To his credit, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked McCain last night about the “bad things” Hagee has said “about Catholics and gays and other things like that.” McCain only repudiated the statements about the Catholic church, however, tacitly refusing to denounce Hagee’s despicable homophobic slurs:

O’REILLY: OK. John Hagee is a guy…

MCCAIN: Yes.

O’REILLY: …that you sought his endorsement in San Antonio, Texas. He said bad things about Catholics and gays and other things like that. And your opponents are saying, hey, you know, McCain hangs around with Hagee. Obama hangs around Wright. No difference.

MCCAIN: I do not embrace a view that he stated about the Catholic church. I steadfastly reject it and repudiate it. I’ve never been in Pastor Hagee’s church. I know him, but the fact is that I accept his endorsement.

Watch it:

Throughout the controversy, right wingers have completely ignored Hagee’s anti-gay comments. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich said McCain “should make clear that he disagrees with statements of anti-Catholicism.” He was silent, however, about Hagee’s homophobia. In the past, McCain has repeatedly rejected Hagee’s Catholic comments, but has refused to distance himself from Hagee’s anti-gay comments (even rejecting a question from a reporter on the subject as “nonsense.”)

O’Reilly suggested that McCain had little interaction with Hagee other than “having breakfast” with him once. In fact, as Newsweek pointed out, “McCain personally wooed Hagee for more than a year.” Indeed, Hagee’s endorsement was an integral part of McCain’s attempts to woo religious conservatives.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for a recorded vote because I’m sure every member wants their mother to know that they have supported the goals of Mother’s Day.

Tiahrt’s mother, however, may be disappointed to know that her son did not support Mother’s Day. He and 177 other Republicans decided to cast their vote against mothers. Watch it:

When asked why the GOP switched their votes, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said, “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.” (Even though he also was actually on record against Mother’s Day.) The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports that this move was a procedural tactic to “bring the House to a standstill.”

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As gas and crude oil costs jumped to record highs yesterday, USA Today has released a survey showing that these increasing costs are pushing “Americans to drive less for the first time in nearly three decades, squeezing family budgets and causing major shifts in driving habits.” Seventy-one percent say gas prices are a “financial hardship,” up from 47 percent in March 2004.

The American Petroleum Institute, Big Oil’s main lobbying group, “has embarked on a multiyear, multimedia, multimillion-dollar campaign” to convince voters that “rising energy prices are not the producers’ fault and that government efforts to punish the industry, especially with higher taxes, would only make pricing problems worse.”

The Senate Democrats unveiled the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008, a bill to address the root causes of high gas prices. Major oil companies “are getting away with murder” and “gouging” consumers as the price of oil continues to soar, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said.

Two months after “the Pentagon announced in March that Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood would become the senior American officer based in Pakistan,” the military “has quietly canceled the assignment. General Hood, a 33-year Army veteran, “was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.”

“Hezbollah fighters seized control of rival pro-government strongholds in Beirut on Friday as gunbattles rocked the Lebanese capital for a third day, propelling the nation dangerously close to all-out civil war.” Hezbollah has also forced the shutdown of all media forced the shutdown of all media belonging to the family of parliamentary leader Saad Hariri. (more…)

RUMSFELD: Now, it turns out he [Shinkseki] was right. The commanders–you guys ended up wanting roughly the same as you had for the major combat operation, and that’s what we have. There is no damned guidebook that says what the number ought to be. We were queued up to go up to what, 400-plus thousand.

Q: Yes, they were already in queue.

RUMSFELD: They were in the queue. We would have gone right on if they’d wanted them, but they didn’t, so life goes on.

In reality, Rumsfeld fought back when generals like Shinseki requested more troops. He said in 2003 that Shinseki was “far from the mark.” As McClatchy reported in 2004, “Central Command originally proposed a force of 380,000 to attack and occupy Iraq. Rumsfeld’s opening bid was about 40,000. … By September 2003, Rumsfeld and his aides thought, there would be very few American troops left in Iraq.”

“This may sound like a good idea at first,” stated Sister Sandy Schwartz of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary regarding voter ID requirements, “but once you stop to think about who would really be affected, this is going to keep a lot of our loved ones from being able to vote.”

Today, the Missouri House gave final approval to a controversial constitutional amendment that pushes the state a step closer toward adopting a voter ID law. Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D) said that if approved, an ID requirement could “put the voting rights at risk for up to 240,000 registered Missouri voters.”

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Four days after the Times’ expose hit newsstands, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) wrote letters to the heads of ABC News, CBS News, CNN News, Fox News Channel, and NBC News asking for “specifics about each outlet’s policies surrounding the hiring and vetting of military analysts reporting on the Iraq War.” Here’s part of what she wrote to ABC News head David Westin:

When the American people turn on their TV news, they expect coverage of the Iraq War and military issues to be using analysts without conflicts of interests. When you put analysts on the air without fully disclosing their business interests, as well as relationships with high-level officials within the government, the public trust is betrayed.

