Well by now you've seen it everywhere on DailyKos: voter suppression by the Clinton campaign in Nevada, voting irregularities in Nevada disenfranchise those trying to vote for Obama. Well I have one thing to say, in the words of Edna Krabappel, "HA!"

An article in today's New York Times, Nominee’s Stand May Avoid Tangle of Torture Cases, caught my interest. Most of the press and bloggers have been focusing on the immediate and obvious impact of Michael Mukasey's nomination to Attorney General and his refusal to state on record that waterboarding is torture. That is of course that waterboarding will be continued to be used by the United States, unless the Attorney General disavows the use of this horrible tactic. But this article brings to light a more disturbing reason as to why Mukasey is refusing to declare waterboarding torture: such a declaration on waterboarding would heighten the risk that members of the Bush Administration could be prosecuted at a later date!

This article is about the Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin, but it is not a complete review. I have not yet finished the book, and I will write a review when I am finished. Rather this article is about Jeffrey Toobin's intrepretation of the United States Supreme Court's role in the Florida recount of the 2000 Presidential Election.

For those of you who don't know the Nine is a book written by Jeffrey Toobin, a CNN senior legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer, about the United States Supreme Court of the past century, focusing primarily on the past twenty-seven years. Not surprisingly, a large section of the book is devoted to the events surrounding the famous United States Supreme Court's decision regarding the request by the Gore campaign to manually recount ballots in four Florida counties: Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia.

Ever since George W. Bush stole the 2000 election the words ‘tyrant’ and ‘dictator’ have been used to describe him (I image that these terms have been used to describe all our Presidents, by someone or another). As his ‘reign’ has progressed these terms of endearment seem increasingly applicable, but just exactly how amazingly accurate these terms are in describing George Bush is best seen when we examine the roots of these words. Analyzing the roots is more than just a fruitless mental game, but rather they provide us with an insight into ourselves and the precarious state in which our democracy exists. In the words of Karl Marx, "History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce."

The story is familiar to us all. After months of attempting to convince the American public, and the world that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, inclduing nucular (sic) weapons, Ambassador Joe Wilson publicly refuted key claims made by the White House, in a New York Times editorial. Shortly thereafter Joe Wilson's wife's name, Valerie Plame, was leaked to Robert Novak who in turned published an article, identifying her as an undercover Central Intelligence Agency operative.

This leak to the media was dogmatically believed to be retailation for Joe Wilson's article; however, recent evidence has come to light, which shows that another perhaps more important factor played a role.

I have not seen one of these in a while, and so I decided to post an early Sunday afternoon Democratic Presidential Straw Poll. This poll lists the candidates for President as they would appear if the election were held today, therefore Al Gore is not included.

This poll is 0% scientific and has a 100% margin of error.

If you have watched C-SPAN lately you have probably seen these women in pink protesting the War in Iraq. When I first saw them I did not think much of it. A couple of women in pink vocally protesting during the Petraeus hearings. Perhaps they were friends that just decided to color coordinate; but I kept seeing them. This group is known as CODEPINK: Women for Peace.

Just today I saw a press conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies by Muwafaq Al-Rubaie, the Iraqi National Security Adviser, where after peacefully handing out fliers before the conference even began someone escorted a woman in pink out of the room. This piqued my curiosity, what was this group that inspired such fear and contempt in the neo-cons? I have heard nothing of them in the news, and after doing a quick search for diaries on them on DailyKos, and finding little information, I decided to write my own diary on them.

I would like to start out by saying that if Al Gore were to run he would be my favorite presidential candidate, and of all the Presidential Elections since 1988 he has been my favorite presidential candidate (better than Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, John Kerry). That being said let me begin this diary.

I have divided my diary up into two sections, which reflect the only two possible outcomes of Al Gore running, A) What Would Happen If Al Gore Lost, and B) What Would Happen If Al Gore Won. I think we can all agree that those are the only two possibilities as there is no way in which Al Gore would agree to be Vice President, again. Each section details what I believe would be the negative consequences in each scenario, numbered and then arranged from the least negative consequences to the most.

In 1989, the oppressive military junta State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), later renamed the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), changed the English name of Burma to the Union of Myanmar. Unfortunately, this name has been officially recognized by most of the world, including the United Nations and the European Union, and is commonly used by news organizations, including the Daily Show. In a rare display of wisdom certain nations refused to play along with this dictatorship, such nations include: the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and more.

