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The BBC, via Nicole Belle:

So will Iraq be Blair's epitaph?
By Nick Assinder
Political correspondent, BBC News website

...What he had always done - and this is what it may all boil down to in the end, he once again suggested - was what he believed was the right thing...

there was that single word that has hung over everything Mr Blair has done or tried to do since 2003.

It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Tory MP Edward Leigh who gave the most brutal assessment of exactly what Iraq had meant for the prime minister who, he confessed, had been "brilliant" in some areas of his leadership.

Only that one word would be written on Tony Blair's political tombstone, and the prime minister was in denial about it, he suggested.

Did he never allow a smidgeon of doubt to cross his mind that it may have been a mistake, was he ever haunted by the dead or was he too full of self belief to allow any of that, asked Mr Leigh.

Clearly stung, the prime minister said, of course he felt the weight of the responsibility, he was a human being. But he had done what he believed was the right thing.

Then he delivered what has been his default defence of that war.

It is rubbish to suggest the ordinary Arab did not want the democracy they had been given.

"Of course they want it. What country has ever chosen not to be a democracy, it's just nonsense, it's what oppressive people do to justify their oppression, they say democracy and freedom are western values. It's just rubbish, they're universal values of the human spirit and they always will be," he said...

Democracy?

It might have been what they would have wanted, but we never really had any intention of giving it to them.

One wonders who Tony Blair thinks he's fooling. By all appearances, he seems to be fooling himself in public at least. Anyone familiar with his post-Ministry plans might think otherwise:

... Tony Blair is expected to join one of the most exclusive groups of businessmen in the world after he leaves Downing Street.

The PM is being lined up for a highly lucrative position with the Carlyle Group - an American-based investment giant with strong links to the White House and the defense industry.

The firm has been nicknamed "The Ex-Presidents Club" because it has had a host of former world leaders on its books including George Bush Senior, his former secretary of state James Baker and former British PM John Major. There a also a large number of former US Army top brass.

Mr. Blair has been keeping quiet about his plans after his departure from Number 10...

But sources in the City have revealed that he is "seriously considering" a high-profile role with Carlyle - which manages $30billion (£20billion) of investments worldwide.

The job could net Mr. Blair up to £500,000 a year for only a few days work a month giving speeches and making "networking" trips on behalf of the company.

Ah yes, Gandhi's old observation. Western Civilization. What a great idea.

Spam and Circuses

p.m. carpenter on Electile Dysfunction:

In 2006 Democratic pols raced around their little fiefdoms or would-be fiefdoms pulling the updated equivalent of the president's rhetorical 9/11-Saddam scam. Just as he never explicitly linked the two, they never quite said, if installed in the majority, they would end this farce of a war in Iraq. But they implied it. They dangled "change" and "new directions" and all manner of muscular confrontations with the executive warmonger.

Then they surprised themselves by winning, which only complicated things. Oh Jesus, what now? They had the wolf by the ears, yet no better idea of what to do then when they were merely promising -- well, sort of promising -- they would do something.

So they proceeded to do what all majoritarian charlatans do when the governmental going gets tough: they engaged battle with resolutions and non-binding pronunciamentoes and blustered and bluffed. They made much noise, accompanied by some merriment and hope in the land. There was an uptick in Congress' approval rating.

Then they broke off from battle, pleading there really wasn't much they could do. They had read the legislative rules and U.S. Constitution, it seems, and discovered a slim majority was no better, really, than a sizable minority, and that the president had this thing called veto power. They would have to back-burner the war issue and move on to domestic matters. So as reported yesterday, "It has been nearly three weeks since Democrats have held a formal Iraq debate or voted on an Iraq proposal in the House or Senate. Not since they assumed the majority in January has there been such a lull."

And lordy lord guess what? "During the three weeks, Congressional approval ratings have fallen." So now they're back, full of bombast again, and this time going whole hog with ... nasty letters. "The American people cannot and should not have to wait until later this year for changes in your flawed Iraq policy," wrote the speaker and Senate majority leader to the president with an insincerity that staggers.

But that bluster is only the half of it. Let's consider their intervening bluster -- that of pausing all that problematic war stuff so they could roll up their sleeves and advance much-needed domestic legislation.

Really? Damn, guys, that's a helluva trick. Somehow, suddenly and miraculously, the presidential veto no longer applied? Somehow a slim majority was now more powerful against a reactionary minority than it was yesterday? Somehow progressive domestic legislation was doable, although antiwar legislation wasn't?

And let us not forget that as long as this country spends two-billion dollars a week on someone else's civil war, any domestic advances, no matter how politically attractive, are simply, absolutely, undeniably unaffordable. The circus barkers know that, meaning they knew their domestic diversion was as impotent as their antiwar bluster.

For six months the "progressive community" has been scammed, fleeced and insulted by the "progressive" powers that be. At least the halfwitted Republican Congress first presented itself to voters in all its halfwitted glory, and, true to its word, proceeded to advance halfwitted domestic legislation and halfwitted wars. Republican pols may have hoodwinked and bamboozled voters as to the wisdom of their priorities, but they said what they were going to do and they did it.

The Republican Congress proved the power of democratic stupidity. The Democratic Congress is merely proving the impotence of democratic fraud...

But it gets richer. The Rethuglican party, it seems, is not to be outdone in the fraud department on its own popular base. On the other hand after last week's Immigration legistlation debacle, with the Company DINOcrats in bed with Dear Leader as the Rethuglicans caved in to their electorate in flyover country, the funding ba$e called in Commander Codpiece to show the Congress who's really boss.

The response was predictable. Digby notes:

...Trent Lott said yesterday, “talk radio is running America." Well, it may not be running America, but it is competing with the big money boyz to run the Republican party and having some success. The big money boyz are coming to regret the monster they created...

...Trent Lott is railing at the out of control rightwing talk radio hosts and Timmeh himself said this on Tucker yesterday:

RUSSERT: Traditionally, Hispanic voters in the 50s and 60s, smaller number obviously, were Republican. Strong family values. Now it`s trending more and more Democratic. The new registrants are overwhelmingly Democratic. And what the political advisers of the president are saying, we cannot afford to have another block like African-Americans, and Hispanic Americans. If we have Hispanics and blacks voting ten to one Democratic, we are in trouble.

Like many progressives, Digby views the myopic behavior of the populist conservative base with the myopia of the populist liberal base. Digby is absolutely right that the main reason most conservatives oppose the Immigration amnesty bill is racist xenophobia.

What many honest Democrats do not realize is that the Kennedy-Bu$h Immigration package codifies a corporate neo-slavery, where corporations will have a mechanism to bring vast numbers of underpaid overworked people with no real chance of gaining citizenship rights in the arcane and expensive process the bill codifies, regardless of the assurances of the law.

What many honest Republicans do not realize is that their own party leaders exist to serve a corporate imperial machine that has destroyed the economic base of much of the world, and whose aggregate greed longs to do at home what they've done for years in the sweatshops abroad.

The Great White Meme Returns

Moby Weapons breeches again!

Once again The New York Pravda is giving us the fair and balanced story of the virtuous virtuoso diplomat Kindasleezy Rice doin' her bestest to advocate a non-violent solution to the evildoers in Iraq. But her bestest best still somehow can't face the facts our loveable pirate of a Vice-President and his loyal office crew present: them terra'ist Iraqnis are cooking nukular no-nos in their galley, and if we don't turn and give 'em a salvo soon they'll board us!

Let's look at the lead disinformation of the morning served up for those of you who feel you must think and don't want to read about how Paris Hilton's toenails are chipping in the cooler.

Iran Strategy Stirs Debate at White House
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 16, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 15 — A year after President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a new strategy toward Iran, a behind-the-scenes debate has broken out within the administration over whether the approach has any hope of reining in Iran’s nuclear program, according to senior administration officials.

