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It's about time some of these troops are finally getting to come home from Iraq. We're still going to have 50,000 troops there so this doesn't mean the end of casualties by any means, though the troops in Iraq have seen a drastic reduction in casualties as Iraqi troops take responsibility for their own security.

The official end to Operation Iraqi Freedom is August 31st. But today's exit of the last Stryker Brigade into Kuwait signals an end to the United States' active combat role in that country, and serves as notice that the promises made to leave are being kept.

The remaining 50,000 troops will continue to leave the country through December, 2011, when the US military presence is scheduled to end completely.

This does signify fulfillment of President Obama's promise as well:

February 28, 2009:

The plan will withdraw most of the 142,000 troops now in Iraq by the summer of next year, leaving 35,000 to 50,000 behind with the limited missions of training and advising Iraq security forces, hunting terrorist cells and protecting U.S. civilian and military personnel. Those "transitional forces" will leave by 2011 in accordance with a strategic agreement negotiated by President George W. Bush before he left office.

"Let me say this as plainly as I can," Obama told the Marines. "By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end."

As Combat Troops Roll Out, The Media Rides Along:

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A gracious and healing letter.

Not long ago, I sat here in my living room in Albany, Georgia for an afternoon of deep conversation with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous. As he has done in public, Ben movingly apologized for the fact that the NAACP was initially hoodwinked by Breitbart and Fox into supporting my removal. I told him what I want to tell you.

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When Spike Lee finished filming his latest HBO documentary in Louisiana on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he had no idea of the oil spill that was to come months later. The filmmaker had to work quickly to change the fourth hour of the film to include some of the effects of the biggest oil disaster in history.

"We were finished shooting before April 20th, but when the rig blew up, and I would say 11 people got murdered, we had to rethink the whole thing," Lee told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Tuesday. "So we made nine trips back and so the last hour of the four-hour piece all about BP."

The new documentary, "If God Is Willing & Da Creek Don't Rise," premieres on HBO Monday, Aug. 23 at 9:00 pm ET. Lee also produced the 2005 documentary "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts."

Lee is appalled that BP has been allowed to be the deciding authority on which claims it wants to pay.

"People here are still waiting for a lot of stuff that was promised from the havoc of Hurricane Katrina and the breach in the levees. We're getting the same thing from BP," he said.

"I think only 25% of the claims have been settled by BP and you see these commercials, [public service announcement] commercials, they run day and night. They say, like, well, we'll decide if you have a legitimate claim," he continued.

"That's like the insurance companies deciding down here," Lee chuckled. "Very few people got their money."

Lee believes that the greed of companies like BP is a true threat to the US.

"I think this is going to bring about the downfall of the United States of America," he warned. "We have people in office appointed and voted in and people in big business positions who only care about the dollar bill and people get harmed, people die. They say, that's the cost of doing business."

"That blowout preventer cost a half million dollars. Now, who knows how many billions later they're paying out? If they would have just done what they were supposed to do, but MMS was bought out," Lee said.

Hundreds of people attended a screening of the new film Tuesday at the Mahalia Jackson Theater. Phyllis Montana-Leblanc, one of the stars, focused on the advances made in an interview with NOLA.com.

Despite some lingering problems, “we’ve made a lot of progress here in New Orleans, depending on where you live,” Montana-LeBlanc said.

The city still doesn’t have a hospital in eastern New Orleans where she lives, she complained. And Nicholas — the 13-year-old son of her sister, Catherine Montana-Gordon — still can’t return to New Orleans “because the schools here are turning away special needs children.” But the progress in New Orleans is “indisputable,” Montana-LeBlanc said.

Even for the SEC, which is known for mere wrist-slapping when Wall Street's Masters of the Universe are concerned (but please, remember how bravely they made an example of Martha Stewart), this is a joke. I'm very pleased that the judge is calling them to task on it:

A federal judge refused on Monday to accept a $75 million settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Citigroup, marking the second time this year that a judge has questioned whether the agency had exacted the proper sanction from a major bank.

During a hearing on the settlement, Judge Ellen S. Huvelle of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia raised questions about the SEC's investigation into Citigroup, and how it decided on the size of the penalty and on the individual executives who also face sanctions, according to lawyers who were present. She asked why company shareholders must ultimately bear the price of the sanction, and why the agency charged only two executives with wrongdoing when more senior executives were involved.

