Move over, John Walker Lindh. You no longer hold the title of "American Taliban." Daily Kos explains - it's because the American Radical Right has taken the title.

Is there any doubt that the American Taliban has more in common with our Islamic fundamentalist enemies? They're cut from the same cloth -- the belief that a system of secular rules and laws must be replaced with "God's laws".

And while the religions may be different, the core of them is not -- opposition to rival faiths, hostility to science, interference in people's private lives, control over women's bodies, an irrational belief in the supremacy of the male over female, militancy, anti-intellectualism and a rejection of logic, an unassailable belief in their own righrousness, and the deifying of certain unelectable, unaccountable individuals as "spokesmen for god", be it Pat Robertson or the Ayatollahs.

The American Taliban wants for the U.S. no less than what Iran has, and Iraq will soon have.

by TChris

The Bush administration's Pentagon has taken to branding gravestones with one of the PR slogans developed to induce support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq: "Operation Enduring Freedom" or "Operation Iraqi Freedom." The Pentagon claims to give families of the fallen approval over the contents of the gravestones, but that hasn't always happened.

Nadia and Robert McCaffrey, whose son Patrick was killed in Iraq in June 2004, said "Operation Iraqi Freedom" ended up on his government-supplied headstone in Oceanside, Calif., without family approval.

"I was a little taken aback," Robert McCaffrey said, describing his reaction when he first saw the operation name on Patrick's tombstone. "They certainly didn't ask my wife; they didn't ask me." He said Patrick's widow told him she had not been asked either.

"In one way, I feel it's taking advantage to a small degree," McCaffrey said. "Patrick did not want to be there, that is a definite fact."

The owner of the company that manufactures gravestones for the cemetary at Arlington recognizes how offensive it is for the administration to turn grave markers into a PR ploy.

Received by e-mail from Progressive Democrats of America: Arizona Democrats have passed a resolution with a message to President Bush: Bring home the troops and fund benefits for vets:

Whereas the AZ Democratic Party is supportive of our Men and Women in military service and supportive of their families;

And whereas the AZ State Democratic Party opposes the reasons previously stipulated by the Bush Administration for war in Iraq, the method of prosecution of the war and its failure to have an adequate exit plan from Iraq;

Be it resolved that the AZ Democratic Party call upon the Bush Administration and the US Congress to support the families of our service people, and to fully fund veterans and military benefits for our service personnel, and to remove our troops from Iraq in as responsible and expeditious a fashion as possible."

Tom Hayden has new post outlining a petition making the rounds with the core principles of an exit strategy.

What's up with this? All three major networks have refused to air an ad about Darfur by BeAWitness?

American Progress created a television advertisement for BeAWitness.org, our netroots campaign that calls out the television news media for their deplorable coverage of the genocide in Darfur. Over the last few days, three Washington DC television affiliates, NBC-4, CBS-9, and ABC-7, informed us that they refuse to air the ad.

Go over and watch the ad. It's powerful and accurate. Then send your message to the networks demainding they air the ad.

If you're looking for a lighter read today, check out these "just-disovered" documents found in a Durham, N.C. courthouse clerk's office.

Covered with soot and coal dust from the heating fires of a bygone era, a batch of 19th- and early 20th-century legal records has emerged from a courthouse cubbyhole to weave a human drama involving long-dead drunkards, adulterers, businessmen, stable keepers and ordinary people in crisis.

There are tales of bawdy houses, financially encumbered horses, business disputes and broken marriages, not to mention -- in the words of one document --"tippling, whoring, fighting and cursing."

Via Eric at Is That Legal.

Pat Robertson's tv appearance in which he called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is resonating throughout the blogosphere. Check out:

• Sideshow
• Think Progress
• Crooks and Liars wonders if Robertson committed a crime.
• Norwegianity
• Pudentilla at Skippy
• Media Matters has more on Robertson.

