Digby: Learning To Lose Well

I hope some of the comments I'm reading around the blogosphere aren't reflections of of a knee jerk cynicism on the part of Democrats who have fallen in love with their assessment that they are superior to their elected leaders. This is a very dangerous state of mind.

John Kerry stepped up today. Apparently, that isn't enough for some. He is still a "loser" in their eyes and is to be shunned. He didn't do it soon enough. Or he didn't do it right. Or he is nothing but a political opportunist. I'm beginning to think that some Democrats have gotten attached to their vision of Democrats as losers so they won't be emotionally shattered anymore. That's understandable. It's painful to get beaten. But, the rank and file need to step up too and be willing to lose and not hate ourselves or our leaders for it. How we lose on issues like this makes the difference for the future.

Digby: What A Coincidence

So, Via Talk Left, I see that the lead prosecutor in the Abramoff case is leaving because Bush has appointed him to a federal judgeship:

The prosecutor, Noel L. Hillman, is chief of the department's public integrity division, and the move ends his involvement in an inquiry that has reached into the administration as well as the top ranks of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill.

....Colleagues at the Justice Department say Mr. Hillman has been involved in day-to-day management of the Abramoff investigation since it began almost two year ago. The inquiry, which initially focused on accusations that Mr. Abramoff defrauded Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars in lobbying fees, is being described within the department as the most important federal corruption investigation in a generation.

Digby: Thin Skin Tim

I hear the High Priest of Kewl Kid High is all upset that Arianna is reporting that the Carville radio talk show The Monsignor promoted on his show this past week-end is being produced by his own son --- a fact which he omitted. But then he has a habit of omitting information --- like the dozens of discussions on his show about the Plame leak without telling his viewers that he was a primary witness, for instance. (He's since revealed that a reporter has no ethical obligation to tell the public what he knows if doing so might harm his relationships with his social class.)

But this thing with his son really is beyond the pale. How could Arianna delve into his private life like this ... into his family for crying out loud? This is his son who has been outed as a radio producer on the pages of the mighty Huffington Post. For shame.

Digby: Straight Answers

A few weeks ago MYDD put out a call for contributions to finance a poll. There was tremendous frustration at the time, if you'll recall, at the reticence of the major pollsters to ask questions that were deemed politically incorrect or beyond conventional wisdom. And considering that the major media's long standing habit of assuming the GOP dominant narrative, they wanted to verify their numbers.

That's why Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller over at MYDD went out of their way to engage a credible pollster with impeccable credentials and pledged to let the chips fall where they may. We want real information guiding strategy, not push polls or partisan slant. This is for real. Today, the first results are in.

Digby: Flip-Flopping Fredo

The Carpetbagger reports that preznit Bush has adopted candidate John Kerry's "ignorant" and "dangerously wrong" proposed policy toward Iran.

And some of the preznit's supporters are all confused:. Apparently they were under the misapprehension that Junior Codpiece had some sort of coherent philosophy.

Digby: Mau-mauing the Media

Jane points me to this wildly enjoyable recounting of a close encounter between the barbarian bloggers and the Beltway Quilting Bee and Ladies Circle Jerk Society, also known as the DC press corps. My goodness, it sounds as if somebody got up on the wrong side of the fainting counch that morning.

I've been writing a lot lately about how the mainstream media internalize the criticisms of their right wing critics. I suspect they are always subconsciously seeking ways to prove that they aren't actually liberal --- and the more liberals in general are demonized, the more they want to distance themselves from us.

Tristero for Digby: Harper's In February

You really should grab the February issue of Harper's. They don't post much online so they kinda get short shrift in Blogworld, but in this issue there is an hilarious, brilliant first person account of the Dover "intelligent design" creationism trial by none other than Darwin's very own great-great grandson.

AmericaBlog: Wash. Post documents the Bush failings in New Orleans

by Joe in DC - 1/28/2006 08:49:00 AM

The Washington Post examines the lack of progress in New Orleans compared to what Bush promised. If we all didn't know how incompetent Bush was, this article would be shocking. Instead, it's expected:

While the administration can claim some clear progress, Bush's ringing call from New Orleans's Jackson Square on Sept. 15 to "do what it takes" to make the city rise from the waters has not been matched by action, critics at multiple levels of government say, resulting in a record that is largely incomplete as Bush heads into next week's State of the Union address.

Ted Rall: The Right's Attack on Academic Freedom

ANN ARBOR--A Republican group's offer of a hundred bucks for information leading to the identification and conviction of the University of California at Los Angeles' "most radical professors" has all the hallmarks of a cheap publicity stunt: an abrasive young quotemonger, the Nixon-style "Dirty Thirty" enemies list of alleged liberal instructors, and its attempt to compromise students willing to furtively tape their teachers' lectures. The media, for which "at first glance" could equally serve as a motto and epitaph, has treated it as unworthy of serious coverage. Scratch the surface, however, and it becomes clear that the UCLA story is a chilling new front in the right's offensive against the last liberal redoubt in America: academia.

The "Bruin Alumni Association"--not the actual UCLA alumni association, but a one-man shell operation run by one Andrew Jones, Class of 2003, age 24--says it/he merely wants to "restore an atmosphere of respectful political discourse on campus." Linda Chavez, a former official in the Reagan White House, assures: "No one is suggesting that anyone be fired for his or her views." Maybe not yet. But why make a hit list and pay for evidence of ideological incorrectness--unless you plan to use them?

What's Race Got to Do With It?

Beneath the Radar by Gary Younge

[from the February 13, 2006 issue]

To get from downtown Atlanta to the First Iconium Baptist Church, take Ralph David Abernathy freeway and follow the signs to the Confederate complex. Outside the church a welcome board states: "If you are headed in the wrong direction God allows U-turns."

