Olbermann talks to Paul Rieckoff from IAVA regarding the Petraeus/Crocker report and the troops in Iraq.

IOWA GROUP SEEKS IMPEACHMENT OF JUDGE OVER GAY MARRIAGE RULING

PELOSI: PRESIDENT’S POLICY IS PATH TO 10 MORE YEARS OF WAR IN IRAQ (so do something about it)

AFGHAN SUSPECT TRANSFERRED TO GUANTANAMO (more tortured confessions)

PENTAGON COULD MAKE $2.2 BILLION ARMS SALE TO TAIWAN

NEGROPONTE: US WANTS PEACEFUL TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN

TROOP LEVELS IN IRAQ LIKELY TO STAY ABOVE 130,000

PETRAEUS: IRAQ KEY TO FIGHTING AL QAEDA

THE DAY IN IRAQ

SAUDIS MAY SKIP MIDDLE EAST PEACE CONFERENCE

POSSIBLE (POSSIBLE??) U.S. ECONOMIC DOWNTURN DRAWS CONCERN

PREMIER’S RESIGNATION LEAVES JAPAN IN DISARRAY

Good stuff! And scary!

I urge you to take the time to watch/listen to the following six videos (below the fold). Quite an eye-opener!

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Clips from a segment that aired on Al Jazeera English of an expose that was filmed by independent journalist Rick Rowley who spent a month and a half in Iraq investigating what was going on in Anbar Province.

Part I

Part II

Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) gives General Petraeus the what for. Occured 9/10/07.

Transcript:

This testimony today is eerily similar to the testimony the American people heard on April twenty eighth nineteen sixty seven from General William Westmoreland, when he told the American people–America was making progress in Vietnam.

General you say we’re making progress in Iraq but the Iraqi parliament simply left Baghdad and shut down operations last month. You say were making progress but the nonpartisan GAO office concluded that the Iraqi government has failed to meet a fifteen of the eighteen political economic and security benchmarks that Congress mandated. You say we’re making top progress? War related deaths have doubled. An ABC/BBC poll recently said that seventy percent of Iraqis say the surge has worsened their lives. Iraqis say the surge is not working.

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Joe Klein tells Hardball’s Chris Matthews that General David Petraeus got an angry call from the White House after saying in testimony that he wasn’t sure if victory in Iraq would make America safer, September 12, 2007

I wish I could see this………

In the formative years of aviation, when the whir of a tiny engine overhead still drew gasps of wonder, the “America” was a gravity defying behemoth. It weighed 1 3/4 tons, had a 72-foot wingspan, and took off and landed on water. Its top cruising speed: A mere 65 miles an hour.

The twin-engine flying boat was created by the Wright brothers’ bitter rival, Glenn H. Curtiss, with one mission in mind: to vanquish the Atlantic. It was edging toward attempting the first transoceanic crossing in 1914 when war intervened.

“Getting the America off the water with enough fuel aboard was proving to be problematical _ that’s what they were struggling with when World War I broke out and put the kibosh to the whole thing,” said Trafford Doherty, director of the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport in western New York.

Thousands of onlookers will get a taste of that bygone era Saturday when a near-replica of the experimental biplane roars once more across Keuka Lake next to this hill-framed village where Curtiss progressed from bicycle shop owner to motorcycle speed demon to aviation icon.

More at the Post Star

By SANDY COHEN
The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Jon Stewart is getting a do-over as Oscar host.

America’s favorite faux newscaster, who drew mixed reviews for his first stint in 2006, has been picked for a return engagement in February, the film academy announced Wednesday.

“I’m thrilled to be asked to host the Academy Awards for the second time because, as they say, the third time’s a charm,” Stewart said Wednesday in a statement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

“He did a great job two years ago,” Oscar telecast producer Gil Cates told The Associated Press Wednesday. “You need a host who is not afraid of the unexpected, who can stand out and really work a room and deal with a live show. Jon, of course, does that on his show every night.”

Stewart, 44, is also “a very, very nice guy and very easy to work with,” Cates said.

The 2007 show, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, drew 40.1 million viewers, compared to the 38.9 million who watched when Stewart hosted the previous year. But bringing back Stewart is “not a bad choice,” said longtime TV critic David Bianculli of the New York Daily News.

read more HERE

By Thomas Ferraro
Reuters

So…Harry Reid is actually going to show a little spine? Just a little, mind you.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid vowed on Wednesday to block former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson from becoming attorney general if President George W. Bush nominates him to replace Alberto Gonzales.

Congressional and administration officials have described Olson as a leading contender for the job as chief U.S. law enforcement officer, but Reid declared, “Ted Olson will not be confirmed” by the Senate.

“He’s a partisan, and the last thing we need as an attorney general is a partisan,” Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told Reuters in a brief hallway interview on Capitol Hill.

Reid and other Democrats argue that after Gonzales’ stormy tenure the Justice Department needs to become less political.

Gonzales resigned last month, effective next Monday, amid a series of congressional investigations into his firing of federal prosecutors and his handling of Bush’s domestic spying program.

White House press secretary Tony Snow, amid word that Bush was nearly ready to pick a new attorney general, said, “We don’t have a decision yet.”

