Skimble

1.31.05 Bill Moyers:

One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

"In sum, there can be no question that the Fifth Amendment right asserted by the Guantanamo detainees in this litigation -- the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law -- is one of the most fundamental rights recognized by the U.S. Constitution," she said.
Green also ruled that some of the suspects have brought valid claims under the Geneva Convention, the international treaty protecting the rights of prisoners of war.

More

1.31.05 Raed in the middle

The "Iraqi government" is announcing confusing and wrong numbers to the public. Instead of announcing the ratio of Voters to the Eligible Voters, the numbers announced are the ratio of the Voters to the Registered Voters!!!!
For example, the number of Iraqis that registered their names in Jordan are less than 20% of the eligible voters living in Jordan, so when 90% of the registered voters go to vote, it means that less than 18% of the total number voted... 90% is not the real number that should be announced to people!!!!!

1.31.05 "Supporters of President Bush's judicial nominees have hired the same media firm used by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for their efforts to defend the next nominee for any upcoming Supreme Court vacancy." The Washington Times

1.31.05 "Officials: U.S. Rebuffs Europe on Iran Nuke Talks" Yahoo! News

A senior State Department official said Straw, who visited on Monday, one day before Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer came on a similar mission, outlined European hopes for the negotiations.
The idea of getting the Bush administration into the talks "is in the air," he said.
"But we have not been (formally) asked yet and when we are, we will say, 'What good would it do?"'

On Sunday, Rice told CBS' Face the Nation: "We really do believe ... that this is something that can be dealt with diplomatically. What is needed is unity of purpose, unity of message to the Iranians, that we will not allow them to skirt their international obligations and develop nuclear weapons under cover of civilian nuclear power."
Her remarks came after the president refused to rule out a military strike and his hard-line vice president said Iran was top of the world's trouble spots and warned the region's biggest U.S. ally, Israel, could hit its facilities.

1.30.05 "Audit: $9 Billion Unaccounted for in Iraq" By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer, via Drudge.

1.30.05 "U.S. Is Close to Eliminating AIDS in Infants, Officials Say" By MARC SANTORA, The New York Times

1.30.05 "Study: Timing is everything in coaxing stem cells into other cells" PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press

1.29.05 "Security Nominee (Michael Chertoff) Gave Advice to the C.I.A. on Torture Laws" By DAVID JOHNSTON, NEIL A. LEWIS and DOUGLAS JEHL The New York Times

The officials said that when the agency asked about specific practices, Mr. Bybee responded with a second memorandum, which is still classified. They said it said many coercive practices were permissible if they met the narrow definition in the first memorandum.
The officials said Mr. Chertoff was consulted on the second memorandum, but Ms. Healy of the White House said he had no role in it.

1.28.05 Andrew Sullivan

How do we tell if the Iraqi elections are a success? That they happen at all? Surely we should have a higher standard than that. Here are my criteria: over 50 percent turnout among the Shia and Kurds, and over 30 percent turnout for the Sunnis. No massive disruption of voting places; no theft of ballots. Fewer than 500 murdered. Any other suggestions for relevant criteria? Am I asking too much? I'm just thinking out loud. But it makes sense to have some guidelines before Sunday so we don't just fit what happens to our pre-existing hopes or rationalizations.

If you believe, as I do and I hope you do, that the war on terror is an ideological war in which perceptions of American values and good intentions are in the long run as important as military assets, then confirming the Poster Boy for Torture as Attorney General provides a propaganda victory for Islamic Jihadism that's potentially just as damaging as those images from Abu Ghraib.

1.28.05 D.B.B. Media Matters

Stephen Moore, president of the Free Enterprise Fund and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, falsely claimed in a January 27 Wall Street Journal op-ed that "nearly all the workers" in Hong Kong opt to have their salaries fully taxed at Hong Kong's "standard rate," which Moore calls a voluntary "flat tax," instead of paying lower rates of taxes under what Moore described as the "convoluted 'long form' tax system." In fact, the vast majority of workers -- more than 98 percent -- opt against paying the standard rate.

1.27.05 "Sens. to Introduce 'Stop Government Propaganda Act" Editor and Publisher, via Drudge

The act would allow citizens to bring qui tam lawsuits on behalf of the United States government when the Department of Justice does not respond.

1.27.05 "Local historians in Wexford have discovered that George Bush is a descendant of Strongbow, the power-hungry warlord who led the Norman invasion of Ireland thus heralding 800 years of mutual misery." Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent, The Guardian

1.27.05 "Civil Service System on Way Out at DHS -- White House Wants All Agencies to Have Option of Setting Own Personnel Policies" By Christopher Lee, Washington Post Staff Writer

Michael at Discourse.net

Fresh from accusations that the Social Security administration is being used as propaganda farm, the Bush administration today launched a trial balloon to destroy civil service unions, and indeed the entire idea of a tenured (and, one must presume, nonpolitical) civil service.

