Welcome to The Now

Karl Rove is still under investigation .

It's Libby . Five counts .

As I was waiting to hear news on Rove and Libby's future (which, it seems, will be delayed) last night, I was watching an NBA preseason game between the Golden State Warriors and the Phoenix Suns. I overheard former Wizards coach Doug Collins wax how Golden State was on the rise. Read that last sentence again. I almost choked on my McChicken Sandwich when I heard it myself. Let's get something straight: there's a short list of Cinderella teams in the NBA, and the Warriors aren't on it. Check their previous seasons and their pre-season reccord thus far. this is not a franchise with a recent history of turning things around. I don't care what the survey says . Putting one overrated psuedo-point guard on your roster isn't going to make you a playoff contender. They're certainly not winning their division , and that's the easiest way to get a playoff spot. And considering that they'd got to be better than the Clippers , Lakers , Hornets , Blazers , Wolv...

Now that Miers is gone, many think the President will nominate a hard-nosed conservative to throw to his base (and hopefully improve his poll numbers). I say Bush should do the opposite. Pick someone worse than Miers to show those republican critics how right he was! "But who," you ask? Well: 1. Failed Dot-Commers: They need the work, they're used to big failures, and they have even less judicial experience. 2. Harvey Birdman : It shows that Bush is reaching out to Animated-Americans, and Harvey has won a case or two. 3. Florida Governor "Jeb" Bush : He's not doing so hot in Florida. Help a brother out. 4. Former Senator Bob Dole : We all know how he feels about abortion , so you got that covered. 5. Stephen Johnson, EPA : It's not like he's really done anything . Really . 6. Karen Hughes : This shows that there's even worse cheerleaders than Miers. C'mon, now. It's not like the President wanted a fight anyway, right? His image is a...

Following up on his previous pleads , J.E.B. Bush falls on the sword to salvage his brother's image.

Harriet Miers, the most / best qualified person President Bush could find, has withdrawn her nomination for the the Supreme Court.

Both cocky and comical, Starscream was easily one of the most popular characters in the Transformers Universe. Because of a good combination of good character writing (both the comic book and the cartoon) and the voice talents of Chris Latta , Starscream also became a critical character. I suppose the thing that I liked about the character was that even though he knew it was a uphill battle to rule the Decepitcons, he never made his intentions hidden. His goal was to rule, plain and simple. His methods for achieving this goal, however, was usually a secret until the last possible moment. And his "allies" varied in both loyalty and effectiveness, making his attempts to overthrow Megatron (or whoever was leading at the time) even more entertaining. His downfall, in just about every case, was his vanity. Take " Transformers: The Movie " for example: instead of striking a spiritually and physically weaken contigent of Autobots (a move that would have surely put him in t...

One of the reasons I wanted to do this page was I wanted to have the ability to relate what's going on now to the past and also speculate how it affects the future. Another reason was more common among bloggers: to rant and ramble. I think I'll be able to kill to birds with one stone. For those who don't know, it's 2005. In one fantasy's universe , that was a very important date . Every now and then, until the end of the year, I'll ponder on how the characters involved in this universe still impact us today. Not only will this lighten the mood, but it will be a nice change of pace.

The horrible events of September 11th, 2001 resulted in a death toll between 2,752 and 2,986 depending on your source. After that, President Bush declared a War on Terror that involved going after a man named Bin Laden in Afganistan and then a man named Hussein in Iraq. Bin Laden got away and Hussein is on trial. Some people questioned the reasons for going to Iraq (mainly because the people there did not attack the U.S.) and they were dealt with in various ways. The President continued to insist that the best way to prevent such attacks by people who came from here , here , here and here was to continue to wage war in Iraq. He promised to keep another disaster from harming Americans and we gave him another term to prove it. As of today, 2,000 American soldiers have died because of this particular military strategy. Soon after his second term began, Hurricane Katrina and it's aftermath asked the question: Can the President and his people truly protect us from natural disasters ...

There is a new battle on the horizon: the fight to make Patrick Fitzgerald (he's the guy doing this ) the new villian of the Bush Administration. His supporters -both those close to the President and those just sympathetic to his philosophy - have already started. However, the White House has yet to officially strike. But that doesn't mean they won't . Remember that prior VOTBAs have included: Osama Bin Laden , Saddam Hussein , John Kerry , Joe Wilson , and The U.N . Of course, if attacking doesn't work, President Bush can just pardon every guilty person (unless someone stops that too ).

The Tennessean reports that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist knew what the deal was even though he claimed earlier that he was in the dark: Before : "I had no information about HCA or its performance that was not publicly available when I directed the trustees to sell the stock," Frist said Monday, referring to the sale by administrators of his blind trusts. "My only objective in selling the stock was to eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest," Frist's statement said. Now : Records filed with the Senate show that trusts held for Frist and his children received as much as $2.3 million in HCA stock between January 2001, when Frist established blind trusts in an attempt to minimize conflicts of interest, and last June, when he ordered his trustees to sell all the stock he had left in the company. Most of the HCA stock was transferred into the blind trusts once family partnerships set up to manage substantial wealth that Frist's parents left to rela...

Awhile back I expressed my surprise at Condi Rice's brushes with racism. After reading Eugene Robinson's article , I guess I can see why. In a nutshell, Rice was sheltered. Completely. Her dad was guarding the house with a rifle at the front porch while she was practicing her piano lesson inside. Her friend was one of the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham, Alabama , but she's not exactly shell-shocked about the ordeal. Which leads me to this: I guess I can't fault her for her ignorance of the past because she was protected from it. Also, I can't fault her on not getting up to speed because she was never encouraged to do so. However, I don't want to hear anyone using her as an example of the "progress" of race relations. Her whole life has been keep separate from that issue, so I don't see any reason to bring her into it now. I hearby deem this occurence -the situtation of being a minority without going through the tri...

