Another effect of global warming (which, of course, doesn't exist in Bush world)

Comforting:

Global warming -- with an accompanying rise in floods and droughts -- is fueling the spread of epidemics in areas unprepared for the diseases, say many health experts worldwide. Mosquitoes, ticks, mice and other carriers are surviving warmer winters and expanding their range, bringing health threats with them.

Malaria is climbing the mountains to reach populations in higher elevations in Africa and Latin America. Cholera is growing in warmer seas. Dengue fever and Lyme disease are moving north. West Nile virus, never seen on this continent until seven years ago, has infected more than 21,000 people in the United States and Canada and killed more than 800.

Read the rest of this post...

The Watergate has been subpeonaed about the GOP hooker scandal

TPM Muckraker has been raking the muck on this one...and it's really looking like there's a lot of muck. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Still in NYC. Gorgeous weather. Read the rest of this post...

Sexiest Man Alive

Read the rest of this post...

Bush calls US "a nation of prayer"

First off, what does that even mean?

Secondly, I was taught that your piety was something you're not supposed to talk about. And it's certainly not something you boast so much that you're practically bragging about it. Why is it all of these right-wing thumpers always have to throw their religion in our faces? My guess is that Bush has 32 reasons... well, 32% reasons, anyway. Read the rest of this post...

Froomkin revisits Colbert to dissect the Bush/media relationship

This is vintage Froomkin. You must read:

Both Colbert and Stewart have risen to superstar status largely by calling (how can I put it here?) baloney on the Bush administration -- and on the press corps that transmits said baloney without the appropriate skepticism or irony.

Their very subversive message, at its core: That this Bush guy is basically a joke. And that the mainstream press is a joke, because it takes Bush at his word. ....

The way I see it, the Washington press corps is still appropriately embarrassed that they screwed up in the run-up to war. Now, as Bush's approval ratings fester, they are getting bolder in challenging the official White House line on any number of issues. They're justifiably proud of a handful of great investigative pieces.

But they still haven't addressed the central issue Colbert was raising: Bush's credibility. As it happens, the public is way ahead of them on this one: For more than a year, the polls have consistently been showing that a majority of Americans don't find Bush honest and trustworthy.

This is painfully true. The press regurgitates whatever the Bush White House feeds them. There is no analysis, no perspective, no determination of whether it's reality based. That's what the White House expects from the traditional media -- and unfortunately, it's what they get. The media is clinging to some past ideal of what their job is. The Bush team has changed the rules. Lying is standard operating procedure. Well, lying and threatening to prosecute reporters as spies. Read the rest of this post...

Rummy finally asked: Why did you lie?

Rummy gets a smack down:

Anti-war protesters repeatedly interrupted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during a speech Thursday, and one of them, a former CIA analyst, accused him in a question-and-answer session of lying about Iraq prewar intelligence.

"Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?" asked Ray McGovern, the former analyst.

"I did not lie," shot back Rumsfeld, who waved off security guards ready to remove McGovern from the hall at the Southern Center for International Studies.

Atrios has the transcript.

And don't miss the best part - ThinkProgress not only has the video, they follow the video with a quote proving that Rumsfeld just lied, again, about the war. Read the rest of this post...

With the congressional elections 6 months away, is it time for us to stop criticizing Democrats?

I ask this as a serious question. Some friends on the Hill recently asked me if the liberal blogs could lay off their attacks on Democratic members of Congress until after the election. The idea being that we need to keep promoting a public image of Dems good/Republicans bad, and that any criticism of Dems hurts our image and only helps detract attention from the Republicans' increasing number of failings.

It's an interesting question. Is it time to sit back and shut up and hold our tongue?

I think at some point we can hurt ourselves by helping create a public perception that our party has no message and is spineless. Then again, it's not like they need much help creating that perception - chicken and egg.

And the larger question is whether the party will ever change if we don't publicly hold it accountable. Do we really want the same folks doing the same things (not holding Bush accountable, voting for every war resolution they can get their hands on) once they become the majority in Congress?

It's very difficult to take a six-month hiatus in offering criticism that is intended to change the party for the better, lest the party get worse or at least stagnate at mediocre.

