June 8, 2006
594 Iraqi prisoners released
The government has promised to release 2,000 detainees whose cases have been reviewed, in batches of about 500. The first 594 were freed Wednesday from U.S.- and Iraqi-run prisons around the country, including Abu Ghraib. Those freed were not guilty of serious crimes and had agreed to renounce violence.

June 4, 2006
American Bar Association voted unanimously to investigate Bush right to ignore 750 laws
WASHINGTON -- The board of governors of the American Bar Association voted unanimously yesterday to investigate whether President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in reserving the right to ignore more than 750 laws that have been enacted since he took office.

June 4, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
Army Manual to Skip Geneva Detainee Rule
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

June 4, 2006
Military and Media were Slow to Probe Haditha
Clues about the general lack of interest in American misconduct in Iraq -- here at home -- appear in Thomas Ricks' Washington Post story on Haditha on Sunday.

Near the end, he traces the now-familiar timeline: Haditha killings in November, Time magazine story in March, quiet again until Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) told reporters on May 17 the shocking news (after he was briefed on the incident) that what happened in Haditha was "much worse than reported in Time magazine." Murtha stated that the investigations would reveal that our troops overreacted, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.

June 5, 2006
Harry Reid enumerates issues gay marriage vote won't solve
In Nevada today, gas prices are over $3.00 a gallon. Fill-ups at the tank cause emptiness at the bank. This Administration, the most friendly-to-oil Presidency in our history, refuses to buck Big Oil or the auto manufacturers. Our citizens are literally choking on the lack of alternative fuel. Few incentives for energy created by the sun, the wind, or the Earth's geothermal reserves has this Administration endorsed.

Raging in Iraq is an intractable war. Our soldiers are fighting valiantly, but we have Abu Ghraib and Haditha—where 24 or more civilians were allegedly killed by our own—and no policy for winning the peace. However, Secretary Rumsfeld continues in his job with the full backing of the President. Not a reprimand, not a suggestion that his Defense Secretary is at fault.

June 5, 2006
Lawmakers took $50 million in free trips
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of the U.S. Congress and their aides took free trips worth nearly $50 million paid for by corporations, trade associations and other private groups between January 2000 and June 2005, according to a study released on Monday.

Some of the 23,000 trips featured $500-a-night hotel rooms, $25,000 corporate jet rides and visits to popular spots such as Paris, Hawaii and Colorado ski resorts, said the study, by the Center for Public Integrity, American Public Media and Northwestern University's Medill News Service.

June 3, 2006
Haditha: Within two days Marine commanders knew soldiers lied
WASHINGTON, June 2 — Marine commanders in Iraq learned within two days of the killings in Haditha last November that Iraqi civilians had died from gunfire, not a roadside bomb as initially reported, but the officers involved saw no reason to investigate further, according to a senior Marine officer.

The handling of the matter by the senior Marine commanders in Haditha, and whether officers and enlisted personnel tried to cover up what happened or missed signs suggesting that the civilian killings were not accidental, has become a major element of the investigation by an Army general into the entire episode.

June 4, 2006
US probe of Ishaqi killings no surprise for Iraqis
ISHAQI, Iraq, June 4 (Reuters) - Isa Khalaf doesn't want cash from the U.S. troops he says massacred his relatives in a March raid. He wants an explanation he may never get now that a U.S. probe has cleared them of any wrongdoing.

Standing in the rubble that remains of his brother's house that was pulverised in the small town of Ishaqi, Khalaf recalled the young children that were lost as the sound of gunfire and helicopters rattled the village.

"I don't want compensation. I want answers," he said.

June 4, 2006
Homeland security pork
IT IS BAD enough that Boston has had its federal anti-terrorism funds cut by one-third. But it is downright wrong-headed that the Department of Homeland Security is cutting funds for two even likelier targets of Al Qaeda, New York City and Washington, D.C., by 40 percent each. News of the reductions ignited justified protests from both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. Congress should waste no time in getting homeland security Secretary Michael Chertoff before a committee to explain why cities like Omaha and Louisville are getting additional funds while cities with a record of terrorism attacks are getting less.

June 3, 2006
Iraqi PM: U.S. rushed Ishaqi probe
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military rushed to judgment in its exoneration of U.S. troops involved in the March 15 raid that killed civilians in Ishaqi, said an aide to Iraq's prime minister on Saturday.

There are too many "questions and doubts" surrounding the raid 60 miles north of Baghdad, said Adnan al-Kadhimi.

"The Iraqi government should continue its own investigation until the truth can be found," he said.

June 2, 2006
AP Video: Horrific images of dead Iraqi children in Ishaqi
But previously unaired video shot by an AP Television News cameraman at the time shows at least five children dead, several with obvious bullet wounds to the head. One adult male is also seen dead.

"Children were stuck in the room, alone and surrounded," an unidentified man said on the video.

A total of 11 people died, according to Iraqis on the scene. The Iraqis said the people were killed by U.S. troops before the house was destroyed.

