Iraq outlook bleak, U.S. generals say

U.S. military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment of the war in Iraq, adding to the mood of anxiety that prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to make a trip to Baghdad last weekend to consult with Iraq's new government.

In interviews and briefings, the generals pulled back from recent suggestions -- including by some of the same officers -- that positive trends in Iraq could allow a reduction in the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq late this year or early in 2006.

One senior officer suggested that U.S. military involvement could last "many years."
Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi paramilitary police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to the insurgents and allow U.S. forces to reduce their role in fighting.
(Duluth News Tribune)

Democrats see risk in Social Security plan

After Thomas lauded that advice in his opening statement, the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., slapped him down, saying the committee’s rightful focus should be on ensuring the solvency of Social Security.

“I wish the chairman had a written statement so I could follow more clearly where you want to take the committee,” Rangel said as Thomas leaned back in his chair next to him.
(MSNBC)

Joe Conason: On Nuclear Issues Bolton’s a Failure

Of all the questions that cloud the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, the most troubling has so far received the least attention: Has he performed his current diplomatic duties competently and in accordance with U.S. policy?

The answer is a matter of profound concern, because Mr. Bolton’s job, as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, is to promote multilateral action against the proliferation of the world’s most destructive weapons. There are few officials in government with as much responsibility for the future security of this country and the world.

Specifically, Mr. Bolton is in charge of securing Russian cooperation to safeguard old Soviet stockpiles of uranium and plutonium, the core elements of nuclear weapons, from terrorists who want to inflict catastrophic harm on democratic civilization. Today, at least 300 metric tons of the stuff still remains inadequately protected.
(New York Observer)

Christian School's Students, Faculty Protesting Bush as Commencement Speaker

Calvin College may be predominantly Republican, but a visit from President George W. Bush on Saturday is stirring up some discontent among students, faculty and alumni.

One-third of the faculty members have signed a letter of protest that will appear in a half-page ad in the Grand Rapids Press on Saturday, the day Bush is to deliver the commencement address to 900 graduating seniors at Calvin. The ad cost $2,600.

"As Christians, we are called to be peacemakers and to initiate war only as a last resort," the letter says. "We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq."
More than 800 students, faculty and alumni also have signed a letter protesting Bush's visit that will appear Friday as a full-page ad in the Grand Rapids paper. The ad cost more than $9,500.

"We are alumni, students, faculty and friends of Calvin College who are deeply troubled that you will be the commencement speaker at Calvin," the letter states. "In our view, the policies and actions of your administration, both domestically and internationally over the past four years, violate many deeply held principles of Calvin College."

And about 100 students are expected to adorn their graduation gowns with armbands and buttons bearing the slogan: "God is not a Republican or Democrat."

"I'm definitely worried about a Christian school being affiliated with the Christian right," said Elise Elzinga, a 22-year-old Lambertville resident who will graduate Saturday with a degree in political science and international relations.
(Detroit Free Press)

Santorum Makes a Fool of Himself...Again!

Countered Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, "It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942." He said Democratic protests over Republican efforts to ensure confirmation votes would be like the Nazi dictator seizing Paris and then saying, "I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city. It's mine."
(AP)

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

For 15 years King Coal and Big Oil, led by the Exxon Corporation, have funded dozens of Washington think tanks stocked with aberrant scientists (known as bio-stitutes) to persuade the public and the press that the science is still out on global warming and give political cover to the industries’ indentured servants on Capitol Hill -- corporate toadies like James Inhofe and Tom DeLay.

They have also relied heavily on shills like Rush Limbaugh to delude the broader public with their junk science. Limbaugh’s 1993 book, "The Way Things Ought to Be," argues that global warming is a hoax -- a point of view he regularly espouses on his popular radio show.

Now, the very industries for which Limbaugh has ransomed his integrity are turning on him and his junk science cronies. Last month, Cinergy, one of America’s largest coal-burning utilities, devoted 35 pages of its annual report to global warming. And last week, Exxon and General Electric launched massive new campaigns to develop technology to deal with climate change. Even these companies recognize that the facts about global warming are no longer deniable and they have left loyal mouthpieces like Limbaugh high and dry.
(Huffingtonpost.com)

Froma Harrop: Liberals and Illegal Immigration

Hillary gets it. Hillary Clinton says she's against illegal immigration. And she would fine employers who hire illegal aliens. Pundits say the New York Democrat is using this hot-button issue to position herself for the 2008 presidential election. It's a way to hit Republicans from the right. Polls show huge majorities of both Republicans and Democrats oppose illegal immigration -- and are frustrated that President Bush won't do a thing to stop it. But this issue does not belong to the right. Or it shouldn't. Illegal immigration hurts most liberal causes. It depresses wages, crushes unions and kills all hope for universal health coverage. Progressives have to understand that there can be little social justice in an unregulated labor market. "Liberals are so confused on this issue," says Vernon Briggs, a labor economist at Cornell University and self-described liberal. "Immigration policy has got to be held accountable for its economic consequences."

Sydney Blumenthal: The Veneer of Fraternity

Tony Blair's near-fatal political strategy inadvertently but inevitably exposed him to the dilemma of his special relationship with George Bush. Blair had attempted to wage a campaign that skirted Iraq - which voters cited as the overriding issue for their disillusionment, with about only one-third willing to admit that they trusted the prime minister. But his invitation to the voters to vent their frustration at the beginning of the campaign - the so-called masochism strategy - naturally brought their anger over Iraq to the surface. Once he had raised the level of political toxicity, Blair simply froze.
(The Guardian)

Senate Defies Bush, Approves Highway Bill

The Republican-controlled Senate brushed aside a presidential veto threat Tuesday and passed a $295 billion highway bill, arguing that massive spending on bigger and better roads was necessary to fight congestion and unsafe roadways.

