Space monkey torture rack

365: Stress positions at Reagan National Airport - What do you know about the moon?!

Let's get over the 'Miracle on Ice'

I caught some of the hour-long (or so) special NBC ran Sunday about the "Miracle on Ice" hockey game from the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., and I commented to a guy sitting next to me how lame and pathetic it was that we keep rehashing that moment, 30 years later. Well, I should've guessed this would happen in a bar with TVs everywhere, but the guy looked at me like I was Stalin himself, apparently offended on some level. That was the end of that "conversation."

I get it, American amateurs vs. the big, bad Russian pros. It's straight out of a Disney movie (in fact, it was made into a Disney-like, cheeseball, feel-good gagfest of a film). Let's move on. I mean, Al Michaels, who made the famous, "Do you believe in miracles!?" call at the end of the game, was clearly beside himself with anticipation the whole interview with three of the players -- who have clearly made a living off that game -- to tell how he graced America with such a memorable, touching phrase. Ugh.

So I completely agree with Matt Taibbi here.

Seriously, can we get over ourselves about the Miracle on Ice? It was great and all, but you hear about it every five minutes in this country. I lived in Russia for 10 years and didn’t even once hear about a bunch of Soviets with hideous mustaches whipping the asses of David Robinson, Danny Manning and Mitch Richmond in basketball in Seoul in ‘88. I heard a lot about the 1972 thing, but that was only in the context of Russians being so amused by how much we whined about getting jobbed by the refs.

I mean really, whatever happened to acting like you’ve been there before? I’m trying to imagine what the citizen of someplace like Liechtenstein or Reunion Island thinks when he sees Americans keeping a 30-year boner over the image of themselves as longshot underdogs who beat the odds.

Like so many things in America, I think our incessant gloating and paranoid fragility (see: Gitmo) come down to insecurity, coupled with unhealthy nostalgia and misplaced identity. But we're not underdogs. We're America. Get over it.

Washington Monument on a gray day

365: Not sure why flags are at half mast.

'Fresh' Devo at the Olympics

Devo made an appearance at one of the Olympics' nightly Victory Ceremony events, communicating directly to the spud boys and girls that the destruction of Earth will not come from nuclear bombs, but the devolved human mind.

Lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh was interviewed by Billboard and was asked, why the Olympics? A focus group, of course. And they're too old to compete, Mothersbaugh says.

So, on Monday night, they played a new song, "Fresh":



It sounds like Freedom of Choice-era Devo, but there's certainly nothing wrong with that. For their new release this spring, the band, in their true faux-corporate, communal-minded way, is asking fans to participate in a "color study" to help determine the band's new branding color.

And a word from Devo, Inc's "COO" Greg Scholl:



A real/fake branding campaign based on the acceptance of devolution. Perfect Devo.

Rise above

A favorite quote of mine comes from Hunter S. Thompson's The Rum Diary:

Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles -- a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other -- that kept me going.

And I, like most of the others, can identify with a lot of the sentiment here. Malcontent ... what a great word. The last sentence, though, communicates the push/pull that permeates so much of life, I would say. Idealism vs. dread. I believe that tension Thompson writes of is to be at battle against yourself, against the world, against an obstacle, against success, against fate, against life. Realize it or not, that conflict is only human. And to err is human. But to be human is also to rise above.

George W. Bush's required reading

For Women Veterans, Battles Go On at Home

Post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD was the reason Peacock was sent home from Iraq .She had spent her time in Baghdad driving in unarmored trucks and fearing roadside bombs.

"You don't ever know is today going to be the day," Peacock said. "A lot of us wrote letters home like, 'If I die give this to my mom.'"

Her downward spiral accelerated when she returned from Iraq She became addicted to prescription drugs. Her husband left her, making her homeless. She found it hard to readjust to life back in St Louis.

"War does something to you where it just twists everything," Peacock said. "I don't look the same, I don't act the same, I don't have the same mannerisms."

"Almost half the women who we see today that are homeless are under 35," said Peter Dougherty, director of the homeless program at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA says on any given night there are an estimated 6,500 homeless female vets. That's double the number a decade ago.

Angela Peacock now rents a house and has new support: GI Joe - a companion dog provided by the VA to help her cope with the PTSD when she's in public places.

