Kevin Drum: Shaffer and the 9/11 Commission

August 19, 2005

SHAFFER AND THE 9/11 COMMISSION....One of the key allegations made by Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer in the Able Danger affair is that even though he specifically told the 9/11 Commission that Able Danger had identified Mohamed Atta, they failed to follow up on it. Today he recanted that allegation. Here's the chronology:

August 8: "[Shaffer] said he was among a group that briefed Mr. Zelikow and at least three other members of the Sept. 11 commission staff about Able Danger when they visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in October 2003. [Shaffer] said he had explicitly mentioned Mr. Atta as a member of a Qaeda cell in the United States."

August 12: "As with their other meetings, Commission staff promptly prepared a memorandum for the record. That memorandum, prepared at the time, does not record any mention of Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers, or any suggestion that their identities were known to anyone at DOD before 9/11."

August 16: "Colonel Shaffer said that he had provided information about Able Danger and its identification of Mr. Atta in a private meeting in October 2003 with members of the Sept. 11 commission staff when they visited Afghanistan, where he was then serving."

August 19: "Shaffer conceded that during his own personal briefing of Sept. 11 commission staffers in Afghanistan in Oct. 2003, he didn't specifically name the terrorists. Instead, he detailed how Able Danger had uncovered information about three terror cells with the use of then-advanced data-mining techniques."

Shaffer has been making the same claim for nearly two weeks, a claim that he repeated even after the 9/11 Commission had denied it. Today he had a change of heart.

CNN Makes News with WMD Special, But Press Deserves Blame, Too

By Greg Mitchell

Published: August 19, 2005 11:05 PM ET

NEW YORK A documentary to be aired on CNN this Sunday night on the "intelligence meltdown" on Iraq before the U.S. invasion is already making news. On Friday, CNN said that in the program, "Dead Wrong," a former top aide to Colin Powell calls his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005, told CNN. He said the information in Powell's presentation came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House. "It was anything but an intelligence document," he added, with some assertions based on the word of known fabricators.

Is Bush Out of Control?

I found this link in Daily Kos...I wonder how closely it conforms to reality.--Dictynna

Buy beleaguered, overworked White House aides enough drinks and they tell a sordid tale of an administration under siege, beset by bitter staff infighting and led by a man whose mood swings suggest paranoia bordering on schizophrenia.

They describe a President whose public persona masks an angry, obscenity-spouting man who berates staff, unleashes tirades against those who disagree with him and ends meetings in the Oval Office with “get out of here!”

In fact, George W. Bush’s mood swings have become so drastic that White House emails often contain “weather reports” to warn of the President’s demeanor. “Calm seas” means Bush is calm while “tornado alert” is a warning that he is pissed at the world.

Decreasing job approval ratings and increased criticism within his own party drives the President’s paranoia even higher. Bush, in a meeting with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a “god-damned traitor” for opposing him on stem-cell research.

“There’s real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing it,” a high-level aide told me recently.

Digby: Stories In America

Rose Aguillar is interviewing people in states that overwhelmingly voted for George W. Bush. It's a fascinating insight in to Real Murika. Here's one from Oklahoma:

Mary Fowler, 54, Housekeeper

Why do you think gas prices are so high?

From what I've read, they say it's because of the Iraq war. I've also read about alternatives to gas and even automobiles that use alternatives, but for some reason, the big oil companies bought up the patents for that, so it's not just the Iraq war and it's not President Bush's fault. He gets blamed for everything, but it's not his fault. It's just greed from other people. I feel like the president is doing everything he can to help.

Arthur Silber: The Descent Into Hell

THE DESCENT INTO HELL, AND “WHAT CANNOT BE BORNE AT ALL”

August 19th, 2005

From an entry in early January of this year:

The fact that Gonzales will be confirmed is altogether deplorable, and it is a measure of the vast distance we have traveled from those values that America once claimed were so important to her. There is a further aspect of these developments that is equally significant, and perhaps even more depressing: the nature of the arguments employed by certain defenders of the administration, and of Gonzales, to minimize and even to justify completely what he did, and what our government continues to do. As I have time over the next week, I will examine some of those arguments in more detail.

For the moment, I will leave you with the words of the judge played by Spencer Tracy in Stanley Kramer’s engrossing and thoroughly admirable film, “Judgment at Nuremberg.” In a bit of perfect casting, Tracy plays the judge who oversees what many considered one of the more minor trials of those who participated in the crimes of the Third Reich. But Tracy’s character himself does not see the trial as minor at all: it is the trial of four men who were judges who carried out the Nazis’ laws and edicts. Tracy sees that the actions of these men, more than the acts of most others, carry the most disturbing lesson for the victors—and the gravest warning. For they were precisely the men entrusted to defend civilization against the barbarians’ assault—and for this reason, the treason they committed was perhaps the worst of all.

James Wolcott: Flickers at Dusk

"Dr. Spock's chief claim to recent attention has been in making a holy fool of himself over the Vietnamese war--something I would have expected a stand-up Christian like [Catholic convert Malcolm] Muggeridge to appreciate. Getting arrested, marching, signing things--these have their silly side after awhile. But, as Angus Wilson has said of a similar situation, what else is one to do?"
--Wilfrid Sheed, "Spock Mugged" (1973)

Interesting transition the other night. We were taxi-ing to Ouest, an Upper West Side restaurant that serves the most divine truffle omelette appetizer, and passed a vigil for Cindy Sheehan at Straus Park. "Park" is perhaps a misleadingly grand word for this slender island of flowers, shade trees, and park benches wedged between Broadway and West End Avenue. The centerpiece of this green respite is a fountain and statue commemorating the couple who went down with the Titanic, Isidor and Ida Straus. In every available walkspace of Straus Park stood vigilants holding candles, their numbers in such a concentrated space giving a chapel glow to the early evening.

The Poor Man: (I don’t need your) photograph

We inch closer to a showdown between the courts and the White House:

Following a two-hour closed hearing in New York on August 15, a federal judge ordered the government to reveal blacked-out portions of its legal papers arguing against the release of images depicting abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib. The government has until August 18 to make the currently redacted statements public, or to appeal the decision.

The court will next hear arguments on August 30 to determine whether the Defense Department must release 87 photographs and four videos depicting abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib. After unsuccessfully invoking the Geneva Conventions to block the release of the images, the government is now citing a legal provision that permits the withholding of records “compiled for law enforcement purposes,” that “could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual.”

The ACLU has evidence that the torture taking place in US and affiliated facilities around the world has been approved directly by the imperial President, based on his supra-legal wartime powers. These photos depict illegal actions ordered by the government because we are at war. The government now believes that these photographs and videos need to be suppressed because we are at war. If they believe this strongly enough, and if the court - as seems almost certain - disagrees, they may for the first time publicly invoke that ability “inherent in the President” to set aside the law, which has previously only been invoked in private.

The Poor Man: Back down the road a while

A post quoted in full.--Dictynna

This much-linked and well-written piece by Paul Begala deserves reading, and quoting:

Such is the hatred of the far right at the dawn of the 21st Century. And my how the optical worm has turned. Today it is the left invoking faith, flag and family, while the right destroys crosses. Today it is the left that honors the war dead, raises up a Gold Star Mother and publicly prays for our troops, while the right viciously attacks a woman who gave her country everything. Today it is the left that patiently and peacefully respects the Office of the Presidency, while the right diminishes the office by claiming it’s more important for the President to go bike-riding with a sports hero than comfort the mother of a war hero.

For the last two presidential elections it has been the Democratic Party whose nominee was a Vietnam War veteran, while the Republicans have sputtered out spurious defenses of their candidate’s deceitful draft-dodging.

On Thursday, Dick Cheney, who said he had “other priorities” in the Vietnam era, and so helped himself to five draft deferments, will address the 73rd Convention of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. I do not think he will express remorse for the callousness with which he explained his cowardice. Nor do I expect him to apologize for the shocking, mocking Republicans who, at their New York Convention a year ago, sported Band-Aids with tiny purple hearts to mock the blood shed by John Kerry and so many other heroes in that misbegotten war.

