Remember All Those People Who Said We Invaded Iraq Over Oil?

Meet Peter Galbraith.

Now obviously we didn't invade for a measley $100 mill but I have a feeling that this story is just the tip of the iceberg.

Stay tuned...

Damn I'm Good

I rarely toot my own horn. I make predictions that I feel like have a great chance of coming to fruition but many times this isn't some kind of magical insight its just a matter of reading the right tea leaves. But I have to say that I even kind of impressed myself with this one because I didn't see a lot of other people putting forth the same predictions.

Here is what I had to say about the effect Ted Kennedy's passing would have on the health care reform debate.

I get that a lot of people are hoping that Massachusetts changes their rules to allow Governor Deval Patrick to quickly name a place holder for Senator Kennedy's seat in case they need that 60th vote for cloture. But honestly I think that the truth is having that seat open helps the cause of health care reform.

The truth is I am not at all confident that even if we have 60 bodies in the Senate that claim to be Democrats that all of them will vote for cloture on the kind of a health care reform bill than any self respecting liberal or progressive would find acceptable. And its a pipe dream to believe that some how because Senator Kennedy passed that a few Republicans will find their honor and sanity. So THE avenue for getting a health care reform bill through Congress this year that actually represents change and reform is going to have to come through the reconcilliation process in the Senate.

Now the one thing that the media has been really terrible at is being realistic and honest about the Democrats' so called "Super Majority" in the Senate anyway. With Senator Kennedy having terminal cancer and Senator Robert Byrd being very old and, of late, sickly, it was always a Super Majority only on paper. For that reason we would have always needed at least one or two Republicans to vote for cloture and that's not even taking into account needing to do the humongous job of cat herding every single one of the Democrats to do the same. In short it never looked good for that.

However now the prospect of a Super Majority is gone and the realization is that cloture might as well be 10 votes away as it is one with the understanding that that one vote will have to come from a Republican bucking their whole party. In essence even if we could buy off one or two Republicans to vote for cloture on a health care bill it would probably be at such a high cost for our side that the bill would suck and such a high cost for them personally that they would HAVE to change parties. I don't see that happening.

But what I can see now is Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin being able to make a much stronger case to the Democratic caucus for why we should and must use reconciliation to get this done. And at this point I would say that the media is at a point where they would also be inclined to keep making the case that reconcilliation is the way to go since there is no 60th vote for cloture. Bigger than that if Republicans continue to be obstinant about not even attempting to work with Democrats on the bill I think this is a moment in time where the media will finally call them out in the wake of Ted Kennedy's passing.

Now honestly I didn't see pretty much anybody else looking at the situation that way. I heard a lot about trying to get lawmakers in Massachusetts to change the law so that Governor Deval Patrick could appoint a place holder until a special election could be held next year. I also heard a LOT of people saying that it probably meant the death of the public option. Now I am not saying I was literally the only one who made the prediction of Teddy's passing bringing on a push for reconcilliation but I'm just saying if there were others there were only a handful.

Well lets take a look at the New York Times editorial board today:

The talk in Washington is that Senate Democrats are preparing to push through health care reforms using parliamentary procedures that will allow a simple majority to prevail in their chamber, as it does in the House, instead of the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster that Senate Republicans are sure to mount.

With the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, the Democrats do not have the votes just among their 57 members (and the two independents) to break a filibuster, and not all of these can be counted on to vote in lock step. If the Democrats want to enact health care reform this year, they appear to have little choice but to adopt a high-risk, go-it-alone, majority-rules strategy.

We say this with considerable regret because a bipartisan compromise would be the surest way to achieve comprehensive reforms with broad public support. But the ideological split between the parties is too wide — and the animosities too deep — for that to be possible.

In recent weeks, it has become inescapably clear that Republicans are unlikely to vote for substantial reform this year. Many seem bent on scuttling President Obama’s signature domestic issue no matter the cost. As Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, so infamously put it: “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

•

Superficially seductive calls to scale down the effort until the recession ends or to take time for further deliberations should be ignored. There has been more than enough debate and the recession will almost certainly be over before the major features of reform kick in several years from now. Those who fear that a trillion-dollar reform will add to the nation’s deficit burden should remember that these changes are intended to be deficit-neutral over the next decade.

Delay would be foolish politically. The Democrats have substantial majorities in the House and the Senate this year. Next year, as the midterm elections approach, it will be even harder for legislators to take controversial stands. After the elections, if history is any guide, the Democratic majorities could be smaller.

snip

The Democrats are thus well advised to start preparing to use an arcane parliamentary tactic known as “budget reconciliation” that would let them sidestep a Republican filibuster and approve reform proposals by a simple majority.

The approach is risky. Reconciliation bills are primarily intended to deal with budget items that affect the deficit, not with substantive legislation like health care reform. Senators could challenge as “extraneous” any provisions that do not change spending or revenues over the next five years, or would have a budget impact that is “merely incidental” to some broader policy purpose, or would increase the deficit in Year 6 and beyond.

So how much of the proposed health care reforms could plausibly fit into a reconciliation bill? The answer seems to be: quite a lot, though nobody knows for sure.

Knowledgeable analysts from both parties believe that these important elements of reform will probably pass muster because of their budgetary impact: expansion of Medicaid for the poor; subsidies to help low-income people buy insurance; new taxes to pay for the trillion-dollar program; Medicare cuts to help finance the program; mandates on individuals to buy insurance and on employers to offer coverage; and tax credits to help small businesses provide insurance.

Even the public plan so reviled by Republicans could probably qualify, especially if it is given greater power than currently planned to dictate the prices it will pay to hospitals, doctors, drug companies and other providers, thus saving the government lots of money in subsidies.

Did you get that? Not only is the New York Times editorial board now ADVISING the Democrats to use reconcilliation. The are also pointing out that the public option could make it through as well if it is STRENGTHENED!

