Drudge violates news black out meant to protect Brit troops in Afghanistan, including Prince Harry

Imagine if a liberal Web site had outed details of our war in Afghanistan, putting at risk the lives of US coalition soldiers? That's what just happened, except it was the conservative Matt Drudge who did it. Read More......

Rep. Jack Kingston is leading the sleazy GOP attacks. And, he's an idiot.

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Open Thread

Just left a book signing for Alex's new book. There was a good crowd, including congressional candidate Darcy Burner, who is great. More after dinner. Read More......

Obama pens an open letter to the gay community. Where is John McCain's letter?

And before anyone says that these are just words, I doubt you'll be seeing John McCain's open letter to the gay community any time soon, and if you do it will talk a lot about non-discrimination but wont promise much of anything concrete. Though, the good thing about a McCain presidency is that when he institutes a draft so that he can declare war on Iran and Syria and North Korea, the gays will be staying home. Here are excerpts of Obama's letter:

Equality is a moral imperative. That’s why throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
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As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. I have also called for us to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system.

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Obama: "This was not an inevitable part of the business cycle"

Exactly.

"We are not standing on the brink of recession because of forces beyond our control," Obama told a town hall forum in Austin. "This was not an inevitable part of the business cycle. It was a failure of leadership in Washington — a Washington where George Bush hands out billions of tax cuts to the wealthiest few for eight long years, and John McCain promises to make those same tax cuts permanent, embracing the central principle of the Bush economic program."

In remarks Obama aides suggested were a rebuke to McCain as well as Bush, Obama said more is needed than just "to change faces in the White House," but that the country "needs a change of leadership."

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Last month we were going to be in Iraq another 100 or 10,000 years, now McCain says the war will be over soon

In all fairness, McCain clearly no longer remembers what he says day to day. He can't remember sworn depositions, meeting key supporters who then launch racist attacks, etc. So why expect him to remember his positions on the war, on immigration, on the religious right, or any other issue that might affect his election chances. Read More......

Pentagon gives new contract to company alleged to be producing substandard kevlar helmets for our troops

More proof of how much Republicans love the troops and of how well Republican limited government works. John McCain is a leader on the Senate Armed Service Committee - how did this happen under his watch? Hell, how did the entire fiasco of a war happen under McCain's watch? From CREW:

On February 6th, The New York Times reported that Sioux Manufacturing, which makes the Kevlar for helmets, has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the company had shortchanged the armor in up to 2.2 million helmets for the military, including helmets used by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Department of Defense, aware of both the problem with Sioux's helmets and the company's efforts to cover it up, awarded another contract to Sioux a mere 12 days before the lawsuit was settled. That same day, CREW sent a letter to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees requesting an investigation into a Department of Defense $74 million contract awarded to Sioux Manufacturing.

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Iraq's provincial elections

Part of the recent three-part compromise bill that managed to make its way through Iraq's parliament was provincial elections, an important political element that's long overdue. Eric Martin writes, though, that the Iraqi government is already thinking about postponing them, nearly eight months out. It looks like the delay -- if it occurs at all -- won't be lengthy, but it's still a worrying sign.

And of course scheduling is the least of the issues when it comes to these elections. I think provincial elections are a vital element of any political progress (and I've occasionally named them as an answer to the "what's the one thing you'd do to improve the situation . . ." question), but they're not without concern. As Eric comments, regarding competing Iraqi Shia parties,

While Fadhila and the Sadrist current have clashed in the past, the two groups make natural allies at this juncture - due to their mutual enemy (ISCI), the nationalistic outlook of each, their resistance to partition (a favored agenda of ISCI) as well as other common religious and ideological leanings. The two combined could greatly weaken ISCI's position via elections - which has led many to wonder whether ISCI will attempt some level of fraud.

I'll discuss this much more as the elections draw near, but any benefit from them is likely to be preceded by violent jostling for position. Yikes. Read More......

