Mastercard Int'l: more than 40 million accounts hacked

Yikes.....40 fricking million.

From the Washington Post:

More than 40 million credit card numbers belonging to U.S. consumers were accessed by a computer hacker and are at risk of being used for fraud, MasterCard International Inc. said yesterday.

In the largest security breach of its kind, MasterCard officials said all credit card brands were affected, including 13.9 million cards bearing the MasterCard label. A spokeswoman for Visa USA Inc. confirmed that 22 million of its card numbers may have been breached, while Discover Financial Services Inc. said it did not yet know if its cards were affected.

As Scott from CA astutely noted in the comments, "They can't protect you because they were too busy getting congress to stop the average person from filing bankruptcy." Read the rest of this post...

BBC credits lefty bloggers for getting DSM in the news

Very cool. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

There they go again. I go for dinner and the guys disappear. To think someone told them they could have lives. Geez. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Orchid Blogging

The recent orchid exhibit at the Smithsonian. Lots of possibilities. Enjoy :-) Read the rest of this post...

Ah, the smell of victory

This is what the "last throes of insurgency" apparently looks like. Read the rest of this post...

Demand Senator "Terri Schiavo is responding" Frist apologize to Senator Durbin

Jeralyn is right. For the second time in two days, Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) outright lied. The first time was when he told the morning shows yesterday that he never said Terri Schiavo wasn't in a persistent vegitative state. ThinkProgress and others pulled up the old video of him saying just that. But this one is even worse.

Frist went to the Senate floor and outright lied about what Senator Durbin (D-IL) said about the horrendous treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. As you may recall, the Republicans have coordinated a fake firestorm of protest to criticize Durbin for rightfully reminding the country who embarrassing our pro-torture policy is at Gitmo (and Abu Ghraib, I might add). So they did what good Nazis fascist governments always do, blow up at the guy telling the truth to try to scare everyone else into not talking.

But Frist's little statement was even worse than usual. Probably because he was trying to take attention away from the fact that he helped coordinate the Terri Schiavo fiasco, and then outright lied about it on national TV yesterday when he was totally made a fool out of the fact that Terri Schiavo's brain had shrunk to half it's size and she was truly and unfortunately a total vegetable, Frist said that Durban is helping recruit suicide bombers!

I've got news for Frist, he and George Bush are doing more than enough to recruit suicide bombers who want to attack America. Senator Durbin hardly has to help. Not to mention, its funny how Durbin pointing out what George Bush has done, with the sanction of people like Cat-Killer Frist, risks inflaming suicide bombers, and of course the fault lies with the messenger, rather than the torturer.

It's time Bill Frist apologized for being a liar. Read the rest of this post...

The Downing Street Memo and the Pentagon Papers

From E&P.; Read the rest of this post...

New DemsTV.com

I totally forgot to post it this week. Sorry. Here you go.

Read the rest of this post...

Military recruit has Web site to make a "pig" out of the Koran

Let's see if the Army reservists keep this guy. (I'm sure the Chicago Trib will write a scathing editorial about how pigs are actually quite admirable creatures.)

(Hat tip to RawStory) Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Give Corzine some love in the poll at the bottom of this page. He's the Dem running for governor in NJ. Read the rest of this post...

Why does the Washington Post hate America?

A letter Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) just sent to the Wash Post (Conyers convened yesterday's hearing about the DSM):

June 17, 2005

Mr. Michael Abramowitz, National Editor
Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman
Mr. Dana Milbank
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20071

Dear Sirs:

I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post's only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.

In an inaccurate piece of reporting that typifies the article, Milbank implies that one of the obstacles the Members in the meeting have is that "only one" member has mentioned the Downing Street Minutes on the floor of either the House or Senate. This is not only incorrect but misleading. In fact, just yesterday, the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, mentioned it on the Senate floor. Senator Boxer talked at some length about it at the recent confirmation hearing for the Ambassador to Iraq. The House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently signed on to my letter, along with 121 other Democrats asking for answers about the memo. This information is not difficult to find either. For example, the Reid speech was the subject of an AP wire service report posted on the Washington Post website with the headline "Democrats Cite Downing Street Memo in Bolton Fight". Other similar mistakes, mischaracterizations and cheap shots are littered throughout the article.

The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats "pretended" a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing.

In what can only be described as a deliberate effort to discredit the entire hearing, Milbank quotes one of the witnesses as making an anti-semitic assertion and further describes anti-semitic literature that was being handed out in the overflow room for the event. First, let me be clear: I consider myself to be friend and supporter of Israel and there were a number of other staunchly pro-Israel members who were in attendance at the hearing. I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive.

