Yesterday, President Bush said he will propose significantly increasing international AIDS funding. It has been described as a doubling of funding, but that's not strictly accurate - at least according to a number of news sources, like the San Francisco...
You've got to wonder how many more investigations into Justice Department activities will be opened in the coming months. We've got investigations by both chambers into the attorney firings, an internal investigation into political-based hiring for non-partisan positions, and today...
I was skeptical when I saw the headline at the L.A. Times: Bush urges goals on emissions. Bush and his administration have been, by and large, hardcore deniers of global warming and its causes. So I wasn't expecting to be...
Bob Dole and Tom Daschle are hawking a plan to reduce farm subsidies and shift that money to biofuels....
For some, today was a glorious, magical day. The Creation Museum - a museum that tells their side of the story - opened to the public today. Over 4,000 visitors showed up to celebrate. And the O'Reilly Factor covered it,...
I was hanging out with a friend this weekend, and you know what he said to me? "Mike, I'm not seeing enough POLJUNK posts on honeybees lately. Can you kick it up a notch?" Al, this one is for you......
Everyone can sleep a little bit easier tonight. Former Senator Bill Frist has withdrawn his name from consideration as a replacement for Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank. I'm still advocating for Paul O'Neill, but I don't think the White...
Over at the Washington Post, Sebastian Mallaby asks the question: why is the Congress considering spending billions on the supposed risk illegal immigration poses, when there isn't enough money to fund all our other homeland security needs?...
At the upcoming G-8 summit, Tony Blair had hoped to get his buddy George Bush to agree to real change to slow down global warming. Based on a draft U.S. communique obtained by Greenpeace, that ain't going to happen. Some...
Daniel Schorr - whose voice you'll recognize if you listen to NPR - on why walls are a bad idea....
On Saturday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) flew to Europe with 7 other House Democrats for meetings with European politicians and scientists on how to successfully tackle global warming. They will be making stops in Belgium, Germany, and...
Over 3,400 American troops have died in Iraq so far. More than 25,000 troops have been wounded in action. Iraqi casualties are estimated at 100,000 to 650,000, depending on the assessment you're looking at. The death toll of this war...
After getting pilloried by the Bushies for his "worst in history" comment, Jimmy Carter retreated from some pretty damning statements made during a BBC interview. But he was right, and a quick run down of some of the stories in...
After the Memorial Day recess, the Senate Armed Services Committee plans to release a bill that will shore up the rights of detainees held in Guantanamo. Which, currently, aren't so hot. From the AP: Under the current system, President Bush...
And the North Dakota legislature wants them to as well. They've passed 5 bills related to the issue this year, and the governor has signed three of them. The laws basically lay out a framework for growing industrial hemp in...
Jon Stewart ties the whole attorney purge thing together:...
The New York Times ran a piece earlier this week about Ray Anderson, who founded and runs a carpet tile company called Interface. Sounds fascinating, right? Well, it turns out Anderson had an epiphany of sorts in the mid 90s,...
Here's some good political satire for you on a Friday morning, delivered in a way that only Stephen Colbert can deliver. In his own special way, he takes the Chicago Tribune and Politico.com to task for some super nitpicky stories...
Monica Goodling testified for 5 hours in front of the House Judiciary Committee yesterday. She admitted to "crossing the line" and "mistakes" - typical Republican-speak for "breaking the law" - but there weren't the damning indictments I hoped for in...
Well, that's what a decision by the Food and Drug Administration seems to suggest. But it's crazy, and bad public policy. On Wednesday, the FDA reaffirmed a policy in place since 1983 that prohibits gay men from donating blood. The...
This one pretty much speaks for itself....
On Monday, two House Democrats - Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Artur Davis (D-AL) - introduced a bill that calls for a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Gonzales. Since then, the list of co-sponsors has grown to 108. From...
And you can watch it at the Washington Post. And other places, I'm sure. Also, Huff Post has a wire story, and fresh pictures on the main site page of Goodling at the hearing (instead of that tired shot of...
... And Talking Points Memo has put together a short video primer on who she is and why her testimony could be very important - not to mention damaging to the White House and the Gonzales Justice Department. How someone...
Yesterday, Senate Democrats agreed to a compromise on Iraq funding. If, by compromise, we mean giving the President exactly what he wants. Which is certainly the White House's preferred type of compromise....
Susan Ralston used to work for Karl Rove. After the House Government Reform Committee reported 485 contacts between Abramoff and the White House, she abruptly resigned. That was last September. Today, at a deposition for the same committee, Ralston invoked...
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg announces a plan for all hybrid cabs in NYC by 2012. Said Bloomberg: There's an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City obviously, so it makes a real big difference ... These...
Every time the debate about illegal immigration reaches a fever pitch, the call for more border fencing gets louder and more hysterical. The current debate over an immigration bill in the Senate is no exception. The compromise bill under consideration...
Robert Greenwald - the man who brought us Iraq for Sale and Outfoxed - has put together a short clip illustrating some of the many lies and obfuscations Attorney General "I don't recall" Gonzales has told Congress over the U.S....
In a Washington Post op-ed piece yesterday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Governor Jodi Rell (R-CT) laid into the Bush administration for not doing anything to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and for blocking efforts by states like California and Connecticut...
