Monday, August 31, 2009

Awaiting the Coming Outrage

Sounds like affirmative action to me*:

U.S. TV show hires ex-president Bush's daughter



I mean, if we're going to lose it when a qualified woman works her ass off to get to the Supreme Court, why wouldn't we soil ourselves over this? Because there are two standards, that's why.

*One caveat: She doesn't have broadcast experience, to my knowledge, and is not a journalist. That's why.

Today's (Not Really) Flash of Genius

So if politicians, especially Republicans opposed to any real health-care reform because they're beholden to insurance companies and other related special interests, continually reference and worry about "what we're leaving our grandchildren" in the health care debate, why are they arguing for the more expensive option and keeping the status quo with minimal reform? They call a public option the enemy of America, but a robust public option, done right, would be cheaper in the long haul. You know what that means ultimately? That, yes, we'd have to invest in the near term and make some very difficult fiscal choices to deal with our debt while installing sane long term policy like a public option. But it also means that a health care system reformed responsibly now would benefit those grandkids down the road.

I bet they would be so thankful if we did something right for them. Maybe, just maybe, we could sacrifice for the future and not be so selfish, while hypocritically claiming to give a shit about the next generations.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

The Dark Side

This guy....

No shame:

"I'm very proud of what we did in terms of defending the nation for the last eight years successfully," Cheney said....


No regret. Soulless:

"I guess the other thing that offends the hell out of me, frankly ... is we had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from Al Qaida," Cheney said. "The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, 'How did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time?'"


Whereas I imagine George W. Bush falls into deep moments of reflection and doubt in his suburban Dallas home these days as he works on his memoir, I can't fathom that this black-hearted fearmonger does anything of the sort. Then again, we do know he's a master liar capable of selling wars and unlawful conduct on many levels, so maybe there's a possibility that he agonizes over his defense of torture on a very personal level. But, again, I lean toward the former, the total embrace of the abuse of executive power to reach a perceived end. Not only do the means not justify the end that Cheney wanted (reliable, surefire intelligence gained from detainees on terror plots), but the end doesn't even exist.

Bushies are resorting to excessive distortion. They're scrambling. Dick Cheney, despite his eerie resolve, is scared to death. Scared not of this lame preliminary review from the Justice Dept. that will only punish those who were given unlawful orders from Bush hacks at DOJ. Not of the Obama administration, who refuses to uphold the law in what may be the most important series of implications for our country's affirmation of a two-tiered justice system since, well, the bank bailouts, which wasn't that long ago. Our rubber stamp of torture is recognized throughout the world. We're now the gold standard for torture, simply because it came from America.

What Dick Cheney is scared of is what will inevitably continue to trickle out through the work of the ACLU, a few journalists (notice not the mainstream media or Congress) and other former Bush officials that are just waiting to divulge what they know, when the time is right. I think we'll get confirmation that he was intimately involved (I mean on the phone multiple times a day), receiving intel from Gitmo and elsewhere and giving direct orders, laws be damned. And we'll find out that he pushed for the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. Explicitly.

No matter how much he lies to us and himself, he knows.

------

Update: And in a related, embarrassing.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Cheney in Hooves

How come it's always Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and The Onion that are best left to articulate the absurdities of our politicians and media establishment? The Onion does a number on the torture debate here:

Fake right-wing pundit: "I think it's sad that the word 'neverending labyrinth of pain' are synonymous with the errors made by one loose-cannon minotaur who, yeah, admittedly went too far."



Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

So is an ax-wielding minotaur where we draw the line? Or is it more realistic to draw that line at the death of detainees while in our captivity?

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Ted Kennedy: Only in America

Ted Kennedy isn't real. (Read that.) He's a prime (if not THE) character out of a uniquely American story of a ruthlessly ambitious, powerful family that represented the possibilities of a generation and the promise of rationality and hope in the Cold War-era. He belonged to a family that zig-zagged in and out dreadful tragedy and enacting true, positive change amongst Americans of all stripes, but especially those in need.

The endless string of demoralizing heartbreak and recklessness only made the triumphs of society that he was responsible for that much better. If there was ever a comeback story, it's of Ted Kennedy. Whether it was assassinations of his brothers, the womanizing, the near-death plane crash, Chappaquidik, his divorce, his botched and petulant run for president in '80, the bizarre death of JFK Jr. ... the list goes on, he may have had the most fascinating life in American history. That may be a trite, impossible statement to make. But, come on, you couldn't make this shit up.

