What Josh says

Bush's plan for Iraq? Stay long enough that it becomes someone else's problem. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Chat away. Read the rest of this post...

Episcopalians reject ban on gay bishops

Loving thy neighbor? What are they thinking? Everyone knows religion today is all about who you hate. Read the rest of this post...

Republicans, fearing electoral losses, kill immigration bill for the year

Talk about cut and run. Read the rest of this post...

19 Republican Senators think the terrorists who murdered these two US soldiers today deserve amnesty

19 US Senators, all Republicans, voted today to in favor of giving amnesty to terrorists who kill US soldiers in Iraq. You can find their names below - the "nay" votes are the ones who support amnesty for terrorists.

]

Republicans: Tough on Mexicans, soft on terrorists.

UPDATE: Here's the text of the amendment as submitted:

SEC. 1209. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON THE GRANTING OF AMNESTY TO PERSONS KNOWN TO HAVE KILLED MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES IN IRAQ.

(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:

(1) The Armed Forces of the United States and coalition military forces are serving heroically in Iraq to provide all the people of Iraq a better future.

(2) The Armed Forces of the United States and coalition military forces have served bravely in Iraq since the beginning of military operations in March of 2003.

(3) More than 2,500 members of the Armed Forces of the United States and members of coalition military forces have been killed and more than 18,000 injured in operations to bring peace and stability to all the people of Iraq.

(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) the Government of Iraq should not grant amnesty to persons known to have attacked, killed, or wounded members of the Armed Forces of the United States; and

(2) the President should immediately notify the Government of Iraq that the Government of the United States strongly opposes granting amnesty to persons who have attacked members of the Armed Forces of the United States.

In all fairness to the Republicans, maybe they simply objected to the fact that we called US service members "heroic." Read the rest of this post...

Must-See TV: PBS' Frontline looks at Cheney's role in the war on terror tonight at 9pm Eastern

Watch it:

Amid daily revelations about prewar intelligence and a growing scandal surrounding the indictment of the vice president's chief of staff and presidential adviser, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, FRONTLINE goes behind the headlines to investigate the internal war that was waged between the intelligence community and Richard Bruce Cheney, the most powerful vice president in the nation's history.

"A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies," Cheney told Americans just after 9/11. He warned the public that the government would have to operate on the "dark side."

In The Dark Side, airing June 20, 2006, at 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE tells the story of the vice president's role as the chief architect of the war on terror and his battle with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet for control of the "dark side." Drawing on more than 40 interviews and thousands of documents, the film provides a step-by-step examination of what happened inside the councils of war.

Hat tip to Theocracy blog. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

So exactly how many soldiers have to die in order to get the Republicans re-elected this fall? Read the rest of this post...

Cash from chaos - mercenaries riding the war wave

I understand why we are using mercenaries, but this has never sat well with me. Besides the outrageously high taxpayer costs, the lack of control and oversite, the ability to avoid impacting the nation as much as possible (and allowing people to ignore the problem), one of the big problems that I have with these guys is the statelessness of these people. They are just hired guns /mercenaries and will take anyone's money to do anything.

Is that who we want representing America in such a delicate environment? The people who join these companies are clearly doing it just for the cash which may be understandable from a personal perspective, but from a US perspective, it's not quite as compelling. It's the owners who I find most disturbing because they give the impression to doing anything, for anyone, for cash.

Cofer Black, a former head of the CIA Counterterrorism Center and now vice-chairman of Blackwater, said the company is ready to tackle more hot spots.

"My company could deploy a reasonable small force under guidance or leadership of any national authority and do a terrific job of protecting, you know, innocent women from being raped, young kids from having their arms hacked off with machetes."

Somehow I'm just not seeing them as a "rape protection" outfit or just being there to prevent kids arms from being cut off. Sounds like marketing spin/bullshit to me.

Read the rest of this post...

Stay the course

Read the rest of this post...

Two kidnapped US soldiers found dead, tortured

This is the course.


