SavvySugar

What Made Joe Bitter

Roarman — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:46:34 -0800

Once upon a time, Joe Lieberman was interesting-not always correct, in my view, but interesting. He was interesting because he thought for himself. On most issues, most senators line up pretty automatically with their party. A few others, the moderates-often Southern or prairie Democrats or Northeastern Republicans-split the difference: If Democrats want to spend $1 billion on some domestic program, and Republicans want to spend nothing, they furrow their brows, beat their breasts and then propose spending $500 million. The moderates generally annoy party activists and impress Washington pundits who view moderation as good in and of itself. But they’re just as conventional as the liberals and conservatives. It’s no more interesting to be predictably purple than it is to be predictably red or blue.

It’s not just that Lieberman’s arguments make no sense. They show that he’s morphing from an iconoclast into just another right-wing pol.
That’s why Lieberman stood out. On domestic issues, he was fairly liberal: supporting abortion rights, a larger social safety net and environmental protection. On foreign policy, he was a fervent hawk. He didn’t split the difference between left and right: He idiosyncratically mixed and matched. He hewed to an older ideological tradition-both pro-welfare and pro-warfare-that flourished in the industrial north before Vietnam. That’s what made Lieberman interesting. And that’s why his declaration last week that he would filibuster a “public option” on health-care reform is so depressing. It’s not just that his arguments make no sense. They show that he’s morphing from an iconoclast into just another right-wing pol.

In the 1960s and 1970s, interesting senators weren’t quite so rare. On the one hand, you had liberal hawks like Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey and Washington state’s Henry “Scoop” Jackson. They embodied the worldview of the Cold War labor movement: pro-guns and pro-butter, all at the same time. On the other hand, you had conservative doves from the South like Arkansas’ William Fulbright: men with lousy civil-rights records and no love of government spending, but deep hostility to American military intervention in the third world. Today, a right-wing anti-imperialist like Fulbright would be politically incomprehensible. But Fulbright’s politics were just as coherent as Humphrey and Jackson’s: He embodied an older conservative tradition, rooted in the South, which distrusted grand, government-led efforts at social reform, whether at home or abroad.

Scientists say that America once had lots of quirky, regional species of apples. Now we have a few, homogenized types. The same thing has happened to American politics. We’ve smoothed out the jagged edges. There are liberals and there are conservatives, and there are difference-splitting moderates, and if you know someone’s position on abortion, you can probably predict their position on Afghanistan. Put Scoop Jackson alongside William Fulbright on a cable talk show today and it would be like they were speaking Greek.

There are still a few interesting members of Congress around. Pennsylvania’s Robert Casey, for instance, sees the world the way the Catholic hierarchy does: He’s pro-welfare state, but passionately antiabortion. Texas Rep. Ron Paul, by contrast, sees the world the way Calvin Coolidge did: He wants to radically downsize the federal government-not just the domestic parts, but the military, too.

But Lieberman was the most prominent iconoclast, at least up until now. For close to a decade, he got nearly perfect scores from the American Public Health Association, which backs a single-payer health-care system, and in lieu of that, the “public option.” Now, all of a sudden, he’s so outraged by a public option that he’s threatening to filibuster any bill that contains it. The arguments he makes on behalf of his new position are remarkably weak: He says the public option will raise costs, even though the Congressional Budget Office has said no such thing, and even though logic suggests that by competing with private insurers, a government plan will actually drive costs down. Some have accused Lieberman of shifting right in order to win backing from the insurance industry in preparation for a 2012 reelection run. But, in fact, he gets relatively little insurance money, and Connecticut politicos mostly think he won’t run.

So why is he doing this? Because he’s bitter. According to former staffers and associates, he was upset by his dismal showing in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary. And he was enraged by the tepid support he got from many party leaders in 2006, when he lost the Democratic primary to an anti-war activist and won reelection as an independent. Gradually, this personal alienation has eaten away at his liberal domestic views. His staff has grown markedly more conservative in recent years, and his closest friends in Congress are now Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham. For Lieberman, the personal has become political, and it has pushed him further to the right.

The irony is that when Lieberman was officially a Democrat, he was ideologically independent-a living manifestation of the Humphrey-Jackson tradition. Now that he’s technically an independent, he’s becoming a standard-issue conservative. For people who believe-as Lieberman himself once did-in progressive health-care reform, it’s a tragic shift. It’s also boring. Another interesting senator bites the dust.

Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-23/what-made-joe-...

Glenn Beck's Bizarre Outburst Against Meatless Mondays and Vegetarians

Roarman — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:17:00 -0700

This goes along with the story that I posted in 4.0 about Meatless Mondays in Baltimore schools

Jon Stewart ended an interview with climate-change contrarian and Super Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt on Monday night by noting, "I've apparently frightened our audience by suggesting that conservation isn't the only way out of any of the problems of the world. I sincerely apologize."

He added, "And I do also believe that we should just eat vegetables."

I'd love to report that Stewart has embraced Michael Pollan's "eat food/not too much/mostly plants" edict. But, of course, Stewart was only joking. The line drew a big laugh from the audience.

The interview followed a report on the Whole Foods "buycott" from Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac asking "whether conservative hatred of liberals is so strong it can make them buy organic food."

Fresh fruits and vegetables remain the Rodney Dangerfield of the Western diet, getting no respect from cable commentators -- the comics or the crackpots. Stewart's mock endorsement of mock duck came on the same day as an anti-tofurkey tirade from Glenn Beck, who echoed Lou Dobbs' recent condemnation of the Meatless Monday campaign adopted by Baltimore's school cafeterias as a form of "indoctrination":

"Americans love our steaks, we love our chops, we love our burgers, and you'll throw me in jail, my last meal will be a giant steak. Are we going to stand for that? Are we going to put up with this? Well, you'd think not, but in Baltimore, Md., public schools have now started, in the schools -- no indoctrination here -- Meatless Monday. No meat on the menu for 80,000 kids that they serve, no meat, that way the students that they serve can quote 'eat and learn about healthy, environmentally friendly choices.' "
Beck has struck ratings gold with his weepy, creepy brand of small-minded faux populism. He's not a big picture kind of guy. It takes a wider perspective than a tea bagger's tunnel vision to connect the dots between: a) the wars we're mired in; b) our fossil-fuel-dependent way of life; c) the perils of climate change; and d) our meat-dominated diet.

He prefaced his anti-Meatless Monday rant by mocking President Barack Obama for taking time out from agonizing over Afghanistan to deliver a speech at a solar-power plant in Florida, in which the president emphasized the need to invest in clean, renewable energy. Beck sneered:

"I'd hate to have the president rush a decision on Afghanistan, I'd hate to have him cut short his solar-panel trip today ... get a nap in, Mr. President, before you deal with the war ..."
Beck belongs to the "pump all you want, we'll drill more" camp, so, from his petrocentric perspective, fighting two wars in the oil-rich Middle East presumably makes more sense than exploring alternative ways to meet America's massive energy needs.

And, since he's also a skeptic on climate change, why worry about reducing our greenhouse-gas emissions?

In fact, it's the folks who are calling on us all to curb our carbon footprint who pose the greatest threat to "U.S. sovereignty," according to Beck. He cited a quote from U.K. climate chief Lord Stern in Monday's Times Online:

"Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better."
Beck added:

But what really scares me is that the Times writes our Lord Stern said: "A successful deal at the climate-change conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases."
Cheap gas and cheap chuck remain American birthrights to loopy libertarians like Beck. It doesn't matter that the link between livestock production and greenhouse-gas emissions has been well documented, as have the environmental and health benefits of adopting a predominantly plant-based diet.

With meat consumption on the rise the world over, it's going to be physically impossible to produce enough meat to meet the growing demand. New York Times columnist Verlyn Klinkenborg noted on Monday that we simply can't continue to plunder the world's resources in order to indulge in our animal-flesh fetish:

I adhere to a conclusion reached long ago -- by James Madison in 1818, who said, simply, that it cannot be right for all of earth's resources to "be made subservient to the use of man." We need to act on that principle. That will mean more than simply roping off habitat. It will mean among other things, a new and far more modest idea of food prosperity, more limited and almost certainly less meat-driven than the present American model.
Beck perpetuates the perception that campaigns such as Meatless Monday represent an attack on consumer choice. But as anyone who actually prefers to eat fresh, healthy foods can attest, those of us who'd rather eat a diet based on legumes, whole grains and vegetables are the ones whose choices are painfully limited.

