Category: politics

News of US politics

Hillraisers Still Toxic

Seth Anderson1 Comment

There continues to be rumbling from certain high profile Hillary Clinton supporters that they would rather put a Republican in the White House (an anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-war Republican at that) than support the presumptive Democratic nominee. I haven’t decided if there are real delusions among the Hillraisers, or if this is a propaganda ploy promulgated by the McCain/Murdoch/Rove Axis of Evils, and given prominent space by the Wall Street Journal.

the effort involves dozens of the roughly 300 Clinton “Hillraisers,” individuals who raised at least $100,000 apiece for her campaign.

The Clinton holdouts are typically most angry about what they say was the media’s sexist treatment of Sen. Clinton during the campaign. And though few, if any, blame Sen. Obama directly, they fault the Illinois senator and other party leaders for what they say was failing to do enough to stop it.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a Hillraiser from San Francisco, said, “What really hurt women the most was to look back and see all this gender bias.” Ms. Buell said she hasn’t decided whether to vote for Sen. Obama and plans to skip the August Democratic convention.

[From Obama Faces Resistance From Top Supporters of Clinton – WSJ.com]

Why is Obama being blamed for the media coverage of the primaries? Don’t the Hillraisers realize the corporate media is Republican, by and large, and the national media is geared towards supporting their candidate, John McCain? The coverage was often sexist, sure, but it also was quite ridiculous towards the Obama campaign1.

The McCain campaign is pressing its case with former Clinton donors. Roughly two dozen big Clinton backers are looking to meet soon with Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive who is avidly supporting Sen. McCain. The idea, said one person familiar with the campaign’s plans, is to pluck disaffected independents, and especially women, from the ranks of former Clinton supporters. A similar meeting occurred last month in Ohio between Ms. Fiorina and Clinton supporters, the McCain campaign said.

The Democratic fissures come as evidence is mounting that Clinton supporters aren’t falling easily into the Obama camp. A poll released Friday by CNN and Opinion Research Corp. found that nearly a third of those who voted for Sen. Clinton in the primaries said they would stay home in November rather than vote for Sen. Obama. A similar poll taken by the two organizations in early June found only 22% expressing that sentiment. In the latest poll, only 54% of Clinton voters said they were planning to back Sen. Obama.

Really, there are stark differences between Obama and McCain. There are only minor policy differences between Obama’s platform and Clinton’s platform, why would any sane person make such a leap? Maybe this is a simply a Democratic version of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos?

[Non-WSJ subscribers use this link to read the entire article)

Footnotes:
  1. Rev. Wright, fist bumps, yadda yadda. [↩]

Ass Press for a reason

swanksalot0 comment

The Associated Press is known as the Ass Press for a reason1

Yesterday we flagged the AP’s Jennifer Loven’s ‘analysis’ piece flogging the McCain/RNC spin on Obama’s run to the center. Well, as every crack communication operation knows, message repetition is the key to success. And so today we have another ‘analysis’ piece, this time by the AP’s Steven Hurst. And it’s practically the same piece. Hurst and Loven actually both use the identical quote from RNC spinmeister Alex Conant.

Says Conant: “There appears to be no issue that Barack Obama is not willing to reverse himself on for the sake of political expedience.”

The identical quote appears in both pieces. If the pieces weren’t bylined I think I might have assumed one was a rewrite of the other. But they actually appear to be two completely original articles, just mouthing the identical McCain/RNC line.

[From Talking Points Memo | AP On the Case!]

Really is disgusting how deeply the majority of the US news media is in the tank for John McCain. No wonder McSame hates bloggers2 .

Footnotes:
  1. well, besides the juvenile reason that saying the word ass celebrates George Carlin and his Seven Naughty Words bit [↩]
  2. I’m sure I’m too obscure to appear on McCain’s radar, but I’ll take the compliment nevertheless. [↩]

Durbin Opposes Telecom Immunity

Seth Anderson0 comment

Reposted from my old blog: I haven’t heard back from Senator Durbin regarding my most recent anti-telecom immunity email. If I do, I’ll be sure to note any interesting language. I wonder if Obama has asked Durbin to dial down his opposition?

