Hanley’s Son Wounded in Iraq

As most of you know by now, Secretary Hanley’s son Patrick was seriously injured in Iraq this weekend. Patrick’s injuries include the loss of an arm and a head injury. Assessments of the head injury indicate that there may be no permanent brain damage. Of course, he is heavily sedated but he is responsive. It [...]

Dean Coming to Culpeper

Richard Dulaney, an attorney from Culpeper, is a Republican turned Democrat who’s been an active member of the Culpeper Co. Democratic Committee for the past several years. Easing his transition into the Democratic Party is the fact that his former college roommate at Yale*, back in the 60’s, was none other than current DNC Chairman [...]

HRC 4 NY GOV?

Reporter Jonathan Alter is running a story just posted to Newsweek.com that is sure to send the Hillary Faithful into a purple rage: within DNC circles there is talk of a possible consolation prize for Hillary should Obama win the nod: the New York governorship.
From the story:
The travails of New York Gov. David Paterson have opened up [...]

The Scream Team

A fortnightly rant, FL-S style.
The worst fights are usually over who is right. 
Typically, the combatants are people that normally get-along, perhaps even love or admire each other: husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, governors and $4,000-an-hour hookers, spouses and their in-laws.
We have all witnessed such fights, perhaps even participated in one or two, or two-hundred.  And we all are familiar with what happens…
Things start off uneventfully, quite innocently, and [...]

TSA or T&A?

A few days ago I wrote about problems at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Only hours later a man named Jeff Ostermayer left a reply in the comment section directing readers to the official TSA blog, Evolution of Security. Mr. Ostermayer is the Assistant Press Secretary [...]

Thank You Sen. Houck

and Gov. Kaine. 
Our long, national local nightmare is over.
Daily Press:
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Thursday signed legislation to immediately repeal Virginia’s abusive driver fees, ending a political nightmare for Republicans and Democrats alike.
……..
“In the earnestness of trying to solve the transportation issue, a mistake was made,” said Sen. R. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania, who sponsored Senate [...]

As if Obama v. Clinton Weren’t Bad Enough

Democrats can expect more of the same next year because both Sen. Creigh Deeds and Del. Brian Moran are both full speed ahead for the Democratic nomination for Governor in 2009. This despite the fact that practically every Democrat I talk to wants one of the two to drop down on the ticket and run [...]

The 7-Year (Sw)itch: Bush Now & Then

Cross-posted at Political Insultant

Presidents age before our eyes. 
George W. Bush has been president just over 7 years.
And yet, comparing the photo of him from yesterday’s White House Easter Egg Roll (AP) to his official presidential portrait from 2001, one might think 20 30 years had passed.
War’n is tough on the ol’ visage.

Air Marshalls on Fewer Than 1% of All Flights

CNN:
Of the 28,000 commercial airline flights that take to the skies on an average day in the United States, fewer than 1 percent are protected by on-board, armed federal air marshals, a nationwide CNN investigation has found.
………
One pilot who crisscrosses the country and flies internationally told CNN he hasn’t seen an air marshal on board [...]

4,000

UPDATE (by Chris): Some more sobering statistics:

Journalists: 135 fatalities
Non-American military coalition forces: 308 fatalities
Non-military contractors: At least 1,001 fatalities as of June 30th, 2007
Iraqi Security Forces: At least 8,057
Iraqi military forces: During the invasion, between 15,000 and 45,000 Iraqi military personnel died.
Civilians: Between 400,000 and 650,000 as of June 2006, and over 1,000,000 now.

h/t OpenLeft
UPDATE [...]

Fox & Friends: The Nero News Network’s Morning Mess

I used to get my cars serviced at a place where the waiting room television was (and I gather, still is) set 24/7 to Fox News.  And since I would arrive at the shop early to leave early, I might have had to endure up to 2 hours of Fixed-Noise’s hostility-inducing, lame-excuse for a news and information show, Fox & Friends.
To all that [...]

Five Years Out: Sen. Byrd’s 2003 Iraq War Speech

Bush and Pootie-Poo: Call for Captions

We haven’t done this in many moons (hey, full moon tonight).
CALL FOR CAPTIONS: So, what are The Decider and Vil-add-uh-murr sayin’ to each other?

Truer Words Were Never Spoken

“Only when our political leadership matches the high quality of our military performance will we be able to resolve our current occupation of Iraq. And it is clear that we are not going to see that kind of leadership from the Bush administration.”
-Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA)

Big Brother Watching…Obama

Last night, I got shivers down the spine when the first snippets of this story aired on the cable nets:
Two contract-employees of the U.S. Dept. of State were fired and a third was ”reprimanded” for accessing Sen. Obama’s passport file.  Supposedly, these instances were caught by a computer program that logs all queries to the passport files [...]