Billmon: A Photoshop Assault on Rush Limbaugh

Check the picture at the end of Billmon's post--Dictynna

Rush to Judgment

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday denied an appeal from Rush Limbaugh, removing a hurdle for Palm Beach County prosecutors to use the conservative talk show host's medical records as they investigate his prescription drug use.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Limbaugh loses medical records appeal
April 28, 2005

Don't you remember the crack cocaine epidemic? Crack babies and out-of-control murder rates? Liberal judges giving the bad guys slaps on the wrist? Finally we got tough, and the crime rate has been falling ever since, so what's wrong?

Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh.com
August 18, 2003

Echidne: On Flannel Knickers and Feminism

The Concerned Women of America is a group of anti-feminists, a little like the Independent Women's Forum except that the latter group would wear G-strings and the Concerned Women long flannel knickers. And the Concerned Women have a male as their spokesperson. Otherwise the two wingnut organizations are pretty much in agreement about what has caused all the problems of this country: feminism. Except when feminism has been totally ignored and ridiculed and proven faulty. But even in those cases all that is wrong in the world (abortions, latchkey children, women with beards, impotent men, messy houses, divorces, the decline of America's military power and so on and on) is the fault of feminism. Though it has also been totally defeated and was ridiculous to begin with.

This short summary may explain why I don't write about these groups' ideas very much. To criticize them I have to chase an idea around a circle, leap over cooked-up evidence and turn around a corner just to find that the idea has morphed into its opposite. And everything they propose is covered with this slippery slime of emotional references to mom and apple-pie and how much better times were when women didn't have the vote.

The Dollar's Doldrums

by Doug Henwood

ity the once-mighty greenback. Back during the Clinton years, treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers ceaselessly intoned the mantra "A strong dollar is in our national interest," and the markets cooperated by driving its value against the major foreign currencies steadily higher. That momentum continued through the first year of the Bush Administration.

Power Failure: What Bush still doesn't understand about Iraq and North Korea

Two questions prompted by President Bush's press conference Thursday night: Does he believe what he said about Iraq and North Korea, or was he just yakking? And which prospect is more disturbing?

If the president believes what he said, he doesn't comprehend the nature of either crisis. If he doesn't believe it and was just reciting the usual grab bag of clichés, what was his point? To deflect attention from an as-yet-undisclosed policy, or to obscure the lack of any policy at all?

Daily Howler - April 29, 2005

MASLIN’S FOLLY! The Times praised part of Coulter’s book. Here’s what we found when we fact-checked

FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2005

THEY WERE WITH STUPID: Dick Durbin did better on Hardball last night. After Bush’s news conference, Durbin tried to tell the public how much those private accounts would cost:

DURBIN (4/28/05): I’d put everything on the table but privatization. And I was there in 1983, a brand-new congressman. I voted for it, because Social Security is so important. But privatization is a loser. It doesn`t strengthen Social Security. It cuts benefits dramatically and it adds $5 trillion or more to the national debt for our kids. That`s not a way to approach this.

That was better than Durbin’s effort in March, when he said (on Meet the Press) that the transition would cost “$2 trillion to $5 trillion,” thereby understating what Dick Cheney himself had said (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/7/05). But to this day, Democrats still can’t coordinate even this simple, key point.

Digby: Duped

Ezra notices this Andrew Sullivan post and argues with Sully's complaint that Democrats just love raising taxes for its own sake. He makes the observation that Democrats don't really care how we raise the money, we are interested in how it's spent. He contrasts that with the Republicans for whom cutting taxes is a virtue, no matter how much is being spent --- leading to George W. Bush. (I'm pretty sure that Democrats prefer to raise money from filthy rich plutocrats who should be patriotic enough not to begrudge the country that gave them everything a little piece of the action, but maybe I'm wrong on that.) In any case, it's true that Democrats see taxation as a tool that must be used to ensure a stable and prosperous society, while Republicans see it as evil in itself --- or more precisely, they like to market it as evil in itself while they spend like Paris Hilton.

Digby: Storytelling

Matt Yglesias over on TAPPED makes a good point about the new parental notification law. It pretty much clears up any remaining notion that repealing Roe vs Wade will solve the abortion issue once and for all so we can put all that unpleasantness aside as various progressive states will do as their constituents require and everybody will live happily ever after.

Pro-lifers are driven by a very serious moral commitment to the idea that aborting pregnancies is a serious wrong. They're not going to be happy sitting idly by while Virginia women travel to Maryland or the District of Columbia to have abortions any more than they're happy with inter-state travel to avoid parental notification laws.

The Poor Man: Porcine opera 101

Glam.

The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said Thursday that American intelligence agencies believed North Korea had mastered the technology for arming its missiles with nuclear warheads, an assessment that if correct, means the North could build weapons to threaten Japan and perhaps the western United States.

As Jeffrey Lewis explains, this information is probably not so much “new” as it is “new to me” - it has apparently been the intelligence community assessment for some time that North Korea had this capacity, and this assessment was shared privately with allies, but it was not meant for public consumption. Why this bit of information would be withheld from the electorate while the administration’s rumored strategy for containing North Korea falls flat on its face is left as an exercise for the reader.

War that ended 30 years ago still missing in most school curricula

Vietnam's lost lessons

Friday, April 29, 2005
By Michael A. Fuoco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Perhaps fittingly for a war as controversial as that in Vietnam, the last iconic images from the bitter conflict show the chaos, fear and confusion as helicopters evacuate Americans and South Vietnamese from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy and other locations in Saigon.

Four hours after the last evacuees were lifted to safety offshore, the South Vietnamese government announced its unconditional surrender to the Viet Cong. The long, costly war had ended.

Bush Cites Plan That Would Cut Social Security Benefits

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: April 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 28 - President Bush called Thursday night for cutting Social Security benefits for future retirees to put the system on sound financial footing, and he proposed doing so in a way that would demand the most sacrifice from higher-income people while insulating low-income workers.

Paul Krugman: A Private Obsession

By PAUL KRUGMAN

American health care is unique among advanced countries in its heavy reliance on the private sector. It's also uniquely inefficient. We spend far more per person on health care than any other country, yet many Americans lack health insurance and don't receive essential care.

This week yet another report emphasized just how bad a job the American system does at providing basic health care. A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation estimates that 20 million working Americans are uninsured; in Texas, which has the worst record, more than 30 percent of the adults under 65 have no insurance.

And lack of insurance leads to inadequate medical attention. Over a 12-month period, 41 percent of the uninsured were unable to see a doctor when needed because of cost; 56 percent had no personal doctor or health care provider.

Our system is desperately in need of reform. Yet it will be very hard to get useful reform, for two reasons: vested interests and ideology.

I will burn myself alive if gang rapists go free, says victim

From Zahid Hussain in Islamabad

A YOUNG victim of gang rape has threatened to set herself on fire in front of Pakistan’s parliament if her attackers are not brought to justice. Nazish Bhatti, 17, told journalists in Islamabad that she escaped from her abductors and fled to a police station but was raped again — by two officers.

The debunker of affirmative action gets debunked.

jurisprudence
Sanding Down Sander
The debunker of affirmative action gets debunked.
By Emily Bazelon
Posted Friday, April 29, 2005, at 8:25 AM PT

Last winter, UCLA law professor Richard Sander was in demand as the debunker of affirmative action after publishing a Stanford Law Review article that said race-based preferences in law-school admissions reduce the number of black law students who pass the bar and become lawyers. Sander's more-harm-than-good claim landed him lots of press coverage and guest spots on NPR's Morning Edition and Fox's Hannity & Colmes. At that point, few statisticians had scrutinized Sander's results—like most law reviews, Stanford's isn't peer-reviewed—and his critics were pretty easy to stuff. "Several people have replicated my study," Sander said on Hannity & Colmes. "And I think it holds up very well."

Experts Say New Data Show Global Warming

April 29, 2005 — By Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press

NEW YORK — Climate scientists armed with new data from deep in the ocean and far into space have found that Earth is absorbing much more heat than it is giving off, a conclusion they say validates projections of global warming.

