BREAKING: FIDEL CASTRO IS DEAD  —  My cellphone has not stopped ringing for the past ten minutes.  Various sources inform that an announcement will come within the next few minutes from the Cuban government on Cuban TV and media.  Stay tuned and we'll see if we've been manipulated once again …

Hoekstra says Iraq democracy strategy is doomed to fail  —  EAST LANSING - The U.S. effort to install a democracy in Iraq within three to five years was a flawed strategy with little chance of succeeding, U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra said Friday.  —  The Holland Republican said the Iraq government needs …

White House Moving The Goal Posts On Escalation, Drops Demands For Iraqi Political Reconciliation  —  When President Bush announced the escalation on January 10, 2007, he claimed the purpose of adding more troops into Iraq's civil war was to enable political reconciliation:

Politicizing Terror  —  One of the accusations commonly tossed at the Bush administration is that they politicize the war on terror.  Critics use every warning from the White House about elevated threat levels to claim that the administration wants to get some sort of political boost from the announcement.

The Lost Year  —  A new national intelligence estimate concludes that President Bush's troop surge shows no signs of accomplishing its goal of encouraging political reconciliation in Iraq.  —  An influential Republican senator and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff now favor a troop withdrawal.

Robert Fisk: Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11  —  Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience - just one - whom I call the "raver".  Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions …

Vick suspended indefinitely by NFL  —  NEW YORK —The NFL has suspended Falcons quarterback Michael Vick indefinitely without pay following his admission of guilt in a dogfighting scheme.  —  On Friday, Vick filed his plea agreement in federal court admitting to conspiracy in a dogfighting ring …

Brzezinski Embraces Obama Over Clinton for President  —  Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) — Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the most influential foreign-policy experts in the Democratic Party, threw his support behind Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, saying the Illinois senator has a better global grasp than his chief rival, Hillary Clinton.

Blue America Has Another Jerry McNerney Moment  —  Jerry McNerney's election to Congress was an outstanding success for local grassroots activists and for the national and local netroots.  He was one of the top recipients of donations from Blue America in 2006.

Congress: For Plane That Won't Fly, $63 Mil Is Enough  —  Justin Rood Reports:  —  Millions of dollars later, Congress has effectively killed a military plane program the Pentagon repeatedly rejected, and which never had a successful flight.  —  The $63 million Congress poured …

ACLU sues DEA on behalf of truck whose money was seized  —  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A trucker has sued the Drug Enforcement Administration, seeking to get back nearly $24,000 seized by DEA agents earlier this month at a weigh station on U.S. 54 in New Mexico north of El Paso, Texas.

"The Aftermath of Saigon's Fall Is Rarely Dealt With At All."  —  An analysis of Vietnam strikingly similar to what we're hearing today, beginning with a discussion of Congress' 1975 decision to cut funding to the South Vietnamese: … The author: James Webb, now a Democratic senator from Virginia.