Yall are going to have to excuse me while I go to the store and get buy me a green game blunt and a lottery ticket.

Yes I am feeling myself right now, so sue me lol.

Practicing The Art Of Journalism

Spencer Ackerman is one of the best and brightest young foreign policy and miltary affairs journalists in the business. Having said that the guy was having a rough time of it yesterday from the looks of his twitter feed. And then this morning it turns out he found out he had been scooped by the New York Times. But here is the thing, the reason why it appeared he had been scooped is because Spencer is actually a good journalist who believes in doing a thorough job of investigating before he puts something out. And when you watch this clip from Rachel Maddow's show you realize what the upside is for him of doing his job the way its supposed to be done.



Maybe the next time the New York Times will do their due diligence as well, lest they once again find themselves on that summer jam screen.

NYTimes Framing Fail

The New York Times' Brian Knowlton has a story up which makes it seems as if Vice President Joe Biden said something controversial on "This Week With George Stephanopolous" this morning about the U.S. giving Israel the green light to bomb Iran. This story has now spawned posts on at least two major left leaning blogs concerned that Biden may have been sending the wrong signal today. We know its Joe Biden so most people will just assume he made another gaffe, but did he really?

No he didn't. He repeated basically the same thing President Obama has said over and over and that is that the United States can't dictate to Israel what Israel does with respect to Iran. That is the stance any American president and or Vice President HAS to take publicly. Israel is a soverign nation and we can't go admitting that we can control their actions. That doesn't mean they won't put pressure on Israel behind the scenes to deter them from coming to the conclusion that they "need" to bomb Iran anymore than it means we will allow them to fly over Iraq's airspace to attack Iran. It just means the administration won't give Republicans a target to shoot at by saying anything the GOP can twist into "they don't care about Israel's safety".

For anyone concerned that this was some kind of "gaffe" I would suggest you go and just read the transcript, which unsurprisngly the NYTimes guy didn't link to, and see for yourself in full context if what Biden said was REALLY so earth shattering compared to what Obama has said repeaedly.

Check out the full exchange and see if you come away with the same feeling as you got from reading the NYTimes article

BIDEN: If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the offer is on the table?

BIDEN: The offer's on the table.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to make matters into his own hands.

Is that the right approach?

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?

BIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.

What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.

If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?

BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say we can't dictate, but we can, if we choose to, deny over-flight rights here in Iraq. We can stand in the way of a military strike.

BIDEN: I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests, and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests.

Just as a reminder here is what President Obama has said about the same issue.

With respect to concerns Israel might carry out an air strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, the US president said that since Israel is "right there in the range" of Iranian missiles, "their calculation of costs and benefits are going to be more acute."

Obama remarked that he did not think it was his place to "determine for the Israelis what their security needs are."

Can you find any space between the two statements? Because I can't. Biden really is just toeing the company line here. Shame on the New York Times for trying to invent a controversy.

"Liberal" Mainstream Media My Ass

I am going to be busy for the next few days so blogging will be light, but I just had to link to this Glenn Greenwald post ripping the New York Times to shreds for their article yesterday about Department of Justice officials supposedly signing off on torture techniques as "legal". What the hell are we supposed to do when our media which is supposed to report the news to us instead just act as stenographers to paint a picture exactly opposite from the evidence in their possession? I know people are worried about some Newspapers going out of business but when they are misleading the public in the destructive ways that they have for at least the last 8 years now I can't help but cheer for their demise. Glenzilla's post should not only be read but also passed on to your friends and family members so every one can be informed just how shitty a job our "liberal" mainstream media is doing of reporting the facts especially when it comes to pushing Bush Administration propaganda.

Burying The Lede

Today the New York Times has an article by Scott Shane which tries to change the framing of the torture issue from its legality to its efficacy. This is of course an absurd, albeit predictable, premise for a major newspaper to put forth in an article on the subject. If I am broke robbing a bank might work to get me money but I will still be arrested for it because its illegal. It matters not whether torture works, most assuredly it probably does at least on a superficial level, what matters is that the United States does not torture. Period. Full stop. And less we forget it was that Commie, Pinko, Liberal, Pacifist, Ronald Reagan, who signed us onto the Conventions Against Tortue and referred to the practice as abhorrent. It would be nice if some MSM folks would ask the pro torturists in the GOP if they disagree with Reagan.

However buried deep inside this ridiculous article is a footnote that should have been the focus from the beginning. Take a look at this:

On Mr. Mohammed, the record is murkier. The memorandum says that “before the C.I.A. used enhanced techniques,” Mr. Mohammed “resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, ‘Simply noting, ‘Soon, you will know.’ ”

But the same memorandum reveals in a footnote that Mr. Mohammed, captured on March 1, 2003, was waterboarded 183 times that month. That striking number, which would average out to six waterboardings a day, suggests that interrogators did not try a traditional, rapport-building approach for long before escalating to their most extreme tool.

This is a major deal that I haven't seen really explored in the MSM nor in the blogosphere. Just how soon did the CIA give up on traditional interrogation techniques and turn to torture to extract information from Khalid Sheik Muhammed? Its a very very important question for a variety of reasons. For one these methods were supposed to be employed AFTER the detainee was found to be resistant to traditional interrogation methods. For two there was supposed to be a progression from less harsh "enhanced interrogation techniques" to the obvious torture of waterboarding. Since the record on this seems to be very clear from the memos, only a couple of options are plausible. Either the CIA never even tried to build rapport and get information from KSM at the beginning and bypassed every other less harsh technique and went straight to torture, OR they were waterboarding KSM at least double or more times a day than was initially thought. Either way its a very damning statement to the treatment he received after being picked up.

