This Story

REALLY frustrates me.  Especially when those on the right start sounding stupid.

Rape in war? Impossible!

Ace of Spades claims that the woman who was gang-raped by Halliburton employees is lying. Of course she is. Ace himself has played hours and hours of every war video game under the sun, and no matter how much you try, or how many cheats you install, there just is no “Rape that [...]

Abrams: Bush League Justice

Thank goodness for the “internets”.  I would have missed Dan Abram’s excellent work on MSNBC, were it not for the online post at “Crooks and Liars”.  Every once in a while, television lives up to its potential and we get some true “digging”.  This series, based on the first in a series of stories, does what it’s supposed to do.

Bush League Justice

 Dan Abrams began a new series Monday chronicling the politicization of the Civil Rights Department of the DOJ under George W. Bush. Politicization would be a polite euphemism for turning the very basis for the creation of a Civil Rights Department inside out. And [...]

An Endorsement For Mitt

We’ll see if it gets him a bump in the heartland.

National Review Endorses Romney

Huge, HUGE endorsement for Mitt Romney, from a publication that has often seemed downright hostile to the former Massachusetts governor. “Unlike some other candidates in the race, Romney is a full-spectrum conservative: a supporter of free-market economics and limited government, moral causes such as [...]

Political Depression

Ironically, we were talking about this very thing over dinner recently.  If you try to keep up with the events of the day and actually try to figure out what’s really going on, it becomes downright depressing! 

Being informed is depressing

I had the strongest sense of deja vu reading this fantastic piece on how *depressing* it is to be informed these days. I don’t know if I read a similar article before, or if it’s just something I’ve been thinking about for a while, but the tagline really sums it up well: “Staying informed has become — for so many of us — a moral obligation that feels like hell.” As the author, Courtney Martin, laments, “Some weekends it feels like a masochistic, last-ditch effort to keep myself from going numb. Some weekends, [...]

Tell Me, Again…

Tell me why we should pay so much attention to the Iowa Caucuses…

Out-of-State Voters Could Skew Iowa Caucus Results

David Yepsen is worried that “zealous out-of-state staffers and non-Iowa supporters of candidates may try to vote in the Iowa caucuses, thereby skewing the results.” Republican officials “are particularly concerned about [...]

Chris Bowers is ready for a fight! –

Why I Will Caucus In Iowa (And Why You Should, Too)

…The elitism of this article, against students, against Ron Paul supporters, against people from Illinois, is infuriating. Mike Connery destroys Yespen and some Democratic candidates for the way this attitude works to disenfranchise youth voters. I, however, want to go a step further. In fact, I am so irritated by this, that if I can figure out a way to get there, I have decided to [...]

The Coastal Recovery

Once again, we need to be reminded that things STILL aren’t going swimingly down on the Gulf Coast.

Slow go in Mississippi Go Zone…”little involvement with coastal reconstruction”

That according to the Clarion Ledger which reports that the federal Go Zone program of tax breaks and tax-free bonds “has had mixed success in Mississippi with some of the intended help going to businesses far from the ravaged Gulf [...]

Time Out

Ah, memories of my youth.  Led Zeppelin.  Back.  Links to plenty of videos on the post below. 

The Gods Have Returned

There were a lot of fans who were nervous that Led Zeppelin’s much-hyped reunion gig would fall as flat as their awful Live Aid set, which was so bad the band refused to allow it on the concert’s compilation DVD. But not to worry says Martin Dunk, the music critic for [...]

He’s Everywhere

The Huck posts continue.  First batch is right down here.  But the proverbial “hits just keep on comin’”

Huckabee: “Don’t Mormons Believe That Jesus And The Devil Are Brothers?”

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, asks in an upcoming article, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”  The article, to be published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, says Huckabee asked the question after saying he believes Mormonism is a religion but [...]

Huckabee/Obama: Who’s the Radical?

