Be INFORMED

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Two Views On The Coulter Episode

A) Anyone who is a graduate of lawschool and can pass the bar is far from "ignorant".
B) What Republican pundits are you speaking of? I was at CPAC and have yet to find anyone who supports her comments and is happy about what she said.
Do tell.

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    A reader left the above as a comment regarding the bit on Ann Coulter and the pundits who thought that she was great with her name calling and such.

 1) I know many people who have graduated from law school and quite a few doctors and other high end professionals who can be quite ignorant at times. All of us suffer from that at times.

 2) The Nation -- Just returned from CPAC, where I caught Ann Coulter call John Edwards a "faggot" (Crooks and Liars has video). The crowd roared their approval, of course. Then Coulter endorsed Mitt Romney. Another gem from Coultergeist: Discussing black Republicans, she declared, "Our blacks are better than their blacks."      Source

 

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US Military Tried Blocking Reports Of Detainee Deaths and Torture

     I have been reading an article online which will not come out in print until March of this year.

   This story deals with two reporters ,Kevin Sack and Craig Pyes, who have been investigating the abuse and deaths of detainees at Gardez just south of Kabul at the facility in Afghanistan and the cover-up of these actions by the United States military and the United States government.

    After you read this story, you will no doubt understand why the " Bush Department of Constitutional Shredding,Inc. " put in place the new rules of war concerning the rights of prisoners, which you know they no longer have.

   The story speaks of the reporters being blocked from attempts to gather information which was not classified and from being lied to not only by the service members at the prison, but by almost the entire chain of command.

            Nieman Watchdog

But an even greater obstacle was how we would report on Special Forces activities at remote firebases, where most of the prisoners sent from Afghanistan to the prison facility at Guantanamo were first captured and held. The bases are highly classified and have not only avoided scrutiny from journalists and the public, but are opaque to congressional staffers with security clearances, to the military’s own investigators and, sometimes, even to the Special Forces Command itself. The Red Cross does not have access to these outposts, and even the names of the soldiers are treated like state secrets. Several times, irate Green Berets responded to our inquiries with: “How did you get my name? It’s classified.

   Click here to read the entire article.

 

Ann " Vixen of Venom " Coulter and The Republican Show Of Ignorance

    We all know by now about the Ann Coulter speech in which she referred to John Edwards as a 'faggot' more or less proving that Ann Coulter is as ignorant as she looks.

   Yet Coulter and the rest of the Republican pundits still insist that this group is loaded up with Christians and that they hold dear to the " right " values as God would have them to do.

   If this is going to be the doctrine of the religious right and the rest of their supporters ( Bush Department of Constitutional Shredding,Inc. ) then I would rather become an atheist. At least the atheist group are straight up on where they stand and they aren't out trying to pass themselves off as something that they are not.

   It seems that Mr. A. Coulter now backs Mitt Romney as the next presidential candidate for the Repugnican party because, as Coulter put it," He tricked liberals into voting for him. I like a guy who hoodwinks the voters so easily."

   Ann Coulter is basically saying that the voters in this country are somewhat stupid and gullible.

   John McCain and Romney himself attacked the speech but Romney is still being nice with the " Vixen of Venom "  instead of putting her in a locked closet.

   But this is all show for their poor, confused, uneducated followers in order to get a spark out of them as the Repugnicans have nothing else to talk about that would have any truth to it.

 

Saudi Arabia and Iran Forge Friendship Over Iraq

     Saudi's King Abdullah and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have forged a friendship to deal with the strife in Iraq between the Sunnis and Shias.      Source

   This could be an interesting mix what with Saudi Arabia being a US ally and Iran being the perceived foe of the US. It just keeps getting better and better over in the middle east. Saudi Arabia has said that the nuclear issue with Iran was discussed but that is all the info that was given.

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  Al Jazeera

Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran are among the most influential nations of their respective branches of Islam.  "The two parties have agreed to stop any attempt aimed at spreading sectarian strife in the region," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters without elaborating.

Department of Justice Wants Website's To Perform "Data Retention"

     In another effort to keep up with the citizen's activities in the United States, the Bush Department of Constitutional Shredding is having the U.S. Department of Justice officials seek web site's  co-operation in keeping records of who uploads photographs or videos to their sites. This is just in case the long arm of the law decides that the content is illegal and they wish to investigate the matter.    Source

      The Bush Department of Constitutional Shredding just doesn't know how to stop their bullshit! Of course, they are also using the terrorist threat along with the child porn tactic. I'm all for keeping those pervs off line and locked up but let's get real here. This entire scam is still about keeping track of everything that we look at either in picture form or text or whatever and it's about knowing where we live and what we do when we are online, whether legal or not.   

 

 

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al-Maliki To Reshuffle His Cabinet, US Stuck In Iraq For Long Term

Iraqi P.M. Nouri al-Maliki has said that he will reshuffle his cabinet in the near future as he is under alot of pressure to take more of the responsibility for the security issues in Iraq.

    al-Maliki told the associated Press that the reshuffling would take place "either this week or next week."       Source

    He also threatened to order the arrest of parliament members and other political leaders suspected of supporting extremists.     AP

    You know that al-Maliki would be half way decent if he was not so afraid of some of the other groups in Iraq that do not care for the United States and it's Iraq policy. Sometime I think that those groups have a valid reason for raising hell as I would not want another country in my own as an occupying power either. Let's face it, the United States is an occupier and not a liberator in Iraq.

    As much as most of us would like to see our troops out of Iraq and back home in the states, this is not going to happen for a long time, if ever. George Bush and his new world order group have made sure that we cannot leave Iraq or anywhere else in the middle east. It is going to get much worse for this country before ( if ) it gets any better because our president and his hoods have led us down the road of no return. I would say that the real construction on the road to nowhere started with George's daddy and it is not going to stop anytime soon mainly because the people of the United States have grown complacent and many have kept themselves purposefully ignorant and have buried their heads in the sand.