That said, to give such emphasis to 100 seconds of a 3 hour and five minute hearing that included the powerful and sad testimony (hardly mentioned by Milbank) of a woman who lost her son in the Iraq war and now feels lied to as a result of the Downing Street Minutes, is incredibly misleading. Many, many different pamphlets were being passed out at the overflow room, including pamphlets about getting out of the Iraq war and anti-Central American Free Trade Agreement, and it is puzzling why Milbank saw fit to only mention the one he did.

In a typically derisive and uninformed passage, Milbank makes much of other lawmakers calling me "Mr. Chairman" and says I liked it so much that I used "chairmanly phrases." Milbank may not know that I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee from 1988 to 1994. By protocol and tradition in the House, once you have been a Chairman you are always referred to as such. Thus, there was nothing unusual about my being referred to as Mr. Chairman.

To administer his coup-de-grace, Milbank literally makes up another cheap shot that I "was having so much fun that [I] ignored aides' entreaties to end the session." This did not occur. None of my aides offered entreaties to end the session and I have no idea where Milbank gets that information. The hearing certainly ran longer than expected, but that was because so many Members of Congress persevered under very difficult circumstances to attend, and I thought - given that - the least I could do was allow them to say their piece. That is called courtesy, not "fun."

By the way, the "Downing Street Memo" is actually the minutes of a British cabinet meeting. In the meeting, British officials - having just met with their American counterparts - describe their discussions with such counterparts. I mention this because that basic piece of context, a simple description of the memo, is found nowhere in Milbank's article.

The fact that I and my fellow Democrats had to stuff a hearing into a room the size of a large closet to hold a hearing on an important issue shouldn't make us the object of ridicule. In my opinion, the ridicule should be placed in two places: first, at the feet of Republicans who are so afraid to discuss ideas and facts that they try to sabotage our efforts to do so; and second, on Dana Milbank and the Washington Post, who do not feel the need to give serious coverage on a serious hearing about a serious matter-whether more than 1700 Americans have died because of a deliberate lie. Milbank may disagree, but the Post certainly owed its readers some coverage of that viewpoint.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.

Read the rest of this post...

Terri Schiavo had almost solved the grand unified theory when we murdered her

Bastards. Read the rest of this post...

Jeb Bush gets prosecutor to agree to investigate Terri Schiavo's husband

Recall the SOB. He's in the pocket of the religious right hate groups. And now he's abusing his governmental power to harass a widower. And this man wants to be president?

Time to restart that national and public debate about Terri Schiavo and what the Republicans did to her. They want this debate, let's have it. Remember, the GOP's position was at around 18% in the polls.

Please, someone, please let's have this debate. Read the rest of this post...

Orrin Hatch (R-UT) signs onto anti-lynching resolution

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Lamar Alexander (R-TN) - (202) 224-4944
Robert Bennett (R-UT) - (202) 224-5444
Thad Cochran (R-MS) - (202) 224-5054
John Cornyn (R-TX) - (202) 224-2934
Michael Crapo (R-ID) - (202) 224-6142
Michael Enzi (R-WY) - (202) 224-3424
Chuck Grassley (R-IA) - (202) 224-3744
Judd Gregg (R-NH) - (202) 224-3324
Orrin Hatch (R-UT) - (202) 224-5251
Kay Hutchison (R-TX) - (202) 224-5922
Jon Kyl (R-AZ) - (202) 224-4521
Trent Lott (R-MS) - (202) 224-6253
Richard Shelby (R-AL) - (202) 224-5744
Gordon Smith (R-OR) - (202) 224-3753
John Sununu (R-NH) - (202) 224-2841
Craig Thomas (R-WY) - (202) 224-6441

Please call the holdouts and ask why they're opposed to making a strong statement against lynching. Read the rest of this post...

Two totally unrelated stories about anti-gay GOP Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham

GOP congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Was he outed by Elizabeth Birch several years ago?

And totally unrelated, the Wash Post reports this week that GOP Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham lives on his male lobbyist friend's yacht, and the yacht sure sounds like it's named after the congressman (it's called the "Duke Stir" - Dukester, get it?)

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Oh, and Cunningham has a 17% rating from the gay rights lobby Human Rights Campaign. Read the rest of this post...

"Michael in New York" on radio's The Tom Hartmann Show

Michael is a guest on the Tom Hartmann Show today at 1:30 p.m. talking about the top blogging stories of the week. Check your local listings to see if and when this nationally syndicated show is airing in your area. It's also called on Sirius Satellite Radio. Read the rest of this post...

Another Bush "Success" In The War On Terror

Thank God this 16 year old girl has been deported. Read the rest of this post...

