"Who the hell wants higher texes?"

Hey, look! I'm updating this again!

The looming expiration of the Bush tax credits is the hot topic right now, and I feel I should weigh in, to some degree. It's funny... much like his pledge to close the Guantanamo prison and some other things, simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire is one of those things that President Obama took for granted when he won the election, and assumed would be a political breeze (because he was naive enough to believe that, just because he won by a landslide, that the GOP would allow him to govern). And-- now faced with actual political fights over these things-- the Democrats are freaking out.

(As an aside, it is one of the more frustrating different standards between the two parties. Watching all these crazy GOP candidates surge higher this year with each progressively wingnutty utterance, one is reminded that-- among other examples-- Obama's nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department was torpedoed simply because she was non-apologetic in her opposition to the torture and civil liberty abuses of the Bush years. Etc.)

Anyway, a friend of mine posted a link on her Facebook to this video showing how Fox News purposely edited a clip from an Obama speech, making it seem as is he is desiring to raise everyone's taxes, when in fact he was discussing the facts of what the Bush tax cuts were designed to do. Someone commented to the link-

even in context this still sucks. Who the hell wants higher texes and even though it is not his fault, he is the president and should be able do do something about it. blaming it on the previous administration is just a cop-out.

Someone replied to that-

Frank, are you also outraged about the massive deficit?

He replied, in turn-

certainly. I am outraged by our government in it's entirety.

Damn you.... government!

I couldn't help myself. I had to respond. Here's what I wrote-

"blaming it on the previous administration is just a cop-out."

When Bush and the GOP Congress *wrote* the Bush tax cut law earlier this decade, the law was written *with* the 2011 expiration in it by design (because federal law does actually have certain guidelines for deficit-ballooning stuff like this). So "blaming" the previous administration for this isn't a "cop-out"... it's a fact.

Again, the Republicans designed the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2011 themselves. Now, because they want a cudgel to beat Democrats with, they are lying and making it seem as if that expiration is something the Democrats are doing. That is a lie, plain and simple.

It is also-- beyond all the lying-- hypocritical to be complaining about the deficit incessantly like the GOP is now doing, and then to also defend the Bush tax cuts, which were the single biggest contributor to the current deficit over the past decade (even more then the wars and bailouts, etc). To put it in a more current context, the GOP complains about the economic recovery package and the health insurance reform bill... well, a renewal of the Bush tax cuts will add more $$ to the deficit than those two bills *combined*. Either they care about deficits or not. Can't have it both ways.

Also, the only people who will be affected by this are those making $250,000 or above. Are they saying protecting their tax cuts is worth doubling the deficit? And the tax rate that would be reinstated with this expiration is that of the Clinton-era... an era of much greater economy than now, and a tax rate *lower* than Reagan instituted.

The other lie is pretending they want to keep these cuts to help jobs. Well, these cuts have been in place since 2003... and unemployment has steadily risen ever since.

The right-- if temporarily, politically hard-- thing to do is to let the Bush tax cuts expire, as they were designed to do. I hope, but am not optimistic, that the Democrats have the balls to let that happen.

These are the facts. And they are the only weapon that the Democrats really need to win this battle. But in an election year where the louder candidate gets to win, it seems the Democrats aren't willing to risk their fates with merely some facts on their side. Hope I'm wrong.
[9/19/10]

America Goes Insane

I have put this blog on indefinite hiatus-- too busy, got a life, etc-- but have still been posting some of my political thoughts on Twitter (@blueduck37). Still, I left this blog with a note that if there was a topic anyone wanted me to write about, to just ask. That stands.

Ahab asked the following: "What are your thoughts on the controversy surrounding Cordoba House (which right-wingers have christened 'the Ground Zero Mosque') in New York City?"

An excellent question, and I am happy to answer. First, some disclaimers. I live in New York City (Queens). I was at the Trade Center on 9/11. I am an atheist. I am a liberal Democrat. I am an ACLU member. I like freedom.

The controversy over a planned cultural center-- the Park 51 project, aka Cordoba House-- run by Muslims in downtown Manhattan is one of the most disgusting displays of jingoism we have seen in America in some time. It involves several horrible themes... general mob mentality, the idea that the First Amendment applies less when its specific execution makes people uncomfortable ("Everybody knows America's built on the rights of free expression, the rights to practice your faith, but come on", states GOP House bigshot Eric Cantor), and, of course, post-9/11 Islamaphobia (fueled by the idea that all Muslims bear some connection to, or responsibility for, those attacks). Americans believed/hoped that such sentiments would wash away with the end of the Bush-era, and that an Obama presidency would automatically mean improved relations between us and the Middle East, and this controversy is a reminder that nothing comes easy, and that we still have a way to go.

