Friends of [Bush's] from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

Dallas Morning News, May 31, 2007

via - ThinkProgress

In case my millions of readers missed this, and I don't know how you could have, I appeared on the Smoking Politics Radio show on BlogTalkRadio today.

You can listen at the link, and then download the show to enjoy over and over again.

I suggest to you
That it takes
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The Texas House has gone into full meltdown mode, complete with physical altercations on the floor, and parliamentarian walkouts.

In an interesting development, Craddick's new parliamentarians are Terry Keel and Ron Wilson. Yeah, nothing to see there, huh?

Glenn Greenwald chronicles the latest in right-wing fact-checking difficulties over at Salon.

As has been true for the last four years, right-wing bloggers simply shut their eyes and refused to believe that any news reflecting poorly on the Leader's War could be real. Just as was true for news reports of civil war and a growing Iraqi insurgency, this Memo just had to be a fake, so they declared it to be such.

...

Needless to say, the memo is authentic. And some of the accusers are slowly starting to admit it (with no apologies to Johnson or The Washington Post for impugning their integrity, from what I have seen).

And so we have but the latest in an endless series of right-wing-blogger outbursts of accusatory bile and claimed discoveries of wrongdoing and fraud where the only fraud and wrongdoing is from the blogger-accusers themselves. It is literally impossible to count the grand humiliations of this sort to which the right-wing blogosphere has repeatedly subjected itself. Over and over, they make the most vicious accusations without the slightest basis in fact.

Right-wing types have for years now been accusing liberal/anti-war types of being willing dupes to easily de-bunked forgeries in order to protect their pre-conceived political notions. There's a word for that.

Writing about the netroots reaction to the Democrats throwing in the towel on the Iraq war supplemental, Hotline today writes

To the netroots' collective credit, they don't seem to buy the argument that political realities "forced" the Democratic leadership to drop withdrawal dates. Political realities are not like the laws of physics; they can be changed, and, indeed, are unequivocally useful today for Democrats, rather than Republicans.

Yesterday, I was speaking to a colleague who put it well. He said the Democrats are acting like the high school girl who lets the quarterback recklessly drive her new car. She doesn't want to, but she just throws up her hands and says, "What can I do? he the quarterback."

While it's true that polls don't show that Americans overwhelmingly favor a dramatic defunding of the war, that doesn't mean that they were overwhelmingly opposed to the Democratic plan, either. The Democrats failed on two basic fronts: owning the debate and standing on principle. The Democrat who really came out of this looking like a leader was Chris Dodd.

The Democrats are not the minority party, they need to step up and take the wheel.

This speech by Obama is a good start.

Yesterday's New York Times gives us some insight into the Democratic strategy behind backing out of the Iraq redeployment timetable.

Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break — the second recess since the financing fight began — and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting. That criticism seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left by bowing to Mr. Bush.

Here's a crazy idea. What if the Democrats said that they were going to pass a bill with a redeployment timeline, and that if they couldn't get it done before the Memorial day recess, then they would cancel the recess and stay in Washington to make sure that the people's work got done. Put the Republicans on the defense. Let them grumble about not having time off, and let them be the ones holding up the supplemental.

President Bush's numbers are in the toilet, and about 70 percent of Americans want the US out of Iraq.

For crying out loud, people, it's a no-brainer.

Because, you know, the U.S. record on covert action in Iran has been so successful in the past.

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

Nothing good can come from this:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- They are vying for the presidency from opposite sides of the political spectrum, but Sens. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, are teaming up to sponsor legislation that seeks to encourage divestment from companies that support Iran.

Obama/Lemmy 2008

Naomi Hussein explores elite perceptions of poverty in Bangladesh this month in Slate.* Hussein says that

There is awareness and sympathy among the Bangladeshi elite, more than outward appearances might suggest, and more than is the case for the elites of some other countries.

That's certainly in contrast to much of the popular attitude towards poverty in the US. Just recently I was reading a conversation by a group of young, well-educated Americans in which popular myths about people with food stamps driving $80,000 cars and such.

Many people in the US subscribe to a particularly nasty, Calvinist attitude about poverty - namely that the poor are somehow deserving of their situation, just as wealthy clergy are theirs. That's not to say that Bangladeshis never blame the victims of poverty, but my impression has been that there's a lot more sympathy for the poor than will usually be found in the US.

Anyway, check out the article. It's got a lot of good insight.

* The Bangladeshi magazine, not the American web site.

Hat-tip Serious Golmal

I disagree with Ron Paul on a host of issues, but I think it's amazing the sense of clarity on the issue of Iraq/wars of aggression that he brought to the GOP debate last night. I was particularly impressed at his reference to Operation Ajax, an event that continues to inform US/Middle East relations, yet is most likely completely unknown to the vast majority of Americans.

Suggesting that what the CIA has for decades referred to as blowback is equivalent to "inviting" an attack is ridiculous. Giuliani's response is at best evidence that he's completely out of touch with reality, but more probably a sign that he's willing to play to the lowest common denominator in politics.

[UPDATE]: Giuliani now claims he has been studying Islamic terrorism since the 1970s. Unbelievable.

Well, good news. Tasneem Khalil has apparently been released.

Here's the press release issued by The Daily Star

Some disturbing news from Bangladesh.

It appears that the journalist Tasneem Khalil has been arrested by the Bangladeshi government. Khalil is an editorial assistant with The Daily Star, an English language daily in Bangladesh, and also reports for CNN.

It appears the Khalil was arrested for reporting on the extra-judicial detentions of the caretaker government currently in power. There is some concern that this interview with the Washington Post may be the catalyst for his current detention.

The ever informative Rezwan has a current roundup of blog talk on Khalil's arrest.

Bangladesh is on the threshold of change, with the possibility for greater democracy or a veritable autocracy. One of the greatest bulwarks against tyranny is a free and independent press. If Bangladesh is going to move towards greater transparency and democracy, Tasneem Khalil must be freed and the arrest and harassment of journalists must not be allowed.

I understand that Pope Benedict XVI recently said that pro-choice politicians should not receive communion because

...the killing of an innocent child is incompatible with receiving communion, which is receiving the body of Christ.

According to the Pope, voting pro-choice is the moral equivalent of killing innocent children.

All right.

My question, then, is whether or not politicians who vote for military spending or to approve the use of military force should receive communion? After all, military action kills innocent children.

What about politicians who support the death penalty? Thought they're not children, innocent people have been put to death in the past. And it's well known that, even with recent advances in DNA testing, there's no guarantee that an executed offender is the guilty party.

Catholic doctrine is opposed not only to abortion, but war and execution as well - even if you don't agree with it, at least they're consistent. And "killing innocent children" is not the only sin that makes one ineligible to receive communion in the Catholic church - so does missing mass on Sunday or any Holy Day of Obligation. And the last time I was in church for the Feast of the Assumption, there were plenty of open seats.

Not that any of this makes much of a difference in the current debate, which really has nothing to do with killing children, and everything to do with political opportunism.

Here's another great collection of photographs of Bangladesh, this time of children.



The photographer also writes the wonderful blog, Back to Bangladesh. Highly recommended.