Who has the Bush administration hired to make sure our voting rights aren't violated on Election Day?

Meet Hans Von Spakovsky, a key player in the right-wing vote-suppression agenda.

When he was supposed to be ensuring the voting rights of minorities as a member of the voting rights section at the Justice Department, Spakovsky instead used his position to promote voter ID laws. When Republican officials were accused of discriminating against Native American voters, he allegedly hindered the investigation. When it came time to interpret the Help America Vote Act, he opted for a policy that would "keep eligible citizens off the voting rolls for typos and other mistakes by election officials."

Oh yeah, and he's also a key figure in the congressional investigation of hiring and firing government attorneys on the basis of political affiliation.

President Bush and Spakovsky recently gave up their fight to win a seat for him on the Federal Election Commission. Now the administration's Commission on Civil Rights has found a spot for him. His job duties: Determining if election "irregularities" violate our civil rights.

When it comes to finding a fox to guard the henhouse, nobody does it quite like the Bush administration. And with the conventions and candidates stealing most of the spotlight these days, things could get worse.

Can we get this guy fired before he does any more harm? I honestly don't know. But we can sure as hell try, and at least let them know we're watching. Click here.

Last November, Michael Mukasey stood in the Justice Department's Great Hall as he was sworn in as the new US Attorney General. Having been given the first opportunity to speak publicly to his staff, Mukasey said:

"We do law, but the result is justice. And that is why our ultimate client - the people of this country - can and do rest secure in the knowledge that our unswerving allegiance is to the law and the Constitution, and that the result of faithful performance of our duty is justice."

My, how times reveal the true nature of people; we've now all come to recognize Mukasey as the disappointment who refused to come out against waterboarding, squelching our hopes for a firm protector of the Constitution.
And it seems he's on a roll. Acting under Bush's wing as George rolls out his last-gasp efforts to leave us with history's most Constitutionally-overwritten legacy, Mukasey has signed on to a new Justice Department plan to loosen FBI restrictions to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion.
The New York Times reports on some of the details that have raised red flags for progressive leaders:

• The new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.”

• The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities.”

• The guidelines also provide very limited constraints for how the FBI could share information with other agencies.

And there you have it: Bush is desperately trying to formalize in stone his administration's efforts to wipe out civil liberties in exchange for a false sense of security, and Mukasey's along for the ride. Never mind that the crumbling economy leaves us as vulnerable as ever to all kinds of large-scale disasters; the Bush administration has succeeded in changing the face of conservatism from the people who tell us to fear the government, to the people who are determined to give us something to fear the government about. And they want to make sure that these practices stick around when Bush is back in Crawford.
Luckily, the hope that there are virtuous defenders of the Constitution in our leadership is not lost: a team of four Democratic Senators have issued a letter to Mukasey, warning him that the plan threatens to undermine Constitutionally-mandated civil liberties. Signers Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told Mukasey they were troubled by what they heard in the briefing session on the plan.
The efforts of this Democratic tag team to stand up for civil liberties should be applauded, but we can't forget the past examples of our Democratic leaders backing down too quickly on these issues. Let us take a lesson from the civil liberties disaster of the FISA bill and recognize the importance of putting the pressure on these Senators to follow through on what they started. We need to tell them that the American public not only supports their efforts to protect us against such intrusive and un-American policies, we expect and demand that they don't back down on this. Not this time.
Sign Progressive Future's petition to Senators Feingold, Durbin, Kennedy and Whitehouse, telling them that we urge them to keep sticking up for civil liberties, and asking that they add our names to the letter's signature.

My thanks to Think Progress for this story:

The other day, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann told us that we don't need Nancy Pelosi to save the planet. Jesus has it covered. Here's what she said:

"[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she’s just trying to save the planet. ... We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet — we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that."

It gets better.

Yesterday on CNN, Rep. Bachmann gushed about how the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is "the most perfect place on the planet to drill."

Watch the video here.

What else did Rep. Bachmann have to say?