As an aside, kudos to the Republicans who have stood up against this faux-outrage-- Joe Scarborough, a few former Bush staffers, etc-- and a big thumbs down to the top Democrats too cowardly in an election year to say or do the right thing.

To me, the key thing to this whole debate is how much of it is built on a series of lies and distortions. The so-called "Ground Zero" "mosque" is neither... merely a community center (with Jews and Christians on its board... how many Christian or Jewish groups can say similar?), several blocks away from the site, on the site of an old Burlington Coat Factory. It is no more a "mosque" than a YMCA would be a church if it had a prayer room. Not that it should matter if it were a mosque, of course. There is, of course, already a mosque within blocks of Ground Zero, which predates the World Trade Center-- as well as all of this, closer to the right-wing's favorite political prop 'hallowed ground'-- and one inside the Pentagon. And the Imam at the center of all this-- whom the right has tried to paint as a radical-- is an official ambassador in the effort to build better relations between the U.S. and the Middle East, and the effort to take on actual radicalism in those areas. But these facts don't fit the narrative, so away they go.

Moreover, there was no real, widespread controversy over the center until it was created in the same way that ACORN temporarily became America's greatest villain last year (and here's some facts on that). Last December, for instance, right-wing pundit Laura Ingraham-- no moderate-- interviewed the Imam's wife on Fox News. The two had a genuinely civil back and forth. "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it," Ingraham says of the Cordoba project, adding at the end of the interview, "I like what you're trying to do." That is, of course, until the crazies got their hand on the issue.

The credit for this whole hysteria largely can be traced back to one woman... Pam Geller. Who is Pam Geller? She is one of the right's biggest Islamaphobes and has been staging stunts like this for years. A conspiracy theorist and a racist (don't take my word on that... click the previous link, and make up your own mind), she sees creeping Sharia law in every shadow she comes across. She took her anger at the project and, over the course of 2010 turned it into a national issue, with help from outlets like the NY Post/Fox News and folks like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. Behold the birth of a scandal.

The right, of course, not only will not acknowledge that, but has tried to paint their opposition to the project as being merely rooted in respect for the memories of those killed at the Trade Center site on 9/11. It's not about Islam or mosques, they say, but merely about the location and its sacredness (how they get away even with that much without admitting that they equate all Muslims with 9/11 is beyond me). I came across an article by Pat Sajak (a far-right conservative in real life), for instance, defending the anti-Cordoba attacks, stating that he hasn't "heard any mainstream suggestions that mosques shouldn’t be allowed to be built. This... is a location-specific issue". That, of course, is total BS. A few outlets-- including NYC's own The Daily Show-- have compiled news reports from around the country, from Staten Island to Kentucky to California, of mosques being protested because of their... well, being mosques. This has nothing to do with location, other than the location here giving opposition to this particular building extra emotional punch to the protesters.

(Still think it's not about race/religion? Watch what happens a Puerto Rican, a worker at the Ground Zero site, gets mistaken for a Muslim at a protest this past weekend. Such odd behavior from a group of people supposedly concerned with sensitivity.)

This is not an abberation, of course. Even ignoring larger history, the GOP just in the recent past has a record of taking insane memes and going mainstream... freedom fries, Terri Schiavo, death panels, etc. American politics is often enslaved to whatever made-up emergency the right has zeroed in on.

The right, of course, will happily note that polls are on their side on this issue. That part, for the record, is true (ignoring, of course, the other polls showing people who actually live in Manhattan are overwhelmingly supportive of the project). But should that matter? Do we put freedom up to a vote in America? Anti-Prop 8 lawyer Ted Olson asked Fox News' Chris Wallace, who was citing the CA voters' opposition to gay marriage as being disrespected by that recent court ruling, "Would you like Fox’s right to free press put up to a vote and say well, if five states approved it, let’s wait till the other 45 states do?" No one at Fox, of course, would ever agree to that. These rights are called "inalienable" for a reason... no matter how angry or uncomfortable the execution of those rights make certain people (including, at times, myself).

So much of me wishes that I-- and everyone else-- could ignore this hysteria. After all, America right now faces real problems-- an economy ravaged by years of short-sighted activities, wars that don't want to end, climate change, outdated infrastructure, etc-- and it hurts all of us when our political system hits the pause button to debate a controversy that ultimately affects no one. But this issue is a test on freedom and tolerance in America in the 21st century, and that does matter. Right now, we are failing that test. And that's worth paying attention to, and worth standing up for.

[8/23/10]

Yes We Can't.

Yes, I'm still neglecting this blog like a bad parent, but I still like to peek my head in every so often and make sure it hasn't choked on any blocks. Looks okay, so let's proceed!

