10,000 feared dead in Myanmar cyclone

UPDATE from Chris: Latest news is now "more than 15,000" dead.

Wow. Read the rest of this post...

Substitute Teacher Says Wizardry Accusation Cost Him Job

The stupid, it burns!

The telephone call that spelled the end of Jim Piculas' career as a substitute teacher in Pasco came on a January day about a week after he performed the disappearing-toothpick trick for a group of rapt middle school students.

Pat Sinclair, who oversees substitute teachers in the Pasco County School District, was on the phone. She told Piculas there had been a complaint about his performance at Rushe Middle School in Land O' Lakes.

He asked what she meant.

"She said, 'You've been accused of wizardry,' " Piculas said.

He said the statement seemed bizarre to him, like something out of Harry Potter.

Piculas said he replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

He said he also told Sinclair, "It's not black magic. It's a toothpick."

Read the rest of this post...

Oil does it again, closes at new record high

The price per barrel went over $120 - a new high - and closed at $119.97. Last week's sell off was short lived and buyers jumped on whatever news they could find, which is pretty much the same as any other day. It's going to test the $120 mark a few times but unless the demand eases and suddenly the world has great news in the oil regions, get used to more increases. Add to that Bernanke's Wall Street loving rate cuts (which never quite reach beyond Wall Street, in a good way) and you have this.

Those Republicans sure were right on this. Ha ha, look at those ridiculous people who talk about conservation. They're tree hugging goofballs who want to drive silly little cars. Errrr, nevermind. Mission Accomplished. Read the rest of this post...

Markos has the latest polls from NC and Indiana

Basically, it's as you'd expect. Hillary ahead in Indiana, Obama ahead in North Carolina. This will of course means that Indiana changes everything and North Carolina doesn't matter. Read the rest of this post...

McCain says "League of Nations" needs to deal with Iran

Too bad the League of Nations was disbanded in 1946 when John McCain was ten years old. Oh, and one of our commenters added this:

Reminds me of Mr. Burns at the Post Office:

"Yes, I'd like to send this letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail. Am I too late for the 4:30 autogyro?"

Read the rest of this post...

Loving of "Loving v. Virginia" dies

Sad. And what a beautiful name for the case that paved the way for marriage equality among and between the races.

Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday....

Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.

"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause," the court ruled in a unanimous decision.

Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero — just a bride.

"It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work."

Read the rest of this post...

Effectiveness of Green Berets hurt by never-ending Iraq and Afghan wars

The Republicans are breaking the military. Wonder what another 50 years in Iraq under Hillary (she said she's fine with that), or 100 years in Iraq under McCain (he said he's fine with that), would do?

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are making such heavy use of the nation's Green Berets and other elite warriors that they cannot fulfill their roles in other parts of the world, the military's top commando told The Associated Press on Monday.

"We're going to fewer countries, staying for shorter periods of time, with smaller numbers of people than historically we have done," Adm. Eric T. Olson said in his first interview since becoming commander of U.S. Special Operations Command last July.

Olson, himself a combat veteran, saw little chance that the demand for his special operations forces in Iraq will decline anytime soon. Even as the overall American force there shrinks — from about 158,000 now to about 140,000 by the end of July — the number of special operations forces in the war zone is likely to increase, he said.

Read the rest of this post...

Please donate to Scott Kleeb's Senate race in Nebraska

You all remember Scott Kleeb. He's our Nebraska cowboy who ran for the US House two years ago as a Democrat, and gave the Republicans such a run for their money (in a traditionally Republican district), that the Rs had to send George Bush himself in to save the day for Kleeb's opponent. (And that gives you an idea as to how conservative it is, as George Bush was still considered an asset a little over a year ago.)

Well, Scott is running again, this time for Nebraska's open seat in the US Senate. He's running in the Democratic primary against a Republican. Yes, his opponent in the Democratic primary is a Republican - and a friend of Bush, at that - who switched his party affiliation to Democrat two days before the filing deadline. His opponent has just put nearly half a million dollars of his own money into the campaign. So Scott could use your help - the primary is next Tuesday - you help matters now. I'd like to ask you to click the blue box in the upper left corner and donate to Scott's campaign. Scott is a proud Obama supporter and could really use your help.

