Bill Schneider just informed us all that France's goal is to be the head of a new Europe united not by anti-fascism or anti-communism, but by anti-Americanism.

Who needs Fox..

Meet the Press Telling the Truth?

Who’s on ‘Meet the Press’:
Sunday, Feb. 23

Richard Perle, Chairman of the American Enterprise Institute’s Defense Policy Board and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-OH, debate military action in Iraq. Then Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-MO., discusses Presidential Politics 2004

I guess now we know who is really running our foreign policy...


Perle does work for AEI, and he is a member of the Pentagon's DPB, a position which has apparently been privatized.

(thanks penalcolony for the catch)

The Turkey Deal

Click the link to see Kos's analysis of the Turkey situation. Crazy.

Patriot Act Requires Lawyers to be Informants

Eric over at Is that Legal is rightfully puzzled about the fact that no one seems too concerned about a provision in the USA PATRIOT ACT (Jeebus, the fact that the administration wasn't tarred and feathered by the media over having the nerve to call that excrement the PATRIOT ACT... but, I digress) which requires Real Estate Lawyers to check if their clients are in the government's database of Big Baddies, and if so snitch on them. He says:

Two things jump out at me here. First, this is a spot where the reach of the USA PATRIOT Act is just enormous. It affects every single real estate transaction in the nation. From an administration that purports to be concerned about protecting state and local power from the reach of the federal government, this is an extraordinary foray into what has always been understood to be a core matter of state and local concern--transactions in real property.


Second, the USA PATRIOT Act here seems to tamper with the attorney-client relationship in a fundamental way. Not only does the law create an obligation for lawyers to rat on their own clients, it also creates an obligation for lawyers to conceal things from their own clients.

Well, I wasn't too concerned because I didn't read about it until this moment. Now I am concerned.

The "Jap Menace"

David Neiwert gives us a lovely history lesson. Apparently this country *didn't* just discover race when some civil rights agitators started making noise. Who knew?

This Stuff Shouldn't Happen

Period.

A Toronto woman coming home from India says she was pulled aside at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, accused of using a fake Canadian passport, denied consular assistance and threatened with jail.

In tears and desperate, Berna Cruz says she told U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) officers she didn't want to go to jail. She told them she had to get home to her two children and was expected to be at work the next day at a branch of a major Toronto bank where she works as a loan officer.

Instead of jailing her on Jan. 27, an INS officer cut the front page of Cruz's passport and filled each page with "expedited removal" stamps, rendering it useless.

She was photographed, fingerprinted, barred from re-entering the U.S. for five years and immediately "removed."

Not to Toronto, but to India, where she had just spent several weeks visiting her parents.

It took four days, and help from Canadian officials in Dubai and a Kuwaiti Airlines pilot, to get her back home.

Paul Krugman Hates America

But, he's probably just about spot-on here.

Umm..shouldn't we be worrying about this?

Rattling nerves along the border, a North
Korean fighter jet violated South Korean airspace over the Yellow Sea today before turning back as warplanes in the South scrambled. The flight -- the first such incursion in 20 years -- was the latest in a series of North Korean provocations.

The incursion, which lasted two minutes, came only days after North Korea threatened to abandon the armistice keeping peace along the border if the United States imposes sanctions on the communist regime.

War in the Philippines

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 — The United States will send about 3,000 troops to Philippines in the next few weeks to fight Muslim extremists in the southern part of the country, Pentagon officials said today.

Unlike a six-month training mission that involved 1,300 American forces on Basilan Island last year, this will be a joint operation with the Philippine military that has no fixed deadline. It marks a significant escalation in the war against terror even as the United States builds up for a possible war against Iraq and continues to hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

The plan calls for 750 American ground troops, including about 350 Special Operations forces, to conduct combat patrols in the jungles of Sulu Province with Philippine forces. In addition, 2,200 marines armed with Cobra attack helicopters and Harrier AV-8B attack planes will stand ready on ships offshore to act as a quick-response force, provide logistics and medical support.

one l, two p's, one n....

UPDATE: Sheesh, now it's "almost 2000." They changed the story, not me...

US Jerking Inspectors Around

This is such bullshit:

CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips reports the U.N. has been taking a precise inventory of Iraq's al-Samoud 2 missile arsenal, determining how many there are and where they are.

Discovering that the al-Samoud 2 has been flying too far in tests has been one of the inspectors' major successes. But the missile has only been exceeding its 93-mile limit by about 15 miles and that, the Iraqis say,
is because it isn't yet loaded down with its guidance system. The al-Samoud 2 is not the 800-mile-plus range missile that Secretary of State Colin Powell insists Iraq is developing.

In fact, the U.S. claim that Iraq is developing missiles that could hit its neighbors – or U.S. troops in the region, or even Israel – is just one of the claims coming from Washington that inspectors here are finding
increasingly unbelievable. The inspectors have become so frustrated trying to chase down unspecific or ambiguous U.S. leads that they've begun to express that anger privately in no uncertain terms.

U.N. sources have told CBS News that American tips have lead to one dead end after another.

Example: satellite photographs purporting to show new research buildings at Iraqi nuclear sites. When the U.N. went into the new buildings they found "nothing."

