Pentagon drafting plans to bomb Iran

What the hell. We can't win two wars, so let's have three! These people are seriously nuts. Oh, but the plans are to "just" bomb Iran's ability to help the insurgents in Iraq. Uh, ok. And what do we do when the Iranians decide to flood across the boarder and hit us back? Of course, this is exactly what Bush wants to have happen - he wants all out war with Iran. The problem is the Iranians know that we don't have the ability anymore to fight a third war against them. So what the hell is Bush doing? We have an idiot as president. Read More......

"I need to wake up" Open Thread

We all need to wake up. Below is the video of "I need to Wake up," which is the Academy Award nominated song from Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore has been in the news a lot lately. I can't stop thinking how different the world would be if Al Gore was actually been elected in 2000. How many people would still be alive? Thousands. Gore knew Bin Laden was a threat. And, we wouldn't be in Iraq. New Orleans would still be a vibrant city. And, maybe the polars bear wouldn't be drowning.



Thanks Digby. Read More......

Secret club of right wingers and theocrats can't find a GOP candidate to love

Life's tough these days for the hard core leaders of the hard core right wing. They're having a hard time anointing the next GOP nominee. They've been huddling at a top-secret meeting in Florida trying to find someone to love:

The event was a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club whose few hundred members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Although little known outside the conservative movement, the council has become a pivotal stop for Republican presidential primary hopefuls, including George W. Bush on the eve of his 1999 primary campaign.

But in a stark shift from the group’s influence under President Bush, the group risks relegation to the margins. Many of the conservatives who attended the event, held at the beginning of the month at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla., said they were dismayed at the absence of a champion to carry their banner in the next election.

Many conservatives have already declared their hostility to Senator John McCain of Arizona, who once denounced Christian conservative leaders as “agents of intolerance,” and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, a liberal on abortion and gay rights issues who has been married three times.

But many were also deeply suspicious of former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts; the council has been distributing to its members a dossier prepared by a Massachusetts conservative group about liberal elements of his record on abortion, stem cell research, gay rights and gun control. Mr. Romney says he has become more conservative.

So, try as they might, apparently, McCain, Giuliani and Romney can't pander enough to the wingers.

This AP article about Romney's polygamist ancestors probably won't help him with the theocrats. And, a new Quinnipiac poll that Josh Marshall posted showing homo-loving, anti-gun, pro-choice Rudy with a big lead is probably making some heads explode down there at the secret club meeting in Florida. Read More......

Death of a gay rights pioneer

Washington Post editorial:

EVERY MOVEMENT for equal rights has its pioneers. Some are well known: Rosa Parks, César Chávez, Betty Friedan. Then there are those who display unparalleled courage but never get the recognition they deserve. Gay rights activist Barbara Gittings was one of those people. She died of breast cancer at her home in Pennsylvania on Feb. 18; she was 75.

The Austrian-born daughter of a U.S. diplomat, Ms. Gittings came out in the 1950s, a time when few homosexuals were seen or heard openly. In May 1965, four years before the Stonewall Riots in New York City that ushered in the modern gay rights movement, Ms. Gittings and 25 other homosexuals picketed the White House to protest employment discrimination in the federal government.

The sign she carried -- "Sexual preference is irrelevant to federal employment" -- is now at the Smithsonian....

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Bush and Rumsfeld broke the Army. Now, they're breaking the lives of soldiers.

Never, ever should anyone in the Bush Administration be allowed to utter the phrase "we support the troops." This week, we saw just how the Bush Administration has neglected and abused the troops who were injured in the Bush-led war. The Washington Post series on Walter Reed has exposed the brutal treatment experienced by injured U.S. soldiers and their families at the hands of the Bush-led government that sent them to war. Unfortunately, Walter Reed, the flagship medical facility in the Army, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Columnist Ann McFeatters visited Walter Reed this week. She isn't buying the spin from the military leaders:

But the point is that crumbling infrastructure, inhumane bureaucracy and inadequate treatment for mental disorders have been known about for years and have been permitted to continue.

The month before The Post’s series ran, a conference on “quality of life” problems faced by soldiers, their families and civilian staff at Walter Reed found a long list of “issues.” They included: soldiers not getting benefits to travel as scheduled; lack of direction for emergency family care; unequal benefits based on the locale where a soldier is injured and not on the extent of injuries; and no overall plan to help wounded warriors through their convalescence.

While the Army is responsible for Walter Reed, there is a larger problem. And, that starts at the top.

Given that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld had no real plans for the post-war period, it's not a surprise that the care of our soldiers never registered with them. "Support the troops" makes a great slogan. But, as we all know, actions speak louder than words with that crowd. McFeatters nails the situation:

When former defense chief Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush were planning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, did they never think to determine how the wounded would be helped? Did they not know that today’s injured soldiers are dealing with far more horrific injuries than in the past because battlefield medicine keeps more of them alive?

Walter Reed is supposed to close in 2011. But facilities to handle its patients have not been built, renovated or expanded. Funds may not be scarce for cool new weapons, but they are exceedingly scarce for real soldiers.

