TIME's story on Delay dropping out

Schadenfreude. Read the rest of this post...

DeLay's quitting his re-election campaign

That's what MSNBC is reporting.

Atrios kicks off the celebration.

From Time:

Rep. Tom DeLay, whose iron hold on the House Republicans melted as a lobbying corruption scandal engulfed the Capitol, told TIME that he will not seek reelection and will leave Congress within months. Taking defiant swipes at "the left" and the press, he said he feels "liberated" and vowed to pursue an aggressive speaking and organizing campaign aimed at promoting foster care, Republican candidates and a closer connection between religion and government.

"I'm going to announce tomorrow that I'm not running for reelection and that I'm going to leave Congress," DeLay, who turns 59 on Saturday, said during a 90-minute interview on Monday. "I'm very much at peace with it." He notified President Bush in the afternoon

UPDATE: Chris Matthews was just on Tucker Carlson all giddy and excited because DeLay called him. According to Matthews, DeLay told him that his poll numbers kept dropping and he thought he'd lose. DeLay wants the GOP to keep the seat. Then, Carlson did an interview with Mike Allen who actually broke the article for Time. He was much calmer than Matthews. Much calmer. Read the rest of this post...

Conservative writer David Brooks says GOP may lose the US House in the fall

Very interesting, coming from Brooks. Read the rest of this post...

George Allen pushing promotion of theocratic general

George Allen is really working the right wing. We know he wants theocratic judges. Now he's pushing for theocratic generals. He wants General Boykin to command US Special Operations. Who's Boykin?:

In 2003, Boykin gave speeches at evangelical Christian churches in which he painted the war on terror as a Christian fight against Satan and suggested that Muslims worship idols. Boykin later apologized for his characterizations as conservatives rushed to defend him.

A Pentagon investigation the following year found that Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made the speeches, sometimes wearing his Army uniform. The probe also found Boykin violated Pentagon rules by failing to obtain advance clearance for his remarks.

Read the rest of this post...

Fred Hiatt [HEART] Democrats

But you already knew that. Read the rest of this post...

Bill Maher

Just watch, great stuff. Read the rest of this post...

CNN: Capitol police are asking for an arrest warrant for Dem. Rep. Cynthia McKinney

Oh my.

She's going to be on CNN shortly, with two of her attorneys. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Has Scottie quit yet? I do hope they appoint the very-easy-on-the-eyes and apparently unusually-single-for-his-advancing-age age Dan Bartlett to the job. There's always room for yet another closet heterosexual at the most senior ranks of the GOP. Read the rest of this post...

NYT's Paul Krugman slaps McCain for jumping in bed with religious right

And the first half of his article reads like my blog post. Why aren't I writing for the NYT? Oh that's right, because they have Adam Nagourney to represent my point of view.

Anyway, good opinion piece from Krugman.

...if you choose to make common cause with religious extremists, you are accepting some responsibility for their extremism. By welcoming Mr. Falwell and people like him as members of their party, Republicans are saying that it's O.K. — not necessarily correct, but O.K. — to declare that 9/11 was America's punishment for its tolerance of abortion and homosexuality, that Islam is a terrorist religion, and that Jews can't go to heaven. And voters should judge the Republican Party accordingly.

As for Mr. McCain: his denunciation of Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson six years ago helped give him a reputation as a moderate on social issues. Now that he has made up with Mr. Falwell and endorsed South Dakota's ban on abortion even in the case of rape or incest, only two conclusions are possible: either he isn't a social moderate after all, or he's a cynical political opportunist.

Read the rest of this post...

New PoliticsTV is up: Monday Morning Blogger

PoliticsTV, of which I'm one of the hosts, has a quick video wrap-up of the blogging news of the past several days. It's still a work in progress, we just launched about a month ago, but I think this episode might be our smoothest yet. Read the rest of this post...

