February 22, 2007
US Army Invites Sutherland To Give Anti-Torture Speech
24 star Kiefer Sutherland has accepted an invitation from the US military to teach army cadets it is wrong to torture prisoners.Sutherland, who plays agent Jack Bauer in the show, has agreed to talk to cadets at the West Point military academy in New York state after army chiefs claimed the show's torture scenes are influencing its newest recruits.
Earlier this month, Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan visited the set of 24 to urge its makers to cut down on torture scenes.
February 23, 2007
Documentary makers claim tomb of Jesus found in Jerusalem cave
Jerusalem (dpa) - The makers of a new documentary, to be aired for the first time at a news conference in New York Monday, claim that a tomb found in a Jerusalem cave 36 years ago belongs to none other than Jesus Christ.The claim presented in the documentary is based on years of research by world-renowned archaeologists, statisticians, experts in ancient scripts and in DNA, the Israeli Yediot Ahronot daily Friday quoted the makers as saying in an exclusive interview.
February 24, 2007
Impeachment: Breaking the Dam in Olympia, Washington
If the state of Washington ends up passing a joint legislative resolution next month calling on the US House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney, it will because 900 people who crammed into Olympia's Center for the Performing Arts last Tuesday evening, and countless others across the state, pushed them into it.The crowd at the arts center had come to attend an event organized by the Citizens Movement to Impeach Bush/Cheney, a local ad hoc citizens' organization in this little burg that had convinced the local city council to make the 1000-seat auditorium available for a hearing on impeachment.
If terrorism is so bad, why do we fund it?
An Impeachable OffenseAn Impeachable OffenseFebruary 25, 2007
US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran
America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions.
The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime.
February 22, 2007
U.S. urged to reassess claim against North Korea
Feb 21, 2007 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States should reexamine a questionable charge that North Korea has a covert uranium enrichment program, a key American complaint against Pyongyang that could complicate the new nuclear weapons deal, experts said on Wednesday.Physicist David Albright, who recently visited the isolated communist state, likened the enrichment program charge to the "fiasco" of flawed U.S. intelligence that mistakenly concluded Iraq had a secret nuclear weapons program in the runup to war.
February 22, 2007
Why isn't anyone in the government being held accountable for these crimes against a fellow American? Where were the courts? (Granted it's a little late now but the courts were fully aware something was very wrong with this case for many years). Our court system failed to stop the criminal acts of the Bush White House. The only recourse is impeachment and removal from office. Then we should seriously think about impeaching the Supreme Court.
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 22, 2007
A Trial for Thousands Denied Trial
Something remarkable is going on in a Miami courtroom. The cruel methods US interrogators have used since September 11 to "break" prisoners are finally being put on trial.This was not supposed to happen. The Bush Administration's plan was to put José Padilla on trial for allegedly being part of a network linked to international terrorists. But Padilla's lawyers are arguing that he is not fit to stand trial because he has been driven insane by the government.
There is no need to go so far back to prove that the US military knew full well that it was driving Padilla mad. The Army's field manual, reissued just last year, states, "Sensory deprivation may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and anti-social behavior," as well as "significant psychological distress."
If these techniques drove Padilla insane, that means the US government has been deliberately driving hundreds, possibly thousands, of prisoners insane around the world. What is on trial in Florida is not one man's mental state. It is the whole system of US psychological torture.
February 25, 2007
US developing contingency plan to bomb Iran-report
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Despite the Bush administration's insistence it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President George W. Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months, according to an unidentified former U.S. intelligence official cited in the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the March 4 issue.
February 18, 2007
Hundreds of Vets End up Homeless
The problem is mainly a lack of resources, advocates say. There are only about 15,000 beds available in VA-funded shelters or hospitals nationwide, and nearly every one is taken. In some smaller cities there simply aren't many places for a homeless veteran to go. And as affordable housing units shrink nationwide, veterans living on a disability check of, say, $700 a month, (which means a 50-percent disability rating from the VA), are hard-pressed to find a place to live. Most shelters require veterans to participate in a rehabilitation program, but a "fair amount" of veterans just go back to the streets once they leave, says Ed Quill, director of external affairs at Volunteers of America, the nonprofit housing group for veterans that helped Felty.The VA says it's making a concerted effort to reach out to vets before they hit bottom, says Pete Dougherty, the VA's coordinator for homeless programs. Intake counselors are trained to ask questions, especially of newer veterans, to seek out mental health or other problems that could lead to homelessness. "We're much more sensitive than we were 40 years ago for signs of problems," he says. And they have expanded some services. Last week, the VA approved $24 million to boost aid for the homeless, which will allow them to add about 1,000 more beds and increase the number of grants to help the growing population of homeless women veterans and those with mental illnesses.
