Month: April 2009

Very Serious Torture Apologist

by dday

Rachel Maddow had her Frost/Nixon moment last night when she got to question Colin Powell about his role in authorizing and directing torture. He was part of the principals meetings where interrogation techniques were discussed, and while practically every journalist who has ever interviewed Powell in the past year has neglected that fact, Rachel did not.

Good for Rachel for pressing Powell on this – I’m sure the very serious people around NBC News tut-tutted the ignominy of their friend the noble soldier having to take this abuse. Except this is a familiar pattern for Powell. He’s been covering for abuses at the highest levels since he was merely an Army major:

As Powell notes in his 1995 autobiography, My American Journal, in 1969 he was an Army major, the deputy operations officer of the Americal Division, stationed at division headquarters in Chu Lai. He says that in March of that year, an investigator from the inspector general’s office of Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) paid a call. In a “Joe Friday monotone,” the investigator shot questions at Powell about Powell’s position at the division and the division’s operational journals, of which Powell was the custodian. The inspector then asked Powell to produce the journals for March 1968. Powell started to explain that he had not been with the division at that time. “Just get the journal,” the IG man snapped, “and go through that month’s entries. Let me know if you find an unusual number of enemy killed on any day.”

Powell flipped through the records and came upon an entry from March 16, 1968. The journal noted that a unit of the division had reported a body count of 128 enemy dead on the Batangan Peninsula. “In this grinding, grim, but usually unspectacular warfare,” Powell writes, “that was a high number.” The investigator requested that Powell read the number into the tape recorder he had brought, and that was essentially the end of the interview. “He left,” Powell recalls, “leaving me as mystified as to his purpose as when he arrived.”

It would not be until two years later (according to the orginal version of Powell’s book) or six months later (according to the paperbck version of the book) that Powell figured out that the IG official had been probing what was then a secret, the My Lai massacre. Not until the fall of 1969 did the world learned that on March 16, 1968, troops from the Americal Division, under the command of Lieut. William Calley, killed scores of men, women and children in that hamlet. “Subsequent investigation revealed that Calley and his men killed 347 people,” Powell writes. “The 128 enemy ‘kills’ I had found in the journal formed part of the total.”

Though he does not say so expressly, Powell leaves the impression that the IG investigation, using information provided by Powell, uncovered the massacre, for which Calley was later court-martialed. That is not accurate.

The transcript of the tape-recorded interview between the IG man–Lieut. Col. William Sheehan–and Powell tells a different story. During that session–which actually happened on May 23, 1969–the IG investigator did request that Powell take out the division’s operations journals covering the first three weeks of March. (The IG inquiry had been triggered by letters written to the Pentagon, the White House and twenty-four members of Congress by Ron Ridenhour, a former serviceman who had learned about the mass murders.) Sheehan examined the records. Then he asked Powell to say for the record what activity had transpired in “grid square BS 7178” in this period. “The most significant of these occurred on 16, March, 1968,” Powell replied, “beginning at 0740 when C Company, 1st of the 20th, then under Task Force Barker, and the 11th Infantry Brigade, conducted a combat assault into a hot LZ [landing zone].” He noted that C Company, after arriving in the landing zone, killed one Vietcong. About fifteen minutes later, the same company, backed up by helicopter gunships, killed three VC. In the following hour, the gunships killed three more VC, while C Company “located documents and equipment” and killed fourteen Vietcong. “There is no indication of the nature of the action which caused these fourteen VC KIA,” Powell said. Later that morning, C Company, according to the journal, captured a shortwave radio and detained twenty-three VC suspects for questioning, while two other companies that were also part of Task Force Barker were active in the same area without registering any enemy kills […]

There had been attempts at cover-up. Prior to Ridenhour’s letter, the Army promoted the story that C Company had killed 128 VC and captured three weapons in the March 16 action. (Note the 128 figure–which Powell, in his memoirs, uses in describing the number of enemy kills he supposedly found in the journals. In his book, he is repeating the cover story, not recalling what was actually in the journal.) And information pertaining to My Lai disappeared from the Americal Division’s files. A military review panel–convened after the Hersh stories to determine why the initial investigations did not uncover the truth of My Lai–found that senior officers of the Americal Division had destroyed evidence to protect their comrades. Powell keeps that out of his account.

