Digby: Smoking Them Out

In a thoroughly egregious Hardball yesterday, even by its usual egregious standards, Chris Matthews spun some CW that I think may be growing, even though it makes little sense:

MATTHEWS: Is David Geffen smart politically? He strikes me as someone who is very smart.

I mean, here‘s a quote. It‘s an indirect quote from today‘s Maureen Dowd piece in “The New York Times,” which caused all this stir over in the the Clinton world—quote—it‘s just about Bill and Hillary, obviously, and their relationship.

Digby: "Why Won't He Just Attack?"

Here's crazy Dick Cheney articulating his sophisticated foreign policy philosophy again:

"I think if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we will do is validate the al-Qaida strategy," the vice president told ABC News. "The al-Qaida strategy is to break the will of the American people ... try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit."

I've written a ridiculous amount about this and yet it always shocks me when I hear him put it so plainly. He believes bin Laden's trash talk and has fashioned this country's national security policy around it.

Digby: I'm Tired Already

I just love it when billionaires say things like this, don't you?

I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms.

That's the back-biting David Geffen in the Queen of Mean's op-ed column today talking about the calculating Clinton while defending his chosen candidate, the man the QueenBee calls Obambi. What a Freudian field day we have at work on this one.

Digby: Cultural Revolution

Like Atrios I like this post on LGM about the Ole Perfesser's homicidal rant proposing that we covertly kill all the Iranian nuclear scientists so that they will not be able to produce a bomb.

Digby: Debating Point

Blogpac has an action going today that I think is worthwhile. If you have a spare minute or two, click this link and sign up to send an email to various democratic officials to protest their agreement with Roger Ailes to have Fox News host a presidential primary debate.

The Democrats

By Michael Tomasky

Whatever else happens on January 20, 2009, the date on which, barring impeachment or tragedy, George W. Bush will finally leave office, the day will mark a rather surprising historical fact. As Mark Halperin and John F. Harris point out in their introduction to The Way to Win, it will be the first time since the consecutive administrations of James Madison and James Monroe that "back-to-back presidents both served all eight years of two elected terms." Monroe's term ended in 1825. In every era since, death, scandal, political failure, or some other kind of disruption—notably, a broad political shift that ends one era and begins another—has intruded upon the presidential succession process, until now.

Digby: Reason and Faith

In addition to the many insightful and interesting posts Atrios has written with respect to religion this past week or so, he links today to a tour de force on the subject by Mithras that I highly recommend. He hits on one of the most infuriating aspects of this debate which is the apparent childlike naivete with which so many people of these new strategists of the religious left view the anti-abortion movement. Mithras brings up the case of Eric Rudolph and reminds us that the longest ongoing terrorist actions in the United States are the killing and maiming of doctors who perform abortions. These are not the actions of people who "just want a seat at the table." Read this post if you have further questions about whether it is politically smart to capitulate to these people. (And make no mistake, as long as this "outreach" remains fixated on abortion, which it is, it is heading toward capitulation on the issue.)

Digby: Talk Turkey

I agree with Kevin Drum on this:

... my greatest wish for this campaign season is for Democrats to back off from the trifles now and again and instead spend some time getting back to basics and outlining a broad perspective on both American and global security that competes with the puerile bluster that currently passes for intelligent discussion among Republicans.

Digby: Squeeze Play

Murray Waas is reporting:

If Libby is found guilty, investigators are likely to probe further to determine if Libby devised what they consider a cover story in an effort to shield Cheney.

Here's the skinny:

In the fall of 2003, when it was disclosed that the Justice Department had begun a criminal probe as to who leaked Plame's identity to reporters, Libby sought out Cheney to complain that while then-White House spokesperson McClellan was making public statements that Rove had not been a source of the leak, McClellan refused to do the same on Libby's behalf.