The debate has pitted Ms. Rice and her deputies, who appear to be winning so far, against the few remaining hawks inside the administration, especially those in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office who, according to some people familiar with the discussions, are pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

In the year since Ms. Rice announced the new strategy for the United States to join forces with Europe, Russia and China to press Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Iran has installed more than a thousand centrifuges to enrich uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency predicts that 8,000 or so could be spinning by the end of the year, if Iran surmounts its technical problems.

Those hard numbers are at the core of the debate within the administration over whether Mr. Bush should warn Iran’s leaders that he will not allow them to get beyond some yet-undefined milestones, leaving the implication that a military strike on the country’s facilities is still an option.

Even beyond its nuclear program, Iran is emerging as an increasing source of trouble for the Bush administration by inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and in Gaza, where it has provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group Hamas, which now controls the Gaza Strip.

Even so, friends and associates of Ms. Rice who have talked with her recently say she has increasingly moved toward the European position that the diplomatic path she has laid out is the only real option for Mr. Bush, even though it has so far failed to deter Iran from enriching uranium, and that a military strike would be disastrous...

See? We're tryin' to be nice. They just won't let us. And 8,000 gas centrifuges! By the end of the year! An' see? Kindasleezy's tryin' to be a reelist about our conventional capabilities! So if we're gonna be conventional and all she sez we have to side with those chocolate-making surrender monkeys!

It does not matter that this is not an official IAEA report to the UN or letter to Iran, but another anonymous leak. It does not matter that

* The IAEA has condemned the US over a report written by a congressional committee on the nuclear situation in Iran. The leaked report was called erroneous and misleading in a letter sent to Peter Hoekstra. Allegations in the report of why an inspector was dismissed were branded outrageous and dishonest. One unnamed western diplomat called it deja vu of the false reports made by the US administration to justify the invasion of Iraq.

* IAEA officials complain that most U.S. intelligence shared with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency about Iran's nuclear programme proved to be inaccurate, and none has led to significant discoveries inside Iran.

* On 10 May 2007, Agence France-Presse, quoting un-named diplomats, reported that Iran had blocked IAEA inspectors when they sought access to the Iran's enrichment facility. Both Iran and the IAEA vehemently denied the report. On 11 March, 2007, Reuters quoted International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Marc Vidricaire, "We have not been denied access at any time, including in the past few weeks. Normally we do not comment on such reports but this time we felt we had to clarify the matter...If we had a problem like that we would have to report to the (35-nation IAEA governing) board ... That has not happened because this alleged event did not take place."

It does not matter that the head of the IAEA describes the people who want to go to war with Iran on this issue as "crazies". And it doesn't help that the general level of maturity about this in the Iranian government matches the best Dear Leader brings to bear on the issue here at home.

None of these facts really matter, because, ya know, they just don't match the Truthiness that those Al Qaeda Irani SunniShiites wanna nuke us the first chance they get, so the only possible solution is to make Islamic atomic by nukin' 'em first!



But I get ahead of the yarn. Back to the Great White Whale Watch at Pravda-on-the-Hudson:

...The accounts were provided by officials at the State Department, White House and the Pentagon who are on both sides of the debate, as well as people who have spoken with members of Mr. Cheney’s staff and with Ms. Rice. The officials said they were willing to explain the thinking behind their positions, but would do so only on condition of anonymity...

There's nothing nothing like a good bisexual bipartisan party, with an equal courage of convictions or lack thereof on all sides of a sham argument.

... The issue was raised at a closed-door White House meeting recently when the departing deputy national security adviser, J. D. Crouch, told senior officials that President Bush needed an assessment of how the stalemate over Iran’s nuclear program was likely to play out over the next 18 months, said officials briefed on the meeting.

In response, R. Nicholas Burns, an under secretary of state who is the chief American strategist on Iran, told the group that negotiations with Tehran could still be going on when Mr. Bush leaves office in January 2009. The hawks in the room reported later that they were deeply unhappy — but not surprised — by Mr. Burns’s assessment, which they interpreted as a tacit acknowledgment that the Bush administration had no “red line” beyond which Iran would not be permitted to step.

But conservatives inside the administration have continued in private to press for a tougher line, making arguments that their allies outside government are voicing publicly. “Regime change or the use of force are the only available options to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapons capability, if they want it,” said John R. Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Only a few weeks ago, one of Mr. Cheney’s top aides, David Wurmser, told conservative research groups and consulting firms in Washington that Mr. Cheney believed that Ms. Rice’s diplomatic strategy was failing, and that by next spring Mr. Bush might have to decide whether to take military action.

The vice president’s office has declined to talk about Mr. Wurmser’s statements, and says Mr. Cheney is fully on board with the president’s strategy...

Ah, the loyal opposition. Really, why is there need for an opposition party or even a Legistlative or Judiciary branch, when all bogus sides of a bogus issue are so thoroughly bogusly considered by the Bogarts involved?

Of course, the ultimate truthiness that cuts through all the masterdebators is presented a beacon of Wisdom from the NeoCons:

...In a June 1 article for Commentary magazine, the neoconservative editor Norman Podhoretz laid out what a headline described as “The Case for Bombing Iran.”



“In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force — any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938,” Mr. Podhoretz wrote.

...Iran is far behind the North Koreans; it is believed to be three to eight years away from its first weapon, American intelligence officials have told Congress. Conservatives argue that if the administration fails to establish a line over which Iran must not step, the enrichment of uranium will go ahead, eventually giving the Iranians fuel that, with additional enrichment out of the sight of inspectors, it could use for weapons.

To date, however, the administration has been hesitant about saying that it will not permit Iran to produce more than a given amount of fuel, out of concern that Iran’s hard-liners would simply see that figure as a goal.

In the year since the United States made its last offer to Iran, the Iranians have gone from having a few dozen centrifuges in operation to building a facility that at last count, a month ago, had more than 1,300...

Yes, who needs what's actually been said? Heresay, leaked reports and letters from anonymous sources that the real watchdogs vehemently deny, all the rumors and vapors of a storm building at sea. Ahab beckons, and who among a loyal crew would deny him?

Burning at Both Ends

Michael Klare at TomDispatch discusses one of the fringe benefits of the War on Terra for the oil barons: the acceleration of oil depletion.

Parts of this are reproduced here:

Sixteen gallons of oil. That's how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis -- either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes. Multiply this figure by 162,000 soldiers in Iraq, 24,000 in Afghanistan, and 30,000 in the surrounding region (including sailors aboard U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and you arrive at approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil: the daily petroleum tab for U.S. combat operations in the Middle East war zone.

Multiply that daily tab by 365 and you get 1.3 billion gallons: the estimated annual oil expenditure for U.S. combat operations in Southwest Asia. That's greater than the total annual oil usage of Bangladesh, population 150 million -- and yet it's a gross underestimate of the Pentagon's wartime consumption.

Such numbers cannot do full justice to the extraordinary gas-guzzling expense of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, for every soldier stationed "in theater," there are two more in transit, in training, or otherwise in line for eventual deployment to the war zone -- soldiers who also consume enormous amounts of oil, even if less than their compatriots overseas. Moreover, to sustain an "expeditionary" army located halfway around the world, the Department of Defense must move millions of tons of arms, ammunition, food, fuel, and equipment every year by plane or ship, consuming additional tanker-loads of petroleum. Add this to the tally and the Pentagon's war-related oil budget jumps appreciably, though exactly how much we have no real way of knowing.

