Frankly, I refuse to call this a "war". This is and always has been an occupation. Terminology aside, this is not exactly something worth celebrating, but I do think it's time to re-think Afghanistan:

Three months after 9/11, every major Taliban city in Afghanistan had fallen — first Mazar-i-Sharif, then Kabul, finally Kandahar. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were on the run. It looked as if the war was over, and the Americans and their Afghan allies had won.

Butch Ivie, then a school administrator in Winfield, Ala., remembers, "We thought we'd soon have it tied up in a neat little bag."

But bin Laden and Omar eluded capture. The Taliban regrouped. Today, Kandahar again is up for grabs. And soon, Afghanistan will pass Vietnam as America's longest war.

The Vietnam War's length can be measured in many ways. The formal beginning of U.S. involvement often is dated to Aug. 7, 1964, when Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, giving the president a virtual carte blanche to wage war. By the time the last U.S. ground combat troops were withdrawn in March 1973, the war had lasted 103 months.

U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001. On June 7, the war will complete its 104th month. President Obama on Thursday reaffirmed his commitment to the war, saying "it is absolutely critical that we dismantle that network of extremists that are willing to attack us."

This longest war is far from America's bloodiest. It has drifted in and out of focus and, for much of its life, been obscured by another war, in Iraq.

I guess we should be grateful for small favors in that relative to other battles, there's been less loss of life, although I'd say it's still 1,800 lives too many.

Former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke on This Week last week to say that even with the troop increase in Afghanistan, "victory" (however you define that) ultimately was in the hands of the Afghans.

If that's the case, one has to ask why the hell we need to be there for anyway.

BraveNewFilm's ReThink Afghanistan is fundraising to purchase an ad in the Politico (because you know they all read it) asking Congress and the President to pull the troops by December 2011. If you're able, please consider donating to inject some sense into this debate.

Is it just me, or does Congress seem completely oblivious to what the rest of us are going through? No security of any kind, and instead of expanding the safety net, they're shredding what's left. In the meantime, we're not even going to have full-time jobs again:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Jobs may be coming back, but they aren't the same ones workers were used to.

Many of the jobs employers are adding are temporary or contract positions, rather than traditional full-time jobs with benefits. With unemployment remaining near 10%, employers have their pick of workers willing to accept less secure positions.

In 2005, the government estimated that 31% of U.S. workers were already so-called contingent workers. Experts say that number could increase to 40% or more in the next 10 years.

James Stoeckmann, senior practice leader at WorldatWork, a professional association of human resource executives, believes that full-time employees could become the minority of the nation's workforce within 20 to 30 years, leaving employees without traditional benefits such as health coverage, paid vacations and retirement plans, that most workers take for granted today.

"The traditional job is not doomed. But it will increasingly have competition from other models, the most prominent is the independent contractor model," he said.

Doug Arms, senior vice president of Ajilon, a staffing firm, says about 90% of the positions his company is helping clients fill right now are on a contract basis.

Physicians for Human Rights has released a 27-page report which clearly documents what we already know: The Bush Administration tortured detainees. The more startling conclusion is this: The Bush Administration experimented on those detainees in order to refine, define and justify their torture regimen.

Nothing like setting the bar, jumping over it, then defining that bar for everyone else as some sort of standard. Yet that's exactly what they did. Among the specific experiments:

Documenting effects of sleep deprivation on prisoners

Via Truthout:

For example, one current and three former CIA officials said some videotapes showed Zubaydah being sleep deprived for more than two weeks. Contractors hired by the CIA studied how he responded psychologically and physically to being kept awake for that amount of time. By looking at videotapes, they concluded that after the 11th consecutive day of being kept awake Zubaydah started to "severely break down." So, the torture memo signed by former OLC head Jay Bybee concluded that 11 days of sleep deprivation was legal and did not meet the definition of torture.