No, Mr. Cheney, surrounded by body guards who would gladly give their life for him, will no doubt wrap himself in the flag. A flag Larry Chad Northern wrapped around his axle on Prairie Chapel Road.

Larry Northern didn’t come driving out of nowhere.

We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.

Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX)
Mother Jones, 8/1995

I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus - living fossils - so we will never forget what these people stood for.

Rush Limbaugh
Denver Post, 12/29/1995

Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I’m proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
Alaska Public Radio, 8/19/1996

Get rid of the guy. Impeach him, censure him, assassinate him.

Rep. James Hansen (R-UT)
11/1/1998

Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past - I’m not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble - recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin’s penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an ‘enemy of the people.’ The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, ‘clan liability.’ In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished ‘to the ninth degree’: that is, everyone in the offender’s own generation would be killed and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed.

John Derbyshire
National Review, 2/15/2001

The middle part of the country–the great red zone that voted for Bush–is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead–and may well mount a fifth column.

Andrew Sullivan
London Sunday Times, 9/16/01

Why are we sending aircraft carriers halfway around the world to look for enemies, when our nation’s worst enemies–communists proclaiming an anti-American jihad–will be right there in front of the Washington Monument on Saturday?

Robert Stacy McCain
Washington Times, 9/27/01

Talk about ironic: the same people urging us not to blame the victim in rape cases are now saying that Uncle Sam wore a short skirt and asked for it.

Jonathan Alter
Newsweek, 10/1/2001

We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.

Ann Coulter
2/26/2002

My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.

Ann Coulter
New York Observer, 8/26/2002

John Kerry has it tough. As I’ve mentioned before, he’s been trying to send a positive message on the war when many people in his own party are actively rooting for the other side.

Glenn Reynolds
4/15/2004

I have known some of the liberal world quite well and for a long time, and there are quite obviously people close to the leadership of today’s Democratic Party who do not at all hope that the battle goes well in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Christopher Hitchens
9/27/2004

Bush hatred has become a defining characteristic for many liberals—so much so that they appear to identify with it more surely and swiftly than they do their American citizenship. At times, some extremist liberals seem to be rooting against their fellow Americans and in favor of those who would kill us.

Tara Ross
2/1/2005

One can only admire Hendrickson’s candor in admitting what is usually hotly denied: that even many leading realists, along with many liberal internationalists, are rooting for an American defeat.

Norman Podhoretz
2/2005

Let me put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America’s men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

Karl Rove
6/22/2005

Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you’re a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they’re undermining everything and they don’t care, couldn’t care less.

Bill O’Reilly
6/20/2005

While our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line each day to defend our safety and to protect our freedoms, I am sure the least they expect is the backing and the support of their leaders at home. To the contrary, what we’ve seen from Democrat leaders is a growing pattern of jumping at any chance to point the finger at our own troops, bending over backwards to promote the interests of terror-camp detainees while dragging our military’s honored reputation through the mud.

Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH)
6/23/2005

[It] is just inconceivable and truly incorrigible that in the midst of the war, that the Democratic leaders would be conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops. … [The Pelosi/Waxman proposal for an independent commission to investigate conditions at Guantanamo Bay is] simply another example of some Democrat leaders trusting the words of terrorists over the proven decency of U.S. troops.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC)
6/23/2005

The Democratic leadership priority is to actively engage in the politics of division and distraction that can undermine our national security in favor of a left-wing agenda.

Ron Bonjean
6/23/2005

Wouldn’t it be great if anybody who speaks out against this country, to kick them out of the country? Anybody that threatens this country, kick ‘em out. We’d get rid of Michael Moore, we’d get rid of half the Democratic Party if we would just import that law. That would be fabulous. The Supreme Court ought to look into this. Absolutely brilliant idea out there.

Rush Limbaugh
8/11/2005

We will see worse than Northern.

[Quotes/links via Paperwight, Crooked Timber, and FAIR.]

Speech by Senator Boxer at Golden Gate University

San Francisco, August 10, 2005

Today I am not announcing my support for, or opposition to the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court.

I am not questioning his credentials, intelligence or affability.

I am questioning his views. And I am also inviting every citizen into this debate because it is just that important.

We have about 30 days left to thoroughly examine how Judge Roberts will impact the lives of Americans for the next 30 years and beyond.

His views are not just of interest to me, but they are of great importance to me because the stakes are so high, particularly for women.

Digby: Being Burketted

I try not to make sweeping claims about things for which I cannot possibly know the answer, but like most people I often have some sort of feeling about what the answer will be nonetheless. This is because when you examine certain odd claims your intuition and deductive powers kick in even when you don't have all the evidence. I have that feeling about the Able Danger story, which is why I haven't written about it.

First of all, anything that Curt Weldon is involved with is automatically suspect. It just is. He's a nutball who shouldn't be let anywhere near a position of real authority. That doesn't mean he's automatically wrong, of course, but when you combine it with the fact that his evidence is based upon memory, documents have disappeared and the guy backing up the claim has subtly changed his story --- let's just say my skeptical antenna are way, way up. Something is wrong with this picture.

Cursor's Media Patrol: 08/19/05

As the U.S. death toll rises during what a Financial Times report calls "the summer of the IED," the New York Times quotes an Army Reservist as saying, "The only reason we got this nasty job chasing roadside bombs is because we are expendable. They need bodies, and we provide them."

Arianna Huffington objects that "the MSM want to hold Sheehan's feet to the fire on statements she's denied making about Israel while allowing Dick 'last throes' Cheney, Condi 'mushroom cloud' Rice, George 'slam dunk' Tenet, Alberto 'quaint' Gonzalez, and George 'Mission Accomplished' Bush a free pass."

As The Poor Man rounds up evidence suggesting that "we will see worse than Larry Northern," a California man arrested at "Camp Casey" on complaints that included "making a terroristic threat and impersonating a peace officer," reportedly "told deputies he was a Secret Service agent ... but he wasn't."

Immigration politics draws attention of David Horowitz

Bill Berkowitz
August 19, 2005

Catching wind of how hot the politics of immigration has become, Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture is teaming up with anti-immigration organizations to sponsor an upcoming conference in Beverly Hills

What do New York’s Democratic Senator, Hillary Clinton, New Mexico’s Democratic Governor, Bill Richardson, the only Hispanic governor in the country, and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture’s (CSPC) David Horowitz have in common?

The answer: the politics of immigration.

Jesus' General Has a Suggestion for Michelle Malkin

Friday, August 19, 2005

She loves the smell of blood in the morning

Michelle Malkin
Concentration Camp Enthusiast

Dear Mrs. Malkin,

Being a conservative Christian, I'm usually opposed to women leaving the home, but you're different from other women. Like Joan of Arc, you have the spirit of a warrior. You tore into that gold star mother, Cindy Sheehan, like a freeper at an all-you-can-eat Twinky buffet. You're passionately vicious. I like that in a public figure. It's why I vote Republican.

As much as I enjoy seeing you eviscerate grieving mothers, I think your viciousness could be applied more effectively. Your unwavering support for the war and your fierce hatred of brown people combine to make you the perfect candidate for service in Iraq. At 35, you're still eligible for duty, and your husband, like thousands of other fathers across the nation, could take care of the kids while you bring freedom to the undeserving idolators of Mosul and Tikrit.

I can almost see you now, covered in blood, feasting on the livers of your enemies, and I don't even want to think about what you'd do to the insurgents.

We need you in Iraq. Please answer your nation's call.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Note to readers: We need your help fighting the war with letters and faxes.

A helmet tip to reader stevenyc.

posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot | 12:34 AM

Atrios: Getting Out

As Yglesias points out, conventional wisdom of "liberal hawks" and "liberal not hawks" regarding Iraq is basically about the same. We need to get out. The latter emphasize the importance of "getting out now" while the former epmhasize "getting out as soon as we can subject to things being better in some undefined way," but the positions aren't really so different. The "hawks" are just more wedded to the idea that we have to be able to "declare victory" while the "not hawks" think that little chest beating is not actually all that important.