From the Wash Post:

Two U.S. soldiers missing since an attack on a checkpoint last week have been found dead near a power plant in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, according to U.S. officials, and Iraqi officials say the soldiers had been tortured.

To George Bush, they're just numbers. Read the rest of this post...

There he goes again

The latest from "Last Throes" Cheney is that we've made "significant progress" in the war on terror. One of the problems with responding to this administration is that they're wrong in so many ways, it's hard to know where to start. So let's briefly deconstruct some of this:

The unpopular Vietnam War and the Watergate scandals allowed Congress to take more authority at the expense of the executive branch, Cheney said. He and the president believed it was important to "have the balance righted, if you will."

If by "balance righted" he means an executive power grab on shaky (at best) legal ground that has been condemned by Democratic and Republican legislators and judges, then yes, it's been righted. Also, I wonder if he is on record with this opinion from when he was actually IN Congress.

We have been engaged in a debate about the wisdom of the [NSA domestic eavesdropping] program and whether or not it's legal, but it clearly is legal, we believe. It is consistent with the Constitution.

If it's consistent with the Constitution, why not, say, put it before the courts? So they can, y'know, confirm that it's Constitutional? Unless, of course, the new "balance righted" means the Executive branch now determines Constitutionality.

"I believe we are [winning the war on terrorism]," Cheney said. "I think we've made significant progress, if you look back on the last nearly five years now."

This is the really infuriating part. This administration has systematically misprioritized the war against terrorists, starting when they shifted focus from al Qa'ida in Afghanistan to pursue a miserable strategy in Iraq and continuing through foolish North Korea policy, irrational Iran policy, stunted intelligence reform, resistance to establishing a Department of Homeland Security, and an unprecedented alienation of foreign allies (and potential allies). The administration has taken its eye off the ball, and we're less safe because of it. Normally you keep your eye on the ball so you can smack it, but as Jean Schmidt memorably revealed, "We have to keep our eye on the ball or the ball will come back to harm us." Actually, in this case, she may be right.

Cheney defended his comment last year [...] that the Iraqi insurgency was "in its final throes." He said he was referring to a series of events -- including elections and the drafting and acceptance of a new Iraqi constitution -- that he believes history will show to be pivotal.

That's not what he was referring to. Why not just say, "I was totally wrong?" Just own up to it. Come on. Party of personal responsibility and all. Your approval rating is near the single digits anyway.

And finally:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered," Cheney said. He said much of the continuing violence has its roots in "the devastation" that 30 years of Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted rule "had wrought on the psychology of the Iraqi people."

What drives the insurgency, and what really affects the psychology of the Iraqi people, is a completely and utterly lawless society. Given that a horrendous strategy and continued mismanagment caused the lawlessness in which Iraq's government fails to provide for the basic needs of its people, Cheney's admission that he underestimated the strength of the insurgency is a cover for the greater issue: the screwups that he, Bush, Rumsfeld, and the rest made helped establish the conditions that created the insurgency. Read the rest of this post...

The Japanese are now officially out of Iraq

Coalition of the going... Read the rest of this post...

Bush aide/Abramoff accomplice guilty

Safavian is guilty:

A jury found former Bush administration official David Safavian guilty Tuesday of covering up his dealings with Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.

Safavian was convicted on four of five felony counts of lying and obstruction. He had resigned from his White House post last year as the federal government's chief procurement officer.

Read the rest of this post...

Bush administration using creepy online phone records brokers to get YOUR phone records without a search warrant

Surprise surprise surprise. Remember that story we helped explode back in January about how your phone records were for sale online to ANYONE for $100? We even bought General Wesley Clark's cell phone records to prove the point. As a result, there was a big media uproar, the US House passed legislation unanimously, 409-0, to fix the problem, and the Senate was even considering legislation.

Well, today we learn that the federal government and local police were using these questionably-legal online data brokers to get YOUR private phone records without the necessary search warrants.

Yes, the Bush administration once again didn't go to courts of law to get search warrants when it was supposed to.

Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers....

