by TChris

Another former colleague of John Bolton has advanced the opinion that Bolton's lack of diplomatic skills makes him an inappropriate choice to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

[Frederick] Vreeland, who worked with Bolton in the early 1990s under the first President Bush, said Bolton "dealt with visitors to his office as if they were servants with whom he could be dismissive, curt and negative."

"He spoke of the U.N. as being the enemy," Vreeland added in the e-mail sent Friday to Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. The e-mail was first reported by Time magazine. "It is totally erroneous to speak of Bolton as a diplomat."

According to Vreeland, if the Bush administration's policy is "not to reform the U.N but to destroy it" -- and that very well may be the Bush administration's unstated policy -- "Bolton is our man."

2,000 schools nationwide ask students to play informant. Now, there's at least one school that is paying kids in cash for snitching:

For a growing number of students, the easiest way to make a couple of hundred dollars has nothing to do with chores or after-school jobs, and everything to do with informing on classmates.

Tragedies like last month's deadly shooting at a Red Lake, Minn., school have prompted more schools to offer cash and other prizes - including pizza and premium parking spots - to students who report classmates who carry guns, drugs or alcohol, commit vandalism or otherwise break school rules.

Aside from our view that such programs teach the kids a morally bankrupt message, experts say the practice will destroy the students' sense of community.

by TChris

Apologists for the Bush administration who cling desperately to the belief that Saddam Hussein really did have weapons of mass destruction have sometimes argued that the WMD's were spirited away to Syria before the United States invaded Iraq. A new report by the Iraq Survey Group rejects that theory as "unlikely."

The ISG report also said that 12 years of international sanctions against Baghdad after the Persian Gulf War had left Iraq's scientific community decimated and their skills in a state of "natural decay." The group added that it was unlikely that Iraq's scientists were capable of recreating the destroyed weapons programs, meaning Iraq would have possessed little, if anything, to transfer to anywhere.

Charles Duefler, who heads the ISG, says that Iraqi scientists have told the ISG everything they know, and should no longer be detained.

Why is Laci Peterson more important than Lisa Eatmon? Both were 8 months pregnant when they were killed and dumped in the water. In both cases, their husbands were charged amid claims by authorities they were running for the border. But I bet you've never even heard of Lisa Eatmon, let alone seen her face every night on the cable news shows.

A Brooklyn man charged with killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend and dumping her body in the Hudson River pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder yesterday. The suspect, Roscoe Glinton II, , 42, entered his plea in State Supreme Court in the death of the woman, Lisa D. Eatmon, 33, whose body was found off a Chelsea pier on April 3. She was eight months pregnant with Mr. Glinton's child, and had been shot in the head, the police said.

Mr. Glinton, a sanitation worker, was arrested on Friday after a grand jury returned an indictment against him. Two weeks earlier, the prosecutor contended, he had planned to flee to the Bahamas with $20,000, but was arrested after driving away from officers at speeds up to 100 miles per hour on the Belt Park.

Even the husband's defenses are similar:

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll out Monday night shows the majority of Americans oppose the nuclear option by a 2 to 1 margin. They want to preserve the filibuster. They get it. The radical right, for all its self-puffery, is not the mainstream. It don't speak for America.

The poll also shows dwindling support for Bush's social security reform plan involving privatized accounts and for Bush himself:

Bush's standing with the public was at or near new lows, with less than half the public supporting the way the president is handling the economy, energy policy and Iraq.

Taken together, the findings suggest that Bush is off to a difficult start in his second term, with Democrats far less willing to accommodate him and his agenda than his reelection victory last November may have foreshadowed. Beyond that, the survey highlights the divisions within the Republican Party, whether that involves Bush's signature Social Security proposal or the intersection of religion and politics that has become a defining characteristic of today's GOP.

