A Trip To the RNC

Bash Howard Dean--use Joe Biden to do it.

Praise the living shit out of Max Baucus.

Bash Harry Reid because the members of the National Organization of Women (NOW) and of the People For the American Way ( PFAW) thought that their status as American citizens allowed them to have a voice in the process.

Gloat about the Roberts vote.

No news about any great thing they are doing for the country.

You can find the place by yourself, if you want to have a look.

21 American Soldiers Killed In Iraq Last Week

One week ago the death toll was 1914.

Today it is 1935.

They're getting knocked off as regular as breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Are we still winning?

De Lay House of Scandal

Contrary to spin they put on it in last Night's Nightline, Tom De Lay's House of Scandal was not put together for this indictment.

Tom De Lay's House of Scandal was up and runnung before the 2004 elections.

De Lay Indictment Is Not A Gift

Tom De Lay's indictment is a direct consequence of his actions. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Informal Survey

Imagine that your family and your community have been devastated by Katrina or Rita. You are there with your family and your neighbors. You don't have electricity and your stores of food and water are running low.

Would a visit from the President cheer you up or would you prefer food, water, and some assistance getting things back to normal.

There are only two choices, what would you choose?

Something to think about

David Safavian
De Lay
Frist
Rove
Abramoff
Brown

Paul Krugman takes a look at the unqualified post heads with major pull and explains two degree men very clearly.

I believe Conrad Burns is a two degree man although I can't recall the details, but I haven't determined Denny Rehberg's exact role here either.

Where's FEMA?

Not getting needed assistance to people who need it

FEMA is too busy putting the desires of Michael Super Hero Brown first to bother with measly taxpayers.

FEMA is waiting for the corporate bosses divide the spills before they let the affected communities have any of the resources they are sitting on.

I feel a new PR campaign comming on...

Super Hero

Brown thinks it is wrong for the federal government to be in the business of providing ice for Diet Cokes.

I guess that's why all those mangy people with their starving babies and sick old parents were standing outside the stadium yelling about their Diet Cokes getting warm.

The evil Christopher Shays (R) Connecticut, pummelled Super Hero with pointed question after pointed question "Who at the Department of Homeland Security denied your request for more funding?", "Who did you talk to when you realized you were in over your head?" "What did they tell you to do?"

Time after time Super Hero shielded those blows with his magic alter ego who whispered the correct answers in his ear. Super Hero is a dreamboat. Sigh.

Christopher Shays (R) Connecticut, exposed his heartlessness when he failed, he failed I tell you, to muster any sympathy for Mr. Brown's plight. The evil Christopher Shays (R) Connecticut, proceeded to show his ignorance of the thousands of disasters Super Hero oversaw without breaking a sweat.

Doesn't anybody appreciate the split second decisions that have to be made to save lives during a drought like the one we have here in Montana?

Common Sense Without Crony Contracts

Kudos to Governor Schweitzer and to officials at Butte Silverbow county for asking employees to come up with more efficient ways to use government vehicles to save energy. I am so glad somebody still thinks we can problemsolve and work together in search of solutions for the troubles we face.

Hello Washington, are you watching?

Obviously not

And Now The Rest of the Story

You probably heard about the family in Beaumont Tx. who died from carbon monoxide poisoning while running their generator indoors, but you probably haven't heard about the leadership and logistical failures plunging the area into near anarchy.

County Judge Carl Griffith said today he has become so frustrated with the federal relief effort that he has instructed all local officials to use police force if they have to to take supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"If you have enough policemen to take it from them, take it," Griffith said.

His frustration comes as squabbling continues among federal, state and local over what some characterize as a woeful lack of communication.

R. David Paulison, acting FEMA head, was scheduled to visit the federal headquarters in the region, while local officials met across town to express their anger.

"We are very short on food and water, and the FEMA trucks that were supposed to be here just aren't here," Griffith said.

Commenting on the lack of help from FEMA, Griffith said, "We can't help it if politicans come here and just want to be seen by the media."

Sounds to me like they are telling us the photo ops aren't helping them at all.

Story through karena

The Dutiful Wife

Laura Bush takes a que from our fearless cowless Cowboy in Chief. Mrs. Cowboy in Chief is so desperate to teach 'Muricans how to conserve fuel on camera that she let her husband's staff pimp her out to fly to Biloxi, Mississippi where she will do work for show on film with some of the less disgusting poor people for a day or two before jetting off to somewhere else.

WASHINGTON — Facing criticism that he appeared disengaged from the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina, President Bush has been looking for opportunities to show his concern. But the White House will take the effort a step further today, venturing into untested waters by putting the nation's first lady on reality television.

[...]

Which is probably why the Bush team contacted the show for a booking instead of the other way around. "EM:HM," as it is known in Hollywood-speak, was ranked among the top 15 shows last season with an average 15.8 million viewers. Airing Sunday nights, it is considered one of the strongest family hours on television.

Nothing shows support for disaster victims and poor people more than another public relations stunt.

Debt Relief?

Are the vultures gathering?

via

Fristology

It's a miracle!

Hundreds of Libby residents who had previously been diagnosed with asbestos related disease by their own physicians have been declared free of asbestos related disease by some doctor back east who has never seen them.

Seven hundred Libby residents received letters saying doctors from as far away as New York City have reviewed their chest x-rays. Of those, nearly two hundred learned their health coverage would be pulled, even though their own doctors confirm they have diseases from Libby asbestos. A former employee of WR Grace, Leroy Thom, received a letter confirming his disease, but he’s not satisfied with how other Libby residents are being treated. "It's not the right thing, not for the right reasons, yeah, that's the bottom line. This company impacted this community more than any other community in the United States. Although they've impacted other companies and they came here when this whole thing broke and said they'd be here and they'd do the right thing and yet every turn you see them try to back away from the responsibility," he said.

