McCain makes the race personal, attacks Obama’s integrity

Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report: It was probably inevitable that John McCain would abandon his pledge to focus exclusively on the issues, and steer clear of personal attacks, I just didn’t expect it as early as June.

John McCain, in his sharpest attack yet against rival Barack Obama, said the Democratic presidential candidate’s word "cannot be trusted."

"This election is about trust — trust in people’s word," McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told several hundred donors at a $2 million GOP fundraiser in Louisville, Kentucky yesterday. "And unfortunately, apparently on several items, Senator Obama’s word cannot be trusted."

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator, said Obama has gone back on his word by pledging to take public financing during the general election and then deciding not to do so. Obama on June 19 announced he won’t accept public financing for his presidential campaign, calculating that he can raise far more than the $84.1 million he would get in government funds. […]

[U]ntil yesterday McCain hadn’t accused Obama, 46, a first-term Illinois senator, of being untrustworthy. "I’ll keep my word to the American people. You can trust me," McCain said.

The irony, of course, is that McCain said Obama "cannot be trusted" to keep his word the exact same afternoon in which McCain broke his promise to voters on immigration policy, and abandoned his own “pledge” to the public.

If McCain wants to criticize Obama for bypassing the public-financing system, fine. It’s odd, of course, given McCain’s apparently illegal decision to play fast and loose with the public-financing system, but if he sees this as a key issue, it’s up to him to craft his own strategy.

But does John McCain really want to talk about which candidate “cannot be trusted”? Is this really an invitation to review the instances in which McCain has either lied to voters or broken his word?

We can make this campaign personal. It wouldn’t be pleasant, and it would make McCain look pretty bad, but if he wants to talk about honesty and character, we can go there.

I’m reminded of this recent Arianna Huffington item about McCain "issuing heartfelt denials of things that were actually true."

He denied ever talking with John Kerry about his leaving the GOP to be Kerry’s ‘04 running mate — then later admitted he had, insisting: "Everybody knows that I had a conversation."

He denied admitting that he didn’t know much about economics, even though he’d said exactly that to the Wall Street Journal. And the Boston Globe. And the Baltimore Sun.

He denied ever having asked for a budget earmark for Arizona, even though he had. On the record.

He denied that he’d ever had a meeting with comely lobbyist Vicki Iseman and her client Lowell Paxon, even though he had. And had admitted it in a legal deposition.

And those are just the outright denials. He’s also repeatedly tried to spin away statements he regretted making (see: 100-year war, Iraq was a war for oil, etc.).

Or for that matter, take a look at the Official McCain Flip-Flop List. Most of the 48 reversals include John McCain promising voters he wants to go in one direction, and then promising them soon after that he wants to go in a completely different direction. He has a habit of making one pledge, and soon after, making the opposite pledge.

Indeed, on Friday, McCain took credit for the passage of a veterans’ bill he opposed, and on Saturday, McCain vowed to a group of Latino voters that he’d support an immigration bill he’s vowed to oppose.

"On several items, Senator Obama’s word cannot be trusted"? I don’t have a background in psychology, but I’m pretty sure this is called "projection."

Possible McCain VP Pick Signs Anti-Evolution Bill Into Louisiana Law

Logan Murphy, Crooks and Liars. ARS Technica:

As we noted last month, a number of states have been considering laws that, under the guise of “academic freedom,” single out evolution for special criticism. Most of them haven’t made it out of the state legislatures, and one that did was promptly vetoed. But the last of these bills under consideration, the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), was enacted by the signature of Governor Bobby Jindal yesterday. The bill would allow local school boards to approve supplemental classroom materials specifically for the critique of scientific theories, allowing poorly-informed board members to stick their communities with Dover-sized legal fees.

The text of the LSEA suggests that it’s intended to foster critical thinking, calling on the state Board of Education to “assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories.” Unfortunately, it’s remarkably selective in its suggestion of topics that need critical thinking, as it cites scientific subjects “including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

The bill has been opposed by every scientific society that has voiced a position on it, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS CEO Alan Leshner warned that the bill would “unleash an assault against scientific integrity, leaving students confused about science and unprepared to excel in a modern workforce.” Read on…

Jindal is definitely vying for the far right base of the GOP and this move will score big points for him. The rabid right-wing base of the party can’t stand McCain, so Jindal might prove to be a good fit for them. As The Huffington Post reports, Jindal has joined the GOP’s bold march backwards.

The Edwards standard and John McCain

Jamison Foser, Media Matters: During John Edwards' campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, media regularly treated his personal wealth as a key to assessing his policy proposals -- a standard that is not being applied to John McCain.

It often seemed as though the news media was incapable of running a story about Edwards' anti-poverty proposals without noting his own wealth. The Washington Post, for example, ran a 203-word blurb about Edwards' eight-state poverty tour, opening it with a 28-word reminder of the candidate's fortune: "John Edwards is battling back the 'three H's' that have dogged his campaign -- expensive haircuts, a lavish new house and a stint working for a hedge fund."

That was nothing new for the Post, which spent much of 2007 in an apparent bid to become the nation's leading source of haircut journalism (four separate articles in the paper's December 11, 2007, edition mentioned the Edwards haircut, many months after it first made "news.") A later article about the poverty tour reported in the fourth paragraph: "Edwards urged reporters to 'please stay focused on the stories we heard' from the workers, rather than the candidate." Paragraphs five, six, and seven then dwelled on "a series of controversies that cast doubt on the image he has cultivated as a millionaire lawyer who as the son of a millworker understands the plight of those with less than he has."

When Edwards exited the race, the Post noted "Edwards's focus on the poor was muddied by tales of his personal good fortune. News stories told of his $400 haircuts, of an ostentatious North Carolina home and of his work for a hedge fund."

The Post certainly wasn't alone. Journalists of all stripes agreed: it was important to discuss Edwards' personal wealth in reporting and assessing his policy proposals. Many explained this belief by claiming that Edwards' proposals to reduce poverty and help the middle class were hypocritical, given his own wealth. This was transparent nonsense; that simply isn't what it means to be hypocritical. But the transparency of the nonsense didn't make it any less common. Others conceded that it wasn't hypocritical to be wealthy while advocating policies to help the non-wealthy, but argued that it was poor "optics." Whatever the reason, there was broad consensus in the media that Edwards' personal wealth should be part of discussions of his policy positions.

But the media doesn't apply that standard to John McCain.

Last week, the Center for American Progress Action Fund released a new report by Michael Ettlinger estimating that under McCain's tax plan, he and his wife, Cindy, would save $373,429. That's nearly $400,000 -- per year, not over the course of their lifetimes. (Under Barack Obama's plan, the McCains would save less than $6,000. The Obamas would save nearly $50,000 under McCain's plan, and slightly more than $6,000 under Obama's plan own plan.)

By the standards the media applied to Edwards, the fact that McCain supports tax policies that would save him and his wife nearly $400,000 a year -- and require massive cuts to public services to pay for those tax breaks -- should surely be news. Unlike the media's focus on Edwards' wealth, which did nothing to help voters understand the substance of his proposals, McCain's potential savings under his tax plan actually would help illustrate how much the wealthy would benefit from the plan.

At the very least, McCain would seem to have the dreaded "optics" problem ascribed to Edwards. With voters jittery about the economy and a crushing budget deficit, what could be worse "optics" than a wealthy candidate proposing massive tax cuts for his wife and himself?

Surely, then, The Washington Post, having obsessed over Edwards' wealth, has noted Ettlinger's findings in its reports about McCain's tax plans, right?

Wrong.

On June 21, two days after the report's release, the Post ran a front-page article about the candidates' tax and budget policies: "Republican John McCain vows to double the exemption for dependents and slash the corporate income tax. ... McCain has proposed even bigger tax reductions [than Obama], including an extension of all the Bush tax cuts, permanent limits on the AMT and a 10 percent reduction in the corporate tax rate." The Post didn't mention how much the McCains would save under his tax proposals. It didn't so much as hint at their massive personal wealth. And in more than 1,300 words, the Post didn't include a single word about the income distribution of McCain's proposals.

On The Chris Matthews Show, Matthews aired a clip of McCain attacking Obama's tax plan -- but didn't point out that McCain and his wife would save more than $360,000 less under Obama's plan than under his own. Like The Washington Post, neither Matthews nor any of his guests made even passing mention of McCain's personal wealth. (Matthews on Edwards last year: "John Edwards, that dude with the hot-ticket haircuts, now wants the rest of us to cool it on expensive cars.")

Again, this isn't unique to the Post and Matthews. The Ettlinger estimate was completely ignored by the news media. Beyond that report, I don't remember ever seeing a major-media report about John McCain's tax policies noting that, due to his wealth, he would fare quite well under his own proposals. And in a couple hours of Nexis searches, I haven't been able to find one.

Perversely, it seems the conventional wisdom among the media is that it's more acceptable for a wealthy politician to propose policies that help the wealthy than policies that benefit the middle class and the poor.

McCain calls Carter "lousy"

Chris in Paris, AmericaBlog.com: It's predictable that the GOP is going down the Jimmy Carter path, as if they were somehow worse than what the country is experiencing today under the Bush years. Why not take a look at things Carter did not do and compare Carter to Bush, since McCain has been such a strong supporter. It's true, Carter failed terribly when it came to the S&L crisis by not having a catastrophic banking crisis during his term that could compare to today or The Keating Five scandal. John McCain could tell us more about how well he personally handled that. While he's at it, he can tell us how his co-chair kicked ass as he jammed through CFMA 2000 (aka, "the Enron Loophole") and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that set the stage for the 2008 Wall Street meltdown. Wall Street is currently enjoying one of its worst periods in decades courtesy of GOP leadership.

We should also note that the US dollar is celebrating lows not seen since the Nixon years, joining the record high gas prices not seen since that period as well. Carter was so bad, he failed to hit record lows with both. What a loser! Instead we have McCain hugging President Bush who ushered in this new period of economic misery. Now *that* is leadership. Overseas, Carter failed to get the US hostages in Iran and the US lost 8 soldiers in the failed rescue mission. Compare that to the illustrious Bush record of over 4110 soldiers lost in Iraq and 536 in Afghanistan. Carter failed again!

If McCain wants to talk about the Carter years, go ahead, let's talk about those times. Let's talk about how much worse the Bush years are and the let's take a look at what we are going to experience for the next few years as a result of GOP policy that McCain supported. Please talk more about this and see where it all goes.

McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years, Newsweek Reports

HuffingtonPost.com: Newsweek is set to publish a highly embarrassing report on Sen. John McCain, revealing that the McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are currently in default, The Huffington Post has learned.

Under California law, once a residential property is in default for five years, it can be sold at a tax sale to recover the unpaid taxes for the taxpayers.
The McCains own at least seven homes through a variety of trusts and corporations controlled by Cindy McCain.

UPDATE: Newsweek's story is now online. The report notes that the McCains paid the bulk of their back taxes yesterday, but continue to owe additional taxes:

When you're poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you're rich, it's hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It's a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions about an overdue property-tax bill on a La Jolla, Calif., property owned by a trust that she oversees. Mrs. McCain is a beer heiress with an estimated $100 million fortune and, along with her husband, she owns at least seven properties, including condos in California and Arizona. [...]

Shortly after NEWSWEEK inquired about the matter, the McCain aide e-mailed a receipt dated Friday, June 27, confirming payment by the trust to San Diego County in the amount of $6,744.42. County officials say the trust still owes an additional $1,742 for this year, an amount that is overdue and will go into default July 1. Told of the outstanding $1,742, the aide said: "The trust has paid all bills shown owing as of today and will pay all other bills due."

Joe Sudbay (DC), AmericaBlog.com: McCain's friends in the traditional media will surely give him yet another pass on this. And, why not? McCain obviously has some great houses to which he can invite his media pals. But, just for a second, imagine the furor if Barack Obama didn't pay his property taxes.

Logan Murphy, Crooks and Liars: This situation has nothing to do with the ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis brought on by 8 years of Republican rule and deregulation, this is about a real failure of personal responsibility on the part of the McCains. I realize that they live an elite life of luxury and privilege and have more money and assets than 99% of Americans will ever know in their lifetime, but this is ridiculous. They didn’t pay the taxes on this home for four years. Don’t they pay people to pay their bills for them? Is this representative of the way John McCain will run OUR budgets? No matter how much cash they have or how many vacation homes they have to keep track of, it pales in comparison to running the U.S. economy. What a huge embarrassment for the GOP candidate and his party.

Bill Clinton says Barack Obama must 'kiss my ass' for his support

Tim Shipman and Philip Sherwell, Telegraph.co.UK: Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama's victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support.

Mr Obama is expected to speak to Mr Clinton for the first time since he won the nomination in the next few days, but campaign insiders say that the former president's future campaign role is a "sticking point" in peace talks with Mrs Clinton's aides.

The Telegraph has learned that the former president's rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks damaging his own reputation by his intransigence.

A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could "kiss my ass" in return for his support. ...

It has long been known that Mr Clinton is angry at the way his own reputation was tarnished during the primary battle when several of his comments were interpreted as racist.

But his lingering fury has shocked his friends. The Democrat told the Telegraph: "He's been angry for a while. But everyone thought he would get over it. He hasn't. I've spoken to a couple of people who he's been in contact with and he is mad as hell.

"He's saying he's not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his support. (more)

LSB: Bill Clinton can kiss my ass! He isn't the presumed Democratic candidate and Obama isn't some houseboy he can order around. Clinton was a good president (despite his sexual peccadilloes), but he needs to get over his giant ego and this childish behavior and wholeheartedly embrace Obama. His continued failure to join Obama threatens his legacy within the Democratic Party.

Telecoms Bought Democratic House Support

From the Left: House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last week’s FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision.

According to an analysis by MAPLight.org, 94 Democrats who changed their positions received on average $8,359 in contributions from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint from January, 2005, to March, 2008.

Retroactive immunity could squash about 40 lawsuits pending against telecommunication companies that helped the government monitor the telecommunications traffic of Americans without warrants.

The top ten U.S. House recipients of telecom contributions include:

1. Rep. James Clyburn [SC-District 6], $29,500

2. Rep. Steny Hoyer [MD-District 5], $29,000

3. Rep. Rahm Emanuel [IL-District 5], $28,000

4. Rep. Frederick Boucher [VA-District 9], $27,500

5. Rep. Gregory Meeks [NY-District 6], $26,000

6. Rep. Joseph Crowley [NY-District 7], $24,500

7. Speaker Nancy Pelosi [CA-District 8], $24,500

8. Rep. Melissa Bean [IL-District 8], $24,000

9. Rep. Thomas Edwards [TX-District 17], $22,500

10. Rep. Joe Baca [CA-District 43], $22,100

The money provides special interests with a bigger megaphone.

LSB: A little more than 30 pieces of silver, but still they sold out our 4th amendment protections.

DON’T PAY OFF HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN DEBT

From the Left: The price of party unity is helping Hillary Clinton pay-off her $10 million dollar campaign debt.

Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama has asked his finance team to help his former opponent Hillary Clinton pay off a debt of at least $10 million dollars from her failed presidential campaign.

In a teleconference with his top fundraisers yesterday afternoon, Obama asked them to help the former first lady, a campaign spokesman confirmed.

Later at a star-studded fundraising gala in Los Angeles, the Illinois senator, who could become America’s first black president, appealed to those in the crowd who might have supported Clinton.

“I know I caused some heartburn and some frustration,” he said, adding that he and Clinton “were allies then and we’re allies now.”

My advice to Obama’s supporters is simple: DON’T PAY OFF HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN DEBT.

No one forced to Sen. Clinton to remain in the race after the May 6th, North Carolina Democratic primary, when Barack Obama carried the state by winning 56.30% of the vote. This date marked the end of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Yet, thanks to Clinton’s Herculean ego, she remained in the race another month, racking up unnecessary debts and now she has the audacity to ask Obama’s supporters to help get her out of the hole?

Sorry, but asking Obama’s supporters to make Hillary Clinton finacially solvent again has nothing to do with party unity — it’s bribery.

LSB: Absolutely, 100% correct, couldn't agree more... still, the politically expedient thing to do is to relieve this debt so we can move her off the front page.

What does McCain mean by ‘we’?

Steve Benen, Crooks and Liars: There was a vote last night in the Senate on the war supplemental, which included the Webb/Hagel GI Bill. The spending bill, including the expanded education benefits for veterans, passed overwhelmingly (92 to 6), and will be added to the $165 billion that the House and Senate have already approved for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The roll-call is online; every Democrat, and most Republicans, voted for the bill. John McCain, as is now common, didn’t show up for work. Barack Obama was there, and he voted for the funding.

What’s especially interesting, though, is McCain’s response to last night’s vote.

Is that so. How can McCain be “happy” to promote a bill that “we” passed to help veterans with their education benefits, when McCain opposed the Webb/Hagel GI Bill from the beginning? He actively fought against it. Indeed, McCain’s opposition nearly scuttled the bill.

What’s more, when the Obama campaign began hitting McCain over this, he got pretty touchy about it.

And now he wants voters to think he supported the bill all along? That “we” — by implication, including himself — increased “educational benefits for our veterans”?
Even by McCain standards, this is pretty outrageous.

Tap your foot twice if you're for marriage

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: As you may recall, the Republicans in Congress want to amend the US Constitution with anti-gay language that would supposedly "ban gay marriage." In fact, the amendment would likely rescind state and local laws that outlaw job discrimination against gays and provide gay partners with health benefits, and it would likely rescind laws protecting unmarried women from things such as being beaten to a bloody pulp by their boyfriends (this actually happened in Ohio, where the state court found that the local anti-gay-marriage amendment invalidated state laws covering the domestic abuse of unmarried women). Anyway, who is on the very short list of Senators introducing the "Marriage Protection Amendment" in the Senate? Why none other than foot-tapping Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), and whore-mongering Senator David Vitter (R-LA). You'll recall that the very-married Larry Craig was caught tapping his foot alongside a really hot male cop in an airport bathroom. And the very-married and very-family-values-proclaiming David Vitter, we now know, has repeatedly frequented female hookers.

So there you have it. Two of the Republicans' biggest marriage hypocrites - Larry Craig, who was accused of trying to have sex with a man (who was not his wife) in a bathroom, and David Vitter who has been repeatedly accused of frequenting hookers (who also were not his wife) - want to amend the Constitution to "protect" marriage.

