(I guess I should start getting into the spirit a bit more here - by the way, I have popup text stating this if you "hover" your mouse near the wreath, but click the graphic to go to a page that allows you to send a holiday message to our troops.)"The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that. Unknown is what it is. Accept that it's unknown and it's plain sailing."...in tribute to the author of that quote who we remember today (Dr. Winston O. Boogie, that is), here is "Imagine."
(This link takes you to more information on what I’m referring to in the title, though you could also take it to mean someone who wants other people to fight and die in battles he’s unwilling to fight himself.)
Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker reports here on a legal case involving The Clean Air Act, which was signed into law by President Richard Nixon 36 years ago this month. As Kolbert notes, this is the first case involving global warming to reach the Supreme Court, filed pretty much out of desperation (Massachusetts v. EPA – arguments were heard last week). She also notes the following…The plaintiffs—a group that includes, in addition to Massachusetts, eleven states, three cities, and thirteen environmental groups—hope to compel the Bush Administration to impose limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. If they are successful, the operation of every power plant and factory as well as the design of every new car in the country could potentially be affected.So what is Bushco’s flimsy defense? This…
The E.P.A., it argues, lacks the authority to limit greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, because when the act was drafted global warming wasn’t yet recognized as a problem. The “relevant provisions of the law,” it states in its brief to the Supreme Court, are “best construed not to authorize regulation . . . for the purpose of addressing global climate change.” Furthermore, the Administration asserts, even if the Clean Air Act did grant the E.P.A. the power to treat CO2 as a pollutant, the agency shouldn’t—and wouldn’t—exercise it.And…
Just about anyone familiar with the Clean Air Act can see the White House’s narrow reading of the law for what it is: a deliberate misreading. The act was expressly constructed to allow the E.P.A. to regulate substances known to be dangerous and also substances that might in the future be revealed to be so.
In a friend-of-the-court brief for the plaintiffs, four former E.P.A. administrators—including Russell Train, who headed the agency under Nixon, and William Reilly, who led it under George Bush senior—point out that Congress clearly directed the E.P.A. to “regulate air pollution based on new and changing scientific information.” The four go on to note that the E.P.A. has, many times in the past, used its authority to control pollutants whose dangers could not have been foreseen in 1970; for example, in the early nineteen-nineties, faced with data on ozone depletion, the agency issued a timetable for phasing out chlorofluorocarbons.And I simply must note this wonderful exchange between plaintiff lawyer James Milkey, the assistant attorney general for the state of Massachusetts, and Antonin Scalia:
SCALIA: I thought that standing requires imminent harm. If you haven’t been harmed already, you have to show the harm is imminent. Is this harm imminent?Tell you what, Antonin; let’s see when the next “Cat 5” comes along and wipes out the Louisiana fishing camp of your friend Wallace Carline as you’re preparing to head down there to go duck hunting again, OK? Maybe then you’ll recognize “the predicted cataclysm.”
MILKEY: It is, Your Honor. We have shown that [rises in] sea levels are already occurring from the current amounts of greenhouse gases in the air, and that means it is only going to get worse as the—
SCALIA: When? I mean, when is the predicted cataclysm?
One of the findings of the report from the Iraq Study Group, as noted in this CNN story from the AP (which, again, appears curiously without a byline), is “that a concerted effort to resolve Israel's conflict with its neighbors will help stabilize the situation in Iraq.”Saying there is no connection between the two issues, Olmert rebuffed the group's recommendation that Israel open negotiations with Syria, but said Israelis want "with all our might" to restart peace talks with the Palestinians.As far as restarting peace talks, Olmert has been as good as his word, at least as far as CNN is concerned here.
"The attempt to create a linkage between the Iraqi issue and the Mideast issue -- we have a different view," Olmert said during the prime minister's annual meeting with Israeli journalists. "To the best of my knowledge, President Bush, throughout the recent years, also had a different view on this."But on the other hand (suddenly, I feel like Tevye), he says…
"We always felt, like other nations in our region, that the removal of Saddam Hussein was a major, major contribution to stability in our part of the world."“Stability in our part of the world”? I didn’t know “stability” was defined as the threat of imminent hostilities breaking out at any moment in between periodic and brutal spasms of violence.
TIME: How often do you speak to President Bush?Olmert and the Israelis, along with much of the Jewish community in this country, fell for the Iraq con by Bushco, actually cheerleading for war in 2002 and 2003. And as far as I’m concerned, they have a lot to answer for (I'm excluding Ariel Sharon from this because I expect him to shed his mortal coil at any moment).
