The "Theory of Change" Primary

Perhaps we are being too literal in believing that "hope" and bipartisanship are things that Obama naively believes are present and possible, when in fact they are a tactic, a method of subverting and breaking the unified conservative power structure.

Mark Schmitt | December 21, 2007

The phrase "theory of change" is a bit of jargon that I first encountered in the philanthropic and non-profit world, where it refers to a fairly new way of evaluating the effectiveness of projects by drawing out the underlying assumptions about how they lead to social change. It's a useful innovation, because often differences that seem to be about ideology or effectiveness are really just different ideas about the process that will lead to change, though unspoken and unquestioned. (For example, a foundation dedicated to ending hunger might choose between giving $100,000 to a food bank that feeds 100 people a day, or to a legal group that sues the state over Food Stamp eligibility rules, or to a national group that organizes poor people to push Congress for a total Food Stamp overhaul. At the end of a year, only the food bank would have results to show, but that doesn't mean it's the only effective approach -- the potential results from the other two approaches to change are much greater, if the legal and political strategies are sound.)

Digby: Jon Benet Whiz Wit

Atrios points me to this WaPo dispatch from Iowa revealing that Dukakis lost the 88 election because he didn't serve beers to real men the proper way and that our next president must be somebody we can eat a pizza with. As Atrios points out, these people actually think they are speaking for someone other that their own little cadre of journalistic misfits when they set forth these vapid observations as if they're some sort of window into the the deepest desires of the voters.

I don't know what goes on in the campaign buses and planes personally, but I've read a lot of accounts. And from what I can tell, the only thing anybody cares about is fun and food --- what they eat, what the candidates ea, the symbolic value of their food choices and how they reflect on the candidate's character and ability to govern.

Glenn Greenwald: Reid and company target the true enemy: "Dodd and his allies"

During yesterday's chat with Washington Post Congressional reporter Paul Kane, this extremely revealing exchange occurred, regarding the view of Harry Reid and other anonymous Democrats of Chris Dodd's actions this week, whereby Dodd disrupted their collective desire for quick, smooth, trouble-free passage of Bush's surveillance and immunity bill:

New Hampshire: Hi Paul and thanks for taking my question. I read your article from the 18th about Harry Reid pulling the FISA bill and still am left wondering why "Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the decision had nothing to do with the efforts of Dodd and his allies."

I watched the entire proceedings and remain incredibly moved and thankful for the efforts of Sen. Dodd and his "allies" to protect and defend our Constitution by objecting to retroactive immunity for the telecoms. Can you fathom why this dismissive and seemingly disingenuous statement was made? Was there more to your interview with Manley that you will share?

Who Stopped Bush's War on Iran?

by Steven D
Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 at 02:45:45 PM EST

Well, according to Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report it sure wasn't the Democrats in Congress:

When the CIA and elements of the Pentagon do more - much more - than the Democrats to restrain the Bush gang from plunging the planet into an even wider spasm of war, it is time to recognize the absolute irrelevance of the Democratic Party - certainly, under present leadership.

Jaws dropped in capitals all around the globe when the combined intelligence agencies of the United States yanked the rationale for war with Iran, like a rug, from under George Bush's feet. It was a mutiny, centered in the CIA and in the Pentagon's nine separate intelligence agencies, designed to prevent Bush and Dick Cheney from expanding, against all military and political logic, their failed jihad in the Persian Gulf. Visibly startled, Bush behaved like he'd been knee-capped by his own men - which he had. The Pentagon-CIA revolt - witnessed by the entire planet - is unprecedented in modern times. Anyone who tells you differently is too blinded by imagined spy-novel schemes to recognize a mutiny when he sees it. [...]

Evangelical video shows cadets pressured to be missionaries

A video made by Campus Crusade for Christ, a Christian ministry group, shows Air Force Academy cadets being pressured to participate in religious activities and become "government paid missionaries when they leave."

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which released the video this week, says the video is "absolutely out of control."

Major study concludes that global warming is killing off coral

By Susan Lang

If world leaders do not immediately engage in a race against time to save the Earth's coral reefs, these vital ecosystems will not survive the global warming and acidification predicted for later this century. That is the conclusion of a group of marine scientists from around the world in a major new study published in the journal Science on Dec. 13

Digby: A Movement Built To Last

By Digby on December 21, 2007 - 1:13pm.

The release his past week of CAF's report on the Obstructionist Republicans seems to have gotten quite a bit of attention, even as the media continues to behave as if there's nothing unusual about it or, as Glenn Greenwald documents here, believe that Democrats are somehow equally responsible for the fact that Republicans are breaking records for filibusters. The question I find myself asking about this, however, is, why now?

What's different than any other time in history when there was a similar Senate minority with a member of its own party in the white house?

Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950

By TIM WEINER

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.

Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The F.B.I would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau.

Is Hillary or Obama More Vulnerable to Right-Wing Attacks?

By Robert Parry, Consortium News
Posted on December 22, 2007, Printed on December 22, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/71266/

Even as Hillary Clinton's operatives were dropping hints that Republicans would exploit Barack Obama's youthful drug use, some Clinton insiders privately worried about her own vulnerability because the Bush administration possesses detailed knowledge of her movements -- and her husband's -- over the past seven years.

