Author: digby

Here We Go

by digby

The minute I heard about Fitzgerald’s press conference, I knew this would follow shortly: Questions Arise About the Obama/Blagojevich Relationship
That’s Jake Tapper, not making any charges but bringing up all kinds of cross currents in Illinois politics to suggest that there are “questions.” And all over TV they are talking about “corrupt Chicago politics,” which is being splashed onto Obama.

It’s natural that Obama and many of his staff have crossed paths with the players in this scandal. But according to Lynn Sweet of the Tribune Sun-Times, who has followed Obama for some time and is not a sycophant, says the campaign put a mile between itself and Blagojevich, not even allowing him to speak at the Democratic convention. They are not close.

I don’t know if this will go anywhere. At this point, I think there’s just too much news and too many problems for a phony scandal to have any legs. But, as I wrote almost a year ago, these Chicago shennanigans have elements of a perfect right wing smear by association if they have the energy to launch one and the press decides it’s sexy enough:

The NY Times treated this story [Whitewater] like it was The Pentagon Papers. They legitimized its obfuscatory style of reporting and the confusion that resulted led to the naming of an independent counsel and finally to the partisan impeachment of a popular and successful president. Yet, it was obvious to observers that they were being led around by a cabal of rightwing hit men from very early on. They simply refused to see the story for what it was and instead validated their erroneous reporting with a continuous narrative stream of unproven implications that fed the toxic political environment — and that fed them in return.

I know this is all boring, arcane history now, but it’s important to note that we are seeing similar stuff happening already with respect to various “deals” that are being reported in the press about Harry Reid and John Edwards. So far they are thin, nonsensical “exposes” written by one man, John Soloman, formerly of the AP and now of the Washington Post. Soloman is known to be a lazy reporter who happily takes “tips” from the wingnut noise machine and faithfully regurgitates them. He holds a very important position at the paper that was second only to the Times in its eagerness to swallow Ken Starr’s spin whole.

We are also seeing some similar reporting begin to emerge on Obama, much of it generated by hometown political rivals, just as we saw in the Clinton years. Today the LA Times implies that Obama is exaggerating his activist past. A couple of weeks ago we saw a truly egregiously misleading report on a deal he made to buy some land from a supporter.

These are patented Whitewater-style “smell test” stories. They are based on complicated details that make the casual reader’s eyes glaze over and about which the subject has to issue long confusing explanations in return. They feature colorful and unsavory political characters in some way. They often happened in the past and they tend to be written in such a way as to say that even if they aren’t illegal they “look bad.” The underlying theme is hypocrisy because the subjects are portrayed as making a dishonest buck while pretending to represent the average working man. Oh, and they always feature a Democrat. Republicans are not subject to such scrutiny because a craven, opportunistic Republican isn’t “news.” (Neat trick huh?)

No single story will bring down a candidate because they have no substance to them. It’s the combined effect they are looking for to build a sense overall sleaziness. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire” right?

The major media has never copped to their role in the tabloid sideshow that politics in the 90’s became. They have never copped to their part in elevating Bush to the status of demigod and running beside him like a bunch of eunuchs waving palm fronds during the lead-up to the war. Even today we see them pooh-poohing the significance of a federal trial that exposes them for whores to Republican power.

As I said, I don’t know if this environment is conducive to phony scandal. There’s just so much going on. But if it is, this is one of the ways they do it. Guilt by association, drip-drip-drip of vague allegations and ongoing “questions.” The key to really hammering it home, of course, would be for the Republicans to win back a majority in the congress in 2010, which I think is unlikely. The Republicans were growing in strength during that earlier era and are now in retreat, at least temporarily.

But keep this in the back of your mind. If there is room for scandal and the wingnuts can get traction, this is one of their tried and true methods of getting it “out there.”

Update: The AP is framing it as an Obama “problem” and the Republicans are eagerly jumping into the fray:

Obama works to distance himself from Blagojevich
Tuesday, December 09, 2008 2:34:30 PM

Though Barack Obama isn’t accused of anything, the charges against his home-state governor — concerning Obama’s own Senate seat no less — are an unwelcome distraction. And the ultimate fallout is unclear.