Daily Kos: The Boumediene Dissent: An Analysis

by Categorically Imperative
Thu Feb 22, 2007 at 03:36:08 PM PST

Those of you who read my earlier post on the majority opinion handed down by the D.C. Circuit in Boumediene v. Bush already know that I found the majority's reasoning unpersuasive, to say the least. Unfortunately, the dissent is not much better, though it does have the laudable attraction of having come to the correct conclusion. Especially given the numerous flaws in the majority opinion, however, the dissent offers a weak argument for what should be the stronger position and at times is not only weak, but counterproductive.

The Opening Argument: A Non Sequitur

The opening portion of the dissent (Pages 1-9) is probably the most unhelpful, as it makes an argument that is both constitutionally suspect and ultimately undermines the dissent's position. The argument is a response to the majority's assertion that the detainees have no constitutional rights because they have no presence or property in the United States. To attack that assertion, the dissent attempts to distinguish the Suspension Clause from the Bill of Rights by asserting that the former does not give rise to rights but rather is a limitation on Congressional power.

Justice Department Fires 8th U.S. Attorney

Dispute Over Death Penalty Cited

By Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 24, 2007; Page A02

An eighth U.S. attorney announced her resignation yesterday, the latest in a wave of forced departures of federal prosecutors who have clashed with the Justice Department over the death penalty and other issues.

Margaret Chiara, the 63-year-old U.S. attorney in Grand Rapids, Mich., told her staff that she was leaving her post after more than five years, officials said. Sources familiar with the case confirmed that she was among a larger group of prosecutors who were first asked to resign Dec. 7.

Bilderberg: The ultimate conspiracy theory

By Jonathan Duffy BBC News Online Magazine

The Bilderberg group, an elite coterie of Western thinkers and power-brokers, has been accused of fixing the fate of the world behind closed doors. As the organisation marks its 50th anniversary, rumours are more rife than ever.

Given its reputation as perhaps the most powerful organisation in the world, the Bilderberg group doesn't go a bundle on its switchboard operations.

Careful Consumption Alone Can't Save the World's Fish

By Jennifer Jaquet, The Tyee. Posted February 24, 2007.

With fish suppliers changing the names of seafood to avoid catch limits, the only way to preserve fish stocks is by electing politicians committed to conservation and tight regulation.

I recently read the Whitefish Handbook of Ecuador, a book that describes the fish Ecuador markets for export. On the page dedicated to South Pacific hake, the writer divulged that hake filets are marketed and sold as flounder, weakfish and tilapia. Hake sold as tilapia?

You know tilapia -- it is one fish everyone agrees is sustainable not least because it's farmed and grows on a vegetarian diet (so it does not require fish in its feed). Tilapia is included in the "best choices" column on seafood wallet cards, which indicate the best and worst species to eat. For years, environmental and health organizations have stressed the benefits of tilapia, and it shows. Indeed, it was recently called "the world's most popular fish." The demand for tilapia is growing -- in the U.S. alone, it has moved up from ninth most consumed fish in 2003 to sixth in 2004. So it might not come as a surprise that there are now tilapia impostors, like this hake.

Americans underestimate Iraqi death toll

By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer
20 minutes ago

Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.

When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000.

Mad-cow scrutiny is scaled way back

By Sandi Doughton

Seattle Times staff reporter

While Washington ranchers are raising a fuss over Canadian cattle and the danger of mad-cow disease, the region's only mad-cow testing lab is quietly preparing to close March 1.

The lab at Washington State University in Pullman opened after the nation's first mad-cow case spurred a flurry of new safeguards against the fatal, brain-wasting disease.

But three years later, many of those measures are being dismantled. Others proposed after the infected dairy cow was

Poverty in U.S. grows

By Tony Pugh, McClatchy Newspapers

The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

Speculation rages: Is Iran Bush's next target?

By Ron Hutcheson and Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers

President Bush says he isn't looking for a fight, but the question won't go away: Is the United States headed for war with Iran's Islamic rulers? Increasing tensions with Iran over its nuclear program and actions in Iraq have fueled speculation that Bush may be paving the way for military action.

