KillBill 3: A Bill We Must KILL Dead, Dead, DEAD

My apologies that I just stumbled (literally) onto this sucker today, since it's been kicking around Capitol Hill since last summer and the House (blind, repressive motherfucking Constitutional assassins that they are) already passed it BUT... it's not through the Senate yet and we need this mofo deader than Ken Lay, Fred Thompson's campaign, Bush's brainstem, and Dick Cheney's humanity ALL ROLLED together.

The bill is S.1959 with the designed-to-scare-your-pants-into-a-brown-mess name of The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (see here and here) which is likely to do NOTHING but kill my right and your right to speak out against an unjust, corporation-controlled government (like the one we have). Don't trust the media to watch this for you; they're too busy watching Britney Spears' crotch.

Wait... let me pile about a thousand soapboxes atop one another before I say... (whew.... wiping righteous sweat from my brow)

LEARN ABOUT THIS BILL. CALL YOUR SENATOR. KILL THIS BILL!

Another Government Probe Of Itself That, Like The 9/11 Commission And the Torture Probe, Won't Amount To Jack Shit

My only question here is, "Why even bother?"

While some seem ready to applaud that the Justice Department announced this evening it WILL (ha!) investigate the willful destruction of the two known CIA torture tapes a judge ordered those under the Bush Administration involved in the matter NOT conveniently destroy, to me it's just another sad, piss poor example of the fox being allowed to investigate the case of chickens murdered in the hen house when it was one of the Fox's minions (in this case, the CIA with marching orders from the fox) who arranged not just the initial crime but the destruction of the evidence.

We see this again and again - hardly new to the Bushies yet they have taken it to ridiculously extremes as they have everything else - as when the Pentagon investigates its own.

This, my friends, is beyond criminal. And, as Bush would smirk and smug-it-up as he tells you, there's not one damned thing we can do to stop it while, at the same time, we know exactly what the results will be: nada, zap, ZERO. At best, they'll point to some very insignificant, powerless peon, throw the book at him while they feed him to the wolves, and then pretend it never happened.

Some democracy. And the new Attorney General Michael Mukasey can control everything this special prosecutor does and, as we've seen with his strange ignorance regarding torture and the American Constitution, he'll prove himself a loyal Bushie regardless of his distinctly token status as an alleged Democrat.

Assassinating The Truth: Was Bhutto Killed Before She Could Warn of Pakistan Vote Fixing?

My only question here is, "Considering how many American lawmakers have profitted from Bush-Cheney voting fraud and manipulation, would they have cared when she reported it?"

From CNN:

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated hours before she was to tell U.S. lawmakers of an alleged plot to rig Pakistan's elections, sources tell CNN. Violence, ballot-tampering or intimidation could be used, according to a dossier Bhutto requested, the sources said. Pakistani officials have denied the claims. developing story

Iran: The Bushies' Deadliest Game Ever

I talk with many progressive, moderate and increasingly, well right of center Republicans who these days not just readily admit but rant and rave themselves that the Bush Administration's logic on almost everything it does is so very bad as to be criminal (meaning: OK, we gave him the benefit of the doubt for a long time, but you can't fuck this much up without a PLAN!). On Iran, even some of the neocon fans, however, are reeling from this administration's latest approach.

The IAEA studied Iran's capabilities for some time and said that Iran is not ready to do any real damage with nuclear power to anyone (even Israel, which is often the greatest fear though Israel's got MUCH bigger ones and a penchant to use their weaponry with some abandon). Major U.S. intel on Iran determined Iran really poses no threat and, because the intel determined this, it's sat hidden for a year.

NOW, the day AFTER other national intelligence tells us Iran is in no position to do us or anyone else much damage for some years to come, what do the Bushies do?

Why, they scream louder that we need to attack Iran ... you know, before they attack us. Then, in a few years and several trillion dollars (not to mention untold numbers of lives lost, because Iran DOES have enough of a military to hurt us in ways Iraqis could not organize while we're being told that the U.S., perhaps with Israel, could go after Iran's so-called nuclear reactors which would kill millions of Iran citizens), Karl Rove can come out again, like he did this past weekend, and claim Congress made Bush do it.