As Obama works to set up his new administration and deal with a national economic crisis, suddenly he also is spending time and attention trying to distance himself from Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and charges that the governor was trying to sell the now-vacant Senate post.

The president-elect was blunt and brief in addressing the case on Tuesday: “I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so I was not aware of what was happening” concerning any possible dealing about Blagojevich’s appointment of a successor.

It’s Obama’s first big headache since his election last month, and Republicans were anything but eager to let it go away.

Said Rep Eric Cantor of Virginia, the new GOP House whip: “The serious nature of the crimes listed by federal prosecutors raises questions about the interaction with Gov. Blagojevich, President-elect Obama and other high ranking officials who will be working for the future president.”

Said Robert M. “Mike” Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee: “Americans expect strong leadership, but President-elect Barack Obama’s comments on the matter are insufficient at best.”

Hypocritical Republicans just automatically spew that stuff out so it doesn’t really mean anything. The press showing some appetite for that angle is a little bit more troubling. We’ll see.

Update II: Here’s another angle from Richard Viguerie:

The corruption uncovered in the investigation of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is just a tiny part of the criminality that runs throughout the country’s politics, Richard A. Viguerie, the Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, said.

“Before we turn over the car companies, the financial sector, the health care system, and much of the rest of the American economy over to these guys, we need to realize: We are opening doors to a level of corruption like we have never seen before,” he said.

“The American Way is not supposed to be ‘the Chicago Way,’” said Viguerie. “And it doesn’t have to be. There’s still time to save America from becoming one big Chicago.”

Blagojevich is alleged to have, in effect, put his state’s open U.S. Senate seat up for bid. He is also alleged to have made support for a bailout of the Chicago Tribune contingent on the firing of certain members of the newspaper’s editorial board.

“First, this should mean that, whatever else happens in terms of bailouts, media organizations should be excluded absolutely. People should simply assume that any media bailout comes with political conditions, and that any media organization that receives taxpayers’ money is working for the politicians who give them that money.[heh, very clever — ed]

“Second, we should look at all bailouts and infrastructure spending, with an eye on the connections between the politicians who spend taxpayers’ money and the special interests who benefit from the projects.”

[…]

“How are the people supposed to have faith in our government, when the people in charge of investigating the financial crisis are the same ones who forced lenders to give mortgage money to people who couldn’t repay their loans? That includes Chris Dodd, who got a sweetheart deal from mortgage lenders, and Barney Frank, who was censured by the House.”

I expect them to start using the term “culture of corruption” any minute, regardless of the fact that the Republicans just spent 8 years wearing themselves out looting and pillaging the public treasury, some of them even going to jail for it.

But that’s how it works. They are very good at shoving liberals’ words back down their throats at the first opportunity. It usually works too — people either simply assume that there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, or forget that it was Republicans who made a fetish out of K Street lobbying and even passed out checks on the House floor and lay it all at the feet of the Democrats. It’s part of the GopSoviet airbrushing of the Bush years.

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Another One

by digby

Man dies during arrest in Minneapolis

December 9, 2008

The suspect in a domestic assault died early this morning after he fought with Minneapolis police officers and was shot with a Taser police say.

Officers were called to a home in the 1000 block of Knox Avenue N. at around 12:45 a.m. to investigate a report of a domestic assault by a man armed with a rifle, according to Sgt. William Palmer.

Officers found the man on the street and tried to arrest him. He resisted and officers shot him with a Taser, Palmer said.

After the man was subdued, he appeared to be having medical problems, and officers called for an ambulance. The suspect was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center where he died, Palmer said.

It’s a good thing tasers are harmless.

Capital punishment for resisting arrest seems a little bit steep, but maybe people will finally begin to understand that they may have legal rights on paper, but out in the real world you never know when the authorities might decide to use a completely safe, non-lethal weapon to force your immediate compliance and kill you.

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Big Plans

by digby

The country has been brainwashed by the right into believing that the government should be run like a household, which means that when things get tough, it needs to pay off its debts and save money rather than spending. This works out very well for the conservatives, who hate government spending on anything that doesn’t directly benefit their wealthy benefactors. But it’s disastrous for the country at a time like this. Not that they care.

