Dick Tuck's Politics

A Departure's Lasting Damage

2005-10-28T07:42:00.000-04:00

EJ really nails the hypocricy. It's worth going to the link and reading the full opinion piece.

The damage President Bush and the conservative movement have inflicted on their drive to pack the Supreme Court with allies will not be undone by Harriet Miers's decision to withdraw her nomination

In picking such a vulnerable nominee, Bush single-handedly undercut the conservatives' long-standing claim that the Senate and the rest of us owed great deference to a president's choice for the court. Conservatives displayed absolutely no deference to Bush when he picked someone they didn't like. The actual conservative "principle" was that the Senate should defer to the president's choice -- as long as that choice was acceptable to conservatives. Some principle.

Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel

2005-10-28T07:40:00.000-04:00

I wonder if this tidbit will be included in our Fitzmas stocking?

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.

Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said.

The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war.

...

2000

2005-10-25T16:51:00.000-04:00

We reached another milestone of morbidity in Iraq today (story at the link above). 2,000 Americans have now died to stop a nonimminent threat to our National Security. We might want to look back at some of the statements made leading us to war.

Nov. 14, 2002 Donald Rumsfeld, Sect. of Defense
"I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won't last any longer than that."

Nov. 15, 2002 Donald Rumsfeld, Infinity Radio call in show
"The idea that it's going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990," he said on an Infinity Radio call-in program. "Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."

May 1, 2003 Mission Accomplished
G.W. Bush: "Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Feb. 7, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy: "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

March 4, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a breakfast with reporters: "What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. . . . Iraq is much weaker than they were back in the '90s," when its forces were routed from Kuwait.

Ken Adelman, (he was part of the Defense Policy team that advised war)
Notes: “I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.” - Washington Post, February 13, 2002

RIP Rosa

2005-10-25T16:49:00.000-04:00

My good friend Pacelines wrote this sentiment, and it sure speaks for me:

She displayed amazing courage in incredibly difficult circumstances when she had absolutely no power at all. Through her nonviolent actions she helped change the culture of the United States for the better.

Noe transferred coin cash before giving to politicians

2005-10-11T08:30:00.000-04:00

This is getting interesting. It seems that Tom Noe, stole from the state pension fund, and used at least part of that theft to fund Republicans in Ohio.

COLUMBUS — Tom Noe often transferred tens of thousands of dollars from the Ohio rare-coin funds he managed to his personal business before bankrolling Republican candidates and causes with contributions and loans.A Blade examination of the accounting records from Mr. Noe’s $50 million rare-coin
venture shows a pattern of large sums of money moving from the coin funds to his personal business, Vintage Coins and Collectibles, in the days and weeks before the coin dealer and his wife, Bernadette, made contributions to Republican
candidates ranging from President Bush to U.S. Sen. George Voinovich and Gov. Bob Taft down to Lucas County Auditor Larry Kaczala.
Mr. Noe typically listed the payments from the coin funds to Vintage Coins as "profit distributions" or "coin purchases."But both of those explanations have been assailed as fraudulent by
Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, who has branded Mr. Noe a thief and accused the former Toledo-area coin dealer of running a Ponzi scheme and making questionable coin trades with the state fund.

There's more to the story at the link.

1/10th of One Percent.....

2005-09-30T02:59:00.000-04:00

That's the percentage of the Iraqi population that General Casey claims represents the insurgency. According to the CIA World Factbook Iraq has a population of 26,074,906. The math says that the US Administration is claiming that there's only 26,075 insurgents.

WTF are we doing there?

My Response To Ben Stein

2005-09-03T18:21:00.000-04:00

In his American Spectator column, Stein really talks up some shit. It's been almost 8 years since I made their enemies list, as "Nuck Fewt", so I figure I'll start a small shit storm and see what happens.

As always your insults and flames are welcome.

"1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying."

Almost as horrifying is the lack of preparedness. Airlines, trains, and buses were pulled out of service 24 hours before the hurricane hit, and this new fast thinking FEMA blamed the residents for not evacuating.

"2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one."

George Bush cut the budgets to the Corps of Engineers who predicted this event and were building up the levee system to minimize its impact.

"4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may well be, it started long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery."

There is overwhelming evidence that global warming is a man-made phenomenon. There are also well paid pundits and psuedoscientists who are in the pockets of the oil companies that dispute the simple reality that we are in a man-made caused greenhouse effect that makes storms like Katrina more likely and more potent. To blame the third world for this fact is plain ignorant. We are 4% of the worlds population and produce over 20% of the greenhouse gases. You want third world crapholes to revert to their 1990 CO2 levels (near zero) before our nation does anything? That's not only wrong, it's ignorant.

"6.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event, the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans neglected to follow the plan. It is not his fault that many persons in New Orleans were too confused to realize how dangerous the hurricane would be. They were certainly warned. It's not George Bush's fault that there were sick people and old people and people without cars in New Orleans. His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile."

So what is FEMA about? He had no problem doling out FEMA relief to Florida prior to the election. New Orleans evacuation plans depended on having a full National Guard contingent, and promised federal assistance in the evacuation. Louisiana doesn't have the authority to tell Amtrak or American Airlines to evacuate residents. The only one, under the Patriot Act, with that authority is Bush.

"7.) George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters taking people from rooftops, did not make gang bangers rape young girls in the Superdome, did not make looters steal hundreds of weapons, in short make New Orleans into a living hell."

Wow, there's a clue. How about when an infrastructure goes to hell, and people are trying to just survive, and every resource in Louisiana's first priority is to save lives, that some small groups of morons are going to take advantage. It reminds me of our response to the lawlessness and looting in Iraq. Why isn't Rumsfeld out there claiming that this is just a free people expressing themselves.
Is your point that we should let those in New Orleans rot in ovens of stadiums because there's knuckleheads out there? Isn't one of FEMAs responsibilities to preserve law and order?

"8.) George Bush is the least racist President in mind and soul there has ever been and this is shown in his appointments over and over. To say otherwise is scandalously untrue."

Yeah, if you suck up and play his toady he's very colorblind. If you speak out against one of his policies, he'll ruin you and your family regardless of their color. He'll even go so far as push poll your "colored child" if you're John McCain.

"9.) George Bush is rushing every bit of help he can to New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama as soon as he can. He is not a magician. It takes time to organize huge convoys of food and now they are starting to arrive. That they get in at all considering the lawlessness of the city is a miracle of bravery and organization."
As soon as he can? He should have propositioned food and aid 72 hours before the storm hit, and sent Federal aid to assist in the evacuation. He didn't even finish his vacation until three days after the tragedy, and only after screwing up a simple G chord in California.

Is this his new and improved FEMA? Now under Homeland Security to improve the response time to disasters?

"10.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say otherwise is pure slander."
Slander my ass. When you take away 30-40% of trained first responders, stuff happens. When you take away high water vehicles, stuff happens. For someone who made a buck of trying to get people to take your money, you don't really seem to have a grasp of the simple math.

"11.) If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of God worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city authorities and the malevolence of the criminals of the city were directed to helping the morale of the nation, we would all be a lot better off."

The only way he seems to get off his ass is to shame him into it. He wasn't even going to support an investigation into what went wrong prior to 9/11, until public opinion forced Karl Rove to change his mind. How the hell can you blame New Orleans authorities when every resource they had was working 16-20 hour shifts doing all they could to rescue people? How can you blame New Orleans authorities when they were warning the federal government for years of the risk to the levee system that Bush underfunded?

"12.) New Orleans is a great city with many great people. It will recover and be greater than ever. Sticking pins into an effigy of George Bush that does not resemble him in the slightest will not speed the process by one day."