The political debate this months leads us right back to where we were the last time I posted... health-care reform. The last time I blogged about this, my pessimism was showing, but my aura of hope remained. What have I missed since then? Of yes... America went completely insane. I'll get to that, fear not.

For me, I've been trying to stay as focused as possible on the substance of where this is all headed. This past month I thought, I can't be the only who noticed that the fight for 'universal healthcare' became 'health care reform' and now is simply 'health insurance reform'. And that's the bigger story. The Democrats-- elected to their most powerful majority in decades less than a year ago-- still endlessly bargaining away their own agenda. For all the oxygen being consumed by right-wing loons and cable news pundits and lobbyists, etc, a failure to get meaningful reform passed (if that's what ends up happening) will really be a story of a Democratic leadership that failed to actually lead, and also became a victim of the very special interests they set out to vanguish.

People like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin (and countless numbers of angry tea-baggers shaking their fists, and guns, from coast to coast) may be shameless and loud and good at what they do, but they don't hold any political office. They don't control the White House or congressional committees. But people like President Obama and Senator Baucus and Rahm Emmanuel and their colleagues do. These are supposed to be smartest guys in Washington and they are blaming their failures on a bunch of people who think that Obama forged a U.S. birth certificate so he can take over America and put us all in FEMA concentration camps and grind grandma up into soylent green. That is not acceptable when the stakes are this high.

The cynic in me wonders if, at this point, Congress wants to pass a reform bill (any reform bill) just to check it off the list, and move on. To what? That's unclear. The key question I'd ask if I were a White House reporter is this... is there any health-care bill that Congress could pass that'd be so watered-down and unacceptable to the President that he would veto it? That answer would clarify a lot.

Of course, the media has made matters worse by making the story not the issue itself, but the anger. When President Obama held a lengthy press conference on the issue, the story for the next week was about the Professor Gates controversy that he commented on in the final question of the hour. When Sarah Palin (Unemployed - Alaska) wrote a rant on Facebook about imaginary 'death panels', it immediately took over the entire debate. Etc. It's not hard to figure out why so many Americans remain uninformed about the substance.

And, finally, to the liberals who helped elect Obama... yes, we should draw a line in the sand... a public option is non-negotiable. I'm with Howard Dean on this. Without it, all you've got, after all this time and energy and political capital, is some mild insurance reforms that will likely have huge loopholes in them anyway. That's not reform, and it's worth the time and money that's being asked for it.

I still want to have great faith in Obama's leadership. But we've got over three years left (with an option for four more), and if we can't accomplish this now, under these circumstances, what can we accomplish? The answer to that would clarify even more.

[reposted from 8/20/09]

The President, The Leak, And The War

Well it's Sunday and the big talk is still about the leak revelations.

There's also news about the forged Iraq-Niger documents that led us to war and this scandal.

Here's to me a point that is getting lost in all of this... When the Plame name was first leaked, the White House was indignant. "This is a national disgrace! I'll fire the leaker!", the President proclaimed. The Plame leak was painted to be the random act of some mysterious administration official; the President and his staff had no clue how this could've happened. Yet what all these new revelations show, besides the President's hypocrisy on leaking (as emphasized by McClellan's insulting good leak v. bad leak lecture), is that the conspiracy to discredit Joseph Wilson was far bigger than we first realized and went all the way up to the President himself. Whether he ordered Cheney to have specific material leaked to reporters or simply told him to 'get it out', the point remains that he was highly involved in this effort. The leaking of Plame's name to the press was simply another part of this campaign. So considering the President was on top of all of this and knew who was working the anti-Wilson front (people like Cheney, Libby, Rove, and others), it becomes ridiculous to believe that a) Bush was surprised by the Plame leak, and b) he had no clue at all who could be responsible. Assuming we believe (naively) that the President didn't know who the leaker(s) were, he would have just called into his office the involved staffers (Libby, Rove, etc.) and say "Raise your hand, who did it?". But he didn't do that... because the leak was not a surprise nor did he care about it other than how the backlash would affect him politically.

As the revelations in this case continue to come in, they merely reveal what was suspected all along... This was a politically-motived breach of national security by the White House to silence its top critic at the time. As usual, they didn't bother to think about the consequences of their actions (as we've seen with the war itself), all they cared about was getting what they wanted for the moment. And their defense is predicated on the same theory as their warrantless wiretapping and torture policy- that as the President/Commander In Chief, anything that is done is perfectly okay as long as the President insists it's in the 'national interest'.

