Paul Krugman: The Murdoch Factor

In October 2003, the nonpartisan Program on International Policy Attitudes published a study titled "Misperceptions, the media and the Iraq war." It found that 60 percent of Americans believed at least one of the following: clear evidence had been found of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda; W.M.D. had been found in Iraq; world public opinion favored the U.S. going to war with Iraq.

The prevalence of these misperceptions, however, depended crucially on where people got their news. Only 23 percent of those who got their information mainly from PBS or NPR believed any of these untrue things, but the number was 80 percent among those relying primarily on Fox News. In particular, two-thirds of Fox devotees believed that the U.S. had "found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the Al Qaeda terrorist organization."

'Knocked Up' Flick Didn't Knock Me Out

By Katha Pollitt, TheNation.com. Posted June 29, 2007.

According to director Judd Apatow's family values, beautiful women drag men into adulthood. Then what?

Last night I finally saw Knocked Up, Judd Apatow's hilarious new movie, a raunchfest with a family-values core --- carrying on with accidental pregnancies, marriage as responsible adulthood, staying together for the sake of the kids. I'm not going to get into that here, except to second Dana Stevens' great piece in Slate on Hollywood and TV's cowardice about abortion (referred to in Knocked Up by the hero's slacker roommate as "rhymes with shmashmortion" and, by the heroine's ice-cold mother, as "taking care of it").

As she points out, legions of single women in their twenties who get pregnant accidentally like Alison (Katherine Heigl) or Jenna (Keri Russell) in Waitress, have abortions; on the big or small screen, they have miscarriages or babies. In the movies, I might add, accidental babies solve the very issues (men, work, money, dreams) that, in real life, they often worsen. Jenna gives birth, dumps her abusive ox of a husband, wins the baking contest he'd barred her from entering and opens her own pie diner. Alison falls in love with Ben (Seth Rogen), her one-night drunken stand, and, after spending the whole movie hiding her pregnancy to keep her celebrity-reporting job at E!, gets outed -- and promoted. Pregnancy polls really well-- who knew?

Ted Rall: Let Them Drink Rapeseed Oil

In Tajikistan, U.S. Runs a Distant Fifth in the Race for Hearts and Minds

GORDO-BADAKHSHAN AUTONOMOUS OBLAST, Tajikistan -- Finally! I waited 43 years and traveled to one of the most remote places on earth to find it, but find it I have: American tax dollars being spent productively. "USA," the label on the bag reads in Helvetica Bold. "US-AID Flour." Just like the '70s, when my little kid heart swelled at the sight of "Gift of USA" food bags being delivered to starving African villagers! Thank God, America still finds time to help poor Third Worlders in between all the bombing and torturing.

As I chewed a nan bread my Pamiri hosts had baked using US-AID flour, I got the warm fuzzies. The struggle for hearts and minds never tasted so good.

Lying about liberals: our national sport

Submitted by Rick Perlstein on June 28, 2007 - 4:26am.

People who have no idea what happened in the Vietnam War should stop making arguments about the war. Which means: most conservatives.

Here's a blogger at the American Scene ruminating about the war's role in the rise of Reaganism:

Whatever else you want to say about "stab in the back" myths being spread later on, the public's response to the collapse of South Vietnam and Cambodia was not one immediately politically damaging to the party that worked to shut off aid to South Vietnam.

I presume he means the Democrats by "the party that worked to shut off aid to South Vietnam." He should shut up.

FTC shoots down Net Neutrality, says it is not needed

By Ken Fisher | Published: June 27, 2007 - 06:07PM CT

The Federal Trade Commission today dealt a serious blow to "Net Neutrality" proponents as it issued a report dismissive of claims that the government needs to get involved in preserving the fairness of networks in the United States.

The report, entitled "Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy," was drafted in response to growing concerns about broadband competitiveness and network neutrality. The FTC intends the report to be consulted as a guideline by policy makers and legislators, but it has no binding force. Nevertheless, the report's findings are yet another sign that US government agencies are not particularly interested in the network neutrality problem right now. In fact, the FTC is essentially saying that they can find no evidence of a problem to begin with.

