From Holden: Consumer confidence continues to tank. Consumer confidence declined in April for the third consecutive month, signaling Americans’ concerns that economic growth is leveling off. [snip] The Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index fell 5.3 points to 97.7 for April, down from a revised reading of 103.0 in March. The new reading was slightly lower than the 98.0 forecast by analysts. The new figure takes the index to its lowest point since last November, when it registered 92.6. ”Less robust current conditions and a more cautious outlook have consumers feeling less confident in April than in … Continue reading ”The Loch Ness Bush Boom” Has A Nice Ring To It

From Holden: Consumer confidence continues to tank. Consumer confidence declined in April for the third consecutive month, signaling Americans’ concerns that economic growth is leveling off. [snip] The Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index fell 5.3 points to 97.7 for April, down from a revised reading of 103.0 in March. The new reading was slightly lower than the 98.0 forecast by analysts. The new figure takes the index to its lowest point since last November, when it registered 92.6. “Less robust current conditions and a more cautious outlook have consumers feeling less confident in April than in … Continue reading “The Loch Ness Bush Boom” Has A Nice Ring To It

From Holden: Lacking an abundance of qualified military doctors and overwhelmed by soldiers with brain and spinal injuries sustained in Iraq, an Army hospital in Germany turns to civilian neurosurgeons for help. Faced with a shortage of neurosurgeons, the U.S. military’s largest overseas hospital is becoming increasingly dependent on civilian doctors volunteering their time to treat troops who suffered severe brain and spinal injuries in Iraq. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, an Army-run hospital in southwestern Germany, began recruiting civilian neurosurgeons from the United States late last year after a rotation of active-duty physicians became stretched so thin that the hospital … Continue reading Maybe Bill Frist Can Diagnose A Few Soldiers Via Video

From Holden: The Bush assministration sends a message to any would-be allies by claiming that it was the Italians’ fault that U.S. soldiers shot them while they were slowly traveling on the road to the Baghdad Airport. And the Italians are not amused. Italian opposition parties branded a report that cleared U.S. soldiers of blame for the killing of an Italian agent in Iraq an insult on Tuesday and urged the government to press for a fuller investigation. [snip] A U.S. Army official, briefing reporters in Washington on the preliminary results of the investigation, said on Monday that the soldiers … Continue reading Blame The Victims, Screw Your Allies

From Holden: No word yet from The Corner of Denial and Doritos about the fact that the Bush assministration’s main reason for launching an illegal, $300 billion, soul-destroying war that as of this morning has taken the lives of 1,574 Americans was a lie. However, Jonah is upset about something else Chimpy has done. JUST FOR THE RECORD [Jonah Goldberg] Yes, I am nostalgic for the days when the President of the United States would get at least some grief for holding hands with the ruler of Saudi Arabia. Maybe it’s my xenophobia, homophobia or Islamaphobia talking, though I don’t … Continue reading For the Record

From Holden: HA! Texas officials flick a booger on Chimpy’s windshield. The authorities in Texas yesterday shrugged off a fine that the federal Department of Education has imposed on the state because it was late last year in notifying schools and districts whether they had reached student achievement benchmarks under President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. While promising to notify schools in a timely fashion this year, the education commissioner of Texas, Shirley Neeley, said, “Classrooms and teachers will not be harmed by this fine.” Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced the $444,282 fine on Friday. It appears to be … Continue reading Trouble at the Mill

From Holden: As Charles Duelfer releases the very last, final, we mean it this time report on Iraq’s non-existent WMDs yet another fantasy of the 101st AirBornAgain comes crashing to the ground. On Syria, the report said that “no information gleaned from questioning Iraqis supported the possibility” that weapons were moved out of the country before the invasion, which was one theory about why no unconventional weapons were found. Continue reading Time To Stock Up on Doritos

From Holden: Sen. Charles Grassley is ready to tackle Social Security without Bush’s beloved private accounts or any input from the Chimp at all. On the eve of the first congressional hearing on the restructuring of Social Security, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee signaled that they will not insist that personal accounts be part of the legislation and that they will not seek further details from President Bush about his plans for the government-run retirement program. Continue reading Ignore The Chimp In The Corner

From Holden: Jeebus, I can’t believe Chimpy is going to leave this guy twisting in the wind until the middle of next month. John R. Bolton clashed repeatedly with American intelligence officials in 2002 and 2003 as he sought to deliver warnings about Syrian efforts to acquire unconventional weapons that the Central Intelligence Agency and other experts rejected as exaggerated, according to former intelligence officials. Ultimately, the former intelligence officials said, most of what Mr. Bolton, then an under secretary of state, said publicly about Syria hewed to the limits on which the C.I.A. and other agencies had insisted. But … Continue reading Your Daily Bolton

Oliver is my new blog crush. A. Continue reading Please, Sir, I Want Some More!

