GOP Out Cold

You never would have seen this if DeLay was still majority leader:

Legislation to fund many of the nation's health, education and social programs went down to a startling defeat in the House Thursday, led by Democrats who said cuts in the bill hurt some of America's neediest people.

The 224-209 vote against the $142.5 billion spending bill disrupted plans by Republican leaders to finish up work on this year's spending bills and cast doubt on whether they would have the votes to pass a major budget-cutting bill also on the day's agenda.

Among the more important proposed cuts were medicare and education, exactly what you would expect out of Republicans who would rather subsidize the oil industry. Today is a good day.

Link.

PS - Trying to get used to night blogging because lately I haven't had the chance to blog during the day.

I Didn't Do It!

Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was duped as well, and now thinks

a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for
war or to go and take military action

Except that's the worst mea culpa I've ever seen. In reality, two members of Congress were allowed to see all of the same intelligence as the Bush administration, and Roberts, as head of the Intelligence Committee, was one of them.

If you pay close attention to the quote it isn't even an apology or an "I can do better." It's more of an "It'll be a lot harder to go to war now than it was before." Damn those pesky Democrats! Drat, drat and double drat!

link.

Press the Meat

Dean and Mehlman on today, I'll post a link if C&L puts the clips up.

Mehlman's full of his usual - in response to a question about the justification for the war in Iraq when we now know the intelligence was false, his response was 9/11 and we need to be on the offensive. Um... yeah.

Dean did a lot better as usual, his main talking point was honesty, and at least he had the courage to denounce wrong doing in both parties.

Pumpkin head wasn't too bad today.

Update: Brad Blog has the video.

Update: My favorite part was when Mehlman said Katrina demonstrated the failure of the welfare state. Welfare state? WTF is this guy, a McCarthy throwback from the 40s?

Lieberman Hearts Torture

Just like the Republican bastard he is.

"A foreign national who is captured and determined to be an enemy combatant in the world war on terrorism has no more right to a habeas corpus appeal to our courts than did a captured soldier of the Axis powers during World War II," Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, said in a statement.

The problem lies around the definition of enemy combatant. That's something this administration is doling out like a pedophile with a bag of candy. If the Democratic party wants to move forward, it needs to purge itself of people who have reactionary values and who will sell out America for their own advancement.

Time to go, Joe.

Link.

Fuckwit

Bush:

sharply criticized Democrats who have accused him of misleading the nation about the threat from Iraq's weapons programs, calling their criticism "deeply irresponsible" and suggesting that they are undermining the war effort.

Wanna know what really undermines the war effort? Lying to the world. Not properly equipping your soldiers. Not having a plan of action. Not having a sense of reality. And most of all, melting the skin off of children with white phosphorus. That's what undermines a war effort, you stupid fuck.

The New War on Terror

Is now the war to melt skin off of children.

I'm not making this up. Be prepared to be sick and not sleep well tonight.

I shouldn't have to say what I think of the people who brought us this war and conducted it in this matter. Even if I did, it wouldn't do them justice. I don't know what would.

Election Day

A good day for governors, a bad day for redistricting.

To all the Democrats who argued that the CA redistricting measure was bad because Democrats would lose a few seats in the house, please pay careful attention to the next instruction: get your heads out of Joe Lieberman's ass.

The entire point of redistricting is to put the country above partisanship - the same thing we are always attacking the GOP for - not to take a short term gain to fulfill political opportunism. It's an easy situation in which we can take the moral high ground and actually stand for something - an opportunity that we should be making good use of - so why look a gift horse in the mouth?

Furthermore, how many of you are for redistricting in OH but not in CA? That's grade A hypocrisy, which is a very bad thing. The end goal is to work to better the country, not the Democratic party. If the two are aligned then we're doing things correctly, i they're not then we're in serious trouble.

Scalito

Last week in my post on why Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination, I laid out two possible causes: the lack of moderate Republican support and the lack of wingnut Republican support. I said that the character of the new nominee would reflect which one of the above two had greater weight.

Bush nominated Scalito, a Scalia clone. The fundies are fine with Scalito, and from his record it seems that he is a-ok with them. This lends more support to the wingnut theory. However, the more I think about it the more I cannot help but wonder if Scalito was really nominated to appease the crazies. From what we know about Bush he does not give a damn about anything or anyone but himself. I do not think the Scalito nomination represents an utter capitulation to the crazy right; it is merely the latest in a long line of Bush crony nominations and appointments.

Bush nominated Scalito because he feels the most comfortable with Scalito and that Scalito will represent Bush's views on the SC. That is it, nothing more. If Bush's views happen to be more in line with the fundies than the moderates, then he will nominate someone is more in line with the fundies. But it is important to note that the alignment with the fundies is second-hand. Scalito is first and foremost aligned with Bush.

In light of this, Bush is serving nobody but himself. America and even the GOP take second place to his own ego. He loves to label anyone who disagrees with him as a judicial activist. Had he read any polls lately he would realize that he is the one out of touch with mainstream judicial philosophy. Of course that would require him to give a damn. About reading. The SC judge most likely to overturn precedent? Bush's favorite, Clarence Thomas. How does that sit with you for judicial activism?

No matter what the reasons for this appointment, Scalito must be opposed with full force. Bush can whine like the little baby he is, but it is 80 years too late for Scalito to be considered in the mainstream.

Iraq Intelligence Fabricated

It's incredible how much better the NYT's reporting has got since Miller was removed from the beat:

A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

Isn't Monday morning quarterbacking nice when you don't feel the consequences?

Frist is Owned

Going to be short and sweet, but check out Reid on the front page of the WaPo.

"I will crush the GOP with my bare hands."

The Jesus/halo thing is a nice touch too.