PRESIDENT BUSH apparently thinks he can dismiss the damning "Downing Street memo" with a few glib words.

If he is right, it is a sad commentary on the state of American democracy and values.

[snip]

...But it is important to note that no one has challenged the authenticity of the memo nor the accuracy of its account of the meeting.

[snip]

There should be no statute of limitations -- or shortness of public attention span -- on an issue that cuts to the core of this government's integrity and credibility. Congress must fully investigate the actions in Washington that led the highest officials in Great Britain to be convinced that the Bush administration was hell-bent on war and working to concoct a rationalization for it.

Democratic National Committee leaders embraced feisty party boss Howard Dean on Saturday and urged him to keep fighting despite a flap over his blunt comments on Republicans.

After a meeting of the DNC's 40-member executive committee at a downtown hotel, members said Dean was doing exactly what they elected him to do -- build the party in all states and aggressively challenge Republicans.

"I hope Governor Dean will remember that he didn't get elected to be a wimp," said DNC member Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a South Carolina state representative. "We have been waiting a long time for someone to stand up for Democrats."

Dean took fire from Republicans and some Democrats earlier this week for a series of recent comments, including calling Republicans "pretty much a white, Christian party" and saying they "never made an honest living in their lives."

Some Democrats in Washington, including party congressional leaders and several potential 2008 White House candidates, distanced themselves from Dean's comments and called them mistakes.

But in a series of interviews DNC members backed the former Vermont governor, known for his fiery rhetoric during his failed 2004 White House run, and said they knew what they were getting when they elected him in February as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

"Howard Dean is going to be much more aggressive, much more outspoken and much more of a risk-taker outside the Beltway than any chairman has been. We knew that," said Alvaro Cifuentes, chairman of the DNC Hispanic caucus.

"We have to get our politics out of Washington. We cannot continue to be held captive by party leaders who I respect but who have to play their own local politics," Cifuentes said, calling congressional Democrats "timid" and the flap over his comments "mostly a Beltway play."

BUILDING THE BASE

Karen Marchioro, a DNC member from Washington state, said she was stunned to see so many congressional Democrats back away from Dean.

"We always defend them, why won't they defend us? And they want us to support them for president?" she asked. "I have no desire to lose, I just think this is the way you win -- you let people know where you stand and you fight."

This morning, House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) unilaterally and arbitrarily shut down committee hearings on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act without comment or issuing a statement. Sensenbrenner gaveled the committee hearings in the middle of witnesses testifying about human and civil rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay, racial profiling of individuals of Middle Eastern descent, prolonged detentions of Americans after September 11th and other abuses.

The suppression of free speech and testimony in the congressional committee in charge of protecting our civil liberties shows the Republican’s power grab has no limits and no decency. The irony was not lost on anyone.

The witnesses appearing before the House Judiciary Committee included, Chip Pitts, Chair of the Board of Amnesty International USA; Dr. James J. Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute; Deborah Pearlstein, Director of the U.S. Law and Security Program “Human Rights First”; and Carlina Tapia Ruano of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The witnesses were called by the indomitable Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) who continues to stand up to the right-wing’s attempt to eviscerate American Constitutional liberties.

“There are few issues that are more important to this Committee or this Congress than the Patriot Act and the war against terror. This not only affects the rights and privacy of every American, but impacts the extent to which our nation is able to hold itself out as a beacon of liberty as we advocate for democracy around the world,” said Congressman Conyers as he opened the committee hearings.

Sixteen provisions in the USA Patriot Act are expiring because Rep. Conyers fought for sunset provisions to keep the erosion of civil liberties from becoming permanent when the Patriot Act was first introduced in the fervor following September 11th. Now the Bush administration is seeking to not only reauthorize but expand the reach and power of the Patriot Act, such as giving the FBI the ability to issue secret wire taps and conduct searches without warrants approved by a federal judge. A policy tantamount to creating a secret police force above the rule of law.

“Rather than making us safer, the abuses and excesses of our war against terrorism are actually tarnishing our nation's reputation and making us less safe,” said Conyers.

[snip]

Sensenbrenner's Soviet-style tactic of gaveling a meeting to end it because he didnt like what he heard about the Bushevik abuses of our civil liberties is a horrifying example of what America faces if the GOP one-party state is given expanded police powers to invade the rights of Americans.

“The governments that are most effective in safeguarding human security are those that operate strictly under the rule of law: that is, under a system in which people are governed by public laws that are set in advance, applied equally in all cases,” said Deborah Pearlstein, Director, U.S. Law and Security Program who was called to testify.

The Bush administration has routinely flouted the rule of law since September 11th claiming the need for broad police powers to protect security and prevent terrorism. But the Bush administration as well as Department of Justice and Homeland Security officials have been routinely discredited and rebuked for their actions. They have repeatedly initiated arrests and invasions of privacy for public relations purposes, only to drop charges later.

In short, many Americans and organizations just don’t trust the Bush administration, and rightly so after a systematic pattern of abuse and erosion of the Constitution. The Busheviks are clearly using the fear of terrorism as a means to consolidate dictatorship like powers.

The House Appropriations Committee gave initial approval to a domestic-spending bill that would terminate scores of government programs and cut more than $1 billion from current funding for the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.

Among the accounts hardest-hit are community-services block grants and health-professions programs important for training minorities in medical fields. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would lose 25% of the government support previously promised for the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, and the Republican-controlled panel is proposing to rescind $124 million that Congress approved in the fall for President Bush's community-college initiative to improve workers' skills.