And foreign wars, sad to say, account for but a small fraction of the Pentagon's total petroleum consumption. Possessing the world's largest fleet of modern aircraft, helicopters, ships, tanks, armored vehicles, and support systems -- virtually all powered by oil -- the Department of Defense (DoD) is, in fact, the world's leading consumer of petroleum. It can be difficult to obtain precise details on the DoD's daily oil hit, but an April 2007 report by a defense contractor, LMI Government Consulting, suggests that the Pentagon might consume as much as 340,000 barrels (14 million gallons) every day. This is greater than the total national consumption of Sweden or Switzerland...

...To ensure itself a "reliable" source of oil in perpetuity, the Pentagon will increase its efforts to maintain control over foreign sources of supply, notably oil fields and refineries in the Persian Gulf region, especially in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. This would help explain the recent talk of U.S. plans to retain "enduring" bases in Iraq, along with its already impressive and elaborate basing infrastructure in these other countries.

The U.S. military first began procuring petroleum products from Persian Gulf suppliers to sustain combat operations in the Middle East and Asia during World War II, and has been doing so ever since. It was, in part, to protect this vital source of petroleum for military purposes that, in 1945, President Roosevelt first proposed the deployment of an American military presence in the Persian Gulf region. Later, the protection of Persian Gulf oil became more important for the economic well-being of the United States, as articulated in President Jimmy Carter's "Carter Doctrine" speech of January 23, 1980 as well as in President George H. W. Bush's August 1990 decision to stop Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, which led to the first Gulf War -- and, many would argue, the decision of the younger Bush to invade Iraq over a decade later.

Along the way, the American military has been transformed into a "global oil-protection service" for the benefit of U.S. corporations and consumers, fighting overseas battles and establishing its bases to ensure that we get our daily fuel fix. It would be both sad and ironic, if the military now began fighting wars mainly so that it could be guaranteed the fuel to run its own planes, ships, and tanks -- consuming hundreds of billions of dollars a year that could instead be spent on the development of petroleum alternatives.

Mr. Klare, it's not a bug, it's a feature of the long-term Bu$hCo-Cheneyburton plan with the Royal House of Saud.

Idiocy is in the Mind of the Beholder

Laura Flanders at The Nation via Common Dreams:

When will Democratic leaders stop dissing their base? David Obey is making a habit of it.

Earlier this year, the Wisconsin veteran, who heads up the House Appropriations Committee called anti-war workers, “idiot liberals” for calling for a cut off in funds for Bush’s Iraq disaster. This week, Obey told advocates for youth to grow up and stop complaining about the millions of dollars his committee intends to shovel to deadly, discredited abstinence-only programs.

House Democrats will likely vote today to increase abstinence-only miseducation programs to $140 million, a larger increase than any put forward in the last three years of the Republican Congress. Obey told NPR it’s all about pragmatism: the Appropriations Bill faces a veto threat from the President, and House Democrats need all the support they can get from Republicans. And there are quid pro quos: to secure a proposed $27 million increase for the family planning program Title X anti-choicers need to be bought off with $27 million for deadly abstinence.

“It’s about people acting like adults and realizing that you can’t just hold your breath until you get your own way,” Obey told Morning Edition June 14th.

But that $27 million increase represents just a ten percent growth in the budget for Title X; it’s a 30 percent increase for abstinence only. Besides, most sane Americans were expecting the purportedly pro-choice Democratic majority to cut off funding for this boondoggle not increase it.

Anyone who read Michael Reynolds’ excellent piece on the Abstinence Gluttons knows the myriad ways in which these censorship programs stink. As a congressionally mandated report recently concluded, they’re bad health policy, bad fiscal policy, and should be ended. As Reynolds’ documented in depth, federal funding of “abstinence” also gifts billions of dollars to GOP partisans who not only mess with young minds but also campaign against Democrats and progressive priorities.



As James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth told the Air Americans last week, the GOP gravy train was bad enough. “Now it’s switched tracks and became a Democratic train. Obey can now stand tall and say that he is now one of the biggest funders of the Radical Right in America.”

It’d be bad enough if it were just Obey, but progressive caucus members including Nita Lowey and Barbara Lee who sit on both the Appropriations and the Health and Human Services subcommittee (also chaired by Obey) that put forward this proposal are complicit. Democrats enjoy a 37:29 majority on Appropriations. What they push moves. The battle goes to the Senate next, where the 15:14 split on appropriations is much tighter. Speaking of senators, Hillary Clinton is talking up a storm on the campaign trail about her support for Title X. So far she’s remained mum about millions more for sex-miseducation.

“We are not your pawns,” youth activists told House Democrats on the eve of the Committee’s vote. Wagoner has some glum young progressive organizers in his office to explain the Democratic majority to. Said Wagoner “as an activist you expect to fight this in a conservative republican congress, but I can’t tell you how infuriated, how angry I feel, having witnessed Democratic allies sell us out.”

Thus Wagoner and his team join the anti-war activists. Bravo Democrats you’re swelling the ranks of pissed-off, enraged, “liberal idiots.”

Rise of the Undead

WASHINGTON, June 14 — Senate leaders announced an agreement this evening to put a comprehensive immigration bill back on track for further debate and possible passage.

Senators Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader from Nevada, and Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader from Kentucky, agreed on a timetable for the bill and for a limited number of amendments to be offered.

The agreement, coming after President Bush’s pledge earlier today to provide $4.4 billion for border security, revives a bill that had stalled in the Senate and was all but given up for dead...

The measure would tighten border security, put many of the 12 million or so illegal immigrants in the country on a path to eventual legal status and create a guest-worker program.

The additional money for border security is intended to assuage Republicans who have strongly criticized the plan as amnesty for illegal immigrants...

Check it out! Instead of a blanket amnesty for immigrants, everyone gets a internal revenue passport National ID! Maybe even a microchip implant if the Bill gets killed by the grassroots again!

I can't wait, can you? In fact, I'm not waiting. Everyone in my family's getting a new old-style passport, so we can use our new IDs to leave this madhouse of viral memes. The undead denizens keep getting hungrier. And their bad ideas get back up and walk- or run- again lots faster.

Good News!

We have not yet begun to surge!



And this was totally unrelated to the arms we've given Sunni groups to fight Al Qaeda!

Jon Stewart handles this far better than I can, via John Amato at Crooks and Liars. Watch the video, and follow John's reasoning...

Iranifghanistan All Over Again

Now that Dear Leader's winged his way back from the cheering Undead in Transylvania, it's time to get his War on Terra back on again.

The meth helps Commander Codpiece feels back into clean-limbed fighting trim (if a somewhat hungover one after his latest liason with the Iron Frau).

But back in the U.S. of A., it's once more Mars, Beotches!. Remember General Pace, the (former) head of the Joint Chiefs who said he'd resign before we went to war in Iran? He's history, but you had to be paying attention to get the context. Attytood catches the drift:

...The official explanation for why Pace would not be asked to serve another term were patently ridiculous. Here is how Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained the move to replace Pace with Admiral Michael Mullen:

``I think that the events of the last several months have simply created an environment in which I think there would be a confirmation process that would not be in the best interests of the country,'' Gates said. ``I wish it were not necessary to make a decision like this. But I think it's a realistic appraisal of where we are.''

This is an administration that is currently holding onto an attorney general who just received a "no confidence" vote from a majority of the U.S. Senate, including six Republicans [not- Bu$hCo won that one today], and has sent that very same Alberto Gonzales to Capitol Hill to testify under these brutal conditions. So, can anyone believe they really care about a few tough questions for Peter Pace?

It's getting harder to believe that Pace's dismissal was about anything else other than the Cheney administration's agenda for war with Iran. It's been increasingly acknowledged that the Joint Chiefs, with Pace at the helm, had been a leader in steering Bush away from half-baked Iran attack schemes.

In April 2006, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker:

[A] Pentagon adviser on the war on terror…confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the {Iran] issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran.

This March, Pace embarassed the Bush White House by knocking down an administration claim about Iranian weapons shipments into Iraq:

Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, said today he has no evidence the Iranian government has been sending military equipment and personnel into neighboring Iraq.

That came just a couple of weeks after award-winning journalist Robert Parry reported this on his Web site:

"One intelligence source told me that Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Peter Pace, has explored the possibility of resigning if Bush presses forward with air attacks against Iran..."

Now Pace doesn't have to resign... he's out, unexpectly, in a move that was announced at an hour that was guaranteed to receive as little media scrutiny as possible...

[thanks to Nicole Belle for the link]

Even though the wonks are all convinced we couldn't possibly be planning to nuke Iran, because it would make no sense, I'm with the Onion and Arianna on this.

If the DINOcrats keep devoluting into invertebrates, the Reptilicans will rule the earth. Again.

Any Which Way They Can

Marcy via Digby notes the implied threats in many of the letters sent the judge sentencing Scooter Libby.

From Michael Horowitz:

...As the Bork case led inexorably to the Clinton impeachment, so can the case before the Court profoundly criminalize and poison the country's political process with calls for retribution on the part of many who will never believe--never--that Scooter merits criminal punishment or, God forbid, incarceration...

Are we talking Retribution like a future Ken Starr or are we talking jet planes into Towers?

Like Digby says,

This is one of my favorite right wing gambits: threatening to pitch such a sustained and over-the-top partisan tantrum that the whole country will regret not letting them have their way. For instance, this was the subtext of the Florida recount.

"You thought impeachment was bad... if Al Gore moves into Bush's house we will make his life --- and the country's --- so miserable they will rue the day he took the oath of office. We will never --- never --- accept that Gore won this election. Make it easy on yourselves, people. Do the smart thing. Let the Republicans have their way."

...The media, of course, fed into this with all their hand wringing about how we needed to hurry up and decide because "god knows what will happen if we don't." Of course, we knew exactly what would happen: the right wing would have an epic fit that made the Clinton years look like utopia. I think for a lot of people it was a sense of relief that the Republicans would finally be appeased, (which is, of course, impossible.) Certainly, the punditocrisy sold that idea but instead of presenting it honestly, they wrote columns about how Bush was the right choice because he was a uniter not a divider, forgetting to mention that he and his cronies were the ones who created the divisions in the first place and threatened to deepen them if they didn't get their way.

You can see why Democrats are gunshy with these people. They are thugs, as Horowitz's letter, in surprisingly crude fashion, illustrates. (No wonder they didn't want them made public.) They are saying straight-up that if Scooter has to go to jail they are going to the mattresses...

A comment I think worth repeating:

...It's interesting that when they are called out on anything they have a long memory and seethe with a desire for revenge. There is no attempt at self-evaluation no examining the acts that got them into trouble.

Part of this may come from a feeling of entitlement and part may come from contempt for process.

There is, I've felt for YEARS, among Republicans, especially those from a business background, that their ends are all that count and any opposition to those ends are to be crushed at the earliest possible opportunity.

The nation, the Constitution, American tradition is of no use to them if any of these are a perceived hindrance to their ends.

The tactic they've developed in recent years is that lacking ALL power they'll use whatever they have to insure that the opposition fails. Whether that harms the interest of the nation is of no interest to them. The frivolous use of impeachment of Clinton was, arguably, their most heinous act, the trivialization of impeachment.

I believe that there are some conscientious Democrats who don't want to impeach Bush simply because they don't want impeachment to become a FEATURE of government. The functional crippling of the nation if the Congress is controlled by one party and the White House by the other.

The power of impeachment is supposed to be used to get rid of office holders whose acts are an egregious misuse of power, necessary to keep the executive branch in check. When Republicans impeached Clinton they, in affect, took impeachment off the table and out of the Constitution as a check against an out of control executive.

The Republicans have adopted Leninist tactics and given our irresponsible media and a lax public, I see no way to reverse this dangerous republic destroying trend.

cal1942 is absolutely right.

It will be men like Elliot Abrams and Oliver North who will usurp the rule of law for their party.

Not these particular individuals, doubtless. They're much too visible now. I'm sure among the 150,000 private contractors in Iraq there are many who would be too glad to assume the role of spoiler for any democratically elected government for our former republic.

Undead Legistlation and the Golden Rule

Them as has the gold makes the rules, no matter what Congress thinks it decides:

Within hours of the Senate vote to kill its comprehensive immigration reform bill, the lobbyist for software giant Oracle Corporation had already declared that Silicon Valley's proposal for more guest workers was still alive. "We don't think it's dead," Robert Hoffman told the San Francisco Chronicle. Microsoft Corporation CEO Steve Ballmer threatened to move more high-tech jobs out of the country if electronics corporations didn't get more contract migrant labor. Other corporate spokespeople also announced they were looking for ways to revive the Senate bill in which they'd invested so much political capital.

Immigrant communities and union activists had been in the streets for months, trying to stop the same bill. In San Francisco alone, seven were arrested in the office of Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-California) during the recess that preceded the June 7 vote. Dozens more debated the senator in front of her home the morning after the arrests. Around the country, similar demonstrations did what they could to kill the bill. The National Day Labor Organizing Network called it a "cynical and mean-spirited effort of those senators that seek to poison the immigration reform debate yet again," and warned, "we are fearful that an insufficient Senate bill cannot be adequately repaired in the House of Representatives or in a conference session."

It was no surprise that many greeted the (perhaps temporary) death of comprehensive immigration reform as a necessary move to protect immigrants themselves. These groups saw in the bill a threat of more contract labor programs, more enforcement and raids, greater militarization of the border and erosion of basic due-process rights. Filipinos for Affirmative Action, voicing a criticism common in Asian American and Latino communities, said the bill "moved away from permanent, family-based immigration toward a temporary employment system."

As debate in the Senate proceeded, even the bill's promise of legalization for the nation's 12 million undocumented residents proved so restrictive that only a small percentage eventually would have qualified. Migrants without status would have had to place their families in jeopardy just to apply.

After the vote in the Senate defeating cloture, killing the bill at least for the moment, John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, declared it "plagued by anti-family, anti-worker provisions," and called it " doomed at the onset. The bill abandoned long-standing US policy favoring the reunification of families and failed to protect workers' most basic rights."

Despite the fact that the bill was brokered by the Bush administration, many of its proponents were not Republicans, but liberal Democrats, most prominently Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts). Supporting it was a network of lobbyists referred to in the press as "immigration advocates," large employers, and conservative think tanks. For two years this alliance advocated a strategy of trading legalization of undocumented immigrants for increased immigration enforcement and guest-worker programs. The National Immigration Forum and the DC umbrella group it initiated, the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, were key players in this strategy. Behind them was the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which brought together over 40 of the largest corporate trade and manufacturing associations in the country, under the aegis of the US Chamber of Commerce. EWIC head John Gay, also head of the National Restaurant Association, chairs the NIF board.

These Washington groups supported all the compromise bills embodying the legalization/enforcement/guest-worker tradeoff, beginning with the original Kennedy/McCain bill in 2005. The same argument was used to justify them all: "It's not possible to get legalization without including more enforcement and guest-worker programs." While the groups occasionally disagreed with individual provisions of the proposals that followed, they not only agreed with the basic structure and architecture of these bills, but became their ardent advocates in meetings around the country.

As the proposals moved through negotiations with the administration and Congressional Republicans, legalization schemes became more restrictive, enforcement provisions more ferocious, and contract labor schemes more extensive. Yet, the recently defeated Senate compromise was greeted as a "good starting point." Even at the end, the DC groups called on immigrant communities to urge defeat of "bad" amendments to it, while continuing to urge senators to support the comprehensive immigration reform, or tradeoff, framework.