New study shows how often juries get it wrong

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Juries across the country make decisions every day on the fate of defendants, ideally leading to prison sentences that fit the crime for the guilty and release for the innocent. Yet a new Northwestern University study shows that juries in criminal cases many times are getting it wrong.

In a set of 271 cases from four areas, juries gave wrong verdicts in at least one out of eight cases, according to “Estimating the Accuracy of Jury Verdicts,” a paper by a Northwestern University statistician that is being published in the July issue of Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.

Stadium revival: Promise Keepers try to regain the offensive

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of "Stand in the Gap," evangelicals hope to bring 250,000 men to Washington to re-ignite the Christian men's movement

Ten years ago this October, somewhere between 500,000 to one-million -- depending on who was doing the tallying -- Christian men gathered in Washington, D.C., to "Stand in the Gap." At the time, the Promise Keepers (PK), the chief organizer of the event, appeared on the verge of becoming a major force in conservative politics. Within a few years, however, money dried up, media interest peaked and peeled off, and leadership squabbles ensued. The bubble burst. Despite scaling down their activities and continuing to function, the organization pretty much dropped off the radar screens of the traditional media.

Report: ‘Shadow Goverment’ Of Private Contractors Explodes Under Bush

A new report by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform concludes that, under the Bush administration, the “shadow government of private companies working under federal contract has exploded in size. Between 2000 and 2005, procurement spending increased by over $175 billion dollars, making federal contracts the fastest growing component of federal discretionary spending.”

Report blasts U.S. for failures in fighting terrorism

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A just-released report slams the federal government for failing to coordinate the work of U.S. law enforcement agencies overseas to fight terrorism.

The Government Accountability Office found that in one country a lack of clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency may have compromised several investigations intended to identify and disrupt potential terrorist activities.

The GAO did not name the country in its report.

Papers detail decades of FBI surveillance

By Colin Moynihan
Monday, June 25, 2007

NEW YORK: One entry, dated April 14, 1954, was about I. F. Stone, who was described as a writer from New York. Stone, it was noted, condemned Senator Joseph McCarthy's "persecution of innocent citizens" and likewise the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the Senate's corresponding committee.

Another on Oct. 24, 1966, noted that as a result of a FBI-approved counterintelligence operation, Richard Lawrence Davis, who was running for a seat on the state committee of the Michigan District Communist Party, was cast under a cloud of suspicion as part of an effort to sow division in the group.

This Is Your Brain On Politics

How Your Brain Makes Political Decisions

Ever wonder why fear-mongering seems to work so well at the polls—while appeals to reason often leave the electorate cold? A new book applies neuroscience to politics to figure out why the Democrats struggle to push the buttons in voters’ brains.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY

By Sharon Begley

Newsweek

Updated: 12:47 p.m. ET June 27, 2007

June 27, 2007 - Do you remember when candidate George W. Bush berated Al Gore during the 2000 presidential debates for alleged funny business in his fund-raising? Bush said, “You know, going to a Buddhist temple and then claiming it wasn’t a fund-raiser isn’t my view of responsibility.” It was a direct attack on the honor of a fellow Southerner, and Gore wasn’t taking it. “You have attacked my honor and integrity,” the vice president shot back. “I think it’s time to teach you a few old-fashioned lessons about character. When I enlisted to fight in the Vietnam War, you were talkin’ real tough about Vietnam. But when you got the call, you called your daddy and begged him to pull some strings so you wouldn’t have to go to war. So instead of defending your country with honor, you put some poor Texas millworker’s kid on the front line in your place to get shot at. Where I come from, we call that a coward.

“When I was working hard, raising my family, you were busy drinking yourself and your family into the ground. Why don’t you tell us how many times you got behind the wheel of a car with a few drinks under your belt? Where I come from, we call that a drunk.