June 2, 2006
Hard labour for Abu Ghraib Dog Handler
Sgt Santos Cardona, 32, was instead sentenced to 90 days' hard labour by the panel. He will also be demoted and will have his pay docked.

He was found guilty on two out of nine charges of abuse and dereliction of duty at the prison near Baghdad.

He is the 11th US soldier convicted in connection with abuse at Abu Ghraib.

June 2, 2006
BBC: New 'Iraq massacre' tape emerges
The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.

The video appears to challenge the US military's account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.

June 2, 2006
Iraqi PM Assails U.S. for Strikes on Civilians
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.

As outrage over reports that American marines killed 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha last year continued to shake the new government, the country's senior leaders said that they would demand that American officials turn over their investigative files on the killings and that the Iraqi government would conduct its own inquiry.

June 2006
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)

June 2, 2006
FEC fines Frist's 2000 Senate campaign
The federal agency fined Frist 2000, Inc., $11,000, according to a lawyer representing Frist's campaign and a watchdog group. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington had filed a complaint last year against Frist's 2000 campaign committee and received the FEC's findings Thursday.

June 3, 2006
How The Christian Right Exploits War's Youngest Victims
As Republicans, they want to promote the "positive" side of the carnage at all costs. And as evangelicals for a highly ideologically form of Christianism, the horror of war is nothing more than another marketing opportunity.

So here's the drill: The people they helped put into power start a needless war based on lies. That war maims, impoverishes, and orphans hundreds of thousands of children. But that becomes cause for celebration - and why not? Now they can market to Iraqi's most helpless and America's most persuadable at the same time.

June 2, 2006
Zarqawi Calls For Civil War In Iraq
It was the first message from al-Zarqawi since April 29, when he appeared in a video tape saying that any government formed in Iraq would be merely a "stooge" of the Americans. That video was the first time al Qaeda in Iraq had released images showing al-Zarqawi's face.

June 4, 2006
The way Americans like their war
We have all heard of Bloody Sunday. The Israelis sat and watched while their proxy Lebanese militia butchered and eviscerated its way through 1,700 Palestinians. And of course the words My Lai are now uttered again. Yes, the Nazis were much worse. And the Japanese. And the Croatian Ustashi. But this is us. This is our army. These young soldiers are our representatives in Iraq. And they have innocent blood on their hands.

I suspect part of the problem is that we never really cared about Iraqis, which is why we refused to count their dead.

June 2, 2006
Time Magazine: Unfair and Unbalanced
Time's lineup of columnists betrays its readers and distorts the public discourse in a Limbaugh-like direction. It also proves a larger point: That America's most influential magazine can carry this imbalance so long without anyone paying attention -- and can win the industry's most coveted award while doing so -- ought to put to rest any arguments that the media elite are part of some liberal conspiracy. Indeed, media machers have grown so accustomed to conservative domination, they no longer notice it.

May 25, 2006
Bush Caught In Lie About Snow Resignation
On May 25th, President Bush said that Treasury Secretary John Snow had not given him any indication that he was leaving soon:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Secretary of Treasury Snow?

Q Has he given you any indication he intends to leave his job any time soon?…

PRESIDENT BUSH: No, he has not talked to me about resignation. I think he's doing a fine job.

In fact, not only had Snow indicated he was leaving, President Bush had already settled on his replacement. Today, Tony Snow said that Hank Paulson was offered the job on May 20 and accepted a day later.

June 2, 2006
Zogby: Iraq war will hurt GOP in fall elections
He said 70% of voters believe the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction, adding, "I have never seen a number like that since I've been polling."

He said 68% of voters believe the war in Iraq wasn't worth the loss of American lives. He added, "Americans want their wars to be won, they want it won quickly and their troops home and out of harms way."

June 1, 2006
Poll of Voters: Bush Worst President Since World War II
NEW YORK  A new Quinnipiac Poll finds American voters selecting George W. Bush as easily the worst American president in the past 61 years, with fellow Republican Ronald Reagan picked as the best.

June 2, 2006
Price of gas defines auto market
Overall, Ford sales dipped 2 percent as rising sales of cars and small SUVs helped overcome declines in larger SUVs and pickups. Ford's F-Series pickup line, which includes Super Duty trucks built at Louisville's Kentucky Truck Plant, slipped 5.8 percent to 70,175.

Still, Ford fared better than General Motors and DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler Group, rivals that reported double-digit sales declines.

At GM, both car and SUV sales plunged, sending overall results off 12.2 percent.

May 30, 2006
SD Abortion ban repeal drive gets 37,846 signatures
The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families announced Tuesday that it had secured more than twice the number of signatures it needed to refer the abortion ban passed by the 2006 Legislature to a vote of the people this fall.

May 30, 2006
Rushing Towards a Constitutional Crisis
To merely authorize the use of force, as Congress eventually did, is to avoid responsibility and leave the ominous decision to go to war with an officer who benefits from the extension of powers war brings.

