Say Who?

Kiss to Rock at Wally World

2009-08-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

The rock group Kiss will debut its first new music in 11 years at Wal-Mart and Sam's Clubs on Oct. 6.

"Sonic Boom" is due to be released only at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club on Oct. 6. It will include a CD of the band's first new music in 11 years, re-recorded versions of famous Kiss hits and a live DVD.

Other classic acts that have chosen to release albums through Wal-Mart include the Eagles, AC/DC and Foreigner.

Sirota on the Fox Incentive

2009-08-11T14:23:00.001-07:00

David Sirota offers his insight on the Fox News incentive to town hall bullies.

Here's a sample:

What this does is create a vicious cycle whereby the small group of conservative activists who are terrorizing these town halls have an incentive to be more and more aggressive. They know that if they can go further than the last supposed martyr, they might get their mug on Fox News. And so from protestors trying to shut down town hall meetings with screaming we get protestors shoving matches and then protestors arming themselves and then protestors making death threats. This is the Fox News Incentive System at work.

Obama: Fight Health Care Lies

2009-08-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama is attempting to mobilize his supporters to fight against the lies perpetrated by conservatives against his health care reform plan.

Politico reports:

In an unusual e-mail appeal, President Barack Obama is asking millions of his campaign supporters to commit to attending at least one community event on health care this month.

Obama writes that opponents of his health care plan are “filling the airwaves and the Internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change.”

“And some people, not surprisingly, are getting pretty nervous,” he warns. “So we've got to get out there, fight lies with truth and set the record straight."

The e-mail shows up as being from “President Barack Obama,” with the subject line: “This is the moment.”

Website Tells Movie Goers When To Head for the Head

2009-07-31T12:42:00.000-07:00

If you are a movie goer with a small bladder, you will want to log on to RunPee.com before heading to the multiplex.

This site tells you when to head for the head during movies so you won't miss any of the storyline. It even tips you off to what will happen while you are gone.

According to an Associated Press story:

Launched last August, RunPee took off earlier this summer. It's been one of the season's runaway hits — a clever idea that has spawned a lot of word-of-mouth from moviegoers.

"Helping your bladder enjoy going to the movies as much as you do," the site boasts.

It was created by Dan Florio, a 42-year-old Flash developer who got the idea during the three-hour-plus "King Kong" remake in 2005.

Florio, who lives in Orlando, Fla., with his wife, does everything for the site, though he gets some help from his wife and his mother. He's become a regular opening day attendee of movies, busily taking notes in the back row.

Careful where you fall asleep

2009-07-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

A 52-year-old Tampa man woke up inside a sanitation truck after he fell asleep in a dumpster and was picked up with the trash.

A sanitation department employee had not yet activated the truck's compactor after he mistakenly dumped Hallaran inside.
Authorities said the compactor would most likely have killed Hallaran.

Cheney: Gitmo or Death

2009-06-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

Former President, er, Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech Monday, June 1, that the only alternative to tossing suspected terrorists in prison at Guantanamo Bay was to kill them.

The 240 prisoners left at Guantanamo, he said, are "the worst of the worst" — including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed — who would gladly become suicide bombers to kill more Americans.
"If you don't have a place where you can hold these people, the only other option is to kill them, and we don't operate that way," he said.

Really? The only alternative?

Biden Wows 'em at Gridiron

2009-03-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

As seen on BuzzFlash:

As you probably know, the insider elite "punditrocacy" in D.C. was all aghast that President Obama was the first Chief Executive since Grover Cleveland not to attend the annual roast held at the Gridiron Club (sounds like a waffle to us).
Vice President Joe Biden did the honors for Obama, and delivered a script of jokes that were actually quite funny. All Joe needed was a drumstick on a cymbal at the end of each punch line.
Decide for yourself from this transcript that's making its way around the Net:

Axelrod really wanted me to do this on teleprompter -- but I told him I'm much better when I wing it. ... I know these evenings run long, so I'm going to be brief. Talk about the audacity of hope. ... President Obama does send his greetings, though. He can't be here tonight -- because he's busy getting ready for Easter. He thinks it's about him.
'I know that no president has missed his first Gridiron since Grover Cleveland. Of course, President Cleveland really did have better things to do on a Saturday night. When he was in the White House -- he was married to a 21 year old woman. ... I understand these are dark days for the newspaper business, but I hate it when people say that newspapers are obsolete. That's totally untrue. I know from firsthand experience. I recently got a puppy, and you can't housebreak a puppy on the Internet.

Palin A Drag on McCain Campaign

2008-10-28T10:10:00.000-07:00

McClatchy Newspapers reports on a new Pew Center survey that points out just how much of a drag Sarah Palin is having on John McCain's bid for the presidency.

WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin has become a drag on the Republican presidential ticket, the first time in recent political history that a running mate has made such a difference.

Among many independents and moderate Republicans, she's raised serious questions about John McCain's judgment, become too much of a national punch line and reinforced concerns about McCain's age and health.
"Nice lady, no experience. It's so sad. She's a gigantic drag," said Chris DePino, a Republican consultant based in New Haven, Conn.

The Alaska governor does help the ticket somewhat by energizing hard-core Republicans, but polls suggest that overall "she's hurting John McCain," said Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center.
In a nationwide survey Oct. 16-19, Pew found that 49 percent of respondents had unfavorable views of Palin, while 44 percent saw her favorably. A month earlier, 54 percent had seen her favorably and 32 percent viewed her negatively.

GOP Dirty Tricks In New Mexico?

2008-10-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

TPM Muckraker reports that a private investigator allegedly hired by a lawyer working for a lawyer associated with the New Mexico Republican Party is out intimidating minority voters.

Guadalupe Bojorquez, who works in law enforcement in Albuquerque, told TPMmuckraker today that her mother, Dora Escobedo, was one of the ten voters whose names were released by the GOP. After this happened, said Bojorquez, her mother had been contacted by the voter registration group ACORN. Bojorquez, with ACORN's help, confirmed with the county clerk that her mother, who does not speak English, is indeed eligible to vote, and had been when she voted in June.

Nonetheless, Bojorquez said that her mother yesterday received a visit from a man who asked for her personal information, including an ID, in reference to her eligibility to vote. Bojorquez told TPMmuckraker that according to her mother, at one point the man asked what she would do if immigration authorities contacted her.

After Bojorquez's mother, frightened, refused to let him in the door, the man waited outside her house. Eventually, Bojorquez's brother arrived at the house, emboldening Bojorquez's mother to go outside, call Bojorquez, and put her on the phone with the man.

Bojorquez said the man told her he wanted to make sure her mother knew that she shouldn't be voting, and continued to ask for her mother's personal information. When Bojorquez said that no information would be handed over unless the man revealed who he was employed by, he said he was a private investigator hired by Pat Rogers. He told Bojorquez his name was Al Romero, and left a number at which Bojorquez could contact him.

Bojorquez added that in fact, her mother has already voted in the general election, by absentee ballot -- which she is eligible for because she has trouble walking -- so Romero's efforts on that front were in vain.

This may just be the tip of the iceberg as the desperate GOP attempts to thwart the democratic process.

Obama's take on the massive bailout of Wall Street

2008-09-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Democratic presidential nominee Barak Obama has this to say - in part - about the Bush Administration's proposal to bail out the scalawags [my term, not his] on Wall Street:

• No blank check. If we grant the Treasury broad authority to address the immediate crisis, we must insist on independent accountability and oversight. Given the breach of trust we have seen and the magnitude of the taxpayer money involved, there can be no blank check.

• Rescue requires mutual responsibility. As taxpayers are asked to take extraordinary steps to protect our financial system, it is only appropriate to expect those institutions that benefit to help protect American homeowners and the American economy. We cannot underwrite continued irresponsibility, where CEOs cash in and our regulators look the other way. We cannot abet and reward the unconscionable practices that triggered this crisis. We have to end them.

• Taxpayers should be protected. This should not be a handout to Wall Street. It should be structured in a way that maximizes the ability of taxpayers to recoup their investment. Going forward, we need to make sure that the institutions that benefit from financial insurance also bear the cost of that insurance.

• Help homeowners stay in their homes. This crisis started with homeowners and they bear the brunt of the nearly unprecedented collapse in housing prices. We cannot have a plan for Wall Street banks that does not help homeowners stay in their homes and help distressed communities.

