Trimming deployments back to 12 months might sound like a good thing. It’s certainly better than extending them again (but there’s no way the administration could have gotten away with THAT!), but those who know say the timeframe needs to be shorter.
Combat Tours Still Too Long
Most soldiers I know greeted yesterday’s news about the reduction in combat-tour lengths with a great deal of cynicism. It’s not that they don’t appreciate the reduction — they do, and their families most certainly do. It’s just that even a 12-month tour is such a hardship, such a departure from [...]
Categories: Bush Administration · Iraq War · Military
The White House continues to dig its collective parts deeper and deeper into big trouble with it’s comments about the Iraq War. Latest example: Dick Cheney.
Cheney’s mendacity knows no bounds
There are probably some grounded, half-way reasonable arguments against withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, but the fact that the White House keeps relying on sheer nonsense suggests the Bush gang can’t think of any, either. Consider Dick Cheney’s remarks on Sean Hannity’s radio show yesterday. HANNITY: If we pull out too early, what do you believe the [...]
Categories: Bush Administration · Iraq War
Man, on man! Did Begala unload on Penn!
Begala: “Nothing But Contempt” For Penn, Compares Him To Rumsfeld
Longtime Clinton adviser and confidant Paul Begala took full aim at Mark Penn on Friday, expressing scorn for the recently demoted strategist, and comparing his time with the Clinton campaign to that of Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure as Secretary of Defense. “I have nothing but contempt for Mr. Penn,” said Begala at a New York City breakfast sponsored by the non-profit group Public Agenda. “And for those of us who wanted to see him out from the beginning, it became [...]
Categories: 2008 Election · Clinton
All the way. Are they trying to mimic England’s parliament? Or are they just uncouth?
Conservatives boo new congresswoman’s Iraq remarks.
Yesterday, Jackie Speier was sworn in as Congress’s newest Democratic member from California, succeeding the deceased Tom Lantos. During her opening speech, Speier was loudly booed by House conservatives when she began speaking about Iraq. “The process to bring the troops home must begin immediately,” she said. “The President wants to stay the course, and [...]
Technorati Tags:
Jackie Speier,
Booed
Categories: Congress
Cause and effect.
Consumer confidence falls to new low and takes Bush with it
Americans’ confidence in the economy fell to a new low, dragged down by worries about mounting job losses, record-high home foreclosures and zooming energy prices. According to the RBC Cash Index, confidence dropped to a mark of 29.5 in April, down from 33.1 in March. The new reading was [...]
Categories: Consumer · Economy
Is this any way to run an airline?
American Cancels 600 of Its Friday Flights
American Airlines said that it would fly half of its normal schedule involving the MD-80 jets that were grounded for inspections [...]
Categories: Airline Safety
It’s truly time to change, retired the stop-loss policy of the U.S. military. The problem is, we’ve created a war that almost demand enlistments be extended. That’s really sad.
McCain Adviser Ralph Peters: Military Strain From Stop-Loss Policies Is ‘A Myth Of The Left’
On Sept. 14, 2001, President Bush issued Executive Order 13223, allowing the administration to implement a “stop-loss” policy. Under stop-loss, “military personnel can be prevented from leaving the armed forces upon completing their enlistment terms.” Stop-loss policies were created after the Vietnam War. However, the Bush administration has overstretched the military by extensively using these [...]
Categories: Bush Administration · Iraq War · Military
Details continue to build on how the Bush Administration worked to authorize certain extreme interrogation techniques. We passed along the first reports earlier this week, but there’s much more coming out tonight:
Today’s Must Read
Thanks to ABC News and the AP’s follow-up yesterday, we now have a very good idea of how the U.S. began to torture detainees in early 2002, even before the Justice Department had officially blessed the techniques by way of [...]
Categories: Bush Administration · Torture · Waterboarding
Former CIA-guy Larry Johnson’s blog, No Quarter, has a detailed post tonight about the 2008 elections and some things you may not have thought about. There’s lots of reading here, folks, so you might want to bookmark the post and come back when you have time to follow a ton of links. But it’s all good, thought-provoking, stuff. A word of warning: if you’re an Obama fan, you’re not going to be happy.
It’s About the Electability, Stupid
There are a lot of tags above this story, aren’t there. But that’s because this piece addresses all of those concerns — including several must-reads on the ‘net about Obama’s iffy chances in a general election: “Obama Puts Democrats in Peril” and “Electability Is Name of the Game,” from TheStreet.com, and “Grand Unified Theory of [...]
Categories: 2008 Election · Clinton · Obama
This did get a mention on something we were watching recently on TV, but not MUCH of a mention. We talked about the fact that there had to be more details. Somewhere. That somewhere is here:
Pentagon Reports More Disurbing Iraq War Suicide Data in MHAT-V
…These data are part of Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT) Report V, the latest in a series of studies commissioned by the Pentagon to assess the mental health of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier MHAT reports revealed alarming rates of suicide, which [...]
Categories: Iraq War · Military
There’s really no other word to describe it. It’s good to see Congress demanding to see evidence that the move would be safe. I don’t see how it could be.
Bush Admin Wants To Move Animal Disease Lab To Area Near Livestock Herds
The Bush administration is likely to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about a catastrophic outbreak. Skeptical Democrats in Congress are demanding to see internal documents they believe highlight the risks and consequences of the decision. An epidemic of the disease, foot and mouth, which only affects animals, could [...]
Categories: Bush Administration
It becomes almost surreal at times. The President makes statements about the war; statements that can be so easily proven to be false. Or wrong. Keith Olbermann walks us through the process:
Countdown: President Bush’s Cruel Treatment Of Our Soldiers
Today’s #5 story on Countdown resembled Keith Olbermann’s many Special Comments as he tore apart President Bush, his lies and cruel treatment of our soldiers by fact-checking his speech about Iraq this afternoon….President Bush has decided to put a hold on troop withdrawals, but tries to give the appearance that he’s [...]
Categories: George W. Bush · Iraq War · Military
Here’s a sterling bit of advice as you head for your weekend journeys.
How to save $0.54 per gallon on gas
There are many tips that help increase your car’s mpg. Hypermiling has been covered, but includes some extreme driving that turns many people off. I also mentioned a few in a previous article, gas efficient driving, that included things like removing items from your trunk, inflating your tires, and keeping your engine in good condition with regular maintenance. But out of all the suggestions, there was only one thing that skyrocketed the mileage on my 2001 Civic from 32 to 47 mpg. All I did was [...]
Technorati Tags:
Economy,
Gas Prices
Categories: Consumer · Economy
Finally, there was sunshine today! This has been a horrendously long week and I’m stuck in the house all weekend, working on taxes. Yeah, I know, I waiting until the deadline once again. Every year I promise myself I’ll do them early. Every year I procrastinate.
So, if you don’t see a lot of updates this weekend, you’ll know why.
We kick things off this Friday evening with some observations from the overseas media.
are Americans that wishy washy?
This article at Der Spiegel was brought to my attention by one of our readers, Dirruk, in the Netherlands and I thought it was pretty interesting. Why Americans Never Vote For What They Want by Gabor Steingart in Washington. I presume this article is for international readers but the author makes a few good points in general. American voters are a contradictory bunch: “They say they want social [...]
Categories: Politics
