Insurgents transform US military jails into ‘terror training camps’

The Times
Insurgents transform US military jails into ‘terror training camps’
James Hider in Baghdad

America’s high-security prisons in Iraq have become “terrorist academies” for the most dangerous militant groups, according to former inmates and Iraqi government officials.

Inmates are left largely to run their blocks, which are segregated on sectarian lines. The policy has created a closed world run by Iraq’s worst terrorists and militias, into which detainees with no links to insurgent groups are often thrown.

Inmates from Camp Cropper, the US prison at Baghdad airport, described to The Times seeing al-Qaeda terrorists club to death a man suspected of being an informer. Others dished out retribution with razor wire stolen from the fences.

Captain Phillip Valenti, a US officer responsible for prisons, said he knew of at least three cases of prisoners being murdered by inmates. “We are very concerned about insurgent efforts to recruit and convert detainees,” he said.

US officials said yesterday that they were investigating the suspicious death of another Camp Cropper inmate.

Saad Sultan, the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry’s official for prisons, said: “It looks like a terrorist academy. There’s a huge number of these ‘students’; they study how they can kill. And we protect them, feed them, give them medical care. The Americans have no solution to this problem.”

Vying factions often feed fake tips about their enemies to US forces, meaning just about anyone can end up in jail. While the US military is scrupulous about separating Sunnis from Shia, they pay less attention to keeping seasoned terrorists apart from people picked up in security sweeps.

Abu Tibeh and his colleagues — four Sunnis and four Shia — were arrested in November when someone told a US patrol that the party offices they were guarding were being used by a death squad. In fact, the party was a moderate secular faction with close ties to the US.

At Camp Cropper they were put in halls of about 85 inmates. The Sunni section was controlled by an imam from an al-Qaeda-affiliated group. The Shia hall was under the authority of a sheikh from al-Mahdi Army, a fundamentalist militia notorious for its death squads.

“I was terrified,” said Abu Tibeh, a balding, podgy Sunni in his mid-thirties. “It was psychological warfare.” His colleague Abu Usama — not their real names — also in the Sunni camp, was so horrified that he suffered a minor heart attack.

Every day Abu Hamza, the al-Qaeda cleric who was in his early twenties, would lecture on the evils of the Government and the need for resistance. To their dismay, the new inmates’ own party was often the target of these rants, forcing them to keep their identities secret. They slept in shifts, with two standing guard.

One night, Abu Usama recalled, a group of al-Qaeda enforcers, their faces masked by towels, murdered an inmate. “Six of them came, two guarding the door and four to kill him. One of them hit him on the head with a sock filled with rocks. They beat him to death.”

The leader of the assassins told the cowering prisoners that the man had been an informer, although merely being seen talking to a US guard could count, said Abu Usama. Another suspected informer was clubbed to death in the latrines, he said.

When a new inmate arrived, the takfiris, or Sunni fundamentalists, would move in quickly to recruit him. Abu Usama listened politely to one recruiter — a youth half his age — then tried to avoid him.

In the Shia camp, their comrade Abu Mustafa, a lean 31-year-old, was faring only slightly better. The imam there was Sayyid Adnan al-Enabi, an al-Mahdi Army commander who ordered the men to join prayer sessions and lectures.

Abu Mustafa refused. “No one should force your religion,” he explained this week. In revenge, the al-Mahdi inmates told the US guards that he was planning to escape. The Americans put him in a metal punishment box 6ft by 4ft (1.9m by 1.2m) known as “the coffin”, and kept him there for days.

Both men were freed when the leader of their party intervened with the US military.

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The "War on Terror"--Is the War Model All Wrong?

Huffington Post
Harry Shearer
The "War on Terror"--Is the War Model All Wrong?

One of the few cogent moments in the 2004 Kerry campaign was when the candidate, briefly, questioned the whole "war" model of the GWOT. He was heckled into silence on the matter, and, aside from those who noticed how the Brits, Italians and Germans solved their terrorism problems in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, few Americans considered the subject still debatable.

Osama declared war, we were told, therefore we were at war.
Now comes a piece in the Asia Times, delineating how the Indonesians have used the "tough law enforcement" model, as opposed to the "war" model, against their home-grown insurgents. Since the war model has served us so well regarding drugs, we might--that is to say, those not in or supporting the administration might--take this lesson to heart.

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Second Gonzales aide resigns over US attorney flap

Reuters
Second Gonzales aide resigns over US attorney flap

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales abruptly resigned on Friday in another twist in the controversy surrounding the Justice Department's firing of eight U.S. prosecutors.

The aide, Monica Goodling, is the second adviser to Gonzales to depart as criticism mounts in Congress over the department's handling of the dismissals, which Democrats have said were politically motivated.

Goodling had invoked her constitutional right against self-incrimination in refusing to testify before a Senate panel investigating the firings last year of the prosecutors.

She resigned in a brief letter submitted to Gonzales, whose resignation has been demanded by Democrats who charge the U.S. attorney firings were political motivated, an allegation the Bush administration denies.

"We can confirm her resignation," said an aide to Goodling's lawyer John Dowd, of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. His office would not release her resignation letter.

In a separate letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling said Goodling's resignation would be effective April 7.

Goodling, 33, has been a counselor to Gonzales and the department's White House liaison and was involved in the firings. She had been on personal leave from the department for several weeks.

Democrats, who took power in Congress in January, allege the prosecutors were fired in part because Republicans viewed them as not pursuing corruption allegations against Democrats strongly enough. They and some Republicans want Gonzales, who is close to U.S. President George W. Bush, to resign.

It was not immediately clear whether Goodling's resignation would have an impact the Senate investigation. Gonzales is scheduled to testify on April 17.

Hertling, in his letter, referred the matter to Goodling's attorney. But he added that "the attorney general and deputy attorney general have already taken steps to ensure that no actual or apparent conflict of interest would arise with respect to Ms. Goodling or related matters."

A spokeswoman for the Senate Judiciary Committee could not be immediately reached.

Committee member Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who has been leading the effort to get Gonzales to quit, said Goodling had no choice but to resign.

"Attorney General Gonzales' hold on the department gets more tenuous each day," Schumer said in a statement.

In March, Kyle Sampson resigned as chief of staff to Gonzales after acknowledging that he did not tell other department officials sooner about his dealings with the White House over the firings.

Gonzales has said that he was not involved in the firings, but Sampson testified in March that Gonzales was wrong.

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Earth faces a grim future if global warming isn't slowed, U.N. report says

L.A. Times
Earth faces a grim future if global warming isn't slowed, U.N. report says
By Alan Zarembo and Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writers

A new global warming report issued today by the United Nations paints a near-apocalyptic vision of the Earth's future if temperatures continue to rise unabated: more than a billion people in desperate need of water, extreme food shortages in Africa and elsewhere, a blighted landscape ravaged by fires and floods, and millions of species sentenced to extinction.

The devastating effects will strike all regions of the world and all levels of society, but it will be those without the resources to adapt to the coming changes who will suffer the greatest impact, the report said.

"It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issued the report today in Brussels.

The report is the second issued this year by the group. The first, released in January, characterized global warming as a runaway train that is irreversible but that can be moderated by societal changes.

That report said, with more than 90% confidence, that the warming is caused by humans, and its conclusions were widely accepted because of the years of accumulated scientific data supporting it.

The new report is far more controversial, however, because it cites specific effects of the warming. Scientists and politicians wrangled well into the night Thursday as representatives of some of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters attempted to tone down the report and scientists fought for their predictions.

In the end, the report survived relatively unscathed, but timelines for future events were largely deleted and the degree of confidence in the projections was scaled back compared to earlier drafts.

Even so, the report paints a gloomy picture of the world's future, region by region. Most of its components were already known, but the accumulation of detail in the authoritative projection carries a much stronger weight than in the past.

