Month: February 2009

Never Underestimate…

by dday

The Capitol has a power plant that heats and cools all federal buildings in Washington. And it is a carbon-spewing, dirty-energy, coal-fired power plant. On Monday, there will be a mass civil disobedience action in Washington, with over 2,500 protesters descending on the Capitol Power Plant for a nonviolent sit-in. Prior to that, the top two Congressional leaders called for a 100% shift to natural gas at the power plant by the end of the year.

Today, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid released a letter asking the Capitol Architect to switch the Capitol Power Plant from coal to 100 percent natural gas by the end of 2009. Pelosi and Reid’s call comes just three days before more than 2,500 people from across the country are coming to converge at the power plant for the biggest civil disobedience on climate issues in U.S. history. Prior to the announcement of the Capitol Climate Action, pro-coal legislators had been able to prevent the switch from coal to natural gas.

“Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid’s dramatic action shows that Congress can act quickly on global warming when the public demands it,” said Greenpeace Deputy Campaigns Director Carroll Muffett. “This move demonstrates that they recognize the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for a switch to cleaner energy sources.”

In other words, Congressional leaders were pushed by a grassroots action to call for sweeping change. It should be a shift fully to renewables, but hey, they’re politicians, they’re going to need prodding. But this is a fairly bold step.

Coal makes people sick and this country can’t afford more coal burned into the atmosphere, from an environmental and a public health standpoint. Oscar-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen have released a new satirical video aimed at the coal industry’s deceptions on “clean coal.”

Pass it around and maybe before long, your local or federal representatives will start calling on switching power plants near you away from coal. Industry and their PR spinners will never stop trying to keep the old, dirty energy structures in place. We can’t stop either.

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Serious Putz

by digby

From today’s “why are we listening to you?” file:

Mitchell: Do you agree overall, that we can build up in Afghanisatan and pull down at the rate, the pace[in Iraq] that President Obama is now anticipating?

Michael O’Hanlon: Yeah I think so. Let’s also realize that we don’t have much of a choice. The Iraqis want us to leave. The Iraqis are in a very middle ground. They want us to keep working with them at the appropriate level, but they want to increasingly run their own affairs and they would prefer to do everything on their own, naturally. They’re a proud people and so we’re going to have to keep downsizing. That’s really not at issue. The only question would be how fast. The thing I like most about President Obama’s plan — really there are really two aspects. One, that we can be fairly gradual this year, a year that’s really crucial in Iraq, where there are still some key fragilities in the situation. And then second, even after the quote unquote draw down is complete, we will still have about 50,000 US troops, including five or six new types of brigades that are described as advisory brigades but which also have a lot of combat capabilities, just in case.

So it’s a prudent, hedging plan that allows for flexibility in the future. I think that’s the right way to think about future Iraq strategy.

Mitchell: To build up if they need to, or rebuild back if they need to.

O’Hanlon: Or slow down the draw down if necessary.

Mitchell: Exactly. Let me ask you about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s decision to go ahead and investigate CIA alleged abuses, interrogation techniques and wiretapping, even though according to a CBS New york Times poll most people don’t think — 58% — don’t think that that’s necessary, yet the Senate Intelligence Committee is going to proceed. 37% want the hearings, 58% don’t want the hearings. CIA obviously doesn’t want the hearings. The administration, President Obama has signaled that it’s time to move on. Do you think these hearings are a good idea?

O’Hanlon: That’s a tough question. I think hearings on this kind of a topic can be useful if they help firm up and document a consensus that’s begun to emerge. And that’s what I would hope out of this. because I don’t think we should re-litigate this problem or essentially punish companies that were following what they thought was the letter of the law at the time. So I take the same position that Obama and Bush and others have.

But, nonetheless, congress has an oversight role. It takes that job seriously. And it needs, perhaps to go through some of these questions one more time and to write a report that future generations can consult. So if it serves that purpose then I think there may be a benefit.

Big of him.