I'm a pretty compassionate person. But when it comes to the Bushies, I'd take a page out of the great lyrics for "Sweeney Todd" (for a pacifist, this is my all time FAVORITE musical oddly enough), the fantastic musical turned into a Tim Burton film for Christmas release with Johnny Depp:

Never forget. Never forgive.

"Save The Constitution: Impeach Bush and Cheney"

I LOVE this man and I NEVER say such things lightly (and please ADD to his acknowledgement that John Nirenberg is starting out in single digit weather - I got a touch of frostbite on a short midnight walk last night myself when it was a toasty 4 BELOW - with a major storm about to hit the hell out of New England):

BRATTLEBORO — He's got waterproof, size-11EEEE New Balance sneakers, a bright yellow poncho and a plan. He's got outrage in his heart, a Web site in his name and much of his retirement savings sunk into his cause.

John Nirenberg, a 60-year-old Ph.D., author and academic, plans to walk from Boston to Washington, D.C., to confront House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in hopes of persuading Congress to take up the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

He's no activist, he says. He's not sure he'll make a difference. But he's going to try.

On Sunday, he'll hit the road from Faneuil Hall, walking 15 miles a day until he gets to Capitol Hill, making symbolic stops at the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall and Trenton, N.J., as he makes his way to the U.S. Capitol.

Wearing a "Save the Constitution, Impeach Bush and Cheney," sandwich-board style sign, he hopes to rally support for an issue Pelosi has said is no longer on the table.

"This is about satisfying my conscience. I just don't want to be the guy who says in five years that I regret not having stood up and said something."

We should ALL be more like Mr. Nirenberg. And we should start REAL SOON NOW.

American Lawyers Vote To Impeach Bush-Cheney

The members of the National Lawyers Guild have voted to request (demand would be nice) the House of Representatives open impeachment proceedings against BOTH Bush and Cheney.

House Has Not Yet Killed Impeachment of Grand Emperor (VP) The Dick Cheney

While the Dem leadership seemed about as eager as most Repugs to kill it - and why they're so bashful about high crimes and misdemeanors when we're talking about treason committed in some of the most fundamental aspects of our society completely eludes me - it was Repugs who, thinking it might give Bush a "sympathy factor", who decided to let it hang around. (Somehow, I suspect only his parents give Bush much sympathy these days.)

Now others are pushing harder for the matter to go before the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by none other than John Conyers, a Dem who has shown he does not always buckle to popular pressure. Keep hope alive.

Hallelujah and Thank You, CREW!

Buzzflash reports that CREW is launching a much-needed online site specifically to help us research government documents: Governmentdocs.org.

With Bush, The Damned Lies Keep Coming After HE Refused to Give Troops a Pay Raise

The words Bush and lies go together as surely as hot fudge sauce and vanilla ice cream, Halliburton and stealing/overbilling, Cheney and nasty secrets, government and crime, not to mention Republican "Christian moralists and kinky prostitutes. So why should this surprise us? Well, except that Bush and his GOP loyalists have refused for 4+ years to properly equip our troops and that just a few weeks ago, they insisted soldiers did NOT need a pay raise and would block any measure to give them one:

President Bush, ratcheting up a fight with Congress over Iraq, accused Democrats on Friday of conducting a political debate on the war while delaying action on money to upgrade equipment and give troops a pay raise.

"It is time to rise above partisanship, stand behind our troops in the field, and give them everything they need to succeed," Bush said in the Rose Garden after meeting with veterans and military families.

Bush spoke two days after Senate Republicans thwarted a Democratic proposal to pull out troops from Iraq. Bush said that instead of approving money for the war, "the Democratic leaders chose to have a political debate on a precipitous withdrawal of our troops from Iraq."

Despite Bush's suggestion that the bill is a must-pass measure that would pay for critical war programs, the legislation is not an appropriations bill that feeds military spending accounts. Called the defense authorization bill, the legislation is a policy measure used by Congress to influence the management of major defense programs, set goals and guide the 2008 military spending bill.

Flag Day - Don't Wave It, SAVE It

I've grown to have mixed feelings about Flag Day (today) because it always seems like all the wrong people wave the American flag and proclaim it as their own and then deny its "rightful" ownership by those more committed to the ideals on which this country was founded. HOWEVER...