While Congress considered this series of proposals, the Bush administration embarked on a series of highly publicized immigration raids and workplace firings, to put pressure on immigrant communities and unions to accept its reform program. The bills themselves called for giving the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, more enforcement authority to conduct these raids. The administration, for instance, proposed that employers be required to fire any worker whose Social Security number didn't match the agency's database. Although Bush never actually issued this regulation, and the bills obviously hadn't passed, ICE and employers began using it as the basis for enforcement actions...

Meanwhile, Harry Reid asks for help- "leadership"- from Bu$hie to get their Bill passed, and of course Dear Leader traveling in Bulgaria fresh from his adoring throngs in Albania sez: ""I'll see you at the bill signing".



The Undead walk!

Special Relationships

It's as official as unofficially official gets.

BAGHDAD -- U.S. military officials here are increasingly envisioning a "post-occupation" troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout, but aims for a smaller, longer-term force that would remain in the country for years...

Such a long-term presence would have four major components. The centerpiece would be a reinforced mechanized infantry division of around 20,000 soldiers assigned to guarantee the security of the Iraqi government and to assist Iraqi forces or their U.S. advisers if they get into fights they can't handle.

Second, a training and advisory force of close to 10,000 troops would work with Iraqi military and police units. "I think it would be very helpful to have a force here for a period of time to continue to help the Iraqis train and continue to build their capabilities," Odierno said.

In addition, officials envision a small but significant Special Operations unit focused on fighting the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. "I think you'll retain a very robust counterterror capability in this country for a long, long time," a Pentagon official in Iraq said.

Finally, the headquarters and logistical elements to command and supply such a force would total more than 10,000 troops, plus some civilian contractors.

The thinking behind this "post-occupation" force, as one official called it, echoes the core conclusion of a Joint Chiefs of Staff planning group that last fall secretly considered three possible courses in Iraq, which it categorized as "go big," "go home" and "go long." The group's recommendation to reshape the U.S. presence in order to "go long" -- to remain in Iraq for years with a smaller force -- appears to carry weight in Baghdad, where some of the colonels who led that planning group have been working for Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq since February...

A post-occupation occupation not being a real occupation, but only appearing as such to the untrained eye. Where would we be without the Pentagon to sort out the nuance? Not in Iraq, certainly.

And all those admonitions of even our puppet government to leave? Why, they don't really mean it...

U.S. officials also calculate that underneath the anti-American rhetoric, even Shiite radicals such as cleric Moqtada al-Sadr don't really want to see a total U.S. pullout, especially while they feel threatened by Sunni insurgents. Also, officials think any Iraqi government will prefer to keep a small U.S. combat force to deter foreign intervention.

There's nothing like a whole mess of well armed foreigners to keep other foreigners out. Unless the other foreigners get the idea that their foreign intervention may be justified- the better to fight foreigners in Iraq than at home of course.

Tom Englehardt thinks that this was the plan all along. He says it all much better than I can, and backs it all up with facts and figures, so I'd advise reading it. Of course you may remember that's what the Saudi Royals and their Fixer advised, too.

A "post-occupation" in our fortified bases in Iraq is anticipated by the D.o'D. for the next 50 years or so.

That couldn't possibly be related to this , could it?

Towards an Unlimited Depth of Vision

Understanding is limited not just by what we can see, but by how far we see into what we do see.

Appropriately famous for its broad ring of obscuring dust and hat-like appearance, the Sombrero Galaxy (aka spiral galaxy M104) is featured in this unique composite view that spans the electromagnetic spectrum, from three major space-based observatories. Exploring the Sombrero's high-energy x-ray emission (blue), the Chandra contribution highlights the pervasive, tenuous, hot gas that extends some 60,000 light-years from the galaxy's center. Hubble's optical view (green) shows the more familiar emission from the Sombrero's population of stars, seen from a nearly edge-on perspective and noticeably bulging at the galaxy's bright core. The broad ring of dust that blocks light in other bands, glows in the infrared contribution (red) from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The Sombrero Galaxy is about 28 million light-years away, near the southern edge of the extensive Virgo cluster of galaxies.

Pravda's Global Oversimplifications

The New York Pravda's magazine section today focuses on the great disparity between the rich and the poor.

It is amazingly disingenous. It feigns concern for the poor all over the world while advocating policies that will not only worsen the plight of most poor globally but provide more money to the rich and exaggerate the injustice all around us.


I don't think he trusts you. For good reason.

Take, for instance, Should We Globalize Labor Too?. It uses anectdotal evidence ("here's the story of a man who...") to advocate two positions: making debtors of poor individuals globally and importing poor labor globally for whatever tasks "...no one else wants to do".

Well, certainly not at slave wages and usurous interest charges.

Along with the article, this graph is depicted, to convince us that American workers view themselves as too good for all of the essential jobs of society, eschewing them for some hazy category of work known as "other". The Bu$h administration, of course, being the source of the data.



Try raising a family of four in a major city working at $15.00 an hour, owning a house and a good car, sending your kids to college. I assure you, you are barely above the poverty line. If above it all. "High paying"? Bullshit.

And here's an interesting piece of data that only emerges when you look at this chart carefully: While Union employees aren't what this graph calls among the lowest paying, they certainly aren't among the highest paid either. I guess that would be what's known as the middle class. You know, what treating the poor of the world as a global corporate slave pool governed by their debt would destroy.

There is an article on the Edwards campaign who's main goal seems to convince us the Edwards campaign is "joyless" now that he focussed on American poverty. Oh, and that:

If you’ve recently flipped to Lou Dobbs on CNN or opened the pages of a liberal political journal like The American Prospect, you might have the impression that America in the Bush years has slipped into a kind of Dickensian darkness, a period of unbridled greed and economic deprivation on a scale not seen in this country since the Great Depression. Like so many things in politics, this has some basis in truth, but only some. To compare Bush’s America with Herbert Hoover’s — or Lyndon Johnson’s, for that matter — is to engage in not very helpful hyperbole...

This is because the median family income in the Great Depression was $16,000 a year in todays dollars and we aren't there.

Yet. And we have ever so many more cool gizmos, which they didn't. Microwave ovens, you know, the height of self indugence. And levels of personal debt that dwarf anything in the gilded age or the Great Depression, which give us our distractions and toys and keep us all chained.

Another graphic:



That's also more than a little misleading. By current standards, making $100,000 a year does not make you an average worker. And the poorest 20% of America are that dark green line barely visible along the x-axis.

I like this graph better. Also shown here.

There's massive pearl-clutching angst at the thought of policies that might change this in any way. Policies that would make the robber barons less robbers are branded "redistribution" and smell like communism. They would destroy competititveness.

Never mind that smart, hard-working, inventive people are going to make more money and handle it better than others. The '90s showed that for all of us, for a short while. The differences between the rich and the poor lessened, and incidently, crime did too, under policies that enforced meritocracy: you get out of the system what you contribute to it.

The aristocratic families of people like Paris Hilton and George W. Bush just hate that, excelling more at devious schemes for manipulating and stealing money legally than actual productive work.

Robber barons, we are told, increase the availablity of money for everyone (with a taste for plunder anyway) and "the rich pay a disproportionate share of the federal income tax" which is presented without anything gauche like, you know, numbers and statistics and sources that can verify this assertion.

Any person really seeking to remedy the injustice of our economic system is going to have a hard time of it unless they can reach these people, the socially and economically conservative millions that are the backbone of the Republican party. But it's not that hard.

The policies that degrade labor and sap the strength of our country antagonize real grassroots among both Democrats and Republicans. If the real issues are presented clearly and honestly you can get almost universal agreement among people about what the problem is and how to address it. Fair is fair, after all, unless you're one of the plunderers.