Inside at a black church summit on gay rights organized by the National Black Justice Coalition, the Rev. Al Sharpton is trying to persuade black churches to rethink the path some have taken on gay rights.

Sharpton believes homophobia provided the Republican Party with the key to many a vestry door. In the last presidential election, the GOP boosted its share of the black vote to 11 percent, the postwar average, up from 8 percent in 2000, the lowest level in nearly four decades. (Following Hurricane Katrina it slumped to just 2 percent.) "The majority of the votes that Bush got in the African-American community was from his homophobic appeal," says Sharpton, who went on to invoke the spirit of Bayard Rustin, the gay black organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Republicans "couldn't come to black churches to talk about the war, about healthcare, about education, about poverty. So they did what they always do and reached for bigotry against gay and lesbian people."

Katha Pollitt: Pro-Choice Puritans

[from the February 13, 2006 issue]

Do you think abortion is tragic and terrible and wrong, that Roe v. Wade went too far and that the prochoice movement is elitist, unfeeling, overbearing, overreaching and quite possibly dead? In the current debate over abortion, that makes you a prochoicer. As the nation passes the thirty-third anniversary of Roe, it is hard to find anyone who will say a good word in public for abortion rights, let alone for abortion itself. Abortion has become a bit like flag-burning--something that offends all right-thinking people but needs to be legal for reasons of abstract principle ("choice"). Unwanted pregnancy has become like, I don't know, smoking crack: the mark of a weak, undisciplined person of the lower orders.

On the New York Times op-ed page, William Saletan argues that prochoicers should concede that "abortion is bad, and the ideal number of abortions is zero," and calls for "an explicit pro-choice war on the abortion rate." Sounding a "clear anti-abortion message," prochoicers should promote a basket of "solutions" to unintended pregnancy: the Prevention First Act, which calls for federal funding for family planning programs; expanded access to health insurance and emergency contraception; comprehensive sex education. "Some pro-choice activists" are even "pushing for more contraceptive diligence in the abortion counseling process, especially on the part of those women who come back for a second abortion." Give those sluts the lecture they deserve.

Mistrust Funds

January 29, 2006

'The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism,' by John C. Bogle

Review by JEFF MADRICK

If anyone still harbors the fantasy that the business scandals of the past few years were the handiwork of just a few bad apples, they should read John C. Bogle's "Battle for the Soul of Capitalism."

Bogle has been a Wall Street insider for 50 years, the founder and long the chief executive of Vanguard in Philadelphia, one of the three or four largest mutual fund management groups in the nation. At Vanguard, he refused to charge the high annual fees that his competitors did. He was also among the first to offer investors index funds, at a time when most mutual fund managers were still claiming they could easily beat the market averages. (Index funds essentially duplicate the market averages, and have typically outperformed most of the pros over time.)

In this book, Bogle abhors what he sees as rampant cheating among his peers - not only mutual fund managers but brokers, bankers, lawyers and accountants. It's not just a few bad apples, he says: "I believe that the barrel itself - the very structure that holds all those apples - is bad."

The Crumbs You Leave Behind

By DAN MITCHELL

THE Justice Department may not prevail in its effort to force Google to hand over its raw search data to help the government solve the mystery of how people find pornography on the Internet. But the issue has raised the surfing public's awareness, and in the last couple of weeks, the idea has widely circulated that on the Internet, there really is no privacy. Even if the government does not find out what you do online, lots of other people may.

But there are measures that Net users can take to protect themselves. Wired News (Wired.com) offers a FAQ, "How to Foil Search Engine Snoops," that declares the first priority of the privacy-minded should be cookie management. Cookies are pieces of software that many Web sites load onto your computer. They are used to save passwords and other data, and can also be used to track where you go and what you do online. Unless you sign up for something on the site using your real name, it is unlikely that anyone would tie your Internet activity to your identity, but it is possible.

An Exotic Tool for Espionage: Moral Compass

By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — Is there such a thing as an ethical spy?

A group of current and former intelligence officers and academic experts think there is, and they are meeting this weekend to dissect what some others in the field consider a flat-out contradiction in terms.

The organizers say recent controversies over interrogation techniques bordering on torture and the alleged skewing of prewar intelligence on Iraq make their mission urgent. At the conference on Friday and Saturday in a Springfield, Va., hotel, the 200 attendees hope to begin hammering out a code of ethics for spies and to form an international association to study the subject.

'State of the Union' Satire Burns Up Internet

Posted on Jan. 27, 2006

See it in its original context at Youtube.com.

End Of The Road Map

Robert Dreyfuss

January 27, 2006

Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss 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.He can be reached through his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.

Hamas’ shocking, but not surprising, victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections on Jan. 25 is a disaster—for the peace process, and for the Palestinians.

It is indeed a shock. But it is not a surprise, because the strength of political Islam in the region is growing nearly everywhere—from Iraq, whose government is controlled by three Shiite fundamentalist parties, to Egypt, where the fanatical Muslim Brotherhood made huge gains in elections in 2005—and because Hamas was able to capitalize on anger, bitterness and frustration among Palestinians disenchanted with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Bye-Bye, Pension!

It's just a matter of time till your company drops its defined-benefit retirement plan.
By Daniel Gross
Posted Friday, Jan. 27, 2006, at 4:17 PM ET

Until recently, the cram-down—the process in which a company walks away from pension and benefit promises—had generally been confined to failed companies like Delphi. Struggling companies frequently terminate their pension plans and push the liabilities onto the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

But now perfectly healthy companies—solvent, profitable, thriving, industry-leading, blue chip companies—are unilaterally moving to slash the expected compensation of nonunionized employees by "freezing" pension plans. They're doing so not because they have to, but because they want to—and because they can.

