On March 1, 2007, Rep. Henry A. Waxman along with Reps. Platts, Clay, and Burton introduced H.R. 1255, the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007, to nullify a 2001 presidential executive order and restore public access to presidential records.Overturning the Bush Executive Order. Under the Presidential Records Act, presidential records are supposed to be released to historians and the public 12 years after the end of a presidential administration. In November 2001, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13233 which overturned an executive order issued by President Reagan and gave current and former presidents and vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely. The Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007 would nullify the Bush executive order and establish procedures to ensure the timely release of presidential records.
March 3: total eclipse of the Moon. This eclipse will be visible only in eastern North America, so the times here are in Eastern Standard Time only. The Moon will enter the penumbra at 3:16 p.m. EST and will leave the penumbra at 9:25 p.m. EST.
"Son, in politics you've got to learn that overnight chicken shit can turn to chicken salad." --Lyndon B. Johnson
Everyone is here... Michelle Malkin. Ann Coulter. Newt Gingrich. Duncan Hunter. Mitt Romney. Jeff Gannon. Sam Brownback. Melanie Morgan. John O'Neill... Oh so many heroes of the right...
And let me tell you - they've really turned out impressive support. At a time when the conservative agenda polls in the thirties, one gets the impression that they are all here.
Something else these folks have done well is turn out the new generation of wingnuts. The average age of the attendee here has got to be below 30 - there are literally thousands of College Republicans moving about in Brownian style from exhibit to exhibit, conference to conference, speaker to speaker, ballroom to ballroom.
Exhibit hall is stuffed to the gills. Freedom Alliance. Blogger's row. Heritage Foundation. American Spectator. Clare Booth Luce Foundation... the Koch group... Regent University. Several candidates have booths. Oddly enough, even the ACLU has a booth (even if they are placed in the back corner furthest from Exhibit Hall's entrance).
Oh... but there's one notable - striking, even - absence.
There are no military recruiters here. No United States Marine Corps. No Army, no Navy, no Air Force or National Guard - hell, not even the Coast Guard is here. Thousands and thousands of College Republicans, but not a single recruiter in sight...
Why?
Well, I have a theory or two (Michelle Malkin doesn't agree with me, but more on that later).
Let's try this: CPAC didn't want to be embarrassed when pictures were released that showed recruiters standing around looking lonely. Similarly, recruiters know it's a better investment of their time to troll "the other malls" rather than to recruit these nice white college boys.
A House Judiciary subcommittee approved today the first in what is expected to be an avalanche of subpoenas to Bush administration officials. They will likely explore corruption and mismanagement allegations on everything from pre-war Iraq intelligence to the mishandling of the response to Hurricane Katrina.
The first round of subpoenas concern the recent controversial firings by the Bush administration of seven U.S. attorneys, some of whom were pursuing public corruption cases against Republican members of Congress.
Tuesday's hearing will consider a bill by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) that would reverse a new Patriot Act provision allowing the attorney general to appoint federal prosecutors without Senate confirmation through the duration of the Bush administration.
Democrats have come to the defense of several dismissed prosecutors, in particular Lam and Cummins of Arkansas. They have noted that Lam was leading the probe of ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), while Cummins was removed to make room for a former aide to White House senior adviser Karl Rove. Other U.S. attorneys, including those in Nevada and Arizona, were acting on corruption charges against GOP lawmakers before their resignations were requested.
Democrats, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), have expressed outrage over the firings. She and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have demanded to see the attorneys' performance evaluations.
"So this Administration either originally hired incompetent attorneys in the first place, or hired competent U.S. Attorneys, but incompetently fired them. Which is it?" he asked. "Many Americans believe these U.S. Attorneys are not being fired because they failed to go after public corruption, but because they did and were successful."
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Little by little, we're hearing stories that have managed to go unnoticed such as the 500th American amputee, and all the problems at Walter Reed Hospital. Spiegel Online brings light to yet another inconvenient truth. Our soldiers are finding ways to get out of this unjust war and some are choosing to go AWOL at the rate of more than 5 per day. [my em]
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'Is "Howard Kurtz" a software program?' wonders Glenn Greenwald, after correctly predicting a column profiling how right wing bloggers exposed the "scandal" of anonymous commenters on a liberal blog lamenting that Cheney hadn't been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan.
On the Vice President's page of the White House web site they keep an archive of all speeches/interviews by the Vice President from February 15, 2001 up to the present day. Until yesterday, every one of those entries referred to the Vice President as the "Vice President." But not yesterday.