Because of Sen. Clinton's unique status as the first former First Lady to run for President - and because her husband was succeeded by a Republican -- she is the first candidate to have both her and her spouse be subject to regular, long-term surveillance by an Executive Branch agency controlled by the opposing political party.

Election '08

[from the January 7, 2008 issue]

It has been more than a year since the first group of Democratic hopefuls announced their candidacy for President of the United States. Seventeen debates or forums have been staged, and more than $150 million has been spent on advertising, polling and other campaign expenses. Pundits have pronounced their conventional wisdom, so easily reversed, on who is most "electable," "presidential" or "inevitable." Celebrities and surrogates have rung their appeals, and the deforming machinery of electoral money and math has whirled into place. And yet despite all this, something remarkable, almost magical in its resilience, will take place on January 3. Thousands of neighbors will gather in schools, churches and public libraries across Iowa to caucus. It's an imperfect, curious system--one that privileges the indirect democracy of delegates and the momentary passions of a state that is, demographically speaking, unrepresentative of America. Nonetheless, during the evening hours, when candidates and campaign staff are relegated to the sidelines, the circus of democracy will be suspended and something approaching actual democratic deliberation will unfold. But who should the voters of Iowa--and then New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and the states that follow in this crowded primary season--select as the Democratic Party's standard-bearer?

Pimco boss says US in recession

By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles

Published: December 20 2007 21:07 | Last updated: December 20 2007 21:07

Bill Gross, founder of Pimco, one of the world’s largest fixed-income managers, has sounded a downbeat note on the US economy by saying it has gone into recession.

“If I had to be bold I’d say we began a recession in December,” he said in a Financial Times interview, in which he called on the Federal Reserve to bring interest rates down to 3 per cent. The recession would last “four to five months”, he thought, but he added it would be prolonged if the administration and Congress failed to “take some rather unperceived and unforecasted measures in terms of fiscal stimulation”.

Remember Iraq?

Why the Democrats aren't ending the war.

By Fred Kaplan

Posted Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007, at 6:16 PM ET

On Tuesday, the Senate voted down two motions that would have put some conditions on the $70 billion in emergency funds that President Bush requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One motion would have required that most U.S. troops be redeployed within nine months. The other would have required that most combat troops "transition" to more limited missions—support, logistics, training, and counterterrorism—by the end of next year. Both motions lost.

The Democrats recaptured the House and Senate in the 2006 election in large part because of the growing opposition to the war in Iraq. Yet here they are, continuing to write Bush huge checks to conduct the war as he pleases, absolutely no strings attached. Have the Democrats betrayed their electoral mandate? It's not so simple. Two big factors are at play here.

Paul Krugman: Blindly Into the Bubble

When announcing Japan’s surrender in 1945, Emperor Hirohito famously explained his decision as follows: “The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.”

There was a definite Hirohito feel to the explanation Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, gave this week for the Fed’s locking-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-is-gone decision to modestly strengthen regulation of the mortgage industry: “Market discipline has in some cases broken down, and the incentives to follow prudent lending procedures have, at times, eroded.”

Saudis biggest group of al Qaeda Iraq fighters-study

19 Dec 2007 23:08:30 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Kristin Roberts WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Most al Qaeda fighters in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia and Libya and many are university-aged students, said a study released on Wednesday by researchers at the U.S. Army's West Point military academy.

The study was based on 606 personnel records collected by al Qaeda in Iraq and captured by coalition troops in October. It includes data on fighters who entered Iraq, largely through Syria, between August 2006 and August 2007.

Through the Looking Glass

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
-- by Sara

Oprah Winfrey once said that the best advice she ever got in her life was from Maya Angelou, who said: "When people tell you who they are -- believe them."

I've gotten good mileage from this advice over the years. Being raised fundie, you spend a lot of your life being told to believe someone else's preposterous interpretation of events over your own lying eyes. Growing up this way really twists your reality lenses; and those of us who come out of it as adults spend a lot of time and energy learning to see and interpret the world clearly again. Angelou's quote is one of the mantras that gave me permission to trust my own observations of what people were saying and doing, knock off the false hopes and wishful thinking, accept this information as literal truth, and rely on it as an accurate indicator about how they were likely to behave in the future. It's knowledge that was acquired late, but has since kept me out of an amazing amount of trouble.

Marine algae get the green light from Shell

Shell is to become the first major oil company to produce diesel fuel from marine algae.

Algae are a climate-friendly way to make fuel from carbon dioxide. They produce an oil that can readily be converted to diesel, and can be fed CO₂ directly from smokestacks. Unlike biofuels such as corn, they don't use up soil or water that could otherwise be used to grow food, which can pump up food prices.

Official: Justice Dept. slowed probe into phone jamming

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election, protecting top GOP officials from the scandal until the voting was over.

An official with detailed knowledge of the investigation into the 2002 Election-Day scheme said the inquiry sputtered for months after a prosecutor sought approval to indict James Tobin, the northeast regional coordinator for the Republican National Committee.

