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In true Bush form, the administration has decided it is not going to let our elected officials actually see the draft security Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that lays out the conditions under which some 140,000 U.S troops and tens of thousands of American contractors can operate in Iraq beginning Jan.1. The agreement — contrary [...]
Filed under: Iraq
With their prospects for fleecing the U.S government in Iraq beyond 2009 drying up, Blackwater Worldwide is diversifying like mad. First it was flying spy machines, today it’s angling to train soldiers in Darfur and providing sellswords for international shipping companies trying to avoid pirates on the high seas. With a federal murder indictment over [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized
Change we can believe in! Well, maybe a little bit. Washington feels very different. I’m sure there are a lot of things about the Obama administration I will hate. But, for a moment, let’s feel optimistic. Yesterday Trita Parsi’s National Iranian American Council held a big conference on how the [...]
Filed under: Congress, Foreign policy
While I normally think that armed intervention in other peoples’ quarrels generally turns out poorly, there are times when a little overwhelming force can be salutary. The current situation with pirates operating freely out of Somalia, which has no effective government, begs for just such a solution. The pirates use well established and well known bases along the coast. The bases [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized
With an attitude like this, Rich Lowry should wish they elected Democrats more often:
““I’m excited about going forward,” Mr. Lowry said. “There’s a lot of gallows humor. Every conservative I talk to is saying: ‘This is going to be great for you guys. Circulation is going to go up.’ ”
This is from the New York Times [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized
People who say ‘Where’s the change?’ need only look at the president of the United States . . . the person at the top who sets the tone and the priorities.”
–Obama advisor Anita Dunn, regarding the prevalence of familiar Washington insiders in the incoming administration
Update: Change in Action
Filed under: Uncategorized
A Texas grand jury has indicted Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and a Lone Star state senator for crimes involving the abuse of prisoners here in the U.S. From what we hear, this concerns a practice that has been called “domestic rendition,” though it doesn’t have anything (directly) to do with the war on terror. A [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized
Like a massively less successful version of the Clintons, Alan Keyes just never goes away. The perennial electoral failure–who got 35, 000 votes in this month’s contest, with the help of the Christian Falangist Party–and his America’s Independence Party are now suing President-elect Obama to prove his U.S. citizenship before January 20th. “I and [...]
Filed under: Election, Uncategorized
The Obama team is taking shape and the new rainbow coalition will include maverick Republicans who see the light. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have already confirmed the same leadership team that lost earlier this month while the Great White Hope of the GOP is in Alaska writing her book, with a little help from her friends no doubt. Hillary [...]
Filed under: Immigration, Uncategorized
Understandably, Republicans are seething.
When Hank Paulson demanded $700 billion to haul away the trash in the dumpsters of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs — assuring us we could hold a garage sale of the junk — they rebelled. They acted as the nation, by 100 to one, demanded. They killed the Wall Street bailout.
The Dow [...]