Pentagon Red Tape Keeps Medical Records From Doctors of the Wounded

Sending our soldiers to their deaths is a-okay for Bush and his fellow Republicans, but actually saving our troops from the brink of death, that's verbotten. These people are sick. Read More......

GOP members of Congress using fake Lincoln quote to bash Dems, source of quote is Moonie paper

The local Moonie paper ("Moonie" as in the cult, the cult owns the paper) that the Republicans are all in bed with here in DC the other day printed a false quote that they attributed to Abraham Lincoln. The quote was used to bash Democrats who oppose the Bush/McCain escalation policy in Iraq.

Putting aside the irony of a lie being used, again, as the basis for sending our soldiers to die in Iraq, now that it's been proven that the quote is a fake, Republican members of Congress are still using it in their public speeches, and the cult's newspaper won't print a correction.

I'd like to say that I expect more of GOP congressmen than I expect from a cult, but that isn't really true. More from Editor & Publisher. Read More......

Murtha is taking control of the Iraq debate and he controls the money

John Murtha will have a key role setting the Iraq agenda. And, that's a good thing. A very good thing. He is a force that must be reckoned with in the House of Represenatives:

By mid-March, Murtha will offer legislation that he says would set such stringent rules on combat deployments that Bush would have no choice but to begin bringing troops home.

His legislation would dictate how long troops can stay, the equipment they use and whether any money could be spent to expand military operations into Iran. Murtha says few units could meet the high standards he envisions, meaning Bush's plan to keep some 160,000 troops in Iraq for months on end would be thwarted.

Under his plan, he says, Democrats would be helping and not hurting troops by making sure they have what they need before being thrown into combat.

"This vote will be the most important vote in changing the direction of the war," Murtha, D-Pa., told an anti-war group in an interview broadcast on the Internet Thursday.

"The president could veto it, but then he wouldn't have any money," he later said.

Murtha is the Bush Administration's worst nightmare. When Murtha speaks, the military listens. And, when Murtha speaks, he's often speaking for the military. Read More......

Bush doesn't thinks he needs to give assurances (not that he could assure us anyway)

Good Froomkin. Very good Froomkin, actually:

But what reporters yesterday were essentially asking him, over and over again, CNN's Ed Henry finally asked directly: "What assurances can you give the American people that the intelligence this time will be accurate?"

What was most striking about Bush's responses was not that he didn't provide any such assurances -- it was that he apparently still doesn't feel he needs to.

The president repeatedly swatted down skeptical questions with precisely the kinds of assertions that have lost nearly all credibility.

Just because Bush says "we know" or "I believe" isn't enough anymore.

Bush doesn't understand that those answers aren't enough anymore. The White House is acting like it's still 2002. Read More......

NBA banishes homophobic player from All-Star event in Vegas

Wow. Good for them. Note to Snickers, this is how you deal with homophobia. Read More......

Soft landing? How?

I don't see how Bernanke can make that prediction with this news coming out because the bad news in real estate was spread across 40 states. Considering the jobs related to real estate that were previously booming - banking, construction, material - I can't imagine how it will avoid getting ugly. With buyers sitting on the side and sellers holding firm but starting to cave in with price, this "Q4 slump" will not be finished in 3-6 months. Between this news, the record breaking increases in loan defaults which will dump even more houses on the market and the heavy weight of the war, how can this possibly be a soft landing? Read More......

Reid Schedules Senate Vote on House's Iraq Resolution

Atta boy.

Senate Democratic leaders abruptly switched course in the Iraq war debate today, shelving a complicated non-binding resolution that has run into procedural hurdles, in favor of a House version that simply states Congress's objections to President Bush's troop escalation plan.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) this afternoon announced that the Senate would take a rare Saturday vote on whether to proceed to consider the House resolution, which is expected to pass that chamber Friday, with some Republican support.

If the Saturday vote succeeds, Reid said he may cancel the upcoming week-long recess, scrambling campaign plans for at least six presidential candidates....

