The News Blog

Gilliard Family Statement

2007-06-20T13:28:00.000-05:00

The family of Steve Gilliard, wishes to express our heartfelt gratitude for all of the many acts of kindness extended toward us during this sad time. The outpouring of support, the thousands of emails, the tens of thousands of commentary, the thousands of donations, have all overwhelmed us. While we would love to send an individual thank you to each one of you, it is simply not possible. It will take us some time to read all of messages of care, love, sympathy and concern that we have received. We hope that this acknowledgement and expression of our thanks will be received with the love it is meant to express.

As we move forward, it is our desire to gather all of Steve's writing and, if possible, publish it. This will be a lengthy process and we ask for your patience with our efforts. To assist us, if you have links or documents of Steve's writing, we ask that you forward them to Francine Smith at stevesbook@yahoo.com. She, along with Steve's sisters will be working on this project together.

Again, our heartfelt thanks to all of you. May God richly bless each one of you and our prayer is that you keep up the fight that Steve was so instrumental in starting. We know it is what he would want you to do.

Be Blessed
The Family of Stephen Gilliard, Jr.

The Gilliard Family's Obituary for Steve

2007-06-06T14:58:00.000-05:00

Steven Gilliard Jr., dynamic, controversial, left wing, editor and journalist of The News Blog (one of the top political blogging communities), died at Lenox Hill Hospital Saturday, June 2 after a lengthy illness. He was 42 years old. Steven was a highly regarded journalist, researcher, and historian. However, Steve was best known for his work in the blogosphere as a no-nonsense, in your face, liberal blogger who had cut his teeth while at Netslaves and Daily Kos before he published The News Blog.

The oldest child of Evelyn Gilliard (of the home) and Steven Gilliard Sr., (Manhattan), Steven displayed his passion with the written word as a young child and was reading the newspaper by the time he was three. This passion fueled his academic success throughout Hunter Elementary School, Hunter College High School, and New York University, where he received his degree in Journalism in 1989.

A caring, generous, and loving son, Steven shared his zest for life with those most important to him. With his mother he shared his political view points and traveled with her often; with his father, an enthusiasm for the Mets, history and model airplanes. These would begin to build the foundation for Steven's his future.

A compassionate and considerate brother, Steven was always available to his sisters Valerie and Roberta (both of Massachusetts) with whom he talked often. To his nephews, John, Robert and Ernest and his niece, Erica (all of Massachusetts), he was a terrific uncle, educating them, and treating them as his own children, encouraging their every interest, and supporting them. Their fondest memories of their uncle were their frequent trips to libraries and museums, for being their "walking" encyclopedia that helped with school projects or homework assignments, watching old movies, for their fun outings with Jen, and for cooking with Erica.

To Jen, one of his closest friends in NYC, he was Gilly… and she also recalls their outings with his niece and nephew. Gilly was the consummate friend often doing things for people anonymously. If you where special to him, you could count on him. He ran annual fundraisers for those in need and was always ready with a listening ear and a caring heart. His friends were lifelong friends as the gentleness he radiated made you want to be around him.

When his health was better Gilly enjoyed his weekly football games, hanging at the barbecues with his many friends. An undaunted Mets fan, Gilly also enjoyed European football favoring Manchester United. Gilly was funny, fearless, fierce, and foremost always himself.

A Voice
Remarks of how Steven touched the lives of bloggers have poured in. Many remark that his is the first blog they read every day. Even those who were vastly opposed to Steven's decidedly liberal political voice, respected his opinions and read him to get their history lesson as his facts could not be disputed. His quick wit and fearless candor landed him on many panels, radio talk shows and the like and he was either thoroughly appreciated or he infuriated many. Either way they came away with more information than they had when they came. Steven was skillful at pulling apart history and military strategy and clearing away the spin to reveal the real truth, which is something not many others are capable of doing.

Many bloggers have commented that they waited for his commentary when any major news event took place to get the "full" story. Well known for his attack on Michael Steele (MD Senator, whom he depicted in blackface) and his fierce opposition to George Bush and the war in Iraq long before it was popular to be anti-war, Steven was a door opener for African American bloggers. Many described him as a "hardnosed independent" (Daily Kos) with a powerful voice that supported the values and issues important to working people.

His cry "We Fight Back . . ." will hopefully ring in the ear of every liberal blogger as they pick up the reins and try to cut through the news spin to the truth and speak out loud for justice, equality and those things that are important to the common man, like jobs, healthcare, and peace, albeit without Steven's pronounced voice leading the way.

The paradox of Steven's Blog persona and the man cooking with his niece defines who he was. A humble man… a brilliant mind… that touched the lives and, no doubt, changed the lives of many. Steven said it best himself,
"I said what I meant and I meant what I said"

Steven leaves to mourn his loss, his mother, Evelyn, his father, Steven Sr., sisters Valerie and Roberta, nephews John, Robert, and Ernest, niece Erica, two aunts Gertrude W. and Selina L., one uncle Joseph S., his close friend and "silent blog partner," Jen R, and a host of cousins, other relatives, friends, and loyal bloggers.

Rest in Peace, Steven ...
Rest in Peace Gilly … the strife is over now.

Steve's notice in the New York Times

2007-06-06T09:50:00.001-05:00

You can read it here. Thanks to those who contributed to Noam's well-written piece.

- Jim in LA

Good Morning America from Tokyo

2007-06-02T07:39:00.000-05:00

Fatboy Slim, Push The Tempo.

Hey Achmed

2007-06-01T09:20:00.000-05:00

Sen. Shithead: Hey Achmed, I will give you 1 U.S. Dollar for these glasses! Thats a lot of money to you people.

Shopkeeper: Sure, sure, $1, i am looking forward to having a power drill put holes in my spine tomorrow, just before they put a bullet in my head, because you chose my shop, but sure, $1 dollar is fine. Thank you brave American political person. [sigh]

UPDATE:

"They're not Pollyannaish about this," Lieberman said referring to the soldiers. ''They know it's not going to be solved in a day or a month."

Pollyanna? Who talks like that about Iraq? These kids are having their limbs blown off, they requested better body armor and armored hummvees and information on withdrawal and shitbag says they arent Pollyannaish?!?

Pollyanna tells the story of Pollyanna Whittier, a young girl who goes to live with her wealthy Aunt Polly after her father's death. Pollyanna's philosophy of life centers around what she calls "The Glad Game": she always tries to find something to be glad about in every situation, and to always do without delay whatever she thinks is right. With this philosophy, and her own sunny personality, she brings so much gladness to her aunt's dispirited New England town that she transforms it into a pleasant, healthy place to live.

Joe Lieberman is not mentally healthy

No End In Sight

2007-06-01T08:52:00.002-05:00

It's the first film to chronicle the Iraq side of the descent into guerilla warfare. Numerous interviews with U.S. government officials, many for the first time, will leave you absolutely stunned! Col. Paul Hughes is of particular interest and if there was any justice, he would be given the Medal of Freedom. Additional interviews with Gen. Jay Garner, Ambassador Barbara Bodine, Richard Armitage, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson and Major General Paul Eaton will open your eyes to the incompetence and sheer idiocy of this incredible folly.

We are thinking about screening this in Tokyo, anybody seen it?

noendinsightmovie.com

Turks mass for Kurd attack

2007-05-31T20:28:00.000-05:00

Turkey's military massed more troops and tanks on the border with Iraq Thursday as the country's military chief said he was ready to stage a cross-border offensive to fight Kurds.

Our spreading peace and democracy is really starting to kick in now!

His latest remarks appeared to put Erdogan's government under pressure to ask for approval from parliament to send soldiers into Iraq to fight separatist Kurdish guerrillas.

The United States opposes any unilateral Turkish military action, fearing it could destabilize northern Iraq - the most stable part of the war-torn country.

Past cross-border operations have yielded mixed results, with many guerrillas sheltering in hide-outs and emerging to fight again once the bulk of Turkish units withdrew from Iraq. A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military could set up a buffer zone in northern Iraq to block Kurdish rebels from entering Turkey.

I think he means; 'a buffer zone of northern Iraq', the whole thing, then the Turks will have the ~~Lebenstraum~~ living area they need.

The Surge is Working! Thanks NeoCons!

hat tip to reddan, more here

A Casualty of Asymmetrical Warfare

2007-05-31T09:57:00.000-05:00

The Talking Dog has been covering the legal aspects of the Gitmo story since it started. Now he's on the part where our guests are killing themselves.

