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"Iraq was Awash with Cash"

...but little of it was to benefit the Iraqis. Morning Edition had a report Tuesday about the investigations that have been opened by the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction where they...

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What Conference Did He Attend?

Ryan Lizza of The New Republic has written up his thoughts about YearlyKos.   And what a conference he attended.  One where the bloggers, reporters and politicians circled each other warily.  One where...

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Misunderstanding the Criticism from the Blogosphere

The Kos-TNR face off provides some real insight into the problem that the blogosphere has with The New Republic.  It is clear the TNR has become unhinged with its ever expanding criticism of the...

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Lewis Scandal Spreads

The cosy connection between Representative Jerry Lews, head of the appropriations committee and Copeland Lowery has been very lucrative for the lobbyists and the Congressman.   Recently the Center for...

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What Global Warming Consensus?

So how pervasive is the conventional wisdom that there is no consensus on whether humans are implicated in causing global warming (and thus necessitating doing something about it)?   Monday, I caught a...

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Why Did Lindsey Graham Sell Out?

Senator Lindsey Graham had garnered a lot of praise as an honorable and deeply patriotic senator who was not afraid to stand up to the Bush administration's abuse of prisoners and their degradation of...

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John Dean Reflecting on Why Nixon Was Not As Bad as Bush/Cheney

This weekend I had a chance to see John Dean talk about his new book Conservatives Without Conscience at the Capitola Book Cafe in Capitola, California.  I'd picked up my copy of his book a couple of...

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Brent Wilkes Speaks

Brent Wilkes has decided to go public with what he knows about the Congressional corruption scandal (via the eagle-eyed TPMMuckraker, Justin Rood).  Tomorrow's NY Times has an interview with Mr. Wilkes...

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K-Street Project Decries Senator Reid's Corruption

When I was reading John Dean's book, I found out about a website, The K-Street Project, sponsored by Grover Norquist.  Norquist also operates a Web site that reports on openings at lobbying firms and...

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Peace, Love & Kindness: Bill Moyers Interviews Pema Chödrön

On this week's Faith & Reason Bill Moyers interviewed Pema Chödrön, an  American Buddhist nun and author of No Time To Lose.  She's an amazing woman -- one who exudes such peace, love and kindness,...

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Reclaiming American Ideals

Am I a patriot?  Well, I truly do hope so.  Here's my July 4th essay that shows why I love this country and the ideals that founded it.  Aren't these some of the shared values Democrats should stand...

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Daniel Ellsberg Asks Insiders to Expose Bush War Plans

E&P reports that in next month's Harper's, Daniel Ellsberg is asking insiders to leak the details of Bush's war plans.  Ellsberg knows that what he's asking insiders to do is very hard, but he...

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Al Gore's Global Warming Crisis Action List

This week, Al Gore gave a very important speech on Global Warming at New York University.  In this speech, he started out noting that the debate about global warming is over and now the discussion has...

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What Foley Shows Us About Republican Corruption

Some months ago when I was looking into some of the more corrupt members of the Republican Party, I started to think that there was a reason for all the corruption.  Earlier today, Magster asked...

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Fallout From Bush's Iraq Misadventure

Europeans and Middle Eastern experts are becoming deeply worried as they watch the chaos in Iraq spiral out-of-control.  The numerous mistakes that the Bush administration has made are leading to a...

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Frank Luntz Dissects the Election

Frank Luntz has published a report (pdf) of why the Republicans lost and what they can do to win in 2008.  (In their dreams.)  I found it at times interesting, amusing and bemusing because for someone...

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Terry Gross Interviews Frank Luntz

Terry Gross is a fabulous interviewer because she is so good at doing her homework before interviewing someone.  Yet, listening to her interview with Frank Luntz on Tuesday made me wish that I could...

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Bob Altemeyer Publishes "The Authoritarians" Online

The other day Glenn Greenwald noted that Professor Robert Altemeyer, the social scientist John Dean consulted for his book, Conservatives Without Conscience, has written a book for laymen that...

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Molly Ivins: American Icon

Wednesday a genuine American treasure died.  Molly Ivins was such a remarkable individual -- funnier than hell, sharp as a whip, the proverbial gadfly and a woman who had a heart as big as Texas.  They...

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What the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Missed

Dr. Christina Hulbe gave The Left Coaster readers a preliminary review on the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report when it was published last Friday.   As she...

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Read The Damn Bill, Please!!!!

About that addition to the Patriot Act allowing the Bush Justice department to name US Attorneys without Senate approval?  The change to the act that has led to the firing of at least 7 US Attorney...

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The American Dream

Note: The article on severe poverty was blogged about earlier today, but the totally screwed up priorities of our current administration merits even more outrage.Priorities, priorities.U.S. economy...

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Conservative Ideology Responsible for Walter Reed Mess

After 9/11, the American public voted for George W Bush and a Republican Congress in 2002 and 2004 because they believed the Republicans would do a better job in fighting the terrorists.  And they...

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On Providing Opportunities for Future Appointments

The House and Senate Committee public investigations on the firing of the US Attorneys by the Justice Department at the end of 2006 have been quite eye-opening.  The House session allowed the Justice...