Lead scientist James Hansen, a prominent NASA climatologist, described the findings on the planet's out-of-balance energy exchange as a "smoking gun" that should dispel doubts about forecasts of climate change. A European climate expert called it a valuable contribution to climate research.

Hansen's team, reporting Thursday in the journal Science, said they also determined that global temperatures will rise 1 degree Fahrenheit this century even if greenhouse gases are capped tomorrow.

Stuck In The Spin Cycle

Robert L. Borosage
April 29, 2005

Robert L. Borosage, a veteran strategist and institution builder, is co-director of the Campaign for America's Future.

With the economy slowing, wages stagnant, the Republican Congress stained by scandal and his poll numbers plummeting, George W. Bush called only the fourth press conference of his presidency to stanch the hemorrhaging. "I have a duty as the president," he said, "to define the problems facing the nation and to call upon people to act." What are those problems? Social Security benefits are too high and must be cut? Oil and gas subsidies are too low and must be raised? No wonder more and more Americans are beginning to think this president is part of the problem and not the solution.

Detainee Questioning Was Faked, Book Says

U.S. Military Denies Staging Interviews

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 29, 2005; Page A21

The U.S. military staged the interrogations of terrorism suspects for members of Congress and other officials visiting the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to make it appear the government was obtaining valuable intelligence, a former Army translator who worked there claims in a new book scheduled for release Monday.

Billmon: Down Time

Yesterday's bit of bad economic news was the first quarter GDP report, which showed the weakness in retail spending and durable goods orders is evolving into a classic inventory-led slowdown -- even if it hasn't yet curtailed the energy-led upturn in consumer inflation.

A whiff of stagflation, in other words -- just as Paul Krugman predicted. While growth slowed to an annualized 3.1% (and will probably be pushed even lower in subsequent revisions) the so-called core personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index rose at a 2.2% rate, the highest level since the last quarter of 2001.

Echidne: Speaking Bush

"Bush" is my shorthand term for the language that our president uses. It takes some translating and decoding into plain English. We got another load of Bush tonight when the president gave what one news source called "one of his rare prime time news conferences". They are rare for a very good reason, and that is to save all of us the torture of listening to a full hour of Bush. My head swims.

Atrios: Bamboozled

Josh gives us a bit from CNN:

Progressive indexing might not sound sexy. But the idea (developed by financier Robert Pozen) of offering bigger checks to low-income retirees, and cutting benefits for the middle class and wealthy, is the most dramatic move Bush has made to broaden his reform plan's appeal since he publicly embraced the largely unappealing private accounts last year. Bush may have addressed millions of TV viewers last night, but his remarks were narrowly targeted to people named Snowe, Chafee, Nelson and Lincoln -- moderates in both parties who say they want Bush to focus less on private accounts and more on shoring up the system's long-term solvency.

This just simply isn't true. Bush has not proposed increasing benefits for very low income workers. He's just proposed not cutting them - and cutting everyone else's a lot.

Talking Points Memo: April 29, 2005 -- 09:42 AM EDT

I take it that we will be forced to allow at least 48 hours for the collective media swoon over President Bush's embrace of "progressive indexing.

Here's a bit from CNN's "Morning Grind" ...
When President Bush takes his new (Democrat-friendly?) pitch for "progressive indexing" across the Potomac this morning, look for signs of his new resolve. His Social Security plan still faces an up(Capitol)hill climb, and nothing he said last night changed that. But few things embolden Bush more than bold strokes, and from Social Security to North Korea to the filibuster/faith debate, he made a few of those strokes last night.

Katha Pollitt: Practice What you Preach

[from the May 16, 2005 issue]

Pharmacists think they have the right to deny women birth control and the morning-after pill. Senator Frist thinks God wants more ultraconservative judges on the federal bench and if you disagree, well, you know where you're going. Forget common ground, it's time to divide up the country. The red-state blue-state map is too crude--too many blue pegs in red holes and vice versa. In the great tradition of American individualism and modern in-depth polling procedures, let's make everyone respond, in writing, to a detailed questionnaire on hot-button "values issues" and then be legally compelled to live by the answers they give. It's a glorious blend of academic right and left--rational choice theory (people make decisions in their own best interests) meets postmodernism (there is no one truth).

The Poor Man: Stanley Kurtz Wins the Wankathalon

Stanley Kurtz may well be the most contemptible wanker on Earth. Check out the big cry he has here in defense of the theocrats, managing - despite the fact that he’s no theocrat, oh no - to hit on every one of the James Dobson-approved talking points his handlers have provided him. Quite a performance, especially considering he typed the whole thing with one hand otherwise engaged. It’s going to be a long one, so let’s hop right in: Scary Stuff.

Harper’s Magazine’s May cover stories about “The Christian Right’s War On America,” frightened me, although not the way Harper’s meant them to. I fear these stories could mark the beginning of a systematic campaign of hatred directed at traditional Christians. Whether this is what Harper’s intends, I cannot say. But regardless of the intention, the effect seems clear.

“Harper’s Magazine frightens me” is not something many grown men would admit in print,

Robert Scheer: Fiddling while crucial programs starve

Has the U.S. become like ancient Rome, in love with costly conquest?

Notice the price of gasoline lately? Isn't it great that we have secured Iraq's oil? And as Congress signs off on yet another huge supplementary grant to supposedly protect U.S. interests in the Mideast, our president pathetically begs his Saudi buddies for a price break. As the fall of Rome showed, imperialism never pays.

Newshounds: In FOX's Wishful Wonderland, We're Winning the War on Terrah

I just finished watching a gut-wrenching photo-history of the the build-up to the first attack on Fallujah, produced by March for Justice (thanks to Randi Rhodes). It made me realize why I do this thankless job day in, day out. Because FOX News Channel was and is complicit in the massive load of bull that led this country into a bloody, seemingly unending nightmare in Iraq.

Stations Of The Cross

How evangelical Christians are creating an alternative universe of faith-based news

By Mariah Blake

It’s the first Tuesday of April. In Washington, D.C., the magnolia trees are blooming, tourists crowd the sidewalk cafés, and Congress has just returned from its spring recess. CBN News has chosen this time to unveil its new and greatly expanded Washington bureau in the Dupont Circle area, where many major networks have their local headquarters; the three-story brick fortress that houses the Washington operations of CBS News is less than a block away.

CBN’s new digs are abuzz with activity. The Republican Senator Trent Lott came by for an interview earlier in the day, as did Jim Towey, who directs the White House office of faith-based initiatives. Now Lee Webb, the CBN anchor in from Virginia, sits behind the desk in one of the studios preparing to deliver the network’s first half-hour nightly newscast from this gleaming set. Behind him is a floor-to-ceiling world map illuminated in violet and indigo and a screen emblazoned with CBN’s logo. At his side, just beyond the camera’s view, sits a squat pedestal that holds a battered American Standard Bible. Webb lowers his head and folds his hands. “Father, we are grateful for today’s program,” he says. “We pray for your blessing. We ask that what we’re about to do will bring honor to you.” Then the cameras roll.

Robert W. McChesney Is Working To Reclaim Our Free Press

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

Our seminal belief is that if all these issues of ownership of public broadcasting, or copyrights, and right of Internet access, are laid out in the open, we’re pretty confident we’ll get good policy. American people will, in a healthy debate, come up with good policies. ... The important point to remember is that the bad guys here are ultimately not Clear Channel Radio, or ViaCom, or Rupert Murdoch. ... The bad guys here are the policy makers who created this system. Radio’s really a very inexpensive medium, and there’s no reason why every radio station in Chicago couldn’t have a different owner. ... But the rules that allow Clear Channel to gobble up all the stations are negotiated behind closed doors. And that’s what our fight is - to make the policy makers accountable to the people of this country, not to Clear Channel, ViaCom or Sinclair Broadcasting.

