For Dems only.

[Balta1701]

The National Republican Senate Committee's Multimedia Page.

[FlaSoxxJim]

The National Republican Senate Committee's Multimedia Page.

 

Hmmm. . . Fox News. Fox News. Fox News. Fox News.

 

I detect a pattern.

[Balta1701]

So, I'd suggest anyone with a passing interest in the disaster that is the U.S. health care system should take some time to read through this summary piece on health care systems throughout the world, especially before this issue winds up dominating the discussion within a couple years.

[Damen]

[BigSqwert]

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) -- Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a vocal critic of the Bush administration's war in Iraq, plans to introduce articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.

 

Kucinich, a Democrat who is again running for president, said Monday that he will hold a news conference in Washington to discuss his bid to oust Cheney. Kucinich spokeswoman Natalie Laber declined further comment.

 

Under the House impeachment process, Kucinich's articles would be reviewed by the House Judiciary Committee, which would decide whether to conduct an impeachment inquiry. The committee would seek authority from the entire House before beginning an inquiry.

 

Cheney spokeswoman Megan McGinn responded to Kucinich's announcement by saying that the vice president has served the nation honorably for almost 40 years.

 

"The vice president is focused on the serious issues facing our nation," McGinn said.

 

On his campaign Web site, Kucinich questions whether the Bush administration's aggressive actions toward Iran already have raised concerns over impeachment.

 

"So I'm asking you, what do you think? Do you think it's time?" Kucinich asks.

[longshot7]

 

LOVE IT.

[Balta1701]

Condi Rice to defy a subpoena.

 

You know...if I were to do that...defy a subpoena (hopefully none are issued for me any time soon) I can imagine I'd wind up spending quite some time in jail.

[NorthSideSox72]

Condi Rice to defy a subpoena.

 

You know...if I were to do that...defy a subpoena (hopefully none are issued for me any time soon) I can imagine I'd wind up spending quite some time in jail.

Yeah but unlike you, she is too pretty to go to jail.

 

[Balta1701]

Yeah but unlike you, she is too pretty to go to jail.

 

Maybe I should get one of those separator-thingies installed in my teeth. Would that help?

 

On a different subject...

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) failed to disclose a $200,000 payment he received from a business partner in 2005 in apparent violation of House ethics rules. Prosecutors could use the omission as evidence that Renzi intended to conceal a transaction he knew to be controversial or even improper.

 

The $200,000 was a payment from James Sandlin to settle a debt related to a previous business transaction involving land in northeast Arizona, one of the lawmaker’s attorneys, Grant Woods, told a newspaper last week.

 

This explanation might have been expected to dispel suspicion that Sandlin gave Renzi an illegal gift in exchange for action Renzi took to help Sandlin sell a $4 million parcel of land.

 

But Renzi’s claim that Sandlin’s $200,000 payment was a legitimate business transaction is weakened by the fact that he failed to disclose it in his personal financial disclosure report for 2005 filed with the House clerk.

[Balta1701]

The popular Iraqi blogger Riverbend and her family have decided that it's time for them to pack it up, leave Baghdad, and become refugees.

[BigSqwert]

From Think Progress:

Fox News Sinks To New Low, Repeatedly Reports Parody Story As Actual News

 

On Tuesday, Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends” aired at least eight segments on a purported “news” story that was actually a parody article written by a publication similar to The Onion.

 

The backstory: Last week in the town of Lewiston, Maine, a group of Somalian Muslim middle school students were the subject of a cruel prank when their peers placed a ham steak next to them in order to personally offend the students. School officials filed a report because the students considered the act to be a hate/bias crime.

 

This actual story was then spoofed by a parody site called Associated Content, which made up quotes and details, such as the school’s intention to “create an anti-ham ‘response plan.’”

 

On Tuesday, Fox & Friends reported these parody quotes and details as actual news. Poking fun at the students, hosts asked whether ham was “a hate crime…or lunch?” and showed screen shots of ham sandwiches, starving Somalians, belching, animal noises, and mock “reenactments” of the incident. Ironically, the hosts assured viewers several times, “We’re not making this up!”

 

Fox’s careless blunder made news in the town and “launched an immediate avalanche of angry phone calls and ugly e-mails to the school system.”

 

In the parody, the ham steak became a ham sandwich. Fake quotes were attributed to Superintendent Leon Levesque, Stephen Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, and one of the Somali students targeted in the incident. […]

 

Following the Fox broadcast, Levesque’s office received dozens of angry phone calls and profanity-laced e-mails, made and sent by people all over the country, who charge the school district overreacted to what they believed from news reports to be a ham sandwich tossed at a Somali student. […]

 

“Fox has figured out, from the calls we’ve gotten, that they’ve made a big mistake,” Wessler said.

 

“This is a wake-up call that the level of hate and anger, among a small population, is vibrant,” he added.

 

Levesque said he was bothered not only that the parody took aim at a sensitive issue in Lewiston, but also that Fox and others reported the information as fact without checking. The national media, Levesque said, sees information posted online and “uses it as gospel.”

 

We’ve long known Fox News’ reporting was parody, but reporting parody news is a new low.

