Budgets Imperil Environmental Satellites

By MATT CRENSON AP National Writer

Mar 6, 2006 (AP)— Budget cuts and poor management may be jeopardizing the future of our eyes in orbit America's fleet of environmental satellites, vital tools for forecasting hurricanes, protecting water supplies and predicting global warming.

"The system of environmental satellites is at risk of collapse," said Richard A. Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. "Every year that goes by without the system being addressed is a problem."

Drain America First

Joseph E. Stiglitz

March 10, 2006

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics at Columbia University and was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to President Clinton and Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at the World Bank.

One of the more surreal sessions at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos had oil industry experts explaining how the melting of the polar ice cap—which is occurring faster than anyone anticipated—represents not only a problem, but also an opportunity: vast amounts of oil may now be accessible.

Similarly, these experts concede that the fact that the United States has not signed the Law of the Sea, the international convention determining who has access to offshore oil and other maritime mineral rights, presents a risk of international conflict. But they also point to the upside: the oil industry, in its never-ending search for more reserves, need not beg Congress for the right to despoil Alaska.

The coming crack up in the Christian Right: Fact or fiction?

Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson calls for civil debate after being attacked by evangelical brethren

Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson was recently roughed up for supporting legislation that some on the right have charged is too "gay-friendly." When more than 80 highly respected evangelical leaders signed onto the Evangelical Climate Initiative -- a campaign recognizing that global warming is a serious threat to the planet -- they were blasted for cavorting with the enemy. And even the Rev. Pat Robertson -- once considered untouchable by his Christian right colleagues -- has gotten cuffed around by former close associates over a string of controversial commentaries he's made over the past several months.

Is the Christian conservative movement heading for a crack up? Or, are right-wing watchers making much ado about much too little?

Employers Sharply Criticize Shift in Unionizing Method to Cards From Elections

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: March 11, 2006

Above the photographs of Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il of North Korea and an American union president, the full-page advertisement contains a provocative quotation: "There is no reason to subject the workers to an election."

Below the photographs, the advertisement asks, "Who said it?"

Digby: Trash Talk Turkey

Atrios excerpts a few paragraphs from Paul Krugman's delectable "I told you so" column from today and I thought I'd excerpt a few more paragraphs for those of you who don't have Times select. I chose these in honor of tristero:

Never mind; better late than never. We should welcome the recent epiphanies by conservative commentators who have finally realized that the Bush administration isn't trustworthy. But we should guard against a conventional wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there's something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush's deceptions, even though the administration's mendacity was obvious from the beginning.

Digby: Eunuch's Panic

"While I don't dispute the fact that we have challenges in the current environment politically, I also believe 2006 as a choice election offers Republicans an opportunity if we make sure the election is framed in a way that will keep our majorities in the House and the Senate," said Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Stung by criticism, senior officials at the White House and the RNC are reminding GOP members of Congress that Bush's approval ratings may be low, but theirs is lower and have declined at the same pace as Bush's. The message to GOP lawmakers is that criticizing the president weakens him -- and them -- politically.

Tomgram: Weaponizing the Shark and Other Pentagon Dreams

Shark and Awe
From the Annals of Full-Spectrum Dominance
By Tom Engelhardt

We already have "stealth" aircraft, but what about a little of the stealth that only nature can provide?

Navy Seals, move over -- here come the Navy sharks. According to the latest New Scientist magazine, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, the blue-sky wing of the Pentagon, has set yet another group of American scientists loose to create the basis for future red-in-tooth-and-maw Discovery Channel programs. In this case, they are planning to put neural implants into the brains of sharks in hopes, one day, of "controlling the animal's movements, and perhaps even decoding what it is feeling." In their dreams at least, DARPA'S far-out funders hope to "exploit sharks' natural ability to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails. By remotely guiding the sharks' movements, they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted."

Michael Kinsley: M1 and Me

An exclusive excerpt from Alan Greenspan's $8.5 million memoir.

