Senate Democrats accuse Republicans of adopting intransigence as a strategy to produce a "do-nothing" Congress. Senate Republicans acknowledge using delay tactics but say they are reacting to a heavy-handed Democratic majority that has denied them a voice on the Senate floor.

Let's clarify a few things here. First, when Republicans controlled Congress, Democratic bills and amendments were flat blocked. They never reached the floor, and once in a while something so egregious would come up that the 60 vote rule would become invoked in the Senate. What have we seen since then? Everything gets blocked, filibustered, or bogged down in nowhere by the Republicans. Denying them a voice? Get real. Better yet, get out so things can actually get done.

Watch some of the Republican campaign commercials going up. They're talking about themselves as "bi-partisan," "uniters," anything except what they are, road blocks that serve no purpose except to stop anything that may come up. Hell they voted against Mother's Day. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em.

Political Maneuvers Delay Bill After Bill in Senate - washingtonpost.com

The National Rifle Association sued the city of San Francisco on Friday to overturn its ban on handguns in public housing, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in the nation's capital.

The legal action follows a similar lawsuit against the city of Chicago over its handgun ban, filed within hours of Thursday's high court ruling.null

That didn't take long. But without the additional rifle ban present in the DC law, I'll be surprised if these work out.

NRA sues to overturn S.F. gun ban in city housing - Yahoo! News

International perfume maker Mahender Sabhnani, 51, was sentenced to 3 1/3 years and fined $12,500. He was convicted in December on a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude and harboring aliens.

I'm not even sure what to say... Well yes I am. You're in New York City and you can't find a couple of people who want to be slaves? WTF? I blame this on not bothering to pick up ANY of the local rags with personals in the back. Now they go to jail for being morons.

2nd NY millionaire gets prison in slavery case - Yahoo! News

Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, "Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it."

With all respect due to Senator Canute, they don't buy floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes or plagues of locusts either, but that doesn't stop any of them from showing up.

Some things in life at free, some of them, like anti-biotic resistant gonorrhea and James "Canute" Inhofe, are things we don't want .

NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'

Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

Okay, I'll ask. Did this one originate from Cheney's office?

Citing Need for Assessments, U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects - NYTimes.com

Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally icefreeNorth Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by hugeswathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.

Anyone still have questions about global warming? There may still be people out there who question how much of it is caused by us, but if you think it's not happening, you're part of the flat earth society.

Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole - Climate Change, Environment - The Independent

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. government has spent nearly $500 million on an Arabic language television and radio station.

Now an investigation finds that the project has not only been poorly run and hemorrhaged taxpayer money but is also airing bizarrely anti-American and anti-semitic coverage despite repeated complaints from the State Department and Congress.

How do you get permanent war? Fund both sides.

TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Today's Must Read

“Many qualified candidates” were rejected for the department’s honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, “constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”

I detect much pain soon to emanate from Justice. And a good thing too.

Report Sees Illegal Hiring Practices at Justice Department - NYTimes.com

Like a Morricone-style dirge recorded by The Mamas and The Papas, Violent Femmes’ cover of Gnarls Barkley’s infamous “Crazy” is like nothing you’ve heard from the legendary alt-rock trio before. Their oft-imitated folk-punk sound is flavored with surf-rock guitar and Theremin, creating a tranquility that is somber and otherworldly.

Interesting find.

Violent and Crazy

Decius wrote:

Violence in all of Iraq is the lowest since March 2004. The two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, are calmer than they have been for years. The third largest, Mosul, is in the midst of a major security operation. On Thursday, Iraqi forces swept unopposed through the southern city of Amara, which has been controlled by Shiite militias. There is a sense that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government has more political traction than any of its predecessors.

Radical policy shifts on Iraq seem less reasonable with each passing month. A number of previous threads on this subject are easy to search for. I think this is going to present a problem for Obama, as previous Dem positioning in Iraq is going to get squeezed against improving news from the ground. McCain will easily capitalize on this.

And this would of course be wrong.

Core problems:
The Army is physically unable to maintain the current deployment status so a shift in policy is not only reasonable, it is required.
The primary reason for the decrease in violence has been Muqtada al-Sadr's decision to reign in the Mahdi Army. He's waiting for our shift which he knows is coming before taking further action to consolidate his power.
The main secondary reason for the decrease in violence has been the segregation of Iraq into unmixed enclaves. Areas that used to be part Sunni part Shi'ite are now all one or the other, either by murder or flight.
The recent "maintenance contracts" handed to ExxonMobil, Shell et al is going to make things worse. To operate, they're going to need security forces (Blackwater) and the Iraqi populace is going to see this as a naked grab to steal their oil. Again. People in this country are going to start seeing this as what it always was, a naked grab for the Iraqi oilfields, again. Put that together with higher gas prices and $100+ billion dollar profits for companies like ExxonMobil and that's a backlash loop.

Where this gets really messy is the following. As of December 31, the UN mandate that the US forces are operating under expires. That's why the White House is pushing hard for the mutual treaty. Maliki is also somewhat pushing for this because about the only real support his government has is from the US, but every other group wants nothing of the sort. We want 60 bases in perpetuity, they want us to get the hell out. These are not reconcilable differences, and without the UN mandate, the pretext we are there under expires.

Were Saddam and his kids pieces of crap masquerading as members of the human race? Yes. That part I'm not going to bother disputing. Are we safer now than we were before we invaded? No. Is that situation destabilizing the middle-east? Yes. Is that contributing to what we're paying for gas? Yes.

And oh yeah, remember the guy who kicked off this whole deal, bin Laden? he's STILL out there. Afghanistan? Getting worse. Relations with Pakistan? Getting worse. Iran? Please. If I were the Air Force, I'd seriously consider replacing the contents of "the football" with a copy of "My Pet Goat." I don't need W thinking "Today is the day! Rapture!"

RE: Big Gains for Iraq Security, but Questions Linger - NYTimes.com