Senator Danforth BLASTS the religious right

Several important points Danforth makes in today's NYT:

[Moderate Christians] proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.

And:

For us, religion should be inclusive, and it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. We do not exclude from worship those whose opinions differ from ours. Following a Lord who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners, we welcome to the Lord's table all who would come. Following a Lord who cited love of God and love of neighbor as encompassing all the commandments, we reject a political agenda that displaces that love. Christians who hold these convictions ought to add their clear voice of moderation to the debate on religion in politics.

So, the religious right is not inclusive, they're not like Jesus, and they displace love.

Now this gets particularly interesting:

When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.

When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.

We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.

Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.

Danforth is saying that his Christian views, his faith, tells him how to decide each of these issues. That means that lawmakers and religious right fanatics who disagree with him and push the other way are impinging on his faith. That's anti-Christian bigotry, to quote the religious right.

Why are the religious right, George Bush, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum anti-Christian bigots?

I'm quite serious about this. Their views are religious? Fine, then our views are religious too. And any attempt to disagree with us and support other political views is restricting our freedom of religion under the Constitution.

Let's pass a law protecting "religious freedom," just like the religious right hate groups want. Then let's use that law to prosecute them all. Read the rest of this post...

The Chicago Trib's yellow journalism, Part II

I just realized, check out how the Trib described what Senator Durbin supposedly said yesterday:

Enter Durbin, second-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate. In a Senate speech Tuesday, Durbin raked Bush administration officials over the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. He read an account by an unnamed FBI agent of the alleged treatment of a prisoner who was "chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water." The prisoner, the agent said, had been subject to extremely hot and cold temperatures, and loud rap music.

Their intent? To make it sound like Durbin is an idiot, talking about how loud rap music is akin to Nazi treatment of prisoners.

Of course, let's look at what the Trib intentionally - or negligently - left out of Durbin's description.

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

Gee, Durbin talked about a lot more than just rap music. In fact, that was the most shocking paragraph of his entire speech. Everyone saw it. It was the thing that popped out at you. It was horrifying. And it was the one thing that the Chicago Trib left out of their editorial (and interestingly, it's the same paragraph the Washington Times left out of THEIR editorial, hmmm.)

We would never want to presume that the Chicago Trib would be intentionally trying to mislead millions of Chicagoans by, in essence, lying to them about what Senator Durbin ACTUALLY said. So we'll just assume they're simply incompetent journalists. Read the rest of this post...

The Chicago Tribune's "cheap stunt"

Funny. The Chicago Tribune can write an editorial (yesterday) with the subtext that GOP Senators are in favor of lynching, but then when Senator Durbin reads a horrible description of prisoner abuse at Gitmo, and says, rightfully, that such a description sounds like what a totalitarian regime would do to prisoners, suddenly THAT comparison is a "cheap stunt."

Right. Because it's much more likely that 10 sitting US Senators are in favor of lynching innocent black people and hanging them from trees in the town square, than it's likely that our government could ever go too far and systematically violate the human rights of people who are different than us. Uh huh. Torture vs. lynching, and the Trib chooses lynching as the more probable scenario.

Now who's pulling a cheap stunt?

Of course, in the end, neither was pulling a cheap stunt. Senators being afraid to take a stand on lynching is bizarre and says something much more troubling about their party. And it's scary as hell what's happening at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and worse, the Amurika-love-it-or-leave-it crap we're hearing from the Republican party borg and now the Trib. That was another warning sign of Nazi Germany, the state can do no wrong. Read the rest of this post...

So now the "brave" Europeans are caving to Bush's anti-climate agenda

Last time I want to hear a European criticizing us. Even their own governments can't stand firm for their own principles. Read the rest of this post...

Now Jeb Bush considering prosecuting Terri Schiavo's husband

Yes, the religious right hate group's best buddy in Florida is now talking about having a state's attorney investigate her husband Michael to see if, as the loony-tunes parents claim (you remember them? the father said that with therapy Terri would be a functioning member of society), Michael refused to call 911 for a good hour after Terri collapsed in - when was it? - 19 friggin 90! Love to know how they're going to investigate that one.

Well, we now know the parents were wrong about her persistent vegitative state. Wrong about her "seeing" and "recognizing" them. And that Terri Schiavo's brain had pretty much turned into nothing. So now that they were wrong about everything else, let's harass the husband with the state's attorney. What is this, Nazi Germany Cuba? (Is Cuba at least PC?)

The religious right is seeking its revenge for a coronor's report that showed they're a bunch of nutjobs.

PS And while we're at it, I'll be Michael Schiavo was behind this too. Read the rest of this post...

VIDEO: Downing Street Memo hearing, distilled to 30 minutes

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars. Highly recommended viewing. Read the rest of this post...

