Republican Priorities

This administration and its Republican supporters in Congress have always been about playing up their strong "support the troops" message and their chest thumping brand of national security. But their actions - as always - speak louder than words ever could their real intentions.

My post from yesterday ended with a leading question that plays into this same theme. Today, the Washington Post, via MSNBC, gives us another peek at Republicans real priorities. If the Iraq fiasco was, at least in part, a sop to BushCo's oil company supporters, then this story reveals even more of their toady obeisance to special interests.

The nation's gun lobby is close to realizing a long-sought goal of protecting firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held legally responsible for violent crimes committed with their handguns and automatic weapons.

Supporters believe they have the votes in the Senate to pass as early as today a bill making it virtually impossible for victims of gun violence to file civil suits against the industry -- a testimony to the political clout of gun manufacturers, which have become increasingly vulnerable to civil lawsuits in the District and several states.

What is more disturbing is that twelve Democrats, including the Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid are going along with the Republicans to support the legislation. Worst of all?

Democrats also criticized Frist for pulling a defense authorization bill from the floor this week to ensure that the gun bill would be considered before the summer recess, which is scheduled to begin this weekend.

That's right; the saber rattling, tough on defense, Iraq invading Rethugs are ignoring one of the most important pieces of business they have to give the equivalent of a legislative blow job to the gun industry.

No leading questions required today.

Terror Arrests

British police, working amid a public with stiff upper lips much in display, have made nine additional arrests related to the recent London bombings. Combined with the identification of the first set of bombers and other arrests, the total number of suspects arrested in less than a month far exceeds the total 9/11 arrests publicly known after nearly four years in the US.

Are the Brits just luckier? Or perhaps their terrorists were less fastidious than those in this country?

What the hell is going on? Why won't the American public hold BushCo accountable?

Alive and Kickin'

Those of you who continue to drop by my little corner of the blogosphere may be familiar with some of the - there's no other word for it - crap that's been going on in my life. It seems that, just maybe, things are starting to turn around.

I won't bore you now with all the details, if you're really interested you can search through the archives, but maybe, just maybe, I might return to more regular blogging. I haven't completely lost touch with the world and there are way too many things going on right now to really catch up on here. I will, however, likely write about several of them in the upcoming days and weeks; depending on how relevent they remain.

As I figure out the best way to get back into the blogging game, I urge you to check out the many fine bloggers linked to on the left sidebar; most especially the outstanding folks in the Liberal Coalition. In their fine blogs you'll get your fill of the continuing saga of Karl Rove, the Supreme Court, the fiasco in Iraq and all things relating to the disaster of an administration currently befouling the capitol of this otherwise wonderful country.

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Finally, in the non-political world, I highly recommend that you go see the following movies if you haven't already: Star Wars Episode III, War of the Worlds and Batman Begins. For various and assorted reasons, they all blew me away.