The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

I couldn't make up a clusterfuck of these proportions. They're now blatantly fighting to make food LESS SAFE. Send these idiots back to whatever rock they crawled out from under and bury it.

U.S. government fights to keep meatpackers from testing all slaughtered cattle for mad cow - International Herald Tribune

“Forty, perhaps 50 percent of our political beliefs seem to have a basis in genetics,” said Hibbing, whose studies were included in Jost’s analysis. While genetics are unlikely to “hardwire” people into being liberal or conservative, Hibbing said that genes could make people more or less likely to have certain values or react to situations in a particular way.

There really is gene for "dumbass!"

Political Preference Is Half Genetic - Yahoo! News

Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, has been very articulate about it. We're in the business now of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia, against the Shia in Iran, against the Shia in Lebanon, that is Nasrullah. Civil war. We're in a business of creating in some places, Lebanon in particular, a sectarian violence.

Call it what it is. They're supporting terrorists.

The Raw Story | Hersh: Bush administration arranged support for militants attacking Lebanon

A small group of protesters gathered near the funeral services to criticize the man who mobilized Christian evangelicals and made them a major force in American politics -- often by playing on social prejudices.

A group of students from Falwell's Liberty University staged a counterprotest.

And Campbell County authorities arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car.

From reading the headline you'd think they were talking about someone planning to blow up the funeral. That would of course be wrong. Instead it was one of Jerry's kids who was planning to blow up the people who couldn't stand Falwell.

Fundamentalism is a problem, and it doesn't seem to matter if its Islamic, Christian, Jewish or Hindu.

ABC News: Bomb Plot Thwarted at Falwell's Funeral

Movie review time! Fast, screwed up, and funny as hell. If you're into screwed up action movies (with sex, drugs and some funny choices on the soundtrack thrown in) this one should be right up the alley.

Crank (2006)

The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders showed Monday.

The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed by sending more combat brigades and extending tours of duty for troops already there.

So the real reason they're saying no to any of the timetable stuff is because rather than getting out Bush is planning to throw MORE people into the meat grinder?

Bush could double force by Christmas

The subject of the document is entitled “National Continuity Policy.”

It defines a “catastrophic emergency” as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function.”

This could mean another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California, I imagine, since it says it would include “localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies.”

Oh, you mean like a Reichstag fire?

Bush Anoints Himself as the Insurer of Constitutional Government in Emergency | The Progressive

"We are today writing to express our extreme disappointment in the White House's rebuff of efforts by the Judiciary Committee to obtain voluntary cooperation with our investigation concerning the firing of at least nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006 and related matters," they wrote. "We write to make one last appeal for such voluntary cooperation."

There is a point sometimes to the idea that people need unfettered access to opinions/information without someone going over their shoulder. That is not what we have here and it is not "politics as usual," as the White House is trying to claim. What has been going on at DoJ has the appearance of violating multiple federal statutes (the email mess, political standards in hiring career employees, removal of sitting political appointees amounting to obstruction of justice) for the purpose of violating still more federal statutes (Voting Rights Act of 1965 for starters).

What we are in the middle of watching is the systematic dismantling of the Constitution, transforming the country into a banana republic, and that's being charitable. Bush as Mussolini? That description may be accurate.

Subpoena Time

"Mr. von Spakovsky was central to the administration's pursuit of strategies that had the effect of suppressing the minority vote," charged Joseph Rich, a former Justice Department voting rights chief who worked under him.

How does Karl Rove's party win elections? It wins them by suppressing voting and intimidating people to stay away from the voting booth. I think we can start with violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and head from there to RICO.

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 05/20/2007 | Efforts to stop `voter fraud' may have curbed legitimate voting

"Iraq is a big moneymaker for them," said a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official.

Does anyone buy that "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" line of crap anymore? Seems like fighting them there is giving them the money and training they need to do the reverse.

Influx of Al Qaeda, money into Pakistan is seen - Los Angeles Times