Keith Olbermann nails Guilliani

Ask his neighbors and they’ll tell you Roger Bean was the Robin Hood of dentures.

He did fittings and made false teeth for older people who couldn’t afford a dentist, and didn’t charge them, accepting only donations.

But ask sheriff’s deputies who arrested Bean on Tuesday, and they’ll tell you he was practicing dentistry without a state license, which is a felony. He did have a certificate from Texas for denturistry, though it is unclear whether it was authentic. But even that doesn’t matter, because the practice does not exist in Florida, Detective Don Zumpano said.

Ron St. Mary, 73, head of the neighborhood crime watch, said in his eyes, Bean was not a criminal. “He’s helping the old people who don’t have a few dollars,” he said. “I think the world of him.”

Full article at the Sun Sentinel

If you missed Bill Moyers “Buying the War”, try to find time to watch it. I thought it was a good show. You can go HERE to watch it or read the transcript.

The House passed the emergency funding bill 218-208. 2-Present, 5-not voting. Democrats who voted against the bill: Barrow, Boren, Kucinich, Lee, Lewis (GA), Marshall, Matheson, McNulty, Michaud, Taylor, Waters, and Woolsey.
Republicans Gilchrest and Jones (NC) voted for it.

I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing the Dems who voted against it want our troops out NOW.

WASHINGTON - Frustrated with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales‘ incomplete explanation of the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, members of two congressional committees demanded that Gonzales submit to more questions about his handling of the ousters.

The development came as a House of Representatives committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to a former top aide to Gonzales to compel her testimony. Monica Goodling, the aide, had said she would invoke her constitutional right not to testify for fear of incriminating herself.

Gonzales has struggled to repair his credibility as Democrats and Republicans continue to hammer him for his conflicting statements about the Justice Department’s targeting of prosecutors.

Although Gonzales spent weeks preparing for testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he couldn’t answer a litany of questions about a plan to target top prosecutors who’d fallen out of favor with the administration. In recent days, several Democrats and Republicans have called for Gonzales’ resignation, although President Bush has reaffirmed his support for his top law enforcement official. Gonzales has said he won’t resign.

Continue reading here

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren’t counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.

Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn’t include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

President Bush explained why in a television interview on Tuesday. “If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory,” he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.

Others, however, say that not counting bombing victims skews the evidence of how well the Baghdad security plan is protecting the civilian population - one of the surge’s main goals.

More at McClatchy

He HOPES someone is held responsible? HOPES? What…..the Commander in Chief has no say in if someone is held responsible? He’s pleased the DOD has TAKEN IT UPON THEMSELVES to investigate.

WASHINGTON — President Bush hopes someone is held responsible for the U.S. military’s mishandling of information about the death of former football star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, the White House said Wednesday.

Bush did not learn about the unusual circumstances of the Army ranger’s death until after the soldier’s memorial service on May 3, 2004, said deputy press secretary Dana Perino.

Military officers at first said Tillman had died in an ambush, when in fact he was accidentally killed by fellow U.S. troops.

“I think that he feels deeply sorry for the family and all that they’ve gone through,” Perino said. “And he’s pleased that the Department of Defense has taken it upon themselves to investigate it. And he hopes that people are held to account.”

Read more at Sun Sentinel

This surge hasn’t slowed the violence down in Baghdad. It’s just shifted from one group to another.

BAGHDAD - U.N. officials accused Iraq on Wednesday of withholding civilian death figures to try to deflect attention from escalating violence and a worsening humanitarian crisis despite the U.S.-led Baghdad security crackdown.

Those conclusions by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq drew a sharp rebuke from the Iraq’s political leadership, which called the report “unbalanced” and said it raised questions about the credibility of the U.N. staff in Iraq.

The clashing views over the document - which covered three months ending March 31 - reflect a wider debate that goes beyond attempts to tally the bloodshed: whether the Baghdad security operation has made any lasting progress since the crackdown was launched in mid-February.

While some measures suggest the capital is less violent - such as apparent Shiite death squad killings reportedly on the decline - bombings blamed on Sunni insurgents have continued with deadly frequency.

“Armed groups from all sides continued to target the civilian population,” said the 30-page report.

The report’s critical tone could embolden calls by the Democratic-controlled Congress to begin withdrawing U.S. troops by Oct. 1. It also could complicate efforts to win financial aid pledges from Iraq’s neighbors during a regional conference in Egypt next week.

More at YahooNews

This is bad……..

SPENCER, Mass. - Dozens of residents were taken to hospitals Wednesday with burns or rashes after the town’s water supply was accidentally treated with too much corrosive lye, officials said.

People in Spencer were advised not to use or touch the water until further notice, said Ed Coletta, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Residents started complaining of skin irritation and moderate burns after showering early Wednesday, police Sgt. John Agnew said. He said officials determined that a malfunction at the town’s water treatment plant had released too much sodium hydroxide into the water supply.

Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, is routinely put into water to reduce acidity and limit pipe corrosion, Coletta said.

The fire department took about 40 people to hospitals with rashes or burns, firefighter Ryan Flannery said.

More at Yahoo

Ron Paul in the US House of Representatives, October 3, 2002. He got it right. And he’s a Republican.

