Month: December 2005

Kipmas Is Coming

by digby

Everyone needs to go and over to The Poorman and vote for the Soggy Biscuit award for the year’s best circle jerk and the Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearls cluster award for wounded feelings. The competition is very tough this year, vote early and vote often.

Also, seriously, throw some money to the gang at Wampum so that they can sponsor another great Koufax awards this year. It’s great fun and helps build the liberal blog community by introducing us to new blogs and overlooked posts. I’m the incredibly lucky recipient of two of those babies and am ridiculously proud of the achievement.

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Credibility Gap

by digby

A few people have e-mailed me today to tip me to this story in the NY Times about the NSC pollster who wrote the first draft of the president’s “victory” speech last week.

I try not to do this too much because, well, it’s stupid, but I can’t help but point out that I’ve been harping on this for months, as my regular readers know. In fact, I wrote about it again the day before Bush’s speech last week when I heard him say “We wanna WIN” at that press conference at the border. I am not in the least bit surprised that the speech originated with this fellow: they are desperate to believe that he’s right and all they have to do is sell victory to get their poll numbers back up.

This advisor, Peter Feaver and a partner Christopher Gelpi produced a study that purports to prove that Vietnam wasn’t “lost” because of mounting casualties; it was because the American people became convinced we were losing when the political leadership became irresolute. I’m not qualified to comment on the data which I haven’t seen anyway, except to say as someone who was there at the time that this is bullshit. The problem was the “credibility gap.” Ordinary citizens just didn’t believe a word the government said about the war after a certain point because it had been pumping the country full of horseshit happy talk for years. Nobody knew what the truth was, except that the war just seemed to go on and on forever, kids were dying in great numbers with no real progress and no real purpose.

Mr Feaver seems to believe that the country still trusts George W. Bush. But they have to be delusionary to believe they could sell a war on a “grave and gathering danger” of “a smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud” and then think that they could maintain their credibility when it turns out that there was actually — nothing. They shot the moon and lost.

In that respect, Iraq is quite different from Vietnam. Vietnam wasn’t based on one big huge lie, but a succession of lies over a long period that only came into focus over time. Iraq was sold as a dramatic necessity in a big, brash marketing campaign with slogans and theme songs in a very short period of time for specific and memorable reasons that still echo loudly just two years later.

THE PRESIDENT: This is a guy who was asked to declare his weapons, said he didn’t have any. This is a person who we have proven to the world is deceiving everybody — I mean, he’s a master at it. He’s a master of deception. As I said yesterday, he’ll probably try it again. He’ll probably try to lie his way out of compliance or deceive or put out some false statement. You know, if he wanted to disarm, he would have disarmed. We know what a disarmed regime looks like.
I heard somebody say the other day, well, how about a beefed-up inspection regime. Well, the role of inspectors is to sit there and verify whether or not he’s disarmed, not to play hide-and-seek in a country the size of California. If Saddam Hussein was interested in peace and interested in complying with the U.N. Security Council resolutions, he would have disarmed. And, yet, for 12 years, plus 90 days, he has tried to avoid disarmament by lying and deceiving.

Yes, John, last question, then we’ve got to go swear the man in.

Q Sir, if the Security Council doesn’t go along with you, what happens then?

THE PRESIDENT: I have said that if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. And I mean it.

You can’t convince the country that we are winning against all evidence to the contrary once you have been proven an ass on that scale. The game was up for Bush as soon as people fully realized that the WMD threat didn’t exist. Either Bush was a liar or an idiot. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen until after the last election.

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Cakewalk

by digby

General Dempsey also said a key part of the training for the Iraqi forces involves how to operate in a democratic society. He said the troops and police need to develop loyalty to the government, rather than local tribes, militias or ethnic groups. They are also taught respect for human rights, and they are educated about the need to avoid corruption, which experts say is widespread in Iraqi society. In that regard, General Dempsey says the newly trained troops are doing better than the government ministries that are supposed to be supporting them. “They are taking an honest shot at corruption, and our intervention into these ministries in significant numbers I think is helping in that regard. But, you know, there are some bad habits that have to be overcome here,” he said.

