But had Meetup.com helped Dean reach new constituencies, such as African Americans, other ethnic communities, working class people, non-liberals? Not based on what I saw. Without the Internet, it was likely that Dean would find support among affluent, white, liberal professionals. With the Internet, he attracted affluent, white, liberal professionals who spent a lot of time online. Meetup.com was just a continuation of politics by other means.
But the Internet can't become a substitute for the gritty, difficult work of true grass-roots campaigning in diverse ethnic and socio-economic communities. As it stands, Meetup mostly preaches to the choir. And the quasi-religious New Economy hoopla I heard at the meetings shifts the focus away from the candidate and onto his organization. As a postmodernist would say, with Meetup the virtual becomes more real than the real. So while campaign staffers and political pundits relish Dean's considerable lead over his rivals in Meetup.com membership, there's no guarantee of real-world electoral success.
This accords with my experience at MeetUp. I think it's a problem. Thoughts?
Posted by Leah
Amongst ourselves? About what is acceptable in the way of political rhetoric? Without getting verklempt?
Not if any of those guys at Spinsanity are listening, or we'd better be damn careful. And absolutely clear in how we phrase our ideas.
For instance, are we on the left being unfair to the Bush enviornmental policies?
Ben Fritz at Spinsanity thinks so, and chastizes Howard Dean, in particular, for "repeating a deceptive tale about the Bush administration over and over on the campaign trail.
In speeches and in interviews, Dean frequently implies that a Bush administration environmental policy called "Clear Skies" would actually lead to increases in pollution from current levels. "This country's in a lot of trouble," he said last week on NBC's "Meet the Press." "It's in trouble because we have a radical right administration that are dismantling the New Deal and it is not telling the truth about a lot of things that they say. The Clear Skies Initiative ... basically allows you to put more pollution into the air."
What's Spinsanity's complaint? Mr. Fritz admits that environmental groups have made the point that the Clear Skies Initiative may diminish the level to which dangerous emissions would otherwise be reduced, if current policies and trends were left just as they are. And apparently, nothing less than that kind of nuanced explanation is acceptable political rhetoric.
While some environmental activists are upset about "Clear Skies," it's not because the plan would actually lead to increases in pollution beyond current levels
Okay, let's grant that Dean could have been clearer in what he was saying, but also please note that he was making a larger point about the administration's purposes, not participating in a detailed discussion of environmental policy. This was MTP and Tim Russert, for heaven's sake.
Ben claims Dean makes a similiar statement in his speech officially announcing his candidacy. Here's the only reference I could find that might fit Ben's description.
Our leaders have developed a vocabulary which has become meaningless to the American people.
There is no greater example of this than a self-described conservative Republican president who creates the greatest deficits in history of America. Or a President who boasts of a Clear Skies Initiative which allows far more pollution into our air. Or a President who co-opts from an advocacy organization the phrase "No Child Left Behind," while paying for irresponsible tax cuts by cutting children's health care.
Sorry Ben, but what's the problem with this statement again? Where's the implication that the "increase in pollution" is above current levels.
Maybe if it had just been Governor Dean, Ben might not have made a fuss. But he thinks he's spotted a worrying trend.
Unfortunately, the former Vermont governor is not the only one to spread this canard. The liberal journal TomPaine.com accused Bush of implementing "a 'Clear Skies' plan that leads to more pollution" in one of its "op-ads" that ran in major newspapers.
The "op-ad" in question was a companion piece to the Moveon.org "Misled" commercial. It's basic point is that Bush/Rove have a habit of producing variations on popular programs that often do the opposite of what their catchy titles imply. Here's what I presume is the offending graph:
And it’s been showing cracks from the strain between the rhetoric and the reality of Mr. Bush’s policies: endorsing Medicare while trying to undermine it; a "Clear Skies" plan that leads to more pollution; promising to "leave no child behind" but underfunding his own education plan; and Robin-Hood-in-reverse tax policies masked as "compassionate conservatism."
Well, excuuuuuussssse us, but the Clear Skies initiative will lead to more pollution by any number of criteria.
Bush global warming plan will allow more pollution
President Bush’s global warming plans will allow more greenhouse gas pollution to occur at a faster rate than if the nation maintained the pollution trends of the past five years, a new study has found
Analysis by the National Wildlife Federation, of data released by the US Department of Energy (DoE), shows that over the last five years carbon dioxide emissions have gone up by 4.9% despite Bush saying he wanted to, “set America on a path to slow the growth of our greenhouse gas emissions.”
This increase is set to continue to 10% over the next ten years, if current trends continue.
(edit)
The pollution increases we have seen for the past five years are bad enough for the environment, but the White House’s global warming plan would allow more pollution to occur at an even faster rate,” said Jeremy Symons, climate change and wildlife manager for the National Wildlife Federation.
(edit)
The report comes in the same week that it was revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) withheld key findings of its analysis of Bush’s Clear Skies initiative for power plant emissions.
The Clear Skies initiative is designed to reduce emissions from power plants over the next twenty years, yet does not address carbon dioxide – largely considered one of the most important greenhouse gases.
The EPA found that a separate senate plan to combat air pollution would be more effective in reducing harmful pollutants, if marginally more expensive. Crucially, the senate proposal has a carbon dioxide reduction plan that can be carried out at ‘negligible’ cost to industry.
Environmentalists have described the Clear Skies bill as a dilution of current EPA air pollution requirements and criticised the EPA for not releasing their full results.
I guess it depends on what your definition of "current levels" is.
This is nitpicking on an epic scale.
Spinsanity does useful, sometimes excellent work, and I don't only mean when they're taking it to rightwingers. I'm willing for my side to take its lumps when it's deserved. But something else is going on here besides non-partisanship.
Understand, I'm not accusing anyone of bad faith. I am accusing Spinsanity of seeing all political rhetoric through the distorting lens of conventional wisdom about what is or isn't "spin."
They are not alone in this. The mainstream media treats all campaign rhetoric as an enemy of truth. That attitude, along with a perceived need to appear even-handed and balanced produces a cynical attitude towards the political process, if not governance itself. Not good in a democratic society.
Posted by Leah
That's what the "Clear Skies Initiative" was in the first place, wasn't it? A way of packaging the naked truth about this administration's faith based certainty that "ennvironmental extremists" were ruining the country with their insistence that extractive energy companies shouldn't be the ones setting environmental policy for the country.
So Rove & co came up with a Repubican initiative dedicated to a future of clear skies for us, and clear sailing for a Bush reelection, and a general all round triumph of Republican values.
Damn, if those environmental extremists, from the Sierra Club to the Atlantic Salmon Federationweren't all over their proposals, tearing apart the details; it's the focus on details that makes the environmental movement so extreme.
But most Americans are still worried about the air they breathe, and they're beginning to worry about global warming, so...back it was to the drawing board for the Bush administration.
EPA Issues Rosier 'Clear Skies' Analysis, Based on New Model
Agency Denies Hiding Data on Rival Bill
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a new, optimistic assessment of the benefits of President Bush's anti-air-pollution bill yesterday and disputed claims that it had intentionally hidden data showing that a competing Senate plan would provide greater long-term public health benefits at only a slightly higher cost.
Here's what those claims EPA is disputing are all about:
EPA Withholds Air Pollution Analysis
Tuesday, July 1, 2003; Page A03
(edit)
The Clear Skies proposal is designed to reduce power plant emissions over the next 20 years. A centerpiece of Bush's environmental policy, its passage could burnish his 2004 reelection credentials. But the president's plan does not address carbon dioxide emissions, which many scientists consider an important greenhouse gas that may contribute to the Earth's warming.
Bush's stand has drawn sharp criticism on several fronts, and a bipartisan group of senators has proposed an alternative bill that would limit carbon dioxide emissions. Unreleased information from an EPA internal analysis concludes that the competing bill would provide health benefits substantially superior to those envisioned under Clear Skies.
The administration does have it's supporters, none of whom could be characterized as "extremists."
Utilities push Clear Skies Act
WASHINGTON - The electric power industry is lining up "grassroots" support among its employees, retirees and stockholders for President Bush's beleaguered Clear Skies air pollution bill.
The bill would change the Clean Air Act, creating a new way of policing air pollution from power plants. In place of mandatory pollution controls, it would create a national "cap and trade" system in which utilities could buy and sell pollution allowances and choose their own technology for reducing pollution.
Nothing extreme about good old-fashioned self-interest; where would this country be without it?
Frank O'Donnell clears up what's so muddy, environmentally speaking, and yet so transparent politically, about Karl Rove's version of clear skies here.
Posted by Leah
Courtesy of the comments to Atrios' post "Stop It." (read them if you haven't yet)
Steve Gilliard reminds us that even "killed in combat" is traditionally narrowly defined by the military as a death caused directly by enemy actions.
Michael (in DC) rejects the distinction, and reminds us "they're dying in service to their country and to the bush junta. Most troop deaths don't happen in "battle," that's been true throughout the history of warfare & it's no less true now."
NTodd points us to the folks (elvis56 among them) at Lunaville who are paying special attention to this subject. And keeping count here. You'll also find there a link to The Onion's brilliant take on the Pres's "bring them on."
steve laudig contributes additional casuality tracking links here, here, and here.
I'm overloading you with all this information because Demetrios makes the excellent point that this is a perfect subject for "letters to the Editor."
The letters can challenge the use of such confusing and misleading statistics without editorial comment as to what's being counted, if that's what you local paper is doing.
Or the letters can call attention to the use of the "low" death rate often quoted by people like Byron York (see July 4th PBS NewsHour), which, like "security grandmother" I wondered about when I heard him dismiss the postwar death rate as an historic low. There's also the issue of what kinds of wounds our military personnel are suffering.
An email to the NewsHour might be a good idea, too, asking that Mr. York's statistic be clarified.
If you need something to inspire your letter, check out this article from Maine (courtesy of NTodd). And there's more good stuff in that comments thread.
U.S. authorities discovered that the acronym of the reconstituted Iraqi army, the New Iraqi Corps, is an Arabic slang word for fornication. The name has been changed to the New Iraqi Army.
Oh well, at least we caught this problem in time... The Ayatollahs we're going to need to run Iraq for us wouldn't have liked that one bit.
U.S. intelligence analysts lacked new, hard information about Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons after United Nations inspectors left Iraq in 1998, and so had to rely on data from the early and mid-1990s when they concluded in months leading up to the war that those programs continued into 2003, according to preliminary findings of a CIA internal review panel.
On another controversial Iraq intelligence issue, the preliminary report indicates that although al Qaeda and Hussein had a common enemy in the United States, and there were some ties among individuals in the two camps, "it was not at all clear there was any coordination or joint activities," said one individual inside the CIA who is familiar with the report
Five year old data?!
Let's ask "What would Saddam do?"
So you're Saddam, and despite the shell game, the sanctions have worked. You've had to bury the centrifuge part that you've got under a rosebush. What would you do? Would you say (a) "I'm powerless" by showing that you have no WMDs? Or would you say (b) "I could be powerful" by continuing to play the shell game, even with no WMDs?
Just guessing, it seems to me the choice was (b). That would explain two things: why the WMDs are so hard to "find," and why (despite Saddam's evil nature) there was no use of them in the war.
It would also explain a third thing: aWol's maladministration had no hard evidence from normal channels, so they went with what they could get. Anything they could get. From anywhere they could get it. In fact, they lied..
Ann MacKinnon, a part-time postal worker from Lee, N.H., also disagreed with Kerry's vote on the war but is leaning his way nonetheless. "I'm in a pragmatic mood," she said. "I think he can beat Bush, which is what I want."
Law enforcement officials are investigating why an escape from a privately run county jail went unreported until one of the four fugitives, injured jumping from the jail roof, showed up at a hospital a few hours later.
Two of the inmates, including one charged with murder, were still on the run Saturday morning.
''We in law enforcement are totally disgusted, and it's disheartening,'' said McKinley County Sheriff's Deputy Ron Williams.
''There obviously was human error,'' said jail warden Cody Graham, who runs the facility for Management Training Corp., a private jail operator under contract with McKinley County.
Has anyone ever reflected on the craziness of a creating a system that has an incentive to build more prisons for profit, and then an incentive to run them as cheaply as possible?
Posted by Lambert
Yep, maybe we can use the moderate Shiites as a shovel to dig ourselves out of a jam. Patrick Tyler of the Times writes:
Mr. Wolfowitz asserts that he was not among the Shiite bashers, and is not now. Given his remarks, it is hard to imagine that the Bush administration has not considered that an ayatollah might be Iraq's first postwar leader.
Last month, Grand Ayatollah Sistani sent a private message to L. Paul Bremer III, the American occupation administrator, admonishing him that he was making mistakes in how he was treating Shiites, especially in Najaf where the American-appointed governor was accused of running a corrupt and unjust administration. It appears that Mr. Bremer got the message. The governor was arrested last week. But Mr. Bremer also blocked Najaf's attempt to vote the alleged scoundrel out of office, arguing that elections are premature.
Premature for whom, some Iraqis ask. Grand Ayatollah Sistani has issued a fatwa, or religious decree, against allowing Mr. Bremer to appoint the Iraqis who will draft a new constitution. Rather, the cleric urged Iraqis to demand general elections to select the constitution's framers. Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress leader and a secular Shiite contender to lead Iraq, went to see the grand ayatollah last week and seemed to endorse the election plan.
Mr. Bremer has resisted on grounds that Iraq won't be ready for elections until it has had a census and an electoral law. But dissent is growing, and is only a symptom of the unease between the occupation authority and the Shiites.
The question for President Bush is whether he could ever accept an ayatollah as an ally. He may have to and, in any case, it will be up to the Iraqis.
Well, it was going to come to this sooner or later, wasn't it? Facts on the ground...