Olmert: I've spoken to him maybe three times since I became Prime Minister. There is a very strong emotional bond between the two of us, every time we speak we both feel it deeply. I know how he feels and he [knows] how I feel. I think it grew out of his first trip to Israel, when I hosted him in Jerusalem. He knows that I like him. I very much depend on the understanding and cooperation of President Bush. The reason I think [disengagement] can be done is because of the trust and understanding we have for each other. In my opinion President Bush will emerge in history as the person who had more courage to change the Middle East than any person before him. I know the war in Iraq is controversial in the States, but for us in the Middle East it has made a great and significant impact. The decision of the President made an enormous impact on the lives of Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians — every country who was the potential target of the aggression of Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The sense of mission that Bush feels about war on terror is of enormous significance. When I think from the perspective of an Israeli and who is the partner, the natural partner who I speak with about fighting terror, it's President Bush.
Geov Parrish at Working For Change inflicts us with some seasonal guilt over our consumption habits in this column, which I submit for your edification (and yes, I’m partly culpapble as well; we should own stock in Lego).
This AP story reprinted in today’s Bucks County Courier Times notes what may be the final gathering of survivors of the battle of Pearl Harbor, which took place 65 years ago today (though, as one of the veterans notes later on, this may not be the last gathering after all, but we'll see).“The report from the Iraq Study Group contains elements of the new strategy that I've been advocating,” Fitzpatrick said. “It would be fair to say that I agree with most of the report.”You never said anything “all along,” Mikey. You never had a plan, or even an attempt at one. You never even had a thought about this that you could claim as your own. All you did was throw stones at what Patrick Murphy proposed, which is basically echoed in the report.
The report also addressed what became a thorny issue in the Fitzpatrick-Murphy race: a “precipitous” U.S. pullout from Iraq, which the report said could escalate fighting in country.
“I've been saying that all along,” Fitzpatrick said.
Carrie James, a spokeswoman for Murphy, said Wednesday night that Murphy's plan calls for a withdrawal of U.S. troops within 12 months “which the Iraq Study Group has put forth to start bringing our soldiers home.”As I noted above, though, this report is symbolic more than anything else. There is nothing whatsoever in it that is binding or enforceable.
This report does not do the job and it's because it was not composed of a real representative group of Americans who believe what the American people showed in the election, which is that it's time for us to have a timetable to bring the troops out of Iraq.I agree with Feingold, and he also notes that the people interviewed for the ISG report includes “virtually no one who opposed the war”; “virtually” is an important word in his statement because John Murtha does appear on the list of people interviewed for the report, as well as George Packer of The New Yorker, who I know would provide a reality-based perspective (as opposed to the amazing inclusion of George Will as an interviewee…no doubt the group thought they needed the chicken hawk-running-away-to-divinity-school perspective).
...here's the point: the Iraq Study Group didn't solve a goddamn thing. They are so enamored of their process and consensus that they just don't see that the world changed. None of their recommendations are bold or interesting. If you gave me a couple days and told me, "Come up with a boring, pale distillation of what the Conventional Wisdom would come up with as a plan for Iraq," I would come up with something almost exactly like the Executive Summary I read.So while this sorry ISG bunch including Vernon Jordan and Ed Meese - Ed Meese of Iran-Contra infamy ("let's-get-over-to-the-NSA-and-shred-everything-we-can-before-Ronnie-wakes-up-from-his-nap") - pats itself on the back over their faux bipartisanship, more people will die and America will continue to grow less safe against the very real and legitimate terrorist threat.
But they try so hard, and in between the rage I feel toward the hideousness of their self-regard, I must confess to feeling just a little bit of melancholy. The myth of a bipartisan, wise consensus that can lead us out of the mess we find ourselves is a comforting one. It's like sitting in the backseat of the car lost on a family trip with your parents holding the map. You know you don't have to worry because they'll figure out where we're going. And for some, like David Broder I guess, that fantasy has lingered. And seeing it ... well, it's like watching the end of a Shakespeare tragedy. They deserve what the irrelevance that's theirs, but ... there's still a certain melancholy to the whole thing.
But, we're all grown-ups now, and I gave up the myth of the Infallible Bipartisan Consensus years ago. And The Wise Men of Washington have been utterly destroyed by the incredibly destructive force of nature known as the George W. Bush Administration. Bush and his folks gave the final blow to the world that came before, the world of Consensus Building and Calm Deliberation. They crumbled the foundations of all the assumptions that made that world tick, the unspoken rules of decorum, the shared morality of American politics, and the political niceties of seniority and reverance for the inner sanctum of the annointed. And the David Broders of the world who try to bring it back have about as much relevance as someone pining for the return of abstinence-until-marriage. Those days are gone.
