As I’ve been thinking about the prosecutor purge, something I read ... somewhere ... rattled around in the back of my mind.  I woke up this morning wondering if I'd be able to find it again.

I recalled reading that Monica Goodling has a law degree from Regent University (founded by Pat Robertson) and that many new BushCo hires—did I actually read it was hundreds of them?—are graduates of this school.

Turns out that I’d read this on Hullabaloo and when I checked Digby’s site this morning, there was a post, top of the page, with further information.  

Over 150 graduates of Regent University have been hired by the Bush administration.

This stunning fact helps clarify the larger context in which the prosecutor purge took place.  While not illegal, the funneling of hundreds of Regent graduates into administration jobs is obviously calculated and systematic, not to mention deeply creepy.

As I get ready for work in the morning, I listen to either the House or the Senate on C-Span.  Yesterday the House opened its day with one-minute speeches about the surge—alternating pro and contra.  One member got up and said something so stunningly logical it froze me.  Because I was in another room, I didn’t even know it was Dennis Kucinich until I accessed the Congressional Record today.

Haven’t you been wondering all week why Bush and his anonymous henchmen are coming forward now with flimsy, unsubstantiated evidence of Iranian arms in Iraq?  Kucinich offers a lucid and very persuasive reason:  Bush must produce something now, because the Congressional debates on war resolutions are occurring now.  He is laying the groundwork to invoke a specific section of the 1973 War Powers Resolution and thus to bypass whatever Congress resolves.

Please read Kucinich's remarks below the fold.  They are amazing.

I recently received an alumni magazine from Johns Hopkins.  It looked far different than usual.  No upbeat cover showing a researcher busily investigating or a teacher engaged with a class.  Instead the cover was solid black.  In the center a number in gray: 654,965.  A small subtitle underneath: "Could this many have died?"

The article described the research of JHU epidemiologists Gilbert H. Burnham and Leslie F. Roberts, whose findings on "excess mortality" in Iraq since the start of the 2003 invasion were published in Britain's premier medical journal The Lancet shortly before the 2004 elections.  The results of a second study--the one yielding the appalling figure at the top of this diary--were published in October 2006.

Think about it.  The second study was done 42 months into our occupation of Iraq.  654,965 divided by 42 equals 15,594 Iraqi deaths per month.

I know that most of you have seen this number before and that you realize it's not merely a number, but reflects people--people who loved being alive just as much as you and I.  Yet the hideous fact this number represents has gotten obscured; indeed it was never truly fathomed in the first place.

I heard something outrageous on CNN yesterday afternoon.  I sometimes listen to Wolf Blitzer's 4:00 show while I cook and I'm used to shaking my head in disgust as I chop away at vegetables.  But what I heard yesterday stunned me.  From the kitchen I couldn't tell whom Blitzer was conversing with, so I waited till a transcript of the show was posted today.

Blitzer and John Roberts (CNN Sr. National Correspondent) were discussing the talks in Vienna, at which six world powers decided to present Iran with an ultimatum: "Stop the nuclear activity and receive benefits or continue and there will be costs."