in search of the best pumpkin

bubble wrap …

h/t to DCup

bush and rice share blame for blackwater

Dan Froomkin, in a special column to washingtonpost.com, writes:

In the wake of last month’s shooting of 17 civilians by Blackwater gunmen in Baghdad, the Bush administration is finally acknowledging — more than four years late — that private security contractors in Iraq should operate under the law.

Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted to Congress that the State Department had inadequately supervised those contractors. As Karen DeYoung wrote in Friday’s Washington Post, “Pressed to express regret for what Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) called “the failures of your department, your failures,” Rice said, “I certainly regret that we did not have the kind of oversight that I would have insisted upon.”

Not the kind of oversight that she “would have insisted upon?” Would someone please remind me of her job description? Isn’t she like in charge of these things, or am I missing something?

Rice agreed that “there is a hole” in U.S. law that has prevented prosecution of contractors.

But did we really need an apparent massacre to point out this giant loophole and its perils?

As it happens, President Bush has been aware of the hole for some time — and deserves some of the blame for not fixing it earlier. Confronted about it in public more than a year ago, Bush literally laughed off the question — and then, tellingly, described his response as a case study in how he does his job.

Here’s the video posted to YouTube on April 11, 2006:

As my good friend Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors would say … Impeach the mutha already!

sunday funnies

hip hop violin

I loved this!
h/t to Karen at Beautiful Day Rule

fake FEMA press conference

Good grief! You’d think an agency already dealing with image issues would be particularly conscious of their actions — but not FEMA! The New York Times reports:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency staged a fake news conference this week, with agency staff officials, pretending to be reporters, peppering one of their own bosses with decidedly friendly questions about the response to the California fires, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged Friday.

The action, first reported on Friday in The Washington Post, drew a rebuke from the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and an apology from the agency official who was at the lectern, Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy director.

“We have made it clear that such a stunt will never be tolerated or repeated,” a spokeswoman for the department, Laura C. Keehner, said on behalf of Mr. Chertoff.

justice FINALLY for genarlow wilson

After spending more than two years behind bars, Genarlow Wilson is tonight a free man.

The New York Times reports:

The Georgia Supreme Court today ended the 10-year prison sentence of a man who was convicted in 2003 of having consensual oral sex with another teenager. The court said the harsh sentence violated the Constitution’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

In a 4-to-3 ruling, the court’s majority said the sentence was “grossly disproportionate” to the crime, which the justices said “did not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children.”

The inmate, Genarlow Wilson, who is now 21, was 17 when he was caught on videotape having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a drug- and alcohol-fueled New Year’s Eve party in 2003. He was released this afternoon.

This law was deemed so harsh that Georgia legislators changed it a year after Wilson was sentenced. Unfortunately for Genarlow they did not make it retroactive to include him. So this honors student and star athlete has had years stolen from him, that he will never get back.

for ‘i was just wondering’ jess

… hope it was good for you.

is the GOP driving out moderates?

When a moderate Republican decides to take a pass on running for an open U.S. Senate seat, I think it’s a problem. The WaPo reports:

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III said this morning that he will not make a run for the U.S. Senate next year in part because of what he sees as the Republican Party’s increasingly narrow focus on candidates who pass conservative litmus tests.

Davis (R-Va.), who has been preparing for a Senate bid for years, said national and state Republicans have failed to recognize how dramatically the country’s electorate is changing. Continuing to close their tent to such groups as social moderates, immigrants and those who look to government to protect public schools or reform health care will result in further electoral losses, he said.

bush threatens Cuba … with what?

George Bush plans to issue a stern warning to Cuba that the United States won’t accept a political transition from one Castro brother to another. The only problem with this is Bush is a little late — the transfer is pretty much done.

The New York Times reports:

As described by an official in a background briefing to reporters on Tuesday evening, Mr. Bush’s remarks will amount to the most detailed response — mainly an unbending one — to the political changes that began in Cuba more than a year ago, when Fidel Castro fell ill and handed power to his brother Raúl. [...]

[Bush] will say that while much of the rest of Latin America has moved from dictatorship to democracy, Cuba continues to use repression and terror to control its people. And, the administration official said, Mr. Bush will direct another part of his speech to the Cuban people, telling them they “have the power to shape their destiny and bring about change.” [...]

Some of the sharpest parts of the speech, however, will be aimed directly at Raúl Castro. Mr. Bush is expected to make clear that the United States will oppose an old system controlled by new faces. The senior administration official said that nothing in Raúl Castro’s past gives Washington reason to expect democratic reforms soon. And he said the United States would uphold its tough economic policies against the island.

Because they have worked so well up to now! But wait, there’s more.