No, not another post about Iraq. Paul Krugman takes time out of his sabbatical to opine about how the Republicans have invented a completely bogus Social Security "crisis."
They come to bury Social Security, not to save it. They aren't sincerely concerned about the possibility that the system will someday fail; they're disturbed by the system's historic success.
Read it.
In a sworn affidavit Monday, a former programmer for a NASA contractor said that he developed a vote-rigging prototype at the request of a then-Florida state representative who is now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ask yourself the following questions:
Here and there, people are noticing some good stuff out of that report (PDF) from the Pentagon's Defense Science Board. The Daily Kos highlights a few nuggets. I'll cut and paste a bit of it for you with my own emphasis added:
Data from Zogby International in July 2004, for example, show that the U.S. is viewed unfavorably by overwhelming majorities in Egypt (98 percent), Saudi Arabia (94 percent), Morocco (88 percent), and Jordan (78 percent). The war has increased mistrust of America in Europe, weakened support for the war on terrorism, and undermined U.S. credibility worldwide.
...
Negative attitudes and the conditions that create them are the underlying sources of threats to America's national security and reduced ability to leverage diplomatic opportunities. Terrorism, thin coalitions, harmful effects on business, restrictions on travel, declines in cross border tourism and education flows, and damaging consequences for other elements of U.S. soft power are tactical manifestations of a pervasive atmosphere of hostility.
...
There is consensus in these reports that U.S. public diplomacy is in crisis. Missing are strong leadership, strategic direction, adequate coordination, sufficient resources, and a culture of measurement and evaluation. America's image problem, many suggest, is linked to perceptions of the United States as arrogant, hypocritical, and self-indulgent. There is agreement too that public diplomacy could be a powerful asset with stronger Presidential leadership, Congressional support, inter-agency coordination, partnership with the private sector, and resources (people, tools, structures, programs, funding).
...
The number and depth of these reports indicate widespread concern among influential observers that something must be done about public diplomacy. But so far these concerns have produced no real change. The White House has paid little attention.
...
The information campaign -- or as some still would have it, "the war of ideas," or the struggle for "hearts and minds" -- is important to every war effort. In this war it is an essential objective, because the larger goals of U.S. strategy depend on separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists. But American efforts have not only failed in this respect: they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended.
Unfortunately, the report is 111 pages long, so Bush will never read it unless they translate it into cartoon form, or film it with Tim Allen in the lead role. But holy fucking shit, right? The Pentagon saying the president is lacking in strategerie and leadership? No you dih-int! I hope the authors are keeping their families in hiding...
And an afterthought - why do we have to read about this in blogs? How is it that Chris Matthews isn't just reading this report verbatim every single night on that screamfest he likes to pretend is a news show? The president's own precious Pentagon is saying that everything we've done in Iraq is a steaming pile of shit. Isn't that news? I guess if there's no rape, car chase, or dead fetus, it's not news. WAKE UP, MEDIA! You're killing democracy!
Roy Edroso:
"On the Right, batshit-crazy is the new polyester."
(Thanks to Tom Tomorrow.)
The Washington Post has an article about the GOTV effort in Iraq. I only mention it because of this beautifully ironic election slogan:
"Brother Iraqis, the future of Iraq is in your hands. Elections are the ideal way to expel the occupier from Iraq,"
March on, Freedom! March on!
Outrageous. Bill Frist, this column's favorite kitten killer-cum-Senator, puts religious dogma ahead of our children's health on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. (Video here)
Recall how we learned last week that the abstinence-only classes were teaching kids all sorts of nonsense like AIDS can be transmitted through sweat and that a woman can only be happy if her husband is happy? Well, read what Senator Vivisection has to say on the matter. Courtesy of LiberalOasis:
STEPHANOPOULOS: One of programs [said] "the actual ability of condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS, even if the product is intact, is not definitively known."
Another: "The popular claim that condoms help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases is not supported by the data."