White House blocks 'green' farm payments-senators

Fri Jan 27, 2006 04:11 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House budget office is preventing the government from enrolling farmers in a program that pays them to be good stewards of their land, the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee said on Friday.

In a letter, the leaders said "unnecessary, bureaucratic" delays will frustrate farmers and ranchers while making it harder for Congress to assess the value of the Conservation Security Program (CSP).

The letter to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns urged that enrollment be held during winter, when farmers plan their operations for the growing season. It was signed by chairman Saxby Chambliss, Georgia Republican, and Tom Harkin of Iowa, the Democratic leader on the panel.

U.S. Says Abramoff Tipped Tyco to GSA Move

By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 28, 2006; A04

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave his client Tyco International an early warning in 2003 that the government was about to suspend Tyco's federal contracts -- inside information he received from a General Services Administration official now under indictment, federal prosecutors alleged yesterday.

David H. Safavian, who has been charged with obstructing the Abramoff corruption investigation, alerted Abramoff in November 2003 that the GSA was about to suspend the contracts of four Tyco subsidiaries, prosecutors said in court papers. Safavian provided "sensitive and confidential information" about internal GSA deliberations, as well as advice about how to get around the suspension, the prosecutors said.

Chilling dissent

Bill Berkowitz
January 25, 2006

As the Bush Administration ratchets up domestic spying the FBI is collecting 'research' reports on 'direct action' environmental groups produced by right wing think tanks

Recently National Public Radio's show Living on Earth broadcast a segment called "Big Brother," that explored the FBI's program that spies on environmental activists. "Living on Earth" regularly focuses on a broad array of environmental issues, and guest host Jeff Young, sitting in for the regular host Steve Curwood, setup the segment by noting that the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act "expand[ed] the government's power to monitor U.S. citizens in its fight against terrorism."

According to a posting at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) website, documents they obtained via the Freedom of Information Act revealed that the FBI and local law enforcement agencies have been monitoring, infiltrating and targeting political, environmental, anti-war and progressive religious groups.

$14 million in federal faith-based money goes to Pat Robertson

Bill Berkowitz
January 28, 2006

Televangelist's claim that Ariel Sharon's stroke was an act of God may have cost him the friendship of some Israelis, but it hasn't prevented his charity, Operation Blessing, from garnering faith-based grants from the U.S. government

While the Reverend Pat Robertson was flayed recently over his suggestion that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was an act of retribution by God for the transfer of land in the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, the Reverend's charitable organization, Operation Blessing, was raking in wads of faith-based money from the Bush Administration.

On his "700 Club" show Robertson recently pointed out that the Old Testament "makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who, quote, 'divide my land.' ... I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU (European Union), the United Nations or United States of America. God said, 'This land belongs to me, you better leave it alone.'"

Cursor's Media Patrol - 01/27/06

As 'Hamas upset rattles Bush strategy,' Justin Raimondo argues that "If ever there was a clear case of 'blowback,' then this is it," and the Electronic Intifida's Ali Abunimah calls the Hamas victory 'A Vote for Clarity' that "pulls the rug from under the project of trying to deflect the blame for the conflict from Israeli colonization to Palestinian internal pathologies." Plus: could it happen here?

"The U.S. public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations," according to a "secret Pentagon roadmap on war propaganda" obtained by the National Security Archive.

The Washington Post details "several elements in the NSA spying debate that have been clouded by apparent contradictions and mixed messages from the government," while a New York Times/CBS News poll finds that "responses to questions about the administration's eavesdropping program varied significantly depending on how the questions were worded."

As the FBI and other government agencies are accused of spying on Georgia vegans, Bill Berkowitz reports on how an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request revealed "that the FBI has been collecting information from ... right-wing think tanks that have long had environmental activists in their cross hairs."

Mark Crispin Miller, author of "Fooled Again" -- which argues that "there is actually no convincing evidence that Bush and Cheney won re-election" -- says in an interview that "the most hostile reviews that I've received have been in Mother Jones and Salon."

Studio that scrubbed Abramoff/Bush photo earned $140,000 from 2004 campaign

Ron Brynaert
Published: January 26, 2006

A photograpy studio which admitted to scrubbing at least one photograph of President George Bush and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was paid more that $140,000 by the Bush/Cheney campaign in 2004, RAW STORY has learned.

Reflections Photography president Joanne Amos told Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo that a "business decision" led the company to remove a photograph taken in late 2003 that is believed to feature Bush and Abramoff together. According to Amos, the photograph is "not relevant."

Paul Krugman: Health Care Confidential

The New York Times
January 27, 2006

American health care is desperately in need of reform. But what form should change take? Are there any useful examples we can turn to for guidance?

Well, I know about a health care system that has been highly successful in containing costs, yet provides excellent care. And the story of this system's success provides a helpful corrective to anti-government ideology. For the government doesn't just pay the bills in this system -- it runs the hospitals and clinics.

Study Finds Rich-Poor Income Gap Growing

By MARK JOHNSON, Associated Press WriterFri Jan 27, 2:29 AM ET

The disparity between rich and poor is growing in America as the federal minimum wage has remained flat for years, union membership has declined and industries have faced global competition, according to a study released Thursday.

The report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, both liberal-leaning think tanks, found the incomes of the poorest 20 percent of families nationally grew by an average of $2,660, or 19 percent, over the past 20 years. Meanwhile, the incomes of the richest fifth of families grew by $45,100, or nearly 59 percent, the study by the Washington-based groups said.

