So.?

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here?

New motto for the United States. Applicable to immigrants, DOJ, DOD and WalMart.

Did I read a quote from Bush’s speech yesterday condemning critics for complaining about the cost of the war and how it is only a “fraction” of our treasure? For an MBA Bush is terrible at math.

You were expecting a miracle, perhaps? *g*

Terrible at math…and just about anything else he touches. Heckuva job, Bushie.

The ornamental plum bushes outside our sunroom windows have begun to bloom, and are a sea of bees this morning — even with the gray skies of impending rain. It’s a lovely spring. Am hoping to get some lettuce and herbs into posts today, and a few of my flowers planted as well. It’s going to be a gardening weekend, if the weather cooperates…

The McCain poll showing McCain leading the Dems is more than statisticaly misleading…it’s just plain propaganda.

Thanks Christie! ..and nice job on Sam Seder’s show yesterday!

(sigh) We are about to get another dump of snow. The crocus (croci?) are doomed. You made a much smarter choice about where to live than I did!

Thanks — I always love being on with Sam, he does his homework and knows the issues he’s talking about well. Makes it easier as a guest not to have to constantly re-direct things to what’s really at the heart of whatever we’re trying to discuss…

It’s not even our treasure. It’s going to come from our kids and grandkids.

Sounds wonderful. We are still waiting for spring to show up in Iowa. Cold and rainy/snowy here. They say we will be in the high 60’s next week. That is the spring weather I am praying for.

Good Mornng Christy!

That’s the perfect picture,
and one we could stare at for hours and still not see everything painted there.

Leaves have started popping out on most of the trees here in that lovely renewed green color. But not the big oak tree near our house yet — when the leaves start popping out on it, I know we’re past most of the frost danger, so I’m trying to hold myself back from planting too many flowers int he yard until then.

But it’s really hard… *g*

Exactly, and to this day all you hear from the GOP are beware of the Tax and Spend, Democrats. I am sick of it. How about the defecit legacy for our Children to repay, Republicans. Tis more accurate.

Good Morning Christy and Firedogs -

everyone go back and read Christy’s “bumpy ride” link above -

The bigger problem is that the now-finished boom was, for most Americans, nothing of the sort. In 2000, at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less — about $60,500.

you want talking points at the grocery store ?, the gas station ? this article quantifies what everyone’s been sensing

remind everyone you talk to just who was in charge

oh and don’t forget to include McToast’s brain trust on the economy is none other than Mr Recession himself: Phil Gramm

A parent called into KPHX weekend show “About Face” hosted by the Veterans for Peace said a year ago that one of their kids was going on their 5th tour and the other was on their 4th tour….. That was a year ago….

KO got it right…. you don’t need VA bills or Benefits if the goal is to send them back over and over again like a perverted Groundhog day movie until they don’t need those benefits just a one way ride to Dover. American version of Russian Roulette….

Went away, but had to come back. AP poll shows Bush approval ratings at 28% (which blows my tiny mind, i.e., what are those people THINKING?). Sixty percent of Republicans approve of the way he’s doing his job. Oh, people, we got trouble right here in River City.

aside to cbl,
that was such a cute lolcat! did you make it yourself?

So should Bush’s announcement be called the “Healthy Troops Initiative” or the “Clear Iraq Initiative”? Feh.

I haven’t even looked at my back garden this spring; I’m sure it’s a weed-choked disaster. Last night, I decided to tell myself that my planting project for this year is growing a new president, complemented by some more attractive congresspersons.

The good news is you won’t have to look very far for fertilizer!

Irish Jim @#3: “Did I read a quote from Bush’s speech yesterday condemning critics for complaining about the cost of the war and how it is only a “fraction” of our treasure? For an MBA Bush is terrible at math.”

Was there ever any evidence that Bush actually did any of the work required for the classes for an MBA? Seriously – I have one and even at my school(certainly not considered one of the “biggies”), those classes were pretty challenging, especially in the finance, statistics and accounting areas.

