IMPEACH BUSH

March 9, 2008

Surging costs of groceries hit home

American families, already pinched by soaring energy costs, are taking another big hit to household budgets as food prices increase at the fastest rate since 1990.

After nearly two decades of low food inflation, prices for staples such as bread, milk, eggs, and flour are rising sharply, surging in the past year at double-digit rates, according to the Labor Department. Milk prices, for example, increased 26 percent over the year. Egg prices jumped 40 percent.

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March 14, 2008

Gold Futures Rise to Record $1,009 on Bear Stearns Bailout

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Gold surged to a record $1,009 an ounce in New York as the Bear Stearns Cos. bailout and a plunging dollar increased demand for the precious metal. Silver also gained.

Bear Stearns got emergency funding from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the New York Federal Reserve. The securities firm said its cash position had "significantly deteriorated." The dollar fell to a record against the euro and a 12-year low against the yen. Gold has jumped 19 percent this year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 13 percent.

How did this war monger get away with using religion to wage war against a defenseless country (using fabricated intelligence)? Our media, our congress and our churches didn't care.

March 12, 2008

Citing Faith, Bush Defends War

NASHVILLE — President Bush delivered a rousing defense of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Tuesday, mixing faith and foreign policy as he told a group of Christian broadcasters that his policies in the region were predicated on the beliefs that freedom was a God-given right and "every human being bears the image of our maker."

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The study says young people are more conservative when it comes to sex. Yeah right.

March 11, 2008

Study: People become more liberal as they age

"And what we found was that the changes that the stereotypical older person is presumed to make, if any, towards increased conservatism were not true for the majority of the items that we looked at," Prof. Danigelis said.

For example, on gender equality in politics, older people became more liberal over time.

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Recall the bankruptcy law changes made in 2005 that made it nearly impossible to get out of debt once something bad happens. After housing prices started to fall foreclosures became inevitable. Blame banks, the GOP and Bush.

March 10, 2008

401(k)s tapped to save homes

Struggling to save their homes from foreclosure, more Americans are raiding their 401(k) retirement accounts to pay their bills — and getting slammed with taxes and penalties in the process, according to retirement plan administrators.

Rather than borrow money from their 401(k) accounts, which would have to be paid back, a growing number of beleaguered families have been cashing out, plan administrators say.

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March 11, 2008

McCain Received Defense Firm Cash After Backing Its Contract

Critics on Tuesday questioned whether Sen. John McCain catered to special interests when he aggressively threw his support behind a $35 billion Pentagon contract for a European plane maker.

McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, played a crucial role in blocking the deal to build air tankers from going to U.S.-based Boeing, instead paving the path for EADS to score the loot. He framed his decision as an example of political integrity; Boeing has previously been exposed of contract abuse. But a review of campaign finance donations and lobbying records suggests that money and personal lobbying may have also been in play.

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Bush's current crop of generals have been 100% wrong about everything from protecting us on 911 to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fallon was one voice worth listening to because he told the truth about not being to wage war with a third country - Iran.

March 11, 2008

Fallon Resigns

Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as at odds with a president eager to go to war with Iran. Titled "The Man Between War and Peace," it described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

It is highly unusual for a senior commander to resign in wartime. Fallon took the post on March 16, 2007, succeeding Army Gen. John Abizaid, who retired after nearly four years in the job. Fallon was part of a new team of senior officials, including Gates, chosen by Bush to implement a revised Iraq war policy.

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The party of debt has no need for numbers to add up. They don't care how much debt they create.

March 10, 2008

McCain budget numbers don't add up, experts say

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John McCain's reputation for "straight talk" has helped him clinch the U.S. Republican presidential nomination but budget experts say his numbers do not add up.

McCain's promises to reduce wasteful spending if elected president in November would not begin to cover the costs of his proposed tax cuts, analysts say.

He also has not yet explained how he would rein in the health-care and retirement costs expected to swamp the federal budget as some 77 million people retire from the U.S. work force in the coming decades.

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March 9, 2008

House GOP funk worsens

For National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.), every week seems to bring a new set of problems. On Saturday night, things got even worse.

With Democrat Bill Foster's victory in the Illinois 14th District special election, Democrats now hold the seats occupied only 21 months ago by former Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.) and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Texas) — the two GOP lawmakers who ran the House from 1998 to 2006.

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You can bet your bottom dollar this congressman listens to Rush Limbaugh and has for a very long time. People who listen to this crap start to believe it and then they wonder why we call them all nuts.

McCain is once again forced off message so he can respond to right wing Christian hate.

