The much vaunted meeting with policy advisers did not manifest itself in any kind of announced policy or strategy change as mentioned in the President’s weekly radio address, according to this from WaPo. The President did make it clear that a withdrawal will only embolden terrorists and provide them with a safe haven from which to attack the United States. In short: he’s got nothin’. Meanwhile, the U.S.S. Eisenhower should be in the Straits of Hormuz by now, possibly preparing to attack Iran… when you’re losing left and right on everything, from Mark Foley to Jack Abramoff to al-Maliki to...

Could be either, as the Grey Lady gives us this discussion of the spanking new electronic (i.e. paper-trail-less) voting machines that will be rolled out in districts and precincts all over the country (though not here in the Big Apple, where our Eisenhower Administration era voting machines are still held together with bubble gum and rubber bands). Also likely to cause lines: voter identification requirements, that are being found unconstitutional and otherwise unlawful left and right… though poll workers aren’t being trained in any of this! The article notes, helpfully, that though many are duly… concerned… about possible big-time fraud...

Not much else to say on that subject; among other things provided for besides the due-process-less “military commissions” and the “aggressive interrogation methods” contained in the abomination of a bill signed into law by the President are ex post facto exoneration of the President and himself and his minions for deliberate violations of international law. My suggestion is that the President, Vice-President, the Secretaries of Defense and State and some other high level officials should consider doing their international traveling now, before they become mere private citizens subject to the whims of other countries who, you know, might actually willing...

In its continuing war against prominent women named “Stewart”, criminal defense attorney Lynne Stewart was sentenced to28 months in prison in federal court in Manhattan yesterday. The Bush Administration was still hoping for the 9-11 mojo and a 30-year (or life) sentence for the 67 year old breast-cancer surviving Stewart, former counsel to poor schmuck criminals as well as those with a political angle to their crimes, most notably, ’93 WTC bombing mastermind Sheik Abdul Rahman (“the blind cleric”), for whom Stewart was convicted of smuggling messages. Judge John Koeltl wasn’t drinking the Bushmen’s kool-aid, and found that while Stewart...

A rather large earthquake in the range of 6.6 on the Richter scale struck a few miles off the north shore of the Big Island of Hawaii; Steve, our man in Honolulu (a/k/a Linkmeister) reports that he and his are fine and sends us this dispatch. The Governor of Hawaii has declared a statewide state of emergency, and there are numerous power outages, road blockages and other damage. Hopefully there will be a minimum of loss of life. Hawaii, as Steve notes, frequently suffers volcanic activity, but a straight up earthquake is somewhat more unusual. All we can do here...

We’ll start with a discussion of the breakdown of the world’s nuclear non-proliferation mechanism in the Los Angeles Times. The article discusses the fact that it now seems (surprise, surprise) that the international consensus that led to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in place for 36 years now seems to be breaking down. That consensus basically pledged most of the world not to develop nuclear weapons, and the then five “original” nuclear nations (which, not coincidentally, were the five U.N. Security Council veto holders, U.S.A., U.S.S.R. (now Russia), China, Britain and France) pledged to reduce their nuclear arsenals. But things seem...

Let me be among the last in the blogosphere to talk about the new book (called “Tempting Fate”) coming out by former White House “faith based initiative” official David Kuo, discussed in this Lala Times piece. It seems that, in person, the faux Texan New England patricians of the Bush White House were most gracious and accommodating of so-called leaders of the religious right; behind their backs and among each other, the Bushmen called the faithful “nuts”… albeit, politically useful nuts. And there we have it. The themes are all coming together; obviously, this book is being released within a...

A small plane carrying New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed into a building on the East Side of Manhattan, killing at least two people (including Mr. Lidle). Coming as it does shortly after the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs and the Mets were scheduled to begin their League Championship Series tonight (weather permitting)… this is a peculiarly freaky event (like it wouldn’t be freaky enough otherwise). As we learned from the John F. Kennedy, Jr. plane crash a few years ago, general aviation is an extraordinarily dangerous business: something like 1 in 100 private aircraft are involved in...

If you try to color by number, then the G.O.P.’s numbers would, at the moment, be a dismal shade of grey, according to this compendium of today’s poll results by Billmon. The polling consensus puts the G.O.P. behind Democrats generically (though, not of course, in a seat by gerrymandered seat match-up) by a jaw-dropping twenty-three percentage points. As Billmon’s piece notes, that does not augur well when compared to prior cycles, such as 1994, where the Democrats weren’t nearly that far behind in polling despite getting clobbered in the mid-terms. While, thanks to yon gerrymandering, the system is rigged to...

Sadly, I can’t come up with a clever post title for this event, but it seems to be generally confirmed that North Korea has detonated a .5 to 1.5 kiloton nuclear device, for which it is receiving universal condemnation. Bruce the Veep suggests laying this one at the feet of our previous President (that would be Bill Clinton) for agreeing to permit North Korea to proceed with “peaceful” nuclear research (the kind that Iran says it wants to pursue now) back in the 1990’s, rather than take on North Korea then and there (a North Korea that then did not...