She does pretty well with threads from hell.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Scary Pictures
<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/14/iran-is-the-new-iraq/Via
Think Progress I see the scary satellite photos are out.
<img src="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/duncanblack/iran.jpg">
Everyone can play! Look what I found here in Philadelphia!
<img src="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/duncan/black/iran3.jpg">
Joking aside, I suppose it's necessary that just because I mock the
inevitable rhetoric on Iran from the Bush administration and the
wingnutosphere doesn't mean that I don't think a nuclear Iran thing
would be a less than desirable development. But Iran Talk has
nothing to do with what we're going to about that, Iran Talk is
entirely about domestic politics. There's a difference between
Talking and Doing, even if words have consequences, and the Iran PR
campaign is more about domestic politics than actually doing anything
about the problem.
But, as for how we got here let's remember that George Bush helped
kill whatever reformist movement there was in Iran by referring to
Iran as part of the "axis of Evil," thus making it easy to paint any
Iranian reformer as "objectively pro-American." Much as I don't like
the Bush administration I'm not actually hoping that France invades
to liberate us and I imagine most Iranians feel much the same
way. The Bush administrations "isolate no matter what" tough talk
certainly gives Iran a lot of incentive to get a nuke as quickly as possible.
And, of course, our great Iraqi adventure has made things like air
strikes a wee bit difficult. The people in our new pet
democracy/Iranian client state probably won't be too thrilled about
that. So if there is a weapons development site to be taken out our
hands are rather more tied on that account than they would have otherwise been.
I'll admit I worry less about a nuclear Iran than some. State
sponsored nuclear terrorism/war would require a completely irrational
actor, one even more irrational than North Korea's Dear
Leader. Nuclear proliferation is a concern, but state proliferation
less than the general wandering nuke issue...
I had to write this post by email, so hopefully it isn't all screwed
up as I don't think I'll be able to edit it as Blogger is currerntly broken.
How It Goes
Spring/Summer - "Liberal hawks" point out that all serious people understand the serious threat posed by serious Iran, and while they acknowledge grudgingly that the Bush administration has fucked up everything it touches, they stress, and I mean stress, that we really must support the Bush administration's serious efforts to deal with the serious problem and that criticisms of such serious approaches to a serious problem are highly irresponsible and come only from irrational very unserious Bush haters who would rather live in Iran than the U.S.
Late Summer - Rumsfeld denies having an Iran war plan "on his desk." He refuses to answer if he has one "in his file cabinet." Andy Card explains that you don't roll out new product until after labor day.
Early Fall - Bush suddenly demands Congress give him the authority to attack Iran to ensure they "disarm." Some Democrats have the temerity to ask "with what army?" Marshall Wittman and Peter Beinart explain that courageous Democrats will have the courageous courage to be serious and to confront the "grave threat" with seriousness and vote to send other peoples' kids off to war, otherwise they'll be seen as highly unserious on national security. Neither enlists.
Late October - Despite the fact that all but 30 Democrats vote for the resolution, Republicans run a national ad campaign telling voters that Democrats are objectively pro-Ahmadinejad. Glenn Reynolds muses, sadly, that Democrats aren't just anti-war, but "on the other side." Nick Kristof writes that liberals must support the war due to Ahmadinejad's opposition to gay rights in Iran.
Election Day - Democrats lose 5 seats in the Senate, 30 in the House. Marshall Wittman blames it on the "pro-Iranian caucus."
The Day After Election Day - Miraculously we never hear another word about the grave Iranian threat. Peter Beinart writes a book about how serious Democrats must support the liberation of Venezuela and Bolivia.
Iran and Roll
Time to start betting on when the force authorization vote will happen.
There won't be a war, but there will be lots of war talk.
Breaking News
Eight other men, five women, and five children, however, are in fact dead.
Medicare Drugs
If I were the Democratic version of Grover Norquist, tasked with sending out their weekly telepathic talking points, every single Democrat would be fanning out throughout the land over the next couple of weeks demanding emergency legislation to overhaul the program and fix its problems. Town Halls with seniors, video with weeping granny unable to get her drugs from the local pharmacy, etc...