Mike Allen and Ben Smith team up for the latest in the thou shalt not be a liberal genre of political journalism. In an article headlined Liberal views could haunt Obama, Allen and Smith lay it out. “When Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was seeking state office a dozen years ago, he took unabashedly liberal positions: flatly opposed to capital punishment, in support of a federal single-payer health plan, against any restrictions on abortion, and in support of state laws to ban the manufacture, sale and even possession of handguns. No [...]

Would GOP Huckabee Nomination Be Democrats’ Dream Come True?

There is an apparent impressive “surge” going on — on the political front: the continued surge of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, which is now reflected in two polls. So the Democrats are now faced with a new twist in this campaign as (once again) the talking heads and for-certain experts have to reformulate their all-knowing pronouncements [...]

Huckabee And Thompson: Global Warming Is ‘Overblown’

Tonight on CBS Evening News, each of the 10 leading presidential candidates will be asked, “Do you think the risks of climate change are at all overblown?” According to an advance transcript, every single candidate acknowledges the threat — except Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson. Huckabee responds that “scientifically,” he doesn’t know whether global warming [...]

You Can’t Have It Both Ways

Either waterboarding IS torture. Or it’s not.  If it’s not, this should be an easy question to answer.

Guantanamo Legal Adviser Refuses To Say Iranians Waterboarding Americans Would Be Torture

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “The Legal Rights of Guantanamo Detainees” this morning, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, repeatedly refused to call the hypothetical waterboarding of an American pilot by the Iranian military torture. “I’m not equipped to answer that question,” said Hartmann. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), [...]

Mukasey ‘undecided’ on whether waterboarding = torture.

In his first public statements regarding the CIA’s destruction of the torture tapes, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said today he “refused to be rushed into deciding whether he considers waterboarding a form of torture. … Mukasey said he has not yet concluded a review of Justice Department memos to determine whether waterboarding amounts to torture [...]

More Power Rankings

As we noted in an earlier post, everybody is doing poltical “power rankings”.  I’m linking to the set from Shakespeare’s Sister because it’s well-written and more interesting than many.

We did the GOP side first.  Now, it’s time for the Dems.

I Promised Power Rankings, I Deliver Power Rankings

We Have A Coach

Maybe.  Quite likely.  And, it’s a good one. It looks like the one thing Bobby Petrino did before he bailed on Atlanta was burn every bridge in town.  A 10 second staff meeting in which he basically said, “I just quit. I’m going to Arkansas.  Good luck. I’ll be in touch.”

Press Conference in Fayetteville at 10:30 tonight. Fans are a happy bunch tonight. Check out the comments below..

Petrino to Arkansas

Maybe this one will stick. ESPN is reporting that Atlanta Falcons coach Bobby Petrino is close to reaching an agreement to become Arkansas’ next football coach. The Falcons just confirmed the report to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and said that Petrino has resigned. The NFL’s official Web site is also reporting the same information. This would be [...]

It’s Melting

That huge hunk of ice up around the North Pole ain’t so big anymore. How’s Santa doing?

Ominous Arctic melt worries experts

An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous [...]

Running the Numbers, 12-11-07

Here’s tonight’s collection of polls and explanations of what they mean.

NY Times Poll

The NY Times poll is out: “Three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Republican voters across the country appear uninspired by their field of presidential candidates, with a vast majority saying they have not made a final decision about whom to [...]

Rasmussen Iowa poll

A new Rasmussen poll in Iowa (Dec. 10, 789 GOP LV)has Huckabee way out ahead of the field. Huckabee [...]

Incumbents Watch Out

“An unusually large number of members of Congress” — 11 Republicans and 5 Democrats — “are being seriously challenged in primaries this election cycle — and their vulnerability could be the latest piece of evidence that this is shaping up to be a perilous political environment for incumbents,” The Politico reports. Key takeaway: [...]

More.  After the jump.

Iraq: Running it Their Way

The Iraqi government is now officially ignoring our suggestions.  What’s the point in staying there?

Iraqi Policewomen Told To Surrender Their Weapons

The Iraqi government has ordered all policewomen to hand in their guns for redistribution to men or face having their pay withheld, thwarting a U.S. initiative to bring women into the nation’s police force. The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, issued the [...]

