Chart of the day.

Via Crooks & Liars...

Feel any safer?

Chart of the day.

Juan Cole got it here...


Feel any safer?

Chart of the day.

Steve Benen graphs the new WaPo/Bloomberg poll...

On the other hand…

…Harry Reid offers some hope with a welcome blow for liberty. Via Joan McCarter…

Sen. Harry Reid is blocking the National Defense Authorization Act over provisions it contains that seek to direct how the government deals with Al Qaeda prisoners captured by the military. He explained his objections to the provisions in a letter to Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and ranking member John McCain.

Reid's letter specifically objects to three sections of the 2011 Senate bill: one making explicit the president's authority to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely; another directing that terror suspects affiliated with Al Qaeda or supporting forces be placed in military custody unless a national security waiver is invoked, and a third making permanent certain limits on transferring prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay.

The ACLU applauds…

“There is no reason why, particularly ten years after 9/11 and with bin Laden dead, anyone in the Senate should want to give the president the martial law authority to have the military capture and imprison civilians around the world — including American citizens on American soil — based on suspicion alone," the ACLU's Chris Anders said. "Sen. Reid is saying that kind of proposal does not fit in the Senate’s defense authorization bill.”

Me too.

When you've lost Norm Dicks…

…you've lost the war.

Bring 'em home.

Chart of the day.

Via Dave Johnson...




Wonder where the money went?

Good questions…

…abound. Here's a couple. Over at Crooks & Liars, Heather wonders...

How many teachers' salaries or years of funding NPR does launching a Tomahawk missle cost us?

Several, I'm sure, of each. Elsewhere, Republican consultant Pat Griffin answers a query with a question...

What can I say about Newt Gingrich today that his ex-wives have not already said?

Perhaps he'll think of something tomorrow.

It's hard, sometimes…

…to keep things on a 'family-friendly' basis around here, because of things like this...

In his opening statement, [Defense Secretary] Gates fervently appealed for funds requested by Gen. David Petraeus for equipment to protect troops in Afghanistan. The money has been held up because it would come from a project benefiting a major contributor to the committee chairman, Bill Young (R-Fla.).

Young's been paid $80,000 to care more about the production rate of surplus Humvees than soldier's lives. Nothing family-friendly about that, or about my reaction.

I suppose it's a good thing I'll likely never meet Rep. Young. I'd have to use my PTSD defense at the subsequent assault trial, and I'm saving that in case I ever encounter the Phelps gang outside a cemetary.

Chart of the day.

Via digby...

.

Chart of the day.

Hat tip to David Sirota.

Quote of the day.

My own personal former Congressman, Jay Inslee, who joined my own personal current Congressman in voting against the Defense Supplemental for Afghanistan...

"It is wrong to be borrowing money from China, laying off American police officers, to train police officers in Afghanistan."

Yes, it is. Speaking of my OPC, Howie's got Rep. McDermott's remarks here.

$1,000,000,000,000

John Conyers, via Howie...

As of 10:06 a.m., Sunday, May 30th, the United States will have spent $1 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As of now, millions more.

Damn.

Quote of the day.

The Speaker speaks...

"I think we have to look at that war with a green eyeshade on."

Yep, we do.

Chart of the day.

Via Matt Yglesias...

Chart of the day.

Via Matt Yglesias…

(Yep, you can click it bigger.)

"Warning"?

WASHINGTON - A senior Pentagon advisory group, in a series of bluntly worded briefings, is warning President-elect Barack Obama that the Defense Department's current budget is "not sustainable," and he must scale back or eliminate some of the military's most prized weapons programs.

Heck, I can't imagine better news for the new President than a Pentagon that's on board with wiping out the budget bloat of hardware boondoggles.

Bipartisanship…

…at least in a nostalgic sense, seems to be busting out all over. Diane shares a little Ike love over at Tough Donkey, sending me scrambling for the latest fundraising missive from my own personal Congressman, which leads off with these words worth repeating...

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross."

Dwight David Eisenhower
April 16, 1953

Remember respecting the office and the man, regardless of party? You must be near as old as I am...

Headlines.

New-Home Sales Hit 12-Year Low in November

Safer and sounder all the time.

Bush tops 'most admired' poll

Whoa! Down is up!

AOL pulls plug on Netscape Web browser

In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

Bush to veto defense bill after Iraq objects

Iraq objects? I thought we bought Iraq.

From the "War is good business" file.

Via Dave Johnson at Seeing The Forest…

…today's defense spending is 14% above the height of the Korean War, 33% above the height of the Vietnam War, 25% above the height of the "Reagan Era" buildup and is 76% above the Cold War average.

That's one expensive boogeyman they've built up, huh?