The end of conviction
If the Log Cabin Republicans endorse Bush, we can officially say that politics has destroyed all morality.

As if Iraq could get worse
The coalition may start to fall apart.

A neglected contest
Keep your eyes on the Toomey/Specter primary in PA.

Gay marriage debate adds another dimension
The argument: gay marriage would strengthen the institution of marriage.

Bush pushes to renew PA
Attacking the Patriot Act in an election year might be bad news...

The "road to anarchy"
Steve Gilliard adds his insight to what's going wrong in Iraq, now and in the future.

Mini-Limbaugh asks the tough questions
From his column:

Why is it that the very same people who refused to demand an authentic apology from former President Clinton for actual felonies he committed demand a bogus apology from President Bush for something that was not his fault?

Well, aside from the fact that those people happen to believe that it WAS his fault, Clinton's screw up didn't get 3,000 people killed. That would be the only difference I could think of.

The hostage dilemma
A POW exchange wouldn't be unorthodox, but would trading a hostage for POWs be considered negotiating with terrorists?

Don't forget
Go to your local bake sale for Kerry today! Although I think they'd be more effective if they weren't openly partisan bake sales...

Churchs move towards prisons
What better place to recruit believers than one where the inhabitants are all desperate and looking for lifestyle changes? Get 'em while they're weak!

Nader notes possible impending draft
As much as I don't like giving Captain Jackass any attention, I'll make an exception here because the possibility of a draft scares the hell out of me.

Define "success"
Violence=success.

Rove's regret
They admit that the "Mission Accomplished" banner was political.

Soldiers wives anxious
The effects of extending soldiers' tours:

Plans already were being made for the homecoming celebrations when wives of Guardsmen of the 1221st Transportation Company out of Dexter, Mo., learned Thursday that their husbands were among 20,000 troops staying in Iraq up to three more months.

The men weren't due home until June, but, said DeAnna Bryan, 36, "We needed something. We had hit a plateau in our morale, so we said, 'Let's start working on the welcome home.' " Her husband, Sgt. Gilbert Bryan, 36, is among those overseas.

Bryan had tried to stay focused on the light at the end of the tunnel. "Now our tunnel just got a little longer," she said.

While some family members said they were resigned to something beyond their control, they could not deny their frustration.

"We're all disgusted," said Bryan, of Henley, Mo. She said this is the second time the Guardsmen have seen their tours extended.

Bush getting more Iraq heat
As some of the 9/11 criticism cools down (but will still undoubtedly linger in the minds of the public), the Iraq heat is being turned up. The Big Lies are coming back to bite Bush in the ass.

It's April 16th, and that means....
It's a perfect time to whine about taxes! Kevin Drum responds to those calling for a flat tax.

Oh Mark....
Mark Alexander's latest has only one line you need to read before understanding how distorted his world view is:

The testimony of Condoleezza Rice soundly rebutted that of former terrorism-advisor Dick Clarke

What's that? Did I read that correctly? Let's read that again:

The testimony of Condoleezza Rice soundly rebutted that of former terrorism-advisor Dick Clarke

That's funny. Here's a refresher.

And what else does Mr. Alexander say?

Ultimately, Clinton appeared far more interested in cracking down on "right-wing extremist" activities here at home. How else to explain the commitment of huge resources for politically-motivated investigations into such efforts as finding the suspected bomber of an Alabama abortion clinic? Thus, while the largest manhunt in history was attempting to track down a guy named Eric Robert Rudolph, al-Qa'ida operatives were busy developing their plans for 9/11.

Not only were critical FBI resources diverted for political theater, but Hillary Clinton was busy promoting the celebration of Ramadan and FBI agents were being chastised for investigating Islamic groups. Indeed, they were told that such investigations reflected a "stereotypical culture bias."

Hmm...let's reference the FBI report "Terrorism in the United States" (1998):

...the 12 acts of terrorism prevented in the United States during the year were being planned by domestic extremists.

Money well spent, I say!

Woodward blitz beginning
Watch out, George, because it's about to rain hell.

Man rapes 2 yr old
Bucks County, PA. Home of yours truly. Absolutely fucking disgusting.

The latest addition to the recovery
Inflation.

(I wasn't going to post this, but apparently a lot of people haven't heard about it.)

AIDS scare shuts down porn sets
If this continues, I'll probably be able to do a lot more blogging.

When the truth leans to the left...
The right will shut down the truth.

Tigger fondles woman
Close your eyes, kids.

New face found on Turin shroud
I would've thought that this is the kind of thing they would have noticed before...

Buildings gone missing in Iraq
Apparently we're not paying much attention in Iraq.