Please take a moment to "Ask President Bush to urge a UN Security Council mission to Burma"

That's right, I said it!

NOTE: I am not a economist or an environmental scientist. Rather I am expressing what I feel is a logical and well thought out argument. I look forward to any discussion prompted by this "letter".

We must lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people

So said President George W. Bush at a conference Friday.

Mr Bush: Establishing mandatory caps on greenhouse gases will NOT our economy nor will it "prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people"! In fact, the opposite is true.

I wanted to "forward" you all this message about Amnesty International's Instant Karma: The Campaign to Save Darfur, and their Global Petition. Please sign it!

Dear Tomchik,

I opened the newspaper today, and here's what I saw:

The War in Iraq, presidential candidates battling in New Hampshire, and the slow housing market. There was little mention of the ongoing deadly conflict in Darfur, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced 2.5 million people to date.

That's unacceptable. The people of Darfur need your help to put this crisis at the top of our country and the President's agenda.

Please take a minute, and sign Amnesty's Global Petition to help end the violence in Darfur. What good will an online petition do? More than you think.

I like many people in this country, liberals and conservatives alike, had for many years held George W. Bush with contempt for his apparent lack of intelligence (this view is particularly prevalent with Daily Kos bloggers, which makes me worry that this article will be ignored or criticized on the basis of its thesis rather than on the basis of its content). I fear that this contempt has lead to free passes for the Bush Administration and has potentially endangered Democrats' chances of winning the White House and strengthening their majorities in both the House and the Senate in 2008.

While it is clear that George W. suffers from dyslexia and has trouble speaking publicly this does not necessarily translate into a lack of intelligence (I am not even going to begin to address the fact that dyslexia does not mean someone is unintelligent). For starters consider the fact that his "aw shucks image" has been carefully crafted by his former political adviser Karl Rove. This folksie image of his lead to him being Governor of Texas (the third largest state in the Union) for five years and President of the United States for two terms, neither of which is a small feat. The fact that he did not win the popular vote in 2000 does not diminish these achievements, rather it seems to be the opposite.

I have been wanting to say this for quite a while, but held back. The Moveon.org advertisement, and more importantly Rudy Giuliani's response to it (see below), finally pushed me over the edge. Rudy Giuliani scares the s**t out of me.

I truly hope I am not the only one that feels this way.

I would like to begin by apologizing for having only one quotation and source in this article. My thoughts were mostly brought about by comments by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker made during their testimonies to Congress and I have been unable to find any transcripts of these testimonies, if anyone is able to locate it please let me know.

For the past few months it seems that everyone is worried that the Bush Administration will go to war again Iran. I am beginning to realize this fear is unfounded, we are already at war with Iran, the Bush Administration has chosen to fight them in Iraq, which is the reason as to why we are staying there. Let me explain.

NOTE: I am NOT Senator Bill Nelson, rather I am passing along an email from him that was forwarded to me.

The following email was forwarded to me by Alan Brock, the President of the Florida Young Democrats (I removed his email for courtesy):

I am forwarding this email on to you, I hope the HTML comes through.  From Senator Nelson to his supporters throughout Florida.

~Alan
President
Florida Young Democrats

As Chair of your State Party, I will go before the Rules & Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Saturday to fight to preserve Florida's full and diverse representation in the presidential primary process.

Under the Rules, the DNC has the authority to slash the delegate voting power of states that hold unauthorized presidential primaries prior to February 5, 2008, essentially making their votes meaningless. Because the Republican-controlled state Legislature moved our state's primary to January 29, 2008, Florida Democrats may be subject to severe penalties.

On Saturday, we will make our case to the DNC. I'm going to fight to have Florida's votes counted, but in reality, I'm only one out of more than four million Florida Democrats. The DNC really needs to hear from people like you.

Let us get one thing out of the way, I hate George W. Bush. While having been born in the late twentieth century (1982) I have few first hand memories of past Presidents, being particularly unaware of their polices. However, being raised by educated parents who were passionate about politics I quickly learned not only the politics, but also the personality of every President starting with at least Herbert Hoover.

As I answered by my door today a small tri-fold pamphlet slipped out from the crack (a ominous sign indeed). The cover showed a pristine image of a smiling black man, white woman, and what I presumed to be a Hispanic woman. The scene showed fresh crops, flowers, evergreens, trees filled with golden leaves, and snow covered mountain tops in the background (a rare site indeed in southern Florida). On the cover the words:

All Suffering
SOON TO END!

were plastered at the top; so I decided to read on: