Romney Double Dog Gitmo Express

Rendition on a conservative budget...

Via Crooks and Liars:

As if Mitt Romney doesn’t have enough on his mind, now he has to contend with angry dog owners.

The reporter intended the anecdote that opened part four of the Boston Globe’s profile of Mitt Romney to illustrate, as the story said, “emotion-free crisis management”: Father deals with minor — but gross — incident during a 1983 family vacation, and saves the day. But the details of the event are more than unseemly — they may, in fact, be illegal.

The incident: dog excrement found on the roof and windows of the Romney station wagon. How it got there: Romney strapped a dog carrier — with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it — to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus’s rather visceral protest.

Massachusetts’s animal cruelty laws specifically prohibit anyone from carrying an animal “in or upon a vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman manner or in a way and manner which might endanger the animal carried thereon.” An officer for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals responded to a description of the situation saying “it’s definitely something I’d want to check out.”

Alive in Baghdad: Ramadan In Iraq

More original reporting from Iraq by TPM TV's Veracifier, as they release a re-edited version of an earlier report on Ramadan in Iraq:

Neocon Paul Wolfowitz returns to his AEI death cult.

Via Think Progress:

Former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz — who resigned last month after being embroiled in a corruption scandal at the World Bank — announced that he has found a comfortable landing pad from which to continue to disseminate his right-wing ideology:

Paul Wolfowitz vowed to continue in political life after he steps down as president of the World Bank this weekend following an internal revolt. … He said he would be joining the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, as a visiting scholar, which would allow him to continue influencing public policy.

Prior to his recent government service, Wolfowitz served as a member of AEI’s Council of Academic Advisors.

Before the Iraq war, AEI helped spawn the administration’s regime change plans. Several Iraq war architects — such as Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, and Doug Feith — previously worked at AEI before their service in the administration. In February 2003, President Bush delivered a major policy speech to AEI, mapping out his war plan, “thanking them [AEI] for their service” and support for the invasion.

AEI is right down there in the far right wing Heritage Foundation gutter of shame, and is little more than a front group for right wing nutty propaganda, and featuring such a superb cheerleading chorus to add to the pundits TV lineup of war on real news analysis.

Propaganda and outright lies are their favoured tools.

Truth is their enemy.

Groups like AEI and Heritage Foundation have acted in the interests of the Neoconservative death cult and the corporatist allies that have funded them all along. Do not ever mistake these propaganda groups as representative of a real conservative's perspective. They are warmongers and war profiteers. They are as different from a real, honest, conservative as the difference between my liberal agenda and a communist's.

Protester collapses in Lieberman's office

via The Hill:

The 50-year-old woman launched a hunger strike to get a face-to-face meeting with Lieberman but was repeatedly rebuffed, according to Code Pink. However, Lieberman's staff has met with her on the issue.

Angeline was 15 days into her hunger strike and had lived off of clear liquids, according to Code Pink member Medea Benjamin. At one time she was granted a meeting, but the face-to-face was canceled by Lieberman’s office, the group said.

I hope the she is going to be OK. I like and what they stand for. All of them stand up every day for things that we all believe in. What a spineless sack of lying neocon chicken crap we we have for a Senator here in Connecitcut.

You can read up more on how she is doing and what happened at this DC action Blog.

I. Lewis "28301-016" Libby

Via the Daily Muck:

Scooter Libby has a new name: inmate number 28301-016. That's according to the Bureau of Prisons, which is ready and waiting for Libby's arrival.

While Libby is still waiting to actually go to jail they are getting number "28301-016" a room with a barred view ready.

Via BooMan at the Booman Tribune:

"We Won't Rest Until They're Frog-Marched Out"

What’s with the Frog?

"It's of keen interest to me, to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.'' - Joseph C. Wilson IV.

To learn the etymology of the term frog-march you can read this column by Bill Safire. He may have spent his career shilling for the Republicans and our intelligence services, but he is a reliable source on language.