First, this morning all the gasbags are talking about how Obama may not be leaving enough troops in Iraq because there’s a good chance he’ll need to build back up. One gets the feeling that this is a piece of village conventional wisdom — that the draw down is a nice idea but that we’ll be building back troop levels at some point because we’ll “have” to, the reasons for which aren’t specified and which hasn’t been debated as far as I know.

And why anyone is asking Michael O’Hanlon for his insights into Iraq policy is beyond me. I know he is very, very serious and all, but really, he only muddles the issue. One is tempted to dismiss any idea he has out of hand because he has no credibility.

And as for his opinion on the congressional investigation, well let’s just say that if you could hear the condescending sneer in his voice as he opined that congress does have a role to play (not a great as his own of course, because he is very, very serious) you would want to throw your shoe at the television. He is a perfect little villager, expressing contempt for the idea that people of good stock (like high paid corporate lawyers and government officials) could have possibly known that they were breaking the law. And dear me, even if they did it was for our own good.

I find it quite telling that O’Hanlon sees prohibitions against torture and spying on Americans without a warrant as a “consensus that’s begun to emerge.” I suspect that would come as a surprise to the people who wrote the constitution, but hey, baby steps.

O’Hanlon thinks it’s probably fine if the little people (who take their jobs seriously, don’t you know) want to write a cute little report for future generations to peer at curiously, but one certainly needn’t go any further than that. And I can understand why he would believe this. If you start going down the path of holding people responsible for the things they said and did — or, worse, what they got wrong — why, that could spell a lot of trouble for serious people like him. Best not go there.

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They No Likee

by digby

For some reason “conservatives” don’t like the budget and it’s very hard to understand. They say they are very concerned about costs, but back when trillions were being spent on a useless war in Iraq year after year( millions of it “lost” just sitting around by the pallet load in the Emerald City) they didn’t blink an eye. So it’s pretty clear they don’t mind deficit spending, its just deficit spending that actually benefits Americans they object to. Good to know.

Wizbang: Change we can deceive
Michelle Malkin: Spendzilla! Fun facts about Obama’s budget-busting budget
Power Line: Soak the Rich!
Power Line: Obama’s Budget: The Beginning of the End?
RedState: What Will Obama’s Budget Cost You? $25,573.48…EACH!
Hot Air: The Obama plan: massive tax hikes
Hugh Hewitt: Soaking The Rich Means Crippling Churches, Charities, and Home Values
Patterico’s Pontifications: Obama’s Budget: What the [String of Expletives Deleted]ing [Still More Deleted]
National Review Online – The Corner: I Don’t Want To Pay For It
National Review Online – The Corner: Over $1 Trillion in Tax Increases

Very,very shrill.

Speaking of which, Paul Krugman (who likees the budget very much) wrote the other day that the Republicans had become the party of Beavis and Butthead, reduced to pulling out funny-sounding budget items to mock. I agree, naturally, but I think the press has an awful lot to do with it as well. They looove that stuff.

And yesterday, a funny thing happened. Here’s Jack Cafferty, obviously thinking he was going to get a bunch of outraged responses to the “crazy” spending in the budget:

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: The House of Representatives passed a $410 billion spending bill. It is loaded with pork, courtesy of both parties.

“The New York Times” reports one watchdog group says the bill includes $8 billion for more than 8,500 pet projects. Among them are these: $1.7 million for a honey bee laboratory in Texas; $1.5 million for work on grapes and grape products, including wine — this is my favorite — $1.8 million to research swine odor and manure management in Iowa. They could do the same research in Washington, D.C.

Smaller-ticket items include asparagus research in Washington State; wool research in Montana, Texas and Wyoming; rodent control in Hawaii; and on and on and on.

Democrats earmarked about $40 million for the presidential libraries of FDR, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The bill even include earmarks requested by some lawmakers who are no longer members of Congress.

Republicans pounced on the bill as wasteful, pointing out it comes just after the White House held that summit on fiscal responsibility. Democrats point out 40 percent of all the earmarks are things that were requested by Republicans.

