US Ranks As One Of World's Least Peaceful Nations

LA Times:
The United States is among the least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and Iran, according to an index of 121 countries.

According to the Global Peace Index, created by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Norway is the most peaceful nation and Iraq is the least, just after Russia, Israel and Sudan.

Cheney's Lawyer Had Visitor Logs Destroyed

AP:
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney told the Secret Service in September to eliminate data on who visited Cheney at his official residence, a newly disclosed letter states. The Sept. 13, 2006, letter from Cheney's lawyer says logs for Cheney's residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory are subject to the Presidential Records Act.

Such a designation prevents the public from learning who visited the vice president.

The Justice Department filed the letter Friday in a lawsuit by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited Cheney at his official residence.

Nearly 30 DOJ Officials Threatened To Quit After Ashcroft Hospital Visit

Newsweek:

So consider these scenes from March 2004, described by two former top Justice officials who, like other ex-officials interviewed by NEWSWEEK, did not wish to be identified discussing sensitive internal matters. Attorney General John Ashcroft is really sick. About to give a press conference in Virginia, he is stricken with pain so severe he has to lie down on the floor. Taken to the hospital for an emergency gallbladder operation, he hallucinates under medication as he lies, near death, in intensive care. On the night after his operation, he has two visitors: White House chief of staff Andrew Card and presidential counsel Alberto Gonzales. As described in public testimony, they want Ashcroft to sign a document authorizing the government's top-secret eavesdropping program to go on. The attorney general, who thinks the program is illegal, refuses.

Back at the Justice Department, there is an equally extraordinary scene. Appalled by the White House's heavy-handed attempt to coerce the gravely ill attorney general, virtually the entire top leadership of the Justice Department is threatening to resign.

U.S. Deaths Near Grim Memorial Day Mark

AP:

BAGHDAD- Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling - and expected to rise in coming months.

Obama Leads All '08 Hopefuls in Polls

Angus Reid Global Monitor:
Democrat Barack Obama is the top 2008 presidential contender in the United States, according to a poll by Zogby International. At least 46 per cent of respondents would support the Illinois senator in head-to-head contests against four prospective Republican nominees.
Obama holds a three-point edge over Arizona senator John McCain, a six-point lead over former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, and a 17-point advantage over both former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and actor and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson. (cont.)

Here's his universal healthcare plan.

VIDEO: Hundreds boo former Bush chief of staff at University of Massachusetts commencement ceremony

You can watch the video here

Amnesty Report: U.S. and Russia biggest abusers of freedom of expression

"The United States and Russia were cited as two of the biggest abusers of freedom of expression, with the fear of dissent used to justify crackdowns on free speech and due process.

Of particular concern was the U.S.-run prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where in 2006, 200 detainees were force-fed to end a hunger strike and three men were reported to have committed suicide, which the U.S. taskforce commander at Guantanamo described as "asymmetrical warfare".

Amnesty also cited the use of CIA "black sites" -- secret prisons -- forced renditions and torture as contraventions of international and U.S. laws." (cont.)

CBS: Bush created 'safe haven' for terrorism with Iraq invasion

Rawstory:
Thursday morning CBS News's Early Show criticized President Bush's latest justification for the Iraq War as being the first line of defense against al Qaeda, by citing an upcoming Senate Intelligence Committee report which states that the administration was warned before the invasion that a US presence in Iraq would actually increase terrorist influence.

Analyst Paul Kurtz expanded on this criticism, saying, "Prior to our invasion of Iraq...Iraq was not a fertile ground for terrorist activity," but that now "we have a safe haven in Iraq for terrorists." The administration, says Kurtz, is trying to have it both ways.

You can watch the CBS news clip here

Dr. Laura's Cretin Son Having Fun Torturing People In Afghanistan

Wonkette:
The soldier son of talk radio relationship counselor Laura Schlessinger is under investigation for a graphic personal Web page that one Army official has called “repulsive.” The MySpace page, publicly available until Friday when it disappeared from the Internet, included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned “My Sweet Little Habib”; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets.

BBC Reporter Has Rove Office Emails

Greg Palast:
Goodling/Sampson Obstruction of Justice evidence?

BBC Television’s Newsnight has 500 “missing” Rove office emails including a series of self-incriminating notes which provide “the keys to the kingdom” behind the prosecutor firings.

