Another Bush legacy: increased crime and violence

Great work:

In a shift from trends of the past decade, violent crime is on the rise, fueling criticism of Bush administration policies as a wave of murders and shootings hits smaller cities and states with little experience with serious urban violence.

From Kansas City, Missouri, to Indianapolis, Indiana, places that rarely attract notice on annual FBI crime surveys are seeing significant increases in murder. Boston, once a model city in America's battle against gun violence, is poised to eclipse last year's homicide tally, which was the worst in a decade.

Explanations vary -- from softer gun laws to budget cuts, fewer police on the beat, more people in poverty and simple complacency. But many blame a national preoccupation with potential threats from abroad.

Being terrorized in our own cities and neighborhoods never fazed Bush. Read the rest of this post...

So Lieberman isn't sure we should withdraw US troops from Iraq in the event of an "all-out civil war"

So Lieberman thinks maybe we should keep our troops there even if it becomes an all-out civil war? And what, pray tell, would he like our troops to do in that event? Join in the fun?

"The position that my opponent and others take to set a deadline by which we will get out is the surest way to get to a civil war, which would be dangerous for our troops, a disaster for Iraq, the Middle East and for the United States of America."

He said the president and Congress may need to consider a troop withdrawal in the event of "all-out" civil war in Iraq.

May need to consider? Read the rest of this post...

Where the hell is Osama?

Just asking. Read the rest of this post...

Attack of the Right wing pundits

Funny thing is that they're attacking Bush:

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad." For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no." While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: "I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people."....

These have been tough days politically for President Bush, what with his popularity numbers mired in the 30s and Republican candidates distancing themselves as elections near. He can no longer even rely as much on once-friendly voices in the conservative media to stand by his side, as some columnists and television commentators lose faith in his leadership and lose heart in the war in Iraq.

While most conservative media figures have not abandoned Bush, influential opinion-makers increasingly have raised questions, expressed doubts or attacked the president outright, particularly on foreign policy, on which he has long enjoyed their strongest support. In some cases, they have complained that Bush has drifted away from their shared principles; in other cases, they think it is the implementation that has fallen short. In most instances, Iraq figures prominently.

Love it when they turn on each other. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

What's on the agenda for this week? Read the rest of this post...

Why does Chuck Hagel hate America?

Hagel's calling Iraq a civil war and he's still talking withdrawal. Think Progress has the video.

AP reports on Hagel trash talking his fellow Republicans:

"I think we've lost our way," Hagel said. "And I think the Republicans are going to be in some jeopardy for that and will be held accountable."

Read the rest of this post...

DC police refuse to arrest man who brutally assaulted another in public

This is typical. It's happened before, trust me. A group of friends and I watched a hit and run once, called the DC police, they arrived and then refused to take down the license number of the perpetrator, which we had. We insisted. They REFUSED. But the mayor and the police chief will tell us that this is just an aberration, like they do every single time this kind of thing happens again and again and again.

And people are paying $500,000 for one-bedroom condos smack-dab in the middle of all of this. But don't worry, DC council member and mayoral candidate Linda Cropp finally figured out that DC has a crime problem. Sure, she didn't have a clue a few years back when Adrian Fenty, her challenger and fellow city council member was all over the crime problem. Back then, Fenty was engaged and Cropp was nowhere to be scene. But hey, with weeks to go before the mayor's race, Linda Cropp is all crime all the time.

Yeah right. Read the rest of this post...

Somebody should have predicted this

Oh, wait . . .

AMERICABlog on August 14:

[E]ven if Lebanese and international forces do cover southern Lebanon, 1701 only bans "offensive" Israeli military action, and it's unclear exactly how that's being defined. If Israel strikes weapons being transported, is that offensive or defensive? What about missile launchers being set up? Etc. And of course all it will take is a small incident -- from either side -- for the cycle of recrimination to begin anew, whether in localized skirmishes or broader flareups.

CNN today, regarding the Israeli raid that the UN says violated the cease-fire:

Israel defended Saturday's operation, saying it was aimed at preventing the transfer of weapons from Iran and Syria to Hezbollah, an action barred by the resolution.

I hate being right about this stuff. I'd much rather be proven wrong and have everything go great. But as long as you're getting good analysis from reading us, and since it's a slow news Sunday (JonBenet! Snakes on a Plane!) I figured it's worth noting. Read the rest of this post...

"While the administration has been pouring its energies and money into Iraq, it has fallen far behind on steps needed to protect the homeland."

More from the NYT. Read the rest of this post...

Religious right leader in Illinois resigns after string of high-profile failures

Sucks to be a bigot in a country that's since grown up. Here's a sample of the guy's long list of failures, courtesy of the Chicago gay rights group, Gay Liberation Network:

Over the past few years the Illinois Family Institute (IFI) has established itself as the state’s most active and vociferous opponent of equal rights for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people. This week it announced that its Executive Director, Peter LaBarbera, had resigned. Given his string of failures, we suspect the real truth is that he was given the axe.

Working out of their bunker in the lily white suburb of Glen Ellyn, LaBarbera has churned out ream after ream of press releases over the past few years, once even putting out a press release decrying the lack of coverage for his press releases!

