Surprise! Now we won't know how the surge is doing until November

Show of hands for anyone who is surprised. Gee, and just yesterday all the Republicans in the Senate were saying that we only had to wait until September to get our answer. Then again, we found out last month that General Petraeus had already decided that come September he was going to announce the surge a success, even though now we find out that September is too early a time to know - even though Petraeus ALREADY knows. It is difficult to keep track of all of one's lies. Read the rest of this post...

Bernanke with the understatement of the day

I would say of the year, but with all of the pro-war cheering, it's been crowded out to second tier status.

"A lot of the subprime mortgage paper is not, you know, as good as was thought originally," Bernanke told the panel. He predicted "significant financial losses" associated with delinquencies on these mortgages. Some estimates are that subprime-related credit losses could be anywhere from $50 billion to $100 billion, he said.

I wonder what he thinks of Bear Stearns hedge funds being worthless but perhaps he's holding off for another day when he will deliver another understated whopper. Read the rest of this post...

Pentagon says anyone who asks about withdrawal from Iraq is emboldening the enemy

And the Pentagon brass know a thing or two about emboldening the enemy since they singlehandedly invited and trained Al Qaeda in Iraq for the past six years. And speaking about emboldening the enemy, how's that hunt for Osama going? Read the rest of this post...

You can't oppose redeployment because it won't be perfect

A member of a foreign policy group I'm in recently sent out an email criticizing Democrats for failing to plan for U.S. policy in a post-withdrawal Iraq. He cited this article, which, aside from a hilarious title, is mostly a collection of misdirection and outright falsehoods.

The article implicitly criticizes Democrats for ignoring the potential aftermath of U.S. redeployment. This is foolish for a variety of reasons. First of all, I would love to see a single article about how the Bush administration and Republicans are failing to plan for the potential increased chaos in Iraq if we stay the course. It's overwhelmingly likely that things will continue to get worse based on our current trajectory, even with (and perhaps especially with) the current tactics of the escalation. Where are the hysterical articles about the lack of planning for a Sadrist takeover? Or, heaven forbid, the death of Sistani? Or for a Kurdish declaration of independence? It's astonishing that people think the only way for Iraq to get worse is for us to leave.

Further, Democrats have -- and have had -- plenty of proposals and plans for post-withdrawal Iraq. Legislation has covered it, the major presidential candidates have all weighed in on the options, and there are reams of studies from left and center-left think tanks like Center for American Progress, Center for a New American Security, and the New America Foundation. There are plenty of progressive/Democratic/lefty ideas for post-withdrawal. Know why they haven't been implemented? Because Republicans, especially our current president, have no interest in working, compromising, or even talking with Democrats.

While trying to end a horrendous war that's actively harming U.S. security, it makes no sense for Congress to get bogged down in a discussion of what if. But for those of us who read the think tank reports, get on the conference calls, go to the open lunch meetings, it's obvious there's no lack of Democratic planning for "the day after."

If the argument is that the aftermath will be so bad that we shouldn't end the war, then that should be stated. But for people to wring their hands that Dems are being irresponsible, when the current legislative approach is *exclusively* a result of Bush repeatedly rejecting comprehensive, compromise, bipartisan efforts, is ridiculous.

I favor redeployment because I strongly believe the following:

1) Our current presence in Iraq is making the U.S. less safe.
2) Our current presence in Iraq is impeding the long-term development of Iraq.

The aftermath of the solution for those two problems (i.e., significant redeployment of our troops) won't be perfect, and it won't even be pretty. There are things we can do to mitigate that harmful effects of withdrawal, and we should do them. But the mere existence of potential for "chaos" (as if things are currently just fine!) is not a reason to abandon what's right for the U.S. and what's right for Iraq. Read the rest of this post...

Ethics complaint filed against Senator Vitter for soliciting hooker

From CREW:

Senator Vitter's solicitation of at least one prostitute was not merely, as he has stated, 'a serious sin,' it was a violation of criminal law. The Senate Ethics Committee should commence an investigation into Senator Vitter's conduct and hold him accountable.

UPDATE: Senator Reid has called for a full accounting of just what happened with the Vitter affair. Read the rest of this post...

Romney upset that Obama doesn't want adults inappropriately touching children

And of all things, Pat Robertson's Web site defends Obama. Now I've seen it all. But I just can't remain mad, after all, Romney is such a pretty fella. Read the rest of this post...

