The White House has denied knowledge of Donald Rumsfeld’s military analysts propaganda program.

That is clearly untrue. This memo from page 2 of this batch of documents from the Pentagon dump, shows Rumsfeld personally briefing White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley on the progress of the program:

All kinds of awesome…

The California Supreme Court has just overturned the state’s ban on gay marriage, with a decision dismisses restrictions on gay marriage as being as unconstitutional (at least in California) as bans on interracial marriage.

Here’s the full decision (PDF).

And the core of it:

In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.

We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution
properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.

If it’s true, I think that’s checkmate.

UPDATE:
True and truly checkmate.

I’m reminded of what a class act Edwards is. After all we’ve been through, he could have rightly said to Hillary, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” But, instead, he spent the first five minutes of his speech praising her boldness and her persistence, reaching out to her supporters and otherwise doing damnest to kickstart party reunification. As someone who positioned himself as the candidate of blue collar America and the candidate of change, Edwards is in a unique position right now to help glue the Democratic party back together again.

And his stamp on the Obama platform just got even more pronounced. After successfully pushing Obama to embrace universal healthcare and uncompromised global warming targets, he’s got him on board with a commitment to halve poverty in America in the next ten years.

Watch the video:

Plenty, it seems.

In this doc from the Pentagon’s document dump we see a chief Pentagon flak reporting on his attempts to get “potus” to join in on a “closed call” with “our retired military television analysts.” The request, he says, had been “submitted to karl and company.”

The name of the interlocutor in this email thread has been blacked out. But it’s clear he’s a close associate of Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. He’s unable to listen in on the call because he’s attending a Hadley speech. He tells the Pentagon propagandist, however, that “I’m hoping to have Hadley brief these guys next week.”

At the very least, this shows that officials at the highest levels of the White House — Hadley and Rove, certainly, and perhaps even the president himself — were aware of the efforts to “get [the analysts] on message.”

[click to embiggen]

Update: I see Glenn Greenwald hit some of these same passages yesterday.

You know that little star flair in McCain’s logo. The creepy detail you’re sure is emblazoned on the side of Cindy McCain’s GulfStream.

Well he’s so eager to communicate that he’s a down with the environment candidate that on his new “eco-friendly” merchandise sold at his online store, the star has been replaced with the three-arrowed recycling dingbat.

So bad it’s kinda awesome:

Hillary netted 12 delegates tonight. Big-time win. Little-time impact.

But the bigger electoral story tonight is the victory of Democrat Travis Childers in a special election in a Mississippi district that gave George W. Bush 63 percent of its vote in 2004.

Basically this is a safe. fucking. seat. No way a Democrat should have been competitive. Much less won. As Kos points out, there are 110 or so GOP districts that are less conservative than this one. Long story short, the Republican minority in the House could be in for a world ‘o hurt in November.

And NRCC chair Tom Cole knows it, sending out a gloomy email tonight telling his colleagues to brace themselves: “I encourage all Republican candidates, whether incumbents or challengers, to take stock of their campaigns and position themselves for challenging campaigns this fall…”

The Hill (not to be confused with The Hills) recently asked all 97 senators not named McCain, Clinton, or Obama whether they’d consider standing as VP candidates in 2008.

The most politically damaging responses came from an unwitting trio of GOP septuagenarians:

Several GOP senators ruled themselves out because of their age, including 74-year-old Chuck Grassley (Iowa), 76-year-old Pete Domenici (N.M.) and Thad Cochran (Miss.), who is 70. If elected, McCain would be 72 on Inauguration Day.

“I’m too old to be vice president,” Grassley said.

For the record, Dick Cheney is 67.