Elections On The Horizons

We all need to be paying attention to stories like this one.  Maybe, just maybe, we'll find a way to make sure the results are accurate this time. Otherwise.....

New Florida Study Confirms: 'Insider Computer Hackers Can Change Diebold Voting Results Without a Trace'

According to a story in the Miami Herald by Marc Caputo; "the Florida Secretary of State's office has conducted an elections study that confirmed Tuesday what a maverick voting chief discovered nearly two years ago: Insider computer hackers can change votes without a trace on Diebold optical-scan machines." The study by the [...]

Tags: Diebold, Electronic Voting Machines, Hackers

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Ware Takes on Washington

CNN's Michael Ware is definitely on the short list of people I think really understand how to report on television.  You can put Olbermann and Cafferty on that list, too.  Why?  Because they're not afraid to speak out.

Ware: Surge Is Undermining ‘The Very Government That America Created’

Last night, during his interview with Larry King, Vice President Cheney claimed that “the reports I’m hearing, from people whose views I respect, indicate that the Petraeus plan is in fact producing results.” On Anderson Cooper’s show later in the evening, CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware, who spoke live on a night scope camera while embedded [...]

Tags: Iraq War, Michael Ware, Petraeus, Olbermann, Cafferty 

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Iraq Today

So, there might have been some debatedly-optimistic numbers about U.S. deaths in Iraq, but things still aren't looking all that good, particularly (as we noted earlier) for the Iraqi civilians.

Iraq’d

Reuters AlertNet: Two Baghdad blasts killed at least 43 people and wounded 79 others in crowded areas of the capital as six ministers from Iraq’s largest Sunni Muslim bloc withdrew from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s coalition government. A fuel tanker exploded near a gasoline station in the western Mansour district, killing 27 people and wounding 45, state [...]

Tags: Iraq War, Nuri al-Maliki

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Obama Moves The War Topic Along

This could turn out to be a pivotal speech for Obama. For the first time, to my knowledge, he's saying we need troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan and Pakistan, where true terrorists are given safe haven...that's tough talk.

Obama's Hard Power/Soft Power Home Run

Barack Obama gave a stellar speech today at the Wilson Center in Washington, one that laid out his alternate view of a war against terrorists. The most noteworthy elements of this speech have been splashed across the media already today, because Obama calls for redeploying troops out of Iraq and back into Afghanistan to finally do what Bush wouldn't do at Tora Bora. And Obama is calling for attacks inside [...]

Over at AMERICAblog, A.J. Rossmiller was impressed:

Obama gets it

Obama delivered a speech today on terrorism, demonstrating his clear understanding of both the situation in Iraq and the real threats we continue to face abroad. Crucially, he addressed Iraq not as something we need to fix in order to fight terrorists but rather *a significant detriment to* our anti-terrorism goals and policies. Iraq has gone from being completely unrelated to global terrorism to a major factor in advancing its cause, and unlike the Bush administration, Obama recognizes the affirmative policies necessary. To wit: [...]

Tags: Obama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan

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Tough Criticism

Topic:  Gitmo.  Guess who's complaining now?  The American Medical Association!

Doctors Blast Guantanamo Treatment as Unethical

The Associated Press reports, "Military doctors violate medical ethics when they approve the force-feeding of hunger strikers at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay," according to a commentary in Wednesday's Journal of [...]

Tags: Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay, American Medical Association

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A Lot Of Guns

Indeed.  Darn near 200,000 of 'em.  Where, oh where, could they be?

US cannot account for 190,000 guns in Iraq: report

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US government cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to an investigation carried out by the Government Accountability Office. According to the July 31 report, the military "cannot fully account for [...]

Tags: Iraq War, Missing Guns, Government Accountability Office

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Again And Again

Members of Congress seem to think they can get away with just about anything.  Interestingly, most of the high-profile cases lately have been Republicans.  The latest includes a Senator from Alaska.  The amazing thing is that his core supporters don't seem to be screaming about this latest episode from "As Congress Turns"...

Republicans’ gall knows no limits

Congressional Republicans picked a bad time for a new series of corruption scandals. This happens to be the week in which both chambers are considering major new ethics reform measures. The good news is, the House passed its measure today by a wide margin. The bad news is, there’s at least one Senate Republican for [...]