With carve-out individual accounts, we erode social protections at a time when we also seem to be witnessing the collapse of the corporate defined-benefit pension system. If we go to a retirement system that is entirely individual accounts, we also lose opportunities for income redistribution.

A fast growing plurality of the country wants troops withdrawn from Iraq, but being so detached from the war they are unlikely to make a stink about it. The civilian leaders who conceived this adventure are clever at maintaining the false illusion that the end is just around the corner anyway. They do this by moving the goal posts for "mission accomplished" as frequently as they have changed the rationale for us entering this war in the first place.

Off of Matt Yglesias' TAPPED post, I decided to check out the Heritage and Cato calculators. The problems Matt found abound, but I noticed something utterly bizarre about how much we're supposed to be earning in today's dollars in the future.

Congress last weekend included more than $131 million for abstinence programs in a $388 billion spending bill, an increase of $30 million but about $100 million less than Bush requested. Meanwhile, a national evaluation of abstinence programs has been delayed, with a final report not expected until 2006.

So, here's what I'd like someone to ask Bush: If you believe Social Security should be described as "in crisis" and poised to go "flat bust" and "bankrupt," how would you describe what you've done to the federal budget?

Of all the lies -- let's call them by their right name -- that the Bush administration is spreading about Social Security, none is as vile as the canard Bush repeated last Tuesday, when he said, "African-American males die sooner than other males do, which means the [Social Security] system is inherently unfair to a certain group of people. And that needs to be fixed." That is an entirely phony assertion; it has been debunked by the Social Security Administration, by the Government Accountability Office and by other experts. Bush and those around him know that. For them to repeat what they know to be a blatant lie is despicable fear-mongering.

So what they've proved is that the tax cuts are affordable as long as they go away .

1.26.05 "CREW Files Bar Complaint Against Gonzales" Atrios

1.26.05 "Kerry proposes health coverage for all children" By Rick Klein, Boston Globe Staff

1.26.05 " Bush Said SS Would Go Bust By 1988" Dave Sirota

1.26.05 "The Difference Between Politically Incorrect and Historically Wrong" By ADAM COHEN, The New York Times

1.26.05 "ANOTHER COLUMNIST WAS PAID TO PROMOTE BUSH PROPOSAL" Drudge

1.26.05 "Bush Finds a Backer in Moynihan, Who's Not Talking" By RICHARD W. STEVENSON, The New York Times

But in implying that Mr. Moynihan was a supporter of his approach to Social Security, Mr. Bush and his team are open to challenge, based on Mr. Moynihan's record and documented indications that he was not totally happy with the commission's work. Moreover, their use of his name has drawn criticism from the Moynihan family and people who worked with him.
...
"He supported Social Security plus," said Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska, who worked closely with Mr. Moynihan on Social Security legislation. "He said it should be on top of Social Security, not a carve-out or something that would take away from the guaranteed benefit."

1.25.05 Officer Threatens To Arrest Woman For Anti-Bush Sticker via Drudge

1.25.05 Salon.com

If you needed more reasons to believe that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq was not just the work of a "few bad apples" acting alone -- and that not enough has been done to hold anyone accountable -- the Army has released documents (and the ACLU posted them on its Web site) showing even more widespread abuse, at sites other than Abu Ghraib

1.25.05 "Spy teams confirmed" BY CRAIG GORDON, Newsday

1.24.05 "Pentagon denies news report of new spy unit" By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY

"DiRita denied that Rumsfeld controls a secret group of spies. "There is no unit that is directly reportable to the Secretary of Defense for clandestine operations as is described in The Washington Post," he said in a statement. "Further, the Department is not attempting to 'bend' statutes to fit desired activities, as is suggested in this article."

Pentagon officials said they established the Strategic Support Branch using "reprogrammed" funds, without explicit congressional authority or appropriation.
...
Under Title 10, for example, the Defense Department must report to Congress all "deployment orders," or formal instructions from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to position U.S. forces for combat. But guidelines issued this month by Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone state that special operations forces may "conduct clandestine HUMINT operations . . . before publication" of a deployment order, rendering notification unnecessary. Pentagon lawyers also define the "war on terror" as ongoing, indefinite and global in scope. That analysis effectively discards the limitation of the defense secretary's war powers to times and places of imminent combat.
...
Those missions, and others contemplated in the Pentagon, skirt the line between clandestine and covert operations. Under U.S. law, "clandestine" refers to actions that are meant to be undetected, and "covert" refers to those for which the U.S. government denies its responsibility. Covert action is subject to stricter legal requirements, including a written "finding" of necessity by the president and prompt notification of senior leaders of both parties in the House and Senate.

