Friday Stuff

Oh, by the way, happy sixth anniversary of "Mission Accomplished" (not a cause for celebration, of course - performance by Steve Connell)...



...and I'm outta here early tonight, so have fun this weekend.

Where The Rubber Meets The Road (5/1/09)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.

House

U.S. water policy. Members voted 413-10 to improve the work of the 20-plus agencies concerned with ensuring that the United States has adequate water supplies and clean drinking water.

A yes vote was to pass a bill (HR 1145) that creates a White House office to streamline and focus U.S. water policy.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

As noted here (NY Times content), the sponsor was Dem Barton Gordon of Tennessee (and the 10 No votes were all Repugs – surprised?). Also, new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has promised to work with congress to update the Clean Water Act, which has been weakened by two recent rulings of the Supreme Court of Hangin’ Judge JR (as the Times notes here – and as noted here, that court is about to lose a member in a move that wasn’t unexpected).

Community police funds. Members passed, 342-78, a bill (HR 1139) to expand the Clinton-era COPS program, which provides U.S. grants for the hiring of local police officers.

A yes vote was to authorize grants for purposes such as hiring prosecutors and helping schools fight drugs and gangs.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

Voting no: Pitts.

No drugs, gangs, or police shortages in PA-16, I guess – how lucky can they get?

Senate

Ambassador to Iraq. Senators voted, 73-23, to confirm Christopher Hill as U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Backers praised his Foreign Service career of 32 years, while critics said he was not tough enough as the Bush administration's chief negotiator with North Korea.

A yes vote was to confirm Hill.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Ted Kaufman (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), and Arlen Specter (R., but now a D., of course, of Pa.).

I always thought Hill was a good diplomat who got sold down the river by the Bushco regime, as noted here. Let’s see how he does under adult leadership for a change.

Whistleblower rewards. Senators refused, 31-61, to cap at $50 million the reward for whistle-blowers who use the False Claims Act to help the Treasury recover funds lost to fraud.

A yes vote on the bill (S 386) was to retain rules that allow successful plaintiffs to receive up to 30 percent of recovered U.S. funds.

Voting yes: Specter.

Voting no: Carper, Casey, Kaufman and Menendez.

Not voting: Lautenberg.

The amendment to cap the reward at $50 million was sponsored by Repug Jon Kyl of Arizona, as noted here, a pointless add-on in my opinion to an otherwise worthy piece of legislation (typical vote for a “Democrat” like Our Man Arlen).

This week, the House took up a bill to curb arbitrary practices by credit-card firms, while the Senate resumed debate on a bill to combat securities and home-mortgage fraud.

Thursday Stuff

Thank you, Senator Durbin, for these words and your dedication on the "cramdown," though many of your colleagues (Tester, the "NE" Nelson, Baucus, Lincoln of course, Carper of course even more, and that brand new "Democrat" Arlen Specter, among others - and I'm sorry, but Tim Johnson doesn't get a pass any more just because he was sick) need to find out at what point they sold their consciences and any notion of constituent service whatsoever to the "banksters" (h/t Eschaton, here and here)...



...and how pathetic is it that Joe Scar is actually the voice of reason here (this gives me cause to worry a bit also - if that asshat thinks it's no big deal, I mean)...



...I thought Jon Stewart had a nice look at Snarlin' Arlen's "conversion" and the whole "Obama 100 Day" media feeding frenzy...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
How to Judge a Guy in 100 Days
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

...and I dedicate this song to the "banksters" and their supporters - really going back for this one; watch out for those pesky stones in your glass houses.

More AP “Hundred Day” Hackery on Obama

This supposed “analysis” tells us the following on the matter of President Obama’s response when questioned about the economy during his prime-time press conference last night…

OBAMA: "Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit.... That wasn't me. Number two, there is almost uniform consensus among economists that in the middle of the biggest crisis, financial crisis, since the Great Depression, we had to take extraordinary steps. So you've got a lot of Republican economists who agree that we had to do a stimulus package and we had to do something about the banks. Those are one-time charges, and they're big, and they'll make our deficits go up over the next two years." — in Missouri.

THE FACTS:

Congress controls the purse strings, not the president, and it was under Democratic control for Obama's last two years as Illinois senator. Obama supported the emergency bailout package in President George W. Bush's final months — a package Democratic leaders wanted to make bigger.

To be sure, Obama opposed the Iraq war, a drain on federal coffers for six years before he became president. But with one major exception, he voted in support of Iraq war spending.

The economy has worsened under Obama, though from forces surely in play before he became president, and he can credibly claim to have inherited a grim situation.

Still, his response to the crisis goes well beyond "one-time charges."

He's persuaded Congress to expand children's health insurance, education spending, health information technology and more. He's moving ahead on a variety of big-ticket items on health care, the environment, energy and transportation that, if achieved, will be more enduring than bank bailouts and aid for homeowners.

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated his policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years, even accounting for his spending reduction goals. Now, the deficit is nearly quadrupling to $1.75 trillion.

Wow.

After reading that excerpt from what reporter Calvin Woodward wrote (along with Kevin Freking and Jim Kuhnhenn), I have back up and tell you something (tempted to ask, “are you Freking kidding me?” – bad joke, I know…and don’t ask me what that “in Missouri” reference is supposed to be about).

For better or worse, I’ve worked on and maintained this blog for about four years. I’m not looking for applause or anything by pointing that out; the only reason I mention it is because, in the process of putting together over 4,000 posts (damn, that’s a lot of bloviating), I’ve read and seen a lot, and it’s hard for me to be shocked (the comments by Virginia Foxx on Matthew Shepard that I included in the Olbermann video last night qualify, though).

This AP “analysis,” though, shocks me also.

I’m not sure what it says about the AP that they can produce something like this, which pretends that the Republican congresses under Dubya from 2000-2006 never existed (have to put an asterisk next to ’02-’04, though, which was 50-49-1 because of Jim Jeffords’ switch from Republican to Independent - and speaking of Jeffords, I thought this was interesting in the "past is prologue" department). Does the AP really think that their audience is that STOO-PID to forget about how more than the first half of this decade saw this country laboring under the yoke of total Repug non-governance? Or are they that jaded and cynical to produce this column ignoring that history and think that it doesn’t matter?

Apparently, though, it is necessary for me to fill in that gap with the history that they, for whatever reason, chose to utterly ignore.

As noted from here…

In January 2007, when Representative Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as Speaker of the House, a dozen years of Republican control of Congress officially came to an end. What legacy did Republicans leave in terms of the budget process and budget policy? Three Congresses (104th, 105th, and 106th) worked under conditions of divided government, the last three (107th, 108th, 109th) primarily under unified Republican control of government.2

The beginning and the end of these two eras certainly seem different. In 1995 and 1996, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republicans tried to use the budget process to force their priorities on a defensive President Clinton. A dozen years later, Congress could not enact a budget resolution to guide appropriators, could not agree on restoring pay-as-you-go rules (PAYGO), could not pass 11 of 13 appropriations bills, and in the end, could not even enact an omnibus appropriations bill to fund agencies through the rest of the year. In the 1990s, Republican Congresses confronting a Democratic president were able to balance the budget. In the 2000s, Republican Congresses working with a Republican president saw fiscal discipline decline, earmarks and supplemental appropriations grow exponentially, and the deficits balloon.