It might be time for people a lot more powerful than I to try to get to the bottom of this mystery. I don't think in either scenario one could argue that his torturers were "working in good conscious" and should therefore be subject to investigation and or prosecution. I have no love at all for KSM but we deserve clarity on what was done in the name of all of our safety.

(h/t Greg Sargent)

Matt Taibbi's Response To Jake/Jason DeSantis

Matt Taibbi's thorough and absolute destruction of Jake/Jason DeSantis is such a masterpiece that I will not excerpt even a single sylabble, just go read the whole thing!

Did The New York Times Get Rick Rolled?

For the better part of the last two hours I have been doing all manner of internet searches for this Jake DeSantis guy who wrote the GBCW screed in the New York Times today and his position with AIG. It all started because I did a quick Google search and thought I found him when I found this guy named Anthony J. DeSantis who is a VP at AIG but with the wrong division. After I posted a link to Anthony's information over at Swampland it was pointed out to me that it wasn't the right guy. Well I have now looked all over the net includinng here, here and here and there is no sign of an Executive VP at AIGFP by the name of Jake DeSantis. Now I am going to allow for the fact that he could indeed exist but I can tell you one thing other than a recently posted LinkedIn profile and the NYTimes op-ed he doesn't actually exist in tandem with AIG on the intertubes. I wonder if anybody else has tried to contact the guy or at least verify that he exists?

If he DOESN'T exist then the New York Times will have lost ALL credibility. That much is for sure!

Anonymous Sources

Glenzilla tackles the growing problem of journalists granting anonymity to their sources with little to no reasoning and or compelling reasons behind it. He also points us to this op ed in the New York Times today from their public editor Clark Hoyt which points the finger at the Times own journalists for abusing their own policy on using anonymous sources. Its time the media grow a pair and refuse to put information out unless they are on the record. We the people deserve to know who is behind all these anonymous quotes and who is shaping public debate.

Brad DeLong Breaks With Dr. Krugman And Others

There has been so much blog chatter about the New York Times article on the "leaked" details of Tim Geitner's banking plan that its hard to decipher what is right and what is wrong. Yesterday Paul Krugman and several other noted economists came out and blasted the plan to smithereens. Because of the fact that so many progressives, myself included, hold Dr. Krugman's opinion in such high regard this spread around the liberal and progressive blogosphere with stunning speed. I however in reading the actual article wasn't convinced that it was this humongous failure just looking at it from a common sense view. Because of this I said last night that I would wait to hear the official details of the plan before I made up my mind either way on its merits. According to economist Brad Delong we all would probably be wise to do just that.

Q: Why isn't this just a massive giveaway to yet another set of financiers?

A: The private managers put in $30 billion, but the Treasury puts in $150 billion--and so has 5/6 of the equity. When the private managers make $1, the Treasury makes $5. If we were investing in a normal hedge fund, we would have to pay the managers 2% of the capital and 20% of the profits every year; the Treasury is only paying 0% of the capital value and 17% of the profits every year.

Q: Why do we think that the government will get value from its hiring these hedge and pension fund managers to operate this program?

A: They do get 17% of the equity return. 17% of the return on equity on a $1 trillion portfolio that is leveraged 5-1 is incentive.

Q: So the Treasury is doing this to make money?

A: No: making money is a sidelight. The Treasury is doing this to reduce unemployment.

Q: How does having the U.S. government invest $1 trillion in the world's largest hedge fund operations reduce unemployment?

A: At the moment, those businesses that ought to be expanding and hiring cannot profitably expand and hire because the terms on which they can finance expansion are so lousy. The terms on which they can finance expansion are so lazy because existing financial asset prices are so low. Existing financial asset prices are so low because risk and information discounts have soared. Risk and information discounts have collapsed because the supply of assets is high and the tolerance of financial intermediaries for holding assets that are risky or that might have information-revelation problems are low.

Q: So?

A: So if we are going to boost asset prices to levels at which those firms that ought to be expanding can get finance, we are going to have to shrink the supply of risky assets that our private-sector financial intermediaries have to hold. The government buys up $1 trillion of financial assets, and lo and behold the private sector has to hold $1 trillion less of risky and information-impacted assets. Their price goes up. Supply and demand.

Q: And firms that ought to be expanding can then get financing on good terms again, and so they hire, and unemployment drops?

A: No. Our guess is that we would need to take $4 trillion out of the market and off the supply that private financial intermediaries must hold in order to move financial asset prices to where they need to be in order to unfreeze credit markets, and make it profitable for those businesses that should be hiring and expanding to actually hire and expand.

Q: Oh.

A: But all is not lost. This is not all the administration is doing. This plan consumes $150 billion of second-tranche TARP money and leverages it to take $1 trillion in risky assets off the private sector's books. And the Federal Reserve is taking an additional $1 trillion of risky debt off the private sector's books and replacing it with cash through its program of quantitative easing. And there is the fiscal boost program. And there is a potential second-round stimulus in September. And there is still $200 billion more left in the TARP to be used in other ways.

Think of it this way: the Fed's and the Treasury's announcements in the past week are what we think will be half of what we need to do the job. And if it turns out that we are right, more programs and plans will be on the way.

Q: This sounds very different from the headline of the Andrews, Dash, and Bowley article in the New York Times this morning: "Toxic Asset Plan Foresees Big Subsidies for Investors."

A: You are surprised, after the past decade, to see a New York Times story with a misleading headline?

Q: No.

