A Better Baghdad

A positive report from a Baghdad neighborhood.  It’s good news, most certainly. The poster makes an interesting observation; that the turnaround happened because we were willing to, essentially, negotiate with terrorists…

A Baghdad neighborhood returns to life

Twilight brings traffic jams to the main shopping district of this once-affluent corner of Baghdad and hundreds of people stroll past well-stocked [...]

Torture Testimony

I haven’t seen much about the testimony referenced in the post below, but it provides some great thoughts about the impact of torture and those thoughts come from a true expert.

Forget the ticking time-bomb scenario

The recent rash of conservatives who’ve publicly announced their support for torture seems to be broken up into two camps: those who support torture in rare, extreme circumstances, and those who think routine torture isn’t worth getting worked up about. Just this week, we’ve seen Cal Thomas take up the prior position, and National Review’s [...]

Nightly Media Check

The O’Reilly-Olbermann war continues.  Keith just has so much fun when Bill-o goes off the deep end. This one’s about ratings, Rosie and more.

Bill O’Reilly Swings at MSNBC…and Misses

Keith breaks down and fact-checks BillO’s latest MSNBC rant. This is just so easy by now [...]

Hillary and The Tip

You probably heard or read the story today, about how Hillary Clinton didn’t leave a tip after she ate at an Iowa restaurant recently. Well, in case your anti-Hillary friends would like to know the truth, I’m happy to straighten things out..

Clinton: Stiffed the waitress? Big tip found

At first, the story line went like this: Sen. Hillary Clinton may have committed the ultimate political culinary sin — not tipping the waitress. But the story was wrong: NPR has retracted its initial report, a nasty little anecdote about iClnton meeting a working-mom waitress at the Maid-Rite eatery in Iowa over the summer, using her story in a speech — and then stiffing her on the tip. Now NPR has confirmed the tip with an editor’s note: [...]

Be Afraid

New terror threat tonight, folks!  However, we shouldn’t be too worried.  Nobody has enough money to put gas in their cars to get to the malls and no money to spend there…

FBI: Al Qaeda May Strike U.S. Shopping Malls in LA, Chicago

The FBI is warning that al Qaeda may be preparing a series of holiday attacks on U.S. shopping malls in Los Angeles and Chicago, according to an intelligence bulletin distributed to law enforcement authorities across the country this morning. The alert [...]

Showing Some Spine

I’ll see your veto and raise you an override! Smack!

Breaking: Congress overrides Bush veto for first time

President Bush suffered the first veto override of his seven-year-old presidency Thursday as the Senate enacted a $23 billion water resources bill despite his protest that it was too expensive. It was the first time in a decade that Congress has passed a bill over a presidential veto. The vote was 79-14 [...]

Telcom Immunity

It’s sounding like the vote on immunity for the big telcom companies may be pushed back just a bit. That’ll give you time to watch this, in case you’re still not sure where you stand on the issue.

Countdown: AT&T Whistleblower Speaks Out Against Immunity For Telcoms

If you have any reservations about Congress granting immunity to telecommunications companies like AT&T for illegally spying on Americans, this segment from last night’s Countdown should leave little room for doubt — they have, and continue to betray us and should be held accountable for their crimes. [...]

Katrina, FEMA and NOLA

As I’ve noted before, it’s simply tragic that we’re still talking about these problems, two years after Katrina.

FEMA Protecting Its Employees, Not Evacuees

There are still 50,000 families forced to live in FEMA trailers ever since Hurricane Katrina. Trailers in which the levels of formaldehyde present in the air are so high, CBS has obtained emails that indicate the agency is prohibiting its employees from even briefly stepping inside [...]

Subprime fiasco: “We’ve only begun to see the pain”

Testing an alternate blog posting system, so posts may look a bit varied.

Check out this post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth:

Let’s all thank the GOP for their bang up job with allowing Wall Street to self regulate. How did anyone think this would not become an ugly problem? “We’ve only begun to see the pain from the standpoint of the homeowner in terms of those monthly payments,” said Bill Gross, chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management or Pimco.

(from: Subprime fiasco: “We’ve only begun to see the pain”)

Change of Heart

First they said “yes”, then they said “no” to testimony.  It’s the age-old situation where that simple reversal and refusal to provide information that makes the Administration look guilty, even if it is not.

