I just returned from visiting my sister in North Carolina. She's an 18 year veteran of the Marines, worked her way through the enlisted ranks and is now an officer. Coming from a family long in distinguished military service, not to mention the ongoing challenges of being a female Marine, I'm very proud of her.

Amnesty International has a really powerful campaign up right now called "Unsubscribe Me" (from the "war on terrorism's" torture practices).

Now, close your eyes and imagine what we could to with a year out of Iraq.

The American people overwhelmingly (and correctly) believe that George Bush misled them about the need to go to war in Iraq, polls show. But the debate has continued about whether Bush deliberately lied, or was merely duped.

Either conclusion is, of course, corrosive to trust in our democracy and the ability of the press and Congress to provide a reality check on presidential war powers.

Cheney "gets it right" in 1994 -- Warning that Iraq invasion would lead to a "quagmire" -- and so very wrong today.

"And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right."

I was watching the nightly news tonight when I heard about this alarming story.

Apparently, Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff has a gut feeling that America might be attacked this summer.

On Tuesday, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, told the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he had a “gut feeling” about a new period of increased risk. He said he based his assessment on patterns of terrorists in Europe and intelligence he would not disclose.

I just downloaded and listened to the new Tom Wiats track "Road to Peace" (i got it free from eMusic.com, you can also get it from Pitchfork Media for free (Waits has released it for free along with a few other tracks). I had no idea what I was in for. The song is a ballad about the conflict in the Middle East, particularly the Arab Israelli conflict and the resent war between Israel and Hamas. It is defitely worth a listen.

It seems like there might be a resurgence of the "political ballad". Earlier this year, Neil Young released an entire album of "war protest" songs called "Living With War". I've got to say though, as much of a Neil Young fan as I am, I found "Road to Peace" to be far more compelling.

Keith Olbermann

continues to be the quintessential last remaining journalist. Yesterday, he delivered another Murrow-like deconstruction of the desparate attempts of our President to equate Democrats with Terrorist supporters in campaign fundraising speeches:

The president of the United States — unbowed, undeterred and unconnected to reality — has continued his extraordinary trek through our country rooting out the enemies of freedom: the Democrats. Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, “177 of the opposition party said, ‘You know, we don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists.’