Strapped On

Senator Richard Durbin (or more precisely, his staff’s email-bot) just emailed me an interesting response to my inquiry re: the criminal Telecom Immunity bill which I’ve been yammering about for a while.
Here it is, in its entirety (with a few paragraph breaks added for readability. Senator Durbin’s staff took the text-only email dictum a bit too far)


Subject: Message From Senator Durbin
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 14:26:50 -0400

November 1, 2007
Mr. Seth Anderson
[redacted]
Dear Mr. Anderson:

Thank you for your message regarding the surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency (NSA). I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue and share your concerns. Protecting both the security and the freedom of the American people is among my highest priorities. I share an obligation with my fellow senators to ensure that the federal government protects and defends the people of the United States while preserving the civil liberties that have helped make the United States the greatest and most enduring democracy in the world. President Bush has stated that he authorized the NSA to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance of communications made by American citizens living within the United States.

At the time of the President’s authorization, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) required the government to seek a warrant from a special court in order to conduct electronic surveillance of communications between American citizens and anyone outside the country. The NSA did not obtain approval from the FISA court or from any other court before initiating its domestic surveillance program. For most of its existence, the NSA’s program has operated without meaningful oversight. Few members of Congress were briefed about the program until its existence was revealed by the media, and those members were sworn to secrecy. The majority of the members of Congress still have not been fully briefed about the program’s operational details.

The Administration has also shut down its own Department of Justice internal investigation into the NSA’s program. In essence, the Administration has attempted to operate this program without any supervision or oversight. The lack of a mechanism for correcting potential abuses in the program undermines our Constitutional system of checks and balances and raises serious concerns about the possibility of excessive intrusion. In addition to the disclosure of the NSA’s domestic wiretapping program, it has been alleged that the NSA has undertaken a massive effort to gather the telephone records of tens of millions of innocent Americans into a searchable database. Again, this program has been conducted without court approval or Congressional oversight.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has issued subpoenas to the Justice Department, the White House, the Office of the Vice President, and the National Security Council for documents relating to the legal justification for the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program. Although Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the committee, has extended the deadline for subpoena compliance on two separate occasions, the Administration has failed to comply. Congress has tried to work with Administration officials to update FISA in light of technological advances in communications. Too often, however, the Administration has taken advantage of the program’s secrecy in its negotiations with Congress. In Augst 2007, the Administration proposed a bill to amend FISA. I believe the bill provided too much opportunity for excessive intrusion and potential abuse by the NSA and other intelligence officials. I voted against the measure, as did Chairman Leahy and the Intelligence Committee Chairman, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.

Nonetheless, Congress passed the bill and the President signed it into law. Fortunately, the law will expire six months after the date it was signed. When the President and his Administration order actions such as the surveillance of American citizens, these actions must be conducted in a manner consistent with the rule of law and the Constitution’s commitment to civil liberties. I am deeply concerned about the manner in which the Executive Branch has initiated and conducted the NSA surveillance programs. I will continue to work to ensure that government surveillance of American citizens is conducted in a manner consistent with the Constitution, the rule of law, and our security needs.

Thank you again for sharing your views on this issue with me.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator RJD/tf

P.S. If you are ever visiting Washington, please feel free to join Senator Obama and me at our weekly constituent coffee. When the Senate is in session, we provide coffee and donuts every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. as we hear what is on the minds of Illinoisans and respond to your questions. We would welcome your participation. Please call my D.C. office for more details.

Obama and FISA flip

Seth Anderson2 Comments

I was going to refrain from criticizing Obama for being a centrist, venal politician until after he was elected1, but the FISA travesty is just too disgusting. Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for crying out loud, you’d think that would be enough of an education about nuance, but apparently not.

During the Democratic primary campaign, Mr. Obama vowed to fight such legislation to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. But he has switched positions, and now supports a compromise hammered out between the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership. The bill is expected to come to a vote on the Senate floor next Tuesday. That decision, one of a number made by Mr. Obama in recent weeks intended to position him toward the political center as the general election campaign heats up, has brought him into serious conflict for the first time with liberal bloggers and commentators and his young supporters.

Many of them have seen the issue of granting immunity to the telecommunications companies as a test of principle in their opposition to Mr. Bush’s surveillance program.

