Frank Rich: And That’s Not the Way It Is

By GottaLaff

When Walter Cronkite passed away, I posted a rant. Now Frank Rich has one of his own, of sorts, and does a far better job. Some excerpts:

What matters about Cronkite is that he knew when to stop being reassuring Uncle Walter and to challenge those who betrayed his audience’s trust. He had the guts to confront not only those in power but his own bosses. Given the American press’s catastrophe of our own day — its failure to unmask and often even to question the White House propaganda campaign that plunged us into Iraq — these attributes are as timely as ever.

That’s why the past week’s debate about whether there could ever again be a father-figure anchor with Cronkite’s everyman looks and sonorous delivery is an escapist parlor game. What matters is content, not style. The real question is this: How many of those with similarly exalted perches in the news media today — and those perches, however diminished, still do exist in the multichannel digital age — will speak truth to power when the country is on the line? This journalistic responsibility cannot be outsourced to Comedy Central and Jon Stewart. [...]

The real test is how a journalist responds when people in high places are doing low deeds out of camera view and getting away with it. Vietnam and Watergate, not Kennedy and Neil Armstrong, are what made Cronkite Cronkite. [...]

To appreciate how special Cronkite’s achievements were, consider our recent past. As the Bush administration hyped Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent W.M.D. and nonexistent link to 9/11, The Times and The Post too often enabled the fictions. But at least some reporters at these papers and others elsewhere were on to the hoax — even if their findings were buried in the back pages. At the networks, Cronkite’s heirs were not even practicing journalism. They invited administration propagandists to trumpet their tales of imminent mushroom clouds with impunity. [...]

The bigger problem is the persistence of that clubby culture Halberstam described, no matter which party is in power. The hagiography that greeted McNamara’s arrival in Washington was also showered initially on some of the best and the brightest in the Bush and Obama administrations. Some journalists even fawn over the worst and the stupidest. As e-mail released by Mark Sanford’s office revealed, David Gregory of NBC News tried to get an interview with the sleazy governor by reassuring him that “‘Meet the Press’ allows you to frame the conversation how you really want to.”

Watching many of the empty Cronkite tributes in his own medium over the past week, you had to wonder if his industry was sticking to mawkish clichés just to avoid unflattering comparisons. If he was the most trusted man in America, it wasn’t because he was a nice guy with an authoritative voice and a lived-in face. It wasn’t because he “loved a good story” or that he removed his glasses when a president died. It was because at a time of epic corruption in the most powerful precincts in Washington, Cronkite was not at the salons and not in the tank.

Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: Check this out.

The Ugly Bush Stain may be indelible this time.

My jaw just hit the floor... and then I staggered to a chair and collapsed. Just... read:

Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.

The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

One particularly striking set of images - selected from the 1,000 photographs released - includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.

The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the Arctic. More than a million square kilometres of sea ice - a record loss - were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous year.

Nor has this loss shown any sign of recovery. [...]

The phenomenon threatens to set off runaway heating of the planet, say climatologists.The latest revelations have triggered warnings from scientists that they no longer have the funds to keep a comprehensive track of climate change. [...]

The Obama administration has already taken steps to tackle America's flagging scientific lead. The president's economic recovery plan allotted $170m (£100m) to help close the gaps in climate modelling. The NOAA is seeking an additional $390m in its 2010 budget to upgrade environmental satellites, and help make data more available to researchers and government officials.

See for yourself:

(click on image to enlarge)

I get frustrated with the ObamAdministration at times, but this is one area (among many others) where I support him 1000%. He gets it.

And BushCo, once again, has put all of our lives in danger.

VIDEO: Sarah the Quitter Talks Boots on the Ground at Wasilla Governor’s Picnic

By GottaLaff

Via Mudflats:

A whole lotta patriotic word salad with God bless America croutons! (That means anything but politics)

I have to quote Ana Marie Cox's Tweet. It's perfect:

PALIN RESIGNATION DRINKING GAME: frivolous, waste, CITIZENS OF ALASKA, passing the ball, man-to-man defense, USE OF VOWELS

I'll get my Margarita pitcher ready. Meantime, we can all practice, using the above video.

Biden Says Weakened Russia Will Bend to U.S.

By GottaLaff

Vice President Biden speaks and pow! The punditiots start right in. Just now on CNN, Bill Schneider said that although Biden's points were good ones, he shouldn't have expressed them out loud. Well, Bill, he did:

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview that Russia's economy is "withering," and suggested the trend will force the country to make accommodations to the West on a wide range of national-security issues, including loosening its grip on former Soviet republics and shrinking its vast nuclear arsenal.

Mr. Biden said he believes Russia's economic problems are part of a series of developments that have contributed to a significant rethinking by Moscow of its international self-interest. The geographical proximity of the emerging nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea is also likely to make Russia more cooperative with the U.S. in blocking their growth, he said.

But in the interview, at the end of a four-day trip to Ukraine and Georgia, Mr. Biden said domestic troubles are the most important factor driving Russia's new global outlook. "I think we vastly underestimate the hand that we hold," he said.

There are several quotes here. A sample:

On domestic difficulties that are affecting Russian foreign policy:

"The reality is the Russians are where they are. They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable." [...]