The surge decreased the per-month blood cost of the war by two thirds, but it did nothing to diminish the dollar cost, nor the wear and tear on the troops and their families. McCain argues that once they stop killing our troops we can afford to keep them there forever, just like Korea. Fine, in addition to a voluntary military, let’s have a voluntary war fund. Those who love the war can volunteer to pay for it.

yes, it was meant for demi having to go back to work – and I blame you for that :D -

Believe it or not, Christy, we are predicted to have snow tonight. It’s chilly and rainy here this morning in Upstate New York.

I vote for ninth circle, second ring, reserved for traitors to country. Second choice,eight circle, tenth pounch, reserved for liars. I particularly like the concept of two traitors gnawing at each other’s head.

e come ‘l pan per fame si manduca
si che l’un li dente a l’altro posa
là ‘ve ‘l cervel s’aggiune con la nuca

I have a horrible infestation of thistles this year. I’ve been fighting them for the last three years — it seems like for every one I pull out, two more sprout up in my flower beds. I have no idea how to get them under control other than more weeding and thicker mulch.

Except, now they seem to be springing up in the thick layer of mulch I put down last Fall. I know I have an entire weekend’s worth of weeding ahead of me, though, to get my flower beds in shape for planting. If anyone has had any success at fighting thistles, let me know….because they are the bane of my gardening existence right now.

So should Bush’s announcement be called the “Healthy Troops Initiative” or the “Clear Iraq Initiative”? Feh.

He’ll find some thumb-in-you-eye way to name it.

They’re so fond of saying about taxes “it’s your money, we’re going to give it back.” The reality is “we cashed a convenience check on your credit card without asking you and gave you the money.” So by their own logic, the people who got the tax cuts owe a lot, right?

I have a horrible infestation of thistles this year. I’ve been fighting them for the last three years — it seems like for every one I pull out, two more sprout up in my flower beds. I have no idea how to get them under control other than more weeding and thicker mulch.

But the birds love them

They predict the temp to be between 95-98… my roses are popping open… all the colors of an AZ sunset….

My Congressman Harry Mitchell has introduced a House GI bill very similar to Webb’s Senate bill today….. And it was fun to tell Mitchell in person I appreciated his vote against FISA….. ran into him at Costco …. just passed by…. put a thumb up and said “FISA” …. he nodded at me and we went on our separate ways….

Well, I bet the finches like them! :-) I have a finch feeder that I fill with thistle seed; I’d love to have thistles if they weren’t such a weed.

Have you tried weed-suppressing cloth? I started putting it down last year, and it’s the only way I’ve made any long-term progress against the weeds.

re: thistles. you could just think of them as sources of food and building materials for the gold finches.

I’d love to have thistles if they weren’t such a weed.

They don’t seem so much like weeds to me because the goldfinches need the thistle down for nesting and the seeds for food. Their nesting cycle is timed to the thistle bloom.

I feel the same way about milkweed because it’s critical to the monarch butterfly.

When life gives you thistles
make tea.

Me, I have a two foot high mound of dirt and clay in my front year which the plumbing contractor (and others) assure me will settle soon, but I would really like to seed it soon.

as selise all ready points out.

CSPAN 1
news conference with Gates and Adm. Mullen on now

I do hope you got down on your knees and gave thanks for the bees. That means plant life will get pollinated in your area. That’s a good thing, since bees are disappearing in large numbers on several continents, and nobody knows quite why. They’ve speculated it may be a virus.

I tell you, as much as we’re going to have to overcome due to Bush and his maladministration and his wars, we will face even greater problems within the next decade from climate change. And this, even as we, as a people, continue to elect the Inhofes and the Patrick McHenrys of the world to deal with it. The economy should be at the forefront of our election concerns, and I don’t believe you can intelligently talk about the economy without including climate change as part of the mix.

But I do thoroughly agree with you about the damage that Bush has done to our armed forces. He has essentially broken them and there’s no chance he or anyone else can fix them easily.