Dying of a slow, power-zapping disease was his destiny. It's almost like it's what he had to endure to live to this point, to have the "opportunity" (or curse) to embody so much mysticism from his family's lore. Add all this to the Irish sadness and lament rushing through his blood, if you believe in that stuff. His life is a biographer's wet dream.

I mean, can you imagine his final months? I can only imagine that in times of certain, foreseeable death, the mind is nowhere to be found by much of anyone. I would guess that your mind flutters in and out of consciousness between the many periods of your life and reality, if only fleetingly. On one entire day, you may follow one person, or idea, or feeling through a thread of your entire life. You revel in any memories you can recall and dissect. No matter how sad or unbelievably happy (which probably is favored in those situations) the memory set was, you went through it all and savored the opportunity to reflect. The emotions, the gravity, the sanctity of every moment is multiplied by ten. And you think that maybe you'll see your long, lost loved ones again, whether you believe in a god or not. This could of course trigger regret and disgust. But Ted Kennedy doesn't strike me as someone that would dwell on the worst. He got this far in life by being, at heart, an optimist for the prospect of America. He could've quit numerous times throughout his life, but he stuck it out. He took his kicks and he had to work for the big victories.

Barack Obama is the living proof that only in America can a man like him, from where he came from, ever be the elected leader of the U.S. It's one of the supreme inspirational success stories of our time. But Ted Kennedy represents the ever-present and widespread feeling of painful downfall and heroic redemption in the lives of every American. Ironically, he was of privilege and power (which didn't hurt the redemption part). It took that silver-spooned boy from the Ivy League to stick up for the majority of Americans that don't have every advantage. I'm sorry, but that just might surpass Mr. Obama in the true-inspirational-American-story category.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Mandatory

Slap this in as the final chapter of 9th grade civics textbooks. (Glenn Greenwald makes clear otherwise at the end, but I say yes, literally.)

Greenwald on yesterday's CIA Inspector General Report.

To those blithely dismissing all of this as things that don't seem particularly bothersome, I'd say two things:

(1) The fact that we are not really bothered any more by taking helpless detainees in our custody and (a) threatening to blow their brains out, torture them with drills, rape their mothers, and murder their children; (b) choking them until they pass out; (c) pouring water down their throats to drown them; (d) hanging them by their arms until their shoulders are dislocated; (e) blowing smoke in their face until they vomit; (f) putting them in diapers, dousing them with cold water, and leaving them on a concrete floor to induce hypothermia; and (g) beating them with the butt of a rifle -- all things that we have always condemend as "torture" and which our laws explicitly criminalize as felonies ("torture means. . . the threat of imminent death; or the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering . . .") -- reveals better than all the words in the world could how degraded, barbaric and depraved a society becomes when it lifts the taboo on torturing captives.

(2) As I wrote rather clearly, numerous detainees died in U.S. custody, often as a direct result of our "interrogation methods." Those who doubt that can read the details here and here. Those claiming there was no physical harm are simply lying -- death qualifies as "physical harm" -- and those who oppose prosecutions are advocating that the people responsible literally be allowed to get away with murder.


Disgusting. And done in our name. Take all the bullshit and spin and party politics and tragedy and let's think of what this is. Savage behavior from one human to another. And the likelihood that the detainee was guilty of any real conspiracy against the U.S. was/is quite low. Some of these guys have died in our custody. Their lives will be ruined, regardless if they're cleared. Yes, if they are guilty (after a relatively swift trial), they should do time. But I'd say a lot of these guys are chumps, and we take the advice to abduct them from the same low-level thugs we're taking in. We've pushed for extreme punishment against countries that have done less. How is this going on without country-wide, bipartisan, patriotic outrage? Because our system of crooks and thieves is too strong and vicious for us to break. The political has consumed the rational. We have stop this and correct the ship.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Too Much Paranoias

This song sums up CIA Director Leon Panetta.

I been dipped in double meaning.

I been stuck with static cling.