Oh sure, some people may carp that it’s difficult to “train” the Iraqis in human rights when you legalize torture, cover up systemic prisoner abuse, contractor shootings and innumerable cases of innocent people being caught up in sweeps and imprisoned and harshly interrogated for months with no due process. And some bedwetters will complain that by buying off the press and installing friendly politicans and negotiating sweetheart deals for oil that we are actually embedding corruption in the new government before it’s even formed.

But this is war, right? We can’t pussy foot around. We have to win. We have to use these harsh wartime methods so we can stand down and the Iraqis can stand up. Which they will do just as soon as we train them to believe in loyalty to the government and human rights and honest politics.

Why is it that everyone keeps saying that Bush’s strategy won’t work?

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Alito Night Music

by digby

Samuel Alito is a real piece ‘o work:

From TChris at Talk Left:

If a police officer doesn’t know why a suspect is fleeing, it’s reasonable for the officer to shoot the suspect to death and ask questions later. As you pause to consider the absurdity of that proposition, ask yourself why a government lawyer would consider it reasonable for an officer to shoot and kill an unarmed teenager who had just stolen $10 in a burglary. And then ask whether a lawyer who expressed that belief should serve on the Supreme Court.

As an assistant to the Solicitor General, Judge Alito weighed in on a case involving an officer who was investigating a possible burglary. The officer heard a door slam, then went to the backyard where he “shined his flashlight on a youth who appeared to be unarmed and who was trying to climb a six-foot-high chain link fence to escape.” The officer “seized” the kid by shooting him in the head.

“I think the shooting [in this case] can be justified as reasonable,” Alito wrote in a 1984 memo to Justice Department officials. Because the officer could not know for sure why a suspect was fleeing, the courts should not set a rule forbidding the use of deadly force, he said. “I do not think the Constitution provides an answer to the officer’s dilemma,” Alito advised.

When in doubt, blow their brains out. That’s the kind of thoughtful, deliberate analysis we need on the Supreme Court.

When the case was decided, we had a majority of non-psychos on the court:

The 4th Amendment forbids “unreasonable searches and seizures” by the government, and the high court said that killing an unarmed suspect who was subject to arrest amounted to an “unreasonable seizure.”

“It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape,” wrote Justice Byron White for a 6-3 majority in Tennessee vs. Garner. “Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so.”

Said White: “A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead.”

The burglar who stole $10.00 was only 15 years old.

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Keep Up Your Campaigning Chops

One of my readers sent this in and I thought I’d pass it along so that anyone so inclined could do a little phone banking for a good Democrat here in California.

I’m looking for people who can use their free cellphone minutes for
an hour this weekend to help elect a Democrat to Congress from my
district. We’re making phone calls to remind people to vote in the
special election this coming Tuesday, December 6. You can do the
whole thing from your home, using a cellphone and an Internet
connection. Here’s what you do.

Write to ca48@easyco.com and say that you want to do “virtual
phonebanking for Steve Young.” You’ll be sent a user ID, password,
and a URL. Go to that URL and log in, and you’ll see two scripts (one
for live people and one for messages) and a list of 50 Democrats to
call.

It takes very little time since some of the numbers are disconnected
and others are just voicemail. It’s unlikely you’ll get more than 1
or 2 live people.

The main points to get across are:

1) There’s a special election this coming Tuesday and your vote is
crucial!
2) There’s a terrific Democrat in the race and he can win if you
vote.
3) There are over 100,000 Democrats in our district and if just half
of them vote we can send a Democrat to Congress.
4) Please send Bush a message — vote on Tuesday for Steve Young.

Check out his web-site, here. He’s a good guy.

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As The Army Stands Down, The Contractors Will Stand Up

Crooks and Liars is featuring a story today about yet more murdering contractors. Bookmark it for your burgeoning “why America is becoming a rogue nation” file.

Has anyone bothered to ask whether withdrawal of the military would mean withdrawal of contractors? Somehow, I doubt it. Our private army that answers to no one but its owners so it doesn’t have to deal with all these messy old fashioned “laws” and “regulations” is going to be in Iraq for a long, long time.

I have little doubt that Rummy and Cheney have realized that it’s a little more expensive since you have to pay the soldiers more than a hundred grand a year, but they’re worth it. They’re not hung up on all this honor and tradition crap. They know how to get the job done. But they aren’t really mercenaries because they only torture, abuse and kill for America. They are patriots. Plus, we pay really well. So that’s good.

