Monday, April 30, 2007

Hitchens on Tenets New Book

Wow. Ka-blam!

A sample:

To revisit these arguments is to be reminded that no thinking person ever felt that the danger posed by a totalitarian and aggressive Iraq was a negligible one. And now comes Tenet, the man who got everything wrong and who ran the agency that couldn't think straight, to ask us to sympathize with his moanings about "Iraq—who, me?"

A highly irritating expression in Washington has it that "hindsight is always 20-20." Would that it were so. History is not a matter of hindsight and is not, in fact, always written by the victors. In this case, a bogus history is being offered by a real loser whose hindsight is cockeyed and who had no foresight at all.

Snow is Back

David Gregory notes on Tony Snow's return to the White House. A very emotional return for Snow (check the video link).

Snow is known as one of the nicest guys in Washington and it's great to see him back and looking good.

Ooh, it gets better...

Gonzales delegated all his hiring and firing decisions to Sampson and Goodling.

An original draft of Gonzales's delegation of authority to Sampson and Goodling was so broad that it did not even require the two aides to obtain the final approval of the attorney general before moving to dismiss other department officials, according to records obtained by National Journal.

The department's Office of Legal Counsel feared that such an unconditional delegation of authority was unconstitutional, the documents show. As a result, the original delegation was rewritten so that in its final form the order required "any proposed appointments or removals of personnel" be "presented to the Attorney General... for approval, and each appointment or removal shall be made in the name of the Attorney General."

Sunday, April 29, 2007

U.S. Attorney Smoking gun?

Interesting timeline from the most recent document dump:

From: Hertling, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 05 15:48:29 2007
To: Burton, Faith
Subject: Re: URGENT

What is the correct response if at the US Attorney hearing tomorrow Will is asked by HJC to provide e-mails and other communications we had with the WH on firing US Attorneys?


From: Burton, Faith
Sent: Monday, March 05 16:03:43 2007
To: Hertling, Richard
Subject: Re: URGENT

We would not provide such highly deliberative docs in which the WH has such significant equities – no way would the WH allow that. Need to think about how exactly to phrase the response but Will may have some thoughts.


From: Hertling, Richard
Sent: Monday, March 5, 2007 4:05PM
To: Burton, Faith
Subject: Re: URGENT

Will is our witness. Think about how we would want to frame an answer.


March 6th:

JOHNSON: And were there memoranda or record of these meetings or e-mails or other communications on the subject that were generated?
MOSCHELLA: I don't know of any memoranda that was created. At some point, names were put on a list, but I don't know about the specific records....
JOHNSON: Mr. Moschella, I'm getting ready to run out of time and I want to ask you this question.
The committee is very interested in further inquiry into this matter. Can I have your assurance that you'll make available to the committee the individuals I have asked you about and all memoranda, e- mails and other documents on this subject as was asked by myself and previous questioners? Can I get your commitment on that?
MOSCHELLA: Congressman, we have done everything we can to cooperate, including providing documents to the committee, having the briefings. We'll continue to work with you.


March 7th:

On the Withheld Documents list, we see:

Line 160, From Faith Burton, DESCRIPTION: Discussion re: draft subpoenas for KS (Kyle Sampson), MG (Monica Goodling), ME (Michael Elston), WM (William Mercer), and MB (Michael Battle).
Line 161, From William Moschella, DESCRIPTION: Discussion re: voluntary interviews or testimony from leadership staff before the SJC (Senate Judiciary Committee).
Five of those on the list for receipt of subpoenas receive two e-mails from Faith Burton and William E. Moschella "discussing" the subject of their subpoenas.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Bush has gone AWOL?

General Odom thinks so.

"Good morning, this is Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army, retired.

"I am not now nor have I ever been a Democrat or a Republican. Thus, I do not speak for the Democratic Party. I speak for myself, as a non-partisan retired military officer who is a former Director of the National Security Agency. I do so because Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked me.

"In principle, I do not favor Congressional involvement in the execution of U.S. foreign and military policy. I have seen its perverse effects in many cases. The conflict in Iraq is different. Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.

"Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies. The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment.

"To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is 'absent without leave.' He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge. Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games."

The jokes write themselves...

...except that I'm not laughing.

Former U.S. AID director Randall Tobias, who resigned yesterday upon admitting that he frequented a Washington escort service, oversaw a controversial policy advocated by the religious right that required any US-based group receiving anti-AIDS funds to take an anti-prostitution "loyalty oath."

Aid groups bitterly opposed the policy, charging that it "was so broad — and applied even to their private funds — that it would obstruct their outreach to sex workers who are at high risk of transmitting the AIDS virus." But President Bush wouldn’t budge. He signed a 2003 National Security Presidential Directive saying prostitution "and related activities" were "inherently harmful and dehumanizing."

Friday, April 27, 2007

A Beautiful Mind

God bless Mr. Hawking. He got zero-G today.

Creative use of polling

TPM points out that Andrea Mitchell last night claimed that Pelosi's ratings were has bad as Hastert's had been before the elections.

Unfortunately, that's not quite true. Pelosi's job approval rating is around 53% at the moment: last October, Hastert only had 31% who said he should keep his post.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Genetic non-discrimation

Louise Slaughter posts that the Genetic Information Non-Discrimation Act has finally passed the House. It's passed the Senate twice before, and Bush has indicated that he would sign it. It makes it illegal to use genetic information for hiring, firing, or promotion decisions. For example, some African-Americans were denied insurance in the 70s because of the possibility of sickle-cell anemia.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Unseen Battles

Rudy's comments gave me pause for thought. 9/11 was 5 and 1/2 years ago and we have yet to have another major terrorist attack here.

It's not like they're not trying. Look at Spain and the numerous attacks the British have broken up. The British are very effective for the ironic reason that they have much fewer search-and-seizure rules than we. And we're the ones losing liberties?

So, put aside whether you agree or disagree with Guiliani's assessment; it's hard to disagree that something is working.

I would bet that in 30 years time when Top Secret files are declassified some very interesting tales will be told. There are some unknown heroes out there.

What Rudy REALLY Said

OK, boys and girls, you can stop the propaganda. Here's the article from www.politico.com in it's entirety. And he's right - the Democrats are fundamentally defensively minded as opposed to being offensively minded as the GOP is. If we sit back and disengage then the odds are much greater that a large-scale attack could happen here if we don't foil it in the planning stages.

So, naturally, the Dems scream and whine and cry when the simple, obvious, and plain truth is told about an area they are weak in.

MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.

“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”

“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”

After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will be safer with a Republican president.”

Giuliani, whose past positions on abortion, gun control and gay rights have made him anathema to some in his party, believes his tough stance on national defense and his post-Sept. 11 reputation as a fighter of terrorism will be his trump card with doubting Republicans.

“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”

Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”

Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”

Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”

The crowd thundered its approval.

Giuliani also said that America had been naive about terrorism in the past and had missed obvious signals.

“They were at war with us before we realized it, going back to ’90s with all the Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. “They came here and killed us in 1993 [with the first attack on New York’s World Trade Center, in which six people died], and we didn’t get it. We didn’t get it that this was a war. Then Sept. 11, 2001, happened, and we got it.”

Olbermann alert

Giuliani: "Elect a Democrat, and 9/11 happens again."
Olbermann: Special Comment tonight. :-)

Politicization of DoJ investigations?

The WSJ is seeing it, too.

As midterm elections approached last November, federal investigators in Arizona faced unexpected obstacles in getting needed Justice Department approvals to advance a corruption investigation of Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, people close to the case said.