• A global response. As I said on Friday, this is a global financial crisis and it requires a global solution. The United States must lead, but we must also insist that other nations, who have a huge stake in the outcome, join us in helping to secure the financial markets.

And be sure to check out VoteNoBailout.org [Not affiliated with the Obama-Biden campaign.]

Come Clean, Sarah Palin

2008-09-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

It's time for Sarah Palin to come clean about her involvement, if any, in the so-called Troopergate scandal involving her ex-brother-in-law and allegations of her misuse of her office as governor to have him fired.

Even the Anchorage Daily News is saying she is stonewalling the investigation.

Gov. Sarah Palin is taking the wrong approach to Troopergate. She should be practicing the open and transparent, ethical and accountable government she promised when running for governor and boasts about now that she's on the national stage.

Instead, Gov. Palin has begun stonewalling the Legislature's attempt to get the bottom of allegations that she, her family or staff violated ethical or state personnel rules.
As a result, the Troopergate allegations hang over Palin's future and cloud her candidacy for vice president.

The allegations are that she, her family or administration improperly pressured then-Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Gov. Palin's ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, who had been in the middle of a custody dispute with Palin's sister.

It's simple to clear the air. Just let everyone tell the truth and we can all move on.

If nothing else, the stall tactics sure make her look guilty.

Sarah Palin to Be Withheld From Media

2008-09-06T03:43:00.000-07:00

Apparently the John McCain campaign is worried that the truth about his running mate, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, will come out, so they are preventing her from answering direct questions from the media.

From Jay Carney, TIME magazine's Washington bureau chief:

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

The American people deserve better than this.

What's the truth about the Columbia hostage rescue?

2008-07-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

According to reports from Columbian and U.S. officials, the recent rescue of hostages held by FARC rebels was a daring-do worthy of a best-selling thriller.

However, the rest of the world is hearing a different story.

BuzzFlash editor and publisher Mark Karlin puts the tale in perspective:

The rescue also comes at a curiously propitious time for the Bush Adminsitration and its "made man" in Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe. He is seeking to pass a plebiscite to allow him an unprecedented third term. Furthermore, Uribe is being used by the U.S. as a proxy opponent to Chavez in terms of leadership in South America. In addition, let's not forget that the controversial Columbia "Free Trade Pact" is stalled in Congress. Finally -- and most curiously -- John McCain inexplicably showed up in Colombia around the time of the "rescue."
BuzzFlash wants to make it clear that FARC is a motley and dreadful "guerilla force" that is as corrupt and reprehensible as the right wing Colombian death squads who are killing trade unionists -- with a wink and a nod from the government -- in that nation. We share in the joy of anyone receiving their freedom, particularly given the length some of these hostages were imprisoned in dire and harsh circumstances.
But the fact that the American media has once again unquestionably advanced a made-for-tv-movie narrative of the rescue proves, yet again, that our media -- particularly television -- has pretty much abandoned probing news for entertaining, government story lines. There are far too many unexplored details in the official Colombian-American-French rescue account, and no indication that the American press is exploring any of them to any significant degree.

Will main street America ever learn the truth?

Don't hold your breath.

The New Homeless

2008-05-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

More of the Bush Legacy:

Mom forced to live in car with dogs

SANTA BARBARA, California (CNN) -- Barbara Harvey climbs into the back of her small Honda sport utility vehicle and snuggles with her two golden retrievers, her head nestled on a pillow propped against the driver's seat.

A former loan processor, the 67-year-old mother of three grown children said she never thought she'd spend her golden years sleeping in her car in a parking lot.

"This is my bed, my dogs," she said. "This is my life in this car right now."

Harvey was forced into homelessness earlier this year after being laid off. She said that three-quarters of her income went to paying rent in Santa Barbara, where the median house in the scenic, oceanfront city costs more than $1 million. She lost her condo two months ago and had little savings as backup.

"It went to hell in a handbasket," she said. "I didn't think this would happen to me. It's just something that I don't think that people think is going to happen to them is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too."

Is this a great country or what?

Big Bank Bailout

2008-03-15T06:05:00.000-07:00

"If the Fed hadn't acted this morning and Bear did default on its obligations, then that could have triggered a very widespread panic and potentially a collapse of the financial system."
- JAMES L. MELCHER, president of Balestra Capital, a hedge fund based in New
York.

That is the quotation of the day from The New York Times sent to all those signed up for e-mail headlines.

Now here is another quote: “In a trading firm, trust is everything,” said Richard Sylla, a financial historian at New York University. “The person at the other end of the phone or the trading screen has to believe that you will make good on any deal that you make.”

Yeah, we can trust all Wall Street trading firms. We can trust them to be greedy and take risks, then we can trust them to want to be rescued from their self-caused misfortune.

France's Sarkozy Faces Setback

2008-03-10T05:03:00.000-07:00

French voters smacked right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy upside the head during voting in local elections over the weekend.

Opposition Socialists looked set to win a decisive re-election in Paris in a runoff vote set for Sunday after easily securing victory in Lyon while battling for control of Marseille, France's second biggest city.

"The left makes gains, the right resists better than expected," is how the rightwing Le Figaro newspaper described Sunday's elections, the first major test of popularity for Sarkozy since his presidential victory last year.

The popular Le Parisien newspaper ran the headline "The Warning," a term also used by Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande who said voters wanted to deliver a message to Sarkozy about his policies.

Elected in May last year on a platform of sweeping economic and social reforms, Sarkozy has since January been tumbling in public opinion polls, his approval rating reaching a low of 38 percent last week.

Mobile Devices Under Attack From China

2008-03-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

Malware is finding its way to the mobile market via hackers from China.

Malicious-code attacks are being aimed at mobile devices, security researchers say. The malware, which comes hidden inside legitimate applications, can compromise information on the device and even target the user for extortion.

One recent attack was a Trojan called WinCE/InfoJack that was aimed at Windows Mobile PocketPCs. Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager of McAfee Avert Labs, told us that WinCE/InfoJack was bundled with legitimate installation files such as Google Maps, games and stock-trading applications, and then distributed across a variety of Web sites. "That's a technique we've seen utilized in the PC malware for quite some time," Marcus said, but is still new in attacks on mobile platforms.

The Trojan sends out information about the device (such as its serial number and operating system) to the owner of a now-offline Web site in China. It's a particularly dangerous attack because it shuts off other forms of security. Devices require authorization to allow programs to be installed, Marcus said. "This malware shut down that functionality, which could then allow the malware to update itself or allow other people to put malware on the phone."

Modular Malware

Another malware attack noted by McAfee researchers is aimed at Symbian Series 60 phones, available from manufacturers including Nokia, Panasonic, and Samsung. Also based in China, the SymbOS/Kiazha attack was designed to extort money from an infected user by disabling the phone until a payment of roughly $7 is made via QQ, a popular instant-messaging network in China that features "coins" that function as an in-network currency.

How Not To Celebrate MLK Day

2008-01-22T06:47:00.000-08:00

There is no end to ignorance it seems as a small band of white supremacists marched in protest of Martin Luther King, Jr.

About 30 white supremacists marched through the streets of Jena, La., today to denounce the Martin Luther King holiday and the six black teenagers charged with beating a white classmate. The group of Nationalist Movement supporters — which the Associated Press estimated at 50 — traded sharp exchanges with about 100 counterprotesters who followed them.

Two Nationalist Movement supporters came armed, according to the Town Talk in Alexandria, La. The paper writes, Each brought a .357 Magnum handgun, a .22- caliber revolver and a sawed-off shotgun that they called a "street sweeper," because when fired it could take out 10 people. Police told the father and son from Tioga, La., they could not march with the weapons, and the men complied.

Bush A Criminal?

2007-11-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

This about a Bush criminal conspiracy is very interesting.

Keith Olberman claims the Bush administration now rates as a criminal conspiracy. He makes some valid points in his effort to become the Edward R. Murrow of the 21st Century.
How sincere is he? Is he merely making his Special Commentaries solely for the ratings war with Bill O'Reilly?

It's Still the Economy, Stupid

2007-10-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

Seems that the business media, the government and Wall Street cherry pick the economic data to paint a rosier picture than what really exists.

Yet establishment economists are saying these jobs are not what the economy really needs. The Journal quotes Nigel Gault, chief economist at Global Insight, to the effect that “private sector jobs are the underlying driver of the economy.”

