I'm definitely taking this weekend off -- at least from blogging. But before pushing aside the mouse, let me take a moment to lament the political demise of Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley.
Okay, I know. So he had a penchant for teenage boys. Whatcha gonna do?
But lost in the hub-bub over his resignation is the [...]

This picture is from a torture musem in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. It's a device that was used by the Khmer Rouge, perpetrators of one of the great genocides of modern times.
In the nightmare on earth known as Cambodia, it was called a waterboard.
But the U.S Congress voted on Thursday to change the [...]

I've caught some flak for my posting below about the quickly sinking campaign of California Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides.  In the minds of some, there are apparently some pretty strict -- and rather absurd-- rules of engagement:
1) Criticizing a Democratic candidate who has managed to bore about 40% of the Democrats in the most [...]

I can disagree with Andrew Sullivan on many subjects. But he's become an outstanding voice against legalizing torture:
"How do I put this in words as clearly as possible. If the U.S. government decides, for reasons of its own, that you are an "illegal enemy combatant," i.e. that you are someone who

"has engaged in hostilities or [...]

Thanks to all who have sent good wishes for my father. He's stabilized for the moment but still in precarious condition.
While I have a few free moments, some comments on the news:
The Bush administration took a calculated gamble Tuesday in releasing a tiny portion of the now notorious classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. The [...]

This is going to be ultra-short.
My Dad's in the hospital and that will be taking up my time for the moment. In the meanwhile, I point you to Chris Nolan's spot-on post of a few days ago in which she beat me to the punch in analyzing the current Clinton Blitz.

When you get to be my age the mind plays tricks. Was it deja vu all over again or was it a harrowing visualization of the future? Or maybe it was something I actually saw on cable TV this past weekend.
Doesn't make much difference because the end result was the same: I kept bumping into [...]

Bad news for conservatives...and for America.  After completing their takeover of The Media, appeasement liberals have now apparently commandeered control of  U.S. intelligence agencies. The anti-Bush propaganda now flows freely not only from CNN and CBS but even from within the inner chambers of the U.S. government.
The pro-Saddam Washington Post reveals the full details:

Spy Agencies [...]

I've been vaguely following the comments threads on this blog about the recent coup in Thailand and I find them, frankly, quite alarming. With what dispatch some who enjoy all the comforts and privileges of "bourgeois democracy" are willing to dispense with them for others!
I think there's a pretty simple and self-evident rule of [...]

I've been in Tucson covering one of the top five races for control of the House: the battle to replace retiring moderate Republican Jim Kolbe.
I'll have a lot more to say about it in the days to come. But looks like my presence brought some bad luck to the Republican candidate Randy Graf. The national [...]

Blogging from Tucson, Arizona....
I guess if the Leader of the Free World can be a rather laughable character like George W. Bush it is only fitting that the man who pretends to be his global antagonist is himself a cartoon character.
If one ever had doubts that Hugo Chavez is at best an intellectual mediocrity (if [...]

Blogging from the passenger terminal at LAX:
Some have called it an "Alamo strategy." The editor of the L.A. Times, Dean Baquet, has boldly drawn a line in the sand against his own employers, saying he refuses to make $10 million in cuts being demanded by the Tribune Company.
The general public may shrug it [...]

Those good-for-nothing Syrians.  Supporters of the Iraqi insurgents. Funders of Hamas. Backers of Hezbollah. So despicable that we refuse to have anything to do with them. Won't even talk to them.
Unless, that is, we want them to torture somebody for us.
We've known about "extraordinary rendition" -- the outsourcing of torture  by the Bush administration to [...]

Beyond the fulminations and whimpers of the Bushies over a biased media, it seems that if anything the American press has been too polite in describing the catastophe underway in Iraq.
Check out this hair-raising piece  in Editor and Publisher based on a talk by veteran NYTimes war reporter Dexter Filkins who says that the anarchy [...]

Yup.. I know about the current blog glitches. We're making some alterations and transfers and things may be weird for a couple of days. Sorry.

“This whole issue is going to send a signal about who America is in 2006.”

Good for Republican Senator Lindsay Graham who said these words Thursday in underlining his opposition to the Bush Administration's proposed scrapping of the Geneva Conventions outlawing torture. I've always liked Graham, finding him to be one of the quirkiest and [...]

Kudos to my daughter, Natasha, who can take credit for successfully helping to lead a union campaign at five California hospitals owned by the Frist family's HCA.
After months of organizing, an overhwhelming strike vote, and fifteen days of non-stop bargaining, the union won a breakthrough contract this week -- as much as a 40% wage [...]

The raspy-tongued former Democratic Governor (1991-1994) of Texas, Ann Richards, has died at age 73. I suppose Richards will forever be remembered for her sassy public razzing of Bush 41 at the 1988 Democratic National Convention when she said:"Poor George, he can't help it ... He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
Poppy [...]

Pat Buchanan is arguing that if Al Gore would only enter the Democratic primaries, he would crush Hillary Clinton. I dunno about that. There's seems to be some congenital debilities among Dems, given that Ms. Clinton swept 86% of the NY Senate primary vote Tuesday nite even though there was a bona fide, liberal anti-war [...]

The putrid stink of death hung all over the PR-electoral pronouncements of the Bush administration of the last few days. No escaping the pungent, throat-cloying odor of a White House mired in its own political and moral rot. And add to that the stench of the 3000 cadavers of 9/11 once again excavated and flayed [...]