Dems Don’t Know Jack

A Prospect exclusive: A new analysis of Abramoff tribal money by a nonpartisan firm shows it’s a Republican scandal.

By Greg Sargent
Web Exclusive: 01.27.06

A new and extensive analysis of campaign donations from all of Jack Abramoff’s tribal clients, done by a nonpartisan research firm, shows that a great majority of contributions made by those clients went to Republicans. The analysis undercuts the claim that Abramoff directed sums to Democrats at anywhere near the same rate.

The analysis, which was commissioned by The American Prospect and completed on Jan. 25, was done by Dwight L. Morris and Associates, a for-profit firm specializing in campaign finance that has done research for many media outlets.

US plans to 'fight the net' revealed

By Adam Brookes
BBC Pentagon correspondent

A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks.

Bloggers beware.

As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer.

From influencing public opinion through new media to designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war.

John Gibson Frames Newshounds: Filibustering Democrats As Self Destructive Losers

John Gibson was determined to make the Democrats planning to filibuster Alito look like losers. He even used his My Word segment to accuse progressive blogs, naming Buzzflash and Daily Kos, of pressuring Kerry to keep his word about a filibuster.Three segments were devoted to Gibson's wail that the move was "self destructive" for the Democratic Party. 1/27/06

During Gibsons My Word Segment he went after Buzzflash and Daily Kos calling them "deep, deep blue blogs" who have been "screeching for Kerry to keep his promise even if it's stupid, even if it is destined to fail." Of course he tried to make Buzzflash and Daily Kos readers seem like extremists describing them as "so lib they're out where the buses don't run."

Arctic experiencing summer temperatures

By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Published January 26, 2006

OSLO, Norway -- It may still be January, but the Arctic region is reportedly experiencing record, summerlike temperatures.

Norway's Meteorological Institute said the ice line at Svalbard, a northern Norwegian territory, is extremely far north for the season, Aftenposten reported Thursday. The waters around Svalbard are nearly free of ice and there are large areas of open sea up to near 84 degrees north.

Time for a Pragmatic Approach

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted January 25, 2006.

We have made a horrible mess of this 'war on terrorism' -- now how do we fix it?

We live in interesting times, we do, we do. We can read in our daily newspapers that our government is about to launch a three-day propaganda blitz to convince us all that its secret program to spy on us is something we really want and need.

"A campaign of high-profile national security events," reports The New York Times, follows "Karl Rove's blistering speech to national Republicans" about what a swell political issue this is for their party.

Culture of corruption follies

Posted by Evan Derkacz on January 27, 2006 at 1:45 PM.

Just when things really heat up, a "routine" appointment takes the lead prosecutor in the Abramoff/Republican lobbying scandal off the case? Come on.

Lest you think the investigation began a month or two months ago and that some new guy'll just catch up, consider this: Noel L. Hillman is being removed from a TWO YEAR LONG INVESTIGATION into the Republican lobbyist and his considerable tentacles. If you've ever worked on a project, let alone led one, for two years, you know what this means.

Crashing the Party at Davos

By Jeff Faux, TomPaine.com. Posted January 28, 2006.

After years of ignoring the social contract, this elite gathering may soon find their reign is coming to an end.

The world's rich and powerful are heading this week to their annual meeting in the plush mountain resort of Davos, Switzerland. Hosted by the great global corporations (Citigroup, Siemens, Microsoft, Nestlé, etc.), some 2000 CEOs, prominent politicians, pundits and international bureaucrats will network over great food, fine wine, good skiing and cozy evenings by the fire contemplating the world's future.

This is not a secret cabal; journalists will issue daily reports to the rest of us on the wit and informal charm of our financial betters. Rather, it is like the political convention of those who manage the global economy. Call it the Party of Davos.

Rain gardens soak up urban storm water pollution

Properly designed "rain gardens can effectively trap and retain up to 99 percent of common pollutants in urban storm runoff, potentially improving water quality and promoting the conversion of some pollutants into less harmful compounds, according to new research scheduled for publication in the Feb. 15 issue of the American Chemical Society journal, Environmental Science and Technology. The affordable, easy-to-design gardens could help solve one of the nation’s most pressing pollution problems, according to the study’s authors, Michael Dietz and John Clausen of the University of Connecticut.

More than half of the rainwater that falls on a typical city block, one with 75 percent or more impervious cover — such as roads or parking lots — will leave as runoff, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This runoff includes metals, oils, fertilizers and other particulate matter, the Connecticut researchers note. Easy-to-construct rain gardens — shallow depressions in the earth landscaped with hardy shrubs and plants such as chokeberry or winterberry surrounded by bark mulch — offer a simple remedy to this problem, they say.

Poll: Public Worried About Federal Deficit

By The Associated Press
1 hour, 30 minutes ago

The public thinks the federal deficit will grow larger by the end of President Bush's second term and many people think the health care system will be weaker by then, according to a CBS-New York Times poll.

Seven in 10 said in the poll released Friday that they expect the deficit to grow larger by the end of his presidency. Four in 10 said they think health care will be worse, while half said they expect it will be about the same.

The Bush administration's new Medicare drug prescription program, which the administration said would save money for millions, has not inspired much optimism. About half in the poll, 51 percent, said they expect seniors will pay more for prescription drugs by the end of the president's second term. A third said they will pay the same and the remainder said less.

Tristero for Digby: Google v. Bush: Not After Personal Records?

