THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

John McCain, on the first day of a tour intended to tout his security credentials, admitted today that he was caught off guard by the recent violence in Iraq.

McCain, who plans to devote the week to showcasing his family's tradition of military service, told reporters in Mississippi that he had not expected the Iraqi leader, Nuri al-Maliki, to launch an offensive against Shia militias in Basra - especially without informing the Americans.

"I just am surprised that he would take it on himself to go down and take charge of a military offensive," he said. "I had not anticipated that he would do that."

// posted by montag @ 7:38 PM 0 Comments

When Sen. John McCain addressed the nation's burgeoning mortgage mess last week, he insisted it was time for a little "straight talk."

"I will not play election-year politics with the housing crisis," the GOP presidential hopeful insisted while unveiling his plan, which many have since described as friendlier to the mortgage industry than the Democrats' proposals.

What McCain did not say - which some believe smacks of politics - is that two of his top advisers were recently lobbyists for a notorious lender in the mortgage meltdown.

John Green, the senator's chief liaison to Congress, and Wayne Berman, his national finance co-chairman, billed more than $720,000 in lobbying fees from 2005 through last year to Ameriquest Mortgage through their lobbying firm, disclosure forms reviewed by the Daily News show.

Ameriquest, which since has been bought out, was forced to settle suits with 49 states for $325 million. More than 13,680 New York homeowners got taken for a ride by the company, records show.

"They would be defined as the most blatant and aggressive predatory lenders out of everybody,

// posted by montag @ 7:11 PM 0 Comments

I think during this entire primary coverage, starting in Iowa and up to the present -- FOX has done the fairest job, and remained the most objective of all the cable networks. You hate both of our candidates.

// posted by montag @ 6:08 PM 0 Comments

We've got 29,494 cosigners to the complaint against John McCain with the FEC, well on the way to our goal of 30,000. If you haven't signed on, please do -- we'll be delivering the signatures on Monday. You can sign on here.

// posted by montag @ 4:57 PM 0 Comments

After failing to break the resistance of Shiite militias in the five-day siege of oil rich Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki sent a top general to hold talks with his Shiite rival, Muqtada al Sadr, Saturday night only to be rebuffed by the firebrand cleric, an Iraqi official close to the negotiations said.

The circumstances in which the negotiations with Sadr took place suggested the government is no longer able to dictate the terms of an agreement with Sadr but now must seek a deal. General Hussein al Assadi, a Baghdad-based commander, traveled to Najaf to call on the head of Sadr's political bureau there, Lewaa Smaisam. From his office, the two men telephoned Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, where he is studying religion. But they could not reach agreement,

// posted by montag @ 12:38 PM 0 Comments

Witnesses in Basra said that members of the most powerful militia in the city, the Mahdi Army, were setting up checkpoints and controlling traffic in many places ringing the central district controlled by some of the 30,000 Iraqi Army and police forces involved in the assault. Fighters were regularly attacking the government forces, then quickly retreating.

Senior members of several political parties said Saturday that the operation, ordered by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, had been poorly planned. The growing discontent adds a new level of complication to the American-led effort to demonstrate that the Iraqi government had made strides toward being able to operate a functioning country and keep the peace without thousands of American troops.

Since the Basra assault began Tuesday, violence has spread to Shiite districts of Baghdad and other places in Iraq where Shiite militiamen hold sway, raising fears that security gains often attributed to a yearlong American troop buildup could be at risk. Any widespread breakdown of a cease-fire called by Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric who founded the Mahdi Army, could bring the country right back to the sectarian violence that racked it in 2006 and 2007.

For the third straight day, the American military was reported to be conducting airstrikes in support of Iraqi troops in Basra. Iraqi police officials reported that an American bombing run killed eight civilians.

In Baghdad, the American military was also drawn deeper into the violence generated by the Basra assault, as the military issued a statement saying that American soldiers had killed nine Iraqis that it called terrorists in firefights around Sadr City, the Shiite slum that forms Mr. Sadr’s base of support. The statement said that seven of the Iraqis were killed after they attacked an American unit and two more when they were caught placing roadside bombs. Later Saturday, the military announced that two American soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb in Shiite-controlled eastern Baghdad.