On whether Moscow will assist the U.S. in clamping down on nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea:

"I can see Putin sitting in Moscow saying, 'Jesus Christ, Iran gets the nuclear weapon, who goes first?' Moscow, not Washington." [...]

On the need for the U.S. not to overplay its hand with Moscow:

"It is never smart to embarrass an individual or a country when they're dealing with significant loss of face. My dad used to put it another way: Never put another man in a corner where the only way out is over you. It just is not smart."

Much more here.

Summer FUNdraiser, because PhotObama is FUN!

Dear TPC Readers,

Fundraisers are a necessity, but think how much fun they can be! We offer you lovely photos, and Paddy has gone so far as to promise to reward you with a naked baby picture! So, as tough as it is to donate, we try to add a dash of frivolity to ease the pain.

Seriously, we so appreciate your patience and understanding, it means the world to us.

We also understand that this isn't the easiest time to ask you to donate. We get it.

We love what we do and want to keep on bringing you the bestest snark, ongoing stories, and breaking news. Unfortunately, in order to do that, we need your help.

If you are inclined and able, please donate through the above widget or the direct PayPal button at the upper right. Paddy and I really do appreciate it immensely.

Any donation from $5 to a trazillion dollars is more than welcome.

If you'd like to contribute by check or money order, feel free to email us at thepoliticalcarnival at gmail dot com.

Thank you so much, because without you, we would disappear more quickly than freedom of choice under a conservative Supreme Court Judge.

Now, just to erase that image from your mind, here's something much more pleasant:

Love,

Laffy and Paddy

Snark-infested Broken News: Lou Dobbs' Birth Certificate a FAKE!

By GottaLaff

Deport him now!

The Birther Movement-- or BM, as it's called for short-- has gotten quite a bit of attention lately, as many small groups and individuals proclaim that President Obama has no US birth certificate. [...]

[B]eing a part of the BM means staying true to the principles that the BM is all about-- questioning where people were really born, and whether their birth certificates are really real. And we have to stay true to those principles even when it might not feel so great.

Therefore, it is with some sadness that I report: a recent champion of the BM is, in fact, not what he appears to be. I am referring to Mexican-born Lou Dobbs, host of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Mexican-born? Yes, you read that correctly. Mr. Dobbs is NOT, as it turns out, a legal US citizen.

Dobbs' biography has always been sketchy when it comes to place of birth-- some sources claim he was born in Childress, Texas, while others cite Rupert, Idaho. Neither "fact" turns out to be the truth.

Louis Dobbs was born in Delicias, Chihuahua-- MEXICO-- and was later smuggled into the United States by Texas Propane Salesman Frank Dobbs, who kept the truth of his son's south-of-the-border origins a secret, even from little Lou himself, who only learned about his Mexican birth in adolescence, and who would spend the rest of his adult life desperately trying to cover up the truth.

His fake Texas birth certificate contains all the right details, but a closer examination reveals a subtle, almost inexplicable hint revealing his true place of birth...

On behalf the entire BM, we DEMAND that deportation proceedings begin immediately for Mr. Dobbs! Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time before he sneaks back across "Our Broken Borders."

The BM is dedicated to finding the hidden truth of people whose Birth Certificates we have never seen, and to disputing the validity of those we HAVE seen.

If you don't have a US Birth Certificate....
Or if you HAVE one, but we remain UNCONVINCED...

WATCH OUT!

Because the BM is spreading... ALL OVER AMERICA!

Orszag response to CBO report: Supports what Obama has said all along

By GottaLaff

Peter Orszag responds to the CBO report I posted about earlier. Ahem, not so fast there, Politico:

This morning, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed proposals to shift more decision-making out of politics and toward a body like the Independent Medicare Advisory Council (IMAC) put forward by the Administration. CBO noted that this type of approach could lead to significant long-term savings in federal spending on health care and that the available evidence implies that a substantial share of spending on health care contributes little, if anything, to the overall health of the nation. This supports what President Obama has said all along: we can reduce waste and unnecessary spending without reducing quality of care and benefits.

The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. (Indeed, under the Administration’s approach, the IMAC system would not even begin to make recommendations until 2015.) Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term. In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset.

With regard to the long-term impact, CBO suggested that the proposal, with several specific tweaks that would strengthen its operations, could generate significant savings. [...]

The bottom line is that it is very rare for CBO to conclude that a specific legislative proposal would generate significant long-term savings so it is noteworthy that, with some modifications, CBO reached such a conclusion with regard to the IMAC concept.

A final note is worth underscoring. As a former CBO director, I can attest that CBO is sometimes accused of a bias toward exaggerating costs and underestimating savings. Unfortunately, parts of today’s analysis from CBO could feed that perception. [...]

[I]t is also the case that (for good reason) CBO has restricted itself to qualitative, not quantitative, analyses of long-term effects from legislative proposals. In providing a quantitative estimate of long-term effects without any analytical basis for doing so, CBO seems to have overstepped.

Read the whole thing here.

The headline of my earlier post was lifted from the Politico piece: "CBO deals new blow to health plan". Easy to understand, dramatic, and memorable. Now then, isn't that just like the Rushpublics?

Here we go again. We have the usual challenge: Refute, explain, repeat, and make it easy to understand, and hopefully, memorable.

H/t: Ellen

Apologizing Doc Lashes Out At Criticism Over Racist Obama Email, Then Resigns

By GottaLaff

Original post here. Need a refresher?