North America can expect more hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires, the report said, and the coasts will be flooded by rising sea levels. Crop production will increase initially as the growing season gets longer, but climbing temperatures and water shortages will ultimately lead to sharp reductions.

Africa will suffer the most extreme effects, with a quarter of a billion people losing most of their water supplies. Food production will fall by half in many countries and governments will have to spend 10% of their budgets or more to adapt to climate changes, the report said.

Asia will suffer from unprecedented flooding as the rising temperatures melt Himalayan glaciers and rock avalanches will wipe out many villages. The same will happen in the European Alps and the South American Andes.

Rising temperatures and drying soil will replace the moist rain forest of the eastern Amazon with drier savannah, eliminating much of the habitat that now supports the greatest diversity of species in the world.

At least 30% of the world's species will disappear if temperatures rise 3.6 degrees above the average levels of the 1980s and 1990s, the report said.

"Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic, and it's a bad idea to be on a high mountain," said Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, one of the scientists who contributed to the report.

Reaction to the report was mixed.

"The urgency of this report … should be matched with an equally urgent response by governments," said Hans Veroime of the World Wildlife Foundation.

"Global warming is already underway, but it is not too late to slow it down and reduce its harmful effects," said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). "We must base our actions on the moral imperative and the scientific record."

But Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the report would not stampede the administration into taking part in the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas. The U.S. withdrew from the protocol in 2001, saying it did not impose enough controls on developing nations.

"Each nation sort of defines their regulatory objectives in different ways to achieve the greenhouse reduction outcome that they seek," he said in a briefing.

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Iraq war protester marches to Bush's ranch

Reuters
Iraq war protester marches to Bush's ranch
By Steve Holland

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Iraq war protester Cindy Sheehan urged President George W. Bush to "end this madness" in Iraq on Friday in a march toward Bush's ranch.

Sheehan, a vocal protester of the war since her soldier son, Casey, was killed in Iraq in 2004, also expressed disappointment with Democrats in charge of the U.S. Congress for failing to stop the war.

Sheehan took advantage of a heavy media presence covering Bush's Easter weekend by leading an anti-war protest of about three dozen people in a march to the security checkpoint outside Bush's ranch.

Sheehan asked police at the security checkpoint for permission to go see Bush and was told no. She and her group set up an altar with candles on top and she read aloud some of the names of the more than 3,200 American soldiers killed in Iraq.

She said her message to Bush was for him to "end this madness" in Iraq before more people are killed.

"There are hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and America who are dead forever, and there are families who are destroyed forever because of George Bush's policies," she told reporters.

Sheehan started visiting Crawford in the summer of 2005 when she wanted to meet with Bush while he vacationing at his ranch. Bush had met with her after her son died but did not see her again, although he sent some top aides to talk to her.

Bush and the Democrats are on a collision course over the president's request for $100 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Democrats have attached a troop withdrawal timetable to their legislation, and Bush has vowed to veto it if it reaches his desk.

Sheehan said the anti-war movement has been betrayed by Democrats because their legislation delays the withdrawal.

"We think the timeline is now, not 18 months or two years or whenever they feel like it," she said, adding that, "Yeah, people are feeling betrayed."

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe declined comment on Sheehan's march.

He said Democrats calling on Bush to compromise need to reach agreement among themselves on which elements they support among competing versions of their bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

"They need to negotiate with themselves, figure out what their positions are," Johndroe said.

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Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted; Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited

washingtonpost.com
Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.

"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq." Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who requested the report's declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office -- run by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith -- had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.

The report, in a passage previously marked secret, said Feith's office had asserted in a briefing given to Cheney's chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was "mature" and "symbiotic," marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics.

Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups.

"Overall, the reporting provides no conclusive signs of cooperation on specific terrorist operations," that CIA report said, adding that discussions on the issue were "necessarily speculative."

The CIA had separately concluded that reports of Iraqi training on weapons of mass destruction were "episodic, sketchy, or not corroborated in other channels," the inspector general's report said. It quoted an August 2002 CIA report describing the relationship as more closely resembling "two organizations trying to feel out or exploit each other" rather than cooperating operationally.

The CIA was not alone, the defense report emphasized. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had concluded that year that "available reporting is not firm enough to demonstrate an ongoing relationship" between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, it said.

But the contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine before the war -- were publicly praised by Cheney as the best source of information on the topic, a circumstance the Pentagon report cites in documenting the impact of what it described as "inappropriate" work.

Feith has vigorously defended his work, accusing Gimble of "giving bad advice based on incomplete fact-finding and poor logic," and charging that the acting inspector general has been "cheered on by the chairmen of the Senate intelligence and armed services committees." In January, Feith's successor at the Pentagon, Eric S. Edelman, wrote a 52-page rebuttal to the inspector general's report that disputed its analysis and its recommendations for Pentagon reform.

Cheney's public statements before and after the war about the risks posed by Iraq have closely tracked the briefing Feith's office presented to the vice president's then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. That includes the briefing's depiction of an alleged 2001 meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence official and one of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers as one of eight "Known Iraq-Al Qaida Contacts."

The defense report states that at the time, "the intelligence community disagreed with the briefing's assessment that the alleged meeting constituted a 'known contact' " -- a circumstance that the report said was known to Feith's office. But his office had bluntly concluded in a July 2002 critique of a CIA report on Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda that the CIA's interpretation of the facts it cited "ought to be ignored."

The briefing to Libby was also presented with slight variations to then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. It was prepared in part by someone whom the defense report described as a "junior Naval Reservist" intelligence analyst detailed to Feith's office from the DIA. The person is not named in the report, but Edelman wrote that she was requested by Feith's office.

The briefing, a copy of which was declassified and released yesterday by Levin, goes so far as to state that "Fragmentary reporting points to possible Iraqi involvement not only in 9/11 but also in previous al Qaida attacks." That idea was dismissed in 2004 by a presidential commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, noting that "no credible evidence" existed to support it.

When a senior intelligence analyst working for the government's counterterrorism task force obtained an early account of the conclusions by Feith's office -- titled "Iraq and al-Qaida: Making the Case" -- the analyst prepared a detailed rebuttal calling it of "no intelligence value" and taking issue with 15 of 26 key conclusions, the report states. The analyst's rebuttal was shared with intelligence officers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but evidently not with others.

Edelman complained in his own account of the incident that a senior Joint Chiefs analyst -- in responding to a suggestion by the DIA analyst that the "Making the Case" account be widely circulated -- told its author that "putting it out there would be playing into the hands of people" such as then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, and belittled the author for trying to support "some agenda of people in the building."

But the inspector general's report, in a footnote, commented that it is "noteworthy . . . that post-war debriefs of Sadaam Hussein, [former Iraqi foreign minister] Tariq Aziz, [former Iraqi intelligence minister Mani al-Rashid] al Tikriti, and [senior al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh] al-Libi, as well as document exploitation by DIA all confirmed that the Intelligence Community was correct: Iraq and al-Qaida did not cooperate in all categories" alleged by Feith's office.

From these sources, the report added, "the terms the Intelligence Community used to describe the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida were validated, [namely] 'no conclusive signs,' and 'direct cooperation . . . has not been established.' "

Zarqawi, whom Cheney depicted yesterday as an agent of al-Qaeda in Iraq before the war, was not then an al-Qaeda member but was the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al-Qaeda adherents, according to several intelligence analysts. He publicly allied himself with al-Qaeda in early 2004, after the U.S. invasion.

Staff writer Dafna Linzer and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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Convicted Felon, Elliott Abrams, Works for Bush to Prevent MidEast Peace Talks

Paul Abrams
Convicted Felon, Elliott Abrams, Works for Bush to Prevent MidEast Peace Talks

I spent a week in Washington DC. I wish my findings were encouraging. They are not.