Friday, January 13, 2006
Bye Bob
Ominous Headlines
Well, when the president decides that he can do whatever he wants in violation of the law, including detaining citizens without charges and spying on citizens without warrants, that pretty much is the definition of a police state. It's the claimed authority that matters, not the extent to which it's used.
On TV
In any case, Sandals apparently got enough money together for an ad buy as I just watched an ad on CNN regarding an issue that Bob Casey can't really touch - women's health rights. Not sure what these guys have to do to get the press to acknowledge a bit more fully that they exist.
Choice
If the Supremos do away with Roe/Casey, it will be a long hard and constant slog to preserve abortion rights anywhere in this country.
Knock Out
In 1977, I was appointed chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission. It was a difficult time for the gaming industry and Las Vegas, which were being overrun by organized crime. To that point in my life, I had served in the Nevada Assembly and even as lieutenant governor, but nothing prepared me for my fight with the mob.
Over the next few years, there would be threats on my life, bribes, FBI stings and even a car bomb placed in my family's station wagon. It was a terrifying experience, but at the end of the day, we cleaned up Las Vegas and ushered in a new era of responsibility.
My term on the gaming commission came to an end in 1981, and when it did, I thought I had seen such corruption for the last time. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. It is not quite the mafia of Las Vegas in the 1970s, but what is happening today in Washington is every bit as corrupt and the consequences for our country have been severe.
Our nation's capital has been overrun by organized crime — Tom DeLay-style.
Fun with Jonah
One thing Greenwald leaves off is that while Goldberg wrote this:
STRIP SEARCHES [Jonah Goldberg]
I understand the need for following the procedural niceties, but as a plain moral common sense issue, if you are a drug dealer and keep drugs on the premises with your child, you get zero-point-zero sympathy from me if your kids are searched, warrant or no. It may be wrong for the cops to do it. But you are not a victim for choosing a life where you can rationally expect to expose your kids to far greater risks than a search by a polite cop. The kid's a victim -- of bad parents.
In the tantrum Goldberg adds:
the real outrage is when drug dealers ensnare or otherwise put at risk their own children in order to sell drugs.
True, I suppose it's quite outrageous when drug dealers do such things. But that didn't, you know, happen in this case which is why we require warrants for such things. It's why probable cause matters. It's why Jonah needs to go back to 3rd grade civics so that he understands that we're not a country of collective guilt and the fact that some bad guy somewhere stashed drugs on his kids does not mean we should grant agents of the state the right to strip search all kids, include Jonah's own offspring, without warrants. Searching the premises, under someone's bed, is not the same as lifting up a little girl's skirt.
What country do these people want to live in? Jeebus. What the hell were we supposed tbe fighting the Cold War about again?
Decent
Why should we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he just has some weird blind spot which prevents him from having any sense of real world justice? Why not assume the simpler explanation - that this is what he considers to be justice?
Ehrlich Denied
The Maryland General Assembly overrode Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s veto of a bill requiring Wal-Mart to pay more for employee health care yesterday, a measure that has sparked a nationwide debate over the level of benefits an employer should provide workers.
The so-called Fair Share Health Care Fund Act, the first of its kind to succeed in the nation, became a fight between organized labor and business, raising questions about to what extent government should intervene in private enterprise.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Wow. Truth Battles Truthiness!
This is the third straight year in which the White House has summoned reporters well ahead of the official budget release to project a higher-than-anticipated deficit. In the past two years, when final deficit figures have come in at record or near-record levels, White House officials have boasted that they had made progress, since the final numbers were below estimates.
"This administration has a history of overestimating the deficit early in the year, lowering expectations, then taking credit when it comes in below forecast," said Stanley E. Collender, a federal budget expert at Financial Dynamics Business Communications. "It's not just a history. It's almost an obsession."
Indeed, the dire new forecast came the same day that Treasury Department officials were touting a very different picture: The federal government posted the first budget surplus for December in three years, buoyed by a rush of corporate tax payments that more than offset record spending. On Jan. 6, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the deficit for the first three months of the fiscal year was about $119 billion, almost exactly where it stood for the first quarter of fiscal 2005.
