Sans-culotte.org: Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) blasts Bush economic policies.

Zaphod's Heads: Domestic spying documents to be released? Judge orders DOJ to respond to civil liberties complaint

Mad Kane can't stop writing Dick Cheney song parodies....Wall Street Jackass on Burr & Cheney, and Liberal Oasis has a detailed examination of the Veep's claims of declassification authority.

Petrelis Files: Why is "Brokeback Mountain" a topic of concern for Capital Hill's two newspapers, Roll Call and The Hill?

Altercation: Satellite television stations throughout the Muslim world are airing the new torture footage almost continuously. 

News Hounds: Hey Hannity, obsess on this!

Petrelis Files: Why is "Brokeback Mountain" a topic of concern for Capital Hill's two newspapers, Roll Call and The Hill?

Altercation: Satellite television stations throughout the Muslim world are airing the new torture footage almost continuously.

News Hounds: Hey Hannity, obsess on this!

Several bloggers and The LA Times picked up on the Dobson statement from yesterday. Moi' being one of them. The dog beater forgot what he told Brit Hume and Liberal Oasis catches James in a lie.

Liberal Oasis alerted me and wrote about this, while Arlen/Media Matters sent the video: Saturday-The Chris Matthews Show

CHRIS MATTHEWS: But they [people in the White House] saw him, Bob, as the enemy, didn’t they? In all fairness, didn’t they see him as the enemy, Joe Wilson?

Download | play -QT

WOODWARD: "These words get thrown around, the effort to trash Joe Wilson, a campaign... to discredit him. And there were reasonable grounds to discredit Wilson... he said something that in his reports a year before, that contradicted what he wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times."

Download | play -WMP

Raw Story has Harry Reid's statement.

The Constitution gives the President and the Senate shared responsibility to fill this vacancy, because the President may only act with the Advice and Consent of the Senate. At this critical moment, the President must recognize the Senate's constitutional role. He should give life to the Advice and Consent Clause by engaging in meaningful consultation with Senators of both political parties.

Andrew Sullivan is a wee-bit optimistic:"This is a critical moment for the president, a moment when he can reach back to a political center he has recently eschewed during a war in which a bitter and divisive internal fight should be avoided, if at all possible. I'm hoping for a reasonable and not overly ideological choice. What I'm expecting is another matter."

Liberal Oasis has a plan: When we fight Bush nominees this summer, we must do our best to avoid getting bogged down in technical, procedural matters.

John Cole says: This is going to be one ugly confirmation battle.

Red State: Gonzales: unseemly campaigning

Wonkette : Gosh, we didn't think Drudge even liked girls...

Mr. Sun: Help Wanted

Raw Story has reactions from some Senators.

David Corn: Ugliness To Come

Think Progress has the latest revelations. If indeed this is true, heads will roll. It's not surprising to me that Rove and his ilk would stoop to this level of attack politics because he's made his living out of it.

(As an aside:) Liberal Oasis reminded me that Bob Woodward backed the White House's smear campaign against Joe Wilson on The Chris Matthews Show yesterday in his endless support of the White House on this issue.

"A couple of commenters tell me that cancelled subscriptions are unnerving the publisher and that some advertisers are suing because of what they say are false circulation numbers. I suspect that this last is thuggery on the part of the wingnut cabal that is coordinating this effort to get the editorial page director fired for his political beliefs....read on"

I posted about this earlier. Thanks to Liberal Oasis for pointing this out. What these Feoral Demons are essentially trying to do is drive a wedge through the hearts of businesses on ideological grounds. (Ala The O'Reilly Fench Boycott. ) Soon you can be sure Dairy Queen, Ben and Jerry's, Heinz Ketchup, Captain Crunch and Fruit Loops will be next on the list.

Liberal Oasis : All of us committed to saving our judiciary from corporate stooges and fringe fundamentalists should look at Thursday’s LA Times profile of Priscilla Owen, written by David Savage.

Because it shows how hard it is to get the facts out.

The wet kiss headline is “Judge Seen as Conservative, Fair”.

And it just gets worse from there.

Savage uses the GOP talking points early in the piece, telling his readers that Owen “comes across as a mainstream conservative.”

He quotes a total of four people that he interviewed. All the quotes are pro-Owen. Read on...

transcript via Sunday Morning Talk

Download | play

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, let me ask you about this story. It says:
U.S. misled allies about nuclear export. And according to this story
this morning it said that the United States, at the beginning of this
year, told Asian allies that North Korea was selling nuclear materials
to Libya.

It turns out, in fact, according to U.S. intelligence, that it
was Pakistan that was buying the materials for North Korea and selling
it to Libya.

And The Post goes on to say: Pakistan's role as both the buyer
and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by
Washington's partner in the hunt for Al Qaida leaders. Is that true?

RUMSFELD: I have no idea. I've never heard anything like that.
And it wouldn't be the Department of Defense that would be involved
anyway. It would be intelligence agencies.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But this is something you'd be aware of.

RUMSFELD: I'm not...

Liberal Oasis has much more on the subject.

Video
From Liberal Oasis

It was Jan who, earlier last week at a press conference, threw an elbow at unnamed “rich countries” for being “stingy” about foreign assistance in general. For an encore yesterday, he went into the belly of the anti-UN beast, Fox News Sunday. Host Chris Wallace tried to grill Egeland, reading off of White House talking points that the US shouldn’t be called stingy if government aid is low because private giving is high.

And Egeland calmly, if inelegantly, shredded that argument:

WALLACE: ...there are also studies that show that the average American private contribution is seven or eight times what the average contribution is among...German citizens or French citizens. So if people decide...that they would rather give money privately, and in fact there are some indications that it's more efficient to give it privately, what's the difference?

EGELAND: It's the very same thing to give privately or to give through the governments. I have [for] most of my life been in private organizations and administering private charity. I've seen in the Red Cross how effective that is. However, it's very important also to have the public, especially, the public sector contributing...for the neglected and forgotten emergencies that never get attention.

In eastern Congo, 1,000 people die every day because of us not having enough resources to feed, to reach the populations. The Congo doesn't get attention. We therefore also need the public sector...

Yes, Americans will respond when tragedy makes the headlines. But they can’t respond to tragedies they don’t hear about.

Watch them all!

Go to Liberal Oasis for a full analysis!