Terror watch list swells to more than 755,000
WASHINGTON — The government’s terrorist watch list has swelled to more than 755,000 names, according to a new government report that has raised worries about the list’s effectiveness. The size of the list, typically used to check people entering the country through land border crossings, airports and sea ports, has been growing by 200,000 names a year since 2004. Some lawmakers, security experts and civil rights advocates warn that it will become useless if it includes too many people.

Main Core: Massive Surveillance Program with 8 Million ‘Potential Suspects’
One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from…. 

FBI terrorism units badly run, understaffed: agent
FBI counterterrorism units are dangerously ill-equipped and barely 60 percent of the supervisory positions in the division that tracks al Qaeda [al-CIAduh] were filled as of March, a bureau agent told Congress on Wednesday. Last year the bureau assigned 12 staffers with no counterterrorism experience to work as international terrorism supervisors, agent Bassem Youssef said.

Report details military tactics FBI agents found abusive
WASHINGTON — FBI agents repeatedly complained that harsh interrogation techniques used on detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo might violate the law and jeopardize future criminal trials, but administration officials did little to address the concerns, a government watchdog concluded in a report released Tuesday.

ABC: U.S. personnel at Gitmo did ‘dirty work’ for Chinese interrogators.
ABC’s Justin Rood reports that buried in yesterday’s Department of Justice report on torture are allegations that in a 2002 arrangement, “U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men — or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves.”

US ’stuck’ with Guantanamo prison
The US is “stuck” with the Guantanamo Bay detention centre even though it wants to close it, Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said. Mr Gates said the US wanted to send up to 70 prisoners home but countries would either not take them or could not be trusted to. Human rights groups have long argued for its closure, saying it does not meet international legal standards.

Halliburton’s KBR unit gets contract to repair Gulf Coast facilities
Halliburton Co.’s Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary has begun work on a $500 million U.S. Navy contract for emergency repairs at Gulf Coast naval and marine facilities that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina, according to an Associated Press report.

Wars can wound soldiers’ sex lives, too
WASHINGTON — Wounds and mental disabilities of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan can mess up their sex lives, too, health experts said Wednesday. But those wounds often go untreated because the topic is taboo and has gone unstudied.

U.S. to let Americans send cell phones to Cuba
President Bush announced Wednesday that Americans soon will be allowed to send cell phones to Cubans — a move that he hopes will push the communist regime to increase freedom of expression for Cuban citizens.

Bush Family Planning Appointee Who Called Contraceptives Part Of The ‘Culture Of Death’ Resigns (Think Progress)
Last October, President Bush appointed Susan Orr to oversee federal family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)… From the beginning, Orr was controversial, with her strongest credentials seemingly being her support for failed abstinence-only policies. Lawmakers immediately wrote to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and urged him to reconsider the appointment. Before joining HHS, Orr served as senior director for marriage and family care at the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) and was an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson’s Regent University.

Former CIA official indicted for accepting bribes of ’sexual companionship.’
AP reports that former #3 official at the CIA, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, is facing a new indictment in the ethics scandal involving former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. The new indictment alleges that Foggo “received bribes in the form of ‘sexual companionship‘” in exchange for helping friend Brent Wilkes get multimillion-dollar contracts from the CIA. Allegations that Foggo received the “enrichment of a mistress,” however, were not “detailed in the indictment.”

EPA chief won’t say if Bush discussed California waiver
WASHINGTON — The head of the Environmental Protection Agency refused to say Tuesday whether he had any specific discussions with President Bush that would have caused him to reverse his agency’s position and deny a waiver California needed to move ahead with stringent auto emission standards.

Webb: ‘People In The Administration’ Would Like To Strike Iran Before Leaving Office
Last year, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) proposed legislation that would have required the President Bush to “seek congressional authorization prior to commencing any broad military action in Iran,” but the amendment failed in the Senate. On NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, host Terri Gross asked Webb about the bill and if he thinks “the Bush administration is considering a military strike” before Bush leaves office. IIt certainly seems that it’s on the table,” replied Webb, noting that some in the administration are pushing for it:

VA opposes much of bill to improve care for women veterans
WASHINGTON — Department of Veterans Affairs officials said Wednesday that they oppose much of a Senate bill to improve care for female veterans even as the number of women seeking VA medical services is expected to double within the next five years.