Suddenly, during his trip abroad, the Vice President decided that the press corp was forbidden from calling him "Vice President," and required that he be called by the mysterious name "Senior Administration Official."
This is so bizarre it almost defies description.
The opening section of the transcript is as follows:
Apparently, Cheney was not happy with the coverage he was getting from the press, so this was his way of dolling out punishment. Froomkin calls this approach Cheney's effort to "extort from reporters a ridiculous agreement," citing it as a sign of the contempt Cheney has for the press. Fromkin's article describes how gleefully the press tore Cheney's anonymity to pieces.
Once again, Dick Cheney believes that the problems American soldiers face in the Middle East and Central Asia can be solved by PR campaigns launched against American journalists and against the Democratic Party.
Iraq not going well? Attack the Democratic leadership.
Taliban on the rise in Afghanistan? Forbid journalists from calling you "Vice President."
Whole sections of the planet gone to hell in a hand basket because of Dick Cheney's policies and pig-headed stubbornness? Criticize the American public.
Yeah. That will fix things.
Denver - Ever since passing what its Legislature promoted as the nation's toughest laws against illegal immigration last summer, Colorado has struggled with a labor shortage as migrants fled the state. This week, officials announced a novel solution: Use convicts as farmworkers.
The inmates will be watched by prison guards, who will be paid by the farms. The cost is subject to negotiation, but farmers say they expect to pay more for the inmate labor and its associated costs than for their traditional workers.
"If they can't get slaves from Mexico, they want them from the jails," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors restrictions on immigration.
Ricardo Martinez of the Denver immigrant rights group Padres Unidos asked: "Are we going to pull in inmates to work in the service industry too? You won't have enough inmates - unless you start importing them from Texas."
WASHINGTON — Seventy-two percent of troops on the ground in Iraq think U.S. military forces should get out of the country within a year, according to a Zogby poll released Tuesday.
The survey of 944 troops, conducted in Iraq between Jan. 18 and Feb. 14, said that only 23 percent of servicemembers thought U.S. forces should stay “as long as they are needed.”
Of the 72 percent, 22 percent said troops should leave within the next six months, and 29 percent said they should withdraw “immediately.” Twenty-one percent said the U.S. military presence should end within a year; 5 percent weren’t sure.
But policy experts differ on exactly what those numbers mean.
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For those of you who know me personally, you know I have been against the war in Iraq since the day we entered. Most of the time I keep my mouth shut about it, but enough is enough.
Our vice president is running off at the mouth again how Democrats are aiding the enemy and being unpatriotic by questioning the latest drivel coming out of his and President Bush's mouth - the value of the troop surge.
As a person too young to remember Vietnam, I had prayed that when we started down this misguided road that we would not end up in another unwinnable war.
Unfortunately, it seems that our government didn't learn anything from that conflict and thus we are repeating history:
o fighting in a country where we don't know the language;
o fighting for an ideal that is not embraced by the majority of the population with the influence and money to make peace happen;
o fighting an invisible enemy who is there one minute and gone the next into a house or neighborhood where he is protected and we are hated;
o fighting a culture that is as old as Christianity, that has been around before Jesus was born and that won't be changed in one year, 10 years or probably a 100 years.
I could go on but you get my point. I must say that society learned a lot from the Vietnam War. They learned that you could hate the war and the politics but love and support the soldiers who fight in it.
I respect every soldier who is out there doing his or her job, day after day, despite the hopelessness of his or her actions. I wish the soldiers were putting their lives on the line for something that really mattered.
Furthermore, lets talk about patriotism. Merriam-Webster defines it as "love for or devotion to one's country." That doesn't say anything about supporting one's president.
Our government should be ashamed of itself and make Halliburton repay the billions of dollars it has embezzled and misappropriated from the taxpayers and American government for projects never completed or mismanaged in Iraq.
Those funds should be turned over to the Veterans Administration to care for the thousands of new veterans already being failed by an overwhelmed and under-funded system.
How can this administration so willingly continue to put soldiers in harm's way and yet not pay for the very infrastructure that will be with them until the day they die?
Listening to some of the reports coming out of our major media outlets this weekend, made me realize our country should be ashamed at how we are letting these brave men and women down.
Shame on our government for allowing veterans at Walter Reed to lay in rat and mold infested facilities.
We have not even scratched the surface for the amount of money that will be needed to sustain these patriotic and deserving individuals for the balance of their lifetime.
Mr. Cheney, you are the one aiding the enemy, by stripping our economy, robbing our tax monies and disgracing our soldiers.