Posted by Atrios
Reading through google news I´m getting increasingly angry. If the Pentagon wants to try and minimize the number of casualties reported by the press by labelling everything a traffic accident, fine. But, increasingly our media has stopped bothering to even report the distinction - there are too many articles reporting that only 20something US troops have been killed in Iraq since May 1, without clarifying that this is only the killed-in-combat number. The total number is triple that.
Posted by Atrios
As I´ve said before, I really try hard not to emphasize every single negative aspect of this ridiculous war we´ve gotten ourselves into. But, at least from where I´m sitting right now (admittedly away from US TV news), there´s been very little attention paid to the families of the soldiers who are suffering the consequences of this disgusting situation.
"When my husband first deployed, the people at work were so sweet, giving me days off, saying take whatever time I need," recalled Ms. Franklin, who answers telephones at a financial institution near the fort. "But it's not like that today. Now they look at me kind of funny and say: `Why do you need a day off now? Isn't the war over?' "
This reminded me of some passages in Christian Bauman´s excellent novel The Ice Beneath You. It´s much less of a "war novel" than one might think from the marketing, but some of the pivotal events take place in Somalia during a time when most Americans were unaware that we even had troops there. I imagine there´s something about being in a hell hole with your friends getting killed and wondering why it doesn´t even make the evening news.
In the runup to the war the media didn´t hesitate to bring the cameras to the bases to capture the brave-if-tearful goodbyes as our soldiers went off to Iraq. Now some of those same families have been damaged or destroyed, with parents killed or maimed. And, that doesn´t include the unimaginable (by me) psychological trauma these soldiers are experiencing or any possible "Gulf War II Syndrome" health effects.
As this Army Times editorial (which had previously disappeared, but has now returned) makes clear, the Bush administration cares nothing for what happens to these men and women once, Jeebus-willing, they make it home.
For example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful and unnecessary — including a modest proposal to double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty. This comes at a time when Americans continue to die in Iraq at a rate of about one a day.
Similarly, the administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones.
Then there’s military tax relief — or the lack thereof. As Bush and Republican leaders in Congress preach the mantra of tax cuts, they can’t seem to find time to make progress on minor tax provisions that would be a boon to military homeowners, reservists who travel long distances for training and parents deployed to combat zones, among others.
If we really had a liberal media we´d be hearing far more about the families of fallen and maimed soldiers than we do about Scott Peterson or whatever it is Larry King is talking about these days. If we really had compassionate conservatives we´d be hearing more about where to donate money to help out military families having financial hardships (and, if anyone knows of any reputable charities with low marketing overheads that deal with this kind of thing let me know). With summer here and school out one wonders how many temporarily one-parent full time military and reservists´ families are managing to pay the bills and handle child care duties (I´m sure Mickey Kaus can explain it). Extended family isn´t much of an option for military families who frequently move.
Anyway, I could rant about this more but it´s depressing me.
Posted by Lambert
Who'd a thunk it? Convicted monopolist Microsoft just can't seem to reform itself. Kristi Heim of the San Jose Mercury News writes:
Microsoft has delayed proper licensing of data that allows its software to operate with other programs and devices, raising ``numerous concerns'' about its compliance with a government antitrust settlement, according to a report released Friday.
The Justice Department and 16 states, including California, said Thursday that a court order may be needed for Microsoft to lower the rates it charges other companies for the data.
Microsoft's failure to implement appropriate licensing terms on time is a serious worry, they said, because it could make the core of the settlement ``prematurely obsolete.'' The licensing provision was intended to be the ``most forward-looking provision'' in the settlement, directed toward ``unfettering the market and restoring competition.''
Microsoft thinks they can act with impunity. But why would they think otherwise? In the corporatist state that Bush and his gang are creating, allowing corporations to act with impunity is exactly the point!
Posted by Lambert
Hiawatha Bray of the Glob writes:
Annoyed by the prospect of a massive new federal surveillance system, two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are celebrating the Fourth of July with a new Internet service that will let citizens create dossiers on government officials.
The system will start by offering standard background information on politicians, but then go one bold step further, by asking Internet users to submit their own intelligence reports on government officials -- reports that will be published with no effort to verify their accuracy.
"It's sort of a citizen's intelligence agency," said Chris Csikszentmihalyi, assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab.
He and graduate student Ryan McKinley created the Government Information Awareness (GIA) project as a response to the US government's Total Information Awareness program (TIA).
For retailers, not even the stars and stripes are forever. After providing a burst of revenue last year, sales of American flags, USA-themed picnic supplies, clothing, and other patriotic paraphernalia have lagged this Fourth of July season, as controversy over the US war with Iraq and fading passions over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have cooled consumers' ardor for the red, white, and blue.
It's quite a comedown for merchants still using the colors of Old Glory to move everything from flip-flops to SpongeBob T-shirts. Some report adequate sales of star-spangled items, but well below 2002's record-breaking levels. Other explanations range from a weak economy to a rainy June that cut demand for paper plates.
What a shame! The hucksters and shills are finding Old Glory isn't a draw....
UPDATE: I just checked the URL again to see if aWol's monologue was still billed as a press conference. It was. Seeing all the "(applause)" in the text, I was reminded of this oldie-but-goodie:
The White House asked if President Bush could address the European Parliament, Baroness Williams revealed on BBC One's This Week show on Thursday. But, she said, Euro-MPs were told there was a condition attached to him making the speech: a standing ovation should be guaranteed. The speech has never taken place.
This guy really does live in a bubble, doesn't he? Nothing but applause...
Posted by Lambert
Will Lester of AP writes, after checking out his kneepads:
The day was a nonstop birthday celebration, as the former pilot from the Texas Air National Guard visited this Air Force base to commemorate the 100th anniversary of powered flight.
"Former" covers (up) a multitude of sins. Here is the story. Bush was:
Suspended and grounded from flying duty on verbal order of the TX 147th Group's Commanding Officer for "his failure to accomplish annual medical examination"
PHILADELPHIA — What was to have been a spectacular opening of the National Constitution Center was marred Friday when a huge wood and steel frame collapsed on the stage, injuring several people and narrowly missing Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
"We could have all been hit, bumped," O'Connor said into a microphone.
The Constitution made us, as Americans, who we are. The Bush administration has been quietly revising it:
We the people rulers of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general corporate welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to profits for ourselves and our posterity associates, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Satire? I wish. Establish justice? The Patriot Act. Provide for the common defense? Our ports, airways, and reservoirs, power plants, and mass transit are little more secure now than they were before 9/11. And how is the Iraqi war the common defense when it's never been shown that it will make one single American safer? Domestic tranquility? Sure, through Clear Channel and the suppression of dissent. Promote the general welfare? I'd laugh, if I weren't banging my head on the table...
But forget about the easy shots. Let's follow the money. Trying to figure out what the Republicans are really up to (to model their behavior) I think there are two essential notions:
Corporatism
Loot, Repeat
For Corporatism, here again is the relevant clause as revised by Bush:
Promote corporate welfare, and secure the blessings of profits for ourselves and our associates.
Corporatism is what Bush does, as opposed to what he says. Does this seem about right for the Republican's long-term, strategic goal?
Republicans use Loot, Repeat tactics, as analyzed by Nicholas Confessore (go read!) in service of Corporatism. Here are the steps:
(1) Target: Pick an existing government revenue stream
(2) Transmit memes: Focus on the Mighty Wurlitzer on the target
(3) Privatize: Write the legislation "privatizing" the revenue stream
(4) Loot: Steer the privatized service to a wired (Republican) firm, and
(5) Repeat: Take a payoff from the wired firm, as campaign contributions or otherwise. With the payoff money, return to step (1) and pick new targets.
Some Republican factions -- wingers, self-identified Christians, militia types -- are useful primarily in the targeting, meme transmission, and legislative phases, and as thugs. They are, as the Trots would say, "useful idiots." Bush, DéLay, Frist, and our own Rick Santorum are fully implicated in all the steps to Corporatism. IOW, it really is all about the money.
Loot, Repeat is not a conspiracy theory -- it's something very familiar: A political machine. If anything, it's good old-fashioned party building, just as the Democrats used to be able to do.
Loot, Repeat is parasitic. Nothing of value is created; it is only possible for the Republicans to plan to loot Social Security because FDR created the New Deal. Loot, Repeat diverts existing revenue, and delivers less value to citizens for a higher price (see Paul Krugman for how Loot, Repeat is playing out in Florida).
Here is an UggaBugga-style sketch of the steps of Loot, Repeat. It's incomplete; maybe readers can help fill in some blanks. Some of the projects, like privatizing Social Security, are not yet complete; a Loot, Repeat cycle can take years to play out.
The repeat column -- the money trail to where the payoff goes -- is most incomplete. Aggregated, however, this column provides the answer to the question: "Where did the Bush contributors get their $200 million from, and what are they doing with it?"
Proprietary software instead of free, open-source solutions.
Electronic voting machines
Florida debacle due to "hanging chads" instead of outright fraud
UPDATE: Thanks to alert readers Dave Johnson and Tom for Edison, and Dave Johnson for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Thanks to alert reader EssJay for Enron (how could I forget?!)
Loot, Repeat in the service of Corporatism. I'd like to think that all Republicans don't want to shred our Constitution and abuse the American people in this way.
U.S.-led coalition forces launched an operation in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan aimed at denying al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives a haven in Pakistan border regions, a military spokesman said Friday.
''The purpose of this operation is to prevent the re-emergence of terrorism, deny anti-coalition fighters sanctuary and prevent further attacks against NGOs (nongovernment organizations), coalition forces and equipment,'' Lefforge said.
Attacks against foreign aid workers and international soldiers in Afghanistan have increased in recent months. The violence is usually blamed on al-Qaida, Taliban remnants and loyalists of renegade rebel leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Sounds like they've already emerged. But maybe aWol took his eye off the ball with AQ for some reason?
Even the formerly moribund technology sector is reviving, with the Nasdaq showing a 26 percent return since January.
According to recent reports, much of this renewed vigor is driven by individual investors. Is this a rational response to undervalued technology stocks, or the start of another bubble?
the market is still susceptible to irrational exuberance on the part of small investors.
Unfortunately, it is reportedly the most speculative stocks - biotech, Chinese Internet and penny stocks - that are showing the biggest price surges, and most of the interest appears to come from individuals. Analysts, whose views might be more representative of institutional investors, appear to be sitting on the sidelines.
If this pattern persists, it does not bode well for the current technology recovery.
Sigh... I thought we'd done the technology bubble already....
Posted by Atrios
I´m no fan of either George, but why doesn´t anyone ever ask the rather obvious question - who the hell wants to watch George Will? Does anyone like that guy?
Posted by Atrios
Joe Conason discusses Ann´s book, but don´t worry it´s still very interesting reading and provides us all with some nice history lessons.
Coulter discusses McCarthy's impressive high school record in considerable loving detail. But somehow she neglects to mention McCarthy's first moment in the national spotlight. That was his infamous 1949 campaign on behalf of Nazi S.S. officers who were convicted of war crimes for the massacre of American troops in the town of Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge. On their orders, 83 American prisoners of war had been murdered by Waffen S.S. machine-gunners. The S.S. officers were sentenced to death, but McCarthy insisted that the entire case was a frame-up, with confessions obtained by horrific torture. He intervened in Senate hearings on the case and lied repeatedly during his defense of the Nazi murderers. His most spectacular claim was that the American investigators had crushed the testicles of German prisoners as an interrogation technique. McCarthy was later shown to have served as the pawn of neo-Nazi and communist provocateurs who were using the Malmedy case to whip up anti-American sentiment in postwar Germany. The main source for his false charges concerning Malmedy was a Germany lawyer named Rudolf Aschenauer, whose closest ties were to the postwar Nazi underground and to American right-wing isolationists, but who has also been identified as a communist agent. Aschenauer testified at U.S. Senate hearings in Germany that he had passed information about Malmedy to McCarthy. The S.S. officers were guilty, as the Senate report confirmed -- although most of them later got their death sentences commuted in a gesture to former Nazi officials who aided the West in the Cold War. But McCarthy had succeeded in his larger purpose, winning publicity for himself and casting a negative light on the war-crimes trials.
We may remember, that it wasn´t long ago that Jonah Goldberg was defending this man.
As Jonah told us, "What makes McCarthyism so hard to discuss is that McCarthy behaved like a jerk, but he was also right."
Aside from everything else, it´s shocking that he could be so profoundly ignorant as to not realize that McCarthy was as much about Jew-baiting as it was about red-baiting.
Posted by Atrios
Elaine Chao trumpeted the high unemployment rate as a sign that the economy is in recovery. Why? Well, because the labor force grew by 600,000 in June. To some degree it´s a change in the denominator which is driving the increase.
Using logic that only a Real Business Cycle theorist could love, dear Ms. Chao has determined that all of those people are re-entering the labor market because of renewed economic opportunities.
I´ve always had fun mocking real business cycle theory, which can be described simply as claiming that all unemployment is purely voluntary and recessions are caused when small decreases in wages due to external factors cause people to voluntarily leave their jobs. When wages are lower than normal people choose to enjoy some leisure time, figuring they´ll go back to work when wages are higher.
Actually, during this downturn I gained some new respect for RBC theory. In my sphere I´ve seen one member of two-earner households use the soft economy as a reason to, say, have/raise children, or pursue a more independent (less lucrative) endeavour of some sort.
But, people burn through their savings (or, borrow 110% on their inflated house price) pretty quickly. And, while it is true that people re-entering the labor market is driving the changes in the unemployment figures, anyone who has picked up the classifieds knows that it isn´t renewed economy opportunity that is driving them there - they´ve spent their savings and maxed out their equity and credit cards and it´s time to find a job before the bank takes their houses.
The numbers support my personal observations - women, the traditional primary caregivers, are swarming back into the labor force. 415,000 women 20 and over started pounding the pavement again in June.
And what's that old AA definition of insanity -- "Doing the same thing again and expecting a different result"?
