New FOX poll shows Kerry beating Bush, Nader spoiling

Yet again, another poll shows Kerry barely beating Bush, and if Nader is in the running, they tie. Will someone please convince this creep to go away. I really used to have respect for Nader - he was always quirky, but he did good stuff. Now I think he's an annoying, narcissistic jerk. Read the rest of this post...

More weasel answers from Bush on Abu Ghraib

Nice lawyerly weasel answers from Bush today on Abu Ghraib. I told them to stay within the law, Bush now says. Of course, he fails to mention that according to his own Justice Dept, no US or international law applies to what he tells military investigators, so they can do anything they want and still "stay within the law" because there IS no applicable law, by their own analysis. Very crafty.

AP:

President Bush said Thursday he ordered U.S. officials to follow the law while interrogating suspected terrorists, but he sidestepped an opportunity to denounce the use of torture.

Bush's comments came as a 2-year-old State Department document surfaced warning the White House that failing to apply international standards against torture could put U.S. troops at risk.

'What I've authorized is that we stay within U.S. law,' Bush told reporters at the close of the G-8 summit in Savannah, Ga.

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Hooters Air launches

I can't believe such an airline even exists. Who flys with this company? Read the rest of this post...

NY mayor cleared of gay-marriage charges, ban ruled unconstitutional

"A judge Thursday dismissed criminal charges against a small-town mayor for marrying gay couples, saying the state failed to show it has a legitimate interest in banning same-sex weddings.

New Paltz Town Court Justice Jonathan Katz also ruled that prosecutors failed to prove the law New Paltz Mayor Jason West was charged with violating was constitutional.

"If history is any guide, this is the beginning of an unstoppable trend in New York," Rosenkranz said." - AP

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Abu Ghraib investigation changing to higher ranked official

This is a critical step in having some accountability because this now allows the investigation to go to the highest ranks, in Iraq, at least. Whether or not this will be able to go higher up in the food chain is still in the air. Is anyone in Congress going to broaden the scope to those outside of Iraq? Read the rest of this post...

Brigitte Bardot fined again for inciting hatred

"There are many new languages in the new Europe. Mediocrity is taking over from beauty and splendor. There are many people who are filthy, badly dressed and badly shaven."

In her book, she also attacks homosexuals as "fairground freaks," condemns the presence of women in government and denounces the "scandal of unemployment benefits." - Reuters

Where do I even begin with this woman? Read the rest of this post...

Bush says terrorist activity at all time low - really at all time high

Wash Post:

Two months ago, the Bush administration released its annual report card on counterterrorism and gave itself an A. The number of terrorist attacks around the globe, according to the State Department report called 'Patterns of Global Terrorism,' was at the lowest ebb in the past 34 years....

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said in a May 17 letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that "it is deplorable that the . . . report would claim that terrorism attacks are decreasing when in fact significant terrorist activity is at a 20-year high."

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Who brought down the Iron Curtain?

Lawrence Martin, who worked from both Washington and Moscow, says it was Gorby and not Reagan who led the dance. Interesting. Read the rest of this post...

Forget privacy if cell-phone directory becomes a reality

This is great. The cell phone industry wants to publish 411 directories of all of our cell phone numbers so all the telemarketers can now both you on your cell phone too. Be afraid, be very afraid. Read the rest of this post...

Reagan's legacy in Central America

Savior of democracy or financier of brutal dictators and death squads? Read the rest of this post...

Research Finds Dogs Understand Language

Has nothing to do with politics, just very cool. Read the rest of this post...

Jobless claims rise

It must be a few un-American slackers who just don't understand that the economy is booming.

"The number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless aid rose unexpectedly last week, government data showed on Thursday, and the rolling average rose to its highest level since late April.

First-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose 12,000 to 352,000 the week ended June 5..." - Reuters

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Kerry leads Bush in latest poll

Bush continues to look soft across the country and Kerry has barely even made a move. I hope that Kerry's quiet campaign is a strategy, letting Bush sink his own ship on his own dollar. (Maybe Kerry is adopting the Ali "Rope a Dope" strategy? We certainly have a dope with Bush.) What surprises me though is that Bush still holds strong support for his "war on terror" because it is clearly a failure. That is one issue that I want to see Kerry address because it has been damned clear to me from the beginning that Bush's go-it-alone approach is a recipe for disastor. The Bush "war on terror" is leaving us more isolated in the world and much more prone to trouble. Europe is not always right, no more, no less than the US but we have to find a way to work together on this problem.

"Lifting Kerry is a powerful tailwind of dissatisfaction with the nation's course and Bush's answers for challenges at home and abroad. Nearly three-fifths said the nation was on the wrong track, the highest level a Times Poll has recorded during Bush's presidency.