"I hate the gooks" - John McCain

From the SF Chronicle during the 2000 campaign:

"I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."

Yeah, I get it, John McCain was held captive and tortured by the Vietnamese for five years. Well, you know what, a lot of people have personal trauma in their lives doled out to them by bad guys of every stripe, be they white or black or gay or Jewish or female. But we don't give those people the right to use racist and bigoted terms to describe an entire class of human beings, or even the specific people who hurt us. This goes a long way towards showing just how messed up Vietnam left John McCain, and why John McCain seems so willing to use racist attacks to take down Barack Obama. To McCain and the Republicans, Obama is just another "gook."

Oh, and just to be clear, the Somalians who dragged the lifeless bodies of US service members behind their trucks in 1993 after their Black Hawk helicopter was shot down, does McCain think it would be okay to call them "n-ggers" or "sand n-ggers"? (Or didn't those US service members suffer as much as John McCain?) Or how about the Israelis troops who blew up the USS Liberty, killing 34 American service members in 1967, does Senator McCain think it's appropriate to call them "k-kes"? Is attempted presidential assassin Squeaky Fromm a "c-nt"? I'm quite serious. Now, I'll bet John McCain would refuse to even answer the question because he'd say it's absurd, of course he wouldn't condone any of those words (at least that's what he'd say for public consumption). But when the victim of the slur is Asian, and the victim of the crime is John McCain, suddenly it's okay for John McCain to spout racism because John McCain would have you believe that he's the only American, the only soldier, to ever have suffered. He was tortured, you know. And he doesn't plan on ever letting you forget it. Read More......

Bush press conference at 10:05 a.m.

Your President will be holding a press conference shortly. He's going to be all jazzed up about getting back to the politics of fearmongering:

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush would ask lawmakers in the House of Representatives to pass legislation that would retroactively shield phone companies for participating in a warrantless wiretap program.

Every other word will be "terrorists" or some variation, no doubt.

10:05 AM: In a classic move, on MSNBC, Chris Matthews was blathering on even as Bush began to speak. In the world of Chris Matthews, he's more important.

And, Bush goes right into a riff on telecom immunity -- and invokes 9/11. That didn't take long. Throws Al Qaeda in, too. Apparently, the telecoms are the first line of defense in protecting America. Who knew?

"Old FISA" didn't work. "Old FISA" is one of today's talking points.

10:13 AM: Despite Bush's best efforts at fearmongering, the first question is about the economy. Bush says we're not in a recession, just a slowdown. He's concerned...and he's acted "robustly."

10:16 AM: Asked about Iraq, but in the context of Turkey's incursion into Iraq. According to Bush, the Turks need to get out as quickly as possible.

10:18 AM: David Gregory slams the Democrats when asking about the new President of Russia saying candidates didn't seem to know too much about him. But, Bush replied "I don't know much about Medvedev either."

10:22 AM: In an attempted swipe at Obama, Bush confirms that Al Qaeda has been trying to establish a base in Iraq for the past four years. We invaded Iraq five years ago. This is a very important point because it confirms that Al Qaeda did not have a base in Al Qaeda before the U.S. invasion.

10:24 AM: Ha. He thinks your civil liberties are "well-respected" -- but, he really needs to protect the telecoms who are violating your civil liberties.

10:32 AM: Bush loves free trade in case you didn't know. Our national security depends on free trade with Colombia.

10:38 AM: It's very hard to hear Bush give advice on foreign policy. He's a disaster on foreign policy. But he just blathers on and on. How can anyone take him seriously given his track record? Read More......

McCain is scamming and breaking campaign finance laws. Not breaking the law should be the test of commitment.

This is really unbelievable. Today's NY Times tells us the McCain campaign "stepped up its criticism of Mr. Obama" on the issue of campaign finance.