Dr. David McKalip forwarded to fellow members of a Google listserv affiliated with the Tea Party movement the image [above]. Above it, he wrote: "Funny stuff."

What a peach:

Dr. David McKalip has told fellow conservative activists that thanks to the flap over his racist email showing President Obama as a witch doctor, he will no longer appear publicly in opposition to health-care reform.

"For now, in the interest of protecting this movement from any collateral damage, I am withdrawing from making media appearances on health system reform," McKalip wrote this morning in an email -- obtained by TPMmuckraker -- to fellow members of an online health-care discussion group affiliated with the Tea Party movement.

The email exchange obtained by TPMmuckraker also shows that even McKalip's apology to President Obama last night wasn't quite the heartfelt act of contrition it was presented as.

When McKalip showed the apology to his Tea Party cohorts, he included a separate message just for them -- published earlier by the Florida alt weekly Creative Loafing -- in which he minimized the email as a "lapse in judgment" and blamed the flap on "powerful enemies."

It reads:

I have had a very hard day. When you stand up and fight effectively for freedom and to protect the rights of patients from control by the government and insurance companies - you develop powerful enemies. They have used the opportunity of a lapse in judgment to try to discredit me since they can't discredit my arguments. I am proud of my accomplishments in this fight. I am more proud of the hundreds of thousands of Americans I have come to know who feel as I do and are willing to stand up for freedom. The next few days will be difficult, and I ask for your support.

The emails also show that McKalip's original response to the criticism he began to receive after we revealed his racist email was equally defiant. About an hour after our post went up yesterday morning, he wrote to fellow activists, in an email titled: "Race Baiting by Obama Camp on health care":

Here they come. The first of what likely will be many emails accusing me of being a rascist (sic) for forwarding this email of Obama as a witch doctor. Almost like Hillary and the Obama photo form the presidential campaign.

ADVICE TO ALL: DON'T GET ANGERED AND TAKE THE BAIT ON STUFF LIKE THIS. Remain calm and cool and discuss health policy at all times. The worst they got from me was that people are worried about the health care plans Obama has and that I am busy and had to end the call.

So Talking points memo is apparently painting me as a racist for sending around a picture that points out that health care will get worse if the government takes it over. Looks like I made the top of the list and they BUT THEY DID USE THE ONLY QUOTE I GAVE THEM!! (see below). Apparently they have a professional "Muckraker" for a reporter (see below).

This may be worth doing a story on about how these ultra liberal groups like to race bait and avoid the issue. Professional muckraker? Please. Now they are calling my office phones too!!! Yippee.

Lesson learned: Any attempt to discuss politics will lead to a race-baiting war. Also: Don't engage on anything that looks like personal attacks on Obama. It casues distraction that confuses the issues.

Don't let them bait you. I will choose to ignore them and always talk about the issues.

In response, one recipient, Robin Stublen, listed as the "FL Co-State Coordinator Tea Party Patriots" wrote:

What we cant tell them to kiss our white ass anymore? Man you guys are no fun at all.

[...] McKalip has now resigned as president of the Pinellas County Medical Association.

What an inclusive bunch. That Big Tent just keeps collapsing faster and faster under the weight of all that love, doesn't it?

Much more here.

VIDEO-- Grassley: Obama willing to drop public option

By GottaLaff

Um, excuse me? Are we to believe this?




Another WTF moment:

In a call with progressive bloggers a day before the press conference, Obama said he continues to “believe that a robust public option would be the best way to go.” In the press conference itself, Obama said a public option is necessary “to keep the insurance companies honest” and his view that by taking “some of the profit motive out,” you can get a “better deal” for consumers.

But in his interview with Hunt, Grassley claimed that Obama has told him privately that he is willing to consider “reasonable alternatives” to a robust public option.

Sarah the Quitter 2012 bumper sticker

By GottaLaff

Sarah the Quitter 2012 bumper sticker:

CBO deals new blow to health plan

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: Here is the actual CBO letter.

This is via Politico, the only source of this story I can find so far, so take it for what it's worth. But no matter whose article it is, it seems we have yet another Uh-Oh Moment:

For the second time this month, congressional budget analysts have dealt a blow to the Democrat's health reform efforts, this time by saying a plan touted by the White House as crucial to paying for the bill would actually save almost no money over 10 years.

A key House chairman and moderate House Democrats on Tuesday agreed to a White House-backed proposal that would give an outside panel the power to make cuts to government-financed health care programs. White House budget director Peter Orszag declared the plan "probably the most important piece that can be added" to the House's health care reform legislation.

But on Saturday, the Congressional Budget Office said the proposal to give an independent panel the power to keep Medicare spending in check would only save about $2 billion over 10 years- a drop in the bucket compared to the bill's $1 trillion price tag.

"In CBO's judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized ... but there is also a chance that substantial savings might be realized. Looking beyond the 10-year budget window, CBO expects that this proposal would generate larger but still modest savings on the same probabilistic basis," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote in a letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Saturday.

The proposal's meager savings are a blow to Democrats working furiously to bring down costs in order to win support from their party's fiscally conservative Blue Dogs, who have threatened to vote against the bill without significant changes. The proposal was heralded as a breakthrough on Tuesday after Blue Dogs and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman emerged from the White House with agreement on giving the independent panel, rather than Congress, the ability to rein in Medicare spending.