Perhaps you all should call Larry Craig's and David Vitter's offices and ask them the following:

• Senator Larry Craig, PH: 202-224-2752. Message: Can a married guy give handjobs and blowjobs to other guys in bathrooms and still defend heterosexual marriage?
• Senator David Vitter, PH: (202) 224-4623. Message: How many whores does a married guy have to sleep with before he's no longer defending marriage? And does the price of the whore matter?

Oh, and please do report back in the comments how your phone calls went with Craig's and Vitter's offices.

Lead GOP activist, Grover Norquist, calls Obama "Kerry with a tan"

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: That's ok. I like to think of Grover Norquist as "Liberace with a wife."

LSB: Snap! ROFLMAO, John - you are too funny! But are there really only two degrees of separation from Grover to Osama? From Wikipedia: "The Islamic Free Market Institute (also known simply as the Islamic Institute) is a Muslim outreach group founded by Grover Norquist and Khaled Suffuri in 1999. The Institute operated out of office space leased by Grover's flagship organization, Americans for Tax Reform,[1] with seed money coming largely from Middle Eastern sources.[2] Saffuri’s former boss at the American Muslim Council, Abdurahman Alamoudi, provided at least $35,000. An outspoken supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, Alamoudi has been suspected of ties to Osama bin Laden and other Islamic radicals since at least 1994, and would later be sentenced to 23 years in prison. The Safa Trust donated at least $35,000, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought contributed $11,000. Both organizations were alleged to be part of the so-called SAAR Network of interrelated business and non-profit entities with ties to sources of terrorism financing, and were among the subjects of a March 20, 2002 raid conducted led the U.S. Custom Service under the auspices of Operation Green Quest."

McCain in the Closet about Meeting with Gay Group

TowleRoad.com: Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon confirmed to the Gay Patriot blog that John McCain held a meeting with the group in "the past couple of weeks" that didn't ever appear on the Senator's schedule.

Said Sammon to Gay Patriot: "We’ve had a series of productive meetings with the campaign since Sen. McCain won the nomination—including a recent meeting with the Senator. We expect to have more conversations with the campaign as we head toward November."

Gay Patriot: "According to published news reports the Sammon-McCain meeting would be the first face-to-face dialogue between a Republican Presidential standardbearer and the President of the national Log Cabin Republicans organization since the check-refund controversy between LCR and the Dole Campaign in 1995."

One of the reasons it may be so hush-hush is that McCain doesn't want to upset the wingnut crowd, like Peter LaBarbera of Republicans for Family Values, who in April expressed dismay that Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke with the group at its convention, reportedly as "McCain's surrogate".

Pam has has some of the right-wing responses to the reported McCain meeting.

[Here's] a John McCain gay pride message, created by the Stonewall Democrats.

UPDATE: John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com - McCain promises to be more anti-gay in public (seriously). Well that didn't take long. I'd just reported two days ago that McCain met recently with gay Republican leaders, and it only took 48 hours for the religious right to knee-cap McCain into submission. After meeting with an assemblage of anti-gay bigots, McCain has now announced that he's going to be more anti-gay in public in order to, I guess, win that all-important, and ever-shrinking, American Taliban vote. And he did just that today, by announcing his support for the effort to repeal marriage in California. So McCain is now going to fan the flames of anti-gay prejudice in order to win the presidency. I love it when mavericks sell their soul. How are you gay Republicans feeling about him now?

Gays Say "No" To Nunn

Joe.My.God.: Noted gays are urging the Obama campaign to back away from any consideration of former Sen. Sam Nunn as a potential running mate, pointing to his "No" vote in the 1996 ENDA battle (which lost by only one vote) and his 1993 orchestration of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."Via MyDD:

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank told the Rothenberg Political Report, June 20th, that "he would have a hard time voting for the [Democratic] ticket" if Sen. Barack Obama picks former United States Sen. Sam Nunn as his vice-presidential running-mate".

Frank, who is the first openly gay member of Congress, pointed to Nunn's vote against the Employee Non-discrimination Act in 1996 as his main reason for opposing an Obama/Nunn ticket in November. Frank went on to say, "I would be virtually useless in trying to convince other gays and lesbians to support the ticket."

Would an Obama/Nunn ticket dampen Sen. Obama's support among gay and lesbian Americans? Or would they put aside their reservations of an Obama/Nunn ticket and fall in line with other Democrats who are desperate for a return to the White House after eight years of GOP control.

If the words of Congressman Barney Frank ring true, Sam Nunn as Obama's vice presidential running mate might result in the GLBT community sitting out the presidential race.

Gay activist David Mixner:

"Sam Nunn would be a disaster as a running mate and a total anathema to millions of Americans,” wrote gay rights advocate and Democratic Party fundraiser David Mixner on his blog. “His presence would totally diminish the power of the Obama campaign notion of change” and “would show that ‘politics as usual’ has supplanted the ‘change in politics’ mantra.”

Nunn has said recently that it might be time for "revisiting" the issue of DADT, but refused to call for its repeal.

States Reject Abstinence-Only Funding From Federal Government

Kevin Freking, HuffingtonPost.com: Skeptical states are shoving aside millions of federal dollars for abstinence education, walking away from the program the Bush administration touts for slowing teen sexual activity. Barely half the states are still in, and two more say they are leaving.

Some $50 million has been budgeted for this year, and financially strapped states might be expected to want their share. But many have doubts that the program does much, if any good, and they're frustrated by chronic uncertainty that it will even be kept in existence. They also have to chip in state money in order to receive the federal grants. ...

A federal tally shows that participation in the program is down 40 percent over two years, with 28 states still in. Arizona and Iowa have announced their intention to forgo their share of the federal grant at the start of the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. (more)

Bush To Filipino President: "I Am Reminded Of The Great Talent Of The -- Of Our Philippine-Americans When I Eat Dinner At The White House"

HuffingtonPost.Com: President Bush met with Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo today at the White House. Arroyo was in Washington while her country tries to recover from a typhoon that devastated coastal areas and flipped a ferry carrying over 800 passengers last week. Before discussing aide for the Philippines, Bush couldn't resist beginning the sober meeting with a quip about a Filipino member of his kitchen staff. Read part of the transcript from the meeting and click here to read more about one of the "Philippine-Americans" Bush is referring to. See the excerpt below:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue. First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House.

LSB: Is he reminded of the great talent of Mexican-Americans when he looks out at the White House Lawn? Is he reminded of the great talent of Chinese-Americans when he puts on a crisp white shirt? What an ass!

Confirmed: Bush Justice Department Illegally Hired Lawyers with Conservative Credentials

Lara Jakes Jordan, HuffingtonPost.com: Ivy Leaguers and other top law students were rejected for plum Justice Department jobs two years ago because of their liberal leanings or objections to Bush administration politics, a government report concluded Tuesday.

In one case, a Harvard Law student was passed over after criticizing the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. In another, a Georgetown University student who had previously worked for a Democratic senator and congressman didn't make the cut.

Even senior Justice Department officials flinched at what appeared to be hiring decisions based _ improperly and illegally _ on politics, according to the internal report.

"Individuals at the department were rejecting any of our candidates who could be construed as left-wing or who were perceived, based on their appearances and resumes and so forth, as being more liberal," Kevin Ohlson, deputy director of the department's executive office of immigration review, complained to Justice investigators.

The report marked the culmination of a yearlong investigation by Justice's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility into whether Republican politics were driving hiring polices at the once fiercely independent department.

The investigation is one of several that examine accusations of White House political meddling within the Justice Department. Those accusations were initially driven by the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in late 2006 and culminated with the ouster of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general last September.

The report issued Tuesday concluded that politics and ideology disqualified a significant number of newly graduated lawyers and summer interns seeking coveted Justice jobs in 2006.

As early as 2002, career Justice employees complained to department officials that Bush administration political appointees had largely taken over the hiring process for summer interns and so-called Honors Program jobs for newly graduated law students. For years, job applicants had been judged on their grades, the quality of their law schools, their legal clerkships and other experiences.

But in 2002, many applicants who identified themselves as Democrats or were members of liberal-leaning organizations were rejected while GOP loyalists with fewer legal skills were hired, the report found. Of 911 students who applied for full-time Honors jobs that year, 100 were identified as liberal _ and 80 were rejected. By comparison, 46 were identified as conservative, and only four didn't get a job offer.

The political filtering of applicants ebbed for the three years between 2003 and 2005, the inquiry found, then resumed by 2006.

Of 602 Honors candidates that year, 150 were identified as liberal _ including 83 who were cut. Five of 28 self-described conservatives were rejected.

Investigators blamed two political appointees on a three-person screening committee for the preferential treatment. It also singled out one of them, former deputy attorney general staff chief Michael Elston, for failing to make sure the hirings were proper _ and giving evasive and misleading answers about why they were not.

An attorney for Elston, who is now in private practice, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Although federal law prohibits discriminating against government job applicants based on their politics, it's unlikely that any of those involved in the hiring process will be penalized since they no longer work at the department. A Justice official said the department is not considering pressing criminal charges or taking or civil actions against them.

Democrats quickly seized on the report to bludgeon the Bush administration for playing politics with a department sworn to uphold the law fairly.

"This is the first smoking gun," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We believe there will be more to come. This report shows clearly that politics and ideology replaced merit as the hiring criteria at one of our most prized civil service departments."

Under Gonzales, the Justice Department last year moved to prevent politics from influencing the hiring screening process. His successor, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, said Tuesday he "will continue to make clear that the consideration of political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees is impermissible and unacceptable."

LA Times Throws McCain a “Curveball” on Iraq

Jon Perr, Crooks and Liars: John McCain’s campaign launched a new effort this week to whitewash his calamitous record of egregious errors and flawed forecasts when it comes to Iraq. As ThinkProgress reported, the McCain web site has unveiled a very elegant - and very selective - new timeline highlighting John McCain’s “judgment” on Iraq. Hoping that voters will forget his disastrous predictions throughout 2002 and 2003 in the run-up to the war, the McCain timeline unsurprisingly starts in August 2003. Unfortunately, a timely Los Angeles Times interview with the infamous “Curveball” will remind Americans just how wrong John McCain has been about Iraq from the very beginning.

As the LA Times recounts, Rafid Ahmed Alwan, aka Curveball, played an essential role in the Bush administration’s justification for war with Iraq. Despite warnings from CIA officials such as Tyler Drumheller that claims from Curveball were unreliable and unbelievable, the German intelligence asset’s tall tales became a foundation for the White House’s rationale for war:

President Bush declared in his State of the Union address in January 2003 that “we know” that Iraq built mobile germ factories. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell highlighted Alwan’s supposed “eyewitness” account to the U.N. Security Council when he pressed the case for war.

Among those taken in was John McCain, who bought in to the WMD horror stories lock, stock and two-smoking barrels. In October 2002, McCain took to the Senate floor to sound the alarm about Saddam’s weapons:

“He has developed stocks of germs and toxins in sufficient quantities to kill the entire population of the Earth multiple times. He’s placed weapons laden with these poisons on alert to fire at his neighbors within minutes, not hours, and has devolved military authority to fire them to subordinates. He develops nuclear weapons, with which he would hold his neighbors and us hostage.”

On February 13, 2003, McCain again showed his “judgment” on Iraq, declaring:

“Proponents of containment claim that Iraq is in a ‘box.’ But it is a box with no lid, no bottom, and whose sides are falling out. Within this box are definitive footprints of germ, chemical and nuclear programs.”

McCain’s confidence was unshaken into June 2003, when he said, “I remain confident that we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Alas, as the Los Angeles Times noted today:

In October 2004, more than a year after the invasion, a CIA-led investigation concluded that Baghdad had abandoned all chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The germ trucks never existed.

What the LA Times’ interview of and investigation into Alwan also reveals is just what a pathetically awful fabulist Curveball was:

He claimed, for example, that the son of his former boss, Basil Latif, secretly headed a vast weapons of mass destruction procurement and smuggling scheme from England. British investigators found, however, that Latif’s son was a 16-year-old exchange student, not a criminal mastermind.

His one-time supervisor Hilal Freah, a British-trained engineer and friend of Alwan’s mother, recounted Curveball’s duplicity:

“Rafid told five or 10 stories every day,” Freah said in an interview. “I’d ask, ‘Where have you been?’ And he’d say, ‘I had a problem with my car.’ Or, ‘My family was sick.’ But I knew he was lying.” He had a gift for it and “was not embarrassed when caught in a lie,” Freah said. At the Djerf al Nadaf warehouse, laborers treated seeds from local farmers with fungicides to prevent mold and rot. But Alwan convinced his BND [German intelligence] handlers that the site’s corn-filled sheds were part of Iraq’s secret germ weapons program. He worked there, he told them, until 1998, when an unreported biological accident occurred. In fact, Alwan had been dismissed three years earlier, in 1995, after inflating expenses and faking receipts for tools, supplies and lamb for a party. “I fired him,” Freah said. “He was corrupt and he was found stealing.”

For his part, Rafid Ahmed Alwan alias Curveball is unrepentant about his record when it comes to his role in enabling the war in Iraq. Rather than scorn, he claims, he deserves to rewarded and respected:

“Everything I said was true. And everything that’s been written about me is wrong. It’s all wrong. The main thing is, I’m an honest man.”
“For what I’ve done, I should be treated like a king.”

Which sounds a lot like John McCain.

Rep. Wexler: McCain “broke the law” on campaign finance

SilentPatriot, Crooks and Liars: Robert Wexler is a surrogate that Barack Obama should be grateful to have on his team. The Florida Congressman squared off against Republican Eric Cantor yesterday on “Late Edition” and did what every surrogate should do whenever the issue of campaign finance comes up; namely point out that John McCain is breaking his own campaign finance laws as we speak. (Click the pic for the vid.)

CNN: And one other thing — Senator McCain’s not in the osition to speak about this. He used his public financing as collateral to get a loan, and then, low and behold, he didn’t use it, and he broke the law.

I didn’t watch all the Sunday news shows last week, but I’m pretty sure Wexler was the only person — surrogate or otherwise — to make the observation that John McCain has absolutely no standing to lecture others on “failing to keep their word” on the issue of campaign finance reform. Why Democratic spokespeople aren’t on top of this talking point is beyond me.

James Dobson, who himself could use a lesson in Jesus, lectures Obama about God

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: Dobson's quotes are so self-referential, it's rather amazing.

"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology," Dobson said.

"... He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."

Pot meet Kettle. Now, what is truly interesting about all of this is that Dobson can't stand McCain. So it's rather interesting that Dobson is now attacking Obama, which in principle helps McCain. Obama has made no secret that he's wooing people of faith, as a fellow Christian. McCain's Christian bona fides aren't that strong - he recently got his faith wrong, and he certainly doesn't talk about God and Christ in the real way that Obama does, in the real way that a real Christian recognizes as, well, real. So Dobson appears to be worried that Obama is a real threat, not just to McCain, but to Dobson's own warped view of Christianity. Of course, the real threat to Dobson is that nobody appears to care what he and his ilk have to say anymore. At least not in politics, and that's Dobson's home turf. He may have loads of red-state followers who are still willing to at least sip his Kool-Aid, but in Washington, he's not exactly the cock of the walk he once was. And he knows it.

UPDATE from John Amato at Crooks and Liars: Our friends at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State wrote in to say Dobson’s “Alliance Defense Fund” is encouraging pastors to deliberately break the law and engage in politicking at church services during a pre-arranged “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” scheduled for September 28. [Memo to the IRS you’ll be working that weekend.]

UPDATE from Sara Kugler, HuffingtonPost.com: Barack Obama said Tuesday that evangelical leader James Dobson was "making stuff up" when he accused the presumed Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible. ...

Speaking to reporters on his campaign plane before landing in Los Angeles, Obama said the speech made the argument that people of faith, like himself, "try to translate some of our concerns in a universal language so that we can have an open and vigorous debate rather than having religion divide us."

Obama added, "I think you'll see that he was just making stuff up, maybe for his own purposes."

GAO Report Faults Post-'Surge' Planning

Karen DeYoung, Washington Post: The administration lacks an updated and comprehensive Iraq strategy to move beyond the "surge" of combat troops President Bush launched in January 2007 as an 18-month effort to curtail violence and build Iraqi democracy, government investigators said yesterday.

While agreeing with the administration that violence has decreased sharply, a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many other goals Bush outlined a year and a half ago in the "New Way Forward" strategy remain unmet.

The report, after a bleak GAO assessment last summer, cited little improvement in the ability of the Iraqi security forces to act independently of the U.S. military, and noted that key legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament had not been implemented while other crucial laws had not been passed. The report also judged that key Iraqi ministries spent less of their allocated budgets last year than in previous years, and said that oil and electricity production had repeatedly not met U.S. targets.

Bush's strategy of January 2007, the GAO said, "defined the original goals and objectives that the Administration believed were achievable by the end of this phase in July 2008." Not meeting many of them changed circumstances on the ground and the pending withdrawal of the last of the additional U.S. forces mean that strategy is now outdated, the report said. The GAO recommends that the State and Defense departments work together to fashion a new approach. (more)

LSB: No plans/strategy beyond the surge... sound familiar? Is anyone really surprised?

Top McCain Adviser: Another terror attack would give McCain “big advantage”

SilentPatriot, Crooks and Liars: Well, since this guy’s job is to get John McCain elected at all costs, is it a stretch to wonder whether he’s actually hoping for one? It wouldn’t be the first time someone mused about that being a good idea.

Fortune:

On national security McCain wins. We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy - this according to McCain’s chief strategist, Charlie Black. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.” As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black.

When it came out that Black lobbied for some of the worlds worst dictators, MoveOn put out this ad urging McCain to fire Black. I wonder if this is a fireable offense. I’m guessing not.

What’s even worse, just like Black exploits the tragic death of Benazir Bhutto for political gain, CNN’s Dana Bash is on the record saying that McCain echoed the same sentiment right after her death. Watch it here.

John Amato: Is Black hoping for an attack on US soil? He should be fired for saying this. Months ago he brought up the Bhutto assassination as an “unfortunate event.” Gee, what an awful way to phrase that tragedy. How about it was a horrific blow to Bhutto, her family and the country of Pakistan at a critical time in their history. Instead—it’s just an event, but a ” positive event” for McCain’s bid at the presidency. Let’s take a look at Black’s client list for a minute.

Charlie Black, McCain’s senior counsel and spokesman, began his lobbying career by representing numerous dictators and repressive regimes.