I know most of bloggerdom has been consumed with dissecting the report from the Iraq Study Group every way over Sunday (I plan to have a little more to say soon, actually) and trying to size up the fact that, as one of its last acts (mercifully), the departing Repug congress completely rolled over on the Robert Gates confirmation.
Taylor Marsh at the Huffington Post updated a report today on the nurses’ strike in Las Vegas whereby the nurses at Valley and Desert Springs Hospitals had walked out over the highly important issue of nurse-patient staffing ratios.There is also mounting evidence that improving nurse staffing will significantly improve patient health and actually reduce patient deaths. The recent Massachusetts survey found that nearly one in three nurses were aware of a patient death resulting from nurse short-staffing. And the Aiken study found that when a nurse's patient load is doubled from 4 patients to 8, his patients have a 31% greater chance of dying within a month; this suggests that even the California rules' 8-patient ceiling could result in far more patient deaths than lower ratios, depending on the setting.So did Bushco actually do something about this?
In August 2002, Congress passed the Nurses Reinvestment Act – a bill that authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to create public service announcements promoting the nursing profession, award grants to nursing schools to help increase enrollment, and create a fast-track nursing faculty training program. The bill also provides scholarships for those who agree to work in nursing shortage areas after graduation, and increases the matching rate for Medicaid nurses’ aid training and competency evaluation programs.I should emphasize for those unfamiliar with this that the critical issue affecting nurse-patient ratios is the shortage of nurses, and anything that will help with the enrollment of nurses in training is bound to help.
The future of nursing received a blow…from President Bush's proposed fiscal year 2006 budget, which calls for a reduction in the overall budget for nurse training and workforce development.I have a particular interest in this issue because it affects two family members, for what it’s worth.
The president's budget provides $150 million for nursing workforce development programs, including the Nurse Reinvestment Act. This figure represents a cut of $1 million from the previous fiscal year's funding, mostly from loan repayment and scholarship programs.
In response to the news, nursing organizations are asking for Congress's help to secure funds for nursing workforce development programs-key initiatives to solving the problem of the workforce shortage.
"With a predicted nursing shortage of more than 275,000 RNs by the year 2010, this is the wrong time to be cutting back our investment in this country's future nurses," said Barbara Blakeney, RN, president of the American Nurses Association (ANA).
Like many of you, I’ve been trying to digest what I can from the oh-so-self-important recommendations from the Iraq Study Group, primarily that we start getting the hell out of Iraq (as noted in this Time article written by someone besides Mike Allen which is actually pretty good), and I’ve seen all manner of hand-wringing from the media crowd and other beltway insiders who will proclaim this work to be some courageous attempt at achieving a consensus, trying to find that mythical common ground, implying that there is some gray shading in a calamity that is hopelessly composed in extremes of black and white."What we have produced is a plan for December. We have no idea what things are going to look like in February."I think we know more than those assclowns do.
Though the Democrats had the winning hand, if you will, on November 7th, some of us don’t know when to fold ‘em, get up and walk away from the table, as witnessed by this Letter to the Editor in the Bucks County Courier Times this morning.I was disturbed but not surprised that our Congressman-elect, Patrick Murphy, whom the Courier Times endorsed, voted for John Murtha for minority whip.I hate to break the news to Petrucco (a chronic offender in this newspaper) but Patrick was supporting Murtha for majority leader, not minority whip. The Democrats, God be praised, will be the majority party starting next January. Nice that Petrucco actually knows what he’s talking about, isn’t it?
Isn’t this the same John Murtha who was an un-indicted co-conspirator in the ABSCAM bribery scandal?
Murtha didn’t go to jail because they couldn’t prove he took money. However, he sure as shooting knew people were being bribed; it’s on videotape.
If he were an honest politician, he would have reported the bribery scheme to law enforcement.
Closer to home, Murtha is the king of pork in the House. He directs hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks etc. to his district. Our new congressman, I think is obligated to ask why and demand that some of that pork be cut back or directed to Bucks County. After all, it’s our tax money.
I didn’t vote for Pat Murphy because he is totally inexperienced, but I did hope that there would be a change from the same old stuff if he were elected.
However, I can see from his initial actions we can expect more of the same old stuff.