1.25.05 Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan

The US military is planning to keep 120,000 troops in Iraq for the next two years, according to Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace, Jr. He admitted that the number could fluctuate depending on the circumstances. I was saying before that I did not think it wise to announce a strict timetable for US military withdrawal from Iraq, lest the appointment of a date certain become, itself, an occasion for instability and violence. I think the troop levels should be drawn down steadily, without an announcement until perhaps the very end. But this announcement of a 24-month-long continued military presence is also unwise. Why would Lt. Gen. Lovelace say this? How can he know what the will of the new parliament will be, once it meets in mid to late February? Once there is an elected government, no matter how flawed the elections, the US will be in Iraq at the pleasure of the representatives of the Iraqi people. I think it is unfortunate that the US is saying anything at all about long-term plans just before the election. If they think they can present the new parliament with a fait accompli this way, I think they are going to be disappointed.

In Bennett's view, the cultural characteristics of easy entry and exit are the foundation of both democracy and the free market. The ability of citizens to form relationships that cross tribal or religious lines is the key to developing modern social institutions.
After reading Bennett on the importance of fluid relationships in the social, economic, and political sphere, one might be more skeptical about the nation-building project in Iraq. That country strikes me as one where loyalty to a clan or religious group is likely to supercede the ability to form a political coalition or a business relationship. If so, then democratic institutions will be difficult to establish.
...
Bennett argues that modern technological change requires the sort of flexibility that the Anglosphere culture has been developing for over a millennium. It requires, in my terminology, easy entry and exit for social, economic, and political institutions. Intense emotional attachment to an arbitrary group or an outmoded institution will tend to be dysfunctional.

How huge? Well, Hewitt compares weblogs to Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
Isn't that a bit presumptuous? Is the Blogosphere really comparable to the Reformation?
"Absolutely", Hewitt says (and other bloggers agree). "The Church lost control of the text, and when they did that, especially with its translation into German, individual people began making decisions for themselves. Today, Big Media has lost control of the information flow, and the consequences are immediate and all around us. And business, especially, is figuring this out."

This nation has a special responsibility to prevent the torture of Americans held as prisoners of war. Our POWs have been brutally tortured at command direction in war after war, including the Korean, Vietnam, and most recently, the Gulf War; and it's clear that we need to do whatever we can to break this pattern. Yet when 17 of our tortured Gulf War POWs and 37 of their family members said "enough" and joined together to bring a historic civil action to hold their Iraqi torturers liable, they were shocked—having won their case in federal court—to find the Department of Justice seeking to erase their judgment and "absolve" their torturers.

1.24.05 "The chasm between rhetoric and reality" Fareed Zakaria

1.24.05 The Washington Post

White House officials said yesterday that President Bush's soaring inaugural address, in which he declared the goal of ending tyranny around the world, represents no significant shift in U.S. foreign policy but instead was meant as a crystallization and clarification of policies he is pursuing in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Carpetbagger
In other words, when Bush said, "The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world," he meant Iraq and Afghanistan, which as far as he's concerned, are now free. I'm sure they'll be delighted to hear it.

What's notable about the incidents of torture and abuse is first, their common features, and second, their geographical reach. No one has any reason to believe any longer that these incidents were restricted to one prison near Baghdad. They were everywhere: from Guantánamo Bay to Afghanistan, Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi and Tikrit and, for all we know, in any number of hidden jails affecting ''ghost detainees'' kept from the purview of the Red Cross. They were committed by the Marines, the Army, the Military Police, Navy Seals, reservists, Special Forces and on and on. The use of hooding was ubiquitous; the same goes for forced nudity, sexual humiliation and brutal beatings; there are examples of rape and electric shocks. Many of the abuses seem specifically tailored to humiliate Arabs and Muslims, where horror at being exposed in public is a deep cultural artifact.

In his summer 2001 address to the nation, President Bush explained that he was putting into place a new policy of limiting federal support for stem cell research to a handful of existing cell lines, promising that this would allow scientists "to explore the promise and potential of stem cell research without crossing a fundamental moral line." Turns out, however, that his policy does lead to the crossing of a fundamental--and rather gross--moral line, though not the one he was worried about.

1.22.05 "Mystery in Iraq as $300 Million is Taken Abroad" By DEXTER FILKINS, The New York Times

Mr. Sarraf refused to say who received the money, saying it was too dangerous."They could be killed," he said.

1.22.05 "The President's men already appear to be pulling back on W's soaring rhetoric in the inaugural address. The $40 million revellers had barely boarded their private jets to take them back home when advisers were already "clarifying" the President's fine words." Bull Moose

1.21.05 "In his florid inaugural address, Bush proved that he's still living in his own private Idaho -- unwilling to acknowledge the bloody consequences of his policies." By Joe Conason, Salon.