March 10, 2008

McCain Campaign Condemns Backer's Obama Remarks

A spokeswoman for Sen. John McCain today condemned comments by Iowa Rep. Steve King (R), who on Friday said terrorists would be "dancing in the streets" if Barack Obama is elected president.

"The Senator rejects the type of politics that degrades our civics and this campaign will be about the future of our country," Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker said. "[Sen.] McCain could not be clearer on how he views these types of comments and obviously that view extends to Congressman King's statement."

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A bunch of criminals stealing from another bunch of criminals. It's either poetic or just plan funny.

March 6, 2008

F.B.I. Investigates Missing G.O.P. Money

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing and presumed stolen from the chief fund-raising arm of House Republicans, according to party officials who described the findings of emergency internal audits.

The financial records of the group, the National Republican Congressional Committee, may also have been falsified for several years, Republican officials said. The campaign committees of several Republican lawmakers may also have been victims of a scam that is now under criminal investigation by the F.B.I.

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The WH ignoring a House subpoena will get less news coverage than a governor who has sex with someone other than his wife, as if the former happens every day and the latter doesn't.

March 10, 2008

US House files suit to enforce subpoenas against 2 White House officials

WASHINGTON: The House Judiciary Committee filed suit Monday to force top aides to President George W. Bush to provide information about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

The lawsuit filed in federal court says former White House counsel Harriet Miers is not immune from the obligation to testify and that she and White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten must identify all documents that are being withheld from Congress.

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By the time Tim Russert interviewed Cheney after the attacks, it was self-evident the media would participate in a massive cover up. Cheney said, in that interview that they were aware US interest were being targeted and they knew it was going to be big. Russert never once asked what precautions the White House took before 911. That wasn't in his script. Any third rate journalist would have demanded answers to why this failure happened. Not Tim Russert, not ABC news, not CBS news, not CNN, not Fox.

March 6, 2008

They knew, but did nothing

Even reporters in Washington who covered intelligence issues acknowledged they were largely ignorant that summer that the CIA and other parts of the Government were warning of an almost certain terrorist attack. Probably, but not necessarily, overseas.

The warnings were going straight to President Bush each morning in his briefings by the CIA director, George Tenet, and in the presidential daily briefings. It would later be revealed by the 9/11 commission into the September 11 attacks that more than 40 presidential briefings presented to Bush from January 2001 through to September 10, 2001, included references to bin Laden.

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March 8, 2008

Dangerous Cracks Appearing in Job Market

Dangerous cracks in the nation's job market are deepening. Employers slashed jobs by the largest amount in five years and hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the labor force — ominous signs that the country is falling toward a recession or has already toppled into one.

For the second straight month, nervous employers got rid of jobs nationwide. In February, they sliced payrolls by 63,000, even deeper than the 22,000 cut in January, the Labor Department reported Friday.

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One by one the pro war nuts are being picked off and when seats are open "anyone else" is better than a pro war nut.

March 9, 2008

Dems Win Hastert Seat

CHICAGO (AP) — A longtime Republican district fell to the Democrats Saturday when a wealthy businessman and scientist snatched former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's congressional seat in a closely watched special election.

Democrat Bill Foster won 52 percent of the vote compared to 48 percent for Republican Jim Oberweis. With 565 of 568 precincts reporting, Foster had 51,140 votes to Oberweis' 46,270.

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This is a very old story that's only coming to light in some very dark circles. The problem is simple, the US military knew there was a problem, did nothing and then gave KBR more contracts. Military commanders hate their troops. It's that simple.

March 10, 2008

Water Makes US Troops in Iraq Sick

WASHINGTON - Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

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March 6, 2008

U.S. troops buy own gear for safety

FORT BENNING, Ga. - Commando Military Supply on Victory Drive here is about as different from a musty Army surplus store as you can imagine.

More REI than M.A.S.H., Commando is regularly jam-packed with deploying grunts and sergeants, poking around for custom gear including $200 flashlights, $150 Oakley protective sunglasses, $180 Thinsulate boots, and $20 thermal socks.

"When you're comfortable and you know where all your gear is, it makes you a better fighter," says Lt. Tucker Knie, an Army Ranger perusing custom ammo pouches and techno-fiber socks. "You don't want to be rummaging around in your pocket during a firefight."

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February 28, 2008

Vets Break Silence on War Crimes

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 28 (IPS) - U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries.

"The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like."

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Commanders were told to stop dipping the flag and then followed the order for a few months. Then returned back to violating flag protocol.

March 8, 2008

Clashing Over Church Ritual and Flag Protocol at the Naval Academy

Below a cobalt blue stained-glass window of Jesus, one midshipman dips the academy flag before the altar cross, and the other dips the American flag.

