blog no more

Late last night, McCain's campaign co-chair Phil Gramm had to step down because of controversy over his comment that we were in the middle of a "mental recession." But the the truth is, McCain himself has repeatedly said our problems are merely "psychological"—Gramm was just more openly condescending about it.

Gramm's gone—but so far, the media's giving McCain a free pass for saying similar things. So we made a video. It's short, and funny, and it'll help spread the word. Please check it out, then pass it on!

Watch the video

With banks failing, foreclosures and bankruptcies skyrocketing, inflation at the highest level in years, and thousands losing their jobs, these comments are a measure of just how out of touch with reality John McCain and George Bush are. Let's make sure their comments don't slip under the radar.

Thanks!

–Eli, Wes, Justin, Tanya and the rest of the team

PS. Here's the link to the video:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/inyourhead.html?id=13273-9187900-zHM4XUx&t=3

Liveblogging from Netroots Nation-Sam Graham Felsen

A New & Better Day! — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:07:58 EDT

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/19/115924/713/394/553881

McCain's Moneyraiser worked for Mariana Islands

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:11:33 EDT

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/ By Andrew Tilghman - July 18, 2008, 5:41PM

We told you yesterday about the ties between one of John McCain's top fundraisers and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Well, there's more. Looks like Juan Carlos Benitez was helping Abramoff out with efforts to lobby for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Remember that storyline? The U.S. territory's local government hired Abramoff (and Benitez as well, we've learned) to help fend of criticism of the massive sweatshop industry on the islands.

Those sweatshops were especially lucrative -- and controversial -- because they allowed big-name companies to use a "Made in the USA" tag," even though they are filled with low-paid immigrants from across Asia.

Workers from China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, were working below the local minimum wage, often seven days a week and up to 12 hours a day while living in shacks behind barbed wire and without plumbing, according to congressional testimony.

Let's look at the timeline -- we know that back in 2001 Benitez landed his big job (pdf) over at the Department of Justice with the help of a recommendation from Abramoff.

Specifically, the job Abramoff steered him into at DOJ was Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices. That's the office in charge of -- guess what? -- prosecuting sweatshop owners.

"This position gave Benitez authority over enforcing provisions of ... alleged unfair employment practices, issues of importance to Abramoff clients such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands," according to a 2006 Congressional report (pdf).

In 2002, Abramoff's firm took in $600,000 in lobbying fees from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Efforts to crackdown on the sweatshops there stalled.

Benitez left the DOJ in 2003 and went to work for Cassidy and Associates, a top Washington lobbying firm. Within months -- by 2004 -- Benitez had registered to lobby for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Also in 2004, Abramoff went to work for Cassidy and Associates. But he soon left, as his name began popping up in news reports about corruption investigations.

So where did Benitez and Abramoff meet?

We're not sure, but it may have been in the late 1990s, when Abramoff was lobbying for a group called Future of Puerto Rico, Inc. which was pushing for a congressional vote on Puerto Rican statehood.

At the same time, Benitez was the legislative director for the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration in Washington.

Yesterday McCain announced that Benitez has bundled between $50,000 and $100,000 for his campaign. Maybe that's not massive money for today's campaigns, but it's interesting since McCain used to be talk so much about Abramoff and corrupt lobbyists. He doesn't do that as much anymore.

President George W Bush lobbyist in ‘cash for access’ row

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:11:31 EDT

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4322684.ece

Bluesfest photo on fundraising page

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:09:02 EDT

Check out me at Bluesfest! Leave a donation if you are able :-)

Back from Blues Fest!

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:15:29 EDT

Blues fans donate $538,000 and 91,192 pounds of food

PORTLAND, Ore. – Perfect festival weather, great music, enthusiastic volunteers, committed sponsors and generous blues fans helped make the 21st annual Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, presented by First Tech Credit Union, a rousing success.

Blues fans donated $538,000 at the gate, exceeding OFB’s goal of $500,000, and making this year the second highest for gate donations in the festival’s 21-year history. In addition, blues fans donated 91,192 pounds of food.

And for the first time this year, boaters listening to the festival from the Willamette River flew special flags, recognizing their total donations of almost $4,000.

The annual Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival is Oregon Food Bank’s largest fund-raiser. Every $10 donation enables Oregon Food Bank to collect and distribute 50 pounds of food, the amount in an average emergency food book for a family of four.

“We owe the festival’s huge success to the support of our community – from our generous and committed sponsors, to the more than 1,500 volunteers who keep the festival running smoothly, to music fans who donated $10 and two cans of food at the gate,” said Rachel Bristol, Oregon Food Bank’s executive director and CEO.

Since its modest beginnings in 1988, the award-winning festival has grown to be the largest blues festival west of the Mississippi, attracting blues fans from throughout the world.

This year’s stellar line-up included more than 120 performances including Charlie Musselwhite; Isaac Hayes, presented by Chinook Winds Casino Resort; Phoebe Snow; Canned Heat, presented by PacificSource Health Plans; The Mannish Boys; Joe Bonamassa; James Hunter, presented by First Tech Credit Union; Elvin Bishop; Back Door Slam; Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and Orleans Avenue; Boyd Small & the Souldiers; Eric Lindell, presented by iQ Credit Union; Ruthie Foster, presented by Good Neighbor Pharmacy; Paul Thorn, presented by the Boeing Company; Arthur Adams, presented by Karolyn H. March, Attorney at Law; and more.

About Oregon Food Bank: Oregon Food Bank distributes donated food throughout a statewide network of more than 919 nonprofit, hunger-relief agencies serving Oregon and Clark County, Wash., and works to eliminate the root causes of hunger through education and advocacy.

About festival sponsors: The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival is presented by First Tech Credit Union. Major sponsors include FedEx Freight, PacificSource Health Plans, iQ Credit Union, Daimler Truck Financial, Land Rover, The Oregonian A&E, KINK.fm and Travel Portland. Supporting sponsors include Burt’s Bees, Good Neighbor Pharmacy, Miller Brewing Co., Henry Weinhard's, Deschutes Brewery, Beringer Wine, Snapple, Pepsi, Nutrisoda, Earth2o Water, Frito Lay Snacks, Yoshida Sauce, Mission Foods, Dreyer’s Ice Cream, NW Natural, FedEx Kinko’s, Impact Advertising, Edge Design, The Boeing Company, PGE, KBOO, OregonLive.com, Blues Revue, Music Millennium, Karolyn March, Guitar Center, Lions Foundation, Cascade Blues Association, Oregon Potters Association, Cascade Zydeco and Delta Music Experience.

Want to work on a campaign? Sign up for DFA night school-free

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:45:33 EDT

(from an email) kj* -

Have you ever worked on a political campaign?

Ever wanted to but never knew where to start?

It's not as hard as you might think. Next week DFA Night School is teaming up with Democratic GAIN to help you get hired on a campaign this fall.

Getting a Job on a Campaign
Wednesday June 25th - 8:30pm Eastern Daylight Time
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Campaigns are gearing up in all 50 states right now, and they need passionate, trained campaign staff. Next Wednesday, June 25, Democratic GAIN President Amy Pritchard will be joining DFA Night School for an hour long training on 'Getting a Job on a Campaign'.

Democratic GAIN is one of the nation's most effective organizations when it comes to connecting campaigns with talented staffers across the country. We'll be sharing research suggestions, tips on touching up your resume and how to build and leverage your professional networks into the perfect campaign job as part of this month's DFA Night School.

Night School is DFA's interactive online training program. Every month Night School brings top campaign experts right to your home at absolutely no cost to you. Just CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR NIGHT SCHOOL. Once you've signed up, you'll be sent the info you need to listen to Night School live either on your home computer or over the telephone. The training will be accompanied by a slideshow you can view online or download and print out ahead of time.

Sign up today and get a job taking back our country this fall.

-Matt

Matt Blizek, Training Director
Democracy for America

PS. If you know anyone else looking for a campaign job this year, then please forward this email on to them so they can join the training next week!

Greenwald working to create allience re: FISA fight

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:54:50 EDT

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/17/hoyer/index.html

stay tuned to Greenwald for more on this.

FISA "deal" coming soon

A New & Better Day! — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:43:46 EDT

FISA "deal" could be coming soon by Kagro X Mon Jun 16, 2008 at 02:20:07 PM PDT

Yet another (bad) FISA "deal" could be in the offing:

Under the tentative agreement, a major sticking point until now would be resolved by a compromise that would allow a federal district court — not the secret FISA court — to decide about providing retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their role in the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program.
It was not immediately clear, however, what standard the court would use to determine whether such immunity was justified.
If that standard is too low, immunity opponents maintain, the law will have been written so that companies are virtually guaranteed immunity — devaluing any claim of court scrutiny.

First reports are that that standard will be too low, and will be that way by design. The people who want this "deal" pushed through think you and the rest of the millions of Americans who don't actually want to be spied on by what purports to be their own government will think it's a victory if the "review" is conducted in federal district court instead of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) established under the original FISA.

But the problem isn't where the review is conducted, it's what constitutes the review.

One source said that the court would review whether there was “substantial evidence” that the companies had received assurances from the government that the administration’s program was legal.
A Senate Intelligence Committee report on an earlier version of the legislation detailed how the companies had received such assurances from the Justice Department and the White House.
Sources said that under the prospective deal, the FISA court would get to review, in advance, the process by which the administration chooses foreign surveillance targets who may be communicating with people in the United States.

In other words, the "dealmakers'" idea of a "compromise" is to let the court decide whether or not someone wrote the telecoms a letter saying it was all OK -- not whether it was OK to write the letter.

Ridiculous.

And how is it that such a monumentally ignorant "deal" was proposed? Look at your dealmakers:

The prospective deal was hammered out at a June 13 meeting that included House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., panel Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and representatives from the Bush administration.

Why is a "deal" about which court will apply what legal standard being decided without any representation from the Judiciary Committee of either the House or the Senate?

Because the people whose job it actually is to set standards of review for the federal courts are being shut out of the process precisely because they know how stupid this "deal" is.

Yes, this bill deals with intelligence collection, and so perhaps you can't deny the intelligence committees a role in its negotiation. But the chief sticking points on this bill are issues that properly fall within the jurisdiction of the judiciary committees. The chairs of those committees -- Rep. John Conyers and Sen. Patrick Leahy -- ought to be taking serious umbrage at this exclusion.

The part everybody agrees on -- that real terrorists and those you can establish a serious suspicion about ought to have their communications monitored -- is the business of the intelligence specialists. And yet there's no disagreement among them or among the rest of the Congressional membership about those issues. The disagreement centers around whether or not anyone ought to monitor the monitors.

And that's where the split lies. The White House and Republicans don't believe anyone can or should do any monitoring of the monitors. They think this is a pure intelligence issue, and that intelligence "agents" -- now really just a network of private contractors, anyway -- ought to have carte blanche "to protect the country." Democrats -- or most of them, anyway -- think someone needs to watch the watcher, and that at least some of that function should fall to the supposedly impartial federal courts. In other words, this sticking point for Democrats is a judiciary issue.

So why is it that the intelligence side is driving the judiciary aspect of this process? Their job is done, and they need to step aside and let people who handle the judiciary deal with this. On the other hand, despite the fact that this really should be a bitter turf battle, it's been some time since we heard anything definitive from either chairman about this.

The essential problem is that the people negotiating this for both parties are all people who place their faith in the intelligence community, and appear to exhibit virtually no skepticism whatsoever about a program designed to permit the gathering of incredibly detailed intelligence about everything done by everyone, with no checks, no oversight, and really, no obligation by the actual government (as opposed to the contractors who actually do this work) to actually get it right and keep their noses out of places even they say it doesn't belong.

Democrats in Congress who will be asked to vote for this "deal" need to hold out for something negotiated by people who actually know and understand the issues at the center of the dispute. And they're not getting it so long as the judiciary issues are being dictated by intelligence people. That's a miserable failure of oversight by the intelligence side, which is overreaching, and the judiciary side, which is underrepresented and underperforming

FISA Fight: Pelosi Confirms vote before 4th of July (!?)-Time to make calls!

A New & Better Day! — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:46:50 EDT

FISA Fight: Independence Day Vote? by mcjoan Mon Jun 16, 2008 at 01:20:07 PM PDT

Does Nancy Pelosi have any idea how bad this sounds?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wants the matter settled before Congress breaks for Independence Day at the end of next week, suggesting she is ready to bring the issue to a head.
"We want to pass a bill that will be signed by the president," she said. "And that will happen before we leave for the Fourth of July. So the timing is sometime between now and then. I feel confident that that will happen."

By all means, celebrate the birth of the nation by throwing aside the Fourth Amendment and passing the Protect AT&T Act. There's nothing like optics like that, in an election year, to show a Democratic Party embracing the politics of change. Here's a clue, any bill that will be signed by the president will suck for the American people and for the Constitution. Any bill that will be signed by the president should be unacceptable to every Member of the first branch of government--the one that created the law that Bush broke--and might possibly be struck down by the third branch.

There's this part that I particularly liked, too.

Republicans were previously able to force Democrats into concessions on the legislation, raising the threat of terrorists falling off the surveillance grid as they plotted attacks on the United States. But the tactic seemed to lose some of its punch this year given the unpopularity of the Bush administration. Democrats were comfortable letting the law lapse, forcing the negotiations that seem to be on the verge of a bipartisan compromise.

Hey Nancy and Steny, Bush is still unpopular. AT&T is unpopular. Bill Foster ran on opposition to telco amnesty and WON DENNY HASTERT'S SEAT.

But what the hell, give the most unpopular lame duck president in the history this parting gift. In fact, let's all call Hoyer [Phone: (202) 225-4131, Fax: (202) 225-4300] and Pelosi [Phone: (202) 225-4965 Fax: (202) 225-8259] and tell them what a brilliant idea this is.

FISA Sellout Immenent; Hints Greenwald

A New & Better Day! — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:20:18 EDT

http://www.dailykos.com/hotlist/add/2008/6/16/15154/0964/displaystory//

The Greatest Unknown Scandel of Our Time

A New & Better Day! — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:38:04 EDT

by Allen Lichtman

from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allan-lichtman/the-greatest-unknown-scan_b_107359.html

The 2000 presidential election was not decided by hanging chads, recounts, a flawed felon list, or intervention by the Supreme Court. It was decided by a far worse scandal that remains unknown to the American people but stands as a warning that our votes are still not safe and secure.

Al Gore lost Florida's vote and the presidential election because Florida officials tossed into the trashcan as invalid more than one out of every ten ballots cast by African-Americans throughout the state. In some counties, nearly 25 percent of ballots cast by blacks were set aside as invalid. In contrast, officials rejected less than one out of every fifty ballots cast by whites statewide.

Most of the rejected ballots cast by African-Americans were not under-voted ballots on which no vote could allegedly be discerned, but over-voted ballots that allegedly included marks for more than one candidate. Ballots were also rejected as over-votes if voters wrote in the same candidate they marked on the ballot. Over-votes were not included in Florida's recount process.

Florida's vast racial disparity in ballot rejection rates defeated Al Gore. If black ballots had been rejected at the same minimal rate as white ballots, more than 50,000 additional black votes would have been counted in Florida's presidential election. Given that more than 90 percent of blacks favored Gore over Bush, Gore would have won Florida by at least 40,000 votes, prevailed in the Electoral College, and become President of the United States on January 20, 2001.

These were the results of a statistical study that I was commissioned to conduct for the United States Commission on Civil Rights and a subsequent analysis published in the Journal of Legal Studies (January 2003). It was not statistically difficult to determine the racial composition of rejected ballots. Voters register by race in Florida so we know the precise racial composition of the vote at every precinct, which are highly segregated by race. Racial disparities in ballot rejection also persisted when controlling for a vast array of other factors such as ballot design, education, literacy, income, age, party control of counties, and first-time voting.

My study was purely statistical and therefore could not establish why Florida rejected ballots cast by blacks and whites at such different rates. My Civil Rights Commission report called for a thorough investigation to find out what really happened in Florida and make sure that ballots would be fully and fairly counted in all states in the future.

No one, however, responded to this call. I did not expect conservatives to look into the election of their favored candidate. But slumbering liberals are no less to blame than conservatives for the lack of national attention to an extraordinary injustice to minorities that determined the outcome of a presidential election. Why no mobilization of protest from the NAACP? The Urban League. The ACLU. The Democratic Party.

Absent public outrage or even knowledge of what happened we will now never discover the reasons for Florida's racial divide in rejected ballots. So we must wish away what really happened in Florida as well as alleged irregularities in the 2004 vote. The Civil Rights Commission has been immobilized by new Bush appointees so it did not launch an investigation of what happened in 2004. We can now only hope that the injustice revealed in Florida - perhaps in another form -- will not plague the current election. Eternal vigilance at every voting precinct must be the watchword this year for everyone who cares about our democracy.

Wiretapping: Impeachment Not Immunity-sign the petition!

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:32:21 EDT

Wiretapping: Impeachment Not Immunity

House "Majority" Leader Steny Hoyer doesn't understand the meaning of NO.

On March 14, we won a huge victory when the House voted 213-197 for a bill to strengthen FISA without providing immunity for Bush and the telcos who illegally spied on millions of Americans without a warrant. Thanks to your lobbying efforts - including over 58,000 petitions! - just six Bush Democrats voted for immunity.

Even Steny Hoyer voted against immunity. But Hoyer kept conspiring with Bush to sneak immunity through Congress when no one was watching. And on Friday, Hoyer quietly announced a new bill to provide retroactive immunity for past warrantless wiretapping and allow new wiretapping for six more years.

So it's time for us to tell Congress once again that we will not tolerate warrantless wiretapping by George Bush or any other President, and we demand full accountability for George Bush through impeachment. Our last wiretapping petition sent over 58,000 emails to Congress - let's see if we can double that number to over 100,000.

Wiretapping: Impeachment Not Immunity - Sign the Petition
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/141

Great info for voters abroad: pass it on

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:40:17 EDT

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/06/every-voter-everywhere-america.php

How Russert impacted the primary

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:52:56 EDT

by Paul Abrams

from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/how-russert-impacted-the_b_107153.html

Tim Russert has been broadly praised for his neutrality and objectivity questioning politicians on Meet the Press. Yet, even the evenhanded can skew outcomes.

For this primary season Russert provided an open invitation to all presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans, to appear for an hour on Meet the Press. For the first half hour, Tim asked mostly substantive policy questions.

For the second half hour, he "Russerted" them, asking about prior actions or inconsistencies. He did this to everyone. Some--such as campaign contributions from questionable sources--seemed potentially relevant to a candidate's character and credibility. Others, such as questioning Richardson for mistaking when he was 17 years old a verbal offer from a scout for a contract to play professional baseball, seemed a bit tangential to his likely conduct of the presidency.

Everyone, but one. Hillary Clinton was still the "inevitable" nominee and had decided not to appear on the Sunday programs. But, the pressure mounted, and then, one Sunday, she appeared on all of them. All from her home, not the studios. One morning, similar questions, her in control, over and done with. Just one half-hour each.

There was an unmistakable message conveyed. The Clintons called the shots. Hillary Clinton was likely to be President, and networks that did not go along faced the prospect of 8 years of second-rate status for access.

Russert went along. He interviewed Hillary for a half hour, and it was all substance-policy. She provided sufficiently long-winded answers to questions such as why she voted against the Levin Amendment that would have required Bush to come back to Congress for war authorization if the UN inspections were deemed inadequate that there was not much time to pursue her mischaracterizations of the amendment, and it was not clear that Russert really knew, right then, what she had said was wrong.

That was it. Or, was it?

It so happened that the next "debate" of the cycle was moderated by...you guessed it, Williams and Russert. In that session Russert waved sheets of paper asking Hillary about her tax records, the Clinton Library/Foundation records and records from the White House that documented her activities.

It was also in this debate that the first chink in the armor of inevitability arose--Hillary's version of "I was for it before I was against it" on the question of drivers licenses for undocumented aliens.

That is, Russert was using the time in the debate for questions he would have asked on Meet the Press but could not because the Clintons had succeeded to that point in not playing by the same "rules" as all the others. Hillary would have been far better off if she had done the full hour on MTP, and handled those questions, before a much smaller audience, and without her comrades to pick up the ball and run with it.

Bias? It seemed to this observer that Russert was angry at being manipulated, and showing he had remedies even if his network would kowtow to Hillary's inevitability as they had to Bush in the run-up to the Iraq War.

I believe that is part of the larger story of bias in the media that arose, not entirely but in part, because of the heavy-handed manner in which her campaign treated the media. Under those circumstances, once one chink in the armor is revealed, others inevitably(!) emerge.

What part did Tim's pique play in the unraveling of the Clinton juggernaut?

A footnote to history.

Opinion: Greensburg documentary offers shocking contrast

A New & Better Day! — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:53:50 EDT

I was really eager to watch the greening of Greensburg documentary. I knew of the story but hoped to watch for myself. Instead of feeling hopeful, it left me feeling a little sick. I'm certain the people of Greensburg are lovely and loving people, but after watching, I just could not believe the contrast between that disaster and hurricane Katrina.

There are obvious differences between the two. One being that a cat. 5 tornado is not the same as a levee failing. Both are devastating, but the former could have been prevented. (Let's remember that Katrina did not directly impact New Orleans. The gulf oil refineries were massivly damaged but they got repaired immediately; thanks Hallibuton.) The president demanded that the Gov. of LA sign over complete state control before sending necessary federal assitance, which the Gov. thankfully refused. Other Katrina states were not asked to do this and as far as I know this has not been a federal requirement in other disasters, but I could be wrong in the case of Greensburg, due to the strong defiance of the Bush admin. by Gov. Sebelius. [Who is my personal fave for VP!])

Each family got a FEMA trailer that was essentially a 3 bedroom house. What a big difference from the miniscule toxic traps that the folk in NO got. What really bothered me was that each family that Dicovery decided to air complained about the trailers; that they were too small, that they had to live out of boxes, that they had had to live there too long. It was not a proud moment for me.

I just keep thinking that the tornado hit in 2007. Katrina was in 2005! & many folks are STILL in trailers.

I keep thinking of the all the people, the homeless & under-housed (and at one time, myself) who would be thrilled to have such a nice house, even if more family was jammed into it than could rightly fit. And even if it were only guaranteed for 18 months. 18 months is certainly more housing security than most folks have right now.

Perhaps it was the Discovery channel that chose to focus on these cases to illustrate what a difficult task it would be to convince people to wait while they worked up a green plan (while they waited they did a nice balloon release, illustrating that some did not yet get the gist of green, perhaps intentionally, because surely environmental consultants would know what a nightmare such a ritual is.), if so they did a disservice to to the town of Greensburg, though I look forward to watching the rest of the series to see if they rectify an unbalanced view, or not.

Aside from the ungracious complaining, which seem uncharacteristic of Kansans and mid-westerners in general, and church-goers in particular, it was still clear that the disaster response was starkly different, or at least so it seems. Perhaps FEMA is trying to show that it has righted itself.

With all these things considered it does not negate the creepy feeling I got from the marked difference in response from all sides. Stark was the immediate clean up vs. the wards which still sit condemed. Stark was an emotion that seemed like an extreme sense of entitlement; but which may have been an extreme desire NOT to be the next NO.

The show was careful to portray this town as serious bible-belters, which could cause a cynical mind to reflect on this as another stark difference, since some, maybe even some in Greensburg, would consider NO as a modern Sodom & Gomorrah; you know, full of diversity and not really a loss. An even darker mind might reflect on the obvious color contrast between the towns, as well as the culture contrast. I Sure hope the series makes clearer the resons for such contrast.

Photo of the Day: McCain's debt, strike that, latte:large

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:50:19 EDT

Looks Starbuck's-ish let me looks under magnification....ok, best I can tell is it is probably not Starbuck's; the print looks brown or black. I don't know where this photo was taken, otherwise a local may recognize the logo!

Just the Obama info I've been waiting for; birth info

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:10:14 EDT

I have been waiting to get the info to make a chart. I love to look at the patterns.

http://www.astro.com/cgi/showgif.cgi?lang=e&gif=astro_w2gw_07_barack_obama_hp.68644.19121.gif&res=63&va=&cid=xvnfiles0sn6O-u1095878118

This next chart is fun because you can click on each planet, sign, or house, and it will explain each placement. This is 1,000 times more interesting than just a typical horoscope.

http://www.astro.com/cgi/aclch.cgi?btyp=ack&&cid=xvnfiles0sn6O-u1095878118

Frank Schaeffer: Warning to GOP friends: Screw up the Obama Moment & You're History

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:01:25 EDT

Frank Schaeffer: A Warning to My Old Republican Friends: Screw Up The Obama Moment and You're History -- Literally

from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/a-warning-to-my-old-repub_b_106676.html

If the Republicans -- not to mention their bedrock supporters, such as evangelical Christians, neoconservatives and others -- do not grasp the Obama moment, and then rise to the occasion, when it comes to understanding the significance of having the first black American to become an authentic presidential aspirant, they will have doomed themselves to political obscurity and moral opprobrium forever.

The Republican Party would not be where it is today or have dominated American politics for the last 30 years, if it had not been for my late evangelical leader father Francis Schaeffer. Dad more or less invented the Protestant pro-life movement by giving it its intellectual basis; before that, evangelical Protestants mostly stayed out of politics. Along with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Dr. Dobson and the other handful of "founding fathers" of the religious right (including to a lesser extent me before I dropped out of the movement), back in the 70s and 80s we empowered and energized a big chunk of today's Republican base.

So what I have to say here about Senator Obama to my old Republican friends comes from an inside perspective. It's this: beware how you deal with the Obama moment. What you do now is going to define you far more than you'll define Obama. He is about to become a major part of American history. You are about to be written off forever ... if you get this wrong.

As a former Republican activist who, as late as 2000, was campaigning for John McCain, today I am a dedicated supporter of Senator Obama for president. Yes, I changed my mind. But that isn't the point. My point here is to ask how the Republicans will define themselves by the means they use to try to define and defeat Obama.

My motivation? It isn't to help Republicans win. I want them to lose the election. But there are bigger fish to fry. For instance the peace and goodwill that we will all need to return to in order to function as Americans after this election. America matters more than party. And it is America that will be damaged by the self-destruction of the Republican Party. We need a viable opposition.

Just to be clear: I'm not saying that everyone must vote for Obama, or that people who don't are racists, evil or dumb. I am saying that how the Obama candidacy is treated and what tactics are ued will define Obama's opponents, not him. And this year's election will either help build up America or tear it apart.

While Republicans are concentrating on winning in November it seems to me that they have lost sight of the fact that this moment has far greater significance than whatever happens in electoral politics this year. If you listen to the silly chatter on FOX News, or talk radio, or read the likes of Dr. Dobson, Pat Buchanan and William Kristol and absorb their sophomoric take on Obama, his patriotism, his flag pin, his wife's patriotism, etc., etc., the question arises: do they know what planet they are on or what century they are in?

How Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters react to Obama's candidacy will define us all in ways that today can hardly be imagined. While most Republicans (and many Democrats too) seem to be concentrating on present and narrowly defined victory, the real issue is how we all will be perceived in the future. Our great, great grandchildren will pass judgment on us, and so will the world.

Simply put: Republican strategists who think that business-as-usual -- i.e., the slanderous politics of the past 30 years -- will take care of matters this time around are deluded. Worse than that, they will doom the reputation of the Republican Party and turn it into a marginal footnote of American history if they keep trivializing this historic event. That is too bad because, as I said, we need a two party system.

All over the world people who have thought ill of America are now thinking better of us, simply because Obama has become a serious major party candidate. All over the world our country, which has sunk to its lowest level ever in the public's view under Bush, suddenly looks immeasurably better because we have grown up enough to embrace a black candidate, our fraught and sordid racial history notwithstanding. We might even be setting an example in spite of ourselves. All over the world people who have despaired of their old friend America are taking a second look.

In our own country millions of new voters, especially young voters, are coming into the political process that before Obama, they had either ignored or written off. And the African-American population that has been the victim of the racism which has dragged on and on relentlessly, is taking a deep breath and considering a new future.

Senator Obama is not just a "historic black candidate." He turns out to be a profoundly inspirational person. For a start he is not beating the drum for fear as the means to motivate votes. This is a huge change from Bush and the paranoid distrust of the "other" that the Bush years will be remembered for. There are echoes of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt in the measured and sane Obama candidacy. There is the best of the American story in his personal history. The man radiates a steady decency, compassion and profound wisdom that is rare at any time in politics, but following the embarrassment of George W. Bush comes like cold water to those stuck in an interminable desert.

This is the context of the Obama candidacy. And what it symbolizes long-term is so far and away more important than the election results in November, that the mere politics of the moment is almost an insult to the sea change that Obama's candidacy represents.

If the world gets it, if Obama inspires the French, the British, the Egyptians, the Germans, the Indonesians, the Irish, even the Chinese, but Republican operatives and strategists don't "get it," then I make this prophecy: the Republican Party will look so small and yes, so pathetically racist, that by the end of the day we will barely have a two-party system left in America. No one will forgive the Republicans (or angry Clinton Democrats) if they come out of this moment looking as if they missed the point of what America means.

The Republicans are going to look as out of touch a few years from now as did the isolationists and "America First" folks after World War II. Before the war they were active in the prewar run up and they seemed very much in the game, even relevant. But the isolationists didn't understand the fact that the world had changed and left them and their interests stranded. The globe was smaller than they figured and they marginalized themselves. Forces beyond their political control were unleashed on them. And by the end of World War II the entire world map was redrawn. There was no room left for them on the political map either. They went from serious to joke status in a heartbeat.