The defense is also basically 'He didn't leak, he declassified'. But even that is highly questionable. As the questions asked at the McClellan press briefing on Friday showed, the NIE was stated previously to have been declassified on July 18, 2003. Yet the information was given to Judy Miller on July 8. So technically, wasn't it still classified? McClellan tried to play fast and loose with the previous statement, insisting that what he meant at the time was that July 18 was the date it was made public. The Press Corps rolled their collective eyes at that one and refused to buy it. What was the official date of declassification on the document then, they asked. McClellan refused to answer, playing the "ongoing investigation" card. I think it's therefore safe to say it was after the July 8 Libby/Miller meeting.

So their defense then becomes 'Well, if the President speaks about it or asks others to do so, then it's technically declassified'... even if it really isn't. A declassification is something public that everyone in the government knows about. This leak to the willing-and-able Judy Miller was something only a select (Bush, Cheney, Libby) knew about. The White House, still refusing to deny the main leak charges, insists the President just wanted the information out because it was in the national interest to know it. Yet the circumstances betray that revisionist history. If that was the case, it would've been officially declassified and they would've made a public statement. They didn't; they engaged in a behind-the-scenes anonymous leak (no name of the source was revealed in Miller's article). The sneaky, secret way this was done was in no one's interest but the White House's... Furthermore, they only revealed bits and pieces of the NIE- the parts that helped their case for war. The other parts of that same document- that would appear to discredit them- remained secret until the official declassification.

As for how this relates to the perjury/obstruction charges against Mr. Libby, that all goes back to his defense that as a busy man, he merely forgot things and therefore didn't lie intentionally. What these revelations reveal, though, is that his lunch with 'Run Amok' Judy Miller was no random meeting (nor were other conversations with other reporters like Tim Russert), the details surrounding which he might not fully recall. This was part of a campaign ordered on him by the President and Vice President, an extraordinary set of circumstances, the details of which he was likely to remember.

It is clear that these people are sneaks and liars. They knew their case for war was bogus before the war even began and they were even more desperate to conceal that information after the war began. This whole Wilson/Plame/Libby/Rove saga exposes a lot about how this White House operates and what they will do to protect themselves and keep their secrets. If the President is ever held accountable for this war, the findings in this case will be a big part in that.

[reposted from 4/9/2006]

"You say we're headed to war. I don't know why you say that."

That's what President Bush told reporters on December 31, 2002... as the unstoppable march to war grew.

For months, buzz has been growing about a possible war with Iran. I keep telling myself that is just people being paranoid, that the White House wouldn't really be foolish to provoke a war with Iran. I want to believe that their lust for military supremacy and their desire for an October surprise will be trumped by the more rational forces around them . But the warmongering has been too prevalent to ignore. They have been fishing for a pretext, including the nuclear program and unverified claims tying Iran to the violence in Iraq. And we have seen recent reports indicating planning is underway.

Now Seymour Hersh has a huge scoop in the New Yorker-

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium...

At one point, the article states that President Bush sees Ahmadinejad as the next Hitler (meaning he should stopped now rather than later) and that Bush believes that "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy". That's funny, I thought saving Iraq was going to be legacy. Ohh right, that didn't work out so well.

And a look on their starry-eyed outlook on what will happen-

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government."

Again, this was their misguided belief with Iraq too. It's the whole 'we will be greeted as liberators' line again. But, as history tell us, bombing campaigns/invasion do not cause a people to rally behind the bombers against their government. If anything, it will split those in Iran sympathetic to us and we will see many of them instinctively rallying behind their leaders (after all, is that not the Republicans' logic on how censure of Bush will help them?)

The scariest part... part of the U.S. planning involves using bunker-buster nuclear bombs. Boy, when Bill Frist said the Republicans wouldn't be afraid to use the nuclear option, I didn't realize he meant this!

While the few Congressional members who've been briefed on this seem enthusiastic about the decision (no doubt because they only chose to brief the specific members- Joe Lieberman on the left, Pat Roberts on the right- who will cheer them on here), many in the military hierarchy are concerned-

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

This is hardcore stuff. There should be no doubt that any critics on these decisions, like General Shinseki on Iraq, will be muted by Rumsfeld and the White House. I can already tell the same idiots who planned the Iraq debacle will be in charge of this mess too.

Getting back to the idea of another preemptive war to gain the peace, I said this last month-

Nobody in this world, save for Tony Blair, sees the United States as a force for peace any longer. We are bullies, making demands of our enemies, but refusing to cooperate with them, and then acting angered and confused when they react in a hostile manner. Has there ever been an administration with this great a predilection toward military action over diplomacy?

