Coulter's hate has been a financial windfall for John Edwards

The woman should be in prison. Has the Secret Service investigated Coulter yet for wishing John Edwards assassinated? Oh that's right, George Bush's Secret Service only investigates liberals, while conservative man-whores are given free rein of the White House without even getting the basic background checks required of other frequent White House visitors. Why should we expect the Secret Service to investigate death threats against a Democratic presidential candidate? That would require them to do their job in an impartial manner. Just like they didn't care when Pat Robertson suggested that terrorists nuke the State Department. It's not their job to care, it's their job to protect Republicans. More from AP. Read More......

White House trying to quell outright revolt by GOP in House and Senate over Iraq

From AP:

President Bush is sending his top aide on national security affairs to Capitol Hill on Thursday to confront what has become a tough crowd on the Iraq war.

A majority of senators believe troops should start coming home within the next few months. A new House investigation concluded this week that the Iraqis have little control over an ailing security force. And House Republicans are calling to revive the independent Iraq Study Group to give the nation options.

Read More......

Open thread

Well, I've just learned that you can type at pretty much 100% capacity without using your left thumb. Joe and I just spent the afternoon at the emergency room. I had a little mishap with the new Cuisinart, a wad of whole wheat dough, and my left thumb (apparently, the blades are quite sharp - who knew?). It was one of those moments where you freeze in time for like a quarter of a second and think "I did not just do that." 3 hours later, 2 of which Joe was sitting alone in the waiting room, my thumb is all wrapped up in a nice bandage going down to my wrist (I'll spare you the gory details, as Joe might pass out). Fortunately all is now well, my thumb remains in one piece. And in an odd way, I've continued the family tradition of really klutzy emergency room visits, starting when I was a young kid and thought I could balance on top of a basketball (I couldn't), continuing with my brother who was running around in his superman outfit and tried to fly through the basement screen door (it was locked and he flew through the glass), or the time one of my siblings got hit in the head with a baseball bat (and actually, I think all 3 of those occurred within the same 2 week period, which made the hospital grill my mom quite intensely about just what she was doing to her kids). My friend Ari and I are heading out for some dive Italian food to make the hurt go away.

Of course, the larger question is whether I can now write off my doctor's bill since I'm using the emergency room visit as blog content? Hmm....

PS Joe made me swear I'd note that HIS visit to the emergency room two weeks ago was much more dramatic and traumatic than mine. And actually it was. But I'll let Joe share his own adventures in insurance-land with you in another post. Read More......

PBS hires GOP consultant to give "non-partisan" feedback on Dem presidential debate (and then they don't tell anyone he's a Republican)

Ah that liberal media. Read More......

Religious right leader Bob Jones III on being Mormon

A Larry King transcript from March 3, 2000 has Bob Jones III talking about Mormons:

JONES: Mormonism is pantheistic -- it is a religion of -- well, it doesn't teach the same thing about Jesus Christ that we teach. Mormonism teaches that Jesus Christ...

KING: Came back,

JONES: ... were brothers, that they were spirit children that God and his wife fathered in heaven, and that when there's a Mormon marriage in the temple and so forth and so on, that that couple when they die go to a planet and people it with spirit children, just like God and his wife people heaven, and that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers, and that Lucifer rebelled, and Jesus sided with the father. Therefore, he had -- the Bible teaches very clearly that Jesus Christ is God. He is not a created being, he is God. He is in essence -- he is very God of very God.

I bring this up because anyone who thinks the religious right is going to vote for a Mormon is deluding themselves. These people think Catholics are the anti-Christ. You think they're going to embrace Mormons? Read More......

Senate subpoenas Cheney's office, forcing him to claim executive privelege

But of course, Cheney just said he and his office are not part of the executive branch. But he'll have to change his tune immediately in order to squash the subpoena by claiming executive privelege. And that is why the subpoena was issued right now, to force Cheney to recant his recent claim that he's a new and independent 4th branch of government. Two points for the Dems. Read More......

Where is Susan Collins?

Dick Lugar is speaking up about the Iraq debacle. But where are the supposed "moderate" Republicans? You know them, the folks who got elected in moderate, reasonable parts of the country, like Maine, by pretending to not be the neanderthals that most of the Republican party leadership is nowadays.

And the prime neanderthal-denialist is Maine GOP Senator, Susan Colllins. Collins loves to be second. If there's a trail to blaze, Collins will sit back quietly, quaking in her boots, until other more courageous, "real" moderates like Olympia Snowe stick their necks out first. So now that Lugar has stuck his neck out, where are the other GOP Senators, like Collins, who claim to be concerned about the war? Where is Olympia? Where is John Warner? Where are Sununu and Smith?

