The Apocalypse Will Be Televised (the 'Left Behind' series)

Armageddon in an age of entertainment

Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005. Originally from November 2004. By Gene Lyons.

Sources

Discussed in this essay:

Glorious Appearing, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Tyndale House Publishers, 2004. 399 pages. $24.99.

Assassins, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Tyndale House Publishers, 1999. 413 pages. $14.99.

Nicolae, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Tyndale House Publishers, 1997. 415 pages. $14.99.

Left Behind, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Tyndale House Publishers, 1995. 468 pages. $14.99.

The Rapture Exposed, by Barbara R. Rossing. Westview Press, 2004. 212 pages. $24.

* * *

But when a Man’s Fancy gets astride on his Reason, when Imagination is at Cuffs with the Senses, and common Understanding, as well as common Sense, is Kickt out of Doors; the first Proselyte he makes, is Himself, and when that is once compass’d, the Difficulty is not so great in bringing over others; a strong Delusion always operating from without, as vigorously as from within.

—Jonathan Swift,
A Tale of a Tub

After living in the Bible Belt for more than thirty years, I’ve learned several things about our fundamentalist Christian brethren: First, theirs is an embattled faith, which requires an ever evolving list of enemies to keep its focus. It includes Satan worshipers one year, “secular humanists” the next. Panic over backward masking on phonograph records yields to fears that supermarket bar codes harbor the Mark of the Beast. Some years back, Procter & Gamble was forced to deny widespread rumors that a moon-and-stars logo on boxes of soapsuds symbolized corporate diabolism. More recently, purging school libraries of Harry Potter’s witchcraft has emerged as a cause. As if the real world weren’t scary enough, chimerical threats must be found. It often appears that no form of occultism is too arcane or preposterous to provoke alarm.

Interesting, but non-politcal: Spine Tingling

Many of you have already read this amazing essay called "Life and Death" by a very interesting fellow named Chris Clarke. If you haven't, you should. And then read his bio. Some people's lives are a work of art.

Digby/Hullabaloo: New Star (for adults only--Dictynna)

For those who didn't see the NPC blogging, ass-fucking and journalism panel this morning, the great Crooks and Liars has the highlights for you right here.

Gannon has quite the schtick going for him. I don't know if it's a natural gift or if he has had help, but he handled it all quite deftly, I thought. He makes absolutely no sense, wanders off into unrelated subjects, claims victimhood at every turn, avoids questions like a pro and appears to me to be incredibly stupid, arrogant and deluded all at the same time. A clown that nobody in their right mind could take seriously. In others words, meet the next GOP nominee for President of the United States.

Digby/Hullabaloo: Pillow Talking Points

According to TBOGG, Rush said this yesterday about the Darling Martinez memo:

What was wrong with this? What's wrong with the Republicans having political strategy sessions? They didn't in this case, but even if they had, so what?

Here's what the future ex-Mrs Limbaugh (thanks GL) said:

Basically a political memo that said the fight over the removing Schiavo's feeding tube is a great political issue, and a tough issue for Democrats. News of the day, comes out of Mel Martinez' office. He's fired an aide who allegedly wrote this. Ed Henry question -- what's the big deal?

Digby/Hullabaloo: Was Ken Mehlman The Maid Of Honor?

Atrios has posted a Drudge story about Arthur Finkelstein allegedly getting married in Massachusetts to his lover of forty years. The couple have two adopted children.

For those of you who don't know the full extent of Arthur Finkelstein's heroic self-loathing, read this article:

Finkelstein's signature style emerges through the ads he creates. Two recent adds brand Democrats as liberals: "Call liberal Paul Wellstone. Tell him it's wrong to spend billions more on welfare," one ad states.

"That's liberal," says another. "That's Jack Reed. That's wrong. Call liberal Jack Reed and tell him his record on welfare is just too liberal for you."

Digby/Hullabaloo: Eine Kleine Mock Music

Friday, April 08, 2005

Would it be terribly politically incorrect of me to wish that Joe Klein would just succumb to his impending persistent vegetative state? I promise to let the Schindlers adopt him and they can pump his feeding tube full of homemade butterscotch puddin' 24/7 if he will just shut his burbling piehole.

In spite of the fact that three quarters of the country were repelled by the Republican grandstanding in the Schiavo circus, Klein insists, as always, that it is the Democrats who have it wrong. We need to give "careful consideration to what thoughtful conservatives are saying about the role of the judiciary in our public life."

Juan Cole/Informed Comment - April 8, 2005 Part 4

New York Times Supports McCarthyite Witch Hunt

I am cancelling my subscription to the New York Times, and I urge others to do the same.

The New York Times editorial board went over to the Dark Side on Thursday, with an editorial that blasted the end results of a panel at Columbia University that investigated whether students had been intimidated by professors at Columbia University. The panel found that there was no evidence of any such thing, that no students had been punished for their views by lowered grades, that there was no evidence of racial bigotry.

Juan Cole/Informed Comment: - April 8, 2005 Part 3

Cairo Blast at Khan al-Khalili

The analysis of the bombing of a tourist area of Cairo, which killed 4 and wounded 18 on Thursday given by the Egyptian social scientists interviewed by China's Xinhuanet seems to me quite sophisticated. They pointed to increased wealth stratification (social contradictions) in Egypt-- where the poor have stayed poor and the rich have gotten a bit better off during the past 25 years. They also pointed to the destabilizing effect on the region of the Iraq War and other American policies.

Juan Cole/Informed Comment - April 8, 2005 Part 2

Mahdi Army still a Factor

Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post continues his world-beating coverage of Iraq with an article on the reemergence of the Mahdi Army in the south, in places like Nasiriyah and Basrah.

Look, if all the Mahdi Army amounts to is angry young men with guns persuaded to support puritanical morality and to give their political loyalty to Muqtada al-Sadr, then it can never be "defeated" by the US military. It is just an urban social movement. You'd have to change the character of the Shiite slums to make an impact on it, which won't happen tomorrow.

Juan Cole/Informed Comment - April 8, 2005 Part 1

Friday, April 08, 2005

Jaafari Appointed Prime Minister

Jalal Talabani appears to have had a senior moment of some magnitude. In the course of announcing that Ibrahim Jaafari will be Iraq's new prime minister, he says he suffered a memory lapse and had to leave the podium so an aide could remind him of Jaafari's name. The superstitious took it as an ill omen.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Jaafari pledged to make headway on Iraq's poor security, and that he sharply criticized the outgoing government of Iyad Allawi for letting Baathists serve in the security and intelligence forces. Jaafari appears set to purge them.

Juan Cole/Informed Comment - April 9, 2005

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Protests Called for Saturday Against US Troop Presence

Wire services and Arab News report:

"In the main southern city of Basra, three masked men shot dead an officer in the new Iraqi Army as he was dining Thursday, an army spokesman said. The same night, four US soldiers were wounded in the northern town of Shurgat when insurgents hurled a hand grenade at them, a US military statement said. Another US military statement yesterday said a US Marine died two days ago in a vehicle accident during combat operations in the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah, west of the capital. Also, a US soldier was killed by a bomb in northern Iraq yesterday, the US Army said. The soldier was killed around noon when a homemade bomb exploded near Hawijah, in Kirkuk province, a statement said without providing further details.

And the Verdict on Justice Kennedy Is: Guilty

Washington Sketch

By Dana Milbank

Saturday, April 9, 2005; Page A03

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is a fairly accomplished jurist, but he might want to get himself a good lawyer -- and perhaps a few more bodyguards.

Conservative leaders meeting in Washington yesterday for a discussion of "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny" decided that Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, should be impeached, or worse.