In the opening to today’s testimony before Congress, Monica Goodling, former Department of Justice White House Liaison, testified that Deputy Attorney General Kyle Sampson lied. At issue was, says Goodling, Sampson’s denial “that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote ‘caging’ during the work on the President’s 2004 campaign.”

Why the Attorneygate Scandal Matters

NYTimes:
It is hard not to see the fingerprints of Karl Rove. A disproportionate number of the prosecutors pushed out, or considered for dismissal, were in swing states. The main reason for the purge - apart from hobbling a California investigation that has already put one Republican congressman in jail - appears to have been an attempt to tip states like Missouri and Washington to Republican candidates for House, Senate, governor and president.

Justice Department headquarters has become deeply partisan. Young operatives like Ms. Goodling were apparently allowed to hire and promote based on party membership. Political appointees cleared the way for laws designed to disenfranchise minority voters, and brought litigation to remove Democratic-leaning voters from the rolls.

Christian Terrorist Targeting Protesters Thwarted at Falwell Funeral

ABC News:
Campbell County authorities arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car.

The student, 19-year-old Mark D. Uhl of Amissville, Va., reportedly told authorities that he was making the bombs to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service.

As far as I'm concerned there is no difference between this guy and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. Society as a whole should shun radical fundamentalism of any stripe (religion). It is a danger to civilized society.

Bush OK's Secret War with Iran

ABC News:
The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions. (cont.)

Defend Habeas Corpus

You can sign the petition to restore habeas corpus here

"In the politically charged atmosphere of the 2006 mid-term elections, the Republican-controlled United States Congress passed the Military Commissions Act. Most alarmingly, the MCA eliminates for many individuals the historic and fundamental right to a writ of habeas corpus. The MCA also allows the government nearly unfettered discretion to determine which individuals are declared "enemy combatants," to hold these individuals indefinitely without charges, and to deny them fundamental judicial rights, including the meaningful opportunity to appear before a judge and contest the charges against them."

Hersh: Bush administration arranged support for militants attacking Lebanon

Rawstory:
In an interview on CNN International's Your World Today, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh explains that the current violence in Lebanon is the result of an attempt by the Lebanese government to crack down on a militant Sunni group, Fatah al-Islam, that it formerly supported.

Last March, Hersh reported that American policy in the Middle East had shifted to opposing Iran, Syria, and their Shia allies at any cost, even if it meant backing hardline Sunni jihadists.

New presidential directive gives Bush dictatorial power

Global Research:
The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007 declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", George W. Bush can become what is best described as "a dictator": "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government." This directive, completely unnoticed by the media, and given no scrutiny by Congress, literally gives the White House unprecedented dictatorial power over the government and the country, bypassing the US Congress and obliterating the separation of powers. The directive also placed the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic "security".

Second Iraq troop surge starts

Hearst News:
U.S. quietly doubling combat troop numbers

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders showed Monday.
This "second surge" of troops in Iraq, which is being executed by extending tours for brigades already there and by deploying more units, could boost the number of combat troops to as many as 98,000 by the end of this year. When support troops are included, the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase from 162,000 now to more than 200,000 -- the most ever -- by the end of the year.

Attorneys Scandal: An Illegal White House-coordinated Effort to Swing Elections to Republicans

Alternet:
Connect the Justice Department dots and you see an insidious effort to corrupt the American electoral system. It's Watergate without the break-in or the bagmen.

WASHINGTON -- It is time to stop referring to the "fired U.S attorneys scandal" by that misnomer, and call it what it is: a White House-coordinated effort to use the vast powers of the Justice Department to swing elections to Republicans. (cont.)

White House opposes military pay raise

Army Times:
Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.

Detroit City Council votes to impeach Bush and Cheney

Rawstory:

The Detroit City Council, led by Monica Conyers, wife of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), today unanimously passed a resolution calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney by the US House of Representatives.

Detroit joins a growing list of cities, and the state of Vermont, which have passed resolutions urging the impeachment of the president and vice president.

Fact Checking the GOP Debate

Factcheck.org:

Mitt Romney claimed he didn’t raise taxes when he was governor of Massachusetts, failing to note that he increased government fees by hundreds of millions of dollars and shifted some of the state tax burden to the local level.

Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado claimed scientific reports on whether humans are responsible for global warming are split 50-50, which isn’t close to being true.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee praised a "fair tax" but failed to note that it would ease the burden on the richest Americans while imposing a stiff retail sales tax of perhaps 34 percent.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani used more statistical dexterity to manipulate statistics, claiming adoptions increased 113 percent when he was mayor. Actually, they peaked and started a continuing decline.

Shocking Lawlessness

Center for American Progress:
In March 2004, President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program was temporarily suspended after then-acting Attorney General James Comey refused to sign onto an extension of the program, citing an "extensive review" by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, stating "that the program did not comply with the law." In "gripping testimony" yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey revealed extraordinary details about the efforts made by Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card -- then-White House counsel and chief of staff, respectively -- to persuade John Ashcroft to overrule Comey, even as Ashcroft was debilitated in an intensive care unit with pancreatitis. The Washington Post calls Comey's "account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source." Indeed, Comey's revelations confirm the worst fears about Gonzales's dangerously flawed judgment, and provide further evidence of the administration's -- including the President's -- contempt for basic legal restraints.

Fundamentalism Forced Down Navy Veterans Throat at VA Hospital

Navy Times:

Navy veteran David Miller said that when he checked into the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City, he didn't realize he would get a hard sell for Christian fundamentalism along with treatment for his kidney stones.

Miller, 46, an Orthodox Jew, said he was repeatedly proselytized by hospital chaplains and staff in attempts to convert him to Christianity during three hospitalizations over the past two years.
He said he went hungry each time because the hospital wouldn't serve him kosher food, and the staff refused to contact his rabbi, who could have brought him something to eat.[..]

He described the Iowa City facility as an institution permeated by government sponsorship of fundamentalist Christianity and unconstitutional discrimination against Jews.[..]

The hospital's chaplains and staff, Miller said, have the attitude that you either accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior and you are saved, or you are damned.

He said he has tried to resolve the problems with the hospital's administration without success.

PBS’s NOW: The Ban on Milblogging

PBS Now:

Matthew Currier Burden, a military blogger and author of "The Blog of War," [excerpt] talks to Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa about new Army regulations for military bloggers and why he fears the rules will keep the truth from coming out.
"It's awfully hard for me to sit there and say you have to come down on these bloggers, when they themselves, especially the senior staff at the Pentagon, are leaking more information than every other source combined."

"When I get into a discussion with a public affairs or even an operational security officer about blogging, I will usually point to the D.O.D. [Department of Defense] website or Army.mil and show them pictures that clearly violate operational security, in their definition."

In related news, the DoD has also blocked YouTube and MySpace from their computers.

This is what they don't want you to see

Pro-Torture Pro-Gitmo GOP

Rawstory:
Debating the treatment of foreign detainees at Tuesday night's debate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said he thought the US should "double" the number of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

In the same exchange, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani noted again his service in New York following the Sept. 11 attacks and said he would support interrogators using a wide range of means to elicit confessions from suspected terrorists. Moderator Chris Wallace asked if Giuliani would support the use of waterboarding -- a controversial interrogation tactic some say is torture because it makes detainees believe they are drowning.

"Whatever they can think of," Giuliani said

The Bush doctrine has completely infected the Republican party. It's quite apparent most of them didn't get the message sent to them in 2006.

Putin attacks 'very dangerous' US

BBC: Mr Putin told senior security officials from around the world that nations were "witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations".

"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," he said, speaking through a translator.

"This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law.

"This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons." (cont.)

Report: U.S. health care expensive, inefficient

Reuters/MSNBC:
WASHINGTON - Americans get the poorest health care and yet pay the most compared to five other rich countries, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Germany, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada all provide better care for less money, the Commonwealth Fund report found.

“The U.S. health care system ranks last compared with five other nations on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes,” the non-profit group, which studies health care issues, said in a statement. (cont.)

Bush met with Dobson and conservative Christian leaders to rally support for Iran policy

Max Blumenthal:
President George W. Bush met privately with Focus on the Family Founder and Chairman James Dobson and approximately a dozen Christian right leaders last week to rally support for his policies on Iraq, Iran and the so-called "war on terror."

“I heard about this danger [from Iran] not only at the White House but from other pro-family leaders that I met during that week in Washington," he said. “Many people in a position to know are talking about the possibility of losing a city to nuclear or biological or chemical attack. And if we can lose one we can lose ten.
"If we can lose ten we can lose a hundred," he added, “especially if North Korea and Russia and China pile on.” (cont.)

Everyone should be worried when Bush is lobbying the armageddon-end times Christian right. These people want to go to war with Iran. It will fulfill their notion that we are close to the rapture. This is called self fullfilling prophecy and is incredibly dangerous stuff when we're talking about war.