Democratic Congressmen David Obey of Wisconsin defended these earmarks, saying that they were fully disclosed and a small part of the overall bill. And he added that without them, “… the White House and its anonymous bureaucrats would control all spending.” House and Senate Democrats have already agreed on this bill, although Republican senators could try to cut out some of the pork when it gets debated in the Senate.

As for the White House, one official says, “It’s a big document and we’re still reviewing it.”

Here’s the question: Are earmarks a necessary evil or just plain evil?

This is what he reported later in the show:

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, the question this hour is, are earmarks a necessary evil or are they just plain evil?

S. in Michigan: “It depends on what ends up being called an earmark and who labels it as such. For the state or city getting the money, it is progress money or an investment. For others, it becomes pork, or an earmark, et cetera. For example, for Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, monitoring volcanoes is an earmark, but, for Alaskans, monitoring hurricanes may be earmarks. So, should we stop doing both?”

Kevin writes: “Earmarks can be wasteful or incredibly valuable, just like any type of spending. Let’s look at one of your examples: $1.7 million for honeybee research. This seems silly at first glance. But when you recall that there appears to be something wiping out the honeybee population, and that these bees are necessary for crops, like apples, peaches, soybeans, pears, pumpkins, cucumbers, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries, then it quickly starts looking like maybe we ought to be spending more money on this research.”

Susan in Idaho: “If earmarks are necessary, we better change the way we do business in all levels of politics. The time for responsible spending is way past due. Pet projects are taking food away from the hungry and jobs away from those who, by no fault of their own, have lost them.”

Ed in Iowa writes: “Here in Iowa, we’re sure in need of some swine odor and manure management. And I can tell you that for darn sure, since I live downwind to several hog farms. What you don’t understand when you make fun of this is that it’s a huge problem. Pigs are big business here. Their manure could be used for fertilizer and biofuels, instead of just polluting the air and the water. It is a smart investment that will pay off in clean air, clean water, cheap food, and jobs.”

And B.D. in Boise, Idaho: “The 40 percent that the Republicans want are pure evil. The 60 percent that the Democrats want are absolutely necessary. Or is it the other way around? We’re handing out so much money these days, it is easy to forget which side of the aisle you’re really on.”

If you didn’t see your e-mail here, you can go to my blog, CNN.com/caffertyfile, and look for yours there, among hundreds of others — Wolf.

Obviously, the answers were chosen by Cafferty, so it doesn’t mean anything. Perhaps he got schooled a little bit by his viewers or maybe this is what he meant to do all along, but his second segment indicated that there is, at least, some indication that the wingnut Beavis and Buttheads aren’t quite as entertaining as they used to be.

Perhaps an awareness is growing about the value of government, or maybe just a willingness to speak out about it. Either way it would truly be a sea change after 30 years of snotty Reaganite dismissiveness. That’s big.

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Obama’s Inauguration Music: The Truth

by tristero

Now we know:

h/t, the great Alex Ross.

Getting It Backwards

by tristero

The NYT headline reads “Budget Choices Test Obama’s Political Skills”. Oh, really?

They still don’t get who, and what, they’re dealing with. Obama’s “political skills” passed whatever tests they needed to pass well over a year ago. Today, he is wildly popular while his opponents are reduced to bleating that they want him to fail. Oh, and don’t forget all the money “wasted” on frivolities like monitoring volcanoes that threaten the lives of thousands of Americans.

Like Obama or hate him, the political skills being tested are not his but those in Congress, especially Republicans’.

Discuss.

Two Whole Days

by digby

…before the got around to trashing Ty’Sheoma Bethea. From Joan Walsh:

I thought it would come from Michelle Malkin or Rush Limbaugh, but Malkin is too busy planning her anti-tax tea parties while Rush gets ready for his close-up at the Conservative Political Action Committee this weekend (which is a collection of nuts so nutty even Sarah Palin stayed away).

No, it was the conservative Washington Times that cast the first stone at Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the Dillon, S.C., teenager who wrote to Congress seeking stimulus funds for her shamefully dilapidated school. Obama used her statement, “We are not quitters,” as the coda of his speech Tuesday night, but now the Moon-owned paper tells us what’s wrong with Bethea, in an editorial with the condescending headline, ‘Yes, Ty’Sheoma, there is a Santa Claus.”