Supreme Court avoids dealing with Padilla case

They taught us in law school that the Supreme Court likes to decide cases narrowly, well sometimes. Meaning you don't go out of your way to decide anything more than what's before you. In this case, the argument would be - and was - that Padilla was transfered to the regular criminal court system and thus the issue of whether he could be detained in the military system was moot, since he was no longer in the military system.

Still, it's troubling that the court is leaving this area of law so grey and undecided. The importance of this case and this area of law in post-9/11 America should not deter judicial review, it should invite it so that it can be settled once and for all, lest the ambiguity invite more and more abuses. Read the rest of this post...

John "Flip-flop" McCain finally getting scrutiny from the media

I understand that when McCain launched his "Straight-Talk Express" it was originally named the "Heterosexual-Talk Express."

NY Daily News is on the flip-flop story. Read the rest of this post...

Cliff's Corner

The Week That Was 4/3/06

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

Let me begin by apologizing for the belated nature of my weekly written catharsis. I meant to pen this column sooner, but was busy planning an overall schematic for the War on Christians —- you know the greatest threat to the future of the United States other than Republican homeland security, global warming, reporting the facts in Iraq, Bolton & Bolten or the best little political whorehouse in Arizona -— also known as John McCain’s place.

Yes, I was a bit nostalgic this past week. As my first rendition (not extraordinary, mind you) of Cliff’s Corner was written around the time that goofy git John Gibson penned his latest Christian-right-conspiracy rant about a supposed War on Christmas -— something to do with our lack of an Afghanistan-like response to the fact that Jews are allowed two spellings of Hanukah -— I thought I would have to wait a whole year until the loons starting crying persecution again. But luckily they’ve grown restless with their personal vehicle to salvation —- an entirely Republican controlled government —- seemingly in danger due to the very Christian behavior of men like Karl Rove, Ralph Reed and Tom DeLay. So they emerged from perpetual prayer to pray for damnation.

This Christian Posse (Comitus), made up of such luminaries the Box-Turtle Texas Senator John Cornyn who likes to condone violence perpetrated against judges in his spare time and Phyllis Schlafly, whose deplored working women while spending about a week in her own dwelling not lecturing on this evil since 1965, gathered in Washington this past week. They seemed to mainly want to blame DeLay’s prosecution (Ronnie Earle’s a Muslim you know) and every other problem in America from Ken Mehlman’s weaknesses of the flesh to Basic Instinct II on perceived anti-Christian bias. And of course hoot in support of a bunch of frothing second-rate Father Coughlins blather on about how inconvenienced they are to only have tax-free churches/Republican get out the vote operations and 85% of the population in this country.

B-O-O-H-O-O Like it’s my fault Ashlee Simpson’s one of theirs.

This all occurred, mind you, in the Omni Shoreham Hotel Ballroom where the plush elegance of their surroundings must have moved them to complain about the rampant “hedonism” in our society. No, I didn’t make that up. They even had a token Semite on hand to make ‘em feel even more victimized. This scholar of history and current events, Michael Horowitz, proclaimed that, "You guys have become the Jews of the 21st century." No, Michael, everyone your political agenda targets, from non-fundamentalist Christians to gays to women to "the Jews in Hollywood," are the Jews of the 21st century. (And what would that make you?) But thanks for caring.

So following that logic, if The Christian Right has become the “Jews of the 21st Century,” does that mean that Matthew Shepherd was the Fred Phelps of the 20th? Just wondering.

In any case, as we all know, these people are not real Christians, of which there are many who are good people. They are cultists. And they are paranoid as hell of a modern world that may offer a bit more complexity than Dan Quayle’s vocabulary.

"This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position," said the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a minister in the Church of God in Christ and professor of social ethics at Emory University.

Upon observing Goldwater supporters, the great historian Richard Hofstadter had this to say: “Behind such movements there is a style of mind, not always right-wing in its affiliations, that has a long and varied history. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness and conspiratorial theory that I have in mind.”

Welcome to the sequel —- War on Christians 2006: This Time it’s Psychological. Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

What's on tap this week?