Video- Wingers Coulter, Buchanan and Frum: Palin, "Bigger" Than Obama, or Quitter?

Even the wingers can't decide. I like the way Frum compared her to Michael Jackson.

(CBS) Is Sarah Palin still a star, or a fading quitter? What does the future hold for her?

If a three-way discussion among Republican pundits on "The Early Show Saturday Edition" is any indication, more of the same -- she'll remain as controversial and passion-provoking rod as ever.

Author and right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter, GOP strategist Bay Buchanan, and NewMajority.com founder and former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum had at it over the question of whether Palin could be a viable presidential candidate at some point.

(snip)

Buchanan said Palin's quitting will tarnish her severely, Coulter claimed Palin is still so big she's even a bigger story than President Obama, and Frum cited the very discussion they were having as proof of how divisive Palin is, even in her own party.

Has anything changed under Obama? From 40 lb. rats to low tech Hell, Gitmo: the inside story

By GottaLaff

Apologies up front for the length of this post. However, these are only a few excerpts. This is a must-read.

Naomi Wolf went to Guantánamo Bay to see whether anything has changed. See if this reminds you of anything I've written (links to all my posts on the subject are below):

I went to Guantánamo last month to see for myself what difference, if any, Obama’s election had made. My trip was surreal from start to end. [...]

Lawyers are kept in a compound on one side of the military base at Guantánamo, journalists housed on the other side; they may never communicate with or run into one another. As a journalist, a handler sticks within 18in of you at all times, standing outside when you go to the bathroom and near by when you buy personal items at the commissary; your phone calls and e-mail are monitored. [...]

My mobile phone could not call out directly, my BlackBerry did not work, there was no internet access for my computer. My press kit had a scene of a lush sunset on the cover, and a speedboat. [...]

[O]ur first stop, Camp X-Ray.

As the military handlers made pleasant jokes about the heat, I took in a low-tech vision of Hell. This was the site of the first scenes from Guantánamo, where men sweltered in kennel-like cages. These were the cages themselves: about 50, each about 8ftx12ft, an aisle down the centre for guards to move in, a slab of corrugated iron on top of each cell, and a pipe with a funnel at groin level, in which to urinate; open to the elements; no walls, no true shade. Concrete floors. There had been buckets for defaecation, MC1 Dwight told us; but the prisoners had thrown the faeces at the guards. There was a communal shower, now crumbling — but the prisoners had not liked to shower in groups, naked. [...]

I went into a cell; grinding heat, drenching humidity, pure exposure to the sun. It was as if you were being cooked in a man-sized convection oven. “Look out!” shouted Petty Officer Dwight. “Banana rats!” [...]

[C]limbing across the wire walls and on to the roof of the cell was a 40lb rodent, with a long wiry tail, the size of a bulldog. Another one scurried along the base of the wall, a baby on its back; a third made itself at home in the undergrowth of the neighbouring cell — big, grotesque creatures with no fear. I imagined what it must have been like to try to sleep in that black heat, these animals slipping in and out of the cages with their great claws and teeth.

Behind the cages was the interrogation hut — a plywood shack painted with a red cross. [...] I knew that this was the notorious isolation cell. Prisoners in a detention camp are so cowed by the sight of the isolation cell and those held in it that they become compliant, since isolation is far more damaging psychologically to many prisoners than anything else. [...]

I went into the interrogation room. A table, two chairs. Gaffer tape remained in long strips on the plywood walls, not holding anything together, but positioned near by like an office supply; a pile of wadded-up grey gaffer tape remained on the floor. [...]

Military spokespeople must give answers, but the answers are maddeningly evasive. Can detainees get mail from their loved ones? I asked often. What if someone dies of natural causes, who notifies the family? If a loved one calls, can prisoners take the call? What happens to care packages from loved ones? What if a spouse asks to visit? Can I see the letter that tells her that she can’t? I put these questions “in writing” and asked them at least five times up the chain of command, and followed up multiple times on my return. Most of my questions were met — from higher-level “media specialists” such as Lieutenant-Commander Brook DeWalt or Major Haynie — with non-answers. “I don’t know, but I can ask for you.” “That is above my pay grade.”

The detainee handlers and the lawyers for detainees often flatly contradict each other. The handlers and my press kit claim that “Detainees get a call every couple of months” or quarterly, and that “they make phone calls on a regular basis — every few weeks”. But Kebriaei says that her clients can make calls “every six months if they are lucky”. “Detainees get mail all the time,” the handlers claim. “Care packages are destroyed,” says Kebriaei, who described the security-driven destruction of the orthopaedic shoes that her elderly client needed for his swollen feet. [...] [Note: Lt. Col. Barry Wingard's client, Fayiz al-Kandari, gets one phone call per year]

There in front of me was a shower stall fully fronted with glass, facing into a public central hallway where military men and women passed regularly. It forced male prisoners daily into a state of public nudity, which is illegal according to US and international law. [...]

We were told that the detainees get to watch TV three hours a day; that their favourite TV show is The Deadliest Catch, about fishing; and that they also love Harry Potter. [...]