Yes they are, but these are not them. The biggest jump here is in government jobs. NBC News reported on yet more job cuts in Flint, Michigan Saturday and that manufacturing jobs are at their lowest point since 1950.

Presumably you would think the disappearance of these jobs would be upsetting to the wise men of Wall Street. In fact, they are but their concerns are being buried in stories that fuel the perception that the corner is being turned.

Example: Way down in the 19th paragraph of the Journal article Donald Kohn, the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, says he expected that the nation’s “economic performance would be better.” He says, “You should view these forecasts even more skeptically than usual.”

But the business press, like the market that loves any excuse for a good rally, is not that skeptical. They tend to like positive numbers and downplay negative ones often without analyzing them.

Back at the NY Times, you had to jump from page one in the Business section with its, “Job Growth Looks Rosier” headline to page 8. There, at the very bottom of the last page, next to the corporate bond data — a place most readers don’t venture —are these quotes:

“I don’t think we’re totally out of the woods yet,” said Jan Hatzius, Chief United States economist for Goldman Sachs. “There are some real problems at the foundations of the economy. If nothing really bad happens, we can muddle through and unwind some of these problems over a lengthy period of time. And if something bad happens, we go into a recession.”

Hagel Calling it Quits

2007-09-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), a frequent critic of the Bush League handling of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, is not seeking reelection next year. He's had enough.

The 60-year-old senator arranged a news conference for Monday in Omaha, Neb., to make his formal announcement. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the event.

The decision by Hagel is the latest in a string of setbacks for minority Republicans in the Senate, who must defend 22 of the 34 seats on the ballot next fall.

Last week, Sen. John Warner of Virginia announced his retirement, a decision expected to create an intensely competitive race for a seat he probably would have held easily had he decided to run again.

Nebraska is one of the most Republican states in the nation, but Hagel's retirement could open the way for former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey to attempt a political comeback. Democratic officials have been in contact with him in recent weeks, hoping to recruit him to become a candidate if Hagel were to retire.

Colorado Republican Sen. Wayne Allard is the third GOP retirement of the election cycle, and incumbents in New Hampshire, Oregon, Minnesota and Maine face particularly competitive races.

In addition, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens faces a federal corruption investigation, and Sen. Larry Craig is expected to resign his seat following his arrest in an airport men's room sex sting. Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, but has hired a lawyer to try and withdraw his plea.

Hagel was elected more than a decade ago with a resume that included a tour in combat in Vietnam.

Dr. Andrew Wasik - One Fine Calgary Dentist

2007-08-31T11:38:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for state-of-the-art dentistry in Canada, look no farther than the Calgary dentist, Dr. Andrew Wasik.

Dr. Wasik uses air abrasion, a preventative dental technology that is drill-less, painless, and needle-less. This effectively takes away the traditional fear of sitting in the dental chair.

As stated in a profile of the dental practitioner in Impact Magazine: "Using one of the newest inventions in dentistry, Dr. Wasik’s digital radiography machine provides the benefits of less radiation, early and accurate diagnosis of dental issues, and more environmentally friendly treatment than other x-ray technology due to no chemical processing."

He also believes in an integrative, holistic approach to dental health in what he terms one-body dentistry. He explains this as the state of one's teeth, gums and jaw joints affect the rest of the body and that the state of the rest of your body influences the condition of your mouth.

We particularly like the painless part of his practice.

Sen. Larry Craig says he's not gay

2007-08-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, says he is not gay, despite his guilty plea following his arrest in Minnesota.

BOISE, Idaho - Under fire from leaders of his own party, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig on Tuesday the only thing he had done wrong was to plead guilty after a police complaint of lewd conduct in a men's room. He declared, "I am not gay. I never have been gay."

"I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport," he said at a news conference with his wife, Suzanne, at his side.

Craig's defiant stance came as Senate Republican leaders in Washington called for an ethics committee review into his involvement in a police sting operation this summer in the airport men's room.

New SEO Kid on the Block

2007-08-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

Looking for affordable web services, including SEO Outsourcing? Then look no farther than the folks in Ahmedabad, India.

Besides having more than 10 years experience in generating an ever increasing number of visitors to web sites, they guarantee their work. You may not reach the top for every keyword, but you'll have more customers viewing your pages.

In their words:

We don’t waste our time trying to secure first page placements for keywords that no one is going to search for. We also don’t try to impress you with hundreds of worthless links from worthless websites. In today’s search marketing environment it is all about getting quality content linked to from trusted sites. We know how to tell the good from the bad and we have the manpower to secure the right link, saying the right thing from the right site. It works and we’ll prove it.

Other services offered include:

Professional Web Design and Layout
Graphic and animated logo and ad creation
Custom scripting
Database Driven Solutions
Enterprise solutions
Guaranteed results SEO
Directory submissions
Link Acquisition Services
PPC management
Server Maintenance and Security
Content Management Systems
Systems integration
Complete Web 2.0 solutions

In case you didn't know Ahmedabad is home to several universities producing well-educated people ready to go to work for you. Not only do they tell you what they will do, they actually do it!

Gonzales Perjury, Rove Subpoena

2007-07-29T06:31:00.000-07:00

Senate Democrats are looking at perjury charges against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and have issued a subpoena for Karl Rove in the firings of U.S. attorneys.

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats called for a perjury investigation against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday and subpoenaed top presidential aide Karl Rove in a deepening political and legal clash with the Bush administration.
"It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements," four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement.
They dispatched the letter shortly before Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced the subpoena of Rove, the president’s top political strategist, in remarks on the Senate floor.
"We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States Attorneys last year," said Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bush Middle East Peace Plan Set for Failure

2007-07-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

No one in their right mind thinks of George W. Bush and peace. The president's latest attempt for peace in the Middle East is set to fail.

As reported by Capitol Hill Blue:

With his lies-based Iraq war a failure and his Presidency in tatters, an unbowed George W. Bush is launching a futile effort to broker a Mid-East peace.

Like all his efforts, the attempt is doomed from the start.

Bush's push for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian peace is seen by both friends and foes as little more than posturing by a President who is grasping at straws to leave some legacy from a failed two terms.

It won't work. It can't work. Everybody except Bush seems to know so.

Robber gets wine, hug

2007-07-13T12:38:00.001-07:00

From the Strange But True File:

WASHINGTON - Police on Capitol Hill are baffled by an attempted robbery that began with a handgun put to the head of a 14-year-old girl and ended in a group hug.

It started around midnight on June 16 when a group of friends was finishing dinner on the patio of a District of Columbia home, authorities and witnesses said. That's when a hooded man slid through an open gate and pointed a handgun at the girl's head.

"Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he said, the witnesses told The Washington Post.

Everyone froze, they said, but then one guest spoke up.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina Rowan, 43, told the man. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder had a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupery and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

The girl's father, Michael Rabdau, 51, told him to take the whole glass, and Rowan offered him the bottle. The would-be robber, with his hood down, took another sip and a bite of Camembert cheese and put the gun in his sweatpants.

Then the story got even more bizarre.

The man with the gun apologized, the witnesses told the Post.

"I think I may have come to the wrong house," he said. "Can I get a hug?"

Rowan stood up and wrapped her arms around the man and the four other guests followed.

The man walked away a few moments later with the crystal wine glass in hand. No one was hurt, but once he was gone, the group went inside, locked the door and called 911.

Police said Friday that the case was strange but true. Investigators have not located a suspect.

"We've had robbers that apologize and stuff, but nothing where they sit down and drink wine," Cmdr. Diane Groomes said. "The only good thing is they would be able to identify him because they hugged them."

Bush Stonewalls Congress Again

2007-06-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

As expected the Bush White House will not comply with congressional subpoenas seeking documents concerning the firing of several U.S. attorneys.

Excerpt from AP Report:

The Democratic chairmen of the two committees seeking the documents accused Bush of stonewalling and disdain for the law, and said they would press forward with enforcing the subpoenas.

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," White House counsel Fred Fielding said in a letter to the chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion."

Thursday was the deadline for surrendering the documents. The White House also made clear that Miers and Taylor would not testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas, which were issued June 13. The stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.

Immigration Bill on Fast Track

2007-06-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

Don't be looking for a "clean" immigration bill from Congress.

The LA Times reports:

WASHINGTON — Senate leaders Monday relaunched a controversial proposal to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, offering a new version of legislation that faltered earlier this month.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) used his prerogatives as majority leader to reintroduce the bill and bypass the usual committee process, putting it on the calendar for quick consideration. A final vote is likely next week.