Since you endorsed him as noted earlier, how about some editorials on his actions and let’s keep his feet to the fire. You owe us that much.
Rick Petrucco
Lower Makefield
As the dust settles on last month’s historic elections, the Democratic Party can take stock of an impressive tally of triumphs. On top of Congress, the governorships, and the state legislatures is a list of marquee conquests: would-be President George Allen, far-right hero Rick Santorum, the Donald Rumsfeld era, and the myth of Karl Rove. Less celebrated but no less noteworthy is the blow taken by another stalwart of the conservative movement: the right-wing media.Actually, I hope our corporate media friends continue on their current path, since, to be perfectly honest with you, I’m tired of trying to cajole them into doing the right thing. They should know to do it anyway. And I’ll admit that my reasons for feeling that way are partly selfish, since it could very well lead to an increase in readership of blogs to obtain a reality-based perspective (including this one, I dare hope).
When the Gingrich Congress first took power in 1994, observers gave a healthy dose of credit to the then-emerging conservative echo chamber. Looking back, it seems hardly coincidental that the rise of Republicanism in the 1990s coincided with the rise of Rush Limbaugh and the creation of the Fox News Network. In the years since, the Republican noise machine has only grown bigger and brasher. Joining Rush and Fox are an army of talk show hosts, bestselling polemicists, and shoot-first bloggers, all of whom have played an integral role in the contemporary Republican Party.
Well-funded and well-oiled, the noise machine is always at work for the GOP. The 2004 presidential election proved just how crucial it has become to Republican electoral success. From false rumors of John Kerry’s $150 haircuts to the fatally damaging fabrications of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the conservative media funneled Republican talking points into the mainstream, peddling spin as substance and insinuation as news. The result was a thumping from which Kerry has yet to recover.
Last month’s elections saw the same dynamic at work. The Drudge Report, one of the right’s most reliable conduits of innuendo, pushed a salacious item about sexually explicit passages in the novels of Jim Webb, the Democratic candidate for Virginia senator. Drudge’s strident coverage drove respectable media outlets like the Washington Post and CNN to give the non-story attention.
Another scandal touted by Drudge and the right-wing blogs concerned House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s alleged disappearance from the campaign trail, a claim that suggested Pelosi was in hiding because of her unpopularity with the public. The “Where’s Pelosi?” narrative was dutifully picked up by MSNBC and Fox News within hours. Perhaps they should’ve looked harder. Just a day earlier, Pelosi had appeared at a campaign rally in California with Bill Clinton and was also interviewed on CNN.
The most successful of the right-wing noise machine’s last-ditch efforts to commandeer the media was its elevation of Kerry’s botched joke about Iraq into a national scandal. For days, the press dropped issues of genuine consequence in favor of wall-to-wall coverage of Kerry’s gaffe. In right-wing circles, the “scandal” they so successfully pushed was seen as the final blow to the Democrats’ ebbing hopes of taking Congress.
But something happened on the way to the voting booth. The Democrats’ victory at the polls suggests that the right-wing noise machine that has proven so harmful to Democrats in particular, to honest public discourse in general, is starting to sputter. Despite the machine’s best efforts to steer the discussion away from the GOP’s myriad failures, the voters eschewed spin and cast a reality-based vote for change.
Indeed, there were even hints of outright disdain for the right-wing media. In the loudmouths of the right, Americans may have seen a reflection of an overreaching Republican government – an obnoxiousness best exemplified by Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Michael J. Fox’s commercials in support of stem-cell research funding in Missouri. The state was eventually decided by a razor-thin margin. Surely there is no small amount of poetic justice in the notion that the godfather of conservative media may well have contributed to his party’s defeat.
But those expecting a chastened and reflective conservatism should think again. The right-wing media emerged during an era when conservatives were shut out of power. As Democrats take control of Congress and the Bush Administration plays defense, the noise machine only figures to grow in volume and vitriol.
The bigger worry is that the mainstream media will not have learned their lesson from these elections. Despite the dark arts of the right-wing echo chamber and the pusillanimity of a clueless press, the voters turned a deaf ear to sound and fury signifying nothing. Will the mainstream media be as judicious and prudent as the voters in the next two years? If they seek to remain relevant, they may have no other choice.
