This a great day for news. Go to ndol.org/ and check out Bush's Broken Promises. It is wonderful that we are moving ahead to legally get rid of this abomination in our White House.

MORE GOOD NEWS!

John Poindexter, that old felon from the corrupt Reagan administration, and lately of DARPA, the loony organization that wanted to spy on us all and also had a stock trading scheme to bet on assassinations as mentioned here before, is RESIGNING HIS POST!!! Wow, this is great news! Bushco may be going bankrupt before the election. Wonderful!

From tompaine.com we have some excellent news:

Evidence Mounts On Bush Vulnerability


"Last week (July 21-17), Bush and the Republicans' ratings continued to slide across the board. Most notably, Democrats are now favored by 17 points over Republicans on the economy. That's up from a 1 point Democratic disadvantage in January. The Democrats have also increased their margin on the federal budget deficit, from 4 to 13 points over that same time period. Their margins on unemployment (+19), education (+12) and, significantly, prescription drugs for older Americans (+22) remain impressive, despite Republican attempts to co-opt the latter issue."

Well... it didn't take long for BUSHCO to back down on this one. From NYTimes:


TIMES NEWS TRACKER

Track news that interests you.
Pentagon Abandons Plan for Futures Market on Terror

By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, July 29 - The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in which anonymous speculators would have bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups in an online futures market.

Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, said today that he had conferred with the program's director at the Pentagon, ``and we mutually agreed that this thing should be stopped.''

The senator's announcement - made during a confirmation hearing for retired Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, who has been nominated to be Army chief of staff - signaled the end of a program that was met with astonishment and derision almost from the moment it was disclosed.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz comfirmed the program's demise today. ``My understanding is it's going to be terminated,'' he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to Reuters.

Under the discarded plan, traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel, say, or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have had the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The Pentagon called its latest idea a new way of predicting events and part of its search for the ``broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks.'' But two Democratic senators who disclosed the plan on Monday called it morally repugnant and grotesque. The senators said the program fell under the control of Adm. John M. Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser.

One of the two senators, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, said the idea seemed so preposterous that he had trouble persuading people it was not a hoax. ``Can you imagine,'' Mr. Dorgan asked, ``if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in - and is sponsored by the government itself - people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?''

After Mr. Dorgan and his fellow critic, Ron Wyden of Oregon, spoke out, the Pentagon sought to play down the importance of a program for which the Bush administration has sought $8 million through 2005. The White House also altered the Web site so that the potential events to be considered by the market that were visible earlier in the day at www.policyanalysismarket.org could no longer be seen.

But by that time, Republican officials in the Senate were privately shaking their heads over the planned trading. One top aide said he hoped that the Pentagon had a good explanation for it.

The Pentagon, in initially defending the program, said such futures trading had proven effective in predicting other events like oil prices, elections and movie ticket sales.

``Research indicates that markets are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information,'' the Defense Department said in a statement. ``Futures markets have proven themselves to be good at predicting such things as elections results; they are often better than expert opinions.''

But it became abundantly clear this morning, at the hearing of Senator Warner's committee, that whatever the logic of the Pentagon's position it had no chance of surviving politically.

``I must say this is perhaps the most irresponsible, outrageous and poorly thought-out of anything that I have heard the administration propose to date,'' said Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader."

What a silly bunch of idiots we have running our government! Wow! Thank goodness for a couple of good Democrats who saved the day.

Here's more from today's NYTimes:
"Two Democratic senators who reported the plan called it morally repugnant and grotesque. The senators said the program fell under the control of Adm. John M. Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser.

One of the two senators, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, said the idea seemed so preposterous that he had trouble persuading people it was not a hoax. "Can you imagine," Mr. Dorgan asked, "if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in 'and is sponsored by the government itself' people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?"

After Mr. Dorgan and his fellow critic, Ron Wyden of Oregon, spoke out, the Pentagon sought to play down the importance of a program for which the Bush administration has sought $8 million through 2005. The White House also altered the Web site so that the potential events to be considered by the market that were visible earlier in the day at policyanalysismarket.org could no longer be seen."

Want to read some jaw-dropping news from Bushco? This is a new Pentagon Futures Market... WHaaa?? Yes, the Pentagon has asked for an $8 million budget to run a futures market on which folks can bet as to when someone will be assassinated! Here it is from today's New York Times> These people are CRAZY!

"WASHINGTON, July 28 , The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has a new experiment. It is an online futures trading market, disclosed today by critics, in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups."

Crazy, huh? Go to the NYT and read about it. This is weird way out right wing stuff.