That's the fate that awaits the Republicans today if they persist in trivializing Obama. As they prepare their slimy little Rovian attacks on Michelle Obama, and her "lack of patriotism," on Senator Obama and his "un-American" former pastor, and as the racial innuendo and the use of Obama's middle name, etc., etc., morphs into an updated version of "swift boating" the Republicans are more or less signing their death warrant. They are about to become a minority party perceived as controlled by silly half-educated white men, cranks, racists and windbags. The writing is on the wall. If fools like the FOX News folks, are the face of the Republican Party in this election the Republicans are done. It will not be forgotten that the Republicans pissed on a shining moment of opportunity and could do no better than snicker at a moment when the rest of the world looked at the Obama moment in awe and renewed respect for America.

Obama changes everything. Those who understand this and embrace the facts may live to fight another day in whatever political party. Those who don't -- be they Republicans or Hillary Clinton's disappointed and angry Democrats -- instantly make themselves part of a past that will never be escaped or lived down.

Here is what the Republicans and others can do to come out of this contest alive and well with their future bright whether they win or lose this election.

1. Categorically repudiate and denounce the sort of slime attacks that are already being mounted against Obama and his wife until they stop.

2. Refuse to go along with the snickering half-wits at places like FOX News. They will take you down with them into well deserved oblivion.

3. Pay homage to what Obama means to America and what his candidacy stand for in the same way that Obama pays homage to McCain's Vietnam War service and do so often and where it counts.

4. Decide now that it would be better to lose this election than win a race-based or innuendo-based pyrrhic victory that decimates the Republican Party's (or angry Clinton fans') reputation forever.

5. Debate the issues, not the man. The point is not to belittle Obama. You can't. He's already a giant of American history and became such just by getting this far in a country that was still lynching black men in our parents' lifetimes. But that doesn't mean that you have to agree. Say that his tax hikes will hurt. Say that his medical coverage is going to cost. There are real issues. Call him on those if you will. And experience is a legitimate issue too. But stay out of the slime.

6. Don't be too clever by half. Play even the hint of the race card, no matter how cutely or while pretending innocence, and you're toast.

How the Republican Party deals with this moment and whether it looks to a larger future than simply winning by any means, will not only say more about the Republicans than it says about Obama but will either give the Republicans a place in the future or relegate them to a discredited past from which they will never return. That will happen even if McCain wins. The victory will be short-lived.

Members of the Democratic Party who have America's best interests at heart can only hope that the half of our country we call red state America doesn't self-destruct. If it does it will make us all smaller. We all live here, remember?

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

Exposing Pentagon & CIA Corruption

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:53:00 EDT

http://www.counterpunch.org/lendman06112008.html

McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:21:17 EDT

McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'

By Jason Leopold
May 19, 2008

from: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/051908a.html

Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001.

Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.

Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.

Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” not only filling the Arizona senator’s acknowledged void on economic expertise (“I don’t know as much about the economy as I should”) but recognized as one of McCain’s closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily.

A McCain aide told me that the Arizona senator opposes the farm bill because it “rewards lobbyists” by granting rich farmers lucrative subsidies, although he would support “a reasonable level of assistance and risk management to farmers when they need America's help.”

But the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee also opposes the farm bill because Gramm advised McCain that he should resist its regulatory language on the energy futures market.

Democrats have dubbed that gap in energy futures regulation the “Enron loophole,” but it played a part, too, in the more recent attempt by the Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to corner the national gas market by shifting trades to the unregulated “dark markets” of the Intercontinental Exchange.

The “Enron loophole” also has become part of the debate over the soaring price of oil. Last week, a study sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, concluded that speculative futures markets were partly to blame for the surge in oil prices that have pushed gas at the pump toward $4 a gallon.

At a May 15 news conference, Levin said the skyrocketing price of oil is “not the result of supply and demand. Speculators have taken over most of the futures market."

However, the 673-page farm bill, containing the regulatory provisions on electronic energy trading, still faces obstacles amid overall concerns about the bill’s largesse to farmers at a time of rising food prices.

President George W. Bush has vowed to veto the bill, although it cleared the House and Senate by margins wide enough for an override, assuming Republicans don’t rally behind Bush and McCain, their current and future standard bearers.

Gramm and Enron

The battle over the “Enron loophole” also could draw attention to McCain’s dependence on Gramm as his chief economic adviser and Gramm’s key role in passing legislation that let Enron trade commodities on electronic platforms without federal oversight.

In 2000, with the Republicans in charge of Congress and Gramm chairing the Senate Banking Committee, the exemption on electronic trading was approved without a Senate hearing.

Internal Enron documents, which were released in 2002, revealed that the Houston-based company helped write the legislation, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in December 2000.

Freed from regulatory interference, Enron then used manipulative trading practices to game the California electricity market and drive up electricity prices across the state.

While California consumers were getting fleeced, the new Bush administration shielded Enron from early accusations of market manipulation. President Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity, buying additional time for Enron although the company’s house of cards collapsed anyway in fall 2001. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush’s Enron Lies.”]

In 2006, the “Enron loophole” allowed Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to shift its trades from the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) to the unregulated Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in Atlanta.

That let Amaranth corner the natural gas market, betting that futures prices would rise. The hedge fund lost about $6 billion and imploded as natural gas prices fell to a two-year low in September 2006.

Last July, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged that Amaranth manipulated prices paid in the physical natural gas markets. FERC has proposed $291 million in penalties and the forfeiture of “unjust profits.”

“Unregulated markets are known as ‘dark markets’ because there is very little oversight of the trades,” said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, chairman of the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, during a hearing on energy speculation last December.

By trading on the “dark” ICE market, traders can avoid the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s rules which are in place to prevent price distortions or supply squeezes.

Stupak said trading volumes on ICE “have skyrocketed in the past three years and are now as large or even larger in some months, than the volumes traded on the regulated futures market.”

The lack of oversight “makes it difficult for regulators to detect excessively large positions which could lead to price manipulation,” Stupak said.

Advising McCain

Gramm, who is now a vice chairman of financial services company UBS, began advising McCain in 2005 when the Arizona senator indicated he planned to run for President.

Since then, McCain has adopted much of Gramm’s anti-tax, anti-regulatory agenda. Most strikingly, McCain shifted to support Bush’s tax cuts, which McCain had voted against in 2001 and 2003. He now vows that, if elected President, he would make them permanent.

Yet Gramm’s influence over McCain’s economic agenda – and the checkered political-business history of Gramm and his wife Wendy – have largely escaped media scrutiny.

Gramm received more than $34,000 in campaign contributions from Enron and served as one of the company’s key legislative allies in Washington, including his help in 2000 removing federal oversight from energy trades on electronic platforms.

At the height of the Enron scandal in January 2002, Gramm’s press secretary Larry Neal told The New York Times that Gramm did not “recall a conversation” he apparently had with Enron’s chairman Ken Lay in 2000 to discuss that Enron legislative priority.

An internal Enron e-mail dated Aug. 10, 2000, under the subject “CFTC Reauthorization” – sent by Enron’s top lobbyist Richard Shapiro to Steve Kean, Enron’s executive vice president – said the company needed to get Lay on the phone with Gramm so the bill could be passed.

“The bill is not moving quickly in the Senate due to Senator Phil Gramm's desire to see significant changes made to the legislation (not directly related to our energy language),” Shapiro said.

“Last week at the [2000] Republican Convention, I asked the Senator about the bill and he said they were working on it, but much needs to be changed for his support. More telling perhaps, were Wendy Gramm's comments that she would rather the current bill die if a better bill can be passed next year.

“What this means is that we must, at the least, remove Senator Gramm's opposition to the bill to move the process and more importantly seek to gain his support of the legislation.”

Shapiro added: “However, with less than 20 or so legislative days left, we need Senator Gramm to engage.

“A call from Ken Lay in the next two weeks to Senator Gramm could be an impetus for Gramm to move his staff to resolve the differences. Gramm needs to fully understand how helpful the bill is to Enron.

“Let me know your thoughts on this approach. I am prepared to assist in coordinating the call and drafting the talking points for a Ken Lay/Sen. Gramm call.”

Several other internal Enron e-mails briefed company staffers on the status of Gramm’s position and Enron’s lobbying of the senator. Gramm finally removed a “hold” on the bill in December 2000, reintroduced the bill under a different number, and forced a vote on it without floor debate.

It was then attached to an appropriations bill that was signed by President Clinton on Dec. 21, 2000.

California Crisis

Less than a month later, California began to experience rolling blackouts due to artificial electricity shortages which, according to documents later released by federal energy regulators, were the result of manipulative trading practices employed by Enron.

The California crisis centered on Enron’s energy trades through a new platform called EnronOnline, which had been freed from regulatory oversight by the legislation pushed by Gramm.

In April 2002, Gramm blocked an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, that would have closed the loophole that Gramm had helped open.

Gramm’s wife, Wendy, also had played a role in the anti-regulatory policies that contributed to the Enron scandal.

On Jan. 14, 1993, in the final days of the first Bush administration, Wendy Gramm – as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – pushed through a key regulatory exemption removing energy derivatives contracts and interest-rate swaps from federal oversight.

That was a major financial boon to Enron, where Wendy Gramm landed five weeks later as a member of the board of directors. She also became a member of the audit committee that signed off on another one of Enron’s fraudulent schemes, partnerships that hid the company’s growing debt.

Even after Enron had collapsed in fall 2001, Sen. Gramm continued to resist congressional efforts at tightening up the rules.

In 2002, despite the accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other major companies, Sen. Gramm objected to the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform bill designed to hold executives accountable for inaccuracies in financial reports.

Now, the Gramm family’s anti-regulatory agenda is returning via McCain’s presidential campaign.

As Fortune’s editor-at-large Shawn Tully wrote, “economic conservatives should take heart. McCain’s chief economic adviser – and perhaps his closest political friend – is the ultimate pure play in free market faith, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm. … Most of [McCain’s] current positions are vintage Gramm indeed.” [Fortune, Feb. 19. 2008]

The first test of McCain’s commitment to Gramm’s anti-regulatory purity may come in the looming battle over the “Enron loophole” that the farm bill seeks to close.

Jason Leopold has launched a new Web site, The Public Record, at www.pubrecord.org

Jail Time for Tenet?

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:08:27 EDT

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/061108a.html

Moveon Ad starring John Cusack

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:51:31 EDT

New Moveon Ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=837SRwvqmJY

Obama: pulling the SOFA from under Bush

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:22:11 EDT

Sign that Obama is About to Face Down Bush on Iraq by LithiumCola

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/11/2559/66822/101/533826

Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 11:07:05 PM PDT

This should not pass unnoticed. McClatchy reports that Senator Obama's spokesman yesterday laid out a clearer opposition to Bush's Status of Forces Agreement than the Democratic Senate has so far done.

The point here is subtle but significant. The Washington Post, in tomorrow's edition, is reporting that congressional lawmakers are objecting to Bush's unilateral Status of forces agreement, but have so far not directly raised the issue of Congressional ratification -- in other words, have not really challenged Bush. But this is false. Obama's office did, as reported by McClatchy. In fact, Obama's position is now directly in line with the Iraqi parliament's opposition to Bush: that Bush must agree to a weakened agreement or punt to the UN, and therefore to the next US Administration, for any agreement.

I am not one for optimism in matters related to Iraq, but this appears to be an actual positive and fairly concrete sign that Obama is not messing around.

LithiumCola's diary :: ::

First, let me quote from the Washington Post, on events in Washington. The White House is buckling to Iraqi parliament demands that the Status of Forces Agreement be weakened to increase Iraqi sovereignty. The US Congress is getting more vocal in their opposition, as well, but is not making any demand for a congressional vote on the Agreement, according to the Post.

In Washington, the White House hastily organized a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday after Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.), the chairman and ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee, respectively, demanded Monday that the administration "be more transparent with Congress, with greater consultation, about the progress and content of these deliberations."
In a letter Monday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Levin and Warner wrote that Congress, "in exercising its constitutional responsibilities, has legitimate concerns about the authorities, protections and understandings that might be made" in the agreements.
Although they have questioned the status of forces agreement's contents, lawmakers have not raised the issue of its congressional ratification.

In other words, more "strongly worded letters" from Levin. But note the bold-faced sentence at the end again. It is apparently not true, as I mentioned. Obama may be after bigger fish.

Here is McClatchy:

U.S. security talks with Iraq in trouble in Baghdad and D.C.
Posted on Tuesday, June 10, 2008
By Leila Fadel and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD — A proposed U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that would set the conditions for a defense alliance and long-term U.S. troop presence appears increasingly in trouble, facing growing resistance from the Iraqi government, bipartisan opposition in Congress and strong questioning from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
-- snip --
A spokesman for Obama (D-Ill) said any long-term U.S. security commitment to Iraq must be subject to Congressional approval; alternatively the administration should seek an extension of the current UN mandate. Obama wants a new administration to make it "absolutely clear that the United States will not maintain permanent bases in Iraq," said spokesman Bill Burton.

That last part, the call for the White House back down on Congressional approval or else punt, is very encouraging. It indicates that Obama may be readying a stronger stand in the Senate against Bush than we have seen so far. The point is that the spokesperson had no reason to say that unless Obama was going to carry through. The fact that this stance, as stated by the spokesperson, is so much in line with the stance of the Iraqi parliament demand -- that Bush back down or punt to the UN -- indicates that Obama sees the chance to ratchet pressure on Bush from all sides.

This might all amount to nothing. When it comes to Iraq, I am never optimistic. But in recent days we have seen examples of Obama showing new strength in the Senate, now that he is head of the Democratic party as its Presidential nominee, and this may be the beginning of another show of that strength. Stay tuned.

[Update 06/11/08 10:25am EST by LithiumCola]: in the comments LanceBoyle states the reasons for the significance of Obama's move -- even if Bush doesn't allow a Congressional vote -- more clearly than I did in the diary. LB begins:

The Maliki government has been delaying and resisting approval of SOFA, but because their continued existence depends on US military support there is still the possibility Bush and Cheney can bully them into submission to SOFA. But if Obama speaks out immediately against SOFA and indicates he wouldn't consider its terms binding on either Iraq or the US, that greatly emboldens the Maliki government to decisively reject SOFA. Iraqis need to hear right now that most Americans won't stand for SOFA being pushed down their throats. We can't wait until next year to speak out on this; it would be too late.
-- snip --

(Off) Colorful comedy at McCain's expense

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:13:01 EDT

Comments on John McCain's website are not being watched carefully (updated w/archive) by InsultComicDog

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/11/2165/55268/106/533829

Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 11:26:03 PM PDT

I saw this on Fark and couldn't resist posting it here, while the comments are still on McCain's site.

McCain has a "store" on his website, which invites people to comment on the products purchased as contributions to his campaign.

This page is for the "Father's Day McCain Golf Pack".

For posterity I am copying the comments after the jump, since I figure they won't be there that long...

Update: Holy crap, this is on the Rec list! Thanks guys!

Update II: Holy crap again, I return to find this on top of the Rec list. Looks like McCain's web team finally removed the "offending remarks" though. All good things...

Update III: Tojojo's got an archive. See comment here.

InsultComicDog's diary :: ::

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Consolation prize... June 11, 2008
Reviewer: Carol Shepp McCain from Virginia Beach, VA
I got mangled in a car accident and got dumped for a younger richer woman and all I got was this stupid golf gear. Sheesh!

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

I was going to give you another look until... June 11, 2008
Reviewer: Peter Nutt from Hootenanny, FL United States
...I saw that the product code was FDR2583. FDR? FDR?!? John, you crypto-socialist, I was intrigued by your ballbag until I came to your website and finally saw youre nuts.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Happy Father's Day! June 11, 2008
Reviewer: President Putin from Germany
I especially love the divot repair tool. My dad's been using the same old one for about 15 years. Thanks for showing the old man how to trade up for a newer model!

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Great for... June 11, 2008
Reviewer: Grand Ol' Duffer. from Fartsville, OH
throwing at kids to GET OFF MY LAWN YOU LITTLE JERKS!

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Perfect for the sand traps June 11, 2008
Reviewer: Gny. Sgt. Hartman from Paris Island, SC
Great gift for your friends and loved ones in the military that are trapped in the sand for the next 100 years.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Disappointing June 11, 2008
Reviewer: Pat Tanaka from Parts Unknown
The 2000 Father's Day McCain Golf Pack had more balls. This golf pack is too much like the George W. Bush golf pack I got last year.

But, I will show those Obama supporters that i'm no elitist when I knock in a hole in one.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Balls June 11, 2008
Reviewer: Jesus H. Crist from Lime jello cottage cheese background

Adequate replacements for the balls I was required to leave behind last time I visited Bob Jones University.

_____________________________

On a more serious note, does anyone find it kind of fitting that the "Father's Day" Golf Pack takes 2-3 weeks for delivery?

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Balls with dimples, no lotion needed June 11, 2008
Reviewer: Deadite from Nogales, AZ United States
These are great white balls, I for one am glad that John McCain supports these balls. The only problem is that you can't lie with these balls, once you do some guy who looks and sounds like the emperor from Star Wars corrects you on camera.

Also I'm glad to see John McCain persevere and support a game that requires arms to be raised above shoulders to play. I know that John McCain will be a great president since that this great country will be regulated down to his VP since he'll have to take regular Matlock breaks, and with the on set of alzheimers causing him to screw up leaders of different countries, it'll be like a new President every day!

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

I was disappointed June 11, 2008
Reviewer: LAW from USA
When I think "McCain," I think "old balls and loose skin." These balls were pretty much straight out of the factory, and there was no lose skin at all. What a bunch of bull!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Best laid plans aft gang agley June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Bond... Jade Bond from Watertown, WI United States
O Partner my Partner our fearful trip is done
The ball has weatherd every bunker the bet we sought is won
The clubhouse near the bells I hear the people all exulting
While follow eyes the steady keel the vessel grim and daring

But O fore fore fore
O the bleeding drops of red
Where on the deck my Partner lies
Fallen cold and dead

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

I LOVE it June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Gramps from Florida
I love this kit. I appreciate the compartment for my soiled Depends(TM).

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

No action left in this old stick June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Wade Long from Eureka, CA United States
This set has no juice, no drive. It's practically tailor made for doddering old retards who can't even muster the brainpower to figure out that Putin isn't "The President of Germany"!!!!! It should have a hollow shaft that you can fill with Geritol, steroids and vitamin-pee just for those occasions when you're afraid your bones might crumble into dust. Oh, and in case I didn't mention it, John McCain is a doddering old retard who shouldn't be allowed out of his wheelchair, let alone into the White House!

That is all.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Useful June 10, 2008
Reviewer: myglesias from Midcity, DC
This is great for hiding my old talking points against the Bush tax cuts now that I'm for them.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

The Golf Pack is Great, but June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Lobbyist Buddy from Washington DC
When are you going to offer a Joe Lieberman Certified McCain Ballwasher?

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

A Must Have June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Your Friend from Chicago, IL United States
My friends, every order comes with free Pancakes!!

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

What do ya call 100 white guys chasin 1 black guy? June 10, 2008
Reviewer: B Obama from Aii, AE United States
The PGA Tour

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

NOT JUST FOR GOLF June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Walter San Miguel from Miami Lakes, FL United States
This is just the thing for strolling around
the Baghdad Market with 100 soldiers; 2
Blackhawks; and 3 Apache gunships, and
then telling us that Baghdad is safe !!!!!!

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Iraq Forever!!! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Mitt Romney from Boston, MA United States
I thought that I would give this McBush golf set to Dad for Father's Day as a way to commemorate his leaving Mom for the younger, blonder, much richer woman!!

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Quality! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Jack Abramoff from Washington, DC United States
Yep, good 'ol Chinese Quality! Just like we used to make in 'Merica

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of 0 people found the following review helpful:

These balls have 30 years of experience... June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Patrick Bryan from Bluefield, GA United States
...I thought I was paying for new ones

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Golf! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Ray in LA from Los Angeles, CA United States
I love my new golf gear! I'm going to use it on the golf course in the Green Zone in Baghdad!

http://www.treehugger.com/...

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Do your duty! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Anonymous person from asdf, AK United States
We are at war. Support the troops and go golfing. Oh, and oppose the GI bill, so the soldiers don't get so much money for college. Otherwise, they'll cut and run to some liberal university!

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

MUST OWN! MUST USE! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: LazyMF from Texas
Bag is handy. Will hold 2 Vietnamese skulls.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

I love John McCain's balls! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Ron Burgundy from , Los Angeles
Perfectly dimpled, John McCain's balls fly straight into the hole every time!
I only wish that I could buy a John McCain ball-washer so that I could wash John McCain's balls, my balls, and all my buddies' balls with that signature John McCain ball-washing gusto.

John McCain's balls. Now there is change we can believe in!

McCain roolz!!! Obama droolz!!!

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Balls! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Al Bundy from San Francisco, CA United States
Dear Senator McCain,

I see you have supplies for golf, but how about bowling? I take the measure of a man by his ability to bowl. The black guy cannot, it seems, bowl his way out of a paper bag containing a 40 ounce. The woman, obviously is unfit for the office, bowling or no.

So, Senator, it seems you are the only white male sportsman representing the Grand Old Party. You've got my vote, as long as you bowl better than a 200.

Golf is for sissyboys, sir, throwing a rock you can put your fingers in is a manly GOP sport.

Go Republicans!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Golf You Can Believe In! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: McCain Fan from Highbrow Street, United States
Whenever I get angry at how elitist the limousine liberals are, I have the chef make me some Cindy McCain Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage Slaw, then I take my John McCain golf gear out on the country club, where I can be with real, hardworking Americans. Also, white people.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

FORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Joe Blow from Mesa, AZ United States
FOUR MORE YEARS OF BUSH POLICY IF YOU VOTE FOR JOHN MCCAIN. THE WHOLE COUNTRY NEEDS TO TAKE A MULLIGAN.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Seal of Approval! June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Old White Guy from Washington, DC United States
I wore this gear on my last golfing trip with Jack Abramoff at St. Andrews in Scotland. Shaved crucial points off my game! Looking forward to visiting there again, as soon as Jack gets out of the slammer.

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golf balls whiter than the competition June 10, 2008
Reviewer: sebastian farmer from burlingame, CA United States
im so happy with these golf balls, they are at least twice as white as the other golf balls ive bought recently

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Defective balls June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Charles Keating from Houston Texas United States
I was expecting the McCain balls to fly straight, but the lobbyists must have gotten to them, cause the balls seem to go in random directions based on who's paying for lunch. Maybe they lost the real McCain balls in Iraq, or maybe they slipped in some Richard Nixon balls by mistake.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

I've given up the game June 10, 2008
Reviewer: George W. Bush from Washington, DC United States
Senator McCain, as much as you and I agree on just about every policy and decison that I have made, I'm gonna have to leave out on the farm on this one, buddy.

I've given up golf to honor the sacrifice of our boys and girls in the sand trap, and I think it is poor taste for you to dishonor them by selling golf gear

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

fathers's day McCain golf pack June 10, 2008
Reviewer: john dominguez from new york, NY United States
I'm voting for the black guy.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Wonderful gift for loved ones in sand traps June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Bo Baffett from Arlington, VA United States
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Send one to every service member you know who will be stationed in Iraq over the next hundred or so years.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Not what I had expected June 10, 2008
Reviewer: rouftop from dk, DC United States
For the past five years I've been mired in sand traps. Golfing has been one long quagmire for me. I had hoped this golf pack would finally provide some needed relief, but alas I am still stuck where I was before, except now the hole is deeper. To make matters worse, my personal finances have been completely screwed up on this wasted purchase.
I thought I'd break out of my rut, but I'm still Bush league.

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Golfing June 10, 2008
Reviewer: John McCain from Washington DC
I am a US Senator and I believe that this golf set has vastly improved my game. These balls were modeled after my own. They are hard enough to knock out a terrorist.

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Can you believe this? June 10, 2008
Reviewer: Anonymous person from FL United States
http://www.youtube.com/...

I can't believe McCain would say that!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

What's this doing here June 10, 2008
Reviewer: john higgins from eagle river, WI United States
To have golf gear being sold on your website promoting your candidacy has said it all.....to put golf....an idiotic game on such an important site shows you have no sense at all and certainly should not be running the country. sincerely John

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Bettered my game by 7 strokes June 9, 2008
Reviewer: I LOVE MERIKA from Crawford, TX United States
I tell you, my rival took one look at my dainty but STRONG towl, embroidered with the delicate words "McCain '08," and he about fell over. The game was finished before it began. He kept chopping deluxe McBalls into the woods, and I think he got real jealous. I hear he supports that democrat, but he should know, when you gotta play golf, McCain for LIFE! I bet you can't even GET Obama golf gear. And here we have the game elevated to its proper place: right next to "Decision Center" and "Strategy." Somehow, I know Merika will be in good hands.

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My friends, trust me, you'll want to snap these up June 9, 2008
Reviewer: Cofer Black from Moyock, NC
I hit the links near my beach home on Hilton Head with an important customer the other day, toting this little item with me, and I got the contract! I've been concerned about business slowing down, what with the Iraq occupation getting so unpopular and all. But my client took one look at my maverick golf support pack, and he was sold! For an investment of 50 bucks, I now hold in my hand a multi-billion dollar, 50 year contract with an option to extend another 50 years. I can't recommend this item strongly enough.

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I like the golf pack, but why no yacht tarp? June 9, 2008
Reviewer: Joseph B. from Cotuit, MA United States
Sure this pack of John McCain labeled shwag is nice, and when I'm out on the course I use it as a subliminal message to remind my caddy that I don't support minimum wage. But what I'm really waiting for is the John McCain yacht tarp. WTF, Johnny Mac, my boat is getting wet! Thank you.

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Wonderful Golf Set, Great Success! June 9, 2008
Reviewer: Dr. A.J. McShazzlestein, III, Minister from Church of Gods High Earth, Jewish Catholicism Sect
The game of Golf reminds me of happiest moments making goat milk in West Virginia. With your delicious golf bag I can enjoy most glorious day in slingshot golf attire. I like golfing in the U S and A better than home as it does not smell of burning human wastes in the outside airs. Anyways, I am anxiously awaiting my 15th golf set to arrive so I can celebrate the making of a 1000 goat milks. If I were hulk hogan i too would having make love to my daughter.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Support our troops while playing golf! June 9, 2008
Reviewer: Harris Winton from Hilton Head
This product is perfect. The balls play well, and often I think about how I could best show my support for the troops and our war on terrorism while enjoying an afternoon on the links. I know the folks at the club are going to want a set of their own!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Not just for picking divots June 9, 2008
Reviewer: John Mc John from BOULDER, CO United States
There we were on the 17th green when a bedbug-ridden bearded terrorist leaped from the hole screaming godless gibberish. My pitiful peace-loving liberal partners grabbed their balls and ran, leaving me alone with only my John McCain equipment for defense. I slung my ball bag at his head and leaping atop the mangy rascal jammed my stiff club down his throat, finally finishing him off by jerking my McCain brand divot picker up his misshapen nose. Thank you, John McCain for giving me the courage to fight!

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John McCain 2008 Golf Gear June 9, 2008
Reviewer: Meta What from Washington, DC United States
Because entitlement knows no bounds

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent product!! June 9, 2008
Reviewer: Francis Ballsnutstein from Montgomery, AL United States
This is by far one o fthe finest purchases I have made in recent years! I'm thrilled to be participating in history, owning a product labeled with a name of real importance! The quality of said product is truly above and beyond the norm, and is indicative of the pure quality of McCain. I think it's fantastic that I can still golf like Tiger Woods, and not live in misery and sadness over something I have nothing to do with, and I don't even have to complain about it like some pansy on the internet. Life is wonderful, McCain is second only to Jesus. I sure do hope the homes of everyone that votes for Obama gets bulldozed and pushed into Mexico where they all belong : )

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'll be out golfing while the democrats sit at home whining in public forums where no one will hear them! Enjoy your virginity, kids! It's going to last you a lifetime. Oh, and I hope World of Warcraft crashes on you.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

My Message June 9, 2008
Reviewer: Barry Hussein Obama from Chicago, Illinois
Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Michael Pfleger and all my other buddies tell me this golf pack is the one to buy when I get in the White House!!!

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Thank You John for the reminder... June 9, 2008
Reviewer: from Northern Minnesota
That we don't need to sacrifice anything...if we don't golf, the terrorists have won. In order to keep the economy strong, we need to support places which purchase pesticides and herbicides...fouling the waters, killing birds...Jesus is returning and he's going to be angry if we're not out golfing in times like these...having dominion over the earth and ruining an otherwise beautiful walk in the woods.

(And let's continue to torture the detainees...remember all the reliable information it elicited from you...maybe we can get them to make radio broadcasts)

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Wow! What a great product! McCain is a hero!!! June 9, 2008
Reviewer: Bob Sacamano from Boulder, CO United States
Wow, John McCain is such a maverick! He's totally breaking free from George Bush on this one. How can people honestly say that a McCain presidency would just be an extension of Bush? Bush isn't playing golf in respect for the thousands of soldiers he's sent to death in Iraq, McCain just doesn't give a fsck! He's exactly the kind of leader this country needs. He'll get our country back on the track, starting by bom bom bombing Iran, those godless heathen.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

McCain Golf Pack June 9, 2008
Reviewer: Bill Brill from Pensacola, FL United States
I never cottoned to the idea that I should give up my Wednesday golf game just because there's a war on. Our Commander in Chief has already made this sacrifice for us, turning in his clubs out of respect for the 4,000+ families who welcomed home a corpse, rather than their serviceman or servicewoman. So let's hit the links! And what better way than with a John McCain golf bag? Nothing better identifies you with the wealthy, graying elite than zipping your balls behind the proud McCain brand.