The dipping of the flag has begun this nondenominational Protestant service at the Naval Academy for 40 years. But in civilian life, the American flag is never to be dipped, and the Navy says, it is not dipped at any other worship service at the academy or at any other installation.

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March 6, 2008

Homeowner equity is lowest since 1945

NEW YORK - Americans' percentage of equity in their homes fell below 50 percent for the first time on record since 1945, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

Homeowners' portion of equity slipped to downwardly revised 49.6 percent in the second quarter of 2007, the central bank reported in its quarterly U.S. Flow of Funds Accounts, and declined further to 47.9 percent in the fourth quarter — the third straight quarter it was under 50 percent.

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March 6, 2008

Iraq contractor skirts US taxes

CAYMAN ISLANDS - Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.

More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.

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March 6, 2008

U.S. Mortgage Foreclosures Rise as Owners 'Give Up'

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. mortgage foreclosures rose to an all-time high at the end of 2007 as borrowers with adjustable-rate loans walked away from properties before their payments increased, the Mortgage Bankers Association said today.

New foreclosures jumped to 0.83 percent of all home loans in the fourth quarter from 0.54 percent a year earlier. Late payments rose to a 23-year high, the organization said in a report today.

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March 6, 2008

U.S. Household Worth Is Declining

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. household wealth fell in the fourth quarter for the first time in five years and borrowing slowed as home values plunged and lenders restricted credit, Federal Reserve figures show.

Net worth for households decreased by $532.9 billion from the previous three months, the first decline since the third quarter of 2002, according to the Fed's quarterly Flow of Funds report today. Housing-related net worth dropped by $176.4 billion.

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March 5, 2008

Vermont towns vote to arrest Bush and Cheney

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution," local media reported.

The nonbinding, symbolic measure, passed in Brattleboro and Marlboro in a state known for taking liberal positions on national issues, instructs town police to "extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them."

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One group of hate mongers denouncing McCain for not denouncing another group of hate mongers. Ripe.

March 4, 2008

Catholics, others denounce McCain for courting Hagee

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Arizona Sen. John McCain may have imperiled his chances with one important religious constituency by appealing to another.

Democratic leaders and conservative Catholic groups alike have criticized the Republican presidential candidate for courting an endorsement from Texas evangelist John Hagee. The San Antonio-based pastor and media mogul backed McCain at a Feb. 27 news conference where the senator appeared.

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March 5, 2008

Mukasey Denied Law School Honors Because of Stance on Torture

Boston College Law School will not award its highest honor to US Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey when he speaks at its May commencement, amid sharp criticism from students, faculty, and alumni over his invitation.

John Garvey, law school dean, announced the decision yesterday at a forum with graduating students held to discuss Mukasey's selection after weeks of intense debate on campus. Some alumni and students at the Jesuit school saw the move as a compromise to appease critics of Mukasey's controversial refusal to declare that an interrogation technique known as waterboarding constitutes torture.

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March 5, 2008

Democrats Promise Budget Surplus

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats rolled out a cautious election-year budget blueprint Wednesday that promises to put the federal budget back in the black while awarding greater-than-inflation increases to domestic programs.

But the Democratic budget plan, like a companion plan being unveiled later Wednesday in the Senate Budget Committee, produces sizable surpluses only by assuming that many of President Bush's tax cuts will expire at the end of 2010, as scheduled.

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March 5, 2008

FBI wrongly used security letters

WASHINGTON, March 5 (UPI) -- A Justice Department report says the FBI abused the use of national security letters to get personal data on U.S. citizens, the FBI director said.

Testifying Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the inspector general will release the audit of the FBI's use of national security letters in 2006. The agency has been criticized for its use of the anti-terror investigatory tactic, which a federal judge has barred as unconstitutional.

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March 4, 2008

Bank regulators: 'Asleep at the switch'

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Lawmakers grilled bank regulators Tuesday about why they didn't intervene as lax lending standards led to a meltdown in the mortgage market and a credit crunch that threaten the economy.

"Again and again the question has been asked over the past year as our credit markets have grown increasingly impaired: Where were the regulators?," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the banking committee. "Why didn't they do more? Were they asleep at the switch? And when the alarm went off, did they merely hit the snooze button?"

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March 1, 2008

Iraq violence jumps in February - 633 Dead

The number of Iraqis killed by violence rose in February for the first time in several months, official figures show.

At least 633 civilians died, according to data from several ministries - up from more than 460 deaths in January.

The increase was mainly due to two attacks in Baghdad and one near Karbala that killed at least 150 people.