There's too much paranoias

There's too much paranoias


He's starting to lose it. This is reported the same day that the Department of Justice releases a 2004 CIA Inspector General report on some of the tactics, some illegal and egregious, by CIA interrogators. But back to the Panetta White House freakout. ABC reports:


A "profanity-laced screaming match" at the White House involving CIA Director Leon Panetta, and the expected release today of another damning internal investigation, has administration officials worrying about the direction of its newly-appoint intelligence team, current and former senior intelligence officials tell ABC News.com.

Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just seven months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders tell ABCNews.com that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.

"You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year," a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com.


And further down in the story, a nod to the turf war pissing contest between newbie outsider boy Panetta and Director of National Intelligence, and military insider, Dennis Blair. Guess who's going to win this one? ABC continues:

"Leon will be leaving," predicted a former top U.S. intelligence official, citing the conflict with Blair. The former official said Panetta is also "uncomfortable" with some of the operations being carried out by the CIA that he did not know about until he took the job.


You know what Leon? I think it's warranted if this kind of sinister activity is staring you in the face. I know Panetta had nothing to do with it, and he's just the poor schmuck that's gotta clean the mess up, but guess what? He knew fully-well what he was inheriting. And now he's flipping out. He couldn't handle the assassination squad information he passed to Congress. Why would he be ready for an impending hack job on the CIA? I would have never guessed. (Oh, by the way, I'm being sarcastic.)

Leon, you ever heard of Lynndie England? One of America's finest (scapegoats)? Well, some of your men are about to eclipse her (although she did have the bad fortune of being attached to her behavior through visual images, while CIA likely won't). The hammer's coming down on the CIA grunts (though it should be noted that some, like Spencer Ackerman, don't see that scenario as complete). The CIA will likely take most of the hell as sacrificial lambs of the Bush Administration's unlawful cynicism and stark abuse of power. (And not so fast Justice Department. There's a chance DOJ's argument, that their opinions were airtight, won't hold up.)

I think Leon was under the impression that they were all going to take a moderate, but palatable fall on this one. He's nervous now. I'm still not convinced that this isn't, as Marcy Wheeler calls it, a complete "whitewash." But it does appear possible that these investigations could lead up the trail. But even at this point, I would say it's unlikely.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Pre-Vacation Prep

This feels right.

Why Wasn't This Pointed Out Earlier? Oh Yeah.

The plot is thickening in the health care debate after a weekend where Obama administration officials, including Obama himself, gave vague signals that the public option was not the most important component in health-care reform. Today the White House is scrambling to make clear, "Hey, hey, hey, ho there folks. We haven't given up on it yet." I don't necessarily believe them, but that's the spin.

What is encouraging are signs that the administration is now vocalizing what has been apparent for quite some time now: Republicans have near zero interest in any meaningful change in health care. Hacks like Chuck Grassley were given (misguided) opportunities to help achieve the ever-allusive, yet always-heralded bipartisan legislation. Whether this lip service from the White House means anything is anyone's guess. Emptywheel's theory is that the White House is trying to cover its tracks without inflaming tensions with moderates or liberals. But does any of this even matter since possibly the only Democrats left that trust Republicans are the two that are leading the legislative action in the Senate Finance Committee: Max Baucus (Captain Ineffective) and Co-op Kent Conrad.

The mainstream media share the blame in sabotaging any honest, rational discourse (as usual). The Economist:

By pitting Barack Obama and his moderate allies in Congress against the more vocal fringes of the Republican Party, the media has moved the centre of the debate over reform far to the right. Add to this dynamic the idea that bipartisanship equals moderation and you may wonder, how can a health-care proposal be moderate if it attracts no Republican support?

But the truth is that Mr Obama has all but ceded control of reform to the likes of Max Baucus and other moderate senators. And if the media focused on that, we'd see that the debate over health care is occurring in the middle of the political spectrum, with the main focus on the "gang of six". As for bipartisanship, on this issue (and perhaps many others) it seems like a faulty measurement of moderation—how can it be accurate if the Republican's chief negotiator, the relatively moderate Chuck Grassley, says he might vote against a bill that gives him everything he wants? (Emphasis mine)


At least the words "public option" are back in the cable news lexicon. But let's not ever forget the creedence the mainstream media awarded the "death panel" meme driven by no other than everyone's favorite McCarthyite and her Facebook page. If there is a God, I hope he or she will grace us with a Palin-Romney GOP ticket in 2012 ... devolution meets top-notch hucksterism. Please let it be so.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Obligatory Annual Huckabee Post

I don't think about Mike Huckabee very often. In fact, I've tried to whitewash his flapping jowls out of my fragile little mind. But he's caught my attention twice in the last few days. I guess you can only keep an evangelical down for so long before Fox gives him his own TV show.