The delays, which postponed key approvals in the case until after the election, raise new questions about whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or other officials may have weighed political issues in some investigations. The Arizona U.S. attorney then overseeing the case, Paul Charlton, was told he was being fired in December, one of eight federal prosecutors dismissed in the past year.

A Noble Idea

Make the debate results completely public.

http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003755.shtml

Here's some commentary bound to rile Gonzo - but Gonz, please comment on what she says, not on who she is, thanks.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

What journalism used to be

I hope David Halberstam isn't spinning too hard in his grave before they even get him there....

On this particular day, the briefing was different, given not by a Major but by a Major General, Dick Stilwell, the smoothest young general in Saigon. It was in a different room and every general and every bird Colonel in the country was there. Picture if you will rather small room, about the size of a classroom, with about 10 or 12 reporters there in the center of the room. And in the back, and outside, some 40 military officers, all of them big time brass. It was clearly an attempt to intimidate us.

General Stilwell tried to take the intimidation a step further. He began by saying that Neil and I had bothered General Harkins and Ambassador Lodge and other VIPs, and we were not to do it again. Period.

And I stood up, my heart beating wildly -- and told him that we were not his corporals or privates, that we worked for The New York Times and UP and AP and Newsweek, not for the Department of Defense.

I said that we knew that 30 American helicopters and perhaps 150 American soldiers had gone into battle, and the American people had a right to know what happened. I went on to say that we would continue to press to go on missions and call Ambassador Lodge and General Harkins, but he could, if he chose, write to our editors telling them that we were being too aggressive, and were pushing much too hard to go into battle. That was certainly his right.

So: Never let them intimidate you. Never. If someone tries, do me a favor and work just a little harder on your story. Do two or three more interviews. Make your story a little better.

"I hope it's your family members that die."

Nice going, Rohrabacher.

Rohrabacher said if European countries did not cooperate with the United States and go along with whatever the Bush administration wanted, they were condemning their countrymen to death by not using extralegal methods to imprison terrorist suspects. When citizens attending the hearing, including members of Codepink Women for Peace and Veterans for Peace, heard Rohrabacher’s statement, they collectively groaned. Then, much to the shock and disbelief of everyone in the hearing room, Rorhbacker said to those who had expressed displeasure at his statements: "I hope it’s your family members that die when terrorists strike."

Tillman/Lynch hearing

You know it's a bad sign for the Administration when Waxman and Davis give the same opening statement...

Yes, It's Off-Topic but Damn Funny

From The Smoking Gun

When Capt. America Throws His Mighty Burrito

Florida doctor in superhero costume busted for groping women

APRIL 24--Meet Dr. Raymond Adamcik. The Florida man, dressed as Captain America and with a burrito stuffed in his tights, was arrested Saturday night for allegedly groping women at a Melbourne bar.

Adamcik was part of a pub crawl in which participants wore costumes. While at the On Tap bar, Adamcik, 54, allegedly touched the genital areas of two women, according to a Melbourne Police Department report, a copy of which you'll find here.

"Because there were so many cartoon characters in the bar at this time, all Captain Americas were asked to go outside for a possible identification," notes the report.

One woman positively identified Adamcik as the superhero who groped her. While being booked, Adamcik asked to use the bathroom. It was then, police charge, that he attempted to flush marijuana, which apparently had been hidden in his blue tights.

Adamcik was charged with battery, disorderly conduct, and pot possession. He was released after posting $2000 bail.

A Hell of a Country

Christopher Hitchens review of a book about the downfall of Iraq.

How had a country that was bursting with oil wealth and development in the 1970s become a sweltering, violent basket case? Because the historic compromise between Sunni and Shiite, uneasy as it was, had been ripped apart by dictatorship and overseas aggression. As Allawi phrases it:

The state removed the elements that kept a vigorous Shi'a identity alive in parallel to a Sunni-dominated state. Nationalizations, emigration and expulsions destroyed the Shi'a mercantilist class; the state monopoly on education, publishing and the media removed the cultural underpinnings of Shi'a life. … When the state embarked on the mass killings after the 1991 uprisings, Iraq became hopelessly compromised in the minds of most Shi'a.

And this is to say nothing of the Kurds: the one-fifth of Iraqi society who, as Allawi points out, had already left the Iraqi state by the time the coalition arrived. Without needing or wishing to soften any critique of post-invasion planning, I would propose that this analysis has a highly unsettling implication. Hell was coming to Iraq no matter what.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Micromanagement... NOT!

More of what Gonzo would call "shrill left-wing hysteria":

Sometime it takes a while for something to sink into my over taxed brain. But I finally heard Georgie in his presser with General Petraus, say that the Congress has no right to try and micro-manage the war.

He added no one should be telling the General what to do.

Uh...Excuse me, you Dim Witted Twit. One of the primary foundations of American democracy is a civilian controlled military.

A Conflicted Decision

Mike Gallagher, talk show host, offered airtime to the dirtbags at the Westboro Baptist Church in exchange for them not protesting the Virginia Tech funerals. He made a similar offer and succeeded in getting these jerks to not protest at the funerals for the slain Amish children a while back.

In this article, he explains the pros and cons of his conscientious decision.

Some excepts:

If you've never heard of this angry group of people, they believe that random acts of violence, killings, and even the deaths of American soldiers in the war are a result of God's wrath over homosexuality. They've repeatedly stated that innocent murder victims deserved their fate. They routinely hold picket signs outside the churches of funerals that say things like, "Your son is rotting in Hell" and "Thank God for IEDs" and "Your daughter deserved to die." One of them told me today that they were already making signs for the Virginia Tech funerals that would have said, "Hokies in Hell" (hokie is the Va Tech mascot).

They have formally announced that they are cancelling all of their scheduled protests for the Virginia Tech shooting victims funerals as a result of receiving this invitation to be on my show.

I know that many people disagree with my decision. I have also received many notes and calls of support. Please allow me to state why I'm doing this: I truly feel called, on a spiritual level, to allow my radio show to be a tool that prevents these angry, hateful people the opportunity to hurt grieving families.

And Finally


They Were Wrong Then As Well

Pointed out by the WSJ in opinionjournal.com


"I believe . . . that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week."--Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, April 19, 2007

"Resolved, that this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of military necessity, or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the federal Union of the States."--1864 Democratic platform

Nevadans None Too Happy with Reid

From an editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Affecting the current funding for the war effort, as Harry Reid is threatening to do, is naive, irresponsible and stupid. It is a shame that Mr. Schumacher and Sen. Reid don't understand.

And even if Sen. Reid were correct in his beliefs, he has an obligation not to undermine the president and the troops. There is a long-standing tradition that our internal disagreements stop at the border; that tradition has served us well. Violating that tradition in a shallow attempt to attack the other party embarrasses Nevada.

There are many ways to convey to the administration an opposite viewpoint without a news conference or threats. The Democrats are supposed to be the loyal opposition. They have the opposition part nailed, but seem to have lost sight of the "loyal."

Sen. Reid doesn't need a pat on the back -- he needs to be replaced. Nevada needs representatives who put their country ahead of their party and their egos.

Friday, April 20, 2007

"Mr. Speaker...

...does whining come out of my time?"

House Approves a Voting Seat for D.C

An excerpt from the Washington Post article on this:

The bill's supporters argued that the District deserves full House representation because its residents pay taxes and serve in the U.S. military. They said a D.C. seat could be created under constitutional provisions giving Congress sweeping powers over the District.

This is true, Congress does have sweeping powers over the district since it is a Federal district. However, the problem is that the Constitution - specifically Article I, Section 2 is pretty clear about Congress members being from states.

So, while fair-minded, the current bill is likely unConstitutional and will get bitch-slapped if it ever comes up at SCOTUS.

There are, however, three ways this could be legally addressed in my mind.

