More Hagee

via Glenn Greenwald and Ann Althouse, Hagee on the “Roman Church.”

I’m no fan of Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, but he has this right: Hagee is an anti-Catholic bigot. Will John McCain repudiate him, or will he continue to actively embrace him?

But in case you think that clip means he’s a friend of the Jews, check this out:

Herzl and his fellow Zionists were God’s fishermen, calling the sons and daughters of Abraham home. Herzl was deeply disappointed that the Jews of the world did not respond in greater numbers.
God then sent the hunters. The hunter is one who pursues his target with force and fear. No one could see the horror of the Holocaust coming, but the force and fear of Hitler’s Nazis drove the Jewish people back to the only home God ever intended for the Jews to have — Israel.

Never mind the idea that the Nazis were sent by God to encourage Jews to move to Israel — well, I do mind that. But also: Israel is the only home God intends the Jews to have? So I’m not intended to live in the United States? This is crazy anti-Semitic stuff. And, mind you, from someone that John McCain actively embraces.

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John McCain Embraces Crazy Bigot

Remember John Hagee, nutty divisive bigot? Mike Huckabee embraced him without getting criticized for it.

Now that McCain’s the presumptive GOP nominee, he’s making a special trip to Texas to pick up Hagee’s endorsement.

Just as a reminder, Hagee predicts nuclear attacks on America’s coasts and thinks they’ll be deserved, hates Islam, and—this is a new one to me—held a “slave sale” to raise funds for his church (via this site, which I do not endorse).

That’s who John McCain is embracing. You’d think this would be a big story, if people cared about candidates’ unsavory associations.

Sun Rises, Bush Administration Lies

The other day when the Bush Administration was claiming that the failure to extend additional surveillance powers was hurting our intelligence-gathering efforts? Because the telecoms weren’t cooperating anymore? They were lying. It’s what they do.

The scorecard stands at: Republicans claim that extending the PAA is vital for our national security; Republicans block any PAA extension that doesn’t contain retroactive immunity for the telecoms; Republicans say there can be no compromise on retroactive immunity.

You might think this means that the Republicans care more about telecom companies than they do about our safety, but I don’t think they’re so selfless. They’re trying to protect the compaines to protect themselves. (via) [And no, I don’t think the PAA is particularly important for protecting us either.]

BKSH

It seems that John McCain, who likes to rail against lobbyists, has a whole mess of them on his campaign: “His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr. [(who is currently doing his lobbying from McCain’s campaign bus], is chairman of one of Washington’s lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates.”

I think that’s pronounced “baksheesh.”

GOP to Me: Fuck you. Me: Back atcha.

Bush Administration officials are claiming that the expiration of their enhanced wiretapping powers is already endangering America by costing us intelligence.

They have also refused to pass a temporary extension of their enhanced wiretapping powers, saying that there can be “no compromise” on whether telecoms get retroactive immunity for their past role in carrying out the government’s illegal wiretapping.

There can be only one conclusion: By their own lights, the GOP is willing to endanger Americans for the sake of retroactive immunity to the telecoms. There can be only one response: Fuck you, you disloyal assholes. You’re obviously hoping for a terrorist attack that can be turned to your political advantage. You don’t care if people die so long as you can retain power.

[UPDATE: Thank you, Lee Stranahan.]

[Fortunately, House Democrats are aware of the inconsistency; the chairs of the Intelligence and Judiciary committees write:

They cannot have it both ways; if it is true that the expiration of the PAA has caused gaps in intelligence, then it was irresponsible for the President and congressional Republicans to block an extension of the law. Accordingly, they should join Democrats in extending it until we can resolve our differences.

I hope they hold fast.

Also, I’m not taking it on faith that the lapse of the PAA has hurt our intelligence-gathering capabilities; I think it’s more likely that the Republicans are trying to score points. I don’t even think that they’re in it to protect the telecoms; it’s that if the lawsuits go forward, there will be some very embarrassing revelations about what the Administration was up to.]

Warm Fuzzy Feeling ii

More like this please, Huckabee.

All his substantive positions suck, but I’m loving the fratricide.

A Bad Day

It may not have been noted widely enough that Tuesday was a terrible day for democracy, as the Senate passed a bill retroactively immunizing telcom companies for illegally invading your privacy at the behest of the government, and as Antonin Scalia enthusiastically endorsed torture. Scalia, Constitutional Super-Genius, argues that it is silly to think the Constitution’s ban on punishment applies to “so-called” torture, because the people we torture haven’t been convicted of a crime yet! Of course the Founders were completely unconcerned with giving the government the power to do awful things without having convicted them of anything. You wonder why Scalia’s small intestine hasn’t leapt up and strangled him from within yet.

And we had this post from William Arkin, saying that withdrawal is “at least according to shrewd observers of the United States military and senior officers in the U.S. military command, [an] impossibilit[y]. One might say it doesn’t matter what the U.S. military wishes and that the new president will decide and issue the orders. Actual governance, of course, doesn’t work that way, and every sign and precedent point to a national security establishment that has already come to conclusions as to what is possible…. Come 2009 though, boy won’t the American public be shocked to find out despite what their candidates pledged, the powers that be in the national security establishment have other ideas of what will be.”

WTF? The military doesn’t have to obey the president’s orders? How is withdrawal impossible? Did the Army get locked out of America? I’d be happy to let them back in. Who the fuck is the national security establishment to have decided that we ought to keep fighting a war long after the American people have realized that its useless? Arkin is a good reporter, which just makes me angrier.

For today’s news, Republicans are all class. Though the contempt citation is one teeny step in the right direction.

Warm Fuzzy Feeling

…is what this fills me with. I can’t imagine anything better for the GOP than for its presumptive nominee, who is disliked by much of the evangelical base, to get in a court fight with the base’s rump candidate. Over a sketchy election where he pulled (apparently) 26% of the vote against said rump candidate, a dude who dropped out, someone the GOP sees as a crank, and my favorite Republican, Uncommitted. I say “apparently” because they don’t seem to have bothered to count all the votes.

I’ve criticized Huckabee here in the past, but I also think he’s entirely right here; there’s no reason the vote shouldn’t be counted by now, and there’s certainly no reason for the state party to announce a result without counting the vote.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall (whose coverage you should be reading) says “I guess I’m not surprised that the GOP bigwigs are yawning over this. Huckabee’s just a speed bump they want to roll over and be done with.” But is it smart for them to convey that message? The religious right doesn’t particularly like McCain — James Dobson endorsed Huckabee in order to put his thumb in McCain’s eye — and if the party obviously screws Huckabee over (see update), some of those voters won’t be supporting McCain in the general.