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Arkansas Democratic Senate candidate Blanche Lincoln joined Candy Crowley on CNN's State of the Union and complained about the "other people" funding her opponent Bill Halter's primary campaign and championed herself as being "out there with the people" because you know, nothing screams populist more than taking large chunks of corporate cash. And of course in her world those evil unions that are unjustly demonizing her can't possibly be representing the best interests of the working people of Arkansas. Who would ever think that unions don't have average citizens best interests in mind? Maybe someone who's getting the better part of their campaign donations from large corporations and PACS. From Think Progress:

Lincoln, Who Gets A Large Amount Of Corporate Cash, Complains About ‘Other People’ Funding Her Opponent:

While it is true that Halter has received support from outside groups, such as the AFL-CIO labor union, it should be noted that during the 2009-2010 campaign cycle, 93 percent of his funds come from individual contributions, and only 5 percent come from PACs and other interest groups.

And while Lincoln boasts of being “out there with the people,” a review of her campaign contributions shows that she has received far more money from PACs, corporate front groups, and other outside interest organizations than Halter has. During the 2009-2010 campaign cycle, 38 percent of Lincoln’s funding has come from PACs. Here’s a short list of some of the “other people” funding her campaign:

- $9,000 from insurance giant Aetna Inc.
- $7,000 from petroleum company Anadarko
- $6,000 from drug corporation Bayer
- $2,000 from Bechtel corporation
- $5,500 from insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield
- $5,000 from defense contractor Boeing
- $5,000 from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
- $5,000 from Charles Schwab brokerage house
- $10,000 from oil giant Chevron
- $6,000 from telecommunications corporation Comcast
- $5,000 from oil company ExxonMobil
- $6,500 from investment bank Goldman Sachs
- $8,000 from retailer Home Depot
- $6,500 from investment bank JP Morgan Chase
- $7,000 from defense contractor Lockheed Martin
- $5,000 from oil industry giant Occidental Petroleum
- $8,000 from retailer Wal-Mart

If Lincoln is going to criticize her opponent for receiving funds from outside groups, she should be upfront about her own as well.

That ain't gonna' happen. Ms. WalMart is too busy playing born again populist. Lincoln carped about unions being "special interest groups" but I guess she doesn't hold large corporate interests in such low regard. She bragged about starting the Blue Dogs, bringing down the cost of the stimulus (how are those unemployment numbers workin' out for ya' Blanche?) and on being a moderate and getting into the "trenches" to work with Republicans. In my book that's just code for voting like a Republican to support her corporate backers.

You can support Bill Halter through Blue America here. Let's send this DINO back to Arkansas.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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Does everyone remember Dick Cheney's "National Energy Task Force"? The one where meetings were held in secret, and energy policy was set by the foxes in charge of the henhouse? Yeah, I figured you might.

The Center for American Progress has connected the dots between this task force, the Bush Administration energy policies, and Tom DeLay's leadership in the House of Representatives to paint a straight line right back to Cheney & Co. I don't agree with the conclusion of "Cheney's Katrina", so how about we call it "Cheney's Oil Apocalypse" instead?

Setting the stage - May, 2001

Cheney's secret task force releases a 170-page harbinger of death under the title "National Energy Policy" (PDF). One of the pillars of their report is California's supposed energy crisis, helped along by the likes of Enron.

In Chapter Five, several recommendations for increasing domestic energy supplies are made, including:

• The NEPD Group recommends that the President direct the Secretary of the Interior to consider economic incentives for environmentally sound offshore oil and gas development where warranted by specific circumstances: explore opportunities for royalty reductions, consistent with ensuring a fair return to the public where warranted for enhanced oil and gas recovery; for reduction of risk associated with production in frontier areas or deep gas formations; and for development of small fields that would otherwise be uneconomic.
• The NEPD Group recommends that the President direct the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior to re-examine the current federal legal and policy regime (statutes, regulations, and Executive Orders) to determine if changes are needed regarding energy-related activi- ties and the siting of energy facilities in the coastal zone and on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
• The NEPD Group recommends that the President direct the Secretary of the Interior continue OCS oil and gas leasing and approval of exploration and development plans on predictable schedules.

