The story has legs: WASHINGTON – When Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist asked a trustee to sell all his stock in his family’s hospital corporation, a large-scale sell-off by HCA Inc. insiders was under way. Shares of the Nashville, Tenn.-based hospital company were near a 52-week peak in June when Frist and HCA insiders were selling off their shares — … Read More
Trouble For Frist?
The lead paragraph says it all: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family’s hospital corporation about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell nearly 15 percent. Read more about insider trading here.
Wanker Of The Day
Representative Baker of Baton Rouge overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did." Yup. God sure did. And then some.
Katrina Aid Package
Congress passed a $51 billion Katrina aid package today. Eleven (!!) voted against it. Take a guess: Were they (a) members of the "culture of life" Republican party, or (b) Democrats?
Whitewash Begins
This was predictable: Yesterday, congressional Republicans tried to get a head start, announcing the formation of an [Katrina] investigative commission that they can control. They rejected Democratic appeals to model the panel after the Sept. 11 commission, which was made up of non-lawmakers and was equally balanced between Republicans and Democrats. That commission won wide praise for assessing how the … Read More
Thank God I Was Raised In New Hampshire
Oh, and thanks, Mom.
Not Angry
In response to a comment on that his blog is "full of hatred and anger", Corrente not only denied the charge, but set out to compile a list of things he was not angry about, as well as things he doesn’t hate. It’s not only long, but a work-in-progress, so check out Corrente’s site for the latest revisions and updates: … Read More
Frist Gets On His Knees And Begs Forgiveness From The Religious Right
From MSNBC: Frist voices support for ‘intelligent design’ Senator encourages teaching of faith-based theory alongside evolution Uh-oh. Someone’s upset he wasn’t invited to Justice Sunday II. Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said “intelligent design” should be taught in public schools alongside evolution. Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, spoke to a Rotary Club meeting Friday … Read More
Lessons Not Learned
Paul Begala is talking here about the smears of the right wing against Sheehan (although it is hard to tell). He’s nailed it: It seems to me the American people never really forgave the Democrats for being right about Vietnam. The left was right, of course, about Vietnam. Even my CNN colleague Bob Novak, who was extraordinarily hawkish on Vietnam, … Read More
The Chickenhawk Counterargument
TBogg examines one neo-con’s attempt to defuse the chickenhawk meme: Rusty at The Jawa Report attempted a statistical study on chickenhawkedness and didn’t get enough reponses to make a valid judgement…so he went and make a wholly unsupportable one anyway: An oft heard accusation is that of chickenhawk being leveled at supporters of the Iraq War who have no prior … Read More
Chickenhawk Wankers
Staff Sgt. Jason Rivera, 26, a Marine recruiter in Pittsburgh, went to the home of a high school student who had expressed interest in joining the Marine Reserve to talk to his parents. It was a large home in a well-to-do suburb north of the city. Two American flags adorned the yard. The prospect’s mom greeted him wearing an American … Read More
Report From Crawford
The anti-Cindy Sheehan protesters have shown up at the Bush ranch, and like their online counterparts, they’re nothing but ugly: Alex just called, and some counter-protestors showed up in a bus. Don’t know with whom or what they’re affiliated. A diary on DailyKos says it’s the Mike Gallagher group. They’re not obeying the strict parking rules the police have been … Read More
We’re Number 144!
VotingResearch.org conducted a study of the 237 cities in the country to see which is most liberal. Winston-Salem, where I live, is ranked #144, while Greensboro — a mere 20 minutes away — is ranked #72. Concord NH, where I grew up, is not on the list, but Manchester NH is ranked #159. You can see the liberal rankings of … Read More
When Zero Doesn’t Mean Zero
From the AP: The Republican Party says it still has a zero-tolerance policy for tampering with voters even as it pays the legal bills for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to thwart Democrats from voting in New Hampshire. James Tobin, the president’s 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four … Read More
Sheehan
There’s so much out there on the left blogosphere about Cindy Sheehan, and it’s all good. But Steve Gilliard focuses on the predictable smear tactics of the right, and how it is backfiring: The thing about the Right Wing noise machine is that it only has one tactical mode. Full bore attack. Which against a woman who lost her son, … Read More