Via Noah Shactman at Wired's Danger Zone:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

The new regulations are here (pdf).

Noah reports the rules "require a commander be consulted before every blog update."

[The rule] restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message boards, from resumes to letters home.

Failure to do so, the document adds, could result in a court-martial, or "administrative, disciplinary, contractual, or criminal action."

Don't believe me? Well, allow me to retort. On January 31 I wrote:

Iraq CAN be the key to a lasting realignment in favor of the Democrats. . . . we can stride with great confidence into 2008 knowing that we may achieve the permanent political realignment we all dream of - Obama, Edwards or even Hillary, can then be our FDR.

Via Drum, Sunday, George Will said:

George, it took 30, 40 years for the Republican Party to get out from under Herbert Hoover. People would say, "Are you going to vote for Nixon in '60?" "No, I don't like Hoover." The Depression haunted the Republican Party. This could be a foreign policy equivalent of the Depression . . .

Just sayin' Of course Dems are currently in the process of kicking the issue away.

Time's Karen Tumulty provides me all the evidence I need:

[T]he sense I'm getting from talking to leadership sources is that, in the face of the reality that they can't override the veto, they are ready to jettison the deadlines for troop withdrawal. Democrats figure they have public opinion on their side at the moment, but that they won't if this drags on too long. The public wants to end the war, but polls suggest most voters are not yet ready to cut off the funding.

The poll Tumulty cites is an endorsement of Reid-Feingold:

The April 23-26, 2007 panel survey finds <b.57% of Americans favoring "the U.S. setting a timetable for removing its troops from Iraq and sticking to that timetable regardless of what is happening in Iraq," while 39% favor the United States "keeping troops in Iraq as long as necessary to secure the country, even if that takes many more years."

Tumulty says most voters don't want to cut off the funding. What she fails to understand is that withdrawal is cutting off the funding. And Reid-Feingold is for withdrawal by the only means it can happen, by cutting off the funding on a date certain, April 1, 2008. This gives the funding for the troops. Heck it even gives Bush's surge a chance to work. You have 11 months Mr. President. That's it. This is a winning political strategy for ending the Debacle.

The varied reactions to Jon Chait's Netroots piece brings to mind "Rashomon." My initial reaction is here. Other reactions I would group as reacting to Chait's take on the political activism component, see Bowers, the Right/Left blogwars component, Atrios, the New Left purity reaction, see Booman, and the semi-pundit reactions, featured here by TNR, of Matt Yglesias and Eric Alterman.

Of the folks who were or might be defined as Netroots, Bowers for instance, I think he took personal affront to the idea that he was a propagandist and not someone who is more married to the truth than to his desired political outcome. I understand his reaction but he doth protest too much. There can be no doubt that the Netroots, Bowers, included, pay attention to the stories that are favorable for his desired outcomes while overlooking those that are not. We ALL do that. Certainly propagandist is not right, but the idea that he is not engaged in at the least, advocacy journalism that is not truly interested in telling the whole objective story, is rather silly. Chris admits as much in his wrapup sentence on the subject:

Chait's standard for what counts as propaganda is absurdly broad. Basically, he seems to imply that anyone who is interested in making any impact on politics is engaging in propaganda, because that person is no longer engaging in a purely disinterested pursuit of ideas.

Correct.

The president's surge strategy has been nothing but bad news for the troops he's placed in harm's way:

Five U.S. troops died in weekend attacks, pushing the death toll past 100 in the deadliest month for American forces since December, the military said Monday as a wave of violence battered Iraqi civilians including a suicide bombing at a Shiite funeral. ...

The rising toll for U.S. soldiers also pointed to a potentially deadly trend: More troops exposed to more dangers as they try to reclaim control of Baghdad.

Bump and Update: You can listen to the tape here.

Original Post 4/30
Kent State Shooting Victim Asks for Re-opening of Investigation

May 4 marks the 37th anniversary of the shooting deaths of students at Kent State University. I write about it every year.

This year, there is news, and one of those injured in the shootings says he has new taped evidence to show there was an order given to open fire.

Alan Canfora, who was wounded in the right wrist during the 1970 anti-war protest, said he recently requested a government copy of the nearly 30-minute tape stored in the Yale University archive.

Just before a 13-second barrage of gunfire, a voice on the tape yells, "Right here! Get Set! Point! Fire!" Canfora said.

The tape will be released at a news conference tomorrow.

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming...