I happened to catch the opening segment Saturday. It was an accident, I swear. Before long, Huckabee hooked me in with his smooth Southern folksiness and plainspoken conviction on the coming socialism that Barack Obama was surely installing into the U.S.

But really, it was a near-stunning display of dishonesty regarding health care. Death panels, rationing, taxpayer-funded abortions (where he was especially vile, making frightening inferences and far-fetched connections), he hit all wingnut fetishes of the day. The misconceptions were not only laughable, but completely warmed-over after the week of debunking they had gone through. Mike can't even time his screwball rhetoric to match the news cycle, apparently.

And he talks to his audience as if they were children, with his mommy voice.

See it here. (I'm sorry that Fox wouldn't provide a working embed code for their crappy video player....)

Then Glenn Greenwald notes that Huckabee ridiculed U.S. policy toward Israel's illegal settlements while he was in Israel. And it seems he was there to do just that: desecrate the Obama administration's in front of militaristic Israeli leaders.

Now ripping policy overseas is fair game in many cases. Can it be quite cowardly? Sure, but definitely not always. If U.S. policy is to allow Israel to have their way in settling territory that isn't theirs (Bush adm.), which sounds illegal to me, I would say it's okay to speak up in a foreign country to denounce what the U.S. condones. But if U.S. policy is to limit (barely) those unlawful settlements (while continuing to pump money and support to Israel), I just don't see the justification. But that's what he did, so there.

Possibly more important is that no one on the Right, nor in the press will give him a hard time about this. They'll certainly rip Al Gore or Jimmy Carter for speaking out, but not when it's their own. The hypocrisy of the Right is, again, shameful. (Why do I act surprised in these moments?)

But more disappointing (but also not shocking) is the willingness of the mainstream media to lift nary a finger to question Huckabee's motives. There are two standards here when it comes to dissent from the Left. MoveOn, Gore, Code Pink, war protesters, "filthy hippies," everyone is lumped into some kind of moonbat category by the MSM. On the Right, the press recognizes patriotic "democracy in action," from town halls to a fervent, again patriotic, support for all things war. I think This Modern World nails it here. (I especially like the menacing Harry Reid in the background.)

As for Huck, I'm waiting for him to come out of the birther closet. I guess we'll then know (if it's possible to "know" anymore) that he's an opportunistic hack trying to out-Palin Palin herself. Hey, those wingnuts don't pledge their loyalty to just anyone these days.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

We've All Got Scars, They Should Have 'Em Too

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey has stepped down from lobbying firm DLA Piper after the drug companies they lobby for spoke out against Armey's blatant resistance to any kind of health-care reform that will pressure private insurance with a public option.

See, now these drug companies are "all about" reform since the White House has clandestinely brokered an $80M deal with the industry to back the lukewarm reform that will inevitably come from Washington. That means Armey, and his FreedomWorks-touting cronyism, had to go.

Sorry Dick. You're no longer needed. But, you will be receiving a hefty check.

Meanwhile, check out Armey stuttering through a defense of killing reform on PBS Thursday night, I believe technically before he left DLA Piper:

Friday, August 14, 2009

Botched

You know Republicans are laughing at us right now, don't you? Record level of majority mandate and power is something Democrats have squandered in a flash in these young days of "progressive change."

Blowing It

I like to think big picture. You have to, right, in this world? If you're not a couple of steps ahead of something, you might as well be SOL. I subscribe to this theory for most important things in my life. Why not apply it to our elected leaders? Namely, the spineless Democrats.

Let's look at the facts of the last year or two, shall we?

1. The U.S. has a president elected decisively in most areas of the nation (west/east/north) as he ran on one major domestic issue: health-care reform.

