Look very closely

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Open thread

Busy day Read the rest of this post...

Susan Collins will be exposed and held accountable by the Maine bloggers

Kay in Maine, one of AMERICAblog's faves, wrote a post on her own blog, White Noise Insanity, this weekend lambasting Susan Collins. If anyone has any doubts about Susan, read this post. It's also cross-posted at Turn Maine Blue.

Last time Collins ran, in 2002, there really was no progressive blogosphere. The Maine press tend to fawn all over Collins. They buy her spin. Well, those days are over. Collins is going to be held accountable for enabling the Bush Administration.

Collins will claim that she is running on her record, but she's going to cherry pick the issues to make herself look moderate -- which she's not. Kay and the other Maine bloggers are going to make Collins own her entire record:

The only way we Mainers can sum up Susan Collins' character is to look at her voting record to find out what it is that makes her tick. Just in the past six years, we've learned:

* She voted for the 2001/2005 tax cuts and voted for the 2003 $350 billion tax cut for the wealthy
* She supports repealing the estate tax
* She voted for the bankruptcy bill, voted against tax subsidies for the US jobs that go offshore
* She voted to allow lobbyists to make some gifts to the Congress
* She voted in favor of confirming Judge Samuel Alito knowing full well he is against Roe v. Wade
* She voted 'yes' on the flag burning Constitutional amendment
* She voted to authorize military force against the sovereign nation of Iraq
* She voted in favor of the Military Commissions Bill (pro-torture and not a lick of peace in it)
* She supports the Real ID Act and instead of fixing this Act to protect American’s privacy, she wants to move it ahead to 'forget about it until later'
* She voted in favor of diverting Homeland Security funds to low risk areas of America rather than to the high risk areas
* She refused to subpoena the White House after Katrina, even when she had the power to do so as Chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
* She had the NAACP investigated for speaking out against Bush back in 2004

Collins support for the war and her failure to use any oversight authority while she chaired the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee will dog her throughout the campaign.

Last week, Collins and Lieberman announced a new seating arrangement for that Committee. That's their great idea -- despite all the corruption, mismanagement, waste, fraud, abuse and criminal activity coming from the Bush Administration.

With Kay, Chris and Turn Maine Blue on her case, Susan Collins has no idea what she's in for this time around. Read the rest of this post...

General Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says gays are "immoral"

UPDATE: Speaking of "immoral," gay porn star man-whore Matt Sanchez reportedly said today that the Marines have told him privately that he's not going to get kicked out the military for being a, well, gay porn star man-whore. Nice priorities there, general. I guess the gay translaters you fired would have been okay had they done porn and hustling on the side? More from Joe.My.God.

No, I'd say "immoral" is letting our own injured and maimed soldiers sleep in their own urine when you all knew about it and didn't give a damn. Immoral is lying to the American people in order to get us into a war. Immoral is sending hundreds of thousands of US soldiers into battle without the proper armor. Immoral is risking the lives of our soldiers by still not having a plan for victory or exit.

Maybe if General Pace spent as much time worrying about Iraq as he does my sexual orientation we wouldn't be getting our asses kicked by a bunch of two-bit thugs with homemade bombs. More from the Chicago Trib. Read the rest of this post...

Ann Coulter makes me laugh

Not really. But these guys do.

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Wyoming church bans gay couple from communion because they opposed anti-gay legislation

My God. You don't ban people from communion because you disagree with their politics. This is getting beyond ridiculous. Christians really need to take a hard look at who is claiming to speak for them. This is beyond hateful. And about as un-Christian as you get. Read the rest of this post...

Giuliani: "There must be public funding for abortion for poor women"

Of course that was 1989. I'm sure Rudy Giuliromney will have a "different" view today. He's already for "conservative judges" who will overturn pretty much everything he believes in, so I can't wait for him to backtrack from his previous statements about the public funding of abortion. Hotlineblog has the video. Read the rest of this post...