The meat industry is trying to portray the decision to emphasize vegetarian entreés in the Baltimore school cafeterias one day a week as a dangerous exercise in protein deprivation -- as if you can't get sufficient protein from non-meat sources. The Center For a Livable Future's Ralph Loglisci did a terrific job of setting the record straight with his post "Protein 101: Dispelling the Myth Surrounding Meatless Meals."

And ABC News reported last week that the Meatless Monday campaign in Baltimore's schools has, in fact, been a great success. Only a meathead -- or a meat-industry shill -- would brand this modest attempt to serve our kids healthier entreés and raise awareness about the environmental impact of our food choices as some kind of insidious conspiracy.

How will Beck handle the season premiere of Sesame Street, in which Michelle Obama shares the joys of homegrown vegetables with the Muppets? Will he demonize Elmo, who is, after all, a suspiciously socialist shade of red? Will he accuse Big Bird of being a secret agent for the food police, attempting to brainwash American tots into accepting their pro-plant agenda?

If only we could dismiss this self-described "rodeo clown" as a harmless buffoon. Sadly, he's too influential to be written off as a greenhouse-gas-denying gasbag.

All we can do is keep poking holes in him and hope he deflates. Fox News: They distort, we deride.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/media/143586/glenn_beck%27s_bizarre_outburst_aga...

Mom told deputies balloon saga was hoax

kastarte2 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:16:04 -0700

Affidavit: Mom told deputies balloon saga was hoax

Police Accuse Parents Of "Balloon Boy" Of Perpetrating Hoax

By DAN ELLIOTT
DENVER – The mother of the 6-year-old boy once feared missing inside a runaway helium balloon admitted the whole saga was a hoax, according to court documents released Friday.
Mayumi Heene told sheriff's deputies that she and her husband Richard "knew all along that Falcon was hiding in the residence" in Fort Collins, according to an affidavit used to get a search warrant for the home.
She allegedly told investigators the incident was a hoax meant to make them more marketable to the media.
"Mayumi described that she and Richard Heene devised this hoax approximately two weeks earlier.... She and Richard had instructed their three children to lie to authorities as well as the media regarding this hoax," the affidavit said.
Richard Heene has denied a hoax. His lawyer, David Lane, said Friday he is waiting to see the evidence in the case.
"Allegations are cheap," Lane said.
Mayumi Heene's lawyer, Lee Christian, was traveling and didn't immediately respond to messages left with his office.
Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden has said he will recommend charges against the Heenes including conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, making a false report to authorities, and attempting to influence a public servant. The most serious charges are felonies and carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison.
Alderden said authorities also would be seeking restitution for the costs of the balloon chase, though he didn't provide a figure.
His office has said it will likely be next week before it forwards its findings to prosecutors to decide on charges.
In frantic calls to a TV station, 911 and federal aviation officials, the Heenes reported that they feared Falcon was in the homemade, saucer-like balloon when it was accidentally launched from their back yard last week.
Millions watched as media and National Guard helicopters tracked the balloon across the Colorado plains. It landed in a dusty farm field, where ground crews looked inside but found no sign of the boy.
Later, the relieved-looking couple reported Falcon had been hiding in their garage the whole time. But suspicion heated up when Falcon made a comment on CNN that sounded like "You had said we did this for a show."
Sheriff's deputies questioned the parents separately on Oct. 17, two days after the flight. Mayumi Heene told authorities "she and Richard Heene had lied to authorities on October 15, 2009 (the day of the flight)," the affidavit said.
She told investigators "that the release of the flying saucer was intentional as a hoax.... The motive for the fabricated story was to make the Heene family more marketable for future media interest," the affidavit said.
The Heenes twice had appeared on ABC's reality show "Wife Swap," and acquaintances said Richard Heene had plans for other possible shows.
The producer of "Wife Swap" had a show in development with the Heenes but said the deal is now off. The TLC cable network also said Heene had pitched a reality show months ago, but it passed on the offer.
Sheriff's officials declined to comment Friday.
Among the items taken by authorities during the home search Saturday were video cameras, computers, hard drives, a picture of a flying saucer, receipts, papers, a phone/address book and a flight itinerary. The list didn't identify the passenger, destination or date of travel.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091023/ap_on_re_us/us_balloon_boy_search

America's great healthcare debate

Tulipe — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 13:49:47 -0700

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8167671.stm
By Kevin Connolly BBC News, Chicago

When a political topic is hot in America it dominates the cable chatter on 24-hour TV channels.

