Evangelical general broke the rules with his "Satan" speeches

Remember the evangelical US Army Lt. General William Boykin, the guy who gave those speeches last year talking about how the war on terror was really a battle with Satan, and how America had been targeted because we're a Christian nation? Muslims groups and others got a bit upset about all of this, and America's Taliban jumped to Boykin's defense.

Well, the DOD inspector general just found that Boykin did break the rules and should be punished for those little speeches. Perfect timing, right before the republican convention, when tensions are already high with radical right Christian activists. Can't WAIT to see how they're gonna react to this one, and how Bush will try to weasle out of it. Read the rest of this post...

Utter BS

"Powell, on the advice of the White House, will skip the Republican National Convention. which no sitting secretary of state in recent memory has attended."

Yeah, right. We're to believe that Bush is more worried about some stupid tradition than about using the most popular member of his cabinet - and a moderate African-American Republican at that - to help boost his sinking reelection hopes? The White House advised Powell not to come to the convention. Sure they did. Read the rest of this post...

Retiring GOP Congressman criticizes Iraq war

So how long will it be before he's smeared as an anti-American by the right?

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Rep. Doug Bereuter wrote in a letter to his constituents.

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," he said.

Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Read the rest of this post...

Lawmakers Demand Investigation Into FBI's Intimidation Of Political Protestors

Three Democrats have formally asked the Justice Department to investigate the FBI's alleged harrassment of anti-war protestors, none of whom according to the NYT had any record of violent protests or serious criminal records. We're sure John Ashcroft will get right on that.
Read the rest of this post...

You just can't get good help these days. Oh, wait.. you can.

Remember late last year when the Army fired a bunch of its language translators because they were gay? Even though there was a serious shortage of people who could identify and translate Arabic?

Looks like they could have used them after all.

Federal prosecutors are now acknowledging that the evidence they have against the head of an Albany mosque may not be what they thought it was.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A key piece of evidence against a jailed mosque leader accused of supporting terrorism has come into question, with federal prosecutors acknowledging that a note found in a terrorist camp may have been mistranslated.

Yassin Muhiddin Aref is charged with aiding a government informant in a sting operation involving a fake plot to buy a shoulder-fired missile to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat.

The translation discrepancy stems from a notebook that the FBI said was found in a terrorist camp in northern Iraq last summer. The indictment said an entry in Arabic script referred to Aref as a "commander" and listed his former address and phone number in Albany.

However, FBI translators now have a copy of the original entry and disagree with the earlier conclusion, saying the word was in the Kurdish language, not Arabic, and actually means "brother," prosecutors told the judge in a letter.

We know that government intelligence agencies often have to share translators since there's such a shortage of them. But don't you think it would have been nice, to have in this instance, say, someone on the ground there who could tell the difference between Arabic and Kurdish?

I know, some people have hangups about other people's sexual orientation. I have a hangup, too -- other people's inability to get the intelligence right.

Read the rest of this post...

Bush Opposes 9/11 Commission Plan

Donald Rumsfeld is the latest Bush administration official to hedge very strongly on central elements of the 9/11 commission's recommendations. Since Bush has supported a weakened, almost useless head of intelligence with no budgetary power and therefore no real authority, Rummy supports that too. But he says we should be very wary of even half-implementing other recommendations and opposes having paramilitary operations move from the CIA to the Pentagon.

Okay, the changes in our gov't structure are sweeping and far-reaching. And the 9/11 commission is not God and we don't have to accept its recommendations as the Ten Commandments.

But don't let Bush play it both ways. He wants to pretend he supports its results and wants to implement its recommendations all while opposing the substance of most of the major changes.

Bush opposed the 9/11 commission being formed, against the wishes of the victims' families.

Bush dragged his feet repeatedly, refusing to cooperate for months at a time.

Bush tried to insist the 9/11 commission wrap up its work early even though it had been so slow in responding to requests for info that the commission would have been unable to do its job properly.

Bush administration officials balked at appearing before the 9/11 commission. Bush himself was too afraid to appear in front of them on his own.

Bush pretended to embrace the final report but has clearly and consistently fought against all the major recommendations it proposed. Bush administration officials have come out in oppposition to many of those changes. Bush himself wants to castrate the central idea of creating a head of intelligence that has real authority.

And it goes on. So every time Bush tries to say he supports the commission and its findings, the media must and should say, "You're kidding, right?"
Read the rest of this post...

Flip Flop! Pentagon Caves To Cheney Corp.

On Monday the Pentagon said it was extending the deadline for Halliburton to explain its billing for the third time. (I wish my editors were as understanding.) On Tuesday it said it was getting tough and withholding 15% a month in payments (some $60 million) until Halliburton subsidiaries got their act together. Today, the Pentagon caved again. The company has some $6 billion in contracts, many of them no-bid contracts that no other company had a chance to compete for.

But don't worry Cheney fans -- if the Pentagon had stuck to its get-tough policy, Halliburton had a plan:

"Halliburton said its subsidiary would offset any loss by simply keeping 15 percent from payments to subcontractors."

Yep, stick it to the little guy.

Read the rest of this post...

Good News in Iraq

The New York Times reports that the rebel cleric Al-Sadr has accepted truce terms of the interim Iraqi government -- namely to leave the holy shrine and, perhaps, to convert his militia into a political organization. The bad news is that every time Al-Sadr resorts to violence and makes cynical use of holy shrines he grows in popularity, so he might very well do so again. But dealing with the interim government by negotiating and accepting their terms gives it the credibility it so desperately needs. Al-Sadr can't keep working with the Iraqi leaders and then pretend they're illegitimate. That's one good sign for long term stability as the January elections grow closer.
Read the rest of this post...