Pentagon Counsel William Haynes Bars Gitmo Prosecutor From Testifying About Torture

Today, a House Judiciary subcommittee is holding an oversight hearing on the “effectiveness and consequences of ‘enhanced’ interrogation.” The Committee had invited Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, a former Guantanamo Bay prosecutor, to testify about his experiences. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Asked last week to appear before the panel, Col. Couch says he informed [...]

There was a strong voice at that hearing today..

Nance: U.S. Troops Now ‘Guaranteed’ To Be Tortured in Captivity

Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) asked during today’s hearing whether even the impression that the U.S. tortures makes it more likely that an adversary in a future conflict — he used the Iranians as an example — would torture captured U.S. or allied troops.  Former Navy instructor Malcolm Nance said he considered it a “guarantee” that other nations now have “a legal standard to subject American soldiers to enhanced interrogations.” U.S. Air Force Reserve Colonel Steve Kleinman said [...]

Long-time reporter Joe Galloway would agree:

Memo to Media: I Witnessed ‘Waterboarding’ — And, Yes, It is Torture

Four decades ago, as a reporter in Vietnam, I saw what it was like. When you hog-tie a human being, tilt him head down, stuff a rag in his mouth and over his nostrils and pour water onto the rag slowly and steadily to the point where his lungs start to fill with water, that is torture [...]

Immediately after today’s hearing, action!

House Dems Introduce Anti-Torture Bill

On the heels of today’s torture hearings in a House Judiciary subcommittee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the subcommittee chairman, and Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA) have introduced a bill to force all American interrogators to conform to the Geneva Conventions-compliant standards of the Army Field Manual on Interrogation (pdf). That would mean no waterboarding, no “cold cells,” no stress positions — none of that stuff that Malcolm Nance [...]

The Importance of Iowa

Not that my home state should wield all this political influence, but it does.

Is Iowa Getting Reduced to a Romney-Huckabee Race?

Marc Ambinder has the news that Mike Huckabee is essentially moving into Iowa for the next two months. It’s a good strategy, with a twist though. Yes, according to the latest polls, Huckabee has [...]

By the way, ASSUMING an Iowa win, here’s where Huckabee stands in New Hampshire right now…

NH Poll

Rasmussen Reports is out with a new poll of GOP primary voters in New Hampshire: Romney 32 (+4 vs. last poll Oct. 23) Giuliani 17 (-2) McCain 16 (nc) Huckabee 10 (nc) Thompson 7 (+1) Overall, Romney [... ]

For Huckabee, the Arkansas Times blog has a question…

Would you advertise this?

Mike Huckabee announces he’s been endorsed by the hate-mongering Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association, the Mississippi preacher who sounded the alarm about [...]

Simply Shouldn’t Be Happening

It certainly doesn’t seem that we’re doing what we should be doing for our veterans.  I’m waiting for some half-hearted explanation/excuse from the Administration.

1 In 4 Homeless Americans Are Veterans

AP Via Yahoo: Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday. And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and [...]

Could that be happening because of this?

BUSH ADMINISTRATION HELPS ROLL UP “WELCOME BACK” MAT FOR RETURNING VETERANS

Strained by extended tours in Iraq, growing numbers of military reservists say the government is providing little help to soldiers who are denied their old jobs when they return home, Defense Department data shows. The Pentagon survey of reservists in 2005-2006, obtained by The Associated Press, details increasing discontent among returning troops in protecting their legal rights after [...]

Global Warming

Remember John Coleman?  The original weather channel dude is back.  And he ain’t happy.

“It is the Greatest Scam in History”

So says John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel, as he discusses global warming. He is not kind to global warming advocates, some of which preached the horrors of the impending ice ages of global cooling just several decades ago [...]

The fine folks at Think Progress put together a nice list of things that pretty much go after Coleman’s reputation…

Right Wing Trumpets Global Warming Denial Of Discredited ‘TV Weatherman’

Yesterday, John Coleman, a founder of The Weather Channel, wrote an article for the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, a right-wing climate change skeptic site, claiming man-made global warming is just a “scam“: It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is [...]