Powell has never been implicated in any of the wrongdoing involving My Lai. No evidence ties him to the attempted cover-up. But he was part of an institution (and a division) that tried hard to keep the story of My Lai hidden–a point unacknowledged in his autobiography. Moreover, several months before he was interviewed by Sheehan, Powell was ordered to look into allegations made by another former GI that US troops had “without provocation or justification” killed civilians. (These charges did not mention My Lai specifically.) Powell mounted a most cursory examination. He did not ask the accuser for more specific information. He interviewed a few officers and reported to his superiors that there was nothing to the allegations [see “Questions for Powell,” The Nation, January 8/15, 2001]. This exercise is not mentioned in his memoirs.

Concurrent with this, Powell brushed off a soldier’s complaint about routine brutality of civilians by US forces in Vietnam. He was part of a military establishment that sought to cover up crimes like My Lai. So this dodging Maddow’s questions on principals meetings and torture comes very naturally to him, I would imagine.

Of course, today Colin Powell is a very serious person, so he should never be questioned on such uncouth subjects. But recognize that this shame cannot just be wished away. Just today a federal judge ruled that subjects held at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan can challenge their detention in US courts, something the Obama Administration resisted. The torture regime will have ramifications for years, and the establishment, as represented here by Colin Powell, will continue to deny the problem, allowing it to fester.

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Financial Crisis For Dummies

by digby

In my ongoing quest to find ways to explain the current situation, I thought I’d pass this little instructional video along for those who might have friends or family who could benefit from a basic primer. It’s not perfect, but it’s imperfections (particularly about the CDSs)aren’t fatal.

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. For more on my broader thesis work exploring the use of new media to make sense of a increasingly complex world, visit my website here

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

h/t to Tom Schaller

Blind Salmon

by digby

So, Alan Grayson’s bill passed the House today, after a hilariously incoherent debate by the Republicans. They are determined to stand up for the right for wealthy people to loot the public treasury.

I realize that it is a fundamental tenet of their philosophy — they really believe that wealthy people are morally superior and that when the economy sputters due to their ineptitude and greed, average working people should step up and dedicate a portion of their income to ensuring that the rich don’t suffer the loss of their well deserved compensation. That’s what serfs are for.

Still, it just strikes me as being a tad politically impractical, all things considered:

American voters say 81 – 16 percent that the government should limit executive compensation at companies receiving federal help, and say 47 – 44 percent that boards of directors and top managers at these companies should be forced to resign, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.

Support for income limits is strong among Democrats, Republicans and independent voters and in all income groups, but the call for forced resignations drops as income rises.

And voters oppose 64 – 30 percent trying to limit compensation at firms which do not receive federal bail-out funds. Low-income voters oppose such a move 56 – 35 percent.

American voters say 51 – 45 percent that President Barack Obama’s new budget, which doubles the national debt in 10 years, is needed to fix the economy and address issues such as education and health care, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. President Obama’s budget wins 80 – 16 percent support from Democrats and 50 – 46 percent support from independent voters, while Republicans say 76 – 20 percent it is too costly.

Executives at failing companies are victims of circumstances, 14 percent of voters say, but 39 percent say these executives are incompetent and 35 percent say they are guilty of fraud.

“President Barack Obama may be trying to dampen the populist rhetoric, but the American people are mad as hell and aren’t taking it anymore. They want to vent their anger on the wealthy and on business. They think the folks who got the country into the financial mess are both stupid and crooked and want the government to burn them at the stake,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

You can certainly understand why the Republicans have decided to back the billionaires. They’re just that good.

h/t to bill

Stirrings Of Prison Reform

by dday

Look at that, a leading Democrats offers a bill on the otherwise unspeakable subject of prison reform, and contrary to popular expectation he is not forced to resign in disgrace!

Jim Webb stepped firmly on a political third rail last week when he introduced a bill to examine sweeping reforms to the criminal justice system. Yet he emerged unscathed, a sign to a political world frightened by crime and drug issues that the bar might not be electrified any more.

“After two [Joint Economic Committee] hearings and my symposium at George Mason Law Center, people from across the political and philosophical spectrum began to contact my staff,” Webb told the Huffington Post. “I heard from Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court, from prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, former offenders, people in prison, and police on the street. All of them have told me that our system needs to be fixed, and that we need a holistic plan of how to solve it.”

Webb’s reform is backed by a coalition of liberals, conservatives and libertarians that couldn’t have existed even a few years ago.

Webb’s bill calls for the creation of a bipartisan commission to study the issue for 18 months and come back with concrete legislative recommendations.

Liberals, who for decades were labeled “soft on crime” by conservatives, crept out to embrace Webb’s proposal. The bill was cosponsored by the entire Senate Democratic leadership and enthusiastically welcomed by prominent liberal bloggers. The blogosphere, dominated by younger activists, has been particularly open to calls for drug and criminal justice policy reform.

Support for the proposal has come in from the right, too. The Lynchburg News and Advance a conservative paper that publishes in the hometown of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, weighed in favorably.

“America’s prisons — both federal and state — are overflowing with prisoners. The United States has about 5 percent of the world’s population; we have about 25 percent of the world’s known prison population, Webb estimates,” offered the editorial board. “Something, somewhere is seriously wrong.”

It was jarring to see Webb’s advocacy of major prison reform in my Sunday copy of PARADE Magazine, where Webb has published before. Yet he has unyielding and, as Glennzilla says, deeply courageous for tackling this issue which is such a blight on our national character. Something is seriously wrong with the broken prison system in California, as I’ve documented extensively. Decades of failure to lead, adherence to the “tough on crime” label and willingness to lock up non-violent offenders has led to some of the worst outcomes in the nation.

Most interesting about Webb’s proposal is that he connected the prison crisis to our absolutely failed drug policy. After 30 years of interdiction and mass arrest, drug production is up and consumption is up, and the objectives of the so-called “war on drugs” have yet to be achieved in any substantive way. You cannot talk about prison reform without ending the characterization of drug addiction as a crime instead of a medical dependency requiring treatment.

I am hopeful that Webb has the desire to keep pushing this forward; obviously it will take years if not decades to get a sane prison policy in this country. But the need is so great.

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Speaking Of Crazies

by digby

I’m not the type who gets too exercized when people use metaphors that can be construed by someone, somewhere as condoning violence. When somebody says ‘string ’em up” or “they should be taken out and shot” I usually see it as colorful but unimaginative rhetoric that isn’t a literal threat.

But when there is a history of actual violence, I think it’s probably a mistake to go on television and speak in the terms that Dick Morris does below. From Oliver Willis:

“Those crazies in Montana who say, ‘we’re going to kill ATF agents because the UN’s going to take over’ – well, they’re beginning to have a case.”

I won’t even bring up the double standard about their behavior during the years of the Cheney police state. It is a waste of breath.

Seniors On The Roller Coaster
by digby
Brian Beutler reports:

One of the fun little tidbits in the Republican Budget roll out today is here:

The substitute gradually converts the current Medicare program into one in which Medicare beneficiaries choose the most affordable coverage that best suits their individual needs. For individuals 55 or older, Medicare will not be changed (other than income-relating the prescription drug benefit): the budget preserves the existing program for these beneficiaries. To make the program sustainable and dependable, those 54 and younger will enroll in a new Medicare Program with health coverage similar to what is now available to Members of Congress and Federal employees.

This is an idea that’s been kicking around in conservative circles for some time, and it’s an expensive one. Well, it’s expensive unless you’re an insurance company, in which case it’s extremely lucrative.

Because the one thing that’s really missing from the lives of older Americans is haggling with insurance companies. It’ll keep ’em from “overusing” the system. Of course, they’ll be dead.

In case anyone’s still uninformed about just what kind of fun sick people have in this country when they deal with insurance companies, watch last night’s Frontline called “Sick Around America.”

The answer to the problem is to get any shit job that provides insurance, no matter what it is, and then prostitute yourself as long as possible to keep it. If the company goes under in the recession, or your boss walks in one morning and decides she hates you, you’re just out of luck. It’s kind of like a thrill ride. Without a net.

Infection

by digby

The head of the Republican Party explained the economic issues facing the country today. Here’s a rundown of his statements:

Rush turned next to Obama and the G-20, airing clips of Obama saying: “People losing their homes, losing their businesses that they’ve worked so hard for, losing their health care in the United States; people around the world who were already desperate before the crisis and they find themselves even more desperate afterwards — that’s what our agenda has to begin with, and that’s where it will end.” Rush says this is wrong — people aren’t “losing” their homes, “we’re paying them to stay in their homes.” Rush then offered his translation of this clip — Obama’s not only going to spread your wealth around in America, he’s going to spread it around the world. Then he attacked Obama for “blaming” the global financial crisis on the United States, saying that all these G-20 conferences are about blaming the U.S., the only difference is that now we have a president who is also willing to blame America. Back from the break, Rush took one more caller, a woman concerned about GM plant closing in Texas and asking if Texans will have any sway over the White House’s plans for GM. Of course not, says Rush, look at the stimulus. Rush claimed there is an “unconstitutional” provision in the stimulus that empowers state legislatures to accept stimulus cash if the governor doesn’t want to. It’s the same with GM — if they’re going to close plants, it’s Democratic politics, according to Rush, to close plants in Republican states because Obama wants that “chaos” and “misery” in Republican states.