2. In the last 2.5 years, the country has elected a sizable, solid majority in Congress. In fact, the Democrats have 60 votes in the Senate, a filibuster majority.

3. A Republican party beaten to a pulp by their own unlawful and incompetent style of governing (or is it anti-governing?) through a national security crisis, record income equality, fake wars, botched wars, spying on their own citizens, black sites and Katrina.

You add those three, what do you get? A certified, powerful majority in government to do what you said you'd do. It's a democracy people. Do what we all elected you to do, as you said you would, as I thought we all understood you would do in really fighting for health care, strong climate legislation and at least an acknowledgment that our country's policies toward gay citizens is atrocious. Give us something.

Eschaton:

I appreciate the "an ok bill is better than no bill" arguments, but things have changed since 2004. Health costs have continued to go up at absurd rates. Dems have 60 senators, a big majority in the House, and we just elected a popular president whose central campaign issue was... health care reform. There can be incremental improvements later, possibly, but they can also make it worse. Given the way things work in that stupid town, we get one big bite at the apple. An "ok" bill lets the insurance company skimmers keep stealing their share for doing nothing useful other than denying people care. Maybe it means they get to do this a bit less aggressively than they do now, and maybe it means some more people get somewhat better health care, but it also leaves the skimmers in place.


I understand that not everyone is expected to walk in lock-step, but, come on. Act like something you talked up is going to happen. You'll claim Iraq, but that was winding down anyway (Bush's old military is now Obama's. Remember that when you hear from these generals and military officials.) And you think you're headed to "bipartisan" education policy in 2013? You've seen how old white people reacted when they thought you were going to send them naked out in the snowy woods at a certain age? What do you think will happen when you try to "SOCIALIZE!!!" all the kids' schools? OUR CHILDREN? With you godless, savage Democrats that will only force abortions and indoctrinate the State into malleable brains? No thanks Commie!

Ultimately (if it hasn't happened already) the Right and the press will detest Nancy Pelosi as vehemently as the Left did Tom DeLay. But you know what the difference is between those two strong-arms of the House? "The Hammer" DeLay was a crook and an influence peddler. The Right's big problem with Pelosi? She doesn't have a dick.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Me Knowing the Truth, I Cannot Concur

I hate to be so goddamned bitter all the time, but it gets sillier everyday with the lingering effects of the rank corpse that was the Bush adm. and their facilitators (and willing heirs) in the Obama White House. And this could either be a turning point or a grave dive into the further perverting of the law.

So now here's Lyle Denniston on those detainee abuse photos that Obama initially felt a need to be released, then quickly reversed and never looked back. Now he's been convinced to take this to the Supreme Court. Wow. From SCOTUS Blog:

Whether the Court actually rules on the issue, however, appears to depend upon whether the Administration is able, when Congress returns from summer break, to persuade the lawmakers to change the federal law at issue. The disclosure issue arises under the Freedom of Information Act, and proposals are now pending in Congress to undo the Second Circuit’s interpretation of the FOIA section at issue. If the legislation passes, the photos would be protected from public release, and there would be nothing left at issue legally. (There are no constitutional issues even implicit in this dispute; no one is claiming a constitutional basis for public access to the abuse photos.)

Although the case focuses on a single two-word phrase in one section of the FOIA, the dispute actually has major significance for transparency in wartime: at issue is whether the government can prevent the public disclosure of unclassified evidence of military misconduct during wartime, based on a generalized claim that release will threaten harm to U.S. military forces in the field.


Welcome to the Supreme Court Ms. Sotomayor.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The White Man Claims He Can Fly

Carrie Johnson of The Washington Post held an online discussion today on the e-mails and transcripts the House Judiciary Committee released yesterday that firmly implicate Karl Rove and Harriett Miers having a deep involvement in the firing U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico. Why? All because Iglesias was deemed insufficiently political and partisan in his treatment of Democrats in the state. I think it's clear these two were playing point for this effort to purge other attorneys that wouldn't kiss Republican ass. Clearly illegal....

One questioner/commenter put this to WaPo's Johnson, who writes about Justice Dept. issues:

Silver Spring, MD: I remember the days after the election when there was talk of investigations and trials about the Bush administration. My neighbor, who is even more liberal than me, was thirsting for retribution against Rove, Cheney, Bush, et al. I told him "no." It is simply not in the nature of Americans to do that; we are always wanting to "move on" to the next thing.

