In today’s Washington Post, Arlen Specter defends his flawed deal with the White House over its warrantless surveillance program. His main point:
Critics complain that the bill acknowledges the president’s inherent Article II power and does not insist on FISA’s being the exclusive procedure for the authorization of wiretapping. They are wrong. The president’s constitutional power [...]

Want to know what I think about the current conflict in the Middle East? Go over to NeoMugwump.

So why should you care?
Read on…
The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts of their fortunes to their [...]

By 10 points in the latest Rasmussen Reports poll.
More at Political Wire.

See more here.

It is not unexpected, but it certainly is disheartening that we’ve abandoned the Afghani people so thoroughly.
From Lieutenant General David Richards comes a dose of needed reality:
The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan today described the situation in the country as “close to anarchy” with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding [...]

Bush’s first veto as POTUS will keep the “culture of life” crowd happy, millions of cells safe and will prevent other ontold millions from realizing a better life.
From MSNBC:
WASHINGTON – The House on Wednesday failed to muster enough votes to override President Bush’s veto of a bill to expand federally funded embryonic stem cell research.
Backers [...]

US says Iranians witnessed N.Korea missile test
“(Reuters) – One or more Iranians witnessed North Korea’s recent missile tests, deepening U.S. concerns about growing ties between two countries with troubling nuclear capabilities, a top U.S. official said on Thursday.
Asked at a U.S. Senate hearing about reports that Iranians witnessed the July 4 tests, Assistant Secretary of [...]

I haven’t written about the Hezbollah-Israeli-Iranian-Syrian war (HIIS? Straining too much for an acronym?) because there hasn’t been much to say.
Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, a tool of Iran and Syria. Hezbollah itself, Iran and Syria are enemies of the United States. They are bad people doing bad things and hoping to do more bad [...]

Presidential hopeful Senator John McCain recently spoke at the Manhattan Institute and outlined his positions on major issues in an off the cuff Q&A session after his speech. Below is a heavily edited summary of his positions taken from an article in The New York Sun.
Evolution
He noted that he didn’t say that intelligent design [...]

Ralph Reed has done much for the Republicans, but eventually his ghosts came back to haunt him…
From TIME:
As a political operative Ralph Reed had a golden touch. Four years ago in Georgia, as chair of the Republican Party, he orchestrated the first GOP sweep of state government in 100 years, helping to knock out [...]

Jeezus, it’s been quite a stupid ride!
Well, the site is back up and let us continue on. I’m trying to find a new hosting company to make sure we’re up all the time, 24/7/365.
I appreciate your patience.
Again…thank you and keep commenting.

No president can sell his countrymen that war is peace. But indeed, that seems to have been the case all along, starting in 1945. Except this time the war is hot, not cold. Maintaining the duplicity of normalcy at home while war rages abroad is stretching, and thinning.

With the war in Israel and Lebanon raging and the violence in Iraq unceasing, the crises of our times seem only to be worsening. All the while our media and political leaders wallow in superficiality and insincerity. Times are not great, but are we on the brink? Is our way of life, our world on [...]

I was rather surprised to find this two page article in last week’s Washington Post:
“Advocates who say black Americans should be compensated for slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath are quietly chalking up victories and gaining momentum.
“Fueled by the work of scholars and lawyers, their campaign has morphed in recent years from a fringe-group [...]

First this…
WASHINGTON, July 16 � The Bush administration says it plans sweeping changes in Medicare payments to hospitals that could cut payments by 20 percent to 30 percent for many complex treatments and new technologies.
[...]
Medicare pays more than $125 billion a year to nearly 5,000 hospitals. The new plan is not expected to save money, [...]

The Sunnis in Iraq are urging the U.S. to stick around for a while longer. The reason? Because things are progressing so smoothly in Iraq.
From the NY Times:
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 16 � As sectarian violence soars, many Sunni Arab political and religious leaders once staunchly opposed to the American presence here are now saying [...]

The prevailing opinion is that the Middle East is a very complex and complicated region rife with centuries of sectarian, tribal, cultural, and religious differences. I agree with that characterization with regards to attempting to summarize the area historically. As to the current problems that have spiraled into a near full scale regional war, I’m [...]

I missed this story when it first appeared a few days ago, amidst all the winds and fogs of war, so maybe you did too:
Producing biofuels such as ethanol from food crops isn’t worth the effort. That’s the conclusion of a new and painstaking study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy [...]

In what may prove to be a truly colossal lapse of judgment Justin Gardner has decided to allow me the privilege of annoying you contributing to Donklephant.
I’m Dyre42 single father, Texan, jack of all trades, geek, and political independent. I normally blog at Dyre Portents where I cover topics such as campaign finance [...]