Please donate to our AMERICAblog 2.0 campaign

A few days ago we launched a campaign to raise $20,000 between now and August 15 to pay for the build and launch of AMERICAblog 2.0, an updated and upgraded version of AMERICAblog that will offer you far more content and options. We've already raised 1/4 of that money, over $5,000, but we need to raise more. Here's why.

Among the things we plan for AMERICAblog 2.0:

- Every one of you will be able to create your own blog (diary) and host it on AMERICAblog for free.
- We'll have a separate home page dedicated to YOUR blog content, and visitors will be able to vote on the user-created content they like best.
- More up-to-the-minute news on the AMERICAblog home page.
- More open threads.
- Better ability to ban trolls, for good.
- Enhanced social networking, so you can better organize and fraternize amongst yourselves.
- Polls.
- Email action alerts to harness the power of our community.

The goal, quite simply, is to make the blog more interesting and fun for you, and more powerful for our community.

But we need your help to do it. As I've detailed at the top of this page, with a highly-trafficked blog like AMERICAblog - we get 2.5 million page views a month (and spikes in traffic three times that) - it costs real money to build a site that won't crash six months (or six days) after we build it, and especially one that can handle the expected traffic surge come next election. The detailed breakdown of the budget is at the top of the page, but the total comes to $20,000.

As an aside, you may have noticed that I haven't done a fundraiser on the blog (for the blog) in a very long time. Our ad sales finally became sufficient to cover our costs. Well, ad sales have plummeted the past three months - there isn't a single ad on the site right now that is being paid for (update: we just sold one ad for $800 - that's great, but it's not going to break the bank). That means my salary, the salary I pay my writers (and I do pay my writers, to the tune of $30,000 collectively last year), is coming out of my savings and other work outside of the blog. But still, I'm not asking for your donation for our salaries, or for anything else unrelated to AMERICAblog 2.0. I've started consulting again to help cover those costs. I'm asking you to contribute to a fund that we will use to rebuild AMERICAblog into an even more powerful, more exciting, and hopefully even more fun community (as Al Gore would say, I'm putting your donations into a lock-box for the build and launch of the new blog).

And finally, as a small token of our appreciation, everyone who donates to the AMERICAblog 2.0 campaign will be invited to be a beta tester for the new site. That means that before we launch, we'll give a few (or a lot of) guinea pigs a sneak preview of the blog so they can play with it and test it in order to make sure it works as advertised. You aren't obligated to help, but if you'd like to, we'd welcome the aide.

We've done a lot of great work together since our launch over three years ago. We started by taking on Mary Cheney and making her a household word in order to shame the Bush administration for their gay-baiting, we outed GannonGuckert's extracurricular activities, we challenged Microsoft and Ford when they caved to anti-gay religious right bigots (and we won), we highlighted the perils of cell phone privacy (or the lack thereof) by buying Wesley Clark's cell phone records. We also raised money for a number of needy causes, including $5400 for the American service member who was forced to pay for his own body armor. And finally, we raised over $100,000 for Democratic candidates last election with only 2 weeks of fundraising.

I'm proud of what we've all created together, and look forward to all that we can do in the future. If you like what you see, if you enjoy the community we've built here, and if you agree that we're finally at a turning point in taking back our government and our country, then I hope you'll join us in our campaign to raise $20,000 for AMERICAblog 2.0

You can donate quite easily and safely online via this link.

You can also write a check to "John Aravosis" and send it to:
PO Box 21336
Washington, DC 20009

Note: Donations are not tax-deductible, and I cannot cash checks made out to "AMERICAblog" - please make the checks out to "John Aravosis."

Thank you in advance, and again, for all of your generosity and support in building a really unique community. But more importantly, thank you for believing that your individual and collective voices CAN make a difference. To paraphrase Margaret Mead, it's the only thing that ever has.

Or, if Margaret Mead isn't your cup of tea, perhaps the following descriptions of AMERICAblog will inspire your generosity:

"Peppered with obscenity" - Concerned Women for America (the men at the)

"A particularly angry activist" - Family Research Council

"Bunch of wackos" - Rush Limbaugh

JOHN

PS Dr. Laura hates us too. Read the rest of this post...

