These folks are so concerned with demonizing homosexuality that the victims of anti-gay persecution are merely an afterthought to them.

Getting Burma out of the cold would mean that millions of Burmese citizens will be able to live with a modicum of freedom and dignity. The reconciliation process is moving forward there, and deploying smart power – the initial premise of the Clinton State Department – to support those efforts, not with sticks but carrots, not with bombs but words, should be the model going forward.

On a conference call with progressive media, White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communication Ben Rhodes stressed that the United States would now commence a “normal” relationship with the Iraqi government, an equal partnership between two sovereign nations. But it’s hard to square that with the reality that the United States will have a massive diplomatic presence in the country, with the largest embassy in the world in Baghdad, two consulates in Ibril and Basra, and as many as 5,000 private military contractors under the direction of the State Department protecting it all.

Never mind Solyndra. That puffed up bit of White House political interference in agency determinations is small potatoes compared to what the U.S. State Department is doing to corrupt the environmental evaluation of the Keystone XL Pipeline project.

One could make the argument that the fact people are rediscovering these “revelations” is giving the cache a second-life. The major news media organizations that had access to the entire cache had their chance to sift through the cables, now it’s time for citizens of the world to have a turn. Additionally, regional news organizations had access to cables relevant to their region. They wrote about the cables in their newspapers for the people of their country. Those stories did not always make international news. So, for the first time, people are seeing the cables that made big news in various countries, which perhaps even had the effect of creating a massive political crisis in the country.

We’re starting to get an outline of how Wisconsin Republicans will proceed on their anti-union bill stripping most collective bargaining rights for public employees. The version they passed back in March is tied up in court, due to procedural missteps. Republicans have so far pronounced themselves innocent of the charges – but they could end that court action by simply passing the bill in the proper manner. And now, they’re setting the parameters to do that.

Last week, the US Department of State released an Inspector General’s report on the US Embassy in Malta, headed up by Ambassador Douglas Kmiec. Kmiec is an outspoken Republican (head of the Office of Legal Counsel under Reagan) and a conservative Roman Catholic, who bucked both the GOP and many in his church to support Obama in his presidential race against John McCain.

Waukesha does not use touch-screen voting systems any longer. There is a paper record of all of these ballots. And so, as a double-check given the highly unusual nature of the glitch, all of those ballots should be impounded and counted.

After explaining that Manning, if convicted, “should spend a long, long time in prison,” and then claiming that the overall narrative of the State Department cables shows a story of “rightdoing,” P. J. Crowley describes how Manning’s treatment undermines our own strategic narrative.

Wisconsin law requires that public meetings are announced with 24 hours notice, 2 hours if there’s some extenuating circumstance which prevents advanced planning. The meeting in question, the conference committee, actually had less than two hours notice. “I have been shown no rule that overrides the statutory requirement,” Judge Sumi said.