Former NBA superstar: "I hate gay people"

Or perhaps you just hate yourself, sweetie.



You can listen to the bigot, Tim Hardaway, formerly of the Miami Heat, give a live interview. Fortunately, the hosts were quite taken aback and called him on his hate. Read More......

More cool stuff

You may recall that a few weeks ago, during Bush's State of the Union, I started playing around with "tag clouds."

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, tag clouds basically look at the recent content on your site and display it, visually, based on the frequency with which key words are used. Words used more often are larger, words used less often, smaller. In my post, I used the technology to take a look at Bush's State of the Union addresses since he took office, in order to get a sense of what key words he was most interested in citing in his speeches.

Anyway, I was playing with it on this site, and got the idea that it might be interesting to compare what words/issues we talk about the most here versus other top progressive blogs - sort of a not totally scientific zeitgeist of what the blogs are thinking, as it were. So, I've set up a comparison at the bottom of the AMERICAblog home page - scroll all the way down, you'll see it - of live tag clouds from 9 of the top progressive political blogs. I just set it up this afternoon, so it only reflects the last 6 or 8 posts or so, but eventually it will display the words most used during the past 3 days, larger words used more often, etc. It will update several times a day, hopefully. I'm not sure what this will tell us, if anything, but it could be interesting. So check it out.

I've grabbed a screen capture of the tag cloud set-up earlier today, it looks like this.

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Pentagon's Preference: Known felons okay, being gay, no way

Aaron Belkin over at Huffington Post points out the ridiculous way the military discriminates against gays and lesbians relative to the open door for known felons. From The Huffington Post:

The New York Times and Associated Press reported today that the number of felons allowed to serve in the military has surged since the invasion of Iraq nearly four years ago. The data, which were obtained by the Michael D. Palm Center at UC-Santa Barbara, show that both the military is letting in more recruits with serious criminal backgrounds, records of drug abuse, inferior educational attainment and other qualities which require a so-called "moral waiver" to allow young Americans to don a military uniform and deploy to the frontlines. It is a measure of how desperate our armed forces are to fill their ranks with bodies to fight in an increasingly unpopular war. (The data are posted at palmcenter.org)
...
The problem is that the Pentagon's current personnel policy is utterly irrational. Under its "don't ask, don't tell" policy, it has fired over 11,000 capable troops, including nearly 1000 considered mission-critical and over 300 foreign linguists, just because they're gay. This despite overwhelming evidence that letting known gays serve does not impair cohesion, recruitment or effectiveness.

Mighty smart bunch they have running things over there at the Pentagon.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Here's a prime example of someone the Pentagon would have no problem with. Read More......

GOP launches attack from their "war room" on Iraq Vet Patrick Murphy (D-PA)

After Pennsylvania's freshman Democratic Representative Patrick Murphy, an Iraqi war vet, delivered his amazing floor speech last night (which you can see here), the GOP's "war room" launched an attack. And, of course, the GOP's attack came via the Moonie paper.

Funny how the GOP uses a "war room" in the very safe and protected confines of the Capitol building to criticize a member of Congress who actually served in the war that the House is debating. Murphy's office responded:

"Congressman Murphy is absolutely proud of his service and the work done by the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq. The right wing's go-to move is to try and smear veterans. Fortunately, Pennsylvanians understand that it's no contradiction that Congressman Murphy is both proud of his service and opposed to the Bush administration's wrong-headed policies in Iraq."

Of course, the GOP can't figure that out. They don't know that it's possible to oppose Bush's mis-guided war while still supporting the troops -- even when members, like Patrick Murphy, who served in Iraq -- explain it to them.

I'm sure the GOP doesn't see any irony in their use of the term "war room" to attack a real war vet. But they're messing with the wrong guy. This is all a political game for the GOP. For soldiers like Murphy, it is life and death. Read More......

You can't teach an old ExxonMobil new tricks

Remember the "news," just a few weeks old, that ExxonMobil was giving up its old ways, and would no longer be threatening our very existence for a quick buck by spreading anti-global-warming propaganda?

Seems the lure of the almighty dollar was stronger than the prospect of being responsible for ending all life as we know it. Huff Post has more.