In comments to an earlier post, Seth wrote that he's read the documents in the Google versus Bush dispute and that they are not after personal records in this case. As it happens the Times makes the same point today. The article, states, "The government apparently wants to show that real-world searches will pull up offensive materials that filters will not catch" and goes on to say that "Google's main argument was that its 'highly proprietary' trade secrets could be jeopardized."

Digby: Smoke Signals

I missed this yesterday and it's fascinating. Via Think Progress, here's Michael Isikoff yesterday:

ISIKOFF: As a general rule, if you’re the president … you don’t like pictures out there of you with convicted felons. It sounds like … there’s at least one picture of him with at least one convicted felon and another indicted, so it’s probably not a picture the White House is eager to have out there.

Digby: Resurrection

Responding to all the Claud Rainsing on the right yesterday about manipulation of Amazon reviews I wrote a post about their own long standing manipulation of Amazon reviews.

How serendipitous, then, that one of the most notorious of Amazon manipulators in history should show up on the pages of the NY Times today. John Lott was long ago discredited as a social scientist. Indeed, economists at the University of Chicago use his work to illustrate shoddy scholorship. But naturally, even though he is held in almost universal opprobrium by every expert in his field, because he is a right wing academic he was granted a cushy sinecure at AEI and a lucrative speaking schedule. That he has now landed on the most valuable journalistic real estate on the planet, however, is nothing short of shocking.

Digby: Uh Oh

Tweety's got a problem. A big problem.

Those of us on the left of center aren't going to sit back and take it anymore. I'm sorry if that's hurt people's feelings but they've left us no choice.

Digby: Incivility

Boy that Washington Post chat with bloggers sure was fun, huh kids? It's really cool when guys like Glenn Reynolds cojmpletely misrepresent themselves in a national forum. It shows once again how out of control the left is.

Here's Glenn:

My own sense is that it's very hard to preserve civility -- or even a good ratio of interestingness to flaming -- on sites that have high traffic without a fair degree moderation. There's some sort of a threshold after which things tend to break down into USENET-style flamewars, which some people like, but which I'm tired of. I find the comments on Atrios, Kos, or for that matter Little Green Footballs, to be tiresome.

Tristero for Digby: Ubiquitous Anonymity

This New York Times article on Internet privacy inspired the thought that one good way to protest at least some of the behavior of an American government acting like a third rate Stalinist satellite is to make anonymous websurfing the standard.

As you probably know, Google is locked in a fight to turn over their users' identification data to George W. Bush, ostensibly so Bush can stamp out illegal forms of pornography"establish a profile of Internet use that will help it defend the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 law that would impose tough criminal penalties on individuals whose Web sites carried material deemed harmful to minors" .

Digby: Foxy Eddie

Atrios links to the Bob Casey/Ed Rendell endorsement of Alito and it is pretty hard to take. I happened to see Rendell on Fox earlier today (Bill Hemmer's show) and he didn't just endorse Alito. He went out of his way to bash Democrats for being so partisan and failing to recognise that Alito is superbly qualified. Oh, and Bush won the election so he is out King.

Digby: Probable Destruction Of The Fourth Amendment

Talk Left has an interesting post up about a proposed expansion of the uniformed secret service which is being called a "federal police force."

I guess the FBI, DEA and ATF aren't getting the job done.

Digby: Played For A Fool (with update)

Update:

Speaking of writing your own epitaph: It's not the same James A. Baker.

This is particularly galling because I was aware of the earlier flap about James A Baker,even wrote about it, so I checked. When I saw the Wikipedia entry I made the assumption that it was the "real" James Baker this time, "serving quietly" in an oversight position (which I assumed to be kind of like the defense policy board or something.) Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wiki was wrong and I was wrong to have believed it.

I'm sure that most of you have already read Glenn Greenwald's blockbuster catch today in which it's shown that Mike DeWine submitted legislation in 2002 that would have reduced the standard for FISA wiretaps from "probable" to "reasonable" cause, but the administration's own Office of Intelligence Policy argued against it. Needless to say, this blows General Hayden's explanation yesterday out of the water.

Digby: Getting With The Program

I am really loving the wingnut magnolia wilting over us rude leftist vulgarians. I am tempted to get out my bulging folder filled with examples of right wing cretinism (which I've been collecting for over 15 years) but it's a waste of time. The newsmedia is feeling beseiged by the left and that is an unadultered good thing. Being nice is beside the point.

Digby: Reasonable

Kevin notices something quite important about General Hayden's Q and A yesterday; He said the illegal wiretapping this was not some sort of vague, impersonal data mining:

Hayden stressed that the program "is not a drift net over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont, grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about. This is targeted and focused."

Ok. Good to know.

Digby: Liars For Life

William Schneider did a little blurb earlier today on Blitzer about the Alito nomination in which he said that most people think that Samuel Alito will not vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade:

SCHNEIDER ... Just over a third of the public believes Alito would vote to overturn Roe. While 44 percent believe he would not. That's what shapes opinion on Alito's confirmation. People who favor Alito's confirmation overwhelmingly believe he would not vote to overturn Roe. Those who oppose Alito believe even more strongly that he would vote to overturn Row. But the number of people who believe that is not large enough to turn public sentiment against him.

Digby: Tally Me Bananas

I see that many people are upset about Father Tim's rather odd question this week-end in which he queried Barack Obama about Harry Belafonte.

Digby: Shameless

I don't know what class in Wingnut U teaches phony sanctimony, but it's clearly a requirement for graduation. Even the father of convicted felon Jack Abramoff has the unmitigated gall to pull a "this is not a goood man" on George Clooney:

He said the lobbyist’s daughter, who was watching the show, was in “a fit of tears” after hearing Clooney’s remarks.

“Are you proud of that?” Abramoff wrote. “Shame on you.”

