Really Great Social Security Discussion

I've watched a lot of them, but this one excels in accuracy, clarity and easy reading.

Kudos to The Spokesman Review!

Another Death in the Desert

This wasn't anybody's fault. The Pentagon is runnning an investigation so the conclusion is already written, they are just waiting for one of the propagandists to fill in the blanks.

The unnamed soldier will be the 1514th to be sneaked into Dover Air Force Base in the dead of night. Officially anyway.

Baucus Topped Out

It's official, Bulworth has added his name to the list of Democratic Senators who will never be president.

I have always liked Max, but he has rendered himself ineffective to do anything more than spend the rest of his political life grovelling for crumbs to appease short sighted reactionary crisis management here at home. We need ethical,practical, forward looking leadership

Montanan's are mostly hardworking decent people and we deserve better representation at the national level than we have now. I read in the Billings Gazette that there are four Democrats considering a run against Senator Burns, while that is good news, we need to be absolutely honest with ourselves and admit that we need a clean sweep in 2006.

Two new Senators and a new Representative. That is what Montana needs, and it would set a good example for the rest of the country as well.

We need Democrats and Republicans alike to step up to the plate and explain their ideas to promote the lost concepts of innovation and opportunity, of citizen's rights over corporate tyranny.

It is time to step out of the cage of unexamined servitude and reclaim the ideal our founding fathers set on paper almost 229 years ago.

Todays Urgent Action Alert

The Bolton nomination to the U.N. is ready to sneak through congress without scrutiny. Take immediate action to slow the sale of this defective bill of goods down.

Go now.


Update It worked!

Hostages

Jose Padilla 1040 days hostage without trial, charges, or representation.

Is he even guilty? Without due process we will never know, but the President and his crew look more like sadistic powermongers every day they continue to stomp our laws and ideals in their toxic slime.

Iraq and America held hostage 680 days.

There Is A Gay Agenda

There is! There is!

Hat tip Maha

Bush asked to testify at German 9/11 trial

The defense team for a Moroccan man being tried in Germany for complicity in the September 11 attacks demanded on Tuesday that the U.S. President George W. Bush be summoned as a witness.

Lawyer Udo Jacob, defending Mounir El Motassadeq, said that Bush should be summoned to testify about accusations he allowed the CIA to torture suspects and send them to foreign countries for interrogation.

[...]

The defense says that both witnesses were tortured, and therefore the case against Motassadeq should be dismissed. "There is concern about torture during the questioning," Jacob said.

Dietrich Snell, top counsel with the U.S. commission that investigated the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., said that he wasn’t able to meet Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or bin al-Shaibah directly.

He told the court that the panel sent questions to be asked to the men, but didn’t know their location and had no control over the interrogation techniques.

I hope that Pfc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio, who was declared captured on April 16 2004 has fared than the people who have been introduced to George W. Bush's version of freedom, liberation, compassionate conservatism and any other wonderful ism created in his secret dark chambers.

Is There A Concerted Attack On Schweitzer?

It is really starting to look like it. I've been looking at all the negative press some Republicans have been throwing out there and trying to get it into a single post, but it has taken longer than I expected.

Maybe tomorrow.

The most ridiculous anti-Schweitzer claim so far? There was a woman on the news who may or may not have been a Republican who was complaining that Governor Schweitzer's public statement scared off all the tourists.

All I could think about was the people who didn't want to lose the tourists by telling them there was a tsunami on the way. Then I started to wonder if she had any clue who the President of the United States is.

If she knew who the President is, she would know that all requests must be made publicly so that he can't bury them in a heap of inaction like he did with the 52 warnings he recieved about Osama Bin Laden's plans to attack Americans with airplanes.

52 warnings in the ten weeks proceeding 9/11 were buried in a heap of inaction and anybody who wonders why Brian Schweitzer would make that request so publicly really needs to read a newspaper once in a while.

I'll Take All The Good News I Can Get

George Bush's attempt to allow more pollution in our air may not be a done deal.

Thank you to Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chaffe (who used to shoe horses in Bozeman!) as well as all the Democrats who voted against it. Thank-you Thank-you Thank-you!

I think.

Update: Matt Singer has a much more complete story here.

Another One Bites The Dust

1513. Damn.

1512

1512

Aww Max

I have to admit that I am still angry with you for taking part in that hideous drug bill. Surely you realized what it would do to the Medicaid and Medicare budgets, but you did it anyway.

Here I am ranking on Conrad and Denny because they deserve it and I find out that you voted against protecting military families from predatory lenders and you voted against capping the interest rate at 30%

How do you explain that?

1036 Days

That's the number on the Jose Padilla Watch. Mike Whitney reports that last weeks ruling that the government must charge Palilla was the third of that nature.

As expected, the Bush Administration appealed to the Supreme court, and the Court refused to hear the case. As expected, the Bush Administration is still in defiance of the law.

In light of the 100-150 people who have been rendered to foreign countries for "interrogation", The Bush Administration should show proof that Jose Padilla is still alive.

In light of the gross human rights abuses at Baghram's, Guatanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and who knows what where else, The Bush Administration must prove to the American public that Jose Padilla is in decent health.

Maybe you don't think it is any of your concern, but Mike whitney explains why you should care.

The court is not being asked to quibble over inconsequential aspects of the law. They are being asked, point blank, whether or not American citizens have ANY rights at all. It's just that simple.

