Straight Outta Congress: bustin’ rhymes with MC Rove
· Bush aide’s performance risks the cringe factor
· President mocks his difficulties on press night
Tillman family pushing for congressional hearings
I want a congressional hearing because I want to find out what actually happened,” Mary Tillman said in a telephone interview on The Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio. “I would like to have it all aired out in a congressional hearing.”
U.S., in Major Shift, Imposes Tariffs on Some Chinese Paper
The Bush administration, in a major escalation of trade pressure on China, said Friday that it would reverse more than 20 years of American policy and impose potentially steep tariffs on Chinese manufactured goods on the ground that China is illegally subsidizing some of its exports.
Call that humiliation?
Terry Jones
No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch
The Rovian Era
Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you’ll find Karl Rove.
Torture led to false claims, terror suspect says
A Saudi man accused of being al-Qaida’s Persian Gulf operations chief said in court that his U.S. captors tortured him for years and forced him to falsely confess to the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole and to many other terrorist plots, according to a Pentagon transcript released yesterday.
The Hand Behind the Taliban
April 1, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
KABUL, Afghanistan
The Taliban is on the resurgence, again ruling a swath of southern Afghanistan, and President Hamid Karzai is sure of the reason: Pakistan.
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Elizabeth Edwards for President
April 1, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By FRANK RICH
ELIZABETH EDWARDS’S choice to stay in the political arena despite a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know about Elizabeth Edwards. People admired her before she was ill for the same reasons they admire her now. She comes across as honest, smart and unpretentious — as well as both devoted to and independent of her husband. But we have learned a great deal about the political arena from the hubbub that greeted her decision. For all the lip service Washington pays to valuing political players who are authentic and truthful, it turns out that real, honest-to-God straight talk about matters of life, death and, yes, political ambition, drives “some people” (to use Katie Couric’s locution) nuts.
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General Tried to Warn Bush on Tillman
For weeks after his death, the Pentagon maintained that Pat Tillman was killed in an enemy ambush, even after a top general tried to warn President Bush that the NFL star-turned-soldier likely died by friendly fire, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
Radical Honesty
Radical Honesty is direct communication that leads to intimacy in relationships. Then people can powerfully create their future together. This works for couples, families, communities and nations.
What’s wrong with this picture?
A man holds a little dog during Saint Lazaro’s celebration in Masaya, some 15 miles south of Managua, Sunday, March 25, 2007. Every year hundreds of parishioners take their dogs, most dressed up in costumes, to ask Saint Lazaro for their health. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
Deadliest Bomb in Iraq War Kills 152
The Iraqi government raised the death toll on Saturday from a truck bomb in the town of Tal Afar to 152, making it the deadliest single bombing of the four-year-old war.
Senator Demands AG Clear Iglesias’ Name
A New York senator is demanding a retraction from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on behalf of New Mexico’s former U.S. attorney, who was fired along with seven other prosecutors last year.
Questions for Karl Rove – and President Bush
The stealth dismissal of U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration carries echoes of the Nixon administration firing special prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973. Now, as then, we may be witnessing criminal acts of obstruction of justice at the highest levels of government. If left to fester, they will poison our system.
Bush’s long history of tilting Justice
The administration began skewing federal law enforcement before the current U.S. attorney scandal, says a former Department of Justice lawyer.
Religion Without Truth
March 31, 2007
Guest Columnist
Religion Without Truth
By STANLEY FISH
In 1992, at a conference of Republican governors, Kirk Fordice of Mississippi referred to America as a “Christian nation.” One of his colleagues rose to say that what Governor Fordice no doubt meant is that America is a Judeo-Christian nation. If I meant that, Fordice replied, I would have said it. (more…)
The Marriage of Corruption & Hypocrisy In Democratic Washington
Why bother to be consistent, when you can just buy off the new majority? By David Sirota
American Kangaroo Court Claims Its First Victim
By Amy Goodman
It is appropriate that a person from Australia, home of the kangaroo, should be the first one dragged before the kangaroo court at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. David Hicks, imprisoned there for more than five years, pleaded guilty Monday to providing material support for terrorism.
Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
In 1971, psychology professor Philip Zimbardo created the Stanford Prison Experiment in which 24 college students were randomly assigned the roles of prison guards and prisoners at a makeshift jail on campus. The experiment was scheduled to run for two weeks. By Day Two, the guards were going far beyond just keeping the prisoners behind bars. In scenes eerily similar to
Abu Ghraib, prisoners were stripped naked, bags put on their heads and sexually humiliated. The two-week experiment had to be canceled after just six days. Zimbardo tells the full story of the landmark study in his new book, “The Lucifer Effect.”
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…
As the wheels continue to come off Mr. Bush’s Iraq War machine, look for the White House to engage in even more heated and fear-mongered rhetoric – their apparent specialty.
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Happy Birthday Vincent Van Gogh
It’s the birthday of Vincent Van Gogh, who was born in Zundert, Holland (1853). As a young man, he was deeply religious and went off to do missionary work in a coal-mining region in Belgium. One day he decided to give away all of his worldly goods and live like a peasant. But his religious superiors thought he was having a nervous breakdown. They kicked him out of the mission and he had to go home. Van Gough wrote in a letter to a friend, “They think I’m a madman, because I wanted to be a true Christian.” (more…)
Alec Baldwin Offers Soldier Tuition Help
Baldwin was so moved by a March 4 New York Times story about Pvt. Resha Kane’s last day with family and friends before going for training to prepare for serving in Iraq that he not his people tracked down Kane’s mother at a discount store where she works to offer his assistance, his spokesman said.
Republicans move to block Al Gore ‘Live Earth’ rock concert
Gore is planning a single-day, series of free “Live Earth” concerts on seven continents, with the goal of calling attention to the climate change crisis. The US concert, scheduled for the steps of the Capitol on July 7, 2007, has drawn an A-list slate of pop performers, including the Police, Kanye West, Faith Hill, Bon Jovi and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The Porn Plot Against Prosecutors
by MAX BLUMENTHAL
In September 2006, just weeks before pivotal Congressional midterm elections, Paul Charlton, US Attorney for Arizona, opened a preliminary investigation into Republican Representative Rick Renzi of the state’s First Congressional District for an alleged pattern of corruption involving influence-peddling and land deals. Almost immediately, Charlton’s name was added to a blacklist of federal prosecutors the White House wanted to force from their jobs. Charlton is someone “we should now consider pushing out,” D. Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez’s chief of staff, wrote to then White House Counsel Harriet Miers on September 13. In his previously safe Republican district, Renzi had barely held on in the election. On December 7, the White House demanded Charlton’s resignation without offering him any explanation.
Message to the Man in the Bunker
William Greider writes that by voting to set a deadline for exiting Iraq, the House and Senate have heeded the American people’s call to end the war. But will the man in the White House bunker get the message?
Iran planning to stop using U.S. dollar to price oil, central bank governor says
Iran is planning to stop using the U.S. dollar to price oil, with less than half of its oil income now paid in the U.S. currency, Iran’s central bank governor said.
What to Do About Iran?
Though the Bush administration finds itself preoccupied trying to fend off congressional pressure to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, the drumbeat for countering Iran is likely to grow louder again soon, especially with the faceoff between Iran and the United Kingdom over the capture of British naval personnel. In this guest essay, Ivan Eland warns that escalating sanctions against Iran may hurt more than help.
Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows
Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 — receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows.
How to Tell a Billionaire From a Bomber
March 30, 2007
NYC
By CLYDE HABERMAN
The Billionaires, with a capital B, were delighted to hear that there are more superrich New Yorkers than they had thought.
Several Billionaires were sitting in Union Square Park the other day, and one of them remarked to us that 45 billionaires, small B, call New York home. Actually, we said, there are 50, judging from the latest Forbes magazine list.
Well, that touched off so many high-fives and shouts of “All right!” that you’d have thought the incredible had happened, like world peace or the Knicks making the playoffs.
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Pork Goes to War
Emergency spending bills are called “Christmas trees,” for the unrelated “ornaments” that are added by members of Congress. (They are exempt from budget rules and are almost never vetoed, making them magnets for pork.)
