In the global economy of the moment, the United States itself is too big to fail.
The logic for that assurance goes like this:
The American consumer has for decades served as the engine of world commerce, using borrowed cash to snap up the accoutrements of modern living — clothes and computers and cars now manufactured, in whole or in part, in factories from Asia to Latin America. Eliminate the American wherewithal to shop, and the pain would ripple out to multiple shores.
Globalization, in other words, allowed China and Japan to amass the fortunes they have been lending to the United States.
But globalization also emboldened American capitalists to take huge risks they might have otherwise avoided — like borrowing to erect forests of unsold homes from California to Florida, delivering the speculative disaster of the day. They were operating with bedrock confidence that money would never run out. Someone would always buy American debt, delivering more cash for the next go.
And this same interconnectedness appears to have reassured regulators in Washington about the health of the American financial system, as they declined to intervene against highly speculative lending during the real estate boom. Mortgages were being distributed to investors around the globe, and so were the risks, the regulators reasoned. Anyone who bought into that risk would have a strong interest in seeing that the American financial system stayed upright.
In other words, in the estimation of people in control of money, the United States cannot be allowed to collapse, just as Fannie and Freddie cannot be allowed to fail. Too much is riding on their survival.
When you’re too big to fail, you have no incentive to be cautious or competent, because you know you’ll be bailed out if your gambles don’t pan out. This applies at the corporate/financial institution level, and, apparently, at the governmental/regulatory level as well.
When you’re too big to fail, you don’t have to worry about the risk side of the risk-vs-reward equation.
Add commentJuly 20th, 2008 at 11:51amPosted by Eli
The Air Force’s top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on “comfort capsules” to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules’ carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.
(…)
Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be “aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule,” with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.
(…)
Air Force officials say the program dates from a 2006 decision by Air Force Gen. Duncan J. McNabb that existing seats on transport planes, including some that match those on commercial airliners, may be fine for airmen and troops but inadequate for the top brass….
Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.
During just one six-month period — August 2006 through January 2007 — at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military’s largest dining hall in the country, documents obtained by The New York Times show. Two soldiers died in an electrical fire at their base near Tikrit in 2006, the records note, while another was injured while jumping from a burning guard tower in May 2007.
And while the Pentagon has previously reported that 13 Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq, many more have been injured, some seriously, by shocks, according to the documents. A log compiled earlier this year at one building complex in Baghdad disclosed that soldiers complained of receiving electrical shocks in their living quarters on an almost daily basis.
Electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq, according to an Army survey issued in February 2007. It noted “a safety threat theaterwide created by the poor-quality electrical fixtures procured and installed, sometimes incorrectly, thus resulting in a significant number of fires.”
The Army report said KBR, the Houston-based company that is responsible for providing basic services for American troops in Iraq, including housing, did its own study and found a “systemic problem” with electrical work.
But the Pentagon did little to address the issue until a Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth, was electrocuted in January while showering. His death, caused by poor electrical grounding, drew the attention of lawmakers and Pentagon leaders after his family pushed for answers. Congress and the Pentagon’s inspector general have begun investigations, and this month senior Army officials ordered electrical inspections of all buildings in Iraq maintained by KBR.
(…)
Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, tens of thousands of American troops have been housed in Iraqi buildings that date from the Saddam Hussein era. KBR and other contractors have been paid millions of dollars to repair and upgrade the buildings, including their electrical systems. KBR officials say they handle the maintenance for 4,000 structures and an additional 35,000 containers used as housing in the war zone.
The reports of shoddy electrical work have raised new questions about the Bush administration’s heavy reliance on contractors in Iraq, particularly because they come after other high-profile disputes involving KBR. They include accusations of overbilling, providing unsafe water to soldiers and failing to protect female employees who were sexually assaulted.
Officials say the administration contracted out so much work in Iraq that companies like KBR were simply overwhelmed by the scale of the operations. Some of the electrical work, for example, was turned over to subcontractors, some of which hired unskilled Iraqis who were paid only a few dollars a day.
Government officials responsible for contract oversight, meanwhile, were also unable to keep up, so that unsafe electrical work was not challenged by government auditors.
Several electricians who worked for KBR have said previously in interviews that they repeatedly warned KBR managers and Pentagon and military officials about unsafe electrical work. They said that supervisors had ignored their concerns or, in some cases, lacked the training to understand the problems.
So, to sum up: The Pentagon spares no expense to make sure Air Force generals can fly anywhere in the lap of luxury, but can’t be bothered to ensure that Army grunts don’t get electrocuted in the shower. Fantastic. That should do wonders for morale.
So tell me again which troops it is we’re supposed to be supporting? ‘Cuz it seems like there might be some kind of minimum rank requirement.
Add commentJuly 18th, 2008 at 07:19amPosted by Eli
It really is classic Republicanism: Claim that regulation is oppressive and the free market is the only source of corporate accountability that we need, then rig the free market to remove the accountability. Brilliant!
While the Republic burns due to the unsavory combination of incompetence, ideological rigidity, and crony capitalism, the fools and assclowns seem ever more determined to avoid any personal responsibility for the damages they have wrought. Instead, they flail about blindly, blaming everything and everyone — except their own horrific negligence.
(…)
As a nation, our institutions have failed us: Under Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve slept through the most reckless and irresponsible expansion of bank lending in history for reasons of ideological purity. His opposition to the Fed’s regulatory role reached the point of malfeasance long ago. History is unlikely to be kind to the Maestro.
There is a choice to be made: Either we regulate the Banks, or leave it to the vagaries of the free markets to punish those who trade with, or place their assets in the wrong institutions. But for God’s sake, do not give us the worst of both worlds — do not allow banks the freedom to make horrific but preventable mistakes (i.e., only lending money to those who can pay it back), but then expect the taxpayers to foot the trillion dollar bill.
That’s not capitalism, its not socialism, its not regulation, and its sure as hell isn’t what free markets are. Our language is insufficient to describe this hodge-podge system, other than to call it a random patchwork of quasi-capitalism, quadrennial-socialism, and politics as usual. Ideological idiocy is the only phrase I can muster that has any resonance with the daily insanity.
(…)
Back in the States, something beyond cognitive dissonance is occurring — this is full blown case of dementia unfolding in the public sphere. When this era of excess and absurdity is treated by historians in the future, the question I expect to be asked most is not why many of these people weren’t jailed for their financial felonies. Rather, I expect them to wonder why so many of these folk weren’t placed in protective custody, and heavily medicated, for the only rational explanation for their statements and behaviors is that they have gone so far beyond the bend as to be completely and totally insane.
Massively over-leveraged companies? Blame short sellers.
Heinously poor corporate management? Blame a Senator.
(…)
Books will be written about this period of time, and our descendants will wonder in awe as to how this was allowed to happen. Tulips got nothing on us! Its not just the total dollar value of the losses that have exceeded all other global fits of financial madness combined, but rather, how so many warning signs were so blithely ignored by so many and for so long. What was wrong with these people, the authors and historians will wonder. Did the antibiotics in the food supply drive them mad? Did the High Fructose Corn Syrup compromise their ability to think? Some form of viral plague? Roid rage? What else could have created such a mass delusion amongst not just the populace, but their leadership and institutions?
