Eric Clapton
“Tore Down”

From the Cradle….one of my favorite CD’s.

By LARRY MARGASAK
The Associated Press

No sh*t! They’re all under indictment or under investigation.

WASHINGTON - When he was a keeper of the federal purse strings, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska told another Republican senator who opposed the infamous “bridge to nowhere,” “I don’t threaten people. I promise people.”

His home’state GOP colleague, Rep. Don Young, was not to be outdone. Last month he told a fellow House member who opposed education money for native Alaskans: “There is always another day when those who bite will be killed, too, and I am very good at that. Those that bite me will be bitten back.”

Stevens and Young may not be promising, threatening or biting anymore, now that both are under federal investigation.

The investigations - and a questionable land deal that entangled the third member of Alaska’s congressional delegation - also may have ended a modern-day gold rush that sent billions of federal dollars to the state.

Alaska’s entire delegation is under an ethical cloud, something congressional historians say is unprecedented:

• Stevens is contending with an extraordinary FBI and IRS raid on his Girdwood, Alaska, home and a probe into his dealings with businessmen who oversaw remodeling of the house.

read more HERE

Reuters

Developing………….

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 175 people were killed when three suicide bombers driving fuel tankers attacked a town, home to an ancient minority sect, in northern Iraq on Tuesday in one of the worst single incidents in the four-year-old war.

Iraqi army Captain Mohammad al-Jaad said at least another 200 people were wounded in the bombings in separate Yazidi neighborhoods in the town of Kahtaniya, west of Mosul.

Why are we giving these evil bastards more weaponry when they can’t be trusted. EVER. To do what’s right……..to tell the truth. Why is the U.S. congress in their pocket? AIPAC needs to be disbanded and sent packing. And so do all the congress people who have their heads up Israel’s ass.

The UN mine clearance agency on Tuesday slammed Israel for failing to cooperate in providing data on the location of areas where it dropped cluster bombs during its war with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

“In spite of repeated requests for information, Israel has not provided the required Strike Data — location of intended target, quantity and type of ordnance dropped or fired — that is required to quantify the problem,” the UN Mine Action Coordination Center (MACC) said.

“Without this Strike Data, detailed parameters of the size and scope of the problem remain elusive and operational planning is constantly being adjusted to meet the newly found reality on the ground,” the statement added.

MACC said that one year after the ceasefire that ended the blistering month-long war between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah, 126,000 unexploded sub-munitions, or bomblets, had been located and destroyed.

More at Yahoo News

Alaskans need to clean house……

When he was a keeper of the federal purse strings, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska told another Republican senator who opposed the infamous “bridge to nowhere,” “I don’t threaten people. I promise people.”

His home’state GOP colleague, Rep. Don Young, was not to be outdone. Last month he told a fellow House member who opposed education money for native Alaskans: “There is always another day when those who bite will be killed, too, and I am very good at that. Those that bite me will be bitten back.”

Stevens and Young may not be promising, threatening or biting anymore, now that both are under federal investigation.

The investigations - and a questionable land deal that entangled the third member of Alaska’s congressional delegation - also may have ended a modern-day gold rush that sent billions of federal dollars to the state.

More at Yahoo News

By Brad Knickerbocker
The Christian Science Monitor

Ashland, Ore. - It’s hard - often impossible - to prove that secret government wiretapping in the name of national security is violating one’s privacy rights. The evidence itself usually is top secret.

But one rather obscure case could pull back the veil on a surveillance program that’s at the heart of the US fight against terror. In the federal appeals court in San Francisco Wednesday, lawyers for a Saudi charity accused of helping Al Qaeda will argue that their clients, including two American attorneys, were illegally spied on without the required court warrant.

How do they know? Treasury Department officials inadvertently provided them with National Security Agency (NSA) call logs stamped “top secret.”

By the time federal agents had retrieved the logs of recorded calls six weeks later, the information had been shared with five other lawyers, two officials of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation’s US branch in southern Oregon, and a reporter with The Washington Post.

Because the government took back copies of the call logs, federal judges at the district-court level agreed to let those who saw them rely on their memory of what they saw as evidence. The judges also said that they have “standing” in federal courts - that they have enough of a case to sue the federal government.

If the appeals court agrees with the lower court, the US Supreme Court is likely to become involved. The case could have broader significance as well since it deals with presidential power during wartime.

read more HERE

By ANAHAD O-CONNOR and WILLIAM NEUMAN
The New York Times

This is extremely absurd as well as obscene. Let New York finance their own traffic problem solving. Fagetaboutit. - JS

The United States Department of Transportation announced today that it has allocated $354 million to help Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg finance his plan to reduce traffic in Manhattan by charging tolls to drivers entering the busiest parts of the borough.

The announcement, by Mary E. Peters, the secretary of transportation, is a major lift for the mayor, and is likely to increase pressure on legislative leaders who have balked at the plan to let the city move forward. Ms. Peters said that the city would receive $1.6 million initially, but that the State Legislature must assent to the plan within 90 days of convening - roughly by the end of March 2008 -before the city can receive the balance.

“If the city does not have the legal authority to move forward at that time, it will not receive the money,” Ms. Peters said.

The State Legislature has created a 17-member commission that it asked to evaluate the mayor’s congestion pricing plan and make recommendations. The $354 million that the federal government has allocated falls short of the $536 million that Mr. Bloomberg requested, but exceeds the $200 million that the Legislature set as a minimum commitment from the federal government for its commission to proceed.

Ms. Peters said that so long as the commission approves a traffic plan that meets the same “performance objectives” as the mayor’s original plan, the city would receive the balance of the money. At a news conference this morning, Ms. Peters said that the federal government supported Mayor Bloomberg’s plan because it was “as brass and bold as New York City itself.”

read more HERE

By KIM GAMEL
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD - Three suicide truck bombers targeted members of an ancient religious sect in northwestern Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people and setting apartment buildings and stores ablaze, while the crash of an American transport helicopter near an air base in Anbar killed five U.S. service members.

Four more U.S. soldiers were reported killed in separate attacks - three in an explosion near their vehicle Monday in the northwestern Ninevah province and another who was died of wounds from combat in western Baghdad.

In a separate attack, a fourth suicide truck bomber struck a strategic bridge on the main highway linking Baghdad with the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 10, police said. The span was bombed three months ago and only one lane had reopened, according to the police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

And in Baghdad, dozens of uniformed gunmen in 17 official vehicles stormed an Oil Ministry compound and abducted a deputy oil minister and three other officials, a ministry spokesman and police said.

The violence came as 16,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops began a new operation north of the Iraqi capital targeting insurgents who have fled a crackdown in the restive city of Baqouba, the military said Tuesday.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Yazidis, a primarily Kurdish sect that worships an angel figure considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians, but they bore the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq, which has been regrouping in the north of the country after being driven from safe havens in Anbar and Diyala provinces.

read more HERE

By Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers

MIDLAND, Va. - The Labor Department’s most recent inflation data showed that U.S. food prices rose by 4.1 percent for the 12 months ending in June, but a deeper look at the numbers reveals that the price of milk, eggs and other essentials in the American diet are actually rising by double digits.

Already stung by a two-year rise in gasoline prices, American consumers now face sharply higher prices for foods they can-t do without. This little-known fact may go a long way to explaining why, despite healthy job statistics, Americans remain glum about the economy.

Meeting with economic writers last week, President Bush dismissed several polls that show Americans are down on the economy. He expressed surprise that inflation is one of the stated concerns.

“They cite inflation?” Bush asked, adding that, “I happen to believe the war has clouded a lot of people’s sense of optimism.”

But the inflation numbers reveal the extent to which lower- and middle-income Americans are being pinched.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its June inflation report that egg prices are 19.5 percent higher than they were in June 2006. Over the same period, according to the department’s consumer price index, whole milk was up 13.3 percent; fresh chicken 10 percent; navel oranges 19.8 percent; apples 11.7 percent. Dried beans were up 11.5 percent, and white bread just missed double-digit growth, rising by 9.6 percent.

These numbers get lost in the broader inflation rate for all goods and services, which measured 2.7 for the same 12-month period. Across the economy, rising food prices were offset by falling prices for things bought at the mall: computers, cameras, clothing and shoes.

read more HERE

By LAUREN FRAYER
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD - Wearing a bandanna that hides his face, Omam Abed leads U.S. soldiers on raids in the west Baghdad streets where he grew up - kicking down doors and interrogating neighbors in search of fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq.

The 20-year-old is part of a ragtag collection of former Sunni insurgents - some even from the al-Qaida ranks - who have thrown their support behind U.S.-led security forces under pacts of mutual convenience.

The Sunni militiamen have grown leery of al-Qaida in Iraq and its ambitions, including self-proclaimed aims of establishing an Islamic state. The Pentagon, in turn, has latched onto its most successful strategy in months: partnering with former extremists who have the local know-how to help root out al-Qaida in Iraq.

But for Abed and others, this new war also brings grave dangers.

In Abed’s Amariyah neighborhood - an affluent district that was home to privileged insiders under Saddam Hussein - the U.S.-allied band of about 150 former Sunni militants is now the No. 1 target for al-Qaida hitmen.

Last month, two of Abed’s best friends, both 18-year-old members who also decided to aid U.S. forces, were dragged out of their high school during final exams and beheaded. Their bodies were flung up into a tree with the severed heads displayed on the sidewalk below, according to Abed and U.S. military officers stationed in the area.

read more HERE