Major Evangelical group slams torture, embraces environment

That's civil war in the religious right. You'll recall that the National Association of Evangelicals is the group that was run by Ted Haggard, the gay-prostitute-frequenting meth-buyer (I know, it's hard to keep them all straight). They represent 30m American Evangelicals - that's half of all Evangelicals. That's huge. Especially since the rest of the religious right leadership have refused to condemn the US military policies on torture, and have refused to express any concern at all about global warming. In fact, the more extreme elements of the religious right, the ones that have endorsed the far-right of the Republican party, tried to get the spokesman of NAE fired for issuing pro-environmental statements. So this is rather huge, and gutsy, of NAE to finally take a stand for something Jesus would do - oppose torture and embrace being a true steward of the earth.

Diogenes may have finally found an honest Evangelical. Read the rest of this post...

FOX News freaks out that its debate got canceled

Markos goes into the details, but I will note one point. FOX is complaining that liberals are afraid to go on FOX, but at the same time they claim that FOX isn't a conservative network. Well, then why would liberals be afraid to go on FOX when they go on every other network? My favorite quote is from Morton Kondracke, who used to be a big pundit in town:

If Fox, you know, was embarrassingly right wing or something like that, it would be plain for all to see.

Yes, "if" FOX was embarrassingly right wing (and in proper English it's "were," Morton, not "was" - though in fact, you're right, the subjunctive is only used if the stated fact isn't true, and in this case it is, so I stand corrected). FOX News has no liberal shows at all, while they have a slew of conservative shows. That's fair and balanced? Every single FOX News show is hosted by a conservative, and only one FOX News show has a token liberal as co-host. How is that "fair and balanced"? Of course it's not. Fair and balanced is, if you're going to have partisan hosts at all, having equal numbers of shows that skew right and left, OR having each show represented by a right host and a left host. In FOX's case, every single show has a conservative host, and only one show has a liberal c-host. End of discussion.

FOX got caught in the media henhouse, and it's no longer going to be treated as real media when in fact it's nothing more than the propaganda arm of the far-right of the Republican party. Just remember folks, FOX has been telling the nation for 4 years that the war in Iraq is actually going really well, but the mainstream media is lying to you. Now ask yourself how the war is really going, and then ask yourself why FOX told you otherwise. Read the rest of this post...

End this War

Free bumper stickers from MoveOn. Way cool.

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Schumer: Rove must testify before Congress

From Senator Schumer (D-NY)

IN LIGHT OF TWO NEW REVELATIONS, SCHUMER CALLS ON SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE TO CALL KARL ROVE TO TESTIFY

In light of new reports that Karl Rove played a role in the firing of U.S. Attorneys, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today asked the Judiciary Committee to call on Karl Rove to testify. Reports over the weekend reveal that New Mexico State Republican Chairman Allen Weh spoke with Rove about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and that Rove spoke with both Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and White House Counsel Harriet Miers about Weh’s complaints.

“The more we learn, the more it seems that people at high levels in the White House have been involved in the U.S. Attorney purge,” Schumer said. “Recent disclosures reveal that Rove talked to the NM State Party Chair Allen Weh before any public announcement of the firing was made and that Rove talked about Mr. Igleisas to the Attorney General and the White House Counsel. While the White House states not incorrectly that someone in Karl Rove’s position might get complaints about U.S. Attorneys, it is almost unheard of for a U.S. Attorney to be fired shortly after such discussions occur, when that US Attorney had received highly favorable reviews and ratings.”

Schumer’s congressional inquiry has already exposed that in Arkansas, White House Counsel Harriet Miers iintervened on behalf of Tim Griffin, a former aide to Karl Rove, to persuade Attorney General Gonzales to install Griffin as the interim U.S. Attorney there.

“There’s an emerging pattern that is extremely disturbing and everyday the sanctity of U.S. Attorneys as neutral enforcers of law without fear or favor is diminished,” Schumer said. “We will get to bottom of this.”

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Israeli ambassador to El Salvador fired after being found naked, drunk, with rubber ball in mouth

I'm sorry, this made me laugh (assuming he wasn't set up). And it is politics-related :-)

Money quote:

It was the first time Rephael, who had held a technical position in the ministry before his posting to San Salvador, had ever distinguished himself in any way, the official added.

