April 29
I laughed when I saw this, maybe because it was after midnight last night and I was punchy, maybe because I had just read this post on Talking Points Memo about a post on Powerline saying, and no kidding, you can go look at it, "The truth is that the Bush administration has been extraordinarily scandal-free. Not a single instance of corruption has been unearthed." It then went on to mention Scooter Libby, but that wasn't corruption, just tragedy. Conservatives don't do irony, but they do delusion very nicely. Anyway, the reason for the laugh is on the same day that post went up, not only did the Randall Tobias story break, and thanks to that same TPM post for this, yet another Bush administration official got caught up in the Abramoff scandal. The Deputy Chief of Staff for the DOJ Criminal Justice Division, Robert E. Coughlin II, says he just felt like relocating to Texas. The source for the story was anonymous. Still, Coughlin had no job to go to, and he referred questions to a "friend" who turns out to be a defense attorney. The really embarrassing part: Coughlin's division was responsible for investigating, all together now, the Abramoff scandal. The McClatchy article says the investigation had reached another lobbyist, Kevin Ring, described as a friend of Coughlin's and associate of Abramoff. Wow. This Abramoff thing is nowhere near done. I'd heard Abramoff was actively cooperating with prosecutors. I believe it.
This photo is from a protest at Harvard Law School during a class reunion attended by Torture Boy Gonzales. You can guess from the protestors' orange suits and black hoods what they were protesting. Gonzales is number 588. Hopefully this won't be the last time he's identified by a number.
April 28
Last night my wife and I went to a live broadcast of the Rachel Maddow Show. Now that Al Franken has ended his show to run for the senate, hers is the show I never miss. I even took off work a bit early to be in the audience. I like someone who can make me think, and see things in a different way than I did before. For example, last night, she brought up George Tenet, who has come out with a book where he claims the "slam dunk" comment was taken grossly out of context, and that he say no discussion of how to deal with Iraq short of invasion. It sounds on its face like proof the acting president decided to invade right after 911 and was lying when he said invasion was just a possibility he hoped to avoid. Maddow pointed out that Tenet got $4 million for his book, and he didn't say anything when it might have done some good, but waited years until he got a big payday. I might have come up with that thought myself, but I know I've become a sharper dissector of the news from listening to her program. Something specific I'm sure I learned from her is the propensity of people with something to hide that has to be released sometime to do so late on Friday afternoons, or early early evening. This is because the news is too late for the Friday TV news or newspapers, and the Saturday news, both broadcast and print, has the smallest audience of the week.
In fact, there was a classic example of that in this morning's Star Tribune. Buried on page A14, Randall Tobias, a deputy secretary of state, suddenly resigned. Alternatively, I could have gotten it by turning on Weekend Edition Saturday and joined that dinky Saturday morning news audience. ABC somehow got information that showed he was patronizing an escort service. Funny how these guys resign fast for sex scandals, but they just refuse to go without an indictment for financial and abuse of power scandals. I didn't know that the Departments of State's main guy for AIDS was the former CEO of a big pharmaceutical company, they sort that has been more concerned with protecting profits than treating disease, but it sure fits the Bush pattern. It might have been a conflict of interest scandal anyway had this guy not had his sex scandal. It also makes me wonder about Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the proprietor of this escort service. I recall vaguely having heard recently about a Washington madam, but there are so many scandals I admit I paid no attention. However, she has threatened to release her list of clients as she fights racketeering charges. I suspect the leak to ABC about a former CEO turned deputy secretary was a warning shot. Maybe she hopes more powerful people will protect her before their own names get leaked. Maybe this will catch some big fish. No, I don't care nearly as much about hiring an escort service, even if does turn out to be just a euphemism for prostitution (Weekend Edition called it prostitution), as I do about the politicization of the Justice Department, the use of RNC e-mail to hide White House activity, stolen elections, lies to start a war, or even the lies about Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch to make pro-war propaganda. Still just like with getting Gonzales over Gonzogate, I'm happy to Capone these guys, if I can coin a verb. I refer to Al Capone, who couldn't be convicted on anything except tax evasion, which has become a metaphor for getting really bad people on minor things.