Nothing to See Here

Tim Grieve:
As George W. Bush has explained, it's "hard" for Americans "to turn on their TV screens and see the horrific violence" from Iraq.
Fortunately, somebody has figured out a way around the problem. Two of them, actually.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry announced Sunday that it will prohibit photographers and camera crews from recording images of bombing attacks. "There are many reasons for this prohibition," Iraqi Brig. Gen. Abdel Karim Khalaf says. "We do not want evidence to be disturbed before the arrival of detectives, the ministry must respect human rights and does not want to expose victims and does not want to give terrorists information that they achieved their goals. This decision does not imply a curtailment of press freedom; it is a measure followed all over the world."
Meanwhile, the Defense Department is implementing a new policy today that will prohibit U.S. soldiers serving overseas from accessing YouTube, MySpace and a number of other file-sharing sites. "This recreational traffic impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability while posing a significant operational security challenge," U.S. Gen. B.B. Bell says in a memo to the troops.

Flashback: Baghdad Year Zero

Naomi Klein covered this in 2004. You can read the full article here

Harper's Magazine:

Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia.

Iraq was to the neocons what Afghanistan was to the Taliban: the one place on Earth where they could force everyone to live by the most literal, unyielding interpretation of their sacred texts. One would think that the bloody results of this experiment would inspire a crisis of faith: in the country where they had absolute free reign, where there was no local government to blame, where economic reforms were introduced at their most shocking and most perfect, they created, instead of a model free market, a failed state no right-thinking investor would touch. And yet the Green Zone neocons and their masters in Washington are no more likely to reexamine their core beliefs than the Taliban mullahs were inclined to search their souls when their Islamic state slid into a debauched Hades of opium and sex slavery. When facts threaten true believers, they simply close their eyes and pray harder.

Defense Skirts State in Reviving Iraqi Industry

Washington Post:
Paul Brinkley, a deputy undersecretary of defense, has been called a Stalinist by U.S. diplomats in Iraq. One has accused him of helping insurgents build better bombs. The State Department has even taken the unusual step of enlisting the CIA to dispute the validity of Brinkley's work.

His transgression? To begin reopening dozens of government-owned factories in Iraq. (cont.)

The rampant unemployment in Iraq is fueling the insurgency. The reason we have this problem is because the neocon ideologues feel that the free market will fix everything. It's quite clear now that this mindset has given us disastrous results in Iraq and elsewhere.

Oversight Committee postpones Rice hearing to make way for Tenet deposition

Rawstory:

Former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet has agreed to sit for a deposition with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on the evidence used to build the case for the invasion of Iraq. As a consequence, the Committee postponed a hearing planned this week with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had been subpoenaed. (cont.)

Chipping Away at the Wall of Separation

C&L:
Bill Moyers ran a special last night on PBS that examined the separation of church and state in the context of Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law and its mission of "bring[ing] to bear the will of our Creator, Almighty God, upon legal education and the legal profession." Moyers paints a stark picture of a law school and a religious leader that are having a profound effect on the American system of law and government. Seeing Regent's newly graduated students talk about the philosophy they intend to bring to the practice of law (and most likely to the federal government) is frightening to anyone who appreciates the traditional notion of the separation between church and state.

O'Reilly likes to spout off about how radical and dangerous George Soros is to this country, but look what happens when you take his "Talking Points" and replace Soros and the left with Robertson and the right:

[F]ar right Evangelist Pat Robertson is buying political influence in America in an unprecedented way. Robertson is pouring tens of millions of dollars into far right Internet sites and organizations designed to intimidate Republican politicians and advance his radical right agenda.

At the center of this cluster is the notorious Christian Coalition, which has received at least $5 million from Robertson himself and an unknown amount from organizations he funds. Doesn't take a Jerry Falwell to figure out that Robertson now has direct access to the most powerful Republicans in the nation.

And now Robertson has set his sights on the political landscape here in America. He has his character assassins lined up. He has the Christian Coalition ready to move out. And he has direct access to the highest levels of our government.

Although BillO never articulates exactly what Soros's "far-left agenda" entails, it's pretty clear what Pat Robertson's "far-right agenda" is: To move America closer to a Christian theocracy that lives under under Biblical law; not secular Constitutional law. To any rational person, Robertson and the religious right are a far greater threat to American values and system of government than Soros could ever be.

To watch the video click here

Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of 'high crimes'

Rawstory:

A former top State Department aide to Colin Powell said today that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are more deserving of impeachment than was Bill Clinton.
Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, said on the public radio program On Point Thursday that "Bill Clinton's peccadilloes ... pale in significance" when compared to the "high crimes and misdemeanors" of Bush and Cheney. (cont.)