So far, no flippant responses from the Defense or Justice Departments to the latest news that yet another GTMO detainee, this time a Saudi national, has managed to kill himself at our ~~gulag~~ beach resort at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Around this time last year, when three detainees killed themselves, GTMO commanding officer Rear Adm. Harris insisted that this was some kind of gesture of "asymmetrical warfare".) While we do get the usual explanation of a detainee "found not responsive", we get no details such as the name, or whether the detainee was one of those scheduled for release (because they're all "the worst of the worst", of course), or in this case, the manner of suicide.

The WaPo article relies on insanely under-stated official estimates of "around 40 suicide attempts by 25 detainees". We know, for example, from our interview with Joshua Colangelo-Bryan that his own client Juma Al-Dossari may have exceeded that number all by himself, and that suicide attempts were rampant. What has happened, of course, is that the military has simply stopped counting suicide attempts, and calling them other things. Well, three of the Orwellianisms managed to work last year, and a fourth this year. That's around 1% of the current detainee population. Given that, unlike the usual super-max prison, where those held have been tried and convicted of something and have a determinate sentence (even if its a long one, or a life sentence), the GTMO detainees have simply been determined guilty by executive fiat, and may face life, or may be released tomorrow, again, by executive fiat and whim. And unlike the usual super-max, they are subject to the kind of officially sanctioned abuse and torture, which, stateside, some lawyer and judge might find offends the Eighth Amendment.

No matter. A "cultural advisor" is on hand to make sure that the prisoner's body is treated with the kind of respect that the prisoner was denied while he was alive (doubtless using protocols written by former chaplain Capt. James Yee, interviewed here.)

And so it goes. Another day at the office, if the office is Joint Task Force Guantanamo. This ongoing stain on our nation's integrity continues. Our friends at Cage Prisoners count this as day 1967 of illegal imprisonment at GTMO; my Bush Countdown Calendar tells me we have 600 days left of this Administration.

Deep sighs all around.

His earlier interviews are linked below.

Readers interested in legal issues and related matters associated with the "war on terror" may also find talking dog blog interviews with attorneys Tina Foster, Brent Mickum, Marc Falkoff H. Candace Gorman, Eric Freedman, Michael Ratner, Thomas Wilner, Jonathan Hafetz, Joshua Denbeaux, Rick Wilson, Neal Katyal, Joshua Colangelo Bryan, Baher Azmy, and Joshua Dratel (representing Guantanamo detainees and others held in "the war on terror"), with attorneys Donna Newman and Andrew Patel (representing "unlawful combatant" Jose Padilila), with Dr. David Nicholl, who spearheaded an effort among international physicians protesting force-feeding of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, with physician and bioethicist Dr. Steven Miles on medical complicity in torture, with law professor and former Clinton Administration Ambassador-at-large for war crimes matters David Scheffer, with former Guantanamo detainees Moazzam Begg and Shafiq Rasul , with former Guantanamo Bay Chaplain James Yee, with former Guantanamo Army Arabic linguist Erik Saar, with law professor and former Army J.A.G. officer Jeffrey Addicott, with law professor and Coast Guard officer Glenn Sulmasy, with author and geographer Trevor Paglen and with author and journalist Stephen Grey on the subject of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, and with journalist and author David Rose on Guantanamo related issues to be of interest.

An additional interview with Robert D. Rachlin, who represents two Gitmo detainees, is here.

Like Cartoons, Politics Defies Logic

2007-05-30T19:26:00.000-05:00

Via TBogg recently, the behind-the-curve wingnuts are all fired up over the immigration bill.
So fired up in fact, that gol-dernit!, they're gonna use teh google to impact their officeholders stance on said bill:

"Last year, I organized the Rightroots effort to raise more than a quarter of a million dollars for Republican candidates in the last 3 months of the election. This year, if this amnesty bill passes, I'm going to organize a group of blogers to raise money for any viable primary challengers to pro-amnesty Republicans in the Senate. I'm also going to offer those candidates my services, pro-bono, as a consultant, to try to get their names out in the blogosphere. On top of that, I'm going to hunt down every single piece of dirt I can find on the pro-amnesty Republicans and I'm going to release it in the blogosphere. Put another way, if you're a Republican Senator up for reelection in 2008 and you vote for amnesty -- and you face a viable primary challenger -- I've got two words for you,

Scorched Earth."

Except...as pointed out in comments by our own Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged:

"and Google, who rewrote their algorithms last year specifically to combat linkbombing, are never going to notice."

I believe it was Driftglass who I first heard say, "these people could f*ck up a two car funeral". If you want to understand why the top-down style of the wingnuttosphere is the abject failure it is, bass-ackwardness such as this is proof positive of Drifty's point. So by all means, my dear C-cuppers and cheerleaders, fire up your Amigas and Lisas and have at it. Do try to not give the hamster powering your beige boxes a heart attack, though.

Oh, and while nibbling at your cheetos, enjoy this little cartoon break.

And in the spirit of bi-partisan disgust, this week's craven bullsh*t on our side will not go uncommented on. Fill up a bowl of Congress Crispies, my fellow lefties.

Life was so much simpler when we were a bunch a' cartoon-watching kids, wud'n it? :(

-- Lowermanhattanite

of the people, by the people, and for the people

2007-05-30T05:49:00.000-05:00

D. Sidhe has some thoughts about the uses of government

Phil Nugent had some thoughts on defunding the federal government this weekend, you are encouraged to read them. The man's an amazing ranter, and I mean that with absolute respect. But it sent me off on a tangent of my own, and about the time I realized that my comment was going to get truncated over at No More Mister Nice Blog's place, where Phil crossposted, I decided perhaps it'd be better over here where a smaller audience might mean no one points out my various and prominent flaws in logic. (Unless you feel like it, in which case, have at it.)

For some reason, I'm pro-government. Always have been. People who say things like "Government doesn't solve problems", or "Name one good thing the government's ever done", or "Capitalism can do that better" baffle the living hell out of me.

Give me a few minutes, and I could name at least three dozen government programs that are important enough they need doing but that capitalism isn't capable of, or interested in. Let's start with orphan drugs. People with rare diseases, for which drugs aren't available because any given company can make more manufacturing Cialis than something maybe a thousand or so people across the US take. Unless we're willing to just write these people off, telling them, well, yes, a cure exists, but you can't have it because there's not enough profit in making it, taxpayer subsidies seem like a good solution.

Rural electrification, there's another good one. No for-profit company is going to string wire all the way out to some tiny hamlet in the Ozarks for the sake of a few hundred people. For that matter, no for-profit hospital is going to spend much if any time treating the indigent in their ERs if they're not made to. For-profit schools is another good way to say "MacDonald's Training Academy", and no kid is going to learn literature or citizenship or art there. Anybody want to explore the concept of capitalistic fire departments? Remember, your non-covered neighbor's housefire can very quickly become yours, and even if the fire department saves your home, you'd have less damage if they put out the fire when it was still two houses away. Road building, police departments, prisons, the military, you want to see what happens when they go capitalistic, Iraq is rather instructive.

There's an awful lot of stuff I'm perfectly happy to pay taxes for so everybody can use, and so no one person or group controls how it gets used. If civil courts are replaced with the sort of arbitration my bank tells me is my only option if we have a disagreement, those of us who aren't hiring and paying the arbitrators will never see justice. If the roads are maintained by auto companies, you can just keep your bike in your garage. If Microsoft is the only source of funding for the local aquarium, you can expect to have to wait outside with the field trip kids while they hold their monthly employee banquet. When the Wall Street Journal gives PBS more money than anybody else, you can expect to see programming where some B-list columnist quizzes guests as to whether the economy is going "great" or "really great".

So government can absolutely solve problems, and paying taxes is how we have a government with an interest in and an ability to solve problems that are important, rather then just profitable. And right off the bat, I have an adversarial stance toward anyone who tells me smaller government is inherently better--which is not to say I'm any happier with those who propose that larger government is inherently better. It's not the size, as they tell us, it's what you do with it.

The thing is, I don't actually know anyone who goes around saying that big government is inherently good, unless you count the walking pathologies we've come to refer to as "authoritarians", and even they aren't really arguing for bigger government, just more powerful government. And even that only in certain, narrowly constrained areas (like, "any part of the law that will control the behavior of people who aren't me"). So when I find myself arguing about the appropriate role of government, it is almost exclusively with republicans, and usually with the drown-it-in-the-bathtub sort.