It appears many of our generals no longer trust their commander in chief.
February 25, 2007
US generals 'will quit' if Bush orders Iran attack
SOME of America's most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
"There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran," a source with close ties to British intelligence said. "There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible."
February 18, 2007
Galloway: Walter Reed Hospital Scandal is 'The Last Straw'
Who among the smiling politicians who regularly troop over to the main hospital at Walter Reed for photo-op visits with those who've come home grievously wounded from the wars the politicians started have bothered to go the extra quarter-mile to see the unseen majority with their rats and roaches?Not one, it would seem, since none among them have admitted to knowing that there was a problem, much less doing something about it before the reporters blew the whistle.
Within 24 hours, construction crews were working overtime, slapping paint over the moldy drywall, patching the sagging ceilings and putting out traps and poison for the critters that infest the place.
Within 48 hours, the Department of Defense announced that it was appointing an independent commission to investigate. Doubtless the commission will provide a detailed report finding that no one was guilty -- certainly none of the politicians of the ruling party whose hands were on the levers of power for five long years of war.
They will find that it all came about because the Army medical establishment was overwhelmed by the case load flowing out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Articles of ImpeachmentFebruary 23, 2007
U.S. soldier convicted of indecent acts in Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was convicted of indecent acts and lying after he attempted to force himself on a junior U.S. soldier in her room at a base in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Friday.A U.S. statement said Sergeant Daniel Edwards Franklin followed a 19-year-old private to her room at a U.S. military logistics base called Anaconda, north of Baghdad, in October.
"He attempted to force intimate contact upon the soldier," the statement said, adding that Franklin had also lied during an investigation and on the witness stand, saying that he was only in her room for five minutes and never touched her.
March 2007
THE PEOPLE V. RICHARD CHENEY
Resolved
That Richard B. Cheney, vice president of the United States, be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors; that the evidence hereinafter set out sustains six articles of impeachment justifying immediate removal from office; that said articles shall be adopted by the House of Representatives; and that the same shall be endorsed by the Senate, to wit:ARTICLE I
In his conduct of the office of the vice president of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, contrary to his oath to faithfully execute the office of vice president of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws of this nation be upheld, has deliberately obstructed the nation's intelligence-gathering capacity, in that:(1) During the several months preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the vice president endeavored to bypass the role of the Central Intelligence Agency as the nation's principal filter of raw intelligence, directing subordinates within the agency to "stovepipe" raw intelligence directly to his office.
I don't know who to blame but it seems obvious there are two groups that hate US soldiers; the US military and the Republican Party.
February 24, 2007
Army holding down disability ratings to save money
The Army is deliberately shortchanging troops on their disability retirement ratings to hold down costs, according to veterans' advocates, lawyers and service members."These people are being systematically underrated," said Ron Smith, deputy general counsel for Disabled American Veterans. "It's a bureaucratic game to preserve the budget, and it's having an adverse affect on service members."
But in the Army — in the midst of a war — the number of soldiers approved for permanent disability retirement has plunged by more than two-thirds, from 642 in 2001 to 209 in 2005, according to a Government Accountability Office report last year. That decline has come even as the war in Iraq has intensified and the total number of soldiers wounded or injured there has soared above 15,000.
February 22, 2007
U.S. economy leaving record numbers in severe poverty
WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.
February 23, 2007
White House Brings in Nixon-Era Lawyer
WASHINGTON (AP) - In his first job at the White House, Fred Fielding, barely in his 30s, broke the news to President Nixon's top lawyer about the Watergate break-in.Now, more than two decades later, President Bush has brought the 67-year-old lawyer back to handle legal fights the White House expects with the new Democratic Congress.
February 23, 2007
Senate Dems Move to Limit Iraq Mission
WASHINGTON (AP) - Determined to challenge President Bush, Senate Democrats are drafting legislation to limit the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq, effectively revoking the broad authority Congress granted in 2002, officials said Thursday.While these officials said the precise wording of the measure remains unsettled, one draft would restrict American troops in Iraq to combating al-Qaida, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.
