They have this all wrong - the buck stops somewhere over there. Just ask Karl:
A prestigious US political research body has accused the US government of giving impetus to Iraq’s insurgency through a lack of post-war planning.
A Council on Foreign Relations study said the decision that reconstruction would not need any more forces than the [...]

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But Richard Kramer over at All Spin Zone did a great job pushing the national media to cover the disappearance of Latoyia Figueroa, a pregnant young mother in West Philadelphia - CNN had the story yesterday. (Local media is doing a pretty good job, though.)
Richard also helped establish a reward fund. You can contribute through [...]

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Passed last night by two votes - including votes from 15 Democrats.
Bastards.
UPDATE: David Sirota:
But, let’s further break this down. Which of these 15 Members has CONSISTENTLY been selling out the Democratic Party and America’s middle class? The way we find that out is by looking at other recent votes on key economic issues, such as [...]

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Karen Hughes channeling Scott McClellan:
Senior Bush adviser Karen Hughes, headed to confirmation in the full Senate for the State Department’s top public relations post, provided a terse two sentence answer to questions submitted by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) about her role and knowledge about the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, RAW STORY [...]

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The rumor mill grindeth on, and Arianna shares the story making the rounds - that the lovely Judy Miller leaked Valerie Plame’s name to get back at Joe Wilson - who, after all, was questioning Judy’s WMD reporting:
This is why Miller doesn’t want to reveal her “source” at the White House — because she was [...]

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Republicans! They’re so damned hard to respect, aren’t they? From the Swing State Project, reporting from Ohio on the Paul Hackett campaign:
UPDATE: Some guy has been walking down the street outside Hackett HQ a few hours ago, taking down everyones license plates and making phones calls while walking in and out of Republican HQ across [...]

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Praise Jesus. (Hint, hint: My birthday’s in September.)

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L.A.’s new mayor is asking people to use public transportation one or two days a week. (Smart idea - the last time I was there, the air was grayish-orange and it burned my eyes and throat.)

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Steve Gilliard on the Hillary-DLC lovefest:
Whittman should be under no illusions as to the contempt he is held in by most Democrats. He worked for the Hudson Institute, home to various rightwing crackpots. Why not have Joe Trippi consult with Karl Rove on races. So his opinion is as relevant as mine on Jen’s choice [...]

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Well, guess what? Sen. Pat Roberts is saying the Senate Intelligence committee won’t be holding Plame hearings, after all:
Roberts said that Plame, along with several other cases, points to problems related to how the intelligence community protects its officers and to ambiguities in the definition of who has cover and what levels of cover exist.
But [...]

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Faux News breaks this HUGE STORY: Valerie Plame Wilson bought two tickets for the Bruce Springsteen tour last year.
WASHINGTON — Outed CIA spy Valerie Plame last fall gave a campaign contribution to go toward an anti-Bush fund-raising concert starring Bruce Springsteen, it was revealed Tuesday night.
It’s the first revelation that Plame participated in anti-Bush political [...]

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I agree with Digby: doubling the credit card interest for people who are already on the edge will have devastating effects:
I’m sure there are a lot of people who have just been too dumb to realize that they should pay more than the minimums each month in order to keep up with the compounding interest [...]

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If abortion is murder, then women who have abortions are murderers, right?
Here’s a video that shows what happened when the filmmaker asked anti-abortion protestors how women who have illegal abortions should be treated.

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Arianna on Hilary’s plea for party unity:
Right. Sure. I believe a little translation is in order. Because in almost every instance where a politician or political group calls for a “ceasefire,” or “a stop to the mud-slinging,” or “unity,” what they’re really saying is: “I’m calling on the other side to stop disagreeing with me, [...]

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How’s this for a blatant gift to Big Pharma?
What is liability protection for the makers of Vioxx doing in the medical malpractice bill the US House is scheduled to take up this afternoon?
The dirty little secret of HR 5 – a bill that is ostensibly about lowering doctors’ insurance premiums — is that it gratuitously [...]