Huckleberry Graham would be proud. The man whose son, the orthodox Jew, just pled guilty to several felonies and is about to implicate his friends and colleagues in any number of crimes says, "shame on you" to someone who derides him publicly.

Digby: Killing Me Softly

I'm feeling down right now. I know I shouldn't. The fact that Tom DeLay has stepped down is such a huge victory for humanity all by itself that I should be dancing a jig for the next six months. But, I'm down in the dumps, mostly because I am watching George W. Bush repeat his patented mantra for the 514,346th time. It's filled with lies, mischaracterizations and simple-minded gibberish, as always, and I'm watching it go out unfiltered, in its entirety, unchallenged by the media, no Democrats in sight, on every cable channel. I think they are personally trying to drive me crazy.

Digby: They Sound Just Like Osama!

Bill Sherr reminds me of certain "similarities" between the views of the Republican party and Osama bin Laden:

"Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?"

Absolutely not and I imagine that Osama and his good friends on the right are in complete agreement on this. He's much happier to be fighting Jihad against a man of great personal moral rectitude like George W. Bush.

As Profits Soar, Companies Pay U.S. Less for Gas Rights

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: January 23, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - At a time when energy prices and industry profits are soaring, the federal government collected little more money last year than it did five years ago from the companies that extracted more than $60 billion in oil and gas from publicly owned lands and coastal waters.

If royalty payments in fiscal 2005 for natural gas had risen in step with market prices, the government would have received about $700 million more than it actually did, a three-month investigation by The New York Times has found.

Daou Report: The Triangle

Matthews, Moore, Murtha, and the Media: What's the common thread running through the past half-decade of Bush's presidency? What's the nexus between the Swift-boating of Kerry, the Swift-boating of Murtha, and the guilt-by-association between Democrats and terrorists? Why has a seemingly endless string of administration scandals faded into oblivion? Why do Democrats keep losing elections? It's this: the traditional media, the trusted media, the "neutral" media, have become the chief delivery mechanism of potent anti-Democratic and pro-Bush storylines. And the Democratic establishment appears to be either ignorant of this political quandary or unwilling to fight it.

Juan Cole - 01/26/06

Pipeline Blasted Again
Sunnis want Federalism postponed until 2009

Guerrillas blew up pipelines again on Wednesday, halting Iraqi petroleum exports through Turkey. There were some other bombings and shootings. Interior Ministry police commandos (usually Shiites) killed a Sunni cleric in Samarra. This looks bad.


Achcar on Basra & British

Gilbert Achcar kindly writes:

' Dear Friends,

I searched a couple of British newspapers today and could not find any mention of the news item reported in today's Al-Hayat and involving British troops in Basrah.
I decided therefore to translate it for your information.

The behavior of British troops in Southern Iraq, long praised as a model by contrast with the behavior of US troops, is proving as bad from the point of view of colonial-like arrogance.

AmericaBlog: Santorum blows his stack at reporter in public today

by John in DC - 1/25/2006 06:56:00 PM

AMERICAblog's spies on the Hill tell us that at 4:34pm Eastern today (gotta love their precision) Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) "totally blew his top, totally lost control" while getting off the underground train that connects the US Capitol building and the Dirksen Senate Office Builing.

It seems a reporter approached Santorum just as he got off the train and asked Santorum something to the effect of: "Can you tell me about the 'K Street Project.""

Santorum's response?

He started screaming, according to our source. "It's just a meeting!", Santorum reportedly yelled (again, in public, right near the Senate cafeteria where lots of folks are gathered). "What Harry Reid said Wednesday [when he announed the Democrats' ethics reform package] is a total lie!"

AmericaBlog: This is huge. In 2002, Bush administration OPPOSED legislation to make it easier to wiretap under FISA

by John in DC - 1/25/2006 11:54:00 PM

The Bush Administration opposed legislation that would have given them the very power they now claim they needed, power they now claim they didn't have under FISA. It's because they didn't have this power, they now claim, that they had to break the law and spy without a warrant. But this law would have given them much of the legal power they wanted. Yet they said they didn't need it, and worse yet, that the proposed legislation was likely unconstitutional. But now we know they did it anyway.

And it was all discovered by a blogger, and now it's a big story in Thursday's Washington Post and LA Times. Amazing.

High Cancer Rates Found in Md. Catfish

Wed Jan 25, 8:04 PM ET

More than half of one species of catfish sampled in the South River had skin tumors, matching the highest rate in the nation, wildlife officials said.

The skin tumor rate of brown bullhead catfish from the South River matched that of brown bullheads taken from the Great Lakes, which had the nation's highest rate. One fifth of the South River bullheads also had liver cancer, second only to the rate found in the Anacostia River in 2001, where nearly 70 percent had liver tumors, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife study released Tuesday.

"The fish are clearly exposed to cancer-causing agents, and at this point, we really don't know what chemicals are responsible," Fred Pinkney, the Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who conducted the study, told The Washington Post. "We suspect it's from (polluted) runoff."

Cursor's Media Patrol - 01/25/06

Introducing Dilip Hiro on 'The Palestinian Election and Democracy in the Middle East,' Tom Engelhardt reminds that "democracy joined our President's crusade as an animating principle rather late in the game."

"Religious groups of all kinds" are said to benefit from 'Military Contractor Philanthropy,' which is "attentive to every kind of minority organization" and is said to explain 'Why Some Stay Silent.'

A Pentagon-commissioned study obtained by the AP says the U.S. Army, "Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, has become a 'thin green line' that could snap unless relief comes soon." Meanwhile, "more American reporters are leaving Iraq than arriving."