// posted by montag @ 4:37 PM 0 Comments

The Armed Forces Inaugural Committee in Washington has immediate assignment opportunities for retirees and members of the Individual Ready Reserve.

The committee provides military support to the 2009 presidential inauguration, which is scheduled for Jan. 20.

Interested retirees and Army Reserve soldiers holding IRR status should contact the reserve operations section of the Human Resources Command-St. Louis.

• Telephone: 1-800-318-5298, extension 0355.

• Email: HRCSMissionRequirement@conus.army.mil.

// posted by montag @ 1:56 PM 0 Comments

When officers from the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting harsh interrogations in 2005, they may have believed they were freeing the government and themselves from potentially serious legal trouble.

But nearly four months after the disclosure that the tapes were destroyed, the list of legal entanglements for the C.I.A., the Defense Department and other agencies is only growing longer. In addition to criminal and Congressional investigations of the tapes’ destruction, the government is fighting off challenges in several major terrorism cases and a raft of prisoners’ legal claims that it may have destroyed evidence.

“They thought they were saving themselves from legal scrutiny, as well as possible danger from Al Qaeda if the tapes became public,” said Frederick P. Hitz, a former C.I.A. officer and the agency’s inspector general from 1990 to 1998, speaking of agency officials who favored eliminating the tapes. “Unknowingly, perhaps, they may have created even more problems for themselves.”

// posted by montag @ 6:48 AM 0 Comments

Shank suffered severe brain damage after a traffic accident nearly eight years ago that robbed her of much of her short-term memory and left her in a wheelchair and living in a nursing home.

Two years after the accident, Shank and her husband, Jim, were awarded about $1 million in a lawsuit against the trucking company involved in the crash. After legal fees were paid, $417,000 was placed in a trust to pay for Debbie Shank's long-term care.

Wal-Mart had paid out about $470,000 for Shank's medical expenses and later sued for the same amount. However, the court ruled it can only recoup what is left in the family's trust.

The Shanks didn't notice in the fine print of Wal-Mart's health plan policy that the company has the right to recoup medical expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit.

The family's situation is so dire that last year Jim Shank divorced Debbie, so she could receive more money from Medicaid.

Jim Shank, 54, is recovering from prostate cancer, works two jobs and struggles to pay the bills. He's afraid he won't be able to send their youngest son to college and pay for his and Debbie's care.

"Who needs the money more? A disabled lady in a wheelchair with no future, whatsoever, or does Wal-Mart need $90 billion, plus $200,000?" he asked.

// posted by montag @ 6:07 PM 1 Comments

New Century Financial, whose failure just a year ago came at the start of the credit crisis, engaged in “significant improper and imprudent practices” that were condoned and enabled by auditors at the accounting firm KPMG, according to an independent report commissioned by the Justice Department.

In its scope and detail, the 580-page report is the most comprehensive document yet made public about the failings of a mortgage business. Some of its accusations echo charges that surfaced about the accounting firm Arthur Andersen after the collapse of Enron in 2001.

E-mail messages uncovered in the investigation showed that some KPMG auditors raised red flags about the accounting practices at New Century, but that the KPMG partners overseeing the audits rejected those concerns because they feared losing a client.

// posted by montag @ 7:14 AM 0 Comments

Authorities revealed Tuesday that a man carrying a loaded shotgun was arrested in January near the U.S. Capitol, and explosives left in his truck nearby went undetected for three weeks.

Police initially searched Gorbey's truck in January and said there were propane tanks and wires but no immediate danger. They used a robotic camera to look inside the vehicle and a powerful water hose to destroy suspicious items inside.

Now U.S. Capitol Police are investigating how their bomb squad missed the bomb.

The device was made of a can of gunpowder taped to a box of shotgun shells and a bottle with buckshot or BB pellets, according to court documents

// posted by montag @ 7:20 AM 0 Comments

Troop levels in Iraq would remain nearly the same through 2008 as at any time during five years of war, under plans presented to President Bush on Monday by the senior American commander and the top American diplomat in Iraq, senior administration and military officials said.

During the briefing to the president, General Petraeus laid out a number of potential options, the officials said, but avoided using the term “pause.” That word has gained traction here in Washington over recent weeks to describe the plateau in troop levels that is widely expected to last through the fall elections and perhaps beyond.