The real test will be when, months from now, the administration tries to brag that once again they've lowered the deficit simply because (if it so happens) it comes in lower than inflated expectations the Post writes that up without context.
Wolcott
The warbloggers profess to be outraged, sickened, and appalled by Mideast violence yet increasingly are giving vent to their own violent fantasies directed at domestic foes, whom they consider traitors, appeasers, etc. They fantasize about their least favorite bloggers being beheaded, or hanging liberal traitors from lamp posts should there be another terrorist attack. Sites like Little Green Footballs, Atlas Shrugs, and their ilk have a lynch-mob mentality that has gotten uglier as the situation in Iraq has worsened. They blame Cindy Sheehan (recently voted "Idiotarian of the Year" at LGF), Michael Moore, and liberal Democrats for how badly the war has gone because they don't have the courage and honesty to blame the real architects of failure: Rumsfeld, who went to war with too few troops to carry out an occupation; Wolfowitz and the rest of the neocon brain trust, who assured Americans that the invasion would be greeted with flowers and candy, and the war would pay for itself through oil revenues; the U.S. military, which didn't anticipate a strong insurgency and arrogantly ran roughshod over the Iraqi people early in the occupation, enflaming the insurgency even more; and Bush himself, who in a moment of almost sociopathic hubris, taunted the insurgency with the three words that should be chiseled in disgrace on the wall of his future presidential library: "Bring 'em on." According to a recent poll, 55% of Americans no longer believe the war with Iraq was worth fighting. Are the majority of Americans "defeatniks"? If so, I must be more influential than I thought.
Incidentally, touting the piece on its sorry excuse for a site, Pajamas Media gurgles, "Today in The American Spectator columnist Michael Fumento takes Vanity Fair regular and blogger James Wolcott to task for poor blogosphere ettiquette..."
Before I'm taken to task again, PJ Media might want to learn how to spell "etiquette." With the money sunk into this venture, you'd think they could afford dictionaries for their interns, or at least one dictionary that they could all share.
The Wankosphere Hearts the Moonie Times
Open Thread
You know there are quite a few American threads that are highly underrated. This, unfortunately, is not one of them.
Who Would General Clark Call?
You're next, members of Congress, unless you do something...
(...to be clear that's of course not a threat, just pointing out the obvious. I don't have any cell phone numbers of members of congress but there are lots of people out there who do have those numbers and probably would be willing to shell out a few bucks to find out just who they've been calling. Even their spouses might decide it'd be fun to find out.)
"Mrs. Alito"
Houston Stations Refusing DeLay Ads
Watch the ad here.
Oh, and let's express our unhappiness with the situation, one station at a time.
Contact KHOU. Ask them to explain why they won't run a factually accurate ad about Tom DeLay.
1945 Allen Parkway
Houston, Texas 77019
Phone: 713-526-1111
Open Thread
You know there are quite a few American threads that are highly underrated. This, unfortunately, is not one of them.
Absence of Evidence is Proof!
Shorter Mitt Romney
Start Wearing Purple
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Caring
Whether you think outlawing abortion will make the baby Jesus stop crying or whether it'll relegate women to second class status and end up causing countless deaths from unsafe medical procedures, it matters. Whether individuals have the right to go to court to sue big institutions - corporations or state/local/federal government - and have a chance of winning matters. Whether or not racial discrimination lawsuits have a chance of succeeding matters. etc... etc...
No matter what the show put on by senators or the mockery of the show staged by our media, these things matter.
Journamalism
Tears
...I appreciate that Alito's wife may geuinely find this stressful and bummer for her, but I just can't stand the fact that our media which can't seem to understand that people who support groups which try to reduce women an minorities on campus, who rule in favor of warrantless searches of 10 year old girls, who will likely declare the uterus state property, who shoot down almost any racial discrimination claim, and who support the practice of striking jurors based on their race might cause a few tears as well.
The media keeps declaring these hearings to be just political theater, and then they focus on the soap opera.
This. Shit. Matters. Pretend you care, or get new goddamn jobs.
