David Neiwert: Weird science from the far right

Friday, June 30, 2006

It seems that in facing up to the realities of global warming, the right -- taking its cue from Rush Limbaugh, who's perfected this schtick -- is responding by flinging as much shit on the wall as humanly possible, not so much to see what sticks but just to obscure the issues long enough for them to evade them.

And in some cases, they're even stealing entire sections from the old Far Right Playbook. (You can imagine my surprise.)

The most recent example came on Wednesday's Joe Scarborough show on MSNBC, featuring a discussion of global warming from the right-wing ABC News reporter John Stossel. After Scarborough and Stossel ate up a chunk of airspace badmouthing Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, they invited Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen to join in the discussion. Slocum immediately set about putting the record straight regarding the scientific consensus on global warming.

Digby: American Hero

Every once in a while you read about or get to meet someone who displays by his or her actions one of those wonderful fundamental lessons in personal integrity, intellectual consistency and common decency that makes you think this species might not be doomed after all. Here's one:

The U.S. Navy lawyer who challenged the Bush administration's efforts to try terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, walked a professional tightrope between fellow officers trying to gain speedy convictions and what he considered a moral imperative to buck the chain of command and vigorously defend his client.

Digby: Whatever

Glenn Greenwald has a nice primer posted about the Supreme Court decision on Gitmo and executive power. He optimistically concludes:

...opponents of monarchical power should celebrate this decision. It has been some time since real limits were placed on the Bush administration in the area of national security. The rejection of the President's claims to unlimited authority with regard to how Al Qaeda prisoners are treated is extraordinary and encouraging by any measure. The decision is an important step towards re-establishing the principle that there are three co-equal branches of government and that the threat of terrorism does not justify radical departures from the principles of government on which our country was founded.

Isn't it pretty to think so? Certainly some of the legal questions about presidential wartime powers seem to have been answered.

Digby: Conservative Manifestos For Idiots

Kevin Drum linked to an article by Michelle Cottle in an obscure, subscription-only, outmoded journal in which she discusses the latest rightwing punlishing phenom, the child brainwashing author named Katharine DeBrecht who wrote the alleged runaway best-seller called "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!"

I hadn't heard of this children's book, but apparently Limbaugh is rivaling Oprah these days and managed to get 30,000 of them sold after mentioning it on his show. Debrecht now has a contract for several more books, the announced titles of which include:

"Help! Mom! Hollywood's in My Hamper!"
"Help! Mom! The Ninth Circuit Nabbed the Nativity!"
"Help! Mom! There Are Lawyers in My Lunchbox!"

I'm not kidding.

Daily Kos: Why the Fed does what it does

by PsiFighter37

Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 05:34:43 PM PDT

(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom)

Today, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the federal funds rate 25 basis points to 5.25%. It was the 17th consecutive time that the FOMC raised the key short-term rate, but it seems that the American public had already had enough of the rising interest rates.

By a 65 percent to 22 percent margin, Americans oppose another rate increase by the central bank, which says such moves are necessary to counter inflation. The poll was conducted from June 24 to June 27, ending two days before the Fed's latest rate decision, to be announced 2:15 p.m. today in Washington.

• PsiFighter37's diary :: ::
• 
  

It makes sense that the average American would be against rising interest rates - it makes it more expensive for consumers to borrow money, and it makes mortgages on homes more expensive. Hell, even investors don't like rising interest rates - higher rates make investment more expensive for firms, and it tends to have slow down the economy in general, especially the housing market.

Billmon: Crime and Punishment

Mora told Haynes that, if the Pentagon’s theories of indemnity didn’t hold up in the courts, criminal charges conceivably could be filed against Administration officials. He added that the interrogation policies could threaten Rumsfeld’s tenure, and could even damage the Presidency. “Protect your client!” he said.

The New Yorker
The Memo
February 27, 2006

Nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law.

Geneva Convention IV Commentary 51
Cited in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
June 29, 2006

In a civilized world, George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney would all be working the phones right now trying to scare up some really good criminal attorneys – preferably ones with a hands-on experience in international war crimes litigation.

Who knows? Now that Milosevic is dead, maybe some of his old mouthpieces are available.

What's the Matter With Barack Obama?

What's the matter with Barack Obama?

The trouble with Barack Obama's controversial recent speech about religion and the Democratic Party is not his embrace of religious language in the service of liberalism. Religious speech can be transcendent, and genuinely Christian ideals about justice and mercy can inspire even non-believers. The right has successfully convinced much of the country that the Democratic Party is hostile to people of faith, and speeches that work to counter that myth are valuable.

Unfortunately, Obama's rhetoric ends up reinforcing Republican myths about liberal Godlessness instead of challenging them.

SLATE: Line of the Day

"The administration isn't really asking for constitutional blank checks. Why should it, when the president thinks he has his own constitutional Swiss bank account?"

--Dahlia Lithwick

A SUPREME COURT CONVERSATION
By Walter Dellinger and Dahlia Lithwick

Barbara Ehrenreich: The Piggery Award

While pondering Congress's rejection of a minimum wage increase this week, it's helpful to recall the basic taxonomic distinction between Predators and Pigs. Predators - in this case, those who employ people at unlivable wages - suck the marrow out of their employees, transform eager young women into stress-injured cripples, and virtually orphan the children whose parents are forced to work two or more jobs to support them.

