Anthony Weiner kicks some GOP butt. Always refreshing to see a Dem with a spine.

More encouraging signs:

Recent successes in killing or capturing top Taliban leaders have shaken the confidence of the militant organization and raised gnawing doubts in the minds of front-line fighters, the top allied leader in Afghanistan said Thursday.

"You see a weakening of the organization's confidence," U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal told USA TODAY at his headquarters in Kabul.

If this series of successes were occurring under Bush/Cheney, you'd be hearing about it via a two-ton megaphone. Instead, this enormously significant progress in the region is receiving woefully inadequate coverage -- certainly when compared to what we were accustomed to with the prior administration.

Recall the many Republicans who conveniently used the recent spate of cold weather and ample snow (to think, for this to happen in the winter!) to scoff at climate change. Once again, they have to eat their words.

"January, according to satellite (data), was the hottest January we've ever seen.... Last November was the hottest November we've ever seen, November-January as a whole is the hottest November-January the world has seen...."

Dick Cheney -- survivor of five, yes, five heart attacks -- the poster child for what good health care coverage can do for you.

"He's had high-quality medical care and insurance, probably through most of his life," said Dr. Albert Wu at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. "That's probably Cheney's largest advantage."
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"Surviving five heart attacks is certainly impressive, but the man himself is not a miracle," Wu said. "He's just been lucky enough to have good, consistent care."

Rachel Maddow has not been on TV for that long (about 18 months) and yet in that time she's become one of the hardest-hitting, high-impact truth tellers on the tube. She doesn't hesitate to call out hypocrisy, blatant wrong-doing and when politicians simply lie. She deserves some kind of broadcasting award, no one else is doing what she's been doing for many months now.

Here's a good example, a complete take down of GOP hypocrisy, showing Republican wind-bags criticizing the stimulus bill, voting against it, but then showing up to have their picture taken when the big dollars are being dolled out. Classic stuff.

And by the way, where were these Republicans when GW was running up the deficit to the tune of $1+ trillion? I don't recall their red-faced outrage then....

It didn't take long after putting up my blog post Monday for reports to come in that several high-ranking Taliban leaders had been captured. The arrest of Mullah Baradar, Taliban's top military commander, is being heralded as the most significant capture since 9/11. It appears with Obama in the WH that Pakistan has started to cooperate and work with our people in the region. For years Bush/Cheney could not get this to happen.

What say you now Mr. Thiessen?

Dana Milbank, a pompous, phone-it-in, more-inner-beltway-than-Broder "journalist" (hack)?? Nah, no way.

Just when you think their level of hypocrisy and hopped-up outrage couldn't be topped, they continue to surprise....

The latest: President Obama is killing too many terrorists. Yes, he's been too successful at taking out those which we presumably want taken out.

As usual, where to start... Mind you, this piece was not written by some big-gun neocon foreign policy expert, or a renowned professor on foreign affairs, or even a high-ranking retired military officer, but rather it's the work of Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for Bush II. My knees shiver given the level of assumed knowledge and authority on the subject. (Gads, it's like having the hired "certified" resume writer do the actual job as opposed to the candidate vying for it).

But just imagine if a piece like this appeared during Bush/Cheney's reign, accusing them of killing too many terrorists. Oh, the outcry that would've occurred from the screeching right, the fulminating condemnation riddled with labels like "unpatriotic," "enemy sympathizer" and "treason" to name a few. Yet here we are, this tripe published without a peep from the Country First crowd. Just crickets.

Not to mention the idiocy regarding the logic in the article. For one, at the start of this "War on Terror," such senior al Qaeda operatives were likely less submerged and more "available" for capture, but now years later it's apparent they've adapted and are more certain to be deeply hidden in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan or across the border in Pakistan, making it much more difficult for our forces to actually capture them alive. Thus, the new tactic using drones, i.e. they adapt, we adapt. Duh.

In addition, Thiessen lists several captured terrorists and then proceeds to mention several thwarted attacks on the U.S., as if they're linked. Can anyone provide proof that by torturing any of these detainees that it produced information which directly halted a future attack? Yes, we've seen and heard these things uttered, often, but never do you see anything of real substance backing it up. Notta.

Much of the piece is simply a plea to capture more to torture more -- never mind the overwhelming weight of the evidence has argued quite the contrary, that such illegal methods are counter-productive (uh, not to mention, as I mentioned, illegal!).

In the end, it's just another in a series of baseless attacks against the guy in office who beat their guy in Nov08. If Obama were perceived to be not doing enough regarding hunting down terrorists, you'd certainly read/hear about it, but given the ample evidence showing otherwise they decide to attack from another angle ("How can we criticize Obama for being too successful at hunting down terrorists?"). As much as Obama has stepped up efforts to fight terrorism since becoming president, what the opposition party has done in that time is just step up attacks against our presiding president.

Country first? Yeah, right.

Must listen: Beach House, Teen Dream. An astounding, stupendous collection of songs. Mesmerizing, incredibly melodic, and yet not cloying, rewarding again and again with each listen. Wow.

More examples of the Democrats playing the role of political nitwits: here, here, and here.

In this age of craven, hardball politics, it's amazing they ever win any elections.

From Balloon Juice, a reader asks the question, "Why can’t we have a nationally televised debate about HCR and stimulus?" John Cole responds:

First off, Democrats already tried to do this over the summer- they were called town hall meetings, and basically they were freeped by a coalition of corporate backed teabaggers, spooked blue hairs who wanted to keep government out of their medicare, shameless Republicans interested in political advantage, and, in no small part, the mainstream media who simply regurgitated all of their bullshit.

I have seen nothing that would suggest that a national town hall meeting would lead to anything different. As entertaining as it was watch Obama make the Republicans look like the idiots that they are at their retreat last week, what really changed? They still believe all their talking points, as do their teabagging base, because this isn’t about facts or logic or reason, this shit is religion to these folks. And it wasn’t more than a few hours that our Politico inspired media was offering “equal time” for the Republicans to edit their remarks and inject more bullshit into the debate. Jeb Hensarling was given multiple opportunities for a do-over immediately after being depantsed, and guess what the media did?

That’s right- they just wrote down what he said and didn’t bother to fact check it or point out he is full of shit. And so it goes.