"I have my days that are hard to get out of bed, and if fireworks or something goes off I'm just like done for the day," Peacock said. "But it's much better than it was. Much better."

Freedom is on the march.

Yoo and Bybee: Innocent until proven sane

Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis concludes that torture memo conspirators John Yoo and Jay Bybee may have been grossly incompetent and viciously off base, but what they authorized was not *technically* illegal.

Jack Balkin (read the whole spot-on indictment of this decision):

Margolis concludes that Yoo and Bybee exercised poor judgment and made bad legal arguments. But lawyers often make arguments that are bad or even laughably bad, and this by itself does not violate the very low standard set by rules of professional responsibility. These rules are set up by jurisdictions to weed out the worst offenders, leaving the rest of the legal profession to make entirely stupid, disingenuous and asinine arguments that normal people with functioning moral consciences would not make. That is to say, rules of professional misconduct are aimed at weeding out sociopaths and people driven to theft and egregious incompetence by serious drug and alcohol abuse problems; they do not guarantee that lawyers will do right by their clients, or, in this case, by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America. In effect, by setting the standard of conduct so low, rules of professional conduct effectively work to protect all those lawyers out there whose moral standing is just a hair's breadth above your average mass murderer. This is how the American legal profession simultaneously polices and takes care of its own.

Scathing.

And Dick Cheney will go on bragging about being a war criminal.

Every raw material at hand

365: Mission of Burma, Black Cat in DC

Lamberth to Congress: Do something on indefinite detentions

Unfortunately, this interview with Chief U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth by Washington Post criminal justice reporter Del Wilber didn't get much attention (Well, it was buried in Metro section crime blog, so...). But it's remarkable in the sense that a judge in the center of Guantanamo detainee cases seems highly frustrated about the definitive parameters of these detainees' situations, indefinite detentions in particular.

I understand Lamberth is of the outspoken sort, for judiciary official. But this interview is fascinating in that he seems to be almost pleading with the legislative and executive branches to act, and do it immediately.

Some highlights:

Q: Why are judges calling on Congress to take action?

Lamberth: Congress should have enacted some statutory guidance that would have been useful to us. For example -- what is the definition of enemy combatant, which we have had some difficulty with? And what types of evidence does Congress think would be appropriate for us to consider? Those are among the things that would be helpful.

But unless Congress were to enact something this spring, I think it’s too late anyway. We are on track to complete these cases and are moving ahead. ... The longer we have gone through this, we have seen how difficult the questions are that are being presented and how reasonable people can differ in response to the questions. I still would welcome action from Congress, but I don’t anticipate that.

This is not an ideal world, but to have so little guidance. … As a district judge, we are used to applying settled law. Congress enacts a statute, the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court issues an opinion. But here, nothing is settled. We are creating law as we go. It’s not something district judges are accustomed to doing.

A much better way to create law is for Congress to pass something and for the executive to participate in that legislation. That is what I’ve been trying to say.

At this stage, Congress hasn't seen fit to do that. I understand that in the prior administration, it did not want congressional action -- it wanted to do it all by executive power. I do not know why this administration has not been able to create a legislative proposal.

[...]

Q: The other day, you mentioned that you struggled with ordering a detainee held, potentially for life, under the “preponderance of evidence” standard. The judges established that standard, which means the government wins if the evidence tips just slightly in its favor, for the habeas cases. What did you mean by that?

Lamberth: When you know the petitioner is going to be held for the duration of hostilities and hostilities are not likely to end in my lifetime, if not in his own lifetime, we know there is a consequence of our decision that is quite dramatic in terms of an individual’s life.

In criminal trials, we have a standard of beyond a reasonable doubt, which means proof to a moral certainty. I have no difficulty, where I have a jury to find a person found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to a moral certainty, with sentencing that person to life in prison without parole, if that is what statutes and guidelines call for.

When you’re doing this on a preponderance of evidence, that is a different decision for me to decide if a person should be held, perhaps for life.

He also goes into coerced confessions and a severe lack of communication from the Justice Department to judges. Read the entire interview.

Caution when wet

365: Near Pennsylvania SE

Washington stenography is alive and well

Building on that steaming pile of Beltway nonsense David Broder laid in the Washington Post last week on Sarah Palin's supposed brilliance, George Packer assesses the state of political journalism in Washington.