Example: Saddam's presidential palaces, where the inspectors went with specific coordinates supplied by the U.S. on where to look for incriminating evidence. Again, they found "nothing."

Example: Interviews with scientists about the aluminum tubes the U.S. says Iraq has imported for enriching uranium, but which the Iraqis say are for making rockets. Given the size and specification of the tubes, the
U.N. calls the "Iraqi alibi air tight."

The inspectors do acknowledge, however, that they would not be here at all if not for the threat of U.S. military action.

So frustrated have the inspectors become that one source has referred to the U.S. intelligence they've been getting as "garbage after garbage after garbage." In fact, Phillips says the source used another cruderword. The inspectors find themselves caught between the Iraqis, who are masters at the weapons-hiding shell game, and the United States, whose intelligence they've found to be circumstantial, outdated or just plain
wrong.

Even the New Republic...

is getting a bit Hawk-shy.

Cincinnati Mayor Unhappy With Ridge Visit

Gets all snarky:

Mayor Charlie Luken had hoped for something more from Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's visit to Cincinnati Wednesday.

"We asked for help in fighting terrorism, and we got a new Web site and some more duct tape," Luken said.

Ridge urged families to create kits to prepare for potential terror attacks as part of the "Ready Campaign," which he announced during his speech at the American Red Cross's downtown office.

I bet Ridge is going to want his duct tape back.

Give Me All Your Money!

Well, no, but for various reasons now would be a good time to contribute to this humble operation if you're in the mood. Links on the left.

If you think there are better ways to spend your money, and there probably are, I suggest giving some money to Move On. Commander Reynolds, doing his best to please Osama Bin Laden, has sent the troops in to try and disrupt their Virtual Protest effort, so they could probably use some help.

Btw, I think I fixed the problem with the "click box to open in new windows" problem. I'll also likely switch the commenting system back to Haloscan later this evening, as it's (generally) better for a variety of reasons, so you may want to hold off on posting your best stuff until then...

Blitzer

You know what to do.

Turkey Postpones Vote

ANKARA, Turkey - Brushing aside U.S. warnings that time is running out, Turkey's foreign minister said Thursday that a parliamentary vote on basing tens of thousands of U.S. troops for an Iraq war is unlikely before early next week.

But Yasar Yakis left open the possibility the government could decide in principle earlier and leave the final authorization for next week.

Economy Minister Ali Babacan was quoted as saying that the U.S.-Turkish dispute on the deployment could be resolved "within the coming days."

The standoff centers around a Turkish demand for billions of dollars in U.S. aid to offset losses in case of an Iraq war and comes as U.S. ships loaded with tanks and other armor awaited orders off the Turkish coast.

Warbloggers...reset your enemy...NOW!

UPDATE: Oh Jeebus, check out the Moonie spin on this. I had to read it twice to be sure that the situation hadn't changed.
Turkey moves to allow in U.S. troops

ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Ankara moved Thursday to end a standoff with Washington by announcing it would send to parliament a motion to allow U.S. troops to deploy in Turkey, but U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he wanted a reply by the end of the
day.

The Turkish move was intended to ease a crisis in relations between the two NATO allies. The bone of contention has been the terms for allowing U.S. and possibly other "coalition of the willing" forces into the country on their way to form a northern front in neighboring
Iraq.

The U.S. military considers a northern front would greatly expedite conduct of the widely expected war to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The Turkish constitution requires parliamentary approval for foreign troops to be allowed into the country. The parliament went home for the weekend Thursday without taking up the motion, but was expected to do so early next week, possibly Tuesday.

Powell said Thursday in Washington he expected an answer from Turkey by the end of the day on whether it had accepted the terms as negotiated.

That Sweet Mr. Howard

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has accused the 500,000 Australians who took part in last weekend's peace rallies of giving "comfort to Saddam Hussein".

Perhaps he should lock them all up for treason, pre-emptively.

Someone tell Peggy

Bush is screwing the Firefighters.

[tbogg]She'll get a bit jealous, so you'll have to explain it to her...[/tbogg]

Somerby on Matthews

I caught this little nugget in the silly Joan Walsh's interview of the sillier Chris Matthews, but I knew Somerby would take care of it a bit better.

One of the things Somerby has documented frequently is the tendency of the liberal media to do a bit of historical revisionism of their own opinions. In the Salon interview, Matthews argues that the media is "liberal" because it claimed the Gore won a debate when it was clear that Bush had won. Of course, at the time Matthews claimed Gore had won or that it was a tie.


Oy.

Alterman Radio Appearances

NPR is having Eric Alterman on Fresh Air on February 26 and on TOTN some time before that. Getting time on their two main programs is quite generous of NPR, so there is no need to write any more those polite emails to NPR.

Onion Takes Control of Government

Pandagon has a new catchy design. At first I just thought it was amusing visual satire of the ridiculous Homeland Security nonsense and I was impressed with Jesse's creativity. Then I realized it actually was the ridiculous Homeland Security nonsense.

Please tell me this is just a dream. As Jon Stewart once said..Bill Clinton, come back, we're sorry....please...here's a cigar, you can put it anywhere you want...