Digby: The New Anger

A reader tipped me to this fascinating review by Stanley Kurtz of a book called "A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Today." It's fascinating because it once again illustrates the degree to which conservatives have absolutely no self-awareness.

You see, this "New Anger" is a cultural phenomenon pretty much confined to the left. Indeed, it was invented on the left (during the 60's, naturally.) And left wing bloggers are especially angry. Glen Reynolds is characterized as being merely "sardonic" --- Atrios is something else, Kutz doesn't say what, apparently wanting to spare our innocent eyes from the beating the author gives him.

Digby: Let The Healing Begin Part VII

Watching tonight's Newshour I was struck by how important both Shields and Brooks believe it is that Nancy Pelosi puts a stop to all the insane partisanship. The rancor in Washington really has gotten out of hand and people are sick of it --- especially, it would appear, the Republicans who just can't take another minute of this horrible lack of collegiality. (Those nasty Dems must be the problem, because I don't recall all this handwringing punditude over Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert.)

Digby: When Time Stood Still

I've noticed something interesting among the family rightwingers lately: they have simply disappeared Bush and the Republican congress from their minds. It's the weirdest thing. You talk politics with them and they are already going on about how the Democrats are ruining the country with their big spending and high taxes. You ask about Bush and they look at you blankly and start talking about the Clintons.

Digby: The Healing Process

Following up on my post below, I noticed that the transcript of last night's Shields and Brooks was available and I think it deserves a little bit more attention:

JIM LEHRER: A divided nation, Mark. Can Nancy Pelosi be a healer, in the context we were talking about earlier, about Gerald Ford and others?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Probably not. I mean, she can be speaker of the House. She can certainly start a healing process.

Digby: Sacrificing For Junior

If I didn't know better, I'd have to think that Bush is trying to tank John McCain's campaign before it even gets started. First he adopts the wildly unpopular McCain Doctrine of escalation and now he's going to use McCain's favorite empty stump line to try to sell it:

The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.

Its central theme will be sacrifice.

Digby: Most Overlooked '06 Highlight

Atrios links to a thought provoking post at Whiskey Fire about the identity politics of the conservative movement which I recommend you read. I feel a new meme coming on.

It reminded me of one of the best moments of 2006 which I don't think has been properly commemorated:

Ben Domenech Resigns

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

Digby: Bush's Law: if it's possible to make things worse, he will.

by digby

When I wrote about the Saddam execution the other day, I said I was struck by how much it reminded me of other disgusting snuff videos that had circulated earlier in the war. I had not, at that time, seen the worst of it. The underground video of his actual hanging, allegedly taken without permission, is everywhere now and its implications are devastating:

CORRENTE: Live From AEI: Holy Joe and St. McCain Say "Surge!"

Submitted by chicago dyke on Fri, 2007-01-05 15:35.
Iraq Clusterfuck | Department of No! They Would Never to Do That! | boys | surging is the surest way to hell

Just got back from AEI, and boy, they really need air conditioning! No, really- by the end of the chat I and everyone else in the room were about to fall over from heat exhaustion. I wonder if Joe always has that effect…
But seriously, I suppose you want to know what happened. Well, the good news is…Joe and John made friends in Iraq! They talked to happy, fluffy people who said things are going great and we’re winning and can win and that they want to stay. In fact, things are so good over there, Joe and John told us, that we should send more troops over to join in the fun!

The Surge is on. I have about 12 pages of notes, but here’s all I’m going to subject you to.

The Ideological Animal

Do you see yourself here?--Dictynna

We think our political stance is the product of reason, but we're easily manipulated and surprisingly malleable. Our essential political self is more a stew of childhood temperament, education, and fear of death. Call it the 9/11 effect.

By:Jay Dixit

Cinnamon Stillwell never thought she'd be the founder of a political organization. She certainly never expected to start a group for conservatives, most of whom became conservatives on the same day—September 11, 2001. She organized the group, the 911 Neocons, as a haven for people like her—"former lefties" who did political 180s after 9/11.

Stillwell, now a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, had been a liberal her whole life, writing off all Republicans as "ignorant, intolerant yahoos." Yet on 9/11, everything changed for her, as it did for so many. In the days after the attacks, the world seemed "topsy-turvy." On the political left, she wrote, "There was little sympathy for the victims," and it seemed to her that progressives were "consumed with hatred for this country" and had "extended their misguided sympathies to tyrants and terrorists."

