Month: November 2009

Imperial Drag

by digby

Aimai at NMMNB thinks this is a big story. I think so too:

MILAN — An Italian court on Wednesday convicted 22 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force colonel of orchestrating the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he said he was later tortured.

The judge in the case, Oscar Magi, said three other Americans, including the former Rome station chief for the CIA, were covered by diplomatic immunity.

The Americans were all tried in abstentia. A Milan prosecutor said his office would seek to have them extradited from the Untied States, but a formal decision will be made later by the Italian Justice Ministry…

Among the Americans charged in the case were Jeffrey Castelli, the former CIA station chief in Rome who allegedly oversaw the plot, and Robert Seldon Lady, the spy agency’s chief in Milan, who was accused of orchestrating the kidnapping. Prosecutors sought a 13-year prison term for Castelli and a 12-year sentence for Lady.

Armando Spataro, the deputy public prosecutor in Milan, said in his closing argument Wednesday that it was “unthinkable” that the U.S. policy of extraordinary rendition should trump Italian law, which forbids kidnapping.

Imagine what would happen here in the states if the Italians started kidnapping people off the streets of Detroit and sending them somewhere to be tortured. Would everyone think that was ok? (Probably, depending on the people …)

Whenever I read these stories I can’t help but imagine what this looks like from the perspective of the average Muslim around the world, much less out allies. Americans grab people off the streets and send them to be tortured at the direction of their government. And then they beat their chests and march around crowing about how great and generous they are. Would you not loathe and fear such people?

Aimai concludes:

I’d like to see more discussion of this and its implication for our country going forward. Its not, to me, a question of supporting Obama or being disappointed in him. Its just a question of whether our country will ever voluntarily stop raping, torturing, looting, and kidnapping for international gain and advantage. Or whether we will simply, like other once great powers, stop using our privileged position only once we’ve lost the privilege to other, stronger, powers.

I’m betting on the latter. When the main things you manufacture are weapons, and you’ve taken it upon yourself to police the entire planet virtually alone, it’s hard to argue that you aren’t an imperial military empire. History has some pretty good lessons for people who have the hubris to undertake such tasks.

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About Last Night

by digby

Thoughts:

• Even a fair number of the pro pot people voted against same sex marriage in Maine. So much for the hippies. Looking back, the racists must wish they’d put civil rights on state ballots so that people could vote their bigotry on a secret ballot. They could have kept Jim Crow for decades longer. I guess gay people will have to learn to “market” their humanity a little bit better. Maybe they could consult with the Jack in the Box people. Those ads are hilarious.

• The gasbags all think it’s very possible that health care is dead. I guess that’s because the Democrats actually added two seats.

• Plutocrats aren’t very popular at the moment. Go figure.

• The cable gasbags are even more irritating than last year and I didn’t think that was possible.

Update: Erick Erickson at Red State explains the Hoffman loss:

“The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens.

This is a huge win for conservatives.

“Whaaaa. . . ?” you say. (…)

The GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives
or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home
instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives
rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment
chose.

I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat
Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy. A Hoffman win is
not in the cards, but we did exactly what we set out to do — crush the
establishment backed GOP candidate.”

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History Is Written For The Losers, When They’re Wingnuts

by tristero

Here’s the online version of the Times article about Democrat Bill Owens’ stunning victory over the handpicked candidate of the fascist right. It differs from the printed version of the article. The online version has two paragraphs inserted -the third and the fourth-that provide merely token interest in the winner of this race. The print version omitted them; it was written entirely from the perspective of the losers, and is quite sympathetic to their cause. A sample:

“Thank you to every single person out there that joined my team and fought back for America,” [Republican-backed rightwing loser] Mr. Hoffman said. “This one was worth the fight. And it’s only one fight in the battle, and we have to keep fighting…”

The Club for Growth, a group that promotes limited government and lower taxes, spent about $1 million promoting Mr. Hoffman. Social conservative organizations like the Susan B. Anthony List, which opposes abortion, and the National Organization for Marriage, which fights same-sex marriage laws, joined forces in support of Mr. Hoffman. They printed literature, made phone calls and flooded the district with volunteers from across the country.

“This is probably the most amazing coalition-building I’ve seen in a long time — probably decades,” said Marilyn Musgrave, a former Republican congresswoman from Colorado who now works with the Susan B. Anthony List and came to New York to campaign for Mr. Hoffman.