A: The plan I have just described to you is the plan that was described to Andrews, Dash, and Bowley. They write of "coax[ing] investors to form partnerships with the government" and "taxpayers... would pay for the bulk of the purchases..."--that's the $30 billion from the private managers and the $150 billion from the TARP that makes up the equity tranche of the program. They write of "the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will set up special-purpose investment partnerships and lend about 85 percent of the money..."--that's the debt slice of the program. They write that "the government will provide the overwhelming bulk of the money — possibly more than 95 percent..."--that is true, but they don't say that the government gets 80% of the equity profits and what it is owed the FDIC on the debt tranche. That what Andrews, Dash, and Bowley say sounds different is a big problem: they did not explain the plan very well. Deborah Solomon in the Wall Street Journal does, I think, much better. David Cho in tomorrow morning's Washington Post is in the middle.

Keep in mind that every reaction to the "Geitner Plan" is really a reaction to the NYTimes' EXPLANATION of the Geitner plan. We don't know who is right and who is wrong at this point. Really for all I know the NYTimes is right and DeLong is wrong. However I think it behooves all of us to wait it out for a bit until we get the actual announcment of the plans and get the more accurate analysis of all the various economists, Dr. Krugman and Brad DeLong included.

A Day Late And A Dollar Short

The New York Times and the Washington Post finally decided to take an in depth look into allegations that the pro Israel lobby was integral in derailing Chas Freeman's appointment to chair the NIC. Glenzilla wasn't impressed with their previous efforts at the task.

Now that establishment media venues have finally (now that it's all over) taken note of the Charles Freeman controversy which was exploding on blogs and in Congress for the last week, we have yet another perfectly illustrative example of these distorting effects of anonymity. In The New York Times yesterday, Mark Mazzetti noted that Freeman blamed "the Israel Lobby" for the attacks against him, but then followed his description of Freeman's accusation with this paragraph:

Joshua Block, a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group, said Tuesday that his organization had not taken a formal position on Mr. Freeman’s selection and had not lobbied Congress members to oppose it.

See? Contrary to Freeman's frenzied conspiratorial rantings, AIPAC had nothing to do with the controversy. The always-neocon-friendly Washington Post Editorial Page today went even further in insisting that Freeman's false claim of AIPAC's involvement was part of what the Post called Freeman's "crackpot tirade":

Yes, Mr. Freeman was referring to Americans who support Israel -- and his statement was a grotesque libel.

For the record, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee says that it took no formal position on Mr. Freeman's appointment and undertook no lobbying against him. If there was a campaign, its leaders didn't bother to contact the Post editorial board.

Since there are no on-the-record quotes from AIPAC opposing Freeman's appointment, the impression is created -- explicitly and deliberately -- that Freeman's claims of AIPAC's involvement are false, paranoid and even bigoted. But Fred Hiatt might have waited a day before writing that accusation so that he could read his own newspaper, where this article on the Freeman controversy by Post reporter Walter Pincus appears:

Only a few Jewish organizations came out publicly against Freeman's appointment, but a handful of pro-Israeli bloggers and employees of other organizations worked behind the scenes to raise concerns with members of Congress, their staffs and the media.

For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), often described as the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, "took no position on this matter and did not lobby the Hill on it," spokesman Josh Block said.

But Block responded to reporters' questions and provided critical material about Freeman, albeit always on background, meaning his comments could not be attributed to him, according to three journalists who spoke to him.

Anyone who even casually followed the Freeman attacks from the start knew where most of the attacks originated. Once it was over, neocons like Daniel Pipes were sending out celebratory emails hailing former AIPAC official (and accused espionage defendant) Steve Rosen as being the catalyzing force behind the anti-Freeman campaign. Dan Flesher reported that, throughout the controversy, Block himself, on behalf of AIPAC, was contacting journalists and bloggers and (while hiding behind grants of anonymity) encouraging and feeding the attacks on Freeman. Greg Sargent, who thoroughly covered the Freeman controversy from the start at his Washington Post-owned blog, wrote yesterday:

As Ben Smith, Andrew Sullivan, Max Blumenthal and others have already shown, pro-Israel forces were instrumental in turning the Freeman pick into a major controversy. Reporters who covered this closely were subjected to a barrage of info and spin from that camp.

Once Freeman was safely vanquished, even some of the lynch mob leaders, like The New Republic's Jonathan Chait, were willing to acknowledge: "Of course I recognize that the Israel lobby is powerful, and was a key element in the pushback against Freeman." Richard Silverstein wrote more than a week ago that "this coordinated attack fits Aipac’s modus operandi to a tee" and also noted the obvious: "This is Aipac laying down a marker, telling Obama that if he wants to stray from the fold on Israel this is what he can expect: war by attrition and death of policy by a thousand paper cuts. The Israel lobby desperately wants to slow down the train that is Obama’s Israel policy."

Reporters knew that AIPAC was helping to grease the wheels of the attack because it was reporters at whom AIPAC directed those secret efforts. Politico's Ben Smith even granted anonymity to what he called "a top official at one major pro-Israel organization" (which may or may not be AIPAC) merely to boast that the Freeman "victory" sent a message that "hostility" towards Israel will not be tolerated. Smith, however, also noted:

But Jewish and pro-Israel organizations largely decided not to make the fight against Freeman a public crusade, though they were the first, and fiercest, Freeman opponents and made their views known privately.

Yet reporters agreed to keep AIPAC's "private" involvement a secret by allowing them to do everything "on background," and -- far worse -- then allowed what they knew to be the false impression to be created that AIPAC had no involvement in the campaign. Instead of the truth, what we have is AIPAC insinuating (through Mark Mazzetti's article) and Fred Hiatt outright stating that Freeman's accusations of AIPAC's involvement are false and deranged -- all because journalists concealed AIPAC's involvement by agreeing to keep it all off the record and therefore pretending it didn't exist.

You really should read the whole thing as it deals with something that irks the hell out of me too, and thats journalist's handing out anonymity by the truck load these days and effectively just becoming outlets for talking points and spin instead of doing actual reporting. There used to be a time when to go "off record" a person actually had to have pertinent reasons to do so. Now basically all they have to do is say they don't want their name attached to their words and journalists, always looking for a scoop, grant them anonymous status and then uncritically report the things they are told. Its turning into a form of free adverstising for political players and its further destroying the already shaky credibility of the mainstream media.

