This Week In the News
This week the House held hearings on the record of the mercenary firm Blackwater, which recieves over $1billion from the government to fight the Iraq war. Among the nuggets burried in House's investigative report: Blackwater charges the US over $400,000 per merecenary per year (about 6 times the cost of a soldier), twenty five Blackwater mercenaries have been terminated for drug or alcohol problems, one drunken mercenary mistakenly shot the bodyguard of Iraq's vice president, Blackwater has been involved in over 200 civilan deaths, and 300 "pre emptive" shootings most from moving vehicles. Asked if the hearings had at all swayed the President's view on fighting a war with soldiers for hire, the White House responded, "Not really. I mean this makes war so much simpler and more discrete. Before if you wanted to invade someone you had to raise an army, build political support and maybe even draft people and those people would have family and friends who would be sad if they died. Now all that is condensed into just signing a few purchase orders and a bunch of people nobody knows can do what they need to do without the constraints of a code of conduct. Plus, we don't have to pay these guys any benefits or send those uncomfortable letters when they die. I mean, winners all around."
This week -- On Children's Health Day No Less -- the President remained locked in the biggest domestic political battle of his career -- the battle to keep health insurance away from our children. The President vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded the federal SCHIP program bu raising the tax on cigarettes. While the White House hoped for a "quiet veto" the President's actions have drawn broad criticism. The President, however, remained undeterred, "They will come at me from all sides. I am in a death struggle. Children with measles. Children with the flu. Chidren with broken arms and urchins with all manner of maladies, many of them involvinf unseemply discharges. But I remain resolute. You have to draw a line in the sand. Today it is health insurance through the SCHIT program, the next thing you know the brats will come back with their hands out for a publically financed education, publicly financed roads and other stuff my friends could do at a profit. "
This week, the House voted down a bill that would increase taxes to pay for the War In Iraq, a conflict now largely funded through borrowing. Opponents of the measure were put off by the sheer size of the graduated tax, the fact that it is open ended, and the fact that it may make the War in Iraq more unpopular. Noted Congresswoman Helen Barnes who voted against the measure, " Let's face it, right now the war is like a new pair of Jimmy Choos you will only wear once. Put them on the Visa and forget about it...You start paying cash money,and people start looking at the bill. Considering the money we spent in Iraq could have funded the entirety of the UN' Millenium Goals on poverty, or funded universal healthcare for thirty years, we don't need that happening."
This week, more "secret memos" were uncovered. It appears that despite its own public pronouncements, Congressional bills and Supreme Court rulings, the Administration continued to support the torture of foreign detainees. A secret 2005 Department of Justice memo gives explicit legal authorization to head slaps, fake drownings, extreme temperatures and starvation among other undisclosed methods. The memo was authorized in the wake of the Adminitration's own promise not to utilize torture, a Supreme Court opinion stating that the Geneva Conventions applied to US detainees and congressional anti torture measures by Sen. John McCain. Defending the White House's secret stance, C. Noevul, Spokesman for Secret Memos and Ugly Goingson (SMUG) tried to give some perspective, "This stuff is nothing compared to the actions authorized if Cheney's eggs are runny or someone leaves one of his man sized safes unlocked. I mean, at that point, you wish you were in Gitmo, strapped to a chair with a load of laxatives in your belly and hood over your head."
This week -- On Children's Health Day No Less -- the President remained locked in the biggest domestic political battle of his career -- the battle to keep health insurance away from our children. The President vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded the federal SCHIP program bu raising the tax on cigarettes. While the White House hoped for a "quiet veto" the President's actions have drawn broad criticism. The President, however, remained undeterred, "They will come at me from all sides. I am in a death struggle. Children with measles. Children with the flu. Chidren with broken arms and urchins with all manner of maladies, many of them involvinf unseemply discharges. But I remain resolute. You have to draw a line in the sand. Today it is health insurance through the SCHIT program, the next thing you know the brats will come back with their hands out for a publically financed education, publicly financed roads and other stuff my friends could do at a profit. "
This week, the House voted down a bill that would increase taxes to pay for the War In Iraq, a conflict now largely funded through borrowing. Opponents of the measure were put off by the sheer size of the graduated tax, the fact that it is open ended, and the fact that it may make the War in Iraq more unpopular. Noted Congresswoman Helen Barnes who voted against the measure, " Let's face it, right now the war is like a new pair of Jimmy Choos you will only wear once. Put them on the Visa and forget about it...You start paying cash money,and people start looking at the bill. Considering the money we spent in Iraq could have funded the entirety of the UN' Millenium Goals on poverty, or funded universal healthcare for thirty years, we don't need that happening."
This week, more "secret memos" were uncovered. It appears that despite its own public pronouncements, Congressional bills and Supreme Court rulings, the Administration continued to support the torture of foreign detainees. A secret 2005 Department of Justice memo gives explicit legal authorization to head slaps, fake drownings, extreme temperatures and starvation among other undisclosed methods. The memo was authorized in the wake of the Adminitration's own promise not to utilize torture, a Supreme Court opinion stating that the Geneva Conventions applied to US detainees and congressional anti torture measures by Sen. John McCain. Defending the White House's secret stance, C. Noevul, Spokesman for Secret Memos and Ugly Goingson (SMUG) tried to give some perspective, "This stuff is nothing compared to the actions authorized if Cheney's eggs are runny or someone leaves one of his man sized safes unlocked. I mean, at that point, you wish you were in Gitmo, strapped to a chair with a load of laxatives in your belly and hood over your head."
posted by Jack Reed at 3:33 PM
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