Virginia Tech and Iraq

The carnage at V-Tech is horrible! The idea that one deranged person was able to buy two guns and all that ammunition means we do need to look at our gun control in this nation. We are all grieving for the lost lives and trying to deal with it. Our news media is filled with coverage of this massacre. Listening to all these young people talk about what has happened and speak of their friends that were injured and were killed just makes you sick. The whole nation is grieving.

Now to Iraq. This just in from AP:

4 bombs kill 127 people in Baghdad
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated
Press Writer 4 minutes ago

Four large bombs exploded across Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 127 people and wounding scores as violence climbed toward levels seen before the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to pacify the capital began two months ago.

In the deadliest of the attacks, a parked car bomb detonated in a crowd of workers at the Sadriyah market in a mostly Shiite area of central Baghdad, killing at least 82 people and wounding 94, said Raad Muhsin, an official at Al-Kindi Hospital where the victims were taken.

A police official confirmed the toll, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Several cars were set afire at the market, where a car bombing in February killed 137 people. About an hour earlier, a suicide car bomber crashed into an Iraqi police checkpoint at an entrance to Sadr City, the capital's biggest Shiite Muslim neighborhood and a stronghold for the militia led by radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The explosion killed at least 30 people, including five Iraqi security officers, and wounded 45, police said.

Black smoke billowed from a jumble of at least eight incinerated vehicles that were in a jam of cars stopped at the checkpoint. Bystanders scrambled over twisted metal to drag victims from the smoldering wreckage as Iraqi guards staggered around stunned.

Earlier, a parked car exploded near a private hospital in the central neighborhood of Karradah, killing 11 people and wounding 13, police said. The blast damaged the Abdul-Majid hospital and other nearby buildings.

The fourth explosion was from a bomb left on a minibus in the northwestern Risafi area, killing four people and wounding six others, police said.

Also in Baghdad, four policemen were killed Wednesday afternoon when gunmen ambushed their patrol south of the city center, police said. Six pedestrians were wounded in the gunfire.

U.S. officials had cited a slight decrease in sectarian killings in Baghdad since the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown was launched Feb. 14. But the past week has seen several spectacular attacks on the capital, including a suicide bombing inside parliament and a powerful blast that collapsed a landmark bridge across the Tigris River.

"We've seen both inspiring progress and too much evidence that we still face many grave challenges," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman, told reporters Wednesday. "We've always said securing Baghdad would not be easy."

What some people don't understand, the people that started this war in Iraq and the people that want to continue this war in Iraq, is that the Iraqis live with the carnage we saw at V-Tech every day. As hard as it is for us to accept the deaths of these young people at V-Tech, the Iraqis are having to deal with it and have dealt with it for over four years. There seems to be a hypocracy, here, in the thinking and actions of these people, these chickenhawks, these war mongerers that want this Iraq war to continue.

We have a chance to change this for this war in Iraq, this occupation, must be changed. WE cannot continue in the same direction the Bush admin insists we continue to stay the course. The surge is not working! The surge will not work!

There needs to be unilateral talks with the Arab States, the UN, and everone that is and could be effected by this unrest the Bush admin has created in that area so we can control the carnage that is Iraq today. If that means talking to Iran and Syria, so be it. But not to talk will only exacerbate the problems in the middle east. I've had more than enough of this admin. Have you?

UPDATE: From the Independent, UK:

Virginia Tech, of course, is the worst incident of its kind in US history - and at one level, you would gain the impression from American television that Cho Seung-Hui has literally stopped the world.

He hasn't of course. On Tuesday, in what passes for a relatively quiet news day in Iraq, wire services reported the deaths of 56 people in violence across the country: some of them gunned down, some killed by a suicide bomber, some discovered as decomposed or decapitated corpses. But we heard not a word of that, nor of the trial in absentia in Italy of a US soldier accused of shooting dead an Italian intelligence agent, nor of the report that North Korea may be about to shut down a key nuclear reactor (which would be very big news indeed if true.) And somebody shot dead the Mayor of Nagasaki. But who cares? Instead, nothing but Virginia Tech.

Yet, however exceptional the event, there is something formulaic, even routine, about the coverage. There is no soul searching, no wondering what might be wrong with a society where such things happen so frequently. You hear no new arguments, for deep down there is nothing new to be said.

No detail of the tragedy is too tiny to recount; from where Cho went to high school to the thoughts of the postman who delivered mail, to where the family lived in the Virginia suburb of Centreville (and never met him). Yet America is showing scant sign of addressing the far bigger issue - of whether it is finally time to get serious about gun control.

This really hasn't made the Main Stream Media but...

While Alberto Gonzales is traveling the country in support of the Project Safe Childhood Campaign, there's a very disturbing story coming out of Texas that touches Gonzales. It concerns a cover up of a pedophile scandal.

What did Gonzales say the other day..."I'm not going to resign, I am going to stay focused on the kids". Let's just see how "focused" he is on the kids.

From the World Net Daily:

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
Teen sex scandal ignored by AG, others for 2 years
Probe widened, involving hundreds of complaints of sexual abuse in system

The Texas juvenile justice sexual abuse scandal – in which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton are accused of failing to take action – is a broader scandal that was covered up for two years, involving hundreds of serious complaints and investigations against dozens of staff members, according to officials.

The Texas Youth Commission scandal went unnoticed, says Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski, despite his numerous attempts, beginning in early 2005, to get local, state and federal prosecutors to investigate allegations teachers, administrators and guards had sex with minor male inmates.

Burzynski exposed the situation March 8 in testimony to the Texas legislature's Joint Committee on Operation and Management of the TYC. He stated he began his investigation Feb. 23, 2005, after a phone call from a teacher at the West Texas state school in Pyote, Texas, alleging another teacher at the school was involved in sexual misconduct with boy inmates.

In his testimony, Burzynski detailed being rebuffed by federal, state and local prosecutors for two years.

Check the link for more on this.

And from Prison Planet:

"Among the charges in the Texas Ranger report were that administrators would rouse boys from their sleep for the purpose of conducting all-night sex parties."

A 2005 investigation led by Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski revealed that systematic abuse of minors was commonplace at West Texas State School in Pyote, Texas. Burzynski presented the findings of the investigation to both Gonzales and Sutton but was rebuffed, and even received a letter from Sutton's office that attempted to legitimize the sexual abuse of children, claiming that "under 18 U.S.C. Section 242," it would have to be demonstrated "that the boys subjected to sexual abuse sustained "bodily injury," states the letter from Bill Baumann, assistant U.S. attorney in Sutton's office.

Incredulously, Baumann's letter goes on to make the case that the minors consented to and even enjoyed the acts of pedophilia, therefore no further action was necessary.
In September 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division also refused to follow up with a prosecution.

According to Corsi, officials implicated in the scandal were hired despite their known criminal backgrounds and were also retained even after it was discovered that they were using state computers to regularly visit pornography websites.

"It basically sounds as if you wouldn't get hired in one of these facilities unless you were a pedophile," Corsi told the Alex Jones Show.

"You've got a culture of pedophilia that is at the core of the Texas Youth Commission, and what that means is you won't get hired or you won't stay as an employee unless you're willing to participate in the boy rape that's going on or keep quiet about it."

Corsi says he has further developments to report tomorrow that confirm the scandal is "Now known to be widespread, all the offices of the Texas Youth Commission throughout the state are involved and employees from the top to the bottom are all involved."

This is widespread throughout the Texas Youth Commission and has this been aired by the MSM? Why? I have been waiting 3 days, since I first heard about this before I posted to see if the MSM would even mention this. Nothing!! And the hypocrisy of the torture meister, Alberto Gonzales allowing this to happen is sadly sickening!

UPDATE: The Chicago Tribune has an article about the cleanup of the Texas Youth Commission but not a mention of Gonzales' part in all of this.

Kyle Sampson not pleading the Fifth - So Far

From Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:

Breaking off the AP wire: DoJ official Monica Goodling to take the 5th at upcoming congressional hearing.

(ed.note: The original version of this post, which ran for just under ten minutes, incorrectly listed Kyle Sampson rather than Monica Goodling, as the the DOJ aide who plans to take the 5th at the senate hearing. We regret the error.)

Breaking: Gonzales aide to plead the Fifth

Just announced on TV from CNN and here's the article from the AP:

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
30 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Monica Goodling, a Justice Department official involved in the firings of federal prosecutors, will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings, citing Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said Monday.

"The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real," said the lawyer, John Dowd.

He said that members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees seem already to have made up their minds that wrongdoing has occurred in the firings.

I heard but cannot confirm yet that Kyle Sampson will also invoke the fifth amendment. I will post when this is confirmed. He's to testify on Thursday.

You know this is coming from the White House. The problem these people do not understand is that once they invoke the fifth, it doesn't matter wether they are guilty or not, people will take it as being guilty. This is definately heating up and may be the incident that causes more impeachment talk and a pressure from the people to impeach.

Feinstein to Gonzales...Resign

A member of the Seante Judiciary, Senator Diane Feinstein, today, called for Alberto Gonzales to resign. Documents released Friday show that Gonzales DID participate in a meeting where the plans were disgussed even though the Attorney General said he was not involved im any discussions of the dismissals of the Federal Prosecutors.

More from the AP via SFGate:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Sunday for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, saying he'd lost her confidence and hadn't told her the truth.


Feinstein, D-Calif. and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had held off on calling for Gonzales to step down even as many leading Democrats and some Republicans did so in recent weeks.


"I believe he should step down. And I don't like saying this. This is not my natural personality at all," Feinstein said on Fox News Sunday. "But I think the nation is not well served by this. I think we need to get at the bottom of why these resignations were made, who ordered them, and what the strategy was."

"Attorney General Gonzales has the view that he serves two masters, that he serves the president and that he serves as the chief law enforcement officer," said Feinstein. "He serves one master, and that's the people of this country."


Feinstein is particularly concerned over the dismissal of former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam in San Diego who was fired while prosecuting a corruption case stemming from the conviction of jailed ex-GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.


Feinstein suspects a connection and highlighted her concerns about that and other aspects of the situation in a speech on the Senate floor in January. She also introduced legislation to undo a change in the Patriot Act allowing the administration to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. After that she got a call from Gonzales.


"You have to understand, he called me when I began to become involved in this," Feinstein said. "He told me I didn't know my facts, I didn't know what I was doing. It turns out he wasn't telling me the truth then, either."


A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to an e-mail message seeking comment Sunday.

Of course Bush is still behind him 100%. Wonder what Gonzales has over Bush's head?