"I applaud Sen. Reid's action to bring the immigration bill back to the floor and the determination of so many of our colleagues to do the challenging work we were elected to do," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the bill's leading Democratic proponent.

The new version cleans up the legislation, which had been altered so much in the last year that it had become legislatively unwieldy. It includes a provision, agreed to in principle last week by Senate leaders with the support of President Bush, that would boost funding for border security and workplace enforcement by $4.4 billion.

"Republican obstructionists are going to have a very simple decision to make later on this week," said Jim Manley, Reid's staff director. "Are they going to stand for efforts to provide increased funding for border security along with comprehensive immigration reform? Or are they going to continue to block one of the top priorities of the president?"

Damn Persians Anyway

2007-06-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

Iran is providing arms to the Taliban, says Bush diplomat. Another step toward war?

PARIS - A senior U.S. diplomat accused
Iran on Tuesday of transferring weapons to Taliban insurgents in
Afghanistan — the most direct comments yet on the issue by a ranking American official.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking to reporters in Paris, said Iran was funding insurrections across the Middle East — and "Iran is now even transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan."

"It's a country that's trying to flex its muscles, but in a way that's injurious to the interests of just about everybody else in the world," he said. "I think it's a major miscalculation."

Lohan, Fox News and the Knife

2007-06-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

Leave it to Fox News to sensationalize innocent photos of an impaired Lindsay Lohan at a party.

While Fox leads us to believe Lohan was threatening someone with a large knife, the truth is they were goofy drunks at a party.

Repubs Breaking Ranks Over Iraq

2007-05-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

From Capitol Hill Blue:

As opposition to his failed war in Iraq mounted, President George W. Bush always knew he could count on the unwavering support of hard-core Republicans.

That was then. This is now.

Increasingly, Republicans express weariness with the war and his lack of progress and support for candidates who back Bush without question is eroding.

And more and more Republicans now admit, belatedly, that they may have been wrong to back the President without question.

Olbermann on Democrats: Betrayal

2007-05-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

Democrats have ceded power to the president by giving in to the demands of the worst president in American history.

Check out Keith Olbermann's special comment:

The entire government has failed us on Iraq

Democratic Cowardice

2007-05-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

From A. Alexander at The Progressive Daily Beacon:

Just as the Democrats were busy surrendering their soul to George W., it was reported that by the coming Christmas Mister Bush will DOUBLE the number of combat forces in Iraq. Rather than stopping the madness, the Democrats' weak nature has guaranteed the wars further escalation.

Cowards!

Say Bye Bye Gonzo

2007-05-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

The only way to get rid of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is to impeach him, writes Hal Brown at Capitol Hill Blue.

We agree.

BuzzFlash on Freeway Blogging

2007-05-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

BuzzFlash has interviewed the Freeway Blogger.

Exerpt:

BuzzFlash: You’ve begun a really simple but tremendously innovative effort to make more Americans aware of the majority opinion in this country, which is that Bush and Cheney are doing a dreadful job in leading the nation, and a particularly horrific job in the Iraq war leading to the deaths of more than 3,000 GIs and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars. You have a site called freewayblogger.com. Can you explain what freeway blogging is?

Freeway Blogger: Yes, it’s very simple. Freeway blogging is a way of reaching the greatest number of people with the least amount of expense or energy on the part of an individual. Essentially if you want to spread a message to as many people as possible in this society, and you don’t have a TV or a radio station or any kind of media outlet at your disposal, the best way to do it is simply to place signs next to freeways. Make large texts and put them next to freeways where they can be seen. One sign sitting next to a major urban freeway will be seen by about 200,000 people every day until it comes down. And a sign costs ten cents.

Billions wasted on IED defense

2007-05-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

From Capitol Hill Blue:

Pressure is building on the government outfit created to come up with anti-roadside bomb strategies and tactics to show something concrete for the $6 billion that has been poured into it since 2004.

Lawmakers have put out the word that the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization is in jeopardy of forfeiting funds if it doesn't demonstrate some progress in crafting defenses against the bombs that have killed and maimed thousands of GIs in Iraq and, lately, Afghanistan.

The 2007 wartime supplemental appropriations bill designates another $2.4 billion for the organization, but it also came with strongly worded language demanding the group better account for the billions it already has received and become more responsive to congressional inquiries.

McCain Bombs on The Daily Show

2007-04-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

A new low even for a man who makes jokes about going to war with Iran.

Sen. John McCain, who has remade his image into that of Dubya-lite, makes jokes about placing IEDs under Jon Stewart's desk and kicking the dog.

Barak on Bush

2007-04-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

From CapitolHillBlue.com:

"This president may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free world has remained open. And it is time to fill that role once more," Obama said in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Money for (next to) nothing

2007-04-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

We signed up with the affiliate program at Team Link Network because we were looking to make some easy cash. We made the right decision.

They pay 25 percent commissions on each sale through our blog and they pay on a weekly basis.

We've tried others, but had to wait for months for the first payment. TLN delivers what they say the will deliver.

You got nothing to lose with them, so why not?

Abstinence Education? No Thanks

2007-04-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

State governments are beginning to turn down federal dollars for abstinence education programs.

That states are walking away from such funding alarms abstinence-only groups, who say dozens of nonprofit sex education groups will have to close, undermining progress against teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

States have used the money to help public and private schools with educational programs, to develop classroom instruction for nonprofits, and to pay for advertising and other media campaigns.

"There are kids who don't want to know how to put on a condom, because they don't want to have sex," said Leslee J. Unruh, founder and president of the South Dakota-based Abstinence Clearinghouse, the nation's largest network of abstinence educators. "So why can't kids who want to abstain have equal time, funding and education in the classroom as kids who are having sex?"

To critics of abstinence-based education, the policy shift addresses growing concerns that sexually active youth aren't getting access to medically accurate information about contraceptives and disease prevention.

'Disaster For America'

2007-03-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

Dennis Kucinich, a congressman from Michigan, calls the House bill on military funding "a disaster for America."

From Ravel Babel:

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich is not at all happy with the Military Funding Bill passed by the House last week, calling it "a disaster for America."

Kucinich made the comments in an exclusive telephone interview with the editors at truthdig.com, and he didn't hide his displeasure with the Democratic party.

"The Democrats should have been voting—or come up with a plan to get out of Iraq," Kucinich said. "Not one that’s going to keep us there a year or two. It’s the same kind of thinking that led us into Iraq—that we didn’t have any alternatives."

He said the Democrats should be listening to the American people and taking steps to immediately end the war and bring the troops home.

" ... that means to set in motion a plan to end the occupation, close the bases, bring the troops home using money that’s already in the pipeline to do so. At the same time there’s a parallel process of bringing in international security and peacekeeping forces to stabilize Iraq. And we can get that help once we end the occupation."

Read The Rest

Republicans abandoning Gonzales' ship

2007-03-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

The support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales continues to slip:

Three key Republican senators sharply questioned his truthfulness over the firings last fall of eight federal prosecutors. Two more Democrats on Sunday joined the list of lawmakers calling for Gonzales' ouster.

Several Republicans also urged President Bush to allow sworn testimony from his top aides about their role in dismissing the U.S. attorneys — a standoff threatening to result in Capitol Hill subpoenas of White House officials.

Gonzales faces the toughest test of his two-year tenure at the Justice Department with the release of documents suggesting he was more involved with the firings than he indicated earlier.

Candidate's Wife's Cancer Comes Back

2007-03-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

CNN reports the following:

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina (CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Thursday his wife's cancer has returned but his bid for the White House will continue.

"The campaign goes on," the former senator from North Carolina said at a news conference, contradicting earlier media reports to the contrary.

John Edwards said tests this week had shown his wife, Elizabeth, had cancer in a rib on her right side. He said the cancer is treatable but not curable.

"We are very optimistic about this," he said, noting that the tumor is small in size and has a "relatively minimal presence."

Elizabeth Edwards said she was "incredibly optimistic" and said her expectations about the future were unchanged.

"I expect to do next week all the things I did last week. And the week after that, and next year at the same time," she said.

And she wanted her husband to continue his run for the presidency.

Be Afraid. Or not.

2007-03-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

OK, the FBI issues warnings about terrorists driving our kids to school, then says we have nothing to worry about.

