The World Is Going Gay

First Canada, now Spain.

Looks like we've got a new axis of evil on the way.

Frog Marching Time

Time will hand over the documents. The real question is was it Rove or Scooter?

As for Judith the queen of all fucking Iraq Miller, she can rot in a jail cell.

Link.

Hypocrites

Was just watching the floor vote on the Boxer amendment to prevent the EPA from testing pesticides on human beings, infants and pregnant women, and all the usuals (conservatives) were voting against it.

Let me make this clear. If you voted against stem cell research, which most of these people did, you have absolutely no basis and justification for voting to preserve the right to harm people and fetuses (since they only matter as long as they're unborn).

Torture Lovin' Good

If the U.S. really hated torture, it wouldn't promote those who oversaw it.

Link.

Armageddon

Canada has legalized gay marriage. Of course this means that next we'll have man-on-dog, the breakdown of society and finally the end of the world as we know it.

But until then, enjoy. It's nice to see that a country respects freedom and equality :)

Fake Applause

This is too good; all the more so because it's from FOX.

Out of Touch, Out of Mind

For those of you who didn't catch the Bush speech, it was quite unsurprising.

It was the same litany of 9/11, war on terror, spreading freedom, yawn and helping Iraq.

My favorite bit was when Bush said that some Americans had asked him why doesn't he send more troops, and his response was that he'll send them if his generals ask him to send them. The man clearly doesn't speak to his generals.

On the whole, pretty boring and fantasy based.

Doublemint Gum

Double your pleasure, double your fun.

Today we've got both a discussion of the DSM on the House floor as well as a speech by Bush (in which he tries to tell us Iraq is/has not gone to hell in a handbasket.

Should be fun.

Frog March

The Supreme Court has rejected Cooper and Miller's appeal, which means Fitzgerald can get them to testify, which means that Rove will be frog marched out of the White House.

heehee.

The Violence Continues

From the NYT:

A suicide bomber with explosives hidden beneath watermelons in a pickup truck slammed into a police station near a market Sunday in Mosul, the first of three bombings that killed at least 33 people and wounded 19 in the northwestern city.

Attacks elsewhere killed at least five other people in Iraq, including a roadside bomb that killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two others in central Baghdad.

Thanks, George!

Shut Up!

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KissasS) has decided that doing anything for the Democrats or the rule of law is inconvenient or just plain bad.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Friday that it would be a mistake for the White House to bend further to Democratic demands related to John R. Bolton's handling of intelligence material.

Yes. Dance Democrats, dance for me, you fools! We'll redefine all the rules while we're at it. Waltz me a waltz of uselessness!

The White House offered one major concession on Monday, when it signaled that it would be willing to provide Senate Democrats with information related to disputed testimony that Mr. Bolton had prepared on Syria in 2003.

Since when can cooperating with the rules of the Senate be characterized as a concession? The White House is obligated to provide the Senate with all the information that it requests. It's not like it's doing the Democrats a favor, it's only doing it's job. Remember folks, if they're being secretive about something it's because there's something there they don't want you to see. Like John Bolton eats babies.

?

I still don't understand how both sides are claiming a victory here. Maybe it's poor reporting, but a victory for Bush's changes to the Clean Air Act does not mean a victory for us.

Can someone explain?

Link.

Lie Bush Lie

Let's nail Bush on this the next time he publicly says that the insurgency is on its last legs.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, said that more foreign fighters were coming into Iraq and that the insurgency's "overall strength is about the same" as it was six months ago. "There's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency," he added.

And that's all I got to say about that.

Link.

Rovism

Get angry.

The Moderate Voice, Hunter, Atrios and John Kerry respond.

I Heart the Daily Show

Watch Colbert's investigative report as well as Jon's interview with Dean at Dembloggers.

Not "The" Economy, "Your" Economy

First read this. Sounds crazy?

Now read this.

Whoa

I wonder what this means for Manhattanville.

Exit Strategy

It's a slow day, so I'm just going to link over to a kos article on Juan Cole's exit strategy.

Rumor has it that Rehnquist has submitted his resignation and that it will be made public at the end of the week, we'll just have to wait and see.

The Power of Will

I think Bush might secretly be a scientologist.

President Bush, opening a two-week effort to defend his Iraq policy, told visiting European leaders on Monday that his strategy for ending the insurgency and stabilizing the country "is going to work."

In an aside after the press conference, Bush also added that his new device to instantly change a cow into cheeseburgers "is going to work."

Boltin' on Bolton

We managed to avoid another cloture vote on Bolton yesterday, but we still face the possibility of a recess appointment by Bush. The other disturbing bit is the three Democrats who broke ranks to vote with the Republicans in the 54-38 count. These were Sens. Landrieu (LA), Pryor (AR) and Nelson (NE). These are three of the more prominent members who were the architects of the judicial compromise last month. The Democratic party cannot let these members hijack the party for an ever changing center; the party needs to take a stand and show solidarity and strength.

Props to Sen. Voinovich (R-OH) for voting against cloture.

Oh No

Oh yes.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is keeping open the possibility that President Bush will bypass the Senate to get John R. Bolton installed as U.N. ambassador temporarily if Democrats persist in holding up a confirmation vote.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan did not rule out that Bush would consider a recess appointment if the Senate does not approve Bolton's nomination. He blamed the Democrats for ''obstructing progress'' by stalling a vote on Bolton.

Obstructing Bush's plan is more like obstructing regression, but either way this is so sad. Time for Democrats to get a backbone and raise hell.

Link.

Pop Quiz

It's time to play guess which one is the insurgency! I'll post two passages below and you guess which one describes the insurgents! Bonus points to whoever can figure out who the other one is about!

A.

that they had been tortured with shocks and flogged with a strip of rubber for more than two weeks, unseen behind the windows of black glass. One of them, Ahmed Isa Fathil, 19, a former member of the new Iraqi Army, said he had been held and tortured there for 22 days. All the while, he said, his face was almost entirely taped over and his hands were cuffed.

In an interview with an embedded reporter just hours after he was freed, he said he had never seen the faces of his captors, who occasionally whispered at him, "We will kill you." He said they did not question him, and he did not know what they wanted. Nor did he ever expect to be released.

B.

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

For those of you who guessed A, you're correct. For those of you who guessed the U.S. (or America counts too) for bonus, you get the grand prize. Knowing that the media is full of shit and heaping the blame on those abroad while ignoring the bad guys at home.

A.
B.

@#$*&#{!!!

Too angry to comment.

Link.

Your Bankruptcy Bill at Work

There was a motion to pass an amendment to the recently passed bankruptcy bill that would have provided protection for those who were victims of identity theft. Republicans derided and defeated the amendment because the chance of that happening were next to nothing.

Conyers Kicks Ass

Yesterday's hearing was full of deep fried oreo awesomeness, as there were several remarks regarding impeaching Bush for high crimes against the country. Of course the MSM (monolithic stupid media) covered it poorly, but Conyers has already fired back at them.

Read on.

(if you missed yesterday's hearing you can catch it at cspan.org as well as summaries and transcripts at bradblog and rawstory)

Conyers Hearing

Live now, C-Span 3.

Wilson and Sheehan have already spoken, McGovern is up now. Looks like a lot of GOP ass is going to be kicked, I only hope the press (many of whom are in the room) take note.

Medicaid Wheezing

How much longer does it have to live?

The National Governors Association offered sweeping bipartisan proposals on Wednesday to rein in the growth of Medicaid, saying states should be allowed to charge higher co-payments to beneficiaries and should be entitled to larger discounts from drug companies and pharmacies.

Read the gory details here.

The Black List

It's been whittled down, and Frist should still be on it as an honorary racist.

List.

Frist Loves Lynching

Anyone surprised?

Link.

Dean Speaks For Me

Sign up.

Read more about it here.

Up or Down

This is bullshit.

Here's the critique.

Here's a list of the likely suspects.

We Want You As A New Recruit

I'm not much for stories that are about one person who doesn't echo in the national sense, but by all means you should read this and then get ready to feel sick.

Nothing To See Folks, Move Along

From the NYT,

"There's nothing farther from the truth," Mr. Bush said in his first public comments about the so-called Downing Street memo, which has created anger among the administration's critics who see it as evidence that the president was intent to go to war with Iraq earlier than the White House has said.

"Look, both of us didn't want to use our military," Mr. Bush added. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Mr. Blair, standing at Mr. Bush's side in a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House, said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all."

Personally I think the horse cock joke was funnier, but I'll let George have his way on this one. If you're still unclear about the Downing Street Memo, which provides a hellishly damning account of Bush and Blair's desires to fix intelligence about Iraq in order to go to war, you should read it. But hey, none of that really matters since whatever Buddy Boy says is true. I'm just waiting for a right wing blog (like... I don't know, maybe Powerline, I just pulled that out of thin air) to come out and echo Bush's assertion that everything in the memo is undeniably false and that it was a Democratic plant in order to wage partisan politics. Because that's never happened before and Powerline is always correct.

Corruption That's Hotter than Global Warming

Just check this article out.

Isn't this the saddest but least surprising story you've ever heard? Like this example:

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

There's nothing subtle about the word fundamental. This just goes to show how tame the media has become in condoning deceit. The man is fundamentally contradicting hard evidence gathered and worked on by scientists. Did that use of fundamental strike anyone as subtle?

Yet what's even worse is that the article manages to high-handedly gloss over the most damning part about the story.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

In what sane world would an oil lobbyist be a good candidate for the chief of staff for anything dealing with environmental quality? It's not just the Boltons and the Gonzaleses of the world we need to be worried about, although as controversial as they are they seem to get appointed anyway, it's every possible position. Why have we never heard of this guy before now? Why is the Times content to let it go at that? I think we can trust Cooney on environmental issues as much as we can trust Wimpy when he promises to pay you on Tuesday.

Hypocrisy

Today I was thinking about why I hate hypocrisy. We all hate it, no one will stand up in support for it, but do we really know why we hate it?

I think it comes down to a matter of trust. All human relationships are built on a modicum of trust on one level or another, and when someone says something and then does something that contradicts that, we wind up not being able to trust that person. That violation of trust then leads to a sense of betrayal and that the other person does not have integrity. This can very much destroy people's respect for other people.

Politicians, take note.

Moral Majority Hypocrisy

One of the things that stood out at me while I was driving down south through the Smokies was the incredible number of billboards for porn. These were in very conservative areas and it really struck me as odd. Why would these areas that tout holier than thou morals be shilling for porn? Just struck me as yet another hypocrisy of the Republican party.