PICKING THE WRONG FIGHT
The CIA is in the business of deception of course. But, uh, not when you’re in front of a federal judge
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/72176.html
A federal district judge ruled Monday that the CIA repeatedly misled him in asserting that state secrets were involved in a 15-year-old lawsuit involving allegedly illegal wiretapping.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth also ordered former CIA director George Tenet and five other CIA officials to explain their actions or face potential sanctions.
Lamberth also questioned the credibility of current CIA Director Leon Panetta, saying that Panetta's testimony in the case contained significant discrepancies, and rejected an Obama administration request that the case continue to be kept secret. He released hundreds of previously secret filings.
"The court does not give the government a high degree of deference because of its prior misrepresentations regarding the stated secrets privilege in this case," Lamberth wrote. . . . [read on]
More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/21/cia/index.html
The Blue Dogs get a reminder of who’s President, and why
Before the meeting with Obama: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/blue-dog-on-health-care-the-landscape-will-change-after-meeting-with-obama.php
An aide to one of the Blue Dogs, seven of which are on the committee, told Reuters the group may ask for a slowdown on the health care push. Obama wants health care legislation before the August recess.
"The landscape will change after that meeting," the aide said. . . .
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/blue-dog-boren-we-may-take-health-care-into-fall.php
Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK), a Blue Dog, went on Fox News today to say he wants President Obama to slow down on health care legislation, saying Congress "might miss a target deadline going into the August recess. We might take it into the fall." . . .
After the meeting with Obama: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/blue-dogs-wh-meeting-constructive-had-breakthrough-on-medpac.php
Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, seven of whom are fiscally conservative Blue Dogs, emerged from the White House this afternoon saying their hour-long meeting with President Obama was constructive and that they had a "breakthrough" on Medicare payment recommendations. . . .
"We came out of the meeting with an understanding that we're moving in that direction, based on the fact that the CBO tells us that it's the biggest single item we can address as it relates to cost containment," Ross told Dow Jones.
Ross also said they agree with Obama's four main goals for health care reform . . .
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/taming-blue-dogs
Taming the Blue Dogs . . .
Delay = Defeat
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/delay_death_for_reform.php
Delay = Death For Reform . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/21/755964/-GOP-Healthcare-Plan:-Delay,-Obstruct,-Lie,-Rinse,-Repeat
GOP Healthcare Plan: Delay, Obstruct, Lie, Rinse, Repeat . . .
Read the GOP internal strategy memo: http://washingtonindependent.com/51987/the-not-so-secret-rnc-health-care-memo
“Slow down, Mr. President. We can’t afford to get health care wrong.
“President Obama is experimenting with America, too much, too soon, and too fast.”
Even voters who support a “public plan” think Obama and Congress are moving too fast, with reckless speed, risking a huge part of our economy and our health care, when they don’t know what reform would really bring.
If we slow this sausage-making process down, we can defeat it, and advance real reform that will actually help.
Key Message Point: We’ve got to “SLOW DOWN the OBAMA EXPERIMENT WITH OUR HEALTH.”
The legislative process going forward
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/this_column_has_been_allergic.php
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/health_care_/2009/07/health_care_and_reconciliation_nate_silver_messes_up.php
Jim DeMint (R-SC), the best friend Obama has in this fight
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/07/demint-obama-played-right-into-my-hands.php
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) stands by his comment that health care will be President Obama's Waterloo, a comment Obama derided in a health care speech yesterday.
"I think he played right into my hands," DeMint told Neil Cavuto on Fox News . . .
Watch: http://firedoglake.com/2009/07/21/jim-demint-has-a-health-care-hissy-fit-on-the-senate-floor/
Michael Steele, RNC head, is a big help too
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019172.php
[Steve Benen] RNC Chairman Michael Steele is pushing as hard as he can to derail health care reform. But the party has to have better spokespersons than this guy. . . . [read on]
More: http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-national-committee/flashback-steele-lacked-health-insurance-for-years-told-kids-not-to-break-anything/
Michael Steele Lacked Health Insurance For Years, Told Kids Not To “Break Anything” . . .
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/democratic-national-committee/dnc-enters-health-care-fray-hammers-demint-and-steele-over-waterloo/
The White House’s allies are going on the offensive against Jim DeMint and Michael Steele over the claim that the failure of health care reform could be Obama’s “Waterloo,” a sign that Dems recognize the need to ratchet up the attacks and that they hope the “Waterloo” remark could be a game-changer in their favor.
The DNC blasted a new email to its list, weaving the “Waterloo” crack into a larger narrative about GOP efforts to defeat Obama’s entire agenda . . .
It’s all they know how to do
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/sotomayor-vote-delayed-until-july-28.php
Sotomayor Vote Delayed Until July 28 . . .
The vote to halt production of the F-22 fighter, and why it’s important
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019169.php
What it means: http://www.slate.com/id/2223287/
The “birther” conspiracy – just don’t bother them with the facts
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/trump_card.php
[David Kurtz] Chris Matthews whips out Obama's birth certificate in interview with "Birther Bill" co-sponsor Rep. John Campbell (R-CA).
Kind of like Dorothy throwing water on the Wicked Witch.
More: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/chris-matthews-questions-rep-john-campbell-r-ca-about-birther-bill.php
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/lou-dobbs-raises-questions-about-obamas-bi
Mark Sanford: Can’t we just put all this unpleasantness behind us, and move on?
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/872268.html
Sure enough, Sarah Palin stepped down as governor just two steps ahead of a big, bad new ethics charge
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/07/ap_newsbreak_palin_implicated_in_ethics_probe.php
[AP] An independent investigator has found evidence that Gov. Sarah Palin may have violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts. . . .
More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/21/palin_report/index.html
Bonus item: Go. Read. LYAO
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/07/palin-speech-edit-200907
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
YOU CAN’T FIGHT SOMETHING WITH NOTHING
Jim DeMint (R-SC) does us all a big favor by saying out loud what the GOP really thinks – we gotta block Obama on health care because beating him on this issue will be good for us politically. This should make it quite clear to “moderate” Dems which side they need to choose before this is all over. And it should make clear that all those GOP appeals for “bipartisanship” were meaningless – when they said they wanted Obama to fail, they meant it
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/07/20/demented-demint-screwing-obama-much-more-important-than-americans-lives-and-wallets/
"If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," he said. . . .
Bill Kristol helps too: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/07/kristol_kill_it_and_start_over.asp
With Obamacare on the ropes, there will be a temptation for opponents to let up on their criticism, and to try to appear constructive, or at least responsible. There will be a tendency to want to let the Democrats' plans sink of their own weight, to emphasize that the critics have been pushing sound reform ideas all along and suggest it's not too late for a bipartisan compromise over the next couple of weeks or months.
My advice, for what it's worth: Resist the temptation. This is no time to pull punches. Go for the kill. . . .
More from the right: http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/right-wing-media-voices-of-gop-in.html
Obama responds: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/obama-hits-demint-republicans-for-playing-politics-with-health-care-commits-to-reform-by-end-of-this.php
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/obamas-new-health-care-strategy-divide-and-conquer.php
But here is the fact of the matter: it isn’t Obama’s Waterloo – it’s THEIRS
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019156.php
And STILL the Republicans whine that Obama isn’t being bipartisan enough
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019159.php
Where the health care fight will be won or lost
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/understanding_the_pivot_points.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/on_those_pivot_points.php
A bad deal?
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/robert_reich/2009/07/obamacare-is-at-war-with-itsel.php
[Robert Reich] Political efforts to buy off Big Pharma, private insurers, and the AMA are all pushing up long-term costs -- one reason why Douglas Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Office, told Congress late last week that "the cost curve is being raised." But this is setting off alarms among Blue Dog Democrats worried about future deficits -- and their votes are critical. . . . [read on]
Michael Steele doesn’t know anything about health care – he just knows he’s against whatever it is Obama is proposing
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019153.php
[Steve Benen] I can appreciate why Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appeared at the National Press Club this morning to bash the president and trash the idea of health care reform. It's a key week in the larger reform effort; President Obama is going to be pushing hard; and it stands to reason the RNC would take an active role in pushing back in the other direction.
But would it have killed Steele to read up a little bit on the issue before his appearance? . . .
[H]is address was short on details. Pressed repeatedly during the question and answer session why the GOP had not actually released its plan for health care reform -- and then on specific policy proposals -- Steele demurred to his GOP colleagues in Congress.
"Look I don't do policy," he said . . .
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/20/steele_healthcare/index.html
MODERATOR: Does President Obama's health care plan represent socialism?
STEELE: Yes. Next question. . . . [read on]
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/interesting_point.php
[Josh Marshall] Michael Steele is in a Q&A right now on health care and just said that not only is the administration interested in intervening in the relationship between an individual and his or her doctor but also the relationship between the individual and their insurance company. I'm not sure most people see that latter relationship as so inviolate.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/07/steele-on-health-care-whats-individual-requirement.php
[Rachel Slajda] Michael Steele, chairman of the RNC, doesn't seem to know the basic terminology of the health care debate.
In a Q&A at the National Press Club just now, Steele was asked if Republicans support an individual requirement to get health care (also known as an individual mandate).
"What do you mean by an individual requirement?" he asked the moderator. After she explained, he dodged the question.
"Again, that is one of those areas where there is different opinions . . .”
More stupid: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/20/755488/-Steele-explains-GOP-opposition-to-health-care-reform
Theocracy watch
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/rep-randy-forbes-r-va-issues-challeng
[Chris Rodda] On January 28, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), founder of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, introduced H. Con. Res. 34, a resolution "Calling upon the Capitol Preservation Commission and the Office of the Architect of the Capitol to place the Lincoln-Obama Bible on permanent display upon the Lincoln table at the Capitol Visitor Center for the benefit of all its visitors to fully understand and appreciate America's history and Godly heritage."
Now, I have no objection whatsoever to this Bible being displayed in the Capitol Visitors Center. . . . What I do object to in H. Con. Res. 34 are some of the reasons given by Forbes for displaying the Bible, in both the resolution's title and its "Whereas" clauses, the most objectionable of which is:
"Whereas the Holy Bible is God's Word"
For the umpteenth time, we ask, What if a liberal commentator in the press had said such a thing? Fox News analyst Ralph Peters calls on the Taliban to execute a US soldier
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/fox-news-ralph-peters-basically-says-ta
“If when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I'm with him. But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies in wartime - I don't care how hard it sounds. As far as I'm concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.”
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/20/755465/-Insanity-Unleashed-At-Fox
Bonus item: C Street – write your own joke
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/c_street_rebranding_gop_cheaters_need_our_discreet.php
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Jim DeMint (R-SC) does us all a big favor by saying out loud what the GOP really thinks – we gotta block Obama on health care because beating him on this issue will be good for us politically. This should make it quite clear to “moderate” Dems which side they need to choose before this is all over. And it should make clear that all those GOP appeals for “bipartisanship” were meaningless – when they said they wanted Obama to fail, they meant it
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/07/20/demented-demint-screwing-obama-much-more-important-than-americans-lives-and-wallets/
"If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," he said. . . .
Bill Kristol helps too: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/07/kristol_kill_it_and_start_over.asp
With Obamacare on the ropes, there will be a temptation for opponents to let up on their criticism, and to try to appear constructive, or at least responsible. There will be a tendency to want to let the Democrats' plans sink of their own weight, to emphasize that the critics have been pushing sound reform ideas all along and suggest it's not too late for a bipartisan compromise over the next couple of weeks or months.
My advice, for what it's worth: Resist the temptation. This is no time to pull punches. Go for the kill. . . .
