|
|
Friday, May 27, 2005
|
|
| |
Alberto Gonzales Is a Bad Man (Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Liars? Department).
In comments, JR writes: Gonzales'references to athletic uniforms and
scientific equipment was a classic rhetorical tactic - find some minor
thing in the Convention to ridicule and thereby invite your reader to
conclude with a sneer that the whole thing needs to be junked....
Gonzales' references... are lies. There is no requirement that POWs be
"afforded" athletic uniforms and scientific instruments. There IS a
requirement that prisoners be allowed to receive mail, including
packages, which may include such things as "foodstuffs, clothing,
medical supplies and articles of a religious, educational or
recreational character which may meet their needs, including books,
devotional articles, scientific equipment, examination papers, musical
instruments, [and] sports outfits..." (Geneva Convention III, Art. 72).
So in order to ridicule the Geneva Convention, Gonzales had to lie
about it. And why are we not surprised to find Okrent repeating
Gonzales' lies in his parting column?...
[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
9:55:47 PM 
|
|
Arianna Huffington: Dr. Frist Gets a Scary Diagnosis During our taping of Left, Right, and Center
today, Tony Blankley (he represents the “Right” part of the equation)
made a pronouncement that should send chills down Bill Frist’s spine.
Tony not only oversees the editorial page of the Washington Times, and is a regular on The McLaughlin Group
-- he is the insiders’ insider when it comes to conservative
Washington, having, among other things, served as Newt Gingrich’s press
secretary and as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. On top of all this,
he speaks with a British accent that lends gravitas to everything he
says (his coffee orders sound positively Churchillian).
Anyway, here is what he said when asked about the latest delay in the Bolton nomination:
Well, let me talk briefly about the politics of it, cause that to me is the bigger issue, which is that Senator Frist lost control of the floor
of the Senate for the second time this week, miscounting the number of
votes he had. This is a huge event in Washington and in the Senate. In
the 7 years I worked for Newt, when he was both whip and when he was
the Speaker of the House, I only saw a party lose control of the floor
once -- in the summer of 1994, when it happened to the Democrats… and
it presaged their loss in November. It should never happen. To have it
happen twice is a dangerous event for the Republicans.
There is now doubt
about whether Frist can assert effective leadership. Once you’ve lost
the credibility, it’s a little bit like in a marriage… when someone
goes over the line and it is no longer salvageable. Now that Frist’s
power has been tested and found wanting -- and found wanting twice --
no one is afraid of him anymore. So over the next ten days, when
everyone on the Hill heads back to their districts for Memorial Day,
the telephone lines will be burning up, with Senators spread all over
the country talking about what this all means. And with no one in
Washington, the GOP leadership won’t be able to contain it -- they
won’t even know what kind of conversations are going on. It will be a
very dangerous period for Frist.
Dr. Frist just got the political equivalent of having an oncologist
arrange for you to have a biopsy on a Friday afternoon. Something tells
me this isn’t going to be the cheeriest of Memorial Days at the Frist
household. Karyn, maybe you should do the barbecuing. How about cooking
up a face-saving exit strategy? I hear running for president takes up
an awful lot of time… - Arianna Huffington (testing@testsite.com)
[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
9:53:09 PM
|
|
On Clark and the Dem National Security Policy. From the Carpetbagger: Roll
Call has a really interesting article today (alas, it's unavailable to
non-subscribers) on Wesley Clark and the role he is establishing for
himself in Dem policy circles. There's a lot to this. Retired
Gen. Wesley Clark has taken a high-profile role, both on and off
Capitol Hill, as a Democratic spokesman and foreign policy adviser,
stoking speculation that he is planning another national campaign in
2008. Clark has emerged as a regular presence on Capitol Hill in the
last few months. His allies paint him as a "go-to guy" for Senate
Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi (Calif.) on foreign policy matters, pointing out that he has
been repeatedly invited by the duo to address their respective caucuses
on the handling of current military situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Jim Manley, a Reid spokesman, noted that Clark is a member of
the two leaders' National Security Advisory Group. "He is someone that
Sen. Reid will continue to look to for advice," Manley added.
The implications in the 2008 race are obvious, and the article notes
that Clark is continuing to cultivate his relationships with key Dem
leaders, including Reps. Charlie Rangel (N.Y.) and Rahm Emanuel (Ill.).