Perhaps we have a different view of acceptable loss of life. People, six days after the tragedy still haven't been evacuated by our new and improved FEMA. Like father like son. Appoint toadies who don't know the first thing about emergency management, and have them go on Wolf Blitzer and blame the victims. Do you think Brown also blames those victims in nursing homes and hospitals that weren't evacuated?
"13.) The entire episode is a dramatic lesson in the breathtaking callousness of government officials at the ground level. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had gotten her way and they were in charge of your health care"

Hillary wouldn't have gone fishing during a disaster. If Hillary Clinton had gotten her way in health care, at least the upcoming cases of typhoid and dysentery would be covered.

Ben Stein, you were one of Richard Nixon's chief apologists to the end. At least wingnuts like PJ O'Rourke have some redeeming value in their comedic talent. You are, were, and will always be a nonthinking partisan toadie.

Bush's Obscene Tirades Rattle White House Aides

2005-08-29T14:29:00.000-04:00

While President George W. Bush travels around the country in a last-ditch effort to sell his Iraq war, White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him.

“I’m not meeting again with that goddamned bitch,” Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. “She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!”

Bush, administration aides confide, frequently explodes into tirades over those who protest the war, calling them “motherfucking traitors.” He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore “bullshit protectors” over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to “tell those VFW assholes that I’ll never speak to them again is they can’t keep their members under control.”

White House insiders say Bush is growing increasingly bitter over mounting opposition to his war in Iraq. Polls show a vast majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake and most doubt the President’s honesty.

“Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say,” he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. “I’m the President and I’ll do whatever I goddamned please. They don’t know shit.”

Bush, whiles setting up for a photo op for signing the recent CAFTA bill, flipped an extended middle finger to reporters. Aides say the President often “flips the bird” to show his displeasure and tells aides who disagree with him to “go to hell” or to “go fuck yourself.” His habit of giving people the finger goes back to his days as Texas governor, aides admit, and videos of him doing so before press conferences were widely circulated among TV stations during those days. A recent video showing him shooting the finger to reporters while walking also recently surfaced.

...

Torture Orders Came From The Top

2005-08-26T12:31:00.000-04:00

I had been hesitant to speak out before because this Administration is so vindictive. But now I will ... Anybody who confronts this Administration or Rumsfeld or the Pentagon with a true assessment, they find themselves either out of a job, out of their positions, fired, relieved or chastised. Their career comes to an end.

-- Janis Karpinski, interview with Marjorie Cohn, August 3, 2005

Someone Tell the President the War Is Over

2005-08-14T02:31:00.000-04:00

LIKE the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?

...

Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month.

U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq

2005-08-14T02:30:00.000-04:00

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

Cindy Sheehan Responds To Right Wing Smear

2005-08-11T15:38:00.000-04:00

“I didn’t know Casey knew Michelle Malkin…I’m Casey’s mother and I knew him better than anybody else in the world…I can’t bring Casey back, but I wonder how often Michelle Malkin sobbed on his grave. Did she go to his funeral? Did she sit up with him when he was sick when he was a baby?”

GOP Paying Legal Bills of Bush Official

2005-08-11T13:50:00.000-04:00

Despite a zero-tolerance policy on tampering with voters, the Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.

James Tobin, the president's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002.

...

"It originally appeared to us that there were just certain rogue elements of the Republican Party who were willing to do anything to win control of the U.S. Senate, including depriving Americans of their ability to vote," Twomey said.

"But now that the RNC actually is bankrolling Mr. Tobin's defense, coupled with the fact that it has refused some discovery in the civil case, really raises the questions of who are they protecting, how high does this go and who was in on this," Twomey said.

Paul Hackett shames Rush Limbaugh

2005-08-09T18:50:00.000-04:00

That's typical for that fatass drug addict to come up with something like that. There's a guy ... I didn't hear this, but actually when I was on drill this weekend, I've got to tell you, he lost a lot of Republican supporters with his comments. Because they were coming up to me, telling me, "I can't believe he said that! Besides that, he called you a soldier. He doesn't know the difference between a soldier and a marine!"

Scooter Libby and Judy Miller met on July 8, 2003

2005-08-07T02:44:00.000-04:00

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby's account.

The meeting between Libby and Miller has been a central focus of the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as to whether any Bush administration official broke the law by unmasking Plame's identity or relied on classified information to discredit former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, according to sources close to the case as well as documents filed in federal court by Fitzgerald.

...

Novak on the Plame leak: a pattern of contradictions

2005-08-06T11:31:00.000-04:00

In the two years since CNN contributor and syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak exposed former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative, he has made several contradictory statements with respect to crucial issues in the case. In two instances, Novak's account of events appeared to change in fall 2003 after the Justice Department launched a formal investigation into the leak case. Novak's most recent contradiction, on the other hand, appeared in his August 1 column. In the piece, he broke his longstanding silence on the issue to respond to allegations by ex-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow in a recent Washington Post article and to defend his "integrity as a journalist."

"War on Terror," Rest In Peace

2005-08-04T01:26:00.000-04:00

The “War on Terror” is no more. It has been replaced by the “global struggle against violent extremism.”

The phrase “War on Terror” was chosen with care. “War” is a crucial term. It evokes a war frame, and with it, the idea that the nation is under military attack – an attack that can only be defended militarily, by use of armies, planes, bombs, and so on. The war frame includes special war powers for the president, who becomes commander in chief. It evokes unquestioned patriotism, and the idea that of lack of support for the war effort is treasonous. It forces Congress to give unlimited powers to the President, lest detractors be called unpatriotic. And the war frame includes an end to the war – winning the war, mission accomplished!

The war frame is all-consuming. It takes away focus from other problems, from everyday troubles, from jobs, education, health care, a failing economy. It justifies the spending of huge sums, and sending raw recruits into battle with inadequate equipment. It justifies the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. It justifies torture, military tribunals, and no due process. It justifies scaring people, with yellow, orange, and red alerts. But, while it was politically useful, the war frame never fit the reality of terrorism. It was successful at consolidating power, but counterproductive in dealing with the real threat.

...

Victory In Defeat

2005-08-03T10:44:00.000-04:00

For those of us who were hoping for an upset in the Ohio-2 election yesterday, take heart. Paul Hackett's race put conventional wisdom on its head. He lost by a mere 3,500 votes, or 4 points. Remember that Ohio-2 is the most crimson district in the state. It went two thirds for Bush. In 2004, the Republican won the congressional seat by 44 points.

Several lessons learned from Hackett's run:

1) You can call Bush a "son of a bitch", call Cheney a "chickenhwak" in a Red district and gain votes, including thousands of Republicans. Americans like plain speakers, who are'nt afraid to tell it like they see it. In fact, I'll speculate that a majority prefer this type of candidate over the "offend no one" type.

2) Howard Dean is right. In spite of the guffaws from the inside of the beltway consultant class, Democrats need to have a 50 state strategy, and run competitive candidates in every district.

3) Grassroots power trumps party power. Paul Hackett raised almost a half million dollars from $5-$25 donations coming through bloggers' sites. The blogs, not the national media, nor the DNC fought with Paul for this race. In a district the national party wrote off as unwinable received no DNC support until the final weekend of the campaign.

4) Ohioans are fed up with the culture of corruption. Taft now sports the lowest approval rating, 17%, of any of the other 49 governors. From the coingate scandal to election fraud. Even DeWine's senate seat, once considered safe, is in play.

5) Even a prochoice, antiwar candidate can win in conservative districts. They just have to know how to frame their views in ways that resemble conventional wisdom. Hackett on gay marriage, "who cares!" Hackett on abortion, "make/keep it legal, safe, and rare."

Kudos to:
Swing State Project
My DD
Daily Kos
and the hundreds of other blogs that demonstrated we can make a difference.

Gitmo Trials Rigged?

2005-08-01T05:24:00.000-04:00

As the Pentagon was making its final preparations to begin war crimes trials against four detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, two senior prosecutors complained in confidential messages last year that the trial system had been secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence.

The electronic messages, obtained by The New York Times, reveal a bitter dispute within the military legal community over the fairness of the system at a time when the Bush administration and the Pentagon were eager to have the military commissions, the first for the United States since the aftermath of World War II, be seen as just at home and abroad.