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E .coli Found In Ground Beef

   First it was ConAgra with their Peter Pan peanut butter getting tainted with Salmonella and now we have Tyson Fresh Meats  doing a recall of some 7.6 tons on ground beef which could be contaminated with E.coli.

   The beef was processed on February 16, 2007 and shipped to four states, those being Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Utah.  Source

    Thus far it seems that no one has gotten sick from the beef which is a good thing but the outbreaks that the United States has had in the past few years is getting kind of nutty. Do we not have enough inspectors at the USDA to cover the areas that they need to take care of? The last that I heard, this sort of thing is supposed to be caught before the food that we eat is shipped from these processing plants.

 

 

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Study Says Marijuana Could Be Wonder Drug

   There is a new study out which pretty much says that pot is pretty much a "valuable" medicine. It would seem that the weed is a very decent pain reliever according to the study in the Neurology journal.

 

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  Marijuana As Wonder Drug

By Lester Grinspoon, Boston Globe. Posted March 3, 2007.

A new study reveals that pot relieves pain that narcotics like morphine and OxyContin have hardly any effect on, and could help ease suffering from illnesses such as multiple sclerosis and diabetes.

    A new study in the journal Neurology is being hailed as unassailable proof that marijuana is a valuable medicine. It is a sad commentary on the state of modern medicine -- and US drug policy -- that we still need "proof" of something that medicine has known for 5,000 years.

The study, from the University of California at San Francisco, found smoked marijuana to be effective at relieving the extreme pain of a debilitating condition known as peripheral neuropathy. It was a study of HIV patients, but a similar type of pain caused by damage to nerves afflicts people with many other illnesses including diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Neuropathic pain is notoriously resistant to treatment with conventional pain drugs. Even powerful and addictive narcotics like morphine and OxyContin often provide little relief. This study leaves no doubt that marijuana can safely ease this type of pain.

As all marijuana research in the United States must be, the new study was conducted with government-supplied marijuana of notoriously poor quality. So it probably underestimated the potential benefit.

This is all good news, but it should not be news at all. In the 40-odd years I have been studying the medicinal uses of marijuana, I have learned that the recorded history of this medicine goes back to ancient times and that in the 19th century it became a well-established Western medicine whose versatility and safety were unquestioned. From 1840 to 1900, American and European medical journals published over 100 papers on the therapeutic uses of marijuana, also known as cannabis.

Of course, our knowledge has advanced greatly over the years. Scientists have identified over 60 unique constituents in marijuana, called cannabinoids, and we have learned much about how they work. We have also learned that our own bodies produce similar chemicals, called endocannabinoids.

The mountain of accumulated anecdotal evidence that pointed the way to the present and other clinical studies also strongly suggests there are a number of other devastating disorders and symptoms for which marijuana has been used for centuries; they deserve the same kind of careful, methodologically sound research. While few such studies have so far been completed, all have lent weight to what medicine already knew but had largely forgotten or ignored: Marijuana is effective at relieving nausea and vomiting, spasticity, appetite loss, certain types of pain, and other debilitating symptoms. And it is extraordinarily safe -- safer than most medicines prescribed every day. If marijuana were a new discovery rather than a well-known substance carrying cultural and political baggage, it would be hailed as a wonder drug.

The pharmaceutical industry is scrambling to isolate cannabinoids and synthesize analogs, and to package them in non-smokable forms. In time, companies will almost certainly come up with products and delivery systems that are more useful and less expensive than herbal marijuana. However, the analogs they have produced so far are more expensive than herbal marijuana, and none has shown any improvement over the plant nature gave us to take orally or to smoke.

We live in an antismoking environment. But as a method of delivering certain medicinal compounds, smoking marijuana has some real advantages: The effect is almost instantaneous, allowing the patient, who after all is the best judge, to fine-tune his or her dose to get the needed relief without intoxication. Smoked marijuana has never been demonstrated to have serious pulmonary consequences, but in any case the technology to inhale these cannabinoids without smoking marijuana already exists as vaporizers that allow for smoke-free inhalation.

Hopefully the UCSF study will add to the pressure on the US government to rethink its irrational ban on the medicinal use of marijuana -- and its destructive attacks on patients and caregivers in states that have chosen to allow such use. Rather than admit they have been mistaken all these years, federal officials can cite "important new data" and start revamping outdated and destructive policies. The new Congress could go far in establishing its bona fides as both reasonable and compassionate by immediately moving on this issue.

Such legislation would bring much-needed relief to millions of Americans suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, and other debilitating illnesses.

 

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A.G. Gonzales to Busy For Democrats

    Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has pretty much told the Democrats to get lost when it comes to them wanting information about his sorry ass firing several US Attorney's that were investigating corruption.

   I guess that the White House plan is to get rid of anyone who gets to close to the truth and then to hire replacements who are to incompetent to try a traffic case much less a corruption case.

   This clan of characters gets more ridiculously stupid by the minute.

  

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From Robert Novak in his column today.

March 3,2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has indicated he is too busy to answer letters from Democratic congressional leaders about his firing seven U.S. attorneys involved in probes of public corruption, though a lower-level Justice Department official rejected their proposals.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, House Democratic Caucus chairman, had written Gonzales two letters suggesting that he name Carol Lam, fired as U.S. attorney in San Diego, as an outside counsel to continue her pursuit of the Duke Cunningham case. Asked by Melissa Charbonneau of the Christian Broadcasting Network about this column’s report that Gonzales did not respond, Gonzales said: “I think that the American people lose if I spend all my time worrying about congressional requests for information, if I spend all my time responding to subpoenas.”

Richard A. Hertling, the acting Justice Department lobbyist, responded Wednesday, 22 days after Emanuel’s letter. He contended “the Justice Department would not ever seek the resignation of a U.S. attorney if doing so would jeopardize a public corruption case” and rejected naming Lam as a special prosecutor.

