Opposition to legalizing marriage for gays is down

Good. As the article notes, this will make it harder for the Republicans to use it as a way to get out the vote this fall (basically, they run ballot initiatives and other things on anti-gay issues, hoping that the issue will convince far-right Republicans to go vote, and while they're there, vote for Republican candidates).

The Republicans are also using gay adoption as a technique to get out their vote as well, putting gay adoption bans up for votes in 16 or so states.

It's really kind of amazing how vicious the Republican party has become. Having a legitimate difference on taxes or some other issue is one thing, but bashing gays simply because you think it will help you get more votes for Republicans, that's just sick. And it's not what the party used to stand for. Of course, the party stands for absolutely nothing now anyway. More on that later.

One more added thought. This is indicative, I think, of how the conventional wisdom is just wrong. America is not getting redder, or at least not redder in the sense of more Republican, or more Bush Republican. Just like the soccer moms and every other moniker used to describe some massive new trend in America, I think the pundits got the red state thing very wrong.

America simply has not been happy at the Democrats' lack of backbone and lack of a plan. They have not embraced Republicanism, they only voted for it by default. And now that the people have had 5 years of a Republican White House, US House, US Senate, and US Supreme Court, they're no longer enjoying living in GOP nirvana. And this poll shows it.

Gay marriage remains a divisive issue, with 51 percent opposing it, the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found. But almost two-thirds, 63 percent, opposed gay marriage in February 2004.

"Most Americans still oppose gay marriage, but the levels of opposition are down and the number of strong opponents are down," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "This has some implications for the midterm elections if this trend is maintained. There are gay marriage ballot initiatives in numerous states."....

The number of people who say they strongly oppose gay marriage has dropped from 42 percent in early 2004 to 28 percent now. Strong opposition has dropped sharply among senior citizens and Republicans.

People are now evenly split on allowing adoptions by gay couples and six in 10 now favor allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

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If you're ever up for murder...

...for the love of God, get a haircut. Read More......

Lieberman complains to local radio interview that the bloggers are out to get him

And he's right, we are. Read More......

Pennsylvania religious groups helping Santorum are breaking the tax laws, says CREW

The New York Times reported yesterday on four Pennsylvania groups that have combined into a political operation called the Pennsylvania Pastors Network. No surprise, based on their first meeting, their goal is to re-elect Santorum:

The first training session, on March 6 in Valley Forge, included a videotaped message from a single candidate, Senator Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican who faces a difficult re-election fight.

"I encourage you to let your voices be heard from the pulpit" on vital issues, Mr. Santorum said, urging the pastors to champion a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, according to a recording made by a person at the session. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a liberal group critical of the effort, provided the recording to The New York Times.

After the tape, organizers offered participating pastors copies of the senator's book "It Takes a Family."

The problem is that, as The Times piece notes, this effort could well run afoul of federal tax laws governing charities and politics which is a new-found priority for Bush's IRS Commissioner:

The training session was two weeks after the internal revenue commissioner, Mark W. Everson, spoke at the City Club of Cleveland saying, "We can't afford to have our charitable and religious institutions undermined by politics."

Now whether the IRS under Bush would ever go after a right wing group is a real question. Enter CREW.

Citizens for Responsibility in Ethics in Washington (CREW) is holding Everson to his word by filing an IRS complaint against two of the groups:

CREW’s executive director, Melanie Sloan said “it appears that rather than engaging in legal, non-partisan get-out-the-vote efforts, the real mission of the Pennsylvania Pastors Network is to assist Senator Santorum in his re-election campaign. This is exactly the sort of political activity prohibited by IRS law.” Sloan continued, “the IRS has already taken action against a liberal church in Pasadena, California for much less egregious activities. If the IRS is serious about enforcing the law equally, it will take action against those involved in creating the Pennsylvania Pastors Network as well.”

These conservative groups expect to operate unfettered even if it violates the law because they have friends in government. CREW doesn't care who their friends are. Read More......

The Dixie Chicks are back. And they're pissed.

GREAT new song. You can hear it for free on their home page, just turn up your speakers, it plays automatically - lyrics are there too.

It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should.

Read More......

Bush's creepy twitch

The man is not well. Watch the entire video and notice the very strange facial tick, Bush's head jerks to his right shoulder.

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Open thread

News news news, give me more. Read More......

General Pace, when you do plan on speaking up?

I'd like to know when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff plans on speaking up about the mess in Iraq. According to George Bush, it's all Pace's fault what's going on over there.

"I'm going to make up my mind based upon the advice of the United States military that's in Iraq," said Bush, who spoke with U.S. commanders in Iraq earlier from the White House via videoconference.

"I'll be making up my mind about the troop levels based upon recommendations of those who are on the ground."

Bush keeps telling us that the reason we're staying in Iraq is the military's fault. The reason things are going to hell in a hand basket? The military's fault. Every single decision that Bush has made regarding Iraq? The military's fault.

According to George Bush, he's relied on the generals on the ground in Iraq for instructions - the number of troops, armor, plans for victory, all the responsibility of the guys on the ground. Well, the boss of the guys on the ground is General Pace. So I think it's time we heard from him about why he screwed up.

General, do you agree that Iraq is all your fault? Is it true that you've gotten everything you wanted from the beginning and you still botched the entire operation, killing over 2,000 US service members and injuring tens of thousands? Is it true that you're the reason we're staying in Iraq, that you're the reason Bush is telling us we're winning?

We just want to clarify whether George Bush is right that General Pace and the military brass are the ones to blame for this entire fiasco.

Cuz, funny, but I have a feeling General Pace and the military brass aren't at all pleased with how Iraq is going, with the fact that Donald Rumsfeld is their Secretary of Defense, or with the fact that George Bush is their commander in chief. I suspect the military brass isn't at all responsible for our troops numbers in Iraq, for our strategy, or even for the fact that we're staying. I think George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld ignored the advice of the military throughout this entire war, and the military is having to implement a pretty crappy plan for victory that was shoved down its throat.

The thing is, our illustrious General Pace won't come clean with the American people or his own men and admit it. Pace keeps defending this failed war like a good lapdog rather than an honest general who actually cares about his troops and his country. And that makes this his fault.

The funny thing is that Colin Powell, for all of his foibles, had no problem standing up to his Commander in Chief, Bill Clinton, when he thought his CINC was wrong on gays in the military. Hell, none of the joint chiefs had a problem taking on Clinton over the gays. (The joint chiefs also didn't have a problem joining together to fight against the great cartoon menace threatening our troops.) Yep, no problem joining together to take on their commander in chief when they thought the gays were a threat, but when it comes to a war based on a lie that's an absolute disaster, the joint chiefs are mum. I guess bashing a fag, or a cartoonist, is a lot easier than actually standing up for your own men and your own country when it really counts.

And in that regard, in view of their collective cowardice, Bush is right - General Pace and the joint chiefs really are to blame for the Iraq debacle. If they had a pair of balls and an ounce of patriotism between the five of them, they'd have taken a public stand against this growing quagmire by now, rather than sending their own men into a war they knew, and know, they can't win. Read More......

Why did George Bush deny his Christianity on TV yesterday?

Bush was asked yesterday about whether he believed we were in the end of times, the Biblical period that marks the appearance of the Rapture (i.e., good people rise to heaven, bad people stay on earth). The audience broke into pretty loud laughter, clearly mocking the question, and Bush smirked and hemmed and hawed, clearly uncomfortable.

Arianna has the exact transcript:

The first question came from a woman who asked: "[Author Kevin Phillips] makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?"

The president was clearly taken aback. He reacted as if he'd just seen a burning bush -- or had just been asked a really hard math question.

First he hemmed. Then he hawed. Then he hemmed some more.

"Um... uh... I... The answer is, I haven't really thought of it that way," he finally spit out. "Here's how I think of it. The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow." He then abruptly Left Behind the question at hand and went off on a long, standard-issue answer about 9/11 and fighting terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here.

Now, Arianna's take is a bit different than mine. She expresses shock that Bush would claim to have never thought about the Rapture, as a born again Christian.

I would tend to go another route with all of this.

Namely, that Bush got asked a serious question about a serious tenet of his religious faith, in response the audience hooted and hollered in totally mockery of that faith, and all Bush could muster was a grin. There was no affirmation of his faith, no chastizing of the audience to simmer down, nothing.

I can't think of a more Biblical allegory of Bush's approach to his own supposed faith.