Instead, he described the weeks after the departure of the extra brigades ordered to Iraq in January 2007 as a period of “consolidation and evaluation,” a phrase first used publicly by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates during a visit to Iraq in February.

// posted by montag @ 6:49 AM 0 Comments

The crucifixion turns this world on its head. For it is the story of a God who deliberately takes the place of the despised and rejected so as to expose the moral degeneracy of a society that purchases its own togetherness at the cost of innocent suffering. The new society he called forth - something he dubbed the kingdom of God - was to be a society without scapegoating, without the blood of the victim. The task of all Christians is to further this kingdom, "on earth as it is in heaven".

Yet, for all his years in office, it is hard to think that President Bush has done anything much to make this kingdom more of a reality. Instead he has given us rendition, so-called specialised interrogation procedures, and the blood of many thousand innocent Iraqis. Given all this, what can it possibly mean for George Bush to call himself a Christian?

// posted by montag @ 7:30 AM 0 Comments

A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000. The grim milestone came on a day when at least 61 people were killed across the country.

// posted by montag @ 6:54 AM 0 Comments

During his nearly four years as a translator for U.S. forces in Iraq, Saman Kareem Ahmad was known for his bravery and hard work. "Sam put his life on the line with, and for, Coalition Forces on a daily basis," wrote Marine Capt. Trent A. Gibson.

Gibson's letter was part of a thick file of support -- including commendations from the secretary of the Navy and from then-Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus -- that helped Ahmad migrate to the United States in 2006, among an initial group of 50 Iraqi and Afghan translators admitted under a special visa program.

Last month, however, the U.S. government turned down Ahmad's application for permanent residence, known as a green card. His offense: Ahmad had once been part of the Kurdish Democratic Party, which U.S. immigration officials deemed an "undesignated terrorist organization" for having sought to overthrow former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Ahmad, a Kurd, once served in the KDP's military force, which is part of the new Iraqi army. A U.S. ally, the KDP is now part of the elected government of the Kurdish region and holds seats in the Iraqi parliament. After consulting public Web sites, however, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services determined that KDP forces "conducted full-scale armed attacks and helped incite rebellions against Hussein's regime, most notably during the Iran-Iraq war, Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Ahmad's association with a group that had attempted to overthrow a government -- even as an ally in U.S.-led wars against Hussein -- rendered him "inadmissible," the agency concluded in a three-page letter dated Feb. 26.

// posted by montag @ 1:09 PM 0 Comments

A suicide car bomber penetrated tight security to strike an Iraqi military base on Sunday in the deadliest of a series of attacks that killed at least 42 people across Iraq. In Baghdad, the U.S.-protected Green Zone came under heavy fire by rockets or mortar rounds.

Seven people also were killed and 14 wounded in a suicide car bombing in the Shiite area of Shula in the capital.

// posted by montag @ 12:39 PM 0 Comments

Historians will argue over whether George W. Bush is the worst president the United States has ever endured. But that is not the point. Five years after Bush's ill-starred invasion of Iraq, three years after Hurricane Katrina and seven months into the unravelling of the U.S. financial system, the point is that the 43rd president of the United States – regardless of his ranking in the pantheon – is a unique and unmitigated disaster.

// posted by montag @ 7:00 PM 0 Comments

Honest Injun Olmert, we will give you all the cluster bombs you want.

Hey, you towelheads, get off the lawn!

// posted by montag @ 4:57 PM 0 Comments

A blog called "New Jersey: Politics Unusual" speculated on possible new names for merged towns. For example, if Hillsdale, Mount Airy and Clinton merged, they could rename their new town "Hillary Clinton." And Ho-Ho-Kus could merge with Hoboken and become "Ho-Ho-Ho."

// posted by montag @ 1:42 PM 0 Comments

In a shy, soft voice Ali tells me how he had been standing with a friend in Karrada when a bomb went off at the side of the road. "I heard an explosion very close by," he says. "I saw smoke and chaos and people screaming. I saw my friend Hassan, who was running and carrying a child who had lost an arm. I saw a nice-looking girl - the Karrada girls, you know how beautiful they are. She was dead. And I saw a girl who had only one eye.

