As evidence continues to accumulate that the US-led NATO counterinsurgency plan (COIN) in Afghanistan is an abject failure, we now see panic setting in on several fronts.

Practically the entire Senate Democratic caucus has written a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward, asking the company to create the same kind of $20 billion dollar escrow account that the President will reprortedly seek to pay for economic damages and clean-up costs associated with the Gulf oil spill. The letter was signed by 55 of the 59 members of the caucus: only Mary Landrieu, Robert Byrd, Jeff Bingaman and Kent Conrad failed to add their names.

Now for your latest installment of the Defense Department’s expanding intelligence authorities, the Director of National Intelligence’s increasing irrelevance, and the White House’s efforts to make sure those trends continue.

I say that the media discovered them because the front-page article in the New York Times today had upped the chatter quotient on mineral deposits in Afghanistan that were found a long time ago. The World Bank wrote about Afghanistan’s mineral development in 2004. China has already begun to mine in Afghanistan, with the Kabul [...]

Prospects for Senate passage of climate change legislation this year were already slim, but tasking Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) with finding a compromise measure between energy-only and comprehensive change may be the nail in the coffin.

I wouldn’t get quite as optimistic as the Financial Times appears to be, but clearly this is a major development in the fight to force some legitimate, restrictive rules on the Wall Street casino. Volcker can offer a lot of cover to lawmakers if they choose to go through with keeping 716 in the bill, which nobody really wants to keep in, but which nobody wants to be the one to take out.

For the first time, I’d say there’s an outside shot of this happening. And it’s a real reform.

TownHall’s ever-frustrated, sexuality-and-civil-rights-confused Dennis Prager is fighting for the right to keep his penis. Or something.

Fawning enviro groups have become such complete Washington DC creatures that they don’t know how to be advocates from the outside any more — their primary function is to give political cover in the midst of a PR battle. They have abdicated the role of non-partisan watchdogs, and the public should find new organizations independent of party control in which to place their trust.

I’m working on some deep weeds for a post later on Monday (hopefully). But as a preliminary to them, I wanted to point out a minor–but very critical–bit of timing. As I pointed out in the comments to this thread, someone (I’ll show in my new weedy post why it might be then-Counterterrorism Center Legal [...]

A week ago, Florida Senator Bill Nelson stated on MSNBC the BP Macondo well was substantially breached and there may be seepage and leakage from the well reservoir escaping through the surrounding sea floor. It appears Nelson was correct about the breach of well integrity and may well be right about seepage from the sea floor as well.