Alas, two anti-Bush posts in a row… At AMERICAblog, John Aravosis reports on President Bush’s state of mind (via Republican/conservative outlets The Washington Times and Matt Drudge). Here’s Drudge: “The sources said Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except...

Or, President Bush’s culture of irresponsibility. I’ve started a new series called “Lies, damned lies, and the White House” to track all the spin coming out of the Bush Administration regarding Iraq. Here’s Part 1. ********** And here’s part of it: An editorial in yesterday’s New York Times waded through all the spin, all the nonsense spewing forth from the Bush Administration and its talking-point regurgitators on the right, and gets it right: To avoid having...

Here’s a bit more on Spain’s decision to investigate the rendition of prisoners by the U.S.: Apologists for America’s torture regime, from Vice President Cheney on down through Bill O’Reilly and his “folks,” will no doubt write this off as European anti-Americanism, Europeans gleefully sticking their noses into America’s affairs in order to make America (and her wildly unpopular president) look bad (or worse). The treatment (torture) of detainees at Abu Ghraib,...

Not too long ago, I mentioned that al Qaeda was setting up shop in the U.K. If this story is true — and there’s no reason to doubt it — the threat continues to spread even as Iraq remains a question mark and the war on terrorism, now a war against Islamofascism, proceeds in fits and starts against a nebulous enemy. ********** And now, in the same vein, we have this: The Globe and Mail, drawing on Britain’s Sunday Times, is reporting that “Al-Qaeda has named Queen Elizabeth...

Meanwhile, it seems that leading French media outlets may be censoring their own coverage of the riots in an attempt to ward off a rightward shift in French politics. And there are reports that France may receive as much as a billion Euros from the European Union for job development and social cohesion. Both, in my view, are bad ideas. The rioting has been caused in part by the willful ignorance of the French themselves, and France needs to take responsibility and deal with its own social problems...

The latest news from France, via The Washington Post: Dozens of youths threw trash cans at police and attacked sidewalk shops in a main square of Lyon on Saturday night in the first clash between rioters and police in a city center after more than two weeks of violence in France, according to news reports. Youths stormed through the historic Place Bellecour in Lyon, France’s third-largest city, located in the southeastern Rhone Valley region, even though the city had imposed a nighttime curfew...

From The Washington Post: Lawyers for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) tried unsuccessfully in late September to head off felony criminal indictments against the then-majority leader on charges of violating Texas campaign law by signaling that DeLay might plead guilty to a misdemeanor, according to four sources familiar with the events. The lawyers’ principal aim was to try to preserve DeLay’s leadership position under House Republican rules that bar lawmakers accused of felonies from holding...

As if Tuesday’s election results weren’t enough, the Republicans have another problem, this time in Congress: Facing defeat, House Republican leaders on Thursday abruptly called off a vote on a contentious budget-cutting bill in a striking display of the discord and political anxiety running through the party’s ranks. Despite making major concessions to moderate Republicans, House leaders failed to win enough converts to the budget plan and surrendered in midafternoon. Leading Republicans...

A couple of days ago, I pointed out that “what’s going on in France is complicated” and that [m]ultiple triggers have sent alienated and in some cases highly politicized youth into the streets”. An obvious observation, I thought, but that hasn’t stopped some observers from engaging in astonishing exaggeration and misrepresentation. Leading the way in this regard is noted academic Daniel Pipes, who, in a recent post at his blog, says that the riots may be “a turning...

The other day, David Schraub posted on the possible use of phosphorus as an incendiary weapon in Iraq, specifically in Fallujah. His post is here. His post aroused a good deal of commentary, as did mine over at The Reaction — see here. Many of the comments are quite interesting, but the general response was that a) phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon; b) there’s nothing wrong with using it; and c) war is hell. Check out the posts for the various responses. It seems that this...

How about this: Risking the kind of nationwide ridicule it faced six years ago, the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution. The 6-4 vote was a victory for “intelligent design” advocates who helped draft the standards. Oh, and how’s this for some icing on your cake of ignorance: “In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural...

…and Frist and Hastert have egg on their faces. So much for that new leak investigation.

I haven’t yet commented on the horrible situation in France, though, privately, I’ve noted the lack of contextual perspective (that is, a lack of understanding of French history and politics) in much of the right-wing reaction to the riots — as if the right, succumbing to the moral ease of enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend gymnastics, is somehow relishing this apparent attack on the French state. Many on the right (but certainly not all, let me be clear about that) seem to see this...

Okay, no reason to get too excited. The gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia were expected. Joe will comment further on yesterday’s results. I’ve got more here.

A constitutional ban on gay marriage was approved by 77 percent of voters (with a turnout of just 16 percent of registered voters). Would any Texans out there care to comment?

So the Governator gets caught up in a voting irregularity?

Yes, it’s the nightmare of reality.

Yesterday, I wrote about yet another piece of evidence that the Bush Administration used selective intelligence to justify its war in Iraq, specifically the fact that a key informer in American custody, a certain al Qaeda official named al-Libi, was known well before the war to be a “fabricator” of information. For more on this developing story, including a round-up of key reaction from around the blogosphere, see my post on Cheney the torturer at The Reaction. Following Kevin Drum, I...

For a bit more on the big new case set to come before the Roberts Court, see here.

There may not be a smoking gun, at least not yet, but there sure is a lot of smoke. Here’s what Douglas Jehl reported in Sunday’s New York Times: A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document. The document,...

On Tuesday, to quote The New York Times, “President Bush announced… that he would ask Congress for $7.1 billion to prepare the nation for the possibility of a worldwide outbreak of deadly flu.” Here’s how he put it: “Our country has been given fair warning of this danger to our homeland and time to prepare. It’s my responsibility as the president to take measures now to protect the American people… A flu pandemic would have global consequences, so no nation...

Despite the public rhetoric, it’s looking more and more likely, with the White House preparing for a post-Rove world.

I’ve got a bit more on Biden, the Democrats, and the filibuster over at The Reaction.

Well, for one, she’s another Sign of the Apocalypse. All on her own.

Truly, a cruise gone bad. But, then, what did they expect off the coast of Somalia?