More from the right: http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/right-wing-media-voices-of-gop-in.html
Obama responds: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/obama-hits-demint-republicans-for-playing-politics-with-health-care-commits-to-reform-by-end-of-this.php
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/obamas-new-health-care-strategy-divide-and-conquer.php
But here is the fact of the matter: it isn’t Obama’s Waterloo – it’s THEIRS
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019156.php
And STILL the Republicans whine that Obama isn’t being bipartisan enough
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019159.php
Where the health care fight will be won or lost
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/understanding_the_pivot_points.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/on_those_pivot_points.php
A bad deal?
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/robert_reich/2009/07/obamacare-is-at-war-with-itsel.php
[Robert Reich] Political efforts to buy off Big Pharma, private insurers, and the AMA are all pushing up long-term costs -- one reason why Douglas Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Office, told Congress late last week that "the cost curve is being raised." But this is setting off alarms among Blue Dog Democrats worried about future deficits -- and their votes are critical. . . . [read on]
Michael Steele doesn’t know anything about health care – he just knows he’s against whatever it is Obama is proposing
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019153.php
[Steve Benen] I can appreciate why Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appeared at the National Press Club this morning to bash the president and trash the idea of health care reform. It's a key week in the larger reform effort; President Obama is going to be pushing hard; and it stands to reason the RNC would take an active role in pushing back in the other direction.
But would it have killed Steele to read up a little bit on the issue before his appearance? . . .
[H]is address was short on details. Pressed repeatedly during the question and answer session why the GOP had not actually released its plan for health care reform -- and then on specific policy proposals -- Steele demurred to his GOP colleagues in Congress.
"Look I don't do policy," he said . . .
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/20/steele_healthcare/index.html
MODERATOR: Does President Obama's health care plan represent socialism?
STEELE: Yes. Next question. . . . [read on]
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/interesting_point.php
[Josh Marshall] Michael Steele is in a Q&A right now on health care and just said that not only is the administration interested in intervening in the relationship between an individual and his or her doctor but also the relationship between the individual and their insurance company. I'm not sure most people see that latter relationship as so inviolate.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/07/steele-on-health-care-whats-individual-requirement.php
[Rachel Slajda] Michael Steele, chairman of the RNC, doesn't seem to know the basic terminology of the health care debate.
In a Q&A at the National Press Club just now, Steele was asked if Republicans support an individual requirement to get health care (also known as an individual mandate).
"What do you mean by an individual requirement?" he asked the moderator. After she explained, he dodged the question.
"Again, that is one of those areas where there is different opinions . . .”
More stupid: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/20/755488/-Steele-explains-GOP-opposition-to-health-care-reform
Theocracy watch
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/rep-randy-forbes-r-va-issues-challeng
[Chris Rodda] On January 28, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), founder of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, introduced H. Con. Res. 34, a resolution "Calling upon the Capitol Preservation Commission and the Office of the Architect of the Capitol to place the Lincoln-Obama Bible on permanent display upon the Lincoln table at the Capitol Visitor Center for the benefit of all its visitors to fully understand and appreciate America's history and Godly heritage."
Now, I have no objection whatsoever to this Bible being displayed in the Capitol Visitors Center. . . . What I do object to in H. Con. Res. 34 are some of the reasons given by Forbes for displaying the Bible, in both the resolution's title and its "Whereas" clauses, the most objectionable of which is:
"Whereas the Holy Bible is God's Word"
For the umpteenth time, we ask, What if a liberal commentator in the press had said such a thing? Fox News analyst Ralph Peters calls on the Taliban to execute a US soldier
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/fox-news-ralph-peters-basically-says-ta
“If when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I'm with him. But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies in wartime - I don't care how hard it sounds. As far as I'm concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.”
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/20/755465/-Insanity-Unleashed-At-Fox
Bonus item: C Street – write your own joke
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/c_street_rebranding_gop_cheaters_need_our_discreet.php
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Monday, July 20, 2009
BAD HISTORY
The people behind torture
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/18/AR2009071802065.html
One man's certitude lanced through the debate, according to a participant in one of the meetings. James E. Mitchell, a retired clinical psychologist for the Air Force, had studied al-Qaeda resistance techniques.
"The thing that will make him talk," the participant recalled Mitchell saying, "is fear."
Now, as the Senate intelligence committee examines the CIA's interrogation program, investigators are focusing in part on Mitchell and John "Bruce" Jessen, former CIA contractors who helped design and oversee Abu Zubaida's interrogation. These men have been portrayed as eager proponents of coercion, but the former U.S. official, whose account was corroborated in part by Justice Department documents, said they also rejected orders from Langley to prolong the most severe pressure on the detainee. The former official's account, alongside the recollections of those familiar with events at the CIA's secret prison in Thailand, yields a more nuanced understanding of their role than has previously been available.
Interviews with nearly two dozen current and former U.S. officials also provide new evidence that the imposition of harsh techniques provoked dissension . . .
More: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/report-interrogators-threatened-quit-over-wa
Report: Interrogators threatened to quit over waterboarding
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/19/one-former-official-ready-to-bust-others-for-torture/
One Former Official Ready to Bust Others for Torture
Forgetting the lessons of Iraq?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/afghanistan-oversight-awol
[Bruce Falconer] After the legendary corruption of the Iraq occupation—private contractors fashioning spurs for their cowboy boots from stolen Iraqi gold, vanishing pallets of shrink-wrapped cash—you'd think the US government would be keeping an extra-close watch on the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. But you'd be wrong. . . .
Short memories
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019144.php
[Steve Benen] In 1993, Bill Kristol privately advised congressional Republicans to do whatever it took to "kill" the Clinton health care reform initiative. It wasn't that the policy proposal was a bad idea; it was that passage would help the Democratic Party for years to come. The GOP, he said, for the sake of its own future, couldn't compromise or negotiate with the majority.
Sixteen years later, a wide variety of Democrats are working hard to convince Republicans to support reform, despite the built-in incentive for seeing reform fail. Mark Kleiman noted that a few too many Democrats seem to have forgotten the recent past, and worse, seem oblivious to the larger electoral dynamic. . . .[read on]
Walter Cronkite, slandered by the right
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/07/walter_cronkite_has_blood_on_h.html
Walter Cronkite Has Blood on His Hands
[American Thinker] On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite delivered his verdict on the (ongoing) war in Vietnam. The most trusted man in America pronounced that it was "more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam War is to end in a stalemate." . . . [read on]
[NB: Of course, the war continued for SEVEN MORE YEARS, but it was Cronkite’s fault that we lost.]
Pat Buchanan says US “built by white men”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/19/754386/-The-intellectual-dishonesty-of-Pat-Buchanan
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/19/754963/-Behind-the-white-folks-who-built-this-country...
Bonus item: Still apologizing, if you can call this an apology: I cheated on my wife, and I’m a better man for it
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/governors/sanford-apologizes-again.html
[Mark Sanford] "Surprisingly I am thankful for the perspective it has afforded” . . . [read on]
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
The people behind torture
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/18/AR2009071802065.html
One man's certitude lanced through the debate, according to a participant in one of the meetings. James E. Mitchell, a retired clinical psychologist for the Air Force, had studied al-Qaeda resistance techniques.
"The thing that will make him talk," the participant recalled Mitchell saying, "is fear."
Now, as the Senate intelligence committee examines the CIA's interrogation program, investigators are focusing in part on Mitchell and John "Bruce" Jessen, former CIA contractors who helped design and oversee Abu Zubaida's interrogation. These men have been portrayed as eager proponents of coercion, but the former U.S. official, whose account was corroborated in part by Justice Department documents, said they also rejected orders from Langley to prolong the most severe pressure on the detainee. The former official's account, alongside the recollections of those familiar with events at the CIA's secret prison in Thailand, yields a more nuanced understanding of their role than has previously been available.
Interviews with nearly two dozen current and former U.S. officials also provide new evidence that the imposition of harsh techniques provoked dissension . . .
More: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/report-interrogators-threatened-quit-over-wa
Report: Interrogators threatened to quit over waterboarding
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/19/one-former-official-ready-to-bust-others-for-torture/
One Former Official Ready to Bust Others for Torture
Forgetting the lessons of Iraq?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/afghanistan-oversight-awol
[Bruce Falconer] After the legendary corruption of the Iraq occupation—private contractors fashioning spurs for their cowboy boots from stolen Iraqi gold, vanishing pallets of shrink-wrapped cash—you'd think the US government would be keeping an extra-close watch on the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. But you'd be wrong. . . .
Short memories
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019144.php
[Steve Benen] In 1993, Bill Kristol privately advised congressional Republicans to do whatever it took to "kill" the Clinton health care reform initiative. It wasn't that the policy proposal was a bad idea; it was that passage would help the Democratic Party for years to come. The GOP, he said, for the sake of its own future, couldn't compromise or negotiate with the majority.
Sixteen years later, a wide variety of Democrats are working hard to convince Republicans to support reform, despite the built-in incentive for seeing reform fail. Mark Kleiman noted that a few too many Democrats seem to have forgotten the recent past, and worse, seem oblivious to the larger electoral dynamic. . . .[read on]
Walter Cronkite, slandered by the right
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/07/walter_cronkite_has_blood_on_h.html
Walter Cronkite Has Blood on His Hands
[American Thinker] On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite delivered his verdict on the (ongoing) war in Vietnam. The most trusted man in America pronounced that it was "more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam War is to end in a stalemate." . . . [read on]
[NB: Of course, the war continued for SEVEN MORE YEARS, but it was Cronkite’s fault that we lost.]
Pat Buchanan says US “built by white men”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/19/754386/-The-intellectual-dishonesty-of-Pat-Buchanan
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/19/754963/-Behind-the-white-folks-who-built-this-country...
Bonus item: Still apologizing, if you can call this an apology: I cheated on my wife, and I’m a better man for it
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/governors/sanford-apologizes-again.html
[Mark Sanford] "Surprisingly I am thankful for the perspective it has afforded” . . . [read on]
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Sunday, July 19, 2009
SHOWDOWN
Obama brings down the hammer on health care reform
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/18/754715/-Obama:-Seize-opportunity-for-health-reform,-or-lose-it-for-a-generation
“That’s why any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans – including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest – and choose what’s best for your family. . . .” [read on]
Comment: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/obama-locks-and-loads-by-digby-in.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019137.php
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019138.php
A second look at the much-cited CBO assessment that health care reform would be too expensive
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/archive/2009/07/17/orszag-on-cbo-testimony.aspx
[Jonathan Cohn] Doug Elmendorf, director of the Congresional Budget Office, sent tremors through Washington when he gave congressional tesitmony on Thursday. Appearing first before the Senate Finance Committee and then the House Ways and Means Committee, Elmendorf declared that his office had not yet seen evidence that health reform legislation would substantially reduce the cost of medical care over the long run. Within minutes of the first appearance, blackberries all over town were buzzing . . . [read on]
Paul Krugman on the six "moderates"
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/the-six-deadly-hypocrites/
Will the destructive center kill health care reform? It looks all too possible.
What’s especially galling is the hypocrisy of their claimed reason for delaying progress — concern about the fiscal burden. . . [read on]
What David Gregory has done to “Meet the Press”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/17/754678/-Meet-the-Press-More-Like-Stroke-the-Guest
[Gregory to Mark Sanford’s office] Left you a message. Wanted you to hear directly from me that I want to have the Gov on Sunday on Meet The Press. I think it's exactly the right forum to answer the questions about his trip . . . You know he will get a fair shake from me and coming on MTP puts all of this to rest. . .
So coming on Meet The Press allows you to frame the conversation how you really want to . . . and then move on . . .
More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/17/meet-the-press-still-lets-guest-control-the-message/
Sunday talk show line-ups
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/19/755078/-Sunday-TalkCooking-With-Fire
Meet the Press: Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Roundtable: Paul Gigot (The Wall Street Journal), John Harwood (CNBC/The New York Times), Micvhele Norris (NPR) and Author Richard Wolffe ("Renegade: The Making of a President").