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McCain's Abramoff Connection

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:20:30 EDT

Committee report finds Abramoff influenced White House Nick Juliano
Published: Monday June 9, 2008

Contrary to the White House's claims, corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff had access to the highest reaches of the Bush administration and influenced numerous decisions within the executive branch, a draft report from the House Oversight Committee has concluded.

"The testimony and documents obtained by the Committee ... confirm that Mr. Abramoff had access to the White House," reads the report, which was released Monday. "Further, the record before the Committee contradicts White House claims that with respect to his White House contacts, Mr. Abramoff got 'nothing out of it.' Not only did Mr. Abramoff achieve some positive results from his White House lobbying, but White House officials sought out the views of Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues on matters of official business."

Abramoff was convicted in 2006 on several corruption charges related to his fraudulent dealings with Indian tribes he represented. Fallout from revelations of Abramoff's influence peddling rippled through Congress and contributed to several Republican lawmakers losing their seats in the Democrats' takeover that same year.

The committee's proposed report documents gifts that Abramoff spread around the White House, including lavish meals and expensive concert tickets. Among the recipients of Abramoff's largess, as TPMMuckraker notes was Carlos Bonilla, a former special assistant to President Bush for economic policy.

Bonilla is now an economic adviser for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who conducted his own investigation of Abramoff's shady dealings beginning in 2004 when the Arizona Senator chaired the Indian Affairs Committee.

The 35-page Oversight Committee report documents a two-year investigation by the committee into Abramoff's influence within the White House. It uncovered six photographs of the corrupt lobbyist and members of his family shaking hands with President Bush; the committee also found evidence of more than 70 previously unknown contacts between Abramoff and his associates and administration officials.

The report was issued with the approval of Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ranking Member Tom Davis (R-VA). The full committee is slated to mark-up the report Thursday.

Committee investigators interviewed or deposed eight Abramoff associates and administration figures and reviewed more than 20,000 pages of documents. Several former White House officials, especially those most closely connected to Abramoff, were hesitant to speak with the committee and invoked Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination to avoid offering a full airing, including Susan Ralston, a former aide to Karl Rove.

As Ms. Ralston’s counsel described, Ms. Ralston declined to respond to any questions about “the relationship between Jack Abramoff and his associates and White House officials, including Ms. Ralston.”

With regard to President Bush, the committee's investigation was unable to find evidence that Abramoff "ever personally lobbied the president" or directly influenced any of Bush's actions. It was able to demonstrate at least a half-dozen meetings between Abramoff and Bush through the photographs of the two it received.

Abramoff's influence of other administration officials was concentrated in areas his clients paid him to lobby, specifically protecting the interests of his clients on the Northern Marianas Islands, a US territory that has been criticized as a haven for unfair labor practices.

The committee documented Abramoff's ability to influence staffing decisions within the Department of the Interior's Office of Insular Affairs, which oversees island territories.

One example of the Abramoff team’s access to the White House regarding the nomination process is a February 20, 2001, e-mail from Susan Ralston to Matt Schlapp to let him know that Jack Abramoff had called Karl Rove a few days earlier to discuss appointments at OIA. According to this e-mail, Mr. Abramoff had heard that Esther Kia’aina was going to be considered for a position and “wanted to let Karl know that he didn’t think this was a good idea.” Ms. Ralston continued, “Karl asked that you return his call.”117 Ms. Kia’aina was not appointed to a position at OIA.

Monday's proposed report is a follow-up to an earlier Oversight Committee effort to document's Abramoff's reach into the White House. Bush administration officials attempted to dismiss the committee's earlier findings without having all the facts, according to the latest review.

After Abramoff's conviction, the White House downplayed his influence claiming he had participated in just "a few staff-level meetings" along with attending some holiday receptions. After the Oversight Committee's first report, the administration conducted a more thorough review, which resulted in Ralston's resignation, but even that review was lacking.

"[T]he Committee’s investigation has revealed that before making these public statements," the report states, "the White House never questioned five former White House officials who were key points of contact for the Abramoff team."

A .pdf copy of the full report is available here

"Most liberal Senator" falsehood

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:36:39 EDT

"Most liberal Senator" falsehood by newton123 Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 01:34:05 PM PDT

Sen. Boren just reiterated the false claim that Sen. Obama is the most liberal Senator:

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Democratic Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma said Tuesday Barack Obama is "the most liberal senator" in Congress and he has no intention of endorsing him for the White House.
However, Boren will vote for Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August and will vote Democratic on Nov. 4.
"I think this is an important time for our country," Boren said in a telephone interview. "We're facing a terrible economic downturn. We have high gasoline prices. We have problems in our foreign policy. That's why I think it's important."
Boren, the lone Democrat in Oklahoma's congressional delegate, said that while Obama has talked about working with Republicans, "unfortunately, his record does not reflect working in a bipartisan fashion."

newton123's diary :: ::

Where did this claim come from? Likely from the National Journal:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote ratings.

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/...

By some strange coincidence, Sen. Kerry was the National Journal's "most liberal Senator" in 2003.

It's clear this is a rigged rating. As proof, here is an objective rating scale based purely on mathematical analysis:

http://voteview.com/...

(Hat tip to http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ for linking to this site).

This scale is purely objective - it orders Senators based purely on their voting record and assumes only that their vote is determined by where they place on a single scale, which for want of better terminology can be called liberal/conservative. If you look at the rankings they make intuitive sense: Feingold as most liberal and Demint as most conservative are not going to raise any eyebrows.

Note that the rankings places Sen. Obama 11th most liberal in the most recent Senate. Note also how conservative Sen. McCain's voting record has been - he was the 8th most conservative Senator in the 110th Senate. In the 109th Senate McCain was the second most conservative senator after only Sen. Kyl:

http://voteview.com/...

Please contact Sen. Boren and tell him he is wrong! And use this ranking to put the lie to Sen. McCain's claim of "moderation" - in fact over the last few years he has had among the most conservative voting records in the Senate.

Update: Here's a good example of how distorted the National Journal's ranking is:

Obama voted "Y" on the following bill (Hillary voted "No"), thus earning him a "more liberal" record:

Establish a Senate Office of Public Integrity to handle ethics complaints against senators. January 18. (27-71) C-1

Here's the list of votes the National Journal used:

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/...

FISA fight: Feingold & Dodd Pressure Dem Leaders

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:07:57 EDT

FISA Fight: Feingold and Dodd Pressure Dem Leaders by mcjoan Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 01:35:16 PM PDT

The two most stalwart opponents of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, and the two strongest voices against the Protect AT&T Act, letting the telcos off the hook for breaking the law, are standing against "compromise" on amnesty. In a letter to leadership and the judiciary and intelligence committee chairs, Dodd and Feingold expose what this supposed compromise really means.

June 10, 2008
Dear Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Chairman Leahy, Chairman Conyers, Chairman Rockefeller and Chairman Reyes,
As you work to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, we urge you to include key protections to safeguard the privacy of law-abiding Americans, and not to include provisions that would grant retroactive immunity to companies that allegedly cooperated in the President’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program.
With respect to immunity, we are particularly concerned about a proposal recently made by Senator Bond, and want to make clear that his proposal is just as unacceptable as the immunity provision in the Senate bill, which we vigorously opposed. As we understand it, the proposal would authorize secret proceedings in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to evaluate the companies’ immunity claims, but the court’s role would be limited to evaluating precisely the same question laid out in the Senate bill: whether a company received “a written request or directive from the Attorney General or the head of an element of the intelligence community ... indicating that the activity was authorized by the President and determined to be lawful.”
Information declassified in the committee report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the FISA Amendments Act, S. 2248, confirms that the companies received exactly these materials:
The Committee can say, however, that beginning soon after September 11, 2001, the Executive branch provided written requests or directives to U.S. electronic communication service providers to obtain their assistance with communications intelligence activities that had been authorized by the President.
... The letters were provided to electronic communication service providers at regular intervals. All of the letters stated that the activities had been authorized by the President. All of the letters also stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Attorney General, except for one letter that covered a period of less than sixty days. That letter, which like all the others stated that the activities had been authorized by the President, stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Counsel to the President.
In other words, under the Bond proposal, the result of the FISA Court’s evaluation would be predetermined. Regardless of how much information it is permitted to review, what standard of review is employed, how open the proceedings are, and what role the plaintiffs’ lawyers are permitted to play, the FISA Court would be required to grant immunity. To agree to such a proposal would not represent a reasonable compromise.
As we have explained repeatedly in the past, existing law already immunizes telephone companies that respond in good faith to a government request, as long as that request meets certain clearly spelled-out statutory requirements. This carefully designed provision protects both the companies and the privacy of innocent Americans. It gives clear guidance to companies on what government requests it should comply with and what requests it should reject because the requirements of the law are not met. The courts should be permitted to apply this longstanding provision in the pending cases to determine whether the companies that allegedly participated in the program should be granted immunity.
We also urge you to correct the significant flaws in the FISA provisions of the Senate bill, some of which were addressed in the House version. The Senate bill authorizes widespread surveillance involving innocent Americans and does not provide adequate checks and balances to protect their rights. First, it permits the government to come up with its own procedures for deciding who is a target of surveillance, and provides no meaningful consequences if the FISA Court later determines the government’s procedures are not even reasonably designed to wiretap foreigners. Second, even if the government is wiretapping foreigners outside the U.S., those foreigners need not be terrorists, suspected of any wrongdoing, or even be of any specific intelligence interest. That means the government could legally collect all communications between Americans here at home and the rest of the world. Third, the Senate version of the bill failed to prohibit the practice of reverse targeting – namely, wiretapping a person overseas when what the government is really interested in is an American here at home with whom the foreigner is communicating. Fourth, the Senate version of the bill failed to include meaningful privacy protections for the Americans whose communications will be collected in vast new quantities. We strongly believe that these problems should be corrected as the legislation moves forward.
Thank you for your consideration of these concerns. As this legislation moves forward, please know that we will strongly oppose any legislation that includes a grant of unjustified retroactive immunity and that does not adequately protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans.
Sincerely,
Senator Russell D. Feingold
Christopher J. Dodd
[emphasis mine]

Feingold and Dodd lay absolutely clear why letting a secret court "decide" on amnesty is no compromise--it's a foregone conclusion. Kudos for them for setting the record straight, and for remaining steadfast in this fight

Wexler Co-Sponsors Kucinich Bill

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:45:47 EDT

I got this email today from Congressman Wexler:

Dear KJ,

Our effort to hold the Bush/Cheney Administration accountable has taken another dramatic step forward. Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced the first Articles of Impeachment ever to be introduced against President Bush. It includes, in total, thirty-five Articles detailing this Administration's blatant abuse of power. Today, I enthusiastically co-sponsored this vitally important bill.

I am grateful for Dennis' leadership on this issue and for the steadfast support that countless Americans have given to both of our efforts to redeem our government and expose the crimes of Bush and Cheney.

I will now expand my efforts to secure impeachment hearings in the Judiciary Committee for these new Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush.

Many of the charges against President Bush are well known – and would shock the conscience of everyday Americans if only the national media would be willing to report on these stark facts.

The Articles present a stunning narrative of offenses that have go well beyond previous crimes committed by any US chief executive. In fact no President or Vice President in history has done more to undermine our constitution.

These charges are broad, with 35 separate allegations including the deliberate lies regarding WMDs that led us to war and the approval of illegal wiretapping of American citizens. The Articles also include new allegations of high crimes – including the explicit approval for high Administration officials to violate treaties and US law banning the use of torture.

The Democratic Party gained a majority in the House and Senate due in large part to our promises to end the corruption of the Republican majority and to hold the Administration accountable to the law. This courageous bill is a crucial step towards fulfilling this promise, but – like the Articles against Cheney – they require your support to convince Democrats and open-minded Republicans to support this bold but necessary action.

Time is running out so we must work together to spread the message and apply pressure.

First, please encourage your friends and family members to sign up at WexlerWantsHearings.com – as it will allow us to keep in touch with you and speak to a wider audience. If you haven't yet put in your phone and address, please sign up again, as we will be doing telephone town halls in the near future.

Second, call your representative and urge them to support Impeachment hearings.

Finally, contact newspapers, news stations, and your favorite bloggers and urge them to report on this movement. We need to keep Impeachment a significant news story until the Democratic leadership sees the value in it.

McClellan Agrees to Testify:

I was pleased to inform you yesterday that Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers met my call to have Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan testify under oath. I am thrilled to inform you that McClellan has agreed to testify on June 20th at 10AM. This will be the first step in what we hope will be ongoing and deepening examinations of the stark evidence and charges against both President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Thank you for your continued passion and advocacy. Your support means so much to me.

Sincerely,

Congressman Robert Wexler

Cheney Winning the Inside Battles Again

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:57:09 EDT

Cheney Winning the Inside Battles AgainBy Steve Clemons - June 9, 2008, 10:36PM

Last September, I wrote a Salon.com article explaining the many reasons why despite neoconservative obsession with bombing Iran, President Bush would not do so. He had tacked a different direction.

Part of my case, though not all of it, rested on the fact that one of Vice President Cheney's staff members had allegedly told a private group in Washington that the VP himself was frustrated with the President's tilt towards Condi Rice, Bob Gates and others who emphasized a mix of diplomatic options over hard power gestures.

More recently, however, in the last six to eight weeks, many of my sources in the State Department, the White House, and the intelligence community tell me that the losers last summer and fall are winning again.

David Addington, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, is winning on virtually every battle he is fighting -- from not moving forward on new legal protocols that would be more internationally palatable on combat detainee rights to shelving the Law of the Seas Treaty ratification. But they say that the level of tension in the White House over Iran is also growing -- and the diplomatic game plan that before was dominant seems to have deteriorated significantly -- particularly since the departure of former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns and the firing of Admiral William Fallon.

I'm not saying that war or conflict with Iran is imminent. In fact, I don't think America, even under Bush, will strike Iran first -- but I do think that there is an increasing chance of a trigger event driving a fast escalation of higher and higher consequence military options. This trigger could be a mistaken signal, a ship collision, an event engineered by the Israelis, or by the IRGC Al Quds force, or by some other splinter terrorist operation wanting to exploit regional tensions and the current fragility of affairs.

We need to talk more about this. While I was not a great fan of Barack Obama's AIPAC speech last week with regard to Israel/Palestine, I did think that he focused in a constructive and important way on getting Iran policy right. He pinned the blame for lack of progress on Iran clearly on the inattention and wrong-headed strategy of the Bush administration -- and this kind of sensible analysis and willingness to make a strategic jump in a new direction is what we need now. We need to demystify this challenge and derail the intentions of some who they will try to force the next President of the United States into a no choice situation.

Whereas David Wurmser allegedly (though he does deny it) said that Vice President Cheney felt it important to "tie the President's hands" when it came to Iran and to generate an event that would undermine the diplomatic track -- the worry now is that the crowd in power is really talking about tying the next President's hands. . .tying perhaps Barack Obama's hands.

This really could be cooking -- and I think it's important for White House watchers to realize that the folks we thought had knocked back the neocons are themselves losing leverage again.

Obama and his team need to speak to this, to demystify it, and to make sure that America does not find itself tripping into an accidental war that really was no accident.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Blackwater's Growing Foray into Private Espionage

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:40:09 EDT

Today's Must Read By Kate Klonick - June 10, 2008, 11:25AM

Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army reports for The Nation on the shadowy Blackwater's growing foray into the world of private espionage.

The privatization of intelligence has grown dramatically under President Bush, with Washington paying $42 billion annually in private intelligence contracts, compared to just $17.5 billion in 2000. As Scahill points out, it means that 70% of the U.S. intelligence budget is going to private companies, which creates an interesting market for government operatives.

Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, started Total Intelligence Solutions in April 2006 in order to capitalize on this growing demand for privatized intelligence services:

"Total Intel brings the...skills traditionally honed by CIA operatives directly to the board room," [Blackwater's vice chair Cofer] Black said when the company launched. "With a service like this, CEOs and their security personnel will be able to respond to threats quickly and confidently -- whether it's determining which city is safest to open a new plant in or working to keep employees out of harm's way after a terrorist attack."

As Scahill writes, Total Intel's leadership "reads like a Who's Who of the CIA 'war on terror'":

In addition to the twenty-eight-year CIA veteran Black, who is chair of Total Intelligence, the company's executives include CEO Robert Richer, the former associate deputy director of the agency's Directorate of Operations and the second-ranking official in charge of clandestine operations.
From 1999 to 2004, Richer was head of the CIA's Near East and South Asia Division, where he ran clandestine operations throughout the Middle East and South Asia. As part of his duties, he was the CIA liaison with Jordan's King Abdullah, a key US ally and Blackwater client, and briefed George W. Bush on the burgeoning Iraqi resistance in its early stages.

Scahill points out there are drawbacks to this kind of free-market approach to national security and intelligence:

In Iraq, Blackwater has banked on the idea that it is a sort of American Express card for the occupation. But for the future, Prince has a different corporate model, as he indicated in his speech. "When you send something overseas, do you use FedEx or the postal service?" he asked.
There are serious problems with this analogy. When you send something by FedEx, you can track your package and account for its whereabouts at all times. You can have your package insured against loss or damage. That has not been the case with Blackwater. The people who foot the sizable bill for its "services" almost never know, until it is too late, what Blackwater is doing, and there are apparently no consequences for Blackwater when things go lethally wrong. "We are essentially a robust temp agency," Prince told his fans in Michigan. He's right about that one. A temp agency serving the most radical privatization agenda in history.

Conyers wants You to Rebut his 5 Reasons Not to Impeach

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:13:08 EDT

Conyers wants You to Rebut his 5 Reasons Not to Impeach by markthshark Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 02:32:11 AM PDT

I know this isn't the only impeachment diary in the last 24 hours, but I came upon this a couple of hours ago, and it comes from Conyers, where all impeachment proceedings must emanate from. Frankly, I’m kinda skeptical about Conyers being serious this time but as desperate as I am to exact some kind of accountability from the Bush crime family... I’ll take the chance that he’s indeed serious this time.

Actually, I think I’m still hyped up from watching Dennis Kucinich read off all 35 articles of impeachment on the House floor earlier. I figure it like this; if Dennis is still willing to spend 4 or 5 hours late into a Tuesday night to push this; why shouldn’t I support him?

Anyway...

Last Friday, Code Pink was granted a meeting with Chairman John Conyers, in which he challenged the intrepid, peace-lovin' protesters to explain to him why he should dismiss the five most common reasons indicating that impeachment is not possible.

The five reasons are below.

markthshark's diary :: ::

Why he's making us jump through hoops for impeachment, I haven't figured out yet. Perhaps, he's trying to push back on Speaker Pelosi. Hell, maybe he sees Bush and Cheney attacking Iran and feels this is the only way to thwart their attempts.

He knows the evidence like the back of his hand. He wrote a book documenting every bit of it up till then back in 2006, "The Constitution in Crisis – The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, Cover-ups in the Iraq War, and Illegal Domestic Surveillance." It's very thorough, There's definitely there there, and, I'm sure he's kept it up to date since.

Impeach for Peace.org has the story:

After each of the five reasons excuses, I include a viable rebuttal.

So, that is your mission, Kossacks, should you decide to accept it. If you do decide to participate it’d be good if we could come up with as many different [credible] rebuttals as we can for each of his reasons. But if we can only come up with ones similar to the ones I provided just try to change up the words a bit so it doesn’t look like everyone’s using the same exact wording.

Just be respectful, succinct and... hell, you know what to do.

John Conyers’ five [paraphrased] reasons for not impeaching:

• Reason one: While the majority of people in this country want Bush gone, they don't want impeachment.
Rebuttal: According to the Institute for Public Accuracy, a poll done by the American Research Group back in July 2007 indicated that 54% wanted to impeach Dick Cheney and 40% did not. In the same poll, 45% said they wanted to see George W. Bush impeached and 46% did not. Democrats.com has a whole series of polls from last year. Times have changed and percentages are most likely even higher in favor of impeachment now with recent disclosures from the long-awaited Senate Select Intelligence Committee Phase Two report and Scott McClellan’s new book What Happened.
• Reason two: The corporate media will slay us.
Rebuttal: Consider the source. I’m not trying to be trite here but the media in America simply have no credibility anymore because of how they failed to ask the hard questions during the run up to the war, and they’ve continued their dereliction of duties as the 4th branch of our government by not holding this scofflaw administration accountable for their crimes. Besides, impeachment hearings will be broadcast on C-Span full time and cable news part time. It's kind of difficult to refute the evidence once it's laid out on the proverbial table.
• Reason three: Not enough time.
Rebuttal: Both Clinton and Nixon were impeached and threatened with impeachment [respectively] in a matter of months. And, there have been judges that have been impeached in much less time. Besides, Mr. Chairman, you’ve already done most of the work, as was laid out so eloquently in your book.
• Reason four: Not enough votes.
Rebuttal: We are only asking for hearings right now to begin the process of exposing the myriad crimes committed by the Bush administrations. In all likelihood, the rest will take care of itself. The votes will come after the American people begin to pressure their local representatives.
• Reason five: It will most likely cost the Democrats the election.
Rebuttal: Throughout history, I don't know if a correlation can be drawn. Democrats did win seats in Congress after Nixon, and the presidency in the next election. But it was the opposite after Clinton's impeachment when the Republicans lost seats.

Please mail or fax your rebuttals directly to Chairman Conyers, with the note that here are rebuttals to his objections to impeachment. Ask him to please consider them very carefully.

I have a feeling that now is the last chance to push for impeachment.

Here’s the address, phone numbers and faxes of all three of Conyers' offices.

Washington Office
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax

Detroit District Office
669 Federal Building
231 W. Lafayette
Detroit, MI 48226
(313) 961-5670
(313) 226-2085 Fax

Trenton District Office
2615 W. Jefferson
Trenton, MI 48183
(734) 675-4084
(734) 675-4218 Fax

Chairman Conyers also indicated he would welcome our individual Congressional reps' signatures on the [Wexler] letter that currently has 15 signers, five of whom are on the Judiciary Committee. Contacting your respective representatives could help.

We'll never know unless we try.

Peace

Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment of Bush

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:02:20 EDT

Impeachment hits the House floor. Again. by Kagro X Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 08:30:15 AM PDT

With the introduction of a wide ranging, kitchen sink resolution impeaching George W. Bush, Rep. Dennis Kucinich occupied the House floor for some four East Coast prime time television hours last night, during which he read the entirety of his 35 articles of impeachment against the president.

Say what you like about Dennis Kucinich -- and that's partly what you'll get the opportunity to do here -- but by rights, George Bush ought to be impeached, and we all know it. Whatever the reasons for not doing this sooner may be -- fear, political strategy, or what have you -- this serves as a sort of historical marker of some importance. It will be preserved in the Congressional Record that someone objected. A small thing, perhaps, but consider this notable bit of dictum from Justice Frankfurter's concurrence in Supreme Court's Youngstown decision, the definitive case on the limits of presidential powers:

Deeply embedded traditional ways of conducting government cannot supplant the Constitution or legislation, but they give meaning to the words of a text or supply them. It is an inadmissibly narrow conception of American constitutional law to confine it to the words of the Constitution and to disregard the gloss which life has written upon them. In short, a systematic, unbroken executive practice, long pursued to the knowledge of Congress and never before questioned, engaged in by Presidents who have also sworn to uphold the Constitution, making as it were such exercise of power part of the structure of our government, may be treated as a gloss on "executive Power" vested in the president by §1 of Article II.

Will Kucinich's charges be pursued? No. At least, not likely in the context of impeachment, though in strictly theoretical terms many of them ought to be. But a number of them will be or already have been investigated in the context of routine Congressional investigations, most resulting in Sternly Worded LettersTM but little else.

Here, at least, is one Congressman's historical marker. This president's systematic, unbroken executive practice -- much of which has been carried over from previous Republican administrations that went similarly unadmonished -- long pursued to the knowledge of Congress and never before questioned, engaged in though he has sworn to uphold the Constitution, has now been questioned in a context that poses, at least in theory, the ultimate challenge to those claims of power.

From here, the procedure is somewhat predictable. Kucinich took the liberty of detailing his charges over the course of four hours last night in connection with the introduction of his resolution. In addition, he put the House on notice of his intention to seek recognition for consideration of his resolution as a question of the privileges of the House, as was the case with his November 2007 resolution impeaching Dick Cheney. That gives the Speaker two days to rule on the validity of the question as affecting the privileges of the House (it does), and to schedule debate on the resolution itself. At that time, Kucinich may opt to have the entirety of the charges read into the record a second time by the House reading clerk, as he did with his Cheney resolution. Or he may opt to waive the reading and proceed directly to debate, which by rule would be for a minimum of one hour.

At the conclusion of the debate, the House will need to dispose of the resolution somehow. You'll recall that the usual dodge -- a motion to table -- failed with the Cheney resolution when Republicans thought it would be clever to game the system and vote in opposition to the motion to table, hoping to force Democratic opponents of impeachment to deal directly with the question, right there on the spot. When the motion to table failed, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer instead offered a motion to referthe resolution to the Judiciary Committee (and moved the previous question, closing debate on the issue) where it has languished ever since, despite the efforts of committee members Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) to actually move forward with hearings.

The House is likely to dispose of this resolution in a similar fashion, though it remains to be seen whether Republicans will play so brashly when the debate is on the impeachment of the president himself. They likely believe they have little to lose in such a game, since Speaker Pelosi and most rank-and-file House Democrats remain firm in their conviction that impeachment ought not to be pursued. It should perhaps be noted, however, that the Speaker would almost certainly tell you that she's equally resolute in her conviction that the Iraq war ought not to be pursued, and that's not exactly working out according to plan.

But while the conduct of the Iraq war may be beyond her ability to control, the disposition of this resolution is not. Look for the House to try to deal with it some time today, while the schedule is still mostly occupied with suspensions and other matters not generally expected to cause significant tensions or delays. Later in the week, the focus is expected to turn to business more substantive than the suspensions, possibly even to the Iraq supplemental, and the leadership will want to have Kucinich's resolution out of the way by then.

Obama's Real Problem with the Jewish Vote

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:58:40 EDT

Now that the Democratic Primary is finally and definitively over, we will probably begin to hear even more about Barack Obama's relationship, even his problem, with Jewish voters. Barack does have a problem with Jewish voters--there aren't enough of them. Lost in all the noise about Obama's supposed problems winning Jewish support, is that the latest polls show him winning this group by a margin of almost 2-1. If this constitutes a problem, Obama should wish for such problems with Christian and other voters as well.

The Jewish vote is often misunderstood by many who think it is larger or more likely to vote Republican than it actually is. Poll data, however, indicate Jews are a small but reliably Democratic block of voters. Jews only constitute between 3-5% of the vote in a typical presidential election; and typically 70-80% of Jews vote for the Democratic presidential candidate.

In 2004, for example, according to exit polls, 74% of Jews voted for Democrat John Kerry, a higher Democratic percentage than some groups generally thought of as part of the Democratic base including Latinos, Asians, women and labor union members. African Americans and gays and lesbians were the only major demographic groups that were stronger in their support for Kerry than Jews. Kerry's showing among Jewish voters was no aberration. In fact, Kerry got a slightly smaller proportion of the Jewish vote than either Gore in 2000 (79%) or Clinton in 1996 (79%). In all three elections, the Democratic candidate got roughly the same proportion of the overall vote.

Casual followers of American politics could be forgiven for being unaware of these numbers. The media has been filled with stories about Obama's inability to win Jewish voters, fear among some Jewish voters that Obama is really a Muslim, Republican attacks on Obama as being essentially anti-Israel, and Obama's alleged connections to prominent anti-Semites such as Louis Farrakhan. Efforts to peel Jewish voters away from Obama have been somewhat successful. It is likely that the Jewish vote will not be as strongly Democratic in November as in previous cycles. Obama will probably get at least 60-70% of the vote, less than his Democratic predecessors, but still a comfortable margin.

Obama will win the Jewish vote handily because he speaks to the values of the Jewish community. While most American Jews care a great deal about Israel and will not support a candidate who does not support the State of Israel, Jews are not single issue voters. Jews, who are among the most affluent ethnic groups in the US, are, in many respects similar to lower income religious Christian white voters. Both groups are values voters; and both groups vote against the narrow interests of their economic class. The majority of Jews in America continue to vote on values, such as tolerance, equality and fairness. These values push them to the Democratic Party and its standard bearer in this election.

My point is not to write a philo-Semitic paean to Jewish liberalism, but to explore the reasons why this gap between the media coverage and the reality of the Jewish vote exists. The stubborn refusal of Jewish Americans to abandon the party of Roosevelt and Truman is a story that runs counter to the recent narratives of both the left and the right. The conservative narrative is that Jews are becoming increasingly Republican because Democrats are weak on terrorism, unconcerned about Iran and not committed to the security of Israel. George W. Bush's failure to win more than 25% of the Jewish vote in the 2004 election, where terrorism and security were the dominant issues, is not exactly consistent with this narrative. On the contrary, it suggests that appeals to Jewish voters on these issues, as framed by the Republican Party, are simply not working. In fairness, if the poll numbers hold up, Jewish support for the Democratic candidate will have declined in three straight elections, but winning one third of the Jewish vote hardly constitutes a major victory for John McCain or the Republican Party.