Plus, the first Iraqi to claim the reward better do like the Turks did before the war -- cash on the barrelhead, son. Given that tendency to "bait and switch" that aWol's malAdministration has.
The statement from the commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez of the Army, came on a day in which 10 American soldiers were wounded in three separate attacks.
The multiple attacks today came a day after Mr. Bush seemingly invited confrontation with militant Iraqis, saying, "Bring 'em on." The American-led alliance, he said, has adequate force to deal with the security situation.
Today's attacks seemed to defy that assertion.
"Mission accomplished"? But that wasn't a lie! That was just for a photo-op!
As to whether or not -- look, once the strategy is in place, I will let people know whether or not I'm airborne or not. In other words, I'm not trying to make any -- I don't need to dramatize the decision. It's getting plenty of attention here at home. But we've got -- and look, I'm just gathering enough information to be rational in what we do.
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials in Iraq have solid evidence of weapons of mass destruction programs and details probably will be released soon, two leading Senate Republicans said Thursday, after returning from Iraq.
But Democrats on the same trip said the evidence wasn't definitive. They said the Republicans were trying to shift the focus from proving that Saddam Hussein had weapons to proving he was developing them.
``That was not the basis on which the nation went to war,'' said Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Gosh, can't these guys get their stories straight? Can't they just plant the weapons and have done with it? The wait is getting really tiresome.
The Bush administration, which has the very bad habit of smiling at working people while siphoning money from their pockets, is trying to change the federal Fair Labor Standards Act in a way that could cause millions of workers to lose their right to overtime pay.
The act, one of the last major domestic reform measures of the New Deal, gave Americans the 40-hour workweek and a minimum wage (which began at 25 cents an hour in the late 1930's). It wiped out grueling 12-hour days for many workers and prohibited the use of child labor in interstate commerce.
The act's overtime regulations have not been updated since 1975, and part of what the administration is proposing makes sense. Under existing rules only workers earning less than $8,060 a year automatically qualify for overtime. That would be raised to $22,100 a year.
But then comes the bad news. Nearly 80 percent of all workers are in jobs that qualify them for overtime pay, which is time-and-a-half for each hour that is worked beyond the normal 40-hour week. The administration wants to make it easier for employers to exempt many of those workers from overtime protection by classifying them as administrative, professional or executive personnel.
I wonder how many Americans really think that working longer hours for less money is a good thing.
Looting your pockets! After lying, looting is what the Republicans do best!
Posted by Lambert
Interesting series of articles here.
A Community Wizard is someone who can be trusted to act as a fiduciary of his or her place. Their mastery is all the more special as they have typically acquired it through long years of hard work and patience in an environment that was not conducive to achieving mastery. The knowledge of how to become a great Wizard was not particular accessible, more often than not it was handed down within a family, or through a network organized around the Farm Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce, the women’s club or some local organization or network.
Perhaps these concepts are worth thinking about as we consider what kind of country we want on America's birthday.
Posted by Leah
Okay, being dead's a damn good excuse. But this hardly seems like a good substitute.
U.S. Offers $25 Million Reward for Saddam
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States placed a $25 million bounty on the head of Saddam Hussein on Thursday as rocket-propelled grenades fired by suspected Saddam loyalists wounded more American soldiers.
Paul Bremer, U.S. administrator for Iraq, also offered $15 million for information leading to the capture of his two sons Uday and Qusay, calling all three "among the most evil men the world has known."
Bremer's appeal for information leading to Saddam's capture or confirmation of his death, televised to the Iraqi people, suggested Washington does not know whether he is alive.
The Reuter's writer doesn't forget to remember that Saddam had been labelled as irrelevant immediately after the war.
Note the picture of Bremer facing the nation. Whose nation is it again?
Mention also of the missing Osama.
And the museum is open. CNN showed a few of what's going on display - astounding, I've never seen artifacts like these; apparently many of them are a recent find and have changed perceptions of Assyrian culture. If even one of these had been lost, I mean, if there's a world in a spec of sand...
NPR's'MarketPlace' is interviewing someone apparently in the know, who's saying the price on Saddam's head is excessive and a sign of desperation. What, are there acturials for how to figure out such things?
Amid growing indications that some of the attacks against U.S. soldiers in Iraq are organized and coordinated, the chief civilian administrator and Army officers on the ground would like an increase of as many as 50,000 troops in the theater, according to knowledgeable sources.
A plea by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer for the additional troops was discussed at a national-security council meeting several days ago. The White House has indicated it would be reluctant to agree to such a large increase, the equivalent of more than two divisions, the sources said.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was reviewing the request from Bremer, U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
A source outside the administration but familiar with the deliberations said, "The White House is aware that Bremer wants them," he said. "They're not happy about it. They don't want a formal request because then, politically, there's fallout."
(edit)
The issue of troop strength to stabilize a postwar Iraq is a sensitive one.
In February, then-Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki was publicly ridiculed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq policy, for telling Congress that "several hundred thousand" troops would be needed to guarantee stability.
President Bush, meanwhile, began preparing the American public yesterday for a prolonged U.S. role in Iraq, citing the need for "a massive and long-term" effort to bring democracy and prosperity to the war-torn country. (italics and bold face mine)
I'd clip this article and keep it around. It's a perfect snapshot taken with a wide lense that picks up all the relevant data.
It seems clear that Rove has decided to try and get done some of what the critics say needs doing as sub-rosa as possible, to avoid any discussions of mistakes made.
In the meantime, what he's mapped out for the President is a trip to another continent, and a rhetorical strategy that welcomes references to Vietnam and quagmires (think Eastwood's "make my day"), because they are the easiest criticisms to counter.
I suspect that all critiques of how we're failing to secure the peace and begin to move towards democracy in Iraq will be treated as if they're calls to retreat. Even questions about those cancelled elections can be characterized as attempts to rush the process so we can get the hell out of there.
We need some thinking about how to continue the critique, without finding that we're playing Karl's game.
Posted by Leah
Others have said it before me, with any luck, others will have reason to say it after me: The Onion just keeps getting better and better.
Posted by Leah
Dinesh D'Souza wants to help you count the ways.
Worried that clueless Americans are getting all the wrong clues from the forces of negativity, both left AND right, (he's nothing if not fair and balanced) Dinesh has prepared sort of a "Patriotism For Dummies" in the form of a list of "Ten Great Things About America," subtitled, "What to love about the United States."
They include:
America provides an amazingly good life for the ordinary guy.:
Work and trade are respectable in America, which is not true elsewhere
People live longer, fuller lives in America
America, the freest nation on earth, is also the most virtuous nation on earth
Each reason comes with its own commentary. It's easy to make fun of D'Souza, much less easy to critique his writings:he has this knack of sounding so reasonable. What's noticeable here is the sheer lack of energy he is able to bring to his task.
For some genuine inspiration - in a comment to my 4th of July suggestions, Michelle explained who is behind that flyer which caught my attention, and provided this link to their homepage, "The Peace Pretzel," where their more partisan loyalities are clearly on view. Here's a hint:
Posted by Leah
(courtesy of Patrick Neilson Hayden)
Just in time for your patriotic 4th of July pleasure, Andrew Northrup does the numbers and tells us that W isn't as invincible as all those other guys keep telling us.
I really think Bush is going to be very weak in the next election, and that questions of competence will be his weakness. Looking at the NY Times today, the top stories are the highest unemployment rate in almost a decade, and ten American soldiers wounded in Iraq on the day after Bush said "There are some who feel like — that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on." These do not speak to me of wise leadership.
I suspect that those single question Bush approval ratings are something of a chimera. Most Americans, including non-conservatives, want the best for their country, which means they want to believe that Bush knows what he's doing, whatever sandy Andy (that would be Sully I have in mind) may think.
Andrew N. makes an important patriotic point here, for anyone who wants to deprive Bush of those extra four years; keep up the intelligent pressure, but be patient too, it takes time for bad news to sink in.
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, said condemned the comment, saying, "The deteriorating situation in Iraq requires less swagger and more thoughtfulness and statesmanship."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer dismissed the criticism and said Bush viewed his comment as a way to express confidence in U.S. troops.
No doubt.
Here's how Dana Milbank and Vernon Loeb handle it in the WaPo:
President Bush yesterday delivered a colloquial taunt to militants who have been attacking U.S. troops in Iraq, saying "bring 'em on" and asserting that the forces in Iraq are "plenty tough" to deal with the threat.
The colorful challenge by Bush provoked indignation from some congressional Democrats, who said the president's bravado was inviting attacks on U.S. soldiers. It came as the president continued to face questions about the chaotic postwar scene in Iraq. Some retired officers, warning of a serious shortage of military manpower, have called on Bush to take the unusual step of activating National Guard divisions to relieve overtaxed troops.(italics mine)
The Pentagon, which is studying whether it needs additional troops in Iraq, is straining to sustain more than half the Army in Iraq while maintaining other troop commitments in Afghanistan, South Korea and the Balkans. Other countries are also resisting entreaties to help in Iraq. In the latest sign of the squeeze, the foreign secretary of India, from which the administration is seeking an entire division, said yesterday that his government remains wary of sending troops to Iraq.
(edit)
The administration has been struggling to enlist other countries to contribute troops to the Iraqi occupation force and reduce the strain on the U.S. military. Despite vigorous appeals from the president and his senior advisers, however, foreign governments have been reluctant to provide large numbers of troops. While the administration has queried 70 countries about the possibility of contributing forces, 10 have thus far agreed to contribute about 20,000 troops by the end of the summer. Only Britain, Ukraine and Poland have provided substantial assistance so far.
Can't imagine why? Maybe statements like this one?
"Anybody who wants to help, we'll welcome the help," Bush said. "But we've got plenty tough force there right now to make sure the situation is secure." The president left open the possibility of increasing U.S. troop strength, however, saying "we'll put together a force structure who meets the threats on the ground."
Don't thiink this was what these folks had in mind when they made these suggestions:
As a first step, the President should set the direction for his administration by making a major foreign policy address to the nation, explaining the importance of seeing the task through, as well as the costs and risks of U.S. engagement in postwar Iraq.
(edit)
Develop a clearer political vision and strategy
Employ a wiser approach to communicating with the Iraqi people
And, reading the details we see the following: Over the past month black over 20 unemployment rose an entire percentage point to 10.8%, with almost all of that jump being due to female black over 20 unemployment rising from 8.0 to 9.8%. I´m sure MK Ultra Hack will step up to the plate to give these lazy folks a lecture on "ghetto thinking."
Bush Double-Dog Dares Militants to Hurt US Soldiers
Posted by Leah
Even outraged, Adam Felber can make you laugh:
"...in fact," the President continued, "I don't think Iraqi militants have the guts to kill more Americans. I think they're yeller." Bush, who during Vietnam war bravely combatted an extremely inconvenient schedule, made his remarks a mere 6,211 miles from the front lines.
Of course, sometimes the line between laughing and crying....
Posted by Leah
At The Sideshow, Avedon Carol demonstrates that she has a better grasp of that subject than does the congenitally clueless Coulter, and in the process demonstrates the elegance that is reasoned discourse.
A few brickbracs get aimed at the richly deserving Richard Cohen, who columnizes Coulter in his habitual mode of being a little bit pregnant.
I am happy to report that Ann Coulter has lost her mind. The evidence for this is her most recent book, "Treason," a nearly unreadable slog through every silly thing anyone on the left has ever said...Fairness compels me to say that Coulter scores some points.
There's an even bigger problem with Cohen's take on Coulter, and Avedon pounces on it.
Best of all is her nearly definitive statement of why, in a sane and just world, the right would occasionally have to answer the question, 'Why do you hate this country?' rather than always getting to ask it.
Let's be absolutely clear about this: Both the alleged left-wing judgment that Coulter describes and the version that the right prefers blame the world's problems on the United States. The right-wing thinks US diplomatic policies of the last 50 years have been a mistake. The right-wing hates the UN, which is, as much as anything, a US project. The right claims that US foreign aid has been responsible for creating or exacerbating the problems of other nations.
Republicans about to trash Medicare with prescription drug bill
Posted by Lambert
If you or your parents or grandparents depend on Medicare, you need to understand this issue, since it could affect their life and health.
Business as usual with aWol's malAdministration is bait and switch. The prescription bill is no exception.
Bluntly put, the House legislation is a ruse. The bill delivers a prescription drug benefit, but this benefit is simply the attractive window dressing for the legislation's ultimate aim: fundamentally revamping Medicare to create a competitive system based on private health plans.
That is, the ruse is "bait and switch" for privatization.
Consider the bill's major features. Private health insurers would be given increased government payments so that they could sweeten their benefits to lure the elderly and the disabled out of the traditional Medicare program. Beneficiaries choosing private plans with lower premiums would get a rebate from the government; those choosing plans with higher premiums would have to pay more. In 2010, the traditional program would be forced to compete with private plans. From then on, the amount that beneficiaries paid for Medicare would be set not by law, but by market forces.
This might sound like a great way to encourage consumer choice — until one realizes that the cost of alternative insurance options would be mainly determined by the health of those enrolled. Since the least healthy enrollees would most likely stay in traditional Medicare rather than brave the private market, the program's premiums would likely rise substantially. This would encourage healthier beneficiaries to seek lower premiums in the private sector, leaving only the sickest behind.
So, cherry picking by the private firms, while those who actually need help are thrown away. It's happened before:
beneficiaries would be forced to turn first to private insurers, which would be able to set their own premiums for drug coverage. (The Senate bill allows for a drug benefit directly through Medicare only if a beneficiary does not have access to more than one private drug insurance plan in his region.)
Because drug costs are risky and expensive to cover, few insurers seem eager to sign up for this complex and untested idea. But even if private plans emerged, the likely result would be chaos as insurance companies continually dropped coverage and altered their benefits — which is precisely what has happened to millions of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in private H.M.O.'s over the past five years.
But don't worry! By the time this disaster unfolds, aWol and his friends will have left town!