Face the Nation: Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT); Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY); RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
This Week: Preempted by British Open coverage.
State of the Union: Peter Orszag; Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL); Reverend Jesse Jackson; Reliable Sources: Terry Moran (ABC News); Dahlia Litwick (Slate); Jim Geraghty (The National Review); Soledad O'Brien (CNN).
Bonus item: The idiot right on global warming
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/s-dakota-teabagger-speaker-tries-explai
Extra idiocy item: Too crazy even for Glenn Beck
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/ann-coulter-being-black-trumps-being-in
Triple idiocy item: Michael Steele opens his mouth, and stupid comes out
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019131.php
“I'll take George Bush's deficit right now of a trillion dollars over the 10 trillion dollars that this administration has created in just six months." [read on]
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Obama brings down the hammer on health care reform
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/18/754715/-Obama:-Seize-opportunity-for-health-reform,-or-lose-it-for-a-generation
“That’s why any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans – including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest – and choose what’s best for your family. . . .” [read on]
Comment: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/obama-locks-and-loads-by-digby-in.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019137.php
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019138.php
A second look at the much-cited CBO assessment that health care reform would be too expensive
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/archive/2009/07/17/orszag-on-cbo-testimony.aspx
[Jonathan Cohn] Doug Elmendorf, director of the Congresional Budget Office, sent tremors through Washington when he gave congressional tesitmony on Thursday. Appearing first before the Senate Finance Committee and then the House Ways and Means Committee, Elmendorf declared that his office had not yet seen evidence that health reform legislation would substantially reduce the cost of medical care over the long run. Within minutes of the first appearance, blackberries all over town were buzzing . . . [read on]
Paul Krugman on the six "moderates"
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/the-six-deadly-hypocrites/
Will the destructive center kill health care reform? It looks all too possible.
What’s especially galling is the hypocrisy of their claimed reason for delaying progress — concern about the fiscal burden. . . [read on]
What David Gregory has done to “Meet the Press”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/17/754678/-Meet-the-Press-More-Like-Stroke-the-Guest
[Gregory to Mark Sanford’s office] Left you a message. Wanted you to hear directly from me that I want to have the Gov on Sunday on Meet The Press. I think it's exactly the right forum to answer the questions about his trip . . . You know he will get a fair shake from me and coming on MTP puts all of this to rest. . .
So coming on Meet The Press allows you to frame the conversation how you really want to . . . and then move on . . .
More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/17/meet-the-press-still-lets-guest-control-the-message/
Sunday talk show line-ups
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/19/755078/-Sunday-TalkCooking-With-Fire
Meet the Press: Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Roundtable: Paul Gigot (The Wall Street Journal), John Harwood (CNBC/The New York Times), Micvhele Norris (NPR) and Author Richard Wolffe ("Renegade: The Making of a President").
Face the Nation: Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT); Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY); RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
This Week: Preempted by British Open coverage.
State of the Union: Peter Orszag; Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL); Reverend Jesse Jackson; Reliable Sources: Terry Moran (ABC News); Dahlia Litwick (Slate); Jim Geraghty (The National Review); Soledad O'Brien (CNN).
Bonus item: The idiot right on global warming
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/s-dakota-teabagger-speaker-tries-explai
Extra idiocy item: Too crazy even for Glenn Beck
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/ann-coulter-being-black-trumps-being-in
Triple idiocy item: Michael Steele opens his mouth, and stupid comes out
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019131.php
“I'll take George Bush's deficit right now of a trillion dollars over the 10 trillion dollars that this administration has created in just six months." [read on]
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Saturday, July 18, 2009
REVENGE OF THE MODERATES
Renewed protests in Iran
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/07/17/world/worldwatch/entry5169574.shtml
What next? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/world/middleeast/18iran.html
Tehran Losing Iranians’ Trust, Ex-Leader Says . . .
http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/rafsanjani-calls-for-release-of.html
Rafsanjani calls for release of political prisoners, open debate . . .
Well, wouldn’t you know it – just as Obama’s health care reform starts to pick up steam, a group of DEMOCRATS decides it’s time to delay it
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/health/policy/18health.html
Three of the five Congressional committees working on legislation to reinvent the nation’s health care system delivered bills this week along the lines proposed by President Obama. But instead of celebrating their success, many Democrats were apprehensive, nervous and defensive. . . .
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/citing-cbo-directors-statements-senate-centrists-urge-slower-pace-for-health-care-reform.php
Six key Senate Centrists--Ben Nelson (D-NE), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Ron Wyden (D-OR)--are asking Democratic and Republican leaders to slow down the pace of health care reform efforts. . . .
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/17/754585/-Gang-of-Six-Moderates-Tries-to-Slow-Healthcare-Reform
Why? http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/why-would-democrats-want-to-slow-walk-health-care.php
Who are the “centrists” helping?
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Health_reform_foes_plan_Obamas_Waterloo.html
Conservative leaders will push delay any vote on health care reform until after the August recess to capitalize on what they say is a growing tide of opposition to reform measures, they said on a conference call with "tea party" participants today.
"I can almost guarantee you this thing won't pass before August, and if we can hold it back until we go home for a month's break in August," members of Congress will hear from "outraged" constituents, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said on the call, which was organized by the group Conservatives for Patients Rights.
"Senators and Congressmen will come back in September afraid to vote against the American people," DeMint predicted, adding that "this health care issue Is D-Day for freedom in America."
"If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," he said. . . .
The Republicans suddenly discover they like the CBO after all
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/perspective-by-digby-that-was-then-and.html
Obama pushes back hard
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/obama-gets-riled--defering-reform-defends-the-status-quo.php
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019125.php
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/is-the-white-house-preparing-to-miss-the-august-and-october-health-care-deadlines.php
The kind of Supreme Court process we’ve been given
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/supreme-court-kabuki
[Kevin Drum] Back in the pre-culture war era, senators asked nominees questions and nominees more or less answered them. And then, unless someone produced incriminating photos with a sheep, the nominee was confirmed. A mere 20 years ago, Antonin Scalia, now a bête noire of the left, was confirmed unanimously after Ronald Reagan nominated him to the court in 1986.
But then things changed. Robert Bork got borked in 1987. David Souter and Anthony Kennedy turned out not to be as conservative as conservatives had hoped. Clarence Thomas blasted his nomination hearings as a "high-tech lynching" and was only barely confirmed. And everybody learned their lesson from this: nominate candidates whose views are clear (no more Souters!) and then make sure they say absolutely nothing about those views (no more Borks!). Ginsburg and Breyer invented the technique, Roberts and Alito honed it, and as near as I can tell, Sotomayor has taken it to its reductio ad absurdum apex. If it's something that might come before the court in the future (and everything comes before the Supreme Court eventually), tell 'em it would be inappropriate to answer. If someone asks a more general question, say that you can't really answer in the abstract. If more details are provided, switch gears and say that you can't engage in hypotheticals. As near as I can tell, Sotomayor was barely willing to admit that she had a law degree, let alone that she had any opinions whatsoever regarding the law.
But look — that's the way the game is played these days. . . .
Giving up card check in EFCA – and improving the bill?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/efca-compromise-moderates-to-embrace-labor-reformwithout-card-check.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/cutting_a_deal_on_efca.php
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/17/754517/-Majority-Sign-Up-Dropped-from-Employee-Free-Choice-Act
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/card_check_is_as_good_as_dead.php
The kind of people they are
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/17/tiahrt/index.html
[Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan] “If you think of it in human terms, there's a financial incentive that will be put in place, paid for by tax dollars, that will encourage women who are single parents living below the poverty level to have an opportunity for a free abortion.
If you take that scenario and apply it to many of the great minds we have today, who would we have been deprived of? Our president grew up in similar circumstances. If that financial incentive were in place, is it possible that his mother might have taken advantage of it? . . .”
Watch: http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2977330
House Intelligence Committee to investigate illegal CIA program, and why it was hidden from Congress
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/house-republicans/breaking-house-dems-will-investigate-secret-cia-program/
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/17/silvestre-reyes-announces-investigation-into-violations-of-national-security-act/
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/17/754643/-House-Intelligence-Committee-To-Investigate-CIA
The fight over the F-22 fighter jet, and why it matters
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/the-significance-of-the-f-22-debate.php
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2009/07/17/your-morning-jolt-in-f-22-fight-gates-calls-for-an-end-to-defense-business-as-usual/
Look, I admit that Pat Buchanan makes good tee vee – but how long do we have to accept his racist hatred as mainstream commentary?
http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/why-does-nbc-pay-pat-buchanan-to-be-its.html
http://crooksandliars.com/bob-cesca/time-pat-buchanan-go-away
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6410
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019115.php
More: http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/top-immigration-group-demands-msnbc-muzzle-pat-buchanan-on-race/
Top Immigration Group Demands MSNBC Muzzle Pat Buchanan On Race . . .
[NB: I'm of two minds on this sort of thing. I don't like a major media outlet giving air time and legitimacy to these views. But politically I think it is a good thing for the ugly, atavistic underbelly of the Republican party to be on public display.]
Chuck Todd: Tim Russert’s true heir
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/glenzilla-vs-todd-monster-by-digby.html
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/17/chuck-todds-law/
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019126.php
Bonus item: Oh, they are geniuses – a new branding effort by the Republicans
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-national-committee/republican-national-committee-rolls-out-epithet-obama-democrats/
“Obama Democrats”
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Renewed protests in Iran
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/07/17/world/worldwatch/entry5169574.shtml
What next? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/world/middleeast/18iran.html
Tehran Losing Iranians’ Trust, Ex-Leader Says . . .
http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/rafsanjani-calls-for-release-of.html
Rafsanjani calls for release of political prisoners, open debate . . .
Well, wouldn’t you know it – just as Obama’s health care reform starts to pick up steam, a group of DEMOCRATS decides it’s time to delay it
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/health/policy/18health.html
Three of the five Congressional committees working on legislation to reinvent the nation’s health care system delivered bills this week along the lines proposed by President Obama. But instead of celebrating their success, many Democrats were apprehensive, nervous and defensive. . . .
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/citing-cbo-directors-statements-senate-centrists-urge-slower-pace-for-health-care-reform.php
Six key Senate Centrists--Ben Nelson (D-NE), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Ron Wyden (D-OR)--are asking Democratic and Republican leaders to slow down the pace of health care reform efforts. . . .
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/17/754585/-Gang-of-Six-Moderates-Tries-to-Slow-Healthcare-Reform
Why? http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/why-would-democrats-want-to-slow-walk-health-care.php
Who are the “centrists” helping?
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Health_reform_foes_plan_Obamas_Waterloo.html
Conservative leaders will push delay any vote on health care reform until after the August recess to capitalize on what they say is a growing tide of opposition to reform measures, they said on a conference call with "tea party" participants today.
"I can almost guarantee you this thing won't pass before August, and if we can hold it back until we go home for a month's break in August," members of Congress will hear from "outraged" constituents, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said on the call, which was organized by the group Conservatives for Patients Rights.
"Senators and Congressmen will come back in September afraid to vote against the American people," DeMint predicted, adding that "this health care issue Is D-Day for freedom in America."
"If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," he said. . . .
The Republicans suddenly discover they like the CBO after all
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/perspective-by-digby-that-was-then-and.html
Obama pushes back hard
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/obama-gets-riled--defering-reform-defends-the-status-quo.php
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019125.php
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/is-the-white-house-preparing-to-miss-the-august-and-october-health-care-deadlines.php
The kind of Supreme Court process we’ve been given
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/supreme-court-kabuki
[Kevin Drum] Back in the pre-culture war era, senators asked nominees questions and nominees more or less answered them. And then, unless someone produced incriminating photos with a sheep, the nominee was confirmed. A mere 20 years ago, Antonin Scalia, now a bête noire of the left, was confirmed unanimously after Ronald Reagan nominated him to the court in 1986.
