Month: July 2009

Astroforging

by dday

Creating fake grassroots organizations to show presumed local support for typically corporate initiatives is known as astroturfing. Corporate lobbies forging letters from local groups to show that same fake support should be called… I don’t know, astroforging?

As U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello was considering how to vote on an important piece of climate change legislation in June, the freshman congressman’s office received at least six letters from two Charlottesville-based minority organizations voicing opposition to the measure.

The letters, as it turns out, were forgeries.

“They stole our name. They stole our logo. They created a position title and made up the name of someone to fill it. They forged a letter and sent it to our congressman without our authorization,” said Tim Freilich, who sits on the executive committee of Creciendo Juntos, a nonprofit network that tackles issues related to Charlottesville’s Hispanic community. “It’s this type of activity that undermines Americans’ faith in democracy.”

The faked letter from Creciendo Juntos was signed by “Marisse K. Acevado, Asst Member Coordinator,” an identity and position at Creciendo Juntos that do not exist.

The person who sent the letter has not been identified, but he or she was employed by a Washington lobbying firm called Bonner & Associates.

Staffers found five forged letters of this type, including one from the local chapter of the NAACP, just in Perriello’s correspondence. So you know there are lots more. This seems like the uncovering of a scam that’s been going on for years. In fact, this company, Bonner & Associates, has been at this for decades. Ed Markey wants an investigation from his perch in the Global Warming subcommittee.

Obviously the power of lobbyists has grown so much to become completely divorced from the Constitutional dictate of petitioning government for redress of grievances. In addition to writing legislation, owning political campaigns and having politicians jump in and out of their companies, lobby shops more recently have taken to these deceptive techniques of aping grassroots activity. They have funded and supported the teabaggers, and they’re now offering training sessions on how to approach Congressional town hall meetings during the August recess.

• Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”

• Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

• Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

They are busing people around the country to different town halls. Sound like the Brooks Brothers riots to you? Members of Congress somehow still think these meetings reflect the considered opinions of constituents. They should look at Tom Perriello’s mail.

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Comedy Gold

by digby

The New Mouthpiece Theatre is out! And guess what? It’s even better than usual. Here’s CJR:

“Ménage à Stella Artois” manages to be both glibly insulting and extraordinarily un-funny. Which is, in itself, fairly insulting. Milbank and Cillizza, through a series of (bad) puns that use the colorful names of microbrewed beers to poke fun at people in the news (swine flu victims should drink…Isolation Ale! Ha!), suggest, among many other things, that “the entire Republican Congressional leadership team” should drink Satan Red/Devil’s Brew/Fallen Angel/Evil Eye/Hell Bier (get it? because they’re demonic, I guess?). Oh, and that the Secretary of State should drink … Mad Bitch.

I’ll bet Jon Stewart is kicking himself for letting The Washington Post get that one before he got the chance.

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Pensive Jackass

by digby

Has there ever been a slimier, more unctuous piece of work than Mike Pence, a man whose brow is permanently furrowed in an insincere expression of deep regret that he’s forced to convey such terrible news about the Democrats’ raping of the American body politic? It makes your skin crawl.

WATSON: I’m very clear that we are not talking about anywhere close to a trillion or $800 billion in new taxes…so if you’ve got data from the CBO that suggests that some of the proposals on the table…represent that much in new taxes then that’s significant new information. Where are you getting that?

PENCE: Well I don’t think that’s significant new information I think the estimates we’ve all been working with from the CBO are in the — I’m trying to remember — it’s about the $800 billion range in the estimated cost of new taxes. … That’s really all out there Carlos.

He’s just lying. But he does it well. But then his former career prepared him well for it. He was a wingnut radio gasbag.

h/t top bb

Wildly Successful Government Program

by dday

Americans have been conditioned by wingnut rhetoric into believing that government cannot possibly work well. I think that ought to be contradicted by the success of the Cash For Clunkers program, which leveraged $4-5 billion into the economy in seven days, got consumers spending again on big-ticket items, and improved fuel efficiency on 250,000 cars well above expectations (preliminary Congressional reports show a 69% increase in fuel efficiency – most people are trading in SUVs with 100,000 miles or more on them for solid passenger cars). The program is working so well that Congress wants to continue it.

Congress is moving quickly to save the depleted cash-for-clunkers program, as the House passed a $2 billion spending measure Friday afternoon that would keep alive a program that has encouraged American car owners to trade in their old gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient vehicles.