* * *

A free press is assumed to be part and parcel of American democracy. But as Robert W. McChesney makes clear, we'd better fight for it right now if we want to hold onto it and actually reclaim it from the corporate boardrooms and unseen political backrooms where decisions are currently being made. The upcoming National Conference for Media Reform, which McChesney has helped to organize, will bring together many freedom-of-the-press fighters whose ideas and activism are focused on shaping public policy on the media, encouraging independent media -- say, there's a worthy cause -- or offering up media criticism. Here's his conference preview and thoughts on what we need to be doing.

Belgian doctors bill US for treating Iraqi girl

I hope they have the good sense to pay it....--Dictynna

29.04.05 11.20am

BRUSSELS - Belgian doctors sent an Iraqi girl home on Thursday after treating her for leg wounds caused by a bomb during the US invasion - and sent the US$66,650 (NZ$91,490) bill to the US embassy.

"We haven't heard from them yet," said Bert De Belder, coordinator of the humanitarian agency Medical Aid for Third World which brought the girl to Belgium.

Bush's Press Conference: Little News, One Big Problem

04/28/2005 @ 10:48pm

There was not much news in George W. Bush's fourth primetime press conference. He acknowledged he could do nothing much about the high price of gas except to plead with the Saudis and other oil producers to boost production. He predictably called on Congress to pass an energy bill that would lead to more drilling and an expansion of nuclear power. While paying lip service to conservation, he only referred to developing technology that would save energy; he did not mention changing consumption patterns.

House Passes Budget That Cuts Medicaid

Friday April 29, 2005 2:46 AM

AP Photo WHLJ101

By MARY DALRYMPLE

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House narrowly passed a $2.6 trillion budget Thursday evening that would cut back the Medicaid health care program for the poor for the first time since 1997 in a step toward trimming federal deficits.

Digby: Born to Rule

Billmon has written a wonderful review of Shadia Drury’s book, Leo Strauss and the American Right which I urge everyone to read. I was reminded of a conversation I had with my older brother (the smart one in the family) about fifteen years ago. We were listening to Newt Gingrich smarmily intone about God and family values on CSPAN and my brother turned to me and said, "They want to repeal the enlightenment." I thought, as I have often thought in my life, that my brother was full of shit. And as has often been the case, I was wrong. When the neos really started to flex their muscles back in the late 90's it was clear that they were, shockingly, hostile to the enlightenment. I had many an argument with libertarians(which I have since abandoned for lack of hours in the day and cells in the brain) trying to tell them that the modern Republicans think John Stuart Mill was a dangerous radical and that the American constitution is a piece of toilet paper.

David Neiwert: The Great White Peril

Y'know, by Gar, there may be some good come out of this Minuteman thing yet.

Fresh after hanging up their lassos and sidearms and calling it quits by declaring victory well before the end of their originally avowed 30-day vigil, the Minuteman Project's organizers, according to the Washington Post, are turning their sights northward to the Canadian border:
Minuteman Project leaders said their volunteers this month alerted federal authorities to more than 330 cases of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States over a 23-mile stretch of Arizona's southern border. Now they plan to extend their patrol along the rest of the border with Mexico and are helping to organize similar efforts in four states that neighbor Canada.

Robert Parry: The Left's Media Miscalculation

By Robert Parry
April 29, 2005

To understand how the United States got into today’s political predicament – where even fundamental principles like the separation of church and state are under attack – one has to look back at strategic choices made by the Right and the Left three decades ago.

Noe faces federal probe for Bush contributions

2003 fund-raising activities draw interest

By MIKE WILKINSON and JAMES DREW
BLADE STAFF WRITERS

Federal authorities said yesterday they are investigating local businessman and prominent Republican fund-raiser Tom Noe for possible violations of campaign contribution laws.

Barbara Ehrenreich: A Society That Throws the Sick Away

April 28, 2005

Most countries are proud to have a healthcare system. It's an organized way of helping the sick and infirm — a mark of genuine civilization. Not so here, alas, where the health system is rapidly becoming a health hazard. After decades of privatizing, profiteering and insurance company-driven bureaucratization, Florence Nightingale has morphed into Vampira.

Healthcare costs are sucking the blood out of the economy, for one thing. Consider poor General Motors, once the nation's flagship corporation and now sinking under the weight of its employee health benefits — which account for $1,500 of the sticker price of each new vehicle. As GM contemplates bankruptcy, other companies thrash around frantically trying to shed their insurance-needy American employees. They downsize and outsource — anything to escape the burden of health costs. The result? Our "jobless recovery": Companies don't want to assume responsibility for their workers' medical bills and — this being the global temple of free enterprise — neither does the government.

The Stain of Abu Ghraib

Reed Brody
April 28, 2005

Reed Brody is special counsel at Human Rights Watch and the author of three reports on detainee abuse.

It has now been one year since the appearance of the first pictures of U.S. soldiers humiliating and torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

In the intervening months, it has become clear that Abu Ghraib was only the tip of the iceberg. Around the world, in a long archipelago of recognized detention centers from Iraq and Aghanistan to Guantánamo and in “secret locations” where CIA prisoners are kept, the United States is brutalizing Muslim detainees in the name of the war on terror.

Panel Questions Patriot Act Uses

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 28, 2005; Page A07

Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence pushed the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence officials yesterday to share more information on the use and effectiveness of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

"I think we need to have more public disclosure in examining and assessing its impact," Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) said. "We are to some extent doing oversight in the dark," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said.

The GOP Cave-In

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 28, 2005; 8:27 AM

That was an unusual sight yesterday morning: Denny Hastert, holding a news conference that was carried live by cable.

Of course, the speaker of the House can talk to reporters and make news any time he wants. But how often have you seen Hastert do that? He is a classic behind-the-scenes operator, and usually so low key that most Americans probably think Tom DeLay runs the House.

Daily Howler - April 28, 2005

CONTEMPT ON HOLD! When Time pimped Coulter, it became crystal clear. There are two different liberal webs:

THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2005

CONTEMPT ON HOLD: We had planned to do four parts on “Contempt,” but we’ve decided to suspend that incomparable effort. But let’s add a final thought about Time’s two-week salute to America’s master-ironist, Ann Coulter.

We agree with the Alterman reader who called the Time cover story “a new low for the mainstream media.” As such, we advise you to think again about a dichotomy that was clearly observed on the liberal web in the wake of this remarkable piece.

Billmon: The Grand Delusion

There will be played in Germany a drama compared to which the French revolution will seem but an innocent idyll. At present everything is quiet; though here and there a few men create a stir, do not imagine them to be the real actors in the piece. They are only the little curs who chase each other round the arena, until the appointed hour when the gladiators appear to fight for life and death. And the hour will come.

Heinrich Heine
1834

I decided to step away from my computer for a few days and catch up on my reading – I’m getting tired of looking at the same set of book covers on the left side of my page, and figured I should either read a couple of them or stop pretending and take them down.

Daily Howler - April 27, 2005

THROUGH THE TUBE DARKLY! We puzzled as Russert continued presenting all religion, almost all the darn time

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2005

BOZELL GETS IT RIGHT: We rarely get to offer praise for events that occur in Scarborough Country. So let’s take the chance to applaud the rogue state for its discussion of the Washington Post’s silly poll. Indeed, Brent Bozell even got it right about the question the Post asked:

POLL QUESTION: Would you support or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush’s judicial nominees?

After asking that vague-and-therefore-loaded question, the Post’s page-one headline thundered the news: “Filibuster Rule Change Opposed.” Let’s face it—if you’d asked that question ten other ways, you would have gotten ten other results. This was exceptionally bad poll reporting—so bad that Brent Bozell got it right!

Digby: Hans and Franz

Kevin worries that using John Bolton's malevolent personality as a reason for scuttling the nomination is bad news for us because it gives people like Bill Kristol an excuse to make the argument that Democrats are sissies.

It seems to me that nominations are almost always scuttled on trivial charges rather than the substantive ones. Nowadays, people are creating nanny problems for troubled nominees who don't even have nannies. There seems to be a unspoken agreement that nominees will be allowed to bow out for some mistake or character quirk rather than a charge of incompetence or malfeasance. Perhaps it's a strange form of face saving for the president who nominated the person.

