Home / thinkprogress.org rss archive / September-18-2007


Public not buying Bush spin.
This evening, CNN ran a report on new poll numbers from CBS that show the American public was unmoved on Iraq by the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and President Bush’s speech. The National Journal writes that Bush’s spin is “falling on deaf ears.” A key takeaway: Before the administration’s PR offensive, 35 percent of [...]

U.S. Suspends ‘Land Travel’ Outside The Green Zone For Civilian And Diplomatic Officials
Today, the United States “suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials throughout Iraq, except in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.” The move comes days after Blackwater USA was “allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an attack on a U.S. State Department motorcade.” From the State Department’s notice: [...]

Bush Administration Flooding Iraqi Black Market With Billions Of Dollars In Weapons
In his testimony before Congress last week, Gen. David Petraeus confirmed that the United States plans to sell billions of dollars of weapons to Iraq: Iraq is becoming one of the United States’ larger foreign military sales customers, committing some 1.6 billion (dollars) to FMS already, with the possibility of up to 1.8 billion [...]

McConnell Admits It Was A ‘Judgment Call’ To Selectively Declassify Intelligence To Media
In an August interview with the El Paso Times, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell “raised eyebrows” by “pulling the curtain back” and revealing several previously classified details of government surveillance. As Spencer Ackerman observed, McConnell declassified more that day than he did during “the entire Congressional debate.”Under questioning from Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a [...]

ThinkProgress Introduces New Comments System
ThinkProgress is elated to announce important, new changes to our comments section, including comments registration.As frequent visitors of this blog are well aware, the feedback in the comments section often fails to adhere to our Terms of Use. Our new comments system will more strictly enforce these guidelines. Here are the new features you need [...]

McConnell: ‘very small number’ of Americans spied on.
During his testimony about warrantless surveillance today before the House Judiciary Committee, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said that out of the “billions” of conversations and e-mails intercepted abroad, only “a very small number” of Americans are “overheard.” McConnell gave no indication, however, of what he considered “small” to be, relative to “billions” of [...]

Waxman: State Dept. Watchdog’s ‘Foremost Mission Is To Support The Bush Administration’
The Inspector General Act of 1978 states Inspectors General (IG) must be “independent and objective” in their analysis. The State Department IG, led by Howard Krongard, has a core mission of “promot[ing] integrity” and “prevent[ing] and detect waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement” within the Department.But today, House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote to [...]

Help restore the Constitution.
Yesterday, Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) reintroduced the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act as an amendment to a defense authorization bill, restoring the right of habeas corpus to detainees charged as “enemy combatants.” Firedoglake notes that Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) has already threatened to filibuster the bill. Call your senators (information HERE) urge [...]

CNN: Only Pro-War Demonstrators Are ‘Troop Supporters’
Reporting on the war demonstrations in Washington D.C. this past weekend, CNN’s Kathleen Koch perpetrated the falsehood that pro-war demonstrators support the troops while anti-war demonstrators do not.In her report, Koch starts off talking about the thousands of anti-war demonstrators. She then proceeds to “balance out” the report with news on the much smaller counter-demonstration, [...]

DC voting rights bill fails.
Today, a majority of the Senate voted 57 to 42 to give DC congressional representation. But it failed to get the 60 votes needed to overcome Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) filibuster. Full roll call HERE. UPDATE: “The fat lady has not sung yet, this war is not over,” said DC Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) [...]

Specter quietly boosts abstinence funding.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) added more than two dozen earmarks for abstinence education to the “Labor and Health and Human Services appropriations measure that passed the panel in June.” His requests totalled more than $1 million. He is the only lawmaker to sponsor such a spending request abstinence education.

Abizaid: In ‘The Battle Of Words,’ Phrases Like ‘Islamic Extremism’ Alienate ‘Mainline Islam’
In July, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani complained that Democratic presidential candidates avoided using formulations of the term “Islamic extremists,” saying “I can’t imagine who you insult if you say Islamic terrorist“:“During their two debates they never mentioned the word Islamic terrorist, Islamic extremist, Islamic fascist, terrorist, whatever combination of those words you [...]

The 22 most corrupt members of Congress.
Today, the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington put out its third annual report on the most corrupt members of Congress, Beyond DeLay: The 22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and two to watch). The bipartisan list includes Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ), Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), and [...]

U.S. turns up ‘anti-Shi’ite propaganda’ in Iraq.
In a post at Danger Room today, Noah Shachtman, who recently visited Iraq, describes how the effort to turn Sunni groups against Al Qaeda in Iraq relies on “a steady diet of anti-Shi’ite propaganda” that could be creating the conditions for “an all-in sectarian battle royale”:I worry that’ll be the case on the political scene, [...]

Bush Expresses Desire To Serve In Iraq, Except Im Too Old And Terrorists Would Notice Me
The Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin highlights comments made recently by President Bush to a group of military bloggers. Blogger “N.Z. Bear” reported that Bush told the group he wishes he could be serving in Iraq — except that he’s too old:Responding to one of the bloggers in Iraq he expressed envy that they could be [...]

Leahy: No hearings until White House hands over records.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is demanding the White House turn over information necessary to complete a number of Judiciary Committee investigations into Alberto Gonzales’ tenure at the DoJ. “All I want is the material we need to ask some questions about the former attorney general’s conduct, on torture and warrantless wiretapping, so [...]

U.S. Attorney Paulose Dresses Down Employee Using Terms ‘Fat,’ ‘Black,’ ‘Lazy,’ And ‘Ass’
Eric Black at the Minnesota Monitor writes that the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, Rachel Paulose, is under investigation. The federal Office of Special Counsel is looking into allegations that she “mishandled classified information, decided to fire the subordinate who called it to her attention, retaliated against others in the office who crossed her, and made [...]

Fox’s ‘balanced’ analysis of Petraeus’ testimony.
Last week, after Gen. David Petraeus gave his status report on Iraq in testimony to the House, Media Matters pointed out that seven out of eight analysts featured by Fox News that day were pro-escalation. The cable news network even cut away to Ann Coulter when war critics questioned Petraeus. Brave New Films released a [...]

ThinkFast: September 18, 2007
The White House has “told nearly a dozen Cabinet secretaries to send letters to Capitol Hill” rejecting Congress’s proposed new funds for their agencies. The “carefully scripted letters” warn lawmakers that their moves would harm “agency operations” and the “integrity of the budget process.” Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) responded that he was “disappointed” in their [...]

Poll: Americans unhappy with Bush policy after Iraq speech.
In a new CBS poll released yesterday, most Americans “say the plan President Bush announced last week for troop reductions doesn’t go far enough. … Nearly half want Mr. Bush to remove even more troops by next summer than he proposed in his address. Forty-seven percent say the plan to bring troop numbers down to [...]