* The Arctic Refuge is the perfect place to drill because "it is permanently frozen in darkness three months of the year under ice and snow for nine months of the year."

Yes. Aside from the frozen darkness and ice and snow, it does sound perfect!

* "[T]his area was specifically set aside for drilling by President Jimmy Carter for drilling."

Except that . . . . . . it wasn't.

President Carter said the law he signed actually blocked "any oil company drilling until Congress votes otherwise. . . The simple fact is, drilling is inherently incompatible with wilderness."

* Bachmann also called past and current drilling on Alaska's North Slope a "31-year demonstration project of responsible drilling."

Except that . . . . . . it's not.

There's a long trail of oil spills and accidents on the North Slope, including BP's 200,000 gallon spill that went undetected for five days just two years ago.

Of course, Rep. Bachmann might believe that her Lord wants us to bulldoze new roads into, erect drilling rigs and platforms on, and pump the oil out of His creation so we can drive around in our cars and warm up His planet. But does she really believe He'd approve of her fast-and-loose approach to the truth?

Send Michele Bachmann a message. Click here if you want Congress to vote on clean energy first.

Good news: Pressure from Rep. Waxman to enforce Dr. Kaye Whitley's subpoena to testify on how the DOD is preventing and responding to incidents of sexual assault in the military have paid off: after first blocking her from attending a House committee's hearing, the Pentagon is allowing Whitley to testify. Bad news: the DOD continues to ignore a very specific responsibility they have been tasked with in order to fully address this issue.

I expect that people find it hard to deal with emotionally sensitive issues. I may even expect that many people would want to shield themselves from it.

But I won't tolerate elected and appointed officials who run and hide when they not only have the power to do something about it, they have the explicit responsibility of doing something about it.

And when that issue concerns protecting women in the military from sexual assault, it should be absolutely unacceptable for the Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), to shirk their responsibilities of doing all they can to address what is a very serious issue, which includes participating in a congressional hearing on why so many alarming reports have been surfacing about the sexual assault rate in the military.

To bring you up to speed, various reports have indicated:

 -Across various eras of military activity, 1 in 3 military women have reported being victims of sexual assault

-Of the women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma

-Of the women who indicated having experienced sexual assault in a GAO study, around 50% indicated they did not report the incident because they didn't think anything would be done about it.

Dr. Kaye Whitley is the Pentagon's Director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), which is quoted on their website as being the “single point of accountability for the Defense Department's sexual assault policy.” However, when Congress became concerned that, despite SAPRO's activities, reports of sexual assault in the military were trickling back at an alarming rate, they mandated that the DOD develop an independent task force to investigate the issue.

Unfortunately, the DOD has neither named nor called to order this task force in the four years since the congressional mandate to do so. And last month, when the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a subpoena for Dr. Whitley to participate in a hearing on sexual assault in the military, the Pentagon blocked Whitley from appearing.

The Pentagon gave the excuse that Whitley was not the appropriate person to testify on this issue. The Director of the single point of accountability for the DOD's sexual assault policies? Please. Luckily, the Pentagon's weak excuse for its actions didn't just trigger red flags for me: Rep. Henry Waxman recognized the DOD's evasive tactics -- and sent a formal letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, threatening to hold him in contempt of Congress.

My, how people suddenly come around when it's their own reputation on the line: Gates has agreed to let Whitley testify at the hearing. I, for one, will be waiting in anticipation to hear what she has to say about SAPRO's efforts to address the disturbing reports of violence against women in the military.

The good news is that Whitley is testifying. We may finally get some answers. But the bad news is that we still don't have any indication as to when, if at all, the DOD will call the task force to order. We still need to put the pressure on Whitley to follow through on those orders. Help join the fight by signing our petition to Kaye Whitley, director of SAPRO.

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt is awfully proud of the controversy from the recent draft regulation on what he calls “Physician Conscience:”

“I’m delighted to announce that with the help of Planned Parenthood, my blog -- for the first time -- received more visits than my teenage son’s MySpace page.”

Congratulations, Mr. Leavitt! But what about our fear that your new regulation will redefine contraception as abortion -- and reduce access, especially among low-income women, to birth control?