  • A Constitutional amendment. This was already tried and failed.
  • A referrendum on statehood in D.C. It is passed Congress could admit DC as a new state with Congressional and Senate representation. A little shaky on Constitutional grounds since D.C. is not a territory but likely acceptable.
  • Recede D.C. back to Maryland whereupon Maryland gains a couple of new congressional districts. But this, too, would probably require a Constitutional amendment.

But creating a bill because it's "right" and having the Dems prance around in voting rights marches demanding fairness cannt be allowed to usurp the Constitution with good intentions.

Do it the right way, Congress. You're exceeding your authority here. Another one for the veto pen.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

D'Souza strikes out again

"Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found."

I am an atheist and a professor at Virginia Tech. Dinesh D’Souza says that I don’t exist, that I have nothing to say, that I am nowhere to be found.

But I am here....

I know that brutal death can come unannounced into any life, but that we should aspire to look at our approaching death with equanimity, with a sense that it completes a well-walked trail, that it is a privilege to have our stories run through to their proper end. I don’t need to live forever to live once and to live completely. It is precisely because I don’t believe there is an afterlife that I am so horrified by the stabbing and slashing and tattering of so many lives around me this week, the despoliation and ruination of the only thing each of us will ever have.

We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don’t believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong....

Compassionate conservatism

Good example: ordering a 19-year veteran 5 months from the end of his enlistment to leave his dying mother to return to his unit in Iraq.

Gonzales Fate

He's toast.

Senator Coburn (R) sealed his fate with a brilliant observation about holding Gonzales to the same standards he used on the 8 fired USAa.

Hillary: Ruling Stabs Women in Back of Head

Heheh. ScrappleFace strikes again:

April 19, 2007
Hillary: Court Ruling Stabs Women in Back of Head
by Scott Ott

(2007-04-19) — Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart upholding the right of Congress and state legislatures to regulate abortion and, in particular, to ban partial-birth abortion, is “a blade to the back of the head of every woman in American,” according to Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY.

“I know I speak for my sisters across the nation,” said Sen. Clinton, “when I say that I feel like someone grabbed me by the ankles, and jammed a pair of scissors into the base of my skull and then just sucked my brains out. This is devastating to our freedoms and our sense who we are as the largest minority group in America.”

Mrs. Clinton derided the justices who comprised the majority in the 5-4 ruling as “a gang of callous right-wingers who slaughtered the civil rights of women just as we are about to experience a new birth of freedom with the election of the first female president.”

“All that potential, all that hope is now tossed down the garbage chute,” she said, “and all because five selfish judges decided that their so-called ‘right to choose’ supersedes the life of the women’s movement. It’s despicable.”

Not entirely off-topic

Interesting rant over on Livejournal, that's been getting wider traction.

In another way too, though, I feel that the organization and I are moving apart at the moment. More and more of SFWA's business is internet mediated. I've spent several thousands of hours doing SFWA business online during my Western Regional Director and Vice President years. As a result I've developed an almost allergic aversion toward all things nettish, including what I'm doing right now.

I think the ongoing and increasing sublimation of the private space of consciousness into public netspace is profoundly pernicious. For that reason I don't much like to blog, wiki, chat, post, LiveJournal, or lounge in SFF.net. A problem with the whole wikicliki, sick-o-fancy, jerque-du-cercle of a networking and connection-based order is that, if you "go along to get along" for too long, there's a danger you'll no longer remember how to go it alone when the ethics of the situation demand it.

I'm also opposed to the increasing presence in our organization of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free. A scab is someone who works for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a scab is someone who feathers his own nest and advances his own career by undercutting the efforts of his fellow workers to gain better pay and working conditions for all. Webscabs claim they're just posting their books for free in an attempt to market and publicize them, but to my mind they're undercutting those of us who aren't giving it away for free and are trying to get publishers to pay a better wage for our hard work.

Since more and more of SFWA is built around such electronically mediated networking and connection based venues, and more and more of our membership at least tacitly blesses the webscabs (despite the fact that they are rotting our organization from within) -- given my happily retrograde opinions, I felt I was not the president who would provide SFWAns the "net time" they seemed to want at this point in the organization's development, or who would bless the contraction of our industry toward monopoly, or who would give imprimatur to the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

A bad day in the Senate

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I have to declare myself absolutely
a series of things: furious, double-crossed, misled, minimized--in
terms of my role as a Senator and as chairman of the Intelligence
Committee--shocked by the arrogance of the technique that was used
between the White House and the minority leader to say to Republicans,
after weeks in which Vice Chairman Bond and I worked out a compromise
on a managers' amendment on which we worked in good faith--I dropped
things he did not like, he dropped things I did not like--but it was a
genuine effort.

Vice Chairman Bond, whom I respect greatly, stood here praising the
managers' amendment. Then the word came down from the White House--not
from Vice Chairman Bond but from the White House--through the minority
leader, that this vote was to be a test of Republican Party loyalty and
that therefore all Republicans were instructed to vote against it.

In all of my years in the Senate, and certainly all of my years on
the Intelligence Committee, I have never seen something so repugnant,
putting politics over national security. That is the bottom line.
Politics was put over national security.

An order came down: This is a test of Republican Party loyalty. When
it comes to that, by golly, you put politics over national security....

But this act of cynicism, this act for the third year in a row,
blocking intelligence legislation is beyond me. We all understand
nothing can happen in military action without intelligence leading the
way in; to scout out the territory, to get the feeling, to get through
language skills, et cetera, to get the feeling of what is going on so
we know what we are getting into.

I will not get into the importance of intelligence for Iraq or
Afghanistan, but this is a real crusher. I am not shocked or
discouraged with the intelligence. I am more fired up than ever on
intelligence. I am shocked because something like this happens in the
United States Senate for any reason at any time. I have been in this
body for 24 years.

I have been in this body for 24 years, and on one occasion a majority
leader called me at home--I happened to be shaving, and it was not a
convenient phone call--and asked me to vote against a particular piece
of legislation, which I was going to vote against in any event. That
has never happened since then. Not once have I been instructed by my
party or by my minority or majority leader to vote a certain way.

Yet when it comes to national security, to funding intelligence
agencies, where we change the authorities, where we spent weeks in
trying to work out hard problems, and did so in the managers'
amendment, with more amendments to come, which we would have agreed to,
to alleviate the White House's concern--the White House decided they do
not like oversight. Well, I understand that. When I was a Governor, I
did not like oversight. Nobody likes oversight, but it is our
constitutional responsibility. We do not have that choice. We have that
duty.

One of the great things about the Intelligence Committee is it has
come together in recent months to accept this responsibility and to
reach out and take hold of it with a vigor and a lust that makes us
want to do more--but not to overdo but to do. Then along comes this
vote.

It certainly is the most disappointing day, the most disappointing
vote, the most disappointing sign of where we are in this country--the
most disappointing sense of the relationship between the executive
branch and the legislative branch--the failure of the realization we
exist for a reason, that we work hard, getting ready for this vote
because we had a chance to do it. Then comes down the instruction: No.
Politics trumps national security. Prove you are a loyal Republican.
Vote no.

It is not a good day in the Senate.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Toons: Fair and Balanced

In the interest of balance, I submit the following as the Toon of the Day:


More Dire Economics

I've been watching the whole mortgage and re-finance nonsense for some time. For the past several years friends and family know that I have been saying that the meltdown was coming in that area: People were buying homes, or cashing in equity, with wild abandon. I personally know folks who pay over 50% of their household income towards their mortgage and escrow. And it's an adjustible rate mortgage.