Pigs, on the other hand, sit by wriggling with delight at these cannibalistic proceedings. It's their job to oink out choruses of praise for the Predators. "Predation is Prosperity!" they proclaim, all the while hoping that some little scraps of flesh will fall their way.

Molly Ivins: Justice, fairness, and flipping

GOP moves to hold down minimum wage, abolish estate tax, and ban flag burning

AUSTIN, Texas -- And then along comes Cut'n'Run Casey. We spend all last week listening to cut'n'run Democrats talking about their cut'n'run strategy for Iraq, and the only issue is whether they want to cut'n'run by the end of this year or to cut'n'run by the end of next year, and oh, by the way, did I mention that Republicans had been choreographed to refer to the Democrats' plans as cut'n'run?

The Newbie's Guide to Detecting the NSA

It might be easier to simply offer the spies friendly greeting...--Dictynna

Tuesday, 27 June 2006

It's not surprising that an expert hired by EFF should produce an analysis that supports the group's case against AT&T. But last week's public court filing of a redacted statement by J. Scott Marcus is still worth reading for the obvious expertise of its author, and the cunning insights he draws from the AT&T spy documents.

An internet pioneer and former FCC advisor who held a Top Secret security clearance, Marcus applies a Sherlock Holmes level of reasoning to his dissection of the evidence in the case: 120-pages of AT&T manuals that EFF filed under seal, and whistleblower Mark Klein's observations inside the company's San Francisco switching center.

Toledo Blade Editorial: Not ready, aim, fire!

A NEWS report the other day that the United States was prepared to use its so-called “ballistic missile defense system” to intercept an anticipated North Korean missile test must have caused a panic deep inside the Pentagon.

That’s because, despite the bold claims of the brass hats out front, the military has no operational missile defense system, at least not one proven to work.

What if they tried to take down the North Korean missile with this untried system and missed? That would be a propaganda victory dictator/crazyman Kim Jong Il couldn’t purchase at any price.

Conservatives claimed NY Times alerted terrorists, ignored Bush administration's prior promotion of its bank-tracking efforts

Summary: Numerous conservative commentators joined the Bush administration in arguing that, in detailing a secret Treasury Department program designed to monitor terrorists' international financial transactions, a June 23 New York Times article tipped off terrorists to the U.S. government's ability to track their financial activities -- some going so far as to accuse the newspaper of treason. But the Times report was hardly the first indication of U.S. efforts to monitor terrorists' financial transactions: President Bush himself repeatedly touted the government's capability to track and shut down terrorists' international financial networks.

Following the publication of a June 23 New York Times article detailing a secret Treasury Department program designed to monitor terrorists' international financial transactions, President Bush and other senior administration officials accused the newspaper of tipping off America's enemies and jeopardizing national security. Numerous conservative commentators joined the White House in arguing that the Times had informed terrorists of the U.S. government's ability to track their financial activities -- some going so far as to accuse the newspaper of treason, as Media Matters for America noted. But the June 23 report was hardly the first indication of U.S. efforts to monitor terrorists' financial transactions: President Bush himself touted the government's capability to track and shut down terrorists' international financial networks, presumably signaling long before June 23, 2006, that they had reason to suspect their banking activities were being monitored. Moreover, the administration itself acknowledged nearly two years ago having "witnessed an increasing reliance by Al Qaida and terrorist groups on cash couriers."

Sirotablog: Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.

6.28.06

WSJ report proves executive payouts fueling America's pension crisis

In Hostile Takeover, I note that the Wall Street Journal's Ellen Schultz is, arguably, the best journalist working today. And in the last few days, she has singlehandedly blown away all the rhetoric about what's destroying America's pension system that's coming from Corporate America and their bought off cronies in government.

The public is led to believe that companies are slashing workers' pensions and backing out of their retirement promises to workers because these companies face a cash squeeze caused by the market. But in a major investigative report, Schultz points out that an "analysis of corporate filings reveals that executive benefits are playing a large and hidden role in the declining health of America's pensions." The key findings are stunning:

- Boosted by surging pay and rich formulas, executive pension obligations exceed $1 billion at some companies. Besides GM, they include General Electric Co. (a $3.5 billion liability); AT&T Inc. ($1.8 billion); Exxon Mobil Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. (about $1.3 billion each); and Bank of America Corp. and Pfizer Inc. (about $1.1 billion apiece).

- Benefits for executives now account for a significant share of pension obligations in the U.S., an average of 8% at the companies above. Sometimes a company's obligation for a single executive's pension approaches $100 million.

- These liabilities are largely hidden, because corporations don't distinguish them from overall pension obligations in their federal financial filings.

- As a result, the savings that companies make by curtailing pensions for regular retirees -- which have totaled billions of dollars in recent years -- can mask a rising cost of benefits for executives.

- Executive pensions, even when they won't be paid till years from now, drag down earnings today. And they do so in a way that's disproportionate to their size, because they aren't funded with dedicated assets.

Schultz goes on to show how many of the big companies that are slashing workers' pension are using the savings to add to executives' pension plans.