A third...suggested that tears and sweat could transmit HIV and AIDS.
Now you're a doctor. Do you believe that tears and sweat can transmit HIV?
FRIST: I don't know. I can tell you --
STEPHANOPOULOS: You don’t know?
FRIST: I can tell you things like, like --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Wait. Let me stop you there. You don't know that, you believe that tears and sweat might be able to transmit AIDS?
FRIST: Yeah, no, I can tell you that HIV is not very transmissible as an element, like compared to smallpox, compared to the flu, it's not.
But, the first line -- because I think it's dangerous to show that, and then sort of walk away...
...About condoms for example, we know there's about a 15 percent failure rate.
You know, this is a deadly virus. And you know it is directly transmissible, with a relatively high degree of infectivity by sexual relations.
If there's a 15 percent failure rate in condoms, itself --
...
STEPHANOPOULOS: ...Let me just clear this up though, do you or do you not believe that tears and sweat can transmit HIV?
FRIST: It would be very hard...for tears and sweat to -- I mean, you can get virus in tears and sweat.
But in terms of the degree of infecting somebody, it would be very hard.
Senator, you're a fucking doctor! A DOCTOR! How on earth do you sleep at night after going on television and hemming and hawing about a health issue, trying not to contradict the religious zealots who pay for your campaigns?
If you're curious what doctors who actually want to help people have to say on the subject of AIDS transmission, you can find it at The Centers for Disease Control. And the 15% failure rate statistic that the Jesus-freaks like to regurgitate? That's only when taking human error into account. Hmmn... what could we do to get that error rate lower? If only we could create some sort of a class to, I don't know, maybe teach kids how to use condoms properly...
Shame on you, Senator. Shame on you.
From the excellent Atrios Blog:
Yesterday:
Bush signs Tax Relief Act
By DAVID PITT Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa
President Bush visited the swing state of Iowa on Monday to sign the Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2004, which he said would mean lower tax bills for 94 million Americans.
"It comes at just the right time for America. Some of the provisions were set to expire at the end of 2004 ..." he said. "That would have been a setback for hardworking families of America and a setback for our economy."
Bush introduced Mike and Sharla Hintz, a couple from Clive, whom he said benefited from his tax plan.
Last year, because of the enhanced the child tax credit, they received an extra $1,600 in their tax refund, Bush said. With other tax cuts in the bill, they saved $2,800 on their income taxes.
They used the money to buy a wood-burning stove to more efficiently heat their home, made some home improvements and went on a vacation to Minnesota, the president said.
"Next year, maybe they'll want to come to Texas," Bush quipped.
Mike Hintz, a First Assembly of God youth pastor, said the tax cuts also gave him additional money to use for health care.
He said he supports Bush's values.
"The American people are starting to see what kind of leader President Bush is. People know where he stands," he said.
"Where we are in this world, with not just the war on terror, but with the war with our culture that's going on, I think we need a man that is going to be in the White House like President Bush, that's going to stand by what he believes.
"Everybody that I've talked to are saying that things are going to start going his way," Hintz said.
Surrounded by Republican members of Iowa's congressional delegation, Bush signed the bill and handed the pen to Sen. Charles Grassley, giving him credit for getting the bill passed.
White House spokesman Jim Morrell said last week that the bill-signing ceremony was a way "for the president to show his appreciation for Sen. Grassley's leadership on this issue."
Grassley, chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, also took some gentle ribbing from the president for a current campaign commercial that shows him mowing his lawn. In the ad, Grassley is on a riding lawnmower, towing two push-mowers on ropes behind him to broaden his path.
"The south lawn of the White House has a lot of grass. I'm looking for somebody to mow it," Bush told Grassley. "Mr. Chairman, you should now be known as grass-mower."
And Today:
Pastor Charged With Sexual Exploitation Of Child
First Assembly Of God Church Fires Reverend
DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Des Moines youth pastor is charged with the sexual exploitation of a child.