The Poor Man: Why we lost Iraq

Jacob Weisberg attempts to navigate between the in/competence dodges:

Virtually everyone now agrees that the war in Iraq has been a vast mistake. But what, exactly, was the nature of that mistake? The isolationist left and the realist right—George McGovern and Brent Scowcroft—emphasize that our error was intervening in the absence of overwhelming national interest. At the opposite end of the foreign policy continuum, the neoconservatives contend that invading Iraq was a perfectly good idea undermined by incompetent implementation. In the space between are liberal hawks who originally supported the war and a variety of skeptics who didn’t. They now tend to agree that the war was both a mistake in theory and a disaster in execution. […]

Jane Smiley: First Things First

Dear Democrats:

Here are a few words for you to remember:

Gitmo. Abu Ghraib. NSA Spy Scandal. Jose Padilla. Military Commissions Act. Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. Presidential signing statements. Newflash, Democrats, your Constitution is broken and it needs to be fixed. Now. Before the minimum wage. Before troop withdrawal. Before impeachment. Before ethics reform.

Swing Blades: Rumsfeld Filled His Pockets with Pyongyang's Nuclear Loot

By CHRIS FLOYD

It's a well-known fact--oft detailed in this column--that the boys in the Bush Regime swing both ways. We speak, of course, of their proclivity--their apparently uncontrollable craving--for stuffing their trousers with loot from both sides of whatever war or military crisis is going at the moment.

That's why it came as no surprise to read last week that just before he joined the Regime's crusade against evildoers everywhere (especially rogue states that pursue the development of terrorist-ready weapons of mass destruction), Pentagon warlord Donald Rumsfeld was trousering the proceeds from a $200 million deal to send the latest nuclear technology--including plenty of terrorist-ready "dirty bomb" material--to the rogue state of North Korea, Neue Zurcher Zeitung reports.

Inquiry Reportedly Cites Evidence Against Marines in Iraq Deaths

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 6, 2007

Filed at 7:58 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Marine squad that had just endured casualties from a roadside bombing ordered five unarmed Iraqi civilians out of a taxi, and the squad leader shot them, eyewitnesses say in a new report obtained by The Washington Post.

The report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which reveals previously undisclosed details about the incident, says a white taxi happened upon the scene shortly after the explosion. Witnesses told investigators the Marines' squad leader, Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, ordered the passengers out of the car.

Military Contractors Lose Their "Get Out of Jail" Card

Five years into the war on terror, American military contractors have finally lost some of their immunity from prosecution for dirty deeds done on the federal dime. In a post over on DefenseTech, the Brookings Institution's Peter Singer reports on a quiet insertion into the 2007 Pentagon budget that means "contractors' 'get out of jail free' card may have been torn to shreds." Basically, contractors are now subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which means they can be court martialed:

The Land of Rising Conservation

By MARTIN FACKLER

Published: January 6, 2007

TOKYO, Jan. 5 — In many countries, higher oil prices have hurt pocketbooks and led to worries about economic slowdowns. But here in Japan, Kiminobu Kimura, an architect, says he has not felt the pinch. In fact, his monthly energy bill is lower than a year ago.

A reason is his new home fuel cell, a machine as large and quiet as a filing cabinet that sits in front of his house and turns hydrogen into electricity and cold water into hot — at a fraction of regular utility costs. But even with the futuristic device, which is available for now only in Japan, Mr. Kimura has not let up on the other shortcuts that leave him unscathed by last year’s oil squeeze.

Americablog: Bush White House changes rules to hide criminal visitors from the public

by John in DC - 1/05/2007 08:12:00 PM

From CREW's new blog:

In a shocking disclosure, it was revealed today that the Bush Administration cut a deal with the Secret Service to prevent disclosure of White House visitor logs. The action came after CREW sued the Secret Service for records relating to White House visits by Jack Abramoff:

The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records. Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

Bill Moyers: The Narrative Imperative

January 04, 2007

Bill Moyers is president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy and a veteran journalist. The following is an adaptation of remarks made by Bill Moyers to a December 12 gathering in New York.

You could not have chosen a better time to gather. Voters have provided a respite from a right-wing radicalism predicated on the philosophy that extremism in the pursuit of virtue is no vice. It seems only yesterday that the Trojan horse of conservatism was hauled into Washington to disgorge Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist and their hearty band of ravenous predators masquerading as a political party of small government, fiscal restraint and moral piety and promising "to restore accountability to Congress ... [and] make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves."