The '06 Stakes Just Got Raised

by Robert Parry
June 30, 2006

The narrow margin of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rebuke to George W. Bush on military tribunals highlights the stakes on the table for the November 2006 congressional elections – nothing short of the survival of a meaningful constitutional system in the United States.

The majority opinion, which stopped Bush from proceeding with a kangaroo court that stripped Guantanamo Bay detainees of basic legal protections and mocked the Geneva Conventions, carried a profound secondary message – that the Court was not prepared to endorse Bush’s vision of his “war powers” as limitless and beyond challenge.

Not Enough Fish in the Sea

By George Monbiot, AlterNet. Posted June 30, 2006.

We need omega-3 oils for our brains to function properly. Yet we are rapidly destroying the only source of these oils -- the world's fisheries.

The more it is tested, the more compelling the hypothesis becomes. Dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia and other neurological problems seem to be associated with a deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids, especially in the womb. The evidence of a link with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and dementia is less clear, but still suggestive. None of these conditions are caused exclusively by a lack of these chemicals, or can be entirely remedied by their application, but it's becoming pretty obvious that some of our most persistent modern diseases are, at least in part, diseases of deficiency.

No Choice When It Comes to License Plates

By Jennifer Fox, AlterNet. Posted July 1, 2006.

Why are anti-abortion 'Choose Life' license plates legal, while pro-choice plates keep being struck down?

Now that anti-abortion "Choose Life" license plates are legal in some states, I wonder where's the "Choose Choice" option?

On Monday, June 26, the Supreme Court refused to tackle a lawsuit about the matter, ensuring that the "Choose Life" plates -- which originated In Florida -- remain legal in Louisiana, Tennessee and the few other states where they have grown in popularity.

Billmon: Star Crossed

Not content with picking through Jerome Armstrong's dirty laundry at the SEC -- at a time when he is expressly forbidden from talking about the case -- the werebunnies of Right Blogistan and TNR (is there a difference any more?) plus Mickey Kaus , who flunked out of wererabbit basic training, are having themselves a gay old time making fun of Jerome's interest in astrology, which I gather he has used in the past to pick stocks, or forecast political trends, or both -- I'm not clear.Nor do I particularly want to be. I'm very familiar with the practice of forecasting financial price trends based on charts of what are essentially random numerical patterns.

Billmon: Wage Earner

I've been wondering when the Democrats would finally jump on the minimum wage/congressonal pay raise contrast noted here last week. I mean, it's the political equivalent of a big slow pitch left hanging out over the middle of the plate:

A week after the GOP-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Senate Democrats on Tuesday vowed to block pay raises for members of Congress until the minimum wage is increased.

No Good Reason

Via Billmon, we learn that the Taliban is mounting an offensive in Afghanistan:

In the past three months, the United States has carried out 340 airstrikes in Afghanistan, twice the number in Iraq.

Officials told The Washington Post the military has been responding aggressively to Taliban aggression.
"I think the Taliban realize they have a window to act," said Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, who commands the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. "The enemy is working against a window that he knows is closing."

The Taliban has been especially active in southern Afghanistan in recent weeks. The toll includes the deaths of 300 civilians, insurgents and soldiers and the burning of 200 schools.

How can it be that we have not yet defested the Taliban?

Cursor's Media Patrol - 06/29/06

Although 84 of 100 terrorism and national security experts say 'U.S. losing war on terror,' and "the Iraq war is the biggest reason why," a conservative media watchdog argues that "a reasonable person would look at this evidence" and see "great strides."

A self-proclaimed "non-partisan organization" called Vets for Freedom has been exposed as "a pro-war group with ... ties to the Bush public relations team," but the big three U.S. newspapers are said to "have all run op-eds from these guys, without any reporting on who they actually are."

In 'The Coming Ballot Meltdown,' warns The Nation's Andrew Gumbel, wherever voters "don't have reason to fear out-and-out political interference in the electoral vote, they can expect incompetence and chaos." Plus: 'Where's the Plan, Democrats?'

Stan Cox explores the vital importance of air conditioning to the rise of George W. Bush, who is said to be 'Throwing the rhetorical furniture into the fire.'

As FEMA officials complain that "private property rights" prevent the removal of enough Katrina debris "to stack 2 miles high onto a football field," it's noted that "Not a single dollar of federal housing repair or home reconstruction money has made it to New Orleans yet," although a familiar theme has arrived.

New McGill research shows mice capable of empathy

Source: University Relations Office (URO) [newswire]
June 29, 2006

Pain sensitivity increased in mice exposed to pain of mice they know

A new study by McGill University professor of psychology Dr. Jeffrey Mogil shows that the capacity for empathy, previously suspected but unproven even among higher primates, is also evident in lower mammals.

In research published online June 29 in the journal Science, Professor Mogil, graduate student Dale Langford and their colleagues in the Pain Genetics Lab at McGill University discovered that mice that were co-housed (that is, familiar to each other) and able to see one another in pain were more sensitive to pain than those tested alone. The results, which for the first time show a form of "emotional contagion" between animals, shed light on how known social factors play a role in pain management.

The findings are not only unprecedented in what they tell us about animals, they may ultimately be relevant to understanding pain in humans. "Since we know that social interaction plays an important role in chronic pain behaviour in humans," Dr. Mogil said, "then the mechanism underlying such effects can now be elucidated; why are we so affected by those around us?"