Madison's solution to the concentration of powers that he believed led to tyranny relied upon either Congress or the Supreme Court to check the overreaching from a president. In our present crisis, Congress has been supine in the face of the president's steady assertion of unconstitutional, unlimited power, and the Supreme Court has yet to decide on cases affecting detainees and executive surveillance of Americans' telephone calls and email messages.

May 31, 2006
Bush sends 1,500 more troops to Iraq and dashes hopes of withdrawal
Military officials quoted anonymously yesterday said it should last no more than four months, but it was a blow to the Bush administration's hopes of bringing troops home after the formation of the new government in Baghdad. There were about 130,000 US troops in Iraq before the deployment and that figure is unlikely to change for several months, military officials said.

May 21, 2006
Fury on the Right: Bush's Base BetrayalSixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.

May 30, 2006
If congress didn't want whistleblowers to have protection they would have written it into the law. Had enough?
Supreme Court limits protections for government whistleblowers
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court made life a bit tougher for government whistleblowers Tuesday, saying the First Amendment doesn't protect public employees who disclose waste and fraud as part of their jobs.

By a 5-4 margin, the justices said that the government's interest in effectively managing operations outweighs the interests that protect employee speech, even in cases where employees may be reporting inefficiencies or wrongdoing.

May 30, 2006
Bush learned of Haditha deaths from press
WASHINGTON - President Bush learned of reports that U.S. Marines killed two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians only after reporters began asking questions, the White House said Tuesday.

Asked when Bush was first briefed about the events in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq, White House press secretary Tony Snow replied Tuesday: "When a Time reporter first made the call."

May 30, 2006
Ex-Kansas GOP chair becomes democrat
TOPEKA, Kan. - The former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party jumped ship in a big way Tuesday, switching his affiliation to Democrat amid speculation that he would become Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' running mate.

Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison also switched parties from Republican to Democrat to challenge Attorney General Phill Kline, a Republican, in the November election.

May 30, 2006
Hillary Clinton was right, we need to reform healthcare.
Canadians healthier than Americans
ATLANTA - You can add Canadians to the list of foreigners who are healthier than Americans. Americans are 42 percent more likely than Canadians to have diabetes, 32 percent more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12 percent more likely to have arthritis, Harvard Medical School researchers found. That is according to a survey in which American and Canadian adults were asked over the telephone about their health.

May 30, 2006
Oil prices settle at $72 a barrel
WASHINGTON - Oil prices rose above $72 a barrel Tuesday ahead of anOPEC meeting in Venezuela and the start of the Atlantic hurricane season later this week.

May 30, 2006
Consumer confidence slides in May
NEW YORK - Consumer confidence soured in May, as Americans fretted about the overall economy's future and the job outlook. The drop in a widely watched barometer of sentiment was the steepest since hurricanes pummeled the Gulf Coast last year, increasing worries about the health of consumer spending.

May 30, 2006
Fellow Methodist Demands Bush Impeachment
WASHINGTON -- "Impeach President Bush!" urged Jim Winkler, head of the Capitol Hill-based United Methodist Board of Church and Society. Winkler was speaking earlier this spring here in town to an "Ecumenical Advocacy Days" rally for liberal religious activists, organized by the National Council of Churches, mainline denominations, several left-wing Catholic orders, and Jim Wallis's Sojourners group.

June 1, 2006
Seattle funding to fight terror slashed 22%

In all, the Homeland Security Department announced $1.7 billion in grants Wednesday, down from about $2.3 billion last year.

According to Tracy Henke, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for grants and training, the recent findings showing Puget Sound's ferries to be the top maritime terrorist target in the country . . .

May 31, 2006
San Diego, Sacramento won't receive any Homeland Security money next year
But the Bay Area was not alone in seeing its funding slide. The San Diego area, for instance, saw a drop from $14.8 million to $8 million, leaving it beneath Omaha, Neb., Louisville, Ky. and Milwaukee, Wis., among others.

The San Diego and Sacramento areas have been dropped from the federal list of eligible high-risk regions, meaning next year they will no longer receive funds under the program.

June 1, 2006
Homeland Security Funding in Washington, NY Slashed 40%
NEW YORK // Despite pledges to direct a larger portion of anti-terrorism money to high-risk cities, Homeland Security officials announced yesterday that grants for New York and Washington would be cut by 40 percent while funding for smaller cities such as Omaha, Neb., and Louisville, Ky., will surge.

New York's 2006 anti-terrorism allowance - slated to pay for continuing emergency preparedness and training - will plummet to $124.5 million, from $207.5 million last year, according to figures released yesterday.

"I really look at this as a declaration of war on New York," said House Homeland Security Chairman Peter T. King, a New York Republican.

May 29, 2006
Afghans Riot After Deadly Crash by U.S. Military Truck
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 29 — A deadly traffic accident caused by a United States military convoy quickly escalated into a full-blown anti-American riot that raged across much of the Afghan capital on Monday, leaving at least 14 people dead and scores injured.

