Congress

Katrina Redux
by Stephen Lendman

Renamed and back, but first a personal note. Post-Katrina, writing about "The New Orleans Aftermath and (its) Ugly Glimpse of the Future" turned this retiree into a writer and radio host.

Now three years later, Gustav threatened and, on August 30, got New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to hype the risk, scare the public, and order a dusk-to-dawn curfew and evacuation of the city's 239,000 residents ahead of what he called "the mother of all storms." Many hundreds of thousands more along the Gulf coast. "Nearly two million people from Texas to Alabama," according to an August 31 New York Times report. Thankfully without cause as "the storm of the century" made landfall as a Category 2, weakened to a tropical depression on September 2, and Louisianans were spared the worst of their fears.

Going on an Imperial Bender: How the U.S. Garrisons the Planet and Doesn't Even Notice
By Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch.com

Here it is, as simply as I can put it: In the course of any year, there must be relatively few countries on this planet on which U.S. soldiers do not set foot, whether with guns blazing, humanitarian aid in hand, or just for a friendly visit. In startling numbers of countries, our soldiers not only arrive, but stay interminably, if not indefinitely. Sometimes they live on military bases built to the tune of billions of dollars that amount to sizeable American towns (with accompanying amenities), sometimes on stripped down forward operating bases that may not even have showers. When those troops don't stay, often American equipment does -- carefully stored for further use at tiny "cooperative security locations," known informally as "lily pads" (from which U.S. troops, like so many frogs, could assumedly leap quickly into a region in crisis).

Petraeus: No Major Iraq Troop Drawdown in '08
Jonathan Karl | ABCNews.com

Gen. David Petraeus has recommended against any significant reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq before the end of the year, ABC News has learned.

The only drawdown Petraeus has called for, according to a senior military official familiar with his recommendation, is a modest reduction of two Marine battalions, or about 1,500 Marines, a tiny fraction of the 146,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq.

Under Petraeus's plan, the number of combat brigades -- which now stands at 15 -- would remain unchanged until next January at the earliest.

The recommendation is now being considered by top officials at the White House and the Pentagon. A final decision on future force levels is expected to be announced by President Bush early next week.

Biden Rips Bush Administration

As reported by Jonathan Karl of ABCNews.com:

"In an Obama-Biden administration, we will not have an attorney general who blatantly breaks the law," Biden said at a town-hall meeting in West Palm Beach, Florida, his voice at times drowned out by applause. "We will not have a president who doesn't understand the Constitution. And I will not be a vice-president who thinks he's not part of any of the three branches of government."

Biden ripped the Bush administration for wasting a chance to unite the nation in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"George Bush and his administration are going to be judged harshly by history," said the Delaware lawmaker. "Not for the mistakes they made, but for the opportunities to unite America and the world they squandered." ...noting that the next administration might appoint as many as three new justices.

"The single most important domestic decision that a president gets to make on his own or her own is the Supreme Court," he said.

Looking to the future but with one eye on the past, Biden also promised that an Obama-Biden government would go through Bush administration data with "a fine-toothed comb" and pursue criminal charges if necessary.

Revolving Door Woes Mount at Federal Minerals Agency
Following Guilty Plea MMS Director Warns Workers to Expect More Shoes to Drop

The criminal conviction of a top agency manager may be just the beginning of revolving door troubles at the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Workers at the agency are being told to expect more scandals to come.

On July 30, 2008, former special assistant to the Associate Director of Minerals Revenue Management, Mineral Management Service (MMS), Jimmy Mayberry, pled guilty before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a felony violation of the conflict of interest law governing post-employment work. Mayberry faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and a fine of $250,000.

A coalition working to end the war in Iraq announced it is organizing the year’s largest anti-war mobilization. Million Doors for Peace, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 20, will ask one million Americans to sign petitions urging the next Congress to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq within one year.

The action combines the best of grassroots activism and support from the netroots. The campaign will allow tens of thousands of volunteers to download a neighborhood “walk list” for the coalition website. The volunteers will then use this public information talk to and identify neighbors who oppose the Iraq war and will join the efforts to end the war. Please join this effort, click here.