 

" You Choose '08 " From YouTube, Site For Candidates

   For those of you who did not know it, YouTube has launched a new website for the candidates who are trying to get the presidential nomination. these are not the general videos that you can find all over the Net which criticize the candidate or have some of the things that they have actually said compared to what they really have said in the past.  These are the official vid's which the candidates want you to see. Basically, their campaign stumps and ads.

    The website page is called You Choose ' 08 and you may want to check it out, or not. This is plenty of free publicity for all of those in the running.

 

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Sunni's Killed For Speaking To Shiites and Former Gitmo Residents Acquitted In Kuwaiti Court

   I'm still on my first cup of coffee so I am just going to tell you what is up in the world on this Saturday morning.

   First off, we've got more killing in Iraq but what's new there? Six men were killed execution- -style just south of Baghdad today for supposedly talking to Shiites. The six were all Sunni.  Source

    What a lovely country Bush has turned Iraq into since the US started vacationing in it.

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    A Kuwaiti criminal court acquitted two past residents of Gitmo on charges of joining the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

    Omar Rajab Amin and Abdullah Kamel al-Kundari spent five years at camp Gitmo before being released this past September. What really sucked is that upon their return to Kuwait they were detained by the authorities there.      Source

Six other Kuwaitis formerly held in Guantanamo have been acquitted here of terror charges. Another four are still imprisoned there.

 

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Giuliani Tops The " Israeli Index " As Best For Israel

    Did you know that the country of Israel has a panel which rates our presidential contenders? I'm not kidding ! It is called the panel of the " Israeli index " and it keeps track of those running for president and it's purpose is to rate the candidates on whether or not they show the most interest for Israel.

   Right now the panel says that they believe that Rudy Giuliani is the most friendly to Israel. After Giuliani comes Hillary Clinton and then John McCain according to the six members of this panel.

    Five of the panel members think that Al Gore is one among the Democrats who is "best for Israel."  Though he is not a presidential candidate he is included in the listing because his popularity is growing and they feel that this gives Gore a chance to enter the race at a later time if he chooses to do so. Source

Haaretz

In any case, anyone who was connected with the Clinton administration and also dealt with Israeli subjects is at the top of the Democratic list of the panel: Clinton, Gore and Richardson, who was Clinton's ambassador to the UN. The only exception to this rule is former general Wesley Clark, who is not planning to run for sure, but who was an important military figure during the Clinton era, albeit not in the arena that has a direct connection with Israel.

A favorable candidate, the members felt, should be one who has "an emotional attachment to what Israel symbolizes, is attentive to the opinions of American Jewry and views Israel as an ally in the struggle against world Islamic terror." Other points were: "ideological partnership," "readiness to use force if needed," "ties with the Jewish community" as well as "hawkishness on security matters and a unilateral international approach," "consideration for Israel's position vis-a-vis Middle East policy," "support for defensible borders," and "deep understanding for the essence of Zionism and insight into the Arabs' hostility." But some of the panel members would also like to see "a candidate who is able to deal with the dangers in our region in a realistic fashion. That is, to deal with them in a patient way and not merely to 'hit and run.'"
A candidate who is less favorable to Israel is one "who will neglect dealing with the Middle East," who is connected to "oil interests," who is sensitive to "international institutions" and "believes in close cooperation with the UN and European Union," who "has a Middle East policy that is independent of Israel," who is "placatory toward Iran," who is "not connected to the Jewish community," and who lacks understanding and sensitivity "for Jewish history."

 

Pakistan Tests New missile

Saturday, 3 March 2007

    The Pakistan military tested a new missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead on Saturday. It was a surface - to - surface missile called an Haft-ll Abdali with a range of 125 miles. The Pakistani military called the test a success.  Source

   Yep, like we really need more missiles flying around in that  neighborhood. If Bush and the boys are going to worry about terrorist getting their fingers on a nuke, Pakistan is the first place to start since the country reportedly likes to keep some al-Qaeda members company on occasion.

 

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Friday, March 02, 2007

The Latest Polls From Around the Block Have Clinton And Giuliani Leading, Bush Still Tanking

       I thought that I would post a few of the latest polls so far as Bush's popularity is concerned and the general feeling's on other issues.

 

March 02, 2007    Original Post

POLL: Public Mind Delaware/Biden Survey

A new Fairleigh Dickinson University Public Mind Poll (release, results) of 618 registered voters in Delaware (conducted 2/20 through 2/25) finds:

  • 35% of registered voters in Delaware approve of the job Bush is doing as president; 58% disapprove.
  • 60% have a favorable opinion of Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, while 47% do not think he would make a good president.
  • Among Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton leads Biden (34% to 21%) in a Delaware primary; Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards trail with 19% and 10% respectively.

POLL: Gallup Mormonism

Additional analysis from a recent Gallup national survey of 1018 adults (conducted 2/22 through 2/25) finds:

  • 56% of catholics have a favorable opinion of Mormonism; 36% of protestants have a favorable opinion.
  • 48% of political moderates have a favorable opinion of Mormonism followed closely by conservatives with 44%. 28% of liberals have a favorable opinion of Mormonism; 61% have an unfavorable opinion.
  • In an open ended question, an 18% plurality said poygamy is the first thing that comes to mind when they think about the Mormon church.

POLL: Rasmussen Richardson vs. (2/27)

A new Rasmussen Reports automated survey of 800 likely voters (conducted 2/26 through 2/27) finds Gov. Bill Richardson trailing both former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (35% to 52%) and Sen. John McCain (36% to 45%) in general election match-ups for president.