Digby: Who Are We?

Ezra takes Kos to task for his proposed slogan "The Democrats are the party of people who work for a living" saying that it isn't as effective as the successful Republican mantra "small government, low taxes, family values and strong national defense." He says that the slogan should reflect an actual agenda, not some ephemeral platitude. I actually think they are both misunderstanding what that Republican list really is. Kos thinks it identifies who the party represents and Ezra thinks it's a legislative agenda.

Digby: Charming The Ladies

There has been a lot of talk on the left about how to appeal to the married woman voters who migrated to George W. Bush.

Perhaps we should just tell them that the spiritual leader of the conservative movement for which they are voting (and dear friend of Tom Delay and George W. Bush) has this to say:

"My observation is that women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership."James Dobson

I just have a feeling that the vast, vast majority of American women might find that a little but insulting. In fact, they might just find George W. Bush's metaphorical soul kiss with the religious right kind of insulting when they see it in those terms.

Digby: Impulse Control

Quick, somebody ask head security mom, Cokie Roberts, if she thinks it's ok for Republicans to act like juvenile delinquents on the taxpayers dime? The children are rewriting Democratic amendments to make them sound as if Democrats are trying to protect sexual predators. And no, this isn't happening in some obscure local backwater. It's in the US House of Representatives:

DEMS: a Nadler amendment allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state’s parental notice laws if this remedy is not available in the state court. (no 11-16)

GOP REWRITE:. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have created an additional layer of Federal court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction under the bill. By a roll call vote of 11 yeas to 16 nays, the amendment was defeated.

Digby: A Reverent Moment

Josh Marshall has been following the Princeton Filibuster which is being held in front of the Frist Campus Center. Among the many things they read throughout the rainy night, along with excerpts of the constitution, was the American classic "My Pet Goat."


snigger

Digby: Slow Boil

I didn't have a lot to say about The Pope Show because I like to show respect for other people's beliefs and when a pope dies it's a very big deal to catholics. (And judging by the wall to wall TV coverage, it was a big deal to many other people as well.) I also haven't said much about the new Pope because while I know that he has had an influence on politics in this country, I haven't felt that it was primarily my business to weigh in on religious dogma that I don't share.

Digby: They're Heee-ar

Kevin Drum, citing a very interesting article in Dissent by Michael Walzer, says:

In the end, then, we have a stalemate. The left in America has limited energy because its goals are fairly modest and its story is disjointed. The right has energy and vision to spare but its goals aren't widely supported. Someone — or something — is likely to come along in the near future and smash this stalemate, but what? Or who?

David Neiwert: Caught up in the tide

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

After all that talk about "black-robed tyrants" and hints that any violence directed their way might be well earned, the prominent Republicans involved in the new right-wing attack on the judiciary backed down -- a bit -- at "Justice Sunday" last weekend.

Bill Frist did his best to sound moderate, especially after his earlier intemperate remarks about Democrats attacking "people of faith". I guess when people like Ted Olson and Charles Krauthammer are telling you that this whole line of attack is a bad idea, Republican leaders have decided to step back from the brink and reconsider where their old friends on the extremist right are carrying them.

There's one little problem, though: They're too late. They've created a beast they think they can control. I wonder if they're about to get a rude awakening.

Bush hides the truth about terror, torture

Joe Conason
The New York Observer
04.27.05

Two problems, one solution: Just bury the reports

Responding to the most serious questions we confront as a nation, the Bush administration can routinely be expected to hide, obfuscate and deceive. If credible information indicates that high-ranking government and military officials permitted and even encouraged the horrific abuse of foreign detainees, the administration assures us that a few bad soldiers can be blamed. If honest statistics indicate that the "war on terror" is achieving less than advertised, the administration buries the report in which those numbers are traditionally published.

Republican Broadcasting Corporation

A conservative coup is underway at PBS.

The new head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (the gatekeeper between lawmakers and public broadcasters), Ken Ferree, is a staunch Republican proponent of media deregulation and a former top adviser to FCC Chairman Michael Powell. Three top CPB officials, all with Democratic affiliations, departed or were dismissed in recent months. For the first time in its 38-year history, the CPB ordered a comprehensive review of public TV and radio programming for "evidence of bias." All new PBS funding agreements are conditioned upon the network following "objectivity and balance" requirements for each of its programs.

Donations link DeLay, ethics panel

By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — All five Republicans on the House ethics committee have financial links to Tom DeLay that could raise conflict-of-interest issues should the panel investigate the GOP majority leader.

Public records show DeLay's leadership political action committee (PAC) gave $15,000 to the campaign of Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pa. — $10,000 in 2000 and $5,000 in 2002. Hart would chair a panel to investigate DeLay if the committee moves forward with a probe.

GOP talking points on ethics obtained; Dems targeted in battle

Even before the measure was taken to the full Rules Committee in the House—or the full House—Republicans were circulating talking points seeking to portray the reversal on ethics rules as Democratic foul play, RAW STORY has learned.

The talking points, reproduced below, suggest that Democrats sought to derail the ethics process, though it was Republicans who forced through a controversial ethics page in January that gave the Republican majority the upper hand on a committee that was supposed to be bipartisan.

Analyst fears global oil crisis in three years

John Vidal, environment editor
Tuesday April 26, 2005
The Guardian

One of the world's leading energy analysts yesterday called for an independent assessment of global oil reserves because he believed that Middle Eastern countries may have far less than officially stated and that oil prices could double to more than $100 a barrel within three years, triggering economic collapse.

Mystery of the Democrats' New Spine

By Robert Parry
April 26, 2005

Across the nation’s capital, perplexed political pundits have been rubbing their chins wondering what has happened to the Democrats, who were supposed to quiver in fear of the victorious George W. Bush and his Republican congressional majority. Instead, the minority party has been picking – and even winning – some fights.

Digby: How Ever Will They Resolve This?

Can you believe this kabuki bullshit?

The Bush administration issued a veto threat again Tuesday against a popular highway bill, saying the president would be likely to reject any legislation that exceeds a White House-set spending ceiling or adds to the deficit.

The administration, in saying the legislation "should exhibit funding restraint," was at odds with many in Congress, including some conservatives, who say the deteriorating state of the nation's roads, bridges and public transport demands more aggressive spending.

Digby: Public Service

I am on a couple of right wing mailing lists for which I am grateful because it allows me to keep up with the real Americans and what they are thinking. Here's what they are sending around on social security.

TO TRUST A MATTRESS OR A DEMOCRAT?

Democrats, and Republicans too, have got us all confused about Social Security, but here is an explanation that even the mentally retarded can follow. The average American makes $16.05 per hour according The Bureau of Labor Statistics; lives to age 77 according to the Center for Disease control, officially retires at age 66 according to a law passed by Congress, and contributes 12.4% of his income to Social Security according to a legalized scam perpetrated by the Democrats.

Digby: Living In The Now

Matt Yglesias makes thepoint today (along with a number of other liberal publications and intellectuals) that the Democrats would be better off without the filibuster:

"...however opportunistic the judges-only anti-filibuster stance is, the reality is that the nuclear option will pave the way for Democrats to eliminate legislative filibusters as well whenever they find themselves in the majority. When that happens, the GOP will find that while their only big legislative idea -- tax cuts, tax cuts, and more tax cuts -- is already immune to the filibuster, they can no longer block Democratic ideas."

I think that this would be true only in a world where double standards and lack of accountability did not rule.

Digby: Reading The Tea Leaves

Citing Yglesias for the second time (how does he do it?) I have to wholeheartedly agree with him on this one. This report by the PPI on why we should take on popular culture seems to follow all the blog talk in which it's just assumed that this is an issue that will move votes. I've seen absolutely no actual data to indicate that people will vote Democratic if we join the moralizing bandwagon.

I do however, see evidence in the polls that says people don't like this incursion into people's personal lives by the Republican party --- which would suggest that adopting this "morals-lite" agenda may just backfire.

