Yes We Can! Long Island 2012 » The Bush Error

Weekly Address: The End of Combat Operations in Iraq

YWC!LI — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:00:24 +0000

With the end of combat operations in Iraq days ahead, the President salutes our troops for their service and pledges to fulfill America’s commitment to them as veterans. 90,000 troops have left Iraq since the President came into office, and by the end of next year even the troops taking part in the non-combat mission will be home. The administration is upholding the sacred trust with our veterans by building a 21st century VA, making it easier for veterans with PTSD to receive the benefits they need, funding and implementing a Post-9/11 GI Bill, and devoting new resources to job training and placement to help those veterans looking for work in a tough economy.

Anti-War Grannies Protest for 330 Straight Weeks in NYC

YWC!LI — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:30:40 +0000

For the last 330 Wednesdays, a group of “grannies” (along with some others) have met on Fifth Avenue at the eastern entrance to Rockefeller Center to protest the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The demonstrations began Jan. 14, 2004, without missing a week.

On 5th Ave., a Grandmothers’ Protest as Endless as the Wars
By Clyde Haberman
So what is it about? It isn’t as if the government is about to change course because a few elderly women and men stand on Fifth Avenue. Why do this every week?

“The point is to interfere with the routine,” Ms. Heinz said. “As people walk down the street, it has an impact on their consciousness. If it engages them, it’s fine. If it infuriates them, it’s fine.”

Read the full article at The New York Times.

Ex-Blackwater Prez & 4 Other Employees Indicted On Weapons Charges

YWC!LI — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 21:38:26 +0000

As reported by Zachary Roth, Talking Points Memo

The former president of Blackwater has been indicted on weapons charges.

Federal prosecutors today charged Gary Jackson with conspiracy to violate firearms laws, false statements and possession of an unregistered firearm, reports the Associated Press.

Four others were also charged, including former general counsel Andrew Howell and former executive vice president Bill Mathews.

The AP reported last month that the Feds were considering charges stemming from a 2008 raid, in which federal agents found and seized 22 weapons, including 17 AK-47s. The Feds were probing whether Blackwater obtained the letterhead of a local sheriff in order to create a false justification for buying the guns.

Continue reading @ Talking Points Memo.

Accountability: C.I.A. Abuse Cases Detailed in Report on Detainees

YWC!LI — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:47:18 +0000

The Justice Department released a long-secret report Monday chronicling abuses inside the Central Intelligence Agency’s overseas prisons, showing how interrogators choked a prisoner repeatedly and threatened to kill another detainee’s children.

In response to the findings, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. chose John H. Durham, a veteran prosecutor from Connecticut who has been investigating the C.I.A.’s destruction of interrogation videotapes, to determine whether a full criminal investigation of the conduct of agency employees or contractors was warranted. The review will be the most politically explosive inquiry since Mr. Holder took over the Justice Department in February.

Read On: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/us/politics/26intel.html?hp

NYT: Wider Role Is Seen for Rove in Firings of Prosecutors

YWC!LI — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:29:54 +0000

WASHINGTON — Thousands of pages of once-secret grand jury testimony and e-mail messages released on Tuesday showed that Karl Rove and other senior aides in the Bush White House played an earlier and more active role than previously known in the 2006 firings of a number of federal prosecutors.

Early discussions at the White House in the spring of 2005 were focused on unhappiness with David C. Iglesias, a United States attorney in New Mexico who was later among eight prosecutors fired in a purge that created a political firestorm for the White House. A top aide to Mr. Rove wrote in an internal e-mail message in June of 2005, a year and a half before Mr. Iglesias was fired, that Republicans in New Mexico were “really angry” over what they saw as the prosecutor’s inaction in pursuing voter fraud charges against Democrats in the state in tight elections.

Read On: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/us/politics/12firings.html?_r=1&hp