PS Dear ExxonMobil, don't think that we've forgotten that in addition to being polar-bear killers you also hate gays. Don't believe me? Then would you believe Fortune magazine? Read More......

Al Franken declares his candidacy for the US Senate from Minnesota

Good video. Long video (for YouTube), at almost 9 minutes, but good video. Comes across like a nice, smart, regular guy.

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If you're from Mississippi, State Farm Insurance will no longer cover you

Wow, is that because State Farm doesn't like black people, or southern people? A rather heavy-handed response, and one that's inviting immediate federal intervention.

From AP:

State Farm Insurance Cos. is suspending sales of any new commercial or homeowner policies in Mississippi starting Friday, citing in part a wave of litigation it has faced after Hurricane Katrina, a company official said Wednesday.

Mike Fernandez, vice president of public affairs for State Farm, said Mississippi's "current legal and political environment is simply untenable. We're just not in a position to accept any additional risk in this homeowners' market."

Translation: Sure we insured you, but we never thought we'd have to pay. Read More......

Readers from 82 countries visited AMERICAblog in the last 10 hours

I was just looking through the data of a new service I'm using to get a better sense of the blog traffic, and saw that in the past ten hours the service has been up, we've gotten visitors from 82 countries (or so). That's amazing. And I'm not saying this to pump AMERICAblog - any blog our size would have the same diversity of traffic, I think - I'm just simply amazed that our sites have this kind of reach. I mean, we all know the Internet is a big series of tubes that goes everywhere, but having worked with the Net since 1995, I'm still amazed by the power of this thing. 82 countries, and in just the past half day. Wow.

Click the chart below to see the detailed traffic:

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Bush admits that he lied about Iran

Bush today told Ed Henry of CNN, as I noted in the post below, that he has no idea if the senior levels of the Iranian government know anything about supposed weapons being supplied to insurgents in Iraq. Bush today:

We know the Quds Force is part of the Iranian government. I don't think we know who picked up the phone and said 'the Quds Force go do this,' we know it's a vital part of the Iranian government.

The problem is, this outright contradicts what Bush's own "senior military" advisers told the American media just three days ago. They said they knew quite well who told the Quds force to "do this."

And I quote the AP:

At issue was a weekend briefing in Baghdad at which three senior U.S. military officials said that the ''highest levels'' of the Iranian government had ordered the smuggling into Iraq of high-tech roadside bombs that have been killing American soldiers.

Highest levels. When in fact, during today's press conference, Bush had no idea if the highest levels in the Iranian government knew or directed the weapons infiltration, and he outright admitted it.

So, congrats to CNN's Ed Henry - the only journalist to actually do his job during the press conference and catch Bush in an outright lie. Read More......

CNN's Ed Henry actually asked Bush a hard question

He was the only one so far who did (I'm watching the press conference on delay on TV). Henry just blasted Bush with the following question, paraphrased: You're telling me that you have no idea if the Iranian government is behind the attacks in Iraq, so you're outright contradicting your own people who briefed us only two days ago?

Bush then responded that it's true, we have no idea if the senior levels of the Iranian government are aware that this is going on, or have even approved it. Bush is trying to say that an outfit of the Iranian government is the one providing these weapons, so the Iranian government is responsible. But that doesn't sound like it's what his briefers told the media only two days ago.

Time to check the briefings from two days ago and compare the lies. Read More......

Bush speaks and spins at 11 am press conference

If you're watching, comment away. We'll try to provide some of the highlights -- such as they are.

UPDATE: He's a moron. Bush just said that it doesn't matter if the Iranian government knew, or didn't know, that some Iranian nationals were helping distributed IEDs in Iraq. And I quote:

"Here's my point, either they knew or didn't know. What matters is, is that they're there. What's worse, that the government knew, or that the government didn't know?"

Well, with all due respect, you simple-minded idiot, if you're threatening to declare war on the Iranian government for actively helping the insurgents, then yes, it's far worse if the government knew because that would mean they were actually helping the insurgents.

