Month: January 2009

Clockwork

by digby

It’s clear the Blue Dogs were calling shots behind the scenes in the House, but in the Senate the egos are too big for them not to get before the cameras and preen.

And so it begins:

The Washington Post reported this morning that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) “remains undecided about the bill“:

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who remains undecided about the bill, said he opposes money going to research projects at the National Institutes of Health and about $13 billion for Pell grants that help students pay for college. Nelson says the measures are worthy but do not belong in legislation designed to stimulate the economy.

Despite what Nelson says, both increased NIH funding and money for Pell grants are actually a wise use of stimulus dollars. According to Fox News, Nelson convened a meeting in his Senate office today with Senate Republicans and some Democrats who are seeking “common ground on how they can improve the $819 billion economic stimulus bill.” Nelson’s meeting included Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). In an interview with Fox News after the meeting, Nelson said he didn’t know how many Democrats, let alone Republicans, would vote for the stimulus plan “as it stands today”:

HEMMER: No Republicans voted for this measure in the House. Do you know of any Republicans on the Senate side that will vote yes as it stands today? NELSON: I don’t know, I don’t even know how many Democrats will vote for it as it stands today because a lot of my colleagues are not decided. They’re undecided on the bill as it is right now. Fortunately, we don’t have to take the vote on it right now. We have an opportunity to make some improvements.

I’m sure the Obama campaign was prepared for this. It is after all, written into the Democratic Party bylaws that conservative Democratic Senators must put the new Dem president in his place and make sure that no one in the country ever get the idea that he is really in charge.

This may be kabuki. McCaskill is a super Obama friend and may be playing a role on his behalf to help him gain a handful of Republican votes so they can call it bipartisan. (Let’s hope they don’t give away the store to do it…) But, the end result is the same, whether Obama is part of it or not. Conservative values and economic shibboleths will have been validated and going forward we will have to re-fight the battle from square one.

Everyone had better hope this stimulus works extremely well and doesn’t require any tweaking because in only one short week Republican profligacy is now forgotten and the conservatives have been affirmed as guardians of the public purse again. They have already taken back one of their most important points of power and they will use it. Their leader has said unequivocally that he wants Obama to fail, and he’s telling the truth.

Update: Speaking of bipartisanship, apparently Obama is thinking of appointing Republican Judd Gregg for the Commerce secretary. Gregg voted against the stimulus and SCHIP just this week, so its hard to see what he brings to the bipartisanship table or how that helps advance Obama’s agenda. But that’s the weird reality we have in DC since the Democrats won decisive mandate.

But this is just odd:

James Pindell, who has covered New Hampshire politics since 2002, tells Political Wire that the odds of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) taking the job of secretary of commerce are currently 65-35 if offered.

But Pindell notes that Gov. John Lynch (D), who would choose Gregg’s replacement in the Senate, “is the type of guy that would pick a Republican just because he is replacing a Republican and to bone up his bi-partisan credibility. Lynch has yet to comment on the issue — heck Gregg has yet to be appointed — but right now the money is on former Gov. Walter Peterson (R). He was chair of the ‘Republicans for Lynch’ committee, would vote with Democrats as much as Maine’s Senators do, and most likely wouldn’t run in 2010.”

It’s all the rage.

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Richard Perle Was Right

by dday

George Bush got his statue in Iraq after all.

A sofa-sized statue of the shoe was unveiled Thursday in Tikrit, the hometown of the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Baghdad-based artist Laith al-Amari described the fiberglass-and-copper work as a tribute to the pride of the Iraqi people.

The statue is inscribed with a poem honoring Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi journalist who stunned the world when he whipped off his loafers and hurled them at Bush during a press conference on Dec. 14.

In the Arab world, even showing someone the sole of a shoe is considered a sign of disrespect.

Look at the picture on that page, there seems to be no way it’s not from The Onion. And yet, with George Bush, anything is possible.

Heckuva job.

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“Ok, So What?by digbyOne of the most distrubing aspects of the use of taser torture devices is its common use on the mentally ill. Here, you have schizophrenic man, in custody, tasered and pepper sprayed mercilessly because he woulodn’t come out of his cell. He finally did when they told him he could call his mother.

