Have you noticed how many blogs have begun doing snarky punchpost roundups recently? Here at Newshog its a tradition. "Instahoglets - snarking since 2004."
King George held court a couple of days ago with 13 former secretaries of state and defense. The audience consisted of a 40 minute slideshow on how well "staying the course" is going followed by 10 minutes of open questions. Style over substance, that's the Republican way.
Bush told the august assemblage that his administration "can do more than one thing at a time." It's true. He can tell the world that the U.S. economy is doing fine while supporting demise of guaranteed pensions. IBM is the latest to simply drop their scheme, saying "fuck you very much" to the 125,000 hard working employees who trusted them.
Discuss: The corrupt triangle of Republican leadership, lobbyist graft and big business fraud, designed simply to line the pockets of all three, is the direct cause of the failure of the supposedly healthy economy to provide any benefits (in the form of increased wages, job security, benefits or safety at work) to the working and middle classes.
To See Ourselves As Others See Us - catch this op-ed from Pakistan's "The Nation". the United States has initiated more military conflicts and wars than any country in the modern history of human civilisation. Agree or disagree, failure to at least consider the possibility leaves one in the realm of jingoism, not patriotism.
In Iraq, The top American operational commander in Iraq has offered a sober assessment of the hurdles facing a new Iraqi government, voicing concerns that sectarian rivalries and incompetence could cripple major ministries and turn newly American-trained Iraqi security forces into militias for hire. It seems the Iraqi ministeries are not standing up so we can stand down. However, it's difficult to simply bame the Iraqis when Paul Bremer finally admits a lack of planning for the occupation and it's aftermath by the Bush administration.
The Weekly Standard, and all its neocon blogging sycophants, is banging the drum about documents found in Iraq that prove Saddam was aiding terrorists in Sudan and Algeria. They seem to think this is a nail in the coffin of liberal critics of Bush's War but the point about the documents is that they reveal Saddam was not aiding Al Qaida or the Taliban - who were meant to be the main and first enemies. In other words, they actually help prove that the Iraq War was a stupid diversion from the real war.
(P.S. The article puts the number of terrorists trained at about 8,000 - but there's no mention of the 25,000 militants and more Al Qaida trained in Pakistan as a counterweight...figures. Using their own neocon logic, I would still love some rightwinger to explain why nuke-armed-and-exporting, terror-training, own-people-bombing, dictator-run Pakistan wasn't next on the list instead of Iraq if it wasn't about oil.)
Hey, guess what? IAEA inspectors arrived in Tehran last night to supervise Iran's resumption of labratory work on atomic fuel research. The Iranians seem to welcome this and be going for utmost transparency - I guess they don't much want to be bombed - but I will bet you a dime to a dollar that "the narrative" conveniently ignores the evidence and says they are doing things in an underhanded way again.
Washington Post - A report by Congress's research arm concluded yesterday that the administration's justification for the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments. No, really? The legal arguments in favor of Bush's being The Law could only have been arrived at after a three day bender. Ditto the protestations of the Bush cheerleading squad, as Glenn Greenwald shows today.
I hereby dub this administration "The Absolut Monarchy" (with thanks to 2 Political Junkies).
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