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« Cookin' out with Obama, Giuliani  (Related)   | Latest postings  (Related)   | Colbert was funny but likely wrong on Obama story »  (Related)

Originally posted: May 25, 2007

Swamp Gas, May 25, 2007

Posted by Frank James at 7:15 am CDT

A quick guided tour to some of the day's most important or interesting (or both) Washington-related stories.

Congress (Related) passed a timeline-free Iraq War spending bill, ending the immediate impasse between congressional Democrats and President Bush. With more than $100 billion in funding for military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the bill contained benchmarks to be met by the Iraqi government and its passage shifted the focus of much of the war debate to September when the top U.S. military commander is scheduled to give an assessment of whether the surge of U.S. troops worked.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (Related) is unflatteringly portrayed in two new books by respected investigative journalists. The Democratic presidential candidate is depicted as self-righteous, secretive and calculating. Though her aides dismiss the books as offering little new, one volume reports that former President Bill Clinton and the senator have had a little known long-term plan whereby he would serve as president for two terms then she would follow.

The House (Related) passed a watered down ethics-reform bill that would force lobbyists to disclose the campaign contributions they collect and give candidates, a practice called bundling. Though Democrats campaigned last year on ending a congressional "culture of corruption," the opposition of many in the majority party defeated changes that would have made the reform bill tougher, including one that would have extended the ban on former lawmakers and congressional aides lobbying Congress from one to two years.

Moqtada al-Sadr (Related) , the anti-American Shiite cleric who went into hiding, perhaps to Iran, in the months since the U.S.-Iraqi troop surge began, delivered a sermon in public in a mosque in the southern Iraq city of Kufa.

Immigration (Related) legislation supporters were cautiously optimistic as the Senate fought back amendments that would have removed or added provisions that could have upset the legislation's shaky coalition of backers, including an effort to remove the language that would provide a path to legalization for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Smoking (Related) should be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, with Congress giving the agency the power to do so, a panel of independent experts said in a report for the Institute of Medicine.

American men in their 30s (Related) are worse off economically than their fathers' generation according to a new study, a troubling finding in a nation that has long viewed upward economic mobility to be a vital part of the American dream.

OPEC officials (Related) don't see a reason to boost oil output to lower gas prices as they did two years ago, saying rising fuel prices isn't due to a lack of oil but tight refining capacity and declining U.S. inventories.

China (Related) is devoting more of its growing economic power to building its military capability to cripple the satellite and computer networks that the U.S. military and econmy depend on, according to a new Pentagon report scheduled for release today.

The nation's largest pilot's union (Related) dropped its long-standing opposition to raising the retirement age for pilots to 65 from 60 which will make it easier to change federal law so that older U.S. pilots will have the same rights as overseas pilots.

in Swamp Gas (Related) | Permalink (Related) Comments

A pre-war CIA report warned that deposing Saddam Hussein would likely lead to internal violence and a boost to terrorists. It specifically warned of the civil war and terrorism we are now seeing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18854414/ (Related)

What did the "Commander Guy" and his administration do to prepare for the situation they were warned of? Nothing. Were they honest with the American people that the war they were about to start would lead to a long, bloody guerilla war? Nope, they told us we would be greated as liberators.

Now, to head off my Neo-con friends who will say "But the Democrats who voted for the war knew too!", this report came out in January 2003. 3 months AFTER the vote on the AUMF. But it was still 2 months befor Bush actually started the war, plenty of time to reconsider, or at least take prudent measures to deal with this expected aftermath.

Posted by: Tony | May 25, 2007 7:56:39 AM

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