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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (274348)	2/14/2006 12:08:56 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570064

Sens. Schumer, Reid Dump Iraq War Vet Candidate Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran and vociferous critic of President George W. Bush, announced Monday that he was withdrawing his name from consideration for the Democratic nomination to the United States Senate from Ohio. Hackett told the New York Times that Senators Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., pushed him aside for Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. Hackett was facing Brown in the Democratic primary for the right to take on Republican incumbent Senator Mike DeWine. "I made this decision reluctantly,” he said in a statement, "only after repeated requests from party leaders as well as behind-the-scenes machinations that were intended to hurt my campaign.” Hackett explained those "behind-the-scenes machinations” to the Times, claiming Democratic leaders had been calling his donors and urging them to stop supporting his candidacy. He told the Times he felt betrayed. "For me, this is a second betrayal,” he said. "First, my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me.” Hackett gained prominence last year with a failed bid for the United States House of Representatives, when he became the first veteran of the current Iraq war to run for national office. He offered biting commentary on the Bush administration and social conservatives, at one point comparing the religious right to Osama bin Laden. And he refused to back down. "I said it. I meant it. I stand behind it,” he replied to Republican requests for an apology. Mike Lyon, executive director for the Band of Brothers, a group pushing Democratic veterans for Congress, told the Times it was bad strategy for Democrats to push Hackett away.

To: Road Walker who wrote (274348)	2/14/2006 1:29:10 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 1570064

The Daily Show was hysterical. It will be repeated tonight.

To: Road Walker who wrote (274348)	2/14/2006 2:02:02 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1570064

This would be funny if it wasn't more of the same garbage we are seeing everywhere else. Its about a former state politician made bad. I'll let you guess his party affiliation. The funny part is when he tried to pretend he didn't speak English. Former state lawmaker faces theft charge By Christine Clarridge Former state Sen. Tim Erwin's time in the public eye hasn't always gone well. In 1994, Erwin was named the state's least effective lawmaker in an unofficial Seattle Times poll of Olympia insiders who found him, "Pleasant enough, but most say he just doesn't get lawmaking." Then, he was cited several times in the 1990s for environmental violations, including illegally dredging up wetlands in Bothell. Now Erwin, 49, is facing a second-degree theft charge filed by the state Attorney General's Office which alleges that Erwin used his defunct state senator business card to get discounted airfares. According to the charging documents filed in King County Superior Court earlier this week, Erwin presented his old business card or claimed to be a lawmaker while purchasing tickets for a total of 36 flights, mostly between Washington and California, over a two-year period. He received a discounted government rate. The charging papers claim that Erwin bilked Alaska Airlines out of more than $14,000. When Erwin was confronted about the deception by airline officials at a gate at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last August, the charging documents say, he pretended he did not speak English. An airline official "called Erwin by name and Erwin continued walking, denying that was his identity. He attempted to speak in what appeared to be a foreign language and continued walking away," wrote a State Patrol detective in court documents. Erwin, responding to questions by e-mail Friday, said that he had not seen the criminal charges but does not believe they are necessary. "Alaska Airlines and I worked out a payment schedule at the end of October last year and I ... have made four payments and another that will be charged to my card tonight," he wrote. "They even worked it out where I will earn miles as I pay off the account. The prosecutor isn't needed to help Alaska Airlines collect." continued................ seattletimes.nwsource.com

To: Road Walker who wrote (274348)	2/14/2006 2:05:34 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570064

This is a joke. Bush should have been impeached and removed from office long ago. Ex-CIA official says war was goal from the start By Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post WASHINGTON — The former CIA official charged with managing the U.S. government's secret intelligence assessments on Iraq says the Bush administration chose war first and then misleadingly used raw data to assemble a public case for its decision to invade. Paul Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, said the Bush administration also played on the nation's fears after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, falsely linking al-Qaida to Saddam Hussein's government even though intelligence agencies had not produced a single analysis supporting "the notion of an alliance" between the two. Instead, Pillar writes in the March-April issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, connections were drawn between the terrorists and Iraq because "the administration wanted to hitch the Iraq expedition to the 'war on terror' and the threat the American public feared most, thereby capitalizing on the country's militant post-9/11 mood." The criticisms in Pillar's 4,500-word essay, "Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq," are not new. But this apparently is the first time such attacks are being leveled publicly by such a high-ranking intelligence official directly involved behind the scenes before, during and after the Iraq invasion nearly three years ago. Pillar also wrote that the administration went to war without considering strategic-level intelligence assessments "on any aspect of Iraq" and that the intelligence community foreshadowed many post-Saddam woes, though the findings largely were ignored before the March 2003 invasion. Excerpts from Pillar's article were first reported by The Washington Post; Foreign Affairs posted it online Friday. Pillar, retired after 28 years at the CIA, was an influential behind-the-scenes player and was considered the agency's leading counterterrorism analyst. By the end of his career, he was responsible for coordinating assessments on Iraq from all 15 agencies in the intelligence community. He is now a professor in security studies at Georgetown University. The White House did not comment Friday, but Frederick Jones, a National Security Council spokesman, noted previous administration statements defending its use of intelligence. He said the administration's prewar statements "about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein were based on the aggregation of intelligence from a number of sources and represented the collective view of the intelligence community." Continued.............. seattletimes.nwsource.com