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March 1, 2008

Suit says HUD chief tied funds to favor

PHILADELPHIA - A seemingly ho-hum rules dispute between Philadelphia's public housing agency and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has led to accusations of favoritism and corruption against a member of President Bush's Cabinet.

According to the city housing authority director, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has threatened the agency's funding since it refused to award a vacant lot worth $2 million to Kenny Gamble, a soul-music producer-turned-community developer.

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March 1, 2008

In Parts of U.S., Foreclosures Top Sales

Mortgage foreclosure notices are going out so fast that in some states the number of new foreclosure proceedings each month is greater than the number of homes sold that month.

The foreclosure problem appears to be greatest in the West, particularly in Nevada, where home prices soared in the housing boom and are now falling rapidly.

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February 22, 2008

IRAQ: In Tatters Beneath a Surge of Claims

BAGHDAD, Feb 22 (IPS) - What the U.S. has been calling the success of a "surge", many Iraqis see as evidence of catastrophe. Where U.S. forces point to peace and calm, local Iraqis find an eerie silence.

And when U.S. forces speak of a reduction in violence, many Iraqis simply do not know what they are talking about.

Hundreds died in a series of explosions in Baghdad last month. This was despite the strongest ever security measures taken by the U.S. military, riding the "surge" in security forces and their activities.

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February 27, 2008

ACLU: 900,000 Names on U.S. Terror Watch List

The FBI now keeps a list of over 900,000 names belonging to known or suspected terrorists, the American Civil Liberties Union said today.

If that number is accurate, it would be an all-time high, exponentially more than the 100,000 names on the list several years ago.  But the number needs to be taken with a grain of salt: after all, the ACLU doesn't keep the list, the FBI does, and the bureau doesn't generally like to talk about it.  (Indeed, the FBI has not yet responded to a request for comment for this post.)

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February 29, 2008

Embattled Veterans Official Resigns Post

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 29 (IPS) - Another high-ranking George W. Bush administration official has resigned. The Department of Veterans Affairs Undersecretary for Benefits Daniel Cooper quit Thursday amid mounting criticism over a backlog of disability claims for injured veterans that runs six months long and an appearance he made in a fundraising video for an evangelical Christian organisation where he said Bible study was more important than doing his job.

Cooper has been under fire for using his office to proselytise for evangelical Christianity ever since he appeared in a 2004 fundraising video for Christian Embassy, which carries out missionary work among the Washington elite as part of the Campus Crusade for Christ.

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February 27, 2008

Chamber of Commerce Supports Immunity for Telecoms

Therefore, the Chamber urges the House to consider S. 2248 and pass this bipartisan compromise legislation. The Chamber firmly believes that the immunity provisions in S. 2248 are imperative to preserving the self-sustaining "public-private partnership" that both Congress and the Executive Branch have sought to protect the United States in the post-September 11 world. The Chamber encourages you consider the effects on the nation's security should private sector involvement be muted and relegated to the sidelines in instances when industries can help the government protect this nation.

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February 28, 2008

Senators shield MRAP whistle-blower

WASHINGTON — Two senators on Thursday warned Marine Corps Commandant James Conway not to retaliate against a civilian adviser whose internal study criticized delays by the military branch in procuring new armored vehicles.

Franz Gayl criticized the Marines in a Jan. 22 report for delaying the purchase of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles despite urgent requests from troops in the field. That report, first disclosed Feb. 15, said Conway was misled by Marine bureaucrats into providing "misleading" information about whether and when troops in Iraq made urgent requests for MRAPs in a letter to two senators last year.

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February 26, 2008

Marines halt study critical of MRAP program

WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps has ordered a civilian scientist to stop work on a report critical of its efforts to obtain new armored vehicles, saying he exceeded his authority, a Marine official said Tuesday.

Franz Gayl, a retired Marine officer and civilian science adviser, alleged in a Jan. 22 report that "gross mismanagement" of the program to quickly field Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles had resulted in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of Marines in Iraq. Gayl had planned to continue his investigation.

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February 26, 2008

Nat Hentoff: Will Bush's Secrecy Continue?

Restore accountability: Aftergood asks the candidates fighting for the Oval Office: "Will you disclose the full scope of Bush administration domestic-surveillance activities affecting American citizens, including all surveillance actions that were undertaken outside of the framework of law, as well as the legal opinions that were generated to justify them?"

On Feb. 12, Sen. John McCain voted for Bush's warrantless eavesdropping. Sen. Hillary Clinton said she would have opposed it. Sen. Barack Obama was against it.

