War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says – washingtonpost.com

War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says
By Kari Lydersen, Washington Post Staff Writer

CHICAGO, Sept. 21 — The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.

The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group’s analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.

GOP Congressman From Illinois Won’t Run in 2008
By Carla K. Johnson
Associated Press

JOLIET, Ill., Sept. 21 — Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), facing questions about his ethics, announced Friday that he will not seek an eighth term.

“I need to give my family the time needed to be a full-time dad and full-time husband,” Weller said during a Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce luncheon. “I’m 50 years old; I’ve given half of my life to public service.” …

Weller is among 13 congressmen who were recently served subpoenas to testify for the defense in a case against a contractor accused of bribing imprisoned former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.).

Seven other House Republicans have announced that they will step down at the end of this Congress’s term.

Mexico’s Fox, in Book, Chides and Praises Bush – washingtonpost.com

By Manuel Roig-Franzia

Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; Page A19

ANTIGUA, Guatemala, Sept. 18 — President Bush and Vicente Fox
once portrayed themselves as diplomatic allies and close friends, but
the former Mexican president takes some jabs at Bush in a new
autobiography, calling him “the cockiest guy I have ever met in my
life” and a “windshield cowboy” afraid to ride a powerful horse.

Administration: Watchdogs Gone Wild

ELECTORAL JUSTICE — CONSERVATIVE FILIBUSTER BLOCKS DC VOTING RIGHTS BILL: Yesterday, a majority of senators
voted to give Washington, DC residents a full member of Congress for
the first time in its 206-year-history. Yet the 52-42 vote was not
enough to overcome Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) filibuster. The bill, which was passed by the House on April 19, would also have granted a fourth representative to Utah. “It’s time to end the injustice,
the national embarrassment that citizens of this great capital city
don’t have voting representation in Congress,” said Sen. Joseph
Lieberman (I-CT), a co-sponsor of the bill, before yesterday’s vote.
The Senate’s actions marked the first time the full chamber “had
considered the D.C. voting rights issue since 1978, when it passed a
constitutional amendment that would have given the city voting
representatives in the House and Senate. The amendment died seven years
later after getting approval from only 16 of the 38 states required for
ratification.” Ilir Zherka of DC vote,
an organization that supports DC residents’ right to representation,
stated, “For the first time in 30 years, we secured the vote of a strong majority of Senators in favor of DC voting rights.
We are outraged that a minority of Senators, led by Senators Mitch
McConnell and Trent Lott, prevented the majority from voting on our
bill.”

Ex-Judge Is Said to Be Pick At Justice – washingtonpost.com

By Michael Abramowitz and Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 17, 2007; Page A01

President Bush has selected retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey as his new attorney general, sources said yesterday, moving to install a law-and-order conservative at the Justice Department while hoping to avoid a confirmation fight with Senate Democrats. …

“While he is certainly conservative, Judge Mukasey seems to be the kind
of nominee who would put rule of law first and show independence from
the White House, our most important criteria,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a frequent critic of the Gonzales Justice Department, said in a statement. …

The view from Democrats and their allies yesterday seemed to be that
Mukasey was about the best they could hope for from Bush. Ralph Neas,
president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way,
predicted Mukasey’s confirmation, assuming he is willing to answer
“legitimate questions” from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“He seems like a bona fide conservative Republican, not a right-wing
ideologue,” Neas said. “He seems like someone who would attract strong
bipartisan support and who could help restore public confidence in the
Department of Justice.”
– – – – –

Justice: Who Is Michael Mukasey?
PROGRESS REPORT
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/09/mukasey.html

As we remember this day, think about what might have been accomplished world-wide, especially in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine, if we hadn’t pissed away our blood, time, money and respect on Iraq. mjh

The New Al-Qaeda Central
Far From Declining, the Network Has Rebuilt, With Fresh Faces and a Vigorous Media Arm
By Craig Whitlock,Washington Post Foreign Service

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — When Osama bin Laden resurfaced Friday in a 26-minute videotaped speech, his most important message was one left unsaid: We have survived.

The last time bin Laden showed his face to the world was three years ago, in October 2004. Since then, al-Qaeda’s core leadership — dubbed al-Qaeda Central by intelligence analysts — has grown stronger, rebuilding the organizational framework that was badly damaged after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, according to counterterrorism officials in Pakistan, the United States and Europe.

