In direct protest of the order, another soldier set up a message forum on Google to post the data. The soldier, Sergeant Micah Smith, who is based at Fort Benning, Ga., called the new site ShamSchoolx2. | -------------------------------------------------- California Restricts Voting Machines By Steve @ 7:40 am -- CST (8-5-07) California's secretary of state placed rigorous security conditions on voting equipment used in dozens of counties and limited the use of two of the most widely used machines statewide. Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced the measures minutes before midnight Friday night -- making good on a promise to tell counties if their voting equipment would be decertified at least six months before California's Feb. 5 presidential primary. University of California computer experts found that voting machines sold by three companies -- Diebold Election Systems, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems -- were vulnerable to hackers and that voting results could be altered. | -------------------------------------------------- Giuliani's Former Anti-Terrorism Chief Voices Criticism By Steve @ 7:20 am -- CST (8-5-07) Rudy Guiliani's former emergency management director, Jerome Hauer, blamed the former mayor for locating the city's crisis control room in the World Trade Center complex, even though it was a known terrorist target after the 1993 truck bomb attack which killed six people. Hauer said Giuliani rejected a facility in Brooklyn because the mayor wanted the site to be within walking distance from City Hall. | -------------------------------------------------- Bush Admin. Funding Sunni Insurgents in Iraq By Steve @ 11:40 am -- CST (8-4-07) U.S. commanders are offering large sums to enlist, at breakneck pace, their former enemies, handing them broad security powers in a risky effort to tame this fractious area south of Baghdad in Babil province and, literally, buy time for national recon |