For all of the anger and denials around Rove and the firing of the prosecutors a few years ago, I think most Americans today would shrug and say:

"Sure, Rove and the administration wanted to boot the appointed prosecutors who were not supporting their agenda. We don't have a tape of him saying that directly, but everyone knew it. So what? It's 2009 and we have a lot of important things going on NOW."

America, always moving forward.

Carrie Johnson: Thanks for your comments. You've hit on a real, ongoing point of debate here.


Not in the nature of Americans? To obey the law? I think we're all taught and encouraged from birth to death to follow the law in America. So no, I don't want "move on," look ahead and forget the past and feel American about it. You're letting the crooks get the best of you. This is a two-tiered legal system you're supporting. And you ain't on the good one. But apologize and grovel in the name of your superiors. They see nothing wrong with it....

And Carrie Johnson's answer was a disappointment also. She was just happy thinking this makes a case for "middle of the road" conventional approaches to this, but everyone here knows that they should (but won't) be prosecuted for tampering here.

You want to know what this comes down to? David Kurtz at TPM sums it up quite aptly with his simultaneously delightful and depressing Harriett Miers personality test. Kurtz:

If you were White House counsel and someone from the White House political shop approached you, just before the midterm elections, about intervening with the Justice Department to help out a congressman from your party under criminal investigation, you would:

(a) Fire his ass on the spot.
(b) Drop kick him from the West Wing to a closet-sized office in the EEOB, never to be heard from again.
(c) Send a memo to everyone in the political office warning against any contacts with DOJ officials regarding any ongoing investigations.
(d) Get the deputy attorney general on the phone and see whether you could get him to publicly exonerate the congressman, then dutifully email back the political operative to report on how the call went.

If you answered (d), you're qualified to be nominated to the Supreme Court.


That was the definitive Harriett Miers as she tried to bailout then-Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Corrupt) on his ultimately losing election day. She took orders from the bloodsuckers in the White House's charged political side, led by chief hit-man Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove, to intimidate the Department of Justice, or at least try to see how far being a top-notch President Bush-crony got ya.

MC Rove knows where it gets ya.



Next Day Update: AP's Matt Apuzzo breaks it down to almost elementary proportions. But that's what's needed at a time where the bar is continually raised in what our officials have to do to be punished.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Big Days are Coming, About a Mile Wide

Dan Froomkin is back, now at Huffington Post, and he reminds us just what is on deck for Obama. We'll know so much more about our president in the next couple of months than we learned in the first seven.

Either he:

A) bartered some kind of highly-concessionary agreement between the mighty insurance companies that allow him to show a fair amount of glitter to the actual heaps they receive, which will, in effect, make the insurance companies even more invincible, (as Froomkin calls the "community organizer Obama"),

or

B) Obama completely folded and literally botched the entire overhaul effort through a rash of misconceptions, naivete and bipartisan-for-bipartisan's-sake behavior by a band of stooges. At this point, it would be fair to judge the Obama administration as only there to play the fool for any giant conglomerate or corporation that intimidates them or threatens them through former executives that mine the halls of our federal government as presidentially-appointed positions of federal budget power. (As Froomkin calls Obama-as-pushover scenario)

Hard to believe isn't it? It doesn't sound right, and it's not easy to comprehend at all times. But this is what we've come up with. Things could turn on him pretty quick. Looks to be the perfect facilitator to the powerful at times.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Death by Irony

Sec. of State Hillary Clinton will be on Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN this Sunday. Excerpts of the interview have already been released. This coincides with her week-plus tour of Africa and the release of the two American journalists from Kim Jong Il's Magical Labor Camp and Sweatshop Emporium courtesy, in part, of Bill Clinton.

Zakaria asked HRC about Bill's mission and some of the criticism he and the Obama administration have gotten from the Right. For example, The Washington Post was quick to provide former UN ambassador John Bolton a forum to voice his frothing-at-the-mouth lunacy. HRC fittingly laughed quite hardily at the mere mention by Zakaria of Bolton's opinion.