Why Don't They Listen to Us?

By Lillian B. Rubin, Dissent Magazine. Posted April 7, 2005.

If our ideas and our politics have been in the service of those less advantaged, as we believe so passionately, why have we had such a hard time making ourselves heard in ways that count?

While the intensity of political polarization that grips the nation today is relatively new, America has been drifting to the right for decades. Since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, only three Democrats have occupied the White House, and of those, Bill Clinton alone survived for more than a single term. Although poll data show that most voters think the Democrats are better on such central issues as the economy, jobs, health care, and education, they continue to return Republicans to power. Republicans now occupy the governors' mansions in twenty-eight states and own both the House and Senate, where leadership has been increasingly drawn from the radical right.

The Black Commentator: Racism in the Military

Aiden Delgado, an Army Reservist in the 320th Military Police Company, served in Iraq from April 1st , 2003 through April 1st, 2004. After spending six months in Nasiriyah in Southern Iraq, he spent six months helping to run the now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad.

The handsome 23-year-old mechanic was a witness to widespread, almost daily, U.S. war crimes in Iraq. His story contains new revelations about ongoing brutality at Abu Ghraib, information yet to be reported in national media.

NYT Editorial: Killing Off Housing for the Poor

April 9, 2005

he Bush administration pays lip service to the goal of "ending chronic homelessness" - while undermining the very programs that keep poor people from ending up in the streets. The Housing and Urban Development Department is proposing unreasonable cuts in federal subsidies, which would make it harder for underfinanced housing authorities to keep their developments livable and safe. And a proposal in Congress would make it harder for the poor to get rental subsidies from Section 8, the public-private partnership that underwrites rents for nearly two million of the country's low-income families and encourages builders to develop affordable housing.

Records Give Voice to Guantanamo Detainees

By PETE YOST and MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON - In a development the Bush administration had hoped to avoid, the stories of about 60 detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base have spilled out in court papers.

Cursor's Media Patrol - April 8, 2005

Iraq's new president names a prime minister, after momentarily forgetting his name, and offers amnesty to insurgents, as 'Thorny Issues Loom' and 'Iraq may still break apart.'

"This is the future of Iraq," Marine Lt. Gen. John Satler is quoted as saying to local leaders in Fallujah. To which the deputy chief of mission from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad reportedly added, "Let's face it: We're winning. It needs to be said that we are winning. This is a very, very, very difficult thing we’re undertaking, but we're winning."

Arriving on Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's desk "several months later than expected," a Pentagon draft of an "overarching doctrine" for "wartime prison operations" would, according to Human Rights Watch, allow the military to hold prisoners as "ghost detainees" and subject their right "to be treated humanely" to "military necessity."

The Village Voice's Ward Harkavy explains why employees of the "top campaign contributor among defense aerospace firms" are "whooping it up" -- and why, if Secretary of State Rice "isn't careful, she's going to wind up on Lockheed's board even before she leaves her government job." Plus: 'For Whatever It's (Fort) Worth.'

Alex Knott of The Center for Public Integrity explains why Washington lobbyists, many of whom "fail to file necessary disclosure forms," are known as 'The "Fourth Branch" of Government.'

As White House spokesman Scott McClellan and the Washington Times tout Bush's un-Clintonesque 'low profile' in Rome, the AP reports that "when Bush's face appeared on giant screen TVs showing the ceremony, many in the crowds outside St. Peter's Square booed and whistled."

With a new Gallup poll showing 'Bush Approval Rating Lowest Ever for 2nd-Term Prez at this Point,' Helen Thomas writes that "you had to be there" at a press conference on intelligence failures which demonstrated that "the buck never stops at this White House."

The Stuntenator Reuters reports that a new poll shows that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's approval rating dropped to 43% from 59% in January, with 49% viewing him as too interested in "gimmicks, public relations and image."

Asked to step down by the White House, the director of the Transportation Security Administration becomes the third top administrator in three years to leave what he calls "the toughest job in federal government."

'The genie in the ballot box' Uri Avnery argues that if truly democratic elections were held in Arab countries where "the present dictatorships ... present themselves as bulwarks against fanatical Islamic forces," the winners would be "forces that completely reject the vision of a secular, democratic and liberal state that Bush talks so much about."

Dana Milbank reports on a House Armed Services Committee hearing where "For more than three hours, [Wesley] Clark and [Richard] Perle reprised their confrontation before the committee in September 2002 ... But this time lawmakers on both sides hectored Perle, while Clark didn't bother to suppress an 'I told you so.'" Scroll down for PDFs of their testimony.

Former UPI and now Salon correspondent, Mark Benjamin, tells "On the Media" -- which just won a Peabody Award -- that in lowballing casualty counts for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is disregarding its own definition of "casualty." He also discusses his article on how wounded soldiers arrive in the U.S. only at night. His latest is 'Tough on terror; weak on guns.'

Following last month's Los Angeles Times article about how U.S. 'Spy agencies fear some applicants are terrorists,' the Christian Science Monitor reports that "Because the U.S. has reached such lone, superpower status, government officials say, at least 90 countries -- in addition to Al Qaeda --are attempting to steal some of the nation's most sacred secrets."

Before Mexico City's mayor was stripped of immunity from prosecution, he reportedly told a crowd of supporters -- totaling an estimated 300,000 throughout the day -- that "whatever Congress' decision, he would run for president next year, even if he had to do so from jail." Plus: 'Saving Mexico by ruining it.'

Media Matters produces a comprehensive timeline to illustrate 'How conservatives used trumped-up evidence to blame Democrats' for the Schiavo memo, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee provides other examples of Sen. Mel Martinez pleading "ignorance" to something his staff did -- during his 2004 campaign. And, it's Tom DeLay Day at Salon!

'It Was Only a Matter of Time for DeLay,' says Jonathan Chait, while The Hill reports that the GOP is "circling the wagons" as media scrutiny produces "ripples of speculation about his future."

"The United States of America cannot have one of its top congressional leaders taking money from people advocating for Russian military-intelligence and defense interests as part of a lobbying deal. It simply cannot," argues Tapped's Garance Franke-Ruta.

'Un-Embed the Media' "If we had state-run media in the United States, how would it be any different?" ask Amy Goodman and David Goodman, as editorial writers "profess to being shocked -- shocked! -- by the government's covert propaganda campaign."

U.S. Report Sees Gasoline Prices Moving Higher Still

April 8, 2005

By Richard W. Stevenson and Matthew L. Wald

WASHINGTON, April 7 - The government projected on Thursday that gasoline prices would surge even higher in coming weeks and remain high through the summer, a forecast underscoring both the economic effect of the sharp rise in energy costs and growing political risks for President Bush.

The Energy Information Administration, an arm of the Energy Department, said it expected the price of unleaded regular gasoline to hit a peak national average of $2.35 a gallon in May and to average $2.28 from April through September. Last week the average price was $2.22.

With crude oil prices at record highs in recent weeks and still close to them, the White House is casting itself as immersed in addressing the problem. It is using the increase in oil and gasoline prices to raise the pressure on Congress to pass Mr. Bush's stalled energy bill, which the administration says would encourage domestic oil exploration and production, support alternative energy sources and improve conservation.

DeLay Says Federal Judiciary Has 'Run Amok,' Adding Congress Is Partly to Blame

April 8, 2005

By Carl Hulse and David D. Kirkpatrick

WASHINGTON, April 7 - Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, escalated his talk of a battle between the legislative and judicial branches of government on Thursday, saying federal courts had "run amok," in large part because of the failure of Congress to confront them.