Huvelle demanded additional information from the SEC and Citigroup, ordering the parties to file briefs and scheduling a hearing for late September. Through spokesmen, the SEC and Citigroup said they would provide the judge with all the requested information.

[...] An SEC lawyer told the judge on Monday that the agency did an expansive investigation into Citigroup and could only find evidence of wrongdoing by those two executives. The lawyer told the judge that the agency did an economic analysis of the bank's alleged wrongdoing, trying to determine what gain the company enjoyed as a result of the faulty disclosures, and came up with what it considered a reasonable penalty.

Matthew Miller, a lawyer at Cuneo, Gilbert and Laduca who is representing a shareholder who has sued Citigroup executives over losses incurred by the firm, praised the judge's action.

"There's very little explanation as to why these two individuals who are named in a related administrative complaint are the only two people responsible for the conduct at issue, and why there are no more senior executives involved in this proceeding," he said.

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Sarah Palin went all Pam Geller on us the other night with Greta Van Susteren on Fox:

Palin: Ya know, it sounds cliched to say the president is disconnected from the American people on this issue, but how else do you describe it? He just doesn't get it -- that this is an insensitive move on the part of those Muslims who want to build that mosque in this location, that feels like a stab in the heart of, collectively, Americans who still have that lingering pain from 9/11.

Oh please. These drama queens on the right need to explain to us just who among the survivors of the 9/11 attacks -- let alone those right-wing bedwetters traumatized by repeated viewing of the attacks -- sees someone expressing their religion freely as an attack on them.

We know, they're out there (right, Pam?), but then someone needs to explain why we need to pay any attention to -- let alone make important decisions based on their input -- these fundamentally irrational hysteria-mongers.

CNN has taken pains to give Murdoch some PR cover with their not-so-subtle list of donors to both parties.

General Electric, which owns NBC, has also made substantial political contributions in the 2010 election cycle. For example, GE donated
$688,900 to Democrats through its PAC this election cycle compared to $410,100 to Republicans. The company has also given $75,500 to Democratic-affiliated leadership PACs and $74,500 to Republican-affiliated leadership PACs.

Meanwhile, GE has donated $237,000 to the Democratic Governors Association and $205,000 to the Republican Governors Association.

Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, has given $60,000 to the Democratic Governors Association in the 2010 election cycle, according to CQ Moneyline. Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable, a former subsidiary of Time Warner, donated $50,000 to the RGA this election cycle.

There are more, too. On the other hand, it's worth noting that News Corporation donated one million dollars to one party only, unlike the others CNN mentions.

Beyond the way it appears, News Corp. may have another problem, too.

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As Karoli already noted "News Corp. donated $1 million to the Republican Governors' Association in order for the Republican Governors' Association to mount high-profile attack campaigns on Democratic candidates." Cenk Uygur took a whack at them while filling in for Ed Schultz this week.

Uygur: Fox News came out of the closet today. Everyone with two bits of sense always knew they were a Republican propaganda machine, but today they made it official. Bloomberg News reported that News Corp, the parent company of Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post donated $1 million to the Republicans Governors Association.

Now that they're open about their orientation they are free to get in bed with any Republican they like and they've already taken full advantage.

In the recent Iowa caucus poll of Republicans, Mike Huckabee came in number one, Newt Gingrich was number three and Sarah Palin was number four, all of them Fox News employees.

In case you were wondering Mitt Romney came in second and Fox's Facebook game as we speak. According to Bloomberg, News Corps gift is the largest from any corporation to the Republican Governors Association. How's that for fair and balanced?

Is this any surprise given that the President of Fox News is Roger Ailes, who was a media consultant for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Richard Nixon? Nixon would have been so proud.

Fox News does on a daily basis what Nixon could only dream of doing to his enemies in the press.

Cenk continued with showing examples of Fox promoting their potential presidential candidates working for the network and their help in creating and promoting the Tea Party movement. He also said he didn't have any problem with what they're doing as long as we had a little "truth in labeling".