Tags: Ted Stevens, Alaska, Ethics

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Feeling Safer Tonight?

Washington is busy keeping track of the "bad guys", so we should ALL be sleeping better.  Unless, they somehow manage to confuse you or me with a bad guy.  Then, bad thiings could start to happen.

A whole lot of surveillance going on

After a while, between the lies, dissembling, and stone-walling, the details can get a little confusing. Asked initially about warrantless domestic spying, Alberto Gonzales said there wasn’t any disagreement about the legality of Bush’s so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program” at the Justice Department. We later learned there was all kinds of disagreement and Gonzales was lying. As [...]

Spies in Your Kitchen Sink?

How many surveillance programs has Bush authorized? No one knows, but in a desperate effort to save Attorney General Gonzales from perjury charges and/or impeachment the administration, in a letter from Mike McConnell, Bush's Director of National Intelligence to Senator Arlen Specter, is now admitting to a "series of secret surveillance activities" pursuant to an executive order issued by Bush. These apparently include "activities" that are not part of the so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program" that [...]

Tags: Warrantless Wiretaps, Gonzales, Surveillance, Terrorist Surveilance Program

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The Sadness of a Sale

I've been looking for the posts that best summarize my feelings on the impending sale of the Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdach. If anybody thinks it's not going to change the landscape of American Journalism, we need to sit down and have a LONG talk.  For those of you who say, "Why should I care? I never read the journal, anyway", allow me to give you a couple of bloggers who do an excellent job of explaining..

Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is now going to own the Wall Street Journal. That's bad news for print journalism and it's probably bad news for the WSJ's bottom line. As Eric Alterman points out, Murdoch consistently loses money on his newspapers. Take a look at his flagship American publication: the New York Post. It's dumb, celebrity-obsessed, spineless, corrupt, unreliable and reactionary, and even with all its pandering, it still manages to lose, by its own estimation, $30 million to $50 million a year. It's not just the Post that Murdoch [...]

Signed, Sealed, & Delivered

In case you hadn’t heard, Rupert Murdoch, the crude, shrewd Australian-born right-winger now owns Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, making him the single most powerful media mogul in the [...]

Tags: Murdach, Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones

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Mid-Week Posts

Welcome to Wednesday evening.  Allow me to get a bit of complaining off my chest.  You might noticed that the formats of posts have varied a bit lately.  I've been trying Windows Live Writer as an offline editor, based on several very positive online reviews.  I want to like it. I really do. But they can't seem to keep updated versions online. I downloaded one that seemed to be quite functional; better than an earlier beta I had tried. Then, read a notice that said an even newer version was available, but the download link installed an EARLIER version, one that doesn't function as well for me.  AAARGH.  So, I'm back to my old standby and it looks like I'll be here until I'm assured the Windows Live Writer version issue has been resolved.  With that out of the way (and, yes, I know many of you could care less! But I wanted to explain the changing formats!) here's what's floating around "the internets" tonight. We start with something that is welcome news, indeed.  The key will be keeping the number headed lower.

U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Is Year’s Lowest

The death of a marine in western Iraq brought the American military death toll to 74 so far in July, on course to be the [...]

From the Right, some thoughts and concerns..

U.S. Deaths in Iraq Down in July

The number of U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq in July was 74, the lowest total in eight months. That's good news, obviously, but it's hard to know what to make of it. The "surge" was expected to increase, not decrease, American deaths, as the strategy was to engage more closely with the enemy. It is hard to believe that after only a couple of months, enough progress has been made to [...]

And, from the other side, Think Progress has this analysis...

REPORT: Putting U.S. Troop Casualty Statistics In Perspective

At least 73 U.S. troops are reported to have died in Iraq this past month. The numbers are a decline from the all-time highs of 108, 131, and 117 from the previous three months. Media reports herald the statistics as encouraging and as demonstrating “steady progress” in Iraq. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno said [...]

Finally, one more.  Just for good measure...

Iraqi civilian casualties up 33% from last month

From the Department of Bright and Cheerful Ledes: Thunderous car bomb blasts echoed around Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 70 people, as Iraq’s national unity coalition collapsed under the weight of sectarian tensions. New government figures also revealed civilian deaths in the country rose by one third last month, dealing a further blow to a five-month-old [...]

Tags: Iraq War, U.S. Death Toll

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