February 23, 2007
Soldier sentenced to 100 years for Iraq rape and murder
A US soldier was sentenced to 100 years in prison yesterday for one of the worst known cases involving US troops in Iraq - the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the killing of her father, mother and sister.The horrific slaying of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and her family happened in Mahmoudiya, around 20 miles south of Baghdad, on March 12 last year.
In spite of the apparently long prison sentence, Sergeant Paul Cortez, 24, can expect to be released on parole in about ten years under a plea bargain deal. He pleaded guilty and agreed to testify in the cases of others alleged to have been involved.
How many times has Bush said things are getting better? How many times has he lied?
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 18, 2007
One in three Iraqis 'in poverty'
One-third of Iraqis are now living in poverty, according to a new UN study, with 5% in extreme poverty, a sharp deterioration since the 2003 invasion.Oil riches are not benefiting many of Iraq's people, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) study says.
Other indicators show a sharper fall, with half the population having unsatisfactory water supplies and more than 40% deprived of good sanitation.
The rot within the Marine Corps appears to be systemic.
February 20, 2007
US soldier pleads guilty in rape, murder of Iraqi girl
FORT CAMPBELL, United States (AFP) - A US soldier pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her family.Sergeant Paul Cortez, 24, was the second soldier to plead guilty in a deal that is expected to allow him to avoid the death penalty. He was expected to be sentenced late Tuesday or Wednesday.
Cortez was among five soldiers accused of plotting the March 2006 rape and murder of Abeer Kassem Hamza al-Janabi, as well as the murder of her parents and younger sister.
I'd be curious of anyone in the press is going to go back and check to see if the new AG used this fake terror data in sworn congressional testimony.
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 20, 2007
Audit: Anti-terror case data flawed
WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 even though no evidence linked them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit said Tuesday.Overall, nearly all of the terrorism-related statistics on investigations, referrals and cases examined by department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine were either diminished or inflated. Only two of 26 sets of department data reported between 2001 and 2005 were accurate, the audit found.
The leaders of the world are making changes we'll have to adapt to. It wasn't so long ago we were doing the leading and other were doing the following.
February 21, 2007
EU Environmental Ministers Agree on Deep Cuts in Greenhouse Gases
European Union environmental ministers agreed in principle Tuesday to cut carbon emissions from cars and factories by as much as 30 percent by 2020.German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters that the 30-percent reduction is conditional on other industrialized nations matching that number.
If not, the EU will strive for a 20-percent cut.
Here's the deal. The US buys oil from Iran, then they use our money to build weapons - nothing wrong with that, we build a lot of weapons also. So when our money is being used to build up Iran why don't our politicians make nice with them instead of antagonizing them?
I'd like to see a grown-up in the White House soon. With any luck it'll be someone who knows it's just as easy to make friends as enemies. Just a few years ago we had friends all over the world. Do we have any left?
February 21, 2007
Iran 'swiftly seeks nuclear goal
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran will try to achieve nuclear capability as soon as possible.His comments, reported by Iran's Isna news agency, come as a UN deadline for Tehran to freeze its uranium enrichment programme expires.
For the first time, a political party in Iran has called on Mr Ahmadinejad to accept the UN's demands.
Iran denies Western claims that it is seeking nuclear weapons, saying its programme is for purely peaceful ends.
February 21, 2007
Blair announces Iraq withdrawal plan
Under proposals laid out by Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday, Britain will withdraw about 1,600 troops from Iraq over the coming months and hopes to make other cuts to its 7,100-strong contingent by late summer.The announcement, on the same day Denmark said it would withdraw its 460 troops, comes as the U.S. is implementing an increase of 21,000 more troops for Iraq — putting Washington on an opposite track as its main coalition allies.
February 20, 2007
Walter Reed probes former aid director
WASHINGTON — Walter Reed Army Medical Center is investigating the former head of a program that aids injured soldiers.The probe involves the activities of Michael J. Wagner, who until last month ran the Army's Medical Family Assistance Center, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Tuesday. The center links businesses, charities and other donors with wounded troops who need financial help or with families strained by living costs, air fares and other expenses when they come to Washington to visit or help care for injured soldiers.
"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." There is no invading army and there is no rebellion, therefore suspending habeas corpus is unconstitutional. The problem is we have an ass in the White House, many members of Congress and some courts that use the constitution for ass wipe.