PU
Alito on Korematsu
ALITO: What I was doing in that talk at Pepperdine was framing that question. And it's a lot easier to frame the question and to ask students to think about it and give me their reactions than it is to answer it.
We've had examples of instance in which the judiciary in the past has had to confront this issue of reviewing factual presentations of the executive in times of national crisis. And there have been instances in which the judiciary has accepted -- and I'm thinking of the Japanese internment cases -- has accepted, which were one of the great constitutional tragedies that our country has experienced -- has accepted factual presentations by the political -- by the executive branch that turned out not to be true and from my reading of what went on were not believed to be true by some high-ranking executive officials at the time.
At the very least he's saying those bastards in the executive branch had better not lie to the Court.
Wonder if Malkin's still a fan.
(thanks to reader g)
Liar
I remember when lying to the American people was thought to be a bad thing.
silly me.
Lyin' Arlen
Call Arlen Specter's office and ask if this is what the senator considers to be "distinguished" behavior for a U.S. senator.
Washington DC Office
711 Hart Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: 202-224-4254
Paging John Tierney
Lobbying
Facts are so confusing.
Korematsu
I'd like Alito's opinion on Korematsu.
...info on Korematsu here.
Call Specter's Office
Ask his office if helping to confirm Alito makes him a bad judiciary chair.
Washington DC Office
711 Hart Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: 202-224-4254
Email: Contact Form
Timmeh Again
It had nothing to do with high-minded journalistic principles for people like Timmeh. He was willing to throw out the confidential source promise as soon as Rove told him to. It was about maintaining favor with his sources - that is, the Bush administration.
Overturning Roe
Of course, we already knew that but we're playing by the rules of this ridiculous dance set up by the senators and the media where the senators pretend to ask questions, Alito pretends to answer them, and the media pretends they don't know what the answers mean.
Call the office of Arlen Specter. Ask them if the senator plans on his legacy being the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Washington DC Office
711 Hart Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: 202-224-4254
Email: Contact Form
It Doesn't Really Matter
It's frustrating.
Minorities in the Media
Wrapping Yourself in the Military
None of these people have any shame. bad, unethical, corrupt.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Say Anything Strip Search Sammy
More IQ
Given that we've had a cross-blogospheric discussion of IQ tests generally and the Bell Curve specifically about a dozen times, much to everyone's boredom, since I've been blogging I just don't know which liberals shy away from talking about IQ tests. The only reason I shy away from them is that every time they're brought up I have to spend about a month explaining yet again why the Bell Curve is crap (cue trolls and "realistic liberals" right now) which requires a bit of remedial everything.
Maybe it's just my background as an economist where such discussions were not taboo, but it was just recognized that any measure of "intelligence" is a dependent, not an independent, variable.
Journamalism
Sometimes I think it's a nefarious plot, and sometimes I just think their brains are just unable to process any media criticism that doesn't emanate from Brent Bozell's orc factory or Rush Limbaugh.
Lies and the Lying Liars
But I won't hold my breath for the answer.
Some ASVAB Sample Questions
question 1
If 6x - 3y = 30 and 4x = 2 - y then find x + y.
...
question 3
Which of the following sets is not closed under addition?
A Whole Numbers
B Integers
C Even Integers
D Odd Integers
...
question 20
The area of a square is 100. The length of its diagonal is approximately:
A 12
B 13
C 14
D 15
The issue is not doubting whether such tests measure something - they provide a measure of what you know/reasoning skills based on that knowledge at whatever age you take them. People who do better on them are, in some sense, "smarter," on average than those who do worse on them. But they don't measure innate intelligence. They don't measure the limits of individual potential. They don't provide a comprehensive measurement of all dimensions of what we might think of as "smartness." They're quite likely culturally biased in some ways. And, most importantly, to a great degree they simply measure your level of education.
Swatting Flies
I tend to doubt, however, that this line of criticism will gain any traction, since making the argument requires you to say that IQ tests (which is all the AFQT really is) are an important measurement and most liberals prefer to shy away from the topic.
First of all the AFQT isn't really an IQ test, it's just used as a decent proxy for one because lots of people have taken it and have also put lots of demographic data with their scores so there's good data.
