Maya Angelous tribute to Molly Ivins

It's nice, from the Washington Post. Read the rest of this post...

Our video from today's DNC meeting

Rob, Joe and I discuss the various presidential candidates' speeches.



I interview General Wesley Clark



Joe interviews Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT)

Read the rest of this post...

It's confirmed, insurgent gunfire shot down another of our helicopters in Iraq

Are we winning yet? Read the rest of this post...

All 49 Republican senators threaten to filibuster Iraq resolution

Let them do it. Enough already. The Republicans learned their lesson when we caved on their threatened filibuster of the minimum wage bill. We caved, gave them their tax cuts, and now they know they can roll us. Screw them. CNN just reported that all 49 Republican Senators have agreed to filibuster the Warner Iraq surge resolution if even more Republican demands are not now met. Which is fascinating, since John Warner just agreed to filibuster his own resolution. Warner has shown himself to be a typical Republican. The "moderates" don't exist anymore in the Republican party. They're spineless.

Let the Republicans filibuster the Democratic attempt to hold Bush responsible on Iraq. Make our frigging day. And make them a permanent minority. Read the rest of this post...

And oldie but a goodie

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Mary Cheney, Dan Savage hates you

And we love Dan. So you do the math.

Dan starts by quoting Mary in the NYT:

“This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate, on either side of a political issue. It is my child.”

Then he begins.

Nice try, Mary.

Yes, it’s a baby, not a prop. My kid isn’t a prop either, but that never stopped right-wingers from attacking me and my boyfriend over our decision to become parents. The fitness of same-sex couples to parent is very much part of the political debate thanks to the GOP and the Christian bigots that make up its lunatic “base.” You’re a Republican, Mary, you worked on both of your father’s campaigns, and you kept your mouth clamped shut while Karl Rove and George Bush ran around the country attacking gay people, gay parents, and our children in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006. It’s a little late to declare the private choices of gays and lesbians unfit for public debate, Mary.

Oh, and that's nothing. You really need to read the rest of the column. Let's just say it's not quite quotable for a family blog like our own. :-) Read the rest of this post...

Dodd won't join GOP filibuster of Warner anti-surge resolution

Joe interviewed Democratic presidential candidate Christopher Dodd (D-CT) this morning at the DNC winter meeting (we'll have the video of the interview later this afternoon over at Politics TV). Dodd made a few newsworthy points.

1. He will not join the conservative pro-Bush filibuster of the Warner anti-surge resolution, even though he does not support it. This is great news. Now we need to hear from Senator Feingold. Dodd says that he wants the Senate to debate the Iraq war, noting that it has been a long time since that body debated the war.

2. Dodd, whose home state of Connecticut now has statewide civil unions, says he supports civil unions for gay couples, and he supports amending the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to permit couples in civil unions to receive the over 1,400 federal benefits that go to married couples, such as social security partner benefits. Currently, DOMA bans couples, even in civil unions, from receiving any of the federal benefits that accrue to married couples. Dodd also talked about the gay issue in terms of his children, and the world he wants for his kids if they are gay. That was interesting.

More to come, including my interview with Wesley Clark. Read the rest of this post...

Is Senator Feingold going to join GOP filibuster of bipartisan resolution opposing Bush's "surge"?

That's the scuttlebutt I'm hearing - at least there's growing concern. Feingold thinks the Warner-Levin resolution is a bad idea (read his latest diary entry on DailyKos). Basically, Feingold thinks that the resolution is "a back-door authorization of the President’s misguided policies, and passing it would be a big mistake."

Feingold might be right, or he might be over-analyzing the entire issue. This resolution is being read by everyone, including the media and the White House, as a devastating blow against Bush (that's why Tony Snow brought out the old "you're enabling bin Laden" charge, again, today). It's difficult to see how it empowers Bush, which is what Feingold alleges. Bush is going to launch all the wars he wants, regardless of what the resolution says, so I'm not very fearful that the resolution will somehow give Bush even more power. The man doesn't obey the law as it is, and takes all the power he wants. This one resolution will have zero impact on giving our illustrious dictator more power.

