Saturday Stuff

Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U2 spy plane over the former Soviet Union 50 years ago today, as Russia Today tells us (more important for CNN to care about a possible feud between Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett Johansson, I see)...



Update 5/2/10: Oh, and speaking of bogus news judgment, what Digby sez here (re, that ridiculous White House correspondents dinner...h/t The Daily Kos).

...and I guess this video by the plane's namesake works on a certain level.

Friday Stuff

Oh, before I forget, Happy seventh Mission Accomplished Day tomorrow, everybody (more here - and yep, maybe Obama is a chump for trying to play a similar bad hand in Afghanistan, but at least he wouldn't be dumb enough to stand on an aircraft carrier under a banner telling us that major combat operations are over, or something)...



...and here's more on the oil "spill, baby, spill," contrasting the advertising with the reality (here and here)...



...and here is a positive development backed by Admiral Mike Mullen here last September...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

...and kudos to her for standing up against the "illegal to be brown" farce in Arizona (here); wonder if she'd still sung this Chuck Berry standard knowing then what she knows now?

Thursday Stuff

Funny that we're not hearing "drill, baby, drill" much these days anymore, huh?...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

...and here's a neat little tune.

Thursday Mashup (4/29/10)

(Note: I’ve been able to post more than I thought this week, but there definitely won’t be posting tomorrow. Also, here is the Philadelphia Inquirer summary on last week’s congressional votes – really nothing for me to say about them...a little late on Iran sanctions, but better than never I guess)

I got an unintentional kick out of this screed by Repug strategist John Feehery today (here)…

The new law in Arizona should be seen less through the prism of politics or constitutional law and more through the lens of national psychology. It really is a cri de coeur, or a cry from the heart.

The law may seem punitive or intrusive from the ACLU’s perspective. But as I have said before, desperate times require desperate measures.

You only need to glance over the border and see the situation that is unfolding in Mexico to understand that the people of Arizona are panicking that the drug war, like a swarm of killer bees, is coming to a location near them.

It is absolutely ridiculous to me that we continue to discuss the immigration issue, particularly in Arizona, as being wholly centered around drugs without any mention whatsoever of guns that travel south of our border to Mexico. And it is even more ridiculous that Democratic Party politicians are completely and utterly cowed on this issue, with the exception of Frank Lautenberg of NJ and Carolyn Maloney McCarthy of NY on the federal level and Dwight Evans of PA on the state level (I would love to add other candidates to that list if I knew who they were).

This post from Louis Klarevas last month tells us the following…

Mexico has some of the toughest gun laws on the books. There are only about 6,000 guns registered in Mexico. Yet, as President Calderon told CNN this weekend, "We seized 66,000 weapons in three years, half of them assault weapons. We made a sample one year and a half ago, above 80 percent of those weapons came from the United States." Authorities claim that between 250-300 guns enter Mexico from the U.S. every day, most obtained in the four Southwest border-states.

The problem is compounded by the fact that there are more licensed gun dealers in the four border-states than there are registered guns in Mexico. If you add in the Brady Center's allegation that 40% of all gun sales are made without conducting proper background checks, you can see how this is a recipe for disaster.

The failure of the U.S. to address its national appetite for illegal drugs and its reluctance to better regulate gun sales has recently led to a degree of blowback, with Mexico's violence spilling over into the border-states. Cartel-related murders, assaults, home invasions, and kidnappings are now overwhelming local authorities.

And by the way, I just know that somebody out there is going to say, “there he goes again, claiming that 80 percent of 66,000 guns come to Mexico from the U.S., and here’s about fifty pages of massaged and manufactured gun data from John Lott or somebody or other saying that isn’t so.”

I know that President Calderon was talking about a sample that showed that 80 percent of the weapons came from this country. I do not know how many guns were in that sample.

And by the way, no matter how many guns, drugs, people or dollars cross our borders, that in no way justifies the farcical, “illegal to be brown” Arizona immigration law.

And "killer bees," Feehery? You mean, like these? (sorry about the ad...)

Update 4/30/10: What a sick joke (here).

I’m still trying to process everything that happened on the Cape Wind decision yesterday (again, as noted here, excoriating myself a bit for not commenting on it more earlier), and as I did, I came across this CNN story today, which basically made me gag.

To listen to our corporate media “betters,” Jim Gordon, the owner of the company that manufactures the wind turbines and thus stands to gain the most out of this awful outcome, overcame the Cape Cod “elite,” and his hair has “gone from black to gray” as a result of the legal wrangling (awww…).

(And CNN wonders why its TV ratings are utterly collapsing, as noted here; also, speaking of MSNBC, I’ll have a note involving K.O. in a minute.)

Gee, I wonder if “The Most Trusted Name In News” is ever going to bother to tell us that Gordon tried to pay off the local Wampanoag Indian tribe to halt their opposition (here...the tribe fought it because they believed the turbines would be constructed on sacred burial grounds)?

And I wonder if they’re going to tell us that the project was called “…a boondoggle that defies economic logic” by the Beacon Hill Institute, which also said the following (here)…

In 2008, the Beacon Hill Institute tallied up the social costs and benefits of the project. The social costs consist of the resources that would be used up installing, maintaining and operating the turbines plus a small charge for the negative aesthetic effects of the project, as revealed by a survey of tourists and homeowners. The benefits consist of the savings in fossil fuel consumption, the avoided capital costs of installing gas-fired plants, the health benefits of the reduced volume of noxious pollutants and the benefits of increased energy independence and reduced carbon dioxide emissions. We found that the costs would come to $2.2 billion and the benefits to $1.2 billion.

(And yes, I know the Beacon Hill Institute is ideologically conservative.)