Politico reports today that only Westin and CNN’s Jim Walton have responded to DeLauro’s questions. In his response, Westin asserted that ABC News had “acted responsibly”:

From what I know of our reporting involving our military analysts, I am satisfied that ABC News has acted responsibly and has served its audience well.

Both Westin and Walton’s responses lacked any genuine self-examination. But the fact that they were even willing to reply is more than the other networks did, proving that the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz was right when he said “the networks are ducking this one, big time.” In the week after the story broke, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that “out of approximately 1,300 news stories, only two touched on the Pentagon analysts scoop — both airing on PBS’s ‘NewsHour.’”

DeLauro, along with 40 other lawmakers, are calling on the Pentagon’s Inspector General to investigate the program.

The Iraqis accuse the embassy of leaving the abuse unchallenged and failing adequately to respond to complaints against several British managers for KBR. The company was allowed to conduct its own inquiry, an arrangement criticised as a very serious conflict of interest.

The complainants — the cleaner and two male cooks who worked in the embassy canteen — say that some KBR managers groped Iraqi staff regularly, paid or otherwise rewarded them for sex and dismissed those who refused or spoke out.

All three Iraqis lost their jobs in the Green Zone. Two KRB employees who worked in the embassy spoke out in support of the women; a few days later, KBR sent them home on paid leave and later fired them. The women also say KBR never interviewed them when conducting their internal review.

Today, the AP reveals a third contractor assisting the U.S. military’s mission in Iraq that is also dodging Social Security and Medicare taxes. Immediately after winning a DoD contract worth more than $2 billion nearly ten years ago, Combat Support Associates established CSA Ltd. in the Cayman Islands allowing it to avoid paying the taxes and evade scrutiny from the U.S. government:

The subsidiary, CSA Ltd., now employs about 2,000 American citizens in Kuwait, where they support U.S. forces moving in and out of Iraq. Yet as a foreign corporation doing work outside the United States, CSA Ltd. does not pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for these workers.

In fact, according to the AP, “company officials” have acknowledged their immunity from U.S. law, noting that CSA Ltd. “is outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, so federal labor rules and anti-discrimination laws don’t apply either.” Indeed, the Globe noted that because of such practices, “workers cannot receive unemployment compensation when their jobs end and may be deprived of other protections under US law.”

But Congress has taken notice of these contractors’ unethical practices. The House passed a bill last month — despite Republican opposition — to “stop federal contractors from using foreign subsidiaries to evade Social Security and other employment taxes.”

In the meantime, companies such as KBR, MPRI and CSA Ltd. continue to avoid paying millions in taxes:

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates shutting the employment tax loophole would bring in about $846 million in revenue over 10 years. That figure could be higher, lawmakers say, since it’s unclear how widespread use of the opening is.

Indeed, assuming that the American employees of CSA Ltd. make only $30,000 per year (online job ads place salaries much higher), the company would still “owe about $4.6 million in employment taxes.”

– Is Barbara there already?

– We’re all concerned about getting some kind of a readout after the event. Do you expect us to get anything?

– Was 41 on board today?

– Is he going to be doing his normal activities down at the ranch this weekend, since there’s this big affair — like, is he going to go — probably do the exercise and the chopping of the cedar and all that stuff, or is that pretty much on hold this weekend?

– Are they — is the Bush family hosting a rehearsal dinner since — with the Hagers?

– What is [Bush] going to do today?

With important questions like these, its shocking that it took 14 days for a reporter to ask about Bush’s approval of torture.

ROVE: I think you ought to ask McCain why he is so reticent to talk about himself personally. … He’s the most private person I’ve ever seen in my life.

O’REILLY: And he — but he’s wrote books on it. See, that’s the inconsistency. … He writes it in a book, but he won’t go out and talk. I think he may be shy about it.

ROVE: Well, and it’s something - there’s an admirable reticence in him. But yes, he may be comfortable having Mark Salter pry it out of him and put it in a book.

O’Reilly ended the segment by saying McCain should take his lead and “bloviate all over the place about how great you are.” Watch it:

It’s not surprising that Rove wants McCain to talk about his background more, since he allegedly helped orchestrate the senator’s biography tour. Of course though, Rove’s ties as an informal adviser, avid supporter, and maxed out donor to the McCain campaign were once again never identified.

O’Reilly’s refusal to disclose Rove’s ties is hypocritical. In 2004, he criticized CNN for keeping on Paul Begala and James Carville as commentators, even though they had ties to Sen. John Kerry’s (D-PA) presidential campaign. MSNBC’s Dan Abrams reported in September 2004:

Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly writes that this is evidence of the “collapse of CNN’s ethical standards.” That if he, O’Reilly, “signed on with Bush/Cheney 2004 the media mob would have stormed the Fox castle.”

The Obama Watch may be over, but unfortunately, the Rove Watch continues…

Transcript: (more…)

Our government in this memo is teaching us a politically correct version of the truth. For example, it tells us that democracy and Islam are compatible. But Islam is less compatible with democracy than is Christianity. Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” There was from the beginning a recognition of two realms - the sacred and the secular. From Islam’s inception there has been one realm. Islamic law (sharia) is the law of the government.

