Rimbo sure likes to attack Pelosi. He either has a major crush on her or is terribly frightened by her like a girly-man.

Rush: "Mullah Nancy Bin Pelosi ... is no different" than those who "convince all these people to put bombs on their kids"

This is really outrageous even by his standards. He cheapens the lives that are lost to suicide bombers when he says this crap.

You know the Dems need to start throwing some hissy fits. Maybe President Rahm Emanuel might disagree.

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Glenn Beck went on Bill O'Reilly's program last night, protesting his innocence after Paul Krugman ably limned the culpability that people like Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and other right-wing yammerers have in raising the temperature of the national discourse to the level that now violent right-wing nutcases are popping off like so much popcorn.

It was, of course, an extended exercise in frantic obfuscation, like a cat trying to cover its dung:

Beck: Well, first of all, the only people responsible for anybody's death are the people --

O'Reilly: Are the murderers.

Beck: Are the murderers.

Ah yes, the nonexistent "lone wolf" defense. Gee, I guess this means that those suicide bombers in Baghdad and Jerusalem are just "isolated incidents" too, and no one but the bombers themselves are responsible. At least in Beck's and O'Reilly's world.

O'Reilly: Well, now, Paul Krugman doesn't feel that way.

Beck: Oh, no. No. But you know what I found? Paul Krugman -- he's of course blaming you as -- well, you're the baby killer ... killer -- whatever --

O'Reilly: The assassin enabler.

Beck: Yeah. And I am, uh, I am responsible for all kinds of conspiracy theories, I think I'm also responsible for the Holocaust shooter --

O'Reilly: Well, lemme, lemme, lemme quote -- here's what Krugman said about you today. He's criticizing Fox News:

Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda ... .

Beck: Never said that. Never said that.

O'Reilly: But Krugman doesn't care whether you said it or not. It sounds good.

Beck: Oh, I know. Never said that. You know, the reason I did that concentration camp thing or that FEMA story was because I snapped on the air one day.

O'Reilly: No! You?

Beck: Somebody called me on the radio and I said, 'Can we stop with the FEMA camps? Can we stop with the FEMA camps? I want, one way or another, I want it yes or no.' So I went to my staff and I said, 'I want proof that these don't exist, please?' A couple -- oh, maybe about a week later they came to me and said, 'Well, we don't really have proof' -- I said, 'You've gotta be kidding me. What do you mean, we don't really have proof.' We contracted with Popular Mechanics. It took us, ah, four weeks -- the reason why it took us four weeks is because I said, 'See this video on television? I want you to find that prison, go there, and tell everybody what it is so we can A-B compare.'

O'Reilly: And they couldn't find it.

Beck: No, we found what's called the 'prison'. It's an abandoned train depot.

O'Reilly: But it wasn't a prison.

Beck: It's not a prison.

O'Reilly: But it doesn't matter what you say, or what I say. They're going to take it and -- what Krugman wanted to do was he wanted to tell is readers -- who never watch you, by the way, they never watch Fox News either -- that you are accusing Obama of building concentration camps.

Well, Beck did indeed run a noteworthy segment that actually debunked the FEMA concentration-camp theories. But it was something akin to running a single correction on A23 for a series of sensationally bannered stories on A1.

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Get ready for Abu Ghraib Redux:

[N]ow a new batch of photographs, perhaps hundreds of images, of prisoners being abused is about to be made public. It comes at a time when the debate over prisoner mistreatment is still roiling America's political and public conscience. The new photographs are being made public in a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union. And the Pentagon, after fighting, and losing, three federal court reviews of the matter, has waved the white flag and is now preparing to release the pictures. Some of the photographs are official; some, like the original Abu Ghraib collection, taken informally by soldiers. "We know this could make things tougher for our troops," a senior Pentagon official says, "but the court decisions really don't leave us with any other option."

Fox's Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge presented the Fox version of this story yesterday, reporting that May 28 is the date set for the release of at least some of the photos. Herridge says that someone who's seen them told her none of them are as bad as the Abu Ghraib shots, but about 44 of them could be very ugly indeed.

And there's this note:

Smith: Some of the critics are really labeling this 'Abu Ghraib Part II.'

Herridge: Well, you remember that after Abu Ghraib there was worldwide condemnation for these images of humiliation. And I learned in my research today that there was also a military report in 2008 that concluded that there is a connection between these images and also suicide bombers. Forty-eight bombers, or potential bombers, were interviewed, and they said that these images were a big factor, a big motivating factor, in the decision to become a suicide bomber.