Despite some criticism from Republicans who called the legislation another bailout for another industry, the bill easily passed on a 316-109 bipartisan vote.

Under the fast-track bill, Democratic leaders will use funds from a renewable energy loan guarantee included in the stimulus. The bill would extend the program through Sept. 30, 2010. Democrats have portrayed the run on cash for clunkers cash as a great success for the $1 billion program, which allows car owners to turn in older, less fuel efficient cars for a $4,500 rebate to purchase higher gas mileage vehicles.

These are the same Republican stooges who complained that GM and Chrysler were shutting down too many auto dealers (remember how Obama was marking dealers for closure based on campaign contributions?). Now the government designs a program that massively helps dealers, advances fuel efficiency and through investment gets a lot of economic activity going, and they scream “bailout.” But if these were tax credits for rich people, they’d be sound measures to induce economic growth. There’s also the fact that this is not even new money, but money already in the stimulus package. They’re also whining that the dealers haven’t been paid yet, even though the program kicked off a WEEK ago. Apparently they all receive their paychecks instantly for all work they perform.

Sadly, too many people see a government program run out of money and think it failed. No, that means demand was so high that it fulfilled its initial purpose in a matter of days. And I see Claire McCaskill rejecting the idea of “subsidizing auto purchases forever.” Apparently “forever”=anything more than one week (UPDATED: she’s backtracked from that initial rejection now).

We still have a tough economy, mangled by failed conservative policies. The recession has leveled off into something approaching stagnation. And there is compelling evidence that the stimulus package is responsible for even getting us back to the stagnation point (it could have done more if it were the proper size). But by and large, consumers still aren’t spending and a lot of people still have no job. Until businesses start hiring again government needs to drive economic activity, which is why you’re seeing second stimulus packages proposed in the form of extending measures from the initial stimulus.

Except lots of those extensions revolve around corporate tax breaks and not things that put money into the economy. Things like Cash for Clunkers. And Democrats ought to tell the story that this successful government program, going deliberately and directly to Main Street, represents our best hope for eventual economic recovery.

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The Jello Thickens

by digby

John Amato caught Jay Rockefeller taking an unusual upright position:

Jay is a supporter of the public option and was pissed that the co-op proposal was inserted in the Baucus bill since it was never even talked about during the general election. Isn’t it nice that Baucus has killed the public option just to work with Republicans? Conservatives don’t even have to win elections to get what they want. That’s some deal they have.

Ed: It’s not going to work. There’s really no successful model out there to support the basis of signing on to a co-op. Would you sign on to a co-op or is that unacceptable?

Rockefeller: That’s unacceptable and I can almost prove it. We’ve been in touch with all the folks that oversee, represent all the co-ops in the country on all subjects and they point out that there are probably less than twenty health co-ops in the country. There are only two that really work that well. One in Puget Sound, one in Minnesota, except for those two, they are all unlicensed. All present health co-ops are all unlicensed, they’re unregulated. Nobody knows anything about them, nobody has any control over them and nobody has ever said, which is stunning to me, no government organization or private organization has ever done a study to what effect they might have in terms of bringing down the insurance prices.

They are untested, they are unlicensed, they are unregulated, they are unstudied. Why would we even think about putting them in as a control on this massive insurance industry instead of the public option?

Rockefeller, who has been shut out of the negotiations, is actually a health care wonk who has been working on these issues for years. Conrad, on the other hand, came up with this co-op thing all by himself in a late night bull session with some interns and the janitor apparently. That anyone is taking it seriously as a substitute for the public plan is ludicrous. I would imagine that’s why it even has Jay Rockefeller’s head exploding.

Now, much of this stuff is kabuki. Who knows what Jay’s really trying to accomplish here? But whatever it is, I’m grateful that he’s finally stepping into the breach and saying the truth about this half baked co-op concept, even if it’s just out of personal pique at not being included in the negotiations. Hey, we take what we can get.

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Officer Cuckoo

by digby

Most of you have probably already heard about the police officer in Boston who was suspended for writing an email to a reporter in which he compares Henry Louis Gates to a “jungle monkey” (and then passing it on to his army buddies.)

But have you seen the actual email?

Officer Barrett’s original e-mail

This guy is a psycho and the Boston Police are lucky that when his temper went off he just sent an email instead of shooting up the place. It was only a matter of time.