POLL: CBS/NYT National Survey

A new CBS News/New York Times national survey (CBS story, results; NYT story, results) of 1281 adults (conducted 2/23 through 2/27) finds:

  • 29% approve of the job Bush is doing as president, 61% disapprove.
  • 54% say "fundamental changes are needed" to the health care system, 36% say "we need to completely rebuild it," and 8% say "only minor changes are necessary to make it work better."
  • 57% are dissatisfied with the quality of health care in this country, while 77% are satisfied with the quality of health care they receive.

March 01, 2007

POLL: Gallup Electability

A new Gallup national survey (Dem analysis, GOP analysis, video, full results) of 1018 adults (conducted 2/22 through 2/25) finds:

  • 74% of Americans think Sen. Hillary Clinton has an excellent or good chance at being elected president; 71% think Sen. Barack Obama has an excellent or good chance of being elected.
  • 74% think former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has an excellent or good chance at being elected president; 70% think Sen. John McCain has an excellent or good chance of being elected.

 

Sunni Group Admits To Killings Of 14 Policemen

The Islamic State in Iraq:

"The Islamic State in Iraq has given the infidel government of [Nuri] al-Maliki 24 hours to respond to its demands... but it did not give any importance for their blood."

"We will show the film of the implementation [of the execution ruling] soon, God willing."    Source

   The Islamic State in Iraq posted this on a website while taking the credit for the execution of 14 police officers which they kidnapped along with 4 other workers who have not been found at this time.

Al Jazeera

"This blessed operation is a response to crimes carried out by those infidels in their fight against the Sunnis," the statement said.

"The latest of the crimes committed by these traitors was to rape our sister in religion."

"Sabrin al-Janabi did come and say that she was raped by three Iraqi security forces. The government at first reacted by saying that it will conduct an investigation," she said.

"Hours later, the government came back and said the three men were cleared of that accusation, that Sabrin al-Janabi had come out with false accusations, and that the three men would each be given a medal of honour.

"That has caused a big uproar among the Sunni groups," Abdel Hamid said, adding that al-Janabi's identity was still confused.

"A few days later, both the prime minister's office and the Iraqi Islamic Party - which is the biggest Sunni party here - said her name was not really Sabrin al-Janabi, that she had used a false name and that she was of Shia origin," she said.

 

Will America's Outlook In Iraq Be Grim?

   From Daily Kos here is one view of what is going to happen with the United State's involvement in Iraq. It is not a pretty outlook.

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Iraq's Endgame

by Hunter
Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 11:53:41 AM PST

Let me offer some grim predictions as to the outcome of American involvement in Iraq:

1) There are going to be American troops in Iraq for the next ten years, though the numbers will be substantially reduced.

2) There are going to be permanent American bases in Iraq, just as the neoconservatives had desired.

3) Iraq is going to continue to be in a period of instability for years, and become a true haven for terrorism and religious strife, and there is very little we can do about it.

This is roughly the premise of the "fortified retreat" scenario proposed by many as the closest possible thing to victory, and similar to what the Iraq Study Group itself had proposed. The only variations are in the relative magnitudes.

Note that by most estimates, this would seem to average out to be the best remotely likely scenario. All the other likely outcomes, like ethnic cleansing, a civil war leading to partitioning, or the rise of a religious dictatorship, are monstrously worse.

Thus we are stuck, above, with the worst possible outcome... except for all the others.

To this day -- to this very day -- I would support leaving American forces in Iraq if there were any credible possibility of stabilizing the country. I was bitterly against the very premise of the invasion, and have written previously about the decades of damage the Bush administration has done via this unconscionable fiasco. But America made this mess, and America bears responsibility for the bloody aftermath -- whatever that aftermath turns out to be. If leaving the current troop levels in place could truly prevent another 100,000 Iraqi deaths, then it would be our duty to do it. If Petraeus' plan had a reasonable chance of working, it would be our obligation to try. A miserable truth, yes, but a moral truth nonetheless.

Because some of the possible outcomes, here -- civil war, genocide, religious radicalization leading to possible regional war -- are nearly unthinkable and yet, thanks to the bungling, almost incomprehensible incompetence of the Bush administration, we're thinking them. The odds continue to be extremely high that one of those worst case scenarios -- and you know you are truly and deeply sunk when there are multiple worst case scenarios vying for prominence -- may indeed happen.

The simple fact is that victory (however that would be defined) is not among our achievable options -- and there is liittle hope even of maintaining the current slowly degrading near-stalemate. There are not enough forces, and there are not going to be enough forces. Period. End of sentence: end of war. President Bush will never order into the country the massive numbers of troops necessary to truly secure it, nor will any other president, nor are those troops even available to be sent, under the best of cases. It won't happen.

The war was therefore lost the moment the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld plan was put into place, sending a bare minimum of troops thudding around Iraq like ping pong balls, able to take any patch of ground, but never able to stay long enough for it to stay taken or to prevent retaliations after they left. That was precisely what many military strategists warned against: those warnings went ignored, under the neoconservative premise that... well, scratch that. I have no idea what neoconservative "premise" managed to bungle every conceivable aspect of the war. It's time we stopped calling it a "premise", even. Call it something else: a self-confidence scam, perhaps.

The sad truth is, however, that after these years of war, the foundations of post-war Iraq have already been laid. Barring surprises -- and only negative surprises are likely, despite the Bush administration policy of presuming positive surprises at every turn and then ignoring their gaping absence -- the best case scenario is a slow bleed if we stay, and a slow bleed if we go.

Despite many, many predictions to the contrary by most others, I suspect the odds of a complete troop withdrawal from the country to be vanishingly small. A withdrawal from combat, quite probable: a redeployment "across the horizon" of most of the major fighting, absolutely.

But a Vietnam-style abandonment of the country seems extraordinarily unlikely. American forces may retreat to fortified bases in the country and leave most day to day operations to the Iraqis, but I find it hard to conceive that any president, Republican or Democrat, would abandon the already-built major bases in an extremely turbulent portion of the world threatening at constant collapse, unless circumstances crumbled so badly that even those positions became utterly untenable.