1. Black’s firm represented the governor of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos. According to a 1985 report, the firm Black, Manafort & Stone earned $950,000 plus expenses for its work to provide “advice and assistance on matters relating to the media, public relations and public affairs interests.”
2. Black’s firm lobbied on behalf of Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire, earning $1 million a year for his efforts.
3. Black’s firm lobbied on behalf of Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
4. Black’s firm represented Nigerian dictator Ibrahim Babangida, earning at least $1 million for his efforts.
5. Black’s firm has represented Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich state “best known for the outlandish brutality of its rulers.”
6. Black represented Angolan rebel and “classical terrorist” Jonas Savimbi, a job that earned him $600,000.
7. “We have to call him Africa’s classical terrorist,” Makau Mutua, a professor of law and Africa specialist told the New York Times. “In the history of the continent, I think he’s unique because of the degree of suffering he caused without showing any remorse.”
8. In recent years his client list has also included the Iraqi National Congress,
9. Friends of Blackwater,
10. and the China National Off-Shore Oil Corp.
11. Since 2005, BKSH has received more than $700,000 in fees from foreign entities.

I think lobbying for brutal dictators and regimes has rubbed off on Charlie Black a little too much.

Republicans Whine About Legality of New Obama Logo. Their Use of Similar Logos Doesn’t Bother Them

Nicole Belle, Crooks and Liars. Political Base: It’s just so hard to take the buffoons on the far right seriously when it comes to their incessant hysteria regarding anything involving Barack Obama (D). Their latest rant is that Obama is breaking federal law by using the likeness of the presidential seal with his new seal (left).

Seriously. The whack jobs over at the Weekly Standard are pretty much hyperventilating over it, even quoting the explicit language of 18 USC Sec. 713 [...]

Well, it took me about 15 minutes on Google Images to discover that John McCain’s (R) own caucus — the National Republican Senatorial Committee — uses three different likenesses of the official seal…for fundraising purposes:

President Bush Uses Executive Privilege To Block Subpoena Of EPA Documents

Logan Murphy, Crooks and Liars. Think Progress:

With a contempt of Congress vote looming by Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) House Oversight Committee, President Bush asserted executive privilege this morning to block the committee’s subpoenas for documents relating to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to reject California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to override scientific recommendations on ozone standards.

Waxman’s committee had scheduled the 10 am business meeting to hold contempt votes for EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and White House Office of Management and Budget regulatory administrator Susan Dudley. On May 20, Johnson appeared before the committee, without the subpoenaed documents and evading questions about Bush’s involvement. Read on…

As you might imagine, Henry Waxman isn’t too happy. From TPM:

I don’t think we’ve had a situation like this since Richard Nixon was president. When the President of the United States, may have been involved in acting contrary to law and the evidence that would determine that question for Congress, in exercising our oversight, is being blocked by an assertion of executive privilege. I would hope and expect this administration would not be making this assertion without a valid basis for it, but to date I have not seen a valid instance of their executive privilege. Read on…

As the American people sit and watch the Democrats cave to George Bush and the GOP on issues like FISA and war funding without provisions for troop withdrawal, there is little hope that Congress will step up and do the right thing. Someone should be held accountable for these crimes, but so far, the Democratic leadership has shown no real stomach to fulfill their constitutional duties. With impeachment off the table, this, like so many other crimes, will go unpunished.

The Best of TV News Lip Slips

Gawker.com: We've shown you their ridiculous pratfalls, their insane and wonderful on-camera meltdowns, and now we bring you the best of television news folks' lip slips. You know those, they're the terrifically awkward moments when an anchor says "blow job" instead of "block party," or accidentally outs their station's weatherman. They're completely embarrassing, uncomfortable, and downright amazing. Above is our compilation of the breast. I mean best.

LSB: All three videos are hilarious! Check them out by clicking on the text links above.

Fox News’ Chris Wallace Blatantly Shills for Big Oil

Bill W, Crooks and Liars: In a segment ending with the disclosure that “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace is brought to you by “The People of America’s Oil and Natural Gas Industry” and immediately followed by the American Petroleum Institute (API) front group’s misleading ad, the Fox News host seized on one of John McCain’s more recent flip-flops siding with President Bush’s recent call to rescind the ban on offshore oil drilling and asked over and over why McCain won’t cave all the way to big oil and also allow for oil exploration in the Alaskan Arctic Wildlife Refuge, ANWR. (Click the pic for the vid.)

In the process of spewing talking points on behalf of his show’s sponsor, Wallace brings Obama into the discussion by joining the growing list of conservative dittoheads in the media who have been repeating this same false claim made by McCain last Tues. about oil spills and Hurricane Katrina:

Wallace: Obama talks about environmental damage from drilling offshore but the fact is the moratorium was put into effect in 1981. There’s been a lot of technological advances since then. We had Hurricane Katrina go through the heart of the Gulf of Mexico and ravage these oil rigs and there were almost no oil spills, so what’s he talking about?”

As ThinkProgress points out, that’s not true at all.

The truth is that Hurricane Katrina caused oil spillage so significant it was clearly visible from space. It also wreaked environmental havoc near the scale of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. …

As Sen. Reid correctly pointed out, this recent push by George Bush & John McBush represents “nothing more than a cynical campaign ploy that will do nothing to lower energy prices, and represents another big giveaway to oil companies already making billions in profits.” And the NYT went further to note that "the only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power — Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — exit the political stage."

In fact, the oil industry has yet drilled in just 19 percent of the more than 40 million acres they already can that are not covered by the current ban — 40 million acres that represent 79 percent of America’s technically recoverable offshore oil reserves. Using generous estimates from the latest analysis from Bush’s own Department of Energy, allowing for unlimited drilling both offshore and in ANWR "would lower the price at the pump by less than 6 cents by 2025."

How much do you reckon a gallon of gas will be in 2025, with or without the hypothetical $0.06 a gal. savings?

William Kristol is Insane

From the Left: On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that President Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he believes Barack Obama is going to be elected.

WALLACE: So, you’re suggesting that he might in fact, if Obama’s going to win the election, either before or after the election, launch a military strike?

KRISTOL: I don’t know. I mean, I think he would worry about it. On the other hand, you can’t — it’s hard to make foreign policy based on guesses of election results. I think Israel is worried though. I mean, what is, what signal goes to Ahmadinejad if Obama wins on a platform of unconditional negotiations and with an obvious reluctance to even talk about using military force.

Kristol also suggested that Obama’s election would tempt Saudi Arabia and Egypt to think, "maybe we can use nuclear weapons."

Say again, why did the New York Times hire this lunatic?

White House Shoots Down Army’s Effort To Increase Oversight Of Defense Contractors

ThinkProgress.org: Since 2002, the Army’s contracting budget has ballooned from $46 billion to $112 billion in 2007. However, as the AP reported last week, the number of investigators charged with hunting down fraudulent or wasteful contracts has stayed the same, at less than 100 agents.

Now the Army has proposed adding five active-duty generals who would oversee purchasing and monitor contractor performance — a move recommended by a blue-ribbon panel last fall. But the White House, through the Office of Management and Budget, “has shot down” the Army’s plan:

According to a May 28 report to Congress on the status of the recommendations, Army Secretary Pete Geren said a proposal for five extra generals was submitted in March to OMB for approval. The office’s role is to ensure proposed budgets and legislation are consistent with the administration’s policies.

On May 12, the Army learned its proposal had been rejected. The report does not say why. A week after the rejection, the Army appealed OMB’s decision.

The Army’s proposal of adding five oversight generals would cost a mere $1.2 million a year in personnel costs. By contrast, a Defense Contract Audit Agency found $4.9 billion “in overpricing and waste” in Iraq contracts since 2003, which doesn’t include the additional $5.1 billion “in expenses charged without documentation.” In other words, the White House opposes a contract oversight proposal that would cost a mere .012 percent of the $10 billion already lost to contract waste.

Last year, the White House tried to block legislation that would limit the use of no-bid contracts and require greater congressional oversight. Despite Bush’s opposition, the Senate passed the bill unanimously, and the House approved it with 347 votes.

Appeals court rules against Bush administration in enemy combatant case.

ThinkProgress.org: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has “overturned the Pentagon’s classification of a Guantanamo detainee as an enemy combatant,” undermining “the basis for his more than six years in detention.” The court also rejected the argument that the President can “detain people who never took up arms against the U.S.,” dealing another setback to the Bush administration’s detention program.

Scalia, McCain and Yoo Push Discredited “Gitmo 30″ Talking Point

Jon Perr, Crooks and Liars: Earlier, I detailed how John McCain, John Yoo and Justice Antonin Scalia in the wake of the Court’s Boumediene decision all continued to peddle the discredited Republican talking point about “30 former Guantanamo detainees” who had “returned to the fight.” Now a devastating new report released Tuesday from Seton Hall professor Mark Denbeaux puts to rest the Scalia’s “urban legend.”

That figure of 30 terror recidivists unleashing a bloodbath had been debunked by earlier studies from Denbeaux’s team and recent investigations from the McClatchy papers. But Denbeaux’s updated analysis, including the revelations that the Defense Department itself backtracked from the infamous Gitmo 30 in July 2007 and May 2008, shows the extent to which Justice Scalia engaged in cherry-picking dubious data to bolster his blood-curdling Boumediene dissent last week. And it hasn’t stopped the exaggerated number of Gitmo repeat terrorists (like the cry of “worse than Dred Scott“) from becoming a standard Republican talking point since the Court’s restoration of habeas corpus last week. (Read the rest of this story…)

MoveOn to Obama: Keep Your Word, Filibuster Telecom Immunity

John Amato, Crooks and Liars: I know many readers were upset with Obama’s response to the newly passed Hoyer/FISA bill that granted the Telecoms retroactive immunity. If he brings up an amendment to strip the immunity provision in the Senate next week and it fails–then–what’s the point, right? Greg Sargent said “Why Obama’s Support For FISA Cave-In Is Such A Downer.”

MoveOn, who supported Obama during the primary fight has just issued a letter asking Obama to keep his word:

On Friday, House Democrats caved to the Bush administration and passed a bill giving a get-out-of-jail-free card to phone companies that helped Bush illegally spy on innocent Americans.

This Monday, the fight moves to the Senate. Senator Russ Feingold says the “deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation.” Barack Obama announced his partial support for the bill, but said, “It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.”

Last year, after phone calls from MoveOn members and others, Obama went so far as to vow to “support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.” We need him to honor that promise.

Can you call Senator Obama today and tell him you’re counting on him to keep his word? Ask him to block any compromise that includes immunity for phone companies that helped Bush break the law.

• Obama’s presidential campaign: (866) 675-2008.
• Then, help us track our progress by clicking here.
• Sign the petition here.

Blue America Pac remarkably has raised over 300K so far. Please continue to join in.

UPDATE. Obama: “I’ll Work To Strip Telecom Immunity From FISA”: Barack Obama clarified his statement in support of H.R. 6304, the so-called telecom immunity bill, and said he would try to strip a provision granting immunity to telecommunication companies when the bill comes to a vote in the Senate next week.

“[The bill] does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work
in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.”

The House approved the legislation 293-129 and H.R. 6304 received the support of DINO House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

From the Left calls on the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, to join with Sen. Chris Dodd next week when the legislation comes before the Senate for a vote and uphold the Constitution and strip the retroactive immunity portion from the bill.

Pressed Over And Over, Holtz-Eakin Unable To Explain How McCain Will Pay For Tax Cuts

ThinkProgress.org: On MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, host Joe Scarborough pressed Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, on McCain’s infamous flip-flop on the Bush tax cuts. Scarborough noted that McCain’s current position is “that we couldn’t afford tax cuts in 2001 because of deficits, but we can afford them now.” “Can we afford to extend George W. Bush’s tax cuts?” he asked.

Holtz-Eakin filibustered, claiming that “McCain has a plan to bring the budget into balance by 2013.” After Scarborough repeated his question five times, Holtz-Eakin finally relented, saying, “Yes.” Scarborough then pointed out the absurdity of McCain’s changing position from 2001 to 2008:

SCARBOROUGH: You’re saying we can afford, just a yes or no, we can afford to extend George W. Bush’s tax cuts?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Yes.

SCARBOROUGH: Ok. But in 2001, when Sen. McCain voted against George Bush’s tax cuts, he said we couldn’t afford it because it would create a deficit. In 2001, we had a 155 billion dollar surplus. This year, in 2008, when he now supports the tax cuts, as you know, we are moving towards a 300 billion dollar deficit. How can we afford tax cuts in 2008 with 300 billion dollar deficit that John McCain said we couldn’t afford in 2001 when we had 155 billion dollar surplus?

Beyond a blanket promise to “control spending,” Holtz-Eakin could not explain how McCain’s budget could afford the tax cuts. Watch it:

The reason Holtz-Eakin refused to explain how McCain would “balance the budget” while extending and enhancing the Bush tax cuts is simple: He can’t do it.

McCain has claimed that he can pay for his massive tax cuts by either cutting $100 billion a year in earmarks or $100 billion in overall spending. But the Washington Post’s Fact Checker calls this “voodoo economics” ...

An analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund has determined that McCain’s fiscal proposals “would create deficits as deep as 5.7% of GDP by the end of a two term presidency — the highest federal budget deficit in 25 years.”

Transcript: Read the rest of this entry.

90 Percent Of Whites Comfortable With Black President

HuffingtonPost.com: The Washington Post reports "an overwhelming public openness to the idea of electing an African American to the presidency."

In a Post-ABC News poll last month, nearly nine in 10 whites said they would be comfortable with a black president. While fewer whites, about two-thirds, said they would be "entirely comfortable" with it, that was more than double the percentage of all adults who said they would be so at ease with someone entering office for the first time at age 72, which McCain (R-Ariz.) would do should he prevail in November.

But the good news may stop there. "As Sen. Barack Obama opens his campaign as the first African American on a major party presidential ticket, nearly half of all Americans say race relations in the country are in bad shape and three in 10 acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice," according to the same poll. ...

Moreover, the Post reports in a separate story that Obama's historic primary victory "has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them." (more)

Mugabe rival quits election race

BBC News: Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai (shown) says he is pulling out of Friday's presidential run-off, handing victory to President Robert Mugabe.

Mr Tsvangirai said there was no point running when elections would not be free and fair and "the outcome is determined by... Mugabe himself"

He called on the global community to step in to protect Zimbabweans.

The decision came after opposition supporters heading to a rally in the capital Harare came under attack

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says at least 70 supporters have been killed in recent months. (more)

Chris in Paris, AmericaBlog: The UN now views rape as a war crime. If the allegations of rape, torture and murder are proven, Robert Mugabe and his band of thugs should be dragged to The Hague and face crimes against humanity. This also means the EU will have to quit making exceptions for Mugabe and allowing him to travel to Europe for shopping trips.

LSB: The suffering of these people and their democratic freedoms are not important to the Bush administration. Exxon, Shell, BP, and the other oil companies have no interests here, so we'll not be going after this dictator like we did Saddam.

My BEST and WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD Nominees

SilentPatriot, Crooks and Liars: In one of the most reprehensible lines of questioning today - and Lord knows there were many as Republicans desperately try to outdo each other on who can cover Bush’s ass best - GOP stooge Steve King takes the cake with this gem:

“Couldn’t you have taken this to the grave with you and done this country a favor?”

You see, in bizarro Republican world, staying silent and allowing your fellow citizens to remain clueless about how their leaders lie to them is the right, patriotic thing to do. Only traitors speak up about how their country is being flushed down the toilet when there’s still time to actually do something about it.

LSB: WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD Nominee. Click the pic for the vid of this asshole in action. Iowa must be proud!

Howie Klein, Crooks and Liars: Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) on FISA: “I simply do not believe any president, especially this president, should have unilateral or unchecked authority to conduct surveillance without judicial oversight. Congress has an obligation to protect our national security without sacrificing basic rights provided in our Constitution. “While this compromise reflects improvements over previous flawed proposals, it is a compromise I will not support. I have consistently opposed any legislation that grants retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping. Regrettably, this latest proposal fails to hold the administration and the companies accountable for their actions. The American people deserve to know exactly what happened and they deserve to know who is accountable. This bill fails that test.”

LSB: BEST WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD Nominee.

Spineless Dems: Still Giving Mr. 24% Everything He Asks For

Richard Blair , All Spin Zone: I simply don’t understand.

George W. Bush is down below 30% approval rating even with Fox viewers. In other polls, he’s in the lower 20% range. So, why - why in the hell - does the Democratic Party controlled congress insist on giving him everything he petulantly demands?

ISA and telecom immunity. Done deal. The death of democracy, and the antithesis of Nuremberg in 1946 (”we were just following orders…”).

War funding. Done deal. Even as retired General Antonio “Abu Ghraib” Taguba accuses the Bush administration of war crimes.

WTF is with the Democratic Party congressional leadership? Are they that out of touch with reality? Are they really still that scared of the GOP noise machine?

And where was Barack Obama’s leadership? As the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, he has a vast bully pulpit at his disposal. Why didn’t he voice any opposition to either bill?

I’m so disgusted. The douchebaggery is astounding. And most Americans could care less. It’s all very depressing. ...

You’ve got the weekend to let your Senators know how you feel. They need to know that FISA / illegal wire tapping / telecom immunity can not stand, and that you won’t stand for any politician who supports this “get out of jail free” desecration of the fourth amendment. Here’s a site you can use to directly contact the Senators from your state.

LSB: Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Call to let your Senators know how you feel. I've got two douchebags (Cornyn and Hutchison) from my state, but one (Cornyn) may be in a tough re-election. No doubt I'll be reminding him when I fax him in a few minutes that I, and many others in this state, will be closely watching his vote. Not that I think it will matter, but how could it hurt?

Daily Show: Guantanamo Baywatch and the SCOTUS Decision

SilentPatriot, Crooks and Liars: Jon Stewart reports on the recent SCOTUS decision granting Gitmo detainees the right to contest their imprisonment in federal court, and in the process mocks all the outraged right-wing nut jobs. Bill Kristol gets it especially rough, considering he appears to have recently changed his opinion on due process. (Click the pic for the vid.)

Doocy: “So with the recent Supreme Court decision saying that detainees down at Gitmo can wind up with habeas corpus and get legal rights and stuff like that."

Stewart: Legal rights and stuff. It’s actually all been explained in Thomas Paine’s ‘A Treatise on the Rights of Man…and Sh*t’”

It’s crazy to stop and think about how far we’ve come in just eight short years. It is now within “mainstream” right-wing discourse to condemn the Supreme Court for ruling that the President can’t lock people up for life without a chance for them to prove their innocence. Is this even America anymore? Is there literally anything more un-American?