To: Road Walker who wrote (274348)	2/14/2006 2:09:22 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570064

On the road to bankruptcy, you start to sell off the family jewels. The US is beginning to embark on that step. Government wants to sell thousands of acres By Hal Bernton Seattle Times staff reporter The Bush administration on Friday proposed the largest Forest Service land sale in decades, listing 309,421 acres in more than 30 states — including nearly 7,500 acres in Washington state. The plan, which requires congressional approval, would funnel the money from sales to rural counties, in part to replace proposed cutbacks of federal dollars that now help pay for schools and roads. Most of the Forest Service tracts are small, isolated parcels adjacent to private or state land. Successful bidders could develop, or possibly log, these lands so long as they complied with state and local land-use laws. "The lands we identified today are isolated and expensive to manage," said Mark Rey, undersecretary of agriculture in a Friday news conference in Washington, D.C. "In some places, they are part of Forest Service ownership more as an accident of history." In Washington, the potential sale acreage is scattered across the state, including tracts in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and the Colville, Wenatchee, Olympic, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie, Okanogan and Wenatchee national forests. One of the largest proposed sales involves seven tracts — totaling more than 1,300 acres — in a remote Sultan River corridor in Snohomish County popular with kayakers. The land sales are part of President Bush's new budget proposal, which seeks to pare the federal deficit. As part of those cuts, the administration seeks to phase out taxpayer payments to rural timber counties and partial replacement of those dollars with land-sale revenues. Information Proposal details: The U.S. Forest Service property that will potentially be sold can be viewed on the Forest Service Web site: www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/rural_schools.shtml Scrutiny ahead Forest Service officials say the sales are targeted to raise $800 million over the next five years, and that only about 200,000 of the more than 309,000 acres would likely have to be sold to reach that goal. Nationwide, the potential sale represents a tiny fraction of the more than 190 million federal acres now managed by the Forest Service. But the plan is certain to face tough scrutiny in Congress. Conservationists attack the idea of selling public lands to help finance government. Meanwhile, rural county officials fear swapping taxpayer dollars for slimmer, and more uncertain, revenue generated by land sales. Administration officials project that even if all sales go as planned, rural counties would still wind up, on average, with half as much federal money to fund roads and schools. "As I look at it, they are holding rural counties hostage and saying if you don't sell off forest lands to the highest bidder, then we are going to cut money for your schools," said Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash. Regional forest officials say the sales list was cobbled together over the past month and generally tried to exclude scenic lands that shelter threatened and endangered species. During the selection process, the list was not widely distributed, even within the agency. "For many in our agency, today [Friday] is the first day we could see it," said Alan Gibbs, a Puget Sound regional public-affairs official. Forest Service officials say the tracts have yet to undergo a full review, and some parcels could be dropped from the proposed sale list. The Sultan River tracts on the west side of the Cascades follow a roughly 8-mile stretch of the drainage — below the Spada Dam — that flows through a rugged canyon area that also includes forest. The area adjoins state lands, and there already is opposition to selling off the acreage. "We would like to see that land stay in U.S. Forest Service ownership. That is a very rare piece of low-elevation forest that is extremely unique," said Thomas O'Keefe, a regional coordinator with American Whitewater. "The land is one of the most spectacular remote river canyons in the whole region." continued.............. seattletimes.nwsource.com

To: Road Walker who wrote (274348)	2/14/2006 2:14:23 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1570064

Alaska's Senator Stevens was furious when Senator Cantwell stopped the drilling in the ANWR. He promised to get even: Alaskans want Seattle ship By Alicia Mundy Seattle Times Washington bureau WASHINGTON — It's difficult to nab a 420-foot ship and its crew and whisk them 2,100 miles away. But U.S. Rep. Don Young and U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens are trying to do just that. Alaska's lone congressman and its senior senator have been quietly pushing to move the Coast Guard cutter Healy from the Port of Seattle, where it has been based since its launch in 2000, to Anchorage. The maneuver represents a "potential grab of yet another federal government ship from Puget Sound," a Todd Pacific Shipyards executive e-mailed the Coast Guard's congressional liaison Dec. 20. The shipyard is contracted to maintain the Healy, the nation's newest and most-advanced icebreaker. The Coast Guard opposes the move because it would keep crew members away from their Seattle families an additional two months a year and would cost taxpayers an extra $8 million or more a year, according to an internal Coast Guard analysis. Neither Anchorage nor any other port in Alaska has a facility large enough to handle an icebreaker the size of the Healy. Continued........... seattletimes.nwsource.com