From Holden: Housing starts plunge while producer prices rise? This is not a good day to search for My Bush Boom. U.S. housing starts posted their steepest drop in more than 14 years in March, suggesting some cooling in the long-hot housing market, while producer prices rose steeply on surging energy costs. Housing starts plunged 17.6 percent in March, their biggest drop since January 1991, to a 1.837 million unit rate from an upwardly revised 2.229 million unit pace in February, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. Separately, the Labor Department said its Producer Price Index, a gauge of prices … Continue reading The Bush Boom Guide to the Galaxy

From Holden: Tom Tomorrow highlights the incongruity of Time Magazine featuring Timothy McVeigh-fluffer Ann Coulter on their cover during the tenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Continue reading What Tom Said

From Holden: Adam Cohen’s NYTimes Op-Ed points to the worst “activist judge” offender. The idea that liberal judges are advocates and partisans while judges like Justice Scalia are not is being touted everywhere these days, and it is pure myth. Justice Scalia has been more than willing to ignore the Constitution’s plain language, and he has a knack for coming out on the conservative side in cases with an ideological bent. The conservative partisans leading the war on activist judges are just as inconsistent: they like judicial activism just fine when it advances their own agendas. Justice Scalia’s views on … Continue reading No Scalia, No Problem

From Holden: I just came across this odd story, perhaps I’ll find more on it later. US Soldier Attacked Member of the Iraqi Parliament Baghdad. A soldier from the US contingent in Iraq has attacked Fatah ash-Sheikh, member of the Iraqi Parliament this morning, announced RIA Novosti. The incident happened in the so-called “green zone” in the central part of Baghdad, where buildings of US embassy and Iraqi state institutions are located. There is still no information on the reasons for the attack or the condition of the Iraqi Member of Parliament. Continue reading Weird

From Holden: Why am I the last person to learn of these events? I suppose it’s because I don’t use the Internets at night. I take it we here at First Draft were the victims of a hacker. I hear some latent got in and messed things up. Fortunately we did not lose any posts (the Pulitzer Committee is so relieved), but we did lose our blogroll and RSS feed. Needless to say, Athenae and her staff of ferrets are working to recover what was lost. Was it something I said? The relentless mocking off all things Bush? Coining the … Continue reading Hack Attack

From Holden: Truncheons and phonebooks, Dogs and small adders, Shocking and mocking Hajis tied to ladders, Icewater enemas, Teeth pulled with string, These are a few of my favorite things*. Army intelligence officials in Iraq developed and circulated “wish lists” of harsh interrogation techniques they hoped to use on detainees in August 2003, including tactics such as low-voltage electrocution, blows with phone books and using dogs and snakes — suggestions that some soldiers believed spawned abuse and illegal interrogations. The discussions, which took place in e-mail messages between interrogators and Army officials in Baghdad, were used in part to develop … Continue reading Wish List

From Holden: A Bush-backer is suing the RNC because they stole his W logo. I don’t know who to laugh at here, the RNC or the chump who created the logo. Oh, well, it’s all good. A supporter of President Bush is suing the Republican National Committee and one of its suppliers, claiming they stole his design for the ubiquitous “W” bumper sticker logo in the 2004 campaign. Jerry Gossett of Wichita Falls [Texas] says he pitched his design for a logo to the RNC’s supplier of campaign materials, The Spalding Group of Lexington, Ky., in 2001 and to the … Continue reading I’m Laughing, I Just Don’t Know Who I’m Laughing At

And then there are the days when the stories just can’t get any better: President Bush said on Monday proposals to raise the retirement age for Social Security benefits and restructuring those benefits to be more generous to low-income workers are among possibilities for overhauling the country’s largest entitlement program. Harry? Howard? Are you getting all this down? A. Continue reading Keep Talking, Your Boat Is Sinking

Now this is what I’m talking about! If you could say something—in a big way—to the people of Congressman Tom DeLay’s district in Texas, what would it be? My personal favorite is “Why vote for Tom DeLay, when you can buy him?” but honestly, I love them all. I love that DFA is buying up billboards in Tom DeLay’s district. I love that we’re taking the fight to him, to his home town, to the people who have to live with this guy as their representative in Congress. This is what I was talking about when I asked where the … Continue reading Marry Me, Democracy For America!

