From Holden: Our Republican-lead Congress wasted no time extending tax cuts on dividends and capital gains which will benefit only the very richest among us but they can’t seem to do anything about the alternative minimum tax that impacts more middle class Americans. Funny, that. Continue reading Imagine That?
From Holden: On one side of the world the Pentagon is re-writing their interrogation rules in order to clearly delineate just how much torture is enough torture for freedom-loving America while on the other side of the world the US military will monitor Iraqi prisons to make sure they don’t torture their fellow Iraqis. You can hear the Wolf Brigade’s howls of derisive laughter from here. Continue reading OK, Let A Me Get This Straight
Oh, my fucking God: The tension between the press and the government has hypertrophied to the point that neither is acting in the public interest. It is time for these two adversaries to discuss the patterns of behavior creating such rancor and frustration. Both sides must be willing to exchange and recognize legitimate criticism in an open forum. Grievances may not be easily resolved. But discussion in the spirit of inquiry rather than recrimination will initiate a more constuctive relationship. I almost … I mean, I don’t know where to start with this. Help me out here. We live in … Continue reading Fluffy Bunny News At 11
From Holden: Poor April Ryan, you can tell by her questions that Little Scottie is unresponsive. Q Scott, the President said something very poignant in the Brian Williams interview, that he doesn’t care what people call him, but don’t call him a racist. Is he concerned, still three months after the Katrina relief effort, that there are still some African Americans who may feel that — the same way as Kanye West, and in these next three years, what can the President do to help turn that feeling around? Q But some are saying — some had been saying that … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle
From Holden: Man, you have to be pretty damn evil to get Ratzo on your case. Pope Benedict said in an annual peace message on Tuesday that countries have a duty to respect international humanitarian law even if they are at war. [snip] “The truth of peace must also let its beneficial light shine even amid the tragedy of war,” he said, re-enforcing his stand by quoting from another Vatican document that said “not everything automatically becomes permissible between hostile parties once war has regrettably commenced”. [snip] Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department, told reporters … Continue reading Nazi Pope Admonishes Bush
From Holden: What we have here is the beginning of a trend. U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum’s support of President Bush hurts his chances for re-election next year, Pennsylvania voters said by a 2-1 margin in a poll released Tuesday. More than one-third of all Republicans surveyed in the Quinnipiac University poll also said Santorum’s re-election prospects aren’t helped by his support of the president. The poll showed Democratic state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. leading the two-term Republican incumbent by 50 percent to 38 percent in the 2006 Senate race, compared to a 52-to-34 percent lead in Quinnipiac’s October poll. … Continue reading Bush A Drag on Santorum
From Holden: Froomkin: Washington Times reporter Joe Curl wrote in his pool report that Bush encountered protesters when he left the speechin Philadelphia. “By the time Bush left in his motorcade at 12:50, the crowd of protesters had grown substantially. A huge ‘Boooo!’ echoed in the road beneath Independence Hall as he drove by. By the time the pool vans reached the site, many were offering a one-fingered salute to the Commander in Chief (but they were clearly not saying ‘You’re No. 1!’).” Continue reading Let’s Hear It For Philly!
From Holden: Wow, nothing like new tax cuts for the ultra-rich followed by reports of record deficits to make you feel good about the direction this country is taking. The federal deficit rose sharply in November as spending raced ahead of tax receipts. The Treasury Department said yesterday that the $83.1 billion was the biggest imbalance ever recorded in November. For the first two months of the 2006 budget year, which began Oct. 1, the deficit was $130.3 billion, 13.1 percent higher than the $115.2 billion deficit during the same period last year. [snip] For November, revenues totaled $138.8 billion, … Continue reading Republicans Love Them Some Deficits
From Holden: The Bush Economy is like a house of cards, and it’s about to take a tumble. A possible hard landing for the U.S. housing market poses the risk of a secular bear market for equities, mutual fund manager David Tice said on Monday at the Reuters Investment Outlook 2006 Summit. “The rollover in real estate could happen pretty quickly,” said Tice, who runs the Prudent Bear, a mutual fund which seeks to benefit from falling share prices. The United States has leaned heavily on housing and related industries for economic growth in recent years. That virtuous circle, fueled … Continue reading House of Cards
From Holden: A preliminary investigation on behalf of the Council of Europe indicates that the CIA did indeed create a secret gulag in Europe that was disbanded when the Washington Post revealed its existence. A Swiss investigator probing claims of secret CIA prisons in Europe said his committee has evidence that supports allegations that prisoners were transferred between countries and temporarily held “without any judicial involvement.” “Legal proceedings in progress in certain countries seemed to indicate that individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards,” lawmaker Dick Marty said in a written report … Continue reading You Did Too