Fed Shrugged as Subprime Crisis Spread

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON — Until the boom in subprime mortgages turned into a national nightmare this summer, the few people who tried to warn federal banking officials might as well have been talking to themselves.

Edward M. Gramlich, a Federal Reserve governor who died in September, warned nearly seven years ago that a fast-growing new breed of lenders was luring many people into risky mortgages they could not afford.

But when Mr. Gramlich privately urged Fed examiners to investigate mortgage lenders affiliated with national banks, he was rebuffed by Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman.

DHS finalizing plans for domestic spy satellite program

Congress has not been updated since civil liberties concerns delayed satellite spying

A plan to dramatically widen US law enforcement agencies' access to data from powerful spy satellites is moving toward implementation, as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff expects to finalize a charter for the program this week, according to a new report.

The Ethanol Fallacy

The idea is so appealing: We can reduce our dependence on oil—stop sending U.S. dollars to corrupt petro-dictators, stop spewing megatons of carbon into the atmos¬phere—by replacing it with clean, home-grown, all-American corn. It sounds too good to be true.

Sadly, it is.

Pension Fund Shortages Create Hard Choices

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Almost half of the states have been underfunding their retirement plans for public workers and may have to choose in the years ahead between their pension obligations and other public programs, according to a comprehensive study to be released to the public on Wednesday.

All together, the 50 states have promised to pay some $2.7 trillion in pension and retiree health benefits over the next 30 years, according to the Pew Center on the States, which spent more than a year studying the issue.

A Son’s Past Deeds Come Back To Bite Huckabee

As Mike Huckabee gains in the polls, the former Arkansas governor is finding that his record in office is getting more scrutiny. One issue likely to get attention is his handling of a sensitive family matter: allegations that one of his sons was involved in the hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark. It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney— bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group—to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws.

An Idea Whose Time Should Be Past

The mandatory sentencing craze that began in the 1970s was a public-policy disaster. It drove up inmate populations and corrections costs and forced the states to choose between building prisons and building schools or funding medical care for the indigent. It filled the prisons to bursting with nonviolent drug offenders who would have been more cheaply and more appropriately dealt with through treatment. It tied the hands of judges and ruined countless young lives by mandating lengthy prison terms in cases where leniency was warranted. It undermined confidence in the fairness of the justice system by singling out poor and minority offenders while largely exempting the white and wealthy.

John Edwards' Fighting Words

Washington Dispatch: The candidate is running an impassioned, anti-corporate campaign, but will Edwards' pugilistic populism turn off Iowa voters?

By Jonathan Stein

December 18, 2007

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA —Campaigning in Iowa, John Edwards spends a great deal of time talking about the extremely poor. He talks about veterans who live under bridges and parents who choose between food for their kids and heat in their homes. Eradicating poverty, he says, "is the cause of my life." But, a voter can ask, has it always been so? Or has he only become an anti-poverty crusader as a presidential candidate? Sincere or not—and he sure seems sincere—is his help-the-poor message the best way to connect with Iowa Democrats? In fact, Edwards' campaign events in Iowa, heavy with union workers and members of the middle class, contain few people without a roof over their heads or food on the table.

Digby: Nobody Wants To See That

Rush sez:

Now, this theory of mine based on this Drudge picture of Mrs. Clinton, with the headline: "The Toll of a Campaign." Now, it could well be that that's a sympathy photo, too, to make people feel sorry for how tough the campaign trail is. Now, I want to preface this by saying I know it's going to get out there. Media Matters is going to get hold of this and they're going to take it all out of context. We can expect that. It's a badge of honor when this happens, but for the rest of you, I want you to understand that I am talking about the evolution of American culture here, and not so much Mrs. Clinton...

Digby: Pox This

One of the kings of the FoxDemocrats, lubriciously polishing Roger Ailes's shiny apple, says:

Fox political analyst Bob Beckel mourned last night that Sen. Joe Lieberman’s endorsement of John McCain is “the price…us Democrats pay for MoveOn.org and others who drove Joe Lieberman out of the party,” said Beckel. “They campaigned against him actively and raised money against him and he was beaten in the Democratic primary. … Now we’re paying the price and all I can say is ‘a pox on their house.’”

Yeah, it's a real loss.

Digby: Lynchin' Meat

Well, it looks like it's going to be a disgusting race to the bottom on immigration. According to this Democracy Corps poll (pdf), a majority of Americans, not just Republicans, quite intensely loathe all immigrants now and want to deport all the illegals because they are stealing all of our hard earned health care and other services. Greenberg and friends have determined that Democrats must be encouraged to run as hard as they feel they need to against the illegal hordes, pushing "enforcement only" rhetoric and generally pimping racist, xenophobic attitudes with everything we've got or they will lose the election. They call this letting the people know they "get it."

Digby: The United Christian States Of America

Steve Benen does a nice analysis of the controversial new Huckabee ad, here. It seems this really is the first time any candidate has actually mentioned "Christ" in a political ad, so I guess it's something of a milestone. But if I had to guess, it's not going to be the last. Why would it?