Altogether, 49 government programs, totaling $2.3 billion in this fiscal year, would be killed. A portion of the savings would be reallocated to fund increases in Title I and Pell Grant programs for needy public-school and college students. But on balance, the Education Department's $56 billion-plus budget is effectively frozen, with only a $117 million increase -- the smallest in many years…. within the Health and Human Services budget, funding for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is increased by $515 million over this year. At the same time, community-services block grants and health-professions programs are cut by more than half for a net savings of $569 million.

There are many problems with American elections, but none more serious than the rise of paperless electronic voting, whose results cannot be trusted. Grass-roots reformers are in the middle of a two-day lobbying blitz on Capitol Hill in support of a House bill that would require that electronic voting machines in federal elections produce voter-verifiable paper records. It is an important measure that should be passed without delay.

Electronic voting has been rolled out nationwide without necessary safeguards. The machines' computers can be programmed to steal votes from one candidate and give them to another. There are also many ways hackers can break in to tamper with the count. Polls show that many Americans do not trust electronic voting in its current form; such doubts are a serious problem in a democracy.

The solution is to require that each machine produce a paper record that can be inspected and verified by the voter. The paper records are then stored, and can be counted after the polls close. If the results on the machine do not match the tally of the paper records, it will be clear that there is a problem.

The states have taken the lead on electronic voting reform. Nineteen states have paper-trail requirements, including major states like California and Ohio. But a federal law is still badly needed. Any state can cast the deciding electoral votes in a presidential election. Voters across the country are entitled to know that the president was elected on machines that can be trusted.

The House resolution, sponsored by Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, would require not only paper trails, but also random audits of the machines' vote counts, and it would ban the use of undisclosed software. The bill, H.R. 550, has 135 co-sponsors, but it needs more support, especially from Republicans.

The lobbying effort that wraps up today - which is supported by groups like Common Cause and the Electronic Frontier Foundation - is aimed at winning that backing. Every member of Congress who cares about American democracy should get behind Mr. Holt's bill.

"Right now, Lord, all I want is a few Democrats who don't make me feel like ripping off one of my arms and beating myself unconscious with it whenever they open their cowardly whore mouths in public." -- Marion Delgado, in a comment at Steve Gilliard's News Blog

You know, this is really simple: fuck with Howard Dean at your peril.

Joe Biden, who sometimes does the right thing, should realize that his time has passed. Nancy Pelosi tried to get her man Tim Roemer in the DNC job and that blew up in her face. So now, they want to play cut Dean off at the knees.

Remember, people who disagreed strongly with Terry McAuliffe didn't savage him in public. So now the rules have changed?

Atrios has raised $30K in one day in an off election year. It will hit $50K before tomorrow morning. This among people who are wary of the DNC in many cases.

Let me explain something: the Deaniacs are the heart of the party. They're the people doing the legwork and keeping Democracy for America going and are the people who will volunteer for your campaigns. They aren't the only voice, but they need to be respected. Because they are the ones who will be there for you.

If you keep after Dean, the people you need the most will not be there.

And for what?

Because George "I snitched on my boss" Stephanopolous asks a hard question? Because he says Dean is disruptive? Hell some of the same Democrats defended Pat Buchanan as a nice guy.

Look, you guys can all post on TPM Cafe about how the Dems need to listen to you, but the cold, hard fact is that your positions lost. They lost badly. Don't pretend that you have some secret. Tom Coburn is a US Senator. You have no secrets.

"As somebody who is a Christian myself, I don't like it when people use religion to divide, whether that is Republican or Democrat," Obama said. "I think in terms of his role as party spokesman, [Dean] probably needs to be a little more careful and I suspect that is a message he is going to be getting from a number of us," Obama explained.

"We are at a time in our country's history that inclusive language is better than exclusive language,"

About one-third of adults, 35 percent, said they think the country is headed in the right direction, while 43 percent said they approve of the job being done by Bush. Just 41 percent say they support his handling of the war, also a low-water mark.

California retiree Carol Harvie was quick to mention Iraq when asked about how Bush was doing his job.

"I don't think he's read his history enough about different countries and foreign affairs," said Harvie, a political independent who lives near San Diego, a region with several military bases. "Anything they try to do in Iraq has spelled trouble. I think he bit off more than he can chew."

The poll conducted for AP by Ipsos found 45 percent support Bush's foreign policy, down from 52 percent in March.

[snip]

Support for Bush's handling of domestic issues remained in the high 30s and low 40s in the latest AP-Ipsos poll.

Thirty-seven percent support Bush's handling of Social Security, while 59 percent disapprove. Those numbers haven't budged after more than four months of the president traveling the country to sell his plan to create private accounts in Social Security.

Support for his handling of the economy was at 43 percent.

An hour before dawn, the sky still clouded by a dust storm, the soldiers of the Iraqi army's Charlie Company began their mission with a ballad to ousted president Saddam Hussein. "We have lived in humiliation since you left," one sang in Arabic, out of earshot of his U.S. counterparts. "We had hoped to spend our life with you."

But the Iraqi soldiers had no clue where they were going. They shrugged their shoulders when asked what they would do. The U.S. military had billed the mission as pivotal in the Iraqis' progress as a fighting force but had kept the destination and objectives secret out of fear the Iraqis would leak the information to insurgents.

"We can't tell these guys about a lot of this stuff, because we're not really sure who's good and who isn't," said Rick McGovern, a tough-talking 37-year-old platoon sergeant from Hershey, Pa., who heads the military training for Charlie Company.