That's never going to happen since Fox will never "out" themselves to their propagandized viewers. He also slammed the rest of the media for "taking their stories at face value" and running with them. I say amen to that brother. Fox like Drudge and Politico are nothing but an RNC talking points propagators and sadly it's not just Fox that is regurgitating this crap into what we call our mainstream media which would be better labeled our corporate media.

I hope Cenk gets his own show on MSNBC. I guess we'll find out if this much truth telling is too much for the network to give him a slot.

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"How it infuriates a bigot, when he is forced to drag out his dark convictions." -- Logan Pearsall Smith.

Bill O'Reilly was all a-squawk yesterday at the prospect that someone might point out what's obvious to everyone who's watched the growing fake "controversy" over the NYC "Ground Zero" mosque -- namely, that the predicate of people's objections to it revolve around their irrational and bigoted eagerness to lump peaceful American Muslims in with a tiny handful of violent radicals.

O'Reilly: Here's the question. How does the far left survive in this country? How? That crew is so hateful, so harmful to the nation, it's amazing they have any platform at all. If you oppose gay marriage, you're a homophobe. If you want a secure southern border, you are anti-Hispanic. And now, if you think building a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero is inappropriate, you are intolerant, an anti-Muslim bigot.

... Do you see what's happening here, ladies and gentlemen? The far left will never debate the merits of the issue. They simply attack and begin branding their opponents as racists, bigots, and un-American. Let's get down to it. There are thousands of Americans who lost loved ones on 9/11. Many of these people feel a Muslim display so near the attack zone is hurtful because fanatical Muslims killed their family and friends. So, where is the tolerance toward the 9/11 families? Where is the understanding and respect for their feelings?

President Obama well understands the emotions in play, which is why he will not comment on the so-called wisdom of building a mosque so close to Ground Zero. But the far left doesn't care about the wisdom of the project because they are promoting the fiction that America is mean to Muslims. Anything that makes U.S. policy seem oppressive is embraced by these loons.

Every poll says the majority of Americans believe the proposed mosque is simply not a good idea. Nobody I know wants to violate religious freedom. Nobody wants to persecute Muslims. Nobody wants to cause trouble. What we do want is a sane country. Again, I don't know how the far left continues to survive in the USA. And that's the Memo.

A little while later, he brought on Karl Rove to affix his seal of approval -- and he only confirmed that Republicans are sinking to the lowest kind of bigotry in this affair:

Rove: They're demonstrating that they're way out of touch with the American people. This is an issue in which the vast majority of American people believe there is a freedom of religion that is ingrained in our Constitution, and that right of freedom, of free expression of religion is best exercised by not building it here.

Look, we've got a free -- in that same First Amendment, there is a right of freedom of speech. Who believes that, say, skinheads should show up at a black sorority convention and scream bigoted remarks? Who believes that there is a right of freedom of assembly? Who believes, you know, that neo-Nazis should show up at the B'nai B'rith hotel and have their meeting in the same, you know, the next meeting room?

There are rights that everyone has that it would be prudent not to exercise them at certain times, and this right that they have to build a religious building where they want should be prudently exercised elsewhere.

It does seem that Rove doesn't actually believe there is freedom of assembly. In point of fact, we do allow neo-Nazis to hold rallies in racially inflamed communities, just as we allow the Fred Phelpses of the world to show up at the funerals of soldiers.

But it tells us everything we need to know about the right-wing perspective on this that he would blithely compare Muslims practicing their religion peacefully to neo-Nazis and skinheads -- as though they're moral equivalents.

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It's an amazing thing to see supposedly serious Republican pundits insist that the option of bombing Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program is not a partisan idea. No, it will only "help" President Obama's foreign policy platform of nonproliferation and multi-national engagement. That's what Eliott Abrams, former deputy national security advisor to GW Bush, would like us to believe, in this continuing series in The Atlantic on the dialogue that started with Jeffrey Goldberg's suggestion that Israel will bomb Iran, if the U.S. government doesn't get there first.

Jeffrey quotes Denis McDonough on the "serious threat to the global nonproliferation regime," but this is an understatement. If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon during his tenure, Obama would -- in his own eyes -- see the UN Security Council's resolutions made a mockery, the International Atomic Energy Agency transformed into a joke, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty come to an end. Multilateralism a la Obama would be finished, for Iran would have proved the "international community" to be toothless or non-existent. So if the president means what he has repeatedly said about world affairs, what is at stake is whether he leaves a legacy of disaster -- again, in his own eyes. In my eyes, he would be right in so concluding: the real issue in the Middle East today is whether we, the United States, will remain "top country" in the region or will allow Iran to claim some form of hegemony.

