Wolfie's girlfriend dumps him

From ThinkProgress

Outgoing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and his love interest, Shaha Riza, have split up. Riza was reportedly "upset by all the publicity and the implication that she was getting ahead with the help of a powerful man."

Yeah, that'll show the critics. After your powerful man lost his job and was no longer powerful you dumped him to prove that you're not with him just because he's powerful. Karma's a bitch. Read the rest of this post...

Cheap skate Marine corps chose to let our Marines die from IEDs rather than give them the equipment they needed

Oh yeah, and the Marine Corps lied about it to. So much for "honor." If you're going to let your own guys die because you're too cheap to save their lives, you can at least admit it.

From the Associated Press, here's how they decided NOT to get the IED-proof vehicles that our troops urgently requested:

Brig. Gen. Robert Milstead, chief of Marine Corps public affairs, said cost was not a factor in choosing the Humvee.

"This was not a budgetary decision," Milstead said Wednesday. "You can take that to the bank."

The internal document, however, states that the cost of building new vehicles was a primary reason the request was denied by the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va.

And we just gave these bozos another $100 billion because they accused us of not caring about the troops. If Bill Clinton had done this, let our troops die because he was too cheap while at the same time posturing about those same IEDs, it'd have been the end of his presidency. We really are pathetic. Read the rest of this post...

Senate approves blank check for Bush, too. Clinton and Obama vote NO.

The Senate just overwhelmingly approved the blank check for Bush's war. The Iraq spending bill passed by a vote of 80 - 14 . Maybe now Bush won't be mean to the Democrats.

Significantly, Hillary and Obama voted against the bill per CNN.

The 14 N0 votes:

Boxer (D-CA)
Burr (R-NC)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Dodd (D-CT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Obama (D-IL)
Sanders (I-VT)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR) Read the rest of this post...

House votes to kill more US troops so Bush won't call them names

That pretty much sums it up. Read the rest of this post...

Bush: If we leave Iraq, Al Qaeda is going to kill your children. But if the Iraqis ask us to leave today, we'll leave.

I totally missed the bizarre exchange Bush had with ABC's Martha Raddatz at his press conference this morning. First, Bush told the reporters, twice, that if we leave Iraq before "victory," Al Qaeda will come to America and kill our children. He then said that if the Iraqi government asked us to leave today, we'd leave. He repeated that answer, twice.

So, in other words, if the Iraqi government asked us to leave, Bush would sacrifice your children and he'd even be willing to let the terrorists commit another September 11 here in America - remember, those were his words, that's what HE and the Republicans have repeatedly been saying would happen if we leave Iraq before "victory" - because what the Iraqi government wants is more important to Bush than the blood of "your children."

He is in so far over his head it isn't even funny.

Click To Play

And may I just say, brilliant work by ABC's Raddatz who understands that she isn't being paid to simply be a stenographer. Read the rest of this post...

Headlines that make us chuckle

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CBS: Insurance companies are asking your neighbors about your "morality and lifestyle"

Gee, I wonder THAT means. G-a-y.

It's really about time someone regulated this industry. I truly did not know that they can turn down new customers for having a history of acne. A history of athlete's foot. For having allergies. And now they want to know if you're gay, apparently.

Even more distressing, if you work for yourself and move to another state - oh, because your parents are dying and you'd like to take care of them, or you're dying and you'd like your parents to take care of you, or because, I don't know, you simply want to move, you lose your current insurance and good luck getting any more. A friend of mine in his mid-40s moved and they tried to up his insurance from $250 or so a month to over a thousand dollars a month. I really had no idea it was this bad. I'm basically trapped in DC since I have my own self-employed health insurance. That's crazy.

You can thank George Bush and the Republican Congress for yet again letting the market determine how much you get screwed. More from CBS. Read the rest of this post...

Text of Senate "No Confidence" resolution on Gonzales

Click image to see larger readable version.
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Republican memory loss

Watch it. Hysterical.

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Congratulations Dems, you caved and Bush just bashed you on TV for it

Well that little surrender of yours on the Iraq supplemental was quite effective. Bush just went on TV, praised how all of your bad un-American ideas were struck from the bill, and then he told the country that you still have too much pork in the bill.