Liberals Are So Intolerant! The Right loves to sling this smug accusation at critics from the Left. Mark Morford has a reply

- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, August 10, 2005

I get this a lot: Hey Mark, you nefarious and perverted liberal commie tofu-hugging sex-drunk San Francisco medical experiment gone wrong from the land of fruits and nuts (or some iteration thereof -- so cute, my hate mail can be), hey, I notice you love to ridicule those creepy Christian megachurches and you enjoy spanking wide-eyed Mormons and tweaking the litigious nipples of the cult of Scientology and you recoil from toxic Bush policy like a vegetarian recoils from undercooked veal ...

And I can tell you think Dick Cheney is pretty much the devil in a defibrillator and that America is so desperately on the wrong track it might as well be North Korea, and you clearly tend to wince in savage karmic pain when looking down the rusty barrel of a welfare-happy red state and I just have one slightly nasty and pointed and cliched question for you --

Free Speech: Going, Going ...

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted August 19, 2005.

Corporations' efforts to curb free speech through lawsuits are unfortunately succeeding.

Eternal vigilance is the price of ... um, well, guess we can't say that anymore. We might get sued.

Mostly when we think of threats to free speech, it's government actions or laws we have in mind -- the usual bizarre stuff like veggie libel laws or attempts to keep government actions or meetings secret from the public.

Sometimes you get a political case, like then-Gov. George W. Bush's effort to stop a Bush-parody site on the Internet. The parody, run by a 29-year-old computer programmer in Boston named Zack Exley, annoyed Bush so much that he called Exley "a garbageman" and said, "There ought to be limits to freedom." (That's not a parody -- he actually said that.)

Juan Cole - 08/19/05

Bush Administration and 'Democracratic Process' In Iraq: The Dark Details Revealed

An informed reader writes:

' From the now-unclassified State Department Report to Congress – 15 December 2003:

“On November 15, the CPA and the Governing Council (GC) agreed to and announced a plan to expedite the process of transferring authority to the Iraqi people. [!?] Under this plan, the GC, in cooperation with the CPA, is expected to establish a political process that will lead to a representative transitional national assembly to assume full sovereign powers by July 2004. The agreement also provides, in connection with the wishes of the Iraqi people, for the drafting of a permanent constitution ….”

Health Care for our Troops

Byron Williams reports:
' WITH the percentage of American troops in Iraq who are National Guard or Reserve forces estimated at 40 percent, one in five National Guard members have no health care. The U.S. Government Accountability Office further estimates that this number rises to 40 percent when accounting for junior enlisted men and women. There are approximately 6,100 California National Guard members currently serving overseas in active duty.
State Treasurer Phil Angelides, along with Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, are sponsoring bill AB 1525 that will provide refundable income tax credit of up to $4,000 a year for health insurance premiums to cover Guard members and their families.

More on Amiriya Demonstration

An informed reader writes:

' You had a brief mention today: "Al-Sharq al-Awsat: Hundreds of residents of Amiriyah, a district of Baghdad, demonstrated Thursday in protest against the recent killing of three men there in a joint US-Iraqi military sweep." Reuters also ran the story . . .

I recently wrote to some friends:

"Most Americans - and especially American troops who were only kids at the time - are also unaware that the neighborhood where this happened is the site of the Amiriya air raid shelter that was hit by a US smart bomb in the 1991 Gulf War. The US military at the time admitted they had made a mistake (they thought it was a shelter for Iraqi leaders if I recall right), but they managed to send a smart bomb down the air shaft into the shelter and literally incinerated 400 civilians. I remember thinking right before Baghdad was captured "what's the reaction going to be when US troops capture the Amiriya shelter?" It was and is a symbol of how completely out of touch we as Americans are with the reality of life as Iraqis live it in their own country. The place had become a shrine in Iraq for the past decade, a symbol of unquenchable sorrow and anger at the US during the decade of sanctions, but I doubt if there was a single US soldier who - while no fault of their own, they didn't know they were going to be sent to rule this foreign country - knew what the place meant to Iraqis. It was absolutely manipulated by Saddam as a tool for his political gain, but it also had a genuine life of its own.

4 US Troops Killed
Shiites demand Islamic Law

Al-Hayat: At least four US troops were killed in Iraq near Samarra on Thursday, and at least 8 Iraqis. US casualties from a car bomb in Baghdad were reported by eyewitnesses but not yet confirmed by the US military. Guerrillas assassinated a judge in Baghdad. Two bodies were found.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat: Hundreds of residents of Amiriyah, a district of Baghdad, demonstrated Thursday in protest against the recent killing of three men there in a joint US-Iraqi military sweep.

The Daily Howler - 08/19/05

LOGIC OF LOSERS! When the liberal web praised Arianna (again!), we saw the stuff of born losers: // link // print // previous // next //

FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 2005

LOGIC OF LOSERS: Most likely, we’ll get fuller facts on the Plame leak case when Patrick Fitzgerald concludes his probe. In the meantime, we continue to marvel at the strange logic that is now hailed on the liberal web. Yes, we refer to Arianna’s latest, approvingly linked to by many lib leaders. Arianna quotes New York Times owner Arthur Sulzberger, who praises Judith Miller’s “act of conscience.” But to Arianna, this makes no sense—so she proffers a puzzling rebuttal:

HUFFINGTON (8/18/05): Directly contradicting this position is a former Timesman with impeccable journalistic credentials. Bill Kovach, the former Times Washington bureau chief, former curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, and founding director of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, has publicly voiced what many in and around the paper are saying privately.

Digby: The Pincer

Kevin Drum challenges "failure is not an option" Democrats to put up or shut up:

...if you do believe we can win in Iraq, let's hear what you mean by "win" and how you think we can do it, and let's hear it in clear and compelling declarative sentences. "Stay the course" isn't enough. What Bush is doing now obviously isn't working, so what would you do that's significantly different?

Conversely, if you don't believe we can win in Iraq, and you're only suggesting we stay there because you can't stand the thought of "looking weak," then your moral compass needs some serious adjustment."

Digby: Your elitist slip is showing

In an otherwise quite reasonable defense of Cindy Sheehan, Garance Franke-Ruta makes this statement:

Sheehan hails from a part of the country where, when she went looking for answers, the easiest ones to find are the ones that she found. There is no grassroots, accessible organizing by Democratic foreign policy centrists, for example, so when people outside D.C. start looking for answers, all they find is one part of the left spectrum of opinion.

Digby: Mexican Terrorists

I'm hearing Rep. John Culberson (R-Nutcase) on MSNBC saying that we know that terrorists are coming over the Mexican border, hiding among friendly illegal immigrants, and that we should trust American volunteers (with no history of mental illness --- which leaves out his constituents) to patrol the border. Just the other day I heard Governor Bill Richardson on Fox going on and on about how illegal immigrants are mutilating animals but we should beef up the border patrol to deal with it.

Arthur Silber: Where We Are

August 19th, 2005

Much hand-wringing about what to do about Iraq. More hand-wringing here. Atrios has a better idea, but that’s not going to do much good in the end either.

Robert Higgs, who knows more than many of us about Leviathan and how it works, considers the administration’s recent “leaked” admissions that it has “lowered its sights” significantly in Iraq and notes how “shocking” those admissions are in light of the administration’s earlier position—and he then examines the all-important question:

Which brings us back to the question, why did the Bush team invade Iraq? The most plausible hypothesis has always appeared to be that it did so as part of a larger plan to reshape the strategic contours of southwest Asia, from the Mediterranean to China, from Kazakhstan to the Arabian Sea. By lodging U.S. forces in the heart of this region, in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States would be well positioned to launch future attacks on, say, Syria or Iran, should the president and his lieutenants decide to do so. Even without such further attacks, however, the Americans would be able to threaten credibly or to intimidate countries in the region to secure their compliance with U.S. demands.

