Month: June 2009

Supporting The Public Plan

by digby

I was talking to Darcy Burner yesterday, who filled me in on the exciting work she’s doing as the new head of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation (APCPF), which is:

a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to bring together the collective wisdom of progressives inside and outside of Congress to promote

* peace and global security,
* energy independence,
* environmental sustainability,
* human rights,
* civil liberties and
* the health and economic well-being of us all.

We will serve as a communications, fact finding, research and education center for progressive leaders and other public policy-makers, issue advocates, the media, and the general public inside and outside of Congress.

Check out the web site for more info. It’s a much needed pathway for progressive thought and action from many different perspectives to come together and work in new ways.

Darcy mentioned to me that this week is an important moment in the health care debate, in which it might be helpful for members of the netroots to weigh in with a little positive reinforcement to the progressive caucus, which has been holding the leadership’s feet to the fire on the public plan option. Everyone pretty much agrees that if that goes down, health care reform will be a meaningless shell game.

I was somewhat surprised frankly (in a good way)to hear the the progressives caucus had pulled together on this one and was actually wielding some clout. They represent over 70 m4mbers of congress, which is a bigt bloc of votes. if they can stick together on the public plan, it will happen.

I think it’s pretty clear that netroots types are all more than willing to meet our responsibility to push and criticize and basically be a thorn in the sides of politicians to “make them do it.” But it’s also important to let them know that we appreciate it when they follow through.

If you have time today or tomorrow to give a progressive caucus rep a call or send an email it would be helpful. They need to know that the public is paying attention and that we have their backs as this debate kicks into high gear. The health care industry is working overtime to whittle away at meaningful health care reform, most especially the public plan which scares them to death. These self-identified progressives are the people who will hold the line and ensure that they do not get their way.

If one of these House members is your Congressional Representative, all the better. But contact one or more of them even if they aren’t. They need to know that people other than lobbyists and big donors are engaged and informed on this and that weknow what’s at stake with the public plan.

Write or Call Your Congressional Progressive Caucus Member and tell them you appreciate that they are holding the line on the public plan.

*I posted this yesterday over at Ourfuture.org.

Update: There’s more to this story developing in the Senate as we speak. Mike Lux writes:

The insurance lobby has had multiple tactics for stopping the public option idea, which they despise because they know if regular folks have choice to go to a public option, insurance companies won’t have the same ability to treat their customers like garbage when they get sick. The first tactic was just to try to kill the public option outright, and the good news is that they appear to have failed at that. This so-called trigger proposal is the second tactic: the idea is to write a “trigger” that will allow for a public option only under certain conditions, but write the legislation so that those conditions would never get met in the real world. It’s a classic DC tactic, right up there with calling for a commission to study something. Olympia Snowe is carrying the insurance industry water on their trigger proposal, proposing triggers that would only get tripped in some fairyland none of us have ever visited. The great thing for the insurance companies in a tactic like this is that it gives “centrist” Senators (centrist in Washington, DC usually means those who have taken massive amounts of campaign contributions from the affected industry) an excuse to help the insurance industry while looking like they are open to the public option that their constituents have been demanding. Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have gotten some good things done so far, and are building real momentum in getting us moving in the right direction on health care. But if conservative Democrats force the adoption of the trigger, it will destroy Democratic unity and doom health care reform, because progressives will start attacking Democrats rather than insurance companies. We really are at a critical moment. The only committee seriously considering the trigger turkey is the Senate Finance Committee, whose members average several hundred thousand a piece in insurance industry contributions. If you care about getting true health care reform, now is the time to make your voice heard: call the Senate Finance Committee members and tell them “NO to a trigger.”

So, thanks to progressives in the House, it looks like they haven’t been able to kill the public option. But they are now working overtime in the Senate to get this trigger mechanism in place to essentially — kill the public option.
Anyone who thinks these people are partners in health reform needs to stop smoking the good stuff.
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Compromising Positions

by digby

In the wake of Dr Tiller’s murder, Ed Kilgore makes a very important point:

But aside from efforts to brush away anti-abortion activists as yesterday’s news, there’s another misconception that must be addressed in the wake of Tiller’s murder: the idea that a “compromise” on abortion policy that eliminates “controversial” abortions like those performed by Tiller will make the risk of violence–yea, even the conflicts over abortion–go away. That is dangerous nonsense.

