"President Obama said Friday he will pull all U.S. troops from Iraq next year.
It is about time. The U.S. has been in Iraq for so long, we can't remember if
weapons of mass destruction are something we made up or something we paid
someone to make up."
- Argus Hamilton
=--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--=
KILLED: 4255*
WOUNDED: 31089*
COST: $602.5 Billion*
WMDs FOUND: 0**
(* number increases daily)
(** search called off)
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Hock and Awe
http://cagle.com/working/090302/ofarrell.jpg
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Overweight Youth Pose Recruitment Challenges
http://www.defenselink.mil//news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53356
. . Curtis Gilroy, the Pentagon's accessions chief, lamented during a
congressional hearing this week that many recruitment-age youth are too
overweight to qualify for military service.
"We have a crisis in this country," Gilroy said during a March 3 hearing before
the House Armed Services Committee's military personnel subcommittee. He cited
obesity among other shortcomings such as physical fitness deficiencies and lack
of a high school diploma that disqualify about three-quarters of
17-to-24-year-olds from serving.
A couch-potato lifestyle and fast-food appetite has fattened up America's youth
in a big way. Studies say one in five Americans ages 18 to 34 -- the prime
recruiting age -- is obese. That's forced recruiters to turn away many
applicants who don't meet military weight standards.
Almost 48,000 potential recruits flunked those standards during physicals at
military entrance processing stations since fiscal 2005, officials said. And
that number doesn't take into account potential recruits who never get that far
because their recruiters screen them out, or who never go to a recruiter in the
first place because they know they're overweight. ..
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"Here's some good news. Barack Obama announced he's bringing home troops from
Iraq. That's right. Unfortunately, he couldn't get them direct flights home.
They have a two-year layover in Afghanistan."
- Jimmy Fallon
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My Mom Says....
http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/jd/2009/jd090305.gif
=--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--=
Obama Releases Secret Bush Anti-Terror Memos
http://tinyurl.com/bvgwv9
The Obama administration threw open the curtain on years of Bush-era secrets
Monday, revealing anti-terror memos that claimed exceptional search-and-seizure
powers and divulging that the CIA destroyed nearly 100 videotapes of
interrogations and other treatment of terror suspects.
The Justice Department released nine legal opinions showing that, following the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration determined that
certain constitutional rights would not apply during the coming fight. Within
two weeks, government lawyers were already discussing ways to wiretap U.S.
conversations without warrants. ...
The legal memos written by the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel
show a government grappling with how to wage war on terrorism in a
fast-changing world. The conclusion, reiterated in page after page of
documents, was that the president had broad authority to set aside
constitutional rights.
Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure, for
instance, did not apply in the United States as long as the president was
combatting terrorism, the Justice Department said in an Oct. 23, 2001, memo.
"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the
overriding need to wage war successfully," Deputy Assistant Attorney General
John Yoo wrote, adding later: "The current campaign against terrorism may
require even broader exercises of federal power domestically." ...
The memos reflected a belief within the Bush administration that the president
had broad powers that could not be checked by Congress or the courts. That
stance, in one form or another, became the foundation for many policies:
holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay, eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without
warrants, using tough new CIA interrogation tactics and locking U.S. citizens
in military brigs without charges. ...
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"Hey Yoo-bee-doo-bee, Unca Dick says he wants legal authority to start up these
concentration camps, can you help us out?"
"Comin' right up, Chief!"
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War Against Terror
http://cagle.com/working/090217/hage.jpg
=--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--=
"The Senate announced plans this week to probe CIA torture during the Bush
administration. We now know that waterboarding just doesn't work. Wall Street
has been under water since September and bankers still won't say what they did
with the money."
- Argus Hamilton
=--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--=
(shhhh..... it's a secret!)
Secret Bush Memos
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29469663/
Push for Inquiry
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/washington/04legal.html
Office of Legal Counsel Memoranda
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/olc-memos.htm
=--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--=
Post-9/11 Memos Show More Bush-Era Legal Errors
http://tinyurl.com/aroq92
The number of major legal errors committed by Bush administration lawyers
during the formulation of its early counterterrorism policies was far greater
than previously known, according to internal Bush administration documents
released for the first time by the Justice Department yesterday.
Those policies were based on at least 10 legal opinions conferring broad powers
on the president that the Justice Department later deemed flawed and ordered
withdrawn, including several approving the military's search, detention or
trial of civilians in the United States without congressional input, according
to the documents. ...
The defects in most of the early opinions were summarized in a document titled
"Memorandum for the Files" and signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who served as the
acting head of the legal counsel's office for the Bush administration's last
three years without being confirmed by the Senate. Bradbury dated the memo five
days before Obama's inauguration and said its purpose was to "confirm that
certain propositions" asserted previously by the office were no longer
supported. He said key national security officials had already been advised of
the change of heart but did not say when. ...
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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Five days before Obama's inauguration, Bush's legal guy decides "certain
propositions asserted previously by the office were no longer supported"...
That wasn't because those powers are reserved for Republican presidents only,
is it?!? Gawd, you guys are so transparent!!!
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Some Assembly Required
http://cagle.com/working/090210/wejp.gif
=--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--=
"The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee will investigate instances of CIA
torture of detainees over the last eight years. This nation has no business
engaging in torture. Anybody found guilty of waterboarding ought to get twenty
years in the electric chair."
- Argus Hamilton
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"You say to yourself, 'What are these guys doing in retirement?' Well, Dick
Cheney is keeping busy. Today, as a matter of fact, he hooked up a digital
converter box to his pacemaker, so he's ready to go."
- David Letterman
=--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--= =--=
CORRECTION
Last week, in quoting Defense Secretary Gates comparing his new boss to his old
one, we mistakenly replaced his characterization of Obama as "more analytical"
than Bush with the phrase "way smarter." We regret the error
- IronicTimes.com
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"Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was on 'Meet the Press' yesterday. And he
said that Barack Obama is more analytical than President Bush. Well, there's a
shock, huh? I think Tickle Me Elmo is more analytical than President Bush."
- Jay Leno
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How do you know you're shopping in Texas?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt7FDTpzGvo
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"The Obama administration is considering August 31st, 2010, the end date for
the Iraq war. That'll give us plenty of time to get the "Mission: Accomplished"
banner to the dry cleaners."
- Tim Hunter, wackyweek.com
**********************
Don't Forget we switch to Daylight Savings Time this weekend....
As long as the Republicans don't start ranting about it being a Standard Time
Bailout Program.
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