…

(In 2001) Bush submitted a plan for $1.6 trillion in cuts over ten years including sharp reductions in income taxes, elimination of estate taxes, and other reductions. The House of Representatives wanted to move the tax cut package quickly, even before the budget resolution was adopted. Some of the most enthusiastic tax-cutters were talking about cuts as high as $2.2 trillion over ten years. With the size of the surplus, most Democrats felt that some tax cuts were appropriate and a consensus began to emerge among them for a figure of around $900 billion. Despite the narrow majority in the House, party discipline was so strong that Republicans had no difficulty in approving a huge tax cut.

…

Two years later, the attacks of September 11, a war in Afghanistan, a sagging economy and a return to budget deficits, all contributed to a changed political environment. Based on his tough stance against terrorism, Bush’s party recaptured the House and Senate setting the stage for another round of tax cuts in 2003. Republicans also made an important rule change by revising the way that the cost of tax bills was assessed. They adopted a system of “dynamic scoring” which projected future revenue gains based on tax cuts and made the revenue losses in the future appear smaller. Democrats argued that the system was bogus and designed to mislead taxpayers.

Bush originally wanted tax cuts in 2003 as large as $1.57 trillion, but focused primarily on a package of $726 billion with much of the revenue loss coming from a reduction of taxes on stock dividends. Despite Republican support, the size of the tax cuts continued to shrink as they made their way through the legislative process. With concerns about the economy, growing deficits, and increased military spending, Congress ultimately approved cuts of $350 billion over ten years.

…

(In the wake of Katrina, the war in Iraq, and Repug congressional antics primarily involving Tom DeLay), Democrats and the media talked about a culture of corruption surrounding the Congress. All this would contribute to the loss of both houses of Congress to the Democrats in the 2006 elections. But even before this, in 2005 and 2006, Bush’s budgets no longer set the agenda in Congress and Republicans proved more fractious. No budget resolution at all was enacted in 2006 making it three out of four years that Congress had failed to produce a budget resolution. Two of these were under unified party control.

Other problems had emerged with the congressional process under the Republican Party. Although the budget process still served as a key set of institutions supporting majority rule in the legislative process, it had become less of a tool for fiscal restraint under unified Republican control in the 2000s. During the 1990s, under both President Bush and President Clinton, budget procedures were critical in enacting major deficit reduction legislation. Once the budget was in surplus, Republicans appeared less interested in fiscal restraint. Congressional appropriators were under less constraint from the budget resolution, and earmarks for special state and local projects exploded. Republicans failed to extend some of the rules that had made it possible to balance the budget in the 1990s. Pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules, requiring offsets for tax cuts or spending increases, were allowed to expire in 2002. Republican critics feared that they would lead to tax increases to pay for new programs and labeled it “tax-as-you-go.”

Emergency provisions were used frequently after 2001. Billions and billions of dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror were passed under emergency provisions outside of the constraints of the budget process. The party of small government and balanced budgets had created a new prescription drug entitlement program in hopes of attracting support from senior citizens. Critics within the party despaired about their party’s budget record and said there was no longer even an attempt to disguise its record of expanding big government. Between 2001 and 2006, federal spending increased by 45 percent. The taste for bold conservative budgets, so apparent in 1995, seemed long gone.

Any of this starting to “ring a bell,” AP? And as noted here…

Even using inflation adjusted dollars, Republicans increased spending from $1.789 trillion in Fiscal Year 2000 to $2.247 trillion in Fiscal Year 2006.

Republicans even increased spending as a share of Gross Domestic Product. In FY 2000, federal government spending accounted for 18.4% of GDP, but by FY 2006 that had risen to 20.3%.

In Fiscal Year 2000, the government banked a surplus of $236 billion, but for (Fiscal Year) 2008, the Bush Administration project(ed) a mirror image deficit of $239 billion. During joint Republican control of the White House and Congress the deficit hit an all time record of $412 billion.

And who benefitted from this fiscal profligacy (or, more precisely, who didn't)? As noted here from 2006…

Since 2001, a wide range of domestic priorities have been shortchanged to make room for the President’s tax cuts. For example:

College Affordability — Since 2001, the cost of attending a four-year public college increased $3,095 – a whopping 34 percent – while the share of these costs paid by Pell Grants has dropped from 42 percent to only 30 percent. Meanwhile, House Republicans froze the maximum Pell Grant for four straight years.

Healthcare Access — More than 46 million Americans are without health insurance – nearly seven million more than in 2000. Efforts to expand healthcare access through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) have lost 8 percent of their purchasing power compared to two years ago. Health professionals programs aimed at bringing more doctors and dentists to underserved communities were cut by 45 percent in actual dollars compared to 2005. Maternal and child healthcare grants lost 24 percent of their purchasing power compared to 2002.

Energy Independence — In 2002, we imported 58 percent of our oil. Last year, we imported 65 percent. Yet we invest only 1/5 of what we did 30 years ago under President Carter in the energy research that can help us break our dangerous addiction to foreign oil. Instead of making a substantial new investment in this research, Republicans handed billions of dollars of subsidies to big energy companies.

Worker Training — Seven million Americans remain unemployed — one million or 17 percent more than in 2001 – and more than 1.3 million Americans have been jobless for more than 26 weeks – nearly double the number in 2001. Yet, in real terms, Republicans have cut job training and employment service efforts by $1.3 billion in just two years.

Educational Opportunity — Record public school enrollments, stringent No Child Left Behind mandates, and continuing fiscal pressures are making it difficult for states to invest in schools. Yet, federal funding for No Child Left Behind fell almost $16.4 billion short of what was promised for 2007. For 2007, Republicans cut No Child Left Behind for the second year in a row – nearly $500 million below last year and $1.5 billion below two years ago.

Law Enforcement — September 11th showed that first responders, and particularly our nation’s law enforcement officers, are the first line of defense in case of a terrorist attack. Yet House Republicans have cut state and local law enforcement funding by 47 percent since 2001 – from roughly $4.5 billion to about $2.4 billion for 2007.

Veterans’ Healthcare — The VA has been unable to keep up with the increasing demand for veterans’ healthcare. In 1995, VA treated 2.6 million veterans and their families. In fiscal year 2006, the Department expects to treat more than twice that number – 5.4 million. In addition, many VA hospitals and facilities are old and in need of repair – improvements that could cost billions over the next five to ten years. Yet, House Republicans fell short by $1.2 billion in 2004 and $1 billion in 2005 of providing enough funding to maintain current services in the VA healthcare system.

Homeland Security Shortchanged – Despite substantial increases since September 11, 2001, America’s borders, ports and transit systems remain vulnerable to attack. Yet, inexplicably, Republicans have been underfunding – and even cutting – critical homeland security investments.

For example, President Bush and the Republican Congress cut funding for our nation’s first responders (in 2005). (That) year, House Republicans cut funding for our nation’s first responders by 32 percent compared to 2003 – from $5.97 billion to just $4.08 billion. Republicans have cut first responder funding even as a recent report – previously withheld from public view by the Bush administration – reveals that America’s firefighters still do not have the tools they need to respond to a terrorist attack. For example, this report shows that:

• Fire departments only have enough portable radios for 36 percent of emergency responders per shift.

• 28 percent of firefighters per shift do not have self-contained breathing apparatus and 34 percent of all self-contained breathing apparatus is at least 10 years old.

• Only ¼ of all fire departments can communicate with all of their partners who may respond to catastrophes, such as other nearby fire department, state emergency responders and Federal agencies with response duties.

(This is not) the time to be shortchanging homeland security investments. Yet that is exactly what happened under President Bush and the Republican Congress.

