Chicago venue The Hideout is taking their Inauguration celebration to Washington, DC's Black Cat. Headlining the event is Andrew Bird, who was the subject of a major profile in Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

The Big Shoulders Inauguration Ball

The "The Big Shoulders Inauguration Ball" will feature Andrew Bird w/ Tortoise, Ted Leo, Waco Brothers, Eleventh Dream Day, Jon Langford, Sally Timms, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Ken Vandermark, Freakwater, Icy Demons and Judson Claiborne

Andrew Bird is also touring the U.S. starting after the inauguration, including a date at New York's Carnegie Hall. Tour dates after the jump....

DOWNLOAD: Andrew Bird - "Heretics"

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Brooklyn-born Supreme Court Associate Justice, has been hospitalized with pancreatic cancer. While she is on record saying she plans on serving for at least another five years, this may force her to leave the bench earlier than expected and pave the way for Obama's first appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ginsburg was appointed to the Court by President Clinton in 1993 and is considered to be part of the "liberal wing" of the court that leans to the right after President Bush appointed two justices.

All I can say is that I am so relieved that we have a President who will appoint a left-leaning justic if Ginsburg does step down.

>>Bloomberg reveals source of NYC's mysterious "maple syrup" smell and it's not northrax.
>>AQ Khan, who sold nuclear weapons to Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and Libya, has been freed after years of house arrest.
>>Jobless rate jumps to 7.6 percent, 598K jobs lost.
>>Bush's Treasury Secretary Paulson overvalued banks, overpaid relief.
>>Toyota sees first annual net loss since 1950.
>>On the same day Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn opened a brand new $25,000,000 psychiatric center, comes the report that "Violence and Sexual Abuse Found at City-Run Psychiatric Unit"
>>Budget Cuts Imperil Guardian Program for Elderly and Disabled
>>Minnesota Senate seat still sits empty.

This is hysterical. Not to mention what a coup for Jimmy Fallon to get one of skits to go viral his first week on the air as host of Late Night.

The legal right to marriage for gay men and women has taken a gigantic step forward thanks to Vermont becoming the first state to legalize gay marriage through the State legislative process as opposed to a Court ruling.

Vermont has become the fourth state to legalize gay marriage — and the first to do so with a legislature's vote.

The Legislature voted Tuesday to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto of a bill allowing gays and lesbians to marry. The vote was 23-5 to override in the state Senate and 100-49 to override in the House. Under Vermont law, two-thirds of each chamber had to vote for override.

The vote came nine years after Vermont adopted its first-in-the-nation civil unions law.

It's now the fourth state to permit same-sex marriage. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa are the others.

New York Senator's Schumer and Gillibrand are now urging the State to legalize gay marriage. Both Senator's had previously only supported civil unions for gay couples, but switched their positions only recently.

Remember those Palin hate rallies during the Presidential elections, well they're back! Fox News and the right-wing anti-tax organization FreedomWorks held rallies across America today, on Tax Day, to protest taxes increases....even though Obama actually has lowered taxes for most middle class Americans. People at these rallies were calling Obama a fascist, a socialist, a pirate and blaming our landslide victory President with the economic crisis. They did completely ignore that Bush is the one that mortgaged America to China - nor did they complain during his eight disastrous years. All-in-all, these rallies were nothing but hate rallies.

The audience, which was quite large despite a heavy rain, was told that Obama was leading the country toward “dictatorship.” The government, we were told, was creating a crisis “100 times as grim as 9/11,” the people were being “brainwashed” into complacency by the media and soon “the face of big brother will be exposed and the slogans of a classless one party system are revealed to us.”

The answer to these problems, according to one speaker, is to kick Obama and the leaders of the Democratic party in Maryland out of office. In the audience, one man wore a shirt comparing Obama to Hitler. (video via New Line)

The lost foot soldiers of the right-wing thought it smart to hold "Tea Bag" parties across America to protest taxes, which Obama lowered for anyone making under $200,000, while extending unemployment benefits. Meanwhile, companies like, say, Fox News, one of the main organizers of these teabagging orgies, continue to dodge taxes by keeping their offices off-shore. Let's take a look at the events of yesterday.....

Keith Olbermann's excellent round-up of the tea bag parties.

Teabagging Texas Governor Rick Perry calls for a declaration of sovereignty from the Union!

And Fox News supports Texas' call for secession.

And here's what happens when you get a left-wing blogger.

And O'Reilly takes offense at "teabagging" label.

And Anderson Cooper sums it up.

After being operating in the shadows for the last eight years, Dick Cheney, the former Vice President of the United States, and possible war criminal, has emerged from hiding to try and stir some shit up.

With the Republican Party in complete shambles and with no platform, Cheney went on Faux News' Sean Hannity program for an interview where he repeatedly bashes the current President, accusing him of weakening America and an apologist for meeting with people like Hugo Chavez.

Of course, Cheney was Vice President to the man who said he "looked into Putin eyes and saw his soul" and he liked what he saw. Not to mention, Cheney favored secret prisons, torture, domestic spying, an disaster of war in Iraq, destroyed the economy and lord knows what else.

Obama, on the other hand is respected around the world, has been doing an excellent job of stabilizing the economy, getting us out of Iraq, reversing Bush & Cheney's policies on torture and make sure America is seen as a world leader again.

Philip Zelikow was no minor player in the Bush administration. First Bush appointed him the executive director of the 9/11 Commission and then he was Counselor of the United States Department of State, worked directly for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

This evening, Zelikow gave an exclusive first interview to Rachel Maddow in which he states that he wrote a memo informing all pertinent parties that he believed the tortue policies that have now been made public were illegal. He also states that the State Department tried to destroy all copies of his memo.

Zelikow was obviously aware that Bush had instituted very illegal policies and likely wrote this memo to protect his ass if shit ever hit the fan. Now that shit has indeed hit the fan, he is publicly trying to protect himself. I don't expect him to take people down, but nor do I expect him to protect anyone but himself.