UN issues desertification warning

Tens of millions of people could be driven from their homes by encroaching deserts, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, a report says.

The study by the United Nations University suggests climate change is making desertification "the greatest environmental challenge of our times".

Iraq by the Numbers

By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on June 28, 2007, Printed on June 28, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/55407/

Sometimes, numbers can strip human beings of just about everything that makes us what we are. Numbers can silence pain, erase love, obliterate emotion, and blur individuality. But sometimes numbers can also tell a necessary story in ways nothing else can.

This January, President Bush announced his "surge" plan for Iraq, which he called his "new way forward." It was, when you think about it, all about numbers. Since then, 28,500 new American troops have surged into that country, mostly in and around Baghdad; and, according to the Washington Post, there has also been a hidden surge of private armed contractors -- hired guns, if you will -- who free up troops by taking over many mundane military positions from guarding convoys to guarding envoys. In the meantime, other telltale numbers in Iraq have surged as well.

Bush won't supply subpoenaed documents

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
1 hour, 25 minutes ago

President Bush, in a constitutional showdown with Congress, claimed executive privilege Thursday and rejected demands for White House documents and testimony about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

His decision was denounced as "Nixonian stonewalling" by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bush rejected subpoenas for documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. The White House made clear neither one would testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas.

Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil

A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas.

All that is needed, claims Global Resource Corporation (GRC), is a finely tuned microwave and – hey presto! – a mix of materials that were made from oil can be reduced back to oil and combustible gas (and a few leftovers).

Ship of Ghouls

In the latest issue of The New Republic, along with a superb deflation of Russell Kirk's intellectual pretensions by Alan Wolfe and Jed Perl's tour of the Met's newly opened Greek and Roman Galleries, is Johann Hari's sure-to-be-much-discussed account of his National Review luxury cruise that the author dubs "the Muslims Are Coming cruise," and not just because Mark Steyn is one of the marquee gasbags. Although not the comedy classic that P. J. O'Rourke's picaresque tale of a trip up the Volga with the writers and readers of the Nation was ("Up the Volga on a Ship of Fools" I believe it was titled when it was first published in Harper's, then-edited by Michael Kinsley), Hari's piece captures far deeper, scarier depths of fear, prejudice, parochial ignorance, self-delusion, borderline derangement, and sheer inanity.

A Loophole Reopens

The Supreme Court jettisons sense on campaign 'issue ads.'

Tuesday, June 26, 2007; Page A20

THREE TERMS and a different Supreme Court ago, a five-justice majority sensibly upheld a provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law designed to stem the flood of corporate- and labor-funded campaign commercials masquerading as "issue ads." The majority found "little difference" between "an ad that urged viewers to 'vote against Jane Doe' and one that condemned Jane Doe's record on a particular issue before exhorting viewers to 'call Jane Doe and tell her what you think.' " As the court explained, "although the resulting advertisements do not urge the viewer to vote for or against a candidate in so many words, they are no less clearly intended to influence the election."

Bush Official in ‘Shouting Match’ with Open Access Supporters

The Bush administration’s top telecommunications official reportedly tried to “shout down” Net Neutrality and open access supporters after they called him out for spinning America’s Internet market as a wonderland of competition and consumer choice.

John Kneuer, assistant secretary of commerce and head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), “quickly lost his temper and began shouting” after an audience of technology experts pressed him to explain how the U.S. had fallen so far behind other developed countries in providing Internet access to citizens.

The Banality of Greed

Posted on Jun 26, 2007
By Robert Scheer

As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American—and many more Iraqi—lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit. No company has profited more from the carnage in Iraq than Halliburton, which Cheney headed before choosing himself as Bush’s running mate. One shudders at the blissful arrogance of this modern Daddy Warbucks, who sees no conflict of interest over the blood-soaked profits garnered by the once-bankrupt division of the company that left him rich.