New parody watch
Pen-Elayne directed me to Right Wing Eye.

Rummy: Death toll higher than expected
No shit.

Siegel redeems himself
After a dreadful review of Jon Stewart, this anti-Trump rant is concise and hilarious.

Students prefer Kerry
Now that the GOP knows this, anyone under 22 can expect to get turned back at the booth this November.

Who to blame
A memo is passed around suggesting a future attack. We learn that Islamic extremists are learning to fly planes. No one does anything. The question of "who dropped the ball" is more appropriately "who didn't drop the ball?" And to answer that, I'm looking at the Postal Service. You guys are doin' great.

A double-edged sword
We'll bring you home soon, just stay for longer than we originally planned...

Some Marines' thoughts
An interesting article:

FALLUJAH, Iraq — On a rooftop overlooking Fallujah's industrial wasteland, Lance Cpl. Tom Browne pokes his machine gun muzzle out of a hole in a barrier wall, singing to himself to pass the time.

In the street below, the corpse of an insurgent suspect lies baking in the sun. Browne, from Boston, says he has killed several rebels, probably Iraqis, so far.

"I don't even think about those people as people," he says.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

The band of Marines in this insurgent stronghold received two big orders this year. They were told to return to Iraq to stabilize the Sunni areas west of Baghdad, Iraq's toughest patch of territory. The normally clean-shaven Marines were also told to grow mustaches in an attempt to win over Iraqis who see facial hair as a sign of maturity.
...
The Marines say it's easier to cope with the daily work of killing inside Fallujah, where a seemingly unending supply of rebels continues to fight, if they don't think about the suspected Iraqi rebels they are targeting as people who, under different circumstances, they might have been trying to help.

"If someone came and did this to our neighborhood I'd be pissed too," said Capt. Don Maraska, of Moscow, Idaho, a 37-year-old who guides airstrikes on enemy targets in the town. "I've never had people look at me the ways these people look at me. I don't know what came before, but at this point, what else can we possibly do but fight?"

Liberal media 101
When Bush changes positions it's not a "flip-flop" but a "historic policy shift."

CIA recalls Tenet trip to see Bush in August
The CIA says he went on 8/17/01. Tenet doen't seem to recall. Perhaps he's a heavy social drinker?

Kerry GOP membership at Yale likely a farce
The depths they'll sink to....

Tenet says he didn't talk to Bush
Tenet said today that he didn't talk to Bush for all of August in 2001. So saying he was regularly briefed on terror during his speech last night was....an exaggeration?

UPDATE: More on Tenet's talk today.

Summary of Bush's speech:
I rock. I'm doing really well. Iraqis want freedom. The Army rocks, except for a few units who need more ammo and training. We probably should have done that before. The war on terror is rockin', minus a few hiccups in Spain and most of Iraq. If you don't elect me in November, America will probably rock much less.

Q&A session:
I didn't hear your question, sir, but suffice it to say that we're kicking ass in Iraq.

Bush's speech
I'd address it right now if A. it wasn't about to be picked apart all over the rest of the 'Net and B. I wasn't choking on the bullshit that just came out of his mouth.

UPDATE: I must comment on one thing. He said that the hardest part of his job was consoling family members. So why is that George? Is it that you got their family members killed, or that you feel bad for skipping every single funeral?

Scalia "learned his lesson"
Welcome to third grade.

How convenient
Here is how Bush and Cheney both reaped the benefits of their own tax cuts. Nice.

Bad news for the WH
It looks like there were more reports on the bin Laden threat before 9/11. Oops.

Hearts and minds
Were half of the dead in Fallujah non-combatants?

Ashcroft goes after Clinton
Johnny blames bin Laden failure on Clinton policy. Is that the same policy Rice said the Bush administration decided to continue?

Most prefer balanced budget to lower taxes
Perhaps we DO have a winning issue.

This month in Iraq
78 dead, 561 wounded. This is one of the few articles that actually mentions the injured, which is a figure well into the thousands at this juncture.

Breaking
4 of 7 missing Americans found dead in Iraq.

Want an RPG?
Not too expensive to launch grenades if you're on eBay.

Via corrente.

At least he's paying some taxes
Cheney's Halliburton cash.

Addition to the oath
Via Uggabugga:

Iraq gets even shittier
After listing everything that has gone wrong, you have to kind of sit back in awe of how badly this was botched.

Rooney gets it.....mostly right?
Weird....

The story of the hostage
A very sad story.

The latest Google bomb from the right
They're making a "waffles" search lead to Kerry. So let's make "asshole" link to Bush. That'd be an accomplishment, wouldn't it?