Indeed, as Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Elizabeth Edwards told the Senate Health Committee today, “It doesn’t matter what kind of services we have if we don’t have access to them”:

Health insurance matters. The quality of coverage, of course, matters, but health insurance itself is really crucial part of this. Probably the most preventable cause of unnecessary suffering in our health care system is the lack of adequate health insurance. … We know how to lengthen and improve the lives of people with cancer. But we’ve chosen as a nation to turn our backs on some of us who have the disease. I urge you to reform health care responsibly, morally, and aggressively.

Watch it:

Edwards urged the senators to “build on the successful system of employer-based coverage,” a system that covers 158 million Americans — and that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has promised to completely dismantle. Instead, he has proposed a paltry $5,000 tax credit for individuals to fend for themselves in the health insurance market, even though the average annual premium of an employer-based insurance policy is $12,000.

Edwards also mentioned the disturbing disparities in access faced by minorities. FamiliesUSA writes, “Although racial and ethnic minorities constitute one third of the total U.S. population, they comprise more than one half (52 percent) of the uninsured population. In fact, in 2003, 23 million of the 45 million uninsured were racial and ethnic minority Americans.” Rather than cover these people, McCain’s plan could result in 158 million more Americans losing their health insurance.

After McCain was put on the spot over Hagee, the ultra-conservative pastor put out a statement seemingly retracting his comments on the cause of Hurricane Katrina:

“As a believing Christian, I see the hand of God in everything that happens here on earth, both the blessings and the curses,” Hagee said in a statement issued through his public relations firm. “But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise. No matter what the cause of the storm, my heart goes out to all who suffered in this terrible tragedy. There but for the grace of God go any one of us.

But in a conference call yesterday, Hagee appeared to renege on his retraction, reportedly saying “God controls hurricanes and ‘God always punishes unconfessed sin’”:

When a woman on the call asked why he seemed to have backed away from his Katrina comments in face of criticism, Hagee said he hadn’t. As for the Katrina, he said, God controls hurricanes and “God always punishes unconfessed sin.” You do the math.

Though McCain has distanced himself from some of Hagee’s comments, he has yet to reject the pastor’s support. He now says it was a political “mistake” to seek Hagee’s endorsement, though he is still “glad to have” it.

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During the meeting, one of the attendees tells Rumsfeld, “[W]e get beat up on television sometimes when we go on and we are debating” and says that he would “personally love” for Rumsfeld “to take the offensive, to just go out there and just crush these people so that when we go on, we’re — forgive me — we’re parroting, but it’s what has to be said. It’s what we believe in, or we would not be saying it.” The individual adds: “And we’d love to be following our leader, as indeed you are. You are the leader. You are our guy.”

Media Matters has “documented the consistent unwillingness of most of the outlets mentioned in the Times article to discuss the military analyst story.”

Marriott International is considering opening a hotel in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone in response “to a request from U.S. government officials who are eager to help revive Iraq with foreign investment and economic activity.” The company’s chief executive, Bill Marriott, is said to be “considering the deal but is concerned about safety issues.”

According to Pentagon records, “[m]ore than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway.” Veterans groups say this “reliance on troops found medically ‘non-deployable’ is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones.”

At Fort Bragg yesterday, Army Secretary Peter Geren said “that the Army has appropriated $248 million in emergency funds to fix problems found during inspections of 148,000 rooms at bases worldwide over the past two weeks.” At the same time, “military leaders concede the housing situation as a whole is deplorable despite the millions spent over the decades” to fix the old structures.

Yesterday, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) called on Office of Special Counsel chief Scott Bloch to resign, “one day after nearly two dozen FBI agents raided OSC headquarters” in a probe of Bloch’s activities. “[I]t’s hard to believe he can continue to operate effectively,” Davis said.

Humanitarian groups have said that “[e]ntire sections of Baghdad’s embattled Sadr City district have been largely abandoned by civilians fleeing a US-led showdown with Shi’ite militias.” The agencies have reported that “[l]acking adequate food or medicine, many of the evacuees and those still besieged in their homes are seeking help.” (more…)

Boot concluded by conceding that there are walls separating Sunni neighborhoods from Shia, but dismissed the fact by stating simply that “there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too”:

It’s true that there are walls around Dora and other Baghdad neighborhoods. … But then there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too. The walls per se are not evidence of reconciliation, I’ll grant you that. But nor are they evidence that reconciliation is impossible. They are one of the important security measures implemented in the past year that is reducing violence and making possible political progress—which is real, whether you admit it or not.

There is a world of difference between American gated communities — where at least 7 million families have chosen to live — and the walls that divide Baghdad. The policy, begun last April, of walling off neighboring communities with a “12-foot high, three mile long wall” is hardly the benign trend Boot describes. The move was widely condemned by the Iraqi press, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a halt to its construction almost immediately. As one Iraqi put it, “This will make the whole district a prison.”

Despite what Iraq war hawks are willing to admit, the surge has transformed Baghdad into an ethnically-cleansed and religiously divided city that bears little resemblance to its former character.