The conservative hope that Jews will begin voting Republican in substantial numbers, thus demonstrating the increased diversity of the Republican Party, has led conservative pundits, journalists and others to overstate Jewish support for the GOP and to try to spin, or more accurately, create, the story that Jews will not vote for Obama. This, however, is not the only reason that this notion gets the support it does in the media more broadly. Progressive rhetoric also downplays Jewish support for the Democratic Party and for the left more generally.

The progressive narrative regarding the Jewish vote is as misleading as the conservative one. This narrative describes the Democratic Party as building its base on multi-racial support and lower income whites. This is an appealing and logical narrative, but less than empirically accurate. Latinos and Asians, while at times key parts of the Democratic coalition, do not consistently support the Democratic Party in proportions comparable to Jews. Lower income whites are more accurately described as swing voters who generally split their vote between the two parties, or evince a slight preference for the Republican Party. Saying that the Democratic Party base is a coalition of African Americans, Jews, gays and lesbians, and other liberal whites is more accurate, but is presents an image of the Democratic Party that may not be appealing to key swing voters. More notably, recognizing this means recognizing that the broad progressive coalition that many on the left would like to see, has not yet come to fruition.

There are also less benign narratives why Jewish support for the Democratic Party goes unrecognized. Jews are one of the most Democratic and, yes, pro-Obama segments of the population, but this is an inconvenient reality for the disturbingly large anti-Israel and, in some cases anti-Semitic, voices in the anti-war movement and the left more generally. Those on the left who believe that the US went to war in Iraq because of Israel, or that Israel is somehow the cause of all problems in the Middle East and American foreign policy and that American Jews are somehow behind that, do not want their theories about American Jews inconvenienced by actual data regarding the political behavior of American Jews, so they ignore it.

Should McCain defy expectations and manage to defeat Obama in November, their will likely be efforts on the right to attribute that victory in some small degree to the increased Jewish support for McCain. It is even more likely that there will be voices on the left accusing American Jews of abandoning the Democratic Party in this election. That kind of irresponsible and offensive blame placing, while not grounded in reality, could quickly become accepted progressive political wisdom, have a destructive impact on progressive politics and contribute to the growth of anti-Semitism on the left. Of course, we won't have to worry about Obama losing if he develops the same problems with Christian voters that he now has with Jews.

Bush Hearts Abromoff

A New & Better Day! — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:12:29 EDT

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/house_committee_report_details_abramoff.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007536.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2006/09/abramoff_called_rove_streetcor.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2006/09/nyt_karl_would_like_3_tickets.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2006/10/breaking_rove_aide_resigns_ove.php

Nominee for Air Force chief OK'd nuclear first strike

A New & Better Day! — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:51:55 EDT

Nominee for Air Force chief OK'd nuclear first-strike
by occams hatchet
Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 10:21:25 AM PDT
The L.A. Times is characterizing the replacement of Gen. T. Michael Moseley (who was fired last week as Air Force chief of staff) by Gen. Norton A. Schwartz as a blow to the traditional "fighter" and "bomber" power structures within the service. All previous Air Force chiefs of staff have come from one of those two arms of the service, while Schwartz rose through the ranks of the transport command:

The nomination of Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, who is currently head of the Pentagon's transportation command and rose through the ranks as a pilot of military cargo planes, marks a significant break for the Air Force, which has been led by fighter and bomber pilots almost since its inception after World War II . . .

In bypassing the Air Force's "fighter mafia" in filling the chief of staff's position, [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates appears to be sending a message to the service that it needs to prioritize missions that support the current ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as transport flights, in-air refueling and overhead surveillance, according to Pentagon officials.
A closer look at Schwartz, though, might provide a more ominous reason:

occams hatchet's diary :: ::
Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005; Page A01

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons . . .

Titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" and written under the direction of Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the draft document [PDF file] is unclassified and available on a Pentagon Web site. It is expected to be signed within a few weeks by Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, director of the Joint Staff, according to Navy Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a public affairs officer in Myers's office. Meanwhile, the draft is going through final coordination with the military services, the combatant commanders, Pentagon legal authorities and Rumsfeld's office, Cutler said in a written statement . . .

The draft document also envisions the use of atomic weapons for "attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons."
Gee, I wonder what country the BushCheneyMcSame lunatics would want to employ that doctrine against? Might it have been mentioned in the title of a song made popular by the Beach Boys . . . ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg

To the more cynical observers of the political scene, it might appear as though the BushCheney administration is trying to fill the top echelons of the command chain with those who look more favorably upon war with Iran.

But only a cynic would think that.

A Tribute to David Plouffe

A New & Better Day! — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:28:24 EDT

Tribute to David Plouffe: The Man Behind Obama by Elrod Sun Jun 08, 2008 at 11:28:19 PM PDT

Receiving daily emails from David Plouffe, Campaign Manager for Barack Obama, I often wondered who the hell he was. I couldn't even pronounce his name and I never heard a peep about him in the media. It was always David Axelrod or Bill Burton, but never David Plouffe.

Elrod's diary :: ::

Well, the Chicago Tribune just ran a nice piece on David Plouffe and how central he was to Obama's primary victory.

Think about the things that led to Obama's victory:

No drama. How rare did we hear of internal rumblings in the Obama campaign. Almost never did we hear them, in fact, even during low moments like last October or Reverend Wright. Thank David Plouffe for this. Obama demanded no drama and Plouffe kept the ship in order. Look at ANY other campaign and you can see how difficult it is keep a lid on things.

Keep the money coming in. It was Plouffe who managed the historic fundraising apparatus over the internet.

Spend wisely. Saving money wherever possible, Plouffe allowed Obama to spend however much he needed when he traveled.

Keep message discipline. Though this was more Axelrod's function, Plouffe was clearly a key player in keeping the campaign team on message.

Morale control. Like Obama, David Plouffe never got too high or too low. What an emotionally exhausting event this campaign must have been. But Plouffe insisted nobody lose focus.

Caucuses. It was Plouffe more than anybody else who figured out that winning the caucus states would give Obama the victory. Plouffe knew the process inside and out, and set the organizational teams out to place like North Dakota and Idaho.

Numbers. Plouffe "released" the famous memo that predicted so many post-Super Tuesday results. He was Poblano-like in his accuracy for much of the season.

Organization. Atop the massive grassroots Obama organization stood David Plouffe. He didn't manage the organization so much as facilitate it.

I just thought this utterly impressive person deserved some serious kudos here. He will be even more critical in the general election. When you get an email from David Plouffe, know that you are hearing from a remarkable person.

Obama Thanks Chicago Staff-video

A New & Better Day! — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:17:13 EDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnhmByYxEIo

McCain's Reversal on Spying, Executive Power

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:51:45 EDT

Friday June 6, 2008 06:51 EDTNYT front page reports on McCain's reversal on spying, executive power

On Wednesday, I documented John McCain's complete reversal of views -- in the last six months alone -- on FISA, warrantless eavesdropping and executive power. McCain's diametrically opposite views were contained in a questionnaire McCain completed for The Boston Globe last December (wherein he rejected many of the Bush/Cheney theories of presidential omnipotence and warrantless eavesdropping) and then a statement McCain issued this week to National Review (wherein he embraced those same theories in order to persuade the Right that he approves of and would continue Bush's lawless surveillance policies).

The reporter who circulated the spying/executive power questionnaire in December to all of the candidates for the Globe was Charlie Savage, one of the very few national reporters who has reported continuously and insightfully about Bush's executive power abuses over the past several years. Savage won the Pulitzer Prize for his work exposing Bush's radical use of signing statements to vest himself with the power to break the law.

In what might be one of the most significant and under-noted media developments of the year, it was announced last month that Savage was leaving the Globe and joining The New York Times. Already, that move has paid dividends, as the NYT today publishes a front-page story by Savage detailing McCain's reversal this week. The article begins this way:

A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain believes that President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team.

The article quotes my Wednesday column to make this point:

And Glenn Greenwald, a Salon columnist and critic of the Bush administration's legal claims, wrote that the statement was a "complete reversal" by Mr. McCain, accusing the candidate of seeking "to shore up the support of right-wing extremists."

An Obama spokesman was extremely critical of McCain's blatantly opportunistic switch: "anyone reading Mr. McCain's answers to The Globe and the more recent statement would be 'totally confused' about 'what Senator McCain thinks about what the Constitution means and what President Bush did.'" Amazingly, after being forced to repudiate comments by a McCain representative at a campaign event two weeks ago which suggested McCain would oppose telecom amnesty, McCain now appears close to repudiating the follow-up "clarifying" comments from another adviser, the one who gave the statement to National Review:

Asked whether the views Mr. Holtz-Eakin imputed to Mr. McCain were inaccurate, Mr. Bounds did not repudiate the statement. But late Thursday Mr. Bounds called and said, “to the extent that the comments of members of our staff are misinterpreted, they shouldn’t be read into as anything otherwise."

Neither Mr. McCain nor Mr. Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office who primarily advises the campaign on economic issues, were available for comment, Mr. Bounds said.

I'm actually giving a seminar this morning on precisely these issues and thus don't have the time until later today to give Savage's article the attention it deserves. But as is typical, Savage's article is comprehensive and reports on all of the key facts.

There are two critical conclusions highlighted by this episode: (1) whether McCain embraces the Bush/Cheney/Yoo theories of the omnipotent executive is, far and away, one of the most vital questions of the campaign, since the vast bulk of the radicalism and accompanying controversies of the last eight years -- from spying to detention to torture to extreme government secrecy -- arise out of those theories; despite that fact, those issues have been missing almost entirely from the media's coverage of the campaign -- until now; and (2) despite how central these issues have been, McCain is simply incapable of forming a coherent position on what he thinks about any of this, dramatically changing his answers almost from one day to the next depending on who is asking. This behavior, culminating in his embrace this week of the Bush/Cheney/Yoo theories, severely undermines the two attributes the media relentlessly uses to depict him -- his "moderate" ideology and his straight-talking, principled independence.

-- Glenn Greenwald

Graham: McCain's Policies Would 'Absolutely' Be An 'Extension' & 'Enhancement' of Bush Policies

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:42:32 EDT

Graham: McCain’s Policies Would ‘Absolutely’ Be An ‘Extension’ And ‘Enhancement’ Of Bush’s»

In a widely-ridiculed speech last Tuesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) noted that “you will hear from my opponent’s campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I’m running for President Bush’s third term. You will hear every policy of the President described as the Bush-McCain policy.” He added that he believes those comparisons are “false.”

But it seems that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), McCain’s chief surrogate and attack dog, disagrees. Today on ABC’s This Week, Graham stated unequivocally that McCain’s tax and health care policies were not only an extension of Bush’s polices but also an “enhancement”:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring Senator Graham back in on this because you brought up two. You said the tax policy and the health care policy were essentially, Senator Graham, John McCain is calling for an extension or maybe enhancement of the Bush policies.
GRAHAM: Yeah, absolutely.

Watch it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKm87MV_u_4

McCain’s speech last week represented a feeble attempt to distance himself from Bush, something his top surrogate acknowledges is futile. Strangely enough, McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said recently that Obama’s economic polices, not McCain’s, would represent a third Bush term (a claim ultra-conservative Robert Novak even found absurd).

But the simple fact is that Graham is right. McCain is proposing massive tax cuts that primarily benefit higher-income households, ignore other priorities and drive up the national debt by trillions. And McCain’s health care policy would raise costs and abandon the uninsured. That sure sounds like an “extension” and “enhancement” of Bush’s policies.

New Abramoff Plea is Trouble for McCain & the GOP

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:59:26 EDT

New Abramoff Plea is Trouble for McCain & the GOP by dengre Sun Jun 08, 2008 at 12:37:45 AM PDT

It has been a busy week.

We have a Nominee. Senator Clinton gave a great speech and is showing everybody how to unify the Party.

This is good news.

And yet, some important stories are getting lost in the flood of end-of-primary Diaries.

This is one of those stories.

Last Monday, on the eve of the final Democratic Primaries and while John McCain was practicing his performance art shtick in front of a green screen, word came that yet another Republican had plead guilty in the ongoing Abramoff corruption scandal.

The latest perp is a fellow named John Albaugh. He used to be the chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK). Now he is a cooperating witness—just another GOP insider spilling his guts to the Feds.

Albaugh’s plea deal is a very interesting and merits an examination.

It not only spells trouble for the Republican Party, it also calls into question John McCain’s investigation cover-up of the Abramoff Scandal.

To the jump...

dengre's diary :: ::

John Albaugh is significant cooperating witness. His plea and the information released to support it indicate that the Abramoff corruption investigation is active, growing and focusing on the actions of a number of Elected officials.

The plea also calls John McCain’s "investigation" of Jack Abramoff into question (more on that in a moment).

But first, who is John Albaugh and what did he do?

Let’s let turn to the AP for some details:

A one-time top aide to former Oklahoma Rep. Ernest Istook pleaded guilty Monday to a conspiracy to defraud the House as part of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
John Albaugh admitted in federal court in Washington that he accepted meals and sports and concert tickets, along with other perks, from lobbyists in exchange for official favors.
Albaugh, 41, is the latest in a string of more than a dozen former government officials and lobbyists to plead guilty in the scandal involving members of Congress, their aides and Bush administration officials. He faces 18 to 24 months in prison, but that sentence could be reduced based on his continued cooperation with the government's investigation.
"Mr. Albaugh decided to accept the government's proposal and move on with his life," his attorney Jeffrey Jacobovitz said after the hearing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle. "He deeply regrets and accepts full responsibility for his involvement in these matters and their impact upon his family and the community."
During the eight years Albaugh worked as chief of staff to Istook, the congressman accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Abramoff and his associates. Istook has not been charged with any wrongdoing and is now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.
Istook said Monday he was "as surprised and as shocked as anyone" at the case.

I love the way Istook is "surprised." This is all the more surprising when one reads the Information filing explaining the crimes that Albaugh was admitting in his guilty plea.

Istook is "Representative 4" and point #20 from the Overt Acts section of Information filing indicates that Istook had an active role in the criminal conspiracy (emphasis added):

20. On or about March 19, 2003, at the suggestion of defendant ALBAUGH, Representative 4 called Jack Abramoff, thanking him in advance for use of one of his FedEx Field suites for an upcoming fundraising event. During that call, Representative 4 also asked Abramoff which particular projects Firm B's clients wanted in the transportation bill. Abramoff thereafter sent an e-mail to the lobbyists on his team telling them that Representative 4 had "basically asked what we want in the transportation bill," and instructing the lobbyists to "make sure we load up our entire Christmas list."

TPM Muckraker further explains how the former Congressman is in trouble:

Federal prosecutors may have their sites on former Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK) after getting a guilty plea from his former chief of staff.
Istook was not accused of any criminal conduct. But the court papers charging Istook's former chief of staff, John Albaugh, portray Istook as an apparent participant in Abramoff's influence peddling scheme. [snip]
The alleged telephone call is at odds with Istook's own account of his contacts with Abramoff. He told a reporter in April 2006 that he'd never spoken to Abramoff on the phone [snip]
The court papers charging Albaugh include several instances where Istook, referred to as "Representative 4," received benefits from Abramoff's lobbying firm.

Jack was doing favors for Istook and his staff. In return, Istook and his staff did favors for Abramoff.

Jack and Ernest worked out that broad strokes of the relationship and the details were delegated to Albaugh for Istook and "Lobbyist C" for Abramoff.

"Lobbyist C" is Kevin Ring.

Before working for Team Abramoff, Ring worked for John Doolittle, John Ashcroft and others. Kevin Ring is the current target of the Abramoff investigation. He is not cooperating and the Feds want him to crack. This plea deal is designed to put pressure on Kevin Ring and ABC News fills in some of the reasons why the DOJ wants Ring:

As the Associated Press eventually noted, Mr. C is likely Kevin Ring, a former Hill aide who went to work for Jack Abramoff in 2001. And strange as it may seem, ex-staffer Ring may be a more enticing target for prosecutors than the ex-congressman in the plea documents, Republican Ernest Istook of Oklahoma.
Why? Because Ring, already reported to be under investigation by the Abramoff prosecutors, is considered to have been Abramoff's liaison to Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., Ring's old boss. And Doolittle is a fellow those prosecutors have been trying to get at for a long, long time.
Indeed, Doolittle appears to have become something of a great white whale to prosecutors working the Abramoff scandal. In the past year and a half they have raided his home and his wife's office, subpoenaed mountains of documents, interviewed as many as a half-dozen of the lawmaker's former aides, even reportedly offered Doolittle a plea deal. (He reportedly turned it down; both Doolittle and his wife Julie have maintained their innocence).
Reviewing press accounts, Doolittle appears to have accepted many more gifts and contributions than Istook did from Abramoff, his team and his clients. And he reportedly took more actions favorable to Abramoff than Istook. Also, Doolittle is still in office. For prosecutors in the Public Integrity Section, convicting an active lawmaker is more professionally rewarding than putting a retiree behind bars.

Doolittle is a target and Ring can help put him away, but that is not all that Kevin can do.

The McCain led investigation of Jack Abramoff collected over 750,000 pages of documents. Less than 7,000 have been released. In the small number of documents released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee (SIAC) there is an interesting series of emails on pages 283 to 297 in this PDF.
The emails are between Jack's aides, folks like Kevin Ring, Neil Votz and others. In the emails, they are talking about the February 22, 2004 WP article that broke the Abramoff scandal into the news-cycle.

Starting on page 285 and working backwards to page 284, Kevin Ring and Matt DeMazza discuss the article in a series of emails (emphasis added):

Matt: So is it 100% Scanlon's fault, or is Jack partially to blame?
Kevin: Jack is equally to blame. He talked the tribes into hiring Scanlon.
Matt: That's what I gathered from the story, but I wasn't sure if you knew something that the reporter didn't know ...
So is your future with G.T. in questions?
Kevin: I don't think mine is. But the impact will be felt by everyone. Unsettling after buying a new house.
I know more than the article and the truth is worse.

Kevin Ring knows who did what and when and that is why he is a target. And there are others he can give up besides Doolittle. Don Young is clearly in the sights of the DOJ. After all, Jack used Young’s Transportation Committee as an ATM for his clients (just as he used to use the Resources Committee when Young ran it). And point #2 of the Information behind Albaugh’s plea makes it clear that those connected to the Transportation Committee and transportation related appropriations should be worried:

2. From in or about January 2003 through in or about January 2005, Representative 4 served as chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury & Independent Agencies ("the Subcommittee").

If I was a Republican on the Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury & Independent Agencies anytime between 2000 and 2005, I would have a lawyer on speed dial. Especially now that an Abramoff related guilty plea has the DOJ identifying the earmarks Republican lawmakers inserted to benefit Abramoff and his clients.

Point #37 of the Albaugh Plea Information showed how lobbyists get earmarks into an Appropriations Bill:

37. On or about November 12, 2003, in response to an e-mail from Lobbyist C asking whether he is "still conferencing" on the transportation appropriations bill, defendant ALBAUGH then responded, "[y]es, it is helping your projects out."
Lobbyist C responded, "WOOHOO. Tell me when you can. . . thanks." Defendant ALBAUGH subsequently responded:
"[Client A] is now at $1.25 m
[Client B] $1 m
[Client C] $1.2 m
[ClientD] $1.4m
Whos [sic] the man!"

Now I have often come across some evidence like this in the Abramoff documents that I have collected. I know that something had been passed, inserted and/or appropriated for Jack, but I have not been able to track the items down. Fortunately, Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) is an organization that can track these items down. The Hill shared the work of TCS with a wider audience (emphasis added):

Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), a watchdog group devoted to eliminating corruption and waste in government spending, released an analysis Tuesday of the earmarks Ring attained on behalf of his clients. It found that several of Ring’s clients received earmarks in the fiscal 2004 Transportation appropriations bill, which Istook oversaw in his role as subcommittee chairman.
The court documents likely refer to some of the earmarks that Ring’s clients received, according to the TCS evaluation. At least four of the earmarks in question went to a Ring client based in Doolittle’s district.
"This case demonstrates the nature of corruption in the earmarking process," said Ryan Alexander, TCS president. "We cannot continue with a broken system where we only discover corruption through criminal investigation."
The earmarks TCS scrutinized include:
• A $3.5 million earmark to construct Highway 323 from Alzada to Ekalaka in Carter County, Mont.
• A $1.425 million earmark for a Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians’ Roads project.
• A $5 million earmark to study the use of diesel multiple units that benefited Colorado Railcar Manufacturing, a Fort Lupton, Colo., Company.
• Elk Grove, Calif., in former Rep. Doug Ose’s (R-Calif.) district, received two earmarks: $300,000 for the Sheldon Road SR 99 Interchange and $960,000 for a traffic operations center.
• Lincoln, Calif., in Doolittle’s district received four earmarks: $500,000 for expansion of regional buses; $1 million for the Lincoln Boulevard Improvement Project; $2 million for Lincoln bypass-SR65/Ferrari Interchange construction; and $250,000 for the Auburn Ravine Bridge.
• The Michigan-based Saginaw Chippewa tribe received two earmarks: $1.2 million for the Transportation Improvement Project and another $1 million for the Transit Multimodal Downtown Transit Facility.

It should worry the GOP that TCS found more earmarks connected to Ring and Abramoff than were mentioned in the Albaugh plea. This is just the tip of an iceberg of corruption.

As this investigation grinds on the GOP is in trouble.
And so is John McCain.

Two of Jack’s Native American clients are on the list. Together they took in over $3.6 million in Abramoff placed earmarks in a single section of a single Appropriation Bill. This would seem to suggest that Jack Abramoff was an effective lobbyist for his clients. It would seem to suggest that he did more than just swindle them out of their money. It seems to be evidence that Abramoff used his connections to get Federal funds for his clients in return for the money they gave him.

Jack Abramoff is in jail because he committed many crimes, but he did his job very well. He delivered for his Party. Jack was a bagman for the GOP. It was his job to move the money around and Jack specialized in moving large sums of off-the-books money that could be used late in an election cycle to flood the zone and win the day for the GOP. Since Jack left the field and went to prison, the Republican Party has had trouble replacing him. Jack moved the money and they miss him.

Jack used his clients as ways to get the large sums of cash into our political system. At any given time he was involved in any number of schemes. It was always a balancing act for Jack. He lived a life of contradictions. He exploited some of his clients and he also delivered the goods for his clients. Sure, he charged around $500 an hour for his time, but his clients got a return on their investment. This is a "secret" about Abramoff that has been obscured by the Abramoff "Pure Greed Myth" created by John McCain.

On February 22, 2004 folks in DC opened their Sunday Washington Post to read about Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon and the way they "ripped off" their Native American clients. The surface story was true, but another larger story was hidden in the details. That story, if exposed, would decimate devastate the Republican Party in a massive corruption scandal and doom the effort to re-elect George W. Bush.

John McCain leapt into action. He had a massive scandal to cover up and no time to loose. He took charge of the investigation by the Senate’s Indian Affairs Committee. As I have mentioned before, he gathered 750,000 documents. He had ALL of Abramoff’s billing records and emails from two lobbying firms and documents stretching back a decade.

At this moment, John McCain had a choice:

He could pursue the truth and let the investigation go where it went regardless of who it exposed

He could use the investigation to shape a narrative, create a "myth" and a demonize the designated fall guy.

In the early days of the investigation it looked like McCain was going to take the first option. During a November 17, 2004 Hearing on the scandal, John McCain made a promise:

"I pledge, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, that we will not stop until the complete truth is told."

It was a promise—like all John McCain promises—that McCain quickly broke. Before the same hearing was over, it was clear that McCain had chosen the latter course.

He chose to embrace the narrative suggested by the first news story and shaped the facts to support it. The focus of his investigation cover-up became a story of gullible Indians, greedy lobbyists and the straight talking Senators who take them on.

In McCain’s version of the Abramoff story, Jack was an aberration—a "bad apple" if you will—in the otherwise smoothly running Republican system of a constant revolving door between lobbyists, government and think tanks.

And in the simple narrative McCain created, the Tribes were greedy Indians who got what they deserved. There were no victims in McCain’s narrative. He distilled the Abramoff scandal to an "Oceans 11" caper film where the lovable Republican scamps are just stealing money from yet another casino—a casino run by greedy and gullible Indians.

McCain tapped into the ongoing easy racism towards Native Americans that most Americans are way too comfortable embracing (for example: think of that football team in DC, that baseball team in Cleveland and common expressions like "going off the reservation" to describe "crazy" behavior—but I digress).

McCain slow walked his investigation to successfully protect Bush in 2004 and limit the damage done in 2006. In 2005 he promised the Republican Caucus that he would not investigate them and he kept that promise. He made his self-directed impotence and casual regard for justice clear in a December 2005 interview with Terry Gross on NPR (emphasis added):

Sen. McCAIN: We're going to write a report, and there may be additional information we may have to look at, but we've pretty well wrapped it up. There were four major tribes that Abramoff and Scanlon ripped off for a total around $88 million. But when you look at other aspects, like telling them to make certain contribution, it gets much higher than that. The Indian Affairs Committee is that; we're supposed to oversight Native Americans. And we were told of this--this whole thing started by being told of a couple of disgruntled tribal council members in this small tribe in Louisiana, and it blossomed into something far--a thousand times greater than I ever thought that it would.
And so we've pretty well wrapped our side of the investigation. We'll be making legislative recommendations and other things. But it's not the job of the Indian Affairs Committee to investigate members of Congress. That's the Ethics Committee and other committees to do that.

By the end of 2005 it was clear that McCain was running a cover-up designed more to protect the corruption of his Party than to get to the truth. By December 2005 it was clear that McCain lied in 2004 when he said:

"I pledge, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, that we will not stop until the complete truth is told."

McCain made clear that he was lying in a December 4, 2005 appearance on Meet the Press (emphasis added):

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to corruption, and here's a headline from the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Lobbyist Jack Abramoff helped fuel conservative successes, but his dealings could lead to a powerful ethical fallout ... Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed, antitax guru Grover Norquist, members of Congress, administration officials, and a host of lobbyists have been drawn into Senate or Justice Department investigations of Abramoff's lobbying activities. ... The Abramoff story `is breathtaking in its reach,' [John] McCain said."
Do you expect indictments?
SEN. McCAIN: Oh, sure. And lots of them. This is--this town has become very corrupt. There's no doubt about it. And we need lobbying reform. We need to have some reform of lobbying. But the system here, where so much is done in the way of policy and money, in appropriations bills where line items are put in in secret, which nobody knows about or sees until after they're voted on, is the problem. That's the problem today. So therefore, someone who wants some money or a policy change hires a lobbyist who is well connected. They go to the appropriate subcommittee or committee, appropriations, and they write in the line item. That part has to be fixed, I think, as much as anything else.
MR. RUSSERT: Senator, you said you're going to follow the money, but are you also going to investigate which legislators may have taken money and used that to influence legislation, to write into law what you're suggesting...
SEN. McCAIN: Tim...
MR. RUSSERT:...the behavior of senators, your colleagues? Are you going to investigate them?
SEN. McCAIN: The--I will not, because I'm a chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. This was brought to our--this whole thing started--was brought to us--attention by some disgruntled tribal council members in a small tribe in Louisiana, and we took it as far as we thought was our responsibility, which is where the money ends up. I'm not as--we are responsible for Indian affairs. We have an Ethics Committee. We have a government--we have other committees of Congress, but we also have a very active media. And believe me...
MR. RUSSERT: Does the Ethics Committee work?
SEN. McCAIN: I don't think...
MR. RUSSERT: In all honesty?
SEN. McCAIN: I don't think the ethics committees are working very well. The latest Cunningham scandal was uncovered by the San Diego newspaper, not by anyone here...
MR. RUSSERT: Duke Cunningham, the congressman from California.
SEN. McCAIN:...in Washington.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that some legislators have committed a crime?
SEN. McCAIN: Well, I don't want to--everyone deserves the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. I'm not a judge and jury.
MR. RUSSERT: But there's strong evidence to suggest that.
SEN. McCAIN: There's strong evidence that there was significant wrongdoing, but I'm not a judge or jury.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you think some legislators may be indicted?
SEN. McCAIN: All I know is what I read in the media. We stopped in the Indian Affairs Committee with where the money went, and that was our--the extent of our responsibilities.

That last statement of McCain’s is amazing. If McCain’s responsibility was to "follow the money" how did he miss the earmarks mentioned in the John Albaugh plea?

His interviews with Gross and Russert shared a common evasive stance when it comes to discussing the Abramoff investigation. It is clear that McCain wanted to get off the subject and that he had no intention of completing the investigation that he started. A report finally came out in June 2006. It left more question on the table than it answered.

And yet, McCain now points to his investigation cover-up of Abramoff as proof of his qualifications to be President. A serious look into McCain’s work on the Abramoff Scandal would disqualify him.

The Albaugh plea calls into question a central finding of McCain’s Final Report that the only problem was a few bad apples. The truth was that Jack Abramoff was part of a corrupt system of lobbying that is destroying our government. Jack Abramoff was not an aberration, he was normal in the Washington created by the Republican Party.

The lobbying system Abramoff worked in was created by a lobbyist named Charlie Black. And Black is now running McCain’s campaign.

McCain limited the Abramoff scandal to a very, very narrow scope. He collected 750,000 pages of documents and selectively used them to justify a narrow investigation.

Had he released these documents to the public, Abramoff’s easy access to Republican lawmakers and earmarks would have been exposed in 2006 or even 2004. The Albaugh plea proves McCain had evidence of crimes that he hid.