UPDATE:

ABC news has more details on this story.

From one of the prosecutor's emails:

Capt Carr says the commissions appear to be rigged.

"When I volunteered to assist with this process and was assigned to this office, I expected there would at least be a minimal effort to establish a fair process and diligently prepare cases against significant accused," he wrote.

"Instead, I find a half-hearted and disorganised effort by a skeleton group of relatively inexperienced attorneys to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged."

Capt Carr says that the prosecutors have been told by the chief prosecutor that the panel sitting in judgment on the cases would be handpicked to ensure convictions.

"You have repeatedly said to the office that the military panel will be handpicked and will not acquit these detainees and that we only needed to worry about building a record for the review panel," he said.

CIA Analyst Roasts Bush

2005-07-30T19:11:00.000-04:00

...

In Falls Church Sunday, McGovern said his group is nearing the conclusion of an independent investigation of the source of what is widely held to be a forged document attributed to the government of Niger in 2001. The document indicated there was a deal to deliver yellow cake uranium to Iraq. He said indications already point to the fact that the forgery was produced in the U.S., perhaps from among circles of former U.S. government officials that were involved in the Iran-Contra scandals of the 1980s. He said some damning evidence and conclusions could be made public within a few months. “It was an inside job,” he charged, arising in the aftermath of the sudden assertion on August 26, 2002 by Vice President Cheney that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons along with its other phantom so-called “weapons of mass destruction.” That speech was the first “call to arms” that led to the invasion of Iraq the following March.

Then CIA Director George Tenet told his analysts, McGovern said, that the White House did not want any intelligence estimate of Iraq, but when Congressional pressure arose, he told them to do an estimate that agreed with Cheney’s claims. “Thus, we got the worst intelligence estimate in U.S. history. It was demonstrably false, matched only by the CIA assessment in 1962 that there were no Soviet missiles in Cuba. But that was an honest mistake,” McGovern said. “This one was dishonest from the get-go.”

He said there was “enough ambiguity” in the sanitized version of the estimate that the Congress saw to prevent more doubts from being raised at the time, he said.

,,,

Military, Bush team clashed on questioning -report

2005-07-28T22:25:00.000-04:00

Senior U.S. military lawyers strong disagreed in 2003 with an administration legal task force's conclusion that President Bush had authority to order harsh interrogations of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the New York Times reported.

Citing newly disclosed documents, the Times said in its Thursday editions that despite the protests, the task force concluded that military interrogators and their commanders would be immune from prosecution for torture under federal and international law. The reason was the special character of the fight against terrorism.

OH-2: Swift Boating of Hackett Kicks Into High Gear

2005-07-27T22:27:00.000-04:00

Eric Minameyer was just the beginning. I knew it was important when I got a call saying, "We need the bloggers now more than ever, and this has nothing to do with money."

Eric Minameyer, an advisor to Jean Schmidt, was just the beginning of the "swift boating" of Paul Hackett in what appears to be a coordinated effort by her campaign. Upon arriving at Hackett HQ this morning to take some photos and videos, I was shocked to hear that the deplorable tactics have been taken to a new level in the past 24 hours.

Do what you can to help Hackett. Vist Chris Bower's site, at the above link, and send Hackett a few bucks. This special election is huge, and Schmidt's tactics are disgusting.

Majority of Americans Now Believe Bush Lied

2005-07-27T19:50:00.000-04:00

It looks like the people are starting to get it.

For the first time, a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — the reason Bush emphasized in making the case for invading. The administration's credibility on the issue has been steadily eroding since 2003.

By 58%-37%, a majority say the United States won't be able to establish a stable, democratic government in Iraq.

More On Traitorgate

2005-07-27T00:09:00.000-04:00

A lot of rehash, some new stuff from Wilson's book, but I found this gem:

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified information.

More Frat Pranks From Abu Gharib

2005-07-26T21:27:00.000-04:00

According to Rush Limbaugh, the torture at Abu Gharib was "sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank. Sort of like that kind of fun." - August 4, 2004 A recently obtained document from General Taguba's report to the Pentagon:

"I saw [name redacted] fucking a kid; his age would be about 15 - 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad, and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then, when I heard the screaming, I climbed the door, because on top it wasn't covered, and I saw [name redacted], who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass.... And the female soldier was taking pictures."

More on this story:

Pentagon Blocks Release of Abu Ghraib Images: Here's Why

...

In the same period, reporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: “Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men….The women were passing messages saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.’

“Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out.”

The Framing Wars

2005-07-23T10:28:00.000-04:00

This lengthy NY Times Magazine piece on George Lakoff and framing, gives an excellent overview on his linguistic ideas (I have two recommended books by him on the right side bar). What struck me about the criticism is the point they missed, i.e. why do Americans vote against their self interest?

In his books, Lakoff goes into detail on the concept of cognitive framing that people do, with supporting studies He explains how we are persuaded with identification and conventional wisdom over compelling rational argument. In fact, Luntz, his biggest critic, also knows this. In the past, Luntz himself even told Republicans to use certain words, even when they didn't add to any context of the argument.

The article also suggests that Lakoff is viewed as some kind of twelve step guru. While some may believe this, I see his contribution as another piece to the forensic puzzle. It's a piece that can't be ignored. It's not a substitute for ideas and policy. But if we can't better frame our ideas and policy in a way that is easy to grasp by those millions who continually vote identity, rather than self interest and national interest, we're doomed to stay the minority party.

In any case, the article is a good read. I also have links to Rockridge, Longview, and Frameshop on the right, which will provide more information.

Update: There's also a follow-up to Bai's original article with questions and answers

Hearing on Security Implications of Revealing Covert Agent's Identity

2005-07-22T17:02:00.000-04:00

This hearing is well worth your time. You'll find the hearing under the "Recent Programs" heading.

Bloomberg to reveal Rove, Libby gave false testimony

2005-07-21T19:31:00.000-04:00

Interesting development.

Bloomberg News has slotted a story alleging that senior Bush advisor Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff 'Scooter' Libby provided false testimony to the special prosecutor to a Washington-based grand jury, RAW STORY has been told.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the Chicago special prosecutor appointed to investigate the outing of former covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson, may also be looking at whether other crimes -- such as perjury, obstruction of justice or leaking classified information -- were committed.

It's breaking tonight or tomorrow AM, sources say. Bloomberg has been among the head of the pack in breaking elements of the CIA leak scandal; they recently hired former Wall Street Journal editor Al Hunt.

Update:

Think Progress has the Bloomberg story up

Plame's Identity Marked As Secret

2005-07-21T03:41:00.000-04:00

It looks like another excuse goes up in smoke.

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

...

Coulter Caught Cribbing

2005-07-21T03:39:00.000-04:00

Too funny....

A column penned by the doyenne of right-wing rhetoric Ann Coulter has come under fire for alleged plagiarism, RAW STORY has learned.

Much of Coulter's Jun. 29, 2005 column, “Thou Shall Not Commit Religion,” bears a striking resemblance to pieces in magazines dating as far back as 1985—and a column written for the Boston Globe in 1995.

A RAW STORY examination found Coulter's work to be at worst plagiarism and at best a cut-and-paste repetition of points authored by conservative religious groups in the early 1990s. These groups sought to de-fund the National Endowment for the Arts, detailing projects paid for by the NEA they dubbed “obscene.”

...

Move Over Martha Stewart

2005-07-20T00:09:00.000-04:00

Murray Waas is reporting that Karl Rove may have lied by ommission to the FBI in a 2003 interview.

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove did not disclose that he had ever discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper during Rove’s first interview with the FBI, according to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The omission by Rove created doubt for federal investigators, almost from the inception of their criminal probe into who leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, as to whether Rove was withholding crucial information from them, and perhaps even misleading or lying to them, the sources said.

Cointelpro Redux?