Edited April 27, 2007 by BigSqwert

[Balta1701]

It's Friday Night!

A senior Justice Department official has resigned after coming under scrutiny in the Department’s expanding investigation of convicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to a Justice Department official with knowledge of the case.

 

Making the situation more awkward for the embattled Department, the official, Robert E. Coughlin II, was deputy chief of staff for the criminal division, which is overseeing the Department’s probe of Abramoff.

 

He stepped down effective April 6 as investigators in Coughlin’s own division ratcheted up their investigation of lobbyist Kevin Ring, Coughlin’s long-time friend and a key associate of Abramoff.

 

When contacted at his home in Washington, Coughlin said he resigned voluntarily because he was relocating to Texas. “I was not asked to resign,” he said in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers. “It’s important to me that it's made clear that I left voluntarily.”

 

He said he couldn’t comment on the Abramoff investigation, nor on whether he has a job lined up in Texas. He referred all other questions to friend Michael Horowitz.

 

Horowitz, a criminal defense attorney and former Justice Department official and public corruption prosecutor, did not respond to questions, including about whether he is representing Coughlin. Coughlin also would not say whether he had hired a lawyer.

[Balta1701]

Just when I post one piece of Friday Bad news , 3 hours go by, and then the government decides to top it with an even more remarkable bit of bad news.

Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation.

 

Tobias, 65, director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), had previously served as the ambassador for the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief.

 

A State Department press release late Friday afternoon said only he was leaving for "personal reasons."

 

On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the "Pamela Martin and Associates" escort service "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." Tobias, who is married, said there had been "no sex," and that recently he had been using another service "with Central Americans" to provide massages.

 

Tobias' private cell number was among thousands of numbers listed in the telephone records provided to ABC News by Jeane Palfrey, the woman dubbed the "D.C. Madam," who is facing the federal charges. In an interview to be broadcast on "20/20" next Friday, Palfrey says she intends to call Tobias and a number of her other prominent D.C. clients to testify at her trial.

....

As the Bush administration's so-called "AIDS czar," Tobias was criticized for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Edited April 28, 2007 by Balta1701

[Balta1701]

So, if you have the time to watch Bill Moyers's documentary on the way the press totally rolled over for the administration on the Iraq war...it's available here.

[Balta1701]

82 inmates at Gitmo completely cleared of all charges...but the U.S. is unable to let them out, because a lot of countries don't want people back who have spent 5 years being "interrogated" by the U.S. The U.S. also indicated that of the 380 or so people still held there, only 60 to 80 would ever be put on any sort of trial, the rest will eventually be released.

[Balta1701]

4 years ago today...major combat operations in Iraq ended, and the United States and her allies emerged victorious.

[FlaSoxxJim]

4 years ago today...major combat operations in Iraq ended, and the United States and her allies emerged victorious.

 

yea, us.

[Texsox]

82 inmates at Gitmo completely cleared of all charges...but the U.S. is unable to let them out, because a lot of countries don't want people back who have spent 5 years being "interrogated" by the U.S. The U.S. also indicated that of the 380 or so people still held there, only 60 to 80 would ever be put on any sort of trial, the rest will eventually be released.

 

I can't believe on a planet this size, we can't find a place for them.

[Damen]

82 inmates at Gitmo completely cleared of all charges...but the U.S. is unable to let them out, because a lot of countries don't want people back who have spent 5 years being "interrogated" by the U.S. The U.S. also indicated that of the 380 or so people still held there, only 60 to 80 would ever be put on any sort of trial, the rest will eventually be released.

 

Speaking of that, this is worth listening to.

[BigSqwert]

So, if you have the time to watch Bill Moyers's documentary on the way the press totally rolled over for the administration on the Iraq war...it's available here.

Watched it last night. What a coincidence as I recently watched "Good Night and Good Luck".

[Balta1701]

By the way, in the report it said, it is -- the government may have to put in more troops to be able to get to that position. And that's what we do. We put in more troops to get to a position where we can be in some other place. The question is, who ought to make that decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear -- I'm the commander guy.

Link.

[Rex Kickass]

I can't believe on a planet this size, we can't find a place for them.

We can, its called the US.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Was this the Republican debate of a Flat Earth Society meeting?

 

At last night’s debate, three Republican presidential candidates — Sen. Sam Brownback, Rep. Tom Tancredo, and Gov. Mike Huckabee — said they do not believe in evolution.

[BigSqwert]

Was this the Republican debate of a Flat Earth Society meeting?

Amazing.

[Balta1701]

Amazing.

But sadly unsurprising.

 

The breakdown:

 

Ronald Reagan mentions: 19 times

 

Giuliani: 5

Romney: 3

Brownback: 1

Hunter: 2

Huckabee: 1

Thompson: 3

McCain: 3

Gilmore: 1

 

George W. Bush mentions: 1 time

 

MATTHEWS: Let me go to, Senator — do you think Scooter Libby should be –

BROWNBACK: Let the legal process move forward, and I’d leave that up to President Bush. And I think he could go either way on that.

Link. Edited May 4, 2007 by Balta1701