Archive for May, 2007

Texas Senator Risks His Health to Block a Voter-Identification Bill

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in In Defense of Democracy, Newz and Politics. 0 Comments

Associated Press
Sunday, May 27, 2007; Page A17

AUSTIN — Against his doctor’s advice, a stooped and feeble state Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr. (D) arrives at the Texas Capitol each day, just to make sure his chamber does not take up a bill that would require voters to produce identification at the polls.

And when the rigors of the job start to wear on Gallegos, whose body is trying to reject a liver transplanted four months ago, he retires to a hospital-style bed — donated by a Republican colleague — in a room next to the Senate chamber.

From there, he can be summoned at a moment’s notice, should his vote be needed to keep the bill from reaching the floor.

Gallegos is putting his health at risk to block a measure he and others say could prevent many minorities and the elderly from taking part in elections in Texas.

“If there was enough votes to block, I promise I wouldn’t be here,” he said last week from his bed, his slumped shoulders and tired, jaundiced eyes making him look much older than his 56 years. The once-burly lawmaker is now thin, his skin hanging loosely. MORE

Now this, ladies and gents is a TEXAN!!

~Susan~

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A soldier in Iraq asks in despair: Why are we here?

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in Newz, Opinion and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments

From the Clarkville Online

By A Guest Commentator | May 29, 2007

After watching his roommate fatally wounded in a roadside bombing, an Army private wonders why the lives of good men are being lost when the Iraqis pose no threat to us and don’t want us there.

BAGHDAD, May 12 — My name is Donald Hudson Jr. I have been serving our country’s military actively for the last three years. I am currently deployed to Baghdad on Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where I have been for the last four and a half months.

I came here as part of the first wave of this so called “troop surge”, but so far it has effectively done nothing to quell insurgent violence. I have seen the rise in violence between the Sunni and Shiite. This country is in the middle of a civil war that has been on going since the seventh century.

Why are we here when this country still to date does not want us here? Why does our president’s personal agenda consume him so much, that he can not pay attention to what is really going on here?

Let me tell you a story. On May 10, I was out on a convoy mission to move barriers from a market to a joint security station. It was no different from any other night, except the improvised explosive device that hit our convoy this time, actually pierced through the armor of one of our trucks. The truck was immediately engulfed in flames, the driver lost control and wrecked the truck into one of the buildings lining the street. I was the driver of the lead truck in our convoy; the fifth out of six was the one that got hit. All I could hear over the radio was a friend from the sixth truck screaming that the fifth truck was burning up real bad, and that they needed fire extinguishers real bad. MORE

If you do nothing else, read this article! This broke my heart. I have the sinking feeling that the Army will court martial this kid because he had the nerve to speak out.

~Susan~

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White House unveils climate change strategy

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in Newz and The Environment. 0 Comments

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House unveiled a long-term strategy on climate change on Thursday, with plans to gather the countries that emit the most greenhouse gases and to cut tariff barriers to sharing environmental technology.

Coming a week before a meeting of the world’s richest nations in Germany at which global warming will be a key issue, the U.S. strategy calls for consensus on long-term goals for reducing the greenhouse gases that spur global warming, but not before the end of 2008, a senior White House official said.

The official, speaking before President George W. Bush’s official announcement, denied it was timed to coincide with next week’s Group of Eight meeting. Bush has been under pressure from European allies to give ground on climate change.

In negotiations before the summit, Washington rejected setting targets to reduce greenhouse gases, championed by other participants.

“We’re announcing now because we’re ready,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The plan calls for eliminating tariff barriers within six months, freeing up the distribution of new environmentally friendly technology, the official said. MORE

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Ex-spy Plame and publisher sue CIA over her memoir

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in Government, In Defense of Democracy and Newz. 0 Comments

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An ex-spy whose unmasking led to the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s top aide is suing the Central Intelligence Agency, accusing it of unconstitutionally interfering with publication of her memoir.

Valerie Plame Wilson and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, filed a suit in the U.S. District Court in New York on Thursday against J. Michael McConnell, the CIA director of national intelligence, and CIA Director Michael Hayden.

Plame’s cover as a CIA agent was blown when her identity was leaked to reporters and appeared in a newspaper column in July 2003, shortly after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, emerged as an Iraq war critic.

The suit said although the CIA had released Plame’s dates of service in an unclassified document, “the CIA now purports to classify or reclassify Ms. Wilson’s pre-2002 federal service dates” so it cannot be published in her memoir “Fair Game.” MORE

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Stevens Not A Target, Investigation Still a Problem

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in In Defense of Democracy, Newz and Politics. 0 Comments

From TPM Muckraker

By Laura McGann - May 30, 2007, 2:22 PM Yesterday we talked about how Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) home improvement project has piqued the interest of federal investigators.

A local oil company’s involvement in hiring one of the contractors who built the new level to Stevens’ single-story home — underneath the existing ground floor – seems to be the questionable part.