1.21.05 "Bush's Words On Liberty Don't Mesh With Policies" By Glenn Kessler and Robin Wright Washington Post

1.21.05 "GOP RHETORIC -- Bush puts his own spin on "freedom" -- SF Gate.com

"What he's done is take over the old progressive language of 'freedom' and redefined it without explicitly saying it -- only with code words -- in terms of a conservative worldview," said UC Berkeley linguistics Professor George Lakoff. "Those people who've got that worldview will understand the code words." In Lakoff's decoding of Thursday's address, "freedom" meant "unfettered economic markets." Same goes for phrases such as "ownership society" and "the governing of the self." They're conservative shorthand for believing that the government should not be regulating business.

See also: The Boston Globe, July 25, 2004, via The Liberal Oasis

The Bush administration, while stating that democracy is the cornerstone of its Mideast policy, has directed more than half of the funds in its key democracy-promotion initiative to assist autocratic regimes in promoting free trade and education.

1.21.05 "The Washington Post was sceptical."

"When opposition to tyranny has been at odds with security or economic policy -- in Pakistan, in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, in Russia, in China -- the Bush administration of the past four years consistently chose to ignore and excuse oppression," it said.

1.21.05 "Changes in an important new Medicare regulation could lead employers and unions to enroll more retirees in private Medicare Advantage plans."

1.21.05 "The Free Lunch Bunch" By PAUL KRUGMAN "Did they believe they would be welcomed as liberators? Administration plans to privatize Social Security have clearly run into unexpected opposition. Even Republicans are balking; Representative Bill Thomas says that the initial Bush plan will soon be a "dead horse."

1.21.05 "Cheney's view of an imperial presidency" Carpetbagger.

1.21.05 "The administration's approach to history is at odds with what has been described by a communications adviser to the president as the "reality-based community." Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Opinion Journal

1.21.05 " And of course out of fantasies of perfect control have always sprung the world's greatest human catastrophes. There will always be things even the most energetic executive cannot come even close to controlling. Conservatives used to warn us about the dangers of such utopianism -- of the unintended consequences of hubristic attempts to "socially engineer" brave new worlds conjured in the heads of liberal intellectuals. Now Americans are once again learning that lesson, but the perpetrators are . . . conservatives.
And their utopia, heaven help them, is Iraq." by Rick Perlstein, The Village Voice

1.20.05 "A Conservative President? -- It amounted to a thoroughgoing exaltation of the state." By Peter Robinson, National Review online

1.20.05 "The Truth Will Not Set You Free" by oldman "It is a struggle that is being carried on at the level of the soul. Until Democrats begin to join the battle there, they will win the rhetorical skirmishes, hold their ground in the political battles, and then completely and utterly be routed in the cultural war. The whole concept that the truth will set you free has itself a non-derivable assumption that is invisible to most people.
For conscience to be shocked, by definition there must be conscience."

1.20.05 "Inauguration: Lifestyles of the Rich and Heartless"

1.20.05 "Rules For Changing A Limited Republican Government Into An Unlimited Hereditary One"

1.20.05 "A New Deal to scupper a presidency -- Bush is taking a huge gamble with his assault on the social contract" By Sidney Blumenthal "Behind the pomp and circumstance of the inauguration, the display of might and rhetoric of right, lie the fear and trembling of the Republican party. If the defeated, disheartened Democrats can maintain a modicum of discipline, the Republicans will alone be forced to defend Bush's social security proposal. Enough of them realise that attacking the fundament of the social contract may let loose political furies against them. Already the powerful chairman of the House ways and means committee, Bill Thomas, has called Bush's plan "a dead horse". But Bush appears intent on regime change at home. In his first term, he promised "compassionate conservatism". In his second term, he pledges casino conservatism, the restoration of boom and bust, which he calls "the ownership society". He has gambled his presidency on it."

1.18.05 Book review: "Empire and Militant Christianity -- How Americans Were Seduced by War" By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

1.18.05 "Gonzales Says '02 Policy on Detainees Doesn't Bind C.I.A." By ERIC LICHTBLAU, The New York Times
"But it's notable," Mr. Lederman added, "that Gonzales is not willing to tell the senators or anyone else just what techniques the C.I.A. has actually been authorized to use."
"Indeed, Mr. Gonzales declined to say in his written responses to the committee what interrogation tactics would constitute torture in his view or which ones should be banned."