In The Aftermath Of Chas Freeman's Withdrawal

Today the New York Times finally decided to publish an article about Chas Freeman. Its telling that they only did so AFTER the man withdrew his name from consideration for the chair of the NIC. I strongly believe that the mainstream media would have rather totally ignored the story but are now compelled to report on it in light of Freeman's statement yesterday after he withdrew. The Times piece itself was a farce and didn't even do the most superficial amount of investigation to confirm or deny Freeman's accusations in his statement. Instead they just relied on the word of the very people who conspired against the man. Of particular note is this reply from AIPAC.

Joshua Block, a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group, said Tuesday that his organization had not taken a formal position on Mr. Freeman’s selection and had not lobbied Congress members to oppose it.

Evidently Block's word is enough for the New York Times because there is plenty of information out there to refute Block's statement that strangely didn't make its way into the article. Take for example this statement from Laura Rozen's blog post at ForeignPolicy.com

“Schumer didn’t need anyone to tell him” Freeman was problematic, said one former official at a pro-Israel group. “He’s been in the business a long time, and he’s got good staff. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t call AIPAC for research material.”

That was in response to whether Senator of the United States for New York Charles Schumer had consulted with AIPAC about Freeman's appointment. I wonder what that AIPAC "research material" had to say. Then there is also this email from Daniel Pipes making the rounds since Freeman's withdrawal.

Dear Reader:

As many of you may know, Charles Freeman “has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed.”

What you may not know is that Steven J. Rosen of the Middle East Forum was the person who first brought attention to the problematic nature of Freeman’s appointment, in a February 19 blog titled “Alarming appointment at the CIA.” Within hours, the word was out; and three weeks later Freeman has conceded defeat. Only someone with Steve’s stature and credibility could have made this happen.

That would be the Steven J. Rosen who is a former AIPAC policy director and the same Steven J. Rosen who stands accused of spying on America for Israel. If you haven't noticed yet the pro Israel lobby isn't exactly hiding their role in derailing Freeman's nomination. Yet the New York Times just couldn't seem to find a way to report on these efforts in this article. Hmmmmm I wonder why. Maybe its because they didn't want to be labeled anti-semitic like Stephen Walt or Spencer Ackerman or Joe Klein by the same people who viciously smeared Chas Freeman. Of course thats all speculation, it could be they just suck at journalism now.

On another note Glenzilla gives us a primer on why Schumer's complicity in this ordeal should come as no surprise. Its always nice to take a trip down memory lane and observe the rank hypocrisy of some of our legislators. Especially when that hypocrisy relates to their views on Israel. At some point our politicians are going to have to own up to whether they are more concerned with America or if they are more concerned with Israel. As I stated before I have no problem supporting Israel as an ally of ours but this is not mere support. There isn't another ethnic group that can speak out in support of their home country in the way that Jewish people do with out being called unpatriotic. Think on that for a minute and let it marinate in your mind and see if it doesn't make you feel uneasy.

Guess Who

President Obama granted an interview with a media source and I want you to guess who that outlet was after you read a couple of the questions that were asked.

Q. The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?

snip

Q. So to people who suggested that you are more liberal than you suggested on the campaign, you say, what?

snip

Q. Is there one word name for your philosophy? If you’re not a socialist, are you a liberal? Are you progressive? One word?

snip

Q. Is it within the realm of possibility that some of these Guantanamo detainees might have actually been released into the United States, the Uighurs, or somebody like that?

snip

Q. Leon Panetta has said that we’re going to continue renditions, provided we’re not sending people to countries that torture. Why continue them at all?

snip

Q: Turning to other matters, when it comes to race relations, do you agree that we’re a nation of cowards?

Now would you think these questions came from

A) FoxNews

B) Washington Times

C) The Weekly Standard

D) The New York Times


If you answered anything other than "D" you were wrong. I don't know if the big wigs at the New York Times think that those kinds of questions are "hard hitting" or that they show they are going to hold President Obama's feet to the fire or something but I personally think they were both frivilous and in some respects dangerous. Practically the only WingNut rumor they didn't hit on was if he was a natural born citizen. At a time in our country when the conservative media and the conservative blogosphere is continually trying to gin up fear and distrust of President Obama and the government in general these kinds of questions only add fuel to that fire. It wouldn't matter how he responded, even though I believe he handled the questions well, the fringe of our society is going to see the mere fact that he was asked those questions as proof that their fears are actually in the mainstream. What reasonable person really believes our President is a Socialist? Which voter that was paying attention during the campaign believes he has "gone liberal"? The New York Times has fallen on hard times financially and they did themselves no favors with this interview. Look I want President Obama to be held account for his actions and his intentions but nothing about those questions reflect any amount of seriousness from the questioner. In point of fact President Obama called them back after the interview to express that very sentiment. If the New York Times is looking to shore up their conservative cred surely there is a better way to do it than this.

Unfortunate Titles

Title of a new post at Politico

Obama shouldn't do it his way

Results of new polling.

But 56 percent of those surveyed said Mr. Obama’s priority should be following the policies he proposed during the campaign last year, rather than working with Republicans.

PRESCIENCE FAIL

"This Is William Kristol's Last Column"

With those six words we learn that the end of an era of ass hattery and incompetences has come to the New York Times. Since election day the worst kept secret on earth was that Bill Kristol was finally going to get shit canned and it couldn't have happened to anyone more deserving. But on the way out of the door he makes a comment in his last column that exemplifies the kind of Orwellian double speak and revisionist history that he has now become known for.