I’d say kill me now, but that’s probably a mortal sin too: The Bishop of the Madison Diocese is clarifying the church’s position on living wills. Bishop Robert Morlino says he needed to do so because of the debate that erupted over the Terry Schiavo case. The Bishop received lots of letters and emails asking if living wills were a mortal sin. He answered in a recent edition of the Catholic Herald stating that, “According to the church’s doctrine, if a living will gets in the way of medical procedures that could prevent death, even if a person is permanently … Continue reading Department of Well, This Is Helpful: Living Wills a ‘Mortal Sin’

Building on Holden’s earlier post, I have to say there’s really nothing about this Bolton story I don’t love. Here’s Novakula: The White House and Republican Senate leaders have a little better than two weeks to save John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations after last Tuesday’s fiasco in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. All that can be promised is that their efforts on Bolton’s behalf will be tougher and better organized than they have been so far. That should not be difficult because they could hardly be worse. �Republicans, weak and disorganized, were ground down by the Democratic … Continue reading Shorter Novak: Panic! Panic NOW!

From Holden: Yo, Tom DeLay – Amelia Earhart called, she has your clout in her carry-on. House Republicans say they haven’t opened and don’t plan any new investigations of federal judges after Terri Schiavo’s death despite Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s promise to examine the judiciary’s conduct. [snip] A majority of Republicans think that unless it can be proven that judges did something illegal, they should be left alone, said GOP Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, who also sits on the Judiciary Committee. ”I think we should be very, very careful about exercising legislative oversight of case-specific decisions in federal … Continue reading House Republicans: “Out of Control” Judges Not A Problem

From Holden: Read all the interesting details contained in Michael Dietz’s history of J.D. Guckert’s life before he became Jeff Gannon (via Froomkin). Continue reading The Man Who Would Be JimmyJeff

From Holden: Jeebus. I saw this little intercahnge in Crawford live on teevee and I can’t believe the White House posted a transcript. Q What do you expect to get out of this meeting, sir? THE PRESIDENT: Do you like the footpath? Q Let’s talk about the meeting. THE PRESIDENT: This is an important relationship — personal relationship with the Crown Prince is important. I look forward to talking with him about a variety of subjects. I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for coming. I hope you’re enjoying this day. Q How much progress can you make on oil prices? … Continue reading Your President Speaks

from TJ, at WelcometoGilead: Only Christians Need Apply Frist’s speech was fairly bland–he wants to have his cake (the evangelical vote) and eat it too (get a pass from the media on aligning himself with those who have been calling for violence and other retaliation against the judiciary). However, under the standards applied by the Republicans and the corporate media to Democratic and progressive events, Frist should be held accountable for the entirety of the speeches and remarks at Sunday’s Bund Rally™ (see gilliard), including this statement from Albert Mohler, as reported by the AP (with thanks to dave at … Continue reading And I say You Will be Saved, or Else!

From Holden: Looks like somone forgot to include the Washington Times’ Audrey Hudson when routing the “nuclear option” memo. Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell said yesterday that Republicans have enough votes to invoke the “nuclear option” to limit Democrats’ ability to stall by filibuster consideration of President Bush’s nominees for federal appeals courts. Continue reading The Moonie Times Did Not Get The Memo

From Holden: USA! USA! USA! We have the largest prison system in the world, and it just keeps getting bigger according to the Department of Justice. A few figures: Prison and jail population as of June 2004: 2,131,180 (an increase of 2.3 percent over 2003). The United States’ incarceration rate per 100,000 of its population: 726 (the rate for England is 142 per 100,000, for France 91 and for Japan 58). Percentage of Black Males behind bars: 12.6%. Percentage of Hispanic Males behind bars: 3.6%. Percentage of White Males behind bars: 1.7%. Rate of increase in violent crime in the … Continue reading Crime and Punishment