Act One - The Administration complies

First, the SAFE Act is introduced in the House in 2001. It provides for the following (quotes from CAP post):

• Taxpayer funds to reimburse oil companies for the costs of complying with the National Environmental Policy Act (Sec. 6234)
• A suspension of royalties on tens of millions of barrels of oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico—especially from deepwater wells like the one now spewing into the gulf (Sec. 6202)
• Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling—with expedited leasing, limited judicial review, and lip service to environmental concerns (Div. F, Title V)

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Krugman on how the G20 economic conference has been taken over by the deficit hawks, and predicts we're headed for a "lost decade," like the one that paralyzed Japan:

It’s basically incredible that this is happening with unemployment in the euro area still rising, and only slight labor market progress in the US.

But don’t we need to worry about government debt? Yes — but slashing spending while the economy is still deeply depressed is both an extremely costly and quite ineffective way to reduce future debt. Costly, because it depresses the economy further; ineffective, because by depressing the economy, fiscal contraction now reduces tax receipts. A rough estimate right now is that cutting spending by 1 percent of GDP raises the unemployment rate by .75 percent compared with what it would otherwise be, yet reduces future debt by less than 0.5 percent of GDP.

The right thing, overwhelmingly, is to do things that will reduce spending and/or raise revenue after the economy has recovered — specifically, wait until after the economy is strong enough that monetary policy can offset the contractionary effects of fiscal austerity. But no: the deficit hawks want their cuts while unemployment rates are still at near-record highs and monetary policy is still hard up against the zero bound.

But what about Greece and all that? Look, right now sovereign debt problems are taking place in countries with a very specific problem: they’re part of the euro zone, AND they’re badly overvalued thanks to huge capital inflows in the good years; as a result they’re facing years of grinding deflation. Counties not in that situation are not facing any pressure from the markets for immediate cuts; as of this morning, 10-year bonds were yielding 3.51 in Britain, 3.21 in the US, 1.27 in Japan.

Yet the conventional wisdom now is that these countries must nonetheless cut — not because the markets are currently demanding it, not because it will make any noticeable difference to their long-run fiscal prospects, but because we think that the markets might demand it (even though they shouldn’t) sometime in the future.
Utter folly posing as wisdom. Incredible.

There was big celebration this past weekend in Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. Oxycontin and Dominican Republic Viagra Rush Limbaugh, 59, got married for the fourth time to the former Kathryn Rogers, 33. Aside from the poor track record on the matrimonial front (there's your conservative family values for you), the 26-year age difference (Hmmm...why does this song keep coming to mind?) and his proclivity for sex vacations to Third World nations, what's really disgusting was his choice of wedding entertainment: Rushbo hired Elton John to serenade his new bride.

That's right, one of the most vocal opponents to same-sex marriage was successful in buying off one of the most highly visible openly gay MARRIED entertainers in the world. Apparently $1 million dollars is the price tag to sell your pride, soul and dignity to entertain those who think you're a lesser being.

This is who you sold out to, Elton.

And that's not the first time that Elton has shown a love for money to trump principles.

Two politicians who have consistently voted against gay rights, Reps. John Shimkus (R-IL) and Jean Schmidt (R-OH), will be holding fundraisers at the Elton John/Billy Joel Face2Face concert in Washington DC's Nationals Park July 11, reports PartyBlog.

And Prop 8 supporters were only too happy to quote John in his less than supportive words for gay marriage:

Despite campaigning for global gay rights, Elton John is very not supportive of civil marriage equality. Or maybe he just doesn't understand that civil unions do not allow couples in the U.S. over 1,300 rights granted to heterosexual married couples. In November 2008, Sir Elton told USA Today:

We're not married. Let's get that right. We have a civil partnership. What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage. Marriage is going to put a lot of people off, the word marriage...I don't want to be married. I'm very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership. The word "marriage," I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.