Well, I would, if they weren’t so invasive. They’ve taken over my entire side flower bed. Must have had some thistle down land there at some point. And they’ve started to infest my lawn now, which makes walking on it a wee bit painful. I hate to resort to weed killer crap, so I’m trying everything I can to avoid it…but it’s truly an irritating amount of them this year after last year’s long, hot, dry summer, they were one of the few plants that thrived in the surrounding area, and they sent down all over the neighborhood. SIGH

some younger gooper co-worker the other night expressed anxiety about the Dems and how they want to “spend so much on welfare” (what do you expect, she’s an Aggie )

reminded her that while she was busy beating the bushes for welfare cheats – her small govt-fiscal conservative party -

had grown govt by 45% in it’s 1st 3 years

given away $19Billion of her royalties to the Oil Companies

raised the debt ceiling to $10 trillion

killed off 4000+ soldiers and marines

wounded another 37,000

broke the Army and Marines

and oh btw, that $12Billion a month we’ve been spending just for in country ops ???? they borrowed it – in your name !

that last one was too much for her – Texans for Obama have a new member

Tax and Spend this ! – pigs

Oh, that reminds me — I went to a Leslie Byrne fundraiser with Webb last week, in part to I could buttonhole him about FISA. When I got my chance, I asked him to support the House bill, and mentioned that I was one of those Internet activists who’ve been calling his office. Apparently, that was the wrong approach; I got to experience what I heard from a Vietnam Vet at another Democratic event, “Webb’s pretty tightly wound.” (I guess some of the non-FDL folks have been less polite after the FISA vote than I was.)

Anyway, he told me that he’s met with Mark Klein, the ex-AT&T engineer in San Francisco, he’s met with McConnell, etc. He talked about how his strongest concerns are accountability and privacy protection. It all sounded very good. I didn’t quite have the guts to ask a tightly-wound Marine how he squared that with voting for the Senate bill.

So there it is. I’m going to write him a followup letter, and hope that with this conversation as an “in,” I can get a more specific response. I’ll let you know if I do.

what it means for members of the American military and their families is that things have to change. That troops and their loved ones are already stretched far too thin hit home for military brass.

here’s one of the “expenses of the occupation” nobody had configured into “the cost of the occupation”

there is productivity lost for every day our soldiers are abroad, not only productivity from that soldier, an expense not figured into the common numbers for what this occupation is costing but also lost productivity from their family and friends, productivity from the businesses that have to hire and train others in their place.

the costs of this war are far more then the numbers indicate because they cannot possibly account for all the lost assets that would have been aquired by those lost in this rediculous aggression

we might have lost an einstein, a mozart

in this country each and everyone of us contribute for a net gain of assets over assets used and those net gains are lost, these expenses cannot possibly be counted in the numbers we read about

redshift–that thistle is a different thistle. good thing, huh?

there are certain thistles that can be planted on purpose that aren’t prolific.

nice letter to diane rehm yesterday. i couldn’t summarize all that he stated as you did.
thanks.

christy–good luck. even roundup takes multiple sprays. (i broke down and used it, i was in a thistle nightmare.)

i had an infestation at my old house, pulled the smaller ones and sprayed the larger ones…….

i believe preen will work on keeping the seeds from sprouting, but can’t use it in an area where you are going to plant seeds, for obvious reasons. won’t hurt plants, just keeps seeds from germinating.

need to do it now.

shorter gates: when i say pause, i mean pause in draw down. when chimp says pause, he means pause in operations.

Thanks dmac — will take a peek at Preen. They are driving me insane.

o/t

am on limited time this morning – but found some actual good news last night

prolly already posted somewhere in the threads – But the Senate passed the Northern Marianas Immigration Reform Bill yesterday – good for the workers and their families and very good news for dengre over at kos who has worked so hard on this – Hip-pies Are Doin’ It For Themselves – everybody sing !