The folks over at DailyKos are holding an online telethon for Scott between now and Friday. Their goal is to raise $20,000 for him by the end of the week. I'd like us to join in. One of the great things we all were able to accomplish during the 2006 congressional elections was to raise a heck of a lot of money for Democratic House candidates. Markos raised over $1.5 million, and even little old AMERICAblog pulled in a hefty $100k in only two weeks. I'd like to see us do that again. And wouldn't it be nice to have something we can all unify around, for a change :-)

So, if the spirit moves you, please click on the blue box in the upper left hand corner of this post, and donate to Scott's campaign. I've set us an optimistic goal of raising $10k for Scott by this Friday. We raised around $22,000 for him, I think, in the last campaign, so let's see what we can do this time. Again, Scott's Democratic primary (against the Republican) is next Tuesday. He needs your support now. Thanks as always, JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Funny as hell

From GasTaxScam.com (hat tip, Open Left):

CONFIDENTIAL/URGENT POLITICAL PROPOSAL

Dear Sir

First we must solicit your confidence in this issue. This is by virtue as being utterly confidential and "top secret".

We are SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON, the wife of the former United States head of state, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, and also SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, friend and associate of current head of state PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH. We got your contact through business inquiries as we were searching for contacts of a citizen who can help save our and our family's political careers since our country has been frustrating us.

We are top officials of the United States Senate Government who are interested in importation of oil into our country with funds that are presently trapped in the FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND dedicated to improving transportation. We wish to send this money to overseas accounts in the MIDDLE EAST but cannot due to restrictions in Congress Transportation Equity Act requiring that this money must be spent to build roads, bridges and high speed trains.

If you accept we will deliver to your a sum of 30 DOLLARS in the summer 2008 in form of a "GAS TAX HOLIDAY". You will then deliver this money to accounts of our friends in Middle East by taking it to your nearby gasoline station where they have information to forward the money. Please supply your bank account, social security number, address and your vote in DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES AND NOVEMBER GENERAL ELECTION.

But bear in mind that this transaction requires absolute confidentiality. Do not visit WWW.GASTAXSCAM.COM where there is information about dangers of our proposal and a petition to stop us from this diversion of funds.

PLEASE NOTIFY US URGENTLY OF YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS PROPOSAL

Awaiting your rapid response

Yours truly

SENATORS HILLARY CLINTON AND JOHN MCCAIN

Read the rest of this post...

Hillary just torpedoed the DNC's "100 years" ad against McCain

It was our best argument against McCain. It was an ad that was making the Republicans reel. You saw it here. It's the DNC's biggest gun yet against McCain - the 100 years ad in which John McCain says he's fine with us staying in Iraq for another century. The Republicans have been demanding that TV stations not air the ad. They're absolutely freaking out over it.

And now Hillary just killed it for us.

You see, three years ago, while having one of her "I love John McCain" schmooze fests, Hillary let out the whopper that she agrees with John McCain on Iraq, adding that it's fine with her if we stay there for another 50 years. Sure, she didn't say 100 years, she only said 50. but the point is made. Were Hillary to become our nominee, we'd no longer be able to use Iraq as an issue against John McCain because Hillary agrees with John McCain, and worse, she used his same language - the language we're using in our top ad against John McCain. (And actually, even when Obama is finally anointed, we're still going to have to face charges that McCain's position on Iraq is no different than Hillary's.) Here's what Hillary had to say:

"Senator McCain made the point earlier today, which I agree with, and that is, it's not so much a question of time when it comes to American military presence for the average American; I include myself in this. But it is a question of casualties," said Clinton. "We don't want to see our young men and women dying and suffering these grievous injuries that so many of them have. We've been in South Korea for 50-plus years. We've been in Europe for 50-plus. We're still in Okinawa with respect to protection there coming out of World War II."

So once again, Hillary's attempt to pretend she's a Republican has shot us in the ass. Then again, no one could have predicted that Hillary's refusal to admit defeat, her insistence on throwing every Democratic issue and constituency under the campaign bus, would turn around and hurt our chances in November. Oh wait a minute. Yes we did. Still think we should let this go until June? Seriously, does anyone in this party want to win any more?

PS We also can't hit McCain on his ridiculous gas-tax-holiday idea since Hillary is for it too. Nice. Read the rest of this post...

Warren Buffet calls recession at annual conference

Yea, but what does the world's richest person and most successful investor know about the economy? He supports Democrats so obviously he's a communist and is against our glorious leader. Clearly we need more tax cuts and less regulation as McCain says.

Last Wednesday, the Commerce Department said the economy grew at a 0.6 percent annual rate in the first quarter. But Buffett said the nation's population also grew, making the real growth rate lower. He also said that, even if the data do not show the economy retracting, people feel as though it is.

"The U.S. is in recession as I define it," Buffett said. "I would define that as a situation where people are doing less well than they were three months, six months or eight months earlier and most businesses find themselves in that position too.

