April 30, 2007 -- RADIO host Rush Limbaugh is far from conservative when it comes to his big appetite. The Post's Braden Keil reports that Limbaugh and a female companion lived large at Kobe Club last Thursday night, devouring bacon with truffles, Japanese strip steak, Kobe beef cheek ravioli, a large seafood platter, a combo of American, Australian and Japanese wagyu steaks and several "side" dishes. After finishing their $700 feast, Limbaugh left the server a $1,000 tip. On a previous night, Limbaugh and another female friend were spotted by patrons sharing a $4,000 bottle of wine at '21.'

Oxyboy

President George W. Bush will not sign any war spending bill that penalizes Iraq's government for failing to make progress, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday, a fresh warning to the U.S. Congress about challenging him.

"To begin now to tie our own hands - and to say 'We must do this if they don't do that' - doesn't allow us the flexibility and creativity that we need to move this forward," Rice said.

"The United States is paying in blood and treasures," Rice acknowledged. "The Iraqi leadership is being told, and I think they understand, that the kind of Iraq that there is going to be is up to them. We can't give them a united Iraq."

"The benchmarks - the Iraqis agreed to it, the president agreed it," said Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who heads a House subcommittee that controls defense spending. "We're saying to them, 'Well, let's put some teeth into the benchmarks.'"

Oh no, everybody's favorite anti-war Marine maybe got arrested at the Hart building!

The photo caption from Getty has no info beyond some kind of protest happened, but a Wonkette Operative tells us Adam Kokesh got arrested by these Capitool Police. Adam, please come by and tell us that you are all right. Seriously, there is going to be some kind of mass emotional breakdown amongst Wonkette's commenters if your safety isn't established.

Update: Video of 14 people were arrested in the Hart Senate Office Building, for unlawful assembly while protesting to stop the war in Iraq and calling for impeachment.

'Dead before arrival'
IRAQ - Bush promises veto as Democrats pass withdrawal bill

WASHINGTON -- In a bold wartime challenge to President Bush, the Democratic-controlled Congress cleared legislation Thursday to begin withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.
The White House dismissed the legislation as ''dead before arrival.''

The 51-46 Senate vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage a day earlier it underscored that the war's congressional opponents are far short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a Bush veto.

Democrats marked Thursday's final passage with a news conference during which they repeatedly urged Bush to reconsider his veto threat.

Troops held hostage

The Vatican yesterday added its voice to a rising chorus of warnings from churches around the world that climate change and abuse of the environment is against God's will, and that the one billion-strong Catholic church must become far greener.

Observers said yesterday that the Catholic church is no longer split between those who advocate development and those who say the environment is the priority. Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, head of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, said: "For environment ... read Creation. The mastery of man over Creation must not be despotic or senseless. Man must cultivate and safeguard God's Creation."
Guardian

Cardinal Renato Martino, a senior adviser to Pope Benedict, said on Thursday he believes the Pontiff should raise the dangers of climate change and global warming with U.S. President George W. Bush when the two meet in June.

The Bush administration, which did not sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate change, has long been reluctant to curb the greenhouse gases blamed for swelling sea levels and causing droughts as well as floods.

Bush pulled out of the treaty, which Washington had signed under the previous, Democratic, administration, saying it would damage the economy and was unfair as it did not require rapidly developing nations like China and India to stem emissions.

Asked if willful damage of the environment is a sin, Martino said: "Yes, because not using the environment correctly is an offence not only against yourself but against all others who make use of the environment."
Reuters

GOP Pledges to Uphold Bush Iraq Veto

Senate Republicans promised Thursday to uphold President Bush's veto on a bill that would order troops home from Iraq. Democrats said they would pass it anyway.

"The president has failed in his mission to bring peace and stability to the people of Iraq," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He later added: "It's time to bring our troops home from Iraq."

(snip)

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino called it a "ridiculous P.R. stunt" if Democratic lawmakers timed the sending of the bill to the anniversary of Bush's speech. "That is the height of cynicism, and absolutely so unfortunate for the men and women in uniform and their families who are watching the debate," she said Thursday morning.

Codpiece Day

Osama bin Laden is orchestrating militants' operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Taliban commander said in remarks broadcast on Wednesday.

"He is drawing plans in Iraq and Afghanistan ... Praise God he is alive," Mullah Dadullah told Al Jazeera television.

Dadullah said bin Laden ordered the attack on Feb. 27 at the U.S. Bagram base during a visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney to Afghanistan.

"He (bin Laden) guided us through it," he said, adding that no Afghan would have been able to penetrate the base if it was not for the world's most wanted militant.

The military at first portrayed Tillman's death as the result of heroic combat with the enemy. Army Spc. Bryan O'Neal told a congressional hearing that when he got the chance to talk to Tillman's brother, who had been in a nearby convoy on the fateful day, "I was ordered not to tell him what happened."