2005-07-19T23:51:00.000-04:00

It's been over 30 years since Nixon used the FBI as a political weapon. Cointelpro was a program that infiltrated dissent groups like the NAACP, kept files on people like Martin Luther King for blackmail purposes, and performed agitprop functions in many of the antiwar organizations.

According to this NY Times story, it looks like the Bush administration is once again using the FBI against organizations dissenting against various policies.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups in what the groups charge is an attempt to stifle political opposition to the Bush administration.

The F.B.I. has in its files 1,173 pages of internal documents on the American Civil Liberties Union, the leading critic of the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies, and 2,383 pages on Greenpeace, an environmental group that has led acts of civil disobedience in protest over the administration's policies, the Justice Department disclosed in a court filing this month in a
federal court in Washington.
...

More Irony

2005-07-19T11:40:00.000-04:00

"I want Congress to hear loud and clear, it is unacceptable behavior to leak classified information when we have troops at risk." - Bush, October 10, 2001

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for shaking loose the cobwebs.

2005-07-18T19:08:00.000-04:00

Of Note:

Step back from Plamegate for a moment and ask yourself a broader question: why did the White House react so violently to Joe Wilson's suggestion that the story about Saddam Hussein trying to procure uranium from Niger was false?

2005-07-17T14:31:00.000-04:00

Let's Keep It Simple
It's About National Security...Stupid!!!

The public debate about the public disclosure of Valerie Plame has become lost in word parsing, factual accuracies of Joe Wilson's report, legal hair splitting and weasel wording, and who said what to whom. The Republican National committee has even issued a set of talking points to keep the debate and focus off what should be a central issue: what damage did this disclosure do to our national security.

Novak's disclosure, that Valerie Plame "is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction," started databases churning in every intelligence service over the globe. Just to make the work of our enemies easier, Novak subsequently published an article stating that Plame worked for Brewster-Jennings & Associates, which it turns out, was a CIA cover company.

Lost in the inside-the-beltway, eye-glazing analysis, by Sabbath Gasbags, talk radio pontificates, and access party hopping journalists, is what were the outcomes of these disclosures.

We know that Jennings Brewster is a cover company for the CIA, and now so do our enemies.

We know that JBA's cover was as an energy consulting firm with ties in the most volatile area of the globe, the middle east. One writer claims that BJA worked with ARAMCO, the Saudi-owned Arabian American Oil Company. We know that BJA agents worked on intelligence and operations surrounding weapons of mass destruction. We know that proliferation of WMDs is our greatest national security threat. We know that various terrorist groups are trying to get their hands on WMDs, including nuclear weapons and components.

We know that the CIA agents working under this cover did so with No Official Cover (NOC). They don't have the black diplomatic passports that provide many in the intelligence community with a get out of jail free card. NOC agents are subject to arrest, imprisonment, and even execution, when they are captured on foreign soil.

We know that the Justice Department launched the investigation at the request of the CIA. ""If she was not undercover, we would have no reason to file a criminal referral," the CIA official said."

The questions that need to be answered:

What missions were compromised as a result of this disclosure?

What, if any, increase in risks are we now facing from trafficking in WMDs? Were there active missions that were making it more difficult for our enemies to acquire WMDs?

What assets were lost due to this disclosure? Have agents or informants been arrested, deported, or executed? Were ties between BJA severed? What was the value lost by exposing BJA as a CIA cover?

When we get down to what's really at issue here, it's not about a political game. It's about the increased danger this political dirty trick put us, and the damage to our intelligence assets.

Naming agent endangers lives, experts decide

The Big Lie About Valerie Plame

2005-07-06T22:37:00.000-04:00

The War Is Finally Over For James Stockdale
-Bryan

James Stockdale, RIP or “Who Was I? Where Did I Go?”

James Stockdale is probably best remembered as Ross Perot’s running mate during the 1992 election. Hired as a placeholder for a ‘real’ vice presidential candidate, Stockdale found himself the de facto VP candidate after Perot’s temporary campaign hiatus failed to produce a new running mate. Since Stockdales’ patriotism was beyond question, his selection was seen only as upside by campaign managers. They must have never factored that James Stockdale might speak and render an opinion on current events or policy.

Stockdale is best remembered for his quizzical VP debate against Dan Quayle and Al Gore. Since Stockdale never was expected to be the eventual VP candidate for Perot he wasn’t adequately prepped for a debate on the level and importance of the vice presidential slot, and gawd did it show. He came across as a deranged POW, filtering everything through his experience as a Vietnamese prisoner of war.

The opening line of “Who Am I? Why Am I Here?” could have worked. But after a few minutes of Stockdale rambling, it became all too apparent that those were probably very real, very earnestly asked questions. Stockdales performance is probably best remembered as the beginning of the end for Ross Perot’s presidential bid.

Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey did a priceless bit with Hartman as Stockdale and Carvey in his great Perot imitation. Perot takes Stockdale on a ride, “jus’ goin’ out in the country for a lil’ drive” and tries to abandon him out in the sticks like an unwanted Dalmatian. Stockdale alllllllllmost falls for it too.

The point being, military service and all is great, and I don’t mean to sully the reputation of a highly decorated military veteran. Stockdale was the lead man during Gulf of Tonkin incident, and he knew it was a fraud when it was happening. A truly great man would have let it be known far and wide that his country was being taken to war on lies, which Stockdale knew.

James Stockdale was a dutiful man. He held his tongue and went along with the lie, even spending 7 years as a POW. He was, however, not a great man. A great man would have stood up to a lie and put his country over orders. His rank of Vice Admiral was achieved virtually because of his POW status, feel good punting upstairs. No, if James Stockdale were a great man, he would have called bullshit when he saw bullshit.

"[I] had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets -- there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." – James Stockdale

Instead, Stockdale chose to publish letters he wrote to his wife.

RIP Admiral Stockdale.

2005-07-05T13:02:00.000-04:00

This is just too funny to pass up.

Shamelessly using from Al Franken's blog I found this too ironic to pass up:

Folks, don’t forget this, Alberto Gonzales is the first Hispanic American ever nominated to be Attorney General, just as Miguel Estrada was the first Hispanic American to ever be nominated to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. These liberal, white Democrats are trying to now smear a second Hispanic. Never let that escape your mind. The people who claim to be open-minded, non-discriminatory, tolerant and all of that are themselves, racists, in addition to everything else they’re being. Liberal, white Democrats trying to smear a second Hispanic.

That was Rush Limbaugh on his January 5, 2005 show. His wannabe, Sean Hannity on January 24, 2005, where he said,

There seems to be a pattern whenever there are advancing African-Americans, Hispanics-Americans, they are always attacked by liberals who like to say that they have a monopoly on helping minorities.

Aside from the blatant ignorance of the real facts that support the premise, there's a big nine job opening, and the speculation that Gonzalez in on the short list, here's the current talking point:

Paul M. Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, said he had told administration officials that nominating Mr. Gonzales, whose views on abortion are considered suspect by religious conservatives, would fracture the president's conservative backers.

It'll be interesting as to who's ass gets kissed over the next few weeks.

2005-07-04T15:46:00.000-04:00

Happy Fourth

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

2005-07-03T17:18:00.000-04:00

Of Note:

Gaylord Nelson, Former Senator Who Founded Earth Day, Dies at 89

A Livable Shade of Green

Newly released data show that Portland, America's environmental laboratory, has achieved stunning reductions in carbon emissions. It has reduced emissions below the levels of 1990, the benchmark for the Kyoto accord, while booming economically.

What's more, officials in Portland insist that the campaign to cut carbon emissions has entailed no significant economic price, and on the contrary has brought the city huge benefits: less tax money spent on energy, more convenient transportation, a greener city, and expertise in energy efficiency that is helping local businesses win contracts worldwide.

FBI Whistle-Blower to Run for Congress

42% of voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment.