(…)
From beyond the grave, Adam Smith does not know whether to weep or retch.
I do have to disagree with the insanity-rather-than-criminality assessment, however. These people are not insane, just greedy, selfish, short-sighted, and perfectly amoral. And they’re running the show.
Admittedly, they’re not the sexiest kind of heroes, but their courage and service is undeniable. CREW has compiled a list of 30 government whistleblower all-stars. Some names, like Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke, and Sibel Edmonds, are very familiar; others, not so much. The sad truth is that there have been so many outrages perpetrated by the Bush administration, that it’s almost impossible to keep track of them all.
Colonel Stephen Abraham, Army Reserve: Spoke out against kangaroo court Gitmo detainee status hearings.
Marty Bahamonde, FEMA: Frantically (and unsuccessfully) tried to get FEMA management to take Katrina disaster conditions seriously.
Charalambe Bobby Boutris, FAA: Testified to Congress about FAA’s lax inspection procedures and too-cozy relationship with airlines.
Richard Clarke, NSC: Published book about Bush administration’s total failure to take terrorism or al-Qaeda seriously prior to 9/11.
James Comey, DOJ: Former Deputy Attorney General who rushed to Ashcroft’s hospital bed to block Card and Gonzales’ attempt to get the AG’s approval for illegal surveillance.
Pasquale D’Amuro, FBI: Told FBI agents to stay away from GItmo interrogations for both moral and practical reasons (i.e., tainted prosecutions, al Qaeda propaganda).
Joseph Darby, Army Reserve: Blew the whistle on Abu Ghraib.
Col. Morris D. Davis, USAF: Blew the whistle on politically rigged military commission system for prosecuting alleged terrorists.
Earl Devaney, Interior: Inspector General who exposed failures to collect on oil and gas leases, and general lawlessness at Interior.
Sibel Edmonds, FBI: Blew the whistle on incompetence and espionage in translation division.
Glenn Fine, DOJ: Inspector General, exposed extensive malfeasance and incompetence at FBI and DOJ senior management.
Gloria Freeman, HUD: Objected to excessive, inappropriate contracts to tiny Republican company.
Jack Goldsmith, DOJ: Opposed “torture memos,” accompanied Comey to Ashcroft’s hospital room.
Dr. David Graham, FDA: Blew the whistle on Vioxx and general uselessness of drug approval process.
Bunnatine Greenhouse, Army Corps Of Engineers: Opposed and testified against massive long-term no-bid contracts to KBR.
James Hansen, NASA: Resisted Bush administration attempts to stop him from speaking out on climate change.
John P. Higgins, Jr., Department Of Education: Inspector General, exposed NCLB corruption including dodgy purchases of Neil Bush’s Ignite! products.
Captain Kevin Jarvis, Coast Guard: Exposed contract irregularities in Deepwater modernization program.
David Kuo, Office Of Faith-Based Initiatives: Wrote book about BushCo’s exploitation of his department to win religious votes.
J. William Leonard, Information Security Oversight Office: Challenged OVP’s refusal to report on its classified data holdings.
Brian Miller, GSA: Inspector General, exposed Lurita Doan’s conflicts of interest and violations of the Hatch Act.
Dr. Robert Misbin, FDA (Clinton administration): Pushed for withdrawal of deadly but profitable diabetes drug Rezulin.
Rick Piltz, Climate Change Science Program: Resigned in protest against BushCo. tampering with climate assessment reports.
Coleen Rowley, FBI: Blew the whistle on FBI headquarters’ refusal to seek search warrant to allow her field office to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, possibly preventing 9/11.
Charles M. Smith, Army: Attempted to deny payment of $1 billion of inadequately documented KBR expenses.
Bruce C. Swartz, DOJ: Opposed torture of detainees, for reasons similar to Pasquale D’Amuro’s.
Major General Antonio Taguba, Army: Investigated and reported extensively on Abu Ghraib abuses and those responsible.
Anne Whiteman, FAA: Exposed air traffic controllers covering up their own mistakes by reporting them as pilot errors.
Ambassador Joseph Wilson: Wrote NYT op-ed debunking Bush’s claim that Iraq was seeking yellowcake in Niger.
Bassem Youssef, FBI: Blew the whistle on Bureau’s illegal surveillance and lack of Arabic-speaking translators.
Well, it looks like the Republican “Lease Drill Everywhere!” plan is gaining some traction:
Now, polling is beginning to show that a rising share of the public is ready to drill, drill, drill — threatening to destroy precious and unique wildlife areas like the Arctic refuge and create more oil spills along the Gulf coasts. Worse, drilling is a distraction from real changes like massive investments in wind and solar power.
In February, Pew asked the public in a poll whether they favor drilling in the Arctic refuge. At that time 42 percent favored and 50 percent opposed. Now, in July, 50 percent favor drilling and only 43 percent oppose. That’s a 12-point change since the February survey and a 28-point swing since a March 2002 Gallup poll (where 35 percent favored and 56 percent opposed).
The shift is something to be concerned about — progressives are losing ground with the public on drilling. These are alarming gains in sympathy for the plans of Big Oil.
This change isn’t because the idea has gotten better — Arctic drilling might cut gas prices by a mere 4 cents a decade from now. It is because of a sophisticated communications campaign by the oil companies and the Republican Party that is mostly met with silence by the other side — by our side.
I think it’s not just the communications campaign - it’s the fear and desperation of the American public as gas prices cross the $4 threshold and keep climbing with no relief in sight.
This reminds me of nothing so much as the way Republicans have exploited (and fomented) fear and hysteria about terrorism to sell a series of terrible policies (warrantless wiretapping, invasion of Iraq, torture, suspension of habeas corpus, etc.) on the grounds that they would keep us safe from the Scary Terrorists. Of course, none of these policies did any such thing, and most of them made the underlying problem even worse. But they sure did make Bush and his cronies a lot more powerful and a lot more rich.
And now, here we are again, with an American people up in arms about gas prices and begging for someone to do something, anything. And that’s exactly what the Republicans are offering: Bold, decisive action. So what if it won’t provide any actual relief - it’s better than no action at all, right? And conservation and alternative energy strategies are sooo boring and lame. Real red-blooded Americans drill and exploit and take, just like real red-blooded Americans kill and torture and spy and… detain indefinitely without recourse to legal counsel.
I expect the “Drill Everywhere” strategy will work out about as well as the Iraqupation - maybe even worse, since it’s our own country we’ll be destroying.
I’m not a real big fan of Harry Reid’s, but I have to say I like the sound of this (subscription only):
Since then, Reid has regularly kept the Senate operating over recesses. Additionally, he has made plain that he no longer plans to confirm any partisan Bush nominee whose appointment would tip the balance of a particular board or association to the GOP, and whose term stretches beyond the president’s tenure.
That should have been his policy all along, really. It’s at the end of a story about Reid making a deal to confirm a whole bunch of nominees (both Republican and Democrat) to the SEC, Federal Reserve Board Of Governors, FEMA, State, DOJ, and various ambassadorships. But I’m glad to see that he’s finally putting some limits on how much damage the lame duck can inflict past January 2009.
