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By Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning's most important or interesting (or both) Washington-related stories.
The Republican Party is losing its grip as the party of business, a title it has long claimed, as fiscal conservatives grow dissatisfied with rising government spending and deficits under GOP leadership while there's rising unhappiness with the Iraq War and the Republican leadership's slower-than-Democrats response to global warming and health care problems.
The controversial Blackwater USA private contractor firm has fired 122 of its armed guards in Iraq in the past three years but also tried to cover up shootings, according to a congressional report that resulted from the recent killing of innocent Iraqi civilians by Blackwater employees.
A review of facts related to the 1967 attack by Israeli pilots on the U.S. spy ship U.S.S. Liberty during Israel's Six Day War against Egypt still leaves the central question unanswered: Why was the attack which left 34 Americans dead ordered?
With one of the largest meat recalls as an ironic backdrop, Congress is considering legislation that would drop federal inspections of meat by small producers which is then shipped across state lines.
Scientists were surprised by the vast extent of Arctic ice melting that occurred this summer and by their inability to predict it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested he might run for parliament and become prime minister, a strong indication that the former KGB official plans to hold onto the power he's amassed.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll is bad news for President Bush and many congressional Republicans as it indicates that most Americans don't want Congress to give President Bush's the full $190 billion he's requested for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars while they do support expanding a children's' health insurance program he and many congressional Republicans oppose.
Sen. Barack Obama may be the fastest-rising political star in recent memory, raising prodigious amounts of campaign cash and getting lavished with media attention but some some observers believe he appears to have plateaued, not taking a decisive lead in any of the polls in early primary states and unable to close Sen. Hillary Clinton's commanding lead in national polls.
Obama continued his run as one of American politics biggest rainmakers, raising $20 million during the third quarter even with the challenge of the typically slower summer months. Sen. Hillary Clinton, like the major Republican candidates, didn't release her numbers Monday.
In his new autobiography, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas describes how he came to be a conservative, an ideological journey with its underpinnings in his childhood when he was raised by his strict, "no excuses" grandfather and later reaffirmed by life experiences in which brushes with liberals and liberalism repeatedly left him with a bad taste in his mouth.
Comments
It's good business this war,if you're in with the nut job crowd.Another crowning achievement of Bush/little dick!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. security contractor Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 shooting incidents in Iraq since 2005 and, in eight of 10 cases, their forces fired first, a leading U.S. lawmaker said on Monday.
State Department contractor Blackwater, under investigation for the shooting deaths of 11 Iraqis on September 16, will answer questions about that incident and its performance in Iraq at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.
Senior State Department officials will also be grilled by the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform examining whether the growing use of military contractors undermines U.S. efforts in Iraq.
Committee chair Rep. Henry Waxman, a vocal critic of the Iraq war, released details from Blackwater's own reports of multiple incidents involving Iraqi casualties. The memorandum also slammed the State Department's oversight of the company.
It listed 195 shooting incidents from the start of 2005 until September 12 of this year, an average of 1.4 per week. Of those, there were 16 Iraqi casualties and 162 cases with property damage, the California Democrat said.
"In 32 of those incidents, Blackwater were returning fire after an attack while on 163 occasions (84 percent of the shooting incidents), Blackwater personnel were the first to fire," Waxman said.
State Department rules say Blackwater's actions should be defensive rather than offensive.
Blackwater, which has been paid a little over $1 billion by the U.S. government since 2001, declined to comment on Waxman's memorandum.
Posted by: Raving Loon | October 2, 2007 8:53 AM
Loon,
Give us a link, we can find the article. (And it's not like the one you gave us is hot news).
Posted by: I'm not anonymous | October 2, 2007 9:16 AM
UN sanctions were very good business (albeit, on the sly) while Saddam killed hundreds of thousands.
Posted by: Chigog | October 2, 2007 9:38 AM