D-Day Remembered

I was on the Normandy beaches this past New Years. Here are a few photos - click each to see a much larger version.



You can see still see the holes left behind by the American ships shelling from sea.



One of the old German bunkers. Read the rest of this post...

Bush Surgeon General nominee: 'Homosexuality Isn't Natural or Healthy'

He also runs, out of his church, a program to "cure" gays. I'm just going to assume that the Democrats won't dare confirm this bigot. More from ABC News. Read the rest of this post...

Huff Post: Obama to beat Hillary in fundraising next quarter

Our Joe has been saying this for a while. Hillary maxed out all of her donors last time, under penalty of death, and even then Joe and ABC noted that Obama had by some measures done even better than Hillary last time. This next time was sure to be Obama's moment, and the rumors from both campaigns confirm it. Interestingly, James Carville, a Hillary partisan, was on the Sunday shows talking about how well Obama was going to do fundraising this next quarter - i.e., he was trying to undercut some of the damage by raising expectations that Obama was going to do well anyway. More from Huffington Post. Read the rest of this post...

Keywords in the Democratic and Republican presidential debates

I decided to use the fun tag-cloud tool and check out what words were most used in the recent Democratic and Republican presidential debates. I have no idea if this tells us anything. Just thought it would be fun.

Here is the Democratic debate from the other night.



And here is the Republican debate last night.

Read the rest of this post...

Lots of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" news

As you know, the GOP presidential candidates discussed the military's anti-gay policy last night - they kick out the gays. All the Republicans support keeping the ban, and many of them made it clear last night that they don't even understand what the current policy is. (All the Democratic presidential candidates favor lifting the ban.) Well, concurrent with that, there's increased chatter about the need to reconsider lifting the ban now that Bush has broken the Army, and at the same time, now that we still don't have enough Arabic-speaking men and women in our military at the same time that Bush continues to kick out the ones we have, risking another September 11 slipping through our fingers.

Here are some updates.

Antonio Agnone, a former officer in the US Marine Corps who served in Iraq - Antonio's job was finding and destroying IEDs, those roadside bombs that have been killing our troops because the military brass didn't want to spend the money on IED proof vehicles (true story) - does a video response to the GOP presidential candidates who dissed him and tens of thousands of other gay troops last night. Per HRC, Antonio is also announcing a new tour of duty?

Agnone will join other veterans on June 12 in Des Moines, Iowa to kick off the Human Rights Campaign’s national “A Legacy of Service” tour to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The tour will also feature former Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, the first American servicemember wounded in Iraq, and many other American heroes standing united and speaking out for the repeal of this discriminatory policy that continues to harm our nation’s security.

You can read the transcript here.



More on Antonio here via TowleRoad.

And even more on Don't Ask Don't Tell via ABC's blog.

And one more from Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic Online. Read the rest of this post...

Bush losing support from GOP base, which explains why GOP Prez candidates are distancing themselves

As we gleefully noted this morning, George Bush took a beating from the GOP candidates last night. Republicans tend to stick together -- even in the bad times. But, it starts to make sense with the revelations that Bush is losing support from the GOP base -- including the coveted "white evangelical Protestants." Now, that would be the base that Bush and Karl Rove worked so hard to please for the past six years. But, they're not happy with their President these days.

Via Froomkin:

A new poll by the Pew Research Center finds Bush's approval rating at an all-time low of 29 percent. Furthermore, Pew reports: "For the first time in Pew Research Center polling, disapproval of President Bush's job performance outnumbers approval by more than two-to-one (61% disapprove, 29% approve). Bush's job approval is down six points from April, and is three points below the previous low measured in November and December of 2006.

"The decline in Bush's support is most notable among Republicans. Just under two-thirds (65%) of Republicans approve of the President's performance today, down from 77% in April. This drop is apparent among both the conservative and moderate wings of the party. The proportion of conservative Republicans giving a positive rating declined 12 points to an all-time low of 74%. The proportion of moderate and liberal Republicans giving a positive rating fell 11 points (to 52%), also an all-time low."

Even white evangelical Protestants are now as likely to disapprove of Bush as approve.

And there's this tidbit from Political Wire:

From the latest Evans-Novak Political Report: "Just when it seemed that President George W. Bush's stock could go no lower with his political base, he dropped down a little more with the sentencing of Scooter Libby. Bush's reluctance to pardon Libby compares with his stubborn support of Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales. It is hard to exaggerate the extent of Republican discontent with the President."

We started to see some of that Republican discontent last night from the GOP candidates. The GOP base was like Bush's protective political shield. If he can't rely on them, he's really got no friends. Read the rest of this post...

Advertiser appreciation

We don't do it enough, so we're going to start doing more of it. It's time to thank our advertisers. They keep the entire blogosphere, left and right, afloat, and they deserve our thanks. So please click through and visit our advertisers, read the information they've provided. Whether you love em or hate em, they're providing an invaluable service to the entire blogosphere, regardless of anyone's politics.

- Courtyard Marriott. Interestingly, in our recent blog reader survey, Marriott was picked as the hotel where you most prefer to stay while traveling (19% of you).

- Freedom to Marry. It's the 40th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision (saying that it's okay for blacks to marry white, and vice versa, in America). Freedom to Marry has a new ad campaign celebrating the anniversary. It's quite edgy.

Read the rest of this post...

Washington Post editorial: Putin was mean to us

A rather odd editorial in today's Washington Post criticizing Russian President Putin. Yes, Putin has been rather belligerent of late, but the Post editorial reads like it was penned by an adolescent who was just told he had to be home by midnight. The editorial - clearly written by Post neo-con Fred Hiatt - isn't a criticism of Russia's lurch back towards dictatorship, rather, it's a criticism of Russia saying mean things about democracy. And democracy, fair lady that she is, apparently can't hold up to criticism.

Per the Post:

IN THE PAST few days, the anti-Western rhetoric of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which had been rising in pitch for several months, has reached Soviet levels of shrillness. He accused the United States of "imperialism" and "diktat" and threatened to target Europe with new Russian weapons. In an interview with foreign journalists, he cynically mocked Western democracy, saying that U.S. "torture, homelessness, [and] Guantanamo" and Europe's "harsh treatment of demonstrators" have left him as the only "absolute and pure democrat" in the world.

Talk about shrill.

Yeah, okay, the threat against Europe was a bit over the top, but it's not as if we haven't issued our own military challenge to Russia in their own backyard (Eastern European missile shield, anyone?). As for the rest of the what Putin said, save his comment about being a "democrat" (meaning, pro-democracy), what exactly did Putin get wrong? That our foreign policy under Bush and the Republicans isn't a tad imperialistic? That we don't expect the world to shut up and do what we say? (Hell, that's the way Bush and the GOP treat domestic dissent as well.) That torture, homelessness and the ongoing abuse that is Gitmo isn't a mockery of our very democracy? Sure is, and it doesn't take a former communist spy leader to see it.

Yes, what bothers Fred Hiatt about Putin's comments aren't the actual substance of the comments, it's the very fact that Putin would dare to say anything at all critical of the good 'ole U S of A. Putin dared to "mock Western democracy," you see. And everyone knows that the first rule of a democracy is "please don't speak your mind," and its corollary, don't ever ever ever criticize the government.

So it's no longer okay in civilized, democratic societies to mock our own government, our politicians, even our system of governance? Then what exactly are our soldiers dying for in Iraq anyway, Mr. Hiatt, if not the very freedoms that you and the Bush administration seem to have such increasing contempt for? (Let alone the irony of a newspaperman criticizing someone's opinion not on the basis of that opinion, but on the very fact that they had the audacity to issue an opinion at all.)

Democracy is more than a bumper sticker, Mr. Hiatt. At some point, you and the other neo-cons running the Republican party need to come to terms with your obvious dissatisfaction at being forced to live in in a country whose founding principles so offend you. Read the rest of this post...

Thousands of Turkish forces invade northern Iraq

This goes in the "not good news" category. As AJ is off enjoying himself in Italy, I get to do the defense update today. In a nutshell, Turkey is worried, has been worried, about the Kurds in northern Iraq. (You'll recall that Iraq is mainly made up of three groups, Kurds, Sunnis and Shias.) Turkey has a good number of Kurds in eastern Turkey - 20% of Turkey's entire population is Kurdish, and 50% of the entire Kurdish diaspora is in Turkey. Some of those Kurds started a violent separatist movement in the 1980s, and the damage done has been real:

The war escalated dramatically in the early 1990s. Between 1984-91, an estimated 2,500 people had been killed. Over the next four years, that figure shot up to 20,000. Some 3,000 villages have been destroyed by the military in an effort to rout out PKK sympathizers, creating more than 2 million refugees.

Turkey does not want to see the Kurds in northern Iraq gain their independence, lest the Kurds in Turkey choose to join them, splitting Turkey in two and leading to all-out civil war. But if Turkey invades Iraq in order to quell the anti-Turk insurgents there, the question remains as to how many troops Turkey will send, how far into Iraq they will go, and just how long they plan to stay. Will Turkey effectively annex northern Iraq? And what will that do to US efforts to quell the growing civil war nationwide? In effect, we'd have yet another all-out war to deal with in the north. And it's not clear whose side we'd choose - Turkey is a NATO ally and we could not accept the division of Turkey, but are we really going to start down the path of dividing up Iraq, which not only could make the current civil war explode even bigger, it could end up creating a Shia state that sides with Iran.

Not a lot of good options, here. Keep an eye on how many troops the Turks are really sending, how far into Iraq they go, and how long they remain. Read the rest of this post...

London Heathrow says we're a porn site

I'm told we're also blocked at O'Hare. It's not a good thing that sites have no way of knowing whether they're even blocked in various filtering software. Obviously there's going to be an error rate with everything, but still, I find it troubling that someone company is errantly censoring political content. I've requested an "unblock" via their Web site. I'll report back if and when I hear from them. And if you're in other airports around the world, try to access our blog and other top blogs, from the left and right, and see if we're blocked - and if so, take a picture of the message like my friend Jason did above (just us your cell phone cam or you're real camera and point it at the screen and click), and send it to me. Thanks, Read the rest of this post...

GOP candidates want distance from Bush. There is NO distance.

The dean of the Iowa press corps, David Yepsen, thought the loser in last night's debate was George W. Bush:

There was a clear loser — President George W. Bush — who began seeing his party’s candidates distancing themselves from him on a variety of issues.

Bush is a big loser. But, one more time -- there is no distance. Every GOP candidate on that stage has consistently stood by their President, George W. Bush. They made him. They enabled him. They own him.

The punditry may fall for this ruse, but we're not going to let Bush's party candidate distance themselves from him on any issue -- especially Iraq. Bush is on all their shoulders. Read the rest of this post...

Libby might get pardon because things are already so bad for Bush

The right wingers, led by the National Review, are in a frenzy. They want a pardon for Scooter Libby. They're demanding a pardon for Scooter Libby. According to today's Washington Post, the political situation is so bad for Bush, that may actually help Scooter:

At the same time, some White House advisers said the president's political troubles are already so deep that a pardon might not be so damaging. Those most upset by the CIA leak case that led to the Libby conviction already oppose Bush, they noted. "You can't hang a man twice for the same crime," a Republican close to the White House said.

Ironic that the war Scooter helped launch -- the war which has destroyed Bush's presidency -- may be the main factor that allows for his freedom. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Okay, after watching that debate last night, one thing is very clear: None of those knuckleheads should be President. They're a bunch of war-mongering, homophobic panderers. The Democrats really, really need to nominate the most electable candidate.