On that topic this is all Mr. Leavitt had to say:

“This regulation would not be aimed at changing or redefining any of that.”

However, he never actually addressed the definition, only quickly landing on the claim that redefining abortion was never the intention of regulation, then moving on to the typical talking points the he knew would get him a standing ovation from his right-wing constituents. “Intentions” of the rule aside, where were the actual details of the definitions addressed?

Well, if he's not going to discuss it, I will. A section of the regulation proposal defines abortion as “any of the various procedures...that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and birth – whether before of after implantation.” The crux of our fears lies in the fact that many types of birth control prevent pregnancy by blocking the implantation of a fertilized egg. The Bush administration is not only attempting to define a pre-implanted, fertilized egg as a 'human being,' it's also attempting to restrict womens' access to birth control.

What about low-income women who don't have the luxury of going to any physician of their choosing? They need their doctor to prescribe birth control. If their doctors a.) believe in this bogus definition of birth control as an abortion and b.) refuse to provide those services, then these women are out of luck. Don't low-income women face enough barriers as it is? For their sake, and the sake of women everywhere, we need to send a message to Leavitt that this definition is not only scientifically inaccurate, it's irresponsible social policy, and must be dropped from the regulation.

While failing to address just how the proposal wouldn't redefine abortion in his blog posting, entitled “Physician Conscience Blog 2,” the only thing it did succeed in was making it quite clear which side of the ideological divide he resides on:

“Is the fear here that so many doctors will refuse that it will somehow make it difficult for a woman to get an abortion? That hasn’t happened, but what if it did? Wouldn’t that be an important and legitimate social statement?”

Why, no, Mr. Leavitt. It wouldn't be. And, by the way, it's not your job to decide.

I'm actually more concerned after reading Leavitt's blog, because not only does he not address the actual definition in the proposal, he just skips past it onto the typical anti-choice talking points, leading me to suspect that redefining abortion is exactly part of the intention for this regulation. So, Leavitt, if you really want to be taken seriously about why we should all heave a collective sigh of relief, stop talking about your morally superior intentions to protect “physician conscience.” Start talking about the definitions that this ridiculous and unnecessary rule imposes on various forms of contraceptives. Start talking about how, exactly, this rule doesn't restrict a woman's access to birth control.

What's that? You won't? Then I demand you drop this regulation altogether. Why should we wait for you sneak in your backdoor attempt to restrict access to birth control into some poorly disguised regulation on “physician conscience”? To take this man's word that our fears aren't valid would be foolish: we must demand for this regulation to be dropped.

Join me in letting Secretary Mike know that we aren't not fooled by his blog post by signing Progressive Future's petition to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, demanding that he drop the much-maligned regulation.

This weekend, the American Psychological Association will be holding their annual conference, but it won't be as harmonious as you would think: a group of psychologists are organizing to change the association's position on the presence of psychologists during interrogations of Guantanamo detainees. It's ironic that the ethics code of the APA explicitly states: "Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm." Yet this organization has taken the controversial stance that the presence of psychologists makes the detainees at Guantanamo safer during interrogations.

And yet the evidence points in the other direction:

“Most horrible of all is knowing that medical personnel and psychologists violated the most basic ethics of their professions – Do No Harm – by participating in and helping to design "enhanced" interrogations designed to break prisoners. Some did break. Some were killed. This systematic torture focused on sensory and sleep deprivation, overstimulation, and dependency creation. Massive amounts of pain and fear were also included. For their part, psychologists "reverse-engineered" the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program – designed to help American soldiers and marines resist torture – as a means to teach interrogators how to employ torture against captives.” -Meteor Blades, DailyKos

Yep. You heard that – psychologists used their expertise to design methods of torture used to break down prisoners.