McCain: I 'Didn't Love America' Until Held Prisoner

HuffingtonPost.com: Republicans have hammered Michelle Obama for her remarks in February that she was proud of America "for the first time in my adult life." Tonight, however, Dan Abrams showed footage he uncovered of a Fox News interview with John McCain on March 13, 2008, in which McCain said, "I didn't really love America until I was deprived of her company."

Abrams thinks McCain's comments could undermine the "right wing's steady attacks against Michelle Obama."

If only there was US land where Big Oil could drill

Chris in Paris, AmericaBlog.com: What? There is land where they can already drill without disrupting the environment off the coast of Florida or ANWAR? What the? There are 68 million acres of untapped land with oil and gas reserves that's not being used? Surely Republicans and John McCain wouldn't be promoting new drilling just for political reasons, would they? Big Oil wouldn't do this to divert attention from the country detesting them with every bone in their body, would they? Let's see how everyone reacts to Congressman Rahall's "use it or lose it" legislation.

The 68 million acres of leased but inactive federal land have the potential to produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. This would nearly double total U.S. oil production, and increase natural gas production by 75 percent. It would also cut U.S. oil imports by more than one-third, reducing America's dependency on foreign oil.

Nick Rahall's (D-WV) bill would force oil and gas companies to either produce or give up federal onshore and offshore leases they are stockpiling by barring the companies from obtaining any more leases unless they can demonstrate that they are producing oil and gas, or are diligently developing the leases they already hold, during the initial term of the leases.

Feingold: Wiretap deal 'no compromise, it's capitulation'

Nick Juliano, Raw Deal: Wary of making the debate between liberty and security into a campaign issue, Congressional Democrats appear ready to retreat in their years-long effort to instill some sort of accountability on the Bush administration and its enablers in the telecommunications industry for their extra-legal surveillance of Americans.

Congressional leaders have reached an accord with the White House on the update to a controversial surveillance law that essentially legalizes the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program and seems likely to let off the hook the phone companies that facilitated it.

Under the bipartisan measure, a court could dismiss a suit if there is written certification that the White House asked a phone company to participate in the warrantless surveillance program Bush began shortly after the September 11 attacks and assured the company it was legal.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), who has been among the most vocal critics of the administration's apparent disdain for the Constitution, called the latest deal "a capitulation."

“The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation. The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President’s illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home. Allowing courts to review the question of immunity is meaningless when the same legislation essentially requires the court to grant immunity. And under this bill, the government can still sweep up and keep the international communications of innocent Americans in the U.S. with no connection to suspected terrorists, with very few safeguards to protect against abuse of this power. Instead of cutting bad deals on both FISA and funding for the war in Iraq, Democrats should be standing up to the flawed and dangerous policies of this administration.”

A vote on the bill could come as early as Friday in the House of Representatives, which was expected to approve it. It would then be sent to the Democratic-led Senate where even Democratic foes of the measure concede it would be passed and then be sent to Bush to sign into law. (more)

Call your member of Congress and tell them to vote NO on the bad FISA deal. The main number for the House is 202-225-3121. Let Majority Leader Steny Hoyer know this is a bad idea: (202) 225-4131.

It’s 10 O’clock. Do President Bush and John McCain Know Where Condoleezza Rice Is?

Josh Felt, Seattle Stranger: Given the Bush/McCain vs. Obama debate over “appeasing” our enemies, I’m sorta surprised the second paragraph of this pg. 856,000 NYT story wasn’t a pg. 1 headline:

“Rice met with government leaders from both the government majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition, signaling her support for a compromise…”

That’s right, Bush’s own Secretary of State is doing what the “naive” and “dangerous” Obama said he’d do: She’s talking to “the terrorists.” (The U.S. considers Hezbollah a terrorist group.)

Conclusion? Even President Bush’s own secretary of state thinks Bush is out of office already.

Go Big Al!

DavidMixner.com: One of the seats that the Democrats have a chance of capturing in the fall is the Minnesota seat held by Senator Norm Coleman. Charismatic former comedian and progressive radio host Al Franken is running one hell of an issues campaign in the best tradition of Paul Wellstone. His most recent ad should be run by all of our candidates across the country. Take a look!

LSB: Wow! This is a great message. I hope more of the Dem senate candidates use this message.

10 Steps to Fascism

Guardian.co.uk: From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all.

"Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

"It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society..."

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. [Saddam is dead, but OBL is still out there.]
2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place. [Think Gitmo]
3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens. [Think Blackwater]
4. Set up an internal surveillance system. [Think unauthorized wiretapping]
5. Harass citizens' groups. [Hmmm... have to think about a good example here]
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release. [Think James Yee and Brandon Mayfield among others]
7. Target key individuals. [Think eight US attorneys for their insufficient political loyalty]
8. Control the press. [duh!]
9. Declare all dissent to be treason. [Think "Of course if you want to slander America..."]
10. Suspend the rule of law. [Think Defense Authorization Act of 2007]

LSB: I just came across this article, but it's eerily on target. This has got me to thinking about the McClelland hearings tomorrow. I wonder what light he can shed on any of the White House scandals, and whether or not that will push Pelosi to backtrack on her no-impeachment position.

McCain screws up again. This time by using Fred Thompson to attack Obama.

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: Yeah, not very smart to use Fred Thompson to attack Obama over bin Laden. First off, Thompson said last year that Osama didn't really matter, he's "more symbolism than anything else." Yeah, the symbol of 3,000 dead Americans and others on September 11. That's a symbol worth catching. But Thompson didn't stop there. He said last year that bin Laden “"should get due process if he’s caught". Now, why is that a problem? Because McCain has been railing all week against Obama for saying that there's no reason we can't try suspected terrorists in US courts, even if they're military courts. McCain says that's naive. And now McCain is using Thompson to further that attack on Obama. Except that Thompson said pretty what Obama said, if not far worse in McCain's thinking. Yesterday Team McCain put Giuliani out there to attack Obama on national security after McCain had said that Giuliani has zero national security experience. And now this. Seriously poorly managed campaign over in McCain-land.

LSB: I was going to comment on the Giuliani attack on Obama yesterday, so it was good to see this reminder. Giuliani: who even after the first attack on the twin towers in the early 1990s put the command center in the twin towers; who for years didn't replace the radios first responders needed though he knew they were defective; and who recommended Bernie Kerik, his bromance, for Secretary of Homeland Security - this is who McCain sends out with the message that Obama has no security experience? That's rich! And BTW, will someone explain to me how simply being a POW during a war 30+ years ago qualifies you as a national security expert. Has McCain got any recent experience? He's on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs; I don't see Foreign Affairs listed here. A couple of shopping trips to the markets in Baghdad with half the military doesn't make him an expert. For heaven's sake, he's continually confused by the Shi'a-Sunni designations.

McCain Campaign Falsely Accuses DNC Of Attacking Cindy McCain

Nicole Belle, Crooks and Liars: It appears that we hit too close for comfort with the McCain campaign when we brought up the topic of the “Sugar Momma Express” use of Cindy’s private jets for the campaign, because now they’re lashing out. Too bad they have to make up things to complain about. Greg Sargent:

In an email blasted out to the media this morning, the McCain camp noted that the DNC had sent to reporters this article about Mrs. McCain.

“When will Sen. Obama do as he promised and `speak out against’ Howard Dean and the DNC for their attacks on Mrs. McCain — or at least demand they stop?” McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers asked in the email.

I received the DNC’s email this morning, too. And nowhere in the email does the DNC attack Mrs. McCain.

The article that the DNC drew attention to reported that the McCain campaign had failed to reimburse Mrs. McCain for a flight in her company’s private jet to New York City, where she attended a fund-raiser for her husband. The article quotes two Republicans criticizing the campaign for this.

The entire email from the DNC consists of criticism of the McCain campaign — not Mrs. McCain.

LSB: Just saw online that this botoxed rodeo queen is once again making comments about 'always being proud of her country,' a clear jab at Michelle Obama's misstatement. That's rich - the thieving, drugging adultress is throwing stones. Even Laura Bush gave Michelle a pass. Is McCain's campaign so desperate and bereft of ideas that they have to send out his stepford wife to regurgitate this tired slam?

Ex-State Dept. official: Hundreds of detainees died in U.S. custody, at least 25 murdered.

ThinkProgress.org: At today’s House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, with up to 27 of these declared homicides:

NADLER: Your testimony said 100 detainees have died in detention; do you believe the 25 of those were in effect murdered?
WILKERSON: Mr. Chairman, I think the number’s actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108.

A February 2006 Human Rights First report found that although hundreds of people in U.S. custody had died and eight people were tortured to death, only 12 deaths had “resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official.”
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry.

Also on ThinkProgress.org: Feith Chickens Out Of Congressional Hearing On Torture, Refuses To Appear With Wilkerson. Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith was scheduled to testify today about his role in vigorously pushing to eliminate the standards of the Geneva Conventions and making the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay a “Geneva-free zone.” However, at the opening of the hearing, subcommittee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) declared that Feith “withdrew from the hearing.” Nadler explained:

Despite his prior commitment to testify, this morning, Mr. Feith informed this
committee through his counsel that he would not appear today because he is not willing to appear alongside one of our other witnesses.

Sources on Capitol Hill told ThinkProgress that Feith was afraid to appear with Colin Powell’s former chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, who was also testifying today. After leaving the State Department in protest over Bush’s policies, Wilkerson became an outspoken critic of Bush’s foreign policy and aggressively criticized Feith’s incompetence. From a speech to the New America Foundation in 2005:

Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, whom most of you probably know Tommy Franks said was the stupidest blankety-blank man in the world. He was. Let me testify to that. He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.

Nadler emphasized that Feith would “appear before this committee before too much time has elapsed,” adding, “We will reschedule a hearing at which Feith will appear so he can elucidate his testimony on this issue.”

Exxon, oil giants prepared to sign no-bid oil deals in Iraq.

ThinkProgress.org: Four Western oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, and BP — are in the final stages of “talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields.” The New York Times writes:

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India […]

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

These current contracts are reportedly a “foothold” in Iraq for companies striving for more lucrative, longer-term deals.

LSB: This, dear readers, is why we went to Iraq and why our young men and women will be there for years to come - to protect the oil company interests. If the oil companies want to do business there, let them hire Blackwater or some other mercenary group and let out soldiers come home - or pay them and give them the benefits that the mercenaries are getting.

Is $200 Burger Decadent Or Despicable?

CBS News: It may be the most exotic, the most expensive and the most controversial burger ever flipped in a fast-food joint.

"This is not just ordinary beef, this is special?" CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips asked.

Burger King's Chef Mark Dowding said: "Absolutely; this is Wagyu." Premium, prohibitively priced, Japanese-style Wagyu, flame-grilled, garnished with Italian truffles, Spanish cured ham, aged balsamic vinegar, Champagne onions and popped onto a saffron- and truffle-dusted bun.

Isn't it all a little elaborate for a hamburger? "

Absolutely not," Dowding said. "Absolutely not."

Total cost of ingredients, the chain says, about $80 a throw. By the time it gets to the counter, it sells for just shy of $200. For a burger!

So is it worth it?

"Orgasmic," one customer says. Which is a lot to ask of a burger.

To some this is a burger - a high-end burger. It would have to be at $200 a pop. To others, though, it isn't a burger. It's grotesque on a bun.

"Outrageous," said Dave Tucker, with the anti-poverty group "War on Want."

To food crisis campaigners trying to draw attention to the millions of poor around the world, who are struggling to survive at a time of shortages and rising prices for basic commodities, this is the wrong burger, and the wrong message, at the wrong time.

"To come out with this kind of hugely expensive and over-the-top burger and to have 80 million people going to bed hungry every night is just to shoot yourself in the foot," Tucker said.

The chain, which is donating the proceeds from this promotion to charity, calls it "deliciously decadent."

Delicious is a matter of taste.

Nobody's arguing with decadent.

LSB: First, "orgasmic" and "Burger King" are mutually exclusive concepts that would never appear in the same thought, let alone the same sentence. Secondly, how many people that eat at Burger King have the kind of sophisticated pallet that would appreciate the gastronomic ingredients included in this burger? Finally, I could never eat a $200 burger and feel good about myself again. Count me in the War on Want group. But then again, I’m not the in the target audience for this product.

General who probed Abu Ghraib says Bush officials committed war crimes

Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers: The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.

The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote.

McCain as creepy husband on SNL

A new book called "Save the Males" reminds Chris Matthews of an old Saturday Night Live skit where John McCain plays a sensitive, but creepy husband. Who knew he could act!

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: First off, yeah it's him (circa 2002). Secondly, the religious right has freaked out over implied nudity before in TV commercials and on TV shows. How do they feel about McCain playing a creepy guy who's stalking his nude and very wet wife in a shower, and then broadcasting it nationwide? Hard to imagine Ronald Reagan playing a nude scene. Not very presidential.

LSB: I'm seeing this for the first time, but my initial thought is that it isn't any worse than when Nixon appeared on LAUGH-IN saying, "Sock it to me!" Most politicians have made an appearance on a show that might be questionable, including Obama (SNL). I don't think this is worth geting your panties in a bunch, John.

Defending The Sacred

Joe.My.God.: This cartoon was published in 2004 during the Massachusetts marriage battle. Not much has changed, has it?

The Gay After & Here Comes the Pride

Heinz Deli Mayo is Perfect for all Kinds of Homes

Towleroad: Heinz has just premiered an ad in the UK for its Deli Mayo which features a New York deli chef in the kitchen preparing lunch for the kids and the other parent as they head off to school and work.

Heinz's new ad agency AMV BBDO told The Guardian "that the concept behind the campaign is that the product tastes so good 'It's as if you have your own New York deli man in your kitchen'".

And the households that some of those kitchens are in just happen to be gay. Watch how quickly the ad's concept is twisted from one kind of messaging into another.

LSB: Can you even imagine the protests that would ensue in the U.S. if an ad like this appeared on a channel other than LOGO or here!? Too funny.

Time Of The Tough Guys

Newsweek: As President George W. Bush limps through his lame-duck year, it won’t surprise you to read that he’s hugely unpopular. Now a new poll taken in 20 countries by WorldPublicOpinion.org and released exclusively to NEWSWEEK confirms the world’s low opinion of the president–but adds a twist. No other major world leader enjoys significantly greater trust abroad. In a sense, they’re all Bushes now.

Just as striking are the leaders who do best, albeit by a slim margin: Vladimir Putin, Gordon Brown and Hu Jintao. That’s one democrat and two dictators. In other words, the bosses of what are often cast as the biggest, baddest authoritarian states–China and Russia–are among the planet’s most trusted officials. That should seriously alarm the leaders of the West, and particularly President Bush and Condoleezza Rice, his secretary of State, who have made the export of democracy a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy.

While it might be exaggerating to call this the year of the autocrats, the fact is that the poll found most of the world now seems to have more confidence in undemocratic than democratic leaders. The war of ideas may not be over, and a close reading of the poll suggests there’s still room to turn things around. But at this point, the West clearly isn’t winning the battle for influence–and freedom, to borrow Bush’s phrase, is not reigning.

On average, only 23 percent of foreign respondents express “a lot of ” or “some” confidence in Bush, and only Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does worse (at 22).

What explains this universal vote of no confidence? The short answer is a serious bout of global pessimism: most people polled seem very unhappy about the state of the world.

What’s harder to grasp is why Hu and Putin did relatively well–better than any democrat but Brown–in other countries. Kull, the director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, argues that the poll shouldn’t be read as reflecting a global endorsement of the authoritarians; though they did score slightly better than Bush and Sarkozy, they did so by narrow margins (less than 10 percentage points).

Larry Diamond of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, a foremost democracy expert, suggests another, more worrisome reason for Putin’s popularity. Writing recently in Foreign Affairs, he argued that the wave of liberation that followed the end of the cold war has stalled, leading to a “democratic recession.”

Add in the damage that the Iraq War has done to U.S.-style democracy promotion, and the result is a global slide in the public’s faith in democracy as a system–and in democratic leaders as individuals. More and more voters are embracing tough officials (like Putin or Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez) at home and abroad. And while majorities worldwide still think democracy is the best form of government, that support is also dropping.

CNN notices McCain’s energy policy confusion

Steve Benen, Crooks and Liars: Nice job by CNN’s Dana Bash highlighting John McCain’s incoherence on energy policy.

Matt Yglesias added, “What’s this . . . John McCain flip-flops on energy policy and CNN tells the tale! Crazy stuff, don’t they know he’s a straight-talker who can do no wrong?”

If it's NBC, it's the Russert Wake

Stephen Ohlemacher, AP:

Bush, accompanied by the first lady, was one of the first people to enter the closed-casket wake, which was scheduled to last seven hours. The president stayed about 20 minutes while the growing crowd outside waited patiently on a pleasant, sunny day.

LSB: Two thoughts: (1) Bush showed up at Russert's wake, but he can't show up at even one wake or funeral for a US soldier who died in Iraq as a result of his lie? As the uncle of one of the soldiers killed in Iraq, this continued snub of our fallen heroes is one of the reasons our frat-boy-President will remembered as the worst. president. ever. (2) Oh, dear Lord, why are Matt Lauer and the Today show covering this like it is a state funeral? I don't remember ABC carrying on like this when Peter Jennings died, and he was their chief news anchor for more than 20 years. Is NCB setting a precedent being for its on-air personalities? (With this kind of coverage, it's hard to call them reporters.) Should Willard Scott expect any less from his colleagues at NBC when he kicks the bucket? (I wonder if Willard will join the Smucker Family of 100+ year-olds first.)

CNBC: Housing collapse the fault of African-Americans, Latinos and minorities

Chris in Paris, AmericaBlog.com: Larry Kudlow and his Mini-Me (Jerry Bower) on CNBC have blamed just about everyone for the housing crisis/credit crunch except for the people who were responsible for creating the failed plan, Wall Street. Minorities are always a fine target for right wingers who can't accept responsibility and now that Obama is the Democratic candidate, there is more race-baiting than usual from this group. Clearly there's a gap in reality with this group who simply can't admit that despite their education and cushy positions, they helped create one of the greatest losses ever on Wall Street including the first ever financial losses for Wall Street houses that remained profitable through the Great Depression.

However much they try to push this problem away, it just keeps coming back to them. Even now, it's not the minorities that are walking away with $61 million when things go belly up as they did with Bear Stearns. Do slightly veiled racist arguments like this really deserve to be promoted by CNBC?

LSB: Yes, let's blame everyone but those in charge of this mess - that's the Republican Way!

Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell is in very tight race

Joe Sudbay (DC), AmericaBlog.com: The latest SurveyUSA poll in Kentucky shows Mitch McConnell leading his Democratic opponent, Bruce Lunsford, by just a 50% - 46% margin.

Mitch McConnell is in BIG trouble. He's already spent millions on t.v., which he started running last November according to the Associated Press -- yet, he's barely breaking 50%. Sure McConnell has a huge campaign war chest, but his opponent is a multi-millionaire who can self-finance part of the race.

Clearly, McConnell's obstructionist antics in the Senate aren't doing much for his stature in his home state. Let's hope Mitch keeps it up. He's going to have to work extra hard and spend even more money just to defend his own seat. And, it's not a sure thing at all. That means less time campaigning and raising money for his other endangered GOP colleagues.

There used to be an "unwritten rule" in the Senate that the leaders weren't targeted by leaders on the other side. That ended when the GOP went after Tom Daschle:

Senate Republican leaders broke an unwritten rule about campaigning directly against an opposition leader and targeted Daschle for defeat, charging that he was an obstructionist liberal in a moderate's clothing.

Now, it's their turn.

LSB: Man, I hope this asshole gets his comeuppance!

Documents confirm U.S. hid detainees from Red Cross

Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers: The U.S. military hid the locations of suspected terrorist detainees and concealed harsh treatment to avoid the scrutiny of the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to documents that a Senate committee released Tuesday.

"We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around. It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques," Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, a military lawyer who's since retired, said during an October 2002 meeting at the Guantanamo Bay prison to discuss employing interrogation techniques that some have equated with torture. Her comments were recorded in minutes of the meeting that were made public Tuesday. At that same meeting, Beaver also appeared to confirm that U.S. officials at another detention facility — Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan — were using sleep deprivation to "break" detainees well before then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved that technique.

"True, but officially it is not happening," she is quoted as having said.

A third person at the meeting, Jonathan Fredman, the chief counsel for the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, disclosed that detainees were moved routinely to avoid the scrutiny of the ICRC, which keeps tabs on prisoners in conflicts around the world.

"In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD (Defense Department) has 'moved' them away from the attention of the ICRC," Fredman said, according to the minutes.

The document, along with two dozen others, shows that top administration officials pushed relentlessly for tougher interrogation methods in the belief that terrorism suspects were resisting interrogation. (more)

The consequences of questioning dubious Halliburton contracts

Steve Benen, Crooks and Liars: As a rule, you’d think that military officials who question dubious contracts and protect the interests of taxpayers would be rewarded. Not in this administration.

The Army official who managed the Pentagon’s largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR, the Houston-based company that has provided food, housing and other services to American troops.

The official, Charles M. Smith, was the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Smith said that he was forced from his job in 2004 after informing KBR officials that the Army would impose escalating financial penalties if they failed to improve their chaotic Iraqi operations.

Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. “They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify,” he said in an interview. “Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn’t going to do that.”

Smith wasn’t, but his successors were. Army officials not only quickly removed Smith from his position, they also went outside the Army to consider KBR’s claims and then approved the payments with which Smith was uncomfortable.

Army officials told the NYT that they did reverse Smith’s decision, but they felt it was necessary to provide basic services to U.S. troops. “You have to understand the circumstances at the time,” Jeffrey Parsons, executive director of the Army Contracting Command, said. “We could not let operational support suffer because of some other things.”

So, the only way to provide services to the troops was to approve $1 billion in payments for a Halliburton subsidiary that the company couldn’t substantiate?

GOP convention button asks, ‘If Obama is president…will we still call it the White House?’

ThinkProgress.org: A booth at this weekend’s Texas Republican convention sold buttons asking, “If Obama Is President…Will We Still Call It The White House?”

LSB: If this had come out of a state Dem convention (like that would ever happen), would the main stream media cover the story? Is McCain going to distance himself from this state convention for this insensitive display? Answers: (1) Yes; (2) No.

50 Office Phrases You Should Never Use

HuffingtonPost.com: This one is for all you worker bees out there (and should also serve as a warning for all you upper-management / HR / consulting types out there). BBC has a great rundown of the "50 Office-Speak Phrases You Love To Hate."

1. "When I worked for Verizon, I found the phrase going forward to be more sinister than annoying. When used by my boss - sorry, "team leader" - it was understood to mean that the topic of conversation was at an end and not be discussed again."
2. "My employers ... recently informed staff that we are no longer allowed to use the phrase 'brain storm' because it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really."
3. At my old company (a US multinational), anyone involved with a particular product was encouraged to be a product evangelist. And software users these days, so we hear, want to be platform atheists so that their computers will run programs from any manufacturer."
4. "Incentivize is the one that does it for me."
5. "My favorite, which I hear from the managers at the bank I work for, is let's touch base about that offline. I think it means have a private chat, but I am still not sure."
6. "Have you ever heard the term loop back, which means go back to an associate and deal with them?"
7-8. "We used to collect the jargon used in a list and award the person with the most at the end of the year. The winner was a client manager with the classic you can't turn a tanker around with a speed boat change. What? Second was we need a holistic, cradle-to-grave approach, whatever that is."
9. "Until recently I had to suffer working for a manager who used phrases such as the idiotic I've got you in my radar in her speech, letters and e-mails. Once, when I mentioned problems with the phone system, she screamed 'NO! You don't have problems, you have challenges'. At which point I almost lost the will to live."
10. "You can add challenge to the list. Problems are no longer considered problems, they have morphed into challenges."
11. "Business speak even supersedes itself and does so with silliness, the shorthand for quick win is now low hanging fruit."
12. "And looking under the bonnet."
13-14. "The business-speak that I abhor is pre-prepare and forward planning. Is there any other kind of preparedness or planning?"
15-16. "The one that really gets me is pre-plan - there is no such thing. Either you plan or you don't. The new one which has got my goat is conversate, widely used to describe a conversation. I just wish people could learn to think outside the box, although when they put us in cubes what do they expect?"
17. "I work in one of those humble call centers for a bank. Apparently, what we're doing at the moment is sprinkling our magic along the way. It's a call center, not Hogwarts."
18. "A pet [peeve] is the utterly pointless expression in this space. So instead of the perfectly adequate 'how can I help?' it's 'how can I help in this space?' Or the classic I heard on Friday, 'How can we help our customers in this space going forward?' I think I may have caught this expression at source, as I've yet to hear it said outside my own working environment. So I'm on a personal crusade to stamp it out before it starts infecting other City institutions. Wish me luck in this space."
19. "The one phrase that inspires a rage in me is from the get-go."
20. "'Going forward' is only half the phrase that gets up my nose. All politicians seem to use the phrase 'go forward together.' 'We must... we shall... let us now... go forward together'. It gives me a terrible mental image of the whole country linking arms and goose-stepping in unison, with the politicians out in front doing a straight-armed salute. Is it just me?"
21. "I am a financial journalist and am on a mission to remove words and phrases such as 360-degree thinking from existence."
22. "The latest that's stuck in my head is we are still optimistic things will feed through the sales and delivery pipeline (i.e.: we actually haven't sold anything to anyone yet, but maybe we will one day)."
23. "I worked in PR for many years and often heard the most ludicrous phrases uttered by CEOs and marketing managers. One of the best was, 'we'd better not let the grass grow too long on this one.' To this day it still echoes in my ears and I giggle to myself whenever I think about it. I can't help but think insecure business people use such phrases to cover up their inability for proper articulation."
24. "Need to get all my ducks in a row now - before the five-year-olds wake up."
25. "Australians have started to use auspice as a verb. Instead of saying, 'under the auspices of...’ some people now say things like, it was auspiced by..."
26. "My favorite: we've got our fingers down the throat of the organization of that nodule. Translation = Er, no, WE sorted out the problems to cover your backside."
27. "The health service in Wales is filled with managers who use this type of language as a substitute for original thought. At meetings we play health-speak bingo; counting the key words lightens the tedium of meetings - including, most recently, my door is open on this issue. What does that mean?"
28-29. "The business phrase I find most irritating is close of play, which is only slightly worse than actioning something."
30. "Here in the US we have the cringe-worthy and also in addition. Then there's the ever-eloquent 'where are we at?' So far, I haven't noticed the UK's at the end of the day prefacing much over here; thank heavens for small mercies."
31. "The expression that drives me nuts is 110%, usually said to express passion/commitment/support by people who are not very good at math. This has created something of a cliché-inflation, where people are now saying 120%, 200%, or if you are really REALLY committed, 500%. I remember once the then-chancellor Gordon Brown saying he was 101% behind Tony Blair, to which people reacted 'What? Only 101?'"
32. "My least favorite business-speak term is not enough bandwidth. When an employee used this term to refuse an additional assignment, I realized I was completely out of the loop."
33. "I once had a boss who said, 'You can't have your cake and eat it, so you have to step up to the plate and face the music.' It was in that moment I knew I had to resign before somebody got badly hurt by a pencil."
34. "Capture your colleagues - make sure everyone attends that risk management workshop (compulsory common sense training for idiots)."
35-37. "We too used to have daily paradigm shifts; now we have stakeholders who must come to the party or be left out, or whatever."
38. "I have taken to playing buzzword bingo when in meetings. It certainly makes it more entertaining when I am feeding it back (or should that be cascading) at work."
39. "In my work environment it's all cascading at the moment. What they really mean is to communicate or disseminate information, usually downwards. What they don't seem to appreciate is that it sounds like we're being wee'd on. Which we usually are."
40. "At a large media company where I once worked, the head of human resources - itself a weaselly neologism for personnel - told us that she would be cascading down new information to staff. What she meant was she was going to send them a memo. It was one of the reasons I resigned - that, and the fact that the chief exec persisted on referring to the company as a really cool train set."
41. "Working for an American corporation, this year's favorite word seems to be granularity, meaning detail. As in 'down to that level of granularity'."
42. "On the wall of our office we have a large signed certificate, signed by all the senior management team, in which they solemnly promise to leverage their talents, display and inspire 'unyielding integrity', and lots of other pretentious buzz-phrases like that. Clueless, the lot of them."
43. "After a reduction in workforce, my university department sent this notice out to confused campus customers: 'Thank you for your note. We are assessing and mitigating immediate impacts, and developing a high-level overview to help frame the conversation with our customers and key stakeholders. We intend to start that process within the week. In the meantime, please continue to raise specific concerns or questions about projects with my office via the Transition Support Center..."
44. "I was told I'd be living the values from now on by my employers at a conference the other week. Here's some modern language for them - meh. A shame as I strongly believe in much of what my employers aim to do. I refuse to adopt the voluntary sectors' client title of 'service user'. How is someone who won't so much as open the door to me using my service? Another case of using four syllables where one would do."
45. "Business talk 2.0 is maddening, meaningless, patronizing and I despise it."
46. "Lately I've come across the strategic staircase. What on earth is this? I'll tell you - it's office speak for a bit of a plan for the future. It's not moving on but moving up. How strategic can a staircase really be? A lot I suppose, if you want to get to the top without climbing over all your colleagues."
47. "When a stock market is down why must we be told it is in negative territory?"
48. "The particular phrase I love to hate is drill down, which handily can be used either as an adverb/verb combo or as a compound noun, i.e.: 'the next level drill-down', sometimes even in the same sentence - a nice bit of multi-tasking."
49. "Thanks for the impactful article; I especially appreciated the level of granularity. A high altitude view often misses the siloed thinking typical of most businesses. Absent any scheme for incentivitizing clear speech, however, I'm afraid we're stuck with biz-speak."
50. "It wouldn't do the pinstripers any harm to crack a smile and say what they really felt once in a while instead of trotting out such clinical platitudes. Of course a group of them may need to workshop it first: Wouldn't want to wrongside the demographic."

OBAMA: BIN LADEN STILL FREE BECAUSE OF GOP

Nedra Pickler, HuffingtonPost.com: Democrat Barack Obama says he'll take no lectures from Republicans on who will keep America safer. GOP rival John McCain's campaign criticized Obama Tuesday for speaking approvingly of the successful prosecution of terrorists.

A McCain aide said, "Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mind-set" and does not understand the dangers posed by U.S. adversaries.

Obama told reporters that the Republicans have no "standing to suggest that they've learned a lot of lessons from 9-11."

He said they "helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9-11." He said Osama bin Laden is still at large in part because of their failed strategies.

Not Alex

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: Chuck Todd thinks this anti-McCain ad is "shameless." What do you think? I think it rocks. The Republicans would like nothing better than for you to think of our military as a bunch of robots, and not men and women, sons and daughters, moms and dads. This new ad from MoveOn says what a lot of parents are thinking - hands off my kid. John McCain is pro-war. He loves what we're doing in Iraq, and he'd like to see the same in Iran and elsewhere. George Bush has already broken the US military. In order to support John McCain's wars we're going to need a draft. John McCain's wars will be fought by your kids. So, is it unfair to tell John McCain to take his hands off your kid? I don't think so. You?

It's All Because (The Gays Are Getting Married)

Meet “Prominent” McCain Supporter Philip “Icky” Frye

Raging Red: Over the weekend, John McCain’s campaign issued the following press release:

U.S. Senator John McCain’s campaign today announced a group of prominent Democratic and unaffiliated leaders and activists who have joined “Citizens for McCain,” a new grassroots effort headed by Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to rally Americans of all political parties to support John McCain’s candidacy.

First, an aside: Can an effort that is headed by a United States Senator and former Vice Presidential candidate be said to be “grassroots?” More to the point, can an effort that is lead by a presidential candidate’s own campaign be said to be a grassroots effort on behalf of that candidate? Methinks not. As Wikipedia tells us:

A grassroots movement (often referenced in the context of a political movement) is one driven by the constituents of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it is natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures.

Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain are the very definition of “traditional power structures.” Nice try, boys.

Now for the good stuff. The last person on the list of thirty “prominent Democratic and unaffiliated leaders and activists” released on Saturday is former West Virginia gubernatorial candidate Philip Frye. That is, Philip “Icky” Frye. If you’re from West Virginia, you’re already laughing. If you’re not, let me explain.

Calling Icky Frye a former West Virginia gubernatorial candidate is like calling Gary Coleman a former California gubernatorial candidate. He ran as a joke. He ran for attention. He ran because the incumbent governor, Bob Wise, had been sleeping with his wife. He ran as revenge.

As Frye told The Daily Show in August 2003, he had no hopes whatsoever of winning the election and ran simply “to be a sheer nuisance to Bob Wise.” The Icky Frye part starts up at around 1:10, but the whole video is well worth a watch.

Paul Nyden from the Charleston Gazette contacted the McCain campaign to get to the bottom of the Icky situation:

"Jeff Sadoski, a spokesman for the national McCain campaign, said Monday, “This is a list of people who are known in different states, as Democrats or independents. hey include elected officers and leaders in the Democratic Party. They were prominent Democrats."

Sadowski said Frye was "someone who has run statewide as a Democrat."

Asked how the McCain campaign chose people to put on the list of "prominent" supporters, Sadowski said, "We did research. We reviewed them."

They did research? Yeah, right. It’s clear what likely happened here. Because of his 2003/2004 gubernatorial run, the name “Philip Frye” was on some list that the McCain campaign had and they just called him up, without much thought, and asked him if he’d like to join Citizens for McCain. And then hilarity ensued.

Sure, by the dictionary definition of “prominent” — widely and popularly known — I guess Icky Frye is prominent in West Virginia. But “notorious” would be more apt. Paul Nyden refers to Icky Frye as a fringe candidate, but truthfully, calling him a fringe candidate is an insult to fringe candidates. I don’t mean to beat up on the guy, I mean to beat up on McCain’s campaign staff for being a bunch of clueless, careless idiots. I can only hope that they continue to run his campaign this way.

President Bush accuses UK journalist of “slander[ing] America” for mentioning Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib abuses

SilentPatriot, Crooks and Liars: During an interview with Sky News, President Bushaccused British journalist Adam Boulton of “slander[ing] America” when he noted that, despite the President’s lofty rhetoric of spreading freedom, Guantanamo Bay and rendition are really “the complete opposite of freedom." (Click the pic for the vid.)

BOULTON: And yet there are those who would say, look, let’s take Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and rendition and all those things, and to them that is the, you know, the complete opposite of freedom.

THE PRESIDENT: Of course if you want to slander America, you can look at it one way. But you go down — what you need to do — I think I suggested you do this at a press conference — if you go down to Guantanamo and take a look at how these prisoners are treated — and they’re working it through our court systems. We are a land of law.

The standard response whenever one criticizes American policies, of course, is to proclaim that that person is an anti-American slanderer. The irony, though, is that the policies this President has pursued over the past eight years could not be more “anti-American” in the classical sense. You know, things like rule of law and respect for human rights.

But wait, there’s more:

BOULTON: But the Supreme Court have just said that — you know, ruled against what you’ve been doing down there.

THE PRESIDENT: But the district court didn’t. And the appellate court didn’t.

BOULTON: The Supreme Court is supreme, isn’t it?

You see, in Bush’s America, the only courts that count are the ones he controls and/or the ones who rule in his favor. Never mind the fact that, as Boulton points out, the Supreme Court is called the Supreme Court for a reason.

This man — and the corrupt movement that sustained him for so long — truly sicken me. January can’t come soon enough.

WaPo’s Dan Froomkin has more on what he calls “Bush’s Senioritis” and “contempt for those who question him or doubt his accomplishments.”

(Read the rest of this story…)

Gaps In McCain's Military Record Raise Questions

Jeffrey Klein, HuffingtonPost.com: "At a meeting in his Pentagon office in early 1981, Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman told Capt. John S. McCain III that he was about to attain his life ambition: becoming an admiral.... Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral's star to make a run for Congress, saying that he could 'do more good there,' Mr. Lehman recalled." So claimed the New York Times in a front-page article on May 29 this year.

This story is highly improbable for several reasons, not least of all because John McCain himself has always told a very different story about his stalled naval career. ...

All of the evidence, indications and comments that the New York Times published a flattering lie about McCain's career on its front page are easy for John McCain to refute. All he needs to do is sign Standard Form 180, which authorizes the Navy to send an undeleted copy of McCain's naval file to news organizations. ... There's no reason McCain's full file shouldn't be released immediately. There's also a recent precedent for McCain signing the simple form that leads to full disclosure: Senator John Kerry signed the 180 waiver, which made his entire naval file public.

