Heck, let’s just go ahead and make it the quote of the week! Could it be General Patraeus is just trying too hard?
Petraeus: McCain’s market trip ‘helped the Iraqi economy.’
On PBS yesterday, Gen. David Petraeus tried to boost up Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) much-maligned visit to Baghdad’s Shorja market: “He was not protected by a cocoon of security. Yep, there was security there, but he out — actually he helped the Iraqi economy quite a bit, bought a number of carpets, in fact.” McCain [...]
Tags: John McCain, Baghdad, Market Visit, General Patraeus
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
The real reason. Warning: There’s a fairly heavy bit of conspiracy-theory buried in the posts referenced below. But, they’re guaranteed to make for interesting reading…
It Was About the Oil; It Still Is About the Oil; It Will Always Be About the Oil
Back in January, Chris Floyd wrote an article about the real reason for Pres. Bush’s “troop surge” policy: access to Iraq’s vast oil reserves via a bill called “the hydrocarbon law,” which gives Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell the lion’s share of Iraqi oil revenues. Earlier this week, Floyd directed his readers to a piece written by Richard Behan that examines this law, and its [...]
Tags: Troop Surge, Big Oil, Iraqi Oil, The Hydocarbon Law
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
Obviously, without even realizing what he was doing. The disconnect among the key players is palpable. And, wouldn’t you know it, Rush is in the middle of it all.
Cheney Says Bush, Rumsfeld, And Myers Are ‘Dead Wrong’ Over ‘War On Terror’
On Rush Limbaugh’s radio show this afternoon, Vice President Dick Cheney attacked the House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) for refusing to use the phrase “global war on terror.” Cheney said Skelton exhibited “flawed thinking” and was “dead wrong on this.” CLICK HERE TO LISTEN As ThinkProgress reported, in attacking Skelton, Cheney is also [...]
Tags: Dick Cheney, Global War on terror, Rush Limbaugh
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
Now, another prominent reporter has stepped out, openly critical of John McCain’s little sojurn through the "newly-safe" Baghdad last weekend. Amazingly, the statement comes on the CBS News website!
‘He’s talking rubbish and he should not get away with it’
CNN’s Michael Ware isn’t the only major network journalist denouncing John McCain’s recent nonsense about allegedly safe areas of Baghdad; CBS News foreign correspondent Allen Pizzey has been nearly as critical. Pizzey, who’s based out of Rome, talked to Brian Montopoli today, who asked whether the senator’s comments bothered journalists in Iraq. Yes. It’s disgraceful for [...]
Tags: John McCain, Baghdad Visit, Allen Pizzey, Michael Ware
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
But Kos has spotted an interesting trend in political fundraising. I must focus on the word "trend", because there is a long way to go in the 2008 Campaigns.
GOP fundraising drying up
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again — if Republicans lose their fundraising advantage, they’ve got nothing left. They’ve always lost on the issues, but have used money to destroy Democratic candidates, to muddy the issues, and to fund organized campaigns to disenfranchising Democratic base voters. The underfunded Democrats have thus suffered as a result. But that is now changing. "According to preliminary fundraising numbers released by the campaigns this week, the combined Democratic field raised about $80 million, compared with [...]
Tags: Political Fundraising, 2008 Campaign
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
In fact, it doesn’t get much stronger than this, via Editor and Publisher. It’s today’s Must Read –
Joe Klein in Tomorrow’s TIME: Bush ‘Clearly Unfit to Lead’
In the upcoming issue of Time magazine, out Friday, columnist Joe Klein considers what he calls the Bush administration’s “epic collapse.” He concludes with a statement that may make some wonder if he is hinting that the president ought to be impeached. Klein claims, in referring to the president, that he has “tried to be respectful of the man and the office” but now he recognizes that [...]
Tags: Joe Klein, Time Magazine, Bush Administration, Impeachment
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
At least some folks over at the Department of Justice are getting letters. From Congress. Guess whose turn came today?
Leahy to Gonzales: Answers, Please
Just a taste of what’s to come. In a letter today to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (who’s doggedly preparing for his upcoming testimony), Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) scolded Gonzales for failing to respond to prior questions from the [...]
