Did You Know - Border Guards Ineffective

So, who's watching the watchers? More on the illegal immigrant problem.

Three National Guardsmen assigned to stop illegal immigration were
arraigned Monday on charges they ran a border smuggling ring.

From 4KNBC

Did You Know - Our Unaware President

It's so pathetic - our President has no clue what is going on around him. It just breaks my heart.

Early this week, the Pentagon delivered to Congress its “first comprehensive statistical overview of the new U.S. military strategy in Iraq.” Citing “uneven cooperation” and little “concrete progress,” the report concluded that “reconciliation between Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni factions” remains “a serious unfulfilled objective.” Further, the report found that suicide bombings across Iraq have doubled since January, overall violence “has increased in most provinces,” and “civilian casualties rose slightly, to more than 100 a day.”

Today, however, the President attempted to dismiss the report’s conclusions, saying that it is still “too early to judge the results of this new strategy” by repeating the myth that U.S. forces “haven’t even started the full surge yet“

From Think Progress.

Did You Know - Effective, None-the-less

The 110th Congress has now been in power for nearly six months. Despite facing critical challenges -- namely, a closely divided Senate and an obstinate, ideological president now eager to use his veto pen -- the new progressive Congress has achieved real, concrete results.

The House of Representatives has passed all 10 bills it promised during the 2006 campaign, including enacting the 9/11 Commission recommendations, landmark lobbying and ethics reform, the first minimum wage increase in a decade, and a stem cell research expansion. The Senate has passed six of the 10; three others are currently being considered. (The White House has signed just two of the bills.

It has vetoed or threatened to veto five.) Polls this week showed approval ratings for Congress sharply down after last month's controversial Iraq spending legislation. The country is undoubtedly frustrated that President Bush's conservative allies have blocked a major change in Iraq strategy. But on a wide array of issues, the 110th Congress is proving extremely effective at outmaneuvering conservatives, holding the Bush administration accountable, and winning key legislative victories.

From The Progress Report.

Did You Know - Another Secret Appointment

President Bush has no respect for the American people and even less for the rule of law. I really think he believes he is God.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed today that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had once again bypassed the Senate and used an obscure Patriot Act provision to appoint an interim U.S. attorney in California. The authority Gonzales used was at the heart of the U.S. attorney scandal, and was banned in a bill that passed both chambers of Congress with strong bipartisan support earlier this year. The legislation was sent to the President for his signature on June 4.

During a hearing today, Leahy blasted Bush for stalling: That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the president’s desk since June 4th. Do you know it seems he just can’t bring himself to sign it? Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the attorney general has used the power that we voted to repeal again.

It’s almost like they live in an alternate world, as though they’re not realizing the reaction of Democrats and Republicans about this misuse of this power. That’s wrong.

From Think Progress.

Did You Know - Sad State Of Law

Commentary from John Nichols at The Nation...

With top lawyers and administrators resigning at an alarming rate, the scandal-plagued Justice Department is becoming an increasingly dysfunctional agency, a shell without credible leadership. Within that shell lies the rot of politicization, as evidence mounts that the Bush Administration has used the nation's chief law enforcement agency to undermine not just civil liberties but democracy itself, and so it shall be as long as the primary architect of the department's decline, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, remains at the helm.

I'm not sure I buy the bit about it being Gonzales - I think it's Bush/Cheney and Gonzales is just a puppet.

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Did You Know - Religious Nation

The Bush administration has tried, at every possible turn, to convert the Federal Bureaucracy into a branch of the Chirstian church.

In recent years, the Bush administration has recast the federal government’s role in civil rights by aggressively pursuing religion-oriented cases while significantly diminishing its involvement in the traditional area of race.

Paralleling concerns of many conservative groups, the Justice Department has successfully argued in a number of cases that government agencies, employers or private organizations have improperly suppressed religious expression in situations that the Constitution’s drafters did not mean to restrict.

From the New York Times.

Did You Know - Duncan Hunter

The crooked little man walked a crooked little mile and showed off his crooked little smile...

