The Hollywood Liberal

Violations Force Feinstein Military Committee Resignation

Corruption Chronicles.
Excerpt:

During her six years as chair and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Senator Dianne Feinstein annually supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars for specific military construction projects. The San Francisco lawmaker supervised her own staff of military construction experts and she lobbied Pentagon officials to support her favorite projects.

She wielded quite a bit of power and succeeded in steering hundreds of billions of dollars in military contracts to companies partially owned by her wealthy husband, Richard Blum. One company alone earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by Feinstein’s committee and another $759 million.

The blatant ethics violation and obvious conflict of interest was first exposed earlier this year by a weekly Northern California publication. The story details how Feinstein voted over the years for appropriations that enriched her husband’s firms and that her top legal advisor also happens to be one of her husband’s longtime business partners; in other words, a financial beneficiary of the senator’s decisions.

HLs Take:
If this is true, then Feinstein is just another hypocrite politician just as bad as the Republicans. Even if it’s not true the time has come to oust this Republican lite, out of the Democratic party for good. We need a better Senator from California. Martin Sheen should run, he would win if he did. If he was in there he would be doing everything he could to stop Bush and war. I guess Marty just has too much ethics for Politics.

Who Would You Rather Have Sit in on a Cabinet Meeting?

Talk Left.com
Excerpt:
Rudy Giuliani says his wife Judith Nathan would be welcome to sit in on cabinet and policy meetings if he were elected President.

How typical of his absolute arrogance.

If Hillary gets elected, we'd have Bill Clinton either sitting in on meetings or being Ambassador to the world.

Hillary Clinton says many people want her to appoint her husband secretary of State if she wins. Such nepotism was outlawed after John Kennedy made his brother Bobby attorney general, she noted at the fundraiser.

Then she added, to huge cheers, “But I sure can make him ambassador to the world!” That is a role the former president already is playing, mostly through the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation.

How is this even a close call?

Missouri & Texas Introduce Impeachment Bills

AP
Excerpt:
TEXAS:
Yellow Rose Peace Bus — “Texas State Representative Lon Burnam introduced HCR. No. 154: Submitting charges to the United States House of Representatives constituting proof that the president of the United States has violated his oath of office.”

MISSOURI:
Rep. Nasheed, Jamilah sponsored and Rep. Jeanette Mott Oxford cosponsored a bill calling for the impeachment of George Bush.

Bill Maher Discusses Bush’s 9/11 Non-Reaction On Olbermann

AP
Excerpt:
Bill Maher was a guest on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown last night. They talked about many interesting subjects regarding Bush, and Republicans, including Bush’s reaction on 0/11 See the whole interview here.

McCain: Progress is being made in Iraq

APExcerpt:
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential contender John McCain (news, bio, voting record) said Tuesday, “we are starting to turn things around” in the Iraq war, as he broke off campaigning in Florida to vote against a proposed troop withdrawal timeline.

HLs Take:
Turning things around did he say? So in other the words the war has reached a turning point? Funny thats the same thing that Bush said almost a year ago back on May 6, 2006 (of course he said THAT two years after he declared Mission Accomplished) So Mc Cain lies about the Turning Point just as Bush did in this comic called, what else, Turning Point. Click on link to see the whole comic.

If you are a fan of the movies Scarface, and The Godfather like me, you will probably like the first 2, the third one is pretty good too.

Questions on firings shorten Gonzales news conference

Chicago Tribune
Excerpt:
A scheduled 15-minute news conference with Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales was quickly cut short in Chicago on Tuesday, with Gonzales leaving the room after just three questions about the controversial dismissal of a group of U.S. attorneys….The attorney general’s handling of the aftermath has resulted in demands that he lose his own job.

Gonzales said he wants his office to work to “reassure the American people that nothing improper happened here” and insisted he has been forthcoming about his role.

HLs Take
If he want to be forthcoming about his role, then answer the F**king questions. Click through to the link to see the video of how fast torture boy can move when he wants to

Rudy Giuliani’s Vulnerabilities

The Smoking Gun

Secret study cited “weirdness factor” among candidate weaknesses
Excerpt:
FEBRUARY 12–As he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani will have to contend with political and personal baggage unknown to prospective supporters whose knowledge of the former New York mayor is limited to his post-September 11 exploits. So, in a bid to educate the electorate, we’re offering excerpts from a remarkable “vulnerability study” that was commissioned by Giuliani’s campaign prior to his successful 1993 City Hall run…
On the following pages, you’ll find the vulnerability report’s cover and preface and sections on Reagan Republicanism, women and abortion, Giuliani’s first marriage and divorce, draft dodging, gay issues, racial polarization, and his party registration “flip-flop.”