February 20, 2007
Appeals Court: habeas corpus is dead
WASHINGTON - In a victory for President Bush, a divided federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Guantanamo Bay detainees cannot use the U.S. court system to challenge their indefinite imprisonment. A Supreme Court appeal was promised.The 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismisses hundreds of cases filed by foreign-born detainees in federal court and also threatens to strip away court access to millions of lawful permanent residents currently in the United States.
Conservative are only interested in the Constitution when their party isn't destroying it. In this case, a conservative writes that Congress doesn't have the authority to micro manage a war. But in the real world, the war was based on lies and the only reason we're still in Iraq is because it's in Bush's best political interests to stay there. We have to first accept the fact that Iraq was never a threat to our national security and then accept the fact that Bush spent years lying about that threat after he knew it wasn't true.
February 20, 2007
The coming constitutional crisis in Congress
Murtha wants to attach conditions on the impending supplemental appropriations bill to fund the war. He would require that troops have a year at home before redeploying, that they train with their own equipment before deploying and so on. Because the too-small U.S. military is under enormous strain, these conditions would be impossible to meet while still doubling the number of U.S. combat troops in Baghdad.Only if one ignores our constitutional scheme. The president, not Congress, is the commander in chief. Congress was never meant to, nor is it suited to, direct tactical military decisions, as Murtha seeks to do with his restrictions.
February 18, 2007
Study sees harmful hunt for extra oil
All the world's extra oil supply is likely to come from expensive and environmentally damaging unconventional sources within 15 years, according to a detailed study.This will mean increasing reliance on hard-to-develop sources of energy such as the Canadian oil sands and Venezuela's Orinoco tar belt.
A report from Wood Mackenzie, the Edinburgh-based consultancy, calculates that the world holds 3,600bn barrels of unconventional oil and gas that need a lot of energy to extract.
The study makes clear the shift could come sooner than many people in the industry had expected, even though some major conventional oil fields will still be increasing their production in 2020. Those increases will not be enough to offset the decline at other fields.
"It becomes unclear beyond 2020 that conventional oil will be able to meet any of the demand growth," Wood Mackenzie said. The report added that natural gas products such as liquids and condensate would also become important sources of growth.
The increasing reliance on unconventional oil will require a substantial reshaping of the energy industry.
This is what happens when Congress and a President sits on their ass for six years. It's time to hold them accountable. With each passing day there are going to be fewer and fewer republicans - the party destroyed itself.
February 19, 2007
VA: 400,000 case backlog
Soldiers go to VA to try for more benefits, but the department had a staggering 400,000-case backup on new claims in fiscal 2006, according to VA.Pfc. Martin Jackson, 30, spent 16 months in Iraq as a supply sergeant with 4th Brigade, 27th Infantry Battalion. Two years ago, while running from a mortar round in Balad, Iraq, he tripped and twisted his leg.
"I thought it was just an ankle sprain," he said. "One day I woke up and just couldn't move."
He had twisted his spine. Now the soft-spoken soldier cannot sit or stand for too long, or lift anything over 10 pounds, which limits his work as a supply clerk.
He has spent two years at Walter Reed going through rehabilitation and waiting for his discharge, which means he hasn't lived with his wife of 10 years for more than three years.
"She's been talking about a divorce," he said. "I just signed [my rating] so I could go home and be with my family."
Even Democrat supports have to admit their party has no stomach for a good fight. Cowards? Perhaps a bit too strong, but what else do we call people who check the polls before taking a stand on anything? The GOP polls only their base, while Dems poll what most Americans want. When does leadership come into the equation?
February 20, 2007
The Fierce Urgency of Impeachment
Impeachment is not a means of empowering a party. It's a way to empower the American people and the first branch of our government, the Congress. But the fact is that if the Democratic Party takes a stand for impeachment, it will gain the respect and support of Americans and of people all over the world, and it will be rewarded. When the Democrats failed to impeach Reagan for Iran-Contra, thinking they could thereby win elections, they lost elections and put George Bush I in power – and we are suffering from that still. Americans do not vote for cowardice. They voted for Democrats post-Nixon, but not post-Reagan.
February 19, 2007
"If Iraq don't kill you, Walter Reed will."