But then things changed. Robert Bork got borked in 1987. David Souter and Anthony Kennedy turned out not to be as conservative as conservatives had hoped. Clarence Thomas blasted his nomination hearings as a "high-tech lynching" and was only barely confirmed. And everybody learned their lesson from this: nominate candidates whose views are clear (no more Souters!) and then make sure they say absolutely nothing about those views (no more Borks!). Ginsburg and Breyer invented the technique, Roberts and Alito honed it, and as near as I can tell, Sotomayor has taken it to its reductio ad absurdum apex. If it's something that might come before the court in the future (and everything comes before the Supreme Court eventually), tell 'em it would be inappropriate to answer. If someone asks a more general question, say that you can't really answer in the abstract. If more details are provided, switch gears and say that you can't engage in hypotheticals. As near as I can tell, Sotomayor was barely willing to admit that she had a law degree, let alone that she had any opinions whatsoever regarding the law.
But look — that's the way the game is played these days. . . .
Giving up card check in EFCA – and improving the bill?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/efca-compromise-moderates-to-embrace-labor-reformwithout-card-check.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/cutting_a_deal_on_efca.php
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/17/754517/-Majority-Sign-Up-Dropped-from-Employee-Free-Choice-Act
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/card_check_is_as_good_as_dead.php
The kind of people they are
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/17/tiahrt/index.html
[Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan] “If you think of it in human terms, there's a financial incentive that will be put in place, paid for by tax dollars, that will encourage women who are single parents living below the poverty level to have an opportunity for a free abortion.
If you take that scenario and apply it to many of the great minds we have today, who would we have been deprived of? Our president grew up in similar circumstances. If that financial incentive were in place, is it possible that his mother might have taken advantage of it? . . .”
Watch: http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2977330
House Intelligence Committee to investigate illegal CIA program, and why it was hidden from Congress
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/house-republicans/breaking-house-dems-will-investigate-secret-cia-program/
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/17/silvestre-reyes-announces-investigation-into-violations-of-national-security-act/
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/17/754643/-House-Intelligence-Committee-To-Investigate-CIA
The fight over the F-22 fighter jet, and why it matters
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/the-significance-of-the-f-22-debate.php
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2009/07/17/your-morning-jolt-in-f-22-fight-gates-calls-for-an-end-to-defense-business-as-usual/
Look, I admit that Pat Buchanan makes good tee vee – but how long do we have to accept his racist hatred as mainstream commentary?
http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/why-does-nbc-pay-pat-buchanan-to-be-its.html
http://crooksandliars.com/bob-cesca/time-pat-buchanan-go-away
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6410
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019115.php
More: http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/top-immigration-group-demands-msnbc-muzzle-pat-buchanan-on-race/
Top Immigration Group Demands MSNBC Muzzle Pat Buchanan On Race . . .
[NB: I'm of two minds on this sort of thing. I don't like a major media outlet giving air time and legitimacy to these views. But politically I think it is a good thing for the ugly, atavistic underbelly of the Republican party to be on public display.]
Chuck Todd: Tim Russert’s true heir
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/glenzilla-vs-todd-monster-by-digby.html
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/17/chuck-todds-law/
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019126.php
Bonus item: Oh, they are geniuses – a new branding effort by the Republicans
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-national-committee/republican-national-committee-rolls-out-epithet-obama-democrats/
“Obama Democrats”
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Friday, July 17, 2009
NOT HEALTHY
What made the CIA assassination program so toxic? (aside from the fact that it was, well, you know, an ASSASSINATION PROGRAM)
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/report_cia_assassin_program_could_operate_anywhere.php
Since the news broke at the start of the week that CIA director Leon Panetta had pulled the plug on a secret program to assassinate or capture al Qaeda leaders, we've been raising questions about one key aspect of the story. In particular, what was it about the program that was so shocking that Dick Cheney reportedly ordered it kept secret from Congress, Panetta quashed it as soon as he heard about it, and Congressional Democrats risked being painted as soft on terror by shrieking about being kept in the dark? . . . [read on]
Good news/bad news on health care reform. Doctors and nurses come out in support – but the CBO, which everyone likes to invoke when it supports them and ignore when it doesn’t, blasts a big hole in the bill’s financial assumptions
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/ama-president-we-urge-committees-to-pass-house-health-care-bill.php
AMA President: We Urge Committees To Pass House Health Care Bill . . .
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20090715/American-Nurses-Association-stands-with-Obama-in-calling-for-healthcare-reform-now.aspx
American Nurses Association stands with Obama in calling for healthcare reform now . . .
More: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/ama-comes-around
BUT . . .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071602242.html
Congress's chief budget analyst delivered a devastating assessment yesterday of the health-care proposals drafted by congressional Democrats, fueling an insurrection among fiscal conservatives in the House and pushing negotiators in the Senate to redouble efforts to draw up a new plan that more effectively restrains federal spending. . . .
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/politics_explained_in_a_sentence.php
[Marc Ambinder] Politics, Explained In A Sentence
Blue Dog Democrats complain about the size of the House health care bill. Then they demand that hospitals IN THEIR districts be more adequately funded.
John Yoo really shouldn’t be going out of his way to put his legal reasoning skills on public display
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/16/754286/-Yoos-Self-Defense
[McJoan] John Yoo takes the the WSJ opinion pages to provide a highly disingenuous and legally lacking defense of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program in answer to last week's inspectors general report. . . .
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/16/john-yoo-al-qaeda-uses-telephones-but-kgb-spies-dont/
[Marcy Wheeler] There's a lot that's downright amusing for all but Berkeley's trustees in John Yoo's rebuttal to the IG Report. . . .
http://washingtonindependent.com/51319/john-yoos-defense-of-himself-is-as-persuasive-as-most-of-his-legal-opinions
[Spencer Ackerman] This is your horrible, dystopian future: John Yoo, the former Office of Legal Counsel official who had a hand in crafting the Bush administration’s detentions, interrogations and warrantless surveillance abuses, writes endless and endlessly misleading defenses of himself. Some people die because of Yoo’s cavalier relationship with the law — about 100, actually — and others get law school sinecures and limitless op-ed real estate to explain away what they did. Few people write so much for so long with so little self-reflection. You’ll be reading these op-eds in the nursing home. Yoo’s latest comes in response to Friday’s report from five inspectors general about the warrantless surveillance and data-mining escapades of the Bush administration. Welcome to your future.
Yoo starts things off with his typical flourish of disingenuousness . . .
Karl Rove: sharing information with Congress is “dangerous.” An Executive branch unaccountable to any oversight or legal restraint? Not so much
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/16/753374/-Rove:-It-is-so-dangerous-to-give-Congress-information
Here’s the level of Deep Thinking we see on display at the Sotomayor hearings
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/rights-irrational-view-race-full-dis
"Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another." -- Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama
What DOES the “C” stand for?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/another_c_street_vet_falls_to_an_extramarital_affa.php
[Rachel Slajda] Former Congressman and C Street resident Chip Pickering's estranged wife has filed a lawsuit against Pickering's alleged mistress. Leisha Pickering is suing Elizabeth Creekmore-Byrd for alienation of affection. . . .
According to the suit, some of the "wrongful conduct" occurred at the C Street facility for Christian congressmen -- the same one where Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) have lived, and where Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) has recently sought counseling.
What's with this place?
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/c_street_on_the_skidz.php
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/hampton_didnt_disclose_payment_from_ensigns_parent.php
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/16/c-is-for-cheater/
Nice to have a President willing to talk to the NAACP again
http://www.juancole.com/2009/07/after-hiatus-president-at-naacp.html
This man has an emotional disorder, and I mean it
http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/glenn-beck-screams-little-girl-when-c
Bonus item: The Republicans just don’t get this Internet thing
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/16/754313/-Republicans-Go-Shopping
More: http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/rnc-web-site-promoting-anti-semitic.html
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
What made the CIA assassination program so toxic? (aside from the fact that it was, well, you know, an ASSASSINATION PROGRAM)
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/report_cia_assassin_program_could_operate_anywhere.php
Since the news broke at the start of the week that CIA director Leon Panetta had pulled the plug on a secret program to assassinate or capture al Qaeda leaders, we've been raising questions about one key aspect of the story. In particular, what was it about the program that was so shocking that Dick Cheney reportedly ordered it kept secret from Congress, Panetta quashed it as soon as he heard about it, and Congressional Democrats risked being painted as soft on terror by shrieking about being kept in the dark? . . . [read on]
Good news/bad news on health care reform. Doctors and nurses come out in support – but the CBO, which everyone likes to invoke when it supports them and ignore when it doesn’t, blasts a big hole in the bill’s financial assumptions
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/ama-president-we-urge-committees-to-pass-house-health-care-bill.php
AMA President: We Urge Committees To Pass House Health Care Bill . . .
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20090715/American-Nurses-Association-stands-with-Obama-in-calling-for-healthcare-reform-now.aspx
American Nurses Association stands with Obama in calling for healthcare reform now . . .
More: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/ama-comes-around
BUT . . .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071602242.html
Congress's chief budget analyst delivered a devastating assessment yesterday of the health-care proposals drafted by congressional Democrats, fueling an insurrection among fiscal conservatives in the House and pushing negotiators in the Senate to redouble efforts to draw up a new plan that more effectively restrains federal spending. . . .
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/politics_explained_in_a_sentence.php
[Marc Ambinder] Politics, Explained In A Sentence
Blue Dog Democrats complain about the size of the House health care bill. Then they demand that hospitals IN THEIR districts be more adequately funded.
John Yoo really shouldn’t be going out of his way to put his legal reasoning skills on public display
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/16/754286/-Yoos-Self-Defense
[McJoan] John Yoo takes the the WSJ opinion pages to provide a highly disingenuous and legally lacking defense of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program in answer to last week's inspectors general report. . . .
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/16/john-yoo-al-qaeda-uses-telephones-but-kgb-spies-dont/
[Marcy Wheeler] There's a lot that's downright amusing for all but Berkeley's trustees in John Yoo's rebuttal to the IG Report. . . .
http://washingtonindependent.com/51319/john-yoos-defense-of-himself-is-as-persuasive-as-most-of-his-legal-opinions
[Spencer Ackerman] This is your horrible, dystopian future: John Yoo, the former Office of Legal Counsel official who had a hand in crafting the Bush administration’s detentions, interrogations and warrantless surveillance abuses, writes endless and endlessly misleading defenses of himself. Some people die because of Yoo’s cavalier relationship with the law — about 100, actually — and others get law school sinecures and limitless op-ed real estate to explain away what they did. Few people write so much for so long with so little self-reflection. You’ll be reading these op-eds in the nursing home. Yoo’s latest comes in response to Friday’s report from five inspectors general about the warrantless surveillance and data-mining escapades of the Bush administration. Welcome to your future.
Yoo starts things off with his typical flourish of disingenuousness . . .
Karl Rove: sharing information with Congress is “dangerous.” An Executive branch unaccountable to any oversight or legal restraint? Not so much
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/16/753374/-Rove:-It-is-so-dangerous-to-give-Congress-information
Here’s the level of Deep Thinking we see on display at the Sotomayor hearings
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/rights-irrational-view-race-full-dis
"Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another." -- Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama
What DOES the “C” stand for?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/another_c_street_vet_falls_to_an_extramarital_affa.php
[Rachel Slajda] Former Congressman and C Street resident Chip Pickering's estranged wife has filed a lawsuit against Pickering's alleged mistress. Leisha Pickering is suing Elizabeth Creekmore-Byrd for alienation of affection. . . .
