The Hollywood Liberal

Hollywood’s Own Henry Waxman On the Job.

Oversight.House.gov

Excerpt:
He’s one of the very few congressman worth a damn. Thats why I vote for him.

Waxman Renews Niger Queries

Chairman Waxman asks Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to respond to a series of unanswered letters, including two letters raising questions about the President’s claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger.

Bush Seeks Iraq War Funds ‘With No Strings’

New York Times
Excerpt:

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, March 11 — President Bush on Sunday called for Congress to provide financing for the Iraq war “with no strings attached.” And he defended his decision, made formal this weekend, to send more than 8,000 more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan by saying they would be dedicated to training and support missions.

Referring to the increase of 21,500 troops that he announced in January, Mr. Bush said during a press briefing here, “Those combat troops are going to need some support, and that’s what the American people are seeing in terms of Iraq — the support troops that are necessary to help the reinforcements do their job.”

The president’s aides announced this weekend that Mr. Bush had formally approved the deployment of 4,700 more troops to Iraq — on top of the 21,500 troops being sent as part of his new war plan — and 3,500 to Afghanistan. The Pentagon had already indicated that it would need to send additional troops to Iraq to support the increases Mr. Bush announced in January. But the specific increase for Afghanistan had not been previously mentioned.

Mr. Bush’s aides announced the increases after the president sent a letter to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, requesting $3.2 billion in emergency funds for the Iraq and Afghanistan missions. Mr. Bush has proposed making up for the increase with cuts elsewhere. He wrote the letter Friday night on his way from Brazil to Uruguay, the first two legs of his tour through Latin America.

He is awaiting approval of a $100 billion emergency spending bill for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“My hope, of course, is that Congress provides the funding necessary for the combat troops to be able to do their job — without any strings attached,” he said Sunday.

HLs Take
Congress: Sure Jr. whatever you want. We just have to pretend to be against you a little first, then you’ll get everything, no problem.

A quarter of US war vets diagnosed with mental disorder: study

Raw Story
Excerpt:
A quarter of the Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans treated with US government-funded health care have been diagnosed with a mental disorder, according to a study published Monday.

And when psychosocial disorders such as domestic violence were included, the number of war veterans suffering from mental illnesses rose to 31 percent.

The instances of mental illness among recently discharged troops and members of the National Guard are significantly higher than those of a study published last year which examined active duty troops, the lead researcher told AFP.

The study comes just days after the Bush administration vowed a “comprehensive review” of veteran care following revelations that soldiers being treated at the renowned Walter Reed Army Medical Center were living in a building with mold-covered walls, infestations of mice and cockroaches, and holes in the ceiling.

That scandal exposed a broader problem with the under-funding of the VA system, said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

With a backlog of more than 860,000 medical claims and waiting times of up to a year for treatment, many of the troops coming home are not getting the help they need, Davis said.

And that includes treatment of mental disorders, which are a predictable result of the kinds of stresses troops face under combat, Davis said.

“War changes everybody and everybody is going to have to deal with it in one way or another,” Davis said.

HLs Take
Just one more cost of war that we will all have to deal with in the coming years. Veterans gone crazy from the war, with on one to help them out, so they will be forced into the streets. By then Bush will be chilling on his heavily guarded compound in Paraguay.

Attorney General Gonzales Should Resign or Be Removed from Office

People for The American Way
Excerpt:

PFAW petitions demand Gonzales’ departure as first step to restoring rule of law in administration marked by abuse of power, violations of Constitution

WASHINGTON, D.C.—People For the American Way, which two years ago helped lead opposition to the confirmation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, today called for his resignation or removal as the first step toward holding the White House and Department of Justice accountable to the rule of law, and urged Congress to expand its oversight of the administration.

“Each scandal sheds new light on the Bush administration’s abuse of power, violation of Americans’ civil liberties, and contempt for the Constitution,” said People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas. “Our nation’s top law enforcement official is in the middle of it, showing greater fidelity to the political interests of President Bush than to the public interest and the rule of law.”

Early last week, Congress heard testimony from eight U.S. attorneys who had been fired by the Bush administration, several of whom testified that their dismissals appeared politically motivated. Since then, news reports have linked that political pressure to the White House and President Bush himself. In addition, the Department of Justice’s inspector general recently issued a report finding that the F.B.I., which is part of the Justice Department, had violated the law and abused its authority under the Patriot Act to obtain personal information about American citizens.

HLs Take
Gonzalez says he will stay or go depending on what Bush wants. I guess that means his job is safe through ’09.

Collins and Chertoff Fight to Save the National ID

Cato Institute
Excerpt:
Bush administration officials and some Republican senators remain undeterred by the mounting opposition among state governments to a national ID measure and are looking to companies and organizations that will benefit from the ID scheme to persuade opponents beyond the Beltway to back down.
Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, is the author of the latest effort to sell reluctant states on the REAL ID Act, the 2005 measure which would coerce states into issuing nationally standardized driver’s licenses and require them to enter information about their drivers in nationally accessible databases.

Despite Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s public insistence that the Act needs to be implemented rapidly, the administration, and Mr. Chertoff himself, appear happy to avoid an immediate confrontation with the states and to go along with Ms. Collins’ sales tactic. The Maine Senator introduced a bill, and pressed it as an amendment on the Senate floor, to extend the deadline for state compliance with the REAL ID Act, allowing companies in favor of the measure time to work in state capitols to calm the burgeoning rebellion.

Sen. Collins’ counter-rebellion role is laden with irony. The revolt, after all, started in her own New England state. In late January, George Smith, executive director of the Maine Sportsmen’s Alliance, stood to denounce the REAL ID Act at a community forum in Augusta. A Norman Rockwell painting come to life with the directness and accent of a lifelong Mainer, he said: “They had their Boston Tea Party. Let’s have a REAL ID Party!”
The next day, the Maine House and Senate passed a resolution to reject REAL ID by overwhelming margins.

Working with Sen. Collins, DHS has now moved the deadline for complying with REAL ID back more than a year and a half, from May 2008 to December 2009. DHS says it will start allocating Homeland Security Grant Program funds for REAL ID while implementation is delayed. That gives incentive to the ultimate recipients of the funds to start lobbying rebellious state lawmakers.

Dems abandon war authority provision

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON – Democratic leaders are stripping from a military spending bill for the war in Iraq a requirement that President Bush gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., and other leaders agreed to remove the requirement concerning Iran after conservative Democrats as well as other lawmakers worried about its possible impact on Israel, officials said Monday.

AIPAC- The One Thing Both Parties Can Agree On.

AP
Excerpt:
AIPAC opens their annual policy conference in Washington DC on Sunday. Among the speakers at the conference will be Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi and you can guarantee both their hands will be extended looking for cash. “Yes, we support the genocide Israel is conducting in the middle east, now pay me!” “Yes, we approve of Israel not honoring any of the U.N. resolutions passed against them, now pay me!” “Yes, we will sacrifice America’s sons and daughters in the interest of advancing Israels world views, now pay me!”

How can it be legal for a foreign government to have this much influence over our domestic politics?

HLs Take
How can it be legal? easy, money money money.