But I don't know these fantasy liberals who don't think that IQ tests don't measure anything. They measure something, certainly, and something we associate with "intelligence," no matter how imperfect a measure of a complicated thing they may be.
What liberals generally don't think is that IQ tests generally and the AFQT score specifically are a measure of "innate" intelligence, and certainly not a measure of genetically-drive-only-innate intelligence.
There's a very simple reason for this: you can teach people to improve their test scores, so it isn't a measure of innate or potential anything.
But I don't know anyone who think that such tests are meaningless. To the extent that low scores reflect low ability, low education, or whatever combination of those things, it's certainly a big deal that the military is letting in more "Category IV" scorers.
Just to illustrate rather easily, the AFQT score is derived from a subsample of the ASVAB test. One part which is used is "arithmetic reasoning" and another is "mathematical knowledge," both being things which most of us aren't born into this world knowing and which we improve upon being taught them. Kaplan describes the "mathematical knowledge" part as:
The Mathematics Knowledge section is a 24-minute, 25-question test of your understanding of a wide range of concepts in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. You may still see the occasional word problem on the Mathematical Knowledge section of the ASVAB, but in general the questions, while drawn from a wider base of mathematical concepts, are more straightforward than the word problems found on the Arithmetic Reasoning section.
People can have lots of legitimate problems with various intelligence tests and how their results are interpreted without thinking they measure nothing.
Toobin
Lying Ed Gillespie
When Columnists Attack
The People Paper should take its nickname a bit more seriously.
Note to the Press
In other words, all "no one is above the law" means is that the law, in fact, allows Bush to anything he pleases as long as he claims it's for national security. Including, presumably, lying about blowjobs.
Liar
After stating again this morning that he had no recollection of joining Concerned Alumni for Princeton, the racist and sexist organization that objected to women and minorities being admitted at Princeton, despite having included it in his job application to work for Ed Meese in 1985, Alito this morning now pretends to remember WHY he joined an organization he says he does not remember joining.
So Alito's story on CAP is that 'he didn't do it, and if he did do it, he doesn't remember, and if he did do it and does remember, then he had a good reason for doing it.'
Strip Search Sammy
I was not pleased that a young girl was searched in that case and I said so in my opinion - that was an undesirable thing.
What he actually wrote in his opinion:
I share the majority’s visceral dislike of the intrusive search of John Doe’s young daughter, but it is a sadfact that drug dealers sometimes use children to carry out their business and toavoid prosecution.
Stop Dancing
Nice Timing
Pumpkinhead
Lawyers for NBC News reporter Tim Russert suspected in the spring of 2004 that his testimony could snare Vice President Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, in a lie and Russert resisted testifying at the time about private conversations with Libby, according to court papers released yesterday.
Russert was aware that a special prosecutor probing the leak of a CIA operative's name knew of his summer 2003 telephone conversation with Libby, and that Libby had released him from any promise of confidentiality. But Russert, the Washington bureau chief for NBC News and host of "Meet the Press," and his attorneys argued in previously sealed court filings in June 2004 that he should not have to tell a grand jury about that conversation, because it would harm Russert's relationship with other sources.
The problem isn't that he didn't want to testify - there are some reasonable arguments for that - the problem is that he spent two years on Meet the Press covering this story pretending he didn't know things he knew.
Tool.
(tip from guy)
Monday, January 09, 2006
Alito!
And, no, I'm not calling him a murderer. Just the same creepy quiet rage behind the eyes.
...for comparison, thanks to Kenosha Kid:
Even More Cyberstalking
Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes § 5504 —- Harassment by communication or address:
(A) A person commits the crime of harassment by communication or address when, with intent to harass, annoy, or alarm another, that person:
(1) Communicates to or about such other person any lewd, lascivious, threatening or obscene words, language, drawings or caricatures; or
(2) Communicates repeatedly in an anonymous manner;
(3) Communicates repeatedly at extremely inconvenient hours;
(4) Communicates repeatedly in a manner not covered by paragraph (2) or (3).