New court documents reveal disturbing details of what happened to Reynaldo “Reny” Cabral, the young Orland man who became paralyzed from the neck down when he rammed his head against a wall during a schizophrenic episode in the Glenn County Jail. The CN&R has previously reported (”Breakdown in mental-health care,” Dec. 13, 2007) how, in the morning of Jan. 6, 2007, sheriff’s officers arrested Cabral after he assaulted his girlfriend, Torrie Gonzales, at his family’s Orland home. At the time, Cabral’s brother Arturo and others told them he was ill and needed medications. According to an amended complaint, the jail nurse, Donna Tomisch, and Jail Staff Cpl. Rosemary Carmen initially refused to receive Cabral until he’d had a psychiatric evaluation. However, a sheriff’s deputy, Brandy McDonald, told Carmen that there would be no evaluation “because inmate Cabral had tried to kill someone and that he needed to be in jail,” not sent to a mental-health facility. Over a period of several hours, while Cabral was kept in a holding cell, various people—his brother; his mother, Rosa Cabral; his girlfriend, who didn’t want him jailed; Tony Nasr, MD, a family friend; and officials at Butte County Behavioral Health, where he’d been placed on an involuntary hold just three days before—contacted the jail to say Cabral was mentally ill. Efforts to get him seen by health professionals were fruitless. A single call was made to Glenn County Mental Health, which punted responsibility to Dr. Robert Zadra, whose company, Sierra Family Services, was under contract to provide mental-health care at the jail. But Zadra was on vacation, and his office referred the matter back to GCMH, which in turn said it had no contract with the jail. There was a contract, but it was with Glenn Medical Center, the local hospital. In any event, there is a “handshake agreement” between the jail and Mental Health, said Scott Gruendl, the Chico City Councilman whose day job is director of Glenn County Health Services. “If the jail requires our assistance, we’re going to provide it,” he said. Not this time, apparently. By early the next morning, court documents continue, Cabral began hearing voices and showing signs of mental illness. He took off his clothes, vomited, and began throwing feces, urine and vomit around his cell. Jail staff wanted to move him into the padded “safety cell.” Lacking the help of a health-care professional, and without contacting anyone in Cabral’s family, they called in a total of four officers from the Willows Police Department and the Sheriff’s Office. Three Highway Patrol officers showed up later. Cabral wasn’t being violent, but Deputy Paulette Blakeley testified that he was “scooping water from the toilet in his cell and rubbing it on his body, and that the water, possibly containing his own waste, was spread elsewhere in the cell.” At this point, Willows PD Officer Jason Dahl ordered Cabral to come out of the cell. When Cabral refused, saying “I’m fine,” Dahl pointed his Taser weapon at Cabral “and said he would shoot him with it if he did not do as Officer Dahl demanded.” “Shoot me,” Cabral replied. The officers stormed the cell. By the time it was over, Dahl had alternately demanded that Cabral come out of his cell and, when he refused, Tasered him a total of eight times, for five seconds each time, over a period of 4-1/2 minutes. “Each time, the [officers] watched … Cabral react with great pain and slide down the wall, seeking protection of the toilet,” the documents read. The Tasering stopped only when the weapon’s battery ran out of charge. “The officers then left the cell but observed that … Cabral had reacted to the shocks by chewing on the telephone in the cell and observed that he was bleeding from the mouth.” And so it went. The officers again stormed the cell, this time using an electric stun-gun-type shield that they applied directly to Cabral’s wet, bare skin. Cabral slid to the floor in agony. When that didn’t convince him to leave, Dahl subsequently Tasered him three more times. Again the officers pulled back, this time to wait for the CHP to show up. Then, all seven officers went into the cell, determined to remove Cabral physically. Cabral was having none of it, continuing rather “to throw water on himself stating that he wanted to play with the water and that it was fun.” Officer Dahl then emptied a 4-ounce can of pepper spray on Cabral, covering his face, head, shoulder and back. Cabral used toilet water to try to wash it off but only got it in his eyes. When he asked to speak with his mother, the officers said he could if he came out. He did so and was quickly handcuffed. He wasn’t allowed to make the call. By 3:30 that morning, Cabral had finally been placed in the “safety cell.” It had “little or no light, no furnishings other than a drain in the floor, and no monitoring other than a small sliding window. … The walls had a thin coating of hard rubber.” Cabral was naked. The rest of the story already has been told—how Cabral, hearing voices from God and still stinging from the spray, charged into the wall head-first, breaking his neck; how he lay on the floor unmoving from about 4:45 that morning until nearly 2 in the afternoon, more than nine hours; and how he told jail staff he was paralyzed and several times asked for help but was ignored. Cabral’s civil suit names numerous defendants, from the officers at the jail to the heads of various county departments, including Gruendl. The CN&R left messages for several of the attorneys representing them, but only John Whiteside, of the Sacramento firm Angelo Kilday & Kilduff, representing the city of Willows and Officer Dahl, called back. The firm has filed a motion to dismiss, he said, on the basis that nothing the complaint alleges to have occurred is a violation of federal or state law. “In layman’s terms: ‘OK, so what?’” Whiteside said.