Not coincidentally, perhaps, none of this will become clear until after the 2004 election. Republicans may ride a prescription drug benefit back into office. But the bills on the table now are mainly a prescription for resentment and dashed expectations — and, most fearful of all, for the unraveling of the social compact that has made Medicare an integral part of American social policy for nearly 40 years.
I wonder what the chances are that the companies making the money on privatizing Medicare will be big contributors to the Republican party?
Why any Democrat, even the most gutless or feckless one, is voting for this fraudulent bill is beyond my imagination. Remember Max Cleland? He compromised with the Republicans on the tax cut, and then they ran ads against him calling him a traitor on homeland security -- and he was a VietNam veteran and triple amputee. You can trust the Republicans -- to be Republicans.
Democrats understand the country needs someone who can burst into the people's White House, grab the incompetent and corrupt squatter sitting in the Oval Office by the lapels, drag him to the curb, and leave our national shame in a crumpled heap to be forgotten by history.
Posted by Leah
Here's a suggestion for really celebrating America, from a nice little website you can find here.
What these very nice folks have done is to provide a downloadable flyer, on the front, a large, impressive American flag, and inside, quotes to please the heart of any progressive from such notables as the father of our country, that guy who wrote that Declaration, the one who wrote a lot of the Constitution...well, you get the picture.
Their suggestion is that if you're going to any gatherings, family or otherwise, bring some of these along to pass out.
My added suggestion:
That wonderful speech Bill Moyers gave at that Washington conference - it came with instructions from Bill himself: This is Your Story - The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On.
Why not do just that by printing it out and tucking a copy inside each flyer.
The original website links to this one, which has more of the same type of good stuff.
Posted by Lambert
Thought I'd check The Agonist, now that our mission in Iraq has been "accomplished," and all that, to see what was up there, and found this: Faux
"We have the green light to do something in Liberia, we are working on that something right now," a senior defense official told Fox News.
There is a "fast-team" of 50-75 Marines, specifically trained to provide security to the U.S. Embassy, on standby in Spain, according to defense officials.
Another administration official said the White House did not want to take the military option off the table for fear of making headlines just before Bush starts a trip to Africa next Monday.
Posted by Lambert
OK, there aren't a lot of swamps in Iraq, so maybe qWagmire is wrong. Iraq does have a lot of sand, so alert reader Seth proposes qWicksand.
Both qWagmire and qWicksand convey that trapped, endless, sinking feeling -- and both, of course, have the "W" for the ... the ... the ... person who got us into sucked into them.
On the other hand, qWagmire is starting to propagate, so perhaps it has sufficient power, and why tamper with success?
UPDATE: Of course there were swamps in Iraq -- the famous reed marshes that Saddam, in one of his evil acts, drained. qWagmire it is.
From Philly's own Inky, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel write:
The top American administrator in Iraq, confronting growing anti-U.S. anger and guerrilla-style attacks, is asking for more American troops and dozens of civilian officials to help speed up the restoration of order and public services.
Here's the part where the soldier figures out he's been taken by aWol's bait and switch:
The anger towards their own senior officers is obvious. Cpl Richardson said: "We weren't trained for this stuff now. It makes you resentful they're holding us on here. It pisses everyone off, we were told once the war was over we'd leave when our replacements get here. Well, our replacements got here and we're still here."
But read the whole story. If 10% of the material on how we're handling civilian casualties is true, we' re in for a long, hot summer.
(This article brings up another parallel with VietNam, BTW: young men with extremely heavy weapons fighting a guerilla war in the midst of a civilian population. I don't blame the soldiers: they are not in an enviable position. And Who put them there?)
New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg sharply criticized Bush for the "bring them on" comment.
"I am shaking my head in disbelief. When I served in the army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander -- let alone the commander in chief -- invite enemies to attack U.S. troops," said Lautenberg in a statement.
aWol's comment would be funny if it weren't so disgusting, and if lives weren't at stake.
When his silly posturing gets people killed, what will he tell the families? And how is he able to sleep nights?
UPDATE: Alert readers point out that aWol's inane comments might well be just playing to his domestic base, now that he's in fund-raising mode. The point being?
Alert reader Dave John points to The Drudge Report, which is giving aWol's rock-stupid remark big play.
Funny, in Drudge's photo (this is the best they can do?) Bush is starting to look a little, well, blotchy again. I wonder why?
A U.S. intelligence report about a North Korean nuclear testing site drew skepticism Wednesday from South Korean experts, who said the information appeared to be old.
But... but... Why on earth would US intelligence reports about WMDs elicit skepticism?
Tell me again why the Republicans are better on national security?
Posted by Lambert
Looks like aWol's done censoring it. Cox News here:
A long-awaited report detailing intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks could be released as early as next week, but it arrives amid rising political tensions and debates over declassifying sensitive material.
And Graham stands up:
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has charged that the delay is nothing short of a government cover-up.
"I think what they are shooting at is to cover up the failures that occurred before Sept.11th, even more so the failures to utilize the information that we have gained to avoid a future Sept. 11th," said Graham, a presidential contender, recently on the Sunday morning talk show "Face the Nation."
Oh, heck, what a nervous nelly Bob Graham is. I'm certain that Our Leader would never have said "bring it on" without full confidence that the country was safe from another 9/11 attack! Aren't you?
Posted by Leah
GOPUSA is running a poll on Frist's "define a family for all eternity' amendment here. So far we're losing. I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.
While you're there, check out this story:
Democrats, Bureaucrats, Unions Fight Bush's Competitive Sourcing Plan
President Bush's Management Agenda, a plan that would put as many as 425,000 of federal jobs up for competitive bid to the private sector is under attack in Congress.
I should hope so. Plug your ears and shout again and again, "Crony Patronage" "The Spoils System no, Civil Service, yes."
Posted by Lambert
Issa is the multi-millionaire who's leading the "do-over" recall effort to unseat elected governor Gray Davis in California. Lance Williams and Robert Salladay of the Chronicle write:
Rep. Darrell Issa, within months of leaving Army service in the early 1970s, was arrested twice on illegal-weapons charges, including an incident in Michigan that led to a misdemeanor gun conviction, The Chronicle has learned.
Issa, speaking with reporters late Monday, implied that the issue of his gun conviction should be off limits in the campaign because it was personal and old.
Right. This is "old" too:
Anti-recall forces [showed a] videotape of the Great Western Gun Show from May 1998, where the Issa campaign set up a booth. The video showed people selling Nazi flags and German army helmets inside the show, along with hundreds of guns, and a lone Issa worker sitting outside the entrance of the show in a booth with a large Issa sign.
Or maybe that was Darrell's brother Darrell, or his other brother, Darrell?
Jeebus...
If it weren't for, well, eruptions like this one, the wingers would find it easier to shake that nasty "f" word, wouldn't they?
(To pre-empt the Godwin's law postings, Orcinus has a serious and scholarly discussion of meme transmittal from the wingers to the mainstream. See top left, at "Rush.")
Posted by Leah
The President's remarks, this morning, sucked, big time.
Maybe enough to become a major mis-step.
I'll settle for a minor turning point.
But remember Eric Alterman's conceptual breakthrough - "working the refs" - what the right does?
The storyline already in place re: Bush, Iraq made him invincible. Nothing the media tarts hate more than revising the CW.
They're going to need help.
Think back to how the right made a memorial service for a much-loved Senator an occasion to bash everything he stood for, while claiming that's what the memorial service was doing.
Even a pandering media notices polls. Well, they'll notice if they detect a shocked reaction to Bush's "bring them on" remark.
One possibility.
During the ten O'clock AM (on the west coast) hour, MSNBC Anchor Lady, Natalie Morales used the "bring them on" phrase in her introduction to a tape of Bush's remarks. The video contained not a hint of the phrase.
Why not send an email to MSNBC, or make a call, expressing your outrage that Ms Morales would characterize the President's remarks that way; you find it impossible to believe the President could have said anything like that....
Or:
Keep an eye on the broadcast evening news shows, and the primetime CNN and MSNBC programs; forget Fox. Whichever way they play it, let them know there are folks out there who think the President's words matter;aside from the families of our military personnel, imagine the Iraqis' reaction to hearing that.
Don't pretend you're a Republican, don't say you're a Democrat. Say or write what's true, that such a remark is unthinkable coming from an American President.
You could also point out that the President is ignoring the actual questions being asked about our reconstruction efforts, and because he doesn't do press conferences he remains unavailable to those he serves, the American public.
Probably, a lot of you have better suggestions. Let me know.
It only took a hundred telephone calls to a single TV station to turn what happened at the Wellstone memorial inside out. And an election got lost because of it.
Posted by Atrios
...and pretty soon you realize no one, including Fat Tim, has any clue how many soldiers we have in Iraq. Dean made up a number, Tim made up another one, and the Pentagon has provided a third.
Dean “incorrectly estimated the number of troops in Iraq,” the troubled Barabak said. In fact, Dean said there were “in the neighborhood of 135,000” such troops. The next day, the New York Times said the real number was 146,000. Four days later, Brian Lamb did a segment about Dean’s interview on Washington Journal; he had asked the Defense Department, and the number they gave was 132,00.
Posted by Atrios
The military is claiming that of the 64 or more US soldiers who have died in Iraq since May 1, only 23 or so were actual combat victims.
OK, now we can stop arguing about whether Iwaq is or is not a quagmire. It is.
And we've got, what, one quarter of our army there? With no light at the end of the tunnel?
And we need international cooperation to (a) get more troops to do the occupation and (b) get more money to pay for the operation -- except we trashed the the international institutions in the run-up to the war, and lost our credibility because of the lies we told...
Can someone tell me again why Republicans are better on national security? I think it's time to start using the "F" word -- call this neo-con job the fiasco that it is. If lives weren't at stake, we'd all be ROTFL.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Wednesday challenged militants who have been killing and injuring U.S. forces in Iraq (news - web sites), saying "bring them on" because American forces were tough enough to deal with their attacks.
"There are some who feel like that conditions are such that they can attack us there," Bush told reporters at the White House. "My answer is 'bring them on'. We have the force necessary to deal with the situation."
Posted by Lambert
Alert reader Rick in Davis points out that in my quick list of Bush's lies on Iraq ("credibility") I left out the one where Bush said that, according to the IAEA the Iraqis were six months away from developing nuclear weapons, when in fact the IAEA found "no indication" of that. See The Likely Story for a partial compilation of Bush lies.
Yep, I missed a Bush whopper. But then, there are so very, very many....
Posted by Atrios
Looks like Jonah is frightened of the vewwy scewwy Michelangelo Signorile. Here is Mike´s letter to Medianews about his recent ordeal at the hands of the liberal NPR. I´ll quote it in full since the letters section doesn´t have any permanent link system:
From MICHELANGELO SIGNORILE:
Just in case you needed one, here's yet another example of the fallacy of the so-called liberal media -- and a great example, too, of what utter wimps many conservative pundits really are.
Yesterday, a producer at Boston's NPR-affiliate, WBUR, was so eager to get in touch with me that she contacted my editors at both New York Press and Newsday with urgent missives, and also sent me e-mail via my web site. Writing on behalf of the news program The Connection, she wanted me to participate on a show this morning on same-sex marriage. The other guests would be writer E.J. Graff and National Review's Jonah Goldberg. I was on the air myself at the time, doing my own daily three-hour radio program, and didn't get the messages until 4 p.m. I called the relieved producer at that time and told her I could do it. She said she'd have me go to an NPR studio in Manhattan, but also inquired if I could do it from my studio at Sirius Satellite, so definitive was she about having me on.
Then I received a phone call back at 6:30: I was "off the hook" for the show, thank you very much. Turns out conservative pundit Goldberg would not do the show with me. The producer noted that they don't usually let a guest "dictate" who the other guests are, but that it was late and thus hard to find another conservative. That sounded pretty bogus: finding a conservative pundit to do a radio program is about as difficult as finding a drag queen at gay pride.
And what exactly turned fire-breathing, macho Goldberg into a little sissy, running away from a homosexual columnist? The producer said that Goldberg implied to her that we'd had some words, though Goldberg and I have never spoken nor have we ever even exchanged an e-mail. He did "admit," she said, that I am a "powerful" gay columnist (yes, I laughed at that one), but that I'd put out "misinterpretations" of his work. I guess one of those "misinterpretations" was when I criticized him in New York Press after he floated the totally unfounded idea that the Washington, DC sniper suspects were really gay lovers and then gleefully called the capture of the suspects a possible "threefer" (because they were Muslim, African-American and, in the minds of Goldberg and his fellow right-wing smear artists, possibly homosexual).
The other "misinterpretation" might have been when I wrote a column in New York Press exposing one of his editors at the Washington Times, Robert Stacy McCain, as a member of the League of the South, a racist Southern secessionist group. Goldberg had just spent a week piously calling on Trent Lott to step down as Senate Majority leader because of his racially insensitive remarks and now he was exposed as working for an out and out racist himself. (The folks at the American Prospect's blog soon called on Goldberg to follow his own advice to Lott and step down from the Washington Times, but he did not -- nor did he respond at all.)
So, here you have a perfect example of how liberal voices are shut out of the so-called liberal media at the behest of cowardly conservative columnists who spend much of their time railing that the media favor liberals. Even more curious was when the producer of the supposedly liberal NPR affiliate told me that Goldberg said he didn't like my journalism or my "tactics" -- particularly around the issue of "outing" -- and I replied to her how supremely ironic that was given that he is the child of Lucianne Goldberg, the salacious web-maven who helped expose Bill Clinton's sex life and whom Jonah has defended to the hilt. The producer's response: Who is Lucianne Goldberg? Yes, more evidence of that well-informed, agenda-driven liberal media.
I guess this means Goldberg really is homophobic..
If you want, you can go express your interest in this little situation on their forums here.
Posted by Lambert
City and state officials are figuring out that those color-coded alerts are really a waste of money for them, besides being an unfunded mandate.