Afer a military courtroom reportedly "broke into applause" at a negligent homicide verdict that meant 'No Jail Time in Death of Iraqi General,' Marc Cooper asked, "Just what part of this deliberate torture-unto-death is negligent?"

In New Orleans, where "the sicker people began to return," unlike "hundreds or perhaps thousands of doctors and nurses," one nurse tells the New York Times that "the waiting rooms look like a war center or a MASH unit."

State rebuffs raw vote demand

STANDOFF: Democrats want 2004 base election data; machine firm is playing coy.

By LISA DEMER
Anchorage Daily News

Published: January 24, 2006
Last Modified: January 24, 2006 at 02:26 AM

The state Division of Elections has refused to turn over its electronic voting files to the Democrats, arguing that the data format belongs to a private company and can't be made public.

The Alaska Democratic Party says the information is a public record essential for verifying the accuracy of the 2004 general election and must be provided.

Study: Army Stretched to Breaking Point

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military WriterTue Jan 24, 6:43 PM ET

Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green line" that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

As evidence, Krepinevich points to the Army's 2005 recruiting slump — missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 — and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives.

Whistleblower suspended by Pentagon oversight committee

RAW STORY
Published: January 24, 2006

A senior fraud investigator for the Pentagon who has crusaded against military contractor overcharges for seven years has been suspended for "insubordination," according to an article written by Eric Rosenberg for the Hearst News Service, RAW STORY has learned.

Rosenberg's article, which went out to Hearst member papers, has not appeared in any of them, nor has any story been published by the mainstream press about his suspension, according to Google News.

Internet Freedom Under Fire: Act Now

The CEOs of the largest cable and telephone companies are hatching a scheme that would give them control over what content you can view and what services you can use on the Internet.

Their plan would do away with the principle of "network neutrality" and shut down the open roadway we've come to expect on the Internet.

If big media companies are allowed to limit the fastest services to those who can pay their toll, upstart Web services, consumers, bloggers and new media makers alike all could be cut off from digital revolution.

There Rove goes again

There may be depths to which Karl Rove wouldn't sink, but it's difficult to imagine what they might be.

Mr. Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, defended the administration's domestic eavesdropping program last week by saying that "President Bush believes if al-Qaida is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree."

What rubbish. Once again, when this administration is challenged, it lashes out at the patriotism of its critics.

Judge Orders U.S. to Supply Prisoner Names

By JULIA PRESTON

A federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to release the names and nationalities of hundreds of prisoners detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, rejecting the government's argument that it would be a violation of their privacy and expose them to retaliation by terrorist groups.

The ruling, issued yesterday by Judge Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan, came in a lawsuit brought by The Associated Press in April 2005 under the Freedom of Information Act. The suit sought to force the Pentagon to release transcripts of military tribunal hearings held to determine whether the detainees at Guantánamo had been properly categorized as "enemy combatants."

Last year, the Pentagon released the transcripts of 558 tribunals but blacked out the names and other basic identifying information about the prisoners. In his new ruling, which he described as "final," Judge Rakoff ordered the Defense Department to turn over "unredacted copies" of the transcripts to the news agency.

Closed-Door Deal Makes $22 Billion Difference

GOP Negotiators Criticized for Change In Measure on HMOs

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 24, 2006; Page A01

House and Senate GOP negotiators, meeting behind closed doors last month to complete a major budget-cutting bill, agreed on a change to Senate-passed Medicare legislation that would save the health insurance industry $22 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The Senate version would have targeted private HMOs participating in Medicare by changing the formula that governs their reimbursement, lowering payments $26 billion over the next decade. But after lobbying by the health insurance industry, the final version made a critical change that had the effect of eliminating all but $4 billion of the projected savings, according to CBO and other health policy experts.

Harold Meyerson: Bush the Incompetent

Wednesday, January 25, 2006; Page A19

Incompetence is not one of the seven deadly sins, and it's hardly the worst attribute that can be ascribed to George W. Bush. But it is this president's defining attribute. Historians, looking back at the hash that his administration has made of his war in Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina and his Medicare drug plan, will have to grapple with how one president could so cosmically botch so many big things -- particularly when most of them were the president's own initiatives.

BoE’s Lomax warns of impact of global imbalances

By Jamie Chisholm, Economics Reporter
Published: January 24 2006 13:40 | Last updated: January 24 2006 13:40

The US trade deficit and other large global economic imbalances carry “some risk of disruptive market adjustments” which could have “a significant impact on economic activity”, Bank of England deputy governor Rachel Lomax warned on Tuesday.

Speaking at a conference on Global Financial Imbalances, Ms Lomax said that although she felt the chances of disruptive adjustments occurring were low, their effect could be amplified if they included a rise in long-term interest rates to their long-run average.

The End of 'Unalienable Rights'

By Robert Parry
January 24, 2006

Every American school child is taught that in the United States, people have “unalienable rights,” heralded by the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Supposedly, these liberties can’t be taken away, but they are now gone.

Today, Americans have rights only at George W. Bush’s forbearance. Under new legal theories – propounded by Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito and other right-wing jurists – Bush effectively holds all power over all Americans.

Public schools equal or better in math than private or charter schools

Contrary to common wisdom, public schools score higher in math than private ones, when differences in student backgrounds are taken into account. That was the conclusion of researchers Sarah and Christopher Lubienski in a study last year of data from the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Now they're back with similar and more-extensive results in a follow-up study.

Unhappy marriages detrimental to self-esteem and health

Long-term, low-quality marriages have significant effects on overall well-being, according to a recent study by Penn State researchers.