"If were are in a non-recession, I don't think people want to see it going in the same direction as it is and saying it's wonderful."

Read the rest of this post...

Slate: Rumors of more Monicas

"I've been tested. I've been vetted. I've been in the political arena in our country for 16 years. There are no surprises." - Hillary Clinton, 12/14/07

Here we go again.

Slate just published a piece about a new book about Bill Clinton, called "The Clinton Years." Slate reports that the book includes an "old rumor" about Bill Clinton continuing his philandering. While the Clinton campaign has done a good job of embarrassing the press, and the Obama campaign, away from mentioning these rumors, the Republicans won't be so reticent in the fall. To paraphrase Clinton surrogate Evan Bayh, this is the kind of thing that Swift Boats are made of.

This is the first time a lot of people are hearing about this particular rumor. (Though Joe and I knew about this particular rumor a good year ago. We also know far more details about the rumor than Slate has revealed. But Joe and I chose, until now, not to report on it because, well, we still find ourselves pulling punches for Hillary's scandals when nobody on her team pulls punches for Obama's.) Because this rumor is new for most people, for most of you, that means this rumor, this baggage, isn't "vetted," to use Hillary's vernacular. It's not good, and if it's true (hell, even if it isn't true), it could doom our chances against McCain in the fall were Hillary to be the nominee. Why? Because were Hillary to somehow become our party's nominee, the Republican 527s, and GOP state parties like Kentucky and North Carolina, would ensure that we spend the entire fall discussing who Bill Clinton is sleeping with, and whether we're going to have more Monicas when he's back in the White House, rather than discussing why John McCain is too old and too conservative to be president. Just imagine the jokes Republicans, and the late night shows, would make about Hillary and that 3am phone call now that this is out there.

Now, the Clinton campaign will say that it's just horrible that anyone would dare mention rumors about Bill Clinton continuing to philander, and how horrible it is that Slate (or I) would even write about the new book (but I suspect they wouldn't deny the rumor, for fear of inviting another "Monkey Business" a la Gary Hart). But you have to remember, Hillary was the one who said that dropping the "kitchen sink" on a fellow Democrat is totally acceptable.

Before the critical primaries in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, her campaign had vowed to throw the "kitchen sink" at Obama to derail the momentum that had led to wins in 11 straight contests.

Hillary is the one who has said that personal scandals, and personal relationships, of fellow Democrats are fair game in this nomination battle. Hillary is the one who said that vetting these scandals now, rather than letting the Republicans vet them in the fall, is a necessity and is actually doing our party a favor, giving us a chance to see how well the potential nominee will fight back against such sleazy revelations. So, I publish this link to Slate in order to help Hillary become a better candidate, per her own request, per her own standards of conduct. So spare us the outrage from the Clinton campaign. They made their bed. Now, unfortunately, we're going to see who's sleeping in it.

From Slate:

Pages 103 and 104: Clinton and Ron Burkle, the supermarket magnate, have been buddies since 1992. Felsenthal repeats the old rumor that "Burkle and Clinton are … partners in philandering." She also quotes an unnamed source alleging that "Burkle and Clinton spend time together doing things that Hillary would not want made public" and reports that Burkle calls his private plane "Fuck Jet."

Actually, the The Huffington Post, and the New York Times, seemed to be alluding to something similar a while back:

The president's relationship with Ron Burkle has been the subject of widespread speculation primarily concerning Bill Clinton's private life. Over a year ago, Patrick Healy wrote in the New York Times:

Mr. Clinton is rarely without company in public, yet the company he keeps rarely includes his wife. Nights out find him zipping around Los Angeles with his bachelor buddy, Ronald W. Burkle, or hitting parties and fund-raisers in Manhattan.

Is it true? I have no idea. Has it been vetted? Not at all. Read the rest of this post...

Pelosi ally Cong. George Miller (D-CA) blasts Hillary over gas tax plan

This is significant for a number of reasons. Miller is a senior Democrat, he is a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he heads up the Democratic Policy Committee (which Pelosi personally appointed him to), and is a House committee chair. He is a significant and powerful member of Congress, not just some guy. And he's blasting Hillary's gas tax plan (which is John McCain's plan that she simply stole), he's comparing her to John McCain, and he's calling her out for threatening members of Congress (she basically told members of Congress that she was going to force a vote and try to embarrass them - embarrass Democrats in Congress on a vote that Republicans could use against our own members of Congress in the fall elections - if they didn't support her kooky GOP political stunt of a proposal).

