Johnathon Weisman,
Washington Post

The proposed overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws teetered on the verge of collapse today, after four Republican senators switched their positions to help pass an amendment early this morning that would close the bill’s guest worker program after five years. It is beginning to appear that immigration reform will need to wait until the Administration is replaced.

A united Republican majority — along with 15 Democrats — at midday blocked a vote to cut off debate on the measure, vowing to keep offering amendments until they are satisfied their voices have been heard. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) countered with a vow to try one more time this evening to end debate, appealing to President Bush and his top aides to bring Republicans along.

“It’s daylight hours in Europe. Maybe [White House chief of staff] Josh Bolten can make some calls,” Reid said, warning, “The headlines are going to be, ‘The president fails again.’ It’s his bill.” Click here to read more.

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

The White House has expanded its legal team to handle the fights it is having with the new Democratic Congress.

Since becoming President Bush’s new lawyer in February, Fred Fielding has created five new positions in the White House counsel’s office, expanding the staff to 22 lawyers, the White House said on Friday. Fielding also has filled a handful of empty desks in his office.

Fielding is strengthening the staff to deal with an avalanche of requests the White House is getting from lawmakers investigating the flap over the firings of U.S. attorneys, missing e-mails, prewar intelligence and other matters.

Editorial note: We Democrats say “Our lawyers are tougher than your lawyers..ha ha.” Click here to read more about Republican efforts to evade responsibility for the war, corruption, missing emails and other mis-deeds.

When Donald Rumsfeld was Defense Secretary he promoted his friends and instructed them to defend the war and the Administration. So now we have politicized our military on top of everything else. Newsweek magazine is carrying a story by John Barry.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carried out his orders, and declined to engage in public dissent. The end of his career is one more sign of the politicization of the American military.

Gen. Peter Pace and Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, who climbed to the top rungs of the U.S. military in large part because of their proximity to Donald Rumsfeld, are now seeing their careers end for essentially the same reason. Rumsfeld’s successor as Defense secretary, Robert Gates, realized that any attempt this fall to give General Pace two more years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would risk what Gates, with characteristic understatement, call “quite contentious” Senate confirmation hearings. His concerns, announced at the Pentagon on Friday afternoon, were almost certainly well-founded.

Pace was widely disparaged on Capitol Hill as Rumsfeld’s main man. The reputation is understandable; Pace did owe his promotion to chairman (the first Marine to ever hold the job) to the fact that, in his previous job as vice chairman, he found a way to get along with the demanding and irascible Rumsfeld, a knack that eluded most of Pace’s colleagues. (Giambastiani, who announced his retirement last weekend, similarly owed his vice chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs to his successful spell as Rumsfeld’s military assistant.) But the reality was more complicated. Behind the scenes, Pace battled Rumsfeld and his more ideological aides. Pace thought Guantánamo ought to be closed; he believed the U.S. should follow the Geneva Conventions even in its treatment of Al Qaeda; he supported efforts to reopen dialogue with China—and he consistently warned of the folly of risking war with Iran. Last fall, it was Pace who cajoled both civilian and Army leaders in the Pentagon to recognize that the time had come for a new strategy in Iraq.

Our regular June meeting will be held Saturday, June 9th 2007. Lena Saradnik and Charlene Pesquiera will  appear. The meeting starts at 3:30 pm following a half hour of social interaction. As normal, the meeting will be held at the Activities Center (HOA #1) at 64518 E Galveston Lane. Following the meeting we will have a pot luck buffet at the home of one of our members. See you there!

So says the Fourth Circut Court of Appeals: New York Times, Adam Liptak

In a stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration’s central assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism, a federal appeals court ordered the Pentagon to release a man being held as an enemy combatant.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians,” Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote, “even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country.”

“We refuse to recognize a claim to power,” Judge Motz added, “that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.”

The ruling was handed down by a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., in the case of Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar and the only person on the American mainland known to be held as an enemy combatant. Click here to read more.

Again on a Friday afternoon when nobody’s looking, a senior “Justice” Deparment official involved in the firings of the eight state prosecutors has announced that he’s leaving.

A senior Justice Department official who helped carry out the dismissals of federal prosecutors said Friday he is resigning. Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the dismissals of the prosecutors.

The firings have led to congressional investigations, an internal Justice Department inquiry and calls on Capitol Hill for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Elston’s resignation is effective at the end of next week. Reached Friday afternoon, he confirmed his plans to leave but declined further comment.

His departure — and that of other senior Justice aides — has been anticipated since McNulty announced his own resignation last month.  Click here to read more from the Associated Press.  TPM Muckraker has some comentary that may interest you as well.

Washington Post, June 16th

BAGHDAD — Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives.

While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies, out of public view, have been engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company representatives said. One in seven supply convoys protected by private forces has come under attack this year, according to previously unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300 “hostile actions” in the first four months.

The majority of the more than 100 security companies operate outside of Iraqi law, in part because of bureaucratic delays and corruption in the Iraqi government licensing process, according to U.S. officials. Blackwater USA, a prominent North Carolina firm that protects U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, and several other companies have not applied, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Blackwater said that it obtained a one-year license in 2005 but that shifting Iraqi government policy has impeded its attempts to renew.

Click here to read more.