May 29, 2006
Kinda old news, but propaganda is an Impeachable Offense
Bush 'Planted Fake News Stories on American TV'
Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.

May 31, 2006
936 Civilian Deaths in May

More than 4,000 Iraqis — many of them civilians — have been killed in war-related violence this year, including at least 936 in May alone, according to an Associated Press count. That makes May the second-deadliest month for Iraqis over the past year. Only March recorded more fatalities.

May 29, 2006
Every newspaper editor that supports war in Iraq should be required to send his daughter, son or grandchildren to fight in the war they say they support. Chicken-hawks.
Editorials Oppose Iraq Withdrawals -- As U.S. Sends More Troops
As Bob Herbert, the New York Times columnist, put it on Monday: "Pretty soon this war in Iraq will have lasted as long as our involvement in World War II, with absolutely no evidence of any sort of conclusion in sight."

That's why all of these fine editorials nailing the administration for stupidly and incompetence in regard to Iraq are so hollow—if they are as stupid and incompetent as the Times suggests, why spend even one more day entrusting 135,000 American soldiers to their care?

May 29, 2006
The same reporters that lied to us about everything from Whitewater to WMD will lie to keep the GOP in power as long as possible. Maybe this is why Meet the Press has had only republican guests for the past few weeks.
Democrats and the November vote
First step: Voters must focus on the national landscape on Nov. 7 rather than local issues and personalities that usually dominate midterm elections.

That would sting Republicans, who trail badly in national polls.

Second step: Voters must be so angry at Washington and politics in general that an anti-incumbent, throw-the-bums-out mentality sweeps the nation.

That would wound Republicans, the majority party.

Third step: Americans must view the elections as a referendum on President Bush and the GOP-led Congress, siding with Democrats in a symbolic vote against the Iraq war, rising gas prices, economic insecurity and the nagging sense that the nation is on the wrong track.

May 30, 2006
Marines left traumatised by massacre in Haditha
Two US Marines ordered to photograph the corpses of more than 20 unarmed Iraqi civilians allegedly massacred by their comrades were left severely traumatised by the sight, according to the soldiers' parents.

Lance Corporal Andrew Wright, 20, and Lance Corporal Roel Ryan Briones, 21, both Marines based at Camp Pendleton, California, were sent to photograph and remove the bodies of up to 24 Iraqi men, women and children who were shot last November in the western Iraqi city of Haditha.

According to their parents, both men have struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder ever since. What they saw that day has become the subject of two US military investigations and is threatening to become, alongside Abu Ghraib, a defining horror of the American-led invasion of Iraq.

Iraqi witnesses and US politicians who have seen evidence from the investigations say that a group of Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, went on the rampage after a popular soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.

US soldiers allegedly shot up a taxi before going from house to house, throwing grenades and killing a family at close range.

May 28, 2006
An Impeachable Offense - Americans have the the right to sue their government when the government violates their constitutional rights.
Bush Administration Wants Spy Lawsuits Dismissed
NEW YORK — The Bush administration has asked federal judges in New York and Michigan to dismiss a pair of lawsuits filed over the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, saying litigating them would jeopardize state secrets.

In papers filed late Friday, Justice Department lawyers said it would be impossible to defend the legality of the spying program without disclosing classified information that could be of value to suspected terrorists.

May 26, 2006
Bush Killed His Own Doctrine
Is it possible that the administration is questioning the wisdom of promoting democracy as a long-term solution to U.S. national security woes? "Realists" suggest that the president has finally woken up and smelled the coffee. They say democracy gave us an Islamist government in Iraq and Hamas in Palestine. It could give us the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Heaven knows what it would spawn in China or Libya. Better the devil you know.

May 30, 2006
Journalists, 31 others killed in Baghdad CBS reporter critically injured as shootings, bombings moun
Baghdad -- On a day of soaring violence in Baghdad, two Britons working as members of a CBS television crew were killed on Monday and an American correspondent for the network critically injured when a military patrol they were accompanying was hit by a roadside bomb. Police said at least 31 other people were killed in bombings and shootings in one of the worst days of bloodshed in the capital in weeks.

May 25, 2006
Rove-Novak Call Was Concern To Leak Investigators
On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men.

May 25, 2006
Novak Told Rove He Wouldn't Identify Him
The National Journal, which reported earlier today on the Sept. 29, 2003, conversation between Rove and Novak, said Justice Department prosecutors were concerned that Rove and Novak may have been working on a cover story to protect Rove. The report, citing people familiar with the grand jury testimony of both men, said then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was briefed on the matter.

May 25, 2006
Note how the article ignores the $2.6 trillion of debt created by the GOP since 2001.
Taxpayers owe more than a half-million dollars per household for financial promises made by government
Taxpayers owe more than a half-million dollars per household for financial promises made by government, mostly to cover the cost of retirement benefits for baby boomers, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

Like an unpaid credit card bill, the balance grows every year - about $25,000 per household annually.

