GAO: Army improperly awarded $150B contract

The Army improperly awarded one of its largest contracts — a 10-year, $150 billion deal to support U.S. troops around the world — and should reconsider its decision, a government agency said Tuesday.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) ruled the Army didn't give enough weight to Pentagon auditors' concerns about the past performance of KBR, which has been the only company providing troop support for six years under the current contract. It was one of three companies selected to share the new contract, which was awarded in June and was supposed to take effect this month.

The GAO said the Army also gave Fluor Corp. "unequal treatment" when awarding the new contract. The Army approved Fluor's proposal even though the proposal relied on different assumptions than those listed in the contract solicitation — a shortcoming that hurt other bidders' proposals, the GAO said.

Government auditors have repeatedly criticized KBR for overcharging and other mismanagement of its work in Iraq. KBR also is a favorite target of congressional Democrats because it used to be a subsidiary of Halliburton, which Dick Cheney once headed.

Karen Hughes, who led efforts to improve the U.S. image abroad and was one of President Bush's last remaining advisers from the close circle of Texas aides, will leave the government at the end of the year.

Hughes told The Associated Press that she plans to quit her job as undersecretary of state and return to Texas, although improving the world's view of the United States is a "long-term challenge" that will outlast her.

"This will take a number of years," Hughes said in an interview Tuesday.

She worked with Bush since the 1990s, first as director of communications while he was governor of Texas, from 1995 to 2000.

The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency has defended the administration's rendition program, in which terrorism suspects are transported to secret prisons in countries with less stringent interrogation rules.

"Our programs are as lawful as they are valuable," said General Michael Hayden.

"These rendition, detention, and interrogation programs are small, carefully run operations," he said, adding that less than a third of the detainees "have required any special methods of questioning".

Atty. Gen.-designate Michael B. Mukasey, adopting a middle ground on an issue that has become central to his nomination, said coercive interrogation methods, including a form of simulated drowning, were "over the line" and "repugnant." But he declined to say whether he thought so-called water-boarding was a form of torture that would be illegal in all cases.

"Mukasey was nominated to be the chief law enforcement officer, not the nation's ethics advisor," said Jennifer Daskal, U.S. advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "He should not be confirmed if he cannot say that water-boarding, a form of mock drowning that has been prosecuted as torture since 1902, is illegal."

"Judge Mukasey makes the point that in the law, precision matters. So do honesty and openness. And on those counts, he falls far short," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.).

Potential prosecution of Blackwater guards allegedly involved in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians last month may have been compromised because the guards received immunity for statements they made to State Department officials investigating the incident, federal law enforcement officials said yesterday.

FBI agents called in to take over the State Department's investigation two weeks after the Sept. 16 shootings cannot use any information gleaned during questioning of the guards by the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which is charged with supervising security contractors.

Some of the Blackwater guards have subsequently refused to be interviewed by the FBI, citing promises of immunity from State, one law enforcement official said.

The Iraqi government on Tuesday approved draft legislation lifting immunity for foreign private security companies, sending the measure to parliament, a spokesman said.

The government's decision followed reports that the State Department has promised Blackwater bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's shooting.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the draft law approved Tuesday would overturn an immunity order known as Decree 17 that was issued by L. Paul Bremer, who ran the American occupation government until June 2004.

Al-Dabbagh did not single out Blackwater but said: "According to this law, all security companies will subjected to the Iraqi criminal law and must obey all the country's legal regulations such as: registration, customs, visas, etcetera."

Bomb Iran, majority of Americans says in new poll

Despite President Bush's perpetually abysmal approval ratings, his increasingly hostile rhetoric against Iran has drummed up enough fear of a "nuclear holocost" or a World War III that a majority of Americans are in favor of a US strike against the country aimed a curtailing its apparent nuclear ambitions, a new poll shows.

The Zogby International survey shows 52 percent of Americans would support a strike on Iran, while 53 percent expect President Bush to launch such an attack before the end of his second term. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is voters' No. 1 choice to deal with Iran, with 21 percent saying they would like to see her take on Tehran from the White House. Republican Rudy Giuliani was voters' second choice, with 15 percent.

Just 29 percent of Americans think the US should not attack Iran, with one in five people unsure about military action. Of those who would support a strike, 28 percent believe military action should wait until the next president is in office, while 23 percent want to see Bush let lose US missiles against Iran.

. . .

"It is utterly stunning that, after the great difficulties we have clearly faced in Iraq (a situation far from finished, by the way), that an absolute majority would favor a strike on Iran at this time," writes Dr. Steven Taylor at PoliBlog. "Even if we assume that the die-hard 25%-30% who still approve of the way the President is doing his job also are in favor of such a strike, where do the other 27%-22% come from to get the pro-strike total to 52%?"

Retarded

FEMA Spokesman John P. ''Pat'' Philbin Loses Spy Job Offer

The man who staged a fake Federal Emergency Management Agency new conference has lost a chance to be National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell's top public information officer.

John P. ''Pat'' Philbin, FEMA's external affairs director, who had been scheduled to move into the new job on Monday, will not be getting it after last week's phony news conference. The staged question-and-answer session was harshly criticized by both the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, whose department oversees FEMA.

''We do not normally comment on personnel matters,'' DNI spokesman Ross Feinstein said Monday. ''However, we can confirm that Mr. Philbin is not, nor is he scheduled to be, the director of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.''

Feinstein said earlier that Philbin's job change had been put on hold while McConnell reviewed his record....

A half-dozen questions were asked at the event -- by FEMA staff members posing as reporters. Philbin was among the six questioners, according to The Washington Post. The questions included: ''Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?''...

Heckuva Job!

U.S. General injured in Iraq

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Dorko was injured when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Baghdad, Pentagon sources said.

Dorko is believed to the be the highest-ranking military officer injured in the war. He suffered shrapnel wounds and has been evacuated to Germany, the sources said.

Dorko took command of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division in Baghdad on October 10, according to the Corps of Engineers Web site.

Iraq'd

FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA

FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing.

Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices. They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only" line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News, MSNBC and other outlets.

(snip)

"And so I think what you're really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership," Johnson said, "none of which were present in Katrina." (Wasn't Michael Chertoff DHS chief then?) Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's greatness.

Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by "Mike" Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John "Pat" Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.

The State Department with great fanfare on Tuesday signed an agreement with landlocked Mongolia that will allow Mongolian ships to be boarded and searched if they are suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction.

Mongolia -- a vast land that's home to the Gobi Desert, windswept steppes and largely populated by nomadic yak herders -- has no navy at all and lies thousands of miles from open waters.

Brilliant!

The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion in the next decade, according to a nonpartisan budget analysis issued Wednesday.

"We are on an unsustainable fiscal path, and something has to give," CBO director Peter Orszag said in presenting the estimates to the House Budget Committee at the request of its chairman, Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat.

For the first time, the Congressional Budget Office also included interest in its calculations, because the wars have essentially been paid for with federal borrowing. Interest payments on spending so far would total $415 billion. Under the first scenario, there would be an additional $175 billion in interest payments, and under the second scenario, $290 billion in debt service would be added.

"Congress got a predictable answer to its leading question, which was clearly intended to artificially inflate war costs (by) politicians in Washington trying to manage our military commanders," said Sean Kevelighan, press secretary for the White House budget office.

Medea Benjamin remained in the hearing room and was asked to leave after flashing a peace sign with her fingers. She collected her belongings, left and was walking down the hall when 2 Capitol Police approached her and cuffed her.

As more than a million people escaped the flames, Fox News anchors couldn't help speculating about a terrorism link to the blazes ravaging southern California.

"I've heard some people talk about this a little bit to me, but have you heard anybody suggest that this could be some form of terrorism," Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy asked Wednesday morning.

Fox anchors returned to fanning the terror fears, digging up a four-year-old FBI memo and presenting it as new information relating to an al Qaeda link to the fires.

The memo was first reported by the Arizona Republic in July 2003, although a Fox anchor said it was reported "five days ago."

Bush is the biggest spender since LBJ

George W. Bush, despite all his recent bravado about being an apostle of small government and budget-slashing, is the biggest spending president since Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact, he's arguably an even bigger spender than LBJ.

"He's a big government guy," said Stephen Slivinski, the director of budget studies at Cato Institute, a libertarian research group.

The numbers are clear, credible and conclusive, added David Keating, the executive director of the Club for Growth, a budget-watchdog group.

"He's a big spender," Keating said. "No question about it."

Borrow and spend Republican

The Bush administration's disaster assistance chief promised no repeat of the Hurricane Katrina experience Wednesday, saying "this is a new FEMA" as Washington weighed options to help California wildfire victims.

"We're going to make sure this operation runs as smoothly as possible given the size of this disaster," David Paulison, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said when asked if people who lost homes can expect a more aggressive response than when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in late summer 2005.

Bush offers to bomb Kurds

The Bush Administration is considering air strikes, including cruise missiles, against the Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq.

The move would be an attempt to stave off a Turkish invasion of that country to fight the rebels.

President George Bush spoke with Turkish President Abdullah Gul by phone yesterday in an effort to ease the crisis.

And Prime Minister John Howard says the tensions on the Turkey-Iraq border will not help the west's battle for democracy in Iraq.

Mr Howard said there was some recent evidence that US forces were making headway in their battle against al-Qaeda in Iraq following the US troop surge.

Clusterfuckitall

Long Dark Night - John Fogerty

George is in the jungle
knockin' on the door
come to get your children
wants to have a war

Come on, lord you'd better run,
be a long dark night before this thing is done

Brownie's in the outhouse
Katrina on the line
government's a disaster
but George, he says it's fine

Come on, lord you'd better run,
be a long dark night before this thing is done

Rummy's in the kitchen messin' with the pan
Dickie's in the back stealing everything he can
Come on, Lord you'd better run,
be a long dark night before this thing is done

You better run, you better run,
Lord you better run, Lord you better run,

Runnin' down the highway
shoutin' to the Lord
George's got religion
and you know he can't afford more, yeah

Come on, Lord you'd better run
be a long dark night before this thing is done
be a long dark night before this thing is done, oh Lord


I Can't Take It No More - John Fogerty

I can't take it no more
I can't take it no more
I'm sick and tired of your dirty little war
I can't take it no more

You know you lied about the casualties
You know you lied about the WMD's
You know you lied about the detainees
All over this world

Stop talking about staying the course
You keep a-beating that old dead horse
You know you lied about how we went to war
I can't take it no more

I can't take it
I can't take it

I bet you never saw the old school yard
I bet you never saw the national guard
Your daddy wrote a check and there you are
Another fortunate son

I can't take it no more
I can't take it no more
I'm sick and tired of your dirty little war
I can't take it no more

Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties.

The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims' groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events.

"This man did unjust things, and he's being protected and employed and taken care of. It's not a good thing," said one of the accusers, Richard Tollner, who says Placa molested him repeatedly when he was a student at a Long Island, N.Y. Catholic boys high school in 1975.

At a campaign appearance in Milwaukee last week, Giuliani continued to defend Placa, who he described to reporters as a close friend for 39 years.

Bless you my son!

The long and the short of it was that an Egpytian national, Abdallah Higazy, was staying in a hotel in New York City on September 11 and the hotel emptied out when the planes hit the towers. The hotel later found in the closet of his room a device that allows you to communicate with airline pilots. Investigators thought this guy had something to do with 9/11 so they questioned him. According to Higazi, the investigators coerced him into confessing to a role in 9/11. Higazi first adamantly denied any involvement with 9/11 and could not believe what was happening to him. Then, he says, the investigator said his family would go through hell in Egypt, where they torture people like Saddam Hussein. Higazy then realized he had a choice: he could continue denying the radio was his and his family suffers ungodly torture in Egypt or he confesses and his family is spared. Of course, by confessing, Higazy's life is worth garbage at that point, but ... well, that's why coerced confessions are outlawed in the United States.

So Higazy "confesses" and he's processed by the criminal justice system. His future is quite bleak. Meanwhile, an airline pilot later shows up at the hotel and asks for his radio back. This is like something out of the movies. The radio belonged to the pilot, not Higazy, and Higazy was free to go, the victim of horrible timing. Higazi was innocent! He next sued the hotel and the FBI agent for coercing his confession. The bottom line in the Court of Appeals: Higazy has a case and may recover damages for this injustice.

