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Madam Speaker,
Here is today's example of why you must immediately move to begin the impeachment process:
The new study (http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003239.html) released by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that claims;
1) the 'surge' of additional troops to Iraq will actually consist of close to 50,000 troops, NOT the 21, 500 the president has claimed.
2) the cost of this surge will be for times the cost the president has been claiming publicly.
If these estimates are accurate, the president has been caught lying yet again.
One hopes that the historically unprecedented madman in the White House would not be emboldened enough to continue these assaults on the citizens of the United States if impeachment was underway, but one thing is certain--if the president were removed from office, he would no longer have the power to commit such acts.
The world is waiting for you and your fellow Democrats to wake up. Will today be the day?
Tomorrow we'll have another reason for you, as we will every day, until you accept responsibility for the public mandate that swept you into your historically unprecedented position of power.
Iran installs 328 centrifuges at atomic site: sources Reuters - 3 minutes ago
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has installed two cascades of 164 centrifuges each in its underground nuclear plant, laying a basis for full-scale enrichment of uranium and upping the stakes in a standoff with the West, European diplomats said on Monday.
WASHINGTON - A Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee is cautioning Republicans against blocking a vote Monday on a resolution opposing President Bush's troop increase in Iraq, saying it would be a "terrible mistake."
It's obstructionism," said Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. "This is not tolerable in a situation where it's the number one topic in the nation, and the Republican party prevents the Senate of the United States from debating."
But Arizona Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), the top Republican on the
Senate Armed Services Committee, said proponents of the nonbinding, bipartisan resolution were undermining national security.
"This is a vote of no confidence in both the mission and the troops," he said.
On the eve of a possible congressional showdown on Iraq strategy, both sides maneuvered to gain support from a handful of senators who will decide the fate of a resolution criticizing Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.
Republican leaders in the Democratic-controlled Senate are working to block a vote on the resolution by Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va. They insisted that at least two other GOP proposals be considered and that each require 60 votes — a strategy that could dilute support for Warner's measure and make it tougher for any measure to pass.
One alternate proposal would set benchmark goals for the Iraqi government, while the other seeks to maintain funding for troops in the field.
On Sunday, Feinstein called on Republicans to reconsider their procedural move.
"I think it's a terrible mistake to prevent this debate," she said. "If we can't get this done, you can be sure, a month or so down the pike, there's going to be much stronger legislation."
The Senate, where Democrats hold a 51-49 working majority, has tentatively set an early test vote for Monday.
In a bid to attract more GOP support, Warner added a provision pledging to protect money for troops in combat.
That compromise drew the ire of some Democrats who said it leaned too far in endorsing the status quo. They want to see binding legislation to cap troop levels, force a new vote to authorize the war or begin bringing troops home.
McCain, a 2008 White House contender, is sponsoring the resolution expressing support for a troop increase and setting benchmark goals. He sought to capitalize on some of the Democratic division by calling Warner's plan intellectually dishonest.
The measure, McCain said, offers no concrete alternatives to Bush's plan to add 21,500 troops in Iraq.
"I do believe that if you really believe that this is doomed to failure and is going to cost American lives, then you should do what's necessary to prevent it from happening rather than a vote of 'disapproval,'" he said, noting that the proposal does not seek to cut off troop funding.
A fellow Vietnam veteran, GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska, disagreed with McCain's assessment. Hagel said the resolution would make clear the Senate's belief that Bush's policy is misguided.
Hagel said Warner's resolution strikes a careful balance for a majority of senators who oppose a troop buildup but differ on the appropriate response. The plan also lays out alternatives such as moving troops away from the sectarian violence and closer to the Iraq border to provide "territorial integrity."
"We can't change the outcome of Iraq by putting American troops in the middle of a civil war," said Hagel, who is considering a run for the White House in 2008.
The resolution debate comes as the White House and congressional Democrats prepare to square off over war spending.
Bush's new budget on Monday will ask for $100 billion more for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year — on top of $70 billion already approved by Congress for the current year. The budget will call for $145 billion in war spending for 2008.
The spending request covers Bush's new war strategy, including the increase in troops, White House budget director Rob Portman said Sunday.
Hagel and McCain appeared on ABC's "This Week," while Feinstein and Portman spoke on "Late Edition" on CNN.