"There is broad consensus that the (federal alert) system just isn't effective," Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske says. '"It isn't working."
Some officials, questioning the value of the federal alerts, are designing their own regional warning systems that kick into gear only when there is a specific threat to their area.
"When the federal government put (its alert) system together, they did it in a hurry,'' Phoenix Police Chief Hurtt says. ''I agreed with what they did in the beginning. But we need . . . to be able to determine what level (of) threat we are confronting. We don't want the system to lose credibility with the public. You could bankrupt the country if we do nothing but depend on direction based on terrorist chatter.'"
Who was it who said the Republicans were better on homeland security?
Posted by Lambert
Sen. John Andrews, R-Centennial, president of the Colorado Senate, writes in the Rocky Mountain News:
There are only two kinds of Congress to choose from - one where ... Republicans hold the majority, or one where ... Democrats do. Nonpartisanship is not an option.
Posted by Lambert
We spent our credibility with fake intelligence in Iraq: aluminum tubes, crude fakes on Niger Uranium, Powell's use at the UN of a British report with uncredited material from a grad student found on the Internet, the trailers that were only trailers, and the constantly changing stories on where the WMDs (if any) are (here, there, looted, hidden, just not found in a country the size of California).
Now when we need our credibility on North Korean nukes we don't have any.
Who was it who said the Republicans were better on National Security?
Posted by Atrios Via Calpundit I see that little Jonah Goldberg and various other libertarian-conservatives/conservative-libertarians are all in a muddle about the new national do not call list as they sorta like the desired effect but are horrified that there isn´t any market solution to the problem.
This is rather silly. This is a market solution, though not in the way people like Goldberg tend to see it, where there is some explicit financial transaction. Instead, what the government has done is clarified and/or redefined property rights, depending on how you look at it.
Previously, you didn´t own the right to determine who did or didn´t cause the telephone in your home to ring. Well, you could do the equivalent of putting up fences by having various electronic gizmos and caller ID or whatnot, but no one could be prosecuted for climbing over those fences. Now the federal government has strengthened your ownership of your phone by enforcing your ability to exclude certain classes of callers.
Of course, nothing is now stopping you from selling or renting that particular asset you now have - perhaps we can look forward to companies offering people money to take themselves off the no call list and then marketing that list to telemarketers...
In Little Havana, Mr. Bush got tangled up in his remarks, confusing the independent mayor of Miami, Manny Diaz, who was in the crowd, with the Democratic mayor of Miami-Dade County, Alex Panelas, who was not.
"We've got el alcalde de Miami," Mr. Bush said, using the Spanish for mayor. "Thank you, señor. Thank you very much, Alex, for coming — I mean, Manny, for coming.
"And Alex Panelas is here as well, the mayor of — donde?" Mr. Bush said, using the Spanish word for where. When it became clear that Mr. Panelas was not in the crowd, Mr. Bush said, laughing: "O.K. At least he got his name mentioned. That's a smart move."
Posted by Atrios
Yes, I know that isn´t exactly a new concept. And, I promise not to spend too much time on my good friend Ann Coulter. But, even I was a little shocked by a passage in her book, as quoted by Richard Cohen, where she refers to the Japanese military as "savage Oriental beasts."
Posted by Atrios
It´s like this guy doesn´t even know who he is, you know? From that same Milbank article linked below:
On the affirmative action case, Bush announced on Jan. 15 that the administration would file a brief opposing both programs in question, for Michigan undergraduates and law students. He called both programs "a quota system" and said they were "unconstitutional."
But when the Supreme Court last week upheld the program for Michigan law students -- widely seen as a major affirmation of affirmative action -- Bush joined in the celebration. "I applaud the Supreme Court for recognizing the value of diversity on our nation's campuses," he said in a statement issued by the White House.
In fact, Bush has expressed a firm opinion on the Texas sodomy law that the court ruled unconstitutional. He supported it. Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights group, dug up an article from the Austin American-Statesman of Jan. 22, 1994, titled "Bush promises to veto attempts to remove sodomy law." The newspaper reported:
"Gubernatorial candidate George W. Bush on Friday promised he would veto any attempt by the Texas Legislature to remove from the state penal code a controversial statute outlawing homosexual sodomy. Bush, a Republican, was asked about the sodomy statute shortly after speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Ladies Auxiliary.
" 'I think it's a symbolic gesture of traditional values,' he said."
But, why on Earth would Milbank phrase it this way - that a gay rights group had "dug up" this story. Finding this little tidbit didn´t exactly require some uppity homos scouring the library - it´s been widely circulated for years.
Posted by Atrios
I´ve been thinking a lot about how better to deter crimes. I´m against the death penalty for a variety of reasons, but we should stop to consider some possible after-death punishments.
Consider, for example, if all convicted Jewish criminals... or, serious criminals anyway... were to be cremated when they died. Or, perhaps, if it were forbidden for convicted Catholics to receive the last rites before their deaths. For Muslims, of course, we could bury them with pig entrails, as Massachusetts State Senator Guy Glodis suggests.
Posted by Leah
Roger Ailes tells you all about it. (Am I the only person who finds Mr. Lott's eyebrows highly peculiar? Whenever he's a guest, I always expect the host to ask him what happened to his eyebrows.)
Roger also has the goods on Michelle Malkin, Thomas Sowell, Bruce Fein, Most People, and the Republican Major of Indianapolis, whose story Roger tells as only this Roger Ailes can.
Posted by Atrios
If I were home I´d do a Nexis search on how many media outlets have given our darling Ann such an esteemed title over the years. After this exchange with Chris Matthews (the whole segment with her is pretty good, really, for a change), they should all hang their heads in shame. This should also knock U. of Mich Law school about 50 down in the rankings...
And you can flip through your constitution, there’s nothing about sodomy in it, that the Supreme Court has decided they want to be our philosopher kings. If they would interpret the constitution, we wouldn’t need to keep doing these things.
Posted by Lambert
Guess I'm going to be a star. AP:
The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.
Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans.
"Government would have a reasonably good idea of where everyone is most of the time," said John Pike, a Global Security.org defense analyst.
Beep beep-n-beep beep yeah!
Hey, scooters and mass transit are looking better all the time, aren't they?
But alert reader Baba Wawa has elevated this practice to new heights:
Iwaq is only the beginning! Then we need to wibewate Iwan, Sywia, Saudi Awabia and any other countwy that thweatens Isweaw.
Of course, if we're sewious about Achieving Fweedom or Imposing Democracy or whatever the new catchphwase is now, there are so many other countwies we need to fix. How about Waos, which just impwisoned thwee foweign jouwnalists (incwuding one Amewican) on twumped-up murder charges? Or Myanmaw. Or Congo and its neighbors Buwundi and Wwanda. Zimbabwe. Wibewia. Siewwa Weone. Venezuewa. Pewu. The list goes on and on. People acwoss the wowld are cwamowing for Amewican intervention, saying "why should the Iwaqis get it all?"
"Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit ...." (from alert reader Blu)
Posted by Leah
At least if his speech today is anything to go by.
First, Reuters:
Here's the lede Yahoo goes with from a longer Reuters story.
Two months after President Bush declared major combat over in Iraq, the United States needs more troops on the ground and should accept any foreign help it can get to crush resistance and start real nation-building, military analysts said on Tuesday.
How devastating is that? l. Pentagon did underestimate troops needed on the ground. 2. Adminstration did make a mistake in cold-shouldering all who didn't fall in line behind our parade.3. We're way behind schedule on everything.
Okay, that's a harsh, one-sided oversimplification.
The longer Reuter's article, an excellent compilation of quotes and questions from ex-Military officers and defense experts, like retired Army Gen. Dan Christman, a former Pentagon planner, is quietly just as devastating.
"Our army is absolutely stretched thin and we ought to be reaching out to all of those countries who are offering to send troops -- the Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, the Indians, and NATO -- I'm not sure why we have been reluctant to pick up a NATO offer," said the retired general.
NATO's role in Iraq so far has been agreeing to provide logistics help for up to 7,500 Polish troops scheduled to deploy to Iraq this summer.
Christman said the presence of other flags would boost U.S. legitimacy during the crucial reconstruction phase, which should focus on the economy and getting oil pumping again.
How many Nato troops? According to Retired Air Force Gen. Chuck Boyd...several hundred thousand. That may be a high estimate, but it still says, 'what the hell was Rummy thinking?'
And there's this from Marcus Corbin, a senior defense analyst at the Center for Defense Information, on the need for more Iraqi involvement:
"The problem from the point of view of the Iraqis is that whatever limited authority they thought they were getting is being pulled back. Their sense is that things are going backward rather than forward," said Corbin.
Anthony Cordesman even makes an appearance.
Here's how Rove/Bush handled this increasing clamor today, when Bush spoke in the East Room of the White House on the 30th anniversary of the all-volunteer U.S. force, with a backdrop of 30 year men and women who'd chosen to re-enlist.
They ignored it. They focused instead on the President's stalwart determination to maintain our tropps there..."to keep the nation from falling back into the hands of Saddam Hussein loyalists."
"They have attacked coalition forces and they're trying to intimidate Iraqi citizens," Bush said. "These groups believe they have found an opportunity to harm America, to shake our resolve in the war on terror, and to cause us to leave Iraq before freedom is fully established."
"They are wrong and they will not succeed."
(edit)
"But there will be no return to tyranny in Iraq," Bush said. "And those who threaten the order and stability of that country will face ruin as surely as the regime they once served."
Always the same. A single evil other, this time, "those who would...,"a single overstated, undercomprehended objective.
Rummy may be disparging the mere mention of quagmire, and insisting Vietnam was then, but the President's speech depended on exactly that kind of domestic "other," as if those asking questions about his policies on the ground were doing so to get us out of Iraq, and thereby, to harm America.
Watching the speech, it seemed remarkably lame. If that's the best Rove can come up with, Bush will lose.
Any thoughts on what else Rove might have up his sleeve?
Or at some point, after years of obsfucation, do you lose track of what's real?
Posted by Leah
From the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, this AP report emphasizes the issue of the Saddam-9/11 link.
Seven in 10 people in a poll say the Bush administration implied that Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States.
And a majority, 52 percent, say they believe the United States has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam was working closely with the al-Qaida terrorist organization.
At least the number of Americans who believe we've found evidence of WMD in Iraq is down to 23% from its previous 34%.
Perhaps the most hopeful news:
The number who want the United Nations to take a leadership role in Iraq has grown from 50 percent in April to 64 percent now.
Maybe our fellow Americans are beginning to remember their pre-war skepticism about this administration's notion of aggressive, in your face, yet prickly, easily aggrieved unilateralism being synonymous with strong leadership.
Secretary Rumsfeld: The Iraqi people will figure out what the government of Iraq will do.
The Iraqi people will ultimately decide on a constitution, the Iraqi people will be the ones to decide what the form of that government might be. There will be an interim, meaning temporary, short-lived authority of some kind, there will be people who will like it, and there will be people who don’t like it just as in the United States of America. That’s what democratic people do. They say they like this or I don’t like that and that’s fine, but the interim will be interim, it will be temporary, it will not be permanent and that process, people - Iraqis will figure out what the next step ought to be, and then Iraqis will approve or disapprove or modify what that final government will look like. Therefore, how can they reject it, if it will be theirs and it will be an Iraqi solution to a circumstance in Iraq? Now take the United States, are there people here who don’t like this form of government? Sure. Are there people who don’t like what our government does from time to time? Sure. And do they appear on television? Sure, because it’s news, someone’s against something let’s get right up there and they will talk about. And my guess is when that interim government, correction - interim authority begins to stand up, you will hear people say, Ahh it’s too big, it’s too small, it’s too slow, it’s too fast, it’s this, it’s that and the answer to that will be, fair enough. It’s not perfect, it’s temporary it’s interim, get into it, make it what you want because what’s important isn’t the interim authority, what’s important is what follows it and that’s going to be for the Iraqi people. Fair enough?
During an April 7th CNN interview with Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage:
.....the fact that our forces are being welcomed with open arms. This is something we cherish and we'll do our utmost to continue to deserve. You see jubilance in many of the streets and I think it will continue. This is not something, however, that will last forever. We have to make sure that our follow-on actions are absolutely consistent with those things, which will win the favor of the Iraqi people.
(edit)
.....so we have to have a government, which is of, for and by Iraqis. Now the question of how you form it, it seems to me that the administration is on the right track by trying to develop an interim Iraqi authority, which will be developed by Iraqis, themselves, in close consultation with coalition members who, after all, have shed their blood and expended their treasure to bring about the liberation of Iraq.
Remarks by the President on Operation Iraqi Freedom, April 28th, Ford Community and Performing Arts Center
Dearborn, Michigan
The Iraqi people are fully capable of self-government. Every day Iraqis are moving toward democracy and embracing the responsibilities of active citizenship. Every day life in Iraq improves as coalition troops work to secure unsafe areas and bring food and medical care to those in need.
America pledged to rid Iraq of an oppressive regime, and we kept our word. (Applause.) America now pledges to help Iraqis build a prosperous and peaceful nation, and we will keep our word again. (Applause.)
U.S. officials need to get our [expletive] out of here," said the 43-year-old reservist from Pittsburgh, who arrived in Iraq with the 307th Military Police Company on May 24. "I say that seriously. We have no business being here. We will not change the culture they have in Iraq, in Baghdad. Baghdad is so corrupted. All we are here is potential people to be killed and sitting ducks."
To Sgt. Sami Jalil, a 14-year veteran of the local police force, the Americans are to blame. He and his colleagues have no badges, no uniforms. The soldiers don't trust them with weapons. In his eyes, his U.S. counterparts have already lost the people's trust.
"We're facing the danger. We're in the front lines. We're taking all the risks, only us," said the 33-year-old officer. "They're arrogant. They treat all the people as if they're criminals."