1.18.05 "Social Security Reforms: Necessary or Not?" ... "As President Bush says, the crisis is now. I would amend this slightly to say the crisis is President Bush." Max Sawicky, The Wall Street Journal

1.18.05 "Optimism has fallen, divisions increased" By Susan Page, USA TODAY

1.18.05 "This page is an invaluable reference to who said what, when, about WMDs before the invasion. And somebody forgot to delete this from the White House web site." Mahablog

1.18.05 "Let's not miss the big news in today's article in the Times about Dick Cheney. The vice president supports putting over 95% of the employee-side contribution to Social Security into private accounts" ... "So, in other words, the initial 'partial' phase of the Social Security phase-out, turns about to be 50% phase-out. And the only money going into Social Security comes from the employer. How long do you figure that lasts?" Josh Marshall

1.18.05 The Scandal Sheet Salon. "Here are 34 scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush's presidency -- every one of them worse than Whitewater."

1.18.05 "That's what's going on here. The people attacking the blogs on the left do not want people to sort out the information. They do not want people without credentials presenting facts and arguments that haven't been vetted and neutered. And they don't want a sense of democracy. They want compliance.
I don't intend to be compliant. Neither should you." DHinMI

1.17.05 "Aljazeera's correspondent in Cairo reported that Egypt has flatly rejected an offer to settle Palestinians in the Hurghada desert near the Red Sea." Aljazeera

1.17.05 "Rice's Reality-Based State Department" ... "Many people, for example, believe that our continued presence in Iraq is motivated not by a desire to create an Iraqi democracy, but by a desire to install a pro-American regime that will host permanent US military bases. This perception isn't really driven by a failure on the part of the administration to explain itself better, nearly as much as it's driven by the fact that, near as anyone can tell, we're trying to establish permanent military bases in Iraq." ... "To effectively communicate the message that we don't have a hidden agenda in Iraq, we need to not have hidden agendas. To effectively communicate the message that we're on the side of freedom, political reform, and justice, we need to actually be for these things, even when it creates short-term inconveniences." Matthew Yglesias

1.17.05 "The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas . . . only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd." Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, via Billmon

1.17.05 Regarding "the accountability moment": "After all of his failures, Bush believes his success on Election Day was not an instance of dodging the proverbial bullet; it was a celebration of those failures and a request for more." Carpetbagger

1.17.05 "White House Again Backs Amendment on Marriage" By RICHARD W. STEVENSON What does this mean? Who is entitled to speak for the White House? Bush? Bartlett? Santorum?

1.17.05 "Moving the goalposts. Again." by kos

1.17.05 Ted Kennedy on Iraq: "Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves this very basic question. And that is, is the face of the United States part of the liberation and security and the stability in that country, or are we a force that is perceived to be expanding the kind of uncertainty and savagery and revolution that's taking place there?" he asked."

1.17.05 "The Fake Crisis -- Economist Paul Krugman explains Bush's latest con -- social security" By ERIC BATES, Rolling Stone. "To save Social Security, Bush wants to destroy it" ... "In a blistering series of columns in the New York Times, Krugman has marshaled the economic data to show that Social Security is not only solvent, it's in much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government. "The people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus and a war to eliminate imaginary weapons," Krugman wrote recently, "are now trying another bum's rush.""

1.17.05 "The Vote on Mr. Gonzales" ... "To confirm such an official as attorney general is to ratify decisions that are at odds with fundamental American values." ... "According to the logic of the attorney general nominee, federal authorities could deprive American citizens of sleep, isolate them in cold cells while bombarding them with unpleasant noises and interrogate them 20 hours a day while the prisoners were naked and hooded, all without violating the Constitution. Senators who vote to ratify Mr. Gonzales's nomination will bear the responsibility of ratifying such views as legitimate." Editorial The Washington Post.

1.17.05 "THE COMING WARS" by SEYMOUR M. HERSH "What the Pentagon can now do in secret."

1.17.05 "An Alternative Inaugural Address -- What if George W. Bush weren't a compassionate conservative . . ." by P.J. O'Rourke

1.17.05 "President Bush figures that as long as current retirees are assured that their checks will keep coming in for the next decade or two, that they really don't care what sort of America their young grandchildren will be living in half a century or more from now. In other words, he looks at them and sees himself. But I think America is better than that." Josh Marshall

1.15.05 Transcript of Bush Interview with the Washington Post. Here is a shorter, fake version.

1.15.05 "Social Security Enlisted to Push Its Own Revision" By Robert Pear, The New York Times "But agency employees have complained to Social Security officials that they are being conscripted into a political battle over the future of the program. They question the accuracy of recent statements by the agency, and they say that money from the Social Security trust fund should not be used for such advocacy."

