Comrade Joshua Finally On Board!

Well, it's finally happened. Someone in the Bush Administration has finally managed to scare even middle of the road Dems such as Comrade Joshua.

Over at his Talking Points Memo, he glitches pretty hard about the "Bush Administration's creeping monarchism."

Yesterday, Sparky Gonzalez went up to the House Judiciary Committee and dropped some bombs, most notably that the President is not only authorized by AUMF to tap potential extra-territorial Al Qaeda conversations, but that he's pretty sure, the Prez is generally authorized by virtue of being President of the United states to tap the phones of anyone he wants, any time he wants...

Welcome to the shrill, Mr. Marshall... here's yer elder sign... please read and initial the safety handout about certain books...

mojo sends

Cold, Vicious Mockery

Once again, Jesus's General responds to the bedwetting over waving the Mexican flag at rallies for legal immigration reform in the only sensible way possible— with vicious mockery.

How will you respond when some French-loving traitor asks you why you don't also condemn our Confederate patriots who proudly wave the Stars and Bars at rallies and parades? You can't just simply say that it's OK because they're white--not in public, anyway.

Click through the link and marvel at the visuals.

Two Long Pieces That Require Your Immediate Attention

p1. Al Franken's opening statement in his recent debate with Ann Coulter at the University of Judaism.

p2. Scott Ritter explaining why the anti-war movement in America is losing so badly, and what can be done about it. Once again, the man is right and nobody will listen to him. I'm going to start calling him Cassandra now.

Small Plame Item

Greg Sargent in the American Prospect points out something I missed in my Plame story on Saturday:

Thanks to Waas, for the first time, we may now know for a fact that Rove and other Bush advisers viewed the truth about the run-up to war as something that could destroy his re-election prospects. It is entirely plausible that Bush advisers calculated that if it came out that they’d outed Plame, Congress would have been forced by the resulting firestorm to run a far more aggressive investigation of Bush’s pre-war deceptions – and possibly uncover the smoking gun Waas reports on, among other things. Remember, Libby and Rove testified in early 2004, during the heat of a presidential campaign which Rove himself had apparently concluded was at risk if existing hard evidence of Bush’s deceptions surfaced.

So it seems plausible that Libby and Rove sought to minimize the chance of the aggressive congressional oversight that might have resulted if it became known that they’d outed Plame. In short, misleading the grand jury about Plame may simply have been a key piece of a broader effort to get past the election before the truth about the run-up to the war surfaced to sink his campaign.

The timing of their testimony is critical here. I have wondered right from the very start why Libby, an experienced Washington player and a lawyer to boot, would lie so transparently and overtly to a Grand Jury. Rove was less overt, he had "memory" lapses, and omitted anything he could to avoid drawing the attention of Pat FitzGerald. They made a calculation that the reelection of their prospective masters outweigned the risk of perjury, relying on the aversion of reporters in revealing their sources, and, I believe, underestimated the Special Prosectors tenacity and legal skill in forcing Cooper and Miller to testify. Notice how both Libby and Rove were unwilling to clearly release Miller and Cooper from their pledge of confidentiality without being pressured.

We should also draw our attention to the Jason Leopold piece in Raw Stort that claims that, despite all of Rove maneuverings in front of the Grand Jury, and the strategems of he and his lawyer after the Libby indictment, Patrick FitzGerald is moving for an indictment of Rove. And that my friends, is whole new kettle of Fish. As Mojo likes to point out, neither of these guys is Gordon Liddy, they are not going to do any time in Prison just to take one for the team. They might hold out for a pardon, but that is quite a bet to make on the Presidents loyalty to you personally. No one else has confirmed the Leopold story, so take it with a grain of salt, but I tend to believe Fitz would not be visiting the Grand Jury so much if he didn't have something cooking.

Good Times....

Treat the Symptom... Disease Marches Merrily Along...

So it's official, Tom DeLay is punkéd.

So long Hammer, don't drop the soap. I see him possibly trying to institute an emergency "True Love Waits" program for the Aryan Brothers in cell block H.

So we get rid of one, but the GOP's got a deep bench when it comes to corruption. Recently coronated House Majority Leader John Boehner has his own Abramoff troubles, and is every bit the vile demagougic dirtbag that his predecessor was. The only difference is that he is not particularly in fealty to W. I am not sure if that makes him less dangerous or more...

And what is the reaction out in the hinterlands... well, this is a pretty typical response from the gang over at FreeRepublic:

Gun owners and Second Amendment believers have lost a great friend.

Can we please now start the next Civil War. I would just love to see the Anti-American Dems get theirs.
8 posted on 04/04/2006 2:45:55 AM PDT by MaDuce (Do it to them, before they do it to you! (MaDuce = M2HB .50 BMG))

Yeah... the typical response. Still think these fuckers aren't serious about running us into the sea? It would appear that the only thing this has done has been to really piss off the other team. So again I ask: are we there yet?

mojo sends

Update 1.0 Link fixed... continue to share and enjoy...

Why Oh Why Are We Represented By These Clowns?

Steve Soto at The Left Coaster explains what the Democratic Congressional Leadership would be doing if they weren't utterly, totally incompetent.

[...]
Democrats now have a chance to turn the tables on the GOP, and do serious damage to Republicans for the midterm elections. Bill Frist and James Sensenbrenner say that the top priority for any immigration reform is to deal with the millions of illegals here now, before we do anything about a new guest worker program or talk about earned citizenship. House GOP conservatives go even further, saying that before anything is done on immigration, America should immediately deport the 11-12 million illegal immigrants, even though the Department of Homeland Security says this would be nearly impossible.

Fine. Two can play that game. In the spirit of what Frist and Hastert have done to Reid and Pelosi previously, Democrats should force a straight up-or-down vote by Republicans on a simple deportation measure. Make the GOP vote on this issue for its base, in full view of the Catholic Church and Hispanic voters in time for the midterm elections. Let’s see if the GOP has the courage of its alleged convictions.
[...]

Click through and read the whole argument. He's absolutely correct— leaving me to wonder why Democrats are so slow-witted that they still haven't figured out how to play this game.

Banned Again?

Looks like the dickless wonders at Moonbattery have banned me. Alas...

And it had been a while since I had posted there. But they have apparently instituted comment moderation, so my comments are not being posted. Instead of just telling me I am banned from their little hate-fest, they are just deleting my comments like the punk sissies they are...

Oh well... who's next...

mojo sends

Distractions...

Don't worry wireheads, Saturday morning, we will be dropping the pimp hand on, among other things, this new Murray Waas piece in the National Journal on Karl Rove's role in covering up the Niger Memo forgery...

And perhaps it is emblematic of how unraveled it is all becoming up on Pennsylvania Avenue that they have to turn to their bitches on the Hill to cook up embarrassing screed on how the Dark Man is coming north to make us all listen to loud, accordion laden Texano music blaring out of lowered vans with metallic Mexican flag stickers on the windows...

This is what they are actually saying now in order to keep your attention on their emotionally broken antics instead of watching the ball...

That's right boys and girls... let's get the prisoners out providing our national slave labor force... And from no less a personage than my personal favorite closet prozac chomper and failed screen writer, Dana "We can't let men marry horses" Rohrabacher.

Can anyone remember when this kind of hideous nonsense was safely confined to very high-end spectrum AM and shortwave radio between the hours of 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. instead of issuing from the GOP leadership of the freekin' House of Representatives?

Don't get distracted... this is a side show and a sign of their desperation! Keep your eyes on the ball folks, this is about to get good...

Or very, very bad...

mojo sends

Please, not this again

Those liberals are at again. So says this Solon, Rob Anderson, at the the New Republic (subscription required). His take is that Jim Brady, the editorial Wonderlick at WashingtonPost.com who hired Ben Domenech to blog his screed on the Post website, made this brilliant hiring decision because he conformed to Brady's, or the Post's, liberal caricature of what Conservatives are. You see, if only we could see the calm reasonable, INTELLECTUAL heart of conservatism, we would know and respect them. Or Something. Bad News Rob, Benji IS a mainstream conservative. And No, this has nothing to do with the folks in Red State America who pull levers for Republicans, this is about who runs the party and what they believe. And they truly believe the spittle laced crap Benji pumps out. Those conservative intellectuals you moon over have been run out of town. Domenench was not only a contributor to a few conservative mags, he was an editor at Regnery, in fact, he edited Michelle Malkin's racist diatribe about internment and Ponneru's upcoming book Satan is a Democrat, or whatever he is calling it today. He is a PLAYER in the conservative ruling elite. That's why he got that gig. He isn't a caricature of a conservative, he is one, and a pretty typical one.