An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.
"They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's getting harder every day," he said.
US officials say they also have rising hopes of a breakthrough in Sunni-dominated Anbar province where tribal chiefs are increasingly hostile to al-Qaida and foreign fighters - and are looking to build bridges with moderate Shias.
But this week's US decision to join talks on Iraq with Iran and Syria, after previously refusing to do so, is nevertheless seen as an indication of the administration's growing alarm at the possibility of a historic strategic failure.
One reason to worry about a crush of new vets at the VA has to do with the proportion of wounded to dead Americans in Iraq. Though we tend to mark the grim timeline of the war by counting fatalities, what really distinguishes this conflict is how many soldiers don't die, but suffer appalling injuries. In Vietnam and Korea, about three Americans were wounded for every one who died. The ratio in WWII was nearly 2-1. In Iraq, 16 soldiers are wounded or get sick for every one who dies. The yawning ratio marks progress: better body armor and helmets are shielding more soldiers from fatal wounds. And advanced emergency care is keeping more of the wounded alive. The VA's Kussman says that soldiers who survive the first few minutes after an explosion have a 98 percent chance of surviving altogether. But that means an increased burden on the VA's health-care system.
Kenneth is a Marine master sergeant who'd been in the Corps for nearly 18 years. He was on his second tour in Iraq when a sniper bullet ricocheted off the metal hatch on his vehicle and hit him directly below the right eye, grazing the front of his brain and exiting near his left ear. Among other things, he was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, which has become the signature wound of the Iraq war. Tonia had to fight the Marine Corps to keep him from being discharged, figuring he'd get better medical care if he remained in active service. But some of his treatment has been outsourced to the VA.
One of the tricks she learned early on was to demand photocopies of her husband's records—every exam, every X-ray, every diagnosis—and personally carry the file from appointment to appointment. "I don't know if there is a more formal protocol for transferring documents, but I know that what I brought ... was definitely put to use." When Sargent was transferred to the VA's lauded Polytrauma Center in Palo Alto, Calif., doctors there encouraged her to go home to Camp Pendleton near San Diego and treat his stay at the hospital as if it was a deployment. "After two weeks, they asked me how long I was planning to stay with my husband," she says. "They said it was his rehab, not mine. But I needed to learn how to care for him, and he suffered from extreme anxiety without me." She pushed back, staying in Palo Alto until he completed his care.
But veterans' support groups and even some former and current VA insiders believe there's a reluctance in the Bush administration to deal openly with the long-term costs of the war. (All told, Bilmes projects it could cost as much as $600 billion to care for GWOT veterans over the course of their lifetimes.) That reluctance, they say, trickles down to the VA, where top managers are politically appointed. Secretary Jim Nicholson, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who was chosen by Bush in 2005, tends to be the focus of this criticism.
The senior VA manager who did not want to be named criticizing superiors told NEWSWEEK: "He's a political appointee and he needs to respond to the White House's direction." Steve Robinson of Veterans for America levels the accusation more directly. "Why doesn't the VA have a projection of casualties for the wars? Because it would be a political bombshell for Nicholson to estimate so many casualties." The VA denies political considerations are involved in its budgeting or planning. Nicholson declined to be interviewed but Matt Burns, a spokesman for the VA, called Robinson's comments "nonsensical and inflammatory," adding: "The VA, in its budgeting process, carefully prepares for future costs so that we can continue to deliver the quality health care and myriad benefits veterans have earned."
Dems Trade Lieberman for Hagel
And a congressman to be named later.
Blair Announces Withdrawal of British Troops From Iraq
Congressman wants English muffins renamed "freedom muffins."
Report: Yellowstone Air Quality Improving
White House blames snowmobile restrictions.
Unnoticed Provision in Defense Budget Makes it Easier to Declare Martial Law
You'll be notified where to go and what you can take with you.
The Democrats and other cut-and-runners are in disarray over their next move on Iraq. And they keep jabbering that the administration has no plan for the war other than the same old, same old.
Nonsense. The Pentagon, in a series of recent memos, is making the fight against terrorism synonymous with Iraq (although it has been pretty much confirmed that Saddam Hussein wasn't involved in the Sept. 11 attacks) and has issued a clear call for getting the job done by the end of next year.
In a Feb. 15 memo, England spotted a key fact that most everyone in this town has overlooked. "At noon on Jan. 20, 2009," he wrote, "many of the civilian Department of Defense (DOD) leadership positions will transition to a new Administration Team. This change, coupled with the normal rotation of military leadership, could disrupt many of the management process changes currently underway in the Department."
