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Dante's Inferno
Author: BobR    Date: 02/06/2009 13:39:31

The prison at Guantanamo Bay has been the source of many sleepless nights for those in this country and the rest of the world who value freedom and fairness. It's bad enough that people have been held there for 7 years without a chance to refute the charges against them; no charges have been made. It's bad enough that they are viewed by some as "prisoners of war" when no declaration of war has been made, and there can be no definitive end to our efforts to control terrorism. It's bad enough that this is being done in our name and our only recourse all these years has been our ballot.

No, on top of all this is the common knowledge that it is no better than Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein.
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150 comments (Latest Comment: 02/07/2009 05:07:11 by BobR)

I don't want to hear it.
Author: Raine    Date: 02/05/2009 13:30:44

You want a little semi-good news this morning? I'm going to try to deliver you some. Yesterday, by coincidence or not, after President Obama said he wanted to limit executive pay, Goldman Sachs said that it would seek to return the TARP money.
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104 comments (Latest Comment: 02/06/2009 03:51:54 by Raine)

Buy American
Author: BobR    Date: 02/04/2009 13:03:22

I've noted before that when I was growing up, the unions would have commercials exhorting us to "look for the union label". That was back in the good old days when clothes were actually made in the U.S., and the workers in the factories were frequently unionized. After Reagan essentially broke the backs of the unions, and imports were becoming popular, the call was to "buy American". After 9/11, Bush asked us to just "buy buy buy".

Of course - for most Americans, "buy buy buy" means "charge charge charge". As a result (in addition to the housing bubble), the amount of money lent out by banks began to exceed their ability to cover the loans. Thus, the banking industry imploded and we are left teetering on the precipice of another depression. The latest "are you kidding?" bit of news is that California is broke and has halted all payments. This is serious stuff.

Just like the last depression, the president is proposing we spend money on jobs, so that the pay these workers receive gets circulated back into the economy, hopefully revving it back up. I already covered in a previous blog how the Republicans want to use tax cuts for their magical trickle-down theories, so I won't go over that again. This time, the controversy is over Buy American.
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90 comments (Latest Comment: 02/05/2009 03:25:48 by Random)

Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 02/03/2009 11:35:55

Good Morning.

Today is our 2,148th day in Iraq.

We'll start as we always do, with the latest casualty figures from Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4237
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4098
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3776
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3379
Since Election (1/31/05): 2799

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 317
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 644
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 422
Contractor Deaths - Iraq: 446


We find this morning's Cost of War passing through:

593, 742, 150, 000.00


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98 comments (Latest Comment: 02/04/2009 03:58:19 by Raine)

There was no Oversight. NONE
Author: Raine    Date: 02/02/2009 13:16:10

Who could have seen this one coming?
A new commission examining waste and corruption in wartime contracts is getting a grim report from government watchdogs who say poor planning, weak oversight and greed combined to soak U.S. taxpayers and undermine American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, says U.S. taxpayers have paid nearly $51 billion for a wide array of projects in Iraq — from training the Iraqi army and police to rebuilding the country's oil, electric, justice, health and transportation sectors.

Some of these projects succeeded, Bowen informed the Wartime Contracting Commission at its first public hearing, according to his written testimony, but many did not. Violence in Iraq along with constant friction between U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad were also major factors that undercut progress.

The U.S. government "was neither prepared for nor able to respond quickly to the ever-changing demands" of stabilizing Iraq and then rebuilding it, Bowen said in his written testimony. "For the last six years we have been on a steep learning curve."

A lengthy study by Bowen's office, "Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," reviews the problems in an effort the Bush administration initially thought would cost $2.4 billion.

Overall, the Pentagon, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have paid contractors more than $100 billion since 2003 for goods and services to support war operations and rebuilding projects in Iraq and Afghanistan.[/quote
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109 comments (Latest Comment: 02/03/2009 03:30:40 by Mondobubba)

The head of Blago
Author: velveeta jones    Date: 02/01/2009 15:08:39

It started just before the inauguration of Barack Obama. The people of Illinois were the first to notice, but really, what can you say? It’s just too bizarre to contemplate.

On Dec. 9 of last year, the Governor, Rod Blagojevich was arrested at his North Side home on federal corruption charges that included plotting to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. Blagojevich immediately proclaimed his innocence. And this, many believe, is when it started.

Sure, there was the hair. That grand swell of well-coiffed jet black hair that would occasionally catch a puff of wind and billow like a plush black shag rug, strands glistening in the sun, as he stood outside his home in his black Puma jump suit. With that head of hair, it was hard to notice the change right away.
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43 comments (Latest Comment: 02/02/2009 03:21:56 by clintster)

Stuporbowl Sunday!
Author: TriSec    Date: 02/01/2009 15:06:49

It's 10am...do we have a hard deck on the weekends?

Anyway, here's a wee little stubby. You know what to do.

Donuts, coffee, and the Sunday Globe on the back table!


 
11 comments (Latest Comment: 02/02/2009 10:33:42 by trojanrabbit)

Election day in Iraq
Author: TriSec    Date: 01/31/2009 12:37:19

Good Morning!

For the first time in four years, Iraqis are heading for the polls today. (huh, a Saturday. Maybe we should look into that.) As the United States enters a transition phase in the Iraq war, there's some hope that a safe, fair election will greatly improve the image of the fledgling Iraqi democracy and may make it possible for us to extricate ourselves at a more rapid pace.

So far, the news is good.


BAGHDAD, Jan. 31 -- Iraqis streamed passed police cordons and barbed wire as they went to the polls on Saturday to vote in their first elections in four years, widely seen as a test of Iraq's stability as the U.S. role in Iraq diminishes.

The all-important provincial elections are viewed as a key indicator of whether the nation can build upon fragile security gains and address imbalances in power that still plague many areas. More than 14,000 candidates are running for 440 seats to lead councils that are the equivalent of state legislatures in the United States.

The elections are unfolding in all of Iraq's provinces except three in the autonomous Kurdish region and the province that includes the disputed city of Kirkuk, where ethnic groups were unable to reach a power-sharing agreement paving the way for elections.

The polls opened shortly after dawn following a heavy security clampdown launched on Friday that included the closing of Iraq's borders and airspace coupled with bans on vehicle traffic and the deployment of thousands of security personnel around polling stations. Polls are scheduled to close by 5 pm.

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18 comments (Latest Comment: 02/01/2009 04:38:53 by livingonli)

The times, they have a-changed
Author: BobR    Date: 01/30/2009 13:16:45

Today is the end of the first full week of the Obama Presidency. He campaigned on the promise of change, but I doubt anyone expected this much actual change so quickly. After 8 years of laissez faire "leadership" from Bush it's refreshing to have a president that actually does something.

So what sort of change has come to America? In just the last few days we've seen:
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222 comments (Latest Comment: 01/31/2009 05:59:22 by Mondobubba)

So this is what it's like... Strange feeling.
Author: Raine    Date: 01/29/2009 13:28:28

Is it a new day? Yesterday we learned that after removing the 2 biggest objections to the stimulus package - grass and condoms - the entire Republican side of the aisle in the house voted against it. ALL of them. 244-188. 11 Dems voted against the package as well, and it STILL passed.
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130 comments (Latest Comment: 01/30/2009 04:31:27 by livingonli)

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