"Judicial independence does not equal judicial supremacy," Mr. DeLay said in a videotaped speech delivered to a conservative conference in Washington entitled "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith."

Mr. DeLay faulted courts for what he said was their invention of rights to abortion and prohibitions on school prayer, saying courts had ignored the intent of Congress and improperly cited international standards and precedents. "These are not examples of a mature society," he said, "but of a judiciary run amok."

Daily Howler - April 8, 2005

THERE ONCE WAS A SWELL FROM NANTUCKET! Liberal spokesmen treat you like rubes when they kill Bill and hand Chris a pass

FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 2005

BUNGLING RATHER (PART 8, GRAND FINALE): OK, let’s make it short and sweet. Our modern press corps has two major parts. On the one hand, we have an aggressive pseudo-con press corps which is constantly yelling liberal bias. And then, we have the mainstream press corps, which actually tends towards that “right-leaning dinner-party centrism” which Josh Marshall correctly describes and correctly says that he fails to discuss.

Orcinus: Chosen Behaviors

Thursday, April 07, 2005

One of the many holes in civil-rights protections for minorities in Washington state is that it remains legal to discriminate against gays and lesbians -- in hiring and employment practices, as well as in housing.

It's one of our blue state's ugly little secrets, largely because the GOP remains a potent force. Changing the law, you see, would advance the "homosexual agenda," even if everyone knows that this kind of discrimination isn't right.

So with Democrats finally in charge of both houses of the Lege, party leaders had their sights set on rectifying that oversight. After a bill adding gays and lesbians to RCW 49.60, the state's anti-discrimination law, passed the House readily, some late maneuvering, and a couple of DINOs, have helped to apparently scuttle the bill in the Senate.

States Told Not to Steer Beneficiaries to Drug Plans

by Robert Pear

WASHINGTON, April 6 - The Bush administration has told states that they cannot steer Medicare beneficiaries to any specific prescription drug plan, even if state officials find that one or two insurance plans would provide the best deals for elderly people with low-incomes.

States like Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have for years had their own programs to help elderly people with drug costs. In some cases, the state coverage is superior to what Medicare will offer. Many states want to continue those programs to supplement the Medicare drug benefit that becomes available in January.

A federal advisory commission said recently that states should be allowed to enroll their low-income Medicare beneficiaries in "one or more preferred prescription drug plans." This would help ensure "continuity of care," it said.

But in a memorandum to state officials, the Bush administration rejected that recommendation.

Steve Gillard's News Blog: Perle and Clarke Rematch

The beginning of the End for Neo-cons (+ the stupidest quote of the year)
by Magorn
[Subscribe]

Fri Apr 8th, 2005 at 13:18:10 PDT

For the minions of the PNAC, the end is nigh. Conservatives with some residual decency have begun to turn on their neo-con brethren.

Yesterday, while All eyes were fixed on Rome, Richard Perle and Gen Wesley Clark had a rematch in front of the same house Armed Service Committee they testified before in 2002 on the eve of the invasion.

Things went a little differently this time:

[...]

Very simply: Richard Perle might have heard a shotgun once.

Wesley Clark won the Bronze Star in Vietnam as a platoon commander.

He also commanded NATO.

I wonder who knows more about war?

Steve Gillard's News Blog: Partisan Hacks

(Scroll Down)

Ah, let's talk about blogging ethics for a moment. When you give me money, I hope it's because there's some sense of integrity involved in this, that I admit my errors about things where I am wrong and not try to defend them, like.....

"Citizen journalists"? Try partisan hacks
Right-wing bloggers shrieked that the GOP Schiavo memo was a "liberal media" fraud. Now that they've been proven wrong, are they apologizing? Why, no!

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert

Led into battle by Power Line, which posted over a dozen conspiratorial-sounding posts about the memo, bloggers seized on its misspellings as proof of deception and, relying on echo chamber tips from GOP staffers on the Hill, became more and more sure in their pursuit. "Is This the Biggest Hoax Since the Sixty Minutes Story?" a March 21 Power Line headline asked. Then, on March 30, came "Talking Points Story Goes Up in Smoke." (Time magazine honored Power Line as Blog of the Year in 2004 for its role in the CBS scandal.)

But then, late on Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the author of the memo had stepped forward: An aide to Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida admitted he had written it. Now the facts are clear: The memo is real, and it was written by the Republican side and distributed by the Republican side, making it a GOP talking-points memo.

The irony is that the memo wasn't all that significant to the larger Schiavo story. Conservatives magnified its importance by suggesting that it had led Americans to conclude that Republicans were playing politics with the right-to-die case. (A vast majority of Americans, including self-identified conservatives, told pollsters the administration was wrong to get involved in the Schiavo case.) But in fact the existence of the memo was not that widely reported -- no more widely reported than Rep. Tom DeLay's comment to conservative activists that Terri was a gift from God for their cause, nor than that conservative Christian groups were using the story for fundraising activities.
................

And here's Power Line as it hatched the nonstory: The memo "does not sound like something written by a conservative; it sounds like a liberal fantasy of how conservatives talk. What conservative would write that the case of a woman condemned to death by starvation is 'a great political issue'? Maybe such a person exists, but I doubt it."

On Wednesday, the right-wing Washington Times demonstrated its unique brand of naiveté when it further hyped the episode by reporting that it had contacted all the Republicans in the Senate and none had admitted they were behind the talking-points memo. (Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, insisted the memo was "an invention of the press.") Does the Times really think that partisan, and as it turns out erroneous, denials qualify as news?

Aside from their sloppy speculation, the episode also revealed the cloud of arrogance that hangs around bloggers from the CBS Memogate crowd. Indeed, this week right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin, busy peddling another false story -- which claims that Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photographers who captured blood-curdling images from Iraq had ties to terrorists -- demanded to know why Pulitzer judges hadn't met with bloggers to discuss their conspiracy theory before handing out their prestigious prize. Right-wing site Little Green Footballs thundered: "The media establishment puts their thumb in the eye of the blogosphere, awarding a Pulitzer Prize for photography to the Associated Press's anonymous and very possibly staged photographs of terrorists committing murder on Baghdad's Haifa Street" (emphasis added)

Now, this was bullshit. No Dem would be as stupid, given the servile nature of our media, to write something like that to hear about it for two weeks on Fox. They would be lucky to escape a special prosecutor.

But then, common sense is not their ally. Party loyalty is. They will defend the GOP until they can do so no longer. What kind of integrity is that?

Who Forged the Niger Documents?

By Ian Masters, AlterNet

Posted on April 7, 2005, Printed on April 8, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/21704/

Editor’s Note: This is an edited transcript of an interview conducted by Ian Masters with Vincent Cannistaro, the former CIA head of counterterrorism operations and intelligence director at the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan, which aired on the Los Angeles public radio KPFK on April 3, 2005.

Steering message into outright propaganda

By Helen Thomas

Hearst Newspapers
Posted April 7 2005

President Bush has learned to use the bully pulpit that is the powerful prerogative of all presidents. But this president has tried to tweak that power in ways that expand the definition of "managed news."

Let's start with his national campaign to change Social Security.

Viguerie's army attacks Social Security

Bill Berkowitz - WorkingForChange

04.07.05 - In their new book, America's Right Turn: How The Conservatives Used New And Alternative Media To Take Power, Richard Viguerie -- the right wing king of direct mail -- and co-author David Franke describe how the printing press played a pivotal role in the battle between Lutherans and Catholics in the 16th century: "The revolution of 1517 did not begin... when Martin Luther posted his controversial 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg... The revolution came in the weeks following Luther's posting... as his arguments spread across Europe with a rapidity never before seen, and reached the lay public -- beyond the clerical community -- that until this point had been precluded from involvement in theological issues... .That was the revolution, and it was a revolution wrought by the printing press."