That's how they do it, folks. If a foreign national is suspected of terrorist activity, the FBI will threaten to have a brutal foreign government punish his family. And punishment in a place like Egypt is not like punishment here. Punishment here consists of solitary confinement and a very long prison term. Punishment over there is torture.

Just as the State Department is trying to work its way clear of its Blackwater troubles, a scathing federal audit released Tuesday exposes a glaring lapse in oversight of another federal contractor in Iraq, DynCorp. DynCorp was supposed to train and equip Iraqi police, but the report says the State Department doesn't know how most of the money in the billion-plus-dollar program was spent.

The State Department "does not know specifically what it received for most of the $1.2 billion in expenditures under its DynCorp contract for the Iraqi Police Training Program," the audit says. The federal watchdogs, with the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, or SIGIR, said that they even had to suspend their audit because there wasn't enough data to check the books, which were in "disarray."

But with invoices paid without being checked, and with no one tracking what they were for, auditors say it's impossible to determine what money was spent on. The State Department admits that it was unable to reconcile the books for the entire period of February 2004 to October 2006 but says since then it has made tremendous improvements. A spokesperson disputes that "most" of the $1.2 billion was not accounted for and suggests it should be "some" rather than "most." The spokesperson said that "INL is committed to considerable improvement. We've already made considerable staffing and process changes to improve our contract oversight."

Although the scope of surveillance conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act remains shrouded in secrecy, newly disclosed documents show the costs one company charges the government to eavesdrop on customers.

Comcast, which is among the nation's largest telecommunication companies, charges $1,000 to install a FISA wiretap and $750 for each additional month authorities want to keep an eye on suspects, according to the company's Handbook for Law Enforcement. Secrecy News obtained the document and published it Monday.

"I was actually surprised that this was such a routine transaction that it would have a set fee," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

Osama bin Laden called on insurgent groups in Iraq to unify their ranks, in an audio recording aired by Al Jazeera television on Monday.

"The interest of the Islamic nation surpasses that of a group ... the interest of the (Islamic) nation is more important than that of a state," said the speaker who sounded like the leader of al Qaeda.

"The strength of faith is in the strength of the bond between Muslims and not that of a tribe, nationalism or an organization."

The speaker also warned against attempts by the enemy to drive a wedge between different groups by planting agents in them.

Bush Wants $46 Billion More for Wars

President Bush will ask Congress for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and finance other national security needs.

The figure, which Bush was expected to announce later Monday at the White House, brings to $196.4 billion the total requested by the administration for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for the budget year that started Oct. 1. It includes $189.3 billion for the Defense Department, $6.9 billion for the State Department and $200 million for other agencies.

The Iraq war, now in its fifth year, already has cost more than $455 billion, with stepped-up military operations running about $12 billion a month. The war has claimed the lives of more than 3,830 members of the U.S. military and more than 73,000 Iraqi civilians.

The White House originally asked for $141.7 billion for the Pentagon to prosecute the Iraq and Afghanistan missions. The latest request includes $42.3 billion more for the Pentagon.

Valerie's problem is her decency and humanity. She has reasons most Americans don't know to be really angry with George Bush and George Tenet but she has contained her rage. In a new tasty nugget in her book, Fair Game, she gives some details on the 2004 Al Qaeda threat to kill her. The response of the Administration, or more accurately, the lack of any response, is enough to make the Pope curse. What the Bush Administration failed to do and what George Tenet, CIA Director, failed to do, goes beyond cowardice.

What am I talking about? In 2004 the FBI received intelligence that Al Qaeda hit teams were enroute to the United States to kill Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Valerie Plame. The FBI informed Valerie of this threat. This was just more "good" news piled on the fact that her intelligence career was in shambles, that intelligence assets she had recruited/managed were destroyed, and that she was unable to rebut publicly false and malicious smears of her character and reputation by a bunch of partisan Republican hacks. As the mother of two pre-school children, her first thoughts were about protecting her kids. She took the threat seriously and asked for help.

When the White House learned of these threats they sprung into action. They beefed up Secret Service protection for Vice President Cheney and provided security protection to Karl Rove. But they declined to do anything for Valerie. That was a CIA problem.

Valerie contacted the office of Security at CIA and requested assistance. They told her too f*cking bad and to go pound sand. They did not use those exact words, but they told her she was on her own.

Couric: When all is said and done, the top aides to both the president and the vice president leaked your name to reporters. Do you think President Bush was in on this?

Plame: I don't know about that, but I like most other Americans saw President Bush say on TV that he would fire anyone from his administration found to be involved in the leak of my name. It turns out the President is not a man of his word.

"The people of Iraq, the Parliament, the Council of Representatives, and the government of Iraq, they all say no, big fat no, N - O for the bases in Iraq. No military bases for Iraq because we believe that is in direct encroachment to our sovereignty, and we don't need it."

On the second day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mukasey went further than he had the day before in arguing that the White House had constitutional authority to act beyond the limits of laws enacted by Congress, especially when it came to national defense.

He suggested that both the administration's program of eavesdropping without warrants and its use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, including waterboarding, might be acceptable under the Constitution even if they went beyond what the law technically allowed. Mr. Mukasey said the president's authority as commander in chief might allow him to supersede laws written by Congress.

Report says buildup in Iraq gained little
U.S. military, civilian officials warn progress will require years of work
By David Wood
October 19, 2007

WASHINGTON - Despite hopes that the U.S. military "surge" in Iraq would encourage economic and political headway and sap the strength of the insurgency, very little lasting progress has been achieved, according to a new U.S. report.

The study, based on the assessments of dozens of U.S. military and civilian officials working at local levels across Iraq, runs counter to the optimistic forecasts by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. It said that with the exception of Anbar province, there has been "little progress" toward political reconciliation, a key U.S. goal in Iraq.

Withdrawal of U.S. troops would produce "open battlegrounds of ethnic cleansing" in some Baghdad neighborhoods and elsewhere in Iraq, the report said.

In high-profile congressional hearings last month, Petraeus and Crocker testified that the addition of 28,000 American troops in Iraq, ordered last winter by President Bush, was reducing violence and providing opportunity for economic projects, government reform and political reconciliation.

