An Oscar for Al Gore

UPDATE FROM JOHN: Best Oscar quote ever, from Chris Connolly, moments ago, at 11:57pm Eastern, "now it gets interesting." It would have to. This is the WORST Oscars ever. They put practically every good award off to the end, didn't even bother scattering them throughout the show. Horrendous.

Best Documentary for "An Inconvenient Truth."

The Washington Post profiled the former Vice President today suggesting he is "America's coolest ex-Vice President ever." It's true (but there's not a lot of competition.) Read More......

Oscars Open Thread

We're busy watching over dinner with friends. Thoughts? Read More......

Condi says over 60% of the American people want to appease Hitler

That's the percentage of Americans who think the war is mistake. Condi thinks you like Hitler. We think Condi likes quaaludes. Read More......

GOP didn't investigate Walter Reed to prevent embarrassing Bush

Think Progress has a post with video that says everything we need to know about the GOP:

On NBC’s Meet the Press today, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) argued that the Senate Armed Services Committee did not conduct oversight of the treatment at military facilities in recent years because “they did not want to embarrass the President.”

Support Bush, not the troops is the GOP's new mantra. Read More......

Report: Top generals/admirals will resign in protest if Bush launches war with Iran

From the Sunday Times (London)

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

Read More......

Bush/Cheney ignoring the war on terror -- again

George Bush and his cronies are constantly puffing out their chests and talking tough about Iraq and terror. Dick Cheney invoked al Qaeda in a vicious attack on leading Democrats. They're sounding like they did in 2002. Same language, same threats -- but it's mostly just for political purposes. Bush and Cheney should be thinking back to 2001 when they ignored Bin Laden and al Qaeda the first time. Frank Rich shows us that it is 2001 all over again:

The White House doesn’t want to hear it now, either. That’s why terrorism experts are trying to get its attention by goingpublic, and not just through The Times. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the C.I.A. bin Laden unit, told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann last week that the Taliban and Al Qaeda, having regrouped in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States” (the real United States, that is, not the fictional stand-in where this same scenario can be found on “24”). Al Qaeda is “on the march” rather than on the run, the Georgetown University and West Point terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman told Congress. Tony Blair is pulling troops out of Iraq not because Basra is calm enough to be entrusted to Iraqi forces — it’s “not ready for transition,” according to the Pentagon’s last report — but to shift some British resources to the losing battle against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

This is why the entire debate about the Iraq “surge” is as much a sideshow as Britney’s scalp. More troops in Baghdad are irrelevant to what’s going down in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The surge supporters who accuse the Iraq war’s critics of emboldening the enemy are trying to deflect attention from their own complicity in losing a bigger battle: the one against the enemy that actually did attack us on 9/11. Who lost Iraq? is but a distraction from the more damning question, Who is losing the war on terrorism?

The record so far suggests that this White House has done so twice.

Twice.

Note to the media: Just because Bush says he's fighting the war on terror, doesn't mean it's true. Yesterday, the Army's Chief of Staff said of capturing or killing Bin Laden, "I don't know that it's all that important, frankly."

Frankly, that was the attitude of George Bush and Dick Cheney back in 2001. Look where that got us. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Iraq, Iran and the already fast-paced Presidential race are swirling around the Sunday shows today. The Senate Democrats are gearing up to rescind the 2002 war authorization -- the Republicans are still talking like it is 2002. Condi Rice is going to report on (or spin) yet another unsuccessful Mideast trip, which included a "surprise visit" to Iraq to survey the "success" of the escalation. Here's the line up:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY...: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D).

THIS WEEK (ABC...: Rice and former president Jimmy Carter.

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN), 10 a.m. [EST]: U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab.

FACE THE NATION (CBS...: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC....: Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.).

LATE EDITION (CNN), 11 a.m.[EST]: Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Reps. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie and former secretaries of state Madeleine K. Albright and Henry Kissinger.

Provide commentary and the real analysis. Read More......

Prodi government survives, for now

If Italian PM Prodi manages to survive in power for another year, it might be a miracle. Tripped up by a vote that related to the US, members of his varied coalition grumbled and handed him a defeat. After thinking more about what happens if Prodi is ousted brought back memories of Berlusconi, who could possibly take power again. The result is a temporary victory for Prodi, who will return to power, but the big question is how long Prodi's delicate hold on power will continue. Read More......

16 million Americans living in "deep or severe poverty"

Just as a select few executives are hitting highs never seen before, millions of others are dropping to depths not seen in decades. Even more predictably the negative growth has accelerated during the Bush years.

Based on the latest available US census data from 2005, the McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that almost 16 million Americans live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars -- one half the federal poverty line figure.

For individuals the "deep poverty" threshold was an income under 5,080 dollars a year.

"The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005," the US newspaper chain reported.

"That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period," it noted.

The surge in poverty comes alongside an unusual economic expansion.

"Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries," the study found.

Well, at least our corporate executives are doing better than ever and that's all that really counts, right? Read More......