Elliott Abrams (NO relation, our DNA-match is not even as close as the chimp to homo sapiens) is a convicted felon from the first Bush Administration, who knuckle-walks the State Deparment instead of a prison cell because W's Daddy pardoned him along with Caspar Weinberger and other Administration officials in the last days of his Presidency.
(HW Bush continues to assert that he always honored his office!). As part of his well-known concern for rehabilitating convicted felons, George W. appointed Elliott to a position in the State Department that does not require Senate approval.

Elliott is a radical rightwing zealot who opposes a genuine two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is willing for other peoples' children to die holding on to the West Bank for Israel (and, I am told, his relatives).

Elliott's title ["Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy"], however, does not even begin to explain his role. He and Cheney are the two principals advising Bush on foreign policy. At the beginning of the Israeli-Lebanon conflict this summer, I learned, Elliott was in Jerusalem letting the Defense Minister know that he had a "green light" to attack Syria. Remember, that is when there was more than a little suspicion that the US was using Israel as a proxy for regime change, fortunately, the Israelis had a bit more sense than that.

Syria has just told Nancy Pelosi that it is willing to start talks with Israel. Why did they tell Nancy Pelosi? Because George Bush will not speak to them. Watch, Elliott will pressure Israel not to engage in such talks. As a non-Senate confirmed operative, he cannot be called before the Foreign Relations Committee.

Syrian officials have told private parties in the US for months that it is ready to deal with Israel. Immediately before Bill Clinton left office, in January, 2001, the entire Palestine and Syria matters were within a few hundred meters of land, and an agreement on water rights away, from resolution (aka, the Taba initiative). This was after the failure of Arafat to take the deal Ehud Barak negotiated with him at Sharm-el-Sheikh. (Unlike chickenhawk Elliott---I cannot bear to write his last name!--Barak was Israel's most decorated war hero).

As MJ Rosenberg has written in these columns, prior to the 1973 war, Anwar Sadat told Israel that if it pulled back 2 miles from the Suez Canal, that he would open talks for a real peace. Pressure from the Nixon Administration caused the Israeli PM to refuse. Several months later, the 1973 war was launched, and Israel lost more the 3000 soldiers (not to mention the thousands of long-term injuries). To put that in perspective, that is the equivalent of ~100,000 killed in US terms. That is, it is BIG.

And, what happened? A few years later, Sadat sued for a comprehensive peace. Despite all the turmoil in the middle east since, including Sadat's assassination, that peace has held. So has the peace with Jordan. 100,000 US equivalent deaths that could have been avoided.

There is only one pro-Israel position, and that is one that recognizes Israel's right to exist in a real peace with its neighbors, with the normal intercourse between peaceful neighbors, and to be free of terrorist attacks AND the legitimate right of the Palestinians for their own, viable state that will include most of the West Bank and Gaza.

Any other position that declares itself "pro-Israel" is a fraud. Bush's declaration of a two state solution is a fraud because he installed Elliott Abrams, a convicted felon who opposes that policy, to prevent it.

Why do you think that Bush has not appointed a permanent envoy to engage in the kind of shuttle diplomacy that can bring the parties together? Because the risk to Elliott is that such an envoy might be SUCCESSFUL!

How to prove me wrong? See if Olmert is "allowed" to engage in real talks with Syria.

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Cheney Agrees With Limbaugh On "Stalinist" Senate Democrats

Huffington Post
Bob Geiger
Cheney Agrees With Limbaugh On "Stalinist" Senate Democrats

In a wide-ranging radio interview on Thursday with Rush "Oxycontin King" Limbaugh, Vice President Dick Cheney enjoyed some laughs with the right-wing blowhard, including ripping into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her trip to Syria, agreeing with Limbaugh that Democrats want the U.S. to be defeated in Iraq and concurring that the treatment received by Swift Boat Sugar Daddy Sam Fox in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was "Stalinist."

I bet Cheney hasn't had this many yuks since he watched Limbaugh make fun of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Disease symptoms.

The most telling part of how sincere the White House is in talking about a new "bipartisan spirit" following the 2006 elections, came when Limbaugh talked about the Foreign Relations Committee hearing in which John Kerry (D-MA) and Barack Obama (D-IL) questioned Swiftie Sam Fox. In that hearing, the Senators had the temerity to ask Fox if funding a bunch of known liars so they could smear a decorated Veteran and swing a presidential election might raise questions about his character and personal qualifications to represent the country diplomatically.

Limbaugh waxed poetic about Fox's life story -- gee, did you know his parents came here as Ukrainian immigrants way before their son turned out to be a self-made scumbag? -- called him a "great American" and said he was "... treated horribly by Senator Kerry and others on that committee, simply because he had made a political donation."

Here's more:

Limbaugh: "They essentially told him he did not have freedom of speech in this country, until he would apologize, until he would go up to Kerry and apologize for supporting the Swift Boats. Now the President has recess-appointed him. And of course, the Democrats have said they're going to investigate this and going to look into this.

"This is the kind of move that garners a lot of support from the people in the country. This shows the administration willing to engage these people and not allow them to get away with this kind of -- well, my term -- you don't have to accept it -- Stalinist behavior from these people on that committee."

Cheney: : Well, you're dead on, Rush. I know Sam well. He's a good friend of mine and has been for many years. I think he's a great appointment. He'll do a superb job as our Ambassador to Belgium. I was delighted when the President made the recess appointment. He clearly has that authority under the Constitution. And you're right, John Kerry basically shot it down.

Rush freakin' Limbaugh labels the conduct of United States Senators "Stalinist behavior" and the vice president says "you're dead on, Rush."

Kind of gives you warm, bipartisan fuzzies, doesn't it?

After describing as "theatrics" the efforts of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Pelosi to bring the troops home from Iraq, Limbaugh asked Cheney the following: "Can you share with us whether or not you understand their devotion, or their seeming allegiance to the concept of U.S. defeat?"

"I can't," said Cheney, obviously not wanting to disabuse Limbaugh of the notion that the leading Congressional Democrats want to see America go down in defeat. "It seems to me so abundantly clear, Rush, that we really need to prevail in this conflict, that there's an awful lot riding on it."

"So it's absolutely essential we do it," Shotgun Dick continued. "I don't know why, what the motive is. They seem to think that we can withdraw from Iraq and walk away from it. They ignore the lessons of the past. Remember what happened in Afghanistan. We had been involved in Afghanistan in the '80s, supporting the Mujahadin against the Soviets and prevailed, we won, everybody walked away. And in the '90s, Afghanistan became a safe haven for terrorists, an area for training camps where al Qaeda trained 20,000 terrorists in the late '90s in the base from which they launched attacks against the United States on 9/11."

"So those are very real problems and to advocate withdrawal from Iraq at this point seems to me simply would play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."

So, to sum up: The Vice President of the United States agrees with a right-wing nutjob -- who has said that anyone who speaks out against America should be deported -- that Senate Democrats have behaved like "Stalinist(s)" and that, of course, Democrats want al-Qaeda to prevail over America.

And we should reach across the aisle to these people?

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Update: Think Progress is also on this and has audio as well.

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Florida police arrest activist for feeding homeless

Reuters
Florida police arrest activist for feeding homeless

MIAMI (Reuters) - Police in Florida have arrested an activist for feeding the homeless in downtown Orlando.

Eric Montanez, 21, of the charity group Food Not Bombs, was charged with violating a controversial law against feeding large groups of destitute people in the city center, police said on Thursday.

Montanez was filmed by undercover officers on Wednesday as he served "30 unidentified persons food from a large pot utilizing a ladle," according to an arrest affidavit. The Orlando area is home to Disney World and Universal Studios Florida.

