"The share of Americans who say they approve of the job Bush is doing inched over the 50% mark to 51%. No president who was at or above 50% at this point in an election year has lost." - USA Today

If it's any consolation, the Pew Research Center has Bush at 46% job approval.

(c/o Froomkin)

The AP has a headline today:

President, Veteran Mariner Exchange Balls

The comment section below is open for all of your dumb jokes. Winner gets a prize! (Really!)

Today, Alan Keyes declared that Senators shouldn't be elected.

He's currently running for senate.

Remember when Alan Keyes had a talk show? It was called "Alan Keyes is Making Sense."

It was cancelled because he didn't.

Alan Keyes said Friday he would like to end the system under which the people elect U.S. senators and return to pre-1913 practice in which senators were chosen by state legislatures. The Republican Senate candidate in Illinois, asked about past comments on the election process, said the constitutional amendment that provided for popular election of senators upset the balance between the people and the states.

"The balance is utterly destroyed when the senators are directly elected because the state government as such no longer plays any role in the deliberations at the federal level," Keyes said at a taping of WBBM Newsradio's "At Issue" program.

Of course, the state level has power because we elect the state level Government alongside our state level representation. Losing a level only further abstracts the rule of the people, and the power of the vote. What Keyes is actually asking for is more appointees, which in turn means less accountability- and we all know how great that turns out.

...your weddings never actually existed. In news that will bring joy to all good Christian hearts, the San Francisco weddings permitted under Gavin Newsom were declared null and void.

The victory is for straight men who can once again go out and bang women they meet at 2AM in the bathroom stalls of bars again, knowing that it's got the Jesus stamp of approval because it's not happening alongside the desecration of marriage that was happening over in California. But more importantly, it's a victory for Jesus Christ himself, who totally hates gay people. Like Del and Lyon:

"Del is 83 years old and I am 79," Lyon said. "After being together for more than 50 years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time."

Meanwhile, the Governor of New Jersey has resigned because he is gay. Well, because he was married, and having an affair with another man. It's inevitably what's going to happen if you force gay people to "act straight." The great irony and tragic statement about homosexuality in this country is that Governor McGreevey, while a closeted homosexual, came out against Gay Marriage.

Related to all of this: if you feel like giving money away, Stan Matsunaka deserves some Benjamins- or at least some Lincolns. He's running against the woman who started all of this, Congresswoman Musgrave of Colorado, who wrote the Constitutional Amendment to ban Gay Marriage. Nothing would make me happier than taking this bag of venom out of Government. It's not just gays she hates, but the environment, too: This week, she's posted an audio blog about how too many animals are on the endangered species list- "1300 species have been listed as endangered, and less than 30 have been removed from that list. Changes need to be made." Her changes? Lighten up the endangered species act to include fewer animals.

Bring the bling for Stan Matsunaka, won't you? I gave $10.00.

Remember the outline I gave you of all the Orange Alerts, and how, a few weeks after all of them, the intelligence folks come out and say, after a review, that there's nothing going on? Well. Uh:

The Bush administration has discovered no evidence of imminent plans by terrorists to attack U.S. financial buildings, nearly two weeks after the government issued startling warnings about such possible threats, a White House official said Thursday.

Some documents and computer files seized in al-Qaida raids showing surveillance of U.S. financial buildings had been accessed for unknown purposes this spring, months later than authorities had previously disclosed, the official said.

Officials had said earlier that some files had been reviewed as recently as January.

I mean, we knew this, but the White House was all "No, no, this is a real alert." Now even the White House isn't pretending. That's kind of new, no?

"America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive,' Cheney said in remarks prepared for delivery Thursday. 'A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans... The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity.' - WaPo

Kerry's statement that Cheney refers to was this:

"I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history."