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March 1, 2008

White House official resigns after acknowledging plagiarism in newspaper columns

WASHINGTON - A White House official who served as President Bush's middleman with conservatives and Christian groups resigned Friday after admitting to plagiarism. Twenty columns he wrote for an Indiana newspaper were determined to have material copied from other sources without attribution.

Timothy Goeglein, who has worked for Bush since 2001, acknowledged that he lifted material from a Dartmouth College publication and presented it as his own work in a column about education for The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne. The newspaper took a closer look at his other columns and found many more instances of plagiarism.

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March 1, 2008

Mukasey Refuses to Prosecute Bush Aides

Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused Friday to refer the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury. Mukasey said White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers committed no crime.

As promised, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she has given the Judiciary Committee authority to file a lawsuit against Bolten and Miers in federal court.

"The House shall do so promptly," she said in a statement.

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March 1, 2008

Record Opium Production in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — The Taliban have built a huge and profitable drug operation in Afghanistan while provincial governors look the other way, the latest grim sign of backsliding in a country the U.S. has spent six years and billions of dollars trying to salvage.

A report Friday on drugs — saying Afghanistan now produces 93 percent of the world's opium poppy — comes amid a resurgence of Taliban militants despite U.S. anti-insurgent efforts. Also on the rise: terrorist violence such as roadside bombs, suicide bombings, and attacks on police.

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February 27, 2008

State Dept. orders another review of troubled Baghdad embassy

WASHINGTON — The State Department's new embassy construction chief has rejected his predecessor's certification that the $740 million new U.S. embassy in Baghdad is "substantially completed" and has instead begun a top-to-bottom review of the troubled project.

The official, Richard Shinnick, said in an interview the State Department hopes that the sprawling embassy complex — originally scheduled to be completed last September — will be ready by March 31.

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February 28, 2008

USDA Shuts Down Congressional Audit

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Agriculture Department abruptly ordered congressional auditors to leave its headquarters and told its employees not to cooperate with them.

"You are hereby instructed not to meet with any member of the (Government Accountability Office) today, or until this matter is resolved," Michael Watts, a top USDA attorney, wrote to employees Wednesday in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

The auditors were seeking information for an ongoing audit on Agriculture's office of civil rights and its handling of discrimination complaints. Specifically, they were investigating allegations that the department had previously provided false information for the audit.

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The Bush White House used religion to take us to war and anti war churches were threatened by the IRS. It seems republicans want religion in government only when it promotes the Bush agenda.

February 27, 2008

IRS investigating denomination over Obama speech

NEW YORK — The IRS is investigating the United Church of Christ over a speech Sen. Barack Obama gave at its national meeting last year after he became a candidate for president, the denomination said yesterday.

Obama, an Illinois Democrat, belongs to the 1.2 million-member Protestant group through his Chicago congregation.

In a letter the Cleveland-based denomination received Feb. 25, the IRS said "reasonable belief exists" that the circumstances surrounding the speech violated restrictions on political activity for tax-exempt organizations. The denomination has denied any wrongdoing.

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Thanks god we're not fighting a country with a real army, a real navy, a real air force etc. It we had to pay for this war with higher taxes, NO ONE would support it.

February 29, 2008

Defense Budget Highest Since the End of WW2. AF seeks $18B more

WASHINGTON — Air Force officials believe they need $18 billion beyond their base budget next year to pay for critical programs, but members of Congress are concerned about the already hefty military price tag planned for coming years.

The fiscal 2009 budget proposal for the Air Force already tops $117 billion, a 7.9 percent increase from fiscal 2008. Earlier this month, Pentagon planners unveiled a $515 billion Defense budget for fiscal 2009, the highest since the end of World War II when adjusted for inflation.

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February 26, 2008

Farms May Be Exempted From Emission Rules

Under pressure from agriculture industry lobbyists and lawmakers from agricultural states, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to drop requirements that factory farms report their emissions of toxic gases, despite findings by the agency's scientists that the gases pose a health threat.

The EPA acknowledges that the emissions can pose a threat to people living and working nearby, but it says local emergency responders don't use the reports, making them unnecessary. But local air-quality agencies, environmental groups and lawmakers who oppose the rule change say the reports are one of the few tools rural communities have for holding large livestock operations accountable for the pollution they produce.

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February 28, 2008

Obama Makes Gay Ad Buys in Ohio, Texas

The Obama campaign is lavishing some of its cash advantage on LGBTs with targeted ad buys in Ohio and Texas leading up to the critical March 4 primaries in both states (Rhode Island and Vermont also vote that day). According to Obama LGBT steering committee member Eric Stern, the campaign has just completed an ad buy with queer newspapers in the four largest LGBT markets of those two states -- Columbus, Cleveland, Dallas, and Houston.

