April 2006 Archives

Kevin Drum has an extremely important story:

Two years ago, Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News reported that a few months after 9/11 the Pentagon drafted multiple plans to hit the camp of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda terrorist who had taken up residence in Iraq's northern no-fly zone, outside Saddam Hussein's control. George Bush, however, refused to authorize a military strike.

I've written about this multiple times (I used to jokingly called it my "monthly Zarqawi post"), but Miklaszewski's story always had a big problem: it was based on anonymous sources, which made it easy for the White House to ignore. Today, however, the Australian show Four Corners has gotten confirmation of the story from Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit...

As Drum asks, perhaps this situation should be the focus of a few questions posed by the White House press corps tomorrow.

Glenn Greenwald excellently ties together the Stephen Colbert and run amok presidency threads at this end of this post. He also tackles another dangerous and oft-repeated radical right-wing tactic:

One of the principal tactics used over the last five years by Bush defenders to transform the president, our public servant, into some sort of monarchical figure is the endless, craven effort to refer to him as "The Comamnder-in-Chief," in order to implicitly bestow upon him an aura of elevated, militaristic glory which renders not only disrespect towards the President, but also mere criticism of him, somehow inappropriate, even unpatriotic. In that regard, it was extremely refreshing to see Stephen Colbert's stand-up routine last night (video here - transcript here) at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Pam Spaulding provides an excellent discussion of that event, as does Joe Gandelman.

As Pam notes, a commenter at the site of Jonah's mom, Lucianne Goldberg, said that "Steve Colbert was utterly disgusting. . . He was rude, snarky and unpatriotic toward the President and First Lady." One can be unpatriotic towards one's country, but not to the Leader, and certainly not by expresing criticism of the Leader, even to his face. The efforts to shield the President from criticisms of any sort has been one of the most significant factors enabling the lawbreaking pathology of this president, who clearly has come to see himself as a shielded king. The belief that an American citizen is unpatriotic by virtue of criticizing and opposing the president is one of the most pernicious ideas to take hold in some time. What Colbert did took real courage and - like Savage - he should be commended for reminding us of the kind of country we are supposed to have, and the kind of country we aren't supposed to have and, until this administration, never had.

It is the excellent blog posts like this one which lead me to preorder How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok.

Over at the Huffington Post, Peter Daou reviews the media coverage of Stephen Colbert's performance last night.

Or rather, the lack thereof. As Daou writes:

It appears Mash's misgivings about press coverage are well-placed. The AP's first stab at it and pieces from Reuters and the Chicago Tribune tell us everything we need to know: Colbert's performance is sidestepped and marginalized while Bush is treated as light-hearted, humble, and funny. Expect nothing less from the cowardly American media. The story could just as well have been Bush and Laura's discomfort and the crowd's semi-hostile reaction to Colbert's razor-sharp barbs. In fact, I would guess that from the perspective of newsworthiness and public interest, Bush-the-playful-president is far less compelling than a comedy sketch gone awry, a pissed-off prez, and a shell-shocked audience.

This is the power of the media to choose the news, to decide when and how to shield Bush from negative publicity. Sins of omission can be just as bad as sins of commission.

This president attacks our media almost daily -- and now the Administration is seeking to use the espionage act against reporters.

Just as Congress' failure to protect its Constitutional role continues to shock, I would think substantial members of the media would fight the Bush Administration's attacks.

If only out of self-preservation.

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert was the speaker at last night's White House Correspondents' dinner. The president, according to Editor & Publisher, was not amused. Crooks and Liars shows the video.

Thank you, Mr. Colbert. Such performances justify my decision to have a Tivo season pass for your show.

The Boston Globe has a story today that should shock you. In his story, Charlie Savage outlines the incredible scope of extra power President George W. Bush has assigned to himself. As Savage explains:

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

But none of the policy problems compare to this Constitutional failure. The legislative branch, which is supposed to be a co-equal branch of government (and some would say the first among equals) in our Constitutional Republic, has allowed itself to be subsumed into the Bush Administration.

They don't challenge. They don't oversee. They go along. Meanwhile, the Bush Adminstration takes more and more of the authority assigned to the legislature in the Constitution.

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation's sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ''signing statements" -- official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

''He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises -- and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened," said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

The legislature is supposed to serve as a check against this tyranny. This president should not be allowed to rewrite the Constitutional at his whim.

The fact that this executive also is very unpopular should make it an easier cause to fight.

Professor Juan Cole wonders about the impact the Iraq War is having on oil prices, and UC-Santa Cruz economist Alan Richards sends a reply well worth considering:

The war in Iraq and, even more, the saber-rattling around Iran have deeply spooked the market. They are right to be spooked--if the U.S. persists in its confrontational stance in the region, there will be more violence, more instability, more potential oil off the market (al-Qaeda did, after all, try to attack Abqaiq...).