I will continue to contend that a big part of why we have Bush is that we let Clinton get away with pretending we had a "budget surplus". I know, I know, we really only did it because it made the GOP's Congressional witchhunters look bad to be going after a guy who accomplished the budget restraints they were never capable of, etc. I was never a huge fan of Clinton, and a couple of his noteworthy policies still strike me as unnecessarily vicious, which is not to say, as they do, that he might not be entertaining to have a beer with. But even so, I found myself defending him in conversations with people who still regard The Clenis as the Antichrist. And defending him frequently. I suspect it was probably pretty common for liberals to have a few policies with which they agreed with Clinton, and to defend him on that basis to people who thought calling Hillary a "dyke", Chelsea a "dog", and Bill a "scumbag" was the height of wit.

So the budget thing came in handy, especially to jab at republicans and conservatives who advocated balanced budget amendments all the while venerating Reagan. But it was pretty predictable the sort of problems that would come from letting it be framed as a surplus. Especially it should have been predictable after we got a good look at what Dubya had done in Texas, though surprisingly few people seemed to regard it as any sort of valid indicator of anything.

So we had this money that was theoretically unspoken for, and the GOP, as they do, announced that the government was stealing your money! More than it needed! Because that's what governments do! And it is only justice--justice, I say--to return it to the people from whom the government stole it! And thus the grand GOP experiment of bribing the voters with their own money--and never delivering anyway--brought us to Dubya, Worst President Ever.

The worst part of allowing him to bribe his way into the White House with that money is, it damned well was never a surplus in the first place. It was the money we'd promised to all sorts of people and programs that we cut during the Reagan/Bush years, and, yes, during the Clinton years as well. We took the money out of schoolkids' mouths, we took it away from health inspectors and teachers and hospitals and research and civil servants in all those boring but necessary positions.

The reason at the time was that we couldn't afford it, not with these huge budget deficits. So we cut right back to the bone all the social stuff that helps hold the country together, and when we had the money again, instead of going back to re-fund those programs, we pretended it was a surplus. We pretended, for example, that teachers were doing just fine on smaller classroom budgets, or that poor families had learned to go elsewhere for food, and that these were solutions that were workable for the long term.

Regardless of whether every poor family found a non-governmental solution (and I can promise you a lot of them didn't), it's pretty close to obscene to have pretended that if they weren't objecting loud enough for us to hear them, then there was no problem. (Meanwhile, we made damned sure they couldn't get anywhere near any sort of position from which to complain.)

But the minute people started referring to that as a "surplus", rather than "finally having the money to meet our obligations", the GOP candidates were all set up to start yelling about how we needed to give all that extra money back to "the people who paid it". (Or at least those whose major tax burden was income tax, which is not the case for most people.)

That was predictable. And it was predictable that a whole lot of idiots would buy into it. And now we have Bush, and we're struggling to meet even the already grotesquely inadequate budgets for our social programs--and will be doing that for the foreseeable future.

Life sucks, and sometimes you have to make choices. If Junior drives the family car into the neighbors' living room, maybe the family has to talk to the dentist about making smaller payments while they do something about the mess. But if it turns out the damage wasn't quite as much as it was expected to cost, the family doesn't continue to skip dental bills and instead buy a big screen TV with the money. They sure as hell don't triple Junior's allowance with the money they're keeping back from dental bills.

Personally, I've never for the life of me been able to imagine why we let the GOP control the government when they don't seem to understand what the point of it is. Phil's got me a little closer to understanding it, and it was worth the read just for that.

(The title of this post, for the record, is an Arrogant Worms song.)

Top Cheney Aide: 2007 Is 'The Year Of Mexico,' U.S. Attack ‘A Real Possibility'

2007-05-29T22:38:00.000-05:00

--Outrageous--
As the Bush administration ratchets up pressure on Mexico, Vice President Cheney’s top national security aide has been sourced by the Washington Post — in the 10th paragraph on page A18 — saying that war with Mexico is “a real possibility” this year:

Some senior administration officials still relish the notion of a direct confrontation. One ambassador in Washington said he was taken aback when John Hannah, Vice President Cheney’s national security adviser, said during a recent meeting that the administration considers 2007 “the year of Mexico” and indicated that a U.S. attack was a real possibility. Hannah declined to be interviewed for this article.

Those with knowledge of the build-up to war in Iraq will recognize John Hannah’s name. In Bush’s second term, he replaced Scooter Libby as the head of Cheney’s national security staff. During Bush’s first term, he personally wrote the first draft of the infamous speech that Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered to the United Nations, according to Powell’s former aide Lawrence Wilkerson.

Moreover, Hannah was a top source for false pre-war intelligence from Iraqi exiles that was “stovepiped” past the intelligence agencies and sent directly to the White House:

For months, Cheney’s office has denied that the veep bypassed U.S. intelligence agencies to get intel reports from Mexico, and the latest information from inside the Miss Universe pageant have the players in motion.

The latest outrageous action will not stand. For more info see here

John Hannah’s comments about Mexico should be taken seriously. He knows how to mislead a nation into war.

reprinted in part from Think Progress

UPDATE: commenter tassawwuf points out the activities of EZLN are not to be overlooked, and their suspiciously named Subcommandante Marcos

Coincidence, I think not!

UPDATE: Lets not forget about known Mexican Agent Selma Hayek!

Michael Powell and Guliani - Gay Lovers ?

2007-05-29T06:47:00.000-05:00

Michael Powell of the New York Times wrote a piece on Rudy Guliani today that, because I know the Times does not take money to write pieces I can only assume that Powell and Guliani are gay lovers.

Mr. Giuliani laughs, he gestures expansively, he even pokes fun at his tendency to wax a wee bit authoritarian. (He suggests a touch of the cane was necessary to impose discipline on that liberal asylum known as New York.) He shakes hands with reporters he once viewed as “jerky” and assures them he is fine with tough questions about abortion, where he has settled on a position supporting a woman’s right to choose, and about gun control

He runs! He Jumps, He Shoots, He Scores! WOW! What a guy...

He dresses in the one-size-too-large suits he has favored since his days as a federal prosecutor, with the top shirt button fastened and tie knotted tight. It is difficult to imagine anyone asking him a “really dopey” (two favorite Giuliani words now in abeyance) question about his favored style in underwear, as someone once did of Bill Clinton.

Mr. Giuliani has made upgrades. The comb-over, his decades-long insistence on combing his hair across a substantial expanse of cranium, is history. His remaining hair is slicked back and comes to rest in a tight nest of graying curls.

Hubba Hubba, get a room girls.

This piece is ridiculous. What is the Times thinking? Will Keller pull Powell off this race before his boy's man-crush cause them any more embarrassment.

In Atlanta, Mr. Giuliani offers to take questions, and a stout blond woman in a red pantsuit shoots straight up, raising her hand and nearly shouting, “I think you are sooooo handsome.”

(In 1994, a woman in Queens translated the same compliment into New Yorkese; she peered carefully at Mr. Giuliani and acknowledged, “You look a lot better in person.”)

hmmmm... 1994?... Does Powell keep a Guliani Diary? with hearts drawn on the cover?

Republican Crooks, $3.8 million in VA Executive Bonuses

2007-05-28T21:05:00.000-05:00

Secretary of VA Affairs, Jim Nicholson with Bush

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly two dozen officials who received hefty performance bonuses last year at the Veterans Affairs Department also sat on the boards charged with recommending the payments.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press raise questions of conflict of interest in connection with the bonuses, some of which went to senior officials involved in crafting a budget that came up $1.3 billion short and jeopardized veterans' health care.

The documents show that 21 of 32 officials who were members of VA performance review boards received more than half a million dollars in payments themselves.

- (AP - VA Bonuses)

These crackerjack political appointees, after bungling the 2005 budget and creating a $1.3 billion dollar shortfall paid themselves over $3.8 million in bonuses.

While veterans wait more 6 months for care, and the VA itself has a 100,000 case backlog. These bastards voted themselves bonuses.

The bonuses were awarded even after government investigators had determined the VA repeatedly miscalculated "if not deliberately misled taxpayers" with questionable methods used to justify Bush administration cuts to health care amid the burgeoning Iraq war.

- (TIME VA Bonuses Questioned)

Michael Walcoff, Ronald Aument, and William Feeley just some of the many VA incompentents who stole money from veterans at Walter Reed and around the country.

Annual bonuses to senior VA officials now average more than $16,000 — the most lucrative in government. The VA said the payments are necessary to retain hardworking career officials.

Most of these guys make more than $150,000 a year.

According to the White House Office of Personnel Management, roughly three of every four senior officials at the VA have received some kind of bonus each year.

Listen, son, you and your folks are heading out right? we're going to need this bed, be sure and get your bill at reception.

Now, what was it that jackass Glen Reynolds was saying about Democratic Pork?

Key Lime Pie

2007-05-28T19:34:00.000-05:00

As I said in a comment, food is my friend in times of distress or conflict. A food post is therefore my first humble contribution to The Newsblog in honor of Steve, Jen, Jim in LA and the rest of you irregulars.