I won’t comment on that sadistic and inhuman comment. It speaks for itself.But the fact that there are no state or federal laws against torturing mentally ill citizens who are in custody seems to me to be an obvious problem in any country that considers itself to be even moderately civilized.
FYI: This is from the “About Torture” page from Amnesty International:

Methods of torture and its effects

Torture can be physical and include various techniques including: beating, whipping, burning, rape, suspension upside down, submersion into water almost to the point of suffocation, and electric torture with shocks of high voltage on various parts of the body, very often on the genitals.And it can be psychological, including threats, deceit, humiliation, insults, sleep deprivation, blindfolding, isolation, mock executions, witnessing torture of others (including one’s own family), being forced to torture or kill others, and the withholding of medication or personal items.Physical and neurological complications include soreness of wounds, painful scars, stiffness of limbs and muscles, atrophy and paralysis of muscles, hearing and vision loss, and persistent headaches. Torture survivors suffer psychological symptoms such as feelings of anxiety, guilt and shame, powerlessness in relation to the problems of everyday life, problems with concentration, poor sleep with frequent nightmares, and impotence.

Ok, so what?
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Tales From The Crypt

by digby

Back when this blog only had four readers, I wrote a lot about a crazy neocon fantasist by the name of Laurie Mylroie. She was someone that many people knew to be nutty and whose presence as an authority among the Bushies was an instant tip-off that the Iraq war was a bogus. Once the war became unpopular she disappeared from the scene, but apparently she never went away:

What’s Shameful, Now?

by dday

Barack Obama is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore.

President Barack Obama issued a withering critique Thursday of Wall Street corporate behavior, calling it “the height of irresponsibility” for employees to be paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year while their crumbling financial sector received a bailout from taxpayers. “It is shameful,” Obama said from the Oval Office. “And part of what we’re going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility.”

The president’s comments, made with new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at his side, came in swift response to a report that employees of the New York financial world garnered an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses last year. The figure, from the New York state comptroller, drew prominent news coverage.

The bully pulpit is important, and Obama has actually been successful in shaming Wall Street corporate titans at the margins. Maybe he’ll even claw back a couple billion in bonuses after this outburst.

Still and all, he IS the President, and he can probably get on the phone to Congress and, you know, tell them to pass the legislation the Senate is blocking that would put retroactive bonus limits on any firm who took TARP money.

[HR 384] Adds the stricter executive compensation limits from the auto bailout bill to firms that receive TARP money. The stricter limits include a ban on bonuses and incentives for to the 25 most highly compensated employees of a company, “any compensation plan that would encourage manipulation of such institution’s reported earnings to enhance the compensation of any of its employees,” and a mandate to divest in private airplanes. Notably, these stricter limits would apply retroactively to executives from companies that have already received TARP money.

Better than a “letter of assurance,” any day.

Furthermore, given the fact that Obama’s economic team and Wall Street executives have been in close collaboration about setting up a “bad bank,” which would wildly overpay (with taxpayer money) for worthless securities and enrich bank CEOs to the tune of $250 billion, Obama’s complaint borders on pathetic.

So, let me get this straight:

1. President Obama is outraged by the $18 billion going to salary bonuses on Wall Street;
2. President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner will make this point directly to Wall Street bankers;
3. The conversation will then return to exactly how President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner will give Wall Street bankers $250 billion in exchange for a bunch of worthless assests.

We’ll be LUCKY to get away with $250 billion. That’s only the remainder of the TARP II funds. The number being floated now by Wall Street is FOUR TRILLION. That’s something like 30% of GDP.

The cost of restoring confidence in U.S. financial firms may reach $4 trillion if President Barack Obama moves ahead with a “bad bank” that buys up souring assets.

The figure far exceeds even the most pessimistic estimates of how great the loan losses might be because there is so much uncertainty about default rates, which means the government may need to take on a bigger chunk of bank debt to ease concerns.