And I wonder if CNN or anyone else in our corporate media is going to tell us what we learn here about how ratepayers are likely going to regret the project (here)?

Oh, and I suppose all of those quoted in this story were “blue bloods” also…

"The developers have a financial interest in saying that these are going to be unobtrusive on any number of fronts," says Issac Rosen, who heads an alliance that's fighting the wind farm project.

As much as opponents object to the size of the project, what really bothers them is the way Cape Wind has taken advantage of existing laws.

"Developers are doing much what 19th century speculators did in the West," says Rosen. "They are finding tracts of land, tracts of water, recognizing that there are no regulations governing usage or development, sticking a shovel in it and saying, 'I'm going to take this and I'm going to make money off of it.'"

…

Shareen Davis's family have lived and fished near Chatham on the cape for 13 generations. She says the wind towers will destroy her local fishing grounds and endanger birds and sea animals.

"I know that [the windmills] are going to impact all of the different aspects of the environment, of the aesthetics, of the infrastructure, of the business of the cape," she says. "It will be something that will critically change our area. Why should I have to be collateral damage to something like that."

And the fact that Greenpeace, among others, have apparently signed off on this is enough to make yours truly utterly sick.

Finally, it seems that “Z on TV” himself, David Zurawik, is mad at Keith Olbermann yet again; here, he went off on K.O. last week over a reprisal suffered by MSNBC host Donny Deutsch for criticizing Olbermann in a taped segment about how the lefty blogosphere is every bit as nutty as the right (yep, loaded generalities, fake equivalency yet again – you guessed it).

Gee, it seems to me that MSNBC has a pretty clear policy on this stuff and Deutsch totally ignored it; namely, that you don’t criticize fellow hosts on the same network.

Also, Zurawik tells us that Olbermann is attacking Brian Stelter of the New York Times on Twitter; gee, “Z,” maybe it would have been nice for you to let us know that Olbermann was upset because Stelter ran with a “story” that Olbermann got Deutsch bounced without checking with Olbermann first, as noted here (if Stelter had done that, his reporting would have been accurate, but since he didn't...).

That all being said, I should add that I have neither the time nor the desire to try and referee a corporate media hissy fit like this, and I hope you feel the same way. Besides, I already posed some questions to Zurawik over similar behavior, questions that are a lot more than hypothetical which I presume will never be answered (the second bullet here has to do with another Stelter misstep, and the third deals with Zurawik).

And one more thing, ”Z,” as long as you feel so pleased with yourself for helping to “publicly shame” the “conman” John Edwards here, I should tell you that he and Elizabeth, now estranged of course, have two young children, Emma Clare, born in 1998, and Jack, born in 2000, in addition to their other offspring. Really, the classy thing to do, no matter how you may feel about any of the adults, is just to say nothing and try to spare the feelings of the kids, even just a little given what they’ve endured to date and likely will endure for the rest of their lives over this, OK?

Wednesday Stuff

By the way, Snarlin' Arlen Specter became a Democrat again one year ago today (and isn't this interesting?).

In response, click here...



...and there are times when I've said you must be high to be a Repug; this proves it...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

...and here's someone trying to run away from those zany teabaggers - must not like to wear those adorable hats...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

...and with all of the "illegal to be brown" business in Arizona, this song has been much on my mind lately (nice vid).

Wednesday Mashup Part Two (4/28/10)

(Part One is over here.)

Well, all I can say in response to this story is that Dennis Miller, John Ratzenberger (Cliff from “Cheers,” proving that, in his case, art imitated life...both characters are obnoxious) and that airhead Victoria Jackson will no doubt help to fundraise against Al Franken’s opponent in 2014.

Also, while journeying to the wingnut universe of J.D. Mullane’s blog (talk about "Swampland,") I came across this from a life form named Andrew Klavan, a screenwriter and novelist who tells us that “Hollywood conservatives have to “meet in secret” and “talk in whispers.”

Yeah, well…I seem to recall Klavan saying the exact same thing two years ago here, in a column similarly filled with straw-men arguments and baseless generalities.

Oh, and did you know that Klavan once compared Dubya to Batman here? Holy non-existent WMD! Another problem for me with that argument is that the Caped Crusader took it upon himself to rectify the problems of Gotham City, whereas Dubya took it upon himself to pass the buck to anyone in sight which would thus provide him deniability.

Also, Klavan helped to spread the “death panel” lie about health care reform (here...I'll admit that he had a lot of company).

And in Klavan’s 2008 Washington Post column, he encourages conservatives to use art to “take the culture back,” which to me would necessitate supporting the arts. I would find that argument to be a lot more credible if it weren’t for the fact that conservatives are always trying to cut arts funding, as noted here.

Because, as Miles Mogulescu of The Huffington Post tells us here…

When people attend a performance or go to a museum, they often spend additional money on restaurants, nearby shopping or parking. Artists are often the pioneers of urban revitalization. First artists move into lofts in a rundown neighborhood. Then cafes and galleries start to open. Soon middle class professionals are flocking to the area, first as consumers and then to rent and buy real estate, generating tax revenue which supports city and state governments and helps pay for things like schools and police.

The New Deal provides ample precedent for using the arts as economic stimulus, as well as inspiration providing hope to struggling Americans. The Works Progress Administration, known as the WPA, was at the heart of The New Deal, providing jobs to millions of Americans. One of the WPA's most influential components was Federal Project Number One, which employed thousands of Artists through its Federal Theater Project, Federal Art Project, the Federal Music Project, and the Federal Writers Project.

And Klavan is worried that conservatives are “whispering”? Hell, with everyone Twittering, Facebooking and IM-ing like crazy, it’s a wonder anyone is talking at all!