Obama wanted America to be prepared in case of a pandemic outbreak, but a Republican Senator has been fighting to strip $780 million in stimulus fund's to help states prepare for an outbreak.

In the face of the recent outbreak of swine flu cases reported in Mexico and several southern states, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins stands by her efforts to eliminate $780 million for pandemic flu preparedness from the federal economic stimulus package passed by Congress earlier this year.

The Maine Republican successfully sought the removal of the funding because she didn't feel it met the criteria laid out for stimulus funds in terms of job creation or providing an immediate lift to the slowing economy.

And then the swine flew hit......

Wednesday marks President Obama's 100th day in office. Now let's check in with the people who have tried to disrupt his agenda the most, Fox News:

As Barack Obama closes in on his first 100 days as president, majorities of Americans approve of the job he is doing, are satisfied with what he has accomplished so far and think he is keeping his promises, according to a FOX News poll released Friday.

Obama's job approval rating comes in at 62 percent, down just three points from the 65 percent approval he received after his first week in office. Twenty-nine percent of Americans disapprove.

In addition, most people say Obama is doing a better job than they expected (26 percent) or meeting expectations (56 percent). Few say he is doing worse than expected (16 percent).

Most Americans — 69 percent — say they are satisfied with what Obama has accomplished in his first 100 days, and 57 percent think he is keeping the promises he made during the campaign.

With even Fox's audience supporting the President, Fox is doing everything they can do to try and weaken him. In this case, they've resorted to some really pathetic and shameful tactics (I won't even go into their teabagging campaign again):

The Fox network announced today that it will not air President Barack Obama's primetime news conference this Wendesday at 8pm (ET), and will air the regularly scheduled drama Lie to Me instead. It is the first time a major broadcast network has declined Obama's request to break into the primetime broadcasting schedule.

Once considered to be the most conservative Republican, Pennsylvania's Senator Arlene Spector has left the Republican party and will run as a Democrat in his 2010 reelection bid.

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said on Tuesday he would switch to the Democratic party, presenting Democrats with a possible 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters as they try to advance the Obama administration’s new agenda.

In a statement issued about noon as the Capitol was digesting the stunning turn of events, Mr. Specter said he had concluded that his party had moved too far to the right, a fact demonstrated by the migration of 200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans to the Democratic Party.

“I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Mr. Specter said, acknowledging that his decision was certain to disappoint colleagues and supporters.

Maine Senator Oympia Snowe, now only one of two moderate Republicans left in the Grand Ole' Party, has penned an op-ed that appeared in today's New York Times in response to Arlene Specter switching parties after 29 years as a Republican.

IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way.

It was as though beginning with Senator Jeffords’s decision, Republicans turned a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface, failing to undertake the re-evaluation of our inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled many of the losses we have suffered.

It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of “Survivor” — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three decades no longer felt able to remain in the party.

Senator Specter indicated that his decision was based on the political situation in Pennsylvania, where he faced a tough primary battle. In my view, the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate Republican in Pennsylvania is a microcosm of a deeper, more pervasive problem that places our party in jeopardy nationwide.

Read the full op-ed here.

President Barack Obama's first appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States will be a liberal hispanic woman from the Bronx. Amen.

President Obama has decided to nominate the federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, choosing a daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in Bronx public housing projects to become the nation’s first Hispanic justice, officials said Tuesday.

The first President Bush nominated her in 1991 to the federal district court on the recommendation of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, and she was confirmed a year later. President Bill Clinton decided to elevate her to the appeals court in 1997 and she was confirmed a year later.

Judge Sotomayor, 54, who has served for more than a decade on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals based in New York City, would become the nation’s 111th justice, replacing David H. Souter, who is retiring after 19 years on the bench. Although Justice Souter was appointed by the first President George Bush, he became a mainstay of the liberal faction on the court and so his replacement by Judge Sotomayor likely would not shift the overall balance of power. (New York Times)

Bad news that could end up being good news.

First, the bad news is that California's Supreme Court ruled that Prop 8 is legal and will remain law. Oddly, the Court also ruled that any gay couple married while gay marriage was legal in California are allowed to continue to legally stay married. So, to summarize, it's illegal for gays to marry unless they got married when it was legal. Hmmm.

The good news is that this ruling will likely send the Prop 8 ruling to the Supreme Court of the United States, which will be forced to finally take on the issue of marriage for gay couples.

The battle just left California and became a national issue.

Senator Al Franken. It should become official shortly as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said he'd sign the necessary election certificate after the State's Supreme Court made it's ruling, which it finally have.

Almost seven months since he should have been seated and Minnesota will finally get its Senator:

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today that Democrat Al Franken won the U.S. Senate election and said he was entitled to an election certificate that would lead to him being seated in the Senate.

"Affirmed," wrote the Supreme Court, unanimously rejecting Republican Norm Coleman's claims that inconsistent practices by local elections officials and wrong decisions by a lower court had denied him victory.

The GOP has pumped over $900,000 into Coleman's legal fund for the sole purpose of keeping Franken from being seating as long as possible (the question of who won the election was over last year) and being the Democrats potential 60th, filibuster-proff, vote.

I'm sure that there is pressure on Gov. Pawlenty (Republican) to not sign the election certificate until Coleman takes this case to the Supreme Court of the United States, but as Pawlenty is up for re-election and local polls show overwhelmingly that Minnesotans want this debacle to be over and for Franken to represent their state in the U.S. Senate, I think he'll keep to his promise and sign the election certificate and get Franken seated as quickly as possible.

UPDATE: Norm Coleman finally conceded. He made a gracious concession speech, albeit, one that came seven months late. Senator-elect Al Franken is expected to receive his election certificate tomorrow and he be sworn into the Senate on Monday as the chamber is closed for July 4th.

In a somewhat shocking move, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin resigned before her first term even came to a close.

Her rambling, hastily organized press conference blamed her resignation on the half-million dollar cost of defending herself against various State indictments surrounding her short uncompleted Governorship, but I'm not buying that excuse.