We don’t really know how Barack Obama will govern. What we have so far, mainly, is an Inaugural Address, and it suggests that he may have learned more from Reagan than he has sometimes let on. Obama’s speech was unabashedly pro-American and implicitly conservative.

Yet again was this neocon jack ass trying to imply that to be pro-American means that you must be conservative. That the conservative movement consistently fights against everything our country was founded on is of course besides the point. That the "liberal" ACLU whose whole mission is to uphold the constitution is the bane of every self respecting conservative's existence doesn't factor in. No, conservatives are pro-American because they believe they are the only ones on earth that get to define was being American really is. But lets focus on his assertation that President Obama's inaugural address was "implicitly conservative".

The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Hmmmm so now conservatives are all about "bold swift actions"? I thought the conservative doctrine was to take a hands off approach, especially when it comes to the markets and the economy.

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.

I am sure somewhere Ronald Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Or isn't government still "the problem"?

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

So conservatism is now about government oversight and prosperity for all? Damn maybe I need to switch teams. This conservative stuff is sounding pretty good right now.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace

Say it ain't so! Conservatives believe in religious acceptance and inclusiveness now? They aren't the movement of Christianity ONLY anymore? Wow, how did I miss that memo? It makes you think that they wouldn't have rejected a Muslim running for President after all. And I am wondering if Lou Dobbs could still be considered a conservative seeing as how I thought he wanted no parts of other languages and cultures helping to shape what it means to be American.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

Well hot damn, conservatives now care about poor people everywhere. Shit where can I sign up?!?!?!

The truth is we will hear this bullshit over and over again for the next 4 to 8 years. It is Kristol's one last attempt to define what being a liberal means. Its also why so many people are reticent about defining themselves as liberal now lest they be lumped into the categories that Kristol and all the other conservative bloviators create for us.

The conservative's liberal check list

Hate America? Check
Hate the military? Check
Want America to lose? Check
Want higher taxes? Check
Abortion on demand? Check
Government hand outs to all? Check
Dirty Fucking Hippies? Triple Check

Unfortunately for the Bill Kristol's of the world, being a liberal isn't just about having a label. It about having a philosphy that celebrates the values and principles our country was founded on as well as the willingness to act in our country's best interest. If Kristol wants to sell universal healthcare, acceptance of other voices, adhering to the rule of law, looking out for your fellow man, and believing that the government can and should have a role in bettering the lives of everyday Americans as conservative values then hey, have at it. But at some point there will have to be works to back up this kind of rhetoric and conservatives have historically shown that they FAIL in that capacity. Unless and until they wake up to the fact that their way of doing this has been repudiated in this last election there will not be a resurgence of the GOP and they will continue to linger in a perpetual state of irrelevance.

What About The WHY?

The New York Times has a front page story today about former Guantanamo Bay detainee Said Ali al-Shihri and how he has now risen to the number two Al Queda figure in Yemen. The first line of the article goes like this.

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

Now I for one was puzzled by such a pronouncement. For one President Obama's executive order says absolutely nothing about releasing detainees. He and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs both stated that a plan is still being formulated to deal with the disposition of the detainees. But bigger than that al-Shihri was released by the Bush Administration. If he went back to terrorism shouldn't that instead be an indictment of THEIR policy with respect to detainees?

Now I realize that there are some detainees at GITMO that have become causes for the ACLU and other civil libertarion groups. However most of those cases involved people being detained without much if any credible evidence to support the arrest. And to my knowledge there was not a single solitary civil libertarian group working to free al-Shiri. So I was very interested to see what his story was. Was he an obviously innoncent person who was radicalized by his detention? Not from the story the NYTimes tells.

Mr. Shihri, 35, trained in urban warfare tactics at a camp north of Kabul, Afghanistan, according to documents released by the Pentagon as part of his Guantánamo dossier. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he traveled to Afghanistan via Bahrain and Pakistan, and he later told American investigators that his intention was to do relief work, the documents say. He was wounded in an airstrike and spent a month and a half recovering in a hospital in Pakistan.

The documents state that Mr. Shihri met with a group of “extremists” in Iran and helped them get into Afghanistan. They also say he was accused of trying to arrange the assassination of a writer, in accordance with a fatwa, or religious order, issued by an extremist cleric.

So to recap, this guy was suspected of attending terrorist training camps, meeting with extremists in Iran and helping them get into Afghanistan and attempting to have a journalist killed. That is pretty heavy stuff. Now I don't know how credible their evidence was or wasn't but something compelled them to detain the guy in the first place. Now the biggest question that came to my mind was why did they release him if he supposedly did all of these terrorist activities? Well as far as I can tell from the article, it was because he used "I didn't do it" defense.

However, under a heading describing reasons for Mr. Shihri’s possible release from Guantánamo, the documents say he claimed that he traveled to Iran “to purchase carpets for his store” in Saudi Arabia. They also say that he denied knowledge of any terrorists or terrorist activities, and that he “related that if released, he would like to return to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wherein he would reunite with his family.”

“The detainee stated he would attempt to work at his family’s furniture store if it is still in business,” the documents say.

Well the ironic thing is, of course, that damn near every criminal uses that same defense. And what makes it worse is that there are "enemy combatants" STILL detained at GITMO who have a helluva lot more evidence that they didn't commit the crimes they are being held for. So what gives? And my question to the NYTimes why didn't they more vigorously try to get to the bottom of it?

What would have compelled the Bush Administration to release this man? Was he tortured? Did he give up information? And why didn't the NYTimes purse that question? Its unthinkable to me for them to write the article without it occuring to them that maybe the bigger story is how the guy got out in the first place. I realize that the wingnuts wouldn't be interested in the focus not being on how some how this case reflects badly on President Obama but you would think the "grey lady" would have a different motivation.

