It was prime Pumpkinhead, wasn't it? I wonder if he's "moderating" the republican debate in two weeks if he'll be as "tough" on them. What I learned tonight:
(1) Please, let there be no Hillary candidacy
(2) Dennis Kucinich is short
(3) Mike Gravel needs to get a job
(4) Joe Biden needs to go home
(5) Barak gives great speech, but lousy policy explanations
(6) Bill Richardson needs to think before speaking
(7) Chris Dodd is smart, but never answers kwestions directly, 26 years in DC will do that, Chris
(8) I like John Edwards for now, but he's got to focus more on differentiating himself from Obama and HRC.
(9) I like Dennis Kucinch, but he's got virtually no chance right now. He tells the truth and that's a deadly sin in Washington.

Oh, and please all you stupid politicians (except, I think Kucinich)... old enough to die, old enough to drink get over this Christianist Temperance Bullshit. The biggest problem facing teenagers and alcohol is lack of education and the hypocrisy of the system that encourages alcohol abuse while meteing out punishment. Let's start with a system that allows anyone under 21 with an active duty or reserve ID to get as shit faced as they want... it is, after all what they're off to fight for, right? Freedom?

Obama and HRC both seem to be pretty much towing the 1600 Crew line of "War forever" in Iraq. A great point that HRC voted for the Liebeliar amendment ... yeah, about that other vote again Hillary...? Just asking. Obama for all his self-aggrandizing courage in opposing the war (as an Illinois State Senator) did not manage to vote one way or the other on the LieberLiar amendment ... way to display those leadership traits there, Obama.

I give them all props for not falling for the torture question, except Biden who at first misunderstood it. Torture is the last refuge of the Macho Challenged. I guaran-damn-tee you that if you put Rudy! or Mitt! or any of those others on a Waterboard, they'd change their minds in a big damn hurry...they need only ask McCain about it, but they seem to ignore his experience all the while thanking him for his service while denigrating it by ignoring his wisdom on the question of torture.

I recall watching with disgust a few weeks ago Joseph Lieberliar (I, Myself, Me) talk about invading Iran as our next big foreign policy adventure. Seems that the Lieberliar-Kyl amendment has passed in the Senate, which probably will give Commander Bunnypants all the excuse he needs to Bomb Iran.

By a vote 76-22, the Senate passed the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, which threatens to "combat, contain and [stop]" Iran via "military instruments." Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) called the amendment "Cheney’s fondest pipe dream" and said it could "read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action."

I'm still getting over the fact that so many invertebrate Democrats voted for this piece of shit legislation. I guess that's what makes them spineless in the first place, eh?

Yeah, it's piling on, and yeah in some ways it reaches the same level of inanity that Britney/Lindsay news does but the Saga of Larry continues. I guess he's off to court today (although not in person) to contest his guilty plea for the disorderly conduct charge that stems from his foot-tapping code in the Stall of America at the Minneapolis Airport.

Sen. Larry Craig's attorneys will try to convince Judge Charles Porter at a hearing today that the Idaho senator's guilty plea was a mistake.

Craig has said his foot-tapping, hand gestures, and looks into a bathroom stall were misconstrued by the police officer conducting a sting for bathroom sex at the airport. Craig's attorneys wrote that he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct because he feared his June 11 arrest would trigger a story by an Idaho newspaper that had been investigating his sexual orientation. Craig has denied that he is gay.

Craig won't be attending the hearing, according to Judy Smith, a spokeswoman for Craig attorney Billy Martin.

Poor Larry Craig, he's potentially going to get defeated on two, maybe three fronts today... one, he's got to overcome his guilty plea and convince a judge that as a fucking lawmaker he misunderstood what pleading guilty meant; second he's trapped by the same moralizing rhetoric he's helped stir up over the years if the judge rejects his attempt to impugn the police officer who busted him (and make no mistake, that's what he's doing); and third if he wins his motion it's a sure bet that he's going to go to trial, and I'm betting that's gonna get a whole lot uglier. He might just get handed a stiff sentence for his participation in widening his stance and being against gay rights.

Larry Craig is innocent until proven guilty of disorderly conduct, oh wait, he already pleaded guilty. Maybe he can get Glorious Leader to give him a "Scooter Job"...I understand it's all the rage in republican criminal circles these days.

You know, the one where we take our elected Democratic Leaders seriously because they stand up for US and not lick the assholes of the republican leadership and rank-and-file in hopes that "they'll like us, they'll really like us".

I long for that day to come, when the Democrats stop worrying about condeming MoveOn and actually move on to oppose the 1600 Crew in some meaningful way beyond press conferences and allowing Huckleberry Graham to run the Senate.

That day sure seems far off, doesn't it?

There's just something so wrong with our Pet Moron Preznit talking to the UN about "advancing freedom", the fucking idiot doesn't even actually understand it, except in the context of his campaign contributors (his base) being able to rape, pillage and plunder all cost-plus, of course.

President Bush announced new sanctions Tuesday against the military dictatorship in Myanmar, accusing it of imposing “a 19-year reign of fear” that denies basic freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.

“Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma,” the president said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly. The military junta renamed the Asian country Myanmar, but the United States does not recognize the change.

After the revelation that the 1600 Crew lied to Congress to get an extension of the unConstitutional FISA law passed, it ought to be a fucking no-brainer that the Invertebrate Democrats in the House would start an Impeachment inquiry.

But no, Nancy clutches her pearls and has Beltway Vapors over the idea of actual accountability for the Executive branch. The republican masterstroke of impeaching The Clenis™ over Monica has made the Invertebrate Democrats afraid of their own fucking shadows.