That sounds about right. Obama’s taking Real Americans’ hard earned money to give it to deadbeat (Mexicans) so they can keep their houses — while blaming America.
The inane gibberish about Texas speaks for itself. If his audience can make some kind of sense from that God bless ’em because somehow they managed to learn to speak a language from another planet.
Meanwhile, the GOPs intellectual and spiritual leader characterized the US relationship with Great Britain this way:

I’m surprised he missed the opportunity to make some “Queen” jokes.

Inspiration

by digby

Representative Alan Grayson introduced legislation yesterday which will restrict executive pay in companies taking TARP money:

So far, taxpayers have spent over $500 billion in direct cash infusions into banks and financial institutions, with guarantees of trillions more. Yet, these companies are still paying their executives lavish sums for driving their companies (and the entire economy) into the ground.

I introduced a bill – the ‘Pay for Performance Act’ – to put an end to this theft. It’s on the House floor today. It bans unreasonable and excessive pay to employees of financial institutions that are running on taxpayer money. The bill is based on two simple concepts. One, no one has the right to get rich off taxpayer money. And two, no one should get rich off abject failure. If the government owns a chunk of a bank, that bank must pay its employees reasonably, and all bonuses must be performance-based.

But first, let’s be clear about what has happened. The government owns stakes in many companies through the TARP program, and Congress tried to put executive compensation restrictions on those companies. Big banks, though, were able to carve out an exception for any contract signed before February. AIG executives drove a truck through that exception and stuffed their pockets with our money. This bill closes that loophole.

Predictably, the Republicans’ eyes instantly rolled back in their heads and they began babbling incoherently about “socialism” and “Old Europe” which is a very, very bad comparison. Let’s just say that Old Europe has a different approach to dealing with these sorts of outrages:

Hundreds of French workers, angry about proposed layoffs at a Caterpillar factory, were holding executives of the company hostage Tuesday, a spokesman for the workers said. It is at least the third time this month that French workers threatened with cutbacks have blockaded managers in their offices to demand negotiations. Executives were released unharmed in both previous situations. The latest incident started Tuesday morning at the office of the construction equipment company in the southeastern city of Grenoble. The workers were angry that Caterpillar had proposed cutting more than 700 jobs and would not negotiate, said Nicolas Benoit, a spokesman for the workers’ union. They did not want to harm the Caterpillar executives, Benoit told CNN.

That’s one way to get their attention. And if these American executives keep acting like complete jackasses and whining to the press about not being treated respectfully. So far, in the US, all that’s happening is that people are tweeting their discontent and registering strong protests on their Facebook pages.

Even in the capital of our one true ally they are a bit more direct:

Police and protesters skirmished around the Bank of England on Wednesday as world leaders gathered for the G-20 Summit.

Thousands of anti-capitalists, anarchists, and environmental campaigners descended for protests in several locations in London, including its financial center around the Bank of England, Britain’s central bank.

Protesters broke several dark tinted windows of a Royal Bank of Scotland building and crawled inside. They also spray-painted the word “thieves” and the anarchist symbol on the side of the building.

The ailing bank has been the target of much anger following reports that its former chief executive was given a multi-million dollar pension payout despite overseeing record losses.

The American ruling class had better hope that Grayson is successful lest its serfs really start looking to Old Europe for inspiration.

Update: Zbigniew Brzeznskijust said, when asked about whether the G20 leaders care about these protests:

It is a signal to all of us, including them, that if the economic financial crisis is not brought under some constructive control we could have a repetion of this in many other parts of the world, including in the United States.

You know there is a potential rage, public rage, in the United States, at the unfairness and inequality that’s involved in the financial crisis and the financial scandal.

