Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
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Good news for the economy means bad news for the Democrats. You can count this as bad news for Democrats:
Wall Street rode fresh evidence of a resurgent economy to its best finish in a year Monday. The Dow Jones industrials surged 201 points and all three major indexes posted the highest close since last summer.
The DOW isn’t everything, and unemployment is most assuredly an issue, but it appears that things are looking up for the economy (which I have been on record repeatedly saying that I did not feel the economy was as bad as people were making it out to be).
Stocks have rallied for three months as investors bet on an economic recovery by year’s end. Some analysts believe the market is firmly in an upward trend, citing improving corporate profits, although others believe stocks are due for a major pullback after advancing so quickly.
Since hitting a low for the year on March 11, the Dow is up about 24 percent, the Nasdaq higher 31 percent and the S&P is up 26 percent.
“The market is a bit overbought and has been for a few weeks now,” said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at Spencer Clarke LLC. “However, it appears the path of least resistance is higher for the moment. … As long as the economic news continues to gradually improve, it seems like equity prices most likely have further upside in the next six to 12 months.”
Whatever happens, it appears we have a bumpy road ahead of us. Cross your fingers and buckle your seat.
I was checking google news to see if there was anything new in regards to the Asia Times story last week about our government getting in contact with the Taliban to set up a provisional government in Afghanistan (I didn’t blog about it because the report seemed untrustworthy, but Tacitus, Jesse, Oliver, Jim Henley and many others all wrote extensive condemnations), and I found this letter from a Lt. Col describing the scene in Afghanistan:
The area we’re in is surrounded by land mines planted by the Russians and the Taliban. The Romanians are here, assisting the U.S. forces with the perimeter and the area. Some of the locals work inside the perimeter to do grass-cutting, sweeping, etc. They have to boost the economy any way possible. The old PFCs guarding them were complaining they had to get off these details. They call themselves the “Afghanistan SWAT team: s**t, water and trash.”
We are in an Islamic country, so no alcohol for the soldiers. Drugs are everywhere. The Russian soldiers had lots of problems, as they found the opium fields in the spring and marijuana fields in the fall. (The “fall” temperature is about 90 degrees.)
Go read the whole thing– if you are weary about reporters and government officials telling the truth, I can assure you, there is nothing more brutally honest and non-partisan than a deployed soldier. They are usually too busy too lie, too pissed off to sugarcoat, and they tell it like it is.
Via e-mail, I see there is a website dedicated to thanking Tony Blair and the British. Interesting.
One of the downsides of living in a country that has as much freedom and dedication to individual rights are Supreme Court Rulings like this one:
The Supreme Court ruled today that the government has only a limited right to force mentally ill defendants charged with nonviolent crimes to take medication to make them competent for trial.
The 6-3 ruling sets a series of conditions that must be met before a mentally ill defendant can be drugged against his will, erecting a relatively high bar for prosecutors. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the majority, said that “involuntary administration of drugs solely for trial competence purposes” should occur only “in limited circumstances.”
The justices effectively set out a checklist for government to meet: Its interest in prosecuting a serious crime must be great; the treatment must be medically appropriate and be the least intrusive remedy available; and the treatment must be “substantially unlikely to have side effects that may undermine the fairness of the trial.”
Admitted, my legal knowledge is limited, but it seems to me there needs to be a very high bar set before forcing individuals to be medicated against their will. To those of you with legal backgrounds and a better understanding of the case law, I would appreciate your comments or links to anything you may have written about this issue so I can read them and pass them along.
*** Update ***
It appears I completely misread this article, and it will have no impact on individuals outside the courtroom. Thus, my comments and, in particular, my title, are a rambling, incoherent, ill-informed mess. In other words, ignore this post- unless you have something more intelligent to say than I have- which, given the low bar I have set here, should not be difficult.
How terrified are the Democrats that Bush might get to select a Supreme Court Justice? So afraid that they want to choose Bush’s nominee:
Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont has urged President Bush to avoid a traumatic national battle over the Supreme Court by consulting with him and other leading Democrats before choosing a nominee, should a vacancy occur.
In two recent letters to the White House, Mr. Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said that if Mr. Bush took advantage of a vacancy on the court to select a staunchly conservative judge, it would produce a political war that would upset the nation and diminish respect for the courts.
“Though the landscape ahead is sown with the potential for controversy and contention over vacancies that may arise on the court, contention is avoidable, and consensus should be our goal,” Mr. Leahy wrote on Wednesday. “I would hope your objective will not be to send the Senate nominees so polarizing that their confirmations are eked out in narrow margins.”
Do not be fooled- this is not a fig leaf or an appeal for bipartisanship. This is tantamount to blackmail- ‘Let us help you choose the candidate or there will be a traumatic national battle over the Supreme Court.’ Leahy should be told where to stick it.
And, for the record, Mr. Leahy, the constitution does not require ‘consensus’ to appoint someone to the Supreme Court. It requires a majority, despite how much you and the Democrats now want that to be changed.
I think this is sheer genius:
Instead of going Dumpster-diving for maybe a half-eaten sandwich and some cold fries, Peter Schoeff, a 20-year-old homeless man, was served a slice of hot pizza dripping with cheese.
All he had to do was hold a sign for about 40 minutes that read: “Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money.”
Seems fair to me.
(via Drudge)