CapitalistImperialistPig

Kevin Drum finds this oddity in General Casey's testimony: Asked whether the insurgency has worsened, Casey said it has not expanded geographically or numerically, "to the extent we can know that." But he noted that current "levels of violence are above norms," exceeding 500 attacks a week. "I'll tell you that levels of violence are a lagging indicator of success," he added So the more successful we are this month, the higher the level of violence next month? Or maybe his brain just exploded from all the cognitive dissonance.

David Johnston and Douglas Jehl in the NYT : Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who has been jailed since July 6 for refusing to testify in the C.I.A. leak case, was released from a Virginia detention center this afternoon after she and her lawyers reached an agreement with a federal prosecutor to testify before a grand jury investigating the matter, the paper's publisher and executive editor said. Ms. Miller was freed after spending more than 12 weeks in jail, during which she refused to cooperate with the criminal inquiry. Her decision to testify came after she obtained what she described as a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality she had made to him. She said the source had made clear that he genuinely wanted her to testify. That source was I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, according to people who have been officially briefed on the case. Very inte...

An excerpt from a message from my Congressman: U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce today issued the following statement regarding the indictment and temporary resignation of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) as House Majority Leader: "The charges against Congressman DeLay have been brought by a District Attorney who has an extensive track record of prosecuting opponents for the sheer political effect. . ." The full text of my reply. Bullshit!

Not to worry, the Republican party is in no danger of running out of crooks to be majority leader.

The NYT and everybody else talk about the latest Arctic warming results . The Arctic has been heating up fast, and most think greenhouse gases are implicated. Fortunately for the doubters, James Inhoffe, Senator from the State of Confusion, has found a science fiction writer to set the record straight. (via Wonkette and Brad Delong .) I wonder if Lubos is available.

Josh Marshall , Kevin Drum and all the usual suspects have stories on Tom Delay's troubles and the resulting convulsions in GOP House leadership. Nobody seems to have the details that (apparently) implicate Delay.

Brad Delong is the scorekeeper in this year's hard fought "Stupidest Man Alive" contest. One of his recent posts inclines me to believe we might need a new category - call it the Jonathan Swift "There is none so blind . . . " SMA category. So how about it, Brad? His post hints that David Frum is a good candidate: Frum: [M]uch of the trouble is the president’s own fault. He chose to appoint Michael Brown to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He chose to spend lavishly on highways and farmers and a new prescription drug benefit at the same time as he was fighting a global war on terror. And of course it is he who remains the final decision-maker on national security.... [A]s one who... still critically supports him, I find the sudden surge of public disenchantment with Mr Bush very difficult to understand. If you were looking for a diligent manager of the office of the presidency, a close student of public policy, a careful balancer of risks and ben...