On Tuesday morning, Ms. Musgrave stood in frigid weather for several hours outside a state office building in downtown Watertown with a group of home-schooled students passing out blue fliers that read, “Doug Hoffman shares our values!”

Ms. Musgrave said the overwhelming conservative embrace of Mr. Hoffman would show leaders in Washington that political bases should not be taken for granted. “Don’t just assume we’re yours.”

Clearly, the Times never bothered to cover Bill Owens at all – no descriptions, even online, about the crowd at Owens’ victory party, for example (there was a stock photo of Owens in print, but the caption makes clear it wasn’t a picture from last night). Why? Because he isn’t a rightwing lunatic, but simply what appears to be a decent man who cares passionately about issues that affect his community. Unlike his opponent, who didn’t even live in the district and had not the slightest clue what the issues were about.

For those of you who disagree that the Times provided once again an inappropriate outlet for rightwing propaganda by pointing to the mention that the loss of the district dealt a blow to the right, I’d like to note that nowhere in the article were the groups who supported Owens quoted, let alone their members profiled like Musgrave was at the end. And remember, the print version didn’t even bother to print an excerpt from Owens’ victory speech.

This is history written for the benefit of the losers.

What’s The Story

by digby

So, I went out for dinner and I came back to the fatuous gasbags all very solemnly declaring that the health care bill may very well fail and that this is a very serious rebuke to the Obama. At the moment I’m writing this, only Virginia has been called. Apparently, the fact that Virginia always elects an opposite member of the president’s party must have also been rebukes to Obama.

At this point, the only thing that seems obvious to me is that the super wealthy just aren’t as popular as they used to be. Even in New York City.

But who really knows about the rest of it? These people pretend to offer analysis and all kinds of conclusions about the the results, but they are really just advancing a pre-ordained narrative. Every once in a while something comes out of left field that they can’t fit into their storyline and they have to improvise.

I have no idea what it all means except that whatever it does mean is unlikely to be very informative about the next election. The volatility in our economy and political system makes predictions a year out even more unreliable than usual. Democrats will likely lose seats, the question is how many. That’s about it.

In case you have forgotten how these elections have been spun in the past, this handy little reminder from Media Matters tells the the real story.

Update: If you want the exit poll analysis from ABC, click here. They think we’re going to relive 1994.

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What Do You Mean “We” White Man?

by digby

This is pretty astonishing:

Yglesias writes:

[P]rogressive politics is badly disadvantaged by a situation in which the overwhelming majorities of political leaders and prominent media figures are white men. There are plenty of white men with progressive views, but in general the majority of white men are not progressive and the majority of progressives are not white men. Drawing from the relatively small pool of white male progressives means drawing from a shallow talent pool.

Maybe that explains it.

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Pancakes From Mommy

by digby

I’d mercifully forgotten just what “fun” watching election coverage on MSNBC can be. Chuck Todd just said that Obama is having a hard time translating his change message into reality, which gave Matthews a taser-like jolt up his leg and he launched into a full on tirade:

Matthews: You know I don’t understand that! I know what Obama believes in because I agree with a lot of it. He believes in rejoining the world community. He believes in not being a lone gunman out there in the world but recognizing the right of other countries and trying to work with them peacefully for solutions to real problems. Respect for little countries as well as big countries.

At home he believes in a positive role for government, in health care and regulation. He clearly believes in global warming. He has strong beliefs that generally run against what Bush and the Republicans believe. I don’t have a hard time interpreting his beliefs. Do you Larry? Maybe everybody else does .. I don’t know.

Larry Sabato: No, I don’t have a hard time interpreting them, but let’s remember that expectations were just sky high. Too many of those new Democratic voters who weren’t used to voting thought the whole world was going to be remade quickly after Obama got into office.

And look, the economy is still bad …

Matthews: Well, they’re wrong! Larry,they’re wrong and misinformed.

Sabato: … the economy …

Matthews: they’re misinformed! The netroots people out there who think you can change the congress out there overnight legally and civilly are wrong. It takes a strong majority to bring big change. Somebody should have told them that.

Todd: chuckling

Sabato: yeah, well, once the economy improves…

Matthews: Somebody needs to tell these netroots people that you can’t just order pancakes from mommy, that you can’t order change in American government as easy as mommy gimme some pancakes. It’s not that easy!