In 2000, George W. Bush pretty much clinched the nomination when we saw the dim little light in his head slowly start to flicker as he figured out that "Christ" was the right answer to the question of who was his favorite political philosopher.

Digby: Dazed And Confused

Eric Boehlert writes a typically insightful column today about the increasingly egregious campaign coverage. He notes something that I think is particularly odd about this year's press:

[N]ot only has the press shifted into hyper-horserace mode where tactics reign, but lots of media players can't even do the horserace stuff right. Bloomberg's Al Hunt displayed that nicely with a recent tactics-only campaign column where he mangled a key fact in order to prop up his favorite narrative.

From "Front Edge of a Recession" To "Storm Clouds"

Submitted by Bill Scher on December 17, 2007 - 9:00pm.

The Bush Administration came into office seven years ago talking down the economy -- saying we're on the "front edge of a recession" in hopes of setting a low bar of expectations for themselves to clear.

But the bar just kept dropping.

The Mortgage Crisis: Yet Another Conservative Failure

Submitted by Bill Scher on December 18, 2007 - 6:09pm.

On Sunday, ABC's This Week failed to hold Alan Greenspan accountable for his role in the mortgage crisis. But today, the New York Times did, picking up where Salon.com left off.

And as the NYT report shows -- like every other failure of the Bush Era -- Greenspan's failure was not one of incompetence, but the conservative ideology of reckless government.

US foreclosure filings up 68 pct in Nov.

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer
Wed Dec 19, 6:55 AM ET

U.S. homeowners increasingly failed to keep up with their home loan payments in November, as the number of foreclosure filings surged 68 percent nationwide compared with the same month a year ago, according to a mortgage research company.

In all, 201,950 foreclosure filings were reported last month, compared with 120,334 in November 2006, Irvine-based RealtyTrac Inc. said Wednesday.

Bush Lawyers Discussed Fate of C.I.A.Tapes

By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

Fed Takes Aim at Deceptive Home Lending Practices

By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 19, 2007; A01

The Federal Reserve proposed new regulations yesterday to clean up a broad array of deceptive mortgage lending practices, a move that represents the central bank's most significant response to the nation's housing tumult.

The proposed rules signify a shift by the Fed toward an active regulatory role over the mortgage business and would affect a wide range of borrowers, lenders, banks and brokers. Home buyers would have to provide proof of income to ensure that they are not taking on more debt than they can handle. Mortgage ads could not promote only low "teaser" rates. Victims of predatory lending would be empowered to sue their mortgage providers.

Congress eases access to gov't records

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Dec 18, 8:52 PM ET

Congress on Tuesday struck back at the Bush administration's trend toward secrecy since the 2001 terrorist attacks, passing legislation to toughen the Freedom of Information Act and increasing penalties on agencies that don't comply.

The White House would not say whether President Bush will sign the legislation, which unanimously passed the House by voice vote Tuesday a few days after it sailed through the Senate. Without Bush's signature, the bill would become law during the congressional recess that begins next week.

Giuliani's Kerik Woes Resurface Through Informant

Candidate Distancing Himself From Former Confidant

By John Solomon and Matthew Mosk, Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 19, 2007; Page A01

In the heady days of the 1990s when Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor of New York and Bernard B. Kerik was one of his most trusted lieutenants, Lawrence Ray enjoyed his own wild ride.

Ray was one of Kerik's closest friends and the best man at his 1998 wedding. As Kerik was rising to become New York's police commissioner, Ray was in touch with him regularly -- lending him money, discussing possible business opportunities, and using Ray's contacts in Russia to arrange a meeting for Giuliani with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Ohio Will Likely Face Big Vote-Counting Problems in 2008

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on December 19, 2007, Printed on December 19, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/71041/

It is a very odd spectacle. Ohio's Democratic secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, who was elected on a pledge to clean up voting problems in her presidential battleground state, is now under attack by would-be progressive allies for her solutions.

And her critics, who on Tuesday said her remedies could disenfranchise tens of thousands of likely Democratic voters in Ohio's primary in March and in next fall's presidential election, are not even aware of the biggest irony of all: Brunner could have solved the same problems months ago if she would have settled a federal voting rights suit from the 2004 election. Instead of working through the federal courts, she is now fighting in Ohio's notoriously partisan political arena.

Fed Unveils Home Mortgage Rules

New Rules Include Protections to Regulate Risky Loans

By Howard Schneider

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2007; 5:17 PM

The Federal Reserve today unveiled home mortgage rules meant to curtail the subprime lending practices that have roiled the global financial system as European banks moved again to smooth credit markets and calm investors.

The measures announced by the Fed include a host of consumer protections meant to further regulate the type of risky loans that in recent years allowed less creditworthy borrowers to take out home mortgages. When those mortgages became bundled into larger, more complex investments -- and began falling into default -- it left some of the world's biggest banks and investment houses unsure about the value of their assets and contributed to an evolving crisis in global debt and credit markets.