How the NRA Sneaked A Huge Victory Past The Media -- And The Voters

I'm not in the habit of throwiing bouquets to network television news, but Thursday night's edition of ABC's Nightline deserves a large one. The August 18 Nightline broadcast was devoted entirely to a report from John Cochran about how the National Rifle Association -- the puissant gun lobby -- pushed through the Senate a heinous bill called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which gives full immunity to gun manufacturers and gun sellers against lawsuits from victims of crimes in which guns were used. Nightline made a large point about how the media went to sleep when this bill sneaked through the Senate on July 29 -- and, indeed, a Google search reveals almost no print coverage of the passage of this NRA-sponsored legislation. I follow Washington politics closely, but this one whizzed right by me, so little did the news media cover this NRA coup until last night's Nightline broadcast.

AP story shows how conservatives buy state government

8.19.05

The Wyoming Associated Press has a story about how the state is experiencing increased political lobbying expenditures. In the process, it provides a crystal clear description of why the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) is so desperately needed.

The story notes that, much like other states with part-time legislatures, "lawmakers in Wyoming do not get staff, so they often rely on lobbyists to do research." One staffer to Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) noted that "Legislators simply don't have the tools in terms of staffing to follow up every question they may have on particular pieces of legislation." An official with a nonprofit group said that lobbyists tell legislators "think of me as your staff."

This is exactly how the corporate-funded, archconservative American Legislative Exchange Council has been able to dominate state politics for so long. The right-wing has seized on this void and used it to push some of the most extreme economic policies possible, employing sophisticated corporate lobbyists with a financial stake in the legislation in question.

When opinion trumps 'history'

Sean Gonsalves - Cape Cod Times

08.19.05 - This week's phrase is: "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

I know the great Spanish philosopher George Santayana penned it in his Life of Reason, but I'm nominating it for Orwell's dust bin anyway.

Though it contains a nugget of truth, the phrase generates more heat than light, and is therefore not conducive to constructive conversation.

In fact, whenever you hear someone use the Santayana-line, your lie detector should go off like a smoke alarm over a stove of burning bacon.

What the phrase has come to mean is: those who don't agree with my narrow understanding of history are condemned.

Former aide: Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life'

Programming Note: " 'Dead Wrong' -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown" airs Sunday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET on CNN.

(CNN) -- A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

Wilkerson is one of several insiders interviewed for the CNN Presents documentary "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." The program, which airs Sunday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET, pieces together the events leading up to the mistaken WMD intelligence that was presented to the public. A presidential commission that investigated the pre-war WMD intelligence found much of it to be "dead wrong."

Powell's speech, delivered on February 5, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.

Officer Says 2 Others Are Source of His Atta Claims

By Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 19, 2005; Page A11

The former intelligence officer who says that a Defense Department program identified Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said yesterday that many of his allegations are not based on his memory but on the recollections of others.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who has been on paid administrative leave from the Defense Intelligence Agency since his security clearance was suspended in March 2004, said in a telephone interview that a Navy officer and a civilian official affiliated with the Able Danger program told him after the attacks that Atta and other hijackers had been included on a chart more than a year earlier.

This was the most glaring scandal of all

UN sanctions destroyed Iraq but no one will be tried for the crime

Alain Gresh
Friday August 19, 2005
The Guardian

The US Congress is incensed about a scandal. From 1996 to 2003 the UN's oil-for-food programme allegedly enabled Saddam Hussein to misappropriate hundreds of millions of dollars. Certain UN officials - particularly Benon Sevan, the man in charge of the programme - are alleged to have pocketed large kickbacks. It is also claimed that foreign politicians took similar advantage of the system. These are serious accusations that warrant detailed investigation.

But one thing needs to be said at the outset: there is a wealth of documentation on the oil-for-food programme since 1996. It contains all the relevant information, including lists of all items supplied to Iraq. Those lists, like all details of Iraqi transactions, were drawn up meticulously by the UN security council's sanctions committee, which consisted of security council representatives and operated by consensus.

Nominee's Early Files Show Many Cautions for Top Officials, Including Reagan

By TODD S. PURDUM and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: August 19, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 - As a young lawyer in the Reagan White House, it was John G. Roberts Jr. who often found himself urging caution on his elders - including the president himself - in an effort to shield them from not only legal errors but also political blunders and public relations missteps, great and small.

Court Rules U.S. Need Not Pay for Abortion of Doomed Fetus

By DEAN E. MURPHY

A federal appeals court ruled that the Navy need not pay for an abortion received by a sailor's wife, even though doctors said the fetus could not survive.

Paul Krugman: What They Did Last Fall

By running for the U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, Florida's former secretary of state, has stirred up some ugly memories. And that's a good thing, because those memories remain relevant. There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the next election may be worse.

In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.

Fair? Balanced? A Study Finds It Does Not Matter

By ALAN B. KRUEGER

THE share of Americans who believe that news organizations are "politically biased in their reporting" increased to 60 percent in 2005, up from 45 percent in 1985, according to polls by the Pew Research Center.

Many people also believe that biased reporting influences who wins or loses elections. A new study by Stefano DellaVigna of the University of California, Berkeley, and Ethan Kaplan of the Institute for International Economic Studies at Stockholm University, however, casts doubt on this view. Specifically, the economists ask whether the advent of the Fox News Channel, Rupert Murdoch's cable television network, affected voter behavior. They found that Fox had no detectable effect on which party people voted for, or whether they voted at all.

An appealing feature of their study is that it does not matter if Fox News represents the political center and the rest of the media the liberal wing, or Fox represents the extreme right and the rest of the media the middle. Fox's political orientation is clearly to the right of the rest of the media. Research has found, for example, that Fox News is much more likely than other news shows to cite conservative think tanks and less likely to cite liberal ones.

Envoy urged Osama's expulsion before 9/11

ANNE GEARAN

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a U.S. diplomat assured a top official of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime that international sanctions on that country would be lifted if it expelled Osama bin Laden, newly declassified documents show.

A State Department memo dated September 2000 also said the United States did not seek to topple the Taliban despite its record of human rights abuses.

Noe's lawyer says Taft knew about coin fund in 2001

8/19/2005, 9:38 a.m. ET
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A prominent Republican fundraiser who invested state money in rare coins discussed the arrangement with Gov. Bob Taft in May 2001, contradicting the governor's assertion that he didn't learn of it until this year, the fundraiser's lawyer said.

Taft has claimed that until he read newspaper reports in April, he was unaware of Tom Noe's $50 million investment for the state insurance fund for injured workers.

"Tom Noe and Bob Taft had a face-to-face meeting in May 2001 in Toledo, at which time Mr. Noe described for Gov. Taft his operation of Coin Fund One for the (Ohio) Bureau of Workers' Compensation," Noe's lawyer, William Wilkinson, told The Columbus Dispatch for a story Friday.

Ted Rall: Sacrifice? Count Me Out

If You Supported the War, Pay For It

NEW YORK--"If America is truly on a war footing," Thom Shanker asks in the New York Times, "why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?" Military recruiters are coming up short of volunteers, yet neither party is pushing for a draft. No one is proposing a tax increase to cover the $60 billion annual cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. There are no World War II-style war bond drives, no victory gardens, not even gas rationing. Back here in the fatherland, only "support our troops" car ribbons indicate that we're at war--and they aren't even bumper stickers, they're magnetic. Apparently Americans aren't even willing to sacrifice the finish on their automobiles to promote the cause.

"Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us," the paper quotes an officer who just returned from a year in rose-petal-paved Iraq. "[Symbolic signs of support are] just not enough," grumbles a brigadier general. "There has to be more," he demands. "The absence of a call for broader national sacrifice in a time of war has become a near constant topic of discussion among officers and enlisted personnel," the general claims.

Lobbyist for the Lost Cause

by MAX BLUMENTHAL

[posted online on August 16, 2005]

When John Wilkes Booth left Mary Surratt's boarding house on H Street in Washington, DC, his co-conspirators knew where he was headed. Seven hours later, while Booth fled south on horseback, President Abraham Lincoln lay dying. Today, a Chinese restaurant called Wok 'n Roll stands where the Surratt Boarding House once was. Until eight months ago, its owner, Victor Quinto, told me, the restaurant played host to secret monthly meetings of members of Jefferson Davis Camp 305, a Northern Virginia-based faction of the Southern heritage group the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The existence of the meetings was also confirmed by a Camp 305 member, Charles Goolsby, who refused to say whether he attended, commenting only that "I haven't been a part of the SCV in a long time." Goolsby is currently a producer for Voice of America, the Congressionally funded radio network that claims to promote America's values abroad.