Putin Is Said to Compare U.S. Policies to Third Reich

You know it's really bad when Vlad starts comparing the Bush administration to Nazi's

NY Times:
MOSCOW, May 9 — President Vladimir V. Putin seemed to obliquely compare the foreign policy of the United States to the Third Reich in a speech on Wednesday commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. (cont.)

Former Commander in Iraq Releases Ad: "Protect America, Not George Bush"

To watch the video click here

The Elephant in the Room

Newsweek:

George W. Bush has the lowest presidential approval rating in a generation, and the leading Dems beat every major ’08 Republican.

It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.’s nadir. (cont.)

Is Condi Hiding the Smoking Gun?

Frank Rich:
It’s now been nearly five years since Ms. Rice did her part to sell the Iraq war on a Sept. 8, 2002, Sunday show with her rendition of “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Yet there she was last Sunday on ABC, claiming that she never meant to imply then that Saddam was an imminent threat. “The question of imminence isn’t whether or not somebody is going to strike tomorrow” is how she put it. In other words, she is still covering up the war’s origins. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” she claimed that intelligence errors before the war were “worldwide” even though the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mohamed ElBaradei publicly stated there was “no evidence” of an Iraqi nuclear program and even though Germany’s intelligence service sent strenuous prewar warnings that the C.I.A.’s principal informant on Saddam’s supposed biological weapons was a fraud.

Times Select Readers can view the full article here

Clinton & Byrd move to revoke war authorization

McClatchy:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose vote to authorize the Iraq war is a sore point with anti-war Democrats, joined an effort Thursday to revoke the authorization.

Legislation being drafted by Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., would terminate congressional approval for the war on Oct. 11 - exactly five years after Congress cleared the way for the 2003 invasion. The war authorization gave President Bush permission to use military force against Iraq "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate."

Revoking the authorization would force Bush to return to Congress for another vote or wage war without explicit approval from lawmakers. The revocation effort opened a new line of attack against the war a day after Congress upheld the president's veto of a war-spending bill that included a timetable for withdrawal.

Condi Rice never looks back

Joe Conason:

That attitude, says Marcus Mabry in his new biography of the secretary of state, has seriously harmed the United States.

"The arrogant perfectionist is inevitably beset by contradictions and liabilities. With the possible exception of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, she is probably the nation's single most prominent beneficiary of affirmative action, but remains haughtily aloof from the black community and strikingly devoid of empathy for minorities who have not emulated her success. Those feelings were reflected in her decision to join the Republican Party during the Reagan era, supporting a conservatism undergirded by whites' resentment and dedicated to abolishing the reforms that had made her career possible. It is hard to like a striver who wants to pull up the ladder behind her."

Feinstein seeks to close Guantanamo

LA Times:
The senator's proposal comes on the day the justices decline to hear detainees' appeal on the legality of military trials there.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced a measure Monday to force the Pentagon to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and move the trials of Al Qaeda suspects to the United States. (cont.)

Obama gains on Clinton in US presidential race

AFP:
US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's popularity has grown among likely voters, according to a poll released Monday which suggested he was gaining on rival frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

The poll by the Rasmussen Institute predicted Obama would get 32 percent of the vote in February's primary, compared to 30 percent for Clinton, who until now has been the consistent favorite for the Democratic party.

Secret Order By Gonzales Delegated Extraordinary Powers To Aides

National Journal:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed a highly confidential order in March 2006 delegating to two of his top aides -- who have since resigned because of their central roles in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys -- extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department. A copy of the order and other Justice Department records related to the conception and implementation of the order were provided to National Journal. (cont.)

Murtha revises: Impeachment is 'on the table'

NPR:
Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) revised the much publicized statements he made yesterday and told National Public Radio late on Monday afternoon that impeaching President George W. Bush was "on the table."

"I'm just saying that's one of the options that Congress has on the table, I'm getting more and more calls from people about the President on impeachment," the long-time Congressman, who is a veteran of the US Marines, told NPR's Melissa Block on the program All Things Considered.

Flubya

Think there're no more laughs on Bush?

Alternet:
Just when you were bored by Bush-isms the prez does an unscripted town hall meeting (in a heavily heavily republican district). Oh yeah. He talks about love, the longing for acceptance and... you know, chicken farmers.

To watch the video click here