Seriously, how can the NY Times or any publication even listen to the McCain campaign when it is in the midst of breaking the campaign finance laws? McCain is scamming the system but has the audacity to attack Obama. Even worse, the so-called brain trust of campaign finance advocates are focused on Obama's "commitment" to campaign finance. So McCain is breaking the law. Obama is not only adhering to the law, he won't take PAC money or contributions from lobbyists. But the concern is Obama of Joan Claybrook and Fred Wertheimer. It's bizarro world.:

“You ought to be able to run a campaign for two months on $85 million,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, which lobbies for stricter campaign finance laws. She called Mr. Obama’s recent remarks “a very bad signal.”

“This whole idea started with Senator Obama, and we think he and whoever the Republican nominee is ought to follow through,” said Fred Wertheimer, founder of the advocacy group Democracy 21.

Um, Joan, "a very bad signal" is breaking the campaign finance law. That's what your champion, John McCain, is doing. He is making a mockery of the system.

Obama's campaign shouldn't listen for a second to any of these campaign finance types now. By ignoring the McCain scandal, they've lost any credibility.

Noam Scheiber at The Plank explains the situation pretty succinctly in his post, "McCain May Be Screwed":

Bottom line: Either McCain used the promise of public campaign funds as collateral for his loan, in which case he's locked himself into the public campaign finance system (and its strict spending limits) and is massively screwed until September. Or he didn't use potential public funds as collateral, which means he didn't have anything to offer as collateral, which means he received an improper loan. Neither one of those scenarios is very good for the Straight Talk Express.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

I know we have a couple primaries left, but it seems like the campaign has pivoted to general election mode. And, the Republicans are already getting really dirty. What else have they got going for them? It's so desperate that John McCain, who the punditry thinks is the champion of campaign finance reform, is breaking the campaign finance laws.

The whole Republican campaign strategy is basically described by Josh Marshall in last night's post titled "Road Map":

The core is to drill a handful of key adjectives into the public mind about Barack Obama: Muslim, anti-American,BLACK, terrorist, Arab

McCain can't distance himself from that strategy. It is his strategy. And, Mark Halperin from Time Magazine already gave tacit approval to a race baiting strategy (despite his claim it was analysis, not advice)

And for anyone who thinks the GOP won't bash groups of people in the 21st century, think gays and immigrants. It's what Republicans do.

Let's get it started. Read More......

Supreme Court worried for Exxon

Wouldn't it be nice if the Supreme Court cared a little more about corporate responsibility and average Americans instead of the stress of corporate execs who are making a few hundred million dollars? Sheesh. The best democracy money can buy.

Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company -- but that's not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

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UK government laptop with confidential information on eBay

Just a guess, but there might be a security issue at the British Home Office. Just maybe. Fortunately it was encrypted.

The disc was found by technicians when the computer was taken into a small IT repair company for service.

The laptop had been bought on eBay and taken to Leapfrog Computer repairs in Westhoughton, near Bolton, Greater Manchester, on Tuesday morning.

An engineer took the notebook apart and found a disc marked "Home Office Confidential" hidden beneath the keyboard. Lee Bevan, the managing director of LeapFrog Computers, said: "This seemed like just another IT repair ... the customer said he had bought it on eBay and seemed quite innocent. It was just an ordinary laptop and it was only when we opened up the keyboard that we found the disc - it had the words Home Office and Confidential written on it.

"The disc appeared to be hidden deliberately underneath the keyboard. We put the disc in the drive to see what it was, but it was encrypted.

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Cabinet post for volunteer management in California

What a really great idea.

Mr. Schwarzenegger is creating a cabinet-level office for volunteer management, which his administration says is the first such state cabinet position in the country. He is scheduled to announce the move on Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Under the change, the governor’s commission for volunteerism, California Volunteers, will maintain its staffing and budget. But its executive director will gain expanded duties as a cabinet secretary, playing a role in disaster-related planning and response efforts and coordinating volunteers at disaster sites.

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