The administration, while pressing Congress to pass a new highway bill, said the Senate version was too expensive in a time of war and debt and could result in the first veto of the Bush presidency.

The vote was 89-11 with a majority of Republicans joining Democrats in approving the six-year package that the administration said was $11 billion above what it would accept.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, described himself as one of the most conservative members of Congress but said he was at odds with the administration because "there are two areas where we need to spend money. One is national defense and the other is infrastructure."
(AP)

Joe Conason: And You Thought World War II Was Over?

Historical falsification, when spoken by the President of the United States to slander one of his greatest predecessors, should not go unanswered. In a display of the extremist ideology that drives politics and policy in his administration, George W. Bush chose a platform in Latvia to repeat an old right-wing slur against Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Mr. Bush said that the 1945 Yalta conference where Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin to plan the end of the Second World War "followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact."

For the President to utter such cheap remarks about Roosevelt (and Churchill, whom he ridiculously imagines to be his model) was unfortunate. For him to utter those remarks on foreign soil, during ceremonies commemorating the end of the war fought so bravely by Roosevelt and Churchill, was unforgivable.

Mr. Bush sounded as if he (or his chief thinker, Karl Rove) had received special tutoring from noted fabulist Ann Coulter. Her regurgitation of these same themes in a book-length screed earned the repudiation of many decent conservatives and every competent historian who bothered to take notice.

Sky-High Global Consumption Stoking Environmental, Security Concerns

People are gobbling up more food, material goods, and natural resources than ever before and the worldwide pursuit of prosperity is stoking environmental and security problems, according to a new report on trends shaping the planet's future.

Increased production and consumption of everything from grain and meat to oil and cars reflects strong economic growth in 2004, says ''Vital Signs 2005'' from the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Worldwatch Institute.

But the social and environmental costs of economic growth go largely unnoticed, the report says. These include pollution, ecosystem degradation, and a growing divide between those who gain from economic growth and those who do not.

''We have by no means freed ourselves from the material world and its persistent threats,'' said Christopher Flavin, Worldwatch's president.

The study highlights the example of China, which it describes as ''a global force that is driving consumption and production of almost everything through the roof.''

Oil consumption in the world's most populous nation surged by 11 percent last year to 6.6 million barrels a day, fueling the fastest rate of increase in world oil consumption in 16 years.
(OneWorld.net)

Reid Says Showdown Imminent in Senate

Top Senate leaders declared an unsuccessful end Monday to their compromise talks over President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, despite fresh talk of a deal to clear five appeals court appointees while scuttling three others.

"I've tried to compromise and they want all or nothing, and I can't do that," Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters after a private meeting with Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
(AP)

Another Italian Aid Worker Abducted in Afghanistan

Four armed men dragged an Italian woman working for CARE International from her car in the center of Afghanistan's capital on Monday in a bold kidnapping that reinforced fears that militants or criminals are copying tactics used in Iraq.

The kidnapping followed warnings from security agencies that foreigners might be targeted in response to the arrest of a suspect in the kidnappings of three U.N. election workers last year.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction of aid worker Clementina Cantoni, 32, or demands for her release, said police and the agency's director, Paul Barker.

"Four men carrying Kalashnikovs bashed in the window of her car and took her away. They told the driver not to move or he would be shot," Barker said.
(AP)

Ex-Wife: Bush's FDA Advisor a Serial Rapist

Hager cast himself as a victim of religious persecution in his sermon. "You see...there is a war going on in this country," he said gravely. "And I'm not speaking about the war in Iraq. It's a war being waged against Christians, particularly evangelical Christians. It wasn't my scientific record that came under scrutiny [at the FDA]. It was my faith.... By making myself available, God has used me to stand in the breach.... Just as he has used me, he can use you."

Up on the dais, several men seated behind Hager nodded solemnly in agreement. But out in the audience, Linda Carruth Davis--co-author with Hager of Stress and the Woman's Body, and, more saliently, his former wife of thirty-two years--was enraged. "It was the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," she recalled months later, through clenched teeth.

According to Davis, Hager's public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible."
(The Nation)

Democrats Consider Revamping Primaries

Democrats, looking to reverse their fortunes after two straight White House defeats, met Saturday to hear competing proposals to revamp the election calendar used to choose a presidential nominee every four years.

The three major proposals would focus on regional primaries. Two of those proposals would allow Iowa and New Hampshire to retain their leadoff roles in the candidate selection process.

A third plan, offered by Michigan Democrats, would create a rotating series of six regional primaries. A different region would launch each presidential nominating season.

That plan would allow single-state contests to begin the process, but those states would be rotated. "Share the wealth," said Michigan Sen. Carl Levin "I would not lock in specific states."
(AP)

7 GOP Senators Key in Filibuster Fight

Seven Republican senators will determine the outcome of a showdown this week between the president and Congress — and a minority within it — over who is going to shape the federal courts.

Barring any unforeseen developments, these are the lawmakers in the make-or-break position when it comes to deciding whether to allow a Senate minority to block a president's nominees for the federal bench.

The senators are Susan Collins of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, John Warner of Virginia, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Sununu of New Hampshire.


(AP )