KCCI learned that the married father of four recently turned himself in to Johnston police.
Rev. Mike Hintz was fired from the First Assembly of God Church, located at 2725 Merle Hay Road, on Oct. 30. Hintz was the youth pastor there for three years.
Police said he started an affair with a 17-year-old in the church youth group this spring.
Church officials fired Hintz immediately after hearing the allegations.
"They did acknowledge with their congregation that Mr. Hintz had made apparently some admissions to his inappropriate activity, and they took a proactive approach and immediately terminated him from his position," Johnston police Sgt. Lynn Aswegan said.
Neither Hintz nor his attorney returned KCCI's calls.
Look at this interesting Mac vs. Microsoft analysis from The Daily Kos.
Today, IE makes up 67 percent of dKos reader browsers. A solid number, but one trending down and doing so rapidly. Anytime I see Microsoft failing at something it makes my day. So three cheers to Firefox and Safari!
Oh, and speaking of Microsoft, 22 percent of Daily Kos readers use a non-Windows operating system (18 percent Macintosh, 4 percent Linux/Unix).
The numbers look different at conservative sites. At Instapundit, for example, 75 percent of visitors use IE. And only 6 percent of visitors use a non-Windows operating system (Mac at 4 percent, Linux/Unix at 2 percent).
There is a clear liberal/conservative divide in technology usage. You can find the data at any weblog with a public sitemeter, and the stats seem to hold true across the board. Liberals are more likely to use non-Microsoft products than conservatives.
A lotta the same shit we got here, they got there.
The religious and the secular are squaring off in the battle for the European Union's constitution. But as Vincent Vega says - it's the little differences. In Europe, the seculars are winning. Lucky bastards.
Quote: "Europe is the only utterly secularized continent on Earth. It's the exception."
Sign me UP!!
What the fuck is wrong with these Republicans?! Now, they want to eliminate the filibuster. When I write about how they want to destroy the Founding Fathers' vision of America, I had no idea the GOP would take me so literally!
Hey assholes - are you so certain of your unending omnipotence that you want to take a chance like this? You don't want to keep the filibuster around, just in case we take back the majority? Don't you think we're holding grudges?
Just to show you what true buffoons they are, here's the money shot:
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., says "tyranny by the minority" must end and he will do whatever it takes.
Sorry to have been tyrannizing you there, Billy. We had no idea! We felt like we were the ones grabbing our ankles. Here - have some milk and cookies... oh and don't forget your lithium, you evil son of a bitch.
While we're speaking of tyrants, it's a good time to remind everyone about Sen. Frist's penchant for adopting and then killing innocent animals:
Frist admitted in his 1989 book that, while a student at Harvard Medical School, he adopted cats from animal shelters and practiced surgery on the animals. In adopting the cats, however, Frist told shelter staff members he wanted the animals for pets. All of the cats died as a result of the surgeries.
"It was a heinous and dishonest thing to do," Frist wrote in Transplant: A Heart Surgeon's Account of the Life-and-Death Dramas of the New Medicine.
Yes. Heinous. That's a great word to describe you, Senator.
TBogg sent me to a pleasant Linda Chavez column in which she downplays the goings on at the concentration camp we like to call Guantanamo.
She doesn't think that torture is such a big deal, and frankly, the stuff we do down there isn't torture to begin with. I have another post talking about how horrible this all is, but I guess Linda doesn't read the DoG. So let's go over it again, shall we?
She writes:
The only possible way to prevent such horrors is to obtain information that might interrupt future terrorist plots. And some of those who might lead us to other terrorists are now sitting in cells in Guantanamo.
Even if I were to concede that torture works, (it has been shown not to, by the way), most of the people rounded up by our government are guilty of nothing other than being brown skinned. Many aren't even Muslim. Torturing a helpless Sikh cabbie really doesn't keep us safer, does it? And torturing innocent Muslim men only convinces them to take up arms against us once the legal system wakes up and orders them all released - as it did, very recently, in fact.