Today, perhaps we ALL need to commit at least ONE act to restore the fundamental principles for which we love our country which provides the underlying value which the American flag symbolizes. If all this flag symbolizes is greed and hypocrisy and exclusionism and brutality, then the flag means nothing at all. So we must make our flag symbolize what it should, rather than what the Bushies and the rest have done to shat upon our land.

Write or call your Congress critters and tell them you're sick of having them in thrall to the Bush Right Wing. Stand up for universal health care or Immigration Reform (our founding fathers did NOT limit who could come) or the homeless or the poor (and remember, many of the homeless today HAVE a job; but one - or two or three - job in many sectors does NOT always guarantee Americans a place they can live).

Stand up today. Don't wave the flag until you've done your very best to try to ensure a change for the better, back to the basics of what our founding fathers (and the women who sacrificed behind them) envisioned. Take our country back for you, your family, and for every other American already here or to be born or to immigrate here.

And if you're smart - and I bet you are - you won't stop at just Flag Day. Do your best again tomorrow, and the weekend, and Monday, and... you get my drift.

Bush Flips His Middle Finger Yet Again

Today, Bush is throwing a (yet another) temper tantrum, reminding the American people and their duly elected representatives on Capitol Hill, smirking at the planned no confidence vote today on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a man not even other Republicans can continue to defend.

I could be tacky and suggest the Bush Twins give their daddy a big bag of chunky pretzels for Father's Day next Sunday. But I won't.

The National Disgrace Called Gitmo

We have committed at least as great atrocities against others - many of them just as innocent as so many who died on September 11th, 2001 - in the name of the national security we not only didn't have then but have even less of today. That we operate anything like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, or many other politically-oriented prisons like those Jose Padilla is held in as well as the countless "secret" prisons throughout the world does more than endanger us; it betrays absolutely everything that this country and we, its people, are supposed to stand for.

From The New York Times Op/Ed page Wednesday (June 6, 2007):

Ever since President Bush rammed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 through Congress to lend a pretense of legality to his detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, we have urged Congress to amend the law to restore basic human rights and judicial process. Rulings by military judges this week suggest that the special detention system is so fundamentally corrupt that the only solution is to tear it down and start again.

The target of the judges’ rulings were Combatant Status Review Tribunals, panels that determine whether a prisoner is an “unlawful enemy combatant” who can be tried by one of the commissions created by the 2006 law. The tribunals are, in fact, kangaroo courts that give the inmates no chance to defend themselves, allow evidence that was obtained through torture and can be repeated until one produces the answer the Pentagon wants.

On Monday, two military judges dismissed separate war crimes charges against two Guantánamo inmates because of the status review system. They said the Pentagon managed to get them declared “enemy combatants,” but not “unlawful enemy combatants,” and moved to try them anyway under the 2006 law. That law says only unlawful combatants may be tried by military commissions. Lawful combatants (those who wear uniforms and carry weapons openly) fall under the Geneva Conventions.

If the administration loses an appeal, which it certainly should, it will no doubt try to tinker with the review tribunals so they produce the desired verdict. Congress cannot allow that. When you can’t win a bet with loaded dice, something is wrong with the game.

There is only one path likely to lead to a result that would allow Americans to once again hold their heads high when it comes to justice and human rights. First, Congress needs to restore the right of the inmates of Guantánamo Bay to challenge their detentions. By the administration’s own count, only a small minority of the inmates actually deserve a trial. The rest should be sent home or set free.

Read the rest here (no subscription required).

Frank Rich: "Failed Presidents Ain't What They Used To Be"

Finally! Someone has found a way to make the American public better appreciate Richard M. Nixon: by comparing him to the far, far, F-A-R more corrupt, destructive, and treasonous George W. Bush (the 2nd). Read all of Frank Rich here, but let me start you:

A few weeks ago I did something I never expected to do in my life. I shed a tear for Richard Milhous Nixon.

