June 12, 2007
What Vote of No Confidence?
June 11, 2007
Over two million displaced within Iraq
In its latest statement, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) warned that the situation in the war-torn country continues to worsen with over two million Iraqis now believed to be displaced within the country and another 2.2 million having fled to neighboring states.
The statement, issued on 5 June, said that an estimated 820,000 people, including 15,000 Palestinians, had been displaced since the bombing of the Samara shrine.
“What am I going to do, hide them?”
“I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) — what am I going to do, hide them?”
“Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it,” said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. “The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.”
June 9, 2007
Hunting Undisclosed Earmarks
When the House Armed Services Committee disclosed earmarks in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, it left out 53 of them worth a total of $744 million, according to a new report from the folks at Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS).
The House of Representatives passed new rules just a few days into the new Congress requiring lawmakers to disclose the earmarks they insert into bills.
The House Armed Services Committee was one of the first to implement the rule, adding a 13-page chart in the report accompanying the FY 2008 defense authorization bill (National Defense Authorization Act) that listed each earmark along with the requesting member, dollar amount and beneficiary.
However, within the 600-odd pages of the bill and accompanying report, TCS found another 53 earmarks that were somehow never disclosed. These earmarks are worth $744 million, or nearly nine percent of the total earmarks. In all, TCS found 502 separate earmarks worth $8.4 billion.
Read this story of investigative journalism at The Sunlight Foundation site.
At the “new report” link above, you can download a spread sheet with all the earmarks from the bill.
Legislative Paralysis
Mets Manager Casey Stengel said it: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” His 1962 Mets became one of the worst teams in baseball history, finishing with a 40-120 record.
The current denizens of Capitol Hill are on course to eclipse that record.
But don’t worry about them. They still get paid, whether they accomplish anything or not.
Oh, they’ve done some work: named a few post offices after people who undoubtedly earned that honor, and stuffed some barrels with the requisite amount of pork to ensure they will be rehired for another term. Paying the bills, some call it.
But at the end of the day, they all know that if they were working for some company out there in the real world, they would probably be looking for new jobs by now.
So far, they are still on the public payroll and will probably so remain, until that election we keep talking about rolls around: in November, 2008.
That’s 513 days from now. Mark your calendar. Do you have a 2008 calendar, yet?
Can we still call them lawmakers if they don’t make any laws?
June 8, 2007
Pensions for Convicted Lawmakers
At least 20 former members of Congress convicted of felonies in the past 30 years still receive or stand to collect taxpayer-funded retirement checks, according to the National Taxpayers Union (NTU).
The 16-count indictment of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) has raised the issue once again.
If convicted, Jefferson would still be eligible for an annual pension of more than $40,000 if he resigned now, or up to $50,000 if he served out his term, according to the NTU.
Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), who was sent to prison in 1996, receives an annual pension of $125,000.
Ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) will receive $64,000 annually, former Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio) $40,000, and Bob Ney (R-Ohio), $29,000 upon their releases from prison.
Will Congress strip convicted felons of their congressional pensions? More ->
June 7, 2007
June 6, 2007
June 5, 2007
The Earmarks War
How Much Money Goes To Earmarks?
Is any of the $1/2 billion dollars in 1753 earmarks on a single appropriations bill reaching your community?
Are the House and Senate on a collision course over earmarks? CQ Budget Tracker takes a look.
One Editorial View: Democratic earmark reforms lasted 100 days.
Why is John Murtha smiling?
June 4, 2007
Informant was key to undoing of JFK plot
According to court papers and investigators, the informant began working for the government in 2004, after his second drug-trafficking conviction in New York, and he quickly proved to be a credible source.
The insider, a twice-convicted drug dealer who agreed to help in exchange for a lighter sentence, was a government informant whose surreptitious work undermined a plot to destroy the Queens airport by exploding a jet fuel pipeline.
His help once again demonstrated the growing importance of informants in the war on terrorism, particularly as smaller radical groups become more aggressive.
“In most cases, you can’t get from A to B without an informant,” said Tom Corrigan, a former member of the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force. “Most times when an informant tells you what is going on, speculation becomes reality.”
They have been working this case for three years, and no leaks! That is amazing.
One might even say that the absence of leaks was also key to the undoing of the JFK plot.
Something to think about.
Ahmadinejad: Israel’s destruction close
Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that the world would witness the destruction of Israel soon, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Ahmadinejad said last summer’s war between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon showed “for the first time hegemony of the occupier regime (Israel) collapsed and that pushed the button counting the days until the destruction of Zionist regime,” IRNA quoted him as saying.
“God willing, in the near future we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying during a speech to foreign guests who attended ceremonies marking the 18th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who is known as the father of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Embattled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has lost public support after Israel failed to achieve its goals during last summer’s 34-day war with Hizbullah in Lebanon – freeing two captured soldiers and crushing the group.
The war was sparked after two IDF soldiers were kidnapped by Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbullah gunmen in a cross-border raid. The fighting ended with a UN-brokered cease-fire that called for deployment of UN peacekeepers and Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel.
Ahmadinejad has made anti-Israel comments in the past. In October 2005, he caused outrage in the West when he said in a speech that Israel’s “Zionist regime should be wiped off the map.”
His supporters have argued Ahmadinejad’s words were mistranslated and should have been better translated as “vanish from the pages of time” – implying Israel would vanish on its own rather than be destroyed.
June 1, 2007
No Free Lunch in Michigan
Michigan Man Fined for Using Coffee Shop’s Wi-Fi Network
A Michigan man has been fined $400 and given 40 hours of community service for accessing an open wireless Internet connection outside a coffee shop.
Under a little known state law against computer hackers, Sam Peterson II, of Cedar Springs, Mich., faced a felony charge after cops found him on March 27 sitting in front of the Re-Union Street Café in Sparta, Mich., surfing the Web from his brand-new laptop.
Last week, Peterson chose to pay the fine instead as part of a jail-diversion program.
“I think a lot of people should be shocked, because quite honestly, I still don’t understand it myself,” Peterson told FOXNews.com “I do not understand how this is illegal.” More ->
Meanwhile: Wireless Internet Gains Momentum in the U.S.
Some 34% of Internet users have logged onto the Internet using a wireless connection either around the house, at their workplace, or some place else. In other words, one-third of Internet users, either with a laptop computer, a handheld personal digital assistant (PDA), or cell phone, have surfed the Internet or checked email using means such as Wi-Fi broadband or cell phone networks, Pew Internet & American Life Project has published based on survey conducted in December 2006.
More ->
