31 states target global warming
Led by California, 31 states representing more than 70% of the U.S. population announced Tuesday that they would measure and jointly track greenhouse gas emissions by major industries.

The newly formed Climate Registry is the latest example of states going further than the federal government in taking steps to combat global warming. State officials, along with some industrial groups and environmentalists, say the registry is a crucial precursor to both mandatory and market-based regulation of industrial gases that contribute to warming.

All agree that the most important part of the new registry is subjecting emissions statistics to third-party verification — unlike a Bush administration program that does not require verification.
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General: Air fleet wearing down
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. — The Air Force's fleet of warplanes is older than ever and wearing out faster because of heavy use in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the service's top combat commander.

Gen. Ronald Keys, who leads the Air Combat Command, points to cracked wings on A-10 attack planes and frayed electrical cables on U-2 spy planes.

Compared to 1996, the Air Force now spends 87% more on maintenance for a warplane fleet that is less ready to fly, Air Force records show.
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Humvee Doors Trap Troops
during an attack are an unintended consequence of the Pentagon's effort to add armor to Humvees transporting U.S. troops in Iraq.

Due to the jamming problem, records show the Army must fix the doors of some 18,000 armored Humvees that serve as the main troop transport vehicle, USA Today reports.
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Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08
U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that heightened troop levels, announced by President Bush in January, will need to last into the spring of 2008. The military has said it would assess in September how well its counterinsurgency strategy, intended to pacify Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, is working.

"The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq.
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Pelosi threat to sue Bush over Iraq bill
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is threatening to take President Bush to court if he issues a signing statement as a way of sidestepping a carefully crafted compromise Iraq war spending bill.

... “The president has made excessive use of signing statements and Congress is considering ways to respond to this executive-branch overreaching,” a spokesman for Pelosi, Nadeam Elshami, said. “Whether through the oversight or appropriations process or by enacting new legislation, the Democratic Congress will challenge the president’s non-enforcement of the laws.”
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Byrd-Clinton Repeal of Iraq Authorization Could Be Groundwork for War Powers Fight
Senators Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) are discussing the possibility of repealing the 2003 Joint Resolution Authorizing Use of Force Against Iraq as an alternative method of ending U.S. involvement in what has become a sectarian civil war. This idea is not a new one, but in the wake of President Bush's veto of Congress' war funding bill that called for a phased drawdown of U.S. troops beginning this October, it is now attracting support.

However, what Senators Byrd and Clinton may also be doing is moving into position to provoke a test of the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR). Under Sec. 5c of that law, Congress can order a pullback of troops by concurrent resolution if they are in the field without a supporting declaration of war or use of force authorization (concurrent resolutions don't need to be signed by the president). Since they are in Iraq pursuant to such an authorization, that authorization would have to be removed for Congress to undertake such an action.
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Federal Student Loan Official Is Resigning
Under criticism that it has been lax in policing the $85 billion student loan industry, the Education Department announced yesterday that the chief official responsible for overseeing the loan program was stepping down.

... Officials in the department characterized Ms. Shaw’s departure as chief operating officer of the office of federal student aid as unrelated to disclosures about how lenders have plied universities and financial aid officers with favors to win more business.
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Congress considers broadening Justice Department inquiry
 WASHINGTON - Congressional investigators are beginning to focus on accusations that a top civil rights official at the Justice Department illegally hired lawyers based on their political affiliations, especially for sensitive voting rights jobs.

Two former department lawyers told McClatchy Newspapers that Bradley Schlozman, a senior civil rights official, told them in early 2005, after spotting mention of their Republican affiliations on their job applications, to delete those references and resubmit their resumes. Both attorneys were hired.

One of them, Ty Clevenger, said: "He wanted to make it look like it was apolitical."
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Missouri attorney a focus in firings
WASHINGTON -- Todd Graves brought just four misdemeanor voter fraud indictments during his five years as the US attorney for western Missouri -- even though some of his fellow Republicans in the closely divided state wanted stricter oversight of Democratic efforts to sign up new voters.

Then, in March 2006, Graves was replaced by a new US attorney -- one who had no prosecutorial experience and bypassed Senate confirmation. Bradley Schlozman moved aggressively where Graves had not, announcing felony indictments of four workers for a liberal activist group on voter registration fraud charges less than a week before the 2006 election.

... No stranger to election law controversy, Schlozman previously spent three years as a political appointee in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, where he supervised the voting rights section.

There, he came into conflict with veteran staff over his decisions to approve a Texas redistricting plan and a Georgia photo-ID voting law, both of which benefited Republicans. He also hired many new career lawyers with strong conservative credentials, in what critics say was an attempt to reduce enforcement of laws designed to eliminate obstacles to voting by minorities.
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Wartime Shortages Hamper National Guard
[T]he Kansas National Guard isn't alone with its equipment shortages. According to the chief of the National Guard, it's a national epidemic.

Listen to what he told a Senate committee last month about the state of a Guard unit that had just returned stateside from Iraq.

"He doesn't have a problem of old equipment. He has a problem of no equipment," Lt. General H. Steven Blum said. "His unit, when it came back in November, came back to two Humvees that were left because they were not good enough to go to war — not suitable to go to war — and that's the equipment that he has in his unit today."
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G.O.P. Moderates Warn Bush Iraq Must Show Gains
WASHINGTON, May 9 — Moderate Republicans gave President Bush a blunt warning on his Iraq policy at a private White House meeting this week, telling the president that conditions needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war.

... Participants in the Tuesday meeting between Mr. Bush, senior administration officials and 11 members of a moderate bloc of House Republicans said the lawmakers were unusually candid with the president, telling him that public support for the war was crumbling in their swing districts.

One told Mr. Bush that voters back home favored a withdrawal even if it meant the war was judged a loss. Representative Tom Davis told Mr. Bush that the president’s approval rating was at 5 percent in one section of his northern Virginia district.
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Code Red in the Green Zone
A sharp increase in mortar attacks on the Green Zone -- the one-time oasis of security in Iraq's turbulent capital -- has prompted the U.S. Embassy to issue a strict new order telling all employees to wear flak vests and helmets while in unprotected buildings or whenever they are outside.

The order, obtained by The Associated Press, has created a siege mentality among U.S. staff inside the Green Zone following a recent suicide attack on parliament. It has also led to new fears about long-term safety in the place where the U.S. government is building a massive and expensive new embassy.
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Saddam forces get recall in secret
Authorities with the US-led occupation have begun a covert campaign to recruit and train agents with the once-dreaded Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to American forces here after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings, according to US and Iraqi officials.

The extraordinary move to recruit agents of former President Saddam Hussein's brutal security services underscores a growing recognition among US officials that American military forces - already stretched thin - cannot alone prevent attacks like the devastating truck bombing of the UN headquarters this week, they said. Authorities have stepped up the recruitment over the past two weeks, one senior US official said, despite sometimes adamant objections by Iraqi officials in the Iraqi Governing Council, who complain that they have too little control over the pool of recruits.
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Welcome mat seems less welcoming for Bush
Finding fine speaking venues at graduation is never easy for late-second-termers, as President Bush is learning. Whereas he once spoke at Ohio State or the University of Texas, now he's left with Florida community colleges or small schools in rural areas that are run by former aides.

But it looks as if it won't be smooth sailing Friday, even when Bush speaks at Saint Vincent College, a small Benedictine school in Latrobe, Pa., run by Jim Towey, former head of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.

The invitation itself, as we wrote in March, sparked what Towey called "lively and welcome discussion." That included an opposition petition with more than 400 signatures, town hall meetings -- and a 41 to 30 faculty vote backing Towey.

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Gonzales to Congress: Move on
In testimony prepared for delivery before the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow, Alberto Gonzales says it's time to move on from the controversy over the firing of eight -- or was it nine? -- U.S. attorneys last year. "Recent events must not deter us from our mission," Gonzales will say. "I ask the committee to join me in that commitment and that re-dedication."

As the Associated Press says, that's going to be a "tough sell."

Four Officials Profited From Publishers, Report Finds
Four officials who helped oversee a federal reading program for young students have pocketed significant sums of money from textbook publishers that profited from the $1 billion-a-year initiative, a Democratic congressional report disclosed yesterday.