Bush dropping charges against Chiquita Banana for funneling millions to terrorists

Oh that's right, it's not really terrorism when Republican big business interests do it. Our troops are dying for this? Read the rest of this post...

"Ted Olson will not be confirmed"

Bush is preparing to name a new Attorney General. In typical fashion, he's probably going to name the most controversial possible nominee, Ted Olson. But Ted Olson will never be Attorney General says the Majority Leader -- and even right wing Senate Republicans are skeptical:

Senate Democrats will block Ted Olson from succeeding Alberto Gonzales as attorney general if President Bush nominates him, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday.

"Ted Olson will not be confirmed," Reid, D-Nev., said in a written statement. "I intend to do everything I can to prevent him from being confirmed as the next attorney general."

The comment gave weight to Republican warnings that Olson, a former solicitor general, would face brutal confirmation hearings and that the White House can't afford a fight now over who will head the troubled federal law enforcement agency.

"It would be unfortunate to nominate someone who can't be confirmed," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. and a member of the Judiciary Committee, said earlier in the day.

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Audio from the Signorile show on Patrick McHenry and the latest sordid GOP gay scandal

Many thanks to Mike Signorile and producer David Guggenheim for access to the audio of my segment yesterday on Mike's satellite radio show on SIRIUS OutQ 109.

We tried in 20 minutes to untangle the latest GOP gay scandal involving Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC10) and a cast of characters involved in a bizarre Florida murder-suicide. It's a murky, pretty depraved mess that is crying for mainstream media to pick up.

Have fun listening.

Related:
* Untangling the latest GOP gay scandal with Mike Signorile
* Another GOP gay scandal brews in murder-suicide case?
*  NC Congressman's aide indicted for voter fraud -- and there's more to the story

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CNN host Glenn Beck attacks CNN and all media for not supporting our troops

No one could have imagined that CNN's in-house bigot, racist, homophobe, misogynist, anti-Semite is now starting to bite the hand that feeds him. You see, the reason the public thinks things are going badly in Iraq is because, apparently, CNN's news team has joined the rest of the media in refusing to report the truth about how great the Iraq war is really going. All CNN cares about, apparently, is painting our troops as baby killers. CNN's own host, Glenn Beck, said as much. And they pay him for this. Read the rest of this post...

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Swift Boat

At the Petraeus hearing yesterday, the GOPers were up in arms about the Moveon.org's advertisement criticizing the General.

Democratic congressional leaders and the party's presidential candidates yesterday refused to repudiate a liberal group's ad questioning Gen. David H. Petraeus' character.

(Snip)

Republicans had hoped to force Democrats into the uncomfortable position of voting for a measure to officially denounce an organization that has helped raise millions for party candidates in recent elections.

"This smear campaign consisted of entirely unwarranted and fallacious attacks, and sought to impugn the name of a highly respected man of integrity," said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican.

So Senator Cornyn believes it's unacceptable for an outside group to impugn the integrity of a war veteran with fallacious attacks. But why does this sound vaguely familiar? Oh yeah, that's right, like when the Swift Boat Veterans falsely attacked John Kerry's character.

Unlike the Swift Boat ads, Moveon doesn't lie, they just doubt the methodology and bias that Petraeus has shown. It's incredibly hypocritical for Republicans to suddenly be up in arms over attacks on military men, when they turned a blind eye in 2004. But shamelessness is the name of their game. Read the rest of this post...

Bush hiding behind Patraeus & Congress Must Act

President Bush's decision to withdraw 30,000 troops by July 2008 is just a smokescreen for Republicans in Congress to hide behind and to deny reality for the rest of the Bush presidency.

President Bush must face the facts that his grand plans for Iraq are unachievable and Iraq will not become the 51st state as the President had hoped. The troop surge in Iraq was supposed to create enough breathing space for the Iraqi government to achieve political reconciliation, meet their benchmarks, and quell the sectarian violence. None of this has happened. Instead, the Iraqi government has been boycotted by both Sunni and Shia members, only 3 of the 18 benchmarks were successfully met, and we have had the deadliest summer in Iraq to date.

The troop reduction suggested by General Patraeus will only bring us back directly to where we started at pre-surge troop levels. President Bush is desperately clinging on to General Petraeus' recommendations in an effort to influence Congress to allow him to continue this war for the duration of his presidency.

Congress must not be fooled into granting President Bush his wishes of endless war in Iraq. Instead, Congress must act decisively and produce binding legislation that requires President Bush to develop a strategy to bring our troops home.

Our troops have done everything they can do for Iraq militarily. A stable Iraq can only be achieved by the Iraqis themselves - They must take control of their country and reconcile within.

John Bruhns
Iraq veteran
Americans Against Escalation In Iraq Read the rest of this post...

Apparently I'm "at the margin"

I would absolutely, positively, without a doubt subscribe to the Washington Post if they sacked Krauthammer and hired Rosa Brooks away from the LA Times. It's not like she's exactly languishing in obscurity over at the Times, but I'd buy a subscription just on principle.

I love Rosa, and everybody should read her at the Times.

WaPo in particular has just a stunning number of columnists who wholly lack insight and/or intellectual integrity. Although I wouldn't want them to fire Broder -- if I couldn't read him, how would I know what nobody was thinking?

