Yahoo! Alerts Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush, in his State of the Union, will say that
"America is addicted to oil," and that the nation must use technology to
break its dependence.
OK that was a breaking news alert from Yahoo. Of course they left off the
final part of "as soon as I can figure out a way to keep my buddies making
money".
Some excerpts have been released for tonight's speech and they can be viewed
at
Raw Story.
The new Politics TV is up and running. See John Aravosis of AMERICABlog give his great in depth look at what is going on inside the beltway.
Well it appears that Iran is looking to develop a nuclear bomb.
IAEA confirms Iran prepares for nuclear
enrichment31 Jan 2006 18:55:07 GMT
Source: Reuters
VIENNA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog confirmed on Tuesday
that Iran had begun preparing for nuclear enrichment, which can make fuel
for bombs, and continued to hinder a probe of unanswered questions about
Iran's atomic aims.In a confidential report to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA)
board of governors, the agency said Iran had not yet begun enrichment itself
but had started renovation work at its Natanz enrichment site.Iran also prevented U.N. inspectors from questioning a key scientist
linked to the procurement of equipment that could have been used to make
weapons and did not let the IAEA copy documents related to the production of
nuclear weapons, the report said.
Article link.
What is disturbing about this is the fact that Iraq has taken such a toll on
our forces and is possibly leaving us in a weaken state should we have to go
into military action against Iran. This was one of the problems brought up when
the argument was taking place over going to war with Iraq.
One of Murtha's original arguments for wanting us to phase the troops out of
Iraq was due to a poll that showed many Iraqi's favored attacks aimed at our
troops. Today a new poll has been released reaffirming that argument:
A new poll found that nearly half of Iraqis approve of attacks on
U.S.-led forces, and most favor setting a timetable for American troops to
leave.The poll also found that 80 percent of Iraqis think the United States
plans to maintain permanent bases in the country even if the newly elected
Iraqi government asks American forces to leave. Researchers found a link
between support for attacks and the belief among Iraqis that the United
States intends to keep a permanent military presence in the country.At the same time, the poll found that many Iraqis think that some outside
military forces are required to keep Iraq stable until the new government
can field adequate security forces on its own. Only 39 percent of Iraqis
surveyed thought that Iraqi police and army forces were strong enough to
deal with the security challenges on their own, while 59 percent thought
Iraq still needed the help of military forces from other countries.Seventy percent of Iraqis favor setting a timetable for U.S. forces to
withdraw, with half of those favoring a withdrawal within six months and the
other half favoring a withdrawal over two years.
AMERICABlog has the latest WSJ/NBC poll results. Not good for Bush.
You can get an idea of what to expect tonight at
Think
Progress
Kos has up
the latest on the New York Governor's race.
Chris has his latest installment
of his polling project
up now.
See the latest
Chris Matthews is up to.
Jane has a nice piece on the passing of Coretta Scott King
As always, discussions and good times can be had at Political-Nutshell.
The following is not the first story of its type. Every week or so it seems
that one story similar pops up. The outcome might be slightly different but the
essence of the story remains the same.
An e-mail threat that prompted the evacuation of more than a dozen
Brandeis University buildings on January 18 led to an unusual standoff in a
public library in Newton, Mass., a few miles from the Brandeis campus.Federal Bureau of Investigation agents tried to seize 30 of the library's
computers without a warrant, saying someone had used the library's Internet
connection to send the threat to Brandeis. But the library director, Kathy
Glick-Weil, told the agents they could not take the machines unless they got
a warrant first. Newton's mayor, David Cohen, backed Ms. Glick-Weil up.After a brief standoff, FBI officials relented and sought a warrant from
a judge. Meanwhile, Ms. Glick-Weil allowed an FBI computer-forensics
examiner to work with information-technology specialists at the library to
narrow down which computers might have been used to send the threatening
message. They determined that three computers were implicated in the alleged
crime.Late that evening, the FBI received a warrant to cart away the three
computers. According to Mayor Cohen, the warrant allows the FBI to view only
the threatening e-mail message and the messages sent immediately before and
after that message.
Article continues
here.
I figured since 19 Democrats decided to vote for cloture yesterday, clearing
the way for Alito to be confirmed today, I would publish a list of who didn't
support the filibuster as well as their contact information. If one of these
Senators is from your home state, be sure to contact them and let them know how
you feel about their vote to help destroy America.
Remember how horrible it was that the President of the United States lied
under oath to congress? My how times have changed. Now it seems perjury is the
norm for Washington. It first became evident when Scooter Libby was indicted for
the same crime last fall. Republicans quickly took to the airwaves dismissing
the charges as a "technicality". Amazing how a technicality was able to lead to
a vote of impeachment for a President of this country seven short years ago.
Now the media is starting to highlight another case of perjury and this time
it has been committed by the highest law enforcement official in the land - the
Attorney General. From this morning's
Washington Post:
Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General
Alberto R. Gonzales misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year
ago when he appeared to try to avoid answering a question about whether the
president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know
why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless
eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales
where the president's authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the
president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws
and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.
So the filibuster didn't fly. Even though Alito is on his way to the Supreme
Court, it is not a defeat by any means. Four days ago the talk on the hill was
there would not be any filibuster attempts. John Kerry sparked a movement and
the liberal blogosphere provided the fuel for that fire. By people tapping away
at their keyboards, it caused Senators to come back to voice mails full of
people asking to support the filibuster.
This is a perfect example of the strength the blogosphere is gaining on
politics. Unlike corporations, citizens can not afford the high dollars of
lobbyists to get through to their elected representatives. The blogosphere is
the new vehicle of getting a message heard and it has a wealth of power that is
just starting to get tapped.
We can not look at what happened as defeat, but rather as a learning
experience. We need to channel the energy that was felt this weekend into the
big picture. That will be this November's elections. Every seat we gain is a big
step forward. Right now polls prove that people are looking towards the
Democrats to be next year's leaders. We need to keep that momentum going and let
it carry us through the election cycle.
Alito can be an extremely valuable tool for us. The decisions he will help
make are ones that will affect the unlikely voter more than the voters. Those
unlikely voters are the ones who typically lean to the left. These are the
people we need at the polls. I am of course talking about the age group of
18-30. These will be the people more out to need an abortion or worry about
illegal searches. The message needs to be made clear to them that the only way
to prevent further justices getting appointed that will strip these rights is to
ensure a party is elected that stands up for the rights of this country.
This is rather interesting:
Officials from six major oil companies have refused to testify this week
at a Senate hearing looking into whether oil industry mergers in recent
years have made gasoline more expensive at the pump.With oil companies reporting record profits from higher energy prices,
consumer groups have complained that mergers in the industry have stifled
competition.Exxon Mobil said on Monday it earned $10.7 billion in the fourth quarter
of last year and $36.1 billion for all of 2005 -- bigger than the economies
of 125 countries.The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is holding the hearing on Wednesday
morning, said it asked representatives from Exxon Mobil, Chevron,
ConocoPhillips, Valero Energy and the U.S. units of BP and Royal Dutch Shell
to tell their side of the story."All declined the invitation to testify," the committee said in a
statement on Monday, without providing details
Article continues
here.
I guess they are afraid without Ted Stevens holding the gavel that they might
actually have to testify under oath and risk perjury. Of course if they would of
been sworn in last November, then they would be facing perjury charges after
they flat out lied to Senate about meeting with Dick Cheney.