So "to ensure that warfighters and taxpayers receive maximum benefit from on-going initiatives," England suggested, "it would be highly desirable to complete current projects by the summer/fall of 2008." (my em)
"Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media."
"Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters"
"The soldiers said they were also told their first sergeant has been relieved of duty, and that all of their platoon sergeants have been moved to other positions at Walter Reed."
Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.
"Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media," one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: "It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place," referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.
...just because our phones are tapped and our homes are no longer protected from unreasonable searches, just because we torture at will, just because we detain forever and use habeas corpus like so much toilet paper, just because signing statements have dismantled the separation of powers one brick at a time, just because no page is safe in a Republican Congress, just because no bribe is too small in a Republican Congress, just because a Democratic resurgence in 2006 is only a tiny beginning and not any kind of an end, because these Bush boys have no intention of slowing down or backing off...
...just because our national reputation is ravaged and our future has been sold out from under us, just because Truman's wartime economic footing has morphed into a machine that Eisenhower would recognize in horror as the very thing he warned us about before he left, just because the whole system now requires us to manufacture wars if none are available because the system itself has been wired to feed the beast no matter the consequences, just because television tells you not to worry, look at these breasts or this shaved starlet's head, or this shiny thing, look here, shhh, be silent, be still, sleep...
...doesn't mean We The People are finished, because all of this is why "We The People" was written down in the first place, and though the day is late and the road is long and the chances for success are slim, We The People are here to stay, so strap in and look out, because we are just getting started, and the next sentence will be ours to write.
"Iraq poised to hand control of oil fields to foreign firms"Anybody wanna guess to which countries "foreign" refers? Here's a little clue:
"Baghdad is under pressure from Britain and the US to pass an oil law which would hand long-term control of Iraq's energy assets to foreign multinationals, according to campaigners."Wait a minnit! I thought this was about WMD. Or was it democracy for Iraq? No, wait, weren't there a dozen other reasons? No one ever mentioned oil. How could this be?
"But a leaked draft of the oil law, seen by The Observer, would see the government sign away the right to exploit its untapped fields in so-called exploration contracts, which could then be extended for more than 30 years.More here. Prepare to read it, shake your head and think "I knew this all along."Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has admitted that the government has discussed the wording of the Iraqi law with Britain's oil giants."
Here's the upshot of Sy Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker: George W. Bush is working with, paying, arming and training -- directly and by proxy -- violent terrorist groups in league with Osama bin Laden.
I have been writing here for years about the Bush Administration's openly declared intent to arm and fund violent militia groups all over the world, especially in "inaccessible" places where the US cannot operate openly. Hersh has confirmed this "strategy" several times in his reporting.
But as we've also noted many times, this political "philosophy" is by no means unique to the Bush Family faction. It is resolutely bipartisan, and deeply embedded in the mindset of the American Establishment. The Bushes are nothing but second-rate camp followers, empty shells and non-entities, originating nothing, ignorant and cynical in equal measure, their only unusual trait being how open they are in their scorn for the worthless rabble and the bullshit Constitution that the crypto-Commies like Madison and Jefferson foisted on the proper rulers of the country. Otherwise, they simply regurgitate the unprocessed prejudices, unexamined assumptions and vulgar ambitions of the clique that spawned them.
... Talking big is the only calisthenic exercise neoconservatives get apart from practicing their "Hail, Caesar!" salutes, but to hear them tell it they're the ones of trim purpose with vital essences coursing through their veins while the rest of us steep in our tepid, watery neo-Weimar malaise ...
In a revelation that will stun the nation, the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of America's most powerful black leaders, has unearthed a shattering family secret - his ancestors were slaves owned by relatives of the late South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond.
It is an ironic twist of fate that inexorably links one of the most vocal civil rights activists and an icon of Deep South segregation.
I have a suggested solution: line up the executive branch from the prez on down and the members of congress and the senate along with the Miltary Officers with oversight responsibility, have them all drop their pants and have expert rifle(wo)men shoot off one testicle of each one in line. Have them treated in these facilities.
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon plans to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, shortening their off-duty time to meet the demands of President George W. Bush's buildup, Defense Department officials said.
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SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
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A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.
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However, army chiefs fear an attack on Iran would backfire on American troops in Iraq and lead to more terrorist attacks, a rise in oil prices and the threat of a regional war.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Despite the Bush administration's insistence it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President George W. Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.
The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months, according to an unidentified former U.S. intelligence official cited in the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the March 4 issue.
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