Echidne of the Snakes: How Wingnuts Think

This is a little lecture on an important topic: how the opposition thinks. It's also going to be fun. I wish.

First, the wingnuttia brains assume that any evidence which doesn't support the wingnut worldview must not exist. If it still seems to exist, well, then it must be a forgery! Just consider this example on the memo about the Schiavo case:

Counsel to GOP Senator Wrote Memo On Schiavo

Martinez Aide Who Cited Upside For Party Resigns

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 7, 2005; Page A01

The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.

Brian H. Darling, 39, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.

Atrios/Eschaton: Heh-Indeedy

Kleiman:

Kevin recalls correctly that DeLay was on Milosevich's side against Bill Clinton. He doesn't mention the extraordinary maneuver by which DeLay managed to send an encouraging message to the enemy while our men and women in uniform were in harm's way, by promising Clinton a resolution of support for the air war and then arranging for it to come to the floor and fail. (Of course, DeLay wasn't alone among Republicans, back then, in hating the President more than he hated the mass murderer the President was trying to rein in.)

Many wary of GOP's moral agenda

Poll: Public disliked Schiavo intervention

By Susan Page
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - The controversy over Terri Schiavo has raised concerns among many Americans about the moral agenda of the Republican Party and the political power of conservative Christians, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds.

National Academies news: Spent nuclear fuel storage

Spent nuclear fuel stored in pools at some of the nation's 103 operating commercial nuclear reactors may be at risk from terrorist attacks, says a new report from a committee of the National Academies' Board on Radioactive Waste Management.

Wednesday’s political round-up

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum sounded downright panicky in an email fundraising pitch last week. “I must have you working with me to stand against the Big Money leftists,” Santorum wrote. “Now that the Democratic National Committee has declared me its No. 1 target for the next election I expect Soros and others on the left, like insurance billionaire Peter Lewis, to pump millions and millions of dollars into Pennsylvania to support whoever runs against me.” Paranoia aside, Santorum estimates he’ll need to raise almost $20 million before November 2006, which is about the only accurate thing in the letter.

Plame Game Over?

Because Patrick Fitzgerald is a special counsel that respects confidentiality and disdains leaks, unlike some prosecutors we know (cough, cough, Ken Starr, cough), details about the ongoing White House criminal investigation have been far and few between. Indeed, there’s been far more coverage of the debate about forcing reporters to testify than there’s been about the incident — leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent out of spite — that prompted the investigation in the first place.

Even now, there may be more fake-news segments on the way

The Bush gang’s penchant for creating fake-news segments — with our money — is well documented. As we learned a couple of weeks ago, at least 20 federal agencies have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years. In all, the administration spent over a quarter-billion dollars on generating professional-quality propaganda videos, aired as news, without disclosing the government’s role to viewers.

Daily Howler - April 6, 2005

WASHINGTON AWOL (PART 3)! Even Josh Marshall took himself AWOL concerning that War Against Gore:

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 2005

WASHINGTON AWOL (PART 3): Yes, the press corps is giving its Standard Free Pass to Mark Levin’s gong-show best-seller (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/5/05). But then, that’s what this group does best; Dahlia Lithwick hasn’t heard, but they also gave a free pass to the gong-show best-seller, Unfit for Command, that transformed the Bush-Kerry race. Indeed, the mainstream press has been AWOL for decades regarding the work of the kooky-con right. Not for them the grimy task of confronting the pseudo-con discourse being ginned in such kooky-con precincts. It’s simpler to count up Ann Coulter’s footnotes—praising the scribe for her brilliant scholarship—while failing to note that the mountain of notes were, in fact, largely bogus (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/22/02). Lithwick seems to think that her “serious journalist” pals have been hard at work in recent years—that Levin’s free pass is some sort of surprise. In fact, her gang has long been AWOL. Levin’s free pass? It’s the latest example of their long refusal to confront the rough, nasty men who have made such a long-running joke of your discourse. Lithwick is right about Mark Levin’s treatment. But she’s wrong about everything else.

Digby/Hullabaloo: Powerbozos

You know, I'm a big fan of blogging. I dabble in it myself. But, this absurd notion on the part of some bloggers that they are taking down the big time media brick by brick is just absurd. And by "some bloggers" I'm referring to those schmucks over at Powerline. Jesus, has there ever been a bigger bunch of vainglorious nobodies in the history of the world?

Juan Cole/Informed Comment: April 6, 2005 (Part 3)

Huhn? The Real Iraq

The unfortunate tendency in the United States to evaluate all statements about Iraq with regard to whether they are "optimistic" (i.e. pro-Bush) or "pessimistic" (i.e. anti-Bush) makes it difficult for those who just want to understand what is going on. I get slammed by the Jeff Jarvis's for reporting bad news (shouldn't it be reported?) or I get cited by rightwing bloggers when I say things like that the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement cannot win.

Juan Cole/Informed Comment: April 6, 2005 (Part 2)

Talabani President

The Iraqi National Assembly is set to announce the formation of a presidential council on Wednesday, selecting Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as president, Adil Abdul Mahdi as a vice president, and Ghazi al-Yawar as the other vice president. Abdul Mahdi is a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq who has gravitated toward a faith in the free market (he is rumored to have been a Maoist in his youth). Yawir is the current president, and is from the powerful Shamar tribe.

Juan Cole/Informed Comment: April 6, 2005 (Part 1)

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Services Have "Gotten Worse"

A returning aid worker for the AFSC says of Iraq:
Finally, the city grew too dangerous for Westerners and they left, concerned that they were putting not only their lives in danger but also the lives of the Iraqis that they interacted with.

McDowell's job had been to assess the conditions in Iraq and see how humanitarian resources were being used, as well as to work with new Iraqi non-governmental organizations and help with larger projects such as water sanitation.

s Washington planning a bloodbath in Caracas?

The Venezuelan government headed by President Hugo Chavez repeatedly accused the US government of planning a “new aggression” against Venezuela, including a plot to assassinate Chavez, despite pro-Chavez forces winning nine national elections in six years. Caracas claims to have information of an assassination plot to be carried out “within 100 days” against Chavez, although the government has refused to reveal its sources.*

While Washington has dismissed the accusations as “ridiculous”, further evidence was provided by a mid-March interview on Miami’s Channel 22 TV station with former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez.

Cursor: Media Patrol, April 6, 2005

As at least 16 people die in a Chinook chopper crash in Afghanistan, the country's defense minister touts a permanent U.S. military presence as an alternative to "the catastrophic disengagement of the international community from Afghanistan in the 1990s, which cost us all so dearly," echoing the "personal view" of Sen. John McCain.

Iraq's new National Assembly has reportedly broken a two-month deadlock, agreeing on a president and two vice-presidents, who "will have two weeks to pick a prime minister, who would then select a cabinet," as the 'sausage-making' continues.

With the central government in Baghdad described as "resisting attempts to loosen its grip on power," Iraq's local councils are said to be "in a much bigger mess than the National Assembly," with newly elected council members in one province "afraid to gather for their first meeting, mindful that eight of their predecessors were assassinated."

'Is this familiar?' Pondering press reports of "the smashing victory at Lake Tharthar," Harper's publisher John MacArthur keeps hearing the voice of Marlon Brando, torturing Martin Sheen "with upbeat war propaganda manufactured by Time magazine on behalf of Lyndon Johnson's White House."

Prison Break Reviewing the "coverage (or lack thereof)" of the insurgent attack on Abu Ghraib prison, CJR Daily concludes that "the utter disregard the American media have shown this story is astonishing." Plus: 'The right-wing smear on photojournalists' who won the Pulitizer Prize.

