Friday Links

• Marines battle bureaucrats and plead for high-tech gear. Once again, the GOP and their military-industrial complex buddies, supporting the troops like only they can.

• Advocates of a bill promoting openness in government are fuming that a Republican senator is blocking a vote on the measure. Why does GOP Senator Jon Kyl (AZ) want to block this bill? Beyond the obvious, of course, that he as a Republican he cannot stand the thought of ordinary citizens of this country being privy to anything that our government does. He says it's because Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Department have a problem with the bill. So since Gonzales, who has zero credibility, isn't happy than the bill is no good?

• The Bush administration said this past Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease. Conservative hypocrisy at its finest. Please read this post from Common Sense, which blasts conservatism in a way that I wish I had done myself.

• Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY) has announced a Hearings Series: “The Constitution in Crisis: The State of Civil Liberties in America” to discuss the various ways the Bush adminstration has eroded our constitutional civil liberties.