Month: May 2010

He’s Doing It

by digby

He’s really doing it:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is attempting to amend the 2005 Stolen Honor Act, which criminalized false claims of military service, in order to punish people who lie about being in combat — people like Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D), a Senate candidate. Here’s Hatch:

My amendment would add to this existing statute, making false statements regarding participation in combat operations. It appears to me that individuals make these false claims in order to obtain honorariums, employment, elected office or other positions of authority.

If convicted of this misdemeanor offense, the perpetrator could face 6 months in jail and/or a fine. This is the same penalty for falsely obtaining and wearing awards or medals.

I’d laugh it weren’t so obvious that the Republicans are cranking up their scandal machinery (which relies on a flurry of unintelligible accusations that eventually adds up to a narrative of political “trouble.”) Meanwhile, it might be useful to point out that this is going to result in some very uncomfortable moments in the Senate men’s room:

Long before he was the Senate’s most powerful sometimes-moderate who won’t support the climate bill he helped draft because of personal pique, Lindsey Graham was just another politician who repeatedly lied about fighting in a war overseas.

According to his (current) official bio, “Graham logged six-and-a-half years of service on active duty as an Air Force lawyer.” After he left the active duty force, he joined the South Carolina Air National Guard. During the first Gulf War, Graham was called up to act as staff judge advocate at McEntire Air National Guard Base in South Carolina. As staff judge advocate, Graham’s duties “included briefing pilots on the law of armed conflict, preparing legal documents for deploying troops, and providing legal services for family members of the South Carolina Air National Guard. ” His service never took him out of South Carolina.

And so, naturally, for years afterward, Lindsey Graham referred to himself in his official biography and elsewhere as “an Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm veteran.”

And then there’s this one:

Ronald Reagan told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, in separate Oval Office visits, that as a young soldier in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II, he had filmed the liberation of Nazi death camps; Reagan never served in Europe at all, though his work involved handling footage shot by military cameramen and war correspondents.

And then, of course, there’s this:

“I’ve been to war. I’ve raised twins. If I had a choice, I’d rather go to war.”
Houston Chronicle, January 2002

“I learned some good lessons from Vietnam. First, there must be a clear mission. Secondly, the politics ought to stay out of fighting a war. There was too much politics during the Vietnam War.” Associated Press, March 2002

You can decide for yourself if any of those comments might reasonably be interpreted to mean these people were implying (or saying outright) that they had been in theater, when none of them had been. I don’t recall anyone making a federal case out of it at the time. But hey, bring it on. Reagan’s dead and Bush is retired. But Graham’s still available, at least for questioning on the issue. He’s an expert, after all.

And then maybe someone could introduce a bill that makes it illegal for war criminals to run for office. It would put a huge dent in the GOP’s field, but if we are going to criminalize vague references to being a combat veteran, we probably need to think twice about veterans who’ve been charged with murder. Otherwise, this whole thing might look a little bit silly.

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Can You Feel The Excitement Building?

by digby

Looks like we got us a real, live pseudo-scandal. Yee Haw.

MSNBC Anchor: Ed, I want to end on the Sestak, the calls for an investigation, because you said this was one of the two important things that came out of this. If the president is admitting “listen nothing inappropriate happened” why not just come forward if you campaigned on transparency, why not just come forward and say listen, here are the facts,you judge and we’ll move on?

Ed Shultz: Well because I think there might be some legal issues here that the White House is playing it safe right now. For the president to come out and say “I’ll have a response for you,” he termed it an “official response” which means “our attorney’s are working on it.” There’s legal issues here. The Republicans are laser frocused on anything they can do to get the president out of office. This is not going to end any time soon. And advice to Joe Sestak, would you just speak up right now and tell everything you know? That would end all of this.

Yeah, sure it would. And good of the very liberal Ed Shultz to advance the idea that there are legal issues here. Even though virtually everyone in politics agrees that there aren’t. (Hey, did they ever finally wrap-up that Cisneros investigation? Maybe we could tack this one on to that if it’s still out there.)

Unfortunately, the president just validated the idea that this is a huge deal by making it sound like it requires an “official response” and then allowing it to fester rather than releasing this “official response” immediately. Now the press canreally get worked up. Look for Sestak to hold a press conference soon, ratcheting up the “scandal” even more. If we’re really lucky maybe he can be forced out of the race over this ludicrous non-story before Toomey even has to spend any money. However, he should probably agree to don a hair shirt and walk through the streets of Philly flagellating himself with a cat-o-nine tails for having the temerity to suggest that the White House might have made a perfectly legal and commonplace offer which he declined. It’s the least he can do for making the horrible mistake of bucking the party establishment when it insisted the Democrats must back Republicans they loathe.

Clearly, he was asking for this. If you don’t have the “savvy” to beat back a GOP pseudo-scandal and the ensuing Village feeding frenzy, you have no business being in the Senate. That, after all, is the only qualification that matters.