The Associated Press followed up today on the story by adding that two sources close to the investigation said “Stevens was not considered a target of the investigation.”

That won’t comfort Sen. Stevens.

The carefully-crafted language “I’m not a target” has been peddled by other politicians tied to investigations, like former Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA).

The phrase makes the politician sound practically exhonerated, when really, prosecutors tend to wait to send out a “target” letter until shortly before an indictment is issued. (Feel like pleading guilty? Now’s your chance.) Former number two at the Interior Department J. Steven Griles was named a target in the Abramoff scandal in January; he pled guilty to lying to Congress in March.

It’s not clear how entwined Stevens is in the investigation, which has already led to the indictment of four current and former state officials. Two top executives from the oil company at the heart of the controversy, Veco Corp., pled guilty to conspiracy and bribery charges this month.

But, both the AP and the Anchorage Daily News mentioned a search in the ski-resort town of Girdwood, where Stevens’ newly doubled home sits. MORE

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Post-deployment suicide: A closer look

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in Health, Newz and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments

From the Military Times

 

By Jennifer C. Kerr - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday May 30, 2007 18:47:52 EDT

WASHINGTON — In the three months after Marine Maj. John Ruocco returned from Iraq feeling numb and depressed, he couldn’t sleep. He had lost weight. He had nightmares. He was distracted and withdrawn from his two young sons.

One night, he promised his wife, Kim, that he would get help. The next morning, he was dead. The 40-year-old Cobra helicopter pilot, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., had hanged himself.

There are others. Army reservist Joshua Omvig. Army Capt. Michael Pelkey. Marines Jonathan Schulze and Jeffrey Lucey. Each came home from tours in Iraq and committed suicide.

Veterans’ groups and families who have lost loved ones say the number of troops struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental health issues is on the rise and not enough help is being provided by the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department.

For some, there are long waits for appointments at the VA or at military posts. For others, the stigma of a mental health disorder keeps them from seeking help.

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, says that although suicides among troops returning from the war are a significant problem, the scope is unknown.

“The problem that we face right now is that there’s no method to track veterans coming home,” said Rieckhoff, who served in Iraq as a platoon leader in the first year of the war. “There’s no system. There’s no national registry.”

More than four years into the war, the government has little information on suicides among Iraq war veterans.

“We don’t keep that data,” said Karen Fedele, a VA spokeswoman in Washington. “I’m told that somebody here is going to do an analysis, but there just is nothing right now.” MORE

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Justice Department investigators broaden their inquiry

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in Government, In Defense of Democracy and Law and Justice. 0 Comments
By Margaret Talev and Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is expanding its internal inquiry to look into new allegations that senior department officials improperly filled career jobs based on applicants’ Republican or conservative credentials.

In a joint announcement Wednesday, officials at the department’s Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility said their inquiry now included scrutiny of hiring in the Civil Rights Division, which oversees voting rights.

Politicization of civil service positions could violate department policy or federal law.

Congress is in the midst of its own investigation into whether the ousters of nine U.S. attorneys last year were connected to Republican desires to bring more vote-fraud cases against Democrats in battleground states and whether there was a larger pattern of politicization at the Justice Department.

The Justice Department had acknowledged that its watchdogs are evaluating the propriety of the department’s firings of the prosecutors and personnel decisions by Monica Goodling, a former counselor and White House liaison, who told a House of Representatives committee last week that she “crossed the lines” by applying political litmus tests when hiring career professionals.

It couldn’t be determined whether the Goodling inquiry will be expanded to include what direction she received from higher-ups within the department or the White House.

The announcement Wednesday, however, indicated that the internal inquiry is looking more broadly at charges of politicization across the department.

In brief letters notifying the House and Senate of their plans, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility, say they’re looking into hiring and personnel decisions by Goodling and others along with hiring within the Civil Rights Division, the department’s honors program and its summer law-intern program. Neither Fine nor Jarrett returned calls requesting comment.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, said in statements that the expanded inquiry showed the need for ongoing congressional oversight.

In recent weeks, McClatchy Newspapers has detailed controversial actions by Bradley Schlozman, a former interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City and top official in the Civil Rights Division, including a decision to charge four people with voter fraud just days before the 2006 elections. A Justice Department policy advises against such timing.

Schlozman, who continues to work at the Justice Department, is to appear next Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his hiring practices as well as his possible role in an alleged administration effort to suppress minority votes. MORE

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Troops To Lieberman–When Do We Get Out Of Here?

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in Newz, Politics and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments
By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five “surge” brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

“When are we going to get out of here?”

The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather?

Williams missed six months of his girlfriend’s pregnancy when he was given six days’ notice to return to Iraq for his second tour. He also missed his baby boy’s birth. Three weeks ago, he went home and saw his first child.