No one wants to impress Bin Laden with our sensitivity. But we do want to be sensitive to the thousands of people who are on the fence- on the fence about joining the Iraqi Resistance, on the fence about giving some cash to Al Qaeda, on the fence about looking the other way when they see a training camp or some other activity. Once they join up, it's a different story, and if they're going to kill us then obviously we have no choice but to kill them. But the oversimplification that Cheney resorts to is not only inaccurate, it paints a picture of his alternative strategy that fuels Al Qaeda recruitment, but also alienates us from the people who can help us.

But is a "sensitive" war on terror all that different from a "compassionate" war on terror?

In our war on terror, we are showing the world the strength of our country, and by our unity and tolerance and compassion, we will show the world the soul of our country. - GW Bush, April 30th 2002 at the Commonwealth Club

John Goss:

"I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified," the Florida Republican told documentary-maker Michael Moore's production company during the filming of the anti-Bush movie "Fahrenheit 9/11."

A day after Bush picked Goss for the top U.S. spy job, Moore on Wednesday released an excerpt from a March 3 interview in which the 65-year-old former House of Representatives intelligence chief recounts his lack of qualifications for employment as a modern CIA staffer.

"I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background probably," Goss is quoted in an interview transcript.

"And I certainly don't have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day: 'Dad you got to get better on your computer.' Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have." - Reuters

Moore mentions that Goss was in charge of Congressional oversight of the CIA precisely when it failed to do its job, and also, precisely when it should have been giving us accurate information about WMD's in Iraq. But it didn't because he didn't.

There's more. When Valerie Plame's name was leaked by the Goblin Novak, people were pressing for an investigation, as you may recall. Goss was less than interested, and managed to put it all into perspective for us: "Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation," Goss said.

Got to love it. Digby also points out that Goss inexplicably presented a notecard on the senate floor with a quote from John Kerry, dated to 1977, where Kerry called for cuts to intelligence funding. I think Digby is on to something- that the nomination is a means to create problems for President Kerry.

There's also the bit about hiding on the 9/11 widows... but we've already figured out he's a scumbag, right?

Halliburton Co. did not adequately account for more than $1.8 billion it billed the government for work in Iraq and Kuwait, a published report on the findings of Pentagon auditors said Wednesday.

The results of the audit, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, were the latest financial headache for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, which filed for bankruptcy protection last year to resolve billions of dollars in pending asbestos claims. The $1.8 billion amounts to 40 percent of the $4.18 billion KBR has already billed the Pentagon for its work feeding and housing military troops. - AP

I remember some right winger, back when I reported these charges were issued, claimed that Halliburton would be cleared of any wrong doing after the investigation was completed.

Yeah, it wasn't.

Looks like America will have an international team observing our electoral process. It's not the UN, but you can expect it to stir up the same warm feelings in the hearts of Snake Charming Baptists that the UN does.

Speaking of which, a guy came into work the other day with a "Get US out! Of the United Nations" tee shirt, which, even if it had been grammatically accurate, is the stupidest fucking tee shirt I've seen since swinging through a South Carolina flea market when I was eleven.

For one, the anti-UN sentiment that lingers in the American bloodstream was boiled mostly by the UN's opposition to the war in Iraq. But what people seem to forget is that the UN wanted inspectors to finish the process of inspection before it would authorize an invasion. Bush claimed the UN wasn't living up to its promises, but they were really just trying to avoid the deaths of 1000 US Soldiers for no reason. Now, you can say anything you want about the war, but part of that logic has to figure in that the UN was right in saying that there weren't any weapons of mass destruction and that the "ineffective hand wringing and deliberation" that were supposedly making the UN obsolete was actually precisely what needed to be done. The people who want America out of the UN are living with a remembered resentment but aren't re-evaluating the reasons for that resentment. The UN did not fuck up on the issue of WMD's, we did. Even if you think the Iraq war was good for the sake of ousting Saddam Hussein, you gotta give the UN credit. It was right when they said they couldn't find WMD's.

The other contingent of people who hate the UN are the snake charming Baptists I mentioned before- the people who think that the UN is bringing us closer to the one world government of the Antichrist and that maybe, just maybe, the Antichrist is Kofi Annan. He is a black guy, after all.