Sanders Opposes FCC Media-Ownership Rule Change

WASHINGTON, DC - December 18 -- Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement on today’s vote by the Federal Communications Commission to overturn a 32-year-old ban on media cross ownership and allow broadcasters in the nation's 20 largest media markets to also own a newspaper:

“The FCC has made a bad situation worse. Unless Congress undoes this ruling, as I hope it will, fewer and fewer big media conglomerates will control what Americans see and hear and read. We are not going to have the kind of vibrant democracy that we need unless we discuss serious issues facing the middle class and working families in this country, and I’m not sure the corporate media wants us to do that.

World food stocks dwindling rapidly, UN warns

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

Monday, December 17, 2007

ROME: In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.

The changes created "a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food," particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The agency's food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before - a rate that was already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent, to $107 million, in the last year.

Nuke Industry Is on the Verge of Getting $25 Billion Handout

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Posted on December 18, 2007, Printed on December 18, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/70924/

The House is set to vote on Tuesday on the $500 billion 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. Unveiled on Sunday, the measure covers budgets for all cabinet departments except the Pentagon. It's expected to pass both houses of Congress this week.

Hidden in the bill is a major energy package that would boost government financing for the nuclear industry. It would provide loan guarantees of up to $25 billion for new nuclear reactors. A massive grassroots campaign forced these taxpayer-financed loans out of the national energy bill earlier this month, but last week Republican Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico slipped them back into the budget vote.

Digby

'We the People' Must Save Our Constitution

If Senator Dodd needs something relevant to say, this speech, which Al Gore made on Martin Luther King Day, 2006, could be worth making again:

Congressman Barr and I have disagreed many times over the years, but we have joined together today with thousands of our fellow citizens-Democrats and Republicans alike-to express our shared concern that America's Constitution is in grave danger.

Mr Dodd Goes To Town

Today, Chris Dodd is going to show the Senate what integrity looks like. It's probably going to be quite shock. It's a rare thing these days.

As you all probably know, the illustrious Senate Majority leader is insisting on allowing the bill that contains retroactive immunity for huge wealthy corporations to be the basis for debate on the new FISA legislation. (I won't go into all the arcane details, but suffice to say that he's making it impossible for an alternative bill, which doesn't contain immunity, to pass, which he doesn't have to do.)


The Revenge Wing

A conservative commentator says he "gets it:"

It took this recent post by Digby and this morning’s column by Krugman for me to “get it.” If you are a conservative, you should read the two pieces, not to criticize them nor ridicule them, but to understand their perspective. As briefly as possible, Krugman and Digby are speaking for the ‘Revenge Wing’ of the Democratic Party. “The GOP and big corporations are evil incarnate and we need to be ready to rumble, willing to do “what it will take to turn a progressive agenda into reality.”

AT&T engineer says Bush Administration sought to implement domestic spying within two weeks of taking office

12/16/2007 @ 6:45 pm

Filed by John Byrne

Nearly 1,300 words into Sunday's New York Times article revealing new details of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, the lawyer for an AT&T engineer alleges that "within two weeks of taking office, the Bush administration was planning a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans’ phone usage.”

In a New Jersey federal court case, the engineer claims that AT&T sought to create a phone center that would give the NSA access to "all the global phone and e-mail traffic that ran through" a New Jersey network hub.

Paul Krugman: Big Table Fantasies

Broadly speaking, the serious contenders for the Democratic nomination are offering similar policy proposals — the dispute over health care mandates notwithstanding. But there are large differences among the candidates in their beliefs about what it will take to turn a progressive agenda into reality.

At one extreme, Barack Obama insists that the problem with America is that our politics are so “bitter and partisan,” and insists that he can get things done by ushering in a “different kind of politics.”

At the opposite extreme, John Edwards blames the power of the wealthy and corporate interests for our problems, and says, in effect, that America needs another F.D.R. — a polarizing figure, the object of much hatred from the right, who nonetheless succeeded in making big changes.

Coast Guard Employee Alleges Retaliation

Whistle-Blower Seeks Probe of His Charges Against Staff of DHS Inspector General

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 16, 2007; A08

A civilian U.S. Coast Guard employee was placed on paid administrative leave, threatened with a criminal investigation and confronted by guards at gunpoint in retaliation for disclosing information embarrassing to the service's troubled fleet replacement program, his attorney said.

Anthony D'Armiento, a former Northrop Grumman systems engineer working for the Coast Guard's acquisitions department, asked the Bush administration to appoint an independent inspector general to investigate his allegations against staff members of Richard L. Skinner, inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security. D'Armiento's attorney called their actions "an egregious act of intimidation and excessive force" against a government whistle-blower.

Glenn Greenwald: The Lawless Surveillance State

There are several vital points raised by the new revelations in The New York Times that "the N.S.A.'s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before" and includes both pre-9/11 efforts to tap without warrants into the nation's domestic communications network as well as the collection of vast telephone records of American citizens in the name of the War on Drugs. The Executive Branch and the largest telecommunications companies work in virtually complete secrecy -- with no oversight and no notion of legal limits -- to spy on Americans, on our own soil, at will.

Rising seas 'to beat predictions'

The world's sea levels could rise twice as high this century as UN climate scientists have previously predicted, according to a study.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proposes a maximum sea level rise of 81cm (32in) this century.