In any case, Booman Tribune encourages its users to band together to do the investigative journalism that the mainstream media has forgotten how to do.

The frog is a reminder that politicians do occasionally get drummed out of office for corruption or unethical behavior. And we would like to speed that process along.

In fact, our motto is "We Won't Rest Until They're Frog-Marched Out" So, even if the amphibian is a criminal, you must learn to love the frog.

Well? No rest for the weary, IMHO, as Karl Rove, Richard Armitage, and Dick Cheney are still traitors on the loose... Not to mention all of the other criminal bush administration wankers that have yet to see justice brought down on them for their own very special little crimes.

Warning Shot to Rupert Murdoch

According to Poynter Online:

Wall Street Journal reporters across the country chose not to show up to work this morning.

We did so for two reasons.

First, The Wall Street Journal's long tradition of independence, which has been the hallmark of our news coverage for decades, is threatened today. We, along with hundreds of other Dow Jones employees represented by the Independent Association of Publishers' Employees, want to demonstrate our conviction that the Journal’s editorial integrity depends on an owner committed to journalistic independence.

Second, by our absence from newsrooms around the country, we are reminding Dow Jones management that the quality of its publications depends on a top-quality professional staff. Dow Jones currently is in contract negotiations with its primary union, seeking severe cutbacks in our health benefits and limits on our pay. It is beyond debate that the professionals who create The Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones publications every day deserve a fair contract that rewards their achievements. At a time when Dow Jones is finding the resources to award golden parachutes to 135 top executives, it should not be seeking to eviscerate employees’ health benefits and impose salary adjustments that amount to a pay cut.

We put the reputation of The Wall Street Journal and the needs of its readers first. That's why we will be back at our desks this afternoon, producing the day's news reports. But we hope this demonstration will remind those entrusted with the future of Dow Jones that our publications' integrity must be protected, and sustained, from top to bottom.

I am guessing they are familiar with the Fox brand of "news", and they likely have a pretty decent idea about the inner workings of how Fox "news" is produced.

Last February at News Corpse Blog:

Last Friday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Rupert Murdoch sat on a panel where he lamented what he described as a “loss of power” due to the ascension of the Internet and other new media. The notion that this captain of one of the most dominant media conglomerates in the world is trembling in the shadow of bloggers is simply absurd. Especially when you consider the fact that his company is also a dominant player on the Internet with an aggressive acquisitiveness that includes MySpace, the world’s largest online social networking site.

But there was a more shocking exchange that took place that ought to have caused more of a stir amongst professional journalists and all freedom loving people. It was an exchange that revealed something that most conscious beings knew, but which I have never seen explicitly articulated.

Murdoch was asked if News Corp. had managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq. His answer?

“No, I don’t think so. We tried.” Asked by Rose for further comment, he said: “We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East…but we have been very critical of his execution.”

Let me repeat this: “We Tried!”

Setting aside the nonsense that they had ever been critical of Bush’s adventures in Baghdad, having confessed to being deliberatly deceitful raises some questions. For instance, how can anyone ever again take seriously Fox News or any of Murdoch’s other instruments of bias? How can News Corp. continue to pretend that they are “fair and balanced?” How can any other media company exhibit the slightest expression of respect or patronization? And speaking of other media companies, where are they now? The Chairman and CEO of a media empire that includes the number one rated cable news network, and numerous newspapers around the world, has just admitted that he tried to use that empire to “shape the agenda” in support of a partisan political goal with consequences of life, death, and global destabilization.

This is what you can expect from a Wall Street Journal in the Murdoch "news" empire:

Propaganda

And you can bet that it will be propaganda that will help his businesses and his far right wing radical political views.

Dodd's YouTube Spotlight

I'll let this video speak for itself:

Ok... I gotta say: Get your video cam out and have some fun!

[update] Taken from YouTube:

To learn more about the Dodd Amendment, how to contact your Senators, or find out where they are this weekend, visit:

HERE!