Quagmire

Republicans Object To Stark Comments On War

House Republicans objected today to comments made by outspoken liberal Democratic Rep. Pete Stark of California on the Iraq war during debate on the override of President Bush's veto of the children's health program.

Speaking on the House floor, Stark said, "Under the Republican plan, by 2017, we probably will have killed 20,000 soldiers in Iraq, spending $200 billion."

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) rose to protest the remark and asked that Stark's words be taken down, a formal procedure to punish a member of Congress for breaching the House's standards of decorum.

The chair later ruled that Stark's comment did not refer to any specific House member and thus were appropriate.

Earlier in the SCHIP debate, Stark had made other spirited remarks.

"You don't have money to fund the war or children,'' he said. "But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Responding promptly and harshly to Stark, the National Republican Congressional Committee declared he had "trampled on the sacrifice of our troops."

Slam!

Republicans hate your kids

81 Percent Support Expanding S-CHIP, but not House Republicans.

More generally, the poll finds that only about one in five Americans (22 percent) approve of the president's handling of health care. That's lower even than his approval rating on Iraq (26 percent).

UPDATE: Only 2 Democrats voted against the bill. Write or call them and let them know how you feel about their vote.

• Jim Marshall 8th District in GA
  504 Cannon House Office Building
  Washington, DC 20515
  Phone: 202/225-6531
  Fax: 202/225-3013
  
  
• Gene Taylor 4th District in MS
  2269 Rayburn House Office Building
  Washington, DC 20515-2405
  phone: 202 225-5772
  fax: 202 225-7074

Army to Keep Extending Troops' Service

The U.S. Army will continue to rely on an unpopular program that forces some soldiers to stay on beyond their retirement or re-enlistment dates, despite repeated pressure from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to reduce and eventually eliminate the practice.

Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle, deputy chief of staff for personnel, said Thursday that the number of soldiers kept on duty has actually increased in recent months as a result of President Bush's orders to increase troop levels in Iraq this year to help quell the violence.

The number of those being kept on beyond their commitment - through a program known as "stop loss" - is about 9,000 now, compared to about 7,000 before the troop buildup began in late January, he said.

"Until there is some reduction in the demand, we're going to have to rely, unfortunately ... on stop loss," Rochelle told reporters. "Until the demand comes down a bit, we can't do it without it."

Drafty

• In an op-ed he wrote this summer on the SCHIP health care program, Craig refers to doing a Google search on the term "mission creep."
  
• He's a member of the Congressional Internet Caucus.
  
• He co-sponsored a bill designating June 2007 as National Internet Safety Month.
  
• He was presented with the 2007 Internet Keep Safe Coalition Award.
  
• On his Web site, he lists as a top accomplishment a Silver Mouse Award given to his site by the Congressional Management Foundation in 2003 and 2006.
  
• When he endorsed Mitt Romney for president, he did so on YouTube.

Obama and Cheney, Making Connections

At least that was the stunning announcement made yesterday by Lynne Cheney, who said that the very white vice president from Wyoming is in fact the eighth cousin of Obama, the Senate's only African American member. She said she discovered the link, traced back to a Huguenot who figured prominently in Maryland history, while researching her latest book.

"This is such an amazing story," Cheney said in an interview on MSNBC, "that one ancestor, a man that came to Maryland, could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick's and Barack Obama's." Cristina Allegretti, Lynne Cheney's research and project manager at the American Enterprise Institute, said the vice president's wife did an exhaustive genealogical search of her family while working on "Blue Skies, No Fences." Her research led her to an early Cheney settler named Richard Cheney, whose granddaughter married Samuel Duvall, whose mother, Mareen Duvall, is distantly related to Obama. Lynne Cheney read a story that said Obama wa s related to Mareen Duvall, and realized the link.

Obama, whose mother was white, did not immediately comment on the revelation. But his campaign made light of the tie, without confirming it. "Obviously, Dick Cheney is the black sheep of the family," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

Darth

The Roll Call newspaper in Washington reported on its website last night that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois intends to resign his House seat later this year.

The subscription-only site said Hastert, who had already announced he would not seek reelection in 2008, was calling friends and associates and telling them of his decision. His early departure would create the need for a special election in his exurban Chicago district, possibly on Illinois' Feb. 5 presidential primary day.

Deepening unhappiness with President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress soured the mood of Americans and sent Bush's approval rating to another record low this month, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

Bush's job approval rating fell to 24 percent from last month's record low for a Zogby poll of 29 percent.

Gore: no plans to run for presidency

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has ruled out joining the U.S. presidential race after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting climate change.

"I don't have plans to be a candidate again so I don't really see it in that context at all," Gore said when asked in an interview with Norway's NRK public television aired on Wednesday about how the award would affect his political future.

"I'm involved in a different kind of campaign, it's a global campaign," Gore said. "It's a campaign to change the way people think about the climate crisis."

(click image for bigger pic and article)

Report criticizes Medicare drug plan costs

U.S. taxpayers and Medicare patients could have saved almost $15 billion in 2007 if private health insurers had cut expenses for prescription drug coverage and negotiated bigger discounts, a report from Democratic staff of a House of Representatives panel said on Monday.

(snip)

The companies failed to negotiate significant rebates from drug makers, the report also said. Insurers did get discounts in the form of rebates that reduced spending by 8.1 percent in 2007. But that was less than the 26 percent the Medicaid program secured from drug manufacturers. Medicaid is a state and federal insurance program for the poor.

When a Republican-led Congress created the Medicare drug coverage in 2003, supporters said using private insurers would promote competition and cost savings. The benefits took effect in 2006.

"Privatizing the delivery of the drug benefit has enriched the drug companies and insurance industry at the expense of seniors and taxpayers," Waxman said in a statement on Monday. He released the report with 12 Democrats on his committee.

Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.

(snip)

This is Operation Iraqi Freedom and the reality we experienced. This is what we tried to communicate up the chain of command. This is either what did not get passed on to our civilian leadership or what our civilian leaders chose to ignore. While our generals pursue a strategy dependent on peace breaking out, the Iraqis prepare for their war -- and our servicemen and women, and their families, continue to suffer.