Also, in the vein of media criticism, George Packer tells us the following about Number 44 here…

“They seem to want to close the book on the highly secretive years of the Bush administration. However, in their relationship with the press, I think they’re doing what they think succeeded in helping Obama get elected,” said the New Yorker’s George Packer.

“I don’t think they need to be nice to reporters, but the White House seems to imagine that releasing information is like a tap that can be turned on and off at their whim,” Packer said.

I hate to break the news to Packer, but releasing information IS “a tap that can be turned on and off at their whim,” and that’s true of every presidential administration.

In response, Brendan Nyhan tells us the following (here)…

… There's no reason to think that speeches conveying a clearer worldview would have a significant effect on Obama's standing. (Per Matthew Dickinson, see also the New York Times profile of David Axelrod for additional pining for a better meta-narrative.)

An even more insipid analysis comes from Time's Mark Halperin, who blames "much of the political predicament in which the present decider finds himself today" on Obama's lack of a chief economic spokesperson, lack of sufficient political and policy integration, failure to distance himself from Congressional Democrats, and failure to delegate to his cabinet on domestic policy. Really? Obama's "political predicament" would be different if he turned loose Ray LaHood? (See Jonathan Bernstein for more on Halperin; I refuse to dignify the piece with a longer response.)

In short, this entire genre of political coverage is useless. If/when the economy picks up, Obama's speeches will start "connecting" and everyone will marvel at how effective the White House political team has become.

And in that event, Packer can return to another one of his pet topics: why, as nearly as he could see, there was no liberal opposition to the Iraq war (here, proving for all time that Packer really doesn’t know a hell of a lot about lefty blogs).

Finally, this tells us that ownership of the Philadelphia Daily News and the Inquirer has transferred from Philadelphia Newspapers, L.L.C. run by Brian Tierney (A Bruce Toll Production) to…

The senior lenders - which include Angelo, Gordon Co. and Credit Suisse – (who) expect to close by late June…there will be $10 million of liquidity to operate the business, said Lawrence G. McMichael, the lead attorney for Philadelphia Newspapers.

McMichael said that the new owners would have to get a loan to continue operating the business.

Robert J. Hall, an adviser to the creditors' committee who served as publisher of The Inquirer and Daily News for 13 years until he retired in 2003, said he will be chief operating officer under the new ownership.

He said that the company would hire a new chief executive officer and publisher, and that the new owners had someone in mind.

Hall said the Daily News, which two weeks ago won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, would remain in operation. "The Daily News is a very important part of this organization," he said.

But Hall noted that there would have to be concessions made on the part of the publishing company's unions.

I am definitely not someone familiar with the legal comings and goings of media companies, but something about this tells me that it’s another step in the long, almost interminable process of dissolving this organization into smaller concerns that can be digested by other outlets.

And I would love to be wrong. Because, despite my constant griping about the ever-more-rightward tilt of the editorial direction particularly of the Inquirer, I realize the caliber of expertise possessed by the individuals who work diligently to bring the news to us each day from that portion of the universe (and I’m sorry I didn’t mention the Daily News’s Pulitzer when it was awarded, but I couldn’t find a way to work it into a post until now). And it truly would be a blow to the city to lose either one or perhaps both of its daily print media “voices” (kind of wished they'd listened to me here, but oh well...).

In his way, I honestly believe Brian Tierney cares about both papers, though his missteps have been thoroughly chronicled by yours truly and many others. And I have to admit that he’s been a more visible advocate for them than I ever would have imagined, given his past history of media antagonism.

I stopped paying for the Inquirer a long time ago, and I refuse to do so because they continue to give column space to Kevin Ferris, John Yoo and Rick Santorum (another Tierney “master stroke,” particularly in the case of Yoo; I know he inherited Ferris, but I don’t remember whether Santorum came after the change in ownership or not). However, that doesn’t mean that the work of the rest of the paper (and the Daily News, of course) isn’t important and worthwhile. And I know I’ve lost out, but we have no problem with our decision to switch to the New York Times instead.

But I definitely hope both papers survive, and I wish them well, even if the odds are most certainly against them.

Tuesday Stuff

K.O. gives us a rundown on the financial testimony going on today on Capitol Hill (good stuff from Ted Kaufman at the every end; yep, I wish he could stay too, especially since that seat will probably flip to an "R" with Mike Castle in November)...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

...and with Goldman Sachs in mind, I was looking for a song with the same title by Clyde McPhatter and The Drifters, but this works too (it actually ends at about 3:15).

Tuesday Mashup (4/27/10)

(And I also posted here.)

This may be the stupidest Mark Halperin “post” on his site “The Page” since this one – really has to be seen to be believed.

And under the heading of “particularly brainless corporate media,” I give you Fred Hiatt from Kaplan Test Prep Daily yesterday (here)…

When President Obama did not stir himself to rescue D.C. voting rights last week, advocates of democracy for the District joined a long line of disappointed thought-we-were-friends with the president.

Gays, immigrants, union leaders, budget hawks, campaign finance reformers, environmentalists, free-traders, human rights activists and civil libertarians all have had cause to wonder whether they were right to trust Obama. The list is familiar, but the explanation remains disputed.

First of all, as noted from a story linked to Hiatt’s column, the legislation died in the House due to gun-related shenanigans by Dem Travis Childers and Repug Mark Souder of Mississippi and Indiana, respectively. Secondly, as noted here, Obama called for passage of the law that would grant full voting rights to D.C. residents, but of course it didn’t happen.

But as noted here, though, Hiatt is an old pro when it comes to fact-free punditry.

Update: Speaking of the WaPo, I have to admit that mcjoan has me beat with this one.