HLs Take
There are 27 Pages of documents here, Did you know that Rudy first marriage was to his own cousin, and not only that he claims he didn’t know for 14 years, this guy is as big a liar as Bush. What a total freak.

Drop in Ad Revenue Raises Tough Question for Newspapers

NY Times
Excerpt:
For newspapers, February was the cruelest month. So far.
Revenue from advertising was in striking decline last month, compared with February a year ago, and were generally weaker than analysts had expected…..
Ad revenue at The New York Times Company fell 6 percent overall, declining 7.5 percent at The New York Times; ad revenue at the company’s New England Media Group, which includes The Boston Globe, was down 4 percent. At The Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones, it was off 10 percent.

The Tribune Company, whose papers include The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun, reported losses of more than 5 percent. So did McClatchy, whose papers include The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee and The Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky.

HLs Take:
Maybe if these Newspapers started telling the truth, stopped licking Bush’s ass on a daily basis, stopped cheerleading a war they know the people are against. People might start reading the newspapers again. But why should they waste 50 cents when they can come home and read the truth on blogs for free? You know newspapers are obsolete when you are reading the stories on LA Times online, then 24 hours later you stop to pick up a burger on the way home from the bar, grab a paper, and read the same stories again.

Murtha And Murphy Said It All About Iraq Last Week

Bob Geiger.com
Excerpt:

“In the last four years, the Republican Congress followed this president, as thousands of brave American soldiers returned home in coffins, with our American flag. Nineteen of those coffins had soldiers I served with in Iraq — 19 paratroopers.

“Mr. Speaker, with this bill, with this vote, we mark the end of that error.

“To those on the other side of the aisle who are opposed, I want to ask you the same questions that my gunner asked me when I was leading a convoy up and down Ambush Alley one day. He said, ‘Sir, what are we doing over here? What’s our mission? When are these Iraqis going to come off the sidelines and fight for their own country?’ So to my colleagues across the aisle - - - your taunts about supporting our troops ring hollow if you are still unable to answer those questions now four years later.”

Senator: Some See Impeachment As Option

ABC News
Excerpt:
Republican Senator Says Bush’s Approach on Iraq Is Driving Lawmakers to Consider Impeachment
WASHINGTON Mar 25, 2007 (AP)— With his go-it-alone approach on Iraq, President Bush is flouting Congress and the public, so angering lawmakers that some consider impeachment an option over his war policy, a senator from Bush’s own party said Sunday.

GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of the war, stopped short of calling for Bush’s impeachment. But he made clear that some lawmakers viewed that as an option should Bush choose to push ahead despite public sentiment against the war.

“Any president who says, I don’t care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don’t care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed if a president really believes that, then there are what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that,” said Hagel, who is considering a 2008 presidential run.

HLs Take
You know if Chuck Hagel wasn’t one of the owners of Diebold, ES&S, Seqouia voting systems, the ones that are responsible for Bush, and all the misery he has visited on the world, and the same voting systems he will use to try to get himself elected, I might almost like this guy. At least he is honest about Bush.

This guy Trump, he’s got a few dollars in his pocket. This guy could be one of Bush’s biggest fans what with all the tax breaks he gets for being mega rich. However The Donald tells the truth about the biggest F**k up to ever take the reigns of power in America. Check it out.

America’s hidden war dead

Chicago Tribune
Excerpt:
More than 770 civilians working for U.S. firms have lost their lives supporting the military in Iraq, and some families are now speaking out

HOUSTON — Like thousands of other Americans who have served in Iraq since the U.S. intervention began four years ago, Walter Zbryski came home in a coffin. Only his coffin was not draped in an American flag or accompanied by a military honor guard.

Instead, the mangled body of the 56-year-old retired firefighter from New York City was shipped back to his family in June 2004 in the bloodied clothes in which he died, with half of his head blown away, according to Zbryski’s brother Richard.

“I viewed the body,” Richard Zbryski said. “What really upset me was that he was laying there floating in at least 6 inches of his own body fluids. They didn’t even clean him up for us.”