According to the suit, some of the "wrongful conduct" occurred at the C Street facility for Christian congressmen -- the same one where Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) have lived, and where Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) has recently sought counseling.
What's with this place?
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/c_street_on_the_skidz.php
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/hampton_didnt_disclose_payment_from_ensigns_parent.php
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/16/c-is-for-cheater/
Nice to have a President willing to talk to the NAACP again
http://www.juancole.com/2009/07/after-hiatus-president-at-naacp.html
This man has an emotional disorder, and I mean it
http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/glenn-beck-screams-little-girl-when-c
Bonus item: The Republicans just don’t get this Internet thing
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/16/754313/-Republicans-Go-Shopping
More: http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/rnc-web-site-promoting-anti-semitic.html
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Thursday, July 16, 2009
THEY GOT NUTHIN’
Republicans spend another day prattling on about the “wise Latina” remark. And thus are Supreme Court appointments decided
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/15/sotomayor.hearing/
Asked repeatedly Wednesday by Republicans about her controversial statement that a "wise Latina" could reach a better decision than a white man, Sotomayor called it a poorly expressed but valid point about the value of differing perspectives in applying the law. . . .
They just can’t help themselves: Tom Coburn (R-OK) makes a Ricky Ricardo joke to Sotomayor
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i50DeDW5LZUDAChBxX2Oqt4co18wD99F111G0
"You'll Have Lots Of Splainin' To Do" . . . .
More: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/07/smiling-gopers-ought-to-be-fro.html
[Craig Crawford] Watching Lindsey Graham's gotcha grin as he needled Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with disingenuous and rhetorical questions you had to wonder what was so funny.
Does the Republican senator think it is amusing that he and his party's condescending tone toward the Hispanic woman was costing them ethnic votes with each passing hour of Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing? . . . .
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/senate-republicans-reveal-more-about
[Nicole Belle] My oh my, I don't think the Republican Party is trying very hard to disprove the widely held notion that they are the party of privileged white men. Let's look at their perhaps unintentionally revealing tactics in questioning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor . . . [read on]
“Sotomayor supports terrorists”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753753/-Who-Knew-Sotomayor-Supports-Terrorists
Uh huh: http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/big-tent-democrat/right-wing-group-says-cabranes-c
[Big Tent Democrat] We have learned that Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) has a favorite Puerto Rican jurist -- Jose Cabranes. Sessions demanded to know why Judge Sotomayor did not follow Judge Cabranes' lead.
Interestingly, Sessions was very critical of Judge Sotomayor's involvement, as a member of the Board of Directors, of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. Sessions seemed not to know that his favorite Boricua judge, Cabranes, was also a member of the Board of the PRDLEF. . . .
Listen to him!
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/buchanan-gop-needs-more-race-baiting-not-less.php
A provocative article by Pat Buchanan argues that contrary to conventional wisdom, Republicans shouldn’t worry about alienating Hispanic voters, they should just focus on getting white people to like them more . . .
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/two-minutes-of-hate-by-digby-media.html
“Two Minutes of Hate”
Funny, funny, funny. John Kyl (R-AZ), says we should cancel the rest of the stimulus package. Obama admin says, OK, we’ll start with canceling Arizona’s payments. Then the fun starts
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753780/-Obama-calls-Kyls-bluff-on-stimulus,-McCain-freaks-out
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/throwing-elbows-by-dday-i-dont-know-if.html
The emerging health care bills: an early comparison
House: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753524/-Preliminary-Look-at-the-House-Healthcare-Reform-Bill
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6340
Senate: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753741/-Senate-HELP-Committee-Passes-Health-Reform-Bill
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6360
The secret CIA program was about to go live (though maybe that’s not the right choice of words)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071503856.html
CIA officials were proposing to activate a plan to train anti-terrorist assassination teams overseas when agency managers brought the secret program to the attention of CIA Director Leon Panetta last month, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The plan to kill top al-Qaeda leaders, which had been on the agency's back burner for much of the past eight years, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight because of proposals to initiate what one intelligence official called a "somewhat more operational phase." Shortly after learning of the plan, Panetta terminated the program and then went to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers, who had been kept in the dark since 2001. . . .
CIA torture report now due August 24
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/cia_gets_extension_until_aug_24_on_torture_report.php
“Warning”? Or pleading?
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/15/huckabee-warns-palin-dont-leave-gop/
Huckabee warns Palin: Don't leave GOP
Palin’s BIG problem with Republicans
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/15/sarah-palin-poll-republicans
More: http://www.newsweek.com/id/206098/page/1
More shoes to drop for John Ensign (R-NV)?
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/07/15/some_worry_ensign_saga_not_over.html
Mark Sanford takes MORE time off his job
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/07/15/sanford_cancels_schedule.html
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) disappeared out-of-state again, Fox Carolina reports, but this time he's with his wife.
Said Sawyer: "This trip is personal in nature, and we're not going to offer any further comment. . . .”
More on the efforts of conservative media to coordinate messages with Mark Sanford’s staff to minimize the earlier story of his unexplained disappearance from office (which turned out to be a visit to see his paramour in Argentina)
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/864316.html
National media blitzed Gov. Mark Sanford’s staff, offering big ratings and, possibly, a sympathetic venue in an effort to land the first interview with the governor after his six-day trip to Argentina.
In addition, a blogger and state leaders reached out to Sanford’s office to try to coordinate a way to “push back” on the growing mystery surrounding Sanford’s absence. . . .
Here’s an example, Erick Erickson of Red State: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/from_the_alternate_universe.php
[June 24] First, we need to be clear on the facts -- not the media speculation:
-- Sanford did tell his staff and family where he was going.
-- Because he was traveling without a security detail, it was in his best interests that no one knew he was gone.
-- His political enemies -- Republicans at that -- ginned up the media story.
-- When confronted by a pestering media, things went downhill.
-- Again though, at all times there was no doubt that Sanford's staff and family knew where he was.
[NB: All untrue, as it turned out]
Erick Erickson, behind the scenes: http://www.eschatonblog.com/2009/07/you-can-say-that-again.html
“If he wants something more personal for the blog to push back, I’m happy to help,” wrote Erick Erickson, a writer for RedState.com. On June 23, Erickson ripped “media speculation” about Sanford’s whereabouts.
“I wasn’t trying to be a reporter. I wanted to curtail the story,” Erickson said by e-mail. “Well that didn’t work.”
Jake Tapper of ABC, behind the scenes
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/tapper_to_sanford_aide_nbc_spot_on_missing_guv_was.php
Yesterday we told you about how the conservative media sucked up to Mark Sanford's office by calling stories about the governor's disappearance overblown -- even while the gov was still AWOL.
But it looks like it wasn't just the acknowledged right-wingers who were denigrating the story to Sanford's aides. The State has written up a few more of the emails, and look what they found:
ABC News White House reporter Jake Tapper e-mailed Sawyer twice on June 23, both to note coverage of competitor NBC.
With a subject line of "NBC spot was slimy," Tapper e-mailed Sawyer a "Today" show transcript of Sanford coverage, calling it "insulting." . . . .
Tapper “explains”: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/tapper_gov_missing_for_five_days_was_no_story.php
Lots more: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753674/-Inside-the-medias-sausage-factory
[Washington Times] “You know that you will be on friendly ground here!” . . . [read on]
Why there isn’t a real conservative NEWS outlet
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/im_often_asked_why_the.php
[David Kurtz] The explanation is complicated, but one part of the answer is very simple: Most of the right-wing "news" sites have no interest in being journalists. That's not what they're about and that's not what they see as their primary function, which is advocacy. . . . [read on]
Bonus item: They got nuthin’ -- here’s Rush, trying to make an issue of Obama’s first-pitch at the All Star game. And with all the breathless talk of camera angles, blah, blah, of the Zapruder film, he tries to whip this into a major media conspiracy and cover-up
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_071509/content/01125106.guest.html
This President Throws Like a Girl . . .
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Republicans spend another day prattling on about the “wise Latina” remark. And thus are Supreme Court appointments decided
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/15/sotomayor.hearing/
Asked repeatedly Wednesday by Republicans about her controversial statement that a "wise Latina" could reach a better decision than a white man, Sotomayor called it a poorly expressed but valid point about the value of differing perspectives in applying the law. . . .
They just can’t help themselves: Tom Coburn (R-OK) makes a Ricky Ricardo joke to Sotomayor
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i50DeDW5LZUDAChBxX2Oqt4co18wD99F111G0
"You'll Have Lots Of Splainin' To Do" . . . .
More: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/07/smiling-gopers-ought-to-be-fro.html
[Craig Crawford] Watching Lindsey Graham's gotcha grin as he needled Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with disingenuous and rhetorical questions you had to wonder what was so funny.
Does the Republican senator think it is amusing that he and his party's condescending tone toward the Hispanic woman was costing them ethnic votes with each passing hour of Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing? . . . .
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/senate-republicans-reveal-more-about
[Nicole Belle] My oh my, I don't think the Republican Party is trying very hard to disprove the widely held notion that they are the party of privileged white men. Let's look at their perhaps unintentionally revealing tactics in questioning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor . . . [read on]
“Sotomayor supports terrorists”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753753/-Who-Knew-Sotomayor-Supports-Terrorists
Uh huh: http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/big-tent-democrat/right-wing-group-says-cabranes-c
[Big Tent Democrat] We have learned that Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) has a favorite Puerto Rican jurist -- Jose Cabranes. Sessions demanded to know why Judge Sotomayor did not follow Judge Cabranes' lead.
Interestingly, Sessions was very critical of Judge Sotomayor's involvement, as a member of the Board of Directors, of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. Sessions seemed not to know that his favorite Boricua judge, Cabranes, was also a member of the Board of the PRDLEF. . . .
Listen to him!
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/buchanan-gop-needs-more-race-baiting-not-less.php
A provocative article by Pat Buchanan argues that contrary to conventional wisdom, Republicans shouldn’t worry about alienating Hispanic voters, they should just focus on getting white people to like them more . . .
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/two-minutes-of-hate-by-digby-media.html
“Two Minutes of Hate”
Funny, funny, funny. John Kyl (R-AZ), says we should cancel the rest of the stimulus package. Obama admin says, OK, we’ll start with canceling Arizona’s payments. Then the fun starts
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753780/-Obama-calls-Kyls-bluff-on-stimulus,-McCain-freaks-out
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/throwing-elbows-by-dday-i-dont-know-if.html
The emerging health care bills: an early comparison
House: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753524/-Preliminary-Look-at-the-House-Healthcare-Reform-Bill
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6340
Senate: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753741/-Senate-HELP-Committee-Passes-Health-Reform-Bill
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6360
The secret CIA program was about to go live (though maybe that’s not the right choice of words)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071503856.html
CIA officials were proposing to activate a plan to train anti-terrorist assassination teams overseas when agency managers brought the secret program to the attention of CIA Director Leon Panetta last month, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The plan to kill top al-Qaeda leaders, which had been on the agency's back burner for much of the past eight years, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight because of proposals to initiate what one intelligence official called a "somewhat more operational phase." Shortly after learning of the plan, Panetta terminated the program and then went to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers, who had been kept in the dark since 2001. . . .
CIA torture report now due August 24
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/cia_gets_extension_until_aug_24_on_torture_report.php
“Warning”? Or pleading?
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/15/huckabee-warns-palin-dont-leave-gop/
Huckabee warns Palin: Don't leave GOP
Palin’s BIG problem with Republicans
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/15/sarah-palin-poll-republicans
More: http://www.newsweek.com/id/206098/page/1
More shoes to drop for John Ensign (R-NV)?
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/07/15/some_worry_ensign_saga_not_over.html
Mark Sanford takes MORE time off his job
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/07/15/sanford_cancels_schedule.html
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) disappeared out-of-state again, Fox Carolina reports, but this time he's with his wife.