The reconstruction of Iraq's security forces is the prerequisite for an American withdrawal from Iraq. But as the Bush administration extols the continuing progress of the new Iraqi army, the project in Baiji, a desolate oil town at a strategic crossroads in northern Iraq, demonstrates the immense challenges of building an army from scratch in the middle of a bloody insurgency.

Charlie Company disintegrated once after its commander was killed by a car bomb in December. And members of the unit were threatening to quit en masse this week over complaints that ranged from dismal living conditions to insurgent threats. Across a vast cultural divide, language is just one impediment. Young Iraqi soldiers, ill-equipped and drawn from a disenchanted Sunni Arab minority, say they are not even sure what they are fighting for. They complain bitterly that their American mentors don't respect them.

In fact, the Americans don't: Frustrated U.S. soldiers question the Iraqis' courage, discipline and dedication and wonder whether they will ever be able to fight on their own, much less reach the U.S. military's goal of operating independently by the fall.

"I know the party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period," said 1st Lt. Kenrick Cato, 34, of Long Island, N.Y., the executive officer of McGovern's company, who sold his share in a database firm to join the military full time after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "But from the ground, I can say with certainty they won't be ready before I leave. And I know I'll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four years. And I don't think they'll be ready then."

WHILE REPUBLICAN senators insist on prompt votes for every judicial nominee, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has placed a "hold" on President Bush's nomination of Julie Finley as ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Mrs. Finley is well qualified. Like many ambassadorial appointees, she has been a major Republican fundraiser, but she has also been a strong and active advocate in Washington for the expansion of NATO, the integration of Turkey into the European Union and the spread of democracy to countries of the former Soviet Union. These are issues that would be central in her new post -- and issues that Mr. Brownback also has highlighted. Nevertheless, Mr. Brownback, a possible presidential candidate in 2008, as of last night was employing a parliamentary maneuver to block any Senate vote -- on the grounds that Mrs. Finley is pro-choice on abortion.

The move may please Republican anti abortion activists, who have launched a campaign against Mrs. Finley, demanding that the president withdraw her nomination. But the hold is repugnant, on both procedural and substantive grounds. If a filibuster is at best a controversial way of deciding policy, allowing a single senator to have effective say over whether to hold a vote on a particular presidential appointment would seem completely unacceptable.

More to the point, Mrs. Finley's opinions on abortion, whatever they may be, have nothing whatsoever to do with European security and democracy, peacekeeping in Chechnya, or the enforcement of arms control treaties, the main issues of concern to the OSCE. Mr. Brownback has in the past shared Mrs. Finley's enthusiasm for expanding NATO and promoting democracy in Eastern Europe. That he would slight those ideals and abandon a firm supporter of those causes bodes ill for his potential candidacy and for the next presidential election more generally.

The number of active-duty soldiers getting divorced has been rising sharply with deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.

The trend is severest among officers. Last year, 3,325 Army officers' marriages ended in divorce — up 78% from 2003, the year of the Iraq invasion, and more than 3 1/2 times the number in 2000, before the Afghan operation, Army figures show. For enlisted personnel, the 7,152 divorces last year were 28% more than in 2003 and up 53% from 2000. During that time, the number of soldiers has changed little.

Texas Congressman has introduced a bill that impose a nationwide prohibition on municipally-sponsored networks.
Dubbed by the Author, Representative Pet Sessions (R-Texas), the Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005, the bill prohibits state and local governments from providing any telecommunications or information service that is "substantially similar" to services provided by private companies.

The bill, HR 2726, is similar to a host of state bills pushed by telecommunications companies aimed at fending off municipally-run wireless networks. Some of those bills, most recently one in Texas, have been stalled in state legislatures.

The telecommunications operators say that such networks represent unfair competition while municipalities claim that the services are needed to promote business and close the gap between digital haves and have-nots.

According to Sessions' on-line biography, he is a former employee of Southwestern Bell and Bell Labs. The bill will first be considered by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

For mom Marcia Cobb and her teenage son Axel, the white letters USMC on their caller ID soon spelled, "Don't answer the phone!"

Marine recruiters began a relentless barrage of calls to Axel as soon as the mellow, compliant Sedro-Woolley High School grad had cut his 17th birthday cake. And soon it was nearly impossible to get the seekers of a few good men off the line.

With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said. So, after pleas to "Please stop calling" went unanswered, the family's "do not answer" order ensued.

But warnings and liquid crystal lettering can fade. So, two weeks ago when Marcia was cooking dinner Axel goofed and answered the call. And, faster than you can say "semper fi," an odyssey kicked into action that illustrates just how desperate some of the recruiters we've read about really are to fill severely sagging quotas.

Let what we learned serve as a warning to other moms, dads and teens, the Cobbs now say. Even if your kids actually may want to join the military, if they hope to do it on their own terms, after a deep breath and due consideration, repeat these words after them: "No," "Not now" and "Back off!"

"I've been trained to be pretty friendly. I guess you might even say I'm kind of passive," Axel told me last week, just after his mother and older sister had tracked him to a Seattle testing center and sprung him on a ruse.

The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."

[snip]

The next weekend, when Marcia went to Seattle for the Folklife Festival and Axel was home alone, two recruiters showed up at the door.

Axel repeated the family mantra, but he was feeling frazzled and worn down by then. The sergeant was friendly but, at the same time, aggressively insistent. This time, when Axel said, "Not interested," the sarge turned surly, snapping, "You're making a big (bleeping) mistake!"

Next thing Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car.

"They said we were going somewhere but I didn't know we were going all the way to Seattle," Axel said.

Just a few tests. And so many free opportunities, the recruiters told him.

