Combat troops out of Iraq by 2008.
The Washington Post reports, “The bipartisan Iraq Study Group plans to recommend withdrawing nearly all U.S. combat units from Iraq by early 2008 while leaving behind troops to train, advise and support the Iraqis, setting the first goal for a major drawdown of U.S. forces, sources familiar with the proposal said yesterday.” The pull-out would be “more a conditional goal than a firm timetable.”
MSNBC describes Bush position as “similar” to withdrawal.
Media Matters: “On the same day that President Bush said, ‘We’re going to stay in Iraq to get the job done,’ MSNBC correspondent Jeannie Ohm described the reported forthcoming recommendation by the Iraq Study Group for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq as ‘similar to what the president has been saying.’”
Iraqi PM Maliki “faced a widening revolt
within his divided government as two senior Sunni politicians joined prominent Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet members in criticizing his policies,” the AP reports. “Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi said he wanted to see al-Maliki’s government gone and another ‘understanding’ for a new coalition put in place with guarantees that ensure collective decision making.”
Alberto Gonzales Can’t Name A Mistake He’s Made
Alberto Gonzales Can’t Name A Mistake He’s Made
Today on CNN’s Situation Room, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked if he could think of a single mistake he’s made during his service to President Bush during the last six years. He couldn’t do it.
Gonzales told Wolf Blitzer, “I think that you and I would — I’d have to spend some time thinking about that.” He added, “Obviously I’ve made some recommendations to my client. Some of those recommendations have not been supported in the courts. In hindsight, you sometimes wonder, well, perhaps, perhaps the recommendation should have been something different.” Watch it:
Full transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
Moqtada al-Sadr is “not a big problem
and we will find a solution” for dealing with him, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today. A senior U.S. intelligence official estimates that “the militia of radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr has grown eightfold over the past year and now fields 40,000 to 60,000 men. That makes it more effective than the Iraqi government’s army, the official indicated.”
ABC’s The Note Decrees ‘Politically, American Involvement In The Iraq War Is Over’
ABC’s The Note Decrees ‘Politically, American Involvement In The Iraq War Is Over’
The self-fashioned political swamis at ABC’s political unit write today:
We think it was The Note that once wrote “politically, American involvement in the Iraq war is over.” That is more true today than it was yesterday, and it will be even more true next week when the Iraq Study Group dog-and-pony-with-a-purpose turns on the TV lights, and even more so when the Democratic majority rules the roost come January.
American political involvement in the Iraq war is over? That may be the conclusion of a publication that does not need to source its opinions, but all evidence indicates that the debate over Iraq will intensify, not wane.
President Bush has claimed the actual American involvement in Iraq will not be over any time soon. “We’re not leaving [Iraq] so long as I’m the president,” he said.
Most congressional Democrats, who were propelled into the majority by an American public tired of “stay the course,” have consolidated behind a plan of a phased withdrawal. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), on the other hand, is clamoring for a phased escalation with the support of some conservative allies. There have been suggestions that McCain’s plan is being given serious consideration.
But don’t worry yourself with these clashing proposals. The political debate is over.
Storm World.
Chris Mooney, author of “The Republican War on Science,” has a new book coming out next year: “Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming.” Check it out.
Things are tough in Iraq,
but life at the White House holiday reception is good. Check out the menu.
Right-Wing Radio Host Fabricates Controversy To Attack First Muslim Congressman
Right-Wing Radio Host Fabricates Controversy To Attack First Muslim Congressman
Right-wing radio host Dennis Prager wrote a column earlier this week claiming that Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to Congress, had “announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.” Prager claimed this “act undermines American civilization,” and compared it to being sworn in with a copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
Bloggers on the left and right — including Taylor Marsh, Steven Benen, Eugene Volokh, Stephen Bainbridge — have torn apart Prager’s argument on constitutional grounds.
But Prager’s column is based on one other glaring error: the swearing-in ceremony for the House of Representatives never includes a religious book. The Office of the House Clerk confirmed to ThinkProgress that the swearing-in ceremony consists only of the Members raising their right hands and swearing to uphold the Constitution. The Clerk spokesperson said neither the Christian Bible, nor any other religious text, had ever been used in an official capacity during the ceremony. (Occassionally, Members pose for symbolic photo-ops with their hand on a Bible.)
Below, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) is sworn in last year by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) with his hand on the rostrum:
Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
has released a report baselessly claiming that illegal immigrants have murdered more Americans this year than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002.
Administration Lawyer Claims Link Between CO2 and Warming ‘Cannot Unequivocally Be Established’
Administration Lawyer Claims Link Between CO2 and Warming ‘Cannot Unequivocally Be Established’
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Massachusetts v. EPA. The outcome of the case will “likely determine whether the [Environmental Protection Agency] can regulate [greenhouse gas emissions] from power plants and other industries.”
Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, who argued the case for the administration, admitted to the Justices that he had limited knowledge of climate science. “I am not an expert on global climate change,” Garre said.
Despite being uninformed in this “extraordinarily complex area of science,” Garre tried to introduce an element of doubt into the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. From Slate’s account of the arguments:
Justice Stephen Breyer lights into Garre for some of the agency’s silly reasoning in declining to regulate the emissions. When Garre says that scientific uncertainty alone can justify the EPA’s refusal to regulate, Justice John Paul Stevens asks whether it matters that even the scientists who worked on the National Research Counsel study on global warming felt there was less scientific uncertainty than the EPA claimed. Garre insists that there is a “likely connection” between greenhouse gases and global warming but that “it cannot unequivocally be established.”
There is no doubt among the experts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body which involves thousands of scientists from over 120 countries who develop detailed reports on climate change, produced a report in 2001 which was reviewed by more than 1,000 top experts, including so-called “climate skeptics” and representatives from industry. The report stated, “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”
Most recently, the National Academy of Sciences unequivocally concluded that natural causes cannot explain the unprecedented warmth over the last 400 years, and “human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.”
Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)
has hired criminally-indicted ex-Rep. Tom DeLay’s (R-TX) former spokesman Kevin Madden to help gear up for his presidential run, the AP reports.
UPDATE: Ezra Klein writes, “Mitt Romney has named his two primary economic advisors for the 2008 campaign, and, to his credit, they’re proponents of, quite arguably, the most politically radioactive ideas in economics.”
O’Reilly Momentarily Joins ‘War on Christmas,’ Says His Show Is Gearing Up ‘For The Holidays’
O’Reilly Momentarily Joins ‘War on Christmas,’ Says His Show Is Gearing Up ‘For The Holidays’
Last night, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly — who has said the phrase “Happy Holidays” is “insulting to Christian America” — announced that his show is gearing up “for the holidays.” After an awkward pause, O’Reilly apparently remembered that we are in the middle of a “War on Christmas” and tried to fix his mistake. He added, “…and Christmas and Chanukah.” Watch it:
O’Reilly didn’t fully recover from his gaffe, stumbling over his own e-mail address and reassuring viewers, “I know my own [web] address.”
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
Bush Kneecaps Iraq Study Group: There Will Be No ‘Graceful Exit From Iraq’
Bush Kneecaps Iraq Study Group: There Will Be No ‘Graceful Exit From Iraq’
The Iraq Study Group will release its recommendations on Dec. 6. The New York Times reports that the commission will “will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal.”
Today, in a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Bush sought to dismiss the commission’s recommendations before they have been officially released. Bush said, “I know there’s a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there’s going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq. We’re going to stay in Iraq to get the job done.” Watch it:
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
ThinkFast: November 30, 2006
The Iraq Study Group “reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal.” The “implicit message” of the report is that the pullback process “should begin sometime next year.”
“Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I’m not a scientist,” Justice Antonin Scalia said yesterday after a lawyer corrected a misstatement. “That’s why I don’t want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth.”
Senior State Department analyst Kendall Myers called Tony Blair’s relationship with President Bush “totally one-sided.” Myers said “we typically ignore them and take no notice - it’s a sad business,” and he admitted feeling “a little ashamed” of the way Bush has treated Blair.
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) has decided to divest “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in his own mutual funds from “companies that do business with Sudan.” “With so many lives at stake, we should do all we can to stop this genocide, both as individuals and as a community,” Brownback said.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), whose tenure as chairman of Senate intelligence since 2002 led his panel to be nicknamed the Senate Cover-Up Committee, “may be looking for an exit” from the committee. Read the rest of this entry »
Americans see civil war in Iraq, want to withdraw.
According to a new Harris poll, 68 percent of Americans say they believe there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 14 percent who disagree. Only 13 percent think new Defense nominee Robert Gates will make the situation in Iraq better, versus 42 percent who think he will make no difference. “About half of those polled would like the government to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq, while 18% favor withdrawing all U.S. troops now and 19% favor sending more troops to stabilize the situation.”
San Diego bans Wal-Mart, other ‘big-box’ stores.
The San Diego City Council “voted late Tuesday to ban certain giant retail stores, dealing a blow to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s potential to expand in the nation’s eighth-largest city.”
Also today, WakeUpWalMart released the first ad in its “Hope For The Holidays” campaign. Watch it:
Supreme Court divided over landmark global warming case.
“The nine-member US Supreme Court appeared split as it took up the debate over global warming, with rival lawyers arguing whether some greenhouse gas emissions should be regulated.” The AP reports that the Court’s “conservative members seemed to recoil at the idea of government regulation, while their liberal colleagues openly embraced it.” The “pivotal swing vote,” Justice Anthony Kennedy, “did not reveal where he stood.”
UPDATE: More analysis of Kennedy’s role in the case at SCOTUSBlog.
Pentagon plans Iraq escalation.
“The Pentagon is developing plans to send four more battalions to Iraq early next year, partly to boost security in Baghdad, defense officials said Wednesday.” The AP reports that the “extra combat engineer battalions of reserves, likely to be sent to Baghdad, would total about 3,500 troops.”
Right-Wing Attack On Pelosi Over ‘Union Hypocrisy’ Systematically Debunked
Right-Wing Attack On Pelosi Over ‘Union Hypocrisy’ Systematically Debunked
House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has made passing critical labor reforms, like raising the minimum wage and enacting the Employee Free Choice Act, a priority for the 110th Congress. To distract from that effort, right-wing media outlets are now engaged in an effort to tar Pelosi as anti-worker.
The conservative claim, initiated by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer, is that Pelosi and her husband are guilty of hypocrisy over workers’ rights because they own a vineyard in Napa Valley that is non-union. The claim has filtered up through the blogs to Fox News and conservative print outlets like Investor’s Business Daily.
Last night, the ABC News affiliate in San Francisco filed an investigative report that systematically debunks the charge. Watch it:
Here are the key facts:
1) Pelosi treats her workers better than unionized vineyard workers. “The Pelosis pay more than union workers are paid in the same valley — that from the pastor at St. Helena’s Catholic Church, a well known advocate for farm workers who’s involved in labor negotiations with the same labor manager the Pelosis use. … Monsignor Brenkle says the Pelosis pay a $1.25 an hour more than workers at Napa’s biggest union winery. … Of the more than 300 vineyards, fewer than four are union, and most of the farm workers in the Napa Valley get paid better.”
2) Pelosi is prohibited by law from helping her workers unionize. If Pelosi wanted to have union workers, “she could not ask the union for a contract. It’s illegal and has been since 1975.” Marc Grossman of the United Farm Workers Union explains: “It is patently illegal for any grower to even discuss a union contract, which is the only way you can supply union workers, without the workers first having voted in a state conducted secret ballot election.”
An ABC News reporter asked Peter Schweizer “if he had researched those facts before he called Pelosi a hypocrite.” Schweitzer responded, “It’s not my responsibility to go and find out how every single particular circumstance is handled on the Pelosi vineyard.” Why burden yourself with the facts?
Board that protested peace wreath resigns.
“Last week, a couple were threatened with fines of $25 a day by their homeowners’ association unless they removed a four-foot wreath shaped like a peace symbol from the front of their house,” the New York Times reports. “The fines have been dropped, and the three-member board of the association has resigned, according to an e-mail message sent to residents on Monday.”
Bartlett On Cancelled Maliki Meeting: ‘It Was Going To Be More Of A Social Meeting Anyway’
Bartlett On Cancelled Maliki Meeting: ‘It Was Going To Be More Of A Social Meeting Anyway’
Today’s widely anticipated meeting between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki was abruptly canceled. CNN suggests that it “was put off to Thursday after a U.S. memo cast doubt on al-Maliki’s ability to deal with the sectarian warfare in Iraq.” Bush counselor Dan Bartlett put that speculation to rest with this clear explanation:
BARTLETT: The President is going to have a bilateral and dinner with the King of Jordan. Since the King of Jordan and Prime Minister Maliki had a bilateral themselves, earlier today, everybody believed that negated the purpose for the three of them to meet tonight, together, in a trilateral setting. So the plan, according to — since they had such a good, productive bilateral discussion, was just for the President to deal with bilateral issues and other issues with the King this evening in a dinner setting, and then the meetings set for tomorrow will still take place as scheduled.
Is that clear? No? Ok, here’s more Bartlett:
QUESTION: The King and the Prime Minister had a meeting, but the Prime Minister hasn’t seen the President since he got here, and the President changed his schedule to come here for this meeting.
BARTLETT: The President requested the meeting. This was the President requesting the meeting with the Prime Minister. And the substantive meetings on Iraq — look, they were not going to be doing a full detail discussion in a trilateral setting about Iraq and the future of Iraq and the strategy anyway, that just wouldn’t be appropriate. So it was going to be more of a social meeting anyways. But the fact that they had already had a good meeting together, felt like it negated the purpose to doing so. And the President and Prime Minister Maliki will have a very robust and lengthy dialogue tomorrow morning.
So the President flew to Jordan to have a “social meeting” with Maliki, which Maliki decided not to attend. There’s nothing more to it. That should put all the speculation to rest.
“Atrocities are occurring daily in Sudan’s Darfur region
and rape and pillage directed against civilians are at ‘a horrific level,’ United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said on Wednesday.” “In a separate news conference, outgoing U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland said tens of thousands of people driven from their homes have been dying from hunger and disease in a crisis that was growing worse by the day.”
Bush-Maliki meeting postponed.
The White House says President Bush’s talks with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki have been “put off until Thursday,” Fox News reports.
Regional war?
“Using money, weapons or its oil power, Saudi Arabia will intervene to prevent Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias from massacring Iraqi Sunni Muslims once the United States begins pulling out of Iraq, a security adviser to the Saudi government said on Wednesday.”
Miami is “as bad as any ghetto in any Third World country,”
says Carlos Espinosa, spokesman for Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who stands by his earlier comments comparing Miami to a “Third World Country.” Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) called Tancredo’s comments “disappointing” and “naive.”
Powell: Iraq Is In A Civil War And Bush Should Stop Denying It
Powell: Iraq Is In A Civil War And Bush Should Stop Denying It
Speaking with CNN reporter Hala Gorani in Dubai today, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Iraq’s violence meets the standard of a civil war and thinks President Bush needs to acknowledge that. According to Gorani’s report, Powell said if he were heading the State Department right now, he would recommend that the Bush administration adopt that language “in order to come to terms with the reality on the ground.” Watch it:
Full transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
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