Perks and stardom do not come to every amputee. Sgt. David Thomas, a gunner with the Tennessee National Guard, spent his first three months at Walter Reed with no decent clothes; medics in Samarra had cut off his uniform. Heavily drugged, missing one leg and suffering from traumatic brain injury, David, 42, was finally told by a physical therapist to go to the Red Cross office, where he was given a T-shirt and sweat pants. He was awarded a Purple Heart but had no underwear.David tangled with Walter Reed's image machine when he wanted to attend a ceremony for a fellow amputee, a Mexican national who was being granted U.S. citizenship by President Bush. A case worker quizzed him about what he would wear. It was summer, so David said shorts. The case manager said the media would be there and shorts were not advisable because the amputees would be seated in the front row.
" 'Are you telling me that I can't go to the ceremony 'cause I'm an amputee?' " David recalled asking. "She said, 'No, I'm saying you need to wear pants.' "
David told the case worker, "I'm not ashamed of what I did, and y'all shouldn't be neither." When the guest list came out for the ceremony, his name was not on it.
Why didn't McCain state his objections to Rumsfeld when it would have made a difference? Can they find a weaker candidate?
February 19, 2007
McCain: Rumsfeld was one of the worst
BLUFFTON, S.C. - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday the war in Iraq has been mismanaged for years and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will be remembered as one of the worst in history."We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement — that's the kindest word I can give you — of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war," the Arizona senator told an overflow crowd of more than 800 at a retirement community near Hilton Head Island, S.C. "The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously."
The US military had a 61% increase in spending and it's still getting its butt kicked (in a country that has no military). Our health care is a disaster. We're now rated 37th in the world and with each passing year we're falling further and further behind the rest of the world.
February 15, 2007
Defense spending overshadowing health care
On the same day the president was proposing another $245 billion to prosecute the war this year and next, which would bring the five-year total since the war began to a staggering sum of $589 billion, he also called for slashing $78.6 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years.In addition, the president wants Medicare recipients to pay higher premiums for prescription drugs and doctors' services, and to eliminate annual indexing of income thresholds, effectively another $10 billion in cuts.
February 16, 2007
Be cautious about impeaching Bush
Impeach the president? Impeach President Bush?The firing of a president is a traumatic event. It would cause a deep wound in the body politic. It took a couple of decades to recover from the shock of deposing Nixon, though after the trivialization of the process by Gingrich it might be less shocking. It may be necessary to strike back at the pernicious claims of extra-constitutional presidential power by the administration. It is not true, as Garry Wills has reminded us, that the title of "commander in chief" magnifies the constitutional power of the president. Indeed, his title of commander in chief of the Army and the Navy is limited by the constitutional powers of the president. He is not the commander in chief of all of us, and perhaps that needs to be made clear. Yet, deposing a president is a savage and blunt instrument to be used only when absolutely necessary and at the risk of poisoning the political atmosphere for decades.
If we look in major political magazines like US News, they state categorically that Iran is funding Iraq. What is their evidence? They have none. They simply regurgitate the latest White House lies into a news story even though our top generals say it's all a lie.
Speaking of US News, the same issue says the deficit is going down and they say Bush has created hundreds of billions of dollars of debt. Either the folks at US News are delusional or they're uninformed. The Bush debt now stands at $3 trillion, not hundreds of billions.
February 18, 2007
Iran flap exposes public skepticism of US intelligence, intentions
And "for the umpteenth time," as US Defense Secretary Robert Gates put it, they denied that the United States was trying to prepare the ground for military action in Iraq.But the flap exposed how deep public suspicion of US intelligence claims runs nearly four years after the United States went to war with Iraq on the strength of erroneous intelligence that it had weapons of mass destruction.
"I think this controversy is traceable to one big problem," said Loren Thompson, director of the Lexington Institute, a private Washington research group.
"The US intelligence community does not have an adequate network of agents in Iraq or Iran. Because of that, everything is guesswork," he said.
If we don't impeach this crook, what will the future say of us? They will call us the generation of cowards.
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 18, 2007
Jailed 2 Years, Iraqi Tells of Abuse by Americans
After his release from the American-run jail, Camp Bucca, Mr. Ani and other former detainees described the sprawling complex of barracks in the southern desert near Kuwait as a bleak place where guards casually used their stun guns and exposed prisoners to long periods of extreme heat and cold; where prisoners fought among themselves and extremist elements tried to radicalize others; and where detainees often responded to the harsh conditions with hunger strikes and, at times, violent protests.Through it all, Mr. Ani was never actually charged with a crime; he said he was questioned only once during his more than two years at the camp.