In her statement, she made one comment about how some adults had been mocking Trig, her youngest child that was born with down syndrome. At first I thought she was making reference to her weird public feud with David Letterman, but that really didn't make sense. No, I'm thinking that comment was the real reason behind her sudden and unexpected departure from politics.

Her staff has now confirmed that Palin informed key party members that she would resign on Wednesday eveningm the same day that CBS News' Scott Conroy and special contributor Shushannah Walshe revealed that they had gained access to emails sent between McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt and the 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee. My theory is that one of those emails between Schmidt and Palin may have had something to do with the circumstances surrounding Triggs birth and who really is the baby's mother. When Palin was notified about the email that Scott and Shushannah had obtained, she did the right thing and resigned, rather than put her family through another whirlwind media blitz.

Now, that's just a theory and I have no basis to really prove it, but the pieces seem to add up to something to that effect. Who knows? Maybe I'm close, maybe I'm right or maybe I'm way off. Either way, whatever, I'm just glad her political career is over.

Here's the footage of Palin resigning....

One of the most controversial and hated political figures of all time, Robert McNamara, has passed away. His life story is one of constant wrong decisions and poorly executed plans, from the Bay of Pigs to Vietnam War to running the World Bank from 1968 to 1981.

Robert S. McNamara, the cerebral secretary of defense vilified for his role in escalating the Vietnam War, a disastrous conflict he later denounced as "terribly wrong," died Monday. He was 93.

McNamara was fundamentally associated with the Vietnam War, "McNamara's war," the country's most disastrous foreign venture, the only American war to end in abject withdrawal.

Known as a policymaker with a fixation for statistical analysis, McNamara was recruited to run the Pentagon by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 from the presidency of the Ford Motor Co. — where he and a group of colleagues had been known as the "whiz kids." He stayed in the defense post for seven years, longer than anyone since the job's creation in 1947.

His association with Vietnam became intensely personal. Even his son, as a Stanford University student, protested against the war while his father was running it. At Harvard, McNamara once had to flee a student mob through underground utility tunnels. Critics mocked McNamara mercilessly; they made much of the fact that his middle name was "Strange."

He discussed similar themes in the 2003 documentary "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara." With the U.S. in the first year of the war in Iraq, it became a popular and timely art-house attraction and won the Oscar for best documentary feature.

The Iraq war, with its similarities to Vietnam, at times brought up McNamara's name, in many cases in comparison with another unpopular defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld. McNamara was among former secretaries of defense and state who met twice with President Bush in 2006 to discuss Iraq war policies.

In the Kennedy administration, McNamara was a key figure in both the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis 18 months later. The crisis was the closest the world came to a nuclear confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States.

While driving to a bbq on July 4th, I caught a segment on NPR about the strain "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has put on gay couples. As someone who already believes that DADT should be repelled, I was surprised how this segment framed the debate in a whole new light for me.

The deployment of troops is often marked by patriotic and emotional ceremonies. There are military bands and speeches, and for the families there are hugs, kisses, tears and public displays of emotion — unless the person shipping out is gay.

"I can't be there when he deploys to Iraq," said military spouse Ben Cartwright. "I can't be on the sidelines waving and crying and giving him a hug like everyone else can. If I do go to those things, I have to stand behind a tree and hide."

Military service is a sacrifice for any family. In exchange, service members get a wide array of benefits, from store discounts on military bases to help paying for education. But those perks are for the most part not available to gay or lesbian partners, because only married husbands and wives can get the military ID card needed to access them.

A typical military spouse would be notified of the injury immediately, and the couple would be reunited at a military hospital at the government's expense. However, since this relationship was invisible to the military, Carnes wasn't informed of the injury until weeks later, when his partner told him.

I highly recommend you listen to the whole segment here.

Hysterical.

Rick Santorum, a true christian-conservative who slept with his dead baby for a week ("Rick and Karen Santorum would not let the morgue take the corpse of their newborn; they slept that night in the hospital with their lifeless baby between them. The next day, they took him home."), is testing the waters for a possible 2012 Presidentiall run.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, the blunt-talking conservative who once was the No. 3 Senate Republican, will make appearances this fall in the early caucus state of Iowa.

Santorum's scheduled to give a speech Oct. 1 at the University of Dubuque about the future of the Republican Party, John Brabender, his longtime political adviser, said Wednesday. Brabender said he's also attending a luncheon in Des Moines with an anti-abortion group.

Brabender played down speculation that Santorum has presidential aspirations and said it's not necessarily the first step of a presidential run.

"Rick Santorum certainly feels he has a lot to contribute to the party and feels that now is a good time particularly for conservatives to be willing to stand up and talk about some things," Brabender said.

Santorum, 51, handily lost his seat to Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., in 2006 as part of the anti-war and anti-incumbent tide. He works as a Fox News contributor and writes a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He's also part of a movie production company and a Washington think tank.

Dancing with the Stars is no longer a haven for celebrity D-Listers, but for disgraced former politicians!

Former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay will join 15 celebrities from the worlds of entertainment and sports in kicking up their heels on the new season of "Dancing With the Stars.

Make your voice heard.

The event is on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2009, at 12:45 PM in Brooklyn. The location of our event is: Borough Hall.

We're gathering at Borough Hall to go into Manhattan together for the big Unity Rally for Health Care Reform at Times Square at 2 p.m. Health reform is finally within grasp. Opponents are spending millions every day to destroy it. We cannot let this happen. We voted for change in '08 and we must see it through. On Saturday, August 29, 2009, New Yorkers will walk from all parts of the city for the first ever United We Walk for Reform Rally in support of the historic health reform legislation before Congress. It's our health care. It's our time. Save the date to make your voice heard.

We'll meet near the entrance to the Joralemon and Court Street subway station, and then take the R train to Times Square. Bring your own homemade signs (but no sticks -- the police department is very strict about this!)