It would require a metaphorical abandonment of the country: impossible for this president, unlikely for others. It would require a physical abandonment of the country: equally unlikely. It would require a reshaping of Mideast policy such that those bases, located in the middle of a region of unstable nations, were considered less liability than strategic advantage: absurdly unlikely, regardless of whatever future American policy morphs into.

It is certainly possible to envision a near-term Iraq without those bases, but it is far from the most likely outcome. In fact, it may not even be the preferred outcome: troop withdrawals from combat areas in order to let Iraqi forces sink or swim on their own may still need to be positioned close in to deter or respond to potential catastrophic circumstances, such as collapse into Darfur-like religious genocides, or the potential large-scale Iranian involvement in Iraq that the Bush administration intends to work us into apoplexy over, but which could indeed be possible in the absolute absence of any U.S. deterrent.

On these predictions and guesses, I may well be in the distinct minority, on this site and most others. That's fine: they're predictions and guesses. On the likelihood of at least several semipermanent bases remaining there regardless of which plan is undertaken, I am undoubtedly in the minority. But I don't think I'm wrong.

Though it may seem that the debate on Iraq goes in circles, the shift in the last six months has been dramatic and declarative. The Bush administration is being widely challenged on the obvious absurdities of their own "plans", and the Democrats are being forced into the leadership on Iraq in the face of Republican and administration "planning" that consists of nothing more than pounding on the tables, even at this late date demanding deference to fictitious strategies and utterly discredited assertions. I'm hardly surprised that it is taking longer than six weeks to recast a quagmire into something else. And frankly, I won't be surprised if the resulting outcome looks more like a slow trot out of town than a gallup -- it may very well be the case that a slow trot is better, if there is a reasonable expectation that it can help deter a worst case scenario.

In the media and in government, there are now precious few people still making the case that winning is possible. The entire debate is now targeted around the best presumed outcome: controlled losing. That's what the Iraq Study Group proposed; that's what the (several) Murtha plans have proposed; that's even what the military itself has been preparing for, presuming a miracle is not forthcoming. Controlled losing is sadly, at this point, the apparent best case scenario -- and even that is tenuous. If we're lucky, we might pull it off. If we're not, Iraq gets much, much worse.

In the face of an administration that seems to pride itself on being more out of touch with reality with each passing month, the Murtha plan seems the best shot. There may be others, but it seems clear that the Bush administration is no more competent in the execution of their favored war today than they were on the day it started, and constraints must therefore be placed on their abilities to continue it.

Short version: this is a situation that is impossible to win. Having Democrats in charge doesn't change that, and the answers on how to fail the least catastrophically are not easy. That is, after all, the definition of quagmire.

 

Walter Reed Mess Takes Another Political Victim

    Another one bits the dust today in the scandal over the conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey fired himself today amid the controversy. Source

   So far two heads have rolled over this mess and I'll bet that more will be forthcoming.

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Yahoo News

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Harvey had resigned. But senior defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity said Gates had asked Harvey to leave. Gates was displeased that Harvey, after firing Maj. Gen. George Weightman as the head of Walter Reed, chose to name as Weightman's temporary replacement another general whose role in the controversy was still in question.


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DoD Inspector General's Report on US Military Readiness

   More on the DoD's report on the US military readiness.

Department of Defense Office of Inspector General                                The Entire Report (PDF)      January 25,2007

    Finally, Service members stated that, when possible, they used informal procedures to obtain the force-protection equipment they needed to perform missions off base in Iraq and Afghanistan, including borrowing equipment from and trading equipment with other Service members. As a result, information in this report reflects testimonial evidence of those Service members that we interviewed because we were not able to validate testimonial evidence against documentation that either did not exist or was incomplete. 

     Other Audit Coverage. The DoD IG issued an audit report, "The Army Small Arms Program That Relates to Availability, Maintainability, and Reliability of Small Arms to Support the Warfighter," Report No. D-2007-010 on November 2,2006. That report states that the Army equipped its deployed forces in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom with the small arms necessary to meet Combatant commanders' requirements, and this '
report identifies shortages of crew-served weapons for U.S. forces in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

  Management Comments. We issued the draft report on October 30,2006. The Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Program Support), responding for DoD ,* and the Inspector General, U.S. Central Command, responding on behalf of the Commander, U.S. Central Command, concurred with the recommendations. The Director for Capabilities Integration, Prioritization, and Analysis, responding on behalf of the Deputy Chef of Staff for Operations and Plans, Headquarters, Department of the Army, nonconcurred with the recommendations. Specifically, the Director stated that continued implementation of the Mission Essential Equipment Lists will not correct or prevent the equipment shortages, and that the Army will continue to use a combination of the Mission Essential Equipment Lists and the Unit Deploy List formula for determining unit equipment requirements. The Director also stated that it is impossible for any element outside the warfighting chain of command to determine if the equipment list accurately reflects the unit's assigned mission and operational environment, and that validation of the Mission Essential Equipment List serves only as a configuration management functioning support of resource allocation decisions.

  The Army did not explain how using the Unit Deploy List formula in combination with the Mission Essential Equipment List process
will provide unit commanders with authorized and validated equipment requirements in a baseline equipping document.

 

House Panel Subpoenas Fired US Attorneys

   Crossposted from Truth Out

Go to Original

House Panel Subpoenas Fired US Attorneys
    By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane
    The Washington Post

    Friday 02 March 2007

    Democrats issued their first major subpoenas yesterday since taking control of Congress, as a House subcommittee voted to compel testimony from four former U.S. attorneys who were part of a wave of firings by the Justice Department.

    The Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law approved the subpoenas for former prosecutors in Arkansas, New Mexico, Seattle and San Diego - all of whom will be required to appear for testimony at a hearing Tuesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee announced plans for a similar hearing on the same day.

    The moves mark the latest escalation in the battle between congressional Democrats and the Justice Department over the controversial dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys, at least five of whom were presiding over public corruption probes when they were fired.

    "Are these people being removed for doing their job and for it doing it too well?" asked Rep. Linda T. Sanchez (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the panel, who called the subpoenas "a last resort."

    The controversy, which has been simmering for two months, boiled over this week after departing prosecutor David C. Iglesias of New Mexico alleged that two unnamed lawmakers had pressured him to speed up the prosecution of Democrats before the November elections. Iglesias said he believed that complaints from the lawmakers may have led to his dismissal, an allegation the Justice Department has disputed.

    The state's top two Democrats, Rep. Tom Udall and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, and Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) have denied calling Iglesias. Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) and Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) have not responded to requests for comment over the past two days and deflected questions from the Associated Press about the allegations.

    "I don't have any comment," Domenici said. "I have no idea what he's talking about."

    Wilson referred questions "on that personnel matter" to the Justice Department.

    Sanchez said any such contacts by a member of Congress would likely be in violation of House and Senate ethics rules that restrict such "ex parte communications" during ongoing criminal investigations.

    Iglesias's office was conducting a probe into allegations involving construction contracts and a prominent Democratic former state senator.

    At the time of the alleged phone calls, Wilson, a close ally of Domenici's, was in a tight reelection battle with then-state Attorney General Patricia Madrid. Wilson won by fewer than 2,000 votes.

    Iglesias said yesterday that he will identify the lawmakers only if compelled by a subpoena.

    "I fear retaliation," said Iglesias, a Republican and former military defense lawyer who served as a model for a character in the movie "A Few Good Men." "This is a small state and there are not too many employment opportunities, and I fear they will blacklist me."

    At least four of the other U.S. attorneys were presiding over probes targeting Republican politicians at the time they were notified of their firing.

    Although a separate House subcommittee has compelled testimony in a little-noticed drug inquiry, the prosecutors case marks the first major use of subpoena power by the new Democratic majority.

    Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that the department has been "very forthcoming" with Congress about the dismissals and that any allegations that prosecutors were removed to interfere with investigations are "completely wrong."

    Justice officials have said Iglesias and six others were fired for "performance-related" reasons and have denied that any were targeted to disrupt public corruption probes. Officials have acknowledged that an eighth prosecutor, Bud Cummins of Little Rock, was removed to make way for a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove.

    Cummins and former U.S. attorney John McKay of Seattle said in interviews that they told lawmakers they will not testify unless subpoenas are issued.

    "I wanted it clear that I wasn't volunteering to testify and I wasn't trying to affirmatively stir up trouble for everybody," said Cummins, who left in December. "If they would like to hear one of the few facts I have, I'm happy to tell them."

    The other former prosecutor scheduled to testify, Carol S. Lam of San Diego, did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.

    No Republicans showed up for the unanimous panel vote on issuing the subpoenas. The Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Lamar Smith (Tex.), later called the session "political grandstanding."


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Bodies Of 14 Kidnapped Iraqi Policemen Found

   On Thursday I made note of the fact that an al Qaeda related group had claimed to have kidnapped some 18 government officials and was threatening to kill them.

   It would appear that the group has kept their word and killed most of the 18 as 14 bodies have been discovered close to where they were kidnapped. All were Iraqi policeman. Source

BBC

At least 10 people have died in a bomb attack in Baghdad's Shia stronghold of Sadr City, officials say

Two players from the Ramadi football club are shot dead by gunmen as they take part in a training session, Iraqi police say

The United States military in Iraq says it killed eight suspected insurgents in a raid in Salman Pak, south-east of Baghdad.


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Pentagon Neglecting National Guard

   An independent commission said in a report which Congress has received that the United States National Guard is not being equipped by the Pentagon in an adequate fashion. There's another shocker!

   Does our president or the Pentagon do anything right by our troops? So far, that would be NO! Blogger's and the MSM have to discover these things and report then to the public before this group of shitheads does anything even close to being right. That's pathetic.

Reuters        Fri Mar 2, 2007

"DOD's failure to appropriately consider National Guard needs and funding requirements has produced a National Guard that is not fully ready to meet current and emerging missions," the commission concluded.

Among its findings, the 13-member panel said the Defense Department was not adequately equipping the Guard for its domestic missions.

The National Guard’s 458,000 citizen-soldiers have a dual mandate to protect the United States both at home and abroad.

Nearly 90 percent of Guard units in the United States are rated “not ready,” partly because of equipment shortages, according to Guard data and the findings of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, the Washington Post reported.


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Bush Order A Review Of Veteran's Medical Centers

    So our hood in the House ( Bush ) has ordered a review of the state of conditions at the United States military and Veteran hospitals after the Washington Post uncovered those bad conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. 

   So now we get another bipartisan commission to spend months figuring out if this problem is system wide or if Walter Reed was the exception.

   Bush's weekly radio address will deal this situation and the White House is so concerned with the publicity that they have released early excerpts in advance. The radio address will be broadcast on Saturday. Source

   You would think that with all of the cash that this administration has spent and is still asking for to use for the military, that this nation's Veteran and Military hospitals would be the best on the entire planet!

   I guess that since Halliburton and Blackwater and the rest can't make anything off of this program, that it just was not worth pursuing. This so-called president of the United States and the rest of the Bush Crime Family should be ashamed of themselves and they have alot of nerve to call themselves Americans.

   A crime against humanity is what this should be!

         IMPEACH! INDICT! IMPRISON!!

 

  

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Condi Rice Hires Iraq War Critic To Counselor's Position

   This should be an interesting mix!

By Glenn Kessler

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 2, 2007

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has tapped Eliot A. Cohen, a prominent writer on national security strategy and an outspoken critic of the administration's postwar occupation of Iraq, as her counselor, State Department officials said yesterday.

Cohen would replace Philip D. Zelikow, a longtime Rice associate who left the administration earlier this year to return to teaching history at the University of Virginia. Despite Cohen's sometimes caustic views on administration policies, officials said he has impressed both Rice and President Bush with his writings, especially "Supreme Command," a study of the relationship between civilian commanders in chief and their military leaders.

So what are Bush and Rice going to do, buy Cohen's change of mind?
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Cheney Still Speaking About Troop Support If Funds Are Cut For US Troops

       Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking to a group at a conservative conference said once again that a withdrawal from Iraq would lead victorious Muslim extremists to spread out into other neighboring countries including some of the militants going into Afghanistan to help out the Taliban.

AP

While noting that the House already had passed a nonbinding resolution voicing opposition to Bush's Iraq policy, Cheney said that "very soon both houses of Congress will have to vote on a piece of legislation that is binding."

"I sincerely hope the discussion this time will be about winning in Iraq, not about posturing on Capitol Hill. Anyone can say they support the troops, and we should take them at their word. But the proof will come when it's time to provide the money and the support," Cheney said. "We expect the House and the Senate to meet those needs on time and in full."

   Cheney did get one part of his speech correct when he stated that both houses of Congress will eventually have to vote on some legislation that is binding.

   Thus far, the Democrats seem to want to stay hid in a corner just chatting away about what they may be able to do with this war. I have a suggestion for them. Get off your asses and stop the funding you spineless twits!

   If the citizens of the United States had wanted someone to just blab about shit and pass non-binding resolutions we would have elected Tony Snow to the Congress! Come on people, what the hell is your damned problem?

    Vice President Cheney knows that the Democrats are lost in wonderland so he can keep on making these remarks about not supporting troops if the funding is cut because the Dems let this shit go on.

   By the way Dick Cheney, cutting the funding is not cutting the support, so go fuck yourself!

 

 


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New Orleans Facts

    As of January 2007  New Orleans Online

Population. .

 

Parishes          Pre-Katrina                  1-Jul-06                    1-Jan-07
Orleans             484,674                        235,000                    255,000
Jefferson         455,466                        450,000                    500,000
Plaquemines      26,757                          22,000                     25,000
St. Bernard        67,229                          19,000                     20,000
St. Charles         48,072                          55,000                     60,000
St. John the
Baptist              43,044                           49,000                     55,000
St.
Tammany         191,268                         235,000                   240,000
Tangipahoa     100,588                         112,000                   115,000
Metro Area  1,417,098                      1,177,000                 1,270,000

Hospitals. Pre-Katrina there were 17 general acute care hospitals in operation in the metro area. Currently there are 11.   

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  Wikipedia

 There were 22 homicides in July 2006, the same as the monthly average for the city from 2002 until Hurricane Katrina, when the population was much higher.[30] There were 161 homicides in 2006.

As of February 12, there were at least 21 homicides in 2007. [7] On Thursday, January 11, 2007, several thousand New Orleans residents marched through city streets and gathered at City Hall for a rally demanding police and city leaders tackle the crime problem. Mayor Ray Nagin said he was "totally and solely focused" on attacking the problem. The city of New Orleans implemented checkpoints starting in early January 2007 from the hours of 2 a.m and 6 a.m. in high crime areas and to date, January 20, 2007, they have netted over 60 arrest and issued more than 100 citations

New Orleans Public Schools, the city's school district, was one of the area's largest school districts before Hurricane Katrina. It was widely recognized as the lowest performing school district in Louisiana. According to researchers Carl L. Bankston and Stephen J. Caldas, only 12 of the 103 school districts in New Orleans showed reasonably good performance at the beginning of the twenty-first century.[32] Following Hurricane Katrina, the state of Louisiana took over most of the schools within the system (all schools that fell into a nominal "worst-performing" metric); about 20 new charter schools have also been started since the storm, educating about 15,000 students. The total number of student enrollment in New Orleans is estimated to be between 28,000 to 30,000. The Recovery School District has come under fire recently for not having enough schools ready for returning students as 300 students had to be put on waiting list because they couldn't keep up with the high demand. Most Recovery District officials claim that the rate of evacuees returning are much higher than orginally thought so the supply couldn't keep up with the demand. Recovery District officials announced that by the fall semester of 2007 and the spring semester of 2008 enough schools should be open to handle 48,000 students, a gradual increase of the returning displaced population.

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Think Progress   as of August 28, 2006

Sixty-six percent of public schools have reopened.

– A 40 percent hike in rental rates, disproportionately affecting black and low-income families.

– A 300 percent increase in the suicide rate.

Eighty-four percent of New Orleans residents rate the government’s recovery efforts negatively, while 66 percent believe the recovery money has been “mostly wasted.”

 

New Orleans Since Katrina

    As you all well know, our esteemed Idiot in Chief made a trip (14th) down to New Orleans to assure the residents and himself that he is committed to the restoration of the area.

   There was the usual press briefing aboard Air Force One on the way to the area with Don Powell ( President's Federal Gulf Coast Coordinator ) doing  most of the Q&A session.

The White House      March 1, 2007

MR. POWELL: Good morning. As Dana indicated, this is the President's 14th trip, and I think, again, as evidence of his long-term commitment to rebuild the Gulf Coast area. In that regard, I think there's been lots of progress since the last -- over the last 18 months. Children are in school; "help wanted" signs are up; the port is 100 percent back; restaurants are open; hotels are open; building permits have increased; self -- (inaudible) -- revenue is, in some cases, at record highs. So there's been lots of progress.

Q  I read an editorial in the paper today, read an editorial in the Post today that said the recovery has been painfully slow and that more than half of the schools remain closed. Another report said tens of thousands of people remain displaced. Is that true, and does that worry you?