In particular, Democrats are calling the bluff of a group of Republican senators who oppose the escalation, but who joined with their GOP leadership to block the earlier Democratic-led resolution from coming to a vote, in an effort to force Democrats to allow a pro-administration measure to be offered.

Read More......

Al Gore announces "global warming" concerts

Excellent. Read More......

Not supporting our troops

Today's NYT editorial:

How do you explain to the thousands of American troops now being poured into Baghdad that they will have to wait until the summer for the protective armor that could easily mean the difference between life and death?

You tell them that unfortunately this is what you get when you vote Republican. You then tell them to pick up the phone and call Tommy Franks and Colin Powell and ask them why they told you to vote for Bush. Read More......

Tommy Franks was so incredibly wrong on Iraq

Sounds like Franks and his team believe in the Easter Bunny as well. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act we are seeing more details of the shoddy work and pie-in-the-sky planning that took us into Iraq in the first place. You just know that somewhere there is a new PowerPoint presentation explaining how easy and successful invading Iran could be.

Some of the planning by Gen. Tommy Franks and other top military officials before the 2003 invasion of Iraq envisioned that as few as 5,000 U.S. troops would remain in Iraq by December 2006, according to documents obtained by a private research organization.

Slides obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act contain a PowerPoint presentation of what planners projected to be a stable, pro-American and democratic Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

“Completely unrealistic assumptions about a post-Saddam Iraq permeate these war plans,” said National Security Archive Executive Director Thomas Blanton in a statement posted on the organization’s Web site along with copies of some charts used in the PowerPoint presentation.

Of course, we know now that Tommy Franks is a big Republican, and fancies himself the bigwig party activist, having very publicly endorsed Bush for re-election and then giving a pro-Bush speech at the Republican National Convention in 2004. Not the kind of thing an impartial military leader does. Then again, look at Colin Powell. It is funny how quickly these partisan Republican military "leaders" fall from grace once they touch the face of Bush. Read More......

Former top Bush strategist knocks Bush, "surge"

From ABC News:

ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: In the forthcoming issue of Texas Monthly, former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd writes that President Bush's "gut-level bond" with the American people "may be lost" and that "wholesale change" is needed in Iraq.

"Sending in a small contingent of troops is likely going to be seen as not helpful," Dowd writes. "He'd be much better off with the public if he said, 'This is a mess, we made mistakes, and the only way to fix it is a wholesale change.' And that could mean either a serious increase in troop strength or withdrawal."

Dowd opines that Bush's problems stem from his success in the 2002 midterm elections. ". . . when all the levers of power in Washington became Republican, creating consensus seemed to become unnecessary at the White House."....

Dowd's comments are sure to get lots of attention in Washington because of the very senior role that he played for Bush's presidential campaigns.

He was Bush's "senior strategist" in 2000 and his "chief strategist" in 2004.

Dowd is right and wrong. Bush's problem stems from an authoritarian sense of infallibility that didn't come from the 2002 elections, it started on day one when Dick Cheney was quoted as saying, and I paraphrase, rule as if we have a mandate. This may come from Cheney's days ruling the Pentagon - they are the best example of an agency, or entity even, that simply digs in its heels when criticized. They don't listen, they don't budge. They do what they want, to hell with the critics. This has been Bush's approach to policy from day one. He, Cheney and the rest of them have never understood that in a democracy you still have to share power with the congress and the people even if you win the election. And now, thank God, they're paying the price. Read More......

Bush speaks to AEI. Just so you know, he's fighting the war on terror. Uh-huh.

Bush is currently delivering a speech at the American Enterprise Institute ostensibly about Afghanistan and the war on terror. This sounds like one of those old anti-terror speeches circa 2002. It is devoid of the current reality. He's still really trying hard to link the war in Iraq to the war on terror. Of course, Bush's war in Iraq has completely distracted us from the war on terror. Bush still hasn't captured Bin Laden who actually attacked our country. In fact, Bush's war in Iraq has been a recruiting boon for terror networks according to US intelligence agencies. Meanwhile, the Taliban is undergoing a resurgence. But, no fears. Bush is on the case. And, he loves a speech like this cause he gets to keep saying "September the 11th."