To anyone who really takes seriously the belief that (as articulated in the Republican National Convention Platform of 2008) “life begins at conception” and should be protected by law from that point, there is literally no difference in moral quality between the late-term abortions performed (where justified by health concerns) by George Tiller and any other abortion at any stage of pregnancy. And indeed, from that point of view, a woman taking a Plan B pill, if she has actually conceived (according to a very strict definition of that term), is just as much a “murderer” as Tiller, and just as deserving of violent intervention on her “victim’s” behalf, or of punishment. The only real difference is that Tiller, like every other abortion provider on the planet, is a “mass murderer,” so stopping him–by legal or illegal means–is relatively more justified and will have a more salutory effect.

But “compromising” to outlaw “disturbing” abortions like those performed by Tiller just eliminates one mass murderer among many hundreds, from the serious RTL perspective. And the whole focus on relatively rare late-term abortions or on very rare intact dilation and extraction procedures–a.k.a. “partial-birth” abortions–by anti-abortionists is just tactical propaganda aimed at the mushy middle of abortion opinion. Demonizing George Tiller as opposed to any other “mass murderer,” or for that matter, waving fetus posters, is simply intended to create a “wedge” whereby the population is “educated” in the direction of opposing abortions generally.

So for pro-choice Americans, regardless of their exact position on abortion, the idea that “compromise” can end violence or even “end the culture wars” over abortion is completely illusory and arguably immoral, if you believe that women should generally have first and final say over their own pregnancies. Sacrificing fundamental rights on the altar of phony “compromises” is, by most standards, both immoral and ineffective, as Americans learned in the long run-up to the Civil War.

And there have already been many, many “compromises” made on the right to abortion, from the very beginning. The trimester construct of Roe was a compromise. There has been no federal funding (for no rational reason, btw) since the late 70s. There is, as a practical matter, very little access to the procedure in vast swathes of the country. It’s not as if the pro-choice side has been unwilling to bend.

And there has never been one concession from the other side. The anti-choice zealots have relentlessly pressed forward the minute they obtain another restriction.

Kilgore draws the correct analogy. If you believe that women have the right to control their own bodies, all these compromises lead you nowhere, just as it did in the run up to the civil war.

Many Democrats are desperate to put the culture wars behind them. Some want to do it because they are tired of fighting and just want it settled. Others want to do it because they don’t really care about these issues and believe they inhibit the party’s ability to do the “real” work they think is important. And the truth is that there is some rather miraculous progress being done on gay rights and racial issues on which society is rather rapidly coming to consensus in ways I couldn’t have dreamed were possible not all that long ago. Much work remains, of course, and who knows how much stress these new agreements can take. But undeniable progress is being made and it’s very satisfying.

Abortion, however, isn’t among these issues and, in fact, I’m rather sad and stunned to have learned in the past few years just how fragile and illusory many women’s rights are and how reflexive sexism remains in our wider culture generally. Great strides have been made over the past 30 years,of course, but some kind of deep and intractable barrier remains. This is where the battles of the culture war will continue to rage. And whether they like it or not, politicians are going to have to accept that this is not something that can be finessed or swept under the rug. And it’s not because the pro-choice people have been unwilling to bend, it’s that, as Kilgore points out, because all their bending hasn’t changed a thing. So everyone will just have to search his or her soul and decide what to think about women’s roles in society and whether they believe they have agency and autonomy or not. And then be prepared to fight it out.

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Shocking Grandma

by digby

A great-grandmother from the Hill Country has taken on legal representation after being tasered and jailed for resisting arrest.

Last Monday, 72-year-old Kathryn Winkfein was driving home to Granite Schoals after her bi-weekly shopping trip to Austin when she was pulled over by a Travis County Constable deputy. According to authorities, she’d been doing 60 down a 45-mph construction zone on Highway 71 near Bee Creek.

The officer wrote out a ticket to Winkfein and asked her to sign the stub, explaining that her signature wasn’t an admission of guilt, but rather a promise to show up for a future court appearance. Winkfein, allegedly belligerent over the matter, refused to sign and asked the officer to take her to jail.

Further exacerbating the situation, Winkfein then got out of her car and proceeded to direct a litany of choice curse words towards the officer, who at that point told her that she would indeed be going to jail. Winkfein became violent, according to the officer, leaving him no choice but to zap the elderly lady her with his taser.

Winkfein was sent to Travis County Jail and booked for resisting arrest and detention. When interviewed by Fox 7 News, she dismissed the official report as being untrue.

“I wasn’t argumentative, I was not combative,” she said. “This is a lie. All of this is a lie, pulled away from him I did not.”