He could pursue his love of chemistry. He could serve anywhere he chose and leave any time he wanted on an "apathy discharge" if he didn't like it. And he wouldn't have to go to Iraq if he didn't want to.

At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."

Democratic Party boss Howard Dean, under fire for blunt comments about Republicans, refused to back down on Wednesday and said Republican critics were trying to divert attention from their own failures.

Republicans attacked Dean for saying in San Francisco on Monday, when asked about the lack of outreach to minorities by political parties, that Republicans are "pretty much a white, Christian party."

Republicans accused Dean of trying to divide Americans by religion and faith. Rep. Eric Cantor (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia called the comments "Howard Dean's games of division and hate." House Speaker Dennis Hastert's spokesman, Ron Bonjean, said "Dean likes the taste of his own foot."

Even Democrats grumbled about Dean's judgment and choice of words.

But Dean, known for fiery rhetoric during his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign, stuck by his comments during an appearance on NBC's "Today" show.

"It's pretty hard to deny that predominantly that's what the Republican Party looks like. It is a party controlled by the conservative Christian agenda," the former Vermont governor said, adding "I'm a white Christian myself."

He said Republicans were trying to make him the issue so they could dodge a discussion about the Iraq war, proposed changes to Social Security and other controversies.

"We believe that this is a diversion from the issues that really matter: Social Security and adequate jobs opportunities, strong public schools, strong defense where our troops aren't pinned down when we should be doing something about Iran and North Korea, because those are real threats to America," Dean said.

By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians.

[snip]

I do not fault religious people for political action. Since Moses confronted the pharaoh, faithful people have heard God's call to political involvement. Nor has political action been unique to conservative Christians. Religious liberals have been politically active in support of gay rights and against nuclear weapons and the death penalty. In America, everyone has the right to try to influence political issues, regardless of his religious motivations.

The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.

When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of another.

The sheer dishonesty of the Bush administration whenever it speaks about the situation in Iraq was on display again during Bush's Tuesday press conference with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In recent weeks Bush has repeatedly expressed wild optimism, utterly unfounded in reality, about the political process in Iraq and about the ability of the new Iraqi government and army to win the guerrilla war. He has if anything been outdone in this rhetoric by Vice President Dick Cheney. This pie-in-the-sky attitude, which increasingly few believe, degrades our civic discourse, and it endangers the national security of the United States.

With Blair at his side, Bush trotted out his usual talking points on Iraq, speaking of freedom and remarking, "This is the vision chosen by Iraqis in elections in January." Bush added, "We'll support Iraqis as they take the lead in providing their own security. Our strategy is clear: We're training Iraqi forces so they can take the fight to the enemy, so they can defend their country, and then our troops will come home with the honor they have earned." He again trumpeted his alleged policy of spreading democracy in the region as a way of combating the "bitterness and hatred" that "feed the ideology of terror."

It has gotten so that on the subject of Iraq, the way you can tell when Bush is lying is that his mouth is moving.

[snip]

The Bush administration's empty prevarications about the reasons they went to war are matched by their increasingly surreal pronouncements on the situation in Iraq. In an appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live" on Monday, May 30, Cheney said, "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." He went on to insist that America was safer as a result. As has become the Bush administration's modus operandi on a wide variety of subjects, Cheney simply made the assertion, giving no evidence to back it up. In fact, the guerrilla war in Iraq is far more active, professional and effective now than it has ever been. It routinely assassinates important government officials and has killed nearly 900 Iraqis in the past two months. May was as deadly for U.S. troops as last January had been, and it was the worst month ever for casualties among reservists.

[snip]

It is always dangerous to democratic values for there to be such a large gap between what the president maintains and what the people know to be the case. More urgently, the Bush administration's delusional state about the progress of its war suggests that it is incompetent to safeguard the nation's security.

The Family Research Council's executive director, Tony Perkins, reportedly paid former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke over $80,000 for his who's-who-of-racist-America mailing list in 1996. This should be the death of the Family Research Council, one of the religoius right's lead organizations, and the end of Tony Perkins career.

Who on the left is smart enough to plunk down some money to organize the campaign destroying the FRC and their executive director because of his dealings with the Ku Klux Klan?

This was 1996, people. That is well beyond, years beyond, the date that the entire nation knew Duke to be a rabid KKK-loving racist. But our pinnacle of family values, Tony Perkins, had no problem enriching black-hater David Duke to the tune of $82,000. And what's more, Tony Perkins had no problem trying to woo David Duke's avowed racist following.

With the religious right trying to reach out to black folk, and more generally trying to lecture the rest of us on morality, I want to know why Tony Perkins hasn't been forced to resign, or, why the Family Research Council hasn't been ostracized from the entire religious right community.

Bob Knight and the rest of the Concerned Women for America, and the American Family Association and Lou Sheldon and all the rest of you supposed Christians, are you concerned that your good buddy Tony Perkins appears peppered with racism?

Veggie Pizza d'Amber Pawlik:

INGREDIENTS
2 cans of Crescent Rolls
2 8 oz packages softened cream cheese
1 cup Miracle Whip
1 Package of Ranch Dressing Mix (Dry)
2 cups fresh broccoli, cauliflower and carrots
4 oz. Sharp Cheddar Cheese

The first thing you are going to want to do is let the cream cheese soften. I recommend cutting it into little squares to let it soften quicker. Then you are going to roll the crescent dough out onto a 15 X 9 (roughly) cookie sheet. Bake the dough at 375 F for 10 minutes. YOU MUST LET THIS COOL BEFORE PUTTING ANYTHING ON TOP OF IT. Let it cool for at least 1/2 hour.

