WASHINGTON (AP) - Amid daily bipartisan sniping over high gas prices, Democrats and Republicans appear to agree on at least one thing: With oil over $120 a barrel, President Bush ought to stop buying crude for the government emergency reserve.

Both the House and Senate are expected to approve, with bipartisan support, legislation Tuesday directing Bush to temporarily halt the shipment of about 70,000 barrels of oil a day to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Bush has refused to do so, arguing that this small amount of oil won’t impact prices and that for security reasons he wants to increase the stockpile to its full capacity of 726 million barrels. It now has about 701 million barrels, equal to nearly two months of oil imports.

Lawmakers’ search for a response to high gasoline and oil prices comes as Bush is preparing later this week to travel to Saudi Arabia where he is expected to try to convince the Saudis to increase oil production. So far, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries have refused to do so, arguing the high price of oil stems from other factors than a shortage of supply.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring up for a vote Tuesday a provision to halt oil shipments to the federal reserve until the end of the year. Senate Republicans said they want shipments halted for six months, but are expected to support the Democratic measure.

The House is taking up a similar provision later in the day that also is expected to get broad support.

By all accounts, the president is standing firm.

Full Story Here:
Lawmakers want to end oil shipments to US reserve

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department’s Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional staffer visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, the staffers were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers’ workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s “evisceration” of Iraq’s top anti-corruption office, he said.

The State Department’s policies “not only contradicted the anti-corruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government,” Brennan told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

The U.S. embassy “effort against corruption - including its new centerpiece, the now-defunct Office of Accountability and Transparency - was little more than ‘window dressing,’” he added.

The Office of Accountability and Transparency, or “OAT” team, was intended to provide assistance and training to Iraq’s anti-corruption agencies. It was dismantled last December, after it alleged in a draft report leaked to the media that al-Maliki’s office had derailed or prevented investigations into Shiite-controlled agencies.

I, and many others have been trying to tell folks for quite some time now, all is not well in Baghdad, things may be cooling off a bit in the warfighting arena but corruption runs rampant in the Iraqi government, it always has and quite likely it always will…

Iraq is going to be an anchor around the neck of whoever inherits the job of POTUS and it’s going to sink them if there is not some immediate changes put into play, and not the sham changes of recent years past, real, hardline changes in accountability within the Iraqi government…

The draft report sparked hearings in Congress and prompted a showdown between Democrats and senior State Department officials on whether the public has a right to know the extent to which al-Maliki was involved in corruption cases.

My guess?? Up to his neck, standing on tippy toes just to keep his nose above water, but what do I know?? I don’t have any FOBBIT resources telling me how it should be, I just talk to the real guys that do the real front line, in your face kind of thing in Iraq…

al-Maliki is nothing more than a warlord that got himself elected to office under the protection of the U.S. military, I don’t know how al-Maliki got all the votes he did, were they bought or if they were garnered at the end of an Islamic rifle barrel, but he got the votes, and al-Maliki has now become the victim of The Peter Principle

Sen. Byron Dorgan, head of the Democratic Policy Committee, said the latest testimony is disheartening in light of al-Radhi’s previous estimate that corruption had cost Iraq - and U.S. taxpayers - some $18 billion.

“One would have expected that our own government would have been doing everything it could to support” Iraq’s anti-corruption efforts, said Dorgan, D-N.D.

An estimated $18 million of our tax dollars that have gone away, and not to the betterment of anything, but into the pockets of corrupt Iraqi officials and if I may be so bold, quite likely into the pockets of at least some Americans that turned and looked the other way…

Full Story Here:
Ex-State officials allege corruption cover up

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Hat Tip to: Suitably Flip

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BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah said Saturday it was withdrawing its gunmen from Beirut neighborhoods seized in sectarian clashes after the army ordered its troops to establish security and called on fighters to clear the streets.

But while tensions in Lebanon’s capital appeared to be defusing, at least 12 people were killed and 20 wounded when pro- and anti-government groups fought in a remote region of northern Lebanon, security and hospital officials said. It was the heaviest toll for a single clash since sectarian fighting began on Wednesday.

Hezbollah and its allied seized large swaths of Muslim west Beirut Friday, demonstrating their military might in a power struggle with the government.

Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, in his first public statement since the sectarian violence erupted, said Lebanon can no longer tolerate Hezbollah having weapons. He called on the army to restore law and order and remove gunmen from the streets and accused Hezbollah of staging a coup.

Full Story Here:
Hezbollah: Gunmen withdrawing from Beirut

Pay attention folks, take a real good look at the picture, that is what happens when The Religion of Peace decides to flex their muscle, and it won’t be long until that exact same thing happens here in the USA…

If Barack Hussein Obama is allowed to ascend to the Oval Office this will be a real and highly likely scenario right here, in OUR towns and cities, the Islamic radicals are already in place, and I have warned, repeatedly, that all they are waiting for is the order to go ahead with their attacks…

I have felt that they are waiting for their command structure to fall into place, and come November, if Obama is elected to the office of POTUS, they will have that leadership structure set…

Hide your heads in the sand if you like, but it IS coming, and you can either work now to make it NOT happen, or you can do nothing and when these animals called an insurgency starts to operate openly here in America, you can submit to them or die…

Some of us will die, but it won’t be because we submitted, it will be because we went down fighting to defend America, or, what’s left of Her!!

And yes, I know, some will call me a bigot or a racist alarmist, but Hitler was an eloquent and impassioned speaker, just as Obama is touted as being, if the warnings had been heeded prior to Hitler being allowed to take power, well, just sayin’…

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, is killing and injuring innocent civilians in Lebanon.

Rice says that Hezbollah is trying to protect its “state-within-a-state.”