The last time Congress declared war was on December 11, 1941, against Germany in response to its formal declaration of war against the United States. This was accomplished with wording that took less than one-third of a page, without any nitpicking arguments over precise language, yet it was a clear declaration of who the enemy was and what had to be done. And in three-and-a-half years, this was accomplished. A similar resolve came from the declaration of war against Japan three days earlier. Likewise, a clear-cut victory was achieved against Japan.

Many Americans have been forced into war since that time on numerous occasions, with no congressional declaration of war and with essentially no victories. Today’s world political condition is as chaotic as ever. We-re still in Korea and we-re still fighting the Persian Gulf War that started in 1990.

The process by which we-ve entered wars over the past 57 years, and the inconclusive results of each war since that time, are obviously related to Congress- abdication of its responsibility regarding war, given to it by Article I Section 8 of the Constitution.

Congress has either ignored its responsibility entirely over these years, or transferred the war power to the executive branch by a near majority vote of its Members, without consideration of it by the states as an amendment required by the Constitution.

Full speech at LewRockwell

Since the November election, I’ve learned how to spell every form of the word subpoena. Ha! Now I wish something would come of them……. like say…. some Republicans behind bars…..or impeached…… or banished to Baghdad for the rest of their lives!

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday ramped up its investigation of the Bush administration, subpoenaing the testimony of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan as well as e-mails White House officials composed on RNC accounts.
The committee voted 21-10 to subpoena Rice as part of its investigation of the administration’s assertion that Iraq sought to purchase uranium in Africa - a claim that was used to justify going to war in Iraq.

In his opening statement, Chairman Harry Waxman (D-Calif.) said he prefers to issue subpoenas as a “last resort,” adding that he felt he had “hit a brick wall” with Rice.

“For four years, I have been trying to get information from Condoleezza Rice on a variety of issues, including the reference to uranium and Niger in the president’s 2003 State of the Union speech,” Waxman said.

More at the Hill

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. She had refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The 32-6 vote by the House Judiciary Committee surpassed the 2/3 majority required to grant a witness immunity from prosecution. A separate vote to authorize a subpoena for Goodling passed by voice vote.

Democrats said the votes were necessary tools to force into the open the story of why the prosecutors were fired and whether they were singled out to influence corruption cases.

More at the Washington Post

LINCOLN, Neb. - State investigators here are still trying to figure out who sabotaged Scott Kleeb’s campaign for Congress last November with a barrage of automated telephone calls to voters. The unauthorized calls, officials said, distorted Mr. Kleeb’s views and even used a recording of his voice - sometimes arriving in the middle of the night - with the greeting: “Hi, this is Scott Kleeb!”

Robert E. Kaiser, president of a company that makes the political calls, said he was concerned for people who might want to get the messages.

State Senator DiAnna Schimek, who represents Lincoln, wrote the Nebraska bill on automated phone calls.

Several Nebraska state lawmakers were so outraged by the shenanigans that they are pushing legislation that would impose some of the country’s most restrictive regulations on prerecorded campaign calls, both bogus and legitimate ones. Similar bills are in the works in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin and at least a dozen other states, prompted in large part by telephone calls authorized by campaigns during last year’s elections.

“Get rid of them,” said Stan Jordan, a Republican state representative in Jacksonville, Fla., who has sponsored a bill there. “When they first started, this wasn-t much of a nuisance. But it’s epidemic-level now.”

Nearly two-thirds of registered voters nationwide received the recorded telephone messages, which as political calls are exempt from federal do-not-call rules, leading up to the November elections, according to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an independent research group. The calls, often known as robocalls, were the second most popular form of political communication, trailing only direct mail, the group said.

Some residents in Mr. Jordan’s district received 17 calls a day, he said. In the Third Congressional District of Nebraska, voters reported getting as many as 20 calls daily - many of them purportedly from Mr. Kleeb’s campaign - at all hours of the day and night.

“They-re a real gimmick,” said State Senator DiAnna Schimek, a Democrat who represents Lincoln and who wrote the Nebraska legislation.

Read More at The New York Times

Fans of John Waters may remember that his Eighties film “Polyester,” starring Divine, was released in Odorama, offering viewers a sample of the scent of the late actor’s bodily emissions. Before that there was Smell-O-Vision in the Sixties. Now TV Guide is going to help readers sniff their way through the May 3 episode of NBC’s “My Name Is Earl.” In the next issue of the magazine, which hits newsstands Thursday, a scent card (with six different scents) will release aromas pertaining to the sitcom’s story line. On-air graphics will prompt viewers to rub numbered boxes on the card that will release the appropriate scent at different points throughout the show. Scents include new-car smell, obnoxious cologne and Oreo cookies, the exclusive sponsor of the card. Pete Haeffner, TV Guide’s senior vice president and publisher, declined to provide terms of the deal with Oreo - or with NBC and 20th Century Fox, which also had a hand in the cross-promotion. But it appears NBC may have the most to gain, since its Thursday-night ratings reportedly just took a turn for the worse. On April 12, the Thursday lineup of “My Name Is Earl,” “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “Scrubs” and “ER” resulted in NBC’s worst showing during the September-to-May season since People Meters’ debut in 1987 (People Meters is a device that measures TV viewing habits). As for TV Guide, ad pages are up 35 percent, or approximately 68 pages, in the first quarter of this year, from the same period one year ago.

more at WWD.COM