Well, the long night of the junta is over, and Democrats are ebullient as they prepare to take charge of the multi-trillion-dollar influence racket that we used to call the U.S. Congress. Let them rejoice while they can, as long as they remember that while they ran some good campaigns, they have arrived at this moment mainly because George W. Bush lost a war most people have come to believe should never have been fought in the first place. Let them remember, too, in this interim of sweet anticipation, that although they are reveling in the ruins of a Republican reign brought down by stupendous scandals, their own closet is stocked with skeletons from an era when they were routed from office following Abscam bribes and savings and loan swindles that plucked the pockets and purses of hard-working, tax-paying Americans.

Matt Taibbi: The Low Post--Hussein in the Membrane

Making lemonade in Iraq

MATT TAIBBI

"The president's view is that in the absence of a U.N. endorsement, this war will become 'self-legitimating' when the world sees most Iraqis greet U.S. troops as liberators. I think there is a good chance that will play out."

-- Thomas Friedman, The New York Times, March 2003

I thought of Thomas Friedman over the weekend as I watched the United States proudly gallop into its 9,598th consecutive gargantuan P.R. fuckup in Iraq, better known to the rest of the world as the execution of Saddam Hussein. In fact, I thought specifically of the above-mentioned column of Friedman's, written right on the eve of the initial invasion almost four years ago.

It was in that particular column ("D-Day," March 19, 2003) that Friedman long-windedly lamented President Bush's failure to secure broader international support for his invasion, which he feared would detract from the legitimacy of the operation. This was a blow to the Iraq war effort, in Friedman's mind (excuse me: in what passes for Friedman's mind), but in that "D-Day" piece of his he said that we could all still make things work in Iraq -- all we had to do, he said, was to "turn these lemons into lemonade."

Molly Ivins: We let them do it

New Congress must be forced to end Iraq nightmare

The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck -- so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.

I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.

Shut out of the forests

Originally published January 2, 2007

Citizen activists have been a bane to the Bush administration - particularly on environmental regulations.

They ask questions. They file lawsuits. They try to thwart nearly every administration attempt to cut the red tape surrounding use of the nation's natural resources and wind up adding greatly to the cost of these gambits.

Daily Kos: George Will's $0 minimum wage essay flunks SAT standards

by colorado crapmeister

Fri Jan 05, 2007 at 01:53:03 AM PST

George Will's embarassing and ignorance-laden salvo against the minimum wage on the opening day of 110th Congress was a beautiful example of just how decrepit the faux intelligensia of the Right has become.

Will attempted to argue that the minimum wage should be eliminated because:

Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices.

Labor is a commodity?

Prosecutors Cite More Favors by Lawmaker

By Susan Schmidt

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 5, 2007; Page A07

Federal prosecutors seeking a stiff prison sentence for former Ohio congressman Robert W. Ney have listed previously undisclosed favors that he and his staff provided to clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including two Russian energy executives who have been linked to former House majority leader Tom DeLay.

Ney pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy, admitting that he performed official acts for lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions, expensive meals, luxury travel and skybox sports tickets. He is to be sentenced Jan. 19.

MoveOn's Amazing Election Tool

By Adam Doster, In These Times. Posted January 5, 2007.

MoveOn.org's Web-based phone-banking program Call for Change enabled volunteers to make more than 7 million calls leading up to the November elections -- and may have flipped a lot of races for the Dems.

In the lead up to the midterm elections, MoveOn.org paid little attention to the Virginia Senate race, figuring that Republican incumbent George Allen would cruise to re-election over Jim Webb. But when Allen dropped a racial epithet on a young Webb aide and things tightened up, MoveOn took notice.

"We weren't going to get involved in Virginia," says Jennifer Lindenauer, the organization’s communications director. "But then we saw that it was a race where we could make an impact." In less than two months, MoveOn directed 503,181 volunteer phone calls into Virginia. On Election Day, Webb ousted Allen by a mere 7,236 votes.

Rightwing witch-hunt gets Iraqi source arrested

Posted by Evan Derkacz on January 5, 2007 at 8:17 AM.

Here's an object lesson that isn't likely to be heeded.

Suspicious of an AP story unflattering to the U.S. and Iraqi government (and goaded by American & Iraqi officials who had everything to gain by undermining the legitimacy of the story) several right-wingers set out to locate the source, listed as "Jamil Hussein." They looked back and LO!! he'd been a source numerous times.