Bush to America's kids: Screw you

George Bush doesn't take care of wounded soldiers who he sent to war, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he's not worried about the health of America's kids. Okay, it shouldn't be a surprise, but somehow it is. Bush is even being lobbied by hard core Republican Senators Grassley and Hatch to support the SCHIP bill, but he won't:

President Bush yesterday rejected entreaties by his Republican allies that he compromise with Democrats on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children, saying that expanding the program would enlarge the role of the federal government at the expense of private insurance.

The president said he objects on philosophical grounds to a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has proposed $5 billion in increased funding and has threatened to veto the Senate compromise and a more costly expansion being contemplated in the House.

"I support the initial intent of the program," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post after a factory tour and a discussion on health care with small-business owners in Landover. "My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government."

When you expand eligibility, you make sure sick kids get health care. Can't have that in George Bush's America.

AFSCME's Greenline notes "how spiraling health care costs have made insurance coverage unaffordable for millions of working families. And that’s an Inconvenient Truth that this SICKO administration would prefer to ignore." Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

So, the Republicans used the filibuster to keep the Iraq war going. Bush and his allies consider that a big win. That's the only victory they can accomplish when it comes to Iraq. A filibuster victory. They're pathetic.

Which leads me to NBC's Kelly O'Donnell. Reporting from the White House, she just did a lengthy piece on how the presidential campaigns are spending money --- breathlessly revealing the amount some of the candidates are spending on pizza and coffee. Imagine if NBC spent as much time breathlessly explaining the health care positions of the candidates. And, that's the biggest story NBC's White House reporter can come up with? Apparently, for NBC, there's no other news from the Bush administration, so we get a report on pizza and coffee bills.

Okay, just get it started, please. Read the rest of this post...

Murdoch as the 24th and critical Blair Cabinet member

With Blair now out of power and unable to obstruct access, the UK Government has finally released interesting information under the UK's Freedom of Information Act. Considering the timing of the phone calls between Rupert Murdoch and the hit pieces that followed it is no wonder Blair wanted to keep the details away from the media. More than ever it appears as though Blair worked hand in hand with Rupert Murdoch and his right wing media empire to smear dissenters such as Jacques Chirac and anyone else who opposed the war in Iraq.

In Alastair Campbell's diaries, published last week, the former spin doctor described a Downing Street dinner for Mr Murdoch and his sons, James and Lachlan, in 2002. "Murdoch pointed out that his were the only papers that gave us support when the going got tough. 'I've noticed,' said TB," Mr Campbell wrote. Lance Price, Mr Campbell's deputy, called Mr Murdoch "the 24th member of the [Blair] Cabinet". He added: "His presence was always felt. No big decision could ever be made inside No10 without taking account of the likely reaction of three men, Gordon Brown, John Prescott and Rupert Murdoch. On all the really big decisions, anybody else could safely be ignored."

A few choice examples of the Murdoch media follow up after those calls:

Phone call:11 March 2003

The Sun says: 12 March 2003

"Like a cheap tart who puts price before principle, money before honour, Jacques Chirac struts the streets of shame. The French President's vow to veto the second resolution [on Iraq] at the United Nations - whatever it says - puts him right in the gutter."

Phone call: 13 March 2003

The Sun says: 14 March 2003

"Charlatan Jacques Chirac is basking in cheap applause for his 'Save Saddam' campaign - but his treachery will cost his people dear. This grandstanding egomaniac has inflicted irreparable damage on some of the most important yet fragile structures of international order."

Phone call: 19 March 2003

The Sun says: 20 March 2003

"Time has run out for Saddam Hussein. His day of reckoning is at hand. The war on Iraq has begun... The courage and resilience of Tony Blair and George Bush will now be put to the ultimate test."

Read the rest of this post...

Bernanke worried about inflation, but not so much for income gap

We could do a lot worse - we did under Greenspan - but isn't it about time the Fed chairman thinks about the ever-growing disparity between the ultra rich and everyone else in the US? As the select few celebrate the Dow hitting new highs the rest of the country is wondering when the heck they too will see the great benefits of a booming market. While the trickle down of the Bear Stearns hedge funds being worthless will no doubt hit the middle class, who always seem to get stuck with the bill these days, there is never any trickle down that has a positive impact on average Americans and it's become a tired routine.

So while the Fed is wringing its hands over inflation, a valid issue, of course, it might be nice if they started to think about how all of this plays out with the bulk of the population instead of those who pay others to think about these issues and find ways around participating like everyone else who doesn't have such luxuries. There is a problem and it needs to be discussed and addressed, not ignored. Read the rest of this post...