Marriage in Mass, part 4

Final part of the Boston Globe series -- two brothers, two weddings, 0ne gay, one straight.
Read the rest of this post...

Kerry still holding lead in PA, vets and military voters lead the way

Pennsylvania veterans and those in military families say they disapprove of the war in Iraq by a 13-point margin. While this group is traditionally more conservative than voters at large, Kerry has the support of 46 percent among this group to 42 percent for Bush.

Military families and veterans oppose the war by 54 percent to 41 percent. Overall, Pennsylvania voters are more evenly divided on Iraq: 48 percent say going to war was the wrong thing to do, compared with 46 percent who support the president's decision.

I'd like to see how those numbers are looking elsewhere with military voters. This is not good news for Bush.
Read the rest of this post...

TBOGG: Think of yourself as paparazzi for values

Thanks to TBOGG...this one is great!

Extra extra extra extra extra extra credit if anyone has photos exposing hypocrisy with anti-gay Republicans.

Since I wasn't in Boston to cover the Democratic convention (as well as be there when Jonah Goldberg woke up the next morning with his pants on backwards) I feel like I haven't done my part to help restore democracy in America. With the Republicans about to invade NYC (they're the puffy-looking white people with the bad haircuts...yeah, those guys) I was thinking that, with your help, we can help publicize all the good things that the delegates will be doing when they come to the Big Apple. More specifically, I guess, we're really looking for who they're doing.

If you're a New Yorker with a digital camera or a phone camera and better than average run-away speed, we'd love to see any pictures you might have of Republican delegates as they visit the big city...or massage parlors...or hotel lobbies with women who may not be their wives (Handy Tip: If she's attractive and isn't wearing a red white and blue elephant pin, she's probably not Mrs. Delegate from Possum Holler). Details (who and where) would be appreciated. If you've got pictures...we want 'em. If you want credit...you got it. Extra credit for shots in front of strip clubs. Extra extra credit if you catch a pundit. Extra extra extra credit if you catch Rick Santorum going into a pet store. Extra extra extra extra credit if you catch him coming out with Ann Coulter.

All we ask is that you be careful. We don't have a lot of readers and we want to keep the ones we have. And you should ask yourself:

Is this wrong? Is it unethical? Am I playing God with someone's life?

Then take a look around at what has happened in this country in the last four years. Our operators are standing by...

Read the rest of this post...

Senior citizens now hating America

Oh dear, now it's the seniors.

Yet among many different groups of Americans, a majority of people now say the war was a mistake. Those groups include minorities (65 percent), Northeasterners (60 percent), Democrats (80 percent), people who make less than $25,000 a year (57 percent) and Catholics (51 percent).
In December, support for the war was widespread among most groups, although minorities even then were about evenly split on the question.
Last December, for example, 56 percent of seniors said the war in Iraq was the right thing to do and 40 percent disagreed. Now, six in 10 say the Iraq war was wrong.

Read the rest of this post...

At GOP Convention compassion is only tentative

This is for real, see it here (until they take it down). (Kudos to reader Derek for finding this one.) Read the rest of this post...

Sensitive American-hater sues Rummy on stop-loss

An anti-American/decorated combat veteran who most recently fought in Iraq is suing because he just doesn't understand that a contract can be one-sided and that the draft won't be announced until after a Bush victory in November.

"This lawsuit seeks to stop the forced retention of men and women who have fulfilled their service obligations," said attorney Michael Sorgen. "When their period of enlistment ends, they should be entitled to return to their families." He called the suit the first of its kind.

Read the rest of this post...

Abu Ghraib whistleblower getting death threats...

...and the caller ID shows the number is 202-456-1111.

Seriously though, this is a very sad and disturbing story. The family of the Abu Ghraib whistleblower is living in protective custody because they're getting death threats. Rush Limbaugh, Senator Inhofe and every other Republican who poo-poo'd the seriousnes of the situation at Abu Ghraib, and worse, the House Republicans and their ilk who claimed that the Abu Ghraib investigation was endangering our troops, are all to blame for this development.

It's only a matter of time before hate speech leads its followers to act. Read the rest of this post...

Bush back to pushing Missile Defense to get votes in PA

I had to re-read the post date on this story because I actually thought that it was a link to a story from early 2001: Bush pushes anti-missile system - Opponents are 'living in the past,' he says. Can you blame me?

""I think those who oppose this ballistic missile system don't understand the threats of the 21st century," the president told applauding workers at defense contractor Boeing in Pennsylvania, a crucial state in Bush's bid for re-election.

"We say to those tyrants who believe they can blackmail America and the free world: 'You fire, we're going to shoot it down,"' Bush said."

Let's see, coincidence that the plant he was visiting was in Pennsylvania? I don't think so. The more interesting thing for me though was the fact that the last time I checked Bush said that Terrorism was the big threat of the 21st century. Flip/Flop anyone?

To be honest, I probably support the missile defense program. I think that it's probably worth the money. And, as a responsible financial decision, I'D PAY FOR IT. This is the big problem -- you can't have it all. If you want the missile defense, you gotta pay for it, and maybe that means that all the tax cuts the president wants to make permanent for his "base," as he calls them, might just have to get scaled back a bit to pay for it all. You can't have it both ways. Read the rest of this post...