The Bush administration last week persuaded Republican lawmakers to vote down a provision in the $87 billion supplemental funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan operations that would have given financial relief to federally employed reservists called to active duty.
The provision, sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., would have reimbursed those federal employees for any pay cut they suffer when mobilized. It was defeated on a party-line vote Oct. 28 during a House-Senate conference.
About 14,000 reservists are now mobilized to assist with operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Durbin estimates that 23,000 federal employees in all would benefit from this sensible measure, at a relatively inexpensive cost of $80 million.

Hijacker shot passenger
on Flight 11: FAA memo
'One bullet fired,' killing 9B occupant, but agency claims report was in error
"It was a first draft," said FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown in a phone interview today. "There was no gun."

"The American Airlines FAA Principal Security Inspector (PSI) was notified by Suzanne Clark of American Airlines Corporate Headquarters, that an on board flight attendant contacted American Airlines Operations Center and informed that a passenger located in seat 10B shot and killed a passenger in seat 9B at 9:20 a.m.
"The passenger killed was Daniel Lewin, shot by passenger Satam Al Suqami. One bullet was reported to have been fired."

For goodness sake, the Bushies had documents ? official Iraqi and Nigerien documents ? about uranium. Uranium! Sure, it?s not yet enriched to weapons-grade, but a little detail like that wouldn?t stand in the way of a frighteningly successful propaganda-and-scare campaign. If those documents had been widely or even narrowly perceived within the administration as genuine, the whole world would have seen those documents. Repeatedly. In every venue imaginable.

Instead, the documents were kept under lock and key. Heck, they weren?t even leaked to the two most gullible or pretend-gullible reporters in the world: Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker and Judith Miller of the New York Times, who along with their editors stood ready, willing and able to spread most any preposterous story that would build public support for war.

mred - hersh seems to make sense mostly *and* be a cia mouthpiece at the same time



"Oh, my goodness, yes!" Rumsfeld sputtered. "We are killing many more of them! Why - on any given day we capture or kill many more of them than they do of us. But, by golly," he grinned, "there are good things going on in Iraq, too. Bad news always drives out the good..."

mred - if i ever ever ever ever had any doubt, it was removed today watching faux news (masochist). they seemed to be apologising for a story yesterday that turned out to not be true - some mention of a leak of a memo or the usual thing - apparently the memo certified a link between osama and saddam, so they ran a story with a vid of osama on the left of the screen, and saddam on the right - simultaneously - flicking thru images of each of them, perhaps 20 or so of each - all the movement captivating the eye. they had the temerity to print 'osama saddam memo' on the screen for a while, and then they flicked to 'no link' - the images juxtaposed against each other again and again. the temerity.

even the most compassionate jesus christ seemed to put some limits on forgiveness 'Forgive them for they know not what they do' - but these fuckers all know *exactly* what they are doing. except the perhaps-too-stupid gwb.

the administration's "Operation Iraqi Mantra" madness must come to a screeching halt.



mr ed. for every dead american. 23 dead iraqis. and u reckon the american public is starting to wonder, how bout dem dam ay-rabs?

mlh sent this - thanks. it made me smile. what a weird fukking world that this stuff can be funny.

From June of 1963 to June of 1968, a string of bright lights became forever extinguished. The hopes and prayers and optimism of millions and millions of Americans were poured out in the life blood of these men on the streets of Mississippi, Texas, New York, Tennessee and California. There is no calculating the damage that came because of their absence

How can Bush feign shock at the carnage in Baghdad when he signed off on intelligence reports that predicted it?
Sidney Blumenthal

After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.