The fact is that the need for government spending, on a pretty massive scale, is beyond ideology and politics at this point. It’s Keynes 101 and those who are fighting it are anachronistic captives of a bankrupt Hooveresque ideology.The only question really, is how much and where.

To engage the debate, Campaign For America’s Future and over 100 economists and experts have formulated a stimulus plan that might actually fix the economy — and much more.

The Main Street Recovery Program

A group of economists and progressive organization leaders have drafted this Main Street Recovery Program to meet urgent needs unaddressed by efforts to shore up Wall Street financial institutions. This program calls for substantial, strategic, and sustained investment in the real economy—a bold plan to not only address the impact the current recession is having on ordinary Americans but to reshape the economy for the 21st century. We intend this recovery program to be the basis for immediate action by the Obama administration and Congress in the coming weeks.

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Just Go To The ER

by dday

None of this is going to come as news to anyone, but the need for comprehensive health care reform now is magnified by massive job loss, which also often means a loss of health insurance for those affected (which is typically not just the employee but their family), leading to the phenomenon of the pre-insured.

The crisis is on display here. Starla D. Darling, 27, was pregnant when she learned that her insurance coverage was about to end. She rushed to the hospital, took a medication to induce labor and then had an emergency Caesarean section, in the hope that her Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan would pay for the delivery […]

“This shows why — no matter how bad the condition of the economy — we can’t delay pursuing comprehensive health care,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio. “There are too many victims who are innocent of anything but working at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Often, when I’m having arguments over health insurance with people, they will trot out the talking point that nobody goes without health care in America because anyone can go to the insurance emergency room (funny typo! -ed.). Aside from that being the most expensive, wasteful and dangerous way to achieve “universal coverage” you can think of, it doesn’t work as a matter of capacity. It’s simply false that everyone has access to the emergency room.

Even before the recession became evident, many emergency rooms around the country were already overcrowded, with dangerously long waits for some patients and the frequent need to redirect ambulances to other hospitals.

“We have no capacity now,” said Dr. Angela F. Gardner, the president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians, which represents 27,000 emergency doctors. “There’s no way we have room for any more people to come to the table.”

What’s more, patients entering ERs for routine care prevent doctors from treating those with more pressing emergencies, and frequently patients delay medical care until they have an emergency, making treatment more costly.

Again, anyone who has spent several hours in an emergency room waiting for a bed knows this. Anyone who’s been laid off and seen what it costs to maintain coverage through COBRA knows this. That majority needs to be very present in making sure their concerns are met by any comprehensive health care reform. Of course, we’ve been governed the past eight years by people like this:

Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”—NYTimes.

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Time

by digby

I can hardly believe it was 28 years ago today that John Lennon was murdered.It seems like it was yesterday.

He was on the right track:

Zero Risk

by digby

What do you know? The Canadian Broadcasting Company did independent testing on tasers and it turns out they often quite quite a bit more electricity than the manufacturer says they are capable of. Shocking (no pun intended.)

The doctors and engineers consulted by the CBC to interpret the results determined the higher electrical current was enough to raise the risk of an irregular heartbeat to as much as 50 percent for those with existing heart troubles. The risk level depends on various factors, including whether the heart lies between the Taser’s barbs and how long the shock lasts. The risk would decline if, for example, the Taser’s barbs fell off or didn’t fully penetrate the skin. Savard also concluded that multiple shocks from normally working Tasers posed up to a 5 percent risk of ventricular fibrillation, the abnormal heart rhythm associated with a heart attack. Savard said he is worries that police are given Tasers that are potentially deadly but are told they are totally safe. He suspects such pronouncements have led to a dangerous “drift” in usage of the weapons. “If you’re told there’s zero risk . . . you can start using it just to save time because you’re tired of talking with the subject,” he said.

There you have it.

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More Important Than We Know

by digby

Here’s an article laying out some of the arguments about “Card Check” aka the Employee Free Choice Act:

Is it pay-back time or about time? When it comes to “card-check,” slang for the Employee Free-Choice Act – one of the first pieces of legislation likely to go before Congress when it reconvenes in January – it depends on who you ask.