I believe that we are on the precipice of a consumer financial meltdown not seen since 1930. When (not if), the Fed bumps up the prime rate a lot of the ARMS and adjustible equity loans are going to trigger.

...then the mortgage companies and banks start to go under (some already are).
...then credit dries up, credit card rates skyrocket due to late fees and payments.
...then the rental market shoots up as people are forced out of home ownership.
...then lower-income folks have an even harder time of finding affordable housing.
...then private investment in the stock market declines precipitously.
...new car and luxury item sales evaporate.

Boy, I hope I'm wrong. But Warren Buffett apparently agrees with some of what I say:

Buffett: "Dumb lending always has its consequences. It's like a disease that doesn't manifest itself for a few weeks, like an epidemic that doesn't show up until it's too late to stop it Any developer will build anything he can borrow against. If you look at the 10Ks that are getting filed [by banks] and compare them just against last year's 10Ks, and look at their balances of 'interest accrued but not paid,' you'll see some very interesting statistics [implying that many homeowners are no longer able to service their current debt]."

Inflation analysis

This diary over at Kos has lots of graphs of economic indicators, along with analysis of same. Interesting read.

Effects of the Surge

Gonzo, this is from down in your neck of the woods...

Over the past six months, American troops have died in Iraq at the highest rate since the war began, an indication that the conflict is becoming increasingly dangerous for U.S. forces even after more than four years of fighting.

From October 2006 through last month, 532 American soldiers were killed, the most during any six-month period of the war. March also marked the first time that the U.S. military suffered four straight months of 80 or more fatalities. April, with 58 service members killed through Monday, is on pace to be one of the deadliest months of the conflict for American forces.

Senior American military officials attribute much of the increase to the Baghdad security crackdown, now in its third month. But the rate of fatalities was increasing even before...

Monday, April 16, 2007

150 years, but he can't take it any more

Former Congressman Pete McCloskey, who ran against Nixon for the Republican nomination in 1972, just registered as a Democrat.

Until the past few weeks, I had hoped that the party could right itself, returning to the values of the Eisenhowers, Fords and George H. W. Bush.

What finally turned me to despair, however, was listening to the reports, or watching on C-Span, a whole series of congressional oversight hearings on C-Span, held by old friends and colleagues like Pat Leahy, Henry Waxman, Norm Dicks, Nick Rahall, Danny Akaka and others, trying to learn the truth on the misdeeds and incompetence of the Bush Administration. Time after time I saw Republican Members of the House and Senate. speak out in scorn or derision about these exercises of Congress oversight responsibility being "witch-hunts" or partisan attempts to distort the actions of people like the head of the General Service Administration and the top political appointees in the Justice and Interior Departments. Disagreement turned into disgust.

I finally concluded that it was a fraud for me to remain a member of this modern Republican Party, that there were only a few like Chuck Hegel, Jack Warner, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins I could respect.

Congressional Comparisons

"And, Garrett, your 'Decider' comment nonwithstanding, at least they passed bills."

Funny you should bring that up...

As today marks the end of the first 100 days of the 110th Congress, see how our work compares with previous Congresses:

The 110th Congress vs. Previous Congresses

Great Commentary

There was an article on the Politico website about the middle-class. Typical puffery. Well, a comment by Jane Reinheimer hit the nail on the head; no, wait, smashed the nail through the board and into the floor. What she says is exactly what I have been trying to get through to you. Here's her comment in it's entirety:

Hey, politicos: your speeches reek of hypocrisy. It's almost as if you truly believe that the middle class taxpayers in this country actually believe the rhetoric that falls out of your mouths.

One of these days, the politicians will realize that there is really a moral high ground. Fighting all these fox-hole battles with cheap shots at each other doesn't get them votes.

There is a huge block of voters in this country. It's not the far right wing conspiracy as the leftists would have you believe. It's not even a far left wing liberal conspiracy that the far right would have you believe.

It's just us, and millions more like us. We don't really fit into the divided little groups you try to plug us into.

We are one America. We have our differences and we have our dialogues. We're the ones who actually talk to one another. You know, dialogue.

Politicians don't know how to dialogue. They shut down and go off pouting and skulking. Wah wah wah.

For instance, the majority leader of the Senate said he was not going to meet with the president, after having been invited to the White House to discuss something the other day. That is, he wasn't going to come to the White House until the president came around to the senator's way of thinking. He accused the president of using "bait and switch" tactics. Whatever that means.

Then there's that all-powerful, truth twisting speakerette of the House. She said she wasn't going to meet with the president either.

I guess they've since changed their minds. Maybe their constituents called them and said, "Listen, looney tunes, what do you think we elected you to do?? Sit in your ivory tower and pretend you don't have to talk to anybody. Uh, like the president?"

We're the middle income majority and we hate that kind of an attitude. We thought we made that clear during the last election when we asked, before we went to the polls, "Why can't you guys get along up there?"

Toons for the Day







Way Off Base

In the NYTimes today, Paul Krugman writes (subscription required):

But a funny thing has happened on the Democratic side: the party’s base seems to be more in touch with the mood of the country than many of the party’s leaders. And the result is peculiar: on key issues, reluctant Democratic politicians are being dragged by their base into taking highly popular positions.


Nice of them to finally notice...

Sunday, April 15, 2007

HistoryShots

Hey, Gonzo, here's a poster for you...

The Politicization of the DoJ

A 30-year DoJ veteran speaks about how the Bush administration has destroyed the DoJ.

I began earlier, in the first Nixon administration, as a college intern in 1971. But I was there again in the Watergate era, when I worked in part of the Attorney General's Office during my first year of law school in 1973-1974, and then continuously as a trial attorney and office director for nearly 30 years. That adds up to more than a dozen attorneys general, including Ed Meese as well as John Mitchell, and I used to think that they had politicized the department more than anyone could or should. But nothing compares to the past two years under Alberto Gonzales.

To be sure, he continued a trend of career/noncareer separation that began under John Ashcroft, yet even Ashcroft brought in political aides who in large measure were experienced in government functioning. Ashcroft's Justice Department appointees, with few exceptions, were not the type of people who caused you to wonder what they were doing there. They might not have been firm believers in the importance of government, but generally speaking, there was a very respectable level of competence (in some instances even exceptionally so) and a relatively strong dedication to quality government, as far as I could see.

Under Gonzales, though, almost immediately from the time of his arrival in February 2005, this changed quite noticeably. First, there was extraordinary turnover in the political ranks, including the majority of even Justice's highest-level appointees. It was reminiscent of the turnover from the second Reagan administration to the first Bush administration in 1989, only more so. Second, the atmosphere was palpably different, in ways both large and small. One need not have had to be terribly sophisticated to notice that when Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey left the department in August 2005 his departure was quite abrupt, and that his large farewell party was attended by neither Gonzales nor (as best as could be seen) anyone else on the AG's personal staff.

Third, and most significantly for present purposes, there was an almost immediate influx of young political aides beginning in the first half of 2005 (e.g., counsels to the AG, associate deputy attorneys general, deputy associate attorneys general, and deputy assistant attorneys general) whose inexperience in the processes of government was surpassed only by their evident disdain for it....

You have to remember that this is a Cabinet department that, for good reason, prides itself on the high-quality administration of justice, regardless of who is in the White House. Ever since the Watergate era, when Edward Levi came in as attorney general to replace former Sen. William Saxby soon after Nixon resigned, the Justice Department maintained a healthy distance between it and what could be called the raw political concerns that are properly within the White House's domain. Even Reagan's first attorney general, William French Smith, did not depart greatly from the standard that Levi set; as for Meese, I knew him to be more heavily involved in defending himself from multiple ethics investigations than in bringing the department too close to the White House, even though he came from there.