New documents show Gonzales signed off on the US Attorneys firings

Remember the 3000 new document drop from the last post? These documents were just released tonight and prove that Gonzles approved the firings. Here's the AP report:

Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings
WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting, according to documents released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals.

The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials said late Friday.

There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was crafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week amid a political firestorm surrounding the firings.

The documents indicated that the hour-long morning discussion, held in the attorney general's conference room, was the only time Gonzales met with top aides who decided which prosecutors to fire and how to do it.

Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said it was not immediately clear whether Gonzales gave his final approval to begin the firings at that meeting. Scolinos also said Gonzales was not involved in the process of selecting which prosecutors would be asked to resign.

On March 13, in explaining the firings, Gonzales told reporters he was aware that some of the dismissals were being discussed but was not involved in them.

"I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers - where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew," Gonzales said last week. "But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the attorney general."

Later, he added: "I accept responsibility for everything that happens here within this department. But when you have 110,000 people working in the department, obviously there are going to be decisions that I'm not aware of in real time. Many decisions are delegated."

The documents were released Friday night, a few hours after Sampson agreed to testify at a Senate inquiry next week into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

So they released these documents after Sampson decided to testify. Are the powers that be afraid of what Sampson will say? Is this the part where they throw Alberto to the wolves? Thank goodness that this admin is even incompetent at being evil!

Attorneygate Updates

Right now the Congress vs the White House seems to be at a standoff. There's some interesting information coming out about this whole situation. Let's start with some comedy:

Remember the offer the White House gave the Congress? Rove, Miers and a few others would appear before the committees but only if it was in closed session, with few members present, not under oath, and no transcripts. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show mocks the "generous offer" made by the White House. Raw Story has the video here.

And there have been reams of paper emails released but there are 18 days missing. Conveniently like the 18 minutes lost from the Nixon tapes. But TPM Muckraker reports that:

3000 Pages and Counting
By Paul Kiel - March 23, 2007, 2:21 PM
We hear there's likely to be another document release from the Justice Department sometime today.

And here's Tony Snow's Flip Flop on this from Think Progress:

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow appeared on the morning talk shows on all the major networks and repeated his talking point that Congress “has no oversight responsibility over the White House.” A sampling of his statements:

There’s another principle, which is Congress doesn’t have the legislative — I mean oversight authority over the White House. [CNN, 3/22/07]

First, the White House is under no compulsion to do anything. The legislative branch doesn’t have oversight. [MSNBC, 3/22/07]

Congress doesn’t have any legitimate oversight and responsibilities to the White House. [Fox, 3/22/07]

But back when he was asked whether the conservative-led 109th Congress should be investigating members of the Executive Branch, he was singing a different tune:

QUESTION: What is the president’s opinion of a request by Republican leaders in the House to launch an investigation of Sandy Berger’s involvement in the removal of classified documents from the National Archives?

SNOW: There were questions last week, about investigations involving Republican members. Members of Congress have their own oversight obligations. They may proceed as they wish. They’re a separate and co-equal branch of government and I’m not going to tell them what they can and can’t do. [Briefing, 10/16/06]

Of course one of the Right's talking points on this issue is "Clinton did it"! Here's what really happened from the LA Times:

Three weeks ago, Justice Department officials settled on a "talking point" to rebut the chorus of Democratic accusations that the Bush administration had wrongly injected politics into law enforcement when it dismissed eight U.S. attorneys.

Why not focus on the Clinton administration's having "fired all 93 U.S. attorneys" when Janet Reno became attorney general in March 1993? The idea was introduced in a memo from a Justice Department spokeswoman.

The message has been effective. What's followed has been a surge of complaints on blogs and talk radio that it was the Clinton administration that first politicized the Justice Department.

The facts, it turns out, are more complicated.

But historical data compiled by the Senate show the pattern going back to President Reagan.

Reagan replaced 89 of the 93 U.S. attorneys in his first two years in office. President Clinton had 89 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years, and President Bush had 88 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years.

In a similar vein, the Justice Department recently supplied Congress with a district-by-district listing of U.S. attorneys who served prior to the Bush administration.

The list shows that in 1981, Reagan's first year in office, 71 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys. In 1993, Clinton's first year, 80 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys.

Here's another Video Link from Raw Story of the interview of Sen. Patrick Leahy by Keith Olbermann:

Thursday night on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee hinted that he might have more "whistleblowers" set to testify on the ongoing US Attorneys scandal, which some have dubbed "Attorneygate."

In the interview with Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Olbermann referred to comments made previously on the show by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) about "really angry career employees," then asked if the Committee had any "rabbits in hats."

"He said that he hoped that the White House would let Mr. Rove and the others testify on the record," Olbermann related to Leahy. "If they did not, there really were enough really angry career employees, prosecutors in the Justice Department who would ensure that this information, the actual facts of the case would get out anyway."

Bridge, at the Sam Seder Show blog, posted this from the Vanity Fair's Wolcott blog as a reminder: (H/T to bridge)

James Wolcott:

"When Dick Cheney famously told Pat Leahy to go fuck himself, he and the rest of the administration clearly never anticipated the day when Leahy would return to powerful chairmanship; I think they internalized Karl Rove's visionary scheme of a permanent Republican majority and thought the future was in the bag. Now they're holding the bag and it's leaking all over their laps."