The US psychological torture system is finally on trial

America has deliberately driven hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners insane. Now it is being held to account in a Miami court

Naomi Klein
Friday February 23, 2007
The Guardian

Something remarkable is going on in a Miami courtroom. The cruel methods US interrogators have used since September 11 to "break" prisoners are finally being put on trial. This was not supposed to happen. The Bush administration's plan was to put José Padilla on trial for allegedly being part of a network linked to international terrorists. But Padilla's lawyers are arguing that he is not fit to stand trial because he has been driven insane by the government.

Arrested in May 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare airport, Padilla, a Brooklyn-born former gang member, was classified as an "enemy combatant" and taken to a navy prison in Charleston, South Carolina. He was kept in a cell 9ft by 7ft, with no natural light, no clock and no calendar. Whenever Padilla left the cell, he was shackled and suited in heavy goggles and headphones. Padilla was kept under these conditions for 1,307 days. He was forbidden contact with anyone but his interrogators, who punctured the extreme sensory deprivation with sensory overload, blasting him with harsh lights and pounding sounds. Padilla also says he was injected with a "truth serum", a substance his lawyers believe was LSD or PCP.

GAO: Fuel tank cleanup could cost $12B

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Feb 22, 3:48 PM ET

It will cost at least $12 billion to clean up contamination from tens of thousands of gasoline storage tanks that are leaking underground, congressional auditors say.

That is far more than the $72 million that Congress and the Bush administration have provided each year, according to the report Thursday from the General Accountability Office.

US Iran intelligence 'is incorrect'

Julian Borger in Vienna
Thursday February 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Much of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by US spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, diplomatic sources in Vienna said today.

The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme.

Paul Krugman: Colorless Green Ideas

The factual debate about whether global warming is real is, or at least should be, over. The question now is what to do about it.

Aside from a few dead-enders on the political right, climate change skeptics seem to be making a seamless transition from denial to fatalism. In the past, they rejected the science. Now, with the scientific evidence pretty much irrefutable, they insist that it doesn’t matter because any serious attempt to curb greenhouse gas emissions is politically and economically impossible.

It Can Happen Here

By Joe Conason, Thomas Dunne Books. Posted February 23, 2007.

In light of the series of laws passed in Congress and precedents set by the Bush administration, people have good reason to doubt the future of democracy and the rule of law in America.

The following is excerpted from Joe Conason's new book, "It Can Happen Here" (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007).

Can it happen here? Is it happening here already? That depends, as a recent president might have said, on what the meaning of "it" is.

To Sinclair Lewis, who sardonically titled his 1935 dystopian novel "It Can't Happen Here," "it" plainly meant an American version of the totalitarian dictatorships that had seized power in Germany and Italy. Married at the time to the pioneering reporter Dorothy Thompson, who had been expelled from Berlin by the Nazis a year earlier and quickly became one of America's most outspoken critics of fascism, Lewis was acutely aware of the domestic and foreign threats to American freedom. So often did he and Thompson discuss the crisis in Europe and the implications of Europe's fate for the Depression-wracked United States that, according to his biographer, Mark Schorer, Lewis referred to the entire topic somewhat contemptuously as "it."

When God sanctions killing, the people listen

New research published in the March issue of Psychological Science may help elucidate the relationship between religious indoctrination and violence, a topic that has gained renewed notoriety in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. In the article, University of Michigan psychologist Brad Bushman and his colleagues suggest that scriptural violence sanctioned by God can increase aggression, especially in believers.

The authors set out to examine this interaction by conducting experiments with undergraduates at two religiously contrasting universities: Brigham Young University where 99% of students report believing in God and the Bible and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam where just 50% report believing in God and 27% believe in the bible.