Digby: Giving Voice To The Voiceless

I must admit that I too am very excited about Ariana Huffington's new blog. As Roger Ailes put it so well:

The "MSM" has for too long silenced the voices of Jann Wenner, Barry Diller, Walter Cronkite and Norman Mailer.

Tony Blankely for too long has been denied a platform to slander George Soros.

Where else could Conrad Black's dogsbody, David Frum, find a space to suck up to his beleaguered master?

Where else would Michael Medved find an wide audience for his completely sane theory that "oil companies are always anti-semitic."

Where would the malnourished John Fund find a buffet that hasn't blacklisted him?

Snoop Program Returns

Everyone at Defense Tech HQ did a little hat dance after we heard about the demise of MATRIX, the far-flung, state-run, terrorist-profiling database. But it looks like we danced too soon.

Juan Cole: April 26, 2005 Part 4

NYT Coverage of Palestinian Deaths Criticized

Alison Weir maintains that a statistical study of the New York Times's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows that the killing of Israeli children is highlighted and fully reported in a way that the killing of Palestinian children is not.

Juan Cole: April 26, 2005 Part 3

Mainstream Media and Bloggers

Matthew Haughey says he won't read our blogs if we use the term "mainstream media" (a.k.a. MSM).

A news flash for Matt: We don't care.

We don't care if you read our web logs.

The difference, Matt, is that we are independent actors, not part of a small set of multi-billion dollar corporations. The difference is that we are not under the constraints of making a 15% profit. The difference is that we are a distributed information system, whereas MSM is like a set of stand-alone mainframes. The difference is that we can say what we damn well please.

Juan Cole: April 26, 2005 Part 2

Badr Corps Will Accept Ex-Baathists

BBC Monitoring translates comments of Hadi al-Amiri in ash-Sharq al-Awsat for April 24:

April 25, 2005

HEADLINE: HEAD OF IRAQI SHI'I GROUP OFFERS UNITY TO EX-BA'THISTS

"The following is the text of the interview with Al-Amiri, conducted in Baghdad by Al-Sharq al-Awsat correspondent Huda Jasim, published by London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat web site on 24 April:

Juan Cole: April 26, 2005 Part 1

Breaking News: Jaafari presents Cabinet to Talabani

The Scotsman reports that prospective Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has presented his cabinet to President Jalal Talabani. Jaafari, a religious Shiite from the Dawa Party, gave 17 cabinet posts to Shiites, including the sensitive one of Interior (which includes domestic intelligence). Sunni Arabs will get the Ministry of Defense and a vice-premiership, as well as at least 3 other cabinet posts. Ex-Baathists among the Sunni Arabs have been excluded.

Juan Cole:

Negotiations on Government

Al-Zaman/ AFP /DPA says that the new Iraqi military exchanged fire with the Syrians Monday at the Iraqi-Syrian border. The outgoing Iraqi government had accused Syria of allowing guerrillas to infiltrate Iraq from its territory. Syria denied the allegations.

A huge fire broke out in the field of the giant Bay Hasan oil field.

David Neiwert: Rudolph's plea

Monday, April 25, 2005
Seems I'm not the only one with questions about how the Justice Department handled Eric Rudolph's case. Now we're hearing from the conservative side of the aisle -- namely, Bill Shipp, a longtime observer of the Georgia political scene:
Pardon the paranoia, but something smells about the deal to let killer-bomber Eric Rudolph cop a plea and avoid a trial.

The Justice Department says it decided to spare Rudolph a death-sentence trial in exchange for information about the locations of relatively small amounts of explosives. Bull!

James Wolcott: Bubble Trouble Dead Ahead

Everyone remembers the now-famous exchange where a Bush aide loftily informed reporter Ron Suskind that he and his kind were stuck behind in the "reality-based community" while the Bushies, as custodians of the new American empire, were empowered to "create our own reality" as they forged full speed ahead. The triumphal Bushies were the dynamic actors of history--reporters were merely recorders of history playing catch-up and subscribing to outmoded metrics of actuality, the poor stooges.

Which is why it was even more incumbent that those outside the admininstration able to influence policy not to indulge in self-induced mind-warp power games. To corral the wild horses in the White House, as it were.

MoveOn Muscles Up

By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted April 26, 2005.

MoveOn founder Wes Boyd discusses how progressives can gain the offensive advantage, the power of the Democratic rank and file, and the futility of moving to the center.

A Protected Friend of Terrorism

By Douglas Farah

Monday, April 25, 2005; Page A19

The Bush administration is touting the rule of law and democracy as priorities in its effort to create stability and defeat terrorism. Yet it remains curiously apathetic about the activities of one of the world's most notorious indicted war criminals, a man who is also an abettor of al Qaeda and Hezbollah. I am speaking of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who has not only escaped answering for his crimes so far but who may be given an opportunity to repeat them if the United States does not act.

Bush's Most Radical Plan Yet

With a vote of hand-picked lobbyists, the president could terminate any federal agency he dislikes

By OSHA GRAY DAVIDSON

If you've got something to hide in Washington, the best place to bury it is in the federal budget. The spending plan that President Bush submitted to Congress this year contains 2,000 pages that outline funding to safeguard the environment, protect workers from injury and death, crack down on securities fraud and ensure the safety of prescription drugs. But almost unnoticed in the budget, tucked away in a single paragraph, is a provision that could make every one of those protections a thing of the past.

In war's name, public loses information

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 24, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies under the Bush administration are sweeping vast amounts of public information behind a curtain of secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, using 50 to 60 loosely defined security designations that can be imposed by officials as low-ranking as government clerks.

No one is tracking the amount of unclassified information that is no longer accessible.

For years, a citizen who wanted to know the name and phone number of a Pentagon official could buy a copy of the Defense Department directory at a government printing office. But since 2001, the directory has been stamped ''For Official Use Only," meaning the public may not have access to such basic information about the vast military bureaucracy.

Media Matters to Tierney: Read Your Own Paper

In an April 26 column comparing Chile's retirement program favorably with Social Security, New York Times columnist John Tierney used the example of an economist friend in Chile to argue that that country's pension system -- which includes private accounts -- provides a better return on contributions than Social Security. Tierney offered the caveat that "Chileans may someday long for a system like Social Security if the stock market crashes and takes their pensions down with it," but said, "The relative risks of the Chilean and American systems are a question for another column."

One would think that "the relative risks of the Chilean and American systems" would be precisely the type of topic to examine in a column about the Chilean and U.S. systems. Nonetheless, we eagerly await that follow-up column from Tierney in which he addresses the risks of the two systems. As Tierney prepares to write it, we hope he'll take a bit of advice: Read your own paper.

Daily Howler - April 26, 2005

CONTEMPT (PART 2)! Good Lord! When the New York Times reviewed Coulter’s book, it praised her brilliant research

TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 2005

CONTEMPT (PART 2): There’s a word for Coulter’s approach to the public; Ann Coulter is filled with contempt. It takes a special kind of contempt to write a book like her best-seller, Slander—a book that’s defined by its endless wild statements and bizarre, multi-faceted “errors.” As we’ve seen, Coulter’s “mistakes” often show up in layers—layers that display her open contempt for our society’s most basic values. For example, she closes Slander with a crazy screed about “liberals,” who are said to be “savagely cruel bigots who hate ordinary Americans and lie sport.” But uh-oh! Coulter’s generalization was built on a claim about the New York Times—a factual claim which turned out to be utterly false. But so what! Coulter said she’d change her “mistake” when the book appeared in paper. And sure enough, she did change her “mistake”—to something else that was blatantly bogus! Yes, there’s only one word for the type of person who would produce such layers of misstatement. That person is filled with contempt for the truth—and for the people who purchase her books.

Ex-Officials Say Bolton Inflated Syrian Danger

By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: April 26, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 25 - John R. Bolton clashed repeatedly with American intelligence officials in 2002 and 2003 as he sought to deliver warnings about Syrian efforts to acquire unconventional weapons that the Central Intelligence Agency and other experts rejected as exaggerated, according to former intelligence officials.