And it seems the Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' former Chief of Staff, will testify next Thursday. No subpoena necessary. This from TPM Muckraker:

Sampson: It's A Date!
By Paul Kiel - March 23, 2007, 4:27 PM
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee extended an invitation for Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff Kyle Sampson to testify. If he didn't want to come voluntarily, the committee said, he'd be subpoenaed.

Today, via a letter from his lawyer to the committee, he accepted -- no subpoena necessary.

"Mr. Sampson looks forward to answering the Committee's questions," the letter reads. "We trust that his decision to do so will satisfy the need of the Congress to obtain information from him concerning the requested resignations of the United States Attorneys."

The hearing will take place at 10 AM next Thursday.

And the last for now but definatly not the least from McClatchy Newspapers

New U.S. attorneys seem to have partisan records

By Greg Gordon, Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Under President Bush, the Justice Department has backed laws that narrow minority voting rights and pressed U.S. attorneys to investigate voter fraud - policies that critics say have been intended to suppress Democratic votes.

Bush, his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, and other Republican political advisers have highlighted voting rights issues and what Rove has called the "growing problem" of election fraud by Democrats since Bush took power in the tumultuous election of 2000, a race ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department's civil rights division when it was rolling back longstanding voting-rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters.

Another newly installed U.S. attorney, Tim Griffin in Little Rock, Ark., was accused of participating in efforts to suppress Democratic votes in Florida during the 2004 presidential election while he was a research director for the Republican National Committee. He's denied any wrongdoing.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the four U.S. attorneys weren't chosen only because of their backgrounds in election issues, but "we would expect any U.S. attorney to prosecute voting fraud."

Taken together, critics say, the replacement of the U.S. attorneys, the voter-fraud campaign and the changes in Justice Department voting rights policies suggest that the Bush administration may have been using its law enforcement powers for partisan political purposes.

The Bush administration's emphasis on voter fraud is drawing scrutiny from the Democratic Congress, which has begun investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys - two of whom say that their ousters may have been prompted by the Bush administration's dissatisfaction with their investigations of alleged Democratic voter fraud.

Bush has said he's heard complaints from Republicans about some U.S. attorneys' "lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases," and administration e-mails have shown that Rove and other White House officials were involved in the dismissals and in selecting a Rove aide to replace one of the U.S. attorneys. Nonetheless, Bush has refused to permit congressional investigators to question Rove and others under oath.

Seems to me Bush and the White House has much to hide. Happy reading!!

Pelosi Ask for Gonzales resignation.

Nancy Pelosi,Speaker of the House of Representatives, gave an interview to WGN-TV and met with the Trbune Editorial Board and said "I believe we need a new attorney general.''

Here's an excerpt from the Chicago Tribune:

Pelosi calls for new attorney general

By Jill Zuckman
Tribune national correspondent
Published March 19, 2007, 11:31 AM CDT
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) added her voice to the growing chorus of discontent over the Justice Department's firing of eight federal prosecutors, saying today, "I believe we need a new attorney general.''

In a meeting with The Chicago Tribune editorial board and in an interview with WGN-TV, Pelosi said there was a reason Republicans feared a Democratic victory last November.

"They knew that the era of no oversight was over and that they would have to be held accountable,'' she said, citing the scandal at Walter Reed over the treatment of wounded soldiers, as well as questions about whether politics played a role in the dismissal of the U.S. attorneys.

"I think what is unfolding looks pretty bad for the administration as well as Alberto Gonzales,'' Pelosi said, noting that Republicans have begun calling for his dismissal in addition to Democrats.

In this article she goes on to say:

"I don't think Alberto Gonzales fundamentally understood the difference between being the president's lawyer and the attorney general of the United States and the premier defender of the Constitution,'' she said. "I think what is important is for us to have the hearings, which will be thorough and reasoned and put the facts on the record."

"I don't think it looks good for him right now," Pelosi said of Gonzales.

So the Speaker of the House has joined many who ask for Gonzales removal from office. Some are Republicans. It's time for "Alberto" to go!

UPDATE: Arlen Spector is now on the Senate floor saying that the US Atty's should not be removed while in the middle of an investigation. He's looking for an amendment to correct this in the future.

More on Kiley

Ap is saying that Lt. General Kiley, The Army surgeon General has been "forced to retire".

Here's some of the article:

The Army forced its surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, to retire, officials said Monday, the third high-level official to lose his job over poor outpatient treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Kiley, who headed Walter Reed from 2002 to 2004, has been a lightning rod for criticism over conditions at the Army's premier medical facility, including during congressional hearings last week. Soldiers and their families have complained about substandard living conditions and bureaucratic delays at the hospital overwhelmed with wounded from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kiley submitted his retirement request on Sunday, the Army said in a statement.

"We must move quickly to fill this position — this leader will have a key role in moving the way forward in meeting the needs of our wounded warriors," Acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren said in an Army statement.

Geren asked Kiley to retire, said a senior defense official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was not involved in the decision to ask Kiley to retire, the official said.

Kiley's removal underscored how the fallout over Walter Reed's shoddy conditions has yet to subside. Instead, the controversy has mushroomed into questions about how wounded soldiers and veterans are treated throughout the medical systems run by the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs and has become a major preoccupation of a Bush administration already struggling to defend the unpopular war in Iraq.