More...

mcjoan has a fantastic post applying wingnut logic to John McCain's cut and run in Somalia and how that "led" to 9/11:

[B]y his own logic, McCain and the party that forced the withdrawal of troops from Somalia are partly responsible for 9/11. Sounds pretty preposterous, no? Of course McCain isn't responsible. Bin Laden and al Qaeda are responsible. Terrorists like bin Laden do not need emboldening. . . . But if McCain wants to live by the McCarthyite sword, he should die by it. His attacks and smears of those of us who want to see this war brought to a responsible end as soon as humanly possible are reprehensible, as would be any effort to put the blame for 9/11 on him.

As mcjoan asks, did John McCain cause 9/11?

The Congress sent up the inadequate Iraq supplemental funding bill for the President's signature today. And he is signing, a veto message:

Democrats sent the Iraq war-spending bill to the White House this afternoon after a ceremony at the Capitol. Aides to President Bush said he was eager to veto it before nightfall. . . .The White House said that Mr. Bush would wield his veto pen shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern time . . .

The Democrats are in luck. What a stupid move by Bush. The bill sent to him has no binding requirements on troop withdrawal. It has no binding benchmarks. It purports to require that withdrawal commence in 120 days but it has no requirement for when it should end. Bush could remove 1,000, or even 1, troop, and comply. And who is gonna call him on it anyway?

Bush blows it tonight. But will Dems blow it again? We'll see. I predict that even non--binding timelines will be stripped from the bill. Which, let me surprise you, is fine by me. Conditions and benchmarks and timelines and guidelines are so much nonsense with a person like Bush.

There is one way to end the war. Do not fund it. And no, it need not and will not happen today or tomorrow. But how about say, March 31, 2008? Tell the President and the country now that Mr. President, March 31, 2008, 11 months from now, is the last day of funding. Make sure the troops are out by then. The American People want this.

Does the Democratic Congress have the desire and courage to end the Iraq Debacle? This is what we will discover.

This story is both political and legal. Today the DC Circuit ruled that Jim McDermott was not protected by the First Amendment when he released to reporters an illegal tape recording he received from private citizens of Newt Gingrich violating his ethics settlement agreement.

Let's be clear what happened here. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), sued McDermott because McDermott gave to reporters a tape of Newt Gingrich violating his agreement with the House Ethics Committee.

The en banc DC Circuit agreed the tape was newsworthy. But 4 of the 9 judges ruled that the First Amendment did not protect McDermott's actions, which were alleged a iolation of a federal law. (McDermott challenge to the federal law was an "as applied" challenge, where he argued that applying that law to these particular circumstances violated the First Amendment. 1 concurring judge opined that while the First Amendment would have normally shielded McDermott's actions, because McDermott voluntarily agreed to the rules of the House Ethics Committee, which prohibited such disclosure, he also voluntarily relinquished his First Amendment rights. The interesting opinion here is the dissent. I will discuss them on the flip.

According to a new disclosure report (mandated by the Patriot Act), there were a record number of secret FISA warrants in 2005.

A secret court approved all but one of the government's requests last year to search or eavesdrop on suspected terrorists and spies, according to Justice Department data released Tuesday.

In all, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court signed off on 2,176 warrants targeting people in the United States believed to be linked to international terror organizations or spies. The record number is more than twice as many as were issued in 2000, the last full year before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

And here's the rub:

More...

As predicted, turnout for today's immigration rights marches had a lower turnout than last year. There's more fear this year than last, in the wake of the feds' immigration raids at workplaces.

What are they marching for? While not every immigrants' rights group's goals are the same, here are the goals of the National Immigration Solidarity Network:

1) No to anti-immigrant legislation, and the criminalization of the immigrant communities.

2) No to militarization of the border.

3) No to the immigrant detention and deportation.

4) No to the guest worker program.

5) No to employer sanction and "no match" letters.

6) Yes to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

7) Yes to speedy family reunification.

8) Yes to civil rights and humane immigration law.

9) Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers.

10) Yes to the education and LGBT immigrant legislation.

More...

In a good Media excoriation piece, Eric Boehlert features Brian Williams, he of the perfect hair, discussing his hair cuts and how much he pays for them:

NBC anchor Brian Williams appeared as a guest on David Letterman's show last week where discussion soon turned to Edwards' haircut. Asked what was the most he'd ever paid for a trim, Williams responded, "probably $12."

Really? I have to pay $16, plus tip, for a trim at a little barbershop on Valley Avenue in the New Jersey 'burbs. But Williams, who lives in a restored farmhouse in Connecticut where he parks his 477-horsepower black Porsche GT2 (that is, when he's not decamping on the Upper East Side), gets his haircut for just $12. And remember, that's probably the most he's ever paid.

Williams enjoys a $10 million salary. He's a celebrity journalist and recent Men's Vogue cover boy, who, up until just a few years ago, was probably known as much for his perfectly coiffed locks as he was his reporting skills. Yet, eager to project himself as one of the guys, Williams insists his trims cost chump change.