Which is why both sets of grassroots are so disaffected with the political system we have. The real political system that controls the country is also extremely disingenuous. It's not a democracy, and not a republic either.

It's an oligarchy. Consciously or not, it's determined to ride the oil depletion curve down over the next 50 years to a point where our grand children are living in a mostly post-industrial world. The robber barons will have their piles of gold, the aristocracy their feudal rights, and most of the world won't be able to afford the gunpowder to argue about it.

Breathtaking Stupidity from Brains Bigger than a Walnut

...caught yesterday by Tristero:

From Nancy Pelosi, who should know better, for heaven's sakes:

“Science is a gift of God to all of us and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, arguing for the bill’s passage. “And that is the embryonic stem cell research.”

One: This is a gratuitous insult to all thinking persons. Science is a process of inquiry that has enabled us to understand something about the nature of physical reality in a detailed fashion. It has taken centuries of hard, meticulous, and often backbreaking work to acquire this knowledge; the history of science is filled with failure, frustration, and fragmentary, provisional understandings. The relatively rare breakthroughs - Newton's laws, Darwin's natural selection, Einstein's theory of relativity - are achieved only through enormous effort, not miracles. This is no gift from God but a quintessentially human endeavor.

Secondly, the kind of pandering, meaningless bullshit Pelosi mouthed will convince no one. But it does make clear how little a leading Democrat understands religious tropes in a modern political context. The rightwing retort is obvious: "God nowhere demands the sacrifice of human children for research. That's the ethics of Mengele, not Jesus." And from there, the "conversation" devolves quickly into idiotic arguments about when a fertilized egg becomes a human life. And the importance of the research, its potential benefits that are needed now, are forgotten.

Pelosi's breathtakingly stupid comment merely indicates how far behind, still, Democrats are in developing a modern political rhetoric for their values and ideas...

You do not pander to people you can not win over. However, there's the distinct possibility Ms. Pelosi actually thinks this way. Even Ted Kennnedy leads compromises with Bu$hCo on things like immigration. It's not surprising that even with the Democratic majority this Congress is more unpopular with many Democrats than Rethuglicans.

Party Animal

What happens when a dry drunk gets wet?



They have to keep him away from the Button, for one thing.

[thanks to Attaturk via Lambert]

Planned Obsolescence

Auto Chiefs Make Headway Against a Mileage Increase



WASHINGTON, June 6 — Automobile companies seem to be making progress in tamping down Democratic proposals for tougher fuel economy requirements, an issue that pits powerful Democrats from Michigan against some national leaders of their own party.

The chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler had lunch with Senate Democrats on Wednesday, less than a week before the Democratic leaders hope to bring a sprawling energy bill to the Senate floor.

The executives argued that the bill’s proposal to increase mileage requirements for cars and light trucks would be impossible to meet and would gravely damage the automobile industry.

It would increase the average mileage requirement for passenger cars to 35 miles a gallon by 2020, up from 27.5 miles a gallon now, and would apply to light trucks and sport utility vehicles as well...

These people are doing their best to shoot down any innovations that might actually improve their own sales and the Michigan economy.

If we aren't the good guys...

...we can't be the good guys. Or girls. Or cybernetic entities.

It's just that simple.

Tinfoil Hat Boy points to Kristof behind the Pravda $elect barrier.

"Do I really have the right to complain about torture or extra-legal detentions in China when we Americans do the same in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba?

"The moment we did feel a threat, after 9/11, we held people without trial, and beatings were widespread enough that more than 110 of our prisoners died in custody in places like Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantánamo."

There’s nothing partisan in what Kristof wrote. He is a connoisseur of the obvious,but it needs being said over and over again: the current administration has authorized, condoned, and promoted torture. Torture is now officially sanctioned policy of the United States. Heckuva job Bushie, Cheney, Gonzales, and your enablers in the government (Dems included) and the media.

Thanks for calling bullshit, Nick. Keep it up.

That's 110 prisoners, incidently, that we could make no case against. Even for sooper seerkrit Tribunerals. Even with torture. Even with the what our informants- most of which were paid to finger the "terra'ists"- could bring to bear.

Darth Cheneyburton has brought us to the cheap and sleazy paranoia of the Gulag.

But it's not the Sith Lord alone.



Like Atrios says:

[The Democratic] Congress is more unpopular among Democrats than Republicans.

That's for a really good reason.

Guess why this man is smiling: the Biggest Arms Deal Evah

BAE accused of secretly paying £1bn to Saudi prince

· Money for 'marketing services' on arms deal
· £30m payments a quarter
· Sanctioned by MoD

David Leigh and Rob Evans
Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian

The arms company BAE secretly paid Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia more than £1bn in connection with Britain's biggest ever weapons contract, it is alleged today.

A series of payments from the British firm was allegedly channelled through a US bank in Washington to an account controlled by one of the most colourful members of the Saudi ruling clan, who spent 20 years as their ambassador in the US.

It is claimed that payments of £30m were paid to Prince Bandar every quarter for at least 10 years.

It is alleged by insider legal sources that the money was paid to Prince Bandar with the knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence officials under the Blair government and its predecessors. For more than 20 years, ministers have claimed they knew nothing of secret commissions, which were outlawed by Britain in 2002.

An inquiry by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the transactions behind the £43bn Al-Yamamah arms deal, which was signed in 1985, is understood to have uncovered details of the payments to Prince Bandar. But the investigation was halted last December by the SFO after a review by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith. He said it was in Britain's national interest to halt the investigation, and that there was little prospect of achieving convictions. Tony Blair said he took "full responsibility" for the decision.

However, according to those familiar with the discussions at the time, Lord Goldsmith had warned colleagues that British "government complicity" was in danger of being revealed unless the SFO's corruption inquiries were stopped.

The abandonment of the investigation provoked an outcry from anti-corruption campaigners, and led to the world's official bribery watchdog, the OECD, launching its own investigation.

The fresh allegations may also cause BAE problems in America, where corrupt payments to foreign politicians have been outlawed since 1977.

The allegations of payments to Prince Bandar is bound to ignite fresh controversy over the original deal and the aborted SFO investigation.

The Saudi diplomat is known to have played a key role with Mrs Thatcher in setting up Britain's biggest ever series of weapons deals.

For more than 20 years Al-Yamamah, Arabic for "dove", has involved the sale of 120 Tornado aircraft, Hawk warplanes and other military equipment. According to legal sources familiar with the records, BAE Systems made cash transfers to Prince Bandar every three months for 10 years or more. BAE drew the money from a confidential account held at the Bank of England that had been set up to facilitate the Al-Yamamah deal. Up to £2bn a year was deposited in the accounts as part of a complex arrangement allowing Saudi oil to be sold in return for shipments of Tornado aircraft and other arms.

Both BAE and the government's arms sales department, the Defence Export Services Organisation (Deso), allegedly had drawing rights on the funds, which were held in a special Ministry of Defence account run by the government banker, the paymaster general.

Those close to Deso say regular payments were drawn down by BAE and despatched to Prince Bandar's account at Riggs bank in Washington DC...

Read it all, pilgrims.

Yes, you got it right, that's Jonathan Bu$h's Riggs Bank. Poppy's own Bubba. Gotta love that Bandar Bu$hie, keeping it all in the fambly. Just like BCCI and Al Qaeda's petty cash fund.

Risk and Reward

There are days when it has to feel good to be alive, Secretary Supertanker, and in Washington.

Look, a scant ten years ago, Kindasleezy Rice's specialty looked to be obsolete. Really, who needed an expert on the Great Game with Russia? They were finally our allies.

After 7 years of hard work, it looks like Kindasleezy's remedied that with the help of her Dear Leader.