Rep. Duncan Hunter on Tuesday defended his role in helping steer tens of millions of dollars to a La Jolla-based aerospace firm to develop a military jet the Pentagon did not want. Hunter aggressively supported the program over decades even though the Pentagon repeatedly questioned the jet's feasibility and lambasted the contractor's work.

La Jolla-based duPont Aerospace rewarded Hunter for his support for the program since 1988 with $36,000 in campaign contributions. The Alpine Republican had been chairman of the Armed Services committee before Democrats regained control of the House earlier this year. He currently is running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

From Sign On San Diego.

Did You Know - Stalemate

We're fighting the damn war all alone - even those we're trying to help are blocking progress.

Iraq’s political leaders have failed to reach agreements on nearly every law that the Americans have demanded as benchmarks, despite heavy pressure from Congress, the White House and top military commanders. With only three months until progress reports are due in Washington, the deadlock has reached a point where many Iraqi and American officials now question whether any substantive laws will pass before the end of the year.

Kurds have blocked a vote in Parliament on a new oil law. Shiite clerics have stymied an American-backed plan for reintegrating former Baathists into government. Sunnis are demanding that a constitutional review include more power for the next president.

From the New York Times.

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Photoshopped Fun Photos

Did You Know - Iraqi's Fall Short

There was a surge, then a whoosh as the air came out of the gas bags...

A senior U.S. military commander said yesterday that Iraq's army must expand its rolls by at least 20,000 more soldiers than Washington had anticipated, to help free U.S. troops from conducting daily patrols, checkpoints and other critical yet dangerous missions. Even then, Iraq will remain incapable of taking full responsibility for its security for many years -- five years in the case of protecting its airspace -- and will require a long-term military relationship with the United States, said Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who until recently led the U.S. military's training effort in Iraq.

From the Washington Post

Did You Know - WMD's

This is a pretty sad state of affairs...

It is no secret that the U.S. military has used the ocean as trashcan for munitions in the past. Peter discussed at the Old DSN how federal lawmakers were pressing the US Army to reveal everything it knows about a massive international program to dump chemical weapons off homeland and foreign shores.

"The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels."

From Deep Sea News

Did You Know - Not Doing So Well

The War on Terror/Battle in Iraq/Fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way still isn't going so well. I read one opinion piece recently that I think sort of summed up the difficulty we are having in Iraq. According to the author, whose name escapes me, we could win the war if we were willing to bomb the crap out of everyone and everything in Iraq until we had leveled the place to a point where there were few enough citizens and resources that they were manageable. As long as we value human life and try to protect the innocents - non-combatants and children - we are going to have an un-winnable war. As long as we inhabit their country, the innocents will mature to the point of becoming our enemies.

Please understand - I'm not advocating that we blow Iraq to Kingdom Come - nor was the author of this sentiment - the argument simply clarifies that Iraq is un-winnable short of blasting the country out of existence.

From the Raw Story...

On Sunday, CNN showed bodies laid out in an Iraq courtyard for wailing relatives to reclaim, reporting that "for over a year, there's been little or no room in Baghdad's morgues."

The "surge" plan did appear to be reducing sectarian killings in March and April, as the militias laid low, but now, as reported by the Washington Post in late May, the number of murders is nearly back to pre-surge levels. Almost 750 bodies were found last month, many of them showing signs of torture.

An Iraqi police colonel explained to CNN that "the killings will continue as long as the security forces remain on the outskirts of neighborhoods. Few Iraqi police dare to enter inside the most dangerous areas."

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Political Images - Donald Rumsfeld

Did You Know - Lurita Doan

Sigh. Just proof of one more act of criminal behavior on the part of the Republicans in the administration.

General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan’s unapologetic response to a report that found she violated the Hatch Act underscores the need to fire her, Special Counsel Scott Bloch writes in a June 8 letter to President Bush.

“I recommend that Administrator Doan be disciplined to the fullest extent for her serious violation of the Hatch Act and insensitivity to cooperating fully and honestly in the course of our investigation,” Bloch says.

That letter goes beyond Bloch’s recommendations in the widely publicized report. Although Bloch avoids explicitly calling for Bush to fire Doan, disciplining her “to the fullest extent” would include that step, since the penalty for violating the Hatch Act is often removal. The act bars federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity at work.

