Open thread

High of 92 tomorrow in DC. This is just creepy. Read the rest of this post...

Markos on Hillary on Iraq and Iran

It ain't pretty.

...many can't believe that Hillary is so damn stupid as to give George Bush a rationale for attacking Iran.

She really didn't learn her lesson the first time. Is she seriously claiming that this resolution was really needed to "lay the groundwork for using diplomacy and sanctions"? What, was Condi Rice (remember her?) hamstrung on her ability to conduct diplomacy without Congress giving her the thumbs up?

Does she think her audience is that stupid? Apparently so.

No wonder she won't apologize for screwing up the Iraq War Authorization. She sees nothing wrong with that vote, and has every intention of casting that kind of vote over and over again.

Read the rest of this post...

Iraqi leaders give up on "reconciliation"

Maybe we should get General Petraeus to give us another briefing because things aren't sounding nearly as cheerful as he said they were. From the Wash Post:

For much of this year, the U.S. military strategy in Iraq has sought to reduce violence so that politicians could bring about national reconciliation, but several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in that broad goal.

Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.

"I don't think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such," said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd....

Legislation to manage the oil sector, the country's most valuable natural resource, and to bring former Baath Party members back into the government have not made it through the divided parliament. The U.S. military's latest hope for grass-roots reconciliation, the recruitment of Sunni tribesmen into the Iraqi police force, was denounced last week in stark terms by Iraq's leading coalition of Shiite lawmakers.

Smells like... victory. Read the rest of this post...

Meet the Casting Directors of YouTube

A very funny video from my friend Jeff Whitty, who wrote the book to the Tony Award winning musical "Avenue Q." Jeff is also the guy who, you may recall, caused a bit of a ruckus by calling out Jay Leno on some of his homophobic humor.



This is part II, and this is part III. Read the rest of this post...

Republicans smear 12 year old boy

They've just tried to kill a program providing health care to millions of children, bt that wasn't enough. Now they're smearing a 12 year old boy who spoke out about how the SCHIP program helped him and his family. It's one thing for the Republicans to play these cute smear games with John Kerry or MoveOn. Still despicable, but at least they're adults. But going after 12 year old boys? More from ThinkProgress. Read the rest of this post...

Britain to pull troops out of Iraq

Gordon Brown just announced he will remove 2500 troops early next year which is about half the current deployment. Read the rest of this post...

Hillary takes the lead in latest Iowa poll

Joe has always said that it's not the national polls, but the local polls in the first few primary states, that matters. Well, Hillary just got one poll she really needed.
Still, Obama and Edwards are close, and we've still got several months to go. AP has a short, snappy analysis of where things stand right now between Hillary, Edwards and Obama. Read the rest of this post...

Really!?! Larry Craig

Read the rest of this post...

Dems. looking at major pick-ups in Senate

Very few things have been as frustrating this year as watching the GOP Senators continually obstruct any progress on Iraq and most other progressive issues. They have filibustered almost everything. The GOP Senate caucus has allowed George Bush to stay the course in Iraq.

With the 2008 election just over a year away, it's not looking good for the GOP caucus. Between scandals, retirements and the war, Democrats have a chance for major gains. Major gains:

Democrats are positioned to bolster their Senate majority in next year's elections, which would give them more clout regardless who succeeds President George W. Bush in the White House.

With Republicans dogged by retirements, scandals and the Iraq war, there's an outside chance Democrats will gain as many as nine seats in the 100-member Senate in the November 2008 elections, which would give them a pivotal 60.

That is the number of votes needed to clear Republican procedural roadblocks, which have been used to thwart the Democrats' efforts to force a change in Bush's policy on the Iraq war, particularly plans to withdraw U.S. troops.

The last time Democrats had an overriding majority in the Senate was in the 1977-1979 congressional session, when they held 61 seats.

"Sixty is not outside the realm of possibility," said Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

"But for that to happen, everything would have to break their way," she said. "Right now, it's way too early to say."

The Senators who are running in 2008 were all elected in the war fervor of 2002. It was five years ago this week that the Senate voted to go to war -- and it was a vote to go to war. Everyone knew it.

In the Senate elections of 2002, the Iraq war was the issue. In 2008, it will be again -- but with a much different outcome. Read the rest of this post...