The war in Iraq - Despite significant increases in the Defense Department’s budget, the war in Iraq has left the U.S. Army’s readiness at its lowest level in decades. The degradation of Army readiness is directly due to the sustained troop deployments to Iraq and the pace of operations that has worn out equipment at an unusually fast rate. Unfortunately, the Administration’s use of supplemental appropriations to fund war operations has made the situation worse. The Administration often does not submit supplemental requests until well after the Army needs the funding to pay for ongoing operations. As a result, the Army is forced to delay certain activities, such as maintenance of equipment, until supplemental appropriations are approved.

Congressional Republicans have ended their stewardship (in '06) by failing to finish their work on a budget for this year, flawed as that budget may have been. As a result, the (110th) Congress (was) forced to pass a long-term joint funding resolution. Certainly, a Republican majority that walks away from this obligation forfeits its right to complain about any action that Democrats are forced to take on budget and appropriations bills next year to clean up their chaotic mess.

Now I will not tell you that the Democrats are perfect either; the Farm Bill passed last year with no decrease in agribusiness subsidies during a time of high wheat prices (an incredibly rare bit of agreement between yours truly and Dubya), but there was plenty of other good in the legislation to offset that, IMHO.

But this AP “hit piece” by Woodward and company is scurrilous all the same (there’s a vague remark about the Iraq War “draining federal coffers” for six years, but no other reference to the ’00-’06 congresses – and by the way, all prior presidents in this country until Ronald Reagan managed to either balance our budgets or provide a surplus during time of war).

And would that we had heard all of the big-media whining about “bipartisanship” when the current minority party was in charge – perhaps if we had, we would not be quite so engulfed in red ink from a Repug president and a congress who actually believed two wars could be financed by tax cuts.

Wednesday Stuff

An all-timer of a "Worst Persons" on "Countdown," getting top billing for a change tonight (Michele Bachmann rates almost a nightly citation anymore - yeah, I think "Hoot Smalley" played third base for the Cleveland Indians in 1915...uh huh; what a shame that Rupert The Pirate's circ on the New York Post is down 20 and a half percent - aaarrggghhh! Man the mainsails, Starbuck!; but congresswoman Virginia Foxx of North Carolina gets "Worst Of The Year" so far for saying that the hate crime of Matthew Shepard's murder was a myth - almost too repugnant for words)...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Update 4/30/09: This is "three-quarters of a loaf" as apologies go, but it's something...but on second thought, not good enough, and blaming ABC News is ridiculous.

Update 5/7/09: Maybe Foxx made amends here - let's hope so anyway.

...and in honor that the "100 day" observance is now over, let's have at it (this is LOUD).

Wingnut DeMint’s Anti-Dem Specter “Spin”

(And you guess it - I also posted here.)

I’m sure you’ve read, as have I, a variety of explanations as to why Arlen Specter switched from a U.S. Senate Repug from PA to a Dem, but I have to tell you that the one from Specter’s former party colleague Jim DeMint may be the biggest stretch of all.

As TPM tells us here…

(DeMint) attributes the non-viability of the Republican party in states like Pennsylvania to the fact that voters have fled "forced unionization" in the northeast for the safety and comfort of the southern motherland.

("the southern motherland" - tee hee...)

I would say that that type of non-thinking has led the party to its current state of near collapse, particularly in the northeast, as kos tells us here.

Well, maybe instead of criticizing all of us in the Keystone State for allegedly driving out those Repugs voters with our nasty unions and prevailing wage law, DeMint should pay more attention to his own backyard, as it were, particularly given this story which tells us…

According to the Economic Research Service, the average per-capita income for all South Carolina residents in 2006 was $29,767, although rural per-capita income lagged at $27,004. Estimates from 2007 indicate a poverty rate of 19.2% exists in rural South Carolina, compared to 13.8% in urban areas of the state. Data from 2000 finds that 29.1% of the rural population has not completed high school, while 21.8% of the urban population lacks a high school diploma. The unemployment rate in rural South Carolina is 7.7%, while in urban South Carolina, it is 5.3% (USDA-ERS, 2008).

Also, this tells us that “about 4.6 percent of the population of South Carolina currently lives at or below the poverty level, despite working 40 or more hours per week, compared with the national rate of 4.1 percent” (not sure of the exact time periods for some of these numbers, but they are fairly recent and do not paint a pretty picture).

And here’s a WaPo update providing even more bad news…

On Day 88 (of the Obama presidency), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that South Carolina had set a record for its highest unemployment rate in state history, at 11.4 percent. Greenwood's unemployment is 13 percent -- more than twice what it was (in 2007).

Also, South Carolina has no state minimum wage law, making it easy prey for the Walton family and other corporate vultures; this tells us that the company with the yellow smiley face settled a lawsuit for wage nonpayment dating back to 2000 nationwide, including in The Palmetto State (I have to admit that the state did create this rather interesting tourism promotion, though).

But anti-unionism is as natural as breathing for DeMint; as noted here, he blocked a Democratic attempt to implement one of the 9/11 Commission recommendations that would have “require(d) that all containers on U.S.-bound vessels be screened in foreign ports for radiation, and all cargo loaded onto U.S. airliners be screened for explosives”…see, the “problem,” as far as DeMint is concerned, is that the bill would have allowed the Transportation Security Agency screeners to unionize.

I would say that a union would have been able to provide for at least some of the residents of Greenwood, SC, were they to join through their employer (the town was profiled in the WaPo story); I’m sure Councilwoman Edith Childs, also profiled, could convince DeMint of that fact if she had the opportunity.

But of course, DeMint would have to admit that she and her issues even exist at all (I would guess that that’s part of the reason why DeMint hasn’t even cracked the 50-percent incumbent approval mark, as Nate Silver notes here, with DeMint defending his seat next year – looks like the incumbent is only one credible Democratic challenger away from being retired from public life…we can only hope).

Update: I meant to note this earlier concerning this notion DeMint is trying to propagate that all workers in PA are unionized; as noted here, "Union density in Pennsylvania rose from 15.1 percent in 2007 to 15.4 percent in 2008. In 2007 there were 830,000 union members in Pennsylvania among 5.496 million employed workers. In 2008 the number of union members increased to 847,000 among a workforce of 5.504 (million) employed workers."

Tuesday Stuff

Even now that he's finally, mercifully gone from public life, his memory as an utterly execrable human being remains (based on this)...



...and I've been trying to come up with an appropriate song to commemorate the occasion of Arlen Specter's return to the Democratic Party (yes, it's true - he ran for Philadelphia D.A. as a "Kennedy Democrat" in 1965), and I think the title of this song by RT from '91 (with Shawn Colvin in the band back then) is good advice for any Dem who wants to count Arlen as a new "bud," particularly in light of this - "with us it must be all or none at all" (sorry about the hum at the very beginning and the very end).

Heye Now! Time For More Pundit-GOP Wankery

(And I also posted here...this is a recording.)

I happened to come across some posts from a guy named Doug Heye, who currently plies his craft as a pundit for The Hill, and they were too ridiculous for me to ignore (here).

So, you may well ask, what weighty matters does this individual communicate to us?

Well, Heye tells us that the Obamas’ apparent bad luck with gift giving continued recently, given that they only donated “signed pictures of themselves, of course! (to a celebrity auction held by Sidwell Friends school, attended by the Obama daughters). The winning bidders will receive a copy of Rolling Stone signed by President Obama and an autographed copy of Michelle Obama's Vogue cover” (and this gives Heye the chance to remind everyone about the apparent faux pas of the Obamas’ donation of DVDs to British PM Gordon Brown, as well as an iPod of Obama speeches to Queen Elizabeth, which I believe she requested).