Seriously, these MOUs really need to stop their public whining and get behind some things like Grayson’s measure. They are fanning the flames of their own funeral pyre. It’s just dumb.

Update II: Jane Hamsher is liveblogging the circus …. er House debate on Grayson’s bill.

I guess the Republicans really are going to throw in their lot with the billionaires on this. It’s an awesome political miscalculation.

New And Improved, Now With Numbers!

by dday

Tired of all the mockery, Congressional Republicans today released a budget – OK, made a plan to release a budget.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined their colleagues, entering from the side, and addressed the gathered reporters.

After ripping the Democratic budget as too expensive, Boehner said that “Republicans in the House will offer a better solution that’ll be less on spending, less on taxes and a lot less on debt for our kids and grandkids.”

But there was no budget. “Do you guys have a formal budget yet?” asked a reporter.

“Mr. Ryan will outline the Republican budget at 10:30 this morning. And yes we do have it,” replied Boehner, referring to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.).

A silence followed, with reporters apparently unsure what to ask next.

I’m beginning to think the Republican Party is a giant episode of “Punk’d.”

What amounts to the alternative budget, seen here and described by Paul Ryan in the Wall Street Journal, consists mainly of those innovative and fresh ideas like cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy, freezing spending in the middle of a recession, and drilling for oil.

* Deficits/Debt. The Republican budget achieves lower deficits than the Democratic plan in every year, and by 2019 yields half the deficit proposed by the president. By doing so, we control government debt: Under our plan, debt held by the public is $3.6 trillion less during the budget period.

* Spending. Our budget gives priority to national defense and veterans’ health care. We freeze all other discretionary spending for five years, allowing it to grow modestly after that. We also place all spending under a statutory spending cap backed up by tough budget enforcement.

* Energy. Our budget lays a firm foundation to position the U.S. to meet three important strategic energy goals: reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, deploying more clean and renewable energy sources free of greenhouse gas, and supporting economic growth. We do these things by rejecting the president’s cap-and-trade scheme, by opening exploration on our nation’s oil and gas fields, and by investing the proceeds in a new clean energy trust fund, infrastructure and further deficit reduction.

* Tax Reform. Our budget does not raise taxes, and makes permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax laws. In fact, we cut taxes and reform the tax system. Individuals can choose to pay their federal taxes under the existing code, or move to a highly simplified system that fits on a post card, with few deductions and two rates. Specifically, couples pay 10% on their first $100,000 in income (singles on $50,000) and 25% above that. Capital gains and dividends are taxed at 15%, and the death tax is repealed. The proposal includes generous standard and personal exemptions such that a family of four earning $39,000 would not pay tax on that amount. In an effort to revive peoples’ lost savings, and to create an incentive for risk-taking and investment, the budget repeals the capital gains tax through 2010 for all taxpayers.

On the business side, the budget permanently cuts the uncompetitive corporate income tax rate — currently the second highest in the industrialized world — to 25%. This puts American companies in a better position to lead in the global economy, promotes jobs here at home, and strengthens worker paychecks.

In case you missed it, Ryan wants to drill offshore in order to fund clean energy. My head hurts now.

They also helpfully scored the competing budgets over a 70-year time-frame, and while I think they’re off a bit in 2072, you can plainly see that government under Robot Obama, who will be governing until he is 117, will explode in size.

Ryan also came up with a new health care plan while simultaneously cutting entitlements, a neat trick. (This shows that Republicans are deathly afraid of being left behind on health care reform, actually. It’s quite interesting.)… aha, I see how they pull this off, they actually phase out Medicare over time. Brilliant!

Ryan calls on the Administration not to sow fear over their alternative budget at the same time that Judd Gregg takes to the Washington Post to sow fear about the President’s budget. But it’s not working. Americans don’t mind investments in their future; in fact, they voted for them. And the Obama budget would actually reduce federal deficits by $900 billion dollars compared to current policies. The cuts are simply in programs and areas that conservatives don’t like, such as ending privatization in various forms, stopping cost overruns in defense, incorporating tax fairness, and pulling back on subsidies for rich corporations. The priorities are much more in line in their document. Why even have a phrase like “on the backs of the poor” if you can’t put something on them?

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The GFY Tour

by digby

Man, it seems like Dick Cheney is everywhere these days. He’s even giving interviews to bloggers. Not that I’m surprised. TD has assembled enough evidence to put him away for years — you can certainly understand why he’d want to get his story on the record.