Would it be unthinkable to force him into uncomfortable physical positions? What about keeping him too warm or too cold in his cell, or blaring loud noises at him while he tries to sleep? Would it be immoral to make him fearful by playing on his phobias, or by depriving him of human contact for days or even months on end?
You're missing the point that whether or not it would be "moral," it's still illegal - both by United States law and international treaty. We can debate the laws within the lawmaking bodies; but we simply cannot take the law into our own hands.
Anyhow, that's not all they're doing down there. Remember the most horrifying part? They have the doctors involved, helping the torturers figure out what would be most painful or incapacitating on a case-by-case basis. I know liberals and conservatives alike cringe when this comparison is made, but that's one of the many really bad things that the Nazis used to do. I know we've been cruising down that road for some time, but jesus, do we have to make it so obvious?
And perhaps most importantly, the Geneva Conventions are here to protect us, when our soldiers are captured, Linda. Think ahead! You think there's no chance that in the next, say, fifty years, we won't have any soldiers captured in battle, ever? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to take the moral high ground and say, "For shame!" when those men and women are tortured? And this might be a little naive, but what if they would have been treated humanely, but the opposing force decides, "Hell, fuck these guys up, that's what they've been doing to us" and in fact, our "torture policy" causes our soldiers more pain? How could we live with ourselves after that happens?
Think, Linda! Think!
Abstinence-only or ignorance-only? Highlights:
Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found.
...
Among the misconceptions cited by Waxman's investigators:
One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report said.
...
Nonpartisan researchers have been unable to document measurable benefits of the abstinence-only model. Columbia University researchers found that although teenagers who take "virginity pledges" may wait longer to initiate sexual activity, 88 percent eventually have premarital sex.
And my favorite part:
Some course materials cited in Waxman's report present as scientific fact notions about a man's need for "admiration" and "sexual fulfillment" compared with a woman's need for "financial support." One book in the "Choosing Best" series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. "Moral of the story," notes the popular text: "Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."
Just in time for the election, uh... oh yeah... Well, still - we finally have an indictment of a Bush campaign official.
Let's hope there are more to come.
I'm referring, of course, to the Pentagon.
The Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication, an advisory panel created by the Pentagon, released an internal report (.pdf) on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Sidney Blumenthal has a few thoughts:
The task force discovered more than a chaotic vacuum, a government sector "in crisis," though it found that, too: "Missing are strong leadership, strategic direction, adequate coordination, sufficient resources, and a culture of measurement and evaluation." Inevitably, as it journeyed deeper into the recesses of the Bush administration's foreign policy, the task force documented the unparalleled failure of its fundamental premises. "America's negative image in world opinion and diminished ability to persuade are consequences of factors other than the failure to implement communications strategies," the report declares.
...
The Bush administration, according to the Defense Science Board, has misconceived a war on terrorism in the image of the Cold War -- "reflexively" and "without a thought or a care as to whether these were the best responses to a very different strategic situation." Yet the administration seeks out "Cold War models" to cast this "war" against "totalitarian evil." However, the struggle is not the West vs. Islam; nor is it "against the tactic of terrorism." "This is no Cold War," the report insists. While we blindly and confidently call this a "war on terrorism," Muslims "in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration" against "apostate" Arab regimes allied with the U.S. and "Western Modernity -- an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a 'War on Terrorism.'"
In this conflict, "wholly unlike the Cold War," the Bush administration's impulse has been to "imitate the routines and bureaucratic responses and mindset that so characterized that era." So the U.S. projects Iraqis and other Arabs as people to be liberated like those "oppressed by Soviet rule." And the U.S. accepts authoritarian Arab regimes as allies against the "radical fighters." All of this is nothing less than a gigantic "strategic mistake."