Anyone covering Washington, not excluding me, will sooner or later turn to a phrase like “refocus its image” or “a perception that the President has come to look” or “a pitch-perfect recital of the populist message,” because they come so easily, and because they make it unnecessary to say anything substantial, which means thinking hard and perhaps suffering the consequences. Still, as an exercise in accountability, political journalists should ask themselves from time to time: Would I write this about a war, or a depression?

Further up in the piece, he imagines what a typical American journalist would write about Afghan President Hamid Karzai's recent inauguration speech:

“Speaking at the presidential palace in Kabul, Mr. Karzai showed himself to be at the top of his game. He skillfully co-opted his Pashtun base while making a powerful appeal to the technocrats who have lately been disappointed in him, and at the same time he reassured the Afghan public that his patience with civilian casualties is wearing thin. A palace insider, who asked for anonymity in order to be able to speak candidly, said, ‘If Karzai can continue to signal the West that he is concerned about corruption without alienating his warlord allies, he will likely be able to defuse the perception of a weak leader and regain his image as a unifying figure who can play the role of both modernizer and nationalist.’ Still, the palace insider acknowledged, tensions remain within Mr. Karzai’s own inner circle. At one point during the swearing-in ceremony, observers noted that Mohammad Hanif Atmar, his interior minister, seemed to ignore the greeting of Amrullah Saleh, the intelligence chief. The two have been rumored to be at odds ever since last year’s controversial election. A palace spokesman, speaking on background, denied that the incident had any significance. ‘The sun was in Hanif’s eyes—that’s it,’ the spokesman said.”

Write down the quotes, type them up, run 'em through spell check and be home for dinner.

Evan Bayh pretends he's above the partisan fray, Part 984

Sen. Evan Bayh announced his retirement earlier today. The golden boy of the Democratic establishment years ago has had enough of the Senate's gridlock, he said. Either Bayh has a poor sense of irony, or he's just flat dishonest about his motives.

His reasoning for retiring (the excessive partisanship of Washington) was laughable given his pride in the filibuster when it came to health reform. It was that pesky debt commission that finally broke his little back he says:

“Two weeks ago, the Senate voted down a bipartisan commission to deal with one of the greatest threats facing our nation: our exploding deficits and debt. The measure would have passed, but seven members who had endorsed the idea instead voted ‘no’ for short-term political reasons,” he said. “Just last week, a major piece of legislation to create jobs — the public’s top priority — fell apart amid complaints from both the left and right. All of this and much more has led me to believe that there are better ways to serve my fellow citizens, my beloved state and our nation than continued service in Congress.”

So he quit.

I'm also reading some conflicting views on what party he screwed over worse, the Democrats or Republicans, by his timing. He certainly leaves Democrats in general in a bind to say the least.

But maybe it's bad news for both parties. I wouldn't put it past Bayh. I guess he's "bipartisan" with his political sabotage.

Jane Hamsher says it's Indiana progressives since there won't be a primary:

Why would Evan Bayh file to run for the Senate, and then pull out 24 hours before the deadline for signatures to be filed?

Well, because the Indiana Democratic Party gets to choose Bayh’s replacement on the ticket. And that means unless you can pull a candidate out and line up 500 signatures in each district to be filed by noon tomorrow, you’re a write-in.

How does the sound of Senator Hill or Senator Ellsworth sound?

Well, Rahm was in town doing a fundraiser for Hill recently. This has, no doubt, been in the works for a while.

Rahm! Should've known.

Jed Lewis says it's the GOP:

Unlike Democrats, Republicans already have candidates vying for their party's nomination, including former Rep. John Hostetler and Senator-turned-lobbyist Dan Coats. Because the signature deadline is tomorrow, that pretty much sets the GOP field. Unless both Hostetler and Coats were to withdraw, Republicans won't be in a position to choose a nominee as will Democrats. The implication of that: Bayh's timing appears to make it nearly impossible for candidates like Rep. Mike Pence (who says he will not run despite Bayh's retirement) or Gov. Mitch Daniels to get on the ballot.

So while Bayh was a sure thing versus Coats and Hostetler, given his retirement, Bayh's timing here may actually give Democrats the best chance at holding onto the seat.

Good riddance. His sole reason for being in the Senate was to plaster a shit-eating grin on his face when people perceived him as a sensible centrist.

