According to the NY Times, Frist is delaying the showdown till May...

Senate aides say that Senator Bill Frist, the Republican majority leader, has decided to defer a fight over the rule change until at least after the May recess, postponing a confrontation that many had expected as early as next week.

No doubt this is to test the water after their Just-Us rally Sunday. My support goes out to those fighting theocracy in Louisville.

Another thing that needs correcting is the lie that democrat's made up the nuclear option phrase. It was not! Trent Lott coined it, and then the So-Called Liberal Media framed it as a democrat's creation. Covered in full here.

I saw this article from the AP today.  It is basically a look at energy costs and Mr. Bush, a look into his energy policy.  Towards the end of the piece, Bush is quoted as follows:

Bush said high prices are "like a foreign tax on the American dream." He challenged Congress to send him an energy bill by August and described the proposal as making energy "more affordable and secure" in the future.

I'll go easy on him first.  I have no problem with securing energy sources,  OIL is not secure.  In fact the scarcity of oil, oil that will be all but gone in my lifetime, makes pursuing oil sources and not alternatives indicates a warped idea of security.  It stinks of greed.

Now for the American dream part.  This statement is

•  Arrogant.
  
  
•  Ignorant.
  
  
•  and disconnected from reality.

  
  
  

In fact, I believe that Americans need the wake up from that dream and get serious.  If anything, America gets a huge hand-out on energy (at least oil) when compared to the rest of the world.

The article continues stating correctly that his drive for cheap oil has been "complicated by his own actions."  He attacked Iraq and soured relations with many in the free world, primarily Venezuela.

Then Bush is quoted blaming the Clinton Administration, saying Clinton "must jawbone OPEC members to lower prices."

It ends with

Jerry Taylor, an energy analyst at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank that advocates less government regulation, said the idea that "jawboning OPEC or arranging for nice relations with OPEC will somehow get us more oil is utter illusion."

"The Saudis will produce as much oil as they think is necessary to maximize revenue. Period," Taylor said.

We need to wake up this president, this population.  Not for politics but for our future...

No, I wasn’t attacked for being a Communist Liberal. But I happen to camp under the tent of the Democratic Party. The same Democratic Party that -- despite the So-Called Liberal Media’s persistent framing that the Republicans are the party for the military – proposed the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief Act of 2005 and it passed 61 to 39. Who didn’t vote for this act? An act that would, among other things, buy the armor for the Hummer’s used by our great military, daily?

NAYs ---39
Allard (R-CO) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Cornyn (R-TX) Craig (R-ID) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Dole (R-NC) Domenici (R-NM) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Frist (R-TN) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Hatch (R-UT) Inhofe (R-OK) Inouye (D-HI) Isakson (R-GA) Kyl (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Murkowski (R-AK) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Stevens (R- AK) Sununu (R-NH) Thomas (R-WY) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA)

Just to note, BOTH SC Senators voted against this act despite faking concern for their large military constituency. Only one misled Democrat. I am ashamed of Lindsay Graham. On the other hand, Jim DeMint is a nut-case, bible-beating, bush brown nose-er so he naturally voted for greed.

Ethics committee to probe DeLay...

Retreating under pressure, Republicans on the House ethics committee said Wednesday they were ready to open an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing against Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

Oh, how much that asshole will like a good probing. Calling log Cabin Republicans!!

WRT this post a few days ago...

now the Iraqi President Talabani has reveled that there was (if you believe him) a hostage situation and 50 bodies had been found in the Tigris River.

I got burned once so I'm just going to post the links and some text...

The bodies of more than 50 men, women and children have been recovered from the River Tigris at the town of Suwayra, south of Baghdad.

Some had been decapitated or had their throats cut.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani revealed the gruesome discovery when asked a question about reports of hostage-taking in the town of Madain.

Thank you for your letter yesterday regarding judicial nominations. I assume that your reply to my March 15 letter is not a substitute for Senator Frist's promise over a month ago to offer a compromise for resolving this issue. Democrats anxiously await that proposal.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that there is much important work to be done in the Senate. That is why it is so baffling that Republicans would precipitate this destructive confrontation over the Senate's decision to reject a small number of judicial nominees. As you well know, the Senate has confirmed 205 of President Bush's judicial candidates and turned back only ten, a 95% confirmation rate. Ten rejected judges - only seven of whom are currently before the Senate - does not seem reason enough for Republicans to break the Senate rules, violate over 200 years of Senate tradition and thereby impair the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together on issues of real concern to the American people.

For example, you are absolutely right that "our transportation infrastructure needs improving." That is why I issued a public call last week for the Senate to take up the highway bill. Once we finish the supplemental appropriations bill, the Majority Leader has a clear choice: if he moves to proceed to the highway bill he can allow us to do the work that the American people sent us here to do. If, on the other hand, he chooses to launch what Senator Lott dubbed "the nuclear option," it will be clear that the Republican agenda is not based on the needs of the American people but rather on the demands of radical ideological elements in the Republican Party base.

I am committed to resolving the dispute over judicial nominations amicably. The first step in that process should be for the Majority Leader to abandon his proposal to break the Senate rules. We should not negotiate under a nuclear cloud.

Sincerely,

HARRY REID
Democratic Leader

This is a letter sent to majority whip Mitch McConnel from Senate minority leader Harry Reid

This guy claims he invented the ‘W’ signs that all of us, especially in the South, are exposed to daily. The interesting thing is that he is a Republican himself and a bush supporter (AP story)…

A supporter of President Bush is suing the Republican National Committee and one of its suppliers, claiming they stole his design for the ubiquitous "W" bumper sticker logo in the 2004 campaign.

Jerry Gossett of Wichita Falls says he pitched his design for a logo to the RNC's supplier of campaign materials, The Spalding Group of Lexington, Ky., in 2001 and to the RNC in 2003, and was turned down.

But in early 2004, he says, a similar logo appeared on a Web site and he traced it back to the RNC. This month, Gossett's Rally Concepts LLC sued in federal court, seeking unspecified damages for copyright infringement and conspiracy.

Tracey Schmitt, the RNC's press secretary, called the lawsuit frivolous.

Officials at Spalding did not respond to calls seeking comment, but a company lawyer, William H. Hollander, said in a letter to Gossett's attorney that his design doesn't meet the legal test of being "substantially similar" to Spalding's.

Gossett, inspired by scenes of firefighters raising a flag at the site of the World Trade Center, drew an American flag fluttering from a large W, next to the number 43 for Bush as the 43rd president.

The Spalding design reads "W '04" instead of "W 43," and is rounded, unlike Gossett's rectangular design. Hollander said key elements in the company's design had emerged as early as 1999.

Gossett says he is a loyal Republican and voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, but has become jaded by his experience.

"The big RNC against little me, there was absolutely no chance to win," he said.