A spokesman for the Constable office backed up the behavior of the arresting officer, saying that the use of a taser on Winkfein was appropriate.

Of course it was. He had no choice. It was either that or shoot her.

h/t to CI
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That Crazy Beeyotch

by digby

Just in case anyone’s still wondering if that TNR article had in any influence:

At the Heritage Foundation, Manny Miranda floated the theory that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor could sink her own nomination by being overly firey and combative, like President Ronald Reagan’s defeated nominee Robert Bork.

Sam Alito — soft-spoken. John Roberts — affable and soft-spoken. Sanda Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, all of them, soft-spoken. This nominee’s more like Judge Bork. She has a temper. She has an attitude. She could come across as hubristic in the hearings, as arrogant. And so she could Bork herself. It’s very possible.

I asked Miranda about the basis of this theory after the luncheon. “I’ve read Jeff Rosen’s piece [“The Case Against Sotomayor”],” he said, “and that’s what I’m going on. I haven’t met the lady.” He added this to “what I’ve heard from practitioners on the second circuit, and they don’t like her” and wondered if the coming American Bar Association survey of lawyers’ opinions of Sotomayor could reflect all of this negative feedback.

“When that survey comes out, if it reflects Jeff Rosen’s article, it could be pretty explosive. I think she might want to take the committee on, to engage, in a Bork-like fashion. The more recent two [nominees] have been very disciplined, more controlled.”

(God help the committee if she’s having hot flashes!)

Setting aside that cartoon sexism, does a Supreme Court justice’s personality really matter very much? John Roberts is, by all accounts, a very nice man, thoughtful and kind, ande yet he exclusively rules in favor of wealthy powerful interests. Scalia is a creep from the bench and in his opinions but is evidently quite fond of Ruth bader Ginsberg with whom he socializes frequently. The great liberal lion William O Douglas was known to be a real jerk. Other than their clerks, who might have to put up with a martinet or a slob, I just don’t think that this sort of thing is even relevant to a job which is deeply philosophical in nature and whose philosophy isn’t always reflected in the personality of the person who holds it.

This Miranda stuff is just more gossipy, sexist trash talk that has nothing to with anything. They don’t care if Sotomayor’s a bitch. If she were their kind of bitch, like Scalia, they’d love her for it. They’re afraid she’s going to be a bitch toward the “rightful owners of America.” Them.

Oh, and here’s more evidence of the good cop bad cop strategy of the Republicans. They just want to trash her and weaken her so that if something turns up they can use, they’ll be able to pressure the Dems into withdrawing her nomination. They don’t have enough to destroy her but they are building the narrative just in case.

It’s not like they have to play scorched earth. The balance of the court won’t change and Obama’s not likely to nominate anyone more conservative. They’re basically just doing it to placate their crazies and amuse themselves. Lovely people.

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The Torture Apologia Chart

by batocchio

It can be difficult keeping up with all the torture apologist appearances and their BS du jour. Generally, they rotate through the same old long-debunked arguments, although occasionally they try out new lines of defense and attack. Some, like Clifford May on The Daily Show, try the “shotgun” approach combined with the style of a pushy car salesman – don’t stop talking, talk over everybody else, change the subject if challenged, you-don’t-buy-that-well-how-about-this, what can I do today to get you in the seat of amnesty for war criminals, friend?

Typical of torture apologists, it’s a disingenuous performance that makes much more sense if one realizes he’s arguing from a conclusion, not larger principles – don’t prosecute or investigate any of the culprits. Because of this, torture apologists frequently offer extremely convoluted and even contradictory arguments. As I’ve written before, their defenses normally fit into a pattern of descending denials: We did not torture; waterboarding is not torture; even if it is torture, it was legal; even if it was illegal, it was necessary; even if it was unnecessary, it was not our fault. Leading torture apologist David Rivkin has argued both that waterboarding isn’t torture and conceded that it is – with different audiences. Scott Horton recently highlighted some of the contradictions in Dick Cheney’s big “I saved the country through torture” speech (and several other sites picked up on another key Cheney inconsistency). Meanwhile, Dahlia Lithwick captured this dynamic beautifully with Lindsay Graham at the Senate hearings on prisoner abuses in May:

All morning, Graham clings to the argument that he believes in the rule of law. And as he does so, he explains that the lawbreaking that happened with respect to torture: a) wasn’t lawbreaking, b) was justifiable lawbreaking, c) was lawbreaking done with the complicity of congressional Democrats, d) doesn’t matter because al-Qaida is terrible, or e) wouldn’t be lawbreaking if the Spanish police were doing it.