“He looks just like me,” he said. “I didn’t want to come back. . . . We’re waiting to get blown up.”

Williams wasn’t sure if he’d say how he really felt. But if he could, he’d ask about body armor.

“I don’t want him to snap his fingers to get things fixed,” Williams said, referring to Lieberman. “But he has influence.”

Next to him, Spc. Will Hedin, 21, of Chester, Conn., thought about what he was going to say.

“We’re not making any progress,” Hedin said, as he recalled a comrade who was shot by a sniper last week. “It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at.”

But as he waited two chairs down from where Lieberman would sit, Hedin said he’d never voice his true feelings to the senator.

“I think I’d be a private if I did,” he joked. “It’s just more troops, more targets.” MORE

Lieberman, if you were any kind of a man you would get those troops in a room one by one in private where it’s just you and the soldier. Tell him he can say anything without fear. You will get an earful. The only reason that you insist on the little written cards is because you are afraid of the answer. Coward.

~Susan~

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These Ads Kept Mitt Romney Out Of The Senate

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in Business/Finance, Media, Newz and Politics. 0 Comments

Thomas B. Edsall

From Huffington Post

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had a good reason to tell voters in Dover, New Hampshire yesterday that if elected President, “I presume I would take the salary and then I would donate at least that amount — or more — to charity.” Romney wants to prevent a repetition of his failed 1994 Senate campaign when his corporate success turned into a liability.

In that campaign, Romney was on the verge of taking down the most prominent Democrat up for election that year, Senator Ted Kennedy. In September, 1994, with just seven weeks to go, polls showed Romney slightly ahead. A wave of anti-Democratic sentiment then sweeping the nation would give the GOP control of both the House and Senate in November.

On election day, however, Kennedy crushed Romney by a 17-point margin, 58-41. One factor was Kennedy’s unexpectedly strong performance in two debates, a sharp contrast to Romney’s shaky stage presence. Romney said, “I believe that Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, that we should sustain and support it, and I sustain and support that law and the right of a woman to make that choice. And my personal beliefs, like the personal beliefs of other people, should not be brought into a political campaign.” Kennedy shot back: “I am pro-choice; my opponent is multiple choice.”

The back-breaker for Romney was a series of television ads produced by Bob Shrum (author of the book, due out shortly, No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner). Charlie Baker, the Kennedy campaign’s senior strategist that year, told The Huffington Post that the ads were designed “to get on the record all sides of Romney’s business career” — a hugely successful leveraged-buyout practice that Romney claimed had created jobs.

The Kennedy campaign discovered that Ampad, a company purchased by Romney’s Bain Capital in 1992, had recently bought SCM, an office products company in Marion, Indiana. All 350 workers at the SCM plant were laid off, then offered their jobs back at reduced wages. They went on strike. The Kennedy campaign sent a crew to Marion to film the workers. A half dozen ads resulted from the interviews, most of them quoting workers denouncing Romney for lining his pockets at their expense. A women tells viewers: “I’d like to say to the people of Massachusetts, if you think it can’t happen to you, think again, because we thought it couldn’t happen here either.” Romney nosedived in the polls.

Asked if this issue could resurface in 2008, Matt Rhoades, Romney’s communications director, told Huff Post: “Governor Romney isn’t a first-time candidate running against a Kennedy in Massachusetts this time. He is running on an agenda to bring real conservative change to Washington. He’s the right man at the right time to turn Washington around.”

Watch More Ads

Watch the ads to find out what kind of person dear old Mitt really is. It’s an eye opener!

~Susan~

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5 Americans, 2 More Die in Afghan Crash

Published by
susan
May 31, 2007 in Newz and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments

From Huffington Post

KABUL, Afghanistan — Five Americans and two other soldiers died when a Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down Wednesday evening in Afghanistan’s most volatile province, a U.S. military official said. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said other troops rushing to the scene were ambushed and had to call in air support to drive off their attackers.

Initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, said the U.S. official, who insisted on speaking anonymously because the crash was still under investigation. NATO said there were no survivors.

Along with the five Americans, two soldiers from Britain and Canada who had been passengers were also killed, military officials said.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed in a phone call to The Associated Press that militants shot the helicopter down in southern Helmand province, the world’s largest opium poppy-growing region where combat has been heavy in recent months.

Ahmadi did not offer any proof for his claim, but he specified the helicopter crashed in the Kajaki district hours before NATO reported that information. Kajaki is the site of a hydroelectric dam and the scene of recent fighting.

NATO said the CH-47 Chinook was carrying a crew of five and two military passengers when it crashed. The cause was “being determined by military officials,” it said.

NATO said troops going to the crash site were ambushed by enemy fighters and the unit called in an airstrike “to eliminate the enemy threat.” It did not say if the troops were from the U.S.-led coalition, NATO’s force or the Afghan army. One civilian was injured by gunfire. MORE

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