“I don’t think there has been another instance where, in meaningful numbers, his supporters have opposed him like this,” said Glenn Greenwald, a Salon.com writer who opposes Mr. Obama’s new position. “For him to suddenly turn around and endorse this proposal is really a betrayal of what so many of his supporters believed he believed in.”

Jane Hamsher, a liberal blogger who also opposes immunity for the phone companies, said she had been flooded with messages from Obama supporters frustrated with his new stance.

“The opposition to Obama’s position among his supporters is very widespread,” said Ms. Hamsher, founder of the Web site firedoglake.com. “His promise to filibuster earlier in the year, and the decision to switch on that is seen as a real character problem. I know people who are really very big Obama supporters are very disillusioned.”

[From Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity – NYTimes.com]

Its About Judge Ment
[It’s About Judge Ment – Obama graffiti, West Loop ]

Does Obama’s caving in to the Bush administration mean I won’t vote for him in November? No, probably not, but I’m with Markos Moulitsas, aka Kos, on this2 – I just can’t muster much enthusiasm for Obama at the moment.

Markos Moulitsas, a liberal blogger and founder of the Daily Kos Web site, said he had decided to cut back on the amount of money he would contribute to the Obama campaign because of the FISA reversal.

“I will continue to support him,” Mr. Moulitsas said in an interview. “But I was going to write him a check, and I decided I would rather put that money with Democrats who will uphold the Constitution.”

Footnotes:
  1. all liberals probably realize that neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama are very liberal, but we hoped that a Democrat could be elected, and our country would move ever so slightly to the left. [↩]
  2. for the first time in what seems like forever, but probably isn’t [↩]

McCain the Dick

Seth Anderson0 comment

Part the 3244th. Eric Martin notes the ridiculous John McCain voting against Jim Webb’s GI Bill for the 21st Century (or whatever the frack it was called), then turning around and claiming credit for passing it.

That temptation would lead one astray, however, as McCain shamelessly set about taking credit for the bill’s passage at a recent campaign event:

I’m happy to tell you that we probably agreed to an increase in educational benefits for our veterans that not only gives them an increase in their educational benefits, but if they stay in for a certain period of time than they can transfer those educational benefits to their spouses and or children. That’s a very important aspect I think of incentivizing people of staying in the military.

“We”? Stay classy John. And keep up the straight talk.

Suffice it to say, Obama voted in favor of the bill (and signed on early as a co-sponsor). Which makes this McCain cheap shot even cheaper:

Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America’s veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim.

Talk is cheap, and tuition is expensive. You earn that “right” by backing up your lofty rhetoric with actual votes. Otherwise, your advocacy is little more than a campaign expedient.

[From Obsidian Wings: Coopt the Vote]

Bob Herbert wrote about the surprisingly dickish John McCain, on May 6th, 2008:

Who wouldn’t support an effort to pay for college for G.I.’s who have willingly suited up and put their lives on the line, who in many cases have served multiple tours in combat zones and in some cases have been wounded?

We did it for those who served in World War II. Why not now?

Well, you might be surprised at who is not supporting this effort. The Bush administration opposes it, and so does Senator John McCain.

and

This is not exactly first-class treatment of the nation’s warriors.

The Bush administration opposes the new G.I. bill primarily on the grounds that it is too generous, would be difficult to administer and would adversely affect retention.

This is bogus. The estimated $2.5 billion to $4 billion annual cost of the Webb proposal is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions being spent on the wars we’re asking service members to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. What’s important to keep in mind is that the money that goes to bolstering the education of returning veterans is an investment, in both the lives of the veterans themselves and the future of the nation.

The notion that expanding educational benefits will have a negative effect on retention seems silly. The Webb bill would cover tuition at a rate comparable to the highest tuition at a state school in the state in which the veteran would be enrolled. That kind of solid benefit would draw talented individuals into the military in large numbers.

Senator Webb, a former secretary of the Navy who specialized in manpower issues, said he has seen no evidence that G.I.’s would opt out of the service in significantly higher numbers because of such benefits.

Senator McCain’s office said on Monday that it was following the Pentagon’s lead on this matter, getting guidance from Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Under pressure because of his unwillingness to support Senator Webb’s effort, Senator McCain introduced legislation with substantially fewer co-sponsors last week that expands some educational benefits for G.I.’s, but far less robustly than Senator Webb’s bill.