Of course, they are full of crap as usual, but it doesn’t stop them from just making things up.

They really seem to take special joy in going after kids that speak out on public issues. See, they think it’s wrong when politicians use them for political purposes and they have no choice but to expose this exploitation.

Well, not always. This was just fine:

LYNN FAULKNER: My wife, Wendy, was murdered by terrorists on September 11th.

ANNOUNCER: The Faulkners’ daughter Ashley closed up emotionally but when President George W. Bush came to Lebanon, Ohio, she went to see him as she had with her mother four years before.

LINDA PRINCE (neighbor): He walked toward me and I said Mr. President this young lady lost her mother in the World Trade Center.

ASHLEY FAULKNER: And he turned around and he came back and he said I know that’s hard, are you all right?

LINDA: Our president took Ashley in his arms and just embraced her. And it was at that moment that we saw Ashley’s eyes fill up with tears.

ASHLEY: He’s the most powerful man in the world and all he wants to do is make sure I’m safe, that I’m OK.

LYNN: What I saw was what I want to see in the heart and in the soul of the man who sits in the highest elected office in our country.

Just let your mind wander a bit and imagine what the wingnuts would say if that ad had featured Ty’Sheoma and Obama. Honestly, I shudder to think.

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Perle Talks

by tristero

As you may recall I turned down an invitation to hear Richard Perle speak. Dana Milbank, however, did go. His headline summed up what happened: Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence.

While normally, I am a big fan of ridiculing extremists like, say, Ayman al Zawahiri or Richard Perle, I was, for some reason, dissatisfied with the article. Perhaps the cause of my unease can be traced to Milbank’s punchline:

“I don’t know that I persuaded anyone,” Perle speculated when the session ended.

No worries, said the moderator. “You certainly kept us all entertained.”

Ah, hahahahahahahaha! Oh, those ever so clever villagers and their witty repartee. You would never know – as the laughter rose into the ceiling at the I-kid-you-not Nixon Center and comity was restored amongst the well-connected crowd – that Perle was directly responsible for thousands upon thousands of Iraqi deaths, not to mention more American deaths than occurred on 911. He’s entertaining.

These people make me sick. All of them. The only audience Perle deserves is the judge at a trial for his war crimes. And I’m absolutely positive, as the evidence accumulates of Perle’s critically influential role in the moral cesspool that was, and remains, the Bush/Iraq war, no one will find him entertaining in the slightest.

Don’t Trash The Reset Button

by dday

Today the Justice Department announced that Ali al-Marri, the last enemy combatant held inside the United States, would be charged and tried in a federal court in Illinois. This is a major victory for the rule of law. Instead of being held indefinitely without due process or habeas corpus, al-Marri will be given charges and prosecuted in an American courtroom, not a military commission. All Guantanamo prisoners deserve the same courtesy – either be tried, or released. In addition, we will probably get a ruling on al-Marri’s detention anyway, which would be positive to set the precedent:

The Supreme Court already agreed to consider a challenge to the constitutionality of al-Marri’s detention, and the ACLU is asking the Court still to consider that case. According to Al-Marri’s attorney, the ACLU’s Jonathan Hafetz, “it is vital that the Supreme Court case go forward because it must be made clear once and for all that indefinite military detention of persons arrested in the U.S. is illegal and that this will never happen again.”

There is another group of detainees that should be extended the rights of being tried or released – those at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan who were transferred there from around the world. The expansion of Bagram has raised fears that Obama may use it the way George Bush used Guantanamo.

Now, human rights groups say they are becoming increasingly concerned that the use of extra-judicial methods in Afghanistan could be extended rather than curtailed under the new U.S. administration. The air base is about to undergo a $60 million expansion that will double its size, meaning it can house five times as many prisoners as remain at Guantanamo.

