Month: August 2009

More Good Faith Negotiating

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by publius Ezra Klein found a relatively new fundraising letter from Chuck Grassley, the Democrats' point man on health care.  Note the classy dig at Ted Kennedy (who was alive at the time, but close to death).  Ezra posted the pdf, but I've provided an excerpt below.

That Explains It

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by publius It's actually in the Constitution: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. No Sunday morning shall pass without John McCain being interviewed, … Read more

Post hoc ergo propter hoc: Torture edition

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By Lindsay Beyerstein Washington Post reporters Peter Finn, Joby Warrick, and Julie Tate lend credence Dick Cheney's fallacious argument that because Khalid Sheik Mohammed began cooperating with U.S. authorities after he was tortured, torture made him cooperate. The story is based the reminiscences of unnamed intelligence officers who observed Mohammed in 2005 and 2006. They … Read more

Questions for Althouse

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by publius Ann Althouse, defending and celebrating "harsh interrogation techniques": Critics of "harsh interrogation techniques" — they, of course, call it torture — bolster their moral arguments with the pragmatic argument that it doesn't even work. How unusual it is for the media to disillusion us about that and force the moralists to get by … Read more

Mike Enzi, Good Faith Negotiator

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by publius Baucus's self-appointed Gang of Six is really making some nice progress.  Here's good faith negotiator, bipartisan mediator Mike Enzi: A key member of the Senate Republican Conference on Saturday blasted Democrats for offering a healthcare solution distinctly at odds with his party's goals. Democratic healthcare reform will drive up the deficit, discriminate against … Read more

Unpublished

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by von

I've retracted this entry because the first comment is correct.  McKinneyTexas says:

Many well meaning white people view themselves as being passed the race issue and project their own, often under-developed sense of maturity and enlightenment onto others, particularly minorities. Best just to avoid being cleverly edgy or worse, condescending. 

There is such a thing as being too clever — by which I mean too in love with one's own perceived cleverness; or, to adopt McKinney's great turn of phrase, too in love with one's own "often under-developed sense of maturity and enlightenment."   I am neither mature nor enlightened, but that doesn't mean that I can't write something stupid on occasion, even when my ultimate point is (I think) right on target.  You can be right and still do it wrong, after all. 

Retraction does not mean deletion, however.  The original text — in all its original retracted goodness – is below the fold.

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A Precedent that will Reach to Himself

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by Eric Martin Andrew Sullivan is right:  The document reads, like so much else from the Cheney years, like a document from a South American  dictatorship in the 1970s or 1980s. If someone had told me a few years ago that it had popped up in the Soviet archives, I would have believed him. Read … Read more

The FCC’s Wretched Website

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by publius It's ironic, but fitting perhaps, that the agency in charge of broadband policy has a website from the Flintstones era.  It's truly the worst.  Q-Bert arcade games from the 1980s are more advanced than today's FCC website.  Retro cool is fine, but it's not very functional. For instance, I'm currently researching for filed … Read more

Why I’m A Ted Kennedy Liberal

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by publius Work deadlines have prevented me from watching literally a minute of the Kennedy coverage.  I've also read very little, other than Tweets.  So I'm sure everything's been said, but I still wanted to add my two cents. I was a late convert to Ted.  As many of you know, I was a Republican … Read more

At any moment

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by von Michael Gerson has a sensible take on current Democratic efforts to reform health care — by which I mean, of course, that Gerson has written something that I largely agree with.  President Obama's health care reform is not dying because of persistent nonsense regarding death panels.  Death panels are a favorite bete noir of some Democratic supporters, but, in … Read more

The Passing of Torches

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by Eric Martin Just as the death of Edward Kennedy marks the passing of one of the most prominent politicians in the American political firmament, today the Iraqi political scene lost one of its key figures as well.  Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of one of Iraq's main Shiite political parties, the Islamic Supreme Council of … Read more

Late Night Links

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by publius I've been wanting to do this somewhat more regularly, so here you go: Steven Pearlstein … driven to shrill. Texas may soon be forced to acknowledge that it executed an innocent man. (h/t Balko Twitter feed). Montana Maven notes that Baucus's re-embrace of the public option may have something to do with local … Read more

Breaking News

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by publius Conservative man in rural southwest Georgia who listens to Rush and Fox News opposes health coverage reform, Kevin Sack of the NYT reports on A1. (h/t Joe Sudbay)

Salon columnist nonplussed by torture report

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By Lindsay Beyerstein Alex Koppelman reacts to the CIA Inspector General's report like it's a disappointing summer blockbuster: The report itself, though, didn't really live up to the hype. That's not to say it didn't contain disturbing details, like mock executions and an interrogator's threat to rape the mother of one detainee, or some bits … Read more

The IG Report

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by publius It's hard to know what exactly to say about the IG Report (pdf).  It's hard to imagine anything that so completely contradicts the ideals this country is supposed to stand for.  Glenn's post pretty much covers the main points (and don't forget to check out Marcy and Spencer's posts too).  But here are … Read more

Baucus ♥ Public Option?

