Today’s edition of quick hits.
* I guess we won’t hear any more of the rhetoric about “the surge hasn’t even been fully implemented yet.” As of reports this morning, the “full contingent of new U.S. forces being sent to Iraq…was completed by Friday, with 28,500 additional troops now posted in the country.”
* On a related note, the Army is planning a different kind of surge: “Overwhelmed by the number of soldiers returning from war with mental problems, the Army is planning to hire at least 25 percent more psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. A contract finalized this week but not yet announced calls for spending $33 million to add about 200 mental health professionals to help soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health needs, officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. ‘As the war has gone on, PTSD and other psychological effects of war have increased,’ said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general.” (via Cliff Schecter)
* Back from the dead? Senate leaders have agreed to give the immigration bill another shot. To help increase the likelihood of passage, lawmakers immediate set aside more than $4 billion for enforcement efforts.
* Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy wasn’t wrong a few weeks ago when he said the White House had some of those “missing” emails from RNC accounts. Unfortunately, however, the Bush gang still isn’t forthcoming when it comes to document production.
* On a related note, the Senate Judiciary Committee was poised to authorize subpoenas to obtain legal opinions and other documents related to the NSA’s domestic eavesdropping program. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), however, blocked a committee vote, delaying action for another week. (Remember when Republicans used to blame Dems of being “obstructionists”?)
* How offensive were Bradley Schlozman’s efforts to politicize the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division? An anonymous complaint against Schlozman sent to the Justice Department’s inspector general in December of 2005 alleged that “Schlozman told one recently hired attorney that it was his intention to drive these attorneys out of the Appellate Section so that he could replace them with ‘good Americans.'”
* Joe Lieberman wrote another pro-war op-ed, this time for the Wall Street Journal. I just couldn’t muster the energy to tear it apart, but Tim Grieve and Michael J.W. Stickings have good responses.
* I can’t wait to see what Chris Bowers’ new online venture is all about. I also can’t believe he won’t be on MyDD anymore.
* James Gandolfini didn’t quite understand the series finale of The Sopranos either.
* If Ed Oakley, a three-term Dallas city councilman wins a run-off election tomorrow, Dallas will become the first of the 10 largest U.S. cities to elect an openly gay mayor.
* Major media outlets didn’t pick up on John McCain’s hypocrisy on criticizing military leaders. What a surprise.
* I expect Fox News personalities to repeat nonsensical arguments about why Dems avoid the network. Tim Russert, however, really ought to know better.
* Digby ponders the latest example of the administration’s moral and ethical failures: “I honestly don’t know what the solution is. The US government kept a man locked up in Guantanamo for five years with no due process and has now determined that he can be set free with no apologies, no explanation, no hearings, no public findings, no lessons learned. And now nobody in the world will take this man because he is still designated an enemy combatant. His home country Libya, which considers him a dangerous radical for completely unrelated reasons that are antithetical to US interests, will take him and will probably torture him some more. The man claims he has never been anything of the sort but it’s impossible for anyone to judge that fully because the US government refuses to release any information about him.”
* In case anyone’s forgotten some of the details, Swopa had a good post debunking some of the lingering far-right talking points about the Libby conviction.
* And finally, Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign may not have been a success in the traditional sense, but that doesn’t mean it won’t make for great theater. Not political theater; I mean literal theater: Jake Gyllenhaal is set to star as a young communications director in Dean’s ’04 effort. Howard Dean seems to like the idea, though he hoped Gyllenhaal would play him in the production.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.