Add commentJune 27th, 2008 at 08:21pmPosted by Eli
So I’m reading Chris Dodd’s brilliant statement about why the FISA “compromise” is unacceptable, and how it’s just one of the many symptoms of the Bush administration’s fundamental lawlessness, and I’m having this depressing thought:
Dodd makes a very eloquent, comprehensive, and compelling argument against the FISA bill, and… no-one cares. I doubt that he convinced even one Democratic senator to join the paltry 15 who voted against cloture, and obviously no Republicans. The merits of Dodd’s arguments were simply irrelevant in the face of political calculation, party loyalty, and corporate money. There was literally nothing that he could have said to sway any of them.
And that’s what saddens me: This sense that the merits don’t matter, because hardly anyone in Congress is making decisions based on them. Dodd is pouring his heart out, and his esteemed colleagues are looking at their watches or playing with their Blackberries, saying, “Yeah, that’s great, Chris - can we get on with servicing our corporate bosses now?”
Most dispiriting of all, that group includes our presidential nominee, who couldn’t be bothered to vote, and who has already said that he will vote for the “compromise” whether immunity has been stripped from it or not (he says he’ll work to strip it, but there’s no way he can succeed). I don’t know whether Obama’s feeling insecure about his national security credentials as compared to McCain’s, or if he’s beholden to telecom contributions, or if he simply doesn’t want Nominee Obama to mess up President Obama’s chances at extraordinary powers, but it doesn’t really matter. None of those reasons is an excuse for Obama’s pathetic failure to lead on something this important.
And I’m not going to give one whit of credit to anyone who voted for cloture and then votes against the bill so they can grandstand about how awful it is. “This bill is a grave threat to our constitutional liberties and the rule of law… but I felt that it deserved an up-or-down vote” is spectacularly bad messaging.
I’m going to be pissed and resentful about this for months, and refuse to give time or money to the Obama campaign. Way to depress your base in a presidential election year, geniuses.
If you can afford it, bribing a congresscritter is just about the best deal there is. As Politico and MAPLight report, our Democratic congresscritters sold us out on FISA, thus saving the telecoms millions and millions of dollars in liabilities, for a mere pittance - an average of less than $10,000 over three years, and a maximum of $29,500.
This happens time and time again: Senators and Representatives give away thousands, even millions on the dollar to industries for comparatively tiny amounts of campaign cash, or even some smoozing and a golf trip. I mean, if you’re going to let yourself be bribed, at least don’t sell yourself so cheaply.
Of course, the underlying problem is, it’s not their money they’re giving away, it’s ours. It’s akin to someone selling your car for $200 - it’s a terrible deal for you, but a great deal for them. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any way to remedy this without creating perverse incentives that might make matters worse.
Sure, you could tie their pay to the budget surplus/deficit somehow, but we’d just end up with sky-high tax rates and no services. Plus most congresscritters have other sources of income that dwarf their government salaries, so maybe the incentives/disincentives should apply to their campaign funding instead. That would certainly get their attention, but then we’re back to the perverse incentives again.
If anyone has any ideas on how to give our politicians some “skin in the game” so that when they give away our money, they’re also giving away their money, I’m all ears.
Add commentJune 25th, 2008 at 07:32amPosted by Eli
Okay, read this (it’s too long to excerpt, but it’s incredible stuff) and then try to tell me that the Bush administration, and the GOP in general, aren’t completely, utterly, totally corrupt.
In addition to the baldness of the corruption, I was also struck by the sheer meanspiritedness of it. It wasn’t enough to simply sideline their opponents; they had to punish and humiliate them, too. Charming, lovely people, these Republicans.
Add commentJune 24th, 2008 at 10:03pmPosted by Eli
Unlike the heavily regulated group insurance market, advocates say the individual insurance market is rife with “junk insurance” policies that provide minimum benefits, such as hospital-only coverage, and don’t set limits on out-of-pocket expenses.
Advocates say it’s often impossible to determine what a plan does or doesn’t cover, and some consumers – like Mary McCurnin and Ron Bednar of Rancho Cordova – find out too late after they run up thousands of dollars in medical costs.
Sen. Darrell Steinberg’s Senate Bill 1522, which is sponsored by the consumer advocacy coalition Health Access California, would standardize the individual insurance market and limit out-of-pocket expenses.
Health plans would be split into five tiers to allow consumers to compare prices and better understand what they were buying.
(…)
Health Access cites families like McCurnin and Bednar, self-employed graphic designers, who purchased a policy from Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of Tennessee.
McCurnin and Bednar said they paid a monthly premium of $600 for what they thought was comprehensive coverage. But in 2002, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and he had open-heart surgery, they learned otherwise.
Their plan covered only 10 percent of his hospitalization, and the company rescinded her coverage because she didn’t disclose on her application that she was given a prescription for an anti-depressant years ago that she never filled.
With more than $250,000 in medical bills, the couple filed for bankruptcy protection and now face the loss of their home.
“Health insurance companies will do everything they can not to cover you,” McCurnin said. “Having good (individual) health insurance is a myth.”
Donna Ledbetter, a spokeswoman for Mid-West National Life Insurance, said federal law prohibits the company from commenting on the case.
“(But) we are confident that defined-benefit health plans have a place in the insurance market and provide value to those who would otherwise have no coverage at all,” Ledbetter said.
Nicole Kasabian Evans, a spokeswoman for the California Association of Health Plans, said SB 1522 will increase health care costs and the ranks of the uninsured.
“By making health plan products fit within narrow boxes with strict benefit requirements, this bill could take lower-cost options off the table for consumers,” Evans said.
Yes, because every American should be entitled to pay $600 for health insurance that doesn’t actually cover anything and can be summarily withdrawn for the merest technicality. I don’t know what we would do if the government took that privilege away from us.
And here I thought that the point of health insurance was not for the sole purpose of allowing you to say that you have health insurance (i.e., those godawful “minimum coverage” car insurance commercials that seem to air every fifteen minutes), but so that you could actually get medical care without going bankrupt. Silly me.
As a side note, one of my first thoughts when Hillary and Obama started talking about using “mandates” to impose universal healthcare rather than making it available through single-payer, was that it would create a huge market for just exactly this kind of bogus “junk insurance.” Everyone can say that they’re insured, Democratic president gets to say that they’ve given us universal healthcare, insurance companies collect billions of additional dollars without having to provide any actual coverage - everybody wins!
This is a lot like that report out of the Senate Intelligence Committee - you know, the one saying that BushCo. knowingly lied about the intelligence they had against Iraq before the invasion:
A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.
The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.
The reported evidence — some of which is expected to be made public at a Senate hearing today — also shows that military lawyers raised strong concerns about the legality of the practices as early as November 2002, a month before Rumsfeld approved them. The findings contradict previous accounts by top Bush administration appointees, setting the stage for new clashes between the White House and Congress over the origins of interrogation methods that many lawmakers regard as torture and possibly illegal.