Many of the Iraqi officers despise the U.S. soldiers for what they see as unreasonable demands and a lack of respect. Many of the soldiers in Pollard's unit -- homesick, frustrated and miserable in heat that soars well into the 100s -- deem their mission to reconstitute the force impossible.
Of course that's just one police station in just one city.
Iraq's leading Shiite cleric has issued a ruling condemning the idea of a constitutional council put together by the American occupation authority, saying Iraqis should elect the drafters of their constitution.
The cleric's edict, or fatwa, may complicate considerably the plans of the American-led authority here to call a convention to select a commission to draft a new constitution for Iraq.
SENATOR BIDEN: "…but the real key here is we get one real shot at starting off a transition government here. And whatever that government is, that transition government, if it looks like it's imposed by us, if it looks like we sat down, hand-picked the leaders, put them in place, it will not have any legitimacy with the Iraqi people …"
They were warned to include not merely the window dressing of more "willing" coalition partners, but Nato, the UN, and countries like France and Germany who have ready expertise. They were warned that anything that quacked like an "American occupation" would be a constant object of attack. They were warned to include Iraqis at every level in decision making, they were warned that law and order and restoration of basic services was the most important initial goal.
The criticisms are reaching a critical mass. Watch for a new Rovian Presidential initiative that appears to shift our reconstruction efforts in the direction of the critics, without acknowledging those critics, of course, without actually changing anything very much on the ground.
Posted by Lambert
Daily Kos has great analysis here. The bullet points:
We need our allies
We need the world to trust us again
We have to fund first responders and train them
The missions of the US military must be clear and focused
The UN and NATO save American lives and promote the security of the United States
A Democratic secretary of Defense will work for the president, not the other way around
9/11 needs to be fully investigated so we can prevent those errors from happening again.
We are honor bound to help reconstruct Iraq. But we can only do it with the cooperation of the Iraqi people.
We will work with Mexico and Canada to ensure, safe, secure borders without the risk of injury and death to those who seek to improve their lives by finding work in America.
Posted by Lambert
From William Booth and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Sidney Morning Herald
United States military commanders have ordered a halt to local elections and self-rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq, instead installing their own hand-picked mayors and administrators, many of them former Iraqi military leaders.
The decision to deny Iraqis a direct role in selecting municipal governments is creating anger and resentment among aspiring leaders and ordinary citizens, who say the US-led occupation forces are not keeping their promise to bring greater freedom and democracy to a country dominated for by Saddam Hussein for 30 years.
"They give us a general," said Bahith Sattar, a biology teacher and tribal leader in Samarra, north of Baghdad, who was a candidate for mayor until that election was cancelled last week. "What does that tell you, eh? First of all, an Iraqi general? They lost the last three wars. They're not even good generals. And they know nothing about running a city."
Mr Bremer has promised that as soon as an Iraqi constitution is written and a national census taken, local and national elections will follow. But that process could take months.
In Samarra the selection of a new mayor and city council by delegates was put off twice, then cancelled. "There will be no elections for the foreseeable future," said Jeff Butler of the US Army's 418th Civil Affairs Battalion, charged with running Samarra.
Sergeant Butler said he sympathised with Iraqis upset about elections being cancelled. "We would like to see some kind of democratic system, too," he said. But for now, the Iraqis needed to be satisfied with "baby steps".
Remember when Rummy compared the "chaos and confusion" in Iraq to the United States after the Revolutionary War? This policy is like making General Cornwallis Mayor of New York because we couldn't find anyone better. Frightening thought: there is no one better. qWagmire...
The Pentagon is planning a new generation of weapons, including huge hypersonic drones and bombs dropped from space, that will allow the US to strike its enemies at lightning speed from its own territory.
Over the next 25 years, the new technology would free the US from dependence on forward bases and the cooperation of regional allies, part of the drive towards self-sufficiency spurred by the difficulties of gaining international cooperation for the invasion of Iraq.
The SLV-Cav [Small Launch Vehicle/Common Aero Vehicle] ]combination, according to [DARPA], "will provide a near-term (approximately 2010) operational capability for prompt global strike from Consus (the continental US) while also enabling future development of a reusable HCV [hypersonic cruise vehicle] for the far-term (approximately 2025)". The range of this weapon is unclear.
Private health insurance plans began lobbying Congress today for major changes in the Medicare drug legislation passed just three days ago.
Without increased subsidies and more stability, they said, few private plans will enter the Medicare market, and the legislation will not work as intended.
The first step toward privatization is more subsidies ... Makes sense if the goal of privatization is to loot the Treasury, but not in many other ways. Well, looting is what the Rethuglicans are best at, after lying!
Posted by Lambert
This is important. Lee Hockstader of WaPo writes:
"If Tom DéLay gets his way, he'll pick up five or six to seven or eight seats, which will significantly solidify the Republican hold on the House of Representatives, perhaps for decades."
So important that, as usual, the Rethuglicans trample the rules to get the job done:
Redistricting ... normally occurs only once a decade, after the census. Texas redrew its congressional districts in 2001, but in the 2002 elections the GOP won major gains in the legislature, giving Republicans the sway to go back to the redistricting map and try for more.
Why? Because they can. The last time the Texas Thugs tried this maneuver, the Killer D's (Texas Democrats) thwarted DéLay by leaving the state to prevent a quorum. That's when the Texas Thugs, aided by national Thugs, politicized the Department of Homeland Security by using it to try to find out where the Democrats were.
That tactic won't work this time, since Thug Governor Perry called a special session. Bottom line is that the Democrats need to hold three State Senators to win: Eddie Lucio Jr., Kenneth L. Armbrister, and Frank L. Madla.
The Big Dog was right. All politics is turning national. Perspective from The Times here.
Posted by Lambert
Whenever aWol's maladministration sees a problem they don't like, they find a way to cook the books, as we've just seen in the refusal to even track repetitive strain injuries.
The Environmental Protection Agency for months has withheld key findings of its analysis showing that a Senate plan to combat air pollution would be more effective in reducing harmful pollutants -- and only marginally more expensive -- than would President Bush's Clear Skies initiative for power plant emissions.
Don't like the numbers? Suppress them. Cook the books. Standard operating procedure for aWol.
Posted by Lambert
Bush on the campaign trail in Florida (AP):
I want to thank you all so very much for your help today. We're laying the groundwork for a national campaign -- a national campaign that I believe will result in a great victory in November 2002. (Applause.)
Finally for you Howard Kurtz bashers, here's a brief exchange from the NAHJ's Jayson Blair panel discussion on Friday (I'm paraphrasing):
Arlene Morgan, director of the Workshop on Journalism, Race and Ethnicity, Columbia University.: "We don't have the culture competency to handle diverse newsrooms. The people take their lead from the top. If the top is clueless, if people like Howie Kurtz can go on 'Reliable Sources' and bring in people who are totally clueless on affirmative action programs or how to hire diversity, somebody has to say, 'Hey Howie, you're sending out the wrong signal. You're bringing in the wrong people to interview.' I'm appalled at the interviews. None of the people know what the hell they are talking about."
Moderator Maria Hinojosa: Are you going to call Howie?
Morgan: "Having been misquoted by Howie Kurtz enough times, I don't want to speak to him ever again."
Posted by Leah
Social Science research should be useful. Studies of which social programs work and which don't are needed.
As we were saying yesterday, when a study's results are too useful and fit one side's needs too snugly, be suspicious, be very suspicious.
Mark Kleiman was suspicious about the glad tidings revealed in a University of Pennsylvania study of Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship, Texas, faith based program, which enjoyed the patronage of the then Governor Bush, and after the Penn study, was hailed at a Washington news conference by the now President Bush. There's just this one little problem:
LATEST RESEARCH FROM PROFESSOR HAROLD HILL
Here's a sure-fire method for producing a "successful" program: measure your successes, and ignore your failures. Works every time. What's astonishing is how easy it is to get some academic to write it up, how willing the newspapers are to report the resulting "study" as if it contained actual information, and the many politicians will then cite your "success" as scientifically documented fact.
It's rare for a study to get as nakedly thorough a debunking as this one gets from Kleiman. Read, enjoy, learn, and remember; I'm guessing there's going to be a lot more of this kind of propoganda.
Posted by Atrios As Kos points out, Bush can serve hot dogs for $2000 per any day of the week and rake in loads of cash. The fact is that the Democrats need money, and they need it badly. The candidates need it for the primary, not just to fight each other but to lay the groundwork for the general election. The DNC needs it to coordinate an overall national effort. The state parties need it. Your local candidates need it. Interest groups need it.
Some of you don´t have much money - fine, then call and volunteer. If no one calls you back, call again. Put a bumper sticker on your car. Print out fliers and hand them out on street corners.
Some of you do have some money - if so, give small amounts often.
Some of you may have some extra liquor and gambling money - if so, give it away.
You can give to any of the candidates on the left. But, this money isn´t enough. Once the primary season is effectively over, these candidates will be broke and will need the DNC to step in and start running the ball towards the endzone during the summer months while the candidates replenish their funds.
And for all of those who say "I'll support the nominee, no matter who he is", what better way to show you mean it than by donating to the ePatriots fund? After the primaries are done, our nominee will emerge broke and bloodied, only to face $200 million in GOP attack ads. The money you donate will be used by the DNC to counter those ads. This effort will be crucial to the ultimate success of our candidate.
Or, pick your favorite candidate/cause/organization/whatever. I´m not going to tell you how to spend your money. The point is, there are a small number of rich people/corporations and a large number of not-so-rich people. A large number of small donations adds up - but only if you make them.
Posted by Atrios
One of the largely overlooked aspects of Dean´s recent fundraising success is the fact that the average donation size appears to be quite small - about $66 at one tally, though that isn´t the final number. He´ll get matching funds for up to $250 per person who donated, so lots of small donations are better from a candidate´s perspective than larger ones.
Just to be clear, I´m definitely not coming out and endorsing any candidate for the primary (not that I think my endorsement matters) right now and I doubt I ever will. What I´ll try to be doing is focusing on candidates who in any given week seem to be doing the right thing - not just to win the primary but to bring the party to victory in ´04. I´ll also try and criticize candidates when they are taking cheap unfair shots at each other. I like Dean because I think he´s injected a necessary jolt of adrenaline into the primary campaign which perhaps only a Beltway outsider can do.
Anyway, I may change my ´no endorsement´policy at some point, but right now it´s way too early and I´m not going to jump on anyone´s bandwagon.
I'm really going to miss the General's quick wit and hilarious parodies and political satire. But I have to admit, if he's as good at political campaign work as he is at making fun of conservatives and bigots and media flimflam artists, I for one feel safer just knowing he's out there serving his country on the political front lines. If the General told me that he could get a Wiccan coffee shop owner from the French Quarter elected Governor of Utah, I would believe him. I stand behind the Commander all the way and hope that after all the victories are counted and the battles won he will return home safely to resume blogging once again. Either that or run for Governor. Which would be just fine by me.
Viva patriotboy!
Faithfully yours in the uprising,
- the farmer.
And I mean that in the most heterosexual stand behind you faithfully uprising kind of way.
Rumsfeld says Iraq no quagmire or guerrilla war During a Pentagon briefing, Rumsfeld compared the postwar situation in Iraq to the difficult path taken by the United States after declaring its independence from Britain and before establishing a new Constitution and electing a president.
Rumsfeld said the United States faced ''a period of chaos and confusion'' in its early years, including a depression, rampant inflation, no stable currency and mob uprisings.
''It took eight years before the founders finally adopted our Constitution and inaugurated our first president,'' he said, adding later: ''Were we in a quagmire for eight years? I would think not. We were in a process ... evolving from a monarchy into a democracy.''
And the Iraqi Franklin would be ...
And the Iraqi Madison would be...
And the Iraqi Jefferson would be ...
And the Iraqi Declaration of Independence ... would have been in one of the vases? With the Federalist Papers?
Not to knock the Iraqis, but I think Rummy's historical analogy is a couple of bricks shy of a load.
The Bush administration on Monday repealed a requirement that employers report repetitive stress injuries.
Labor unions had fought for the requirement, claiming that tracking repetitive strain injuries, also known as ergonomic injuries, would help identify potentially hazardous jobs and provide a better understanding of injury rates and trends.
"Just because the government is not going to require employers to track these injuries and just because the government is not going to enforce a safety standard doesn't mean that workers will stop becoming ill or permanently disabled on the job," [said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.]
"OSHA concluded that an additional record keeping column would not substantially improve the national injury statistics, nor would it be of benefit to employers and workers because the column would not provide additional information useful to identifying possible causes or methods to prevent injury," an OSHA statement said.
Right. If we keep statistics on the injuries, we might have to find out what's causing them, and solve the problem.
The Labor Department says its proposal could affect as many as 22 million workers. More than 1 million low-wage workers would newly become eligible for overtime pay, or would receive a salary hike. About 640,000 professional workers would lose their overtime pay.
A union-funded study found that 8 million workers would lose their overtime pay. Opponents say those employees will be required to work longer hours without extra pay if the proposal is adopted. That's because overtime pay acts as a protection to the 40-hour work week, and employers don't want to pay that price to get more work, they say.
"Our citizens are working longer hours than ever before - longer than any other industrial nation," according to a letter sent to Chao by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and signed by 42 Senate Democrats.
"At least one in five employees now has a work week that exceeds 50 hours. Protecting the 40-hour work week is vital to balancing work responsibilities and family needs. It is certainly not family friendly to require employees to work more hours for less pay."
So why not extend overtime to the 1 million low wage workers, and leave the rest of the rules in place?
Bush says: "Family values." Bush does: "A longer work week, so you have less time with your family."
We are watching government morph into something very strange. Benito Mussolini said, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." The real driving force behind this session is something I bet most of you have never heard of -- ALEC. ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-funded, extremely right-wing group that sponsors conferences for state legislators and draws up model bills that are introduced all over the country. ALEC is particularly interested in privatizing government services and deregulating everything, and is anti-environment to an extent that's almost loopy.