By the way Rob, you can officially FSCK OFF with the "You Blue state elitists don't get conservatives" Bullshit. The editors here at the Wire lived their Teenage and Twentysomthing years in ORange County CA. We know conservatives better than you Rob, no matter how many Safari's you've made to Mayberry to observe Conservatives in their natural habitat. We lived among them, drank their beer, scared their families and worshipped BAAL right next to their MegaChurches. So DO NOT lecture me about Red STATe. I sit across from them at the dinner table regularly. Unlike you who seem to think they all smell and dance like Willy Buckley.

And exactly how do you reconcile critiquing Liberals for caricatures of conservatives when the premise of your article is, GASP, a caricature of Liberals. DOH! Not to mention, Jim Brady and his ombudsmen, Debbie Howel, are not liberals by any definition. Jim despises us, particularly us in the blogsphere. Anyone who "balances out journalists with a crank like Benjie is not a liberal, nor is he someone who should be trusted with the reputation of the Post.

Have you ever been to RedState.org Rob? It's a cesspool of racism, paranoia and ignorant stupidity. Yes Rob, I said Racism, read the comments on that site and tell me otherwise. Go visit the comments at Atrios or Firedoglake. Who lives their stereotype and who doesn't Rob?

Why the fsck am I still reading TNR? What the FRAK happened to you people? Rob, do me a favor and never tell me what I know about Conservatives. I know them too well, Rob. It's you and the rest of the Mickey Kaus brigade that need an introduction. Take the elevator to Hell and follow the Banjo music. How's that for a caricature?

Pray For Safety, You Mugs!

Via a trail of broken links, we find this executive order at WhiteHouse.Gov (emphasis mine):

Executive Order: Responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security with Respect to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet America's social and community needs, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment of a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security.
[...]

Sec. 2. Purpose of Center. The purpose of the Center shall be to coordinate agency efforts to eliminate regulatory, contracting, and other programmatic obstacles to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the provision of social and community services.

Sec. 3. Responsibilities of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. In carrying out the purpose set forth in section 2 of this order, the Center shall:

(a) conduct, in coordination with the WHOFBCI Director, a department-wide audit to identify all existing barriers to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the delivery of social and community services by the Department, including but not limited to regulations, rules, orders, procure-ment, and other internal policies and practices, and outreach activities that unlawfully discriminate against, or otherwise discourage or disadvantage the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in Federal programs;

(b) coordinate a comprehensive departmental effort to incorporate faith-based and other community organizations in Department programs and initiatives to the greatest extent possible;
[...]

See? Don't let anybody tell you the White House didn't learn from Hurricane Katrina and Rita that something needed to be done to improve government disaster response efforts! The power of prayer will save America from the evildoers who are doing evil everywhere. Thank God the Bush Administration is spending taxpayer dollars to sponsor certain churches as paragovernment organizations within the Ministry of Fatherland Security.

Maybe next, the Bush Administration will give up on fiscal policy and turn to prayer at the Treasury Department.

Digby Explains What's Wrong With The Media Today

Go read all of it. Here's an incomplete sample:

That's very revealing, I think. Deborah Howell, like so many of her brethren, has so internalized rightwing criticism that it doesn't even seem unreasonable anymore. She "understands" it. This man called her a traitor to her face and all it does is make her feel sad.

When was the last time someone called you a traitor to your face just for doing your job? What is the appropriate response to that?

No Coincidences...

I have a hard time believing, as I used to, that "things just happen" in D.C. Actually, I am sure that they do, but the margin of error on those predictors is getting astronomicaly small...

Case in point: Yesterday, RawStory reported a severely underplayed story about Karl Rove magically "discovering" 250 emails from VP Big Time regarding the Plame matter. Pat Fitzgerald has been after these documents for a while now and it looks, at least if this story is true, that he has flipped Rove...

Less than 24 hours later the White House Chief of Staff Andy Card resigns.

Sorry, I just don't believe these things just happen, any more...

mojo sends

A Small But Welcome Step...

We get this from AmericaBlog this morning:

Well, the Pentagon is apparently not happy about what the the White House is doing, and reissued the rules about troops NOT attending partisan political events in uniform. The document reiterating the rules came from Rummy himself, which is interesting since he's as political as the White House. I suspect General Pace, the Joint Chiefs chair, is the one who flipped out and forced Rummy to do this.

I would like to believe that Gen. Pace found his testicles down in that old footlocker where he apparently kept his oath to defend the Constitution and decided to take both out, dust them off, and go break a foot off in the Sec. Def's ass over this...

I would like to believe that...

Either way, it's a small but welcome development...

mojo sends

"Can You Hear Me NOW?"

Today, in the Boston Globe, Charlie Savage writes:

[...]
In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law.

After The New York Times disclosed in December that Bush had authorized the military to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without obtaining warrants, as required by law, Bush said his wartime powers gave him the right to ignore the warrant law.

And when Congress passed a law forbidding the torture of any detainee in US custody, Bush signed the bill but issued a signing statement declaring that he could bypass the law if he believed using harsh interrogation techniques was necessary to protect national security.
[...]

Meanwhile, Senator Feinstein says it's premature to censure the President until an investigation is conducted into whether the President is "bypassing" the law. You'll note: the Senator is getting right on that... (Any day now, she'll be calling for hearings. Or something. Does anyone want some apple pie? It's a little stale, but you'll enjoy it. Eat up, before it's all gone, you ungrateful, lying little terrorists.)

That's It. I'm Done.

Updates: 1.0, 2.0.
Via Digby, we find this news of the results of a study done by the University of Minnesota explaining that it's not just my imagination.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (3/20/2006) -- American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.

Edgell also argues that today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past—they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. “It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy—and in America, that ‘core’ has historically been religious,” says Edgell. Many of the study’s respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism.

Edgell believes a fear of moral decline and resulting social disorder is behind the findings. “Americans believe they share more than rules and procedures with their fellow citizens—they share an understanding of right and wrong,” she said. “Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”

The researchers also found acceptance or rejection of atheists is related not only to personal religiosity, but also to one’s exposure to diversity, education and political orientation—with more educated, East and West Coast Americans more accepting of atheists than their Midwestern counterparts.

The study is co-authored by assistant professor Joseph Gerteis and associate professor Doug Hartmann. It’s the first in a series of national studies conducted the American Mosaic Project, a three-year project funded by the Minneapolis-based David Edelstein Family Foundation that looks at race, religion and cultural diversity in the contemporary United States. The study will appear in the April issue of the American Sociological Review.

That's it, then... America hates me. You can all just stop pretending otherwise. I get the picture already.

I'll be leaving as soon as I can find a place to live where I'm not loathed and despised for my religious affiliation. In the meantime, if anyone asks, tell them I'm a unitarian.

p.s. No, I will not be coming to your Bon Voyage parties...

Update 1.0: I see this study has made The Washigton Monthly. I just posted the following in comments there.

You know what? I really doubt even a significant fraction of the people called in this poll really gave a fig about the technical distinction between atheism and agnosticism, much less the difference between their "hard" and "soft" variants.

The study hasn't been published yet— just the press release announcing the results. When we see the methodology, we'll know for sure, but my suspicion is that it didn't provide these distinctions in any detail to the respondants before asking them the questions.

More than likely, I'll bet, the prevailing understanding of what "atheism" means in America is actually this: an atheist is someone who refuses to join a church on principle. From that perspective, an atheist and an agnostic are pretty much the same thing.

Read the press release. The study purports to show "findings [that] seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good." That's a viewpoint that doesn't give a flip whether you are personally conflicted about whether you can prove that God does or doesn't exist. It's actually pretty stark.

The study seems to show that Americans generally think that you don't have to attend any church if you don't feel like it, but you better be theoretically willing to join one. If you aren't, then you're a moral degenerate unfit for membership in civil society.

Are we clear about that, yet? America doesn't care whether you call yourself an atheist, an agnostic, a "bright" or a freethinker, an objectivist, or whatever. If, as a matter of principle, you aren't willing to identify yourself as an adherent of some religion or another, then you're scum— lower than queers, wogs and Al Qaeda. That's what America thinks of atheists.