The suspect case against Omar Khadr

WaPo's Peter Finn sketches out the case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian Gitmo detainee picked up in Afghanistan when he was 12 for allegedly throwing a grenade at American soldiers. His military tribunal is set to begin soon. It will likely be the first such military commission trial under the Obama administration. His age at the time of the incident has been the focus of controversy, as well as the sketchy evidence behind the case, and whether he could've even been capable of throwing the grenade at the time.

The final portion of the piece focuses on that suspect evidence, as well as the unlawful legal system set in place by the Obama administration:

Defense lawyers said Holder's assignment of the Khadr case to the military illustrates the Obama administration's acceptance of a two-tier system of justice in which flawed evidence that would be disallowed in federal court can be admitted in a tribunal.

The government defends its decision.

"The forum decision in the Khadr case was made after a careful assessment of all the factors identified" in a protocol developed by the Justice and Defense departments, said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. "Although we cannot discuss how all the protocol factors were applied to the Khadr case or other specific cases, we note that this case involves a grenade attack on U.S. soldiers in a war zone, that the defendant was apprehended in a war zone in the context of active hostilities, and that the case was initially investigated and evidence gathered by military personnel."

Flowers, Khadr's attorney, said government lawyers indicated at a meeting in early November that they would introduce statements in a military commission that they would not use if the case went to federal court. A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to discuss any meeting with the defense.

Khadr's attorneys said the government's case is riddled with problems.

They said that their client was tortured in military custody and that all statements, even if given later and seemingly voluntarily to FBI agents, are contaminated by the alleged earlier abuse, which, they said, included threats of rape, stress positions and the use of snarling dogs.

Flowers also challenged the government's contention that Khadr threw the grenade that killed Speer. "The evidence," he said, "is extremely problematic."

But soldiers involved in the firefight that led to Speer's death and Khadr's capture have no such doubts. Morris, the blinded Special Forces soldier, who lives in Utah, said Khadr should remain in U.S. custody.

"Mr. Khadr is where he needs to be, and he needs to stay there for a long time," Morris said.

As far as Holder's concerned, this New Yorker piece masterfully outlines the KSM controversy and the political point-scoring done by Republicans on the issue of terrorism in the Obama era. But with the Khadr case in mind, the administration's two-tiered legal system is especially a tough pill to swallow when Holder says stuff like this:

“The quest for justice, despite what your contemporaries might think, that’s toughness. The ability to subject yourself to the kind of criticism I’m getting now, for something I think is right? That’s tough.” He paused, and added, “This is something that can get a rise out of me, the notion that somehow Eric Holder and Barack Obama, this Administration, is not tough. We have the welfare of the American people in our minds all the time. We’ll fight our enemies, and we’ll do that which is necessary, and we won’t turn our backs on the values and traditions that have made this country great. That is what is tough.”

More on COIN pushback

Yesterday, I wrote of an open disagreement with Gen. Stanley McChrystal's COIN strategy in Afghanistan by a high-ranking Marine reported in the Washington Post yesterday.

Andrew Exum noticed as well, positing that the Marine culture must be taken into account when a strategy such as McChrystal's, which is based on protecting rather than aggression, is employed.

I've heard Col. Amland is a thoughtful officer, but I wonder if he's thoughtful enough to recognize that a) his decades-long education as a Marine officer might have prejudiced him toward a preference for violent offensive operations and b) many counterinsurgents through the years have been in exactly the same spot where Col. Amland finds himself today -- and have pursued violent offensive operations, like battalion sweep-and-clears, that have brought no lasting security. But as the author of the Post article notes, "hunkering down to the slow work of improving governance" is a lot less sexy than killing bad guys. But you have to do both, and if given the option of choosing between the two, the operational and strategic culture of the U.S. Marine Corps will lead its officers to do the former at the expense of the latter.

I think we sometimes focus too much on trying to understand the culture of the enemy without first recognizing our own cultural quirks, norms and biases. The individual services within the U.S. military are especially effective at conditioning their officers to believe that the service's preferred theory of victory is the one most appropriate for a conflict. As a remedy for this, I wish Marines would be more conscious of their "Marineness" -- and all the assumptions, biases and norms (most of them good) that entails. (The same goes, of course, for Air Force officers, Army infantry officers, Naval aviators, Army armor officers, Army Special Forces officers, submariners, etc., etc., etc.)