"This is only the tip of the iceberg. This program was approved at the highest levels. ... It suggests that people had simply lost their ability to distinguish right from wrong." -Air Force Major David Frakt

What's worse is that the program continued to be used even after it was banned:

“Defense Department investigations of abuse had previously revealed that the program was used in a limited manner and only on high-value detainees, but the documents indicate that the program was far more widespread and that the technique was still used months after it was banned at the facility in March 2004. Detainees were moved dozens of times in just days and sometimes more than a hundred times over a two-week period.” -Josh White, Washington Post

Shockingly eerie is the fact that these psychologists had such a central role in designing a program that so blatantly went against their code of ethics:

“Psychologists have been identified as key figures in the design and conduct of abuses against detainees in US custody at Guantanamo, the CIA's secret "black sites," and in Iraq and Afghanistan. Psychologists should not be taking part in such practices.

Yet a steady stream of revelations from government documents, journalistic reports, and congressional hearings has revealed that psychologists designed the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" techniques – which included locking prisoners in tiny cages in the fetal position, throwing them against the wall head first, prolonged nakedness, sexual humiliation, and waterboarding.” -Psychoanalyst Stephen Soldz in a Sunday Boston Globe Op-Ed

It's outrageous that the APA is being complacent to the illegal and unconstitutional practices of the Bush administration to the extent that it's activities and positions go against their code of ethics. It seems like the upcoming APA conference is a perfect opportunity for the organization to come down hard in defense of their “Do No Harm” pledge and to realign its stance on enhanced interrogation. The convention is the 14th, so email the APA now, and tell them to resepct their own code of ethics.

I'm going to be upfront before I begin this: this is going to be hard for me to write. As a young woman who went through all the typical traumas and dramas of growing up in America, I, like many women, have seen and experienced violence against women. I'll be the first one to admit that the topic of rape is an emotionally charged one, a subject that lends itself to flying off the handle, irate reactions and, sometimes, even tears. Let me also preface this with the admission that I am not exempt from this.

But I still was not prepared for the backlash of misogynistic comments on my blog from Wednesday, entitled “1 in 3 Military Women Raped, and Apparently the Pentagon Doesn't Think It's A Problem.” The purpose of my blog was to call attention to both the alarming rate of reported sexual assault among women in the military, and, more importantly, the fact that the Pentagon was tasked with the assignment to name a task force on the issue of rape in the military, and after 4 years, has yet to do so. It was in no way, shape or form, intended to blame the troops for this alarming problem, or to accuse male soldiers of being rapists.

Most of the comments were positive, expressing the normal reaction of alarm to the high rate of reported rape, as well as outrage at the Pentagon's inaction. But then there were some anomalies:

“I served two tours in the US army and can safely say that this is utter and complete BS.”

“They're armed. And more independent-minded. And trained. And confident. I wouldn't expect that rates would be higher than in the general population for these reasons.”

“1 out of 3 is pure propaganda. Pls don't swallow.”

“This can mean anything from a giving someone a hug and the woman not liking you to rape. God help the ugly guys, I am sure their sexual assault charges are much higher then they should be.”

“Of course, [her] pathetic methodology does even take into account false claims and has uses a loose definition of 'date rape' I am sure.”

Shame on me for assuming that the atrocity of rape is universally understood, and that to publicly infer that we all should be suspicious of women who allege rape would be considered taboo in this day in age. I understand that the statistic of 1 in 3 women reporting having been sexually assaulted while in the military is daunting and unbelievable to some. It's shocking, it's outrageous, but it is in no way made up.

It is precisely the kind of attitude that would assume that it's a common practice for women to falsely allege rape, or the attitude that any statistic that seems outrageous either must be false or can be rationalized away, that has allowed the Pentagon to stay inactive on this issue. And, although the comments have me sidetracked, the fact that in the 4 years since Congress mandated a task force on rape in the military, the Pentagon has yet to do it, that's the real outrage here.

The rates are alarming and the Pentagon has yet to act. They've ignored a congressional mandate. This issue deserves some investigation. We have enough factors endangering our troops as it is, and they don't need another one that could potentially be prevented or treated with better sensitivity, if the Pentagon would have the will to do so. That's why it's important that we get support for this petition, urging the Pentagon's point person on sexual assault in the military to do what was mandated: name the task force and call it to order.