The political side of all this is equally plain. Obama will, by all accounts, suffer a tremendous setback in November and may well be defeated in 2012. Should Iran acquire the Bomb in the next two years -- the timetable Jeffrey suggests -- Republicans will have an even stronger case that Obama has weakened our national security. The Obama who had struck Iran and destroyed its nuclear program would be a far stronger candidate, and perhaps an unbeatable one. Now, from my perspective that is no reason to stop Iran's nuclear program, but I'm a Republican.

I want to quickly slide past the disingenuous "hey, Obama would be smart if he acted like a Republican" tone of the article - it's insultingly transparent, but hey, he's a Republican. The Atlantic already has a response to Abrams' idea that bombing Iran would boost Obama's re-election odds (not a hard argument to make). And certainly the QDR 2010 and the QDR independent panel's reports reflect the position that Dems also reinforce the US" super-cop" role. I want to comment on the amazing idea that, if Iran were to develop a nuclear bomb years from now, this reflects a failure of the non-proliferation regime and the United Nations, and would render the idea of multi-nationalism "toothless or non-existent." It perhaps goes to the Republican idea that international engagement is a waste of time, that if the United States does anything on the world stage, the rest of the world will follow.

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Since silly season is now fully under way with crazy ads like this one and this new one marginalizing women, I decided to have a look at the other organizations receiving large amounts of corporate funding.

News Corp, David Koch and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce donated their future tax cuts to the Republican Governors' Association, but what about Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future, and Karl Rove's American Crossroads?

American Crossroads is the Citizens United incubator. Here are some of the bigger donors in May and June:

• $1,000,000 - Trevor Rees-Jones: Chief Oil and Gas, LLC
• $1,550,000 - B. Wayne Hughes: Public Storage, Inc.
• $1,000,000 - Southwest Louisiana Land LLC (Contran)
• $1,000,000 - TRT Holdings (Robert Rowling, Omni Hotels)

Smaller donors include oil and gas investors, private investors (euphemism for rich guys counting dividends), and ranchers.

American Crossroads does its media buys (about $340,000 in June) through Crossroads Media, and uses BlackRock Consulting. The common link there is Michael Dubke, who is best known as the man behind "Americans for Job Security", the astroturf organization that has actively opposed Card Check and the estate tax.

American Solutions for Winning the Future is the Newt Gingrich organization. Initially funded by Sheldon Adelson, it's matured into a pyramid of small donors, largely driven by the "buy your Newt affiliation with a donation" campaigns. You might remember the one last year for small businesses -- donate $2500, get a certificate and an invitation to dinner with Newt...unless you happen to be a lesbian business owner. Then it's something else entirely.

Still, Newt had some fairly large donors in June. George Osborne, a builder who makes lots of his money building government-contracted buildings, gave $50,000. Joseph G. Fogg, Guiliani supporter and true blue Republican, gave $25,000. Plains Exploration Production Co in Houston gave $100,000, Windway Capital $50,000, auto dealer Mandell Oursman gave $25,000, Hubbard Broadcasting - $25,000, Contran Corporation gave $25,000 and Trio Petroleum $13,000.

Sheldon Adelson still doesn't seem to mind funding the private jets. In June, he made a donation of $500,000.

Where Rove's organization is responsible for attack ads and media buys, Newt's is the telemarketing arm of the operation. Infocision Corporation in Ohio is by far the largest recipient of funds from American Solutions. They use Infocision for fundraising and push-polling. What isn't spent with Infocision goes to pay for Newt to fly by private jet, throw lavish parties, and travel by limo. Indeed, after Infocision, Moby Dick Airways is the single largest expenditure of American Solutions.

There is a pattern emerging here. For all the sound and fury from Dick Armey about the Tea Party taking over the Republican party, it's just smoke. What's really happening is a division of labor and outreach. Each has their own role -- Armey, Gingrich, Rove, Gillespie and Steele.

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