Many Plans, No News
March 30, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
In the Middle East today, home of the invention of algebra, a new math seems to have taken over. It is subtraction by addition. It goes like this: Add more trips to the region by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — who doesn’t seem to have any coherent strategy — to an emotionally stale, restated Saudi peace overture to Israel, and combine it with a cynical Hamas-Fatah cease-fire accord and an Israeli prime minister so unpopular his poll ratings are now lower than the margin of error, and you’ll find that we’re actually going backward — way back, back to the pre-Oslo era. (more…)
The D.C. Tea Party
March 29, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By BOB HERBERT
Washington
Larry Chapman is a firefighter, and during an interview the other day I couldn’t help but notice the burns from a recent fire that circled both of his wrists. He shrugged them off. Part of the job.
He and I were talking about something that bothered him a lot more. He’s an American citizen, lives in the nation’s capital, has kept his nose clean his entire life and has always had a strong interest in national politics and government. (more…)
Congressional Meddling In Religion Violates Church-State Separation,
Politicians Should Stick To Legislating And Leave Decisions About Religion To Individual Americans, Says AU’s Lynn
Is it all about the money?
…I don’t know - but I’m pretty sure it’s not about you.
Too often, our election system forces politicians to put their campaign coffers ahead of the public interest. That’s why we need to make sure Congress hears the message loud and clear - stop the money chase.
Click below to tell your member of Congress to stop the money chase, and Common Cause will hand-deliver your message.
http://www.StopTheMoneyChase.org/Petition
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Coldhearted White House Only Warm For Snow
Lobo
Mar. 27, 2007
Press Secretary Tony Snow has cancer, and the White House is very worried about that. Fine. They’re always disingenuous, but it’s fine with me. Snow’s health troubles don’t change all he’s done. I don’t take pleasure in a bastard’s suffering, but he’s still a bastard.
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Dog saves owner with modified Heimlich
Retriever jumps on woman’s chest, dislodges apple she was choking on
Life Is Evolution
Across the Universe
A Guide to the Past, Present and Future of the Cosmos
March 28, 2007, 6:28 pm
By Brian May
Some of you out there who know me better as a rock guitarist (of Queen, et al.) may also know that I have elected to go back to Imperial College London, after an absence of 30 years or so (I was busy!), as a post-graduate student, re-registering for the Ph.D. in astrophysics that I began around 1970. Laying my cards on the table, I am very aware of my essentially amateur status, but eager to catch up on the last 30 years of astronomical research. I get to go to some pretty high-powered seminars, plus enjoy the privilege of being around scientists who are in touch with the most distant surface of the bubble of knowledge that we are pushing out into the observable universe. And this gives me wonderful opportunities for insight. (more…)
Murder, I Read
March 28, 2007
Guest Columnist
By STANLEY FISH
You’re at the mystery section of an airport bookstore and the loudspeaker has just announced that your flight is in the late stages of boarding. You have maybe three or four minutes to make a choice. (That is your assignment, if you choose to accept it.) How do you go about deciding? (more…)
How Many Scientists?
March 28, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Sometimes you read something about this administration that is just so shameful it takes your breath away. For me, that was the March 20 article in this paper detailing how a House committee had just released documents showing “hundreds of instances in which a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming or play down evidence of such a role.” (more…)
Do You Believe the NRA Should Get Their Way and Allow Terrorists to Buy Military Guns in the United States?
I Don’t.
The NRA and the gun lobby protect the right of possible terrorists to buy guns.
According to the Violence Policy Center of Washington, D.C., “Current law is so weak that being a known member of a foreign terrorist organization does not prohibit a person from legally buying and possessing guns.”
Will you join me in telling the NRA we won’t let them compromise our national security?
Do you oppose the NRA’s efforts to allow potential terrorists to buy guns in the United States, including military weapons?
Do you support national security above the gun lobby’s interests in profit and power?
Will you call upon our law enforcement officials to defy the NRA’s impact on our national firearms policy, which threatens our national safety?
