I was just over at the CNN website and noticed they have a blog called Warp CNN. Their slogan? Warp CNN takes the news and twists it a little.

Silly me. I thought they did that all along anyway.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Bush are certain to have a lot of restless nights in the very near future because Cindy Sheehan has declared she will run against Pelosi if Pelosi doesn’t agree to impeachment proceedings against President Bush by July 23.

Now there’s a woman who knows how to use a quick timetable.

Sheehan said she will run against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 as an independent if Pelosi does not seek by July 23 to impeach Bush. That’s when Sheehan and her supporters are to arrive in Washington, D.C., after a 13-day caravan and walking tour starting next week from the group’s war protest site near Bush’s Crawford ranch.

“Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership,” Sheehan told The Associated Press. “We hired them to bring an end to the war. I’m not too far from San Francisco, so it wouldn’t be too big of a move for me. I would give her a run for her money.”

Democrats and Americans? Democrats aren’t Americans? Who knew?

Guss and Ayschlay, you’d better check to be sure you’re Americans. You might be aliens.

If you’re in the mood to hear what the “eggheads” have to say about US war in Iraq, visit H-Diplo. You’ll find that they’re not just a bunch of “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Actually, there’s a variety of opinion.

Dr. Walker kicked it off with this essay, and you’ll find one response here and four more here.

I love it. Fight it out boys and girl.

One Supreme Court justice says his fellow conservatives are “too dismissive” of government efforts to ensure racial diversity in schools. Another more liberal member says those on the right did “serious violence” to a high school student’s free speech rights.

And one conservative slams another for “faux judicial restraint.”

These were some of the heated written exchanges contained in the final decisions handed down by the high court in the last, frantic days of the term.

With justices rushing to finish business in time for summer recess, the luxury of polite, modest jurisprudence often gives way to bare-knuckle rhetoric, preserving for history the evidence of a divided court.

With the liberal bloc narrowly losing a number of high-profile cases this term — including late-term abortion, campaign finance reform, and public school desegregation — the political and legal stakes produced sharper ideological lines.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer all wrote toughly worded dissents, punctuated by reading some of them from the bench. It is a rarely used privilege, reserved for only the biggest, most contentious cases.

“There is very little that dissenters can do. If you don’t have five votes you really don’t have anything,” said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington appellate attorney who has argued many cases before the Supreme Court.

“The one symbolic step that they can take to show they are almost outraged and that they think something terrible has happened is to read these dissents from the bench. And so the fact that the more liberal members of the court have done it is really a sign that they are frustrated.”

Story

So far the Democratic Congress has been a big disappointment to the people who elected them. Are things going to change?

Democratic voters are not the only ones bitter over their party’s failure to use new Congressional power to force a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Senator Harry Reid, the occasionally obstreperous Democratic leader, is upset as well. “We haven’t done enough,” said Mr. Reid, a onetime moderate who has evolved into one of the party’s most fervent critics of the war.

That view captures not only Mr. Reid’s sentiment but also the shifting political dynamic on the war, as public frustration remains high, the conflict dominates the presidential campaign landscape and senior Republicans have chosen to break with President Bush even as the administration has urged patience.

Sensing momentum from the new Republican defections, Mr. Reid and other leading Democrats intend to force a series of votes over the next two weeks on proposals to withdraw troops and limit spending. Democrats are increasingly confident they can assemble majority opposition to administration policies.

“It is going to be harder for Republicans to not sign on to something with bite in it, a clear Congressional assessment that change is needed,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “I think it is more likely there will be a majority around here that say we should begin to redeploy some forces by a certain date, and I hope it would be a larger majority.”

The coming debate will provide a showcase for senators from both parties to debate Iraq war strategy. The four Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate are expected to push their own antiwar proposals and views, and contrast their stances with those of Republicans, notably Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has been among the strongest supporters of the war.

obstreperous(Noisily and stubbornly defiant.
Aggressively boisterous.) I’m learning new words every day.