“Some have suggested that detainee abuses committed by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and at Guantanamo were the result of a ‘few bad apples’ acting on their own. It would be a lot easier to accept if that were true,” Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in a statement for delivery at a committee hearing this morning. “Senior officials in the United States government sought out information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.”
(…)
[M]emos and e-mails obtained by investigators reveal that in July 2002, Haynes and other Pentagon officials were soliciting ideas for harsh interrogations from military experts in survival training, according to two congressional officials familiar with the committee’s investigation. By late July, a list was compiled that included many of the techniques that would later be formally approved for use at Guantanamo Bay, including stress positions, sleep deprivation and the hooding of detainees during questioning. The techniques were later used at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq.
(…)
The Guantanamo Bay visit and the effort to compile interrogation tactics appear to show that Pentagon officials were moving toward a formal policy on interrogation before military commanders at the detention camp requested special measures, the officials said. However, top military officers objected to the proposals in a series of memos in November 2002, much earlier than previously reported, congressional investigators said. In early 2003, Rumsfeld formally authorized the techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay.
(…)
“It is increasingly clear that the decision to abandon the rule of law and order torture and abuse was made at the very top,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office. “We look forward to the full investigative report from the Armed Services Committee and call on Congress to hold accountable any and all public officials involved in ordering illegal torture.”
A group of 56 Congressional Democrats last week asked the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate whether any Bush administration officials may have broken laws in approving the use of harsh interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists.
As with the Senate Intelligence report, this pretty much just confirms and documents what we already knew, and what the Bush administration has been consistently lying about. In this case, it’s the fact that torture is official BushCo. policy, and they’ve been lying about it all along.
Can’t wait to hear John “I Hate Torture But Voted For It Anyway” McCain’s reaction to this.
Add commentJune 17th, 2008 at 06:59amPosted by Eli
John McCain’s presidential campaign is blasting a New York Times report that his campaign manager once worked for a Kremlin-backed politician, and that McCain likely knew of his efforts.
The McCain campaign is strongly denying the paper’s reporting that in 2005, a White House National Security Council staffer called John McCain’s Senate office to complain that Rick Davis, at the time a GOP lobbyist, was “undercutting American policy on Ukraine” by lobbying for a Kremlin-backed politician, Viktor Yanukovich, the paper reported.
The Bush White House — and McCain opposed Yanukovich, whom the United States and others had accused of election fraud, and benefiting from violence and intimidation towards journalists.
Yanukovich is the guy who is suspected of poisoned his opponent with dioxin. Hopefully Davis didn’t ask him for any pointers…
Add commentJune 13th, 2008 at 10:17pmPosted by Eli
Krugman has a great post today slamming the Republicans’ hostility to all forms of regulation - and not just on our terms (i.e., allowing poisonous food and predatory business practices is bad), but on their own as well:
[W]hen Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, was asked about his ultimate goal, he replied that he wanted a restoration of the way America was “up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.”
The late Milton Friedman agreed, calling for the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration. It was unnecessary, he argued: private companies would avoid taking risks with public health to safeguard their reputations and to avoid damaging class-action lawsuits. (Friedman, unlike almost every other conservative I can think of, viewed lawyers as the guardians of free-market capitalism.)
Such hard-core opponents of regulation were once part of the political fringe, but with the rise of modern movement conservatism they moved into the corridors of power. They never had enough votes to abolish the F.D.A. or eliminate meat inspections, but they could and did set about making the agencies charged with ensuring food safety ineffective.
(…)
One amazing decision came in 2004, when a Kansas producer asked for permission to test its own cows, so that it could resume exports to Japan. You might have expected the Bush administration to applaud this example of self-regulation. But permission was denied, because other beef producers feared consumer demands that they follow suit.
When push comes to shove, it seems, the imperatives of crony capitalism trump professed faith in free markets.
(…)
The ironic thing is that the Agriculture Department’s deference to the beef industry actually ended up backfiring: because potential foreign buyers didn’t trust our safety measures, beef producers spent years excluded from their most important overseas markets.
But then, the same thing can be said of other cases in which the administration stood in the way of effective regulation. Most notably, the administration’s refusal to countenance any restraints on predatory lending helped prepare the ground for the subprime crisis, which has cost the financial industry far more than it ever made on overpriced loans.
The moral of this story is that failure to regulate effectively isn’t just bad for consumers, it’s bad for business.
It’s amazing that even after so many clear-cut examples where “the market” did not prevent negligence or outright criminality, and even worked against business interests as well as consumer interests, that Republicans still will not admit that deregulation is actually not such a great idea.
Did I say “amazing”? I meant “completely unsurprising and depressing.”
I’m not the least bit surprised by the revelations/accusations, but I am pretty surprised by the source:
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.
Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):
• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.
• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”
• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.
• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.
(…)
The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as “authentic” and “sincere,” is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected.
McClellan was one of the president’s earliest and most loyal political aides, and most of his friends had expected him to take a few swipes at his former colleague in order to sell books but also to paint a largely affectionate portrait.
Instead, McClellan’s tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House “spent most of the first week in a state of denial,” and he blames Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover. McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped.
But he writes that he later was told that “Karl was convinced we needed to do it — and the president agreed.”
“One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term,” he writes. “And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.”
(…)
“I still like and admire President Bush,” McClellan writes. “But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security.”
(…)
McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush’s liberal critics and even charges: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.
“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”
Wow. History’s judgment continues to trickle out, doesn’t it. My only complaint is that Scottie is a little too willing to let Dubya personally off the hook and blame everything on his advisers. Who hired the advisers? Who made the decision to listen to them even when their advice was obviously flawed at best, insane and evil at worst? Bush is either a monster or a chump, and history will not be kind either way.
Woohoo! House passes amendment to investigate the DoD’s use of generals to spout administration talking points on teevee in the guise of “analysis”:
Tonight, the House passed an amendment introduced by Reps. Hodes, DeFazio, and DeLauro to the Defense Authorization Act for FY2009 requiring that “not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Inspector General of the Department of Defense and the Comptroller General of the United States shall each conduct a study of, and submit to the Congress a report on, the extent to which the Department of Defense has violated the prohibition on propaganda” and defines propaganda as “any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.”
On passage of the amendment, Speaker Pelosi said:
In his farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that “only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” The Pentagon media influence program reported by the New York Times struck at the heart of this principle – not only denying citizens the knowledge they deserve but also using the media to manipulate public opinion, and as a consequence, damaging our democracy.
The President and members of his Administration led the country to war on the basis of unproven assertions, later confirmed to be false, and have continued to misrepresent the truth on the ground. The Hodes-DeFazio-DeLauro Amendment which prohibits the Department of Defense from using funds for propaganda purposes and initiates a GAO and IG investigative report into past use of propaganda, is a vital step toward restoring the public’s faith in information stemming from the Pentagon.
Rep. Hodes:
The American people were spun by Bush Administration “message multipliers.” They were fed Administration talking points, believing they were getting independent military analysis. Days after, the Pentagon suspended the program. The news outlets have been remarkably silent. The Department of Defense Inspector General has begun an internal review of the program but given the possibility as well as decision makers in this Congress were misled about the war in Iraq, I believe it is absolutely critical that a public investigation happen that is transparent to this body as well as to the American people. Congress cannot allow an Administration to manipulate the public on false propaganda on matters of war and national security.