What does worry me are rumors I'm hearing that Feingold may join the conservative pro-Bush filibuster against the Warner-Levin resolution, the only resolution at this point that looks like it has a chance of passing AND breaking the filibuster. The only resolution that at this point has the potential of supremely embarrassing this president as a bipartisan vote of no confidence.

It's one thing for Feingold to be our hero and charge at Democratic windmills. I laud that. Someone has to ensure that we all don't get too comfortable in our deal-making, and we could use a left-flank in the Senate to keep everyone on our side honest. But it would be quite another thing for Feingold to be their hero, helping to ensure that no resolution of Bush is passed simply because it's not perfect. I'm all for Feingold bluffing his way towards a better resolution. I'm not for Feingold doing Bush's dirty work by helping to kill any resolution at all, when the resolution is being taken by everyone as a massive slam against Bush.

Same message to Senator Dodd. Read the rest of this post...

Friday morning open thread

Joe, Rob and I are heading off to the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in a few. Many of the Dem presidential candidates are speakig this morning. Should be interesting to hear them in person, to get a sense of them, how they work the crowd, how the crowd reacts to them - especially Obama. Read the rest of this post...

New "National Intelligence Estimate" looks grim for Iraq

Washington Post:

A long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, presented to President Bush by the intelligence community yesterday, outlines an increasingly perilous situation in which the United States has little control and there is a strong possibility of further deterioration, according to sources familiar with the document.

In a discussion of whether Iraq has reached a state of civil war, the 90-page classified NIE comes to no conclusion and holds out prospects of improvement. But it couches glimmers of optimism in deep uncertainty about whether the Iraqi leaders will be able to transcend sectarian interests and fight against extremists, establish effective national institutions and end rampant corruption.

The document emphasizes that although al-Qaeda activities in Iraq remain a problem, they have been surpassed by Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence as the primary source of conflict and the most immediate threat to U.S. goals. Iran, which the administration has charged with supplying and directing Iraqi extremists, is mentioned but is not a focus.

Funny, that. Iran is supposedly, per Bush, one of our biggest problems in Iraq. Yet, according to the massive intelligence community review, Iran is mentioned only as an afterthought. Read the rest of this post...

Big Oil and right wing think tank offered cash to scientists to dispute global warming

Our good friend Lee Raymond, former CEO of ExxonMobil who received hundreds and hundreds of millions for his retirement, who heavily funded anyone who dared speak about climate change and who now sits on the board of the American Enterprise Institute and who chairs the Bush created committee on America's Alternative Energy Future, is showing that a he is unable to quit his smearing ways. This is what happens when you combine AEI - the folks who thought invading Iraq was a brilliant idea - and Raymond, the guy who loves his money but hates our world. No surprise here.

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

ExxonMobil is now saying that they will no longer give money to groups to smear the global warming opponents, but something tells me they will continue, but be more discrete and cautious about it. Until they prove otherwise, I expect the worst. Read the rest of this post...

Climate change to become part of studies for students

What an excellent idea.

The plans, to be published on Monday, will ensure that, for the first time, issues such as climate change and global warming are at the heart of the school timetable. Pupils will also be taught to understand their responsibilities as consumers - and weigh up whether they should avoid travel by air to reduce CO2 emissions and shun food produce imported from the other side of the world because of its impact on pollution.

Details of the new initiative emerged as global warming is thrust to the top of the political agenda today with the publication in Paris of a long-awaited report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Written by more than 2,000 scientists, the report is billed as the most definitive assessment yet of climate change.

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, said urgent action needed to be taken to avoid the worst-case scenarios and that educating children about the dangers of climate change was vital. "Children have a dual role as consumers and influencers," he said. "Educating them about the impact of getting an extra pair of trainers for fashion's sake is as important as the pressure they put on their parents not to buy a gas-guzzling family car."

Read the rest of this post...

British retailers to remove trans-fats

Tired of waiting for the government to get on top of the issue, UK retailers got together and decided to stop using trans-fats in their own brand products. In the US, the GOP always like to tell us that business can regulate itself but we never really see any real signs of this while in the UK, the retailers are actually taking action before the government gets around to addressing issues whether it be against trans-fats or calculating the carbon footprint of its products. Read the rest of this post...