DC Circuit Rules Constitutional Habeas Does Not Extend To Guantanamo

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Constitution
Posted on Tue Feb 20, 2007 at 12:00:13 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)

In a divided 2-1 ruling, Boumediene v. Bush, a panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the "enemy alien" detainees at Guantanamo do not have a Constitutional right to a writ of habeas corpus. The decision is an exercise in disengenuity. It accepts as undisputed fact, with the merest discussion - that the detainees do not have a Constitutional habeas right because (1) Guantanamo is outside of the control of the US government in direct contradiction to the Supreme Court holding in Rasul and that (2) the detainees are "enemy aliens" for habeas purposes.

Glenn Greenwald: Tony Blair's abrupt reversal on Iraq

Tony Blair, January 24, 2007 (from The Los Angeles Times)

Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected calls Wednesday to withdraw British forces from Iraq by October, then dodged a blistering debate in Parliament in which there was almost unanimous condemnation of the war and little optimism for a U.S. plan to boost its troop presence in Baghdad.

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett suggested that British troops might complete the transfer of security responsibilities in southern Iraq to the Iraqi government by November. But she said a withdrawal would depend on "conditions and circumstances."

NYT Editorial: Making Martial Law Easier

Published: February 19, 2007

A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.

Aging weather satellite fleet at risk

According to a new study, crucial weather and environmental satellites soon will fail, and their replacements are insufficient and behind schedule.
<>
BY MARTIN MERZER, mmerzer@MiamiHerald.com

Scientists soon will lose access to crucial information that helps them better understand and predict everything from hurricanes and earthquakes to global warming and environmental decay, according to a candid and sobering report by prestigious experts.

Matt Taibbi: Maybe We Deserve to Be Ripped Off By Bush's Billionaires

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted February 20, 2007.

While America obsessed about Brittany's shaved head, Bush offered a budget that offers $32.7 billion in tax cuts to the Wal-Mart family alone, while cutting $28 billion from Medicaid.

"Now, after she shaved her head in a bizarre episode that culminates a months-long saga of controversial behavior, it's the question being asked by her fans, her foes and the general public: What was she thinking?"-- Bald and Broken: Inside Britney's Shaved Head, Sheila Marikar, ABC.com, Feb. 19

What was she thinking? How about nothing? How about who gives a shit? How's that for an answer, Sheila Marikar of ABC news, you pinhead?

Neutrality On the Net Gets High '08 Profile

Tech Issue Gains Traction in Election

By Charles Babington

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; Page D01

Bloggers and other Internet activists made their marks in the past two presidential elections chiefly by building networks of political enthusiasts and raising money for candidates. Now, they are pushing aggressively into policymaking -- and not just over high-profile issues such as Iraq.

They are pressing candidates to back a handful of issues that are obscure to many Americans but vital to those who base their livelihoods on the Internet and track its development.

Monday view: Cheap solar power poised to undercut oil and gas by half

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Last Updated: 11:31pm GMT 18/02/2007

Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity, even in Britain, Scandinavia or upper Siberia. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half. Technology is leaping ahead of a stale political debate about fossil fuels.

Anil Sethi, the chief executive of the Swiss start-up company Flisom, says he looks forward to the day - not so far off - when entire cities in America and Europe generate their heating, lighting and air-conditioning needs from solar films on buildings with enough left over to feed a surplus back into the grid.

Stabbed in the Back

Posted by Barbara O'Brien at 8:29 AM on February 20, 2007.

Barbara O'Brien: Sooner or later, everybody "betrays" American conservatism (including conservatives).

For more than sixty years the American Right has been fueled by a "stabbed in the back" meme. As Kevin Baker wrote,

Every state must have its enemies. Great powers must have especially monstrous foes. Above all, these foes must arise from within, for national pride does not admit that a great nation can be defeated by any outside force. That is why, though its origins are elsewhere, the stab in the back has become the sustaining myth of modern American nationalism. Since the end of World War II it has been the device by which the American right wing has both revitalized itself and repeatedly avoided responsibility for its own worst blunders. Indeed, the right has distilled its tale of betrayal into a formula: Advocate some momentarily popular but reckless policy. Deny culpability when that policy is exposed as disastrous. Blame the disaster on internal enemies who hate America. Repeat, always making sure to increase the number of internal enemies.