"I couldn't bear it," he tells me. "I started to scream and cry.

"Then suddenly there was another explosion. This time, you know, I didn't hear much, I just saw a tall column of orange fire a few metres away from me and then smoke. I didn't know what had happened, but the people who had run over to tend the injured from the first bomb were now lying on the street screaming.

At the hospital, Ali and the others sat in a corridor waiting to be treated by the overstretched medical team. "There were children there who were all red," he remembers. "It looked as if they had no faces, they were so covered with blood."

After waiting a while he was transferred to another hospital, where a doctor examined him. "The doctor told me I just had two bits of shrapnel in my arm and leg," Ali says. "He asked me why I was crying. I told him it wasn't for myself but for all the boys and girls around me."

The doctor took out what looked like pliers and asked Ali to look away. "He got the first bullet out, but the second didn't come so easily and I screamed."

// posted by montag @ 12:18 PM 0 Comments

McCain has now spent $58.4 million in his primary bid, surpassing the $50 million limit he would have faced if he participated in the public financing system he had been certified to join. McCain has decided not to accept the public matching funds, but the FEC wants him to assure regulators that he did not use the promise of public money as collateral for a $4 million loan.

// posted by montag @ 6:06 PM 0 Comments

Of all the claims in support of John McCain's bid for the White House, perhaps none is quite as grand as this. As he arrived in London today, the publishers of his new book insisted the Republican senator's family was descended from the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce.

For a veteran war hero staking his presidential campaign on military credentials, an ancestral link to a warrior who overcame the English to reclaim Scottish independence in 1314 has obvious appeal. But according to experts, the story may be no more than that.

Asked by the Guardian to investigate McCain's past, genealogists and medieval historians described the link to Robert the Bruce as "wonderful fiction" and "baloney".

// posted by montag @ 7:34 PM 0 Comments

The military has done its job; it is time for this administration and Iraq's political leaders to do theirs.

// posted by montag @ 6:05 PM 0 Comments

For those who may have been too young to see, or are too old to remember, our original study, "The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation" (1984), we recall that notwithstanding the best efforts of our worldwide cadre of researchers, we were unable to identify a single expert who was right.

At the time, despite those findings, our scholarly integrity compelled us to concede the statistical probability that, in theory, the experts might be right as much as half the time. It was simply that we hadn't found any.

June 14, 2006: "I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" ( George W. Bush.)

// posted by montag @ 7:23 AM 0 Comments

The septuagenarians stand accused of murdering a pair of Los Angeles homeless men in a chillingly deliberate scheme that required them to feed and shelter their victims for two years -- the period after which insurance companies often cannot contest policies -- before crushing them to death under cars in dark alleys.

"They waited for two years, with murder on their minds each of those days," Deputy Dist. Atty. Truc Do told jurors in her opening statement. "They started this murder plot with greed, and you're going to see that even when the jig was up, these defendants remained greedy."

// posted by montag @ 7:14 AM 0 Comments

But a month-long investigation by The Independent, culling four Arabic-language newspapers, official Iraqi statistics, two Beirut news agencies and Western reports, shows that an incredible 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq. This is a very conservative figure and – given the propensity of the authorities (and of journalists) to report only those suicide bombings that kill dozens of people – the true estimate may be double this number. On several days, six – even nine – suicide bombers have exploded themselves in Iraq in a display of almost Wal-Mart availability. If life in Iraq is cheap, death is cheaper...

...Not even a disparaging remark about those who would send him on his death mission – that they were prepared to live in this world while sending others like Khaled to their fate – could discourage him. "I am not going to become a 'shahed' [martyr] for people," he replied. "I am doing it for God."

It was the same old argument. We could produce a hundred good ways – peaceful ways – for him to resolve the injustices of this world; but the moment Khaled invoked the name of God, our suggestions became irrelevant. Rationality – humanism, if you like – simply withered away. If a Western president could invoke a war of "good against evil", his antagonists could do the same.

// posted by montag @ 7:35 PM 1 Comments

He has no idea what's going on. Even by his standards, he's wrong

// posted by montag @ 6:55 PM 0 Comments

five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, they still swelter in the summer and freeze in the winter because of a lack of electricity. Government rations are inevitably late, incomplete or expired. Garbage piles up for days, sometimes weeks, emanating toxic fumes.