So, basically, he just made fools of you. He attacked, you caved in order to stop the attack, and he attacked again. No one could have predicted that.

Speaking of being made a fool, let's hear from Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA). Congressman Moran thinks that if we just cave enough to the Republicans, they'll stop being mean to us. From Congressional Quarterly:

Democrats were particularly worried about the prospect of Bush declaring at wreath-laying ceremonies that “Democrats have stopped resources for the troops,” said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala.

“The problem is that we have to provide money for the troops, and if we don’t, the Democrats will be blamed,” added Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va., a war opponent. “Bush has the bully pulpit, so he will define who is responsible.”

Is he joking? Bush is going to call us names, so we'd better cave so that he doesn't call us names. First, you're a big boy, you can handle Bush calling you names. I don't think it's a fair trade off, congressman, sending 200,000 American troops to die for a lie because you're afraid of being called names. Second, you honestly think that Bush and the Republicans are going to stop questioning your patriotism so long as you cave to them on every issue? Are you high?

You caved, and now he's bashing you again. The only one surprised is you. Read the rest of this post...

Will the media ask Bush about Mary Cheney during his 11am press conference?

Mary and her lesbian out-of-wedlock lover, Heather Poe, just had a baby. They live in Virginia, where they have no rights. Will the media ask the gay-basher in chief how he feels about Mary and Heather living in sin and forcing a young child to live without a dad? Read the rest of this post...

FDA warned of negative side effects of Avandia seven years ago

The Republicans have proven their point that yes, Congress can definitely trim the approval, review and standards process within the FDA. Fine. The problem now is can the public live with the end result?:

A leading diabetes doctor sent the Food and Drug Administration a letter seven years ago that warned of the heart risks of the drug Avandia. And in the next year, the F.D.A. reprimanded the drug’s maker for playing down safety concerns, according to documents from 2000 and 2001.

The documents, found in a reporter’s search of the F.D.A.’s database, indicate that the agency had been warned of safety concerns with the Type 2 diabetes treatment Avandia, and that the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline, was seeking to minimize Avandia’s risks, before some of the same cardiovascular concerns were brought to public attention on Monday in an article and an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The F.D.A. has acknowledged that the company alerted the agency to concerns about a cardiovascular risk as early as 2005, based on the company’s analysis.

Read the rest of this post...

Feingold calls Iraq spending bill a "cave in"

Senator Russ Feingold has been one of the leading anti-Iraq war voices in the Senate. This morning on CNN, he called the new spending bill a "cave in." Feingold said what a lot of people are thinking - the Democrats were elected to end this war:

Click To Play

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Thursday Morning Open Thread

Olbermann rules. If you haven't seen his commentary from last night, watch it now.

Then, get cranking. Read the rest of this post...

Big Oil price increases costs $20b for US economy

I'm sure losing another $20B on top of the war costs and housing bubble bursting won't have any serious impact on the booming economy. These are the golden years for Big Oil.

The jump in U.S. gasoline prices this year has so far drained consumers of an extra $20 billion, or about $146 for each passenger car in the country, the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Tuesday.

The national price for regular unleaded gasoline hit a record $3.22 a gallon this week, and is up $1.05 since the beginning of February, according to the Energy Department.

The added expense is taking money away from consumers to spend on other goods and services.

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Another Blair legacy - The Owellian state

Considering what went on under Bush and the GOP Congress including whatever extreme action that Bush wanted Ashcroft to accept, but was refused, don't think for a minute they wouldn't have taken the US down this path as well. Maybe the likes of Blair, Bush and the GOP are fine with scraping a free society, but it strikes me as undemocratic.

British police to launch spy drones above UK cities:

Britain is now the most intensely monitored country in the world, according to surveillance experts, with 4.2 million CCTV cameras installed, equivalent to one for every 14 people.

So blanketing is the surveillance that the average resident of London runs the possibility of being photographed up to 300 times a day just moving around the capital, civil liberties campaigners Liberty say.

The pervasiveness of the cameras, combined with the government's plans to introduce digital identity cards for all citizens in the coming years and expand its DNA database, has led to calls for a halt until the impact can be better studied.

In a report issued earlier this year, the Royal Academy of Engineering warned that increased monitoring of society actually risked provoking a breakdown in trust between individuals and the state, eventually causing more harm than good.

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