The leader of Jefferson Davis Camp 305's lunchtime meetings was its former commander, Richard T. Hines, a high-rolling lobbyist who is one of the unheralded success stories of Bush's Washington. The youngest Republican ever elected to the state legislature in South Carolina, Hines first arrived in Washington to work in a variety of midlevel posts during the Reagan Administration. Now he operates through RTH Consulting Inc., a lobbying firm that boasts of having "an active voice in the current Bush Administration." In addition to securing a nice little appointment to the national libraries board for his wife, Hines has earned more than $150 million in Defense Department contracts for his weapons manufacturing clients and rakes in a large fee for his work on behalf of an African tyrant. It's a good life.

Bush's Blind Spot on Iran

[posted online on August 17, 2005]

We don't respect or understand any religious or nationalist fervor other than our own. That myopic distortion has been a persistent historical failure of US foreign policy, but it has reached the point of total blindness in the Bush Administration.

The latest exhibition of this approach was President Bush's thinly veiled threat this weekend to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities or even invade the country as a last resort, sparked by Tehran's troubled negotiations with the West over its nuclear program.

It is telling that Bush made the comments on Israeli television, which makes them exponentially more provocative. Israel is, of course, not only Iran's archenemy but is also believed to be the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the immediate region.

It is as if Bush is not content to rattle his saber at Tehran's hard-liners; he also wants to insure that he infuriates and publicly embarrasses even moderate Iranians.

Teaching Sexuality

by LILIANA SEGURA

[posted online on August 17, 2005]

Students taking sex education in Maryland's Montgomery County public schools this fall won't be discussing homosexuality, not unless a student raises a hand to ask about it--and even then, the teacher will have to keep it brief. Nor will students be watching a new video called Protect Yourself!, which uses a cucumber to demonstrate how to put on a condom. (Copies of the video now gather dust in administrative offices in Rockville, Maryland.)

In fact, students taking sex ed in Montgomery County will not see any of the new material from a curriculum unveiled last fall that might have been an alternative educational model to others, developed in this age of abstinence-only funding and national legislation to ban gay marriage. According to the new curriculum, not only was homosexuality something you could talk about, being gay could be a legitimate sexual identity. Thus, adolescent experimentation ("sex play") with members of the same sex was "not uncommon." And if you were the son or daughter of a gay couple, that was OK, too: The curriculum included same-sex-parent households as one of nine on a list of "types of family." The permission-only curriculum--developed for eighth and tenth graders over three years by a twenty-seven-member Citizen's Advisory Committee that included people from Planned Parenthood, the Daughters of the American Revolution and numerous religious groups--might not have introduced groundbreaking ideas about sex and gender, but it was a leap forward for a county whose aging curriculum combined an emphasis on abstinence with an implicit "don't ask, don't tell" approach to homosexuality.

Roberts and Roe

by KATE MICHELMAN

[from the August 29, 2005 issue]

The debate over Judge John Roberts's nomination to the Supreme Court has alternated between speculation about whether he would vote to overrule Roe v. Wade and reassurances that he might not--or, at any rate, that his position on the case would not decide its fate. But for those concerned about women's lives rather than legal abstractions, the crucial issue is being overlooked: To place the lives and health of millions of women at risk, Roberts need not oppose Roe v. Wade itself; his interpretation of its protections need only be slightly more conservative than that of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's.

To be sure, there is ample evidence that Roberts would follow the model of Chief Justice Rehnquist, for whom he clerked, and vote to overrule Roe outright. Roberts, after all, urged the Court to do precisely that when he served in the George H.W. Bush Administration. But focusing the debate exclusively on the survival of Roe itself allows Roberts to hide in the shadows of speculative questions--even though his patently clear conservatism is considerable cause for concern.

Cursor's Media Patrol: August 18, 2005

The name of "one of the [State] department's rising stars" has reportedly turned up in an indictment in the AIPAC case, as "the first higher-ranking government official to be caught up in the criminal inquiry."

A Washington Post report on a secret memo showing that before the U.S. invaded Iraq, the State Department warned of "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance," doesn't mention documents revealing that the Bush administration began planning for regime change as early as October 2001.

A decorated Texas Marine has reportedly lost the right to enroll in college at in-state tuition rates because he was out of state, serving two tours of duty in Iraq.

Eric Umansky contrasts the different perspectives revealed in coverage by AFP and the New York Times of the shooting of Iraqi workers by U.S. forces on Tuesday.

"Hardball's" Chris Matthews says that his guests are giving him "two different versions" of the Iraq war, depending on whether they are on or off the air.

Doug Ireland writes that a new study to appear in Foreign Affairs 'shreds the myth' that "market liberalization is the most reliable path to democracy," and sticks "a finger in the eye" of globalization proponents.

"The loss of just a fraction of Iranian oil production either though collateral damage, sabotage or economic embargo could trigger a severe economic global recession," warns Daniel Barkley, who wrote last year that 'Preemptive Strikes Will Not Disarm Iran.'

Billmon: The 51st State

The New Pravda has fingered one of the unnamed U.S. government officials implicated in the AIPAC spy scandal -- while bending over backwards to make it clear the whole thing is really just a great big fuss about nothing. I mean, we're talking about Israel, for Christ's sake, not some foreign country.

The second-highest diplomat at the United States Embassy in Baghdad is one of the anonymous government officials cited in an Aug. 4 indictment as having provided classified information to an employee of a pro-Israel lobbying group, people who have been officially briefed on the case said Wednesday.

The diplomat, David M. Satterfield, was identified in the indictment as a United States government official, "USGO-2," the people briefed on the matter said. In early 2002, USGO-2 discussed secret national security matters in two meetings with Steven J. Rosen, who has since been dismissed as a top lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as Aipac, who has been charged in the case.

Now if you read the indictment filed against Rosen, his AIPAC colleague Keith Weissman, and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, you'll see that "USGO-2" is just one of a rather large cast of uncredited actors who appear in this movie.

Billmon: Viewer Discretion Advised

I see that no less an imperial personage than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, has asked a federal judge to block the opening of the Abu Ghraib Film Festival of the Damned:

Myers . . . said in a statement put forth to support the Pentagon's case that he believed that "riots, violence and attacks by insurgents will result" if the images were released.

"It is probable that Al Qaeda and other groups will seize upon these images and videos as grist for their propaganda mill, which will result in, besides violent attacks, increased terrorist recruitment, continued financial support and exacerbation of tensions between Iraqi and Afghani populaces and U.S. and coalition forces," he said.

Sheesh. Suddenly everybody's a movie critic. But surely Gen. Myers understands that while shots of helpless little boys being anally raped don't exactly meet local community standards (either here or in Iraq) the Freedom of Information Act doesn't have an obscenity exemption. Or a stupidity exemption, which would have left Myers, not to mention his boss, completely in the clear.

Billmon: Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day Afternoon

It's hard to feel inspired to do anything -- much less blog -- when the temperature is 95°, the heat index is 110 and the sun is curling back the shingles on the roof and turning the driveway into a strip of burning black goo.

[...]

It's as good an explanation as any, I guess, although to me the expression "dog days" has always called up images of rabid canines, their muzzles dripping with foam and blood from their own self-inflicted bites, writhing in crazed torment under the blazing sun while their virus-riddled brains gradually turn to mush inside their narrow, wolfish skulls.

Which, more-or-less by coincidence, appears to be the effect that Cindy Sheehan is currently having on conservatives. Except for the gradual part.