But in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers say the true maximum could be about twice that: 163cm (64in).

The Biggest Global Warming Crime in History

By Cahal Milmo, Independent UK
Posted on December 13, 2007, Printed on December 17, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/70299/

BP, the British oil giant that pledged to move "Beyond Petroleum" by finding cleaner ways to produce fossil fuels, is being accused of abandoning its "green sheen" by investing nearly £1.5bn to extract oil from the Canadian wilderness using methods which environmentalists say are part of the "biggest global warming crime" in history.

The multinational oil and gas producer, which last year made a profit of £11bn, is facing a head-on confrontation with the green lobby in the pristine forests of North America after Greenpeace pledged a direct action campaign against BP following its decision to reverse a long-standing policy and invest heavily in extracting so-called "oil sands" that lie beneath the Canadian province of Alberta and form the world's second-largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia.

Obama on the Rise

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com
Posted on December 17, 2007, Printed on December 17, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/70714/

All love stories are beautiful at the beginning, and what we're witnessing now is the beginning of a new one: America and Barack Obama. The story begins with the world spinning off its axis, the country mired in dark times and the way of the fresh-faced savior seemingly blocked by a juggernaut agent of the Status Quo. Only in the end, in the moment that sportswriters die for and that comes once a generation in politics if we're lucky, the phenom rises to the occasion, gets the big hit in the big game and becomes a man before our very eyes. The old power recedes, and the new era is born.

That's grand language for a forum as vulgar and profane as presidential politics, but this is the moment that Barack Hussein Obama was born for, and it really is happening before our very eyes. Like Kennedy or Reagan or even Bill Clinton, Obama is a politician whose best chance for success has always been on the level of myth and hero worship; to win the Democratic nomination, he must successfully sell himself not just as a candidate but as an icon, a symbol of the best possible future for twenty-first-century multicultural America and an antidote to both the callous reactionary idiocy of the Bush administration and the shrewd but soulless corporatism of the Clinton machine.

Where Anti-Immigrant Zealots Like Lou Dobbs Get Their 'Facts'

By Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Report
Posted on December 17, 2007, Printed on December 17, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/70489/

The forces seeking to sharply reduce the number of immigrants coming to America won a stunning victory last June, when nativist anger at an "amnesty" for the undocumented scuttled a major bipartisan immigration reform package backed by President Bush. Many members of Congress were completely unprepared for the flood of angry E-mails, phone calls and faxes they received -- an inundation so massive that the phone system collapsed under the weight of more than 400,000 faxes.

They should not have been surprised. The furious nativist tide was largely driven by an array of immigration restriction organizations that has been built up over the course of more than 20 years into fixtures in the nation's capital.

Digby

It's Over

Now we can all relax. Chris Matthews and his panel of Katy Kay, Norah O'Donnell, Dan Rather and Andrew Sullivan just spent the first 20 minutes of his half hour week-end show dissecting how Clinton lost Iowa and New Hampshire. Matthews ended the segment comparing her to "conceited, goody two shoes" Reese Witherspoon in "Election" who nobody can stand.

Where'd He Come From?

Like John Cole and others in the blogosphere, I confess that I'm also a little bit gobsmacked by the conservative opinion leaders' open hostility to Mike Huckabee. Kevin Drum thinks it's because the bloggers and op-ed writers are all cosmopolitan, big city folk who prefer that aristocrats pander to the religious right, not actually, you know, be them. Atrios says it's a class thing, and he's right. The Village has never taken to hicks coming in and trashing the place --- it's not their place.

Heads I Win Tails You Lose

Mukasey's Justice Department is working overtime to keep the scandal contained:

The Bush administration told a federal judge it was not obligated to preserve videotapes of CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists and urged the court not to look into the tapes' destruction.

Huckelberry's Hobgoblins

It seems like only yesterday that we heard this from Huckleberry Graham:

Sen. Lindsay Graham is the lone Republican to blast Gonzales. His boyish face comes paired with a kindergartner's hyperactivity, as he impatiently rocks his chair while waiting for his turn. During Gonzales' answers to others' questioning, Graham sometimes wears a look of confusion mingled with disgust. "I think we've dramatically undermined the war effort by getting on a slippery slope in terms of playing cute with the law," Graham, a reserve Air Force JAG officer, says. He adds later, "And I think you weaken yourself as a nation when you try to play cute and become more like your enemy instead of like who you want to be."

Oh Shut Up

I can't tell you how sick I already am of the latest incarnation of the angry, white male "star" as personified by Dobbs, Cafferty and lately (god help us) Matthews. It's really just warmed over conservative talk radio ranting that people tend to confuse with 'salt-of-the-earth' regular Joe commentary which we're supposed to think is excessively authentic because it's rude and simple-minded.

Shake It Up

Chris Dodd's campaign is asking for your help:

Today, that FISA fight we've all been waiting for begins.

In a few hours, Majority Leader Harry Reid will ask for something called a "motion to proceed" on FISA, effectively disregarding Chris Dodd's "hold" on the bill.