Of course, it's not just beltway activities either -- Clark is
maintaining a busy speaking schedule with Dems across the country,
including a speech next month at the annual Flag Day Dinner of the
Manchester City Democratic Committee in New Hampshire. Those who
were with Clark before haven't lost their enthusiasm. Though I was
surprised to see it in print, I think this was a telling remark: "I'm convinced we would have won with him," Rangel said.
Indeed, this article even suggested Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) was
prepared to endorse Clark in late-2003, right up until Clark announced
he would not compete in the state's caucuses. ... But I think there's more to this than just presidential politics.
The fact that Clark is a sought-after voice on the Hill and among party
activists reemphasizes the fact that Dems want to make national
security a staple of the Dem agenda, and they're also turning to a
trusted, credible source to help make that happen. The party seems
firmly committed to bolstering its national-security credentials, and
not a moment too soon. A good post. Check out the rest.
[Daily Kos]
7:56:57 PM
|
|
Tommy, can you hear me?.
Talk about bad timing. Today's New York Times fronts a story of
brutality visited upon innocent men in the American gulag, and on the
same day Tom Friedman tells us we must have the courage to tell Muslims
the "truth"...
[Body and Soul]
7:56:05 PM
|
|
After Hood mentioned five instances in which the Qu'ran was
"mishandled," a reporter asked Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, "as
the Department of Defense, are you going to present your apologies to
the Arab world?" Di Rita's reply: "For what?"
[Cursor.org]
2:14:28 PM
|
|
There is almost surely some gun manufacturer money behind this one. Sorry for the late posting, y'all. I took the day off and slept in. Onto the actual post.
The state of Alabama has happened on a way to combat domestic
violence that is satisfying ineffective and will piss off liberals and
conservatives alike--they made it easier for victims to obtain guns.
A bill titled "domestic violence victims empowerment
act" actually doesn't do much at all and may have the unintended
consequence of getting someone killed, a supporter acknowledged
Thursday.
Nevertheless, legislators overwhelmingly approved the bill, which
deals with domestic violence victims and applications for temporary
permits to carry a concealed weapon, after much debate.
They don't provide you the $300 you need to purchase the damn thing,
of course, and they don't provide you legal cover when you go home and
shoot the abuser, but I guess it's nice to know that you have a
super-special right to be in public with a concealed weapon. I live in
a state where the concealed weapon license is really popular and from
what I can tell, the main benefit of the licenses is it gives rednecks
a chance to feel like they are Dirty Harry or something. Walking around
just hoping someone starts shit isn't really much benefit to victims of
domestic violence, but it's nice to know that the legislators of
Alabama are trying to spread the love of Dirty Harry around. [Pandagon]
11:10:49 AM
|
|
Keeping Up With The Joneses. I
did some poking around on the issue of "snowflake babies", the frozen
embryos that some familes are "adopting". I don't know about you, but
if I froze my child for six years, I'd probably be in a lot of trouble. The Houston Chronicle has a more recent story on the matter, and it's a doozy.
The couple was matched with and adopted 10 unused
embryos from a family in Michigan. Three survived the thawing process
(the survival rate is about 50 percent), and were implanted in Tracy's
womb. One took hold. The whole process cost them about $7,500.
Hold on...this is what they said earlier:
Embryos are "human beings from conception," Houston
native Tracy Jones, 32, said Tuesday. She proudly showed the first
picture of her child — when he was just a mass of cells.
The Joneses were among more than a dozen families who traveled to
Washington this week, with the children they bore from unused embryos
they "adopted" from other families, to protest a House bill that would
expand the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research.
They adopted ten children and killed nine of them? This is the new face of adoption - near-genocidal disregard for your $750 globsicles? [Pandagon]
11:09:12 AM
|
|
Not far from the truth..
Is it?
A political action group in the state of Kansas is applying pressure on
the Kansas State Board of Education to ban any and all references to
the twentieth century from school textbooks, a spokesman for the group
confirmed...
[Pacific Views]
11:07:47 AM
|
|
Not just a buried lead..
But a whole buried story. We were reading this news story about how
some Iraq veterans have been having trouble getting their old jobs back
from their employers when we realized that you could make a different
story out of...
[Pacific Views]
11:06:13 AM
|
|
Frist’s leadership problem.
The Dem filibuster that blocked John Bolton's nomination to be
U.N. ambassador on the Senate floor yesterday offers some interesting
subtexts. The media seems particularly interested in the fight
upsetting the comity that resulted from the Gang of 14's compromise
earlier this week.