From Holden: Ya’ gotta love the juxtaposition of these two headlines found at CNN.com this morning. Poll: Most say Bush has no Iraq victory plan | Bush victory plan Continue reading CNN, Believe Your Polls
From Holden: Ooops! Looks like establishing democracy is not high on the list of goals of the Iraqi people. A BBC poll yesterday showed that half of those questioned say that Iraq needs a strong leader, while only 28 per cent cited democracy as a priority. But it would be a mistake to think that Iraqis could agree on the same strong leader. The Sunni would like a strong man to put the Shia in their place, and the Shia feel likewise that the priority for a powerful leader would be dealing with the Sunni. Continue reading Democracy? You’re Soaking In It
From Holden: George Bush can’t stop lying. Whether it’s about Saddam’s “connection” to the September 11th attacks or the “threat” Iraq posed to the US, he simply cannot let go of his tried and true lies. Q Mr. President, I would like to know why it is that you and others in your administration keep linking 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq when no respected journalist or Middle Eastern expert confirmed that such a link existed. THE PRESIDENT: What did she — I missed the question. Sorry. I didn’t — I beg your pardon, I didn’t hear you. Seriously. Q … Continue reading Married to the Big Lie
From Holden: Poor Tom DeaLay. He strongarms Denny the Meatpuppet into pushing the opening of the House back to January 31 in hopes that his legal problems in Texas might be resolved, allowing him to reclaim the Majority Leader’s post that is rightfully his, only to have that meanie Ronnie Earle appeal Judge Pat Priest’s decision to drop the conspiracy charge against DeLay, which could delay DeLay’s trial on money laundering charges by several months. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle asked a judge Monday to stay all proceedings in the money-laundering case against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay while he … Continue reading Pity Tom DeLay
So here’s the real thing: I believe that the president of the United States, no matter what his party, should be subject to the most intense journalistic scrutiny imaginable. And he should be able to easily withstand that scrutiny. This is what’s puzzled me, not so much about Bush as about his supporters, from the day of his election: The extreme defensiveness, the contention that the presidency, nay, the nation itself embodied by the office of the presidency, could be laid low simply by asking pointed questions. And maybe it made sense back in the pre-9/11 days of his presidency, … Continue reading A Man Stands Up
From Holden: Jesus Christ it’s impossible to get a simple yes or no out of Little Scottie. Q Scott, is the President pleased with how these four speeches are going so far? Does he feel as though they’re accomplishing the goal he set out, I guess to better educate the American people about what’s going on? MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, they are important speeches, and they are speeches that are helping to inform the American people about the progress that’s being made on the ground in Iraq, the stakes involved in Iraq, and the challenges that remain. This is an opportunity … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle
From Holden: Breaking news via CNN: U.S. Supreme Court to review Republican-friendly Texas congressional map engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay. A bow to bkny for the tip. Continue reading Supremes to Revisit Texas Re-redistricting
From Holden: Iraqis overwhelmingly oppose the occupation of their country according to the latest poll. More than two-thirds of those surveyed oppose the presence of troops from the United States and its coalition partners and less than half, 44 percent, say their country is better off now than it was before the war, according to an ABC News poll conducted with Time magazine and other media partners. Continue reading Unwelcome Visitors
From Holden: The new Saudi ambassador to the United States sez Chimpy’s Vanity War has made terrorism a bigger problem than it would otherwise have been, while the Assministration’s torture fetish has ruined America’s reputation. In an interview, Prince Turki al Faisal said even if the United States had not invaded Iraq, global terrorism would have continued. “Going into Iraq may have accentuated or accelerated that process,” he said. Turki also said, “The U.S. for much of mankind has always stood as an example of … due process, human rights, innocent before proven guilty. If any of these precepts and … Continue reading He’s No Bandar Bush
From Holden: We’ve come full circle in Iraq. An Iraqi general formerly in charge of special forces said he witnessed horrific scenes of torture in Iraqi prisons and accused a Shiite militia of being responsible. “It was horrific. Thousands of detainees, often teenagers, beaten, burned, receiving electric shocks, then the majority killed,” Muntazar al-Samarrai, who fled Iraq for Jordan five months ago, told AFP. In video footage Samarrai said he filmed at one detention center, men show whip marks and acid burns. One of them has lost an eye. Another’s legs are broken. Still another has nails driven into his … Continue reading Return of the Rape Rooms