Posted Friday, March 10, 2006, at 6:09 AM ET

(Editor's note: Penguin Press is reportedly paying $8.5 million for the memoirs of former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan. During 18 years at the Fed, until his retirement in January, Greenspan captivated Washington and the world with his pronouncements about the economy, delivered in a style that came to be known as "oracular obscurity." According to the Yale literary critic Harold Bloom—no mean practitioner himself, according to some observers—"Oracular obscurity combines the spoken traditions of Homer and Shakespeare with the writing style of postwar French pomposité grandiloquente and just a dash of Latin American magic realism to produce and entirely new phenomenon that has reinvented congressional testimony as a literary genre." But experts say it is not clear how well the oracular-obscurist style will adapt itself to the genre of autobiography. The book is due to be published in September of next year. According to publishing industry sources, Greenspan's working title is Considerations. The publisher's working title is, Is Your Money Supply Expanding, or Are You Just Happy To See Me? This column has obtained an early sample of the contents.)

Forbes reports billionaire boom

A worldwide economic boom has yielded a record number of dollar billionaires in the past year, according to Forbes.

Their number rose by 15% to 793 with India taking the lead in Asia and new Russians lining up to fill the gap left by jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Microsoft's Bill Gates tops the list for the 12th year running, with a net worth of $50bn (£29bn).

Retired Supreme Court Justice hits attacks on courts and warns of dictatorship

RAW STORY
Published: March 10, 2006

Via NPR. Rush transcript by RAW STORY. Listen to the audio report here.

Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day O’Connor no longer faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenge the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. O’Connor’s speech at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast but NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there.

Dobson site denies lobbying Norton for Abramoff

RAW STORY

Published: March 10, 2006

In a message posted on his Focus on the Family website, Dr. James Dobson's group has denied lobbying outgoing Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton on behalf of fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"There is no connection," Dobson's site says flatly.

However, in already public e-mails and letters sent in early 2002 between former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed and Abramoff, Reed insists that he has secured Dobson's support for Abramoff's gaming interest clients in Louisiana, in opposition of allowing competing tribes to expand the state's access to legal gambling.

Americablog: Are the NYT and Adam Nagourney running a hit piece on liberal blogs?

by John in DC - 3/09/2006 10:11:00 AM

Sounds like it from what we're hearing.

You'll recall that Adam has run a slew of pieces pointing out how the Democratic party is a mess, and our sources tell us that he's now working on a similar piece about the blogs, and his intent is to paint us as crazy, lefty, wingnuts.

Now, first off, Nagourney has a bit of a conflict I hope he plans to disclose in any such article. He's been the target of a parody blog for over a year now - it's called Ad Nags and can be found here. One wonders whether the constant funny, but pointed, barbs from that joke site have in any way biased Nagourney. We would hope not.

At last, the warmongers are prepared to face the facts and admit they were wrong

It has taken more than three years, tens of thousands of Iraqi and American lives, and $200bn (£115bn) of treasure - all to achieve a chaos verging on open civil war. But, finally, the neo-conservatives who sold the United States on this disastrous war are starting to utter three small words. We were wrong.

The second thoughts have spread across the conservative spectrum, from William Buckley, venerable editor of The National Review to Andrew Sullivan, once editor of the New Republic, now an influential commentator and blogmeister. The patrician conservative columnist George Will was gently sceptical from the outset. He now glumly concludes that all three members of the original "axis of evil" - not only Iran and North Korea but also Iraq - "are more dangerous than when that term was coined in 2002".

Vanity Fair: Bush Had Ties to Abramoff

Wed Mar 8, 10:35 PM ET

Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff says President Bush knew him well enough to joke with him about weightlifting. "What are you benching, buff guy?" Abramoff said Bush asked him. The president has said he doesn't know Abramoff.

Abramoff said he finds it hard to believe Bush doesn't remember the 10 or so photos he and members of his family had snapped with the president and first lady.

"He (Bush) has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail, according to Vanity Fair's April issue being released this week. "Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows?"

Abramoff pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to charges that he and a former partner, Adam Kidan, concocted a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable stake of their own money into a multimillion-dollar purchase of SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet in 2000. Abramoff also has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a probe into his ties with members of Congress and the Bush administration.

G.O.P. Plan Would Allow Spying Without Warrants

By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, March 8 — The plan by Senate Republicans to step up oversight of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program would also give legislative sanction for the first time to long-term eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant, legal experts said on Wednesday.

Civil liberties advocates called the proposed oversight inadequate and the licensing of eavesdropping without warrants unnecessary and unwise. But the Republican senators who drafted the proposal said it represented a hard-wrung compromise with the White House, which strongly opposed any Congressional interference in the eavesdropping program.