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One of my fine readers sent this in a few days ago, and since we’ve been obsessing about AC today, this is a good time to share:
Lyon and Winegar, two recent Riverton graduates - Thornley graduated in 2004 and is now on an LDS Church mission - won the first-ever Ricoh Sustainable Development Award in [...]

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Well kids, it’s time for the Mercury retrograde (since Friday night, actually) and I’m getting a real taste of it.
This morning, I wanted nothing more than to take a refreshing shower. Out of luck; the building’s hot water heater exploded and all I could get was a thin trickle of cold water.
Then [...]

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And they have a decent blogroll. Congrats to our friend John at Crooks and Liars, who got a nice little plug.
Now go email Rich Meislin and nominate me.

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Now your employer can ban happy hours:
It is a regular pastime for co-workers to chat during a coffee break, at a union hall, or over a beer about workplace issues, good grilling recipes, and celebrity gossip. Yet a recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) allows employers to ban off-duty fraternizing among [...]

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So the Supreme Court appointment is payback for services rendered:
TALLAHASSEE - U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts played a broader behind-the-scenes role for the Republican camp in the aftermath of the 2000 election than previously reported — as legal consultant, lawsuit editor and prep coach for arguments before the nation’s highest court, according to the [...]

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Jesus. It’s 96 degrees and 1000% humidity. This just plain sucks.
I’m so sick of air conditioning. You can’t not have it on; it’s too hot. But when it’s on, you get that perpetually clammy feeling.
This morning, the local infortainment show had their weatherperson standing by, periodically reporting in as she measured a block of ice [...]

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I just love all the publicity my former wingnut congress critter is getting as he attempts to carry water for the neocons on Iran:
According to Congressman Weldon, Republican from Pennsylvania, the CIA is incompentent because it will not accept as fact the bogus claims of a source who is being spoon fed by a confirmed [...]

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Eric Boehlert:
John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court certainly qualified as Big News at both Time and Newsweek, which delivered all-hands-on-deck profiles for this week’s issue. (In all, 20 Newsweek and Time reporters contributed to the articles.)
Fawning, glowing, congratulatory, adulatory, Sycophantic. Take your pick, the stories are so over the top they have to [...]

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Cos called me this morning to tell me her fiance brought her a present: Lyle Lovett’s handwritten set list from a gig he worked last night. (He’s a sound guy.)
I am SO JEALOUS.

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Ah yes, the Honorables:
A new study has found that 43 percent of the 198 House and Senate members who left government to join private life since 1998 have registered to lobby. Of the 36 senators who left during that period, half have joined the lobbying ranks.
Republican lawmakers have become lobbyists at a faster rate than [...]

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Oh yeah, those new Abu Ghraib photos will be along any minute now:
July 26,2005 | WASHINGTON — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday he would reconsider his predecessor’s guidance that has restricted public access to government information since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
“I’m always happy to reconsider decisions relating to the release of information,” [...]

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I find myself thinking (not for the first time) that there has to be something pretty big on Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor running this investigation. Because otherwise, his appointment doesn’t make sense.
Think about it. Why would they hand over such a sensitive investigation to this guy unless they thought they could control him? That’s not [...]

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WashPo says Fitzgerald has interviewed more people than they knew:
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty [...]

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WashPo: Yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah.
Hillary calls for party unity but aligns herself with the DLC to do so.
Bloggers, naturally, dissent. Because after all, the DLC is the organization of corporate interests.
The DLC blog (Marshall Wittman) then proceeds to get nasty, backhanding the liberal activist party wing. (Because they’re so cool, they still [...]

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From Philadelphia’s own All Spin Zone:
TO: Ms. Nancy Grace, Headline News / CNN Host
Dear Ms. Grace,
Latoyia Figueroa is still missing after 8 days. And as
tragic as the Natalee Holloway case might be, Natalee doesn’t have a seven year old child wondering where she is, nor was Natalee (to the best of our knowledge)
5 months pregnant.
Here’s [...]

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