Funny stuff. You’d think the alleged experts Chuck Todd and Larry Sabato would have mentioned to Tweety that Obama has that required huge majority in the House and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate but they were having a hard time getting a word in edgewise.

Besides, I hate pancakes.

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The ACORNS Are Stealing The Election!

by digby

Weigel reports for NY 23:

At a short press availability in his campaign office here, NY-23 Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman said that a GOTV volunteer’s tires had been slashed, and all but blamed Democrats for the dirty trick. “There are reports that they’re bringing in the troops and they’re bringing in ACORN,” said Hoffman. “I think the Democrats are doing anything they possibly can to steal this election away from the 23rd district.” The campaign gave reporters the name and phone number of Jeremy Kain, the volunteer who claimed to have his tires slashed, but asked to confirm whether he was accusing the Democrats of supressing the vote, Hoffman started to backtrack: ‘We’ve called in the police and the police will be investigating.” The campaign is pushing this story hard after a wave of morning reports that Hoffman’s grassroots supporters were misbehaving. Attacks on ACORN, and allegations that Democrats are trying to steal this election, have been striking components Hoffman’s hard-edged late-game messaging.

Click over to find out what really happened with the tire…

I just hope that all the major networks and newspapers assign a special reporter to look into these accusations by the teabaggers’ darling. Certainly Fox will be running with them and everyone knows that the mainstream press has been remiss by failing to follow up on such important Fox investigations.

It’s actually a smart move. Since Fox has intimidated the pants off of the other news organizations, they will bend over backwards to be “fair and balanced” thus lending credence to the ACORN meme.

I just hope they don’t end up accidentally arresting Hoffman’s African American staffer in their zeal to reveal the ACORNs in the woodpile.

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The Most Important Election In The History Of The World

by digby

So all day long I’m hearing the gasbags blather on about how this lame, off year election is a referendum on liberalism and Obama and things are looking grim, grim, grim.

The Democratic blue dogs have it all figured out:

“It looks as though the anger that has been boiling up the last couple of months is going to lead to a pretty high turnout from Republicans and from people who are concerned about increased spending,” Altmire said Monday evening during an appearance on Fox Business Network.

“And I do think that if the results show Republicans have a pretty good night, that probably is going to lead some Democrats to think that, going into next year, we need to take a second look at the way that we’ve done a lot of bills we’ve addressed up to this point,” the Pennsylvania congressman added.

Oh, Golly let’s hope this radical eight month experiment in slightly less corporate conservative governance has run its course and we can get back to tax cutting, deregulating and bloodletting, which is what the government does best.

According to CNN, it’s bad news for Democrats even before the votes have been counted:

Blitzer: … our new CNN Opinion Research poll that shows the president enjoys a 54% approval rating with a 45% disapproval. Let’s bring in our senior political analyst Gloria Borger who’s looking at all these numbers.

This approval rating. Does it help him and does it help Democrats go forward? Because 53 percent’s still a good number.

Borger: Let’s put it this way Wolf. It doesn’t hurt Democrats. But this is a personal approval rating for President Obama and that doesn’t necessarily translate into an approval rating for congressional Democrats.

And here’s the real problem they’ve got right now. And that is that all the intensity and enthusiasm is on the Republican side. Our poll shows that Republicans are 5% more enthusiastic about their candidates than democrats. If you go back to the last election, the 2008 presidential, Democrats had a 19% lead on enthusiasm, so that’s a big drop for them Wolf.

Blitzer: I should say 54% approval rating. Gloria stand by for a moment. Also in our brand new poll, there’s this: when registered voters were asked who they would vote for in congress in the next election, they favored Democrats over Republicans 50% to 44% Republican.

There you have it.

They went on to discuss in depth the fact that the Republicans are on a huge roll because of this “enthusiasm” gap which translates into huge losses for the Democrats comparable to 1994. (And since Obama’s job approval on the deficit is down to 40% the sky is falling.)

I’m sure you all recall the endless pearl clutching when Democrat John Warner won the Governor’s seat in Virginia and Democrat Jim McGreevey won in New Jersey in 2001. What, you don’t recall that those races were widely considered to be a referendum on Bush because he he’d stolen the election, lowered taxes on millionaires and the country had just suffered a devastating terrorist attack on his watch? That’s because it didn’t happen. The blatherers could barely rouse themselves to declare the Republicans in trouble when the Democrats actually took over the congress in 2006. The constantly said Bush was extremely popular well after his personal and job approval ratings were in the low 40s.

