From the NYT:

Senate Leader Explains His Sale of a Stock That Then Plummeted

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - Senator Bill Frist offered an explanation on Wednesday for the timing of his sale in June of his stake in HCA, the giant hospital company that his family founded, as its shares reached a peak and began a steep slide.

Mr. Frist, who has said he will not run for another term as Tennessee senator, is widely considered to be weighing a presidential bid. That may give him another incentive to put some distance between himself and the company.

BUSH’S BOOZE CRISIS

By JENNIFER LUCE and DON GENTILE

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

His worried wife yelled at him: “Stop, George.”

Yes, this story is from the Enquirer, but after being stung by big dollar libel suits, you’d be surprised at the lengths they go to assure the accuracy of what they print about public figures. This was given to them most likely by a White House figure- perhaps laying the ground for this?

Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Could be BS, could be something. Time will tell. Frankly, its a perfect “out” for Bush. I can hear the faithful now…

“But he’s a good man, just sick, thats all…”

A collection of the incredible Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

These words from Eisnenhower in 1953:

“Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

More here.

At the Human Rights Conference on September 9, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, described Americans as “people with blood-soaked hands.”

The entire world is asking this question.

Continue reading The Cakewalk War from Paul Craig Roberts.

The British had kept the Iraqi city of Basra rather calm for quite a while now, in marked contrast to the areas that were more under American control. Until now, that is.

British Soldiers Free Two From Basra Jail

BASRA, Iraq Sep 19, 2005 — In a major show of force, British soldiers used tanks to break down the walls of the central jail in this southern city late Monday and freed two Britons, allegedly undercover commandos, who had been arrested on charges of shooting two Iraqi policemen.

Read up on this. Seems the jailed Brits were undercover, in a car full of explosives. Things are just getting stranger and stranger over there.

But at this stage of the game, barring some imaginative political moves that bear some resemblance to the Bush Administration circa 2002, Republicans on Capitol Hill and even some longtime Bush team members in various Cabinet level departments say this Administration is done for.

“You run down the list of things we thought we could accomplish and you have to wonder what we thought we were thinking,” says a Bush Administration member who joined on in 2001. “You get the impression that we’re more than listless. We’re sunk.”

Uh, you thought you and your unelected president could ride 9/11 into some glorious Rapture-inducing, stock dividends to everybody (if you’re already white and rich), moment of Churchillian wartime leadership. Only problems were that Bush is less Winston, more Alfred E. Neuman, 9/11 was a sham, and the people getting rich are doing so by bankrupting the country.

Other than that, yeah, you’re golden. Read That Sinking Feeling

Well, the week certainly got off to a bang…

Bush Official Arrested in Corruption Probe

R. Jeffrey Smith and Susan Schmidt

The Bush administration’s top federal procurement official resigned Friday and was arrested yesterday, accused of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s dealings with the federal government. It was the first criminal complaint filed against a government official in the ongoing corruption probe related to Abramoff’s activities in Washington.

And this:

FEC Sues Pro-Republican Political Group
SHARON THEIMER

WASHINGTON - Federal election officials on Monday sued a political group to try to force it to comply with campaign finance limits, the first lawsuit of its kind to arise from controversial big-money fundraising during the 2004 elections.

The Federal Election Commission filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Washington against the Club for Growth. The pro-Republican group spent at least $21 million in the 2003-04 election cycle.

And finally, the Big Apple doesn’t seem to like free speech:

NYPD Unplugs Cindy Sheehan

Sarah Ferguson

Cindy Sheehan may be the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement. But that didn’t stop members of the New York Police Department from marching into the crowd of about 150 people gathered in Union Square Monday to hear her speak and yanking away the microphone.

The NYPD pulled the plug just as Sheehan was calling on the audience not to lose heart in the fight to end the war in Iraq.

What a busy day. As an aside, doesn’t it seem as if the wheels are (belatedly) coming off the Bush bandwagon? Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Counterpunch has a good take on what to expect in New Orleans, once the waters recede.

Read Levee Town

GOP to propose budget cuts to cover Katrina costs

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are looking at delaying some federal spending, including money for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare and thousands of highway projects, to offset the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, a leading GOP fiscal conservative said Sunday.

“We’re failing when it comes to controlling spending,” Graham told Fox News Sunday.

It will be a chilly day down below when Congress actually cuts spending on pork laden bills such as the energy package or heaven forbid (literally!) the tax cut gimme. Nope, spending will be cut on such things as Head Start, the EPA- you know, the things that actually help people that don’t have high paid trolls to lobby for them on the Hill. And of course we can’t pull out of the cash drain that is the Iraqi war.