As John Cole points out this story is more of an indictment of the Bush Administration than it is any statement about President Obama's executive orders. Hopefully someone out there reading this will start asking some of the same questions that I have.

The Chessmaster Strikes Again.

MSNBC has an article up about a just released NYTimes poll which reveals that most Americans not only approve of Barack Obama but are also willing to be patient with him and give him time to implement his agenda. Please feel free to check out the poll, I for one am all polled out at this point. We get it, they like him, blah blah blah. But I just HAD to excerpt this lady's quotes to illustrate my point again about how Obama is moving the goal posts under everyone's noses. Check out how this Republican lady explains why she answered the poll the way she did.

“I think those of us who voted for McCain are going to be a lot happier with Obama than the people who voted for him,” Valerie Schlink, 46, a Republican from Valparaiso, Ind., said in an interview after participating in the poll. “A lot of the things he said he would do, like pulling out the troops in 16 months and giving tax cuts to those who make under $200,000, I think he now sees are going to be a lot tougher than he thought and that the proper thing to do is stay more towards the middle and ease our way into whatever has to be done. It can’t all be accomplished immediately.”

The ridiculous pot shot she takes at us "dirty hippies" she takes in the beginning aside, notice the two examples she pointed to as to why people who voted for McCain are going to be happy with Obama.

1. The 16 month timetable for withdrawal in Iraq

2. Tax cuts for everyone making under $200,000.

Ahem, maybe she hadn't noticed but the Status of Forces Agreement already has a timetable in it that we have to abide by and the Iraqi's have the ability to actually make us leave earlier with the referendum their citizens are going to vote on this spring. To put it bluntly nothing has changed. If anything America will be getting out of Iraq faster than before.

As to the tax cuts uhmmm what did she think was in Obama's stimulus plan that he submitted to Congress last week?

Man I have to tell you, I am not one for over hyping someone but this guy is killing em right now. Next thing you know he is going to have wingnuts saying universal healthcare ain't so bad after all! LOL

Now my fellow liberals and progressives keep this in mind the next time you are ready to fly off the handle about something President Obama "might" do. Sometimes you just have to work the refs a little and he definitely seems to know how to win the game.

Pay Attention!

There is trouble brewing in the Congo and from this New York Times article it appears that if the situation blows up we could have another Rwanda on our hands. Seriously, we can not let this happen again!

“I am fighting for the destiny of this country,” said Mr. Nkunda, offering up the orderly streets and neatly terraced farms of the surrounding countryside as evidence of what Congo might be like if he ran things. “What we want is to restore the dignity of this country and these people.”

But beneath the veneer lies a ruthlessness of a piece with Congo’s unbroken history of brutality. With a military campaign in October and November that was met with a feeble response from both the Congolese government and United Nations peacekeeping forces here in eastern Congo, General Nkunda has pushed the nation to its most dangerous precipice in years.

Many here fear a new regional war or that an alliance of convenience between General Nkunda and other enemies of the president could lead to the ouster of Congo’s first democratically elected government in four decades.

That General Nkunda, who is suspected of committing a litany human rights violations, could be a leading figure in such a move is a chilling thought for many Congolese. A recent journey through territory he controls revealed a host of contradictions between the image he puts forward and reality, including evidence of mass killings, the extraction of onerous payments from residents, illegal profiteering from the mineral trade and the conscription of child soldiers.

snip

Two years later, his men took the city of Bukavu, and days of killing and rape followed, investigators say. Since 2005, when he formed his own rebel group, known as the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or C.N.D.P., his forces have carried out a number of massacres, according to human rights investigators, most recently at Kiwanja, in early November, where 150 people were executed

snip

According to rebel officials, in Nkunda territory children are never made to wield Kalashnikov rifles and kill. But boys like Eric, who is now 16 but says he has been fighting with armed groups since he was kidnapped by Hutu militiamen at the age of 9, say General Nkunda’s rebellion forces hundreds of children to fight.

“The strategy they use is this,” he explained. “When they met children on the road, they ask them to help them carry their goods.”

The boys are then taken to training camps, given guns and taught to fight, Eric said. His eyes are wide in permanent surprise, and he said he had headaches that did not respond to medicine.

Loud noises terrify him.

“Too many bombs,” he explained in a soft voice.

For two years, from 13 to 15, he said he fought with General Nkunda’s troops.

“Many of us were boys,” he said. “They would send us out first, then the men.”

He lives in a shelter for boys separated from their parents by the war. In the next bunk is his friend Fabrice, a 14-year-old former Mai Mai fighter who used to do battle with General Nkunda’s forces.

“I always felt bad to kill other children, because I knew they had been forced to fight just like me,” he said.

There has already been too much genocide in Africa. Heading this volitile situation off HAS to be a priority of President Elect Obama's administration!

What If You Have A Conviction Against Treating Rich White Men?

President In Name Only George Bush is at it again but,New this time I think I might have a counterpunch. The New York Times tells us that PINO Bush has signed into law the "conscious rule" which bars discrimination against employees who refuse to provide medical treatment and or procedures that go against their "convictions". I'll let the NYTimes do the honors of further explanation:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration, as expected, announced new protections on Thursday for health care providers who oppose abortion and other medical procedures on religious or moral grounds.

“Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience,” Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement on his department’s Web site.

The rule prohibits recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and health care aides who refuse to take part in procedures because of their convictions, and it bars hospitals, clinics, doctors’ office and pharmacies from forcing their employees to assist in programs and activities financed by the department.

“This rule protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience,” Mr. Leavitt said.

Now as the New York Times points out and most of us with half a brain already know, this rule is meant to make it harder for women to get abortions. In truth it has nothing to do with the rights of doctors or nurses because its a rarity that any of them who oppose such a procedure would find themselves faced with a situation of having to do one. But I say instead of opposing this rule, lets embrace it. We just have to form a "religion" of our own.