MSM has been reporting recently that the Democrats invented the term "nuclear option." Not so. Media Matters and Josh Marshall trace the birth of the term to Republican Senator Trent Lott.

the term "nuclear option" -- referring to the Republican-proposed Senate rule change that would prohibit filibusters of judicial nominations -- was coined by one of its leading advocates, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS). But since Republican strategists judged the term "nuclear option" to be a liability, they have urged Senate Republicans to adopt the term "constitutional option." Many in the media have complied with the Senate Republicans' shift in terminology and repeated their attribution of the term "nuclear option" to the Democrats.

Media Matters has an exhaustive history of the use of the term. Jeff Toobin also credited Lott with the phrase, and provides some context, in this New Yorker article:

I have been receiving e-mails from people telling me that Sirius radio has a liberal talk station it identifies as "TalkLeft." When I checked the Sirus website, I saw it lists its liberal talk station as "Sirius Left" , which is fine. But now I get another email that says in Kansas City, on station 143, the display clearly reads "TALKLEFT SIRIUS CHANNEL 143."

I don't get Sirius, so can anyone let me know if this is accurate? Sirus should not be appropriating TalkLeft's name.

Crooks and Liars has a CBS video clip from Walter Cronkite's September 25th, 1968 broadcast with W GOP Sen. Robert Griffin justifying the Republican's use of the filibuster to block President Johnson's nominee Abe Fortus for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. As we noted here, Republicans have been inaccurately describing such use of the filuster as "unprecedented." [link fixed]

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has released a new report on the death penalty.

The number of people sentenced to death last year fell to the lowest level since the Supreme Court reinstated the penalty in 1976.

There were 125 people sent to death row in 2004, down from 144 the previous year and the sixth consecutive annual decline, according to figures compiled by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In 1998, 300 people received death sentences.

According to a lawyer for the group, one of the reasons for the decline is the increasing number of DNA exonerations. People now realize mistakes are made, and death is permanent. Others cite Supreme Court decisions banning the death penalty for certain offenders:

Thanks to Ian of The Political Teen for putting up the video of today's Blogger Report on MSNBC's Connected Coast to Coast which I narrated. Here's what was featured (the show covers both sides):

The Nuclear Option:

• Chris Bowers at MyDD writes about a blogger conference call with Sen. Harry Reid today during which he dispelled the myth that Democrats will shut down the Senate if they don’t get their way on the “nuclear option.” Rather, Chris writes, they will stop allowing Republicans to set the legislative agenda and insist on introducing and having votes on their own bills.

The feds have arrested Haji Bashir Noorzai, a reputed Afghan heroin kingpin who allegedly did business with the Taliban.

Noorzai had an ``unholy alliance'' with deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, trading drugs and weapons for protection of his operation, [U.S. Attorney David] Kelley said. Last June President George W. Bush described Noorzai as a ``drug kingpin'' under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, which targets individuals who pose ``a threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,'' Kelley said.

Soundbite of the day - designed to stick in a juror's mind:

John Gilbride, special agent in charge of the New York office of the DEA, called Noorzai the ``Pablo Escobar of heroin trafficking in Asia,'' referring to the former leader of Colombia's Medellin cocaine cartel. Escobar died in 1993.

Senator Bill Frist and the Republicans would have the American people believe that if the nuclear option passes and the Senate rules are changed to prevent filibustering of judges, that the Democrats will bring the Senate to a standstill.

It's simply not true. What will end is the Democrats' deference to the Republicans in setting the legislative agenda.

This morning I had the opportunity to participate in a blogger conference call with Sen. Harry Reid. Here is some of what I learned during the call.

Traditionally, the party in power sets the agenda. So far during this Administration, the Democrats have gone along, and as a result, the Republicans were able to pass bankruptcy reform and their highway and class action bills.

If Frist and the Republicans insist on bringing the nuclear option to a vote and win, the Democrats will no longer allow the Republicans to set the agenda. Using a Senate procedural rule called Rule XIV, the Democrats will introduce their own bills and insist that they be heard and voted upon. Not just any bills, but bills on issues the Democrats care deeply about.