Thirty Republicans in the Senate voted against Sen. Al Franken's amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act that prevents government contractors requiring their employees to submit to arbitration rather than taking assault cases to court. It appears that Sen. Dan Inouye, Chair of the Appropriations Committee, is now contemplating removing the Franken Amendment from the bill.

An article in today's Washington Post by Karen de Young (H/T Spencer Ackerman) highlights the determination to race to catastrophe by the Obama administration. In an ever-ending reconsideration and analysis of Afghanistan party, the Obama administration is said to be internally assessing the progress of the Afghan-Pakistan War over the next few weeks.

There’s a new and damning report from the Department of Defense Inspector General on its investigation into the electrocution death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth. The report concludes that Staff Sgt. Maseth’s death was the result of shoddy electrical work, electrical work performed by U.S. military contractor KBR. It also concludes that the Army failed to properly oversee KBR’s work, allowing the danger to U.S.

Last January, Sens. Dorgan and Casey and the Democratic Policy Committee pushed the Department of Defense to investigate multiple issues with electrocution deaths in Iraq. The IG's office delivered its initial report yesterday (PDF). As Sen. Byron Dorgan says: U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said Monday a new Defense Department Inspector General investigation confirms findings of a hearing he chaired a year ago:

It seems that the continued push by the Democratic Policy Committee regarding allegations of shoddy electrical work from KBR have finally opened the Pentagon investigative door.  From a DPC press release (PDF): Two U.S. Senators today are requesting a meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the mother of a U.S. soldier who has been informed by an Army investigator that her son’s death by electrocution at his base in Baghdad has been re-classified by the Army from “accidental” to “negligent homicide” by contractor KBR and two of its supervisors....

Is everything in the defense budget going to be COINy, or are we going to get actual, deep defense budget cuts?

WaPo:

Five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in the shooting deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians last year turned themselves in to federal authorities in Salt Lake City this morning, according to their attorneys, and the Justice Department unsealed a 35-count indictment against them.

I'm beginning to think that KBR may just be The Worst Company On Earth. Not only have they poisoned troops, but they've electrocuted them as well. But it's not just troops. Remember when a bunch of KBR contractors in Iraq gang-raped a female coworker, and the company imprisoned her in a shipping container and told her to stay in Iraq and keep her mouth shut? Or when their subcontractor imprisoned 1,000 Asian workers in a windowless warehouse near the Baghdad airport?

Barry McCaffrey sells out

Hey, how about another war with a dubious connection to the national interest? Just because there're a couple weeks left in the Bush administration?