Further, I found this item under the aptly-named blog “Hot Air”…

(Dem U.S. Congressman of Minnesota Jim) Oberstar has introduced the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA), which removes the word “navigable” from the law in order to get around Supreme Court decisions that circumscribed federal efforts to claim jurisdiction over lands and waterways that have nothing to do with interstate commerce. (The Cato Institute’s Jonathan) Adler presents the legal background of the CWRA and argues that it represents a massive land grab that has no connection to the original intent of the CWA…

Um, actually, the reason the word “navigable” (as in "navigable waters") was removed was because that was the word The Supremes of Hangin’ Judge JR keyed on in their recent ruling that restricted the Clean Water Act, as noted here last month…

Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted, according to Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years.

The Clean Water Act was intended to end dangerous water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But today, regulators may be unable to prosecute as many as half of the nation’s largest known polluters because officials lack jurisdiction or because proving jurisdiction would be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming, according to midlevel officials.

“We are, in essence, shutting down our Clean Water programs in some states,” said Douglas F. Mundrick, an E.P.A. lawyer in Atlanta. “This is a huge step backward. When companies figure out the cops can’t operate, they start remembering how much cheaper it is to just dump stuff in a nearby creek.”

To find out what else we can do about this, click here.

Finally, apparently, Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, used some language today that, while wholly appropriate for yours truly considering that Levin was interrogating Goldman Sachs, still offended the delicate sensibilities of one Marc Thiessen, former Bushco flunky; he called it the “Bidenization of political discourse” and added that “Henry Clay and Daniel Webster must be rolling in their graves” here (warning: bad language alert).

That’s pretty funny considering that fellow Bushie Karl Rove once said “We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him” in a phone call noted by Ron Suskind here.

Also, noted here, “Bush’s Brain” once said, “Just give me a fucking faith-based thing” in response to whether or not he should “roll out” the White House Office of Faith-based Initiatives, as captured by Dubya insider David Kuo in his book.

And last but certainly least, I give you Deadeye Dick himself, who said recently here that telling Sen. Patrick Leahy to go fuck himself was “sort of the best thing I ever did.”

So, I wouldn’t think too much about Thiessen’s concern of either Clay or Webster and their earthly remains. Given Bushco’s antics and Webster’s quote that "Justice is the great interest of man on Earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together," I would say that Webster at least has been “rolling” for a good while now.

Monday Stuff

"Worst Persons" (A Thai restaurant down under - g'day, mate! - doesn't let a diner enter because they thought the man's dog was gay...I have a feeling that, if the proprietor thought he heard that instead of "guide dog," then maybe he should lay off the Foster's; speaking of people acting mentally impaired, Stephen Baldwin, uber-conservative, devises perhaps the world's most obnoxious online tip jar in His name - hate to be in his shoes when he's at St. Peter's gate one day, assuming he gets there; but Sen. Chuck Grassley gets the nod for being against health care reform before he was for it...those teabaggers may have short attention spans, Chuck, but not THAT short)...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

...and I think this is a cool new tune.

Remembering "President 79.5 Percent"

(And I also posted here.)

I know I should probably just ignore the right-wing bloviators out there, but for as long as I’ve been posting here (coming up on five years, and no, I can’t believe it either), I’ve gone back and forth as to when I should ignore them and when I should respond. And former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm is pretty high on that list.

And in his quest today to obfuscate, spin and accentuate the utterly trivial in his incessant preoccupation with trying to impugn President Obama any way possible, he came up with this a few days ago…

A new Gallup Poll just out finds Obama's fifth quarterly poll score (Jan. 20-April 19) to be 48.8% job approval, down from his fourth quarter approval of 50.8%. Carter was 48% and Reagan 46.3%.

The average fifth quarterly score since Gallup began tracking it in 1945 is 54%.

One very slim sign of hope for Obama comes from a new ABC News poll that finds a few people believe the economy is getting even worse, now 30% versus a recent 36%. Alas, 92% still think the economy under Obama is in bad shape.

Here's something that would really annoy the current White House crowd if it paid attention to public opinion polls, which of course it doesn't, being so focused on doing what's right for the American people. But by far the best fifth-quarter presidential job approval in modern history was George W. Bush's 79.5%.

(Oh, and Malcolm also goes out of his way to take a dig at former President Carter at the end of this screed – I’ll see him his “one-term Carter” and raise him a “one-term Poppy Bush,” to say nothing of the fact that, if I tried to catalogue all of Carter’s post-presidential achievements, this post would turn into a book, such as this one, maybe).

But what really got me is Malcolm’s totally disingenuous comparison between Obama and the fifth quarter of Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History.

And as I recall, there was an event that made a few headlines that, inadvertently or no, helped to drive up 43’s approval numbers in a big way towards the very end of the third quarter and the fourth as well. Can you guess what that was?

Hmmm, I’m having a bit of a problem with that recollection…

It’s on the tip of my tongue, as it were…


(In fact, soon after this series of related events, Dubya’s approval numbers actually hovered near 90 percent, driven more by grief than anything else…it was nice to see everyone flying their flags for a time afterwards, though obviously we would have been better if we’d had no reason to do that.)

So the fifth quarter, then, would have been January-March 2002 I believe. Why don’t we take a look back to find out how much of an improvement Commander Codpiece supposedly was over our “Kenyan, Marxist, won’t-show-his-Hawaiian-birth-certificate” incumbent?