The Who sells out?

Hendrik Hertzberg would like to go back to a 1969 interview he did with The Who and ask them what they would think of their colossal sell out, not to mention embarrassing performance, at the Super Bowl over forty years later.

If I could go back in time and conduct that interview again, I would ask this question:

“Pete, do you remember Super Bowl III? Took place like ten months ago? Joe Namath? The New York Jets? No? Never heard of it?

“Well, it’s the big championship of American football, like the F.A. Cup in England. There’s nothing more American than the Super Bowl—it’s huge, it’s vulgar, it’s all about kicking ass and hating hippies. Now, what if I were to tell you that forty-one years from now—forty-one years from now, in the year twenty-ten—the Super Bowl would be live on TV all over the world, and the special halftime entertainment, viewed by hundreds of millions of people, would be… The Who.

“How would you account for that?”

The conversation would go on from there.

And Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein (on her excellent blog Monitor Mix) wonders if it was even appropriate for a legendary band to continue as is when half the group, arguably the pillars of the band's sound, are long dead.

As far as I'm concerned, the soul of The Who is long gone. Yes, Townshend wrote most of the songs, but it was the rhythm section -- Keith Moon and John Entwistle -- who tore into his song's structures, making them gallop and hiccup and veer far and unexpectedly from the original destination. With only two members remaining, The Who is no more.

I suppose there can't be a formula for whether a band should continue after the death of an original member, so perhaps it's just a feeling. Countless bands ventured forth after the untimely deaths of one of their own. From The Rolling Stones to Lynyrd Skynyrd, from The Beach Boys to The B-52's to Metallica. For most bands, losing a lead singer seems to be the one deal-breaker (The Doors, Joy Division, Nirvana), though some bands work up a tribute show that features a variety of singers -- such as Queen -- which works, and is less crass than a full-time replacement.

I can understand some of these bands from the '60s and '70s not wanting to let a band member's drug overdose and obvious path to self-destruction stand in the way of future creativity and success. As they say, the show must go on. And maybe it was a relief to play with healthier, saner people. But two band members gone? More? Watching The Who play Sunday, I was pretty sure that even it no longer had the answer to its most pointed question: Who are you? And when you don't know that, then maybe it is time to finally let go.

Let's face it: We're still in the throes (albeit the last throes) of Baby Boomers' domination of, well, the world, much less corporate puppet shows like the Super Bowl. At this point, I'm not even sure if it's worth mocking thththththat generation since they do such a good job of doing it to themselves.

I feel The Who should be mentioned with the Rolling Stones and Beatles as some of the great rock influences to come from that period. But at no point have their lyrics "I hope I die before I get old" carry so much irony.

Stuck bus

365: North Carolina and 11th St. NE

Open criticism of COIN strategy on the ground in Kandahar

There's an interesting section of the Washington Post's story today on the Fifth Stryker Brigade Combat Team responsible for securing the population around Kandahar. Seems consternation over Gen. Stanley McChrystal's new counterinsurgency plan in the disparate southern villages of Afghanistan is not taboo to speak of by a high-ranking commander.

Not everyone is sold on Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's "protect the population" mantra. Some military officials think an expansionary push by the Marines into Taliban territory in neighboring Helmand province is more effective than hunkering down to the slow work of improving governance.

"I'm not a big fan of the population-centric approach. We can't sit still. We have to pursue and chase these guys," said Col. George Amland, deputy commander of the Marine expeditionary brigade in Helmand province. "I haven't seen any evidence it's working. The only thing that's working is chasing them."

Interesting to note as 30,000 soldiers will soon be sent to enact McChrystal's strategy.

Persecuted Wall street overlords throw temper tantrum

There's some serious arrogance that oozes from this New York Times piece on those poor persecuted Wall St. bankers suffering at the hands of the big bad Democrats (who've proposed such lukewarm regulations after Wall St. terrorized the American/global economy that this entire exercise is beyond laughable).

Just two years after Mr. Obama helped his party pull in record Wall Street contributions — $89 million from the securities and investment business, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics — some of his biggest supporters, like Mr. Dimon, have become the industry’s chief lobbyists against his regulatory agenda.