The Senate's debating the immigration bill...and both Atrios and Think Progress saw the CNN report that Scotty might be the next WH staffer to go... Read the rest of this post...

"A man of no talent whatsoever"

The New York Times profiles Bill Frist...poor Bill Frist. He wants to be President, but his current job is hard work. Frist is basically a puppet for Bush and Rove. The whole piece paints a picture of a hapless, pathetic, failed Majority Leader. The most accurate assessment was from beltway insider Charlie Cook:

"The most classic case of the Peter Principle I've ever seen in American politics," Mr. Cook said, in an uncharacteristically brutal assessment. "In a business where eloquence and rhetoric is important, he is a man of no talent whatsoever."

Read the rest of this post...

Bush Bashing -- from GOPers who made him what he is

AP reports that the GOPers are piling on Bush. Of course, these same Republicans made Bush what he is. They've been a rubber stamp in Congress for all of his policies. They've helped build the deficit. They've been complicit in the Iraq disaster. They've done no oversight. When the Congressional Republicans criticize Bush, they are really just criticizing themselves. The only way to rein in Bush is to get a new Congress:

From Iraq to deficits, from immigration to port security, some of the most pointed criticism leveled at President Bush is coming from within his own party. Republicans these days are almost sounding like perennially divided Democrats.

The rising GOP angst stems from Bush's deep slump in the polls and the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war.

But it also reflects a political reawakening as Republicans follow their own political interests in this midterm election year and as would-be 2008 presidential contenders seek ways to set themselves apart - from each other and from Bush.

"It's open season on him. George Bush has lost trust on too many issues," said presidential historian Thomas E. Cronin of Colorado College. "We saw it happen with Johnson, we saw it with Nixon. And now, sadly, we're seeing it with Bush."

It's not that sad. Read the rest of this post...

Sectarian violence continues in Iraq

But don't forget that this is not civil war according to Bush and the Republicans. Maybe the GOP can help redefine "civil war" since the old definition just ain't cuttin' it these days. Shiites and Sunnis are killing each other every day but just ignore all of that and ignore the political chaos and the wasted US taxpayer money. Read the rest of this post...

Airline service complaints on the rise

Anyone who has jumped on a flight recently surely knows this already. I don't care about the lack of food service because I have been brining my own food for years, but the nastiness of flight attendants and the cramped spaces drive me insane. OK, charging $5 for drinks on international flights is also pretty bad. The only thing worse is the pathetic MIA customer service of European "discount" airlines such as the poor-excuse-for-an-airline German Wings. When I tried canceling a $300 forty-five minute flight recently due to a death, the "customer service" rep (who I had to pay per minute to call) basically told me "tough luck, that's what you get with an online "discount" airline and you just lost your money. (Did I mention how bad German Wings treats its customers and that they should be avoided at all costs? Let me say it again: German Wings is a pathetic excuse for an airline who will only add you to their mailing list without permission but can't email a response to customer questions and will provide service on par with the quality only previously known and experienced in the Soviet Union. Rant over, for now.)

Let's hope that service somehow improves but with the continuing difficulties of the airlines and the high cost of fuel, something tells me that improvements are not coming any time soon. Read the rest of this post...

New report says Nigeria released wanted war crimes dictator Taylor

Obasanjo is scheduled to be in Washington to meet with Bush this week but when did Bush really care about a criminal dictatorship that was not related to oil? There had been reports that the security around Taylor's residence in Nigeria had been very relaxed, despite the looming war crimes charges so these charges hardly seem far fetched.

Nigerian security forces encouraged former Liberian President Charles Taylor to flee and helped him get to the Cameroon border before the same agents turned around and arrested him in a double-cross, his spiritual adviser said.

Many were suspicious when Nigeria's government announced Taylor's disappearance last week, just days after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo reluctantly agreed to hand him over from the exile haven he had been offered under an internationally brokered peace agreement ending Liberia's 14-year civil war.

Read the rest of this post...