You can chop up veggies while waiting for it to cool and make the cream cheese center. For the center, mix the cream cheese and the miracle whip. You can use mayo, but miracle whip is better for this recipe as you want more of a taste.

Mix it with a blender until it is very creamy and there are no lumps. Then add in the dressing mix to the cream cheese mix. Spread the cream cheese mix over the cooled crescent roll bottom. I recommend putting it in dollups over the dough, so you can spread it around easier. Try not to touch the crescent bottom as you are spreading it. The reason why the crescent bottom has to be very cool is because otherwise it will start to lift up as you are spreading the cream cheese.

Make sure to get all spots where the crescent shows. After this is done, sprinkle the chopped up veggies on top. Then sprinkle cheddar cheese. [note: Eeyaagh!!] Don't try cutting it until you have let it cool in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Before putting it in the refrigerator though, run a knife over the outside of the pizza, so it is easier to get out later. If you try cutting it into slices before it is cool, the veggies and cheese will run along the knife with you.

"Thanks for bringing it up. We've called for the International Red Cross to go into the Andijan region to determine what went on, and we expect all our friends, as well as those who aren't our friends, to honor human rights and protect minority rights."

President Nixon left office in 2005 having proved me and the other "nattering nabobs of negativism" wrong. We thought that his administration was sleazy but we were never able to nail him. Those of us who hoped it would end differently knew we were in trouble when former Nixon media adviser Roger Ailes banned the word "Watergate" from Fox News's coverage and went with the logo "Assault on the Presidency" instead. By that time, the American people figured both sides were just spinning, and a tie always goes to the incumbent.

The big reason Nixon didn't have to resign: the rise of Conservative Media, which features Fox, talk radio and a bunch of noisy partisans on the Internet and best-sellers list who almost never admit their side does anything wrong. (Liberals, bycontrast, are always eating their own.) This solidarity came in handy when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post began snooping around after the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Once they scored a few scoops with the help of anonymous sources, Sean Hannity et al. went on a rampage. When the young reporters printed an article about grand jury testimony that turned out to be wrong, Drudge and the bloggers had a field day, even though none of them had lifted a finger to try to advance the story. After that, the Silent Majority wouldn't shut up.

[snip]

For a while, I hoped that the Nixon tapes might bring some justice. But soon the tapes just became more fodder for those legal shows on cable. The Supreme Court split 5-4, along largely partisan lines, as it did in Bush vs. Gore. That allowed Nixon to keep control of the tapes. When he burned them, the bipartisan outcry you would have heard in the old days over destruction of evidence was muffled by a ferocious counterattack from the GOP's legion of spinners. A group calling itself "Watergate Burglars for Truth" set up a 527 to argue that Bill Clinton and other Democratic presidents had ordered more black-bag jobs than Nixon. There was nothing to prove them wrong. Reports of a tape showing that Nixon directly ordered the cover-up were just rumors, not anything that could be posted on smokinggun.com.

The story we have all heard from movies, television, newspapers, and most magazines and textbooks is that dinosaurs lived millions of year ago. According to evolutionists, the dinosaurs 'ruled the Earth' for 140 million years, dying out about 65 million years ago. However, scientists do not dig up anything labeled with those ages. They only uncover dead dinosaurs (i.e., their bones), and their bones do not have labels attached telling how old they are. The idea of millions of years of evolution is just the evolutionists' story about the past. No scientist was there to see the dinosaurs live through this supposed dinosaur age. In fact, there is no proof whatsoever that the world and its fossil layers are millions of years old. No scientist observed dinosaurs die. Scientists only find the bones in the here and now, and because many of them are evolutionists, they try to fit the story of the dinosaurs into their view.

Other scientists, called creation scientists, have a different idea about when dinosaurs lived. They believe they can solve any of the supposed dinosaur mysteries and show how the evidence fits wonderfully with their ideas about the past, beliefs that come from the Bible.

The Bible, God's very special book (or collection of books, really), claims that each writer was supernaturally inspired to write exactly what the Creator of all things wanted him to write down for us so that we can know where we (and dinosaurs) came from, why we are here, and what our future will be. The first book in the Bible—Genesis—teaches us many things about how the universe and life came into existence. Genesis tells us that God created everything—the Earth, stars, sun, moon, plants, animals, and the first two people.

Although the Bible does not tell us exactly how long ago it was that God made the world and its creatures, we can make a good estimate of the date of creation by reading through the Bible and noting some interesting passages:

God made everything in six days. He did this, by the way, to set a pattern for mankind, which has become our seven day week (as described in Exodus 20:11). God worked for six days and rested for one, as a model for us. Furthermore, Bible scholars will tell you that the Hebrew word for day used in Genesis 1, can only mean an ordinary day in this context.

We are told God created the first man and woman—Adam and Eve—on Day Six. Many facts about when their children and their children's children were born are given in Genesis. These genealogies are recorded throughout the Old Testament, up until the time of Christ. They certainly were not chronologies lasting millions of years.

As you add up all of the dates, and accepting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to Earth almost 2000 years ago, we come to the conclusion that the creation of the Earth and animals (including the dinosaurs) occurred only thousands of years ago (perhaps only 6000!), not millions of years. Thus, if the Bible is right (and it is!), dinosaurs must have lived within the past thousands of years.

