Banking that there is no limit to the stupidity of at least a plurality of the American people (and on this point, I may well agree with them), the Bush Administration announced an investigation into possible price-gouging-at-the-pump as the reason for the nation’s record high retail gasoline prices (in marginal, not-inflation-adjusted) terms. This, of course, follows the kabuki-like “pressure” to do so from GOP Congressional leaders which I recently alluded to in this post over at the American Street. Oy. Bush foreign policy and energy policy have almost been designed to drive up the price of oil (just as his...

Such is the rather upbeat take by our friend Scott Lemieux of a trend among recent lower federal courts to ignore the weasel words of the infamous Supreme Court Bush v. Gore decision, and actually use the decision itself for the proposition that the precious rights of voters shall not be diluted by legislative schemes intended to do so, such as recently, one in Ohio duly voided by the Sixth Circuit (based in Cincinatti). The Supreme Court, much like some of my employers used to do when giving some particular day as a holiday, would say “this applies today, but...

This week, we’ll give you that adorable “family values” setting Augie Doggie and Doggy Daddy (a/k/a Dear Old Dad). Unlike some of our entries where the subject’s being, you know, a talking dog, is actually a fascinating metaphor (like Mr. Peabody, for example), these two could have been any animal, or even people… I understand that in the usual Hanna Barbera recycling process, they were derived from some talking mice (no not these…) While superficially, I am reminded of perhaps myself and the Loquacious Pup, there are a number of immediate striking differences. First, like many patriarchal 1950’s era fantasies...

The CIA announced that a veteran CIA employee (the Associated Press asserts that her name is Mary McCarthy…last assigned to the CIA’s inspector general’s office looking into allegations of torture at prisons in Iraq) was fired for speaking to reporters about the CIA ghost prisons in Eastern Europe that resulted in a Pulitzer Prize to Dana Priest of the Washington Post. As we know, there are good leaks, that support the parochial interests of the Bush family, their principal campaign contributors, and their family retainers… and there are bad leaks, that, well, don’t. This apparently was a bad leak, and...

It would seem that a deal is in the offing, to wit, the unpopular-among-the-Sunnis-Kurds-and-Bushmen Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has agreed to step aside and make way for his fellow Dawa party member Jawad al-Maliki to assume the post. This, as we all know, will be the instant panacea we have all been hoping for, and within days, in addition to all remaining Iraqi schools being painted and hospitals rebuilt, the oil infrastructure will be quickly restored, security will be in place, Shiite death squads and militias will promptly disband, Sunni insurgents will turn in their weapons, water and electricity...

The Pentagon released another list of names of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While the Pentagon insists that of the 558 names, only around 490 or so are still detained there, this list is, evidently, the most comprehensive to date. The Government’s rationale for not releasing the names of those detained by a supposedly free and law-abiding society before (before it was compelled to do so in legal action brought by the Associated Press) was that “we would be giving al Qaeda a heads up” somehow by even revealing the names. That somehow the organization that we are all supposed...

That might be good old Beijing and the People’s Republic of China’s leader, Hu Jintao. The President urged the Chinese leader to take up a greater role in negotiating and resolving issues surrounding North Korea and Iran, the world’s two current most irritating problems (aside from the President himself, of course). Evidently, a Falun Gong protestor (sporting a media pass originally issued to someone named Gannon) made her way in and started screaming at the two autocrats during a White House omerta ceremony. (Bush later apologized to Hu for our having a far less efficient state security apparatus than that...

As part of their presentation, defense lawyers for madman Zacarias Moussaoui played tapes of his sisters, both of whom are institutionalized in France for schizophrenia. The defense also called an expert psychiatrist, who concluded that paranoid schnizophrenic Zacarias Moussaoui is, in fact, a paranoid schizophrenic, and the defense called some 9-11 victims’ relatives who evidently do not believe that executing the first Arab we can find is somehow an advancement of divine, or even earthly justice. For its part, the prosecution noted that at least one of Moussaoui’s brother is not a paranoid schizophrenic, and like, who will they believe…...

Given the announcement of White House spokesman Scott McLellan’s resignation, and Karl Rove’s reduction in duties as part of the package, I can only think of one man worthy of replacing Scotty. Meet the new White House Press Secretary:

As the Iraqi death-toll mounts on all sides, as more and generals call for the ouster of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and as talk turns to a possible welcome diversion in the form of a war of aggression against Iran, the Iranians are showing a public face almost designed to justify such an act, from the recent announcement that uranimum had been enriched by Iran to recent shriill calls by (in actuality powerless) front-man “President” Mahmoud Ahmanidedjad for “the end of the Zionist state” to today’s announcement that an Iranian group had signed up 200 potential “martyrs” for suicide...