“It’s not even close to the Webb bill,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an advocacy group.

Iran-Contra’s Lost Chapter

Seth Anderson0 comment

A little history lesson for us with short attention spans…

As historians ponder George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency, they may wonder how Republicans perfected a propaganda system that could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs.

To understand this extraordinary development, historians might want to look back at the 1980s and examine the Iran-Contra scandal’s “lost chapter,” a narrative describing how Ronald Reagan’s administration brought CIA tactics to bear domestically to reshape the way Americans perceived the world.

That chapter – which we are publishing here for the first time – was “lost” because Republicans on the congressional Iran-Contra investigation waged a rear-guard fight that traded elimination of the chapter’s key findings for the votes of three moderate GOP senators, giving the final report a patina of bipartisanship.

Under that compromise, a few segments of the draft chapter were inserted in the final report’s Executive Summary and in another section on White House private fundraising, but the chapter’s conclusions and its detailed account of how the “perception management” operation worked ended up on the editing room floor.

The American people thus were spared the chapter’s troubling finding: that the Reagan administration had built a domestic covert propaganda apparatus managed by a CIA propaganda and disinformation specialist working out of the National Security Council.

“One of the CIA’s most senior covert action operators was sent to the NSC in 1983 by CIA Director [William] Casey where he participated in the creation of an inter-agency public diplomacy mechanism that included the use of seasoned intelligence specialists,” the chapter’s conclusion stated.

“This public/private network set out to accomplish what a covert CIA operation in a foreign country might attempt – to sway the media, the Congress, and American public opinion in the direction of the Reagan administration’s policies.”

However, with the chapter’s key findings deleted, the right-wing domestic propaganda operation not only survived the Iran-Contra fallout but thrived.

So did some of the administration’s collaborators, such as South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon and Australian press mogul Rupert Murdoch, two far-right media barons who poured billions of dollars into pro-Republican news outlets that continue to influence Washington’s political debates to this day.

[Click to read more of Iran-Contra’s Lost Chapter – The Consortiumnews.com]

Noticing what happens to one’s country is the first stage. As George Carlin said, more or less, we have the politicians we have because people voted for them. An informed electorate is a healthy electorate.

Using the Web to Join the Attack

Seth Anderson0 comment

Proving yet again that 2008 is much different than previous elections years.1

But in the 2008 race, the first in which campaigns are feeling the full force of the changes wrought by the Web, the most attention-grabbing attacks are increasingly coming from people outside the political world. In some cases they are amateurs operating with nothing but passion, a computer and a YouTube account, in other cases sophisticated media types with more elaborate resources but no campaign experience.

So it was with the Parsley video, which was the work of a 64-year-old film director, Robert Greenwald, and his small band of 20-something assistants. Once best known for films like “Xanadu” (with Olivia Newton-John) and the television movie “The Burning Bed” (with Farrah Fawcett), Mr. Greenwald shows how technology has dispersed the power to shape campaign narratives, potentially upending the way American presidential campaigns are fought.

Mr. Greenwald’s McCain videos, most of which portray the senator as contradicting himself in different settings, have been viewed more than five million times — more than Mr. McCain’s own campaign videos have been downloaded on YouTube.

[From Political Freelancers Use Web to Join the Attack – NYTimes.com]

Just as the blog/webzine phenomena has changed the way we absorb news, so to is the YouTube era changing how we consume politics, especially in the compressed atmosphere of the presidential campaigns.

Mr. Greenwald said he had a political awakening after Sept. 11 and dedicated himself to making liberal films, an endeavor he said he could afford having been “lucky enough to have been majorly overpaid in commercial film and television relative to any rational measure.”

His highest impact has been with his video about Mr. Parsley. The montage was created with help from David Corn, Washington Bureau chief for Mother Jones, who unearthed video of Mr. Parsley inveighing against Islam and saying, “America was founded in part with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed.”

Mr. Greenwald’s team combined it with video of Mr. McCain calling Mr. Parsley, “one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide.” The montage spread quickly across liberal Web sites, and made its way onto ABC News. Mr. McCain released a statement rejecting Mr. Parsley’s endorsement shortly thereafter.

