Saturday, February 11, 2006

'Congress has lost its way'

In a prepared speech advanced to RAW STORY, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) sears President Bush -- and Congress -- on the Senate floor over Bush's warrantless wiretap domestic spying program.

Feingold's speech, in its entirety, follows:


...the President is not a king, and no one is above the law.

I yield the floor.
-Russ Feingold

Friday, February 10, 2006

M8: The Lagoon Nebula

send lieberman packing in the primary!

while you are at it, give a little to his counterpart in the democratic house delegation. you don't have to give through atrios, but for me it is a favorite portal through which to chortal.

chort

chort

why, yes i am aware of that one hand clapping in the forest. thank you, for pointing that out.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Information Retrieval

WASHINGTON -- Republicans easily defeated three resolutions seeking information about the Bush administration's policies on torture after a heated committee hearing.

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said Democrats who submitted the resolutions should "at least silently confess to themselves that their actions pose real dangers to our country."

"INTERVIEWER:
Mr. HELPMANN, what would you say to
those critics who maintain that the
Ministry Of Information has become
too large and unwieldy ...?

HELPMANN:
David ... in a free society
information is the name of the game.
You can't win the game if you're a
man short."

Judges Who Maintain the Appearance of Propriety

by covering up illegal behavior and through reliance on the honor system. No wonder Abu Gonzales simply repeats over and over, just trust us.

Everyone in a position of power sufficient to wield any check whatsoever on W's use of government authority has, for years, abdicated that role. It's gone on for a sufficient period under the veil of propaganda and jingoistic apologies of national security that such malfeasance has begun to look like statesmanship to the sheepish dolts who elect these people or honor them with judgeships.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Faf

WORLD NEWS

Report: Iran Working on Nuclear Weapons
Using enriched uranium obtained from Niger, says Curveball.

Stealth Presidentin'

It's actually pretty amazing. President Bush took pretty much his entire Social Security phase-out plan from last year and put it into next year's budget without telling anyone. I guess I'd be ashamed to admit to my idea too, if I couldn't even convince my own party to schedule a vote on it.

Maybe he slipped it into the budget thinking people would consider it fantasy, like the rest of the bullshit the same document contains.

Has anyone carefully checked the budget for Mars Flights?

The Rude Pundit Says John McCain is a Racist

"The racial politics are impossible to avoid on this. Would McCain have done the same with Joe Biden? With Hillary Clinton (who, let us remember, is also still in her first term in the Senate)? Of course not. He'd've taken them aside, clarified, tried to put aside any bitterness. But Obama's the star, man, charismatic, more fuckable than any other big ass sittin' in that chamber (sorry, Rick Santorum), the very real contender for the vice-presidency now, and he's a real moderate, too. It's fuckin' scary for the GOP. So it must be demonstrated that he is just another nigger, the "boy," if you will, and that he must be put in his place. He's a selfish Sambo, McCain is saying by the end of his letter (which was written in response to a "thank you" note from Obama), questioning Obama's motives for even being in the Senate: "I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn't always a priority for every one of us."

Obama's reaction letter to McCain's spittle-ridden bit of enragement (the penning of which surely caused the Arizona Senator's first full erection since his last syphilitic Saigon whore) is so classy, so mutedly firm and resolute, that if any in the media, like, say, Chris Matthews, brought it up, it'd take the glow off McCain's red, shiny head. It'd also put the ethics scandal clearly back in the Republicans' court, despite the GOP's best efforts to bob and weave and deceive."

Insightful Commentary on the Cartoon Wars

Lieberman Knifes Obama

Per Holy Joe: "Obama probably wishes he were a little clearer".

Time for a primary challenge to this albatross around the Democrats necks. Joementum must go. He made his choice.

Tuttle

Not Buttle.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

WORST PRESIDENT EVER

There are roughly 25 million people in Iraq.
Yesterday, the cost for invading and occupying Iraq raced past the $300 billion mark.

Per capita costs in Iraq from America's efforts $12,000.00.

This doesn't include wounded and dead Americans, wounded and dead Iraqis, shattered families, ill will, and future "blowback".

$12,000 per person -- in a nation where per capita income is about $2,000 and most people live realistically at about $500 a year.


we could have skipped it all and written every one of the Iraqiis a check for $12,000 each! six years of per capita income, each. it just goes to show you the bush administration can't function unless the only goal is private, personal wealth aggrandizement. The Iraqiis would have boiled saddam alive and eaten him for lunch for that kind of money if we would have pushed it into the right bank accounts. instead, we broke it, so we bought it, but now we can't afford the continuing cost of what Bush wants to do in iraq. Who profited? Not the Iraqiis. Not the American Taxpayer. Who?

next up iran. no choice now. only one way out for the fueher. more war. he must quickly subdue iran as the catalyst for the insurgency in iraq, but this is entirely unrealistic. Bush will probably use the new "little nukes" he commisioned shortly after 9/11. i seriously hope i am wrong, but the same manipulation of the media and the public discourse has already begun as was the case for war with Iraq in 2002. Suddenly the assessment of iranian nuclear weapons capability in a decade from now has become an immediate threat.

Then there is this theory: Petrodollar Warfare

The Obvious Problem with Democrat-speak

The language of losers is spoken by losers. Until someone has the confidence to assume the sale all we get are platitudes like Gov. Tom Allsack and Hillary's Triangulatin'.

Not U.S. Corruption; Evildoers' Corruption

U.S. defense secretary says corruption hurting Iraqi efforts toward democracy

Rumsfeld faced criticism from one committee member who said the $439.3 billion (euro366.9 billion) defense budget for 2007 proposed by President George W. Bush on Monday is irresponsible because it doesn't reflect the billions of dollars that will be spent on Iraq and Afghanistan.
...
Bush proposed an initial payment of $50 billion (euro41.8 billion) for those wars next year, compared with $120 billion (euro100.2 billion) the administration says will be needed this year.

But at least we are not corrupt here in the U.S. Those are billions of untainted noncorrupt money that we borrowed because occupying Iraq is really, really important. And not because it enriches anyone involved in corruption. No, sir. Could we be corrupt? Of Course. Are we? Well, not by a long shot, Mister.

Time's Other Plame Reporter

Journalistic Differences

"Not Insignificant"

Each day Adam Gordon drives from his St. Paul home to his daughter's school or his Bloomington job, a small device underneath the dashboard of his Acura Integra tracks his every move.
The gadget, which is smaller than a deck of cards, records when, how fast and how far he drives. His wife, Meghan, does the same with her car.
If the Gordons drive at consistent levels without incident, they can save up to 20 percent on their auto insurance with the Progressive Group. They pay $676 every six months to insure two 6-year-old cars, down from $799.
"It works," Adam Gordon, 42, said. "We've realized a 15 to 20 percent discount from what we were paying before, and that's not insignificant."

KOA

Monday, February 06, 2006

Vast New Detention Camps

justice, we don't need no justice; we don't need no stinking justice


Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) is a bold man.

When politicians all around him were losing their heads, refunding and donating Jack Abramoff’s money
as fast as they could, Doolittle stood strong and refused to bow to political expediency. And in a recent interview, he pretty much dared the Justice Department to come after him: “Investigate me.”

Sunday, February 05, 2006

radiate energy