Detecting prejudice in the brain

Three Florida teenagers recently pleaded not guilty to the brutal beatings and in one case, death, of homeless men. One of the beatings was caught on surveillance video and in a most chilling way illustrates how people can degrade socially outcast individuals, enough to engage in mockery, physical abuse, and even murder. According to new research, the brain processes social outsiders as less than human; brain imaging provides accurate depictions of this prejudice at an unconscious level.

A new study by Princeton University psychology researchers Lasana Harris and Susan Fiske shows that when viewing photographs of social out-groups, people respond to them with disgust, not a feeling of fellow humanity. The findings are reported in the article "Dehumanizing the Lowest of the Low: Neuro-imaging responses to Extreme Outgroups" in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science (previously the American Psychological Society).

Senator Moves to Suspend New Arsenic Limit for Tap Water

By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer
June 29, 2006

WASHINGTON — Just months after a new standard took effect to limit levels of arsenic in drinking water, Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) will introduce a measure today to suspend enforcement of the rule for small water systems, including more than 100 in California.

Craig spokesman Dan Whiting said a moratorium on civil penalties was needed to ease the financial burden on water systems that serve 10,000 customers or less.

Salon: Guantanmo interrogators trained by torture school instructors

RAW STORY
Published: Thursday June 29, 2006

SALON has learned that interrogators working at Guantanamo Bay were given instruction in tactics and technique from a US Army school that trains soldiers to survive torture.

Salon magazine uncovered evidence of the link between the two military entities in documents turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union. The report shows that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay received instruction from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape school at Fort Bragg, N. C.. The Army declined a request for an interview, and commented that "We do not teach interrogation techniques."

Government Says Stolen VA Laptop Recovered

Thursday June 29, 2006 4:31 PM

AP Photo DCLJ102

By HOPE YEN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -The government has recovered the stolen laptop computer and hard drive containing sensitive data for up to 26.5 million veterans and military personnel, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said Thursday.

Nicholson said law enforcement officials were still investigating to determine whether data from the equipment, which included names, birth dates and Social Security numbers, had been duplicated or utilized in any way.

Staying on Message -- Nixon's Message

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, June 28, 2006; A25

Let's give credit where credit is due: Nobody knows how to take the worst political hand imaginable -- responsibility for a failing war -- and turn it to their own advantage like the Republicans. That was the defining political accomplishment of Richard Nixon in Vietnam. It may yet be the defining political achievement of George W. Bush in Iraq.

Nixon, of course, had an easier time of it. When he took office in 1969, he inherited a war that his Democratic predecessors had made and that had long since descended into a blood-drenched, stalemated disaster. He could have opted to end the war early in his term, particularly since neither he nor his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, believed it was winnable. But by continuing the conflict, and even expanding it into Cambodia, he enraged the 40 percent of the nation that wanted us out of Vietnam. Millions of demonstrators took to the streets; some of the student movement embraced a wacky, self-marginalizing anti-Americanism; and mainstream Democrats grew steadily more antiwar.

Arms dealer in talks with US officials about Iran

By Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps in Washington
August 9, 2003

Pentagon hard-liners pressing for change of government in Iran have held secret, unauthorised meetings in Paris with an arms dealer who was a main figure in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Administration officials said at least two Pentagon officials working for the Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, Douglas Feith, have held "several" meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian middleman in United States arms-for-hostage shipments to Iran in the mid-1980s.

The officials who disclosed the secret meetings said the talks with Mr Ghorbanifar were not authorised by the White House and appeared to be aimed at undercutting sensitive negotiations with Iran's Government.

A senior Administration official said the US Government had learned about the unauthorised talks by accident.

The senior official and another Administration source said the ultimate objective of Mr Feith and a group of neo-conservative civilians inside the Pentagon is change of government in Iran.

Fight for Internet Freedom Moves to Senate Floor

Free Press, Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America Respond to Senate Commerce Committee Tie Vote on Net Neutrality

WASHINGTON — The Senate Commerce Committee fell a single vote short of passing an amendment to safeguard the free and open Internet as momentum builds toward a full Senate vote on Net Neutrality.

Offered by Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), the amendment to Senator Stevens' telecommunications bill (S. 2686) would have ensured meaningful protection for Net Neutrality, preventing big phone and cable companies from turning the Internet into their private tollway.

The amendment failed by a tie vote of 11-11. All ten Democratic committee members voted in favor with Senator Snowe. The eleven remaining Republican members voted against the amendment.

Nuke the Messenger

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, June 27, 2006; 1:34 PM

In accusing the press -- and specifically, the New York Times -- of putting American lives at risk, President Bush and his allies have escalated their ongoing battle with the media to nuclear proportions.

Here's what Bush had to say yesterday: "We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America."

Here's Vice President Cheney: "The New York Times has now made it more difficult for us to prevent attacks in the future."