That’s in no small measure a tribute to Frank Langella, who should win a Tony Award for his star Broadway turn in “Frost/Nixon” next Sunday while everyone else is paying final respects to Tony Soprano. “Frost/Nixon,” a fictionalized treatment of the disgraced former president’s 1977 television interviews with David Frost, does not whitewash Nixon’s record. But Mr. Langella unearths humanity and pathos in the old scoundrel eking out his exile in San Clemente. For anyone who ever hated Nixon, this achievement is so shocking that it’s hard to resist a thought experiment the moment you’ve left the theater: will it someday be possible to feel a pang of sympathy for George W. Bush?

Perhaps not. It’s hard to pity someone who, to me anyway, is too slight to hate. Unlike Nixon, President Bush is less an overreaching Machiavelli than an epic blunderer surrounded by Machiavellis. He lacks the crucial element of acute self-awareness that gave Nixon his tragic depth. Nixon came from nothing, loathed himself and was all too keenly aware when he was up to dirty tricks. Mr. Bush has a charmed biography, is full of himself and is far too blinded by self-righteousness to even fleetingly recognize the havoc he’s inflicted at home and abroad. Though historians may judge him a worse president than Nixon — some already have — at the personal level his is not a grand Shakespearean failure. It would be a waste of Frank Langella’s talent to play George W. Bush (though not, necessarily, of Matthew McConaughey’s).

This is in part why persistent cries for impeachment have gone nowhere in the Democratic Party hierarchy. Arguably the most accurate gut check on what the country feels about Mr. Bush was a January Newsweek poll finding that a sizable American majority just wished that his “presidency was over.” This flat-lining administration inspires contempt and dismay more than the deep-seated, long-term revulsion whipped up by Nixon; voters just can’t wait for Mr. Bush to leave Washington so that someone, anyone, can turn the page and start rectifying the damage. Yet if he lacks Nixon’s larger-than-life villainy, he will nonetheless leave Americans feeling much the way they did after Nixon fled: in a state of anger about the state of the nation.

The rage is already omnipresent, and it’s bipartisan. The last New York Times/CBS News poll found that a whopping 72 percent of Americans felt their country was “seriously off on the wrong track,” the highest figure since that question was first asked, in 1983. Equally revealing (and bipartisan) is the hypertension of the parties’ two angry bases. Democrats and Republicans alike are engaged in internecine battles that seem to be escalating in vitriol by the hour.

On the Democratic side, the left is furious at the new Congress’s failure to instantly fulfill its November mandate to end the war in Iraq. After it sent Mr. Bush a war-spending bill stripped of troop-withdrawal deadlines 10 days ago, the cries of betrayal were shrill, and not just from bloggers. John Edwards, once one of the more bellicose Democratic cheerleaders for the war (“I believe that the risk of inaction is far greater than the risk of action,” he thundered on the Senate floor in September 2002), is now equally bellicose toward his former colleagues. He chastises them for not sending the president the same withdrawal bill he vetoed “again and again” so that Mr. Bush would be forced to realize “he has no choice” but to end the war. It’s not exactly clear how a legislative Groundhog Day could accomplish this feat when the president’s obstinacy knows no bounds and the Democrats’ lack of a veto-proof Congressional majority poses no threat to his truculence.

Among Republicans the right’s revolt against the Bush-endorsed immigration bill is also in temper-tantrum territory, moving from rational debate about complex policy questions to plain old nativism, reminiscent of the 19th-century Know-Nothings. Even the G.O.P. base’s traditional gripes — knee-jerk wailing about the “tragedy” of Mary Cheney’s baby — can’t be heard above the din.

“White America is in flight” is how Pat Buchanan sounds the immigration alarm. “All they have to do is go to Bank of Amigo and pay the fine with a credit card” is how Rush Limbaugh mocks the bill’s punitive measures for illegal immigrants. Bill O’Reilly, while “reluctantly” supporting Mr. Bush’s plan, illustrates how immigration is “drastically” altering the country by pointing out that America is “now one-third minority.” (Do Jews make the cut?) The rupture is so deep that National Review, a fierce opponent of the bill, is challenging its usual conservative ally, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, to a debate that sounds more like “Fight Club.”