CIA tried to get Mafia to kill Castro: documents

By Steve Holland and Andy Sullivan
Tue Jun 26, 6:39 PM ET

The CIA worked with three American mobsters in a botched "gangster-type" attempt to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, according to documents released by the CIA on Tuesday.

The CIA hauled the skeletons out of its closet by declassifying hundreds of pages of long-secret records that detail some of the agency's worst illegal abuses during about 25 years of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying and kidnapping.

CIA Director Michael Hayden released the documents to lift the veil of secrecy on the agency's past, even as the Bush administration faces criticism of being too secretive now.

New CIA Documents Link Kissinger to Two 1970s Coups

By Guest Blogger
Posted on June 27, 2007, Printed on June 28, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/guest/55328/

This post, written by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane, originally appeared on Raw Story

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pushed for the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and allowed arms to be moved to Ankara for an attack on that island in reaction to a coup sponsored by the Greek junta, according to documents and intelligence officers with close knowledge of the event.

Nearly 700 pages of highly classified Central Intelligence Agency reports from the 1970's, known collectively as the "Family Jewels," are slated for public release today.

George Will's Triumph Of The Wallace

Submitted by Rick Perlstein on June 25, 2007 - 8:06pm.

A sickening man named George Will has just laundered the historical reputation of a monster. His new column affects to analyze the varieties of third party candidates in the wake of Michael Bloomberg's suspected entrance into the presential race. Exhibit B: "A candidate can succeed in giving an aggrieved minority a voice—e.g., George Wallace, speaking for people furious about the '60s tumults," he writes in his new Newsweek column.

America's top spy says extensive domestic surveillance continues; Leaves out great deal

06/26/2007 @ 9:34 am

Filed by Michael Roston

An article in July's edition of the journal Foreign Affairs gives Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell an opportunity to outline his plans for 'Overhauling Intelligence.' The article is notable both for what it includes - a discussion of domestic intelligence gathering activities - as well as what it leaves out.

While earlier public statements and writings from McConnell have emphasized the need to modernize the laws governing intelligence gathering, the nation's second National Intelligence Director excluded those issues from this article.

Justice in Alabama

Deep in southwestern Alabama sits the town of Monroeville. It’s a sleepy place, not of much consequence since the cotton industry gave out. People in America may think they don’t know it. But then, perhaps they do. This town gave America two of its literary giants. It is the town described in To Kill a Mockingbird. It is the home of Harper’s Magazine contributors Harper Lee and Truman Capote. (Though New York City would go to the mat to contend with Monroeville for the honor of calling itself their home, in fairness the title should be shared.) So inconsequential as Monroeville may be on the Alabama roadmap, in the literary geography of America it is a place of great consequence. It is also a place forever associated with the struggle for justice.

'It's clear Bush could stop Cheney,' Post reporter says of his expose

06/25/2007 @ 11:36 am

Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane

CNN spoke on Monday to prize-winning Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman, co-author of a current four-part series exposing Vice President Cheney's dominance of US policy decisions.

Gellman first described Cheney's leading role in approving of enhanced interrogation methods, saying that "Dick Cheney decided early on, we're not going to win against al Qaeda unless we extract serious intelligence quickly from captured enemies, and he helped push through a fairly remarkable change in law, which was to establish a new distinction between 'torture,' which the United States government would not do, and 'cruelty.'"

Presidential scholars present Bush with letter urging a ban on torture

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.26.2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush was presented with a letter Monday signed by 50 high school seniors in the Presidential Scholars program urging a halt to "violations of the human rights" of terror suspects held by the United States.

The White House said Bush had not expected the letter but took a moment to read it and talk with a young woman who handed it to him.

Greenhouse gas burial

Deep coal seams that are not commercially viable for coal production could be used for permanent underground storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) generated by human activities, thus avoiding atmospheric release, according to two studies published in Inderscience's International Journal of Environment and Pollution. An added benefit of storing CO2 in this way is that additional useful methane will be displaced from the coal beds.