Where Did Dinosaurs Come From?
Evolutionists claim that dinosaurs evolved over millions of years. They imagine that one kind of animal slowly changed over long periods of time to become a different kind of animal. For instance, they believe that amphibians changed into reptiles (including dinosaurs) by this gradual process. This would mean, of course, that there would have been millions of creatures during that time that would be 'in between,' as amphibians evolved into reptiles. Evidence of these 'transitional forms,' as they are called, should be abundant. However, many fossil experts admit that not one unquestionable transitional form between any group of creatures and another has been found anywhere. If dinosaurs evolved from amphibians, there should be, for example, fossil evidence of animals that are part dinosaur and part something else. However, there is no proof of this anywhere. In fact, if you go into any museum you will see fossils of dinosaurs that are 100% dinosaur, not something in between. There are no 25%, 50%, 75%, or even 99% dinosaurs—they are all 100% dinosaur!

The Bible tells us that God created all of the land animals on the sixth day of creation. As dinosaurs were land animals, they must have been made on this day, alongside Adam and Eve, who were also created on Day Six (Genesis 1:24-31). If God designed and created dinosaurs, they would have been fully functional, designed to do what they were created for, and would have been 100% dinosaur. This fits exactly with the evidence from the fossil record.

Evolutionists declare that no man ever lived alongside dinosaurs. The Bible, however, makes it plain that dinosaurs and people must have lived together. Actually, as we will soon see, there is a lot of evidence for this.

[snip]

Will We Ever See a Live Dinosaur?

The answer is probably not … but, then again? There are some scientists who believe a few dinosaurs may have survived in remote jungles. We are still discovering new species of animals and plants today in areas that have been too difficult to explore until now. Even natives in some countries describe beasts that fit with what might be a dinosaur.

Creationists, of course, would not be surprised if someone found a living dinosaur. However, evolutionists would then have to explain why they made dogmatic statements that man and dinosaur never lived at the same time. I suspect they would say something to the effect that this dinosaur somehow survived because it was trapped in a remote area that has not changed for millions of years. You see, no matter what is found, or how embarrassing it is to evolutionists' ideas, they will always be able to concoct an 'answer' because evolution is a belief. It is not science—it is not fact!

An arrangement involving two Indian tribes, the head of an anti-tax organization and a lobbyist now under criminal investigation — plus $50,000 — secured Indian leaders a private audience with President Bush.

Each of the players, including the president, had something to gain from the deal, carried out in 2001 and confirmed by tribal lawyers and documents showing the solicitation of money and the promise of a meeting with Bush.

The tribes were seeking to protect their casino gaming revenues from tougher labor regulations and to block changes in federal gaming laws that might interfere with their casinos. The anti-tax organization wanted sponsorship money for a political event, and the lobbyist acting as a go-between was charging his Indian clients millions of dollars for his services.

For Bush, participating in an event sponsored by the Americans for Tax Reform gave a hand to a pro-Republican group and its head, Grover Norquist, a longtime Bush ally and political consultant. Besides, lobbyist Jack Abramoff himself had raised more than $100,000 on behalf of Bush and had his own ties to Norquist.

"What this is, is the president helping out Americans for Tax Reform by agreeing to speak at their event," said Larry Noble, the former chief lawyer for federal election enforcement who now heads the Center for Responsive Politics. "The quid pro quo is ATR helps out the president with support of his agenda at the same time ATR is able to sell it to lobbyists and others as something that needs to be underwritten."

Braddock is no ball of fire. He's not motivated by a passion for boxing, like Maggie in last fall's hit, Million Dollar Baby. He doesn't even have the horsy competitiveness of Seabiscuit, subject of Hollywood's last inspirational-underdog-of-the-Depression venture. If Braddock is an underdog, he wears it well: He's doglike in his loyalty, gentleness, and nobility of spirit. When life gives him a kick in the pants, he accepts it uncomplainingly; When it tosses him a bone, he's sincerely grateful.

How grateful is shown by a scene midway through. Things have gotten so tough for Jim and his wife Mae (Renee Zellwegger) that they can no longer keep their three children at home; without money for grocery and heating bills, the kids are getting sick. (In an earlier scene, we had seen Mae stretching a bottle of milk by adding water.) The children are farmed out to live with extended family. Regretfully, Braddock goes down to the relief office and signs up for the dole so he can bring them home. But then he wins a fight, and returns to the same office. He plops down a roll of bills in front of the cashier. Later, when a reporter asks him about this, he shrugs it off. "This is a great country, a country that helps a man when he's in trouble. I thought I should return it."

[snip]

Cinderella Man is not really a movie about boxing, it's a movie about what it means to be a man. In the character of Jim Braddock, we can read what today's audiences are wistful for: a man who works hard to support his wife and kids, who teaches his kids to be honest, who communicates his delight in his wife with every glance. As Mae says to Jim in a late scene, "You're the Bulldog of Bergen, the Pride of New Jersey, you're everybody's hope, you're your kids' hero, and the champion of my heart." Do they make them like that any more?

Buried deep within the No Child Left Behind Act is a provision that requires public high schools to hand over private student information to military recruiters. The purpose of this invasion of family privacy is to allow minor students to be recruited at home by telephone calls, mail and personal visits. If a school does not comply, it risks losing vital federal education funds. The only way to keep your children’s contact information from military recruiters, is to submit an “opt-out” letter in writing to your school district’s superintendent.

This provision known as section 9528 was inserted with almost no debate into the No Child Left Behind Act by Rep. David Vitter of Louisiana, who learned from the Pentagon that many public schools had strict privacy policies protecting student information from being released to any outside parties, thus preventing aggressive military recruiting.

For the past three years, the Air Force has described its $30 billion proposal to convert passenger planes into military refueling tankers and lease them from Boeing Co. as an efficient way to obtain aircraft the military urgently needs.