The law enforcement agencies include offices in the Homeland Security Department and Justice Department - including the
FBI and U.S. Marshal's Service - and municipal police departments in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Experts believe hundreds of other departments frequently use such services.

Now, this gets even more interesting. While the House passed one bill that would address this issue, a second piece of legislation was due to be debated on the House floor on the same day that US Today revealed that Bush was using AT&T; and other phone companies to spy on you. That day the House legislation suddenly disappeared and never was to be seen again. No one knows how it disappeared or who pulled it (though it had to be a Republican, like Denny Hastert, since they control the House). And even more interesting, for some unexplained reason the Senate legislation has gone nowhere. Bill Frist just won't move it.

Now that we know the Bush administration has been skirting the law by buying your phone records without the necessary court order, it's looking more and more interesting that the Republicans in Congress seem to be sitting on legislation that would protect your privacy and stop this abuse of privacy from continuing.

It's funny, in a way, that the American people were only marginally concerned about Bush's domestic spying but then they freaked out over the cell phone records story in January. Now the two stories are one. This should get very interesting. Especially now that only 3 days ago Senator Clinton called for a "Privacy Bill of Rights" to protect the privacy of every American. The issue is getting hot. Read the rest of this post...

Will Bush pardon Scooter?

Sounds like the GOP pundits are starting their campaign to have Bush pardon Scooter Libby. Talking Points Memo examines the evidence and makes a prediction:

Make no mistake, this is a trial balloon, an effort to test the waters and prepare the public for Libby's eventual pardon. And you should expect that the president will pardon Libby, perhaps as soon as six months from now, because signals of Libby's impending pardon will raise little concern or controversy in Washington or among name pundits.

The pundit class does rally around their D.C. pals.

Yet, the pundit class -- along with the traditional reporters -- ignore the blatant hypocrisy of the GOP attacking the Dems. on national security when top White House officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent for purely political reasons. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

The Senate will be debating Iraq today -- another day of carnage as Chris noted in the last post. Saying "cut and run" seems to be the entire GOP campaign strategy. The situation is pretty bleak for the GOP if their best issue is Iraq -- which means they will get really, really ugly.

Last night, at a GOP fundraiser, Bush linked Iraq and Al-Qaeda -- and he said we'll stay in Iraq as long as the GOP runs the country:

An early withdrawal would embolden the terrorists. An early withdrawal would embolden Al Qaeda and bin Laden. There will be no early withdrawal so long as we run the Congress and occupy the White House.

He's going to keep the troops in Iraq to make a political point. That's sick. Read the rest of this post...

Breaking: American soldiers' bodies found in Iraq

It's an especially ugly day in Iraq:

• Iraq officials report finding 2 dead American soldiers who had been kidnapped
• Car bomb explosion in Baghdad market - 4 dead, 16 wounded
• Suicide bomber blows up self, kills 2, 3 wounded in Basra home for elderly
  

Read the rest of this post...

French election fever kicking in

I can't believe that the presidential election is still a year away because it seems like every magazine cover and newspaper has a story about either Sarkozy or Royal. Right now there is a funny (from my perspective, at least) cover story that is plastered all over newsstands right now of Sarkozy and his wife who seemed to be living apart only months ago. The photo reminds me of those cheesy 70s TV commercials for really bad albums offering collections of love songs, with the couple holding hands and looking out at god knows what. Now that Royal is actually delivering a message and moving to the center, center-right, Sarkozy has to be worried that his coronation is not quite there, yet.

Two months ago I thought it would be Sarko in a landslide because the Socialists were just so far removed from today and they had no plan. Today, this is looking like a serious race and could be won by either. Sarko was moving to the right before to grab as many votes away from Le Pen as possible but now that Royal is making a land grab for the middle, it is going to be interesting to see where Sarko goes. Both candidates look like they're ready to move on and tackle issues such as economic growth and having flexibility in the system so that France can better compete on the world stage. Read the rest of this post...

Japan joining Coalition of the Going

Why leave when things are going so well? Didn't they hear the news? Get Dick on the phone and he can tell 'em what's really happening. Read the rest of this post...