Roundup

Lots going on these days. A few items of note:

Man of the Day: Harry Thomas told Bush what we all wish we could: "I -- in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency..." There's more: text, video.

Bush busted? Indicted Cheney aide Scooter Libby testified before a federal grand jury that it was Bush himself who "specifically had authorized" the revealing of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the press. The Smoking Gun has the entire 39-page Fitzgerald filing.

Pot, Kettle, Black: Instead of slinking away quietly, ethically challenged House retiree Tom DeLay has the gall to threaten a ethics complaint against Cynthia McKinney, who whacked a Capitol cop.

Dems on censure: From The Progressive publisher Matt Rothschild's email missive yesterday: "Did you know that 29 Democratic Senators and 9 Republicans were on record as favoring the censure of the President? President Clinton, that is. And if you compare what Clinton did to what Bush is doing, you'd think that more Senators would be on board with Russ Feingold. But only Barbara Boxer and Tom Harkin have signed on to censuring Bush, though Patrick Leahy is leaning that way."

Surprise, surprise: Who did Bush's tax cuts benefit most? Guess. "Americans with annual incomes of $1 million or more, about one-tenth of 1 percent all taxpayers, reaped 43 percent of all the savings on investment taxes in 2003. The savings for these taxpayers averaged about $41,400 each."

Broadcasting BS: A 10-month study by the Center for Media and Democracy found that 77 TV stations nationally used fake news--canned Video News Releases--without indicating that the VNRs were produced not by a news crew but a PR agency.

P.U. Even Fox News has Bush stinkin' up the polls, with a dismal 36% approval rating.

"Food." The government has a disconcerting habit of telling us that the presence of cancer-causing agents in our food is nothing to worry about. Minneapolis' own Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy finds that lots of conventional chicken producers voluntarily add arsenic to kill bacteria and promote growth. The FDA says that cancer-causing "benzene has been found in soft drinks at levels above the limit considered safe for drinking water"--four times as much as allowed in drinking water. Neither of which warrants a public health problem, or so we're told.