Awesome. Be even better if the media were to report on it. I couldn’t find a story about this vote in either NYT or WaPo, so who knows if they’ll bother to write about the investigation’s results either.
But here’s the beauty part: Even though McCain violated what was supposedly his own standard for hiring campaign staff only to rediscover it very recently when his lobbyist-ridden campaign staff became an embarrassment, his ethics policy is not retroactive:
John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser lobbied the Arizona senator’s staff on behalf of the republic of Georgia while he was working for the campaign, public records show.
Randy Scheunemann, founder of Orion Strategies, represented the governments of Macedonia, Georgia and Taiwan between 2003 and March 1, according to the firm’s filings with the Justice Department. In its latest semiannual report, the firm disclosed that Scheunemann had a phone conversation in November about Georgia with Richard Fontaine, an aide in McCain’s Senate office.
Orion Strategies earned $540,000 from its foreign clients over the year ending on Dec. 1, reports show. Scheunemann also received $56,250 last year from March to July from McCain, according to campaign finance records.
The campaign consulting fees ended at a time when McCain was under financial pressure to cut costs, but Scheunemann remained the campaign’s top foreign policy adviser. He represented McCain throughout last fall — including an appearance at a Republican Jewish Coalition event during the same week he lobbied McCain’s Senate office.
Campaign spokesman Jill Hazelbaker said the ethics policy is not retroactive. She declined to answer any questions about Scheunemann….
So apparently McCain’s ethics are purely situational. He’ll make a big show of integrity when his image becomes tarnished and he needs to rehabilitate it, but it’s clear that he doesn’t really believe in it. He weasels on lobbyists, he ignored public primary financing restrictions he was never released from, he refuses to release his ultrarich wife’s tax returns, and he’s got a creative sweetheart deal with the RNC to significantly supplement his public funding in the general election.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, Mr. Straight Talk is a colossal phony. Obama gets it:
…John McCain has agreed with me on some of the steps we need to make our government more ethical and accountable. Almost a decade ago, he offered a bill that, in his words, would ban a candidate from paying registered lobbyists. Let me repeat that. This — ten years ago, John McCain offered a bill that said he would ban a candidate from paying registered lobbyists. And he did this because he said that having lobbyists on your campaign was a conflict of interest. This is what he said ten years ago.
Well, I’ll tell you that John McCain then would be pretty disappointed with John McCain now, because he hired some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington to run his campaign. And when he was called on it, his top lobbyists actually had the nerve to say, “The American people won’t care about this.”
I had actually been thinking that it might be an interesting rhetorical device for Obama to repeatedly state his agreement with, and even admiration for, McCain 2000, and then contrast him with McCain 2008. I was mainly thinking about it for the debates, ‘cuz I suspect it would make McCain blow a gasket, which we need to see as often as possible.
Okay, so it’s all well and good that Senator McCampaign Finance is suddenly on a big ethics kick with all the lobbyists on his campaign staff, and is actually firing people (while clinging like grim death to lobbyist key adviser Charlie Black and lobbyist campaign manager Rick Davis), but it begs the question… How did all these people end up on his campaign in the first place?
That question is even more pointed when you consider this:
Senator John McCain has a lobbyist problem. This past week, as several aides resigned because of their work representing unsavory governments, his campaign implemented a new policy governing these potential conflicts of interest. That led to the departure of additional staffers, including former Rep. Thomas Loeffler, a key adviser and fundraiser.
The McCain camp has insisted that the resignations are nothing more than evidence of the Senator’s sincerity in combating outside influences. But the truth, reform groups say, is far from adulatory: McCain’s current policy simply doesn’t compare to the ethical commitments he championed earlier in his career.
Just twelve years ago, when McCain was politically recuperating from his involvement in the Keating Five scandal, he introduced legislation that would, if implemented today, cripple his presidential campaign.
In March 1996 and again the following year, McCain offered a bill that, in his own words, “would ban a candidate or a candidate’s authorized committee from paying registered lobbyists.”
(…)
“Registered lobbyists who work for campaigns as fundraisers clearly represent a conflict of interest,” he added. “When a campaign employs an individual who also lobbies that Member, the perception of undue and unfair influence is raised.”
The legislation never passed.
So… 12 years ago, John McCain was totally against the idea of having lobbyists involved in political campaigns, and now he seems unable to hire anyone else?
It is with great regret that I write to request that you withdraw my nomination to be a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission. My nomination has been pending for almost two and one half years in the Senate without any resolution. This process has been extremely hard on my family, and quite frankly, we do not have the financial resources to continue to wait until this matter is resolved. I also agree with my former colleague Robert Lenhard, who recently withdrew his nomination, that it was past time that the FEC was reconstituted - the agency that is tasked with policing our campaign finance system needs to be operational during a presidential election year. Ths opposition to my nomination (however unfair) is preventing that from happening.
He actually makes a very commendable point at the end there (aside from the “however unfair” part), so it appears that he does feel some rudimentary sense of civic responsibility then again, his vision of what the FEC should be doing during a presidential election year is very different from ours.
In case you’ve forgotten why he’s a total bastard who should never have been allowed within 3000 miles of the FEC, check out the roundup at the end of this TPMMuck post.
The party, Mr. Davis told me, is “an airplane flying right into a mountain.” Analyses of its predicament reflect an “investment in the Bush presidency,” but ‘the public has just moved so far past that.” “Our leaders go up to the second floor of the White House and they get a case of White House-itis.” Mr. Bush has left the party at a disadvantage in terms of communications: “He can’t articulate. The only asset we have now is the big microphone, and he swallowed it.”
Huge political fireworks today after President Bush went to Israel and he talked about American politicians who might want to talk with Hamas or other leaders. Politicians who would sit down and appease terrorists. He said he would not do it. He would not put up with it. He would never talk to terrorists. And then he flew to Saudi Arabia to spend a couple of days with the Saudi royal family.
Jon Stewart (while showing footage of Dubya biking, fishing, and dancing):
You know what? Pictures matter. Image is everything. And when you ask military families to sacrifice so much — through stop-loss, or multiple tours without proper stateside rest, or refusing to fund a proper GI Bill, the least you can do is not force them to see you dicking around like you don’t have a care in the world.
This is not exactly a news flash, but the Bush administration has politicized the classification process in the same way that it has politicized the Justice Department, the EPA, the FEC, the FCC, and, well, pretty much every other government agency you can think of.
Instead of performing its intended function of protecting the well-being of America, classification is used simply to protect the political interests of the Bush administration and the Republican party.
It’s a given in our democracy that laws should be a matter of public record. But the law in this country includes not just statutes and regulations, which the public can readily access. It also includes binding legal interpretations made by courts and the executive branch. These interpretations are increasingly being withheld from the public and Congress.
Perhaps the most notorious example is the recently released 2003 Justice Department memorandum on torture written by John Yoo. The memorandum was, for a nine-month period in 2003, the law that the administration followed when it came to matters of torture. And that law was essentially a declaration that the administration could ignore the laws passed by Congress.
