Sure, there’s the intellecutal cost, but what are the real hard costs for John and Jane Q Taxpayer. Brandweek has more about Bush’s PR machine: DALLAS — The Bush administration spent $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars on 137 contracts with advertising agencies over the past two-and-a-half years, according to a Government Accountability Office report released [...]

When the ACLU was calling for the government to release the Abu Ghraib photos last August, I said this: Frankly, my reasoning for this is simple. Get it out of the way now, and you won’t have to deal with it down the line. This information will have to come out eventually, and there is [...]

The Cheney shooting story has gotten out of control. I’m not one to bash the mainstream media as I think most newsmen and women do an admirable job in what is a tough career, but this is ridiculous. So it took 18 hours for the White House to tell the press corps about the shooting? [...]

This is odd. That’s the Pennsylvania Supreme Court up there. They’re posing in the Capitol Building courtroom in Harrisburg. The photo is printed in a brochure titled “The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania,” which is released by the court. They’re posing in front of the big mural called “The Decalogue – Hebrew Idea of Revealed Law,” [...]

Here’s some interesting figures on the popularity of leading presidential candidates as supplied by Dick Morris by way of Fox News. The first number is a candidate’s favorable rating within his or her own party. The second is the favorable rating amongst Independents. The third number is the percentage gap between party members and Independents. [...]

So, what strategy tactics are the Democrats using to gain more seats in the upcoming fall election races? Apparently sticking with the tried and true political names and fund raising legacies, at least in the upcoming Ohio Senate race … Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran and popular Democratic candidate in Ohio’s closely watched Senate [...]

Wow. This is inspiring.

“…if Dick Cheney comes out of his hole and shoots an old man in the FACE (!), 6 more weeks of winter.” More jokes here.

I’ll give you one guess… The Secret FISA Court: Rubber Stamping Our Rights By Philip Colangelo Covert Action Quarterly 11-27-00 Seven judges on a secret court have authorized all but one of over 7,500 requests to spy in the name of National Security. They meet in secret, with no published orders, opinions, or public record. [...]

Check it out at The Moderate Voice.

Check it out: February 12, 2006 – During his WonderCon panel, Frank Miller discussed his next graphic novel. Once again, Miller returns to the world of the Batman, this time with Holy Terror, Batman!. Though the title plays with Robin’s classic catchphrase, the book deals with a serious subject. Gotham has been attacked by Al [...]

This is a fantastic piece about Michael’s adventures in Kurdistan. Erbil’s tiny international airport – with its tiny little customs booth and its tiny little luggage rack – doubles as a military base. Civilian craft only started landing there a few months ago. A kiosk called “Tourist Informationâ€Â? was set up by the main entrance [...]

We have a automatic comment policy here on Donklephant. The spammers won’t read this so I feel safe to talk about this information. So, if you have more than two pointer URLs in your comment, it will be held for moderation. Sorry, but that’s how it goes. It doesn’t mean we think your comment is [...]

This is Valerie Plame. Her identity is well known now, so just in case you haven’t seen her picture….well, there it is. Now it appears as if she was working on the Iran problem back in the day during her outing, and that’s what Raw Story talks about today: The unmasking of covert CIA officer [...]

My original post about Cheney shooting his hunting partner in the FACE (!) was obviously written with tongue firmly planted in cheek, so I posted this pic of Cheney curling his lip. But now I get sent a Wash Post story from Meredith (one of our avid commenters), and it seems as if they posted [...]

Since Cheney shot somebody in the FACE(!) yesterday, I thought this was an appropriate video to share. (thanks Matt)

Hey, if he has the proof that liberal blogs are Stalinistic…let’s see the metrics: DAVID BROOKS: Whoever the Democratic candidate, that is the weakness of the Democratic party, they’ve got the blogs and the netroots who are semi-nuts and they insist on a Stalinist line of discipline. CHRIS MATTHEWS: I love your objectivity. DAVID BROOKS: [...]

This from The Corner on National Review: This story is a very big deal, despite all the mitigating factors — the accident involved a friend, his medical team was right there to help, and all that. Something like this has never happened before, and it is a genuinely disturbing thing to think that the vice [...]

Quite a chess game shaping up in Middle Eastern foreign policy matters, extending beyond Iraq and raising the specter of the Iran of a quarter century ago … Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country’s [...]

Companies implanting chips into their employees? Amazing. An Ohio company has embedded silicon chips in two of its employees – the first known case in which US workers have been “taggedâ€Â? electronically as a way of identifying them. CityWatcher.com, a private video surveillance company, said it was testing the technology as a way of controlling [...]