The Republican proposal appeared likely to win approval from the full Senate, despite Democratic opposition and some remaining questions from Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Army Wipes Its Feet on Pat Tillman

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig. Posted March 8, 2006.

The news of a fourth investigation into the former NFL star's death in Afghanistan is a clear rebuke for the Army.

Mary Tillman has been a model of patience and fortitude as she doggedly pursues the facts concerning her son Pat's death in Afghanistan two years ago. In that spirit, she welcomed as positive the news that the Pentagon's inspector general has asked the Army to launch an investigation into whether criminal negligence was involved in the "friendly fire" incident that resulted in the death of her football-star son who turned soldier.

That request by the inspector general, made after a review of three previous investigations, implies a clear rebuke of the military's handling of this case to date. But as much as Mary Tillman and the rest of the Tillman family hope this new inquiry will clear up the glaring contradictions and mysterious discrepancies of the previous accounts, she knows it is not prudent to be overly optimistic.

'Unitary Executive' Or Autocracy?

Paul Waldman
March 08, 2006

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America. His next book, Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Can Learn From Conservative Success, will be released in the spring by John Wiley & Sons.

After the 2000 election, one in which Republicans successfully hijacked the electoral process in Florida to obtain their preferred outcome and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court issued what may have been its most disgraceful decision since Dred Scott, supposedly neutral observers in the media were unanimous in their praise for the smooth operation of the government at all levels. The system worked, they said. There were no tanks in the streets, and the person who had actually won the election did the right thing and gave in. “Maybe the best thing of all,” intoned CNN’s Candy Crowley, “is that the messy feelings at the Florida ballot box have really only proven the strength of democracy.”

One cannot help but be reminded of that reaction as the Bush administration proceeds in its relentless assault on the foundations of our democratic system. We all (and no one more so than the Washington media) have an investment in the idea that “the system” is virtually immune from harm. The rule of law prevails, the institutions of the republic are immovable, and no matter who holds power at a particular moment, no official or administration can really harm the fundamental underpinnings of the world’s oldest democracy.

Newshounds: Hannity the Tyrant on Dayside

Fox host Sean Hannity appeared on yesterday's episode of Dayside to continue his campaign of misinformation, and discuss the case of the Colorado teacher who compared Bush's words to Hitler's words, and received a great deal of help from the editing team of Dayside.

The segment began with a conversation regarding the High School in Parsippany that is holding a mock war crimes trial, where Bush is being prosecuted. Both sides are being presented through the "lawyers" and the class will not be issuing a verdict in the case. Surprisingly, Hannity actually agreed this was an ok thing to do, but had to add his personal opinion about Bush, "You know, as long as they give both sides, I don't really have a problem with it, although it's, you can tell by the way war crimes. This President is a great liberator, as long as that case is being made, that women that could never work before can now work in Afghanistan, that women could not go to school can now go to school. Maybe we can remind the students and show them images of the mass graves with hundreds of thousands of dead bodies, and maybe we can ask the question is Iraq better off. As long as those questions are raised, and the kids get both sides, I don't have a problem.

America Anesthetized

By Alex Sabbeth
March 5, 2006

The new Zogby poll gauging the opinions of American troops in Iraq has drawn attention mostly because it finds that 72 percent believe the United States should withdraw in a year or less and only 23 percent favor George W. Bush’s plan to “stay the course.”

But the poll also illustrates the power of propaganda.

Shockingly, 85 percent of the troops questioned believe they are fighting in Iraq “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks” – one of the key Iraq War myths built by Bush’s frequent juxtaposition of references to Osama bin-Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Paul Krugman: Feeling No Pain

The New York Times
March 6, 2006

President Bush's main purpose in visiting India seems to have been to promote nuclear proliferation. But he also had some kind words for outsourcing. And those words help explain something that I know deeply puzzles the administration's political gurus: Mr. Bush's dismal polling on economic issues.

Now the American economy isn't doing as well as Bush partisans think it is. In fact, since the end of the 2001 recession, the recovery in jobs, output and especially wages has been unusually weak by historical standards. Still, the economy is expanding, so it's impressive just how large a majority of Americans disapproves of Mr. Bush's economic management.