Her statement was read at a State Department briefing Friday.

In Lebanon Friday, Shiite Hezbollah gunmen seized control of key parts of Beirut from Sunnis loyal to the U.S.-backed government.

The move capped three days of street battles and gunfights that have killed at least 14 people and wounded 20. It has been the country’s worst sectarian fighting since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Rice says Hezbollah’s violence has demonstrated “contempt for its fellow Lebanese.”

SOURCE:
Rice: Hezbollah killing innocent civilians in Lebanon

Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe that this would be Condi’s version of the warning rattle before the strike, and if there is one it will likely take place as soon as the staff returns from Crawford and sobers up from the wedding party, I just hope Bush doesn’t screw this one up like he did the aftermath of the Debacle in Iraq…

I have personally felt that we were at war with Hezbollah since the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing on October 23, 1983, an attack that resulted in the death of 241 American servicemen…

Vice President George H.W. Bush came and toured the Marine bombing site on October 26 and said the U.S. “would not be cowed by terrorists.”, and the sad part is, basically, that was all that the USA did:

President Reagan assembled his national security team and planned to target the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. Defense Secretary Weinberger lobbied successfully against the mission, because he was not certain that Iran was to blame for the attacks. SOURCE

Marines have never forgotten Beirut, and they never will!

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Barack Obama wants to be president of these 57 United States

Ah, Oregon. The beautiful Northwest. Rain. Trees. Clouds. Rain. Friendly territory for Sen. Barack Obama, the leading contender for the Democratic Party’s long-disputed presidential nomination.

So there he was in Beaverton today at the start of a two-day swing through Oregon, virtually ignoring his remaining Democratic opponent, what’s-her-name from New York, as part of his new strategy to act like the actual nominee while she flails around way behind in numbers.

Naturally, this being the Northwest where everything is not ruined quite yet, his staff had Obama visit an eco-friendly company, Vernier Software & Technology, that makes products for science teachers. He could get education in there too, see?

In his prepared remarks Obama was ready to start blasting Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, to show the Illinois Democrat is moving on to the general election campaign.

But first the freshman senator had to go through all the obligatory delighted to see you, delighted to be here part of stump speeches that also require that you actually know where you are.

Obama pulled that off O.K. But then he drifted away from the text a tad, as rookies are wont to do sometimes, forgetting how exhausting this primary process is and should be. And trusting in their instincts, their very tired instincts.

“It is wonderful to be back in Oregon,” Obama said. “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.”

The Times’ conscientious Robin Abcarian thought she heard something different there. She checked her tape recorder. It had captured what he had actually said — 57 states now. A new Louisiana Purchase that’s gone unannounced so far? Was he channeling his inner John Kerry-Heinz 57 personality?

(UPDATE: At a later stop Obama was talking with reporters and expressed concern he’d also mis-stated the number of potential cyclone victims in Burma. He said, “”I hope I said 100,000 people the first time instead of 100 million. I understand I said there were 57 states today. It’s a sign that my numeracy is getting a little, uh.” At that point, an aide cut him off and ushered journalists out. Before he could mis-speak again?)

Oh, and as far as Hawaii voters are concerned, they’re probably delighted to learn that Obama’s campaign staff doesn’t think that tiny state can justify an appearance by his eminence, even though he did a lot of growing up there. Or maybe because he was there.

Let’s see what they do with that in the Honolulu media, which the Republicans have probably already notified.

Maybe it’s Obama’s age. He’s getting up there in his forties, you know.

–Andrew Malcolm

This is, in my opinion, one of the best things I have ever seen printed at the L.A. Times, and I offer serious kudos to Andrew Malcolm for this article…

Found at:
Tony Phyrillas - Barack Obama smarter than a fifth grader?

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I posted this a while back but ya know, I think it’s worth repeating, and even though it appears that the Clinton part of this equation may be about to end, remember this, it ain’t over until it’s over, and the ‘fat lady’ hasn’t sung yet…

Let’s do a comprehensive run down and possibility prediction, shall we??

G.H.W. Bush was Ronald Reagan’s VP for 8 years and then POTUS for 4 years, giving him a total of 12 years in the White House, not as POTUS the entire time but there none the less, before he lost to Bill Clinton who infested the White House for a total of 8 years and was succeeded by G.W. Bush who has stumbled and stuttered his way through nearly 2 full terms and barring some tragic event will be a sitting POTUS for 8 years, that’s a total of 28 years so far where there’s been either a Bush or a Clinton in the White House in one capacity or another, stay with me now because here’s where it gets a bit more complicated…

If Hillary should win in ‘08, God forbid, but IF she did, and only served 1 term, that gives us a total of 32 years with either a Clinton or a Bush in the White House, and suppose she were to somehow be re-elected in 2012, and went on to serve another 4 years as POTUS, now we’re looking at 36 years with a Clinton or a Bush in the White House…

Fast forward a bit and use your imagination now, it’s 2016 and Jeb Bush is approaching ‘elder statesman’ status and he convinces enough people that HE needs a shot at the Oval Office and he gets himself elected, even if just for 1 term we’re looking at a total of 40 years of a Bush or a Clinton in the White House, and just suppose ol’ Jeb gets himself re-elected and serves another 4 years, OK, now we’re up to a total of 44 years that this nation has had either a Clinton or a Bush in the White House, but hold onto your hat’s, I’m not done yet, we’re up to the year 2020 now…

Chelsea Victoria Clinton (born February 27, 1980) will be 40 years old by that time, do you see the possibilities here??

We could conceivably have at least 52 years of uninterrupted Clinton/Bush in the White House, tell me there’s not some sort of ‘grand scheme’ for a Globalist America and a political domination campaign at work here…

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