Said Sawyer: "This trip is personal in nature, and we're not going to offer any further comment. . . .”
More on the efforts of conservative media to coordinate messages with Mark Sanford’s staff to minimize the earlier story of his unexplained disappearance from office (which turned out to be a visit to see his paramour in Argentina)
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/864316.html
National media blitzed Gov. Mark Sanford’s staff, offering big ratings and, possibly, a sympathetic venue in an effort to land the first interview with the governor after his six-day trip to Argentina.
In addition, a blogger and state leaders reached out to Sanford’s office to try to coordinate a way to “push back” on the growing mystery surrounding Sanford’s absence. . . .
Here’s an example, Erick Erickson of Red State: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/from_the_alternate_universe.php
[June 24] First, we need to be clear on the facts -- not the media speculation:
-- Sanford did tell his staff and family where he was going.
-- Because he was traveling without a security detail, it was in his best interests that no one knew he was gone.
-- His political enemies -- Republicans at that -- ginned up the media story.
-- When confronted by a pestering media, things went downhill.
-- Again though, at all times there was no doubt that Sanford's staff and family knew where he was.
[NB: All untrue, as it turned out]
Erick Erickson, behind the scenes: http://www.eschatonblog.com/2009/07/you-can-say-that-again.html
“If he wants something more personal for the blog to push back, I’m happy to help,” wrote Erick Erickson, a writer for RedState.com. On June 23, Erickson ripped “media speculation” about Sanford’s whereabouts.
“I wasn’t trying to be a reporter. I wanted to curtail the story,” Erickson said by e-mail. “Well that didn’t work.”
Jake Tapper of ABC, behind the scenes
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/tapper_to_sanford_aide_nbc_spot_on_missing_guv_was.php
Yesterday we told you about how the conservative media sucked up to Mark Sanford's office by calling stories about the governor's disappearance overblown -- even while the gov was still AWOL.
But it looks like it wasn't just the acknowledged right-wingers who were denigrating the story to Sanford's aides. The State has written up a few more of the emails, and look what they found:
ABC News White House reporter Jake Tapper e-mailed Sawyer twice on June 23, both to note coverage of competitor NBC.
With a subject line of "NBC spot was slimy," Tapper e-mailed Sawyer a "Today" show transcript of Sanford coverage, calling it "insulting." . . . .
Tapper “explains”: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/tapper_gov_missing_for_five_days_was_no_story.php
Lots more: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753674/-Inside-the-medias-sausage-factory
[Washington Times] “You know that you will be on friendly ground here!” . . . [read on]
Why there isn’t a real conservative NEWS outlet
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/im_often_asked_why_the.php
[David Kurtz] The explanation is complicated, but one part of the answer is very simple: Most of the right-wing "news" sites have no interest in being journalists. That's not what they're about and that's not what they see as their primary function, which is advocacy. . . . [read on]
Bonus item: They got nuthin’ -- here’s Rush, trying to make an issue of Obama’s first-pitch at the All Star game. And with all the breathless talk of camera angles, blah, blah, of the Zapruder film, he tries to whip this into a major media conspiracy and cover-up
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_071509/content/01125106.guest.html
This President Throws Like a Girl . . .
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
IN THE GUTTER
It’s hardly surprising, but still depressing, to watch the ways in which partisan mischaracterization and oversimplification dumbs down a legitimate public debate. This whole “wise Latina” business is a good example. It’s quite clear why Republican racists find it convenient to accuse a good judge like Sotomayor of being a racist, and it’s absolutely clear what she meant by the expression when she used it.
But underneath all this are serious questions that a serious process might debate. Of course not all judges converge on the same Right Answer. Of course they view and interpret cases through the lens of their experiences and identities, which is partly why they come to different conclusions. How can you say you value gender and racial diversity on the courts but then say that you think it shouldn't make any difference whatsoever to how judges decide cases? Of course a judge must always struggle for objectivity and impartiality. But how do you balance the bad way of letting an identity you might share with petitioners influence your judgments (bias) from the good ways of letting it influence them (empathy, insight)? These are legitimate things to debate – but you’ll never see an honest debate about them in this venue, because honesty is a serious handicap in such a politicized and ideological process. This forces judicial nominees into equally dishonest and oversimplified characterizations
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/us/politics/15confirm.html
Nominee Says Identity Wouldn’t Distort Decisions . . .
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/sotomayor-finally-gets-chance-respon
Sotomayor finally gets a chance to respond to the 'wise Latina' attacks: "I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gendered group has an advantage in sound judgment."
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/senate-republicans/sessions-hits-sotomayor-for-being-influenced-by-heritage-but-he-voted-for-alito/
[Greg Sargent] During his questioning of Sonia Sotomayor today, Senator Jeff Sessions hit her for acknowledging her heritage influences her judging, saying this “goes against the American ideal.”
But Sessions, of course, voted to confirm Samuel Alito, who made almost exactly the same point about heritage that Sotomayor did. Today Sessions said to Sotomayor:
You have evidenced, I think it’s quite clear, a philosophy of the law that suggests that the judge’s background and experiences can and should and naturally will impact their decision — what I think goes against the American ideal and oath that a judge takes to be fair to every party. And every day when they put on that robe, that is a symbol that they’re to put aside their personal biases and prejudices.
That’s a reference to Sotomayor’s now-infamous “wise latina” speech. But as many others have noted, here’s what Samuel Alito acknowledged during his 2006 confirmation hearing:
[W]hen a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can’t help but think of my own ancestors.…
When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.
The importance of context
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/vanishing-context-can-right-wing-med
[Dave Neiwert] I worked my way through my recordings of Fox News yesterday and all the discussions of what a 'racist' Sonia Sotomayor is for those 2001 remarks about the "wise Latina woman" on the bench, and NOT ONCE did anyone -- even those ostensibly defending her -- mention the most salient fact about these remarks.
Maybe if we repeat the following sentence from Media Matters endlessly it may start to finally penetrate the fog that's issuing from under all those anchors' desks:
In fact, when Sotomayor made that statement, she was specifically discussing the importance of judicial diversity in determining "race and sex discrimination cases."
More: http://washingtonindependent.com/50947/in-context-sotomayors-wise-latina-makes-sense
What do they tell lawyers, never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/14/753439/-Thats-Going-To-Leave-A-Mark
[WSJ] Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), seeking to discredit Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy, cited her 2001 "wise Latina" speech, and contrasted the view that ethnicity and sex influence judging with that of Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, who "believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices."
"My friend Judge Cedarbaum is here," Sotomayor riposted, to Sessions’s apparent surprise. "We are good friends, and I believe that we both approach judging in the same way, which is looking at the facts of each individual case and applying the law to those facts."
[BarbinMD] And what does Cedarbaum think about Sotomayor's judicial philosophy?
“I don’t believe for a minute that there are any differences in our approach to judging, and her personal predilections have no affect on her approach to judging."
More on dumbing down the debate
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/just_an_observation.php
If the Republicans really wanted to change their national image, they wouldn’t pick a man with a notoriously racist past to be their point person in opposing the first Hispanic nominee for the Supreme Court. Jeff Sessions can’t avoid asking racially distorted questions, because that’s just the way his mind works
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/14/753392/-OMFG,-Sessions.-OMFG.
[Sessions] “You voted not to reconsider the prior case. You voted to stay with the decision of the circuit, and in fact, your vote was the key vote. Had you voted with Judge Cabranes, himself of Puerto Rican ancestry, had you voted with him, you could have changed that case.”
[NB: Yes, that’s Jeff Sessions implying that ethnic identity IS relevant to the way people decide cases]
More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019071.php
[Steve Benen] If I didn't know better, I might think Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has a preoccupation with issues related to race and ethnicity. That couldn't be, could it? . . .
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/john-amato/jeffrey-toobin-sessions-says-only-white
Jeffrey Toobin: Sessions Says Only White Men Are Without Prejudice
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/big-tent-democrat/sessions-treats-white-male-nomin
Sessions Treats White Male Nominees Differently Than Female Latina Nominees
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/07/15/sotomayor/index.html
When old white guys attack . . .
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/thought-of-the-day.php
[Matt Yglesias] I would pay good money to hear Sonia Sotomayor say, “Senator Sessions, I think it’s ironic to be facing these questions from a man whose judicial nomination was rejected by this very committee on the grounds that he’s a huge racist.” . . .
Seriously, though, when the Republican Senate Conference was meeting, did nobody say "if we're going to oppose the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, maybe we shouldn't have a giant racist leading the charge?"
Good for the AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090714/ap_on_go_su_co/us_sessions_vs_sotomayor
Senator blocked by bias claims now raises them . . .
They are throwing out every piece of garbage they can – logic or sense be damned
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/14/sotomayor_and_castration/index.html
The director of CPAC, the annual right-wing Woodstock, posted some alleged quotes from the Supreme Court nominee on the CPAC Twitter feed earlier this afternoon. "Soto: The time has come to end white male oppression by castrating every white male until they are no longer dominant in Western culture," the first post read. "(cont) That means forcible removal of their testicles. I realize the brutality of my comment, and I don’t know how to say it more clearly." A couple minutes later, this question came: "So, is the quote below accurate? I haven't seen it anywhere."
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/14/sotomayor_ayers/index.html
Conservative group compares Sotomayor to Ayers
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/john-amato/rush-limbaugh-lies-about-george-allen-a
Rush Limbaugh lies about George Allen and says Sotomayor's comment much worse than "Macaca"
Rush: I must defend myself against the accusation of being racist by . . . saying more racist things
http://www.openleft.com/diary/14171/limbaugh-reacts-to-progressive-ads-says-new-racist-stuff
Lindsey Graham, after saying he might vote for Sotomayor, goes aggressively after her in his questioning. He’s a one man good cop/bad cop
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/14/graham_sotomayor/index.html
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/flashback_fun.php
Compare Sen. Lindsey Graham's obnoxiously aggressive cross-examination of Judge Sotomayor today with his obnoxiously obsequious questioning of Judge Alito in 2006. . . .
http://washingtonindependent.com/50952/graham-to-sotomayor-do-you-have-a-temperament-problem
Graham to Sotomayor: Do You Have a Temperament Problem?
http://www.slate.com/id/2222736/entry/2222906/
Was Lindsey Graham’s questioning of Sotomayor sexist?
Support for Sotomayor has GROWN during the hearings. Can the GOP read tea leaves?
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-party/support-for-sotomayor-rises-will-gop-opinion-shift-too/
Hey! The House passes a pretty good health care bill. Now let’s see if the Senate messes it up (maybe I should drop the word “if”)
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/big-release-by-digby-as-dday-mentions.html
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6340
John Yoo: Cheney and Addington’s go-to guy in the Dept of Justice
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/only_yoo_report_details_bush_white_house_use_of_ha.php
The ridiculous and totally refuted suspicion that Obama isn’t really an American won’t go away – because outlets like Fox “News” won’t let it go away
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/14/753512/-Fox-goes-birther
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/13/753140/-Birther-Soldier-Says-Obama-Cant-Send-Me-To-War
The Michael Steele clown show continues: while trying mightily to deny the racist strain in his party, he keeps reinforcing it
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/14/AR2009071402036.html
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele continued Tuesday with the campaign he has come to call the "Freedom Tour," which is his attempt to revive the relationship between black voters and the GOP. This stop: a sales call at the 100th convention of the NAACP.
"We have a connection, and it is important and appropriate to recognize that," Steele said in a speech . . .
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/14/steele_chicken/index.html
[Alex Koppelman] Asked by one attendee, who appeared to be a minority, how he intends to bring "diverse populations" into the Republican Party, Steele offered a plan that probably shouldn't inspire a lot of confidence from the GOP: "My plan is to say, 'Y'all come. Cause a lot of you are already here."