Simon Jenkins at The Guardian:

...When Keynes returned from Versailles in 1919 he wrote an attack on the treaty that ended the first world war. In The Economic Consequences of the Peace he warned that punishing Germany and demanding crippling reparations would jeopardise Europe's stability and the building of German democracy. He confronted politicians, on both sides of the Atlantic, puffed up with the vanity of victory and convinced that the German menace had been laid to rest. He was right and they were wrong.

For the past six years Washington's whirling dervishes have reduced Anglo-American foreign policy to a frenzy of bullying hatred of anyone to whom they take a dislike. One half of this neoconservative agenda is heading for the rocks, American dominance in the Middle East following a stunning victory over a Muslim state. But the other half is alive and well, pushing ahead with the missile defence system bequeathed by the Reagan administration.

This so-called star wars is militarily unproven and, with the end of the cold war, of no apparent urgency. But it is astronomically expensive and, as such, has powerful support within America's industry-led defence community. When Dick Cheney was finding George Bush a defence secretary in 2000, Donald Rumsfeld's chief qualification was his enthusiasm for space-based defence. Hence America's 2002 renunciation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Hence the installation of defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, in defiance of what was promised to Russia at the end of the cold war. Hence Rumsfeld's frequent jibes against old Europe in favour of "new".

Vladimir Putin's reactive threat this week to retarget his missiles at west Europe was reckless and stupid. Just when nuclear disarmament is again a live issue and his old enemy, Nato, faces defeat in Afghanistan, he tossed red meat to the Pentagon (and Whitehall) hawks. He strengthened the case for a new British Trident and encouraged an arms race that he knows his own country can ill afford, just as it can ill afford to send Europe frantically seeking alternative energy supplies...

Silly. The issue isn't what Russia- or America- can afford. The issue's the Game, and the fortunes to be made or lost by people like Secretary Supertanker who play it.

Perhaps He Got an Offer He Could Not Refuse

Jurrassicpork lifts Bob Herbert's interview with Al Gore, and has an interesting comment thread.

But first, some interesting things from the interview:

...You look at him and you can’t help thinking how bizarre it is that this particular political figure, perhaps the most qualified person in the country to be president, is sitting in a wing chair in a hotel room in Manhattan rather than in the White House.

He’s pushing his book “The Assault on Reason.” I find myself speculating on what might have been if the man who got the most votes in 2000 had actually become president. It’s like imagining an alternate universe.

The war in Iraq would never have occurred. Support and respect for the U.S. around the globe would not have plummeted to levels that are both embarrassing and dangerous. The surpluses of the Clinton years would not have been squandered like casino chips in the hands of a compulsive gambler on a monumental losing streak.

Mr. Gore takes a blowtorch to the Bush administration in his book. He argues that the free and open democratic processes that have made the United States such a special place have been undermined by the administration’s cynicism and excessive secrecy, and by its shameless and relentless exploitation of the public’s fear of terror.

The Bush crowd, he said, has jettisoned logic, reason and reflective thought in favor of wishful thinking in the service of an extreme political ideology. It has turned its back on reality, with tragic results.

So where does that leave Mr. Gore? If the republic is in such deep trouble and the former vice president knows what to do about it, why doesn’t he have an obligation to run for president? I asked him if he didn’t owe that to his fellow citizens.

If the country needs you, how can you not answer the call?

He seemed taken aback. “Well, I respect the logic behind that question,” he said. “I also am under no illusion that there is any position that even approaches that of president in terms of an inherent ability to affect the course of events.”

But while leaving the door to a possible run carefully ajar, he candidly mentioned a couple of personal reasons why he is disinclined to seek the presidency again.

“You know,” he said, “I don’t really think I’m that good at politics, to tell you the truth.” He smiled. “Some people find out important things about themselves early in life. Others take a long time.”

He burst into a loud laugh as he added, “I think I’m breaking through my denial.”

I noted that he had at least been good enough to attract more votes than George W. Bush.

“Well, there was that,” he said, laughing again. “But what politics has become requires a level of tolerance for triviality and artifice and nonsense that I find I have in short supply.”

Check out the whole thing. I feel Al's pain. But to a couple of points raised by jurrassicpork's commenters:

...Bush and Cheney and crew have not squandered the people's money, they have stolen it. The worth of Mr. Cheney's Halliburton stocks have gone from under $200,000 to over $8 million. That is quite a coup...

...I would correct Al on one point: the Bushies are not dreamy eyed idealists who acted on an extreme ideology.

They are businessmen, trying to make a buck every which way, and if they have to make nice with the preachers and make up stories about terrorist boogeymen to get money out of wallets, and set Iraqi babies on fire to get money out of Iraqis wallets, they will do so.

They are no more ideologues than Tony Robbins or any other huckster with a late night infomercial.

The Bushies mistake was underestimating American and Iraqi intelligence by a more than a few points.

The difference between Bush and his dad is the difference between a mugger and a con man. Both steal your wallet, but you say thank you to the con man and hope to do business with him again...

There is one point missing: Maybe Vice President Gore would have read and taken serious the memo claiming "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" and would have saved another 3000 lives...

Gore would've been the best assurance this country could have had that the terrorist threat in the nine months before September 11, 2001 wouldn't have unfolded to the tragedy we ultimately endured at Bush's hand. Given that, he still would've been dogged by endless costly and fruitless investigations, and baseless, trivial accusations from the imbeciles on the right. Regardless of our standing in the world at his hand, regardless of the good he would've done - he would've been hounded and jeered the entire way without cause.

At least.

Mutually Assured Demolition

Ruth at Correntewire points to the international joke that is America's defense posturing in Eastern Europe, while Putin fumes.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in Europe increased the chances of a nuclear conflict.

Moscow is alarmed by U.S. plans to deploy parts of a global missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and last week it tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile it said could ensure the country's security for the next 40 years.

"The missile shield only creates the theoretical illusion that one is protected, but the possibility that a nuclear conflict is unleashed is actually greater," Putin told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine in an interview to be published on Sunday.

Washington says it wants to avert attacks from "rogue states" such as Iran, which the West suspects of wanting to get an atomic bomb, but Russia sees a threat to its own security...

The only people they're fooling are themselves with the missile shield thing.



The real kicker is Kindasleezy Rice and Darth Cheneyburton, despite their public disagreements, actually think all the money Darth Runsfeld poured into Star Wars has produced some sooper seekrit weapons that give them an edge against the real enemy (the way they learnt it, anyhow), the Rooskies.

Bu$hCo must forget- if it ever knew- that the half of the science involved that wasn't developed with the aid of Russian scientists was developed with the help of Chinese scientists.

Or maybe not. After all, Chaos is the plan.

Who are you gonna believe, us or your bleeding kidneys?

According to the Chinese government, what's a little antifreeze between friends?

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has branded a U.S. warning against using its toothpaste as irresponsible, saying low levels of diethylene glycol (DEG) were not harmful.

"So far we have not received any report of death resulting from using the toothpaste. The U.S. handling (of this case) is neither scientific nor responsible," China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement posted on its Web site over the weekend.

"All the toothpaste exported to the United States had been registered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for marketing in the States."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued the warning on Friday after toothpaste containing DEG was detected in a shipment seized at the border...

Your body metabolizes diethylene glycol like it does ethylene glycol: it makes oxalic acid. Which, by itself might not be so bad... except it has this unique afinity for calcium, especially when concentrated.

Calcium oxalate crystalizes out in your dog's, or cat's or your kidney. It causes renal failure. You die slowly if you get enough of it and no care.



Of course, the people most likely to get sick and die from it are the oldest and sickest, particularly those with renal problems anyway.

