NBC to blame for Bush starting speech early

I'd like to think that NBC was getting even for the story earlier in the day that Bush has been spying on the phone calls of American journalists. A boy can dream. Read More......

Conservative former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough reportedly says Bush has "contempt for democracy"

He reportedly said this tonight regarding Bush illegally spying on Americans. Someone has GOT to the get the video of Scarborough tonight. Read More......

CNN accidentally shows Bush practicing the speech

Why does CNN hate America? Read More......

Desperate PR stunt open thread

UPDATE: Uh oh. No 'God bless America' at the end of Bush's speech?

Why not just put 5,000 animal-human hybrids along the Mexican border?

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FBI says journalists' phone records are fair game

My favorite quote in the story:

The official said [it] was wrong to suggest that ABC News phone calls were being “tracked.”

“Think of it more as backtracking,” said a senior federal official.

Oh, so the Bush administration isn't tracking journalists' phone cals, they're backtracking journalists' phone calls. Well I feel better now. Read More......

Republicans are running out of folks to blame

Now that Republicans control all three branches of government, they're running out of people to blame for the mess they've made out of our country. But don't think that's stopped them. I look at this issue in today's Monday Morning Blogger on Politics TV. Read More......

Al Gore's movie is coming out soon

Atrios says one opening night show is already sold out in NYC (get your NYC tix here).


Background from Working for Change:

In the years since his dramatic "loss" in 2000, he has, largely under the media radar, been practicing a form of retail politics: traveling the globe with a computer slideshow on global warming, educating small crowds, trying to boost the public profile of the problem through sheer force of door-to-door persistence.

At one of those presentations, Hollywood producer Laurie David was in the audience. Galvanized, she recruited a team of producers, filmmakers, and philanthropists, and together they persuaded Gore to star in a documentary based on his climate slideshow. Deadwood producer Davis Guggenheim was brought on to direct, and the movie was done in little over a year.

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Tune in Ed Schultz radio show at 430pm Eastern time today, he's interviewing ABC's Brian Ross, likely about new media spy story

Find Ed Schultz on your local radio. To listen live online, just click the "Listen Live" button at the top of that page.

Hopefully this is the story Ross will be discussing, new allegations that the White House is spying on American journalists at the NYT, Washington Post and ABC News. Read More......

Conservative commentator uses Hitler's treatment of Jews as example of how to deal with America's Latino "problem"

Okay then. Tell me again what country we live in?

[Bush] lied when he said: "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it's just not going to work."

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

Ah, the good old days.

Then again, this administration has obviously learned quite well from Hitler with regards to squelching domestic dissent, outlawing civil liberties, and slowly slowly step-by-step stripping away any semblance of a free society. And they're getting away with it, because the people are letting them get awway with it. Read More......

CNN: Alligators and the Duke rape case are bigger stories than Bush spying on America's media

Nothing on CNN. Nothing at all about the breaking news that the Bush administration is allegedly spying on the phone calls of journalists from ABC, the Washington Post, and the NYT.

CNN, the only cable network that supposedly still reports "real" news has been absolutely silent.

But if you want to learn about alligators eating women, please do turn on CNN. Oh yeah, Bush's "big" immigration speech is another top story on CNN. Yes, much bigger story than finding out the president is spying on America's journalists. Read More......

Open thread - and a question

Anybody got suggestions for an online service to make greeting cards from my own photos? I don't want to print them on my printer, I want a service to make them for me so I can have lots and lots of thank you cards to send out to folks, things like that. Is it better going to a local printer, or better (and cheaper) just doing it online somewhere, and if so, where? I know CafePress, one of my t-shirt companies, offer the service for like $7 for 10 cards or something like that. Any thoughts?

As always, this is one of those topics that I think might help a lot of you to get answers on, so I'm putting it to all of you. Thanks. Read More......

Big brother is watching

...and listening. Read More......

BREAKING NEWS: Senior federal source tells ABC that Bush is tracking their phone calls to sources, doing same to NYT and Wash Post

We warned last fall that an CNN's Christiane Amanpour was possibly being targeted by the NSA. The story was poo-poohed. Now ABC reports that it, the New York Times and the Washington Post are being monitored by US spy agencies and all of their phone calls are being tracked.

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

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Rumor that Blair will step down by next January

CORRECTION: While in the title of this post I correctly said "early next year," I accidentally wrote in the post itself "early next week." What my friend was told was that Blair will step down early NEXT YEAR. Sorry about that.

NOTE FROM JOHN: I'm hijacking Chris' post to let you in on a rumor I heard yesterday. According to a friend who heard it from Tony Blair's people themselves, Blair has total offical Washington that he's stepping down by EARLY NEXT YEAR. I don't have anything further on it, but thought I'd share since Chris had a new Blair post up anyway. JOHN
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With a 26% approval rating, I think Gordon Brown ought to ignore him and press on with the change. The UK has had enough of Blair and his poodle politics, his war mongering, his Soviet-style spying on everyone and his efforts for an eternal reign. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?) It's time to move on whether Blair likes it or not. With his support already bottoming out with the public, Blair's threats seem to be nothing more than hollow words.

Close allies of Tony Blair say that he has warned Gordon Brown he will not endorse him as his successor if he is "deposed" as Prime Minister before he is ready to stand down.

Mr Blair is said to have issued the threat last week after Mr Brown recalled the way Margaret Thatcher was forced out by her own party in 1990. "Remember that when Margaret Thatcher left, it was unstable, it was disorderly and it was undignified," the Chancellor told GMTV.

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In this ring, the Senate GOP vs. the House GOP

These are tough times for the Republicans. The President is tanking. The right winger theocrats are mad at the Republicans as John notes below. The Washington Post, meanwhile, is focusing on how the GOPers are fighting among themselves:

From immigration policy to energy to emergency spending, House Republican leaders are publicly breaking rank with their counterparts in the Senate, fearing that Senate efforts at compromise are jeopardizing the party's standing with conservative voters.

The breach in congressional leadership has been especially stark in the past two weeks. As the Senate returns to the immigration issue this week, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said House Republicans will not agree to any plan granting illegal immigrants a path to citizenship that does not require them first to return to their home countries. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) dismissed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's proposed $100 rebate for gasoline as "insulting" and "stupid." And House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) declared a Senate-passed, $109 billion bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, hurricane relief and a bevy of home-state pet projects "dead on arrival."

They're collapsing. The Republicans on the Hill marched in lockstep behind Bush. They gave him everything he wanted. Now, that their great leader is imploding in the polls, they are lost. They don't know how to lead and they're turning on each other. Read More......

Someone left the door to the hen house open

And look what got out.

Some of President Bush's most influential conservative Christian allies are becoming openly critical of the White House and Republicans in Congress, warning that they will withhold their support in the midterm elections unless Congress does more to oppose same-sex marriage, obscenity and abortion.

Oh yes, because what the majority of Americans are most concerned about right about now is gays getting married, bad words, and abortion. Yes, that's why Bush is sinking in the polls. Not enough gay-bashing.

Please do focus on these issues, Mr. President and Senator Frist. PLEASE. It will be a pleasure to watch the Republican party become a permanent minority party of out-of-touch un-American wingnuts and extremists for an entire generation. Read More......

Monday Morning Open Thread

What will this week bring? Read More......

Bush intelligence chief Negroponte denied Bush was monitoring domestic calls 3 days before USA Today reported it was

Spare me the parsing. When you compile a record of everyone I've talked to on the phone in my entire life, that's monitoring. Read More......

Open thread

I'm off to bed. Read More......