The list goes on: black-market fuel, phone bills for land lines that haven't worked in years, education and health-care systems degraded by the flight of thousands of Iraq's best teachers and doctors.

Even so, for five years she hasn't been able to keep milk or meat in the refrigerator for more than a few hours because it spoils so quickly in the daily blackouts.

A kitchen cupboard holds a barely touched box of rationed tea, which Kareem described as "so bitter no amount of sugar can sweeten it." She said that she'd once used a magnet to clean metallic flakes from a bag of government-supplied rice. She barred her four children from drinking tap water after she found worms floating in a glass she'd poured.

"If the phone actually worked, I'd be happy to pay today," the soft-spoken father of three said. "I don't believe it's that hard for the government to bring back services. But they had 50 sessions of parliament just to remove the stars from the flag. I guess they're too busy."

// posted by montag @ 7:45 PM 0 Comments

Tar & Feather

Jail

— Posted by NoSympathyForTheDevil

// posted by montag @ 7:06 PM 0 Comments

A female suicide bomber penetrated one of the most secure perimeters in Iraq Monday evening and killed at least 42 people near the Imam Hussein shrine in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, according to the Iraqi authorities...

...North of Baghdad, two American soldiers were killed just after noon on Monday when a large roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle, the American military command in Baghdad reported. The soldiers were part of a team working to clear a roadway of bombs and other threats, the military said.

Cheney cites 'phenomenal' Iraqi security progress as bombing kills 40

// posted by montag @ 6:10 PM 0 Comments

In a highly unusual maneuver, Fed officials said they would secure the loan by effectively taking over the huge Bear Stearns portfolio and exercising control over all major decisions in order to minimize the central bank’s own risk.

// posted by montag @ 6:50 AM 0 Comments

Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the US and the Iraqi governments claim that the country is becoming a less dangerous place, but the measures taken to protect Mr Maliki told a different story. Gun-waving soldiers first cleared all traffic from the streets. Then four black armoured cars, each with three machine-gunners on the roof, raced out of the Green Zone through a heavily fortified exit, followed by sand-coloured American Humvees and more armoured cars. Finally, in the middle of the speeding convoy, we saw six identical bullet-proof vehicles with black windows, one of which must have been carrying Mr Maliki.

The precautions were not excessive, since Baghdad remains the most dangerous city in the world. The Iraqi Prime Minister was only going to the headquarters of the Dawa party, to which he belongs and which are just half a mile outside the Green Zone, but his hundreds of security guards acted as if they were entering enemy territory.

Five years of occupation have destroyed Iraq as a country. Baghdad is today a collection of hostile Sunni and Shia ghettoes divided by high concrete walls. Different districts even have different national flags. Sunni areas use the old Iraqi flag with the three stars of the Baath party, and the Shia wave a newer version, adopted by the Shia-Kurdish government. The Kurds have their own flag.

// posted by montag @ 5:10 PM 0 Comments

It was a decision that only President Bush had the power to make: At about 9 a.m. on March 19, 2003, in the Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing of the White House, he gave the "execute order" to begin Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Now, five years later, the consequences of that act will soon be beyond Bush's grasp. In 10 months, they'll land on the desk of his successor.

Thanks in part to the Iraq war, the next U.S. president — Republican or Democrat, black or white, man or woman — will take office with America's power, prestige and popularity in decline, according to bipartisan reports, polls and foreign observers.

// posted by montag @ 4:43 PM 0 Comments

The sea of oil under Iraq is supposed to rebuild the nation, then make it prosper. But at least one-third, and possibly much more, of the fuel from Iraq’s largest refinery here is diverted to the black market, according to American military officials. Tankers are hijacked, drivers are bribed, papers are forged and meters are manipulated — and some of the earnings go to insurgents who are still killing more than 100 Iraqis a week.

“It’s the money pit of the insurgency,” said Capt. Joe Da Silva, who commands several platoons stationed at the refinery.

Last year, a new Iraqi Army brigade commander, Col. Yaseen Taha Rajeeb, was assigned to the refinery. He helped stop some of the most blatant theft. But the colonel’s paychecks were stopped soon after he began cracking down, and he was fired this year.