Daniel Hawkins, graduate student, and Alan Booth, distinguished professor of sociology, human development and family studies, and demography, said that people who remain unhappily married suffer from lower levels of self-esteem, overall health, overall happiness, and life satisfaction along with elevated levels of psychological distress, in contrast to those in long-term happy marriages.

Booth states, "Unhappily married people may have greater odds of improving their well-being by dissolving their low-quality unions as there is no evidence that they are better off in any aspect of overall well-being than those who divorce."

Emory study lights up the political brain

When it comes to forming opinions and making judgments on hot political issues, partisans of both parties don't let facts get in the way of their decision-making, according to a new Emory University study. The research sheds light on why staunch Democrats and Republicans can hear the same information, but walk away with opposite conclusions.

The investigators used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to study a sample of committed Democrats and Republicans during the three months prior to the U.S. Presidential election of 2004. The Democrats and Republicans were given a reasoning task in which they had to evaluate threatening information about their own candidate. During the task, the subjects underwent fMRI to see what parts of their brain were active. What the researchers found was striking.

2005 was the warmest year in a century

The year 2005 may have been the warmest year in a century, according to NASA scientists studying temperature data from around the world.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 01/23/06

Halliburton reportedly disputes allegations "made by its own employees and documented in company e-mails," that it failed to inform troops and civilians at a U.S. base in Iraq that they were using water contaminated with raw sewage for "handwashing, laundry, bathing and making coffee."

'Sympathy for al-Qaida surges in Pakistan," particularly in the tribal border areas, where lawmakers have called for the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador from the country, and where "the military campaign is bogged down, the local political administration is powerless and the militants are stronger than ever."

Robert Parry reviews evidence suggesting that "the Reagan-Bush era began with collusion between Republican operatives and Islamic terrorists," in a "prearranged deal" for the release of hostages on Inauguration Day 1981.

Does Bush Know Jack? Fox News is alone in placing "Reception Line Photos" above an AP report that photographs of the president and Jack Abramoff together were seen by Time and the Washingtonian, which says that if asked, Abramoff would tell prosecutors Bush "knew the names of Abramoff's children and asked about them during their meetings."

As U.S. investigators follow the Abramoff money trail to Hong Kong, 'DeLay's prosecutors dig deeper into California,' subpoenaing records from a defense contractor that contributed to Texans for a Republican Majority, and is owned by Brent Wilkes, "co-conspirator No. 1" in former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's court documents.

Frank Rich: Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito

January 22, 2006

IF James Frey hadn't made up his own life, Tom Wolfe would have had to invent it for him. The fraudulent memoirist is to the early 21st century what Mr. Wolfe's radical-chic revelers were to the late 1960's and his Wall Street "masters of the universe" were to the go-go 1980's: a perfect embodiment of the most fashionable American excess of an era.

As Oprah Winfrey, the ultimate arbiter of our culture, has made clear, no one except pesky nitpickers much cares whether Mr. Frey's autobiography is true or not, or whether it sits on a fiction or nonfiction shelf at Barnes & Noble. Such distinctions have long since washed away in much of our public life. What matters most now is whether a story can be sold as truth, preferably on television. The mock Comedy Central pundit Stephen Colbert's slinging of the word "truthiness" caught on instantaneously last year precisely because we live in the age of truthiness.

Tristero at Hullabaloo: When Will The Times Stop Kowtowing To Creationists?

Judith Shulevitz in tomorrow's Times Book Review continues the utterly disgraceful NY Times coverage of evolution and "intelligent design" creationism. Shulevitz lets some creationist from Discovery rail against Judge Jones' brilliant decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover for somehow imposing his religious opinions on others. You'd never guess that during the trial, this very same judge listened patiently for hours while creationist "experts" demonstrated from their own words that "intelligent design" was just a new phrase for the same old creationism and that in fact these same "experts" had repeatedly stated that "intelligent design" was invented to bring religious ideas back into public schools. She neglected to mention that one of these brilliant "scholars" was so ignorant of what science is, he asserted that by his definition, astrology would be considered a science. And you'd never guess that some of the instigators of the "intelligent design" creationism initiative in Dover were so deceitful in their answers and behavior that the judge made a point of declaring calling them out and out liars.

Alito Filibuster: It Only Takes One

By Robert Parry
January 22, 2006

With the fate of the U.S. Constitution in the balance, it’s hard to believe there’s no senator prepared to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, whose theories on the “unitary executive” could spell the end of the American democratic Republic.

If confirmed, Alito would join at least three other right-wing justices – John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas – who believe that George W. Bush should possess near total control of the U.S. government during the ill-defined War on Terror. If Anthony Kennedy, another Republican, joins them, they would wield a majority.

Juan Cole - 01/22/06

2 Marines Killed
UIA picks up some smaller parties

Two US Marines were reported having been killed on Friday.

Newsweek details how the guerrilla movement has denied Iraq the oil income that the Bush administration had depended on for reconstruction. There have been 20 big attacks on the most important parts of the Baiji refinery complex in the past year.

Katrina evacuation bus company rips off US - close GOP ties, again

by Chris in Paris - 1/21/2006 02:41:00 PM

No surprise here that a no bid contract to Landstar Express America has turned out to be another big rip-off. This time, it's to the tune of $32 million. How many more times are people going to tolerate the GOP fleecing of America? It's just one big taxpayer funded feeding orgy with these people. Whether it's overbilling in a war or ripping off taxpayers, it makes no difference to them as long as their deep connections to the GOP pay off.

In this case, even Fox news had carried the initial story of the no bid contract which did not pass the sniff test before and now we see why. Check out the links to the stories from the initial no-bid, despite offers for FREE bus assistance that was ignored by FEMA.