The Navy may claim that it already released McCain's record to the Associated Press on May 7, 2008 in response to the AP's Freedom of Information Act request. But the McCain file the Navy released contained 19 pages -- a two-page overview and 17 pages detailing Awards and Decorations. Each of these 17 pages is stamped with a number. These numbers range from 0069 to 0636. When arranged in ascending order, they precisely track the chronology of McCain's career. It seems reasonable to ask the Navy whether there are at least 636 pages in McCain's file, of which 617 weren't released to the Associated Press.

Some of the unreleased pages in McCain's Navy file may not reflect well upon his qualifications for the presidency. From day one in the Navy, McCain screwed-up again and again, only to be forgiven because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals. McCain's sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush's.

Despite graduating in the bottom 1 percent of his Annapolis class, McCain was offered the most sought-after Navy assignment -- to become an aircraft carrier pilot. ... The most accomplished midshipmen compete furiously for the few carrier pilot openings. After four abysmal academic years at Annapolis distinguished only by his misdeeds and malfeasance, no one with a record resembling McCain's would have been offered such a prized career path. The justification for this and subsequent plum assignments should be documented in McCain's naval file.

... McCain owes it to the country to release his complete naval records so that American voters can see his documented history and make an informed decision.

Read the complete article.

She's the New Woman Conservatives Love to Hate

John Hendren, ABCNew.com: Like Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton before her, Michelle Obama is becoming the would-be first lady conservatives love to hate.

The conservative National Review recently showed a stern-faced Michelle Obama on its cover, under the headline, "Mrs. Grievance." The Tennessee Republican Party questioned her patriotism.

Michelle Obama has become a favorite target for critics, drawing many to compare her arrival on the national stage to Hillary Clinton's after she infuriated conservatives when she said, "I could have stayed home and baked cookies."

It's likely to get worse.

"It's going to be very ugly stuff," Democratic strategist Tad Devine said. "They're going to try to depict her as someone who is angry, outside the mainstream and not proud to be an American."

LSB: Big management mistake by the Obama campaign to hire the campaign manager Hillary fired a few months ago to be the as-yet-unnamed V.P. nominee's chief of staff. First, if you're trying to woe the women voters Hillary was drawing into the election process, why piss of Hillary? This hire sends a strong signal that Hillary will not be Obama’s choice for the V.P. slot, thus further alienating Hillary’s supporters. Secondly, since Hillary was targeted by the same group of neocon mouthpieces when Bill was running for President in 1992 as Michelle is facing now, what a fantastic way to incorporate Hillary’s offer to help ‘in any way she could’ by sending her out with Michelle to "introduce" her to Hillary's supporters. This not only helps Michelle, but it restores some of Hillary street creds in the black community. Third, shouldn't the V.P. nominee have some input into the hiring of his/her chief of staff? This sends a signal to the V.P. nominee that he/she will be under the thumb of, and closely monitored by, Obama's key staff. Though all of the campaigns should be on the lookout for the best talent and will certainly cherry-pick from the staffs of the losing candidates, this was not a good hire.

Re-Heat Offender: Cindy Bakes Another Whopper

David Weiner, HuffingtonPost.com: Here we go again. Just two months after we broke Recipegate comes news that Cindy McCain is up to her old tricks.

The July 2008 issue of Family Circle featured an article in which each (it went to press before Hillary conceded) of the presidential candidates' significant others submitted a cookie recipe.

A tipster caught a whiff of something besides sugar after reviewing Cindy McCain's Oatmeal-Butterscotch cookies, and quickly found the original recipe at Hersheys.com (see image below).

While McCain, or that same low-level staffer, managed to take the time to switch a few minor details in her version of the recipe this time around, there is no doubt that the recipes are the same.

While Bill Clinton gives credit to the family cook, and Michelle Obama to the godmother of her daughters, Cindy McCain attributes her cookie recipe to "a good friend."

Unless John McCain was a childhood friend of Milton S. Hershey or her beer baron family worked with him on a chocolate beer bar back in the day, it seems Cindy is a plagiarist of the most delicious kind. Again.

Let's hope I don't get another unpaid intern fired this time around...

See for yourself (click the pic to enlarge the recipes):

UPDATE: Bill Clinton's Cookie Recipe Copied from Betty Crocker! Cindy McCain isn't the only spouse of a presidential candidate to pass off a recipe as her own. Bill Clinton, who entered Family Circle magazine's 5th Presidential Bake-Off against McCain and Michelle Obama before his spouse suspended her campaign, appears to have stolen his own recipe for oatmeal cookies.
Family Circle includes this brief description for Bill Clinton's Oatmeal Cookies:

Longtime Clinton family cook Oscar Flores -- he worked for them in Washington and after but is now serving in Iraq -- is famous for these brown-sugar treats, which tempt the former president to break his diet.

However, a tastemaker at the Huffington Post discovered that the ingredients and instructions for Bill's "brown-sugar treats" are pilfered from the most obvious of culinary sources: the Betty Crocker cookbook.

British Army lifts Gay Pride uniform ban

The Press Association: Members of all three armed forces will be allowed to don uniforms for this year's Gay Pride march in London.

The Ministry of Defence announced that the Army had this year joined the Royal Navy and RAF in allowing personnel to take part. Last year, soldiers were banned from wearing anything identifying their military links.

But a meeting between army officials, Pride organisers and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, resulted in an agreement to scrap the ban in time for this year's parade on July 5.

An MoD spokesman said: "Personnel from all three services can attend this year's Gay Pride march in uniform.

"The Armed Forces are committed to establishing a culture and climate where every individual's contribution is respected and valued regardless of sexual orientation, race, ethnic origin, religion, gender or social background."

More than 500,000 people are expected to take part in the celebrations, culminating in a colourful parade through London's West End.

LSB: Not only can they march in the gay pride parades, but now they can even wear their uniforms.

McCain's 'Team'

Talking Points Memo: A new McCain web ad ...

LSB: Man, I hope the Dems can pick up enough seats in the Senate this November that they can tell Joe Liebermann (pronounced lie' ber man) to fuck off and join the Reps. Gone are his committee assignments and all of the perks of being the party in power. Let him spend his final term in office on the sidelines.

The Last Father's Day

Joe.My.God.: The Family Research Council ran this bit of loveliness in some California newspapers over the weekend.

LSB: And Fred Phelps and the wackos from Westboro Baptist Chuch will be picketing gay nuptials in CA this week. So Fred and Tony are pissed off if we have promiscuous sex, and they are pissed off if we have monogamous sex. Is nothing going to satisfy them?

36,000 HOMELESS IOWANS

LSB: Inquiring minds want to know – is the asshole-in-chief hurrying home from his farewell European tour to be with the storm-ravaged flooding victims, or will this become Katrina II (the sequel)? Oh, wait, this is Iowa. Probably mostly white folks, so probably an appearance later in the week. BTW, where is heckuva-job-Brownie these days?

Get Osama Bin Laden before I leave office, orders George W Bush

The Sunday Times: President George W Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House.

Defence and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks.

“If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place,” said a US intelligence source.

LSB: Reader comments.

• Yvonne: Bush will probably claim to have killed Bin Laden, oh, some time next October. SURPRISE. Of course, they won't have a body--just a hole in the ground, and they'll tell his body was "vaporized."
• Wilyum: Why now George? Little late don't ya think? Sounds all too suspicious to me.
• Bo: Why couldn't he have said...get bin laden...five years ago? What's the big hurry now?
• Dan: So were we not trying to find him before?
• Mike: OBL's usefulness has ended. The next boogeyman is Iran.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ENERGY SAVER LIGHT BULBS!

LSB: It's easy to dismiss this as another goofy rant from a TX congressmen, but the longer I listened the more I wondered: are his claims true?; what’s his stake in this?; and where was the main stream media in this debate? Here are some interesting comments left on YouTube with this video:

• stappm: I switched to energy saving light bulbs and the electric portion of my bill went from $26 to $4 a month – and I have not had to replace a bulb in years.
• THEetsybay: My kids have broken these EXTREMELY fragile over-priced stupid bulbs! All we did was sweep it up & throw it in the kitchen garbage. Now we've been exposed to mercury. I DISPISE these stupid things! They give off an annoying hum as well as an eerie glow, which is also damaging. Florescent bulbs have faded the color of pictures & posters hanging in rooms w/them (try the test for yourself!) I can only wonder what those behemoths are doing to our bodies! ONLY MADE IN CHINA?! NOW who's profiting?
• vtcpdx: What he didn't tell you:1) These bulbs take far more energy to produce than the old bulbs and they burn out in only a few years (not ten years like the larger tubes).2) They are 100x more expensive.3) MOST IMPORTANTLY they don't save energy because the ballast needs to store a charge before the light turns on and if you only need light for a few minutes you just wasted FAR more energy than the old bulbs would have used.
• tedevlin: WAKE UP, all of you. YOU are surrounded by mercury laden fluorescent bulbs. They have been in your office buildings for 35 years! No one complains about them, because they are made in the U.S. This Texan is simply protecting his home turf. Oh, and by the way, I don't see much public safety information about the disposal of the old long tube style bulb!
• bol316: LMAO @ a Republican acting alarmed by goods made in China. Since when do the "send your business overseas" Republicans care about that?
• PortiaElizabeth: So is he blaming China for all our problems? All I need to know is if Nancy Pelosi voted for these bulbs, because, if she did, then I know the idea is full of sh**.
• Matafatu: If every home in America replaced just one incandescent light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified CFL, in one year it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes. That would prevent the release of greenhouse gas emissions equal to that of about 800,000 cars. [LSB: Where’s the citation for this info?]
• GMULEMAN: GE makes its incandescent bulbs in the Philippines, Sylvania in Mexico, NO US JOBS were lost to CFL's. [LSB: Most of our manufacturing jobs were outsourced to other countries years ago.]

McCain lied. Didn't cancel fundraiser with rape-jokester. Only postponed it.

John Aravosis (DC) , AmericaBlog.com: This guy's rape joke is infamous. He's the one from Texas who said that if a woman is being raped she might as well lie back and enjoy it. I remember this jerk.

On Friday, McCain says he's canceled a fundraiser with guy who tells rape jokes:

Clayton Williams (pictured) stirred controversy during his 1990 campaign for governor of Texas with a botched attempt at humor in which he compared rape to weather. Within earshot of a reporter, Williams said: “As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

But yesterday we learned that the event has simply been postponed (I guess June is far too early for rape jokes - better in August).

Late Saturday afternoon, a McCain aide confirmed to the [Houston] Chronicle that the Midland event had been postponed but had not been taken off the calendar. The compromise allowed McCain to say he had not held a fundraiser at Williams’ house; it gave Williams an opportunity to say that the event he organized had not been canceled.

This pig says he's raised $300,000 already for McCain. And by McCain saying he's still planning on having the fundraiser later this year, he obviously has no problem with this guy or his attitude towards the rape of women. Then again, McCain is the guy reportedly called his wife the c-word. I'm thinking McCain's outreach to Hillary voters isn't going so well.

NBC: Moving from Sad to Creepy

LSB: Despite what you may have thought of him as an interviewer, anyone whoever watched Meet the Press for any amount of time knew that Tim Russert was a decent, stand-up, family guy. From his occasional closing comment to his son or his father, to his show of support for his hometown sports team, Russert seemed like the kind of guy that would be fun to drink a beer with on election eve. When I first read the news it was moving to see the heartfelt testimonials from his colleagues at NBC and those he interviewed.

Bigger than life with a zest for life, to be sure, and with an timely death that took everyone by surprise, it is only natural that Russert's closest friends and colleagues would be so emotional and want to pay tribute to him. Because Russert was all over the airways, especially in the past six months with the primaries, it was natural that NBC should try to include their viewers in the grieving process.

But Russert was the messenger, not the message – the reporter, not the story. After two days of nearly non-stop memorials and little other news, NBC has started to move from the sad to the obsessive/creepy in the continuing coverage of Russert's death. Matt Lauer, for example, just interviewed Tim's son, Luke, in the opening minutes of the Today show. The kid is a younger version of his dad, thoughtful and well-spoken. Matt was so effusive with his praise and his concern that Luke 'really understand how much his dad loved him' (he knew), that it was a little creepy to watch what should have been a private moment played for the cameras. It crossed over to that kind of interview we've all seen with the tornado victim that is picking through the rubble of their home and is asked by a "concerned" interviewer how they feel. The picture that they flashed of Luke visiting the set of MTP yesterday – the Kennedy-esq Profiles in Courage pose – was a blatantly manipulative tug at the viewers' heartstrings.

Maybe I'm just a cold-hearted bastard, but death is a part of the circle of life (thanks, Elton!) and life does go on. The best tribute to a person you admire is to emulate the best aspects of their life and incorporate them into your own. But you must move forward; to continue to dwell on one person to put their life ahead of all of the still-living. There is a lot of other news in the world, so NBC and Russert's colleagues need to incorporate what they feel are the ideals they believe Russert embodied and cover all of the other unfolding news fairly.

GOP Reelection Recipe: Pork

Chris Cillizza And Ben Pershing, WashingtonPost.com: Faced with one of the worst national political environments in modern political history, Republican incumbents are turning to a tried-and-true approach to win reelection: pork.

In recent ads for Sens. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) and Norm Coleman (Minn.), the incumbents highlight their ability to work across party lines to deliver dollars for their respective states.

Call it the clout factor.

"Clout is certainly something people want out of their senators," said Sen. John Ensign (Nev.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, adding that any GOP incumbent on the ballot this fall faces serious peril. "If you have an 'R' in front of your name, you had better run scared," Ensign said. ...

What's not in the ads is as important as what is. In none of the three commercials is President Bush's name mentioned. The limited use of the Republican brand is particularly striking in Kentucky and North Carolina, which Bush carried with 60 percent and 56 percent, respectively, during the 2004 election. Coleman's qualifying his party ties makes more sense, given that in 2004 Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) won Minnesota by three percentage points.

It appears as though McConnell, Coleman and Dole have all reached the conclusion that the only message that can win for a Republican in the current environment is a purely transactional one: Reelect me, and I'll continue to bring home the bacon. ...

LSB: "What's up with this? Two pig pics in a row?" LOL!

Solution for Mud-Fearing Pig? Boots

Reuters: A piglet in Northern England who developed a phobia of mud has overcome its fear with the aid of some Wellington boots.

Cinders, a young saddleback pig, appeared to have a condition called mysophobia - a fear of dirt - having refused to wallow in the mud with her siblings.

Her owners had the idea of fitting her with the bespoke miniature footwear to help conquer her fear.

Debbie and Andrew Keeble run a sausage company in Thirsk, North Yorkshire.

However, they have said that Cinders will be spared the butcher's knife and instead act as a mascot to the Farm Crisis Network which supports struggling farmers.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions

Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times: Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry. ...

Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.

Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.

To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.

The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in a rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the most serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today. Most Japanese are covered under public health care or through their work. Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more for health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime minister in the country’s postwar history. (more)

LSB: Sure, we should all eat less and move more (Rosie's Chub Club motto), but a waistline police system? That's just wrong!

Hydroponics On The Windows: Cool, Efficient Vertical Farming

Alyssa Danigelis, Discovery.com: Many of us still jump to conclusions when we hear "hydroponics" and New York Sun Works wants to change that. The organization is known internationally for its Science Barge on the Hudson River, which showcases sustainable agricultural practices for the public. But the barge is actually part of a larger plan to integrate hydroponics into building planning and design. During a summer when droughts are hitting Americans across the country and municipalities are limiting water use, hydroponics is an idea whose time has come.

Architects and planners, take note. Several months ago, New York Sun Works got together with architecture firm Kiss + Cathcart and reimagined the greenhouse. They came up with a plan (see image) to mount rows of fruit and vegetable plants in a vertically integrated system covering a building exterior. The plant boxes would be sandwiched between two layers of glass--called a "double-skin facade"--and could rotate slowly up and down the space over the course of a day. The plants would be fed hydroponically, a system that New York Sun Works public affairs director Benjamin Linsley says is between five and 10 times more water-efficient than soil-based farming. Producing more food in the city means avoiding the high cost of trucking it here.

Not only does the system look nifty, but the plants would act as a unique insulation barrier, absorbing light and heat to keep the building cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Linsley says international engineering firm Arup was able to show that the system would indeed improve a building's energy efficiency. Currently the team is constructing a small stand-alone prototype that I hope catches a developer's eye. Eating strawberries grown on-premises at the end of a long work day? Sign me up!

Cows That Chew Cashews May Burp 90 Percent Less Methane

Miho Yoshikawa, Reuters: The cast offs from snacking on cashews may help fight global warming caused by animals that belch methane.

Tests in Japan have show that oil produced from the shell of the cashew nut may slash by 90 percent the methane emissions from belching cattle when mixed as an additive to feed, a spokesman for oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co said on Wednesday.

The firm's research division is working with Hokkaido University on Japan's northernmost island, on the project, with the aim of launching sales within four years, the spokesman said.
"We are in the process of applying for a patent," he said, although the research has so far been only in the laboratory with the treatment yet to be fed to cattle.

Methane emissions from livestock in the field are a major factor in climate change.
In New Zealand the two main gases from agriculture, methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from fertilizers, make up close to half of the country's emissions.

The oil would add a few yen (cents) per day in cost per animal, the spokesman said.

Engel: There Have Been Five Wars In Iraq And The U.S. Record In Them Is Just 1-4

ThinkProgress.org: The Bush administration and its allies have repeatedly tried to claim that because of the surge, the United States is winning the war in Iraq. In February, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said on The Tonight Show, “And by golly, they are winning, my friends. They are winning. They are winning.” Just this week, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) claimed that Iraqi opposition to a long-term security agreement with the United States is a sign of “success.”

McCain has visited Iraq eight times since the U.S. invasion in 2003, a fact that he likes to tout as evidence of his national security credentials. NBC correspondent Richard Engel, however, has logged more time there than almost every other tv correspondent over the past few years, surviving bombings and kidnapping attempts.

Yesterday on the Daily Show, he sharply disputed the right-wing claim that the United States is winning in Iraq:

STEWART: What’s our record in these five wars? […]
ENGEL: Maybe we’re 1-4.
STEWART: We’re 1-4 now. What are the five wars?
ENGEL: The shock and awe — the invasion. Then the nation-building phase, which had mixed results, dissolving the Iraqi army. Then an insurgency, then a civil war, then the surge, where violence has gone down dramatically. We’re about to face a sixth war — the exit strategy — and we have to figure out how to make that one a success.