// posted by montag @ 9:41 PM 0 Comments

This month marks the beginning of our country’s sixth year of war in Iraq, and still the question is: Why? The other question is: When will it end?

// posted by montag @ 1:45 PM 0 Comments

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

// posted by montag @ 7:22 AM 0 Comments

Still, that’s not what has me worried. I’m more concerned that despite the extraordinary scale of Mr. Bernanke’s action — to my knowledge, no advanced-country’s central bank has ever exposed itself to this much market risk — the Fed still won’t manage to get a grip on the economy. You see, $400 billion sounds like a lot, but it’s still small compared with the problem...

..What if this initiative fails? I’m sure that Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues are frantically considering other actions that they can take, but there’s only so much the Fed — whose resources are limited, and whose mandate doesn’t extend to rescuing the whole financial system — can do when faced with what looks increasingly like one of history’s great financial crises.

The next steps will be up to the politicians.

A toxic blend of economic and financial developments is testing policy makers and lawmakers who are struggling to contain the slump brought on by the collapse of the mortgage market, a downturn that now looks sure to push the economy into a recession. Though current conditions are a far cry from the 1970s, resurgent inflation is raising the threat of stagflation — a condition in which unemployment and the price of goods and services both rise.

Since the credit markets began to seize up in August, the steps taken by the Federal Reserve and the rest of the federal government have often bolstered stocks briefly, but so far they have done little to stem the larger downward drift.

// posted by montag @ 6:51 AM 0 Comments

A car bomb in central Baghdad killed at least nine people Thursday and wounded at least 20, Iraqi police said.

The explosion occurred on al Khayam Street in the Bab al Sharji neighborhood, not far from a bridge leading to the Green Zone. It was less than three miles away from where a double bombing killed 70 a week ago.

The bombings bookend a week that saw an increase in violence for U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Since Monday, 12 U.S. soldiers have been killed in suicide bombings, roadside bombings or rocket attacks. The latest deaths came Wednesday when three soldiers were killed by rockets that hit their base near Nasiriyah, southeast of Baghdad.

Also on Thursday, the body of a Catholic Chaldean archbishop was found near Mosul. Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was kidnapped Feb. 29 in Mosul as he left Mass. The three people with him were killed.

// posted by montag @ 7:33 PM 0 Comments

“I had nothing to do with the contract except to insist in writing on several occasions as this process went forward that it be fair and open and transparent,” he said at Tuesday at a public forum in St. Louis.

Although Mr. McCain says he moved to the sidelines, some of his top supporters were heavily involved in lobbying for EADS. The tanker deal could grow to $100 billion, making it one of the biggest Pentagon purchases ever, and the jousting for it involved extremely intensive and expensive industry lobbying on both sides.

Mr. McCain’s campaign co-chairman, former Representative Thomas Loeffler, a Texas Republican, also runs a lobbying firm, the Loeffler Group, which earned $220,000 working for EADS in 2007. Mr. Loeffler was the McCain campaign national finance chairman when his firm was hired to lobby for EADS.

Two other Loeffler executives who were registered to lobby for EADS are now top campaign advisers for Mr. McCain: Susan Nelson, the finance director, and William L. Ball III, the former Navy secretary. Ms. Nelson and Mr. Ball left the lobbying firm to join the campaign.

Another major money raiser for Mr. McCain, Wayne Berman, who was named vice chairman of the campaign last year, also worked for EADS through another lobbying firm, Ogilvy Government Relations, where he is a partner. Ogilvy earned $240,000 from EADS in 2007.

Also supporting Mr. McCain and lobbying on behalf of EADS was Kirk Blalock, a national chairman of Young Professionals for McCain and a former aide to President Bush. Mr. Blalock’s lobbying firm, Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, earned $320,000 from EADS in 2007, according to disclosure forms required by Congress.

// posted by montag @ 7:11 AM 1 Comments

“The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure, and teenage girls are paying the real price.”

// posted by montag @ 6:50 AM 0 Comments

Rastafarian priest Headley Samuel holds up a stem of pungent marijuana and reveals his recipe for bliss: "Fast, breakfast, drink aloe vera and smoke ganja."

His routine, which he says takes him to "the highest spiritual realm", makes him a lawbreaker. But soon that may change. Jamaica, the largest producer of cannabis in the Caribbean, is considering decriminalising use of the drug.

// posted by montag @ 7:26 AM 0 Comments

On Monday, the soldiers were walking in a shopping district of the predominantly Sunni Mansour neighborhood when a man in his 30s detonated his explosives about 30 feet away, said a police officer who witnessed the attack. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the media.

Four of the soldiers died at the scene, and the fifth died later from wounds, the military said. Three other American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were also wounded in the attack, which military spokesman Maj. Mark Cheadle said was "was reported to us as a suicide bomber."

Iraqi police said two civilians were also killed.

// posted by montag @ 9:36 PM 0 Comments

Two former officials familiar with the data-sifting efforts said they work by starting with some sort of lead, like a phone number or Internet address. In partnership with the FBI, the systems then can track all domestic and foreign transactions of people associated with that item -- and then the people who associated with them, and so on, casting a gradually wider net. An intelligence official described more of a rapid-response effect: If a person suspected of terrorist connections is believed to be in a U.S. city -- for instance, Detroit, a community with a high concentration of Muslim Americans -- the government's spy systems may be directed to collect and analyze all electronic communications into and out of the city.

// posted by montag @ 6:44 PM 0 Comments

Many of my comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading treatment, a few of them unto death. But every one of us--every single one of us--knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or approving such mistreatment of them. That faith was indispensable not only to our survival, but to our attempts to return home with honor. For without our honor, our homecoming would have had little value to us.

// posted by montag @ 4:30 PM 1 Comments

A senior official at the US's Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) with a long record of fighting transatlantic drug trafficking, explained how and why the capture of Guinea-Bissau took place, and the trail to Europe. 'Geographically, West Africa makes sense. The logical things is for the cartels to take the shortest crossing over the ocean to West Africa, by plane - to one of the many airstrips left behind by decades of war, or by drop into the thousands of little bays - or by boat all the way. A ship can drop anchor in waters completely unmonitored, while fleets of smaller craft take the contraband ashore.

'A place like Guinea Bissau is a failed state anyway, so it's like moving into an empty house.' There is no prison in Guinea-Bissau, he says. One rusty ship patrols a coastline of 350km, and an archipelago of 82 islands. The airspace is un-patrolled. The police have few cars, no petrol, no radios, handcuffs or phones.

'You walk in, buy the services you need from the government, army and people, and take over. The cocaine can then be stored safely and shipped to Europe, either by ship to Spain or Portugal, across land via Morocco on the old cannabis trail, or directly by air using "mules".' One single flight into Amsterdam in December 2006 was carrying 32 mules carrying cocaine from Guinea-Bissau.

// posted by montag @ 1:11 PM 0 Comments

On Sunday, you’ve got to roll your clocks forward an hour. On Monday, you’ve got to roll your sleeves up, as the Corps’ new uniform standard goes into effect with daylight-saving time.

All leathernecks in garrison worldwide will be required to wear the summer season desert cammies with sleeves up effective March 10, according to a Corps-wide message issued Thursday by Commandant Gen. James Conway.

The news of the uniform change comes as regions of the U.S. continue to be pelted with winter storms, which the service chief said he’s taking into account.

“In recognition of the possibility of temperature extremes within the first few weeks after changing to/from [daylight-saving time], commanders may direct a deviation to the [Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform] sleeves up/down policy as climatic conditions warrant,” Conway said in AlMar message 007/08.

// posted by montag @ 11:05 PM 1 Comments

564 of 568 Precincts Reporting - 99%

Bill Foster (D): 52% (50,947)
Jim Oberweis (R): 48% (46,125)

// posted by montag @ 10:19 PM 0 Comments

Bush’s Veto of Bill on C.I.A. Tactics Affirms His Legacy

// posted by montag @ 9:47 PM 0 Comments

The hand-held mobile computers that are supposed to replace the pens and paper long used by census takers aren't working properly, and delays could send the cost from $600 million to as much as $2 billion.

The Census Bureau has done little, if any, planning for what to do if the handheld mobile computers can't be made to work. As a result, an important census dress rehearsal this spring has been delayed by a month as the agency looks for backup plans.

