Maybe the residents of Washington, D.C., are lucky they can't elect a representative to Congress. After all, the Capitol is right there, directly under their noses. Giving them the vote would be like sending blood sausages to the neighbors of a meat-packing plant.

Last week I pointed out the lack of Hispanic support for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and a great many readers argued Gonzales surrendered his benefits as a Latino when he became a Republican -- in the same way Condoleezza Rice ceased being black, in many eyes, when she curled up in George W. Bush's lap.

President Bush, meanwhile, supports [Gone-zales] unconditionally, under what we can fairly dub "The Bush Doctrine," which, stated succinctly, is: It isn't a mistake if you don't admit it.

   The impeachment threat is real, argues The Nation's John Nichols, as shown by talk show pundits who have begun to discuss it seriously.

    "Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough had me on his MSNBC show Monday night to talk about impeachment," Nichols writes. "It was smart, civil discussion that treated the prospect of impeaching the president as a serious matter."

    "No, Scarborough is not jumping on the impeachment bandwagon," Nichols adds. "He is simply treating the prospect seriously, as did CNN's Wolf Blitzer earlier in the day."

    According to Nichols, "We are nearing an impeachment moment."

    "The Alberto Gonzales scandal, the under-covered but very real controversy involving abuses of the Patriot Act and the president's increasingly belligerent refusals to treat Congress as a co-equal branch of government are putting the discussion of presidential accountability onto the table from which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tried to remove it," Nichols writes.

BBC News: Rumsfeld torture suit dismissed

The nine men suffered abuse including being:

hung upside-down and slapped until they lost consciousness
stabbed with knives
subjected to electric shocks
deprived of sleep by loud noises and bright lights
grabbed by aggressive dogs

They also were subjected to sexual humiliation.

None was ever charged with a crime.

?

.....................
The planet's getting hotter, ecosystems are going haywire, government scientists know it -- and still the president denies there's a problem. Guess which industry continues to fuel his campaign?

"You're talking about a president who says that the jury is out on evolution, so what possible evidence would you need to muster to prove the existence of global warming?" says Robert F. Kennedy Jr., author of the new book "Crimes Against Nature."  "We've got polar ice caps melting, glaciers disappearing all over the world, ocean levels rising, coral reefs dying. But these people are flat-earthers."

In fact, Bush's see-no-evil, hear-no-evil stance on global warming is so intractable that even when his own administration's scientists weigh in on the issue, he simply won't hear of it.
...
"Since the first time President Bush has marginally said global warming could be real, he has delayed, denied or tried to derail any advancements to address it," says Betsy Loyless, vice president for policy for the League of Conservation Voters,  which has endorsed John Kerry for president in 2004.

The Bush administration has refused to allow climate experts to even participate in climate policy discussions, asserts Rosina Bierbaum, a former director of the White House science office. Rather than consult with its own scientific advisors when devising a strategy on climate change, the White House constructed a plan primarily from conversations with the National Economic Counsel.

"I wasn't asked anything," says Bierbaum, now dean of the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment. "In fact, I was told to stop sending weekly science updates to the White House, as had been the tradition with the previous administration."

It's nice to know that the victory over an emotional state will be finally won just in time for the next election.

There is a recent thread in another blog in which John McCain's recent erratic behavior is ascribed to PTSD.  Not to unseemly ambition, not to deterioration of his mental faculties from age, not to some undiagnosed mental failings but to his brutal treatment in captivity as a POW long ago.

Haven't we veterans done enough that we can not only get the Rove treatment from the Bushies but serve again as cannon fodder for lefties and not-so-lefty Democrats?

Many interesting threads here but it is not overly pleasant to have ad hominems replace reasoned discussion.

Take care, BTD.  I am out of here.  Keep up the good work.

....we have a President with a sustainable home that's off-grid, features geothermal cooling and heating, passive solar, and a grey water system.
....The Bushes installed a geothermal heating and cooling system, which uses about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and air-conditioning systems consume. Several holes were drilled 300 feet deep, where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees...

Now you would think that an environmental group would shower some compliments on someone who is "walking the walk" as compared to Algore who just wants to tell us what to do. I mean wouldn't you??

Guess again my Leftie buds...

(Did Bush design it) Probably not. In fact, I'm going to bet it was not Bush who designated these eco-friendly additions but rather an architect.

An attorney for Monica Goodling says she will cite her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

Goodling was involved in an April Sixth, 2006, phone call between the Justice Department and New Mexico Republican Senator Pete Domenici.

In an act of big-time face-saving, George W. Bush today withdrew the nomination of major Swift-Boat donor Sam Fox, a wealthy St. Louis businessman and GOP benefactor, to be the new U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. Fox's nomination was in trouble based on a $50,000 donation he made to the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to help them smear John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race.