Update: Jamison Foser has a must read post about the dynamics at play and concludes with this:

[M]any of them [reporters] have gotten it into their heads that there should be an investigation not because there was likely any illegality, but because the Obama administration has talked about having high ethical standards it promised, and because conservatives have suddenly decided to pretend that there’s something unethical about offering someone a job.

That last part is dangerous. Dangerous. Investigations should not be taken so lightly.

Let’s flash back to January 5, 1994, shall we? Here’s the Washington Post’s editorial that day:

THE ADMINISTRATION has taken the position that there’s no need to name an independent counsel in the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan case. It argues that the investigation is safely in the hands of career Justice Department attorneys, that the president and Mrs. Clinton are cooperating fully even though not directly involved and that the attorney general has no current power to appoint a fully independent counsel anyway.

We think that’s wrong — that, murky though most aspects of this case still are, it represents precisely the kind of case in which an independent counsel ought to be appointed. We say that even though — and this should be stressed — there has been no credible charge in this case that either the president or Mrs. Clinton did anything wrong. Nevertheless, it is in the public interest — and in the president’s as well — to put the inquiry in independent hands.

There had been, according to the Washington Post editorial board, “no credible charge” that either Bill or Hillary Clinton had done “anything wrong.” And yet the Post demanded an independent investigation anyway. That’s how, eventually, America got saddled with Ken Starr, and how years of investigation of an innocuous real estate deal morphed into a probe of the president’s sex life.

That’s what can happen when the media insists on an investigation not because there is evidence of real wrongdoing, but in order to prove innocence. And that, no doubt, is exactly the kind of thing many conservatives are hoping for.

If reporters sincerely believe that the Sestak allegations suggest serious wrongdoing, fine: they should argue their case. (While they’re at it, they should demonstrate that they were saying the same thing three months ago, and three years ago, and three years before that — or explain their sudden onset of outrage.) But if they’re just playing a little game, or — like the Washington Post in 1994 — asking for an investigation despite not believing there is any “credible charge” of illegality, they should think long and hard about what they’re doing.

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The Best And The Brightest

by digby

The fallacy continues:

Where I was wrong: my belief that oil companies were ready for worst case scenario.

This is the big problem, isn’t it? The assumption that people who have a short term financial incentive to gamble are looking out for their own — and our — long term interests. It’s Uncle Alan Greenspan saying that he was shocked to learn that the Wall Street Big Money Boyz weren’t protecting the system that gave them all their wealth. It’s believing that the experts have some sort of pride or investment that makes them trustworthy.

And it’s why the “let’s not look in the rear view mirror” strategy exacerbates this problem. There is literally no incentive or prohibition against doing the wrong thing short term. And in the long run they’ll all be rich and comfortable no matter what happens.

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What Will be The Lessons Learned?

by digby

As we await word about whether or not the most recent attempt to cap the well was successful, it’s sobering to realize that the Gulf gusher is the worst oil disaster in history. They can’t even guess how bad the devastation will eventually be, but the estimates keep going up and by the look of things, this is going to be a dead zone for some time to come.

The other day I wrote a piece contemplating the fact that we may not be able to “fix” this and what that means psychologically. I personally suspect it will mean more cynicism, more apathy, more loathing for elite institutions, particularly government. But that’s just me. David Roberts at Grist, obviously horrified by the disaster, nonetheless has hope that it will have a different effect:

Once we know that accidents can be catastrophic and irreversible, it becomes clear that there is no margin of error. We’re operating a brittle system, unable to contain failure and unable to recover from it. Consider how deepwater drilling will look in that new light.

The thing is, we’re already operating in those circumstances in a thousand different ways — it’s just that the risks and the damages tend to be distributed and obscured from view. They’re not thrust in our face like they are in the Gulf. We don’t get back the land we destroy by mining. We don’t get back the species lost from deforestation and development. We don’t get back islands lost to rising seas. We don’t get back the coral lost to bleaching or the marine food chains lost to nitrogen runoff. Once we lose the climatic conditions in which our species evolved, we won’t get them back either.

We’re doing damage as big as the Gulf oil spill every day, and there’s no fixing it. Humanity has grown in power, wealth, and appetite to the point that there is no more margin of error anywhere. We’re on a knife’s edge, facing the very real possibility that for our children, all the world may be one big Gulf of Mexico, inexorably and irreversibly deteriorating.

Perhaps if the public gets a clear taste of this, they’ll step back and contemplate whether the kind of energy we use is really as “cheap” as it looks. Maybe they’ll stop thinking about how to drill better and start thinking about how to avoid drilling altogether. Because some mistakes just can’t be undone.

This is, of course, the only sane response. But that’s certainly no guarantee. As a good number of people retreat into dark age superstition or adolescent Randian free market fantasies in the face of this breakdown of all of our elite institutions, it’s equally possible that we’ll go the other way. This should be the proverbial wake up call of wake up calls, but I don’t know if it will be. There’s so much going on, so many crises, that I don’t know if people are capable of absorbing it all.