And did you know that, while Dems want to talk about anyone besides Obama according to Heye, we are instead preoccupied with whether or not Dick Cheney is now the leader of the Republican Party?

Oh, and Heye expended more effort than needed (which was none, actually) to refute a Daily Kos diarist who took offense to Jake Tapper’s characterization of the Obamas as the “Camelot Huxtables” (yep, there are things to work yourself into a lather about, and this isn’t one of them, but somehow I don’t think a lone Kos diarist who I don’t recognize as a front-page contributor is going to be a “mover and shaker” of public opinion any more than your humble narrator).

Also, Heye tells Obama that, even though North Korea failed again on their latest missile launch, this is “no time to go wobbly” by trying to “reduce the role of nuclear weapons” (kind of the way this “Democrat” felt, I’m sure).

OK, you get the idea.

I guess it’s a legitimate question as to whether or not I should devote precious time and energy to go after these paid media Repug operatives like Heye, but I guess, in Heye’s case, it all got a little too thick, if you know what I mean.

And this tells us more about Heye, particularly…

Heye lived in Washington, D.C., and managed an unsuccessful California congressional campaign, worked for Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and served as communications director for the House of Representatives' Committee on Resources before returning to North Carolina.

He came home to work on Sen. Richard Burr's first senatorial campaign in 2004, doing communications work in 25 counties stretching from Mecklenburg County to Orange County.

"I got to see North Carolina close up in a way that I really hadn't," he said.

Despite being at UNC when the men's basketball team won the 1993 NCAA Tournament, Heye said his best memory was a political event.

When the late conservative political pundit and author William F. Buckley Jr. came to speak at UNC, Heye wrote him a letter before his arrival, expressing a desire to meet.

"I got invited on the spot to a dinner at Spanky's," Heye said. "I talked to him more than any of his hosts were able to."

Knowing Buckley, I have a feeling it was a pretty one-sided conversation.

And this tells us more about how Heye pretty much eliminated any line that may exist between political activism and pretend media objectivity; he was “a guest of (disgraced lobbyist Jack) Abramoff at least five times” while working for the Pombo campaign (with Pombo’s only accomplishment being that he tried, and failed fortunately, to weaken the Endangered Species Act, working in concert with Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History, as noted here – of course, Pombo’s questionable campaign contributions didn’t help either).

Also, Heye alleged here that Obama and disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich are “good friends,” and he denied busing in poll workers from Philadelphia to hand out fliers for failed Senatorial candidate (and now RNC head) Michael Steele here; the poll workers thought they were helping a Dem candidate (nice).

Hmm, let’s see now, Heye worked for Pombo as well as Steele’s senatorial campaign…I would say he has a thing for losing causes, but Burr won in ’04. However, Burr's re-election prospects are questionable, given the following from here…

Burr is a solidly conservative Senator in a state that just voted for Obama, along with Sen. Kay Hagan and Governor Bev Perdue. He has a limited record of accomplishment in the Senate, and Democrats have a strong field of candidates ready to take him on, with (Attorney General, Roy) Cooper the most prominent.

Burr merits a slight edge for now, being the incumbent in a relatively Republican-friendly state, but that's certainly subject to change.

Gee then, it sounds like Burr needs Heye to give up his gig at The Hill and go back to work for him. I’m sure fantasy-land story lines generated by Heye will do wonders for sinking the prospects of another incumbent Repug politician.

Update 5/2/09: Wonder if Heye could help Burr over this?

Snarlin’ Arlen Makes An Ass Of Himself

Well, it seems our formerly Repug U.S. Senator from PA has switched parties and is now a Dem based on this (a totally craven but politically expedient move – I predicted that this wouldn’t happen here, which just goes to show why I don’t run political campaigns...I underestimated the amount of GOP defections in this state, strangely enough).

As we all process this and what it means (not the way to get to 60 that I would have wanted, but we’ll take any route we can get; Norm Coleman’s appeals will end one day), I think it is instructive to revisit this post.

(And by the way, I’m more torn that ever now on the question of whether or not Patrick Murphy should get into the race. I still think it’s best for him to stay out, and I say that partly out of selfish reasons because he’s my congressman and I’d hate to lose him, especially since a Repug would probably end up getting the seat in his place, even with the party’s almost total descent into wingnuttia. However, the thought of him knocking off Specter in the primary and rolling over Pat Toomey next November is “the stuff that dreams are made of,” even though the party machinery will be solidly behind Specter now.)

Update 1: So this “Democrat” still opposes the Employee Free Choice Act (here), and apparently, now he has a problem with paying back Republican donors, as noted here (the jokes write themselves, people).

Update 2: Spot-on commentary from David Sirota about this, IMHO (and I think this situation scream for this guy, if no one else, and I'm not talking about Tweety).

Update 3: And by the way, let's never lose sight of the fact that Specter's defection is another gift from The Club For Growth, which, first and foremost, screws over moderates and hastens the descent of the Repugs further and further into wingnuttery, and thus their continued irrelevancy as a national party.

Update 4 4/30/09: Interesting how Specter responded to another Republican senatorial party switch in 2001, as noted here (hat tip to Beltway Blips).

Update 5 5/8/09: This is a whole other level of sick, people (and I'm not talking about Specter's affliction).

Monday Stuff

Another questionable posting week coming up, by the way, particularly on Friday - but in the meantime...

The first 100 days, as it were (some lowlights omitted such as the Timmeh and Larry Show on TARP and the banks and sticking Chris Dodd with the rap for the AIG bonuses, flip-flop on what to do about the Bushco criminals, allowing surveillance to continue, rethinking Afghanistan I hope - but hey, there is some positive stuff for sure)...



...and I know all I can do is try, but try I must...



..."Worst Persons" (let's just cut to the chase here, people, and say it flat out - Glenn Beck is nuts...the only thing crazier than his suppositions here is filibustering the vote on Kathleen Sebelius' nomination as HHS Secretary when the potential for a pandemic looms; also, as he says, kudos to this guy; and finally, I have to respectfully take issue with K.O. a bit here - yes, he's right that Lewis Caldera of the White House Military Office blew it by approving this and not telling everyone what was going on, but who was the button head in the Obama Administration who thought that a flyover of this type near the WTC site WAS APPROPRIATE FOR A PHOTO-OP??!! And that goes for the FAA on this too)...

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...and it's hard to believe I know, but Stevie Nicks turned 61 yesterday; don't know what that says that she'll be eligible for Social Security soon - thought it was as good an excuse as any to put up this one.

Some Obama/McClatchy "Hundred Day" Hackery

(And also posted over here.)

I realize that the topic du jour, in addition to the swine flu outbreak that originated in Mexico, seems to be the first 100 days of the Obama presidency (I thought this presented some interesting numbers given this milestone, referencing an ABC/WaPo poll).

And McClatchy chimes in here, skewing perceptions based on vague non-reporting and misinterpretation, as well as concocting themes about Obama and Democrats in general that the majority of this country doesn’t care about (shocking that this comes from an otherwise fine news organization)…

Obama's average approval rating for his first three months in office was 63 percent in the Gallup Poll.

That's the highest since Jimmy Carter's 69 percent rating after his first 100 days more than three decades ago. However, Carter's presidency is widely considered a failure, which underscores the risk of reading too much into a president's first 100 days.

Oh yes, the “conventional wisdom” tells us that Carter was a failure, and he and Obama are both Dems, so... (and by the way, here is yet another link to Walter Rodgers’ column defending our 39th president).