Update 2.0: Kevin Drum says he received emailed from Andrew Sabl that tries to discredit the George H.W. Bush quote I reprinted in an earlier post on this topic. The quote is from Robert Sherman, who claims to have personally had the exchange with the former President when he was campaigning for reëlection in 1992. Sherman has long claimed that he never made an audio tape recording of the incident and that all the other members of the Chicago press corps present at the time are refusing to back him up because the Bush has now publicly denied ever making the statement or expressing similar sentiments.

Now comes Andrew Sabl, a Straussian political philosopher at UCLA, telling us that Sherman has changed his story. The claim is that Sherman is now saying he has a tape recording that he has never released. Sabl doesn't explain why Sherman is supposedly refusing to release a tape he has long claimed he never made, nor can I find anywhere that Sherman is actually on the record making the claim Sabl is reporting.

I emailed Kevin Drum about this, and here's the response I got:

Yes, it's possible I've been gulled. This really wasn't that big a deal to me, and I just did some very cursory Googling. If his story is that he didn't make a tape, and that's still his story, then I accept that.

If I get some time, I'll try to contact Robert Sherman and ask him about this claim that Andrew Sabl is making about him.

One thing I would like to note: because of the widespread distrust of atheists in America, as noted in the survey done by the University of Minnesota, it would be natural to expect that discrediting Robert Sherman would be very easy indeed. All you have to do is call him a liar and an atheist. As everyone apparently "knows" in America, atheists are "self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good" and don't share a common sense of "right and wrong," i.e. a moral philosophy Americans recognize as compatible with civil society. Therefore, it would be perfectly natural to expect that atheists would have no reason not to tell lies to advance their interests.

Indeed, you could even tell baseless lies about atheists and make them stick by forcing denials out of them that will only further reinforce the untrustworthyness of atheists. I wouldn't put it past a Straussian political philosopher to do that. Hell, I could see how they'd think they were doing society a favor in the process.

Come Tell Us How You SlewThose Brave Arabs Two By Two

I have nothing coherent to write about this, except to quote the last verse of Black And Tans by Brendan Behan's brother Dominic.

Well the day is coming fast and the time is here at last,
When each yeoman will be cut aside before us,
And if there be a need, sure me kids would sing, "Godspeed,"
With a verse or two of Stephen Behan's chorus...

Q: So, S9— what do you think of the War On State-sponsored Terrorism?
A: I think it would be a good idea.

Torture? You're soaking in it!

From Andrew Sullivans Blog, he provides different perceptions on Waterboarding by comparing testimony from a captured American Pilot in a WWII war crimes prosecution and to a CIA document describing what is allowed by the White House. I think it makes clear what we've been saying on this blog and on the radio show for some time now: The Bush Administration is engaging in acts that the Allies prosecuted people for doing to us. We defined practices like Waterboarding, rightfully, as criminal acts that require punishment and should not be allowed by a civilized and moral people. I guess we're not that anymore.

The Law of War page that Sullivan links provides some background on this issue:

The prosecutor in that case was vehement in arguing that the captured Doolittle fliers had been wrongfully convicted by the Japanese tribunal, in part because they were convicted based on evidence obtained through torture. "The untrustworthiness of any admissions or confessions made under torture," he said, "would clearly vitiate a conviction based thereon."

At the end of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of which the United States was a leading member (the Tribunal was established by Douglas MacArthur) convicted former Japanese Prime Minister Tojo and numerous other generals and admirals of a panoply of war crimes. Among them was torture:

The practice of torturing prisoners of war and civilian internees prevailed at practically all places occupied by Japanese troops, both in the occupied territories and in Japan. The Japanese indulged in this practice during the entire period of the Pacific War. Methods of torture were employed in all areas so uniformly as to indicate policy both in training and execution. Among these tortures were the water treatment...

The so-called "water treatment" was commonly applied. The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach until he lost consciousness. Pressure was then applied, sometimes by jumping upon his abdomen to force the water out. The usual practice was to revive the victim and successively repeat the process.

These people in the White House and the Pentagon really are pieces of work.

Victory is Victorious...

Here... now read the words of wisdom from Maximum Leader, and know his plan for your personal victory over evil...

"We're making progress because we've got a strategy for victory. And we're making progress, because the men and women of the United States military are showing magnificent courage. And they're making important sacrifices that have brought Iraq to a historic moment..."

Just unpack that first part in your brain... we are making progress because we have a strategy for victory. Is there any doubt in anyone's mind anywhere within the sound of my hoarse, shouting voice that 1984 has come and gone and we are all now living in Oceania?

"Eurasia is our enemy. Eurasia has always been our enemy. East Asia is our ally. East Asia has always been our ally...

I particularly like the second part... "We are making progress because the men and women of the United States military are showing magnificent courage. And they are making important sacrifices..." So progress is being measured by the number of body bags we are filling or the number of military families we are destroying or bankrupting?

So... this is victory and progress?

Make mine vanilla, thanks...

mojo sends

Brad DeLong Is Clapping Louder

He writes at the end of a long draft for a lunchtime talk about economic policy:

[...]
So what would a prudent U.S. government be doing right now?

+ We're in the up-phase of the business cycle, so we should be running a budget surplus in any event, considerations only reinforced by the unsustainable current-account deficit.

+ We should be making it very clear that as a deficit country we value foreigners who want to invest in us--that we are grateful rather than xenophobic when we think about foreign capital.

+ The Federal Reserve should be making it clear that it is more interested in stabilizing measures of domestic prices than of measures that have a high weight on import prices.

+ International consensus on what to do should market prices move, and should demand for the products of 40 million Asian workers in export industries and 10 million American workers in construction and consumer service industries disappear.
Are any of these things happening?

Still, we're probably going to be OK. Opportunities, not crises.

It's the Tinkerbell Economy.

You're Mistaken

Occasionally, I encounter some fool who mistakes me for a Democrat. They see me howling about corrupt, venal, barbaric and morally bankrupt Republicans, and they assume that anyone who isn't a Republican must be a Democrat. They are wrong; I am not a Democrat.

I have many reasons, but I'm reminded of one of them this morning that I don't usually think about.

People like me give the Democrats a bad name just by continuing to live.

Really. All those links in that paragraph above vector off into a Great Whinging among some of the leading lights of what passes for the intelligentsia in the Democratic Party about the pernicious hostility to Religion so common among the "Left" that— somehow— manages to prevent moderate and liberal Christians from feeling comfortable voting for Democrats. As some of those writers take pains to remind our collective audience, people like me don't actually have to be hostile to Religion for the baseless perception of our hostility to be a significant factor in the decline of the Democratic Party.

So. I'm taking this opportunity now to publicly and clearly declaim all association with the Democratic Party. I changed my registration in 1998, and I've generally voted Green where possible ever since. So don't blame me for your psycho-crisis about whether Democrats speak to evangelical Christians with a sufficiently deferential tone to make them feel warm and fuzzy about leaving the Republican Party.

It's not my fncking fault, you goddam wankers!

I'll consider coming back into the fold when my local, state or national Democratic Party proudly and vigorously defends an openly atheist or agnostic candidate for public office from the inevitable smears based on their religious affiliation.

"I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." —George H. W. Bush [*]

Until you can summon the spine to stand up to Republicans when they say shit like that, you can please stop blaming me for your fnckups. Thank you.

Or Is It The Political Wing Of The Marine Corps?

Comrade Joshua follows up today on the story about the Larimer County GOP in Colorado using uniformed marines as stage props at a partisan fundraising event. He links to this article in The Coloradoan that quotes an unnamed spokeswoman— and, may I just say, "WTF? An anonymous spokeswoman for this!!???"— telling us that nobody violated any code.

The uniformed troops who appeared at the Larimer County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner last weekend did not violate military code, said a spokeswoman for the Marine Corps Headquarters' public affairs office.

"I don't think there's any trouble to be had," said the spokeswoman, who declined to give her name, citing protocol. "It's a touchy issue because lots of honorees are being invited to things like this. It's a shame people are trying to turn it into more than that."

Organizations from both parties have been asking military members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to attend their events to be honored, and the Marine Corps will turn down those requests if the troops are expected to speak, act in an official capacity to assist with the event or endorse a party or candidate, the spokeswoman said.

Strictly being honored at an event, however, is not against regulations, she said.

Officials at the Pentagon deferred to the Marine Corps for a ruling on the appearances.

Joshua hits all the right notes in his followup post. Go read it.

I just want to highlight what this shows. This wasn't a training accident. It isn't a case of a couple of marines forgetting what the regulations permit. The U.S. Marine Corps is telling us that the official policy has changed, regardless of what the regulations may or may not have to say about it. Appearing in uniform at Republican Party events is now part of the official duties of active duty marines. These marines aren't being disciplined for what they've done. They're being rewarded.

Suck on that and see how it tastes going down.

p.s. You know the amusing part of all this? It apparently isn't in technical violation of the U.S. Code governing the conduct of military personnel. Yes, Virginia— the Hatch Act doesn't cover the military. Congress never bothered to outlaw this kind of partisan political activity on the part of the military, since the DOD had a long-standing directive that pretty much covered the relevant prohibitions. Which means— now that the Pentagon has reversed itself, good luck getting the Congress to plug this loophole.

Things that make you go "hmmm"...redux

Why is the Department of Fatherland Security Aparatchik announcing the pending doom of Bird Flu?

Why am I getting this from Michael Chertoff and not NIH or the CDC in Atlanta? CDC has nothing about this in their fairly comprehensive section on H5N1 and the reality of the threat posed by the virus.

mojo sends

On The Road To Gilead...

The Mighty Atrios wonders aloud about the thinking process of abortion criminalization proponents:

I really can't figure out why they can't answer this question. Is it simply recognition of the political reality that punishing pregnant women for this stuff won't go down or is that they really are denying women the agency of their actions? People seem to have no problem with the notion of punishing women for, say, doing drugs or drinking alcohol during pregnancy so I can't quite accept that they would have a problem with holding a woman responsible for terminating her pregnancy.

I can answer this from experience interacting with them on a regular basis gained while working the barricades at clinic defense operations. (My experience is somewhat stale since the passage of the Free Access to Clinics Act has made— for better or worse— the need to do clinic defense work somewhat less pressing, but I doubt much has changed.)

It's both and neither. Take them at their word, Atrios— they really aren't thinking about it. They're typically people with a right-wing authoritarian personality, and one of the common aspects of that mode of thinking is a greatly enhanced capacity for managing cognitive dissonance. They have accepted an authority, which is telling them that p1) abortion is a form of homicide other than, yet morally equivalent to, murder, p2) doctors who perform abortions, and the organizations which conspire with them, should be charged with criminal penalties, and p3) women who have abortions are the victims of this criminal enterprise, not the perpetrators.

You're noticing that p1) and p3) are logically inconsistent, but they honestly don't have the capacity to recognize the pertinence of that fact. Both of these ideas arrive to them from their authoritarian hierarchy, and they don't see it as their place to question their authority figures. The inconsistency is easily brushed aside because their authority figures tell them so. The chain of hierarchy flows all the way up from rank and file protestors to the militantly anti-abortion clergy figures who lead the movement. At the leadership levels, and I have spoken with some of them, matters of secular law and policy are of no concern to them. They generally accept the proposition that criminalizing abortion means putting women who have them in prison, and where these leaders are not "pro-life" on the death penalty they accept that some women might be eligible for execution. However, they don't see any need to translate their personal views into policy activism, so the subject never enters the program they are handing out to their rank and file.

If you keep pushing on this wedge, here's what I think will happen: the rank and file will start to get the programming from the leadership that criminalizing abortion means putting women who have abortions in prison, and possibly executing them for the crime. This will serve to further stigmatize women who have legal abortions, and will greatly magnify the political polarization between feminists and their antagonists. I wish I were more optimistic that a coherently feminist constituency on this matter might materialize, but I'm not.

I would caution people to be careful how they use this wedge. You may find it cleaves yourself in unexpected and unwelcome ways. It's like inviting a game of Russian Roulette with someone you think is only pretending to be suicidal. They might really be suicidal, and they might really accept your challenge.

Things that make you go hmm...

Watching a live Senate hearing this morning on Iran and the nuclear question...

Some monkey from the State Department this morning talking about how we're going to keep Iran in the box made mention of a reccently inked deal between the U.S. and the government in Dubai to create a new anti-Iran interest section at our embassy there, to press for regime change in Tehran from the safety of our bunkered barcaloungers in a basement in the UAE?

[c.f. this article]

Two immediate questions spring to mind: 1.Quid pro quo? and 2. Have we lost the ability to do this from Iraq?

mojo sends

What He Said

As we have noted before, The Rude Pundit is, well— rude. Today, he is a must read (NSFW: graphic writing). Just remember: you were warned.

What Is To Be Done In Iraq

Professor Juan Cole directs your attention to the advice from Joost Hilterman, veteran Iraq analyst with the International Crisis Group. He has a list of four things that must be done to prevent the disintegration of Iraq and the failure of its government. The relevant excerpt, stripped of its supporting arguments follows:

[...]
First, Iraq's political and religious leaders should unwaveringly advise their followers and supporters to respond only in nonviolent ways to further sectarian attacks, which are sure to come.

Second, Iraqi leaders should make every effort to form a government of national unity that truly represents the country's diverse constituencies and starts the difficult work of healing these wounds, and of governing. The Bush administration should expend significant political capital to ensure this happens, making clear that its continued support depends on it.

Third, once such a government forms, it should revisit the constitution, revise its most divisive elements and turn it into the national compact it was meant to be. This means preventing the country's de facto breakup by establishing administrative federalism on the basis of provincial boundaries (outside the Kurdish region) and creating a formula for the fair, centrally controlled, independently supervised distribution of oil and gas revenues from current and future fields.

Finally, the U.S. should continue to assist in building Iraq's new security forces, making sure they are inclusive and nonsectarian. At the same time, the government should start disbanding the militias that, along with the insurgents, pose the most dangerous threat to the country's stability.

[...]

I have only one question. If the continued support from the U.S. should depend on the Iraqi leaders making every effort to form a government of national unity, and that support should come in the form of assistance in building Iraq's new security forces, what happens if Iraqi leaders decide that continued U.S. "support" isn't worth the price?

What do we do then, eh? Make good on our threat to remove support unless a government of national unity forms? Continue pouring blood and treasure into the project even though it just accelerates the descent into civil war?

Inquiring minds want to know.

The Armed Wing of the GOP

The caption on that image over at The Coloradoan is "Marilyn Musgrave introduces Marine Sergeant Brandon Forsyth on Friday during the Larimer County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner." [Photo credit: Peter Heacox/For The Coloradoan]

Comrade Joshua is making a big deal over this, and he's absolutely right.

Bob Novak pretty much put us on notice a couple weeks ago that the White House and the RNC were going to make a habit of using uniformed military personnel as props at Republican political rallies. This despite the fact that it is a plain violation of military regulations banning politicization of the armed forces.

People on our old private MaxHeadRoom rantmail list used act like I was a complete nutjob when I complained about how the U.S. military was fast becoming the armed wing of the GOP. I'm getting pretty damned tired of being right about things I would so very much desperately like to be wrong.

Would the last patriotic American to leave the continental U.S. please lower the flag? Thank you.


Update 1.0:Good grief. Now, Comrade Joshua has posted this picture, as well. Seriously, I ask you, dear readers— is this a sign that the Marines are concentrating their recruiting efforts on Republicans? (I almost never see them standing on a stage with any of my favorite political candidates.)

Conservatarians and "Political Religion"

This is a followup to my earlier post this week, We Are All Liberals Now. I've been calling out American "movement conservatives" as basically equivalent to our Leninists for a while now, and this post stirred up some comment. Before I get into responding to those comments, let me first provide some background.

From the Wikipedia page on Leninism:

In his book "What is to be Done?" (1903), Lenin argued that the proletariat can only achieve a successful revolution consciousness through the efforts of a Communist party that assumes the role of "revolutionary vanguard." Lenin further believed that such a party could only achieve its aims through a form of disciplined organization known as "democratic centralism," where Communist Party officials are elected democratically, but once they are elected and other decisions are made through voting, all party members must follow those decisions.

Does that sound like the way any political parties in America are operating these days? Sure does to me.

In the comments to my earlier post, TheRobb (who blogs here) says, well— he says a lot of things I would say are nonsense, but he does say this:

But the basic thrust of your argument, at least as I see it, is that, as you said "I'm saying it's a political religion."