At the end of the hall I opened a door. Before me was an unused cell, packed halfway to the ceiling with hundreds of cans of Ensure, the liquid nutrient used in force-feeding. (Jen Nessel, of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, had told me that 24 detainees were being force-fed daily, in restraining chairs, because they were on hunger strike.) Lieutenant Fulghum came to get me, annoyed. “No one is supposed to go this far down the hall,” he snapped. I asked if anybody was on hunger strike. “We are not allowed to say. The medical staff handles that,” Lieutenant Fulghum said. [...]

Outside, all around us, we saw a facility — one scheduled to be closed by December 2009 — under massive new construction: dozens of labourers were digging, surrounded by the grinding noise of building. A facility that Congress thinks it is discussing the “how” of closing — and that the President has claimed for six months is already slated for closure — was metastasising under our very eyes. When I asked about this I was told that the money had been allocated already and so it would be more expensive to stop construction than to keep it going. [...]

A Department of Defence spokesman, Joe Della Vedova, had called the claim that prisoners had been tortured at Guantánamo, “a posture of the defence”; Petty Officer Dwight called it “a matter of opinion”. And Lieutenant-Commander DeWalt called it “an assertion” and “a point of view”.) I would subsequently discover that the day before I met the psychologist and the nurse, a detainee, Muhammad al-Hanashi, had died, in what the Joint Task Force Guantánamo press office reported as an “alleged suicide”. Six weeks later, that death still has not have been investigated by an independent body. [...]

He explained that “about 520 detainees were designated as enemy combatants, the remaining 40 or so are no longer enemy combatants”. Why, I wondered, was there no category for “never been enemy combatants”? [...]

“As I understand the process,” the Polish reporter said, “it is the detainee alone against the US Government?”

“I don’t understand the question,” Captain Bauer replied.

I asked why there were two different chairs with shackles. Captain Bauer explained that if the detainee had another detainee as his witness, then he would be present. In sources provided by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and the American Civil Liberties Union I had read that prisoners had been abused to provide false confessions implicating other prisoners, in just this setting, and that their “enemy combatant” status had been based on these false confessions. Testimony of witnesses who were not from within the prison system, so not subjected to coercion, was of course crucial for the review to be effective. Have there ever been any, or were any witnesses there, on the island right now?

“I can’t confirm whether there have or not.” [...]

I asked our guide if there was lawyer-client privilege, or was the cell under surveillance? “I can’t answer that,” the guide said. (The defence lawyer Wells Dixon said that he always assumed that his conversations with his client were being listened in to.) [...]

I asked DeWalt if, in the rebranded military commissions under Obama’s Administration, real witnesses will be flown in from outside the prison system. “It’s a fair question — I’ll get back to you,” he said. So far, he has not done so. [...]

To explain why the detainees are not permitted to speak to reporters, Clarke says, the Department of Defence is citing the Geneva Conventions. “Which is kind of interesting because their position has been that the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to these guys. If the Geneva Conventions applied they would be able to have a canteen from which to buy things, tobacco that they could have, a right to organise themselves and have a representative.”

“Remember,” Clarke says, “for a lot of these guys, there’s no evidence. The military said that of the 240 guys left here maybe 80 will eventually be ‘tried’ in some form. What about the rest? A lot of these people have been held because they stayed at a guest house or they had some supposed connections or affiliations [with al-Qaeda]. ‘Connections’ are like ... someone’s brother was a member. Or allegedly a member. The whole world has a misconception that these guys were picked up on the battlefield. And a whole lot of them were not. [Note: Fayiz al-Kandari wasn't. He stayed with a family who turned him in for bounty. He's been imprisoned at Gitmo for over 7 years.]

“This country is based on the rule of law,” Clarke continued quietly. “If you truly have no reason to hold someone, you can’t hold them. National security cannot override freedom.

“At the end of the day our freedom is more important. If we lose our freedom — what are we trying to secure?”

What, indeed?

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

U.S. admits it has no case against teen held at Gitmo

By GottaLaff

Just yesterday I posted about the U.S. Department of Justice considering pressing criminal charges against Lt. Col. Vandeveld's former client (the Lt. Col. resigned in protest). Why a criminal trial here in the U.S. of A. after all this time? Here's why:

The Justice Department conceded Friday that it lacks the evidence to hold a teenage Guantanamo detainee as an enemy combatant after a federal judge last week ruled that his confession was inadmissible.

In a hearing last week, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle ruled that Mohammed Jawad's confession to Afghan officials was inadmissible because it had been extracted through torture.

That "T" Word sure causes a mess-o'-trouble for our legal system, doesn't it?

She also questioned whether the Justice Department had any evidence to proceed with a trial to determine whether he can be held as an enemy combatant.

Fayiz al-Kandari, Lt. Col. Barry Wingard's client, can relate. See links below.

Huvelle called the case an "outrage" and told Justice Department lawyers that their case against Jawad had been "gutted."

"Without his statements, I don't understand your case," she told Justice Department lawyers. "Sir, the facts can only get smaller, not bigger. . . . Face it, this case is in trouble. . . . Seven years and this case is riddled with holes."

Ding! We have a winner! Aww, enemy combatant status, it looks like we'll be saying good-bye, but hey, we have parting gifts:

She then urged the lawyers to "let him out. Send him back to Afghanistan."

Department lawyers, however, signaled they may bring him to the U.S. for a criminal trial.

But do they have enough evidence? Let's find out:

In a statement issued Friday, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the department had to determine whether it has enough evidence to prosecute him in criminal court.

Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer with the ACLU's National Security Project, was skeptical that the government could come up with new evidence to prosecute Jawad in federal court.

"They're simply trying to manufacture new ways to prolong his detention," he said.

The Justice Department's case against Jawad, whom Afghan officials say was captured when he was just 12 years old, underscores the difficulties the U.S. government faces in justifying its continued imprisonment of Guantanamo detainees.

And speaking of difficulties:

Last year, a military judge determined that Afghan police threatened Jawad's family while he was undergoing interrogation at a Kabul police station. The judge also concluded there was evidence that Jawad was under the influence of drugs at the time of his capture and forced confession.

''You will be killed if you do not confess to the grenade attack,'' the detainee quoted an interrogator as saying. "We will arrest your family and kill them if you do not confess.''

Hmmmyeah, that kind of testimony is a little, how you say, unreliable.

Now you get an inkling of why the DoJ needs to design its own court system, aka "Commissions", to gain a handful of convictions.

And thanks for playing, "I'm Not an Enemy Combatant, Get me Outta Here!"

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Canadian health care hardly a Marxism threat

By GottaLaff

Why, those crazy Marxist Canadians are positively unAmerican! Wait. No. They should be. They're not American.

Why, those crazy Canadians have some great ideas that we would benefit from in America! There. That's better:

To hear the extremist rhetoric floating around south of the border, you'd think Canada's public health-care system was the socialist demon incarnate, hatched directly from the fevered imaginations of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels themselves.

Cool it, America. Your health-care system is nothing to write home about, with some 46 million people sans insurance, with your managed care and gatekeepers, your doctors wasting time filling out insurance forms, and your insurance companies dreaming up ways to avoid paying out to people who faithfully paid their premiums for years. [...] Then, there are the bake sales to fund some poor soul's cancer treatment, and the bankruptcies of people overwhelmed by medical bills they can never pay. America, you in your glass house down there are hardly the ones to be lobbing stones across the border.

Among the agenda-driven fearmongers are Conservatives for Patients' Rights, led by Rick Scott, who used to head up Columbia/ Hospital Corporation of America (a firm that pleaded guilty to over-billing, after it was probed for fraud), and Patients United Now, which is funded by the right-wing Americans For Prosperity.

However, judging from a CBS News/New York Times poll done June 20, the average American, whose only agenda is his or her own health, is longingly eyeing a public system. [...]

A Harvard University study released in 2005 found that 50 per cent of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in the U. S. in 2001 were due to medical bills, with an estimated two million Americans affected each year. Most of these people were caught in a terrible Catch-22, the kind Canadians do not have to contend with, thanks to our public health-care system. [...]

[N]obody up here has to remortgage their home or scrounge up $100,000 to pay for their health care. [...] Further, the Canadian health-care system prioritizes cases and people whose situations are dire do get in faster; such triaging is done every day with heart bypass surgery and MRIs. [...]

The ad claims Canadian patients have long waits, and don't get care, or certain drugs and treatments, because "the government says patients aren't worth it." That's Stephen Harper's government they're talking about, and although Harper in his pre-prime ministerial incarnation advocated private health care, he ran his election campaign on a promise to preserve public health care. Harper's government is definitely not saying anything about patients not being worth it. [...]

The attacks on Canada's health-care system by Americans gleefully pouncing on the things that are wrong, ignore the far greater number of things that are right.

The trouble with America's system is that the horror stories are not the "extreme exceptions." When 50 per cent of Americans who declare bankruptcy do so because they can't pay their medical bills, those are not a few extreme cases.

Both countries need to fix what's wrong in their own systems by looking at best practices elsewhere, with an eye to enhancing universal access, not compromising it.

Those crazy Marxists are on to something...

Yet another Republican apology, this time from John Ensign

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

Just keep talking, John, because sometimes a letter just isn't enough. And don't worry, your family--er, The Family-- will be there for you. C Street's loyal that way.

By the way, can I borrow $96,000? I'm a little short, and I need decent health care:

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) issued a statement to the local media attempting to explain himself after facing criticism for his silence surrounding a sex scandal that has been plaguing him for weeks. [...]

"I am very sorry this issue has caused a great deal of embarrassment and pain for my family, the Hamptons, and many of my supporters," Ensign said in the prepared statement, which The Las Vegas Sun posted online late Friday.

Ensign said that potential investigations by the Federal Election Commission and Senate Ethics Committee make public comment on his extramarital affair inadvisable.

Psst! John! Extramarital affairs are inadvisable, too. But did that stop you? Nooooo.

“I know there are questions regarding my affair with Cindy Hampton that people want to know the answers to,” the statement says. “It was reported, however, that CREW was planning to file complaints with the Senate Ethics Committee and the Federal Election Commission, so I have been advised not to publicly comment further at this time.”

CREW, short for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, has called for ethics, election commission, and federal criminal investigations of Ensign’s actions in relation to the affair with Hampton last year.

“If any inquiries are undertaken, then I am confident they will be resolved in my favor and those questions will be answered,” Ensign said.

You're that confident, huh? What, did you pay CREW off, too, or just write them a carefully crafted letter with a little help from the C Street Frat Boys?