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by publius Not sure what to make of this (via the Benen): Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) confirmed this past week that he personally supports a public option for insurance coverage[.] I supposed I should be heartened.  But I'm not.  Instead, I'm frustrated because it reminds me of how differently history might be … Read more

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Dishonesty

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by publius Today's Michael Steele op-ed on health care reads like a greatest hits of dishonesty about health coverage reform.  There's so much dishonesty in there that it's hard to note it all.  But he essentially endorses the ideas of death panels and rationing by age, and that tells you all you need to know … Read more

Welcome!

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by publius I wanted to take a moment to welcome Lindsay, and to thank her for joining the team.  I know I'm speaking for everyone else in saying we're very excited that she joined.  I've enjoyed reading Majikthise (along with her other journalistic work) for many years now — as have many of you. So … Read more

Did Bushies seek to disregard terror alert guidelines on eve of election?

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By Lindsay Beyerstein

(Hello, Obsidian Wings readers. I'm the newest member of ObWi and I'm truly honored to be here. Thanks to Publius and the team for inviting me. A bit about me: I'm a freelance journalist based in New York City. I also write for the Media Consortium, UN Dispatch, In These Times, and for my personal blog, Majikthise.)

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge claims in his forthcoming memoir that Sec Def Don Rumsfeld and AG John Ashcroft unsuccessfully pressured him to raise the terror alert on the eve of the 2004 election.

Four days before the vote, someone dropped a previously unseen video message from Osama Bin Laden on al Jazeera's doorstep. Bin Laden told the citizens of the United States that neither John Kerry nor George Bush could protect them, but he didn't issue any specific threats.

Ridge claims Bush officials pressured him to raise the threat level, even though the tape contained no specific threat. Officially, an orange alert indicates a "high probability" of terrorist attacks. According to DHS guidelines adopted in 2003, orange alerts are reserved cases where there is specific, credible, detailed evidence of an imminent attack on American soil.

"We certainly didn't believe the tape alone warranted action, and we
weren't seeing any additional intelligence that justified it. In fact,
we were incredulous," Ridge wrote "… I wondered, 'Is this about security or politics?'" (Keep in mind that the panel that advised Ridge on threat levels included not only Rumsfeld and Ashcroft but also notorious intel politicizer George Tenet, who was responsible for fixing the facts around the Bush administration's policy of invading Iraq.)

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Wanted For Attempted Murder: Kent Conrad

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by publius In light of this, I think it's worth asking whether Kent Conrad is affirmatively trying to kill health coverage reform.  For one, he's just incorrect — the two-track bill is completely doable, and reconciliation has been used commonly in recent years.  Second, why say this?  Why say something that so obviously undermines the … Read more

Mock Executions

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by publius More on this to come, but good lord: A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency's post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, NEWSWEEK has learned. . . . Nashiri's interrogators brandished the … Read more

For the weekend

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by von Chihuahua With Earrings Stolen At Gay BarPolice Seek Man With Britney Spears Tattoo Someone had fun writing that headline.  (H/T Slog.) This is an open thread.

Fair use?

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by von Gird thy loins for some light law blogging.  (Why your loins?  Because that's where the law strikes!  Ba-da-bing!  I'm here all week folks! Be sure to tip your gender-left-unspecified service people.) So here is today's issue:  What should be the limits on fair use?  It's a question that comes up from time to time, and it … Read more

“Unfair” Competition

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by publius I've been doing a lot of research lately on municipal fiber broadband networks.  As city projects go, fiber is infinitely better than wireless — but that's a post for another day. Anyway, one common theme I've seen is that municipalities that pursue fiber networks inevitably face intense legal and regulatory challenges from incumbent … Read more

Just Because I’m Paranoid…

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by Eric Martin The Blue Beelzebub opines on the recent revelations from Tom Ridge that the Bush administration manipulated terror warnings for political gain: Sometimes it's a bit hard to remember just how nutty the world was in those post-9/11 days. Suggesting that Bush was using the terror alert for political purposes would have made you … Read more

Filibuster Rules

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by publius In my reconciliation post, I had assumed that it requires 60 votes to get rid of the filibuster.  Turns out, I was wrong about that.  It requires two-thirds.  And that, in turn, presents some very difficult problems.  Anyway, Mark Kleiman has all the details on this, and offers some suggestions — go check … Read more

The SOFA Stick

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by Eric Martin While President Bush was still in office and his administration was trying to come to an agreement with the Iraqi government on terms governing the continued troop presence in Iraq (what is referred to as the Status of Forces Agreement, or “SOFA”), Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani made a public statement demanding that … Read more

I have a dog named Bingo

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by von Matt Yglesias writes perceptively on why Democratic health care reform is failing, but –  perhaps understandably — doesn't see his own role:  A disheartened Ezra Klein looks at a WSJ/NBC poll showing that people have lots of false beliefs about the president’s health care agenda and offers the following chart: My first thought … Read more

The Armageddon Next Time

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by publius Rick Moran (a conservative I enjoy reading) calls the proposed reconciliation route the "Armageddon option."  He explains: I call reconciliation the “Armageddon Option” because the aftermath will blow up Washington like no other event in recent memory.  . . .  The use – or rather, the clear abuse – of the reconciliation process … Read more