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Thinking Outside The Box

by digby

I was reading this incisive post on corruption at the Poorman and had a revolutionary idea. The Editors:

Imagine that. Elect gangsters, get gangsterism. Look, it’s a great thing that DeLay and Abramoff & Co. are getting in a bit of legal trouble now, but don’t pretend that this is some example of the system working and the balance being restored, because it isn’t. The worst case scenario for these guys is to spend a few years in a the nicest prison on Earth, followed by a career as an absurdly well-compensated and influential lobbyist, and kickbacks galore for you and yours. You can get a few years in prison for downloading mp3’s on the internets, and your chances of getting a trashbag full of cash and a cake job when you come out the other end are very, very, very slim. And a decade or so of federal legislation is arguably worth even more than kelis_milkshake.mp3. Justice for these people, and for us, would be massive jail sentences for everyone involved, a mass nullification of nearly every piece of legislation and every judicial appointment since 1994 (at least), and the guilty parties and their bagmen paying us restitution with interest. That would make things right. Lots of luck. Whatever slap on the wrist these guys get, we got taken.

This is another one of those un-unshittable beds, I’m afraid, so it makes a lot more sense to concentrate on not shitting it in the future. Step one, obviously, is to get rid of the crooks, or, as they are known in polite company, “the Republicans”. But as long as the system is what it is – as long as you can gainfully set up a blatantly corrupt political machine like DeLay’s, and make money hand-over-fist for years in exchange for a possible plea bargain down the road – this kind of behavior is going to continue. While it may be a little hard to imagine the Democrats (or the Greens, or the International Society of Con Men and Embezzling Liars) ever being able to top the standard set by these current Republicans, I’m sure they’d be willing to give it the old college try. Because if they won’t, someone else will.

Since I see little hope that the system is going to be reformed, it occurs to me that we liberals should just hire ourselves some lobbyists. Really. We spend many, many millions on political campaigns that get us zilch. Nada. We should just raise funds to buy congressmen yachts or send them to Australia on vacation or hire their wives at 5 grand a month to survey what congressmen like for dinner. These guys go cheap when you really think about it. They’ll do pretty much anything you want for a golfing trip. We’d actually save money just by buying them all French commodes. In exchange we get them to vote for national health care and legal gay marriage and a $15.00 minimum wage.

I think we should consider it. At this rate, it’s going to be 2100 before we ever get a chance to renact any true progressive legislation the old fashioned way, if then. It’s time we in the reality based community faced the music. If you want something done in our government, you have to pay top dollar for it.

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Heckuva Job

by digby

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. CNN is reporting yet another propaganda boondoggle — FEMA’s “Recovery Channel” in New Orleans. One segment even features a military officer talking about all the good work that FEMA is doing rebuilding the schools. CNN investigated and found out the school in question was really two hours away from new orleans and that virtually all the schools in new orleans are in shambles.

My favorite part was the story about how “our Commander In Chief lent a hand” in the rebuilding.

Apparently, when FEMA realized that CNN was asking questions about this taxpayer funded propaganda operation, they issued a statement saying that they were going to revamp the whole thing and remove all editorial content.

The question now is what department of the Bush administration isn’t using tax dollars to promote the President and the Republican party’s political agenda?

Update: Here’s the transcript

PHILLIPS: Chances are you’ve never heard of it, but Recovery TV is spreading the word about this year’s devastating hurricanes and the federal government’s response. And whether you think it warrants cheers or jeers, you’re paying the bills.

Here’s CNN’s Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Far from the cleanup, the debris and the angry public meetings.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need some answers.

FOREMAN: Seventy miles from Washington in the Maryland countryside, it’s show time for FEMA.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In times of crisis, the best help is often just a source of reliable information.

FOREMAN: This is the “Recovery Channel,” produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and airing around the clock via satellite and the Internet.

DIANNA GEE, RECOVERY CHANNEL ANCHOR: It could be the best day and the worst day. The day you finally get to go back to your storm- damaged home.

FOREMAN: FEMA conceived the channel years ago to spread important information after disasters. Following Katrina, it was on in shelters, a plain display about rebuilding, financial aid, help and more. But now, with FEMA accusing the mainstream media of failing to provide enough of that info, the “Recovery Channel” has undergone a makeover.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay with us. Together, we can build a bright future.