But what she said next pretty much erased that warm feeling when we're all in on a joke that is a frighteningly militaristic former Bushie. She proceeded to explain why we have to stand up to a country like North Korea that imprisons people on baseless, ethically/legally dubious charges all the while keeping them in areas of the world where human rights inspectors can't reach. Sound familiar? Here is the Bolton mention, then HRC's irony-saturated quote, courtesy of Think Progress:

Clinton: We’ve done this so many times before. We’ve had former presidents do it. We’ve had sitting members of Congress do it. It is something that, you know, it is absolutely not rewarding them. It is not in any way responding to specific demands.

It is a recognition that certain countries that I think are kind of beyond the pale the rule of law hold people and subject them to long prison terms that are absolutely unfair and unwarranted.


She's done this before. I understand that, of course, she has to say this. But where's the accountability on the part of our own place in the annals of human rights abuses, via Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, numerous CIA black sites (which, we are told, are now abolished, but who knows), etc.? How can anyone in the administration say with a straight face that other countries are woefully crossing the line in their treatment of prisoners when we are openly advocating harsh indefinite detention policies and military commissions that undercut our own legal system, supposedly the most fair and just in the world?

This is beyond contempt, not only for the rest of the world and their "banana republic" codes of conduct, but also for the American public. This is what's done in our name, and they bank on us either giving them a pass in the name of "national security" or they hope we're too dumb or distracted to figure out what kind of unlawful, insidious policies we advocate in the U.S.

And what does the mainstream media do? Nothing at all. This, like so many other issues, has been made into a partisan "food fight," in NBC chief political correspondent Chuck Todd's words. The MM refuse to call what we have done torture, but are quick to classify the slightest such activity as brutal and horrid and illegal when it happens somewhere else. They are willingly, openly blowing this. It's their job to point this out. I mean, what if CNN or some such network decided to run with this for the majority of every hour during a normal day? Is that what it would take for us to notice. They'd undoubtedly blow that too, since CNN and the like only know how to throw a Democrat and a Republican out there to yell at each other for 5 minutes, then call it a draw no matter how incoherent torture apologists are.

What is it going to take to stop, or at least slow, this runaway train? Regular U.S. citizens, that's who. We have to voice our grievances and hold them accountable at the ballot box, at the very least. I mean, that's all we've got now that both parties are in on this thanks to Obama's turn. He ran on a new era, but I'm having trouble finding the continual justification of heinous human rights policies as any kind of difference from the pure hell that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney unleashed on the world. And you think the world isn't taking notice of what we're giving a pass to? How long can we seriously denounce others and use our clout as a protector of personal justice when we have set such a putrid example for all to see?

Thursday, August 6, 2009

They Set 'Em Up, He Knocks 'Em Down

Say what you will about Robert Gibbs, but he does come up with some good lines now and then. The last sentence is pretty good. Poor WB.

From Political Punch:

“You couldn’t sell this script in Hollywood,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters of the conspiracy theorists, called birthers.
“Tell me if you’ve heard one that’s this totally crazy,” Gibbs said. “A pregnant woman leaves her home to go overseas to have a child -- who there’s not a passport for -- so is in cahoots with someone…to smuggle that child, that previously doesn’t exist on a government roll somewhere back into the country and has the amazing foresight to place birth announcements in the Hawaii newspapers? All while this is transpiring in cahoots with those in the border, all so some kid named Barack Obama could run for President 46 and a half years later. You couldn’t sell that to the WB.”


Maybe Liftime would run it as a made-for-TV movie entitled "Mother, Can I Be the President?" (Pink Floyd reference!) I predict a multitude of violin medleys.

And I'm glad the White House press corps is getting to the bottom of this shallow kiddie pool of an issue....

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Fairy Tales That Never End

Knee-to-the-groin badass group Hypernova from Iran. (Via Andrew Sullivan)

They're busting to break loose. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest mother fucker of all? It ain't me!"

Kessler the comedian

Glenn Kessler (with Stella Kim) of The Washington Post plays quite the prank on us readers in his story about the visit to North Korea by Bill Clinton, in which Clinton negotiated a pardon of the two kidnapped journalists of the Al Gore-funded news channel, Current. He gives us the classic "who's your daddy?" slam, 9 years in the making, with the final sentence:

A source familiar with the planning of the visit said the (Obama) administration's consensus choice to travel to Pyongyang was former vice president Al Gore, who co-founded the news channel that employs the journalists. But North Korea rejected Gore as an envoy.


