Are the Birthers facing the death of their movement?

Remember when the slightest downtick in Bill Clinton’s approval ratings was gleefully trumpeted by the press as The Beginning of the End for him? Remember also how the media just never seemed to care that much about George W. Bush’s approval ratings, except for when they went up? Now that Obama’s President, the GOP/Media Complex is using the same rules they used when they attacked Clinton. Of course.

Dave Phillips’ Casualties of War in the Colorado Spring’s Gazette is a stunning and horrifying report on the multiple murders and other crimes committed by members of the “the brigade called the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, which nicknamed itself the “Lethal Warriors’” after returning from Iraq. It’s also a breakthrough account of the murders they committed in Iraq.

Such a simple story, so moving. Senior citizens meet departing and arriving troops at the airport, giving them handshakes and hugs, passing out cell phones and cookies. As The Way We Get By, winner of the SXSW Special Jury Award, unfolds we see the painful challenges faced by three of the volunteers and the ways they get by, one of which is their volunteer work as troop greeters.

Contrary to what Matthews says, it wasn’t the Huffington Post who did it, it was FDL — and the people who donated to our health care whip effort are the ones who paid for Mike to be there.

The United Kingdom celebrates nine years of an officially uncloseted military this year, and the Independent (UK) provides a glimpse of life since the ban was lifted. It isn’t all roses and candles, but the transition seems to have gone much more smoothly than anyone anticipated. Best of all, the US military seems to be meeting quietly with their counterparts to find out how to implement lifting the ban.

Bunning drops out.

President Obama wants a commission of medical experts to decide which treatments will be covered by Medicare. If we trust such a commission to make these choices for people receiving Medicare, why not trust them to make these choices for everyone?

I have to give Politico credit — their business model was to cocoon the Hill at every level, from their beat sweeteners to the inside baseball gossip to the process stories that bored the general public. But they wholly succeeded in becoming the publication that told the Hill what it thinks about itself. If it doesn’t register in Politico, it didn’t happen as far as most Hill staffers are concerned.

John Cornyn said that we need the F-22 to fight our ally India, which is, you know, fucking crackers.