On Monday, August 31st, at 6pm, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke will be hosting a Town Hall meeting to discuss healthcare reform at the Jewish Children's Museum (Kingston Ave & Eastern Pkwy) in Brooklyn.

I'm not one to usually compliment Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, but I honestly felt he delivered the most interesting and revealing euology to the late lion of the Senate, Edward Kennedy, who was buried this Saturday.

On Friday night, Hatch was one of many speakers at a memorial service held in Boston and he painted such a vivid picture of who Ted Kennedy was and why he was such an important figure in American politics.

Parts two and three are after the jump...

I don't anyone, Republican or Democrat, that was in favor of the bank bailout that both President Bush and Obama pushed through to save the banks. I also don't know anyone who thought it would work.

Nearly a year after the federal rescue of the nation’s biggest banks, taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that many critics thought might never be seen again.

The profits, collected from eight of the biggest banks that have fully repaid their obligations to the government, come to about $4 billion, or the equivalent of about 15 percent annually, according to calculations compiled for The New York Times.

These early returns are by no means a full accounting of the huge financial rescue undertaken by the federal government last year to stabilize teetering banks and other companies.

The government still faces potentially huge long-term losses from its bailouts of the insurance giant American International Group, the mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the automakers General Motors and Chrysler. The Treasury Department could also take a hit from its guarantees on billions of dollars of toxic mortgages.

But the mere hint of bailout profits for the nearly year-old Troubled Asset Relief Program has been received as a welcome surprise. It has also spurred hopes that the government could soon get out of the banking business.

It's still gross that banks that took bailout money gave out millions of dollars in bonuses.

Last night, Obama delivered a fantastic, progressive speech about healthcare to a joint session of Congress. The Republicans, who spent the summer getting their based all riled up with lies about the health reform, spent the speech visibly uncomfortable and annoying. One Republican was even so disrespectful of the President of the United States that he heckled him during the speech.

Democrats and Republicans alike are denouncing Rep. Joe Wilson for shouting "You lie" at President Barack Obama during his speech to Congress, an extraordinary breach of decorum for which the South Carolina Republican swiftly apologized.

"I was embarrassed for the chamber and a Congress I love," Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America." "It demeaned the institution."

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., told ABC on Wednesday: "Obviously, the President of the United States is always welcome on Capitol Hill. He deserves respect and decorum.

For the record, the cameras showed Cantor spending most of the speech texting on his Blackberry. Anyway, back to Wilson...

Wilson's behavior caused a political hangover for him and possibly for the Republican critics Obama had cast as shrill and more interested in killing any health care overhaul than finding a way to provide it.

Later, Wilson was contrite.

By late Wednesday, though, the congressman's Web site had crashed, he had taken a beating on his Twitter page and Democrat Rob Miller had raised thousands of unexpected dollars online for a possible rematch with Wilson in next year's midterm elections, according to Lachlan McIntosh, Miller's campaign manager.

In the eight hours since Wilson's outburst, his Democratic opponent, former-Marine Rob Miller, has received nearly 3,000 individual grassroots contributions raising approximately $100,000, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said.

The Republican response was delivered by Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany, a doctor who has been sued three times for malpractive, once tried to buy a British Lord title, a "birther" who thinks Obama needs to prove they were born a U.S. citizen and has taken more than $537,000 in campaign contributions from healthcare PACs. His worse offense on this particular nigh twas that his rebuttal had nothing to do with Obama's speech and was the same old, tired GOP talking points.

Give this local news channel a Peabody for this excellent (and absolutely hysterical) report about California Republican State Senator Michael Duvall who was caught bragging about his sexploits with lobbyists who happen to lobby the sub-division he chairs. (via Talking Points Memo)

A cause to celebrate is also one to be gravely concerned.

A restriction on abortion coverage, added late Saturday to the health care bill passed by the House, has energized abortion opponents with their biggest victory in years — emboldening them for a pitched battle in the Senate.

The provision would block the use of federal subsidies for insurance that covers elective abortions. Advocates on both sides are calling Saturday’s vote the biggest turning point in the battle over the procedure since the ban on so-called partial birth abortions six years ago.

Both sides credited a forceful lobbying effort by Roman Catholic bishops with the success of the provision, inserted in the bill under pressure from conservative Democrats.

The provision would apply only to insurance policies purchased with the federal subsidies that the health legislation would create to help low- and middle-income people, and to policies sold by a government-run insurance plan that would be created by the legislation.

Abortion rights advocates charged Sunday that the provision threatened to deprive women of abortion coverage because insurers would drop the procedure from their plans in order to sell them in the newly expanded market of people receiving subsidies. The subsidized market would be large because anyone earning less than $88,000 for a family of four — four times the poverty level — would be eligible for a subsidy under the House bill. Women who received subsidies or public insurance could still pay out of pocket for the procedure. Or they could buy separate insurance riders to cover abortion, though some evidence suggests few would, in part because unwanted pregnancies are by their nature unexpected.

Not many women who undergo abortions file private insurance claims, perhaps to avoid leaving a record. A 2003 study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute found that 13 percent of abortions were billed directly to insurance companies. Only about half of those who receive insurance coverage from their employers have coverage of abortion in any event, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Abortion rights advocates, however, are grappling with a series of incremental defeats in the courts and in Congress, and are now bracing for another struggle as the health care legislation goes to the Senate.

“This is going to make it that much more challenging on the Senate side,” said Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America.

The president and Democratic leaders alike have long promised that their proposed health care overhaul would not direct taxpayer money to pay for elective abortions. But the president has never spelled out his answer to the contentious question of how to apply that standard to the novel program of offering insurance subsidies or a government-run plan to millions of poor and middle-class Americans.

House Democratic leaders had sought to resolve the issue by requiring insurers to segregate their federal subsidies into separate accounts.

Insurance plans would have been permitted to use only consumer premiums or co-payments to pay for abortions, even if individuals who received federal subsidies used them to buy health plans that covered abortion. But the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was unable to hold on to enough moderate and conservative Democratic votes to pass the health bill using that approach, forcing her to allow a vote Saturday night on the amendment containing the broader ban.