You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that an awful lot of what he writes sounds like boilerplate radio wingnut. It’s always worried me that so many of these military and police fellows, overseas and at home, listen to that crap. 95% of those who do are perfectly capable of separating out the idiocy from the nonsense and they behave like professionals. But there have to be a few who go off the rails, either with PTSD or their own personal demons.

Of course, officers like this fellow will find out who their allies are when called upon to enforce the law against a right winger. It’s a one way street.

Update: This just in: the officer insists he isn’t a racist. But then racists never think they are, do they? And they get really, really upset when someone say they are.

“I would like to take this opportunity to offer fellow police officers, soldiers and citizens my sincerest apology over the controversial e-mail I authored,” Barrett said on CNN. “I am not a racist. I did not intend any racial bigotry, harm or prejudice in my words. I sincerely apologize that these words have been received as such. I truly apologize to all.”

Fine. Now he needs to explain the rest of his psychotic utterings.

Update: I shouldn’t be flippant about this. PTSD is a serious problem and it’s possible this fellow is suffering from it. This in-depth series from the Colorado Gazette outlining the problems of returning Iraq vets is very sobering and the subject should be a top priority for police departments, many of which hire former and reservist military. (Via Gary Farber)

H/t to bat
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Eye Off The Ball

by dday

I’ve heard for seven years that George W. Bush had the chance to capture Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the mountains of Tora Bora, and we pulled out to focus on the invasion of Iraq. John Kerry ran on that point. Barack Obama ran on it. The whole idea was that Iraq was the bad, unnecessary war, and Afghanistan was the good war, and we needed to move our focus back on Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda was, to disrupt their safe havens.

Turns out the commander in Afghanistan thinks we have focused too much on Al Qaeda in the war ostensibly designed to dismantle al Qaeda.

U.S. military leaders have concluded that their war effort in Afghanistan has been too focused on hunting Al Qaeda, and have begun to shift Predator drone aircraft to the fight against the Taliban and other militants in order to prevent the country from slipping deeper into anarchy.

The move, described by government and Defense Department officials, represents a major change in the military’s use of one of its most precious intelligence assets. It also illustrates the hard choices that must be made because the drones are in short supply […]

“We have been overly counter-terrorism-focused and not counter-insurgency-focused,” said one U.S. official.

Senior government officials said Bin Laden remained a prime target but that they needed to focus on fighting the Taliban.

“We might still be too focused on Bin Laden,” the official said. “We should probably reassess our priorities.”

I think the proper response is that we’ve been counter-terrorism-focused because OUR MISSION HAS ALWAYS BEEN COUNTER-TERRORISM. Or at least it was, until the new Pentagon kewl kids decided you could hug the ones you bomb and make them love you.

Without consultation with the country, the military completely transferred the mission in Afghanistan. They are less concerned with dismantling Al Qaeda and more concerned with a counter-insurgency bank shot. Gen. McChrystal, a real white-whale chaser, described his strategy in the Washington Post today. And surprise, it’ll take more personnel.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is preparing a new strategy that calls for major changes in the way U.S. and other NATO troops there operate, a vast increase in the size of Afghan security forces and an intensified military effort to root out corruption among local government officials, according to several people familiar with the contents of an assessment report that outlines his approach to the war.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who took charge of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last month, appears inclined to request an increase in American troops to implement the new strategy, which aims to use more unconventional methods to combat the growing Taliban insurgency, according to members of an advisory group he convened to work on the assessment. Such a request could receive a chilly reception at the White House, where some members of President Obama’s national security team have expressed reluctance about authorizing any more deployments.

Senior military officials said McChrystal is waiting for a recommendation from a team of military planners in Kabul before reaching a final decision on a troop request. Several members of the advisory group, who spoke about the issue of force levels on the condition of anonymity, said that they think more U.S. troops are needed but that it was not clear how large an increase McChrystal would seek.

“There was a very broad consensus on the part of the assessment team that the effort is under-resourced and will require additional resources to get the job done,” a senior military official in Kabul said.