NYT Editorial: They Came for the Chicken Farmer

NYT Editorial Section Gets Thumbs Up; News Section Gets Thumbs Down. It's Hard to Believe They are In the Same Paper. NYT Editorial: "The founding fathers knew that when you dispensed with the rule of law, the inevitable outcome was injustice. Now America is becoming the thing they sought to end."--BUZZFLASH

Published: March 8, 2006

This has been our nightmare since the Bush administration began stashing prisoners it did not want to account for in Guantánamo Bay: An ordinary man with a name something like a Taliban bigwig's is swept up in the dragnet and imprisoned without any hope of proving his innocence.

A case of mistaken identity's turning an innocent person into a prisoner-for-life was supposed to be impossible. President Bush told Americans to trust in his judgment after he arrogated the right to arrest anyone, anywhere in the world, and toss people into indefinite detention. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld infamously proclaimed that the men at Guantánamo Bay were "the worst of the worst."

Global wind energy capacity seen tripling by 2014

Tue Mar 7, 10:10 AM ET

The global wind energy industry is expected to enjoy continued strong growth in coming years with total installed capacity seen more than tripling from current levels by 2014, an industry survey showed on Tuesday.

Over the next eight years, international installed capacity is expected to increase to about 210,000 megawatts from today's installed total of about 59,000 megawatts, a study by the German Wind Energy Institute (DEWI) showed.

The study, conducted on behalf of Hamburg Messe in the run-up to an industry fair in May, identified Germany, France, Spain and the United States as key future markets.

"The international wind energy market, which showed growth rates in 2005 of 16 percent in Europe, and as much as 73 percent outside of Europe, will continue to boom," the report said.

The Health Care Crisis and What to Do About It

By Paul Krugman, Robin Wells

Can We Say No? The Challenge of Rationing Health Care
by Henry J. Aaron and William B. Schwartz, with Melissa Cox
Brookings Institution, 199 pp., $44.95; $18.95 (paper)

The Health Care Mess: How We Got into It and What It Will Take to Get Out
by Julius Richmond and Rashi Fein
Harvard University Press, 320 pp., $26.95

Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System
by John F. Cogan, R. Glenn Hubbard, and Daniel P. Kessler
American Enterprise Institute/Hoover Institution, 130 pp., $18.00


Thirteen years ago Bill Clinton became president partly because he promised to do something about rising health care costs. Although Clinton's chances of reforming the US health care system looked quite good at first, the effort soon ran aground. Since then a combination of factors—the unwillingness of other politicians to confront the insurance and other lobbies that so successfully frustrated the Clinton effort, a temporary remission in the growth of health care spending as HMOs briefly managed to limit cost increases, and the general distraction of a nation focused first on the gloriousness of getting rich, then on terrorism—have kept health care off the top of the agenda.

The Coming Resource Wars

Michael T. Klare
March 07, 2006

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author of Resource Wars and Blood and Oil, both available in paperback from Owl Books.

It's official: the era of resource wars is upon us. In a major London address, British Defense Secretary John Reid warned that global climate change and dwindling natural resources are combining to increase the likelihood of violent conflict over land, water and energy. Climate change, he indicated, “will make scarce resources, clean water, viable agricultural land even scarcer”—and this will “make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely.”

Although not unprecedented, Reid’s prediction of an upsurge in resource conflict is significant both because of his senior rank and the vehemence of his remarks. “The blunt truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see unfolding in Darfur,” he declared. “We should see this as a warning sign.”

Gingrich tells Rumsfeld to dig in for 70-year war

Pamela Hess Monday 6th March, 2006 (UPI)

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is circulating a strategy paper by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, asking top deputies to take another look at the QDR with it in mind.

"What does he propose that we have overlooked?" wrote Rumsfeld in a Jan. 30 memo marked "for official use only" to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, Vice Chairman Adm. Edmund Giambastiani and Eric Edelman, under secretary of defense for policy. "Are there any adjustments to our (Quadrennial Defense Review) roadmaps that could benefit from his ideas?"

Claim vs. Fact

This new database charts conservatives' dishonesty and compares it with the truth. Each conservative quote will be matched against well-documented facts, so users can get a more accurate picture of the issues. And we need your help. If we're missing a lie or distortion you know of, please submit an entry. If it checks out, we will gladly add it to the database.

Civil Wars and Global Corporations

by Tom Harper @ 12:09 am

In the Congo, the death toll is now close to six million people. Their civil war has been going on for ten years now, with no end in sight. Most of the deaths have been civilians — killed by starvation and disease.