Full-page ads will appear starting this Friday in Outlook Weekly of Columbus, the Gay People's Chronicle of Cleveland, the Dallas Voice, and OutSmart, which is Houston-based. Buying a full-page four-color ad that appears one time typically costs anywhere between $1,000 and $2,000 in weekly publications. In the Gay People's Chronicle, for instance, the ad cost about $850, according to the paper's advertising manager; the same ad went for about $1,500 in the Dallas Voice.

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The RNC has become a criminal enterprise, just like the Bush White House. It's leaders should be thrown in jail to rot.

February 27, 2008

GOP Halts Effort to Retrieve White House E-Mail

After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday.

The move increases the likelihood that an untold number of RNC e-mails dealing with official White House business during the first term of the Bush administration -- including many sent or received by former presidential adviser Karl Rove -- will never be recovered, said House Democrats and public records advocates.

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What took them so long. This website has documented the delays going back many years. The Marine Corps is just now learning they were screwed over by this White House? It's no wonder we're losing in Iraq. The leaders of the Corps just don't give a damn.

February 27, 2008

Marines ask DOD's Inspector General to review MRAP allegations

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Marine Corps has asked the Defense Department Inspector General's Office to look into allegations that delays in fielding Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles cost troops' lives.

The allegations were made by Franz Gayl, a Corps civilian employee, who works in the Plans, Policies and Operations Department of Headquarters Marine Corps, who wrote in a Jan. 22 report that a 2005 request for MRAP vehicles for Marines in Iraq fell victim to the Corps' "Byzantine" procurement system.

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When Dobson supported Bush, the IRS remained silent.

February 14, 2008

Calif. pastor's Huckabee endorsement draws IRS probe

Under federal tax law, church officials can legally discuss politics, but they cannot endorse candidates or parties without risking their tax-exempt status. Most who do so receive a warning.

Drake, a prominent pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention, said he received a 14-page letter from the IRS on Feb. 7.

On Aug. 11, Drake wrote a press release on letterhead from the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park that announced his personal endorsement of Huckabee and asked all Southern Baptists to get behind the candidate.

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February 26, 2008

U.S. Home Foreclosures Jump 90%

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Bank seizures of U.S. homes almost doubled in January as property owners failed to make higher payments on adjustable-rate mortgages.

Repossessions rose 90 percent to 45,327 last month from the same period a year ago, RealtyTrac Inc. said today in a statement. Total foreclosure filings, which include default and auction notices as well as bank seizures, increased 57 percent.

"The most troubling thing is that we are seeing more and more of these properties actually going all the way through the process and going back to the banks," Rick Sharga, executive vice president of Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac, said in an interview.

Defaults among subprime borrowers and those unable to meet rising payments on adjustable-rate loans drove foreclosure filings to the highest since August and the second-highest since RealtyTrac started keeping records. About $460 billion of adjustable mortgages are scheduled to reset this year, raising minimum payments for borrowers, according to New York-based analysts at Citigroup Inc.

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February 23, 2008

The Three Trillion Dollar War

The Bush Administration was wrong about the benefits of the war and it was wrong about the costs of the war. The president and his advisers expected a quick, inexpensive conflict. Instead, we have a war that is costing more than anyone could have imagined.

The cost of direct US military operations - not even including long-term costs such as taking care of wounded veterans - already exceeds the cost of the 12-year war in Vietnam and is more than double the cost of the Korean War.

And, even in the best case scenario, these costs are projected to be almost ten times the cost of the first Gulf War, almost a third more than the cost of the Vietnam War, and twice that of the First World War. The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion (that's $5 million million, or £2.5 million million). With virtually the entire armed forces committed to fighting the Germans and Japanese, the cost per troop (in today's dollars) was less than $100,000 in 2007 dollars. By contrast, the Iraq war is costing upward of $400,000 per troop.

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February 26, 2008

Wholesale Inflation Soars In January

The producer price index for finished goods rose 1.0% on a seasonally adjusted basis after a 0.3% decrease in December, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Originally, prices in December were estimated down 0.1%.

The core index, which excludes food and energy items, rose 0.4% last month, seasonally adjusted. It rose 0.2% in December.

Wall Street expected smaller price increases. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had called for a 0.4% jump in the overall index and a 0.2% increase in the core index.

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February 26, 2008

Job Worries Sink Consumer Confidence

Consumer confidence plunged in February as Americans worried about less-favorable business conditions and job prospects, a business-backed research group said Tuesday.