This is a perfect example from March of 2006:

As Media Matters for America has noted (here and here), Matthews has repeatedly inflated Bush’s likeability ratings. Appearing on the March 1 edition of NBC’s Today, Matthews falsely suggested that until a new CBS News poll indicated otherwise, Bush had personal likeability numbers “going for him.” In fact, Bush’s favorability ratings have been low for some time; they were low when Matthews said in November 2005 that “Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left.” From the March 15 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: I always thought Bush was more popular than his policies. I keep saying it, and I keep being wrong on this. Bush is not popular. I’m amazed when 50 percent of the people don’t like him — just don’t like this guy. Thirty-nine percent like him. Are you surprised? Does that fit with the world you walk in?

Yeah, it easily fit with the world that Americans who don’t live in the beltway walk in. But in Matthews’ world, Republicans are always popular and everything that happens is always a benefit to them.

And FYI, according to Chuck Todd, just because the Republicans have held NY 23 for a century it’s really a Democratic district because it narrowly went for Obama. So if Hoffman wins, it’s a serious loss for the Democrats and we can expect all Dems in swing districts to move right. he might be right about that last part, but not for the reason he says …

Stay tuned to the cable gasbags who are all geared up with full election night coverage to rival the presidential race in 2008, complete with Big Board and duelling partisan shills. This is just that important.

Update: I should make clear that the voter intensity issue is real. The Democratic base is not enthusiastic and that could be a problem in 2010. But rest assured that Borger and the Borg are convinced this will only be helped by the Democrats moving to the right.

Just as they always say that Independents are independent because the Democrats are too liberal and the Republicans aren’t conservative enough, they also oddly believe that the Democrats become demoralized when their party leans “too far” to the left while the Republicans become energized when they think their party is doing the same thing. The lesson is that moving left is always the problem. Even when nobody’s moving left.

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Double Counting The Dogs

by digby

This is and update on the backroom abortion fight in the house. The Washington Post writes today:

The outcome of those talks could be crucial in deciding the fate of the health-care bill. Democrats need the vast majority of their caucus to back the bill, since nearly all congressional Republicans have said they will oppose the legislation.

“I will continue whipping my colleagues to oppose bringing the bill to the floor for a vote until a clean vote against public funding for abortion is allowed,” Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Monday in a statement. He said last week that 40 Democrats could vote with him to oppose the legislation — enough to derail the bill.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, cast Stupak as “attempting to ban abortion coverage in the private insurance market.”

House leaders were still negotiating Monday with the bloc of Democrats concerned about abortion provisions in the legislation, saying that they could lead to public funding of the procedure. After an evening meeting of top House Democrats, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) said, “We are making progress,” but added that they had not reached an agreement.

Howie calls bullshit:

The problem with Stupak’s math is that (a) he doesn’t really have 40 votes pledged to kill health care and (b) most of the ones he does have can’t be added to the Blue Dogs who oppose it; they are the Blue Dogs who oppose it. When Stupak and Lipinksi drafted a whiny letter to Nancy Pelosi crying about funding women’s health, they only wound up with 19 signatories: Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Bart Stupak (D-MI), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA), Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS), Lincoln Davis (Blue Dog-TN), Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC), Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC), Jerry Costello (D-IL), Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS), James Oberstar (D-MN), Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL), Steve Driehaus (D-OH), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA), John Murtha (D-PA), Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) and Kathleen Dahlkemper (Blue Dog-PA). Eleven of them are die-hard reactionary Blue Dogs who routinely vote with the GOP on many– in some cases most— substantive measures. Gene Taylor, Bobby Bright, Travis Childers, Charlie Melancon, Heath Shuler and Dan Boren vote so consistently with the Republicans that they are Boehner Boys.

If Stupak is double counting votes then it’s possible that the most heinous of the abortion language (the “rider” etc.” will not be included in the bill that comes to the floor.

Howie goes on to mention some of the others who signed on to the Stupak abortion letter, specifically Marcy Kaptur, progressive heroine of Capitalism: A Love Story, staunch economic liberal and anti-choice true believer. He asks whether or not Kaptur would indeed vote against any health care reform bill that only slightly restricts access to abortion coverage as currently designed. I doubt it, but you never know.