Shocked, simply shocked

Who could have ever predicted this?

Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused Friday to give Congress details of the government's investigation into interrogations of terror suspects that were videotaped and destroyed by the CIA. He said doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry is vulnerable to political pressure.

The Op-Ed the Liberal Media Rejected

by Steven D
Sat Dec 15th, 2007 at 10:39:26 AM EST

Three members of Congress, all Democrats, all members of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote an op-ed and submitted it to various major national newspapers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. Everyone turned them down, despite the fact that the issue which their op-ed addresses is one currently before the Judiciary Committee and is of great interest to millions of Americans. Why? Perhaps it had something to do with the subject matter: Impeachment Hearings.

Fannie CEO: housing trouble until 2009

By MARCY GORDON, AP Business Writer

Fri Dec 14, 5:05 PM ET

Fannie Mae's CEO told shareholders Friday he does not expect a housing market recovery until late 2009, "at the earliest," and that the mortgage-finance company is strong enough to ride out the downturn.

Fannie Mae "will weather the turbulence of today's mortgage market and prosper when better conditions return," the president and CEO, Daniel Mudd, said as he and other top executives faced shareholders for the first time in three-and-a-half years at an annual meeting.

After posting a third-quarter loss of $1.4 billion, the largest U.S. buyer and guarantor of home mortgages recently cut its dividend and announced plans to sell $7 billion in preferred stock to raise capital to keep its cushion against risk within regulatory requirements.

Glenn Greenwald: Harry Reid's FISA games

The Senate is going to take up debate today on the new FISA bill -- including the provisions for telecom amnesty and presidential surveillance powers -- and Harry Reid is apparently bringing the bill to the floor (a) in precisely the way designed to help the administration's goal of ensuring there is telecom amnesty and fewer surveillance oversight protections and (b) contrary to the way his office has been assuring everyone concerned that it would be done.

I am traveling today (the last day for some time, thankfully) and will not be able to write more until much later today. FireDogLake and others will undoubtedly have updates throughout the day, more thorough explanations than I can provide now, and suggestions as to what can be done.

Oceans' growing acidity alarms scientists

Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: December 14, 2007 04:50:58 PM

WASHINGTON — Seven hundred miles west of Seattle in the Pacific at Ocean Station Papa, a first-of-its-kind buoy is anchored to monitor a looming environmental catastrophe.

Forget about sea levels rising as glaciers and polar ice melt, and increasing water temperatures affecting global weather patterns. As the oceans absorb more and more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, they're gradually becoming more acidic.

And some scientists fear that the change may be irreversible.

Congress Goes Belly Up

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, December 13, 2007; 11:46 AM

Historians looking back on the Bush presidency may well wonder if Congress actually existed.

Time and time again, President Bush has run circles around what is, at least on paper, a co-equal branch of government. Sometimes he doesn't bother to ask Congress for its approval. Sometimes he demands it -- and gets it.

Amazingly enough, that didn't change when the Democrats won control of the House and Senate. They just make a bit more fuss before rolling over.

Mobile Labs to Target Iraqis for Death

By Robert Parry
December 13, 2007

U.S. forces in Iraq soon will be equipped with high-tech equipment that will let them process an Iraqi’s biometric data in minutes and help American soldiers decide whether they should execute the person or not, according to its inventor.

"A war fighter needs to know one of three things: Do I let him go? Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot?” Pentagon weapons designer Anh Duong told the Washington Post for a feature on how this 47-year-old former Vietnamese refugee and mother of four rose to become a top U.S. bomb-maker.

Though Duong is best known for designing high-explosives used to destroy hardened targets, she also supervised the Joint Expeditionary Forensics Facilities project, known as a “lab in a box” for analyzing biometric data, such as iris scans and fingerprints, that have been collected on more than one million Iraqis.

FBI Probes Iraq IG on Misconduct Claims

Dec 14, 2:17 AM (ET)

By LARA JAKES JORDAN and LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI is investigating the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Justice Department officials said Thursday, following allegations of misconduct from former employees.

[...]

In May, the White House confirmed that Bowen's office, whose revelations of waste and corruption in Iraq have repeatedly embarrassed the Bush administration, was being investigated by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency after complaints from former employees. The executive branch organization was created to investigate allegations of misconduct by inspectors general at federal agencies.

Tainted hands across the water

John Pilger

Published 13 December 2007

The values we share with America are those of rapacious power and wealth, writes John Pilger

When Gordon Brown spoke recently about his government's devotion to the United States, "founded on the values we share", he was echoing his Foreign Office minister Kim Howells, who was preparing to welcome the Saudi dictator to Britain with effusions of "shared values". The meaning was the same in both cases. The values shared are those of rapacious power and wealth, with democracy and human rights irrelevant, as the bloodbath in Iraq and the suffering of the Palestinians attest, to name only two examples.

The "values we share" are celebrated by an organisation that has just held its annual conference. This is the British-American Project for the Successor Generation (BAP), set up in 1985 with money from a Philadelphia trust with a long history of supporting right-wing causes. Although the BAP does not publicly acknowledge this origin, the source of its inspiration was a call by President Reagan in 1983 for "successor generations" on both sides of the Atlantic to "work together in the future on defence and security matters". He made numerous references to "shared values". Attending this ceremony in the White House Situation Room were the ideologues Rupert Murdoch and the late James Goldsmith.