What the angriest proselytizers on the left and right have in common is a conviction that their political parties will commit hara-kiri if they don’t adhere to their bases’ strict ideological orders. “If Democrats do not stick to their guns on Iraq,” a blogger at TalkLeft.com warns, there will be “serious political consequences in 2008.” In an echo of his ideological opposite, Mr. Limbaugh labels the immigration bill the “Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act.”

For the rest.

Jack Murtha: American Military Leaders Have Lost His Confidence

Mind you, while the right loves to treat any criticism of its leaders with CentCom and elsewhere among the Pentagonians as "speaking ill of our soldiers", this is just not the case. Americans as a whole and Democrats specifically have made it abundantly clear that, by and large, they see Bush and the Pentagon having let down our soldiers, rather than the reverse. From Matt at Think Progress:

lOn ABC’s This Week today, host George Stephanopoulos asked Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) about whether Congress would “move again to get a timetable for withdrawal in September if the benchmarks aren’t met, even if General Petraeus…comes to Congress in September and says he needs more time.” “He has an awful lot of credibility,” he added.

Murtha quickly disputed Stephanopoulos’s premise. “George, let me tell you, I’ve lost a lot of confidence in many of the military leaders. Because they say what the White house wants them to say,” said Murtha. Asked if he included Petraeus in his lack of confidence, Murtha added, “I’m waiting to see what he has to say. But I am absolutely convinced there has been this overly optimistic picture of what’s going on in Iraq, while the figures show the opposite.” [...]

Unfortunately, Murtha is right. Petraeus, and other military officers, have a history of supporting the administration line, despite the facts on the ground.
In April, while Congress was preparing to vote on its Iraq timeline legislation, the administration brought Petraeus back to the United States from Iraq for a rare visit, which Murtha slammed as “purely a political move.” Petraeus has allowed himself to be used as a “political prop” to support the White House’s war czar nominee. He has also echoed Bush’s line that al Qaeda, not sectarian civil war, is the greatest threat in Iraq — an assessment that contradicts the intelligence. l

Unfair! Fat Old White Republican Men Don't Always Control Everything

As Alec points out in comments here as well as on his blog (Prose Before Hos), it's a dark and pathetic day when fat old white (almost invariably Republican, I may add) men don't get 103% of all the fatcat positions and money and favors and law-making and... well, read for yourself:

Oh no! Old rich white males are being oppressed again! Sound the alarms!

Males - As of the 2006 congress, 83.7% of the Congress is male, while the percentage of males of the voting age population (18 plus) is only 48.4. If this is further evaluated to include the over-representation of white males, the figure is even more staggering: 36.3% of the voting age population are white males, yet there are 79 White Male senators making up the Senate (79%).

Blah3: "One Less Liar"

From Stranger at Blah3 regarding another Bush loyalist biting the dust. Sadly, however, the Bushies always have more liars to come to their aid.

You gotta wonder why a hard-core Kool Aid drinker like Bartlett is jumping ship.

Dan Bartlett, one of President Bush's most trusted advisers and his longest-serving aide, said Friday he is resigning to begin a career outside of government.

[...] As counselor to the president, Bartlett has been at the center of White House decision-making, stepping into the public eye in times of trouble to defend Bush on everything from the unpopular war in Iraq to the government's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina and the Republicans' loss of Congress.

I guess even a world-class prevaricator like Bartlett has limits when it comes to defending the indefensible.

Indeed!

Vermont Impeachment Movement Showing Its Cracks?

As even semi-regulars here know, I'm way beyond wanting Bush and Company impeached. After all, their crimes LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY crossed the threshold of treasonous acts and they're still racing to do far worse!

After reading this by Odum, who runs the Daily Kos-Vermont version Green Mountain Daily, I'm worried about the impeachment efforts myself. However, as Anon tells us here in Comments, all hope is not lost (600 more days of Bush, God help us all). Namely:

Hi. Yes, there is something that can be done. Two links VT/Odum at GMD may be interested in: When impeachment is not an option/off the table, a sitting President may be prosecuted outside Congress, outside impeachment.