In January, Obama’s predecessor gave his 2002 State of the Union Address, and this tells us the following (and before you dismiss out of hand the World Socialist Web Site as supposedly being nothing but a bunch of “loony lefties,” as the Bucks County Courier Times might put it, consider how prescient this column is, as well as other accounts from this period)…

The State of the Union speech given by George W. Bush Tuesday night was among the most menacing and belligerent in American history. The US president outlined a program of limitless and perpetual warfare, on every continent, and against any regime that stands in the way of the rapacious American ruling class.

…

From a military standpoint, the network of bases and access rights which the US has established since September 11 resembles more and more a noose tightening around China: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, India, the Philippines, and now the saber-rattling on the Korean peninsula.

As the British daily the Guardian noted Wednesday, “Every twist in the war on terrorism seems to leave a new Pentagon outpost in the Asia-Pacific region, from the former USSR to the Philippines. One of the lasting consequences of the war could be what amounts to a military encirclement of China.” The newspaper cited the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review which, without naming China, warned of the danger that “a military competitor with a formidable resource base will emerge in the region,” and called for a policy that “places a premium on securing additional access and infrastructure agreements.”

And for anyone out there who thinks that this is merely recent history, read this and consider that it could be a case of the proverbial chickens coming home to roost.

Continuing with the WSWS…

The scale of US military ambitions is demonstrated by the gargantuan increase in the Pentagon budget that Bush proposed, a staggering $48 billion, an increase larger than the total military budget of any other country. And his call for every American to sacrifice two years in public service clearly suggests the logic of this program of unbridled militarism—the restoration of compulsory military service for the new generation of American youth.

…

Bush's domestic policy centers on internal repression, building up the police and military at home. While the “war on terrorism” is the pretext, the real purpose is to prepare to deal with massive social upheavals through the use of force. A government installed, not by a vote of the people, but by a 5-4 majority on the US Supreme Court, the Bush administration more and more rests on the army and the police and dispenses with the trappings of democracy.

And in February 2002, "Old Europe," as Rummy once called it, decided to “push back” (here)…

PARIS, France -- A senior French government minister has attacked the U.S. approach to fighting terrorism as "simplistic."

Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told France Inter radio on Wednesday: "We are friends of the United States, we are friends of that people and we will remain so.

"But we are threatened today by a new simplism which consists in reducing everything to the war on terrorism.

"That is their approach, but we cannot accept that idea. You have got to tackle the root causes, the situations, poverty, injustice."

Vedrine said the U.S. was showing signs of acting "unilaterally, without consulting others, taking decisions based on its own view of the world and its own interests ... refusing any multilateral negotiation that could limit their decision-making, sovereignty and freedom of action."

And in response the following year (to this and the fact that the French chose not to go along with Dubya’s Not-So-Excellent Iraq Adventure), two of our august members of Congress concocted this nonsense (including Bob Ney, who was eventually convicted in the Jack Abramoff scandal).

Oh, and just to let you know that “the drinking of the Kool-Aid” in this country, symptomatic of Dubya’s ridiculous approval rating, was truly bipartisan, I give you this, from someone who most definitely should have known better.

Also in February 2002 (can’t track down the link at the moment – I think it’s nested here – though I seriously don’t think the facts here are in dispute)…

In a White House press briefing, Bush's counterterrorism chief, Frances Fragos Townsend, told reporters that (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) was arrested in February 2002, and "at that point, the other members of the cell" (later arrested) "believed that the West Coast plot (to fly a plane into the Library Tower) has been canceled, was not going forward" [italics mine]. A subsequent fact sheet released by the Bush White House states, "In 2002, we broke up [italics mine] a plot by KSM to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast." These two statements make clear that however far the plot to attack the Library Tower ever got—an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush's characterization of it as a "disrupted plot" was "ludicrous"—that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn't captured until March 2003.

However, that of course didn’t stop Dubya, as part of the drip-drip-drip of Terra! Terra! Terra! news to hopefully win allies as well as elections, from releasing these supposedly “new details” in February 2006, noted here, suspiciously during a congressional midterm election year (the “Bank Tower” is the proper name, even though former President Nutball incorrectly referred to the structure as the “Liberty Tower”).

And what of March 2002? Well, we learn the following from here…

"September 11 really underscores the need to look at a full range of flexible options," noted David Smith, an author of a recent report by the National Institute for Public Policy supporting such a view (namely, that we’ve supposedly “marginalized” nukes in the name of deterrence). "We don't believe that the current arsenal of the United States is persuasively deterrent to all comers." Advocates favor recalibrating nuclear weapons as part of an effort to strengthen deterrence and assure more effective results if such weapons are unleashed against a new range of post-Soviet targets. These new nukes, for example, would be smaller than the silo-busters in favor during the Cold War, and they would be fashioned to hit non-conventional targets located in depots underground or in caves. The Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review leaked in early March 2002 confirmed the interest of the Bush administration in such new capabilities.

Of course, this type of weapon had nothing to do with 9/11 (thank God), and Dubya’s request to fund new nukes was defeated in 2005 by a Republican congress, as noted here (and this tells us what Dubya’s sane successor has done by contrast).

So, to sum up, much of this country was in a state of lizard-brained, jingoistic panic due to the worst terrorist attack on our soil during the “fifth quarter” of Dubya’s presidency, a time in which I’m sure anyone who was taking up space in An Oval Office would have enjoyed high approval numbers (and I suppose it’s “picking nits” on my part to say that Malcolm would likely cast GWB in a favorable light anyway since he worked for his wife at the time). And to date, Obama has kept us safe from a similar fate (which rankles the Bushies to no end, I’m sure).

But all of this is par for the course when it comes to Malcolm and Obama (and as noted here, Malcolm is just as much of an embarrassment, at least, when it comes to the veep as well).