These contortions would be merely comical if it weren’t for the extraordinary damage done, and the Beltway pundit consensus that no one should be held accountable. And the more torture apologists can muddy the waters and confuse the public, the more likely they can prevent a full investigation and possible criminal trials, and the less likely they will be forced to offer the same weak defenses in court.

What follows is a chart of torture apologist arguments, the text of the chart, and an explanation. I might make a sort of annotated version later, with more detailed explanations, rebuttals of the major arguments, and links. But many fine sites (including Hullabaloo) have offered detailed debunks of individual arguments in the past, and I’ve given my shot in “Torture Versus Freedom.” (This is also in part a companion to an earlier piece, The Torture Flowchart.) Regardless, if you like visual aids to dissect your daily dose of hackery – and somewhat busy, low-res charts – here ya go.

The Chart

(Click, or go here or here for larger views.)

Here’s the text:

We Did Not Torture

A. We did not torture because:
1. SERE training proves these techniques are not torture.
2. OLC memos say it isn’t torture.
3. “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” are not the same as torture. (Just look at the name, guys!)
4. These techniques do/did not cause permanent or lasting harm.
5. Psychologists said it was all right.
6. If you call it torture, you will have to prosecute (and you don’t want to do that).
7. It’s unpatriotic to say Bush officials authorized torture.

We Did Not Break the Law

B. What we did was legal because:
1. OLC memos say it isn’t torture.
a. They were sound legal positions.
b. They were written in good faith.
2. There’s no precedent for prosecuting such abuses.
3. American legal statutes are unclear on torture.
4. The Geneva Conventions:
a. Define torture vaguely.
b. Do not apply to these prisoners (nor do other legal protections).
5. Torture is in the eye of the beholder.
6. Psychologists said it was all right.
7. When the President does it, it’s not illegal.

We Did Not Endanger the Country

C. What we did was necessary because:
1. We were panicked after 9/11.
2. There was an imminent threat (and only this would work).
3. There might have been an imminent threat.
4. The CIA requested these techniques.
5. We obtained key information that saved lives.
6. We obtained confessions necessary to justify a war.
7. Abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo:
a. Were the result of a few bad apples and not official policy.
b. Should not be conflated with our “interrogation” of high-value prisoners.
c. Did not radicalize insurgents who attacked American and coalition troops.
8. Bush kept the country safe.

We Were Not Reckless

D. We treated these prisoners decently, because:
1. Extreme techniques were only used when other methods didn’t work.
2. This was an emergency (tick tick tick…).
3. Waterboarding was only used on three prisoners.
4. These methods were never used more than necessary.
5. These techniques do/did not cause permanent or lasting harm.
6. These were bad people who deserved far worse. (Why do you care?)
7. They don’t observe the Geneva Conventions, why should we?
8. Guantanamo is like a holiday resort.
9. Reports? What reports? (Red Cross, Senate, JPRA, etc.)

We Were Not Immoral

E. Torture is not immoral because:
1. Torture is not inherently immoral.
2. It is immoral, but in special circumstances, it’s necessary.
3. These people are not like us and do not deserve humane treatment.
4. Treating these bad people harshly or humanely does not:
a. Dissuade their fellows from bad conduct.
b. Affect our relationship with allied countries.
c. Endanger our troops.
5. The prisoners aren’t saying what we want them to say.
6. Torture is a kindness, giving prisoners an excuse to confess.
7. We needed to justify a war.

We Are Not Arrogant

F. Torture opponents are more sanctimonious than torture apologists because:
1. Remember 9/11. (9/11! 9/11!)
2. What we did was necessary.
3. What we did worked.
4. Torture “works” (in general).
5. Compared to rapport-building techniques, torture is:
a. More effective (obtains information humane treatment will not).
b. Quicker (it’s an emergency).
6. The Constitution is not a suicide pact (civil liberties are a luxury).
7. They want the enemy to win and hate America.
8. All of the abused were guilty; all of the tortured were bad men.