(Also, on the subject of Carter, Dick Polman of The Philadelphia Inquirer tells us here that his successor, The Sainted Ronnie R of course, “inherited an economic mess that lingered for several years,” though it should be noted from here that, despite Carter’s admitted problems with inflation and unemployment – and OPEC never gets a mention from Carter antagonists as one of the causes for this, by the way – “he could claim an increase of nearly eight million jobs and a decrease in the budget deficit, measured in percentage of the gross national product” by the time he left office - and here's a reality check on Reagan's economic policies from former Clinton Labor Secretary Bob Reich.)

You know, it’s funny, though – I don’t recall too many pundits saying after Dubya became president (when it comes to comparisons) that “well, his approval numbers are good after a hundred days, even registering 90 percent after 9/11 (true), but Warren Harding was a popular president also who we now would consider to be a failure.”

Also…

Gerhard Peters, a co-founder of the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara , said that Obama's sweeping agenda could make him a transformational president, just as Roosevelt made America more reliant on government and as Ronald Reagan made it less so.

In response, please allow me to quote from pg. 61 of Will Bunch’s great book on “the Gipper” (here)…

In fact, the federal government grew in size under Reagan. The feds' civilian workforce increased during his two terms from 2.8 million to 3 million, even though his successors George H.W. Bush and especially Bill Clinton showed that government could be slashed (down to just 2.68 million by the time the budget-balancing Democrat left the White House). While the Gipper rode into Washington with tough talk about wielding an axe that might slash two cabinet agencies (Education and Energy), he left eight years later having added one, Veterans Affairs. Today, Reagan's biggest mythmakers will insist that he slashed federal spending. But he didn't. While Reagan was in office, federal spending grew by 2.5 percent per year, even when adjusted for inflation. As a share of America's gross national product, federal spending barely moved during the Reagan years, dropping just a couple of tenths of a percentage point.

"The major failure of the Reagan Administration was the failure to discipline spending," William A. Niskanen, who served on Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers until 1985 and then chaired the conservative Cato Institute, told the New York Times in 1987. "We have a bigger government, with higher spending. We've slowed regulation down, but we haven't reversed it. In other words, there was no Reagan Revolution."

Returning to the column (it gets better)…

Obama signed orders to expand access to information under Freedom of Information and Presidential Records laws. But while making good on his promise to make government more transparent, Obama's White House nonetheless tries to shape the media message by limiting access to much information via selective leaks by unnamed sources.

Example? And assuming that’s true, how exactly is that different from how anyone else operates in Washington?

And still more…

The president also has begun laying the groundwork for sweeping health care and global warming legislation. He says he'll preserve private health insurance but offer more government-managed insurance so that everyone is covered. Critics think that will guarantee significant tax increases down the road, despite the president's promise to raise taxes on only the wealthiest Americans.

Well, regardless of what the “critics” say (do these people have names?), it should be noted from here that approximately 95 percent of this country saw the beginnings of the benefit of Obama’s tax cut as part of the stimulus legislation on April 1st.

Also…

Obama's also fallen short so far in his effort to convert his campaign's effective grassroots and Internet operations to a force that can help him govern. Lawmakers report no evidence of political impact from those efforts.

This is vague as hell - which lawmakers are they talking about? Besides, concerning any issues Obama may be having with “convert his campaign's effective grassroots and Internet operations,” I think this post documenting the technical issues the Obama White House is facing has a lot to do with their ability to mobilize forces and help to move the White House agenda forward in Congress.

And oh yeah, I forgot this one…

Obama also opened a new era of relations with Congress, moving quickly to enact legislation that Democrats couldn't get past Bush: expanded children's health insurance coverage (paid for with higher cigarette taxes) and pay equity legislation giving women more grounds for lawsuits.

Uh, no; as noted here…

(The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act) amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stating that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new discriminatory paycheck. The law was a direct answer to the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), a U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins at the date the pay was agreed upon, not at the date of the most recent paycheck, as a lower court had ruled.

Basically, Ledbetter was punished by Hangin’ Judge JR and the Supremes because the discriminatory payment practice that victimized her was something she didn’t discover until after the 180-day window of the first discriminatory payment had passed; one way to describe the reading of the High Court would be parsimonious, though there are many other descriptions that I'd like to use here though they wouldn’t be “PG” rated, as it were.

The law as signed by President Obama arising from this doesn’t provide “more grounds for lawsuits.” If employers do what they’re supposed to, there won’t be lawsuits related to this at all.

After reading this utter dreck of a political “analysis,” I really can't believe that it took five writers to produce this, let alone one (and news organizations can't understand why non-subscribers won't pay for online content...).

Update: Speaking of President Carter, I neglected to mention the Op-Ed he wrote in the New York Times today calling to reinstitute the assault weapons ban, another 100 percent, dead-right stand that should be a no-brainer for anyone claiming allegiance to the Democratic Party (echoed by Bob Herbert on Saturday here).

Saturday Stuff

Thanks to Marine Corporal Rick Reyes for his service and his courageous testimony on Afghanistan; his words are put along side those of a "soldier of discontent" from another era who was no less patriotic...



...and you can always count on Dave for some good tunes.

Friday Stuff

Aww, bad luck there on NY-20, Chairman Steele (h/t The Daily Kos - tee hee hee)...



...and the news kind of makes me want to put this up once more (hat tip again to Jack and Jill Politics)...



..."Worst Persons" (Bill Orally alleges some kind of corporate media conspiracy to inflate GE's profits, they being the parent company of NBC, MSNBC and other stuff, which is funny enough, except for the fact that the claim sounds a lot like the very means Rupert Murdoch - aarrgghh...shiver me timbers!!! - used to build his dark media empire at Fix Noise; Michele Bachmann tries to give us a science lesson on global warming, and hilarity ensues; but Debbie Marko of CCRT Properties takes it for suing the mother of Colin Byar for Byar's breaking of his lease - the reason Marko is going after Byar's mother is because her son was killed when he came to the aid of several women being harassed outside a bar - yep, this move by Marko is one of the scummiest I've heard in awhile also)...

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...and it looks like a great weekend coming up in these parts, so enjoy.

Friday Mashup (4/24/09)

Yep, here comes another “grab bag” post because it’s a bright, sunny Friday and I don’t feel like doing a lot of writing (though I did manage to post here).

Part of the story involving Dem U.S. House Rep (and head of the House Intelligence Committee) Jane Harman of California, as noted here, is whether or not she leaned on wealthy AIPAC supporters to have them lobby Nancy Pelosi to reappoint Harman as head of the Intel committee, with Harman, in return, requesting that the DOJ go easy on Steve Rosen and Ken Weissman, two former AIPAC staffers implicated in the indictment of Larry Franklin, a former employee of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans accused of passing to AIPAC Bushco’s plans on Iran.

Well, whenever I hear about Rosen and Weissman, I find myself asking the question I used to title this post. And I wonder what it’s going to take to make Rice put her hand on the Bible in this case and come clean once and for all.

I know Chris Christie is the Repug “flavor of the month” in New Jersey, currently leading incumbent Dem governor Jon Corzine in polling data, as noted here.

And the Weekly Standard post also tells us (and don’t worry, I know where these cretins are coming from)…

The latest issue in the race is the New Jersey ACLU's attack on Christie for authorizing tracking people through their cell-phones without a warrant. The practice, which is legal, began in the aftermath of 9/11, months before Christie became U.S. Attorney for New Jersey in January 2002. Documents reveal that the U.S. Attorney's office submitted 79 successful applications for tracking the cellphone info. Sixty-six resulted in criminal prosecution.

Any word on any convictions?