Movements and Elections — You Can Ignore Politics, but Politics Won’t Ignore You
By Brandon Madsen | SocialistAlternative.org

Given how the corporate media presents elections as one big personality contest, and corrupt politicians lie and cheat to get ahead, it’s not surprising that many working-class people have become fed up with elections.

Woodward's 'secret history' of Bush admin. to debut Sept. 8
RawStory.com

The suspense didn't quite compare to the identity of "Deep Throat," but we now know the name of Bob Woodward's fourth investigative work on the Bush administration, just three weeks before the book's release.

"The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008" will be published Sept. 8 by Simon & Schuster with an announced first printing of 900,000 copies. Simon & Schuster is keeping the book under strict embargo — although such embargoes are often broken — and had even held back the title.

"There has not been such an authoritative and intimate account of presidential decision making since the Nixon tapes and the Pentagon Papers," Woodward's longtime editor, Alice Mayhew, said Tuesday in a statement. "This is the declassification of what went on in secret, behind the scenes."

According to Simon & Schuster, Woodward's book "takes readers deep inside the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq.

Scott Horton Interviews Joe Lauria
Anti-War.com

Investigative reporter Joe Lauria discusses the series he co-wrote for the London Times about the Sibel Edmonds case, including the 30 year Washington connection to the A.Q. Kahn nuclear black-market operation, the difficulty in corroborating stories about such a secretive subject, the inability of American mainstream media to diverge from the status quo, how the Tinner family fits into the story and the history of the military-industrial-congressional complex as told in the new book he’s co-authored with former senator Mike Gravel, A Political Odyssey.

MP3 here. (50:50)

Joe Lauria is a New York-based investigative journalist. A freelance member of the Sunday Times of London Insight team, he has also worked on investigations for the Boston Globe and Bloomberg News. Joe’s articles have additionally appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Montreal Gazette, The Johannesburg Star, The Washington Times, New York Magazine, ARTnews

'Stealing America': Voting-fraud documentary
Michael Ordoña | SFGate.com

The numbers don't add up.

$3.8 billion: The initial Help America Vote Act allocation that California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen said "pushed many counties into buying electronic systems that ... were not properly reviewed or tested."
Images
A scene from the documentary "Stealing America: Vote by V...Dorothy Fadiman, director of the documentary "Stealing Am... View Larger Images

18,000: Votes that did not register in a 2006 Sarasota County, Fla., local election using touch-screen machines, in a Democratic stronghold that the Republican challenger won by 368 votes.

Negative 16,022: Votes counted for Al Gore on a Diebold tabulator in Volusia County, Fla., in 2000.

Zero: The number of proven instances of election fraud involving electronic voting machines, according to industry spokespeople.

Former Marine’s Acquittal Triggers Debate Over Law
ToTheCenter.com

Should a combat veteran be tried in civilian court for actions he may or may not have committed on the battlefield? Some people don’t think so.

Yahoo! News reports that several members of the jury that acquitted former Marine and Iraq veteran Jose Luis Nazario, Jr. of war atrocities that he allegedly committed while fighting in the Battle of Fallujah in 2004 have expressed their feeling that, as civilians, they “weren’t qualified” to pass judgment over acts committed in the heat of combat.

Experts on military and legal affairs say that Nazario’s case “raises serious questions about whether federal prosecutors should even pursue such cases.”

"I don't think we had any business doing that," juror Nicole Peters insisted. "I thought it was unfair to us and to him."

Alex - Impeach the Bastards - Watch the Lies!

Impeach the bastards

Click here.

Conyers Sets Deadline For Production of US Attorney Documents

"...Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) sent a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding setting a September 4, 2008, deadline for the White House to comply with its obligations regarding production of documents under the July 31 Order issued by U.S. District Judge John Bates in Committee on the Judiciary v. Miers. The letter also notes that a hearing at which Harriet Miers is to appear pursuant to subpoena has been rescheduled for September 11, 2008. The letter follows yesterday’s rejection by Judge Bates of the White House’s request that the July 31 Order be stayed pending appeal, as well as a status conference before Judge Bates that was held this morning. The full text of the letter is linked here.