"There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies -- except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends. (Original emphasis.)" Rhetoric about freedom is received as "no more than self-serving hypocrisy," daily highlighted by the U.S. occupation in Iraq. "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies." The "dramatic narrative since 9/11" of the "war on terrorism," Bush's grand justification, his story line connecting all the dots from the World Trade Center to Baghdad, has "borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars." As a result, jihadists have been able to transform themselves from marginal figures in the Muslim world into defenders against invasion and attack with a growing following of millions.
...
For the Bush administration, expert analysis as a rule is extraneous, as it is making clear to national security professionals in its partisan scapegoating of the CIA. Experts can only be expert in telling the White House what it wants to hear. Expertise is valued, not for the analysis or evidence it offers for correction, but for propaganda and validation. But no one -- not in the Bush White House, the Congress, or the dwindling "coalition of the willing" -- can claim that the ever-widening catastrophe has not been foretold by the best and most objective minds commissioned by the Pentagon -- perhaps for the last time.
Yep - there's some top-notch faith-based leadership for you...
Hypocrisy alert! Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) calls for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's resignation.
Sen. Norm Coleman, who is leading one of five U.S. congressional investigations into the U.N. oil-for-food program, wrote in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal that Annan should step down because "the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch."
OK, Normie. I'd have let you get away with calling for Annan's resignation, because frankly, I'm not sure what's going on with this story. But as a Republican, do you think it's wise to start placing fault with people who were in charge when something happened? I mean, who was in charge on 9/11/01? How about when W's buddy Kenny Boy was stealing from California and the Enron shareholders, leading to the collapse of our economy? How about faulty intelligence on Iraq WMD? Who was running the show then?
Coleman wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "as long as Mr. Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the U.N.'s collective nose."
Hmmn... Yeah, we'll never learn about Valerie Plame. We'll never learn about all of the different ways that Halliburton is screwing us. We'll never learn where the torture orders came from. We'll never learn how the Iraq intelligence could have been so wrong.
This could take forever. You get the point, right, Senator? The buck used to stop at the top, but Bush changed all that. Reap what you sow.
Here you go, a nice and horrifying interview with Leila Sadat, law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and vice-president of the American branch of the International Law Association.
Going back to the Abu Ghraib comparison, which do you think is more disturbing -- Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo?
I found the level of sadism to be pretty surprising at Abu Ghraib and very emotionally upsetting. But it's more understandable in context, because again you had undermanned troops in a war situation being given this command to sort of soften up the prisoners for interrogation.
But Guantánamo has come to symbolize in international law circles or even diplomatic circles, this attempt by the U.S. to set up law-free zones. So I think Guantánamo is maybe the scarier of the two precedents. Abu Ghraib will leave a searing image, but it was more flowing from the war, whereas Guantánamo is clearly something where the secretary of defense has said these people are going to be held until they need to be held. That this is a war on terror and we don't know how long it will last. So the prospect of sort of indefinite detention, holding people without even keeping a register, is very ominous.
Is it possible, following this damning report, that the Bush administration will try to block the Red Cross from visiting Guantánamo in the future?
I think the administration could say, "Look, if Geneva law does not apply, then we don't want the Red Cross there.
Is that a plausible scenario?
I think it's very plausible, I do. Four years ago I never would have said that. I think now almost everything's plausible. I'm sure it's being discussed right now.
And if the U.S. did deny the Red Cross entrée to prison camps, what league would that put us in?
That would put us alongside North Korea.
I think one of the things that's so upsetting about this is that international law is based on reciprocity. And so when the United States starts undermining the system, it sort of gives a green light to everybody else to start undermining the system. Right now it's the United States saying, "We don't really care." And next it might be Zimbabwe that starts copying us and saying, "Well, these are unlawful combatants," or what have you. I understand the trauma of 9/11, the temptation to overreact from 9/11, but administration officials are sort of putting out the fire on one end and ignoring the huge blaze they're setting on the others.
Because the fear is, what happens if it's U.S. troops who are the ones being held captive?