Getting back to Maddow's show last night, she and Kent Jones mentioned that when the got to the Twin Cities, the first thing they grabbed a Star Tribune right away, and saw the front page story about two women who blocked traffic on a freeway to have a brawl. I'm the sort who needs encouragement to seek autographs or face time with, searching for the right word, someone of whom I'm a fan. Before leaving, I remembered I had the Star Tribune with me, and had the inspiration to get an autograph by the brawling women story. I couldn't resist telling them that the women were from New Jersey. Maddow said I was hardly the first to point that out. Even odds she mentions the humorous aspect that locals had to make sure she knew those weren't Minnesotans having a knock-down on 694.
The last guest was Al Franken, who has been deftly responding to attacks from the state Republicans and Norm Coleman. He replies to the use of "comedian" as a slur, (please, someone watch Jon Stewart being interviewed by his fan Bill Moyers and tell me comedians can't be deep thinkers) by mentioning Coleman's depiction of war opponents as voting for defeat. That's not a debate. Franken says he is the one who wants a serious debate. I think it's an effect retort, as is his "big comedy" retort on fundraising. Predictably, the GOP is trying to use the donations Franken is getting from celebrities to seek donations for Coleman. The Franken campaign has not been shy about pointing out that Coleman's funding is coming from corporate special interests like coal and tobacco. Going beyond a simple hypocrisy charge, Franken points out that his rich and famous donors won't get anything from him. If he's elected, Larry David won't get an earmark. Harold Ramis won't get squat for himself. Might pharmaceuticals get something from Coleman? Of course they expect some goodies. Those donations aren't free.
One follow up already. Getting back to Washington madam story, a story posted tonight says DC is indeed worried about who is the client list.
What the heck, another follow-up. After posting the above, when maybe I should be getting to bed, I found the ABC story about Palfrey. I mentioned above I thought the real scandal might be that a big pharma CEO was put in charge of foreign aid focusing on AIDS. Presumably he would run things to benefit the industry he's likely to go back to, not get drugs for poor AIDS victims whether it helps big drug companies or not. The ABC story mentions that he donated $100,000 to the Republicans, which appears to be his only qualification for the job. The bigger story probably should be that this cronyism has become so integral to the Republican culture of corruption. Expect the focus to be on the less important but more easily understand aspect of illicit sex. Palfrey said, "I'm sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, four to eight years, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever." There might be a lot of whatevers getting named.
April 25
Last night was the monthly DFL Links. My wife and I hosted the Links for state senate district 62. Our discussion focused on the missing RNC e-mail and Gonzogate, using guides I drew up for the occasion to help attendees understand these scandals that are of greater importance than is immediately apparent, and can be a bit technical. Download the guides by clicking here for the missing RNC e-mail, and here for an update I made to last month's Gonzogate guide after last week's testimony by Torture Boy himself.
While I was thinking about writing about the seeming sudden outbreak of more Republicans getting caught up in the Abramoff scandal and scandals like it, I realized there were a bunch of news stories today on GOP scandals. It's hard to get a grip around them, but to make an attempt to show the scale, these are reports that came out just today. These aren't stories accumulated over the last month, or the last week, but JUST TODAY:
- Reading today's Star Tribune while riding to work this morning, there was a report on the Tillman/Lynch hearing yesterday, including a soldier who says he was ordered to keep quiet.
- Published on Salon today, the Defense Department had held focus groups of patients at Walter Reed since before the invasion of Afghanistan, which means at least some officials who acted surprised already knew.
- Rep. Tom Feeney says he's cooperating with the Justice Department, which is investigating him for his ties to Jack Abramoff, with whom Feeney says he has no relationship, even though he took a nice all expenses paid golfing vacation with him.
- Paul Wolfowitz met with top managers of the World Bank, and one told him the bank was facing the biggest crisis in its history. That crisis, of course, is Wolfowitz.
- US House committees have begun approving and even issuing subpoenas, which they resort to only when the executive branch is being utterly uncooperative. Those receiving subpoenas will include Condoleeza Rice, Monica Goodling, and Rove's deputy, Sara Taylor.
- Investigators for Paul Charlton, the fired USA for Arizona, waited a year after asking permission to get a search warrant to investigate Rep. Rick Renzi because superiors at DOJ refused to grant permission -- until the congressional investigation of Gonzogate started. It looks like the refusal to grant permission to seek warrants was pure protection of a GOP incumbent
- A former staff member under Rep. Don Young, Mark Zachares, has pleaded guilty in the Abramoff scandal.