Snow brushed off Reid’s opposition, saying, “The president will pick who he thinks is best.”

read More HERE

The long awaited September Iraq Report dog and pony show is over. Well, almost. The horse’s ass will tell us tonight that he will adopt Petraeus recommendations. Why wouldn’t he? They are his own recommendations. Funny how he made this decision in about 2 minutes after Petraeus had finished giving his report to congress. Like he didn’t know months ago what that report would say or what his response would be. Again Petraeus gives a rosey outlook to what will happen in Iraq. Congress (the dog part of this show) put up a good front in the questioning of Petraeus and Crocker. Even some Republicans acted like they have had enough. Now tonight the horse’s ass will, no doubt, ask for billions more to fund this nightmare, and congress will, no doubt, put on another dog and pony show, tell us how they don’t have the votes to end the war (which is total bullshit) and then give him the money. We’ll be informed that they are going to draw down troops. Wooptyfuckindoo. The batallion that is coming home next month was due to come home next month anyway. The withdrawal of the remaining troops in this reduction will just bring troop levels back to “pre’surge” level by next summer. The remaining troops mission wil remain the same. And we’re right back where we started from. And now they’ve pranced Condi out there today to say she’s going to press for peace discussions in the Middle East, and that we’re at the beginning of a LONG process in Iraq. Realllly? Where the fuck have you been for the past 4 years? Just asking….. I’m disgusted.
Really disgusted.

by Sewell Chan
The New York Times

It’s an idea that seems more like Woodstock, 1969, than New York City, 2007, but it has the Bloomberg administration’s blessing and the city is going ahead with it.

Starting today and extending through December, hand-painted, adhesive, weatherproof images of giant decorative flowers will be applied to the hoods, trunks or roofs of New York City’s yellow taxicabs. Ninety percent of the flowers were painted by children from the city’s public schools and hospitals; a fraction were painted by children in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Cleveland and Los Angeles.

The flowers “will soon transform the ubiquitous yellow icon into a mobile artistic canvas,” according to a news release from Portraits of Hope, the nonprofit program that is organizing the effort.

The vast public art project, known as “Garden in Transit,” originated with two brothers, Ed and Bernie Massey, who founded Portraits of Hope in 1995. The project was intended to provide creative therapy for seriously ill and disabled children, but has expanded to include children and adults participating through schools, after’school programs, hospitals and nonprofit groups. Portraits of Hope has decorated blimps, buildings, tugboats, airplanes and even Nascar racers; the taxicabs are the group’s latest effort.

By Peter Finn
The Washington Post

MOSCOW, Sept. 12 – President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday nominated a longtime associate who is a largely anonymous figure to be the country’s new prime minister, scrambling predictions about who will be the Kremlin-backed candidate in next March’s presidential election.

Viktor Zubkov, 65, was chosen by the president hours after Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov resigned. Zubkov, chairman of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, a body that investigates money-laundering, must be approved by the lower house of parliament, or Duma, which invariably approves Kremlin initiatives.

Fradkov, a colorless technocrat who loyally followed Kremlin orders, said he was leaving his post so Putin would have a free hand to create a new government in the run-up to the presidential election, as well as parliamentary elections scheduled for December.

Putin, accepting Fradkov’s resignation, sounded a similar note to explain the government reshuffle, and also hinted that Zubkov may be around for a while.

“We all need to think about how to build up the structure of power and governance so they are better suited to the pre-election period,” said Putin in televised remarks from the Kremlin. He added that “we need to prepare the country for the time after the parliamentary election and after the presidential election.”

read more HERE

By Jessica Holzer
The Hill.com

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Tuesday voiced doubt about lifting the portfolio caps on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, calling such demands a “red herring” that would do nothing to ease the turmoil in the credit markets or help borrowers at risk of losing their homes.

He urged the Senate to start moving on legislation to reform Fannie and Freddie, known collectively as government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), and said he favored allowing them to take on more risk, but only in the context of reform.

“The Senate has got more work to do,” Paulson told a press gathering arranged by The Christian Science Monitor. “I think the Senate can get this done, and do it quickly, and we can all work together.”

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the heads of the Senate and House banking panels, have repeatedly called on the Bush administration to lift the temporary caps on the GSEs- portfolios to inject liquidity into the troubled mortgage market.

There is heated speculation among investors that the administration will comply, but President Bush has so far resisted the appeals

.

read more HERE

By ROBIN McDOWELL
The Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A powerful earthquake shook Indonesia on Wednesday, killing 10 people, injuring scores and triggering a small tsunami that hit one city on the island of Sumatra, authorities said.

The 8.4-magnitude quake off Sumatra damaged homes, mosques and shopping malls along the coast and could be felt in at least four countries, with tall buildings swaying as far as 1,200 miles away.

It was followed by a series of aftershocks, the strongest of which registered at a magnitude of 6.6 and triggered a second tsunami alert for Indonesia, which was lifted about an hour later, said Suhardjono, an official with Indonesia’s meteorological agency, who goes by only one name.

At least seven people were killed in three Sumatran towns, Social Affairs Department official Felix Valentino told the news Web site detik.com. In the city of Padang, three bodies were pulled from badly damaged buildings, a witness, Alfin, said by phone.

Excavation machinery was used to search for survivors.

Most of the damage appeared to be from the quake.

read more HERE