(F) Definitions: "Communicates." Conveys, without intent of legitimate communication or address, by written or electronic means, including telephone, electronic mail, Internet, facsimile, telex and similar transmission.
So, the PA law requires either threatening or obscene language or repeated behavior. Sounds about how such laws should be but that isn't actually what's in the federal law.
As for this:
Additionally, the recent F.E.C. decisions to treat bloggers under the media exemption would -- I would think -- greatly complicate attempts by politicians to shut down bloggers by using the online cyberstalking statute against them.
That's not quite true. All we really have from the FEC is an advisory opinion for the Fired Up! group of sites. It's an advisory opinion which would presumably apply to most bloggers, but the FEC has yet to codify regulations regarding the internet as they've been obligated to do. And, since they just got 3 new commissioners who weren't there for the public comment process and because this is an issue where even slightly badly worded regulations could cause a whole bunch of trouble for bloggers this isn't a done deal.
In any case, I don't think federal regulations with respect to federal election law will have much to do with criminal law regarding online activity generally. And, while there haven't been a large number of them that I'm aware of bloggers have been victims of SLAPP suits which, no matter the merits, can be a big pain in the ass. A criminal proceeding would be moreso.
Again, cyberstalking laws are good and I doubt that in practice this law will cause problems, but that doesn't change the fact that it could've been more reasonably written to avoid the possibility of potential abuse by those who have a greater power to get the ear of a US Attorney.
Wanker of the Day
He may have actually won the prestigious honor for this column, I can't remember. But it's wankerific enough for him to win it twice!
Your Liberal Media
A Media Matters for America review of MSNBC's live coverage of the first day of Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 9 showed that in the initial four hours of coverage, from noon to 4 p.m. ET, the network featured interviews with MSNBC political analyst and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan; former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, who has served as a White House adviser for Alito's nomination process; and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN). During that same time span, the network hosted no Democratic or progressive commentators.
Stupid Newspaper Tricks
Phone Call Not The Same as an Email or a Comment
The thing is that an anonymous annoying phone call is something quite different from an email or blog comment or, hell, even a blog post. An anonymous annoying phone call is almost by definition right up to the edge of harrassment, especially if it's repeated at all. I can easily see some local pol getting pissed off that a local blogger is on their case anonymously and then trying to use this statute to shut him/her down.
I imagine that the law will either be enforced sensibly or it will be shot down one way or another, but that won't necessarily prevent some people from having a costly and embarrassing legal battle.
I don't agree that the statutory language follows boilerplate state cyberstalking laws - a couple listed are very similar but many others are quite different.
In any case I don't really expect this to be a big deal, but even little deals can have chilling effects.
Media Withheld Name of Abducted Journalist
In any case the important thing is that she gets out alive, of course.
YEEEEHAAW
The state's highest criminal court on Monday denied Rep. Tom DeLay's request that the money laundering charges against him be dismissed or sent back to a lower court for an immediate trial.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied the requests with no written order two days after he announced he was stepping down as House majority leader. DeLay had been forced to temporarily relinquish the Republican leadership post after he was indicted on money laundering and conspiracy charges in September.
The Problem With Arlen
And, thank you, Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board for endorsing him.
Prove me wrong.
Fight
On issues like this Democrats too often seem to think their job isn't to do the right thing, or convince voters they're doing the right thing, but to convince the Brodereseque crowd inside the Beltway that they're doing the right thing, whatever that is. And, frankly, who gives a shit what Fred Hiatt thinks?
Alito's a bad guy, he should be opposed. As for the "nuclear option," well, if the Republicans want to wrap themselves in the constitution as a pretense for cheating I say let them. It's long past time for the Democrats to stop playing the faux civility game in the Senate.
Hearing Thread
Fresh Thread
The End of the Internets
It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.
In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.
Who will be the first head up their ass blogger to try to get one of their trolls in trouble with this law...
Your Liberal Media
The Senate is a dignified place, but there's also talk about a filibuster. How dignified could that be?
The Alito 3-Step
Roe/women's issues, "he'll say anything to get a job," and life-long spear-carrier for the imperial presidency.