More recently, of course, the DOJ-White House distance hit its all-time high-water mark under Janet Reno, especially during Clinton's second term. And even John Ashcroft made it clear to all department employees that, among other things, he held that traditional distance in proper reverence; he proved that this was no mere lip service when, from his hospital bed, he refused to overrule Deputy AG Comey on what is now called the "terrorist surveillance program." Especially in the wake of 9/11, which strongly spurred the morale and dedication of Justice Department employees, myself included, I saw only a limited morale diminution in general during the first term.

But that strong tradition of independence over the previous 30 years was shattered in 2005 with the arrival of the White House counsel as a second-term AG. All sworn assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, it was as if the White House and Justice Department now were artificially tied at the hip -- through their public affairs, legislative affairs and legal policy offices, for example, as well as where you ordinarily would expect such a connection (i.e., Justice's Office of Legal Counsel). I attended many meetings in which this total lack of distance became quite clear, as if the current crop of political appointees in those offices weren't even aware of the important administration-of-justice principles that they were trampling.

This matters greatly to Justice Department employees of my generation. They are now the senior career cadre there, with the high-grade institutional knowledge that carries the department from one administration to the next, and when they see a new attorney general come from the White House Counsel's Office with a wave of young "Bushies" in tow and find their worst expectations quickly met, they just as quickly lose respect for nearly all of the department's political leadership, not to mention that leadership's "policy concerns." That respect is a vital thing, as fragile as it is essential, and now it's gone.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Food For Thought

A letter to the Tallahassee Democrat brought up an interesting point: Where was the ACLU in the Imus bruhaha? Isn't this a freedom of speech issue?

Friday, April 13, 2007

The Whole Story


I love it how you left out the hysterical beginning of the article. This is dishonest and wrong. Shame on you and shame on Kos for this. If a Democrat gets elected in 08 and then fires everyone, then what? Different rules? Oh, wait, there'll be a mealy-mouthed explanation.
This crap continues, expect a very nasty 08 election. Politicians and pundits may like partisan politics but, historically, the electorate hates 'em. As we shall see.


Purge affair talking points

I hate lifting posts wholesale, but....

Today, I will tackle a set of responses to the most common Republican talking points I have heard for this affair:

Republican talking point:

Prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the President, they can be fired for any reason, even politics.


Response: James Madison certainly didn't agree.

The danger then consists merely in this, the president can displace from office a man whose merits require that he should be continued in it. What will be the motives which the president can feel for such abuse of his power, and the restraints that operate to prevent it? In the first place, he will be impeachable by this house, before the senate, for such an act of mal-administration; for I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal from his own high trust.


So yes, he can fire people, but that doesn't mean he should. He was entrusted broad latitude in firing members of his branch without interference, but the very concept of "entrusting" someone with something, necessarily implies that it is possible to abuse that trust. If there was no possibility of abuse, there would be no question of trust in the first place.

Republican talking point:

Democrats are just engaging in a partisan political investigation to win votes. This is wrong.


Response: If you're going to argue that Bush can use the DoJ to persecute Democrats to win elections, than you can hardly blame the Democrats for persecuting Bush with their investigatory powers. Turn and turn about. Investigations serve at the pleasure of congress. Of course, as Jay Carney with Time Magazine noted, Democrats were not initially all that concerned with the firings, until TalkingPointsMemo succeeded in bringing the story to the forefront:

When this story first surfaced, I thought the Bush White House and Justice Department were guilty of poorly executed acts of crass political patronage. I called some Democrats on the Hill; they were "concerned", but this was not a priority. The blogosphere was the engine on this story, pulling the Hill and the MSM along. As the document dump proves, what happened was much worse than I'd first thought. I was wrong.


Some partisan "witch hunt." Again, to Republicans, would you not be concerned to learn a Democratic administration had investigated Republicans 7 times as often as Democrats, the way this Administration has done to Democrats?

Republican talking point:

Clinton fired all 93 USAs and you Democrats didn't care back then.


Response: Most of you know this one, but I'll just include it for completeness. It is their most frequent refrain. No, Democrats did not complain, because firing political appointees like Federal Prosecutors is something that incoming Presidents are expected to do. This is necessary and proper. No President should be expected to keep on the political appointees of the prior administration, particularly when the prior administration was from another party. News flash: Clinton fired all of George H.W. Bush's cabinet too!

Further, as we now know, Reagan and George W. Bush did the same thing when taking office (the pace of firings may have varied a little, but replacing all 93 within the first year of a President's first term is par for the course).

Finally, when Clinton fired all 93, you Republicans tried to raise a stink about this!

Republican talking point:

Clinton fired prosecutors in 1993 to stop the investigation of his friend Rep Dan Rostenkowski (D-Il)! It was a cover up!


Response: This is a comically bad conspiracy theory. It might have looked bad in 1993, but with the lens of history we can soundly refute it....

Shorter response: Oh yeah? How come Rosty was still indicted, defeated for re-election in 1994, convicted and sent to prison. Some "cover up."

Republican talking point:

Clinton fired the Arkansas investigator to cover up Whitewater!


Response: ....even George H.W. Bush's prosecutor, Charles Banks had declined to prosecute the Clintons over Whitewater, and thus there was no "ongoing investigation" to interrupt by replacing him. Not to mention that the matter would get investigated twice more, most notably by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr with an unlimited staff and budget.

Charles A. Banks had himself resisted investigating the Whitewater matter, reportedly in defiance of pressure from George H.W. Bush administration officials in search of a pre-election issue with which to tar challenger Clinton....

Republican talking point:

Prosecutors are political appointees, and Presidents need to replace the ones who don't follow the broad political directives of the current Administration.


Response: This one is true. It doesn't apply to Purgegate in the slightest, but in the abtract, it's correct. If a Prosecutor was focusing their office's efforts on a type of crime that was not a priority for the Administration, to the detriment of another category of crime the Administration had vowed to tackle, that would be fair grounds for firing.

The problem is that no such credible grounds exist for these fired 8. Immigration? No, one of the released emails shows a DoJ official offering that as a suggested rationale, after the decision to fire them had already been made. Immigration was to be a proferred reason, but not the actual reason. Worse, in Carol Lam's case, we have Sampson testifying that no one at DoJ had ever spoken to her about her supposedly unacceptable record on Immigration cases. So it was such a big problem as to warrant firing her, but no one could pick up a phone and ask her to put more emphasis on immigration, the way any normal human boss would with an erring subordinate? Poppycock. In Iglesias' case, we know his name appears on a list of non-Bushie attorneys to be fired long before Republican congressional complaints about him appeared. Again, more rationalizations after the fact.

The short response is that no acceptable professional reason for the firings has been found or demonstrated by the Bush Administration. This talking point speaks to a possible acceptable reason to fire one, but the firings here do not meet that bar.

More on the Federalist

I'll bet Gonzo could make as good a case for this supporting his argument as I could for mine.

In the Founders’ view, the “blessings of liberty” were threatened by “those military establishments which must gradually poison its very fountain.” The Federalist No. 45, p. 238 (J. Madison). No fewer than 10 issues of the Federalist were devoted in whole or part to allaying fears of oppression from the proposed Constitution’s authorization of standing armies in peacetime. Many safeguards in the Constitution reflect these concerns. Congress’s authority “[t]o raise and support Armies” was hedged with the proviso that “no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.” U.S. Const., Art. 1, §8, cl. 12. Except for the actual command of military forces, all authorization for their maintenance and all explicit authorization for their use is placed in the control of Congress under Article I, rather than the President under Article II. As Hamilton explained, the President’s military authority would be “much inferior” to that of the British King:

“It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy: while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which, by the constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.” The Federalist No. 69, p. 357.