Apart from staff at the International Red Cross, human rights groups and journalists have been barred from Bagram, where former prisoners say they were tortured by being shackled to the ceiling of isolation cells and deprived of sleep.

The base became notorious when two Afghan inmates died after the use of such techniques in 2002, and although treatment and conditions have been improved since then, the Red Cross issued a formal complaint to the U.S. government in 2007 about harsh treatment of some prisoners held in isolation for months.

While the majority of the estimated 600 prisoners are believed to be Afghan, an unknown number — perhaps several dozen — have been picked up from other countries.

Hilzoy had a great piece about this, showing the genuinely conflicting issues at play here. But one thing seems fairly obvious – if we are going to restore our moral authority around the world, we need to have the same standard for those detainees at Bagram not detained in the course of military conflict as we ought to have for those at Guantanamo. That’s not just true of the Muslim world, where support for Al Qaeda itself is mixed, but strongly in favor of their efforts to drive the United States off their land, through force if necessary. It’s also true of our allies in Europe, who will not work with us on key issues if we just rebuild Guantanamo at Bagram.

In one of his first acts in office, President Barack Obama ordered the closure within one year of Guantanamo Bay, where about 245 people are still detained and which has been widely viewed as a stain on the U.S. human rights record.

But Obama has yet to decide what to do about the jail at Bagram, where more than 600 prisoners are held, or whether to continue work on a $60 million prison complex there.

Washington wants the EU to help it close Guantanamo by agreeing to accept discharged prisoners who cannot be returned to their own countries for fear of torture.

But a confidential EU policy paper, obtained by Reuters, said such help would depend on Washington’s overall anti-terrorism policies, including assurances that Bagram or other camps would not become new Guantanamos.

“I would find it very surprising, if the (U.S.) policy remained the same while Guantanamo was closed, to see the EU mobilize itself,” EU anti-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove told Reuters.

The EU policy paper said: “It would not be in conformity with EU fundamental rights policies to simply transfer Guantanamo elsewhere (i.e. in Bagram) without solving the underlying question of the detention of terror suspects for indefinite time and without trial.”

This is going to undermine our efforts at global cooperation if it is allowed to fester. Obama’s honeymoon around the world will quickly come to an end. We will have lost a great opportunity to push the reset button.

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FYI

by digby

In case you were wondering, here’s the Peterson Foundation’s quick response to President Obama’s budget:

President Obama’s first budget contains many encouraging signs, along with some items of concern. He is to be commended for providing a 10-year budget projection and a specific deficit-reduction goal; for including a number of items in the baseline budget that previously were not included (e.g., war costs, AMT fix); and for supporting a PAYGO concept in connection with mandatory spending increases and tax cuts.

At the same time, the President is not proposing to adopt discretionary spending caps or automatic reconsideration triggers for mandatory spending items and tax preferences. In addition, he is proposing to move some items from the discretionary to the mandatory spending category. He is also advocating expanding health care coverage before we have demonstrated our ability to control health care costs, and before we make a significant down-payment on the federal government’s tens of trillions of dollars in current unfunded health care promises.

The President’s budget results in total debt-to-GDP of 96 percent and rising by 2010. This serves to demonstrate the need for the creation of a Fiscal Future Commission to help us get our federal finances in order before we lose the confidence of our foreign lenders.

— David M. Walker, President & CEO, PGPF
February 26, 2009

Clearly, they are not happy at all with the idea of health care reform which is no surprise. “Entitlements” are the enemy after all.

They are going to keep pressing for a commission, which is not supportable. The Republicans clearly want this as well, and it’s possible the administration will mistakenly let them have it as a delaying action. But they should resist. These things lead to nothing good and often create some very serious mischief. Just say no.

Update: Thanks to Greg Anrig for correcting Mark Ambinder on this hysterical nonsense about social security and the new budget. But I won’t be surprised to see Ambinder’s take turn up in other places.

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Gratitude

by digby

CPAC dispatch:

[John] Bolton’s speech was rather heavy on partisan politics. He asked a packed room to work to elect Republicans in special elections and 2010, something possible because “this is still a center-right country” and “the Democrats misinterpreted the vote that they got.”