When it's REALLY hot, it dominates the advert breaks too - and no topic is hotter than health care.

Rival lobbying organisations are spending millions of dollars on airtime - offering startlingly different diagnoses of what is wrong with the American healthcare system, and different prescriptions for treating it.

Some call straightforwardly for the government to expand its own role as a provider of health coverage, as it currently provides only for the old and the poor.

Others warn of the dangers of "socialised medicine" - the most riveting of them carry warnings from Britain and Canada about the dire consequences which will follow if the United States copies their government-funded systems.

You would almost get the impression that the streets of those countries are piled high with the unburied dead - but behind the oversimplifications, it is clear that America is engaged in a debate about how big a role government should play in rationing healthcare.

No insurance

To get a sense of what that debate means in the daily lives of what journalists tend - rather irritatingly - to call "real people", I travelled to Illinois, Barack Obama's home base, where he engaged with this issue: first as a community organiser, then as a young state senator.

On one side of the debate in the town of Aurora, I found Kathy Hunter, a mother of two children who used to have health insurance through her husband's policy and who lost it when they were divorced.

So Kathy is now one of the 47 million or so Americans who have no health insurance - a statistic bandied about so often that it is easy to forget the lives which lie behind it.

We sat together at Kathy's kitchen table and sorted through the bills which arrived after a brief trip to the emergency room after she suffered an anxiety attack a few months back.

There was - happily - nothing wrong, but the total cost of a few tests and a few reassuring words from a doctor totted up to around $4,000 (£2,437). The government-funded medical welfare system Medicaid might agree to pick up the tab, but it might not and if it does not Kathy has no idea how she will pay the bill.

From her point of view, the problem is huge, but it is also simple.

"I sit here at night and I wonder: "What am I going to do, where am I going to come up with this money?'" she tells me.

"If they have in Washington, or in state government, this wonderful care - why don't I? Why am I not entitled to that as a human being? And that's what I don't understand, why can't we figure out a way for everyone that everyone can be covered - at least for the basic care."

From the vantage point of Kathy's kitchen table, it is hard to disagree with the notion that something must be done - but politics of course is the business of settling exactly what.

And healthcare makes for particularly difficult politics because it throws up questions about where American society is heading.

'My choice'

We know now, in broad outline at least, what Barack Obama thinks should be done. He wants a government insurance scheme to run in parallel with and in competition with private insurance providers.

But there are problems with that plan.

America already spends more than any other developed country on healthcare (around 16% of GDP where 10 or 11 is the norm). And it is not noticeably a healthier society as a result.

In the short term, providing a government scheme would be costly. And in the long term, if it was both good and affordable, it might put private insurers out of business - and that would mean that by default America would start moving towards a state-provided system.

Which brings me to Sandy Westlund-Deenihan and the other side of the argument.

Sandy runs a light engineering company on the outskirts of Chicago. Like her father and grandfather before her, she takes pride in providing healthcare for her workers.

She pays 65% of the costs of insuring her employees (they make up the rest) and even though it is a significant cost for a small business, Sandy would not have it any other way.

"I am in favour of insuring the people who don't have any insurance, but don't handcuff me because I'm doing the right thing," she told me.

"I really want to have a choice, and I really don't want the government interfering. If I want to take that out of the profits, and give it to my employees, that's my choice."

It is only fair to point out that Sandy is not opposed to healthcare reform - she would like to see something done to help people like Kathy for example - but she shares the instinctive horror that many Americans feel for the idea of the government running the healthcare system.

Politically vulnerable

Democrats often argue that the barrier to healthcare reform is an efficient and well-funded lobbying system run by the insurance and drug companies that make money from the current system. But things are never quite that simple.

To many people here - certainly to many conservatives - the idea of government healthcare conjures an impression of a federal bureaucrat deciding what tests and treatments you may or may not have.

From that point of view, an expanded role for government is the problem, not the solution.