Castro Recovering

AP:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday said his close friend and ally Fidel Castro has "almost totally recovered" from his illness, and Cuba's foreign minister said the ailing leader is getting stronger every day.

Wow. I guess the horror movies are correct. It takes a beheading to wipe out a demon, vampire, or zombie. As well as a Cuban dictator. But I repeat myself.

Thom Hartmann

At Suz's suggestion, I checked out Thom Hartman.

He's an interesting guy; what I would call an earnest socialist as opposed to a shrill one. Shockingly (heh), his messages are optimistic and positive although there isn't much he says that I agree with. For example, he writes:

In 1792, James Madison defined government's role in promoting an American middle class, "By the silent operation of the laws, which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence toward a state of comfort." To say that somebody who earns millions a year by arbitrage "works that much harder" than a middle-class wage earner is simple nonsense. We recommend restoring inflation-indexed income tax and inheritance tax rates to those that were extant from the 1930s to the 1960s - during the golden era of the American middle class. We also recommend that government become the "employer of last resort" by taking on public works projects and supporting the arts, as it did during that era, and establishing a truly livable minimum wage.

I think here he's misidentifying the period and causes of the rise of the middle class. The middle class arose in the postwar 1940's, not the 30's. It had little to do with high tax rates (that doesn't even make sense) and more with the engines of industry as the country militarized and industrialized to fight fascism, then communism.

As to public works projects and the arts, maybe he is talking about the 1930s. But the 1930's were a desperate, morbund period that led to global radicalization and a spate of political assassinations and hate groups here in the USA. Surely he doesn't want a return to that?

Elsewhere on his site he's pretty clearly anti-corporation. He sees them as a threat to democracy and desires a much more powerful government to enact laws to stifle the corporations. I dunno but given a choice between big business and big government, I choose business.

Last I looked, it wasn't Ford or Boeing rounding up and gassing people. Or invading Poland. Or turning Asian women into prostitutes.

On This Day in American History

In 1861, Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor surrendered after having come under blockade the day before. The Civil War had begun.

A Clarification of Roles

From The Federalist Papers, #74. The caps are part of the original text. The italics and bold are mine. Anyone want to argue Constitutional interpretation with Alexander Hamilton?

...or James Madison or John Jay - each contributed to the Papers.

THE President of the United States is to be "commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States WHEN CALLED INTO THE ACTUAL SERVICE of the United States." The propriety of this provision is so evident in itself, and it is, at the same time, so consonant to the precedents of the State constitutions in general, that little need be said to explain or enforce it. Even those of them which have, in other respects, coupled the chief magistrate with a council, have for the most part concentrated the military authority in him alone. Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength, forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.

UPDATE:

After posting this, I re-read all Federalist Papers delineating the different responsibilities of the legislative and executive branches and I was struck by how the Founders considered standing armies a necessary evil that threatened the liberties of the people. If you read papers 24 through 27 it is clear that they intentionally made it difficult to raise and maintain armies and it truly requires both branches with a clear purpose to implement.

On the other hand, once the mission has been established and the armies raised, they are also quite clear that Congress should be hands-off on the use of the armies.

What's also interesting is that it is also clear that States were assumed to raise their own militias and band together against a Federal government that enacted laws "odious" to the States. As history teaches us, when a bunch of States actually tried to do that, it didn't work too well; in fact, Lincoln's use of force to restore the Union against the States wills would have been viewed as tyrannical by the Federalists.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Constitution on War Powers

For the benefit of people who seem to have forgotten how this country works:

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to...provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;...

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;...

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;...And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Ken Himmler?

I hadn't heard Olbermann's comparison of the appearance of Ken Starr to Heinrich Himmler before, so I went and looked it up.



You know, that's actually not that far off....

Free Speech (Part Two)

The other shoe fell today and Don Imus was fired from his CBS radio show.

When describing the Rutgers womens basketball team, Imus used the phrase "nappy headed hos" which has denigrating racial implications. It was a very poor choice of words and in bad taste.

The firestorm that erupted was worse. Imus almost immediately apologized and offered up all sorts of acts of contrition. But the blood was in the water and it was inevitable that the media, spooked by potential loss of revenues, sent forth his head on a silver platter.

I listened to a lot of talk radio today as I was home sick. Every single host I listened to defended Imus and hoped that he wouldn't lose his job. Who did I listen to? Glenn Back, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity.

What they were defending was principle. No one with a brain would mistake Imus for a conservative and he backed Kerry in 2004 which pretty much seals the deal as a political litmus test.

He said something stupid and inane but no worse than I've heard on Stern or Franken or, for that matter, Savage.

Jesse Jackson, you know, the guy who had a child with his office assistant, and Al Sharpton (the guy who got folks killed inciting a riot in the garmet district of NYC) demand that standards be set for what can and cannot be said on the airwaves.

Meanwhile, I can turn on any urban contemporary music stations and hear "bitch, n-----, ho, etc." literally hundreds of times an hour.

Free speech is just that. You do not have a right to not be insulted by what one says. There are hateful words to be sure. Most people I think, hearing the audio, would realize that this guy used a poor choice of words and wasn't being hateful. Were the words illegal? No.

Is it right to deprive someone of their livelihood for a poor choice? And if the answer is yes, shouldn't Jackson and Sharpton be delegitimized for their use of "hymie" and "cracker" when referring to Jews and whites?

This whole incident should serve as a wakeup call to everyone.

Olbermann's Problem With Free Speech

Leave it to a whiny shitbag like Keith Olbermann to try to turn the unfortunate Don Imus situation into a platform to launch attacks on all other conservative talk show hosts. From the transcript of his April 11 broadcast:

OLBERMANN: Relative to not music but news, entertainment, and the idea that Don Imus was not alone among those who have made remarks like this, let me go through a few names and then ask you a question in terms of momentum, in terms of fairness.

Comments by people like Rush Limbaugh, who calls Senator Barack Obama and actress Halle Berry, quote, “halfrican-Americans.” Michael Savage, who asked whether the Voting Right Acts intended to counteract racial discrimination at the ballot box was trying to, quote, “put a chad in every crack house.” There‘s Neil Boortz, the other radio talker, who said the black congressman Cynthia McKinney looked, quote, “like a ghetto slut.” Glenn Beck from CNN and ABC, who referred to the largely African-American survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans as, quote, “scumbags,” and who, when he interviewed the Black Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, from Minnesota, said he felt like saying to him, “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.”

Do I really need to dig up Olbermann or other left-wing talkers (a dying breed) offensive quotes to point out that he singled out these folks?

It was a failed joke in poor taste. And now it's being used as a starting point for a jihad against others. Typical.

How soon they forget...

From Crooks and Liars today:

Rep. Dan Burton — the Indiana Republican who showered subpoenas on the Clinton White House as chairman of the House Government Reform Committee — is joining other Republicans in warning that the committee under its new Democratic leadership may be abusing its subpoena powers.

At the end of March … Burton, along with committee ranking member Tom Davis (R-Va.) and most of the other Republican members warned that the Democrats are straying close to the line of what is appropriate in oversight.

“Effective, constructive oversight is much more a matter of due diligence and digging than depositions and sensational disclosures,” the Republicans wrote.


Is that so. In the 1990s, Dan Burton & Co. handed out subpoenas like candy. He subpoenaed 141 different Clintonites. He held hearings — for 10 days — on the Clintons’ Christmas card list. In one instance, Burton was so reckless, he subpoenaed the wrong man (looking for someone with a similar name). In another instance, Burton fired a bullet into a “head-like object” — reportedly a melon — in his backyard to test the theory that former White House counsel Vincent Foster was murdered (this from the man who is now warning against “sensational disclosures”).