What gets me about this argument is the idea that, you know, what if they are right, and by all biblical standards, the UN is an organization of secular antichrists hellbent on world domination, and that the US, under the wise Christian leadership of GW Bush, is the one lone messianic savior of all good Christians? What gets me about this idea is that, god almighty, if God sent us George W Bush and the NeoCons as his representatives, then I'll take hell any day. Because only the crazy born again folks could enjoy the Republican concept of heaven, where "all God's children" are white, straight Republican men and the women who love them and don't ask questions, where passion is replaced with sterility and Jesus laughs about how the unemployed need to work harder to find good jobs and oh yeah, the war was a great idea.

If I believed in it, I wouldn't think the afterlife has much of an interest in the American political system, though you know what they say, what happens here affects the rest of the world. But it seems that the heaven being promised to me by the likes of George W Bush is a pretty boring place, an eternity of John Ashcroft singing "Let the Eagle Soar". Part of the problem, as a humanist, is that I've got to take seriously the problems befalling mankind. I don't have the luxury of Bush and Ashcroft- get rich and spend it in the afterlife. Who do presidents bomb when they die?

So on Earth, in the more or less immediate future, things are looking pretty grim, but none of the solutions seem to have Earthly manifestations. A battle against infidels who show up for work on time spawns an attack on a nation of secular arabs and kills 30,000 of them, and that's called a solution. Unemployment? No programs for that just yet, but we have a great new law that will protect God's version of marriage as envisioned by the Catholic Church two thousand years ago. So, so far, for all of our heavenly sacrifices down here on Earth- sacrifices of flesh and blood, sure, but also sacrifices of tolerance and compassion- God, as it were, doesn't seem to be raining a torrent of miracles and joy upon the ol' United States.

But it seems like maybe the UN would have saved us a lot of misery if only we listened to it. And so it reminds me a bit of the parable on the West Wing a while back, when President Bartlett had to consider commuting a death sentence? You might remember it.

There's a man in a town where it's been raining for days and days, and so the Mayor says that everyone should evacuate. But one man says no, he'll stay because he has faith in God. And so the rain water gets higher, and kills his sheep, and his wife implores him to leave, and he says no, he will stay because he has faith in God. So then his wife leaves, begging him, but he won't leave, his faith is so strong. So then a rescue boat comes, and says they will save him, but he won't, because God will see him through. They leave, and the rain continues, until he is on his roof and it collapses, and he drowns. He ascends to heaven and he says to God, "Why did you take me, when I had so much faith in you?" And God replies, "I sent the mayor to warn you, I killed your sheep to warn you, I sent your wife to warn you and then finally sent a rescue boat to save you, and you turned them all away. So I ask to you, why, when I was telling you all of this, did you refuse to listen to a word I said?"

The American Prospect has a handy little overview of every Orange Alert since 9/11, and what happened to bring the alert back down. A summary of what they said and then, what they did:

SEPTEMBER 10-SEPTEMBER 24, 2002: [...] after receiving what officials called "an abundance of credible intelligence" indicating terrorists were planning attacks to coincide with the September 11 anniversary..." What happened? The level was dropped "based on a review of intelligence and an assessment of threats by the intelligence community, as well as the passing of the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks". They also cited the capture of the Buffalo Six who were apparently giving "support" to Al Qaeda. But let's look more closely at the first part, okay?

"A review of intelligence and assessment of threats" means they looked at what they saw before and apparently decided it wasn't a real threat, am I right?

FEBRUARY 7-FEBRUARY 27, 2003: Ashcroft got his sticky fingers in this one, where everyone was panicked and bought duct tape? Sources said recent information suggests that al Qaeda might be further along than previously thought in procuring elements to make a so-called "dirty bomb" -- a non-nuclear device that would spew radiation upon exploding... So what happened there?