Had we ignored the non-threat that was Iraq, we could've kept our military resources focused on Al Qeada and simultaneously begun diplomatic relations with Iran in 2002... which was, of course, before the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Done right, we could've made great progress by 2006. But the White House never made any real diplomatic efforts. With Iraq, they at least bothered with the pretense of diplomacy. And after the historical bungling of Iraq by this administration, the fact that anyone in this country would let them even discuss the possibility of another preemptive war is, almost literally, insane. Our military is broke and depleted and this administration has proved it cannot competently do much of anything, let alone engage in war.

Add nukes into the mix... well, we could have a big problem on our hands.

Now here's my big question- Why won't the Democrats or the media point out how insane (and transparently political) this is? They let him go into Iraq without a plan and without finishing the job in Afghanistan (it's still unfinished). Now, with Iraq in tatters and inflaming terrorism worldwide, how can even one single member of Congress allow the President to suggest starting a new war?

We now know that that Iraq civil war "could affect the entire Middle East". And let's also point out that Bush's failure with Iraq has strengthened Iran's power in the region. And both Afghanistan and Iraq are now anti-U.S. theocracies... their theories on regime change and democracy-by-the-bomb have backfired on them every single time.

This administration is beyond incompetent; they are delusional warmongers. They have yet to win a war, let alone show any idea on how to properly (or humanely) wage one. They made us the scorn of much of the world. Yet here we are, in another election year, discussing the possibility of war with a country far larger than Iraq or Afghanistan and whose leaders will not fold like Saddam did.

Will not one Democrat step forward now to point that out?

No doubt the White House will do it different than Iraq just to avoid comparison. Less emphasis on ground troops (so they'll have less flag-draped coffins to hide from the public), more emphasis on air strikes (more shock, more awe!). I also imagine they'll keep journalists out of the country to prevent more kidnappings and, you know, reporting on all the destruction that's occurring.

Finally, let me just state this... Yes, Iran IS a problem. But, as with Iraq, they are not an imminent threat to us. They have not attacked us. They have threatened Israel, yes, but we are not Israel. In addition, we don't even know for sure how powerful they really are! Most of the scarier reports are, upon closer inspection, not as serious. It will be years before they have nuclear weapons and that allows us time to find a solution (time we've wasted on other matters). I agree we should not simply ignore the issue, cross our fingers, and hope for the best. But this administration is part of the problem, not the solution. Any support we may have for finding a real solution with Iran, including support in that country's citizenry, will be destroyed the second war begins. And the president will of course act unilaterally, ignoring the rest of the world, to do what Jesus Dick Cheney his gut tells him is right. And it will backfire as always. This administration has a dangerous knack for taking volatile situations and making them worse.

They should listen to words of caution like this-

“If you attack,” the high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna, “Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the Iranians.”

Agreed. War is the easy choice for those like Bush. They need to take the hard way instead.

This insanity of rushing to war needs to be stopped dead in its tracks before President Bush starts WWIII. I have to believe that the Congress and the press will not fall for the same trick twice. I also believe the American people are past the point where they will buy into this all-too-familiar story one more time. But my expectations/hope often don't mesh with reality.


[reposted from 4/8/2006]

The Imperial Presidency

On leaking and spying, two great articles on the President's theory of power-

Knight Ridder: Libby testimony shows a White House pattern of intelligence leaks

The revelation that President Bush authorized former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to divulge classified information about Iraq fits a pattern of selective leaks of secret intelligence to further the administration's political agenda.

Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials have reacted angrily at unauthorized leaks, such as the exposure of a domestic wiretapping program and a network of secret CIA prisons, both of which are now the subject of far-reaching investigations.

But secret information that supports their policies, particularly about the Iraq war, has surfaced everywhere from the U.N. Security Council to major newspapers and magazines. Much of the information that the administration leaked or declassified, however, has proved to be incomplete, exaggerated, incorrect or fabricated...

And...

Balkinization: Reductio Ad Dictatorem

Attorney General Gonzales' admitted on Thursday that President Bush believed that he could legally spy on American citizens' phone calls and e-mails occurring solely within the United States. Previously the Administration had argued that it had authority to intercept and listen to conversations coming from overseas or going overseas without a warrant and without abiding by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). It asserted that the President had inherent authority to intercept intelligence coming from the nation's enemies and that the President was also authorized to do so by the September 18th, 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Al-Qaeda and other organizations which participated in the 9-11 attacks. Thus, the Administration argued, either the AUMF superseded FISA's requirements prohibiting warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens, or else FISA was unconstitutional to the extent that it conflicted with the President's inherent powers as commander-in-chief.