Zing! And ouch. Nine solid years of, largely, the much bigger post-Clinton administration sway in domestic and, more so, international affairs comes this embarrassing jolt back to reality.

I like Al Gore ... I guess. So I'm not just piling on. But this has to hurt the ego.

And this is how the story goes....

A peek behind the curtain: letsgetitdone over at Firedoglake spikes the mainstream media spin on the health-care reform debate.

It's all about fake conflict and conventional wisdom dry-humping on the steps of the Capitol, as if it's all a joke. "Whatever the guy with the most money says ... I don't know." It's, "let's put this new punk on his ass and show him that NOBODY fucks with the power structure around here. You push anymore than this, and we get serious. Back Down Now."

It's highly lazy and unoriginal journalism. Your job is much easier if you follow the safe story, ultimately. Lay low, ruffle a feather or two once in awhile. But when you need a good line, at the right time, you'll fucking get it. Because you played your part. You did what a "good, solid reporter" does. Putting real pressure on anyone important is too much to take on. Brutal.

So now you know, who gets mystified.

5:02 p.m.:
Now I know what the Soundgarden-song "Rusty Cage" is about. The public confined in the world of the mainstream media. We have to break that rusty cage, and run (to be cheesy). You put a Phillips Head into my brain! Sounds about right to me.

Monday, August 3, 2009

I told you guys.

But you wouldn't listen, would you?

Study: Redheads' extra pain may cause fear of dentists

By Madison Park
CNN

(CNN) -- Despite two injections of anesthetic, Amy Anderson felt like her dentist was jamming rods into her tooth during a root canal. She writhed in pain as her infected tooth was hollowed with a drill, its nerve amputated, and then sealed.

"I knew this time something was wrong. I could feel my lips," said the Syracuse, New York, resident, who told her dentist the drugs weren't working.

Her doctor kept assuring her she had given her a proper dose and said: "I'm almost done."

"I was hurting so bad, I was hitting myself in the stomach," said Anderson, a redhead. "I almost wanted to hit her."

Studies have indicated that redheads may be more sensitive to pain and may need more anesthetics to numb them.

New research published in this month's Journal of American Dental Association found that painful experiences at the dentist might cause more anxiety for men and women with red hair, who were twice as likely to avoid dental care than people with dark hair.

"Redheads are sensitive to pain," said Dr. Daniel Sessler, an Outcomes Research Department chair at The Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio, who is one of the authors.

"They require more generalized anesthesia, localized anesthesia. The conventional doses fail. They have bad experiences at the dentist and because of the bad experiences, they could avoid dental care."


Read the rest at CNN.

Where are the artists?

Wow, this is a total evisceration of the reaction of black artists, and all artists really, in America six months (and actually, 2 1/2 years of relative fame) under the first black president. Where's the reaction, culture? Don't tell me nothing's changed? If so, that's an even bigger story. If all's the same long after Obama's injection into the American conscience, that has amazing consequences on the power structure in America.

"Dave Chappelle remains in hiding. Tyler Perry's oeuvre is, essentially, one long-running, feel good "yo momma" joke. The kind of monumentally new, staggeringly fresh hip-hop album the Obama Event seems to cry out for has not emerged. The Wire proved that virtually all the best actors in America are African-American. Why is Idris Elba not doing Othello on Broadway right now?"


I'll hand it to Stephen Marche writing for Esquire in this powerful essay.

"... last November, the world called their bluff, and the color of Obama's skin doesn't make a damn bit of difference in the daily business of running the world."


That could take a minute to digest fully. Now chew on this classic, maybe THE classic:

Chappelle's Show
Black Bush
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDsBlack ComedyTrue Hollywood Story

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Waning Influence?

Looks like the NRA is having a tough go of convincing (or scaring) conservative Democrats into voting against Sonia Sotomayor. That seems fairly surprising to me, considering the clout they've traditionally held. Though the AP story only mentions a few names like Max Baucus and Jon Tester, and leaves votes from the likes of Mark Begich and Ben Nelson open to the NRA message. And if we know Ben Nelson, he'll do it. What a diva.