The Orlando law, which is supported by local business owners who say the homeless drive away customers but has been challenged in court by civil rights groups, allows charities to feed more than 25 people at a time within two miles of Orlando city hall only if they have a special permit. They can get two permits a year.

Police collected a vial of the stew Montanez was serving as evidence.

Police spokeswoman Barbara Jones said in an e-mail it was the first time anyone had been arrested under the feeding ban.

Montanez was charged with a misdemeanor.

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U.S. plans to send more National Guard to Iraq

Reuters
U.S. plans to send more National Guard to Iraq: NBC

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department is preparing to send another 12,000 National Guard combat troops to Iraq, NBC Nightly News reported on Thursday, citing Pentagon sources.

New orders awaiting the signature of Defense Secretary Robert Gates will put 12,000 National Guard troops on alert to prepare to deploy to Iraq, the report said.

Four Guard combat brigades from units in four states would be involved in the involuntary mobilization, NBC said.

The one-year combat deployment would begin early in 2008, the report said.

The Pentagon referred queries about the report to the National Guard, where a spokesman had no immediate comment.

Gates did not mention a possible Guard deployment at news conference on Thursday.

More than four years into the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the U.S. military shows increasing signs of strain.

On Monday, the Pentagon said it would send another 9,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, with about half of them returning to combat ahead of schedule.

Two of the affected Army units, totaling about 4,500 troops, will return to combat short of their promised year at home, reflecting the strain placed on U.S. forces by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under the Bush administration's new Iraq policy announced earlier this year, the Pentagon has increased force levels there by about 30,000 troops in an attempt to regain control of security and reduce sectarian violence.

The units announced this week largely replace forces already in Iraq, which number around 145,000.

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Reality Check on Bush's Rose Garden Talk

Newsweek.com
Reality Check on Bush's Rose Garden Talk
Bush came out swinging against a Democratic Congress determined, he argues, to undo the benefits of the "surge." Time for a reality check. Finding the thorns in Bush's Rose Garden address.
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek

April 4, 2007 - President George W. Bush went on the offensive Tuesday against the Democrats, who've retreated from Washington for spring recess. From the sun-splashed setting of the Rose Garden, the president suggested that it was lazy—and possibly even unpatriotic—for the Democratic-controlled Congress to depart with a half-finished Iraq spending bill. "In a time of war, it's irresponsible for the Democrat leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds," Bush told reporters. He vowed to veto any bill that set a deadline for troop withdrawal, as legislation approved by both the House and Senate does.

The administration is justifiably worried that the new Congress will use its constitutional prerogative to cut off funding for the Iraq War at a time when, after four years of miscues, Bush thinks he's finally got the right strategy and team in place. But upon closer inspection, some of Bush's warnings suggest that the president is holding the Democrats to a different standard than he held his own party when it ruled Capitol Hill-and building a political case against Congress' course that doesn't quite add up.

Bush began by complaining that it had been "57 days since I requested that Congress pass emergency funds for our troops." He said that if Congress doesn't give him a bill he can sign by mid-April, the Army will be "forced to consider cutting back on equipment, equipment repair and quality-of-life initiatives for our Guard and Reserve forces," as well as training, so that money can go to "troops on the front lines." And if he doesn't get a bill by mid-May, Bush said, "the problems grow even more acute"—forecasting delays in funding repair depots, training active-duty forces needed overseas, and in forming new brigades.

Yet previous Republican-controlled Congresses have left for spring recess without passing the sort of supplemental bill Bush was talking about. In 2006, the GOP Congress didn't approve the supplemental until the middle of June. Sen. Jack Reed, a leading Democratic member of the Armed Services Committee, told NEWSWEEK that "there was no concern then about the dire consequence of running out of funds." Besides, Congress has already passed a huge $70 billion bridge fund last fall that will tide the troops over-even if the spending bill doesn't go through. (This was created because previous Congresses have been concerned that the administration tends to fund the war hand-to-mouth with supplemental bills, rather than asking for the money up front in its annual Defense budget.) "It's hard not to view this [Bush's charges] as somewhat hyped up," says Steve Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based military think tank. "In addition to [the bridge fund], the Pentagon can tap its regular budget for the last quarter of the fiscal year, and shift money from procurements with a long lead time, like a new armored fighting vehicles. It creates some inefficiencies, but it's part of the process."

In his morning press conference, Bush also charged that the supplemental bill is ungainly and loaded up with Democratic "pork"—i.e., unrelated funding for projects back home. But the main reason for the supplemental in the first place, many Democrats charge, is to avoid tallying the real cost of the Iraq War in the regular budget. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., called the supplemental a "shell game" and told "Fox News Sunday": "If the president had been honest with what he needed for this war in his regular budget, then we wouldn't be having this."

The president also announced that thus far only 40 percent of the troops called up in the "surge" have reached Iraq. Bush said he found it "somewhat astounding that people in Congress would start calling for withdrawal even before all the troops have made it to Baghdad." When will they get there? By "early June," Bush announced. And yet the administration has previously made a point of suggesting strongly that this summer is a fair time to assess the surge's effectiveness. Gen. George Casey, the previous multinational forces commander in Iraq, was asked in late December when he thought troops could come home. "I believe the projections are late summer," Casey told reporters. At a congressional hearing on Jan. 11, new Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the surge's duration would be "a matter of months." Now, without quite saying so, the president seems to have pushed back the target date for the surge's success—and withdrawal. Says Jack Reed: "Most counterinsurgency specialists talk about success coming in years, not months."

Also on Tuesday, Bush countered a reporter's question about the Iraqi government's readiness by ticking off the ways in which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his cabinet have stepped up. "They said they'd name a commander for Baghdad. They have done that. They said they'd send up-you know, they'd send troop out into the neighborhoods to clear and hold and then build. They're doing that. They said they would send a budget up that would spend a considerable amount of their money on reconstruction. They have done that. They're working on an oil law that is in progress." Bush added: "The whole [surge] strategy is to give the Iraqi government time to reconcile."

But by many accounts, political progress on reconciliation in Iraq is frozen and possibly has even gone into reverse. The legislature has declined to take up the oil apportionment law, which is critical to creating a sense of unified statehood for ever-bickering Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. And The New York Times reported Tuesday that Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in the country, is opposing a U.S.-backed plan to allow thousands of former Baath Party members to re-enter the government. The plan, the chief legacy of the just-departed U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, was the Bush administration's main means of reaching out to Sunnis who back the insurgency. But Sistani's word is as good as law for many Shiites. "I think that really hurts the cause," says Andrew Krepinevich, a leading military strategist in Washington whose strategy for "spreading oil spots" of stability in Iraq is largely the one that Bush has adopted.

All in all, Bush delivered a powerful broadside in his Rose Garden performance on Tuesday—especially since few Democrats were around to answer him. But a quick reality check suggests that his Rose Garden offensive was all about politics, not policy. His administration knows it badly needs a victory in the arena of public opinion, which continues to tilt in support of early withdrawal. Perhaps that's one reason that Bush tried to make the case — in what was no doubt his biggest stretch — that the Democratic plan calling for a withdrawal date by 2008 "will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines." That's a particularly difficult case to make—since the same day, the newspapers carried stories about how the surge was shrinking the amount of time troops had at home between tours of duty. And his own plan calls for an open-ended commitment—not exactly a hurry-home strategy. Despite Bush's attack on the Democrats Tuesday, "the administration...has lost control of the [Iraq] narrative," says Krepinevich. Bush, with just 20 months left to serve, is trying mightily to get the country once again to listen to his side of the story.