Today, if a union organizer goes into a workplace and gets 30 percent of the employees to sign a “union interest” card, an election is ordered by the National Labor Relations Board. A secret-ballot vote is held six weeks later, giving both union and employer time to lobby the workers.

Under card-check, not so much: If a majority of employees sign a union card, then the union becomes the bargaining unit. No more six-week campaigns, no more elections. It’s a done deal; you’re essentially a union shop.
[…]

“Card-check gives a better opportunity for workers to have an easier way to form a union at their workplace,” explains Bill George, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.

He pushes back at critics who say it goes against the fundamental American right to a secret ballot: “Bottom line is that there is too much power in the hands of employers, and middle-class workers are not getting their fair share of the profits.”

“If you want to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a union, you should be able to do that in the privacy of the voting booth,” counters James Sherk, a Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy at the Heritage Foundation.

“Promoting unionism is not a wise idea in the middle of a recession,” Sherk adds. The real issue in his mind is not whether unions are good or bad. “The issue is, are these specific conditions” – not using secret ballots – “good or bad? I would argue (that) no matter the economic circumstances, workers have the right to a private vote.

“They have the right to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on unionism without the union officials or their co-workers being aware of how they voted.”

You can make an argument that each side sees a benefit to a different process, says Purdue University professor Bert Rockman.

“Signing the union petition card is an indication of discontent with present conditions in the workforce; the unions argue that is sufficient,” he explains. Democrats are likely to cave to that argument since unions are an important, if fading, constituency of their party.

A secret ballot, on the other hand, allows employers to do many things. They can respond to some of the discontent, indicating that they care and that everyone is better off without a union, or they can argue about the cost to the workers of unionization.

Can you see what’s wrong with that argument?

The secret ballot allows employers to “indicate they care” and “argue about the cost to the workers of unionization.” Why would anyone object to that? No mention of the retaliation, threats and intimidation workers often suffer for six long weeks until they can cast their vaunted secret ballot.

This is a bizarre issue for the Republicans to go to the mattresses on, but that appears to be what they are doing. I’ve mentioned before just how weird it is that the crowds at McCain rallies would break out into a near frenzy at the mention of “secret ballot.” Clearly, the talk radio gasbags have primed them. There must be a reason why, in the midst of their doldrums and retrenchment, their guns are still blazing at something this obscure and I would guess that it’s because they feel fundamentally politically threatened by this is some ways that aren’t completely obvious. They’ve never liked unions, but I would guess that they see a particular threat in the midst of this economic crisis.

Health care and unionization — if they happen, the right has both a political and structural problem on their hands which will make it very difficult for them to come back in a big way — at least for quite some time. When it comes to our two party system, the Republicans understand quite well that these are the kinds of successes from which long term realignments are made.

Galtian Privilege

by digby

Ah memories. Here was McCain’s top Wall Street supporter, John Thain, six months ago, when asked what he hoped his legacy would be when he was chosen for an important job in the second McCain administration:

I very much hope my legacy will be that I restored a great institution to an even greater position in the world

Today:

Despite $11 billion in losses and 30,000 lay-offs , Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain is reportedly seeking a $10 million bonus, prompting New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to reach out to the firm’s board of directors urging them not to grant the “shocking” payment to Thain in light of the firm’s “abysmal” performance.
Merrill CEO, John Thain, Faces Fight for $10 Million Bonus
Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain is reportedly seeking a $10 million bonus despite $11 billion in losses and 30,000 lay-offs.

Cuomo’s office fired off a letter to Merrill’s board this morning after the Wall Street Journal reported that Thain has suggested to the board of the financial giant that he should be awarded a bonus during a year in which 30,000 Merrill employees were laid off.

Cuomo reminded Merrill that it had informed his office on November 5th that any bonus would be based on performance and executive retention needs.

By that measure, Cuomo said, “utilizing Merrill’s own criteria, a bonus of this size appears unjustified.”

Thain joined Merrill as CEO in 2007 when the firm was already in trouble and received a $15 million signing bonus before he began a top-to-bottom review of the company. His salary is $750,000 a year.