"I submitted my retirement because I think it is in the best interest of the Army," Kiley said in Monday's Army statement. He said he wanted to allow officials to "focus completely on the way ahead."

They finally got rid of the right person!

US army is lagging behind Iraq's insurgents tactically

This kind of news you wouldn't hear from the media here in the US. This comes from Britain, the Observer. Of course our media is getting a touch better in certain areas helped by the Internet.

Here's the rest of the story from the Observer:

'Smart' rebels outstrip US

Top American generals make shock admission as Iraq leader pleads with neighbouring countries to seal off their borders
Paul Beaver in Fort Lauderdale and Peter Beaumont
Sunday March 11, 2007
The Observer
The US army is lagging behind Iraq's insurgents tactically in a war that senior officers say is the biggest challenge since Korea 50 years ago.
The gloomy assessment at a conference in America last week came as senior US and Iraqi officials sat down yesterday with officials from Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad to persuade Iraq's neighbours to help seal its borders against fighters, arms and money flowing in. During the conference the US, Iranian and Syrian delegations were reported to have had a 'lively exchange'.

In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan 'as smart, agile and cunning'.
In Vietnam, the US was eventually defeated by a well-armed, closely directed and highly militarised society that had tanks, armoured vehicles and sources of both military production and outside procurement. What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft.

By contrast, the US military is said to have been slow to respond to the challenges of fighting an insurgency. The senior officers described the insurgents as being able to adapt rapidly to exploit American rules of engagement and turn them against US forces, and quickly disseminate ways of destroying or disabling armoured vehicles.

The military is also hampered in its attempts to break up insurgent groups because of their 'flat' command structure within collaborative networks of small groups, making it difficult to target any hierarchy within the insurgency.

The remarks were made by senior US generals speaking at the Association of the US Army meeting at Fort Lauderdale in Florida and in conversations with The Observer. The generals view the 'war on terror' as the most important test of America's soldiers in 50 years.

Looks like this war is not winnable against these insurgents. Everyone thought Saddam was a devil, and he was, but he kept an uncontrollable country controlled.

Sen. Schumer Calls For Alberto Gonzales To Resign

From Think Progress with the video:

Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. Schumer said Gonzales has “been even more political than his predecessor, Attorney General Ashcroft,”

Maybe a little more pressure and Gonzales will go the way of Rumsfeld.

NYT Editorial calls Gonzales Bush's Consigliere

Well that is not far from the truth. Gonzales champions torture, thinks the president should have ultimate power, undermining the Legislative branch of the government, and has recently tried to take over the Judicial branch by firing United States Attorneys. This New York Times article asks Bush to fire Gonzales.

The Failed Attorney General

Published: March 11, 2007
During the hearing on his nomination as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said he understood the difference between the job he held — President Bush’s in-house lawyer — and the job he wanted, which was to represent all Americans as their chief law enforcement officer and a key defender of the Constitution. Two years later, it is obvious Mr. Gonzales does not have a clue about the difference.

He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency. If anyone, outside Mr. Bush’s rapidly shrinking circle of enablers, still had doubts about that, the events of last week should have erased them.

First, there was Mr. Gonzales’s lame op-ed article in USA Today trying to defend the obviously politically motivated firing of eight United States attorneys, which he dismissed as an “overblown personnel matter.” Then his inspector general exposed the way the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been abusing yet another unnecessary new power that Mr. Gonzales helped wring out of the Republican-dominated Congress in the name of fighting terrorism.

The F.B.I. has been using powers it obtained under the Patriot Act to get financial, business and telephone records of Americans by issuing tens of thousands of “national security letters,” a euphemism for warrants that are issued without any judicial review or avenue of appeal. The administration said that, as with many powers it has arrogated since the 9/11 attacks, this radical change was essential to fast and nimble anti terrorism efforts, and it promised to police the use of the letters carefully.

But like so many of the administration’s promises, this one evaporated before the ink on those letters could dry. The F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, admitted Friday that his agency had used the new powers improperly.

Snip

We opposed Mr. Gonzales’s nomination as attorney general. His résumé was weak, centered around producing legal briefs for Mr. Bush that assured him that the law said what he wanted it to say. More than anyone in the administration, except perhaps Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Gonzales symbolizes Mr. Bush’s disdain for the separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law.

On Thursday, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted very obliquely that perhaps Mr. Gonzales’s time was up. We’re not going to be oblique. Mr. Bush should dismiss Mr. Gonzales and finally appoint an attorney general who will use the job to enforce the law and defend the Constitution.

I'm all for getting rid of Mr. Torture. He's done more damage to the legal system then anyone. His dismissal of Habeas Corpus for instance. And that nasty law called the Patriot Act has allowed him to trash the Constitution. I'd like to see him go now. I don't want to wait til 2009. How about you?

Federal officials secretly schemed to limit payouts for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers

This doesn't surprise me in the least. Everything this gov't has anything to do with, falls apart, is destroyed, is injured, or dies! Here's the newest horror from our Orwellian government...

From the Rocky Mountain News:

Feds tried to cut aid
Limits sought on help for ill workers
By Ann Imse And Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News
March 10, 2007
Federal officials secretly schemed to limit payouts for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers, including thousands from the Rocky Flats plant outside Denver, newly released documents show.
The officials responsible for helping those workers went behind their boss's back, called on White House officials for help and tried to hide their efforts, according to internal e-mails and memos obtained by a congressional committee and posted on its Web site.