FOREMAN: And at the Annenberg School of Communication, Professor Joe Turow says it’s turned into propaganda.

JOE TUROW, ANNENBERG SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION: Most of the information was really not the specific kind of factual information one might think, but rather feature and fluff pieces that seemed designed to aggrandize FEMA, and actually the Bush administration, too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to thank FEMA for all they’ve done for us.

FOREMAN: Certainly, the channel conveys no public frustration with FEMA. When the channel was airing this,

JAMILAH FRASER, RECOVERY CHANNEL ANCHOR: The massive effort to clean up Louisiana is still topping our coverage. And to speed up this process, our commander in chief steps in with some additional assistance.

FOREMAN: CNN was airing this: UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What’s wrong with you, Uncle Sam? You drunk? Huh? What you doing with our tax money? Come on, you need to go to rehab, brother.

FOREMAN: Consider this “Focus On Education” report.

FRASER: But one New Orleans school refused to let the doors of education close on them. They just rolled in the wheels of knowledge.

FOREMAN: This segment, this week was about FEMA bringing trailers to a school where a tree destroyed several classrooms.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And all of us without FEMA would not be able to be standing here today.

FOREMAN: But this school is not in New Orleans. It’s two hours north and there was no information about more than 100 devastated schools actually in the city, where by the way, almost 8,000 school employees have just been told they’ve officially lost their jobs.

FRASER: Good information for good decisions.

FOREMAN: Another concern. The FEMA logo appears often, but much of the language on the channel suggests it is independent of the very government agency that is running it.

FRASER: Today our lead story is FEMA’s top priority: Housing. A two-week extension for those evacuees in hotels. That’s what FEMA is saying today.

FOREMAN: Critics on Capitol Hill have repeatedly suggested the administration is misusing public funds for domestic propaganda. Senator Frank Lautenberg is one of them and he watched the channel at our request.

SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG (D), NEW JERSEY: The way this is being done, it’s a fakery. And it shouldn’t — it should be identified as a government product.

FOREMAN: When we contacted FEMA, a spokesperson defended the channel, but after reviewing the questions CNN raised, sent this statement: The agency, it says, is taking immediate measures to ensure that all programming is unmistakably labeled as an official FEMA resource. And it’s eliminating any editorial content.

They just can’t help themselves.

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Political Grease Monkeys

by digby

If a partisan impeachment, unprecedented recall elections, bogus voter roll purges, uncheckable voting machines and Supreme Court chosen presidents didn’t convince you that the Republicans are trying to undermine the fundamental electoral processes of our Democratic system, this one should lay any questions you have to rest:

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

[…]

The 73-page memo, dated Dec. 12, 2003, has been kept under tight wraps for two years. Lawyers who worked on the case were subjected to an unusual gag rule. The memo was provided to The Post by a person connected to the case who is critical of the adopted redistricting map. Such recommendation memos, while not binding, historically carry great weight within the Justice Department.

[…]

The Texas case provides another example of conflict between political appointees and many of the division’s career employees. In a separate case, The Post reported last month that a team was overruled when it recommended rejecting a controversial Georgia voter-identification program that was later struck down as unconstitutional by a court.

Mark Posner, a longtime Justice Department lawyer who now teaches law at American University, said it was “highly unusual” for political appointees to overrule a unanimous finding such as the one in the Texas case.

“In this kind of situation, where everybody agrees at least on the staff level . . . that is a very, very strong case,” Posner said. “The fact that everybody agreed that there were reductions in minority voting strength, and that they were significant, raises a lot of questions as to why it was” approved, he said.

There have been many reports of career civil service employees leaving the government because of this behavior. If the Republicans’ corruption and greed manages to lose them the congress, (and hopefully the presidency) there is going to have to be a massive investigation into who has replaced these employees to make sure that a permanent patronage machine hasn’t been put in place in the Federal Government. That is, of course, what they wanted to do, but it’s likely that they haven’t had enough time to fully implement it.

