Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying:
Danielle Pletka, vice president at the American Enterprise Institute and alpha neoconservative, recently wrote an angry op-ed for the Los Angeles Times slamming the CIA:
[T]he CIA itself is a political organization… it should be clear from the sheer volume of senior intelligence officials quoted regularly in the [...]

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Someone in comments yesterday noted the parallels between Iraq and Sarajevo, and yes, it’s all too familiar. As the country falls apart, factions will move from violence to targeted atrocities:
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 23 — After a day of violence so raw and so personal, Iraqis woke on Thursday morning to a tense new world in [...]

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I was reading this review of “Big Love,” the new HBO series about a polygamous family in Salt Lake City. The Mormon church leaders are a tad upset about it and point out they banned the practice a long time ago.
Well, that’s a little disengenous. Because Joseph Smith, their Prophet, did teach this was God’s [...]

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David Ignatius:
The real absurdity here is that Congress doesn’t seem to realize that an Arab-owned company’s management of America’s ports is just a taste of what is coming. Greater foreign ownership of U.S. assets is an inevitable consequence of the reckless tax-cutting, deficit-ballooning fiscal policies that Congress and the White House have pursued. By encouraging [...]

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The Republican quest for throwaway workers continues, and BushCo’s OSHA is more than happy to help:
Scientists working for the chromium industry withheld data about the metal’s health risks while the industry campaigned to block strict new limits on the cancer-causing chemical, according to a scientific journal report published yesterday.
The allegations, by researchers at George Washington [...]

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See how well that whole democracy thing worked out?
THE Iraqi government was expected to impose a daytime curfew on Baghdad and three surrounding provinces today in an effort to avert sectarian clashes on the Muslim day of prayer.
An overnight curfew was being extended until 4pm local time, and police will arrest those who take [...]

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Thank God for the ACLU:
The American Civil Liberties Union today released newly obtained documents showing that senior Defense Department officials approved aggressive interrogation techniques that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents deemed abusive, ineffective and unlawful, RAW STORY has learned.
“We now possess overwhelming evidence that political and military leaders endorsed interrogation methods that violate both domestic [...]

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Got any HMO horror stories? Michael Moore wants to hear them.

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I didn’t know this:
Modern consumers live in an age when web based e-mails pileup on services like Microsoft’s Hotmail and Google’s Gmail, and all kinds of files from personal photos to bank, medical and travel records are stored online.
Few computer users realise however, that web based e-mail is subject to much weaker protections than messages [...]

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I remember the questions about this at the time but I don’t recall the details:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawyers for an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, who faces perjury charges, asked a judge on Thursday to throw out the case on the grounds that the prosecutor was appointed improperly.
Since both [...]

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Good move:
TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey on Thursday sued the Bush administration in an effort to block a company based in the United Arab Emirates from taking over operations at the Port Newark container terminal until the federal government investigates possible security risks.
Meanwhile, the owner of the busy shipping center, the Port Authority of New [...]

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Seems clear to me they’re going to push Cheney out and slap good old John McCain in there:
Sen. John McCain visits Miami today, which is one of six cities that the would see its ports taken over by DP World, a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates if the Bush Administration [...]

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We can always count on Capitol Hill Blue for the contrarian view. And you know what? I don’t even care whether they make it all up:
Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Dick Cheney when he shot Texas lawyer Harry Whittington on a hunting outing two weeks ago say Cheney was “clearly inebriated” at the [...]

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People are wising up, even if the media doesn’t:
The latest Diageo Hotline Poll shows congressional Democrats making major gains, more than doubling their generic ballot advantage over Republicans to 15 points, up from just 7 points last month.

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But only if you’re already rich:
WASHINGTON - The average income of American families, after adjusting for inflation, declined by 2.3 percent in 2004 compared to 2001 while their net worth rose but at a slower pace.
The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that the drop in inflation-adjusted incomes left the average family income at $70,700 in 2004. [...]

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But you have to admit, the people of Iraq are much better off than they were under Saddam Hussein.
Yeah, just keep telling yourself that:
BAGHDAD — A 1,500-member Iraqi police force with close ties to Shiite militia groups has emerged as a focus of investigations into suspected death squads working within the country’s Interior Ministry.
Iraq’s national [...]

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Yes, despite what people are told (more to the point, not told) by their corporate media, they’re catching on:
NEW YORK More Americans than nearly ever before now say the war in Iraq is a “mistake” for the United States, according to a new Gallup poll. That figure now stands at 55%, up 4% point since [...]

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There are some very good reasons to believe BushCo is building civilian detention camps here. Go read the whole thing:
But recent developments suggest that the Bush administration may already be contemplating what to do with Americans who are deemed insufficiently loyal or who disseminate information that may be considered helpful to the enemy. Top U.S. [...]

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Do click on the AFL-CIO ad over in the right-hand column. They have some great stuff.

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Political Wire:
“A coalition of former congressmen is launching a campaign to change how Americans select their president by reforming the Electoral College system, saying campaigns for the White House should be reliant on the nationwide popular vote rather than simply the outcome in a handful of swing states,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
“The bipartisan group plans [...]

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Garrison Keillor thinks we should change the requirements for president.

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Now the God Nazis are boycotting “Desperate Housewives.” And unless people like us make a concerted effort to let the networks hear otherwise, they’re going to dictate the programming schedule for us all.

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Julia explains why the ports deal went down:
Yep. Four and a half years after 9/11, high-level national security decisions involving foreign governments are being made by unsupervised low-level staffers who can’t be troubled to inform Our Fearless Leader and his cabinet officers when they’ve made a controversial decision so they can inform congress.
Every bit [...]

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Riverbend:
All morning we’ve been hearing/watching both Shia and Sunni religious figures speak out against the explosions and emphasise that this is what is wanted by the enemies of Iraq- this is what they would like to achieve- divide and conquer. Extreme Shia are blaming extreme Sunnis and Iraq seems to be falling apart at the [...]

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New Jersey has passed a law allowing parents to keep children on their health insurance until the age of 30. Good idea all around.

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Right up there with “the dog ate my homework”:
Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff was so consumed with pressing national security concerns in 2003 and 2004 that he undoubtedly forgot details of conversations he had about undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame, his defense lawyers argue in new court filings.
Attorneys for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby [...]

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Things seem to be falling apart even more rapidly:
BAGHDAD, Feb. 23 — The bodies of 40 men were found shot dead in four separate areas around Baghdad, an interior ministry spokesman said Thursday. The execution-style killings were not demonstrably connected to the bombing of a holy Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra Wednesday, but [...]

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You have no idea how interesting this is going to get. Let’s just say some pretty well-known Republicans are rumored to be partners with the Russian oil companies:
WASHINGTON — The federal investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff has broadened to examine his dealings with the Russian government and a pair of high-profile Russian [...]

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Oh, look. Republicans on the House Energy & Commerce committee want to investigate Venezuela for giving away free oil to poor people. Apparently these acts of charity make them terrorists:
Venezuela also has developed close ties to Cuba, Syria, Iran, and Libya and other nations that have “undisputed ties to terrorism,” Barton and Whitfield said.
Noting [...]

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Josh Marshall:
Looking at the “secret agreement” the White House seems to have leaked this afternoon, here’s one point that sort of stands out.
The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to [...]

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