The Conference Board said its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 75 this month from a revised 87.3 in January.

The reading was the lowest since the index registered 64.8 in February 2003, just before the U.S. invaded Iraq, researchers said, and was far below the 83 expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson/IFR.

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February 21, 2008

The nexus of politics and terror

Transcript: OLBERMANN: Our third story on the COUNTDOWN: The nexus of politics and terror, again. After several days in which he had kept his hysteria in check and the conservative bastions like Kato Institute and "The Washington Times" insisted he had credibility on this issue of Chicken Little. President Bush lost it anew this afternoon on his flight home from Liberia. It's the so-called Protect America Act which is not yet been renewed by the House because the president first refused a temporary extension of it and then, refused the permanent extension that does not include immunity for the telecom companies who helped him break the law. "If we do not give liability protection to those who are helping us, they won't help us," he said today. "And if they don't help us, there will be no program. And if there's no program, America is more vulnerable." Mr. Bush then presented two comparatively new "red herrings". "These companies are going to be subject to multi-billion dollar lawsuits by trial lawyers, plaintiffs' attorneys and it's going to drive them away from helping us—unless they get liability protection—prospective and retroactive." So, it's official, this is not just about laws they broke in the past, it's about laws they will break in the future. Plus: The suits against the telecoms where mostly by outfits like ACLU, with lawyers volunteering their time. So, you can drop that money-making crap, too.

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February 24, 2008

Why, with all our technology, are we killing so many civilians

As Giunta said, "The richest, most-trained army got beat by dudes in manjammies and A.K.'s." His voice cracked. He was not just hurting, he was in a rage. And there was nothing for him to do with it but hold back his tears, and bark — at the Afghans for betraying them, at the Army for betraying them. He didn't run to the front because he was a hero. He ran up to get to Brennan, his friend. "But they" — he meant the military — "just keep asking for more from us." His contract would be up in 18 days but he had been stop-lossed and couldn't go home. Brennan himself was supposed to have gotten out in September. He'd been planning to go back to Wisconsin where his dad lived, play his guitar and become a cop.

I wondered how Kearney was going to win back his own guys, let alone win over the Korengalis. Just before I left, Kearney told me his biggest struggle would be holding his guys in check. "I've got too many geeking out, wanting to go off the deep end and kill people," he said. One of his lieutenants wanted to shoot every Afghan in the face. Kearney shook his head. He wished he could buy 20 goats and let the boys beat and burn them and let loose their rage. He tried to tell them the restraints were a product of their success — that there was an Afghan government with its own rules. "I'm balancing plates on my goddamn nose is what I'm doing," he said. "All it's gonna take is for one of these guys to snap."

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February 25, 2008

An indefensible defense budget

As President Bush backs out the White House door, he is asking Congress to appropriate enough money for the coming fiscal year to enable the Pentagon and its government sidekicks to spend $1.2 million a minute on what is loosely called national defense.

Bush does not propose raising taxes, canceling any major weapons or getting out of the Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires to reduce the mountain of debt that this biggest binge of defense spending since World War II will pile up.

So the new president will be waterboarded by red ink next year unless Congress intercedes this year. Which it won't.

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February 21, 2008

US Gives $1 Billion to Pakistan Per Year

In response, the Defense Department has disbursed about $80 million monthly, or roughly $1 billion a year for the past six years, in one of the most generous U.S. military support programs worldwide. The U.S. aim has been to ensure that Pakistan remains the leading ally in combating extremism in South Asia.

But vague accounting, disputed expenses and suspicions about overbilling have recently made these payments to Pakistan highly controversial -- even within the U.S. government.

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February 24, 2008

Western oil giants are poised to move into Basra

Western oil giants are poised to enter southern Iraq to tap the country's vast reserves, despite the ongoing threat of violence, according to Gordon Brown's business emissary to the country.

Michael Wareing, who heads the new Basra Development Commission, acknowledged that there would be concerns among Iraqis about multinationals exploiting natural resources.

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February 21, 2008

U.S. says sorry to UK on rendition flights

Miliband told Britain's parliament earlier on Thursday that contrary to earlier U.S. assurances, two planes used for "rendition flights" in 2002 had refueled at a U.S. base on the British Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

The British government had previously insisted it was not aware of any British territory being used to transfer terrorism suspects outside normal extradition procedures since U.S. President George W. Bush took office in 2001.

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February 22, 2008

Eagleburger: Limbaugh, Hannity Don't Speak for the GOP

"I don't know who elected Rush Limbaugh or Hannity as the heads of this conservative movement," Eagleburger says at the beginning of a clip from MSNBC on Tuesday night that and aired on Wednesday's radio show. "They throw that word around as if it was theirs and theirs alone."

