McCain supports Don't Ask Don't Tell

Which is odd, since gay conservatives keep telling us that McCain's not that bad. What exactly is bad, then, since they tell us that Romney isn't that bad either, and Romney is bad on everything? More from ThinkProgress. Read More......

Open thread

Off for a little Italian. Actually, that was a restaurant slogan on the way to beach years back, always wondered if they had t-shirts: "Feeling a little Italian tonight?" Fabulous. Read More......

The Speaker speaks to Bush about the weakness, dishonor and failure of his war policy

The Speaker blasts Bush:

On Bush Veto Threat of Military Funding Bill
March 10th, 2007 by Speaker Pelosi

President Bush's Iraq policies weaken our military's readiness, dishonor our nation's promises to our veterans, and fail to hold the Iraqi government accountable for overdue reforms.

By threatening to veto the House's military funding bill, the President is walking away from his promise to the American people. The President has vowed to veto a bill that contains his own reform benchmarks for performance by the Iraqi government, our Defense Department's own standards for troop readiness, and America's promise to our veterans.

With his veto threat, the President offers only an open-ended commitment to a war without end that dangerously ignores the repeated warnings of military leaders, including the commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, who declared in Baghdad this week that the conflict cannot be resolved militarily.

The House of Representatives will soon have a chance to choose a new direction for the American people. The bill the President dismisses out of hand will measure the Iraqi government's actions by the standards Mr. Bush himself set, conforms deployment of our troops to existing military standards for readiness, and provides badly needed help to an overburdened military and veterans' medical system wracked by scandal.

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Wash Post: 90% of Army National Guard units in the US rated "not ready"

The Republicans have destroyed our military. Read More......

John Edwards tells FOX to shove it, again

I've gotta give Edwards another hand, he's handling this FOX debate issue perfectly. He just emailed out an action alert to his entire list, and I might add, mentioned the g-word (that would be "gay") in his email (there was some concern that he didn't even mention those who Coulter attacked in his previous email about her, so this is nice to see). Here's the email from Edwards' campaign, it's delicious.

Dear Friend,

You may have heard by now that John Edwards was the first candidate to officially say no to the Fox News debate in Nevada—and because of the hard work of so many grassroots and netroots Democrats, news is breaking tonight that Fox is out.

Fox has already started striking back at John for saying no. (There's a surprise—Fox attacking a Democrat.) Last night, Roger Ailes—the life-long Republican operative who is now Chairman of Fox News Channel—said that any candidate "who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake" and "runs a real risk of losing the voters."

And John's not their only target. Tonight Fox News Vice President David Rhodes is telling news organizations not to get involved in the Nevada Democratic Caucus because of "radical fringe" groups—meaning grassroots Democrats (that would be you)—who objected to Fox's long history of spreading Republican propaganda at the expense of Democratic leaders.

The whole right wing is getting in on the attack; the Drudge Report is blaring the headline: "War! Dems Pull Out of Fox News Debate."

Enough is enough. It's time to send a clear message to Fox News and their allies that their right-wing talking points and temper tantrums won't go unchallenged anymore—when it comes to what Democrats should do in the Democratic primary, we'll decide—no matter what they report:

http://johnedwards.com/r/7157/847969/

Fox News has already proven they have no intention of providing "fair and balanced" coverage of any Democrat in this election.

In recent weeks they have run blatant lies about Senator Obama's background. And Fox was only too happy to give Ann Coulter a platform to spew more hate a few days after her bigoted attack on Senator Edwards and the gay community.

Now it's time for Democrats to stand together and send a clear message to Roger Ailes, Fox News and all the rest of them: bias isn't balance, but turning tables is fair:

http://johnedwards.com/r/7159/847969/

The truth is, Fox News can "report" whatever they want. And when it works for us, we'll deal with them on our terms. But this campaign is about responsibility and accountability, and we need to send the message to Fox that if they want to be the corporate mouthpiece of the Republican Party more than they want to be an impartial news outlet, they shouldn't expect Democrats to play along.

