"Kick the darkness till it bleeds daylight." - Bruce Cockburn
With McCain at his side, Giuliani called the Arizona senator "the most qualified candidate to be the next Commander in Chief of the United States." - AP
...We don't turn away from a neighbor in their time of need. Because every one of us knows that what -- but for the grace of God, there goes us. The American people have never stopped doing this, even when their government walked away, and walked away it has from hardworking people, and, yes, from the poor, those who live in poverty in this country.
For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles. They didn't register in political polls, they didn't get us votes and so we stopped talking about it. I don't know how it started. I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat.
We know that our brothers and sisters have been bullied into believing that they can't organize and can't put a union in the workplace. Well, in this campaign, we didn't turn our heads. We looked them square in the eye and we said, "We see you, we hear you, and we are with you. And we will never forget you." And I have a feeling that if the leaders of our great Democratic Party continue to hear the voices of working people, a proud progressive will occupy the White House.
Now, I've spoken to both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. They have both pledged to me and more importantly through me to America, that they will make ending poverty central to their campaign for the presidency.
And more importantly, they have pledged to me that as President of the United States they will make ending poverty and economic inequality central to their Presidency. This is the cause of my life and I now have their commitment to engage in this cause.
"Let us create a new international clean technology fund, which will help developing nations like India and China make greater use of clean energy sources. And let us complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases. This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride. The United States is committed to strengthening our energy security and confronting global climate change. And the best way to meet these goals is for America to continue leading the way toward the development of cleaner and more efficient technology." - SOTU
Reid Issues Ultimatum: More Time Or No Wiretaps
At a State of the Union preview speech today at the National Press Club, Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a dramatic ultimatum to President Bush: either sign an extension of the Protect America Act (which sets conditions for the administration's warrantless surveillance) or "there will be no wiretapping."
"It's up to the president," Reid announced during a question and answer session. "Does he want the law? It's up to him." Reid said Bush needs to sign the extension to give more time for the Senate to reach a compromise on a new bill. Senate Republicans this week obstructed every effort for amendments to be made to the pending FISA legislation.
"If it fails, he can give all the speeches he wants, including the State of the Union, about how we've stopped things," Reid said. "If he does that, it's disingenuous, and it's not true."
Immigration officials detaining, deporting American citizens
FLORENCE, Ariz. — Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement had held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a U.S. citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona.
On Thursday, Warziniack was told he would be released. Immigration authorities were finally able to verify his citizenship.
In Washington today, telecom lobbyists have launched a full-court press to win retroactive immunity for their illegal eavesdropping on American citizens. Granting retroactive immunity will let corporate law-breakers off the hook and hamstring efforts to learn the truth about Bush's illegal spying program.
"It's time for Senate Democrats to show a little backbone and stand up to George W. Bush and the corporate lobbyists. They should do everything in their power -- including joining Senator Dodd's efforts to filibuster this legislation -- to stop retroactive immunity. The Constitution should not be for sale at any price."
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."
The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.
"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.
The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."
Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.
Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Source
"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people." - Fred Thompson
BILL MOYERS: But some of your critics have said you've gone beyond investigative reporting in this book to become a crusader against the rich. do you object to people getting rich?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Oh, no. I-- good grief. I have no objection to that whatsoever. But get rich by working hard, working smarter, coming up with a better mousetrap. Don't get rich by getting the government to pass a law that sticks the government's hand into my pocket, takes money out of it, and gives it to you. That's not right. That's not a fair playing field. And Adam Smith, you know, warned again and again that it is the nature and tendency of business people to want to put their thumb on the scale, and even better, to get the government to put the thumb on the scale for their benefit. And that's what we've seen going on now in our society for some time.
MR. FRATTO: I think our review of this...I think to the best of what all the analysis we've been able to do, we have absolutely no reason to believe that any emails are missing...we have no reason to believe that any email at all are missing.
Q So where are they?
MR. FRATTO: Where are what? - Source
[W]e've had a federal government that I think has gotten worn down and ineffective during the course of the Bush Administration -- partly because philosophically this administration did not necessarily believe in government as an agent of change.
But it precedes the Bush administration.
I think that one of the missions I have as president is to, not create a bigger government, but to restore some luster to the federal government. To recruit the best and the brightest, and to say that service in federal government is something that is critically important to the well-being of the American people, and by the way, to the well-being of the marketplace.
We're now seeing the consequences, on the home foreclosure situation here in Nevada, of a lack of oversight. That's not to excuse the responsibility of speculators or financial markets.