And you didn’t even know there was a civil war going on in the Congo. (I didn’t either until a few days ago.) Who wants to hear about a civil war killing millions of people in some Third World country?

The war is between the Congolese army and different rebel groups backed by Uganda and Rwanda. This war has been called “Africa’s First World War” and “the world’s most neglected emergency.” They’re fighting over control of the natural resources in the area: diamonds, tin, copper, gold and most of all, coltan (I hadn’t heard of it either).

AT&T deal puts focus on Net fees

By Paul Davidson, USA TODAY

AT&T's (T) proposed purchase of BellSouth (BLS)gave fresh ammunition Monday to critics of a push by the big local phone companies to charge websites fees to ensure fast delivery of their content.

Even before the deal, AT&T and BellSouth discussed plans to charge Internet-based phone company Vonage, Google and other Web providers new fees to ensure speedy delivery of their phone calls, video or other content. Though proposals in Congress would bar phone companies from blocking access to rival websites, none would prohibit their offering enhanced services.

8,000 desert during Iraq war

By Bill Nichols, USA TODAYTue Mar 7, 6:47 AM ET

At least 8,000 members of the all-volunteer U.S. military have deserted since the Iraq war began, Pentagon records show, although the overall desertion rate has plunged since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

Since fall 2003, 4,387 Army soldiers, 3,454 Navy sailors and 82 Air Force personnel have deserted. The Marine Corps does not track the number of desertions each year but listed 1,455 Marines in desertion status last September, the end of fiscal 2005, says Capt. Jay Delarosa, a Marine Corps spokesman.

Desertion records are kept by fiscal year, so there are no figures from the beginning of the war in March 2003 until that fall.

Daily Kos: DOJ Purges Anti-UAE Information From Website

by JDRhoades
Sun Mar 05, 2006 at 12:37:25 PM PDT

This past week, I was writing a column about the DPW ports deal. While doing some Googling, I came across this tidbit from the Website of the US Department of Justice's Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training:

The Government of the UAE has formally stated that it will no longer provide judicial assistance in criminal matters, absent both extradition and mutual legal assistance treaties. Since March, the UAE has released seven U.S. fugitives. The UAE has not responded to a request for documentary evidence since 2003.

Scant Drop Seen in Abortion Rate if Parents Are Told

By ANDREW LEHREN and JOHN LELAND
Published: March 6, 2006

For all the passions they generate, laws that require minors to notify their parents or get permission to have an abortion do not appear to have produced the sharp drop in teenage abortion rates that some advocates hoped for, an analysis by The New York Times shows.

The analysis, which looked at six states that introduced parental involvement laws in the last decade and is believed to be the first study to include data from years after 1999, found instead a scattering of divergent trends.

Kerry: U.S. Must 'End the Empire of Oil'

Sun Mar 5, 6:34 PM ET

Sen. John Kerry said Sunday that the United States must rebuild the power of the United Nations and help "end the empire of oil" to defeat terrorism.

Kerry, who lost to President Bush in the 2004 presidential election, avoided explicit criticism of the U.S. administration during a wide-ranging speech on the global dynamics of terrorism. But he said Bush's policy of imposing democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan risked looking like a crusade in Arab, Muslim eyes.

"If it is seen as the result of an army marching through Muslim lands, it will fail," Kerry told an audience at the University of Ulster in Londonderry, the second-largest city in Northern Ireland.

The "war on terror," Kerry said, was not principally about the U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but was "fundamentally a war within Islam for the heart and soul of Islam, stretching from Morocco east to Indonesia." He said terrorist threats against the West and within Muslim nations exist in part because "no center of moral authority has emerged to stop those who would murder in the name of Islam."

Seattle Times Editorial: Heck of a job, Mr. President

The Bush administration has a substantial credibility problem. Things it says turn out not to be true. Again and again.

Two troubling examples made the news last week, and they illustrate a serious problem rooted in a combination of political arrogance, incompetence and disdain for the audience. Often it seems the White House, or the president himself, offers the American public an incredulous shrug to punctuate the plea, "Who could have known?"

