Month: July 2010

Staring Directly In The Rearview Mirror

by digby

Looks like somebody’s playing the blame game:

Good news for accountability advocates: The government will soon launch an investigation of claims that it was involved with the torture, abuse, and “rendition” of terrorism suspects. The British government, that is. Eighteen months into the Obama administration, there has been no movement towards a full, public investigation of America’s treatment of detainees. But on Tuesday afternoon in the UK, David Cameron, the new conservative prime minister, announced that his government will launch an inquiry into Britain’s role in alleged detainee abuse. “Our reputation as a country that believes in human rights, justice, fairness and the rule of law—indeed for much of what the [security and intelligence] services exist to protect—risks being tarnished,” Cameron said. “The longer… questions [about potential abuse] remain unanswered, the bigger the stain on our reputation as a country that believes in freedom, fairness and human rights grows.”

Well maybe the Brits need to do this but “America doesn’t torture.” Both Bush and Obama told me so. Our newspapers won’t even use the word, that’s how much we hate it. So we don’t have to think about this, thank goodness.

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Ghost Stories

by digby

The vigilant Ben Somberg catches the press once again overstating, if not completely fabricating, deficit hysteria among the public:

In a page-three White House Memo by Jackie Calmes (“Spend or Scrimp? Economic and Political Teams Debate“) the paper asserts:

While President Bill Clinton’s political advisers favored more spending and tax cuts coming out of the recession of the early 1990s and his economic team pushed to start reducing deficits, in President Obama’s circle the opposite is true. Political advisers are channeling the widespread public anger at deficits while the economic team argues that the government should further spur the economy to avert another recession.

Widespread public anger! Yikes! Where exactly are these angry people?

There’s another article inside today’s Times, with the online headline “Budget Deficit and Wars’ Cost Draw Fire on the Home Front” — and I thought maybe that would have some evidence of public concern about the deficit. Nope.

What about the polling? The polls haven’t directly asked the question “How angry are you about the deficit?” Fifty-three percent of the public doesn’t approve of the way Obama is handling the deficit, according to the Times’ poll from April. What portion of the public is particularly concerned — let alone angry — about the deficit, though, wasn’t measured.

A question many of the polls have asked is basically “what’s your top concern?” And on that front, not many people go for deficit. I examined those polls in my post the other week; the portion of people who thought deficit was most important goes anywhere from 5% to 23%, depending on which poll you go with. Jobs and the economy in general are much higher priorities for the public.

Not to worry though. I’m sure if the press keeps this up, they can make the public see deficits as the cause of all their economic problems and then their proclamations will seem to have been correct.

Plus David Brooks says so and lord knows he speaks for the working man.

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Huckleberry Outed

by digby

It looks like the cognoscenti are finally on to Huckleberry. I wonder if the administration’s caught on?

A Bipartisan Mirage — The slippery style of Lindsey Graham.

Graham embodies the crystalline hope of Obama’s new cooperative era in Washington. As a leader from the birthplace of the modern Southern wing of his party, he has dealmaking clout that the New England wing does not. Although they do it on background, White House insiders speak of him almost fondly. “Graham is a vision of the most bipartisan the GOP gets these days,” says a longtime Obama aide.

That’s the problem: if Graham is as bipartisan as it gets, the president and the Democrats are in deeper trouble than they realize. This, after all, is someone who served as a prosecutor in the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1998; someone who votes the GOP party line 92.4 percent of the time—exactly one tenth of a point less than Republican leader Mitch McConnell; and someone whose apostasies are often low-visibility votes for Justice Department -appointments—a great way, not coincidentally, for a member of the Judiciary Committee to acquire friends with benefits in the legal bureaucracy.

On big-ticket stuff, Graham rarely strays from his caucus. He voted against the stimulus package, wants to kill the financial-services bill—and now hopes to repeal health-care reform, his staff disclosed to me. “Lindsey is Lindsey, but we love his voting record,” says McConnell spokesman Don Stewart. Graham professes shock that his positions could come as a surprise to anyone: “I’m not a liberal Republican! I’m a conservative.”

And even if he wanted to, Graham couldn’t deliver GOP votes. He is tolerated more than admired in his own caucus. For now, the real energy is with his rejectionist brethren, led by the likes of fellow South Carolinian Jim DeMint. Graham has no room to maneuver on immigration, and only slightly more on energy.

Obama and Rahm Emanuel—another one of Graham’s phone pals—believe that the man can help them. Their colleagues aren’t so sure. “Most of the people in our caucus don’t see him as a reliable partner,” says a Democratic leadership aide. Now would be a good time for someone to tell the White House that Graham is more a mirage of bipartisanship than the fact of it—even if he has figured out how to be in two places at once.

It’s actually a bigger deal that Graham just being slippery. By fashioning their legislative policies with an eye toward getting Huckleberry’s help, they water down their opening bids on legislation and then are left with not only a failure but a weakened starting point next time the legislation comes up.

Some of us have known Graham was an unctuous phony since he and Mary Bono pretended to be sweethearts on the judiciary committee during the impeachment hearing while he questioned whether or not Monica ever reached orgasm, which would prove that Clinton committed perjury. (Seriously.) From the moment I heard him lugubriously wax on about his great personal reluctance at having to do that I knew he was one nasty piece of work. And he’s proved it over and over again. It’s only taken 12 years for Democrats to catch on to his dead-eyed, cornpone schtick, but I suppose it’s better late than never.

