January 3, 2008 – Capitol Hill Blue

Obama, Huckabee take Iowa

January 3, 2008

Illinois Senator Barack Obama and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses Thursday night, establishing themselves as the early frontrunners for the Democratic and Republican Presidential nominations and handing two earlier favorites crushing losses.

Mitt Romney, who outspent other Republicans 10-1, will finish a distant second while former Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton in third place, close behind former Senator John Edwards.

Dunham to Bush: Unindicted co-conspirator in CIA tape case?

January 3, 2008

Capitol Hill Blue reports that Bush was so livid that Attorney General Mukasey is pursuing the CIA tapes case investigation that he wanted to fire him. If he knew who Mukasey selected to lead a full-scale criminal investigation was he’d have gone into an apoplectic rage.

Even without the vast powers of a special prosecutor, federal prosecutor John H. Dunham could be a barbed harpoon in Bush’s side for the rest of his presidency and beyond. He’s the career prosecutor U.S. Attorney General Janet C. Reno appointed to investigate allegations that FBI agents and police officers in Boston had been in bed with the mob. Janet Reno!

How many more Americans must die?

January 3, 2008

There’s a question that nobody asks Presidential candidates in this year’s run for the top job in the White House.

It’s a question that must be asked: How many more Americans must die before we end the illegal and immoral war in Iraq?

Forget about timetables, forget about political implications and forget about our so-called “mission” to bring Democracy to that war-torn country. We no longer have Democracy in the United States so how on earth can we export it to another country?

Fred Thompson will bow out after Iowa

January 3, 2008

Fred Dalton Thompson, the sometimes politician, sometimes actor and last to enter the Republican race for President, will be the first one to drop out after tonight’s Iowa caucus if he finishes poorly and all indications show that he will come in near the bottom.

Republican insiders tell Capitol Hill Blue Thompson will withdraw before the New Hampshire primary and endorse John McCain.

“He’s finished,” said a longtime GOP consultant working in Iowa. “His campaign was finished before it even began.”

Angry Bush will stonewall CIA probe

January 3, 2008

President George W. Bush tried to stop Attorney General Michael Mukasey from launching a criminal investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency’s destruction of tapes showing torture of a prisoner and has ordered top White House officials to stonewall the probe, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.

Bush is reportedly “livid” that Mukasey went ahead with the investigation and even discussed firing the attorney general but senior administration officials talked the President out of taking an action that would add fuel to suspicions of a cover-up.

While the administration may put on a public face of cooperation, the White House will take a tough stance from prosecutors who will seek interviews with current and former administration officials who participated in a meeting where destruction of the videotapes was discussed.

When war becomes a video game

January 3, 2008

Every war produces its breakthrough in military technology, and the contributions of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to the science of warfare may well be the unmanned aerial vehicle.

Pentagon figures obtained by the Associated Press show that the military’s use of drones more than doubled over the past year, and an even more aggressive use of UAVs is expected. All told, the AP reported, the drones have flown more than 500,000 hours, mostly in Iraq and mostly in the last year.

Wall of shame

January 3, 2008

The town of Granjeno is two miles north from the Rio Grande, separating Mexico and the United States. It is just two levees away and neighbors a bird and wild life refuge.

The historic town was founded a decade before the Declaration of Independence was signed. The cemetery bears testament to the town’s long history. People in the area with names like Anzaldua and de la Garza are living links to long-disappeared Spanish colonial land grants. Their pedigrees are as consequential as those of the Mayflower descendents.

Hoover’s plan to throw everyone in jail

January 3, 2008

We’ve known for a long time that the early 1950s was a nightmarish time in this country. It was the time of the arch-demagogue, Joe McCarthy. It was the time when the Cold War was at its coldest, a time when Americans confused dissent with disloyalty, when people were gripped with the fear that that alien doctrine of communism would infiltrate our open society and destroy us.

Immigration: The hot button issue

January 3, 2008

Pat Ricutti is a diehard Republican voter, but he laments what he’s hearing from GOP presidential contenders about illegal immigration.

The Fresno fruit and grape farmer gave money to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani last February at a fundraiser. He said he won’t be giving him or any other candidate a dime more at this point, though, until he starts hearing alternatives to calling for millions of illegal immigrants to be shipped off or pressured to leave voluntarily.