Seriously, Elton. You're. Not. Helping.

Of course, after getting a glimpse of Rush's taste in interior design, I'm thinking ultimately that Rush and Elton have more in common than one would think at first and bride Kate may be the one humiliated in the end. I mean, how many straight men do you know with a taste for so much gilt?

Gosh, if you want to deflect a conversation away from the real issues into invention and stirred-up righteousness, I guess one way to do it is for a career hardhead like 89-year old Helen Thomas to say something incendiary, regret it, apologize for it, and have her colleagues throw her right under that bus waiting outside the White House press room.

Let's start with what she said:

OFF-CAMERA: "Any comments on Israel?"

HELEN THOMAS: "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not Germany, not Poland."

OFF-CAMERA: "so where should they go?"

HELEN THOMAS: "Home. Poland. Germany. America. And everywhere else."

As Squareboy on Daily Kos said, it's hurtful to hear that. She should apologize.

And she did. Here is her full apology:

"I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon," she wrote.

ADL rejects her apology because it does not "go far enough". Craig Crawford and her agent dump her. Lanny Davis, always right in front whenever possible, condemns her. Ari Fleischer cries "Off with her head! (And her job)." Rick Lazlo piles on. Joe Klein wants her sent to the back of the bus room. Sarah Palin tattoos her as racist. A local high school replaces her as their graduation speaker. Red State froths. NewsMax has a field day. Winger blogs everywhere are blessed with outrage and attendant traffic. The din is so loud everyone misses her apology. The right continues to bearhug anti-semitic Pat Buchanan, who is routinely applauded for his support of right-wing causes. He doesn't have to apologize.

Meanwhile, Hearst has not made a decision on whether she will keep her place as part of the White House press corps.

I am not going to defend what she said. I understand that it is hurtful and offensive to many. However...

She apologized, folks. This pile-on looks to me to be opportunistic and driven by RedStaters and Freepers out there who have a long-standing hate on for Helen.

I just did a little search here on Crooks and Liars. I found references made by Fox News personalities to her as the "wicked witch" (no apology). Tony Snow paints her as a representative of Hezbollah. No apology. Ann Coulter called her an "old Arab" and scrubbed her website of all reference when it was caught. No apology.

Helen Thomas is the one who asked the tough questions of the Bush Administration about why we're in Iraq, why torture was sanctioned by Bush appointees, why it was okay for President Bush to dismiss the bloodshed in Iraq as a comma, and the White House's support for Tom Delay when he was charged with money laundering.

So ask yourself. Is this about an insult to Israel or an opportunity for wingnuts to USE an insult to Israel as a way to squelch Thomas' first amendment rights?

When you consider that question, also remember this was said in the context of an informal interview. She didn't say it in the press room; she answered a question as a citizen with an opinion. Her opinion may not be acceptable, but does she not have the right to one?

UPDATE: And the inevitable happens: Helen Thomas announces she is retiring, effective immediately.

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CBS legal correspondent Sharyl Attkisson on Face the Nation discussed their investigative report that revealed the latest estimates on the amount of oil pouring into the Gulf from the government are being low-balled, contrary to Admiral Thad Allen's statements earlier in the same program.

How The Oil Leak Estimates Got Low-Balled:

Just last week, the Interior Department released a range of 12-to-19,000 barrels a day -- up to four times what the government and BP had claimed. That's 504,000 to 798,000 gallons each day. That's bad enough. But it turns out that's not exactly what the scientists conducting the analysis found.

Sources tell CBS News that 12-19,000 barrels a day is actually the minimum believed to be leaking from the well based on the most "conservative assumptions." The upper end of the range, a maximum, hasn't yet been released. But those facts were lost somewhere in the translation between the scientists and the Interior Department press release. Read on...

Attkisson also explained how the differences in the estimates could mean a difference in the amount of fines BP ultimately pays.