- The Senate Judiciary committee sent a letter to Gonzales telling him he failed to answer questions he was told to prepare for, and he has a week to respond in writing with answers. "I don't recall" isn't good enough. If anyone thinks he really can't remember, and didn't merely adopt forgetting as a strategy for not answering, I have a bridge to sell you. Except I can't recall where it is.
As long as more Republicans are getting caught up in the Abramoff scandal, this might be useful. This is a list of the people so far convicted. It isn't even everyone investigated, just the convicted. It doesn't include Tom DeLay, Don Young or Tom Feeney.
Kudos to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who introduced articles of impeachment against the acting vice president. I say "acting" because, like I refer to Bush as the "acting president", Cheney is just filling the role of vice-president until we have an honest election. I'm not personally concerned with Cheney replacing Bush if impeachment were to succeed. Cheney would know, and all his successors would know, that Bush was removed involuntarily, and this would serve as a deterrent to being as corrupt as Bush. Not attempting impeachment, by contrast, will set such a precedent that future presidents will have to be even worse than Bush. In practical terms though, I ask the House to start with Gonzales. The Republicans are so disgusted with him, impeachment might even work.
April 22
I've been focused so long on the missing RNC e-mail and Gonzogate that I've been stacking up Take the Red Pill and Dead Polar Bear awards. So before we get a bunch of big news week that just has to have my attention, let's catch up a bit.
Here's a Take the Red Pill Award for the Hindu fundamentalists, often referred to as Hindu Nationalists, who physically attacked scholars mentioned in a book about the Maharashtran hero Shivaji. People of the same mindset, if not the same people, ransacked a research library in Pune, in the process destroying historical artifacts and documents, because that library had been used by the book's author, James W. Laine. What appears to have set them off was a mention that Shivaji's father might not have really been his father. I offer no opinion on the book's accuracy as I know nothing about the subject matter. However, destroying libraries and attacking people for being mentioned in the offending book, that's a little easier to opine about.
An Egyptian blogger has been sentenced to four years in prison for insulting President Hosni Mubarak and insulting Islam. Abdel Kareem Soliman called Mubarak a dictator, which is presumably disproven by jailing people for insulting him, and he criticized al-Azhar university, described in the BBC article as "the country's top Islamic institution". Mubarak has definitely taken the red pill already, because he realizes this is the only way he can stay in power. Typical dictator stuff. The judge might be like my Nazi judge character in Nuremberg, applying noxious laws because he doesn't see it as his job to judge the law, just apply it. If he really believes Islam was insulted, then he can share this Take the Red Pill Award with al-Azhar University.
In what might reassure rational Americans that we aren't the only people plagued with creationism and an anti-science surge among the religious, France is seeing a rise in creationism from both Catholics and Muslims. A Turkish Islamist publisher has been mass-mailing a creationist Muslim textbook, "Atlas of Creation". On the Catholic side, the pope and some theologians have been critical of Darwinism, though it appears most clergy are still accepting the scientific explanation of how life developed. Both Catholic and Muslim scientists are resisting growing creationism. For those Frenchmen who are becoming more like America's fundamentalist Protestants, in this regard that is, I give this Take the Red Pill Award.
Before giving out a Dear Polar Bear Award, here's a kudo, or maybe I should come up with a live polar bear award. On the March 23 Talk of the Nation, Bill Chameides, chief scientist at Environmental Defense, got a caller bringing up some of the myths climate change deniers throw up to create doubt it's man-made, and he insisted on responding and explaining clearly and patiently why the myths were wrong. For example, a caller brought up water vapor, saying since this is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, that shows carbon dioxide isn't the problem. Chameides explained that though it is a more potent greenhouse gas, the amount in the atmosphere hasn't been increasing, while the carbon dioxide has been increasing. This was somewhere near the end of the segment.
