I do not think that word means what you think it means:
Israel announced plans Monday for 1,400 new homes on land the Palestinians claim for a future state -- just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended a peacekeeping mission to the region.She's quickly earning the worst secretary of state ever title.
More Bushco, more corruption (WSJ, subscription required):
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson is expected to announce his resignation Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, a decision that will deal a blow to the Bush administration's efforts to tackle the housing crisis.Get out and get your pardons while you still can.The exact reasons for Mr. Jackson's decision couldn't be learned. Earlier this month, two Democratic senators, Patty Murray of Washington and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, sent a letter to President Bush urging him to request Mr. Jackson's resignation, arguing that accusations of wrongdoing had made him ineffective.
The dollar is likely to remain under pressure for the next few months at least, but its weakness is not inconsistent with the Bush administration's strong dollar policy, former U.S. Treasury undersecretary Tim Adams said on Monday.Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?"A strong dollar policy is a pledge by the United States not to use the dollar as a tool to gain competitive advantage in global markets. So it's not inconsistent," Adams, who was the Treasury's top international official until last summer, told a conference in Hong Kong.
Condi.
Think Progress snarks:
Perhaps one casualty of the Iraq war has been the conservative belief in personal responsibilityThat would be insightful if Bushco had any to begin with.
Dean is on it.
At this point, the only remaining question is how ugly the Clinton campaign is willing to get. By all indications, pretty ugly.
Thousands of supporters of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched in Baghdad on Thursday to protest against a three-day-old crackdown against his followers and call for the downfall of the U.S.-backed government.Mass demonstrations were held in the Sadr City, Kadhimiya and Shula districts. An Interior Ministry source said hundreds of thousands had taken to the streets.
"We demand the downfall of the Maliki government. It does not represent the people. It represents Bush and Cheney," said Sadr City resident Hussein Abu Ali.
Continuing the U.S. occupation of Iraq is not a good idea, precisely because the Iraqis want to govern themselves, even if at times not in our image.
Link.Oh yeah, that war.
The Bush administration hailed an Iraqi offensive against Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra as a ``bold decision'' that shows the country's security forces are capable of combating terrorists.At least 40 people were killed and 200 wounded in two days of fighting between fighters loyal to Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi troops, the Associated Press reported, as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki pledged to restore security in the southern oil hub. The clashes continued today in five Basra neighborhoods, Agence France-Presse said. Separately, 14 people were killed and 140 were wounded in fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City, Sky News said, citing Reuters.
``This is what we have been wanting to see the Iraqis do,'' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters in Washington yesterday. ``This is one of the first times that they've had such an entrenched battle and we'll be there to support them if they need it.''
Fighting bad guys, yeah!!!
I'm sure when the country is embroiled in death and destruction we'll be greeted with another "nobody could have predicted..."Al-Sadr threatened to instigate protests nationwide if the raids by Iraqi forces weren't stopped. ``If the government does not respect these demands, the next step will be civil protests in Baghdad and the provinces,'' his spokesman Hazam al-Aaraji said yesterday, reading a statement from the cleric at a news conference in Najaf aired on state television.
Fighting spread late yesterday to Sadr City in eastern Baghdad and Kut and Hilla, south of the capital, AFP said, citing unidentified security officials.
Basra has been plagued by the smuggling of ``oil and its derivatives, weapons, drugs and other prohibited materials,'' al- Maliki said yesterday in a statement carried by state television. The government ``is firmly resolved to restore security and stability and to impose law.''I'm sure Cheney's recent visit and focus on the oil law had absolutely nothing to do with this.
Hillary.
There is no one person more responsible for the current depression than Alan Greenspan. And after it all fell to pieces, he had the gall to tell us "nobody could have predicted it." Bullshit. We did. That's just more of the same line we've heard time and time again since this administration took office.
The money quote is hilarious.
David Brooks writes a column. I can't believe I'm linking to it, but I am.
Read on.
Defying federal regulators, Fox Television said today it won't pay a $91,000 indecency fine levied recently by the Federal Communications Commission for a 2003 episode of a reality television show that featured strippers and whipped cream.This is not, by any means, an endorsement of indecency laws (I think they're silly); I wanted to highlight the brazen hypocrisy that is FOX.
Fox said in a prepared statement that it won't pay the fine imposed against five of its stations because it believes the FCC's decision that the show in question was indecent was "arbitrary and capricious, inconsistent with precedent, and patently unconstitutional."
Instead of fighting this war, we could be fighting for the people of West Virginia. For what folks in this state have been spending on the Iraq war, we could be giving health care to nearly 450,000 of your neighbors, hiring nearly 30,000 new elementary school teachers, and making college more affordable for over 300,000 students. We could be fighting to put the American dream within reach for every American – by giving tax breaks to working families, offering relief to struggling homeowners, reversing President Bush's cuts to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and protecting Social Security today, tomorrow, and forever. That's what we could be doing instead of fighting this war.
We have a winner. Bowers:
This is the message that is both the winner for 2008, and for a long-term progressive mandate for sweeping change in governance:More than 7 out of 10 Americans think government spending on the war in Iraq is partly responsible for the economic troubles in the United States, according to results of a recent poll.In the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last weekend, 71 percent said they think U.S. spending in Iraq is a reason for the nation's poor economy. Twenty-eight percent said they didn't think so.
What happened to Jim Webb?