Transcript via CBS below the fold.

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I admit, I bypassed my college commencement exercises. Norman Schwarzkopf was the speaker, can you blame me? I was a massively neo-hippie liberal square peg during the yuppie "greed is good" '80s in you-can-never-be-too-rich-or-too-thin plastic Southern California. I was chomping at the bit to start my adult life and couldn't imagine what relevant advice the war-mongering Stormin' Norman could offer. So I skipped graduation and trusted my own counsel. However, I have to admit that this particular piece of commencement advice given to the class of 2010 is one that I have embraced and carried with me for these 20+ years since my college days.

Respect others. Know, that they are most likely afraid, just like you. In fact, the more arrogant and the more forceful they become, I have found the more afraid they really are.

Now can I tell you that it just kills me--KILLS me--that this is a quote from Glenn Beck to the 2010 graduates of Liberty University? A less self-aware speaker to a less actualized audience I cannot conceive.

But the irony of that statement is lost upon the channel that gives Glenn Beck a platform for his disrespectful, arrogant and fear-based crap daily. They even feature Beck before the President--but tellingly, after the actress talking about how much she loves money.

Ah, the priorities of Fox News. I think the best advice I could offer today's graduate is to stay as far away from Fox News as possible. I guarantee you'll know more.

This is one of the main issues we'll be discussing at the America's Future Now conference in D.C. this week. It still astounds me that some progressives are simply ignoring the very real economic and political arguments in favor of increasing economic stimulus, not slashing it:

With voter anger about the federal deficit intensifying in this election year, Democrats in Congress are edging away from one of their long-held articles of faith — government spending on social programs such as education and relief for the jobless.

The painful tradeoff comes to center stage this week, when the Senate tries again to pass an extension of unemployment benefits — this time a $54-billion measure that marks an abrupt retreat from a $200-billion bill that Democratic leaders had proposed before the Memorial Day recess.

The stripped-down bill is just one sign of how budget anxieties are beginning to impinge on Democrats' legislative ambitions and traditional commitments.

A White House-backed proposal to spend $23 billion to save as many as 300,000 teachers' jobs has been stymied by deficit concerns. Similarly, the House, usually a bastion of liberalism, bowed to fiscal conservatives and dropped health insurance subsidies for the unemployed.

"There is a very changed climate," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) recently told reporters, referring to anti-deficit pressures she faces within her own party.

Though polls for years have shown high levels of public concern about the deficit, rarely has it outstripped most other issues. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in mid-May found a notable increase in recent months in those who believe cutting the deficit and spending should be the government's highest priority.

Gee. You don't suppose having the media keep up a constant drumbeat of anti-deficit propaganda would have anything to do with that, do you?

According to the poll, 20% of those surveyed wanted the deficit and government spending to be the top priority, an issue second to the 35% concerned about job creation and economic growth. (In a January poll, 13% cited the deficit and government spending.)

"There's no question that people are almost as concerned about the deficit and government spending as about jobs," said Mark Mellman, a pollster who works closely with congressional Democrats. "It is not just about the actual dollars — it is a metaphor for wasted money and lack of discipline and long-term economic decline."

That's because Congress - and the administration - did such a piss-poor job explaining the difference between stimulus spending and the bank bailout.

Even Friday's report that private-sector job growth had slowed to a crawl in May is not expected to offset the Democrats' new reluctance to add to the deficit for unemployment benefits.

And you know what the really stupid thing is? The Democrats will try to act like Republicans by cutting the deficit, and it won't win them any additional votes. It never does. The kind of people who like Republican policies vote for Republicans.

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On Sunday, Liz Cheney took a brief hiatus from her preposterous charge that "President Obama is contributing to the isolation of Israel, and sending a clear signal to the Turkish-Syrian-Iranian axis that their methods for ostracizing Israel will succeed." In a rare moment of candor, Cheney temporarily withdrew her fangs to acknowledge her father's boss was largely responsible for Hamas' domination of Gaza. Which is exactly right. After all, before Bush's failed covert action in support of Fatah led to the Hamas takeover of Gaza, his administration never anticipated the terrorist group's earlier victory at the polls, one which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted, "nobody saw it coming."