Zbryski’s death was not counted among the official tally of more than 3,200 American military personnel who have been killed in Iraq, nor was it noted by the Defense Department in a news release. That’s because Zbryski was not a soldier–he was a truck driver working in the private army of hundreds of thousands of contractors hired by the Pentagon to support the logistical side of the massive American war effort in Iraq.

More than 770 civilian contractors working for American companies have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began on March 20, 2003, according to an obscure office inside the U.S. Department of Labor, which loosely tracks the figures. If those deaths–of truck drivers and cooks, laundry workers and security guards–are added to the military toll, the human cost of the U.S. war effort in Iraq is nearly 25 percent higher.

HLs Take:
Looks like Cheney’s Army of Halliburton/KBR civilians get even less care then our soldiers. Of course the real soldiers probably have little sympathy for the guys from KBR who make 3 times as much money as members of our own Army, to do the same work. This is one more way that they can get people to keep going to Iraq. They are paying guys like the ex-NYC firefighter to go over there and do the work that they can’t get enough volunteers to do. Don’t expect a state funeral if you happen to get killed over there though. Maybe its just me but it seems there has got to be a better way to make a living.

People who are screwing over America can’t criticize my Patriotism.

The AIPAC Girl, Nancy Pelosi Leaves Iran War In Bush/Cheney Hands

AP
Excerpt:
If George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war.
For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran.
Pelosi’s capitulation came in the Appropriations Committee.
What went down, and why?
“Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy,” wrote The Associated Press’ David Espo and Matthew Lead.
“Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) said in an interview there is a widespread fear in Israel about Iran,
Pelosi’s decision to strip the provision barring Bush from attacking Iran without Congress’ approval “sends the worst possible signal to the White House.”
“The speaker has erred dangerously and dramatically,” writes Nichols. Her “disastrous misstep could haunt her and the Congress for years to come.”
Nichols does not exaggerate.
If Bush now launches war on Iran, he can credibly say Congress and the Democrats gave him a green light. For Pelosi, by removing a provision saying Bush does not have the authority, de facto concedes he does have the authority.
Bush and Cheney need now not worry about Congress.
They have been flashed the go-sign for war on Iran

Here is our latest installment of The HL on NBC News Raw. We do a weekly segment for them every Monday morning where I talk about what we’ve been blogging about in the past week, and what is coming up this week. Here it is, check out the video.

Saw this on Bartcop.com

House OKs timetable for troops in Iraq

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON - A sharply divided House voted Friday to order
President Bush to bring combat troops home from
Iraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress’ boldest challenge yet to the administration’s policy.

Ignoring a White House veto threat, lawmakers voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a binding war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.

“The American people have lost faith in the president’s conduct of this war,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. “The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not.”

Republicans were almost completely unified in their fight against the bill, which they said was tantamount to admitting failure in Iraq.
HLs Take:
And of course thats what the Republicans are all about not being able to admit the truth to themselves. Top Generals have said as recently as a few days ago that the war is lost and no amount of extra troops is going to make it better. But as long as Republicans don’t admit to themselves they were wrong (again) they can continue the boondoggle indefinitely, while they all continue to recieve their payoffs and kickbacks. Bush has threatened to veto, but if he does that he does not get his extra hundred billion.

Britain: Iran seizes 15 sailors, marines

AP
Excerpt:
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Iranian naval vessels on Friday seized 15 British sailors and marines who had boarded a merchant ship in Iraqi waters of the Persian Gulf, British and U.S. officials said. Britain immediately protested the detentions, which come at a time of high tension between the West and
Iran.

In London, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador to the Foreign Office: “He was left in no doubt that we want them back,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said after the meeting.

The U.S. Navy, which operates off the Iraqi coast along with British forces, said the British sailors appeared unharmed and that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard naval forces were responsible.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said the British Navy personnel were “engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters,” and had completed a ship inspection when they were accosted by the Iranian vessels.

HLs Take
So now the US/British forces are not as strong as the Iranian Navy. This sounds like a BS story to me. Is this the 9/11-Golf of Tonkin incident that Bush and Blair will use to start “Debacle 2 Iran: The Sequel” Where they will get their asses kicked by an Army that is 4 times the size of Iraqs. At least Bush will continue to rake in the cash until he gets out of office.