They also wanted to get the White House to override scientific decisions granting compensation and pack the program's advisory board with members less sympathetic to workers.

Labor officials say the plans were never carried out, and they deny trying to hide them.

The U.S. Department of Labor oversees the program to compensate workers whose illnesses can be tied to working with radioactive and other toxic materials at nuclear weapons plants, such as the now-defunct Rocky Flats.

More than 60,000 ill atomic bomb makers, including thousands from Rocky Flats, have sought help. About 16,000 workers nationwide have received a total of $2.6 billion. Far more have been denied or still are waiting for help.

There aren't enough hours in the day to cover everything that is happening in the government and it will take years to undo what has been done. I just don't understand the people that are so enamored with this admin that they can't see that the country is being destroyed.

Poverty in America, worst in 35 years!

Weekly, if not daily, Bush or one of his minion is on TV saying how great the economy is. For who? The upper 10% of the richest of the rich? Even Bernanke admitted in a Senate hearing last week that the devide between the rich and the poor is growing.

Here's the report from the US Census from 2005:
"Almost 16 million Americans live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars -- one half the federal poverty line figure".

And that was over a year ago. It would certainly be over 16 Million now.

Many headlines today mention this report:

Severe poverty in U.S. hits high
The Buffalo News - 2 hours, 36 minutes ago
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.

Poverty level is at a 32-year high
Baltimore Sun - Feb 25 12:53 AM
Nearly 16 million Americans classified as severely poor, McClatchy report shows 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.

Here's some of the McClatchy report via the AFP via Raw Story:

Based on the latest available US census data from 2005, the McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that almost 16 million Americans live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars -- one half the federal poverty line figure.

For individuals the "deep poverty" threshold was an income under 5,080 dollars a year.

"The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005," the US newspaper chain reported.

"That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period," it noted.

The surge in poverty comes alongside an unusual economic expansion.

"Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries," the study found.

"That helps explain why the median household income for working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

"These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty -- the highest rate since at least 1975. The share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily over the last three decades," the report said.

Just about two more years of Bushco will deepen this devide since he thinks he is the "decider". More like "dictator"!

Late Night Open Thread Feb 23, 2007 - Health Care

Health Care. That and the Iraq war are the most important issues for the voting public.

Many plans have evolved, recently, to try to tackle the Health Care issue. Here's Massachusettes plan:

Massachusetts spurs health-care debate
BOSTON (Reuters) - Working the phones of a health-care hotline in Boston, Kate Bicego does something that is unique in the country: she explains how even the poorest people can get state-funded health coverage.

Nearly a year into its pioneering health-care law, Massachusetts offers both a way forward and a warning that puts the state at the center of a growing national debate over extending health care to millions of Americans.

"We're handling just an incredible amount of calls," Bicego said at the non-profit Health Care for All. "Everyone wants to know about this new program."

Massachusetts has signed up 105,000 of its poorest people for coverage, or about a quarter of the uninsured, since April, when it became the first U.S. state with near universal health insurance.

The law makes coverage mandatory, bringing it within reach of poorer people through subsidies and industry reforms in an attempt to reverse a trend that has left more than 47 million Americans uninsured as traditional employer-based coverage shrinks. For those in Massachusetts earning less than the federal poverty level of $9,800, coverage is provided free.

Hospitals and Insurance Companies are getting into the act as well.

Here's what they are offering:

Hospital group pitches universal insurance
A group of U.S. hospitals on Thursday offered a plan to cover the nation's 47 million uninsured, including mandatory coverage for all and subsidies for the working poor.

The proposal by the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents about 20 percent of the industry, is the latest in a flurry of proposed schemes to solve the growing problem of the uninsured. Since 2000, about 6 million people in the United States have lost their insurance.

The hospital group's plan, estimated to increase federal spending by $115 billion, would build on the employer-based health system, under which most Americans already get coverage.

It would provide subsidies for individuals to buy insurance from their employer if they cannot afford it, or to buy tax-subsidized coverage in the open market.

Currently, individuals buying coverage in the open market don't receive the same tax advantages as employers.

Under the hospital group's plan, individuals would be required to sign up for a health insurance plan. If they don't, the government will do it for them and then those individuals will be assessed taxes to pay for the insurance premiums. The plan also encourages states to automatically enroll more people in public health programs like Medicaid.

Snip

Late last year, the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents managed care companies, presented its own $300 billion 10-year plan to expand insurance coverage.

The best would be a single payer Universal Health Care that is offered to the people in most of the Industrialized world.

Cheney Day in the News

C-Span's question of the day call-in: What are your thoughts about Cheney.
As you would imagine, the majority of the calls fall on party lines. The Rupublicans love him and the Democrats hate him. One caller said she thinks he's great and wished he could get a heart transplant so that he could run for President.

From Reuters:

Cheney says U.S. wants to leave Iraq "with honor"
Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:51 AM ET
By Caren Bohan

TOKYO (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday the United States wants to finish its mission in Iraq and "return with honor", despite the war's growing unpopularity at home and doubts among U.S. allies.

Cheney's visit to Tokyo comes just weeks after Japan's defense minister said starting the Iraq war was a mistake and its foreign minister called the U.S. occupation strategy "immature".