This should get some attention (IMHO) and John McCain should be forced to explain himself and why he placed artificial limits on his Abramoff investigation.

The 742,000 pages of documents being suppressed by John McCain should be released.

And John McCain needs to be defeated in November.

He is liar and a disgrace (and that is yet another reason why a McCain Presidency would be Bush’s third term).

We have a Country to take back.

2008 is now.

Time to get to work.

Cheers.

Sibel Edmonds Case: More Destruction of Evidence re Nuclear Black Market

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:06:09 EDT

Sibel Edmonds Case: More Destruction of Evidence re Nuclear Black Market by lukery Fri Jun 06, 2008 at 06:11:52 AM PDT

from: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/6/91152/44234/941/529951

It's remarkable, really.

The US government has taken some extreme measures to silence former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Among other reasons, they are obviously very nervous about information that Sibel has regarding the involvement of US, Israeli, and Turkish officials in supplying the nuclear black market.

Now we have this: The US Government apparently demanded that the Swiss government destroy all evidence - all 30,000 pages of it - related to the pending prosecution of the Tinner family. The Tinners were "very key suppliers" of AQ Khan's nuclear proliferation network, but their court case is now unlikely to proceed, given the destruction of the evidence.

lukery's diary :: ::

Basic Facts
The Tinners, the father and two sons, were arrested by German authorities and extradited to Switzerland in 2004 for their role in supplying the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network.

Two weeks ago, the Swiss President, responding to media reports, read out a prepared statement announcing that all the evidence relating to the Tinners' case was destroyed late last year. He said that it was important to destroy all the evidence, which included sensitive information about how to make nuclear weapons, in case the information fell into the hands of terrorists. He also stated that Switzerland was merely meeting its obligations under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and that the IAEA supervised the destruction of the documents.

That sounds reasonable.

The Questions
Unilateral Decision Making. The Swiss government is under pressure internally as a result of its unilateral decision to destroy the evidence. Both the parliament and the courts are accusing the Swiss government of violating the principle of Separation of Powers. The Parliament has already announced that it will hold an investigation into the matter.

Why the Secrecy? The announcement that the evidence was destroyed (6 months ago) was forced on the Swiss President by rumours in the media. The Swiss government refuses to answer any questions regarding the matter, as do the IAEA and the US government.

NPT Obligations? I haven't seen any media report which confirms or supports the Swiss claim that this destruction of evidence was an obligation under the NPT. However the Guardian, which has the best reporting on this story, quotes a 'former senior IAEA official' saying: "I am quite astonished. It's very unusual to see people destroying documents like this. They should be put somewhere very safe."

The destruction of evidence took place with the apparent imprimatur of the IAEA, but they refuse to comment too. Has the IAEA been corrupted too?

US Involvement
Virtually every media article about this matter - including those articles preceding the official announcement - notes the strong suspicion that the Swiss Government acted on behalf of the US Government, specifically the CIA. The Guardian has the details:

"While the Swiss government maintains the treasure trove of nuclear intelligence was destroyed for reasons of national security, the Americans may have been involved because Tinner is believed to have also been working for the CIA. Albright said Tinner was recruited by the American agency from 1999-2000.
"The Swiss were doing other people's dirty work," said an international official familiar with the investigation into the Khan network. "The allegation is that Urs (Tinner) was on the CIA payroll for a very large sum of money."
[...]
The Americans were also present (at the destruction), according to the international official. "The Americans were involved in the destruction. They were calling the shots," he said.
[...]
Had the evidence been presented in court, compromising and embarrassing information about the CIA's activities with the Khan network could have surfaced, say experts and officials. "

Time Magazine has a more benign take on the reasons that the CIA might have wanted the evidence destroyed:

"The official stonewalling has fueled speculation that the United States, and specifically the CIA, has pressured the Swiss government to destroy the documents to aid its own efforts to stop nuclear smuggling, whatever the effect on the Tinners' trials. (emphasis mine)"

One item that I have not seen mentioned in any of the recent press reports is that the US government actively hindered the Swiss investigation into the Tinners for at least 18 months. In May 2006, former weapons inspector David Albright testified in Congress that the US government had been stonewalling the Swiss investigation:

"The U.S. Government Needs to Cooperate With Swiss Prosecutions of the Tinners.
Although the focus today is on Pakistan and unanswered questions about the Khan network, the United States has been remiss in assisting the overseas prosecution of key members of the Khan network. The United States has ignored multiple requests from Swiss prosecutors for cooperation that have extended over a year.
[...]
The (Swiss) Office of the Attorney General is disappointed over this matter. It is difficult to understand the actions of the U.S. Government. Its lack of assistance needlessly complicates this important investigation.
[...]
The United States should respond to the Swiss requests for assistance as quickly as possible. To continue to ignore these requests undermines the vital prosecution of key members of the Khan network and risks undercutting support for Swiss cooperation in non-proliferation matters. In addition, I find this lack of cooperation frankly embarrassing to the United States and those of us who believe that the United States should take the lead in bringing members of the Khan network to justice for arming our enemies with nuclear weapons."

In an interview on Democracy Now a week later, Albright said that he finds the US stonewalling "disturbing and perplexing," "mystifying" and "embarrassing as an American," adding:

"The signal (the U.S. government is) sending is that it doesn’t want the Swiss to prosecute these three people, and yet they provide no reason for that."

Albright's perspective certainly add some important context to the allegations that the US government pressured the Swiss to destroy the Tinner files in order to prevent a public trial - and all that might entail...

Secrecy
The Tinner case brings to mind the Sibel Edmonds case, in terms of the underlying issues, the secrecy, and the destruction of evidence.

One of the key issues in Sibel's case is the involvement of American, Turkish and Israeli officials in supplying the nuclear black market, including the so-called AQ Khan network. See the UK's Times' "For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets:

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.
[...]
Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology.

In order to keep this information from becoming public, Sibel's case has been swept under the blanket of secrecy by the invocation of the State Secrets Privilege.

Destruction of Evidence
In a subsequent article, The Times also reported that the FBI "has been accused of covering up a file detailing government dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets." The case file, 203A-WF-210023, was known to exist, but the FBI now denies that it exists. The question at the time was whether the FBI was lying about the existence of the file, or whether the case file, which contained all the evidence of a multi-year counterintelligence investigation, had been destroyed. I had been leaning toward the option that the FBI was hiding the existence of the file, but given that the US government has apparently been able to orchestrate the destruction of evidence in the Swiss Tinner case, it's easier to imagine that they could, and would, destroy their own case file.

Tenuous Justifications
The main argument for the destruction of the Tinner evidence is that it had to be destroyed in case the nuclear blueprints somehow got into the hands of terrorists or rogue states. This is obviously a worthy objective, however:
a) Copies of the exact same information are known to exist elsewhere, and is suspected to be on the Khan network computers in Dubai.
b) There is no indication in any of the media reports that any effort was made to destroy only the sensitive information while maintaining the evidence required to prosecute the Tinners.
c) The US (and UK) allowed the network to proliferate nuclear hardware and nuclear know-how for years without apparently being concerned about the fallout. Why the concern all of a sudden with the Tinner case?

The Times accurately described how the US has ignored proliferation for years, without any apparent concern:

"The wider nuclear network has been monitored for many years by a joint Anglo-American intelligence effort. But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and Britain’s Revenue & Customs have been aborted to preserve diplomatic relations."

In Sibel's case, the FBI watched while the network delivered nuclear product not only to their acknowledged end-customers, but also while freelancers within the network made copies of the information stolen "from every nuclear agency in the United States" and sold it to the highest bidder. There's no indication that the US government did anything to stop the flow of any of this information at the time, but rather went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that Sibel's knowledge of these events did not become public. Similarly, people at the Pentagon and State Department were able to ensure that the honest counterintelligence agents at the FBI were prevented from moving forward on any of their multi-year investigations that had discovered all of these nefarious activities.

After all this, we are now being asked to believe that the destruction of evidence in the Tinner case is to prevent secure information from getting in the hands of terrorists? Please.

Where is the Media?
One other similarity between Sibel's case and the Tinner case is the absence of the US mainstream media. The Tinner case broke on May 23. The Guardian article was on May 31. The US media has been completely AWOL on this story, apart from a single AP story that ran in some venues on May 23. UPI ran a short article based on the Guardian story, and Time ran an article on June 3. The New York Times hasn't run a single article on the story.

The silence (1,2) is baffling.

Summary
The US government has done just about everything it can to ensure that Sibel Edmonds is prohibited from spilling the beans on what she knows about the nuclear black market, among other things. Now we see the hand of the US government apparently reaching into a foreign democracy, exporting the concept of the 'unitary executive' and upsetting the balance of powers, to destroy evidence which was to be used to prosecute crimes involving the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue regimes.

The US government had previously demonstrated that it didn't wanted to prosecute these crimes, therefore their flimsy ex-poste rationales for destroying the evidence, in secret, need to be held up for extra scrutiny.

What's going on???

------------------------

Crossposted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

For more background on Sibel's case and the nuclear black market, see my "Sibel Edmonds Case: Nukes for sale (Pt 2)" and "Sibel Edmonds Case: Benazir and The 'Islamic' Bomb"

DOD Contract Goes to Known Money-Launderer

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:51:23 EDT

DOD Contract Goes to Known Money-LaundererBy: emptywheel Wednesday June 4, 2008 2:25 pm

Jeebus. First we confirm that the British defense company BAE was funneling bribe money into Soviet covert ops. And now we learn (h/t scribe) that DOD has a jet fuel contract with Gaith Pharaon.

Pharaon is best known for his central role in the BCCI scandal. As a seemingly wealthy Saudi, he served as a perfect front for BCCI, which wanted to purchase an American bank to make it easier to get money in and out of the US. So Pharaon schmoozed all the right people in Georgia (including a number of high level Democrats with ties to Jimmy Carter) and got BCCI its approval for the bank.

Well, now we're back in business with him, to the tune of $80 million.

The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion.
The Saudi businessman was also named in a 2002 French parliamentary report as having links to informal money transfer networks called hawala, known to be used by traders and terrorists, including Al Qaeda.
Interestingly, Pharaon was also an investor in President George W. Bush's first business venture, Arbusto Energy.
[snip]
An official at Attock, who did not wish to be named, confirmed the refinery was supplying thousands of tons of jet fuel to the US base at Bagram Air Base every month.

Is it just me, or does anyone else doubt that the money for a contract in Afghanistan with a known money-launderer with ties to hawala is really going to jet fuel? I mean, c'mon, really. This guy's in the business of laundering money for the rich and powerful, and apparently his clients now include the Pentagon.

Telecom Immunity Bill was "Subterfuge" Hiding Broader Program

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:34:03 EDT

(go to original link to hear conference call) :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows/spy-bill-supported-by-mcc_b_105697.html

In a press conference call today called by the Obama campaign to discuss John McCain's opposition to an Everglades restoration bill, Nick Juliano of RawStory.com went off topic and asked one of the speakers, former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee when warrantless wiretapping issues were first brought to it post-9/11, about McCain's "shifting position" on wiretapping and about McCain's position that telecommunications companies should receive sweeping immunity for their roles in any past illegal wiretapping without being required to testify before Congress first.

In his response, Graham gave a concise and accurate summary of current wiretapping law -- including longstanding rules that already allow the government to wiretap without warrants in an emergency, and the fact that over 99% of warrant requests already are granted by a secret court -- and then accused the Administration of using fear of terrorism as a "smokescreen" and "subterfuge" to secretly resurrect a large scale "data mining" operation involving millions of Americans' conversations, like the "Total Information Awareness" program that was rejected in 2003 for being too intrusive.

Here's Juliano's piece today about McCain's "flip-flopping" on warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity and the role telecom lobbyists play in his campaign. And here's Charlie Savage's New York Times article today, which Juliano refers to in his question.

You can listen in on the conference call with Graham, and come to your own conclusions about whether the country would really be made safer by giving the Administration even more authority to conduct warrantless wiretaps. Here's Juliano's question:

And here's Graham's answer, which (because the question was off topic) was deferred until the end of the call:

Final note: as I write this, the Obama campaign (in another example of its impeccable timing) has issued a press release pointing out the NYT article.

**********
(P.S.: Despite its name, this column is not focused on FISA and wiretaps; I leave that to great analysts like Glenn Greenwald, who also wrote on this topic today. Rather, I write about the campaigns' press conference calls, press releases, and other "insider" or "primary sources" that the press base their stories on, in order to make the media process more transparent and democratic. It's purely coincidence that my second column is actually on warrantless wiretaps - just another case of the gods going out of their way to prove that my dad, who warned me that the column's name would confuse people on this point, is always right.)

Right Wing goes after...John Cusack: what you can do

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:19:26 EDT

by Larisa Alexandrovna

from:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/right-wing-goes-after-joh_b_105761.html

The extreme right is not happy about John Cusack's new film, War Inc.. With the helpful panning of the corporate press as proof - the same corporate press that sold us the Iraq war to begin with - the right-wing is trying make the film seem to be a total flop, despite the grassroots success that it actually is.

Take this fine example of right-wing propaganda, titled idiotically "Cusack: Laugh While Bush Ideology Destroys America:"

Leftist actor John Cusack explained his new anti-war comedy (read: the next box office flop) this way: "The ideology behind this war is so radical and it's so destroying the country that I think a somber serious take on it would just add to the sense of depression and inevitable doom that this administration has unleashed on the country."
Cusack added War Inc. was Bush-inspired: "And the argument of the Bush administration is that there's nothing, no function of state, there's no national interest that is not a corporate interest. Everything is to be privatized, everything is to be -- the core function of government is to create the optimal conditions for a feeding frenzy."

Leave it to Tim Graham, the Director of Media Analysis for the Media Research Center, to misrepresent political satire as slap-stick-comedy and Cusack's accurate criticism of privatized war as somehow inaccurate because of the comedy-routine meme.

Satire, my dear Mr. Graham, is ridicule, not comedy. It is the examination of difficult topics through a more comfortable lens, that of irony. Satire unnerves, it does not simply entertain. In short, satire is condemnation, not a barrel of laughs.

But really, the most important thing you need to know about the Media Research Center, for whom Graham works, is that it is entirely a right-wing propaganda group, funded by corporatists - the very people War Inc. satirizes.

Consider the MRC's rather interesting mission, something they are proud of too:

"[to]provide immediate exposure of liberal media bias, insightful analysis, constructive criticism and timely corrections to news media reporting."

Does that not entirely prove everything I have just stated? No? Well maybe I should add a bit more about who throws money at the MRC.

Did you know that the MRC is founded and funded by Brent Bozell, the wealthy NeoCon who helped bankroll the 2004 smears on John Kerry, painting a war veteran as a traitor? Nice, eh? No wonder Tim Graham is praying with this pen that War Inc., does flop, he gets paid to echo George W. Bush.

Onwards Corporate Soldiers

Wait, but the best is yet to come. Unhinged right-wing extremist David Horowitz and his FrontPage rag claim that Cusack's war profiteers are imaginary and that he is insulting heroes, real and fluffy ones too:

From the safety of his stateside home, actor John Cusack has produced, co-written and stars in a movie, "War, Inc.," deriding firms like Blackwater, whose employees, at great personal risk, provide a service to their country in time of war. Since they make money, he brands them "war profiteers" who deserve to be treated as criminals.
--snip--
The film -- which Cusack wrote after the brutal murders of military contractors in Fallujah inspired him to insult them -- is about a corporation that destroys a fictional country in a privately-run war, then rebuilds it, even gluing back limbs on people after it has blown them off.
The whole point is supposed to be that war is nothing but a corrupt profit-making scheme. Forget al Qaeda's numerous promises -- and efforts -- to kill millions of Americans. Forget 9/11. And while you're at it, forget World War II, during which numerous companies -- including arch-villains like Hershey's chocolates -- provided wartime goods and got paid for same. For Cusack, military conflict is but "a protectionist racket for the government's favorite corporations to make money off the war."

Wow, you mean Blackwater's crimes are all imaginary and their profits too? I will get to that glue-sniffing induced hallucination in a moment. Let's first get something straight: the only people forced into a war zone at "great personal risk" are our soldiers, who are paid ten times less than Blackwater and other mercenary groups.

Now, as for what happened in Fallujah, FrontPage rag needs to get its facts straight. The Blackwater employees who lost their lives in Fellujah, died because of Blackwater's interest in profit over safety, in contracts over security, in everything but the actual mission. In other words Blackwater was responsible for the deaths of their employees. Here are just two snips from the Congressional report on the matter:

• Prior to the Blackwater team's departure, two of the six members of the team were cut from the mission, depriving both security vehicles of a rear gunner. These personnel were removed from the mission to perform administrative duties at the Blackwater operations center.

• Blackwater had a contract dispute with a Kuwaiti company, Regency Hotel & Hospitality, over the acquisition of armored vehicles for the Blackwater team. Blackwater officials instructed its employees to "string these guys along and run this ... thing into the ground" because "if we stalled long enough they (Regency) would have no choice but to buy us armored cars, or they would default on the contract," in which case the contractor who hired Regency "might go directly to Blackwater for security." According to a Blackwater employee, Blackwater's contract "paid for armor vehicles," but "management in North Carolina made the decision to go with soft skin due to the cost."

Cusack is not insulting the 4 people who died. He is criticizing - and rightfully so - the company that sent them to their deaths, Blackwater.

But let me see if I really get the gist of FrontPage's claim, namely, that Blackwater is a benevolent American institution making patriotic sacrifices for the greater good (can I offer you fries with this bullshit?):

1. So smuggling weapons into Iraq, which landed in the hands of "terrorists" is okay?
2. So the murder of 14 Iraqi civilians in cold-blood and without provocation is okay?
3. So using chemical weapons on US soldiers and Iraqis just to clear traffic is okay?

I am not going to spend time documenting here all of Blackwater's crimes or their parasitically earned profits. I don't need to. Jeremey Scahill has already accomplished this unpleasant task.

These are just two examples of the right-wing anti-Cusack propaganda to emerge in the last few days. The question, however, is not why these people are hoping and praying you won't see the film. The answer to that is rather obvious. No, the real question is what will you do to counter their offensive? What will you do to ensure that they don't silence another courageous voice?

This is what you will do

This weekend, War Inc., opens up in other cities in broader distribution as a result of the fantastic opening on May 23. In order for the film to get still larger, more national distribution, this weekend and the next have to be attended in full force by those of you who want to support courage in art, freedom of speech, and above all, smack the right-wing propaganda mechanism into dead-silence.

Here is the list of cities and theaters at which you can attend and support the film starting this evening, and into next weekend:

Boston
Kendall Square Cinema / Cambridge, MA
One Kendall Square Cambridge, MA 02139

Chicago
Century Theatre / Chicago, IL
Century Shopping Center 2828 North Clark Street Chicago, IL 60657

San Francisco
Embarcadero / San Francisco, CA
One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level San Francisco, CA 94111

Austin
Arbor Theatre / Austin, TX
10000 Research Blvd Austin, TX 78759

Seattle
Metro Theatre / Seattle, WA
4500 9th Avenue NE Seattle, WA 98105

LA Greater Area/Other CA Areas

The Landmark / West LA
10850 W Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064

Mann Chinese 6
6801 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028

Playhouse 7 Cinemas
673 E Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, CA, 91101

Ontario Mills 30
4549 Mills Cir
Ontario, CA, 91764

Block 30 @ Orange
20 City Blvd W
Orange, CA, 92868

Westpark 8 Cinemas
3755 Alton Pky
Irvine, CA, 92606

Rancho Niguel 8 Cinemas
25471 Rancho Niguel Rd.
Laguna Niguel, CA, 92677

Cinemas Palme D'Or
Westfield Palm Desert
72840 Highway 111
Palm Desert, CA 92260

Laemmle's Monica
1332 2nd St.
Santa Monica, CA 90401

New York/Tri-State Area

Angelika
18 W Houston St.
New York, NY, 10012

Criterion Cinemas
86 Temple St.
New Haven, CT, 06510

Kew Gardens Cinemas
81-05 Lefferts Blvd.
Kew Gardens, NY, 11415

Manhasset Cinemas
430 Plandome Road
Manhasset, NY 11030

Malverne Cinema
350 Hempstead Ave.
Malverne, NY, 11565

All Westchester Saw Mill Multiplex
151 Saw Mill River Rd S.
Hawthorne, NY, 10532

Cinema 100 Twin
Greenburgh Shopping Center
93 Knollwood Rd.
White Plains, NY 10607

Jacob Burns Film Center
364 Manville Road
Pleasantville, NY 10570

Garden Cinemas Norwalk 4
26 Isaac Street
Norwalk, CT 06850

Clairidge Cinemas
486 Bloomfield Ave.
Montclair, NJ, 07042

Red Bank Cinemas
36 White St.
Red Bank, NJ, 07701

Montgomery 6
1325 US Highway 206
Skillman, NJ 08502

Tales From Inside the Editorial Board Room

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:32:22 EDT

Tales From Inside the Editorial Board RoomBy Ruth Rosen - June 6, 2008, 1:23PMfrom: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/06/tales_from_inside_the_editoria/

When I first heard about Scott McClellan's charges that the Bush administration had lied and deceived Americans during the months and years leading up to the war, I burst into tears of happiness. No, nothing he wrote was new. And even if he still seems like a sleazy public relations expert in obfuscation, an insider was finally telling the truth, in one book.

My story is different from those who felt seriously constrained about raising questions about the administration's obvious lies. I worked as an editorial writer at The San Francisco Chronicle, where a liberal editorial board raised serious objections to the war. And yet, in the years following 9/11, I felt editorial restraints that never allowed us to tell the whole truth about the lies and deception that led to America's most catastrophic foreign policy disaster.

Others in the mainstream media felt far greater restraints. Jessica Yellin, a CNN journalist, for example, says she felt pressured by corporate executives at her previous network to support the Iraq War. To Anderson Cooper, she described how she and others were "under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings." On the Today Show, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charles Gibson also admitted feeling pressure from the Bush administration to support the war, MSNBC reported. Couric even recounted a threat from the White House Press Secretary to "block access to [the network] during the war" if she did not change the tone of her interviewing style."

So what did I experience? An editor and an editorial board who felt that, in the absence of inside sources, we could not counter the administration's lies.

Let me give you some examples. I was raised in a Republican family, but schooled by the great iconoclastic journalist I.F. Stone, who taught me that you can find the truth without inside sources, if only you're willing to see beyond patriotic fervor and examine voices in the public domain that are marginalized, So, I would read national security experts who countered Donald Rumfeld's ridiculous predictions; I would read the British, Canadian, Italian and French press; I would read the writings of experts in resource wars and weapons of mass destruction.

No, I didn't know I was right. But I was sure that the administration was lying. And, I knew that at the very least that our editorials should be asking why Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al should be believed when I had found strong evidence that they were cherry picking intelligence, and setting up their own office in the Pentagon, and acting in complete secrecy.

The rush to war drove me crazy. In the days that led up to the war, I went to my editor and told him I needed a few days unpaid leave to accept the fact that we were, in fact, going to war. In my mind's eye, I saw a baby tied to the railroad tracks and saw the train rapidly moving toward the helpless child. I saw years of quagmire, bloodshed, and tens of thousands of deaths. I needed a few days to accept that reality before I could return to writing. He understood and allowed me to regain my professional composure.

To its credit, the editorial board raised some of the toughest questions in the mainstream media. And yet....I was the only one who didn't believe Colin Powell's shameful presentation at the United Nations. Why? Not because I had special insider knowledge, but like I.F. Stone, I had found credible people who could dissect his speech and found it unconvincing and unpersuasive.

When I heard Bush's inaugural address, I heard two major lies embedded within his speech. But somehow that still wasn't enough to accuse him of plagiarism and deception.

The truth is, even a liberal newspaper, blessed with a liberal editorial board, did not engage in truth telling. We raised some good questions, wrote about supporting the troops, but failed to describe the deception that led to the catastrophe that was unfolding right before our eyes.

While I was writing editorials, I was also publishing two weekly political columns on the op-ed page. I also felt constrained as a columnist. If I wanted to discuss this country's desire to gain control and access over oil, I had to bump up against the accusation that I was a vulgar Marxist, rather than conversant with the reality of resource wars.

Finally, I am an historian, and I knew Iraq's history. I also knew that the war would end in a disastrous occupation, not a liberation, and that no country, including our own, will ever tolerate occupation by a foreign nation.

This week, I sat with a former colleague from the editorial board in a café, rather than in the room where we used to make our editorial decisions. He admitted that I had been right, but even more, that even in a liberal paper, the editor and most of the board, had felt restrained, afraid of seeming unpatriotic, afraid of saying the emperor wore no clothes, afraid of not giving the President the benefit of the doubt, afraid of truth telling without access to inside sources.

You may say, "Ho Hum, even the Senate has now, after five years, come out with a report that describes (oh, so tepidly) the years of deception.

But for me, the tears flowed because I remembered all those years when I felt passionate about telling the public the truth, but was unable to do so in a mainstream, liberal, newspaper.

Just another Wednesday for Obama

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:04:57 EDT

Now we know why Obama was in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday by markthshark Fri Jun 06, 2008 at 02:44:54 AM PDT

And, here we all (read: me) thought Obama was only in the Senate on Wednesday for a celebratory victory lap and a quick [righteous] smackdown of Joe Lieberman in front of his peers.

Hell, I have to admit; Obama’s a better man than I am. If I had just become the presumptive Democratic Nominee for POTUS the night before, I sure the hell wouldn't have been at work. I’d have been kickin’ back at home for a couple days with my wife and kids and a few bros; a big ol' Budweiser truck parked outside my house.

But, not Barack Obama

Fresh off the plane on Wednesday, the junior senator from the great state of Illinois sprinted to the U.S. Senate and introduced brand new legislation to further expand public access to information about government spending.

Here's how Obama described the bill on his website.

markthshark's diary :: ::

The Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008 (pdf) is the culmination of a bipartisan effort by Senator Barack Obama and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) and Senator John McCain co-sponsored the bill.

The Secrecy News website has the story:

The new bill would build upon and improve previous efforts by Senators Obama and Coburn to provide public access to federal grant and contract information through the USASpending.gov web site. Among other things, it would require copies of each federal contract and details of the bidding process to be published online.
The provisions of the bill were outlined in a joint press release on June 3.
"People from every State in this great Nation sent us to Congress to defend their rights and stand up for their interests," Sen. Obama said in a prepared floor statement. "To do that we have to tear down the barriers that separate citizens from the democratic process and to shine a brighter light on the inner workings of Washington. This bill helps to shine that light."
While most government agencies have cooperated with the contracting transparency requirements that were adopted in 2006, some intelligence agencies have dragged their heels in opposition. The Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which used to disclose their unclassified contracts, actually withheld such information from the USASpending.gov database in 2007 and 2008.

BTW, Obama really put a hurtin' on John McCain yesterday. I didn't think about it at the time, but by banning all lobbyist and PAC money for the GE, he put the onus on McCain to do the same thing, especially when he's already under pressure by surrounding himself with lobbyists. But McCain can't afford to do that.

Brilliant tactic. It'll be interesting to see how ol' McSame reacts.

But, I digress.

Overall, I'd say Barack Obama got more done on Thursday than most of our elected representatives do in a month.

Let's review, shall we... (not necessarily in order)

• scheduled reconciliation meeting with former opponent
• banned all Washington lobbyist and PAC money from the Democratic Party
• retained the invaluable services of [master strategist and all around good guy] Howard Dean as DNC Chairman
• introduced federal transparency and open government legislation in the U.S. Senate
• read Republican Senator Joe Lieberman the riot act on the Senate floor

Way to go, Mr. Obama. A great day indeed!

(Damn, I can't get that U2 song, "It's a Beautiful Day" out of my head now. LOL)

Peace

Rove Advises Olmert challenger

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:23:26 EDT

Benjamin Netanyahu may hire former White House adviser Karl Rove.

Citing sources close to Netanyahu, Israel's Channel 10 reported Thursday that Rove's name has come up on a roster of strategic consultants that the Israeli opposition leader is thinking of hiring as he prepares for a possible leadership challenge against the embattled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Rove is widely credited with securing President Bush his two terms in office through a two-fisted political campaign strategy. He quit the White House last year.

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/108952.html

Warrentless Wiretap Memos Timeline

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:08:20 EDT

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/timeline-collection/warrantless-wiretap-memos-timeline/

Waxman: Bush's Obstrustion of Justice Problem

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:04:58 EDT

Rep. Waxman and Bush's Obstruction of Justice-Problem By testing - June 4, 2008, 6:24PM

The other day, Congressman Waxman disclosed a letter to AG Mukasey asking for the transcripts of FBI interviews with President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

There's more to the story, in case you're wondering. Since these 2004 interview, we've learned

A. The President and White House staff were putting pressure on DoJ officials to fire US Attorneys, and using prosecutions to affect election outcomes;

B. The FBI agents do abuse NSLs, and have somehow forgotten about the war crimes evidence they had collected at Guantanamo;

C. The same DoJ staffers and lawyers who were tools of the President in propaganda and US Attorney firings, were involved with discussions with then Attorney General Ashcroft on the Fitzgerald investigation;

D. The President and NSA were conducting illegal surveillance; and

E. Scott MeClellan, Rove, Feith, and the President were directly linked with efforts to mislead the public.

One key statement the President recently made was that he was the source of the leak. In so many words, the President admitted he declassified the document.

