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It’s Friday, Ya Bastards!

WEEK IN REVIEW:

IT’S TORTURE MR. MUKASEY!
Bush is basically saying it’s my way or the highway. Bush is willing to leave the AG position vacant if Mukasey is not approved! Yesterday, Bush aggressively defended Mukasey.

Many Senate Judiciary Democrats have said that they will not vote Mukasey in as AG. But if even one Democrat votes to confirm, his nomination goes to the Full Senate and that's the ballgame!

Dana Perino, in a press briefing yesterday, basically said that we should confirm Mukasey now and ask him questions about waterboarding later.

Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse and Ted Kennedy all announced that they would join Joseph Biden in voting against Mukasey.

FLASHBACK: In August, Sen. Kennedy introduced a Torture Prevention and Interrogation Act. Then in October Kennedy wrote a piece entitled We Must Ban Secretive US Torture.

FASCISM!
Imagine ONE media conglomerate being allowed to own the daily newspapers, weekly newspapers, television and radio stations and primary Internet news sites in your community.

TONIGHT ON BILL MOYERS JOURNAL: The hour is devoted to MEDIA OWNERSHIP. Senator Byron Dorgan is part of the discussion. He's FIERCE on media deregulation.

A Book from 1920, written by Walter Lippmann, is being re-released to sound the alarm on Media Ownership and lying in the Media.

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson wrote a letter calling for impeachment, saying that the Bush administration, as well as Congress, have led the US to the brink of fascism. He is asking Americans to fight the insanity.

WAR ON TERROR:
There is no evidence that Iran is actively working on a nuclear material that can readily be used in a weapon…this from the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei.

Forced duty in Iraq for US diplomats next summer is drawing a lot of resistance. 250 officers were sent emails telling them if not enough volunteered they would be ordered to serve. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) urged the president to fire any State Department personnel who refuse to go to Iraq.

FRED PHELPS' WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH is being ordered to pay $10.9 million dollars in damages to a Marines family after showing up at Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyders funeral with signs that said "You're Going to Hell and "God Hates You". Constitutional scholars are saying the award won’t stand due to the 1^st amendment.

Troops have had it with being the BOUNCER in the middle of the BAR BRAWL. Civil War ain't no place for us to be!

Hillary Clinton, along with 29 other Democratic Senators, have signed a letter to Bush that expressed a serious concern about the strategy to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon. Obama did not sign the letter choosing instead to introduce legislation to prohibit bush from attacking Iran without congressional authority.

A DIARY OF IRAQ: ONE SOLDIERS VIEW:
Gen. Petraeus’ spokesman Col. Steven A. Boylan wrote Salon contributor Glenn Greenwald an unsolicited nasty email about his articles. Boylan has a habit of sending such emails.

Here is the "Shock Troops" article that started the entire controversy.

After the article appeared, Scott Beauchamp made a statement in The New Republic saying he stands by his comments.

The New Republic added that they did their research into the validity of the accounts.

The New Republic followed that up with a re-report of the story and in doing so spoke with 5 soldiers in Beauchamps company who substantiated the events.

Matt Drudge was given Army documents to discredit Beauchamp. He posted portions of them and then quickly took them down.

Here is the transcript of a Defense Department Bloggers Roundtable. As noted on page 7, Colonel Gibbs was handed a note saying that Beauchamp did not officially recant his comments and is standing by his story.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION:
Unwilling to compromise with Congress on legislation, George Bush is increasingly turning to administrative orders to get his way.

Donald Rumsfeld’s “snowflake” memos to his staff instructed his staff to link IRAQ to IRAN, use "bumper sticker statements" retaliated against reporters who wrote unfavorably about the occupation of Iraq and commented that Muslims are lazy. "Too often Muslims are against physical labor, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed.”

The White House said that Rummy’s views are not in line with the president’s views.

Speaking of Rummy, while in Paris last Friday, was the subject of a criminal complaint charging him with torture.

BLACKWATER:
Iraq has revoked immunity for contractors. That means they fall under Iraqi Law now.

It was reported that State Department investigators offered immunity to the Blackwater guards involved in the Sept. 16^th shootings. One minor snag is that they don’t have the authority to do that.

There are new allegations against Blackwater. Federal agents are now investigating whether Blackwater exported illegal “silencers” into Iraq and other countries. SWR Manufacturing told NBC News that Blackwater did in fact purchase silencers from them.

SCHIP:
A revised version of the SCHIP bill cleared the Senate yesterday. Bush has said he will veto this version as well.

PAYING AT THE PUMP:
$3 a gallon for gas is very possible before the end of the year. Some think $4 a gallon is a possibility.

Oil hit $96 dollars a barrel on Wednesday.

THE ’08 CANDIDATES:
Steven Colbert's request and application to be on the South Carolina ballot has been denied.

The Evangelical vote is still up for grabs. A poll by the Pew Research Center found that Giuliani, McCain and Thompson each drew about 20% of the vote.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is 1.4 million members strong, threw its support behind Hillary.

Joe Biden took a nice shot at Giuliani on Tuesday night. He said Giuliani only mentions 3 things in any sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11.

CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES:
A boy playing with matches admits to starting one of the California wildfires.

One heck of a con job: FEMA totally faked a press conference on the California fires last week. All of the “questions” were asked by FEMA employees posing as reporters. Here is the CNN report of the fake FEMA press conference.

SIDEBARS:
Andrew “Don’t Taze Me Bro” Meyers appeared on the Today Show and said he didn’t intend to make a scene and apologized for his actions at a John Kerry Q&A last month.

Yet another Republican sex scandal! This time Washington State Representative Richard Curtis had sex with a man he met while Curtis was dressed in women’s lingerie in an adult video store. Curtis says the man blackmailed him. The man claims they had arranged a price for the sex and that Curtis, ahem, stiffed him.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

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