The remarks forced Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whom Cheney meets later in Wednesday, to scurry to reassure Washington that Tokyo's backing for U.S. policy in Iraq was unchanged.

But a survey released on Tuesday showed most Japanese voters agreed with Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma when he said President Bush was wrong to start the war.

In a speech delivered aboard the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier at Yokosuka Navy Base near Tokyo, Cheney said: "We know that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength, they are invited by the perception of weakness."

"We know that if we leave Iraq before the mission is completed, the enemy is going to come after us. And I want you to know that the American people will not support a policy of retreat," he added.

"We want to complete the mission, we want to get it done right, and we want to return with honor," said Cheney, who heads on Thursday for Australia to meet Prime Minister John Howard, another staunch supporter of Bush's Iraq policy.

Strong words for someone who received several deferrals to avoid going to Viet Nam. And do these words sound familiar? Didn't Nixon say the same thing?

Speaking of Nixon here's some excerpts from his speech on Viet Nam in 1969:

Before any American troops were committed to Vietnam, a leader of another Asian country expressed this opinion to me when I was traveling in Asia as a private citizen. He said: "When you are trying to assist another nation defend its freedom, U.S. policy should be to help them fight the war but not to fight the war for them." ...

My fellow Americans, I am sure you can recognize from what I have said that we really only have two choices open to us if we want to end this war. -I can order an immediate, precipitate withdrawal of all Americans from Vietnam without regard to the effects of that action.
-Or we can persist in our search for a just peace through a negotiated settlement if possible, or through continued implementation of our plan for Vietnamization if necessary a plan in which we will withdraw all our forces from Vietnam on a schedule in accordance with our program, as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom.
I have chosen this second course.

-The South Vietnamese have continued to gain in strength. As a result they have been able to take over combat responsibilities from our American troops.

Let me now turn to our program for the future.
We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater.
I have not and do not intend to announce the timetable for our program. And there are obvious reasons for this decision which I am sure you will understand. As I have indicated on several occasions, the rate of withdrawal will depend on developments on three fronts.

We have not learned from the past!

And just for fun....a Cheney toon at the NYT

Reaction to Cheney's trip to Japan and Australia

You won't hear this on the MSM but if you do a little googling and read some of the blogs, you can read what is really happening.

First Japan....
From the Times On Line (h/t Jenise):

From The TimesFebruary 21, 2007
Cheney hit by Tokyo chill
Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo

Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, landed in Tokyo last night for what promised to be a frosty series of meetings, after weeks of outspoken criticism of American policy from within the Japanese Government.

Japanese Cabinet Ministers have openly denounced US policy in Iraq as childish and accused the Bush Administration of being cocky. The latest blow was last week’s agreement on North Korea’s nuclear programme which is privately regarded by many in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Government as an American betrayal. Yasuhisa Shiozaki, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, could hardly have been more dismissive of Mr Cheney’s visit. “Since the other party is coming over,” he said yesterday, when asked what was the point of Mr Cheney’s visit, “it must have some point for the other party.”

The surge of bad feeling towards Japan’s greatest friend and ally is symptomatic of the unease which has spread since Junichiro Koizumi stepped down last September after five years as the country’s most dynamic postwar Prime Minister. After an impressive first month, in which he began to mend strained relations with China and South Korea, Mr Abe’s popularity has gone into a slump, and he has appeared increasingly incapable of controlling his Cabinet.

And from Australia:

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Cheney visit prompts protests
Ten people have been arrested in Sydney during violent clashes between police and protesters at a rally ahead of the arrival of US Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The protest, organised by Stop the War Coalition at Town Hall, turned nasty when about 200 people attempted to break a line of police and march to the US Consulate in Martin Place.

The officers, supported by a line of mounted police, held their positions as activists attempted to break through.

Ten people were arrested in the scuffle with police which calmed after officers negotiated with organisers to allow the group to march on the footpath during busy peak hour traffic.

Superintendent Ron Mason, from The Rocks Local Area Command, said police supported the right to demonstrate as long as there was no disruption to the community.

He said an application from the demonstrators was received but it was unreasonable for demonstrators to block busy streets during peak hour.

"Police have been negotiating for days with this group and they agreed to hold a static demonstration at Town Hall,'' Supt Mason told reporters.

And more on how Australians feel about Iraq from the Australian:

Public loses heart for Howard's war
Matthew Franklin
January 23, 2007

PUBLIC opinion is hardening against the Iraq war, with 62 per cent of voters opposing John Howard's handling of the conflict.
The issue is looming as central to this year's federal election, with 71 per cent of voters saying the issue will affect how they vote.
The findings, in a Newspoll conducted at the weekend exclusively for The Australian, came just days after the Prime Minister offered unqualified backing for US President George W. Bush's escalation of the war.

The poll, among 1152 respondents, also found 56 per cent opposed the Government's treatment of alleged terrorist David Hicks, who has been imprisoned by US authorities in Cuba for five years without being put on trial.

Public support for the Iraq war has fallen steadily over recent months.

A Newspoll conducted in October found only 31 per cent of 1200 respondents wanted Australian troops to remain in Iraq for "as long as necessary" - down from 45 per cent in December 2004.

Last month, another Newspoll found more than 70 per cent of Australians believed the war was not worth fighting.