No one knows exactly how many female veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been sexually assaulted while on duty. That's because it is estimated that half of all sexual assaults go unreported.

As it is, 15% of female veterans have screened positive for Military Sexual Trauma. At a jaw-dropping estimate of 1 in 3, the rate of sexual assault victims in the military is twice that of the civilian population, an eerie echo of the doubled rate of suicide among veterans compared to civilians.

I've already expressed outrage at the avoidable factors threatening our troops that don't come from battling with the enemy, factors like electrocutionin showers to exposure to contaminated water. But imagine if the biggest threat you've encountered came from a fellow military member, someone living in close quarters with you, someone you worked with, ate with, and interacted with on a daily basis.

And imagine if the agency responsible for caring for your well-being refused to address this issue. S:aid Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn:

"Years of inaction at the DOD continue to speak volumes about senior leadership's commitment to our service members and civil servants. When it comes to sexual assault in the military, the DOD has absolutely no credibility."

Four years ago, the DOD was Congressionally mandated to establish a special task force on the issue of sexual assault in the military. In four years, this task force has yet to convene once. Not once.

Now the Pentagon has ordered Kaye Whitley, the director of the Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), to ignore a Congressional subpoena for a hearing on sexual assault in the military.

As if the refusal of SAPRO to name the 15-member civilian task force in 4 years didn't speak volumes about the DOD's guilt in the matter. But their absolute refusal to be probed whatsoever in their activities to prevent and respond to sexual assault confirms that the DOD is, for some reason, dragging its feet on addressing the issue. "It's the Pentagon's job to ensure our troops are protected, and they are failing miserably here," said Paul Rieckhoff, Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran and founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

We hear a lot from the Bush administration and Washington in general about standing up for our troops. But with one in three women in the military being sexually assaulted and the Pentagon ignoring the problem (as well as the law and Congress), where is the outrage? You can help us apply a little pressure right now by signing a petition to Kaye Whitley. Tell her to do her job by convening the task force, investigating the problem, coming up with real solutions, and fighting to protect the brave women in our military.

UPDATED: 8/1/2008- And so the saga continues. When we last left off, the joker Karl Rove had narrowly escaped an impending Congressional subpoena by stealthily sneaking on a plane to Yalta. But just when he thought he was safe, we now learn that John Bates, a federal judge who we hope is no longer cowed by the dark shadow of Chief Joker Bush and his ilk, has ruled that current and former White House aides are not immune from Congressional subpoenas. And from this ruling, it looks like our shadowy villain may acquire two sidekicks in his battle to evade a subpoena: White House aides Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten.

This landmark ruling is the first of its kind, in which the courts have decided to enforce a Congressional subpoena against the White House. But can Rove get away again? Dana Perino, a spokesperson for the Joker's main protectors, who reside in their shadowy lair at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., issued a statement suggesting that the White House may appeal this decision.

There's only one woman who can save the fight for Rove's subpoena: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Although the House Judiciary Committee has voted to hold Rove in contempt of Congress, the full House must vote for it to make it official. For that to happen, Pelosi, our black knight now paralyzed by political pressure, must schedule the vote.

Join the force now by sending an email to Pelosi, asking her to schedule the full House vote immediately.

 

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“Absolutely, 100%, Aye.” Such was the enthusiastic vote of Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) today, when the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena. The committee said that Rove broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations of White House influence over the Justice Department, including whether Rove encouraged prosecutions against Democrats.

Rove claims that Congress can't force him to testify because of . . . wait for it . . . executive privilege! Taking the Bush administration's already shopworn privilege claim to newly ridiculous extremes, Rove, who no longer works at the White House, is claiming executive privilege for allegedly illegal activity -- a claim that the Supreme Court ripped to shreds in the Nixon case some 30 years ago.

Executive or not, no one should be so 'privileged' that they are above the law. I guess it makes sense that a man carrying such disdain for the law that he would regard it merely as a suggestion while serving the White House would continue to think himself immune to consequences.