We Should Not Be Held Accountable

G. Prosecutions (and/or investigations) would be bad because:
1. It would criminalize policy differences.
2. It would create a chilling effect on counsel.
3. It would infringe on the powers of the presidency.
4. Holding leaders accountable would:
a. Create a bad precedent politically.
b. Disgrace America.
5. It won’t happen again.
6. The torturers have learned their lesson.
7. It would be divisive (Broder and Rove will be upset).
8. Both parties are (equally) culpable.
9. It will reveal our secrets to the enemy.
10. We’re all going to die if you do! (And it’ll all be Obama’s fault)

You’ll notice some repeats and overlaps, and I’ve tried to use a rough color scheme, but feel free to improve on this sucker if you find it at all useful. Red roughly corresponds to authoritarian arguments, fear-mongering, bullying and bigotry. Somewhat contradictory to those are the claims of responsibility and utility in blue. Green is for legal matters, and purple is mostly for arguments about politics and fallout (often a mix of authoritarian and utilitarian pitches). Black is for particularly noxious, immoral arguments (all of which have actually been made, unfortunately).

I’ve got “We were panicked after 9/11” in grey (C1), separate from the more bullying, don’t-challenge-us, “Remember 9/11!” (F1). Personally, I think “we were panicked after 9/11” would be the most compelling argument for mitigating a sentence in court, but the problem – for the key figures, at least – is that the evidence and timeline simply don’t sustain a defense of “good faith.” (See Marcy Wheeler’s invaluable “The 13 who made torture possible” and her torture timeline for more, as well as Digby’s recent post, “Panic Artists,” on Richard Clarke – who was recently trashed by Dick Cheney.) The Bush administration was repeatedly warned off this course, but ignored counsel, squelched and punished dissent, hid what they were doing (even from some of their own people), and reportedly started torturing at least some prisoners only after they wouldn’t “confess” to the Al Qaeda-Iraq connection the Bushies wanted to justify a war with Iraq. That level of evil and abuse of power shouldn’t be blithely excused, especially before a full investigation. I think mitigation and forgiveness also depend on some recognition and admission of wrong-doing by the culprits, and Cheney and the gang are instead warning doom, attacking all critics and insisting they were right, dammit. Why should anyone believe they won’t abuse power in some way again if they can? There are indeed true believers in the cause (Torture! War! Monarchial powers!) but it’s very easy to be both a zealot and a liar, and the many lies and omissions in prominent torture apologist arguments just don’t support a “good faith” interpretation, either. Most every torture apologist argument really seems to boil down to two items – (G10) ‘We’re all going to die!’ and (D9) “Reports? What Reports? (Red Cross, Senate, JPRA, etc.)” (in its own special yellow at the bottom center). The strategy is to keep everyone afraid and to ignore/hide/challenge the growing mountain of damning evidence. But this chart can certainly be improved.

I’m a bit facetious with a few items, but torture apologists often advance arguments implicitly rather than explicitly (normally to get someone to concede a false premise). I’ve featured a few arguments that torture apologists try to avoid altogether – I’ve yet to hear anyone (not even Bill Kristol or Dick Cheney) come right out and use the defense, “We had to torture to justify our beautiful war, dammit!” However, our mostly complacent media hasn’t forced many torture apologists to justify that stance or refute that explosive charge. Nor has the media forced many torture apologists to respond to accounts that American human rights abuses radicalized many of those who attacked and killed American and coalition troops in the Middle East. David Waldman, Matthew Alexander and a handful of others have made one or both of these points in media appearances, but the media as a whole has somehow shied away from these items, even though they’re clearly newsworthy, make for attention-grabbing headlines, and are kinda important.

In any case, I think I’ve covered most of the major arguments, and wouldn’t you know it, nearly all of them are problematic, severely flawed or outright false. I might post a revised version later, recapping the many existing debunks and rebuttals, organized per argument, or might handle most of that yet again through a future torture apologist roundup. This chart probably works best as an oversized bingo grid – watch a torture apologist and see how many arguments you can spot! Rebutting every one of Cliff May’s rapid-fire bullshit arguments would probably be great training for a TV appearance, although I think pinning him or another apologist down would be even better: How do you respond to the bipartisan Senate report, and the charge that torture was used to obtain confessions to justify the Iraq War? How do you justify abuses that have directly lead to attacks on American and coalition troops and made that war of choice even worse? If the law requires that credible allegations of torture be investigated, what possible reason is there not to investigate? (Wouldn’t a failure to do so set a dangerous precedent that some people are above the law?) If what Dick Cheney and you are saying is true, wouldn’t a full investigation (or even a trial) exonerate everyone?

(Actually, the Tom Tomorrow cartoon Digby linked earlier says it all better.)