But a very different account of the deal is shown in an August 2002 internal e-mail exchange among four senior Pentagon officials.

"We all know that this is a bailout for Boeing," Ronald G. Garant, an official of the Pentagon comptroller's office, said in a message to two others in his office and then-Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Wayne A. Schroeder. "Why don't we just bite the bullet," he asked, and handle the acquisition like the procurement of a 1970s-era aircraft -- by squeezing the manufacturer to provide a better tanker at a decent cost?

"We didn't need those aircraft either, but we didn't screw the taxpayer in the process," Garant added, referring to widespread sentiment at the Pentagon that the proposed lease of Boeing 767s would cost too much for a plane with serious shortcomings.

Garant's candid advice, which top Air Force officials did not follow, is disclosed for the first time in a new 256-page report by the Pentagon's inspector general. It provides an extraordinary glimpse of how the Air Force worked hand-in-glove with one of its chief contractors -- the financially ailing Boeing -- to help it try to obtain the most costly government lease ever.

The inspector general's report, slated for release today at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, adds a new dimension to what Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) have already called one of the most significant military contracting abuses in several decades. Already, the scandal has resulted in prison terms for former Air Force principal deputy assistant secretary Darlene A. Druyun, and a senior Boeing official, Michael M. Sears.

Besides documenting precisely who was responsible, the new report details the Air Force's vigorous efforts on Boeing's behalf. It also shows how Air Force leaders and Boeing officials jointly manipulated legislation to authorize the deal and later sought to suppress dissenting opinion throughout the Pentagon.

After interviewing 88 people and reading hundreds of thousands of pages of e-mails, the inspector general's office concluded that four top Air Force officials and one of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's former top aides, Undersecretary of Defense Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge, violated Pentagon and government-wide procurement rules, failed to use "best business practices," ignored a legal requirement for weapons testing and failed to ensure that the tankers would meet the military's requirements.

The report also connects Rumsfeld to policymaking on the lease, recounting a statement by former Air Force secretary James G. Roche that Rumsfeld had called him in Newport, R.I., in July 2003 to say "he did not want me to budge on the tanker lease proposal," despite criticism.

Earlier, after Roche made what he acknowledged was a "special pleading" for the lease at a key meeting with Rumsfeld on Jan. 31, 2003, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita jokingly said "that my comments 'were brought to you by the Boeing Company,' " Roche later told Air Force Chief of Staff John P. Jumper in an e-mail. "I didn't rip his heart out," Roche added.

Air Force spokesman Douglas Karas said he could not comment on the report in detail until it has been officially released. He said, however, that "we've learned from this experience" and will apply the lessons to future procurement of large weapons systems. Di Rita and Rumsfeld were in Thailand yesterday. A Boeing spokesman said the company could not comment on a report it has not read.

The Pentagon and Congress ultimately killed the lease deal. Pentagon officials have noted that the department is now conducting special oversight of Air Force weapons-buying, in part because of the problems with the Boeing deal.

In the copy of the report obtained by The Washington Post, 45 sections were deleted by the White House counsel's office to obscure what several sources described as references to White House involvement in the lease negotiations and its interaction with Boeing. The Pentagon separately blacked out 64 names and many e-mails. It also omitted the names of members of Congress, including some who pressured the Pentagon to back the deal.

The report is nonetheless the most damning of the three reviews of the tanker deal completed by the inspector general since early 2004. It includes, for example, a statement from an unnamed cost analyst that "numbers were contorted a lot of different ways to sell the program."

SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS REGARDING UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD IRAQ.

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

SEC. 4. ASSISTANCE TO SUPPORT A TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ.

(a) AUTHORITY TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE- The President may provide to the Iraqi democratic opposition organizations designated in accordance with section 5 the following assistance:

(1) BROADCASTING ASSISTANCE- (A) Grant assistance to such organizations for radio and television broadcasting by such organizations to Iraq.

(B) There is authorized to be appropriated to the United States Information Agency $2,000,000 for fiscal year 1999 to carry out this paragraph.

(2) MILITARY ASSISTANCE- (A) The President is authorized to direct the drawdown of defense articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense, defense services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training for such organizations.

(B) The aggregate value (as defined in section 644(m) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961) of assistance provided under this paragraph may not exceed $97,000,000.

(b) HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE- The Congress urges the President to use existing authorities under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to provide humanitarian assistance to individuals living in areas of Iraq controlled by organizations designated in accordance with section 5, with emphasis on addressing the needs of individuals who have fled to such areas from areas under the control of the Saddam Hussein regime.

(c) RESTRICTION ON ASSISTANCE- No assistance under this section shall be provided to any group within an organization designated in accordance with section 5 which group is, at the time the assistance is to be provided, engaged in military cooperation with the Saddam Hussein regime.

(d) NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENT- The President shall notify the congressional committees specified in section 634A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 at least 15 days in advance of each obligation of assistance under this section in accordance with the procedures applicable to reprogramming notifications under section 634A.

[snip]

SEC. 8. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces (except as provided in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act.

SEC. 5. DESIGNATION OF IRAQI DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION ORGANIZATION.

(a) INITIAL DESIGNATION- Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall designate one or more Iraqi democratic opposition organizations that the President determines satisfy the criteria set forth in subsection (c) as eligible to receive assistance under section 4.

(b) DESIGNATION OF ADDITIONAL ORGANIZATIONS- At any time subsequent to the initial designation pursuant to subsection (a), the President may designate one or more additional Iraqi democratic opposition organizations that the President determines satisfy the criteria set forth in subsection (c) as eligible to receive assistance under section 4.