This in fact comports with that 2006 National Intelligence Estimate [PDF file] that found that Bush's war in Iraq had actually created the conditions for a future ripe with terrorist attacks; or, as the New York Times put it, "helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism." Among the real motivators for terrorist recruitment, it found, was the torture regime the Bush administration set up in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

If anyone thought that photos from those centers would not eventually leak out to the public -- or at the bare minimum, be forced out eventually by the inevitable lawsuits, as was the case here -- they were fooling themselves. Or at least gambling that they'd be out of office by then and could lay the whole mess in the laps of whoever had the misfortune to succeed them.

Indeed, the Obama critics are now out in force shouting that the pending release of these photos will hurt soldiers in the field, including Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham. Bill Kristol is claiming that "this would be a gratuitous assault on the well-being and the reputation of our fighting men and women."

But of course, they can't answer the cold fact that these photos are a product of the Bush administration's misbegotten policies, and the reaction to them from the Arab world -- indeed, the rest of the world -- puts the lie to Dick Cheney's claim that "enhanced interrogations" kept us safe.

In fact, over the long run, they have made us quantifiably less safe. And cleaning out this festering wound once and for all is the only hope we have of healing it.

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“If the situation progresses, we will be just like India...They are busy building public fountains when we don’t have water in the sink.”

- Abdulalah F. Alafar, director of the Maryam Establishment for Children charity in Baghdad.

The American invasion of Iraq has left quite a legacy. We've lost billions of dollars in cash meant for Iraq's reconstruction, while the women left widows by our bombing sell themselves for enough money to survive:

Among Iraqi women aged 15 to 80, 1 in 11 are estimated to be widows, though officials admit that figure is hardly more than a guess, given the continuing violence and the displacement of millions of people. A United Nations report estimated that during the height of sectarian violence here in 2006, 90 to 100 women were widowed each day.

In large cities like Baghdad, the presence of war widows is difficult to ignore. Cloaked in black abayas, they wade through columns of cars idling at security checkpoints, asking for money or food. They wait in line outside mosques for free blankets, or sift through mounds of garbage piled along the street. Some live with their children in public parks or inside gas station restrooms.

Officials at social service agencies tell of widows coerced into “temporary marriages” — relationships sanctioned by Shiite tradition, often based on sex, which can last from an hour to years — to get financial help from government, religious or tribal leaders.

Other war widows have become prostitutes, and some have joined the insurgency in exchange for steady pay. The Iraqi military estimates that the number of widows who have become suicide bombers may be in the dozens.

In the past several weeks, even as the government has formed commissions to study the problem, it has begun a campaign to arrest beggars and the homeless, including war widows.

[...] Efforts to increase the government stipend for widows — currently about $50 a month and an additional $12 per child — have stalled. By comparison, the price of a five-liter container of gasoline, used for cars as well as home generators, is about $4.

Still, only about 120,000 widows — roughly one in six — receive any state aid, according to government figures. Widows and their advocates say that to receive benefits they must either have political connections or agree to temporary marriages with the powerful men who control the distribution of government funds.

“It is blackmail,” said Samira al-Mosawi, chairwoman of the women’s affairs committee in Parliament. “We have no law to treat this point. Widows don’t need temporary support, but a permanent solution.”

The latest plan, proposed by Mazin al-Shihan, director of the Baghdad Displacement Committee, a city agency, is to pay men to marry widows. “There is no serious effort by the national government to fix this problem, so I presented my own program,” he said.

When asked why the money should not go directly to the women, Mr. Shihan laughed.

“If we give the money to the widows, they will spend it unwisely because they are uneducated and they don’t know about budgeting,” he said. “But if we find her a husband, there will be a person in charge of her and her children for the rest of their lives. This is according to our tradition and our laws.”

Yeah, because it would be too difficult to just educate them. And besides, then they get ideas - and we can't have that.

And here we go again. Bush's ineffectiveness in the face of the Gaza attacks will help cultivate yet another generation of Middle Eastern hardliners:

TEHRAN, Iran – Hard-line Iranian student groups have asked the government to authorize volunteers to go carry out suicide bombings in Israel in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had not responded to the call by Wednesday. Five hard-line student groups and a conservative clerical group launched a registration drive on Monday, seeking volunteers to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.

In an open letter to Ahmadinjead, the students said "volunteer student suicide groups ... are determined to go to Gaza. You are expected to issue orders to the relevant authorities in order to pave the way for such action." A copy of the letter was made available to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Volunteer suicide groups have made similar requests in the past and the government never responded to their calls. Some hard-liners have claimed previously they succeeded in secretly sending bombers to Israel, but their claims have never been verified, and there has not been any sign of Iranians carrying out suicide attacks in Israel — raising the likelihood the groups' activities are mainly for propaganda purposes.

NY Times: (reg. req'd)

Suddenly, on that May day in 2005, the copter dropped CS gas, a riot-control substance the American military in Iraq can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders. An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint.