Carbon dioxide is not a scientifically proven air quality reducer. The task force is very concerned that this attempt to validate the Kyoto Protocal at the state level will severely limit fuel diversity for energy production in all of the states.
In March, 2003, the FBI arrested a Chinese-American businesswoman and Republican fundraiser, alleging that she had passed a frighteningly broad range of American intelligence secrets to the People's Republic of China (PRC). For two decades, Katrina Leung had been a paid bureau informant, supplying information on Chinese intelligence operations in America. She'd also been sleeping with two senior FBI agents--one of whom was her so-called "handler"--for the better part of those two decades.
Her treachery touched everything: the 1997 campaign finance scandal, the investigation of Wen Ho Lee (the Chinese scientist at Los Alamos who was once suspected of selling nuclear secrets to Beijing), investigations of spies at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and much more. "They lost everything," one hawkish D.C.-based China watcher told me.
The FBI and its congressional overseers have been given no fewer than five dramatic indications that the bureau has serious deficiencies as an intelligence agency: the Ames, Hanssen, and Leung scandals, each of which stemmed from the same basic problem--poor counterintelligence measures, particularly lax compartmentation--and the Bromwich Report and Gilmore Commission, which put elected officials and the public on no uncertain notice that reform was necessary. But to each of these five challenges, the FBI and Congress failed to respond--and in each case, their failure to act enabled further intelligence failures.
This wasn't simple benign neglect. Some of the nation's most tightly-held and vital secrets were turned over to adversary states. That's the kind of failure that usually drives Republicans around the bend, and for good reason. The mere suggestion that this might have occurred in the Democratic Chinese fundraising scandal aroused paroxysms of GOP outrage: from the wildly overheated Cox Commission Report, to limitless hours of talk radio chatter, to Republican Sen. Fred Thompson's hearings, all pursuing a line of allegation--that Red Chinese money had bought favors in the American political system--that proved unfounded.
Now we have an actual Chinese spy--charged, though not convicted--who by all indications was funneling money into U.S. campaigns. Her treachery is an intelligence failure that comes on the heels of others tied to similar shortcomings at the FBI, and one in which vital secrets were given to a power, China, which these same Republicans were saying two years ago posed the greatest threat to the United States. And yet we've not had one hearing. Not one commission. There's been very little coverage in the press, nor is anyone yakking about it on talk radio.
The Republicans didn't create the problems at the FBI. But they've sat on their hands and put politics ahead of the national interest as the scope of the problem and the cost to national security have become increasingly apparent. Not only have they ignored the problem, they have actively sought to shield the FBI from the one reform that almost everyone agrees would make such breaches of national security secrets far less likely. That's not just politics as usual. It's not even garden-variety political hypocrisy. It's a betrayal of the public trust.
Tell me again why aWol's malAdministration is better on national security? I know, the answer is tax cuts! Or maybe we should privatize the FBI... Now there's an idea...
Posted by Leah
Probably not. Probably you're wondering what on earth a "moveaway" is. Or perhaps not. If you're a divorced custodial working mother who figured that joint custody was the way to go for the sake of your kids, and then found out you needed to move out of state for any of a number of good reasons and your ex might be able to stop you legally, even though he is still unable to have the children live with him.
I consider myself fairly well informed on issues of child and family policy but I hadn't heard the term "moveaway" or a great deal more about the impact on courts of such sociological phenomenon as the fathers' movement, until I discovered Trish Wilson's Blog.
Trish is an unabashed, unapologetic, (and isn't that freshing) left-wing feminist with a special interest and expertise in such matters, although she blogs about much else; she's been on top of the "looting of Iraqi antiquities" story from the beginning.
Okay, maybe motherhood/family issues generally don't raise your blood pressure the way another Bush lie or Rummy "vase" comment does. Well, maybe it should.
Think for a moment about the mileage Dan Quayle's puppetmaster, Bill Kristol, got out of a fictional unmarried professional woman's decision to have a baby. All it took was an Atlantic cover story with a catchy title, "Dan Quayle Was Right About Murphy Brown," by a previously barely known academic, Barbara Whitehead, to do the trick of wiping from the minds of most mainstream media the memory of how ridiculous Quayle's comments had sounded when he first said them. From such nonsense can come more serious kinds of nonsense, like "the defense of marriage" legislation. (Yes, I know, Clinton deserves a thump upside the head for that one)
The same kind of Whitehead style of flawed social science research designed to prove a point is still going on. Someone named Sanford Beaver seems to have needed to prove that maternal moveaways lead to damaged children (sound familiar). Trish tells you about it here.
Sanford Braver is on the horns of a dilemma.
On June 25, he (and his co-researchers Ira M. Ellman and William V. Fabricius) released a new study that contends that children are harmed by parental moveaways, especially when it is the custodial mother who wishes to relocate with the children. Braver wanted so badly to support his position that he ignored the findings of his own study.
The timing of this study and the deluge of press releases about it coincides with the upcoming California Supreme Court's decision on the LaMusga case, which fathers' rights groups hope will lead to the reversal of the California Burgess moveaway decision. The goal appears to be to influence public opinion against moveaways.
Trish makes it a lot harder for Mr. Braver et al in another post here which is an extended critique of the study by Judith Wallerstein, whose own research offered the definitive challenge to Barbara Whitehead and all those other worshippers of the sanctity of marriage, like the never married childless Laura Ingraham and the divorced mother, Peggy Noonan.
Both posts include copious links to articles, many available at Trish's more formal website. Take a look at Trish's "The Truth About Joint Custody," who warns us: 'Do not call it "shared parenting." There is nothing "shared" about it.' It's an eye-opener.
Casting a genuinely feminist eye on such matters is a thankless task these days, with built-in penalities. Ask Katha Pollitt, and then ask yourself why you almost never see her guesting on any cable news shows. Or ask Trish.
It's a shame when there's such big-time nonsense abroad as the government becoming a marriage broker who bribes couples to tie the knot. As Trish points out in this post...
Some leftists (not nearly enough, in my opinion), have pointed out conservative hypocrisy regarding marriage promotion. Not only do they question the intrusiveness of these policies, they question what right the state has to select marriage partners if the people are poor, particularly if the woman is pregnant or bore a child out-of-wedlock. This is in effect a state-sanctioned form of the shotgun wedding
For added fun, Trish takes on David Frum, and you'll also learn about the real story behind a court decision out of Florida that got a lot of positive play for a while, in which a Judge took the children from a custodial working mom, and handed them over to the supposedly stay-at-home dad.
Posted by Lambert
Excellent article by Nicholas Confessor in the Washington Monthly.
The GOP needs K Street's muscle for long-term ideological projects to remake the national government.
For years, conservatives have been pushing to divert part of Social Security into private investment accounts. Such a move, GOP operatives argued, would provide millions of new customers and potentially trillions of dollars to the mutual fund industry that would manage the private accounts. The profits earned would, of course, be shared with the GOP in the form of campaign contributions.
Bush has proposed opening up 850,000 federal jobs--about half of the total--to private contractors. And while doing so may or may not save taxpayers much money, it will divert taxpayer money out of the public sector and into private sector firms, where the GOP has a chance to steer contracts towards politically connected firms.
Anyone who doubts this eventuality need look no further than Florida. There, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out last year, Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, has outsourced millions of dollars worth of work formerly performed by government employees to private contractors. There's little evidence that doing so has improved state services, as the governor's own staff admits. But it has vastly improved the financial state of the Florida Republican Party. According to an investigation by The Miami Herald last fall, "[t]he policy has spawned a network of contractors who have given [Bush], other Republican politicians, and the Florida GOP millions of dollars in campaign donations."
So, the Texas three-step: (1) Republicans privatize a government service, (2) steer the service to a politically connected firm, and (3) collect the payoff from that firm as a campaign contribution.
And K Street prepares the ideological ground for step (1). And Pennsylvania's own Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum is playing a big role here (read the article).
Gee, I wonder who's paying for all this?
After lying, looting is what the Republicans do best!
President Bush skipped quickly past the niceties and went straight to his chief political obsession: Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Turning to his Baghdad proconsul, Paul Bremer, Bush asked, "Are you in charge of finding WMD?" Bremer said no, he was not. Bush then put the same question to his military commander, General Tommy Franks. But Franks said it wasn't his job either. A little exasperated, Bush asked, So who is in charge of finding WMD? After aides conferred for a moment, someone volunteered the name of Stephen Cambone, a little-known deputy to Donald Rumsfeld, back in Washington. Pause. "Who?" Bush asked.
But seriously, folks...
Administration officials have a further concern about where all these questions are leading. They fear that any problem with the prewar intelligence could undermine Bush's ability to continue his muscular campaign against terrorism overseas. The Administration has argued that to counter new kinds of threats posed by terrorists, rogue states and WMD, it has to be able to act pre-emptively. But pre-emption requires excellent intelligence, and the whole doctrine is undermined if the intelligence is wrong—or confected.
Wrong, confected -- or crudely faked. Smarter liars, please!
UPDATE: Oh, I forgot to mention: If our danger was so "imminent" then why are the WMDs so hard to find? To put this another way, how could "evidence" of WMDs have been regarded as credible without giving their location?
Posted by Lambert
Bill Clinton writes in the NY Daily News (!):
"It's your money," says President Bush when he promotes tax cuts. I disagree with his tax policy but admire his spin. The same argument applies with greater force to whether big media conglomerates should be allowed to control more television and radio stations: "It's your airwaves." ...
The stakes are high. "At issue," says FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, "is whether a few corporations will be ceded enhanced gatekeeper control over the civil dialogue of our country; more content control over our music, entertainment and information, and veto power over the majority of what our families watch, hear and read."
People joke about my liking McDonald's, and I do. But actually I prefer to go down to Lange's Deli, a great family establishment, near my house.
In the brave new world being defined by the FCC, there will be more McMedia on our airwaves and far fewer broadcast equivalents of our favorite local diners.
Unlike restaurants, the airwaves belong to us. We shouldn't give up our right to have more choice.
Posted by Lambert
Altnough Mike Robinson of the Associated Press, in his article "Prosecutors push for tough sentence in Illinois campaign scandal" somehow forgets to mention that Scott Fawell (the convicted top aide of Governor Ryan) is a Republican, he does come up with a beautiful telling detail:
Witnesses said at the trial that Fawell, working as Ryan's chief of staff and campaign manager, used state workers and taxpayer dollars to fuel Ryan's campaigns and pressured employees for campaign contributions.
Witnesses also said Fawell.. shredded campaign documents and even billed taxpayers for the shredder.
Billed taxpayers for the shredder ... That's really the beauty part, isn't it? I just love these Republicans. They are so ... so themselves.
Congress's dramatic pre-dawn votes on Friday to add prescription drug benefits to Medicare were a political milestone, authorizing the biggest expansion of the program since its birth. But health policy analysts say that, even if the House and the Senate are able to resolve differences between their bills, it is far from certain the plan would work.
The drug coverage envisioned by Congress and the White House relies on two kinds of private insurance methods: separate policies solely for drugs, something that does not currently exist, and preferred-provider networks, a health plan that is common among younger people but includes few Medicare patients.
According to policy specialists, industry lobbyists, Wall Street analysts and health care executives, not one company has said publicly that it would sign up for either of these new marriages with Medicare, and the willingness of insurers to take part remains an open question.
"There is no solid commitment to participate," even though lawmakers have been developing the idea of federal drug benefits for years before last week's votes, said Robert L. Laszewski, a Washington-based health policy consultant whose clients include several of the nation's leading health insurers. "That has got to be a big yellow light to what Congress . . . is doing."
If aWol's malAdministration was serious about the Prescription Drug plan -- that is, if they wanted it as anything other than triangulation for the 2004 election --they would have (a) funded it (Not! The tax cuts!) and (b) made sure the privatization part at least had an insurance company on board.
Surely aWol's corporatist regime could have gotten at least one insurance company to sign on? They didn't. So they aren't serious.
But heck, the whole flimsy, fraudulent kludge doesn't kick in 'til 2006, well after the 2004 election, so aWol's latest con may go undetected until then.
Just amazing. A bandaid for prescription drugs, when the cancer is the lack of national health insurance. No, not amazing. Bidness as usual.
Posted by Lambert
Now we're doing search and destroy missions... From Edmund Andrews of The Times writes:
American forces carried out an aggressive series of predawn raids across central Iraq today, aiming to root out groups that have been attacking American and British soldiers and to project an intimidating display of power. ...
But it is not clear that today's raids produced much in the way of concrete results. Unlike a similar set of raids earlier this month, the ones today did not lead to any major fire fights. All told, military officials said in a statement released tonight, soldiers seized only 14 Kalashnikov assault rifles, two shotguns and an unidentified amount of ammunition.
Meanwhile, attacks on American troops continued today. Two soldiers were wounded and an Iraqi civilian was killed after coming under attack while in a convoy on a road leading to Baghdad International Airport, the military said.
Troops sweeping an area, and an enemy that just seems to have melted away... Remind anyone who know a little history of anything?
Posted by Lambert
Adam Nagourney of The Times writes:
Howard Dean announced yesterday that he had raised close to $9 million this year, establishing himself as a top-tier candidate in the Democratic presidential field. The figure stunned his rivals and transformed Dr. Dean from a maverick into a more traditional contender.
Much of the money was collected over the Internet, his aides said, leaving little doubt there are now ways to solicit contributions other than the telephone calls and elaborate fund-raisers that are the stock and trade for most mainstream candidates.
Strange analysis, though: money is what changes a candidate from "maverick" to "more traditional contender" -- not a candidate's ideas, platform, experience, eloquence, ability to connect with the public....
Posted by Lambert
Al Kamen in WaPo. Pretty funny (and in the mainstream, too, which is encouraging).
Here's one:
"They're hiding the WMD in the Boston Red Sox bullpen: Those guys are getting paid a lot of money to protect something, and it ain't leads." -- Keith Cunningham, a senior analyst with the General Accounting Office.