But what Bush is suggesting is that it doesn't matter if the government of Iran is to blame, we're going to blame them anyway. What's the difference? That's like asking "what's the difference if Saddam didn't really have any ties to Al Qaeda, if the US didn't really have a plan for victory in Iraq, if Bush didn't really give the troops the equipment and numbers they neeed for victory?" Read More......

GOP doesn't even have a strategy in House debate

The House Republicans are a pathetic bunch. No wonder they can't come up with a strategy to fight the Iraq war. They can't even figure out why they're fighting against the anti-escalation resolution. But, to defend George Bush, those GOPers are vigorously opposing the resolution. Based on Dana Milbank's profile of the GOP's leader, Adam Putnam (R-FL), it's clear they really have no idea why:

There was good reason for this anxiety. As head of the House Republican Conference, the 32-year-old redhead is leading his caucus into a public-opinion meat grinder: supporting President Bush's increase of U.S. troops in Iraq, against the wishes of more than 60 percent of Americans. Worse, he is leading them with a pair of somewhat contradictory arguments: (a) that the Democrats' resolution opposing Bush's Iraq buildup is a meaningless gesture, and (b) that the Democrats' resolution will cause the end of civilization as we know it.

"This is a rather toothless 97 words," Putnam began in his floor speech, calling the proposal "a narrow nonbinding resolution that misses the bigger picture." Minutes later, he changed his view. "The majority would have us consider a resolution that puts us one day closer to handing militant Islamists a safe haven the size of California."

So which one is it: toothless or catastrophic?

Actually, the GOP's response to the Iraq war for the past four years has been toothless and catastrophic. Read More......

Invade Malta!

I always thought it was likely that arms dealers were probably having a field day in Iraq -- and that such a likelihood would have more impact than anything neighboring governments could do. I haven't seen much reporting on this, but apparently the Italian government recently broke up a smuggling ring connected to Iraqi insurgents. Italian police "said 500,000 AK 47 rifles and ten million pieces of ammunition were traced, but no weapons were confiscated." If they were traced but not confiscated, I imagine they were already delivered. So who do we get to invade over this shocking and horrifying meddling in our (er, Iraq's) internal affairs?

Malta!

And, apparently secondarily, Libya, Russia, and China, all of which, along with Malta, apparently have citizens involved in this weapons arms ring. I'm sure taking on that group won't be a problem. But let's start with Malta: those damn Maltese are on top of our . . . limestone! Read More......

General Caldwell on Iran weapons connection: "People want to hype this up"

Just saw General Caldwell, the chief spokesman in Iraq, on CNN, disputing the U.S. claim that the highest levels of the Iranian government are supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq:

"I think people want to make an inference. I think people want to hype this up."

Yep. Hype. Classic hype from the Bush team. But they've been smacked down on this one by the military.

I'll get the transcript when it's up.

UPDATE: Adding to the hype is CNN's Barbara Starr which is making Atrios go insane. Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

The ice storm has hit D.C. Not as bad as what some places are getting.

The real storm in D.C. is in the House of Representatives. The GOPers maintain that passing the resolution will embolden the enemy. Seems like the enemy is already pretty damn bold. Our number one enemy, Osama Bin Laden, is still alive -- 5 1/2 years after he launched the deadly attack on the U.S. The insurgents in Iraq have engaged the military of the world's superpower for almost four years. They've figured out how to kill our troops and shoot down our helicopters. That seems to have emboldened them.

George Bush and his failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have emboldened the enemy. Republicans on Capitol Hill have made that possible, too. Instead of political slogans and spin, Bush and the Republicans owe the troops and the American people a strategy. But, there is no strategy. That's why the Democrats won in November. That's why we're finally seeing a debate about Iraq.

Okay, time for coffee. Start threading the news. Read More......

Pentagon continues to lower the bar

Over 100,000 waivers for new recruits with criminal backgrounds over the last three years.

According to data compiled by the Defense Department, the number of Army and Marine recruits needing waivers for felonies and serious misdemeanors, including minor drug offenses, has grown since 2003. The Army granted more than double the number of waivers for felonies and misdemeanors in 2006 than it did in 2003. Some recruits may get more than one waiver.

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Open thread

Oops. Read More......