And Bolton was overjoyed to be untethered from the Bush administration. Conservatives were stronger now, he said, because they didn’t have to defend George W. Bush. “Too many people identified the Bush administration with conservatism,” said Bolton. “I think that’s far from being accurate.”

Uhm:

During the George W. Bush administration, Bolton has been the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (2001-2005) and U.S. Ambassador to the UN (2005)

And considering what he oversaw during his tenure, one can only assume that he’s disappointed that he didn’t get to start a nuclear war. That’s pretty much all that’s left on the conservative hawk wish list. But the man still has dreams, apparently.

Update: County Fair is collecting video highlights of the conference. Much hilarity all around. Jamison Foser writes that our old friend David Bossie introduced Newtie, and give a neat primer on Bossie’s history.

I don’t think Bossie gets the credit from conservatives he deserves. He was a huge part of their success in the 1990s. ( And the press should give him a bit wet kiss as well, as I wrote back in 2004:)

The press ate up Bossie’s lies over and over again until there was no conclusion one could reach except that they just didn’t care about the truth. The Whitewater psuedo-scandal and the seventy million wasted taxpayer dollars that flowed from it was driven by Bossie’s operation and he remained a player in the Scaife funded character assassination plot for the entire Clinton administration. It’s not as if the press didn’t know from the very beginning with whom they were dealing because they were called to task for their stenographic use of Citizens United “press packages” all the way back in June of 1994 by Trudy Lieberman in the Columbia Journalism Review:

Bossie, the twenty-eight-year-old political director for Citizens United, a conservative Republican operation, runs an information factory whose Whitewater production lines turn out a steady stream of tips, tidbits, documents, factoids, suspicions, and story ideas for the nation’s press and for Republicans on Capitol Hill. Journalists and Hill Republicans have recycled much of the information provided by Citizens United into stories that have cast a shadow on the Clinton presidency. […] …Citizens United has collected thousands of facts and documents on Whitewater and packaged it all to catch the attention of the press and to restoke the story whenever it threatened to die down. Bossie and Brown have been briefing people since October — “the top fifty major publications, networks, and editorial boards,” Bossie says. “We’ve provided the same material on the Hill both on the House and Senate side.” An equal opportunity source, Bossie says he would gladly provide documents to Democrats, but they haven’t asked. Francis Shane, publisher of Citizens United’s newsletter, ClintonWatch, hesitates to say exactly whom they’ve worked with — “We don’t particularly like to pinpoint people” — but he does say, “We have worked closer with The New York Times than The Washington Times.” Jeff Gerth, The New York Times’s chief reporter on Whitewater, hesitated to talk on the record. He did say, “If Citizens United has some document that’s relevant, I take it. I check it out like anything else […] The March 1994 issue of ClintonWatch characterized the organization’s impact on Whitewater press coverage this way: “We here at ClintonWatch have been working day and night with the major news media to help them get the word out about the Clintons and their questionable dealings in Whitewater and Madison Guaranty.” Of course, Citizens United is not the only source of information on Whitewater. And reputable reporters do their own digging and doublechecking. Still, an examination of some 200 news stories from the major news outlets aired or published since November shows an eerie similarity between the Citizens United agenda and what has been appearing in the press, not only in terms of specific details but in terms of omissions, spin, and implication. […]
Whitewater is about character, publisher Fran Shane tells me. “The American people have elected a president with 43 percent of the vote. He is a man of no character. He may have to tell the people he didn’t come clean. We’re saying Bill Clinton may not be worth saving.” Many news organizations explain the importance of Whitewater in similar terms. Take Time, for instance. In a January 24 story laced with references to documents that also appear in Bossie’s Whitewater collection, the magazine pronounced that “the investigation concerns the much larger issue of whether a President and First Lady can be trusted to obey the law and tell the truth.” The character issue can be turned on the press, which has shamelessly taken the hand-outs dished up by a highly partisan organization, with revenues of more than $ 2 million a year, without identifying the group as the source of some of their information.