Pehaps you and I see "religion" in different ways.

For me, "political religion" would confer the status of diety upon Congressional leadership.

Sorry, but unless those people can prove that they created heaven and earth and that they did indeed die upon a cross for me (not to mention raise themselves from the dead), then I am afraid that they don't qualify.

That's what I am seeing when you use the words "political religion". And that's why I view your argument as collapsing under its own weight.

As it happens, I don't particularly like this phrase, and I tend to avoid using it for precisely the reason that it confuses people like TheRobb in the obvious way that he so clearly demonstrates above. Nevertheless, Political Religion is a term of art in sociology that has its own Wikipedia page:

...a political religion is a political ideology with cultural and political power equivalent to those of a religion, and often having many sociological and ideological similarities with religion. Quintessential examples are Marxism and Nazism, but totalitarianism is not a requirement (for example neo-liberalism can be analysed as a political religion).
The term is sometimes treated as synonymous with civil religion, but although some scholars use the terms as equivalent, others see a useful distinction, using "civil religion" as something weaker, which functions more as a socially unifying and essentially conservative force, where a political religion is radically transformational, even apocalyptic.

Both David Neiwert and Glenn Greenwald explicitly referenced this page, and I think it was pretty clear that I was using the term in the way this page describes, so I'd say it's pretty disingenuous of TheRobb to pretend I have staked out a claim I took obvious steps to avoid. (Of course, this isn't the first time I've said that of him.)

However, I wanted to elevate this discussion to the front page, because I think it's worth unpacking something. "For me, 'political religion' would confer the status of diety upon Congressional leadership," he said. I've shown that he's mistaken about that, but let's look at what I'm actually saying his political religion is doing. American "movement conservatarians" are really not trying to deify their political leaders, but they are trying to invest them with the divine right of kings. (It would be nice if the word "reify" worked here, because it rhymes with "deify," but regretably, its root is res not rex, and its meaning doesn't fit quite right.)

TheRobb may not feel comfortable admitting this outside friendly turf, but the President routinely talks like he owes his rule to the will of God, not to the will of the People or any other competing authority. He does it because he knows his base— people like TheRobb, let me make it clear— eat that shit with a spoon. The sentence in Wikipedia about this that ought to make your blood run cold: This doctrine continued with the claim that any attempt to depose a monarch or to restrict his powers ran contrary to the will of God. In other words, while I'm not saying that American conservatarians are confering the status of deity upon their political leaders, I am saying they are happily adopting the radically regressive doctrine that their leaders owe their rule to the will of God, and not to the will of the People.

If you've been paying attention, you probably noticed that I'm now making two seemingly contradictory arguments. On the one hand, I've been calling them Leninists, for their adoption of Communist-like party discipline around the principle of "democratic centralism," i.e. they elect Party officials and take their marching orders from them unquestioningly, even when those orders seem to contradict the political theory that supposedly serves as the foundation of the Party. On the other hand, I'm now saying that they're investing their leaders, particularly the President, with the divine right of kings. If you really think about it— and, no, I'm not holding out much hope that TheRobb will think about this very hard— you'll see how they're really complementary ideas, not contradictory.

The movement conservatives have adopted a "radically transformational" political ideology. They want nothing less than the marriage of economic corporatism, political authoritarianism, and a philosophy of postmodern fundamentalism. (Drieux, there's your PP&E, for you.) That's the "political religion" part. The parallel with Leninism comes when you examine their strategy and tactics. Instead of trying to create the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, the American Leninists are trying to create the revolutionary dictatorship of the conservatarian cultural identity. The ends are different, but the means and methods are identical.

To close out, I'd like to review something TheDrieux reminded me about over lunch today.

On several occasions, both he and I have encountered evangelical Christians who like to say to atheists (and people with similar beliefs, like me) things like this: "My faith in God is what keeps me from being a mass murderer." Sometimes, they make the implication explicit: that when atheists reject the proposition that God exists, they necessarily must accept the proposition that there is no moral imperative to live virtuously. It's an utterly ridiculous notion, but we keep encountering people who really do believe it, deep in their heart of hearts.

There is a similar mental dysfunction you tend to find among right-wing authoritarians who subscribe to the doctrine of the divine right of kings. They think things like this: "My loyalty to the King (the President, the Chairman, Dear Leader, etc.) is what keeps me from becoming a war criminal." This is a ridiculous notion in precisely the same way, but it's exactly how guys like Donald Rumsfeld rock themselves to sleep at night after presiding over the torture and abuse scandals at the Pentagon. They think to themselves: when liberals reject the proposition that the leader of the nation owes his rule to the will of God, they necessarily must accept the proposition that there is no moral imperative to remain loyal, make a sacrifice, or otherwise loyally serve. It's all basically the same mechanism. The end result is that the Leader has God's blessing to do whatever he deems necessary, and his subjects are either loyal servants or they're enemies of the will of God. There can be no "loyal opposition" where there is the divine right of kings.

I'll Have What They're Having...

Check out this article running on the web edition of American Izvestia.

The quote I would draw to your attention is from a "senior administration official" on the topic of dissension in the GOP ranks.

"We've got a period of time when the news that's dominating the headlines is not good and some Republicans are going to feel free to distance themselves from the president," said a senior White House official who was not authorized to speak on the record. "But at the end of the day, I don't think the breach is deep or lasting because this is the president's strong suit. I think it's about this moment in time. I don't think it's fundamental."

I don't think White House really comprehends how badly their situation is fnckd. They've got almost three whole years to go. If they can't recover the confidence they've lost from their own political support base, then they're going to be impeached. We don't have a parliamentary "vote of no confidence" here. Impeachment is the only way to pitch these guys out of office before their term is up. That will blow mightily for them— I mean, it will blow in the worst way.

Is it just me? That "senior administration official" sounds a lot like a junkie saying to the effect, "Hey, I'm just going through a rough patch, and yeah— I need to get fixed a little more often than usual. I don't think it's a deep or lasting problem, because I can usually handle anything. It's just this is the moment of time I'm in. I don't think I fundamentally have a problem."

Yup. You don't have a problem, Sparky. We're the ones with a problem.

We Are All Liberals Now

I do not link to Free Republic, but if I did, I would direct your attention to the thread titled "It Didn’t Work (Buckley declares Iraq a failure)" about how even Wild Bill Buckley, the founder of modern conservatism, has finally been driven into exile. Reading the comments posted by the rank-and-file freeperians, you can't help but quake in awe at the display of mass cognitive dissonance.

O. M. G. I gotta say: the fall from grace of William F. Buckley is a watershed moment.

David Neiwert, Glenn Greenwald and a cast of thousands have been recently going on about how American "movement conservatives" aren't really conservative anymore, they're actually more like a "political religion" or Bush-worshipping cultists. I've been saying they have more in common with Leninists than anything else for quite a while now, and I'm glad that others in the blogosphere are finally starting to notice and saying out loud what I've grown tired of repeating. May they bring more eloquence to it than me.

Leninists. You laughed at me when I called them Leninists in 2002. You ignored me when I called them Leninists in 2004. You're going to argue with me when I call them Leninists now in 2006. But, and mark my words, in 2008, they will be Leninists.

Update 1.0: You can watch the spreading oil from the shipwreck alighting at Captain's Quarters (to whom I will link, though I'm sure Captain Ed doesn't read us).

America: Land of Religious Freedom!

Via T. Rev, we find yet another fine example of religious persecution in America. Did you know that a judge can take custody of your child away from you for going to a church event?

Is your church on the list of state-approved religious organizations whose members are permitted to raise children?

Diebold machines

To follow up a bit on S9's post about Diebold in California, LA Time Business columnist Michael Hiltzik did a column on the front page of the business section about the Diebold recertification, check it out here.

Kill Me Now— I Agree With George Bush

Kevin Drum explains the "PortGate" issue pretty well, and I think he's right. The President, for once, is being reasonable. Politically tone deaf, which is no surprise, but he has the right idea.

Update 1.0: I see the eminently reasonable Glenn Greenwald has gone on the record as not seeing what principle the President is violating by awarding this contract. He offers some pretty good rebuttals to the various arguments against the President's decision floating around.

I'll say this: the part of this that smells the worst to me is the cronyism.