I've written before about Bush's embarrassment over the evangelical wing of his party, which he claims to represent. He doesn't like them, he's not like them, and he's embarrassed whenever any of them raise their head and go public in his presence. He finds them embarrassing, which means he finds his own self-professed religion embarrassing.

"I'm guess I'm more of a practical fellow." That's Bush's response to a question about the Bible. So you mean you don't believe what the Bible says about life, because you're, you know, a practical fellow? I thought you were a literalist? I thought you spoke to God and God told you to invade Iraq and save the Middle East for all of Christianity?

Am I wrong? Were we all wrong? Was Bush's embrace of born-again America just another political strategem?

Uh, yeah.

And now that I think about it, Arianna's take is the same as mine. This guy's a faker, even when it comes to a public affirmation of his own faith. Read More......

Markos does not represent the far left

Finally, someone in the mainstream media, gets it. And it's Peter Beinart, which is kind of interesting right there, since a lot of the blogosphere has been kind of miffed at Peter for some of his why-can't-we-be-just-like-Republicans writings (yeah, I'm over-simplifying).

Anyway, coming from not your usual leftie, this is a good epiphany, and even better that it's in the NYT, and in a rather excellent review of Markos' and Jerome's new book (you can order it via the top of the DKos site). Good on all accounts.

Here's what Peter had to say:

What Moulitsas, along with his co-author, emphatically does not sound like is a denizen of the far left. Ever since Howard Dean's presidential campaign, from which many of the party's Internet-based critics sprang, commentators have depicted the liberal blogosphere as a revolt against the centrism of the Clinton years. But "Crashing the Gate" is explicitly nonideological. "Even though we have described the obstacles to modernizing the progressive movement," they write, "our criticisms aren't fueled by significant disagreements of vision." Most people in the Democratic Party basically want the same thing, they suggest. The insiders are just too timid and outdated to achieve it.

We want to win. Read More......

Randy "Duke" Cunningham's stuff to be auctioned off in LA on Thursday

Oh, please, someone buy me something good :-) (I don't really have space for the commode, but that would be funny.)

From AP

Silver-plated candelabras. A cedar-lined lingerie cabinet. Persian rugs. An oak hutch carved with lions' heads, tree limbs and acorns.

The spoils from former Rep. Randy ''Duke'' Cunningham's bribery scheme -- a household of valuable antiques, rugs and home furnishings -- will be auctioned off by the government Thursday to help cover the back taxes and restitution he owes.

The public was given a preview Tuesday of the loot, which was laid out in orderly rows in a warehouse near Los Angeles....

There is a leather sofa. A solid cherry sleigh bed. Nearly a dozen rugs. Marble-topped nightstands, armoires and sideboards, many featuring stained glass, brass fittings and intricate carvings.

''There's a real mix of different styles -- Art Deco, French provincial, American pioneer,'' said Britney Sheehan, who works for the company that will auction the goods.

Ok, I found the auction house, though it's not clear how you know what stuff is the Duke's.

Oh please... and if you go, I want photos. Read More......

ACLU defends blogger threatened by "ex-gays"

Yes, there are religious right wackos who think you can pray away the gay. Or, rather, a lot of them don't think it - they've actually been caught cavorting in gay bars - but they use the "you're cured!" issue to try to fight against the civil rights of gays and lesbians.

Anyway, they threatened a blogger for making a parody of an "ex-gay" billboard, so the ACLU, God bless 'em, stepped in. Read more about the blogger and the case here at his blog. Read More......

Washington Post blogger called Coretta Scott King a "communist" on the day of her funeral

That's nice. Apparently the Washington Post is now going for the all-important racist readership in Washington, DC.

You do have to love the Post. Earlier this year they freak out when a bunch of liberal blog readers post mean comments on their blog, then they turn around and decide to re-enter the blogging fray by hiring a 24 year old kid with no journalism experience who's a far-right, FAR right, Martin-Luther-King-hating Republican writing for a rather far-right Republican blog. And this is going to help because?

I think what the other bloggers, like Jane, are saying is correct - this is gonna be fun to watch. The Washington Post is having its jump-the-shark moment. They're putting their credibility in the hands of a 24 year old kid with a proven record of being, well, a bit kooky.