[Update Deux] Spazeboy mentioned this when he saw the Dodd YouTube up at My Left Nutmeg:

"It’s a happy coincidence that just yesterday I posted a guide to videoblogging that will assist you in doing just that."

Generals March on New Hampshire

A couple of retired Generals speaking out against the fallacy of fighting them over there:

Generals campaign against war
"These troops are not expendable commodities to fulfill the pipe-dream vision of a group of people trying to remake the world in our image," Gard said. "It's time for us to get the hell out of there."

snip

Terrorism threatens the United States, but the war in Iraq is exacerbating the problem, not solving it, the generals said.

Gard, a graduate of West Point and Harvard who served 31 years in the Army, said the idea that "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" is empty rhetoric used to keep Americans scared so they don't question the administration's foreign policy. Fighting in Iraq will not stop someone who wants to blow up a dirty bomb in New York.

"These people are mobile," Gard said. "If they want to come in here, they'll come."

Johns said the military can't fight terrorism on its own. The United States must also look for political solutions, he said.

"It's a war of ideas, it's not a military war," Johns said. "Raw military force is more limited in its usefulness than ever in the history of mankind."

This Concord Monitor editorial also mentions the very real possibility that Republican Sen. John Sununu "could fall prey to a similar antiwar sentiment that helped oust two incumbent congressmen in favor of Democratic Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter in 2006." Both of the Generals also seem to agree that the incompetent bush administration policies are wrecking the Army and can easily see the parallels to Vietnam in the current failed escalation.

(H/T Buzzflash)

So Much For the American Worker

Joe Dinkin at My Left Nutmeg caught this failure for the average American worker:

Just wanted to make sure this got mentioned here, even though it's not a strictly Connecticut issue, although it certainly effects many people here. The employee free choice act, one of the top priorities of labor in this year's congressional session, is dead. This bill would have allowed workers to form a union by card-check. The Senate did not reach cloture to end debate and vote. (51-48. They needed 60 votes to force a vote) Steven Greenhouse from the New York Times:

The bill would have given workers the right to insist on a procedure, known as majority sign-up, that allows employees at a workplace to form a union as soon as a majority of them signed cards saying they wanted one. Under current law, an employer facing a unionization drive can insist on a secret-ballot election. The bill fueled a feverish lobbying battle between business and labor. Corporate lobbyists and their Republican allies asserted that the bill would infringe on workers’ rights by denying employees the right to a secret-ballot election. Union officials and their Democratic allies said the bill was needed to help reverse labor’s decline, because employers often defeat unionization drives by intimidating and firing workers during secret-ballot elections.

60 Million Workers would join a union if given the opportunity. But this bill didn't even get the chance to get a presidential veto. And those 60 million workers can continue to get harassed and intimidated, and never have the option to gain a measure of job security, fair wages, decent benefits, and self-determination in the workplace.

Sirota sums up exactly what I was thinking when I read the previous link:

So again the question is why? Why would Democratic leaders bring up EFCA as a standalone bill - that is, in a form that is most politically easy for the average Republican to oppose? Is it just that Democrats have no “strategery?” Or is it something more insidious?

Does it have something to do with Democrats wanting to set up a situation that allows them to claim they care about workers and labor rights, while making sure that those labor rights continue to get trampled? This wouldn’t be unprecedented…at all. In fact, we saw this situation recently on the Iraq bill, where Democrats manipulated parliamentary procedure to deliberately engineer a situation that let them simultaneously claim they were doing all they could to oppose the war while helping make sure the war continues. Are we experiencing the same thing now with worker rights? And if we are, does it have something to do with the spate of stories about Big Business showering top Democratic leaders in cash and throwing Democratic Hill staffers offers of six-figure corporate lobbying jobs?

