Monday, August 13, 2007

Bush: "In other words."

US 'surge' in Iraq 'likely to fail': British lawmakers

The US "surge" of troops in Iraq is likely to fail, a British parliamentary committee said Monday as it delivered a critical report on London's foreign policy in the Middle East.

"It is too early to provide a definitive assessment of the US 'surge' but it does not look likely succeed," the House of Commons Foreign Affairs committee said in a wide-ranging document. The Commons is Britain's lower parliamentary chamber.

"The committee believes that the success of this strategy will ultimately ride on whether Iraq's politicians are able to reach agreement on a number of key issues."

Instead, it called on the government to set out what action it was taking to foster political reconciliation between Sunni and Shia Muslims and Kurds in Iraq. And it called for evidence of Iran's backing for insurgents in the south.

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Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq

Lieutenant Clay Hanna looks sick and white. Like his colleagues he does not seem to sleep. Hanna says he catches up by napping on a cot between operations in the command centre, amid the noise of radio. He is up at 6am and tries to go to sleep by 2am or 3am. But there are operations to go on, planning to be done and after-action reports that need to be written. And war interposes its own deadly agenda that requires his attention and wakes him up.

When he emerges from his naps there is something old and paper-thin about his skin, something sketchy about his movements as the days go by.

The Americans he commands, like the other men at Sullivan - a combat outpost in Zafraniya, south east Baghdad - hit their cots when they get in from operations. But even when they wake up there is something tired and groggy about them. They are on duty for five days at a time and off for two days. When they get back to the forward operating base, they do their laundry and sleep and count the days until they will get home. It is an exhaustion that accumulates over the patrols and the rotations, over the multiple deployments, until it all joins up, wiping out any memory of leave or time at home. Until life is nothing but Iraq.

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Tommy Thompson Drops Presidential Bid



Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said Sunday he is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after finishing sixth in an Iowa straw poll.

"I have no regrets about running," he said in a statement released Sunday evening by his campaign.

"I felt my record as Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as president, but I respect the decision of the voters. I am leaving the campaign trail today, but I will not leave the challenges of improving health care and welfare in America."

The statement was issued several hours after WITI-TV in Milwaukee reported that Thompson, 65, told one of its reporters he was withdrawing.

"I have very much enjoyed my years in public service and I am comforted by the fact that I think I made a difference for people during that time," Thompson said in the campaign announcement. "I hope to continue working to serve others over the next few years."

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Venezuela's Chavez says oil headed for $100 barrel

World oil prices are headed for $100 per barrel, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez predicted on Saturday, and said he will cut supplies to the United States if the U.S. government "attacks" the South American nation again.

"I've always said that oil prices are headed straight to $100 per barrel," he said during a televised speech. "We should prepare ourselves for those prices of one hundred dollars."

Chavez said high oil prices were the sign of a "global crisis" in energy caused by voracious consumption that has vastly reduced available oil reserves.

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Merv Griffin dead



Merv Griffin, the former talk-show host who became a Hollywood billionaire by investing in real estate and creating the popular game shows "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune," died of prostate cancer early on Sunday, his family said. He was 82.

Griffin's first success came from singing the 1950 novelty hit "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts," and he spent 23 years hosting a talk show that bore his name. For years it was the most successful syndicated U.S. television program.

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Taliban release 2 South Korean hostages

Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan freed two South Korean women hostages on Monday and handed them over to the Red Crescent, Reuters witnesses said.

"We saw them getting into a Red Crescent vehicle," one of the witnesses said.

Karl Rove to Resign at the End of August



Karl Rove, President Bush's close friend and chief political strategist, plans to leave the White House at the end of August, joining a lengthening line of senior officials heading for the exits in the final 1 1/2 years of the administration.

A longtime member of Bush's inner circle, Rove was nicknamed "the architect" by the president for designing the strategy that twice won him the White House.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2007

The Real X Files

Motivated by curiosity, fueled by obsession and empowered by the Freedom of Information Act, John Greenewald Jr. has assembled what may be the largest collection of UFO documents in the world.

And it's all online for anyone to see — which is the way the 26-year-old Californian thinks it should be.

As a teenager, Greenewald was fascinated by UFOs. Like many other kids in the 1990s, he used the Internet to learn more.

But simple Web searches weren't enough for Greenewald. When he discovered something interesting about UFOs, he wanted hard copies, so he asked for them.

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Video.

Monday, August 6, 2007

Feingold, Hinchey Introduce Resolutions Censuring

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) have introduced two censure resolutions in their respective chambers condemning the president, vice president and the attorney general for misconduct regarding our military involvement in Iraq and for their repeated assaults on the rule of law at home. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) is a cosponsor of both Senate censure resolutions and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is a cosponsor of the Senate censure resolution regarding Iraq. The House resolutions have 19 original cosponsors.