Paper Retracts Report that Murtha Called U.S. the Greatest Threat to World Peace

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has retracted its false report that Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) called the United States the greatest threat to world peace:

Correction: An article in Sunday’s editions misinterpreted a comment from U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., at a town hall meeting in North Miami on Saturday. In his speech, Murtha said U.S. credibility was suffering because of continued U.S. military presence in Iraq ,and the perception that the U.S. is an occupying force. Murtha was citing a recent poll, by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, that indicates a greater percentage of people in 10 of 14 foreign countries consider the U.S. in Iraq a greater danger to world peace than any threats posed by Iran or North Korea.

The purported quote was seized upon by right-wing pundits, who claimed that Murtha had put “all Americans in danger” and was “in the thrall” of anti-American activists.

The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress (DVD)

A Robert Greenwald "Brave New Films" Production

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

Robert Greenwald is back with a devastating film (by Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck) that details the power of corporate/political corruption as seen through the career of Tom DeLay. The documentary is not about DeLay's entire post-exterminator life in politics, although you get glimpses into his early career in the Texas Statehouse (when he was known as "Hot Tub" Tom). "The Big Buy" smartly focuses on the charges brought by Texas State's Attorney Ronnie Earle, who relentlessly pursued DeLay for breaking the law.

Bush's Global Green Zone

By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com. Posted June 29, 2006.

The administration has painstakingly created a fictitious bubble of safety in its Baghdad 'Green Zone.' Now Bush expects us to buy into the belief that he's made us all safer, here and abroad.

As every political junky in the country now knows, just before finding himself not indicted by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Karl Rove went to a fundraiser in New Hampshire and launched the Republican campaign for the 2006 midterm elections. Its simple goal was to keep a Democratic majority (and so the power to investigate) out of either house of Congress. He promptly attacked Rep. John Murtha and other Democrats for their "cut and run" attitudes on Iraq. ("They may be with you for the first shots, but they're not going... to be with you for the tough battles.") He swore that the administration had been right to take out Saddam Hussein ("We have no excuses to make for it...") and proposed a new version of the administration's most successful post-9/11 ploy -- the constant linking of Saddam Hussein to the al-Qaeda attacks. Now, he would link the wreckage of administration policy in Iraq to future terrorist attacks. If we "cut and run," he pointed out in a fabulous Mobius strip of political logic, "It would provide a launching pad for the terrorists to strike the United States and the West."

Growing GOP Theme: Blame The Press...

Bush Seeks to Use Media Leaks to His Advantage
Attack on Newspapers Continues as Some Democrats Accuse White House of Trying to Divert Attention

By Charles Babington and Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 29, 2006; A11

President Bush rallied Republicans with another attack on the media last night, in remarks that highlighted efforts at the White House and on Capitol Hill to gain momentum from recent disclosures about classified programs to fight terrorism.

Senior administration officials say the president was outraged by articles in the New York Times and other newspapers about a surveillance program in which the U.S. government has tapped international banking records for information about terrorist financing. But his comments at a Republican fundraiser in a St. Louis suburb yesterday, combined with new moves by GOP congressional leaders, showed how both are working to fan public anger and reap gains from the controversy during a midterm election year in which polls show they are running against stiff headwinds.

Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo Trials

Decision Marks Setback for Bush Administration

By GINA HOLLAND, AP

WASHINGTON (June 29) - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.

U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas, Study Says

Americans drive more in vehicles with lower fuel standards, says an environmental group.
By Janet Wilson, Times Staff Writer
June 28, 2006

American cars and pickup trucks are responsible for nearly half of the greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles globally, even though the nation's vehicles make up just 30% of the nearly 700 million cars in use, according to a new report by Environmental Defense.

Cars in the U.S. are driven more miles, face lower fuel economy standards and use fuel with more carbon than many of those driven in other countries, the authors found. According to the report by the environmental group, due out today, U.S. cars and light trucks were driven 2.6 trillion miles in 2004, equal to driving back and forth to Pluto more than 470 times.

Scientists OK Gore's movie for accuracy

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science WriterTue Jun 27, 4:24 PM ET

The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy.

The former vice president's movie — replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets — mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.

The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is in limited release, or read the book.

States Facing New Welfare Regulations

Wednesday June 28, 2006 4:16 PM

By KEVIN FREKING

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is tightening regulations that could soon require states to adjust their welfare-to-work programs, which in some cases now allow bed rest and motivational reading to qualify as work.

The regulations will require that all education and training programs be directly related to a job before states can take credit for the recipients meeting work requirements. The regulations will also require that a recipient's work activities are supervised.

Obama: Democrats Must Court Evangelicals

I don't see how this can be done, short of everyone dropping their current religous beliefs and joining the fundamentalist churches.--Dictynna

Wednesday June 28, 2006 4:16 PM

By DAVID ESPO

AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama chastised fellow Democrats on Wednesday for failing to ``acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people,'' and said the party must compete for the support of evangelicals and other churchgoing Americans.

``Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation. Context matters,'' the Illinois Democrat said in remarks to a conference of Call to Renewal, a faith-based movement to overcome poverty.

The Bush lynch mob against the nation's free press

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

(updated below)

Any doubts about whether the Bush administration intends to imprison unfriendly journalists (defined as "journalists who fail to obey the Bush administration's orders about what to publish") were completely dispelled this weekend. As I have noted many times before, one of the most significant dangers our country faces is the all-out war now being waged on our nation's media -- and thereby on the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press -- by the Bush administration and its supporters, who are furious that the media continues to expose controversial government policies and thereby subject them to democratic debate. After the unlimited outpouring of venomous attacks on the Times this weekend, I believe these attacks on our free press have become the country's most pressing political issue.