Mercenaries are in the Military to Stay: Get Used to It!

By Lorelei Kelly, AlterNet. Posted February 20, 2007.

The bottom line is that the privatization of U.S. National Security is a trend that has been ongoing for years. And the billions of dollars disappeared by contractors in Iraq make disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff look like Little Bo Peep.

This article has previously appeared on democracyarsenal.org and the Huffington Post.

Remember that old movie "Escape from New York", the one where the city has become a large prison populated by violent and depraved criminals? A story that fell between the cracks of the State of the Union last month -- two downed Blackwater helicopters, five Americans dead -- made me remember the images from that film. No escape, not by land, not by air, not by sea.

Some news reports speculate that four of the five were shot on the ground. Ugh and sigh. I know it is hard for some people to feel outrage or grief over the death of private military contractors -- an attitude that I often find is supported by perverse logic and misplaced anger about our own government's dysfunction. The bottom line is that the privatization of US National Security is a trend that has been ongoing for years. It was a conversation that Congress forgot to have during the heady government-hatin' rally that passed for a legislature for the past decade. So here we are. The Washington Post recently reported that there are some 100,000 contractors in Iraq alone, including 25,000 private security contractors.

Digby: Destroying The Brand

Following up on my post from last night about how the Republicans have been exposed as total frauds, I see that my pal Tom Schaller has a new column in the Baltimore Sun making the same point:

According to the latest Gallup survey, Republican self-identification has declined nationally and in almost every American state. Why? The short answer is that President Bush's war of choice in Iraq has destroyed the partisan brand Republicans spent the past four decades building.

Digby: 706 Days Left

Dear God, it's painful watching the empty codpiece blather on incoherently. I can hardly wait until we have a president, any president, who can appear before the public and speak extemporaneously on higher than a 9th grade level.

Digby: Nowhere To Hide

One of the more refreshing developments in the last year or so has been the total immolation of the phony concept of "principled conservatism." With the Bush meltdown, the corruption, the incompetence and the continuing support among the leadership and the base for all of it, we no longer have to endure the stupid fiction that Republicans stand for anything other than their shared hatred for liberals and their desire to steal the taxpayers blind. Our long national nightmare of listening to them drone on and on about how liberals will say and do anything to win, how they have no ethics, morals and principles, how they flip-flop in the wind is over.

Digby: Where's Waldo?

Atrios mentioned this recently and I had noticed the same thing. For some reason the Republican primary doesn't seem to be getting the same kind of coverage the Democratic primary is. I think that's probably a good thing on balance, but it does make for some odd media errors and omissions.

Digby: War Tax

This is blasphemy hereabouts, but I have to agree with BC over at Cliff Schecter's place: I support Joe Lieberman. Yes, I know this is a shock, and many of you must be thinking I've lost my mind. But when Holy Joe is right about something(a most unusual event), he's right. Even if he doesn't know it:

I want him to propose his "war tax" on the floor of the Senate.

Digby: Clean Break

Tristero's post from earlier today about General Peter Pace's divergence from the administration's talking points may illuminate some of the backchannel infighting going on in the Bush administration over Iran. Here's the nut:

A top U.S. general said Tuesday there was no evidence the Iranian government was supplying Iraqi insurgents with highly lethal roadside bombs, apparently contradicting claims by other U.S. military and administration officials.

Now, we don't know what this really means. It could be that they are playing some sort of elaborate good cop/bad cop routine. (God help us --- these people are not very good at complicated tasks.) Or it could be a real revolt of the generals. We can't know for sure. But we do know that as much as a year ago, the administration has been actively planning to attack Iran and the generals have been resisting.