Right. The U.S. is gong to want the protection of the Geneva Conventions. If our soldiers are captured, we don't want another state saying, "Oh, they're unlawful combatants, we're going to torture them." That's why I really don't understand the government's lack of perspective on this issue.
Rich Lowry is a moron.
"Intelligence reform" is, as they used to say of the Moral Majority, neither. The intelligence-reform bill that has at least temporarily been scuttled on Capitol Hill despite its endorsement by all the great and good of Washington — from Democratic congressional leaders to President Bush — is neither intelligent nor is it real reform. It is a meaningless, and perhaps even counterproductive, bureaucratic reshuffling that has garnered such across-the-board praise exactly because it is such an empty gesture.
OK. I'm fine with having this discussion. Honestly, I'm on the fence about this myself. Making radical policy decisions without thought or investigation is almost always stupid, (I'm looking at you Department of Homeland Security and Operation Iraqi Freedom and Patriot Act!) We should be permitted to debate everything that has been done over the last four years.
The fact is that measures to make us safer usually aren't uncontroversial — for instance, taking the fight to the enemy overseas as aggressively as possible,
See, and here's the problem. You say that we should sit and think about the Intelligence Reform Bill (a Democrat policy), but you want to state, as though it is a fact, that pre-emptive war (a Republican policy) automatically makes us safer. The reason pre-emptive war is controversial is because there is no proof - nor any evidence - that it makes us safer. I would argue, in fact, that it makes us much less safe. Not that we were even allowed to debate it.
...or offending the civil-liberties lobby by implementing the Patriot Act.
Stupid Constitution always mucking up Bush's world domination schemes.
Since many Democrats don't endorse these steps (in fact, routinely howl about them), they are always looking to get onboard window-dressing tough-on-terror measures, which is what makes the intelligence-reform bill a perfect cause for them.
For the last fucking time, asshole - this country was founded on the concept of individual freedom. If we take that away (whether it's locking up huge groups of people with no evidence and no access to legal council, or if it's transforming our secular government into a Christian theocracy), then we lose both our moral high ground (too late), and we lose everything the Founding Fathers were working towards. When we, as you put it, "howl" about losing our freedoms, it's because we want to prevent you and yours from stomping Jefferson's grand vision into the ground and transforming our country into an ordinary run-of-the-mill fascist state.
...transferring most of the military's intelligence-gathering assets to the CIA. Never mind that that agency has always performed poorly when analyzing military issues, whether it was the size of the Soviet ICBM force, Chinese military modernization or Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction stockpiles...
Uh... Yeah, you work in the... well, let's call it "news" to be generous to your magazine, industry. I'm thinking that you should have at least heard about how the CIA was all, "Take the thing about Niger out of those speeches," and Condi was all, "Fuck you, you're my bitches!" and like Cheney was all over at Langley like, "help me invade Iraq! That's not good enough!" and the CIA analysts were like "get out of here!" and Bush was all, "You're fired! Get me someone who will say that they have WMD!" Remember all that? Remember when Bush cherry-picked all the evidence that made his invasion case, and ignored anyone who told him different? In fact, I believe it was Rumsfeld and his most blessed Defense Department analysts who got virtually EVERYTHING wrong about Iraq.
Mr. Lowry, a debate is useless if you ignore anything that contradicts you. Oh wait! Same with an intelligence agency! Weird...
Abuse is being hurled at House Republicans and Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, who, in the absurd imaginings of his critics, secretly engineered the Capitol Hill doings that undid the bill while he was away at a summit in Latin America.
Did they outlaw phones in Latin America? It's not like Rumsfeld needs to physically be somewhere to get something done. He's not personally torturing legislators to make sure they do his bidding - Rumsfeld only orders that people be tortured, and has the peons do the dirty work. Besides, is there any question where he stands? Is there any question whether he's got Bush's ear? Look how bad he fucked up this whole war and he STILL has his job! What Rumsfeld wants, Rumsfeld gets - and rest assured, he doesn't need to pick up a phone.