“Congress cannot stay silent when the American people are demanding that this administration be held accountable for its blatant misconduct regarding Iraq and its attack on the rule of law,” Feingold said. “These censure resolutions will let future generations know that Congress stood up to the destructive policies of this administration that have weakened our national security, cost more than 3,600 American lives, and undermined the principles on which our country was founded. I applaud Congressman Hinchey for leading this charge for accountability in the House of Representatives.”

“From misleading this country into invading Iraq to establishing a warrantless domestic spy program, this White House has continuously misled and deceived the American people while disregarding the rule of law that guides our democracy,” Hinchey said. “The Bush administration has placed an extraordinary burden on this and future generations to recover from the damage done to our Constitution and national security. While it will take time to get our country back on the right track, we in Congress can act now by passing these censure resolutions to hold the White House accountable and to let the historical record show that an equal branch of government found the actions of this administration undeniably reprehensible. I am honored to be working with Senator Feingold on these censure resolutions and look forward to gathering support in order to pass them in both chambers.”

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CREW FILES DOJ COMPLAINT AGAINST MIN. LEADER BOEHNER FOR ALLEGED ILLEGAL LEAK OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Department of Justice asking that the Counterespionage Section of the National Security Division initiate an investigation into whether House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-OH) violated the law by leaking classified information.

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After wiretapping victory, Bush says he wants more authority from Congress

The day after President George W. Bush marshaled political forces in Congress to grant him greater authority to engage in counterterrorism-related spying, the president stated that he would seek greater changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when the legislative branch returns to work in September.

"While I appreciate the leadership it took to pass this bill, we must remember that our work is not done," the President said in his Sunday statement. "This bill is a temporary, narrowly focused statute to deal with the most immediate shortcomings in the law."

The President said next month he would focus on further immunizing private companies that cooperate with government wiretapping. However, he used complicated language to describe these activities.

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Pattie Boyd: 'My hellish love triangle with George and Eric' - Part One

George Harrison wrote the love song Something for his wife Pattie Boyd. Eric Clapton wrote Layla for her. Theirs was the most extraordinary love triangle in rock history.

Now, after four decades of silence, the woman who drove two music legends wild tells the raw, unexpurgated story of her life...

We met secretly at a flat in South Kensington. Eric Clapton had asked me to come because he wanted me to listen to a new number he had written.

He switched on the tape machine, turned up the volume and played me the most powerful, moving song I had ever heard. It was Layla, about a man who falls hopelessly in love with a woman who loves him but is unavailable.

He played it to me two or three times, all the while watching my face intently for my reaction. My first thought was: 'Oh God, everyone's going to know this is about me.'

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Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

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6 Trapped in Utah Coal Mine Cave-In

Six miners were trapped in a coal mine Monday by a cave-in so powerful that authorities initially thought it was small earthquake.

The miners were believed to be 1,500 feet below ground, about four miles from the entrance to the mine, which is 140 miles south of Salt Lake City.

University of Utah seismograph stations recorded a seismic waves of 3.9 magnitude early Monday, causing speculation that a minor earthquake had caused the cave-in. Scientists later realized the collapse at the Genwal mine had caused the disturbance.

"There is no evidence that the earthquake triggered the mine collapse," said Walter Arabasz, director of the seismography stations.

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Giuliani's Daughter Backing Obama

The daughter of Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani has signaled she's backing Democrat Barack Obama for president.

According to her Facebook profile, Giuliani's 17-year-old daughter, Caroline, belonged to Democrat Barack Obama's Facebook group "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)." She left the group Monday morning after the online magazine Slate sent an inquiry.

Her profile can be viewed by Facebook users who have access to New York City's Trinity School or Harvard University networks. Caroline, who is Giuliani's daughter with his second wife, Donna Hanover, recently graduated from Trinity and will attend Harvard in the fall.

Slate posted a screen shot of her profile, which uses a slightly different last name. She lists herself as having liberal political views.

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Saturday, August 4, 2007

Late night Johnny Cash Hurt

Senator Durbin On The Netroots

Unknown Creature in Kanas Lake

Clinton, Obama and Edwards Clash on Lobbyist Money

Republicans try to rebuke Murtha

House Republicans sought to rebuke Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) Friday night for his actions while presiding over the chamber earlier in the day.

The resolution was just one of the many protest measures Republicans lobbed at the majority Friday to protest the contested outcome of a separate vote Thursday night that dominated the House floor all day.

Members quickly voted along party lines to ignore the resolution, offered by Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), sidelining GOP attempts to embarrass the Pennsylvania Democrat.