Digby: Rules For Scandal

Matt Yglesias writes:

But insofar as we're talking about ideology, we should be clear. Clinton, like her husband, is both hated by the right and treated unfairly by the press and a not very liberal politician, coming from the party's more centrist wing and flanked by advisors from the same. In a general election, she'd clearly be the progressive choice against Giuliani, McCain, Romney, etc. but is clearly the less progressive choice vis-a-vis Edwards and Obama. I don't think the fact that she's mistreated by the press should distract people from this basic point.

That's true and I can't argue with it. And his analysis about the liberal positioning of the candidates seems right to me too, a fact which we must keep in mind as we begin to engage the substance of the primary race.

From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq

The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics—alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on W.M.D.—to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet?

by Craig Unger | March 2007

>

In the weeks leading up to George W. Bush's January 10 speech on the war in Iraq, there was a brief but heady moment when it seemed that the president might finally accept the failure of his Middle East policy and try something new. Rising anti-war sentiment had swept congressional Republicans out of power. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had been tossed overboard. And the Iraq Study Group (I.S.G.), chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, had put together a bipartisan report that offered a face-saving strategy to exit Iraq. Who better than Baker, the Bush family's longtime friend and consigliere, to talk some sense into the president?

Daily Kos: Mocking Mitt

by Kimberley Sun Feb 18, 2007 at 02:58:33 AM PST

Religious tests are all the rage, just ask Mitt Romney.

He [Mitt Romney] showed poise when a heckler attacked him for being a Mormon: ``You sir, you are a pretender. You do not know the Lord.''

The audience booed the heckler.

''One of the great things about this land is that we have people of different faiths and different religions, but we need to have a person of faith lead the country,'' he said, as the audience gave him a standing ovation.

Public wants young offenders tried in juvenile courts despite policymakers' get-tough stance

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The juvenile justice system emerged a century ago out of the belief that young offenders were less culpable and more salvageable than their adult counterparts, but today, that system is under attack by get-tough policymakers claiming wide public support that Florida State University criminologists say simply doesn’t exist.

In fact, a rigorous study by those FSU researchers snapped a very different picture of public opinion on calls to abolish the juvenile justice system: More than 80 percent of the representative sample of 1,308 Florida adults surveyed were against such a move, nearly 40 percent strongly so. Throughout the nation’s fourth-largest state, that point of view prevailed even across demographic lines such as age, race, ethnicity, education, income or political and religious affiliations.

Americablog: Another Walter Reed horror story, from the Army Times

by John in DC 2/19/2007 10:18:00 AM

This is a national disgrace. From the Army Times:

A pale scar creates a deep furrow connecting [Pvt. Robert Van Antwerp] Van Antwerp’s eyebrows. Doctors replaced bone with titanium after he fractured his skull. Bare-chested as he trimmed, Van Antwerp has a deep, laddered line from beneath his sternum to at least the top of his sweatpants. A blast ruptured his spleen and ripped out his colon. Pushing up his left pant leg as he told his battle story, Van Antwerp showed where three ligaments tore away from his knee, and then pointed out the scar from his broken tibia.

Glenn Greenwald: Debate with Frank Gaffney

Neoconservatism has been exposed as the rotted and bloodthirsty ideology, but the movement is far from dead

For those who were unable to listen, C&L has now posted the full audio podcast of the debate I had last night on the Alan Colmes Show with Frank Gaffney, one of the most extremist, pernicious and influential neoconservatives in our country.

After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based Initiative

Unmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups

With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Iran - Ready to attack

Dan Plesch

Published 19 February 2007

American preparations for invading Iran are complete, Dan Plesch reveals. Plus Rageh Omaar's insights from Iran and Andrew Stephen on fears George Bush's administration will blunder into war

American military operations for a major conventional war with Iran could be implemented any day. They extend far beyond targeting suspect WMD facilities and will enable President Bush to destroy Iran's military, political and economic infrastructure overnight using conventional weapons.