Merrill has managed to stay afloat through the banking industry crisis in a large part because of the merger Thain engineered with Bank of America, according to attorneys who have examined the firm’s financials. The merger was approved last week by shareholders for both institutions.

But a key underpinning of the deal is the $15 billion in public funds that the Treasury Department provided BofA and $10 billion offered to Merrill that it is expected to accept once the merger with BofA is completed. As such, any bonus to the firm’s CEO would be “a thumb in the eye” of taxpayers, Cuomo said.

“In terms of performance, Merrill has reported losses for every quarter this year and has lost more than $11 billion for the year as a whole. Indeed, Merrill’s decision to be taken over by Bank of America seems to have been the only thing that saved Merrill from collapse,” Cuomo said. “Clearly, the performance of Merrill’s top executives throughout Merrill’s abysmal year in no way justifies significant bonuses for its top executives, including the CEO.”

But it’s all good. Republicans are back!

House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) issued a memo late Sunday insisting that the victory of Anh “Joseph” Cao over Jefferson is a sign that the tide is turning for Republicans.

“The Cao victory is a symbol of our future,” wrote Boehner. “In the two years ahead, House Republicans will demonstrate our commitment to reform by holding ourselves to the highest possible ethical standard…[and] presenting principled, superior solutions to the challenges facing our country.”

In that vein, the Boehner memo sought to highlight the ongoing ethics questions surrounding New York Rep. Charlie Rangel — evidence that Republicans will seek to use Rangel’s problems as a cudgel against House Democrats in the coming months.

The Louisiana Republican Party issued their own release in the wake of the Cao victory (in keeping with the idea that success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan), claiming that the wins on Saturday were a validation of the reform agenda of Louisiana Governor — and potential 2012 presidential candidate — Bobby Jindal.

“The voters spoke and their resounding choice for reforming government, ending corruption, and reining in spending — all championed in Governor Jindal’s own campaign — won,” said communications director Aaron Baer.

[…]

“While I don’t think these victories mean that the GOP has miraculously fixed everything that is currently broken, I do think that they are really positive data points,” said Alex Vogel, a prominent Republican strategist. “Just like the Democrats took advance comfort from the special elections they won leading up to the 2008 elections, we should certainly view these overtime wins as a sign that the sun is rising again.”

It was hell for conservatives being out in the wilderness for these long four weeks. Thank God that’s over and they can begin the job of reforming government and holding Democrats’ feet to the fire on corruption. Lord knows they have built up enough credibility in the last month to do that.

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Innoculation

by digby

Washington Whispers:

As President-elect Barack Obama continues to build his national security staff, now focused on intelligence, it is possible that he might ask CIA Director Mike Hayden to stay on for a while, intelligence sources say. Much of the speculation about the CIA job has been that Obama wants a change, in part because he disagreed with the CIA’s detention policies. But officials are pushing back a little on that issue, suggesting that Hayden has been carrying out the policies backed by Congress and the president before he arrived at Langley, not freelancing on his own. “It’s unfair to blame Hayden for things that occurred long before he took the job. But he deserves credit for standing up for the folks over there at CIA, even though a lot of the stuff he has dealt with didn’t happen on his watch,” said an intelligence official. “Administration policy and American law shape what the CIA does. If the president says he doesn’t want something done, that’s it. These are his programs,” added the official.

February 2008:

“The circumstances under which we are operating … are frankly, different than they were in late 2001 and early 2002,” Hayden said. “Very critical to those circumstances was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were imminent. In addition to that, my agency … had limited knowledge about al Qaeda and its workings. Those two realities have changed.”

Hayden told reporters later that the interrogations of Mohammed and Zubaydah were particularly fruitful.

From the time of their capture in 2002 and 2003 until they were delivered to Guantanamo Bay prison in 2006, the two suspects accounted for one-fourth of the human intelligence reports on al Qaeda, Hayden said.

Some analysts have questioned Mohammed’s credibility under interrogation. But Hayden said most of the information was reliable and helped lead to other al Qaeda suspects.

He told the committee he opposed limiting the CIA to using interrogation techniques permitted in the U.S. Army Field Manual, which bans waterboarding. CIA interrogators are better trained, and the agency works with a narrower range of suspects in its interrogations, he said.