Tags: Pat Leahy, Alberto Gonzales, U.S. Attorneys, Attorney Purge
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
Here’s Countdown’s summary of one of the more fascinating stories today – how Alberto Gonzales is being "coached" before his House Judiciary Committee appearance. Coached intensely, apparently. Great comparison comin’ atcha -
You Can’t Handle the Truth
On "The West Wing," Countdown’s favorite alternate universe administration, Toby Ziegler once admitted to giving Jed Bartlett advice like: "I told him that, if asked about it tonight, he should — if only because it’s the easiest thing to remember — tell the truth." Yet in the current couldn’t-be-more-real Bush Administration, it seems Attorney General Gonzales finds remembering the truth anything but easy. The AG is now hard at work cramming for his Senate hearing… "spending hours practicing testimony" with "three days of rigorous mock testimony sessions next week." Who knew the truth could be such a burden? [...]
Tags: Alberto Gonzales, Countdown, Keith Olbermann, Toby Ziegler, Jed Bartlett, Attorney Purge, U.S. Attorneys
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
Oh, let’s just say THIS should be something to see.
Gingrich to debate Kerry on climate
Two men who love the limelight but have mostly fallen from it as other political stars have risen will have a chance for some attention next week as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will take on Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, next week as the men will hold a two-hour debate on climate change on Capitol Hill. Kerry is in the midst of promoting the book he authored with his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, "This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future." For his part, Gingrich is trying to gain traction for [...]
Tags: Newt Gingrich, John Kerry, Climate Change, Global Warming
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
So, it’s a relatively slow news day. Except here in Arkansas, where we have a smoldering scandal in the University of Arkansas athletic department seemingly set to burst into a full-fledged inferno. You got yer football coach. You got his cell phone records. You got yer unbelievable number of text messages to a female TV anchor. You got yer fired basketball coach. You got yer NEW basketball coach. You got yer NEW basketball coach who becomes yer FORMER basketball 24 hours after he was NEW. And that, my friends, is just the tip of the soap opera iceberg. Let’s just name the Razorback Athletics Department "Titanic" and be done with it. Good reading from the Arkansas Times blog and its commenters.
Quick, hide the records
By now this blog has carried a bit of the blowback from wild Hog board discussions about an FOI request made for football coach Houston Nutt’s telephone records. They shed some light on the frequent contact that Nutt has had at key times with a Hog booster who wrote an ugly e-mail to Mitch Mustain and with Nutt’s agent. Something is also being made about the large number of phone calls and text messages Nutt made to a female Fort Smith newscaster, including one minutes before an important football. game. This was a time, disgruntled fans might say, that Nutt could have [...]
Tags: Arkansas Razorbacks, University of Arkansas, Houston Nutt, Stan Heath
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
At this rate, I’m more of a lifelong hunter than Romney, and I haven’t hunted in thirty years! Just put a check mark next to this one in the "ooops" column.
Romney Only Hunted Twice
Mitt Romney, a "self-described lifelong hunter," has only hunted twice: once when he was 15 years old, and once with major donors to the Republican Governors Association, according to the AP. "An aide said Wednesday that Romney was not trying [...]
Tags: Mitt Romney, Hunting
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
Kudos to the Horses Mouth blogger who spotted some truly rotten journalism by the Associated Press. It’s a stretch to understand how an editor didn’t notice the problem, long before the story was released. It’s just SO obvious.
This Washington Post…
This Washington Post editorial on Nancy Pelosi’s Syria trip flagged by Think Progress and Atrios is indeed awful. But I think I’ve found a piece of journalism on the trip that’s even worse — indeed, it may even lay a [... ]
Tags: Nancy Pelosi, Syria Visit, Washington Post
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
Radio talker Rachel Maddow nails Senator Orin Hatch for his appearance last Sunday on Meet the Press. Let’s put it another way. She systematically disembowels one of his key statements. If Air America had more people who research and know politics AND the business of radio, the network might not be in the nosedive it seems to be in.