"I thought I was a conservative, but that doesn't mean that I have to buy off on everything these poobahs thinks is what's necessary to be a conservative," continued the former Sec. of State, before defending what he sees as McCain's conservative national security credentials.

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February 23, 2008

White House wrote multibillion-dollar loophole for corrupt business practices

The White House has written a multibillion-dollar loophole into a proposed crackdown on contract fraud, drawing the attention of the government's top watchdog of U.S. spending in Iraq.

The loophole would allow companies performing government work overseas to avoid having to report contract abuse. A review of documents shows it was added by Bush administration policy writers after they received a draft of the proposed rule from the Justice Department.

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February 22, 2008

U.N. says world fisheries face collapse

MONACO (Reuters) - A deadly combination of climate change, over-fishing and pollution could cause the collapse of commercial fish stocks worldwide within decades, said Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Program.

"You overlap all of this and you see you're potentially putting a death nail in the coffin of world fisheries," Steiner told reporters on Friday on the fringes of a climate conference involving more than 150 nations and 100 environment ministers.

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This is the same Secret Service that broke the law after Cheney asked them to destroy documents regarding his visitors. If Obama is killed, you can bet your bottom dollar the SS will have something to do with it.

February 22, 2008

Secret Service Ordered End to Gun Checks at Obama Rally

NEW YORK The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported late Thursday that security details at Barack Obama's rally in Dallas (of all places) on Wednesday "stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.

"The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security," reported the paper's Jack Douglas, Jr. More than 10 days remain until the Texas primary and a key vote for president.

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February 19, 2008

Banks "quietly" borrow $50 billion from Fed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Banks in the United States have been quietly borrowing "massive amounts" from the U.S. Federal Reserve in recent weeks, using a new measure the Fed introduced two months ago to help ease the credit crunch, according to a report on the web site of The Financial Times.

The newspaper said the use of the Fed's Term Auction Facility (TAF), which allows banks to borrow at relatively attractive rates against a wide range of their assets, saw borrowing of nearly $50 billion of one-month funds from the Fed by mid-February.

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February 13, 2008

Concerns over Economy Push Bush's Overall Job Approval to 19%

George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has dropped to a new low in American Research Group polling as 78% of Americans say that the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.

Among all Americans, 19% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 77% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 14% approve and 79% disapprove.

Among Americans registered to vote, 18% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 78% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 15% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 79% disapprove.

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February 19, 2008

Aging Air Force Wants Big Bucks Fix

WASHINGTON -- Air Force officials are warning that unless their budget is increased dramatically, and soon, the military's high-flying branch won't dominate the skies as it has for decades.

An extra $20 billion each year over the next five _ beginning with an Air Force budget of about $137 billion in 2009 instead of the $117 billion proposed by the Bush administration _ would solve that problem, according to Selva and other senior Air Force officers.

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February 19, 2008

Fort Hood soldiers breaking the silence in war in Iraq

A growing number of active duty soldiers or recent Iraq war veterans are speaking up about the war in Iraq.

And with the number of soldiers speaking up about their experiences in Iraq via online forums, blogs and pamphlets, some vets feel it's their duty to let the American public know the truth.

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February 19, 2008

Border Fence To Bypass Property Of Wealthy Oilman Who Donated $35 Million To Bush Library

DHS has no problem pursuing elderly and struggling homeowners. In the small town of Granjeno (pop. 313), however, the border fence would, conveniently, "abruptly end" at the property owned by Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt.

It's not surprising that the administration would be hesitant to upset Hunt, who was a Bush-Cheney campaign "Pioneer" in 2000. More recently, Hunt "donated $35 million to Southern Methodist University to help build Bush's presidential library." In 2001, Bush appointed Hunt to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, granting him "a security clearance and access to classified intelligence."

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February 19, 2008

Stanford drops tuition for students whose families earn less than $100,000 a year

(02-19) 23:49 PST Palo Alto -- In a radical change to its financial aid program, Stanford University will announce today that it will no longer charge tuition to students whose families earn less than $100,000 a year.

In addition, the university will waive room and board fees for students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year.

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February 19, 2008

FEMA Spent Millions Fraudulently

(AP) The Federal Emergency Management Agency misspent millions of dollars it received from selling used travel trailers, government investigators have found.

Instead of buying more trailers - as allowed under the law - FEMA used more than $13 million toward fully loaded sport utility vehicles, travel expenses and purchase card accounts, according to a draft report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general obtained by The Associated Press. The report is to be released Friday.

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