100 Hours Mark the Change

Robert L. Borosage

January 04, 2007

Robert L. Borosage is co-director of the Campaign For America's Future.

In the three fleet weeks before the president’s State of the Union address, the new Congress will put down a clear marker that the times, they are changing. The conservative era is over. Common sense is no longer exiled from the nation’s capital.

If the first female Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is successful, the House will start by passing tough new ethics rules to apply to themselves. The new majority will then pass the first increase in the minimum wage in a decade. They will vote to cut interest rates on student loans in half. They’ll empower Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. They’ll roll back a portion of the obscene subsidies that go to big oil and use the money to fund renewable energy. They’ll vote to unleash stem cell research from the zealots. They’ll make common sense investments in homeland security.

Harriet Miers resigning as White House Counsel

01/04/2007 @ 12:23 pm

Filed by RAW STORY

Harriet Miers, the long-time legal adviser to President George W. Bush, has reportedly resigned from her White House post, CNN is reporting.

Miers is best known for her abortive nomination to the Supreme Court by President Bush in late 2005. The Bush administration withdrew Miers' nomination after coming under heavy criticism from both the right, which saw her as not sufficiently conservative on social issues, and the left, who were concerned about her long ties to Bush, going back to his governor days at Texas. Many believed she lacked the judicial experience needed to be a viable Supreme Court Justice.

Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science

January 3, 2007

Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 3–A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

Brownback brands himself 'Full scale conservative'

Kansas Republican Senator starts off his bid for GOP's presidential nomination by courting the religious right

Although he hasn't yet cracked double figures in early GOP presidential preference polls, Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback has achieved at least three things since announcing the formation of his 2008 presidential exploratory committee. He has set up the Brownback For President website, rounded up 20 or so high-profile folks for his exploratory committee, and he has adopted a catch phrase that he hopes will separate him from the stack of conservative competitors in the field.

Second U.S. carrier group to deploy to Gulf: sources

Wed Jan 3, 2007 3:21 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon will send a second aircraft carrier and its escort ships to the Gulf, defense officials said on Wednesday, as a warning to Syria and Iran and to give commanders more flexibility in the region.

U.S. Bars Lab From Testing Electronic Voting

By CHRISTOPHER DREW

A laboratory that has tested most of the nation’s electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests.

The company, Ciber Inc. of Greenwood Village, Colo., has also come under fire from analysts hired by New York State over its plans to test new voting machines for the state. New York could eventually spend $200 million to replace its aging lever devices.

Experts on voting systems say the Ciber problems underscore longstanding worries about lax inspections in the secretive world of voting-machine testing. The action by the federal Election Assistance Commission seems certain to fan growing concerns about the reliability and security of the devices.

Larry Beinhart: 2007 - Year of Madness

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Wed, 01/03/2007 - 9:11am. Guest Contribution

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Larry Beinhart, author of Wag the Dog, The Librarian, and Fog Facts

PART ONE: THE GREAT AWAKENING

The vote in 2006 made it clear that people's eyes are actually open.

Since the Busheviks began to run with the hysteria of 9/11, clear vision and voices of reasons were sent to wander in the wilderness, mocked like bearded hermits riding asses.

But suddenly, "War on Terror" didn't make people jump up and burn their constitutions. CNN ran a series on what was broken in America -- including the media. Even though the government, the Wall Street analysts, and, astonishingly, most professional economists said the economy was terrific, ordinary people were able to tell that something was wrong. Books attacking the idiocies and excesses of religion flowered on the best seller lists like crocuses in the spring. Then we voted. The rubber stamp, neo-con, neo-Christ, corporate owned congress and senate, lost their Republican majorities.

W pushes envelope on U.S. spying

New postal law lets Bush peek through your mail

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

New era as Democrats take power

Democrats are taking control of the US Congress after 12 years as a minority - with a woman at the helm of the House of Representatives for the first time.

Nancy Pelosi will become speaker in a ceremony at 1200 local time (1700 GMT), and will be the second in line to the presidency, after the vice-president.

Ten Things I Learned from the Pentagon's Prayer Team

By Jeff Sharlet, The Revealer. Posted January 4, 2007.

The "Christian Embassy" quietly proselytizes inside the Pentagon, but their mission surpasses this simple ministry.