Americans are tired of the blatant disrespect for the law and constitutional foundation that Bush administration officials have practiced for the past 8 years. As much as we're all looking forward to new leadership in Washington, we have to hold these people to account for what they've done to our country. The next step to move forward to hold Rove in contempt is for the entire house to vote on the matter. Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to schedule this vote for this to happen, but the AP has reported that it is unclear whether she will allow for a final vote.

The House Judiciary Committee has done its job. Now it's Nancy Pelosi's turn to do hers. We cannot allow the Democratic-majority Congress to bow to the will of the Bush administration any longer. Send an email to Nancy Pelosi, urging her to schedule to full house vote to hold Rove in contempt immediately.

$11.68 billion . . . That's how much money ExxonMobil reported earning in its second quarter report.

1 . . . That's the rank of ExxonMobil's quarterly profit among all American companies. Ever.

Doubled . . . That's what happened to the price of a barrel of oil from 2001 to 2005.

Doubled again . . . That's what happened to the price of a barrel of oil from 2005 to March 2008.

Rose 40% . . . That's what happened to the price of a barrel of oil from March to July 2008.

85.5 million . . . That's how many barrels of oil the world consumes every day. 

1.9 million . . . That's how many barrels of oil the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would produce per day, at best and not for 20 years, if Congress opened it to drilling today.

2 million . . . That's how many barrels of oil that protected areas of the Outer-Continental Shelf would produce per day, at best and not for 7 years, if Congress opened them to drilling today. LINK

2.5 million . . . That's how many barrels of oil we'd save per day by 2020 if Washington, instead, doubled federal gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks.

$10 billion . . . That's how much we're still spending every month on the war in Iraq.

In short, Big Oil is earning record profits and oil prices are skyrocketing because oil consumption is high and supplies are low and all the oil in Alaska and all the oil off the coasts of Florida and California won't lower prices or reduce our dependence on foreign oil, so if we want to stop spending billions on wars in countries that, as Al Gore says, happen to have a lot of oil, we better start conserving and shifting to clean energy. Now.

How much did you spend in taxes on the war in Iraq last year? And how much clean energy would that money have bought? Click here to find out.

As the facts emerge, the truth about the Bush-Gonzales Justice Department just keeps getting stranger, doesn't it? Political interference in the hiring and firing of prosecutors, the possibly false prosecution of a former governor, and now the bizarre litmus test questions and Internet searches of Monica Goodling. You can't make this stuff up.

Or can you?

See if you can tell which are the real questions asked (illegally, of course) of civil service appointees by Ms. Goodling and which are completely made up.

A.Tell us about your political philosophy. There are different groups of conservatives, by way of example: Social Conservative, Fiscal Conservative, Law & Order Republican.

B. At what point in your life did you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior?

C. What took you so long?

D. Which are worse: Democrats? Darwinists? Environmentalists? Feminists? Civil libertarians? All of the above?

E. What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?

F. Aside from the President, give us an example of someone currently or recently in public service who you admire.

G. Do you consider water-boarding to be a form of torture?

H. What if it's someone who looks different than you do -- you know, someone suspicious-like?

I. Why are you a Republican?

J. Well, then, what the hell are you doing here?

The answers: A, E, F and I are real questions. B, C, D, G and H are made up, as far as we know.

If you guessed that fewer than three of the questions were real, we admire your abiding faith in the Bush administration, we really do.

If you guessed that four to six of the questions were real, consider yourself well-informed and politically savvy.

If you guessed that all 10 questions were real, then you might be paranoid, but that doesn't mean the Bush administration isn't out to get you.

The Bush administration has tried to use their political agenda to influence just about every sector of our government, even agencies that are supposed to objectively removed from politics. They've taken hostage of our government, erasing the checks and balances of democracy to suit his own agenda. Sign our petition to keep politics out of the DOJ.

So, apparently there's another contracting company to add to the list of tax dollar abusers. They're called the Parsons construction group. They were supposed to do improvements on a prison in the flatlands north of Baghdad, but Parsons continually fell behind schedule, causing the Pentagon to cancel the project.