From Federal Times.

Did You Know - Gonzales Vote Failed

Republicans love themselves some lawbreakers and morally corrupt politicians.

Republicans blocked the Senate's no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Monday, rejecting a symbolic Democratic effort to prod him from office despite blistering criticism from lawmakers in both parties.

The 53-38 vote to move the resolution to full debate fell seven short of the 60 required. In bringing the matter up, Democrats dared Republicans to vote their true feelings about an attorney general who has alienated even the White House's strongest defenders by bungling the firings of federal prosecutors and claiming not to recall the details.

From CNN.

Did You Know - Enemy Combatants

I can't believe that there's anyone left in the U.S., if they follow any news at all, that still doesn't believe the President Bush has attempted, repeatedly, to undermine our laws and our constitution. More evidence...

The U.S. government cannot use new anti-terrorism laws to keep American residents locked up indefinitely without charging them, a divided federal appeals court said Monday.

The ruling was a harsh rebuke of one of the central tools President George W. Bush's administration believes it has to combat terror.

From CanadaEast

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Political Poster Fun

Did You Know - Out of the Loop

We know that GWB has hired people on the basis of their loyalty rather than on the basis of their intelligence or credentials for handling the job. Just one more example....

Maybe Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and his staff are just in denial. Or maybe they don't read the papers, thus missing the sad news that Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) died
Monday, seven months after he was diagnosed with leukemia.

Whatever the case, Leavitt's office called Thomas's office late Thursday afternoon to request a meeting with the late senator.

Needless to say, grief-stricken Thomas staffers were stunned.

From the Washington Post.

Dikd You Know - Sleeping With The Enemy

I find it interesting that in virtually every aspect of human life there are the contradictions. We're smart enough to invent cars and air travel, stupid enough that not so long ago Donald Rumsfeld was striking deals to sell arms to Saddam Hussein. We're smart enough to develop open heart surgery, but so stupid as to seel weapons to the Taliban in their fight against the Russians. And now, just one more example...

With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.

From the New York Times.

Did You Know - California Ethics

More interesting than important...

From SFGate.com...

Hollywood party girls don't have a monopoly on trouble in California. A disproportionate number of the state's congressional Republicans are facing ethics questions that threaten to sink their careers and their party's political fortunes too.

Of 201 House Republicans, at least six are known to have attracted the attention of federal investigators — and four are from California. Their woes come in the wake of the lurid corruption scandal that sent ex-GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of San Diego to prison last year for taking $2.4 million in bribes.

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Religious and Political Commentary

Did You Know - Judge Robert Bork

You see, the problem is, you just don't get it. It's okay for them (republicans, wealthy, etc.) but not for you (commoner, low-life, poor, black, etc.). If you'd just understand it, then life would be so much easier (for them).

From the ACS Blog...

Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.

Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs' ability to recover through tort law. In a 2002 article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy--the official journal of the Federalist Society--Bork argued that frivolous claims and excessive punitive damage awards have caused the Constitution to evolve into a document which would allow Congress to enact tort reforms that would have been unconstitutional at the framing:

Did You Know - Henrietta Holsman Fore

The Republicans seem to attract such darling people to their leadership ranks. Why do you suppose that is? What is there about the party, or its members, that seems to attract an inordinate number of people of hate?

From the Washington Post...

Henrietta Holsman Fore, who was nominated to replace the deputy secretary of state for foreign assistance after he resigned in late April over an escort scandal, made racially charged remarks about the work ethics of blacks, Hispanics, Asians and whites two decades ago, prompting two key Democratic senators yesterday to demand answers on her diversity record at the State Department.

Fore, the undersecretary for management since 2005, was tapped by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to replace Randall Tobias in the high-profile post after he suddenly quit after admitting that he received massages through an escort service allegedly involved in prostitution. But Fore's racial remarks at Wellesley College -- which resulted in her resignation as a Wellesley trustee -- have emerged as a possible roadblock.

Video - Fox News: Racially Prejudiced?

Video - Fox News: Fair and Balanced?

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