What the CIA hid from Congress

By GottaLaff

Jane Harman (D-Venice) chairs the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence and terrorism risk assessment, and part of the "Gang of Eight" who are " required by law to be briefed on the CIA's "covert" action programs." She'd like to clarify a few things:

[C]omments by Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA, that the Gang of Eight was "fully" briefed on the TSP prompt me to disclose, for the first time, what they were like.

In virtually every meeting, Hayden would present PowerPoint "slides," walking us through the operational details of the TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program]. The program has since been described, in part, as one that intercepted communications to and from the U.S. in an effort to uncover terrorist networks and prevent or disrupt attacks. We were told that the program was the centerpiece of our counter-terrorism efforts, legal and yielding impressive results.

Often present were CIA officials (including then-Director George Tenet) and then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. Missing was any Justice Department presence -- a tipoff, in retrospect, to the legal limbo under which the program operated. [...]

It is now clear to me that we learned only what the briefers wanted to tell us -- even though they were required by law to keep us "fully and currently informed." Absent the ability to do any independent research, it did not occur to me then that the program was operated wholly outside of the framework Congress created as the exclusive means to conduct such surveillance: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Nor did I know that the Justice Department was cut out of the process, and that one lawyer, John Yoo, had drafted the internal memo justifying the TSP under the president's Article 2 authorities. A new head of the Office of Legal Counsel repudiated that memo, citing the "shoddiness" of the legal reasoning. [...]

While our country had experienced the worst terrorist attack in our history, the Orwellian solution conjured up by a small group in the Bush administration was to shred our laws and Constitution in order to save us -- a false and unnecessary choice. [...]

The House and Senate intelligence authorization bills would require increased notification, including, in the House bill, information on lawfulness, cost, benefit and risk. The White House has issued a veto threat, citing constitutional concerns. Surely both sides -- and policy -- would profit more from a robust partnership.

Remember, John Yoo was one of the exclusive fraternity that created law, as in "Torture Memos" (all my related posts on torture, detainee mistreatment, military commissions, etc. here).

This sleazy little club would concoct flimsy, tortured legal memos that were binding, and they would do so under the radar, excluding anybody whose input should have been seriously considered, even required. If anybody dared challenge them, they would be loudly and abruptly cut short and/or paid lip service and ignored.

Jane Mayer goes into great detail about this in her book The Dark Side.

I have two words for BushCo: Screw Yoo.

Video- President Obama & Sec. Clinton Speak on Human Rights for Persons with Disabilities

Homeland Security Probes Racist Postings on Newspaper Site

This stuff is just so damn scary.

WASHINGTON The Department of Homeland Security is investigating whether one of its employees used a government e-mail account to post racially insensitive comments on a newspaper Web site in western New York.

The postings were made in late June in a public comments section in the Wayne County Star.

They were in response to an article about U.S. border patrol agents detaining Mexican farmworkers.

The comments were made anonymously, but the newspaper traced them to Internet protocol addresses in the border patrol division of the Department of Homeland Security.

Video- David Letterman: Top Ten Things Overheard At Sarah Palin's Farewell Party

Video- Fox Commentator Ralph Peters Strikes Again- Do We Really Want Free Speech?

This guy has to have some kind of stupid virus.

Poll- Obama Gets High Marks on Leadership

Let's hope that leadership gets the fracking Congress off their butts and getting the work done.

A new Gallup poll finds solid majorities of Americans believe President Obama "is a strong and decisive leader and say he understands the problems Americans face in their daily lives. The president gets slightly lower marks on two other personal characteristics -- being able to effectively manage the government and sharing Americans' values."

Video- Sarah Palin's Wasilla goodbye picnic draws a crowd

Toodloo honey. Jonathan has some good analysis of the situation as Palin leave.

Video- First Lady Michelle Obama Celebrates National Design Awards

Saturday Links For Thee

Whooo hoo!! It's Saturday, which means that Jeff is going to sit down and watch parts 1-4 of Torchwood: Children of Earth, so we can watch the finale together. (Perfect rainy, overcast day for it) I don't remember enjoying a television show like this in a really long time. It's totally stand alone, so you don't have to have watched Torchwood the series to get it. But you do have to like the Sci Fi.

Encouraged by Federal Aid, U.S. Firms Spring to Power Next Generation of Cars

Mailboxes start to disappear

Report: NKorea opens 1st fast-food restaurant

5 ancient Roman shipwrecks found off Italy coast

Toucan's bill keeps things cool, study says

Jacko Is Forever As Hair Turns Into Diamonds

Swedish doctors refuse to circumcise boys

Retiring soldier eats 36 year old cake in a can

House Bill Lifts Ban On Needle Exchanges

Girl, 8, disowned by parents for being raped

Video- President's Weekly Address: Health Insurance Reform, Small Business and Your Questions

House Dems Reach Agreement On Reining In Medicare Costs

By GottaLaff

Progress:

House Democrats announced agreement Friday on far-reaching steps designed to rein in the relentless growth of Medicare, part of a concerted effort to counter the impression that President Barack Obama's health care legislation is in deep trouble.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the agreement as a "giant step forward" for the bill that Obama has made a test of his leadership. Advocates said it eventually would turn Medicare toward a program that rewards quality, rather than volume, as well as alter a system that pays doctors and other providers more in some regions of the country than others.

Follow the link for more.