Gonzales' latest admission-- that the President can also engage in purely domestic spying without a warrant-- might seem like a pretty significant grab of power, far beyond what the President said he could do before. But if you understand the Administration's theory of its own power, Gonzales' statement should not be at all surprising. The distinction between domestic communications and international communications is irrelevant to the theory. The latest revelation shows that the President's theory all along has been radical, unreasonable, and dangerous...

...This theory, taken to its logical conclusions, gives the President the ability to treat anyone living in the United States, including particularly U.S. citizens, as wartime enemies without having to prove their disloyalty to anyone outside the executive branch. In so doing, it offers him what can only be called dictatorial powers-- that is, the power to suspend ordinary civil liberties protections on his say so. The limits on what the President may do under this theory are entirely political-- the question is whether the American people will stand for what the President has done if they discover what he has done in their name. But if the American people don't know what their executive is doing, they can hardly be in a position to object. And so the President has tried to keep secret exactly what he has done under the unreasonable and overreaching theory of Presidential power that his Administration has repeatedly asserted in its legal briefs and public statements...

This is the tie that bonds all these scandals together.
[reposted from 4/8/2006]

Big Brother Is Watching

President Bush insists that his warrantless spying program (now with domestic fun!) doesn't target innocent Americans. Of course, as I noted in my last entry on the leak authorization, anyone who gives this President the benefit of the doubt is a fool. Besides the government's known efforts in spying on protestors and activists, we've had confirmation from FBI whistleblowers that the NSA sent "a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists" and that "virtually all of them... led to dead ends or innocent Americans". More and more information confirms this type of activity.

The facts continue to betray the President on this...

Wired: Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.

On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works...

Read it and weep.

And on the connection to what the President has told us, Klein insists-

Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial monitoring of Americans' communications.

"Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens."

Of course, if the White House is asked about this, I'm sure Scott McClellan will simply insist that this is one of those bad leaks that hurts America by informing Americans their basic rights are being stripped away terrorists that we utilize surveillance technology. This is in contrast to the President's secret, back-door 'declassifications' which make help America be informed (not by public disclosure, just ya know through anonymous leaks to friendly reporters). They will also state they can't comment on the constitutional abuses 'operational details' of any national security programs. And the Attorney General will issue a statement reminding us of the President's imperial inherent authority to do, well, anything he wants. Alberto Gonzales says you're getting sleepy, very sleeepyyy....

You can read Mark Klein's statement about this- here.

This sort of thing is not new, but this seems to represent the greatest abuses we've seen.

Think this story will get major press? Nah, I didn't either. Consider yourself depressed informed, though.
[reposted from 4/8/2006]

Congress Gets Its Immigration Reform On... Or Not

The Senate moderates try fail to get a bill signed soon as the right-wingers bitch about 'amnesty'-

AP: Congress Unites for Illegal-Immigrant Deal

Putting aside party differences, Senate Republicans and Democrats coalesced Thursday around compromise legislation that holds out the hope of citizenship to many of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States unlawfully...

What are the proposed Senate bill's provisions? Well here we go-

• Illegal immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years could receive legal status after meeting several conditions, including payment of a $2,000 fines and any back taxes, clearing a background check and learning English. After six more years, they could apply for permanent residency without leaving the United States. They could seek citizenship five years later.

• Illegal immigrants in the country for between two and five years could obtain a temporary work visa after reporting to a border point of entry. Aides referred to this as "touch base and return," since people covered would know in advance they would be readmitted to the United States.

• Officials said it could take as long as 13 to 14 years for some illegal immigrants to gain citizenship. It part, that stems from an annual limit of 450,000 on green cards, which confer legal permanent residency and are a precursor to citizenship status.

• Illegal immigrants in the United States for less than two years would be required to leave the country and apply for re-entry alongside anyone else seeking to emigrate.

Separately, the legislation provides a new program for 1.5 million temporary agriculture industry workers over five years.

It also includes provisions for employers to verify the legal status of workers they hire, but it was not clear what sanctions, if any, would apply to violators.

To secure the border, the bill calls for a virtual fence — as opposed to the literal barrier contained in House legislation — consisting of surveillance cameras, sensors and other monitoring equipment along the long, porous border with Mexico.

Sounds much saner than what the House proposed. No fence = good. It provides a path to citizenship, which is the most important thing. I'm still not too keen on any 'guest worker' programs (do our work and then get out!) unless said workers can be put on the same path to citizenship as everyone else. Still, it seems effort was made to find compromise here. As long as common sense prevails over the irrational (and racist) hysteria that the far-right Malkin types have been screeching about, we're on the right track.

Wonkette has a good analysis: The Immigration Bill: What the Hell?

Will the House approve of this new, revised bill? I'll guess... no.

And so this election year xenophobic saga will continue, especially since reports indicate this bill will not pass muster with the right. Perhaps the best we can hope for at this point is that this will all continue to stall until after November when electoral politics won't get in the way.