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Taser’s Rights Violated

by digby

You read that right. You cannot make this stuff up:

Stun gun-maker Taser International Inc. told a judge on Monday its rights were violated by a Canadian inquiry that recommended police restrict the weapon’s use because of safety concerns.

Do American corporations have inalienable rights bestowed by their Creator? Even in Canada?

The judge has already dismissed a portion of Taser’s lawsuit, ruling that its allegations the inquiry’s top staff were biased and dishonest were “unnecessary, scandalous and vexatious.”

Government lawyers are expected to begin their arguments in defense of the inquiry on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Taser’s critics have questioned the validity of its studies that the weapon is safe. The 2009 Braidwood report said there 25 deaths in Canada in incidents in which Tasers were used, and more than 300 in the United States.

Imagine if tasers were a drug regulated by the FDA with that kind of record (which is understated, by the way.) They would be withdrawn in a heartbeat and very expensive lawsuits would be launched immediately. And if taser used their bogus “excited delirium” defense (subjects were killed because taser exacerbated an underlying health condition) they would be laughed out of court.

But hey, their “rights” were violated when a magistrate ruled that killing innocent people with a supposedly non-lethal weapons was something that should be restricted and they demand redress. Where’s the justice?

By the way, Taser International is headquartered in Arizona. Maybe that would be a good place for municipalities to focus their boycotts.

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Friendly Reminder

by digby

… that those who caused the problem need to shut their pieholes. They no longer have the credibility to comment.

Some critics continue to assert that President George W. Bush’s policies bear little responsibility for the deficits the nation faces over the coming decade — that, instead, the new policies of President Barack Obama and the 111th Congress are to blame. Most recently, a Heritage Foundation paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4). Nevertheless, the fact remains: Together with the economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years.

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Prize Festooned Jackass

by digby

Thank God Krugman responded to this utterly embarrassing comment from David Brooks, who, having established himself as pom pom king of the confidence fairies, can now resolve to go back to sociological studies of Red Lobster menus and not worry his little punkin’ head about the economy:

Moreover, the Demand Siders write as if everybody who disagrees with them is immoral or a moron. But, in fact, many prize-festooned economists do not support another stimulus. Most European leaders and central bankers think it’s time to begin reducing debt, not increasing it — as do many economists at the international economic institutions. Are you sure your theorists are right and theirs are wrong?

What a good little boy he is.

(And I have to say I’m just loving these neocon/National Greatness bozos suddenly looking to Europe as the font of all wisdom. There was a time not long ago when David Brooks didn’t give a freedom fry what European leaders thought about anything.)

Krugman takes him downtown:

Yes, I am. It’s called looking at the evidence. I’ve looked hard at the arguments the Pain Caucus is making, the evidence that supposedly supports their case — and there’s no there there.

And you just have to wonder how it’s possible to have lived through the last ten years and still imagine that because a lot of Serious People believe something, you should believe it too. Iraq? Housing bubble? Inflation? (It’s worth remembering that Trichet actually raised rates in June 2008, because he believed that inflation — not the financial crisis — was the big threat facing Europe.)

The moral I’ve taken from recent years isn’t Be Humble — it’s Question Authority. And you should too.

The moral I’ve taken is that everyone should ignore David Brooks.

And by the way, evidence has never mattered to the neocons, who have unsurprisingly joined up with the pain caucus. They have, after all, always been wrong about everything.

Update: Dean Baker answers here.

FYI

by digby

Dunno if it’s true, but the signs aren’t good:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is repeating a pattern that appeared just before markets fell during the Great Depression, Daryl Guppy, CEO at Guppytraders.com, told CNBC Monday.“Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it…there was a head and shoulders pattern that developed before the Depression in 1929, then with the recovery in 1930 we had another head and shoulders pattern that preceded a fall in the market, and in the current Dow situation we see an exact repeat of that environment,” Guppy said. The Dow retreated 457.33 points, or 4.5 percent last week, to close at 9,686 Friday. Guppy said a Dow fall below 9,800 confirmed the head and shoulders pattern.

h/t to John Cole

Housekeeping Question

by digby

The other day, we put the new ads up on the site and some of you are now seeing red font. I don’t see it on my computer and everyone else I’ve consulted doesn’t see it either. I’ve suggested that people clear their cache, but that only seems to work some of the time.

I understand that some of you have solved this problem some other way but I can’t find the advice in the comments. If you have, could you please write it in the comments to this post?

Much appreciated.

One Must Always Be Aware Of The Alternatives

by digby

I don’t think there’s anyone on Planet Earth who is more contemptuous of conservadems than Howie Klein. His loathing for Blue Dogs borders on animal cruelty. But he also understands a few things about the way the world works.

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The Overdue Question

by digby

Glad to know it isn’t just me.

Fareed Zakaria

Since the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal as the commander of US forces in Afghanistan and CIA Director Leon Panetta’s admission a week ago that there may be no more than fifty to a hundred al-Qaeda members in that nation, there have been increasing signs of a loss of support for the Afghan War.

Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek’s international editions and CNN host, criticized the war in his strongest terms yet on his CNN program Sunday. “If Al Qaeda is down to a hundred men there at the most,” Zakaria asked, “why are we fighting a major war?”

Noting that there were more than a hundred deaths among NATO soldiers last month and that the war is estimated to cost the US more than $100 billion this year alone, Zararia wondered again,”Why are we fighting this major war against the Taliban? … If al-Qaeda itself is so weak, why are we fighting against its allies so ferociously?”

“The whole enterprise in Afghanistan feels disproportionate,” Zakaria remarked, “a very expensive solution to what is turning out to be a small but real problem. “

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