Microsoft may rethink position on gay-rights bill

By Brier Dudley
Seattle Times technology reporter

Microsoft may re-evaluate whether to support state legislation that would ban discrimination against gays and lesbians, Chairman Bill Gates said yesterday.

Gates said Microsoft was surprised by the sharp reaction after it became known that the company took a neutral position on the perennial measure this year, after actively supporting it in previous years.

"Next time this one comes around, we'll see," he said. "We certainly have a lot of employees who sent us mail. Next time it comes around that'll be a major factor for us to take into consideration."

DeLay Woes Prompt Rush to Refile Forms

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 26, 2005; Page A01

Members of Congress are rushing to amend their travel and campaign records, fearing that the controversy over House Majority Leader Tom DeLay will trigger an ethics war that will bring greater scrutiny to their own travel and official activities.

Microsoft paying Religious Right leader Ralph Reed $20,000 a month retainer

by John in DC - 4/26/2005 09:00:00 AM

AMERICAblog.com has learned that Microsoft is currently paying a $20,000 a month retainer to former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed's consulting firm Century Strategies. Which now begs the question of whether Reed was in any way involved with Microsoft's recent decision to abandon its decades long support for gay civil rights in order to curry favor with anti-gay bigots of the radical right.

Daily Howler - April 25, 2005

CONTEMPT (PART 1)! Coulter is filled with contempt for the public. But then, so are most of her friends

MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2005

LIKE THAT ALL HER LIFE: Last week, we thought of Marla Ruzicka every time we quoted “The Second Coming,” in which Yeats foresaw a future where “the worst are full of passionate intensity” while “the best lack all conviction.” It was hard not to think of Yeats’ words with Ann Coulter perched on the cover of Time—and with a denatured “press corps” continuing to pretend that it can’t see the essence of her ministry (much more on that pose tomorrow). But if America’s press corps lacks all conviction, “the best” among us surely do not. Last week, we remembered that fact each time we read about Ruzicka’s astonishing work.

Digby: I Know You Are But What Am I

Matt Yglesias wonders why the Republicans have been so blase about nominees lying outright to the Senate during their confirmation hearings when they may very well be at the mercy of Democrats in the future. Yesterday, Bill Frist righteously rebutted the argument set forth by some Republicans that the nuclear option would leave them powerless when Democrats came into power, by saying that if it was wrong for Democrats today it would be wrong for Republicans tomorrow. In truth it doesn't matter.

Digby: Confirmation Conundrum

I haven't written much about the Bolton nomination because I pretty much said everything I thought about him in the first year of this blog, when I railed considerably about the bizarre notion that an insane, Jesse Helms protege should be in charge of arms control. Garance writes about this over on TAPPED today confriming one of the things that's bothered me about the Bolton fight; if he isn't confirmed for the UN, he just goes back to the State Department where he can do even worse damage in his current position. Remember, he was given the UN nomination in order to get him out of there in the first place.

Digby: Master of Disaster

Republicans who have been lobbied by Bush say he is uncommonly engaged in the issue and more passionate than they have seen him since he was pushing his signature education initiative in 2001.

"You could see him sitting on the edge of his chair," said Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-La.).

Bush typically focuses his pitch on detailing the long-term strain on Social Security's resources and argues that it should be addressed sooner rather than later. "If we are going to be able to address and fix this problem, people need to be educated about the scope of the problem," one Republican quoted him saying.

Yes. His mastery of actuarial arcana is very impressive:

Digby: Diluting the Argument

Via Talk Left, I find this interesting article by constitutional scholar (and self-professed moderate) Marci Hamilton. She seems to be a true centrist, seeing the limitations and extremism coming from both sides of the political divide. She's obviously very smart, which is why I cannot believe that she begins her argument with this:

In recent years, the Supreme Court has been pilloried by the far right for being "activist" - while at the same time also being castigated by the far left for being "imperialistic." When these kinds of allegations are trotted out by both ends of the political spectrum, it is very good evidence that what the Court is doing is neither activist nor imperialistic.

Juan Cole - April 25, 2005 Part 3

4 Carbombings Kill 23, Wound at Least 80
2 US Troops Killed

Thomas Wagner of the Associated Press reports that on Sunday, guerrillas detonated 4 car bombs in Baghdad and Tikrit, leaving a trail of death and mayhem behind them. Wagner writes,


A vehicle packed with explosives was driven into a crowd gathered in front of a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad's western [Shiite] al-Shoulah neighborhood Sunday, police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim said. Minutes later, as police and residents rushed to help the victims, a second suicide car bomber plowed into the crowd. At least 15 people were killed and 40 wounded. Shattered glass, pools of blood, and pieces of flesh littered the scene.


The bomb killed at least 11 and wounded 40.

A Blow to Microsoft...

Jesus' General is powered by...

Graphic by Mike Tidmus.

Experts Call Spy Agency Practice an Eye-Opener

Mon Apr 25, 2005, 7:55 AM ET

Top Stories - Los Angeles Times

By Greg Miller Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on electronic communications around the world, receives thousands of requests each year from U.S. government officials seeking the names of Americans who show up in intercepted calls or e-mails — and complies in the vast majority of cases without challenging the basis for the requests, current and former intelligence officials said.

Secretly, tiny nations hold much wealth

By David R. Francis

Although they have only 1 percent of the world's inhabitants, they hold a quarter of United States stocks and nearly a third of all the globe's assets.

They're tax havens: 70 mostly tiny nations that offer no-tax or low-tax status to the wealthy so they can stash their money. Usually, the process is so secret that it draws little attention. But the sums - and lost tax revenues - are growing so large that the havens are getting new and unaccustomed scrutiny.

TomPaine.com: The Right's Siege Mentality

Paul Waldman
April 25, 2005

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow with Media Matters for America and a senior contributor to The Gadflyer.

Many progressives watched in puzzlement at the end of last year as religious conservatives declared that a war was being waged across America, a campaign of untold savagery whose sole victim was a holiday celebrated by approximately four out of every five Americans. Forced to endure the horror of department store signs reading “Happy Holidays,” conservatives beat their breasts and gnashed their teeth over the War on Christmas.

No doubt we’ll be hearing about that war again, round about Thanksgiving. But in the interim we have the Judicial War On Faith, a conflagration written from the same script: Liberals drunk on their overwhelming power smash mighty fists down on the tender heads of righteous yet weak conservatives, who absorb blow after debilitating blow until they can stand no more, and rise up to restore all that is right and good with America.

Cowardly Lion Feminism

A recent column by Katha Pollitt on the late Andrea Dworkin has this important paragraph:

These days, feminism is all sexy uplift, a cross between a workout and a makeover. Go for it, girls--breast implants, botox, face-lifts, corsets, knitting, boxing, prostitution. Whatever floats your self-esteem! Meanwhile, the public face of organizational feminism is perched atop a power suit and frozen in a deferential smile. Perhaps some childcare? Insurance coverage for contraception? Legal abortion, tragic though it surely is? Or maybe not so much legal abortion--when I ran into Naomi Wolf the other day, she had just finished an article calling for the banning of abortion after the first trimester. Cream and sugar with that abortion ban, sir?

Feminism like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz would practise it. Or feminism in the old-fashioned way women's power has been wielded for so long: by subterfuge, compromise and the application of personal charm. These are the ways the weak use power, of course, and have nothing inherently female about them. But Pollitt sure is right about their re-emergence in recent years.

Saudi Oil: No Second Act

Some very unpleasant information about peak oil comes via Just a Bump in the Beltway: the source is old, from last August, but I hadn't seen it cited before now. Matt Simmons, founder of one of the world's largest energy investment groups and with thirty years of experience in the field (and author of the forthcoming Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy), has analyzed Saudi oil production and is convinced that it's near or even likely past its peak. Particularly ugly is what Simmons has to say about the way the Saudis have historically managed extraction:

Normally, ... Saudi fields would be subject to the same decline curves as those experienced by any of the world’s oil fields, once reservoir pressure begins to dwindle. The difference is, he said, Saudi Aramco doubled up to catch up, almost from the start, by keeping reservoir pressures — and individual well flow rates — as high as possible, seemingly for as long as possible.