O'Neal said he was "quite appalled" by the order.

Kevin Tillman, in his testimony, accused the military of "intentional falsehoods" and "deliberate and careful misrepresentations" in the portrayal of his brother's death.

"Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters ... so the truth needed to be suppressed," the brother said.
Tillman

Ms Lynch criticised the Pentagon, saying: "I'm still confused why they lied and tried to make me into a legend." Ms Lynch said the real heroes were those who died in the attack and those who rescued her.

Initial reports also suggested that Ms Lynch had been abused after she came round in the hospital. She said the reports were lies: she had been treated well and the Iraqis had tried to return her to US forces.

"The nurses tried to soothe me and return me," she told the hearing, adding that she objected to the way in which the US military had portrayed her.

"American people don't need to be told elaborate tales" about US forces, she said.
Jessica

Even as Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch moved forward with plans for a sweeping probe of the Bush administration, several advocacy groups complained that his ties to the administration and to conservative groups, as well as his record on gay rights and whistle-blowers, made him the wrong man for the job.

"There is a serious question as to whether Bloch will just provide cover for an administration that is covering for him," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a Democratic-leaning group.
LA Times

The senior government official who says he is investigating Karl Rove for allegations he influenced government activity for partisan purposes is himself facing allegations of similar behavior.

Government watchdogs have accused Bloch himself of similar behavior. In April 2005, they and others complained the White House appointee had allowed his office to "sit on" a complaint that then-White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice used government funds to travel in support of President Bush's re-election bid.

By contrast, they said, Bloch ordered an immediate on-site investigation of a complaint that Bush's challenger for the White House, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., improperly campaigned in a government workplace, which had been filed around the same time.
ABC News

McFarland's investigation of Bloch, Miles says, "hasn't been a totally transparent process but we're hearing it's reaching a conclusion--which could be motivation for Bloch to start this investigation into the White House. If OPM does turn up any adverse information on Bloch, it would be more difficult for the White House to get rid of him while he was actively investigating them." But this could cut the other way. If Bloch is the subject of an investigation, he might be inclined to treat the White House favorably to protect his own position. In either case, there seems to be a conflict of interest. Bloch, Miles says, "may not be the appropriate person to be conducting the investigation" of Rove and the White House.

It is a dizzying situation. The investigator investigating officials who oversee the agency that is investigating the investigator.
The Nation

The Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.

The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.

First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.

The 2008 presidential contenders may soon be slugging it out in cyberspace, with pioneering online-only debates being planned for early next fall, a new media partnership says.

The political blog Huffington Post, online portal Yahoo and Slate Magazine will host the debates - one for Democratic candidates, one for Republicans - sometime after Labor Day, with PBS host Charlie Rose serving as moderator, the sponsors planned to announce Monday.

Voters will be invited to submit questions, and can blog in real time to share their opinions on the candidates' answers.

(snip)

Said Scott Moore, director of Yahoo's news and information service "It's a really significant, historic opportunity for the candidates to test their debate skills in a brand new format."

LINK

DeLay says top Dems close to treason

Democratic leaders are acting like traitors by opposing the Iraq war, and President Bush must answer with a toughened stance, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Monday.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "are getting very, very close to treason," DeLay said in a meeting with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"We have people dying," he said. "Not just our soldiers, but innocent citizens dying in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of these evil people, and you have your elected leaders making these kinds of statements that embolden the enemy. It's unbelievable."

~snip~

Bush cannot afford to lose this fight, DeLay said. The president must demand a "clean bill" that does not set a withdrawal date or include so-called pork barrel spending on unrelated projects, he said.

"(Bush) comes back and says, 'I want a clean bill, and unless I get a clean bill with no pork in it, I'm going to veto it,' " Delay said. "See who blinks."

~snip-~

He remains under indictment in his home state of Texas on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Hypocrite

Bush: Gonzales's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee "increased my confidence in his ability to do his job.... It was clear the attorney general broke no laws." "This is an honest, honorable man in whom I have confidence."
LINK

2,000 of Iraqis took to the streets in the area in northern Baghdad to protest the wall's construction, which residents have complained would isolate them from the rest of the city.

Al-Maliki said he has ordered a halt to the U.S. military construction of the barrier Sunday in Cairo, Egypt, as he began a regional tour to shore up support from mostly Sunni Arab nations for his Shiite-dominated government.

"Isolating parts of Baghdad with barbed wire and concrete barriers will inflict social and economic damage and it will lead to more sectarian tension," said the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party. "This measure will harm the residents and it will have a negative impact on the areas instead of solving the problems."

Aides to al-Sadr, who had been a key al-Maliki backer but has since withdrawn his support, also criticized the barrier as an "unacceptable" move by the United States, saying they feared Shiite areas in Baghdad like Sadr City would be next.