Nearly 1500 people are being treated for asbestos related disease in the Libby area.

It's a miracle!

They don't have asbestos related disease! Glory be!

Medical coverage to hundreds of Libby residents has been discontinued in light of their new diagnosis.

War Porn

Of course I looked at it all. I used to check out the early war porn in the days before it was an open source amatuer contest.

If you haven't already checked it out, start with Shystee, he's got the links in this post.

Oops

Loose threads at the Republicans good friend/ not friend lobbyists place. What is it they say about the company you keep?

Is This True?

Is the toll free Congressional number out of commission?

This is from the people's email network:

THOM HARTMANN DEVOTES MOST OF SHOW TO STOP ROBERTS MOVEMENT

If you were listening to Thom Hartmann on his widely syndicated radio program today, you know he was breathing fire in opposition to John Roberts.  You also know from your own experience that the primary toll-free telephone number for Congress (877-762-8762) is mysteriously and suddenly out of commission with just a fast circuit busy signal (try it yourself), even in the middle of the night.  Yes, Thom thought that was extremely odd also, especially with so many of us calling to declare our strong opposition to John Roberts.

WHAT WE MUST NOW DO is create a permanent record of this situation and use that to generate even more messages and phone calls to the Senate in the next 24 hours.  If you are a member of any BLOGS go to ALL of them overnight and start a new thread or article, and/or leave a comment on an existing one.  In your own words there are three simple key points we need to make in any order you like:

1) Whether we have in fact overloaded the primary toll-free number with our calls or whether someone deliberately cut the line to slow down the calls, it is in FACT down now.

2) There is a growing ground swell of opposition to the stealth reactionary Roberts that can no longer be ignored.

3) To take action there are two alternative toll-free numbers still working, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588, plus an action page that will give you all the direct phone and fax numbers of your own senators, http://www.millionphonemarch.com.

President Conserves Fuel On Another Trip To Texas

Wasn't he in Texas like yesterday or the day before? He was there and in Colorado and in Louisiana and Alabama before he rushed back to D.C. to Give us that nice press conference about conserving fuel.

Conservation Campaign

Our own beloved leader in all things wise and wonderful made the bold announcement today that he would continue to zig zag our Air Force One Jet to as many places his photo op schedule demands. The spirits of the working presstitutes soared and plunged and soared again with the announcement that effective immediately, he would be flying criss cross across the country to ask us to conserve fuel because the oil companies have been hit with a one-two whammy.

Who Could Have Guessed?

The Mellon Empire is heavily invested in

• Retirement Services incorporate consulting, actuarial and administrative services. This allows us to bring together the professional expertise and knowledge of experts in all aspects of the design, financing and operation of all types of qualified and non-qualified retirement programs. Our comprehensive combination of expertise ensures that your retirement program will meet the unique financial and human resource objectives and administrative needs of your organization.
• We can help you design HR delivery models, including the performance of feasibility studies and creation of the financial business cases; build and implement the appropriate solutions; identify and use optimum HR technology; and implement comprehensive HR outsourcing.
• The Health and Welfare group also has skills in a range of areas, such as cost management strategies, long-term care modeling, prescription drug strategies, flexible benefits/contribution strategies, provider consulting and DC/consumer-driven health care.
• We provide you with comprehensive compensation solutions through all phases of a project — designing a new program, building it, and operating it through our outsourcing capabilities. Our consultants combine wide knowledge of specific industries with a range of expertise in compensation, critical business issues, data, and information.
• We partner closely with internal and client teams to deliver holistic, accurate communication that meet or exceed your specific objectives. Depending on your specific needs, our solutions can include any combination of multi-media communications (print, Web, electronic, audio, visual, face-to-face), strategy, copywriting and editing, branding, graphic design, production and vendor management, audience research and personalized communication (Web portals or print and online total rewards statements).

They are very lucky to be funding EBRI aka American Savings Education Council, its Consumer Health Education Council, and its Choose to Save ® program to the tune of $298,500.00, especially since they make an almost seamless transition from the United States Government Social Security website.

Are any of these people as lucky as the Mellon Empire?

Promote This

Lefty Blogs is listing bloggers by location, but you have to sign up. Most of you have more and/or different readers than I do, so please mention it on your blog so we can all start learning who our neighbors are.

Ethics Are Only Political

That is what I understand Senator Burns' spokesman to be saying about Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) poking into places that his earmarked appropriations transected with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his clients.

• Sen. Conrad Burns: The report says that questions arose over $3 million in appropriations he earmarked for an Indian tribe in Michigan that was a client of lobbyist Abramoff. The senator received substantial campaign contributions from Abramoff and various clients.

"Sen. Burns did nothing wrong, and any accusation to the contrary is pure politics," said James Pendleton, his director of communications. He said Burns had earmarked the appropriation at the request of the Michigan congressional delegation.

That Other War

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The U.S. military says five crew members were killed today when their Chinook helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan.

The cause is still being investigating but a military spokesman says it doesn't appear to have been shot down.

A spokesman for the governor of Zabul province, where the crash occurred, says there was no fighting in the area at the time of the crash.

He says he was told the chopper crashed while returning to a U.S. base after dropping off troops for a raid on a suspected militant target.

There have been at least two other fatal crashes of Chinook helicopters this year in Afghanistan. One was shot down.

reprinted in full because yada yada yada

Meanwhile another soldier has been killed in Iraq, bringing the dead American soldier count to 1915.

There appears to be lots of death and dying and rampant lawlessness all over Iraq.

Bring them home already, okay.