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The Washington Post
By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, February 5, 2007; Page A01
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders -- in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.
Army officers tend to refer to the group as "Petraeus guys." They are smart colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq.
But there is widespread skepticism that even this unusual group, with its specialized knowledge of counterinsurgency methods, will be able to win the battle of Baghdad.
"It's too late to make a difference in Iraq," agreed Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University expert on terrorism who has advised the U.S. government on the war effort.
As of Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007, at least 3,096 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,480 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is 16 higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EST.
The British military has reported 130 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 18; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, six; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, one death each.
War in Iraq Propelling A Massive Migration
Wave Creates Tension Across the Middle East
As the fourth year of war nears its end, the Middle East's largest refugee crisis since the Palestinian exodus from Israel in 1948 is unfolding in a climate of fear, persecution and tragedy.
Nearly 2 million Iraqis -- about 8 percent of the prewar population -- have embarked on a desperate migration, mostly to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The refugees include large numbers of doctors, academics and other professionals vital for Iraq's recovery. Another 1.7 million have been forced to move to safer towns and villages inside Iraq, and as many as 50,000 Iraqis a month flee their homes, the U.N. agency said in January.
In Another CIA Abduction, Germany Has an Uneasy Role
HAMBURG -- The decision by Munich prosecutors to press charges against CIA counterterrorism operatives for kidnapping a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, won widespread applause last week from German politicians and the public.
"The great ally is not allowed to simply send its thugs out into Europe's streets," lectured the Munich newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
But there has been an awkward silence and no prosecutions in the parallel case of another German citizen, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who was also covertly abducted in a CIA-sponsored mission after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The difference: German agents were directly involved in the Zammar case, providing crucial information to the CIA about his travels and making a secret trip to Syria to interrogate him after he landed in prison there.
German officials have said that they were not directly involved in Zammar's seizure and did not know where he had been taken until June 2002, when The Washington Post first reported that he had been arrested in Morocco and secretly transferred to Syria at the behest of the CIA.
But the legislative probes have revealed that German federal police made the abduction possible by forwarding details of Zammar's travel plans to U.S. agents.
In addition, German officials have admitted that several German intelligence operatives and investigators went on a secret mission to Damascus in November 2002 to interrogate Zammar. According to lawmakers in Berlin who are reviewing the case, the Germans gained access to Zammar only after cutting a deal with the Syrian government to drop a criminal investigation into a suspected Syrian espionage ring based in southern Germany.
A parliamentary committee is expected to review the German government's handling of Zammar's case later this month. One question is whether information obtained by German interrogators is being used against him in court by Syrian prosecutors, a particularly sensitive issue since he faces the death penalty, which is banned in Germany.
Iraq Vote Could Resonate In 2008
Resolution Against Adding Troops Is Set for a Showdown
When Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) saw reporters approaching him last week, he took off in a sprint, determined to say as little as possible about a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush's troop-escalation plan, which is expected to come before the Senate today.
"You know where I stand," the senator, who is considered politically vulnerable back home, said repeatedly as he fled down stairways at the Capitol. "I'm still looking."
The historic showdown to begin today represents the first bipartisan confrontation between Congress and the White House over the Iraq war since the invasion nearly four years ago. While the resolution will test the mettle of every member of the chamber, none will be challenged more than Sununu and the 19 other Senate Republicans facing reelection in 2008 -- many from states where voters are angry with Bush's war policy and want the troops to begin heading home.
Democrats won control of the Senate and House in November largely because of widespread opposition to the war, and the issue remains dangerous for the GOP heading into the 2008 campaign. Senate Republicans are torn between home-state voters eager for them to take a stand against a conflict that has claimed more than 3,000 U.S. troops and has cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and Bush and other Republican leaders who warn that passage of the resolution would undermine chances of a successful conclusion to the war.
"It's inevitable that people want to ascribe political motives to this, but I just hope a majority of Oregonians understand when it comes to issues of war and peace, there's no issue of greater gravity on your heart and mind," said Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), who must stand for reelection next year in a swing state.
"Oregonians are patriots and want to fight the war on terror, but they don't like the way this war has mutated," added Smith, once a war supporter but now an anguished foe.