The new Newspoll found 44per cent of voters strongly opposed Mr Howard's performance on Iraq and 18 per cent partly opposed.

Only 9 per cent strongly supported the Government's handling of the war, while 19 per cent were partly in favour.

New Open Thread for Evening Feb 20th

I'm leaving the other open thread open for the time being. Some great stuff posted in the comments.

Lots happening:

Libby trial going to jury tomorrow.

Brits withdraing troops from Iraq

Negroponte signed order that intel be objective and absent political motivations.

Audit: US terror statistics Flawed

New maps show SF Bay drowning

And this:

Congress responds to Walter Reed report. “Seizing on an investigative report by The Washington Post’s Dana Priest and Anne Hull, Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) will introduce legislation next week to require more frequent inspections of hospitals providing treatment to active-duty military personnel.” Meanwhile, Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Patty Murray (D-WA) “wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates today demanding an inspector general’s investigation into living conditions for the returning soldiers at Walter Reed.”

Lots to discuss!

Suburban Poor

I received an email from a member of a progressive group I belong to. The contents was an article from our local paper, The Daily Herald, about the Suburban Poor. There have been many indications of this but, until recently, it went unreported. Here are excerpts of this article along with the link:

Poor among plenty
For the first time in history, more poor people are living in the nation's suburbs than in the cities. Soon that may be true in the Chicago area; the number of those living in poverty in the collar counties has risen dramatically since 1999.

BY MARNI PYKE
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007

More and more suburban residents are barely scratching out a living, a report on Illinois poverty indicates.

More than 386,000 people in the collar counties of DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Will and suburban Cook are among the have-nots, the study by the Mid-America Institute on Poverty of Heartland Alliance indicates.

And the number of those in need in the suburbs grew by 25 percent between 1999 and 2006, a rate that surpasses Chicago's rate of 8 percent.

"Poverty is a reality, not an urban phenomenon," said report researcher Amy Rynell of Heartland Alliance, a Chicago-based charitable organization.

In Illinois, the numbers of the poor come to 1.48 million, while in Chicago the tally is 573,486.

Heartland uses federal guidelines to define poverty as one person earning less than $10,210 a year or a family of four with an income of less than $20,650.

Experts say the poor are seniors, people with disabilities, domestic violence victims, young adults trying to make it on their own, single-parent families, new immigrants, individuals with health problems, and the unemployed.

They're also people with jobs, say social workers on the front lines.

"They're working hard, holding down two jobs and trying to find child care," explained Victoria Bran, director of the Rolling Meadows Police Neighborhood Resource Center.

The Illinois report echoes a national study by the Brookings Institution that found - for the first time in history - more of America's poor are living in the suburbs than in cities, a total of 1.2 million people in 2005.

snip

Other findings were that nearly 24,000 households a month use food pantries in Kane, Will, DuPage, Lake and McHenry counties and that a growing number of people in the Chicago region are paying more than one-third of their income toward rent.

State officials, meanwhile, say that in spite of the grim news, employment is increasing. Between 2005 and 2006, the unemployment rate went from 5.4 percent to 3.9 percent, Illinois Department of Employment Security economist Norman Kelewitz said.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin says yes, maybe more people have jobs, but they're not necessarily well-paying jobs.

"Incomes are not rising and the cost of living continues to go up," he said. "Costs for education, energy and health care are continuing to go up."

That's a sentiment shared by Maureen Murphy, association division manager at the Lake County branch of Catholic Charities.

The agency serves between 25,000 and 27,000 people a year and has noticed a dramatic increase in need.

Job losses and a high cost of living are hurting Lake County residents, Murphy said.

"If you work for a minimum wage in Lake, you have to work 133 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

We are told daily that the economy is good, we have low unemployment. But the jobs aren't the same. Many subrbanites are having to get two jobs to afford the basics when 6 years ago one job sould suffice. And the cost of health care has risen so fast that people have no healthcare Insurance or policies that don't cover much.

Sunday Talk Shows Feb 18 Schedule

Meet The Press:

Exclusive! Showdown in the House and Senate over Iraq. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow with reaction. Plus two Senators opposed to the troop surge: Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) & Jack Reed (D-R.I.) Then, insights from NBC's Richard Engel just back from Iraq.

ABC's This Week:
In a Sunday Exclusive, George is "On the Trail" with GOP front-runner and former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass. and his wife Ann to discuss his bid for the White House. Fareed Zakaria, Katrina vanden Heuvel and George Will on the 'Roundtable.' And Michael Douglas on teaching kids to talk to each other.

CBS's Face the Nation:

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware.
Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee
2008 Presidential Candidate

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana
Foreign Relations Committee

Doyle McManus
Washington Bureau Chief, The Los Angeles Times

Josephine Hearn
The Politico

Fox News Sunday

The House OKs its non-binding resolution opposing the president's Iraq War plan. Now what?

We will speak with Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House

CNN's Late Edition

• Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada: majority leader
• Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky: minority leader
• Gov. Bill Richardson, D-New Mexico, former Energy Secretary
• Tony Snow: White House press secretary
• Penn Jillette: entertainer and magician
• Michael Steele: former Lt. Gov. of Maryland
• Marc Morial: president and CEO, National Urban League
• Donna Brazile: Democratic strategist


Tony Snow(job) on Meet the Press and Late Edition! What will you watch?