Wednesday, Jun 25th
Last update09:50:02 PM GMT
Political Glance
Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI that he had no idea who leaked the CIA identity of Valerie Plame to the news media.
For weeks, former Bush administration officials have been attacking President Obama for “dithering” on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, with Vice President Cheney saying that “signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.” But these Bush officials are also facing criticisms for largely neglecting Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq. In response, they have been citing an Afghanistan strategy report they handed off to the Obama administration that clearly laid out recommendations for moving forward.
Federal regulators in the Bush administration blocked attempts by state governments to prevent predatory lending practices that resulted in the financial crisis now stalking the American economy, a new study from the University of North Carolina says.
Disgraced politicians choose many paths of redemption, but never did we imagine his resurrection would involve gratuitous booty shaking, cringe-inducing lip syncing and a knee slide straight out of Footloose 2: The Grandpa Years. But that’s what happened last night as DeLay made his big debut on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars.
On the second anniversary of the single worst massacre of Iraqi civilians committed by a private force since the US invasion, President Obama should be forced to explain to the American people and the people of Iraq and Afghanistan why he continues to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to this company and why he permits them to remain on the ground, representing the United States in these countries. At a recent hearing of the bipartisan Wartime Contracting Commission, commissioner Linda Gustitus asserted that in not canceling Blackwater's contracts after Nisour Square, the State Department "helped to send a message to other contractors that you can do a lot and not have your contract terminated."
In keeping with the ways of Washington and Capitol Hill, Baucus is enjoying this donor largesse — some $3.9 million in contributions from the health care industry since 1989 — principally because of his place as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. It's the panel that has had as much or more to say than any about whatever kind of medical overhaul emerges from Congress.
Under President George W. Bush, the President's Daily Brief -- the highly classified intelligence paper delivered each morning to the White House -- rose to "an unprecedented level of importance," with negative consequences for the intelligence community, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution.
These included "skewing intelligence production away from deeper research and arms-length analysis" and driving analysts to choose "the latest, attention-grabbing clandestine reports from the field."
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