A returning humanitarian worker, who tells the Portland Press Herald that 'things have gotten worse' in Iraq, "recalls a meeting at the Ministry of Health that was held on the 12th floor of the building because every stick of furniture had been stolen from the first 11."

Pick Six Left Coaster runs the numbers on Amnesty International's annual survey of government-ordered executions around the world.

Kicking off the Bush administration's "campaign to preserve and expand" the Patriot Act, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales warned against "unilateral disarmament" and told senators that the Justice Department "should not be penalized for exercising restraint." An architect of the Act debates the ACLU's Nadine Strossen.

A U.K. business leader warns that 'new U.S. passport rules "threaten business relations,"' while a Canadian travel exec is quoted as saying, "If you don't want us to come, you're giving us a good reason not to."

The Christian Science Monitor, exploring President Bush's vision of 'A Beachhead In Space,' quotes Global Security's John Pike as saying that "space is a really good way to lose a lot of money." In a 2000 interview, Pike argued that "the Air Force doesn't understand that space is different from the air."

David Sirota works the rough numbers to show 'How Much is Bush's SS Tour Costing You?' while Robert Kuttner finds the hidden costs of "tax simplification."

As Mexico's financial markets sell-off in advance of a congressional vote that could keep Mexico City's popular mayor from running for president, an economist tells Reuters: "Although some investors are becoming more sensitive to the political situation ... a million protesters in the Zocalo will jolt more of them into action."

'As the World Watches and Watches,' Billmon offers a 'TV Guide' to coverage of the papal funeral, and an accused exploiter of anti-Catholic bigotry heads to Rome.

"If Orthodox International had a founding father, it was John Paul II," writes Harold Meyerson, describing what he calls the globalization of the blue state-red state division and arguing that Samuel P. Huntington "located his fault line in the wrong place."

The Washington Post investigates the connections between "business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government," a mysterious "Bahamian-registered company," a Washington nonprofit, and an expense-paid trip to Moscow for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay and his staff.

Pay roll The New York Times reports that since 2001, DeLay's political action and campaign committees paid his wife and daughter "more than $500,000" for "fund-raising fees" and other campaign-related services. Plus: "So what if it's in the NY Times ... is it on Fox News?"

Referencing David Foster Wallace's Atlantic Monthly profile of LA radio talker John Ziegler, Slate's Jack Shafer looks at how Fox News apes the conventions of talk radio. Ziegler's Web site says that it had been posting a link to a copy of the profile, "but we were forced by Atlantic and Clear Channel to take it down."

Clear Channel Chairman Lowry Mays finds himself among the list of possible inductees into the newly-established Big Media Hall of Shame. Read how Mays keeps it all in the family.

A Times editorial says a floor speech by Sen. John Cornyn "excuses murderous violence against judges as an understandable reaction to their decisions," while Cornyn regrets that his remarks have been "taken out of context." Earlier: "You'll be able to marry a goat -- you mark my words!"

As a cast of thousands greets attendees at a $1,000 a head fund-raiser for California Gov. Schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives, a political science professor tells the Contra Costa Times that "I think he's going down the Jesse Ventura path to political futility."

Afghanistan likely to have permanent US military

By Peter Spiegel in London
Published: April 5 2005 21:47 | Last updated: April 5 2005 21:47

Afghanistan's defence minister on Tuesday gave one of the clearest signs yet that Kabul is open to permanent basing of US forces in the country, saying his government was in discussions with the US that could include air bases in Afghanistan after the current nation-building process ends.

White House Has Tightly Restricted Oversight of C.I.A. Detentions

April 6, 2005

By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, April 5 - The White House is maintaining extraordinary restrictions on information about the detention of high-level terror suspects, permitting only a small number of members of Congress to be briefed on how and where the prisoners are being held and interrogated, senior government officials say.

Some Democratic members of Congress say the restrictions are impeding effective oversight of the secret program, which is run by the Central Intelligence Agency and is believed to involve the detention of about three dozen senior Qaeda leaders at secret sites around the world.

By law, the White House is required to notify the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of all intelligence-gathering activities. But the White House has taken the stance that the secret detention program is too sensitive to be described to any members other than the top Republican and Democrat on each panel.

Report Tallies Hidden Costs of Human Assault on Nature

April 5, 2005

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

For decades, scientists have been warning that human activities were extinguishing species, altering the climate and degrading landscapes. Now a group of experts has reframed the issue, releasing a sweeping report that measures damage not to nature itself, but to the things nature does for people.

In the report, part of a continuing project called the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, more than 1,300 ecologists and other researchers from 95 countries focus on the capacity of ecosystems to perform valuable functions like filtering water, providing food and pollinating crops.

The Judges Made Them Do It

April 6, 2005
NYT EDITORIAL

It was appalling when the House majority leader threatened political retribution against judges who did not toe his extremist political line. But when a second important Republican stands up and excuses murderous violence against judges as an understandable reaction to their decisions, then it is time to get really scared.

It happened on Monday, in a moment that was horrifying even by the rock-bottom standards of the campaign that Republican zealots are conducting against the nation's judiciary. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, rose in the chamber and dared to argue that recent courthouse violence might be explained by distress about judges who "are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public." The frustration "builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in" violence, said Mr. Cornyn, a former member of the Texas Supreme Court who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which supposedly protects the Constitution and its guarantee of an independent judiciary.

A Side Order of Human Rights

April 6, 2005

By ERIC SCHLOSSER

Monterey, Calif. - AND now a word of good news from the world of fast food.

Last month, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group that represents farm workers in southern Florida, announced that it was ending a four-year boycott of Taco Bell. The most remarkable thing about the announcement was the reason behind it: Taco Bell had acceded to all of the coalition's demands. At a time of declining union membership, failed organizing drives and public apathy about poverty, a group of immigrant tomato pickers had persuaded an enormous fast food company - Yum Brands, which in addition to Taco Bell owns KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W All American Food Restaurants and Long John Silver's - to increase the wages of migrant workers and impose a tough code of conduct on Florida tomato suppliers. "Human rights are universal," said Jonathan Blum, a senior vice president of Yum, adding that under Taco Bell's new labor rules "indentured servitude by suppliers is strictly forbidden."

Jurisprudence: Needles and Threats

More tough talk about pulverizing the judiciary.

By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Tuesday, April 5, 2005, at 2:03 PM PT

Yesterday, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn took the floor and announced that judges who make politically based decisions may inadvertently bring violence upon themselves. While pounding away at the Supreme Court's recent decision in Roper v. Simmons, he took the time to issue-amid the qualifiers and caveats of Senate-speak-the following threat:

I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. ... And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence.

Digby/Hullabaloo: He's No Criminal

American Conservative Union: The left has come up with a target, and his name is Tom DeLay. He isn't their first and won't be their last, but for now he's the Republican they hope to take down.

Digby/Hullabaloo: Crazed Nurses And Firefighters

Wow.
Arnold's in trouble.

David Neiwert/Orcinus: C-SPAN plays the fool

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Though it no doubt would like to have put the controversy behind it, C-SPAN's Sunday broadcast of its BookTV program on Deborah Lipstadt's book on her ordeal by libel trial with Holocaust denier David Irving wound up only demonstrating that the concerns over its highly questionable approach were indeed well grounded.

The chief guest on the program was Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid, who, as noted earlier, was probably not the best-informed "expert" the program could have featured. As Reid himself told the New York Sun, he has not read Lipstadt's book.