Juan Cole - August 18, 2005

Fear Stalks Iraq as "Truce" Ends
US Diplomat in Baghdad Implicated in Israel Spy Scandal

Al-Hayat: The one-day total for deaths related to the guerrilla war in Wednesday ended up being about 55, with dozens injured (probably over a hundred). Iraqis perceived the massive bombings as the end of a "truce" of the past few days, when bombings in the capital had become rarer. The deputy minister of Interior for Intelligence Affairs, Hussein Ali Kamal, confessed that the abilities of the ministry were still

The Daily Howler - August 18, 2005

FOR LACK OF A FRAMEWORK! Meyerson tackles pro-war scribes — and reminds us of pieces not written: // link // print // previous // next //

THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2005

FOR LACK OF A FRAMEWORK: The open trashing of Cindy Sheehan was in full bloom on cable last night. Gordon Liddy repeatedly called her anti-semitic during a segment on Hannity & Colmes, and Norah O’Donnell performed an appalling segment while guest-hosting on Hardball. (Chris is apparently back on vacation. More on O’Donnell’s performance below).

Yes, the trashing of Sheehan has achieved maturity—and it’s hard for liberals to place it in context. Regarding Liddy’s performance last night, why is it hard for liberals to put this trashing into a larger context? Why is it hard to say to undecided voters, There they go again? Easy! It’s hard to say this because liberals have failed, in the past dozen years, to describe (and denounce) our inane, rancid discourse. Conservatives have spent the last forty years telling undecideds about “liberal bias.” But liberals have made no attempt to tell a more important story—that undecideds have been played for total fools, year after year, by Rush, Sean and Drudge and their helpers.

Digby: Acting The Role of Reporters

Washington Post reporter Jim VandeHei says Bush spokesman Scott McClellan "is seen as someone who might not tell you a lot, but is not going to tell you a lie. More broadly, we go to the [White House press] briefings if for no other reason to hear the White House spin on world events. They rarely figure into our daily reports because we will talk to Scott and others one on one and not in front of a crowd."

Setting aside the ridiculous assumption that McClellan tells the truth, which is completely unbelievable unless he's a braindead robot, can someone tell me why reporters should get their questions answered in private? The press briefings are purely PR exercises and the reporters should refuse to go instead of giving the white house a platform to spin bullshit as news. If the real news is gathered privately, then the press is simply playing a role in a public relations event.

Digby: Political Enthusiasm

Sam Rosenfeld asks a very good question. Why aren't the elected Dems using the Roberts nomination to make our case for the future? There is no margin anymore in giving the Red State Dems "free" votes on anything because the Republicans have shown time and again that there is no reward for "good" Democratic behavior. I would hope that Reid is whipping the caucus to give Roberts as small a margin as possible. But, there's more to it than that. There is opportunity in losing by making a well defined case against the politics, philosophy and policy that Roberts so clearly represents. I've seen no signs as yet that the Senate Democrats are going to exert even the smallest amount of political intensity to that job.

Digby: It's Over

George W. Bush's streak of good luck continues --- at the expense of others as usual.

Cindy Sheehan had to leave Crawford to take care of her ailing mother. Without her, the protest becomes something different, less compelling and less meaningful. What a shame.

King of Zembla: Bringing the War Back Home

The Department of Defense continues to insist that depleted-uranium munitions pose no health hazard to American troops (although the civilian populations of both Afghanistan and Iraq have both experienced a shocking upswing in the incidence of childhood cancers and birth defects). Congress has thus far been content to take the Pentagon at its word. State legislators, however, are beginning to develop a healthy skepticism, as Dave Lindorff reports:

Quietly, and under the radar for now, a movement is growing across the country that could blow up White House war planning and finish off the U.S. adventure in Iraq.

That movement is state-by-state legislation to provide for testing of returning National Guard troops for signs of contamination by depleted uranium.

Kicked off in Connecticut by a feisty Democratic state representative from New Haven named Patricia Dillon, a woman who was trained in epidemiology at Yale--her bill passed the state legislature in July unanimously, and goes into effect this October, about the time many Connecticut Guard troops will finally be coming home from Iraq--the measure has copycats hard at work in some 14-20 other states. Louisiana has already passed a similar law.

The military has been insisting that the 3000 tons of DU munitions it has blown up in Iraq in this war so far (and the 1000 tons more it has exploded and fired off in Afghanistan) are safe for troops and for civilians, though there is no real data to prove this because the Pentagon has vigorously resisted testing returning troops (only 270 so far, and using a far-from-state-of-the-art test) and the State Department and Pentagon have barred UN or other outside testers from looking into DU contamination in Iraq.

Arthur Silber: The Unhinged Right

THE UNHINGED RIGHT: CINDY SHEEHAN, NAZI

August 18th, 2005

As John Nichols has observed, Cindy Sheehan’s remarkable success in galvanizing opposition to the failed Iraq war has led the Bush True Believers to the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Some of them have gone over the edge entirely, and are now in the advanced stages of a dementia which is both appalling and hilarious. It’s not surprising that one particularly disgusting example of this phenomenon should be found on the site of the vile David Horowitz:

American Nazi Idol <>LAST NIGHT THERE WERE 1,500 CANDLELIGHT VIGILS FOR CINDY SHEEHAN AND ONE BURNING CROSS. Sheehan has become the poster girl for the antiwar Left, because her status as a grieving mother renders the 48-year-old Vacaville, California, native more sympathetic than Medea Benjamin, Ramsey Clark, or Michael Moore (whose website hosts Sheehan’s blog). However, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and racist extremist
s have also begun gathering around the Gold Star Families for Peace founder.

<>
[...]

Everyone can now see many of Bush’s most zealous defenders for the very ugly, militantly anti-intellectual, barely human bigots that they are. If Cindy Sheehan keeps this up, and she has stated she has every intention of doing so, a lot of these Bush defenders will end up in rubber rooms, desperately fighting off their imaginary enemies and screaming incoherently about how only they are the true guardians of civilization, while the drool runs down their chins.

I’d pay good money to see that.

<>

Daily Howler - August 17, 2005

VACATIONS DON’T WORK! Matthews, back from a long vacance, stuck his nose into Sheehan’s divorce: // link // print // previous // next //
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2005

VACATIONS DON’T WORK: Is it true? Do vacations really produce better judgment, as the president recently said? We had a hard time deducing the principle from Monday evening’s edition of Hardball, when recently-recreated, refreshed Chris Matthews clowned at the expense of Cindy Sheehan.

The trivia quotient was set on HIGH when Matthews spoke with Sheehan. Sheehan appeared with her sister, Deedee Miller, who has played no real public role in the story from Camp Sheehan. But after one question—one!—for his actual guest, Matthews found himself deeply distracted by—what else?—her sister’s t-shirt! The t-shirt bore the words “FED UP,” under which Miller had written “with Bush.”

Aug. 18, 2005 | Law and Policy | Education

CONTACT: Steven Goldsmith sgolds@u.washington.edu 206-543-2580

The nation's main program for educating the disadvantaged, Title I, is hampered by loopholes that prevent it from fulfilling its mission, according to a new study.

The $13 billion Title I program, now the major funding arm of President Bush's No Child Left Behind act, must close the loopholes if it is to ensure that school districts channel the money to needy schools, said lead author Marguerite Roza, a research assistant professor at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs.

The new research documents how current rules allow the federal funds intended for low-income schools to be shifted -- sometimes inadvertently -- to affluent schools within the same district.

"In some places," Roza said, "taxpayer money intended to help overcome the effects of poverty is actually diverted to schools in the wealthiest neighborhoods."

some types of military interventions can slow or stop genocide

A study published in the latest issue of International Studies Quarterly is the first to examine the effectiveness of military action on the severity of ongoing instances of genocide and polititcide. The study reveals that only overt military interventions that explicitly challenge the perpetrator appear to be effective in reducing the severity of the brutal policies. Military support for targets, or in opposition to the perpetrators, alters the almost complete vulnerability of unarmed civilian targets. And these interventions that directly target the perpetrators were not, on the whole, found to make matters worse for those being attacked. "If actors wish to slow or stop the killing in an ongoing instance of state-sponsored mass murder, they are more likely to be effective if they oppose the perpetrators of the brutal policy," author Matthew Krain states. He finds that even military intervention against the perpetrator by a single country or international organization has a measurable effect in the "typical" case.

Bad Iraq News Worries Some in G.O.P. on '06

By ADAM NAGOURNEY
and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 - A stream of bad news out of Iraq, echoed at home by polls that show growing impatience with the war and rising disapproval of President Bush's Iraq policies, is stirring political concern in Republican circles, party officials said Wednesday.