Fifty-six percent said America needed to "move in a new direction" because Bush's policies had not improved the country. Just 39 percent said America was better off because of his agenda.

Majorities disapproved of Bush's handling of the economy and Iraq, despite recent encouraging news on both fronts.

Voters also preferred Kerry by about 10 percentage points when asked which man had better ideas for improving the economy and a better chance of building "respect for the United States around the world."

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Rumsfeld 'told officers to take gloves off with Lindh'

In this continuing human rights debacle, how can anyone still be out there that does not believe these programs of abuse did not go all of the way to the top? I'm still wondering how stupid Ashcroft thinks the American public is when he claims that "this administration rejects torture" when that simply is not the case. Why would they spend so much time working on legal clarification of torture if they did not intend to use it? Aschroft has absolutely no credibility left, especially following his recent FEAR ALERT on TV. It's no wonder Americans are not paying attention to the economy because these criminals are ruining US credibility around the world and making us weaker by the day. As an American businessman who lives and works overseas, I have never seen such destructive policy. Bush and his bandits make international business painfully difficult and this bleeding will not stop until the whole lot of them are gone.

"John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, was stripped naked and tied to a stretcher during interrogation after the office of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered intelligence officers to "take the gloves off" when questioning him.

Mr Rumsfeld's legal counsel instructed the officers to push the limits when questioning Lindh..." - Independent

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Economic gains not translating into voter support for Bush

I hear a lot of Republicans jumping up and down about Americans voters overlooking the strong economic numbers but I also hear many others wonder where the recovery truly is. I know too many people across the US who still feel very uneasy about the current market and friends are struggling to find new business. Numbers can distort but people can look around and see what's happening with their neighbors, friends and family. Statistics on the economy do not operate in a vacuum.

"For numerous voters, it is the nagging sense that a president consumed with foreign affairs no longer cares about the plight of citizens at home. Jodie Flickinger, 52, a lifelong Republican in Columbia, S.C., recalled being taken aback by economic conditions during a Memorial Day weekend trip to her native Youngstown, Ohio.

"I think he gets more joy, he gets a bigger rush, out of doing world war," she said of Bush. "The United States economy just bores him or confuses him, I guess."

Patricia Smith, 70, a Republican in Newport News, sensed the same problem: "He's gotten so overwhelmed with these other things that he's forgotten what he promised he would do for us."

For Republicans, frustration is beginning to show. Last week, when the Labor Department announced that an additional 248,000 jobs had been created in May, House Ways and Means Committee Republicans e-mailed reporters, blaring, "It's a Booming Economy, Stupid."

But John R. Zaller, a political scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, suggested that voters may not be stupid. They just may have considerably sharper antennae than economists." - Wash Post

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Bush screws consumers, sides with Bell

OK, so Bush sends off the poor to fight his wars and gives tax breaks to the richest Americans who have no intention of letting any money trickle down and out of their pockets. In his latest move, he is now telling consumers that they can go to hell and pay whatever the baby Bell's want consumers to pay. What idiots are buying this guys Kool Aid? Read the rest of this post...

Mbeki: Building a better Africa

I have a lot of issues with Mbeki including his position on AIDS as well as his non-existent criticism of Robert Mugabe but I think that this article written by Mbeki in the Post today also highlights what is good about the guy and the direction that he is taking South Africa as well as the continent. Looking at some of the leaders across Africa, it could be a lot worse. Mbeki is a briefcase carrying technocrat that actually wants to attend meetings to get work done and not just take a shopping trip abroad. In the US many people criticize Africa for wasting money (which they have often done) and being in a constant state of war (which still goes on today) but we fail to look at the full picture. Many of the wars across Africa were over problems left by and encouraged imperial powers and later on, those wars were often proxy wars between the US and the Soviet Union. More recently the US and Europe often talk about the need for open trade yet many of the products that Africa can produce are blocked out of important global markets because of protectionism. I am absolutely mad about Africa and hope that we in the west can help the continent move forward by letting Africans make their own decisions, both good and bad, and truly join the world community instead of what we have today. Read the rest of this post...

Chirac to Bush on NATO troops: that dog don't hunt

Sure W can now make some claim to having international cooperation, but what he really wants is to be bailed out by other nations with troops and money for Iraq. Everything else is window dressing and we all know it. Fortunately Chirac, Putin and Schroeder are not buying into the money pit called Iraq. Bush started the war and burned his bridges so now Iraq is his problem. I don't even want to listen to the right wingers complain about a lack of support from the international community, because Bush was pretty clear last year that he was going it alone and screw everyone else. (Had he just finished watching "High Noon" of something?) Read the rest of this post...