Hello!?! That was the reason Fitzgerald conduct the interview in 2004, four years ago. The President should have disclosed that then, not reveal it four (4) years after the fact.

There's a fine point: Waxman is asking for the FBI interviews; but the interviews included Prosecutors. We may be talking about several different interviews, not just the ones with the FBI:

"Mr. Bush was not under oath as he answered questions posed by the
prosecutors, who were led by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a United States
attorney who is in charge of the investigation." From

Some might argue that this was always known. Yet, even the President's closest advisers were claiming the President had nothing to do with this. This wasn't presented as a "belief," it was asserted as a fact.

Information Warfare: Disclose CIA Agent Name

Valarie Wilson's connection with the CIA was disclosed not because of a "declissification decision" but because Joe Wilson presented information showing the President was lying about war crimes: There was no lawful basis for war in Iraq. The President's retaliation backfired: CIA agents are providing war crimes prosecutors with information on illegal rendition and POW abuse in Europe.

Since then, we've been reminded to believe the President "knew" something or he "believed" something. He keeps changing his argument. As Maureen Dowd reminds us: What hasn't changed is the President is wrong.

Waxman's Concern

Since 2004, Representative Waxman has been given the false impression that the President had nothing to do with the CIA leak; that there was no evidence; and that the President believed something about WMD data.

McClellan's book casts these assertions to the wind. Nobody can argue that the President "believed" there was WMD, when the President took retaliatory action against someone who contradicted him.

A genuine belief, if it were real, would not have been supported by retaliation against Valarie and Joe Wilson. The President should have confidently made his case, presented the evidence, and let the Wilsons alone. This President, knowing he had a dubious belief and there was no imminent threat, changed the subject from whether there was or was not WMD evidence; to whether the President has the "inherent authority" (Mclellan's phrase) to declassify information. He does not, and Addington should know this as it relates to ORCON.

The core issue with Valarie Plame was that as a covert agent, the President has no power or authority to declassify her name. ORCON rules apply. The documents with Valarie Plames name on them are expressly marked "ORCON" meaning only the originating office -- not the President or White House -- can declassify that information. The President's name isn't listed as the classifying official.

Put aside the classification. If the President did have "inherent authority" to declassify the documents with Plame's name on them -- he does not -- then the CIA would not have immediately contacted the Justice Department to conduct a criminal investigation into the disclosure of Valarie Wilson's connection with CIA covert operations.

The President in admitting that he "did" declassify the report misses the point: He's admitted to having a role, where the grand jury was asked to believe he had nothing to do with it.

Waxman has rightfully pounced on this. The President's statements in 2008 do not reconcile whith the chorus of enablers we've had paraded before us in the DoD-CIA-NSA propaganda effort.

Obstruction of Justice

Here's the key language showing the President has a problem:

Mr. Bush was not questioned under oath, but he did remain under an
obligation to testify truthfully and, technically if not practically,
he remained liable to be charged with a false statement if prosecutors
found he had failed to answer completely or honestly.

It appears the Grand Jury was given information in secret that was not correct; but Fitzgerald could only prove Libby was lying. Waxman's letter is signaling that there may be a line of evidence which the Grand Jury was not presented, but is one Waxman hopes to develop.

Did the President mislead investigators when they were given information about who was or was not involved with the declassification of Valarie Wilson's status as a covert agent with the CIA?

Based on what we've learned since 2004, there's a reasonable basis to throw to the winds all the GOP statements as propaganda; and reject any assertion the DOJ Staff counsel or FBI agents can be trusted. Rather, it's most likely the President hired an outside counsel because the White House staff worked with the DOJ staff counsel to get access to the briefing information provided to Ashcroft.

Waxman appears to suspect (a) the Grand Jury proceedings were leaked; (b) the President and Vice President knew in advance what questions they were going to be asked; and (c) they worked with legal counsel to frame their answers to mislead the FBI, prosecutors, and the Grand Jury.

There is evidence supporting this allegation. Libby was on thin ice, and knew he was steering investigators away from key facts, as evidenced by his perjury trial. This is the language that appears to be driving Waxman's concerns about the President and Vice President's statements:

But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his
conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J.
Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to
impede the inquiry.

Once the President asserted that he, the President "declassified" the document, the mystery since 2004 prompting Libby's perjury, melts away. There's no more confusion who Libby was protecting: The President and the illusion he "believed" something everyone knew was a lie: There was no WMD, Joe Wilson knew it, and the President knew Wilson's editorial would cause problems.

It defies reason to believe the President believed anything else. He would not have spent this much time pretending he believed there was WMD; but he took action to retaliate against the Wilsons. If they were wrong (which Joe Wilson is not), then the President cannot explain why he didn't let Joe Wilson have an "incorrect belief" about the WMD. The President knew Wilson wasn't wrong because the President didn't believe there was WMD. The President was behind the propaganda to create the illusion they had a belief.

All they knew was they wanted an excuse for a war, and the DoD emails show us the White House was surprised by the release of the Downing Street Memos. It took the DoD more than 30 days to respond to questions about the Times publication of the information showing facts were fixed.

There is a basis to have this contention the President knows much more, and may have deliberately misled the Department of Justice and Grand Jury. We need only look at Watergate, and Iran-Contra -- both mentioned in McClellan's book to know why Waxman wants to see the transcripts:

Allan J. Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University in
Washington, said the lesson of recent history, for example in the
Iran-contra case under President Ronald Reagan, is that presidents tend
to know more than it might first appear about what is going on within
the White House.

Cheney: Iranian Sanctions Were Bad for Halliburton

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:50:17 EDT

Cheney: Iranian Sanctions Were Bad for Halliburton

Thursday, 5 June 2008, 11:59 am
Column: Jason Leopold

from: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0806/S00058.htm

Cheney Called Clinton-Era Sanctions Against Iran Bad for Halliburton
By Jason Leopold
The Public Record

When Dick Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton in the 1990s, he urged Congress to ease sanctions against Iran and enter into diplomatic discussions with the country’s leaders so the oil-field services company could legally do business there.

"Let me make a generalized statement about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well," Cheney said at the time. "I think we Americans sometimes make mistakes...There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what's best for everybody else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like."

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In March 1995, Clinton signed an executive order that prohibited "new investments [in Iran] by U.S. persons, including commitment of funds or other assets." It also restricts U.S. companies from performing services "that would benefit the Iranian oil industry. Violation of the order can result in fines of as much as $500,000 for companies and up to 10 years in jail for individuals."

Cheney was highly critical of the Clinton administration’s policy toward Iran.

"I think we'd be better off if we, in fact, backed off those sanctions [on Iran], didn't try to impose secondary boycotts on companies ... trying to do business over there ... and instead started to rebuild those relationships," Cheney said during a 1998 business trip to Sydney, Australia, reported by Australia's Illawarra Mercury newspaper.

Despite assertions by the vice president that Iran has been trying to build a nuclear weapon since the 1990s, the Bush administration decided it would not punish foreign oil and gas companies that invest in Iran or other countries that sponsor terrorism.

Recently, Bush administration officials said they would not rule out military action against Iran for allegedly interfering in U.S. interests in Iraq.

Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995. According to a February 2001 report in the Wall Street Journal, "U.S. laws have banned most American commerce with Iran. Halliburton Products & Services Ltd. works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is "non-American." But, like the sign over the receptionist's head, the brochure bears the Dallas company's name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world."

In the February 2001 report, the Journal quoted an anonymous U.S. official as saying "a Halliburton office in Tehran would violate at least the spirit of American law." Moreover, a U.S. Treasury Department website detailing U.S. sanctions against Iran bans almost all U.S. trade and investment with Iran, specifically in oil services. The Web site adds: "No U.S. person may approve or facilitate the entry into or performance of transactions or contracts with Iran by a foreign subsidiary of a U.S. firm that the U.S person is precluded from performing directly. Similarly, no U.S. person may facilitate such transactions by unaffiliated foreign persons."

Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, said in an interview with me last year that Halliburton may not agree with Iran’s “policies or actions” and the company makes “no excuses for their behaviors” but “due to the long-term nature of our business and the inevitability of political and social change, it is neither prudent nor appropriate for our company to establish our own country-by-country foreign policy."

Hall added that "decisions as to the nature of such governments and their actions are better made by governmental authorities and international entities such as the United Nations as opposed to individual persons or companies. Putting politics aside, we and our affiliates operate in countries, to the extent it is legally permissible, where our customers are active as they expect us to provide oilfield services support to their international operations."

In 1995, Halliburton paid a $1.2 million fine to the U.S. government and $261 million in civil penalties for violating a U.S. trade embargo by shipping oilfield equipment to Libya. Federal officials said some of the well servicing equipment sent to Libya by Halliburton between late 1987 and early 1990 could have been used in the development of nuclear weapons. President Reagan imposed the embargo against Libya in 1986 because of alleged links to international terrorism.

But the fact that Halliburton may have unwillingly helped Libya obtain a crucial component to build an atomic bomb only made Cheney push the Clinton administration harder to support trade with Libya and Iran.

Additionally, while Cheney headed Halliburton the company engaged in secret business dealings with Saddam Hussein’s regime by selling Iraq oil production equipment and spare parts to get the Iraqi oil fields up and running, according to confidential United Nations records.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Cheney vehemently denied that Halliburton did business with Iraq while he was chief executive. He acknowledged that Halliburton did business with Libya and Iran through foreign subsidiaries, Cheney said, "Iraq's different."

"I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal," Cheney said on the ABC-TV news program "This Week" on July 30, 2000. "We've not done any business in Iraq since U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990, and I had a standing policy that I wouldn't do that."

But it turns out that Cheney was not telling the truth.

In 1998, Cheney oversaw Halliburton's acquisition of Dresser Industries Inc, the unit that sold oil equipment to Iraq through two subsidiaries of a joint venture with another large U.S. equipment maker, Ingersoll-Rand Co.

The Halliburton subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., sold water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil facilities and pipeline equipment to Baghdad through French affiliates from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, U.N. records show. Ingersoll Dresser Pump also signed contracts -- later blocked by the United States -- to help repair an Iraqi oil terminal that U.S.-led military forces destroyed in the GGulf War, the Post reported in a June 2001 story.

The Halliburton subsidiaries and several other American and foreign oil supply companies helped Iraq increase its crude exports from $4 billion in 1997 to nearly $18 billion in 2000.

U.S. and European officials have argued that the increase in production also expanded Saddam's ability to use some of that money for weapons, luxury goods and palaces. Security Council diplomats estimate that Iraq may be skimming off as much as 10 percent of the proceeds from the oil-for-food program, according to documents obtained by the United Nations Security Council.

During his tenure as chief executive of Halliburton, Cheney pushed the U.N. Security Council, after he became vice president; to end an 11-year embargo on sales of civilian goods, including oil related equipment, to Iraq.

Under Cheney, Halliburton and its subsidiaries were one of several American and foreign oil supply companies that helped Iraq increase its crude exports from $4 billion in 1997 to nearly $18 billion in 2000 by exploiting a loophole in the law and selling Iraq spare parts for its oil fields so it could pump more oil. U.S. and European officials have long argued that the increase in Iraq's oil production also expanded Saddam's ability to use some of that money for weapons, luxury goods and palaces.

UN documents show that Halliburton's affiliates have had controversial dealings with Saddam Hussein’s regime during Cheney's tenure at the company played a part in helping the late dictator pocket billions of dollars under the UN's oil-for-food program. The Clinton administration blocked one deal Halliburton was trying to push through because it was "not authorized under the oil-for-food deal," according to UN documents. That deal, between Halliburton subsidiary Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. and Iraq, included agreements by the firm to sell nearly $1 million in spare parts, compressors and firefighting equipment to refurbish an offshore oil terminal, Khor al-Amaya. Still, Halliburton used one of its foreign subsidiaries to sell Iraq the equipment it needed so the country could pump more oil, according to a report in the Washington Post in June 2001.

The Halliburton subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., sold water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil facilities and pipeline equipment to Baghdad through French affiliates from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, UN records show. Ingersoll Dresser Pump also signed contracts – later blocked by the United States, according to the Post – to help repair an Iraqi oil terminal that U.S.-led military forces destroyed in the Gulf War years earlier.

As secretary of defense in the first Bush administration, Cheney helped to lead a multinational coalition against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War and to devise a comprehensive economic embargo to isolate Saddam Hussein's government. After Cheney was named chief executive of Halliburton in 1995, he promised to maintain a hard line against Baghdad.

But Cheney’s position against Iraq radically changed when he was named CEO of Halliburton. Cheney said sanctions against Iraq took a financial toll on the corporation he headed.

"We seem to be sanction-happy as a government," Cheney said at an energy conference in April 1996, reported in the oil industry publication Petroleum Finance Week. "The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments," he observed during his conference presentation.

Sanctions make U.S. businesses "the bystander who gets hit when a train wreck occurs," Cheney said. "While virtually every other country sees the need for sanctions against Iraq and Saddam Hussein's regime there, Cheney sees general agreement that the measures have not been very effective despite their having most of the international community's support. An individual country's embargo, such as that of the United States against Iran, has virtually no effect since the target country simply signs a contract with a non- U.S. Business."

"That's exactly what happened when the government told Conoco Inc. that it could not develop an oil field there," Cheney told Petroleum Finance Week. Total S.A. "simply took it over."

*************

Jason Leopold launched a new online investigative news magazine, The Public Record.

'Genocide by design?' Bush Admin. Plans to 'Stay' in Iraq for Oil

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:44:55 EDT

Thursday, June 05, 2008 'Genocide by design?' Bush Administration Plans to 'Stay' in Iraq for the Oil

Just as Bush's attack and invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with WMD, the Iragi resistance has nothing to do with 'terrorism'. The original code name --Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) --gave the game away and was changed. Never called 'resistance', the Orwellian linguists inside the Bush White House called the resistance 'insurgents'. a term which implies an opposition to a 'legitimate' authority. But there is nothing legitimate about the US occupation, in fact, a theft of Iraq's most valuable natural resource. The US presence is, in fact, a war crime. Those resisting the US occupation are, therefore, not terrorists nor are they 'insurgents'

The Bush regime is responsible --legally and morally --for the deaths of some 1.2 million Iraqis and some 15,000 who die each month. [See: Michael Schwartz, Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month? Or Is It More?]. The US, under Bush, is a terrorist nation and outlaw. Iraqi resistance, by contrast, is that of 'patriots' defending a 'homeland' against the crimes of mass murder, terrorism, and grand larceny.

The opposition by Iraqis is therefore legal and justified under international conventions. Even before the US attack and invasion, the Bush administration was laying the groundwork for one of his most pernicious lies: that the US is opposed in Iraq by terrorists. There is simply no reason whatsoever to believe that any part of that statement is true. The opposition to the US 'occupation' is, in fact, legitimate. It is the right of every people to defend a homeland against an aggressor and that is precisely what the Iraqi people have done in Iraq. As William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, put it when his mother England was at 'war' with rebellious colonies on the American continent:

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms -- never! never! Never!”

--William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, Speech in Parliament on the Excise Bill

It is stupid of the Bush administration to expect the Iraqi people to abandon their country to Halliburton or Exxon-Mobil. But that appears to have been forced upon them.

Thursday, 5 June 2008, Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

--Patrick Cockburn, Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

It is a recognized principle of international law that citizens have a right to take up arms against forces of aggression and occupation. Even America's delusional right wing must know that.

The Americans had not brought what they’d promised: a new order. The war wasn’t over, Iraq had no government, the liberators had become occupiers, and the occupation was slapdash, improvised, and inadequate—at best, a disappointment, and more often an insult.

So, in the fever heat, month after month of a hundred and ten and a hundred and twenty degrees, alienation set in. Frustration gave way to hostility, hostility gave way to violence, and by summer’s end the violence against Americans was increasingly organized. It was demoralizing. Every Iraqi might be the enemy.

What was the point of being there, unwanted? Nobody from the 372nd was killed in Al Hillah, but on patrols there was shooting, in the night there were explosions, and Sabrina had her nightmare. At least the picnic tables had seemed to her fanciful, the random furniture of dreamscapes—until she got to Abu Ghraib, and there they were.

--Exposure, Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris, New Yorker

War crimes --wars of naked aggression --may be as unfair to the military forces required to fight them as to the victims of the aggression. Still --it is the Iraqi people's whose homeland was attacked and invaded who have the moral high ground. We have every right to judge Bush by his record of war crimes and lies. We have every right to suspect that Bush is lying now to begin yet another 'resource' war against the people of Iran. Bush could never had gotten away with it, if he had not been assisted by a cancerous growth upon the body politic: the 'mainstream media'.

And when discussing media consolidation, someone might tumble to the fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world's largestarmaments manufacturers in 2006 and among the six largest media conglomerates. GE makes and maintains engines for the F-16 Fighter jet, Abrams tank, Apache helicopter, U2 bomber, Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV), A-10 aircraft and numerous other military equipment, including planes, helicopters, tanks and more.

Is it reasonable to expect NBC to report critically on the status and duration of the Iraq occupation? Or is it predictable that NBC's occupation coverage will tell us that the "surge" is working, that US troop deaths are down, that the Iraqi puppet regime is gaining traction and, if we can hang on for another decade, things should turn out hunky-dory.
Well, it's certain that extending the US presence in Iraq by a decade will have a very positive impact on GE's profit and loss statements. It's probably going to be somewhat less beneficial for the people who actually have to fight this insane proxy war on behalf of GE's bottom line.
But that's okay, since war is the optimum business condition for many industries -- banks, weapons makers, raw materials suppliers, machine tool makers and so on -- GE looks to sell many billions of dollars more of its killing machinery, all the while telling Americans via NBC how peace is just 10 or so years down the road.
And GE is just one of the main offenders. We'll leave for another day a discussion on how thoroughly Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has polluted the national discourse. Or how the acquisitive tentacles of Viacom, CBS, TimeWarner and Disney have managed to take a relatively engaged population and, in 30 short years, turn it into a nation of compliant, ill-informed, politically illiterate chowder heads content to consume their quota of goods, services and ideologies with an equally uncritical eye.
American mass media lost the thread of the story decades ago and are now only qualified to dish pop culture infotainment masquerading as news; report breathlessly on the latest D-class celebrity screw-up; and act as stenographers and cheerleaders for the latest batch of official Bush administration lies.
Among other insults, this explains why John Stossel is a network star while Bill Moyers is on PBS.

--Warren Pease, The Internet must die, Online Journal Contributing Writer

There is every reason to believe that Bush and the oil consortium that supports him intends to maintain a military presence, perhaps, forever. As John McCain said --for '10,000 years'.

Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors. A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilized Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

--Patrick Cockburn, Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control, THE INDEPENDENT

It would seem that Bush, the GOP, neocons, and the Military/Industrial Complex studied Orwell --not as a cautionary tale, but a 'textbook', a 'how to' re-invent the language such that their lies become 'true' and black is white.

Although they did not know it at the time, the lack of experience and training in handling prisoners in wartime made the soldiers of the 372nd ideally suited to Abu Ghraib, where almost nothing was run according to military doctrine. Since May, 2003, America’s war in Iraq had been waged as a chapter in the war on terror, and the military’s long-standing rules for running prisons in wartime had largely been ignored. By midsummer, the great majority of prisoners of war who were seized during the invasion had been released. Those who remained in captivity—along with all new prisoners seized by the military—were designated “security detainees,” a label that had gained currency in the war on terror, to describe “unlawful combatants” and other prisoners who had been denied POW status and could be held indefinitely, in isolation and secrecy, without judicial recourse.

--Exposure, Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris, New Yorker

But these 'categories' were entirely made up by the Bush regime and the Department of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld. There are no exceptions to the codes of military conduct. There are no exceptions for a 'war' that is not a 'war'. There are no exceptions to the rights accorded 'prisoners of war', taken into custody during what was called a 'war' on terrorism --a war that is a war when it is convenient for Bush to be at war but not a war when being at war requires of Bush standards mandated by the treaties and conventions to which the US has agreed and is bound by treaty and US Codes. Why are crimes against Americans punishable by death and the same crimes perpetrated against Iraqis are not? In fact, under law, Bush is culpable and must be 'brought to book'!

Pitt also said: "Where law ends, tyranny begins". I often wonder if Pitt were truly prescient to have foreseen the Bush administration, certainly the most lawless administration in America history, and, perhaps the world.

The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter,—but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!

--William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, Speech in Parliament on the Excise Bill

Pitt would not have liked George Bush who represents everything that Pitt detested --state arrogance, arbitrary rule, state subversions of the rule of law, lies, hypocrisy, mass murder and stupidity!

Additional rsources

McCain Advisor Gramm May Have Lobbied UBS Illegally in 2004

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:00:30 EDT

http://www.opednews.com/articles/McCain-Adviser-Gramm-Lobbi-by-Jason-Leopold-080604-835.html

Don't miss the "big point" on page 3, where it says, "There’s even talk that Gramm could expect an appointment as Treasury Secretary in a McCain administration."

Senate Committee: Bush Knew Iraq Claims Weren't True

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:11:05 EDT

Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq claims weren't trueMore on this Story

PDF | Report on Intelligence activities regarding Iraq
PDF | Report on public statements from the Senate Intelligence Committee
Blog | Nukes and Spooks
On the Web | Phase I Senate report on Iraq Intelligence
On the Web | Secretary of State Colin Powell to United Nations, 2/5/2003
On the Web | President Bush's State of the Union, 1/28/2003
On the Web | President Bush's speech in Cincinnati, 10/7/2002
On the Web | President Bushl's speech to the United Nations, 9/12/2002
On the Web | Vice President Cheney speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 8/26/2002
On the Web | Archive of McClatchy's Iraq intelligence reporting
On the Web | Nukes and Spooks: McClatchy coverage

By Nancy A. Youssef and Mark Seibel | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON— A long-awaited Senate Select Intelligence Committee report made public Thursday concludes that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made public statements to promote an invasion of Iraq that they knew at the time were not supported by available intelligence.

A companion report found that a special office set up by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld undertook "sensitive intelligence activities" that were inappropriate "without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department."

“Before taking the country to war, this administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” said committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D- W. Va.

It's long been known that the administration's claims in the runup to the Iraq war, from Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to al Qaida to whether Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, were incorrect, and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino suggested the problems were faulty intelligence.

"We had the intelligence that we had fully vetted, but it was wrong," she said. "We certainly regret that and we've taken measures to fix it."

But the Senate report, the first official examination of whether the president and vice president knew that their claims were incorrect at the time that they made them, reached a different conclusion.

“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate," Rockefeller said in a statement.

But Rockefeller called the administration’s statements delibrate, writing: "There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

The report was approved with on a 10-5 vote. Three Republican members of the committee, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Christopher Bond of Missouri and Richard Burr of North Carolina, denounced the report as "inconclusive, misleading and incomplete." Two Republicans, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snow of Maine, voted with the Democrats.

The report examined five speeches by Bush, Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell between August 2002 and February 2003 and dissected key statements. It also looked at statements by other administration leaders during that time. The report found that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director George Tenet often made declarative statements about the reasons to go to war even though the intelligence community was largely split on key issues.

In some cases, the administration made statements that were not backed up at all, the report found.

"Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information," the report concluded.

Among the reports conclusions:

Claims by President Bush that Iraq and al Qaida had a partnership "were not substantiated by the intelligence."
The president and vice president misrepresented what was known about Iraq’s chemical weapons capabiliies.
Rumsfeld misrepresented what the intelligence community knew when he said Iraq's weapons productions facilities were buried deeply underground.
Cheney's claim that the intelligence community had confirmed that lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 was not true.

The report did not examine statements by senators, who often echoed the administration's statements because committee staffers said the administration's statements had a greater impact. Instead, committee staffers said that the Senate had learned from its mistakes and now has special groups dedicated to specific controversial topics such as Iran and China.

The Senate now is "wary of wholesale acceptance" of the intelligence community and of statements made by intelligence officials, said a committee staffer who asked to remain unnamed so that he could speak more freely.

from: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/244/story/39963.html

McCain has a little FACT problem

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:05:34 EDT

from: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/soft_on_iran.htmlSoft on IranJune 5, 2008McCain misrepresents Obama's stand on naming Revolutionary Guard as terrorists.SummaryJohn McCain is attacking Barack Obama's opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which (among other things) called for labeling Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. McCain claims that Obama's opposition means that he also opposed calling the IRGC terrorists. We find otherwise.

Obama cosponsored an earlier bill that also called for designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

The Kyl-Lieberman amendment did more than just label the IRGC terrorists. Obama stated at the time that he opposed the bill on the grounds that it constituted "saber-rattling."

McCain claims that Obama must oppose calling the IRGC a terrorist group because Obama's Web site doesn't say anything about the IRGC. McCain's argument is a glaring example of the logical fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam.

AnalysisFor the past two weeks, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain and Democratic front-runner (and now presumptive nominee) Barack Obama have engaged in a war of words over their respective positions on Iran. In a June 2 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, McCain upped the ante, criticizing Obama's failure to support an amendment that called for designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, a charge that McCain repeats on his Web site. It's true that Obama opposed the amendment in question. But McCain is wrong to suggest that Obama's opposition had anything to do with the IRGC's designation. And McCain fails to mention that Obama cosponsored an earlier bill that would have named the IRGC a terrorist organization.

Wait, What Are We Fighting About Again?

TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty ImagesLet's start with that whole Revolutionary Guard business. Here's McCain at AIPAC:

McCain (June 2): We must apply the full force of law to prevent business dealings with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. I was pleased to join Senators Lieberman and Kyl in backing an amendment calling for the designation of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization responsible for killing American troops in Iraq. Over three quarters of the Senate supported this obvious step, but not Senator Obama. He opposed this resolution because its support for countering Iranian influence in Iraq was, he said, a "wrong message not only to the world, but also to the region."

On his Web site, McCain makes the point even more bluntly:

McCain Web site: The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment Designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps A Terrorist Organization - But Senator Obama Opposed It.

McCain implies that Obama doesn't think Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a terrorist organization. That's wrong. Before the Kyl-Lieberman amendment was introduced, Obama cosponsored a bill that called for the IRGC to be designated as "a Foreign Terrorist Operation." Obama was one of 72 cosponsors of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, which states (in part):

Iran Counter-Proliferation Act: The Secretary of State should designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a Foreign Terrorist Organization ... and the Secretary of the Treasury should place the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224.

The McCain campaign notes that the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act has yet to come to the floor for a vote. But that doesn't change the fact that Obama's sponsorship put him on record in favor of labeling the IRGC a terrorist organization, contrary to McCain's insinuation.

As for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, it too called for the executive branch to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The amendment, which passed the Senate on Sept. 26, 2007, by a vote of 76 to 22, is not as bold a step as it might sound, considering the White House had announced a month earlier that it was debating naming either the entire IRGC or the Quds Force, an elite wing of the IRGC, as a terrorist organization. The Kyl-Lieberman amendment expressed "the sense of the senate" that the IRGC as a whole ought to be so designated. Proponents argued that the designation would pressure Iran to change its behavior in Iraq.

Kyl-Lieberman Amendment (excerpt)
Sec. 1538 of H.R. 1585

(b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate--

(1) that the manner in which the United States transitions and structures its military presence in Iraq will have critical long-term consequences for the future of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, in particular with regard to the capability of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to pose a threat to the security of the region, the prospects for democracy for the people of the region, and the health of the global economy;

(2) that it is a critical national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from turning Shi'a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests inside Iraq, including by overwhelming, subverting, or co-opting institutions of the legitimate Government of Iraq;

(3) that the United States should designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224; and

(4) that the Department of the Treasury should act with all possible expediency to complete the listing of those entities targeted under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747 adopted unanimously on December 23, 2006 and March 24, 2007, respectively. But the amendment did more than just urge the president to name new terrorist groups. It also expressed the sense that it is "a critical national interest" to prevent Iran from "turning Shi'a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force." Some Democrats, such as Jim Webb of Virginia, argued that the amendment "could be read as a back-door method of gaining congressional validation for military action, without one hearing and without serious debate."

Obama did not actually vote on the amendment – he was campaigning at the time. But he did publicly oppose it, calling it excessively provocative:

Obama press release (Sept. 26, 2007): Senator Obama clearly recognizes the serious threat posed by Iran. However, he does not agree with the president that the best way to counter that threat is to keep large numbers of troops in Iraq, and he does not think that now is the time for saber-rattling towards Iran. In fact, he thinks that our large troop presence in Iraq has served to strengthen Iran - not weaken it. He believes that diplomacy and economic pressure, such as the divestment bill that he has proposed, is the right way to pressure the Iranian regime. Accordingly, he would have opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment had he been able to vote today.

The 19 Democrats, two Republicans and one Independent who voted against the amendment included many of the Senate's leading voices on foreign relations. Joseph Biden, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, opposed the amendment, as did Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the same committee. In fact, nine of the 23 senators who opposed the amendment sit on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Argumentum ad Ignorantiam

McCain's Web site offers another curious – and convoluted – argument about Obama and the IRGC:

McCain Web site: After The Kyl-Lieberman Vote, Barack Obama Often Criticized The Amendment Without Mentioning Any Support For IRGC Designation ... Before Responding To John McCain, Obama's Website Provides No Indication That Obama Favors Designating The IRGC As A Terrorist Organization.

The argument is faulty. First, as mentioned already, Obama is on record in favor of designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Second, even if Obama had not cosponsored the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, failing to state support for something on your Web site doesn't mean you therefore oppose it (and vice versa). Such reasoning constitutes a logical fallacy that philosophers call an argumentum ad ignorantiam, or an argument from ignorance. The fallacy occurs when someone asserts that the lack of evidence against a claim means that the claim is true. Should we conclude that because McCain's Web site says nothing about torturing kittens that he supports it? Of course not.