Wikipedia:

It has been responsible for a number of mass poisonings:

* The most infamous incident was the 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide disaster in the USA, in which 107 people died after taking sulfanilamide dissolved in diethylene glycol [Calvery HO, Klumpp TG (1939). "The toxicity for human beings of diethylene glycol with sulfanilamide". South Med J 32 (11): 1105-9]. This episode was the impetus for the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938.

The Great White Whale of Washington

The meme keeps resurfacing.

The Loyal Bu$hie, Kindasleezy Rice, trying to pursue diplomacy against the wishes of Sith Lord Darth Cheneyburton.

Like no one's ever heard of hard cop/ soft cop, and their goals weren't absolutely identical.

Like Bu$hies's polls weren't down to the burning cross TheoCon crazy level, and the Rethuglican party didn't need a scapegoat. Even a pseudo scapegoat will do.

Implied Threats

Scout Prime addresses the issue that Darth Cheney and Rudy Ghouliani keep trying to scare the children with: once there is no Dear Leader to read your email, watch your every move, and search you at the airport, the terra'ists will attack. Probably with nukes.

Never fear. The Bu$hCo-Cheneyburton appointees are all incompetents with no real idea of what they're doing or how to do it. Any real source of national security comes from people who actually feel a responsibility to do their job regardless of the party in the White House. True enough, the White House has done its best to keep such people out of the Department of Homeland Security, but let's face it, before Bu$hCo stole the $election in 2000, we were doing a pretty good job at airport security.

The real source of terror once Bu$hCo-Cheneyburton is tossed out of office will be from the private contractors working at the behest of men like Elliot Abrams.

Anyone remember what they did to the Carter administration with Iran? Or even before Carter got elected? Or what they did with Reagan afterwards?

He'd better stay out of small airplanes

Via Think Progress :

One man stops a $475 million Iraq contract.

“A federal judge yesterday ordered the military to temporarily refrain from awarding the largest security contract in Iraq. The order followed an unusual series of events set off when a U.S. Army veteran filed a protest against the government practice of hiring what he calls mercenaries.”

The contract, worth about $475 million, calls for a private company to provide intelligence services to the U.S. Army and security for the Army Corps of Engineers on reconstruction work in Iraq. The case, which is being heard by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, puts on trial one of the most controversial and least understood aspects of the Iraq war: the outsourcing of military security to an estimated 20,000 armed contractors who operate with little oversight.

Brian X. Scott, a 53-year-old Colorado man, filed the complaint in early April. He argues that the military’s use of private security contractors is “against America’s core values” and violates an 1893 law that prohibits the government from hiring quasi-military forces.

IraqSlogger has more.

Good luck, Brian X. Scott. More on this from The Washington Pravda (thanks to Dr. R.J. Hillhouse)

Let me speculate and suggest when the next terror attack does arrive successfully on American soil, it will be funded if not staffed by our own money funneled through private contractors and leaked to Al Qaeda with "connections" to Iran. If Cheneyburton manages to overturn this stay, which it will.

Boloney with Your Spam

Our Lives as Atoms is one of the better kept secrets behind the Time Select wall, and today Mark Buchanan talks about why Al Gore, almost as much as HHHillary, remains the man the punditocracy and the the wingnut-o-sphere loves to hate.

Let's paste a little bit here:

Most people have reacted enthusiastically to Al Gore’s new book, “The Assault on Reason.” He seems to have hit a nerve with his assessment of what ails our democracy – the unchecked power of special interests backed by big money, the pervasive influence of mindless and addictive television, and the relentless triumph of image and style over content, which makes us read more articles about John Edwards’ haircuts than about our failing education system. “Gore understands our problems,” as one reviewer put it, “as does no other politician of our time.”

But not everyone shares that view...

Ironically, of course, these reviews actually illustrate Gore’s central point. They cast him as a liberal monster who aims to suppress free speech, or they make fun of his writing, his sighs or his professorial manner, rather than focusing on his arguments. They aim to win with image and rhetoric, not content.

Which is great as entertainment, but not so great for understanding issues that really matter: how and why we’ve slipped from first to sixth in global business competitiveness, why our infant mortality rate ranks down there with Latvia’s, or why the Chinese are graduating more engineers every year than we are.

Surely a good share of the extreme animus against Al Gore comes from the far right, who seem to hate him viscerally, and from powerful business interests with no particular desire for widely ranging debate amongst an informed public. These interests like to paint Gore – and his idea of government that would use rather than abuse knowledge – as the products of some kind of demented science-crazed lunacy bent on shackling the human spirit with equations or computer programs, and luring us into a scientifically planned hell-on-earth.

Unfortunately, this kind of image seems to resonate with other fears that people have about science. And I wonder if this resonance doesn’t explain, at least in part, why Gore has in the past been demonized in this way so effectively.

Implicit in Gore’s argument is the notion that science shouldn’t merely be a source of knowledge about, say, the environment, or the hazards or potential benefits of nuclear energy, and so on, but should also be seen as a source of knowledge about how social systems function — including political systems. Especially important, in his view, is the way the human mind is susceptible to modern techniques of persuasion, based on scientific insights from psychology and neuroscience. Surely we ought to use science not only to manipulate people, but also to bolster our republic and make it function better?

Many people seem to think that science should have boundaries. They’re O.K. if it stays in the familiar realms of physics, chemistry, biology and geology. But there’s an innate distrust when science begins poking around our lives, thoughts and behavior, and near alarm at the idea that science might possibly show that we, like the rest of nature, obey law-like regularities – even if we might learn from them and in so doing help ourselves...

Apparently Mark is posting his last for the Times. No more facts for Pravda. He has his own blog, The Social Atom. Check it out.

Rationality is what sets human beings apart from beasts. When government, or those who would rule instead of govern, cease to rational they behave like beasts. As a professional scientist, I think that science and methodical thought benefit people everywhere.

However, often individuals, corporations, and governments use pseudo science and fallacious reasoning as an excuse to take control over others. Hence we are barraged with pseudo logical buffoonery like Communism (which really wasn't), Socialism (which really wasn't either), Capitalism (which really is state-run socialism for big corporations in this country) and Social Darwinism (which is about as poor a description for a pack of lies as Intelligent Design). For a quick primer on how to use logic to spot the lies all around us, let me direct you (again) to Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection kit at http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html .

Never Again, with Spicy Sweet & Sour Sauce

Crooks and Liars heeds the words of Ghouliani to awestruck Silicon Valley listeners, and compares it to the prophetic Onion satire:

...Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further...

The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders.

"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."

"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."

An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."

Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."

One of the most humbling experiences I've had is the realization of how preternaturally predictable the last 10- and possibly the next 10- years have been, and will be.

You'd think there would be a way to make money off of it, but really, there isn't unless you're into the ruthless exploitation of your fellow human beings and the destruction of the world we all share.



In other words, unless you're a Rethuglican or a DINOcrat. Or some other cannibal.

But Impeachment is Still "Off the Table"

Pelosi may get canned in '08 for failing to Represent, but Conyers won't.

Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Greg Palast, reporting for BBC Newsnight, obtained a series of confidential emails from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. In these emails, Griffin, then the GOP Deputy Communications Director, transmitted so-called ‘caging lists’ of voters to state party leaders.

Experts have concluded the caging lists were designed for a mass challenge of voters’ right to cast ballots. The caging lists were heavily weighted with minority voters including homeless individuals, students and soldiers sent overseas.

Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys, met Thursday evening in New York with Palast. After reviewing key documents, Conyers stated that, despite Griffin’s resignation, “We’re not through with him by any means.”

Conyers indicated to the BBC that he thought it unlikely that Griffin could carry out this massive ‘caging’ operation without the knowledge of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rove...

[thanks again Avedon]