And Blue Jersey tells us the following here (with different numbers), on the matter of what Christie himself has to say about this…

"There was no action of the U.S. Attorney's Office that was done without the consultation and approval of the court," Christie said Thursday. "Any suggestion to the contrary is ill-informed."

And Blue Jersey replies…

That's some good tapdancing. But if you look carefully, Christie appears to acknowledge he didn't always get a warrant. And it's a warrant he was supposed to get, nothing less. Here's the difference:

The less rigorous standard of obtaining a court order rather than a warrant was used in 98 New Jersey cases since Sept. 11, 2001, resulting in 83 prosecutions, according to the documents. Two other New Jersey cases remain under seal.

Here's the bottom line. Chris Christie authorized the warrantless monitoring of cell phones in almost 100 cases. Knowing he did not have a warrant, he chose to follow the Bush administration's lead to monitor and track New Jersey citizens. And now, he doesn't want to answer questions about it (another quality he learned at the knee of his Bush/Cheney mentors). Both the wireless monitoring and the refusal to discuss his possibly illegal actions to the voters are unacceptable. Chris Christie has some serious explaining to do.

Well, he’s not doing much talking because of the suit, with the ACLU’s Catherine Crump echoing Blue Jersey as follows (from here)…

Tracking the location of people's cell phones reveals intimate details of their daily routines and is highly invasive of their privacy. The government is violating the Constitution when it fails to get a search warrant before tracking people this way.

But this shouldn’t be surprising coming from Christie, who, as noted here, filed a nuisance lawsuit against Jersey Dem U.S. Senator Bob Menendez in the waning days of his hotly contested 2006 election against Baby Kean, and also made sure that Essex County executive James Treffinger, a popular Republican, spent six hours in wrist and leg shackles for no good reason other than to serve as punishment for a remark about Christie’s “hulking frame.”

The Repug gubernatorial contender may be physically imposing, I’ll grant you, but all of this proves that, despite his prosecutorial success, he’s a moral lightweight (and as you can see from the pic, he keeps questionable company too).

Update 1 5/12/09: Yep, sooner or later, Christie will have to come clean on how he set up Ass-Croft with that cushy $28-$52 M gig, in return for the former AG's decision not to prosecute Christie's brother (here).

Update 2 5/19/09: Soo...given the chance, Christie would "govern" like Perry, Palin and Sanford, huh (based on this)? Nice...

Oh, and one more thing – last Wednesday marked the ninth anniversary of the raid on the house of Lazaro Gonzalez, the paternal great-uncle of Elian Gonzalez, the little boy who was taken by federal authorities in compliance with an order from Attorney General Janet Reno. Four hours afterwards, Elian was reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base before they returned to Cuba.

I guess I should say a couple of things up front: 1) I wish to God I could prove that the photo above was doctored, but I can’t, and 2) The issue in this case was, for me, reuniting the boy with his father, and not one other damn thing mattered.

Also, it should be noted that the Gonzalez story continues to cast a long shadow; it yielded this utterly stupid moment of pundit wankery during the presidential campaign last year (uh, wrong again).

Thursday Stuff

As I watched this, I found myself wondering why those who scream the loudest that waterboarding supposedly isn't torture are the ones also making the most noise about releasing any information about how we used that tactic and others (under the euphemism of "enhanced interrogation techniques") on those "enemy combatants" on the "global war on terror" (yes, I know the answer, but I'm keen to wonder why all the same - ya' think those yelling have more than a little to hide here?)...

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Update 4/24/09: If you wish to subject yourself to today’s nonsense from Christine Flowers on this (here), I would only ask that you read Glenn Greenwald’s response, not to her, but to wingnuts in general (here – h/t Atrios).

...and I have to admit that I never expected a moment of clarity, if you will, from John Boehner, of all people, on this subject, but there you are (have fun trying to spin your way out of this one, Rep. Man Tan)...




...and I think "holy mackerel" is a kind way for Rachel Maddow to describe this story of the deterioration of Pakistan here in her interview with NBC correspondent Richard Engel - "holy fracking crap" works for me...

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...so let's try to rock the blues away, people (h/t The Daily Kos).

A “Re-Pete” Of Winger Torture Fiction

Leave it to the Murdoch Street Journal to jump to the defense of the deposed Bushco regime now that the Obama Administration has released details of the “enhanced interrogations” that took place during their predecessor’s watch, with House Repug Pete Hoekstra of Michigan “doing the honors” here…

Reactions to this former CIA program, which was used against senior al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003, are demonstrating how little President Barack Obama and some Democratic members of Congress understand the dire threats to our nation.

Nothing like a little “red meat” for the faithful (give me a break)…

Last week, (Director of National Intelligence Dennis) Blair made a similar statement (about “enhanced interrogations” allegedly saving lives) in an internal memo to his staff when he wrote that "[h]igh value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country."

Nice of Hoekstra to “clip” Blair’s quote here; according to this New York Times story by Sheryl Gay Stolberg yesterday, Blair also said…

“We do not need these techniques to keep America safe,” said Mr. Blair, who added: “The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us, and they are not essential to our national security.”

Hoekstra continues…

Yet last week Mr. Obama overruled the advice of his CIA director, Leon Panetta, and four prior CIA directors by releasing the details of the enhanced interrogation program.

The “four prior CIA directors” were part of Bushco, by the way. What else do you expect?

And regarding Panetta, Hoesktra is basically right, but the following should be noted from here…

On March 18, the Justice Department told CIA Director Leon Panetta — as he was leaving for a foreign trip — that it would be recommending that the White House release the memos almost completely uncensored, officials said.

Panetta told Attorney General Eric Holder and officials in the White House that the administration needed to discuss the possibility that the memos' release might expose CIA officers to lawsuits on allegations of torture and abuse. Panetta also pushed for more censorship of the memos, officials said.

The Justice Department also informed other senior CIA leaders of the decision to release the memos, and, as a courtesy, told former agency directors.

…

Inside the White House, according to aides, Obama expressed concerns that releasing the memos could threaten ongoing intelligence operations as well as American officials. He also echoed the CIA chiefs' worries about U.S. relationships with always-skittish foreign intelligence services.

The Justice Department argued that the ACLU lawsuit would in the end force the administration to release the documents anyway, officials said.

Obama eventually agreed. The administration decided it would be better to make the release voluntarily, so as to not be seen as being forced to do so, the officials said.

Hoekstra continues…

Members of Congress calling for an investigation of the enhanced interrogation program should remember that such an investigation can't be a selective review of information, or solely focus on the lawyers who wrote the memos, or the low-level employees who carried out this program. I have asked Mr. Blair to provide me with a list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who attended briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques.

Since Blair did not serve as DNI under Bushco, I don’t know how he could be expected to provide such a list. Also, while I believe there’s more than a little bit of “fudging” going on between Congress and our intelligence services here on the question of who was told what and when, I think the following is noteworthy from this exhaustive column by Jason Leopold...

In an interview with Newsweek last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who now chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and has launched a “review” and “study” of the CIA’s interrogation methods, said, “I now know we were not fully and completely briefed on the CIA program.”

Feinstein was reacting to a secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross that was leaked, which described, in shocking detail, the techniques used to interrogate 14 “high-value” detainees.

…

To cast further doubt on (former DNI Michael) Hayden’s claims (that Congress was briefed on the “enhanced interrogations”), Congress should speak to Mary O. McCarthy, a former deputy inspector general at the CIA.

Three years ago, McCarthy said senior agency officials lied to members of Congress during an intelligence briefing in 2005 when they said the agency did not violate treaties that bar, cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment of detainees during interrogations, according to a May 14, 2006, front-page story in The Washington Post.