Summer is just around the corner if you count the days until kids are out of school in many parts of the US. Here in South Florida, we have what passes for summer in most places year round!

I’m not much of a dessert eater, especially as I get older and the battle of the waistline reaches epic proportions. However, Key Lime Pie is something special and always welcome on my table. Not too sweet, a great take-along to a party or BBQ, and absolutely refreshing. Kinda healthy, too – if you count mental health!

Easy to make – unless you are the lucky chef’s assistant assigned to juice the key limes. Key limes are rather tough-skinned little rascals with a firm pulp and many seeds, and you need a bunch to extract enough juice for a decent pie. (Decent is defined in my pie lexicon as having enough citrusy tang to curl your lip but not your hair.)

Fresh key limes come in a net bag and are more yellow-green than their big perfectly colored green cousins (see photo). Most in the Miami area are imported from Mexico. The good news is that stores now carry bottled key lime juice. The Pompeii brand in a sage green lemon-shaped plastic container is a good alternative if you can’t find fresh.

The following egg-free, no baking required pie travels well to outdoor picnics or ‘cues. No worrying about spoilage if you do not tope it with whipped cream. I added recipes for a crumb pie crust and whipped cream if you have time to make your own.

Key Lime Pie

• Graham cracker, other crumb-crust* or plain pie crust (pre-made or homemade)
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 3/4 cup key lime juice (fresh or bottled) – I add extra for more tart goodness!
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• Key lime zest, swirls or thin slices (optional garnish)
• Whipped cream topping (optional) – I only use the real thing or Reddi-Whip (in a time pinch), never Cool Whip

Soften cream cheese. Place in blender or food processor and add sweetened condensed milk. Mix in lime juice and vanilla extract. Pour cream cheese mixture in crust. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Top with whipped cream plus key lime garnish if desired.

Crumb-Crust Pie Shell

• 1-1/2 cups fine crumbs* (graham crackers, toasted bread, vanilla wafers, or zwieback recommended to complement the key limes)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cups butter, melted

Mix crumbs and sugar together; stir in melted butter. Line pie plate with mixture, pressing firmly into place. Chill for 20 minutes or bake at 350° for 10 minutes. Makes 1 pie shell, 9-inch.

Whipped Cream

• 1 cup whipping cream or heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon confectioner’s or superfine sugar (they dissolve faster than granulated sugar that also can be used)

For 2 cups of whipped cream, pour whipping cream or heavy cream into a chilled bowl and whip it vigorously until it just begins to hold its shape. Add vanilla extract and sugar and continue to whip until it holds very soft, droopy peaks. Best used immediately, but can be refrigerated up to 24 hours and briefly whisked by hand before serving.

-- murfmom

Captain Obvious

2007-05-28T07:36:00.000-05:00

Goes bucking for Commodore.

Every now and then as I run barefoot over the burning shores of the NYT, I catch a glint of Tom Friedman talking about, say, energy policy. Like a shiny nickel washed up along a great swath of poo, catching the light just so.

And I nod and I say “Good on you” and then scamper away, because man, the reek at high tide’d knock a dung beetle out of Fred Phelps’ mouth. And for, oh, about a minute I indulge the notion that one of the most highly paid, highly regarded, highly quoted, best selling, A-listed op-ed columnists for America’s paper of record is not a vulgar and irredeemable idiot.

That maybe he doesn’t deserve to be cast into ignoble oblivion. Reduced to writing, say, lunch menu specials at IHOP (“A cab driver in Bangalore assured me that these pecan waffles in a peach compote are genuinely Vishnulicious!”) or ghosting the “Turn Ons/Turn Offs” for “Ass Fancier” centerfolds.

And then I read something like this (Behind the NYT blast wall, a snip if which is transcribed here) and I get cranky all over again.

…
They actually thought they could unite Iraq, while dividing America.

Whenever Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had a choice between seeking political advantage at home or acting in a bipartisan fashion to buy more unity, time and space to do all the heavy lifting needed in Iraq, they opted for political advantage.

When Franklin Roosevelt fought World War II, he made a conservative Republican, Henry Stimson, his secretary of war and did all he could to hold the country together. The Bush- Cheney team, by contrast, summoned us to D-Day and then treated it like it was just another political wedge issue, whenever it suited them.

It has not worked. As Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, put it:
“You cannot govern like Winston Churchill some of the time and like Grover Norquist most of the time.”

First my mind wanders momentarily away from Captain Obvious to contemplating his employers and I wonder what kind of feeble-minded, inbred, tasteless Peter Keatings must be running the place?

Seriously, it is one of those questions that just nags at me: In a world quite literally overflowing with talented, literate, pungent writers, how in the world do utterly talentless, debased hacks like Friedman and Brooks find themselves at the very pinnacle of the mediaverse?

I know the general answer -- Market forces compacting competent journalism into the ever more Procrustean Bed of Entertaining InfoHappyBytes. The rise of the Hatekrieg Xian Right blasting away at the press for 30 year, shellshocking them into giving the out lame, the crazy and the outright liars ever more column inches and prime time space in the name of Holy “Balance”. The deliberate murder of the Fairness Doctrine by Reagan, Bork and Scalia (That was just for you, Ivory Bill Woodpecker). -- but I still think the particular, specific answers would be interesting.

I still dream of going full Patrick McGoohan on NYT Chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., President and CEO Janet L. Robinson, Executive Editor Bill Keller and Editorial Page Editor Andrew M. Rosenthal.

Muse that whisking them off to The Village

for some fun, frolic and Pentathol would yield some remarkable and gag-inducing results.

And then my mind wanders back the fact of Captain Obvious and I just want to wish him into the cornfield.

Preferably just before the threshers roll in so that the Captain can be reaped and processed into something useful.

Like, say, ethanol.

There would be something satisfyingly poetic about that.

Because, Tom, how in the fuck dare you be surprised? How dare you?

For thirty years the GOP has campaigned and governed on a deep and abiding hatred for government generally, and those who believe in using government as a sword and a shield against the excesses of both unfettered capitalism and theocracy specifically.

For thirty years the GOP has plainly tattooed “Welcome All Loonies” on its ass in forty-foot-high Day-Glo letters, bent over and grabbed its ankles and beckoned the scum of the nation to take a jolly electoral rump-tango with the Party of Lincoln. It has openly, sluttishly enticed the Dobsons, the Gingrichs and the Coulters into it’s “Big Tent”, while driving out the Goldwaters, the Deans and the Phillipses.

It has not just practiced a hyperMcCarthesque politics of rend and rule, it is fucking proud of it.

It has been a little over 80 years since Adolph Hitler publish “Mein Kampf” in which he explained in some detail what he intended to do: He intended to conquer Europe, kill 20 million Russians, and exterminate the Jews. He was very clear about all of this and methodically set out to check each atrocity off of his "To Do" list while a chorus of the Tom Friedman’s of the age said, over and over again until it was far too late, “Well he can’t really mean it.

"He won’t really do it.”

It cost civilization a bloody world war in which millions died and whole nations were destroyed to stop the planet from being tipped mechanized Dark Ages from which is may never have recovered. And one of the casualties that perished in rubble of the Third Reich was the excuse that, when evil people tell you what they plan to do, they don’t really mean it.

Of course they mean it. In fact they say it extra loud and clear to recruit others to their depraved cause.

And so now live in a nation where a portrait of Karl Rove ripping the Constitution in half and then taking a dump on, rampant on field of Klansmen it practically the GOP Family Crest…and yet here we find Captain Obvious actually putting pen to paper to express how Shocked!Shocked! he is to discover that the GOP actually means what it says.

And then offering this bit of helpful advice to Democrats:

...
“Democrats need to be careful, though, that they don’t let their rage with the hypocrisy of Mr. Bush make them totally crazy, and blind them to the fact that they ? we ? still need a credible plan to deal with the very real threat to open societies posed by Islamist terrorism.”
...

Fuck you, Tom. I take back what I said: no IHOP job for you.

In a sane world anyone who exhibits this dizzying combination of blithering obliviousness and effrontery to such an extent that they:

A) Actually say out loud that they’re stunned that the GOP is acting exactly as they said they would and have for the last 30 years and,

B) Urgently council the only people in a credible position to oppose their rising fascist tide to pull their punches…

would never be allowed near a pen again.

Unless their intention is to commit honorable, Mont Blanc seppuku.

In which case, Tom,

c’mon and belly up to the bar.
Fixing those typos

This from the Irish Times, with the typos fixed.

See how much clearer it reads with the errata cleaned up.

Iraqi ~~gunmen~~ soldiers attack village killing 15.

~~Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms~~ Iraqi Army regulars entered a village east of Baghdad early today, removed families from their homes and opened fire on the men, killing 15 of them, an Iraqi general and a Kurdish political party said.

The victims were Kurdish Shias, according to a statement posted on the website of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The ~~gunmen~~ Iraqi soldiers entered the village of Hamid Shifi, about 60 miles from Baghdad and forced families from their homes, said Brig. Gen. Nazim Sherif.

The ~~assailants~~ Iraqi soldiers then separated the women and children, ordered the men to stand in a single file and gunned them down, he said. Sherif said villagers had received no threats before the attack, which he blamed on al-Qaeda. The village is in Diyala province, an area northeast of Baghdad where ~~violence has~~ violent skirmishes in the Iraq Civil War have risen sharply in the past six months.

Meanwhile five US soldiers were killed in four separate attacks by ~~insurgents~~ Iraqi soldiers dressed as civilians in Iraq yesterday and today, taking to eight the number of American soldiers killed in the past 48 hours, the US military said.
…

In one of the worst attacks, a roadside bomb followed by gunfire killed two soldiers and wounded two others in northeastern Baghdad yesterday, the military said in a statement today.

Another soldier was killed in western Anbar province, a stronghold of the Sunni Arab ~~insurgency~~ side of the Iraq Civil War, and a fourth was shot dead near Baghdad, also yesterday.
…

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we are training and arming the people who are killing each other and us Tuesdays, Thursdays, weekends and evenings.

Dear Democrats; Bush has walled up our soldiers in the Valley of Death and will fucking well keep them there until we’re all broke and they’re all dead or damaged for life. They need to be rescue from Bush’s Iraqi Fiasco as surely as New Orleans residents needed to be rescued from Bush’s Katrina Catastrophe.

On this point the landslides of 2006 made the will of the American people unambiguously clearly.

Your most vital civic duty is to save our military from their involuntary participation in an Iraq Civil War that is killing them for no damned good reason, and from the cowardly Republican sociopaths here at home that are holding them hostage to George Bush's ego.

-- Driftglass

Memorial Day Weekend Open Thread Post

2007-05-27T10:08:00.000-05:00

Thomas E. Vandling Jr., 26, Army Reserve Sergeant, Jan 01, 2007

Charles D. Allen, 28, Army Staff Sergeant, Jan 04, 2007

Michael Lewis Mundell, 47, Army Reserve Major, Jan 05, 2007

Jeremiah Johnson, 23, Army Corporal, Jan 06, 2007

III, Raymond N. Mitchell, 21, Army Specialist, Jan 06, 2007

Elizabeth A. Loncki, 23, Air Force Senior Airman, Jan 07, 2007

Daniel B. Miller Jr., 24, Air Force Senior Airman, Jan 07, 2007

Timothy R. Weiner, 35, Air Force Technical Sergeant, Jan 07, 2007

Eric T. Caldwell, 22, Army Corporal, Jan 07, 2007

Stephen J. Raderstorf, 21, Army Corporal, Jan 07, 2007

Ryan R. Berg, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 09, 2007

Ming Sun, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 09, 2007

James M. Wosika Jr., 24, Army Sergeant, Jan 09, 2007

Gregroy A. Wright, 28, Army Sergeant, Jan 13, 2007

James D. Riekena, 22, Army Sergeant, Jan 14, 2007

Paul T. Sanchez, 32, Army Sergeant, Jan 14, 2007

Ian C. Anderson, 22, Army Sergeant, Jan 15, 2007

John E. Cooper, 29, Army Sergeant, Jan 15, 2007

Jason J. Corbett, 23, Army Specialist, Jan 15, 2007

Mark J. Daily, 23, Army 2nd Lieutenant, Jan 15, 2007

Matthew T. Grimm, 21, Army Corporal, Jan 15, 2007

Collin R. Schockmel, 19, Army Specialist, Jan 16, 2007

Joseph D. Alomar, 22, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class, Jan 17, 2007

Jennifer A. Valdivia, 27, Navy Petty Officer 1st Class, Jan 17, 2007

William J. Rechenmacher, 24, Army Corporal, Jan 18, 2007

Russell P. Borea, 38, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Jan 19, 2007

Luis J. Castillo, 20, Marine Reserve Lance Corporal, Jan 19, 2007

Jacob H. Neal, 23, Marine Reserve Corporal, Jan 19, 2007

Brian D. Allgood, 46, Army Colonel, Jan 20, 2007

Jeffrey D. Bisson, 22, Army Specialist, Jan 20, 2007

Johnathan Bryan Chism, 22, Army Specialist, Jan 20, 2007

Shawn Patrick Falter, 25, Army Private, Jan 20, 2007

Sean P. Fennerty, 26, Army Sergeant, Jan 20, 2007

Jacob N. Fritz, 25, Army 1st Lieutenant, Jan 20, 2007

Ryan J. Hill, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 20, 2007

Allen B. Jaynes, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 20, 2007

Jonathan P. C. Kingman, 21, Army Sergeant, Jan 20, 2007

Victor M. Langarica, 29, Army Corporal, Jan 20, 2007

Phillip D. McNeill, 22, Army Sergeant, Jan 20, 2007

Jonathan Millican, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 20, 2007

Toby R. Olsen, 28, Army Specialist, Jan 20, 2007

Daryl D. Booker, 37, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Jan 20, 2007

John G. Brown, 43, Army National Guard Sergeant 1st Class, Jan 20, 2007

David C. Canegata, 50, Army National Guard Lieutenant Colonel, Jan 20, 2007

Marilyn L. Gabbard, 46, Army National Guard Sergeant Major, Jan 20, 2007

Roger W. Haller, 49, Army National Guard Command Sergeant Major, Jan 20, 2007

Paul M. Kelly, 45, Army National Guard Colonel, Jan 20, 2007

Floyd E. Lake, 43, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Jan 20, 2007

Sean E. Lyerly, 31, Army National Guard Captain, Jan 20, 2007

Michael Taylor, 40, Army National Guard Major, Jan 20, 2007

William T. Warren, 48, Army National Guard 1st Sergeant, Jan 20, 2007

Brian Scott Freeman, 31, Army Reserve Captain, Jan 20, 2007

Darrel J. Morris, 21, Marine Corporal, Jan 20, 2007

Brandon L. Stout, 23, Army National Guard Specialist, Jan 21, 2007

Andrew G. Matus, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Jan 21, 2007

Emilian D. Sanchez, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Jan 21, 2007

Nicholas P. Brown, 24, Army Specialist, Jan 22, 2007

Jamie D. Wilson, 34, Army Staff Sergeant, Jan 22, 2007

Michael J. Wiggins, 26, Army Staff Sergeant, Jan 23, 2007

Gary S. Johnston, 21, Marine Sergeant, Jan 23, 2007

Michael M. Kashkoush, 24, Marine Sergeant, Jan 23, 2007

Keith A. Callahan, 31, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Jan 24, 2007

Hector Leija, 27, Army Staff Sergeant, Jan 24, 2007

Michael Balsley, 23, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 25, 2007

Alexander H. Fuller, 21, Army Sergeant, Jan 25, 2007

Darrell W. Shipp, 25, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 25, 2007

Mark D. Kidd, 26, Marine Reserve Corporal, Jan 25, 2007

Nathan P. Fairlie, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 26, 2007

Alan R. Johnson, 44, Army Reserve Major, Jan 26, 2007

Mickel D. Garrigus, 24, Army Sergeant, Jan 27, 2007

Jon B. St. John II, 25, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 27, 2007

Timothy A. Swanson, 21, Army Corporal, Jan 27, 2007

David T. Toomalatai, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Jan 27, 2007

Anthony C. Melia, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Jan 27, 2007

Cornell C. Chao, 36, Army Chief Warrant Officer, Jan 28, 2007

Mark T. Resh, 28, Army Captain, Jan 28, 2007

Carla Jane Stewart, 37, Army Reserve Specialist, Jan 28, 2007

Adam Q. Emul, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Jan 29, 2007

Corey J. Aultz, 31, Army Sergeant, Jan 30, 2007

Milton A. Gist Jr., 27, Army Sergeant, Jan 30, 2007

Alejandro Carrillo, 22, Marine Sergeant, Jan 30, 2007

William M. Sigua, 21, Army Sergeant, Jan 31, 2007

Stephen D. Shannon, 21, Army Reserve Corporal, Jan 31, 2007

David C. Armstrong, 21, Army Corporal, Feb 01, 2007

Tyler Butler, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 01, 2007

Michael C. Mettille, 44, Army Sergeant Major, Feb 01, 2007

Eric R. Sieger, 18, Army Specialist, Feb 01, 2007

Terry J. Elliott, 34, Marine Gunnery Sergeant, Feb 01, 2007

Richard O. Quill III, 22, Marine Corporal, Feb 01, 2007

Matthew G. Conte, 22, Navy Hospitalman, Feb 01, 2007

Jason Garth DeFrenn, 34, Army Chief Warrant Officer, Feb 02, 2007

Terrence D. Dunn, 38, Army Staff Sergeant, Feb 02, 2007

Kevin C. Landeck, 26, Army Captain, Feb 02, 2007

Alan E. McPeek, 20, Army Specialist, Feb 02, 2007

Keith Yoakum, 41, Army Chief Warrant Officer, Feb 02, 2007

Matthew T. Zeimer, 18, Army Private, Feb 02, 2007

Ronnie L. Sanders, 26, Army Staff Sergeant, Feb 03, 2007

Clarence T. Spencer, 24, Army Private, Feb 04, 2007

Randy J. Matheny, 20, Army National Guard Sergeant, Feb 04, 2007

Brandon J. Van Parys, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Feb 05, 2007

Brian A. Browning, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 06, 2007

Joshua J. Frazier, 24, Marine Sergeant, Feb 06, 2007

Joseph J. Ellis, 40, Marine Sergeant Major, Feb 07, 2007

Jennifer J. Harris, 28, Marine Captain, Feb 07, 2007

Jared M. Landaker, 25, Marine 1st Lieutenant, Feb 07, 2007

Jennifer M. Parcell, 20, Marine Corporal, Feb 07, 2007

Travis D. Pfister, 27, Marine Sergeant, Feb 07, 2007

Thomas E. Saba, 30, Marine Corporal, Feb 07, 2007

James Rodney Tijerina, 26, Marine Sergeant, Feb 07, 2007

Tarryl B. Hill, 19, Marine Reserve Private 1st Class, Feb 07, 2007

Matthew P. Pathenos, 21, Marine Reserve Lance Corporal, Feb 07, 2007

Gilbert Minjares Jr., 31, Navy Petty Officer 1st Class, Feb 07, 2007

Manuel A. Ruiz, 21, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class, Feb 07, 2007

Ross A. Clevenger, 21, Army Reserve Specialist, Feb 08, 2007

James J. Holtom, 22, Army Reserve Sergeant, Feb 08, 2007

Raymond M. Werner, 21, Army Reserve Private, Feb 08, 2007

Leeroy A. Camacho, 28, Army Specialist, Feb 09, 2007

James J. Regan, 26, Army Sergeant, Feb 09, 2007

Eric Ross, 26, Army Staff Sergeant, Feb 09, 2007

lan W. Shaw, 31, Army Staff Sergeant, Feb 09, 2007

Donnie R. Belser Jr., 28, Army Captain, Feb 10, 2007

Russell A. Kurtz, 22, Army Sergeant, Feb 11, 2007

Robert B. Thrasher, 23, Army Sergeant, Feb 11, 2007

Dennis L. Sellen Jr., 20, Army National Guard Specialist, Feb 11, 2007

Allen Mosteiro, 42, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Feb 13, 2007

Nickolas A. Tanton, 24, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 13, 2007

Branden C. Cummings, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 14, 2007

Ronnie G. Madore Jr., 34, Army Specialist, Feb 14, 2007

John D. Rode, 24, Army Sergeant, Feb 14, 2007

Carl Leonard Seigart, 32, Army Sergeant, Feb 14, 2007

Daniel T. Morris, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Feb 14, 2007

Todd M. Siebert, 34, Marine Captain, Feb 16, 2007

Chad E. Marsh, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 17, 2007

Justin T. Paton, 24, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 17, 2007

Christopher K. Boone, 34, Army National Guard Specialist, Feb 17, 2007

William C. Spillers, 39, Army National Guard Sergeant 1st Class, Feb 17, 2007

Brian A. Escalante, 25, Marine Lance Corporal, Feb 17, 2007

Matthew S. Apuan, 27, Army Sergeant, Feb 18, 2007

Kelly D. Youngblood, 19, Army Private, Feb 18, 2007

Blake H. Howey, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Feb 18, 2007

Matthew C. Bowe, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 19, 2007

Adare W. Cleveland, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 19, 2007

Pedro J. Colon, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Feb 19, 2007

Shawn M. Dunkin, 25, Army Sergeant, Feb 19, 2007

Montrel S. Mcarn, 21, Army Specialist, Feb 19, 2007

Brett Witteveen, 20, Marine Reserve Private 1st Class, Feb 19, 2007

Richard L. Ford, 40, Army Sergeant, Feb 20, 2007

Louis G. Kim, 19, Army Specialist, Feb 20, 2007

Clinton W. Ahlquist, 23, Marine Sergeant, Feb 20, 2007

Travis Wayne Buford, 23, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 22, 2007

Joshua R. Hager, 29, Army Staff Sergeant, Feb 22, 2007

Rowan D. Walter, 25, Army Private 1st Class, Feb 22, 2007

David R. Berry, 37, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Feb 22, 2007

Jeremy D. Barnett, 27, Army Sergeant, Feb 24, 2007

Ethan J. Biggers, 22, Army Specialist, Feb 24, 2007

William J. Beardsley, 25, Army Sergeant, Feb 26, 2007

Anthony Aguirre, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Feb 26, 2007

Jonathan D. Cadavero, 24, Army Specialist, Feb 27, 2007

Lorne E. Henry Jr, 21, Army Corporal, Feb 27, 2007

Karl O. Soto-Pinedo, 22, Army Staff Sergeant, Feb 27, 2007

Richard A. Soukenka, 30, Army Sergeant, Feb 27, 2007

Chad M. Allen, 25, Marine Sergeant, Feb 28, 2007

Bufford "Kenny" Van Slyke, 22, Marine Reserve Private 1st Class, Feb 28, 2007

Paul M. Latourney, 28, Army Staff Sergeant, Mar 02, 2007

Luis O. Rodriguez-Contrera, 22, Army Specialist, Mar 02, 2007

Wesley J. Williams, 23, Army Private, Mar 02, 2007

Christopher D. Young, 20, Army National Guard Specialist, Mar 02, 2007

Dustin M. Gould, 28, Marine Staff Sergeant, Mar 02, 2007

Morgan C. Tulang, 36, Naval Reserve Lieutenant Commander, Mar 02, 2007

Luke Emch, 21, Navy Hospitalman, Mar 02, 2007

Ashly L. Moyer, 21, Army Sergeant, Mar 03, 2007

Brandon Allen Parr, 25, Army Sergeant, Mar 03, 2007

Michael C. Peek, 23, Army Sergeant, Mar 03, 2007

Raul S. Bravo Jr., 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Mar 03, 2007

Darrel D. Kasson, 43, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Mar 04, 2007

Ryan M. Bell, 21, Army Specialist, Mar 05, 2007

Justin M. Estes, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Mar 05, 2007

Blake Harris, 22, Army Specialist, Mar 05, 2007

Cory C. Kosters, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Mar 05, 2007

Barry Wayne Mayo, 21, Army Private, Mar 05, 2007

Andrew C. Perkins, 27, Army Sergeant, Mar 05, 2007

Justin A. Rollins, 22, Army Specialist, Mar 05, 2007

Ryan D. Russell, 20, Army Specialist, Mar 05, 2007

Robert Stanley, 27, Army Staff Sergeant, Mar 05, 2007

Mark W. Graham, 22, Army Private, Mar 07, 2007

Shawn Rankinen, 28, Army Specialist, Mar 07, 2007

Michael D. Rivera, 22, Army Specialist, Mar 07, 2007

Christopher R. Webb, 28, Army Staff Sergeant, Mar 07, 2007

Dennis J. Veater, 20, Marine Reserve Lance Corporal, Mar 09, 2007

Thomas L. Latham, 23, Army Sergeant, Mar 11, 2007

Jonathan K. Smith, 19, Army Specialist, Mar 11, 2007

Daniel E. Woodcock, 25, Army Sergeant, Mar 11, 2007

Douglas C. Stone, 49, Army Reserve Sergeant 1st Class, Mar 11, 2007

Nathanial Dain Windsor, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Mar 11, 2007