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What Story Will the Public Take Away About the Walter Reed Mess?

Americans are truly outraged about the Walter Reed story, but what message have they taken away this week?  As this segment on NPR says this story is capable of completely derailing the Bush...

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Politicizing the Justice System

PurgeGate has really started to bring out some extremely worrying facts about the state of our legal system.  The Justice Department under Bush's pet Attorney General has been riddled with partisan and...

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Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

The role of religion in our politics has been growing steadily and the strongest religious voices have been on the religious right who after decades of shunning politics decided to enter into the fray...

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So you want to save the planet? What should you consider first?

April 22nd is Earth Day and you might be wondering what should we do?  After all, the problem of global warming is huge and we have an administration that is worse than an ostrich in facing the...

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Earth Day is Everyday: Conserving Energy at Home

An important fact to note about global warming is how this crisis challenges humanity in ways no other crisis has done before.  It challenges us by forcing us to see how we individually and...

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Hagel: Getting Drummed Out of the Party

Senator Hagel has always been a rock solid conservative, but his increasingly harsh criticism of Bush's war in Iraq is causing him to be pushed off the bus. Hagel has been outspoken about the mistakes...

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Blatant Criminal Behavior by the Bush Administration

Did you know that a couple of American attorneys, Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, are the only people who can prove they have standing in a suit charging the government of illegally spying on American...

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Global Warming Panel

Lots of interesting panels, roundtables and presidential forums happening at YearlyKos this week.  Today I attended the Global Warming Roundtable and found it to be an urgent call to arms.  As Navin...

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Global Warming Naysayers

Newsweek had a significant story about the Global Warming Deniers where they lay out the history of those who have actively tried to keep Americans confused about global warming and prevented any...

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Specter of an Authoritarian Future?

eRiposte explains that the Democratic Congress is failing in the job the American people sent it to do.  As he and Glenn Greenwald have said this week, the poor poll ratings for Congress are due to...

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Staying In Iraq Until the Civil War Burns Out

Dr. Stephen Biddle testified before the House Committee on Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on July 25, 2007. Over at Hullabaloo, tristero has a nice take down on how bad the...

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The Melting Permafrost

Dkos writer oxon recently wrote about melting permafrost and how lakes in Alaska are now boiling due to the release of methane gas.  This is a follow-on report to his piece.  The story he references...

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A Tale of Two States: Texas vs California

Today, the Houston Chronicle reported that Texas consumers have decided that the state's experiment with energy deregulation has been a costly failure.  Rather than bringing about lower costs, Texans...

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Running out of time: Global Climate Crisis Coming Fast

Scientists have found that carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere much faster than had been predicted.  Carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere has accelerated since the late 90's when...

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California's Magical Policy for Lower Energy Consumption

Comment:Energy companies have no incentive [to reduce energy usage] because they make more money in the current system. Well yes.  In most parts of the country, this is absolutely true.  The standard...

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About those Blogger Ethics?

Wow. When Jon Swift wrote about the Joe Klein controversy, he added a point that was I found especially salient to today's discussion.If any real journalists think I've written something that is...

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Aggressive Action Needed to Stop Global Warming

Throughout 2007 the signs of global warming became inescapable and a realization that the world climate is changing much faster than ever imagined has started to sink in.  Politically we are stymied...

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Our Challenge

Today is Earth Day and we humans have a challenge to meet.We are living in a time of enormous import.  The world is changing in ways we humans are as yet ill-prepared to survive, yet alone thrive....

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A Tale of Two Governments Valuing Greed Over the Common Good

Paul Krugman recently said:[I]n a way we actually do have fair trade with China.  They sell us poisoned toys and tainted sea food and we sell them fraudulent securities. Kind of funny how this bad deal...

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Decoupling and the Stimulus Bill

What has been California's secret for achieving decades of increased energy efficiency?  It's a policy known as decoupling where the energy companies share in the savings achieved by helping their...

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USA Loses Out to China on Green Investments

Last year when I attended the RMI 2009 conference in San Francisco, one of things I learned was that Amory Lovin's message about energy efficiency and the need for aggressive development of sustainable...

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Global Warming in 2010

Even in light of the number of extreme weather events that have happened in 2010, some continue to deny this has anything to do with global warming (although the weather this year has started to...

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Speculators Damage Oil Market

Matt Taibbi discusses McClatchy's Wikileak analysis on how the Saudis warned the US numerous times that speculators had a great deal to do with the high oil prices of 2008 and they worried that the...

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President Obama: Stop the tar sands pipeline

Recently, when President Obama was interviewed by Scholastic News, he told the interviewer (a school child) that one of the most important challenges the youth of today will face is that of global...

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Rape, Abortion, Contraception and Reproductive Rights

Garance Franke-Ruta has a terrific article in the Atlantic Monthly titled Richard Mourdock, Mitt Romney and the GOP Defense of Coerced Mating where she makes the point that the reason the discussion...

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Mitt Romney loved the Data, but it didn't love him

Project ORCA was supposed to be the secret weapon that was going to push Romney over the top. And Romney was intimately involved in this project.At campaign headquarters in Boston, other volunteers...

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