And now Burton is worried about Dems going too far? Please.

How deep does it go?

Gonz, this Kos comment points up why we're been screaming about this from day one...

#. This started out with the investigation of why the White House and A.G. targeted 8 U.S. Attorneys for ouster, but has turned into something more.

#. When Congress and the country learned that the White House and the Republican Party were working together to coordinate the forced resignations of one or more U.S. Attorneys, discovering the nature of their electronic communications became paramount in determining how deep the conspiracy ran.

#. And, when Congress and the country learned learned that some in the White House were using Republican Email addresses or servers in an attempt to bypass more closely-monitored government communications of sensative material, all hell broke loose.

#. But that paled in comparison to the firestorm that came when it was further discovered that White House operatives were scrambling to hide, delete or destroy files and e-mails between it and Republican Party bosses and operatives.

DEVELOPING . . .

Back to the 70s

This seems to cover it pretty well:

Would the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia -- appointed by Gonzales under the infamous and now-repealed provision of the PATRIOT Act -- refuse to prosecute the White House and the Department of Justice for failing to produce the subpoenaed e-mails, or for destroying them? Well, it's happened before. Back in the 80s, the Reagan DoJ refused to prosecute EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch Burford for her contempt of Congress charges, and even filed suit against the House of Representatives to block the enforcement of their subpoenas.

So what we have here is not just an 18-minute gap, but a case where Archibald Cox has already been fired. We've already had our Saturday Night Massacre.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Slam Down

Apparently, Garrett doesn't trust people to read comments so he refutes posts by starting new ones. Cheesy at best but even worse when he's wrong. Let's take apart his last post:

The tree-huggers and minimum water safety. The EPA was founded in December 1970 under the presidency of...(gasp!)...Richard Nixon, an evil Republican!

The FDA, responsible for food and medicine safety, began in 1862, under that nefarious Republican Abe Lincoln!

So shove it up your ass, liberal boy. And I use the word "boy" to indicate someone who needs to grow up.

Conservatives don't block protections, they just make sure that there is a balance between common sense protections and the good of the country. I am so sick and tired of hearing that since we don't endorse the nanny state, somehow we are against the common good.

Funny, liberal boy, how you say this coming from an all-white family. I'm married to a Hispanic and my kids are half so. My eldest daughter is seriously involved with a man half-black. My best friend in black. I practice what you preach but aren't doing. How fucking dare you question me.

A Day In the Life of Joe Republican

One of the commenters on the previous post linked to this screed.

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised....

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Bogus cartoon

Funny you should post that, Gonzo, because the original "joke" just came up on Kos.

Wow. This is a joke, right? You actually think the difference between Republicans (i.e. "the rich") and Democrats (i.e. "the poor") is that the poor are lazy and party all the time while the rich work? I think you may need a reality check....

Let's take, for example, the leader of the Republicans right now, George W. Bush. Born to the wealthy Bush family. GW was not a great student. He partied, drank and even did drugs. But where did he go to college? Yale. How did he get in? Because his dad went to Yale, and they let him in as a part of the "legacy program". He could never have gotten in otherwise, because he didn't have good grades in high school. George didn't do so hot at Yale either. Yes, more partying again. But when he got out, what happened? He started several businesses with money from his dad's friends. These businesses failed, but there was always someone there to bail George out when times went bad. By all accounts, George should have been a "poor Democrat" with the choices he made, but as you can see that is not the case....

My friend Chris was in the first Gulf War. He was on the front lines, a sniper. He suffers from PTSD because of all the killing and the people attempting to kill him. He also suffers from Gulf War Syndrome, which he believes he got when the chemical weapons found in Iraq were thrown together and burned (yes, we destroyed the "weapons of mass distruction" in the first war, but that is another story) and he was close enough to be affected (their chemical sensors went off and their superiors told them to ignore them). Chris is no longer able to work. Bright lights, ringing phones, loud sounds, even airplanes, all of that is terrifying to him. So what does he do? He was "certified" by the government to have PTSD, so they are giving him $700 a month for the rest of his life because he can't work. But they still deny the Gulf War Syndrome -- hair falling out, weird skin patches, headaches, other weird illnesses. So he has to survive on $700 a month for the rest of his life. $700. That barely pays the rent. How is he supposed to eat and pay bills? Again, is he "lazy"? Is he "partying"?

Cartoon Humor




Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Olbermann's Crutch

More from the WSJ's opinionjournal.com. They were particularly snarky today:

Worst Person in the World: 5-Year-Old Suzie!

From a New York magazine profile of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann:

It probably won't come as much of a surprise that when Keith Olbermann was a kid, he got the tar kicked out of him on a regular basis. And not by the football team. "I got beat up by girls all the time," says Olbermann. "They literally posted a sign-up sheet and would take turns. I think that's why I've always been such a fan of Mencken's line, 'Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.' I've been afflicted."

Olbermann's affliction began at age 5 . . .

It's been said that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality. Apparently a liberal is someone who's been mugged by little girls.

More Discredited Leftist Whining

From opinionjournal.com


Murphy's Law?

Left-wing blogs have been abuzz for a couple of days over a post by Mark Graber, a professor of law and government at the University of Maryland. Graber prints a story he received from Walter F. Murphy, a professor emeritus of jurisprudence at Princeton who now lives in New Mexico, about a bad experience Murphy had last month with airport security in Albuquerque. Murphy alleges that the treatment he received was politically motivated.

How credible is this claim? As luck would have it, Kip Hawley, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration visited The Wall Street Journal's office this morning, so we showed him a copy of Graber's post. Here is Murphy's story, as reprinted by Graber, with Hawley's explanation of what happened:

On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving.

When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years.


According to Hawley, the only list a passenger might be on that would prevent him from boarding a plane is the "no fly" list. Since Murphy did ultimately get on the plane, he self-evidently was not on that list. Hawley says it is possible that someone with the same name was on the list; such an error befell Ted Kennedy in 2004.

More likely, though, Murphy was a "selectee"--chosen for heightened security by a process that is part random, part based on a variety of factors, most of which are not publicly disclosed, but which are known to include holding a one-way ticket and purchasing a ticket in cash.

This has happened to us on numerous occasions. If you have ever had a row of S's appear on your boarding pass, and been taken out of the main line at the security checkpoint to have your bags searched, it has happened to you as well. Selectees, Hawley explained to us, are not allowed to check in at curbside but must go to the ticket counter, as in Murphy's case.
Murphy's tale continues:

I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said.

There are two problems with this. First, federal terrorist watch lists are compiled not by political appointees but by career professionals at the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, who, according to Hawley, would balk at any effort to list people for political reasons. Second, airline clerks have no way of knowing why a passenger is a selectee or on the no-fly list; they know only that he is. If the clerk actually said what Murphy claims he did, he was either joking or expressing his own (ill-informed) political opinion.

As we said, Murphy was allowed on the plane:

After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: "I must warn you, they=re [sic] going to ransack your luggage." On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was "lost." Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this "loss" could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I'm a tad skeptical.


It is true, Hawley said, that TSA agents open the luggage of all selectees (the word "ransack" seems another case of the clerk editorializing). As for Murphy's suspicion that his lost bag on the otherwise trouble-free return flight was taken as some sort of political retaliation, Hawley says: "Give me a break."

Hawley added that if Murphy wishes to file a complaint about the treatment he received, he can do so online through the Homeland Security Department's Traveler Redress Inquiry Program.