I honestly don’t know the answer, as it can sometimes be very tough to tell whether the behavior from folks in Congress is driven by short-sightedness or corruption. That said, its not like Senate defeat of EFCA was a surprise - Democrats knew from the get-go that it would lose as a standalone bill, meaning it really is possible they don’t truly want it to pass in the first place. Nonetheless, moving forward, the bottom line is clear: If Democrats really want to get EFCA passed - as American workers need them to and as they should as the supposed party that represents those workers - it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than setting up legislative scenarios that make sure EFCA doesn’t pass.

HelpThese Senators Too!

Bob Geiger says he isn't sure if these senators will help us find Habeas Corpus:

Here's the list of Democratic Senators who need to hear from you. Even if they intend to vote for the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 when it comes to the Senate floor next month, they need to be pushed further to stand up and cosponsor this important component in taking back our country:

* Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
* Max Baucus (D-MT)
* Evan Bayh (D-IN)
* Robert Byrd (D-WV)
* Thomas Carper (D-DE)
* Robert Casey (D-PA)
* Kent Conrad (D-ND)
* Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
* Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
* Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
* Herb Kohl (D-WI)
* Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
* Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
* Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
* Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
* Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
* Patty Murray (D-WA)
* Ben Nelson (D-NE)
* Bill Nelson (D-FL)
* Mark Pryor (D-AR)
* Jack Reed (D-RI)
* Harry Reid (D-NV)
* Charles Schumer (D-NY)
* Jon Tester (D-MT)
* James Webb (D-VA)
* Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Tim Johnson (D-SD) is still recovering from a brain hemorrhage but may be able to come in for a close vote and, what the heck, you might even want to try giving Joe Lieberman's office a call to see if he wants to start doing the right thing.

Today is the American Civil Liberty Union's "Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice" and it's the day to call on Congress to restore habeas corpus, fix the Military Commissions Act, end torture and rendition and restore our Constitutional rights.

Calling your Senators and making sure your voice is heard on the importance of restoring habeas corpus is a good place to start. Here's the toll-free number to dial at the U.S. Capitol: 800-862-5530. Just call and ask to be connected to your Senator's office. If you get a chronic busy signal -- which is very possible today -- you can see a directory of direct lines to Senate offices here.

Let's get going. The world is watching.

The worls is watching BUT...
Where in the World is Habeas Corpus?

This is Habeas Corpus.

On October 17, 2006, he went missing without a trace. Last seen in Washington, D.C., his current whereabouts are unknown. Where is he? We don't know.

But we do know Habeas Corpus needs our help. What can you do? Get involved and help us restore Habeas Corpus to his rightful place in our Constitution!

These Senators may not even know what they are missing.
Please help them find Habeas Corpus too!

Help These Students!

These kids are looking for Habeas Corpus too:

President Bush was presented with a letter Monday signed by 50 high school seniors in the Presidential Scholars program urging a halt to "violations of the human rights" of terror suspects held by the United States.

The White House said Bush had not expected the letter but took a moment to read it and talk with a young woman who handed it to him.

"The president enjoyed a visit with the students, accepted the letter and upon reading it let the student know that the United States does not torture and that we value human rights," deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

Will you help them find Habeas Corpus?

This is Habeas Corpus.

On October 17, 2006, he went missing without a trace. Last seen in Washington, D.C., his current whereabouts are unknown. Where is he? We don't know.

But we do know Habeas Corpus needs our help. What can you do? Get involved and help us restore Habeas Corpus to his rightful place in our Constitution!

President Bush doesn't even know what he is missing.
Please help him find Habeas Corpus too!

Where in the World is Habeas Corpus?

This is Habeas Corpus.

On October 17, 2006, he went missing without a trace. Last seen in Washington, D.C., his current whereabouts are unknown. Where is he? We don't know.

But we do know Habeas Corpus needs our help. What can you do? Get involved and help us restore Habeas Corpus to his rightful place in our Constitution!

Even President bush is looking,
but he can't seem to find Habeas:

Is Habeus under here?

Or here?

Maybe these girls have seen Habeas?