You can send that message by contributing today, and remind Fox News that in this election, Democrats won't take their spin lying down:

http://johnedwards.com/r/7161/847969/

Thank you for standing up for what we believe in.

Jonathan Prince
Deputy Campaign Manager
John Edwards for President

P.S. -- If the folks at Fox wonder why nobody thinks they play it straight, they should take a look at what Roger Ailes said about debates in 1988 when he was a top Republican spinmaster for then Vice President Bush: He told the Washington Post, "I don't know that we need to do more than one [debate]. There's no reason to think we'd need more than one." And he told the New York Times, "I don't think you learn anything about the issues" from debates. So please send Roger Ailes a message: Hypocrisy isn't fair and it isn't balanced; it's just hypocrisy—and we've had enough of it from you.

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The gay Ralph Nader?

Bloggernista says some gay critics are now hurting the effort to pass civil rights legislation this congress. Read More......

Pentagon looking at kicking out Marine gay porn star prostitute

They need to see if Dont Ask Dont Tell covers sodomy, and "telling" I presume, BEFORE you enlisted. You know they're gonna kick him out. There is no way a gay-porn star male prostitute is going to be permitted to remain in the Marines, regardless of his claims that he's not gay. As I mentioned before, the irony here is that Matt Sanchez's friends on the right, who gave him an award for his service, want him kicked out of the Marines, while the folks on the left, who he claims hate him, are the ones fighting for his right to serve. Think about that one, Matt, the next time you do interviews talking about how much the Party of "Faggot" embraces you. More from Joe.My.God. Read More......

Major military honors for the Army Secretary who oversaw Walter Reed's squalor

Think Progress first reported on the elaborate ceremony for Army Secretary Francis Harvey who was fired over the abhorrent treatment received by wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. Maybe the Defense Department could have used the money they wasted on this extravaganza for something more constructive. Just look at all the military personnel participating in this thing. They sure get rewarded for incompetence in the Bush Administration.

CAPTION/CREDIT: Former U.S. Secretary of the Army General Francis Harvey reviews an honor guard during a farewell ceremony for him at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia March 9, 2007. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (UNITED STATES) Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

After a week like this, it's almost possible to have outrage fatigue. In just one week, we've dealt with:

the outrages of abuse and neglect at Walter Reed and other military medical facilities that are supposed to care for our wounded soldiers and vets;

the fact that leading Republicans, including Representatives Bill Young (R-FL) and Tom Davis (R-VA) knew about the conditions at Walter Reed and did NOTHING:

the revelations of political pressure being applied (by Senator Domenici, Rep. Heather Wilson and Rep. Doc Hastings for sure) to the now-fired U.S. Attorneys in pending cases;

the Scooter Libby verdict which represents the much bigger story of lying about the Iraq war and outing an undercover spy for partisan reasons;

the FBI breaking the law by spying on Americans; and

the confirmation that the escalation in Iraq is much bigger then Bush said it would be.

That's just one week of news from the Bush Administration and his Republican allies. But each of those represent years of lies, nefarious behavior and in some cases actual criminal conduct.

Anyway, that's what I woke up thinking about on a Saturday morning. What's the latest outrage? Read More......

Big Four auditing firms looking for help to problem they created

Gosh, funny me. Here I was thinking that investors were the ones who need protection from corrupt Big Four auditing firms who put the interests of their corporate pockets above those of investors who were looking for a safe stamp of approval for their investments. So the best and brightest that the auditing industry delivers have been critical in just a few hiccups including Enron and Worldcom. What are a few billion between friends after all? Now the prestigious firms are caught up in a few more minor - insignificant, really - problems such as the Parmalat and Yukos Oil so they are crying to their friends in Washington and want to be protected from financial ruin. That seems like a pretty nice luxury that a few too many investors and retirees were not afforded.

Let's see if anyone comes to their rescue and if they do. The Big Four created these problems all on their own and ought to face up to them on their own. Unless the federal government is going to bail out every ripped off investor who trusted the auditing firms work, let the free market take care of our auditing friends. That seemed to be the answer for individuals so I see no reason to offer anything more for these firms. Read More......

Open thread

Off to bed. Read More......