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Reality Check on Bush's Rose Garden Talk

Newsweek.com
Reality Check on Bush's Rose Garden Talk
Bush came out swinging against a Democratic Congress determined, he argues, to undo the benefits of the "surge." Time for a reality check. Finding the thorns in Bush's Rose Garden address.
By Michael Hirsh

April 4, 2007 - President George W. Bush went on the offensive Tuesday against the Democrats, who've retreated from Washington for spring recess. From the sun-splashed setting of the Rose Garden, the president suggested that it was lazy—and possibly even unpatriotic—for the Democratic-controlled Congress to depart with a half-finished Iraq spending bill. "In a time of war, it's irresponsible for the Democrat leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds," Bush told reporters. He vowed to veto any bill that set a deadline for troop withdrawal, as legislation approved by both the House and Senate does.

The administration is justifiably worried that the new Congress will use its constitutional prerogative to cut off funding for the Iraq War at a time when, after four years of miscues, Bush thinks he's finally got the right strategy and team in place. But upon closer inspection, some of Bush's warnings suggest that the president is holding the Democrats to a different standard than he held his own party when it ruled Capitol Hill-and building a political case against Congress' course that doesn't quite add up.

Bush began by complaining that it had been "57 days since I requested that Congress pass emergency funds for our troops." He said that if Congress doesn't give him a bill he can sign by mid-April, the Army will be "forced to consider cutting back on equipment, equipment repair and quality-of-life initiatives for our Guard and Reserve forces," as well as training, so that money can go to "troops on the front lines." And if he doesn't get a bill by mid-May, Bush said, "the problems grow even more acute"—forecasting delays in funding repair depots, training active-duty forces needed overseas, and in forming new brigades.

Yet previous Republican-controlled Congresses have left for spring recess without passing the sort of supplemental bill Bush was talking about. In 2006, the GOP Congress didn't approve the supplemental until the middle of June. Sen. Jack Reed, a leading Democratic member of the Armed Services Committee, told NEWSWEEK that "there was no concern then about the dire consequence of running out of funds." Besides, Congress has already passed a huge $70 billion bridge fund last fall that will tide the troops over-even if the spending bill doesn't go through. (This was created because previous Congresses have been concerned that the administration tends to fund the war hand-to-mouth with supplemental bills, rather than asking for the money up front in its annual Defense budget.) "It's hard not to view this [Bush's charges] as somewhat hyped up," says Steve Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based military think tank. "In addition to [the bridge fund], the Pentagon can tap its regular budget for the last quarter of the fiscal year, and shift money from procurements with a long lead time, like a new armored fighting vehicles. It creates some inefficiencies, but it's part of the process."

In his morning press conference, Bush also charged that the supplemental bill is ungainly and loaded up with Democratic "pork"—i.e., unrelated funding for projects back home. But the main reason for the supplemental in the first place, many Democrats charge, is to avoid tallying the real cost of the Iraq War in the regular budget. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., called the supplemental a "shell game" and told "Fox News Sunday": "If the president had been honest with what he needed for this war in his regular budget, then we wouldn't be having this."

The president also announced that thus far only 40 percent of the troops called up in the "surge" have reached Iraq. Bush said he found it "somewhat astounding that people in Congress would start calling for withdrawal even before all the troops have made it to Baghdad." When will they get there? By "early June," Bush announced. And yet the administration has previously made a point of suggesting strongly that this summer is a fair time to assess the surge's effectiveness. Gen. George Casey, the previous multinational forces commander in Iraq, was asked in late December when he thought troops could come home. "I believe the projections are late summer," Casey told reporters. At a congressional hearing on Jan. 11, new Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the surge's duration would be "a matter of months." Now, without quite saying so, the president seems to have pushed back the target date for the surge's success—and withdrawal. Says Jack Reed: "Most counterinsurgency specialists talk about success coming in years, not months."

Also on Tuesday, Bush countered a reporter's question about the Iraqi government's readiness by ticking off the ways in which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his cabinet have stepped up. "They said they'd name a commander for Baghdad. They have done that. They said they'd send up-you know, they'd send troop out into the neighborhoods to clear and hold and then build. They're doing that. They said they would send a budget up that would spend a considerable amount of their money on reconstruction. They have done that. They're working on an oil law that is in progress." Bush added: "The whole [surge] strategy is to give the Iraqi government time to reconcile."

But by many accounts, political progress on reconciliation in Iraq is frozen and possibly has even gone into reverse. The legislature has declined to take up the oil apportionment law, which is critical to creating a sense of unified statehood for ever-bickering Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. And The New York Times reported Tuesday that Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in the country, is opposing a U.S.-backed plan to allow thousands of former Baath Party members to re-enter the government. The plan, the chief legacy of the just-departed U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, was the Bush administration's main means of reaching out to Sunnis who back the insurgency. But Sistani's word is as good as law for many Shiites. "I think that really hurts the cause," says Andrew Krepinevich, a leading military strategist in Washington whose strategy for "spreading oil spots" of stability in Iraq is largely the one that Bush has adopted.

All in all, Bush delivered a powerful broadside in his Rose Garden performance on Tuesday—especially since few Democrats were around to answer him. But a quick reality check suggests that his Rose Garden offensive was all about politics, not policy. His administration knows it badly needs a victory in the arena of public opinion, which continues to tilt in support of early withdrawal. Perhaps that's one reason that Bush tried to make the case — in what was no doubt his biggest stretch — that the Democratic plan calling for a withdrawal date by 2008 "will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines." That's a particularly difficult case to make—since the same day, the newspapers carried stories about how the surge was shrinking the amount of time troops had at home between tours of duty. And his own plan calls for an open-ended commitment—not exactly a hurry-home strategy. Despite Bush's attack on the Democrats Tuesday, "the administration...has lost control of the [Iraq] narrative," says Krepinevich. Bush, with just 20 months left to serve, is trying mightily to get the country once again to listen to his side of the story.

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Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy
by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In 1968, my father, running for President, addressed in a speech, the White House's proposal for a troop surge in Vietnam. Robert Kennedy had initially supported the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Forty years later, as Congress and the White House debate the further escalation of yet another war that has already claimed the lives of an astounding 640,000 Iraqis, killed 3,256 U.S. soldiers and wounded another 50,000, his words should have special resonance to those of our political leaders who are still searching for the right course in Iraq:

"I do not want--as I believe most Americans do not want--to sell out American interests, to simply withdraw, to raise the white flag of surrender. That would be unacceptable to us as a country and as a people. But I am concerned--as I believe most Americans are concerned--that the course we are following at the present time is deeply wrong. I am concerned--as I believe most Americans are concerned--that we are acting as if no other nations existed, against the judgment and desires of neutrals and our historic allies alike. I am concerned--as I believe most Americans are concerned--that our present course will not bring victory; will not bring peace; will not stop the bloodshed; and will not advance the interests of the United States or the cause of peace in the world. I am concerned that, at the end of it all, there will only be more Americans killed; more of our treasure spilled out; and because of the bitterness and hatred on every side of this war, more hundreds of thousands of [civilians] slaughtered; so they may say, as Tacitus said of Rome: "They made a desert, and called it peace." . . .

"The reversals of the last several months have led our military to ask for more troops. This weekend, it was announced that some of them--a "moderate" increase, it was said--would soon be sent. But isn't this exactly what we have always done in the past? If we examine the history of this conflict, we find the dismal story repeated time after time. Every time--at every crisis--we have denied that anything was wrong; sent more troops; and issued more confident communiques. Every time, we have been assured that this one last step would bring victory. And every time, the predictions and promises have failed and been forgotten, and the demand has been made again for just one more step up the ladder. But all the escalations, all the last steps, have brought us no closer to success than we were before. . . . And once again the President tells us, as we have been told for twenty years, that "we are going to win"; "victory" is coming. . . . It becoming more evident with every passing day that the victories we achieve will only come at the cost of the destruction for the nation we once hoped to help. . . .