Great Orange Satan

per the links – check out the 4 little piggies who voted against it -
Nays: Coburn (R-OK), DeMint (R-SC), Inhofe (R-OK), Vitter (R-LA). Abramoff much ???

well, you have a little peanut to protect too. *g*

but sometimes my best gardening decisions have been, shall we say, thinking “outside the box.” like the time i got sick of fighting the “weeds” in my backyard lawn and decided that since the weeds were native, i’d pull up the grass. eventually, i had a wonderful “lawn” of a native ground cover that only needed mowing about 3 times a year and friends coming to my yard to collect seed and dig up samples to start their own native “lawn” with. years later, that weed is now listed as a native lawn alternative in at least one texas organic gardening book.

Selise, which weed? Lord knows I’ve got tons, and I’m no fan of grass, which I consider even a worse weed than the “weeds.” The only place my grass grows is in my flower beds…

Thanks Christy.

FWIW audio and video of a US Marine at a check point just outside Baghdad.

There is no violence and the Marine’s comments to a taxi-cab driver, who doesn’t understand English, are tragically, morbidly funny.

In the unlikely event that they missed it, someone like Siun or Gorilla Guides might be interested in this. They also might see more in it than I do. All I see is the complete worthlessness of trying to occupy a foreign country. Our Posse Comiatatus law forbids just such an occupation on US soil. Cheney forgot to tell the Iraqis about that part of Democracy.

I think the Marine is also alluding to what they see as their primary mission: “to be bullet sponges.” Our service people have to endure long periods of complete tedium broken only by bursts of life-threatening terror.

Bring ‘em home. This isn’t what my tax dollars should pay for.

there are all kinds of thistles, i believe the one christy is talking about is canadian….

ann in az–care about bees? here is a project to track them out of california……plant native sunflower seeds that are free from this site, count how many bees land on the sunflowers in a certain amount of time and report it back to researchers.

this is being forwarded to master gardeners all over the US.

http://www.greatsunflower.org/
===========

local lady-told me her aunt came to see her, her son,
a local kid, was due to be discharged in 5 days, went to fill out the final paperwork, report in, and they told him he’s not going home yet.

If these weren’t such a particularly “owie” version, I wouldn’t worry so much. But they are really bad. I have a lot of native perennials in my flower beds for the same reason you let your yard naturalize — including some milkweed for the butterflies. But the thistles are horribly invasive, and choking out everything else, including my established perennials and shrubs. They are springing up faster than I can yank them out this year. Ugh.

I’ll have to get some of those non-prolific thistles. We have house finches in our yard, but I’d love to have more.

Thanks for the compliment on the letter. I was just so pig-biting mad that Feith was being allowed to sit and spin away all the horrors he’s responsible for. I hope it does some good. (I’d love it if it got on the air, but I think the chances of that are nil.)

Just saw two moms of troops representing opposing viewpoints on CNN re the Bush speech. aka “Bait and Switch” Bush speaks again….

As long as the media persist in their “Crossfire” reporting, we’re fighting an uphill battle to bring about change.

We support the troops…bring ‘em home, alive and whole, now.

Men-O-Pause

horseherb

“Surge” + “pause” = escalation

Pass it on.

so sorry for your neighbor’s loss, the timing only makes it more excruciating — if that’s even possible

Our Posse Comiatatus law forbids just such an occupation on US soil. Cheney forgot to tell the Iraqis about that part of Democracy.

uh oh

Posse Comiatatus was rescinded…no kidding

thanks cbl2==the marianas was something that made me feel queasy and hopeless. the list of heinous things those workers had to do was so long it overwhelmed me.

forced abortions, cramped quarters, ’company’ stores……i could go on.

and the ’made in the usa’ label to top it off.

well, i’ll have to read the bill and see what it says. thanks.

The thing I don’t understand is why no one pins the neocons down, when the subject is war with Iran, and asks how we would fight such a war. The truth is that we don’t have the conventional forces to fight such a war or, possibly, even to save our forces in Iraq if we had such a war. That leaves only nuclear weapons. Bush and his crew,as well as McCain and Lieberman, all need to be pressed on this point when they talk belligerantly about Iran.