And House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who repeatedly rose in defense of his party throughout the day, shouted, "Enough is enough," when confronted with yet another protest measure.

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Rocket Blasts Off Carrying Mars Lander



CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A robotic dirt and ice digger rocketed toward Mars on Saturday, beginning a 422 million-mile journey that NASA hopes will culminate next spring in the first ever landing within the red planet's Arctic Circle.

The Phoenix Mars Lander blasted off before dawn, precisely on time, hurtling through the clear moonlit sky aboard an unmanned Delta rocket. The rocket was easily visible for five minutes, a bright orange speck in a spray of stars.

Michael Hecht, a lead scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said he watched the launch from the mobbed beach with friends and colleagues. They shouted out the final 10 seconds of the countdown and hooted and hollered "Go, baby!" then toasted with champagne.

Inside launch control, however, engineers were wringing their hands as they awaited contact with the spacecraft. Launch director Chuck Dovale finally confirmed success, 1 1/2 hours into the flight.

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Gonzales Now Says Top Aides Got Political Briefings

Justice Department officials attended at least a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001, including some meetings led by Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, and others that were focused on election trends prior to the 2006 midterm contest, according to documents released yesterday.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he did not believe that senior Justice Department officials had attended such briefings. But he clarified his testimony yesterday in a letter to Congress, emphasizing that the briefings were not held at the agency's offices.

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Gonzales Now Says Top Aides Got Political Briefings

Justice Department officials attended at least a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001, including some meetings led by Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, and others that were focused on election trends prior to the 2006 midterm contest, according to documents released yesterday.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he did not believe that senior Justice Department officials had attended such briefings. But he clarified his testimony yesterday in a letter to Congress, emphasizing that the briefings were not held at the agency's offices.

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Congress passes ethics overhaul bill

The U.S. Senate has given final approval to a far-reaching package of new ethics and lobbying rules, with an overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats agreeing to better police the relationship between lawmakers and lobbyists.

If President George W. Bush signs the bill into law, which administration officials indicated he would, members of Congress would face a battery of new restrictions. The legislation, approved by the Senate on Thursday on a vote of 83-14, calls for bans on gifts, meals and travel paid for by lobbyists and makes it more difficult for lawmakers to quickly capitalize on their connections when joining the private sector.

The measure, which grew out of scandals that have tarnished the image of Congress, represents a cultural shift in the traditions of Capitol Hill. While proponents hailed the measure as the most significant reform since Watergate, questions remained on how some provisions would be enforced and whether the measure would change lawmakers' ability to secure pet projects known as earmarks.

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Senate Votes To Expand Warrantless Surveillance

The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.

The 60 to 28 vote, which was quickly denounced by civil rights and privacy advocates, came after Democrats in the House failed to win support for more modest changes that would have required closer court supervision of government surveillance. Earlier in the day, President Bush threatened to hold Congress in session into its scheduled summer recess if it did not approve the changes he wanted.

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Friday, August 3, 2007



House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) disclosed what government officials say was classified information when trying to defend President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program Tuesday on Fox News Channel.

"There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States," Boehner remarked.

After leaking a secret foreign intelligence surveillance court ruling, Boehner went on to describe what he thought the ruling meant.

"This means that our intelligence agencies are missing a wide swath of potential information that could help protect the American people," he said. "The Democrats have known about this for months. We have had private conversations, we have had public conversations that this needs to be fixed. And Republicans are not going to leave this week until this problem is addressed."House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) disclosed what government officials say was classified information when trying to defend President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program Tuesday on Fox News Channel.

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McCain Changes Course on Immigration

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Thursday backed a scaled-down proposal that imposes strict rules to end illegal immigration but doesn't include a path to citizenship.

The move away from a comprehensive measure is an about-face for the Arizona senator, who had been a leading GOP champion of a bill that included a guest worker program and would have legalized many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. It failed earlier this year.

"We can still show the American people that we are serious about securing our nation's border," McCain said in a statement, adding that the new bill would "provide an essential step toward achieving comprehensive reform in the future."

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Amazing. Remember the flip-flop of John Kerry in 2004 that Republicans harped on time and again? Well, McCain just had a Kerry moment. He was for it before he was against it!

Gates Offers Blunt Review of Progress in Iraq

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that he was discouraged by the resignation of the Sunnis from Iraq’s cabinet and that the Bush administration might have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation between Iraq’s sectarian factions.

In one of his bluntest assessments of the progress of the administration’s Iraq strategy, Mr. Gates said, “I think the developments on the political side are somewhat discouraging at the national level.” He said that despite the Sunni withdrawal, “my hope is that it can all be patched back together.”