MR. POWELL: Well, we all have a sense of urgency about the recovery; we want it to be -- but I think it's important to look and put it in perspective about the size of the storm and how overwhelming this storm was. So I think there's been some good progress. As I mentioned, 53 schools are open. There's 28,000 kids in school. They're there. By some of their own testimony, the schools are better than they were before Katrina. I've heard that from teachers, from administrators.

Q  Is the federal end of this -- are you guys doing all you can do? Is that your feeling? Is there anything you can do to get money into the hands of the people who are frustrated that their house is still in shambles, or whatever, more quickly?

MR. POWELL: I ask that question myself all the time. That's a constant question that I'm always asking. At the same time, are we being responsible to the taxpayers? Are we doing everything we can to make sure that we're giving the resources

-- the necessary resources to rebuild the Gulf Coast? And with the leadership of this President, and obviously, Congress, the American taxpayers have poured a lot of money into that area. It's important that the locals -- that the local people began to push and process that money and clothes and put it in the appropriate hands of people.

 

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al-Qaeda Linked Group Says It Kidnapped 18 Gov. Officials

 The Islamic State of Iraq released pictures with a web statement showing 18 men which were blindfolded and who had their hands tied behind their backs.

   The abductions are supposedly payback for the rape ( alleged ) of a Sunni woman and the group is threatening to kill the government employees   Source

 

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Thursday, March 01, 2007

Israel Trying To Abolish Supreme Court Power. Sound Familiar?

   It was once said somewhere that George Bush is the best thing that ever happened to Israel and it seems as if the government of Israel wants to be just like Bush also.

    Ex Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar has went ahead and signed a petition opposing Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann's proposal to decrease or to totally do away with the Supreme Court's power to overturn Knesset legislation.

Haaretz

  "Abolishing substantive judicial review endangers the freedoms that have been legislated to date," said the petition. "Such a proposal does not advance the rule of law, but moves it backward."
  The meaning of abolishing judicial review, it continued, is that "Israeli citizens would lose the fundamental freedoms granted to them in the Basic Laws any time a majority of Knesset members so decides. We oppose these proposals and believe that instead, it is necessary to move forward on enacting a full constitution that will ensure all the basic human rights and their protection."

   Apparently Justice Friedmann has been watching Cheney training video's to often and reading the text of Bush's speeches and orders.

    I used to favor supporting Israel but that seems to be changing a little day by day.

 

 

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Nightly News At Bedtime

Yahoo News

 

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - House Democratic leaders have coalesced around legislation that would require troops to come home from Iraq within six months if that country's leaders fail to meet promises to help reduce violence there, party officials said Thursday.

The plan would retain a Democratic proposal prohibiting the deployment to Iraq of troops with insufficient rest or training or who already have served there for more than a year. Under the plan, such troops could only be sent to Iraq if President Bush waives those standards and reports to Congress each time.

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AP

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military announced Thursday that it has sent home two Afghans and three Tajikistani detainees at Guantanamo Bay, leaving fewer that 400 prisoners at the naval base.

  The five men, who were held at the isolated detention center in southeastern Cuba without being charged, were flown out early Wednesday and transferred to the custody of the governments in their native countries, Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand said.

They were cleared for departure by a military review process that assesses whether prisoners have intelligence value or pose a threat to the United States. The military does not provide details about individual cases including the names of those released.

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Deadly tornadoes hit southern US    Al Jazeera

At least 13 students were trapped under a
collapsed roof at an Alabama school

Tornadoes have killed 19 people in two southern US states, including at least 13 in a school in Alabama, the White House says.

The toll is expected to rise as rescue efforts continue overnight, Yasamie Richardson, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, said on Thursday.

In the Alabama school, students were trapped under a collapsed roof, state officials said.

The separate tornado incidents, which also wrecked mobile homes, had claimed the lives of a girl in Missouri and 18 people in Alabama.

Richardson said some students were still trapped three hours later.

 

NC's Cost for War Under Proposed Budget and NC's Loss From Same Budget

   For those of you living in the state of North Carolina, here is what the presidents war in Iraq will cost you if bush's proposed budget for fiscal 2008 gets passed.

National Priorities

THE PRESIDENT’S BUDGET
THE IMPACT ON NORTH CAROLINA

Selected Budget Cuts to North Carolina‡
Low-income Energy Assistance Program $44.1 million
Head Start $7.6 million
Child Care and Development Block Grant $2.0 million
Community Development Block Grant $24.1 million
Special Education $18.3 million
Community Oriented Policing Services $2.9 million
Clean Water State Revolving Fund $3.4 million

And for North Carolina taxpayers…
Cost of the Iraq War $12.3 billion
‡The FY2007 budget was not completed at the time of publication. The above cuts and other information in this publication compare the proposed budget for FY2008 withFY2006.

More For War
The administration is requesting an additional $100 billion in war-related
spending for this fiscal year (2007). Of that money, about $78 billion would be for the Iraq War alone,bringing that war’s total cost through
FY2007 to $456billion.
If Congress passes this request, the cost to North Carolina taxpayers for the Iraq War will rise to $12.3billion.
And, the budget proposes another $145 billion in war-related spending for FY2008.
Total military spending (which includes war spending) for this fiscal year (2007) would amount to $620 billion rising to nearly $650 billion next year. Military spending would be higher than it was during the Vietnam War or the Korean War, after taking inflation into account.

Notes: *NPP’s analysis of supplementary materials, ‘Additional 2007 and 2008 proposals’ included in the Budget of the U.S. Government,
FY2008, Appendix, attributed $78.1 billion of the additional money requested for 2007 to the Iraq War. The total is only through FY07 and
does not include any of the requested $145 billion for FY08. IRS data is used to determine state shares.
National Priorities Project, Inc. 􀂍 17 New South Street, Suite 302 􀂍 Northampton, MA 01060
www.nationalpriorities.org 􀂍 info@nationalpriorities.org 􀂍 413.584.9556
© 2007 National Priorities Project, Inc.


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