The Post has two options, both of them bad. Either the Washington Post is heavily editing what this guy writes, and in that case it's no longer a real blog (can you imagine a real red-stater, or any real blogger, letting a Washington Post editor rewrite their material). Not to mention, if the Post edits what this guy writes then the Post OWNS what this guy writes as they've obviously signed off on it. Or, the kid isn't being edited at all, in which case the Post is trusting their credibility and the credibility of their real journalists, to Ann Coulter's younger brother. Because, in the end, the Post can play the game of claiming their .com doesn't represent the "real" Washington Post, but that redstate herring isn't going to work - if it says "Washington Post" at the top of the screen, that's all folks need to know.

The real irony is that right after having what they defined as a horrible experience with the blogs (i.e., people were mean), the Post decides to embrace "the blogs" by nuzzling up to its worst elements, right-winger bloggers. If the Post thought left wing blogs can be tough, I truly can't wait until they realize how bad things are on the freeper side of the digital divide. We at least actually do represent the mainstream of America - an angry mainstream, to be sure, but mainstream. The right-wing blogs represent Idaho, on a good day.

This entire Washington Post blogger experience, it's like watching a puppy walk into the Coliseum. You're horrified by what you're about to see, but at the same time, you really want to get some popcorn.

Let the games begin.

PS Don't be confused by the link I provide above, it IS the Washington Post guy who said this. Read More......

Top Bush FBI international terrorism official turning into another Brownie?

From Reuters:

The FBI official in charge of international terrorism before September 11 said on Tuesday he did not know an agent had warned three weeks before the hijackings that he suspected Zacarias Moussaoui was plotting a terrorist act....

[the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui told officials three weeks before the attack that he] believed Moussaoui was a Muslim fundamentalist who was learning to fly a jumbo jet, and that the agent believed he was a terrorist who could be possibly planning a hijacking.

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Joint Chiefs Chair admits yet another Iraqi misjudgment

Serious question: Is there any aspect of the Iraq war that the Bush administration did not misjudge, underestimate or get just plain wrong? Anything?:

The U.S. military's top commander said Wednesday that he underestimated the extent of the reluctance of the Iraqi people to accept a unified government, and he thought citizens would more quickly embrace the idea of a central government.

"I think that I certainly did not understand the depth of fear that was generated by the decades of Saddam's rule," said Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview en route to Saudi Arabia. "I think a lot of Iraqis have been in the wait-and-see mode longer that I thought they would."

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Bush' s alleged political capital is gone

How can you lose something you never had? The fact Bush said he had political capital was all the traditional media. Whatever. It's gone:

What became of that political capital? "I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war," Bush told reporters. "Social Security - it didn't get done," he added.

With many Republicans putting distance between themselves and Bush on Iraq, it wasn't clear where exactly he was spending the capital.

"What political capital does he have? He doesn't have any on Iraq," said Stephen Wayne, a professor of government at Georgetown University. "It was a bogus claim. He was emboldened by his election victory, which he viewed as a referendum on his presidency and on his party."

Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Okay, crank it up. We've got work to do here.... Read More......

Josh takes on the Washington Post

And he even wrote the entire piece without calling Fred Hiatt a whore. The man has the control of, well, someone with a lot of control. Read More......

Fred hearts George

Surprise. More editorials from the conservative establishment media lavishing raspberries on Bush and his Iraq policy. I guess 2,000 American dead and a civil war isn't enough of a disaster for the Post. Then again, they own this war as much as Bush does, and they know it - both whored a lie on to the American people, and both know they will be judged by the success or failure of Peewee's little adventure in Iraq. That's why both Bush and the Washington Post are desperate to spin the imminent dissolution of Iraq into a victory - to admit defeat would be to admit they were wrong, and complicit. Murderously so.

The problem is, to quote President Laura Roslin:

The war is over. We lost. Read More......

Tomorrow's news of interest now

The Arctic is melting.

Bush is giving millions to faith-based hocus pocus.

Surprise! Pentagon finds it did not break the law by buying off the Iraqi press. Bet they were worried about what that review would find.

NYT: MoDo rips into Bush's FBI for not stopping 9.11 when they had Moussaoui in their hands before the attacks. MoDo on Rummy:

But why can't W. just quit him?

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Open thread

Overnight things of interest? Read More......