But, basically, the guy has said Roe should be overturned and more generally he, as Lord Saletan says, treats "women like girls" under the parental control of their husbands. He's an admitted liar - says he lies to get jobs and he lied to the Senate on other issues. And this "highly qualified judge" seems to have missed the revolutionary war and the constitution.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
He Said It!
This could be a big change and it could well be that these new leaders could include some who are not particularly loyal to the White House and the White House agenda with an unpopular president. They have to face re-election this year. You could find a Republican majority that's going to try to seek its own way and not simply follow the White House.
Bill Signing
Why do they hate America?
Beard Transcript
BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about Iraq. The president sought to reach out to some of his critics earlier in the week, bringing in some former secretaries of state, including Madeleine Albright, among others -- William Cohen, the former defense secretary during the Clinton administration.
Are you satisfied right now that the president's getting enough information from a variety of sources to better move forward as far as the situation in Iraq is concerned?
DEAN: Well, most of the reports that came out of that meeting, Wolf, were that the president engaged in a filibuster of his own in there. He talked at them for some time and then went in for a photo op and really didn't bother to ask most of them for their advice at all.
So, I think these photo op ideas that he's going to get advice and they're really nothing more than photo ops -- I think we're in a big pickle in Iraq.
The president, frankly -- I was disgusted when I read in the New York Times yesterday that 80 percent of the torso injuries and fatalities in the Marine Corps could have been prevented if the Pentagon, the secretary of defense and the president had supplied them with armor that they already had.
They requested that from the field; the Pentagon refused. You know, I, two years ago, thought Secretary Rumsfeld ought to resign. He ought to resign.
These people are not qualified. They haven't served themselves; they don't know what it takes. They ought to protect our troops. Our troops are doing a hell of a job and they deserve better leadership in Washington than what they're getting.
I was incensed when I saw that story, 80 percent of the torso- based wounds that led to fatalities in the Marine Corps -- surely our Marines are worth something more than that.
BLITZER: About a month ago, Senator Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee spoke out, urging his fellow Democrats, including yourself, to restrain themselves in criticizing the president's position on Iraq. Listen to what Lieberman said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander-in-chief for three more critical years, and that, in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: What do you think? Is that advice good advice from Senator Lieberman?
DEAN: No. This president has lacked credibility almost from the day he took office because of the way he took office.
He's not reached out to other people. He's shown he's willing to abuse his power. He's not consulted others. And he's not interested in consulting any others.
And I think, frankly, that Joe is absolutely wrong, that it is incumbent on every American who is patriotic and cares about their country to stand up for what's right and not go along with the president, who is leading us in a wrong direction.
We're going in the wrong direction, economically, at home; we're going in the wrong direction abroad.
...
BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges, among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrat who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?
DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we've looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that's true.
BLITZER: But through various Abramoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.
DEAN: That's not true either. There's no evidence for that either. There is no evidence...
BLITZER: What about Senator Byron Dorgan?
DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They're not agents of Jack Abramoff. There's no evidence that I've seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They're scared. They should be scared. They haven't told the truth. They have misled the American people. And now it appears they're stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.
BLITZER: Unfortunately Mr. Chairman, we got to leave it right there.
Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, always speaking out bluntly, candidly.
The transcriptionist didn't bother to put in Blitzer's DEEP SIIIIIIGGHH before his last comment.
Dean Shaves the Beard
Idiots
It's simple technology. It can be easily duplicated. They bought a community, not a platform, and the community will scatter when you start censoring stuff...
Leaving=Losing
But this is just a version of what I've been saying for some time. Bush and his defenders have defined leaving Iraq as losing. Period. It's one reason crazy people like me think that may having some sort of arbitrary timetable or rough events-triggered withdrawal is a good idea - because there will never be some magical day when the Iraq security situation suddenly improves. There will never be a day when George Bush can wake up in the morning and decide, again, "Mission Accomplished!" without some arbitrary guidelines for when that is. There will never be a day when George Bush can credibly say "things are better today than yesterday" and therefore we can start to leave.
We will never leave Iraq while George Bush is president, because they've decided that leaving is losing.
And, so, people continue to die.