Update: Howie has the full list of Stupak Dogs and they are all the usual right wing democratic suspects who willvote against the bill no matter who’s in it. If the House acquiesces to any of their demands on abortion, it won’t be because they need their votes for Health Care Reform, it will be because they don’t want to fight for women’s rights.

And Kaptur isn’t on the list.

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Keeping The ACORNs In Their Place

by digby

John Fund and Rush Limbaugh have been darkly predicting an outbreak of voter fraud by the ACORN conspiracy that is threatening to take over the world. Indeed, the rank and file is worried that ACORN has even infiltrated the campaign of the teabagging darling Doug Hoffman.

Dave Weigel reports from NY 23:

Outside, two dozen Hoffman supporters lined the sidewalks with signs that attacked Owens as a “Pelosi puppet” and an agent of ACORN. “I was at a Tea Party, but this is too slow a process for me,” said John Dewitt, a contractor from Adams, N.Y. “I’m more on the violence side. I’m more of the Civil War, revolutionary kind of guy. I’m of the old school–you kick them in the ass and be done with it.” The Hoffman backers outside of the Biden event all said they’d attended Tea Parties. Some were affiliated with Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project. All worried that ACORN was going to show up in the district, or even at the Biden event–a paranoia that led to some minor awkwardness when an African-American Hoffman worker walked by. “This guy’s with ACORN,” said Dewitt. “Definitely, not from around here,” said businessman Erik Dunk.

Those ACORNs are a bunch of shiftless welfare queens who are disenfranchising Real Americans. Crooks and Liars has the goods.

Oh wait:

The teabaggers are turning to threats and intimidation out there in NY-23 land.

Elizabeth Benjamin writes in the NY Daily News:

It’s getting ugly out there. I just got off the phone with former state Democratic Chairwoman June O’Neill, who informed me the police had been called to at least two polling sites in St. Lawrence County due to overzealous electioneering (O’Neill called it “voter intimidation”) by Doug Hoffman supporters.

“We’ve gotten reports that people are standing there, covered with Hoffman stickers and yelling anti-choice stuff at voters,” said O’Neill, a St. Lawrence native who has been running the party’s GOTV effort for Bill Owens in NY-23. “Apparently, there’s some woman claiming to be a commissioner,” O’Neill continued. “Commissioner of what, I don’t know. She’s from Texas, I think, and she won’t leave.” “This is not the way we roll in the North Country.”‘

O’Neill also said she had received anecdotal reports of problems at polling sites in Gouverneur, which is Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava’s hometown. But she couldn’t immediately confirm this. I called over to the St. Lawrence Board of Elections and got GOP Elections Commissioner Debbie Pahler on the line. She confirmed that the police indeed had been called, but she downplayed the incident, saying it’s “a routine procedure here in the county.”

“We had electioneering within the 100-foot polling marker,” Phaler said. “It’s my understanding that they were asked to leave and wouldn’t leave.” “If people are electioneering within the marker and don’t stop when we ask them to, our inspectors are instructed to call law enforcement to assist them. I don’t think anybody was arrested.”

O’Neill also said she had received anecdotal reports of problems at polling sites in Gouverneur, which is Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava’s hometown. But she couldn’t immediately confirm this.

As Amato astutely points out, this is just the teabaggers bringing their tried and true townhall methods to the polling booth. There’s nothing wrong with people standing outside polling booths intimidating voters and screaming in their faces, right? Uhm. No.

Seriously, I was vaguely supportive of the idea that people should be allowed to scream at their political leaders. They sign on for it and their constituents don’t have any obligation to be polite to them. (Packing heat at political events, not so much.) But intimidation outside polling booths is the most undemocratic thing you can do. Election day is the one day when everyone should be dignified and serious and let people vote in peace.

I guess it figures that the party of the deep south would be inclined to resort to this. Vote suppression has long been their preferred method of winning. But listening to them whine about being victims of mythical voter fraud while they are doing everything they can to make voting as difficult as possible for their oppostion is almost more than I can take. The “I know you are but what am I” politics of the right is as exhausting as dealing with a psychopathic five year old.

Update: Hans Von Spakovsky is back in business. Keep your eye on this. Von Spakovsky is one of the leading vote manipulation operatives in the GOP and they are testing out memes in this election.
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