Home / thinkprogress.org rss archive / September-12-2007


Boehner: Troop deaths in Iraq are ‘a small price.’
In an interview on CNN today, Wolf Blitzer asked House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) about “the Americans who are killed every month” in Iraq and “how much longer” the “military commitment is going to require?” “The investment that we’re making today will be a small price if we’re able to stop al Qaeda here,” [...]

DNI McConnell: I Lied To The Senate
Earlier this week, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell claimed the new expansive FISA legislation passed by Congress prior to the August recess — the so-called Protect America Act — had helped to thwart a an alleged terror plot in Germany.A government official later [...]

Reyes: McConnell Lied When He Claimed New FISA Law Stopped Terrorist Attack
On Monday, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell claimed that the new expansive FISA law adopted by Congress prior to the August recess was responsible for the foiling of an alleged terrorist attack in Germany. As Think Progress noted yesterday, McConnell’s testimony was later contradicted by an [...]

Oil reaches $80 a barrel for first time ever.
Oil prices jumped “above a record $80 a barrel after the government reported a surprisingly large drop in crude inventories and declines in gasoline supplies and refinery activity.”

CentCom Chief Fallon: Petraeus Is ‘An Ass-Kissing, Little Chickensh*t,’ ‘I Hate People Like That’
During the Iraq war, the Central Command (CENTCOM) head — who leads U.S. operations in the entire Middle East region — and the Multinational Force Commander (MNF) have regularly testified together about the course of the war in Iraq.Former-MNF Commander Gen. George Casey and his CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid constantly briefed Congress about the [...]

Reid announces opposition to Olson for AG.
Former Solicitor General Ted Olson “has emerged as a top contender to replace” Alberto Gonzales. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said today: “Ted Olson will not be confirmed.” “He’s a partisan, and the last thing we need as an attorney general is a partisan,” Reid explained. Democrats, including current Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy [...]

Demand An Attorney General Who Can Say No To President Bush
Democrats and Republicans alike agree that they want an independent Attorney General, who will serve the rule of law rather than just the Bush administration. When outgoing Alberto Gonzales testified before Congress in his January 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, he claimed that if confirmed, he would be Attorney General for not “only the White House,” [...]

Global warming may be like ‘nuclear war.’
A new study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies said climate change “could have global security implications on a par with nuclear war unless urgent action is taken.” The report said “global warming would hit crop yields and water availability everywhere, causing great human suffering and leading to regional strife,” adding that “65 countries [...]

Fathers of soldiers killed in Iraq
hailed their sons for speaking out. The fathers of Omar Mora and Yance Gray, the two soldiers from the 82nd Airborne who drafted a New York Times editorial criticizing the rosy assessments of the war, said they were proud of them for voicing for their opinions. New York Times Deputy Editorial Page Editor David [...]

Bush Flashback: ‘Setting A Date For Withdrawal Is Setting A Date For Failure’
Tomorrow, President Bush will deliver a prime-time address to the nation about progress in Iraq. In that speech, he is expected to endorse Gen. David Petraeus’s recommendations to bring home 30,000 troops from Iraq by July 2008.But as ThinkProgress highlighted yesterday, Bush’s announcement appears to be primarily political. In fact, the Bush administration has repeatedly [...]

Law school dean fired for liberal ‘political views.’
About a week ago, the new law school at the University of California at Irvine hired Erwin Chemerinsky, a well-known constitutional scholar, as the school’s inaugural Dean. But yesterday, Michael V. Drake, Irvine’s chancellor, fired him, “saying that he had not been aware of how Chemerinsky’s political views would make him a target for criticism [...]

CBS Defends Katie Couric’s Iraq ‘Puff Pieces’: Bloggers Are ‘Not Intelligent’
Last week, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric reported from Iraq, but her stories largely repeated the Bush administration’s talking points. On Sept. 2, Couric even admitted on CBS’s Face the Nation that her rosy reports were based on “what the U.S. military want[ed]” her to see:And so, you do see signs of life that [...]

Convicted Ney staffer avoids jail time.
Neil Volz, former chief of staff to Rep. Bob Ney, was spared jail time today and instead sentenced to two years probation, a fine of $2000, and 100 hours of community service for his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Volz had earlier argued that he should be spared prison time because he had “endured [...]

McCain ‘unapologetic’ about politicized 9/11 rally.
Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) broke “with recent campaign tradition” and held “a partisan political rally” on the sixth anniversary of 9/11. Instead of staying off the campaign trail like most other candidates, McCain “launched a seven-day ‘No Surrender’ tour at an aircraft hangar in Sioux City, Iowa, hoping to build support for the war [...]

Two Of Seven Soldiers Who Wrote New York Times Op-Ed Die In Iraq
On Aug. 19, seven active duty soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division wrote an op-ed in The New York Times called “The War As We Saw It.” The piece expressed skepticism about “recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable”: The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is [...]

ThinkFast: September 12, 2007
“Six years after the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S., it seems the media still have some educational work to do. A new CBS/New York Times poll reveals that even today, 1 in 3 Americans believe that ‘Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and [...]