The content of the memo was deeply troubling, but just as troubling was the fact that this legal opinion was classified and its content kept secret for years. As we now know, the memo should never have been classified because it contains no information that could compromise national security if released. In a Senate hearing that I chaired April 30, the top official in charge of classification policy from 2002 to 2007 testified that classification of this memo showed “either profound ignorance of or deep contempt for” the standards for classification.
The memos on torture policy that have been released or leaked hint at a much bigger body of law about which we know virtually nothing. The Yoo memo was filled with references to other Justice Department memos that have yet to see the light of day, on subjects including the government’s ability to detain U.S. citizens without congressional authorization and the government’s ability to bypass the 4th Amendment in domestic military operations.
…[W]ith changes in technology and with this administration’s efforts to expand its surveillance powers, the [FISA] court today is doing more than just reviewing warrant applications. It is issuing important interpretations of FISA that have effectively made new law.
These interpretations deeply affect Americans’ privacy rights, and yet Americans don’t know about them because they are not allowed to see them. Very few members of Congress have been allowed to see them either. When the Senate recently approved some broad and controversial changes to FISA, almost none of the senators voting on the bill could know what the law currently is.
The code of secrecy also extends to yet another body of law: changes to executive orders. The administration takes the position that a president can “waive” or “modify” a published executive order without any public notice — simply by not following it. It’s every president’s prerogative to change an executive order, but doing so without public notice works a secret change in the law. And, because the published order stays on the books, Congress and the public have no idea that it’s no longer in effect. We don’t know how many of these covert changes have been made by this administration or, for that matter, by past administrations.
No one questions the need for the government to protect information about intelligence sources and methods, troop movements or weapons systems. But there’s a big difference between withholding information about military or intelligence operations from the public and withholding the law that governs the executive branch. Keeping the law secret doesn’t enhance national security, but it does give the government free rein to operate without oversight or accountability. Even the congressional intelligence committees, which are supposed to oversee the intelligence community, have been denied access to some of these legal opinions.
Congress should pass legislation to require the administration to alert Congress when the law created by Justice Department opinions ignores or even violates the laws passed by Congress, and to require public notice when it is waiving or modifying a published executive order. Congress and the public shouldn’t have to wonder whether the executive branch is following the laws that are on the books or some other, secret law.
Tell me again why Russ Feingold shouldn’t be president?
NPR is reporting that FBI agents have raided both the home and office of Scott Bloch:
FBI agents on Tuesday raided the offices of Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch, who oversees protection for federal whistleblowers. The agents seized computers and shut down email service as part of an obstruction of justice probe, NPR has exclusively learned.
FBI agents also searched Bloch’s home and a Special Counsel field office in Dallas. A grand jury in Washington issued subpoenas for several OSC employees, including Bloch, according to NPR sources who spoke on condition their names not be used.
–snip–
This morning, FBI agents in Washington took Bloch into a separate room at OSC to interview him, while additional investigators searched his office. They also arrived at his home in Alexandria, Va., with a search warrant.
The Office of Personnel Managment’s Inspector General has been looking into allegations that Bloch retaliated against career employees and obstructed an investigation. Sources close to the probe said the FBI’s raid this morning was related to work the Inspector General had already done.
The Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.
The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.
First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.
So, are Bloch and the OSC under fire for their legitimately illegitimate practices (of which there appear to be many, but when has that ever bothered BushCo. before?), or because they were getting too close to paydirt on the US Attorney firings or Rove’s Hatch Act violations? Or as retaliation for helping to boot Lurita Doan out the door?
Yeah, this sucks, but at least Ohio’s Democratic state government is doing the right thing and not the Right thing.
Risking impeachment, Ohio’s attorney general on Monday refused demands from the governor and other fellow Democrats that he resign over a sexual harassment scandal in his office and an affair with a subordinate.
Gov. Ted Strickland told reporters that Democrats will begin drafting an impeachment resolution against Attorney General Marc Dann right away. Republican House Speaker Jon Husted said Monday that his chamber — which takes the first step in any impeachment — was already reviewing the process.
Virtually every state-level Democratic officeholder urged Dann to resign in a letter late Sunday after Strickland tried twice during the day to persuade him to leave office.
A sexual harassment investigation uncovered an atmosphere in Dann’s office rife with inappropriate staff-subordinate relationships, heavy drinking and harassing and threatening behavior by a supervisor. On Friday, Dann admitted to an extramarital affair with a subordinate after the investigation threatened to reveal the relationship.
“I would hope the Attorney General will understand that his effectiveness as an attorney general has been so diminished that in my judgment he can no longer effectively serve in that office,” Strickland said Monday. The governor and Dann were among many Ohio Democrats swept into office in 2006 in the wake of a Republican scandal over state investments.
“I think it’s important for Democrats to send a very clear message that we will clean our own house,” Strickland said.
Amen to that. I wish their AG weren’t a moron, but I love that the Ohio Democrats are collectively repudiating him rather than covering for him. It makes a very clear distinction between how the two parties handle corruption in their ranks (See: Foley, Mark; Firings, US Attorney).
The Pentagon has provided $30 billion in contracts to KBR during the Iraq War. Apparently that’s just the Basic Troop Support Package, however, because it’s not enough money to keep the contractor from electrocuting a dozen troops in showers and elsewhere throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.
(…)
The accidental deaths and close calls, which are being investigated by Congress and the Defense Department’s inspector general, raise new questions about the oversight of contractors in the war zone, where unjustified killings by security guards, shoddy reconstruction projects and fraud involving military supplies have spurred previous inquiries.American electricians who worked for KBR, the Houston-based defense contractor that is responsible for maintaining American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, said they repeatedly warned company managers and military officials about unsafe electrical work, which was often performed by poorly trained Iraqis and Afghans paid just a few dollars a day.
One electrician warned his KBR bosses in his 2005 letter of resignation that unsafe electrical work was “a disaster waiting to happen.” Another said he witnessed an American soldier in Afghanistan receiving a potentially lethal shock. A third provided e-mail messages and other documents showing that he had complained to KBR and the government that logs were created to make it appear that nonexistent electrical safety systems were properly functioning.
(…)
One former KBR electrician was quite frank about what’s going on:
And Mr. Bliss, who saw a soldier standing next to him in Qalat, Afghanistan, receive a severe shock from an electrical box that was not supposed to be charged, said his KBR bosses mocked him for raising safety issues. They were “not giving the Army what it needed,” he said, “and not giving the soldiers what they deserved.”
I understand that accidents happen in combat zones. I know that nothing ever runs perfectly under these conditions. But that’s not what bothers me. What bothers me is the fact that taxpayers are funding these clowns to the tune of $30 billion and counting. And they’re not capable of producing work remotely close to what the government could do for itself in terms of quality and speed.
In March 2005, one of the Pentagon’s most trusted contractors - Virginia-based MPRI, founded by retired senior military leaders - won a $400 million contract to train police in Iraq and other hotspots. Two months later, MPRI set up a company in Bermuda to which it subcontracted much of the work.