1.15.05 "The US Justice Department is conducting its own investigation into FBI allegations of prisoner abuse at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and at Abu Ghraib prison, an official said, confirming the first civilian probe into the scandal." ABC News

1.14.05 Sibel Edmonds vindicated in FBI report: "Report: FBI bungled translator complaints" Ted Bridis Associated Press

1.14.05 "Happy talk -- Bush's inaugural address next week will be full of his administration's ideological fantasies that now substitute for reality" Sidney Blumenthal via Steven Clemons who says "DUDES, WE DON'T WANT NO METRICS"

1.14.05 "How credible are President Bush's dire predictions?" ... ""For too long, too many people dependent on Social Security have been cruelly frightened by individuals seeking political gain through demagoguery and outright falsehood, and this must stop," (President) Reagan said. "The future of Social Security is much too important to be used as a political football." Martin Wolk, MSNBC

1.14.05 "U.S. to fix Pacific tsunami alert system" ... "After acknowledging that three of its six tsunami-detecting buoys have been broken for months, the U.S. government promised Friday to build a new detection system ... " The Vancouver Sun

1.14.05 "Defense attorney Guy Womack contended military intelligence officers instructed Graner and other guards to "rough up" inmates in order to extract information."
"It was done creatively -- mission accomplished," Womack said. "The crime," he said, is that someone leaked the photos to the media, "and now military intelligence says, 'We don't know anything about it.'" That claim of ignorance is "a lie." CNN

1.13.05 "Last year Mr. Novak had failed to fully disclose - until others in the press called him on it - that his son is the director of marketing for Regnery, the company that published "Unfit for Command," the Swift boat veterans' anti-Kerry screed that Mr. Novak flogged relentlessly on CNN and elsewhere throughout the campaign. Nor had he fully disclosed, as Mary Jacoby of Salon reported, that Regnery's owner also publishes his subscription newsletter ($297 a year). Nor has Mr. Novak fully disclosed why he has so far eluded any censure in the federal investigation of his outing of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Plame, while two other reporters, Judith Miller of The Times and Matt Cooper of Time, are facing possible prison terms in the same case. In this context, Mr. Novak's "full disclosure" of his friendship with Mr. Williams is so anomalous that it raised many more questions than it answers." The New York Times

1.13.05 Jonah Goldberg looks at the bright side: "We didn't set out to create "death squads" of any kind. That is a label the Left stuck on a wide variety of activities in El Salvador, some of which were certainly criminal and horrendous. But it's worth noting that the work American special forces did in El Salvador led to successful elections and helped put an end to a civil war that had killed 75,000 people."

1.13.05 "A Nation of Faith and Religious Illiterates" ... "Because of misunderstandings about the 1st Amendment, religious studies are seldom taught in public schools. When they are, instruction typically begins only in high school and with teachers not trained in the subtle distinction between teaching religion (unconstitutional) and teaching about religion (essential)." Steven Prothero, The LA Times

1.13.05 :="Atrocities in Plain Sight" By ANDREW SULLIVAN

1.13.05 "White House Fought New Curbs on Interrogations, Officials Say" By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON, The New York Times.

1.12.05 "The US Supreme Court has set the stage for a historic transformation of the criminal justice system in a ruling that requires federal judges to find a new way to mete out punishments to convicted criminals." ... "The decision stems from the high court's decision last June invalidating a portion of Washington State's sentencing guidelines in a case called Blakely v. Washington. In this case, the court ruled that sentencing guidelines permitting a judge to sentence an individual to a longer term than called for by the crime found by the jury violates the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial." Christian Science Monitor
"High court loosens criminal sentencing guidelines" By Jan Crawford Greenburg, Chicago Tribune
"Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, David Souter, Clarence Thomas and Ginsburg said defendants' right to trial by jury was violated by giving judges the power to make factual findings that increased sentences beyond the maximum that the jury's findings alone would support." ... "Judges "must consult" the guidelines and "take them into account," Justice Stephen Breyer said for the majority in this portion of the decision. But the guidelines ultimately must be advisory only, with sentences to be reviewed on appeal for "reasonableness." He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice William Rehnquist." The Denver Post

1.11.2005 The Iceberg Cometh" By PAUL KRUGMAN

1.11.2005 Billmon is back, to refresh our memories about death squads

1.11.2004 "The Right Has the Wrong Legal Theory" By William Stuntz, a Professor at Harvard Law School. "So, in practice, originalism ends up resting on the following logical progression: Madison never told us what he thought of gay marriage. But we know that Madison was a smart and decent guy. I'm a smart and decent guy. So Madison would think about gay marriage pretty much the way I do. That is originalist judging in a nutshell: judges writing their own views into the Constitution, all the while pretending that Madison's hand holds the pen." ... "So what is the right legal theory? The key is two more buzzwords: deference and democracy. When there is a choice between deciding an issue in the courts and deciding it elsewhere, elsewhere is usually the right choice."