The American Enterprise Institute, where Lynne V. Cheney is a Senior Fellow, is one of the few places where Bush could deliver this speech. Read More......

The Bush team has no credibility. None. It's time for the media to expose the Iran scam.

It's really hard to sort through the lies and fabrications from the Bush Administration about Iran in just the past week. An analysis in today's Washington Post takes a crack at it:

Burdened by its troubles in Iraq, the Bush administration is being doubly scrutinized over its policy toward Tehran. For weeks, despite occasional saber rattling, officials from the president on down have insisted there are no plans to attack Iran. Instead, they have said they are fully committed to a peaceful resolution of all outstanding grievances, including Iran's nuclear weapons activities, support for terrorists in Lebanon and support for insurgents in Iraq.

"We've been very careful in what we've said over the last few weeks," Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, the administration's point man on Iran, said in an appearance yesterday at the Brookings Institution.

Asked about the "highest levels" charge, Burns replied: "The president . . . did not claim that today. We are not claiming that today."

That was precisely what the military asserted in its Baghdad briefing for reporters Sunday, a secretive session in which no cameras or tape recorders were allowed and no names were given for the speakers.

Enough already. Note to the media: The Bush Administration is lying to you -- AGAIN.

It's time for the reporters in Baghdad to out the speakers at that now infamous Sunday briefing. Reporters in the traditional media know the back story here. They need to share it.

Here in DC, the Scooter Libby trial showed the games that the Bush Administration plays with the media. They've played the media for fools. The same thing is happening this time with Iran. The Bush Administration expects the media to abide by their "rules." But, when the Bush Administration is lying (again), there are no rules. So, the media has an obligation to bust this open. Who were the Baghdad briefers -- and who put them up to that briefing? That would be a good start. Read More......

NYT profiles FDL's coverage of the Libby trial

Today's NY Times profiles the bloggers at Firedoglake and their excellent -- and groundbreaking -- coverage of the Libby trial. Marcy Wheeler provided some interesting insight:

Some bloggers at the trial have seen their skepticism about mainstream reporting confirmed.

“It’s shown me the degree to which journalists work together to define the story,” said Marcy Wheeler, author of a book on the case, “Anatomy of Deceit,” and the woman usually in the Firedoglake live-blogger seat.

Ms. Wheeler, a business consultant from Michigan who writes under the nom-de-blog “emptywheel,” believes that some trial revelations have been underplayed in the conventional media because “once the narrative is set on a story, there’s no deviating from it.”

Thankfully, Marcy and FDL deviated from the traditional media narrative. In fact, the traditional media was part of the narrative of this case. The trials exposed how many, many of the major players in the D.C. press corps knew that Libby, Rove and other top White House staffers leaked Valerie Plame's name. And, they just played along with the Bush team's denials. Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

It is so cold here in D.C. Bitter.

And, bitter describes the tone of the Republicans on the Hill this week. It's just rich that the House Republicans have the audacity to call their anti-resolution spin room a "war room." They never had a "war room" to figure out a war strategy. The GOP views Iraq through a political prism. That's their thinking from 2002 and 2004 -- and they can't get past it. However, the American people are way past the Iraq war.

Time to bundle up to walk the dog.

Get it started. Read More......

US now starting to accept Iraqi refugees

Since the US invasion over 2 million have left Iraq but until now only a few hundred had been accepted to resettle in the US. The new plan will allow 7,000 which is still a very small number but a move in the right direction. If the US is going to make a mess of other countries, it will again have to accept the responsibility of the safety of its people. Read More......

Salmonella outbreak hits over 300 people in 39 states

There's something seriously wrong in the food chain if this is happening. Fortunately no deaths reported though numerous hospital visits have been reported. Read More......