His obsession with all things gay seemed to know no bounds: from his undercover “research” into the annual International Mr. Leather festivities, while dragged out in leather himself so as to “fit in,” to his opposition to not just equal marriage rights, but employment, housing and access to public accommodations.

For all of his activity, Mr. LaBarbera has strung together an impressive list of failures. Here are just some of the highlights:

* When dairy magnate Jim Oberweis launched his immigrant-bashing campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, LaBarbera enthusiastically signed on, even though the anti-immigrant, anti-gay combination made him look like the choice of far right haters.

* After the victorious Republican nominee, family values supporter Jack Ryan, crashed and burned in a sex scandal, LaBarbera became one of the few stalwart supporters of Maryland import Alan Keyes. As ever more unbalanced comments from Keyes cascaded into the biggest landslide defeat in Illinois senatorial history, LaBarbera became one of the few remaining Republican operatives willing to be seen in public with crazy Keyes. GLN, Church of the Open Door, and other pro-gay forces hounded Keyes and LaBarbera at their increasingly pathetic campaign appearances.

* Twice out of the box wasn’t enough for Peter. When Oberweis ran for governor, distancing himself from his own, previous immigrant bashing campaign and instead highlighting anti-gay rhetoric, LaBarbera signed on again, going down to defeat as the openly homo hating fringe of the Illinois Republican Party continued to eviscerate itself before the party’s moderate wing. At a GLN protest against an Oberweis debate appearance at Channel 7 studios, LaBarbera’s counter-demo consisted of two people besides himself.

* Despite being bottled up in the legislature for 30 years, in January 2006 Illinois finally became the 15th state ordering equal employment, housing and access to public accommodations for gay people, and the 5th state to do so for transgendered people. Despite his vociferous opposition to any kind of equality for LGBT people, the pro-gay victory came on LaBarbera’s watch.

* This past spring the IFI attempted to schedule an anti-gay rally at a west suburban African American church, but Black people in the church thwarted it by calling the pastor out regarding his bigotry. African American gay activist Wil Lockett of Black LGBT & Allies for Equality courageously stood up during an anti-gay tirade (read “sermon”) a few weeks before the scheduled rally, denouncing the pastor for his hate speech dressed up as religion. That, and the threat of pro-gay a protest outside of the church during the anti-gay rally, prompted the pastor to scuttle the IFI’s event.

* When the Gay Games came to Chicago in July, LaBarbera saw it as his mission to prevent homosexual fun (& Games), trying & failing to the get the far northern suburb of Crystal Lake to ban the rowing competition, trying & miserably failing to get corporate sponsors such as Kraft Foods to rescind their endorsements, and failing to get significant media coverage during the Games themselves.

* At the start of the Games he held a press conference at the one hotel in the entire downtown Chicago area that is the subject of a long-time boycott and union picket – way to win allies, Peter! Reporters at the press conference later told us that Peter really seemed to lose it during his rambling presentation, fixating on GLN as the mother of all evils. His real problem is that GLN has made a habit of showing up at all of the IFI’s public appearances with our banner that reads, “Opposition to Equal Rights is BIGOTRY,” which always seemed to put a damper on whatever gay-hating festivities the IFI was conducting.

* At the end of the Games he and his crew invaded the heart of Boystown in a stated attempt to do “Christian” outreach outside of Steamworks bathhouse. GLN and the Coalition of Welcoming Churches staged a counter protest several times bigger than LaBarbera’s crew, which swelled much larger again as we pointed out to passersby who the funny looking people in the matching T-shirts were. Having scheduled his appearance to run from 5:30 PM to midnight, LaBarbera & Co. left before 7 PM, as the much larger opposition taunted them with catcalls and boos.

* The crowning “achievement” of LaBarbera’s reign was his failed attempt to get an anti-gay advisory referendum on Illinois’s ballot this November. A multi-year campaign, pumping all of the group’s resources into a measure that doesn’t even make it onto the ballot, was LaBarbera’s most stunning defeat yet. Despite the support of local Catholic leadership and various mega-churches in and around Chicago, LaBarbera’s failure in Illinois stands in stark contrast to the achievements of his anti-gay colleagues in almost every other state.

Read the rest of this post...

This is currently on CNN's home page

Enough already. Now you are simply stoking people's fears to gain audience share. That isn't journalism. It's yellow journalism, at best. It's Jerry Springer. It's the Weekly World News. It's also simply helping the Republicans in their already-declared electoral strategy to, yet again, create fear to help them win the fall elections. And you know that. So why are you doing it?

Does anyone else get the impression that CNN did this simply so they could get mentioned on Jon Stewart? Read the rest of this post...

Frank Rich isn't afraid any more

NYT:

As the election campaign quickens, genuine nightmares may well usurp the last gasps of Rovian fear-based politics. It’s hard to ignore the tragic reality that American troops are caught in the cross-fire of a sectarian bloodbath escalating daily, that botched American policy has strengthened Iran and Hezbollah and undermined Israel, and that our Department of Homeland Security is as ill-equipped now to prevent explosives (liquid or otherwise) in cargo as it was on 9/11. For those who’ve presided over this debacle and must face the voters in November, this is far scarier stuff than a foiled terrorist cell, nasty bloggers and Ned Lamont combined.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Threatening rain, again. Read the rest of this post...