Taxpayer liabilities grew 20% in the past two years, 13% above the inflation rate.

That is the equivalent of a $510,678 credit card debt for every American household. Payments on this delinquent tax bill must start soon if financial promises to the elderly are to be kept.

May 27, 2006
Some children were used to intimidate POW's (their parents were POW's in Gitmo).A clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and an Impeachable Offense.
More than 60 children have been held at Guantanamo Bay
LONDON (AFP) - More than 60 minors, some as young as 14, have been held as prisoners at the US detention facility for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a London-based human rights group claimed in a report published.

Those detainees were under 18 when they were captured by US forces, and at least 10 of them still being held at Guantanamo were 14 or 15 when they were seized, held in solitary confinement, subject to repeated interrogation and allegedly tortured, the charity Reprieve was reported as saying.

May 28, 2006
Seven months ago? Where was Bush? An Impeachable Offense
The Shame Of Kilo Company - murder and coverup of 24 Iraqi civilians deaths
But one morning last November, some members of Kilo Company apparently didn't attempt to distinguish between enemies and innocents. Instead, they seem to have gone on the worst rampage by U.S. service members in the Iraq war, killing as many as 24 civilians in cold blood. The details of what happened in Haditha were first disclosed in March by TIME's Tim McGirk and Aparisim Ghosh, and their reporting prompted the military to launch an inquiry into the civilian deaths. The darkest suspicions about the killings were confirmed last week, when members of Congress who were briefed on the two ongoing military investigations disclosed that at least some members of a Marine unit may soon be charged in connection with the deaths of the Iraqis--and that the charges may include murder, which carries the death penalty. "This was a small number of Marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them," said Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and former Marine who was briefed two weeks ago by Marine Corps officials. "This is going to be an ugly story."

Almost as damaging as the alleged massacre may be evidence that the unit's members and their superiors conspired to cover it up. "There's no doubt that the Marines allegedly involved in doing this--they lied about it," says Kline. "They certainly tried to cover it up." Three Marine officers, including the company commander and battalion commander, have been relieved of duty in part for actions related to the deaths in Haditha. A lawmaker who has been briefed on the matter says the investigations may implicate other senior officers.

May 28, 2006
Congress should issue a subpoena, then raid the Oval Office without first consulting anyone in the White House. Watch how fast the WH runs to the Supreme Court. An Impeachable Offense
Raid Was Tipping Point For an Angry Congress
When President Bush set up his own new military justice system for detainees, or invited industry lobbyists to secretly help shape energy policy, or declared he would ignore bills he signed into law if he deemed them out of bounds, Congress stepped aside.

It took federal agents rummaging through file cabinets and computer hard drives inside Congress's own privileged enclave on Capitol Hill to finally rouse the leadership into revolt. The FBI raid on a Democratic congressman's office a week ago may at first have been about the $90,000 in marked bills previously found in his home freezer, but it has quickly morphed into an eruption of resentment born of a dramatic shift in the balance of power during the Bush presidency.

May 27, 2006
Is there a single person in the country who cares?
AG, FBI Director Threaten To Quit Rather Than Bow To Congress
WASHINGTON (CBS/AP)  -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI director Robert Mueller signaled they would resign this week rather than give in to Congress in a dispute over an FBI raid on Rep. William Jefferson's Capitol Hill office, an administration official tells CBS News.

May 25, 2006
U.S. veterans' data theft may cost $500 million
WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs faced angry lawmakers on Thursday and described how the theft of a device the size of an iPod containing personal data on 26.5 million veterans may cost taxpayers as much as $500 million.

May 26, 2006
Consumer prices up sharply
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Surging energy costs helped push U.S. consumer prices up by a sharp 0.5 percent in April and weighed on shoppers' moods in May as worries of higher future inflation grew, reports showed on Friday.

May 25, 2006
Experts says Cheney can't avoid testifying
WASHINGTON - If a prosecutor calls him as a witness, Vice President Dick Cheney probably can't avoid testifying in his former chief of staff's perjury trial, legal experts said Thursday.

"There may be significant issues of executive privilege and significant issues of classified information. But there are obviously significant factual issues that bear on the charges the prosecutor has brought" in the CIA leak investigation, said former federal prosecutor E. Lawrence Barcella Jr.

May 26, 2006
Judge: Reporters Must Give Libby Documents
WASHINGTON May 26, 2006 (AP)— Time magazine must give I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby drafts of articles so the former White House aide can use them to defend himself against perjury and other charges in the CIA leak case, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton limited the scope of subpoenas that Libby's lawyers had aimed at Time, NBC News and The New York Times for e-mails, notes, drafts of articles and other information.

May 26, 2006
An Impeachable Offense - if Bush wants to glory of being a war time president he needs to take responsibility for the war crimes committed by those under his command.
Iraq Civilian Deaths Unjustified
WASHINGTON May 26, 2006 (AP)— Investigators believe that their criminal investigation into the deaths of about two dozen Iraqi civilians points toward a conclusion that Marines committed unprovoked murders, a senior defense official said Friday.