Is this what you’re referring to: From Wikipedia article on posse comitatus:

Homeland Security
In early 2006, the 109th Congress passed a bill containing controversial provisions that granted the President additional rights to use federal or state National Guard Troops and inside the United States in emergency situations. These changes were included in the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (H.R. 5122.ENR).

These changes were repealed in their entirety in 2008.

Natural Disasters
On Sept. 26, 2006 President Bush urged Congress to consider revising federal laws so that the U.S. military could seize control immediately in the aftermath of a natural disaster, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

These changes were repealed in their entirety in 2008.

What if there were some major breakthrough that could virtually free us from dependence on Middle East oil and the Texas-based oil cartel? What if we had a way to safeguard energy independence and de-fund the terrorists?

What if the CW (cocktail wienie) media decided not to tell us about it?

The report on Bakken Shale is getting major attention here in ND. National media? Not so much.

Niemoller, loosely paraphrased: they came for the gypsies and I was not a gypsy, so I did nothing. They came for the homosexuals and I was not homosexual, so I did nothing. They came for the Jews and I was not Jewish, and I did nothing. When they come for me, there will be no one left to do anything.

BushCo: they came for the National Guard… they came for the Democratic governors…. they came for homeowners… they came for Katrina sufferers… they came for airline passengers… they came for honest Republican ASAs… they came for….

Digby has a great piece on Dick Morris and the “codpiece worship” concepts, and whether they apply or not to this year’s election cycle. Anyone else read it this morning? A lot of food for thought…

I don’t know how long this works, but when I was little we poured boiling water over them.

Bring ‘em home. This isn’t what my tax dollars should pay for.

Taxes to pay for optional wars should be optional. Let the neocons fund this one.

You said Dick Morris, codpiece and food in the same comment. Have you no mercy? *G*

*snerk* Apparently not…

Yep, did indeed, read it. The synergy of the insurgent blogosphere. We must continue to show where the idiocy of presstitute media harms our country. And if anyone hasn’t seen the Daily Show’s takedown of Fox yet, HuffPo’s got it up.

Funniest television evah! Michael Moore would be so proud.

Thanks for the compliment on the letter. I was just so pig-biting mad that Feith was being allowed to sit and spin away all the horrors he’s responsible for. I hope it does some good. (I’d love it if it got on the air, but I think the chances of that are nil.)

Can someone point me to the letter? I listened to Feith yesterday and just about lost it and hammered on the car radio while I was driving.

Hi Christy,
Vinegar, yes vinegar. USDA research found it works better than pretty much anything else and, obviously, is safer for the environment. Ten percent is desirable, but I can’t find it in my area. I just pour clear vinegar straight on the plant. It will kill the grass or whatever else is around it, but it does destroy the thistle.

Oooooooooh — thank you! Will definitely give that a try next sunny day we have. We’re in for major thunderstorms today, so I’m guessing that won’t do me much good for today…but soon…

Vinegar, yes vinegar. USDA research found it works better than pretty much anything else

Yes indeed . I got rid of a large patch of poison ivy by mixing vinegar and salt and spraying before the sun was up. It took two years but I got rid off it and it has not returned (4 years)

Christy – our only way to keep them under control was to cut them down when they are young and keep cutting them down. Don’t try to dig them up; you will only break off pieces of the roots and make more. Don’t let them blossom and make seeds (sorry little birds).

redshift aty 52–you still have to dead head them after they bloom.

diane rehm came here to speak, she reads what people send, so, no, it wasn’t wasted effort.

ewwwwww cool, she just read one from here…….

i’ve gotten ones on the air, but ones like yours i think are more important, they point out the affect of her policy on listeners. she is open to constructive criticism and wants the best show she can air. keep on sending them.

how about sending your letter around to places where he might be on next?

feith was on tavis the other night, he tried to nail him down, kept stating that he wasn’t answering the question and asked it again, then, at the end said ooooooo k……with a tilted head and bewildered ’smirk’. (the ’this guy isn’t wrapped too tight, is he? kinda look)

was a beautiful moment in tv history.