BushCo v. The Constitution: Guess who debated using G.I.’s in U.S. to arrest people

By GottaLaff

I just heard Rachel Maddow mention this, so I had to share. She believes that this story is payback for Cheney's recent smackdown of Bush for the Scooter Libby non-pardon, and that it will be a big deal. And since we're into big deals here at TPC:

Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

How sick is it that we consider that kind of BushCo thinking "par for the course"?

Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

Probably because he couldn't pronounce Lackawanna.

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests would be nearly unprecedented in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

As if that would stop His Dickiness.

The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

I seem to remember posting about this possibility back when. Nobody seemed to notice. But you know what they say: Good things come to those who wait.

In the discussions, Mr. Cheney and others cited an Oct. 23, 2001, memorandum from the Justice Department that, using a broad interpretation of presidential authority, argued that the domestic use of the military against Al Qaeda would be legal because it served a national security, rather than a law enforcement, purpose.

That would be the same Justice Department that wrote up those spiffy little torture memos.

“The president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States,” the memorandum said.

Of course it did, because that's what Boy Georgie's DoJ deemed. The United Deem of America. Deem and Deemer?

The memorandum — written by the lawyers John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty — was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked the department about a president’s authority to use the military to combat terrorist activities in the United States.

Ding!

The memorandum was declassified in March. But the White House debate about the Lackawanna group is the first evidence that top American officials, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, actually considered using the document to justify deploying the military into an American town to make arrests. [...]

Former officials in the administration said this debate was not as bitter as others during Mr. Bush’s first term. The discussions did not proceed far enough to put military units on alert.

See how they could all get along when they put their minds to it?

Still, at least one high-level meeting was convened to debate the issue, at which several top Bush aides argued firmly against the proposal to use the military, advanced by Mr. Cheney, his legal adviser David S. Addington and some senior Defense Department officials.

Reminder: Read The Dark Side by Jane Mayer. Learn all about Addington, His Dickiness, and their band of merry despots.

Among those in opposition were Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser; John B. Bellinger III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council; Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Michael Chertoff, then the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division. [...]

Scott L. Silliman, a Duke University law professor specializing in national security law, said an American president had not deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement capacity, without specific statutory authority, since the Civil War.

That, of course, was when His Dickiness was just a young boy.

Senior military officials were never consulted, former officials said. Richard B. Myers, a retired general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview that he was unaware of the discussion. [...]

Despite this guidance, some Bush aides bristled at the prospect of troops descending on an American suburb to arrest terrorism suspects.

“What would it look like to have the American military go into an American town and knock on people’s door?” said a second former official in the debate.

Um, like Iraq?

Chief James L. Michel of the Lackawanna police agreed. “If we had tanks rolling down the streets of our city,” Chief Michel said, “we would have had pandemonium down here.”

Um, like Iraq?

Lt. Col. Vandeveld's former Gitmo detainee client to face criminal charges

By GottaLaff



I've previously posted about Darrel Vandeveld, most recently here, and also here, here, here, and here.

It looks like his former client could very well be tried by our very own DoJ. Funny, suddenly the U.S. court system is acceptable for Gitmo detainees... Watch out, Rushpublics! Before you can say, "in our backyards" detainees may be held in our all-American supermax prisons!

The Justice Department signaled in court papers Friday that it was considering filing criminal charges against a Guantanamo Bay detainee who is alleged to have thrown a grenade at U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The detainee, Mohammed Jawad, would be the second prisoner brought from the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States for a federal trial, if the Justice Department proceeds with a prosecution.[...]

Human rights groups have decried Jawad's detention, asserting that he may have been as young as 12 when he was captured.

Until recently, the government had justified holding Jawad by citing his confessions to Afghan police and U.S. soldiers.

But a federal judge was leaning toward tossing out those statements by adopting a military commission ruling last year that the confessions were obtained through torture.

U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle [...] set a hearing for Aug. 5 and sharply criticized the government's case, saying it was "riddled with holes."

Instead of providing Huvelle new evidence, the government announced it was going to abandon the habeas fight and was examining whether it could charge Jawad with a crime in a U.S. court.

In a search of records, Justice Department lawyers wrote, authorities had discovered eyewitness accounts of the attack "not previously available for inclusion in the record" and videotaped interviews of witnesses. [...]

The Justice Department stopped short of saying it had made a firm decision in his case.

Jonathan Hafetz, Jawad's attorney, said the court filing was "another example of the government playing tricks and games with the federal courts."

"They want to avoid a ruling before a hearing before a federal judge who is poised to rule against them," said Hafetz, who works for the American Civil Liberties Union.[...]

A prosecution of Jawad would have to rely almost entirely on accounts of eyewitnesses placing him at the attack. [...]

The government also alleged that Jawad was associated with a group tied to Osama bin Laden.

The government had planned to try Jawad for the attack in military tribunals. But that case evaporated upon close inspection by military prosecutors and judges who grew concerned about how Afghan police and U.S. forces obtained his confessions the night of the attack.

A military judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley, threw out the statements to Afghan police after he determined the interrogators had threatened to kill Jawad or his family if he didn't confess.

The judge also tossed statements that Jawad gave that night to U.S. soldiers because his fears of being harmed "had not dissipated."

Vandeveld, who was the original military prosecutor in this case, quit over Jawad's treatment and had asked that his client be released.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.