2005-07-02T16:05:00.000-04:00

Turd Blossom Dirty Trick Goes Up In Plume Over Plame
-Augie

"Houston we have a problem." The second high ranking source of the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity has been confirmed by Time reporter, Matt Cooper. It's none other than the senior political advisor, affectionately called "Turd Blossom" by the president, Karl Rove.

Valerie Plame was a senior CIA operative, who ran an undercover operation to track the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In addition to blowing her cover, the disclosure also put at risk employees of the cover company she had run, as well as any missions were active at the time. Who knows what intelligence, sources, or operations were compromised by this?

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 421 et seq.) makes it a felony to disclose "information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent," punishable by fines up to $50,000, up to ten years imprisonment, or both. Other crimes under 50 U.S.C 421 include conspiracy, misprision of felony, aiding and abetting such disclosure.

We now have the two sources responsible for this. Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, I. Lewis Libby, and the President's Senior Political advisor. To say this wasn't a well coordinated dirty trick is implausible. Can this level of decision making happen without the knowledge of higher ups? Would any reasonable person believe that their strategy didn't have approval? This wasn't a leak. This was a coordinated effort of political revenge against the wife of Ambassador Wilson, who was being punished for telling the American people that the documents, used by President Bush to make his sale of nuclear material to Iraq claim, were forgeries, and poorly done forgeries at that.

Watergate or Iran Contra pale in comparison when the risk to the security of the United States is considered. John Walker and Aldrich Ames compromised our security for financial gain. Libby and Rove, with probable knowledge higher-ups put our security at risk for a cheap political gain. The acts were the same. No difference. The only remaining question was whether Vice President Cheney or President George Bush had foreknowledge of these acts or participated in any cover-up.

Updates:

I shook loose a few of the cobwebs, and dug up this March, 2004 article. If this has legs, add perjury to the charges.

Josh Marshall poses an interesting question. ...Fitzgerald shouldn't be pressing matter of jailing journalists unless he thinks he's on his way to prosecuting a serious crime.

So just a question: Would Fitzgerald have pushed to get Cooper and Miller in the slammer if some other party in the White House weren't in a lot of trouble?

2005-07-02T11:24:00.000-04:00

Irony
- Bryan

One of the most effective tools the mujahadeen used to break the backs of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan were CIA supplied Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Shoulder fired, easily transportable, short learning curve, and extremely lethal, the 500 or so CIA supplied Stingers were reportedly behind the downing of over 300 Soviet aircraft, mostly helicopter gunships. Their threat was a constant concern for the Soviets, who never really were able to successfully defend themselves from the fire and forget Stinger.

The recent downing of a Chinook in Afghanistan is suspected to have been with an SA-16, a Russian shoulder fired missile similar to the Stinger. It also is ideal for shooting down helicopter gunships. The Russians are hungry, for arms exports and probably aren’t turning down anybody with hard currency.

Flush with cash from the revitalized opium trade, it’s more likely than not various elements in Afghanistan will have increasing access to weapons like the SA-16.

I’d like to think was a fluke, a lucky one time shot. Unfortunately, the recent history Chechnya and Iraq being flooded with Russian arms predicts this will be increasingly common.

In less than 20 years we go from supplying SAM’s to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, to US troops being attacked with Russian SAM’s, all in the same territory with many of the same indigenous actors. There is irony in there somewhere.

Related:

Juan Cole provides an excellent analysis of the military implications of this development

2005-07-02T00:41:00.000-04:00

Of Note....

MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case

What happens if more conservative justice replaces Justice O'Connor?

Supreme Court: What You Can Do RIGHT NOW

2005-06-30T07:09:00.000-04:00

Time To Walk the Walk

The other night, the President gave us yet another set of justifications in the never ending backtrack of why we‘re in Iraq. This justification is actually something I can accept. We now went to liberate the Iraqi people, and give them the gift of democracy.

What a great gift to give! The right of the people to elect their leaders, a government of laws rather than whims and answerable to its citizens, self-determination, due process, the rights of liberty and persuit of happiness are all values we Americans most cherish. We may disagree whether this was a sufficient reason to make war on a people, but we must unify in full agreement that this gift is precious.

Call me cynical, but show me I'm wrong. After the WMDs, the drone aircraft that would create mushroom clouds in our cities, aluminum tubes, mobile biolabs, secret al Qaeda bases teaching Ricin 101, yellow cake, cakewalks, candy and roses, my bullshit detector has redlined. Show me we're not there to fulfill a PNAC (Project for a New American Century) pipedream. Show me we're not there to control their resources and build permanent American military bases. Show me that we can live our American values and give the people of Iraq our greatest gift, the right of self determination and democracy.

It's time to work with the Iraqi interim government on a timetable for a phased withdrawal of foreign forces. The interim government has been elected by the Iraqi people, their security forces now number over 100,000 to the 10,000 insurgents claimed by the administration. On the one year anniversary of the transfer of power to the Iraqi interim government, their elected prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, is requesting a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces. Earlier this year, Zogby international polled the Shia population, who constitute 60% of the Iraqi population, and 69% agree that occupation forces should begin to withdraw.

By January, Iraq will have a new constitution and a fully elected parliament. It's time to begin the transfer our gift to this new Iraq. It's time for the new Iraq to begin their own path, and rebuild their nation. It's time to return the treasures we seized early during the invasion, such as the palates of dollars that were transferred to the United States, with full accounting. It's time for the Iraqi people to manage their own contracts for rebuilding their infrastructure. It's time for them to provide for their own security.

If we can match the words that stated our ideals of a free and democratic Iraq, we can unite in celebration of the gift we gave. We can celebrate the service of our troops, reassure our wounded, and know that those who made the ultimate sacrifice didn't do so in vain.

Our public debate as to whether the Administration violated the public trust, whether incompetents were placed in power as occupation authority, whether contracts were awarded and managed in the best interest of the American people, whether our policies violated the humane treatment of prisoners , etc.. But we can’t deny ourselves a celebration of unity and service of that great gift we gave.

This weekend, we celebrate the 229th anniversary of our own independence. The path was never easy, and the sacrifice was great. But we stand united as a people knowing that the trials and tribulations of our darkest hours were worth price paid. It’s time for the Iraqi people to decide how they’ll be celebrating and sacrificing for their independence.

Resources:

The Iraq War: Departure Does Not Mean Defeat

President Addresses Nation, Discusses Iraq, War on Terror

On edit. My links don't seem to be working, and I don't understand why. If you want to get to them, cut and paste these:

http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/steinberg/20050223.htm

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050628-7.html

2005-06-28T15:18:00.000-04:00

RIP Shelby Foote

Shelby Foote, 88, passed on yesterday. He's best known for his civil war series and appearance in Ken Burns series.

To be honest, I always had reservations about Foote as a historian, but thought he did a masterful job at describing the military history of the Civil War. He always struck me as part apologist and part revisionist whenever he treaded onto the cause and meaning of that war.

In anycase, I appreciate his documentation of our nations greatest wedge and threat to our union. He will be missed.

2005-06-27T16:09:00.000-04:00

Candy and Roses or Orwell's Perpetual War?

Roll back to 2003.

"It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." - Donald Rumsfeld Feb. 7, 2003

Yesterday

"That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years." - Donald Rumsfeld June 25, 2005

Greg Mitchell asks if Cheney isn't our own Baghdad Bob in the person of D.C. Dick

2005-06-26T15:01:00.000-04:00

I don't care if it rains or freezes...

Let me preface admitting I'm your typical lapsed Catholic. Lot's of hope and I think good acts, but the faith is close to running on empty. I wasn't always this way. I think it had something to do with my univeristy level theology classes. The failure of the church to deal with pedophile priests and naive view of human sexuality didn't help much. Besides, secular humanism provided me with a path to similar ends, with science rather than dogma being the guiding light.

