Open Thread

Saturday Night. Have some fun. Read the rest of this post...

Pentagon considered building "gay bomb"

Typical, absurd, and just sad.

"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviewing the documents.

And the music swells. Read the rest of this post...

Immigration funny

Make me laugh. Read the rest of this post...

How does the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy apply to Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)?

CBS reports that GOP Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) served as active duty military recently in Iraq. This raises a very serious question of national security.

I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable having a US Senator serve active duty in Iraq as a "colonel" when there has been persistent chatter about his sexual orientation and whether it conforms to the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. The Republicans, and Senator Graham, can't have it both ways. Did the Pentagon investigate the rumors about Senator Graham's orientation prior to choosing to have him serve active duty? Doubtful. But the rumors are out there, and the Senator's very presence has been known to fuel such rumors, so it is not out of the realm of the possible that others with whom he served had the same questions. And once they have those questions, per Don't Ask Don't Tell, there is a threat to unit cohesion. So why did the Pentagon risk unit cohesion in this case?

I'm serious. They can't have it both ways. Either there is a problem with gays, or people who are suspected to be gay, serving in the military or there isn't. But Senator Graham, the Pentagon, and every other supporter of the gay ban can't talk about how the presence of someone known (or thought) to be gay would destroy unit cohesion, but at the same time let a senator serve who may not meet the criteria of the ban itself.

Yes, it's not polite to discuss such things. But we do discuss them, we are forced to discuss them, under the very bigoted and not-polite policy that Senator Graham embraces. Read the rest of this post...

Always putting politics first bites Bush on immigration

Today's NY Times analyzes the latest Bush failure:

The breakthrough on the “grand bargain” on immigration a few weeks ago had brought new life to a White House under siege, putting a long-sought goal suddenly within reach. After many grim months, there was almost giddiness at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

But that early euphoria only made the grand bargain’s grand collapse on Thursday night all the more of a blow, pointing up a stubbornly unshakable dynamic for President Bush in the final 19 months of his term: With low approval ratings and the race to succeed him well under way, his ability to push his agenda has faded to the point where he can fairly be judged to have entered his lame duck period.

In all, 38 of the 48 Senate Republicans effectively voted against the White House on the crucial procedural vote on the immigration bill, leaving the president’s No. 1 domestic priority somewhere between stalled and dead.

Since the beginning the of the first term, team Bush has viewed every single decision through a political lens: Iraq, Judicial appointments, Terri Schiavo. Whenever good governance or good policy has been required, they've been abject failures. Witness Katrina.

The immigration debate was one of the first times that Bush was pushing a true policy initiative. But, the Bush staff doesn't know how to do policy. They only do politics (and they're not doing politics so well these days either.) Bush has conditioned his base to think politics first - and on immigration, that's what the base, and most of the GOP Senate caucus, did. The Republicans did not and could not make the pivot from politics to policy, because that is not how they play the game. And, it's surely not what they expect from their leader, George Bush.

This politics first mindset is endemic to the GOP. It's what they do. Democrats tend to put policy before politics. Sometimes that's truly maddening (like during the 2000 and 2004 Presidential debates). On immigration, Bush suffered a major political loss on a policy issue. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good Morning.

Once again, you can see the best editorial cartoons of the week at Bob Geiger's blog. Dick Cheney gets pummeled this week. Pummeled. Great stuff.

The poem of the week is "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens. It's a nice easy read for a hot Saturday in June. We're waiting for an original poem from the poet behind the poem-of-the-week blog.

Enjoy. Then, have at it. Read the rest of this post...

China rejects US and European food products

Officials claim the "products failed to meet the sanitary standards of China." Ouch. And to think that these problems were strictly limited to China, according to some. The daily attacks against China were making for such good press, building an enemy like we haven't had in years. It sounds as though there is plenty of room for improvement from everyone and not just China. Read the rest of this post...