Normally, redistricting is done by the Legislature every 10 years based on population changes found in the census. In the 2001 legislative session, lawmakers could not agree on how to draw the districts so a map was drawn by federal judges.
So, two years later, the Republicans want to redraw the map again. "What's mine is mine, what's your's is negotiable..."
Posted by Atrios As Steve G. noted over at Kos, the passing of Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson got almost zero media coverage (actually, it was reported here in my undisclosed location.)
Also overlooked is the fact that Georgia governor Sonny Perdue couldn´t be bothered to do anything to mark the occasion, in sharp contrast to his quick response to the death of staunch segregationist Lester Maddox. As noted at the Top 10 conservative idiots:
Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, died last Monday at the age of 65. And to recognize the great work of this civil rights pioneer, Gov. Sonny Perdue did... absolutely nothing. Despite pleas from the public to commemorate Jackson's passing by lowering the state flags to half staff, Perdue announced that he would only lower the flags on the following Saturday, for the funeral service. But the very next day, Perdue couldn't get those flags down to half staff fast enough. A sudden change of heart? Hardly. Perdue was memorializing Lester Maddox, a former governor of Georgia who died two days after Maynard Jackson. Maddox is fondly remembered as a die-hard segregationist who chased black people away from his restaurant with a hand gun and a mob armed with axe handles the day after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law (he later sold the restaurant rather than serve blacks.) So thanks, Sonny Perdue, for demonstrating where your priorities lie.
Posted by Atrios
Kitty Kevorkian Frist calls marriage a "sacrament:"
"I very much feel that marriage is a sacrament, and that sacrament should extend and can extend to that legal entity of a union between, what is traditionally in our Western values has been defined, as between a man and a woman," said Frist, of Tennessee. "So I would support the amendment."
Posted by Atrios
Congrats to Sullywatch for reading Andrew Sullivan so we don´t have to for an entire year. Actually, Sullywatch is much more than simply a watch site - despite its focus on Crazy Andy it´s also generally very insightful about a variety of topics.
Posted by Atrios
So, let me get this straight... Tim Russert and the rest of the kool kids give Howard Dean shit because he´s off by 7% about how many troops are in Iraq (of course, the "true" number probably also includes troops stationed in Kuwait, so the whole exchange is rather meaningless), but Bush gets a pass for not even knowing who is in charge of his snipeWMD hunt?
Posted by the farmer On Neo-Cons and the New Right
Robert Borosage writes:
"To drive such a debate, Democrats would do well to learn from how the New Right responded to life in the political wilderness in the mid-1970s, when Nixon was in disgrace and Democrats controlled everything. At that moment, New Right strategists decided not to drift to the center but to build an independent capacity to drive their message, their values and their movement into the political debate. They sought to take over the Republican party from green-eyeshade moderates and make it their vehicle. They built the Heritage Foundation, an openly right-wing propaganda center. They invested in the Moral Majority, galvanizing the right-wing evangelical movement. They nailed together a network of conservative PACs, led by the National Conservative Political Action Committee. They mobilized a movement that transformed not only the Republican Party but the national political debate as well."
See: Cracking the Conservatives; Bush's Vulnerabilities and the Seeds of Progressive Revival. By Robert Borosage
Posted by the farmer
A ripped mark is fed expectations and carfully prepared for the fleece. A ribbed mark is played and finally conviced that a big payoff with little or no investment on their part is a sure thing. However, once the mark has been fleeced it may become necessary to cook the mark, or to console them after the con, should the egg decide to become a comethrough and refuse to be taken.
Apparently, some "traditional conservatives" can recognize a confidence game when they see one. In a similar vein to Lambert's post below, "Bait and switch in the Iraqi war", the following observation concerning neoconservatives and the media shills and ropers in White House who gave us the WMD sham comes from a self described "traditional conservative" website titled "Original Dissent"
[begin excerpt]
"Where the neoconservative program of deceit has taken a new and interesting angle this time around is the way in which they are handling the (minimal) extent of discussion and revelation surrounding their nonexistent "evidence" for Hussein's WMD's. Knowing perfectly well that they were the agent provocateurs behind these claims, the neocons have quickly moved to cover their flank by effectively pinning whatever blame there might be on those they swindled. It's a strategy all shysters use: find a willing dupe and junior partner for your scam, and then when the effort fails, pin all of the blame on unwitting assistant."
[...]
"That leaves the American public, at least those who have the sense to remain skeptical of what they are fed by the mass media, to hold congenital liars like Kristol and his associates accountable for their actions."
For some additional observations on the subject of Neocons and the PNAC see:
PNAC watch (liberal perspective) and Shocking Elk's "What Is A Neoconservative", which contains links to both "Original Dissent" and to "PNAC Watch"
It's becoming a pattern: The administration acts on what it declares to be good intelligence. Then, reality gets shrouded in uncertainty.
The U.S. assault on a six-vehicle convoy earlier this month near the Iraqi city of Qaim illustrates the problem. U.S. officials relied on what they first said was sound intelligence indicating that Saddam Hussein and his sons were part of the convoy. Now they concede there's no evidence they were. Instead, the world learned that U.S. troops wiped out a tiny village of Bedouins. U.S. military vehicles then sealed the area to prevent journalists from entering.
Is aWol done censoring the 9/11 report?
And what about that imminent threat of Iraqi WMDs? Any more barrels found under any more rose bushes? Any more beans?
Today's "conservatives" - the people formerly known as the "radical right" - don't think of a deal as a deal; they think of it as an opportunity to pull yet another bait and switch.
This article is well worth reading today -- know your enemy!
As aWol's maladministration triangulates toward the center in preparation for 2004, we're going to see a lot of bait; and from 2005 on we're going to see a lot of switch.
And the hapless, feckless Beltway Dems sleepwalk to destruction, thinking "business as usual" ... Sigh...
Posted by Lambert
Patrick J. McDonnell of the LA Times quotes Sgt. 1st Class Andre LeGrant from Georgia.
First the bait:
"We fought and fought to survive, and we thought we were going home," LeGrant said as he guided his Humvee through a warren of rural alleys and along stands of palm and brush — ideal ambush sites, he noted.
Then the switch:
"You're not really fighting an enemy anymore. You're more or less fighting terrorism We thought we would go home as heroes after taking Baghdad. Now look at us."
Posted by Lambert
Scott Gold of the Los Angeles Times writes:
CRAWFORD, Texas -- This spring, a ponytailed, woolly-sock-wearing Muslim-Quaker peace activist — not a local, in other words — took out an $800-a-month mortgage on a $54,000 colonial home. The activist, Johnny Wolf, and a group of supporters who oppose Bush's foreign policy have dubbed it the "Crawford Peace House."
They hope to offer visitors a "center for spiritual growth and intellectual understanding," an interfaith house of worship and a place where journalists can go to find a viewpoint different than what they say is a "cult of war" at the ranch.
"One of the neighbors told me, 'Well, you're just a bunch of old hippies.' Well ... yeah," Wolf said. "And for $800 a month, we get to challenge the leader of a superpower. It's great. Every fourth or fifth car that passes waves at us. And some people tell us we're No. 1 — they flip us off."
And the moral of the story:
Wolf, like the new businesses, is taking advantage of Bush's presence: He wants to get a message across. In Wolf's mind, the war in Iraq marks the beginning of a new era of U.S. aggression, and he has grown frustrated with what he says is the Democratic Party's failure to stand up to the Bush administration.
"I guess it's up to regular people," he said. "So here we are."
Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a conservative group, said Mr. Bush had been "one of the biggest-spending presidents we've had in 20 years." But, he added, "he has cut taxes, so politically that has protected him."
"A month ago, he passed this huge tax cut that I think is terrific — I mean, I'm thrilled by that — and now this month he's passing this preposterous prescription drug benefit, and I'm furious at him," Mr. Moore said. "But I can't get too angry with him because he passed this tax cut. That's the way this administration works."
So what possible meaning -- beyond the 2004 elections -- can the prescription benefit have? None: After the tax cuts for the rich, there's no money to keep the program going for the long term. First the bait: a (presumed) new entitlement. Then the switch: the next administration discovers we can't really pay for it! But that's OK -- we can privatize it (and another big chunk of Medicare while we're at it.)
Bait and switch: "That's the way this administration works."
Posted by Lambert
Yes, it's possible! (From Eric Pianin and Guy Gugliotta of WaPo).
What Bush said: The bait:
The proposal, part of the president's "Clear Skies" legislation awaiting congressional action, would for the first time regulate mercury emissions from their largest source, coal-fired power plants. Mercury pollution is linked to several public health problems, and the Clinton administration ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to impose new regulations on power plants beginning in 2007.
When Bush took office, he extended the deadline, calling for power plants to reduce mercury emissions by 46 percent as of 2010, and 70 percent by 2018.
(Yes, extending a deadline on pumping a poisonous heavy metal into the air, with this administration, is bait.)
What Bush did: The switch:
Some environmentalists say the administration, by design or mishap, has virtually invited Republican lawmakers to weaken what they considered a weak bill to begin with. "They touted it as a big initiative, and now they are quietly tiptoeing away from it," said Frank O'Donnell of the Clean Air Trust.
You can bet that the same bait and switch will happen with the prescription drug benefit.
Posted by Leah
Here's a link to Justice Harlan's lone dissent to "Plessy."
Beautifully written, it's also quite stirring, although if you read carefully, you'll notice the shadow of white supremacy hovering over the opinion.
Also notice that the notion of the Constitution as color-blind is central to Harlan's argument.
On a bitterly ironic note, assorted opponents of every civil rights victory from Brown to the Civil Rights Act to the various benchmarks in case law made by Federal Appellate Judges like Frank Johnson of Alabama, which confirmed the most expansive meaning of the 54 decision and the 65 legislation, often use Judge Harlan's dissent, which was clearly the precursor of the Civil Rights revolution that is still going on, (see the U of Michigan decision of last week) to bash those committed to making sure there is no retreat, no turning back from our committment to the completion of that revolution, as being the "new" racists.
For anyone interested, you can find out more info about Judge Johnson here. Amazon has his book here, but it's expensive. Too bad, because the book includes a transcript of a wonderful interview Bill Moyers did with the Judge for PBS in 1980, in which Johnson speaks, in slow, elegant, Southern accented English, of an important moment in his life when he re-read Justice Harlan's dissent and realized its fundamental moral rightness. Read the two customer reviews at Amazon; they're intelligent and knowledgable.
If anyone has a link to an online transcript of the interview, I'd be happy to post it.
Posted by Leah
Just two weeks ago, Michael Elliot and another British journalist were telling Charlie Rose that despite the Parliamentary inquiry into whether or not #10 cooked the intelligence books on Iraq, Tony Blair was fundamentally trusted by the British public, and the Conservatives were so out of it, the Labour party didn't have to worry about the next election.
Could be they were wrong. Could be something changed in the meantime. But the NYTimes is telling a different story.
Blair No Longer Trustworthy, Says Newspaper Poll
By REUTERS
Filed at 5:00 p.m. ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Most Britons no longer find Prime Minister Tony Blair trustworthy and nearly half think he should quit, according to a newspaper poll Sunday.
It showed most voters also say his record on health, crime, transport and asylum-seekers is poor.
I take no pleasure in the PM's poll numbers. It could weaken his ability to put pressure on Bush in regards to Israel and the Palestinians. The poll may be a hiccup; he's fought his way out of the British public's dissatisfaction before. But why is his public so much more concerned that they might have been lied into a war, than Bush's public is.
Posted by Leah
Update: Courtesy of PG, here's a link to another Kushner commencement address, this one given at Vassar.
That's what Bush said: Imagine your own scenario. Reuters reports they spent a couple of "amazing" hours together.
I guess it took the same kind of guts to attack Bill Clinton when every member of every elite was attacking him, as it takes to cuddle up to Bush, when every member of every elite is making excuses for him.
And could we get one thing straight, please; Dennis Miller as he presented himself on SNL was never a liberal
Posted by Leah
Update: courtesy of PG, here's a link to another of Tony Kushner's commencement addresses, this one at Vassar.
Here's a treat, suitable for consumption with your morning Sunday coffee.
Tony Kushner, author of Angels in America, gave the commencement address at Columbia College this year.
I'm always surprised by the attacks on Kushner, not those from the right, (no surprise there); the surprise is the snide vehemence of the attacks by the more respectable center/right typified by most of TNR, as if he's some type of radical nut case, completely cut off from mainstream America.
What rot. His audience, which ranges far beyond Broadway, gathers in a wider spectrum of Americans than do his critics, whose bond with the inhabitants of those red states whom they fetishize as the true America, is purely rhetorical.
What also gets to his critics is an underlying sweetness and lack of pretension, an exhuberance that makes him both "uncool," and a perfect commencement speaker. I believe he's given a number of them since America noticed that a major American talent had been revealed on a London stage. I remember reading one and marvelling at its directness, charm, wit, humor, unapologetic politics, and the bravery of that, since those politics are distinctly left wing.
This new one is a delight; come to think of it, a better description of his politics is that they are distinctly human. Bush isn't treated so much as a target than as a given, an unlovely, charmless, dangerous presence, whose real signifigance, perhaps, is in being a distraction from a larger struggle.
Contemplating the suggestion of his Chicago cabbie that..."If there's a supernova 60 light years away from here the world will be totally wiped out, we don't stand a chance," Kushner, while eschewing wishful thinking, manages to retain his optimism; what more can we ask of our artists?
I fully realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position for which I have been excoriated by liberal colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.
We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of any-thing found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. The argument necessarily assumes that if, as has been more than once the case, and is not unlikely to be so again, the colored race should become the dominant power in the state legislature, and should enact a law in precisely similar terms, it would thereby relegate the white race to an inferior position. We imagine that the white race, at least, would not acquiesce in this assumption. The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races.
It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as "discrimination" which it is the function of our judgments to deter.
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