Boston Globe Editorial: The lie of the storm

March 5, 2006

TELEVISION IMAGES can be misleading, but not in the case of the shadowy video that showed President Bush sitting quietly in Texas as he heard that Hurricane Katrina, bearing down on the Gulf Coast, was going to be ''the Big One." Dressed in a suit coat even though he was on vacation, he looked like a president but did not act like one. Despite the warning on Sunday, Aug. 28, Bush let several crucial days slip by before he rallied the resources of the federal government to deal with this epochal disaster.

Perhaps he was lulled by the take-charge attitude of Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who, the video shows, accurately gauged the magnitude of the storm and told his subordinates to do whatever was necessary: ''I'll figure out some way to justify it," he said. ''Just let them yell at me." FEMA, however, didn't have resources to cope with a disaster of this magnitude. It would have required an immediate massive response by the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and only the president could have ordered these bureaucracies into action.

Dave Zweifel: Another Iraq story gets debunked

By Dave Zweifel

In November 2001, just two months after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, two high-profile U.S. journalists Chris Hedges of the New York Times and Christopher Buchanan of PBS' "Frontline" were ushered to a meeting in a Beirut hotel with a man identified as Jamal al-Ghurairy, an Iraqi lieutenant general who had fled Saddam Hussein.

The high-ranking Iraqi military officer claimed he had witnessed terrorist training camps in Iraq where Islamic militants learned how to hijack airplanes. About 40 foreign nationals were based there at any given time, he said.

Driftglass: Commander-in-Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia

Good rant...--Dictynna

When the boss is a massive tool.

After over 500 posts, many of which have been spent stirring the bilious gruel that washes around inside the sharply tapered skulls of Christopath Republicans and making merry mock of the lumpy bits of idiocy that float to the surface like so many mob hit victims that have rotted out of their Sakrete wingtips, it may come as a petit shock that I in no way believe it was inevitable that I would be a partisan.

Or, rather, it was never pre-ordained that I would dig my toes in so deep on the Liberal side of the aisle, or that I would have such unreserved contempt for any of the GOP Stalinists who have stood so ferociously and mindlessly by the Dear Leader these last five year, or have bayed in approval like rabid hounds at twenty-years of Newt-and-Rush calling anyone that disagreed with them America-hating cowards and traitors.

Driftglass: No "We" in America – Part I

For a long time now, the casual invocation of the term “the American people” when explaining what we as a nation do or do not believe, or will or won’t stand for -- especially by the Right, but also by the Left -- has been pissing me right off.

Because at the moment, there is no more “We” in this country.

It breaks my heart but I believe the strategic and relentless poisoning of the public well by the likes of Republican Lee Atwater, Republican Newt Gingrich, Republican Rush Limbaugh and Republican Karl Rove has done its work. And other that geographical, there are no more categories in this country to which we can apply the term "Americans" any longer.

Catching up on Digby...

You Talkin' To Me?
by digby

John Aravosis is following this delicious Katrina feud. He writes:

Ohhhh, this infighting is really getting interesting these days. "Heckuva job Brownie" is lashing out at his former boss Chertoff. All of that GOP discipline seems to be collapsing faster than Enron.

Hah. It does show you once again that Bush's vaunted loyalty is actually a necessity. Everytime he fires somebody the tales they tell are damning.

Wiping The Sleep From Their Tired Little Eyes
by digby

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who found this article by John Dickerson to be completely ridiculous. A former white house correspondent from TIME magazine apparently has no idea how stupid he sounds when he says he held the belief that Bush was some sort of behind the scenes mastermind until he saw the footage of the Katrina video conference.

Lazy, Good-For-Nothin N ... agin
by digby

I don't know if I heard this right, but I think Chris Matthews just said something like this:

This is probably going to bug some people, but the first time I saw Nagin I saw this slow acting, slow talking guy...or do all people talk that way down there? I didn't see any New Yorker type A get the job done ... is this lazy, "it's a hot day" kind of thinking?

Now why do you suppose he thought that would bug some people?

Lying Low
by digby

I've linked many times to this astonishing article by Michael Ledeen in which he agitates for an attack on France and Germany for their failure to support the Iraq invasion. Most recently, I used it as an example of right wingers assailing our traditional European allies while the administration cozies up to undependable allies like the UAE in this port deal.