From Tena: Circle Jerks After reading this–and this–and this, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions. 1) So-called reputable journalists have completely forfeited their high horse when it comes to complaining about bloggers as a species of riffraff–they no longer have the right to lament bloggers’ slapdash sourcing, to deplore their invective and lack of couth, to act as if they’re civilized reporters forced to fend off laptop barbarians. No blogger has comported him or herself with the lazy arrogance and sloppy ethics of some of the Big Names in journalism (Bob Woodward, Judith Miller, Bob Novak), nor has done … Continue reading Wolcott
From Holden: I lack the sources to be an advanced Plameologist, but I am shocked at just how lame the two excuses in the following two paragraphs of Viveka N.’s tale are. A new meeting with Fitzgerald was arranged for Dec. 8. Leaks about my role began appearing in the papers, some of them closer to the mark than others. They all made me feel physically ill. Fitzgerald had asked that I check a couple of dates in my calendar for meetings with Luskin. One of them, March 1, 2004, checked out. I hadn’t found that one in my first … Continue reading Lame
Atrios had this. Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag — greeted by a color guard. But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners — stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo. John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight. “When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made,” … Continue reading Carry Me Home
God, Jean Schmidt is a moron. A. Continue reading 80,000 Terrorists
Yet another person on the list of about 50 million people more deserving of your time than Judy Miller: Mr. Zhao, 43, was arrested in Shanghai on Sept. 17, 2004, and accused of leaking state secrets to The Times. He is being held in Beijing and has not yet had a court hearing. The accusation, which Mr. Zhao and The Times deny, came 10 days after the publication of an article in The Times saying that Jiang Zemin, the former president, had offered to give up his last leadership position. Mr. Jiang retired on Sept. 19. The Times has denied … Continue reading Hey, Lucy Dalglish
From Holden: No Little Scottie today, but I doe have Terrence Trent d’Uffy aboard Air Force One for you. Today’s topic: Presidential mistakes. Q Trent, if I could ask you about the past two speeches on Iraq and the one you have coming up on Monday. What’s been most notable about them – apart from the strategy, itself – has been the decision in both of the recent speeches to admit some fairly severe mistakes in the course of reconstruction and in arming the civilian Iraqi police and so forth; there was a long list the President provided. Why did … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle
To properly blog ferrets, you need a video camera. Stripe, the gray one, has been very sick these past few days. It wasn’t supposed to work like that. When we brought him home from the shelter, he looked more like Little Joe up there than like our old skinny baby, Fox, and anyway Fox was the ill-tempered sickly ferret. We expected him to die two years ago. But two weeks ago, with all the drama I’ve come to expect from anything living in this house, Stripe lost half his body weight, most of his tail fur, all his desire to … Continue reading Friday Ferretblogging: Brotherly Love Edition
Because Atrios must never be allowed to say in 200 words what I can say in a thousand. Look. The reason conservative blogs have been more “successful,” however Crowley’s defining that, is because they’re repeating already successful lines. I mean, c’mon. When’s the last time you saw ConservoBots like InstaDipshit go after Bush as hardcore as we go after Lieberman? When’s the last time you saw Assrocket take it to conservatives, in fact, when’s the last time Assrocket had an original thought? Conservative blogs appear to be espousing successful, effective ideas because they’re ideas a conservative admistration and Congress has … Continue reading Shooting the Wounded
From Holden: Like many other bloggers, we get lots of mail. I try to go through it daily but lately I’ve fallen behind. Most of it is blogspam, individual bloggers or organizations who send their latest post to every lefty blogger in the universe, much of which I have already seen. I ususally mark those messages as read and move on. But one message I did read with interest today was from the Freeway Blogger, who has a new — us, blog. Check it out. I also liked the Yellow Dog Democrat’s questions for deadenders, a handy reference. Continue reading Cracking Open the Mail Bag
From Tena: link here. Two of metro Atlanta’s biggest churches — one pastored by a prominent Baptist minister and the other by his son — will close their doors Christmas Day, which falls on a Sunday this year. First Baptist Church of Atlanta, led by the Rev. Charles Stanley, and North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, led by his son Andy, say they want to allow their staff, volunteers and congregation to celebrate the birth of Jesus in their own ways. This is just Atlanta. Churches all over the country are reportedly closing on Sunday, December 25. I guess as … Continue reading Help! Christmas is being ignored by…wait a minute, what the hell?