"I haven't read her book. I told them that. I told C-SPAN I hadn't read the book," the reporter said. "They asked me to come and talk about a trial."

Why, one must ask, did a program about books ask Reid to come talk about a trial?

The Schiavo case's intended and unintended consequences

Bill Berkowitz - WorkingForChange

04.05.05 - If the Rev. Jesse Jackson's last-minute appearance in the hours preceding the death of Teri Schiavo rubbed you the wrong way, hold on for just a moment. The Rev. Jackson, who made it clear that he passionately believed Terri's feeding tube should be reattached, had some other things on his mind as well. The fact that he got to talk about a broader "culture of life" agenda during several interviews was a direct result of his having stood with the Schindler family.

Tax Abuse Rampant in Nonprofits, IRS Says

By Albert B. Crenshaw
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 5, 2005; Page E01

Charities and other nonprofits exempted from taxes because they serve a public purpose have become a hotbed of tax evasion and abuse, according to the head of the Internal Revenue Service.

So how much debt has President Bush run up on his watch?

This page on the Bureau of Public Debt website gives some month by month and year by year benchmarks.

If I'm reading the data right (and math isn't my forte, so don't assume that's a throwaway line), at the end of September 2001, the total debt of the United States government stood at just over $5.8 trillion dollars.

The Ugly Side of Pretty (cometics, health & environment)

By Rebecca Ephraim, Common Ground. Posted April 6, 2005.

Emerging science suggests that untold numbers of cosmetics and personal care ingredients may be silently and insidiously promoting cancer, ravaging women's reproductive functions and causing birth defects.

"I don't pay much attention to the ingredient lists, I just know what works for me," said Shelley Carpenter, when asked what she looks for in her personal care products. Thinking a little harder, she adds, "I'm allergic to most perfumes, so I stay away from smelly stuff. But I couldn't pin it down." This begs the question, "Who can?" After all, how many of us have the time or inclination to scour the ingredient lists of our moisturizer, deodorant, body lotion and any of the other products we slather on daily?

An Academic Question (Paul Krugman column)

by Paul Krugman

It's a fact, documented by two recent studies, that registered Republicans and self-proclaimed conservatives make up only a small minority of professors at elite universities. But what should we conclude from that?

Conservatives see it as compelling evidence of liberal bias in university hiring and promotion. And they say that new "academic freedom" laws will simply mitigate the effects of that bias, promoting a diversity of views. But a closer look both at the universities and at the motives of those who would police them suggests a quite different story.

Claims that liberal bias keeps conservatives off college faculties almost always focus on the humanities and social sciences, where judgments about what constitutes good scholarship can seem subjective to an outsider. But studies that find registered Republicans in the minority at elite universities show that Republicans are almost as rare in hard sciences like physics and in engineering departments as in softer fields. Why?

Echidne of the Snakes: There is no God (on David Brooks)

The proof is in the fact that David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times and I'm but a penniless blogging goddess. His columns are not only full of lies and inaccuracies and made-up sociological trends which nobody else has ever observed but they reek of immense intellectual laziness. Isn't sloth one of the deadly sins?

The Long Emergency (end of cheap oil)

What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?

By JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER

A few weeks ago, the price of oil ratcheted above fifty-five dollars a barrel, which is about twenty dollars a barrel more than a year ago. The next day, the oil story was buried on page six of the New York Times business section. Apparently, the price of oil is not considered significant news, even when it goes up five bucks a barrel in the span of ten days. That same day, the stock market shot up more than a hundred points because, CNN said, government data showed no signs of inflation. Note to clueless nation: Call planet Earth.

Digby/Hullabaloo: I'm Not Like Them. Really.

Perhaps I'm unduly cynical, but I simply cannot take this David Brooks column seriously. Brad Plumer and Mark Schmittt seem to think that he's really on to something, while Matt Yglesias takes issue with it. I think it's just the usual GOP projection bullshit combined with a little CYA sleight of hand.

I don't think it's wrong to say that Democrats should embrace the big ideas. I think we've all agreed that our approach has been a bit too long on programmatic details and a bit too short on the vision thing. But the mere idea that the Republicans derive their strength from diversity just cracks me up. Yeah. And FoxNews is fair and balanced. Tipsy disagreements at cocktail parties don't count as diversity.

Digby/Hullabaloo: Mentor, Mentee

So, one of John Cornyn's schoolmates had wondered if his old acquaintance might have a little problem with the race issue when he ran for Senator against Ron Kirk. Unbenownst to most people, Cornyn had been an avid supporter of George Wallace:

I read a couple of weeks ago that John Cornyn had pledged to keep the issue of race out of his upcoming U.S. Senate campaign against African-American Democratic nominee Ron Kirk. That was a relief, because the John Cornyn I knew in high school was a big supporter of George Wallace and seemed oblivious to the dangers of Wallace’s racial demagoguery.

Prisoners riot in southern Iraq

Prisoners at a US-run detention camp in southern Iraq rioted last week, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

"There was a riot at Camp Bucca on April 1 - an ICRC delegation was there that day on one of its regular prisoner visits and it is now following up the situation," said Christophe Beney, the head of the ICRC's Baghdad delegation.

Earlier, a representative of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's movement had revealed that some detainees rioted at Camp Bucca after one of them was denied medical treatment.

A Very Short History of Neoconservatism

by Eric Alterman
for MediaTransparency.org

POSTED APRIL 5, 2005 --

Within the past month or so the political/cultural group known as the Neoconservatives (Neocons) have lost two of their central magazines. The first, The Public Interest, a journal of domestic affairs edited by Irving Kristol and Nathan Glazer, announced that it would be folding. Almost simultaneously 10 members of the editorial board of The National Interest, a foreign policy journal also founded by Kristol, resigned in protest over the 'realist' direction taken by the magazine under its new owners at the Nixon Center.

But save your tears for the Neocons, because they can afford to lose a magazine or two. Neoconservatives have never lacked for publications from which to pontificate. In fact, for much of the movement's three and a half decades observers have quipped that it has enjoyed more magazines than members.

Media Matters: Dobson relied on false and misleading statements to bash judges

Reading from a prepared address about judges that he touted as "prophetic", Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson conflated state circuit judges whose decisions he opposed with federal judges in order to rally support for President Bush's federal bench nominations; misstated the political leanings of several judges in order to support his flawed contention that the judiciary is out of step with "American opinion"; and called for the impeachment of six U.S. Supreme Court justices, including four Republican political appointees, as well as the abolition of a federal appeals court in San Francisco.

Atrios at Eschaton: Senator Box Turtle

Cornyn Video

I'm with Wolfowitz

Liberal handwringing over the World Bank simply reflects a failure to recognise the role it exists to fulfil

George Monbiot
Tuesday April 5, 2005
The Guardian

It's about as close to consensus as the left is ever likely to come. Everyone this side of Atilla the Hun and the Wall Street Journal agrees that Paul Wolfowitz's appointment as president of the World Bank is a catastrophe. Except me.

Under Wolfowitz, my fellow progressives lament, the World Bank will work for America. If only someone else were chosen, it would work for the world's poor. Joseph Stiglitz, the bank's renegade former chief economist, champions Ernesto Zedillo, a former president of Mexico. A Guardian leading article suggested Colin Powell or, had he been allowed to stand, Bono. But what all this hand-wringing reveals is a profound misconception about the role and purpose of the body Wolfowitz will run.

Article continues

---

---

The World Bank and the IMF were conceived by the US economist Harry Dexter White. Appointed by the US Treasury to lead the negotiations on postwar economic reconstruction, White spent most of 1943 banging the heads of the other allied nations together. They were appalled by his proposals. He insisted that his institutions would place the burden of stabilising the world economy on the countries suffering from debt and trade deficits rather than on the creditors. He insisted that "the more money you put in, the more votes you have". He decided, before the meeting at Bretton Woods in 1944, that "the US should have enough votes to block any decision".