The Marine Corps initially reported 15 deaths and said they were caused by a roadside bomb and an ensuing firefight with insurgents. A separate investigation is seeking to determine if Marines lied to cover up the killings.

May 25, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
White House Leak to ABC Meant to Intimidate Speaker of the House
On Thursday, Hastert accused the Justice Department of trying to intimidate him after ABC News quoted unnamed top law enforcement officials as saying Wednesday the speaker was being investigated in a broad influence-peddling probe centered on convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

May 25, 2006
An Impeachable Offense - how else could dogs be used?
General urged use of dogs at Abu Ghraib
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, former head of the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, was sent to Iraq to try to improve information gathering as the insurgency intensified after the March 2003 invasion.

The former commander of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay urged the use of dogs to the "maximum extent possible" to control detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

May 26, 2006
Hunt for origin of HIV pandemic ends at chimpanzee colony in Cameroon
Scientists searching for the origin of HIV, the global pandemic infecting more than 40 million people, believe they have finally tracked its original source to two colonies of chimpanzees in a corner of Cameroon.

The finding represents the culmination of a 10-year hunt for the source of the pandemic and provides a crucial link between HIV, which causes Aids in humans, and the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a strikingly similar virus that infects monkeys and chimpanzees. Researchers believe that south-east Cameroon is where the virus first jumped from chimpanzees to humans before HIV infection began spreading among people as far back as the 1930s.

May 23, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
Government keeps info from defense lawyers in terror cases
Government lawyers are refusing to allow defense attorneys in terrorism-related cases to see court filings on whether warrantless surveillance was used to obtain information against their clients, defense attorneys said.

The legal disputes represent a new obstacle for defense attorneys in terrorism cases as the legality of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs is challenged in U.S. courtrooms.

May 23, 2006
An Impeachable Offense - Bush is not above the law.
FCC chief says won't probe NSA call program
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission will not pursue complaints about a U.S. spy agency's access to millions of telephone records because it cannot obtain classified material, the FCC chairman said in a letter released on Tuesday.

Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, had asked communications regulators to investigate a newspaper report that AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications and BellSouth Corp. gave access to and turned over call records to help the National Security Agency fight terrorists.

May 23, 2006
Possible Impeachable Offense
Intelligence Czar Can Waive SEC Rules
President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye.

May 23, 2006
Conservatives are fickle. McCain supports everything Bush supports. He's become a right wing nut and he's proud of it.
Backing Away From Bush
Mr. Bush "is really doing poorly in our state," says Rep. Curt Weldon, explaining why he won't be on hand and hasn't asked for the president's help. "I've got to win this by myself."

Well, almost. Mr. Weldon did invite Arizona Sen. John McCain to his district last month to help him campaign and raise money, and he is thinking about doing it again.

May 24, 2006
FBI missed China spying warning signs
It found that Smith exploited the inexperience of his supervisors, sometimes intentionally deceiving them, and circumvented or ignored FBI rules on handling intelligence sources.

The report concluded the FBI's inattention to the oversight of Smith and Leung and its failure to aggressively question Smith or follow up when red flags arose allowed Leung to deceive the FBI about the extent of her spying.

May 24, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?
Historians say the search was the first of its kind in Congress' 219-year history. Reaction has crossed party lines and brought in all three branches of government.

Hastert, Pelosi and several other leaders of both parties in the Senate say the weekend raid violated the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine.

May 26, 2006
U.S. Adults Remain Very Pessimistic About Situation in Iraq
ROCHESTER, N.Y., May 26 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. adults remain very pessimistic about the situation in Iraq, and are not confident that U.S. policies there will be successful. As a result, President Bush's job approval rating in handling the situation in Iraq hasn't changed in two months -- two-thirds (68%) give the president negative marks -- tying an all-time low.

May 25, 2006
U.S. residents don't trust leaders
Only 3 percent believe Congress is trustworthy; 7 percent think business leaders are; 24 percent say President George W. Bush can be trusted; and 29 percent trust the courts.

May 24, 2006
U.S.: Usama Bin Laden Tape Authentic, Moussaoui Not Involved
Intelligence experts said a technical analysis of the tape, which was posted on the Internet Tuesday, showed the tape was probably authentic.

On the tape, bin Laden said that neither Zacarias Moussaoui — the only person convicted in the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks — nor anyone held at Guantanamo had anything to do with the Al Qaeda operation.

May 19, 2006
Italy's PM calls Invasion a Grave Mistake. Will pull troops out
Italy's Romano Prodi, Italy's new prime minister, pledged yesterday to pull Italian troops out of Iraq, saying that the war had been a "grave mistake" which could make "the whole region explode."

