Newshog Roundup 3rd Oct.

Another week gone by and another bunch of stuff I wanted to write screeds about but didn't.

As a second indictment hits Tom DeLay - this time its money laundering - the unsurprising news comes that Tom was in deep with the Handblagger of Britain, Maggie T. herself - who is now helping investigators with their enquiries. I am unsurprised because Bush is a retread of Maggie - I keep telling my American friends that to understand George (or Tom) you have to understand how Maggie ripped of the UK.

The Center for Disease Control is under fire. With a worldwide pandemic of avian flu now pretty much certainthe CDC is locking up essential data on flu strains to protect drug company's profits. This bit of corporate-serving BS could kill millions more than FEMA fuck-ups yet the media and bloggers are largly ignoring it.

The Wall Street Journal says Republicans are suffering from power-fatigue and could lose in 2006. That would be nice.

Rudy Giuliani never comes out and says he is running for office until its obvious to everyone he has been running for a while. Joe Gandelman says Rudy is already running for the Republican nomination in 2008.

In Iraq, the Interior Ministers brother is kidnapped and then set free the help of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the Oil Minister survives an assasination attempt, there's only one viable Iraqi battalion and now the Shia-dominated parliament has done the old Scottish Switcheroo on the constitutional referendum, raising the bar to ensure it passes. But Bush thinks the situation is improving...

Just so you feel safe, the US military is back in the anthrax-producing business.

Telecommunications companies spent $56.8 million on political
contributions over six years and a minimum of $77.8 million on lobbying over two years in 2003-2004 in an attempt to curry favor with elected officials in the states.

There is almost no support among the nation's governors for President Bush's suggestion that the Pentagon could take the lead in responding to catastrophic natural disasters, a USA TODAY survey has found. Only two backed the idea: Republicans Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota.

Judith Miller has a book deal. I wonder if it mentions how involved Georgie-boy was in outing Plame?