Poll Tacks
by digby

All the polls are showing Bush and the Republicans in freefall, but there are a couple of things in this Quinnipiac poll that I found to be quite intriguing:

They separated results by blue, red and purple states, the latter of which are "13 purple states -- 12 in which there was a margin of five points or less in the 2004 popular vote between Bush and Kerry, plus Missouri, historically considered the nation's most accurate barometer of presidential voting. These states have 153 of the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the presidency." They are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, Wisconsin.

Cards On The Table
by digby

If more of these people would admit what they really believe we could have an honest debate in this country:

West Jordan Republican Sen. Chris Buttars scoffed at McCoy's suggestion that the legislation might force teens to other states for abortions or into their bathrooms to attempt the procedure on themselves.

Wedgie A La Carte
by digby

I'm with Kevin on this. I've never thought that a la carte cable was all that because I know that I'll probably end up paying the same for fewer channels. It's just the way these things work. But if Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell are against it, I'm for it. These hucksters prey on lonely dupes in their homes, take their money and then use it to support corporate Republican politics.

Neocon Pipedreams
by digby

Robert Hutchings, the chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2003 to 2005, said the October 2003 study was part of a "steady stream" of dozens of intelligence reports warning Bush and his top lieutenants that the insurgency was intensifying and expanding.

"Frankly, senior officials simply weren't ready to pay attention to analysis that didn't conform to their own optimistic scenarios," Hutchings said in a telephone interview.

Best Friends
by digby

Yesterday:

Bush said there was intense discussion inside his campaign when the 15-minute videotape was released, which he described as "an interesting entry by our enemy."

"I thought it was going to help," Bush told the author. "I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn't want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush."

Bill Of Goods
by digby

John Kerry: What kind of message does it send to be sending money to open firehouses in Iraq, but we're shutting firehouses who are the first-responders here in America...

The president hasn't put one nickel, not one nickel into the effort to fix some of our tunnels and bridges and most exposed subway systems...

Comforter
by digby

VARGAS: When you look back on those days immediately following when Katrina struck, what moment do you think was the moment that you realized that the government was failing, especially the people of New Orleans?

BUSH: When I saw TV reporters interviewing people who were screaming for help. It looked the scenes looked chaotic and desperate. And I realized that our government was could have done a better job of comforting people.

Daily Kos: Frist Threatens To Change Committee Structure To Block NSA Investigation

by georgia10
Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 07:41:58 AM PDT

Via Glenn Greenwald, we learn that once again, when Republicans can't follow the rules, they change them:

Frist specifically threatened that if the Committee holds NSA hearings, he will fundamentally change the 30-year-old structure and operation of the Senate Intelligence Committee so as to make it like every other Committee, i.e., controlled and dominated by Republicans to advance and rubber-stamp the White House's agenda rather than exercise meaningful and nonpartisan oversight.

Daily Kos: Wisdom From Adlai Stevenson...

"We talk a great deal about patriotism. What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility which will enable America to remain master of her power -- to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime -- these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

- Adlai Stevenson, Speech to the American Legion Convention in New York City (27 August 1952)

Juan Cole - 03/05/06

Muqtada Warns Talabani on "interference"

United Iraqi Alliance politicians continued Saturday to insist that the party would continue to back Ibrahim Jaafari as the new prime minister, despite attempts by Kurds (especially President Jalal Talabani) and Sunnis to push him aside. Jaafari has angered Kurds by his attempts to involve Turkey in Iraqi affairs to offset Kurdish power, and by his opposition to ceding the oil-rich Kirkuk province to the Kurdistan Regional Confederacy.

Daily Kos: White House Hunting Down Truthtellers

by georgia10
Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 05:59:15 PM PDT

Because the only way this administration can deal with the truth is to stamp it out wherever it may fester:

The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.

Avedon Carol: It's busting out all over

When I see news like this, I get the feeling that the US and UK governments expect things to be so bad in the future that they fear revolution.--Dictynna

Some days I expect I'll soon wake up and discover that the only democracies left are in Latin America. Like when I see articles like David Howarth's Who wants the Abolition of Parliament Bill?:

LAST WEEK all eyes were on the House of Commons as it debated identity cards, smoking and terrorism. The media reported both what MPs said and how they voted. For one week at least, the Commons mattered.All the more peculiar then that the previous Thursday, in an almost deserted chamber, the Government proposed an extraordinary Bill that will drastically reduce parliamentary discussion of future laws, a Bill some constitutional experts are already calling the Abolition of Parliament Bill.