Maybe Habeas is under these robes?

Just a second...
Maybe we should look under here again?

Maybe Habeas is hiding under here?

Are you sure Habeas isn't under here?

Prove it!

Please help us find Habeas Corpus before this country loses all respect in the eyes of the world.

Or is it too late for that already?

All of these images can be found at Salon.com, and all of them are part of the images released by the military in its very limited investigation of torture and sexual abuse.

Buzz This!

A car that runs on water?

This guy says he has one:



Is this for real? Many have said that the future wars would be for water... And that was just based on survival. Nevermind about diving their SUVs.

Nutmegger Picked in First Round of NHL Draft

The Montreal Canadians used their second first-round pick (22nd overall) to grab New Canaan native Max Pacioretty, a guy they hope will fill the slot of power forward in the future.

“I’m thrilled to be chosen by the Canadiens, but I really didn’t expect it,” admitted Pacioretty, who was invited to Montreal last Wednesday for testing with other prospects for this year’s draft. “Even though I thought I tested well, I didn’t think they would end up picking me. I couldn’t believe it when I heard my name.”

If comparisons are any indication, the Canadiens may have a special player on the horizon.

“I’ve been sometimes compared to Keith Tkachuk,” revealed Pacioretty. “I like to play physical and I give it all I’ve got whenever I’m sent out on the ice. My goal is be a fan favorite so I can fire up the crowd and bring that energy to my teammates.”

The native of New Canaan, CT turned it on in the second half of the season, bolstering his draft day stock.

“Early in the year I had some great games on some nights and I was invisible on others,” admitted Pacioretty, who saw his NHL Central Scouting ranking among North American skaters rise from No. 23 to No. 16 this season. “I knew I had to be more consistent and that’s what I did. I’m just proud to have been chosen in the first round.”

Canadians management had this to say about Pacioretty:

The Canadiens' Director of Player Recruitment and Development was just as giddy about his second first-round pick on Day 1 of the 2007 draft, Max Pacioretty.

“This is a player with all kinds of power and strength,” said Timmins of the 6-foot-2, 203-pound winger. “He’s also got all kinds of intangibles going for him. And he’s not only got the size, he also got excellent ability.”

When the dust settled after the opening round Friday night, the Canadiens had stuck to their pre-draft game plan.

“We made it clear that we were looking for players who had size, were powerful, talent and had character,” reaffirmed Timmins. “And that’s exactly what we’ve done by drafting McDonagh and Pacioretty.

“We’re also pleased to see that they’ve enrolled at excellent schools for next year,” added Timmins. “Both Wisconsin and Michigan produce very good hockey players. We also know that both of these players will benefit from great physical conditioning coordinators who will ensure their proper development.”

Pacioretty will be going to Michigan.

Fred Head

Fred head comments on Tim Griffin:


Tim Griffin? Who's that?



via wiki:

Journalist and author Greg Palast alleged that Griffin was involved in an effort to target 70,000 voters - students, deployed military personnel and homeless people in predominantly African American and Democratic areas for vote caging during the 2004 election Griffin.^[3][4]. Monica Goodling cited in her oral and written testimony to the U.S. House Commitee on the Judiciary on May 23, 2007 that Griffin's alleged vote caging activities were desirable for Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty to be informed of, in relation to Griffin's potential Senate confirmation as a U.S. attorney.<sup>[5]

snip</sup>

On March 14, 2007 the Arkansas Leader wrote about Griffin his "resignation or dismissal ought to be imminent".^[15] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified in his January 18, 2007 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee:^[7] "I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed United States attorney."^[7] On May 30, 2007, Greg Palast turned over a series of 500 emails — potential evidence of a crime — by request from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers; that were inadvertently sent to the wrong email address, by Griffin. [1]

On May 30, 2007, Griffin resigned from his position effective June 1, 2007.^[16]

Republican Deathspin in Overdrive on the Left Coast

Last week I x-posted what I thought was a perfect example republican party hypocrisy and indicative of how serious of a deathspin they are in across the country:

How bad is the current Republican deathspin?