I guess that the Invertebrate Leadership doesn't get two things (1) that the misdeeds of the 1600 Crew will not begin to survive and impeachment inquiry, the concept of "Executive Privilege" does not exist in the Impeachment process ... once the sunshine is let in, all but the most ardent consumers of republican kool-aid will begin to turn on them, as happened to Nixon during the Watergate Hearings and (2) if they, the Invertebrate Leadership don't do something they are going to be in a fight for their very political lives in 2008, because so many of us are sick and tired of their inside the beltway crap.

Are you with me? Impeachment is the Cure. Pass it on.

Apologies to Todd Rundgren. I lost my job, and was looking (successfully) for another one, thus my Bunnypants-like prevarication to keep on blogging.

I'll do better, honest. And thanks for hanging in there.

See ya in the friendly skies!

Saw this yesterday...

A congressional committee has opened an investigation of the State Department's inspector general, alleging he blocked fraud investigations in Afghanistan and Iraq, including potential security lapses at the newly built U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
...
Ralph McNamara, the former deputy assistant inspector general for investigations, said in an Associated Press interview Tuesday that he came forward with the allegations against his former boss because he worried that State Department employees would be at risk when working in the new embassy.

"A rocket — an unexploded munition — went through a portion of a cement ceiling there, and it was supposed to be an area able to withstand a direct hit from a missile that did explode," said McNamara. He said investigators wanted to look into charges that the walls were not built to the required thickness or concrete consistency, but they were blocked from pursuing it.

U.S. workers, he said, "were putting their lives on the line and assuming that the facility they were going into was going to provide them all the protection they needed, and that's not true. ... With all these allegations coming in, we need to make sure these folks were being protected.

Does anyone have the schedule for upcoming Medal of Freedom ceremonies? I wonder which one Krongards will get his MoF at, because a team player like him is always rewarded by Beloved Leader.

Apparently the puppet government of Whatizname Maliki is showing a little spine (I guess they're not getting their kickbacks from the contractors on time) concerning Blackwater. They're revoking their "license" to do business in Iraq, which effectively takes them out of the "protection" racket. And it means that the US officials who use them for bodyguards can't anymore...

The US has suspended all road journeys by its diplomats in Iraq outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
...
"For their own interests, the Americans should hire a new company to protect their people so they can move freely."
...
In a statement sent to US citizens in Iraq on Wednesday, the US embassy said it had suspended all road journeys by its diplomats throughout the country in order to conduct a safety review.

I've wondered how long the Iraqis would tolerate the "security" companies running rampant in their country. The whole "contractor" thing has been such a legacy of the unlamented Rummy that I'm betting that the current (and certainly next) powers that be will be looking for a way to get rid of them, expediently and quietly. They are useful, but becoming a political embarrassment at home, something that never increases your longevity as an entity that receives money from our Uncle (unless you're really, really connected which Blackwater is right now).

**Yawn**

A judge Wednesday morning agreed to release O.J. Simpson on a $125,000 bail bond while he awaits trial in a bizarre armed robbery case involving sports memorabilia.

Once again, it's Mourning in America. Move over Britney, you're yesterdays news.

Remember, Anbar is better. That pretty much sums up General David's report to Congress last week. Amazingly the House of Representatives was more concerned with suppressing the demonstrations by Code Pink than they were about asking actual kwestions.

From what I saw, and heard the sum total of their questions was "we (especially those of us too chicken to put on a uniform) really appreciate your service, Mon General ... now do you have a fancy chart for us, cause we loves us some charts..."

The Senate was slightly better, every republican felt compelled to blast the MoveOn ad, although I heard none of them object to the denigrating of Silver-Star winner John Kerry in 2004. So, MoveOn bad, Swift Boaters good. American politix in a nutshell, delivered by nutcases.

General Prevaricatus is over in the UK today telling them how well it's all going. I wonder if he'll be visiting all the other 35 allies later this month. He'll be a busy boy...good thing all is well in Anbar.

Back again... more on that later. So today, Huckleberry Graham managed to filibuster (gee, didn't the republicans want to end that practice?) a basic civil right enumerated in the US Constitution... the right to Habeus Corpus.

The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, as the legislation wending its way through Congress is known, would not have been necessary but for these failures of Congress and the administration. But justice now demands passage of the measure, sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and ranking Republican member Arlen Specter (Pa.). In the Senate, where debate commenced yesterday, the legislation has been attached as an amendment to a defense bill. A vote on the amendment is expected later this week.

So they've voted on cloture for Huckleberry's filibuster, and the American people lost 56-43, because 60 votes were needed to make that little fascist from South Carolina sit down (aren't you South Carolinians proud of ol'Huck?) I guess this is revenge for Ft Sumter or something.

Another sad, sad day for our Republic. You have to hope that someday grown-ups with spine will once again govern here. But I guess not (I'm looking at you Nancy and Harry) any time soon. The other funny thing is how folks like St John of the Keating Five likes to cite his sacrifice to "protect and defend" our rights, and then he votes against Habeus. Nice.

Vulnerable incumbents like Normy Coleman should also be especially remembered next year for their votes... it might not matter today, but next November, it will in a big way.

1. The Debate
   
2. Ahhh, shit. Here we go again.
   
3. Oral arguments
   
4. That day
   
5. What a tool... our Preznit
   
6. Impeachment is The Cure
   
7. Hello, it's me
   
8. R U Surprised anymore?
   
9. Blackwater, Quicksand....
   
10. American Idle