I do remember a time when the religious left held the moral high ground. They were prominent leaders and thinkers in the civil rights and Vietnam anti-war movements. Back in those good old days when they had folk music during mass, there was an emphasis social justice, and acceptence of the dignities of man. I don't recall many religious leaders of that day obsessing over whether a cartoon character visits a family with two mommies. The preachers and priest seemed more concerned with Christian acceptence of all humanity.

We all know the current state of affairs. A congressman tries to amend an appropriations bill, to control Officers in the Air Force Acadamy from using their position of power to evangelize cadets, many who are Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, non-evangelical Christian, agnostics, or atheists. This simple request was based on complaints by constituents, who said it was resulting in religious bigotry and a hostile environment, which had the potential of impacting unit cohesion. It resulted in this litany:

"Like a moth to a flame, Democrats can't help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians," said Rep. John Hostettler.

I won't go into the Federalist and anti-Federalist arguments made by our founders (who were Christian, Universalist, Deist, and even agnostic), as to why there was a need for a wall of separation for the benefit of both government and religion. I was just wondering where our progressives of faith were hiding, since I hadn't heard much from them in awhile.

It seems like they wish to reemerge into the public discourse.

A new, well-organized religious group has emerged. And guess what: It actually supports Christian values.

The Reverend Timothy F. Simpson, a Presbyterian minister and the group’s director of religious affairs, said in an interview Wednesday that the Christian left has for too long allowed the Christian right to be the public face of his religion in America. “The language of our faith has been placed in the service of policy ends that don’t reflect the Gospel, and we have become deeply troubled over that,” he said.

The Christian right, he says, in the persons of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson, has come to stand for bigotry, intolerance, and division. Simpson says that his organization will try to repair the damage done by the right’s insistence that the United States is a “Christian nation” that ought to be governed according to their narrow interpretation of Scripture.

“I understand that the truth can be spoken by Muslims, and the truth can be spoken by Jews. The truth can be spoken by atheists,” said Simpson. “And listen: An atheist who stands for the interests of the neighbor, an atheist who stands for the interests of poor people at the margins, for the oppressed, is worth more than a hundred Christians who have made their bed with the fat cats, because that atheist is actually articulating the ends of the kingdom of God.”

...

Visit their website: Christian Alliance for Progress

2005-06-26T11:14:00.000-04:00

Articles of Note:

The Armstrong Williams NewsHour, by Frank Rich at the NY Times

The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers' expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations - or thrilled to the "journalism" of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies - you'll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.

"Fair and balanced" -- the McCarthy way

Tomlinson's conviction is so strong he once suggested to the CPB board that Fox News anchor Brit Hume be invited to "talk to public broadcasting officials about how to create balanced news programming," according to a report broadcast May 20 on National Public Radio.

Tomlinson's charge of liberal bias runs counter to two nationwide polls conducted by the CPB in 2002 and 2003, which found little concern among Americans about bias in public broadcasting. The CPB is a federally funded agency that serves as an umbrella organization for public radio and television. Created by Congress, its purpose is both to help raise money and awareness for public broadcasting and to protect it from political pressure. But now the CPB itself has become the source of such pressure.

Tomlinson's attempt to push back the so-called liberal media is not surprising given his journalistic past -- which is where Fulton Lewis Jr., the broadcaster with the intriguing, albeit distant, connection to the ongoing debate, comes in. A prominent radio broadcaster in the '40s, '50s and '60s, Lewis was known for his complete lack of objectivity. At his commercial peak he was heard on more than 500 radio stations and boasted a weekly audience of 16 million listeners. An erstwhile Rush Limbaugh, Lewis was the master of the partisan smear who rarely strayed from GOP talking points. In 1948, New York Herald Tribune radio columnist John Crosby suggested that Lewis "ought to be recognized as a campaigner, not as a commentator, and his national air time be paid for and so listed by the Republican National Committee."

Active Iraq Soldier: Karl, Come over _here_ and say that, Chickehawk...

Deadly immunity, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data -- and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic.

2005-06-25T10:07:00.000-04:00

Karl Rove's Rabbit Hole

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. - Karl Rove

September 11th, 2001 I was driving to work when the NPR station I was listening to interupted Morning Edition to say that a jet liner had crashed into the World Trade Center. The first thought I had was "I hope this is just an accident." I recalled the 1993 bombing. Tom Clancy's "Debt Of Honor" crossed my mind. Less than a year before, we had witnessed the tenacity of Bin Laden to strike us with the suicide bombing of the Cole. I knew that this was probably not an accident.

As I pulled into the parking lot, NPR announced that a second plane had crashed into the South Tower. I was positive that we were under attack.

I went to the office, ran into a few coworkers, and of course we were all stunned and asking everyone who wandered by "did you hear"? We turned on a TV in our conference room, and watched the video of the second plane crashing over and over. We watched the scene as it unfolded with rescue worker, police and fire fighters, summoning all their skills and courage, trying to save as many people as possible. At 9:30, people started showing up for a planned meeting. As stunned as we were, we turned off the TV, and made a feeble attempt at preserving normalcy. About 20 minutes into the meeting, a coworker came in, and spoke to one of my colleagues, who was also a Disaster Medical Assistance Team worker in the Public Health Service. He then told us that the Pentagon had been hit. He knew that he'd probably be activated shortly, and we cancelled the meeting. While he was contacting his DMAT team to get their stuff together, we were implementing our own informatics disaster recovery plan.

Our building was closed, and I hurried home to wait on my children returning from school, I glued myself to the television waiting for the next shoe to drop. I watched as people chose to jump to their death rather than perish in the inferno. I watched as the towers collapsed, knowing that they were filled with rescue workers. I knew we were now at war.

I grew up in Hoboken, NJ, directly across from midtown Manhattan. The Trade Center was being built while I was in high school. There were parks and other spots along the smallish Hoboken palisades, where teenagers would gather to watch the submarine races, with the fantastic backdrop of the New York skyline. Between the amore, we'd sit and watch what was then becoming the worlds largest buildings and how it defined that view. Having left the area, it was always the first thing you'd see driving up the New Jersey turnpike that reminded you that you were almost home.

I did not say to myself, "that's some bad pilot." I did not sit there, after hearing that we're under attack, reading a story to second graders. My first reaction was shock, turned to fear, turned to grief, turned to anger, turned to a desire to deal with those who made this happen. I turned to our government, in the expectation that they would present a solution to what happened, and make it unlikely that this would ever happen again. Those, Mr. Rove, were my first thoughts. And yes Mr. Rove, I am a proud liberal.

But my feelings aren’t as important as my expectation of my leadership. One being that my elected leader show good judgment and contribute to the best solution to the problems we faced as people. In the face of the al Qaeda threat I almost laugh at your characterization of liberals wanting to understand our enemy.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.” - Sun Tzu

Just as Yosemite Sam, who muttered “Of course you know this means war” at every opportunity, could never defeat Bugs Bunny, you will not defeat terrorism or make us more secure by making war your first, last, and only solution. You will not defeat terrorism with the false frames of nonexistent Iraq threats. You will not defeat terrorism until you fully understand what motivates people into putting their cause and beliefs ahead of their own self interest, and makes them willing to blow themselves up. Until you understand that perpetual war is only a small part of an overall solution, you, your administration, and unfortunately the rest of us are doomed to repeat this history, never learning its lessons.

You helped take us to war, Mr. Rove. Not only against the real enemy, but you manipulated public opinion to wage a more serious war against a people who posed marginal or no threat to us. You chose to ignore the international communities concerns and moved almost unilaterally, save a faux guise of a coalition of the arm twisted and bought off. You violated the trust of not only the world, but your own people with exaggerated claims, third hand accounts of criminals and drunks, and discredited evidence. Professionals in your administration and military, who warned you that the lack of planning, false facts, and consensus building, might lead to a morass were fired, retired, or subject to character assassination. Those who supported the myths and distortions, and otherwise lacked good judgment were promoted, given solemn awards, or keys to the public bank. The goodwill toward America that was almost unanimous after 9/11, has since been squandered on a poorly planned, poorly executed, and poorly managed pipedream.