Little while ago I received a phone call from Mikey Weinstein, the prime mover behind the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, created in the wake of 2005's revelations of widespread evangelical proselytizing at the Air Force Academy. Weinstein told me that he'd spent Thanksgiving morning reading my December, 2006 Harper's feature, "Through a Glass Darkly" (online in January), which included a brief discussion of the now infamous Christian Embassy video [watch here] featuring high-ranking military officers testifying testifying in uniform on behalf of the behind-the-scenes fundamentalist organization, an apparent violation of military regulations. Weinstein has since launched a secular crusade of his own in response to the video, with the backing of a group of generals determined to maintain separation of church and state in the military.

But It's Thomas Jefferson's Koran!

By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts

Wednesday, January 3, 2007; Page C03

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Tomgram: On the Imperial Path in 2007

Tomgram: On the Imperial Path in 2007

[Note to readers: Tomdispatch returns in the New Year ready to roll and with a year-inaugurating theme. Consider today's piece an introduction to a January-long exploration of America's imperial mission, the Pentagon's role in it, and the militarization of our society. Though Robert Dreyfuss will, this week, be laying out Iraq policy options, and Elizabeth de la Vega as well as David Swanson will soon survey this season's legal and investigatory landscape, a number of upcoming posts will focus on our militarizing future. Look forward to: Nick Turse on urban war-fighting plans for 2025; a Michael Klare two-parter on the global militarization of energy policy; Frida Berrigan on the weaponry in our future; and Chalmers Johnson on our imperial fate. Tom]

Let's Do It Again!

Doubling Down on the Imperial Mission in 2007
By Tom Engelhardt

Okay, folks, it's time for a year-opening sermon. And like any good sermon, this one will be based on illustrative texts, in this case from 2006, and inspirational passages plucked from them. Its goal, as in any such quest, will be to reveal a world normally hidden from us in our daily lives.

AP Again Challenged on Iraqi Source -- Continues to Stand By Reporting

By Joe Strupp

Published: January 02, 2007 11:05 AM ET

NEW YORK A long-running dispute between The Associated Press and critics over one of its Iraqi sources show no signs of abating, despite at least two lengthy rebuttals by the news organization. The new IraqSlogger web site, founded by former CNN news chief, Eason Jordan, is out with a fresh challenge, after failing to resolve the issue in its own detective work. This has not set off a new round of examination by the AP, apparently.

Kathleen Carroll, AP executive editor, told E&P today that she had not read Jordan's latest item, posted Monday, and likely would not. But she stood by the news organization's previous statements backing the existence of an Iraqi police captain, Jamail Hussein.

FBI Details Possible Detainee Abuse

Jan 2, 7:43 PM (ET)

By MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON (AP) - FBI agents documented more than two dozen incidents of possible mistreatment at the Guantanamo Bay military base, including one detainee whose head was wrapped in duct tape for chanting the Quran and another who pulled out his hair after hours in a sweltering room.

Documents released Tuesday by the FBI offered new details about the harsh interrogations practice used by military officials and contractors when questioning so-called enemy combatants.

Justin A. Frank, M.D., Author of "Bush on the Couch"

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 01/02/2007 - 4:56pm. Interviews

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

I think what he does is he turns everybody who disagrees with him into his father. It doesn’t matter whether it’s actually the concrete representation of his father, like Baker, or the voters who vote against staying in Iraq. We have become his father. We are the people he is now defying. He will turn everybody, any authority, anybody who disagrees with him, into a father figure who he’d have to defy. -- Justin A. Frank, M.D.

* * *

Years after Bush announced, like a toy soldier, "Mission Accomplished" and "Major Combat Operations" over in Iraq, he is preparing to escalate the conflict yet again, sure to result in the loss of even more than the grim milestone of 3,000 GI lives currently gone from their families. He is reportedly going to base his escalation on a "plan" from the Bushevik right wing American Enterprise Institute, the most prominent last refuge of neo-con scoundrels, scamps and losers.

Keith Olbermann: Special comment about ‘sacrifice’

BBC reports Bush will reveal troop surge plan in sacrifice-themed speech

SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'MSNBC
Updated: 1 hour, 22 minutes ago

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene?

Would you at least protest?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

Hotspots of mercury contamination identified in eastern North America

Harmful levels of neurotoxin are detected in fish and birds

A US and Canadian research team surveying mercury contamination in fish and birds in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada has identified five "hotspots" where concentrations of the element exceed those established for human or wildlife health. The team focused on levels of the potent neurotoxin in yellow perch and common loons, but it also took into account contamination in other fish, birds, and mammals. In addition to these hotspots in New England, New York, and Nova Scotia, the researchers found nine "areas of concern" in these regions and in Quebec and New Brunswick. Findings from the team's analysis are summarized in the January 2007 issue of BioScience.