Diebold Recertified In California

Via BradBlog and Seeing The Forest, we find the following press release. Yes, it's from the campaign office for a candidate for office. This one is serious. Here on S9 Station, our peak-load outrage generators are spinning up even as I write this...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Evan Goldberg
February 17, 2006 (916) 651-4028/(916) 855-9176

BOWEN ON SECRETARY OF STATE’S DECISION TO

RE-CERTIFY DIEBOLD MACHINES FOR USE IN CALIFORNIA

SACRAMENTO – “How the Secretary can re-certify the Diebold machines when they don’t comply with California law, they violate the standards set by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) that the Secretary said he intended to follow, and he still doesn’t have the report back from the ITAs that he said he was waiting for is beyond me.”

That’s how Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), the chairwoman of the Senate Elections, Reapportionment, & Constitutional Amendments Committee, reacted to today’s decision by the Secretary of State to re-certify Diebold’s electronic voting machines for the 2006 elections.

“Last December, the Secretary announced with great fanfare that he was sending the Diebold machines back for review by the Independent Testing Authorities (ITAs) because the memory cards those machines rely on hadn’t been reviewed,” continued Bowen. “Now, contrary to what he said two months ago, he’s approving the Diebold machines without waiting for the report from the ITAs. Instead, he’s basing his decision on a supposedly ‘independent state audit’ that no one has seen before today. There’s a March 1 public hearing for four other voting machine vendors before their machines can be certified for use in California, so what was the rush to certify Diebold and side-step a public hearing on this issue?”

Seventeen California counties rely on the Diebold optical scan machines and a number of other counties have bought or are planning to buy the Diebold TSx touch-screen machines to use in the 2006 elections in order to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The Secretary’s decision is only good for the 2006 elections and comes with a number of conditions.

“In August, the Secretary said any machine approved in California would have to comply with all federal standards and regulations, yet the EAC bans machines that contain interpreted code and these Diebold machines rely on that type of code to operate, so he’s gone back on that commitment,” continued Bowen. “In December, he said he’d wait for a report from the ITAs before acting on the Diebold re-certification request, yet now he’s re-certified the Diebold machines without hearing from the ITAs. He says he’s acting based on the recommendations of an ‘independent state audit’ that came out on Tuesday, but the California State Auditor hasn’t issued any reports on this issue and hasn’t been asked to do a report. Asking a board appointed by the Secretary to make recommendations doesn’t constitute an ‘independent state audit’ in my book.

“The other thing that no one has mentioned is the fact that the Diebold machines don’t comply with the state’s paper trail law because they don’t provide blind or visually impaired voters with a ‘read-back’ of what the paper trail recorded, they only read back what the machine recorded electronically,” noted Bowen. “That’s not what the law requires, yet the Secretary has decided to go ahead and approve these machines for use anyway. If the Secretary wants to say he’s changing his mind and lowering the safeguards California voters are entitled to have to ensure their votes are accurately counted, that’s certainly his decision to make, but saying these Diebold machines comply with state law and with all federal regulations and requirements simply isn’t accurate.”

Under Elections Code Sections 19250 and 19251, all direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems have to come with an accessible voter verified paper audit trail (AVVPAT). The AVVPAT must be “provided or conveyed to voters via both a visual and a nonvisual method, such as through an audio component.” The Diebold TSx doesn’t contain that feature, therefore making the AVVPAT that all DREs are required to have as of January 1, 2006, useless for blind or visually-impaired voters.

###

Once again, this news appeared late on a Friday.

Did we not tell you to watch these people like a hawk? They cannot be trusted.

I don't give a damn whether they are Republicans or Democrats— they can't be trusted. [Our Secretary of State, Bruce McPherson, is a Republican.] I recognize that Republicans are naturally contemptuous of the idea that fair elections produce good governments, whereas Democrats generally only embrace this position when they grow unnaturally demoralized, jaded and cynical after decades of Sisyphian struggle against the conservative noise machine. It's a distinction without a difference. You can't trust them.

How long have I been howling about the problems with digital voting systems?

How long have I specifically been complaining that Democrats are facing an existential threat in the form of these voting systems?

It would be funny if it weren't so sad. Democrats could turn the combination of the voting machine issue and the K Street Project scandals into the moral equivalent of the House Bank and Post Office debacle that allowed the Republicans to nationalize the 1994 Congressional elections. Instead, because they're Dumb As A Bag Of Hammers, they're letting the Mob run a blow-out operation on American democracy.

Mad props to Debra Bowen for standing up. [This press release came from her campaign.] She's running for Secretary of State against Bruce McPherson, and she— at least— seems to get it. More Democrats like her, please. Flow the Senator some love.

UPDATE 1.0: In the comments at BradBlog, Bev Harris (who is the whirling dervish behind BlackBoxVoting.Org) tells you what to do.

It's time to get busy boys and girls. [...] Forget injunctions. Forget calling the governor. Call the California Senate Rules Committee, who are all ears but need to log call volume to demonstrate political support. Ask them to subpoena the bastards. This will happen, so get your dialling fingers ready by Tuesday please.
[...]
Urge support for subpoenas of election industry and certification insiders who didn't testify on the 16th.

Contact list:

Senator Don Perata (Chair)
(916) 651-4009

Senator Jim Battin (Vice-Chair)
(916) 651-4037

Senator Roy Ashburn
(916) 651-4018

Senator Debra Bowen
(916) 651-4028 (Yes, call her too so she can log the support calls, it's important since it allows her to back her position from the grassroots.)

Senator Gilbert Cedillo
(916) 651-4022

Black Box Voting Inc. seldom puts out calls for grassroots pressure, as we feel this powerful tool can be diluted with over-use. But now is the time.

How to deliver your message

Be quick, be polite, be professional. Here's your message: ask for "Rules Committee support for subpoenas of election industry and certification insiders who won't otherwise inform the Elections Committee as to what's going on".

This is about volume of calls logged.
[...]

Click through the link and read her whole comment for more details.

Let's Bomb Iran!

Or maybe not... if you believe The Oxford Research Group. (And why shouldn't you? They pretty much called it exactly right on the question of what would happen if the United States invaded Iraq.)

Would it be too much to ask of Americans that they consider the likely consequences before launching a military operation against Iran?

I especially liked this part from the "US Context" section of their paper:

Although major difficulties have arisen with US military operations in Iraq, there is still a dominant feeling in neo-conservative circles in Washington that Iran is, and always has been, a much greater threat to US regional and global interests than Iraq was. A common view before the start of the Iraq War in March 2003 was that “if we get Iraq right, we won’t have to worry about Iran”. In other words, if military force proved easily able to terminate the Saddam Hussein regime and replace it with a stable client government supported by permanent US bases, then Iran would bow to US policy in the region, causing little trouble. The fact that Iraq was not “got right” and that there is considerable potential for Iranian influence in Iraq is one consequence of the decision to terminate the Saddam Hussein regime.

That trick never works.

The New Meme -- or -- Would the Congressional Dems Please Sound Off Like They Have a Pair!

This morning watching the House International Relations Commitee, China/Internet hearings and listening to the bloviating of some of my favorite wingnut dingbats, such as Dana Rohrabacher and Dan Burton about the hideous evil of American capital going to help the hated CHICOMs supress political dissent by dropping the dime on some of their Chinese customers to the local authorities.

So... fine, I would like to see a little less cooperation between Yahoo and Google and the PRC.

However, some of the Democratic members made a few salient and, really, pretty moderate points about how the U.S. Congress trying to tell other nations how to conduct their internal affairs might be counter-productive, or the appearance of hypocrisy when the current junta entrenched on Pennsylvania Avenue is working to strong arm those very same companies to cooperate with their internal spying operations.

The response: "Well, I guess since this is an election year, this kind of talk is to be expected from the other side, so I guess we just have to tolerate it..." This is close to the exact quote from Burton. This was echoed a moment later by Tom Tancredo.

This is the new meme. It's an election year, therefore anything any Democrat says that is critical of the administration is disingenuous and and nothing more than electoral posturing.

My question... why didn't Tom Lantos, or Sherrod Brown or Grace Nepolitano or Bob Wexler or Diane Watson come up over the table, twist his fscking dome off his shoulders and gnaw on his skull!? This one is so simple, how is it that the Firey Pimp Hand of the Old Testament does not beat these bitches down?

Why are they laying down for this? More to the point, why are their constituents letting them lie down for this?