February 18, 2007
Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and back damage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions have grown so exponentially -- they outnumber hospital patients at Walter Reed 17 to 1 -- that they take up every available bed on post and spill into dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The average stay is 10 months, but some have been stuck there for as long as two years.Yet at a deeper level, the soldiers say they feel alone and frustrated. Seventy-five percent of the troops polled by Walter Reed last March said their experience was "stressful." Suicide attempts and unintentional overdoses from prescription drugs and alcohol, which is sold on post, are part of the narrative here.
Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, 43, came in on one of those buses in November 2004 and spent several weeks on the fifth floor of Walter Reed's hospital. His eye and skull were shattered by an AK-47 round. His odyssey in the Other Walter Reed has lasted more than two years, but it began when someone handed him a map of the grounds and told him to find his room across post.
A reconnaissance and land-navigation expert, Shannon was so disoriented that he couldn't even find north. Holding the map, he stumbled around outside the hospital, sliding against walls and trying to keep himself upright, he said. He asked anyone he found for directions.
The US Marine Corps remains a ceasepool of criminals, liars and thugs. It's time to clean house - from the top down.
February 17, 2007
Marine gets 8 years for kidnapping and murder
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A Marine who said he never fired a shot in the kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi man was sentenced Saturday to 8 years in military prison — the longest sentence yet in the case.Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington, 22, also was reduced in rank and given a dishonorable discharge during the sentencing hearing at the Camp Pendleton Marine base.
The GOP is stuck. They can either rebuke Bush or defend his failures. Being cowards, they chose instead to stop debate so they don't have to do either.
February 17, 2007
Senate Republicans block Iraq measure
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans blocked the U.S. Senate on Saturday from considering a rebuke to President George W. Bush's Iraq troop buildup, but lawmakers vowed to continue waging a bitter struggle over war policy.For the second time in two weeks, Republicans senators halted progress on a nonbinding resolution opposing Bush's recent decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the resolution the day before.
It's good to see there are still a few people willing to resign in order to expose most lies put out by the Bush White House.
February 17, 2007
Ex-envoy says Iraq rebuilding plan won't work
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kiki Munshi was showcased by the media in September as a seasoned U.S. diplomat who came out of retirement to lead a rebuilding group in Iraq.Now she is back home, angry, and convinced that President George W. Bush's new strategy of doubling the number of such groups to 20 along with a troop surge of 21,500 will not help stabilize Iraq.
A diplomat for 22 years, she quit her job last month as leader of a Provincial Reconstruction Team -- groups made up of about 50 civilian and military experts that try to help Iraqi communities build their own government while strengthening moderates.
February 17, 2007
Rudy's inner diva is outed
In addition to his $100,000 speaking fee, the former mayor insists that he be shuttled to and from any event by a private plane - and not just any plane, mind you!"Please note that the private aircraft MUST BE a Gulfstream IV or bigger," notes the contract, referring to a $30 million jet that can clock 600 mph.
Once there, Hizzoner demands that he be met by "one sedan and one large SUV," and booked into a hotel room "with a king-size bed, on an upper floor, with a balcony and view," plus four more rooms on the same floor for his entourage.
Yet the Pentagon keeps on giving contracts to Halliburton. If I were in charge I'd press charges against their directors and CEO and throw them in jail, not give them more contracts.
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 18, 2007
Halliburton cited: #10 billion were either excessive or undocumented
WASHINGTON -- A top Pentagon auditor told Congress on Thursday that $10 billion in defense contracts for Iraq reconstruction and troop support were either excessive or undocumented, including $2.7 billion for contracts held by Halliburton or one of its subsidiaries.William Reed, director of the Defense Department's Defense Contract Audit Agency, told the House Oversight and Government Reform committee that his agency discovered the problems --$4.9 billion in "questioned" or overly expensive charges, and $5.1 billion in "unsupported" or undocumented expenses-- after auditing $57 billion in Pentagon contracts.
February 18, 2007
USA Today founder: Bush Is Worst President of All-Time
NEW YORK Al Neuharth, the former Gannett chief, USA Today founder and currently weekly columnist for that newspaper, has had a change of heart.A year ago, in honor of President's Day, he stated that while he was often critical of George W. Bush, he did not, and probably would not ever, crack his list of the five worst presidents we've ever had.
A year later he admits he was wrong. In his USA Today column today he announces that Bush has not only cracked the bottom five, he's now at the very bottom.