"A CIA employee of two decades, McCarthy became convinced that 'CIA people had lied' in that briefing, as one of her friends said later, not only because the agency had conducted abusive interrogations but also because its policies authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading," The Washington Post reported.

"In addition to CIA misrepresentations at the session last summer, McCarthy told the friends, a senior agency official failed to provide a full account of the CIA's detainee-treatment policy at a closed hearing of the House intelligence committee in February 2005, under questioning by Rep. Jane Harman (California), the senior Democrat," The Washington Post reported. "McCarthy also told others she was offended that the CIA's general counsel had worked to secure a secret Justice Department opinion in 2004 authorizing the agency's creation of "ghost detainees" - prisoners removed from Iraq for secret interrogations without notice to the International Committee of the Red Cross - because the Geneva Conventions prohibit such practices."

In 2004, McCarthy was tapped by the CIA's Inspector General John Helgerson to assist him with internal investigations about the agency’s interrogation methods.

"In his report, Mr. Helgerson...raised concern about whether the use of the techniques could expose agency officers to legal liability," according to a November 9, 2005 story in The New York Times published the same month the (torture) tapes were destroyed. "They said the report expressed skepticism about the Bush administration view that any ban on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment under the treaty does not apply to CIA interrogations because they take place overseas on people who are not citizens of the United States."

"The officials who described the report said it discussed particular techniques used by the CIA against particular prisoners, including about three dozen terror suspects being held by the agency in secret locations around the world," The New York Times reported.

New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer wrote in her book, The Dark Side, that it is believed that the torture tapes were destroyed two years after Harman wrote her letter advising against it because Democratic members of Congress who were briefed about the tapes began asking questions about whether the interrogations were illegal

"Further rattling the CIA was a request in May 2005 from Sen. Jay Rockefeller, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, to see over a hundred documents referred to in the earlier Inspector General's report on detention inside the black prison sites," Mayer wrote in her book. "Among the items Rockefeller specifically sought was a legal analysis of the CIA's interrogation videotapes.

"Rockefeller wanted to know if the intelligence agency's top lawyer believed that the waterboarding of [alleged al-Qaeda operative Abu] Zubaydah and [alleged 9/11 mastermind] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as captured on the secret videotapes, was entirely legal. The CIA refused to provide the requested documents to Rockefeller.

"But the Democratic senator's mention of the videotapes undoubtedly sent a shiver through the Agency, as did a second request he made for these documents to [former CIA Director Porter] Goss in September 2005."

Aside from all that, though, I should note that I actually agree with Hoekstra; everybody from Bushco should testify under oath before Congress (with no shot whatsoever at immunity).

Hoekstra continues…

Any investigation must include this information (concerning torture) as part of a review of those in Congress and the Bush administration who reviewed and supported this program. To get a complete picture of the enhanced interrogation program, a fair investigation will also require that the Obama administration release the memos requested by former Vice President Dick Cheney on the successes of this program.

An honest and thorough review of the enhanced interrogation program must also assess the likely damage done to U.S. national security by Mr. Obama's decision to release the memos over the objections of Mr. Panetta and four of his predecessors. Such a review should assess what this decision communicated to our enemies, and also whether it will discourage intelligence professionals from offering their frank opinions in sensitive counterterrorist cases for fear that they will be prosecuted by a future administration.

Meeting any or all of the preconditions I highlighted above from Hoekstra would surely turn the investigation he seeks into the “show trial” that he decries.

And finally…

Perhaps we need an investigation not of the enhanced interrogation program, but of what the Obama administration may be doing to endanger the security our nation has enjoyed because of interrogations and other antiterrorism measures implemented since Sept. 12, 2001.

This is the typical partisan garbage you would expect from a guy who claimed here last May with Former Senator Man-On-Dog that we finally found Iraq’s WMD, even though the Iraq Study Group said all such weapons had been destroyed in ’91 (I know Santorum is at it again today, but I have neither the time nor the desire – when he appears, the Inky isn’t just financially bankrupt, but intellectually and morally as well).

And let’s not forget this episode from just about a year ago, in which Hoekstra refused to “carry the water” for Bushco on the question of a supposed nuke deal with North Korea, expressing his frustration with the “administration” and its failure to notify him for seven months on the matter.

Oh, and remember how Hoekstra, in a particularly grotesque episode of “sock puppetry,” fed lies to Time’s Joe Klein in November 2007 here which Klein printed practically verbatim, where Hoekstra claimed that the House Democrats' version of the FISA bill (the RESTORE Act co-sponsored by the great Rush Holt of New Jersey…of course, the Dems as a party caved on FISA outright last summer) required warrants for every foreign terrorist's call and that the bill thus gave the same rights to foreign Terrorists as American citizens?

Finally, Hoesktra claims in the Journal today that our nation has been secure “since Sept. 12, 2001.”

I’ve asked this question many times before, and I’m sure I’ll ask it many more times (based on this); is Rush Holt the only member of our government WHO REMEMBERS THE DAMN ANTHRAX ATTACKS??!!

Update: Sick bastards, the whole sorry lot of them (at Fix Noise here for sure, and elsewhere)...

Wednesday Stuff

Let us now pause and recall a certain R. Nixon who shed his mortal coil 15 years ago today - my own personal memory is getting called into work for half a day even though the market was closed for the observance, and we all gathered and went to Rafters in West Chester for a "liquid lunch" before going home; the damn place burned down a couple of months later.

Yes, we all know what he did and we all know what he was. However, imagine a Republican Party today acting in accordance with a fraction of the grace and humility Nixon showed in this speech...



...Fmr. Brigadier Gen. Janis Karpinsi talks to K.O. about who approved torture under Bushco, making an impassioned appeal for the people formerly in her charge (sounds like, "game, set and match" to me; I know I was tough on England and Graner, and rightly so, but that's only more reason why "the usual suspects" should rot in jail also - great idea for international representatives looking into this, by the way)...

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...however, short of that...



...and oh yeah, time to rock harder.

Wednesday Mashup (4/22/09)

(And I also posted here.)

I thought this was a nice post from Bill in Portland, Maine at The Daily Kos concerning Earth Day, particularly the following (in the category of "things he's never seen" - meant to emphasize that)…

A bison throw a cigarette butt out a car window
A flock of geese rip the top off a mountain
A seal cause an oil spill
A hippo drive a Hummer off a dealer's lot
A lemur leave the faucet dripping
A raccoon go out for the evening and leave all the lights in the house on
A bobcat fight legislation to lower smokestack emissions
A songbird sing "Drill Baby, Drill"
A panda dump raw sewage into a river
A pride of lions so dependent on oil that they're willing to wage war over it
A slug (the real kind, not the George Will kind) claim that our biggest worry is global cooling
A gorilla fail to keep its tires properly inflated
A salmon pollute a stream with mercury
An elephant claim that his God says it's okay to pillage the world's natural resources willy-nilly because pachyderms are the "chosen ones"
A lizard mock public transportation
A penguin claim that the melting polar ice caps are no big deal
A crocodile think up new ways to go overboard on plastic packaging for portable electronics
A Yangtze River dolphin (doesn't) do much of anything lately

I would only add that I’ve never seen a polar bear learn to surf because Repug House Rep Joe Barton of Texas said that humans should “get shade” in response to global warming (here).