May 23, 2006,
An Impeachable Offense
Guantanamo, Target of World Criticism, Seems Set for Long Life
Guantanamo presents the Bush administration with a military and legal quandary. The war-crimes trials the military plans to hold for some detainees may be halted by the U.S. Supreme Court, while the release of other prisoners is being stymied by concern that they may be tortured by their governments or resume terrorist activities.

"No one would like to shut down Guantanamo more than this administration," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on May 21. The problem, she said, is what to do "with the hundreds of dangerous people there who were caught on the battlefield, who are known to have connections, who regularly say that, if they're released, they're going to go back to killing Americans."

May 19, 2006
Gen Michael Hayden attacks Rumsfeld on Pre War Intelligence
President George W Bush's nominee as the new Central Intelligence Agency chief launched a thinly veiled attack on Donald Rumsfeld and his Pentagon aides yesterday, accusing them of cherry-picking the intelligence on Iraq to make the case for war.

Gen Michael Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency, the CIA's sister agency, said pointedly that in his old role he was "uncomfortable" with the handling of pre-war intelligence on Iraq by the administration's hawks.

January 13, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
John Dean: The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements
By Cooper's count, George W. Bush issued 23 signing statements in 2001; 34 statements in 2002, raising 168 constitutional objections; 27 statements in 2003, raising 142 constitutional challenges, and 23 statements in 2004, raising 175 constitutional criticisms. In total, during his first term Bush raised a remarkable 505 constitutional challenges to various provisions of legislation that became law.

That number may be approaching 600 challenges by now. Yet Bush has not vetoed a single bill, notwithstanding all these claims, in his own signing statements, that they are unconstitutional insofar as they relate to him.

Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush is using his signing statements to effectively nullify them as they relate to the executive branch. These statements, for him, function as directives to executive branch departments and agencies as to how they are to implement the relevant law.

May 17, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
Court Was Briefed on Surveillance, but, Did Not Consent
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that at least two of the chief judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had been informed since 2001 of White House-approved National Security Agency monitoring operations.

Asked if the judges somehow approved the operations, Hatch said, "That is not their position, but they were informed."

May 16, 2006
US spells out plan to bomb Iran
The main plan calls for a rolling, five-day bombing campaign against 400 key targets in Iran, including 24 nuclear-related sites, 14 military airfields and radar installations, and Revolutionary Guard headquarters.

At least 75 targets in underground complexes would be attacked with waves of bunker-buster bombs.

Iranian radar networks and air defence bases would be struck by submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and then kept out of action by carrier aircraft flying from warships in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.

May 20, 2006
Japan pulling out of Iraq
Japan may make a decision on the troop withdrawal as early as June and immediately start pulling out the troops, initially to neighbouring Kuwait, the daily quoted government sources as saying.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told visiting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday that Japan was willing to transport goods and personnel in Iraq to support the United Nations.

May 21, 2006
US Vet speaks out against torture at Guantanamo Bay
As a soldier who voluntarily joined the military in October 1973, I took the oath all soldiers take, to uphold the constitution and the laws of this nation. Against all enemies foreign and domestic.

The office holders who are responsible for GITMO took the same or a very similar oath of office. I don't remember a line in the oaths, that allowed for the oath takers to create their own laws in addition to the constitutions or what Congress had passed.

May 22, 2006
Bush sets up arms deal for Afghanistan in case democrats win White House
American defence officials have secretly requested a "prodigious quantity" of ammunition from Russia to supply the Afghan army in case a Democrat president takes over in Washington and pulls out US troops.

May 23, 2006
Impossible for Journalists to Move Around in Iraq: VOA Pulls Outs
VOA reporter Alisha Ryu said yesterday that she told her bosses in December that "it would really be impossible for me to do any kind of work" in Iraq. "I couldn't live with the idea that someone else could have died who was working with me. . . . For all journalists, it's really become impossible to move around."

In November, Ryu said, she was the only journalist to witness U.S. forces transferring 169 Iraqi detainees from a secret Interior Ministry prison where, Baghdad authorities acknowledged, some had been tortured, possibly by Shiite militia. She said that after her initial reports, "I had a feeling the Shiite militia was watching me, and I know they were not happy."

The prisoners were mostly Sunni, and the official then running the ministry was a Shiite reported to have ties to a Shiite militia group.

Ryu was widely quoted about watching the prisoners transferred from the prison to waiting buses. She told "NBC Nightly News" that the detainees were "almost like Holocaust victims that you've seen in World War II films." She told the Los Angeles Times that the detainees, some of them bruised, looked "like concentration camp victims" and told the New York Times that the prisoners appeared "extremely emaciated, starved for some time."

May 23, 2006
War on terror 'undermining human rights
Governments and international institutions have turned a blind eye to massive human rights violations and "sacrificed principles in the name of the war on terror," Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

Criticising western governments, Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary general, said: "When the UK remains muted on arbitrary detention and ill-treatment in Guantánamo, when the US ignores prohibition on torture, when European governments are mute about their record on renditions, racism or refugees, they undermine their own moral authority to champion human rights elsewhere in the world."