Mr. Gates made the remarks to reporters traveling on his plane while returning to Washington after a trip to the Middle East that included stops in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates but did not include a visit to Iraq.

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Dodd Battles Oreilly



Bill is being disengenuous! His web site has posts, such as if Hilary wins, get me my gun. It is still there! He is so, misleading in his outrage! Yet, his audience does not question! Amazing.

Late Night Little River Band Cool Change

Thursday, August 2, 2007

The Decider Part II



Part 2 of 8.

Kucinich to receive pro-impeachment petitions

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is expected to say Thursday morning his push to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney is gaining support among the American people as he collects petitions with more than 100,000 signatures supporting the impeachment drive.

"The Vice President actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and Congress about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive us about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," Kucinich said in a statement released by his office Wednesday. "And he openly lied to the America people and has publicly threatened aggression against Iran."

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Rove Refuses To Testify



White House senior adviser Karl Rove has rebuked a Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena and will not appear Thursday to testify about his role in the firing of nine US Attorneys, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said late Wednesday.

The Senate Judiciary chairman chided the White House for allowing Rove to give public speeches about the attorney firing scandal but not permit his testimony under oath.

"Mr. Rove has given reasons for the firings that have now been shown to be inaccurate after-the-fact fabrications," Leahy said in a statement. "Yet, he now refuses to tell this Committee the truth about his role in targeting well-respected U.S. Attorneys for firing and in seeking to cover up his role and that of his staff in the scandal."

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Clinton says Cheney wrong on her request

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday accused Vice President Dick Cheney of falsely portraying her attempt to get Iraq planning information out of the Pentagon.

The Democratic presidential front-runner has been hammering at the Bush administration for two weeks since a top Pentagon aide refused to tell her whether or how the military was planning for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

In a letter to the vice president, she accused Cheney of offering "inaccuracies" in opposing her request.

She used even tougher language in an appeal sent to supporters of her presidential bid: "I couldn't care less what Dick Cheney says about me. But when he plays politics with the lives of our troops, you had better be sure I'm going to respond. And I know that you want to respond too."

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Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Cheney Says Hillary's Request For Pentagon Info Helping Enemy

The battle between Hillary and the White House over Pentagon troop withdrawal plans has just heated up again in a big way.

Staking out a position at odds with that of his own Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney was just quoted on CNN saying that he agrees with a Pentagon official's recent assertion that Hillary Clinton's request for info about withdrawal contingency plans is helpful to the enemy.

In an excerpt from an interview with Larry King set to air later today that was just shown on the network, Cheney was asked whether he agreed with an earlier assessment by Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman, who recently sent Clinton a letter chiding her request for info about the plans as helpful to "enemy propaganda." Cheney's reply: "I agreed...I thought it was a good letter."

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Ware: Surge Is Undermining ‘The Very Government That America Created’



CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware, who spoke live on a night scope camera while embedded with troops responded to “the vice president’s evaluation” of progress in Iraq, calling it “sleight of hand.” “Yeah, sectarian violence is down, but let’s have a look at that,” said Ware. “More than two million people have fled this country. 50,000 are still fleeing every month, according to the United Nations. So there’s less people to be killed. And those who stay, increasingly are in ethnically-cleansed neighborhoods. They’ve been segregated.”

“There is still no sense of unity. And without America to act as the big baby sitter, this thing is not going to last.”


“By achieving these successes, America is building Sunni militias,” said Ware. “Yes, they’re targeting al Qaeda, but these are also anti-government forces opposed to the very government that America created.”

Bush Administration's intelligence chief acknowledges 'series' of other 'secret surveillance activities'

President Bush authorized a "series of secret surveillance activities" by executive order after Sept. 11, 2001, according to a letter from Bush Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA).

The disclosure marks the first time "that the administration has publicly acknowledged that Bush's order included undisclosed activities beyond the warrantless surveillance of e-mails and phone calls that Bush confirmed in December 2005," according to the Washington Post.

Bush's executive order authorized "a number" of intelligence activities. The name created by the Bush team -- 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' -- applied only to "one particular aspect of these activities," McConnell wrote.

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Sunni bloc quits Iraq govt, 73 dead in bombings

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The main Sunni Arab political bloc quit the Iraqi government on Wednesday in a blow to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's shaky coalition as suicide bombers killed more than 70 people in three attacks across Baghdad.

The resignation move pushed the government into a new crisis undermining its efforts to reconcile Iraqis and end sectarian strife.

Fifty of Wednesday's dead were killed when a suicide bomber in a fuel truck packed with explosives targeted motorists at a petrol station.

The Sunni Accordance Front left Maliki's Shi'ite-led coalition over his failure to meet a list of about a dozen demands, including a greater say in security matters.

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