They really don’t want us there. Example Number Two:

No permanent US bases, says Iraq

Iraq will never allow the United States to have permanent military bases on its soil, the government’s national security adviser said. “We need the [...]

At the Risk of Sounding Trite..

It’s the economy, stupid.  Or, perhaps more appropriately, it’s the stupid economy.  You’re not spending fast enough, people!  What are you doing, sitting here staring at a computer screen. You should be at the mall. Shopping! Spending money you don’t have!

Holiday shopping hits the skids

After getting off to a fast start last month, holiday sales at some of the nation’s largest retailers have slowed to an excruciatingly slow pace and mall traffic has dropped dramatically.  The results, coming two weeks before Christmas, jeopardize an already weak holiday sales [...]

Oh, about that mortgage “freeze”.  You were right all along. It’s not really designed to help you…

The Mortage Meltdown: Interest Rate ‘Freeze’ - The Real Story is Fraud

The San Francisco Chronicle has a piece today on the “Mortage Meltdown.” The gist is that the “freeze,” proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, isn’t really a fix to help working families keep their homes, but a fraud, instituted to “prevent owners of mortgage-backed securities, many of them foreigners, from suing U.S. banks and forcing them [...]

Oh, by the way, Wall Street wasn’t particularly pleased with this news:

Fed Cuts Interest Rate By A Quarter Point

The Federal Reserve has cut a key interest rate by one-quarter of a percentage point to 4.25 percent, the third rate cut in three months. The quarter-point change pushes banks’ prime lending rate, the benchmark for millions of consumer and business loans, down to 7.25 percent, the lowest level in two years. The Fed started cutting rates in September with [...]

The response?  Dow down 300 points.

Bernanke: ‘Pushing On a String’

I join with other investors in disappointment of seeing a 1/4% drop in the Fed Discount Rate. The market didn’t like it and turned from about a 50 point gain in the Dow to a 220 point loss. And the market has another [...]

Scripted By Washington

It must be. Rumors, innuendo, and a quick comment from the Prez that he wants Iran investigated. Again. Unbelievable.

Terrorist groups says Iran NIE wrong…

You could not make this stuff up even if you tried. Under the direction of new owner Ruppert Murdoch, the Wall Street Journal is becoming the paper version of Faux News. Here is their latest nonsense on the Iran NIE: “The Iranian opposition group that first exposed Iran’s nuclear-fuel program said a U.S. intelligence analysis is correct that Tehran shut down its weaponization program in 2003, but claims that the program was relocated and restarted in 2004. The claim, [...]

Monday is Behind Us

Tuesday evening is in full swing.  Strange weather.  45 yesterday.  65 today. The stuff that creates sniffles and coughs.  Drive a few hours north or west from here and you’ll be sliding around on ice. It’s the holiday season.

And we begin with the latest chapter in “How the Huckster Turns”.  Huffington Post is all over the latest developments and we’ll defer to the Arkansas Times, with credit for doing an excellent job of pursuing this information.  There’s a lot of “stuff” being thrown at Huckabee right now.  So far, not much of it seems to be sticking.

Why do they lie?

Big mistake, though one the Huckabee camp has committed before. When former aide Kamala Williams dumped documents on us demonstrating Mike Huckabee’s greedy grab for the Governor’s Mansion spending account,the Huckabee team suggested she somehow had made up the reams of documents, many personal memos unmistakably from Huckabee’s pen. Now the Huckabee team has made the mistake of questioning the validity of documents the governor’s office received from [...]

Here’s what happened when reporters went looking for some of Huckabee’s old sermons.

Get to know Pastor Huckabee — or in this case, don’t

More so than any other presidential candidate in either party, Mike Huckabee is using his Christianity has a campaign tool. In his first TV ad, the viewer is told that the former Arkansas governor is a “CHRISTIAN LEADER” (all-caps in the original). In his first debate, Huckabee rejected modern biology, preferring creationism. In his first [...]

Now, it is possible that he preached from notes, not a fully written script.  He’s pretty darn good at extemporaneous speaking.  By the way, tonight’s collection continues - after the jump.