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 15, 2007
The Bush Debt
$3,000,504,566,250.46
(over $3 trillion)
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 18, 2007
Oh What a Malleable War
No sooner did unnamed military officials unveil their melodramatically secretive briefing in Baghdad last Sunday than Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blew the whole charade.General Pace said he didn't know about the briefing and couldn't endorse its contention that the Iranian government's highest echelons were complicit in anti-American hostilities in Iraq.
Public-relations pandemonium ensued as Tony Snow, the State Department and finally the president tried to revise the story line on the fly.
Back when Karl Rove ruled, everyone read verbatim from the same script.
February 16, 2007
Italy Indicts 26 Americans in C.I.A. Abduction Case
ROME, Feb. 16 — An Italian judge today ordered the first trial involving the American program of kidnapping terror suspects on foreign soil, indicting 26 Americans, most of them C.I.A. agents, but also Italy's former top spy.The indictments covered the episode in which a radical Egyptian cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who disappeared near his mosque in Milan on Feb. 17, 2003, says he was kidnapped. The cleric, known as Abu Omar, was freed this week from jail in Egypt, where he says he was taken and then tortured.
February 16, 2007
House rebukes Bush on Iraq
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Seventeen Republicans joined Democrats on Friday in passing a two-sentence resolution denouncing President Bush's plan to boost troop levels in Iraq.The resolution passed easily, 246-182.
Democratic leaders on Saturday will attempt to bring the same measure to the floor in the Senate.
The resolution says that Congress supports the military but disapproves of Bush's plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq. A clear majority of Republicans battled to the end against the resolution.
February 16, 2007
Poll: 63% Oppose EscalationWould you favor or oppose sending more troops to Iraq?
- Favor, 35 percent (26)
- Oppose, 63 percent (70)
- Not sure, 2 percent (4)
Do you think the war in Iraq is ...
- A worthy cause, 39 percent
- A hopeless cause, 56 percent
- Both equally (volunteered), 2 percent
- Neither (volunteered), 2 percent
- Not sure, 1 percent
Bush's war never had anything to do with National Security. It's about padding the pockets of party donors - war profiteering.
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 15, 2007
Pentagon Rejected Contracts Because of Party Affiliation
The Pentagon rejected qualified experts for reconstruction work in Iraq because they were not deemed loyal to the Republican party, according to the former chief of staff of the Washington Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Frederick Smith."Some people were overlooked because they didn't meet the political saliva test," Smith, now retired, told ABC News.
Smith said political appointees at the Pentagon, including a special assistant to the secretary of defense and White House liaison, James O'Beirne, led the screening.
February 13, 2007
PBS' 'Frontline' examines ways politics, business hurt news media
Readers didn't need a week of front-page stories about diaper-wearing astronauts and the alleged cultural significance of Anna Nicole Smith to tell them that the Fourth Estate is having an identity crisis. There's also last week's Pentagon inspector general report criticizing the Bush administration's manipulation of prewar intelligence, reminding Americans that most of the Beltway media danced to the White House's drumbeat to the Iraq war four years ago.The 4 1/2-hour "News War" series traces the pathology crippling the media business -- financially and legally -- back to the days of the Nixon administration. What it reports is not necessarily new, but it is one of the first televised efforts to connect the factors transforming the news industry at this critical juncture in journalism. And many of the key players -- on both sides of the camera -- are in the Bay Area.
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 14, 2007
Carl Bernstein on Nixon vs. Bush
BERNSTEIN: First, Nixon's relationship to the press was consistent with his relationship to many institutions and people. He saw himself as a victim. We now understand the psyche of Richard Nixon, that his was a self-destructive act and presidency.I think what we're talking about with the Bush administration is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the truth -- a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president himself -- is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale.
February 15, 2007
Former Justice and Interior Officials Targeted
The inquiry by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was announced hours after The Associated Press reported that the prosecutor, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, bought a $1 million vacation home on Kiawah Island, S.C., with ConocoPhillips Vice President Donald R. Duncan, nine months before agreeing to let the company delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup. It was one of two proposed consent decrees Wooldridge signed with ConocoPhillips just before resigning last month.The third buyer of the beachshore getaway was former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official targeted for criminal prosecution in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.
I'm listing this as an impeachable offense because the Bush White House knew there was no accountability last year and chose to do nothing about it. At some point, they must be held accountable.