The big problem? The prison was part of an almost $1 billion contract to build border posts, courts, police training centers and fire stations, all in hopes of restoring Iraq's infrastructure. Yet Parsons only completed 18 out of the 53 project stipulated in its contract, and although they were paid for the minimal work they did on the prison, the structure is now empty and useless, due to structural weaknesses Parsons did not fix. In the end, Parsons made out with a barrel full of cash, and the much blood-stained region of Diyala never got its infrastructure.

“In the pecking order of corruption in Iraq, the dead-end prison project at Khan Bani Saad is nowhere near the biggest or most tangled. Bowen estimated up to 20 percent 'waste' or more than $4 billion from the $21 billion spent so far in the U.S.-bankrolled Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund.”

So reported Brian Murphy and Pauline Jelinek in the Huffington Post. I read this right after I read a headline about how President Bush will have compiled the largest federal deficit in U.S. history -- $482 billion to be exact. So I have to wonder: how much of our taxdollars have been wasted in this same careless manner?

The Bush administration has taken outsourcing of essential government services to new extremes, especially in Iraq. Yet the record is so riddled with waste, corruption and other abuses that you have to wonder: Are these people really that incompetent? Or was the point along to enrich their friends and cronies?

Along those lines, the Wall Street Journal reports that Iraq war architect Richard Perle is part of a group negotiating a deal to invest in oil fields in . . . wait for it . . . Iraq! This, despite the fact that the Bush administration has argued against any oil deals until Iraq passes a new oil law governing the distribution of resources among Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions.

You can find out how much you paid for the Iraq war last year with Progressive Future's Invest in US Calculator. And while you ponder how much of that money went to enrich KBR, Blackwater, Parsons and the like, you can also see what that money would buy in terms of health care, clean energy and better care for our troops. And when you do, please consider signing our Invest in US petition. We're planning on distributing this petition far and wide, from Congress to the Party Platform Committees to the media. It's time for a new direction for America, where all citizens can be proud of how their tax dollars are spent.

“Absolutely, 100%, Aye.” Such was the enthusiastic vote of Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) today, when the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena. The committee said that Rove broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations of White House influence over the Justice Department, including whether Rove encouraged prosecutions against Democrats.

Rove claims that Congress can't force him to testify because of . . . wait for it . . . executive privilege! Taking the Bush administration's already shopworn privilege claim to newly ridiculous extremes, Rove, who no longer works at the White House, is claiming executive privilege for allegedly illegal activity -- a claim that the Supreme Court ripped to shreds in the Nixon case some 30 years ago.

Executive or not, no one should be so 'privileged' that they are above the law. I guess it makes sense that a man carrying such disdain for the law that he would regard it merely as a suggestion while serving the White House would continue to think himself immune to consequences.

Americans are tired of the blatant disrespect for the law and constitutional foundation that Bush administration officials have practiced for the past 8 years. As much as we're all looking forward to new leadership in Washington, we have to hold these people to account for what they've done to our country. The next step to move forward to hold Rove in contempt is for the entire house to vote on the matter. Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to schedule this vote for this to happen, but the AP has reported that it is unclear whether she will allow for a final vote.

The House Judiciary Committee has done its job. Now it's Nancy Pelosi's turn to do hers.

We cannot allow the Democratic-majority Congress to bow to the will of the Bush administration any longer. Send an email to Nancy Pelosi, urging her to schedule to full house vote to hold Rove in contempt immediately.

Last week, Progressive Future shared a tragic story of a veteran who committed suicide less than three hours after being assessed as a “low risk” patient, and was released from VA care. The carelessness of his assessment was largely due to a standardized questionnaire that was used to identify high risk patients. This is a serious oversight, especially when you consider the statistic that by the end of the day, 18 veterans will have taken their own lives.

Since these troops make it home from Iraq, Afghanistan or other battlefields alive, they are not counted as casualties of war. In 2007, 6,256 veterans committed suicide. That's about two thousand more than the number of troops who died in Iraq since the beginning of the war. And yet, these deaths are not counted among the war casualties.