Even more important from an expectations perspective is that for supply to be able to keep up with demand in the future, most analysts agree that there must be much investment in oil production IN THE GULF. This is basically for reasons of geology--it's where the oil is. Violence scares this off (as, of course, does continued nationalism and other policies already in place).

The Oil Drum has a well done post explaining why we need to have a better discussion about gasoline and oil prices. Grandstanding federal politicians are not going to solve the problem.

This post goes into some of the real factors affecting oil prices:

1. Oil companies do not single-handedly determine the price of oil. The price of oil is set on the crude oil futures market. Simply put, these prices are affected by supply and demand because, at present, oil trades in a global commodity market where increased demand or reduced supply in one place instantly translates into price shifts everywhere.  A variety of publicly available information sources show that supply is relatively static at the moment, while world demand continues to grow as economies grow.
   
2. We have provided evidence many times at The Oil Drum that the output of major oilfields is declining and that we may now have reached a peak or plateau in global oil supply. Oil companies have not been able to increase production for a number of years, and it is unclear that OPEC is accurately reporting their reserves.  Even if there were significant sources of high quality oil remaining, it is getting increasingly difficult and expensive to drill. These factors, along with aging infrastructure for oil exploration and a retiring workforce are also contributing to high oil prices.
   

3. The geopolitical situation is volatile, and an astute citizen may notice that every time there is news from Nigeria or Iran,
   the price of oil goes up because of the potential and real effects of these situations on world oil supply. Again, oil traders are fearful that the supply will not remain stable forever.
   
   
4. Countries like China and India are industrializing at a great pace, and while we are accustomed to obtaining oil at a comfortable quantity and price, it will be impossible (and immoral) to deny similar resources to these countries. China is working furiously to secure new oil supplies, and they're content to negotiate with countries we're reluctant to deal with, like Iran and the Sudan.
   
   

We will eventually have to come to grips with these fossil fuel reality.

The only questions left are when and how painful the resulting transition will prove to be.

David Sirota gives Peter Beinart a well deserved bite of criticism:

Let's review this one more time just to understand what kind of chutzpah is really at work here - a chutzpah so laughable in its egotism that it's almost hard to fathom. The very same pundit who is running around with a new book promoting himself as a model if intellectual integrity/courage and demanding Democrats reflexively embrace neoconservative hawkisness in the name of having a "vision" is the same guy who led the charge for war in Iraq, berated Democrats who criticized the war, yet now has quietly decided to change his mind on the whole affair, joining in criticizing the Bush administration for the war in Iraq that he himself originally promoted. I would say this is as ridiculous as a kleptomaniac telling people not to steal - but that would be an insult to criminals, as the brazenness of Beinart's behavior is even more disgusting.

This nation really needs another Senator Harry S. Truman to delve into war profiteering. Firedoglake's Matt. O. puts together a list of the problems we've seen.

Oh, Democratic Party? Most people don't like war profiteers. In case you wanted to raise an issue or something.

That War on Terror going well, Mr. President? The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung writes about a report released yesterday:

The number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005 to 11,111, with strikes in Iraq accounting for 30 percent of the total, according to statistics released by U.S. counterterrorism officials yesterday.

Although only half of the incidents resulted in loss of life, more than 14,600 noncombatants were killed, a majority of them in Iraq alone and 80 percent in the Near East and South Asia. American nonmilitary deaths totaled 56.

The Administration tries to spin this increase:

In addition to those trends, NCTC Deputy Director Russ Travers offered three reasons for the significant statistical increases in both attacks and fatalities. The 2004 report was initially assembled under a narrower definition of terrorism, confined to attacks involving citizens or territory of more than one country. In July, NCTC released revised 2004 figures compiled under the new definition, Travers said, but the hurried nature of the work and a lack of analysts at the then-fledgling NCTC meant that "we missed thousands of incidents."

For far too many people, the only definition of success is that there were no fatal attacks in the United States. "We're fighting them over there," after all. That thinking is extraordinarily myopic. We are creating new generations of enemies.

We can hope that bill never comes due. Hope, alas, is not a plan.

I'm in favor of any effort to combat the wrong-headed assumption that progressives do not have any core values. John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira have done a great service with their 18,000-word presentation for the American Prospect's web site.

We need a new strategy of transformation for today’s progressive movement -- one based on definition, principles, and a sincere effort to secure the common good.

Sign me up. And not just because I am an alumnus of a college that adopted the common good as a value during the inaugural address of its first president.

Check out this important document. I do share Matthew Yglesias' concern, however, that progressives need to figure out how to talk about national security. Given how badly the Bush Administration has screwed up our place in the world, outlining an alternative vision should be a priority.

