Oh, this is priceless:

US commanders in Iraq are expressing grave concerns that the overcrowded Abu Ghraib prison has become a breeding ground for extremist leaders and a school for terrorist foot soldiers...."Abu Ghraib is a graduate-level training ground for the insurgency," said an US commander in Iraq.

They now refer to Abu Ghraib as "Jihad University" -- another instance where before there were no terrorists in Iraq, now we're breeding them.

Out of the blue, Alan Dershowitz has resurfaced, speaking out about Cheney's shooting incident. I asked the question about a year ago: what ever happened to this guy? He used to be on every TV news shoutfest, representing the liberal side, and then he suddenly disappeared. Very odd.

Did you know there are 33,000 registered lobbyists in Washington, vs. "just" 15,000 about the time Clinton left office? I thought BushCo was going to clean things up in Washington -- funny, you'd think lobbyists wouldn't be part of the solution. Also in that time, 250 former members of Congress have joined the ranks of lobbyists (including former AG Ashcroft!), as well as 275 former White House aides.

And yet for incumbents, elections are more of a sure-thing than ever. Example: 400 of 435 House members run in safe districts, often unopposed. One would think this means less spending and campaigning is required -- so then why the massive donations by lobbyists? It appears it's all about greed and influence when writing laws for special interests.

Do the math, 92% of House members are shoe-ins for reelection, so don't "buy" their oft-used excuse that they need to raise massive $$$ to effectively campaign. There's much more going on here than that lame justification. (Source of data: The Leuthold Group)