[PS- While there's still work to be done (as I noted, the revised ain't perfect), it's important to note that none of this compromising would've happened had it not been the 500,000+ who took to the streets in protest over the GOP's insane planned legislation. Let this stand as a testament to the power of protest. If enough people stand up on an issue, Congress will act. If only we could get 500,000 people in the streets over the Iraq war or wiretapping or torture or the Gulf Coast or...]

9/11 As A Silencer

As loyal reader(s) of my blog know, I often read something in the NY Post that is so mindboggling nutty, I am forced to rant about it. Yesterday, I read such a thing. And thus a rant is born.

From their lead editorial yesterday-

Someone needs to remind The New York Times that 3,000 people were savagely murdered in the 9/11 terrorist attacks - and that America has both a right and a duty to protect itself from new strikes.

Because, judging from its stories and editorials, the paper seems to have no clue about any of this.

Their main point?

How else to explain its efforts to oppose - if not, undermine - almost every step taken to protect Americans?

Whether it's disclosing federal covert operations, endlessly bewailing doom in Iraq or smearing local cops assigned to public protests, the Times seems hell-bent on undermining America's will to defend itself.

They go on to blast a story the Times did on NYPD tactics during political gatherings/protests.

They call the paper's behavior "anti-American".

Perhaps they prefer the days when 'Run Amok' Judy Miller was helping the White House sell a war...

This is typical NY Post redmeat rhetoric: Anyone who questions the Bush administration's behavior is undermining the war on terror. I have written about this recurring theme of their editorials before- see here, here, and here for a few examples.

Let's round up the Post's current examples: Calling out the President's failed war? Questioning the constitutionality of spying on peaceful political protestors? Exposing the illegal, warrantless domestic wiretapping that was secretly being authorized by the President? No, that's not responsible journalism to them. It's treason.

In the end, I think NYC's favorite right-wing tabloid is jealous of their smarter older brother.

The editorial also doesn't even focus on war on terror-related programs or activities. Its focus is on police tactics in response to heated political rallies. Apparently, in the Post's world, left-wing activists are as dangerous a threat to America's security as Al Qaeda themselves. The paper describes them as 'militant' and 'itching for mayhem'. Yes, those Critical Mass protest bike guys are the next Zacarias Moussaoui. The Post has never seemed at all concerned at where Osama is (unlike Richard Cohen at the Daily News who rightfully discusses that failure) or the effect that the Iraq war has had in inflaming worldwide terrorism, but this Times report apparently is undermining the real front on the war on political activists terror.

Mainly, I am pissed off at their opening line- "Someone needs to remind The New York Times that 3,000 people were savagely murdered in the 9/11 terrorist attacks". This line, in subtle variations, have been used a lot by the right in the past few years when they are about to scold a Bush administration critic without focusing on the merits of the criticism. It's a line that's very popular on the far-right blogs (see this blog post and its comments I linked to a while back). And it has nothing to do with the topic the editorial addresses; it's there to score cheap emotional points.

The thrust of the line seems to boil down to "3,000 were murdered (by the guy we let get away)... So shut up in the name of the all-powerful, endless war on terror." It's an insulting line and childishly condescending. Nobody needs to be reminded about those attacks (least of all those in NYC) and what it told us about the world we live in. The Times has some problems over the years, but conspiring to undermine our country... umm, no I think it's safe to say that's not one of them. But the Post likes to insist that, as they do with any person/entity who questions King George's wisdom. Enter the line. It implies that the speaker is serious and tough and loves America like a man loves steak and that the party being addressed is a weak unamerican fool. Any argument that needs to resort to something that cheap as its opening line is lost before it began.

Bottom line- using the ghosts of 9/11 to silence dissent is the lowest form of political debate.

Sadly, it's something the NY Post and the President have in common.

[reposted from 4/6/2006]

Are We At War?

It was reported today that "A divided Supreme Court turned back a challenge to the Bush administration's wartime detention powers, rejecting an appeal from U.S. citizen Jose Padilla who until recently had been held as an enemy combatant without traditional legal rights." (Via NY Times) In light of the Court running away from this issue for the time being, and in addition to contradictory statements administration officials have made on the matter, Greg Saunders asks the question- Are we at war... or aren't we?

He concludes-

It’s easy to understand why the Bush administration wants it both ways: we’re at war because that gives them more power…but we’re also not at war because they would then have treaty obligations, such as under the Geneva Conventions.

Meanwhile, the AP, the rest of the U.S. media, and the Democratic party say nothing whatsoever about this. No one asks Bush the obvious question: “Is the United States at war?”