Robert M. Carr, 22, Army Sergeant, Mar 13, 2007

Alberto Garcia Jr., 23, Army Private 1st Class, Mar 13, 2007

Angel Rosa, 21, Marine Private 1st Class, Mar 13, 2007

Joshua M. Boyd, 30, Army Specialist, Mar 14, 2007

Brian L. Chevalier, 21, Army Corporal, Mar 14, 2007

Stephen M. Kowalczyk, 32, Army Specialist, Mar 14, 2007

Adam J. Rosema, 27, Army Specialist, Mar 14, 2007

Forrest J. Waterbury, 25, Army Specialist, Mar 14, 2007

Steven M. Chavez, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Mar 14, 2007

James L. Arnold, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Mar 15, 2007

Emerson N. Brand, 29, Army Sergeant, Mar 15, 2007

Blake M. Harris, 27, Army Sergeant, Mar 15, 2007

Terry W. Prater, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Mar 15, 2007

John S. Stephens, 41, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Mar 15, 2007

Raymond J. Holzhauer, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Mar 15, 2007

Christopher R. Brevard, 31, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Mar 16, 2007

John E. Allen, 25, Army Sergeant, Mar 17, 2007

William N. Davis, 26, Army Private 1st Class, Mar 17, 2007

Marieo Guerrero, 30, Army Specialist, Mar 17, 2007

Anthony A. Kaiser, 27, Army Private 1st Class, Mar 17, 2007

John F. Landry Jr., 20, Army Private 1st Class, Mar 17, 2007

Ed Santini, 25, Army Sergeant, Mar 17, 2007

Benjamin L. Sebban, 29, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Mar 17, 2007

Nimo W. Tauala, 29, Army Sergeant, Mar 17, 2007

Harry H. Timberman, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Mar 17, 2007

Ryan P. Green, 24, Army Sergeant, Mar 18, 2007

Wayne R. Cornell, 26, Army Sergeant, Mar 20, 2007

Curtis E. Glawson Jr., 24, Army Specialist, Mar 20, 2007

Stephen K. Richardson, 22, Army Private 1st Class, Mar 20, 2007

Darrell R. Griffin Jr., 36, Army Staff Sergeant, Mar 21, 2007

Adrian J. Lewis, 30, Army Sergeant, Mar 21, 2007

Nicholas J. Lightner, 29, Army Sergeant, Mar 21, 2007

Joey T. Sams II, 22, Army Private 1st Class, Mar 21, 2007

Dustin Jerome Lee, 20, Marine Corporal, Mar 21, 2007

Freeman L. Gardner Jr., 26, Army Sergeant, Mar 22, 2007

Henry W. Bogrette, 21, Marine Corporal, Mar 22, 2007

Lance C. Springer II, 23, Army Specialist, Mar 23, 2007

Riewer. Greg N., 28, Army National Guard Sergeant, Mar 23, 2007

Trevor A. Roberts, 21, Marine Reserve Lance Corporal, Mar 24, 2007

Orlando E. Gonzalez, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Mar 25, 2007

Sean K. McDonald, 21, Army Specialist, Mar 25, 2007

Jason Nunez, 22, Army Corporal, Mar 25, 2007

Jason Swiger, 24, Army Sergeant, Mar 25, 2007

Anthony White, 21, Army Private, Mar 25, 2007

Curtis J. Forshey, 22, Army Sergeant, Mar 27, 2007

Sean Michael Thomas, 33, Army National Guard Master Sergeant, Mar 27, 2007

Marcus A. Golczynski, 30, Marine Reserve Staff Sergeant, Mar 27, 2007

Joe Polo, 24, Army Sergeant, Mar 29, 2007

Wilfred Flores Jr., 20, Army Specialist, Mar 31, 2007

Neale M. Shank, 25, Army 1st Lieutenant, Mar 31, 2007

Jason R. Arnette, 24, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 01, 2007

William G. Bowling, 24, Army Specialist, Apr 01, 2007

Robert M. McDowell, 30, Army Sergeant, Apr 01, 2007

David A. Mejias, 26, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 01, 2007

Eric R. Vick, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 01, 2007

Miguel A. Marcial III, 19, Marine Private 1st Class, Apr 01, 2007

Brian E. Ritzberg, 24, Army Specialist, Apr 02, 2007

Curtis R. Spivey, 25, Army Specialist, Apr 02, 2007

Bradley D. King, 28, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Apr 02, 2007

Daniel R. Olsen, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 02, 2007

Shane R. Becker, 35, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 03, 2007

Gabriel J. Figueroa, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 03, 2007

Jerry C. Burge, 39, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 04, 2007

Joseph H. Cantrell IV, 23, Army Corporal, Apr 04, 2007

James J. Coon, 22, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 04, 2007

Walter Freeman Jr., 20, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 04, 2007

Derek A. Gibson, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 04, 2007

Forrest D. Cauthorn, 22, Army Sergeant, Apr 05, 2007

Jason A. Shaffer, 28, Army Specialist, Apr 05, 2007

Jay S. Cajimat, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 06, 2007

Ryan S. Dallam, 24, Army Specialist, Apr 06, 2007

Daniel A. Fuentes, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 06, 2007

Anthony Palermo Jr., 27, Army Captain, Apr 06, 2007

Damian Lopez Rodriguez, 0, Army Private, Apr 06, 2007

Gregory J. Billiter, 36, Navy Chief Petty Officer, Apr 06, 2007

Curtis R. Hall, 24, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class, Apr 06, 2007

Joseph A. McSween, 26, Navy Petty Officer 1st Class, Apr 06, 2007

Joseph C. Schwedler, 27, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class, Apr 06, 2007

Ebe F. Emolo, 33, Army Specialist, Apr 07, 2007

Jonathan D. Grassbaugh, 25, Army Captain, Apr 07, 2007

Levi K. Hoover, 23, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 07, 2007

Rodney L. McCandless, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 07, 2007

Philip A. Murphy-Sweet, 42, Navy Commander, Apr 07, 2007

Harrison Brown, 31, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 08, 2007

Adam P. Kennedy, 25, Army Sergeant, Apr 08, 2007

Phillip I. Neel, 27, Army 1st Lieutenant, Apr 08, 2007

David N. Simmons, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 08, 2007

Todd A. Singleton, 24, Army Sergeant, Apr 08, 2007

Jesse L. Williams, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 08, 2007

Brian Lee Holden, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 09, 2007

Ismael Solorio, 21, Army Specialist, Apr 09, 2007

, Clifford A. Spohn III, 21, Army Specialist, Apr 09, 2007

Brett Andre Walton, 37, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 09, 2007

Kyle G. Bohrnsen, 22, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 10, 2007

Raymond S. Sevaaetasi, 29, Army Sergeant, Apr 11, 2007

Jason J. Beadles, 22, Army Corporal, Apr 12, 2007

John G. Borbonus, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 12, 2007

James T. Lindsey, 20, Army Specialist, Apr 12, 2007

Gwilym J. Newman, 24, Army 1st Lieutenant, Apr 12, 2007

Cody A. Putnam, 22, Army Corporal, Apr 12, 2007

Larry R. Bowman, 29, Army Sergeant, Apr 13, 2007

Ryan A. Bishop, 32, Army Specialist, Apr 14, 2007

Robert J. Basham, 22, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Apr 14, 2007

Joshua A. Schmit, 26, Army Reserve Sergeant, Apr 14, 2007

Brandon L. Wallace, 27, Army Reserve Sergeant, Apr 14, 2007

Daniel J. Santee, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 14, 2007

Steven J. Walberg, 18, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 15, 2007

Mario K. De Leon, 26, Army Sergeant, Apr 16, 2007

Aaron M. Genevie, 22, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 16, 2007

Lucas V. Starcevich, 25, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 16, 2007

Shaun M. Blue, 25, Marine 1st Lieutenant, Apr 16, 2007

Jesse D. Delatorre, 29, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 16, 2007

Daniel R. Scherry, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 16, 2007

Richard P. Langenbrunner, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 17, 2007

Jason M. Morales, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 18, 2007

Wade J. Oglesby, 27, Army Corporal, Apr 18, 2007

Michael M. Rojas, 21, Army Corporal, Apr 18, 2007

Dwayne L. Moore, 31, Army Chief Warrant Officer, Apr 19, 2007

Jeffery A. Bishop, 23, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 20, 2007

Ray M. Bevel, 22, Army Corporal, Apr 21, 2007

William W. Bushnell, 24, Army Sergeant, Apr 21, 2007

Marlon B. Harper, 34, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 21, 2007

Christopher M. North, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 21, 2007

Michael J. Slater, 19, Army Private, Apr 21, 2007

Steven R. Tudor, 36, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 21, 2007

Jeffrey A. Avery, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 23, 2007

Kevin Gaspers, 26, Army 1st Lieutenant, Apr 23, 2007

Jerry R. King, 19, Army Specialist, Apr 23, 2007

Garrett C. Knoll, 23, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 23, 2007

Kenneth E. Locker Jr., 28, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 23, 2007

Randell T. Marshall, 22, Army Sergeant, Apr 23, 2007

William C. Moore, 27, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 23, 2007

Brice A. Pearson, 32, Army Sergeant, Apr 23, 2007

Michael J. Rodriguez, 20, Army Specialist, Apr 23, 2007

Michael L. Vaughan, 20, Army Sergeant, Apr 23, 2007

Dale G. Peterson, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 23, 2007

Jeremy E. Maresh, 24, Army National Guard Specialist, Apr 24, 2007

Willie P. Celestine Jr., 21, Marine Corporal, Apr 26, 2007

Christopher Degiovine, 25, Marine Corporal, Apr 26, 2007

Adam Loggins, 27, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 26, 2007

David Austin Kirkpatrick, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 27, 2007

Nicholas E. Riehl, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 27, 2007

Eddie D. Tamez, 21, Army Specialist, Apr 27, 2007

William J. Callahan, 28, Marine Sergeant, Apr 27, 2007

Peter Woodall, 25, Marine Sergeant, Apr 27, 2007

Glenn D. Hicks Jr., 24, Army Sergeant, Apr 28, 2007

Michael R. Hullender, 29, Army Sergeant, Apr 28, 2007

Jay-D H. Ornsby-Adkins, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 28, 2007

Cole E. Spencer, 21, Army Private, Apr 28, 2007

Norman L. Tollett, 30, Army Sergeant, Apr 28, 2007

Brian A. Botello, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 29, 2007

Alexander J. Funcheon, 21, Army Sergeant, Apr 29, 2007

Jay Edward Martin, 29, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 29, 2007

Travis L. Manion, 26, Marine 1st Lieutenant, Apr 29, 2007

Zachary R. Gullett, 20, Army Private 1st Class, May 01, 2007

Johnathan E. Kirk, 25, Marine Lance Corporal, May 01, 2007

Ryan P. Jones, 23, Army 1st Lieutenant, May 02, 2007

Katie M. Soenksen, 19, Army Private 1st Class, May 02, 2007

Astor A. Sunsin-Pineda, 20, Army Specialist, May 02, 2007

Matthew T. Bolar, 24, Army Specialist, May 03, 2007

John D. Flores, 21, Army Private 1st Class, May 03, 2007

Felix G. Gonzalez-Iraheta, 25, Army Sergeant, May 03, 2007

Jerome J. Potter, 24, Army Private 1st Class, May 03, 2007

Colby J. Umbrell, 26, Army 1st Lieutenant, May 03, 2007

Andrew R. Weiss, 28, Army Specialist, May 03, 2007

Kelly B. Grothe, 21, Army Reserve Specialist, May 03, 2007

Coby G. Schwab, 25, Army Reserve Staff Sergeant, May 03, 2007

Christopher N. Hamlin, 24, Army Staff Sergeant, May 04, 2007

Larry I. Guyton, 22, Army Private 1st Class, May 05, 2007

Charles O. Palmer II, 36, Marine Corporal, May 05, 2007

Kenneth N. Mack, 42, Marine Reserve Master Sergeant, May 05, 2007

Matthew L. Alexander, 21, Army Corporal, May 06, 2007

Anthony M. Bradshaw, 21, Army Corporal, May 06, 2007

Robert J. Dixon, 27, Army Specialist, May 06, 2007

Jason R. Harkins, 25, Army Sergeant, May 06, 2007

Christopher S. Kiernan, 37, Army Staff Sergeant, May 06, 2007

Joel W. Lewis, 28, Army Sergeant, May 06, 2007

Virgil C. Martinez, 33, Army Staff Sergeant, May 06, 2007

Michael A. Pursel, 19, Army Corporal, May 06, 2007

Sameer A. M. Rateb, 22, Army Sergeant, May 06, 2007

Vincenzo Romeo, 23, Army Staff Sergeant, May 06, 2007

Kyle A. Little, 20, Army Specialist, May 08, 2007

Dan H. Nguyen, 24, Army Specialist, May 08, 2007

Blake C. Stephens, 25, Army Sergeant, May 08, 2007

Bradly D. Conner, 41, Army Sergeant Major, May 09, 2007

Walter K. O’Haire, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, May 09, 2007

Michael Frank, 36, Army Specialist, May 10, 2007

Roy L. Jones III, 21, Army Private 1st Class, May 10, 2007

Anthony J. Sausto, 22, Army Private, May 10, 2007

Jason W. Vaughn, 29, Army Sergeant, May 10, 2007

Douglas Zembiec, 34, Marine Major, May 10, 2007

William A. Farrar Jr., 20, Army Private 1st Class, May 11, 2007

James David Connell Jr., 40, Army Sergeant 1st Class, May 12, 2007

Daniel Courneya, 19, Army Private 1st Class, May 12, 2007

Christopher E Murphy, 21, Army Private 1st Class, May 12, 2007

Anthony J. Schober, 23, Army Sergeant, May 12, 2007

Andrew J. Bacevich, 27, Army 1st Lieutenant, May 13, 2007

Rhys W. Klasno, 20, Army National Guard Specialist, May 13, 2007

John T. Self, 29, Air Force Staff Sergeant, May 14, 2007

Allen J. Dunckley, 25, Army Sergeant, May 14, 2007

Christopher N. Gonzalez, 25, Army Sergeant, May 14, 2007

Nicholas S. Hartge, 20, Army Private 1st Class, May 14, 2007

Thomas G. Wright, 38, Army National Guard Sergeant, May 14, 2007

Jeffrey D. Walker, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, May 14, 2007

Jesse B. Albrecht, 31, Army Sergeant 1st Class, May 17, 2007

Victor M. Fontanilla, 23, Army Private 1st Class, May 17, 2007

Aaron D. Gautier, 19, Army Private 1st Class, May 17, 2007

Jonathan V. Hamm, 20, Army Private 1st Class, May 17, 2007

Steven M. Packer, 23, Army Sergeant, May 17, 2007

Coty J. Phelps, 22, Army Specialist, May 17, 2007

Ryan J. Baum, 27, Army Sergeant, May 18, 2007

Scott J. Brown, 33, Army Sergeant 1st Class, May 18, 2007

III, Anselmo Martinez, 26, Army Sergeant, May 18, 2007

Marquis J. McCants, 23, Army Specialist, May 18, 2007

Casey W. Nash, 22, Army Specialist, May 18, 2007

Joshua G. Romero, 19, Army Specialist, May 18, 2007

David W. Behrle, 20, Army Specialist, May 19, 2007

Ryan D. Collins, 20, Army Corporal, May 19, 2007

Joseph A. Gilmore, 26, Army Specialist, May 19, 2007

Travis F. Haslip, 20, Army Private 1st Class, May 19, 2007

Jean P. Medlin, 27, Army Sergeant, May 19, 2007

Christopher Moore, 28, Army Staff Sergeant, May 19, 2007

Jason A. Schumann, 23, Army Sergeant, May 19, 2007

Alexander R. Varela, 19, Army Private 1st Class, May 19, 2007

Justin D. Wisniewski, 22, Army Sergeant, May 19, 2007

Brian D. Ardron, 32, Army Sergeant, May 21, 2007

Michael W. Davis, 22, Army Specialist, May 21, 2007

Shannon V. Weaver, 28, Army Staff Sergeant, May 21, 2007

Steve Butcher Jr., 27, Army Staff Sergeant, May 22, 2007

Kristopher A. Higdon, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, May 22, 2007

David C. Kuehl, 27, Army Staff Sergeant, May 22, 2007

Robert J. Montgomery Jr., 29, Army Sergeant, May 22, 2007

Oscar Sauceda Jr., 21, Army Private, May 22, 2007

Robert A. Worthington, 19, Army Private 1st Class, May 22, 2007

Benjamin D. Desilets, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, May 22, 2007

Julian M. Woodall, 21, Marine Corporal, May 22, 2007

Joseph J. Anzack Jr., 20, Army Private 1st Class, May 23, 2007

Daniel P. Cagle, 22, Army Private 1st Class, May 23, 2007

Benjamin J. Ashley, 22, Army Specialist, May 24, 2007

Robert H. Dembowski, 20, Army Private 1st Class, May 24, 2007

Iosiwo Uruo, 27, Army Sergeant, May 24, 2007

Casey P. Zylman, 22, Army Private 1st Class, May 24, 2007

William Lee Bailey III, Army National Guard Specialist, May 26, 2007

David Paul Lindsey, Marine Corporal, May 26, 2007