Strong leadership could make the difference, but it’s hard to know just what that means either. The Bush style macho “decider” pose was laughable and Obama’s dry technocratic style which relies on “experts” isn’t getting us anywhere. So, maybe individuals just have to figure this out for themselves.

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It’s Bound To Happen

by digby

That was a comedy

This, not so much:

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Pig Break

by digby

And no I’m not talking about that creepy guy who calls women feminazis.

Meet LA’s three little pigs.

These red river hogs were born April 22 at the LA Zoo. This litter — the swine couple’s fourth — consists of a male and two females.

They don’t quite look like what you’d find on a farm. They have red hair, black and white faces that look like masks, and a white mane that runs from tail to neck.

“The piglets are being well taken care of by their parents,” said Curator of Mammals Jeff Holland. “The father is very attentive to the piglets and will escort them around the enclosure and watch over them until mom is ready to feed them.”

Why am I running a story about adorable baby pigs? Because I need a cute break.

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They’re On A Roll

by digby

It looks like the GOP has gone into training in expectation of taking over the congress and getting down to the serious business of the people: scandalmongering:

Hide the watermelons folks, they’re coming back.

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Some Hope For Sanity

by digby

It looks like the world has not gone completely mad:

A team of Justice Department attorneys has written a recommendation challenging the Arizona immigration law. The draft recommendation, part of an ongoing Justice Department review, concludes the Arizona legislature exceeded its authority in crafting a law that could impede federal responsibility for enforcing immigration laws. Some department lawyers are also concerned that the law could lead to abuses based on race. The review, however, is not yet complete and there are some within the Justice Department who challenge the recommendation’s legal analysis. Sources tell ABC News that the ongoing review may take weeks more and that no formal recommendation has been sent to the White House. The White House will have to give its stamp of approval for the Justice Department to challenge the law because this is a civil case.

I suppose that’s not all that comforting considering how flaccid the White House been about these matters. But still, I’ll take it. At least there are some lawyers in the Obama Justice department who have some concerns about this. I’ll take what I can get.

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The Scandal Monster’s Deadly Toxin

by digby

Greg Sargent says that Joe Sestak is going to have to “clean up his mess” and explain what he meant about being offered a job in order to drop out of the primary and Amy Walter of the Hotline tweeted that somebody in the White House may have take the fall in order to put a stop to this non-scandal once and for all. They might be right.

But here’s the thing. None of that will do any good. There is no winning with these noise machine pseudo-scandals. They have an alternate media structure that is designed to stoke scandal fever and the way they keep the mainstream media on the hook is with “smell tests” and demands that the person address the claims, apologize or make amends, none of which will be deemed adequate and all of which necessitate another round of investigations, demands etc. With every impossible requirement that isn’t met, the press will become more convinced that the person must be hiding something, is too hot to handle and will eventually agree that he has to step down or quit the race because “the scandal” is devouring him.

Later an article or a book will be written explaining that there was never anything to the charges, that the whole thing turned into a feeding frenzy but that the real problem is that the politician didn’t get “out front” or establish a “war room” or otherwise magically change this dynamic and it will be deemed his fault for failing to be a stronger, better politician. Some pols survive this, notably Bill Clinton. But it takes a willingness to recognize that they are not going to leave you alone, give yourself up to it and greet each day with the knowledge that this is going to dominate until it either passes or kills you.

The right wing scandal machine creates political viruses that mutate and take on a life of their own. There’s no antidote once you’ve caught it — you either have a good immune system and a will to survive or you don’t.

Update: read this piece by Foser from 2006 on the same theme.

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Tea Partiers In Disarray

by digby

The right wing has so many factions at this point that their circular firing squad has the circumference of the Grand Canyon:

The Libertarian Party is considering running a candidate in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race, saying GOP nominee Rand Paul – the son of a former Libertarian presidential candidate – has betrayed the party’s values.

Meanwhile, Paul brings in a new campaign manager from Daddy Paul’s libertarian “Campaign For Liberty.” It’s a fascinating group that has chapters all around the country:

Meet the Fayette County (KY) coordinator for Campaign For Liberty, Basil “Bazz” Childress.

Basil, you see, is a white supremacist.

He is the state chairman of the Kentucky League of the South. And the Kentucky League of the South is, as the SPLC points out, a White Supremacist Hate Group advocating a second southern secession from the Union.

The League of the South is a neo-Confederate group that advocates for a second Southern secession and a society dominated by “European Americans.” The league believes the “godly” nation it wants to form should be run by an “Anglo-Celtic” (read: white) elite that would establish a Christian theocratic state and politically dominate blacks and other minorities. Originally founded by a group that included many Southern university professors, the group lost its Ph.D.s as it became more explicitly racist. The league denounces the federal government and northern and coastal states as part of “the Empire,” a materialist and anti-religious society.

Yeah. And here’s bonus footage of ole Bazz talking about the “War of Northern Aggression.”

All the weirdos of the far right are coming together under the tea party and now they are starting to fight for supremacy (white supremacy, that is.) it’s going to be quite a show.

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