It was not the first time that MPRI executives had used a shell company in an offshore tax haven to perform government-funded work. A year earlier, MPRI headed a joint venture that won a $1.6 billion contract to provide US peacekeeping forces in Kosovo and elsewhere. Three months later, MPRI set up a company in the Cayman Islands to do the work.
Like MPRI’s Bermuda subsidiary, the Cayman Islands company appears to have no phone number, website, or staff of its own there.
Rick Kiernan, an MPRI spokesman, declined to explain why the company created the two offshore entities and stressed that MPRI operates in “total adherence or compliance with the current law.”
But tax lawyers say that MPRI appears to be avoiding the payment of roughly $4 million dollars a year in Social Security and Medicare taxes for the police-training contract alone and is sidestepping scrutiny by hiring workers through offshore entities based outside the jurisdiction of the Internal Revenue Service.
“The employer is trying to take itself out of the audit reach of the IRS,” said California-based tax lawyer James R. Urquhart III.
(…)
MPRI’s use of offshore shell companies has received little notice from the agencies that pay for their services. State Department officials say that their contractors have a right to subcontract work, even to their own wholly-owned subsidiaries set up in offshore tax havens.
“A contractor generally has the right to retain and terminate subcontractors as it deems necessary,” a State Department official said in an e-mail response to a Globe inquiry.
The US Army, for its part, also has declined to condemn the practice.
“We know that it is a practice that goes on,” said Jeffrey Parsons, director of contracting for the Army Materiel Command. “I would not say anyone encourages it, but there are no rules or pratices that would prohibit it. I think that is why Congress is weighing in.”
I can’t imagine what it would take for one of these companies to lose a government contract, much less face criminal sanctions.
Stories like these really drive home the relationship between the government and the contractors: The contractors aren’t paid to deliver services, they’re paid for being loyal and connected Republicans, so it doesn’t matter whether they deliver on their contracts (or manage to not kill anyone), or whether they pay their fair share of taxes. It’s nothing more than cronyism at the corporation level.
Helen Thomas is the latest to lament America’s loss of moral standing now that our president has admitted to authorizing something that looks an awful lot like torture. But in BushCo’s mind, as long as they never call their enhanced interrogation techniques “torture”… then they aren’t.
No matter that most Americans, the Army’s code of conduct, and pretty much the entire civilized world, considers waterboarding torture - as long as the administration (not to mention John McCain) says it isn’t, it’s perfectly okay. It’d be interesting to see how well that defense stood up at The Hague, but I don’t guess we’ll ever get a chance to find out.
Elana Schor writes for the Guardian: “A legal brief that exempted the US military from criminal laws following the 9/11 attacks was improperly kept classified for years, the former head of the US government agency in charge of document secrecy said today.
“The March 2003 brief, which allowed Pentagon interrogators to claim self-defence in sidestepping laws against torture, was made public earlier this month.
“J William Leonard, who directed George Bush’s information security oversight office until last year, today told Congress that the document never should have been classified in the first place.
“‘To learn that such a document was classified had the same effect on me as waking up one morning and learning that after all these years, there is a “secret” article to the constitution that the American people do not even know about,’ Leonard said.”
And then there’s the matter of Bush’s attitude toward executive orders.
Scott Shane and David Johnston write in the New York Times that at the same hearing, senior Justice Department official John P. Elwood “disclosed a previously unpublicized method to cloak government activities. Mr. Elwood acknowledged that the administration believed that the president could ignore or modify existing executive orders that he or other presidents have issued without disclosing the new interpretation.
“Mr. Elwood, citing a 1980s precedent, said there was nothing new or unusual about such a view.”
Crikey, this is getting old. You may have seen by now that rumors of a new push on passage of FISA, and, of course, full retroactive immunity, are bubbling to the surface in the last 24 hours. Here is Jane. Here is Digby. Here is McJoan. From Jane at FDL:
According to the ACLU, there is rumor of a backroom deal being brokered by Jay Rockefeller on FISA that will include retroactive immunity. I’ve heard from several sources that Steny Hoyer is doing the dirty work on the House side, and some say it will be attached to the new supplemental.
A few more facts and circumstances are available now than were in the earlier stories. For one, we apparently see the “urgency lever” being pressed this time around (there always seems to be one in these plays, it’s a feature).
Bmaz then points out that:
1) Any surveillance that has been ordered under the Protect America Act has a 12-month lifespan, so no surveillance orders issued prior to the PAA expiration date would remain in place until after the end of Dubya’s term. So if anything is expiring, the administration is letting it expire deliberately so they can manufacture urgency to use as a club against Democrats. That’s a very responsible approach to Keeping America Safe, don’t you think?
2) The telcos aren’t pushing hard for immunity; it’s all coming from BushCo. and the GOP. So it’s not so much that the telecoms are afraid of getting sued, it’s the Bush administration that’s afraid of the telecoms getting sued… resulting in exposure of all the bullshitting they did to get their illegal wiretaps on.
3) The word “compromise” almost always means “giving the administration everything they want in exchange for a few meaningless concessions… maybe.” Actual compromises, like judicial determinations of whether telecom immunity is warranted, are completely unacceptable.
This is not encouraging. Hopefully if all else fails, Dodd can dig in his heels again, but really, it should have to come down to that every single time.
When President Bush erased the prison term of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, he reinforced some Americans’ perception that status can affect justice, according to the judge who sentenced Libby.
(…)
Walton, whom Bush nominated to the District of Columbia bench, acknowledged Tuesday that Bush’s decision was part of the system, but he also said it fed some people’s notion that justice isn’t equal.
(…)
“The downside is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. . . . It is crucial that the American public respect the rule of law, or people won’t follow it.”
That was not the message Dubya sent at all (besides, it’s not like anyone needed him to spell it out for them). No, his message was that if you break the law on his behalf, he’ll see to it that you’re untouchable.
If it’s not a pardon, it’s the all-purpose handy-dandy shield of Executive Privilege, or State Secrets. Even if they’re completely groundless, they can be used to drag the congressional investigation process out until the Democrats give up and the public forgets, or until the next president takes office. (Yes, I’m assuming that that will be Congress’s cue to drop all pending investigations - you got a problem with that?)
So if he ever asks you to break the law for him, you should totally do it ‘cuz he’s got your back. Too bad he’s having trouble getting Congress to help out his telecom buddies…
(h/t Twolf)
3 commentsApril 30th, 2008 at 11:10pmPosted by Eli
I’m always interested to see just how much it takes to get fired from the Bush administration. You have to be either pretty good or really bad. Lurita Doan was not pretty good.
Lurita Doan, head of the General Services Administration, was forced to offer her resignation tonight, according to an e-mail she sent out this evening.
Doan was appointed in late May, 2006, becoming the first woman to serve as GSA Administrator. With 12,000 empioyees and a $20 billion annual budget, GSA has responsibilty for overseeing the thousands of building and properties owned by the federal government.
Doan became the subject of congressional scrutiny last year for allegedly using GSA to help Republican lawmakers win re-election. Doan denied the allegation, but her appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was disastrous. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel, called on Doan to resign over the allegations, but Doan refused to do so.