1.10.2004 "D.C. Says White House Won't Reimburse Inauguration Costs -- City Will Be Forced to Divert Money From Homeland Security Projects" By Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post

1.9.2005 "The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq." Newsweek

1.10.2005 "Let's be clear, "death squads" are terrorists. Their goal is not simply to catch/kill suspected bad guys, but to frighten populations into submission. It's collective punishment of an entire population." Atrios

1.10.2005 "... hey, unless you're part of 90% of the population you can "save privately to supplement" your benefit. If you are part of the 90% riffraff, well, I guess you're just shit out of luck?"-Atrios

1.10.2005 "For the Record on Social Security" New York Times Editorial must read "Written in early January by Peter Wehner, the president's director of strategic initiatives and a top aide to Karl Rove, the president's political strategist, the memo states unequivocally that under a privatized system, only drastic benefit cuts - not borrowing - would relieve Social Security's financial problem. "If we borrow $1-2 trillion to cover transition costs for personal savings accounts" without making benefit cuts, Mr. Wehner wrote, "we will have borrowed trillions and will still confront more than $10 trillion in unfunded liabilities. This could easily cause an economic chain reaction: the markets go south, interest rates go up, and the economy stalls out." ...
"At a recent press conference, Mr. Bush exaggerated the timing of the system's shortfall by saying that Social Security would cross the "line into red" in 2018. According to Congress's budget agency, the system comes up short in 2052; according to the system's trustees, the date is 2042. The year 2018 is when the system's trustees expect they will have to begin dipping into the Social Security trust fund to pay full benefits. If you had a trust fund to pay your bills when your income fell short, would you consider yourself insolvent?

1.10.2005 "Goin' south -- A driving trip through Alabama reminds a U.S. senator from Wisconsin how radical conservatives are robbing hardworking people of the American dream." ... "Now, some may think that Alabama and Wisconsin are the polar opposites of American politics. But in both states I've found that -- along with sharing a sincere appreciation of a good turkey dinner -- too many hardworking people are losing their battles for decent paying jobs and adequate healthcare. I'm tired of seeing the power-hungry persuade the hardworking people of this country that the only way to preserve important values is to vote against their own families' basic interests. I believe that the working people of both states have sacrificed for other people's agendas for too long. And I believe that any political party or political movement or political candidate who would consistently say this would be heard throughout America."
We need to go to the Greenvilles of every state, red and blue, and say, "Thank you. You've sacrificed long enough. Now it's your turn at the American dream." Senator Russ Feingold, Salon

1.10.2005 "Public Debate in Saudi Arabia on Extremism in the School System" ..."Criminal deeds are the result of criminal thoughts… Teachers must understand the great difference between the teacher and the mufti. They must teach the pupils, in the best possible way, what is in the curricula, without issuing religious rulings [ fatwas ] and without deviating from the curriculum and force-feeding the pupils with issues that have nothing to do with them…" Memri

1.10.2005 "New Behavioral Profiling Techniques, TSA Training Help Target Suspicious Subway Passengers" ..."You can't use this very subjective sense of who's suspicious as a substitute for what the law would otherwise require . . . such as a basis for suspicion that someone is engaged in criminal conduct," said John Reinstein, legal director for the ACLU of Massachusetts." Washington Post

1.10.2005 "New Pell rules to cut aid"

1.8.2005 Regarding "Armstrong Williams, television commentator and pundit" ... "Asked whether he was aware of the codes of ethics published by multiple journalists' and broadcasters' associations, which explicitly forbid members to accept money for promoting particular views, Mr. Williams said, "I don't know anything about these kinds of documents." ... "Covert propaganda is more than unethical; it is against the law for taxpayer dollars to be used "for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States," unless approved by Congress. Congress should investigate, as this administration does not seem to understand the lines it has crossed." Washington Post editorial
Here is a summary of the law in this area. See also: Josh Marshall "Everyone has quickly and rightly connected the Armstrong Williams story to earlier instances where the administration used government funds to produce pro-Bush political propaganda. There were the phony news segments produced for the Department of Education to push the No Child Left Behind Act, similar phony news segments produced for HHS to push the new Medicare law, and the Department of Education ratings system devised to rate how different news outlets ranked on No Child Left Behind act orthodoxy and the Republican party's commitment to education.
But there's something else that links all these instances together. They were all contracted through one PR firm: Ketchum."
And, there's a good column by Howard Kurtz
And "Three Democratic senators -- Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Harry Reid of Nevada -- wrote Bush Friday to demand he recover the money paid to Armstrong. The lawmakers contended that "the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy." CNN
Further comments collected at The Moderate Voice including one about Robert Novak
"The senators also asked the White House to disclose if any other journalists or media organizations have been paid to "skew their media reports." Here

1.8.2005 "Former Directors Agree To Settle Class Actions -- Enron, WorldCom Officials to Pay Out of Pocket" By Ben White Washington Post

1.8.2005 "The yes man -- Ever faithful to his boss, George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales dodged his Senate critics Thursday with the company man's eternal defense: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." By Joe Conason (Salon - subscription) "The Judiciary Committee will vote to confirm him, as will the full Senate. And whatever laws, rights and traditions the president may wish to eviscerate in his second term, there will be an attorney general who can be depended upon to say yes."