And perhaps this little history lesson is a little tedious at this point, redundant, repetitive...whatever. But we forget it at our peril, lest Malcolm and the other corporate media gutter snipes concoct something else that may be more sympathetic to our prior ruling cabal, though it be ever more damnable to what our country has stood for for approximately 234 years.

Update 4/30/10: Too funny (h/t Atrios - and I gave McClatchy more credit than to publish this garbage)...

Sunday Stuff

(Posting is likely to be flaky this week, by the way, especially on Friday.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Moustache of Understanding in today’s Times (here)…

I’ve been trying to understand the Tea Party Movement. Sounds like a lot of angry people who want to get the government out of their lives and cut both taxes and the deficit. Nothing wrong with that — although one does wonder where they were in the Bush years. Never mind. I’m sure like all such protest movements the Tea Partiers will get their 10 to 20 percent of the vote. But should the Tea Partiers actually aspire to break out of that range, attract lots of young people and become something more than just entertainment for Fox News, I have a suggestion:

Become the Green Tea Party.

I’d be happy to design the T-shirt logo and write the manifesto. The logo is easy. It would show young Americans throwing barrels of oil imported from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia into Boston Harbor.

The manifesto is easy, too: “We, the Green Tea Party, believe that the most effective way to advance America’s national security and economic vitality would be to impose a $10 “Patriot Fee” on every barrel of imported oil, with all proceeds going to pay down our national debt.”

John Cole at Balloon Juice already beat me to it with a great reply, so I’ll merely link to him here.

Oh, and by the way, Little Tommy, here is a teabagger whom you can try to persuade. Go ahead (h/t Red vs. Blue)…



Update 4/26/10: You go, Ed! (here)

…and yeah, I kind of like this tune the way I liked Playboy for the interviews (and I really did).

Saturday AM Stuff (update)

"Worst Persons" from yesterday (Murdoch The Younger accuses a Brit newspaper competitor of violating an unwritten law when it comes to criticizing a rival - uh, K.O. is right, but there indeed are rules, and that's why he, Maddow and Ed Schultz don't call out "Morning Joe"; Repug Congressman Brian Bilbray of Arizona thinks he can recognize illegals by their footwear...God, is the heat getting to the people in that state on this issue?; but Deadeye Dick Cheney gets it for believing his “f-blast” against Senator Patrick Leahy was probably the best thing he ever did, or something – there’s a lot I can say in response, but all I’ll note is that Leahy, legally blind in one eye, has done a lot to advocate for people with this disability, whereas Cheney has only advocated for himself first, last and always…and concerning Dennis Miller, I would ask that you consider this)…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

…and here’s an upbeat little number that’s also a little dark too.



Update: And by the way, good stuff from Bill Maher here (never seen him work with a prop until now)...

Friday PM Stuff

Yep, Repug Gov. Jan Brewer has earned herself a spot in the wingnut Hall of Shame for this (two things: Bill Richardson's D-Backs are currently beating the Phillies - grrrrr - and also, I wish to God any Dem out there would mention not only the border violence with Mexican drug gangs, but the unholy deal of us sending them guns and money and they send us drugs and illegals, and more violence by the minute)...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

...and here's some Indie stuff to start the weekend.

Friday Wingnut Roundup (4/23/10)

(By the way, here is last Sunday’s Area Votes in Congress writeup from the Philadelphia Inquirer. I really don’t have much to say about it except that it featured two typically awful No votes by Joe Pitts, one against extending jobless benefits and one against protecting our estuaries; to do something about it, click here…and I also posted here.)

1) I really try not to waste time with the ravings of a certain OxyContin addict in particular, but sometimes Flush Limbore says things that are so utterly ridiculous that an immediate comment is demanded; here, he wrote in The Murdoch Street Journal today that he was “not inciting violence” (and just because it’s in the Journal doesn’t give it the imprimatur of respectability, it should be noted).

In response, I give you the following:

- Here, he tells us that campaign contributions to Obama from the big financial firms “bought the rope (Obama) is using for their hanging.”

- Here, he says, among other things, that Obama is “overthrowing” the country.

- Here, he says supposed ties from President Clinton to Waco are “tangible.”

- Here, a 1995 quote is recalled in which Limbore predicted a “second American revolution.”

- Here, he says Obama thinks bankers are “far more evil than the biggest mass murderer of Americans in our nation's history.”

And these Media Matters entries are only from this month, people!

If I had the time and/or the desire to go back for a period of years (and I assure you that I don’t in either circumstance), I have no doubt that I would take me hours and hours to compile every instance of violent rhetoric from Limbore.

He’s almost pitiable, really…almost.

2) Also, I came across a recent item from Bernie Quigley; I wanted to find a way to highlight the recent story of how SEC investigators were cruising porn sites when they should have been trying to prevent our economy from doing “the big swirl into the hopper” that kick-started The Great Recession.

And in this post, Quigley tells us…

Is one-size-fits-all, nationalist, globalist centralization finding its endgame? This week's Newsweek, featuring Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) in his "Come and take it" boots on the cover, looks at Texas and sees behind the veil a different economic paradigm. "Texas has always been something of a separate country when it comes to politics and culture," they write. "Lately, the state seems to be functioning as its own economic republic." And as its federally dependent neighbor California unravels, it appears to be a quite successful model, but one that could well be destroyed by ObamaCare, the bailouts and centralization. Perry was the first to oppose.

We might ask in New England why this can't be said about us. Because our governors were first to flock to the rhetoric of Obama and the last, perhaps, to see ourselves with the kind of independence that Perry and Texas today represent. We need to go back to our Emerson and brush off in particular, his essay "Self-Reliance," which gave Yankee independence its independence. Today Perry embodies it.