I’m betting this poster at The Carpetbagger Blog would welcome a little sit-down discussion with Mr. Coleman and I’d love to listen in..

Global warming causes political peril for the GOP

As a matter of common sense, global warming shouldn’t be a political issue at all. Climate change represents a catastrophic threat to humanity, and the likely disasters won’t discriminate on the basis of political party. And yet, this week, the WaPo ran a front-page story under the headline: “Climate Is a Risky Issue for Democrats.” Apparently, [...]

Call It What You Want

And tapdance around the language.  It is what it is…

Smoking gun on extraordinary rendition

Whenever the subject of torture comes up, the White House responds reflexively with a simple, categorical statement: “We don’t torture.” Occasionally, the president and his team will go even further in their denials, adding statements such as, “We do not render to countries that torture. That has been our policy, and that policy will remain [...]

Impeachment

It’s back on the front burner for Cheney.  Surprised?

Suddenly, Impeachment Hearings Are Looking Like a Strong Possibility

You wouldn’t know it if you just watch TV news or read the corporate press, but this past Tuesday, something remarkable happened. Despite the pig-headed opposition of the Democratic Party’s top congressional leadership, a majority of the House, including three Republicans, voted to send Dennis Kucinich’s long sidelined Cheney impeachment bill (H Res 333) to [...]

It’s Your Money

Hey, guess what!  Your money’s not worth what it once was.  And the world is taking notice.  There is an absolutely mind-boggling quote from a top investment guy when you click on the link below.

“Investors agree: Anything but the dollar”

Our country is in serious trouble. Under George Bush and the Republicans we not only lost our leadership as the moral standard-bearer of the world, we now risk losing our leadership as the financial bedrock of the world. People no longer have confidence in America. And all of the republicans’ flag-waving and “we’re number one!” slogans have done nothing to fix some very serious problems that they’ve caused and ignored. We can’t go on like this. Pretending that we’re [...]

And, this from Washington: Fed Chairman Says Economy Likely to Slow

Ben S. Bernanke cited the housing meltdown, tighter credit and rising oil prices, but he gave no signal that the central bank would cut rates again [...]

Already Thursday!

Man, did this week fly by!  We’re still nursing our heartworm dog back to health.  She had the second treatment Monday and Tuesday and is still extremely sore from the injections.  We still have a month of “quiet time” to go, gentle walks on a leash when she needs to go outside and no excitement. Hopefully, after that, she’ll test negative for the doggone things and be able to go on the preventive drugs to avoid any future problems.  I’ll just be happy when her appetite truly returns and she can run to the fence and bark at the dog next door!

On to the political chatter of the evening, we’re starting with Blackwater and a huge piece in today’s Washington Post. 

How Blackwater Sniper Fire Felled 3 Iraqi Guards

Last Feb. 7, a sniper employed by Blackwater USA, the private security company, opened fire from the roof of the Iraqi Justice Ministry. The bullet tore through the head of a 23-year-old guard for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network, who was standing on a balcony across an open traffic [... ]

I snagged that link from my email update from the post.  It’s a good daily read.  As is CNN’s Political Ticker. 

Poll: Iraq war opposition at record high

Opposition to the war in Iraq has reached an all-time high, according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Thursday morning. Support for the war in Iraq has dropped to [...]

Also on the war front: a new funding plan.

New Iraq measure would require withdrawal

Pelosi plans Iraq measure to provide $50 billion in funds for the war in exchange for withdrawal [...]

Media Ownership

Regular readers will know that my background is in broadcasting. If there is a concerted effort to push something like this, it really could impact the future.

How to Terrify the Media Conglomerates

If the strike drags on and the media moguls won’t settle, it might be a good time to hold Congressional hearings on media policy.  The FCC is going to turn over in 2009, and all three major Democratic candidates have indicated support for the writers.  Does that support extend to making sure that an FCC majority is appointed which considers the antitrust implications of a TV network that owns its own content?  It certainly seems like [...]

Your Midnight Money

What’s wrong with the economy?  Just look..

Chinese official sends the dollar to a new low

Oh the tangled web that Bush has woven. “Currency traders gave the dollar a thorough pounding today after a Chinese official suggested that the country could begin to diversify its huge foreign-exchange reserves. The euro broke [...]