In simple terms, says Simmons, the Saudis have produced their fields under simultaneous primary and secondary recovery, having instituted huge waterflooding programs relatively soon after completing field development.

Digby: Who Made Mr Gannon?

Huckster Sunday is positively reeking with big huckster news. Raw Story has the results of the Gannon FOIA requests that show that he had some very unusual access to the White House. Why, he was there on days there weren't even any press briefings. And he frequently appears to have spent the night. (Well, he didn't sign out, anyway. One wonders if that's normal protocol.)

Juan Cole - April 25, 2005 Part 2

Jaafari Decides to Exclude Allawi

Al-Zaman/ Reuters reports that prospective Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has decided to give up attempting to form a government of national unity that would include the Iraqiya list of outgoing PM Iyad Allawi, which consists in significant part of secularist ex-Baathists. It has been reported that Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani had pressed vehemently for Allawi's inclusion in the new government. In the end, however, it appears to be the case that an essential difference of opinion has made it impossible. Jaafari and his Dawa Party are determined to purge ex-Baathists from the Interior Ministry, something Allawi was attempting to halt.

David Neiwert: Justice well served

Sunday, April 24, 2005

I've spent a chunk of time in Judge John Coughenour's federal courtrooms, particularly during the trials of the Washington State Militia in Seattle and the Montana Freemen in Billings. (See In God's Country for more details.)

He probably has more experience in dealing with far-right conspiracy theories -- particularly so-called "constitutionalist" pseudo-legal theories -- than any other federal judge. He also is the epitome of the "no-nonsense judge": blunt, plain-spoken, impatient with obfuscation. And there's no room for any kind of folderol, whether from attorneys or their clients or jurors.

So I was more than a little amused to read of Coughenour's latest courtroom confrontation with a constitutionalist scam artist in a Seattle P-I report:
Anderson's Ark moved client cash into overseas bank accounts and falsely deducted the funds from income tax returns as consulting or management expenses, the government said. In order to make the deductions look legitimate, Anderson's Ark told its clients to send the money through an Anderson's Ark affiliate to a shell company operated by co-defendant Richard Marks, prosecutors said.

UN investigator who exposed US army abuse forced out of his job

By Nick Meo in Kabul

25 April 2005

The UN's top human rights investigator in Afghanistan has been forced out under American pressure just days after he presented a report criticising the US military for detaining suspects without trial and holding them in secret prisons.

The Bush Family's Favorite Terrorist

By Jerry Meldon & Robert Parry
April 25, 2005

While the Bush administration holds dozens of suspected Muslim terrorists on secret or flimsy evidence, one of the world’s most notorious terrorists slipped into the United States via Mexico and traveled to Florida without setting off any law enforcement alarms.

Though the terrorist’s presence has been an open secret in Miami, neither President George W. Bush nor Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has ordered a manhunt. The U.S. press corps has been largely silent as well.

Atrios: JimmyJeff A Frequent White House Visitor

Wellwellwell...this is indeedy, and I mean heh-indeedy, kinda news.

Perhaps more notable than the frequency of his attendance, however, is several distinct anomalies about his visits.

Guckert made more than three dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings. On many of these days, the Press Office held press gaggles aboard Air Force One—which raises questions about what Guckert was doing at the White House.

On at least fourteen occasions, Secret Service records show either the entry or exit time missing. Generally, the existing entry or exit times correlate with press conferences; on most of these days, the records show that Guckert checked in but was never processed out.

In March, 2003, Guckert left the White House twice on days he had never checked in with the Secret Service. Over the next 22 months, Guckert failed to check out with the Service on thirteen days. On several of these visits, Guckert either entered or exited by a different entry/exit point than his usual one. On one of these days, no briefing was held.

-Atrios 8:56 PM

Steve Gilliard Explains the Modern Mercenary

Mercenaries are as old as warfare. Someone has always been willing to pick up a weapon for a paycheck. But the modern mercenary started in with the end of colonialism in Africa in the 1960's.

Part 1 - The Modern Mercenary

Part 2 - Who Are the Mercenaries?

Part 3 - Executive Outcomes

Part 4 - The Legal Issues Around Mercenaries

Digby: Huckster Sunday

James Dobson is quoting Thomas Jefferson right now, a man who would never stop PUKING if he knew what these religions extremists were trying to do.

The delusion is so extreme that he just said that the Rehnquist Court is out of control.

And the Supreme Court caused the civil war.

Juan Cole - April 24, 2005

Guerrillas Kill 16 in Iraq

Associated Press reports that a 'series of explosions shook the Iraqi capital Saturday. The deadliest was a roadside bomb that exploded near an Iraqi army convoy on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20 . . . The attack occurred near the Abu Ghraib prison . . ." Also, an explosion in Mosul left a cameraman dead among others.

Ellen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post reports, that the security situation is deteriorating in palpable ways. "In city after city . . . security forces who had signed up to secure Iraq and replace U.S. forces appear to have abandoned posts or taken refuge inside them for fear of attacks. ''We joined the police, and after this, the job became a way of committing suicide,'' said Jasim Khadar Harki, a 28-year-old policeman in Mosul, where residents say patrols are dropping off noticeably, often appearing only in response to attacks. Tips from Mosul's residents have dropped off as well, with residents doubtful that police can protect informants from retaliation."

Seabed supplies a cure for global warming crisis

Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday April 24, 2005
The Observer

Scientists say they have found the solution to the global warming crisis. They want to bury it.

They believe millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide could be dumped under the bed of the North Sea to reduce atmospheric warming. And they have selected a key candidate to test the technology: BP's Miller oilfield.

Medicare Change Will Limit Access to Claim Hearing

By ROBERT PEAR

ASHINGTON, April 23 - A new federal policy will make it significantly more difficult for Medicare beneficiaries to obtain hearings in person before a judge when the government denies their claims for home care, nursing home services, prescription drugs and other treatments.

For years, hearings have been held at more than 140 Social Security offices around the country. In July, the Department of Health and Human Services will take over the responsibility, and department officials said all judges would then be located at just four sites - in Cleveland; Miami; Irvine, Calif.; and Arlington, Va.

Under the new policy, Medicare officials said, most hearings will be held with videoconference equipment or by telephone. A beneficiary who wants to appear in person before a judge must show that "special or extraordinary circumstances exist," the rules say.

Frank Rich: A High-Tech Lynching in Prime Time

Whatever your religious denomination, or lack of same, it was hard not to be swept up in last week's televised pageantry from Rome: the grandeur of St. Peter's Square, the panoply of the cardinals, the continuity of history embodied by the joyous emergence of the 265th pope. As a show of faith, it's a tough act to follow. But that has not stopped some ingenious American hucksters from trying.

Tonight is the much-awaited "Justice Sunday," the judge-bashing rally being disseminated nationwide by cable, satellite and Internet from a megachurch in Louisville. It may not boast a plume of smoke emerging from above the Sistine Chapel, but it will feature its share of smoke and mirrors as well as traditions that, while not dating back a couple of millenniums, do at least recall the 1920's immortalized in "Elmer Gantry." These traditions have less to do with the earnest practice of religion by an actual church, as we witnessed from Rome, than with the exploitation of religion by political operatives and other cynics with worldly ends. While Sinclair Lewis wrote that Gantry, his hypocritical evangelical preacher, "was born to be a senator," we now have senators who are born to be Gantrys. One of them, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, hatched plans to be beamed into tonight's festivities by videotape, a stunt that in itself imbues "Justice Sunday" with a touch of all-American spectacle worthy of "The Wizard of Oz."

You've Been Sold

By RICHARD A. CLARKE

Published: April 24, 2005

Have you seen the ad on television in which you hear someone talking excitedly about a spending spree because he isn't paying, because he has stolen someone's identity? We should not be laughing. We have few things as valuable to us as our identities, and yet there seem to be few things easier to steal. How much is your identity worth? About $2.10 in the marketplace of secret Internet chat rooms where stolen credit-card and Social Security numbers are bought and sold.