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Urine Man resigns

The US Army Surgeon General, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the man who reportedly let an injured soldier at Walter Reed sleep in his own urine rather than help him, has finally resigned. About time. Now let's see if he's getting full retirement benefits and an honorable discharge after abusing so many of our injured and maimed soldiers. Read the rest of this post...

8th paper dumps Coulter

The Human Rights Campaign and Media Matters launched campaigns last week to have people contact the newspapers that syndicate Ann Coulter's columns (after she called John Edwards a "faggot," and then repeated the comment the next day). The 8th newspaper has just dropped her. This is good. This is really good. More from E&P;. Read the rest of this post...

Sen. Hagel (R-NE) makes an announcement, kinda

So, watched the Hagel speech. He announced that later this year he might be announcing that he might run for President...or something like that. He's going to be raising money for his Political Action Committee and his Senate re-election.

Hagel garnered an awful lot of attention for this non-announcement announcement. Read the rest of this post...

Army sending injured troops, unfit for duty, back to Iraq

From Salon

"This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."

As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.

Tell me again how much Republicans love the troops? Why is it that only liberal publications and liberal blogs care enough about our troops to report these outrages?

UPDATE: Cliff notes that this isn't the first time (read to the bottom of his post). Read the rest of this post...

Civil Rights for gays and lesbians on the fast track this year

From amending the current federal Hate Crimes law to make sure it includes everyone, and not just the religious right (which it already covers), to banning job discrimination based on sexual orientation (it's legal to fire someone for being gay in the majority of states), it's turning into a banner year for civil rights, let alone the civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans. Congressional Quarterly looks at the details, via Bloggernista.

After 14 years, the anti-gay Republican congress is history. And even though the anti-gay Republican president is still with us - let's hope Mary Cheney finally weighs in with Bush and does her spouse and her child-to-be some good - we have a real chance to finally make some incredible gains at the federal level this year.

You can read the full CQ article here. Read the rest of this post...

Why is Urine Man still the Army Surgeon General?

The new Secretary of the Army, the current Secretary of Defense, and our glorious commander in chief would like us to believe that they now "get" the Walter Reed scandal. Okay. Then why is the "doctor" who oversaw the abuses at Walter Reed for two years, and did little about it - the guy who let one of our wounded soldiers sleep in their own urine even though he was begged to do something about it by a GOP congressman's wife - our favorite Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley, M.D., still the Army's Surgeon General?

Why is Urine Man still the Army Surgeon General? This guy is not just a doctor, he's the Army's top doctor, still, even though we know now that under his "care" our troops, his patients, were abused for years.

In the real world, this man would be facing the potential loss of his medical license. In the Bush administration, he gets to be the top doctor of the entire Army during war time. Bush still doesn't get it. Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Shaping up to be another week of scandals and outrages from team Bush. One highlight will be watching Valerie Plame testify before Rep. Henry Waxman's committee. The Bush Administration talks tough on security for political reasons. But, they sure view the people who do the real work, like soldiers and CIA operatives, as expendable.

Start threading. Read the rest of this post...

War crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur

There seems to be no question that crimes are occurring in Darfur, so what is the Bush administration planning to do about it? For someone who talks so much about democracy and freedom, surely he's not going to continue ignoring the widespread rape and murder in Darfur, is he? It's time Bush quits talking about compassion and democracy and gets around to acting on those words or else there won't be any people left in Darfur. Read the rest of this post...

Halliburton to move corporate HQ to Dubai

Why does Halliburton hate America? Could it be that Halliburton, who has received billions in US government contracts and who has also been cited for billions of dollars of mismanagement and over billing in a war zone, wants to avoid paying US taxes and is hopping to another location because of a better offer? Maybe Congress ought to consider such moves when handing out no-bid contracts and include penalties for companies that jump ship and have no loyalty to anyone other than themselves. Of course, American individuals are not allowed to just leave when they don't their like taxes, but Halliburton and their kind always seem to be above the law for the rest. Now why is that? Read the rest of this post...