The energy challenge in the United States is different than it is in India. While we share some of the same challenges - growing demand, limited supply - our immediate problem is less about providing energy to those who need...
India is the world's most populous democracy. And they have a problem: a growing economy and a growing middle class that have needs and wants more akin to what we see in the United States than in other parts of...
After Jimmy Carter went after the Bush administration this weekend - more agressively than probably any ex-president has gone after a sitting president - the administration is responding in kind. According to White House spokesman Tony Fratto, Carter is "irrelevant"...
Almost a week after Jerry Falwell's death, the New York Times runs a piece this morning on the changing nature of the modern evangelical. Whereas Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson and those like them are all about fire and brimestone,...
On Face the Nation this morning, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) suggested that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will resign before a Democrat-sponsored no-confidence vote could occur in the Senate. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) plan to introduce a no-confidence...
Ethanol from corn is basically a bad idea. It takes as much energy to make the ethanol as the ethanol generates. Sugarcane, though, has more sugar and it's easier to extract. Which is why Brazil has been successful with ethanol....
Michael Moore's new documentary on healthcare in the United States - Sicko - was warmly received at Cannes. The Bush administration, though, is all over Moore for a trip to Cuba with sick 9/11 workers. And it's ongoing. But the...
In an interview with the BBC, Jimmy Carter called President Bush's foreign policy the worst of any president in history. He also condemns Blair for being subservient to Bush, and giving the invasion of Iraq a patina of legitimacy by...
Eugene Robinson is the one of the best, most insightful contributors to the Washington Post op-ed section. Today's piece by Robinson is a case in point. He takes Gonzales to task for his many sins, and marvels at the fact...
There are about 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. That's still at least 50,000 below the estimate General Shinseki gave Congress before the invasion (his words were "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to maintain "post-hostilities control" in Iraq). At...
While the President continues to have "full confidence" in Alberto Gonzales as his Attorney General, op-ed pages around the country disagree. Dallas Morning News, May 17, 2007: If you had any doubts about whether Alberto Gonzales has the professional judgment...
I think I'm going to be sick. For real this time. According to Think Progress, Bill Frist is being floated as a candidate for World Bank president. And yes, that's the same Senator Frist who adopted, killed, and dissected cats...
Want to be embarrassed as an American? Watch Bush in action, evading answering a reporter's question about whether or not he ordered former Chief of Staff Andy Card and then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to the bedside of a...
With Wolfowitz out the door, the question in my mind is, what about Fredo? How many more days does he have? The President clearly intends to extend his own stay in fantasy land with the latest statement from the White...
Finally. Wolfowitz is out. He'll stick around through June, and then he's gone. Yesterday, he was trying to work it in such a way that he would resign if the board announced they had cleared him of wrong doing. Didn't...
A new report by the McKinsey Global Institute says the U.S. can reduce energy consumption by a third in residential buildings if we increase adoption of existing energy-efficient technologies, like compact flourescents and high efficiency appliances. But as the study...
Those of us who know anything about military history have known all along that the idea of a "surge" in Iraq is just a study in ridiculous wordplay. What Bush instituted this spring is an escalation, not a temporary influx...
This could be huge. Yesterday, as part of the Clinton Climate Initiative, Bill Clinton announced a program to help significantly reduce carbon emissions in 16 major cities around the world. How will they do it? 5 banks - ABN AMRO,...
On Wednesday, organic farmers testified before the House Agriculture committee, asking for their fair share of the money that gets handed out every year as part of the Farm Bill - $25 billion alone to industrial farmers who grow commodity...
At a mayor's summit in New York yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg called on the world's mayors to take the lead in fighting global warming. According to Bloomberg, the cities of the world are responsible for 80% of the world's greenhouse...
File this under "Kids get the funniest things." Or something. Over in the land of Lincoln, a 30 year old father got his 10 month old son a gun permit. For the 12-gauge Beretta shotgun the boy's grandfather bought him....
According to the Guardian, Tony Blair hopes to convince George Bush to get his act together on global warming at the upcoming G8 summit. Working with Germany, the British hope to get not only the United States, but also China...
What a mess Paul Wolfowitz has created for himself. And he just keeps wallowing in it. Talk about a petulant child. Why does he want to stay at the World Bank so badly? It's clear that he's lost the confidence...
Jerry Falwell died this morning in his office at Liberty University. He was 73. A powerful, if hysterical, voice of the Christian right, he founded Liberty University in 1971, and founded the Moral Majority in 1979. After the terrorist attacks...
Yesterday, 18 House Democrats - all Catholics - issued a statement objecting to the Pope's contention that any Catholic politician who supports a woman's right to choose should be excommunicated from the church. From the statement: We are concerned with...
Like a petulant child, whose parents have told him he needs to clean up his room, Bush continues to delay the inevitable. But instead of dragging his feet on cleaning his room at his parent's request, Bush is dragging his...
Okay, I'll admit it. I once voted for a Republican. That would have been a vote for Fred Upton, a Congressional representative from southwestern Michigan's 6th District, in 1992. Mr. Upton was a Republican in the classic sense. He was...