(c) CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION- In designating an organization pursuant to this section, the President shall consider only organizations that--

(1) include a broad spectrum of Iraqi individuals, groups, or both, opposed to the Saddam Hussein regime; and

(2) are committed to democratic values, to respect for human rights, to peaceful relations with Iraq's neighbors, to maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity, and to fostering cooperation among democratic opponents of the Saddam Hussein regime.

(d) NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENT- At least 15 days in advance of designating an Iraqi democratic opposition organization pursuant to this section, the President shall notify the congressional committees specified in section 634A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 of his proposed designation in accordance with the procedures applicable to reprogramming notifications under section 634A.

Four apparently coordinated bombings in seven minutes Tuesday killed 18 people and wounded 39 in northern Iraq, while a car bomb in Baghdad injured 28, ending a relative lull in violence.

Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers descended on the remote northern city of Tal Afar near the Syrian border, launching a major operation against insurgents following weeks of attacks against Iraqi security services there, military officials said.

Two U.S. Marines died Monday after separate roadside bombings near Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, the military said.

Tuesday's attacks in northern Iraq appeared coordinated and aimed at checkpoints manned by Iraq's fledgling army, a constant target of militants opposed to the new U.S.-backed government.

The first explosion, caused by a roadside bomb, rocked Hawija, about 40 miles southwest of Kirkuk, at around 9:30 a.m. Soon after, three suicide bombers waiting in cars at army checkpoints to the west and north of Hawija struck in quick succession.

In the deadliest attack, 10 civilians and one soldier were killed at a checkpoint in Dibis, two miles west of Hawija, army Lt. Faleh Ahmed said. Three soldiers and two civilians were killed at a checkpoint in Bagara, three miles west of Hawija. Two soldiers died in a suicide attack on the Aziziya checkpoint at the northern entrance to Hawija.

I am not yet dead
I can dance and I can sing
I am not yet dead
I can do the highland fling
I am not yet dead
No need to go to bed
No need to call the doctor
'cause I'm not yet dead.

Could it be time to put more candles on the cake? Molly Ringwald said she's in discussions to make a sequel to "Sixteen Candles," the 1984 movie about the obstacles and embarrassments a teen girl faces on her birthday.

The film, directed by John Hughes, shot Ringwald to teen stardom, but she hasn't appeared in a major role in many years. She said she's been appearing in theater, small TV and film parts and raising a daughter, now 18 months old.

Ringwald, 37, said she had been approached repeatedly about doing a sequel, but recently read a script that she liked and wanted to star in the movie.

"I've turned it down for years. I couldn't see how it would work," she said. "Now, it seems right."

With all of the debate about taxes, the economy and domestic spending, it is hard to imagine anyone supporting the notion of taking money from programs like Medicaid and college-tuition assistance, increasing the tax burden of the vast majority of working Americans, sending the country into crushing debt - and giving the proceeds to people who are so fantastically rich that they don't know what to do with the money they already have. Yet that is just what is happening under the Bush administration. Forget the middle class and the upper-middle class. Even the merely wealthy are being left behind in the dust by the small slice of super-rich Americans.

In last Sunday's Times, David Cay Johnston reported that from 1980 to 2002, the latest year of available data, the share of total income earned by the top 0.1 percent of earners more than doubled, while the share earned by everyone else in the top 10 percent rose far less. The share of the bottom 90 percent declined.

President Bush did not create the income gap. But the unheralded effect of his tax policy is its unequal impact on the modestly well to do. By 2015, those making between $80,000 and $400,000 will pay as much as 13.9 percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $400,000, assuming the tax cuts are made permanent. Below $80,000, most taxpayers will see their share of taxes rise slightly or stay the same.

Mr. Johnston's article quotes a prominent economist who argues that people care more about the chance to move from one income class to another (upward, of course) than about income distribution. But during the Bush years, the two main sources of class mobility - a good job and money for higher education - have increasingly failed to materialize for those who most need them. Last week's jobs report from the Labor Department confirmed that a strong labor market recovery has not taken hold. Wages for most working people failed even to outpace inflation in the past year.

That might be more bearable if things were rough all over. But the share of economic growth that is going toward corporate profits, which flow to stockholders and bondholders who are concentrated at the top of the income scale, is at historic highs.

Which brings us back to the super wealthy and the merely rich. The divide between rich and poor is unfortunately an old story, but income-class warfare among the top 20 percent of the scale is a newer phenomenon. One cause is that the further up the scale one goes, the more of one's income comes from investments, which under the Bush tax cuts enjoy about the lowest rates in the tax code. But many families making between $100,000 and $200,000 are not exactly on easy street. They don't face choices anywhere near as stark as those encountered further down the income ladder, but they face serious tradeoffs not experienced by the uppermost crust, particularly when hit with the triple whammy of college for the children, care for aging parents and preparing for their own retirement.

There is something deeply wrong about a system that calls into question a comfortable retirement or a top-notch education for people who have broken into the top 20 percent of income earners. It starts to seem politically explosive when you consider that in a decade, those making between $100,000 and $200,000 will pay about five to nine percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $1 million, assuming the Bush tax cuts are made permanent.

This is not about giving wealthy people more money to invest back into the economy. At this level, it's really about giving more money to those who have nothing to do with it except amass enormous estates for their heirs. Fixing the problem will require members of Congress to summon the courage to say no to a president who wants more for the richest of the rich at the expense of everyone else. We're not holding our breath.