Sure we do. We have to worry why the FBI is trying to scare us.

The growing surge

2007-03-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

By Tom Engelhardt:

When it comes to surging in Iraq, it's "encouraging" out there. So the President tells us ("Yet even at this early hour, there are some encouraging signs..."); so Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the surge commander in Baghdad, tells us ("[It's] too early to discern significant trends, [but] there have been a few encouraging signs..."). No, they're not talking about what Juan Cole calls the "new spate of massive and deadly bombings [that] has spread insecurity and further compromised the Iraqi government... right in downtown Baghdad, within spitting distance of the Green Zone, where the U.S. and the Iraqi government planned out the new security arrangements"; they're referring to some weapons caches found, some under-strength Iraqi units deployed to the capital, a possible small drop in deaths from sectarian violence.

Still, if surge success isn't exactly looming on the horizon, it's clear enough what is: Call it "surge creep." In a way, surge creep has been the story of the Iraq War since the beginning.

Numbers creep: As Tom Ricks has reported in his book Fiasco,when the Bush administration first invaded Iraq in March 2003, its top officials believed that, by August, most American troops would be withdrawn. Only 30,000 or so would remain to garrison a grateful country. That, of course, was four years ago. Today, American troop totals in Iraq are heading back towards 160,000-plus.

Sooner Thought - A Great Podcast

2007-03-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

OK, kiddies, leave this site immediately and go listen to the Sooner Thought Podcast. It's really that good. Alex does a great job, but we are not so sure about his guests, like this Jake dude from RavelBabel. What was Alex thinking?

Oh, well. Can't have everything.

Pity the Republicans

2007-03-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

The Republican presidential candidates are facing some challenges as Matthew Yglesiaspoints out:

Exerpt:

On the Republican side, by contrast, things are a bit of a joke. You'd think a fairly normal conservative Republican would win the Republican nomination. But it hasn't been possible for any normal conservative Republicans to get famous under the Bush shadow, except for Bush's brother Jeb who, it seems, can't run because he's the incumbent's brother. Instead, we're left with the Terrible Troika of Romney, Giuliani, and McCain.

It's a crew so bizarre you're inclined to think that none of them could possibly win the nomination. Giuliani's pro-choice and pro-gay views are fairly well-known at this point. To some extent, however, this only scratches the surface of his un-nominability. Compatible with both his record as a social liberal and his record as an authoritarian, Giuliani was a supporter of New York City's draconian gun laws. Moreover, he was an enthusiastic enforcer of these laws. The ugly truth is that the ex-mayor's record of tension with African-American New Yorkers is probably an asset in a GOP primary. But it's important to note that one major locus of these tensions was the Giuliani-era NYPD's affection for the combined NAACP/NRA nightmare of frequent, random, seemingly racially targeted stop-and-frisk searches of citizens not under suspicion of a specific crime in hopes of finding guns to confiscate.

Cheney's connection to al-Qaeda

2007-03-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

From Consortium News:

Dick Cheney has accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of proposing a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq that would "validate" al-Qaeda's strategy. But captured al-Qaeda documents and other evidence indicate that if anyone is playing into al-Qaeda's hands, it is Cheney and George W. Bush.

The chief motive behind the 9/11 attacks was to draw the United States into a clumsy overreaction that would alienate the Muslim world and rally a new generation of jihadists to al-Qaeda's banner. Today, that banner might well read, "Mission Accomplished."

Have we heard this before?

2007-02-25T09:36:00.000-08:00

The UN is saying the intel the US has provided on Iran's nuclear program is no good. Is anyone really surprised?

From The LA Times:

"Since 2002, pretty much all the intelligence that's come to us has proved to be wrong," a senior diplomat at the IAEA said. Another official here described the agency's intelligence stream as "very cold now" because "so little panned out."

Brittany is an idiot

2007-02-21T10:50:00.000-08:00

Our favorite quote of the week from Matt Taibbi:

Britney Spears was an idiot last Thursday, an idiot on Friday, and an idiot on both Saturday and Sunday. She was, shockingly, also an idiot on Monday. It will be news when she stops being an idiot, and we'll know when that happens, because she'll have shot herself for the good of the planet. Britney Spears cutting her hair off is the least-worthy front page news story in the history of humanity.

Stumbling in the dark

2007-02-16T07:17:00.000-08:00

I can't remember how many times I've gotten up in the middle of the night and stumbled my way to the bathroom, running into furniture and stepping on the dozing dog. Recently, I stumbled across a web site (yeah, I seem to stumble a lot no matter what I'm doing) that had the answer to my dilemma - Slippers That Light Up!

The article says "you probably do know SOMEONE who would get a kick out of these." Heck, at my age just about everyone I know could use a pair of these. Just think, no more waking up the spouse, stubbing your toe or running into walls.

I've ordered a pair for the sake of the dog.

WAR!

2007-02-12T06:15:00.000-08:00

Not that we have your attention, take a look at what the U.S. government of George W. Bush is up to:

From The New York Times:

After weeks of internal debate, senior United States military officials on Sunday literally put on the table their first public evidence of the contentious assertion that Iran supplies Shiite extremist groups in Iraq with some of the most lethal weapons in the war. They said those weapons had been used to kill more than 170 Americans in the past three years.

From The Independent:

The United States is moving closer to war with Iran by accusing the "highest levels" of the Iranian government of supplying sophisticated roadside bombs that have killed 170 US troops and wounded 620.

The allegations against Iran are similar in tone and credibility to those made four years ago by the US government about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the invasion of 2003.

From AlterNet:

The escalation of US military planning on Iran is only the latest chess move in a six-year push within the Bush Administration to attack that country. While Iran was named a part of President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" in 2002, efforts to ignite a confrontation with Iran date back long before the post-9/11 war on terror.

Presently, the Administration is trumpeting claims that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than the CIA's own analysis shows and positing Iranian influence in Iraq's insurgency, but efforts to destabilize Iran have been conducted covertly for years, often using members of Congress or non-government actors in a way reminiscent of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.

Will the administration be stopped this time?

Goofy Pinched for Child Porn

2007-02-09T11:35:00.000-08:00

You can't trust anyone anymore.

A man who dresses up as Goofy at Disney World was arrested for possession of child porn.

His roommates gave him up. I guess he shouldn't have taken the last Mountain Dew.

Don't Tell Daddy Where I am

2007-02-07T05:36:00.000-08:00

The missing Miss Brazil has been found alive and married in the U.K. She doesn't want any contact with her family. Wonder what that's all about?

Record Profit for Exxon

2007-02-02T09:10:00.000-08:00

Wonder if they were in the meeting with Dick Cheney when the Bush Administration energy policy was being written?

From The New York Times:

HOUSTON, Feb. 1 — Oil prices have fallen, but Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell left their smaller competitors in the dust and reported record annual profits Thursday.

By making $180 million a day between them, the two largest publicly traded oil companies displayed their ability to ramp up production worldwide over the year, even in unstable places like Chad and Nigeria. Growth may be slowing and is likely to continue to do so in the future, but these two companies showed they could navigate the year’s volatile energy prices that caused smaller companies to stumble in their fourth-quarter profits.

The expanding profits at Exxon Mobil and Shell, however, may also make them big targets for the Democratic Congress whose leaders want oil companies to pay higher taxes and work to curb global warming.

Chavez to get unlimited power

2007-01-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

Seems like the National Assembly in Venezuela is about to give strongman Hugo Chavez unlimited power to make laws on his own.

No wonder George W. Bush doesn't like him. Chavez is expanding his power, while Bush's influence is declining.

Good Income Source

2007-01-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

We have yet to get into trying to make money online, but a friend of ours is making a tidy sum with an affiliate program featuring a nutritional supplement.

The supplement is Acai Plus and its been talked up on Oprah, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Men's Health Journal, The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated for Women, Time Magazine, and the New York Times.

We haven't tried it yet, but our friend looks 100% better since he's been taking it. He also said the free bottle offer they make is really worth looking into.

Maybe we will.

Bernstein on Bush

2007-01-25T07:25:00.000-08:00

Carl Bernstein, clearly the least mercenary of the Woodward-Bernstein Watergate team, does not mince words in an online chat at washingtonpost.com about his thoughts on the current administration.