The first rule of our "new religion" would have to be that we are against rich white men having any kind of surgery. God made us perfectly and if we are sick or ill its because he wanted it that way. If he wants to heal rich white men then I am sure he can do it himself without us lowly humans getting in the way. So no more heart procedures for Dick Cheney.

The second rule of our "new religion" should that we do not believe in diagnostic tests for rich white men. If something is ailing the rich white men then they should just pray about it and God will reveal to them what is wrong.

The third and final rule of our "new religion" should be we do not believe in painkillers for rich white men. God can heal all the pain of rich white men as long as they ask him to.

So for all the people who oppose this rule who are in the medical profession, lets turn it on its head and see what PINO Bush has to say about that.

A Nation Of Laws

Over at Politico they have a debate going centered around this question, "Should the DOJ consider prosecuting Bush administration officials for detainee abuse as the NYT and others have urged?" My question is, "How could they not"? Republican operatives love to tell us that America is a nation of laws. It is what elevates us above every other country of the face of the earth. Is anyone asking if federal officials should consider prosecuting Casey Anthony in the death of her daughter Caylee? Is anyone asking whether officials in New York should consider prosecuting Bernie Madoff for ripping off all of his investors? Of course not. That is not to say that either one of those people are guilty of their crimes, I don't know and neither do you. But if they investigate and find pretty strong evidence that says they are guilty there is no way that anyone would say that they shouldn't be prosecuted for their crimes, so what makes our President any different? What does it say about America when we hold the lowest of our citizens to a higher standard than we do the highest? What does it say about our country when we even entertain the thought of NOT prosecuting our President if there is strong evidence that he committed a crime? And how do we regain our moral standing in the world when we push for prosecutions of war crimes every where in the world except in our own backyard?

I was intrigued to see what the response would be from some of the people on the right to that question. I was amused but not surprised to see several responses like this one:

Such prosecutions, warranted or not (and on balance, I don't believe they are), would distract and diminish the new Administration in a manner similar to what would have occurred had the same Bushhaters been successful in getting the Democratic Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. Congressional Republicans learned that lesson the hard way in the 1998 elections after they tried to turn Clinton's lying ("perjury lite") and cheating (on the future Secretary of State) into vengeance. If I were the RNC I might be saying, "go ahead, make my day." Dirty Harry is the only vigilante who ever kept his badge.

And besides, Eric Holder is demonstrably better at handling pardons than prosecutions.

I just have a hard time taking this argument seriously. How exactly would President Elect Barack Obama be diminished by the Bush administration being held accountable for the actions? Its almost presumed as fact that they would be found guilty and that shines a light on this kind of thinking. You rarely people even try to argue the point that the Bush administration did not commit prosecutable offenses. So where does this thinking come from about prosecutions diminishing the next administration? Obviously it didn't do anything to hurt George W. Bush because even after he stole the election in 2000 he still was about to push through his agenda and do pretty much whatever in the hell he wanted to. And where was this reluctance to prosecute crimes when Ken Starr was on his witchunt of Bill Clinton? Am I supposed to believe that its right to prosecute a man for getting some head, but wrong to prosecute a man for crimes against the constitution and international treaties? Please, give me a break. What ever happened to "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time""? And what does this tell you about a Republican party that tries to own the mantle of being tough on crime?

Recently on MSNBC's "Hardball", Chris Matthews had Christopher Hitchens and Mike Smerconish on to talk about the Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainee abuse which pointed the finger at the Bush administration and Don Rumsfeld as being the party's responsible for authorizing the abuses. It was a lively discussion where Hitchens made the case against torturing detainees for information and Smerconish made the case for doing so. It seemed to me that Smerconish's whole rationale was that the end will always justify the means. Then last night, again Tweety had two guests on to talk about the report. This time it was Congressman Jim Moran and Congressman Duncan Hunter making the case for and against torture and for and against prosecution of the administration for detainee abuses. But the meme in support of torture remained the same. Congressman Hunter focused on some unsupported story about information supposedly obtained from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that helped stop some unknown terrorist attack. Another thing that both Smerconish and Congressman Hunter did was ask Tweety and the other guests if they would torture someone if an attack on America was imminent and the detainee had information about it. On both nights both Matthews and the anti torture guests had no comeback to that question. Well I for one do. I just might torture someone to stop an attack on America but I would also then after resign and expect to be brought up on war crimes. You see it is a terrible strawman question because the truth is there is no way of knowing if someone actually has information that you can use until AFTER they give it to you....or don't. But it really doesn't matter because the premise of the question is would you be willing to torture in any circumstance. Well torture is a war crime period point blank. There is no ambiguity in that fact. So if the new GOP talking point is "we did it but it was necessary" I say fine, let them say that. But what they are also saying that they committed a war crime and they should be prosecuted for it.

Actions should have consequences. If someone threatens my family with bodily harm its highly likely I will beat their ass. But when I am done I shouldn't be surprised when I get hauled off to jail. Yes I was defending my family from a potential threat, but I was also breaking the law by assaulting that other person. Whether the ends justify the means has no bearing on whether something is illegal or not. If torture is a war crime and it is, then torturing no matter what the situation is breaking the law. Just the other day Vice President Dick Cheney admitted in a televised interview that he helped to formulate and authorize torture. Hell I welcome their admissions now and their attempts to justify them, because at the end of the day they are still admitting to war crimes.

If I admit that I killed a man because he threatened to kill me, I be get prosecuted.

If I admit that I tortured a man because he had information I needed, I will be prosecuted.

If I admit that I kidnapped a man for what ever reason, I will be prosecuted.

So tell me why George Bush or Dick Cheney or Don Rumsfeld should get any better treatment than me.