"This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous," Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene, wrote later that day. "It's not a good thing to cause soldiers who are standing guard against car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers to cover their faces, choke, cough and otherwise degrade our awareness."

Both the helicopter and the vehicle involved in the incident at the Assassins' Gate checkpoint were not from the United States military, but were part of a convoy operated by Blackwater Worldwide, the private security contractor that is under scrutiny for its role in a series of violent episodes in Iraq, including a September shooting in downtown Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead.

None of the American soldiers exposed to the chemical, which is similar to tear gas, required medical attention, and it is not clear if any Iraqis did. Still, the previously undisclosed incident has raised significant new questions about the role of private security contractors in Iraq, and whether they operate under the same rules of engagement and international treaty obligations that the American military observes.

"You run into this issue time and again with Blackwater, where the rules that apply to the U.S. military don't seem to apply to Blackwater," said Scott L. Silliman, the executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at the Duke University School of Law.

Officers and noncommissioned officers from the Third Infantry Division who were involved in the episode said there were no signs of violence at the checkpoint. Instead, they said, the Blackwater convoy appeared to be stuck in traffic and may have been trying to use the riot-control agent as a way to clear a path.

You know, I get frustrated in rush hour traffic too, but that's ridiculous. I have to agree with Markos:

The use of these mercenaries has been glorified by the Right for years. But at the end of the day, their actions have hampered and perhaps even sabotaged our mission while endangering our troops.

 Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he didn't want Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to face a confirmation hearing so he let him go. Surprisingly--Barbara Starr reported that this is an unusual move because Pace's job is supposed to be Bush's call and not Gates.

Gates: It would be a backward looking and very contentious process.

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A reporter asks Gates if he's depressed by this move. It's very telling to see that a major man in the military is ousted because the administration (was this Gates decision alone?) doesn't want him to answer question about the Iraq war in front of Congress. Do you remember his take on gays serving in the military...  He also wrote a letter of support for Scooter Libby...How's that surge working?

Two suicide bombers struck a Shiite mosque and a nearby police station near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, and more than 25 people were killed or wounded, police said

Left I on the News: CNN and friends already do such a good job broadcasting American propaganda that a real government station could hardly do better.

ArmsControlWonk: The Defense Science Board Task Force has released a hilariously retro report on nuclear weapons

The BRAD BLOG: Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff) is back! And he's not taking any shit from any of those democracy loving pussies!

The Last Days Of President George W. Bush is an Australian blog. Here, Chimpy's recent incoherent, rambling press conference is dissected.

WINGNUTS GONE WILD: Hugh Hewitt says, "The Iraqis and the Afghanis are going to be as grateful to Bush as African-Americans are to Lincoln"...Over at The Corner, reality has donned a rubber glove and is probing the depths of John Derbyshire's political conviction...A rational person looks at our media and sees Fortune 500 corporations. A crazy person looks and sees willing accomplices of jihadists and suicide bombers...GOP radio host: Send Critics of Dear Leader Bush to Detention Camps

Republican Peter King is a total embarrassment to NY. Growing up there I cringe every time he spouts his nonsense and this ladies and gentlemen is complete idiocy that demeans our troops in Iraq and everybody that has any semblance of intelligence in our country,

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King: Conditions on the ground are different than what you see on television.---As we go through the city of Baghdad, it was like being in Manhattan. I’m talking about bumper to bumper traffic. Talking about shopping centers, talking about restaurants, talking about video stores, talking about guys--on the street corner, talking about major hotels. And so, at that moment, people must be amazingly resilient and you would never know that there was a war going on...

...in Mosul---I remember seeing news reports about roller coasters. Where you had two or three parking lots filled with their cars on a Sunday afternoon. Again, that’s not something you’d see on television, and at any given time a suicide bombers can walk into an amusement center, but the point I’m making is that the situation is more stable than you think....

Let's all book our flights to the joyous and refreshingly amusing--Mosul. OK, suicide bombers can go off at anytime, but the sun is still shining for King. He says as long as the Iraq forces keep training then maybe two, three or four years we will draw down. Way to go Peter! He made this speech in the Merrick Jewish Center. I played many a gig out in Nassau County.

via Talk Left: Why is no one calling on Senator Bill Frist to apologize to Senator Dick Durbin? Sen. Frist, repeating a false headline in the Washington Times, accused Sen. Durbin of saying Guantanamo is “a death camp." (Frist's statement, in two parts, is here and here. (pdf)) Read Senator Durbin's remarks (pdf). He never said that. Frist also falsely claimed that Durbin said our service members are “committing genocide and war crimes.” Durbin never said that either. Most outrageously, Frist essentially accused Durbin of encouraging suicide bombers.

The guy can't stop lying. I'm trying to look up his current disorder in the DSM IV . He could be a Borderline personality. We know he definetly has a Narcissistic Personality like disorder for sure.