Goldman Sachs estimated that it would take on the order of $4 trillion to buy troubled mortgage and consumer debt. That number could shrink if the program were limited to only certain loans or banks, but it could also grow if other asset classes such as commercial real estate loans were included.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer has said that a number of experts thought that up to $4 trillion may be needed to buy the bad assets, an estimate that a Senate aide said was based on informal conversations with people in the industry.

In Obama’s defense, if you hide the words “billion” and “trillion,” 18 is bigger than 4.

There’s minor value in angry missives about bonuses, but there’s major value in, uh, four trillion dollars. Especially when the more elegant solution is to take over the insolvent banks and stiff the shareholders. But such things are forbidden hippie-talk.

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Legislative Terrorists

by digby

David Sirota tells it like it is:

How do you know House Republicans aren’t negotiating in good faith and are acting as legislative terrorists? Because their rantings are verifiably crazy (h/t Steve Benen):

Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, said that former President George Bush’s signature tax cuts in 2001 had created years of growth but that the nation’s problems started when Democrats regained majorities in Congress in the 2006 elections.

Again, only legislative terrorists desperate to sabotage the economy would make such deliberately insane statements. Only legislative terrorists would insist that the economy was Teh Awesome under George W. Bush. Only legislative terrorists would ignore the basic facts that most Americans innately know, and that were perfectly summarized by Washington Post.

These are people who have been waging a political jihad for a quarter century, so it makes sense. Here’s some typical ranting from their leader:

LIMBAUGH: I mean, if there is a party that’s soulless, it’s the Democratic Party. If there are people by definition who are soulless, it is liberals — by definition. You know, souls come from God. You know? No. No. You can’t go there.

That sure sounds like your garden variety unhinged terrorist to me. Sirota reminds us why it’s not a good idea to negotiate with terrorists, especially one with little power. It tends to do the opposite of what you want it to do.
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Odierno’s Revolt

by dday

In addition to an extremist Republican Party that wants no part of bipartisanship, and a Blue Dog caucus whispering in his ear about fiscal responsibility in a time of economic meltdown, Barac Obama has to contend with elements of the military, who are not on board with his plans, particularly in Iraq:

Among those consulted by the president was Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, who has developed a plan that would move slower than Mr. Obama’s campaign timetable, by pulling out two brigades over the next six months. In an interview in Iraq on Wednesday, General Odierno suggested that it might take the rest of the year to determine exactly when United States forces could be drawn down significantly.

“I believe that if we can get through the next year peacefully, with incidents about what they are today or better, I think we’re getting close to enduring stability, which enables us to really reduce,” General Odierno said as he inspected a polling center south of Baghdad in advance of provincial elections on Saturday.

General Odierno said the period between this weekend’s elections and the national elections to be held about a year from now would be critical to determining the future of Iraq. While some American forces could be withdrawn before then, he suggested that the bulk of any pullout would probably come after that.

“We are going to reduce forces this year,” the general said. “It’s the right time to reduce our forces here. I believe that Iraqis are making progress. It’s time for us in some places to step back and give them more control.” He added, “What we want to do is to slowly shift our mission from one that’s focused on counterinsurgency to one that’s more focused on stability operations.”

Odierno is speaking from the perspective of a commander responsible just for Iraq, and employing a Freidman Unit strategy ensures that he isn’t blamed for losing the war if things go awry. Ryan Crocker basically said the same thing the other day, warning against a “precipitous” withdrawal, but Odierno puts some numbers to it. And while there’s probably less conflict that there appears to be, owing for press bias toward internal squabbling, Odierno’s is a very shortsighted strategy. Marc Lynch explains this well.

The politics of this aside, I think that Odierno’s intention of keeping troops in Iraq through the national elections is dangerously wrong. The CFR/Brookings/Odierno “go slow” approach ignores the reality of the new Status of Forces Agreement and the impending referendum this summer — which may well fail if there is no sign of departing American troops. It sends the wrong messages to Iraqi politicians and the Iraqi population. It would badly hurt Obama’s credibility in the region and with Iraqis, who will see his most important public commitment fall by the wayside. And it would lose the unique window of opportunity offered by the transition to signal real change.

This strategy is also a recipe for endless delay. Given the very catalog of Iraqi political fissures and emerging conflicts that Odierno cites as reason to stay, there is little reason to think that conditions will be so much more stable at the end of this proposed year of caution. At that point the exact same conversation will ensue about why drawdowns are imprudent at this time — and does anybody believe that the people currently calling for prudence and high troop levels will suddenly reverse themselves a year from now when conditions look much the same as they do now? […]

A “down payment” of a public, significant drawdown in the early spring would send the correct signals to all relevant actors, while allowing plenty of time for commanders in the field to assess the impact and adjust accordingly. I hope that Obama is able to head off a battle with the military — and the military, a battle with Obama — by working together on such a strategy. Remember: Obama won the election.

