BUSH'S POLITICAL CAPITAL....

seems to be running a little low these days. So far, he has lost on Social Security and Stem Cell Research and now it looks like he will lose on ANWR oil drilling.

GOP members oppose Arctic oil in budget
By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer
Aug 10, 11:06 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two dozen House Republicans, including three committee chairmen, have asked Speaker Dennis Hastert not to use a congressional budget procedure to clear the way for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
They said in a letter to Hastert, R-Ill., that the budget process "is an inappropriate venue to be debating this important environmental issue" and warned that it would further complicate already difficult budget issues.
"We believe the debate on opening this unique land to oil and gas exploration should be done outside the budget process," said the group led by Rep. Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., in an Aug. 4 letter made public Wednesday.
Among those signing the letter were three committee chairmen: Science Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y.; Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Government Reform Chairman Thomas Davis, R-Va.

WHAT CINDY IS ALL ABOUT

(Via DKos)

"He was only 24 and he died in his best friend's arms," Sheehan says in the ad, directed at President Bush. "Casey was so good and so honest why can't you be honest with us?"
"You were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction-you were wrong about the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda--you lied to us and because of your lies my son died," she ads.

PLAME LEAK SCORECARD

Think Progress has put together a great database of all the current and former Administration officials involved in the Plame Leak investigation. Here's the current rundown:



Karl Rove
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby
Condoleezza Rice
Stephen Hadley
Andrew Card
Alberto Gonzales
Mary Matalin
Ari Fleischer
Susan Ralston
Israel Hernandez
John Hannah
Scott McClellan
Dan Bartlett
Claire Buchan
Catherine Martin
Colin Powell
Karen Hughes
Adam Levine
Bob Joseph
Vice President Dick Cheney
President George W. Bush

MORE RADIO TIDBITS

I caught some of the Laura Ingraham Show this morning and she also pushed the wingnut meme that Cindy Sheehan was being used by the Evil Left. She also falsely claimed that the majority of Americans support the war in Iraq when in fact about 60% think it was a mistake.

What I find amusing is the claim that Cindy has an agenda and having one automatically discredits her. Of course, there is no mention of the possibility that the person who sent the "family letter" to a wingnut radio host also has an agenda.

RADIO TIDBITS

Today I caught the tail end of the Hugh Hewitt Show, guest hosted by Peter Robinson and Carol Plat Liebau. They were attempting to push the line that Cindy Sheehan is being used by the Evil Left and to prove it, they played a clip of a conference call Cindy had with Evil leftie bloggers and a Democratic House member from Illinois. On the clip, Cindy remarks that it was remarkable how her story took off in the blogosphere and she was thankful for that. There was no evidence presented by either Liebau or Robinson that the DNC, MoveOn, Howard Dean or anyone else who is prominent in the Democratic Party is manipulating Cindy for political gain.

One caller brought up the point that the Republicans tried to use Terri Schiavo for political gain but both hosts denied it. For those of you who don't recall, Sen. Mel Martinez (R- FLA) mistakenly handed Sen. Tom Harkin (D - IA) a memo containing the GOP talking points about Schiavo. Two of them were explicitly political: "This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats. " and "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue. " (For more on this story, check out this entry at MediaMatters)

THE NOISE MACHINE AT WORK

MediaMatters does a great job of exposing the smear campaign the Machine started on Cindy Sheehan. What we don't know right now is who gave the smear story to Matt "The Eggman" Drudge but we can sure it wasn't Valerie Plame!

Here's the timeline from MM:

Drudge posted the Sheehan item on August 8 at 10:11 am ET.

• Right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin posted the item on her weblog one hour later, at 11:22 am ET.
• At 12:40 pm ET, the Drudge story appeared on C-Log, the weblog of the conservative news and commentary website Townhall.com.
• At 2:33 pm ET, MooreWatch.com posted the story.
• At 3:23 pm ET, William Quick of DailyPundit.com posted the story.
• Fox News then picked up Drudge's distortion of Sheehan's quote. On the "Political Grapevine" segment of the August 8 edition of Special Report with Brit Hume, guest anchor and Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle highlighted Sheehan's supposed contradiction

Liberals also have a distribution system but it's not as developed as the Machine. For example, a post could start at Daily Kos and then move to Atrios but we don't have a Townhall. More important, we don't have our own cable news outlet.

YOU GOTTA SEE THIS!

Or, "how I started my Senate campaign by getting drunk and going on FOX News and showing off my new boobs."