White House Advisers Searching for Ways to ‘Bypass Congress Altogether’

President Bush is “struggling for relevancy in the same way many other second-term presidents have,” Newsweek observed recently. “But Bush’s burden seems much harder than other presidents in recent memory.” 71 percent of Americans see Bush as a “lame duck” president, and 58 percent “wish the Bush presidency were simply over.”

U.S. News reports that conservatives have seen the writing on the wall and are now advising Bush to “jump start” his final two years by pushing through as much as he can by executive fiat:

With President Bush unable to get much traction so far in moving his agenda through Congress or in improving his job-approval ratings with the public, White House advisers are casting about for ways to jump-start his final two years, including issuing executive orders to get things done without having to ask for support from the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Paul Krugman: Wrong is Right

Many people are perplexed by the uproar over Senator Hillary Clinton’s refusal to say, as former Senator John Edwards has, that she was wrong to vote for the Iraq war resolution. Why is it so important to admit past error? And yes, it was an error — she may not have intended to cast a vote for war, but the fact is the resolution did lead to war; she may not have believed that President Bush would abuse the power he was granted, but the fact is he did.

Digby: Tort Reform Fever

K-Drum writes about a colleague's new book regarding the conservative tort reform crusade. Conservative hostility to liability laws has always been around, but "tort reform" as we know it was evidently one of those Grover Norquist specials where he rightly observed that trial lawyers tended to be Democratic contributors so going after them hard was a neat political two-fer.

Digby: Segretti And Meatballs

You know what is really powerful about the right wing? They are just so good at ratfucking and they take a lot of pride in their work:

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Secret Service detail has received a major boost, rising from three or four federal agents to as many as a dozen in recent weeks.

The increase, which followed Clinton’s formal entry into the 2008 presidential race on Jan. 20, was described as a "precaution,” given her position as a former first lady, according to sources cited by the New York Post.

Digby: The Count Emerges From The Crypt

Be sure to check in at FDL. Emptywheel is liveblogging the Robert Novak testimony. Here's a little tid bit that jumped out at me:

[Libby defense attorney] Wells: How did you come to be working on Wilson column

RN: Previous Sunday, alleged attempt by Iraq to buy yellowcake from Niger, he had written op-ed, he was on MTP, I happened to be on roundtable and came in contact with him, had been interested in story, became more interested in it, and whether Pres had ignored report in opting for invasion of Iraq.

New evidence of the link between carbon dioxide emissions and climate change in boreal ecosystems

New research aimed at understanding the link between carbon dioxide emissions and climate change in boreal systems has found clear links between both Spring and Fall temperature changes and carbon uptake/loss. Dr Kevin Robert Gurney, assistant professor in the Earth & Atmospheric Science/Agronomy at Purdue University and Associate Director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, presented these results at the “Is a Warmer Arctic Adding Carbon Dioxide to the Atmosphere” session of American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Francisco, CA on December 17th.

Frank Rich: Oh What a Malleable War

--The New York Times, February 18, 2007

Maybe the Bush White House can't conduct a war, but no one has ever impugned its ability to lie about its conduct of a war. Now even that well-earned reputation for flawless fictionalizing is coming undone. Watching the administration try to get its story straight about Iran's role in Iraq last week was like watching third graders try to sidestep blame for misbehaving while the substitute teacher was on a bathroom break. The team that once sold the country smoking guns in the shape of mushroom clouds has completely lost its mojo.

Surely these guys can do better than this. No sooner did unnamed military officials unveil their melodramatically secretive briefing in Baghdad last Sunday than Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blew the whole charade. General Pace said he didn't know about the briefing and couldn't endorse its contention that the Iranian government's highest echelons were complicit in anti-American hostilities in Iraq. Public-relations pandemonium ensued as Tony Snow, the State Department and finally the president tried to revise the story line on the fly. Back when Karl Rove ruled, everyone read verbatim from the same script. Last week's frantic improvisations were vintage Scooter Libby, at best the ur-text for a future perjury trial.