Look, I know this is old hat by now; we know the Congress has largely abdicated oversight of the executive, and the Dems are too busy just trying not to rock the boat to be but watching the hearings and seeing it live and direct, so to speak, just gets me pig-biting mad... so I guess its a good thing I have this blog to vent on...

mojo sends

P.S. Yeah, Tom Tancredo the guy who wants to build a 800-foot wall around the United States and mine the harbors to keep out the undesirables is on the International Relations Committee... doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about the Republicans' take on foreign affairs.

This is interesting

Raw Story has a piece regarding the Valerie Plame Story. Apparently, according to this report, Plame was not some inactive desk jockey whose work was an open secret. Apparently, she was deeply involved in U.S. efforts at tracking A.Q. Khans Nuclear blackmarket ring, and Iran's nuclear program:

Three intelligence officers confirmed that other CIA non-official cover officers were compromised, but did not indicate the number of people operating under non-official cover that were affected or the way in which these individuals were impaired. None of the sources would say whether there were American or foreign casualties as a result of the leak.

Several intelligence officials described the damage in terms of how long it would take for the agency to recover. According to their own assessment, the CIA would be impaired for up to "ten years" in its capacity to adequately monitor nuclear proliferation on the level of efficiency and accuracy it had prior to the White House leak of Plame Wilson's identity.

Outing a covert agent to settle a political score is venal enough, but placing lives at risk and imparing our ability to counter one of the most significant emergening threats is worthy of criminal prosecution. This is shocking, even for these people. And listen scrubs, don't even roll in here and pimp the usual crap about how they could not have known or Scooter was too busy or any other crap you picked up from the mighty Wurlitzer. They should have shut the fsck up.

This story is still developing. We might never know the truth here. But this is disturbing to say the least.

Re: It's all about the Freedom

I was posting a comment to Mojo's piece, when I realized it was running too long and I should just make it a post.

It will not be easy for Hamas to make up from Iran or Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East the money the Palestinan Authority has been recieving from the European Union and the United States. It's a fair amount, over a billion, and while everyone in that region is happy to exploit the Palestian/Israeli Conflict for their own purposes, supporting them with hard cash has not been a part of that. Cutting them off is not entirely an empty threat.

Of course, as you point out, running around pimping Democracy as the solution for all your issues in the region, and that trying to undermine what is univerally accepted as a legal election is absurd to say the least. Not to mention that it was the United States that insisted on not putting off the election. And for Condi Rice to act surprised at the outcome is bizarre. Abbas told her Hamas could come out on top if they did not put off the election. They need to find a way to deal with Hamas.

This is not without precendent. The British have dealt with a Sinn Fein run by Gerry Adams, formerly the lmilitary leader of the IRA and a former terrorist himself. There is little doubt he was personally responsible for the deaths of civilians and British soldiers, and gave orders for others to do the same. Did anyone think the IRA would disarm for anyone else than Adams, with McGuinnes by his side? Of course not, and neither will Hamas disarm for Abbas or anyone else other than their own leadership. Democracy forces all kinds of strange bedfellows and difficult choices. This is another example of that.

If the Palestinans are cutoff from US and European support, and Hamas can survive without it, what leverage is left other than force? Now we are into the ethnic cleansing fantasies of Pat Robertson and the Evangelical nuthouse he speaks for, who openly want "Gods land" purged of the infidels. If that sounds like the rhetoric of the Crusades, kudos to you, that is exactly what it is. And it is just as crazy, racist, ethnophobic and evil. And it will not bring about the democrnirvana Daniel Pipesm, Michael Ledeen and the rest of the NeoCon fantasy brigage keep pimping. It is yet another dangerous outcome that leads further into chaos. Even the Israeli's don't want that. Their intent seems to be to extricate themselves from the West Bank with most of the settlements behind the Security Wall.

Let me make this simple for our Red State readers. You cannot make headway on any positive changes in the political climate of the Middle East without resolving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, period. Everyone from ememies like Bin Laden to alleged friends like the Saudi's exploit the conflict for their own purposes. The Palestinians are just a propaganda opportunity to them, they don't give a crap about improving their lives or resolving the conflict to help these people build a state.

Just to be clear, I have a very low opinion of Hamas. Hamas was instrumental in destroying the peace efforts that resulted from Oslo. The Palestinians have suffered from the renewal of the conflict that their bombing campaign began, not to mention the deaths of innocent civilians on both sides that resulted. I can understand the impulse to not want to reward them for this. But we insisted on Democracy and this is it. The Adminisration needs to be careful that the next outcome of their policy isn't worse.

Refuting Bushist Talking Points About The NSA Spying Scandal

eriposte at The Left Coaster has the canonical quick reference sheet for smacking back on GOP talking points about the NSA spying scandal. I'm thinking of formatting this as a flyer.

It's All About the Freedom, Isn't It? ... Isn't It?

So, Pravda on the Hudson reports this morning that Maximum Leader's desire to spread democracy throughout South Asia does indeed have its limits...

The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.


The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

Oh, yeah... "a reformed and chastened Fatah"... that'll happen... no really!

But beyond that bit of foreign relations vaporware, there is a real danger of attempting this for Israel that the author of the article hits pretty well...

The strategy has many risks, especially given that Hamas will try to secure needed support from the larger Islamic world, including its allies Syria and Iran, as well as from private donors.

There are more than enough screwheads in places like Tehran, Damascus, Riyadh, Cairo... even those bastions of liberal American-style democracy, Bagdad and Kabul who will be willing to pick up the tab for a Hamas dedicated to continue making trouble for Israel, and by extension the United States, and thereby securing their own political positions with iconic anti-Israeli demagougery.

I understand there is a little bit of a "chicken/egg" dichotomy here, but the basic problem is that we have nothing Hamas wants that they can't get elsewhere on better terms!

I think it would be a dire mistake to think that something like sanctions or international isolation will have the desired effect here. Seriously, Hamas has been an isolated organization internationally since its inception, except in those places where they want to be relevant. But now, I am supposed to believe that because "The West" won't take their phone calls, their leadership is going to shite themselves with woe?

And more importantly, what message does this send to the rest of a region that we are desperately trying to sell on the notion that "modern western democracy = good; medieval Islmaic theocracy = bad!" Sure, elections and freedom are all good, as long as you are doing the bidding of the United States. It reinforces every bad thing they think about U.S. intentions in South Asia.

Look, if it's about our hegemony in the region, then just say so, but please, Maximum Leader, Vice President Big Time, please stop the blathering about the spread of the freedom and democracy, when at the end of the day, you don't mean a fscking word of it!

mojo sends

Richard "May We Call You Dead-Eyed Dick" Cheney

O. M. G. The Subcommander-in-chief, Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man. Accidentally. Or, so they're saying.

They're actually trying to tell us this was a hunting accident. Now let's be clear— Dick Cheney does not hunt. Dick Cheney goes to game farms and wanders around shooting animals that are raised in pens and released just for rich, white guys, like him, to get wood by killing helpless defenseless creatures.

Remember when Senator Kerry was running for President in 2004, he went hunting in Ohio and claimed to have bagged a goose? He looked pretty ridiculous coming back empty-handed, didn't he? It was carefully staged— complete with brand new, never before used camouflage and shotgun. Yeah, I thought it was pretty lame, too. He deserved every bit of mockery that conservatives heaped on him for that stunt.

But... AT LEAST HE DIDN'T SHOOT ANY OF HIS FELLOW HUNTERS!

Check out Bob Geiger's Top Ten Excuses for Dick Cheney's "accidentally" shooting an old geezer.

All kidding aside, how fscked up do you have to be to make a mistake like this? This ought to be the wake-up call for Cheney's physicians. The patient is clearly not managing his medications, and he needs to be isolated and put under observation for a while. At the very least, he needs to have his guns taken away from him until he can pass a basic firearms safety class.

p.s. While we're on the topic of the latest Something Awful to come out of the Cheney Administration, would somebody please explain to me why the so-called "liberal" media needed eighteen whole hours before news of this event could become public?

Update 1.0 (by vanmojo): "It's only a flesh wound..." Looks like Whittington has suffered a minor heart attack after some of the birdshot got lodged in his heart... Any bets on exactly how long this guy's actually been dead?

White House Declares Congress Irrelevant...

It looks like some folks inside the beltway have been logging into the Wire this week. Ohio Republican Mike DeWine was reported in the WaPo yesterday as saying something along the lines that it's high time for Congress to reassert a little oversight authority over the White House vis-a-vis the NSA domestic spying scandal.