There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

Gore uploads three campaign-style videos on Current.com

This will be a short, hit-and-run diary. People need to go to Current.com and view the three short videos Gore uploaded last night, one entitled Healthcare is a right, one called Americans deserve more protection and the third entitled Get the troops home. All Gorites and those with an open-mind, head over to Current.com and view the clips! Then sign up to the site so you can discuss them.

Current.com

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

"I think it would be premature at this point," a senior intelligence official said of a victory declaration over AQI, as the group is known. Despite recent U.S. gains, he said, AQI retains "the ability for surprise and for catastrophic attacks." Earlier periods of optimism, such as immediately following the June 2006 death of AQI founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a U.S. air raid, not only proved unfounded but were followed by expanded operations by the militant organization.

Recent suicide bombings in northern Iraq have convinced some officials that AQI has moved its operations in that direction. But the officials said they do not know whether AQI militants have permanently decamped from Baghdad and Anbar province, or whether they are merely lying low in anticipation of a U.S. departure or the failure of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to end the sectarian divisions that AQI fostered and now feeds upon.

While a victory declaration might have the "psychological aspect" of discouraging recruitment to a perceived lost cause, the White House official said, advantages overall would be minimal. "I recognize that there are pros to saying, 'Hey, listen, the bad guys are on the run.' " But if AQI were later able to demonstrate residual capabilities with a series of bombings, "even though it was temporary," he said, "the question becomes: How does this play out in terms of public opinion?"

Younger voters giving GOP the cold shoulder
Frustration with war, strong views on social issues initiate new trend

Conrad Camit of Houston is the son of committed Republican immigrants from the Philippines. A former political independent, the Texas A&M University graduate, 33, said the war sealed his conversion to the Democratic Party.

Also, he said, "growing up in an immigrant family, you tend to be supportive of a pro-immigrant stance, which is definitely a Democratic ideal," said Camit, now communications vice president of the Harris County Young Democrats.

These Lone Star State voters reflect a national trend: Exit polls from recent elections and survey research show the nation's young people are less likely to embrace the Republican Party than any generation since the '60s.

The reasons for the GOP's woes among under-30 Americans include frustration with the long-running Iraq war, libertarian or liberal views on social issues, which clash with Republican social conservative orthodoxy, and changing demographic trends that have created the most ethnically and racially diverse group of young people in American history.

The numbers are stark: Voters under 30 were the only age group to favor Democrat John Kerry for president in 2004, 54 percent to 45 percent, according to CNN exit polls. The party's support among young voters surged by 7 percentage points from 2000, when Democrat Al Gore led George W. Bush 48-46 among young voters.

Among under-30 adults, Kerry was backed by 88 percent of blacks, 65 percent of Asian-Americans, 58 percent of Latinos and 44 percent of Anglos, according to CIRCLE, the University of Maryland election research center.

.....

Turnout among younger voters is historically much lower than that of older Americans, but it climbed in the past two elections, jumping 9 points in 2004 and between 2 and 4 points in 2006, according to CIRCLE data.

Thank you Karl Rove?

Did the NSA's massive call records database program pre-date the terrorist attacks of 9/11?

That startling allegation is in court documents released this week which show that former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio -- the head of the only company known to have turned down the NSA's requests for Americans' phone records -- tried, unsuccessfully, to argue just that in his defense against insider trading charges.

Nacchio was sentenced to 6 years in prison in 2007 after being found guilty of illegally selling shares based on insider information that the company's fortunes were declining. Nacchio unsuccessfully attempted to defend himself by arguing that he actually expected Qwest's 2001 earnings to be higher because of secret NSA contracts, which, he contends, were denied by the NSA after he declined in a February 27, 2001 meeting to give the NSA customer calling records, court documents released this week show.

AT&T, Verizon and Bellsouth all agreed to turn over call records to an NSA database, according to reporting in the USA Today in 2006. At that time, Nacchio's lawyer publicly stated that Nacchio declined to participate until served with a proper legal order.

He is the 13th House member, and 11th Republican, to announce plans to depart then. Five senators, all Republicans, also are retiring.

Regula, 82, was first elected in 1972. He has served longer than all but one other House Republican — Florida’s C.W. Bill Young, with whom he serves on the powerful Appropriations Committee. Regula, a member of the committee since his second term, currently is the ranking Republican on its Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee.

A highly competitive race is expected in Ohio’s 16th, which includes Canton and usually has a modest Republican lean; President Bush won 54 percent of the district vote in the 2004 election, when he was more popular than he is today.

The presumptive Democratic nominee is state Sen. John Boccieri, an Iraq war veteran.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the U.N. climate panel won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their part in galvanising international action against global warming before it "moves beyond man's control".

Gore and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change", the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

"He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted," the committee said of Gore.

A Republican lawyer claims she was told that Karl Rove - while serving as President Bush's top political advisor - had intervened in the Justice Department's prosecution of Alabama's most prominent Democrat. Longtime Alabama GOP activist Dana Jill Simpson first made the allegation in June, but has now provided new details in a lengthy sworn statement to the House Judiciary Committee. The Committee is expected to hold public hearings on the Alabama case next week as part of its investigation of possible political interference by the Bush Administration in the activities of the Department of Justice.

Simpson said in June that she heard a close associate of Rove say that the White House political adviser "had spoken with the Department of Justice" about "pursuing" Don Siegelman, a former Democratic governor of Alabama, with help from two of Alabama's U.S. attorneys. Siegelman was later indicted on 32 counts of corruption, convicted on seven of them, and is currently serving an 88-month sentence in Federal prison.

If Simpson's version of events is accurate, it would show direct political involvement by the White House in federal prosecutions - a charge leveled by Administration critics in connection with the U.S. attorney scandal that led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. But her account is disputed; those who she alleges told her about Rove's involvement during a G.O.P. campaign conference call claim that no such conversation took place. Rove himself has not responded to Simpson's allegations, which are clearly based on second-hand information, and the White House has refused to comment while Siegelman's case remains on appeal.

Simpson also claims Riley, Jr., named the judge who would eventually be assigned to the case, and says Riley told her the judge would "hang Don Siegelman" because of a grudge against the former governor. She says he also specified one of the exact charges that Siegelman would later face. She says Riley, Jr., told her that Siegelman had conceded the close 2002 governor's race to his father only after being told he would no longer be subject to possible federal corruption charges.