But the fact of the matter is we weren't paying attention at the federal level, the agencies in charge, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Fed, others could have foreseen this happening. There had been warnings about it. But because either of a lack of a capacity, or lack of political will, it didn't happen.
That's something that I want to change. I want to make government cool again.
White House Study Found 473 Days of E-Mail Gone
The White House possesses no archived e-mail messages for many of its component offices, including the Executive Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President, for hundreds of days between 2003 and 2005, according to the summary of an internal White House study that was disclosed yesterday by a congressional Democrat.
The internal study found that for Bush's executive office, no e-mails were archived on 12 separate days between December 2003 and February 2004, Waxman said. Vice President Cheney's office showed no electronic messages on 16 occasions from September 2003 to May 2005.
Archived e-mails were missing from even more days in other parts of the White House, the analysis found. The Council on Environmental Quality and the Council of Economic Advisers, for example, showed no stored e-mails for 2 1/2 months beginning in November 2003. The Office of Management and Budget showed no messages for 59 days -- including the period from Nov. 1, 2003, to Dec. 9, 2003 -- and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative showed no e-mail for 73 days.
The administration has so far refused to release the study and a number of documents related to it, including a large summary chart used in a closed-door briefing conducted for Waxman and other lawmakers last September by Emmet T. Flood, special counsel to the president.
The event had tremendous symbolic importance, pitting the intensely individualistic young American against a product of the grim and soulless Soviet Union.
Former GOP Congressman charged in terrorism case
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al Qaeda and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.
The former Republican congressman from Michigan, Mark Deli Siljander, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.
A 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Missouri, accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying -- money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Siljander, who served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, was appointed by President Reagan to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations for one year in 1987.
He could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
The charges are part of a long-running case against the charity, which was formerly based in Columbia, Missouri, and was designated by the Treasury Department in 2004 as a suspected fundraiser for terrorists.
In the indictment, the government alleges that IARA employed a man who had served as a fundraising aide to Osama bin Laden.
The indictment charges IARA with sending approximately $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States has designated as a global terrorist. The money, sent to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan in 2003 and 2004, was masked as donations to an orphanage located in buildings that Hekmatyar owned.
Joint Chiefs Chairman: Close Guantanamo
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- The chief of the U.S. military said he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been "pretty damaging" to the image of the United States.
"I'd like to see it shut down," Adm. Mike Mullen said Sunday in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.
Squeegeeing for Rudy GiulianiMonday, January 14th 2008, 12:44 AM
Daily News columnist Michael Daly goes to bat for Rudy Giuliani's cash-strapped campaign with a method famously banned by the former mayor. Daly raised a whopping $1.
While other candidates are promising change, the cash-strapped Giuliani campaign is all but begging contributors for whatever change they can spare.
Rudy Giuliani himself is still rich enough to keep his Judi happy, but his campaign is becoming as broke as the panhandlers he once sought to vanquish from the city's streets.
So I figured I would do my part to help out the man America knows as the hero of 9/11.
I arrived at the Watts St. entrance to the Holland Tunnel yesterday with a hand-lettered cardboard sign hanging by twine from my neck:
"SQUEEGEE MEN FOR RUDY - ALL CHANGE IS GOOD."
With a squeegee in one hand and a bucket in the other, I stepped into traffic. More than a few of the drivers looked as if they were beholding a dread apparition from the dirty old past.
We here in New York also know Giuliani as the mayor who heroically rid us of the three or maybe even four dozen squeegee men who worked our streets.
"US President George W. Bush, left, sits with Bahrain's king, Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, right, during the arrival ceremony in the courtyard of Sakhir Palace, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008, in Manama, Bahrain.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)"
"If you want to witness the most corrupt democracy of all you have to look no farther then the United States. Presidential candidates are determined not by support from people but how much they are able to fund raise! The American media determines the top tier candidates based on how much they earn each quarter and then suggest who is the top tier candidates. And that is the biggest corruption of what I think democracy should be. "
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Blackwater Worldwide repaired and repainted its trucks immediately after a deadly September shooting in Baghdad, making it difficult to determine whether enemy gunfire provoked the attack, according to people familiar with the government's investigation of the incident.
Damage to the vehicles in the convoy has been held up by Blackwater as proof that its security guards were defending themselves against an insurgent ambush when they fired into a busy intersection, leaving 17 Iraqi civilians dead.
The repairs essentially destroyed evidence that Justice Department investigators hoped to examine in a criminal case that has drawn worldwide attention.
"The reason [Hillary Clinton is] a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around." - Chris the Screamer
While campaigning in Nevada Friday, the next state in the caucus process for Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton declared "no woman" was an illegal immigrant.
Mrs. Clinton was shaking hands and meeting people one-on-one in a Las Vegas neighborhood when she made the comment.
During a conversation with one woman who spoke broken English, a man shouted from an opening in a nearby wall that his wife was illegal.
"No woman is illegal," Mrs. Clinton answered back to cheers, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper.
Bush urges end to Israeli 'occupation'
US President George W Bush is urging an end to "the occupation" of the West Bank and wants a treaty to be signed within a year to create a Palestinian state.
The United States rarely uses the politically charged word "occupation" to describe Israel's hold on lands captured in a 1967 war. It is a term Palestinians seeking a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip employ frequently to describe their plight.
"The establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it," Bush said in a statement he read to reporters in a Jerusalem hotel.
Bush's language, after he travelled to the West Bank city of Ramallah past Israeli checkpoints and settlements, could cause political pain to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose right-wing coalition partners usually bridle at such remarks.
"There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967," Bush said. He had earlier met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and visited Bethlehem, also in the West Bank.
FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.
A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.
Romney Decides to Pull Ads in S.C., Fla.
By JIM KUHNHENN and GLEN JOHNSON – 2 hours ago
BOSTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has decided to pull his advertising from South Carolina and Florida, in a sign of trouble for a campaign that badly needs a win. Romney had been hoping to challenge John McCain and Mike Huckabee in South Carolina, and Rudy Giuliani in Florida, where the former New York mayor has been spending time and money.
"We feel the best strategy is to focus our paid messaging in Michigan," Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said Wednesday.
According to Scanlan, the ballot strain seems to be on Democratic ballots, which suggests that the undeclared voters are breaking for the Democratic primary. New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner predicted that 90,000 undeclared voters would vote in the Democratic primary compared to 60,000 voting in the Republican primary.
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) -- Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination was her own fault, the country's president, Pervez Musharraf, said in an interview on U.S. television.
"For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone -- nobody else. Responsibility is hers," the former general told CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday.
UK standard of living rises above that in America for the first time in a century
DAILY MAIL - For the first time in more than 100 years, British living standards have risen above those of Americans, a report has declared.
Increasing incomes, longer holidays and "free" healthcare have all contributed to making Britons better off than our friends across the Atlantic, according to the respected Oxford Economics consultancy.
"None of this worries me - Sept. 11, there were times I was worried."
I count the past year of campaigning for the presidency as one of the most rewarding in a career of public service.
Unfortunately, I am withdrawing from that campaign tonight.
But there is no reason to hang our heads this evening -- only the opportunity to look towards a continuation of the work we started last January: ending the Iraq War, restoring the Constitution, and putting a Democrat in the White House.
I know a lot of you came to this email list through a shared desire to return our nation to one that respects the rule of law, and I want to make one thing clear to all of you:
The fight to restore the Constitution and stop retroactive immunity does not end with my Presidential campaign. FISA will come back in a few weeks and my pledge to filibuster ANY bill that includes retroactive immunity remains operative.
You've been an invaluable ally in the battle, and I'll need you to stick by my side despite tonight's caucus results.
So, one more time, thank you for all of your efforts throughout the course of this entire Presidential campaign.
We made a real difference in shaping the debate, and we'll continue to do so in the coming days, weeks and years.
I'll never forget you, and what we've fought for, together, over the past year.
Chris Dodd
Rock star John Mellencamp performs during the last stop of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards 36-hour bus tour around Iowa on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2008 in West Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
by John Chase
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa—Presidential hopeful John Edwards capped a 36-hour, 16-stop tour of Iowa on Wednesday by declaring at a rock concert that he was the only candidate who could fight corporate greed and represent the common American worker.
MORE than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. The goal was to provide the American people with the fullest possible account of the “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” — and to offer recommendations to prevent future attacks. Soon after its creation, the president’s chief of staff directed all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the commission.
The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation....
What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.
JOHNSTON, Iowa (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on Tuesday the Bush administration mismanaged the Iraq war, distancing himself from his party's unpopular president two days before Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential contest.
DES MOINES — Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee defended his failure to read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran in early December, joking in an interview Monday that President Bush didn’t read intelligence reports for four years.
“The point I’m trying to make is that, on the campaign trail, nobody’s going to be able, if they’ve been campaigning as hard as we have been, to keep up with every single thing, from what happened to Britney last night to who won ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ ”