But let's not lose sight of the fact that Bill Frist took on [...]
[The Carpetbagger Report]
11:05:23 AM
|
|
Flashback: Frist Said Filibustering to Get More Info Is Legitimate.
To defend his March 8, 2000, filibuster of Judge Richard Paez, Majority
Leader Bill Frist said that voting against cloture to get more
information is OK and should be distinguished from an ordinary
filibuster. Here’s Frist on the 11/14/04 Face the Nation: Filibuster,
cloture, it gets confusing–as a scheduling or to ...
[Think Progress]
11:04:25 AM
|
|
The Media and The Koran.
As all know by now, the Army has confirmed that the Koran was abused
by U.S. personnel in Guantanamo. Though the specific allegation of
flushing down the toilet remains, according to the Army,
unsubstantiated. Newsweek of course, made that allegation. And much
attacking and defending of Newsweek ensued. Newsweek cravenly caved in.
Though their story was clearly done poorly, their performance in the
aftermath was truly pathetic and why I said not one word in their
defense. And I will not. Newsweek is a lousy journalistic enterprise in
almost every respect in my opinion. Let me add that, unlike just about
everyone else on the Left, I don't have a problem with the White House,
or anyone for that matter, complaining about the Media. That is their
right and it is part of the territory for the Media. Now, good
journalists do their job right and standby their stories when their
stories are right. But Newsweek doesn't practice good journalism in any
way, in my opinion. But the new story from the Army shows that what
the White House was doing was NOT legitimate complaint, but rather
distortion and obuscation. Descration of the Koran DID occur. So what
has been the reaction to this admission of deliberate distortion by the
White House? Mostly, as Kurtz notes, yawns: So
the newly declassified FBI documents showing allegations of U.S. guards
abusing the Koran have made a huge splash in the media, right? Uh, no.
There were only a few mentions of it on television yesterday. The big
stories were "American Idol," Paris Hilton's soft-porn burger ad,
Jacko, a guy threatening to jump off a bridge, the allegedly wounded
Zarqawi, the Bush-Abbas sitdown, Bolton and more filibuster fallout.
The Koran ? That was last week's obsession. In other words, "Magazine Retracts X" is apparently a more compelling story line for TV than "Is X True?"
The New York Times and Washington Post (which owns Newsweek) fronted
the new Koran allegations, but that was about it for prominent play.
... [A]fter the pummeling that Newsweek took, this would seem to be
moderately important news. But it's not being treated that way, except
by a few newspapers. And most of the crowing takes place among
left-wing and moderate bloggers. ... The Nation's Ari Berman
gets right to the point: "No sooner does Newsweek retract its Koran
desecration story then a flurry of news reports attest to just what
Newsweek seemed to be reporting." Give Kurtz credit here.
He gets this right. How is the White House's deliberate disinformation
campaign on this NOT a big story?
[Daily Kos]
11:03:42 AM
|
|
Running Out Of Bubbles.
Greenspan blunted the pain of the tech bubble by creating the housing bubble. Could it finally be time to pay the piper?
[TomPaine.com]
10:00:35 AM
|
|
Dollar Dump: Asian Banks Increase Ties. Asian
Central Banks Currently own about 1.1 trillion in US debt, making them
the largest US creditors. However, these banks appear to be growing
tired of this role. Starting with China then followed by Japan and
South Korea, all three central banks have publicly stated they will
start to move away from their position as US creditors, meaning they
would purchase fewer US Treasury bonds. Next, all three also retracted
this statement within 24 hours. However, according to Treasury
International Capital data, all three are now purchasing far fewer US
Treasuries than before. In other words, the data indicates the
first statement from these banks was in fact their actual policy while
the second statement was merely to prevent a selling panic in the
market. [BOPnews]
9:59:19 AM
|
|
The Daily Pulse: Filibuster Edition Volume III.
The naysayers are starting to be heard. I don't know why it took two days, but maybe they are just a bit slower.
The interesting thing is just how misleading and/or dogmatic they are.
The compromise is bad either because of [a demonstrable pack of...
[MyDD]
8:14:57 AM
|
|
Are There Any Senators in the Republican Party?.