One Percent Madness

By Robert Parry
June 27, 2006

Author Ron Suskind’s account of Dick Cheney’s “one percent doctrine” – the idea that if a terrorist threat is deemed even one percent likely the United States must act as if it’s a certainty – supplies a missing link in understanding the evolving madness of the Bush administration’s national security strategy.

A one-percent risk threshold is so low that it negates any serious analysis that seeks to calibrate dangers within the complex array of possibilities that exist in the real world. In effect, it means that any potential threat that crosses the administration’s line of sight will exceed one percent and thus must be treated as a clear and present danger.

Bush Pledges to Phase Out Social Security

(June 27, 2006 -- 03:22 PM EDT // link)

President Bush pledges to try to phase out Social Security again after the November election.

From his speech this morning (emphasis added) ...

As you might recall, I addressed that issue last year, focusing on Social Security reform. I'm not through talking about the issue. I spent some time today in the Oval Office with the United States senators, and they're not through talking about the issue either. It's important for this country -- (applause) -- I know it's hard politically to address these issues. Sometimes it just seems easier for people to say, we'll deal with it later on. Now is the time for the Congress and the President to work together to reform Medicare and reform Social Security so we can leave behind a solvent balance sheet for our next generation of Americans. (Applause.)

Legal Experts to Senate Committee: Bush "Signing Statements" Unconstitutional, Impeachable

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

In a hearing today, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony on presidential signing statements, which Ranking Member Leahy called "a grave threat to our constitutional system of checks and balances." Recent reports have highlighted how Bush has issued these orders in record numbers and exercised unprecedented overreach by giving himself the authority to ignore certain parts of the laws he signs.

Because of the extralegal nature of the signing statements, there is nothing for Congress or the Supreme Court to actually overrule. Nevertheless, the statements are binding for policy implementation.

Democrats: No raises for Congress until minimum wage is increased

From Ted Barrett
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A week after the GOP-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Senate Democrats on Tuesday vowed to block pay raises for members of Congress until the minimum wage is increased.

"We're going to do anything it takes to stop the congressional pay raise this year, and we're not going to settle for this year alone," Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said at a Capitol news conference.

"They can play all the games the want," Reid said derisively of the Republicans who control the chamber. "They can deal with gay marriage, estate tax, flag burning, all these issues and avoid issues like the prices of gasoline, sending your kid to college. But we're going to do everything to stop the congressional pay raise."

Treasury Department Refusing To Explain Why Officials Didn't Urge Journal To Hold Banking Story.

I just got off the phone with a spokesperson for the Treasury Department, and she's refusing to explain why Treasury officials didn't demand that the Wall Street Journal hold off on publishing the story about the U.S.'s secret financial surveillance program, the way they demanded it of the New York Times and the L.A. Times.

This is interesting, because Tony Snow said today that the Treasury Department's press office could explain this. But now they're clamming up.

Minimum Wage Vote Blocked by Republicans, Again

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

On the evening of June 26, House Republicans blocked yet another attempt by Democrats to increase the minimum wage for the first time in a decade. Reps. David Obey, Allan Mollohan, and Steny Hoyer, the Democratic Whip, sought to offer a minimum wage amendment to the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce Appropriations bill, but were rejected by Republican leaders.

Democrats hoped to defeat a procedural vote to bring forward a version of the appropriations bill that lacked the opportunity to add the amendment, but were joined by only a single Republican, Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware.

Justices revise part of Texas redistricting

Court also rules state legislators may draw new maps as often as they like

The Associated Press

Updated: 11:15 a.m. ET June 28, 2006

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld most of the Republican-boosting Texas congressional map engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay but threw out part, saying some of the new boundaries failed to protect minority voting rights.

The fractured decision was a small victory for Democratic and minority groups who accused Republicans of an unconstitutional power grab in drawing boundaries that booted four Democratic incumbents from office.

Congress Questions White House's Use of Signing Statements

BY LAURIE KELLMAN - Associated Press
June 27, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/35129

WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee is opening hearings this week into what has become the White House's favorite tool for overriding Congress in the name of wartime national security - signing statements.

"It's a challenge to the plain language of the Constitution," the committee's chairman, Senator Specter, a Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview with the Associated Press. "I'm interested to hear from the administration just what research they've done to lead them to the conclusion that they can cherry-pick."

Apparently, enough to challenge more than 750 statutes passed by Congress, far more than any other president, Mr. Specter's committee says.The White House does not dispute that number, but points out that Bush is far from the nation's first chief executive to issue them.

Wyden Guards the Net

Call Ron Wyden and Thank Him. He Promises to Block Any Bill That Would Harm Pro-Democracy "Net Neutrality." Says Wyden, "I will do anything I can to block a major telecom rewrite that undermines what makes the Internet special. I will block it. I will do anything I can to derail it." Call His D.C. Office and Thank Him for Standing Up for "Net Neutrality."--BUZZFLASH

Sunday, June 25, 2006

David Sarasohn

Sometime this week, the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee, like a lot of folks organizing their desk, will get to work on their phone bill. Sometime after that, after sorting through about 100 proposed amendments, the committee will send a giant bill overhauling U.S. telecommunications law to the Senate floor.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore, will be waiting.

If it doesn't fit his main concern, says Wyden, "I will do anything I can to block a major telecom rewrite that undermines what makes the Internet special. I will block it. I will do anything I can to derail it.

Digby: Privacy For The Common Good

Kos wrote an interesting post yesterday that deserves some further discussion. He offered his thoughts on Hillary Clinton (which were right on the money in my opinion) and in the midst of it mentions something that Hillary did last week that has not gotten nearly enough attention. (I would suggest that it would have gotten a lot of blogospheric attention if she wanted to use this medium to promote her ideas. This speaks to us directly.)

Last week Hillary introduced what I think should be a primary plank of the the Democratic Party:A Privacy Bill Of Rights. Indeed, I think this is the most fertile territory out there to gain some disaffected Republican voters and put some of the mountain west in our electoral quiver. It's smart politics.

Digby: More Of The Same

I initially had some second thoughts about this post from yesterday. I thought perhaps I was being to harsh in criticizing the Democrats for their response to this Republican trash talk on the war. But I posted it anyway because I honestly believed that they were in danger of screwing this up at a time when there is no reason for it and I feel almost apoplectic at the prospect.

I'm not the only one. From Josh Marshall:

Consider this post an open letter to Senate Democrats.

You're really doing a poor job in the public debate over Iraq.

Poputonian for Digby: Reminder Notice

A funny thing happened on the way to Church today. Well actually it was at the bookstore last night. This article, "Heaven Can Wait," by Susan Jacoby, which appears in the Spring issue of Dissent magazine, leapt off the shelf, right into my hands (honest to god):

There is no such thing as generic religion or, for that matter, generic evangelical Protestantism, and most ecclesiastical leaders, whether evangelical or not, are interested in the welfare of all only insofar as welfare is defined in accordance with their particular faith. That is the fatal flaw in all proposals, whether from the left or the right, for a stronger religious voice in the public square. No one would deny that some religious spokesmen are capable of framing moral issues in transcendent fashion; the civil rights leadership provided by black churches is the prime twentieth-century example. But the voices of African American preachers spoke to a broader public morality precisely because they emanated from outside the government and the political establishment. Most southern white Protestant churches, by contrast—churches that helped spawn the present generation of Dixiecans who invoke the name of Martin Luther King in order to push the Republican faith-based political agenda—were closely allied with segregationist politics-as-usual and had no interest whatever in the welfare of blacks.

Heaven Can Wait

By Susan Jacoby

Spring 2006

In his call for left-wing moral revivalism as a counterweight to the ascendancy of the religious right in American politics (“A Difficult Marriage: American Protestants and American Politics,” Winter 2006), Michael Kazin cites the historian D.G. Hart’s argument that religion is “inherently useful in solving social problems because it yields moral guidelines that inevitably generate both a concern for justice and the welfare of all people.”

Inherently? Inevitably? Does the quote refer to an American religion that fought slavery over the opposition of many orthodox churches or to a religion that upheld slavery in the South and profiteering from slavery in the North? Are we talking about a minority faith that insisted women should have an equal voice in the house of God and man or a majority of clerics who denounced feminists, well into the twentieth century, as unnatural female infidels? Are Hart and Kazin referring to a religion that makes room for secular knowledge or a religion that refuses to listen to anything science has to say about the origins of life?

Digby: Premature Anti-Blogofascism

It is with great regret that I must resign from the vast left wing blogospheric conspiracy today. The time has come to choose one's allegiances, and mine must lie with my liege lords, the journalistic and political leadership who have brought us where we are today. I can no longer be associated with the barbaric, illiterate jacknapes who presume to call their betters' judgment into question.

You see, I've come to realize that this business of "punditry" and "politics" is not something anyone can just "do." It is what one is born to, what one is meant to do, what one is. Some people are simply designed to have superior opinions. And those people are well known by others who have superior opinions. It is outside the natural order of things for unwashed, unknown rabble like me to set forth my ideas in the same public arena as someone like The New Republic's Lee Siegel --- and certainly not an intellectual adventurer such as David Brooks, who wrote the most important sociological work of our time, "On Paradise Drive." (Only a man of great courage could have forced himself to enter a Red Lobster and mingle with the lower ranks and we must all be grateful for those dispatches from the wild. It is from first rate observers such as he that we rustics out in Real America can better understand our own shortcomings --- as well as our delightful simple charm, of course.)

Billmon: The Swiftboating of Kos

I've been holding my tongue about the media hysteria over Kos, Daily Kos and the "liberal" blogosphere -- but only because Don Kos threatened to nail it to a coffee table if I broke the liberal blogger mafia's unwritten code of silence.

The truth is that I'm not really a made guy (Don Atrios blackballed me for not showing proper respect to Howard Dean -- a.k.a. the Boss of All Bosses.) So I'm not on the super secret mailing list that Kos uses to communicate with his capos. (You have to hand it to the gumshoes over at The New Republic for cracking that one open. I bet they could teach the Organized Crime Unit a thing or two.) So I didn't even know we had an unwritten code. But if Kos says we do, well, that's good enough for me. He's a cruel man, but fair.