Crooks & Liars

HACKETT ON PIGBOY

It's GREAT to have someone willing to push back!
From MyDD:

That's typical for that fatass drug addict to come up with something like that. There's a guy ... I didn't hear this, but actually when I was on drill this weekend, I've got to tell you, he lost a lot of Republican supporters with his comments. Because they were coming up to me, telling me, "I can't believe he said that! Besides that, he called you a soldier. He doesn't know the difference between a soldier and a marine!"

So generally, the consensus is Rush doesn't know squat about patriotism. He's typical of the new Republican. He's got a lot of lip and he doesn't walk the walk. The fact of the matter is, I went to Iraq to serve my country. I left my nice house, my nice wife by my choice because I thought it was the right thing to do. And man, if I was good enough to be able to see into the future that Rob Portman was going to step down from Congress, I mean I should actually be running for something a lot more than Congress. I went to Iraq because I wanted to serve my country and be with my Marines.

I think it probably says more about Rush Limbaugh than it does anybody else that he comes up with those thought processes. And I think it's indicative of today's Republican party, which is patriotic lite translated to anybody who serves their country who truly who truly serves their country and demonstrates it by their actions as opposed to their flapping gums.

They want to attack us. But the fact of the matter is they can attack me, but I punch back just as hard as I get. Ask Rush how come he wasn't taking phone calls for the two days when he was on the attack with me. Ask him why his phone lines were clogged up. That's because he was getting thousands of calls from veterans from this war and other wars who were clogging up his phone lines, giving him an earful.

THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE

Senator complains to nominee about court
By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer
Aug 9, 10:28 AM EDT
LINK


The Democrats are pressing for internal memos from Roberts' tenure as a deputy solicitor general, when he represented the White House at the Supreme Court during the administration of President George H.W. Bush. Last week the Justice Department said it would not make public records from 16 cases Roberts was involved in, dealing with issues including abortion, affirmative action, school prayer and capital punishment.
Gonzales defended that decision after addressing the American Bar Association in Chicago. He said Roberts' former position "represents the United States of America, the American people, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. For that reason I would have very serious concerns about the sharing of information."

So, we can't look at the written opinions of one of our employees? I mean, it's not like he dealt with national security issues!

HEHEHE! BANNED AGAIN!!!!!!

This time from Coulter's site. Let's take a look at what the fuckwits objected to on the Cindy Sheehan thread:

manofaiki wrote:
She wants to ask Bush 'Why did you kill my son?" Oh please.
ME -->"The intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy" - Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6

spottedeagleboy wrote:
I thought WMD were found after the initial routing of the Republican Guard and the fall of Bhagdad. I clearly remember the
ME --> LMAO - you have a very creative memory!

sparky672 wrote:
Hey Pinis-Head, You're supposed to be some big shot blogger, right? So how come you only have the ability to string together maybe half a sentence if we're lucky? How about in depth writings of your own backing up some of these things you claim? Pinis-Head, is this you? [odd picture]
ME-->I am not responsible for your low self-esteem.

(I was going to post some other tidbits from these mental and moral midgets but now I can't even view the threads. If you want some real yucks, check out the evolution threads!)

When confronted by evidence that threatens their narcissistic delusions, they hide behind lies, moronic denial or personal attacks. These people are a threat to America and Western Civilization.

ON DRUDGE

(Hat tip to Crooks & Liars!)

Egg on his chest?
By Amy Reiter
March 8, 2000

I knew the brawl between online gossipists Jeannette Walls and Matt Drudge would get ugly, but who could have predicted allegations of a smeared egg sex fetish?

What's more, Walls says she finds it "hypocritical that a man who has become a spokesman of the far right has led a lifestyle at odds with the ultra-conservative values he supposedly embraces." And she finds it "ironic that a man whose entire career has been based on revealing the sexual behavior of others has a sexual history of his own that he now seems at pains to hide."
And what pains! After Washington landscaper David Cohen confirmed to Daily News columnist George Rush that he did, in fact, date Drudge, as Walls had reported, and after Walls hinted that she had refrained from printing even more "lurid allegations" about him in her book, Drudge seemed to get a little panicky.
After a mutual friend of both gossipists tipped off Drudge as to just what these "lurid allegations" were -- a nasty case of pubic lice, a penchant for fully clothed sex in the shower and a bizarre egg fetish -- he began to spread them himself.