But if Murphy's account of the facts is accurate, what happened here was out of the ordinary only inasmuch as the airline clerk--not a government employee--made a sensational and untrue claim, a claim that Murphy himself was eager to believe:

I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any elected official, Democrat or Republican. That harassment is, in and of itself, a flagrant violation not only of the First Amendment but also of our entire scheme of constitutional government. This effort to punish a critic states my lecture's argument far more eloquently and forcefully than I ever could.

Murphy isn't the only one who was eager to believe it. Here are some other comments:


Andrew Sullivan: "Just a heads up about what these people [the Bush administration] are up to."


Josh Marshall: "Given who Professor Murphy is, I have no doubt this is an accurate account of his particular experience. And it would seem that the people who actually work with the list on a daily basis treat it as a given that the most innocuous and obviously protected forms of criticism of the Bush administration routinely get you on the watch list. That pretty much confirms the truth of what most of us would probably have thought was a harebrained conspiracy theory. Doesn't this deserve more scrutiny?"


Matt Stoller: "This Murphy chap sounds like a smart fellow, but he also sounds like someone who profoundly lacks empathy for the situation of others. And those that are shocked by his situation, and at this point there shouldn't be very many of us reading this blog that are, should open our eyes and begin to wake up to what other cavalier violations of civil rights go on around us every day."


Rod Dreher: "If this account is true, and if it's true that just going to a peace march puts you at risk for being on the terrorism 'no-fly' list, I'd say Congress had damn well better hold hearings about this at once, and find out just exactly what powers the federal government are exercising against law-abiding citizens who happen to oppose administration policy. We could be deep into Nixon territory."


Now, stop and think about this: We are expected to believe that Murphy was "singled out" for his political views. But this credulous chorus of concurrence proves there is nothing singular about those views. Andrew Sullivan, Josh Marshall, Matt Stoller and Rod Dreher are among many thousands upon thousands of people who have given speeches, written articles or otherwise publicly declaimed against President Bush.

If the Bush administration were trying to stifle dissent, Murphy's experience would be typical, and Bush's harshest critics would be offering their own stories of airport-security woe--or they would be silenced. Instead, they rush to affirm Murphy's interpretation of his own experience. It is what they want to believe, even though it runs counter to their own experience.

Some people are so blinded by hatred, they're gullible enough to believe anything.

All sorts of people read blogs.

For example:

There’ve been some interesting posts picking up this sub-thread. Here’s another historical perspective from Your Official Old Fart.

As it happened, I was one of the lucky scientist/engineers at the foremost acoustics consultancy of those days, Bolt Beranek & Newman Inc. of Cambridge MA, in whose lab the famous “18-and-a-half-minute gap” tape was analyzed at the behest of Judge John Sirica.

It was our ironclad and incontrovertible finding, which we backed up publicly, that the erasure had been done deliberately by hand (not footpedal) — using the FWD, BACKWD, RECORD, and STOP pushbuttons on a particular Uher-brand tape recorder (one accessible only to Nixon and his Executive Assistant, the haplessly loyal Rose Mary Woods), that constituted the first proof that there was evidence tampering by “someone” (never proven who) at the White House.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Fred Anyone?

Now that Fred(he calls me "you're who?") has shifted gears and is now moving into the yep, I'm almost ready to announce that I'm looking at the run for the presidency a little stronger, things are picking up. This is a brilliant strategy! He's got many people from all over the spectrum pushing him to run and he hasn't spent a penny. I think there are almost 10,000 people who have signed up on the internet to help him already. That's stout. What are y'all's thoughts on the man?

Democrats doing everything wrong?

Right, Gonz. Whatever you say.

If the Democratic ascendance on Capitol Hill was supposed to usher in dark days for Republicans, it is hard to tell from talking to moderate ones like Mike Ferguson, who represents a suburban district in central New Jersey.

As the new Democrat-led House rushed to complete its business before adjourning for spring break this week, Representative Ferguson was marveling at the many bills that had been passed in Congress’s first 100 days, including one that would make it easier for unions to organize and another that would increase the minimum wage.

“Under the Republican majority, those bills would have never gotten to the floor,” he explained before heading back to his district. “Now they have been brought to the floor, and I’ve voted for them.”

Mr. Ferguson’s enthusiasm captures a peculiar political reality in the Capitol: many Republicans from swing districts in the Northeast are finding that life under Democratic rule has its advantages.

Is Fox's appointment illegal?

This letter to the GAO raises an interesting point that I hadn't considered.

Under 5 U.S.C. § 5503, in order for Mr. Fox to be paid for his services as Ambassador, his nomination would have to have been pending before the Senate on March 29th, when the Senate went into recess. Moreover, according to a separate statute, 31 U.S.C. § 1342, the U.S. Government cannot accept "voluntary services" from individuals except in an emergency....

In the case of Mr. Fox, however, it appears that the "voluntary services" prohibition would still apply because the position in question is a statutory entitlement with a fixed rate of pay that cannot be waived (Section 401 of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 mandates a fixed rate of pay for the position of Ambassador).

There appears to be a clear conflict between the pay restrictions as enumerated in Title 5 of the United States Code, which prevent Mr. Fox from being paid due to the circumstances of his recess appointment, and the "voluntary services" provision of Title 31 of the United States Code, which mandates that the United States Department of State cannot accept "voluntary services" for the position to which Mr. Fox has been recess appointed.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Guess we know why this US Attorney still has a job...

In a stunning reversal, a federal court of appeals struck down a state worker's fraud conviction that Wisconsin Republicans used in efforts to paint Gov. Jim Doyle's administration as corrupt.

Attorneys on both sides of the case said the three-judge panel likely overruled the trial jury's conviction of former state purchasing officer Georgia Thompson within hours of oral arguments due to a simple lack of evidence....

Michelle Jacobs, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic in Milwaukee, said it was difficult to comment without seeing the written decision.

But she agreed it would be difficult to ask the court to rehear the case - the next step for any appeal by prosecutors. That's because the decision appeared to hinge on the facts presented at trial, which wouldn't change, she said.

"We convinced a . . . jury, and we convinced (U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph T.) Randa but I think we're going to see that we didn't convince the three-judge court of appeals," Jacobs said. "I think it's very unlikely that we'll petition for a rehearing."

In a statement, Biskupic himself said simply: "We commend the work of Thompson's lawyers."

Tammy Jones, spokeswoman for the federal prison in Pekin, about 230 miles south of Madison, said Thursday afternoon that Thompson "will be released shortly."

Michael O'Hear, a law professor at Marquette University, said the Court of Appeals decision is unusual.

First, he said appeals court judges typically issue decisions weeks or months after hearing oral arguments, rather than on the same day. Second, instead of ordering a new trial - typically how appeals panels rule in favor of defendants - the judges acquitted Thompson.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

End-runs around the President

But probably not the one you're thinking of.

At the same time [May 1997] Congress was attaching human rights conditions to U.S. security assistance programs and negotiating a formal end-use monitoring agreement with the Colombian defense ministry, other lawmakers were secretly assuring Colombian officials that they felt such restrictions were unwarranted, and would work to either remove the conditions or limit their effectiveness.

One example of this was a congressional delegation led by Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) which met with Colombian military officials, promising to “remove conditions on assistance” and complaining about “leftist-dominated” U.S. congresses of years past that “used human rights as an excuse to aid the left in other countries.” Hastert said he would to correct this situation and expedite aid to countries allied in the war on drugs and also encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass the U.S. executive branch and communicate directly with Congress.”

In another cable (See Document 54) U.S. Ambassador Myles Frechette decries the fact that a shipment of items destined for the military – which had been held up pending negotiation of an end-use monitoring agreement – arrived in Colombia while the Hastert delegation was in country, undermining Frechette’s leverage with the Colombian military leadership.