I think this Calitics story on the immigrants hired to run the California republican party really deserves some serious national attention. It is just way too funny on so many levels.

The California Republican Party, they of the anti-illegal immigration platform, have decided that some immigrants are here to do the jobs that Americans won't do - like be their deputy political director.

The California Republican Party has decided no American is qualified to take one of its most crucial positions -- state deputy political director -- and has hired a Canadian for the job through a coveted H-1B visa, a program favored by Silicon Valley tech firms that is under fire for displacing skilled American workers.

Christopher Matthews, 35, a Canadian citizen, has worked for the state GOP as a campaign consultant since 2004. But he recently was hired as full-time deputy political director, with responsibility for handling campaign operations and information technology for the country's largest state Republican Party operation, California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring confirmed in a telephone interview this week.

That's not all, look at the guy who hired him:

Matthews was hired by Michael Kamburowski, an Australian citizen who was hired this year as the state GOP's chief operations officer. But neither new official has experience in managing a political campaign in the nation's most populous state -- and as foreign citizens, neither is eligible to vote.

In fairness to the state GOP, I don't think any Americans really WANT to work for them.

Even the few republican supporters left must see the humour in this given the many right-wingnuts that are against all of the immigrants. Never mind that they can't find any Americans to work for their party. The republican deathspin is that bad.

Oh! But it gets MUCH WORSE than this as more is coming out concerning the Aussie's background (via TPM) and it shows a few problems with his immigration status over the years:

According to this quite hilarious article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the California GOP has hired as its chief operating officer, an Australian national who the Department of Homeland Security has been trying to deport for repeated immigration violations. As recently as Februrary, Michael Kamburowski, was working, rather haplessly, as a real estate agent in the Domincan Republic until he "ran away without mentioning anything to us," according to his one-time boss, Rico Pester, the owner of Re/Max Island Realty, in the resort town of Punta Cana. (Said his Re/Max bio: "With his attention to detail, laid-back yet professional approach, and sense of humor, Michael will smoothen the road to your dream property in Punta Cana.")

Perhaps it is somehow implicitly redundant to note that in the second half of the 1990s Kamburowski was working for Grover Norquist on immigration policy, tort reform and 'paycheck protection' before becoming the executive director of Norquist's Reagan Legacy Project.

Along the way there were a couple of hasty marriages leading shortly to his new brides submitting "Petition for Alien Relative" forms to get him citizenship, various stints as an "aspiring actor" and even a stay at the Wackenhut Correctional Facility in Jamaica, New York courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security.

A money quote from his former boss, Rico Pester, the owner of Re/Max Island Realty:

"I wouldn't give him my company to run, I can tell you that,'' said Rico Pester, the owner of Re/Max Island Realty in the fashionable Caribbean beach region.

Pester said Kamburowski arrived in Punta Cana in the summer of 2006 and "was so successful that he couldn't sell anything the whole time he was here -- and we provided him with clients. He didn't rent anything and he didn't sell anything. ... I have no idea what he was doing.''

snip

"I couldn't understand how somebody like him could become a (Republican Party) COO,'' Pester said in a telephone interview.

It is plainly apparent that across the country, from Connecticut's east coast to California's west coast, the GOP has some serious problems with how their party is being run into the ground.

DeLuca_Resign
Uploaded by ctblogger

[update] It seems the left coast Aussie republican COO with all of the immigration problems has left his job. Via Josh Marshal:

Seems he's decided to spend more time with his family and has left the job.

The guy who ran Arnold's reelection campaign, Steve Schmidt, calls Kamburowski's hiring "almost a parody of incompetence and malfeasance."

By which I assume he means the guy's a solid Republican.

Solid? No. Typical? Yes. Sadly, yes...