The man questioning Steele then said, "I'll bring the collard greens." The RNC chair laughed and replied, "I got the fried chicken and potato salad."
I'm honestly speechless.
Sarah Palin 2.0 starts to emerge: she wants to refashion herself as a Serious Policy Person. If so, then she’ll have to do better than this . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/13/753198/-Palin-Caps-Intelligence,-Trades-for-Nonsense
http://firedoglake.com/2009/07/15/holy-jeez-im-calling-it/
The Republicans have NO sense of irony. None
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/cantor_its_all_about_you_ie_me.php
[Josh Marshall] I'm thinking that Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), rising GOP star the House and rumored presidential aspirant, is either conflicted or sending out some mixed messages. His PAC (the vehicle in place for his prez run) is called Every Republican is Crucial, i.e., "ERIC."
Every Republican is Crucial, especially me! Every GOPer is so crucial the message is an acronym for my name!
A great, great catch out of South Carolina: while Mark Sanford’s staffers were frantically trying to track him down and publicly circulating false cover stories like “hiking the Appalachian trail,” conservative news outlets were in constant contact, saying “how can we help play down this story?”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/hacks_on_parade_must_read.php
[Josh Marshall] in emails recently obtained by The State newspaper, through a FOIA-type request, it turns out that before Sanford got caught sneaking back into the country from Argentina, a slew of right-wing reporters from Fox, the Wall Street Journal ed page and Washington Times were telling the governor's staffers to hang tough, that the whole story was stupid and generally asking how they could help. . . .
More: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/great_call_in_emails_to_sanfords_office_right-wing.php
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019070.php
Bonus item: Quote of the Day
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/taking_ownership.php
[BHO] I love those folks who helped get us in this mess, and suddenly they say, "This is Obama's economy." That's fine. Give it to me.
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
It’s hardly surprising, but still depressing, to watch the ways in which partisan mischaracterization and oversimplification dumbs down a legitimate public debate. This whole “wise Latina” business is a good example. It’s quite clear why Republican racists find it convenient to accuse a good judge like Sotomayor of being a racist, and it’s absolutely clear what she meant by the expression when she used it.
But underneath all this are serious questions that a serious process might debate. Of course not all judges converge on the same Right Answer. Of course they view and interpret cases through the lens of their experiences and identities, which is partly why they come to different conclusions. How can you say you value gender and racial diversity on the courts but then say that you think it shouldn't make any difference whatsoever to how judges decide cases? Of course a judge must always struggle for objectivity and impartiality. But how do you balance the bad way of letting an identity you might share with petitioners influence your judgments (bias) from the good ways of letting it influence them (empathy, insight)? These are legitimate things to debate – but you’ll never see an honest debate about them in this venue, because honesty is a serious handicap in such a politicized and ideological process. This forces judicial nominees into equally dishonest and oversimplified characterizations
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/us/politics/15confirm.html
Nominee Says Identity Wouldn’t Distort Decisions . . .
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/sotomayor-finally-gets-chance-respon
Sotomayor finally gets a chance to respond to the 'wise Latina' attacks: "I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gendered group has an advantage in sound judgment."
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/senate-republicans/sessions-hits-sotomayor-for-being-influenced-by-heritage-but-he-voted-for-alito/
[Greg Sargent] During his questioning of Sonia Sotomayor today, Senator Jeff Sessions hit her for acknowledging her heritage influences her judging, saying this “goes against the American ideal.”
But Sessions, of course, voted to confirm Samuel Alito, who made almost exactly the same point about heritage that Sotomayor did. Today Sessions said to Sotomayor:
You have evidenced, I think it’s quite clear, a philosophy of the law that suggests that the judge’s background and experiences can and should and naturally will impact their decision — what I think goes against the American ideal and oath that a judge takes to be fair to every party. And every day when they put on that robe, that is a symbol that they’re to put aside their personal biases and prejudices.
That’s a reference to Sotomayor’s now-infamous “wise latina” speech. But as many others have noted, here’s what Samuel Alito acknowledged during his 2006 confirmation hearing:
[W]hen a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can’t help but think of my own ancestors.…
When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.
The importance of context
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/vanishing-context-can-right-wing-med
[Dave Neiwert] I worked my way through my recordings of Fox News yesterday and all the discussions of what a 'racist' Sonia Sotomayor is for those 2001 remarks about the "wise Latina woman" on the bench, and NOT ONCE did anyone -- even those ostensibly defending her -- mention the most salient fact about these remarks.
Maybe if we repeat the following sentence from Media Matters endlessly it may start to finally penetrate the fog that's issuing from under all those anchors' desks:
In fact, when Sotomayor made that statement, she was specifically discussing the importance of judicial diversity in determining "race and sex discrimination cases."
More: http://washingtonindependent.com/50947/in-context-sotomayors-wise-latina-makes-sense
What do they tell lawyers, never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/14/753439/-Thats-Going-To-Leave-A-Mark
[WSJ] Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), seeking to discredit Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy, cited her 2001 "wise Latina" speech, and contrasted the view that ethnicity and sex influence judging with that of Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, who "believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices."
"My friend Judge Cedarbaum is here," Sotomayor riposted, to Sessions’s apparent surprise. "We are good friends, and I believe that we both approach judging in the same way, which is looking at the facts of each individual case and applying the law to those facts."
[BarbinMD] And what does Cedarbaum think about Sotomayor's judicial philosophy?
“I don’t believe for a minute that there are any differences in our approach to judging, and her personal predilections have no affect on her approach to judging."
More on dumbing down the debate
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/just_an_observation.php
If the Republicans really wanted to change their national image, they wouldn’t pick a man with a notoriously racist past to be their point person in opposing the first Hispanic nominee for the Supreme Court. Jeff Sessions can’t avoid asking racially distorted questions, because that’s just the way his mind works
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/14/753392/-OMFG,-Sessions.-OMFG.
[Sessions] “You voted not to reconsider the prior case. You voted to stay with the decision of the circuit, and in fact, your vote was the key vote. Had you voted with Judge Cabranes, himself of Puerto Rican ancestry, had you voted with him, you could have changed that case.”
[NB: Yes, that’s Jeff Sessions implying that ethnic identity IS relevant to the way people decide cases]
More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019071.php
[Steve Benen] If I didn't know better, I might think Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has a preoccupation with issues related to race and ethnicity. That couldn't be, could it? . . .
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/john-amato/jeffrey-toobin-sessions-says-only-white
Jeffrey Toobin: Sessions Says Only White Men Are Without Prejudice
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/big-tent-democrat/sessions-treats-white-male-nomin
Sessions Treats White Male Nominees Differently Than Female Latina Nominees
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/07/15/sotomayor/index.html
When old white guys attack . . .
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/thought-of-the-day.php
[Matt Yglesias] I would pay good money to hear Sonia Sotomayor say, “Senator Sessions, I think it’s ironic to be facing these questions from a man whose judicial nomination was rejected by this very committee on the grounds that he’s a huge racist.” . . .
Seriously, though, when the Republican Senate Conference was meeting, did nobody say "if we're going to oppose the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, maybe we shouldn't have a giant racist leading the charge?"
Good for the AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090714/ap_on_go_su_co/us_sessions_vs_sotomayor
Senator blocked by bias claims now raises them . . .
They are throwing out every piece of garbage they can – logic or sense be damned
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/14/sotomayor_and_castration/index.html
The director of CPAC, the annual right-wing Woodstock, posted some alleged quotes from the Supreme Court nominee on the CPAC Twitter feed earlier this afternoon. "Soto: The time has come to end white male oppression by castrating every white male until they are no longer dominant in Western culture," the first post read. "(cont) That means forcible removal of their testicles. I realize the brutality of my comment, and I don’t know how to say it more clearly." A couple minutes later, this question came: "So, is the quote below accurate? I haven't seen it anywhere."
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/14/sotomayor_ayers/index.html
Conservative group compares Sotomayor to Ayers
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/john-amato/rush-limbaugh-lies-about-george-allen-a
Rush Limbaugh lies about George Allen and says Sotomayor's comment much worse than "Macaca"
Rush: I must defend myself against the accusation of being racist by . . . saying more racist things
http://www.openleft.com/diary/14171/limbaugh-reacts-to-progressive-ads-says-new-racist-stuff
Lindsey Graham, after saying he might vote for Sotomayor, goes aggressively after her in his questioning. He’s a one man good cop/bad cop
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/14/graham_sotomayor/index.html
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/flashback_fun.php
Compare Sen. Lindsey Graham's obnoxiously aggressive cross-examination of Judge Sotomayor today with his obnoxiously obsequious questioning of Judge Alito in 2006. . . .
http://washingtonindependent.com/50952/graham-to-sotomayor-do-you-have-a-temperament-problem
Graham to Sotomayor: Do You Have a Temperament Problem?
http://www.slate.com/id/2222736/entry/2222906/
Was Lindsey Graham’s questioning of Sotomayor sexist?
Support for Sotomayor has GROWN during the hearings. Can the GOP read tea leaves?
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-party/support-for-sotomayor-rises-will-gop-opinion-shift-too/
Hey! The House passes a pretty good health care bill. Now let’s see if the Senate messes it up (maybe I should drop the word “if”)
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/big-release-by-digby-as-dday-mentions.html
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6340
John Yoo: Cheney and Addington’s go-to guy in the Dept of Justice
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/only_yoo_report_details_bush_white_house_use_of_ha.php
The ridiculous and totally refuted suspicion that Obama isn’t really an American won’t go away – because outlets like Fox “News” won’t let it go away
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/14/753512/-Fox-goes-birther
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/13/753140/-Birther-Soldier-Says-Obama-Cant-Send-Me-To-War
The Michael Steele clown show continues: while trying mightily to deny the racist strain in his party, he keeps reinforcing it
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/14/AR2009071402036.html
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele continued Tuesday with the campaign he has come to call the "Freedom Tour," which is his attempt to revive the relationship between black voters and the GOP. This stop: a sales call at the 100th convention of the NAACP.
"We have a connection, and it is important and appropriate to recognize that," Steele said in a speech . . .
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/14/steele_chicken/index.html
[Alex Koppelman] Asked by one attendee, who appeared to be a minority, how he intends to bring "diverse populations" into the Republican Party, Steele offered a plan that probably shouldn't inspire a lot of confidence from the GOP: "My plan is to say, 'Y'all come. Cause a lot of you are already here."
The man questioning Steele then said, "I'll bring the collard greens." The RNC chair laughed and replied, "I got the fried chicken and potato salad."
I'm honestly speechless.
Sarah Palin 2.0 starts to emerge: she wants to refashion herself as a Serious Policy Person. If so, then she’ll have to do better than this . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/13/753198/-Palin-Caps-Intelligence,-Trades-for-Nonsense
http://firedoglake.com/2009/07/15/holy-jeez-im-calling-it/
The Republicans have NO sense of irony. None
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/cantor_its_all_about_you_ie_me.php
[Josh Marshall] I'm thinking that Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), rising GOP star the House and rumored presidential aspirant, is either conflicted or sending out some mixed messages. His PAC (the vehicle in place for his prez run) is called Every Republican is Crucial, i.e., "ERIC."
Every Republican is Crucial, especially me! Every GOPer is so crucial the message is an acronym for my name!
A great, great catch out of South Carolina: while Mark Sanford’s staffers were frantically trying to track him down and publicly circulating false cover stories like “hiking the Appalachian trail,” conservative news outlets were in constant contact, saying “how can we help play down this story?”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/hacks_on_parade_must_read.php
[Josh Marshall] in emails recently obtained by The State newspaper, through a FOIA-type request, it turns out that before Sanford got caught sneaking back into the country from Argentina, a slew of right-wing reporters from Fox, the Wall Street Journal ed page and Washington Times were telling the governor's staffers to hang tough, that the whole story was stupid and generally asking how they could help. . . .