Ms. Simpson testified that she is a lifelong Republican, who has worked on political campaigns for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Judge Roy Moore of Alabama, and Governor Bob Riley of Alabama, among others.

Joey DiFatta withdraws from Bayou State senate race, caught in gay sex sting

Another elected official was caught toe-tapping in the boys room. The Times-Picayune reports yet another Republican was caught soliciting in a public restroom.

Joey DiFatta is the chairman of St. Bernard Parish Council and a prominent Republican leader (until 2004 on the GOP state party Executive Committee).

He just withdrew from his state senate race, after his arrests for lewd behavior in a public restroom were made public.

.....


The deputy inside the stall, Detective Wayne Couvillion, responded by tapping his foot, and DiFatta reached under the partition and began to rub the deputy's leg, the report states.

The detective asked DiFatta, 'What do you want?' according to the report, and he replied, 'I want to play with you.' "

Playtime!

Al Qaeda remains the "most serious and dangerous" terrorism threat and is expected to increase attempts to place agents inside the United States, a White House report said Tuesday.

The report, titled "National Strategy for Homeland Security," said Al Qaeda had protected its top leadership, replenished operational lieutenants and "regenerated a safe haven" in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Some questioned the timing of the dire warnings in the strategy, which has information already available from several sources, including a July national intelligence estimate and a February presidential directive.

It was released just as Democrats began debate on President George W. Bush's push to make permanent a law allowing warrantless eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and suspected terrorists abroad.

And it came out the same day as a complaint from a private security firm that an administration leak ruined efforts to monitor al-Qaida activities.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said, however, that the document "provides little guidance for the deficiencies already taxing our homeland security capacity, while at the same time, it attempts to define successes ... which have not yet been realized."

"It reads more like a legacy document than a forward-leaning strategy," said Frank Cilluffo, a former Bush adviser who is now head of George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute. "To some extent, it was a missed opportunity," he said.

David Heyman, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies homeland security program, noted that the 208,000-worker Department of Homeland Security remains short of key managers and its deputy secretary, Michael Jackson, recently announced his resignation.

"It's a surprising time ... to come up with a new strategy," Heyman said. "My concern is that, even if this is a better or best strategy, without the effective leadership, human resources, processes and operations to support it, they are not going to set down roots."

Google Inc. occasionally features light-hearted doodles on its colorful home-page logo to commemorate special occasions. But now they are drawing criticism from conservatives for not being more patriotic.

The Mountain View, Calif., company bathes its logo in stars and stripes every Independence Day, but last week's decision to honor the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch -- the second "g" in Google was replaced with a drawing of the Soviet satellite -- is being blasted by some conservatives.

Not only did Google honor an achievement by a totalitarian regime that was our Cold War enemy, they griped, but it did so without having ever altered its logo to commemorate U.S. military personnel on Memorial Day or Veterans Day.

"It's a kick to your belly," said conservative blogger Giovanni Gallucci, 39, a social media consultant from Dallas. "I understand these guys are scientists and engineers and they have their quirks and want to make sure people are recognized who might not normally be recognized . . . but why not celebrate the struggles that we've come through as a people?"

The Supreme Court on Tuesday terminated a lawsuit from a man who claims he was abducted and tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were allowed to proceed.

Khaled el-Masri, 44, alleged that he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Europe and held in an Afghan prison for four months in a case of mistaken identity.

The administration has not publicly acknowledged that el-Masri was detained, and lower courts dismissed his suit after the administration asserted that state secrets would be revealed if the lawsuit were not blocked. The justices rejected his appeal without comment.

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," said Rita Katz, the firm's 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE's methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the number of UK troops in Iraq will fall from the current level of 5,500 to 2,500 by next spring.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Brown said Britain plans to move from leading Iraqi troops into an "overwatch" role in the next two months and then reduce the numbers from 5,500 to 4,500 "immediately after provincial Iraqi control, and then to 4,000."

He said that "in the second stage of overwatch in the spring, and guided as always by advice of military commanders" the reduction will be to 2,500 troops -- "with a further decision about the next phase made then."

The American military command here increased its criticism of Iran on Sunday, accusing that country's ambassador of undisclosed membership in a Revolutionary Guard force and announcing the arrests of three men it described as Iranian agents responsible for kidnappings and weapons smuggling.

The United States has increasingly accused Iran of involvement in planning and executing attacks against Iraq's government and American military operations in Iraq - accusations that the Iranian government has repeatedly denied.

But Sunday appeared to be the first instance in which the Americans had publicly asserted that Iran's top diplomat in Iraq was himself a member of the Revolutionary Guard.

"The Quds Force controls the policy for Iraq; there should be no confusion about that either," General Petraeus said. "The ambassador is a Quds Force member. Now he has diplomatic immunity and therefore he is obviously not subject - and he is acting as a diplomat."

"This government does not torture people." Bush said his administration sticks to "U.S. law and our international obligations."

He said, "The techniques that we use have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress."

CIA spokesman George Little issued a statement saying all interrogations are conducted "in strict accord with U.S. law."

"The agency's terrorist detention and interrogation program has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review, including extensive discussion within the executive branch and oversight from Congress," Little said.

The New York Times disclosed the memos in Thursday's editions. It reported that the first 2005 legal opinion authorized the use during terrorism interrogations of slaps to the head, freezing conditions and simulated drownings, known as water-boarding.

That secret opinion explicitly allowed using the painful methods in combination and was issued "soon after" Alberto R. Gonzales became attorney general in February 2005, the New York Times reported. In a December 2004 opinion, the Justice Department had publicly declared torture "abhorrent," and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices.

A second secret Justice Department opinion was issued later in 2005, as Congress was working on an anti-torture bill. That opinion said none of the CIA's interrogation practices would violate the legislation's bans on "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of detainees, the New York Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials.

The memos....do not reverse the administration policy issued in 2004 that publicly renounced torture, White House and Justice Department spokespeople said.

The New York Times on Thursday reported the CIA was again holding prisoners at "black sites" overseas, and that the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had issued a secret opinion in 2005 that endorsed the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA.

The detention program, first revealed by The Washington Post in late 2005 and then acknowledged by Bush in September 2006, provoked an international outcry, with critics accusing the administration of secretly using torture to interrogate terrorism suspects.