1.8.2005 Canada.com "Mad cow food fears raised" "The calves born in 2003 and 2004 to the infected cow were also traced. They died of causes unrelated to BSE, Dr. Little said." Yes, but were they eaten?

1.7.2005 "Drug Control Office Faulted For Issuing Fake News Tapes" By Ceci Connolly, Washington Post "It is illegal to use taxpayer dollars to influence public opinion surreptitiously," (Representative) Waxman said yesterday. "Unfortunately, this is the second time in less than a year that GAO has caught the Bush administration violating a fundamental principle of open government."

1.7.2005 "Back before the election, before the media decided that the facts were too partisan, some discussion began about just where the hell all this explosive material came from. Anyone can make a small bomb which can maim and kill a lot of people, but not everyone can make a bomb which will destroy a goddamn tank." Atrios

1.7.2005 "Promoting Torture's Promoter" By BOB HERBERT The New York Times "Why were we ever - under any circumstances - torturing, maiming, sexually abusing and even killing prisoners? And where is the evidence that we've stopped?" ... "As detailed in The Washington Post earlier this month, the administration is making secret plans for the possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists who will never even be charged.
Due process? That's a laugh. Included among the detainees, the paper noted, are hundreds of people in military or C.I.A. custody "whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts." And there will be plenty more detainees to come."

1.7.2005 Wingnut ethics, "Worse Than Fiction" By PAUL KRUGMAN

1.7.2005 "What of Abbas' vaunted opposition to violence? On Jan. 2 he tells Hamas terrorists firing rockets that maim and kill Jewish villagers within Israel, ``This is not the time for this kind of act.'' This is an interesting ``renunciation'' of terrorism: Not today, boys; perhaps later, when the time is right. Which was exactly Arafat's utilitarian approach to terrorism throughout the Oslo decade." Charles Krauthammer

1.7.2005 "Is the American Dream dying? The Economist thinks so." ... ""The Republicans, by getting rid of inheritance tax, seem hell-bent on ignoring Teddy Roosevelt's warnings about the dangers of a hereditary aristocracy. The Democrats are more interested in preferment for minorities than building ladders of opportunity for all." Taegan Goddard, quoting the Economist

1.7.2005 "White House paid commentator to promote law" By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

1.5.2005 "PAPER: GONZALES DRAFTS GHOST-WRITTEN BY CHENEY LAWYER..." Drudge Citing Washington Post

11.3.2004 "The Social Security Fear Factor" New York Times editorial

1.3.2004 Lifetime Detentions: "The Washington Post report on this noted that the State Department is involved with the planning for these indefinite detentions. Yet, when asked about it yesterday, Colin Powell said, "I am not familiar with that and I can't talk to it." When reminded that his cabinet agency is a part of this, Powell added, "I just don't have the facts on that one."
To which I wanted to ask, "Why not?" Carpetbagger

1.3.2004 Social Insecurity: "Almost the entirety of President Bush's Social Security phase-out plan comes down to a simple proposition: finding out how not to pay it back.
Now, admittedly, this is an approach that the president is rather familiar with from his own business career at various failed energy companies. But it is, in so many words, a straight up con -- one of vast scale, and one which virtually no one in the media ever frames in just these terms." Josh Marshall

1.3.2004 "Senator Says Lifetime Terror Detentions 'Bad Idea'"

1.2.2004 "It's My Party Too" ... "Whitman details her many scars and frustrations in dealing with what she calls the "antiregulatory lobbyists and extreme antigovernment ideologues" that she suggests hold too much sway over the Republican party." Drudge

1.1.2005 "What would Jesus think?" about the Bush policy record. "I do not want to imply that there are not sound arguments for some of these policy positions," Cochran wrote. "What I do want to point out, however, is the obvious and inconvenient fact that they are all very much at odds with the teachings of Jesus Christ." via Steve Clemons who says "PRESIDENT BUSH: CANCEL THE INAUGURATION PARTY AND DONATE THE FUNDS TO TSUNAMI & QUAKE VICTIMS"

1.1.2005 I have found the basis for a new year's resolution:

"The only safe rule, therefore, is [to dispute] only with those of your acquaintance of whom you know that they possess sufficient intelligence and self-respect not to advance absurdities." Schopenhauer

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Guantanamo

gentle.reader@att.net ... A proud member of the reality based community.

""Why doesn't somebody take this goddam thing away from me?" James Thurber's aunt