Big game tonight for the Eers!
Important Piece of Trivia About Your Host: I was recently (an hour ago) caught singing along to Huey Lewis in the grocery store. I have no shame.
by John Cole| 17 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance, Sports
Big game tonight for the Eers!
Important Piece of Trivia About Your Host: I was recently (an hour ago) caught singing along to Huey Lewis in the grocery store. I have no shame.
by Tim F| 31 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, War
Everybody knows that Republicans care terribly deeply about American kids fighting and dying in Iraq and would never, ever consider putting their political interests ahead of the brave young men whom they sent to war. That is why the following stories seem so jarringly strange.
One, via Josh Marshall:
For three months now, Sanchez has been making off-the-record statements. He eventually came to the conclusion, he says, that Republican politics had trumped the national security interests of the United States in the execution of plans in Iraq. The Bush Administration had not planned to win in Iraq, but simply to keep a war running so Bush could run around and play “war president.” That is as devastating a criticism as any general has made of a president since the days of Douglas MacArthur.
Second, from Kevin Drum:
Democrats understand the negative consequences of moving too quickly to reverse Bush’s Iraq policy [he said]. The official noted that in the wake of Vietnam, anti-war Democrats “suffered for 20-some-odd years because they were identified as the party, when it came to national security, of being weak.”
….”One of two things will happen if a Democrat gets elected president,” he said. “They will either have to withdraw U.S. troops in order to remain true to the rhetoric — in which case, any consequences in the aftermath fall on their heads. Or they have to break their word, in which case they encourage fratricide on the left of their party. Now that’s a thorny issue to work through.”
Third, via Atrios:
A small group of Republicans facing election fights next year have rallied around war legislation they think could unite the GOP: a call for an end to U.S. combat in Iraq, but not until President Bush is out of office.
The legislation was deemed essentially a nonstarter by Democrats Friday and underscored the difficulty Congress has in striking a bipartisan compromise on war policy.
One of those mean awful liberal types might see a pattern emerging.
This post is in: Media, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, General Stupidity
by Tim F| 18 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Another batch of Sergeant Schutzes uncovered, this time at the FDA.
In a report due to be released Friday, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, Daniel R. Levinson, said federal health officials did not know how many clinical trials were being conducted, audited fewer than 1 percent of the testing sites and, on the rare occasions when inspectors did appear, generally showed up long after the tests had been completed.
The F.D.A. has 200 inspectors, some of whom audit clinical trials part time, to police an estimated 350,000 testing sites. Even when those inspectors found serious problems in human trials, top drug officials in Washington downgraded their findings 68 percent of the time, the report found. Among the remaining cases, the agency almost never followed up with inspections to determine whether the corrective actions that the agency demanded had occurred, the report found.
“In many ways, rats and mice get greater protection as research subjects in the United States than do humans,” said Arthur L. Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Charming. I suppose the next administration will have the pleasant job of figuring out how many recently-approved drugs don’t work or have ridiculously dangerous side effects. But look on the bright side! The brouhaha that follows could put more trial lawyers’ kids through college than asbestos.
by John Cole| 46 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Politics, General Stupidity
Imagine how amused I am watching Captain Ed and alleged libertarian McQ get upset about this story:
Starting today, state Department of Revenue agents will begin stopping Tennessee motorists spotted buying large quantities of cigarettes in border states, then charging them with a crime and, in some cases, seizing their cars.
Critics say the new “cigarette surveillance program” amounts to the use of “police state” tactics and wrongfully interferes with interstate commerce. But state Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr says his department is simply doing its job, enforcing a valid state law while protecting Tennessee retailers who properly pay state taxes.
Agents have already been watching out-of-state stores that sell cigarettes near the Tennessee border to “get a feel where problem areas are,” Farr said.
I don’t understand why this is such a big deal- after all, you guys allow the state to do anything when they are trying to protect us, and the guy clearly says he is doing just that.
After all- if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about! AMIRITE?
by Tim F| 55 Comments
This post is in: Assholes, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
Facing a contracting embarrassment of abu Ghraib proportions, the State Department needs a credible oversight team now more than ever. Too bad for them the current Inspector General, Howard J. Krongard, already pulled up the drawbridge against accusations of fraud, corruption, mismanagement and (not kidding) slavery. An article in today’s WaPo covers that ground again, but in a shocking twist the reporters uncovered at least one case that IG Krongard does seem to care about:
The son and daughter-in-law of State Department Inspector General Howard J. Krongard have asked a judge to issue a restraining order forcing him to stop sending “unprofessional and highly offensive” e-mails that suggested the family would be put “on the street” if they lost a lawsuit Krongard has filed against them, according to documents filed last week in a New Jersey court.
[…] Krongard filed suit last year against his son, Kenneth W. Krongard, and his daughter-in-law, Kristin, over a home loan that he said they had defaulted on. They paid back the full loan — then totaling about $320,000 — within weeks of his suit being filed.
But Krongard has demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional interest and penalties and a full repayment of his legal fees. One of the exhibits on file in the case show that Krongard has claimed he has already been billed nearly $114,000 in legal fees.
Your Bush administration. Class acts all.
by John Cole| 45 Comments
This post is in: Media, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing
For those of you tantalized by the prospect of a Gingrich Presidential run, Newt will be on Captain Ed’s radio show today. Might be worth a listen.
I can not think of anything that would destroy Republican chances in 2008 more than a Gingrich run.