WASHINGTON - House Democrats, responding to Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that his office is exempt from certain national security disclosure requirements, said Tuesday they will try to strip some of his funding.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday accused former President Clinton of not responding forcefully enough to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or later terrorist attacks.but
Last September, Giuliani defended Clinton's record amid political bickering over which president—Clinton or George W Bush—missed more opportunities to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.
US oil giants ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil Corp. both decided to leave the huge extra heavy oil projects after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez nationalized them as part of his socialist revolution.
"We want to see (Venezuela) meet their international commitments in terms of providing fair and just compensation in accordance with international standards, for any property that does come under government ownership," State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey told reporters at a briefing.
Venezuela Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said earlier Tuesday the two companies had decided to quit the Orinoco projects but that they still had time to negotiate the terms of their exit from the Orinoco projects.
Nearly six years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Whitman appeared on Capitol Hill Monday for the first time to answer questions about the EPA's statements after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Since Whitman assured New Yorkers that the air was "safe to breathe," thousands of downtown residents and workers have become sick. [includes rush transcript]
On Monday, two busloads of Ground Zero workers and residents traveled to Washington to hear Christine Todd Whitman's testimony. We hear from two members of the group Beyond Ground Zero, environmental attorney Joel Kupferman and Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez, who attended Monday's hearing. [includes rush transcript]
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - An Army officer with a key role in the US military hearings at Guantanamo Bay says they relied on vague and incomplete intelligence and were pressured to declare detainees "enemy combatants," often without any specific evidence."...and justice for..."?
WASHINGTON - Congress has turned back the latest attempt to cut funding for an Army school that trains military officers from Latin America and has a tainted past.let's face it, folks: even some dems in congress have an incomplete political education. they should watch (or listen to or read) democracy now!
FOA: MAN—. sorry, man. is this better? ok.
soon you will wonder why i never before directly gave humanity the message i'm about to deliver. so let me preface my remarks by reminding you that i'm pretty busy and have a lot on the mind. sure, i could do it all at once, but that has problems. look what happened when i destroyed the world. afterwards you became even more violent than before. my rainbow is not merely a token of my promise not to flood the whole earth again. it's a reminder to me. every time i see it, i recall that i need to give full attention to whatever i'm working on at the moment.
the reason i haven't spoken to humanity for so long—by your perception of time—is that i've been talking to ants. like you, they fight too many wars. every ant is as precious to me as any other of my creatures. i hate to see them kill each other, and i've told them so. but they don't listen.
now, you think ants have no free will and are entirely driven by instinct. it's true instinct is a major factor. it limits liberty, but it has limits too. if an ant comes upon two pieces of food of approximately equal size and attractiveness, instinct makes it want both, but it can carry only one, so it must choose. thus, free will, conditioned by necessity. it's a paradox, of course, but how could freedom be free of paradox? and it only makes sense. a normal, healthy creature first does what it must. only when necessity ends does freedom begin. any particular choice is either required by circumstances or not. when it's not, creatures have no choice but to choose freely. there i go again.
invoking me on money and in oaths is not necessary. you're free to do it, of course, but those of you who think it flatters me are wrong, for i know your motive to be fear. i show you no preference on its account. your nation's advantages come from chance and history, not my intervention nor my blessing. only be glad i forbear from holding you to a higher standard because of it, for you would not meet it.
war is sometimes necessary or, at least, unavoidable. more often, it can be avoided, but, too frequently, avoidable wars take place.
why don't i wave my wand, as it were, and stop it? my will, after all, is absolute and inviolable. whatever happens, you can be sure it doesn't oppose my will. you wish i would prevent evil. why don't i?
these are complex questions. i don't blame you for feeling puzzled or confused. the simple answer is that i have chosen to let events happen without my interference. that's my will. i have no desires. but i do care.
when i see you acting destructively, it brings tears to my eyes—figuratively speaking, of course. you think i enjoy watching you suffer? it rips my heart and claws at my conscience.
but i am determined to leave the choice to you. that's why the cosmos is governed by randomness and chance. that's why big bangs happen and stars explode and planets form and life evolves and flowers grow and giant hailstones crash thru roofs. it's why birth defects exist and why 99% of all animal species have gone extinct. and it's why leaders of tribes and nations, wanting to do right but fearing they will make mistakes that turn their supporters away, cravenly choose war when they could have chosen peace.
i could go on forever, but i'll give it to you in a nutshell. your planet has problems only you humans can solve. you have finite time and strength. you will run out of both if you keep distracting yourselves with violent conflict. the choice is yours. you can make war or make peace. end war or endless war. period.
Defense Secretary Robert M Gates vowed today to improve mental health care for service members, focusing the Pentagon's attention on a system described as deficient in dealing with such issues as psychological trauma and severe brain injuries resulting from the war in Iraq.
The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move the terror suspects there to military prisons elsewhere, The Associated Press has learned.
The Senate Judiciary Committee authorized its chairman on Thursday to issue subpoenas to the Justice Department and the Executive Office of the President for documents authorizing the administration's warrantless surveillance program.
Of more pressing importance to lawmakers, however, is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, and Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-WI, have issued an edict cutting the amount of money devoted to earmarks in half. Obey denied all earmarks when passing a wrap-up spending bill earlier this year.
Senators reached agreement Thursday on a proposal to increase automobile fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon, the first significant boost demanded of automakers in nearly 20 years.
behold! i set all this behind you. henceforth i give you domain over all living. you shall begin two small wars. flame will soon engulf all asia. then shall i send my messiah to end all suffering and establish my kingdom upon the earth forever.
HATTIESBURG, Miss. — Federal marshals broke no laws when seizing tape recordings from reporters from The Associated Press and the Hattiesburg American during a 2004 speech by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an initial agency investigation found.but
Later that year, the Marshals Service acknowledged in a lawsuit settlement that it violated the federal Privacy Protection Act, which protects journalists from having their work product seized by the government.
Pentagon says more mental health funds needed
The military's mental health system fails to meet the needs of troops and is too short of funds and staff to help service members sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Friday.
HAVANA - Cubans are no strangers to the battle of the bulge. Waistlines have expanded since the economic crisis of the early 1990s eased on the communist-run island - so much so that 30 percent of adults are now overweight, a newly released government study reveals.
Hamas Gives Amnesty, Killings Persist
The two Palestinian territories, on either side of Israel, are now separate entities with two governments - one run by Hamas and backed by radical Islamic states, and the other controlled by the Western-supported Fatah.the 3-state solution.... i think i heard that on tv. was it jon stewart?
Romney Woos Anti-Abortion Activists
"I know that it is not time but conviction that unites us," Romney said in remarks on the second day of the National Right to Life's annual convention.the only "conviction" this guy has is that winning elections keeps the power where he wants it.
"I proudly follow a long line of converts - George Herbert Walker Bush, Henry Hyde, and Ronald Reagan to name a few....
"My experience as governor taught me firsthand that the threat to our culture is real....
"When responsibility for life or ending life was placed in my hands, I made the right decision."
FBI Investigated Ga. Gov in Old Lynching
Talmadge, who died just months after his 1946 election to a fourth term, dominated Georgia politics in the 1930s and 1940s with a mix of racism and pocketbook populism.looks like his karma caught up to him before those too-slow wheels of justice...
• Abbas dissolves Palestinian government
What's next?
GAZA CITY - A beleaguered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a state of emergency and disbanded the Hamas-led unity government after the Islamic militant group vanquished its Fatah rivals and effectively took control of the Gaza Strip on Thursday.how can this be happening?
why are these people smiling?
• Key senators to revive immigration bill
Compromise sought
WASHINGTON - Senate leaders agreed Thursday night to revive stalled immigration legislation, capping a furious weeklong rescue attempt that drew President Bush's personal involvement. "The leaders have agreed on a way forward," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV.the problem is in making it comprehensive. better to deal with the 2 aspects separately: first plug the leak, then clean up the spill.
• Curfew in Baghdad empties streets
Sunni mosques attacked
A citywide clampdown emptied Baghdad's streets of all vehicles Thursday in attempts to hold off what authorities dread: a storm of Shiite attacks in revenge for the bombing of one of their main shrines. The tactic appeared to keep a lid on widespread violence, but extremists fired shells into the city's protected Green Zone during a visit by the State Department's No. 2 official.
• Marine accused of murder defends actions at Haditha
CAMP PENDLETON, CA - A Marine facing murder charges in a squad action that killed 24 Iraqi civilians told a military court Thursday that one of the men he shot was pointing a weapon at him and that no Iraqis were executed.1 AK-47, 24 dead civilians. sounds reasonable. kill'em all & let god sort'em out....
• Sen. Reid causes stir with criticism of US generals
WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid caused a stir Thursday when he said Gen. Peter Pace failed in his job of providing Congress a candid assessment on the Iraq war and that he was concerned Gen. David Petraeus might be guilty of the same.
SOFIA, Bulgaria - President Bush braced for problems at home Monday with the cheers from his European trip still ringing in his ears.
He pledged to resurrect his derailed immigration bill in the Senate—"I'll see you at the bill signing," he declared—and dismissed Democrats' effort to hold a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as a waste of time.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Iran gives political and material support to President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government, but it also may be aiding the Taliban as a way of hedging its bets in neighboring Afghanistan, NATO's top general here said Monday.
RICHMOND, Va. - The Bush administration cannot legally detain a US resident it suspects of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent without charging him, a divided federal appeals court ruled Monday.
Al-Marri has been held in solitary confinement in the Navy brig in Charleston, SC, since June 2003. The Qatar native has been detained since his December 2001 arrest at his home in Peoria, IL, where he moved with his wife and five children a day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to study for a master's degree at Bradley University.
ATLANTA - A Georgia judge ordered the release Monday of a man sentenced to 10 years in prison for consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, a sentence that had been widely criticized as grossly disproportionate to the crime.
ATLANTA - Thousands of Marines and their families went to serve their country at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune.
Instead, many wound up fighting it, blaming the government for failing to protect them from an enemy that invaded their lives in a most intimate way: through the water that quenched their thirst, cooked their food and filled their bathtubs every day.
WASHINGTON - The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Monday he will vote for a no-confidence resolution against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Monday he will vote for a no-confidence resolution against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, after long questioning the leadership and independence of President Bush's longtime friend.
RICHMOND, Va. - The Bush administration cannot use new anti-terrorism laws to keep US residents locked up indefinitely without charging them, a divided federal appeals court said Monday.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court strengthened a landmark anti-pollution program Monday, enabling companies to recover costs when they voluntarily clean up hazardous material.
SOFIA (Reuters) - President George W Bush said on Monday it was a high priority for the United States to win the release of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya for infecting children with HIV.
The Army failed to make its May recruiting goal, the first time since last September that it came up short, the Pentagon announced Monday. But despite growing domestic discontent over the direction of the war in Iraq, the Marine Corps signed up 560 more recruits last month than it had hoped to enlist.
British police say they have found no evidence to support claims CIA planes transporting terrorism suspects to face possible torture in secret prisons in Europe landed illegally at British airports.but here's what interests me:
Liberty questioned the timing of the police announcement, released on the same day a European investigator said he had proof Poland and Romania hosted secret CIA prisons.note regarding poland: its president says he wants US interceptor missiles based there.
"When politicians spin it is disappointing," said Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti.
"When police engage in the same activity it is rather more dangerous."
Swiss senator Dick Marty said on Friday top al Qaeda suspects were interrogated using methods akin to torture in Polish and Romanian prisons, in a report for the Council of Europe human rights watchdog.
He said US intelligence and other sources told him the two countries hosted the jails under a CIA program, created by President George W Bush's administration after 9/11, "to 'kill, capture and detain' terrorist suspects deemed of 'high value."'
In an earlier report last year Marty named Britain as one of a number of countries that provided refueling stopovers for flights involving the unlawful transfer of detainees.
Turkish forces shelled Kurdish rebel positions across the border in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurd officials reported Friday, heightening fears that the fighting could flare into a larger conflict and draw in the US.the sort of thing "nobody" could have predicted. ha!
The Bush administration sidelined Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Friday, announcing plans to replace him as the nation's top military officer rather than reappoint him and risk a Senate confirmation struggle focusing on the Iraq War.politics intrudes into the "nonpolitical."
President Bush pressed his plan for a proposed European anti-missile defense on Friday with the president of Poland and won his strong support for installing interceptors on Polish soil.looks like bush ain't putin's poodle no more!
I'm grayer, I'm a little heavier, and I hope I've grown a bit wiser as well.... Of course, I was wrong on some issues back then. I'm not embarrassed to admit that. I think most of us learn with experience. I know I certainly have.ah! or do we just get more hypocritical?
«During the review, I registered concerns that a military 'surge' would likely have only temporary and localized effects unless it were accompanied by counterpart 'surges' by the Iraqi government and the other, nonmilitary agencies of the US government....»
«I also noted that our enemies in Iraq have, in effect, 'a vote' and should be expected to take specific steps to counter from our efforts....»
Romney Says US Image Has "Suffered" Under Bush
Examination by torture is one form of evidence, to which great weight is often attached because it is in a sense compulsory. Here again it is not hard to point out the available grounds for magnifying its value, if it happens to tell in our favor, and arguing that it is the only form of evidence that is infallible; or, on the other hand, for refuting it if it tells against us and for our opponent, when we may say what is true of torture of every kind alike, that people under its compulsion tell lies quite as often as they tell the truth, sometimes persistently refusing to tell the truth, sometimes recklessly making a false charge in order to be let off sooner. We ought to be able to quote cases, familiar to the judges, in which this sort of thing has actually happened. [We must say that evidence under torture is not trustworthy, the fact being that many men whether thick-witted, tough-skinned, or stout of heart endure their ordeal nobly, while cowards and timid men are full of boldness till they see the ordeal of these others; so that no trust can be placed in evidence under torture.]
—Aristotle (384-322 BC), Rhetoric
(translated by W.Rhys Roberts)
If that continues, what it means is that you're not actually weakening them, but you're just allowing them to regenerate, and they are capable of doing so.... If the intensity continues...then it looks like a strategy that is ultimately futile.
—Michael O'Hanlon, a senior analyst at the Brookings Institution
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