Uh, I’m not at all sure that “Goodhair” Perry “embodies” anything except craven opportunism and demagoguery; to compare him to Ralph Waldo Emerson is truly the stuff of comedy.

One reason why, as noted here, is because Emerson had some interesting stuff to say about religion…

On July 15, 1838,^[53] Emerson was invited to Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School for the school's graduation address, which came to be known as his "Divinity School Address". Emerson discounted Biblical miracles and proclaimed that, while Jesus was a great man, he was not God: historical Christianity, he said, had turned Jesus into a "demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would describe Osiris or Apollo".^[54] His comments outraged the establishment and the general Protestant community. For this, he was denounced as an atheist,^[54] and a poisoner of young men's minds. Despite the roar of critics, he made no reply, leaving others to put forward a defense. He was not invited back to speak at Harvard for another thirty years.^[55]

^…

Emerson's religious views were often considered radical at the time. He believed that all things are connected to God and, therefore, all things are divine.^[111] Critics believed that Emerson was removing the central God figure; as Henry Ware, Jr. said, Emerson was in danger of taking away "the Father of the Universe" and leaving "but a company of children in an orphan asylum".^[112] Emerson was partly influenced by German philosophy and Biblical criticism.^[113] His views, the basis of Transcendentalism, suggested that God does not have to reveal the truth but that the truth could be intuitively experienced directly from nature.^[114]

(And oh yeah, Rick, there were also rumors that Emerson was “AC/DC,” if you know what I mean, and I’m not talking about the band…not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

Perry, on the other hand, has said the following (here)…

In what was described as a "God and country" sermon at the Cornerstone church in San Antonio, attended by Perry and other mostly Republican candidates, the Rev. John Hagee stated, "If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God Almighty through the authority of Christ and His blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket." Perry was asked if he agreed with those comments and said, "It is my faith, and I'm a believer of that."^[25] Perry went on to say that there was nothing in the sermon that he took exception with. Kinky Friedman, the Jewish independent candidate for governor said, "He doesn't think very differently from the Taliban, does he?"

Good point (and if Quigley persists in his belief, then he could just relocate to The Lone Star State and help it secede along with Perry, if he really wants to be self-reliant).

3) Finally, I give you the following from Christine Flowers in the Philadelphia Daily News today (here)…

SHORTLY after Sen. Barack Obama won the 2008 election, I wrote a column titled "My Big Fat Patriotic Promise" in which I vowed to do what every proud American has an obligation to do: exercise my right to criticize the government when I thought it had veered off course.

Way back in that somewhat more innocent time, before tea parties and the health-care battle, I reminded readers that we were privileged to live in the "Home of the free, land of the critics."

Many agreed, filling my in-box with praise for saying something that is patently obvious: Dissent is patriotic.

There were a few naysayers who tried to interpret any criticism of Obama and his policies as evidence of racism, or at the very least a suspicious unwillingness to give him the benefit of the doubt before even 100 days had elapsed.

But on the whole, responders agreed that calling your critics evil was the first step on a dangerous path that tended to end up with people being sent to "re-education" camp.

Soo…Flowers is trying to say that she felt a duty to dissent more with Obama’s election, but that supposition on her part led others to think – in her mind, anyway – that that made her “evil”?

I cannot imagine any self-respecting media outlet anywhere on earth that would allow such delusional comments from anyone of a contrary political opinion (and if you guess that this is nothing more than a setup for more ad hominem attacks by Flowers against Bill Clinton in particular for rightly calling out the Tea Klux Klan, you win a free subscription to The National Review, the paper of which can be used to line your cat’s litter box).

This provides an occasion to revisit some instances of Flowers’ particular brand of dissent:

- Here, she said that Obama State Department lawyer nominee Harold Koh would “apply Sharia law” (uh, no).

- Here, she said anyone who voted for Obama wasn’t a “real Catholic.”

- Here, she either spun or merely regurgitated a variety of falsehoods on then-Illinois state senator Obama’s voting record on that state’s “born alive” legislation.

- Here (and this was particularly charming), she said she believed that Obama is trustworthy because he was “largely raised by white grandparents” in a column where Flowers criticizes Obama for labeling his opponents as “bigots” (Proof? Anywhere in sight??).

And I have to laugh when Flowers blames “the mainstream media” for supposedly propagating the narrative that the teabaggers are a fringe (uh, check this out, Christine).

Because it is owing to the very moral bankruptcy of the “mainstream media” that Flowers claims to detest that she even has a platform to spout her bile to begin with.

Friday AM Stuff

(Big-time Blogger/ISP issues last night...)

Whether it's the stimulus, health care reform or financial reform, always count on the Repugs to chant the same tired script (here)...



...and by the way, April is Jazz Appreciation Month, so here's a memorable number for the occasion.

More "Taxing" Cowen Defecit Carping

(And I also posted here.)

In yet another column by a self-styled economic pundit about how our spending in this country is allegedly the biggest threat we face, Tyler Cowen told us the following in the New York Times last Sunday (using the deficit as an excuse to regurgitate right-wing talking points…late getting to it I know, but a few things have gotten stacked up, as it were)…

Consider the tax burden on high earners once the Bush administration’s tax cuts expire next year. Add up the federal, state, city and sales taxes for a lawyer in New York City who earns $300,000 a year. Depending on the circumstances, this individual could be facing marginal tax rates in the range of 60 percent. Higher income tax rates would discourage hard work and encourage tax avoidance, thereby defeating the purpose of the tax increases.