Did Ford Trade Nixon Pardon for Presidency?

Posted on Dec 29, 2006

Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation, recalls the magazine’s legal battle over Gerald Ford’s memoirs and the alleged deal the former president struck to pardon Richard Nixon.

---

Watch it

Transcript from AlterNet:

AMY GOODMAN: ... We’re going to turn now to another issue. We have Victor Navasky on the line with us. He’s publisher emeritus of the Nation magazine, chair of the Columbia University Journalism Review, and this is a case that involved the Nation magazine and former President Ford. Welcome to Democracy Now, Victor Navasky.

VICTOR NAVASKY: Good to be here, Amy.

Chris Hedges: America’s Holy Warriors

Posted on Dec 31, 2006
By Chris Hedges

Editor’s note: The former New York Times Mideast Bureau chief warns that the radical Christian right is coming dangerously close to its goal of co-opting the country’s military and law enforcement.

The drive by the Christian right to take control of military chaplaincies, which now sees radical Christians holding roughly 50 percent of chaplaincy appointments in the armed services and service academies, is part of a much larger effort to politicize the military and law enforcement. This effort signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign by the radical Christian right to dismantle America’s open society and build a theocratic state. A successful politicization of the military would signal the end of our democracy.

The "Untouchables" of US Science

By Ed Pilkington
The Guardian UK
Friday 29 December 2006

When George Bush banned funding he effectively put researchers into a quarantine.

A bridge next to Kevin Eggan's laboratory overlooks one of the most concentrated square miles of scientific fire power in the world: North Yard, the science hub of Harvard. The bridge, a recent construction in glass and steel, was intended to facilitate collaboration between two research teams.

Paul Krugman: A Healthy New Year

The New York Times
Monday 01 January 2007

The U.S. health care system is a scandal and a disgrace. But maybe, just maybe, 2007 will be the year we start the move toward universal coverage.

In 2005, almost 47 million Americans - including more than 8 million children - were uninsured, and many more had inadequate insurance.

Apologists for our system try to minimize the significance of these numbers. Many of the uninsured, asserted the 2004 Economic Report of the President, "remain uninsured as a matter of choice."

Estimates for Pensions to Tighten

By Mary Williams Walsh, The New York Times

Friday 29 December 2006

The states of New York, New Hampshire, Tennessee and about a dozen other governments may no longer be able to say their pension funds are fully funded no matter how the markets perform.

Accounting rule makers have proposed an amendment that would force these governments to provide a more realistic estimate of how much they owe retirees over time. They would also have to compare this with the assets they have set aside, showing whether they have enough to make good on their promises.

The Private Arm of the Law

Some Question the Granting of Police Power to Security Firms

By Amy GoldsteinWashington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 2, 2007; Page A04

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Kevin Watt crouched down to search the rusted Cadillac he had stopped for cruising the parking lot of a Raleigh apartment complex with a broken light. He pulled out two open Bud Light cans, an empty Corona bottle, rolling papers, a knife, a hammer, a stereo speaker, and a car radio with wires sprouting out.

"Who's this belong to, man?" Watt asked the six young Latino men he had frisked and lined up behind the car. Five were too young to drink. None had a driver's license. One had under his hooded sweat shirt the tattoo of a Hispanic gang across his back.

Democrats To Start Without GOP Input

Quick Passage of First Bills Sought

By Lyndsey Layton and Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 2, 2007; Page A01

As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking.

House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.

Toxic Teflon: Compounds from Household Products Found in Human Blood

By Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted January 2, 2007.

Evidence is piling up that emissions from the production of synthetic compounds in non-stick cookware, cleaning products, and a host of other common products may cause cancer and other health problems.

"Better things for better living -- through chemistry." From the 1940s to the 1980s, E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. wooed customers with that slogan, one of the most memorable in American advertising. But today, two groups of DuPont products developed during that era -- fluorotelomers and fluoropolymers -- are showing how chemical-dependent "better living" can come at a high price.

DuPont and other companies use those synthetic compounds to make an extraordinarily wide range of products, including nonstick cookware (e.g, Teflon), grease-resistant food packaging (e.g., microwave popcorn and pizza boxes), stain-resistant fabrics and carpets (e.g., Stainmaster), shampoos, conditioners, cleaning products, electronic components, paints, firefighting foams, and a host of other artifacts of modern life.