Update: I'm not sure who wrote this article. The LA Times today has the same article up only says it is written by Robert Scheer. Thanks to the commenter below who pointed this out. I think it sounds like more like Conason, not Scheer.

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Joe Conason has an excellent column today at Working for Change, Embedded Over Her Head in Washington. He begins with Tim Robbins' 2003 play, "Embedded/Live," a filmed version of which is now showing on the Sundance Channel. The play was about how the media was tooled by the Administration into presenting its version of the war.

Conason quickly moves on to Judith Miller and her role as an embedded reporter, filing story after story that turned out to be false.

But what her avowedly principled defense of journalistic sources may turn out to be is a window into the practice of official corruption of journalistic integrity in times of war, which is what "Embedded/Live" so effectively highlights.

Conason wonders how Miller could be duped by the Adminstration for so long.

Raw ambition is one likely culprit, yet Miller's protection of her secret sources begs the question of whether she is ideologically loyal to the neocons who guided her for so long.

On a related note, yesterday Arianna wrote about the New York Times reverting to old habits, using Ahmed Chalabi as a source. [hat tip Patriot Daily.]

Oh, that clever F.B.I. You've all read by now about the Justice Department's big bust of an Asian counterfeiting and smuggling ring. From Los Angeles, to Newark, a huge coordinated effort by FBI agents and local cops brought down an international organization trafficking in millions. Here's the DOJ press release. The New York Times has more ont "Operation Smoking Dragon" and "Operation Royal Charm":

Federal law enforcement agents sent out invitations for a mock wedding on a yacht off Atlantic City to lure 42 people who were accused of taking part in an Asian smuggling ring that brought counterfeit money, drugs and cigarettes into the United States, officials said Monday.

The wedding "guests," who had been invited to attend the nuptials of two supposed American smugglers who were actually undercover agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were among 57 people arrested in recent days as part of the smuggling inquiry, the officials said. In all, 87 people have been indicted.

A three day extension of the deadline for the Iraq Constitution has been granted. Here's the text of the draft. A Bill of Rights, it's not, although it does promise freedom of religion, expression, association, and the press, and states there will be no torture or forced confessions. It also provides that 25% of the Council of Deputies seats will go to women.

In other places, it sounds like it is trying to be all things to all people. One example:

by TChris

The Washington Post uses the tragedy of Lena Baker's execution to argue that courts and juries cannot be entrusted with the power to take a life:

It is tempting to believe that these tragedies don't happen anymore, that the death penalty now is more protective of innocent life. ...

Yet injustice is a resilient pestilence that -- like drug-resistant bacteria -- has myriad ways of defeating the best human attempts to eliminate it. And Americans who believe the death penalty is foolproof are simply kidding themselves. DNA testing has caused many people to be freed from death row, illustrating the fallibility of even modern trials. And recently prosecutors in St. Louis reopened the case of a man executed by the state of Missouri back in 1995 -- no longer being convinced that the state had killed the right person. As long as the death penalty persists, cases like Ms. Baker's -- where recompense is impossible -- are inevitable.

Schappelle Corby is about to get some company. 24 year old Australian model Michelle Leslie was arrested Saturday night in Bali after police searched her handbag and found two ecstasy pills. She faces 15 years in prison. No bail is allowed.

Pictures of Michelle and the pills are here.

Update: Constitution delayed.

*******
Original Post:

ABC News in Australia is reporting the Kurds and Shiites have agreed on a draft of a Constitution and will present it regardless of whether the Sunnis agree.

"An agreement between the Shiites and the Kurds (the two main parliamentary blocs) have been reached... God willing, the draft will be presented in the Parliament today," Shiite negotiator Jawad al-Maliki said.

Although the agreement appears to have been thrashed out over the heads of the Sunnis, the Kurds and Shiites have enough seats in Parliament - 215 out of 275 - between them to have the constitution approved with a majority.

More from the Guardian here. Garance at Tapped writes: