Digby: Another Traitor Speaks

Former National Security Agency Director Lt. General William Odom dissected the strategic folly of the Iraq invasion and Bush Administration policies in a major policy speech at Brown University for the Watson Institute- America’s Strategic Paralysis . "The Iraq War may turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in American history. In a mere 18 months we went from unprecedented levels of support after 9-11..to being one of the most hated countries…Turkey used to be one of strongest pro-US regimes, now we’re so unpopular, there’s a movie playing there- Metal Storm, about a war between US and Turkey. In addition to producing faulty intel and ties to Al Qaida, Bush made preposterous claim that toppling Saddam would open the way for liberal democracy in a very short time... Misunderstanding the character of American power, he dismissed the allies as a nuisance and failed to get the UN Security Council’s sanction… We must reinforce international law, not reject and ridicule it."

Driftglass: “Button, Button”

Takes a while to get to the point...--Dictynna

You know Richard Matheson.

You may not know you know him, but you do. You’ve read or seen his work.

It’s unavoidable.

He, for example, wrote a fair chunk of the original “Twilight Zone” episodes. He wrote “I Am Legend”, which was brought to the screen first as “The Omega Man”, and to which pretty much every zombie/vampire-army movie ever shot owes a fat debt.

Digby: True Romance

Via Tristram Shandy I see that TIME's in-house faux liberal is at it again, this time giving Hugh Hewitt a private lap dance instead of dancing around the pole for everyone to see:

HH: I just have never seen them on PBS. But nevertheless, Joe, what I want to talk about is reverse Turnip Days, moments where candidates were not candid, and I think it hurt them. I want to start with an episode I find odd not finding it here in Politics Lost, which is the Florida recount, and the disastrous attempt by Gore and Lieberman to throw out the ballots of the military. Was that not the sort of authentic moment where we saw the soul of the modern Democratic Party on display?

Digby: Taboos

Reading this interesting article in Forward about the potential consequences of bombing Iran's nuclear facilities (presuming we even know where they are) I am struck once again by the right's willingness to violate important taboos. (Some of you may not find this surprising considering their rather shocking public obsession with bestiality, but this goes beyond their usual bedroom hypocrisy.)

They talk a lot about the decline of western civilization and worry incessantly about gay marriage and changing gender roles, but they quite casually violate some of the most important taboos of the last half century or more. Big honking important taboos at that.

Digby: Every Wingnut For Himself

Uh Oh. The Republicans are starting to fight over the mouldering corpse of Ronald Reagan. The end is nigh.

The elites in the GOP have never understood conservatives or Reagan; they've found both to be a bit tacky. They have always found the populists' commitment to values unsettling. To them, adherence to conservative principles was always less important than wealth and power.

Unfortunately, the GOP has lost its motivating ideals. The revolution of 1994 has been killed not by zeal but by a loss of faith in its own principles. The tragedy is not that we are faced with another fight for the soul of the Republican Party but that we have missed an opportunity to bring a new generation of Americans over to our point of view.

Digby: In Our Blood

I was musing yesterday about the habitual misjudgment on the part of the Bush administration and why it all felt so familiar to me. The unique combination of hubris, emotionalism, and confident assumptions that through little effort the US would "win" by dint of its superiority in both goodness and courage. And that's when it came to me where I'd heard it before:

From a speech given at the centennial of the civil war by historian Stephen Z. Starr:

Granting the existence of cultural differences between the North and South, can we assume that they would necessarily lead to a Civil War? Obviously not. Such differences lead to animosity and war only if one side develops a national inferiority complex, begins to blame all its shortcomings on the other side, enforces a rigid conformity on its own people, and tries to make up for its own sins of omission and commission by name-calling, by nursing an exaggerated pride and sensitiveness, and by cultivating a reckless aggressiveness as a substitute for reason.

Digby: The Unpopular Twins

California's not very fond of Republicans right now. When the two most famous failed Republican leaders get together it's not pretty:

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Bush's visit to Stanford was interrupted by protesters, who blocked the only road leading to the Hoover Institution, where Mr. Bush was to meet with fellows before dining with Mr. Shultz.

Daily Kos: The Five Percent Solution

by antifa
Fri Apr 21, 2006 at 03:49:45 AM PDT

The Republican plan for America, all along, was Banana Republic.

A nation of poorly educated renters and workers, ruled by their betters -- the wealthy five percent who own everything worthwhile, control all the capital, rule over the government, dictate laws in their own favor, stack the courts with their own judges, and send out the police and army to enforce those laws.

The Republican plan for America is the Five Percent Solution -- move all money and power into higher, tighter, whiter, righter hands.

Daily Kos: Fundy Values: Not quite an oxymoron, just misguided (by defensiveness).

by shock
Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 09:33:02 PM PDT

As I've written about here before (for example, here and here), I was raised as a fundamentalist and a Republican and have undergone a radical shift in beliefs in my adult life. While reading the comments for the highly-recommended diary, Romans 13: the reason fundamentalists still support GWB (for example, this thread), my memory was jogged to something I'd written a few years ago to a group of my friends who'd been (playfully, but genuinely) asking me to try to help them make sense of the fundamentalist mindset with respect to politics. I think this may be somewhat useful to some people here.

First, I am not posting this to try to defend the fundamentalist belief set, but rather because way back then we found it useful for strategizing going into the 2004 election in our area. That is, I hope this generates ideas for people here and/or politicians as to how to approach fundamentalists in the future.

Shame on the Post's Editorial Page

By Robert Parry
April 20, 2006

If a full and truthful history of the disastrous Iraq War is ever written, there should be a chapter devoted to the pivotal role played by the Washington Post’s hawkish editorial page and the many like-minded thinkers who are published in the newspaper’s Op-Ed section.

As arguably the most influential newspaper in the nation’s capital, the Post might have been expected to encourage a healthy pre-war debate that reflected diverse opinions from experts in the fields of government, diplomacy, academia, the military and the broader American public. War, after all, is not a trivial matter.

Colleagues Say C.I.A. Analyst Played by Rules

By DAVID S. CLOUD

Published: April 23, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 22 — Mary O. McCarthy, the intelligence officer dismissed on Friday after being accused of leaking information to reporters about the Central Intelligence Agency's overseas prisons, once was responsible for guarding some of the nation's most sensitive secrets.

As a senior National Security Council aide for intelligence from 1996 to 2001, Ms. McCarthy was known as a low-key professional who paid special attention to preventing White House leaks of classified information and covert operations, several current and former government officials said.

Avoiding Everyday Toxins

By Marco Visscher, Ode. Posted November 11, 2005.

They're everywhere -- in the food we eat, in the cosmetics we use, in the houses where we live. Is there an alternative?

Unexpected Toxins

Without knowing it, 35-year-old Jeremiah Holland lost a lot more than weight when he decided to start seriously exercising two years ago. His racing bike helped him trim down from 118 to 90 kilos (260 to 200 pounds). What Holland could never have suspected was that during that period, he was also ridding his body of something else -- something he never knew was there: polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), perfluoroctane sulfonates (PFOS), phthalates and a host of other unpronounceable chemical substances that are stored in fat -- and that remain in our bodies for a long, long time. Holland would never have been the wiser if he hadn't been chosen as a test subject in a project conducted by the Oakland Tribune, which studied the effect of toxic chemicals in the human body.

Paul Krugman: The Great Revulsion

Scroll down to see the article.--Dictynna

The New York Times, April 21, 2006

"I have a vision — maybe just a hope — of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country."

I wrote those words three years ago in the introduction to my column collection, "The Great Unraveling." It seemed a remote prospect at the time: Baghdad had just fallen to U.S. troops, and President Bush had a 70 percent approval rating.

Molly Ivins: Flawed Justice

Posted April 20, 2006.

As Zacarias Moussaoui and Ken Skilling illustrate, the quality of justice in this country is deeply affected by how much you can pay for it.

"Compare and contrast," read the directions for essay exams in the old college blue books. Compare and contrast the trials of Zacarias Moussaoui and Jeffrey Skilling.

Moussaoui appears to be headed for the death penalty, despite having an alibi of the lead-pipe-cinch variety. He was in jail on Sept. 11, 2001, so we know he wasn't out hijacking jets and killing people. He also appears to be seriously crazy, or at the very least a chronic liar, but that's a separate argument.

Digby: The Actor

Kevin Drum links to this post by Mark Schmitt today in which Schmitt artfully deconstructs the McCain myth.

The most important point is this:

[The] whole analysis is based on the cult of authenticity of which McCain, and to a lesser extent Bush, have been the greatest beneficiaries....But as McCain demonstrates, authenticity is itself a pose, one he adopted and has now discarded.

Digby: The Key To Her "Heart"

You folks are going to love this. More from World O Crap on the Daddy's Lil' Virgin movement. Apparently there is some special chastity jewelry available for man and girl to exhange in the covenant ceremony:

The Heart to Heart™ program, created by jeweler Joe Costello, differs from other abstinence programs in some important, unique ways. [...]

Digby: The Goldberg Variation

Jane had a great post up today about GOP nepotism and the inevitable decline in quality that always results from second and third generation copies.

This is exactly the kind of second-generation junk thinking being produced on the right by people like Ben Domenech, Jonah Goldberg and George W. Bush — people who vault into to highly paid, influential positions despite a complete and utter lack of talent or skill purely because of who their parents are and their willingness to say just about anything. Badly. A group who have tragically confused the wingnut welfare system for some kind of meritocracy, who think their megaphone comes as the result of skill and don’t acknowledge that both privilege and think tank underwriting are largely responsible for the opportunity to appear on the stage in the first place.

Digby: Common Goodness

There is much to recommend Michael Tomasky's essay today in The American Prospect. I agree with Atrios that it is important that the Democratic party give people something to believe in. Politics without heart is nothing more than crass deal making.

Tomasky prescribes a Democratic philosophy of the common good and posits that this is the basis of liberalism --- sacrifice for larger universalist principles. What's not to like? Certainly on a rhetorical level it's a positive philosophical message that serves as an umbrella for Democratic policies. The rub, of course, is in determining what the common good is in the first place.

Digby: On The Reservation

I noticed yesterday that the "military analysts" employed by the networks were not only helping the administration spin on Rumsfeld, but actually admitted on the air that they were giving the pentagon advice on how to handle the problem.

This post at TPM by Larry Johnson fills in the details of an ongoing propaganda effort that must be well known among the networks.

Digby: Innocent Schminnocent

In recent years many states and cities have moved to overhaul lineups, as DNA evidence has exposed nearly 200 wrongful convictions, three-quarters of them resulting primarily from bad eyewitness identification.

In the new method, the police show witnesses one person at a time, instead of several at once, and the lineup is overseen by someone not connected to the case, to avoid anything that could steer the witness to the suspect the police believe is guilty.

Digby: Asking The Generals

In case anyone ever had the mistaken impression that the network "military analysts," are any more neutral or non-partisan than the retired generals who have stepped forward to ask for Rumsefeld's resignation, think again:

BLITZER: And this is just coming in to CNN right now. The Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has just wrapped up his meeting with retired U.S. generals who now serve as military analysts for the news media. Our own military analyst, retired U.S. Air Force Major General Don Shepperd, is fresh out of the meeting. He's joining us now live from the Pentagon.

General Shepperd, thanks very much. How did it go? Tell our viewers how the defense secretary specifically responded to all these suggestions from other retired military generals that he stepped down?

Digby: Hissy Fit

If you didn't get to see Little Lord Fauntleroy have a temper tantrum in front of the press today, do yourself a favor and check it out.

HENRY: Mr. President, you make it a practice of not commenting on potential personnel move.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Of course, I did.

HENRY: Calling it speculation.

BUSH: And you can understand why. Because we've got people's reputations at stake. And on Friday I stood up and said I don't appreciate the speculation about Don Rumsfeld. He's doing a fine job. I strongly support him.

Digby: More Purity Ball

Responding to the odd, disturbing nature of the Father-Daughter Purity Ball, about which I posted below, PZ Myers says:

"Daddies of the world, keep your hands off your daughter's sexuality, OK? Raise them to be independent and thoughtful and informed and able to make their own decisions, and then just trust them.

That sounds like common sense to me. Girls pledging to their dads to stay virginal in ritualistic ceremonies just doesn't seem like a healthy thing to do.

Billmon: The Spiral Conflict

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

William Butler Yeats
The Second Coming
1921

William Beeman, a professor of Middle East studies at Brown University, published an interesting piece on the Iran showdown last week. It covers some of the same ground as my two Flight Forward posts, but gets to the punch line a lot quicker:

Iran and U.S. Locked Into Spiral Conflict

Indeed, the danger in this situation could be dismissed if there were other leaders in power. However, in both nations the leadership needs this conflict. President Bush and the Republican party face defeat in November without an issue to galvanize the voting public behind their assertion that they are best able to protect the United States from attack — the only point on which they have outscored Democrats in recent polls. President Ahmadinejad also needs public support for his domestic political agenda — an agenda that is paradoxically opposed by a large number of the ruling clerics in Iran. Every time he makes a defiant assertion against the United States, the public rallies behind him.

Harry Reid: No Good Military Options in Iran

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has joined the long list of national security officials, Iran experts, and others who argue that no good military options exist in Iran. (Read the full list HERE.)

Reid, D-Nev., said the administration should be taking the lead, but instead is relying on Germany, France and Great Britain to convince Iran to end its uranium enrichment program.

Hamiltonian Democrats

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; Page A17

It's come to this: The chief project to restate Democratic economics for our time was unveiled a couple of weeks ago, and it's named after the father of American conservatism, Alexander Hamilton.

Necessarily, the authors of the Hamilton Project preface their declaration with an attempt, not altogether successful, to reclaim Hamilton from the right. The nation's first secretary of the Treasury, they note, "stood for sound fiscal policy, believed that broad-based opportunity for advancement would drive American economic growth, and recognized that 'prudent aids and encouragements on the part of government' are necessary to enhance and guide market forces."

Cursor's Media Patrol - 04/20/06

With the 'Media on Speed' during 'A Crisis Almost Without Equal,' Robert Parry charges the Washington Post's editorial page with committing "an especially grave offense" in trying "to protect George W. Bush from public outrage over his Iraq War deceptions."

FAIR reviews the Post's response to its critics, and the difference between a leak and a plant, and Editor & Publisher confirms that Valerie Plame will be attending the White House correspondents dinner, where "the president will have to deliver ... jokes."

A Spanish-language GOP ad accuses Democrats of voting to "treat millions of hardworking immigrants as felons," as the Minutemen send an ultimatum to Bush because "You can't get through to the president any other way."

In New Orleans' mayoral election, business interests are said to have "picked both the incumbent and the two main challengers," and "Jim Crow is on the ballot ... only this time, no one is watching."

After $500,000 in cash was seized from a truck "driven by two Houston men who tried to enter a nuclear power plant" in Pennsylvania, Rigorous Intuition's Jeff Wells feels that "something just had its cover blown."

The Wall Street Journal profiles the nation's first Civil Liberties Protection Officer, said to have "the simplest job in government," while a VA nurse accused of sedition receives an apology.

Senator Rick Santorum counting on the Pennsylvania Pastors Network

Following the example set by the Ohio Restoration Project, the PPN is organizing Christian conservatives to save Santorum's career

After two-term Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum's book, "It Takes A Family: Conservatism and the Common Good" -- a sort-of rebuttal to Senator Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village" -- was published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (website), moaning and groaning was heard from the usual anti-Santorum crowd. But the anti-Santorum folks weren't completely alone; a resoundingly negative review also appeared at the website of Christianity Today, where reviewer John Wilson wrote: "Every Christian on the front lines of the culture wars should read this book -- as an example of how not to go about it."

While the book contains "well-reasoned policy recommendations and telling anecdotes...from the start, [it] has a divided heart," Wilson maintained. "Santorum's contemptuous references to 'liberals,' 'village elders,' and 'the Bigs' (this from a candidate who boasts Wal-Mart as a major donor) are pitched to the right-wing choir. One moment sneering in full talk-radio mode, the next moment sanctimoniously quoting Tocqueville, Santorum wants to have his cake and eat it, too."

Guess who's coming to dinner?

In the first of his weekly dispatches from New York, Paul Harris reveals how casual racism among the white middle classes is still rife in parts of the United States

Thursday April 20, 2006

Lizzie was charming and fun in the way only old ladies from the Deep South can be. Her voice was not so much tinged by a lilting accent as positively laden with it. She was 80 years old and as full of life as someone a quarter of her age. She was funny and warm, kind and intelligent. She had studied political science at college and then travelled the world. She was deeply Republican but her opinions could surprise. On the hot button conservative issue of the day - abortion - she was keenly pro-choice, loudly declaring that she could not stand it when men told women what to do. 'And it is ALWAYS men who talk about abortion,' she said with a glint in her eye. 'Well, it's none of their damned business.' She was, in short, the perfect dinner guest.

Molly Ivins: Election-year Investigations

04.17.06 - AUSTIN, Texas -- An interesting semi-historical footnote concerning Dick Cheney's oft-reiterated references during the 2000 presidential campaign to President Clinton's weaseling under oath. "He knows what the meaning of 'is' is," says Cheney in his campaign stump speech to show the moral superiority of the Republican camp.

Which leads us to this story about Karl Rove, Bush's campaign manager and the man they call "Bush's brain."

Rove, as all the world knows, has been a longtime Republican political operative in Texas prior to heading to Washington with Bush. During that time, Texas Democrats noticed a pattern that they eventually became somewhat paranoid about: In election years, there always seemed to be an FBI investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press.

New WH Policy Chief Was "Brooks Brothers" Rioter

By Justin Rood - April 19, 2006, 1:31 PM

To the Burberry ramparts!

The man Bush tapped to fill Karl Rove's spot as his policy wizard is none other than Joel Kaplan, who took part in the infamous "Brooks Brothers riot" of 2000. That's when a bunch of Washington GOP operatives, posing as outraged Floridians, waved fists, chanted "Stop the fraud!" and pounded windows in an effort to intimidate officials engaged in the Florida recount effort.

Ted Rall: Don't Impeach Bush. Commit Him.

By Ted RallTue Apr 18, 6:21 PM ET

A Maniacal Messianic Prepares to Fulfill His Destiny

"I have fulfilled my destiny," the president says manically. He has just entered the nuclear launch codes that will trigger World War III. Seconds later, he emerges from a bunker. The Secretary of State squeezes between two soldiers. "Mr. President!" he shouts. "We have a diplomatic solution!"

He smiles. "It's too late," he replies. "The missiles are flying. Alleluia. Alleluia."

The above scene, from David Cronenberg's 1983 adaptation of the horror novel "The Dead Zone," is a classic if slightly preposterous nightmare of a world destroyed by a demented demagogue. Now, incredibly, a lunatic out of a Stephen King movie has brought the United States to the brink of Armageddon.

Right-Wing Ivy Leaguers Try to Derail Juan Cole Appointment

Posted on Apr. 19, 2006

The liberal U. of Michigan historian and outspoken Bush administration critic is reportedly close to receiving a tenured teaching position at Yale University. But a group of conservatives, led by a Yale and a Harvard student, are trying to queer the deal by painting Cole as anti-Semitic.

Glenn Greenwald has the goods.

Jane Hamsher has more.

Paul Krugman: Enemy of the Planet

The New York Times

Lee Raymond, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, was paid $686 million over 13 years. But that’s not a reason to single him out for special excoriation. Executive compensation is out of control in corporate America as a whole, and unlike other grossly overpaid business leaders, Mr. Raymond can at least claim to have made money for his stockholders.

There’s a better reason to excoriate Mr. Raymond: for the sake of his company’s bottom line, and perhaps his own personal enrichment, he turned Exxon Mobil into an enemy of the planet.

Sean Wilentz: The Worst President in History?

One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush

George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

Mark Morford: Iran, You Ran, Let's Bomb Iran-- When all else fails and you're becoming Nixon 2.0, why not just nuke someone, and smirk?

- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, April 19, 2006

It's just like playing blackjack in Vegas.

Invariably, sitting right next to you is some guy, eyes shifty and body twitchy and making weird sounds with his mouth and smelling vaguely of sawdust and horse manure and dead dreams, with a huge pile of chips he is quickly turning into a very small pile of chips.

He is suffering. He is playing terribly, grumbling, sneering at the dealer, talking to the cards like they were his personal slutty harem ("C'mon you dumb bitches, do me right," etc.), complaining to his very angry God who is apparently no longer coming through for him. He is getting desperate. His pile is diminishing. He is sweating, glancing around, wondering where all his drunk fraternity friends scurried off to.

Soon he is down to his last chips. He makes one final stab, but his final bet tanks. He is out, the pile is gone.

Walking the White House plank

Sidney Blumenthal

April 19, 2006 05:53 PM

White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, departs as the investigation into Karl Rove enters into a serious new phase.

The resignation of the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, is an event of almost complete insignificance except insofar as the beleaguered White House presents it as an important change. Meanwhile, the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, under siege from dissenting ex-generals demanding his firing for arrogant incompetence, stays.

McClellan is a flea on the windshield of history. On the podium, he performed his duty as a slow-flying object swatted by a frustrated and flustered press corps. Inexpressive, occasionally inarticulate and displaying a limited vocabulary, his virtue was his unwavering discipline in sticking to his uninformative talking points, fending off pesky reporters, and defending the president and all the president's men to the last full measure of his devotion. Inside the Bush White House, he was a non-player, a factotum, the instrument of Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist and deputy chief of staff. McClellan played no part in the inner councils of state. He was the blank wall erected in front of the press to obstruct them from seeing what was on the other side. McClellan's stoic façade was unmatched by a stoic interior. He was a vessel for his masters, did whatever he was told, put out disinformation without objection, and was willing to defend any travesty. He is the ultimate dispensable man.

Should Ex-Generals Speak Out?

By Ivan Eland

April 18, 2006

Editor's Note: For years now, when anyone of any influence has spoken out against the Iraq War -- whether a musician in the Dixie Chicks or a former U.S. ambassador who served in Iraq -- the critic can expect "The Treatment," a barrage of personal insults, professional retaliation and insinuations about treasonous behavior.

In 2002, during the run-up to the Iraq War, we called this pattern of intimidation the "politics of preemption," a domestic corollary to George W. Bush's international doctrine of waging "anticipatory" or "preemptive" wars against nations that might someday threaten the United States. To make Americans abandon their traditional distaste for aggressive warfare, Bush needed to de-legitimize dissent.

Billmon: The Flight Forward, Part 2

On Sunday, I looked at the institutional and psychological pressures that may be leading the Cheney administration to view regime change in Iran as the only way of out of an increasingly intolerable situation created by the failure of the neocons' Iraq gambit.

Today, I want to consider whether similar pressures might apply on the Iranian side of this crisis, pressures which could lead Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his fellow revolutionary hardliners to seek their own flight forward in a confrontation with Global Arrogance, a.k.a. The Great Satan, a.k.a. the United States of America.

Ignore bloggers at your peril, say researchers

· Online pundits 'influence businesses and opinion'
· Companies are falling foul of negative net buzz

Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
Tuesday April 18, 2006
The Guardian

Bloggers and internet pundits are exerting a "disproportionately large influence" on society, according to a report by a technology research company. Its study suggests that although "active" web users make up only a small proportion of Europe's online population, they are increasingly dominating public conversations and creating business trends.

More than half of the internet users on the continent are passive and do not contribute to the web at all, while a further 23% only respond when prompted. But the remainder who do engage with the net - through messageboards, websites and blogs - are helping change the national conversation, say researchers.

Dead zone linked to farm subsidies

Some say too little spent on conservation

Monday, April 17, 2006

By Matthew Brown

West Bank bureau

Louisiana's fishing industry faces an uncertain future after the pounding it took last hurricane season, but fishers know one thing is certain: Sometime this summer, a lifeless expanse of water about the size of Connecticut -- maybe a little bigger, maybe a little smaller -- will form off the state's coast.

And there's no point fishing it, because any nets dragged there are sure to come up empty.

Five years after a multistate compact was signed to rein in the sprawling "dead zone" of low-oxygen water that forms annually in the Gulf, the problem has only grown worse, according to federal and state officials and independent scientists. Voluntary incentives to cut down on the pollutants that cause it, particularly fertilizers carried by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers from upstream farms, have failed to put a dent in the largest ecological threat to one of the world's most productive fisheries.

The High-Octane Story of the Felon and the Ferrari

"Here is one strange story about a failed Swedish businessman who crashed his Ferrari in Malibu -- soon after the cops showed up, two guys from Homeland Security did too."--BUZZFLASH

By William Booth

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; Page C01

On a winter dawn on a razor-straight stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, a lipstick-red Ferrari Enzo crested a hill at a speed that sheriff's investigators would later calculate to be 162 miles per hour.

The car -- if that word is not too lame to describe a 660-horsepower V12 rocket on wheels worth $1.6 million, one of only 400 ever made, described variously as "rolling art" and "the greatest performance road car ever" -- went airborne. Perhaps the Enzo thought it could fly? Alas, it careened into a utility pole, which effectively sliced the vehicle in half, and scattered shredded Ferrari bits over a debris field that measured 1,200 feet.

Dollar Falls Sharply in Asian Trading

Monday April 17, 5:35 am ET Dollar Falls Sharply Against the Euro and Yen in Asian Trading TOKYO (AP) -- The dollar fell sharply against the euro and yen in Asia Monday on a media report suggesting that China might reduce its purchases of U.S. Treasury holdings, and amid speculation that U.S. interest rates may have peaked

The U.S. dollar fell as low as 118 yen at one point before trading at 118.28 yen in Tokyo midafternoon, down 0.36 yen from late Friday in New York. The euro rose to $1.2178 from US$1.2108..

AP: States Omit Minorities' School Scores

By NICOLE ZIEGLER DIZON, BEN FELLER and FRANK BASS, Associated Press Writers
Tue Apr 18, 2:31 AM ET

Laquanya Agnew and Victoria Duncan share a desk, a love of reading and a passion for learning. But because of a loophole in the No Child Left Behind Act, one second-grader's score in Tennessee counts more than the other's. That is because Laquanya is black, and Victoria is white.

An Associated Press computer analysis has found Laquanya is among nearly 2 million children whose scores aren't counted when it comes to meeting the law's requirement that schools track how students of different races perform on standardized tests.

Beth Quinn: Recipe for Holy War: Add two nut jobs and stir

All right. I'm now officially scared.

Having just read Seymour Hersh's article about Bush's Iran plan, it appears that we no longer have a case of the good guys versus the bad guys.

What we have here is the bad guy versus the bad guy - two madmen playing an international game of chicken, ratcheting up the rhetoric to appeal to their fundamentalist followers.

There's no doubt that Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is mad in the head. In fact, it might help you remember his name if you pronounce it "Ah'm mad in ee head."

Oil hits record $72 on Iran fears

By Janet McBride
24 minutes ago

Oil hit a record $72.20 a barrel on Tuesday as Iran defied world pressure to halt its nuclear programme, raising new fears of a cut in supplies from the world's fourth biggest crude exporter.

In London, North Sea Brent crude oil jumped 74 cents to set the new all-time high as Iran and the West exchanged increasingly sharp words over the Islamic Republic's determination to push ahead with uranium enrichment.

U.S. crude oil climbed to $70.88, smashing through its previous record of $70.85.

David Neiwert: Reconquista!

Monday, April 17, 2006

The Messkins are coming! The Messkins are coming! Hide your daughters! Lock your doors!

That's the current drumbeat coming from the Sensenbrenner/Tancredo wing of the conservative movement, thrummed most prominently by such luminaries as Michelle Malkin ("Welcome to Reconquista" reads her headline). Having already characterized the current wave of Mexican immigration as an "invasion", she is more recently making the unsubstantiated claim that:

Aztlan is a long-held notion among Mexico's intellectual elite and political class, which asserts that the American southwest rightly belongs to Mexico. Advocates believe the reclamation (or reconquista) of Aztlan will occur through sheer demographic force. If the rallies across the country are any indication, reconquista is already complete.

Barbara Ehrenreich: Living Wage Campaign at U-Va

Friday I’m working my down an ever-expanding to-do list when I get a call from Joe Szakos, director of the Virginia Organizing Project, with the news that 17 students are sitting in at a University of Virginia administrative building, demanding a living wage for all U-Va employees. The fight over wages at U-Va has been going on for about 15 years, but no one expected something like this on the staid campus whose founder is still referred as “Mr. Jefferson,” as if he might come ambling around the lawn at any moment. My assignment from Joe – to call one of the sitters-in and express my support – moves right to the top of the to-do list.

Lauren, the woman whose cell phone I’m assigned to call, sounds a little breathless and distracted. Or maybe she’s just light-headed from hunger, because, as she explains, the university administration has spitefully blocked food deliveries to the protestors. I tell her I live in the community and I’m thrilled with what she’s doing.

Digby: At The Precipice

I find myself feeling a little bit depressed today. It's not the spectre of war with Iran, although I admit that scares the hell out of me. It's this:

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from two Chinese Muslims who were mistakenly captured as enemy combatants more than four years ago and are still being held at the U.S. prison in Cuba.

The men's plight has posed a dilemma for the Bush administration and courts. Previously, a federal judge said the detention of the ethnic Uighurs in Guantanamo Bay is unlawful, but that there was nothing federal courts could do.

Digby: "A Mean Sick Group Of People"

Crooks and Liars has a story up about Michelle Malkin posting phone numbers of college students who protested recruiters on the UCSC campus. Predictably, her readers are harrassing them, as she knew they would.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 04/17/06

Interviewing former Gen. Bernard Trainor, "Countdown's" Keith Olbermann observes that "It's not 'Seven Days in May,' but six generals in April," one-time U.S. Marine Stephen Pizzo terms events "extraordinary," and BTC News asks: "Is the military assault on Rumsfeld about Iran, not Iraq?"

Although Iran claims to have 40,000 ready and willing suicide bombers, the AP reports that even supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are "starting to question his tactics," and an Independent' correspondent writes from Tehran that "behind the facade, the cracks are very real."

Islamic Jihad claims responsibility for the first suicide bombing inside Israel since Hamas took power, while a Palestinian analyst argues that without significant Arab aid the pressured Hamas-led government could collapse, and the Economist examines 'The Last Conquest of Jerusalem.'

David Sirota criticizes Democrats for relying in 2006 on a strategy which is "about nothing," and Nathan Newman explains why "so many folks don't trust liberal leaders."

With the "huge symbolic impact" of recent demonstrations still reverberating, economists tell the New York Times that illegal immigration has had "only a small impact" on the income of U.S. workers -- particularly compared with the long-stagnant minimum wage.

One review of 'Stuff Happens,' David Hare's play about the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, notes that an audience member stood up and shouted, "Please, somebody tell me this is fiction."

Top court rejects appeal by Uighurs at Guantanamo

'WHAT JUSTICE REQUIRES'

Robertson ruled in December that the continued, indefinite detention of the Uighurs at Guantanamo is unlawful, but said he had no authority "to do what I believe justice requires" in ordering their release.

Robertson said he could not grant the Uighurs' request for asylum in the United States because the law gives that power solely to the president. The Bush administration has opposed bringing them to the United States.

Their lawyers urged the Supreme Court to intervene now and decide the case, without following the usual procedure of waiting for a ruling by a U.S. appeals court.

"The district court's decision once again renders Guantanamo Bay a place and a prison beyond law," they said. "Liberty can never be secure when the judicial branch declares its impotence."

WaPo's Deborah Howell and Fred Hiatt: Fact Free and Loving It

I go back and forth on the Deborah Howell conundrum -- ignorant or craven? I always find myself touching down upon this Upton Sinclair quote:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

And so we find ourselves with Lil' Debbie, failing to disappoint with this week's excuses about last week's Fred Hiatt editorial:

The Post editorially has supported the war, and the purpose of the editorial -- headlined "A Good Leak" -- was to support that leak as necessary to show that the president had reason to believe that Iraq was seeking uranium.

Yes, we know you have a lot invested in your warmongering. It has no doubt paid the giant cocktail weenie bill for years. But the fact is that there was no reason for the president to believe Iraq was seeking uranium at the time.

SECRET PLAN TO CUT NATIONAL PARK FUNDING BY 30% IN 5 YEARS

— Parks “Glide Path” to Impoverishment Breaks Bush Campaign Pledge

Washington, DC — The Bush administration has directed the National Park Service to substantially decrease its reliance on tax-supported funding, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In a turnabout from the last two presidential campaigns when candidate Bush promised greater funding of parks, new “talking points” distributed last week to all park superintendents urge them to begin “honest and forthright” discussions with the public about smaller budgets, reduced visitor services and increased fees.

Using a new approach called Core Operations Analysis, each park is asked to develop budgets based on a 20 to 30% reduction in appropriation support. In this exercise, park superintendents decide which visitor services or other functions can be jettisoned (“staffing and funding alternatives based on realistic funding projections,” in the words of the Park Service). Whatever shortfalls in support for essential operations that remain must be made up for with fee hikes, cost shifting or increased reliance on volunteers.

US analysts detail war plans against Iran

Sun Apr 16, 1:04 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States began planning a full-scale military campaign against Iran that involves missile strikes, a land invasion and a naval operation to establish control over the Strait of Hormuz even before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, a former US intelligence analyst disclosed.

William Arkin, who served as the US Army's top intelligence mind on West Berlin in the 1970s and accurately predicted US military operations against Iraq, said the plan is known in military circles as TIRANNT, an acronym for "Theater Iran Near Term."

A Small-Time Crime With Hints of Big-Time Connections Lights Up the Net

By ADAM COHEN

Published: April 17, 2006

The Internet is a great breeding ground for political conspiracies, and there is a new one lighting up computer monitors across the country. Bloggers are fascinated by what they see as eerie parallels between Watergate and a phone-jamming scandal in New Hampshire. It has low-level Republican operatives involved in dirty campaign tricks. It has checks from donors with murky backgrounds. It has telephone calls to the White House. What is unclear is whether it is the work of a few rogue actors, or something larger.

In 2002, there was a hard-fought Senate race between Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, the Democrat, and John Sununu, the Republican. On Election Day, Democratic workers arrived at five get-out-the-vote offices to find their phone lines jammed. It turned out that the jamming was being done by an Idaho telemarketing firm that was being paid by a Virginia consulting group. The fee for the jamming, reportedly $15,600, was paid by New Hampshire Republicans.

Crude oil futures hit $70 a barrel

Posted 4/17/2006 9:20 AM ET

LONDON (AP) — Crude oil futures hit $70 a barrel for the first time in seven-and-a-half months Monday, pushed higher by concerns over declining gasoline stocks in the U.S., supply disruptions in Nigeria and tension over Iran's nuclear program.

Light, sweet crude for May delivery briefly touched $70 a barrel before easing to $69.73 a barrel in European trading — up 28 cents from Thursday's close. The Nymex was closed for the Good Friday holiday.

The last time crude futures surpassed $70 a barrel was on Aug. 30 when they traded at a record $70.85 a barrel, after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast.

Steve Forbes: “When We Have The Confrontation” With Iran, “The Price of Oil Will Come Down”

This is crazy...--Dictynna

Appearing on Fox News this weekend, Steve Forbes said the way to lower gas prices is to “have the confrontation with Iran.” Forbes warned Fox viewers that “the longer we let it fester, the higher the price of oil will stay.

David Neiwert: Immigration and eliminationism

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Those mass marches are having their effect: They're scaring the crap out of the nativists.

And they're fighting back in the usual, expected fashion ... by lying and making ugly but empty threats.

At least, we hope they're empty. Because what they're advocating, increasingly, is eliminating all 11 million illegal aliens in the United States. How they'll achieve that is something, however, they leave to our imaginations.

Digby: Are We There Yet?

Following up on my post from Friday highlighting Colonel Sam Gardiner's statement on CNN that the US already has troops in iran, I see (via robelicit at kos) that Dennis Kucinich has sent a letter to the president asking if such reports are true. He says:

Dear President Bush:

Recently, it has been reported that U.S. troops are conducting military operations in Iran. If true, it appears that you have already made the decision to commit U.S. military forces to a unilateral conflict with Iran, even before direct or indirect negotiations with the government of Iran had been attempted, without UN support and without authorization from the U.S. Congress.

Digby: On The Table

John at Crooks and Liars caught Joe Klein in a perfect example of shallow, knee jerk, beltway conventional wisdom that has made him the object of ridicule among everybody who observes the punditocrisy.

He goes on about how the young people of Iran love us, blah, blah, blah, but then makes an emphatic point that we must not take nuclear weapons "off the table." Apparently he doesn't understand the difference between nuclear weapons being "on the table" in the event of an attack and nuclear weapons being "on the table" as part of the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptively attacking anyone who looks at us sideways.

Billmon: This is Not a Drill

According to a couple of guys who know a thing or two about drills:

Bombs That Would Backfire

By RICHARD CLARKE and STEVEN SIMON

The president assures us he will seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis. And there is a role for threats of force to back up diplomacy and help concentrate the minds of our allies. But the current level of activity in the Pentagon suggests more than just standard contingency planning or tactical saber-rattling. (emphasis added)

The parallels to the run-up to to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.

Billmon: The Flight Forward

For those who don't want to believe the United States is seriously preparing to attack Iran, a favored explanation for the current war chatter is that it's nothing more than a textbook case of saber rattling – or, once the alleged threat to use tactical nuclear weapons is added to the mix, an example of the so-called "madman theory" in action.

I've been planning to post something on the madman theory for several days now, but Fred Kaplan at Slate has long since beaten me to the punch. So I'll let him review the origin of the term:

In his first few years as president, Richard Nixon tried to force North Vietnam's leaders to the peace table by persuading them that he was a madman who would do anything to win the war. His first step, in October 1969, was to ratchet up the alert levels of U.S. strategic nuclear forces as a way of jarring the Soviet Union into pressuring the North Vietnamese to back down. A few years later, he stepped up the bombing of the North and put out the word that he might use nukes.

Meet Mr. Republican: Jack Abramoff

by Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone

24 March Issue

The secret history of the most corrupt man in Washington.

So this is it, finally. By the time this magazine hits the newsstands, Jack Abramoff - right-wing megalobbyist and great feckless shitwad of our new American century - will be but a tick of the geological clock away from The End. There will be no rack, no stoning, no scorpion-filled sand pit, no bucket of fire ants. Just a sanitary plea agreement and a single blow of the gavel, and "Casino Jack" Abramoff will disappear for a few years of weightlifting and Talmudic study.

En route to his day of reckoning, Abramoff really did travel each and every right-wing highway, from Jo-burg in the old days to the Bush White House. But he's being sentenced for only the last few miles of that trip. It's almost an insult to a criminal of Abramoff's caliber that the charge he'll go to jail for is a low-rent wire-fraud scheme committed in a pickpocket capital like Miami Beach. In that one, Jack and his cronies claimed to have $23 million in assets when he didn't have a dime, and he persuaded financial backers to purchase a $147.5 million cruise-ship casino empire. A nice score for a Gotti child, maybe, but a bit gauche for the wizard of the Republican fast lane.

Troop support of ribbon warriors is mostly hot air

By Tom Matthews

April 16, 2006

Anybody else tired of being lectured to by the backside of a Ford Windstar?

Every morning, while I'm out there with the carpool warriors, there they are, those ubiquitous ribbons taking me to task: "Support the troops." As if it would slip my mind without their hectoring.

Saying "Support the troops" is like saying "Support the firefighters." Of course, we appreciate their service, admire their courage and hope they all make it home safely. We do not, however, support the fire, nor do we support the man who started it.

US firms suspected of bilking Iraq funds

Millions missing from program for rebuilding

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | April 16, 2006

WASHINGTON -- American contractors swindled hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds, but so far there is no way for Iraq's government to recoup the money, according to US investigators and civil attorneys tracking fraud claims against contractors.

Courts in the United States are beginning to force contractors to repay reconstruction funds stolen from the American government. But legal roadblocks have prevented Iraq from recovering funds that were seized from the Iraqi government by the US-led coalition and then paid to contractors who failed to do the work.