STATE OF THE UNION?
State of the White House

As the President gives his state of the union address, which will, no doubt, amount to nothing more than a grand campaign speech, let's take a look at some recent news items generated by White House maneuverings.

First, let's look at how Bush's war in Iraq is progressing.

Death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq reaches 500

From the LA Times via the Houston Chronicle:

The death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq reached 500 on Saturday when a powerful bomb exploded beneath a convoy from the 4th Infantry Division in this rural area west of Baghdad.

Three soldiers died and two others were injured. Almost 3,000 additional American soldiers have been injured since the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in late March.

The early morning attack, which also killed two Iraqi civil defense corpsmen working alongside U.S. troops, took place on a country road lined with date palms and fields of wheat and barley. It came one day after the U.S. commander here, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, spoke confidently of a steep decline in attacks in recent weeks and called on the stubborn insurgents operating in the largely Sunni Muslim-dominated region to capitulate.

Click here for more.

Truck bomb at U.S. headquarters in Baghdad kills 20

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

A suicide driver set off a truck bomb at the gates of the U.S.-led coalition headquarters today, killing about 20 people and wounding more than 60 in the deadliest attack here since Saddam Hussein's capture last month.

The bombing, which occurred during rush hour on a chill foggy morning, came on the eve of a meeting between U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss Iraq's future, including whether Iraq is safe enough for the world body to return.

Witnesses said that at about 8 a.m., the driver of what the U.S. military described as a white Toyota pickup tried to bypass a line of Iraqi workers and a crowd of U.S. military vehicles, coming as close as possible to the entrance American troops call "Assassins' Gate."

And

Dead and injured lay on the pavement. Others -- dazed from the blast -- shuffled silently and aimlessly down the street, blood streaming from their faces.

The U.S. military command said about 20 people were killed and more than 60 wounded, including three U.S. civilians and three American soldiers.

Click here for more.

Next, a quick stop in Afghanistan.

U.S. military denies killing Afghan civilians

But then, they always say that. Again, from the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

"Our aircraft did not engage noncombatants," Hilferty said. "We clearly identified and engaged five armed adult males in the open."

But Afghan officials assert the airstrike killed four men, four children and three women in the village of Saghatho.

"I think they (the Americans) made a mistake," local official Abdul Rahman told The Associated Press today. "We buried all these civilians. They were not Taliban. They were simple villagers."

Some 200 people from the Char Chino district, about 250 miles southwest of the capital, met with the governor of Uruzgan province to protest the deaths, said Rahman, the district's government chief. He added that residents were in mourning and had stopped playing music at the local bazaar.

And

U.S. officials vowed to review the procedures for airstrikes after killing 15 Afghan children in two raids last month, drawing strong protests from Afghan officials and the United Nations.

Click here for more.

But enough of the Pentagon's follies, how is Bush's Department of Justice doing?

Investigating Ashcroft

From the Nation:

At issue are events almost four years ago, when Missouri, the "show me" state, handed Ashcroft bragging rights as the first Senator in American history ever to lose an election to a dead man. It was a hard-fought race; and Ashcroft's side broke the rules. Federal regulators last month finally got around to confirming this and fining his campaign $37,000 for having accepted illegal and excessive contributions.

In the process, the regulators released new information and documents on the matter, and the five public interest groups say the case against the anointed one is actually more damning than ever. They say there is now substantial evidence that Ashcroft himself was involved in accepting an illegal campaign contribution -- a valuable, expensive-to-develop, fundraising mailing list - - worth at least $255,000; and that since then, Ashcroft and his various political committees have "engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cover up the illegal contribution."

Maybe they can get another Bush-appointed "special counsel" to look into the matter...and sweep it under the rug. Click here.

And how about NASA? It appears that they're up to more than militarily conquering space.

Study used census information for terror profile

From the Washington Times via Eschaton:

U.S. census information provided by millions of Americans was used in a government study to profile airline passengers as terrorist risks.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration also obtained for its study the private information of hundreds of thousands of passengers flying Northwest Airlines, an action NASA denied to The Washington Times in September.

Ooooookay...what the hell is NASA doing here? This is creepy at best, and a gross violation of American privacy rights at worst. Click here.

Finally, just to drive the point home, Bush is stacking the courts with far right extremists.

Bush skips Senate, installs judicial pick

From the Washington Post via the Houston Chronicle:

Bush used his recess-appointment powers to seat Pickering, 66, a federal district judge in Hattiesburg, Miss., on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans.

Such appointments, which the president can make when lawmakers are out of session, last until the next Congress takes office -- in this case, January 2005.

Senate records show the power, usually exercised with lower-profile nominees, has been used to elevate judges only a handful of times in the past 30 years. Less than a month before leaving office, President Bill Clinton used the mechanism to install Roger Gregory as the first black judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Maryland and Virginia. Bush renominated Gregory, who was confirmed.

Pickering was challenged by Democrats over his 1994 actions from the bench to reduce the sentence of a man convicted of burning a cross near the home of an interracial couple. Republicans contend Pickering was motivated by concern over the fairness of sentences meted out in the case.

Democrats also raised questions about Pickering's contacts as a state senator in the 1970s with the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, which worked to preserve segregation. Bush has called Pickering "an advocate of civil rights" and pointed to a large number of African-American leaders in Mississippi who came forward to declare their support for him.

Who needs Trent Lott? We've got a Klan-lover in the Oval Office. Click here for more.

Iraq and Afghanistan are bloody quagmires. Attorney General John Ashcroft may have broken campaign finance laws and then conspired to cover it up. NASA seems to be moving into secret police territory, and Bush is stacking the courts with racist koo-koos. And all that's just from the last three or four days. Needless to say, the list goes on and on and on.

The state of the union is not good, not at all.

God, I'm listening to the chimp's speech over the internet right now...he's creeping me out.

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