And does anyone who really is a senator--rather than a
participant in a clown show--really want to put Patricia Owen on the
federal bench: Pandagon: Useful information: "The Houston Bar
Association just released 2005 judicial evaluations, so everyone can
check out what the bar association of one of the most conservative
cities in the country thinks of Priscilla Owen's service on the Texas
Supreme Court. It's a pdf file, so I'll summarize--they think she
stinks. 39.5% rated her as outstanding, 15.2% rated her as acceptable
and 45.3% rated her as poor. Of course, in Bushland, having nearly half
of your constituency think that you can't tell your ass from your head
is considered a mandate....
[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
7:45:08 AM
|
|
Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Yet Another New York Times Edition).
Does Ben Stein really think that Alan Greenspan does not know that
there is a large and ongoing inflow of capital to the United States
from Asia? Ben Stein: To: Alan Greenspan, Chairman, Federal Reserve
Board, Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Greenspan: You have always been a
great friend to the little Stein family. You invited us to your viewing
of the Fourth of July fireworks for many years. You spoke warmly and
kindly of my father on his 80th birthday and after his death.... In the
same spirit of friendship that you have shown to my family and to the
nation and world, I hereby offer you some possible mental and emotional
relief on two perplexing economic and monetary policy issues.... [Y]ou
recently pronounced that you were puzzled by what you called the
'conundrum' of why long-term interest rates were so low, as the economy
gathered steadily more strength and as inflation heated up, albeit to a
lukewarm temperature. May I suggest a reason for the low long-term
rates? It has to do with a certain circularity in the world flows of
capital. American consumers and businesses buy far more from the
Japanese and the Chinese than the United States...
[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
7:44:09 AM
|
|
About Those Judges?.
How should we interpret the compromise this week where some of the
worst of Bush's judges were deemed sufficiently okay to pass on to the
appellate courts? The biggest problem that I can see is that there are
not enough...
[The Left Coaster]
4:20:37 AM
|
|
Ahnuld and the Pothole
California
governor Arnold Schwartzenegger has been filling potholes as part of
his campaign to improve transportation in his state. Too bad that the
pothole he filled had been dug up beforehand so that there would be one to fill:
"For
paving the streets, it's a lot of lighting,'' said resident Nick
Porrovecchio, 48, motioning to a team of workmen setting up
Hollywood-style floodlights on the street to bathe the gubernatorial
podium in a soft glow.
Porrovecchio and his business partner,
Joe Greco, said that at about 7 a.m. they became fascinated watching
"10 city workers standing around for a few hours putting on new
vests,'' all in preparation for the big moment with Schwarzenegger.
But their street, he noted, didn't even have a hole to pave over until Thursday morning.
"They just dug it out,'' Porrovecchio said, shrugging. "There was a crack. But they dug out the whole road this morning.''
Well,
that's how it's done in the movies, so it's not Arnold's fault, really.
Though there is the question whether taxpayers have to pay for the
digging of the pothole as well as its filling. The governor's
communication director argues that this event is not paid from the
state funds, but
David
Vossbrink, director of communications for San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales,
who was in Washington, D.C., Thursday lobbying for more federal funding
for BART, said the city paid the road crew and the extra security costs
associated with the governor's visit -- as it would for any visiting
dignitary.
Schwarzenegger's office "contacted us several days
ago for a suitable area'' to depict his distribution of transportation
funding, Vossbrink said. The neighborhood was chosen because "city
workers were already in the area" doing repaving and resurfacing, which
he said often requires peeling off old pavement and digging up roads to
lay down new asphalt.
In this case, Vossbrink said, the
governor's event involved "not exactly filling a pothole, but it
represented the pothole aspect'' of the transportation funding measure.
That last sentence is so good it deserves to be repeated:
In
this case, Vossbrink said, the governor's event involved "not exactly
filling a pothole, but it represented the pothole aspect'' of the
transportation funding measure.
Heh.
[ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES]
3:25:00 AM
|
|
Get A Bigger Hammer.
In an effort to increase my limited foreign policy knowledge and
understanding beyond the one semester of International Relations that I
vaguely remember taking in college, I've been reading some foreign
policy blogs (and will add real books to the already long list of
things I need to read). Yesterday, Derek Chollet at Democracy Arsenal
wrote approvingly about this report from Third Way advocating
increasing the standing US military by 100,000 soldiers. Democracy
Arsenal seems to think that this kind of response will buff up the
Democrats' standing on national security and will be useful in the
world: [T]oo many...
[Paperwight's Fair Shot]
3:21:41 AM
|
|
|
|
© Copyright
2005
Michael Mussington.
Last update:
6/1/2005; 1:35:28 AM.
|
|
|