The recipient of the Dead Polar Bear Award is William J. Broad, a reporter for the New York Times. He recently wrote an article critical of Al Gore for being alarmist on global warming. While most reporters just feel they have to get a quote from the deniers, a bit like thinking that an article on the Kennedy assassination has to include a quote from someone who thinks aliens did it, Broad devoted almost the entire article to the deniers while the real scientists had to settle for a few quotes. Broad didn't mention where the deniers get their funding, but just passed along their arguments as fact. I'm not going to debunk it point by point because that's been well done already, by Grist and RealClimate. I'll just point out one that gives the idea of how inaccurate the article is, and then I'll hope you follow the links. Broad says, "Mr. Gore, citing no particular time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent." I just saw "An Inconvenient Truth" again today. Gore said that if the Greenland ice sheet completely melted, it could raise sea levels 20 feet. Of course he didn't cite a timeline. Not only does no one have a precise timeline, but the point is that whether it takes 20 year or 80, it's very very bad. Gore has taken a lot of criticism on this point, much like he did for claiming to invent the Internet, that is, for something he didn't say. I do say this however. Broad may not deserve a Pulitzer, but he does deserve a Dead Polar Bear Award. I hope that's some consolation.
April 18
There was an Associated Press article today about Iran that shows beautifully how we got deceived into the invasion of Iraq, and the same journalistic practices could get us into Iran.
The core of the story is Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that US forces in Afghanistan had captured weapons made in Iran and intended for the Taliban. The other two people interviewed for the article were Michael Rubin and Muhammad Mohaddessin, who agreed this indicates Iranian involvement in Afghanistan. We're told just a misleading bit of information about each one, and the left out parts are huge. Context would have signaled that these two men are not trustworthy sources, not experts objectively sharing their best assessments, but advocates of invading Iran.
More about their backgrounds in a moment, but don't think I just happened to know who they are and only I could have spotted the problems with this article. I've never before heard of Mohaddessin, and I had only a vague sense I'd heard of Rubin. I was alerted by the way this article sounded like the deceptions fed to us in the sales campaign for Iraq War II, and by the lack of any dissenting voice. If this had been about global warming the reporter would have scrounged somebody to give a contrary point of view. Even if the story was Jesus himself coming down to tell us global warming was real and man-made, most reporters would still find one denier to give the contrary point of view that "Well, Jesus didn't say it was all bad." Yet somehow, nobody could be found to question the specious evidence so similar to debunked evidence we've heard so often and believed to our great remorse.
The parts of the sources' backgrounds left out show why their backgrounds had to be mischaracterized. Rubin is one of the neocons who successfully pushed the invasion of Iraq, and have been trying for years to start an invasion of Iran. His presence at the AEI is what tipped me off there was more to the story. He could have been described as an "advocate" rather than an "expert", and I'd have been fine. I could even go along with both, much as his record betrays his claim to expertise.
Mohaddessin was a senior official with the People's Mujaheddin, an Iranian opposition group founded by Saddam. Yes, that Saddam. This organization has been deemed terrorists by our government, not to mention the Iranian government. The article mentions only that Mohaddesin is part of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella group including the People's Mujaheddin. This is something similar to the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella group of Iraqi exiles which told the neocons exactly what they wanted to hear and turned out to have no legitimacy with Iraqis.
There was no mention in the article that the two experts who agreed with Pace's statement have been trying for years to bring about a US invasion of Iran, nor an explicit mention that Pace offered no supporting evidence. Folks, this is how we got into Iraq believing tales of WMD and Al Qaida connections.
April 16
If I can make a prediction, or maybe it's an inference more than a prediction if it's already in progress, Kyle Sampson is the fall guy, or stooge, or patsy, or Gonzales' Scooter Libby. I don't know a word that isn't slang to describe Sampson, who might be taking the blame in Gonzogate. Sampson said under oath that, "On December 7th, I did not have in mind any replacements for any of the seven who were asked to resign." He was contradicted by a message in last Friday's document dump, "If a decision is made to remove and replace a limited number of U.S. Attorneys, then the following might be considered for removal and possible replacement." Clearly he was caught lying to Congress -- a felony -- but think about how he got caught. The White House is claiming to have lost all sorts of e-mail. Nothing has been revealed yet from the RNC domains. Congress has had to resort to subpoena for unredacted DOJ mail, yet somehow this very damning message from Sampson comes out. It could be an accident, like I have to believe was the case with the e-mail that included the gwb43.org domain (that one is, I expect, like the revelation of Nixon's tapes). But I doubt it. It fits in with Gonzales planning to contradict Sampson in his prepared statement. When I did a keyword search in the browser for Sampson, look how often he came up in Gonzales' first paragraphs:
Don't believe it. Yes, Sampson did lie, and was undeniably heavily involved, but he was also the guy carrying out orders, presumably from Gonzales. Here's hoping he won't be Gonzales' Libby, but will spill it to protect himself.