The thing I don’t understand is why no one pins the neocons down,..

believe it or not, i’m going to quote thomas friedman on this one… because he told the truth in 1999 when he described how the clinton era neoliberal model of corporate globalization depends on neocon enforcement.

“For globalism to work, America can’t be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is.”

“The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist, McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.”

From the Morris column:

And Obama’s opposition to the war begs a host of questions: Shall we retain any presence? What about al Qaeda? What happens if the government falls? Can we let Iran take over? Obama will dither and seem far from decisive as he answers each of these questions. They will make him look terrible, just as Kerry — in opposing the war after voting for it — looked like a flip-flopper.

This is just so much right wing fantasy. One thing that Obama does not do is dither. When the right hit him the faux Wright controversy, he immediately responded with a well thought out response that treated us as rational adults. It was so refreshing.

Well, I don’t think anyone could ever accuse Dick Morris of not aggressively pushing his own agenda, as Digby pointed out early on in her crit of it. *G* But the question on whether or not the “codpiece brigades” still worship at the alter of the wholly-created-out-of-smoke-and-mirrors faux manly PR image — or whether reality has begun to seep in around the edges for a lot of folks is a legit one. And one for which there are no ready answers that I have seen.

The media treatment of McCain as some higher-than-thou being is a good example of the sham trumping reality on a whole host of issues, eh?

Lasciate Ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate is at the entrance to hell (inferno) not purgatory. Those who are in purgatory suffer but, in fact, have hope.

Comedy and Tragedy. The Bush Administration is a farce.

Yes, I know — but I couldn’t get the phrasing to work in what I was trying to get across there. Literary license…

YES! 10 % vinegar! (or you could have your husband ’brand’ the plants. yes, it’s acidic. lotta jokes around here when the research on that one came out, some were saving it in jars to pour on hard to kill weeds, no kidding)

and yeah, have to weed them while young or the tap root breaks. and the one that grows back is worse. i had a skinny ’kiddie’ shovel that i used to get under them.

preen will keep the seeds from sprouting.

msmolly–redshift posted it yesterday at 12:19p comment 11

I’m looking forward to the general election. We will see how long his higher-than-thou image lasts. As someone(Thers?)remarked, he is a target rich enviroment.

The research was aimed towards helping farmers deal with the problem. The Ten Precent concentration kills a mature thistle. Regular vinegar like you or I get at the store does in the young thistles and repeat applications seem to have an impact on the mature ones. I finally got one out of my yard after a couple of years trying. I may have to try nomolos addition of salt. Now, if my neighbor wouldn’t feed the deer and turkeys, I might actually have a presentable yard.

I have a hand tool that looks like an elongated triangle with a little hook at the back. You slip into the soil and it gets under the the thistle so you can pull it out without breaking the roots. Works for me.

(or you could have your husband ’brand’ the plants. yes, it’s acidic. lotta jokes around here when the research on that one came out, some were saving it in jars to pour on hard to kill weeds, no kidding)

If you think this would work on bushes I would volunteer immediately

Yeah, right! To have a yard we had to bring in 10 dump truck loads of dirt. Even the weeds wouldn’t grow in the cleared off area. Now, if you live in my area, Northeast Washington state, and have a desire for a specific color or shape of rock, let me know and I’ll share. I have plenty.

I’m laughing so hard. I can just see the guys lined up giving George a “salute” as he passes by.

Good morning, Christy -

Reading all the snowbound reports for many FDL people I hate to mention that it is very warm and sunny here. So, I’ll say it anyways. The weekend temperatures will be eighty degrees. My patio is filled with new healthy growth and brillaint colors.