To wit: "We can end this controversy about the constitutionality of this program very simply, and that is to deal with it by legislation." Well, Mike, the whole, "we'll just pass a law and make it legal..." is not what I had in mind in my previous post; go back and re-read it please...

However, more troubling to me was the response to even this modest proposal from the White House:

Question from cheese-eating, surrender-monkey stenographer: Scott, why did the President change his mind and decide to expand the briefings in Congress about the NSA surveillance program and include more members, rather than just limit it to the handful?

Scotty Goebbels: [...] the President indicated previously that he would resist any efforts that would compromise this vital program. But we want to continue listening to ideas that are out there. The way that I would describe it is that there is a high bar to overcome for such ideas. But we will continue working with members of Congress as we move forward.

Let me translate that: "Go ahead and pass any law you want... Maximum Leader will obviate any law he feels will impede his personal power."

The odd part is that he's not even answering the question that was asked; he just started riffing on the President's perogative to ignore any law he doesn't like, as long has he can sell it as some sort of National Security issue. Basically, they don't want Congress trying to "make things legal." Even that just gets in the way.

They are working to completely cut Congress out of the legislation loop... or as Maximum Leader once said: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator." December 18, 2000

mojo sends

P.S. Here's another weird thing... reading through the gaggle transcript, certain words and phrases appear in bold type. What is that about? They're not links...

A Simple Solution...

Much is being made throughout the TDM this morning about the Senate Judiciary holding hearings into the NSA Domestic Spy Scandal.

Congress could resolve the issues involved here very easily, if they were truly interested.

On both the White House's intransigence on documents subpoenaed by the committee, and the spying in general; if Congress were serious about their concerns, they would pass a Joint Resolution to wit:

"It is the intent of the Congress of the United States of America that no funding will be used for the President's use of any national assets to conduct surveillance of any American person unless done under the auspices of the Foriegn Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978."

Or even easier: go back and reauthorize the AUMF with an explicit restriction or prohibition against this activity.

Is Congress doing that? No. And sure the President would ignore that law anyway, but at that point, there would be no legal choice for the Congress but impeachment. The issue would be clear for the Supremes at that point: Does the Article II, Sect. 2 Constitutional authority charging the President to be Commander in Chief allow the President to negate due-process authority as explicitly outlined by acts of Congress.

The answer to that will be "no." There is more than enough ample law on that particular question, from the Civil War up to this present. That is unless the court has finally become the witting accomplices to the President's attempted coup.

So I am glad they are having hearings, and Pat Leahy got into Al Gonzalez with both feet up to the neck this morning. What a choad that guy is, even with Chuck Grassley peeling grapes for him. But at the end of the day, there is not much these hearings are going to produce.

I can only hope the TDM will carry enough of the Gonzalez grilling and ask a few pointed questions of their own, to the point that Mr. and Mrs. Red State will finally get the picture that they voted for their own enslavement, and get the undecideds off the fence and get them excited about going to polls here in November and booting these cheap hustlers and thugs out of the temple.

mojo sends

Sigh. Not This Again...

Digby asks the perennial question of Democratic losers everywhere. "Since the Republicans have been successful in winning elections on national security, how should Democrats deal with it?" I say this question is for losers, because the answer ought to be obvious to anyone with two neurons to rub together.

Here's what I wrote in the comments there:

Democrats have exactly two options.

Option One: Call out the Republicans as cowards and fools. Don't mince words, and aim for their throats. Impugn their patriotism. Call their sanity into question. Declare them unfit for public service. Promise the voters courage, foresight and a return to sensible American values. When Republicans try to fire back with some variation of their tired mantra, "What would you do instead?" Answer: fire all the incompetent Republican panty-wetters currently warming seats throughout Washington, D.C. and replace them with the professionals these people have forced to wander in the wilderness for the last six years.

Option Two: Bend over and kiss their sorry asses into political oblivion.

Analyzing The Danish Anti-Islamic Cartoon Controversy

Sisyphus Shrugged has the clear-eyed take you need to read. It's long and it's tedious, but this is the analysis we are endorsing, and I don't want to hear any whinging in the comments unless you've read it all the way through.

Quel coinkydink, she says. Yeah. I'd say more than that, but the NSA is tapping my keyboard.

More About The Capitol Police and Cindy Sheehan

Glenn Greenwald surveys Wingnut Blogistan for signs that anybody on the conservatarian side of the street understands what actually happened Tuesday night. The results are not a promising sign.

So much for the idea that the conservative blogosphere in the aggregate is self-correcting.

Why The Secret Service Needs A Uniformed Division

As I wrote here, the NewImproved™ USA PATRIOT Act (cooling its jets in Congress while it waits for the Illegal NSA Wiretapping story to be bricked into the wall like Fortunato) includes a provision to expand the U.S. Secret Service uniformed branch into a division and give it greatly extended police powers to quash demonstrations of dissent.

Wouldn't it be nice to believe that this police power is necessary to address the rampant outbreaks of lawlessness, rioting, looting and pillaging that occurs every time the President appears in public?

Here is the redoubtable Glenn Greenwald explaining in acutely painful detail how what the Capitol Police did to Cindy Sheehan last night was an outrage. He concludes:

I still find the whole episode rather disturbing and suspicious. It is crystal clear that the law does not and cannot prohibit the wearing of t-shirts with political messages in the Capitol because t-shirts do not constitute a "protest" or a "demonstration." The Capitol Police's own rules say that expressly and a federal district court has held that the First Amendment does not permit the law to be applied so as to bar non-disruptive conduct.

The Capitol Police officers who removed and arrested Sheehan had to have known that. An after-the-fact apology and admission of wrongdoing, while nice, does not really remedy the misconduct, which still seems vaguely intentional and motivated both by the identity of the person arrested and her message.

And it is still unclear, to put it generously, why Sheehan -- who apparently complied with the request to leave -- was arrested and detained for four hours, while Young, who argued bitterly with the Police and even called the officers "idiots," was simply asked to leave and not arrested. All of this is such a significant story primarily because there is a long line of events under the Bush Administration where people with dissenting opinions are thrown out of public events and divergent views are kept far away from the Commander-in-Chief. This incident grew out of that climate and is clearly a part of it.

Yes, as you can plainly see, there is a huge, compelling need for a uniformed division of Secret Service agents planted in major cities all over America. (Where else do you find concentrations of consular offices?) When you can't count on the local cops to shit on the First Amendment for you, it helps to have your own solemnly sword Prætorian Guard wherever you might go— you know, just to make sure the pomp is first class.

We're going to need overwhelming numbers, comrades. We're a long way away from that. A long way.

Rack that Guy!

Don't hesitate, follow this link over to watch Keith Oblerman drop an asssskicking on William O'Reilly....


The shoutout to Ted Baxter from the Mary Tyler Moore show was the perfect dismount.
That settles it. Olberman's show is going into my TiVo Season Pass Manager.

Props Mr. Olberman, you have earned the Wire's seal of approval...check your mail for your official Mojowire decoder ring, not available in stores....

Fist of the West Side!: Live Blogging Rummy

Right now, SecDef Rummy is briefing with his pet press corps, talking about how he is happy that "attacks have fallen off to a lower level."

That's fine until he follows with "we would hope that we can sustain that lower level for the future..."

Hey Secretary Shit-For-Brains! What happened to "Total Victory over the insurgents"? Are you now saying that low intensity warfare and a sustained level of anti-American terrorism killing both our troops and innocent Iraqi civilians is the best we can hope for, no matter how many elections the insurgents "fail to stop"?

Thanks, Rummy, thanks a lot...

This morning he seems to be doing a lot of Fist of the West Side, along with some Cobra Palm and Lion's Claw styles... Now bitching about the horrible media what insists on reporting the things that people on the ground in Iraq and in the Pentagon say.

Occasionally one of these tame stenographers will get completely off the hook and compare the things being said here and there... Damn you Monkey... damn you to hell!

But now he's talking about training up the Iraqi army, turning over the failure of their state to them and how long that might all take... And now, for your moment of the Existential Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld:

"And the rate at which we will be able to do that,
will be exactly
the rate at which will be able to do that
and anyone who tries to say differently ...

would be extremely ...

foolissshhhh ..."

No shit, that was his exact cadence and tone...

mojo sends