When I read that White House is huffing and puffing over the Onion's latest display in political humor , I was shocked. You'd think that having to introduce a new (potential) Fed Chairman and dealing with inevitable indictments would keep you busy. Especially for a White House where the President is notoriously bad at multitasking. But nooooooo. They have to pick on a group of guys whose "news" is as real as these fellas . Flexing your muscles just to show you still have some authority is hard work.

You can say what you want about Karl Rove's version of Replublicans (personally I agree with what's here ). You may even argue of what his absence may mean for President Bush. One thing's for certain: Rove has no one to blame but himself. His biggest shortcoming? Wanting to be known. True kingmakers are content with staying in the background, operating from behind the curtain and manipulating things from the sidelines. They don't want public recognition. They shun awards. They are suspicious of praise and publicity. But Rove couldn't help himself. Being called the President's "brain" can really inflate you ego, ya know. Once he decided to have an official position with Bush's administration, it was all over. It's like the Loch Ness Monster suddenly deciding to be the spokesperson for Red Lobster. Now we see, without a shadow of a doubt, who you are and what you're about. In short, you've been made fair game.

Before I start, let's remember the one rule about George W. Bush: the man cannot multitask. So, let's say you are the President of the United States. You've campaigned as a religious hardcore conservative even though it's becoming more obvious that you're a borrow-and-spend moderate who likes to use special interests to keep your party together and your opposition fractured. After two questionable elections, a poorly conducted war based on "fixed" information, the worst federal response to a natural disaster n recent history, and the possibility that members of your administration and party may be going to prison for various charges, your polls are low and sinking. You try to boost them by teleconferences and speeches, but it doesn't work. So you try a "presidential action;" something you're allowed to do as president to remind people that you can still be presidential. The problem is, this action (nominating another person for the Suprem...

Timelines regarding the outing of Plame (which Scott McClellan still won't really talk about now that it's obvious someone's in trouble ) can be found here , here and here .

Did President Bush really have higher standards when he was a bright-eyed candidate running for the highest office in America? If so, he should stick to them , even in these dark times .

I don't plan on buying from Wal-Mart anytime soon. At least until they explain why their PAC gave money to an indicted member of Congress... after he was indicted .

Highlights from Scotty's latest press gaggle , which goes over a certain debated photo op : Q So you're saying this was not a staged conversation for PR purposes? MR. McCLELLAN: This is an event where there's coordination that goes on and we work closely with the Department of Defense. They worked to pull together some troops for the President to visit with and highlight important topics that are going on right now on the ground in Iraq. The President is going to continue speaking out about what we're working to achieve in Iraq and he's going to continue talking about the vital mission that we're working to achieve there. The stakes are high in Iraq. This is right up there at the top of our list of priorities. As the President said in the remarks, his most solemn duty and the most solemn duty of our men and women in uniform, like those he was talking to, is the safety and security of the American people. I just don't know if some are suggesting that what our...

The Washington Post tries to translate some of Bush's body language . By the way, what was with all of his jaw grinding ? Is it really bruxism ? If so, which one of the causes could it be? But it's nothing compared to the signals he's trying to give conservatives who still aren't to thrilled with his SCOTUS nominee.

Fox News' own Bill O'Reilly makes a keen observation .

Quick: besides both being presidents, what does George Bush and Bill Clinton have in common? How about a grand, but flawed domestic idea in their second term ? Of course, Clinton had his pre-Monica popularity to fall back on when his idea flopped.

How's this for funny? In Pawtucket, Rhode Island, 2 6-year olds got into a fistfight over a pacifier! yup that's right, a pacifier. This began on monday. One of the children dropped his pacifier and another picked it up and refused to give it back, prompting the boy to punch the other boy in the face, and the boy with the pacifier retaliated. Police then said the mother of one of the boys said she wanted the whole thing documented so she couldn't be accused of child abuse by the school.

President Bush dropped this little gem during today's speech (which didn't make the networks, BTW): No act of ours invited the rage of the killers, and no concession, bribe or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder. Well, that's not what Capitol hill is being told . Nor is it what the people believe . Esecially when it's obvious -even to a history major like Bush- that there were "acts" on our part that invited rage: namely giving Bin Laden (and his ilk) weapons to fight Communism than leaving them high and dry to fight civl wars once Communism was no longer a threat to American Society. The President shouldn't listen to polls, you say? Well, when the polls said that people believed Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11 , Bush did nothing. In fact, he promoted the theory until the truth was too big to ignore . But there's no reason for denial anymore: there is a link between Iraq and the terrorists who attacked the US on 9/11. T...

If take a good look at the picture on this link , you'll notice our new nominee for the Supreme Court helping President Bush with some documents. First: It these are the "Bin Laden is gonna getcha" warnings we've heard about before, Miers isn't much of a briefer. Second: I've heard of helping your friends get a job, but promoting your own laywer to the Supreme Court? Why would someone need to do that ?

Ok; we will. In regards to who said what during the Katrina Cleanup Debacle (which still continues but has the fortune of being attended to by some kind souls ) we have Louisianna Gov. Blanco vs. President George Bush. Blanco, in her offical emergency declaration, asked for all parishes to be included . In the White House response, the New Orleans parish was excluded . Keep this in mind while people like (Former FEMA director/current FEMA consultant) Mike Brown tries to point fingers at everyone else but themsleves .