You can tell how disingenuous Cowen’s argument is in that he lumps all of these taxes together for a “high earner,” but doesn’t present a similar scenario for someone of considerably lesser income (my suspicion is that, were Cowen to do that for someone making less than $100K and add in a percentage for payroll taxes, where people of this income level endure the biggest bite from their paychecks, that 60 percent figure he cites for his hypothetical NYC lawyer – hmmm, I’m thinking Harold Ford, Jr. here, hardly a typical case – wouldn’t seem so oppressive).

Besides, as noted here…

When one looks at the highest tax rates on the wealthy throughout the past century, one discovers that the tax rate was above 60 percent from 1932 to 1980 and reached a peak of 90 percent in the Eisenhower (Republican) Presidency! It was only 40 percent or lower since 1988, even being 50 percent in the Reagan years. The only time it was in the mid 20s was in the Coolidge-Hoover years in the 1920s.

So, in other words, the only times it was really low was when poverty grew, the middle class shrunk, and corporate corruption and greed and materialism prevailed, the 1920s and the years since 1988. Is that not enough evidence of the need to raise the rate to try to address the horrible inequities that have developed in the last generation? Realize in the two periods just mentioned, the result of the low tax policy on the elite was the coming of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the coming of what is now called by many the Great Recession that we are suffering right now.

Cowen continues…

Higher levels of government spending and taxation would also soak up resources that might otherwise foster innovation and new businesses. And sentiment would most likely turn ever stronger against those immigrants who consume public services and make the deficit higher in the short run. Current residents might feel more secure in a larger welfare state, but over time the loss of commerce and innovation takes a toll.

Ugh…so blame those “living off the public teat” immigrants in their “welfare state” for this country’s lack of investment in basic infrastructure, right Cowen?

In response, I give you the following from Fareed Zakaria (a guy who is hardly a liberal, I might add), in a Newsweek column from last November…

With the end of the Cold War, Americans stopped worrying about the Soviet threat and, as a result, R&D funding for applied science plummeted, dropping 40 percent in the 1990s. It has picked up since then, but the government's share of overall R&D spending remains near its all-time low. And while corporations still spend on R&D, they do not fund the kind of basic research that leads to breakthroughs.

America's decline is most evident in the one realm of high technology where the U.S. government has, until recently, seemed most uninterested: energy. The three most important areas where current technology could yield big results are solar, wind, and battery production (the latter because the energy has to be stored somewhere). According to the investment bank Lazard Frères, the world's largest wind-turbine manufacturer (by revenue) is a U.S. company: General Electric. But the other nine companies among the top 10 are scattered around the world, including Germany (Nordex), Denmark (Vestas), India (Suzlon), and Spain (Acciona).

…

American culture is open and innovative. But it was powerfully shaped and enhanced by a series of government policies. Silicon Valley did not arise in a vacuum. It grew in the 1950s in a state that had created the world's best public-education system (from kindergarten through Ph.D. programs), a superb infrastructure, and a business-friendly environment that attracted defense and engineering industries. Today California builds prisons, but not college campuses. In 1976 it spent 18 percent of its budget on education; that figure now is about 10 percent. The state is permanently bankrupt, saved only by massive, continual borrowing. Are these the foundations for future scientific achievement?

To be fair, Zakaria also mentions tax rates as Cowen does, but Zakaria isn’t nearly as dismissive on the matter of government investment (and speaking of tax rates, I thought this was interesting).

In addition, Cowen tells us the following about how other countries have weathered our current financial storm supposedly by spending cuts by themselves…

The received wisdom in the United States is that deep spending cuts are politically impossible. But a number of economically advanced countries, including Sweden, Finland, Canada and, most recently, Ireland, have cut their government budgets when needed.

Most relevant, perhaps, is Canada, which cut federal government spending by about 20 percent from 1992 to 1997. The Liberal Party, headed by Jean Chrétien as prime minister and Paul Martin as finance minister, led most of this shift. Prompted by the financial debacle in Mexico, Canadian leaders had the courage and the foresight to make those spending cuts before a fiscal crisis was upon them. In his book “In the Long Run We’re All Dead: The Canadian Turn to Fiscal Restraint,” Timothy Lewis describes Canada’s move from fiscal irresponsibility to a balanced budget — a history that helps explain why the country has managed the current global recession relatively well.

In response, I give you the following from Paul Krugman about how Canada has managed the current economic meltdown…

Canada’s experience also seems to refute the view, forcefully pushed by Paul Volcker, the formidable former Fed chairman, that the roots of our crisis lay in the scale and scope of our financial institutions — in the existence of banks that were “too big to fail.” For in Canada essentially all the banks are too big to fail: just five banking groups dominate the financial scene.

On the other hand, Canada’s experience does seem to support the views of people like Elizabeth Warren, the head of the Congressional panel overseeing the bank bailout, who place much of the blame for the crisis on failure to protect consumers from deceptive lending. Canada has an independent Financial Consumer Agency, and it has sharply restricted subprime-type lending.

Above all, Canada’s experience seems to support those who say that the way to keep banking safe is to keep it boring — that is, to limit the extent to which banks can take on risk. The United States used to have a boring banking system, but Reagan-era deregulation made things dangerously interesting. Canada, by contrast, has maintained a happy tedium.

More specifically, Canada has been much stricter about limiting banks’ leverage, the extent to which they can rely on borrowed funds. It has also limited the process of securitization, in which banks package and resell claims on their loans outstanding — a process that was supposed to help banks reduce their risk by spreading it, but has turned out in practice to be a way for banks to make ever-bigger wagers with other people’s money.

So it’s not as simple as our neighbors to the north merely tightening their belts and finding their way clear in a manner that we have not, eh?

Cowen’s bio tells us that he is a professor of economics at George Mason University. Good for him. However, that doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of concocting some utter dreck, plainly on display here, in an area of thought and discourse where he is allegedly an expert.