“For years I sat in conversations with people who said the only way we can be effective is we have to raise $1 billion and buy CBS,” Mr. Greenwald said. “Well, Google raised a couple of billion and bought YouTube, and it’s here for us, and it’s a huge, huge difference.”

Like this hilarious Joe Cocker mashup, but with politics…

Footnotes:
  1. and that a lot of the conventional wisdom about elections is bull since according to CW, 2008 is no different than 1932 [↩]

Wesley Clark versus McCain

Seth Anderson0 comment

I’m sure the Republican-controlled media1 is going to attempt their damnedest to make this the topic de jour.

On the June 30 edition of MSNBC Live, anchor Monica Novotny falsely claimed that retired Gen. Wesley Clark “blasted [Sen. John] McCain’s military record” during an appearance on the June 29 edition of CBS’ Face the Nation. In fact, Clark did not “blast” McCain’s military record. Rather, he praised McCain as “a hero” and stated, “I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war,” but argued that McCain’s military record does not make him qualified to be president.

[From Media Matters – MSNBC’s Novotny falsely claimed Clark “blasted McCain’s military record” ]

What did Clark actually say to Bob Schieffer?

CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy-making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands of millions of others in the Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Air — in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, “I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it” —

SCHIEFFER: Well —

CLARK: — “publicly?” He hasn’t made those calls, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: Well — well, General, maybe he —

CLARK: So —

SCHIEFFER: Could I just interrupt you? If —

CLARK: Sure.

SCHIEFFER: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean —

CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

Doesn’t sound so horrible to me. The Republican mouthpieces will all need fainting couches this week, of course, because they believe harsh language should only be spoken by Republicans. I actually think Wesley Clark should be part of President Obama’s cabinet in some form, especially if he could learn to blink his eyes while on camera once and a while2.

–update:Josh Marshall has more:

The McCain campaign is now launching an attack with its ‘truth squad’ about the Clark ‘controversy’ and pushing Obama to “denounce” Clark, etc. It’ll be interesting to watch what happens here. The McCain campaign’s angle here is to not to prevent attacks on the integrity of McCain’s war record (which Clark explicitly did not do) but to make it off limits for anyone to question that his war-time experience means he has the temperament and experience which make him the better qualified candidate to be president.

The McCain campaign’s claim that there’s any attack here on McCain’s war record is simply a lie — a simple attempt to fool people. This is an essential point to this entire campaign — does McCain’s military record mean that even the Democrats have to concede the point that he’s more qualified to be commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, that his foreign and national security policy judgment is superior to Obama’s? It’s simply a fact that McCain has a record of really poor judgment on a whole list of key foreign policy and national security questions.

This is one of those moments in the campaign where the nonsense from the chief DC press sachems is so palpable and overwhelming that everyone who cares about this contest needs to jump into the breach and demand that they answer why no one can question whether McCain’s war record makes him more qualified to be president and whether he has good foreign policy and national security judgment.

Here’s the video …

Footnotes:
  1. which, as any astute consumer of the news is aware, includes nearly all of the corporate media [↩]
  2. haven’t seen any footage recently, but we’ve always laughed at how infrequently General Clark blinks his eyes [↩]

White House Blocks EPA Emissions Draft

Seth Anderson0 comment

Withered and Died

The White House, on its way out to the dustbin of history,1 wants to gut the Clean Air Act before the end of the year. Lovely.

WASHINGTON — The White House is trying to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from publishing a document that could become the legal roadmap for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S., said people close to the matter.

The fight over the document is the latest development in a long-running conflict between the EPA and the White House over climate-change policy. It will likely intensify ongoing Congressional investigations into the Bush administration’s involvement in the agency’s policymaking.

The draft document, which has been viewed by The Wall Street Journal, outlines how the government, under the Clean Air Act, could regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from mobile sources such as cars, trucks, trains, planes and boats, and from stationary sources such as power stations, chemical plants and refineries. The document is based on a multimillion-dollar study conducted over two years.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget has asked the EPA to delete sections of the document that say such emissions endanger public welfare, say how those gases could be regulated, and show an analysis of the cost of regulating greenhouse gases in the U.S. and other countries.

[From White House Blocks EPA Emissions Draft – WSJ.com]

Non WSJ subscribers use this Digg-enabled link to full article which includes some colorful charts.

Cheney wants to ensure his oil buddies won’t have to alter any of their polluting practices until after the Rapture:

“Clearly [White House officials] don’t want to leave behind a blueprint that suggests that the Clean Air Act could offer a potential pathway in a cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” said one of the people close to the matter who supports the EPA document’s analysis. “Leaving a blueprint behind could leave the next administration a document they could work from, and that’s not in their interest,” the person said.

If the agency establishes a policy direction in this phase of the rule-making but later changes direction in the proposed rule, it could create opportunities for legal challenges under the Administrative Procedures Act, said Peter Robertson, a former deputy administrator at the EPA and a partner at the Pillsbury law firm specializing in environmental public policy.

“There wouldn’t be a reason for OMB to monkey with this document if it weren’t going to be an important step in the process now and later on,” Mr. Robertson said.

Footnotes:
  1. and that’s being very kind [↩]

Twin Towers

swanksalot0 comment

Frank Rich covers the twin towers of Republican vote-winning orthodoxy: terrorism and gays, but questions how effective these issues will really be. Karl Rove is no evil genius, or the Rethuglicans would have won in 2006 as well.

Since 2002, it’s been a Beltway axiom akin to E=mc2 that Bomb in American City=G.O.P. Landslide.

That equation was the creation of Karl Rove. Among the only durable legacies of the Bush presidency are the twin fears that Mr. Rove relentlessly pushed on his client’s behalf: fear of terrorism and fear of gays. But these pillars are disintegrating too. They’re propped up mainly by political operatives like Mr. Black and their journalistic camp followers — the last Washington insiders who are still in Mr. Rove’s sway and are still refighting the last political war.

That the old Rove mojo still commands any respect is rather amazing given how blindsided he was by 2006. Two weeks before that year’s midterms, he condescendingly lectured an NPR interviewer about how he devoured “68 polls a week” — not a mere 67, mind you — and predicted unequivocally that Election Day would yield “a Republican Senate and a Republican House.” These nights you can still find Mr. Rove hawking his numbers as he peddles similar G.O.P. happy talk to credulous bloviators at Fox News.

But let’s put ourselves in Mr. Black’s shoes and try out the Rove playbook at home — though not in front of the children — by thinking the unthinkable. If a terrorist bomb did detonate in an American city before Election Day, would that automatically be to the Republican ticket’s benefit?

Not necessarily. Some might instead ask why the Bush White House didn’t replace Michael Chertoff as secretary of homeland security after a House report condemned his bungling of Katrina. The man didn’t know what was happening in the New Orleans Convention Center even when it was broadcast on national television.

Next, voters might take a hard look at the antiterrorism warriors of the McCain campaign (and of a potential McCain administration). This is the band of advisers and surrogates that surfaced to attack Mr. Obama two weeks ago for being “naïve” and “delusional” and guilty of a “Sept. 10th mind-set” after he had the gall to agree with the Supreme Court decision on Gitmo detainees. The McCain team’s track record is hardly sterling. It might make America more vulnerable to terrorist attack, not less, were it in power.

[From Op-Ed Columnist – If Terrorists Rock the Vote in 2008 – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com]

Rich also discusses everyone’s favorite clowns, Rudy Giuliani, James Dobson, as well as a few other lesser clowns. Worth a read.

Seven Months Left

swanksalot0 comment

The big question is – do the Bushites successfully escalate the simmering war with Iran to invasion levels before leaving office? Let us all pray to whatever deities are appropriate that the warning signs Seymour Hersh discusses in his latest New Yorker article are not as dire as they appear.

ate last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

[snip]

Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon share the White House’s concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but there is disagreement about whether a military strike is the right solution. Some Pentagon officials believe, as they have let Congress and the media know, that bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation issue, and that more diplomacy is necessary.

A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were “pushing back very hard” against White House pressure to undertake a military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror said that “at least ten senior flag and general officers, including combatant commanders”—the four-star officers who direct military operations around the world—“have weighed in on that issue.”

The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. For example, late last year he told the Financial Times that the “real objective” of U.S. policy was to change the Iranians’ behavior, and that “attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice.”

[From Annals of National Security: Preparing the Battlefield: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker]

Otherwise, we’re all fracked. Read the entire scary article here. Maybe impeachment proceedings would derail the nutjobs in the White House? Something, anything to distract them from starting yet another war of aggression.