Perhaps you understand this and chose to use your sickening soundbites to create a good feelings among the heehawing Governor Pataki, the silent Mayor Bloomberg, and the rest of the conservatives who continue to reward failed leadership. Perhaps your arsenal is so strained that all you can do is blame those of us that expected more of our leaders, and are sincerely concerned with their lack of wisdom and judgment. Perhaps you understand that your message rings hollow, after attacking an innocent people, while those states who continue to actively support terrorists are called “friends” by your boss.

You took your best shot, Mr. Rove, but we aren’t quite laughing with you.

Update: Visit our friends at Daily Kos, and check out noinfo'sRove: The Paragraph before. The boy's got soul and spunk in his rant.

Also of note, is Joe Conason's Salon article, Karl Rove is a liar. It's worth the wade through the madnatory ad view.

2005-06-23T10:47:00.000-04:00

Saving Big Bird's Privates

The Assault On Public Broadcasting

In 1967, President Johnson signed The Public Broadcasting Act , which established Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The act begins with the simple words, “It is in the public interest…” In signing the bill, President Johnson spoke these words:

In 1862, the Morrill Act set aside lands in every State--lands which belonged to the people--and it set them aside in order to build the land-grant colleges of the Nation.

So today we rededicate a part of the airwaves--which belong to all the people--and we dedicate them for the enlightenment of all the people.

Enlightenment is often in the eyes of the beholder.

“The character [Tinky-Winky], whose voice is obviously that of a boy, has been found carrying a red purse in many episodes and has become a favorite character among gay groups worldwide. Now, further evidence that the creators of the series intend for Tinky Winky to be a gay role model have surfaced. He is purple -- the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle -- the gay-pride symbol.” - Jerry Fallwell

I guess you can't please everyone.

The decades long conservative attack on Public Broadcasting has entered a new phase. It’s a two pronged pincer attack. On one hand, congressional conservatives are keeping up the fight to defund the institution. On June 16th, for instance, the House Appropriations Committee voted to cut various public broadcasting budgets nearly in half. Cooler minds prevailed and much of the cut proposed by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) was restored. The CPB Funding Restoration Amendment passed the House by 2-1 margin.

It’s clear that the outpouring of public activism swayed the minds of the GOP dominated House. Countless phone calls, letters, petitions, and lobbying have won the skirmish. Has the public interest won? Not so fast...

The more insidious prong of the pincer attack is the stacking of the CPB with conservative ideologues. If they can't defund the public airwaves, at least they can transform it into a version of FOX lite. From encouraging local stations to broadcast shows like "Journal Editorial Report", to hiring an ombudsman and consultant to root out so-called liberal bias in shows like Bill Moyers' "NOW" program. CPB Chair, Kenneth Tomlinson's latest move is the appointment of Republican National Committee Co-Chair Patricia de Stacy Harrison as President of CPB.

If they can't rid themselves of a public interest institution, they'll turn it into a beast that progressives and moderates won't support.

Having done our part in the restoration of funding, it's more important now to keep PBS and NPR to turning into another cog in the right wing noise machine. Here's some links that I hope will help us keep the CPB and public broadcasting an independent media, free from the political fray, and the rare bit of excellence it has been to date.

Sign The People For The American Way's petition to dump Kenneth Tomlinson

Media Matters' Hands Off Public Broadcasting

Bill Moyers: "The Radical Right Wing is Very Close to Achieving a Longtime Goal of Undermining the Independence of Public Broadcasting"

2005-06-22T20:36:00.000-04:00

"The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands."

- Spiro T. Agnew

Sometimes even Spiro Our Hero can be right. Yet, in this information age it is at times possible to separate the signal from the noise of eight figure salaried bloviating gas bags of talk radio, partisan spin doctors, and The Fighting 101st Keyboarders on the op-ed pages of major dailies.

I came across an article written by an undergraduate communications major, for the Oregon State University's Daily Barometer. Ryan Greene frames the case for official inquiry into the President's violation of public trust and misrepresentation before congress with the conciseness and elegant simplicity of Occam's razor. It succeeds where our so-called liberal media has failed.

"Smoking gun" or no gun at all?

So now the cat is out of the bag. The Downing Street Memo (known among us cynics as the "smoking gun memo") has been released to the public, and it points its finger directly at Bush and his administration's attempts to justify a war we never should have fought. The fight over why we went to war and, perhaps more importantly, whether the American people and Congress were lied to has flared up once again.

Let's back up. What exactly is the Downing Street Memo? What does it say? Why is everyone so fired up? The memo itself is from a meeting held by the British Prime Minister, eight months before the invasion of Iraq. The main point everyone seems to be focusing on -- and rightly so -- is the memo's commentary on Bush's agenda in the Iraqi conflict. At one point, the memo states, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

This is why more than 120 Democrats from both the House and the Senate are banging down Bush's door, demanding answers. It is also why more than 560,000 American citizens led by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., have signed a petition asking that Bush address the memo in detail. And why shouldn't he?

Let's get one thing straight here -- this memo doesn't exactly mean we've caught anyone red-handed. At best, it means that sources inside Great Britain understood the gist of the White House's intent on Iraq and its methods in reaching its goal. It is insider information, yes, but it is British insider information, not American. So it won't have quite the same effect as the Watergate tapes. Perhaps calling the document the "smoking gun memo" is reaching a little bit. It's not enough to condemn anyone.

It is, however, enough evidence for America as a whole to want to start looking for more. And this is why Bush needs to stand up and speak out now.

Every advance made by Democratic congressmen has been stymied by Republicans, both within Congress and from the White House. When the Democrats in Congress tried to hold a meeting discussing the memo and its implications, the Republicans managed to relegate them to the basement, and hold 11 votes at the same time as the meeting. No matter what your stance on the issue, there is one thing you have to admit: that's a little underhanded.

When 122 Democrats sent Bush a letter, no reply. When Conyers brought the petition with more than half a million American signatures on it, they weren't even admitted in to deliver it. Why? Why such resistance?

If the Bush administration hasn't misled Congress or the country, if they are innocent of this accusation, then what is there to fear? Why not address the public? Tell them what they want to know. Confront the memo, publicly, with your chest bared; knowing full well that, once a full and proper impartial investigation is complete, the country will know once and for all that George W. Bush is no liar.

But that's not happening. Big surprise. Instead, the White House sends back retorts insisting that Conyers and his allies are "simply trying to rehash history." The Republican majority in Congress has clamped their figurative hands around their ears, declaring that they do not wish to seek, hear, or otherwise know whether they were deceived by the Bush administration.

I'm not even sure why there is a debate over this. The demand from the side of the Democrats is one of further investigation. No one is demanding impeachment yet, but misleading Congress is defined by the Constitution as an impeachable offense. Now we have evidence that the Bush administration may have (repeat: MAY HAVE) misled Congress, and there is a huge fight over whether or not we should even investigate!

The bottom line is that there are people in the administration that are afraid to confront this situation. They are trying to avoid it, and they are trying to outlast the American people's attention span. Thus far, the White House has been unwilling to even defend itself to the public, choosing instead to ignore those who demand answers and trying to hush up debate.

We, as a nation, have found ourselves in a situation where someone high up may have done some dishonest things. Half the country has become suspicious, and started asking some uncomfortable questions. The shame of it all is that the other half thinks we shouldn't even be asking these questions at all.

2005-06-22T09:14:00.000-04:00

"Holy Mudhead, Mackerel! More Science High, it's, it's disappeared!"

As a follow-up to Monday's entry, two more reports have been released, which are critical of the Bush administration policies of hiding, distorting, and obfuscating scientific reports.