Padilla has been deprived of ALL of his rights, not merely a few. So, we must ask ourselves: Are US citizens entitled to any (definite) legal protections or are these protections simply granted at the President's discretion? And, if our personal freedom is dependent on the subjective whims of the President, then why talk about "inalienable" rights?

Why, indeed?

There's nothing haphazard in the way that the Padilla case has developed. In fact, there are various organizations that operate openly within the country that are determined to change the fundamental principles of American justice. With Padilla these groups have won a major victory and struck a mortal blow at the very heart of our system. As long as Padilla sits in prison, deprived of all his constitutional rights, there are no guarantees of personal liberty in America.

(emphasis mine)

Really Bad Bay at Work

The Iraqi Army reported the discovery of 15 beheaded corpses of both sexes.

The army raided the old Hatin army base, now believed to be used by insurgents, and found the corpses, said Captain Mohammed Abdel Hussein al-Saedi.

I bet they don't sleep too well tonight.

Update: The number of dead has risen to 41 including women and children.

No Child Left Behind

Yep.

Firebombing and Loansharking Protection and Advocacy Act of 2005".

Senator Burns has some very strange ideas indeed. He doesn't think that sick people or their families deserve any legal protections. He doesn't believe that victims of identity theft deserve any legal protections.

He does believe that people who firebomb family planning clinics deserve legal protections

Keep up with the progress of the "Firebombing and Loansharking Protection Advocy Act of 2005 here

(update- when I said that Senator Burns believes this or doesn't believe that you do understand that I can't read his mind, don't you? I said those things based on the way he voted and that was the only basis for it. I may have been hasty in saying that, after all I think that Al Franken once said that therre wasn't anybody in the Senate who put s less thought into the way he votes because somebody else always tells him how to do it, but I could be wrong about that.

Other people have decided to approach these votes in a more craven way, consider the cases of Joe-who-will-never-be-President-Biden and Tom-who-might-consider-another-
line-of-work-Carper.)

Is Senator Burns Morally Bankrupt?

Every Montanan should know that Senator Burns voted against each and every ammendment listed here.

S.AMDT 16 to protect servicemembers and vets---NO 58-38
S.AMDT 17 to protect the elderly---NO 59-40
S.AMDT 28 to protect people whose own medical problems caused their debt---NO 58-39
S.AMDT 29 to protect homeowners with medical debt---NO 58-39
S.ADMT 31 to limit the amount of interest charged to 30%---NO 74-24 (they really hated that)
S.AMDT 32 to protect people whose debt is incurred from being caregivers to ill/disabled family members---NO 60-37
S.AMDT 37 to protect people whose debt was incurred through identity theft---NO 61-37
S.ADMT 38 to protect people from predatory lending practices---NO 58-40
S.ADMT 49 to protect employees & retirees from corporate practices that rob them of their earnings/retirement savings when the business files for bankruptcy---(Say it with me now:)NO 54-40

(the list was swiped from Riggsveda who does this stuff just because she is a good citizen and really nice person)

This bill is scheduled for a vote at 2:15 p.m. EST Today, Tuesday March 08, 2005.

Maybe you think that bankruptcy is for deadbeats and irresponsible people, that's not necessarily true at all.

I find this attempt to use our government to benefit a few private companies and shield the very wealthy from any consequences repulsive.

Moral bankruptcy is the way Fred Clark describes it.

Competitive Suicides

xymphora worries that it could get out of hand.


via the Sideshow

The Story Everyone Is Talking About

58877241 So You don't forget.

Wow

Overkill

Maybe he stole a salad and maybe he didn't, but is a stun gun really the best way to settle a dispute of that nature?

Police talked to the Chuck E. Cheese manager, who told them that a customer had refused to show proof that he had paid for food. The manager said the man was seen "loading" his plate at the salad bar.

[...]

The argument escalated until Gale was shoved into the lap of Mayo's sister, who was sitting two booths away, holding a 10-month-old baby. That's when police pulled out a Taser stun gun to subdue him.

"They beat this man in front of all these kids then Tased him in my sister's lap," Mayo told the newspaper. "They had no regard for the effect this would have on the kids. This is Chuck E. Cheese, you know."

Gale's two children were "screaming and hollering and crying" as Gale was hit two times with the stun gun.

Police arrested Gale as his children and other customers watched. They took him outside, leaving his children inside the restaurant.

Gale was arrested for investigation of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and trespassing.

Blogger Makes Good

He done got himself a daypass!

He made 20 phone calls and got nowhere. Bigger blogs picked up on his saga, and traffic on FishbowlDC increased tenfold, he said. But it was not until the traditional media joined in, Mr. Graff said, that the White House relented.

"USA Today started making calls on Thursday. CNN mentioned it on 'Inside Politics,' and Ron Hutcheson, president of the White House Correspondents Association, raised the issue with the White House Press Office," he said. "I think a combination of all of that made the White House pay attention and decide to let me in."

[...]

In any case, Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University and specialist in blogging, said Mr. Graff's odyssey was significant for two reasons. First, he showed that it was harder to get a pass than the White House said it was after the Guckert case.

Secondly, he said, Mr. Graff was expanding the definition of what constitutes the press, just as radio and television once pushed those boundaries.

Looks like the democracy train is still tugging along.

Sex Lies and Spies

Nothing to see here.

Sorry I wasted your time.

Coffin Commodities Up By Two

1510.