Republicans are rushing to capitalize on what they call Wall Street’s “buyer’s remorse” with the Democrats. And industry executives and lobbyists are warning Democrats that if Mr. Obama keeps attacking Wall Street “fat cats,” they may fight back by withholding their cash.

“If the president doesn’t become a little more balanced and centrist in his approach, then he will likely lose that support,” said Kelly S. King, the chairman and chief executive of BB&T. Mr. King is a board member of the Financial Services Roundtable, which lobbies for the biggest banks, and last month he helped represent the industry at a private dinner at the Treasury Department.

“I understand the public outcry,” he continued. “We have a 17 percent real unemployment rate, people are hurting, and they want to see punishment. But the political rhetoric just incites more animosity and gets people riled up.”

Glenn Greenwald sums it up:

... that Wall Street is dissatisfied with the Democrats and the Obama administration reveals how extreme are their expectations of control of the Government. The second-highest-ranking Democratic Senator, Dick Durbin, recently conceded of the Democratic-controlled Congress: "frankly, bankers own the place." It's impossible to find a more loyal and attentive servant to bankers than Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. As the NYT article this morning details, Wall Street executives and their lobbyists have virtually unfettered access to the administration and to the President himself. You would think they'd be satisfied with the state of affairs in Washington. Yet so extreme are their perceived entitlements of control that even mere symbolic and rhetorical disobedience from the politicians they own -- he said some mean things about us -- creates a sense of righteous grievance: our government employees do not behave this way toward us and will be punished if it continues.

And, of course, the GOP is waiting to benefit off of this. The end of the story:

The Democratic campaign committees declined to comment on Wall Street money. But their Republican rivals are actively courting it.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he visited New York about twice a month to try to tap into Wall Street’s “buyers’ remorse.”

“I just don’t know how long you can expect people to contribute money to a political party whose main plank of their platform is to punish you,” Mr. Cornyn said.

Shocking. I can't wait to see the outrage when the tea partiers hear this....

And any excuse to post this video is appreciated. Big John Cornyn is here to save the day! Biiiiiiiiig Jooooooohn.

Accessorize with the Predator drone!

Hey kids, get your Predator drone gifts and apparel here.

Clark Griswold is not walking through that door

Is it just me, or did Chevy Chase age pretty quickly?

He and Beverly D'Angelo appeared in an ad during the Super Bowl for something called Homeaway.com, which appears to be a site that offers properties to rent to vacationers or out-of-towners on a short-term basis, obviously. Though I've seen him a time or two on Community (NBC Thursday night), so I've seen him recently and, yes of course, I noticed he's gotten older and gained a solid amount of weight. But it wasn't until this ad, where he's really stretching to rekindle that Vacation Clark Griswold magic, but comes off silly and contrived. I don't know if he doesn't care, or is just not a good actor anymore or what. It's almost as if he's reluctantly doing this all for money. Maybe that's unfair though. I still enjoy him and wish him the best, but there's a certain quality to it all.

And Beverly D'Angelo, who didn't speak in the ad I believe, looks almost exactly the same as 10 or 15 years ago thanks heavy plastic surgery, it seems. So she is definitely there for the money. "Just come in and look concerned and vaguely humorous as your well-intentioned, but incompetent husband gets taken for a ride at a hotel. That'll do."

As for Homeaway.com, is this the kind of economy to be pushing a service hooking up vacationers to rented property? Maybe I don't what the hell I'm talking about, but it seems to be a service aimed at the affluent.

In case you were wondering...

Al Franken's still got it. The new senator, member of 4 unions, with National Labor Relations Board nominee (long held by McCain) Craig Becker:

Franken: This is an unusual hearing. I’m new the Senate, but it’s unique. Only other board hearing was for a chair. This was at the insistence of one member who held your nomination. Did that member submit any questions to you?

Becker: No.

Franken: Really. He, or she didn’t submit any questions over all those months. Huh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Harkin: Are your dues paid, Senator Franken?

Franken: Uh, for three unions.

You know you're in Washington when...

365: If Nancy Reagan were our lawn she'd should "Just say no to poo!" G St. and 12th NE

Obama administration still insists they care about civil liberties

Stay with me.