I never expected that I would give Dem U.S. House Rep Rob Andrews of New Jersey credit for much of anything given his failed primary challenge to Frank Lautenberg last year, but I have to give him kudos for offering to help Philadelphia Newspapers as they investigate alleged illegal taping of phone calls by institutions lending them money (as E&P tells us here, “Philadelphia Media Holdings Chief Brian Tierney express(ed) his dismay that senior lenders to the company allegedly taped calls to executives without their knowledge.”)

Maybe this is nothing more than craven political opportunism, but for whatever reason, Andrews is doing the right thing, particularly commendable since the paper was hard on him (justly so) for flip-flopping on the question of whether or not Andrews would give up his house seat to “primary” Lautenberg (he claimed he would, but he later reneged and was re-elected).

Also, I really don’t have anything to add here, but I just want to publicize this story of Chinese tire dumping into this country and the subsequent loss of jobs; good for the USW for standing up…

Leo W. Gerard, USW international president, declared: “American workers are struggling to make it through the worst economic crisis in 80 years. Our tire industry is collapsing under the weight of 46 million Chinese tires entering our shrinking market annually.”

He said, “We are aggressively using America’s trade remedy laws to help workers and their employers combat an import surge from a country not playing by the rules. Section 421 is a tool to redress Chinese import surges that gets us through the current economic crisis and preserves a part of America’s industrial base.”

The petition filed by the USW on behalf of its members employed in the U.S. tire industry was made under Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974. Documents submitted in the case show a huge surge of passenger car and light truck tire imports from China during 2004-08.

The USW represents about 15,000 tire workers employed at 13 plants in nine states, which accounts for nearly half of the industry’s production capacity in 2008. The domestic tire industry consists of ten producers with 27 plants in 15 states.

The consumer tire-producing states include: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Thanks once more to our “friends” in China, where the motto is “be happy – or else we’ll liquidate our debt holdings in your currency and watch your economy tank once and for all” (another testimony to the eternal stupidity of our politicians that allowed this circumstance to evolve over time).

Also (again), concerning this story of Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao complaining about the eventual closure of Guantanamo (another case of somebody being “late to the party” when it comes to fulfilling a promise Obama made during the campaign), the AP account by Andrew O. Selsky provides the point of view of a group called Military Families United, which opposes the closure and also opposed the release of Binyam Mohammed (more here, and a related post is here).

I realize that this group has every right to advocate as it sees fit, but I guess it would have been too much trouble for Selsky to reference a story like this one, which states as follows (from last December)…

Two dozen family members of Sept. 11 victims signed a letter Wednesday saying they don't believe in the fairness of the military trials of five men charged with orchestrating the terrorist attacks, and some suggested their opinions cost them attendance at the proceedings.

While the family members who attended this week's proceedings at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba expressed support for the tribunals, they also said "that many of us do not believe these military commissions to be fair, in accordance with American values, or capable of achieving the justice that 9/11 family members and all Americans deserve," according to the letter released by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Robin Theurkauf, whose husband was killed at the World Trade Center, said she wanted to attend the proceedings but was denied a spot in a lottery for family members.

"I testified for the defense in the (Zacarias) Moussaoui trial," Theurkauf said, referring to the convicted Sept. 11 conspirator. "I think I was skipped over because of that."

This is the only polling data I’ve been able to find on closing Guantanamo, by the way; not too surprising that it is supported by a majority of Dems but opposed by a majority of Repugs, and McConnell wouldn’t be who he is if he didn’t know how to exploit that difference with “oooga booga!” scare tactics, conjuring images of terrorists transferred from GITMO to the mainland where they can wreak alleged untold havoc. It just means that Obama are AG Eric Holder are going to have to work harder making their case for what to do with these people after the facility closes.

I had to admit that I got a kick out of this story…

As (Secretary of State Hillary) Clinton made her first appearance before Congress as the nation's top diplomat, California Republican Dana Rohrbacher asked if the administration planned to heed Cheney's call to release documents showing information gained as a result of the Bush administration's aggressive interrogation techniques.

"Well, it won't surprise you that I don't consider him to be a particularly reliable source of information," Clinton said, to laughter from many in the committee room.

Rohrbacher quickly hit back, saying, "Dick Cheney has asked for specific documents to be unclassified. We are not asking for your opinion of Dick Cheney. … If you want to maintain your credibility with us, what is your opinion on the release of those documents?"

Clinton ultimately did not answer the question, saying, "I believe we ought to get to the bottom of this entire matter. I think it's in the best interest of our country, and that is what the president believes, and that is why he has taken the actions he has."

“If you want to maintain your credibility with us”..???

Screw you, Rohrbacher; I didn’t think much of your act on “Real Time” all those months ago, and I think even less of it now (and by the way, I’ve seen his name spelled “Rohrbacher” and “Rohrabacher” all over the place…nice for some consistency on that).

Yeah, Dana, way to support the Afghan groups that eventually became the Taliban and forces loyal to bin Laden (and of course, you blamed Hillary’s husband for 9/11…creep). Also, like most Repugs, he wouldn’t be a “made man” unless he had ties of a sort to a certain Jack Abramoff, all noted here.

Oh, and on the matter of encouraging Obama to release documents concerning “aggressive interrogation techniques”…well, I guess Holy Joe didn’t get the memo.

Update 4/23/09: Regarding Lieberman (tee hee hee)...

And speaking of the Clintons, I have to admit that I was a bit nonplussed, at the very least, to hear that “The Big Dog” had agreed to appear on the same stage with His Fraudulency, as noted here (h/t Think Progress).

And by the way, get a load of some of the big-time wankery here from a member of the Great White North’s pundit class (didn’t know they had one)…

Although both presidents demonstrated an ability to compromise in the interests of bipartisan consensus — Mr. Clinton toughened welfare rules while Mr. Bush expanded public health care and funding for education — their opponents saw them only as the personifications of the evil of the other side.

So Mr. Clinton was impeached for abasing his office after lying about an affair with an intern.

And the wild-eyed are still trying to get Mr. Bush and his vice-president, Dick Cheney, tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity for their handling of the war on terror.

The meter doesn't exist to measure the time and energy that has been wasted on all of this.

Oh really? It might be news to the author, then, that the whole “divide and conquer,” “politics of personal destruction” thing was raised to a fine art by the Repugs (beginning with Dick Nixon and his “southern strategy” in the late ‘60s), to the point where it framed our politics for the last 30 years (with the Democrats getting wise to all of this only fairly recently, maybe for the last 4-5 years only). So if all of this has been “wasted time” (partly true, I’ll admit), the Repugs have wasted more than the Dems.

Also, I think it’s been chronicled pretty thoroughly here and elsewhere that Number 43, if anything, cut funding for health care and education more than anything else (John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail doesn’t cite his source for that claim, and I have no intention of doing his due diligence for him). And I’ll grant you that the poll cited here skews to the left a bit; it claims that 90 percent favored an investigation into the Bushco regime for war crimes, but I can’t determine Air America’s methodology – still, though, that’s a hell of a lot of “wild-eyed” people.

And for good measure, Ibbitson also conjures up some faux equivalency between Drudge and The Huffington Post (and Fix Noise and MSNBC) which tells me that he really doesn’t know a whole hell of a lot about progressive politics in this country.

Still, though, in my naïveté, I have to wonder what it will take for Dubya to be ostracized by his peers as the pariah that he truly is for unsuccessfully waging two wars, allowing our planet to continue boiling, shredding our Constitution and very nearly wrecking our economy.

Did Bill think that, just because his little soiree with President Brainless is due to take place beyond our border, we wouldn’t be paying attention?

Update: It took a little while for me to do the "QA" I usually do to these posts for this one in particular, but I think I fixed the messed up links and the missing transition in the first item.