I guess everyone intuitively senses that the war’s quantum superposition, in which it exists and does not exist at the time, can only be sustained as long as we don’t observe the issue. If we did, the war’s wavefunction would collapse and it would be either one or the other.

This is a subject I've been thinking a lot about.

I will probably have a more in-depth post of my own later this week. Excited? I am.

[Reposted from 4/3/2006]

Quote of the Day

"Saying that America is addicted to oil without following a real plan for energy independence is like admitting alcoholism and then skipping out on the 12-step program."
-Sen. Barack Obama, ripping into President Bush's oil policy

More of this, please.

Bush's Weapons Inspectors Lie

In a recent post, I highlighted how the President has continued to tell the lie that Saddam denied the weapons inspectors (part of Bush's larger lie that he actually didn't want war and the choice was Saddam's, not his). In reality, Hussein did allow the inspectors in, who were ordered to leave by President Bush when he told them it was going to be 'bombs away' in Iraq despite their findings (or lack thereof). Joe Conason has a great article on the continuation of this lie-

"Saddam chose to deny inspectors" Bush repeated this bald-faced lie recently. The cowering press still lets him get away with it, but the public is no longer fooled.

Slowly but inexorably, as more and more information emerges, the conventional wisdom about the events leading to war in Iraq is shifting. The American public has joined the rest of the civilized world in questioning the arguments and motives of the war makers. Commentators who have habitually fashioned excuses for the White House seem to find that task increasingly burdensome and humiliating. The old lies no longer have much traction.

Yet even now, President Bush persists in blatantly falsifying the war's origins -- perhaps because, even now, he still gets away with it...

...For the third time since the war began three years ago, Bush had falsely claimed that Saddam refused the U.N. weapons inspections mandated by the Security Council. For the third time, he had denied a reality witnessed by the entire world during the four months when those inspectors, under the direction of Hans Blix, traveled Iraq searching fruitlessly for weapons of mass destruction that, as we now know for certain, were not there.

But forget about whether the weapons were there for a moment. The inspectors definitely went to Iraq. They left only because the United States warned them to get out before the bombs started to fall on March 19, 2003. But for some reason the president of the United States keeps saying -- in public and on the record -- that the inspectors weren't there.

Keeping the facts segregated from the myriad falsehoods isn't easy with this regime...

Recommended read.

What's sadder than the lies is that he is allowed to get away with them...

[Reposted from 4/3/2006]

Iraq: Our Continuing Lil' Quagmire

As a NY Times editorial states, "Iraq is becoming a country that America should be ashamed to support, let alone occupy", the bad news continues to pour out of Iraq while the White House continues to insist everything is a-okay. The Times editorial focuses on the violence there, as well as the decidingly undemocratic religious extremists in charge of their government, and the steps our government is taking diplomatically to counter this. TruthDig has an excellent summary and compilation of articles on the 'desperation' in Iraq-

As the tortured bodies of Iraqi civilians pile up in the streets (50 dead on Sunday alone), and Condoleezza Rice and U.K. foreign secretary Jack Straw rush to Baghdad to plead with Iraqi officials to unify their government, the NY Times editorial page writes that "the United States, in its hubris, helped bring all this to pass," echoing conservative godfather William F. Buckley, who recently said, "the neoconservative hubris...overstretches the resources of a free country."

Meanwhile, much buzz is being made of Gen. Anthony Zinni's excellent interview on yesterday's 'Meet The Press'. Andrew Sullivan posts a good quote from Zinni, in which he blasts the Bush administration for their historically poor military planning and arrogance. He also discusses the way the administration mislead everyone on the case for war. You can see video of the interview on Crooks and Liars. Think Progress has a report on how Zinni called on Rumsfeld and others to resign (or- if it happens, 'spend more time with his family'). Hey, think if enough people ask, the President would listen? They also have a second report on how Zinni stated how the media is being made a scapegoat for all the problems in Iraq.

Speaking of scapegoating the media, I liked what this Huffington Post commenter had to say on our favorite chickenhawk journalists/armchair generals-

I believe the press has failed miserably in explaining the fantastic success of the American intervention in Iraq.

It is time to send Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Fred Barnes, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, David Frum, Podhoretz Sr. and Jr., to Iraq to tell the American people what is really going on.

Drop them outside the green zone, say, right about in the middle of the Sunni triangle, and let them report the truth.

I'm sure they won't need any American military protection because they are so fearsome and macho over here in the United States, when it comes to expending the lives of others to advance their agenda.

I'm looking forward to the first edition of Good Morning, Sunni Triangle!

Sounds good to me.

I'm sure they would make us all proud too.

[Reposted from 4/3/2006]