A conference to reconcile Iraq's rival political parties fell apart almost as soon as it began on Tuesday, with influential Sunni and Shi'ite blocs pulling out in protest.Impressive as ever. Bush is optimistic - who could have predicted?Hundreds of politicians gathered for the conference a day after U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, on a visit marking the fifth anniversary of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, hailed what he called "phenomenal" political and security improvements.
The war has cost the United States $500 billion since it began. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and millions displaced. Almost 4,000 U.S. soldiers have also been killed in the war, a major issue in November's U.S. presidential election.
Read the transcript here.
This guy is bright, articulate and passionate and compassionate. These are exactly the qualities we need in a President.
When was the last time John McCain or Hillary Clinton got out in front of the country and made a thoughtful and inspiring speech?
...
More like this, please.
Bear Stearns, whose market cap is ~$4 billion (a year ago it was closer to ~$100 bn), has agreed to be acquired for $2 / share, or $236 million. This means they're basically worth nothing, or to be more specific, not that they're worth nothing - their building in downtown NY is worth over a billion - but that they've got so much shit on their books that their value is negative.
I'm sure Bush sees a strong economy in the works.
Sit back, relax and enjoy the ride!
I love how whenever Bush doesn't like something Dems do, he accuses them of playing politics. Like he never does.
After Philadelphia's housing director refused a demand by President Bush's housing secretary to transfer a piece of city property to a business friend, two top political appointees at the department exchanged e-mails discussing the pain they could cause the Philadelphia director. "Would you like me to make his life less happy? If so, how?" Orlando J. Cabrera, then-assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wrote about Philadelphia housing director Carl R. Greene. "Take away all of his Federal dollars?" responded Kim Kendrick, an assistant secretary who oversaw ac
cessible housing. She typed symbols for a smiley-face, ":-D," at the end of her January 2007 note.
Cabrera wrote back a few minutes later: "Let me look into that possibility."
>:o
At least 44 people were killed in violence across Iraq on Tuesday, including 16 in a bomb attack on a bus, as US and Iraqi officials began talks on the US military's future role in the country.A fine mess he's created.The day's bloodiest attack was on a bus travelling from the port of Basra to Nasiriyah when it was struck by a bomb, some 430 kilometers (265 miles) south of Baghdad, Nasiriyah police Lieutenant Colonel Ali Siwan said.
At least 16 people were killed and 22 wounded, he said.
Separately, eight people were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a checkpoint manned by Iraqi soldiers and members of a local group fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq, police said.
The Fed is in panic mode and has been for the past six months.
Oh no, liquidity is drying up! QUICK! THROW MORE MONEY AT IT!!!
Except lowering rates and passing out more money isn't going to fix anything. The loss of liquidity isn't the cause of all the pain we're feeling, it's a symptom. An estimated $200+ billion is going to be lost, not because of liquidity, but because that value was built on top of highly levered investments that turned out to be crap. Once you yank out that last bottom Jenga piece, everything's going to come crashing down, no matter how hard you blow on it.
A very harmful side effect of continuing to lower rates is inflation, which has noticeably creeped up in food and energy prices - two things consumers can't stop consuming.
The Fed needs to start acting like an adult and stop dealing more drugs to the financial community. They're junkies who need to kick the habit.
Hillary and Bill Clinton have been talking up the idea that Barack Obama, whom they have called too inexperienced to be president, would make a strong running mate on a ticket headed by the New York senator.I don't think so, especially not after you've trash talked him for the past couple months and he still stands a better chance of winning the nomination.
Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.
“It’s just not fair,” said Denise Jawidzik, the business administrator in nearby Jamesburg, where officials have joined with their counterparts in Helmetta to call on Trenton to reconsider the cuts. “People are getting punished just because of where they live.”While I'm not unsympathetic to this kind of plight, I think it's as myopic as not. For a long time now, at least since the mass adoption of the automobile, people living in rural and suburban areas have never realized the true cost of where they decide to live.
McCain and I are experienced and tough. Obama is inexperienced and weak.
It's enough of a neocon lovefest that I think Michael O'Hanlon swooned on the spot.
Hillary Clinton's attacks on Barack Obama's lack of foreign policy experience provide a model for how Republicans could run against Obama if he becomes the Democratic candidate for U.S. president.Way to go, Hillary.
Clinton's attacks, which helped her win Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island on Tuesday in the state-by-state battle for the party nomination, exposed a vulnerability for Obama, who has served only three years in the Senate representing Illinois.
John McCain, who wrapped up the Republican nomination for the November election, is already highlighting his seasoning on national security and would likely assert that Obama is not tough enough to keep America safe.
This was a tactic fellow Republican George W. Bush used in his 2004 re-election campaign against Democrat John Kerry.
I'm usually way off on these things, but here goes:
TX - Obama by 2%
OH - Clinton by 5%
No clue as to the resulting delegate counts.
Following up on yesterday's link to the Vanity Fair article,
Israeli aircraft sent missiles crashing into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, pressing an offensive against Palestinian rocket squads even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the region to try to rescue peace talks from the latest outbreak of violence.Because Condi's the awesome at everything she touches. She's a miracle worker!Ms. Rice hoped in a meeting later Tuesday to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiations he cut off on Sunday after more than 120 Gazans were killed in an Israeli operation against militants who bombard southern Israel with rocket and mortar fire. Although Mr. Abbas has had little power over the coastal area of 1.4 million people since Hamas seized control in June, the high death toll, which included dozens of civilians, made it difficult for him to continue the talks.
Children are smarter than this:
After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.