Honest Dick

by dday

Nancy Pfothenpfhaupfer wants you to know that salt of the earth Dick Cheney, the guy who chopped down the cherry tree at Mount Vernon (OK, shot it in the face, actually) and admitted it to his father, would never tell a lie:

“You know, obviously you’ve got different opinions on the whole issue of harsh interrogation techniques. And of course, Cheney wasn’t running in the last election, but Sen. McCain, for who I worked, was very clearly opposed to all these harsh interrogation techniques. And he went on record saying, as a former prisoner of war for five years, you don’t get high quality information from these types of interrogations. People will basically say anything in order to make it stop. I don’t believe, however, that the former Vice President would be making statements that he knew to be inaccurate.”

Shuster just breaks up laughing from that one. And mockery is the right reaction. Because we’re now seeing Cheney backtracking from his own statement that CIA classified documents will show that torture saved lives.

The key moment came when his interviewer said: “You want some documents declassified having to do with waterboarding.” Cheney replied:

“Yes, but the way I would describe them is they have to do with the detainee program, the interrogation program. It’s not just waterboarding. It’s the interrogation program that we used for high-value detainees. There were two reports done that summarize what we learned from that program, and I think they provide a balanced view.”

Bear with me here, because this is crucial. Cheney is carefully saying that the documents summarize what we learned from the overall interrogation program. Torture, of course, was only a component of that program. So he’s clearly saying that the docs summarize what was learned from a program that included non-torture techniques, too.

Here’s why this is important. It dovetails precisely with what Senator Carl Levin, who has also seen these docs, says about them. Levin claims the docs don’t do anything to “connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of the abusive techniques.”

Of course, Cheney’s only hedging in the event that the documents do get released, so he can find some other rhetorical ground. He was perfectly content to lie when he thought that the documents would never get released to the public. The same way he lied yesterday about the Iraq war saving lives, an unprovable negative based on things Saddam Hussein had no capacity to do. It’s an obvious falsehood, but he can retreat to some ground where he can claim that nobody else could prove him false. The same with him foisting 9/11 off on Richard Clarke, on the grounds that counter-terrorism was his job so only he must be responsible. Never mind that Cheney takes all kind of credit for keeping America safe AFTER 9/11. And of course this neglects plenty:

When the moderator reminded Cheney that Clarke had repeatedly warned the administration about al Qaeda’s determination to attack the U.S., Cheney snarkily replied, “That’s not my recollection, but I haven’t read his book.”

In fact, it was Cheney who “missed” the warning signs, not Clarke. New York Times reporter Philip Shenon’s book, “The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation,” reprinted some of Clarke’s emphatic e-mails warning the Bush administration of the al Qaeda threat throughout 2001:

“Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack” (May 3)

“Terrorist Groups Said Co-operating on US Hostage Plot” (May 23)

“Bin Ladin’s Networks’ Plans Advancing” (May 26)

“Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent” (June 23)

“Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” (June 25)

“Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks” (June 30)

“Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays” (July 2)

Similarly, Time Magazine reported in 2002 that Clarke had an extensive plan to “roll back” al Qaeda — a plan that languished for months, ignored by senior Bush officials:

Clarke, using a Powerpoint presentation, outlined his thinking to Rice. … In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the Powerpoint presentation reads, “Response to al Qaeda: Roll back.” … The proposals Clarke developed in the winter of 2000-01 were not given another hearing by top decision makers until late April, and then spent another four months making their laborious way through the bureaucracy before they were readied for approval by President Bush.

Dick Cheney is a pathological liar, who knows enough to give himself a minor rhetorical out should anyone call him on it.

Tweety has Strobel and Landay from McClatchy, who in a perfect world would be as well-known as Woodward and Bernstein, and they are delivering just a total vivisection of Cheney’s carnival of lies. For Tweety it comes years too late. But Strobel and Landay have been on this beat for years and years. Matthews practically gave them a makeshift Pulitzer today. But for some reason, the next time Fourthbranch gives a speech the cable networks will all cover it, and this train of lies will be forgotten.

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Pawlenty Gets Ready To Defy Minnesota Courts

by dday

That’s how I read this announcement:

Two sources have confirmed that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will announce that he will not seek re-election in 2010.

The sources confirmed to WCCO-TV political reporter Pat Kessler that the announcement about Pawlenty’s future plans will include an announcement that he will not seek a third term.

The announcement is expected to be made at a 2 p.m. press conference.

Pawlenty wants to run for President, and maybe wants to free his schedule for 2011 (although that didn’t exactly work out for Mitt Romney). He also might want to avoid a re-election fight in a blue state after years of budget deficits and recessions. This is a bad time to be a Governor.

