Month: October 2005

I’ve kind of neglected the news swirling around Harriet Mier’s nomination to the Supreme Court the last little while because the Republicans are doing such a good job of shooting her down – as are prominent Democrats, but I find these latest demands from Senator Specter interesting:

1) He wants Miers to answer questions about Bush’s Gitmo policy, specifically the policy of indefinite detention.

2) He wants assurances in writing that she’s a conservative.

We can expect Miers and the White House to stonewall on the first request – claiming executive privilege. But, how will she get away with not putting pen to paper and writing “I’m the best conservative ever!”?

Meanwhile, more GOPers are jumping ship and asking for Mier’s withdrawal.

Three GOP officials said they no longer felt certain that Miers’ troubled nomination would survive as long as the Nov. 7 target date for hearings, and that a withdrawal was not out of the question. They spoke on condition of anonymity, noting that the administration’s official policy is one of strong continued support for the president’s pick.

A conservative group that had given Miers the benefit of the doubt changed positions on Wednesday. Concerned Women of America, which had so far supported Bush’s judicial nominees, urged the president to withdraw her nomination.

Today was the day Miers had to submit her do over on her questionnaire. I wonder who she got to help her with that since she failed so miserably with her last one.

What’s an embattled president to do? Squirm. A lot. I hope.

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Extremists of all sorts feed off of each other.  The extremists in the US now have more reason to to call for another war in the Middle East.

The President of Iran has, according the UK’s Independent, “stirred up a diplomatic storm and risked further isolating his country by saying that Israel should be ‘wiped off the map.”

First, when a nuclear power (or a country that wants to be one) says “off the map” we should worry.  Nuclear powers must be mature and grown up enought to not say such things.  Since we know that Isreal is a nuclear power, it’s a dangerous thing when Heads of State talk of wiping out nearby countries.

It was not long ago that the US was abuzz about Bush’s plans to invade Iran.  Indeed, Hersch said that were already conducting operations in Iran.  With the hardliners on both sides keeping tensions high, the world is a less stable place.  An invasion of Iran is now a more possible thing.

I wonder if Bush’s domestic crisis is contributing to this kind of rhetoric from Iran.  Bush is weak, and so too is the US.  We failed in Iraq, and Bush got caught lying to the world for his invasion.  He’s now as weak as ever, which may make other leaders think it’s a good time to flex a bit.

But with Bush, this is a bad idea.  He’s a weak-bully, the kind of person who attacks as much out of weakness as out of strength.  Challenge his narrow worldview, and he will choose to self-distruct rather than accept defeat.

We should be worried about anything that contributes to the Middle East heating up.  And we should look towards ourselves for some of the reasons why.  Since we’ve now got a colony smack in the middle of the region, like it or not, what goes on there involves us.

Cross posted: Political Porn

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Anything left of your fingernails?

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Tom DeLay: always blaming everybody else for HIS mistakes. Well, he can’t do that about this disclosure:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Tom DeLay failed to comply with House requirements that he disclose all contributions to a defense fund that pays his legal bills, the Texas Republican acknowledged to House officials.

He wrote officials that $20,850 contributed in 2000 and 2001 was not reported anywhere. Another $17,300 was included in the defense fund’s quarterly report but not in DeLay’s 2000 annual financial disclosure report — a separate requirement.

Other donations were understated as totaling $2,800, when the figure should have been $4,450.

It was during that period that DeLay was the subject of several House ethics investigations.

He did that during the investigations! And, just like Judith Miller who happened to stumble upon her “newly discovered notes” in Plamegate, DeLay claims he just learned about these “accounting irregularities” last Friday.

What kind of bloody accounting system does he use that he would discover these 4 year old mistakes just last Friday? Bullshit, I say. He knows he’s toast in Texas and he knows his records are subject to more scrutiny now. Does anyone really think he didn’t intentionally hide these “irregularities”?

Slimeball.

The sooner he’s frog-marched out of Washington, the better.

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Harm reduction should not only be applied to world affairs, like avoiding electing presidents that take America to war using fear, hysteria, and blatant lies, but also to American drug policy.  Harm reduction has worked throughout the world and on the west coast of the US.  It works.

Now, that said, marijuana, being the least harmful “drug,” less harmful than coffee, should be studied for its cancer-reduction capabilites per a new study out today.  Before I give some quotes from that, let me remind that marijuana made news last week also. Both of these links deserve a thorough read. Last week’s is in this Science Daily publication and today’s new study explains how marijuana’s THC reverses the effects of a cancer-causing enzyme that is produced by smoking cigarettes.  It actually reverses cancer, please let that sink in:

Both of these studies flies in the face of our disgraceful, lying, bipartisan, federal and state government Holy Drug Inquisition.

See below for some facts on that and some excerpts from these 2 studies…

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