At some point the fighting between internal forces in Iraq jockeying for power will bubble to the surface. Our presence or absence isn’t going to change that. So while we have a honeymoon period with a new President, we need to honor our agreements and let the Iraqis invest in their own country again, rather than waiting around for us to get out before doing so. Failing to meet our responsibilities outlined in the SOFA will anger Iraqis and also the world.

In a broader context, I think it’s just difficult to overstate the importance of ending the war and occupation in Iraq to advancing America’s broader international agenda. There were a lot of things wrong with the Bush administration’s policy, but in concrete terms the world is looking for a new approach to detention and torture, a new approach to Israel and Palestine, and a new approach to Iraq. Obama has acted decisively on the first item, has shown a lot of promise on the second, and needs to follow through on the third. Diplomacy with Iran, a renewed focus on the Afghanistan/Pakistan situation, a rapprochement with Europe, a partnership with China and our allies in Asia on the global economic situation, etc. all require us to get out of an Iraq-focused foreign policy. And the complexities of Iraq are such that the best way to do that is to get out of Iraq.

Absolutely. Odierno may be doing his job asking for more resources but Obama needs to guide this with an eye toward the overall foreign policy picture. Furthermore, his ability to dictate decisions to the military will be severely limited if he gives in on troop withdrawals and adopts the “go-slow” approach. His later policy pronouncements will ring hollow to the commanders who would carry them out. He would be seen as weak by the institutional forces. In many ways, this is a game of brinksmanship between an old guard military and a young President. And at stake is a severe loss of credibility inside and outside of government.

Obama has to hold to his campaign promise and a signed agreement with the Iraqis. It’s time to leave Iraq.

Fighting For The Underdog

by digby

Kathy G has written a wonderful post about Tom Geoghegan’s lifelong devotion to defending the underdog.

Specifically this one:

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Fire Hydrant Marking

by digby

Julia from Sisyphus Shrugged has discovered an interesting pattern in the media that may just explain some of the attitude we’ve ben seeing (via email):

Between Politico’s whining about Obama not answering his question during a press room visit, then when Jonathan Martin was mocked for being a whiner Ana Marie Cox announced that Obama’s visit was a big evil plan to make some reporter “look like an asshole,” Chuck Todd’s pressroom-as-Gitmo, the Times’ remarkably blunt warning that if he didn’t go to their dinner parties the villagers were going to shank him:

A new president’s first foray into the social scene in the capital can be heavy with symbolism, a hint of how the first couple plan to engage with unofficial Washington. Failing to do so could mean missing an opportunity to meet the press, make bipartisan overtures and advance the White House political agenda, as other presidents have discovered…

“The Carters made the vow that they would never get tangled up in Georgetown dinner parties, and indeed they did not,” said Diana McLellan, the author and onetime Washington gossip columnist. “They alienated their base, and it created a huge dislike of Carter. It was catastrophic.”

… and (non-churchgoer) Sally Quinn’s demand that he attend the church her friends go to. this looks a lot less like ideology and more like Broder/Roberts-style “this is our place” hydrant marking.

Obviously they’d like their “centrism” validated by someone the country actually has some respect for (in a country with sane politics, how tight you are with Rush Limbaugh probably wouldn’t be a big resume builder), but I suspect for most of them a few nicknames and some basketball would do just as well.

That makes sense. Obama doesn’t come from a proper blue blood family and isn’t a Republican, either of which would be sufficient for a lovely honeymoon. He’s got some serious work to do to prove to the village tabbies that he’s worthy of them. After all, they represent Real Americans…

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Democracy

by digby

Lambert caught an amazingly illuminating quote from Davos:

Quote of the day from Bloomberg:

[JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, speaking at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos today:] “Policy has been catch-as- catch-can. I haven’t yet seen people get all the right people in the room, close the damn door, put all the problems on the wall and come up with a solution.”

Ah yes, “the right people.” Rarely are the thoughts of the nasty little oligarchy that rules our world so clearly expressed!

No kidding.

Funny, it seems to me it was all those “right people” who got us in this godforsaken mess in the first place.

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