Thistles. Nasty things. I have to deal with tumble weed in Nevada. When the wind blows the seeds spread for miles. They have nasty thorns and deep roots so we have to dig them out in spring before they ever bloom. Backbreaking job. The thorns go all the way down into the roots so we need heavy gloves. To hold them down, we put down thick plastic so they got no sun. We cut small holes around the welcomed plants so they could grow above the plastic. This takes care of ninety percent of the tumble weed problem. At the edge of the property we yearly hire someone to dig them out. If you wack them (like my son-in-law does in frustration), ouch, you have countless new tumble weeds. This may apply to thistles.

The media treatment of McCain as some higher-than-thou being is a good example of the sham trumping reality on a whole host of issues, eh?

The media are sloppy, lazy, dishonest, and partisan. As long as this true, McCain will remain a maverick and straightshooter. McCain has flip-flopped on every major issue he has ever commented on: torture, immigration, campaign reform, the religious Right, and Bush. All this is evidence of how he is not a maverick. His history of dumping the first wife, marrying the rich young trophy one right after, the Keating 5, sitting on Abramoff documents to protect friends, and his relations with lobbyists all show he is not a straightshooter. Then, of course, there is his insane view on Iraq. 60-70% of the American people want us out but McCain wants to stay there forever. What is the benefit of being a maverick or straightshooter if he is just hopelessly and catastrophically wrong?

nomolos–ROFL

it might, we haven’t tried that yet, have we?

Thanks for the response.

My understanding is that you are correct. It was amended in 2006.

My understanding is also that this the 2006 amendment was repealed in 2008.

Juan Cole is on the same page:

Bush campaigned on being a ‘uniter not a divider’ in 2000. In fact, he is the ultimate Divider, and leaves burning buildings, millions of refugees, and hundreds of thousands of cadavers in his wake. He is not Iraq’s Brownie. He is Iraq’s Katrina itself.

“Commander in Chief” is not a job title, it’s one on a list of responsibilities of civilian leadership.

In response to our heightened need to protect both our security and our civil liberties, Congress abdicated its responsibilities and “delegated” them to Bush. Bush abdicated his and “delegated” them privately to Cheney and publicly to his generals – Petraeus in the field and the mysteriously absent Iraq War Czarette.

Those are not the actions of a Republic’s leadership. “That is a military dictatorship achieved…by moral laziness.”

http://www.juancole.com/

It still takes more than 10 min for the main page to load. All other pages load fine. So I’m gonna keep this site open and just move up the threads from here.

Why is the media calling it “Harsh Interrogations?”

My understanding is also that this the 2006 amendment was repealed in 2008.

Public approval of President Bush has dipped to a new low in the Associated Press-Ipsos poll, driven by dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy.

A survey released Thursday showed 28 percent approve of the overall job Bush is doing. That was statistically tied with his previous low in the poll of 30 percent last month and in February.

Only 27 percent are happy with his job on the economy, which threatens to enter a recession and which many national surveys show is voters’ top worry. That was worse than his previous low of 29 percent approval for handling the economy set in February, and down 4 percentage points from last month.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..96162.html

Because only Third World Military Dictatorships perform “torture” – ooops, my bad…we have become one of those…

well, we’re sure showing signs of a third world economic performance also … huge trade deficit, excessive government borrowing … obsession with buying high tech weapons…

we need somebody who’s a lawyer to tell us for sure, do we have Posse Comiatatus protection or not

I am assunming the president “assumes” his “authority” to use “all neccessary force” supercedes our protection regardless, but still, do we have the force of law on our sides or not, I don’t know

May we please begin Impeachment hearings now?

Pretty please.

ITMFA

msmolly–redshift posted it yesterday at 12:19p comment 11

Thanks! Redshift, great letter. I hope you get a response!

msmolly – I posted a copy of the letter here.

Public approval of President Bush has dipped to a new low in the Associated Press-Ipsos poll, driven by dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy.

Unfortunately, the little Preznit remains under the illusion that history will ultimately vindicate him and his pResidency. He’s not going to change now.