Bush said all 14 high-level terrorism suspects held at that time had been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the Defense Department said in April it had taken custody of a suspected al Qaeda leader who had spent months in CIA custody before his transfer.

In Latest Poll, Good News for Both Clintons

Former president Bill Clinton has emerged as a clear asset in his wife's campaign for the White House, with Americans offering high ratings to his eight years in office and a solid majority saying they would be comfortable with him as first spouse, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But Americans said they would not regard the election of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as simply the resumption of her husband's presidency. Instead, two-thirds said she would take her presidency in a different direction, and half of all Americans said they believed that would be a good development. About half of those who said it would be a resumption described that as positive.

.....

The former president is very much at the center of his wife's campaign -- helping to raise money, muscling endorsements, providing strategic and policy advice, and joining her on the trail. But, after the political and personal turbulence that occurred during his two terms in the White House, there have been persistent questions about whether the nation is eager for what could amount to a third Clinton presidential term.

At this point, however, the former president is seen in favorable terms. Two-thirds of Americans said they approve of the job he did while he was in office -- virtually the reverse of President Bush's current approval rating, which stands at 33 percent. Clinton remains overwhelmingly popular among Democrats, and 63 percent of independents and even a third of Republicans also gave him positive marks.

33% = "The Base"

"I certainly would favor an increase, but I think that a $35 billion increase which is funded by a bogus proposal which is a, quote, one dollar increase tax on cigarettes and somewhere around 2012 it basically disappears is not an unfunded liability I think we ought to lay on the next generation."

"typical Democratic, Clinton kind of thing." and "Half to two-thirds of the children that they're going to take care of already have private insurance."

"Can you imagine doing something like that in your enterprise, saying we want to get a new customer, so we're going to lower the price to get this new account by 10 percent but then we're going to go to all of our old customers and all give them 10 percent off too?"

(I don't know who this is, but.....)

Personally, we couldn't be happier about him staying in the Senate to serve out his term rather than resigning. This way it will keep this story in the news through the 2008 campaign season, will play against the Republican running to replace Craig in that open Senate seat, and will prevent a Republican from claiming incumbency in that seat (which is a huge advantage in Senate races). This story is the gift that keeps on giving.

Thank you Larry

"Because the defendant's plea was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and because the conviction is supported by the evidence ... the Defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea is denied," Hennepin County Judge Charles Porter wrote.

Craig was arrested June 11 by an airport police officer in a bathroom sex sting. The officer said Craig had looked into his bathroom stall, and tapped his foot and moved his hand under the divider in a way that suggested he was looking for a sexual partner.

When the charges first surfaced, Craig said he would resign by Sept. 30. But then he decided to attempt to reopen his legal case, and said he would stay at least until he found out whether he could withdraw his plea.

A fifth Republican senator intends to retire at the end of his term next year, Republican officials said. The development increases the possibility of a wider Democratic majority in the Senate.

The officials said 75-year-old Sen. Pete Domenici, a senator for 36 years, intends to retire at the end of his term next year for health reasons.

He is expected to say in a formal announcement Thursday that he suffers from frontotemporal lobar degeneration, a progressive disease that in some forms can cause dysfunction in the parts of the brain important for organization, decision-making and control of mood and behavior.

Int'l Herald Tribune

In addition to health concerns, Domenici's legal and political fortunes soured last winter when the senator -- known as "St. Pete" back home -- was caught up in the controversy involving the sudden firings of U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration.

Iglesias testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that his onetime patron, who had helped him to secure the federal post, angrily called him in late October asking about his corruption investigation of Albuquerque Democrats. When Domenici learned that no indictments were pending, he hung up on the prosecutor, Iglesias said. A week or so later, Iglesias's name was added to a dismissal list compiled by top staff at the Justice Department.

The incident prompted the Senate ethics committee seven months ago to investigate Domenici's actions. The probe remains ongoing. Domenici was forced to hire a high-priced criminal defense lawyer to handle the ethics case.

Republican Ethics = contradiction in terms

The debate over how terrorism suspects should be held and questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and coercive interrogation, both practices the United States had previously denounced when used by other countries. It adopted the new measures without public debate or Congressional vote, choosing to rely instead on the confidential legal advice of a handful of appointees.

Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.

With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods....

The administration had always asserted that the C.I.A.'s pressure tactics did not amount to torture, which is banned by federal law and international treaty. But officials had privately decided the agency did not have to comply with another provision in the Convention Against Torture - the prohibition on "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment.

Former U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told guests at a family values conference that she is "catching up" after devoting her life to politics for the last 12 years.

Speaking about the war in Iraq, she said that some mistakes were made, but that "hindsight is 50/50."

She said she thanks God for "unanswered prayers."

Bush vetoes bill on children's health care

U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday vetoed a measure to expand a popular children's health care program, launching the first in a series of major battles with Democrats over domestic spending.

The legislation would have provided an extra $35 billion over five years for the health program, which is administered by the states. Taxes on tobacco products would have been raised to pay for the increase.

The health bill enjoyed bipartisan support. The veto is likely to anger a number in Bush's own Republican Party who fear the issue will cost them votes in the congressional and presidential elections.

Supporters of the bill said it would have helped provide health coverage for some 10 million children.

It was only the fourth veto of Bush's presidency, and one that some Republicans feared could carry steep risks for their party in next year's elections. The Senate approved the bill with enough votes to override the veto, but the margin in the House fell short of the required number.

The White House sought as little attention as possible, with the president wielding his veto behind closed doors without any fanfare or news coverage.

Jimmy Carter faces down Darfur officials

Former President Carter got in a shouting match Wednesday with Sudanese security officials who blocked him from a town in Darfur where he was trying to meet representatives of ethnic African refugees from the ongoing conflict.

The 83-year-old Carter walked into this highly volatile pro-Sudanese government town to meet refugees too frightened to attend a scheduled meeting at a nearby compound.

"You can't go. It's not on the program!" the local national security chief, who only gave his first name as Omar, yelled at Carter, who is in Darfur as part of a delegation of respected international figures known as "The Elders."

"We're going to anyway!" an angry Carter retorted, telling security officers they didn't have the authority to stop him.