More: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/great_call_in_emails_to_sanfords_office_right-wing.php
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019070.php
Bonus item: Quote of the Day
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/taking_ownership.php
[BHO] I love those folks who helped get us in this mess, and suddenly they say, "This is Obama's economy." That's fine. Give it to me.
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
A NEW JUSTICE
Sonia Sotomayor’s opening statement
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/07/opening-statement-of-judge-sonia-sotomayor-as-prepared-for-delivery.php
How are the Republicans behaving?
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/how_key_republicans_have_performed_at_sotomayors_hearing.php
Some, badly
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/jeff-sessions-oblivious-irony-callin
Jeff Sessions oblivious to the irony of calling Sotomayor 'prejudiced' . . .
Lindsey Graham gets a whole heading to himself
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/lindsey_grahams_swing_shtick.php
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/grahams_performance.php
We are starting to learn, little by little, about the illegal secret intelligence program Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to cover up. It can’t just be targeted assassinations, because they were already doing that – there is something more
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/something_not_adding_up.php
[David Kurtz] The New York Times is also reporting now that the secret Bush-era CIA program kept from Congress and terminated last month by CIA Director Leon Panetta was a plan to assassinate top al Qaeda officials that was never implemented. This is additional confirmation of the Wall Street Journal story that essentially reported the same basic outlines of the still-classified program.
The Times compares the program to drone attacks against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. . . .
So regardless of how you might feel about targeted assassinations, it's not at all clear why this particular program would be so radioactive -- compared to what the U.S. was, and still is, doing more or less openly -- that (1) Cheney would demand the CIA not brief Congress about it for eight years; (2) Panetta would cancel it immediately upon learning of it; and (3) Democrats would howl quite so loudly when finally informed. . . .
More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/7/14/23339/1648
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/13/cia-cheney-secret-programme
http://washingtonindependent.com/50693/drone-attacks-signal-cias-willingness-to-assassinate-terrorists
http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/07/13/you-know-what-cia-has-been-doing-from-the-skies-for-years-legally/
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/cia_vet_agency_doesnt_need_secret_program_to_targe.php
CIA Vet: Agency Doesn't Need Secret Program To Target al Qaeda . . .
One theory: http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/7/13/181827/017
[UK Guardian] Former counter-terrorism officials who retain close links to the intelligence community say that the hidden operation involved plans by the CIA and the military to launch operations, similar to those by Israel's Mossad intelligence service, to hunt down and kill al-Qaida activists abroad without informing the governments concerned, even though some were regarded as friendly if unreliable.
The CIA apparently did not put the plan in to operation but the US military did, carrying out several assassinations including one in Kenya that proved to be a severe embarrassment and helped lead to the quashing of the programme. . . .
A former intelligence official said the plan was hatched in the cauldron of the September 11 attacks when officials were pushing various forms of unilateral action and some settled on the Israelis as an example.
"One of the most sensitive areas has been what we do in friendly countries that don't want to co-operate or maybe we don't have enough confidence to entrust them with information. If you have an al-Qaida guy wandering around certain bits of the world we might decide that we need to deal with that ourselves, directly, without making a lot of noise," he said. "There was a plan to deal with that. It was much talked about in the CIA and the military had its own operation." . . .
http://washingtonindependent.com/50683/assassinations-in-allied-countries
Another theory: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/13/752957/-Was-the-Secret-Program-Cheneys-Executive-Assassination-Ring-Domestic-Spying
[Time] [T]wo former ranking CIA officials have told TIME that there's another equally plausible possibility: The program could have required the Agency to spy on Americans. Domestic surveillance is outside the CIA's purview -– it's usually the FBI's job – and it's easy to see why Cheney would have wanted to keep it from Congress. . . .
The Republicans think this is a GOOD issue for them politically?
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/house-republicans/republicans-who-say-cia-secret-program-story-is-good-for-gop-wont-support-probe/
Mary Matalin, the last refuge of scoundrels
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/13/timing-of-focus-on-cheney-cia-very-suspect-matalin-says-2/
A one-time aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney suggested Sunday that recent reports about Cheney and the CIA are a distraction designed to avert attention away from the policy struggles of the Obama administration.
“This is very suspect timing,” Republican strategist and former Cheney adviser Mary Matalin said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “The president’s agenda is almost in shambles. His [poll] numbers are dropping. Isn’t it coincidental; they gin up a Cheney story.” . . .
“Every time they get in trouble . . . they dredge up a Darth Vader story,” Matalin also said
Who said it?
http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/retrieved-memory-hole-bush-wh-stateme
"Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit. . . ."
Whither health care reform?
The Dems: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/charlie-foxtrot-with-white-house-watching-democrats-try-to-pick-up-the-pace-on-health-care-reform.php
The Repubs: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/key-republican-troubled-that-public-option-is-cheaper-has-clear-advantages.php
Trouble for John Ensign (R-NV)?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/wapo_wants_senate_and_fec_to_probe_ensign_scandal.php
The kind of people they are (Young Republican edition)
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/13/shay_mcallister/index.html
This weekend, the Young Republican National Federation elected as its new chair a woman named Audra Shay. Shay, running at the top of the Team Renewal ticket, had run into trouble after seemingly endorsing a racist statement on her Facebook page . . .
The man is insane
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_071309/content/01125107.guest.html
[Rush Limbaugh] The original goal of Planned Parenthood was to abort various minorities out of existence. . . .
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an early proponent of this. It's called eugenics, and her aim was to wipe out the African-American population.
Other infamous world figures acted upon similar instincts using other means to achieve their objectives: Concentration camps, mass gassings, so-called ethnic cleansings. Planned Parenthood is no different. Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood is no different than any of the people that use concentration camps, mass gassings, so-called ethnic cleansings. . . . .
You put up an adoption center next to an abortion clinic and what will happen is the Planned Parenthood people come out and try to keep every pregnant woman possible from going into the adoption center. . .
When you put RIFLE CROSSHAIRS on the Planned Parenthood logo, given recent events, you know exactly what you are doing
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/ingraham-puts-crosshairs-planned-par
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Sonia Sotomayor’s opening statement
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/07/opening-statement-of-judge-sonia-sotomayor-as-prepared-for-delivery.php
How are the Republicans behaving?
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/how_key_republicans_have_performed_at_sotomayors_hearing.php
Some, badly
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/jeff-sessions-oblivious-irony-callin
Jeff Sessions oblivious to the irony of calling Sotomayor 'prejudiced' . . .
Lindsey Graham gets a whole heading to himself
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/lindsey_grahams_swing_shtick.php
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/grahams_performance.php
We are starting to learn, little by little, about the illegal secret intelligence program Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to cover up. It can’t just be targeted assassinations, because they were already doing that – there is something more
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/something_not_adding_up.php
[David Kurtz] The New York Times is also reporting now that the secret Bush-era CIA program kept from Congress and terminated last month by CIA Director Leon Panetta was a plan to assassinate top al Qaeda officials that was never implemented. This is additional confirmation of the Wall Street Journal story that essentially reported the same basic outlines of the still-classified program.
The Times compares the program to drone attacks against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. . . .
So regardless of how you might feel about targeted assassinations, it's not at all clear why this particular program would be so radioactive -- compared to what the U.S. was, and still is, doing more or less openly -- that (1) Cheney would demand the CIA not brief Congress about it for eight years; (2) Panetta would cancel it immediately upon learning of it; and (3) Democrats would howl quite so loudly when finally informed. . . .
More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/7/14/23339/1648
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/jul/13/cia-cheney-secret-programme
http://washingtonindependent.com/50693/drone-attacks-signal-cias-willingness-to-assassinate-terrorists
http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/07/13/you-know-what-cia-has-been-doing-from-the-skies-for-years-legally/
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/cia_vet_agency_doesnt_need_secret_program_to_targe.php
CIA Vet: Agency Doesn't Need Secret Program To Target al Qaeda . . .
One theory: http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/7/13/181827/017
[UK Guardian] Former counter-terrorism officials who retain close links to the intelligence community say that the hidden operation involved plans by the CIA and the military to launch operations, similar to those by Israel's Mossad intelligence service, to hunt down and kill al-Qaida activists abroad without informing the governments concerned, even though some were regarded as friendly if unreliable.
The CIA apparently did not put the plan in to operation but the US military did, carrying out several assassinations including one in Kenya that proved to be a severe embarrassment and helped lead to the quashing of the programme. . . .
A former intelligence official said the plan was hatched in the cauldron of the September 11 attacks when officials were pushing various forms of unilateral action and some settled on the Israelis as an example.
"One of the most sensitive areas has been what we do in friendly countries that don't want to co-operate or maybe we don't have enough confidence to entrust them with information. If you have an al-Qaida guy wandering around certain bits of the world we might decide that we need to deal with that ourselves, directly, without making a lot of noise," he said. "There was a plan to deal with that. It was much talked about in the CIA and the military had its own operation." . . .
http://washingtonindependent.com/50683/assassinations-in-allied-countries
Another theory: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/13/752957/-Was-the-Secret-Program-Cheneys-Executive-Assassination-Ring-Domestic-Spying
[Time] [T]wo former ranking CIA officials have told TIME that there's another equally plausible possibility: The program could have required the Agency to spy on Americans. Domestic surveillance is outside the CIA's purview -– it's usually the FBI's job – and it's easy to see why Cheney would have wanted to keep it from Congress. . . .
The Republicans think this is a GOOD issue for them politically?
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/house-republicans/republicans-who-say-cia-secret-program-story-is-good-for-gop-wont-support-probe/
Mary Matalin, the last refuge of scoundrels
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/13/timing-of-focus-on-cheney-cia-very-suspect-matalin-says-2/
A one-time aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney suggested Sunday that recent reports about Cheney and the CIA are a distraction designed to avert attention away from the policy struggles of the Obama administration.
“This is very suspect timing,” Republican strategist and former Cheney adviser Mary Matalin said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “The president’s agenda is almost in shambles. His [poll] numbers are dropping. Isn’t it coincidental; they gin up a Cheney story.” . . .
“Every time they get in trouble . . . they dredge up a Darth Vader story,” Matalin also said
Who said it?
http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/retrieved-memory-hole-bush-wh-stateme
"Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit. . . ."
Whither health care reform?
The Dems: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/charlie-foxtrot-with-white-house-watching-democrats-try-to-pick-up-the-pace-on-health-care-reform.php
The Repubs: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/key-republican-troubled-that-public-option-is-cheaper-has-clear-advantages.php
Trouble for John Ensign (R-NV)?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/wapo_wants_senate_and_fec_to_probe_ensign_scandal.php
The kind of people they are (Young Republican edition)
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/13/shay_mcallister/index.html
This weekend, the Young Republican National Federation elected as its new chair a woman named Audra Shay. Shay, running at the top of the Team Renewal ticket, had run into trouble after seemingly endorsing a racist statement on her Facebook page . . .
The man is insane
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_071309/content/01125107.guest.html
[Rush Limbaugh] The original goal of Planned Parenthood was to abort various minorities out of existence. . . .
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an early proponent of this. It's called eugenics, and her aim was to wipe out the African-American population.
Other infamous world figures acted upon similar instincts using other means to achieve their objectives: Concentration camps, mass gassings, so-called ethnic cleansings. Planned Parenthood is no different. Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood is no different than any of the people that use concentration camps, mass gassings, so-called ethnic cleansings. . . . .
You put up an adoption center next to an abortion clinic and what will happen is the Planned Parenthood people come out and try to keep every pregnant woman possible from going into the adoption center. . .
When you put RIFLE CROSSHAIRS on the Planned Parenthood logo, given recent events, you know exactly what you are doing
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/ingraham-puts-crosshairs-planned-par
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
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