I’m glad to see that the Philadelphia Inquirer, in addition to crafting this Mencken-worthy piece of journalistic editorial erudition comparing The Beatles to The Wiggles, a group of Australian performers for little kids, was able to devote space for the letter appearing below.Re: "Let them serve first," Nov. 28:I respect Bittner very much; he’s written some fine letters to the paper. And I’m highlighting this because I’ve seen the sentiment echoed all over the place that there should be discussion of bringing back the draft to put the chicken hawks in a position where their blood could be spilled instead of so joyously advocating that fate for others. And yes, I would like to see them get their comeuppance also.
A letter to the editor seems to have missed the key element of Charlie Rangel's continued call to reinstate the draft. Rangel knows full well that there will be no draft. His openly stated goal in repeatedly introducing this bill is that lawmakers might not be so quick to authorize force if their own children could end up on the front lines. He wants no exemptions for sons and daughters of lawmakers; rather, he specifically wants them included as a bulwark against foolish, politically motivated force resolutions.
It is debatable whether a draft would achieve Rangel's goals. It is probable that giving President Bush more soldiers would just mean he would launch another fiasco. But it is imperative to understand that Rangel suggests universal conscription, including closing loopholes that children of privilege used to avoid Vietnam, as a deterrent to ill-conceived wars, not as a way to get other people's children to fight.
Brandon Bittner
Royersford
(My kingdom for a "thought bubble" graphic...).
I’ve had a post on hold for a day or so concerning Robert Gates, but I should probably finish it now, especially since Prof. Marcus has noted that some of us (me included) aren’t noting the fact that, according to this Raw Story link via Marcus’ site, Gates has said that we’ll have troops in Iraq for “a long time.”The number of private contractors in Iraq has now reached about 100,000 -- the most ever used in a U.S. military operation. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root is one of the largest contractors in Iraq. It has more than 50,000 employees and subcontractors working between Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. Blackwater USA has more than 1,000 employees in Iraq. Dyncorp has about 1500 employees there.He's right - THIS should be a headline instead of the latest celebrity trash, but our corporate media will think we're too stupid to notice.
So Kos reports today that Joe Biden has put his foot in it again (I’m going to spare Evan Bayh for now – he’s the subject of a whole other post that may be forthcoming one day).
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported here today that Philadelphia’s VA hospital hosted a lecture on September 28th by bioethics expert George Annas titled "Human Rights and Bioethics: Lessons From the Geneva Conventions, the Guantanamo Hunger Strikes, and the Nuremberg Code."“I’m writing to you to please investigate how lectures like this are allowed to be presented in federal facilities during a time of war, in open disagreement with the current administration’s policies in Guantanamo. Does the VA medical Center fund this individual’s travel or pay speaking fees. I would think this would be prohibited by law.I don’t know about you, ladies and gentlemen, but I smell a great big, noxious freeper rat (I mean, I noted the title of Annas’ presentation above; did anyone think somehow it wouldn’t be controversial? It sounds like most of us here are acting like adults, but some of us are not).
I regret I cannot give my name because quite frankly freedom of speech amongst employees at this medical center does not exist. Repercussions for speaking out against the senior leaders at this site are severe. I choose to remain private.”
Typically, (Evelyne) Shuster (director of the VA’s medical ethics program) said, she has sent bioethics event notices to about 5,000 people at the VA and the University of Pennsylvania. After the complaint, she said, the hospital's public-relations staff told her it would handle future announcements.And it gets even better when the facility’s PR flak Judi Cheary gets involved and says that the only person upset about the hospital’s reaction was Shuster (I presume that Shuster is employed by the national VA and not the Philadelphia facility; it’s hard for me to imagine the hospital’s vice president for external affairs, namely Cheary, “diming out” a senior person at her own place). On top of that, Cheary says:
But the next invitation never went out. Hospital officials said the e-mail was misplaced.
So when Temple urban studies professor Allen M. Hornblum came to speak about medical experiments on prisoners last month, only five people attended. Most lectures are attended by 50 to 100 people, Shuster said.
"Was I disappointed? Sure," said Hornblum, who also attended Annas' lecture, which he described as "rather tame."
"It seems like they're trying to kill the program," Hornblum said.
"Why would the speakers (Annas and Hornblum) be upset? Why should they care if we have a bioethics program?"After reading that quote, I need to digress briefly.
I’m not too excited by this – I’ve been bummed at Comedy Central since they axed the sublimely stupid “Viva Variety!”
Here’s more on another Repug mess for the incoming Democratic congress to try and clean up."I think it would be ideal to have congressional oversight on the program in detail, and I look forward to what will happen next year," he told an American Bar Association gathering. "I have grave reservations as to how successful we will be, given the administration's unwillingness to share those secrets."Specter states in the article that he’s pessimistic that the Democrats will be able to be able to come up with a solution, and I think he’s right, since the only “solution” that Bushco will consider is one in which they obtain total power to basically bypass congressional oversight.
Specter said FBI Director Robert Mueller would testify before his panel Wednesday on whether law enforcement and intelligence agencies are sharing information.Well, well.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks "could have been prevented if the CIA and the FBI had communicated," Specter asserted.
“…the Court again rejected the White House’s position, ruling, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that Congress, and not just the President, must establish the rules for trying the prisoners. The decision in Hamdan was announced on June 29, 2006, and Specter had been waiting for it. ‘I pretty much knew what it was going to say, or thought I did. And we had legislation all ready to go,’ Specter told me. ‘It came down in the morning, and I introduced the legislation in the afternoon.’”However, Specter’s amendment to the bill that would have ensured habeas corpus rights was defeated, and…
In the chaotic few days before the vote, the Administration’s allies in the Senate had toughened the habeas provision of the law. The bill had originally applied only to alleged enemy combatants who were held at Guantánamo. The final version stated that any alien (that is, non-American citizen) who had been seized anywhere and charged with being an enemy combatant would be denied the right to petition for habeas corpus. The definition of “enemy combatant” was also expanded, to include not just those who took up arms but financial supporters of the terrorist cause as well. Accordingly, the bill made clear that aliens arrested in the United States and charged with knowingly giving money to an alleged terrorist organization would be forbidden to sue for their freedom.(By the way, as Atrios noted again today, Jose Padilla is being held as an enemy combatant, and he just happens to be an American citizen...probably not a very honorable one, but a citizen all the same.)
Nevertheless, on September 28th, Specter joined all his Republican colleagues (except Lincoln Chafee) in voting for the Military Commissions Act, which passed by a vote of sixty-five to thirty-four. President Bush signed the law on October 17th, and the next day the government began filing court papers asking for the dismissal of all the petitions for habeas corpus filed by detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
It is hard to believe that the Arlen Specter of the nineteen-eighties—the maverick who defied his party on an issue of the magnitude of the Bork nomination—would have considered yielding on a question as fundamental as habeas corpus. “I was madder than hell when the habeas-corpus amendment went down and was a little hot and spoke prematurely on the vote,” Specter told me. “If we had not passed the bill, we would be going on into next year without having a procedure to try these people.” Thus, he said, he felt obligated to vote for the bill.
Of course, Specter’s vote on habeas, like his support of Roberts and Alito, forestalled another possible conservative revolt against his chairmanship (which, in the event, the election cost him). Specter is hoping the courts will restore the rights of the detainees to bring habeas cases. “The bill was severable. It has a severability clause. And I think the courts will invalidate it,” he told me. “They’re not going to give up authority to decide habeas-corpus cases, not a chance.” Others are less sure.Nice job, Arlen. Hope and pray that the courts settle this mess, huh? What bold, "moderate" leadership!
“It’s a pretty odd position for Specter to take,” (Akhil Reed ) Amar, of Yale Law School, said. “He trusts the courts to take care of a problem when he’s voting for something that strips them of their jurisdiction to do it. It’s like saying, ‘I shot at her, but I knew I was going to miss.’ Still, he may be right. The Court might strike it down.” According to Amar, the election that cost Specter so much of his clout makes it more likely that his legal position will ultimately be vindicated on habeas corpus.
“When Lyndon Johnson became Vice-President, he wasn’t welcome at Senate Democratic caucus meetings anymore, because it was for senators only,” Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, told me. “But every Tuesday since Bush has been President it’s been like a Mafia funeral around here. There are, like, fifteen cars with lights and sirens, and Cheney and Karl Rove come to the Republican caucus meetings and tell those guys what to do. It’s all ‘Yes, sir, yes, sir.’ I bet there is not a lot of dissent that goes on in that room. In thirty-two years in the Senate, I have never seen a Congress roll over and play dead like this one.”And, God willing (along with all of our best efforts), we never will again.
I had an epiphany of sorts on Friday, and I must share it with you.I believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the big “clash of civilizations” now under way between the Muslim world and the West what the Spanish Civil War was to World War II. It’s Off Broadway to Broadway.I must admit that it took me awhile to process this, mainly because I was so utterly shocked and repulsed that some human being would actually compare real-life war filled with death, carnage, ruin of people, families, armies, civilizations, etc. along with all manner of awful side effects of regional violence, creation of refugees and hardening of nationalist and ethnic sentiment, thus perpetuating the cycle of violence (and saying nothing of potential environmental catastrophe) to a Broadway production. I’m not going to try and analyze Friedman’s comparison with the Spanish Civil War, since I consider his argument to be so monstrous.
The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, was the theater where Great European powers tested out many weapons and tactics that were later deployed on a larger scale in World War II. Similarly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the small theater in where many weapons and tactics get tested out first and then go global. So if you study the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Off Broadway, you can learn a lot about how the larger war now playing out on Broadway, in Iraq and Afghanistan, might proceed.
I do not want my girls to live a world (sic) where the difference between a good day and bad day is whether Moktada al-Sadr lets Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, meet with the U.S. President or whether certain Arab regimes alter what their textbooks say about non-Muslims. I wish them all well, but I don’t want them impacting my life and I don’t want to be roiling theirs, and the only reason we are so intertwined now is O-I-L.This paragraph inspires a few observations. First, it is admirable that Friedman is advocating for his kids, but perhaps, if he’d really wanted to do that, he would have chosen to oppose the illegal Iraq war from the beginning instead of becoming its most visible pundit cheerleader. Second, his desire to “wish well” to someone like al-Sadr defies belief; one of the goals of this Shia cleric is to incite violence against the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority), and as long as he continues to be successful in this aim, it is harder for us to pull our troops out of Iraq. Third, Friedman’s overall attitude portrayed here is one who is apparently bored with the war and the fact that a nice, clean, quick resolution in our favor has not been achieved. Fourth, it amazes me, now that our escapade in Iraq has totally spiraled out of control (with our service people stuck in the middle of this mess) to see those in the media who cried for war more strenuously than anyone else so quickly and shamelessly “turning over a new leaf” to the point where they are actually recycling the talking points of those who correctly opposed the war from the very beginning (including your humble narrator, though I actually wish I’d been wrong if it meant saving more lives…hence Friedman’s whole “O-I-L” sentence).
"His name calling would bother me more if he were anything more than a tool of international corporatism and a card-carrying member of his own Flat Earth Society."You go, Lou (he manages to piss off people on both sides, which to me indicates that he’s onto something).
All good (?) things must come to an end…I hope this letter finds you well. It has been some time since I have last thought of you, but when I do, you are foremost in my thoughts.And here, here and here are links to more individuals gladdened by today's news (the TPM Cafe link under "Birthday Note" features a quote where Bolton says, in essence, that the U.N. is "irrelevant" if it doesn't unconditionally support Israel...that will sure make things easier for our people in Iraq, won't it?).
After all, you are such an indomitable personality. Why, I can never forget the piercing stare of your cold eyes, the overgrown mustache, and the clenched mouth and jaw just prior to an outbreak of utter hysteria. These are the hallmarks that define you.
What I have to tell you does not come easily (no, seriously…it really doesn’t).
I feel that somehow we’ve grown apart, you and I. I have watched you continue in your confrontational, browbeating behavior (as noted here, you once chased a foreign aid worker across a hotel in Russia…”throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and generally behaving like a madman,” as recorded by Ellen Goodman), which is in line with your poor judgment in allowing cooperate threat-reduction accords between the U.S. and Russia to be jeopardized by a petty dispute over liability provisions in the post you held before you were named as U.N. Ambassador in a recess appointment (your conduct is noted here, with Sen. Pete Domenici, a Republican from New Mexico, noting caustically to you that “nuclear proliferation is a deadly serious business and those who do not take it so are fools.” The brass hand grenade you keep in your desk is a symbol of what you’d like to do to the building housing the community of nations that you purport to represent, which again is in keeping with your temperament.
I, on the other hand, am choosing to pursue a path of sanity and mutual cooperation.
I can’t really tell you that I’ve agonized over what I have to say next, but I must be fair to you and your feelings and state it plainly. I must pursue a relationship with someone else (actually, I don’t know who just yet, though I have some ideas, as long as it isn’t with you…I’m sorry; that was thoughtless of me).
It has become apparent that it isn’t fair to expect you to change and become a person truly compatible with my needs and interests, so I feel that I must say this to you and ask that we remain as friends from a distance. I know this is difficult, but I believe we will each grow and mature as a result of this experience. So I ask that you respect my wishes at this moment, in which case pointless and costly legal intervention will be rendered completely unnecessary.
John, I wish you peace, happiness and satisfaction in your life and future endeavors. Bless you, and don’t let the door hit you as you leave.
Yours (Until We Approve Your Replacement),
The 110th (Incoming Democratic) U.S. Congress
This latest piece of right-wing bloviation from Michael Smerconish appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News on Thursday November 30th (I've been in an out of "sick bay" for the last few days and I'm trying to get "back into the saddle" - virus bouncing around our house hitting everybody, hot and cold running chicken soup, antibiotics...you know the drill).DO WE need a nuclear deterrent to terrorism?I don't know if something like "Wild Fire" exists in our government or it doesn't (it wouldn't surprise me if it did under Bushco). But the notion that we could hold terrorists at bay somehow by threatening to blow up a holy Islamic shrine in their "homeland" is ridiculous. Would we give up if (God forbid) they took out St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City? Of course not - it would make us fight even harder, and the terrorist crazies who want to take out as many people as possible would do the same thing. Besides, al Qaeda and their brethren are spread out all over the world. Would DeMille advocate nuking the whole planet?
Nelson DeMille makes the suggestion in his new book, "Wild Fire," whose sales are spreading like, well, its title. It debuted at No. 2 on the Times bestseller list, No. 1 at the Wall Street Journal and No. 1 at Publishers Weekly.
It's another work of fiction by the man who already has more than 30 million books in print. But this one has people talking about a very real subject: How to stop Islamic extremists from attacking American cities.
"It sounds radical, but what we're trying to do is keep Washington, D.C., and midtown Manhattan from being nuked. We're not trying to obliterate another part of world because we don't like them. But we have between 10-20,000 nuclear weapons, we're the most powerful nation on the planet, and, in the history of mankind, and we're being bogged down by guys with AK-47s and plastic explosives. We've got to rattle nuclear sabers. Not because we're bad guys, but because we're good guys," DeMille told me.
Remember MAD? Mutually assured destruction was the cold war policy that if either the United States or the Soviets launched a nuclear strike, the other would respond in kind. That secured the peace.
Wild Fire, the plan that the book is named for, is a version of MAD for the new millennium.
Like MAD, Wild Fire eliminates a president's need for moral choices. If there were to be a nuclear strike against an American city, it would prompt an automatic response. The weapons once trained on the USSR would thunder down on the Arab world.
"Wild Fire is a pro-active response. It is a gun to the heads of Islamic countries - a gun that will go off if they fail to keep their terrorist friends from going nuclear," DeMille writes.
"This is a great deterrent because nobody wants to end the world as we know it," he told me.
"In 'Wild Fire,' I pose that we have something very similar to MAD. Meaning, that if a nuclear bomb went off in America, the presumption of guilt against Islamic terrorists would be very strong; we wouldn't need the proof, we'd never have the proof.
"We would automatically launch against the nation of Islam, specifically against the cities of Mecca and Medina, and other places like Damascus where we don't care for the government, and this would be a deterrent against a nuclear bomb going off in America."
Under what circumstances?
"It would almost have to be nuclear. Chemical and biological attacks are scary and will kill a lot of people but don't rise to the level of nuclear. It's the 800,000-pound gorilla that would obliterate midtown Manhattan or Washington, D.C., even a small suitcase nuke.
"In the book, I mention that there are 67 Soviet suitcase nukes missing from Soviet arsenals... What happened to them, we don't know. Maybe it was just bad record-keeping by the Soviets."
In the book, DeMille explores the possibility that suitcase nukes end up in hands of Islamic terrorists, and if they do, why wouldn't they use them? Well, maybe because Wild Fire threatens to blow up their holy shrines.
"Even the most radical Islamic terrorist would not want to see the revered holy city of Medina go up. It would be like losing the Vatican in Rome," he told me.
As he says in his author's note, "As for the secret government plan called Wild Fire, this is based on some information I've come across, mostly online, and can be taken as rumor, fact, pure fiction, or some blend thereof. I personally believe that some variation of Wild Fire (by another code name) actually exists, and if it doesn't, it should."
I told him that sounds like the stuff of his alter ego, former NYPD detective John Corey.
"I was there on 9/11. Every New Yorker was there in a sense. My suburban town lost 11 people, and I was in Manhattan the first time, in February of 1993, when the towers were attacked.
"As a citizen of this country and the world, we are trying to keep it from happening, and the only way is to say, 'If it happens, we will retaliate in a nuclear way.' What else can we do, say we will launch an investigation and find out who blew up midtown Manhattan?
"That is a game we have played for too long. We never played that with the Russians, why play the same silly game with Islamic terrorists? Some say they don't have a country, but that is not true, they know where their homeland is and so do we."