First, the ACLU has put together a compelling summary....Let them speak for themselves:

Science Under Siege By Bush Administration, ACLU Charges

WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union released a report today examining government policies and practices that have hampered academic freedom and scientific inquiry since September 11, 2001. The report sheds new light on how these policies curtail basic rights and put all Americans at risk. "Attacks on scientific freedom have the same effect on our democracy as attacks on political freedom," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Curtailing scientific freedom in the name of national security is bad for science, bad for freedom and simply not effective in increasing the safety of America."

The report, Science Under Siege, connects the dots between several different areas where misguided government policies are affecting science. Among the abuses the ACLU examines in the report are:

moves to overclassify information and designate whole areas of research as "sensitive but unclassified;"

outright censorship and prescreening of scientific articles before publication;
exclusion of foreign students from access to research projects;

suppression of environmental and public health information; and

increased restrictions on materials and technology commonly used in basic scientific research.

Throughout the report, the ACLU challenges claims by the Bush administration that such policies are ultimately beneficial for national security, and points to documented cases in which the administration has distorted scientific and academic inquiry for particular political purposes.

"This report makes clear the extent to which the Bush administration has hampered the pursuit of knowledge and scientific inquiry," said Tania Simoncelli, the Technology and Science Fellow with the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project. "It has diminished America’s standing as a magnet for students and intellectuals around the world, had a chilling effect on many practicing scientists, and set terrible precedents for the government control of information."

According to the ACLU, restrictions on the free flow of information have jeopardized America’s current global leadership in the sciences. In addition to policies implemented post-9/11, the report notes an ongoing erosion of environmental and public health standards, including mercury emissions, global climate change, sexual education and mountaintop removal mining.

The ACLU recommends a series of reforms including a halt to overclassification, the elimination of the "sensitive but unclassified" designation, the removal of censorship and publication restrictions, dropping unnecessary restrictions on foreign students and scholars, maintaining the fundamental research exemption and protecting science from undue political interference.

"The future security of our nation will flow from our global scientific strength and leadership," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project. "Attempts to achieve security through control and repression of information will never work, and will only undermine that leadership. The administration must reverse its misguided and damaging policies."

The full report is available at: PDF Document

In a related story, 163 scientists, sent US Game and Wildlife officials an open letter of concern about new rules prohibiting government biologists to consider genetic diversity of endangered species, when deciding whether they should be romoved from the list.

In their press release, Sally Stefferud, a former FWS biologist and signatory to the letter says, "This new policy is a clear violation of the agency's mission under the Endangered Species Act to use the best available science. It lessens the agency's ability to protect the nation's wildlife and mandates irrevocable risks to the genetic diversity that is the very basis of their survival."

Update: Check out Chris Bowers' take on Bush's fact fudging

2005-06-21T13:05:00.000-04:00

Representive John Conyers Slams Washington Post Coverage Of the Downing Street Memo And Hearing

By the way, the "Downing Street Memo" is actually the minutes of a British cabinet meeting. In the meeting, British officials - having just met with their American counterparts - describe their discussions with such counterparts. I mention this because that basic piece of context, a simple description of the memo, is found nowhere in Milbank's article.

Anyone who missed the hearing, you can watch it by going to CSAPAN and searching out "House Judiciary Cmte. Democrats Meeting on Downing Street Memo and Iraq War (06/16/2005)"

The Downing Street Memo is an excellent site, following this story.

2005-06-21T05:47:00.000-04:00

An open letter to the Penguin Group from David Brock

How responsible should a publisher be for fact checking their authors?

2005-06-20T11:39:00.000-04:00

The American Prospect just released an analysis by Chris Mooney, regarding the rewritting of the Report on Global Warming. Check out the memo written by Rick Piltz, who resigned in protest.

Low-Ball Warming

"I believe the overarching problem is that the administration … does not want and has acted to impede forthright communication of the state of climate science and its implications for society." As Piltz goes on to say, although he has worked in different administrations, none has been so bad: "I have not seen a situation like the one that has developed under this administration during the past four years, in which politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program in its relationship to the research community, to program managers, to policymakers, and to the public interest."

Update: The folks at Think Progress put together a list of scientific reports similary doctored by the administration.

The White House’s White-Out Problem

2005-06-19T12:46:00.000-04:00

I came accross this article from the Longview Institute that I thought would be worth sharing.

The New Right-Wing Permissiveness

Despite the Justice Department’s report that violent crime in the United States has been declining, two recent crime waves raise serious questions about our national morality in an era of right-wing dominance. One was the corporate crime spree that led to the collapse of ENRON and WorldCom in 2001 and 2002. The other is the abuse of prisoners at Abu Gharib prison in Iraq that produced those gruesome photographs. Both crime waves raise parallel questions: are these the acts of a few misguided individuals or do they reflect some deeper problems in our culture?

Right-wing commentators have insisted that in both cases the problem was caused by a few misguided and troubled individuals. No need for any further scrutiny; the only issue is to punish the bad guys. But this resort to the “bad apple” theory is actually the leading edge of “the new right-wing permissiveness”. Conservatives have long blamed the permissiveness of liberals for many of our society’s most intractable problems–crime, delinquency, and drug use. But the Right now has embraced a more insidious form of permissiveness that is creating an “anything goes” moral culture. The elements of this new permissiveness are the bad apple theory and the idea that reliance on a “higher authority” eliminates the need for moral judgments. Together these undermine a culture of moral responsibility.

The case of Wal-Mart is instructive on the bad apple theory. In the last year, there were allegations that Wal-Mart’s store managers were running their stores like sweatshops. Night shift workers were being locked in to avoid theft when they were unsupervised. Other employees were routinely required to work overtime without compensation. The firm’s public relations people insisted that if such abuses were occurring, they were the actions of a few rogue store managers. They didn’t mention that Wal-Mart sets extremely ambitious profit targets for its store managers who are then forced to squeeze labor costs to the bone since they have no control over other costs. In short, those at the top of organizations use the bad apple theory to hide their own responsibility for encouraging illegal actions. Whenever one hears the powerful talking about a few “bad apples,” one should immediately suspect “rot at the top” instead.

The other source of these crime waves is the right-wing’s belief that individual actions that are blessed by “higher authority” are always morally correct. Today's conservatives prefer this approach to the Nuremberg principle that those who were just following orders should be held responsible for their crimes. They act as though God is on our side in the “war on terrorism” so there is no need to worry about human laws that outlaw torture and nonjudicial imprisonment. They have insisted that U.S. soldiers be exempted from prosecution by the International Criminal Court, regardless of what crimes they might commit. In the war against terrorism, “anything goes” to defeat the enemy; there is no need for our soldiers to worry about whether their orders are lawful. In this poisoned moral climate, it is shocking that the abuse of prisoners at Abu Gharib has been blamed on a few low level enlistees.

The same dynamic is at work in the corporate scandals. Here, the higher authority is the market’s “invisible hand” that is supposed to transform the individual’s pursuit of wealth into the common good, turning the vice of greed into the greatest of virtues. But when people are told that becoming rich is glorious, they quickly find shortcuts to wealth that involve reaching into other people’s pockets. The alchemy of the invisible hand cannot convert stealing into the common good; theft in all its varieties destroys wealth. Hence, the right’s misguided celebration of greed produces an “anything goes” economy in which both individuals and firms increasingly take immoral and illegal shortcuts to riches. The indicted corporate criminals are not “bad apples” but the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Reversing the moral decay produced by this right-wing permissiveness involves three steps. First, we have to rebuild a culture of individual responsibility in which following orders or responding to market signals is no longer an excuse for immorality. Second, we have to take collective responsibility for the workings of our institutions. When a crime spree is detected, we have to ask the hard questions about the kinds of incentives and organizational practices that encourage or tolerate the transgressions of individuals.

Finally, we have to acknowledge the grave threat to society posed by those deeply religious individuals who “know” that their actions are in accordance with a “higher authority”. Whether they are jihadist terrorists or Christian Fundamentalists, their absolutist certainty is an evasion of moral reasoning and the careful balancing of means and ends on which civilization depends.