I was a Republican, a long time ago. And the "moderates" haven't changed a bit in their temperament since that time. They claim to represent the middle, but all they represent is themselves - that is, when they're not busy hiding. Read More......

Do you love the kid or not?

It's time for Dick and Lynne to prove whether they love their new grandson or not.

Bush is now threatening to veto the DC Appropriations bill because it no longer includes gay-bashing language that the GOP has put in there for years. The language banned the DC government from using federal funds to in any way support domestic partner benefits, civil unions and the like (not that the DC government was using federal funds, but it was a nice chance for the GOP to gay bash anyway). Now that the Democrats have dropped the GOP gay-bashing language from the bill, George Bush is threatening a veto.

First off, has Bush learned nothing from the fact that his vice president has a daughter, Mary Cheney, who is a lesbian, and who just had a child - in DC - with her lesbian partner, Heather Poe? What Bush is saying is that should Heather end up in a hospital in DC, dying, Mary won't be allowed to see her because she's not "family." What Bush is saying is that if Mary and Heather's baby, Samuel David Cheney, ends up in a DC hospital with a serious illness (and forget him if he ends up in Virginia) only one parent (we're not sure which) will be allowed to visit because both clearly aren't the biological parent of their baby. (And it's interesting that Mary and Heather, who live in Virginia, chose to come to DC to have their baby - a city in which they have far more rights as a lesbian couple than they have in Virginia. Yet now those rights are in danger of being taken away by the man Mary helped get elected. Way to go, mom.)

Second, Bush supports civil unions for gay couples. He said so on ABC right before the 2004 elections. From the NYT:

In an interview on Sunday with Charles Gibson, an anchor of "Good Morning America" on ABC, Mr. Bush said, "I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so."

So, why is he now going to veto legislation that supports his own policies? Answer: because Bush has nothing left to stand for. As he sinks lower in the polls he can only define himself by saying "no," and by falling back on tried and true Republican cliches: lowering taxes; scaring the public; and bashing gays (and their babies). And if Bush has to say no to Samuel David Cheney, Mary and Heather's baby, in order to appease the bigots at the Family Research Council, then the baby is toast. Hell, the baby is the easiest target (reminds me of an old ad from the Children's Defense Fund (at left)).

George Bush is willing to veto Mary Cheney's baby. And not a word from Dick Cheney or Lynne Cheney about the legislative child abuse Bush is about to inflict on their grandson. It's bad enough Dick and Lynne Cheney sat by for so many years as the GOP (and Dick's own boss) bashed their daughter, but you'd think that the Cheneys would finally come to the defense of their own innocent grandson, Samuel David. The Cheneys have a simple choice. They can side with their own flesh and blood, or they can side with the people who bashed Mary and Heather and their newborn child.

So the question remains, Dick and Lynne, do you love the kid or not?



UPDATE: Pam has more. Read More......

Status quo in Anbar is not "victory"

Rob Farley, who does great work on foreign policy and security issues at both Tapped and LGM, has an excellent analysis of the current situation in Anbar. The idea that some tribes in Anbar are sick of al Qaeda is hardly shocking, and while it's nice that they're not cooperating with foreign fighters, working with Sunni tribes on military operations is hardly an unmitigated win for the U.S. *or* Iraq itself. These are, after all, the same groups that we were fighting before we decided to join up with them. As Rob explains,

The US is currently enrolling in Iraqi police and military units tribesmen who were, ten months ago, part of the insurgency. The loyalty of such individuals can hardly be taken for granted; the tribal elite may decide, six months from now, that they are no longer pleased with the US and shift against us. Even if the tribal elites remain loyal, the alliance poses a larger problem for basic US war aims. The alliance with these tribes serves, necessarily, to strengthen them as political units . . . invariably weaken[ing] the central government. As the tribes are also among the least progressive and least interested in democracy of any Iraqi political constituencies, strengthening them also helps undercut efforts towards democratization.

I would even take it a step further: in addition to the potential for tribal leaders to take the money and run, it's not just that the tribes are illiberal, but there is a very real possibility that they could turn against the Iraqi government. Training and arming the disparate groups against each other in a burgeoning civil war is not a good strategy. NOT a good strategy. Read More......

Lugar's Iraq speech making waves on Capitol Hill and beyond

Senator Dick Lugar's speech on Monday night is making waves. This morning, the Senator appeared on the Today Show (where he had to defend himself against a quote from the brilliant war strategist/FOX News pundit, Fred Barnes).