And on the Eighth Day, Dr. Dobson Created Himsel

By Eileen Welsome
July 2006

Page 1 of 8

The country’s most powerful evangelical Christian bursts through a door at the rear of his Colorado Springs radio studio. James Clayton Dobson is moving fast, head down, manila folder under his arm, a businessman hurrying from one meeting to the next. Suddenly, he seems to remember there’s a live audience on the other side of the glass, and he waves. Every hand shoots up, including mine. Dobson celebrated his 70th birthday this April, but he’s in better shape than ever due to his morning workout—60 to 70 minutes of treadmill and weightlifting—and no junk food.

Delft water-purification method promises radical improvement

Delft University of Technology research has discovered a method that could drastically change the way we purify water within a few years. Delft, in partnership with DHV engineering bureau, has developed a compact and environmentally-friendly purification method, in which aerobic bacteria form granules that sink quickly. An important part of the project's success was the work of Delft researcher Merle de Kreuk, who, on Tuesday, 27 June, will receive her PhD degree for this research.

The Threat to the Planet

By Jim Hansen

The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

by Tim Flannery

Atlantic Monthly Press, 357 pp., $24.00

Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change

by Elizabeth Kolbert

Bloomsbury, 210 pp., $22.95

An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It

by Al Gore

Melcher Media/Rodale, 325 pp., $21.95 (paper)

An Inconvenient Truth

a film directed by Davis Guggenheim

Jim Hansen is Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University's Earth Institute. His opinions are expressed here, he writes, "as personal views under the protection of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution."

1.

Animals are on the run. Plants are migrating too. The Earth's creatures, save for one species, do not have thermostats in their living rooms that they can adjust for an optimum environment. Animals and plants are adapted to specific climate zones, and they can survive only when they are in those zones. Indeed, scientists often define climate zones by the vegetation and animal life that they support. Gardeners and bird watchers are well aware of this, and their handbooks contain maps of the zones in which a tree or flower can survive and the range of each bird species.

Army wives get phone death threats from Iraq

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 25/06/2006)

Wives and family members of soldiers fighting in Iraq have received telephone calls, believed to include death threats, from insurgents, according to military documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph.

The "nuisance" calls have been made with increasing frequency over the past few weeks after insurgents managed to obtain home numbers from soldiers' mobile telephones.

The Road From K Street to Yusufiya

By FRANK RICH

June 25, 2006

AS the remains of two slaughtered American soldiers, Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, were discovered near Yusufiya, Iraq, on Tuesday, a former White House official named David Safavian was convicted in Washington on four charges of lying and obstruction of justice. The three men had something in common: all had enlisted in government service in a time of war. The similarities end there. The difference between Mr. Safavian's kind of public service and that of the soldiers says everything about the disconnect between the government that has sabotaged this war and the brave men and women who have volunteered in good faith to fight it.

Privates Tucker and Menchaca made the ultimate sacrifice. Their bodies were so mutilated that they could be identified only by DNA. Mr. Safavian, by contrast, can be readily identified by smell. His idea of wartime sacrifice overseas was to chew over government business with the Jack Abramoff gang while on a golfing junket in Scotland. But what's most indicative of Mr. Safavian's public service is not his felonies in the Abramoff-Tom DeLay axis of scandal, but his legal activities before his arrest. In his DNA you get a snapshot of the governmental philosophy that has guided the war effort both in Iraq and at home (that would be the Department of Homeland Security) and doomed it to failure.

Bush Is Not Incompetent

No, I haven't gone over to the 'dark side'!--Dictynna

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by George Lakoff, Marc Ettlinger and Sam Ferguson

Progressives have fallen into a trap. Emboldened by President Bush’s plummeting approval ratings, progressives increasingly point to Bush’s “failures” and label him and his administration as incompetent. Self-satisfying as this criticism may be, it misses the bigger point. Bush’s disasters — Katrina, the Iraq War, the budget deficit — are not so much a testament to his incompetence or a failure of execution. Rather, they are the natural, even inevitable result of his conservative governing philosophy. It is conservatism itself, carried out according to plan, that is at fault.

* * *

Progressives have fallen into a trap. Emboldened by President Bush’s plummeting approval ratings, progressives increasingly point to Bush's "failures" and label him and his administration as incompetent. For example, Nancy Pelosi said “The situation in Iraq and the reckless economic policies in the United States speak to one issue for me, and that is the competence of our leader." Self-satisfying as this criticism may be, it misses the bigger point. Bush’s disasters — Katrina, the Iraq War, the budget deficit — are not so much a testament to his incompetence or a failure of execution. Rather, they are the natural, even inevitable result of his conservative governing philosophy. It is conservatism itself, carried out according to plan, that is at fault. Bush will not be running again, but other conservatives will. His governing philosophy is theirs as well. We should be putting the onus where it belongs, on all conservative office holders and candidates who would lead us off the same cliff.

Stealth Radar System Sees Through Trees, Walls -- Undetected

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State University engineers have invented a radar system that is virtually undetectable, because its signal resembles random noise.

The radar could have applications in law enforcement, the military, and disaster rescue.