Even before the Senate takes up a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush's deployment of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, four distinct camps have developed:See Post Graphic Presentation Here:
Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Rightby Robin MorganSeptember 2006 - ISBN: 1560259485[buy it now online]
Most Americans lack the tools for arguing with the religious right, especially when fundamentalist conservatives claim their positions originated with the framers of the Constitution.
Until now...
The religious right is gaining enormous power in the United States, thanks to a well-organized, media savvy movement with powerful friends in high places. Yet many Americans--observant and secular--are alarmed by this trend, especially by efforts to erase the boundary between church and state, re-making the United States into a "Christian nation."
In Fighting Words, Robin Morgan has assembled a toolkit for arguing, a verbal karate guide: a lively, accessible, eye-opening collection revealing what the framers (and other leading Americans) really believed--in their own words. She resurrects the Founders as the revolutionaries they were: "A hodgepodge of free-thinkers, Deists, agnostics, Christians, atheists, Freemasons--and radicals."
Robin Morgan is an award-winning writer, political analyst, journalist, feminist leader and editor of the now-classic anthologies Sisterhood is Powerful, Sisterhood is Global, and Sisterhood is Forever. Her latest books include A Hot January: Poems, Saturday's Child: A Memoir; her best-selling The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism; and a new novel, The Burning Time. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Prize (Poetry) and numerous other honors, she lives in New York City. Visit her website at www.robinmorgan.us.
Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman, said no specific decisions had been made related to binding troop withdrawals. Other House leaders said they will not rush toward a legislative confrontation. Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense, are holding extensive hearings on the state of the U.S. military and the impact of further deployments, in the hope of building a political case for such a confrontation. But no proposals have emerged from those efforts.
"My position is and has been, we're holding hearings now. We need to hear from Mr. Skelton, Mr. Murtha and others as to . . . their conclusions and recommendations. Until then, the answer is no," House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said when asked if the House was ready for such legislation.
Not all Republicans are expected to sign on, however. Some believe that the buildup is a worthy cause that should be given a chance. "The critics stop short of offering any constructive alternatives," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). "All they have done is just criticize." Cornyn was assembling his own proposal that endorses Bush's strategy, while calling on the Iraqi government to assume responsibility for security throughout the country by November.
Author encourages impeachment vote
The Barre Montpelier Times Argus - 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
BELLOWS FALLS -- One of the leaders of the national grassroots movement to impeach President George W. Bush told a gathering Saturday afternoon that the Vermont Legislature could be a leader to the rest of the country. ... - By SUSAN SMALLHEER Herald Staff
Washington Post Staff WriterMonday, February 5, 2007; 6:46 AM
These days, many in the media seem to be writing off President Bush.
"The American people basically fired George Bush in the last election," writes New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. "We're now just watching him clean out his desk."
"A lot of Americans consider this presidency over," says CNN's Bill Schneider.
"If America were a parliamentary democracy, we would have a no-confidence vote and a new prime minister by spring," writes New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin.
Are these and other pundits giving us the unvarnished truth, that we are witnessing the historic collapse of a presidency? Or is this the triumph of quick-draw, poll-driven journalism?
But the gibes keep on coming. "If we had a straight dictatorship," writes the New Republic's Jonathan Chait, "Bush would long ago have been dragged out of the White House either by an angry mob or by disgruntled generals." (Not that he's in favor of either.)
Chait agrees in an interview that the president still has power, but notes: "Psychologically, it does feel that people are starting to move past Bush. No one has changed his mind about Bush in the last two years. It's kind of boring to write about him anymore because he's so unchanging."
Fred Barnes, the Weekly Standard's executive editor, says Bush will concentrate on such areas as tightening control of regulatory policy to end-run a Democratic Congress. "The Republicans learned in the '90s -- and the press should have learned as well -- that presidents have great inherent powers," he says.
But "Nancy Pelosi at the moment is a more interesting story than George Bush. She's new, she's attractive and she has an agenda."
The media, as always, are mesmerized by polls. When Bush was riding high in the "Mission Accomplished" days of 2003, some of the coverage was almost giddy.
The media, as always, are mesmerized by polls. When Bush was riding high in the "Mission Accomplished" days of 2003, some of the coverage was almost giddy.
If Bush's current approval ratings were at 50 percent, his media portrayal would look very different. With the president having sunk as low as 28 percent in a CBS News survey, it is all too easy to dismiss him, even as he mounts an escalation of the war in Iraq.
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