It has accomplished this revival, the officials said in interviews, by drawing on lessons learned during 15 years of failed campaigns to destroy it. In that period, bin Laden and his followers have outfoxed powerful enemies from the Soviet army to the Saudi royal family to the CIA. …

On June 24, 2003, President Bush declared al-Qaeda’s leadership largely defunct. At a Camp David summit, Bush praised Pakistan’s Gen. Pervez Musharraf, crediting his country with apprehending more than 500 members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“Thanks to President Musharraf’s leadership, on the al-Qaeda front we’ve dismantled the chief operators,” Bush said. Although bin Laden was still at large, his lieutenants were “no longer a threat to the United States or Pakistan,” Bush added. …

Many U.S., Pakistani and European intelligence officials now agree that al-Qaeda’s ability to launch operations around the globe didn’t diminish after the invasion of Afghanistan as much as previously thought. …

– – – – –
Al-Qaeda’s Return – washingtonpost.com
The terrorists have a sanctuary once again.

MANY FACTORS contributed to the awful success that al-Qaeda achieved six years ago today: tactical and policy mistakes by the United States, the diabolical skill of the terrorists, even the clear, cobalt-blue sky on that initially beautiful morning. But probably nothing was more important than the haven in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan that gave al-Qaeda the time and space it needed to train, recruit and plan for highly complex operations. Accordingly, the greatest victory the United States and its allies have yet recorded against the terrorist network was the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul and the scattering of al-Qaeda’s depleted ranks across Southwest Asia.

Yet as the United States mourns and commemorates the worst act of terrorism ever carried out on U.S. soil, and reflects thankfully on the fact that it has not been repeated, there are ominous signs that al-Qaeda is back as a coherent, global force capable of inflicting damage on the United States. Al-Qaeda never really went away, of course, as grieving families of its victims from London to Baghdad can attest. But the emergence of the first authentic Osama bin Laden video in three years, the arrest of German-based al-Qaeda operatives near Frankfurt, and the reinfiltration of hundreds of al-Qaeda-aligned Taliban fighters and intended suicide bombers into Afghanistan point toward one alarming conclusion: Al-Qaeda is once again able to operate from a consistent haven. According to the latest National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaeda, the organization “has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability” inside Pakistan.

Thompson Runs to The Right By Michael D. Shear, Washington Post Staff Writer

DES MOINES, Sept. 6 — Fred D. Thompson took his bid for the White House to the campaign trail Thursday, vowing to compete aggressively for the support of Iowans and pitching steady, experienced and conservative leadership.

“I still have the same common-sense conservative beliefs I did when I ran in 1994,” the former senator said in a speech at a Des Moines conference center, a not-so-subtle reference to criticism about the changing positions of his main Republican rivals, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. …

In Thursday’s speech, he pledged fidelity to a series of conservative principles — limited government, an aggressive foreign policy and lower taxes — and promised a commitment to securing the borders and appointing conservative judges. …

A national anti-tax group Thursday proclaimed that his record has the “hallmarks of a pro-growth economic conservative,” but the Club for Growth cautioned that the senator has an “enigmatic” record on tort reform and must explain his support for limits on political speech.
– – – – –

A Conservative for . . . 1994? By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Fred Thompson, who proposes to be what Republicans need to overcome their malaise, may himself be part of the problem.

And the problem is that conservatism as a philosophy no longer produces ready-made answers to the quandaries that face the country or the voters. Republicans do not need to debate who is conservative enough. They need to argue about what conservatism is. …

Republicans, says [Tony Fabrizio, a neutral Republican pollster], who conducted a similar study a decade ago, are more conservative than ever but in ways more complicated than many appreciate. [mjh: Snicker. Guffaw. Yup, they’re deeeeep thinkers.]

That will make Thompson’s effort to become the Man for All Conservatives much more difficult. And Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman whose book “Reclaiming Conservatism” will be published in the spring, says that providing the backdrop for the contest is a conservative “awakening that we completely lost our way.”

This means that making conservatives feel good will not be enough for Fred Thompson. He needs to show where he will lead a movement shrewd enough to know that it is now in the wilderness.
– – – – –

ConservativesBetrayed.com
Fred Thompson, the Faux Conservative By Richard A. Viguerie

The American people want a President who will finally bring conservative values—honesty, faith, a belief in limited government, and respect for the family as the core of society—to the White House. After eight years of Democratic Big Government under Clinton and eight years of Republican Bigger Government under Bush, they certainly deserve a break.

They won’t get it with Fred Thompson.

Fred Thompson is just playing a conservative for your consumption. In real life he’s a typical Washington insider.

Granted, most Republican politicians play that game to a greater or lesser degree. But Thompson does it so well that it becomes truly difficult to separate the acting from the reality.