Barr Happy as Spoiler

Seth Anderson0 comment

Ron Paul Revolution

I noticed several visits to a previous Bob Barr post from browsers in Georgia, maybe his supporters in Georgia are larger than we think. Or his campaign can afford a couple of computers1

ATLANTA — He has been called a spoiler. A would-be Ralph Nader. A thorn in the side of Senator John McCain and the Republican establishment.

None of it bothers Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman from Georgia turned Libertarian Party candidate for president, who gleefully recounted what he says a group of Republicans told him at a recent meeting in Washington: Don’t run.

“ ‘Well, gee, you might take votes from Senator McCain,’ ” Mr. Barr said this week, mimicking one of the complainers, as he sat sipping Coca-Cola in his plush corner office, 12 stories above Atlanta. “They all said, ‘Look, we understand why you’re doing this. We agree with why you’re doing it. But please don’t do it.’ ”

But with the Libertarian nomination in hand, Mr. Barr hopes to follow in the footsteps of Ross Perot and Mr. Nader, whose third-party presidential bids wreaked general-election havoc.

For one, he is hoping to hitch his wagon to the enormous grass-roots movement behind Representative Ron Paul, the libertarian-minded Republican from Texas who recently abandoned his own presidential bid.

[From A Candidate Runs to a G.O.P. Chorus of ‘Don’t’ – NYTimes.com]

Barr’s problem is that not very long ago that he was the kind of Republican busy-body that the Libertarians hate. How much does he really believe in core Libertarian principles?2

While libertarian philosophy generally bows to the rights of the individual — and against government intervention — Representative Barr voted for the USA Patriot Act; voted to authorize the war in Iraq in 2002; led the impeachment charge against President Bill Clinton in 1998; and introduced the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

After joining the Libertarian Party two years ago, Mr. Barr declared his intention to run for the 2008 presidential nomination only 10 days before the party’s convention in May. (Mr. Barr is also remembered for an incident in 2002, while preparing a Senate bid on a gun-rights platform, when he accidentally fired an antique .38-caliber pistol during a fund-raiser, shattering a sliding glass door.)

But Mr. Barr has largely disavowed his record in Congress as a Republican, a turnaround his campaign manager, Russell Verney, sunnily referred to as “the journey that Bob went through.”

Now, on the war in Iraq, he advocates for a speedy and complete withdrawal of troops, with no permanent bases; on same-sex marriage, he believes that states should make their own laws; and on wiretaps without warrants, he is fiercely opposed, arguing that the bill that would legalize searches without warrants violates an individual’s constitutional rights.

What are Barr’s bona-fides, in other words. A glib “journey he went through” doesn’t cut it. I’m also skeptical that many Ron Paul supporters will transfer their loyalties to Barr.

Footnotes:
  1. donated from former Ron Paul supporters, or not. [↩]
  2. I am not a member of the Libertarian party, or any party for that matter, but I do strongly enjoy the idea that the government should never be involved in moral discussions, should never bother with policy regarding drugs, sexual preference, and so on, nor should the government spy upon its citizens. [↩]

July Fourth Massacre

swanksalot0 comment

Killing People Is Rude

Since Valentines Day has already passed.

Just hours after the court’s decision on Thursday, gun rights groups sued the City of Chicago, seeking to invalidate several municipal codes, including a 1982 ordinance that effectively barred handguns by forbidding their registration in the city.

Chicago officials were also steadfast in saying they believed that the court’s decision, which left open possibilities for local gun ordinances, would have little immediate effect.

“We feel we will be able to continue enforcing those ordinances very aggressively,” Jenny Hoyle, a spokeswoman for Chicago law department, said of the codes challenged by the N.R.A.

[From Challenges to Bans on Handguns Begin – NYTimes.com]

Just what every urban environment needs, more guns!

Obama and Big Donors

Seth Anderson0 comment

Beer Money at the MCA

Actually, a sort of non-story if you ask me. Since Obama opted out of public financing for the general election (as opposed to John McCain who opted in to public financing when his finances were in disarray, then opted out when his finances improved, and is subsequently being investigated by the FEC for this apparently illegal act), Obama has to raise money from somewhere. Obama wants to win the election, not conduct a Nader-esque run solely on principles and garner zero electoral votes.