We take no position on the wisdom of the Kyl-Lieberman act. The Senate passed the bill overwhelmingly, and our colleagues at PolitiFact found that experts were divided over the implications of the amendment. We do know that McCain's claim that Obama's opposition to the bill was based on an unwillingness to label the IRGC as terrorists is false.

Also worth noting: For all the time McCain and Obama have spent arguing about the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, they were the only two members of the Senate who failed to show up for the vote.

-by Joe Miller

Why Does AT&T Need Protection?

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:54:13 EDT

Why Does AT&T Need Protection? by mcjoan Thu Jun 05, 2008 at 11:45:53 AM PDT

Oh, yeah, because the greedy trial lawyers want to bankrupt them. Well, so much for that theory.

This is just obscene.

The telecoms who are being sued for their cooperation in the government's illegal warrantless surveillance program have received billions in government contracts. According to Washington Technology magazine, Verizon received $1.3 billion, Sprint $839 million and AT&T $505 million in federal prime contract revenue for fiscal 2007, for a total of $2.6 billion. While the companies have been government contractors for a long time, it still represents a significant increase in revenue.
Telecom apologists like to suggest that the communications companies' motivation was not financial. As Judge Walker noted when examining EFF's allegations of dragnet surveillance: "AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal." Yet, the prospect of $2.6 billion per year can go a long way to explaining why an industry might cooperate with a program far outside the limitations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), despite the difficulty of believing it was legal.

And they spied on Americans illegally because they are just so darned patriotic, they couldn't resist. Right.

They're gouging us in any number of ways, first in our monthly phone bills, then again in the federal taxes we pay, and just to put the cherry on top, they get to extort even more out of us, as Kagro has pointed out, by issuing (probably fake) threats to just let the terrorists blow the whole place up if they don't get their way.

At least, we'd all better hope their threats are fake. Otherwise they're not just extortionists. They're actual terrorists.

Nice double dipping gig, if you can get it. Not only are the telcos getting $2.6 billion in exchange for doing the helping BushCo out with this little illegal project, but now they're threatening to take the money and not render the services. They're actually saying they'll pocket the $2.6 billion--your money--and then still sell out to the terrorists if we don't also pick up their legal tab.

Yup, that pretty much defines patriotism in Bushspeak.

And what happens to a telco that decides not to buy into this corrupt bargain, like Qwest didn't? Your CEO gets dragged into federal court and threatened with prison time.

50 Permanent Bases in Iraq/Bush Set to Declare Victory

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:30:33 EDT

50 permanent bases in Iraq/Bush set to declare victory by Mark701 Thu Jun 05, 2008 at 06:19:50 AM PDT

from: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/5/91529/46195/816/530052

If this has already been blogged I apologize. I just read today that the Bush/Cheney are trying to force the Iraqi government to sign a security arrangement that allows the United States to maintain possession of 50 permanent bases in Iraq. Another part of the deal grants immunity to US forces and contractors from prosecution. According to the British Independent: Mark701's diary :: :: "The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country". According to the article the another intent of the agreement is to allow Bush to declare "victory" in Iraq while simultaneously uncutting Obama pledge to get us the hell out of there. "But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November." http://www.independent.co.uk/... This is the gist of the article. Read it and weep. Personally I was infuriated when I read this. In essence Bush will declare "victory" by not changing a thing. Our troops will still be over there and dying, we’ll still be spending billions on military operations and contractors and it forces the next president to either to stay put or renage on a US security agreement. It is almost inconceivable to believe that any US Administration could be so selfish, so vain, so morally twisted, so cynical to attempt to declare victory in the middle of defeat and then commit the NEXT president to the same path of destruction.

One of the "Smartest people" Fareed Zakaria Knows?

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:29:51 EDT

One of the "Smartest People" Fareed Zakaria Knows?

Posted by Brad Jacobson

"Deadly hawks come in many styles. Some have polished talons."
- Norman Solomon

Fareed Zakaria debuted his new show for CNN this past Sunday. Introducing his program, called Fareed Zakaria GPS (as in Global Public Square, not Global Positioning System, though the latter might also apply), he explains:

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, "GPS": Welcome to the very first edition of "Global Public Square." I'm Fareed Zakaria. For the last 20 years, I've been writing about the world. And now I have an opportunity to bring all of you along with me on what has been a fascinating adventure.
I know that right now to a lot of people, the world looks like a grim place. Almost every day you're bombarded with frightening headlines, stories of out-of-control governments and terrorists who want to kill you.
But beyond those headlines, the picture is actually much brighter. Economic growth and technology are raising people out of disease and poverty every day.
On this program, we'll try to understand the new forces shaping our world, both the good and the bad. And I'll talk to some of the world's great thinkers and doers -- people like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will be joining me in a few minutes.
So, let's get started on what's going to be a hell of a ride.

My "built-in bullshit detector," to borrow Ernest Hemingway's phrase, was triggered by the words "some of the world's great thinkers and doers -- people like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair." But nothing could prepare me for what followed.

FAREED ZAKARIA: At water coolers across this country, people are talking about the American presidential election. But our strange drama is also gripping the rest of the world.
I gathered some of the smartest people I know to talk about this subject, and China, and Iran and anything else that comes up.

Hmm, can't wait to meet the panel.

FAREED ZAKARIA: Joining me are Christiane Amanpour, CNN's chief international correspondent...

Oh, Amanpour. I'm intrigued. And?

FAREED ZAKARIA: the European Union's ambassador to the United States and the former prime minister of Ireland, John Bruton...

Tell me more...

FAREED ZAKARIA: Minxin Pei, one of the world's top China scholars...

Hey, this might actually be a substantive geopolitical confab. Of course, no true progressives, anti-globalists, human rights representatives or anti-war activists but this is still CNN. Let's be realistic. At least, however, there's no knee-jerk sycophantic Bush lackey either. No mindless "fair and balanced" framework, where inane and dangerous ideas - many often already discredited - are given equal weight. So I'm interested. I've reserved my judgment. I'm ready to go along with Zakaria on this "hell of a ride." And I'm eager to hear who rounds out this more promising-than-usual panel.

FAREED ZAKARIA: ...and Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense, one of Donald Rumsfeld's key lieutenant's in President Bush's first term.

Cue the spit-take. (I actually did nearly spit my coffee across the room.) Feith?! Douglas Feith. One of the "smartest people" that Fareed Zakaria knows?

Donald Rumsfeld's under secretary of defense for policy? One of the primary architects of the occupation in Iraq and point man on circumventing the Geneva Conventions so torture and holding detainees indefinitely without charge or recourse was "legal"? The one who oversaw both the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Unit, which issued the bogus pre-war report linking Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda that helped sell the invasion, and the Office of Special Plans, which was in charge of the disastrous post-war planning? The schmendrick that former US Army General Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, called “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet” for his sparkling ideas? Whose work on Iraq former CIA chief George Tenet called "total crap"? The level-headed global strategist who Jay Garner, a former American administrator in Iraq, believes is "incredibly dangerous" and "a smart guy whose electrons aren't connected?" About whom Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, said "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man"?

The brilliant man who, as Chris Suellentrop wrote in Slate:

...[as reported by The New Yorker] intentionally excluded experts with experience in postwar nation-building, out of fear that their pessimistic, worst-case scenarios would leak and damage the case for war. In the Atlantic earlier this year, James Fallows told a similar story: The Pentagon did not participate in CIA war games about the occupation, because "it could be seen as an 'antiwar' undertaking" that "weakened the case for launching a 'war of choice.' " The State Department's Future of Iraq Project, an effort that accurately predicted some contingencies that the Pentagon overlooked, was dismissed by Feith and company out of hand.

That guy?

The same schmo who's said:

“The main rationale [for invading Iraq] was not based on intelligence.”

“I am talking about myself in the following sense: expertise is a very good thing, but it is not the same thing as sound judgment regarding strategy and policy. George W. Bush has more insight, because of his knowledge of human beings and his sense of history, about the motive force, the craving for freedom and participation in self-rule, than do many of the language experts and history experts and culture experts.”

“The common refrain that the postwar has been a disaster is only true if you had completely unrealistic expectations.”

Regarding diplomatic agreements with adversaries: “If we had mutual trust and real security, you wouldn’t need these agreements, and if you need these agreements, then it is an illusion to say that you have mutual trust and security."

“The surprising thing is not that there are so many Jews who are neocons but that there are so many who are not.”

"We certainly understood that these are the things that might happen. That’s why we wrote them down." (Feith's response in a recent 60 Minutes interview to Steve Kroft reading him portions of Rumsfeld's pre-war "Parade of Horribles" memo, which detailed what might go wrong in Iraq: "'The United States could become so absorbed with its Iraq effort that we pay inadequate attention to other serious problems; the war could cause more harm and entail greater costs than expected' - obviously it has; 'that it would not go on for two to four years but eight to 10 years; terrorist networks could improve their recruiting and fundraising as a result our being depicted as anti-Muslim; Iraq could experience ethnic strife among Kurds, Sunnis and Shia; it could damage our relationship with our allies and our reputation in the world community.' Did you think that one or two of these would happen?" "One of the things that is reflected in this memo," said Feith, "is secretary Rumseld's deeply held view that it's foolish to try to predict the future." Kroft replied, "Well, as it turned out, he was pretty good at anticipating problems because virtually all of these things have happened.")

Yes, that Douglas Feith, who is not only a disastrous foreign policy thinker with no regard for domestic or international law, but a dangerous propagandist whose views have been roundly discredited and whose reputation, in the minds of most sentient beings, has been irrevocably tarnished by his thoughts and deeds.

So the question remains: Why would Fareed Zakaria include this man in a circle of "some of the smartest people I know," inviting him to take part in his new program's inaugural panel discussion on global issues?

Zakaria's strong support for the invasion of Iraq is no secret. And though he morphed into a staunch critic of the Bush administration's prosecution of the war, he's never said the initial aim, the act of invading a sovereign country and implementing democracy at the barrel of a gun, was a bad idea. Similarly, Feith's current justification for the invasion - not WMD, what he and the administration presented to the American people and the world, but rather the hope of remaking the Middle East into a democracy - appealed to Zakaria.

In fact, Zakaria attended a little known (and little reported) November 2001 meeting, convened by then deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, to help craft a PR narrative for the war in Iraq. Bob Woodward detailed this secret gathering in his 2006 book State of Denial. As The New York Times reported in October 2006:

What was more unusual, Mr. Woodward reveals, was the presence of journalists at the meeting. Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International and a Newsweek columnist, and Robert D. Kaplan, now a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, attended the meeting and, according to Mr. Kaplan, signed confidentiality agreements not to discuss what happened.

Mr. Zakaria, who was not told that the meeting would produce a report, takes issue with Mr. Woodward’s account.

“I thought it was a brainstorming session,” he said. “I was never told that there was going to be a document summarizing our views and I have never seen such a document.” (Mr. Woodward wrote that the report, which supported the invasion of Iraq, caused Mr. Bush to focus on the “malignancy” of the Middle East situation.)
While members of policy research groups often dispense advice to administration officials, journalists do not typically attend secret meetings or help compile government reports. Indeed, many Washington journalists complain that the current administration keeps them at an unhealthy distance.
Mr. Kaplan said much of the meeting was spent drafting and reworking the document, on which Mr. Zakaria’s name did not appear, and was “a forceful summary of some of the best pro-war arguments at the time.” Could any of the participants have been unaware there was a document in the making? “No, that’s not possible,” he said.

The Times later appended a correction to this article. (Incidentally, the article had been buried in the Business section, an added twist of irony after recent news, broken by The Times, about the networks, unwittingly or not, allowing some TV war analysts to shill directly for the Pentagon and the Bush administration). The correction simply "confirmed" that: "Mr. Zakaria was not told that the meeting would produce a report for the Bush administration, nor did his name appear on the report."

A rather odd and dubious correction that doesn't refute a) Zakaria signed a confidentiality agreement "not to discuss what happened," b) he was in attendance and played an active role, c) Woodward's belief and The Times' agreement that it was "unusual" for journalists to attend such a meeting, or d) provide any evidence why we shouldn't believe Kaplan's assessment that Zakaria had to have known he was contributing to a document with "a forceful summary of some of the best pro-war arguments at the time."

Moreover, it's easy to forget just how wrong Zakaria got it.

On February 3, 2003, he wrote a Newsweek article titled "Looking on the Bright Side," which was not only woefully myopic and misguided but stunningly cavalier about invading a country that did not attack us. While Zakaria noted there "are legitimate concerns" and the "risks are real," here are some of "the potential benefits...of a successful war in Iraq" he put forth:

A major producer of weapons of mass destruction would be eliminated. [...]

The Iraqi people would gain liberty. No matter what comes after Saddam, it will be better than his totalitarian regime. [...]

The Iraqi people would get on the road to economic well being. [...]

Political and economic reform would quicken around the Arab world. [...]

The cause of radical, violent anti-Westernism—the one ideological trait that is shared by both Saddam and the Islamic fundamentalists—would be dealt a severe blow. Osama bin Laden once said that when people see a weak horse and a strong horse, they naturally want to side with the strong horse. No one will want to side with a dead horse.

The oil cartel would break down. [...]

If oil prices stay low, over time the pressures for reform could build even more. The regimes of the Middle East—most of which are nondemocratic and nonperforming—will find it increasingly difficult to stay in power if they don't open up. In short, if oil goes to $10 a barrel, the Saudi monarchy goes to Majorca. [...]

Even his caveat was deeply, and tragically, flawed:

Not all of this will happen. In fact, most of it will probably not happen. But not all of the bad things people predict will likely happen, either. And even if a few of the forces described above are unleashed, they will have lasting positive effects on the region and the whole Muslim world.
Of course, not everyone would be helped by a successful war. The ruling elites in the Middle East—particularly those that remain stubbornly set in their old ways—will be challenged, threatened and eventually overturned. For these potentates and their courtiers it would mean the end of one of the richest gravy trains in history. That is why they will fight change as fiercely as they can. But for the people of the Middle East, after the shock of the war fades, it could mean a chance to break out of the terrible stagnancy in which they now sit.
There are always risks involved when things change. But for the past 40 years the fear of these risks has paralyzed Western policy toward the Middle East. And what has come of this caution? Repression, radical Islam and terror. I'll take my chances with change.

I'll take my chances. Ponder the haughty recklessness of those words for a moment in context to war and death in general, and in context to this particular war's mass number of deaths. I'll take my chances. Thanks for your sacrifice, Mr. Zakaria. But "after the shock of war fades," the reality of it continues to multiply body counts more than five years later. Zakaria rather blithely flipped a coin with hundreds of thousands or millions of lives. Rational foreign policy experts, who are not hawks, might call that irresponsible, even barbaric.

And as late as March 2005, in another Newsweek article titled "What Bush Got Right," with the subtitle, "Freedom's march: The president has been right on some big questions. Now, if he can get the little stuff right, he'll change the world," Zakaria was still spinning utter nonsense in an attempt to defend Bush's war and his own flawed ideas:

The other noted political scientist who has been vindicated in recent weeks is George W. Bush. Across New York, Los Angeles and Chicago—and probably Europe and Asia as well—people are nervously asking themselves a question: "Could he possibly have been right?" The short answer is yes. Whether or not Bush deserves credit for everything that is happening in the Middle East, he has been fundamentally right about some big things.

From the same article comes this unintended comic gem:

People have often wished that the president had traveled more over the years. But Bush's capacity to imagine a different Middle East may actually be related to his relative ignorance of the region. Had he traveled to the Middle East and seen its many dysfunctions, he might have been disheartened. Freed from looking at the day-to-day realities, Bush maintained a vision of what the region could look like.

Thus, it's clear why Zakaria desires to rebrand Feith as one of the "smartest people I know": in doing so, Zakaria simultaneously absolves, or disappears, his own pre-war bungling, a stain to which a more forthright and less arrogant journalist who specializes in foreign affairs would confess, not only to repair his credibility but also to avail himself of the ability to hold other people's global ideas and actions under the full light of the facts, both current and historical.

In a recent interview on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart laid bare why Feith is now selling this particular bit of revisionism:

JON STEWART: I guess the difference in my mind is if you knew the perils but the conversation that you had with the public painted a rosier picture. How is that not deception? That sounds like...when you're selling a product...( applause ) what it sounds like for me. Sorry. The fact that you seem to know all the risks, takes this from manslaughter to homicide. It almost takes it from, like with the cigarette companies. If they come out and say, "No, our products I think are going to be delicious." You go back and you look and they go, well, they actually did talk about addictiveness and cancer. Isn't that deception?

In the end, for Feith and other culpable Bush administration officials, it's a fine point that might mean the difference between prosecution and getting away with murder.

CNN should be commended for both green-lighting a Sunday talk show that focuses on world events and letting a Muslim Indian-American host it. But if Zakaria's program genuinely strives to bring the world into sharper focus, rewriting the recent history in Iraq is an egregious first step.

Cross-posted from MediaBloodhound.

McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly Too

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:11:18 EDT

By Ryan Singel

from: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/mccain-id-spy-o.html

If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.

McCain's new tack towards the Bush administration's theory of executive power comes some 10 days after a McCain surrogate stated, incorrectly it seems, that the senator wanted hearings into telecom companies' cooperation with President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, before he'd support giving those companies retroactive legal immunity.

As first reported by Threat Level, Chuck Fish, a full-time lawyer for the McCain campaign, also said McCain wanted stricter rules on how the nation's telecoms work with U.S. spy agencies, and expected those companies to apologize for any lawbreaking before winning amnesty.

But Monday, McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, speaking for the campaign, disavowed those statements, and for the first time cast McCain's views on warrantless wiretapping as identical to Bush's.

[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. [...]
We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.

The Article II citation is key, since it refers to President Bush's longstanding arguments that the president has nearly unlimited powers during a time of war. The administration's analysis went so far as to say the Fourth Amendment did not apply inside the United States in the fight against terrorism, in one legal opinion from 2001.

McCain's new position plainly contradicts statements he made in a December 20, 2007 interview with the Boston Globe where he implicitly criticized Bush's five-year secret end-run around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is," McCain said.

The Globe's Charlie Savage pushed further, asking , "So is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?" To which McCain answered, "I don't think the president has the right to disobey any law."

McCain's embrace of extrajudicial domestic wiretapping is effectively a bounce-back from Fish's comments, made at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in Connecticut last month. When liberal blogs picked up the story that McCain had moved to the left on wiretapping, the McCain campaign issued a letter insisting that he still supported unconditional immunity, as well as new rules that would expand the nation's spy powers.

The campaign's response was consistent with McCain's past positions and votes. But it riled Andrew McCarthy at the conservative National Review Online, who read the campaign's position as a disavowal of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, and a wimpy surrender of executive power to Congress.

"What does it mean when he says Sen. McCain does not want the telecoms put into this position again?" McCarthy asked. "Is he saying that in a time of national crisis, the president should not be permitted to ask the telecoms for assistance that is arguably beyond what is prescribed in a statute?"

That's when the campaign issued the letter explaining McCain's new views of executive power, and revealing that McCain would, in certain future circumstances, rely on the same theory of executive power in wartime.

A spokesperson for McCain's camp did not respond to a request Monday for an explanation of the difference between the new policy and the December interview.

See Also:

Even In Defeat, It Is All About Her

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:40:20 EDT

by: Bob Cesca

from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/even-in-defeat-its-all-ab_b_105251.html

It's hip today to step back and allow Senator Clinton some breathing space in order to proceed through the various stages of whatever on her way to eventually -- some day -- conceding this nomination process to Presumptive Nominee Barack Obama. And I'm not exactly sure why the Clintons deserve such latitude -- especially this year and at this dangerous time in our national saga. After all, there's a gigantic OxyContin-buzzed Republican crap-bot bearing down on our presumptive nominee, and yet we're being forced to sit here and wait for Senator Clinton to finally step off.

"What does Hillary want? What does she want?" Senator Clinton asked last night. What does she want? Seriously? This misguided and self-centered attitude is what ultimately doomed her campaign.

It should never have been about what she wants -- or, now, what she's demanding as ransom in exchange for releasing her supporters. Senator Clinton is effectively holding up the works and delaying the big show even though she has spent too many weeks inexplicably bolstering Senator McCain's chances over Senator Obama in November -- even though every second she's remained in this race, despite the mathematical reality, she has forced Senator Obama to keep his army divided, when it ought to have been raging forward in a unified, fist-pumping head-first frontal assault against the nefarious Bush Republican political machine.

But she's Senator Clinton and she gets to do and demand whatever she wants for some reason. Even if it means diminishing the nominee and boosting the Republicans. Even if it means a victory for Senator McCain. Even if it means the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Even if it means 100 more years (or whatever McCain is saying today) in Iraq. Even if it means, as Thom Hartmann said yesterday, "More death."

This is one of several reasons why the Clinton campaign ultimately lost: because the Clinton campaign was all about Senator Clinton when, in the hearts and minds of a majority of Democrats, this nomination process was never about Senator Clinton and her ambitions and her famous name and her famous husband and her 3AM phone calls and her war stories and her scars. To wit: "Yes she will." Not only did her actual message fade away in lieu of her campaign's embarrassing attempt to mock Senator Obama's message, but her hackish spoof version of the Obama slogan was configured to be all about her (the Obama message is grounded in the collective "we"). Yes she will. Fortunately for us, Senator McCain has started to do the same thing -- mocking Senator Obama's far-superior branding. And, thankfully, Senator McCain looks a thousand times slimier doing it.

The Clinton campaign should never have been about her. This election, even before anyone officially declared, has always been about the evolution of the modern liberal movement and, more importantly, a newly evolved modern liberal movement gathering the required ammunition necessary to roll back the destructive and often criminal policies of the last 28 years -- and to do so in a way that might actually stick to the wall. And here in June 2008, while Senator Clinton dawdles around the stage doing her best to muscle the presumptive nominee while talking about what she wants, the horrible prospect of a McCain presidency hisses its way towards the zero barrier and the dismantling of American democracy nears the point of no return.

Senator Obama (or even if it had been Senator Clinton) needs a mandate in November. He needs an overwhelming electoral victory in order to have the political capital required to rebuild the nation in the aftermath of the terrible psychobombs George Bush and Dick Cheney have been detonating throughout this decade. And yet, here we sit. Talking about Senator Clinton and what she wants.

What happens if she isn't offered the vice presidential slot? Will she continue to stomp her feet and draw attention away from the nominee? Yes she will. Will she carry her campaign (in name and support only) to the convention? Yes she will. Will she continue to distract attention away from challenging Senator McCain's awfulness? Yes she will. So should she be offered the vice presidential slot, then? No she shouldn't.

Because a would-be Obama-Clinton campaign would end up being entirely about the Clintons. What they said; what they're doing; who's in control; do they get along; is she undermining him from within. Me, me, me. And besides, if she really wanted to be on the ticket, she wouldn't have engaged in this infuriating slash-burn-point-clap strategy in the first place -- a strategy which, by the way, continued through last night's speech.

But even after Senator Obama surpassed the original threshold of 2,025; even after he agreed to allowing the reinstatement of the Michigan and Florida delegates despite the previously and unanimously accepted sanctions; even after he surpassed the new threshold of 2,118 and also nears the bogus 2,209 number that the Clintons made up last month, Senator Clinton and her supporters continue to paint the Obama victory as somehow illegitimate. And Senator Clinton refuses to accept the notion that she is holding back the larger campaign -- the most important campaign of our time -- a campaign that isn't about her or even about Senator Obama. It's a campaign about turning the tide on 28 years of Reaganomics and environmental destruction and foreign policy blowback.

It's not so difficult, Senator. And even though I honestly believe that he's a crazy squirrel-munching hooplehead, here's Mike Huckabee's concession, for example:

Ladies and gentlemen, I called Senator McCain a few moments ago. It looks pretty apparent tonight that he will, in fact, achieve 1,191 delegates to become the Republican nominee for our party.
I extended to him not only my congratulations, but my commitment to him and to the party to do everything possible to unite our party, but more importantly to unite our country, so that we can be the best nation we can be, not for ourselves, but for the future generations to whom we owe everything, just as we owe previous generations all that they have done for us.

That's about right (even though it's in the name of a screwy, failed conservative movement).

We have an insanely challenging task ahead of us. Not just in defeating super-crazies like Mike Huckabee and Senator McCain, but also in confronting and debunking the corporate media's ridiculousness (i.e. "What's Obama's problem? Why can't he connect with the racist whites?"). And that's before November. If he manages to overcome the race-baiting 527 ads and all of the sinister e-mail whisper campaigns and the dubious voting machines, Senator Obama will have to achieve more in his first 100 days than most presidents have achieved in two full terms.

And yet, here we sit. Waiting for Senator Clinton to decide what she wants. This routine -- be it Senator Clinton's defiance, or the party's deferential behavior toward her -- illustrates exactly why this party, and liberalism with it, must change. And while we wait here in some kind of twisted Pollyanna limbo, Senator McCain is measuring the White House Residence to see if his Craftmatic adjustable bed will fit through the door.

Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog! GO!

The Real Reason Hillary Should Not Be Veep

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:25:31 EDT

Pamela Gerloff: The Real Reason Hillary Should Not Be Veep

With all the talk of Hillary Clinton becoming Barack Obama's running mate, let's pause for a moment to push out the brain fog. The sane truth is: It should not happen. Here's why:

Of course there are all the usual arguments against it, e.g., Hillary's Iraq war vote; her assassination comment; her old-style politics in a year when the presidential nominee will be running as the candidate of change; her party-ripping, politics-of-destruction campaign strategy in the primary; her "most hated politician" ranking in the polls; all of the past Clinton scandals waiting to be dragged out of the closet, her husband's loose cannon-unpredictability, etc. Despite the advantages touted by Clinton supporters (If you don't pick her, we're going to make you lose the November election!), Hillary's baggage would end up being a distraction to the Obama campaign. In the end, Hillary in the VP slot on the ticket would do Obama and the Democratic Party more harm than good.

But all that aside, the real reason not to put Hillary in the VP position is that Obama has steadily and repeatedly shown that he is a dignitarian -- defined as someone who values and chooses to live by principles of dignity for all -- and he aims to run his campaign and his administration on such principles. Clinton, in contrast, has shown the opposite; what, in the parlance of dignity, would be termed rankist. Rankism is abuse of the power that comes with rank. It includes a wide range of behavior, such as: common snobbery, bullying, sexual harassment, verbal abuse, using political status for personal gain, segregation, torture, or pressuring smaller nations to serve the best interests of a larger nation. It is also the "ism" that encompasses all other "isms" -- including racism, sexism, classism, and ageism, all of which have been present in this year's primary campaigns. Rankism is currently so pervasive in our culture -- and so unrecognized as a concept -- that it goes largely unnoticed. The way to unify the party and the country is to target rankism, thereby simultaneously addressing the other "isms" currently at play on the political scene.

One of the best ways to begin eradicating rankism, and build party and national unity, is to build a strong ethos of dignitarianism -- respect for the dignity of all. This happens through our use of language, through aligning our own actions with principles of respect and dignity, and through the policies we implement in our institutions and governmental bodies.

Refusing to blame or label others; articulating a vision of dignity for all; and passing laws and policies that respect the rights and dignity of everyone, regardless of race, gender, economic class, social status, or political viewpoint, are all ways to build a culture of dignity.

I would suggest that of all the major presidential candidates this season, Obama has done these things most consistently. While all of us at times exhibit rankist attitudes, language, and behavior, some of us do it more than others. For those committed to dignity, there is a concerted effort to maintain higher standards, even in the rough and tumble of politics. Obama has demonstrated this commitment, many times refusing to retaliate with character assassination and personal attack when he easily could have, repeatedly lifting the discourse to encourage people to reach toward a dignitarian potential, and proposing policies that promise to honor the dignity of everyone by providing fair and just access to resources, from health care to college education to housing.

Senator Clinton, though well-intentioned and no doubt also concerned about dignity for the larger population, is nonetheless steeped in the politics of rankism. Old-style politics is built on rankist principles: "Old Boys'(or Girls') networks; you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours; if you do that I'll retaliate, and your political career will be ruined; destroy your enemies; win at all costs; use attack ads if it works; keep the powerful happy because you're likely to need them; don't worry about the truth, say what the people want to hear.

That's how old-style politics works. It is also the root of Hillary's willingness to engage in rankist behavior on the campaign trail. Just a few examples: "going negative" with campaign advertising and verbal innuendo that played on the primal fears of the populace; tearing down her opponent, instead of focusing on establishing meaningful differences in approach (which would have simultaneously preserved the unity of the party and helped build a reputation for herself as a dignitarian); blaming others for her own errors; changing the rules of engagement when they suited her purposes (now we should count the Florida and Michigan votes, even though I, my opponent, and the DNC all agreed not to; now we shouldn't count caucus states when calculating popular vote totals); playing loose with the truth (e.g., her Bosnia adventures and the probable impact of the gas tax).