Report Says That the Rich Are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

The poorest fifth of households had total income of $383.4 billion in 2005, while just the increase in income for the top 1 percent came to $524.8 billion, a figure 37 percent higher.

The total income of the top 1.1 million households was $1.8 trillion, or 18.1 percent of the total income of all Americans, up from 14.3 percent of all income in 2003. The total 2005 income of the three million individual Americans at the top was roughly equal to that of the bottom 166 million Americans, analysis of the report showed.

Control sought on military lawyers

By Charlie Savage Globe Staff / December 15, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House's policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.

The administration has proposed a regulation requiring "coordination" with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps - the military's 4,000-member uniformed legal force - can be promoted.

Bill Moyers talks with MSNBC host Keith Olbermann.

Bill Moyers talks with MSNBC host Keith Olbermann.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the journal. We have a lot of ground to cover in this hour - from journalism and media merger mania to politics and race. First, despite the clutter and conglomeration in commercial broadcasting a new voice occasionally emerges that proves the exception to the rule. The rule is either echo right-wing ideology or bow your knee to the god of "objectivity," meaning you simply counter a pound of official propaganda with an ounce of counter spin. Jon Stewart broke this mold with his daily show on comedy central. And now MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has done the same for cable news. Olbermann leaves no doubt about what he sees: Here's what Olbermann says about the vice president...

KEITH OLBERMANN: The mind reels at the thought...What servant of any of the 42 previous presidents could possibly withhold information of this urgency and this gravity and wind up back at his desk the next morning instead of winding up before a congressional investigation or a criminal one?

Edwards cuts sharper edge in Iowa trail speeches

By Tim Jones, Tribune national correspondent
December 16, 2007
IOWA CITY

The Chevy truck song -- John Mellencamp's "Our Country" -- blared from overhead speakers as the once and former Democratic beacon of sunshine and hope prepared to drop some red meat on the carpeted floor of the normally placid Iowa City Public Library.

"The few, the powerful, the well-financed, they now control the government," John Edwards told a tight crowd of about 350 last week. "They've taken over your democracy. And it affects everything that happens in this country."

"Everything," he emphasized.

Afghan Mission Is Reviewed as Concerns Rise

By THOM SHANKER and STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON — Deeply concerned about the prospect of failure in Afghanistan, the Bush administration and NATO have begun three top-to-bottom reviews of the entire mission, from security and counterterrorism to political consolidation and economic development, according to American and alliance officials.

The reviews are an acknowledgment of the need for greater coordination in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, halting the rising opium production and trafficking that finances the insurgency and helping the Kabul government extend its legitimacy and control.

Taken together, these efforts reflect a growing apprehension that one of the administration’s most important legacies — the routing of Taliban and Qaeda forces in Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — may slip away, according to senior administration officials.

Frank Rich: Latter-Day Republicans vs. the Church of Oprah

THIS campaign season has been in desperate need of its own reincarnation of Howard Beale from “Network”: a TV talking head who would get mad as hell and not take it anymore. Last weekend that prayer was answered when Lawrence O’Donnell, an excitable Democratic analyst, seized a YouTube moment while appearing on one of the Beltway’s more repellent Sunday bloviathons, “The McLaughlin Group.”

Pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on “Faith in America,” Mr. O’Donnell branded the speech “the worst” of his lifetime. Then he went on a rampage about Mr. Romney’s Mormon religion, shouting (among other things) that until 1978 it was “an officially racist faith.”

The Top Ten Best Environment Stories of 2007

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet
Posted on December 15, 2007, Printed on December 16, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/70319/

Thanks to Al Gore and a dedicated group of international scientists boosting global warming into worldwide consciousness, this has been a great year for environmental reporting. We narrowed down our hundreds and hundreds of Environment stories to the Top 10 Most Read of 2007.

This list represents a great sampling of our content, with AlterNet favorites like Stan Cox, David Morris and Bill McKibben. Not to mention a few fun pieces mixed in with those reports on a warming planet, rising seas, and disappearing drinking water.

Only One Thing Unites Iraqis: Hatred for the U.S.

By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent
Posted on December 14, 2007, Printed on December 16, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/70656/

As British forces come to the end of their role in Iraq, what sort of country do they leave behind? Has the United States turned the tide in Baghdad? Does the fall in violence mean that the country is stabilizing after more than four years of war? Or are we seeing only a temporary pause in the fighting? American commentators are generally making the same mistake that they have made since the invasion of Iraq was first contemplated five years ago. They look at Iraq in over-simple terms and exaggerate the extent to which the US is making the political weather and is in control of events there.

The US is the most powerful single force in Iraq but by no means the only one. The shape of Iraqi politics has changed over the past year, though for reasons that have little to do with "the surge" - the 30,000 US troop reinforcements - and much to do with the battle for supremacy between the Sunni and Shia Muslim communities.