Vice President Cheney's daughter and former Bush State Department official admitted as much. In an exchange with Arianna Huffington and Jake Tapper on ABC's This Week, Liz Cheney claimed the January 2006 elections pushed by the Bush administration were a mistake:

HUFFINGTON: The Hamas government is a terrorist organization. Nobody's saying anything contrary to that. The Hamas government is a terrorist organization that won an election, an election that Bush, Cheney and Condi Rice encouraged to happen.

TAPPER: ...[To Cheney] You were at the State Department in 2005 and 2006 when these elections were pushed forward and some people were saying, "don't do it, they're not ready for it." Do you think that was a mistake in retrospect?

CHENEY: I do. I don't think they were ready for it. I don't think we should have pushed it.

That's easy to say now, given the catastrophe that unfolded in the Palestinian territories under her father's watch.

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Bob Schieffer asks their Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford about the "recently released" documents from Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's time as a clerk for Judge Thurgood Marshall and Crawford says the memos show Kagan to be much more liberal than the White House is portraying her to be and she slams the White House for acting like there's something wrong with that.

While I agree with her that I don't like the White House pretending that there is anything wrong with being a liberal either, as Media Matters noted after Crawford's appearance on the CBS Evening News, her assumptions about what we can take from her time as Marshall's clerk may not be as cut and dry as she's making them out to be, and those records were not "recently released".

CBS makes a mess of Kagan's record as Thurgood Marshall clerk:

On the CBS Evening News, Jan Crawford distorted memos Elena Kagan wrote as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, falsely painting Kagan as outside the mainstream. [...]

Crawford claimed memos Kagan wrote as a Marshall clerk were "buried," "recently disclosed." During her CBS Evening News report, Crawford said: "[D]ocuments buried in Thurgood Marshall's papers in the Library of Congress show that as a young lawyer, Kagan stood shoulder to shoulder with the liberal left, including on the most controversial issues Supreme Court nominees ever confront." Crawford later described one memo as "recently disclosed" and said "these documents will be much harder for her to explain away than other less controversial papers unearthed before her confirmation hearings for solicitor general."

In fact, Kagan's memos have long been publicly available at the Library of Congress, and she was asked about them during her SG hearing. The memos Kagan wrote as a Marshall clerk have long been available to the general public at the Library of Congress. The library acquired the Thurgood Marshall papers as a gift from Marshall in 1991. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (then a Republican) asked Kagan about the memos during her solicitor general confirmation hearing in 2009, notably describing "a whole series of memos which you [Kagan] sent to Justice Marshall." In his written questions, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) also asked Kagan about a memo she wrote as a Marshall clerk.

Lots more there and it would be nice if Kagan does turn out to be as liberal as Crawford is making her out to be here because as she said, there's not anything wrong with that. After reading the Media Matters report on Crawford's reporting from the other night though, I take her criticisms with a grain of salt.

UPDATE: Media Matters followed up on Crawford's reporting on Schieffer's show.

CBS reporter "baffled" as to why inaccurate Kagan report would upset White House.

Transcript via CBS below the fold.

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Calitics: The connection between austerity and privilege

Politibits: Artur Davis and the perfect political science experiment

Mad Kane’s Political Madness: Kirk's "factual" quirks

Stephen M. Walt: How to defend the indefensible (and get away with it)

Max Blumenthal: IDF admits it doctored flotilla audio clip, WaPo's Kessler must retract

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Dumbass quote of the day

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We can't promise that Amato and Neiwert's new book will get you lucky with the ladies, but listening to the Right Wing Noise Machine will most def get you unlucky. Plus, reading GOOD political writing makes you smart, and as I always say, intelligence is an aphrodisiac.

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