Grilling of oil execs over high prices is more show than substance
WASHINGTON — In what’s becoming a ritual in the nation’s capital, top executives of major oil companies took an oath Wednesday before the snapping cameras, received a heaping of verbal abuse by lawmakers from both parties and defensively blamed Congress for many of today’s energy woes.

Oil/Gas Shareholders in Senate Hear Testimony from Industry Execs
With gas prices the highest they’ve ever been, the oil and gas executives who testified this morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee had to feel like they were in the hot seat. But as they were being grilled about skyrocketing prices, they could take some comfort in the strong financial relationship their industry has with lawmakers, including those on the committee. In 2006, the most recent year for which there’s processed data on politicians’ personal finances, four Republicans currently on the Judiciary Committee had between $30,600 and $135,600 invested in the five companies whose executives testified [Wednesday], BP, Shell Oil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil.

Senate near deal to advance Iraq funding
Senate Democrats are offering to drop billions of dollars in domestic programs from President Bush’s war-funding bill in hopes of avoiding a veto. The plan by Majority Leader Harry Reid would also provide for passage of Bush’s funding request without restrictions on his conduct of the Iraq war.

Senate drops farm guest-worker legislation
WASHINGTON — An ambitious agricultural guest-worker plan died with a whimper and not a bang this week, as senators quietly dropped the proposal from an Iraq war spending bill.

Republican senators revise their version of veterans education bill
WASHINGTON — Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina cribbed a few details Wednesday from a Democratic colleague for their version of the GI Bill, which helps pay for college for military veterans.

Senate panel votes to overturn EPA on California waiver
WASHINGTON — In a purely symbolic move, the Senate committee headed by California Sen. Barbara approved her bill Thursday that would grant the Clean Air Act waiver California needs to enact tough car and truck emission standards.

Senators pitch bill to slash greenhouse gases, add tax relief
WASHINGTON — The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday offered legislation to slash greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades while adding protections for consumers and industries.

House overrides farm bill veto; Senate next
WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday quickly overrode President Bush’s veto of a five-year, $289 billion farm bill, with Republicans joining Democrats to embrace the bill Bush calls bloated.

House Clears Military Tax Bill Closing Contractor Loophole
The House of Representatives Tuesday passed unanimously legislation that would force Pentagon mercenaries to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for certain of their employees operating in Iraq and elsewhere overseas. The payroll tax loophole has been used by Iraq contractors including KBR, Inc., (KBR) and MPRI, a unit of L-3 Communications (LLL).

Henry Waxman to Rep. Issa: “I will have you physically removed if you don’t stop” (by SilentPatriot at Crooks and Liars)
At an EPA hearing today on Capitol Hill about ozone standards, Henry Waxman got into a heated exchange with Administrator Stephen Johnson over his evasive non-answers to simple, straightforward questions about whether or not he had certain discussions with the White House about key environmental issues. It got so tense at one point that a frantically gavel-slamming Waxman threatened to have Rep Darrell Issa “physically removed” from the hearing if he continued to obstruct Waxman’s line of inquiry.

A grim diagnosis: Kennedy’s brain cancer is worst kind
WASHINGTON – A malignant glioma — the diagnosis doctors gave Sen. Edward M. Kennedy — is the worst kind of brain cancer. Malignant gliomas strike almost 9,000 Americans a year. Survival statistics are grim — few live three years and for the worst subtype, half die within a year.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell . . . But Do Explain: Court Reinstates Lawsuit by Lesbian Dismissed by Military
The Ninth Circuit has handed down an important decision on gay rights and the military. The three-judge panel did not strike down the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy but it did reinstate the lawsuit of Major Margaret Witt, a decorated Air Force nurse. The ruling forces the government to prove that the policy advances an important government interest. The opinion builds on the decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and recognizes that the policy infringes on Witt’s constitutionally protected rights.

AP IMPACT: Leaky New Orleans levee alarms experts
NEW ORLEANS – Despite more than $22 million in repairs, a levee that broke with catastrophic effect during Hurricane Katrina is leaking again because of the mushy ground on which New Orleans was built, raising serious questions about the reliability of the city’s flood defenses.

More physicians support single-payer health care
Fifty-nine percent of U.S. physicians now support a federally administered health insurance fund that would guarantee health care coverage for everyone, according to a report published in the April 1 2008 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. The current support represents a 10 percent increase from a similar national survey in 2002.