Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Guest Blogged by Arlen Parsa

{Ed Note: An error in this report was later discovered while working on a follow-up to it. The illegality of the Bush military pay raise proposal as described in the report below, is based on a 1999 law which phased out the pay formula that Bush failed to meet, by fiscal year 2008. Lawmakers are in the process of restoring that provision, even while another law also keeps the legality of Bush's proposal in doubt. The full details and explanation for the error, after combing through a soup of defense authorization provisions, are explained in our follow up report. The BRAD BLOG regrets the error.}

Recently the Bush Administration and Democratically-controlled Congress were at odds over how much to pay US soldiers serving in the most dangerous places in the world: Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress said that the troops should get a raise of 3.5%, while the Administration said any raise higher than 3% was not deserved. Administration officials even bluntly said the White House "strongly opposes" giving the troops that extra 0.5%.

Although Democrats have been arguing for the 3.5% raise, what neither they, nor any news organization seems to have thus far noticed, is that the Administration's meager compensation plan would be, in fact, illegal.

Increases in military salary are traditionally determined by increases in average civilian salary, according to a method of measurement called the Employment Cost Index. Regardless of the actual dollar increase in salary, the base pay for service-members must be at least 0.5% above the corresponding civilian pay because of a Defense Authorization Act which Congress passed in 1999.

But according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, the Bush Administration's proposed raise of only 3% for active-duty troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is actually less than the average increase in civilian wages from 2006 to 2007 (3.3%), instead of the required 0.5% more than the average civilian wage (which would be equal to 3.8%).

If Congress passes the funding plan that the Administration has proposed, they will, in effect, be illegally depriving the troops of the minimum pay raise guaranteed to them by the earlier law. The move would save the Bush Administration millions and could cost new US Army recruits (who are the least effected by the proposed pay raise) a few hundred dollars annually.

Still, some service-members might take comfort from the fact that the issue at hand is a raise in salary, not a decrease, as the Bush Administration and the Department of Defense had previously tried to pull off in 2003, until they got caught red-handed attempting to stiff U.S. troops back then as well...

On their sales page for Dr. Laura's book, Parenthood by Proxy: Don't Have Them if You Won't Raise Them (later repackaged as Stupid Things Parents Do to Mess Up Their Kids), the rightwing "news" outlet WordNetDaily writes:

Looks like the faux doctor, one-time exhibitionist (graphic link very not safe for work!), American Patron Saint of Hubris, and her kid's mom, may not have done such a bang-up job in that "essential task of teaching them right and wrong" after all. The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that her son, Deryk, now stationed with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, is "under investigation for a graphic personal Web page that one Army official has called 'repulsive.'"

The site, believed to be Deryk's, reportedly featured "cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned 'My Sweet Little Habib'; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets" and was shut down on Friday.

Color us stunned.

"Yes . . . FUCKINGING Yes!!!," Dr. Laura's adorable little bunchkin began one of his blog entries on the site, according to the Trib. "I LOVE MY JOB, it takes everything reckless and deviant and heathenistic and just overall bad about me and hyper focuses these traits into my job of running around this horrid place doing nasty things to people that deserve it . . . and some that don't."

And in other Rightwing Hypocrisy news this weekend, former family values champeen and South Dakota state Rep. Ted Klaudt was arrested Friday "on felony charges that include eight counts of rape involving foster children and former legislative pages." The story is appalling enough that we don't even wish to go into details here, so be forewarned if you choose to click on the link.

Beyond that, go take on the day!

Guest Blogged by BRAD BLOG's D.C. correspondent Margie Burns

"We don't have a law that would make war profiteering specifically a federal crime," Sen. Leahy (D-VT) said in this morning's efficient hearing conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, so he is introducing one.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is busy these days --- what with the scandal over White House manipulations of the prosecutorial function of the Department of Justice, the continuing scandals of war profiteering in the "war on terror," and other oversight matters, the Committee is in jeopardy of being overstretched. In fact, it already is overstretched.

The room was full for this morning's hearing, which I attended, on "Combating War Profiteering," but, as with last week's House Oversight Comittee hearings with Valerie Plame et al, this one was also scantly attended by GOP'ers. Of Republicans, only the co-chair of the committee Arlen Specter (R-PA) and --- to do him justice --- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) graced the hearing with their presence. The co-chair could do no less, and indeed did little, though I noticed that both he and Leahy alluded to their past jobs as prosecutors, from which it can safely be inferred that they too think the current manipulations of US Attorneys --- prosecutors --- by the DOJ look very bad...

With more than 5600 words in his State of the Union speech, Bush couldn't cobble together five or six of them to thank our 1.6 million new American Veterans? Let alone recognize the continuing horrors they face and what our country plans to do to help them?

A press release from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America find that pretty crappy. So do we.

Why does George W. Bush hate our troops?

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Here's a quick roundup of some relevant stories from far away and even farther. Let's see whether you can spot any connection between these stories and some others, from near and even nearer:

In Great Britain, as you may already know, there is open revolt among the governing Labour Party.

From September 6th:
Gordon Brown scents victory as Blair suffers massive revolt