The ICE raid of Agriprocessors, a meat packing plant, is the largest in the history of Iowa, leading to the arrests of about 390 workers on charges of aggravated identity theft, unlawful use of Social Security numbers and other related offenses. And yet again, the employers of these undocumented migrants, Agriprocessors Inc., would probably walk away scot-free, hiring more undocumented workers when the raids are forgotten. After all, Agriprocessors Inc. has a history of non-compliance with federal and state laws, and since the owner is a major contributor to the Republican Party, Agriprocessors has been allowed to operate with small fines now and then. 

Rounding up migrant workers to arrest and charge them is not the solution to stopping illegal immigration. It rips families apart, spreading a climate of fear throughout the community, shutting down more businesses, while opening up jobs for a new pool of undocumented workers to fill up. Postville, Iowa, has turned into a ghostown—the raids putting the town into serious economic jeopardy according to residents. If ICE was serious about stopping illegal immigration, the agency would focus on reducing the incentives for undocumented migrants, which includes making it tougher for employers to hire them and getting UCSIS to resolve the issue of visa backlogs.

Harrison Ford waxes his chest for a PSA about deforestation, the Th!nk electric car is coming back to America, scientists found the oldest living tree, and we look at some Green Gadgets from the cool folks at ShinyShiny.

Our Community Site 

BuyGreen.com

Grist Spring Cleaning 

Oh the hilarity!

Click here for more on the O'Reilly brouhaha. 

These are excerpts from Silhouette City, a new documentary by Michael Wilson that investigates apocalyptic Christian nationalism.  The film tracks the rise of this religious fervor over the last three decades, from fringe Christian survivalist groups of the 1970's to today's mainstream movement.  As you can see from this clip, the current leaders of apocalyptic Christian nationalism include Rev. Rod Parsley and Rev. John Hagee, whose endorsement John McCain has actively sought.   

Your Daily Politics Video Blog: Last night the Democrats snatched up the open House seat in Mississippi's heavily Republican 1st district, their third pickup this year of an open seat previously held by a Republican. In each case, the national GOP threw everything they had at holding onto the seat. In today's episode we explore just how bad a sign this could be for the GOP's prospects come November.

Larry Craig is baaack... According to Sam Stein at HuffPo, the so-called "Family Values" Senator from Idaho is out of the men's room stall and back in the national spotlight.  Craig, who gained notoriety last year for allegedly soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom, announced plans to amend the Iraq war supplemental bill currently before Congress in order to remove Jim Webb's GI Bill for the 21st Century.

Though Webb's bill has gained immense bi-partisan support in the Senate (it now has 57 co-sponsors from across the aisle, with 60 being the target number to ensure safe passage), it still faces stiff opposition in both House and Senate. Last week, the Blue Dogs delayed the GI Bill's passage, claiming that Democratic leaders needed to offset its costs, even though these fiscally conservative Democrats have favored Bush's supplementals for years. 

Of course, John McCain has been the biggest hypocrite of all on Webb's bill.  McCain and his crony Lindsey Graham have refused to co-sponsor Webb's bill, claiming it would cause the retention rate in the military to drop.  Of course, a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded just the opposite.  But that hasn't stopped McCain, whose adviser actually misquoted the CBO report yesterday on FOX News.    

What Craig, McCain, and Graham want is a pathetic overhaul of the antiquated GI Bill currently in existence.  Their version would force vets to serve 12 years before earning the maximum $2,000 a month in benefits.  The funniest part of all of this is that because Craig has thrown himself into the GI Bill debate, McCain has inadvertently aligned himself with the much maligned Republican Senator.   Wonder if it will sink McCain's alternate GI Bill.

The Politico: "Mr. President, you haven't been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?"

George W. Bush: "Yeah. It really is. Uh, I don't want some mom, uh, whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. Uh, I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- you know to -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them and I think, you know, playing golf, uh, during a war just sends the wrong signal."

TP: "Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?"

GWB: "No, you know, I remember when de Mello, who was of the U.N., got killed in Baghdad, as a result of these, uh, murderers taking this good man's life and, I was playing golf -- I think it was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf court -- golf course and I said it's just not worth it anymore to do that."

For more particular moments, check out www.michaelmoore.com

This little ditty is a remix of the video that surfaced Monday, in which O'Reilly has a meltdown on "Inside Edition."  The original O'Reilly video sparked a bit of a to-do because CBS had YouTube remove it from their site, leaving many blogs with dead links.  I myself ended up with an error message to the effect of: "This video is no longer available due to copyright claim by CBS Broadcasting, Inc."

CBS does have a copyright claim because they own King World Productions (now CBS Distribution), which created "Inside Edition" originally.  Of course, the more CBS intervened, the more the video spread.  As you can see on this YouTube search, the video is now all over the place.  So was CBS's copyright enforcement bullshit from the start?  Didn't they realize this video was so juicy that determined bloggers would circumvent copyright restrictions?  Or was CBS under pressure from O'Reilly or FOX?

Now that the O'Reilly video is out there, keep spreading it.  You can also download the remixed song for free.  And, for more hilarity, check out Colbert's take on all of this.

Watch more at www.theyoungturks.com

More at therealnews.com

Pepe Escobar explains clashes between US-backed government and Hezbollah led-opposition.

Masturbation habits related to prostate health. Years of diligent research by the MobLogic crew finally pays off.

http://www.illdoctrine.com

Quick public service announcement for the rest of the campaign season.

Chris Matthews, May 13, 2008

Watch Stewart really stick it to Feith for his revisionist history of Bush's war.

Think Progress has more. 

May 12, 2008

The Blockbuster Video Living Museum offers tourists a glimpse of how Americans rented movies before the advent of services like Netflix and iTunes. More coverage at: onion.com

Well hallelujah!  John Hagee, the prejudiced pastor who backed McCain, is apologizing to Catholics for calling The Roman Catholic Church "the Great Whore."  This is Hagee's attempt to make peace with Catholics and Evangelicals after Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, put out a statement in February entitled "McCain Embraces Bigot."  Of course, we haven't seen an apology from Hagee to the LGBT community for calling Hurricane Katrina "the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans."  

Nor have we seen any sort of apology out the equally offensive Rev. Rod Parsley, McCain's "spiritual guide" who literally wants to destroy Islam.  As David Corn reported in Mother Jones last week, Parsley referred to Islam in a 2005 sermon as "the greatest religious enemy of our civilization and the world." 

Parsley draws no distinction between Muslims and violent Islamic extremists, as he blamed the entire religion for the attacks of September 11th.  He referred to September 11th as "a generational call to arms" to destroy the "false religion" of Islam.

The world (and in particular the Muslim community) ought to be livid over the fact that McCain has praised and campaigned with Parsley.  McCain should demand Parsley apologize to the Muslim community immediately, and he should reject Parsley's endorsement. 

Who couldn't have seen this coming?  Yesterday, a Democratic Policy Committee hearing discovered that the Bush administration has been turning a blind eye to corruption at the top levels of the Iraqi government. 

Two former State Department employees testified during the hearing, including Arthur Brennan, who used to run the Office of Accountability and Transparency (OAT) in Iraq.  According to Brennan, their office was woefully understaffed.  What's more, the administration was hiding any potentially incriminating information for fear of jeopardizing their relationship with the Iraqi government. 

This juicy excerpt is from an AP report:

"Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers."

OAT was in Iraq ostensibly to help train Iraq's anti-corruption organizations. Brennan claimed, however, that not only were the State Department's policies completely antithetical to their mission, but they also fostered more corruption within the Iraqi government. 

Dan Abrams with Don Siegelman and Scott Horton.