The following is from Editor and Publisher:

After a long explanation of how the American system "worked," eventually, with Watergate, Bernstein said:

"In the case George W. Bush, the American system has obviously failed -- tragically -- about which we can talk more in a minute. But imagine the difference in our worldview today, had the institutions -- particularly of government -- done their job to insure that a mendacious and dangerous president (as has since been proven many times over, beyond mere assertion) be restrained in a war that has killed thousands of American soldiers, brought turmoil to the lives of millions, and constrained the goodwill towards the United States in much of the world."

Later, asked if the Nixon administration was unique in hiring disreputable characters, he replied: "Until the Bush-43 administration, I had believed that the Nixon presidency was sui generis in modern American history in terms of your question...

"In terms of small-bore (but dangerous) characters like Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy with their schemes, I doubt that any presidency approaches the criminality of the Nixon White House. But the Watergate conspiracy--to undermine the constitution and use illegal methods to hurt Nixon's political opponents and even undermine the electoral system--was supervised by those at the very top.

"In the current administration we have seen from the President down -- especially Vice President Cheney, Attorney General Gonzales, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld -- a willingness to ignore the great constitutional history of the United States -- to suspend, really, many of the constitutional guarantees that have made us a nation apart, with real freedoms unknown elsewhere, unrestricted by short-term political objectives of our leaders."

Bush: The Worst Possible

2007-01-16T10:46:00.000-08:00

Jane Smiley writes that George W. Bush is not only the worst president, but is the worst possible president.

Exerpt:

Bush is the worst possible president because he is simultaneously unusually ignorant for a president and unusually shallow, as well as desperate for a success he can call his own. I can see how in a certain sort of era--say an era of prosperity and world peace (can you think of one? I can't) an unusually ignorant and shallow man could bump along in the presidency for a few years without creating havoc and destruction, but these years didn't happen to be peaceful and prosperous, they happened to be delicate and dangerous.

Can't argue with her on this one.

Tyranny on our doorstep

2007-01-10T10:15:00.000-08:00

From A. Alexander at The Progressive Daily Beacon:

The new Democratic Congress can play all the 100-hour agenda games they choose, but if they don't confront this President and impeach him...this democracy and its Constitution are dead. If the Democrats fail to impeach, our children won't have to wonder what tyranny would be like...they'll be living it!

Amen, Brother Alexander.

Why hasn't this happened yet?

2007-01-06T07:48:00.000-08:00

Ran across this too-bad-it's-faked photo again and wondered why this hasn't this happened?

I know it's been around a while, but couldn't resist.

'Elections have consequences'

2007-01-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic Party, starts his latest fundraising letters by using a George Bush quote: "Elections have consequences."

Seems that the only time most of us hear from Howard is when he is asking for money.

He wants all Democrats to join the "Democracy Bonds community" by pledging "to give a small amount every month to build the Democratic Party for the long term." A noble cause.

The only problem is that most of the party's rank and file do not have "a small amount" left over at the end of the month to give to the party. Most people in this country are barely scraping by and don't have the luxury of donating.

Here's an idea: why don't some of the better off Democrats adopt an average family and give in their name. Of course, it will probably violate some of the campaign finance election laws, but now that they are in charge of Congress, maybe they can change the law.

Bush Blunders on

2007-01-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

From Capitol Hill Blue:

As the war began a distinguished retired general friend argued strenuously at a discussion club to which I belong (and that also included two former officials who would later be members of the Iraq Commission) that the Pentagon's assigned manpower was woefully shortsighted.

He was echoing the criticism of other longtime military strategists, including the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, who had just been shoved rudely into retirement for telling Congress that it would take as many as 300,000 troops to pacify Iraq.

The message to the other generals was clear: If you want to keep your job, keep your mouth shut and follow what your civilian bosses within the Bush Administration tell you, even if those geniuses are meeting criticism of the troop level by saying they are depending on the commanders on the ground to tell them what they need.

Now another top general, John Abazaid, who tried to do the job with what he was given, is retiring at 55 in an atmosphere of disagreement over the so-called "surge plan" for accomplishing what no one outside the Oval Office believes is possible -- winning the war. (Few of us can understand what victory even means in this case, seeing that U.S. troops are caught in the middle of a civil war. At best, winning probably means we finally can escape a hideous encumbrance).

The surge plan that George W. Bush seems to be favoring would put some 20,000 to 30,000 additional troops in Iraq at least temporarily to stabilize the deteriorating situation in Baghdad and to allow the Iraqi government to finally take control of the situation. More U.S. troops would be freed up to train the Iraqi military and police for our eventual withdrawal. Well, as my brother told our cousin when he finally decided to take up golf: "It's too late, Jack."

That is clearly what Abazaid believes. He is backed up not only by other military experts and a whole lot of popular opinion that regards the plan as merely augmenting the U.S. casualty lists. That is reflected by the fact that Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, who backs the quick-fix plan, has seen a decline of his support in the polls.

Suddenly the president is not talking about what the generals' want, but about what he decides is needed. And if he says we now need more troops, he reasons, we need them.

More>>>

Amen, Brother, Amen

2006-12-30T05:18:00.000-08:00

From RJ Eskow writing about Gerald Ford's comments about the Iraq war that he insisted remain unpublished until after his death at The Huffington Post:

There are no words strong enough to describe the shame that should follow a former President who knew a war was wrong, yet remained silent out of partisan loyalty even as young Americans continued to die.

Lyrics ring true today

2006-12-28T06:21:00.000-08:00

The lyrics from Marvin Gaye's "What's going on?" are right on the money after more than 30 years:

Mother, mother/ There's too many of you crying/ Brother, brother, brother/ There's far too many of you dying/ You know we've got to find a way/ To bring some lovin' here today -- Ya/ Father, father/ We don't need to escalate/ You see, war is not the answer/ For only love can conquer hate/ You know we've got to find a way/ To bring some loving' here today.

Are we going to have to take to the streets again?

Wortst Congress Ever?

2006-12-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

From Capitol Hill Blue :

In November, the voters ended the Republicans control of Congress and maybe just in time. In 12 years of GOP control of the House and 10 of the Senate, the 109th that just adjourned was the worst yet.

No one can argue with that.

Volunteering in America show increase

2006-12-04T07:25:00.000-08:00

A study by the Corporation for National and Community Service indicates more Americans are volunteering to help their communities.

The report by the Corporation for National and Community Service tracked volunteer rates since 1974. It found that more than 1 in 4 adults — or 27 percent — currently give time to their communities, a jump from a low of 20.4 percent recorded in 1989.

Teens aged 16 to 19 saw the biggest jump, with 28.4 percent volunteering compared to just 13.4 percent in 1989.

No word on if the increase in teen volunteers is due to their lack of finding employment.

U.S. v. George W. Bush

2006-11-28T03:16:00.000-08:00

What would the prosecution of George W. Bush be like if there were true justice in America? Check out Elizabeth de la Vega's new book, United States v. George W. Bush et al. (Seven Stories Press and Tomdispatch.com, 2006).

An exerpt present by AlterNet:

"Elizabeth de la Vega, appearing on behalf of the United States." That is a phrase I've uttered hundreds of times in twenty years as a federal prosecutor. I retired two years ago. So, obviously, I do not now speak for any U.S. Attorney's Office, nor do I represent the federal government. This should be apparent from the fact that I am proposing a hypothetical indictment of the President and his senior advisers -- not a smart move for any federal employee who wishes to remain employed. Lest anyone miss the import of this paragraph, let me emphasize that it is a disclaimer: I am writing as a private citizen.

Obviously, as a private citizen, I cannot simply draft and file an indictment. Nor can I convene a grand jury. Instead, in the following pages I intend to present a hypothetical indictment to a hypothetical grand jury. The defendants are President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The crime is tricking the nation into war -- in legal terms, conspiracy to defraud the United States. And all of you are invited to join the grand jury.

We will meet for seven days. On day one, I'll present the indictment in the morning and in the afternoon I will explain the applicable law. On days two through seven, we'll have witness testimony, presented in transcript form, with exhibits.

As is the practice in most grand jury presentations, the evidence will be presented in summary form, by federal agents -- except that these agents are hypothetical. (Any relationship to actual federal agents, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.)

On day seven, when the testimony is complete, I'll leave the room to allow the grand jury to vote.

Civilian Deaths in Iraq

2006-11-10T07:40:00.000-08:00

The Iraqi health minister is now saying more than 150,000 civilians have died since the illegal invasion of their country; more than three times the previous estimates.

Rumsfeld Cuts, Runs

2006-11-08T14:36:00.000-08:00

The rats have begun to jump off the sinking ship.

World doesn't trust Bush

2006-11-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

Check out this poll.

Hope for the GOP

2006-11-03T07:14:00.000-08:00

From the LA Times:

And some analysts are no longer writing off GOP chances of holding on to seats in Texas and Florida that were vacated when scandal-scarred Republicans Tom DeLay and Mark Foley quit the House.

Bush on Thursday was in Billings, Mont., campaigning for Burns and attacking the Democrats, who he said were undermining the Iraq war effort.

Senior party officials, including Rove and Bush, insist that Republican fundraising and voter-mobilization advantages — or some 11th-hour surprise — will preserve their Senate majority and keep GOP losses below the 15 seats that would give Democrats control of the House.

"The Republicans are going to make a great goal-line stand," said GOP pollster Whit Ayres.

Maher's New Rule

2006-11-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

Here's one of Bill Maher's New Rules:

New Rule: Now that we've sent "stay the course" down the memory hole, where Big Brother erases things, we've also got to retire: "The world is safer with Saddam Hussein out of power." "Don't you want America to win?" and "Wouldn't you torture someone if they knew where to find an atomic time bomb?"

Read the rest

Do Terrorist Really Care About Election?

2006-10-31T09:41:00.000-08:00

Dead-Eye Dick seems to think the terrorists are trying to influence the mid-term elections, according to this from The Washington Post:

Cheney, meanwhile, said in an interview with Fox News that he thinks insurgents in Iraq are timing their attacks to influence the U.S. elections.

"It's my belief that they're very sensitive of the fact that we've got an election scheduled," he said. Cheney said the insurgents believe "they can break the will of the American people," and "that's what they're trying to do."

If anything, the terrorist want to keep the Bush cabal in power. After all, it's good for their recruitment efforts.

Old Bush, New Bush Dispute

2006-10-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

Capitol Hill Blue reports:

President Bush gently admonished his father for saying he hates to think what life would be like for his son if the Democrats win control of Congress in the November 7 election.

It was the latest sign of possible strain in the relationship between the two men.

"He shouldn't be speculating like this, because -- he should have called me ahead of time and I'd tell him they're not going to (win)," a smiling Bush told ABC "This Week" in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

It follows the recent release of a book, "State of Denial," by journalist Bob Woodward, that says the 82-year-old former president was "anguished" over how the Iraq war has played out, although he has dismissed that account.

Earlier this month, the elder Bush was reported to have told a Republican fund-raiser in a Philadelphia suburb that "if we have some of these wild Democrats in charge of these (congressional) committees, it will be a ghastly thing for our country."

He was also quoted as saying, "I would hate to think ... what my son's life would be like" if their Republican Party lost its majorities.

That's the problem, George The Elder, you hate to think, and you passed that trait to George The Criminal.

Exempt or not?

2006-10-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

U.S. citizens are exempt from provisions of the Military Tribunal Commissions Act, according to an editorial in The New York Times.

Others think differently.

Who Is 'Any Person' in Tribunal Law? by Robert Parry

Holtzman on Bush

2006-10-18T03:14:00.000-07:00

Statement by Elizabeth Holtzman, former member of Congress and co-author of the special prosecutor law in 1973:

"Today will go down in the annals of infamy. By signing the military tribunals bill into law, President Bush has taken this country down a long dark road of shame.

The bill countenances abuse of detainees in defiance of the Geneva Conventions and the country's past moral values and it suspends habeas corpus in defiance of the constitution. As bad as these features is the bill's grant of a pardon to President Bush and his top Cabinet officials for any crimes they may have committed under the War Crimes Act of 1996.

When a president violates the country's criminal laws and then gets a secret grant of immunity for those crimes, he makes a mockery of the rule of law. Then all lawlessness is permissible.

This provision in the bill creates a culture of impunity for torture and abuse of detainees. It was slipped into the bill in secret, without hearings or debate. Most members of Congress, most reporters and most Americans have no idea that this has happened.

By doing this the President has stuck a horrific blow at our basic democratic values and our constitutional system.

Instead of pardoning himself with the complicity of Congress, the President should be making public what acts of prisoner abuse he authorized the CIA to undertake or what acts of theirs he ratified.

Holtzman has co-written a new book (with Cynthia L. Cooper) analyzing illegal, unconstitutional and/or impeachable actions of the current administration, "The Impeachment of George W. Bush" ( http://www.impeachbushbook.com ). Her recent op-ed analyzing under the new military tribunals law grant of immunity to President Bush is posted here.

Bush the snitter

2006-10-17T03:54:00.000-07:00

From the WaPo:

The notion that President Bush is not just in denial -- but is petulantly in denial -- is taking on greater credence thanks to two recent Washington Post stories.

One describes Bush's seemingly inexplicable confidence that Republicans will maintain control of both houses of Congress in the upcoming elections. He doesn't even seem to have a backup plan.

The other describes Bush's growing penchant for calling events on the world stage that he doesn't like "unacceptable" -- an awfully strong formulation in diplomatic circles -- even as his ability to affect those events continues to wither away.

Big Trouble for Republican

2006-10-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

Terence Samuel at The American Prospect writes:

Republicans are in trouble -- and it is not the kind of trouble that dissipates with time or the kind that can be overridden by the usual political subterfuge or great 30-second ads in the waning weeks of the campaign.

This is the kind of trouble that takes root. It is found not just in the garden variety public cynicism most politicians are used to enduring, but in the personal, visceral disdain occasioned by people being able to see clear through to politicians' motives and character -- and being repelled by them.

Read the Rest

Rural homeless numbers growing

2006-10-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports:

Rural homelessness has always taken a back seat to the more glaring problems in cities. Most studies estimate homeless people in small towns account for about 9 percent of the 600,000 or so homeless nationwide. But local officials and advocates for the homeless in small towns say that economic distress in recent years, including closing plants, failing farms, rising housing costs and other troubles, has left more people without homes and in greater need of help.

Real numbers are hard to come by because most rural areas, where homeless services often means ad-hoc help from church groups or volunteers, are far behind a parade of cities taking head counts.

Nader on Bush

2006-10-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

Ralph Nader on Bush:

The messianic, authoritarian George W. Bush and the minds of his cohorts have further collapsed the rule of law with his bulldozing through a divided Congress more dictatorial powers in his increasingly self-defined, self-serving and failing "war on terror."

The normally restrained /New York Times/ in an editorial titled "Rushing off a Cliff" condemned Bush's "ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217 year-old nation of laws-while doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser."

Bush has concentrated so much arbitrary power in his Presidency that he can be described in the vernacular as the torturer-in-chief, the jailer-in-chief and the arrestor-in-chief. Who needs the courts? Who needs the constitutional rights to habeas corpus for defendants to be able to argue that they were wrongfully arrested or capriciously imprisoned indefinitely without being charged?

The only light at the end of this Bush tunnel comes from many law professors and knowledgeable members of Congress, such as Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT), who believe that when this law reaches the Supreme Court, its offending and vague provisions will be declared unconstitutional. But that will take two years and in the meantime King George can continue expanding his massively losing tally of arrests, detentions and imprisonment of innocent people who are tortured or mistreated, isolated and defenseless.

As both military attorneys and civilian pro bono attorneys for those imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have declared-the vast majority of the nearly 700 "detainees" were innocent from the get-go, victims of bounty hunters in Afghanistan and neighboring countries who "sold" them for cash to intermediaries who turned them over to the U.S. military for transfer to Cuba. All these "catches" made George W. Bush look like he was really rounding up all those evil terrorists - like cab drivers, British tourists of Pakistani descent and so forth.

California latest front in textbook war

2006-09-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

From AlterNet:

We trust school textbooks to be packed with facts, to be dispassionate overviews of everything that is and that has ever happened. We assume that middle-school and high-school students today know the same stuff we knew at their age: that with certain embellishments, certain improvements and updates, each new generation chiseling its initials into desktops inherits a basic knowledge set, taken for granted, the nuts and bolts and navigators that we studied, back then.

But that was then. Now we live in strange times when everyone nurses his or her own truth. The very concept of objectivity has been deconstructed on kindergarten nap carpets. Thus the question of what deserves to be taught -- and what gets forgotten -- is a political matter. At its core throbs a $4.5-billion-a-year textbook industry in which four megapublishing houses produce nearly all the books used at American public schools. And the process by which it is decided what kids will learn is a big messy mosh. Its winners and losers include pressure groups, religious zealots, lobbyists, school boards, the megapublishers -- Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt, Pearson and McGraw-Hill and their many imprints -- and, oh yeah, the kids.