My article in Salon on ENDA and the transgender question

Salon asked me to write an article about the ENDA controversy. I went up last night, you can read it here (and all you have to do is look at some ad and you can read the article for free). Just as interesting as the article is the comments section after. Other than few people who are categorically insane, it's a really interesting discussion. You can check out the letters/comments here.

An excerpt:

Conservatives understand that cultural change is a long, gradual process of small but cumulatively deadly victories. Liberals want it all now. And that's why, in the culture wars, conservatives often win and we often lose. While conservatives spend years, if not decades, trying to convince Americans that certain judges are "activists," that gays "recruit" children, and that Democrats never saw an abortion they didn't like, we often come up with last-minute ideas and expect everyone to vote for them simply because we're right. Conservatives are happy with piecemeal victory, liberals with noble failure. We rarely make the necessary investment in convincing people that we're right because we consider it offensive to have to explain an obvious truth. When it comes time to pass legislation, too many liberals just expect good and virtuous bills to become law by magic, without the years of legwork necessary to secure a majority of the votes in Congress and the majority support of the people. We expect our congressional allies to fall on their swords for us when we've failed to create a culture in which it's safe for politicians to support our agenda and do the right thing. ENDA, introduced for the first time 30 years ago, is an exception to that rule. It took 30 years to get to the point where the Congress and the public are in favor of legislation banning job discrimination against gays. It's only been five months since transgendered people were included in ENDA for the first time....

Passage of ENDA, of any federal gay civil rights legislation, would be a huge victory for the gay community. Not just legally, but culturally. Hell, we could pass the legislative equivalent of "Four Minutes, Thirty-Three Seconds," the famous avant-garde musical composition that contains no notes and is nothing but silence, and it would still mark the beginning of the end of our long struggle for equality. I'm not joking. We could pass a bill titled "Gay Civil Rights Law" that contained no language whatsoever. The fact that the United States Congress finally passed legislation affirming gay and lesbian Americans as a legitimate civil rights community, as a protected class of American citizens rather than a group of mentally disturbed pedophiles, would empower our community, demoralize our opposition, and forever place us among the ranks of the great civil rights communities of the past and present.

That's why James Dobson, Tony Perkins and the men at the Concerned Women for America are so hell-bent on defeating ENDA. To the religious right, ENDA without gender identity isn't a weak, meaningless bill fraught with loopholes. Our enemies know that passage of any federal gay civil rights legislation is a legislative and cultural milestone that would make it that much easier for all of us -- gays and lesbians, bisexuals and eventually even the transgendered -- to realize all of our civil rights in our lifetime.

I'll take that half-a-loaf any day.

Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Off to a later start than usual...but it's a holiday.

What is going on? Read the rest of this post...

Anti-war protesters to test UK law

Peaceful protest is fine, as long as it's somewhere else? What's the point of having a democracy if free speech is forbidden?

Tony Benn, the veteran Labour MP who announced his desire last week to return to the Commons, said he would be defying the ban. In a letter to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, he said: "The authority for this march derives from our ancient right to free speech and assembly enshrined in our history."

Chris Nineham, of STWC, said they had no intention of disrupting parliamentary business, adding: "We have marched in exactly these same areas and they have never used this law before. A few days after Mr Brown promised to enhance civil liberties, this is a serious assault on the right to protest."

A former SAS soldier, Ben Griffin, who will be on the march, said: "Gordon Brown cannot praise protesters in Burma and then ban a protest in London."

Read the rest of this post...

New poll: John Howard not trustworthy & has no vision

Hmmm, sounds familiar, doesn't it? Bush can't run but his old friend John Howard has to announce a new election soon, whether he wants to or not. Pull up a chair and enjoy because Howard is going to be thrashed at the polls.

With his youthful opponent Kevin Rudd promising generational change taking the country into the future, the Labor Party had a 56 percent cent to 44 lead over Howard's conservatives on preferences, the AC Nielsen poll in Fairfax newspapers showed.

Rudd, 50, also maintained a strong 52 percent to 39 lead over Howard as preferred prime minister. It was the 18th straight monthly lead for the opposition in the closely-watched survey.

"A point must come when John Howard leaps out of the aeroplane and hopes that a miracle opens the parachute," veteran politician analyst Michelle Grattan wrote in the Age newspaper.

Read the rest of this post...