Heckuva job, uh… Doanie.
Add commentApril 30th, 2008 at 12:07amPosted by Eli
I forgot to comment on this the first time around, but since Gail Collins has been helpful enough to comment on it, I figured I get another chance…
McCain’s special It’s Time for Action Tour was in the impoverished Kentucky town of Inez on Wednesday, so he was unable to make it to Washington to vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This is the bill that would restore workers’ ability to go to court in cases of pay discrimination.
But McCain was not ducking the issue. After all, this is a man who told the folks in Youngstown, Ohio — where most of the working single mothers cannot make it above the poverty line — that the answer to their problems is larger tax deductions. He is fearless when it comes to delivering unpleasant news to people who are probably not going to vote for him anyway.
So McCain made it clear that if he had been in Washington, he would have voted no because the bill “opens us up for lawsuits, for all kinds of problems and difficulties.”
How much straighter can talk get? True, this is pretty much like saying that you’re voting against the federal budget because it involves spending. Still, there is no denying that a bill making it possible for people who have been discriminated against to go to court for redress would open somebody up to the possibility of a lawsuit.
See, that’s the problem with laws. The more laws you have, the more opportunities there are for lawsuits, and those damn trial lawyers all get rich. Better to just get rid of laws completely. Sure, we’d end up like Darfur or Afghanistan, but at least we wouldn’t have to worry about lawsuits.
2 commentsApril 26th, 2008 at 01:55pmPosted by Eli
Hey, remember when the Republicans made that huge stink about MoveOn getting a discounted rate for their General Betray Us ad (as we know, The Most Horrible And Unpatriotic Ad Evar)? Wonder if they’ll have anything to say about this:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain got a deal when his campaign rented gathering space from the city of Homewood for a private fundraiser earlier this week.
His campaign was given a discount of about 80 percent off the standard booking rate for Rosewood Hall. In September, Jefferson County Democrats rented the same facility and were charged the full rate.
The McCain campaign was charged $250 to use two rooms in the hall, which normally would book for $1,200 on a weeknight. The campaign also was given free labor from Homewood City Jail inmates to set up tables and chairs for the event, avoiding a $100 set-up fee, but did pay a standard $50 cleaning fee.
Homewood Mayor Barry McCulley said the rental rate was discounted because the event was on Monday, a slow day for business. City Council members say they always vote on such discounts but didn’t get a say in this deal. They’re upset, as are local Democrats.
“I think it’s outrageous,” said Robert Yarbrough, chairman of the Jefferson County Democratic Party and a Homewood resident.
“I was charged full book rate. I was never offered any free inmate services to set up for my event. Mayor McCulley owes an apology to every citizen in Homewood as to why he arbitrarily changed the fee for this out-of-state senator from Arizona.”
(…)
McCulley said he and City Council President Ginger Busby agreed on the lower rate for McCain’s event. He said minor policy changes such as this don’t require council approval.
(…)
City Councilman David Hooks said that the council typically debates and votes each time there is a request to discount or waive the rent, but that didn’t happen this time.
“I’d be concerned with the legal ramifications of that, from the city’s perspective,” Hooks said. “It could be a problem for the city to have made in-kind donations to a political candidate by charging less rent or having inmates do work for the event.”
Yeah, I’m sure the Republicans will be denouncing this preferential treatment any day now. A-ny day now…
Add commentApril 24th, 2008 at 10:56pmPosted by Eli
Bush’s second term has witnessed the great unraveling of the Republican coalition. After nearly two generations of political dominance, the Republican coalition has rapidly disintegrated under the stress of Bush’s failures and the Republicans’ scandals and disgrace. The Democrats have the greatest possible opening in more than a generation — potentially. They should pay strict attention to how Bush has swiftly undone Republican strengths as an object lesson.
(…)
In 2004, Bush swaggered through his reelection campaign, still swept along on the momentum from September 11. He and Rove did not consider the perverse and unprecedented illogic of Bush v. Gore as anything but a rightful decision. They did not see the means by which he became president as artificial, making his position inherently weak and unstable. Bush took occupying the office itself and September 11 as tantamount to a resounding mandate for his radicalism. Nor did Bush or Rove view Bush’s steady and precipitous decline in popularity as cause to reconsider their preconceptions. After the Afghanistan invasion, Bush’s numbers tumbled until he ramped up the campaign for the invasion of Iraq, after which his standing dived again, only to spike once more after the capture of Saddam Hussein, only to fall again. Nonetheless, Rove drew no lessons from these warnings, except that war and terror served as indispensable political weapons to sustain Bush. On this rock, Rove proposed to build a reigning party.
(…)
The scale of the Bush disaster is larger than any cataclysm since [the Democratic collapse in 1968]. Whether or not there is a powerful geopolitical analogy between Iraq and Vietnam wars, as Bush first insistently denied, then vehemently argued, there is a pertinent domestic political analogy. Vietnam ended a Democratic era as definitively as Iraq is closing a Republican one.
(…)
Every time the conservative Republican period seemed to be exhausted it gained new impetus through openings created by Democratic fractiousness and incompetence in politics and governing. With each cycle conservatism reemerged more radicalized — a steady march further to the right. After Nixon’s disgrace in Watergate came Reagan; after the conservative crackup that engulfed George H.W. Bush came the radical Congress elected in 1994, led by Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay; and then came George W. Bush. Bill Clinton’s presidency served as an interregnum that might have broken the Republican era for good had his vice president Al Gore been permitted to assume the office he won by a popular majority. But the conservative bloc on the Supreme Court ultimately thwarted him. When the court in Bush v. Gore handed the presidency to Bush it gave him an extraordinary and unnatural chance to extend Republican power.
Only through the will to power in the Florida contest, the deus ex machina of the Supreme Court, and the tragedy of September 11, was Bush able to gain and hold the presidency. But he and the Republicans have been living on borrowed if not stolen time.
Karl Rove believed he could engineer a political realignment by recreating his work in Texas where he marshaled money and focused campaign technology in order to destroy the Democrats. But the analogy of the nation as Texas writ large was faulty from the start. In Texas he had the wind at his back, regardless of how elaborate and clever his machinations. The transformation of Texas in the 1980s and 1990s into a Republican state was a delayed version of Southern realignment. Yet Rove came to Washington believing that the example of Texas could be transferred to the national level. With the attacks of September 11, this seasoned architect of realignment believed he possessed the impetus to enact his theory. It apparently never occurred to Rove or Bush that using Iraq to lock in the political impact of September 11 would ever backfire. In his First Inaugural, Bush spoke of an “angel in the whirlwind,” but the whirlwind was of his own making. For all intents and purposes Rove could not have done more damage to the Republican Party than if he had been the control agent for the Manchurian Candidate.
The cataclysm has consumed Rove’s theory, his president, his party, and prospects for a Republican majority. The Republicans may take years if not decades to recreate their party, but that project would have to be on a wholly different basis.
The radicalization of the Republican Party is not at an end, but may only be entering a new phase. Loss of the Congress in 2006 is not accepted as reproach. Quite the opposite, it is understood b