Glenn Greenwald: Cliff May's free speech lectures desperately needed here at home

National Review's Cliff May doled out a lecture yesterday about the meaning of free speech to an Islamic cleric in Azerbaijan. The cleric was objecting to a newspaper article which blamed Islam for Azerbaijan's economic troubles, and the cleric said: "I am for freedom of speech but not the freedom to insult." In reply, May sermonized: "You can't have one without the other."

Many of May's ideological comrades here in America are in need of that lecture as much as (at least) the Azerbaijan imam. On Fox News several days ago, Bill Hemmer hosted a segment protesting the "comparison" by The View's Joy Beher of Adolph Hitler and Donald Rumsfeld.

Glenn Greenwald: A Glorious War Plan for Iran

It is hardly news to point out that the warmongers and neoconservatives in the Bush movement are radical, and are becoming increasingly more desperate with the rapid worsening of the predicaments for which they are responsible.

But if you really spend intensive time digging deeply into the things they've been saying and thinking for the last five years -- as I've been doing recently in writing my book -- it is nonetheless astounding: (a) just how deranged and detached from basic reality are their statements and (b) that they have not been forcefully cast out of respectable and mainstream political dialogue as a result of what they say and how they think.

Digby: More Civility

I had read about this nonsense before, but the whole story hadn't emerged. This is dipshit America in a nutshell:

KATY, Texas (AP) -- A man unhappy with an Islamic association's plans to build a mosque next to his property has staged pig races as a protest during afternoon prayers.

Craig Baker, 46, sold merchandise and grilled sausages Friday for about 100 people who showed up in heavy rain. He insisted he wasn't trying to offend anyone with the pigs, which are forbidden from the Muslim diet.

Digby: Courtesy

It was interesting listening to Dick Cheney pay tribute to Gerald Ford for his civility yesterday at the memorial service. He said "he answered courtesy with courtesy and discourtesy with courtesy."

As I'm sure you've all noticed, Republicans are talking about civility almost non-stop these days and so is the media.

Digby: December, 2006

US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
UK NAME NOT RELEASED YET Basra - Basrah Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Baghdad (north of) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack

Digby: Ugh

In the early days of the war you'll recall that there were a spate of beheadings in Iraq which were videotaped and circulated on the internet. I stupidly watched one of them and wrote:

I watched the video of Berg's beheading and it literally made me sick to my stomach. Do not watch it. It's a barbaric, horrible display of inhumanity. I wish I hadn't seen it. I'll never forget it.

Digby: Saving Us From Ourselves

A reader reminded me that Atrios wrote this other other day and I think it's worth discussing a little bit more:

As Yglesias says, the only alternative to a full and blanket pardon wasn't putting Nixon in chains, though that was a possibility. The important thing was to find out the truth. Our elites repeatedly redefine "getting past it" as "sweeping it under the rug" based on their apparent opinion of themselves as necessary moral and spiritual leaders for the riffraff. If they are revealed to be greatly flawed then without them as a shining beacon to light the way the riffraff will go astray and the country will collapse.

Digby: Hang 'Em High

I'm not going to lose any sleep over Saddam Hussein's death but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if the US had behaved like a world leader and sent him to be tried in the International Criminal Court instead of having the "Iraqi government" (which clearly has no real legal system) stage a show trial and now execute him in the middle of a civil war.

Digby: Sordid Truth

During those horrible early days after hurricane Katrina hit, I'm sure you remember the endless stories of looters and thugs and criminal gangs roaming the streets terrorizing the population. The right wing blogs had a lot to say on the subject.

There was one incident in particular that seemed to grab the imagination of the rightwingers. It was reported on all the cable news networks and inspired many blog posts like this one:

Did New Orleans police shoot and kill contractors who were walking across a bridge to inspect and seek to fix the broken levee, or did they kill those who had fired on the contractors? A few hours ago, news services and networks reported that five or six contractors had been shot and killed by the NOPD. Shortly thereafter, news services reported that the NOPD had actually shot “thugs” as a (Fox News host described them) who had fired on the contractors.

Digby: Daffy Duck

Mallard Fillmore:

(open link for cartoon)--Dictynna

The truly disorienting thing about the bizarro world these people have created is that they actually believe the Republicans tried to "reach out and remain bipartisan" and the Democrats are ruthless operators who go for trhe jugular ( while also being cowardly wimps who can't defend the country.)

Digby: Who's Your Daddy?