– A fund-raiser for Barack Obama here this week drew some of the cream of the entertainment industry, including recording artist Seal. He serenaded the crowd under crystal chandeliers at a downtown arts center just before the Democratic presidential contender took the stage.

But the headline of the evening was whispered by a campaign operative in the back of the room: The event raised more than $4 million from 700 guests who paid between $2,300 and $28,000 each to attend.

Sen. Obama’s disclosure last week that he will forgo public campaign financing — and the spending limits that go with it — appears to be turning his campaign from a reliance on small donors to a well-worn political fund-raising path: the quest for soft money.

This wasn’t the crowd of small donors that the Obama campaign often mentions to show the breadth of its common-man support. Instead, it was a crowd of big-money donors, many well-versed in federal campaign-finance laws that allowed them to give Sen. Obama more than 10 times the amount of money they normally are allowed to give a candidate.

Like his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Obama has established a joint fund-raising committee with his national party. Such a committee allows him to co-sponsor fund-raising events in which donors can give as much as $28,000 — the limit they are allowed to give a national party — coupled with the standard $2,300 anyone can give an individual candidate running for federal office during a single campaign season.

The Los Angeles event Tuesday illustrated the twin perils Sen. Obama faces by opting to forgo $84.5 million in taxpayer money.

While he is exempt from the $1.2 million daily spending limit under campaign-finance laws, he must work for the money he raises, taking time away from the campaign trail. Sen. Obama also could open himself up to charges that he is beholden to big-money people and standard Washington interests.

[From Democrat Steps Up Push for Big Donors – WSJ.com]

Notice the subtle phrasing: “could open himself up to charges.” Who exactly is making these charges, other than Chris Cooper of the Wall Street Journal? The implication being Democrats won’t vote for Obama because of how his campaign is funded. I call bullshit. Again, Obama wants to win the presidential election, not run a holier-than-thou campaign eschewing the tools that would help ensure victory in some misguided attempt at purity. Also, how exactly is John McCain collecting his dollars? Holding a tin cup on K Street?

Bugliosi v. Bush

Seth Anderson1 Comment


“The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” (Vincent Bugliosi)

Of course, nothing has happened with Dennis Kucinich’s 35 Articles of Impeachment, other than a lot of yammering. Vincent Bugliosi (author of The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President) thinks a different tactic could be used – prosecuting Bush for “malice aforethought“.

Famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, foreshadowing the Senate committee report with much of the same damning evidence, argues in a new book that Bush “deserves much more than impeachment”–a penalty he considers incommensurate with the crimes committed. In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, the New York Times bestselling author and prosecutor lays out the legal case for prosecuting President Bush in a US courtroom after he leaves office.

Bugliosi writes, “4000 young Americans decomposing in their grave today died for George Bush and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.” His book is not only a scathing indictment of the President and his Administration but also a blueprint for holding him criminally accountable. Bugliosi accuses Bush of taking the nation to war in Iraq under deliberately false pretenses and thus holds him culpable for thousands of subsequent deaths, detailing in The Prosecution the legal basis for such a case and laying out what he argues is the requisite evidence for a murder conviction.

While at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, Bugliosi successfully prosecuted twenty-one murder convictions without a single loss, most famously that of serial murderer Charles Manson. He also penned a number of best-selling true-crime books, including Helter Skelter and Outrage.

[From Bugliosi v. Bush]

Bretty Story conducts a telephone interview with Mr. Bugliosi, click here to read it in full.

From the book jacket:

In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Bugliosi presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq. Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses—a war that has not only caused the deaths of American soldiers but also over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; cost the United States over one trillion dollars thus far with no end in sight; and alienated many American allies in the Western world.

As a prosecutor who is dedicated to seeking justice, Bugliosi, in his inimitable style, delivers a non-partisan argument, free from party lines and instead based upon hard facts and pure objectivity.

A searing indictment of the President and his administration, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder also outlines a legally credible pathway to holding our highest government officials accountable for their actions, thereby creating a framework for future occupants of the oval office.

Vincent Bugliosi calls for the United States of America to return to the great nation it once was and can be again. He believes the first step to achieving this goal is to bring those responsible for the war in Iraq to justice.