Monday Links

• Here's an outstanding Salon article from Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) in which he discusses his bill, to be introduced next week with Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), that would require the president to begin safely redeploying U.S. troops out of Iraq in 120 days, with redeployment to be completed by March 31, 2008. After March, funding for the war in Iraq would be cut off, with three narrow exceptions -- targeted counterterrorism operations, protection of U.S. personnel and infrastructure, and training and equipping Iraqi forces.

• From Daily Kos: Quick! Before Congress comes back, let's screw some troops!

• On Sunday, NBC Iraq correspondent Tom Aspell reported that while Senator John McCain walked through a Baghdad market to try and bolster his ludicrous and laughed-at claim that Baghdad is safe, in fact the Senator was accompanied by 100 American soldiers, 3 Blackhawk helicopters, and 2 Apache gunships. This morning on The Imus Show, Aspell said that, with a similar level of protection, “even Paris Hilton could ride a bicycle in a bikini through Anbar province.” McCain continues to look ever weaker, and frankly, stupid, as he flails about in an attempt to convince the American people that this war which he has cheered for is in fact going just swimmingly. He is wrong, and if he does not know that then he is even dumber than I'm giving him credit for.

• In a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times, long-time W strategist Matthew Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership. While this is all well and good, and represents perhaps the first Bush insider to go public with is disapproval of the president's horrific management of the country, it's too bad he didn't come to this realization before he got that clown elected again. Probably would've had a little bit bigger of an impact.

• This deserves better than the fifth bullet on a list of daily links, but the Supreme Court today ordered the federal government to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.

• A proposed ban on homosexuals adopting or fostering children collapsed in the Arkansas Legislature on Tuesday, failing twice to win the approval of a House committee. I guess some people decided that it actually makes more sense for a child to grow up in a loving home, no matter the sexuality of the parents, than for him/her to grow up in foster care.

• The New Hampshire House soundly defeated a proposed constitutional amendment to limit marriage to between one man and one woman.