Rove Wants to Spend Time with Family

Karl Rove resigns… his impact on American democracy will surely be missed.

Fatima Jbouri Should be Dead

This is enough to break your heart…

Nine months old, underweight, malnourished, fatherless and half Sunni, half Shiite, she already had enough deadly handicaps growing up in Saydia, a battlefield suburb that has become one of the worst sectarian killing zones in Baghdad.

On July 25, a death squad shot her mother and uncle — each three times in the head — in their dilapidated half-finished squat. E.J.K.’s, in American military shorthand: extrajudicial killings.

[...]

Fatima is a Shiite name. (The Prophet Muhammad’s daughter Fatima married Ali, who Shiites believe should have led the Islamic world instead of the Sunni Caliphate.) But the widowed mother and uncle were Sunnis, and the baby had their surname, Jbouri.

Painful experience had already taught Major Yerkes that Sunnis would not be safe in the health care system because it is under the control of Shiites loyal to the Mahdi Army militia.

In the two months before Fatima’s discovery, the major had handed over three Sunni insurgents to Iraqi policemen for medical treatment, only for them to be killed on arrival at the hospital.

[...]

[Major Yerkes] was asked if he was content with Fatima’s happy ending.

“It’s not really happy yet, is it?” he said. “She is alive. We don’t know where she is going. Call me in a couple of months.”

May Fatima live long enough to see a peaceful Iraq one day.

We’ve Come a Long Way, But Still Have Miles to Go

We’ve come a long way baby!

Yes, WE: grassroots, netroots, the wild-eyed Washington-outsiders — no matter the label –, we’ve progressed light-years from where we were just a short three years ago. During that time the collective efforts of the grassroots helped elect Howard Dean to the Chair of the DNC and, in 2006, we were the boots on the ground that elected a Democratic majority to the House and Senate.

And, today, the Washington Post — the Beltway’s paper of record — has allowed two of OUR best voices to talk back to the Kool Kidz. Markos and Susan, of DailyKos.com, have an editorial piece responding to the DLC’s threat to the Democratic presidential nominees that they best not get too close to the party’s grassroots, for fear that we’ll scare off some imaginary voter that, according the DLC, resides in the "vital center."

Markos and Susan waste no time in laying out the DLC’s trite and stale arguments:

A new day is dawning for the progressive movement. The distrust between Net-roots activists and more traditional progressive players in the party establishment and issue groups has given way to respectful cooperation as we all adjust to new technologies and the promise they hold for institutional change.

Last week, at the YearlyKos convention, all these players came together to celebrate our newfound unity and to organize for the coming battles in 2008 and beyond. The DLC was nowhere to be found — unless you looked in Nashville, where its members continued to preach, in empty halls, about the “vital center.” Even the Democratic presidential candidates have figured out where the heart of the party now lies: with the new, unashamedly progressive movement.

The DLC had two decades to make its case, to build an audience and community, to elect leaders the American people wanted. It failed.

The grassroots now have a seat at the table, even as establishment insiders, like the DLC, would prefer that we were seen but not heard.

UPDATE: Markos and Harold Ford, Jr., of the DLC, went head-to-head on Meet the Press today.

Conservative Radio Host Attacks Iraq War Veteran

Via ThinkProgress.com…

Right-Winger Accuses Iraq Vet Of ‘Stabbing’ His ‘Fellow Men And Women In Uniform’ In The Back

During a debate on MSNBC’s Hardball this evening, retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Robert “Buzz” Patterson, a right-wing radio host, gratuitously attacked Iraq war veteran Jon Soltz, the chairman of VoteVets.org, exclaiming “I am so happy you’re not serving in Iraq right now, stabbing your fellow men and women in uniform like you do back in the states.”

Patterson claimed that Soltz didn’t know what he was talking about because he “didn’t get the memo” that “we’re fighting al Qaeda in Iraq.” “You know what, I don’t need the memo because I was in Iraq,” responded Soltz. “You read the newspaper, I was in Iraq. That’s the difference between you and I.”

Patterson muttered back that he had “been to Iraq too,” but Soltz laughed at his claim. “Are you talking about your rah-rah-sis-kum-bah cheerleader tours that the White House took you on or are you talking about as a soldier who took the country?”

Make sure to watch the video.

One More Reason To Support Edwards

Via CrooksandLiars.com, one more reason to support John Edwards… you gotta check out his passionate response to an older man that can’t afford to pay for health insurance.

Neither one of the other Democratic candidates matches Edwards’ passion and conviction on working class issues, and that’s why I’m supporting him.