This morning on MSNBC, Engel said that while, tactically, the surge has had some success, “the larger strategic question of stability in Iraq is one that is still unresolved.” Watch his Daily Show and MSNBC appearances:

Part of the right wing’s arguments about why the United States should stay in Iraq is that if troops redeploy, Iran will gain influence. But as Engel said on MSNBC, Iran’s influence in Iraq is already “huge” because of the U.S. invasion, a point that has been underlined by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen as well.

Read the transcript.

A closer look at whether ‘the world’ will ‘accept’ Obama

Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report: A couple of days ago, the NYT’s Thomas Friedman sounded a slightly hyperbolic note about Barack Obama’s popularity on the global stage: “It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Democrats’ nomination of Obama as their candidate for president has done more to improve America’s image abroad … than the entire Bush public diplomacy effort for seven years.”

Well, if Obama’s nomination has done wonders for our image, just imagine what an Obama presidency would do, right? The WaPo’s Anne Applebaum suggested this week that this might not be as easy as we’d like, because, as she put it, “foreigners” might not “accept a black American president.”

I realize that this, too, may seem like a rather offensive question, particularly if one believes everything that one reads in newspapers…. But has Europe changed? And have Asia and the Middle East changed? I hate to put it so crudely, but — European newspaper reporting to the contrary — racism is not unique to the United States. The situation of ethnic minorities in Europe and Asia is completely different from that in the United States, and in many ways our societies aren’t comparable: Most nonwhite inhabitants of European societies are recent immigrants, not descendants of former slaves, and the particular circumstances of, say, the black Christian population in Arab-dominated Sudan are unique.

Nevertheless, it is safe to say that there is a distinct dearth of nonwhite politicians in Europe. The Indian caste system has an element of skin-color discrimination built in. Arab societies have their own history of trading in black slaves, and the existence in the Arab world of prejudice against black Africans is no secret. Periodically, African students in Moscow are beaten up on the street. Though it is certainly more severe in those countries that actually have large nonwhite populations, unreflective racism exists even in parts of the world that have barely any darker-skinned or nonnative inhabitants. Japan has been singled out by the United Nations for racist treatment of foreigners. And while some of the stares that black Americans say they get on the street in Warsaw or Prague reflect simple curiosity, some, I’m told, contain an element of hostility, too.

Given this, Applebaum argued, “do not be surprised if there is some backlash” against an Obama presidency overseas.

Applebaum’s column struck me as pretty misguided when it was published, but now there’s additional evidence to undermine her argument.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project surveyed 24 nations and not only found significant interest in the U.S. presidential race around the world, but also found broad support from the populaces for Obama.

In all but three nations, those polled express more faith in Obama than in McCain to “do the right thing regarding world affairs.” They were essentially tied in the USA. In Pakistan and Jordan, neither inspires much confidence.

“Obama obviously has an appeal that has crossed the waters,” says Andrew Kohut, who directs the Pew project. “Some of it may have to do with his being associated with opposition to the war in Iraq, which is consistent with views of people around the world. Some of it may have to do with his charismatic qualities and the fact that he’s different than the typical American presidential candidate.” […]

In most countries, Obama is also more trusted than President Bush. The contrast was particularly sharp in Europe, where Bush has been making a farewell tour this week. In France, where he visits today, 13% say they have “a lot” or some confidence in Bush to do the right thing. Six times as many, 84%, say that of Obama.

Now, I suppose it’s possible that there’s some kind of elaborate, international “Bradley effect” skewing the results, but it seems more likely to me that Applebaum’s column is little more than tiresome concern trolling.

GOP Claims China Drilling Off Cuban Shores; Actually, That's False

Jonathan Stein, Mother Jones Blog: To gin up support for off-shore drilling, the Right has an ace up its rhetorical sleeve: the Chinese in Cuba. Here's Vice President Cheney.

"[O]il is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. We're not doing it. The Chinese are in cooperation with the Cuban government... Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply. Yet Congress has said... no to drilling off Florida.''

"Even the communists" is a nice flourish. Mix the red scare with the yellow scare and get Uncle Dick's own Orange Scare. Guaranteed to freak out Americans concerned about their energy security. Here's House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), piling on:

"Even China recognizes that oil and natural gas is readily available off our shores; thanks to Fidel Castro, they’ve been given a permit to drill for oil 45 miles from the Florida Keys."

Adds House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), "Right at this moment, some 60 miles or less off the coast of Key West, Florida, China has the green light to drill for oil in order to lower energy costs in that country."

Problem is, that's all false. Like, completely false. China is not currently drilling off the shores of Cuba; in fact, it doesn't even have a off shore drilling contract. What is does have is a permit to drill on Cuban land. "China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period,'' Jorge Piñon, an energy expert at the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy, told the Miami Herald. In fact, it is not yet drilling on Cuban land, either. The Herald added:

China's Sinopec oil company does have an agreement with the Cuban government to develop onshore resources west of Havana, Piñon said. The Chinese have done some seismic testing, he said, but no drilling. Western diplomats in Havana told McClatchy that to the best of their knowledge there is no Chinese drilling offshore.

The Congressional Research Service also debunks Republican claims:

"While there has been some concern about China’s potential involvement in offshore deepwater oil projects, to date its involvement in Cuba's oil sector has been focused on onshore oil extraction in Pinar del Rio province through its state-run China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation. (Sinopec)"

In a Democratic-controlled Congress, off shore drilling is not going to expand any time soon. But the war against dishonest bombast never stops.

UPDATE: Cheney Acknowledges He Lied About China Drilling ‘60 Miles Off The Coast Of Florida’. After his claim was thoroughly debunked in the press, Cheney acknowledged that he had, in fact, lied in his speech, though his statement today offered no apology and issued only a half-hearted backtrack of his original claim:

It is our understanding that, although Cuba has leased out exploration blocks 60 miles off the coast of southern Florida, which is closer than American firms are allowed to operate in that area, no Chinese firm is drilling there.

Cheney’s comments were so egregiously false that a member of his own party took to the Senate floor to correct the record. Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) decried claims of “some fabricated Cuba/China connection,” saying they have “no merit.”

Peddling stories of false connections that have no merit is hardly a new practice for Cheney. But being called out by his own party — and having to admit error — is certainly an uncommon occurence for him.

VA Denies Vet’s Disability Claim–Cites Membership In VoteVets As Reason

Nicole Belle, Crooks and Liars. I know they’re making it harder for vets to get disability, but this is outrageous:

The VA rejected an Afghanistan veteran’s disability claim for PTSD last month, citing his membership in VoteVets.org as a reason for the denial.

Staff Sergeant Will King retired from the Army in late 2003, after serving in both the first Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan. As one of the first troops into the Afghan theater after 9/11, Will had been awarded a Bronze Star after participating in fierce fighting in the Shah-e-Kot Valley in March 2002. I know, because I was there with him.

As the months turned to years after his retirement, however, Will started having problems as the Iraq War dragged on. Depressed and unable to sleep, he thought it might be PTSD. Because, as those who study PTSD know, this is perfectly normal: The symptoms of PTSD frequently have a delayed onset that can take months or years to fully materialize. That’s why, in April 2007, Will filed a claim with the VA for combat-related PTSD. The VA eventually agreed with Will and diagnosed him with mild PTSD. But Will felt like his condition was worse than that. And to boot, he thought it was getting worse. So Will appealed, and filed another disability claim with the VA in November 2007: He felt his symptoms were serious enough to warrant an increase in his disability rating from “mild” to “moderate.”*

Unfortunately for Will, the VA denied his claim six months later, in May 2008. And while I won’t challenge the VA’s ultimate decision (I’m not a doctor), I find it repulsive that they cited Will’s membership in VoteVets.org as a reason to deny his claim.

This is what the VA told Will in his denial letter:

The examiner states your PTSD symptoms are still present but you do not report symptoms at a degree or level which appears to suggest more severity. The examiner concurred with the previous diagnosis and assigned Global Assessment of Functioning Score of 52, stating you have occasional suicidal ideation but are able to cope with these symptoms and continue to function. The treatment reports from Memphis show you are currently involved with VoteVets.org, an advocacy group for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. You indicated involvement with this advocacy group makes you feel coping with your symptoms is worthwhile. The treatment note of March 10, 2008, indicates no homicidal or suicidal ideation and no thought disorder.

Countdown Special Comment: The Unimportance of Being John McCain

LSB: Thank you, Keith, for saying what no other commentators have the balls (or vocabulary) to say. Thank you for the well-researched, insightful, and passionate commentaries you alone are providing. Thank you for challenging those in power who get a free ride from the rest of the so-call "liberal" main stream media. (Someone is going to have to point out to me the liberal slant and preference that is allegedly shown to the liberals by the majority of the main stream press, because it seems to me – in an effort to thwart this argument – that the main stream press demonstrates an amazing insecurity and timidity to the wingnuts on the right.)

However, while I often agree with and always appreciate Olbermann’s commentaries, I am becoming increasingly concerned that Keith and MSNBC are becoming dangerously close to mirroring the cable network in which they sit in judgment nearly every evening. Is Keith’s passion (i.e., volume, snarkiness) unlike that of Billo’s? Maybe with all of the news outlets this is the new paradigm in news – everyone has a point of view and you just have to find an outlet that shares your values and perspectives. Perhaps ‘fair and balanced’ are concepts that no longer apply to the media. I find I am watching the BBC more and more lately for what appears to be ‘just the facts’ reporting. How about you?

UPDATE: Keith Olbermann Backlash Fueled By Declaration Of Katie Couric As "Worst Person In The World". Seems that I'm not the only one that thinks Keith is beginning to 'cross over to the dark side.'

Army Spreads Partisan Attacks Against Obama

Phillip Carter, WashingtonPost.com: The Army's public affairs office publishes a daily roundup of Army-related news called "Stand To" -- named for the set of procedures combat units do just prior to dawn, when they go to full alert for a possible enemy attack. The daily wrapup contains links to mainstream media articles, Army press releases, foreign media stories and blogs. It's similar to the Defense Department's Early Bird -- but much briefer, and obviously more focused on the Army.

Tuesday's edition contained an entry under "WHAT'S BEING SAID IN BLOGS" that struck me as unusual -- both for its headline and its patent political bias:

Obama: World peace thru surrender (KDIHH)

The link goes to a milblog called "Knee Deep in the Hooah." The author is a former Army officer whose son is serving in Iraq now. After citing a column on some curious Pentagon planning for an Obama administration, he goes on to write:

Roger that Redleg six, throwing away all ammo now and preparing to surrender ... Redleg five, out.

After all, what better time to surrender than when we are winning? The article cited above also includes a Youtube link so that you can see the end for yourself in the end makers own words. Sure. This is all old news for those of us who care. But it still ticks me off anyway. So I thought to myself,"Why not share the wealth?" Now I can be ticked off in good company. Enjoy.

Mr.Hooah!, out.

Seriously? Have any of these people actually read the Obama defense policy papers or speeches -- or are they simply going on what they hear on Fox News and the Limbaugh network?

And more to the point, why is the Army's official in-house public affairs shop linking to this kind of stuff? Just a few weeks ago, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told all hands to stay out of politics: "As the nation prepares to elect a new president, we would all do well to remember the promises we made: to obey civilian authority, to support and defend the Constitution and to do our duty at all times.... Keeping our politics private is a good first step." He added: "The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia."

Unfortunately, the message didn't get to through to the Army.

Let's be clear: It is okay for the services to have a message. Both the Early Bird and Stand To speak for the Pentagon and the Army as institutions, and that's okay. They generally support the troops, the military, the chain of command, and the current endeavors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing wrong with that.

And I have no objections to what Mr. Hooah wrote, besides the fact that I think it's factually wrong. He has his opinion; I have mine.

But the Stand To page is different -- and Tuesday's edition crosses the line. This isn't some citizen's blog or website. It's the in-house public affairs digest of the United States Army. It should not be amplifying partisan political attacks, nor should it be airing them at all. This appears like yet another example of the unusually cozy relationship which has developed over the last generation or so between the military and the right wing of American politics -- an unhealthy development, to say the least.

Last time I checked, soldiers and civilian officials didn't swear an oath to either political party or to their current president. Rather, they swear their fidelity to the Constitution, and the ideals it embodies, including the subordination of the military to civil authority. Adm. Mullen is right: As we enter a contentious election year, where issues of national security are likely to dominate the debate, the military needs to stay on the sidelines.

Why I’m Voting Republican

McClellan on Letterman: We’re Screwed

Nicole Belle, Crooks and Liars: Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman to hawk his book, What Happened. Once again, Letterman proved that late night comedians have more testicular fortitude than any of the pundit class or corporate media for voicing what is overwhelmingly the public pulse on the Bush administration. (Click the pic for the video.)

LETTERMAN: My feeling about Cheney–and also Bush, but especially Cheney—is he just couldn’t care less about Americans. And that the same is true of George Bush. And all they really want to do is somehow kiss up to the oil people so they can get some great annuity when they’re out of office. “There you go, Dick, nice job. There’s a couple of billion for your troubles.” ( applause ) I mean, he pretty much put Halliburton in business, and the outsourcing of the military resources to private mercenary groups, and so forth. Is there any humanity in either of these guys?

McCLELLAN: Look, I still have personal affection for the President. I can’t speak to the Vice President’s thinking that well because he’s someone that keeps things to himself and he believes in doing it his way, and he doesn’t care what anybody else thinks. He is going to do the way he feels is best—and that’s not always in the best interest of this country, as we’ve seen.

LETTERMAN: You told me backstage you thought he was a goon.

Full transcript.

Meet The Cow Porn Judge!

Wonkette: Once upon a time a man kept a stash of comically dirty photos on his web site, and then he blamed it all on his son after people discovered they could access pubic-hair shaving instructionals and similarly “shocking” images from this site. Who is this magical dingus who produced the very worst excuse for hosting a porn stash since Mark Penn told his mom “I’m keeping that stack of Juggs for a friend”? Why, it is Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Reagan appointee Alex Kozinski, who happens to be presiding over an obscenity trial.

Actually, he has now suspended the trial for 48 hours while he figures out what to do with his own ample archive, which features the sort of naughtiness you’d find in the dirty birthday cards section at Spencer Gifts:

• A photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows.
• A video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal.A slide show striptease featuring a transsexual.
• A folder that contained a series of photos of women’s crotches in snug-fitting clothing or underwear.
• A photo of a young man bent over in a chair and performing fellatio on himself.
• A graphic step-by-step pictorial in which a woman is seen shaving her pubic hair.

YAWN. Kozinski needs to take notes from the guy whose trial he’s supposed to preside over: a fetish-porn maker whose hardcore videos featuring beastiality and shit hijinks has made it difficult to find a jury willing to sit through hours of nauseating “evidence review.” Also, Judge Kozinski’s not-so-secret cow porn site also hosted several MP3s of Weird Al Yankovic songs. It is for this last offense that he should be hanged.

New Gang of 14 won’t back McCain

Kristen Coulter and Bob Cusack, The Hill: At least 14 Republican members of Congress have refused to endorse or publicly support Sen. John McCain for president, and more than a dozen others declined to answer whether they back the Arizona senator.

Many of the recalcitrant GOP members declined to detail their reasons for withholding support, but Rep. John Peterson (R-Pa.) expressed major concerns about McCain’s energy policies and Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) cited the Iraq war. ...

McCain’s campaign seized on some Democrats’ reticence about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), issuing a release on Tuesday that highlighted that Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) is not endorsing the presumptive nominee.

While some conservative Democrats have yet to endorse Obama and didn’t back Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004, there are both centrist and conservative Republicans representing various parts of the country who are not embracing McCain.

Republican members who have not endorsed or publicly backed McCain include Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.) and Reps. Jones, Peterson, John Doolittle (Calif.), Randy Forbes (Va.), Wayne Gilchrest (Md.), Virgil Goode (Va.), Tim Murphy (Pa.), Ron Paul (Texas), Ted Poe (Texas), Todd Tiahrt (Kan.), Dave Weldon (Fla.) and Frank Wolf (Va.).

Throughout his career in the House and Senate, McCain has been at odds with his party on a range of issues, including campaign finance reform, earmarks, immigration, healthcare, taxes and energy. Some Senate Republicans were especially irked with McCain’s role in the “Gang of 14” deal on judicial nominations.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), who has been sharply critical of McCain on immigration, told The Hill in February, “I don’t like McCain. I don’t like him at all.” ...

LSB: McCain sends out a press release noting ONE Dem that isn't supporting Obama, but there is no release from the Obama campaign about all of these GOP lawmakers withholding their support from McCain. Fight fire with fire, folks!

FOX News calls Mrs. Obama "Obama's baby mama"

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: I'm sensing a mix of sexism and racism from FOX News on this one - hitting both at once, that might even be a new low for them. This network should be ostracized by every Democrat - no one in the party should be appearing on FOX ever again. And if they do, they should be held accountable for it. And someone should launch a true campaign to take FOX down, once and for all. So far the efforts have been piecemeal and short-lived. Someone with the cash and the staff needs to do something real this time.

Pam Spaulding, Pam's House Blend: Baby Mama? If Fox is going to try to float that they are just being "down with the Negroes" in this landmark campaign, the bigoted network should at least get its sh*t right. Oliver Willis:

So here's the thing (because during this campaign I'm apparently learning that we black people have our own secret code and hand signals so this stuff has to be explained like you are speaking to a child at times), using the phrase "baby mama" to describe this woman implies that like too many people in the black community, she is a mother on her own with no man around doing his job.

Except, Barack and Michelle Obama are the exact opposite of this, and that is one of the reason America - especially black America - are so proud of them.

Let's go to the Urban Dictionary. Does this describe Mrs. Obama to you?

baby mama. A term used to define an unmarried young woman (but can be a woman of any age) who has had a child. As mentioned before in another definition, most of the time it is used for when it was simply a sexual relationship, compared to ex-wife or girlfriend. Usually this has a negative connotation, a lot of baby mamas are seen as desperate, gold digging, emotionally starved, shady women who had a baby out of spite or to keep a man. Sometimes they may act like this because of missed child support payments, unfulfilled promises by the father, or convenient sex by the father. Either or both may exist in any situation.

It's high time that Fox News just stop with the pussyfooting around with these games and run the more direct "nigger" on any Chyron running over video of the Obamas.

LSB: I agree with John - I've been saying that the Dems should boycott this GOP propaganda tool for a long time. Not only are Dems not reaching their audience, they aren’t even reaching an undecided market. Those narrow-minded, short-sighted, racist, sexist, homophobic douche bags at FAUX-News are preaching to a small choir which is the GOP base. Why give them a live target to aim their arrows of deception and misinformation? This is only the latest in a long list of sleazy Chyrons FAKE-News has used. Enough is enough.

McCain Showcases His Foreign Policy Expertise...

SilentPatriot, Crooks and Liars: …by telling a crowd that he’s super qualified to be President due to his extensive foreign policy experience dealing with Vladimir Putin… the President of Germany. [LSB: That ought to come as new to Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany.]

At least the background he stood in front of wasn’t lime green, right?

What should McCain do about Cheney?

Politico: He’s a highly effective fundraiser in an election cycle in which Republicans are starved for cash, a hero to the wing of the party that views John McCain with the most suspicion. He has four decades of campaign experience, ranging from a short stint running Gerald Ford’s election bid in 1976 to two successful races on the presidential ticket.

Yet despite that pedigree, Vice President Cheney is unlikely to share a stage with McCain anytime soon — and may not be called on to play any role at all in the 2008 presidential campaign. ...

Still, Cheney sympathizers believe the vice president can be helpful. “I think it’s clear that McCain’s biggest problem is with the conservative base of the party and that’s where the vice president is strongest,” said a close Cheney adviser. “If McCain’s smart, that’s where he’ll use him,” the adviser added, suggesting talk radio as a possible venue.

“Instead of pushing the vice president away, I’d use him to build bridges with various conservative constituencies,” added Cesar Conda, a lobbyist who worked for Cheney in the first term. “That’s where the party really needs him because the conservative base is in the doldrums.” ...

Asked whether he’d be interested in Cheney had the vice president not already have served under Bush for two terms, McCain said: "I don’t know if I would want him as vice president. He and I have the same strengths. But to serve in other capacities? Hell, yeah." ...

LSB: Oh, dear Lord! That would be 'red meat' to the salivating wingnuts, and (given Cheney's low poll numbers) a gift to the Dems - a win/win for all.

MoveOn.org Ad: Take The Bush/McCain Pop Quiz

Mincing Up Michelle

Maureen Dowd, New York Times: Hillary and Bill are busy updating their enemies lists. And Obama is racking his brain trying to figure out where to stash his erstwhile rival.

If a President Obama put her on the Supreme Court, of course, we would have the infinite fun of hearing Bill rant about how Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts were dissing Hillary.

It’s good news for Obama that Hillary’s out of the race. But it’s also bad news. Now Republicans can turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of “Kill the witch.”

There are some who think it will be harder for America to accept a black first lady — the national hostess who serenely presides over the White House Christmas festivities and the Easter egg roll — than a black president.

There are creepy Web sites, like TheObamaFile.com, dedicated to painting Michelle as a female version of Jeremiah Wright, an angry black woman, the disgruntled, lecturing “Mrs. Grievance” depicted on the cover of National Review.

On that site and others around the Internet, the seamy rumors still slither that there’s a tape of Michelle denouncing “whitey,” a rumor that Barack Obama disdained last week as “scurrilous.”

E.D. Hill, the Fox anchor who said that the celebrated fist pump between Michelle and her husband the night he snagged the nomination could be called a “terrorist fist jab,” apologized Tuesday.

In their narrative of how Hillary lost in The Times on Sunday, Jim Rutenberg and Peter Baker said that Mark Penn argued that Hillary should subtly stress Obama’s “lack of American roots.”

That’s a good preview of how Republicans will attack Michelle, suggesting that she does not share American values, mining a subtext of race.

She’s a devoted daughter, wife and mother who has lived the American dream, from the humble South Side of Chicago to Harvard Law School. Hey, isn’t it totally unAmerican to complain that being a black woman in the ’80s at a class-conscious, white-bread college, Princeton, was somewhat uncomfortable?

Just as Bill and Hillary did the “Pssst! He’s black!” thing on Barry, now the Republicans will use the same tactic on the strong and opinionated Michelle.

Unlike her husband, who wrote in his memoir that he had learned at a young age to smile and charm and disarm whites of the notion that he might be a bristly black militant, Michelle has not always hidden her jangly opinions so well. She has spent more time dwelling on the ways in which society can pull down the less privileged and refers a lot to a callous but unnamed “They.”

“Michelle,” as one political observer puts it, “is a target-rich environment.”

Team Obama is hoping for the best. When she’s on her game, after all, Michelle is a knockout. And as one Obama booster enthuses: “Michelle’s story is a lot more mainstream American than Cindy McCain inheriting a brewery.”

But the campaign is preparing for the worst, planning to shore up Michelle with her own slick and quick war room staffed by top operatives from previous campaigns.

David Axelrod thinks “there’s a real recoil potential” if the Republicans go after Michelle. “I don’t think she’s projecting herself into the fray in a way that would justify that,” he said, adding that her charming and polite daughters, Malia and Sasha, are walking testimony to Michelle’s “loving parenting.”

Mike Murphy, the G.O.P. strategist who worked for John McCain in 2000, but not yet this year, said Michelle is heading into her “big moment in the sun.”

“She’ll have the opportunity to do pretty well and the opportunity to really screw up.” he said. “What I glimpse of her from far away makes me think there could be trouble, but anytime you have that size microphone, she will have some control over how she handles the pressure.”

She’s going to take her big microphone on “The View” as a co-host next week, when she will no doubt try to put her remark about her belated pride in her country in context. And she clearly scored a pre-emptive hit both with her chic style — Vogue’s André Leon Talley declared in The Times the dawn of “a black Camelot” — and with her playful fist pump that now has older white guys, like North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, awkwardly trying to do it with Obama.

The dap or pound, as it’s also called, was a natural and beguiling moment that showed the country that, even though she started out as her husband’s boss and has a résumé that matches his, she likes him and is rooting for him, and is not engaged in a dreaded Clintonesque competition with him. (On the night of the Pennsylvania primary, Bill was eagerly checking to see who had swayed more voters — him or Hillary.)

“She isn’t sitting with a fixed, adoring gaze,” Axelrod said. “But she obviously loves him deeply and believes in him, and more than that, she believes in this. And that motivates him.”

Steven Benen: GOP game-plan: When in doubt, go after the candidate’s spouse. In 1992, Republican attack dogs went after Bill Clinton by denigrating Hillary Clinton as often as humanly possible. In 2004, the GOP took great pleasure in taking on Teresa Heinz Kerry.
Now, the attack machine has decided to take rhetorical aim at Michelle Obama.

“Mrs. Grievance” bellowed the cover of a recent National Review, which featured a photo of a fierce-looking Obama. The magazine’s online edition titled an essay about her stump speech “America’s Unhappiest Millionaire.”

Michelle Malkin, the popular conservative blogger, called her “Obama’s bitter half.”

Even the relatively liberal online magazine Slate piled on. In a piece subtitled “Is Michelle Obama responsible for the Jeremiah Wright fiasco?” the contrarian Christopher Hitchens blamed her for her husband’s pastor troubles since she was a member of the church first.

The would-be first lady does not make pronouncements about policy and has insisted that her priority in the White House would be her two young daughters…. It was an unscripted remark as she spoke in February about the enthusiastic response to his message of hope that set off conservatives: “And let me tell you something,” she told a Wisconsin crowd. “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.” [SB: The Obama campaign quickly explained that she misspoke: “What she meant is that she’s really proud at this moment because for the first time in a long time, thousands of Americans who’ve never participated in politics before are coming out in record numbers to build a grass-roots movement for change.” Even First Lady Laura Bush — hardly a liberal Dem — defended Michelle Obama, agreeing that the comments didn’t reflect her true feelings.]

Is your whiteness showing?

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: A controversial piece that piqued my interest because it's so controversial. See what you think. This is only a small excerpt:

This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are...

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama's defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama's sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

Your whiteness is showing.

When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your ppposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque....

[B]lack folks would have sucked it up, like they've had to do forever, and voted for Clinton had it come down to that. Indeed, they were on board the Hillary train early on, convinced that Obama had no chance to win and hoping for change, any change, from the reactionary agenda that has been so prevalent for so long in this culture. They would have supported the white woman--hell, for many black folks, before Obama showed his mettle they were downright excited to do so--but you won't support the black man. And yet you have the audacity to insist that it is you who are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and the one before whom Party leaders should bow down, and whose feet must be kissed?

Your whiteness is showing.

ZennButtKicker: The piece, if it gets wide circulation, will piss off some people, but it's point is pretty clear. The crux of the arguement, and it is huge, isn't that there wasn't some sexism against Hillary (there was), but the source. Seems like everyone agrees the media was the major source, so not voting for Obama is a pretty childish way of "punishing" the media. If anything, all that is happening now is the media is milking the "angry-white-women-Clinton-voter" story for every last drop it can drain. I also love the part when he said that black people would have just sucked it up and voted for Clinton anyway, if Obama didn't win. That is a subjective argument, but there's a lot of compelling anecdotal evidence to support it (like polling data). Black folks for decades have supported less-than-optimal candidates simply because they were better than the GOP alternative. Also, its interesting to me that the discussion of race is tap-danced around so much. It is the very obvious 800lb gorilla in the room. I will assert that for every allegation of sexism there could easily be 2 or 3 allegations of racism. We all know that the GOP tactic is centered on making Obama out as the "radical Muslim with the funny name who isn't mainstream enough to be POTUS". In other words, he's got too much mustard and not enough mayo (an old expression my grandparents used). However, because Obama's campaign has been so disciplined and almost out of necessity must downplay the racism aspects of the campaign, no one outside the MSM and the GOP are really addressing it. At some point I'd really love one night where Obama isn't in "trouble" with Latinos, Jews, or white women simply because of the perceived racial tensions with those groups (in reality, polling data shows him with a lead amongst all those groups). I think the writing is tough, but the message is real clear, stop being mad at the wrong people. Fighting sexism, not many folks have a problem with that, but not supporting Obama and the Dems is surely the least effective way of fighting, in fact given McCain's history in some ways the cause of feminism is pushed backwards with him in office.

Another Terrorist Fist Jab!

Thanks to Jossip.com!

Sex-in-church couple repent — and are forgiven

Reuters/MSNBC: ROME - An Italian couple who were caught having sex in a church confessional box while morning Mass was being said have repented and made peace with the local bishop.

The couple, in their early 30s, were detained by police earlier this month after they had made love in the confessional box in the cathedral in northern Cesena. They were cautioned for obscene acts in public and disturbing a religious function.

Their lawyer said they had been drinking all night and realized they had gone too far.

The lawyer told the area's local newspaper on Wednesday the couple met with the local bishop on Tuesday night, asked for his forgiveness and that he had given it.

Last week the bishop celebrated a "Mass of reparation" in the cathedral where the confessional box incident took place to make up for the sacrilege.

LSB: This is not the usual fare that I post here, but it made me chuckle and distracted me for a moment from the $23B tax dollars missing in Iraq.

Mississippi School Holds First Interracial Prom

NPR: Mississippi integrated its public schools in 1970, but segregation still haunts parts of the culture. One example of this could be found at Charleston High School. The Delta town had maintained a system of separate proms — organized privately — for black and white students.

As far back as 1997, actor Morgan Freeman, a Charleston local, offered to pay for the dance if everyone could go. This year, officials finally accepted the offer. A Canadian film crew led by Paul Saltzman documented the event for the upcoming Prom Night in Mississippi.

A photographer working with the crew says people in Charleston didn't question the segregated dances. But as the big night approached, the importance of the change became clear. Catherine Farquharson followed several kids as they washed their cars and had their hair done.

She describes one encounter in an African-American beauty parlor, in which an elderly woman who'd been part of the civil rights movement stopped in to see what the hubbub was about. The woman ended up giving an impromptu testimony about the history these young people were about to make. "It was almost like it didn't occur to a lot of the kids, until the day of the prom, how important what was going on really was," Farquharson reports.

Student Chasidy Buckley says that Charleston's first interracial prom made for a happy and comfortable night. Some white parents wouldn't let their kids go, and some insisted on holding a private prom for their kids. But mostly, Buckley says, students enjoyed themselves — even if they'd expected a boring formal.

"It was just magnificent," Buckley says. "That night, when we stepped in that door, everybody just had a good time. We proved ourselves wrong. We proved the community wrong, because they didn't think that it was going to happen."

Buckley says the school has decided to host a prom next year, giving black and white kids another chance to dress up and step out. "It's going to continue to go on in our school, and if it continues to go on in our school, then our community will continue to improve," she says. "It'll impact them, too, because once they see that blacks and whites can come together in school and have fun together, then they'll see that the community can change, too."

LSB: How can this still be going on in the 21st century. Like too many people, I thought this was cleared up years ago. With an African-American about to become our president, this remnant of "separate but equal" still shocks me.

$23 Billion Missing by Iraq Contractors

Jane Corbin, BBC News: A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations. The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies. While Presdient George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.

To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

The president's Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq. Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious." It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."

In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president. Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won.

LSB: $23 BILLION isn't missing - it went into some secret program that nobody wants to admit exists. Thus the gag order. It may not come out soon, but we'll eventually learn what the Bush adminstration funded with our tax money.

McCain: Bringing Troops Home From Iraq "Not Too Important"

HuffingtonPost.com: Sen. John McCain appeared on the Today Show this morning and continued to promote his idea of a long occupation in Iraq. But whatever merits there may be for his message, his delivery is once again promising to get him into trouble.

When asked if he knew when American troops could start to return home, McCain responded: "No, but that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq."

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid has responded:

"McCain's statement today that withdrawing troops doesn't matter is a crystal clear indicator that he just doesn't get the grave national-security consequences of staying the course - Osama bin Laden is freely plotting attacks, our efforts in Afghanistan are undermanned, and our military readiness has been dangerously diminished. We need a smart change in strategy to make America more secure, not a commitment to indefinitely keep our troops in an intractable civil war."

Iraqis Condemn American Demands

Amit R. Paley and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Foreign Service:

High-level negotiations over the future role of the U.S. military in Iraq have turned into an increasingly acrimonious public debate, with Iraqi politicians denouncing what they say are U.S. demands to maintain nearly 60 bases in their country indefinitely.

Top Iraqi officials are calling for a radical reduction of the U.S. military's role here after the U.N. mandate authorizing its presence expires at the end of this year. Encouraged by recent Iraqi military successes, government officials have said that the United States should agree to confine American troops to military bases unless the Iraqis ask for their assistance, with some saying Iraq might be better off without them.

"The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq," said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite politician on parliament's foreign relations committee who is close to Prime Minister Nourial-Maliki. "If we can't reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say, 'Goodbye, U.S. troops. We don't need you here anymore.' "

Congress has grown increasingly restive over the negotiations, which would produce a status of forces agreement setting out the legal rights and responsibilities of U.S. troops in Iraq and a broader "security framework" defining the political and military relationship between the two countries. Senior lawmakers of both parties have demanded more information and questioned the Bush administration's insistence that no legislative approval is required.

In Iraq, the willingness to consider calling for the departure of American troops represents a major shift for members of the U.S.-backed government. Maliki this week visited Iran, where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, urged him to reject any long-term security arrangements with the United States.

Failing to reach agreements this year authorizing the future presence of American forces in Iraq would be a strategic setback for the Bush administration, which says that such a presence is essential to promoting stability. Absent the agreements or the extension of the U.N. mandate, U.S. troops would have no legal basis to remain in Iraq. (more)

LSB: Why are we negotiating anything? The U.N. mandate ends in December – that’s our ticket out of Iraq with honor. We've fulfilled the mandate. Period. We should be planning our exit, not negotiating to stay. Or is the ridiculousness of the U.S. demands the way the Bush administration plans to justify withdrawal – when the Iraqis don’t acquiesce we ‘take our ball and go home?’ (Or am I giving the Bush administration too much credit for coming up with that type of strategy?) This article identifies some of the key sticking points that, frankly, we would never agree to if the situation were reversed: the U.S. request to maintain 58 long-term bases in Iraq, though we apparently originally pushed for more than 200 facilities (Given the multiple tours of our current forces, the recruiting shortages and the ongoing needs in Afghanistan and other locations around the world, why are we trying to maintain that many bases?); authority to detain and hold Iraqis without turning them over to the Iraqi judicial system (You've got to be fucking kidding me! Given the disgraceful conduct at Abu Ghraib and the continuing disgrace of Gitmo, why would Iraqi leadership ever consider allowing its citizens to be detained and held by the U.S.?); immunity from Iraqi prosecution for both U.S. troops and private contractors (this is what the Blackwater contributions are buying); continued control over Iraqi airspace and the right to refuel planes in the air (no doubt to stage an attack on Iran); and the prerogative for U.S. forces to conduct operations without approval from the Iraqi government (Doesn't this sound like an occupation to you?). Bush has an opportunity to recoup a part of his legacy by cleaning up the mess he made, otherwise the Obama administration will clean it up in January.

UPDATE 06/13/08 - Maliki raises possibility that Iraq might ask U.S. to leave: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki raised the possibility that his country won't sign a status of forces agreement with the United States and will ask U.S. troops to go home when their U.N. mandate to be in Iraq expires at the end of the year.

Maliki made the comment after weeks of complaints from Shiite Muslim lawmakers that U.S. proposals that would govern a continued troop presence in Iraq would infringe on Iraq's sovereignty.

"Iraq has another option that it may use," Maliki said during a visit to Amman, Jordan. "The Iraqi government, if it wants, has the right to demand that the U.N. terminate the presence of international forces on Iraqi sovereign soil."

Earlier, Maliki acknowledged that talks with the U.S. on a status of forces agreement "reached an impasse" after the American negotiators presented a draft that would have given the U.S. access to 58 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and immunity from prosecution for both U.S. soldiers and private contractors.

"Make Change, Not Lawsuits"

Joe.My.God.: A broad coalition of nine major LGBT rights and legal groups have issued a joint statement asking out-of-state gay couples married in California NOT to then sue the federal government, their home states, or their employers for recognition of their marriage status.

Four lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) legal organizations and five other leading national LGBT groups today issued a statement entitled "Make Change, Not Lawsuits."

The statement explains that while couples who go to California to marry should ask friends, neighbors and institutions to honor their marriages, they generally shouldn't file lawsuits to have their marriages recognized. The statement says that ill-timed lawsuits risk creating additional barriers to marriage for gay couples.

"Make Change, Not Lawsuits" was signed by four LGBT legal groups – the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project, the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), Lambda Legal, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) – and five other LGBT organizations: the Equality Federation, Freedom to Marry, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

View the entire joint statement here.

UPDATE: A further explanation.

Going to the Chapel, Again

TowleRoad: Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, together for more than 50 years, were the first couple to marry in San Francisco in 2004, and Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to allow them the same honor this year.

In fact, they will be the only couple married in San Francisco City Hall