If the Army is broken, as many believe, Rumsfeld and Bush broke it. And fixing it is proving more difficult than fixing the courageous soldiers the administration sent to war and who came back broken.

Bush's administration broke the Army. They're breaking the lives of wounded soldiers. Ultimately, they're breaking this country. Aren't we really better than all of this?

Thanks to (Army Vet) John in Boston for the heads up on this one. Read More......

If Al Gore wins an Oscar on Sunday will he run for the presidency, should he?

From CNN. Would you like to see Al Gore enter the race? Read More......

Top Pentagon official says getting Bin Laden -- who has "re-established significant control" over Al Qaeda -- is no big deal

Wow. Seriously. Osama Bin Laden launched an attack on the U.S. that killed 3,000 people. Looks like the Bush Administration is prepared to let him get away with it. The U.S. Army's highest ranking officer said getting the terrorist who led the attack is not that important. What kind of message does that send to the terrorists?

Earlier this week, The NY Times reported that Bin Laden and his allies have "re-established significant control" over a resurgent Bin Laden:

American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of Al Qaeda.

That disturbing report makes sense now that we know our leaders don't think capturing Bin Laden is worth the effort according to a report in today's Washington Post:

The Army's highest-ranking officer said Friday that he was unsure whether the U.S. military would capture or kill Osama bin Laden, adding, "I don't know that it's all that important, frankly."

"So we get him, and then what?" asked Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the outgoing Army chief of staff, at a Rotary Club of Fort Worth luncheon. "There's a temporary feeling of goodness, but in the long run, we may make him bigger than he is today.

"He's hiding, and he knows we're looking for him. We know he's not particularly effective. I'm not sure there's that great of a return" on capturing or killing bin Laden

The Bush Administration didn't take Bin Laden seriously in early 2001. They're not taking him seriously now.

Instead, Bush and Cheney only invoke Bin Laden and al Qaeda for their own warped political purposes. Just this week, Dick Cheney had the audacity to bring up al Qaeda in yet another partisan political attack on Democrats. What a fraud. If Bush and Cheney had done their jobs, al Qaeda wouldn't be a force anymore. Instead, the Bush Administration has enabled and emboldened the terror network. Now, apparently, it's Bush policy to let Bin Laden get away with the mass murder of Americans. Beyond shocking.

Bush and Cheney have not only enabled Bin Laden, they've made him a legend. Read More......

New Dept of Justice program for the religious right

It's designed to help spread the word that religious freedom is a-okay in America (because, being the good communist country we are, we need a propaganda campaign to ensure our "freedom"). Attorney General Gonzales is also urging Americans to come forward and report when their religious liberty is being curtailed.

Great, I'll go first. Where's the form to report that Attorney General Gonzales and his boss, President Death and Incompetence, want to force the rest of us Christians (and otherwise) to live under laws, constitutional amendments, and executive branch policies written to conform with the Baptist faith? Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Okay, get it cranking. There's plenty to discuss....but what's the latest? Read More......

Obama targets Cheney

Time to bring Cheney back to the real world.

Obama, speaking at a massive outdoor rally in Austin, Texas, said British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision this week to withdraw 1,600 troops is a recognition that Iraq's problems can't be solved militarily.

"Now if Tony Blair can understand that, then why can't George Bush and Dick Cheney understand that?" Obama asked thousands of supporters who gathered in the rain to hear him. "In fact, Dick Cheney said this is all part of the plan (and) it was a good thing that Tony Blair was withdrawing, even as the administration is preparing to put 20,000 more of our young men and women in.

"Now, keep in mind, this is the same guy that said we'd be greeted as liberators, the same guy that said that we're in the last throes. I'm sure he forecast sun today," Obama said to laughter from supporters holding campaign signs over their heads to keep dry. "When Dick Cheney says it's a good thing, you know that you've probably got some big problems."

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Blair now the "I didn't do it" guy

I thought Bush had that ground pretty well covered, but Blair is now getting defensive about his role in the miserably failed war in Iraq. It's no wonder he has dragged the entire Labour Party down since he is as out of touch with reality as Bush and Cheney.

"No American general ... was given the accountable responsibility to make sure that the first duty of any government — and we were the government — was to keep law and order on the streets," Greenstock said. "There was a vacuum from the beginning into which the looters, the saboteurs, the criminals, the insurgents, moved very quickly."

Blair rejected suggestions that U.S.-led coalition forces were unprepared for the invasion's aftermath, particularly the sectarian violence, in a BBC radio interview.

"When we removed Saddam and his police and army, of course part of the establishment of repression, then we had to rebuild it," Blair said. "Where I don't agree with Jeremy is that no one was thinking about rebuilding it. We actually were."

Touchy, touchy. There is a considerable difference between thinking about a problem and acting on those thoughts. Blair was all too happy to charge into war with Bush but despite the rumors (that his own team no doubt started) that he was there to moderate Bush, he did nothing and still has nothing to show for his supposed efforts. Combined they all convinced themselves that flowers would be welcoming them and that somehow things would all just take shape the way Chalabi and the neocons said it would. Guess again. Read More......