Christy, your Dante theme is spot on and your post brilliant.

George Bush will go down in history -as the single biggest terrorist the world has ever known.

Because every day – another domino falls in his wake..

-GE just reported rare losses …”stunning investors”

-The Canadian Government, in “an unprecedented move” blocked an American company from buying one of it’s largest space equipment and satellite makers.

-The British Courts, in “an extraordinary judicial rebuke to the British and Saudi authorities” denounced the British Government for possible corruption in arms deals between the two governments.

And this, from America’s, and the Bush family’s, “bestest friends ever”.

“..Saudi oil minister rules out output hike, says crude to reign for 50 years
‘The price is not at that level because of any shortage in supply’

Just remember the inaction of our Congress when the oil company CEOS were brought to Washington “for a chat”.
Senator Jeff Binghaman, our ‘Chair’, asked only one question last time he got hold of them, “..How can we make Americans conserve more.”

George Bush and the Republicans did not do all of the damage alone…
Get out and vote for new Democrats -and throw out each and every one who enabled this killer!

At the top of my list..Steney Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen, Nancy Pelosi, and especially Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer – the double enablers of Bush’s policies and Joe Lieberman.

The glasses may not be rose-colored, but they are high-tech. Wired’s Ryan Singel has a description of one pair of them, the “Reynard [the Fox] Project”. It’s about a s/w program that analyzes online mega-player games, looking for clues that a player might be “a terrorist”. A new and questionable definition of “reasonable” suspicion.

Is that an outgrowth of or prototype for s/w that analyzes behavior in other web-based participation platforms. Like, oh, blogs. Your friendly Pentagon coming to an FDL near you.

Meanwhile, Singel’s colleague, Kevin Poulsen, has a story about what our intrepid Justice Department is doing with resources so limited it can’t respond to Congressional inquiries about administrative lawbreaking or investigate rape, murder or fraud among US Government contractors in Iraq. It is hauling a movie maker into federal court for selling adult movies to adults in Washington, DC. The home of Abramoff and Vitter and Craig, and the sophisticated play ground for diplomats, visiting governors and big bidnessman knobbing with their lobbyists.

The legal standard the DOJ must meet to make selling these films illegal? They must be “obscene”, to wit, depict,

“patently offensive sexual conduct” appealing “to a prurient interest” and lacking “serious artistic, literary, political, or scientific value.”

I don’t know about you, or these films and those like them (readily available throughout Metro DC), but that definition of “obscenity” fits the Bush administration to a “T”. Could it be that the movie maker, John Stagliano, supports Democrats, or is this just a case of throwing one more victim to the lions in order to appease the mob and distract it from the fact that the emperor, not Visigoths or Vandals, is sacking Rome?

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/

Christy — my Mom’s remedy for recalcitrant weeds is hot salt water…

You’ll need to flush the area with fresh water once the thistles die.

You want finches — encourage dandylions. Last spring my yard was covered with them — and one morning I looked out at the yard, and it was yellow with Goldfinches!

So many I wasn’t able to count them all. Really made my day.

In case I missed the earlier praise, let me send Christy my appreciation for her creative use, and illustration, of Dante in critiquing the worldly excess of the world according to George Bush. My literary analogies run more to purveyors of Needful Things.

Hi anyone still reading, heh. EPU to the n’th degree comin’ up. But I wondered if anyone has seen article in The Guardian yet on human rights as in the rights of the soldiers to be properly equipped.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2…..rmy.ruling

Sending British soldiers out on duty with defective equipment may breach human rights, court rules

Have a look. Think of all our guys ‘n gals in their substandard or nonexistent kevlar, lack of properly armored vehicles, all the misleading doubletalk they’ve received regarding the length of their terms of duty.

Hm-m-m. Has anyone ever sued the ‘pantygone’ before? how ’bout the nit in charge, not to mention his vice?

Seems to me, not just every little old thing can be passed on to the next administration.

Thoughts?