So Hillary's plan to foment a civil war in the Democratic party moves along as planned. Now, in addition to disenfranchising blacks and alienating the Netroots (and its messaging and fundraising potential), Hillary is now starting a civil war between herself and Dems in Congress - something the media will love. But you know what? The DNC and the Dems in Congress seem to be just fine with that. They're fine letting Hillary rip the party apart even though she's already lost the nomination, and can give us no scenario by which she wins the nomination. So now we can spend the next month-plus with the media focusing on how the Democratic party is falling apart at the seams and on the verge of civil war. Hope you're all happy, because it's only going to get worse (I promise you). And in the meantime, none of us are focusing on John McCain. And we won't, until the adults step in and put a stop to Hillary's madness. She lost. It's time for her to go away.

Here is Miller's statement:

“The call by Sens. Clinton and McCain to temporarily suspend the federal tax on gasoline is a short-sighted stunt that will hurt consumers and do nothing to reduce the price of gas.

“American consumers and our economy need a real solution to the energy crisis, not an empty trick. You can run cars on a lot of different fuels, but snake oil isn’t one of them.

“In the hopes of winning votes, the Senators are preying on consumers’ justified anxiety about the economy without offering a solution to their real problems. There’s nothing in our history to indicate that oil companies will pass on any savings to the consumer. So despite the McCain and Clinton gas tax holiday, the price at the pump will continue to rise and oil companies will take even more of the profit.

“My constituents are reeling from the highest gas prices in the country. But they understand that we can only break the oil chokehold and bring prices down by investing in highways and mass transit, new technology, renewable energy, and energy efficiency.

“Siphoning off the political energy from these necessary steps to focus instead on a plan that some political consultants favor is cynical politics. Taking a break from the federal gas tax and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it produces is harmful to the long-term economic well-being of our country.

“Sen. Clinton knows it is not easy to pass a windfall profits tax on oil companies. We have been trying to rein in record oil profits for years, and the House has repeatedly passed legislation to roll unjustified federal oil subsidies and invest instead in renewable energy – but President Bush and Senate Republicans have blocked us. Some of the subsidies we are trying to eliminate started under President Bill Clinton’s administration.

“Sen. Clinton is trying to intimidate members of Congress into validating her bad policy prescriptions. Congress should reject her and Sen. McCain’s idea. Relief from soaring gas prices will only come from smart investments and real change in our energy policy.”

Read the rest of this post...

But *which* militia?

This NYT article on Iraq today is a good example of why it's so frustrating to try to follow news on Iraq through corporate media. Michael Gordon, who does some really good stuff on Iraq and often seems to fully understand the intricacies of the conflict, delivers up what reads like the stenography for which reporters are so often criticized by experts in various fields. In this case, the Bush administration is once again accusing Iran of causing problems in Iraq, this time by reportedly bringing in Hezbollah (an Arab, Lebanon-based Shia group formed to fight Israel and now a significant political and military force in Lebanon) officials to train Iraqi militia members. This is part of a continuing story in which the US blames problems in Iraq on nefarious neighbors, but anything is possible, so it's worth looking at the details of the report.

Or at least it would be if there *were any details* in the report. Most critically, it's important to note that there are many militias in Iraq. There's a (US-supported) Sunni militia in western Iraq (Anbar province), and in addition to several smaller tribal and political party-affiliated militias, the two major Shia political groups, ISCI and Sadrists, both have armed elements (the Badr Corps and the Mahdi Militia, respectively). So one would think an important detail of the story would be . . . which militia we're accusing Iran of training? Especially because the US has essentially come out in support of ISCI and its Badr Corps, as they are the main element keeping Prime Minister Maliki in power. Could the administration flacks be so cynical as to accuse Iran of training a "militia" that we tacitly support, and that is closely allied with our good buddy Maliki?

I suppose it's possible that the militia in question is the Mahdi Militia, but with Iran supposedly backing away from support of Sadrists, that seems less likely, and since the US opposes Mahdi so strongly, why not just say so if that's the case? The whole thing is very strange, and it's opaque to an extent that it's very suspicious. Read the rest of this post...

Annie Oakley screws up her "I love guns" ad

Gee, what a surprise, Hillary knows nothing about guns. Funny, cuz I thought she was a lifelong hunter, you know, before the Bosnia sniper years. Every day is yet more fodder for a Republican ad campaign making her look like a pathological liar. Please just go away. Read the rest of this post...