From Holden: Today Chimpy eschewed the cheering hand-picked crowds and chose instead to speak to a bunch of Southern politicians about destroying Social Security. It was really the same speech he has given for the past two or three months, including the obligatory denial that Treasury Bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America. There is no vault holding your cash, waiting for you to retire. Instead, because we spend Social Security taxes on current retirees and other government programs, all that is left over in the so-called security trust is a bunch … Continue reading Baboon-a-palooza Storms Through South Carolina

From Holden: Shit, another boring gaggle aboard Air Force One, which means neither Helen Thomas nor Les Kinsolving were in attendance (neither of them typically travels with the president). The gaggle was held in flight because the Chimpster was on his way to South Carolina to talk up Social Security demolition again. Q Senator Graham has said that he doesn’t think the President is doing enough to address the solvency problem in Social Security and he said he expects that maybe we’ll hear more about it today. Does the President have plans to talk about that? MR. McCLELLAN: Absolutely, and … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle

From Holden: Guess who made the cover of Time Magazine. From the fabulous Mark Twang. Continue reading She Covets

From Holden: Looks like skippy will have to start calling Karen Hughes AWOL. A reminder: March 14, 2005: Our long-term strategy to keep the peace is to help change the conditions that give rise to extremism and terror by spreading the universal principle of human liberty. This will require an aggressive effort to share and communicate America’s fundamental values while respecting the cultures and traditions of other nations. Karen Hughes has been one of my most trusted and closest advisers, and she has the experience, expertise, and judgment to lead this critical effort. Her return to public service in this … Continue reading Presidential Procrastination?

From Holden: January 26, 2005: Q Mr. President, do you think it’s a proper use of government funds to pay commentators to promote your policies? THE PRESIDENT: No. Q Are you going to order that — THE PRESIDENT: Therefore, I will not pay you to — (laughter.) Q Fair enough. Are you ordering that there be an end to that practice? THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am. I expect my Cabinet Secretaries to make sure that that practice doesn’t go forward. There needs to be independence. And Mr. Armstrong Williams admitted he made a mistake. And we didn’t know about this … Continue reading George Buch Can’t Stop Lying

From Holden: Why is it that none of the images of Iraqi detainees suffering torture and abuse at the hands of their American captors depict women as victims? Because George Bush hid those images from you. Iraqi female detainees have been raped and sexually abused by U.S. occupation forces. Iraqi female detainees say that they have been illegally detained, raped and sexually humiliated by U.S. occupation forces. One female detainee, who identified herself as “Noor”, said that U.S. soldiers at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib raped women and, in many occasions, forced them to strip naked in public. She also said that … Continue reading Rape and Torture of Female Detainees in Iraq

From Holden: A devastating analysis from PolitcalAffairs.net. US officials have been forced to admit using the MK-77 incendiary, a modern form of napalm, at least during the initial fighting stage of the war. In direct contradiction, the UK government continues to deny that such weapons have been used in Iraq at any time. The UK is party to an international convention banning incendiaries where they may cause harm to civilians. In Iraq, UK forces are part of a coalition which does not adhere to internationally agreed standards of warfare. [snip] The US military has in its current arsenal a modern … Continue reading Napalm in Iraq

From Holden: Pretty fucking stupid. Today Michelle, like Atrios, doesn’t care for the latest offering from Mistah Kurtz. You see Michelle penned fourteen posts alleging that the Schiavo memo was a fake before it was revealed to be an authentic talking points memo of the Senate GOP, so she is pissed at Howie because: He also falsely claims that some conservative bloggers did not back off from questions about the authenticity of the memo even after an aide to Sen. Mel Martinez admitted he wrote it. How does Ms. Maglalang, who has yet to issue a single retraction related to … Continue reading How Stupid Would You Have To Be To Wake Up As Michelle Maglalang?

Ow. I mean, OWW. Even when DeLay apologized for lashing out at what he had called an “arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable” federal judiciary, he didn’t say he was wrong. He only said he didn’t express himself clearly. He still wants Congress to look into judicial activism. The problem for Republicans is that DeLay’s troubles only seem to mount, and the notion that he’s the victim of a Democratic Party/liberal media witch hunt just doesn’t hold water. DeLay was admonished by the House Ethics Committee three times last year. That would be the Republican-controlled House Ethics Committee. For the good of his … Continue reading Chi Trib to DeLay: Step Aside

From Holden: In an open admission that their grand scheme for rebuilding Iraq has failed miserably, the Bush assministration proposes yet another reconstruction plan, with an emphasis on small local fims rather than large American corporations. For the third time in nine months, the Bush administration has redrafted its project to rebuild Iraq, forcing planners to cancel more of the water, sewage and power plants that were part of the grand American design to transform the shattered country. Many of the halted projects are now described by American officials as “noncritical” and “long term” because they are scheduled to start … Continue reading Third Time’s the Charm