So, I throw the discussion out to you guys, since it came up over the Starbucks meet-up we had last night here in NYC (went quite, by the way, had about 15 people which was perfect):

Should the liberal blogs, and the Democrats grassroots more generally, cut back on their criticism of the party until after the November elections? Or is there a role for criticism in making the party better and helping the election at the same time? Read the rest of this post...

Mary Cheney is "the top self-loathing queer on the planet"

Tell us how you really feel, Pam. :-) Read the rest of this post...

Report from Gannon panel in Philly - organizer lied again, and moderator cut off discussion of Gannon even though she promised it could be raised

Well, what a surprise. The organizer of the entire Equality Forum, Malcolm Lazin, reportedly outright lied to a blogger last night, saying he had no idea why Pam and I pulled out of the conference - yeah, no idea since he was involved in the entire 5 days worth of emails back and forth on the topic and even agreed with us. Dude, if you're going to lie to people, don't leave a 5-day paper trail of emails to disprove it.

Secondly, we heard that Michael Rogers, who was on the panel, did raise the Gannon issue, and what happened? The moderator cut him off. This was the same moderator who told Pam and me that we were free to talk about GannonGate in our responses to any questions.

What a bunch of frigging liars. For some reason they still won't admit, the Equality Forum wanted to give Gannon legitimacy last night at any cost. They lied to me, they lied to Pam, they lied to strangers on elevators.

What a pitiful organization. I'd never heard of them before, and I certainly hope I never hear of them again. There has to be somebody else to give your money to than a pack of homophobe-defending liars. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Man, I love New York. Read the rest of this post...

Shell quarterly profits above analyst estimates

Another record profit by Big Oil. Shell raked in £1.5 million in profit per hour ($2.8M) last quarter to smash last years Q1 numbers and come in 10% above the analysts estimates. All of this and they still had to deal with continuing problems in Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico, both of which disrupted their supply but not to worry because I'm sure the GOP somehow will find a way to give them taxpayer welfare to lessen the blow. Read the rest of this post...

Feds file suit to shut down phone records dealers

And the fun continues. Read the rest of this post...

Cheney attacks Russia on democracy

Let's hope Cheney took the pro-democracy side in the fight. We already know his lesbian daughter Mary is a sell-out to her core beliefs, why shouldn't Dick be as well?

Because this is so rich. Cheney is concerned that rights are being restricted in Russia. Meanwhile, back in America, the Bush/Cheney administration is systematically undermining the rights of individuals, advocacy groups, the media. Seriously, how can anyone take Cheney seriously?:

He said Russia has a choice to make when it comes to reform, and said that in many areas, "from religion and the news media to advocacy groups and political parties, the government has unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of the people."

He should be so worried about how his own government is restrcting the rights of people in his own country. He really is shameless. Shameless. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

There is no excuse for being alive at this hour of the morning. Read the rest of this post...

Oil drops to $72

Quick! Run out and buy that SUV you always wanted because gas is going to be a real steal now that oil has dropped. They're practically giving it away. Read the rest of this post...

New voting machines in Ohio cause problems

If Blackwell, the Secretary of State and GOP candidate for governor, had anything to do with them it should not come as much of a surprise. Next we're probably going to hear that he's somehow financially connected to the contractors responsible for correcting the machine problems. How many people have to be disenfranchised before the government actually gives a damn?

Election officials had trouble printing ballot receipts, finding lost votes and tabulating election results in Tuesday's primary. Some election workers were late or did not show up at all in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, the state's largest. Others could not figure out how to turn on the machines.

The worst problems in Ohio appeared to be in Cuyahoga County, where officials resorted to paper ballots after touch-screen machines failed and about 17,000 absentee ballots were being hand-counted.

David Bear, spokesman for Diebold Inc. [one of Blackwell's investments], which supplied Cuyahoga's machines, said ovals on the ballots printed by the county did not line up properly for optical-scan machines to read them.

Link, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the problems went far beyond minor snags that could be expected, including complaints that voters were sent away by poll workers who were perplexed by the machines. In those cases, voters should have been offered paper ballots.

Read the rest of this post...