Some said that the perception that the war was faltering was providing a rallying point for dispirited Democrats and could pose problems for Republicans in the Congressional elections next year.

Republicans said a convergence of events - including the protests inspired by the mother of a slain American soldier outside Mr. Bush's ranch in Texas, the missed deadline to draft an Iraqi Constitution and the spike in casualties among reservists - was creating what they said could be a significant and lasting shift in public attitude against the war.

The Republicans described that shift as particularly worrisome, occurring 14 months before the midterm elections. As further evidence, they pointed to a special election in Ohio two weeks ago, where a Democratic marine veteran from Iraq who criticized the invasion decision came close to winning in a district that should have easily produced a Republican victory.

Paul Krugman: Social Security Lessons

Social Security turned 70 yesterday. And to almost everyone's surprise, the nation's most successful government program is still intact.

Just a few months ago the conventional wisdom was that President Bush would get his way on Social Security. Instead, Mr. Bush's privatization drive flopped so badly that the topic has almost disappeared from national discussion.

But I'd like to revisit Social Security for a moment, because it's important to remember what Mr. Bush tried to get away with.

Many pundits and editorial boards still give Mr. Bush credit for trying to "reform" Social Security. In fact, Mr. Bush came to bury Social Security, not to save it. Over time, the Bush plan would have transformed Social Security from a social insurance program into a mutual fund, with nothing except a name in common with the system F.D.R. created.

In addition to misrepresenting his goals, Mr. Bush repeatedly lied about the current system. Oh, I'm sorry - was that a rude thing to say? Still, the fact is that Mr. Bush repeatedly said things that were demonstrably false and that his staff must have known were false. The falsehoods ranged from his claim that Social Security is unfair to African-Americans to his claim that "waiting just one year adds $600 billion to the cost of fixing Social Security."

A Glimpse of Forces Confronting Saudi Rule

By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: August 17, 2005

Western reporting on Saudi Arabia has been in attack mode ever since Sept. 11. Not since the Borgias has a ruling family received such bad press as the House of Saud, and the United States-Saudi connection is probably the one that Americans would most like to sever, if it could be done without raising gasoline prices.

In "Saudi Arabia Exposed," John R. Bradley, a British journalist who spent two and a half years as a newspaper editor and reporter in Saudi Arabia, will not make Americans feel any better about the Saudi royals, whom he calls "perhaps the most corrupt family the world has ever known." But he does provide a highly informed, temperate and understanding account of a country that, he maintains, is an enigma to other Arabs, and even to the Saudis themselves.

U.S. soldier chronicles abuse, hard times in Iraq

Wed Aug 17, 2005 2:23 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops was widespread and not limited to the high-profile cases at Abu Ghraib prison, according to a former soldier who participated in an interrogation that she said "crossed a line."

Kayla Williams, 28, a former sergeant with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and the author of a new book, said soldiers interrogating a naked Iraqi asked her to humiliate him. She also saw fellow soldiers throwing lit cigarettes at him and hitting him in the face.

"It's one thing to make fun of someone and attempt to humiliate him. With words. That's one thing. But flicking lit cigarettes at somebody -- like burning him -- that's illegal," Williams writes in "Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army," which hits U.S. bookstores September 5.

Court limit on parents’ faith overruled

By Michele McNeil
michele.mcneil@indystar.com


The Indiana Court of Appeals today upheld the rights of parents to expose their children to Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion.

In its unanimous ruling, the court declared that a Marion County judge was out of bounds in approving a divorce decree that also directed the parents to shelter their 10 year old son from non mainstream religious beliefs and rituals.

The case involved the divorce of Thomas E. Jones, Jr. and Tammy U. Bristol, both practicing Wiccans. The Indianapolis residents married in February 1995, and their divorce was final in February 2004. Bristol and Jones have joint custody, and the boy lives with the father on the Northside.

World running out of time for oil alternatives

By Anna Mudeva | August 18, 2005

PETTEN, Netherlands (Reuters) - The world could run out of time to develop cleaner alternatives to oil and other fossil fuels before depletion drives prices through the roof, a leading Dutch energy researcher said on Thursday.

Ton Hoff, manager of the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands, said it could take decades to make alternatives affordable to the point where they can be used widely, although high oil prices were already stimulating such research.

"If we run out of fossil fuels -- by the time the oil price hits 100 dollars or plus, people will be screaming for alternatives, but whether they will be available at that moment of time -- that's my biggest worry," Hoff said.

"That's why we need to use fossil fuels in a more efficient way to have some more time to develop these alternatives up to a level where the robustness is guaranteed and their price has come down ... This could take decades for some technologies."

First, Ignore The Neocons

Robert Dreyfuss
August 18, 2005

Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. His book, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, will be published by Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books in the fall.

On August 14, The Washington Post reported that Iraqi Sunni insurgents joined in battle not against U.S. occupation forces but against the radical-fundamentalist battalions of Abu Musab Zarqawi and his “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” It was a highly significant story that was totally overlooked by the rest of the media. Yet this account provides new support for the idea that the mainstream Sunni resistance in Iraq is a potential partner with which the United States can negotiate in getting out of Iraq.

Getting out of Iraq is becoming more important as the constitutional crisis escalates and the country descends into civil war. According to the Post story:

Iraqi Sunni Muslims in Ramadi fought with grenade launchers and automatic weapons Saturday to defend their Shiite neighbors against a bid to drive them from the western city. … The leaders of four of Iraq's Sunni tribes had rallied their fighters in response to warnings posted in mosques by followers of Zarqawi. … Masked men distributed leaflets that declared the city's tribes would fight "Zarqawi's attempt to turn Ramadi into a second Fallujah," referring to the nearby city that U.S. forces wrested from insurgent control in November. Statements posted on walls declared in the name of the Iraqi-led Mohammed's Army group that "Zarqawi has lost his direction" and strayed "from the line of true resistance against the occupation."

Who, you might ask, is Mohammed’s Army? In Arabic, it is Jaish Mohammed. According to Aiham Al Sammarae, who has stepped forward to advocate negotiations between the Iraqi insurgency and the U.S. and Iraqi governments, Mohammed’s Army is a leading insurgent group led by Iraqi Baathists who were ousted after the fall of Saddam. Sammarae, a former minister of electricity during the 2003-2004 interim government, has founded the National Assembly for the Unity and Reconstruction of Iraq as a vehicle for seeking a negotiated peace in Iraq that could tie a U.S. withdrawal to a ceasefire by the resistance.

When the War Won't Stay at Bay

With Bush and the public insulated from Iraq, Cindy Sheehan has moral authority.

By Peter Beinart

Thursday, August 18, 2005; Page A21

Why has Cindy Sheehan -- the bereaved mother camped outside President Bush's Crawford ranch -- transfixed the nation?

Partly because she captures something profound about the war in Iraq. Vietnam was a mass-participation war: Nearly 3 million Americans fought; more than 58,000 died. And it provoked a mass antiwar movement: Year after year in the late 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Americans traveled to Washington to protest. The assumption was that everyone would serve. It was that assumption, and the fear it created, that drew so many demonstrators into the streets. And it was the betrayal of that assumption -- as children of the elite evaded service -- that ripped America apart.

Prewar Memo Warned of Gaps in Iraq Plans

State Dept. Officials Voiced Concerns About Post-Invasion Security, Humanitarian Aid

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 18, 2005; Page A13

One month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, three State Department bureau chiefs warned of "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance" in a secret memorandum prepared for a superior.

The State Department officials, who had been discussing the issues with top military officers at the Central Command, noted that the military was reluctant "to take on 'policing' roles" in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The three officials warned that "a failure to address short-term public security and humanitarian assistance concerns could result in serious human rights abuses which would undermine an otherwise successful military campaign, and our reputation internationally."

Ohio governor fined but avoids jail on ethics charges

Reuters
Thursday, August 18, 2005; 11:37 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Ohio Republican Gov. Bob Taft, the great-grandson of a U.S. president, was found guilty on Thursday of violating ethics laws for not disclosing free golf outings and other gifts and was fined $4,000 but avoided jail time.