The only fun thing about the GOP debate was watching them kick George Bush around. But, they created that monster. They own him.

And, I will say these debates are already getting old. There are over seven months til the first votes are cast. Ugh.

Your turn. Read the rest of this post...

Prevention the critical missing piece in fighting HIV in Africa

Bush and the GOP want to spend over one billion dollars of taxpayer dollars in Africa preaching abstinence, often using the questionable Uganda ABC program as an example. Theory is fine when having a discussion, but when millions of people are dying, practical real-world solutions are needed. In the real world, getting serious about prevention needs to addressed. This means promoting the use of condoms and safe sex, not preaching about supposed morals.

If current trends persist, sub-Saharan Africa, already reeling under the burden of nearly 25 million infected people and in the midst of a population boom, will face 36 million additional new infections by 2015, according to a report to be released this June by the Global H.I.V. Prevention Working Group. Treatment clinics will confront an ever-growing clientele and countless millions will die, said the panel of experts, which was convened by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“It is like running on a treadmill,” said Salim S. Abdool Karim, who directs the Center for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa. “The faster you run, the more you stay in place.”

The panel blamed the lack of an intensive prevention effort for the continuing high rate of new infections. To some extent, the panel said, prevention has taken a back seat to treatment in the last several years. Developing nations are spending progressively less on prevention programs, the report said. Studies show donors are also gravitating toward financing treatment over prevention.

“Despite their promise, H.I.V. prevention efforts have received short shrift in the global H.I.V. response,” the report says.

That is partly because treatment programs produce tangible, dramatic evidence of money well spent, while an averted infection is almost impossible to show, even though prevention is more cost-effective in the long run, the panel’s experts say.

Congress needs to update the Bush plan for Africa and add a serious dose of reality to help make it as effective as possible. The religious right experiment has failed so move on. Read the rest of this post...

Blair is an absolute fool or is delusional

Either that or he's desperate to show the people of Britain and the world that he was not completely played by Bush for the past seven years, that he somehow knows the real Bush who will repay a favor. Since when has Bush ever budged or given anyone anything? He's an egotistical leader who is sure of his own rightness so it's others who must bend and change, but never Bush. While I would like to think that since American leaders, our traditional allies and most of the world wants the US to change that might mean something, but this is Bush we're talking about, not a rational person who is interested in building a consensus.

Tony Blair will make a final appeal to George Bush to repay his loyal support over Iraq by signing up to a firm global target to cut carbon emissions at the G8 summit in Germany starting today.

Three weeks before he stands down as Prime Minister, Mr Blair will join forces with the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, in an attempt to secure a breakthrough in the battle against climate change. They will press a reluctant US president to agree that the world should cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050.

Such an outcome from the last international gathering that Mr Blair will attend with President Bush would at last allow him to answer critics who claim he has got little in return for his "shoulder to shoulder" support for the US President, notably on Iraq and other issues related to the "war on terror".

At the summit in Heiligendamm, the Prime Minister will also try to cement another element of his much-vaunted "legacy" - the G8's commitment at the Gleneagles summit two years ago to boost aid to the developing world by $50bn (£26bn) a year by 2010, with half going to Africa.

Hope runs eternal, Tony. More delusional rants by Blair here, as he is convinced Bush can and will change. Read the rest of this post...

Bush continues his assault on the environment

Yet again, as he churns out more PR about how he's changing his ways on the environment his actions show that he does not care about the environment. At least he's consistent, though the way some are falling for his recent talk you might never know it.

The Bush administration made it harder Tuesday for non-permanent streams and nearby wetlands to be protected under the federal Clean Water Act.

The new guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers requires that for such waters to be protected there must be a "significant nexus" shown between the intermittent stream or wetland and a traditional waterway.

And the guidance says a determination will be made on a case-by-case basis, analyzing flow and other issues. Environmentalist argued that would negate the broader regional importance of many such waterways in the aggregate on water bodies downstream.

Read the rest of this post...