AfterDowningStreet.org

From Tomdispatch today:
One of the enduring mysteries of this war is that reporting on our bases in Iraq has been almost nonexistent these last years -- especially given an administration so weighted toward military solutions to global problems; especially given the staggering heft of some of the bases; especially given the fact that the Pentagon was mothballing our bases in Saudi Arabia and saw those in Iraq as long-term substitutes; especially given the fact that the neocons and other top administration officials were so focused on controlling the so-called arc of instability (basically, the energy heartlands of the planet) at whose center was Iraq; and especially given the fact that Pentagon pre-war planning for such "enduring camps" was, briefly, a front-page story in the New York Times back in April 2003.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006
NEW* BROWNBACK in Washington, DC: Sen. Brownback delivered the keynote
address at a discussion panel titled "Preventing a Nuclear-Armed Iran:
Will Russia and China Really Help?" at the Heritage Foundation, at

The New York Times
White House Shoots Foot
Let's see. The vice president of the United States accidentally shot someone while bird-hunting on a Texas ranch. It took the White House nearly 24 hours to share that information with the rest of the nation because Dick Cheney thought it would be better for the ranch's owner to give the story to the local newspaper first. And by the way, it was all the victim's fault.

By Timothy Karr
According to a recent GAO report, this White House has found a way to pay for their deception. They are quietly picking the back pockets of US taxpayers to turn around and sell Bush's political product back to . . . US taxpayers. READ MORE

By Charles R. Babcock, The Washington Post
Case tests reach of False Claims Act.
The first civil fraud case against a US contractor accused of war profiteering in Iraq goes to trial tomorrow in federal court in Alexandria. It pits two whistle-blowers against two former Army officers whose company, Custer Battles LLC, won multimillion-dollar contracts in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

By Brad Friedman, THE BRAD BLOG - The uprising continues...
http://www.BradBlog.com
CHENEY SHOOTING: Plausable Deniability
Why Was Cheney's Roll as Shooter Withheld for Hours from the White House?

By Ed Flynn
Apparently Dick Cheney could have possibly been a tad drunk while he was
out shooting at Ducks and associates lately. Can you imagine what
transpired that day? I can and here’s a transcript…
SECRET SERVICE ON RADIO: (radio garble)..Code 86, Code 86…Elmer Fudd is
unleashed…repeat Elmer Fudd has been unleashed…All agents seek cover…
CHENEY:(drunk holding a M-50 Machine gun Shotgun) Geeesh wheeres da ducks?
Come on! Toss one up in the air for meesh…. where’s my whisky? (grabs Jim Beam
Bottle and takes gulp.) FIRE IN DA HOLE!

http://www.fair.org
Networks treat White House allegations as fact
When George W. Bush announced on February 9 that an Al-Qaeda plot against a building in Los Angeles had been "thwarted," many television newscasts took the administration's claims as fact.

By Linda Smith, Progressive Democrats of America
www.pdamerica.org
I have been known to YELL, after getting off the BART train at my home station, "BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW! It just might shut me up or cure whatever's wrong with me!" I have done this MORE than once.

LINK

By Missy Comley Beattie
http://www.opednews.com
The plan was to attend a dinner party Friday night with my husband. On Thursday, I received an e-mail from Dede Miller, Cindy Sheehan’s sister, saying Cindy wanted me to deliver her message at the Bush Step Down Rally in DC on Saturday. I called my husband at his office and he said, “Go. It’s important.”

Lab Officials Excited by New H-Bomb Project
By Ian Hoffman, Oakland Tribune
For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new H-bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards.

By Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t | www.truthout.org
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was called before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday to explain why George W. Bush's program of warrantless spying on Americans is lawful.

By Dave Lindorff, http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/
It's pretty easy to trace the war crime of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay back to the Oval Office. The memos are all there.

Published on Monday, February 6, 2006 by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin)
By Michael Brune
Our president almost came clean in his State of the Union speech last week when he finally admitted that "America is addicted to oil." That addiction threatens our national security, our environmental health and our way of life.

By RAW STORY
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan got in a heated row with a White House correspondent at Monday's press briefing over President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program, RAW STORY has learned.

By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY, Associated Press
HENDERSON, Nev. -- Former President Jimmy Carter criticized the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program Monday and said he believes the president has broken the law.

Asked directly by the U.S. Senate, Alberto Gonzales won't say
By James Ridgeway, The Village Voice, NY
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to say today whether the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program had opened first-class mail. Gonzales is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is holding hearings into the legality of President Bush's spying on Americans.

Tuesday February 7, 2006
UPDATED* BUSH in Lithonia, GA: President Bush, joined by First Lady
Laura Bush and Secretary Rice, attends the funeral service of Coretta
Scott King at 12:00 PM. [POTUS Schedule]

Democrats.com Offers $1,000 Reward to Any Reporter Who Will Ask Follow-Up Question to Bush
At a White House press conference on June 7, 2005, Steve Holland of Reuters asked President Bush and Prime Minister Blair the $1,000 question: (1)