Finding ways to store (sequester) the greenhouse gas CO2, indefinitely, is one approach being investigated in efforts to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels and so help combat climate change. CO2 might be pumped into oil wells to extract the last few drops of oil or be placed deep underground in brine aquifers or unmineable coal seams.

Supreme Court Denies Faith-Based Funding Suit, Affirms Taxpayer Standing Precedent

By DonByrd
Mon Jun 25, 2007 at 05:49:49 PM EST

Today, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against a lawsuit brought by the Freedom from Religion Foundation challenging the Bush Administration's faith-based funding conferences. The good news is that the majority opinion, written by Justice Alito, specifically declined the invitation of Scalia and Thomas to overrule Flast, the precedent which allows taxpayer standing in Establishment Clause cases.

The problem is: now that the Court has created this Establishment Clause safe-haven within the Executive Branch, will government agencies seek to take greater advantage of that allowance? Or will future administrations heed Justice Kennedy's admonition that the Executive Branch is required to follow the Constitution even when there is no means to be sued for not doing so? (And do these qualify for a round of Atrios' "simple answers to simple questions"?)

Paul Hawken: How to Stop Our Political and Economic Systems From Stealing Our Future

By Terrence McNally, AlterNet
Posted on June 26, 2007, Printed on June 26, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/54920/

"It will be the stroke of midnight for the rest of our lives. It is too late for heroes. We need an accelerated intertwining of the over 1 million nonprofits and 100 million people who daily work for the preservation and restoration of life on earth. ...The language of sustainability is about ideas that never end: growth without inequality, wealth without plunder, work without exploitation, a future without fear. A green movement fails unless there's a black-, brown-, and copper-colored movement, and that can only exist if the movement to change the world touches the needs and suffering of every single person on earth." --Worldchanging.org 12/26/06

Paul Hawken has spent over a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From multimillion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise a movement that has no name, no leader, no location, and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media. Like nature itself, it is organizing from the bottom up. Hawken's new book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, explores the diversity of the movement, its ideas, strategies and hidden history.

Katha Pollitt: Anything Boys Can Do...

[from the July 9, 2007 issue]

I thought I would hate The Dangerous Book for Boys, the publishing sensation by British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden. Actually, it's irresistible, beginning with the cannily designed red-and-gilt, raised-letter cover reminiscent of Edwardian children's literature. A grab bag of militantly old-fashioned pastimes, skills and informational tidbits, it has brief chapters on how to skip stones, play stickball and make a pinhole projector, plus smatterings of nature lore, history, geography and culture (accounts of famous battles, all safely in the past; "Latin Phrases Every Boy Should Know"). Morse code! Star maps! Invisible ink made of pee! Captain Scott! Grammar! Remember grammar? There are three whole chapters on it. Neat! I have no idea if today's boys would rather identify trees or read about Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain than play Resident Evil 4 or download pornography, but it's a safe bet their parents wish they did. In fact, it's a safe bet parents would like to do some of this stuff themselves--teach a dog tricks, make a battery, read about the Wright brothers. Cool! Children's books are bought by parents--and grandparents, even better for the Igguldens' purposes, because you'd have to be nearly 60 to have grown up with the cultural references and worldview resuscitated here. In light of all this, it's no wonder The Dangerous Book for Boys was a huge success in Britain, sits atop the Amazon charts and is piled three feet deep at my local Barnes & Noble.

In Praise of Red Tape

by CHRISTOPHER HAYES

[from the July 9, 2007 issue]

Is there any figure in American political discourse more reviled than the bureaucrat? Say the word and a potent caricature leaps to mind: the petty and shiftless paper pusher who wields his small amount of power with malice and caprice. Whatever the issue--from school reform to overhauling the nation's intelligence apparatus--the bureaucrat is on the wrong side of it.

