Recusal: A quaint twentieth-century notion

I should post about things other than politics, but...

"Group Sees Conflict with Cheney, Scalia"

(link to NY Times copy of AP article)

Government watchdogs are raising concerns about a potential conflict of interest for Justice Antonin Scalia because he had dinner and went on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney while the Supreme Court was involved in a case about the vice president's energy task force.

Scalia and Cheney, longtime friends, had dinner at a restaurant on Maryland's Eastern Shore in November, two months after the Bush administration asked the justices to overrule a lower court's decision requiring White House to identify task force members.

The men went duck hunting in Louisiana this month, not long after the court agreed to hear the case.

Scalia says there is no reason to question his ability to judge the case fairly. Cheney's office referred questions about the propriety of the social encounters to the court.

Watchdogs said Scalia and Cheney should have kept their distance until the court had ruled.

``It gives the appearance of a tainted process where decisions are not made on the merits where you have judges fraternizing with people before the court,'' said Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity.

That's pretty much the gist of it.

The Rethuglicans are governing as if they believe they will never lose power. Ask yourself why that is.

And it's one, two, three...

American deaths in Operation: Elect the President topped 500 today.

9000 more have been so badly wounded or sickened they have had to be evacuated home.

Don't ask me, I don't give a fuck
Next stop is in Iraq.