Just as the left and right accuse each other of controlling U.S. media, both also accuse each other of controlling academia.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl -- better known to boomers as the actress who played Zelda in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," circa 1960 -- authored a bill this year requiring California textbooks to "accurately portray in an age-appropriate manner the cultural, racial, gender and sexual orientation diversity of our society." The state senate approved the bill 22-15 on May 11. LGBT activists celebrated because, in academia, what California does matters. Along with also-populous Florida and Texas, it's an "adoption state," which means that books selected by California's school boards are fast-tracked to being adopted nationwide. Kuehl was optimistic, telling ABC News that she envisioned future textbooks describing James Baldwin not merely as "an African American writer" but as "an African American gay writer." (Baldwin himself preferred being called simply "an American writer" to "a black writer.")

Scarborough says it best

2006-09-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

Never thought we'd agree with Joe.

From The Wall Street Journal:

"Republicans need a wake-up call," Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who now hosts an MSNBC talk show, says in an interview. "We ran in 1994 against runaway spending, exploding deficits and corruption. But with Republicans in charge of both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, what do we have? The same runaway spending, record deficits and culture of corruption." He uses his show as a forum for those views and has published two essays on the theme.

Fraud in Bush Administration? Say it aint so!

2006-09-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

No one can be surprised at this:

A $1 billion reading program that is a key part of the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind education law was mismanaged and rife with conflicts of interest, according to an internal audit released on Friday.

The audit by the inspector general's office of the Reading First program -- the largest early reading program in U.S. history -- found that officials in 2002 and 2003, shortly after the program was established, improperly tried to influence states on which curricula they should use.

In addition, some officials with the power to approve certain reading materials for states had connections with the publishers, according to the report. It said the department had not properly reviewed the officials for such potential conflicts.

"The department did not identify any of these connections in its conflict of interest screening process; therefore, it would not have been in a position to deal with the potential conflict raised by these connections," the report said.

The director of this reading program at the Education Department will leave his post this month to return to the private sector, a department spokeswoman said.

Jackson Must Go ... Now

2006-09-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

Alphonso Jackson, head of Housing and Urban Development for the Bush administration, "urged staff members to favor friends of President Bush when awarding" when awarding HUD contracts, reports The Washington Post.

An inspector general's report charges that top U.S. housing official Alphonso Jackson urged staff members to favor friends of President Bush when awarding Department of Housing and Urban Development contracts. But investigators so far have found no direct proof that Jackson's staff obeyed.

His chief of staff told investigators that Jackson, the HUD secretary, "personally intervened with contractors whom he did not like . . . these contractors had Democratic political affiliations," says the report, a copy of which was made available to The Washington Post.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson last month in New Orleans. HUD's inspector general found that he directed staff members to favor Bush supporters -- but found no evidence they followed through.

Awarding contracts on the basis of party affiliation violates federal law.

This administration has no morals, no sense of ethics, no shame.

Jackson should be the first to go to prison, followed by all the rest, including Bush.

What global warning?

2006-09-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

Seems that people in northern climates are getting sick and dying from microorganisms usually only found in warmer climates.

Exerpt:

"Is climate change really causing new public-health problems at the moment?" asks Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia. "The answer to that would almost certainly be yes."

Doug Thompson Ashamed of America

2006-09-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

... and for good reason:

I served my country even when I thought she was wrong because I felt it was my duty as an American to do so.

But I can no longer do so. America today has become what we always stood up against: A tyrant, a destroyer of freedom, an international murderer with no regard for human rights or life, no morality and no belief in the rule of law.

America now threatens the peace of the world far more than any terrorist group, any communist country or any tinhorn dictator with a suitcase nuke.

""I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after he was released from 20 months in captivity without ever being charged with a crime or even being told what he was suspected of doing.

According to an AP investigative report, the American government holds some 14,000 detainees in secret prisons around the world. Few have any idea why they are held, all are denied legal representation or even given details of the charges against them and many are later released without explanation or even an apology.

Who can blame him?

Bush Violating Rights

2006-09-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

Surprise!

It seems that some legal experts, judges no less, say that President Bush's efforts to allow torture of prisoners is a violation of rights.

Exerpt:

Nine retired federal judges accused the Bush administration and Congress of trying to deprive detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of the most basic legal right.

Legislation under debate on Capitol Hill would strip federal courts of the power to hear detainees' challenges of their treatment and indefinite detention at the Guantanamo Bay.

"Depriving the courts of habeas jurisdiction will jeopardize the judiciary's ability to ensure that executive detentions are not grounded on torture or other abuse," the nine wrote Thursday in a letter to Congress.

Congress and the Bush administration would be skating "on thin constitutional ice" in depriving courts of their power to hear Guantanamo detainees, the letter added.

The retired judges said federal courts have long balanced the rights of defendants against the need to protect classified information vital to the nation's security.

Tell Congress to Say No to Bush

2006-09-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

End the torture!

Why can't we be friends?

2006-09-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

Because of crap like this about Democrats from House Majority Leader John Boehner:

I wonder if they're more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people. They certainly don't want to take the terrorists on and defeat them.

Rice: America not safe from terrorists

2006-09-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

From Capitol Hill Blue:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, handing out the administration line that America is safer now than it was before Sept. 11, 2001, still admitted Sunday America is not safe from terrorist attacks.

"I think it's clear that we are...not really yet safe," says Rice, who was President Bush's national security adviser when al-Qaida masterminded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001

And we still let these boobs run our government!

Ya gotta read this

2006-09-09T05:53:00.000-07:00

ABC apologists defend flawed miniseries as fake but true

It'll open your eyes.

Are Rove, Mehlman an item?

2006-09-05T03:34:00.000-07:00

Ken and Karl sitting in a tree.

K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

First comes love, but no Gay Marriage.

No adoption either, so forget the baby carriage.

Farting George W. Bush Doll

2006-08-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

Just in time for the early holiday shoppers!

The Farting George W. Bush Doll

No one with an IQ equal to, or below that of Bush should be without one.

Four Sorrows

2006-08-13T07:43:00.000-07:00

From Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire:

Four sorrows ... are certain to be visited on the United States. Their
cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787.

First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a spreading reliance on nuclear weapons among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut.

Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.

Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.

Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens.

Majority Say GOP Congress A Failure

2006-08-10T09:22:00.000-07:00

A majority of Americans say the Republican-controlled Congress is a failure, according to a new CNN poll.

(CNN) -- Most Americans believe the GOP-controlled Congress has been a failure and say they plan to vote for Democrats in November, according to a poll released Wednesday.

Fifty-three percent of registered voters polled by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN said they were supporting Democrats, while 40 percent said they were leaning Republican. The remaining 7 percent either planned to support another party or had no opinion.

The only problem is that voters seem to think they're Congressman is the exception and will keep voting for the incumbent regardless of their record.

We don't put much stock in this poll, or any other showing voters disgust at Congress.

Report tears into Bush Administration

2006-08-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

A just-released report by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr., details the illegal activities of the Bush Administration in no uncertain terms.

According to Mother Jones:

Beginning with post-9/11 false intelligence and public deception, Conyers uses sources including public statements, the Downing Street Memo, CIA reports and intelligence briefings to refute Bush’s carefully constructed propaganda advocating a war with Iraq.

There's plenty of blame to go around.

The report makes clear that the blame cannot lie solely with Bush and his inner circle. Conyers faults the Senate and House Intelligence Committees for refusing to conduct any independent, serious investigations into these matters. He also faults the courts for being slow to act and easily stymied by the “procedural defenses” asserted by the administration.

Where is the outrage in the media? Where is the outrage in Congress? Where is the outrage of the American people?

No one seems to care.

What Would Jesus Be?

2006-08-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be -- a Christian.
- Mark Twain's Notebook

Lieberman's Lament

2006-08-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

Sounds like Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman is suffering from the why-didn't-we-think-of-this-first syndrome:

I think you can try too hard to be cool and the coolness can come back to hit you in the face.

Lieberman made that comment about his primary opponent's visit to The Colbert Report.

For the record, we think Ned Lamont did an admirable job is deflecting the zaniness of Stephen Colbert.