Hayden said fewer than 100 people had been held in the CIA’s terrorism detention and interrogation program launched after the Sept. 11 attacks, with fewer than one-third of them subjected to any harsh interrogation techniques.

But applying the field manual’s limitations to the CIA, he said, “would substantially increase the danger to America.”

It’s hard for me to see how he reconciles those statements with a new policy. It seems to me that if he honestly believed that the danger to the country would be “substantially” increased if the CIA were not allowed to torture, he cannot in good conscience work for someone who disagrees. Or he was lying.

The politics of this are getting really interesting. Last week there was a lot of fretting about the left being hostile to the CIA and holding it to a ridiculous standard by insisting that members of the torture regime not be elevated or retained in high level jobs in the new administration. I mentioned a couple of times that I thought it was a bit of a stretch to believe that the Obama transition team was so cowed by some blog posts that they asked Brennan to remove his name. Certainly, these unnamed, unhappy CIA sources seemed awfully gullible if they believed that liberal bloggers had such power.

Greenwald gives the full treatment today to the way the Brennan backlash story was coordinated through the media. It’s quite astonishing. But this leak to Washington Whispers makes me think there might be some method to the madness if the real point was to inoculate Hayden (or a similar company man.) After all this complaining over Brennan, Obama can’t be seen to have “succumbed” to another blogger witchhunt at this point or risk have the village roar that he’s being held hostage by the left on national security.

Obama certainly doesn’t have to nominate a company man just because they want him to. But it’s the kind of thing the bureaucracies do to protect their turf and show who’s boss when a new president comes to town, particularly among the police and national security state apparatus. (They may be particularly inclined to do it this time after the humiliation routinely meted out by Dick Cheney over the past eight years.)

It’s just a theory, of course, and this floating of Hayden could just be wishful thinking. But if the CIA is seeking to pressure the new administration to hire one of their own, this would be a clever way to frame it: if Obama doesn’t pick one of theirs, he will be portrayed as captive to the Left on national security. And naturally, the press runs with it because it fits their favorite storyline as well.

Whatever is happening, this notion that liberal bloggers vetoed a choice to run the CIA just doesn’t scan. Whether my speculation above is correct or not, there’s definitely something else going on.

In God We Trust

by digby

Ferchristsake. And I mean that literally:

A group of atheists filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to remove part of a state anti-terrorism law that requires Kentucky’s Office of Homeland Security to acknowledge it can’t keep the state safe without God’s help.

American Atheists Inc. sued in state court over a 2002 law that stresses God’s role in Kentucky’s homeland security alongside the military, police agencies and health departments.

Of particular concern is a 2006 clause requiring the Office of Homeland Security to post a plaque that says the safety and security of the state “cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon almighty God” and to stress that fact through training and educational materials.

The plaque, posted at the Kentucky Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort, includes the Bible verse: “Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

“It is one of the most egregiously and breathtakingly unconstitutional actions by a state legislature that I’ve ever seen,” said Edwin F. Kagin, national legal director of Parsippany, N.J.-based American Atheists Inc. The group claims the law violates both the state and U.S. constitutions.

But Democratic state Rep. Tom Riner, a Baptist minister from Louisville, said he considers it vitally important to acknowledge God’s role in protecting Kentucky and the nation.

“No government by itself can guarantee perfect security,” Riner said. “There will always be this opposition to the acknowledgment of divine providence, but this is a foundational understanding of what America is.”

Maybe atheists should just declare atheism a religion. Then they could sue for the right to have the statute also say that there is no proof that God exists and that people had better use their minds and free will to keep themselves safe (and stress that fact through training and educational materials.)

I’ve written before that I don’t think there’s any way to end this unconstitutional insistence on religion in government unless they are forced to share the public space with those they abhor.

Americans of the past were not being primitive and stupid when they put religion firmly into the private sector. They understood that it’s the only way to keep religion truly free as well as keep the church from dominating public life as it had done in Europe for centuries.

To a lot of these religious zealots, those were the best of times, I guess. Bring on the inquisition.