If, on the other hand, they are not brought low by their corruption and ineptitude in the very near future, we may not get another chance to fix this. The best news I’ve heard all week is this NY Times article in which it’s shown that the Justice Department is finally taking a close look at the crooked K Street Project:

Investigators are said to be especially interested in how Tony C. Rudy, a former deputy chief of staff to Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, and Neil G. Volz, a former chief of staff to Representative Bob Ney of Ohio, obtained lobbying positions with big firms on K Street.

The hiring pattern is “very much a part of” what prosecutors are focusing on, a person involved in the case said. Another participant confirmed that investigators were trying to determine whether aides conducted “job negotiations with Jack Abramoff” while they were in a position to help him on Capitol Hill.

Prosecutors are trying to establish that “it’s not just a ticket to a ballgame, it’s major jobs” that exchanged hands, the participant in the case said. Also under examination are payments to lobbyists and lawmakers’ wives, including Mr. Rudy’s wife, Lisa Rudy, whose firm, Liberty Consulting, worked in consultation with Mr. Abramoff, people involved in case said.

What began as an inquiry into Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying has widened to a corruption investigation centering mainly on Republican lawmakers who came to power as part of the conservative revolution of the 1990’s. At least six members of Congress are in the scope of the inquiry, with an additional 12 or so former aides being examined to determine whether they gave Mr. Abramoff legislative help in exchange for campaign donations, lavish trips and gifts.

It may be difficult for prosecutors to translate certain elements of the case into indictments. Bribery, corruption and conspiracy cases are notoriously difficult to prove. But the potential dimensions are enormous, and the investigation, at a time of turmoil for the Bush administration, threatens to add a new knot of problems for the party heading into the elections next year.

Let’s hope so. The K Street project is the heart of the big money and ihnfluence machine that built the party since the 1990’s.

Update:

Here’s Steny Hoyer’s statement on the redistricting issue.

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“Land-grabbing Yids”

by digby

I’ve written before about the possibility of an impending implosion in the Christian Right. You don’t put behind thousands of years of sectarian competition just because Paul Weyrich needs a voting block. One of the oddest marriages of convenience in this block has always been the fundamentalist armagedonists and the right wing Jews, seeing as the gleeful worldenders view the destruction of the Jews as a requirement for the rapture. But it’s been a convenient political alliance among certain Republicans so that’s been overlooked.

But guess what. When the “yids” don’t behave, here’s what you get on Tim LaHaye’s web site. From Max Blumenthal:

The Christian right sure gets its panties in a bunch when Jews act without their permission. Recently, a speech by the ADL’s Abe Foxman denouncing the Christian right’s theocratic agenda provoked a Gangland-style threat from James Dobson minion Tom Minnery — “If you keep bullying your friends, pretty soon you won’t have any.” Then, in response to Ariel Sharon’s Gaza pullout and subsequent formation of a new, centrist party, Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind Prophecy Group leapt into the fracas with some good, old-fashioned anti-Semitic slurs.

In an article entitled “Will the Goyim Win?” published on the official site of best-selling author Tim LaHaye (who also operates an annual Holy Land tour for evangelicals), “Christian journalist” Stan Goodenough takes Israel and the Sharon government to task for trading land for peace. In breathless prose, Goodenough bemoans the Israelis’ supposed surrender of “the cradle of their nationhood, the burial places of their national patriarchs and heroes.”

Then, he proceeds to pile it on:

But do you know what, Jews of Israel – and those Jews still in exile who so fervently support this way? You may think that in so acquiescing, you are setting a glowing example to the nations of the world.

But as far as these nations are concerned, the last thing they will want to do is emulate you. All you are doing is proving them right in their long-held belief that you are illegitimate, land grabbing, not-to-be-trusted Yids. And, as far as the Muslim world is concerned, your actions only confirm their view of you as a dhimmi nation, fit only to be ruled over by, and subdued under, Islam.

Ah yes, more of that sophisticated right wing geopolitical strategy. Chest thump and bellow your way to “victory.” (I don’t know what happened to them in the schoolyard, but it stunted their intellectual growth.)

And apparently if the Israelis don’t follow their edict to blow themselves up for Jesus, they will be seen as “land-grabbing yids” and lily livered cowards too. That was a short trip from A to B wasn’t it?

Get ready for more of this as various Christian sects come in to conflict as well. It’s only a matter of time before they start fighting among themselves.

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