It's slander with a long pedigree--Cicero called the bureaucrat "the most despicable" of men, "petty, dull, almost witless...a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog"--but in the last forty years, conservatives have converted this casual contempt into an ideological fixture. Since as far back as the Goldwater campaign, the American right has generally found that "the government" is too abstract an entity for most people to actively loathe. It's far more effective to demonize the people who execute its daily functions. Bureaucrats are to conservatives what the bourgeoisie was to Marx: an oppressive class of joyless knaves. Milton Friedman quipped that "hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned"; Ronald Reagan said in 1966 that "the best minds are not in government" because if any were, "business would hire them away"; and George Wallace expressed his desire to "take those bearded bureaucrats" in Washington who were in the process of desegregating the South, "and throw them in the Potomac."

Supreme Court hands victory to Bush on faith-based initiatives

06/25/2007 @ 10:19 am

Filed by Michael Roston

On a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a group of taxpayers did not have standing to sue the US government for its funding of faith-based initiatives with federal money. The decision, Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, was written by Samuel Alito, the second Supreme Court Justice appointed by President George W. Bush, according to the website SCOTUSBlog.

The group People for the American Way slammed the decision as threatening the First Amendment.

Glen Greenwald: Iran: The Next War?

Posted June 24, 2007 | 10:29 PM (EST)

---

The following is an excerpt from Glenn Greenwald's new book, A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, to be released by Crown Publishing this Tuesday. The book is available now at Amazon.

Reuters, February 23, 2007:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday Iran should not show weakness over its nuclear program, a day after Tehran ignored a United Nations deadline to stop nuclear work which the West says could be used for making bombs. "If we show weakness in front of the enemy the expectations will increase but if we stand against them, because of this resistance, they will retreat."

New York Times, on former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld's farewell speech to the Pentagon, December 15, 2006:

"Today, it should be clear that not only is weakness provocative," Mr. Rumsfeld said, standing at a lectern with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at his side, "but the perception of weakness on our part can be provocative as well...

Cheney Spies On White House Staffers

By Guest Blogger
Posted on June 25, 2007, Printed on June 26, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/guest/55111/

This post, written by Faiz Shakir, originally appeared on Think Progress

Today, the Washington Post unveiled the first in its lengthy four-part series on the unprecedented influence and power of the vice president.

Shortly after Bush was elected, "Cheney preferred, and Bush approved, a mandate that gave him access to 'every table and every meeting,' making his voice heard in 'whatever area the vice president feels he wants to be active in.'"

Finally, the Neocons Are Sinking

By Khody Akhavi, IPS News
Posted on June 25, 2007, Printed on June 26, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/55095/

As the George W. Bush administration struggles through its last two years in office, it appears that the agenda of neoconservative ideologues has finally lost its appeal among strategic parts of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus.

But as their influence has waned at the Pentagon and State Department, neo-conservative hawks have taken charge on the battlefield of public diplomacy.

Home Sales Hit Slowest Pace in 4 Years

Monday June 25, 6:36 pm ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer Sales of Existing Homes Drop for Third Straight Month to Slowest Pace in 4 Years; Prices Down WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of existing homes fell for a third straight month in May, dropping to the lowest level in four years as the median sales price declined for a record 10th consecutive month.

In a troubling sign for the future, the inventory of unsold homes shot up to the highest level in 15 years, meaning more downward pressure on prices in the months ahead until the inventory glut is reduced.

Digby: Judge Cutie

Did you all hear about our illustrious Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia using the fictional character of Jack Bauer to illustrate his belief that torture is necessary in a time of crisis?


Senior judges from North America and Europe were in the midst of a panel discussion about torture and terrorism law, when a Canadian judge’s passing remark - “Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra ‘What would Jack Bauer do?’ ” - got the legal bulldog in [Justice Antonin Scalia] barking.

The Poor Man: In Communist China, blog commenter ban YOU!

Via Oliver Willis, we find Matt Margolis displaying the firm grasp of American history which only wingnut homeschooling can provide:

Let’s see.

Which party opposed giving women the right to vote? The Democrats.

Which party opposed the civil rights act? The Democrats.