Five states go further than the amendment to the health care overhaul. The five — Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota and Oklahoma — already bar private insurance plans from covering elective abortions.

The federal employees’ health insurance plan and most state Medicaid programs also ban coverage of abortion, complying with a three-decade old ban on federal abortion financing. Seventeen state Medicaid programs, however, do cover the procedure, by using only state money.

Read more here.

This morning, the U.S. Senate will begin the highly-anticipated floor debate on health care reform.

The truth is that it's not much of a debate as it's pretty clear that not a single Republican will support any form of health care reform and they are doing everything they can to filibuster whatever the final version of the bill. The real "debate" is more of navigating a Democrat compromise that will ensure a filibuster-proof passage. That may mean a trigger-option, instead of a public option.

Let the in-fightin begin.

Let's see if the President can convince the people if escalating the war in Afghanistan is the right move.

President Barack Obama will address the nation on his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan Tuesday night from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

The president is expected to lay out his plans for expanding the Afghan conflict and, ultimately, ending America's military role.
The president and his top military and national security advisers have held 10 meetings to discuss America's future steps in Afghanistan. Though the top general in Afghanistan has asked the president for about 40,000 troops, military officials expect the president will deploy about 35,000, starting next year.

The president says the American people will support his strategy once they understand the perils of losing the war.

UPDATE (via the New York Times):

President Obama plans to lay out a time frame for winding down the American involvement in the war in Afghanistan when he announces his decision this week to send more forces, senior administration officials said Sunday.

Although the speech was still in draft form, the officials said the president wanted to use the address at the United States Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday night not only to announce the immediate order to deploy roughly 30,000 more troops, but also to convey how he intends to turn the fight over to the Kabul government.

“It’s accurate to say that he will be more explicit about both goals and time frame than has been the case before and than has been part of the public discussion,” said a senior official, who requested anonymity to discuss the speech before it is delivered. “He wants to give a clear sense of both the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down.”

The officials would not disclose the time frame. But they said it would not be tied to particular conditions on the ground nor would it be as firm as the current schedule for withdrawing troops in Iraq, where Mr. Obama has committed to withdrawing most combat units by August and all forces by the end of 2011.

As the President gets set to address the nation about both increasing the amount of troops and ending the war in Afghanistan, the New York Times ran a story on Sunday about the disgraceful secret prison system that the U.S. still uses to detain (mostly insurgent) Afghans. Didn't Obama campaign on ended these Bush-era tactics?

An American military detention camp in Afghanistan is still holding inmates, sometimes for weeks at a time, without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to human rights researchers and former detainees held at the site on the Bagram Air Base.

The site, known to detainees as the black jail, consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each illuminated by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day. In interviews, former detainees said that their only human contact was at twice-daily interrogation sessions.

“The black jail was the most dangerous and fearful place,” said Hamidullah, a spare-parts dealer in Kandahar who said he was detained there in June. “They don’t let the I.C.R.C. officials or any other civilians see or communicate with the people they keep there. Because I did not know what time it was, I did not know when to pray.”

The jail’s operation highlights a tension between President Obama’s goal to improve detention conditions that had drawn condemnation under the Bush administration and his stated desire to give military commanders leeway to operate. While Mr. Obama signed an order to eliminate so-called black sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency in January, it did not also close this jail, which is run by military Special Operations forces.

World AIDS Day, observed December 1 each year, is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. It is common to hold memorials to honor persons who have died from HIV/AIDS on this day. Government and health officials also observe the event, often with speeches or forums on the AIDS topics. Since 1995, the President of the United States has made an official proclamation on World AIDS Day. Governments of other nations have followed suit and issued similar announcements.

AIDS has killed more than 25 million people between 1981 and 2007,[1] and an estimated 33.2 million people worldwide live with HIV as of 2007,[2] making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. Despite recent, improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, the AIDS epidemic claimed an estimated 2 million lives in 2007,[3] of which about 270,000 were children.

Howard Dean for the Senate! Seriously, I'd vote for him. He's the only Democrat who still seems to be fighting for a public option.

According to Dean, the most important component of the health care bill is the public option.

"If we don’t have a choice, this bill is worthless and should be defeated," the former Governor of Vermont said. (Via Ben Smith at Politico)

Some very good news for President Obama.

Between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs were created or saved through September as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to a Congressional Budget Office report.

The data, released Monday, say the real inflation-adjusted gross domestic product was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher than it would have been had the $787 billion stimulus package not passed in February. Also, the stimulus lowered the unemployment by between 0.3 and 0.9 percentage points, according to the report.

The new figures are slightly higher than CBO’s March estimates that between 600,000 and 1.5 million jobs were saved or created by the third quarter of this year, the report said.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I'm kind of obsessed with this insane story....

This is kind of brilliant.

Til death do us part? The vow would really hold true in California if a Sacramento Web designer gets his way.

In a movement that seems ripped from the pages of Comedy Channel writers, John Marcotte wants to put a measure on the ballot next year to ban divorce in California.

The 2010 California Marriage Protection Act is meant to be a satirical statement after California voters outlawed gay marriage in 2008, largely on the argument that a ban is needed to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage. If that's the case, then Marcotte reasons voters should have no problem banning divorce.

"Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more," the 38-year-old married father of two said.

Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more.
- John Marcotte, organizer of the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act
Marcotte said he has collected dozens of signatures, including one from his wife of seven years. The initiative's Facebook fans have swelled to more than 11,000. Volunteers, including gay activists and members of a local comedy troupe, have signed on to help.

Marcotte is looking into whether he can gather signatures online, as proponents are doing for another proposed 2010 initiative to repeal the gay marriage ban. But the odds are stacked against a campaign funded primarily by the sale of $12 T-shirts featuring bride and groom stick figures chained at the wrists.

Marcotte needs 694,354 valid signatures by March 22, a high hurdle in a state where the typical petition drive costs millions of dollars. Even if his proposed constitutional amendment made next year's ballot, it's not clear how voters would react.

Nationwide, about half of all marriages end in divorce.

If the health care plan includes an anti-abortion amendment, I'm likely to say that the entire bill should be defeated in congress. Here's the story (via TPM):

If it seemed like the congressional row over abortion coverage in health care reform had ebbed, it was probably just an artifact of Thanksgiving recess. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is charging ahead, and plans to introduce an amendment to the Senate health care bill in the spirit, if not the precise letter, of the controversial Stupak amendment.

"It's as identical to Stupak as it can be," Nelson told CongressDaily.

Senate experts will be unsurprised to hear that it will likely have the support of Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey.

"I think it's likely to be one of the amendments we'll vote on," Casey said.

But it's unlikely that such an amendment can pass without 60 votes, and without the support of more than a trivial number of Democrats, it's hard to see how it can reach that threshold. Particularly if Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and/or Susan Collins vote against it.

On December 2nd, pro-choice organizations and allies will come together for a National Day of Action on this issue. Check organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights for more information. Call your Senator and tell them to vote against Nelson's amendment!

Reactions?

New York State will vote on marriage equality later this afternoon!

The State Senate scheduled a vote for Wednesday about whether to legalize same-sex marriage, but the outcome remained uncertain with people on both sides of the debate conceding they did not know how the vote would play out.

By clearing the path for a vote, Senate Democrats have removed the last remaining obstacle for a debate on the same-sex marriage bill, which has never been put to a vote in the Senate despite repeated efforts by gay rights advocates.

But Democrats, who have a bare, one-seat majority, do not have enough votes to pass the bill without some Republican support.

Senate Republicans said Wednesday morning that they believed their members could provide a few votes for the bill, but it was not certain whether those votes would be enough to offset the handful of Democratic no votes that are anticipated.

UPDATE: Here's the live feed of the State Senate debating the gay marriage legislation.

UPDATE 2: NY1 is tracking how the Senators are voting. As of now 21 are voting YES, 24 are voting NO, and 19 are undecided. Get on the phone.

The civil rights issue of our time suffered a major upset. I am so sad about this. I'm ashamed of the State Senate.

Just as the gay community is fuming about the lack of support from the DNC and, more importantly, the Obama administration, comes news that the congressional Black Caucus is also feuding with Obama over his surprising lack of support for minorities during this current financial crisis.

A clash between the Obama administration and the Congressional Black Caucus intensified Wednesday, illustrating how lawmakers' unease about the economy has the potential to derail White House priorities.

Ten black lawmakers refused to appear at a House committee vote on financial regulations Wednesday, a move that nearly allowed Republicans to kill a major Democratic bill.

The move was the culmination of weeks of tension, including a testy meeting two weeks ago that included Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. In the meeting, Ms. Waters berated the administration for not doing enough to help minority-owned businesses, mentioning specifically a New York broadcaster that couldn't get a loan reworked.

At her news conference, Ms. Waters said minorities and minority-owned institutions had been disproportionately hurt by the financial crisis. She said minority-owned banks haven't had the same access to government capital as other banks. She also said minority-owned auto dealers, newspapers and broadcasting firms were folding because of a lack of funding. Foreclosure rates and unemployment are also higher among minorities, she said.

Also, the AIDS advocacy community says Obama is doing a worse job than Bush! Ouch.

"It's heartbreaking," Matthew Kavanagh, director of U.S. advocacy for Health GAP told TPMDC. His group was among four U.S. AIDS groups that gave Obama a "D+" on AIDS policy yesterday. Kavanagh said that to his shock, he felt Bush had a better record on AIDS research than Obama. "I could not imagine I would be saying that now [last year]. Many folks in the global AIDS movement were so looking forward to stepping up the fight with Obama."

Dr. Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance, said he would have given Bush a B+ this time last year. The shift since Obama has been "shocking" to the activists around the world, he said.

"It's outrageous," Zeitz told TPMDC from a protest his group and others held near the White House today. He said activists around the world are "dismayed" by what they've seen from Obama's commitment to AIDS in his first year.

There are two main complaints with Obama's AIDS policy from activists. First, funding. Bush raised AIDS funding to its highest level while in office, and budget requests sent by Obama to Congress for next year call for funding to essentially remain at the Bush administration levels.

The groups that issued the "report card" yesterday claim that's not enough. According to the report it issued, "flat-lining" the AIDS budget line is effectively reducing the U.S. commitment to fighting AIDS because "it will not even keep pace with global medical inflation, estimated at 4-10% this year.

God bless Dr Carhart. You can support his clinic by donating money here. The New York Times did a front page feature on his clinic today:

The national battle over abortion, for decades firmly planted outside the Kansas clinic of Dr. George R. Tiller, has erupted here in suburban Omaha, where a longtime colleague has taken up the cause of late-term abortions.

Since Dr. Tiller was shot to death in May, his colleague, Dr. LeRoy H. Carhart, has hired two people who worked at Dr. Tiller’s clinic and has trained his own staff members in the technical intricacies of performing late-term abortions.

Dr. Carhart has also begun performing some abortions “past 24 weeks,” he said in an interview, and is prepared to perform them still later if they meet legal requirements and if he considers them medically necessary.

“There is a need, and I feel deeply about it,” said Dr. Carhart, visibly weary after a day when eight patients had appointments at his clinic here.

The late-term abortions, coming after the earliest point when a fetus might survive outside the womb, are the most controversial, even among some who favor abortion rights. A few of Dr. Carhart’s employees quit when he told them of his plans to expand the clinic’s work.

Opponents of abortion, who had devoted decades to trying to stop Dr. Tiller’s business with protests and calls for investigations, are now turning their efforts to stopping Dr. Carhart. Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group, said he had traveled from the group’s headquarters in Wichita, Kan., to Nebraska six times in recent months, portraying this suburb of fewer than 50,000 as a new battlefield in the abortion fight.

The war in Iraq continues.

