Quoted: Annual rates of employment growth, by president:

Quoted: Here it is: We've created a comprehensive time-line of John McCain's statements on Iraq, from the inception of the conflict to the present. Our time-line casts some doubt on a key McCain campaign claim: That he's been a broad critic of Bush's war policies for many years now. It also finds multiple inconsistencies in his public statements on the war.

Oh my god, that is such a bullshit legal argument. I can't believe our government would actually pull this. Well, actually, I can believe this administration would.

Quoted: The Bush administration told the CIA in 2002 that its interrogators working abroad would not violate U.S. prohibitions against torture unless they "have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering," according to a previously secret Justice Department memo released Thursday.
Quoted: The interrogator's "good faith" and "honest belief" that the interrogation will not cause such suffering protects the interrogator, the memo adds.

Quoted: It turns out that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain has attended even fewer Afghanistan-related Senate hearings over the past two years than Obama's one. Which is a nice way of saying, McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee, has attended zero of his committee's six hearings on Afghanistan over the last two years.

Quoted: Don't miss this Friday's premiere of Meet the Bloggers. Arianna Huffington will be our guest, and then we'll be discussing whether Karl Rove should be sent to jail for failing to comply with the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena with Marcy Wheeler, Baratunde Thurston, and Liliana Segura. Suggest some questions for Arianna below, or send in your articles, info, and your own perspective on Karl Rove's refusal to testify as we prep for the show.

More on this contraception = abortion BS the Bush administration is trying to push. I don't know what's worse: being stupid enough to actually hold that belief, or being so ideologically charged that you're willing to push a statement that has no scientific basis.

Quoted: Yesterday The New York Times reported that the Bush administration is circulating regulatory changes within the Department of Health and Human Services that would prevent health care providers from choosing not to hire ideologues opposed to reproductive rights (including distributing contraception). The regulations, which could go into affect in as little as two months, would also re-define abortion as "any of the various procedures -- including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action -- that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

Yikes.

Quoted: In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion.

Absolutely.

Quoted: The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

Quoted: On July 3, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court in California made a ruling particularly worthy of the nation's attention. In Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc. v. Bush, a key case in the epic battle over warrantless spying inside the United States, Judge Walker ruled, effectively, that President George W. Bush is a felon.