For the past few months, there has been an expectation that some Republican senator would finally stand up to Bush on his failed Iraq policy. Bush has been leading the GOPers off a political cliff with his failed strategy -- so something had to give. "Everyone" seemed to think it would be John Warner from Virginia. Instead, it was Lugar. And, the ramifications are just beginning.

Lugar's speech finally made the front pages today of the Washington Post and the New York Times. Both articles highlighted the major split between the stalwart, steady reliable Republican from Indiana and George Bush.

The Washington Post

The harsh judgment from one of the Senate's most respected foreign-policy voices was a blow to White House efforts to boost flagging support for its war policy, and opened the door to defections by other Republicans who have supported the administration despite increasing private doubts.

The New York Times:

Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee and a steadfast supporter of the president, has conspicuously broken ranks with him on the Iraq war, warning that the United States’ standing in the world could be irreparably eroded if the White House does not change strategy soon.

The questions is whether harsh judgments and conspicuously breaking ranks will have any impact on George Bush. Nothing else has had an impact. Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Chris Matthews just did an interview on the Today Show about Elizabeth Edwards taking on hatemonger Ann Coulter. Matthews kept saying how Coulter sells books, like that's an excuse for all her venom. He did say, "My hunch that in human terms, Elizabeth Edwards has won this round." Um, that's because in human terms, Ann Coulter isn't human. Ann Coulter is the face of the Republican party. She is their voice.

So, with that, start threading. Read More......

A decision that only Bush could think makes sense

Tony Blair as special Middle East peace envoy. The strongest international friend that Bush has, who pro actively joined the invasion of Iraq, where his troops are being charged with torture and murder yet he has made every effort possible to safeguard the alleged criminals against EU laws, he's Bush's man for the job. If the world needed yappy little pup to roll over and speak for a dog biscuit and accept a condescending little pat on the head, of course he's the guy, but the problems the world faces in the region are serious.

The reality of the Middle East today is that Blair has been an active participant of so many problems and is not viewed as a neutral player. Besides being heavily tainted by the war in Iraq, Blair has shown no results in ten years as PM that give us any indication that he will be able to bring people together now that he is outside of real political power. Do we really need Bush's poodle tripping over every other team in the region who is trying to negotiate the peace process?

Blair has no more credibility than Karen Hughes had when she was supposed to be America's great answer to problems in the Middle East. Confirming Blair for this position only shows again the lack of seriousness on the part of the Bush administration who believes the answer to every problem is another crony who everyone else outside of the White House views as just another prop with zero legitimacy who is promoting the Bush agenda. Read More......

Laura Bush says nutrition important for AIDS patients

Sure, that's important but so are condoms, medicine, nurses and doctors which are lagging from her husbands moralistic plan for addressing the problem. If she wants to talk about vegetables and good nutrition, then perhaps she could explain how the hell people are supposed to work to either buy treatment or grow crops to survive when they are dying. I give Bush credit for promoting a lot more money to Africa than most countries but diverting over a billion dollars for moralizing is a senseless waste of money.

If over time the GOP wants to moralize, and they always love to moralize about sex, go ahead with church funds and private donations, but the problem today is trying to keep pace with the people who are dying who struggle to find anything that even remotely seems like medical care for most of us. Maybe the First Lady can spend some quality time with dying parents and orphaned children and report back how relevant veggies and well rounded meals are when people can't even find a doctor, let along a nurse, let alone medicine or a parent. It's great to see her raising the profile of the issues but I'm fed up with responding to real problems with Southern Baptist moralizing, which is a big part of Bush's program. Read More......

More deadly problems with cheap imports from China

In this day and age, why do people have to die to highlight these problems? This latest case of tire recalls is only now going public because the importer of the cheap tires is being sued in connection with deadly road accidents that could be directly related to defective tires. The importer is alleged to have known about the problem two years ago but only came forward - to ask for help for funding the recall - after being sued.

Until recently, the Chinese government has shown little interest in product quality and safety but then again, the importers have shown little interest either. Both parties have been happy because China has a fast growing export business and importers have cheap products that can provide comfortable margins when sold in quantity.

The loser in all of this has been the consumer, who is asked to be the guinea pig in the process. At the same time we see the Bush administration aggressively trying to remove the rights of Americans to sue, dismissing all lawsuits as the "McDonald's coffee is hot" category. America can be excessive with lawsuits, but especially without safeguards for consumers as we see these days, there are few options left. Call me old fashioned, but I believe consumers in a country like the US should expect much more. Read More......