Here's an interesting little tid-bit. Four of the most popular posts of the year were by Crook and Liars. In fact, the most popular political post of the year was C&L's post of the Stephen Colbert White House Correspondent's dinner. And the second most popular was C&L's post of Keith Olbermann's Rumsfeld commentary.

Digby: Hickory Hillbillies

Government as it is, rather than what it should be.--Dictynna

Those of us who follow politics from far outside the beltway are often amused at the way the DC estabishment has somehow convinced itself that it is a small town in middle American ca. 1937 and they are all Jimmy Stewarts and Donna Reeds. Those of us blue state heathens who live in big cities with big power centers particularly know how self serving and absurd this is.

Digby: Chain Gang

TBOGG notices that the rightwing is lying by sending out bogus e-mails and pictures. I know it's shocking. Who would have ever thought they would do such a thing?

Poputonian: Rolling Over In My Grave

Guest post by Herbert Block

It is not my intent to startle you by returning from the dead (actually, I'm still dead), but after watching the collective memory lapse of the American media, I am compelled to present excerpts from my book, Herblock Special Report, which was first published in 1974.

First, from the Foreword to the book:

After Nixon left office, the idea was still being promoted that those who believed in letting the law take its course were somehow moved by personal motives. But quite the contrary was true.

It was not Nixon who had been assaulted by government, but the government that had been assaulted by Nixon.

Digby: So It Begins

I missed Edwards' announcement this morning but I'm sure I'll catch it later on today. (Ezra writes about it here.) I did watch the video in the ad at left at was thrilled to see him use the phrase "McCain Doctrine of escalation in Iraq." Yes indeedy.

Digby: Never Made A Mistake

President Bush on Wednesday remembered former President Gerald Ford as a "man of complete integrity who led our country with common sense and kind instincts" and helped restore faith in the presidency after the Watergate scandal.

Common sense indeed:

Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq

Daily Kos: MacDubya: A Tragedy

by 8ackgr0und N015e
Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 05:20:38 AM PST
crossposted at macdubya.blogspot.com


ACT I.
Scene I: Baghdad, 1991.

This dark, grim tragedy begins with Three Witches dancing in the streets of Baghdad.

Missiles, explosions, and screams paint a gloomy picture, setting the tone of this play. As the "fireworks" fade, the witches agree to meet again at the turn of the century. They straddle cruise missiles that look decidedly phallic and fly off.

Nine years later...

Bush Silences a Dangerous Witness

By Robert Parry
December 30, 2006

Like a blue-blood version of a Mob family with global reach, the Bushes have eliminated one more key witness to the important historical events that led the U.S. military into a bloody stalemate in Iraq and pushed the Middle East to the brink of calamity.

The hanging of Saddam Hussein was supposed to be – as the New York Times observed – the “triumphal bookend” to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. If all had gone as planned, Bush might have staged another celebration as he did after the end of “major combat,” posing under the “Mission Accomplished” banner on May 1, 2003.

But now with nearly 3,000 American soldiers killed and the Iraqi death toll exceeding 600,000 by some estimates, Bush may be forced to savor the image of Hussein dangling at the end of a rope a little more privately.

Gerald Ford's Mixed Legacy

By Robert Parry
December 29, 2006

The disclosure that Gerald Ford opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq but embargoed his objections until after his death fits with his contradictory legacy as a national leader who opposed the imperial presidency while laying the groundwork for its restoration.

After assuming the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974, Ford earned praise by demonstrating greater respect for Congress than the prickly and paranoid Richard Nixon. Ford also scored points with the public for toasting his own English muffins and acting like a regular guy.

By contrast, Nixon had dressed White House guards up in uniforms more befitting the Hapsburg monarchy than the American Republic. More significantly, Nixon had asserted broad powers to wage war overseas and acted secretly to sabotage his political enemies at home. Nixon embodied the notion that if a President did it, it couldn’t be illegal.

While You Were at War . . .

By Richard A. Clarke

Sunday, December 31, 2006; Page B01

In every administration, there are usually only about a dozen barons who can really initiate and manage meaningful changes in national security policy. For most of 2006, some of these critical slots in the Bush administration have been vacant, such as the deputy secretary of state (empty since Robert B. Zoellick left for investment bank Goldman Sachs) and the deputy director of national intelligence (with Gen. Michael V. Hayden now CIA director). And with the nation involved in a messy war spiraling toward a bad conclusion, the key deputies and Cabinet members and advisers are all focusing on one issue, at the expense of all others: Iraq.