The radical right will continue to say that liberals and progressives have no ideas. That is, of course, a canard. We need to articulate why. Quickly.

Holden is right: now would be a good time for Democratic Party leaders to ask the White House to release the records from Vice President Cheney's energy task force.

This story should create outrage around the nation. The Washington Post's Donna St. George reported yesterday:

Nearly 900 soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have been saddled with government debts as they have recovered from war, according to a report that describes collection notices going out to veterans with brain damage, paralysis, lost limbs and shrapnel wounds.

The report from the Government Accountability Office, to be released at a hearing today, details how long-recognized problems with military computer systems led to the soldiers being dunned for an array of debts related to everything from errors in paychecks to equipment left behind on the battlefield.

(Hat tip: The Rachel Maddow Show.)

Matthew Yglesias is right: if we had a real Congress, there would be investigations about the billions of dollars unaccounted for from Iraq War appropriations, and also the $2.5 billion apparently diverted from other spending authorizations to prepare for the Iraq invasion.

Losing billions is very bad. Even more important: the last I checked, we lived in a Constitutional Republic. One with a Constitution that gives Congress the appropriations power. Our Executive should not be "diverting" funds without Congressional authorization.

That should be a big deal. Hello, Democratic Party?

Gee, reader Brett has found a government handout that Republicans can support--and it isn't even for the top one percent of the population!

Included within a story about how our political leaders are scrambling to deal with the political issues created by high gas prices (while doing very little to deal with the substantive issues in play), AP reporter H. Josef Hebert writes:

Meanwhile, in the Senate, GOP leaders unveiled a 10-point plan aimed at soothing the growing election-year public anger over high gasoline prices.

It included a $100 fuel-cost rebate for millions of taxpayers and proposals to rescind oil industry tax breaks enacted only eight months ago, and other measures.

That's not even two tanks of gasoline for the SUV lovers out there.

I suspect we'll see more innovative pandering as we get closer to the November mid-term elections. Whether we'll see an actual substantive debate, as retiring House Science Committee Chairman Rep. Sherwood Boehlert wants, remains quite an open question. As the San Francisco Chronicle's Marc Sandalow writes:

"Congress ought to be responding by taking a comprehensive, thoughtful look at energy policy -- both supply and demand,'' Boehlert said. "Unfortunately, very few people in Congress seem willing to do this. The Democratic leadership is offering little but populist rhetoric; on the Republican side, some of the most vocal members are largely seeking the revival of bad ideas that have failed to be enacted in the past.''

The California Progress Report promises live blogging from this weekend's California Democratic Party State Convention.

Since an illness will unexpectedly keep me away from Sacramento this weekend, I'll be checking in on the California Progress Report often.

I have really enjoyed watching the first round of the NHL playoffs this year. Exciting games. Great action. Compelling stories.

One thing that has to change, however, is the kicking the puck into the goal rule.

Right now, the NHL's Rule 70 allows a team to score a goal when a puck goes into the net off an offensive player's skate as long as there is no "distinct kicking motion."

The problem is that no one seems to be sure what represents a "distinct kicking motion." Far too many times this season, and now into the playoffs, we get a delay while the video goal judges review goals that go in off skates. There appears to be little consistency in this interpretation. The television commentators, like me, seem to get it wrong about half the time.

Which is more than a little annoying. During the playoffs, goals are at a premium. Careers can be made and lost. The act of scoring should not be left to the seemingly arbitrary judgement of video review officials.

I would not care if the goal were changed either to allow or disallow all goals that go off an offensive player's skate (although I'd prefer they be disallowed). Either change would be better than the delay and confusion created by the current rule's grey areas and misinterpretations.

Via Think Progress: Will half a dozen members of Congress really be implicated in a prostitution scandal?

Sacramento Bee columnist and blogger Dan Weintraub takes a jab at California Attorney General Bill Lockyer:

Within 24 hours, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer announced that he is suing the federal government for not doing enough to stop global warming, and he is going after the oil companies for charging too much for gas. If you're concerned about global warming, shouldn't you be in favor of higher gas prices?

Alas, Weintraub loses himself in a logical black hole within this quick paragraph.

You see, those who favor high gasoline prices to reduce gasoline consumption would prefer that the extra money go to transportation projects or other spending that would benefit the commons -- and not, for example, to provide $400 million in compensation to oil executives who were lucky enough to win the compensation lottery.

Despite what some Republicans might claim, this issue is about more than a mere technicality:

Eleven House Democrats said Thursday they would sue the Bush administration, alleging the $39 billion deficit-reducing legislation signed by the president is unconstitutional because the House and Senate failed to approve identical versions.

The lawsuit, led by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, was to be filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. Similar lawsuits have been filed in other states by an Alabama attorney and a Florida-based student loan consulting firm.