Liberals. So ignorant of history.

Even at GOP Bloggers, this is considered to be some weakass shit. It is pointed out that the Dixiecrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act (and, for that matter, Truman’s integration of the military) ended up leaving the Democratic party and joining the Republicans, forcing sympathetic commenter KCJ to offer this novel defense:

Conservative Democrats like Robert “KKK” Byrd?

Isikoff: 'A New Cheney-Gonzales Mystery'

6/24/2007 @ 6:35 pm

Filed by RAW STORY

Michael Isikoff is reporting "a new Cheney-Gonzales mystery" in the current issue of Newsweek. It has recently become known that Cheney's office has refused to comply with an executive order requiring annual reports on security measures, claiming that the vice president is not part of the executive branch. The government official responsible for enforcing the order, J. William Leonard, complained about this last January to Attorney General Gonzales, asking for an official ruling, but he never received a response.

Number of Americans who believe Saddam-9/11 tie rises to 41 percent

06/24/2007 @ 3:17 pm

Filed by Josh Catone

A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed "gaps" in America's knowledge of history and current events.

Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered 'Yes' to the question "Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?"

The Secret Campaign of President Bush's Administration To Deny Global Warming

"That's a big no. The president believes . . . that it should be the goal of policymakers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one."

- Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary responding in May 2001 to whether Bush would ask Americans to curb their first-in-the-world energy consumption

Earlier this year, the world's top climate scientists released a definitive report on global warming. It is now "unequivocal," they concluded, that the planet is heating up. Humans are directly responsible for the planetary heat wave, and only by taking immediate action can the world avert a climate catastrophe. Megadroughts, raging wildfires, decimated forests, dengue fever, legions of Katrinas - unless humans act now to curb our climate-warming pollution, warned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "we are in deep trouble."

Frank Rich: They’ll Break the Bad News on 9/11

Frank Rich, The New York Times, June 24, 2007

By this late date we should know the fix is in when the White House’s top factotums fan out on the Sunday morning talk shows singing the same lyrics, often verbatim, from the same hymnal of spin. The pattern was set way back on Sept. 8, 2002, when in simultaneous appearances three cabinet members and the vice president warned darkly of Saddam’s aluminum tubes. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” said Condi Rice, in a scripted line. The hard sell of the war in Iraq — the hyping of a (fictional) nuclear threat to America — had officially begun.

America wasn’t paying close enough attention then. We can’t afford to repeat that blunder now. Last weekend the latest custodians of the fiasco, our new commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and our new ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, took to the Sunday shows with two messages we’d be wise to heed.

Report Revealing Bias of Talk Radio Touches Nerve on the Right

A study released on Wednesday by Free Press and the Center for American Progress lays bare what is obvious to many: Talk radio is a chorus of right-wing voices.

"The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio" found that 91 percent of weekday talk formats are given over to right-wing programming. No surprise, really, but good to have further evidence.

In War Coverage: Have 'Insurgents' Morphed into 'Qaeda'?

By E&P Staff

Published: June 23, 2007 8:20 PM ET
NEW YORK As E&P has noted in the past week, the U.S. military has increasingly referred to insurgents in Iraq as "al-Qaeda fighters" or "Qaeda militants." When and why this is happening is not certain, although linking the insurgents to those who attacked us on 9/11 would appear to have certain benefits in the court of public opinion.

In the past, however, both military and outside observers have long stated that so-called "foreign fighters" or members of the group Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia have made up only a tiny fraction of those who are actively battling the U.S. occupation.

Memo Reveals Military's View of Reporter Probing Atrocity

By Greg Mitchell

Published: June 24, 2007 12:35 PM ET
NEW YORK Six weeks ago, at the military hearings probing the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha in November 2005, a Marine officer testified about his view of the initial questions about the incident, and possible coverup, raised by the Time magazine reporter who broke the case.

The questions from Tim McGirk clearly provoked more rage than a determination to look into the evidence offered by eyewitnesses.