But what else can you blame for these suicides? Concerns over the rising rate of PTSD among veterans have been escalating. An even more telling statistic of this problem is the fact that the suicide rate among veterans is twice that of the civilian population, evidence that the war is a decisive factor in these suicides.

While Bush and Republicans have kept the troops at war in Iraq -- and have gone to great lengths to keep them there, through extended tours of duty, stop/loss, refusing to talk about a timeline for withdrawal -- they've been less willing to go the extra mile to help the troops when they come home. Witness Bush's, McCain's and other prominent Republicans' refusal to support the Webb G.I. Bill extending further educational benefits to veterans, as well as McCain's record of voting against increasing health benefits to veterans in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

We need to bring our troops home on a reasonable timeline, but we also need to start taking better care of our returning soldiers -- a challenge that would be greatly eased if we weren't wasting $10 billion a month on the war in Iraq Imagine the kind of care we could provide our veterans if we weren't wasting all our tax money on the war.

How much of your tax dollars are going to the war in Iraq? And what could that money buy for a veteran in need? Find out by using Progressive Future's Invest in US Calculator. The calculator takes a person's 2007 income before taxes and tells you how much of that person's tax money went to fund the war (average: $235), and how many seconds of war that bought (average: .04 seconds). Then it tells you, with that money, how many days of veterans' higher education benefits (average: 5) that money could have paid for, as well as other much needed initiatives at home. Then we are asking users to sign our Invest In US petition, which we plan on taking to Congress, the Platform Committees, and the media to push for new priorities for tax spending.

Last week Dr. Benjamin Brewer, who writes "The Doctor's Office" column for the Wall Street Journal, put a face on a disturbing trend in U.S. health care. A lack of insurance and high health care costs are forcing many Americans to miss out on preventive care: people are skipping check-ups, discontinuing medication, even refusing annual screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies.

For example, a patient of Dr. Brewer's had quit smoking in order to afford gas for his 40-mile commute to work. Unfortunately, he still developed pneumonia. The patient refused to let an ER doctor admit him, in fear of the costs, and he decided not to fill an antibiotic prescription, because his insurance had a $50 drug co-pay, which he said he simply couldn't afford.

You probably know what happened next.

The man's condition deteriorated and he was forced to be admitted into the ICU of a large medical center, where he underwent tens of thousands of dollars of treatment.

Dr. Brewer recounts similar experiences with several other patients, including a 59-year-old woman who decided not to have a mammogram until she becomes eligible for Medicare at 65.

Bottom line: Just as we might have suspected, the tough economy is forcing many Americans to skip basic health care. The irony, of course, is that, despite all the conservative babble about choice and competition, a system that ensures preventative care for all Americans would save money overall and strengthen our economy.

In order to get there, though, we need to reprioritize how our tax dollars are being spent. Last year, the average American paid $235 in tax dollars for the war in Iraq. This amount paid for a fraction of a second of the war; the same amount of money could pay for 25 days of health coverage. More investment in health care costs could mean the difference between catching a condition early and nipping it in the bud or paying for expensive emergency procedures once that condition worsens.

Dr. Brewer seems to have the same idea, noting in his article that the government could have used this year's $600 stimulus checks to provide health care for 130 million people.

To find out how much of your money went to fund the war instead of fundamental needs like health care, education and renewable energy, Progressive Future has built the Invest In US Calculator. Just enter your 2007 income before taxes, and you'll see how much of your tax dollars went to the war, how many fractions of a second of war that money bought, and what that money could have been used for instead.

If you think the results are inconsistent with your values and priorities, sign our petition to Invest in US. Progressive Future is taking advantage of our strong roots in Denver, and working hard to get affordable health care for all Americans on the Democratic Party platform, as well as send a strong message to Congress and the media about where the priorities of the American people stand. We are gathering hundreds of signatures, which we will use to take our health care plea to the streets.

http://progressivefuture.org/invest-in-u s-calculator?id4=BLTA