Both the undemocratic voting arrangement and the US veto remain to this day. The result is that a body that works mostly in poor countries is controlled by rich ones. White demanded that national debts be redeemable for gold, that gold be convertible into dollars, and that exchange rates be fixed against the dollar. The result was to lay the ground for what was to become the dollar's global hegemony. White also decided that the IMF and the bank would be sited in Washington.

Before you get your free ticket to see the president, a Republican has some questions for you

Bush was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last week for another campaign stop “town hall” meeting to discuss privatizing Social Security. As usual, tickets were distributed through a local Republican office. But in a move that may be less common, the GOP office quizzed would-be attendees before making the free tickets available. (via Froomkin)

A spokesperson for Republican Sen. Pete Domenici’s office, the office that distributed most of the tickets, told the Journal’s Michael Coleman that people requesting tickets were actually quizzed about their views of the president and his plans for Social Security. (emphasis added)

Welcome to the brave new world of over-the-top media manipulation. No critical questions, no spontaneity, nothing left to chance.

Robert Parry/Consortium News: Russian Report on 1980 'October Surprise' Case

This document -- a "confidential" cable from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow -- is a translation of a report sent on Jan. 11, 1993, from the national security committee of the Russian legislature to a U.S. House task force that was then investigating the so-called "October Surprise" controversy.

That case centered on allegations that, during the summer and fall of 1980, the Reagan-Bush campaign conducted secret negotiations with Iran's Islamic fundamentalist government, which was holding 52 Americans hostage. The lingering crisis sapped President Jimmy Carter's political strength and cleared the way for Ronald Reagan's historic victory. The hostages were freed immediately after Reagan became President.

Daily Kos: Cornyn roundup

by kos
Mon Apr 4th, 2005 at 19:36:02 PST

Cornyn's defense of domestic terrorism is making lots of noise online.

Digby at Hullabaloo: Back To The Future

I don't know who this group of hippie protester strawmen are in Kevin Mattson's cautionary tale in this months Prospect, but I've not had the pleasure. I don't think there exists a vast number of nostalgic baby boomers and utopian youngsters out there who are planning to launch another Summer of Love, unless he's specifically talking about the anti-Iraq war protests, which of course, he is, but won't admit it. That's because those war protesters weren't trying to hop on a nostalgic magic carpet ride back to the days of Hanoi Jane, they were participating in a worldwide protest about a very specific unjust war being launched by an illegitimate president --- a war which the "fighting liberals" like he and Peter Beinert foolishly endorsed. I suppose the fact that millions of people all over the globe also marched merely means that they too were recreating the alleged glory days of People's Park.

Digby at Hullabaloo: 'The term "Texas mafia" is no longer metaphorical.'

"You had to have a sit down, you had to have an OK, or....you'd be the one who got whacked."

I think Yglesias exactly nails the brutish logic of Cornyn's "warning" earlier today. These guys are selling protection, saying that they would hate to see something happen to these judges who won't cooperate but sadly, unless they do there's not much they can do about it.

His hope -- along, it seems, though less clearly -- with Tom DeLay's is that judges will begin to operate under a cloud of intimidation. They may not like the idea of buckling under to whatever it is Cornyn wants them to do, but Cornyn is making it clear that he's the judges' friends. He doesn't want to see them killed, or maimed, or assaulted. He's trying to save them. Trying to warn them. Warning them that unless they change their ways someone -- someone who has nothing to do with John Cornyn or the Texas cabal running the country, mind you -- just might decide to do something crazy. But here's Cornyn offering a safe harbor. Confirm all of Bush's nominees, no matter how incompetent, corrupt, or inept they are, no matter how unsound their view of the constitution. And for the others, try to conform your views to those of Bush's new appointees. Do it and you'll be safe. If you don't do it, well, then, certainly John Cornyn wouldn't advocate killing you, he's just pointing out that it will happen.

Juan Cole/Informed Comment: April 4, 2005

Wesley Clark Conference Call

Wesley Clark held a conference call on the situation in Iraq with some bloggers Monday afternoon, in advance of testifying in Washington on the situation.

He began by pointing out that the US military made an assessment in September of 2002 that it could hold Iraq with 70,000 troops.

[I had not heard this before, and if it is true, and if the assessment came from the officer corps, it means that the typical opposition set up between Gen. Shinseki and others who wanted more troops, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who wanted a small force--might actually reflect a dispute within the officer corps itself, with Rumsfeld siding with the minimalist faction in the brass.]

Juan Cole/Informed Comment: April 5, 2005

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Another Bombing at Abu Ghraib
Sunni Meeting Collapses in Acrimony

Guerrillas mounted another bombing attack on Abu Ghuraib prison (this one involving a tractor), leaving 5 Iraqi civilians wounded. On Sunday, a combination of car bombings and mortar attacks wounded dozens of Americans and Iraqis. The NYT reveals that a rumor is going around that Iraqi women are being held at Abu Ghraib and raped. (Given the evidence that surfaced last year, of sexual humiliation of prisoners and the rape of at least one woman, these rumors are found plausible by Sunni Arabs).

David Neiwert/Orcinus: The cold embrace

Tuesday, April 05, 2005
A number of observers, both right and left, have concluded that the Terri Schiavo case was a watershed moment, a turning point of sorts in the national discourse.

On the right, they see it as the moment when the left's "culture of death" was seriously confronted for the first time. On the left, it's being hopefully viewed as the moment when the right finally jumped the shark and revealed their ugly, intrusive underside to the public at large.

It will take some time, of course, to ascertain which of these views is closer to the truth, though obviously I've already endorsed the latter wholly.

Neutering Social Security

When George W. says he's going to "fix" our Social Security system, I feel like a dog that's just been told, "We're taking you to the vet to get you fixed."

Whether it's to dogs or to We the People, George's message is the same: This radical surgery is needed for your own good. If, however, you suspect that something besides your welfare is really motivating him ... you're exactly right.

Gas to hit $2.50 by Memorial Day, experts say

The U.S. average is already running above $2.15 a gallon, well beyond last spring's peak. California prices could zoom close to $3.

Rove Says Social Security Overhaul Must Have Private Accounts

April 5 (Bloomberg) -- Private accounts must be part of any permanent Social Security fix, said Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's deputy chief of staff, expressing optimism Congress will end a partisan standoff and pass such a measure this year.

Echidne of the Snakes: About the Pope, With a Frown

John Paul II did quite a few good deeds during his earthly sojourn, and many have told us about them, with love, George Bush included. He spoke for peace and for the poor of this world. What also needs to be mentioned is his shadow side. We all have one, even the most saintly among us (the presence of the shadow side being what differentiates humans from angels), and John Paul II had quite a sizable one.

It was the policies of the church that he pushed for which made condoms unacceptable for Catholics in African AIDS-stricken countries. It is probably not possible to measure how many lives could have been saved by a more liberal Catholic church, but this does not mean those lives were not lost.

Digby/Hullabaloo: Mandatory Support for DeLay

"It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."

Morton Blackwell, Republican National Committee member from Virginia and a member of ACU's board, said Republicans are being told support for Mr. DeLay is mandatory if they want future support from conservatives.

"Conservative leaders across the country are working now to make sure that any politician who hopes to have conservative support in the future had better be in the forefront as we attack those who attack Tom DeLay," he said."

Atrios/Eschaton: Unbelievable

Senator Cornyn on the Senate floor today (no link):

SENATOR JOHN CORNYN: "I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence.

