Bush Won’t Support the Troops – The Bush administration has said it “strongly opposes” key military pay and benefit gains tossed into the fiscal 2008 defense bill. Initiatives the administration opposes include:
- A military pay raise for next January of 3.5 percent versus 3 percent endorsed by the White House.
- Lowering the age-60 start of reserve retirement annuities for reserve component members by the length of their future mobilizations.
- Expanding eligibility for Combat-Related Special Compensation to service members forced by combat disabilities to retire short of 20 years.
- Directing pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide the Department of Defense with same-price discounts for Tricare retail pharmacy network that are provided on medicines dispensed from base pharmacies.
- The administration also grumbled that the Senate intends to block for another year Tricare fee increases for under-65 retirees and dependents.
FOX News Twists the Senate Iraq Vote – Fox News reported, “…lawmakers vote 52-47 to reject plan to bring troops home by early next year.” However, 52 senators voted to bring them home.
White House Had Drug Officials Appear With Republican Candidates – White House officials arranged for top officials at the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help as many as 18 vulnerable Republican congressmen by making appearances and sometimes announcing new federal grants in the lawmakers’ districts in the months leading up to the November 2006 elections. The appearances by the drug control officials appear to be part of a larger White House effort to politicize the work of federal agencies that may be more widespread than previously known. An e-mail by an official in the drug policy office describing President Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, as being pleased that the office, along with the Commerce, Transportation and Agriculture departments, went “above and beyond” the call of duty in arranging appearances by Cabinet members at campaign events.
Degradation and Manhandling: Document Reveals US Interrogation Techniques – America learned the truth of how 9/11 was organized because a detainee had come to trust his captors after they treated him humanely. It was an extraordinary success story. But it was one that would evaporate with the arrival of the C.I.A’s interrogation team. America’s coercive interrogation methods were reverse-engineered by two C.I.A. psychologists who had spent their careers training U.S. soldiers to endure Communist-style torture techniques. In a bizarre mixture of solicitude and sadism, a memo details how to calibrate the infliction of harm. In short, the sere-inspired interrogations would be violent.
Dead Zone Due to Pollution in Gulf of Mexico Grows to Record Size – Researchers predict the recurring “dead zone” off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to its largest size in at least 22 years, 8,543 square miles. The “dead zone” in the northern Gulf, at the end of the Mississippi River system, is the second-largest area of oxygen-depleted coastal waters in the world. Low oxygen, or hypoxia, can be caused by pollution from sources including farm fertilizer, soil erosion and discharge from sewage treatment plants
Yummy, Yummy, You Don’t Know What’s in Your Tummy – The Food and Drug Administration went up to Capitol Hill yesterday to testify that the dwindling number of food inspectors coupled with the growing tonnage of found imported into the U.S. from overseas means that we don’t really have any idea what we’re eating.
Regards,
Jim
Andy Hailey