Super Dave Johnson treats us to this daring counter-attack against the standard issue right wing echo chamber assault that (get this!) Al Gore has high electric bills! Well, he probably has a big house, and a lot of kids… oh, and that green energy option tends to cost more than standard electricity… but, goes the charge picked up by the usual suspect… “Al Gore is a hypocrite“. If that’s right wing code for “saint” and “hero”, then, yes he is. The intent is obvious: to scare Gore off from actually running, because the right wing is deathly afraid of him....

Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid has been hinting at possible legislation to alter the Congressional authorization for use of force in Iraq, such as possibly just to fight al Qaeda and train Iraqi forces, for example. Unlike the non-binding resolution which still couldn’t come out of a filibuster, this type of legislation would be subject to an almost certain Presidential veto. Of course, in framing the issues for any leading Democratic candidate except Hillary Clinton, one couldn’t be clearer about pitting the interests and desires of the American people writ large versus those of the Beltway and military-industrial complex super-elite...

According to this report in the Grey Lady, Iraqi insurgents (we can assume that’s code for Sunni insurgents, though we are not told explicitly that it is Sunni insurgents doing this) have taken up a new tactic and weapon of choice: truck bombs that also release chlorine gas. You will recall that chlorine gas was banned in warfare following its widespread use in the First World War (the one to end all wars), and it is nasty if breathed in or contacts the skin… painful, and often fatal. I vaguely remember the threat of Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons...

Well, the final battle over just how far we have fallen in the annals of 800 years of Anglo-American jurisprudence is on, with the intermediate appelate court known as the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, by a 2 judge to 1 margin, answering “Nyet” on the question: “Are there ultimate judicial checks on arbitrary executive power especially when ratified by a feckless partisan Congress?”, in dismissing habeas corpus petitions brought by the nearly 400 remaining Guantanamo detainees. Unlike prior judicial outrages along the way, I am actually less troubled by this one for at...

On this President’s Day, let’s all take a moment to salute one of the most consistently performing Presidents in American history, that, of course, being the current one. Unfortunately, he has been consistently performing at the level of disaster, and this observation in the Grey Lady about the reemergence of some centralized control of its network by the al Qaeda leadership should give us all pause, if not complete and total apoplexy. (It would seem, btw, that as yet another article in The Times laments the new design of the Freedom Tower for the World Trade Center site as reflecting...

(Updated) In a follow up from my American Street piece House of Pain (discussing the House vote on a non-binding resolution condemning “The SurgeTM”), it seems that the Senate Republicans, in contrast to their own threats to end fillibusters for their own purposes… now that they are not in the majority… the GOP Senators used a fillibuster (with the expedient of nine GOP senators not even showing up to vote) to block a non-binding resolution in the Upper House. Go ahead and say what you like about Joe Lieberman: he appears to have bucked the rest of (what he purports...

Submitted for your approval: Global temperatures (overall, not necessarily in any particular one location, such as the Northeast United States, for example) for January, 2007, were (surprise, surprise) the highest global temperatures ever recorded. You have just read our interview with Adam Stein of TerraPass, covering the gamut of global warming related issues. You might want to look at this fabulous takedown of what now passes for global warming skepticism by Kevin of Lean Left. As seems to be some kind of trend here, I’ll leave with you a little Dylan while you ponder all that… Outside of the gates...

An Italian judge has gone ahead and indicted 31, including 26 American CIA and military officials, for their role in the kidnapping (for “extraordinary rendition” and torture) of Abu Omar in Milan. This, of course, was one of the subjects of my recent interview with Stephen Grey, author of Ghost Plane, addressing the whole CIA kidnapping program. Kidnapping, it seems, is against the law in Italy, even when part of an expedient American policy. Although many of the indicted have assumed names, in some cases, the indicted used aliases jumbling character names from Friends and Will and Grace, in others,...

In this case, that would be hours and hours ago, and hundreds of miles away… where the President’s people, sensing the momentum for their Persian-Incursion warmongering letting up a bit, staged a Presidential press conference, at which the President continued his irrational and unsupported bantering as to why he is now ramping up staging and logistics for an attack against Iran. Because it’s getting late and I’m tired (and not just from the highest rated show in television history, “Meet the Nielson Families Up Close” John Edwards re-plays Bill Clinton’s best Lonnie Guinier moments the Amanda and Melissa show)… I’ll...

Despite the fact that… it’s not true… the Bush Administration is hellbent on asserting (via anonymous officials no less!) that Iran is smuggling weaponry used to attack American (and Iraqi) forces in Iraq. It certainly seems implausible from the get-go, because “Iraqi forces” tend to be overwhelmingly Shia, indeed, that’s the problem– they patrol with Americans by day, and by night, they form death squads and attack Sunnis (and Americans who might be trying to protect them). Indeed, the Bush Administration’s claims are preposterous on their face. Professor Juan Cole offers this rather extensive debunking; note that once again, The...