Daily Howler - April 4, 2005

WASHINGTON AWOL (PART 1)! The press is AWOL—and Lithwick is shocked. But the press has been AWOL for years

MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2005

SHOW US THE MONEY: As we see it, Matt Yglesias owes us four dollars; David Edelstein, our favorite, owes us four more. And someone has to send us two bucks for that lemon bar we bought going into the theater. (Maybe that should be Kevin Drum, for linking to Matt in the first place.) But where do we go to get back the time lost to merciful sleep during this earth-shattering snore-bore? Do you want to be completely confounded? Read the gents’ praise for the latest hot flick, then go see Sin City yourselves.

WASHINGTON AWOL (PART 1): In Slate, Dahlia Lithwick makes an excellent point about press reaction to Men in Black, Mark Levin’s junk-book best-seller. But before we examine her excellent point, how about a point of puzzlement? We don’t have the slightest idea why Lithwick thinks this is the case:

LITHWICK: Men in Black was published by Regnery Publishing—the same outfit that brought us Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry last summer. Serious journalists spent serious time debunking the claims set forth in the Swift Boat book, but absolutely no one seems to be taking on Levin.

The economy is based on borrowing

Sunday, April 3, 2005

MARK TRAHANT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

The news about the economy sounded pretty good last week.

The government reported the economy is on a roll again. The Commerce Department says there's a sharp pickup in the creation of jobs and we are earning more for our work.

This is good news to some people because it's proof that the Bush tax cuts are working. But there are lots of ways to interpret these facts.

The numbers I've been reading scare me.

Digby at Hullabaloo: Teachable Moment

Via Kevin, I see that Andrew Sullivan's question has been answered as to what the Republican party has in mind when it comes to personal freedom. He quotes Eric Cohen's piece in the Weekly Standard in which he claims that "people cannot be allowed to revoke life simply because it is theirs' to revoke."

We still possess dignity and rights even when our capacity to make free choices is gone; and we do not possess the right to demand that others treat us as less worthy of care than we really are ... [T]he autonomy regime, even at its best, is deeply inadequate. It is based on a failure to recognize that the human condition involves both giving and needing care, and not always being morally free to decide our own fate.

Juan Cole/Informed Comment: Monday, April 04, 2005

Speaker of Parliament Elected amid Rancor

Two more US servicemen were killed by guerrilla attacks over the weekend, and the Green Zone took mortar fire near the Iraqi parliament again, during a recess, on Sunday. This news comes a day after a car bomb and mortar attack on Abu Ghraib prison, left 44 US troops wounded along with over a dozen Iraqis.

Enough security to allow a meeting of the parliament was achieved, however, only by closing major bridges in and out of Baghdad and placing restrictions on the circulation of drivers in the capital. Member of parliament and cleric, Shaikh Hussein al-Sadr, warned that such measures invonvenience Baghdadi shopkeepers and others and could produce dislike for the parliament if they continued (ash-Sharq al-Awsat). Meanwhile, journalists complained about being locked out of the proceedings. And women deputies, a little less than a third of the total, complained that they were not being offered any important cabinet or executive posts in the negotiations for the formation of a government.

David Neiwert/Orcinus: C-SPAN and Holocaust Denial

Sunday, April 03, 2005

I think everyone believed that C-SPAN had simply embarrassed itself a couple of weeks ago when it tried to insist on a phony "balance" on the subject of Holocaust denial by demanding that author Deborah Lipstadt appear with hoaxter David Irving simultaneously to discuss her book on the libel trial to which Irving subjected her.

The last we heard about this from C-SPAN (back on March 19), they were reconsidering: "We are still discussing how to cover this book, and we don't have an immediate timetable."

Well, now we know how they're going to cover it: Neither Lipstadt nor Irving will discuss her book. Instead, they're going to assemble their own panel to talk about the trial, and by extension, the book.

The Poor Man: Chumps

Biologist PZ Myers reads one too many blog posts about how “evolution is just a theory”, and his head explodes:

So what’s the argument about? Not science, that’s for sure. The opponents of evolution don’t know any. They are effective political agents who are attacking the enterprise of science without addressing the scientific issues seriously. They have been relying on their opponent’s hesitation or aloofness to escape criticism of their competence or ignorance. They shout with authority when they possess none.

Goodbye To All That Oil

The peak oil idea – which says that world oil production will go into irreversible decline sometime in the next decade or two – is quickly morphing into conventional wisdom.

Pak nuke scientist A Q Khan met Osama: Report

Sunday, 03 April , 2005, 12:24

New Delhi: Pakistani scientists Abdul Qadeer Khan and Sultan Bashiruddin
Mehmood had held meetings with Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda
leaders, exchanged letters with militant organisations like the
Lashkar-e-Toiba and attended their gatherings and rallies, a media
report said.

Georgia Lawmakers Pass Demand for Voter Photo ID

By ARIEL HART

Published: April 1, 2005

ATLANTA, March 31 - The Georgia legislature on Thursday approved what election officials called the strictest measure in the country for screening voters, requiring one of six forms of government-issued photo identification at the polls.

Roundup®highly lethal to amphibians

Roundup®highly lethal to amphibians, finds University of Pittsburgh researcher

PITTSBURGH--The herbicide Roundup® is widely used to eradicate weeds. But a study published today by a University of Pittsburgh researcher finds that the chemical may be eradicating much more than that.

Pitt assistant professor of biology Rick Relyea found that Roundup®, the second most commonly applied herbicide in the United States, is "extremely lethal" to amphibians. This field experiment is one of the most extensive studies on the effects of pesticides on nontarget organisms in a natural setting, and the results may provide a key link to global amphibian declines.

Juan Cole/Informed Comment: Sunday, April 03, 2005

Sunday, April 03, 2005

44 US Troops Injured in Abu Ghraib Attack, Some Seriously
12 Iraqis Wounded
6 Iraqis killed in Separate Incidents

An organized platoon of some 40 guerrillas launched mortar attacks on Abu Ghrain prison on Saturday, wounding 44 US troops, some seriously, and 12 Iraqis. The US holds 10,500 Iraqis prisoner, suspecting them of being active in the anti-US guerrilla movement.

Lurching Toward Theocracy

“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will. ... When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say ‘Heil’ to him, nor will they call him ‘Fuhrer’ or ‘Duce’. But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of ‘O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!’”

-- Dorothy Thompson, 1935

“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security.…”

-- They Thought They Were Free, Milton Mayer, 1955

“Whoooo could imagine, that they would freak out, in Kansas, Kansas, badoobie-doobie-do, Kansas, Kansas...”

-- “Help I'm A Rock,” The Mothers of Invention, 1966

“... STOP groups like the ACLU from removing all mentions of Christmas from the public square!”

-- Christian Response e-Alert, December 2004

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, assassinated Ernst von Rath, a low-ranking German official, at his embassy in Paris. Two days later, Kristallnacht (“Night of Crystal”), a pogrom that destroyed synagogues, Jewish-owned homes, stores and community centers, commenced.

Kristallnacht was incited by a well-organized “intense campaign against Jews [which] began on German National Radio,” Milton Mayer wrote in his 1955 book They Thought They Were Free. Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi regime's Propaganda Minister, directed the campaign that appeared to move ordinary Germans to action against Jews: Are the German people going to be “sitting ducks all over the world for Jew murderers?” the radio voice challenged. “Are the German people to stand helpless while the Fuhrer's representatives are shot down by the Jew swine? Are the Schweinehunde to get off scot free? Is the wrath of the German People against the Israelite scum to be restrained any longer?”