"Let us have no misunderstanding. [They] are a brutal enemy indeed. Time and time again, they have shown their willingness to sacrifice innocent civilians, to engage in torture and murder and despicable terror to achieve their ends. This is a war almost without rules or quarter. There can be no easy moral answer to this war, no one-sided condemnation of American actions. What we must ask ourselves is whether we have a right to bring so much destruction to another land, without clear and convincing evidence that this is what its people want. But that is precisely the evidence we do not have. . . .

"The war, far from being the last critical test for the United States, is in fact weakening our position in Asia and around the world, and eroding the structure of international cooperation which has directly supported our security for the past three decades. . . . All this bears directly and heavily on the question of whether more troops should now be sent--and, if more are sent, what their mission will be. We are entitled to ask--we are required to ask--how many more men, how many more lives, how much more destruction will be asked, to provide the military victory that is always just around the corner, to pour into this bottomless pit of our dreams? But this question the administration does not and cannot answer. It has no answer--none but the ever-expanding use of military force and the lives of our brave soldiers, in a conflict where military force has failed to solve anything yet. . . .

"But the costs of the war's present course far outweigh anything we can reasonably hope to gain by it, for ourselves or for the people of Vietnam. It must be ended, and it can be ended, in a peace of brave men who have fought each other with a terrible fury, each believing he and he alone was in the right. We have prayed to different gods, and the prayers of neither have been answered fully. Now, while there is still time for some of them to be partly answered, now is the time to stop. . . .

"You are the people, as President Kennedy said, who have "the least ties to the present and the greatest ties to the future." I urge you to learn the harsh facts that lurk behind the mask of official illusion with which we have concealed our true circumstances, even from ourselves. Our country is in danger: not just from foreign enemies; but above all, from our misguided policies--and what they can do to the nation that Thomas Jefferson once told us was the last, best hope of man. There is a contest on, not for the rule of America, but for the heart of America. . . . I ask you to go forth and work for new policies--work to change our direction--and thus restore our place at the point of moral leadership, in our country, in our hearts, and all around the world."

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Passing the War Buck

Huffington Post
Alec Baldwin
Passing the War Buck

Watching McCain support Bush's Iraq policy so doggedly makes me think that the Republicans seek not only to hand the war issue over to Bush's successor, they seek to keep the war going in order to create problems for Hillary Clinton. After all, whether or not Americans will elect a woman as Commander-in-Chief during wartime is a potential issue for Clinton's campaign.

McCain, long an enemy of the Bush machine, has been taking direction from that crowd as if his political life depended on it. Perhaps it does. As Hillary, Obama and Edwards report strong numbers in their fund-raising efforts, the co-author of McCain-Feingold, a man who once stood for meaningful reform of campaign financing, looks like he will say anything to tap the Bush-Cheney political ATM. McCain's defense of the war, and his careful choice of language in order to leave some wiggle room down the line, shows the GOP's longterm strategy at its best.

Hillary is the presumed nominee. She says the right things to simultaneously strengthen and immunize herself as a top candidate. She has lots of dough coming in. She has Bill, who is the only thing better than lots of dough coming in. The GOP boardroom believes she is it. And they keep the war going on and on with Hillary in mind.

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High Court Faults EPA Inaction on Emissions

washingtonpost.com
High Court Faults EPA Inaction on Emissions
Critics of Bush Stance on Warming Claim Victory
By Robert Barnes and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers

The Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration yesterday for refusing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, siding with environmentalists in the court's first examination of the phenomenon of global warming.

The court ruled 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by improperly declining to regulate new-vehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists say contribute to global warming.

"EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority. The agency "identifies nothing suggesting that Congress meant to curtail EPA's power to treat greenhouse gases as air pollutants," the opinion continued.

The issue at stake in the case, one of two yesterday that the court decided in favor of environmentalists, is somewhat narrow. But environmentalists and some lawmakers said it could serve as a turning point, placing new pressure on the Bush administration to address global warming and adding to the political momentum that the issue has received because of Democratic control of Congress and a desire from the corporate community for a comprehensive government response to the issue.

The Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement that the ruling "repudiates the Bush administration's do-nothing policy on global warming," undermining the government's refusal to view carbon dioxide as an air pollutant subject to EPA regulation.

The ruling could also lend important authority to efforts by the states either to force the federal government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to be allowed to do it themselves. New York is leading an effort to strengthen regulations on power-plant emissions. California has passed a law seeking to cut carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles starting in 2009; its regulations have been adopted by 10 other states and may soon be adopted by Maryland.

The decision in Commonwealth of Massachusetts et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency et al . also reinforced the division on the Supreme Court, with its four liberal members in the majority and its four most conservative members dissenting. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's role as the key justice in this term's 5 to 4 decisions was again on display, as he sided with Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter.

The case dates from 1999, when the International Center for Technology Assessment and other groups petitioned the EPA to set standards for greenhouse gas emissions for new vehicles. Four years later, the EPA declined, saying that it lacked authority to regulate greenhouse gases and that even if it did, it might not choose to because of "numerous areas of scientific uncertainty" about the causes and effects of global warming. Massachusetts, along with other states and cities, took the agency to court.

The court majority said that the EPA clearly had the authority to regulate the emissions and that its "laundry list" of reasons for not doing so were not based in the law. "We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding. . . . We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for actions or inaction in the statute," Stevens wrote.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote one dissent, which was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. He said that global warming may be a "crisis," even "the most pressing environmental problem of our time," but that it is an issue for Congress and the executive branch. He said the court's majority used "sleight-of-hand" to even grant Massachusetts the standing to sue.

Scalia wrote another dissent, which Roberts and the others also joined, saying the EPA had done its duty when it considered the petition and decided not to act. He said the court "has no business substituting its own desired outcome for the reasoned judgment of the responsible agency."

But reaction from even staunch supporters of the EPA's actions seemed to reflect a recognition of the changed political currents and a belief that Congress and the administration must now confront the issue, rather than leaving it to agencies or the states.

"The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers believes that there needs to be a national, federal, economy-wide approach to addressing greenhouse gases," said the alliance's president, Dave McCurdy, whose group had supported the EPA's position.

In a sign that the ruling is already reverberating on Capitol Hill, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) -- a key player in the House debate over global warming -- issued a statement saying: "While I still believe Congress did not intend for the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases, the Supreme Court has made its decision and the matter is now settled. Today's ruling provides another compelling reason why Congress must enact, and the President must sign, comprehensive climate change legislation."

House Democrats have vowed to pass global warming legislation by July 4, and Senate leaders are working on their version of the bill. But it is unclear what kind of plan they will adopt and whether they will pass it as soon as they have promised.

Senate leaders said they will call EPA officials before the Environment and Public Works Committee this month to ask them how they plan to deal with the court's decision.

In the other environmental case, Environmental Defense et al. v. Duke Energy Corp. et al ., the court unanimously supported a decades-old initiative aimed at forcing power plants to install pollution-control equipment.

The case involved a movement launched during the Clinton administration to force companies to install pollution-control equipment in aging coal-fired power plants. More than two dozen plants in the South and the Midwest still have cases pending.

Staff writer William Branigin contributed to this report.

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A Shoo-In For 'Regular Person'

washingtonpost.com
A Shoo-In For 'Regular Person'
On the Campaign Trail, Elizabeth Edwards Attracts Voters
By Sridhar Pappu
Washington Post Staff Writer

DURHAM, N.H. Where are they? That was the question circulating among the 1,200 people in the gym at Concord High School on a cold, drizzly, sunless day this week as they waited for John and Elizabeth Edwards and their three children. After a National Merit finalist extolled the Edwards clan and loudspeakers blared the Foo Fighters for a rockin' intro, the crowd turned its attention to a set of doors, begging, pleading, for an entrance.

Instead, for nearly three minutes they got nothing. The music stopped. Chants of "Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!" didn't work. Synchronized clapping didn't, either.

When they finally emerged, it was Elizabeth leading the way. Once merely the well-liked wife of a presidential candidate touched by tragedy (the death of their son in an automobile accident, an episode of breast cancer), she has become a conduit through which Americans are debating the role of a mother and wife and the price of political service.

Elizabeth Edwards has reigned supreme over the news cycle in recent weeks. On March 22 the couple announced that cancer not only had returned to her body but had spread, making recovery through surgery impossible. The news created a pundit-blogger-morning show-talk radio frenzy of Anna Nicole-Howard K. Stern proportions. The Edwardses gamely waded through the ranks of cable news yappers. They did their time on "60 Minutes" and survived the anointment of New York Times columnist Frank Rich, whose Sunday opus was titled "Elizabeth Edwards for President." Now it was time to get back to the business of running for the Democratic nomination.

"I am an Internet junkie and a news junkie," she said in an interview after the final campaign event Monday. "I'd be lying if I didn't say I have a Google alert on every member of my family. That includes my brother who teaches film, my sister, my daughter. I have a Google alert on me. Honestly."

But:

"The only thing that bothers me, of course, is I'm concerned about a campaign that becomes a campaign of personality. And we have so many issues in front of us. That's problematic. I'm not worried about me or what's going to happen to me. The fact that [people are] thinking of me and not health-care policy, or thinking of me and not global warming, that's bad."

At some point, of course, voters will turn their focus back to John Edwards and issues of poverty and war and agricultural price supports. But not just yet. Even though not a single person asked about his wife's health during three question-and-answer sessions in New Hampshire, still the would-be first lady and her prognosis, and the nobility or foolishness of allowing the Edwards campaign to continue, are topics that remain close to the surface. That's especially true among Democrats in this Lilliputian state, where everyone likes to believe they know the candidates.

Diane Swasey, 73, from Manchester, who considers Elizabeth a "dear friend" who always gives her a hug, said, "I knew she wouldn't let him drop out. She's such a wonderful lady." Brenda Polidoro, a mother of two from Laconia who had brought a copy of Elizabeth Edwards's book, "Saving Graces," to the Concord event, said: "Knowing them, I knew she'd want him to continue for the good of the country."

Others, who didn't claim the couple as intimates, found themselves responding to the prospect of a woman devoting whatever energy and time she has left to the political fortunes of her husband. Sitting in the bleachers in Concord, local businesswoman Wende Shoer, 48, said: "It has endeared her a little more to me. It makes her very human, a real person."

"It made her more real, more relatable," Amber Bocko, a 19-year-old University of New Hampshire sophomore whose uncle suffers from lung cancer, said later in the day. "It makes me want to support her husband."

Though Elizabeth Edwards pointed out that her husband "draws a crowd by himself," she acknowledged in the interview: "Do a few extra people come to get their books signed or to 'see how she seems'? If I draw anybody in, they see me for this much" -- holding her thumb and forefinger a short distance apart -- "and they listen to him for an hour, and that's a good thing. And they leave with whatever impression of how I look, but they couldn't help but absorb what he said."

This added attention has brought focus to the important part she plays as candidate's spouse, providing an earthy, off-the-cuff antidote to her husband's stiffer, well-rehearsed style. This was particularly evident in New Hampshire events Monday at Concord High School, at the Stonyfield Farm in Londonderry and finally at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

At each event, she would introduce her husband in a way that appeared to be unscripted. While Elizabeth tailored her remarks to suit those around her, her husband stayed stoically to his points. He spoke about the need to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, about funding elementary and secondary education for millions of kids across the world who have none, about the reduction of greenhouse gases.

"Most of the stories about me end up [saying], 'She's just like a regular person,' " Elizabeth Edwards said. "So my job, to be a regular person, that's really not that tough. If I had some higher standard to meet, I'd be worried about it."

Did she look frail or brittle or somehow scared of all that lay in front of her? No. Dressed unremarkably (a black cardigan sweater, black pants, unheeled shoes), at no point did she look frazzled or even bored. After walking into the terribly hot incubator room during a tour of the Stonyfield yogurt plant, she told the company's president and CEO, Gary Hirshberg, "You'll have to do better than this if you want to make us uncomfortable."

If not uncomfortable, the three-city jaunt proved exhausting--for those following her. It began in the late morning and drew to a close on the UNH campus close to 9 p.m. I was ready to return to a hotel room for "Law & Order" and room service. Sitting behind the makeshift stage in the UNH student union, as a way of asking "How do you plan to do it?," I told Elizabeth Edwards how the day had drained me, a 31-year-old with a head cold.

"You don't have children, right?" she said with little sympathy. "I have a 6-year-old boy who gets up really early, at 7. I have a 25-year-old, and she comes in at 2. I just adjust my life to accommodate both those things and my energy level is such that I can make it through that time."

After a brief pause, she added: "And you're a wimp, I gotta say. Sorry."

I think she was joking.

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Edwards: 'Everything Is Fair Game' in a Campaign

ABC News
Edwards: 'Everything Is Fair Game' in a Campaign
Edwards and Daughter Cate Talk About Taking on Cancer and Planning for the Future
By ERIC JOHNSON

April 2, 2007 — - Since announcing the return of her cancer last week, Elizabeth Edwards and her family have found themselves the recipients of both pure admiration and utter disapproval.

However, the past few weeks have been otherwise encouraging for the presidential campaign of her husband, John Edwards. Last week, he received a nine-point bump in the polls and yesterday, his campaign again made headlines, announcing that $14 million had been raised this quarter.

Elizabeth Edwards recognizes that her condition has garnered more support for her husband but says the boost has more to do with her husband's character than sympathy for her condition. "[I] do think that the cancer also gave people the opportunity to see a man who, under enormous stress, was able to be focused and clear and really goal driven," she says.

"Nightline" co-anchor Cynthia McFadden traveled to the Edwards home in North Carolina to talk exclusively with Elizabeth and Cate Edwards, wife and daughter of the 2008 presidential contender, for their first interview together since Elizabeth announced that her cancer had returned.

Since her announcement, her husband's decision to remain in the race has been questioned by voters and pundits alike, including some who have accused the Edwards campaign of capitalizing on his wife's condition.

'Everything Is Fair Game'

Elizabeth Edwards said the news regarding her cancer does not affect her husband's ability to be a "decisive and clear" leader. However, she says voters have a right to take her condition into consideration. "Honestly, everything is fair game," she says. "I mean, the reason we have been open about everything, tried to be as transparent as a family and as human beings as we can, is that we think if you're going to put yourself out as somebody who ought to be elected to be the leader of the free world, that people have a right to ask any sort of question that they think they need to know about you."

One group that has already given its support is Edwards' family. Last week's cancer announcement placed stress not only on Edwards' presidential ambitions but also on the couple's three children: Cate, 25; Emma Claire, 8; and Jack, 6. Cate, home on spring break from Harvard Law School, says she found out about her mother's cancer after class.

'I Could Never Fill Her Shoes'

"[When] I got out of class, I called her, like I always do when I'm walking home," says Cate, who is currently completing her first year at Harvard, "and that's when she told me, and she was downplaying it pretty obviously."

"I said, 'Put Dad on the phone.' And so I talked to Dad and he really told me," she says.

Edwards says she will finish the current semester, and will decide what to do about school in the future. If her mother is unable to campaign actively, she might be expected to participate more on the road. "I could never fill her shoes on the campaign trail. That is true, regardless of these statements that she's making. It is and always will be true. But I certainly would be willing to try."

'In the End, It Wins'

Cate's younger siblings, Emma Claire and Jack, haven't asked many questions about their mother's cancer. "They honestly seem perfectly normal and fine," says Cate. "I think for me, the scariest thing is thinking about [them], and I want them to have their mom, this mom, the same way I did. What scares me the most is that they're deprived of that at some point sooner than they should be."