This whole thing arises, incidentally, from a great Media Matters piece on the conservative domination of syndicated op-ed pages. That crazy liberal media! It's well worth a read. Read the rest of this post...

iSurge

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Larry Craig heaps praise on Petraeus

I guess this should go into the "I'm not sh*tting you" files. I really, really I thought I was done with this guy for a while, but he's like a zombie in Dawn of the Dead -- he keeps on coming -- no matter how much PR rot is occurring.

A press release from Idaho Senator Larry Craig on the Petraeus testimony the other day. I'm sure the GOP and Petraeus are happy about this endorsement.

Craig Reacts to Petraeus, Crocker Testimony General, Ambassador paint picture of progress in Iraq

BOISE, ID - General Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testified before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees today regarding the troop surge in Iraq.

"I was pleased to hear the forthright testimony before Senate committees today by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker regarding the status of U.S. and coalition efforts in Iraq," said Idaho Senator Larry Craig.

"Unfortunately, many were quick to prejudge the surge, as well as the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker," Craig continued. "However, I believe their testimony told a positive story. Our soldiers are making progress on the ground to provide breathing room for the Iraqi government, and we have seen a significant decrease in violence across the country, and most importantly, in Baghdad. That being said, the Iraqi government must stand up and prove to their people that they can govern and secure their country from violence."

It proves that clinging to power is so embedded in this guy's thinking that he cannot imagine just lying low for a while.

Just got a note from someone on a listserv that the alternate headline for this article should have been: "Craig: Petraeus Does Not Blow." Oh, I wish I had thought of that one. Read the rest of this post...

Two soldiers who wrote NYT op-ed killed in Iraq

Since their op-ed criticizing the administration's strategy in Iraq began with the words, "Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment," one has to assume that nearly a month later the seven soldiers who authored the piece were achingly close to returning home.

Two of them won't be coming back alive. Yance Gray and Omar Mora, both of the 82nd Airborne Division, were killed on Monday. Gray leaves behind a wife and infant daughter. Mora is survived by a wife and five year old daughter. They demonstrated personal bravery in their service and integrity by speaking publicly about their views. They will, as will all those killed in this misbegotten war, be missed.

I want to rage against the injustice of it, the senselessness, the horror; but sometimes, as with yesterday's anniversary, I just want to note with sadness the loss.

The words of Gray and Mora, published just last month, speak for themselves:

To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day ...

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere ... In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act ...

As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

There are no words. Read the rest of this post...

Bush to announce major withdrawal from Iraq!!! I guess that means that in one year, we'll be totally gone from Iraq!!! Yeah right.

That's what Bush said, per the Associated Press. He's going to announce troops cuts in Iraq. Great. I say we take Bush at his word. He's finally begun the withdrawal. That means by the election, in one year, we'll be out of Iraq. Well, or at least we'll have so few troops left that it won't matter (say, what, 5000 troops left?). So I say "hurray!" for George Bush and the Republicans. Come election day 2008, the public will be relieved to see that we have no more troops in Iraq as the Republicans have now promised.

Obviously, I'm not serious. Bush may think he's buying time with these cute little conditional maybe-kinda-sorta troop cut promises, but nothing will change the fact that come the election in one year if we have any more than a few token troops in Iraq - and that means, maybe, ten thousand, max - voters are going to feel betrayed once again, lied to once again. And they know who's been lying to them. The Republicans.

So let Bush spin all he wants. If we're still in Iraq on election day, all hell is going to break loose at the ballot box. And no amount of spin is going to change that fact. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Condi was on the Today Show spinning away. The entire rationale for the Bush Iraq strategy collapsed yesterday when General Petraeus said "I don't know" when asked if that Bush Iraq war strategy made us safer. Bush has done so much to build up Petraeus that those words were devastating.

The media is gobbling up the idea that Bush is going to endorse the Petraeus plan tomorrow night in a BIG speech. Of course, he is. It's Bush's goddamn plan. And, the big plan is nothing more than "reducing" the number of troops to pre-escalation levels in 9 months. That's a plan? That's a scam.

And, it's still "stay the course." Nothing has changed -- and the Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to enable their President.

With that, get it started. Read the rest of this post...

British troops from Basra shifted to border with Iran

This ought to resolve everything.

The UK operation, in which up to 350 troops are involved, has come at the request of the Americans, who say that elements close to the Iranian regime have stepped up supplies of weapons to Shia militias in recent weeks in preparation for attacks inside Iraq.

The deployment came within a week of British forces leaving Basra Palace, their last remaining base inside Basra city, and withdrawing to the airport for a widely expected final departure from Iraq. Brigadier James Bashall, commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, based at Basra said: "We have been asked to help at the Iranian border to stop the flow of weapons and I am willing to do so. We know the points of entry and I am sure we can do what needs to be done. The US forces are, as we know, engaged in the 'surge' and the border is of particular concern to them."

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Trickle down economics

Oh, so you mean when the real estate market that has carried the US economy in recent years tanks, it just might have a negative impact on spending in other industries? Shocking, really. From GM's CEO while explaining the soft numbers last quarter:

In an interview at the annual Frankfurt International Motor Show, Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said the company was watching the situation carefully because the property market's woes were spilling over into auto showrooms.

"It's created an environment where people are a little tense and when they get a little tense they hold onto their dollars and hold their cars a little longer," Wagoner said. "So we saw reasonably weaker sales the last several months."

It's a good thing we have a quality team on the job who are focused on the economy. Now if only that little problem can wait until this war thing is sorted out. Read the rest of this post...