Kucinich on a Cheney Impeachment

And some other worthy issues in his Presidential campaign:




You can get your Cheney Impeachment groove on here!


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Let Us Be Clear On Why We Are Still In Iraq

AliceDem at the Booman Tribune slapped this up in the diaries yesterday:

Kurds Get Piece of Oil Wealth; Foreign Investment Questions Linger

While pressure on the Baghdad government mounted, Iraqi oil unions staged protests in early June. Many Iraqis believe the measure would drive the oil industry toward privatization and unfairly benefit outside oil companies.

"We think the proposed oil law doesn't serve the interests of the Iraqi people at all," said Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Southern Oil Company Union and the Iraqi Federation of Oil Workers' Unions, at a news conference in New York on June 18. "It emphasizes or confirms American hegemony over Iraqi oil fields."

The unions have said they worry negotiations could result in a law that would give foreign companies too much influence. But details of how foreign investors would be involved are still being nailed down, said David Pumphrey, deputy director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ...

... Foreign oil companies, meanwhile, are waiting for the oil law to provide a structure in which to operate in the country. The law was intended to build confidence in the stability of the system and provide incentives to work in a still violent region.

"This is an industry that makes very long decisions. They reap their profits over a period of decades, and it takes years to develop projects," Greg Priddy, an energy analyst at the Eurasia Group, told the NewsHour in May.

"They need to be confident that it's going to be stable, not just the next few years, but out 30 years or so, way beyond the U.S. occupation."

We knew this was about oil, this just documents it.

A little quoted, and nearly ignored, article from the 2006 LA Times:

ISG Concludes that IRAQ = OIL

What can you say about an article like this?

It's still about oil in Iraq - Los Angeles Times:

A centerpiece of the Iraq Study Group's report is its advocacy for securing foreign companies' long-term access to Iraqi oil fields.

WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.

Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq's importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: "It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves." The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.

The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met.

It's spelled out in Recommendation No. 63, which calls on the U.S. to "assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise" and to "encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies." This recommendation would turn Iraq's nationalized oil industry into a commercial entity that could be partly or fully privatized by foreign firms."

I guess that is what they mean when they say the ISG was made up of "moderate and bipartisan" elderly statesmen. It means they will shill for the oil industries too.

The U.S. State Department's Oil and Energy Working Group, meeting between December 2002 and April 2003, also said that Iraq "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war." Its preferred method of privatization was a form of oil contract called a production-sharing agreement. These agreements are preferred by the oil industry but rejected by all the top oil producers in the Middle East because they grant greater control and more profits to the companies than the governments. The Heritage Foundation also released a report in March 2003 calling for the full privatization of Iraq's oil sector. One representative of the foundation, Edwin Meese III, is a member of the Iraq Study Group. Another, James J. Carafano, assisted in the study group's work.

For any degree of oil privatization to take place, and for it to apply to all the country's oil fields, Iraq has to amend its constitution and pass a new national oil law. The constitution is ambiguous as to whether control over future revenues from as-yet-undeveloped oil fields should be shared among its provinces or held and distributed by the central government.

This is a crucial issue, with trillions of dollars at stake, because only 17 of Iraq's 80 known oil fields have been developed. Recommendation No. 26 of the Iraq Study Group calls for a review of the constitution to be "pursued on an urgent basis." Recommendation No. 28 calls for putting control of Iraq's oil revenues in the hands of the central government. Recommendation No. 63 also calls on the U.S. government to "provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law."

Go read the entire article and then be sick to your stomachs...

It has always been about the big oil companies getting their slice of the pie... And that appears to be one of the few truly bipartisan efforts on Capitol Hill. Until the oil companies get what they feel they are entitled to, those "Iraq Constitution" changes you hear lawmakers and the White House talk about (the ones that steal oil rights from Iraqis, but they don't mention that...), the occupation will continue. Regardless of how much it is tearing Iraq apart.

Iraqis know what this is about. When will Americans face up to the realities of Iraq?