...officials said that a claim made by a captured al Qaeda member that Washington, New York or Florida would be hit by a "dirty bomb" sometime this week had proven to be a product of his imagination.

MARCH 17-APRIL 16, 2003 This was the period at the start of Gulf War Two. The war started, so Ridge figured we'd have multiple attacks. There was no specific evidence. What happened? The war "ended."

MAY 20-MAY 30, 2003 "The U.S. intelligence community believes that al Qaeda has entered an operational period worldwide, and this may include attacks in the United States," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a statement yesterday. My favorite quote from an unnamed official: "Something is up somewhere." What happened? "The intelligence community has concluded the number of indicators and warnings that led to raising the threat level have decreased, and the heightened vulnerability associated with the Memorial Day holiday has passed..."

DECEMBER 21, 2003-JANUARY 9, 2004 They're coming, and they're French- Merry Christmas! He said the move was the result of a "substantial increase" in the volume of intelligence pointing to "near-term attacks that could either rival or exceed what we experienced on September 11." The Government, under the Presidents masterful leadership, dispatched teams to major cities which spent all day scanning levels of radiation. The government also ordered that several French airliners be grounded, because there was suspicion that they would be flown into New York or Las Vegas. What happened?

FBI has concluded the information that led to a nationwide hunt for five men suspected of infiltrating the United States on Christmas Eve was fabricated by the informant, and the agency called off the alert sparked by the information today.

One of the names we gave the French to monitor for air travel was a six year old child. No arrests came as a result of this terror warning.

AUGUST 1, 2004 - XXX:: A combination of three year old intelligence and a Pakistani computer hacker who was working as a double agent for Al Qaeda, we rewarded our man inside by leaking his name to the New York Times (without telling the Times he was undercover) and managed to smear Howard Dean when he suggested that the attacks were politically timed to counteract the Democratic Convention. What happened? It's still on going, but I have a hunch.

Here's an article from CBS news about new photos of abuse of prisoners in Iraq:

The photos were taken June 29, just one day after the U.S. handed over political sovereignty to the Iraqi government.

"There was abuse of prisoners, some very recent - everybody was displaying welts, bruises and burns," says Mike Francis, an embedded reporter from The Oregonian newspaper. "They also found implements like rubber hoses, exposed electrical wires, chemicals, and it appeared as if they been interrogating them."

Francis uncovered the photos while he was embedded with the Oregon guard last month. At first, no one would speak on the record. But after Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers were the alleged abusers, these soldiers wanted the world to know that they were trying to do the right thing.

"They began to give aid immediate give aid to the prisoners," says Francis." In one case they set up an IV feed, because the guy was pretty badly dehydrated, and they were starting to take away the weapons from guards."

The Americans radioed back to their superiors for guidance. The biggest shock came when the American troops got their reply. "One of the generals they were speaking to told them directly, 'You have to leave, stand down and leave,'" says Francis. CBS News was at the interior ministry that day, and witnessed the Oregon guard pulling out.

Francis says the U.S. soldiers were "baffled, and confused and angry, frankly." Before the prisoners were returned to their jailers, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad told CBS News that they had a serious heart to heart talk with Iraqi officials. The message: you can do what you want in your own country, but you'd better not do it like this.

Juan Cole has the best explanation of this story.

Khan had been secretly apprehended by Pakistani military intelligence in mid-July, and had been turned into a double agent. He was actively helping investigators penetrate further into al-Qaeda cells and activities via computer, and was still cooperating when the "senior Bush administration" figure told Jehl about him.

Khan's name was leaked to give credibility to the terror alerts that were unleashed when swarms of Democrats descended on Boston to nominate John Kerry. The not at all politically motivated terror alert based on information we had for three years already was at the expense of a double agent who was working with the US to uncover new plots- obviously one of the toughest insiders for our intelligence to get. It's worth mentioning that this doesn't just set us back as far as what he could have found out, it is also going to make it harder for anyone considering passing info along to us to do so due to the risk of being exposed.