...Brzezinski's op-ed is pretty good along these lines I think.
"Victory or defeat" is, in fact, a false strategic choice. In using this formulation, the president would have the American people believe that their only options are either "hang in and win" or "quit and lose." But the real, practical choice is this: "persist but not win" or "desist but not lose."
Victory, as defined by the administration and its supporters -- i.e., a stable and secular democracy in a unified Iraqi state, with the insurgency crushed by the American military assisted by a disciplined, U.S.-trained Iraqi national army -- is unlikely. The U.S. force required to achieve it would have to be significantly larger than the present one, and the Iraqi support for a U.S.-led counterinsurgency would have to be more motivated. The current U.S. forces (soon to be reduced) are not large enough to crush the anti-American insurgency or stop the sectarian Sunni-Shiite strife. Both problems continue to percolate under an inconclusive but increasingly hated foreign occupation.
...
"Victory or defeat" is, in fact, a false strategic choice. In using this formulation, the president would have the American people believe that their only options are either "hang in and win" or "quit and lose." But the real, practical choice is this: "persist but not win" or "desist but not lose."
Victory, as defined by the administration and its supporters -- i.e., a stable and secular democracy in a unified Iraqi state, with the insurgency crushed by the American military assisted by a disciplined, U.S.-trained Iraqi national army -- is unlikely. The U.S. force required to achieve it would have to be significantly larger than the present one, and the Iraqi support for a U.S.-led counterinsurgency would have to be more motivated. The current U.S. forces (soon to be reduced) are not large enough to crush the anti-American insurgency or stop the sectarian Sunni-Shiite strife. Both problems continue to percolate under an inconclusive but increasingly hated foreign occupation.
...
The real choice that needs to be faced is between:
An acceptance of the complex post-Hussein Iraqi realities through a relatively prompt military disengagement -- which would include a period of transitional and initially even intensified political strife as the dust settled and as authentic Iraqi majorities fashioned their own political arrangements.
An inconclusive but prolonged military occupation lasting for years while an elusive goal is pursued.
Bug Man
Of the former exterminator, a Republican close to the President's inner circle says, "They have always seen him as beneath them, more blue collar. He's seen as a useful servant, not someone you would want to vacation with."
Now, that just couldn't be true of the man of the people that Chris Matthews always tells me about? Tom DeLay too "blue collar" for Prince Bush?
Frank Rich
Given that the reporters on the Times story, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, wrote that nearly a dozen current and former officials had served as their sources, there may be more leaks to come, and not just to The Times. Sooner or later we'll find out what the White House is really so defensive about.
Perhaps it's the obvious: the errant spying ensnared Americans talking to Americans, not just Americans talking to jihadists in Afghanistan. In a raw interview transcript posted on MSNBC's Web site last week - and quickly seized on by John Aravosis of AmericaBlog - the NBC News foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked Mr. Risen if he knew whether the CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour might have been wiretapped. (Mr. Risen said, "I hadn't heard that.") Surely a pro like Ms. Mitchell wasn't speculating idly. NBC News, which did not broadcast this exchange and later edited it out of the Web transcript, said Friday it was still pursuing the story.
If the Bush administration did indeed eavesdrop on American journalists and political opponents (Ms. Amanpour's husband, Jamie Rubin, was a foreign policy adviser to the Kerry campaign), it's déjà Watergate all over again. But even now we can see that there's another, simpler - and distinctly Bushian - motive at play here, hiding in plain sight.
That motive is not, as many liberals would have it, a simple ideological crusade to gut the Bill of Rights. Real conservatives, after all, are opposed to Big Brother; even the staunch Bush ally Grover Norquist has criticized the N.S.A.'s overreaching. The highest priority for the Karl Rove-driven presidency is instead to preserve its own power at all costs. With this gang, political victory and the propaganda needed to secure it always trump principles, even conservative principles, let alone the truth. Whenever the White House most vociferously attacks the press, you can be sure its No. 1 motive is to deflect attention from embarrassing revelations about its incompetence and failures.
Open Thread
I realize every thread comes with an expiration mark on the package, but I want mine to be a long time from now, like a Cheeto.