Being Alan Greenspan

Originally published April 24, 2005

NOW HE tells us. Now that President Bush's historic tax cuts have piled up hundreds of billions of dollars in added federal debt in just a few years, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan last week made an astonishing public admission to the Senate Budget Committee: that, in fact, he had erred four years ago in indicating this nation could afford these cuts.

Viewer Beware

Sunday, April 24, 2005; Page B06

PRODUCT PLACEMENT has become a cynical fact of modern life. When you see a store logo in a movie or a character with a brand-name beverage, you can be pretty sure it didn't get there by chance: Money changed hands. What you might not know is that a similar but more insidious transaction takes place in television news.

Michael Kinsley: Influence, and Irony, for Sale

Sunday, April 24, 2005; Page B07

You can't entirely blame Tom DeLay for being annoyed and feeling abused. He is trapped in a Washington kabuki drama not of his own devising.

Two government investigations are looking into DeLay's relationship with a bunch of Indians he undoubtedly knew hardly at all and cared about even less. One of these investigations is asking whether he ripped off these Indians. The other is asking whether the same transactions amount to his Indians' buying improper influence in a dispute with some other Indians. So they can't even decide whether these Indians are the good guys or the bad guys (DeLay may be thinking), but Tom DeLay is the bad guy no matter what.

How Malpractice Suits Keep My Profession Honest

By Bernard Sussman

Sunday, April 24, 2005; Page B02

Most medical malpractice litigation is frivolous. That's what defense attorneys, insurance companies and even the U.S. president would have you believe. Some 80 percent of cases are, after all, resolved in favor of the defendant doctor.

But little is made of the advantages that doctors take into a courtroom. Physicians are apt to prevail in these cases because of their professional culture of silence, which can make it difficult for injured patients to secure reliable expert witnesses who will testify on their behalf. Nor is there any acknowledgement of the countless people who are unaware that injuries they have sustained in the hospital should rightly be blamed on medical negligence or error. As a neurosurgeon with some 50 years of clinical experience, I can say from first-hand observation that it's often not the patients' claims that are frivolous, but rather the manner in which those claims are treated.

There’s gold in that there Darwinism: How business might finally crush creationism

I’m fascinated over how the two wings of the Republican Party — business-oriented, free market conservatives vs. fundamentalist Christian social conservatives — continue to exist alongside one another.

On some issues, they just don’t get along. Fundamentalists are appalled by pornography and want the Justice Department to shut it down. Free-market conservatives look at the porn industry and see $10 billion a year (at least) being pumped into the U.S. economy.

In these cases, business tends to come out on top. After all, they have the money. Thus, the Justice Department prosecutes a few porn producers every year who are putting out stuff that pushes the envelope and looks the other way at more conventional porn.

Now there’s evidence that the GOP’s two wings may be headed for another big dust-up, this one over an unlikely subject: evolution.

Writer Michael Ennis lays it out in the April issue of Texas Monthly. Ennis points out that bio-technology is rapidly becoming a very lucrative field. Those who understand modern biology will reap the benefits. Those who think the planet is 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time will be left behind working at Wal-Mart and watching “The Flintstones.”

read more »

Ennis points out that states like California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Wisconsin and others are itching to enter the “biotech ‘gold rush.’” One thing they’re offering employers is an educated workforce that understands modern science.

Hunter on Daily Kos: "Reactive" Politics

by Hunter
Sat Apr 23rd, 2005 at 20:15:12 PDT

A minor point for discussion: I've been hearing talk in a number of places opining that the Democrats are "too reactive". That is, that instead of announcing policy proposals of our own, taking the initiative on issues, we are merely reacting to whatever gets tossed our way from the other side. Shouldn't we be ignoring sideshows like Justice Sunday and Ann Coulter, not letting ourselves get distracted by going 24/7 on parlor games involving Bolton, DeLay, etc? Shouldn't we use the extra time to promote our own agenda?

Hell, no.

Echidne of the Snakes: About this Earth

We are completely and totally dependent on this planet for our survival. We need the earth under our feet, we need its ability to grow food for us and we need the air for breath in the atmosphere. Whether we like it or not, we are really just part of the ecosystem of the earth. We are not its rulers, no god ever gave us the right to just go and rape it at will, or if this happened it was one of those truly nasty divine jokes on us.

House Approves Broad Energy Bill

House Republicans Vote to Protect Makers of MTBE, Screw Average Americans. 4/23--Buzzflash

Thu Apr 21, 6:53 PM ET

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The House approved a far-ranging energy bill Thursday that would open an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling and shield makers of a controversial gasoline additive from environmental lawsuits — both issues likely to meet strong opposition in the Senate.

AP Photo AP Photo Slideshow: House Approves Energy Bill

The bill also would funnel more than $12 billion in tax breaks and subsidies to energy companies. Opponents of the legislation said it would do little to foster less energy use. A proposal to require higher fuel economy for cars was rejected.

The administration embraced the legislation, although a White House analysis expressed reservations about the size of the incentives to the oil and gas industries, especially a $2 billion subsidy for developing oil and gas in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Afghanistan woman stoned to death

A woman has been stoned to death in Afghanistan, reportedly for committing adultery.

The killing is said to have taken place in the Urgu district of north-eastern Badakhshan province.

A local Afghan government official confirmed the death, and said the government would investigate the case.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said the woman had been sentenced to death by a decree from the local religious scholar.

Under Afghan law, cases such as this should go through the local courts.

A reporter for the BBC Pashto service in Afghanistan said the woman's husband recently returned from Iran after five years away.

Pope 'obstructed' sex abuse inquiry

Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered bishops to keep allegations secret

Jamie Doward, religious affairs correspondent
Sunday April 24, 2005
The Observer

Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.

The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.

Amway's GOPyramid Scheme

How the multi-billion dollar worldwide corporation recruits ordinary folks into the 'system,' and uses well-connected politicians and pastors to become Masters of Deception

Like many other people, Eric Scheibeler and his wife, Patty, were recruited to the Amway Corporation by close friends. Along the "guaranteed" road to success and wealth they met powerful politicians, dined with multi-millionaires and spoke to thousands of Amway members at gatherings throughout the world. Then, without warning, their house of cards collapsed: Eric Scheibeler discovered that the operation was committing massive fraud and he obtained the documentation to prove it. When he took the information to Amway Senior Management, they shut off his income and told him not to have contact with the distributors he was revealing the fraud to. Scheibeler, a former federal auditor for the US Department of Energy, refused. He and his wife were threatened, ostracized, and lost all they had built over a decade.

Gay group wants award back from Microsoft

Microsoft shouldn't have waited to be asked, but returned it immediately after their show of moral cowardice.--Dictynna.

By Kim Peterson
Seattle Times technology reporter

Microsoft's public-relations troubles intensified yesterday as news spread that the company had withdrawn support for state legislation banning discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The legislation, House Bill 1515, was voted down Thursday by a single vote in the state Senate, prompting frustration and anger that continued to build yesterday among some gay-rights activists.

The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center asked Microsoft yesterday to return an award it gave the company in 2001, saying the company is no longer worthy of its highest corporate honor. The center had given Microsoft its "corporate vision award," which it bestows on one company every year.

Religious Liberal: It Isn't an Oxymoron

By Melinda Barton | RAW STORY CONTRIBUTOR

Secular liberal. Religious conservative. According to the mainstream media, these are the two sides of every major sociopolitical debate in the country. In its attempt to balance all things with a "two sides to every story" formula, the media has perpetuated a view of American life that is simplistic at best, horribly inaccurate at worst. Removed from the story are the minor but still important characters that offer third and even fourth sides to the discourse. These minor characters reflect the complexity of the great debates. For the moment, I too must ignore some of the minor characters to shed light upon another. The focus on this one forgotten voice will, I hope, make sense in the end. For now, please be patient.

DeLay Airfare Was Charged To Lobbyist's Credit Card

By R. Jeffrey Smith

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 24, 2005; Page A01

The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.