But clearly, not having to face Minnesota voters again frees him up to do whatever he deems necessary with respect to the US Senate election. Al Franken will probably get approval from the state Supreme Court within a couple weeks as the winner of the election. At that point the Court will, in all likelihood, request a certificate of election for Franken to be seated. The people of Minnesota want two Senators again. Pawlenty, by taking himself out of the running, removes himself of accountability and can now be free to show Republican primary voters what a good soldier he is. He’ll refuse to sign the certificate. Heck, he makes this announcement THE DAY after the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Franken-Coleman case. He’s practically begging you to make the connection.

…at his press conference today: “I think you guys have really overbaked that issue. I’m going to do whatever the court says.”

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Professor Larry Jacobs explains how Pawlenty can wiggle out of this:

“Pawlenty’s decision not to run for governor could be a lead-up to a decision to run for President,” said Jacobs. “And Pawlenty’s decision to run for President makes it more likely, not less, that he will support Coleman’s efforts to appeal to the federal courts when he loses in the Minnesota Supreme Court. So I think the bottom line here is, Gov. Pawlenty’s political agenda may end up driving how he handles the Senate recount.”

I asked Jacobs about how Pawlenty said today — not for the first time — that he would obey the decision of a court to issue a certificate of election. But Jacobs still sees wiggle room here. “Signing it — and how quickly you sign it — those are two different things,” Jacobs explained. “If Norm indicates that he’s going to be filing in federal court, the Governor may just say, ‘you know, I am gonna sign it, I’m just waiting to hear from my legal counsel that this is appropriate.'”

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Trigger’d

by dday

We’re nearing a real fulcrum point in the health care debate. The sensible centrists and the corporate whores are trying to sink the public option by instead suggesting that it only be achieved through a “trigger” that would be pulled if the insurers didn’t provide a base level of care and access.

As a starting point for his bill, Mr. Kennedy favors a public plan that looks like Medicare, the government-run program for older Americans created in 1965, when he was a young senator.

By contrast, Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee, has been working for months with the panel’s senior Republican, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, in the hope of forging a bipartisan bill, which would probably play down the option of a public plan.

Mr. Grassley opposes creation of a new government insurance program and says “we cannot afford the public health plan we have already,” referring to Medicare.

President Obama has championed a public plan, saying it would help “keep the private sector honest,” though he has indicated he will be flexible on the details.

House Democratic leaders, including three committee chairmen drafting the House bill, are close to Senator Kennedy’s position.

Democrats on the Finance Committee said Mr. Baucus was exploring a possible compromise. Under this proposal, the public plan would be created only if private insurance companies had not made meaningful, affordable coverage available to all Americans within several years.

Senate Democrats said they believed that Mr. Baucus might settle for this “fallback plan,” which could win some support on both sides of his committee, from people like Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, and Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a Republican.

Obama met with both Kennedy and Baucus today before leaving for the Middle East. (UPDATE: Dodd sat in for Kennedy)

A trigger mechanism is simply absurd. The insurers have had decades to provide decent coverage and have demurred every time. They have shown themselves to be untrustworthy that entire time, including just last month, when they backpedaled on the cost controls they vowed to offer. Mike Lux, who has seen these battles up close, senses that this is the big proxy fight right now.

The insurance lobby has had multiple tactics for stopping the public option idea, which they despise because they know if regular folks have choice to go to a public option, insurance companies won’t have the same ability to treat their customers like garbage when they get sick. The first tactic was just to try to kill the public option outright, and the good news is that they appear to have failed at that. This so-called trigger proposal is the second tactic: the idea is to write a “trigger” that will allow for a public option only under certain conditions, but write the legislation so that those conditions would never get met in the real world. It’s a classic DC tactic, right up there with calling for a commission to study something. Olympia Snowe is carrying the insurance industry water on their trigger proposal, proposing triggers that would only get tripped in some fairyland none of us have ever visited.

The great thing for the insurance companies in a tactic like this is that it gives “centrist” Senators (centrist in Washington, DC usually means those who have taken massive amounts of campaign contributions from the affected industry) an excuse to help the insurance industry while looking like they are open to the public option that their constituents have been demanding.

Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have gotten some good things done so far, and are building real momentum in getting us moving in the right direction on health care. But if conservative Democrats force the adoption of the trigger, it will destroy Democratic unity and doom health care reform, because progressives will start attacking Democrats rather than insurance companies. We really are at a critical moment.