"I cannot over-emphasize the seriousness of this problem," Census Bureau Director Steve Murdock told a Senate hearing this week.

That same day, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, designated the 2010 census a "high-risk area."

The GAO's designation, which provides guidance for Congress about where the next bureaucratic crisis might lie, was the equivalent of a "Beware of Landslides" sign at the entrance to a treacherous mountain road.

// posted by montag @ 6:34 PM 0 Comments

“it’s hard for me as a guy in uniform to not want more soldiers here, but frankly, that’s not what we need,” he said.

Instead, he said, the country and its government are in desperate need of other types of specialists, such as engineers, farmers, agronomists, hydroelectric power experts and transportation experts...

...Votel, who said he had not seen the report, said that “what we need here are people who can come in and develop big-time power.”

“We’ve got dozens and dozens of water projects ... That’s great, but what we need is” power-generating stations on par with the big dams in the U.S.

// posted by montag @ 6:14 PM 0 Comments

It’s no secret that Steve Schmidt, Bush’s attack dog in the 2004 election, and Mark McKinnon, the president’s media strategist, are performing similar functions for McCain now.

But other big-name Bushies are lining up to boost McCain, too.

Ken Mehlman, who ran Bush’s 2004 campaign, is now serving as an unpaid, outside adviser to the Arizona Republican. Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and soon after had a private conversation with the senator. A top McCain adviser said both Mehlman and Rove are now informally advising the campaign. Rove refused to detail his conversation with McCain.

The list could grow longer. Dan Bartlett, formerly a top aide in the Bush White House, and Sara Taylor, the erstwhile Bush political adviser, said they are eager to provide any assistance and advice possible to McCain.

// posted by montag @ 4:19 PM 0 Comments

Two consultants hired by Countrywide Financial Corp. raised concerns about Chairman Angelo R. Mozilo's lucrative pay package, but key recommendations were ignored and the company eventually hired a third advisor whose aim was to achieve "maximum opportunity" for Mozilo, documents show.

The result was a pay contract that "was significantly more generous to Mr. Mozilo" than originally recommended, according to a report released by a congressional panel Thursday.

// posted by montag @ 6:48 AM 0 Comments

A homemade bomb followed by a suicide bomber ripped through a middle-class Baghdad neighborhood Thursday evening, killing at least 54 people, police said.

// posted by montag @ 7:44 PM 0 Comments

Mr. Reynolds said in a statement that he and the national Republican committee were possible victims of “an elaborate scheme resulting in financial irregularities” by a “long-serving professional staff member,” a reference to Mr. Ward. “At no time were there any red flags raised,” the lawmaker said.

“Does Tom Reynolds ever accept responsibility for his poor leadership or does he just pass the buck?”

The F.B.I. investigation comes at an especially awkward time for House Republicans, who are struggling to raise money for Congressional races in November.

Their job has been made even more difficult by the large number of Republican lawmakers — more than two dozen from the House — who have announced their retirements, and by a series of unrelated criminal and ethics investigations of other Congressional Republicans.

// posted by montag @ 6:07 PM 0 Comments

In his Feb. 26 column, Jonah Goldberg provides us with textbook examples of the logical fallacies employed to such good effect by Joseph McCarthy and his minions in the 1950s. I thought we had driven a stake through the heart of McCarthyism, and that Red-baiting had met its well-deserved end. But Goldberg, who is as slimy as Gollum, the cave-dwelling hobbit in "Lord of the Rings," has brought it back with a vengeance.

// posted by montag @ 7:21 AM 0 Comments

The Bush administration says the 2002 congressional authorization to go to war in Iraq gives it the authority to conduct combat operations in Iraq and negotiate far-reaching agreements with the current Iraqi government without consulting Congress.

The assertion, jointly made Tuesday by U.S. Ambassador David Satterfield and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Mary Beth Long, drew an incredulous reaction from Democrats on a Joint House committee during a hearing on future U.S. commitments to Iraq.

“It's the view of the administration that as long as there’s trouble in Iraq that you have authorization of this Congress to continue there in perpetuity and define trouble as you desire?” asked Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y.

“We have authorization to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq,” Satterfield replied. “The situation in Iraq continues to present a threat to the United States.

// posted by montag @ 6:53 PM 1 Comments