Rachel Maddow’s Open Letter To Orrin Hatch
The Rachel Maddow Show: Dear Senator Hatch – You don’t call, you don’t write… I’ve just about exhausted myself trying to get someone in your office to call me back this week. Please apologize to your adorable receptionist on my behalf – the poor man now gets audibly exasperated as soon as I say "hello". What I’d like [...]
UPDATE: From Rachel’s own blog – Orrin Hatch Apologizes. Kind Of.
Tags: Rachel Maddow, Air America, Orin Hatch, Meet the Press, Carol Lam, U.S. Attorney, Attorney Purge
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
I get so dad-gummed worked up when bloggers try to make something into something that it is not. Care for a good case-in-point? Just follow the link and read along as the gang at anti-liberal Newsbusters.org makes a mountain out of a molehill in the Global Warming issue. If you’re gonna single out one city and one dip in the temp to try to challenge the entire climate change thing, it’s – well- just plain silly. It’s like saying there’s no climate change underway because we’re at 50 degrees today and the April average for Little Rock is 73. Give it a couple of days, people! Look at the BIG picture, people!
Global Warming Alarmists in Media Ignore Freezing Fire Hydrants in Alaska
A rather inconvenient truth occurred in late March that went totally unreported by the global warming alarmists in the media. On the very day that soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore was informing Congress of the planet’s imminent doom, the Anchorage Daily News reported that this winter has been so cold there that fire hydrants are exploding. I bet your favorite drive-by media outlet didn’t share [...]
Tags: Global Warming, Inconvenient Truth, Fire Hydrants
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
This is certainly interesting, and more than just a bit frightening. Particularly if you, like I, enjoy eating some of that polinated food from time to time.
Bee Crisis
Approximately a third of our food comes from pollinated crops. Take away the bees who do the pollinating and you have a major crisis on your hands. How bad is the problem? In some parts of the country the bee population is half of what it was last year at this time. The worst part is that scientists have no idea what the heck is going on. It could be months before we know the answers. It could be anything from [...]
Tags: Bees, Pollination, Vanishing Bees
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
Heck, let’s just go ahead and make it the quote of the week! Could it be General Patraeus is just trying too hard?
Petraeus: McCain’s market trip ‘helped the Iraqi economy.’
On PBS yesterday, Gen. David Petraeus tried to boost up Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) much-maligned visit to Baghdad’s Shorja market: “He was not protected by a cocoon of security. Yep, there was security there, but he out — actually he helped the Iraqi economy quite a bit, bought a number of carpets, in fact.” McCain [...]
Tags: John McCain, Baghdad, Market Visit, General Patraeus
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
The real reason. Warning: There’s a fairly heavy bit of conspiracy-theory buried in the posts referenced below. But, they’re guaranteed to make for interesting reading…
It Was About the Oil; It Still Is About the Oil; It Will Always Be About the Oil
Back in January, Chris Floyd wrote an article about the real reason for Pres. Bush’s “troop surge” policy: access to Iraq’s vast oil reserves via a bill called “the hydrocarbon law,” which gives Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell the lion’s share of Iraqi oil revenues. Earlier this week, Floyd directed his readers to a piece written by Richard Behan that examines this law, and its [...]
Tags: Troop Surge, Big Oil, Iraqi Oil, The Hydocarbon Law
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
Specifically, the ones from Diebold. It’s been a while since we posted anything fresh on this issue, but it’s time to bring it back to a front and center position. Brad Blog scores with an important update:
Diebold Whistleblower Stephen Heller’s First Live Broadcast Interview
I recently interviewed whistleblower Stephen Heller, while guest hosting Cynthia Black’s Action Point on Air America/Nova M Pheonix. It was Heller’s first live broadcast interview and his wife Michelle Gregory also joined us for a bit. A documentary film crew was on hand to capture the event. Heller is the Los Angeles actor who stole incriminating documents [...]
Tags: Diebold, Electronic Voting Machines, Voter Fraud, Stephen Heller
Powered by Qumana
Categories: Uncategorized