Chicago Trib editorial blasts GOP Senators for not supporting anti-lynching resolution

The conservative Chicago Tribune editorial page, in America's 3d largest city. Not too shabby. Again, this is why it's important to hammer on these "insignificant" issues.

Remember how this story began. I saw an ABC News broadcast Monday night, noticed a small mention of how some 12 or more Senators didn't want to support the resolution, and then didn't see any mention of this "controversy" in any other media. With a concerted blogger effort of me, Atrios, Kos, Chris Geidner, Steve Gilliard and I'm sure other bloggers I'm missing, we made this a story. That helped the resolution get more cosponsors, which helps further tolerance, and that's obviously a good thing. We also hurt the Republicans, and that's a good thing.

Speaking up matters. The "little issues" matter. This is why I'm always harping about issues that some folks think are not worthy. They become worthy with just a bit of effort, and luck. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Already a busy day... Read the rest of this post...

Krugman covers Ohio GOP Coin-gate

A super column by Paul Krugman today,"What's the Matter with Ohio?" examines the GOP coin-gate scandal:

The Toledo Blade's reports on Coingate - the unfolding tale of how Ohio's Bureau of Workers' Compensation misused funds - deserve much more national attention than they have received so far. For one thing, it's an entertaining story that seems to get weirder by the week. More important, it's an object lesson in what happens when you have one-party rule untrammeled by any quaint notions of independent oversight.

Krugman reallys gets to the heart of the matter:

How could such things happen? The answer, it has become clear, lies in a web of financial connections between state officials and the businessmen who got to play with state funds.

We're not just talking about campaign contributions, although Mr. Noe's contributions ranged so widely that five of the state's seven Supreme Court justices had to recuse themselves from cases associated with the scandal. (He's also under suspicion of using intermediaries to contribute large sums, illegally, to the Bush campaign.) We're talking about personal payoffs: bargain vacations for the governor's chief of staff at Mr. Noe's Florida home, the fact that MDL Capital employs the daughter of one of the members of the workers' compensation oversight board, and more.

Now, politicians and businessmen are always in a position to do each other lucrative favors. Government is relatively clean when politicians are sufficiently afraid of scandal to resist temptation. But when a political machine controls all branches of government, and those officials charged with oversight are also reliably partisan, politicians feel safe from investigation. Their inhibitions dissolve, and they take full advantage of their position, until the scandals become too big to hide.

In other words, Ohio's state government today is a lot like Boss Tweed's New York. Unfortunately, a lot of other state governments look similar - and so does Washington.

Read the rest of this post...

The Choker raising money for GOP members

John posted yesterday, via Atrios, Congressman Choker, aka Don Sherwood, is getting sued. That great symbol of family values has been out there rasing money for the House Republicans.

From Joel Connelly's column in Wednesday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Was He Gathering Evidence? Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., cruised to Congress last year on his reputation as the sheriff who caught the Green River Killer, a mass murderer of women.

On June 9, Reichert was feted at a Washington, D.C., fund-raiser hosted by the Don P PAC of Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Pa.

The choice of host was curious. A 29-year-old woman, described by Sherwood as a "casual acquaintance," recently accused Sherwood of trying to choke her in his D.C. apartment. She called 911. Sherwood, 64, told police he was giving Cynthia Ore a backrub when she "jumped up" and ran for the bathroom.

Sherwood heads the vital "Incumbent Retention Committtee" for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Great role model:

“We don’t see him as a vulnerable member,” said Caryn Alagno of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “He’s been in office a long time, and he’s got a solid record in his district.”

Read the rest of this post...

US and Vietnam moving on

Although I can only imagine how the wingnuts would have reacted to these increased ties had Kerry been in office, it's a good thing that both sides are putting the past in the past. Many in Vietnam will often say that the north won the war but the south won the peace and looking at our latest efforts to cooperate, this has a lot to do with the business community of Vietnam who has never really cared for or supported the hard line political policies of the government in Hanoi.

For Vietnam the issue is always the same as it has been for 1,000 years and for the next 1,000 years: China. The Vietnamese are generally positive about the US because "we left" as they often say. If the Vietnamese economy is to continue growing they are going to need friends out there to pull them out from the shadows of China. The US could also use neutral friends in the area.

Moving forward, the US needs to be very firm about human rights with Vietnam, as many say that re-education camps still exist and political opposition is a deadly business. The last time I was in Vietnam (2002) there were stories of monks and self-immolations, protesting the current regime though unlike in the 1960's, reporters were not allowed to report the story. Read the rest of this post...

Another open thread

Ok, I'm watching Jon Stewart on TiVO now. Nite nite Read the rest of this post...