The Washington Times' Eli Lake today:

President Obama is coming under pressure from Democrats and civil liberties groups for failing to fill positions on an oversight panel formed in 2004 to make sure the government does not spy improperly on U.S. citizens.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, or PCLOB, was recommended initially by the bipartisan September 11 commission as an institutional voice for privacy inside the intelligence community. Its charter was to recommend ways to mitigate the effects of far-reaching surveillance technology that the federal government uses to track terrorists.

The panel was established in 2004 under President Bush as part of the executive office of the president. Its independence was unclear for several years. Congress responded by increasing the board's budget, expanding its powers and moving it outside the presidential executive office in 2007.

Since taking office, Mr. Obama has allowed the board to languish. He has not even spent the panel's allocation from the fiscal 2010 budget.

SOME lawmakers are pushing the administration to act. Then Lake gets a comment from the Obama team.

Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, defended the administration's record in general but acknowledged the Democrats' criticisms and said the White House would soon act on them.

This president has made clear his commitment to civil liberties through the actions of his administration, and appreciates the congressional interest in this important issue. The White House has allocated funding for the PCLOB, and looks forward to appointing its leadership soon, he said.

(Emphasis mine)

That's beyond rich. Obama tried to peddle that line of thought in his State of the Union too.

Lake begins to chronicle proof that Rhodes is brimming with deception:

For example, the Obama administration pressed a British court last year to keep secret details of how terrorism suspect Binyam Mohammed was treated while in U.S. and Pakistani custody. The administration has also embraced in some cases the concept of indefinite detention for some terrorism suspects apprehended during the Bush presidency, and it has increased the practice of targeted killings in Pakistan and Yemen through unmanned aerial vehicles.

On the issue of surveillance, Mr. Obama during the presidential campaign voted for reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a bill criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union for providing only minimal court oversight to expansive electronic intelligence-collection programs.

It goes on.

Outside of authorizing torture (and we have no proof torture isn't still going on since no one's allowed to observe overseas prisons), Obama is a direct heir of the Bush/Cheney legacy. The constitutional law professor and his own attorney general, in refusing to hold those guilty of what we'd call war crimes if another country did it, are beyond being accessories to the ugliness and are now the prime drivers of this illegal, shameful and immoral activity.

Something goes wrong again ... and again and again

With the federal budget rollout, a jobs bill and action on financial regulation on the near-term docket in Congress, what's to happen with health care?

Both houses have passed a bill. Relatively minor differences could be worked out. What's the delay? Are the Democrats playing dead for now, only to (improbably) pick up HCR down the road, as Rahm Emanuel suggests?

Jonathan Chait details why such a strategy would be beyond disaster for Democrats:

Suppose there's no upside at all to passing health care reform. McArdle assumes, without explicating her reasons, that walking away from the issue is a way for Democrats to cut their losses. Why, though, would that be the case? Passing the bill may or may not make it more popular, letting it die is surely going to make it less popular. If the bill dies, then it's the subject of lengthy, painful postmortem coverage detailing its flaws and mistakes. It becomes the symbol of big government run amok, and the 60 Senate Democrats and 220 House Democrats who voted for it will suffer politically all the more. Moreover, the already-demoralized liberal base would become apoplectic with the Democratic Party. 1994 was bad, but passing a bill through both chambers then sitting by and letting it die is the kind of behavior that makes even the most pragmatic Democratic voter want to punish his own party.

In sum, I'm totally unpersuaded by the argument that Democrats will let health care die because it's in their interest to do so. It's not. It's a suicide pact, and pretty much every liberal I know -- the kinds of liberals who understand the need for compromise and running to the center -- will be there to hold the pillow over their face if they do it.

They've come this far, and forget them picking it up beyond a few months from now, when 2010 campaigning kicks into gear. Dropping everything at this point would be proof of a monumental retreat by a party that had the guns, Jan. 2009 AND now, to get this done. Abandoning this would only serve as a cudgel for Republicans to use against them. I think it would mean large GOP gains in 2010 and 2012, an albatross attached to any kind of agenda Obama would have left to enact in the next two years and a severe loss of respect and belief in Obama as a leader.

Pass it, you still have detractors, but at least you climbed the mountain and have the scars to prove it. Many with lingering consternation of what the bill means will come around when they see how moderate and pragmatic much of it is.

Stopping now, or delaying too long, is sheer lunacy.