Iraqi police and hospital officials say the coordinated series of attacks against government buildings in Baghdad killed at least 118 people and wounded 261.

Three bomb-rigged cars exploded in quick succession Tuesday, striking the Labor Ministry, a court complex and the new site of Iraq's Finance Ministry — whose previous building was destroyed in an August blast.

Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI) wrote an op-ed in today's New York Times about his controversial anti-abortion amendment that made its way into the House's health care reform bill. A similar amendment by Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) was rejected by the Senate yesterday.

Here's an excerpt from Stupak's op-ed:

Some opponents of the amendment have tried to argue that it would effectively end health insurance coverage of abortion in both the private and public sectors. This argument is nothing more than a scare tactic.

The language in our amendment is completely consistent with the Hyde Amendment, which in the 33 years since its passage has done nothing to inhibit private health insurers from offering abortion coverage. There is no reason to believe that a continuation of this policy would suddenly create undue hardship for the insurance industry — or for those who wish to use their private insurance to pay for an abortion.

For example, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program provides health insurance through a variety of companies to more than eight million Americans — but it does not allow abortion coverage in any of its policies. Yet the same companies that offer these abortion-free plans to federal employees also offer plans with abortion coverage to non-federal employees. Given that insurance companies are able to offer separate plans with and without abortion coverage now, it seems likely that they would be able to continue to do so on the newly established health insurance exchange.

It is also disingenuous to argue (as some have) that it would be a hardship for insurance companies to provide plans with and without abortion coverage — when the health care bill as introduced in the House and Senate mandated exactly that. Under language suggested by Representative Lois Capps, Democrat of California, the new insurance exchange would be required to provide at least one plan that covers abortion and one plan that does not. If offering separate abortion-free plans in this way was acceptable under the Capps language (which has been endorsed by abortion-rights groups), then it should also be acceptable under the Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts amendment.

A week after New York State shamefully denied marriage rights to gay couples, the State of New Jersey will vote on similar legislature. This morning, on his website, Bruce Springsteen endorsed marriage equality for gay couples.

Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I've been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton. I've long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same sex couples and fully agree with Governor Corzine when he writes that, "The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is -- a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law." I couldn't agree more with that statement and urge those who support equal treatment for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to let their voices be heard now.

Hopefully this isn't a more than just a slight delay.

In a last-minute move, the Senate today called off Thursday’s planned vote as supporters scrambling for votes said the controversial measure would have a better chance by shifting it to the Assembly for more debate.

The surprise announcement by the bill’s prime sponsors, Sens. Ray Lesniak (D-Union) and Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), came as both sides turned up the heat on senators by flooding their office with phone calls -- and, in some cases, picketing their homes. Supporters are trying to get the measure passed before the legislative session ends next month.

I really hate the politics of Joe Lieberman. He is the most two-faced politician and a big fat liar.

Just hours after his televised threat to kill the bill, Mr. Lieberman said, he left a meeting with Senate leaders and top White House officials in the office of the majority leader, Harry Reid, more certain than ever that he held all the cards.

Many Democrats say they have given up trying to divine the motivations of Mr. Lieberman. Some have suggested that he is catering to insurance industry interests back home. Others say he realizes that he cannot win re-election in 2012 without appealing to Republicans and independents, especially because Democrats will be energized with Mr. Obama running that year.

Democratic leaders said they were caught off guard on Sunday morning by Mr. Lieberman’s threat and accused him of acting in bad faith. His comments sent White House officials, including the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, scrambling to the Capitol for a meeting to pinpoint where he stood.

Democratic leaders noted that Mr. Lieberman on numerous occasions had voiced support for the Medicare buy-in proposal that he now wants dropped. It was part of a health care proposal that he championed as Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 presidential race, and three months ago he expressed support for the same concept.

“What I was proposing was that they have an option to buy into Medicare early,” Mr. Lieberman says on a video distributed by Democrats on Monday.

In the interview, he did not dispute that he once supported the idea but said he had not recalled having done so, or the context, until Mr. Reid’s office confronted him about it.

Campaign finance advocates have attacked Mr. Lieberman as “an insurance industry puppet,” suggesting that he wants to protect private health insurers from competition because he has received more than $1 million insurance company campaign contributions since 1998.

During his 2006 re-election campaign, Mr. Lieberman ranked second in the Senate in insurance industry contributions. Connecticut is a hub of the insurance business, with about 22,000 jobs specifically in health insurance, according to an industry trade group.

A vote on the Lieberman-endorsed health care plan may have a vote as early as next week. Of course, just because Joe virtually wrote the bill, doesn't mean he'll vote for it....

Let's understand this. The MTA got a $1.9 billion bailout from Albany eight months ago, they just installed a 10% fare/toll hike to generate an additional $500 million a year in revenue and they even added a taxi surcharge of.50 per ride that went to the MTA, but now comes word of more subway and bus service cuts, as well as additional cuts for students and the handicapped?

Starting mid-year, fewer subway trains would run in the middle of the day, late at night and on weekends. Two lines, the W and Z, would stop running altogether, and service on the M and G lines would be reduced. Several stations in Lower Manhattan would be closed overnight, and dozens of bus lines throughout the boroughs would see a reduction or elimination in service.

The budget plan, which does not include a fare increase for 2010, was approved by the authority’s Finance Committee on Monday; it will go before the full board on Wednesday.

Under the plan, hundreds of thousands of students who currently receive free or discounted fares on the city’s transit system will lose half of their discount in September 2010, with the rest swept away by September 2011. Costs for the student-discount program were once split among the state, city and transportation authority, but contributions from Albany and City Hall have flatlined since the mid-1990s.

Handicapped riders who are now picked up at home and driven to destinations throughout the city would no longer be able to use the so-called door-to-door service under the plan. Instead, the authority would transport disabled riders to handicapped-accessible subway and bus stops, which is the minimum service required by federal law.

The entire MTA board and executives should be 1) fired, 2) under investigation for stealing/laundering money.

Washington, D.C. is on the brink of legalizing gay marriage.

The D.C. Council gave final approval Tuesday to a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, setting off a wave of excitement in the gay community even as opponents vow to continue the fight on Capitol Hill.

The bill, approved by a vote of 11 to 2, will now go to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), who is expected to sign it before Christmas. The bill will become law in the spring if it survives a 30-day legislative review period.

In a whopping op-ed this morning, Howard Dean came out against the current version of the health care bill being touted by the White House and the Democrat-controlled Senate.

If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.

Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries -- in the range of $20 million a year -- and on return on equity for the company's shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.

Paul Krugman has been a thorn in President Obama's side and with good reason, but his op-ed today is a big boost for the struggling President's health care reform act. It's also an explicit response to the growing chorus of liberals, like Howard Dean and Keith Olbermann, who want to kill the bill and hold out for stronger reform.

A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable.

But meanwhile, pass the health care bill.

Yes, the filibuster-imposed need to get votes from “centrist” senators has led to a bill that falls a long way short of ideal. Worse, some of those senators seem motivated largely by a desire to protect the interests of insurance companies — with the possible exception of Mr. Lieberman, who seems motivated by sheer spite.

But let’s all take a deep breath, and consider just how much good this bill would do, if passed — and how much better it would be than anything that seemed possible just a few years ago. With all its flaws, the Senate health bill would be the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare, greatly improving the lives of millions. Getting this bill would be much, much better than watching health care reform fail.

At its core, the bill would do two things. First, it would prohibit discrimination by insurance companies on the basis of medical condition or history: Americans could no longer be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, or have their insurance canceled when they get sick. Second, the bill would provide substantial financial aid to those who don’t get insurance through their employers, as well as tax breaks for small employers that do provide insurance.

I'm all for more airline security and don't really care if it's more of an inconvenience to some people, but this is kind of funny....

The New York Daily News reports that comedian Joan Rivers was among the many travelers to get snared in the heightened-security frenzy that overtook airports after the December 25th failed terrorist attack. Rivers wasn’t allowed on her Newark-bound flight in Costa Rica this past weekend by a “jittery Continental Airlines gate agent” who thought the two names on her passport, which reads “Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers,” seemed “fishy.”

Two prominent Democrat Senators, Chris Dodd of Conneticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, will not run for re-election in 2010.

The Democrats currently have a 60-40 super-majority in the Senate, which is how they're able to pass legislation like the flawed health care reform act, but are unlikely to hold the filibuster-proof margin through the mid-term election cycle.

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the embattled Connecticut Democrat who was facing an increasingly tough bid for a sixth term in the United States Senate, has decided not to seek re-election this year, Democrats familiar with his plans said Wednesday.

Mr. Dodd, 65, a pivotal figure in the major debates now confronting Congress, is to announce his decision at a news conference Wednesday afternoon in Connecticut.

The decision came hours after another Democratic senator, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, also announced that he would not seek re-election this November. The developments underscored the fragility of the Democrats’ 60-vote Senate majority, which is just enough to block Republican filibusters. Democratic incumbents also face serious challenges in Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada and Pennsylvania among other states.

Now that 19 year-old mom Bristol Palin is a certified lobbyist, who is representing an abstinence organization, how will her mom react when people comment on Bristol's hypocrisy. Seriously, if anyone could have benefited from sex education, it would be her!

That's what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported last night, after digging up documents that Bristol Palin has filed paperwork for a new "lobbying, public relations, and political consulting services" company, BSMP LLC. Her full name is Bristol Sharon Marie Palin.

According to Palin's lawyer, "The code for BSMP, LLC pertains to several areas but includes public relations. Bristol Palin provides public relations services and is currently an ambassador for the Candie's Foundation."

The Candie's Foundation is a pro-abstinence organization. As Maddow noted, "Bristol Palin has essentially set herself up to be paid as an incorporated entity as opposed to being paid as an individual and that's sort of a common choice people make when they have money coming in from various sources like this."

I've been trying to stay away from politics, but after reading this article in Newsweek I thought people should hear more about the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

To some analysts, LeT may be an even greater threat than Al Qaeda because of its technological sophistication, its broader global recruiting and fundraising network, its close ties to protectors within the Pakistani government, and the fact that it is still a less high-profile target of Western intelligence. Since about 2003 its fingerprints have been found on anti-Western attacks and plots from Afghanistan to Iraq, Dhaka to Copenhagen. And the choice of targets in LeT's most spectacular operation to date—the carefully choreographed November 2008 assault on Mumbai, including luxury hotels popular with Western travelers and a Jewish center—have been cited by Blair and other top U.S. officials as a sign of LeT's increasing interest in attacking the West. "In Mumbai the targets they went after were the targets of the global jihad," says terrorism expert and former CIA officer Bruce Riedel. Shortly after Mumbai, Pakistani authorities arrested alleged LeT communications specialist Zarar Shah and reportedly discovered on his laptop a list of 320 potential targets, most of them outside India. They included sites in Europe, says a Western intelligence official.

And it continues....

Taking on LeT may be even tougher than countering Al Qaeda. If Pakistan is reluctant to go after (or allow the U.S. to go after) Al Qaeda in the border regions, it is less eager to go after LeT's base in the Pakistani heartland. Unlike Al Qaeda, LeT has a large charity arm that is popular in both Punjab and Kashmir, where it runs schools, an ambulance service, mobile clinics, and blood banks. It earned tremendous good will in Kashmir for providing humanitarian assistance after a devastating earthquake in 2005. Moving against it could provoke serious civil unrest—or even civil war. LeT and the Pakistani Army draw many recruits from the same poor Punjabi areas, often from the same families. LeT's humanitarian wing worked alongside the Pakistani military to help civilians displaced during the Army's campaign to retake the Swat Valley from the Taliban. Zarate describes Is-lama-bad as being in "a delicate dance with a Frank-enstein of their own making" when it comes to LeT. He says that many Islamabad officials realize that the group has become a liability, but want to avoid provoking LeT into turning on the state.