Story

Most Native Americans know what it’s like to be prisoners in there own land. Those days are pretty much over for us. The Israelis have been going through it nonstop to this day.
Before you comment on how I’m comparing the holocaust to the demise of Native Americans. STOP. I’m not.
I sincerely hope that this latest effort of good faith works.

The Israeli Cabinet on Sunday approved the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners, officials said, in the government’s latest gesture of support for moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

However, the officials said Israel had still not finalized the list of prisoners to be freed or the timing of the release. Palestinian officials said they were disappointed Israel wasn’t coordinating the release with them.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to the prisoner release at a June 25 summit with Abbas as part of Israel’s strategy of bolstering the Palestinian leader in his standoff against Hamas militants.

Israel also has transferred more than $100 million in frozen tax funds to Abbas, and pledged to ease travel restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank.

“We want to use every means that can strengthen the moderates within the Palestinian Authority, to encourage them to take the path that we believe can create conditions for the start of meaningful discussions,” Olmert said in a televised statement at the opening of the meeting.

Israel is holding some 10,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The prisoner release would be the first since February 2005, when Israel freed 500 in a similar move aimed at bolstering Abbas, who had just won election as Palestinian president.

Olmert said none of the prisoners “have blood on their hands” - Israeli terminology for people involved in deadly attacks. He said the release had been cleared with Cabinet ministers and security officials.

Story

Go get them Fred. I can’t help but like this guy.
That doesn’t mean I’ll vote for him.

Not yet a 2008 candidate, Fred Thompson energized young Republicans with a speech Saturday that was heavy on rhetoric and short on policy pronouncements. He branded Democrats as “the party of despair.”

Chants of “Fred” and “Run, Fred, Run,” greeted the actor and former GOP senator from Tennessee from many among the 350 people at the Young Republicans National Convention. The crowd interrupted his nine-minute speech with wild applause and mobbed him when he left.

Actor and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, right, followed by Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla, left, arrives at the Capitol Hill Club on Capitol Hill in Washington, in this April 18, 200 file photo, where he was to speak to Republican House members. Thompson, who has yet to clearly declare his candidacy for the the presidency, has an easy-going style has helped him soar in presidential polls; sooner or later, however, he will have to answer the question: What does he have to offer?

“It makes me feel like the waters are pretty warm,” Thompson said afterward. He has formed an exploratory committee to gauge support for a White House run and raise money. He is expected to announce presidential campaign plans to run soon.

Hours later, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney also addressed the crowd and spoke about foreign policy, Iraq, the economy, health care and other issues. The substance of his remarks impressed some undecided voters.

“He touched on a lot of different issues _ the terrorists, immigration, families,” said Brianne Goodwin, 24, of Chicago, who is undecided but leaning toward Romney. “Fred Thompson, he didn’t really provide strong material.”

Story

The turmoil that’s going on is remarkable. Once staunch supporters are taking another look.

Can Sen. Olympia J. Snowe wait until September? Can Rep. Dan Boren?

In the congressional battle over the war, these two moderates represent the Iraq debate’s fragile center, a confluence of conscience and political calculation where the fate of U.S. policy may be determined over the next three months.

Prominent Republicans in Congress already are abandoning President Bush, as they sense that he is clinging to a lost cause in Iraq. Facing pressure from antiwar liberals, Democrats this week will renew their quest to bring U.S. troops home as quickly as possible. The White House hopes to maintain the status quo until military officials deliver a highly anticipated progress report after Labor Day.

As that charged debate unfolds, The Washington Post will follow four lawmakers whose struggles to come to terms with the conflict will help shape the congressional outcome. Snowe (R-Maine) last visited Iraq in May and thought it looked like Berlin at the end of World War II. Struggling for the right answers, Boren (D-Okla.) listens carefully to his conservative constituents and consults regularly with his father, former senator David L. Boren, who chaired the intelligence committee. “He’s one of my best advisers,” the congressman said.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) is wary about the Iraqi government but invokes the smell of jet fuel from the Pentagon fire on Sept. 11, 2001, when he warns of the consequences if the United States leaves Iraq precipitously. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), an antiwar activist, is torn between her desire to bring about the quickest possible end and new pressures, as a member of the House leadership, to be a team

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