BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi police have found the bodies of 47 more death squad victims in Baghdad, the latest in a wave of sectarian killings which prompted the United States to divert troops from other parts of Iraq to the embattled capital.
The bodies were found early Saturday. Most victims had been bound, tortured and shot, bringing the toll from such killings to nearly 180 in four days.
The United States has shifted its emphasis to the capital in recent months, after concluding that sectarian violence between Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs was a greater threat than the Sunni Arab insurgency it has fought mainly in the west and north.
The U.S. military confirmed Iraqi plans, announced earlier this week, to restrict access to Baghdad by forcing cars through 28 checkpoints, but denied some Western media reports that the plan involves digging a giant 60 mile trench around the city.
But many CPA staff members were more interested in other things: in instituting a flat tax, in selling off government assets, in ending food rations and otherwise fashioning a new nation that looked a lot like the United States. Many of them spent their days cloistered in the Green Zone, a walled-off enclave in central Baghdad with towering palms, posh villas, well-stocked bars and resort-size swimming pools.
By the time Bremer departed, Iraq was in a precarious state. The Iraqi army, which had been dissolved and reconstituted by the CPA, was one-third the size he had pledged it would be. Seventy percent of police officers had not been screened or trained. Electricity generation was far below what Bremer had promised to achieve. And Iraq's interim government had been selected not by elections but by Americans. Divisive issues were to be resolved later on, increasing the chances that tension over those matters would fuel civil strife.
To recruit the people he wanted, O'Beirne sought résumés from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and GOP activists. He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience. Smith said O'Beirne once pointed to a young man's résumé and pronounced him "an ideal candidate." His chief qualification was that he had worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000.
O'Beirne, a former Army officer who is married to prominent conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne, did not respond to requests for comment. He and his staff were exempted from most employment regulations because they used an obscure provision in federal law to hire most CPA personnel as temporary political appointees.
There's much, much more... And, hey, a new book. Someone told me a few months ago that this book was in the pipeline.
Echoing Brad DeLong, impeach them all... impeach them all now...
t started two years ago. Anthony Stewart runs an automotive-services business. His wife cares for children in their 4-year-old home on a quiet street in a nice subdivision.
They learned at that time that a third child, a boy, was on the way. Being self-employed, they had no health insurance.
They paid for Kerry's prenatal care, hospital and delivery costs out of their savings and by selling stocks and fairly exhausting every credit card and line of credit available to them.
By the time they took their infant son home, they still owed the hospital $17,000. Negotiations on a payment schedule went nowhere. The $17,000 landed in collections.
Yes, they would refinance their home, pay off the hospital debt, plus bring down their credit card debt.
A banker friend steered them to a mortgage broker, a seemingly friendly woman, who told them that despite their credit woes and low credit scores, she could get them a mortgage at a rate no higher than 7 percent.
Weeks passed. And the offered rate continued to climb: 7.8 percent, 8 percent and higher.
Finally, at the closing table, the broker told them their new loan would be 10.8 percent, and adjustable. Anthony Stewart had missed his last mortgage payment, the one she'd earlier told him he didn't have to pay. He paid it that day. It made no difference.
The mortgage on his home would climb to nearly $5,000 a month now, from the $3,000 per month he'd been paying since buying the house.
...
Getting out of the loan was impossible, what with their low credit scores and a pre-payment penalty of no less than $22,000.
Now, two years later, the adjustable rate mortgage is about to adjust.
He and Kerry have figured out the monthly loan amount likely will total no less than $7,000.
When I asked about this, Davis's tone switched to an icy snarl. He complained about a Lamont commercial where Bush morphed into Lieberman (or is it the other way around?). Lieberman's support of Bush is a legitimate campaign issue, I said. Sounding like Alex Trebek on meth, Davis demanded that I name two issues unrelated to Iraq where Lieberman departed from his party to support Bush. When I couldn't produce them right away he kept barking the question and saying, "Is that the best you can do?" I tried to make the point that much of Lieberman's support takes the form of public utterances. He'll support one position but, at the end, vote the other way. Or vote against his party on a key amendment or cloture vote but then switch back for the final. Or, as we learned this week, simply not vote at all. Sometimes, though, what a Senator says is what's important, and Lieberman has often been ardent in his defense of the Bush administration, as when he urged us to keep Condoleezza Rice in our hearts (a job that has since been outsourced to Canada). I tried to make some of these points but it was difficult with Davis snapping, snarling, interrupting. talking over me and complaining that I was talking over him. (The interview is available here. Listen and judge for yourself whether I let this guy have his say.) I found myself thinking, this guy is a bully. He's a professional bully, and he's good at it. Far from being a logical proponent of a more civilized politics, he is a skilled practitioner at ferocious close combat. He's Bill O'Reilly in a donkey mask. Near the end Davis suddenly complained that he was here to talk about his book, not the Senate race. ( Remember: he had asked off the air for extra time because of his involvement in the Senate race.) When the interview was over, he called the station and demanded to talk to my boss about how rude I was. UPDATE: In an interview minutes ago on the Jim Vicevich show, Davis said he blames himself for getting caught up in a shouting match with me, especially because his book espouses civility. UPDATE: Davis called my boss and apologized.
I've certainly been skeptical about the apparent plan to hand over the fight to defend this country from George Bush's power grab to Senators Warner, Graham, and McCain. But, so far, they seem to be fighting the good fight.
In the months after 9/11 first responders in NYC were given the full fluffer treatment by the media. It sickened me at the time, not because that attention was undeserved, but because I knew Peggy Noonan and the gang would drop their "firefighters are TEH HOT" schtick the instant the next union contract came up for negotiation. Too many of those paying tribute were clearly just paying tribute to what they imagined were projections of their own inner hero, a temporary narcissistic fetish.
Now we know the heroes of 9/11 and after were working in a damaging toxic soup, that EPA and health authorities were full of shit about that, and that many of those heroes are sick. Really sick.
I know this obvious will never manage to struggle through the clouds, but if we're eavesdropping on so many actual terrorists - you know, as in evidence exist which is sufficient to call them that - and it's so critical that we do so that the administration can't even be bothered to get a warrant 72 hours after the fact as FISA allows - ... why don't we arrest some of them?
The common feature among concern trolls and those who whine about civility and the precise tone of political discourse is that they all think they should be able to control the terms of the debate. They see themselves as referees, floating above the discourse and calling fouls where they see them according to some rulebook they pulled out of their asses, rather than participants in that discourse.
New Haven Register - 09/15/2006 Lieberman, Lamont still arguing over missed votes The "missing votes" issue won’t go away.
By Mary E. O’Leary , Register Topics Editor
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont Thursday said his opponent, U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, skipped almost 400 votes since 1999, including 33 of the 63 total votes taken on the Iraq war.
Earlier in the week, Lamont focused on a smaller slice of the senator’s Iraq war voting tallies, but expanded that Thursday to cover a seven-year period, the same amount of time Lieberman used almost two decades ago when he ran critical ads against then-incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker.
Lieberman won his first of three terms in the Senate in 1988 after beating Weicker. Lamont beat Lieberman last month for the Democratic nomination for the Senate and Lieberman is now running as a petitioning candidate.
"It is astonishing that Senator Lieberman has missed the same amount of votes that he criticized Weicker for, in half the time," Lamont said, which includes 25 percent of all votes in the Senate in the last 3-1/2 years.
Lieberman, in a conference call with reporters, said Lamont was "hypocritical" and "persistently negative."
Watching Michael Ware, he of Lieberman has "lost the plot" fame, on CNN I'm struck by the fact that as far as I know no journalists covering the Lamont/Lieberman race have called him up and asked him exactly what Lieberman said which caused him to characterize Lieberman as having "lost the plot."
Seems like a chatty guy. I imagine he'd answer the question.
A guilty plea would make Mr. Ney, a six-term congressman, the first member of Congress to admit to criminal charges in the Abramoff investigation, which has focused on the actions of several current and former Republican lawmakers who had been close to the former lobbyist.
People with detailed knowledge of the investigation said Mr. Ney had entered an in-patient rehabilitation center in recent days for treatment of alcoholism, making it uncertain whether he would appear at a court hearing to announce the plea. Lawyers and others would speak only anonymously because of concern that they would anger prosecutors.
They said the agreement with the Justice Department — and the exact criminal charges, which are expected to include conspiracy and false statement — would be disclosed in Washington as soon as Friday and would probably require Mr. Ney to serve at least some time in prison.
Barnes said that Bush told him capturing bin Laden is “not a top priority use of American resources.” Watch it.
It's unclear if taking Bin Laden off the world stage would really reduce any threats of terrorism - how would I know - but for some reason I thought bringing a mass murderer to justice might be a wee bit important.
But, more than that, Bush has equated Bin Laden with Hitler. Then said he's no big deal.
Hopefully the odious Specter Bill will not survive as Reid suggests. Still, I imagine the Democrats may need some extra spine support over the coming weeks and I don't mean Marty Peretz.
After clicking on the link we're helpfully informed that we should "Check back often - because there is a lot of good news to tell about Iraq and Afghanistan."
They have to consistently and daily say: "The President said that getting the guy who masterminded 9/11 is not a top priority, if you elect a Democratic Congress, we will make it a top priority. That is what is riding on this election. If you want Bin Laden captured or killed (need to use the word "killed"), you have to vote for a change." Over and over and over again.
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