In 2000, Bill Clinton opposed Hillary's gas tax plan

Of course, in 2000, Hillary opposed her gas tax plan too. (In all fairness, it's John McCain's gas tax plan. Hillary simply stole it.) Does she really think that, were she to steal the nomination, the GOP wouldn't have a field with "Hillary is a flip-flopping liar" ads in the fall? On issue after issue, from guns to NAFTA to this gas tax, Hillary shifts her position with each new poll, hoping voters won't notice that all of her previous positions contradict her current one. People aren't stupid. They're going to figure out that Hillary appears to lie about everything. I mean, she's got enough baggage already. Half the public already hates her, then she's going to have to deal with the Republicans bringing up Monica and all of Hillary's own scandals, like Whitewater and the cattle futures. And now she's branding herself a serial liar. This isn't the definition of electable. It's the definition of a train wreck.

More from DocStrangelove.com:

Here is President Clinton at a press conference in 2000 explaining that a gas tax holiday would not pass the savings to the consumer:

Q. Mr. President, in light of the fact that OPEC has decided to increase production, do you see it as a mistake for the Senate to proceed with a bill that would suspend the gas tax? And if it reached your desk, would you veto it?

A. Well, I don’t expect it to reach my desk because there seems to be bipartisan opposition to it in the House, including among the leadership. But the problem I have with it, apart from what it might do to the Highway Trust Fund and the spending obligations that have already been incurred by the acts of Congress, the budgets, is that I’m not sure that the savings would be passed along to the consumers in addition to that. So I think there are a lot of questions about it. But I don’t expect it to pass.

There must be video of this somewhere. Read the rest of this post...

Has any journalist interviewed fellow "journalist" George Stephanopoulos about Hillary and NAFTA?

From the Associated Press:

Clinton insisted she had opposed NAFTA during her husband's presidency, although there is little evidence to suggest she worked against it at the time. She even conscripted Stephanopoulos into service to support her story.

"Now, you remember this, because George did work in that '92 campaign, and George and I actually were against NAFTA," Clinton said. "I'm talking about him in his previous life, before he was an objective journalist and didn't have opinions about such matters."

Okay, the AP's Beth Fouhy wrote there is "little evidence" of Hillary's opposition to NAFTA. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton offered evidence in the person of George Stephanopoulos. So, what does George say? He certainly didn't deny it. Have any journalists interviewed him? Any of his ABC colleagues bothered to ask if it's true? I just did a google search, didn't find anything.

As John reported yesterday, Hillary played George today -- big time. George is now part of the story. Can anyone get the story? Or is George still too intimidated by his old boss to fess up? Stephanopoulos knows if Hillary is telling the truth. He owes his viewers an explanation. Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

It's Cinco de Mayo.

Big week in politics. Hillary Clinton must score decisive victories in North Carolina and Indiana or it's over for her. Okay, it's been over for awhile, but absent the big wins Hillary really needs this week, maybe even her crack team and the painful pundits will start to figure it out.

Whatever happens on Tuesday, Hillary will undoubtedly be spending all of her time on Capitol Hill working to build support for her gas tax gimmick, right? I mean, this is THE MOST IMPORTANT issue for her. No doubt, she'll be working the phones, pounding the pavement, lobbying her colleagues, rallying the grassroots, all to get the votes for THE MOST IMPORTANT issue. Otherwise, it may appear to people that Hillary is just posturing for political gain. I'm just saying....

So, expect a slew of new polls today. Keep in mind that lots of people in NC and IN have already voted.

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

The credit bubble bailout continues

Supporting education makes fantastic sense but aren't we just feeding the bubble by injecting even more cash? The cost of universities in the US has become crazy, unlike any other Western/rich country. No matter how you spin it, it's impossible to say that the easy money credit hasn't fed the high cost of universities. Take a look at the endowment funds that the top schools have and ask how tuition could be so out of control when these schools are sitting on so much money. A few schools are now changing their tuition plans for normal families but that's only because of pressure (or threats of action) by Congress.

Graduating from college with over $120,000 of debt not to mention credit card debt that students all have these days is a bad way to enter the working world. Sure, we can and we should help but this system needs a drastic overhaul and one that does not center around the credit industry cashing in. Read the rest of this post...

Buy now while it's hot!

Just when you thought you heard it all, you see this. The Green Zone as the hot new attraction with posh hotels, luxury shopping and an amusement park for the entire family. I'm sure the pro-war crowd is just lining up to get in on the action. Forget about jobs and feeding families, get in now and make cash from chaos. Hooray for the shining beacon of freedom and democracy! Oh look, is that the al-Sadr roller coaster over there?

Forget the rocket attacks, concrete blast walls and lack of a sewer system. Now try to imagine luxury hotels, a shopping center and even condos in the heart of Baghdad.

That's all part of a five-year development "dream list" — or what some dub an improbable fantasy — to transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone from a walled fortress into a centerpiece for Baghdad's future.

Read the rest of this post...