COULTER ON FALAFEL BOY'S SHOW

Ann made the following statement on "The Factor":

ANN COULTER, AUTHOR, "HOW TO TALK TO A LIBERAL (IF YOU MUST)": I think I was amazingly prescient a year ago when I said things were going well. I mean, since then we've had a free election in Iraq in which women voted, Shia, Sunni. They're working on a constitution. We had a free election in this country. In the last six months we've killed or captured about 50,000 insurgents. LINK


This sounded amazing so I did a little research and found that once again, Ann got her facts wrong:

Q General Conway, General Jack Keane, the former vice chief of the Army has apparently just come back from Iraq. And he has said at a luncheon yesterday that U.S. forces had either captured or killed some 50,000 insurgents so far this year. Is that number accurate? Can you tell us how many were captured or how many were killed? And whether or not -- you know, what that says about the size of the insurgency?

GEN. CONWAY: I just saw the article this morning, and I accept the fact that General Keane has been in-country certainly since I have. I can't speak to his source of the figures. I can tell you that we don't keep that metric here. So I'm afraid I can't confirm or deny the accuracy of those figures.

Q Well, I mean -- U.S. forces are constantly rolling up -- and Iraqi forces are rolling up suspected insurgents. Some are held, some are released. Do you not -- can either one of you give us any idea of how many are being held now, and does the numbers seem reasonable? And setting the number aside for a moment, what does it say about the size of the insurgency if there have been numbers in that range?

MR. DI RITA: Well, you know, it's something that commanders have been asked on many occasions. I think the secretary has certainly been asked it. It's an interesting thing to understand, you know, what's the size of the adversary that we're facing. And the estimates have ranged from a few thousand on the low end to many tens of thousands on the high end -- this now -- this comment that General Keane has made. It's not a number that we do track. It's -- there is -- we are capturing or killing a large number of bad guys in Iraq. We are detaining a large number of people who are under investigation either as criminal elements or potential insurgents from whom we can gather additional information.

But, you know, we don't tend to count. Nobody's maintaining a count of the size of the insurgency or the numbers that we're capturing because, as we've discussed from here and elsewhere -- before Congress -- it's not a -- first of all, it's not a metric that has a lot of meaning by itself. And secondly, it's a difficult thing to do, and for the effort that would be expended, one would have to wonder what we'd have at the end of the day if we were able to count it with precision.

What we're trying to do is understand the nature of it. Ultimately, we believe and are fairly confident that the nature of it is one that will be overtaken by the continued progress in Iraq and by the Iraqi people themselves, but the numbers themselves are -- they're -- they can be misleading. I mean, we see large numbers of Iraqi civilians being killed by the insurgents; we don't track those numbers either, but it leaves an impression that the progress in Iraq is less than it is because it's misleading by itself, and it's just not something that we're tracking. LINK

RALPH G. NEAS

He is the president of People for the American Way and until recently, I only knew him by name. His appearance on Hardball has turned me into a big fan. Here are some excerpts:

NEAS: Number one, Justice Sunday several months ago was one of the most disturbing incidents in recent American history. It was truly religious McCarthyism at its worst. Unfounded allegations about people who were trying to defeat the nuclear option and save the filibuster were accused of discriminating people of faith. It was reprehensible. The charges of Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council are false and inflammatory. And by the way, over the last 55 years, there have been 21 Supreme Court nominations. Fifteen of the 21, 70 percent have been Republican. Seven of the last nine have been Republican appointees. And the two Democrats were approved after consulting with Senator Orrin Hatch. We have had a conservative court that Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council are attacking.
They even want to impeach Anthony Kennedy and they call Sandra Day O‘Connor a betrayal to conservativism. That proves how extreme Tony Perkins is.

NEAS: I‘m not sure how it cuts. It certainly limits his options. I think he was considering a slate of candidates. But what we have said is that we want a compromise candidate. We like this consultation, we hope it is real and leads to a consensus; someone in the mold of Sandra Day O‘Connor, who obviously disagreed with us a lot, but was unpredictable and a solid mainstream conservative.
Someone in the mold of Scalia and Thomas, someone that Tony Perkins wants, and I think George W. Bush has promised Tony Perkins and the radical religious right someone in the mold of Thomas and Scalia, would overturn more than 100 Supreme Court precedents going back to the 1930s. This is a fight over judicial philosophy.

GREGORY: . or so you argue. We don‘t know that.

NEAS: No, no. We have done a study of every dissent and concurring opinion of Scalia and Thomas going back to 1991 and 1986 respectively. With one or two more like-minded justices, more than 100 Supreme Court precedents would be overturned, affecting privacy, affecting equal opportunity, the environment, and many other things.