Rankist behavior occurs routinely in politics, and old-guard politicians such as the Clintons are adept at it. The primary error in advocating Hillary for the VP slot is that it overlooks and excuses Hillary's rankist behavior during the primary and during her many years of experience playing insider, old-style, rankist politics. And that is to miss the point of what the voters' deep hunger for change is fundamentally about. Voters this season are hungry for dignity. Voters recognize in Obama someone who is fundamentally respectful of the dignity of all people. To put Hillary on the ticket with him seriously undermines that stance. Whatever other qualities Obama's VP may need to have to "balance the ticket," rankist behavior is not one of them. The VP candidate must subscribe to dignitarian principles and must have a record of living by them, even in the world of politics. There can be no compromise on this point, because that is the fundamental change the Obama voters are seeking--and, in the end, it will be the change that will return Clinton supporters to the fold and unite the Democratic Party and the nation.

Pamela Gerloff is co-author, with Robert W. Fuller, of Dignity for All: How to Create a World without Rankism (forthcoming, June 2008, Berrett-Koehler Publishers).

17 Tired White People in a Room: McCain Gives Single Worst Speech in the History of American Politics

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:58:55 EDT

by John Eskow

from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-eskow/seventeen-tired-white-peo_b_105071.html

First of all, John, you weren't in New Orleans.

You were in Kenner, Louisiana. I have spent a fair amount of time in both Kenner and New Orleans, and believe me, the people who live there are acutely aware of the difference. The competition in CYO basketball alone runs at fratricidal levels. So your very first words were stunningly dumb.

And not only wrong, not only dumb, but wrong, dumb, and mis-pronounced: it's not New Or-lee-eyens, as any resident of New Orleans (or Kenner) will insist on telling you: it's New Or-lins. Down there in New Orleans -- sorry, I mean Kenner -- these are life-and-death issues.

So: one sentence into the single worst speech in the history of American politics, in front of what looked like seventeen tired white people in a room, John McCain -- comb-over plastered down, grinning inanely, with his strange collection of jowls and wattles a-quiver at various tempos (a separate flopping-rhythm to every fleshy sac, in a display of trembling facial-jelly unmatched since the heyday of Jesse Helms) -- had:

a) proved he didn't know where he was,

b) showed he was too lazy to even ask a random passer-by the name of the city he wrongly believed himself to be in, and

c) beamed out to America -- for the first but unmercifully not the last time on a crucial night of political theater--that bizarre frozen rictus of a grin that he quite wrongly thinks charming and down-home.

Mere seconds into an address that gladdened Obama supporters everywhere and drove giant ripples of buyer's-remorse down the gut of every Obama-hating white Clinton supporter, John McCain had proudly displayed his Wooden Soldier persona to the world.

It was a miscalculation of stunning proportions -- not just by McCain, but by the once-fearsome Republican strategists who'd propped him up in front of that eye-torturing green backdrop. How the mighty have fallen: last night, we witnessed the arrival of the Anti-Reagan, the pitiful obverse of the Great Communicator. Here, instead, was the Grating Obfuscator, mangling an already-terrible speech like some mildewed Howdy Doody with Alzheimer's Disease. (my bold)

His ideas were puerile -- and his ideas were the best part of the speech. He turned instantly-forgettable phrases into unforgettable moments of black comedy, at one point so garbling the phrase "change in strategy" that it almost came out as "strange in tragedy" -- which would have been a far better description of his support for the war than any he gave in his remarks. (my bold)

For the love of God, you should pardon the expression, who's coaching this man? At several points he actually spoke the phrase "heh-heh-heh" as if reading it from a Teleprompter. He paused after what he believed to be winning lines, blatantly milking applause from those seventeen tired white people (and here's a Note to John: when the applause is so sparse that you can actually hear and identify the separate clapping-patterns of individual clappers, dispense with the dramatic pauses.)

Worst of all was The Blinking. It should be illegal to hustle John McCain in a poker-game, because his "tell" is so freaking obvious: whenever he's spoken a lie that he knows flat-out is a lie, he stops and performs a nightmarish combo of The Rictus and The Blink, a rapid eye-flutter that reads like a Bettie Boop parody and should not be attempted by anyone even vaguely male.

Do I focus more on theater than on substance? Well, so did McCain. And so did Ronald Reagan, for that matter, but according to popular opinion -- one I have always been unable to share, since my loathing for the man put the whammy on objective judgement -- Reagan played his games of political three-card-monte with skill and charm. The fact that the Republican Party has fallen on such hard times that it can only offer a John McCain as their presidential candidate means that not only have they lost their Reagans, but they have lost their Michael Deavers, Lee Atwaters, and (vintage) Karl Roves as well. And that loss is the truly critical one.

Case in point: Republican strategists knew that Obama would be taking the stage an hour later to deliver a typically hypnotic speech in front of an SRO house of ecstatic devotees. So the fact that they threw McCain into the gladiator-pit of American TV armed only with his own charisma -- which, of course, is to say without any weapons at all -- is further proof that it's Amateur Hour at the GOP. To which -- John Hagee and Jeremiah Wright aside -- one can only say: thank God.

Opinions from Across the Pond

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:34:51 EDT

What do the Brit's think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pTbKexlEHU

International Headlines!

A New & Better Day! — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:25:40 EDT

A Baker's Dozen of Int'l Headlines for Obama by Meteor Blades Tue Jun 03, 2008 at 09:42:15 PM PDT

El Pais (Madrid): Obama se convierte en el primer candidato negro a la presidencia de Estados Unidos
(Obama becomes the first black candidate to the presidency of the United States)

Financial Times (London): Obama Clinches Nomination

The Telegraph (London): Obama limps over line despite Dakota defeat
Senator becomes the first black nominee in history despite Clinton win in South Dakota.

Le Monde (Paris) Interrogations sur la stratégie de fin de campagne d'Hillary Clinton
(Questions on the ending strategy of Hillary Clinton's campaign)

Berliner Morgenpost (Berlin): Barack Obama lässt sich als Kandidat feiern
(Barack Obama can be celebrated as a candidate)

Reforma (Mexico City): Hace Obama historia; asegura nominación
(Obama makes history; nomination assured)

Clarín (Buenos Aires): Obama logró los delegados necesarios y es el candidato demócrata a la Casa Blanca
(Obama obtained the necessary delegates and is the democratic candidate to the White House)

Jakarta Post (Jakarta, Indonesia): Obama seals nomination; McCain eager for battle

The Australian (Melbourne): Barack Obama claims nomination but Hillary Clinton hangs on

Al Jazeera (Doha, Qatar): Obama 'wins Democratic nomination'
Illinois senator projected to become first African-American presidential candidate.

Jerusalem Post (Jerusalem): Obama seals Democratic presidential nomination
Defeated Hillary Clinton maneuvers for the vice presidential spot on Illinois senator's ticket without conceding her own loss.

Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa): Obama first black nominee for White House
Clinton vows party unity

China Daily (Beijing): Obama seals Democratic nomination
Barack Obama sealed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, a step toward his goal of becoming the first black US president.

It appears that "sealed" the nomination wins the prize. Got any international headlines of your own?

HRC supporter shows great leadership

A New & Better Day! — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:04:01 EDT

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/3/155743/5804/468/528374

Touch Screen Voting Failure Investigated by Company of Origi

A New & Better Day! — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:05:15 EDT

'Paper Trails' Said to Have Been Correct in Arkansas Race, but Internal Numbers Wrong; ES&S System 'Worked to Perfection' During Early Voting Period

Voting Machine Company Tasked With Auditing Own Machines to Find Cause of Failure Before November...

By all means, let's not pay attention to this report until after November.

This is a follow-up to several previous items we ran recently (here, here and here) on a number of elections in Arkansas where the outcome was reversed after the lucky discovery of mistallies on the ES&S electronic voting system which failed widely in a number of counties during local primary elections there the week before last.

Here's the latest explanation, most notable passages excerpted below, on what went wrong in Faulkner County's very low turnout election for their District 45 State Representative Democratic Primary in which voters casting ballots in the Cadron Township Constable race had their votes recorded erroneously for the Dist. 45 State Rep race instead.

While these same touch-screen voting systems, the ES&S iVotronic, are widely used across the country, and have failed notoriously in a number of races over the years, and thus, theoretically prone to the same or worse failures this November when the turnout will be far higher, the full article by Joe Lamb in Arkansas' Log Cabin Democrat notes two more additionally chilling points:

"[T]he votes for the constable race were later found to have recorded accurately on the voter-verifiable paper trail and therefore would not have appeared erroneous to voters either." (Which means there also would have been a fight, in any contested recount, about which numbers actually reflected voter intent!)
"What makes the situation all the more baffling, [Faulkner County Election Commissioner Bruce Haggard] added, is that the machine in question, along with its associated software and coding, were found to have worked to perfection during early voting."

(So pre-election tests and early voting gave no indication that something would go wrong on Election Day, despite election official and voting machine company claims that such tests protect against such problems!)

Full article here, most notable extended excerpts follow below.

One error in last week's election "should not have been possible," Faulkner County Election Commissioner Bruce Haggard said, if an electronic voting machine had been functioning correctly.
The error contributed to a reversal in the District 45 State Representative Democratic Primary election.
In the East Cadron B voting precinct, Haggard said, the district 45 representative ballot was entirely absent from the touch-screen voting machines. The error was caught by county clerk Melinda Reynolds before the polls opened, Haggard said, stressing that no voters were disenfranchised.
Paper ballots were prepared for the district 45 race before voters came to the polls, he said, and these ballots were accurately counted on election night.
But the error that deleted the electronic district 45 representative ballot hid another error that went unnoticed.
[...]
One error in last week's election "should not have been possible," Faulkner County Election Commissioner Bruce Haggard said, if an electronic voting machine had been functioning correctly.
The error contributed to a reversal in the District 45 State Representative Democratic Primary election.
In the East Cadron B voting precinct, Haggard said, the district 45 representative ballot was entirely absent from the touch-screen voting machines. The error was caught by county clerk Melinda Reynolds before the polls opened, Haggard said, stressing that no voters were disenfranchised.
Paper ballots were prepared for the district 45 race before voters came to the polls, he said, and these ballots were accurately counted on election night.
But the error that deleted the electronic district 45 representative ballot hid another error that went unnoticed.
[...]
"We assumed, erroneously, that it would not record that race since it was not on the ballot," he said, adding that the votes for the constable race were later found to have recorded accurately on the voter-verifiable paper trail and therefore would not have appeared erroneous to voters either.
As it happened, Fiddler's name had been paired with the vastly more popular constable candidate. This falsely inflated his total number of votes and, as the race was so close, indicated that he had won.
A recount requested by Tyler proved otherwise.
[...]
What makes the situation all the more baffling, he added, is that the machine in question, along with its associated software and coding, were found to have worked to perfection during early voting.
[...]
Haggard is confident that the pending ES&S audit will find the commission's current vote tally to be correct.

Yes, you read that last graf correctly. ES&S is apparently the ones who are looking into what caused the problems on the ES&S voting machines. No doubt, their assessment will take care of any further concerns.

Brad Friedman is an investigative journalist who covers a great deal of issues concerning Election Integrity. He is also the creator/editor of The BRAD BLOG.

There is a New Boss in Town

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:22:27 EDT

Barack in Charge

By Craig Crawford | May 31, 2008 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (607)

Make no mistake about it. The decision rendered today by the Democratic National Committee's rules panel showed that Barack Obama has displaced Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, as boss of the party.

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee gave Obama exactly what he wanted - a firm decision on seating Florida and Michigan delegates. Even though Clinton wins a small net gain in nominating delegates, it is not enough to seriously boost her chances for the nomination.

No decision would have best served Clinton today. Her nomination hopes are dependent on a chaos theory, which would have been best supported by keeping the status of Florida and Michigan in limbo.

Losing what they needed today proves that for the first time in 16 years the Clintons are no longer in charge of the Democratic Party. There is a new boss in town.

I just saw the most amazing image

A New & Better Day! — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:20:35 EDT

I caught the end of the S.D. rally this morning and was watching Barack work the room. The photo-op is so generous when done Obama style; I can't resist that diamond smile! I can't help but smile in return and I'm only watching on video.

As Barack introduced himself and was introduced to families at the event they frewuently got up to stand for a photo with him. One family, of 4 it looked, gathered around Barack but one of the young ones joined last at the edge of the rest of the group. This part to me is amazing; when she added herself, she put her arm around the group, and put her hand directly on top of Barack's hand. The video was being taken from behind so I could not see faces, all I could see is that Barack had put his arm around this family, and the young one completed the circle by placing her hand on Barack's.

Many people may have pulled back, out of respect, or of recognition of Secret Service. But this young lady stolled over and did not keep her hand to herself. In a most casual way, she managed to sum up both the feel and the goal of our campaign. I wonder what Barack thought? I hope someone got a photo of it to share with us.

It was one of the most touching things I have seen in the campaign. Her white hand, over top his, encircling the family. It brought tears to see such a simple, powerful image.

This campaign has been full of such iconic moments and images, and we've managed them while maintaining authenticity. It makes me more proud every day.

Scenes From Today's RBC Hillary Protest

A New & Better Day! — Sat, 31 May 2008 19:38:50 EDT

Scenes From Today's RBC Hillary Protest

by--Eve Fairbanks

from http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/05/31/scenes-from-today-s-rbc-hillary-protest.aspx

Howard Dean may hope that the "healing will begin today," but two blocks away from the northwest Washington Marriott where the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting right now to try to figure out Florida and Michigan, the Hillary protesters are occupying an utterly alternate (and healing-free) universe: a universe in which one of the big lawn rally's speakers yells that the Democratic Party no longer is in the business of "promoting equality and fairness for all"; in which a Hillary supporter with two poodles shouts, "Howard Dean is a leftist freak!"; in which a man exhibits a sign that reads "At least slaves were counted as 3/5ths a Citizen" and shows Dean whipping handcuffed people; and in which Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who took to YouTube to allege that Barack Obama had oral sex with him in the back of a limousine in 1999, is one of the belles of the ball.

"They almost made me cry this morning when they told me to get out of there," the blond Sinclair--who's looking roly-poly and giddy in a blue-and-white striped shirt with a pack of Marlboros protruding from the breast pocket--says, referring to several nervous protest organizers who tried to evict him when he first showed up at the rally site early this morning carrying a box of "Obama's DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS: Murder, Drugs, Gay Sex" fliers. Since then, though, he goes on, "I have been totally surprised by the reception I have received!"

He's not kidding. Clusters of people in Hillary shirts ask to take their photo with him, one woman covered in Clinton buttons introduces him to Greta Van Susteren, and he estimates he has handed out 500 fliers. "You could improve your credibility if you downplayed the gay sex and focused on the drugs," sagely advises one Hillary supporter with auburn hair and elegant makeup. But in this universe, Sinclair's credibility doesn't seem to be suffering too much. In fact, he's treated nearly as well as he might be at a meeting of the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy. In the thirty minutes I stand with him, only one woman expresses disgust at his fliers and his willingness to chattily discourse on whether Obama is "good in bed."

Earlier, he claims, he even got to take a picture with Charlie Rangel. "I love him!" Sinclair chirps, though, it must be said, not as much as he loves Lanny Davis.

Has it come to this? We tend to assume the Hillary camp's hot rhetoric--that Obama's less ready than McCain to be commander-in-chief, that the DNC in Florida is like Mugabe in Zimbabwe--is studied, purposeful, that they can't really believe it. That may be true at the Lanny Davis level, but by the time it trickles down to Hillary's most grassroots supporters, it becomes deadly serious.

Of the eight Hillary supporters I quiz at the protest (six of them women), only one says she'd even consider voting for Obama in the fall. "It's sad. I'm a lifelong Democrat and the party's been taken over by these Obama people who say they want 'change,'" gripes Linda of Horseheads, New York, outside the Marriott as a honking car decorated with a painting of Hillary, a glued-on bust of Cleopatra, and a tampon drives by. Linda, she says, has already gone to the state Board of Elections to learn how to write Hillary's name in in November. "So much has been stolen from her."

Justine, a self-described "diehard Democrat" from Greensboro, North Carolina, objects to the write-in idea. "It's gonna help Barack if you don't vote against him," she says. She and her friends got Sinclair to autograph their copies of the "Murder, Drugs, Gay Sex" flier. One of those friends, Jeannie, is living proof that, at least for some people, the long primary has done its damage. "When [Obama] first came out, we just thought he was too young," she explains. "But now I don't think he's qualified at all."

It's easy to sink into despair here. Standing and watching all these Democrats chat up Sinclair--who's retained Montgomery Blair Sibley as his lawyer and says the Republican National Committee has also been in touch with him--makes me want to fall to my knees, rend my garments, and start insanely screaming, "Wake up! Wake up! You'll hate a President John McCain!" But the rhetoric from the top has imparted its poison below, and the bitterest criticisms of Obama gain traction as they circulate through the virulently-pro-Hillary echo chamber. "Would you rather have a president who had an affair [Bill Clinton] or one who was a murderer [Obama]?" Jeannie, the Greensboro Democrat, asks a fellow in a floppy Tilley hat and Hillary buttons. "That's a good point," he replies.

Following instructions from Obama HQ, almost no Obama supporters have shown up to protest, amplifying the impression of the alternate Hillary universe. But around the edges, a few small signs of the other universe peek through, the one in which Barack Obama leads and most Democrats don't suspect him of multiple felonies. Inside the Marriott's gift shop, the sales clerk tells me that Democratic bumper stickers have been selling like crazy today. "Mostly Hillary?" I ask.

"Actually, mostly Obama," she giggles.

--Eve Fairbanks

Posted: Saturday, May 31, 2008 1:04 PM with 29 comment(s)

Earlier, he claims, he even got to take a picture with Charlie Rangel. "I love him!" Sinclair chirps, though, it must be said, not as much as he loves Lanny Davis.

"Actually, mostly Obama," she giggles.

Scenes From Today's RBC Hillary Protest

Earlier, he claims, he even got to take a picture with Charlie Rangel. "I love him!" Sinclair chirps, though, it must be said, not as much as he loves Lanny Davis.

"Actually, mostly Obama," she giggles.

--Eve Fairbanks

Posted: Saturday, May 31, 2008 1:04 PM with 29 comment(s)

with 29 comment(s)

Dkos liveblogs the Rules Mtg.

A New & Better Day! — Sat, 31 May 2008 15:34:09 EDT

I'm watching the meeting re: the seating of MI & FL. I am also reading a diary that is live blogging.

first I want to point out that if the asute commentors at dkos were on this board, it would have been a 10 minute meeting! See here:

What the candidates, including Clinton agreed to (15+ / 0-)

Recommended by: littlesky, ArcXIX, Casper46, Sagittarius, blueoasis, drmah, second gen, Killer of Sacred Cows, elwior, tbird, soms, Jack Dublin, Amber6541, ArtSchmart, My mom is my hero

THEREFORE, I _____________, Democratic Candidate for President, pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as "campaigning" is defined by rules and regulations of the DNC.

And the quick retort here:

having one's name on the ballot (10+ / 0-)

Recommended by: Disillusioned, MrSandman, LarisaW, Casper46, Sagittarius, drmah, Empower Ink, Dem in the heart of Texas, ThatPoshGirl, My mom is my hero

IS participating!

by flor de jasmim on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:32:06 AM PDT

[ Parent ]

Bingo! (5+ / 0-)Recommended by: Casper46, blueoasis, Dem in the heart of Texas, ThatPoshGirl, My mom is my hero
"Don't have nobody to call my own; please, please bring me a dream."
by MrSandman on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:34:53 AM PDT
[ Parent ]

These are my favorite comments. I love the anology!

What???!!! (8+ / 0-)

Recommended by: bethcf4p, ThatsNotFunny, iliketodrum, blueoasis, goodasgold, dawnt, soms, ArtSchmart

Because it was ONLY ONE BROKEN RULE, no penalty should be paid? Now THAT'S logic for you!

(¯`*._(¯`*._(-IMPEACH-)_.*´¯)_.*´¯) It's not too late!

by nehark on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:38:21 AM PDT

I only robbed one bank (10+ / 0-)Recommended by: CA Pol Junkie, ThatsNotFunny, nehark, blueoasis, rkelley25, second gen, Empower Ink, John2Luke, soms, ArtSchmart
I should not go to prison.
John McCain traded your $10 job for $5 and called it a bargain.
by dawnt on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:39:17 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
I bought her dinner, took her to the movies (3+ / 0-)Recommended by: Disillusioned, decitect, jck
opened doors for her, was a complete gentleman, escorted her to her door, accepted her invitation to bed, was a a passionate and attentive lover, cooked her breakfast in the morning, called her the next night and even sent her flowers. So you're saying that all that was a bad thing because I'm married to another woman?
Everyone needs a laugh. Especially you. - NYComedyRadio.com
by ThatsNotFunny on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:43:22 AM PDT

This final comment sums it up sublimely!

935 Lies: A Music Video by Harry Shearer

A New & Better Day! — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:24:42 EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-shearer/935-lies_b_104359.html

Stalin-like vote in MI & M.C. Escher logic in FL

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:18:07 EDT

by R.J. Eskow

from:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/more-people-have-voted-ia_b_104093.html

It's time to move on to the general election battle -- but we can't. It's not wrong for Hillary Clinton to keep running, but it is wrong to keep using reckless, irrational, and irresponsible arguments that delegitimize the future nominee and hurt the party's chances in November.

The "popular vote" argument is the most extreme example of Clinton campaign recklessness. The notion that Clinton has won the most "popular votes" is a meaningless metric from the start. Clinton people say Florida and Michigan Democrats shouldn't be "penalized" for the errors of others, yet their argument punishes voters who stayed home in those states believing their votes wouldn't count. And it "penalizes" Democrats in every single caucus state!

Yet Clinton defenders insist on claiming they're fighting for the "principle" of "counting every vote." Gen. Wesley Clark, who I respect (and would like to see nominated for VP), made this claim last night on Dan Abrams. But this so-called "principle" disenfranchises Democrats in Iowa, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Hawaii, Wyoming ... and parts of Texas. Is that really a "value every Democrat should support," as Gen. Clark claimed?

And if we're really interested in that "popular vote" metric, here's a fact that should interest Democrats: More people have voted against Sen. Clinton than have voted against any primary candidate in American history. Take Michigan: Even though it was an "election" worthy of Joseph Stalin or Saddam Hussein, with no major opponent on the ballot (because the others honored an agreement she retroactively broke), 41% of voters chose nobody when given the opportunity to vote only for Sen. Clinton.

Here's what would have happened in Michigan if Hillary Clinton had not been the only leading candidate on the ballot : Based on exit polls taken at the time, she would have received 46% of the vote to 35% for Obama and 12% for John Edwards. That means that, with Edwards' endorsement, Obama would now be getting more Michigan delegates -- and more of its "popular votes" -- than Clinton. But because he honored the agreement and she didn't, she now wants a one-sided agreement that rewards her behavior.

Or take the Florida election: Clinton and her supporters want those votes counted because it will add numbers to this "popular vote" argument. But John Edwards got 251,562 votes in that invalidated primary. Shouldn't those votes be added to Obama's total now? That would bring Hillary's meaningless "popular vote" margin there down from 294,772 to 43,000. Throw in the votes from Dodd et al. and Hillary actually lost Florida's "popular vote" (she received 49% of the vote total).

See how meaningless this metric really is? Please, Clinton supporters: Stop using this damaged and destructive logic. I know that "counting every vote" sounds like a high-minded principle, but it's not. When the Clinton campaign dreamed it up, they knew it would mean defending a Stalin-like vote in Michigan and using M.C. Escher logic in Florida, but they guessed that these nuances would be lost on many supporters - and they have been. They knew it meant reversing a pledge that Sen. Clinton acknowledged on video (in defending the fact her name stayed on the ballot), but so what? Apparently "counting every vote" is a more compelling "principle" than "keeping your word."

Now Clinton supporters are planning to demonstrate en masse at the party meeting that will discuss the Florida and Michigan delegations on Saturday. As I discussed elsewhere, that's a "schismogenic" response to the perceived unwillingness of the Obama camp to yield - a perception that's being fueled by the "count every vote" pitch. That demonstration will look and feel like a civil rights march to Clinton supporters -- but to Obama supporters it will seem like thuggish refusal to accept a fair outcome. That will further split the party.

And we haven't even talked about sexism yet. Even a reasonable, thoughtful pro-Hillary piece like Hilary Rosen's can contain a sentence like this one: "(W)hen Hillary's supporters suggest that (gender bias is real), Obama supporters guffaw ..." I have never heard an Obama supporter "guffaw" at the notion of anti-Clinton sexism. Most of the Obama supporters I know have condemned it. But Clinton supporters who rightfully criticize the media for its sexism should also remember that the media spent a year anointing Clinton as the inevitable nominee, too. That means that press coverage was a mixed blessing for Hillary - and it also means those votes for other candidates really were a rejection of her as the nominee.

The Clintons are not likely to back down soon, and they have some rabidly partisan supporters who will carry their illogic as far (and as destructively) as imagination can take them. For an example, consider the historian who argues race hasn't been a factor in these primaries, even after 20% of Kentucky voters said it was in exit polls.

Irresponsible people like that aren't likely to change, so it's incumbent upon honorable Clinton supporters like Gen. Clark to do the right thing and step back from the Clintons' brinksmanship. Otherwise, some Clinton supporters will have been so manipulated and enraged by these false arguments that their support will be lost in November, no matter what agreement the two campaigns may reach in the next few weeks.

Many of us would love to stop having these negative intramural fights and start building a positive case for the general election. We'd like to step out of this darkness and into the light by congratulating Sen. Clinton for the 17 million votes she has earned, and by joining with her supporters in building toward a November victory. It's time to make peace and start healing, but that can't happen while good people keep using bad logic to make destructive arguments.

McCain Linked to Terrorists Libyan Regime-not even kidding

A New & Better Day! — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:07:41 EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zp-heller/mccain-linked-to-terroris_b_104193.html

blog no more

Vanity Fair rebuts New Yorker

Homework: Sen Karl Rove to jail

Lawsuit to stop the transmission of votes over telephone lines and/or the internet

A video interlude..."We want Barack Obama Now"

Portland Bound: Walker's Paradise

Checkmate: TPM connects the dots!

Scary Politics in Alabama: How the GOP Framed Gov. Don Siegelman

Black. Female. Accomplished. Attacked.

HOPE Force One!

Night before Obama flies abroad, Rice bars embassies from aiding candidates

Under-reported News: The (2nd) Longest Walk

Rob Kall: thoughts on what may face Obama in Europe

Big Brother vs. Librarian?!

Gramm out but not gone-MoveOn responds w/video

Liveblogging from Netroots Nation-Sam Graham Felsen

McCain's Moneyraiser worked for Mariana Islands

President George W Bush lobbyist in ‘cash for access’ row

Bluesfest photo on fundraising page

Back from Blues Fest!

Want to work on a campaign? Sign up for DFA night school-free

Greenwald working to create allience re: FISA fight

FISA "deal" coming soon

FISA Fight: Pelosi Confirms vote before 4th of July (!?)-Time to make calls!

FISA Sellout Immenent; Hints Greenwald

The Greatest Unknown Scandel of Our Time

Wiretapping: Impeachment Not Immunity-sign the petition!

Great info for voters abroad: pass it on

How Russert impacted the primary

Opinion: Greensburg documentary offers shocking contrast

Photo of the Day: McCain's debt, strike that, latte:large

Just the Obama info I've been waiting for; birth info

Frank Schaeffer: Warning to GOP friends: Screw up the Obama Moment & You're History

Exposing Pentagon & CIA Corruption

McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'

Jail Time for Tenet?

Moveon Ad starring John Cusack

Obama: pulling the SOFA from under Bush

(Off) Colorful comedy at McCain's expense

McCain's Abramoff Connection

"Most liberal Senator" falsehood

FISA fight: Feingold & Dodd Pressure Dem Leaders

Wexler Co-Sponsors Kucinich Bill

Cheney Winning the Inside Battles Again

Blackwater's Growing Foray into Private Espionage

Conyers wants You to Rebut his 5 Reasons Not to Impeach

Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment of Bush

Obama's Real Problem with the Jewish Vote

Bush *Hearts* Abromoff

Nominee for Air Force chief OK'd nuclear first strike

A Tribute to David Plouffe

Obama Thanks Chicago Staff-video

McCain's Reversal on Spying, Executive Power

Graham: McCain's Policies Would 'Absolutely' Be An 'Extension' & 'Enhancement' of Bush Policies

New Abramoff Plea is Trouble for McCain & the GOP

Sibel Edmonds Case: More Destruction of Evidence re Nuclear Black Market

DOD Contract Goes to Known Money-Launderer

Telecom Immunity Bill was "Subterfuge" Hiding Broader Program

Right Wing goes after...John Cusack: what you can do

Tales From Inside the Editorial Board Room

Just another Wednesday for Obama

Rove Advises Olmert challenger

Warrentless Wiretap Memos Timeline

Waxman: Bush's Obstrustion of Justice Problem

Cheney: Iranian Sanctions Were Bad for Halliburton

'Genocide by design?' Bush Admin. Plans to 'Stay' in Iraq for Oil

McCain Advisor Gramm May Have Lobbied UBS Illegally in 2004

Senate Committee: Bush Knew Iraq Claims Weren't True

McCain has a little FACT problem

Why Does AT&T Need Protection?

50 Permanent Bases in Iraq/Bush Set to Declare Victory

One of the "Smartest people" Fareed Zakaria Knows?

McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly Too

Even In Defeat, It Is All About Her

The Real Reason Hillary Should Not Be Veep

17 Tired White People in a Room: McCain Gives Single Worst Speech in the History of American Politics

Opinions from Across the Pond

International Headlines!

HRC supporter shows great leadership

Touch Screen Voting Failure Investigated by Company of Origi

Bush Hearts Abromoff