U.S. eyes Tehran
corrente has the story on the bullshit.

What the....
Brace yourselves....

TNR gets it really, really wrong
Congratulations to the New Republic for writing the worst article I've seen from them in a while - including the articles featuring their support for the war. While I often disagree with them, this article couldn't be any more wrong. First of all, subtitle is "Why Jon Stewart isn't funny." Thanks for sharing your opinion, jackass. More:

Just at the moment when American politics is becoming no laughing matter, the job of commenting on American politics has fallen to the comedians, to "political satirists" such as Al Franken and Bill Maher, who have aligned themselves with the Democrats, or Dennis Miller, who has aligned himself with the Republicans. For the first time in the history of comedy, you have to register to laugh. And now, Jon Stewart and his "Daily Show" are following the same trend. With the comedians' solemnity about their politics, with their grave concern about the direction the country is headed in, comedy is fast becoming no laughing matter, either. The marriage of comedy and politics is even more unhealthy than the marriage of church and state.

Just when politics became no laughing matter? On what date did this happen. First, Siegel groups Franken and Maher (a Libertarian who he calls a Democrat, showing his general lack of knowledge on the topic) with Stewart, who runs an entirely satirical fake news show peppered with facts, rather than a real show with scattered jokes.

Indignation is to comedy what turning the lights on is to a party. Indignation implies earnest thoughts about a better world; but those comics of yore were wholly, unrelievedly negative--that's what made them so refreshing. In a country where everyone believes today can be repaired like a car so that tomorrow will run more smoothly, they harbored no recommendations for the future in the havoc they wreaked on the present. And that got you thinking about how rife with unprescribed possibility was the present. Like the id, comedy exists only in the here-and-now. But by aligning themselves with an ideology, with a politics, Franken, Maher, and Miller weigh their comic negativity down with a positive premise. They actually believe in the power of the ballot box to shape the country's future. That's not funny.

Huh? Apparently the problem not just with political comedy, but with comedy in general, is that it is too positive?

"The Daily Show"'s intention of showing clips from the news in order to mock the conventional coverage of the news and get to the bottom of what's really going on in the world always seemed to me too dependent on the thing it derided--the comic equivalent of covering an old song.

I never knew that The Daily Show had aspirations of "getting to the bottom" of things, but apparently I wasn't watching hard enough.

The rest of the article you can read for yourself, but it's the same concept. Stewart's actual comic abilities are criticized (by the always-hip Siegel), as well as the fact that Stewart apparently falsely thinks that he's smart. Siegel is doing nothing more than taking a cultural problem - kids getting news from a comedy show - and blaming it on a comedian who happens to be hosting the show. Slick.

Even when they're right......
In the midst of what appeared to be a decent Town Hall column on war veterans appears the following:

That brave generation of men who stormed the beaches of Normandy has been replaced by a generation of metrosexuals trying to get in touch with their feminine side.

How relevant. Apparently Mr. Adams sees our generation as a bunch of wusses...which seems to contradict the fact that they are fighting, killing, and dying in Iraq every single day. Fuck you, Mike Adams.

2.5 years later
Bush thinks maybe we need better intel:

An Aug. 6, 2001, presidential intelligence document, made public by the White House on Saturday under pressure from the 9/11 commission, said the FBI had detected patterns of suspicious activity that pointed toward possible preparations for hijackings or other attacks.

It also said the FBI was conducting 70 full field investigations about al Qaeda's presence in the United States. But U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, in her public testimony to the commission last week, pointed to structural problems in U.S. intelligence that prevented all agencies from sharing information.

Maybe next time she could fax 'em a copy.

Another family's story
You can't help but sympathize.

New GOP strategy
Make Kerry seem French:

Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist, said Kerry's Francophilia "plays into this stereotype of the effete, French-speaking, northeastern Massachusetts liberal elitist. The fact that his position on Iraq seems reasonably close to that of [French president] Jacques Chirac is just icing on the cake."

Reasonably close? Kerry voted FOR the war!

Ashcroft not told about memo
Not only was the Aug. 6 PDB not warning of the terror attack that just happened to take place a month later, it wasn't even important enough to tell the Attorney General.

Dems gaining ground in Senate
While the GOP was watching the presidency, the Dems have been quietly moving ahead in Congressional races.

Dubya views war as religious
corrente has the goods on this thoroughly disturbing revelation.

Happy Easter from Kick the Leftist!
I'll be with the family until later this evening.

More bad news for the prez
Man, this whole "letting 9/11 happen" thing really is coming back to bite them in the ass.