1. Blogswarm: Visit these links, and let others know Bush can be prosecuted outside impeachment/Congress:http://www.haloscan.com/
   comments...a=13945#2389359
2. Commentary/discussion at the end of this blog thread [See the links in the end-comments/blog responses]:http://indictdickcheney.blogspot...comey-
   only.html

If the State/Federal legislators refuse to act -- as they have done with the House Rule 603/impeachment proclamations -- any one of the State Attorney Generals or District Attorneys may prosecute a sitting President. Congress and the states legislators have had their chance, and refused. Prosecution is the only option and remains on the table.

Cindy Sheehan: "Good Riddance, Attention Whore"

If you haven't yet heard, Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a son named Casey who went to Iraq for Bush and became one of fast-rising statistics of U.S. soldiers dead, is stepping down as the "face" and voice of the anti-war movement. While she's tired after years of fighting to stop our fighting, however, Cindy isn't just tired, she's angry.

Buzzflash offers the guest contribution she made for Memorial Day; I encourage you to read it. I think it raised some questions for me. If you have the same reaction, please share in comments here.

Meanwhile, I want to thank Cindy for all she did. This woman had already gone through hell when she decided to stand up and it only got tougher the more she was willing to exercise courage and standards our elected officials rarely do. Remember too that there are many other mothers (and friends and other family members) speaking up and out.

Paul Krugman: "Trust and Betrayal"

Apt. Very apt. Read it all here.

“In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war.” That’s what President Bush said last year, in a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

Those were fine words, spoken by a man with less right to say them than any president in our nation’s history. For Mr. Bush took us to war not with reluctance, but with unseemly eagerness.

Now that war has turned into an epic disaster, in part because the war’s architects, whom we now know were warned about the risks, didn’t want to hear about them. Yet Congress seems powerless to stop it. How did it all go so wrong?

Future historians will shake their heads over how easily America was misled into war. The warning signs, the indications that we had a rogue administration determined to use 9/11 as an excuse for war, were there, for those willing to see them, right from the beginning — even before Mr. Bush began explicitly pushing for war with Iraq.

In fact, the very first time Mr. Bush declared a war on terror that “will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,” people should have realized that he was going to use the terrorist attack to justify anything and everything.

When he used his first post-attack State of the Union to denounce an “axis of evil” consisting of three countries that had nothing to do either with 9/11 or with each other, alarm bells should have gone off.

But the nation, brought together in grief and anger over the attack, wanted to trust the man occupying the White House. And so it took a long time before Americans were willing to admit to themselves just how thoroughly their trust had been betrayed.

[...]Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.

When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.

And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.

But they aren’t, at least not yet. And until belligerent, uninformed posturing starts being treated with the contempt it deserves, men who know nothing of the cost of war will keep sending other people’s children to graves at Arlington.

Rest is here.

On Bush's Iraq War Second Blank Check; How They Voted

David Sirota updates us on the House Dem vote and proposed filibuster on the latest Bush demand for a blank check in Iraq (see here for the earlier post and keep reading to hear how opinion polls - notably the latest New York Times/CBS News poll - tell us this war is now more unpopular with Americans than at ANY time in its four-plus year combat history).

To update my post earlier today, House Democrats passed the key rule vote by a vote of 218-201. This is the most important vote on Iraq since the authorization in 2002, because it deliberately sets the stage to give president Bush a blank check for the Iraq War. The Roll Call vote can be found [here].

Those Democrats with the courage to vote no were: Waters Harman, Clay, Moore (WI),McNerney, Kucinich and Stark. Democrats not voting were Cardoza, DeGette, Engel, Gutierrez, Jones (OH), Lewis (GA), Oberstar and Shea-Porter. House Democrats are expected to be delivering speeches later tonight claiming they actually oppose giving Bush a blank check because they are expected to vote against a Republican amendment. But as noted earlier today, this is an obvious effort to confuse the public. The rule vote that most Democrats voted for was the key vote in that it deliberately set up the situation whereby Republicans could pass their blank check amendment.

In other news, Sens. Kerry and Leahy are the latest Senate Democrats to issue statements saying they will vote against the blank check in the Senate, but to date not a single senator has indicated they will filibuster. This all happened just as the New York Times put a story on its website announcing that "Americans now view the war in Iraq more negatively than at any time since the war began, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll."