More News February 24, 2007

The Register:  Cheney Regresses on Climate Change While in Australia  Good old Cheney.  He's like a delinquent let out to play.   Now he's denying a human element in climate change a position the Bush administration left off months ago.  If the Bush administration iis really serious about turning over a new leaf and getting away from the VP's neocon control they should persuade the cantankerous old coot to spend more time with his family. 

WP:   Justice Department Fires 8th U.S. Attorney.  Second female U.S. prosecutor fired. This time over the death penalty.  The other female was Carol Lam of the San Diego area who was fired in the propaganda from the White House for failing to stop illegal immigration and gun problems (like the WH cares about that), but it is suspected because she stepped on toes of Republicans and their big donors in the area.  (Lam was responsible for the prosecution of former Representative Cunningham and has been investigating corruption charges in the San Diego area that happened to implicate big Republican donors.)

AP at Seattle PI:  Americans underestimate Iraqi death toll   Americans think less than 10,000 Iraqi civilians have died in our invasion of the oil rich country and its aftermath, even though Bush admitted 30k over 2 years ago and the UN reported at least 32k had died in 2006 alone.  Report uses  anecdote  to show that our fellow countrymen don't seem to care how many die in Iraq.  I'm wondering how  many Americans are controlled by hate radio, and TV like Fox News.  I'm thinking that it's quite a large number.  If Americans are so uninformed we should check out where they get their information.  Someone you know might not listen to hate radio and TV, but rely on their news from someone who does.  Help them understand by telling them what's really going on.  I also recommend helping friends and family understand how terrible this war has been.  I know the hate media followers are terribly argumentative and beligerent, but we stopped the Vietnam war because we were not afraid to speak up to such people, even when we were teens and in our twenties.  Mainstream can talk about Cronkite.  Mainstream news always plays up it's own importance, but here we see that though mainstream reported a month ago that civilian deaths in Iraq were over 30k in 2006 alone (UN numbers US admits to about 25k), Americans think they have been less than 10k for the entire war.  We must educate our families and friends.  Talk to them and find out what they believe and then help them get a more realistic idea of casualties and regain a common decent sensitivity.  We need to stop enabling the genocide in Iraq.

WP:  Jailing Without Trial Rejected in Canada  Six suspects still held under current conditions "for a year".  At least there is light at the end of their tunnel.

AP at MSNBC: Obama ridicules Cheney for Iraq, U.K. remarks

LAT:  Iraq Still Not Allowing Low Level Baathists Back Into Jobs.    Shiites in control keep delaying a move considered crucial to taming sectarian violence and insurgency.  Current division comes as the Shia controlled parliament has rejected reforms in the de-Baathfication program that would say only the top two tiers of former Baathists would be excluded from government sponsored jobs in the future.  (In Iraq, the government is overwhelmingly the biggest employer and will be for many years.)  Reporter Richter makes sure to let us know that the Bush administration is upset, (because, golly gee they're the good guys -- even though the Bush administration was the force behind throwing all the Baathists out of work in 2003). 

WP:  More evidence of media manipulation from the Bush administration.   Howard Kurtz reports that administration members tried to mitigate the Washington Post report on deplorable conditions at Walter Reed story by leaking WP's scoop to other news agencies with pre spin after the newspaper alerted the administration of it's pending report.  (The solution, Mainstream Journalists, is to stop submitting your reports to the Bush administration for approval and rebuttal.  Stand on your own two feet and be real reporters who don't need Papa Rove's and Mama Snow's blessing.)

AP at  Seattle PI:  Iran links undercut Romney's recent plea   Article uses a lot of words to report that  MItt Romney, a Republican running for the party's nomination as candidate for president advises state pension funds to remove investments with companies doing business with Iraq, but businesses that Mr. Romney ran and is likely to still have holdings in (in "blind trust") have recently (2004 )have done business with Iran or sought to do business with companies doing business in Iran (2005).   Though his holdings are in blind trust and he is no longer CEO of one of the companies and president of the other, the former governor is suspected of giving the two companies a pass by  only  including companies that have dealings with Iran in the future.  Article notes that Iran was first put on the axis of evil list by a Republican president in 2002.  Therefore, if a Republican says avoid companies dealing with A of E nations, then when does another Republican start listening to him?  Only when a Republican candidate is running for president?

WP:  Diplomacy, Not War, With Iran   Democrat Bill Richardson says that successful negotiations with North Korea show that if they leave the hard part to smart professionals instead of their knee jerk neocons like John Bolton, they can actually do diplomacy, and they should try it with Iran.  (Well I may have added a few words and left out others.  Read source at link.

St. Bernard Parish (New Orleans) opening way to seize properties that are not cleaned up.   Fine of $100 a day made permanent.  After 10 days a $1000 lien is placed on the property.  When the total reaches the value of the home, the parish can seize the property through the courts.  According to the Cox.net New Orleans this seems to be about cutting lawns and cleaning up debris and securing buildings.  I don't know how this fits into the program in New Orleans and St. B Parish that has landed 8400 St. Bernards residences on a knock down list due to "failure to gut" by August 29, 2006.   Now if you were sent hundreds of miles away and your NO job was destroyed by the hurricane, and the government and or insurance is delaying giving you the money you need to clean and restore your property, then how are you supposed to clean up, gut and secure your home?  I have heard from people that the poor were being systemically blocked from returning to New Orleans.  I didn't understand what they were talking about.  But now that I've heard about the refusal to open up the public housing from which poor home owners might have a chance to fix and reclaim their houses, and hey, poor people could return to "their" city. Now I understand.  NO is to be disneyized.  These laws make eminent domain look quite palatable.  Forget being given money when they take your house.  If you're poor in N.O. they could just take the house.

AP at Seattle PI:  Security scanner can see through clothes

tags: iraq  mitt romney  iran  war  new orleans  bush  bubhs administration  cheney  obama  barack obama  climate change  

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