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 15, 2007
$10 billion squandered in Iraq
More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors were questionable or unsupported, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall.According to their testimony, the investigators:
- Found overpricing and waste in Iraq contracts amounting to $4.9 billion since the Defense Contract Audit Agency began its work in 2003. Some of that money has been recovered. An additional $5.1 billion in expenses were charged without proper documentation.
- Pointed to growing Iraqi sectarian violence as a significant factor behind bloated U.S. contracting bills. Iraqi officials, they said, must begin to take primary responsibility for reconstruction efforts. That is an uncertain goal, given the widespread corruption in Iraq and the local government's inability to fund projects.
- Urged the Pentagon to reconsider its growing reliance on outside contractors in wars and reconstruction efforts. Layers of subcontractors, poor documentation and lack of strong contract management are rampant and promote waste even after the GAO first warned of problems 15 years ago.
Rice has a long history of forgetting and/or never getting it right. She was in charge of intelligence during the two largest intelligence failures in US history - 911 and WMD. For these failures (and many more) she was rewarded with the job of Sec. of State. What does it take to be considered a failure in this White House?
February 13, 2007
Ex-aide says Rice misled U.S. Congress on Iran
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice misled the U.S. Congress when she said last week that she had not seen a 2003 Iranian proposal for talks with the United States, a former senior government official said on Wednesday."The Bush administration up to and including Secretary Rice is misleading Congress and the American public about the Iran proposal," he said.
Testifying before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Rice told lawmakers who asked about Leverett's previous public comments and writings on the Iranian proposal: "I don't know what Flynt Leverett's talking about."
She faulted him for not telling her, "We have a proposal from Iran and we really ought to take it."
Another day, another crime...it never stops.
February 14, 2007
U.S. Army Translator Pleads Guilty to Possessing Iraq Documents
Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- An Arabic translator for the U.S. Army who had a top-secret security clearance pleaded guilty to unauthorized possession of documents concerning plans to combat insurgents in Iraq.Abdulhakeem Nour used a fake identity to win a translator job with L-3 Titan Corp., which contracts with the U.S. military in Iraq, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said today. The documents, including one showing the coordinates of insurgent locations the Army was preparing to attack in January 2004, were found in his Brooklyn apartment in 2005.
Is there anyone working for Bush who ISN't a criminal?
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 15, 2007
Justice Official Bought Vacation Home With Oil Lobbyist
A senior Justice Department official who recently resigned her post bought a nearly $1 million vacation home with a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips months before approving consent decrees that would give the oil company more time to pay millions of dollars in fines and meet pollution-cleanup rules at some of its refineries.Sue Ellen Wooldridge, former assistant attorney general in charge of environment and natural resources, bought a $980,000 home on Kiawah Island, S.C., last March with ConocoPhillips lobbyist Don R. Duncan. A third owner of the house is J. Steven Griles, a former deputy interior secretary, who has been informed he is a target in the federal investigation of Jack Abramoff's lobbying activities.
Murtha knows the military better than any member of congress. If anyone can do it, he can. Will Pelosi let him?
An Impeachable OffenseFebruary 15, 2007
Murtha Plan to End War
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a leading congressional opponent of the war in Iraq, on Thursday said his plans for placing conditions on how President George W. Bush can spend $93.4 billion in new combat funds would effectively stop an American troop buildup."They won't be able to continue. They won't be able to do the deployment. They won't have the equipment, they don't have the training and they won't be able to do the work. There's no question in my mind," the Pennsylvania Democrat said.
February 15, 2007
Bush Battles Military Over Iran Intelligence
"No, no, no, no," White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday in response to questions about whether the administration embellished evidence against Iran in a U.S. military briefing in Baghdad the previous day. "I'm almost ready to hit my head on the microphone.""In the old days, if the U.S. government had come out and said, 'We've got this, here's our assessment,' reasonable people would have taken it at face value," the official said of the Baghdad briefing. "That's never going to happen again."
Bush contradicted the military's account, saying, "We don't know . . . whether the head leaders of Iran ordered" it.
February 15, 2007
Gore Sets Global Warming Concerts on Seven Continents
Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- A group headed by former Vice President Al Gore is planning a single day of concerts on seven continents featuring more than 100 performers, including Bon Jovi, Snoop Dogg and Fall Out Boy, to promote awareness of global warming.The "Live Earth" shows will take place July 7 in London, Shanghai, Sydney, Johannesburg and locations to be determined in the U.S., Brazil and Japan, Gore and music producer Kevin Wall said today in Los Angeles. Details of a show in Antarctica will be announced next month, Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said.