God hates New Orleans. If the levies break again (are they even done repairing them?), will we abandon the city or rebuild better dikes? Guess that depends on who wins the presidential election?

Hurricane GUSTAV

ohn McCain had only met Sarah Palin once or twice before selecting her to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Also, earlier today McCain's campaign chairman Sen. Lindsay Graham admitted that he had never met Palin, and GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison also said that she didn't know much about Palin.

He knew she had a vagina, and thats all that mattered to McCain.

Digg - McCain Didn't Even Know Palin Before Picking Her (VIDEO)

Defying a directive from Gov. Sonny Perdue, the state public defender council’s board on Thursday voted not to submit a budget that would cut the struggling agency’s funding by at least 6 percent.

Members of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council board said further cuts would cripple the cash-strapped agency. The board also voted to ask the governor to fully fund its budget.
Recent headlines:

Perdue’s Office of Planning and Budget has directed most state agencies to submit proposed budgets with at least 6 percent cuts by Sept. 2. Perdue is looking to save about $1.6 billion because tax collections have plunged. Some agencies are submitting proposals that include layoffs, furloughs and cutbacks of services.

There isn't enough money as it is to provide adequate defense to indigent defendants, but who gives a shit about them? Looks like all hell is about to break loose.

Public defender agency defies Perdue on budget cuts | ajc.com

But with no sign of Russia withdrawing its troops from Georgia despite a pledge to do so and indications it has moved short-range ballistic missiles into the disputed area of South Ossetia, it was unclear how the alliance would make good on Rice's vow.

On her way to an emergency NATO foreign ministers meeting on the crisis, Rice said the alliance would punish Russia for its invasion of Georgia and deny its ambitions by rebuilding and fully backing Georgia and other Eastern European democracies.

"We are determined to deny them their strategic objective," Rice told reporters aboard her plane, adding that any attempt to re-create the Cold War by drawing a "new line" through Europe and intimidating former Soviet republics and ex-satellite states would fail.

"We are not going to allow Russia to draw a new line at those states that are not yet integrated into the trans-Atlantic structures," she said, referring to Georgia and Ukraine, which have not yet joined NATO or the European Union but would like to.

She sounds so powerless. Its kinda pathetic.

Rice: NATO won' t let Russia succeed in Georgia - Central Florida News 13

The United States is Georgia’s closest ally. It maintained about 130 military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial forces on the South Ossetian frontier. U.S. technical intelligence, from satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles, could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to forward positions. The Russians clearly knew the Georgians were ready to move. How could the United States not be aware of the Russians? Indeed, given the posture of Russian troops, how could intelligence analysts have missed the possibility that the Russians had laid a trap, hoping for a Georgian invasion to justify its own counterattack?

The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power | Stratfor

Vicken Cheterian, a journalist and political analysts who works for Geneva's Cimera group, warns that Georgia's 40-fold increase in military spending is targeted against Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Georgia in US-financed arms race for war on Abkhazia, South Ossetia

Republican John McCain’s warning that Barack Obama isn’t ready for the awesome job of commander-in-chief may not be registering with a key constituency: the American military.troops.jpg

According to a study released by the Washington watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics, U.S. troops, and especially those deployed abroad, are talking with their wallets and saying they want Democrat Obama as the next president.

Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than McCain and the “fiercely anti-war Ron Paul,” another Republican presidential candidate, CRP said.

Through June 31, CRP said contributions from all U.S. military personnel netted Obama $335,536, compared with $280,513 for McCain.

Support the troops. Support Obama.

Tales from the Trail » Blog Archive » American troops put their money on Obama | Blogs | Reuters.com

Bush said evidence suggests Russia may be preparing to depose Georgia's democratically elected government.

"Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century," he said.

Yeah I mean, where did they get the idea that in this day and age they can just go around taking over other countries just because they CAN?

Bush to Russia: Reverse course in Georgia - CNN.com

Remember the total, hideous, inexcusable absence of oversight that has been the great hallmark of George Bush's America for almost eight years now? Well, now we're getting to see that same regulatory malfeasance applied to yet another cornerstone of our political system. The Federal Election Commission — the body that supposedly enforces campaign-finance laws in this country — has been out of business for more than six months. That's because Congress was dragging its feet over confirmation hearings for new FEC commissioners, leaving the agency without a quorum. The commission just started work again for the first time on July 10th under its new chairman, Donald McGahn, a classic Republican Party yahoo whose chief qualifications include representing Tom DeLay, the corrupt ex-speaker of the House, in matters of campaign finance.

Apart from the obvious absurdity of not having a functioning election-policing mechanism in an election year in the world's richest democracy, the late start by the FEC makes it almost impossible for the agency to do its job. The commission has a long-standing reluctance to take action in the last months before a vote, a policy designed to help prevent federal regulators from influencing election outcomes. Normally, the FEC tries to root out infractions and loopholes — fining campaigns for incomplete reporting, or for taking shortcuts around spending limits — in the early months of a campaign season. But that ship sailed way too long ago to take the stink off the 2008 race.

Candidates for Sale: Big Business Is Making Sure It Wins the Presidency | The Smirking Chimp

This evidence offers three important lessons.

First, widespread conservative complaints about “liberal judicial activism” should be taken with many grains of salt. If we ask how often the justices vote to strike down agency decisions, Scalia and Thomas, the most conservative members of the Supreme Court, show the most activist voting patterns. By contrast, the justices commonly described as “liberal” are the least activist.

Of course, there are other measures of what makes a judge “activist,” and I do not claim that our method cannot be challenged, but it is useful to offer some statistical tests, which can ensure that critics are not building their conclusions into their definitions.

Second, partisan voting is a serious problem in the federal judiciary. If the EPA issues a regulation that is aggressive in cleaning the air, or if the National Labor Relations Board resolves a dispute in favor of a union, a panel that consists solely of Republican appointees is unusually inclined to strike it down. That’s indefensible. No one should approve of a situation in which the fate of an environmental regulation depends on whether a lower court panel consists of one, two or three Republican appointees.

Third and perhaps most important, federal agencies in an Obama or McCain administration are likely to make a number of decisions that are more liberal than those of the Bush administration. Many decisions will ultimately be challenged in federal court -- and the Republican-appointed judges who dominate the federal bench could well prove to be a big obstacle. On the Supreme Court, for example, Scalia and Thomas might be joined, much of the time, by Roberts and Alito. On key occasions, Kennedy might probably join them as well.

The lower federal courts could prove an even more serious barrier. Those courts have been stocked with appointees of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. The voting behavior of appointees has been clear: They show a distinctive tendency to strike down agency decisions that do not follow a conservative line.

Here, then, is a major warning for the next administration – and a potential problem for democracy itself.null

Judicial Partisanship Awards - The Washington Independent - U.S. news and politics - washingtonindependent.com