From Holden: Pardon me, but does Chimpy really need to occupy 700 luxury hotel rooms when he visits Latvia next month? Hundreds of people with reservations to stay in Riga’s finest hotels will be bumped from their rooms and housed on a ferry during U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to Latvia next month. The Latvian government on Monday chartered a ferry to accommodate visitors whose hotel reservations were revoked to make room for Bush and his delegation of hundreds during his May 6-7 visit. The delegation needed more than 700 rooms in central Riga, prompting the government to ask … Continue reading The Ugly American Abroad

From Holden: Bill Frist’s Harvard Medical School classmates chastize the Senate’s videotape diagnostician. In a private letter to Sen. Bill Frist, 31 of the 165 members of his Harvard Medical School class of 1978 accused him of using his medical degree improperly, reports [Newsweek] Chief Political Correspondent Howard Fineman. The letter was a response to Frist’s role in the case of the late Terri Schiavo. As she lay dying in Florida, Frist — who said he had reviewed court documents and videos — appeared on the Senate floor. Saying he “spoke more as a doctor than a senator,” he declared … Continue reading He Took a Hypocritic Oath

From Holden: Patrick Cockburn reports from Mosul. The upsurge in violence across Iraq in the past four days has left claims made by the Pentagon that the tide is turning in Iraq and there are hopeful signs of a return to normality in tatters. [snip] Ironically, one reason why Washington can persuade the outside world that its venture in Iraq is finally coming right is that it is too dangerous for reporters to travel outside Baghdad or stray far from their hotels in the capital. The threat to all foreigners was underlined last week when an American contractor was snatched … Continue reading What’s Going On?

From Holden: Less than a week after SecDef Don Rumsfeld paid a surprise visit to Iraq, warning the Shiite majority not to purge Baathists from the new government, the Shiite majority announces its intention to purge Baathists from the new government. Continue reading Shiites Tell Rumsfeld To Cram It With Walnuts

From Holden: When the Bolton Hearings began Kos targetted Sen. Lincoln Chafee as the Republican most likely to prevent John Bolton from becoming our UN ambassador. I thought Chuck Hagel might be the more likely candidate, as he has the testicular inventory that Chafee lacks. When it came out in the hearings that Bolton tried to can a State Department intelligence officer who now works for Hagel I flet even better about Hagel’s mighty gonads. I feel even better about it today. Maverick Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel yesterday hinted he’ll vote against President Bush’s pick for ambassador to the United … Continue reading It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Hagel

Three years old today! If I don’t drive around the park with Holden on his pretty pony I’m pretty sure to make my mark If I’m in bed each night at ten instead of up late reading posts about box turtles I might get back my looks again If I abstain from fun and such “such” meaning catblogging I’ll probably amount to much But I shall stay the way I am an Atriot! Because I do not give a damn. Apologies to the very fabulous Mrs. Parker, and many happy returns. A. Continue reading Happy Birthday, Political Crack Den

Nollaig sent me this on Friday, in honor of ferretblogging: Black-footed ferrets were considered extinct until a few survivors were found in Wyoming in 1981. Since then a successful captive breeding and reintroduction effort raised hopes that the highly endangered ferret will recover. But that recovery is now threatened by the U.S. Forest Service’s proposal to kill prairie dogs, ferrets’ primary food source. Because they depend on prairie dogs for food, ferrets can only survive in large prairie dog colonies. Unfortunately, these colonies sometimes result in conflicts with cattle ranchers when they spread onto adjacent ranches on private land. As … Continue reading Save Ferris, er, Ferrets: Bonus Sunday Endangered Ferretblogging

Eric at the Hamster has this post up on changes to the Clean Air Act: Change to Clean Air Act in Works Another day, another industry-written provision in a House bill that blatantly favors polluters at the expense of taxpayers. Under the new provision, the “downwind” states would not be required to meet clean air standards until the “upwind” states that were contributing to the problem had done so. Currently, states can get more time but only if they agree to added cleanup measures. Proponents of the measure in Congress, as well as a spectrum of industry groups, say that … Continue reading New Fashion Trend – Gas Masks

From Holden: Continue reading One-and-Two-and Jazz Step

From Holden: “Two-and-a-quarter inches, cut. Continue reading Small-Time Dick

So I hit ’em with the bottle and then I hit ’em again with the jagged pieces and then, then let me tell ya … A. Continue reading Happy Harry Photo