Elizabeth Edwards hopes to be around for the campaign and beyond, but she says she's not in denial about the seriousness of her condition. "I probably will die of cancer at some point," she admits. "I know that, in the end, it wins. But my victory is lasting the 15 rounds with it."

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An Open Letter to Senator Hatch

Huffington Post
An Open Letter to Senator Hatch
Rachel Maddow

You don't call, you don't write...orrin hatch

I've just about exhausted myself trying to get someone in your office to call me back this week. Please apologize to your adorable receptionist on my behalf - the poor man now gets audibly exasperated as soon as I say "hello".

What I'd like to talk with you about is very simple: on NBC's Meet the Press this past Sunday, you said this about Carol Lam, the US Attorney for San Diego who was fired by the Justice Department in December:

"She was a former law professor, no prosecutorial experience, and the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton"

I checked the transcript against the video, and it's clear to me that you weren't misquoted.

Here's my question for you or your staff: what in the Lord's name are you talking about?

Here at Air America, we called John Emerson, who managed Clinton's California campaign in '92 and again in '96 to ask if Carol Lam had been the "campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton" - you might have thought we'd asked him if the sky was green.

First of all, uh, NO, she wasn't.

And second, Carol Lam was an Assistant US Attorney at the time of Clinton's campaigns, and she therefore couldn't have also been a campaign manager for any presidential candidate without violating the (ironically-named) Hatch Act, which restricts political activity by federal government employees.

Then we called a source close to Carol Lam in California, who expressed utter bewilderment at what old Orrin said on Meet the Press.

The source confirmed for us publicly-available documents about Lam's career which indicate that she is not a law professor, she's "been a federal prosecutor for nearly 18 years and [has] never been a fundraiser for any president".

Senator Hatch, what's going on here?

Were you thinking of someone else? You seemed under the weather on Sunday -- did you maybe fall asleep and wake up in the middle of what you thought was a totally different interview - an interview about someone who DID work for Clinton's campaign?

Don't you want to apologize and set the record straight? Won't you be embarrassed if Meet the Press has to run a correction about something you said, that you won't retract?

Or do you have secret information that no one else has, that will back up your off-the-wall claims about Carol Lam?

Senator Hatch, call me.

My voicemails have filled up the systems on all of your press guys' phones, so I know you know how to reach me.

When you call me back, I'll give you all the time you want on my radio show to either explain your top-secret Carol Lam information, or to apologize for your utterly outrageous, inexplicable smear.

I know it's difficult to have to defend the Bush Administration for their political purge of the US Attorneys -- but that doesn't mean you get to make stuff up about the US attorneys that you think will make it seem like they deserved what they got.

Come on, come on, Senator Hatch. I caught you on this one. Return my calls -- I'll help you make it all better.

All best wishes,

Rachel Maddow

Host, "The Rachel Maddow Show"

Air America Radio
6-8PM Eastern

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Free Speech Closes Early At BYU

Bryan Young and Steven Greenstreet
Free Speech Closes Early At BYU

The campus of Brigham Young University was electric with controversy today as it was the site of two protests surrounding Dick Cheney's upcoming visit to speak at their commencement ceremony.

On one end of campus were the "anti-Cheney" demonstrators sponsored by the BYU Democrats. Between 100 and 200 strong at any given time, students and faculty members raised signs displaying their distaste for the policies espoused by Dick Cheney such as war profiteering, torture, preemptive war, lying, using the "f-word", lying, etc.

BYU had "given them permission" to voice their opinions. Well, not really "voice" their opinions, BYU said they could sit down on some side walks and hold up signs, just not shout chants or yell anything. And they only had until 1:00pm to do it. Having received permission to protest, the ecstatic students remained peaceful and sat inside BYU's designated "free speech" zone in the middle of campus. Over the entire three hour demonstration it was estimated that 700-800 faculty and students were able to participate.

In the mix was an assortment of students and familiar faces. Steven Jones, the physics professor at BYU who retired amid controversy about his research into the 9/11 attacks, was on hand and spoke to us about his distaste with the Bush administration. Joe Vogel, who was once the Student Body Vice President at Utah Valley State College (UVSC) in 2004 when he invited Michael Moore to speak and was then forced to resign over the ensuing controversy, was there to register his dissenting voice in the growing cacophony of protest. Joe is now a masters student at BYU and part of the faculty.

On the other end of campus were the "pro-BYU" demonstrators sponsored by the College Republicans. Between 15 and 30 strong, students and faculty members passed out free cookies, lemonade and cake and played football, all in support of BYU's decision to bring Dick Cheney to campus. They remained peaceful and had a good time eating cake.

The protests seem to go off without a hitch until things started winding down. NPR left. The local TV news cameras left. The newspaper reporters packed their things and left. And the only people around to document anything were students and our film crew. Our cameras kept rolling to witness what happened next.

As soon as 1:00 hit and the time for free speech expired, after an impromptu performance of the Star Spangled Banner by the BYU Democrats, men from BYU dressed in suits and sunglasses with Secret Service-style earpieces roughly rounded up all of the signage and banners. "You'll be able to use it all again. We're just going to keep it for you. So you don't carry it around campus, we'll take it to a safe place until the next designated protest."

It was like Daddy deciding that the kids had had enough play time and was taking their toys away.

Students we spoke to, on camera, were understandably livid. "I'm a student, but I'm not with the Democrats and that sign is my personal property," a disconcerted student told us, "What they're saying is they don't want any disruptions on campus and 'free speech time' is over until they say so."

And then the real debates began. Students and faculty on both sides of the issue met face to face and things began to get heated and that is when we felt taps on our shoulders.

It turns out, as it was explained to me, that documentarians, according to BYU, are not legitimate journalists. Because we wish to show the news we have to report on a theatre screen or a DVD, our aims don't actually count as news.

We rolled a lot of footage at today's events. Hours and hours of footage. Hopefully, we're making a follow-up documentary to This Divided State. But, if BYU has anything to do with it, you won't be able to see it. Free speech at BYU is open for business. But only from 11:00am til 1:00pm, two days only.

As usual, we'll be following everything on our blog and we're going to try to get some footage of this up as a taste of what's to come soon.

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If the President vetoes the bill, he is the one denying the troops the money. and services

You Want To Fight These Bastards With Hope? Good Luck.
James Boyce

Here's my news flash of the last 24 hours.

George Bush, now called the most isolated President in the last 50 years by no less a source than noted liberal columnist Bob Novak, holds a press conference that is false and misleading. He invoked 9/11 and the war in Iraq at least three times and the core of his argument was a lie.

If he vetoes the bill, he is the one denying the troops the money.

Next up, hat tip to Markos to this, Orrin Hatch and Rush Limbaugh just make up not one or two but four absolute lies about fired US attorney Carol Lam.

They claimed she was just a law professor, but she never was.

They said she had no experience as a prosecutor, but she had 15 years.

They said she was appointed by Clinton, but she was appointed by Bush.

They claimed she was a campaign manager for Clinton, but she wasn't.

Now today, we have three atrocious recess appointments by George Bush.

One is a woman who thinks arsenic in drinking water is okay. She's in charge of regulations, about things like arsenic in water.

The second is a man from the Cato Institute who is intent on privatizing Social Security, he is now Deputy Commissioner, at Social Security.

And then we have Sam Fox, our Swift Boat Liar Donor Scumbag. He is now an Ambassador of our country.

You think you can beat these guys with hope and the boy scouts? Good luck.

(For the last year, Dave Johnson and I have been working on exposing some of the more atrocious examples of right wing tactics, check out www.smokingpolitics.com for some of our work.)

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