Most Americans want Iraq war funding cut: poll

Most Americans oppose fully funding President George W. Bush's $190 billion request to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while a majority supports expanding a children's health care program he has threatened to veto, a Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.

Only about 25 percent of Americans support the administration's $190 billion war funding request; 70 percent want the proposed allocation reduced, the Post said.

Three senior House Democrats are proposing a new tax to pay for the Iraq war, as well as vowing to oppose any funding bill for Iraq that does not include a policy for ending the conflict.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.), Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the Defense subcommittee on House Appropriations, and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), will soon unveil a "surtax" on taxes owed by Americans to help cover the cost of the war, the trio announced this morning.

The tax is designed to raise $140 billion to $150 billion annually, and would range from a 2% surtax on low-income Americans to as much as 15% for wealthy taxpayers.

Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats on Monday helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hoping the political landscape changes in coming months, Democratic leaders say they will renew their fight when Congress considers the money Bush wants in war funding.

While the Senate policy bill authorizes the money to be spent, it does not guarantee it; Bush will have to wait until Congress passes a separate appropriations bill before war funds are transferred to military coffers.

"I think that's where you're going to see the next dogfight," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., of the upcoming war spending bill.

Iranian University Invites Bush to Speak

An Iranian university has invited US leader George W Bush to speak following his Iranian counterpart's hostile reception at a US college last week.

"We're not taking it too seriously," said a White House spokeswoman.

She said Mr Bush might have considered the invitation if Iran allowed freedom of expression, did not have nuclear ambitions, and did not threaten Israel.

Young White Evangelicals: Less Republican, Still Conservative

White evangelicals are typically analyzed as a group, but an examination of the younger generation (those ages 18-29) provides evidence that white evangelicals may be undergoing some significant political changes. An analysis of surveys conducted between 2001 and 2007 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press suggests that younger white evangelicals have become increasingly dissatisfied with Bush and are moving away from the GOP.

In 2002, for example, an overwhelming majority (87%) approved of Bush's job performance. By August 2007, however, Bush's approval rating among this group had plummeted by 42 percentage points, with most of the drop (25 points) coming since 2005.

GOP Is Losing Grip On Core Business Vote

The Republican Party, known since the late 19th century as the party of business, is losing its lock on that title.

New evidence suggests a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party's identity -- what strategists call its "brand." The votes of many disgruntled fiscal conservatives and other lapsed Republicans are now up for grabs, which could alter U.S. politics in the 2008 elections and beyond.

Some business leaders are drifting away from the party because of the war in Iraq, the growing federal debt and a conservative social agenda they don't share. In manufacturing sectors such as the auto industry, some Republicans want direct government help with soaring health-care costs, which Republicans in Washington have been reluctant to provide. And some business people want more government action on global warming, arguing that a bolder plan is not only inevitable, but could spur new industries.

Polling data confirm business support for Republicans is eroding. In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in September, 37% of professionals and managers identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, down from 44% three years ago.

Military contributions shift - away from the GOP

Since the start of the Iraq war in 2003, members of the U.S. military have dramatically increased their political contributions to Democrats, marching sharply away from the party they've long supported.

The shift is more than just a few percentage points. In 2002, the last full cycle before Bush launched the Iraqi invasion, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics found that 23% of military members' contributions went to Democrats. So far in 2007, that number is 40%.

More specifically, the drop-off for Republican support within the Army is striking. Before the war, 71% of Army campaign contributions went to the GOP. This year, that number is down to 51%. So, the GOP's advantage went from more than 2-to-1 before the war, to near-parity now.

Bush attacks 'Hollywood values'

US President George W. Bush ripped into "Hollywood values" on Monday, in a surprise attack at the entertainment industry that overwhelmingly backs his Democratic foes.

Bush's rhetorical broadside came as he paid tribute to the new chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, noting that his parents were well regarded behind-the-scenes players in the US movie industry.

"Many people are surprised when told about the admiral's show business roots. After all, he is humble, well-grounded and filled with common sense. Not exactly what one thinks about when they think of Hollywood values," said Bush.

...

Asked whether this was a veiled snub aimed at Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson, a former senator with a long career as an actor, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino incredulously replied: "No."

"I don't know how you're drawing that connection," she said.

Fred=Law & Order=Actor=Hollywood

White House dismisses report of Iran attack plans

The White House today is dismissing the report of a seasoned journalist that the Bush administration, intent on attacking Iran, has shifted its target from a developing nuclear program in Iran to the supply lines of Iranians reinforcing insurgent fighters inside Iraq.

She (Dana Perino) declined to address, however, the basic contention that U.S. miltiary planners and intelligence gathers have turned their focus to a "shifting target" in Iran.

"We don't discuss such things," she said. "What we have said is that we are working toward a diplomatic solution in Iran... What we also have said is that the president, and any commander in chief would, not take any option off the table.

"I'm not going to comment on any possible scenario that an anonymous source continues to feed into Sy Hersh," she said -- also resisting repeated questions about whether the president would attack Iran without seeking congressional approval. "We are pursuing a diplomatic solution in Iran."

US trains Gulf air forces for war with Iran

The American air force is working with military leaders from the Gulf to train and prepare Arab air forces for a possible war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

An air warfare conference in Washington last week was told how American air chiefs have helped to co-ordinate intelligence-sharing with Gulf Arab nations and organise combined exercises designed to make it easier to fight together.

Gen Michael Mosley, the US Air Force chief of staff, used the conference to seek closer links with allies whose support America might need if President George W Bush chooses to bomb Iran.

Pentagon air chiefs have helped set up an air warfare centre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where Gulf nations are training their fighter pilots and America has big bases. It is modelled on the US Air Force warfare centre at Nellis air force base in Nevada.

In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran. "Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people," Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. "The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops." He then concluded, to applause, "I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities."

The President's position, and its corollary-that, if many of America's problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians-have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran's known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on "surgical" strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

(snip)

At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, "Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives."

The former intelligence official added, "There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, 'You can't do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we're only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.' But Cheney doesn't give a rat's ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President."

"They're moving everybody to the Iran desk," one recently retired C.I.A. official said. "They're dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It's just like the fall of 2002"-the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, "The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through."