This is flat-out mission creep. We entered Afghanistan to deny a staging ground for attacks against America. And now we’re there to nation-build. One isn’t necessarily unrelated to the other, but we’re admittedly nation-building only in the areas where the Taliban isn’t already dug in, meaning we are allowing various safe havens and staging grounds. To the extent that we’re trying to split the Taliban, counter-insurgency methods have their role; but this sounds really more advanced than that. Spencer writes:

But there’s a big difference between that and a counterinsurgency strategy for a nation-building objective, and a still greater one between that and a counterinsurgency strategy for a prophylactic objective. The American people have never approved sending 68,000 troops to suffer for Hamid Karzai, and certainly never approved sending them to keep Pakistan from falling to the Taliban. (Which, by the way, seems like a distinctly unrealistic scenario, especially now that the Pakistani military moved into Swat. The Taliban-led insurgency is a threat to Pakistan. It’s not going to rule the country. Westerners have a tendency of predicting the imminent fall of Pakistan every five years or so.)

Perhaps I’m misreading what it is the people around McChrystal are saying, but it seems fair to say that the balance of evidence favors an interpretation that Afghanistan strategy is coming unmoored from the actual objectives of the war, and the actual interests at stake, and the White House is being either deluded or outright dishonest about what’s happening. “Our goal is to deal with the terrorist elements that are in that country and are making life for Afghans and potentially life for millions throughout the world more dangerous through their activities,” Robert Gibbs said from the White House podium today. That is simply not what’s coming from McChrystal’s circle.

The White House either has to rein in this effort, or own it. And if they own it, they must explain their deception to the public, and why the policy became hijacked by a clique in the Pentagon who treats anything “unconventional” as prima facie brilliant.

…Understand, I think the whole idea of “dismantling safe havens” is flawed, especially considering that, if you look at recent arrest reports, the last safe haven was in North Carolina. But shifting the mission simply to achieve short-term results is completely unwise.

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The Latest

by digby

Jonathan Cohn has a good post on the health reform state of play as of yesterday, which, from everything else I’ve read, sounds about right. I’m glad to hear that the alleged liberals on the Senate Finance Committee have finally emerged from their comas although I’m not sure that makes them any more effectual. And the dynamics in the House are fairly promising. Waxman got the bill out of committee and the progressives came out swinging to put the leadership on notice that they can’t use that as the final word.

Obviously, everything is very, very fluid. And intense.

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Newspeak 2.0

by tristero

Here is a trick question: Which one of these statements should you believe to be true?

Headline in New York Times:

Rove Says His Role in Prosecutor Firings Was Small

Headline in Washington Post:

Rove Had Heavier Hand in Prosecutor Firings Than Previously Known

The answer? Both, of course! C’mon folks, stop living in the past! We live in the golden age of non-contradiction (obscure Ayn Rand parody intended). In less sophisticated times, it would be absolutely clear that Rove was bullshitting like a stampeding herd on Ex-Lax. Not any longer, not in the modern era.

We now live in a world where professional white man Lou Dobbs insists he “believes” Obama is a US citizen AND he believes Obama should produce his birth certificate. We now live in a world where professional ding dong Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist (a non-contradiction in itself) AND insists he’s not saying Obama doesn’t like white people. Got a problem with that? They don’t, nor do their bosses, nor do their legions upon legions of supporters.

So now you know how to make sense of the news in the Third Millenium. Rove had a larger role in the attorney general saga than previously known. And his role has been overestimated. An assertion and its refutation co-exist equally in today’s America, and both are equally valid.

We are waaaaay beyond Orwell, people.

Mancrush

by digby

Let me first say that Sgt Crowley is an obviously intelligent person who is very confident in front of the cameras and makes a strong impression in a press conference. He will go far if he chooses to pursue a career in public life. He is also an intimidating son of a gun, putting the reporters in their places with a steely look and a stern “hold on, let me finish” that was sort of startling.

But the dizzy, gushy adulation on the part of the gasbags is so over the top I’m feeling embarrassed in that “oh no, I walked in on my grandfather watching a porno” kind of way. Dear God.

Lou Dobbs is drooling and smirking, Chris Matthews is (without success) trying to keep that thrill up his leg under control and Roger Simon literally squealed in delight the second the press conference was over. This is the most manly, macho, guys guy they’ve had the pleasure to pleasure since Junior Bush insulted reporters on a daily basis, and you can tell they’ve been missing it big time.

I think it’s pretty clear that if Obama wants to get the press back on his side he needs to start pushing them around. These boys just love a man who hurts so good.

*This isn’t Crowley’s fault, by the way. He was fine. He can’t help if if the village people love themselves a man in a uniform — even (especially) when he’s not wearing it.

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