Baucus himself stayed away from dozens of town hall meetings on health care out in Montana in the last week, mainly because constituents were openly hostile to his vision of sham reform. Most everyone at these meetings argued in favor of single-payer, and Baucus obviously has no interest in that. But adding this trigger would shut off the only way for a single-payer system to flourish, through a robust public option that can be scaled up. Lux describes it perfectly.

The Progressive Caucus in the House has really stepped up, declaring their votes on health care only available in the event of a public option. But they have not determined what form that public option will take. The public needs to demand action without Washington compromises. This is worth calling your Congresscritter about.

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Is Cannibalism Really So Wrong?

by digby

Tom Tomorrow dissects the torture debate. Just read it.

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“Poke, Poke, Poke”

by tristero

Since Reagan, the right wing has succeeded spectacularly well in driving this country, both financially and morally, off a cliff. Now that a doctor was murdered in Kansas, the right wants to use that killing merely as an excuse to repeat their utterly bogus arguments about abortion. I say, ok, yes, let’s talk about the morality of access to safe and legal abortion:

Worldwide, there are 19 million unsafe abortions a year, and they kill 70,000 women (accounting for 13 percent of maternal deaths), mostly in poor countries like Tanzania where abortion is illegal, according to the World Health Organization. More than two million women a year suffer serious complications. According to Unicef, unsafe abortions cause 4 percent of deaths among pregnant women in Africa, 6 percent in Asia and 12 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean…

The 120-bed hospital in Berega [Tanzania] depends on solar panels and a generator, which is run for only a few hours a day. Short on staff members, supplies and even water, the hospital puts a lot of its scarce resources into cleaning up after failed abortions…

On a Friday in January, 6 of 20 patients in the women’s ward were recovering from attempted abortions. One, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, lay in bed moaning and writhing. She had been treated at the hospital a week earlier for an incomplete abortion and now was back, bleeding and in severe pain. She was taken to the operating room once again and anesthetized, and Emmanuel Makanza, who had treated her the first time, discovered that he had failed to remove all the membranes formed during the pregnancy. Once again, he scraped the inside of her womb with a curet, a metal instrument. It was a vigorous, bloody procedure. This time, he said, it was complete…

Dr. Mdoe said he suspected that some of the other illegal abortionists were hospital workers with delusions of surgical skill.

“They just poke, poke, poke,” he said. “And then the woman has to come here.” Sometimes the doctors find fragments of sticks left inside the uterus, an invitation to sepsis…

“We as medical personnel think abortion should be legal so a qualified person can do it and you can have safe abortion.” There are no plans in Tanzania to change the law…

The steady stream of [botched illegal, amateur abortion] cases reflects widespread ignorance about contraception. Young people in the region do not seem to know much or care much about birth control or safe sex, Dr. Mdoe said…

In most countries the rates of abortion, whether legal or illegal — and abortion-related deaths — tend to decrease when the use of birth control increases. But only about a quarter of Tanzanians use contraception…

An assistant medical officer, Telesphory Kaneno, said: “Talking about sexuality and the sex organs is still a taboo in our community. For a woman, if it is known that she is taking contraceptives, there is a fear of being called promiscuous.”

In interviews, some young women from the area who had given birth as teenagers said they had not used birth control because they did not know about it or thought it was unsafe: they had heard that condoms were unsanitary and that birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives could cause cancer.

Talking publicly about sex leads to promiscuity. Widespread ignorance of sexuality. Incredibly, these toxic notions and behaviors, and others like them, that are severely hobbling Tanzania are openly advocated as moral goods by American christianists. Some were even promoted on official government health sites during Bush II. Tanzanian culture is the kind of American society that the sickos who call themselves “pro-life” envision. That is why I prefer a far more accurate label for these creeps: “pro-coat hanger.”

Access to a safe and legal abortion is a moral good. The decision to terminate a pregnancy should be an entirely private one, and the right to make such a difficult decision in private is also a moral good.

The cultural war in this country over the right to a safe and legal abortion is, as it has been for past forty years, not really a religious struggle. It is, as Denise Grady’s brave article demonstrates, really about guaranteeing healthcare for poor women. Those opposed to keeping abortion safe and legal – ie, those who seek to deny professional medical care to poor women – wrap their repressive agenda in the robes of priests in order to hide the moral idiocy of their position. They spew false sanctity in the service of extremism and bigotry.

We stand on the moral high ground in the abortion debate, not those who use terrorism – the murder of Dr. Tiller – as an excuse to deplore access to safe and legal abortion.