May 23, 2006
Brutal string of hurricanes threatens U.S. once again
"For the 2006 North Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA is predicting 13 to 16 named storms, with eight to 10 becoming hurricanes, of which four to six could become 'major' hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher," said Vice-Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, administrator of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

But 2005 turned out to be far worse than last year's original predictions, both in the number of storms and their severity.

Yesterday, the hurricane centre's experts were stressing the importance of preparedness, a warning that no longer extends just to individual households.

May 23, 2006
Theft of vets' data kept secret for 19 days
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Authorities waited almost three weeks to alert the public that personal data on more than 26 million U.S. veterans had fallen into the hands of thieves, a government source said Tuesday.

The data were on a laptop and external drive stolen May 3 in an apparent random burglary from the Montgomery County, Maryland, home of a Department of Veterans Affairs computer analyst, said the government source, who has been briefed on the issue.

May 22, 2006
Murtha on Iraq: 'There's Not Only No Progress, It's Worse Than It Was Prewar'
This morning, Jack Murtha appeared on CBS's The Early Show to talk about the Iraq war. Murtha offered a sobering assessment:

[T]here's not only no progress, it's worse than it was prewar. this thing has been mishandled so badly. The American people needed to hear. we're spending $450 billion on this war by the end of the year, $9 billion a month, and so we need to change course.

May 22, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
AT&T Whistle-Blower Mark Klein
I wrote the following document in 2004 when it became clear to me that AT&T, at the behest of the National Security Agency, had illegally installed secret computer gear designed to spy on internet traffic. At the time I thought this was an outgrowth of the notorious Total Information Awareness program, which was attacked by defenders of civil liberties. But now it's been revealed by The New York Times that the spying program is vastly bigger and was directly authorized by President Bush, as he himself has now admitted, in flagrant violation of specific statutes and constitutional protections for civil liberties. I am presenting this information to facilitate the dismantling of this dangerous Orwellian project.

May21, 2006
Land of the free or land of the imprisoned?
1 in 136 U.S. Residents Behind Bars
WASHINGTON May 21, 2006 (AP)— Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.

The total on June 30, 2005, was 56,428 more than at the same time in 2004, the government reported Sunday. That 2.6 percent increase from mid-2004 to mid-2005 translates into a weekly rise of 1,085 inmates.

May 21, 2006
Gonzales: English Language bill purely symbolic
WASHINGTON --Despite the brouhaha the Senate has caused with its immigration bill, making English the "national language" of the United States will not change current laws, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday.

May 17, 2006
Iraqi Vets are feeling bitter
The country is at war. People are fighting at this very moment. Don't these people know what's going on? Don't they care?

No, he decided. They have no appreciation for their easy, gluttonous lives.

He wanted to yell, "You don't know what you have! You don't appreciate it! You don't care!"

But he didn't. He was only home on leave. Soon, he would be going back to the war.

May 2006
Names of Guantanamo Bay POW's
List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
from January 2002 through May 15, 2006

May 19, 2006
Media Advisory - Bias against science
An Inconvenient Truth?
In fact, the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, that it is a threat, and that human activities have made it worse. And contrary to Stossel's claim, it is actually the few (usually industry-backed) scientists who disagree who get disproportionate media attention. As Jules and Maxwell Boykoff explained in an article in the November/December 2004 edition of Extra!, a bimonthly magazine from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

Using the search term "global warming," we collected articles from this time period and focused on what is considered "hard news," excluding editorials, opinion columns, letters to the editor and book reviews. Approximately 41 percent of articles came from the New York Times, 29 percent from the Washington Post, 25 percent from the Los Angeles Times, and 5 percent from the Wall Street Journal.

May 19, 2006
Media Advisory
Bush flip-flop on immigration
When the House passed its legislation in December 2005, Bush said, "I applaud the House for passing a strong immigration reform bill. America is a nation built on the rule of law, and this bill will help us protect our borders and crack down on illegal entry into the United States.

But that's not how the Post described Bush's position on the bill. Instead, the Post asserted that Bush had "responded weakly when the House passed its draconian measure." This is wrong: Bush did not respond "weakly" to the House bill at first. He endorsed it, and according to Sensenbrenner, had pushed for the provisions that the Post's editorial board would presumably consider most "draconian."

May 13, 2006
High US debt rate can be blamed on rising cost of basics
The debt of the typical American family earning about $45,000 a year rose 33.1 percent from 2001 to 2004, after adjusting for inflation, according to a study based on data compiled from the Federal Reserve Board's most recent Survey of Consumer Finances.

Real wages, after adjusting for inflation, have been flat since 2001, according to the study, while the cost of big-ticket items, for which families pay the most, rose.

In the past five years, the costs of medical care, housing, food, cars, and household operations rose 11.2 percent, the study said. Many families are trying to make up the difference by borrowing, according to Christian Weller, author of the report and a senior economist at the center.