From Holden: Winger heads, I mean. Family and friends who say the improbable love fest between George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton is totally genuine still can’t refrain from occasionally rolling their eyes. Barbara Bush, the 41st president’s wife, calls them the Odd Couple. Gov. [Jeb] Bush now refers to the Democrat who ended his father’s political career as “Bro.” [snip] “This is definitely for real,” a top aide to one of the former presidents said. “We thought the relationship would come to an end with the tsunami. It certainly didn’t.” [snip] “They really have been having a great time … Continue reading Popping Like Bubble-Wrap

From Holden: Priscilla Owens is one of the two judicial nominees that Senate Republicans are using to trigger an attack on the fillibuster. This seems to be a good time to recall that the People for the American Way documented numerous instances in which our current Attorney General, “Abu” Al Gonzales, accused Owens of “judicial activism” when they both served on the Texas Supreme Court in 1999 and 2000. Continue reading Judicial Activism

From Holden: Christopher Dood lays it all out for Bush family friend Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation. DODD: These are the most serious allegations, this and the intimidation of intelligence analysts. There needs to be a firewall, in my view, between policy-setters and intelligence. That wall ought to be sacrosanct. In the case of Mr. Bolton, on five different occasions over a space of 48 months, confirmed by a series of witnesses, all of whom are officials in the Bush administration, Mr. Bolton sought to have fired two intelligence analysts, one at the State Department, one at the Central … Continue reading Buh-Bye, Bolton

From Holden: With the number of U.S. soldeirs, marines, and sailors (yes, sailors) killed in Iraq this month matching March’s deathcount of 36, today we read various reports indicating that Iraqi security forces have abandoned much of the country to the insurgents, as reported in both the Washington Post and the Independent. Iraqi army and police units are deserting their posts after the recent escalation in insurgent attacks, according to reports from around the country yesterday. [snip] On the Syrian border, US troops in the Sunni city of Husaybah report mass desertions. An Iraqi unit that had once grown to … Continue reading Spiralling Towards Chaos

From Holden: The Secret Service is investigating a GOP volunteer who impersonated a federal agent in Denver. The US Secret Service is intensifying its investigation into whether a Republican volunteer committed the federal crime of impersonating a federal agent while forcibly removing three people from one of President Bush’s public Social Security events, according to people familiar with the probe. The Secret Service in Washington last week sent agents to Denver to probe allegations by three area Democrats that they were ousted from Bush’s March 21 event. The three did not stage any protest at the rally and were later … Continue reading Turning Up The Heat

From Holden: We love him because he has the Republicans whining about name-calling. Since taking over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee earlier this year, the former presidential candidate has been quoted in newspapers making unusually caustic remarks about Republicans. Dean has suggested that they are “evil.” That they are “corrupt.” He called them “brain-dead” during a stop in Toronto — and while the Terri Schiavo case was still in the news. He has tagged Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as a “liar.” Last week, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that he mimicked a “drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh” at an event … Continue reading Why We Love Howard Dean

From Holden: There’s sovereignty and then there’s sovereignty: Rice and Cheney Are Said to Push Iraqi Politicians on Stalemate . Meanwhile, an entire Marine unit complains publicly about Chimpy’s disdain for the troops. On May 29, 2004, a station wagon that Iraqi insurgents had packed with C-4 explosives blew up on a highway in Ramadi, killing four American marines who died for lack of a few inches of steel. The four were returning to camp in an unarmored Humvee that their unit had rigged with scrap metal, but the makeshift shields rose only as high as their shoulders, photographs of … Continue reading Iraqi Monday

From Holden: Krugman lends a hand in my neverending search for My Bush Boom. Continue reading Bush Boom Hits the Big Time

So an anonymous commenter points me to a site that I can see is labeled “thetoilet.com,” and says it contains video/audio of George Bush, Gary Busey and some ferrets, and clearly this is the point where any sane person would turn back, but no, I not only click, I laugh, I e-mail it to Mr. Athenae, Mr. Athenae’s Mom, our friend Paul and pretty much everyone else we know, I post it here so that you fine people can revel in the joy. Isn’t the Internet just the best thing ever? A. Continue reading ‘There’d be a fracas with some weasels’

I like Amanda Marcotte a whole lot these days. Don’t let the neverending snark fool you. Tbogg really can be quite sweet. Mike wants to know who’s making deals with the devil. This just made me giggle out loud this morning: Watertiger’s photos. And I don’t know what crawled up Josh’s ass, but I hope it stays up there and gets comfortable, because pretty much, yeah, on the whole “crybaby option.” I also have, thanks to him, an indelible mental picture of David Broder puffing on a nice fat blunt this morning. Which having met the man twice is alone … Continue reading Sunday Reading