"I accept full responsibility for this mistake. I am very sorry. I am very sorry, thank you for the opportunity," Taft said in a brief statement in Franklin County Municipal Court after pleading no contest to four criminal misdemeanor ethics violations. That plea allowed the judge to find him guilty.

Deploying Cindy's Antiwar Army

By Dana Milbank

Thursday, August 18, 2005; Page A03

It was to have been a silent vigil outside the White House last night in solidarity with Cindy Sheehan, the Gold Star Mother-turned-antiwar activist. But the 500 demonstrators were not the sort to be silenced.

"Meet with Cindy!" they chanted. "Tell her the truth! . . . This war was for oil! . . . End the war now!"

David Neiwert: The Elrushbo Decree

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

I think it's already pretty clear that Rush Limbaugh is the nation's premier practitioner of the politics of eliminationism. It is a constant theme, of Limbaugh's, really; after all, nearly all of his shows are not so much to trumpet conservative ideals, except insofar as they reflect his larger project, which is the utter demonization and expulsion of liberalism.

So it was perfectly within character when reports recently surfaced (via Atrios) that he was recently caught wishing aloud again for the elimination of liberals from the nation altogether:

LIMBAUGH: We just had Stephen Breyer saying, oh, yeah, totally appropriate, we must import what they're doing around the world in other democracies, it will help buttress their attempt to establish the rule of law, and we might learn something, too. Well, here's something I'd like to import. I'd like to import the ability that the Brits are doing to export and deport a bunch of hate-rhetoric filled mullahs and imams that are stoking anti-American sentiment. Wouldn't it be great if anybody who speaks out against this country, to kick them out of the country? Anybody that threatens this country, kick 'em out. We'd get rid of Michael Moore, we'd get rid of half the Democratic Party if we would just import that law. That would be fabulous. The Supreme Court ought to look into this. Absolutely brilliant idea out there.

Nevermind, of course, that the British policy to which he refers strictly deals with foreign extremists. I'm sure that, in the interests of national security, such details can be overlooked when it comes to purging the nation of liberals, as far as Limbaugh is concerned.

Officer Says Military Blocked Sharing of Files on Terrorists

By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 - A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly.

The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the bureau.

Colonel Shaffer said in an interview on Monday night that the small, highly classified intelligence program, known as Able Danger, had identified the terrorist ringleader, Mohamed Atta, and three other future hijackers by name by mid-2000, and tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the Washington field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share its information.

But he said military lawyers forced members of the intelligence program to cancel three scheduled meetings with the F.B.I. at the last minute, which left the bureau without information that Colonel Shaffer said might have led to Mr. Atta and the other terrorists while the Sept. 11 attacks were still being planned.

"I was at the point of near insubordination over the fact that this was something important, that this was something that should have been pursued," Colonel Shaffer said of his efforts to get the evidence from the intelligence program to the F.B.I. in 2000 and early 2001.

Blaming The Anti-War Messengers

Norman Solomon
August 17, 2005

This article is adapted from Norman Solomon’s new book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com

The surge of antiwar voices in U.S. media this month has coincided with new lows in public approval for what pollsters call President Bush’s “handling” of the Iraq war. After more than two years of a military occupation that was supposed to be a breeze after a cakewalk into Baghdad, the war has become a clear PR loser. But an unpopular war can continue for a long time—and one big reason is that the military-industrial-media complex often finds ways to blunt the effectiveness of its most prominent opponents.

Right now, the pro-war propaganda arsenal of the world’s only superpower is drawing a bead on Cindy Sheehan, who now symbolizes the United States' anti-war grief. She is a moving target, very difficult to hit. But right-wing media sharpshooters are sure to keep trying.

Library Missing Roberts File

Papers Lost After Lawyers' Review

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A04

A file folder containing papers from Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s work on affirmative action more than 20 years ago disappeared from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library after its review by two lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department in July, according to officials at the library and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Archivists said the lawyers returned the file but it now cannot be located. No duplicates of the folder's contents were made before the lawyers' review. Although one of the lawyers has assisted in the Archives' attempt to reconstruct its contents from other files, officials have no way of independently verifying their effort was successful.

U.S. Policy on 'Axis of Evil' Suffers Spate Of Setbacks

By Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A01

President Bush's campaign against what he once termed the "axis of evil" has suffered reverses on all three fronts in recent days that underscore the profound challenges confronting him 3 1/2 years after he vowed to take action.

First, multilateral talks orchestrated by the United States to pressure North Korea to give up nuclear weapons adjourned last week after 13 days without agreement. Then Iran restarted its program to convert uranium, in defiance of the United States and Europe. Finally, negotiators in Iraq failed to draft a new constitution by Monday's deadline amid an unrelenting guerrilla war against U.S. forces.

L.A. Holdups Linked to Islamic Group, Possible Terrorist Plot

By Amy Argetsinger and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A05

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 16 -- A police probe that began with a series of gas station holdups here has broadened into an investigation of a possible terrorist plot and connections to a radical Islamic group believed to be operating in the California prison system, law enforcement sources said.

The crime spree -- which police said ended with the arrest of two local men last month -- drew the interest of counterterrorism officials when a search of one suspect's home turned up "jihadist" literature, bulletproof vests and a list of addresses for area synagogues, the Israeli consulate, National Guard centers and other sites.

Ohioans Urge U.S. Escalation Or Pullout

Will their kids go first?--Dictynna

Associated Press
Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A02

CLEVELAND, Aug. 16 -- The day after burying their son, parents of a fallen Marine urged President Bush to either send more reinforcements to Iraq or withdraw U.S. troops altogether.

"We feel you either have to fight this war right or get out," said Rosemary Palmer, mother of Lance Cpl. Edward Schroeder II.

Paul Schroeder and his wife, Rosemary Palmer, of Cleveland, talk about their son, Lance Cpl. Edward Schroeder II, who was killed in Iraq.
Paul Schroeder and his wife, Rosemary Palmer, of Cleveland, talk about their son, Lance Cpl. Edward Schroeder II, who was killed in Iraq. (By David Massey -- Associated Press)

Schroeder, 23, died two weeks ago in a roadside explosion, one of 16 Ohio-based Marines killed recently in Iraq.

Off the Cape, the Cod Continue to Dwindle

Nature: When it's broken, it isn't easy to fix.--Dictynna

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A02

Cape Cod's population of its namesake fish dipped by 25 percent between 2001 and 2004, according to preliminary findings by federal scientists, indicating that the once-abundant cod has yet to rebound despite years of government protection.

A group of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service and the New England Fishery Management Council reported Monday at a public workshop that fishermen continue to take too many adult cod and that not enough juvenile fish are surviving to replenish the population's ranks.

Sheehan Feeling the Glare of the Spotlight

Some Are Focusing Anger on Protester

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A03

CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 16 -- Cindy Sheehan rode into town 10 days ago, a forlorn mother with a question for her president: Why did my son die in Iraq?

But now the same wave of publicity and political anger that she rode to become a nationally known symbol of the antiwar movement threatens to crash down on Sheehan herself.

British TV News Report Disputes Police on Shooting of Brazilian

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A08

LONDON, Aug. 16 -- A Brazilian man mistakenly shot by British police last month did not vault over a subway turnstile or run away and was being restrained by one officer when another shot him eight times, ITV News reported Tuesday, citing leaked police documents, witness statements and photographs.

Further, the television channel reported, Jean Charles de Menezes was not wearing a padded jacket that police have said led them to believe he could be concealing a bomb. A photograph of Menezes broadcast by ITV News on Tuesday night showed him lying in a pool of blood, wearing jeans and what appeared to be a shirt or jacket. According to a witness statement, he had been wearing a light denim jacket.

Democrats Feel Heat From Left On Roberts

Groups Say Fight Should Be Stronger

By Charles Babington and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A01

Major liberal groups accused Democratic senators yesterday of showing too little stomach for opposing John G. Roberts Jr.'s Supreme Court nomination, saying newly released documents indicate he is much more conservative than many people first thought.

The response was quick and pointed, as two key senators unleashed their sharpest criticisms yet of Roberts and sought to assure activists that the battle is far from over.