This is the political minefield that Barack Obama is currently negotiating - is there a way through it that will protect Kathy without alienating Sandy?

At the heart of this, of course, is a battle between two competing visions of America's future.

Does it want to become more European or will it stick to the view which has allowed it to prosper - that the free market is the most creative and efficient way to allocate resources, even when those resources are hospital beds to treat the badly injured or the terminally-ill.

It is a problem that former presidents Roosevelt, Kennedy, Truman and Clinton all grappled with in the course of their presidencies with varying degrees of success, but Mr Obama has been relying on his undeniable mandate for change and his extraordinary powers of persuasion to ensure that things turn out differently this time around.

He wanted it sorted out before the summer recess on Capitol Hill but has been forced to accept now that it will not be.

And there are big politics at play in all this too - Republicans sense that Mr Obama is vulnerable on this issue and they are pushing back hard against his plans.

If they can stop him on this, they reason, they can rob his presidency of much of its momentum.

The summer months are normally fairly quiet in Washington, but with the White House keen to see all this go to a vote in September there is every chance that the summer of 2009 will see a real battle raging in America's capital.

Ask a Geek Girl: What's With Carbonite and Should I Sign Up?

GeekSugar — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:05:32 -0700

Dear GeekSugar,
My mom called me the other day freaking out about a Carbonite commercial, saying I should back up my photos before disaster strikes. I've actually seen the commercials late at night (I have to admit, I find them pretty funny), but can't really wrap my mind around why the service is. I have thousands of photos stored on my laptop and do worry it will quit on me one day and I will be left without copies. Should I use this service? Thanks for your help.
- A Fellow Geeky Gal

Dear Fellow Geeky Gal,
I pleased to hear I'm not the only person who is endlessly entertained by late-night cable commercials! You ask a great question because I've been seeing the company name everywhere. Carbonite is a web service that claims to "automatically and securely back up the irreplaceable contents of your computer" for the yearly cost of about $55. It works for PC and Mac users, but has slightly different set up depending on your system. To find out if I think you - and other readers like you - need it, read more.

Before you sign up, I'd suggest perusing the Carbonite website and looking at the demos to see if it fits your lifestyle. Everyone's backup needs are unique. I like to be selective about which files I backup (I only save the most important stuff like pictures, a small number of documents, and music I can't live without), so I don't need the "automatic" program to do it for me. Given you seem most concerned with backing up your photos, I think you should investigate a photo-hosting service before you back up your entire computer and then come up with a plan for backing up your important files. I adore Flickr ($25 a year) for its networking, geotagging, and general photo fun, but also use Picasa for its free simplicity. If you want to back up more documents, check out my guide to backing up data for a peek at a few devices that may be more cost effective for you. You might also check out MobileMe, a service that allows you to sync all your photos, email, calendar, contacts from your Mac (iCal, iDisk, Address Book, and Mail) or PC (Microsoft Outlook) to your iPhone over the air (it costs about $100 a year).

Cheers to planning to back up your data, not matter which route you pick! Anyone who has ever lost their hard drive or even a few files can tell you it's a devastating experience.

Even the geekiest of us have technical breakdowns. There's no question too easy or too techie, so join our Ask a Geek Girl Group and share your concerns and quandaries. Here's a detailed guide to posting questions or posts to groups if you are new to the PopSugar Community.

Left finds Obama not liberal enough

kastarte2 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:10:58 -0700

Left finds Obama not liberal enough

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- It's political déjà vu. It seems like just yesterday that hard-core conservatives were griping about a Republican president who wasn't dependably conservative.

The complaints got so loud that, leading up to the 2004 election, there was talk of Republicans running a candidate from the right against their own president on the grounds that the incumbent wasn't conservative enough and was too eager to seek compromises with Democrats.

Now hard-core liberals are griping about a Democratic president who isn't dependably liberal. The complaints are getting so loud that there is talk, leading up to the 2012 election, of Democrats running a candidate against their own president from the left on the grounds that the incumbent isn't liberal enough and is too eager to seek compromises with Republicans.

George W. Bush was often described as a compassionate conservative who butted heads with Republicans in Washington even before he got to town. During the 2000 election, Bush remarked that congressional Republicans were, through a series of spending cuts, "balancing the budget on the backs of the poor."

House Whip Tom DeLay took offense and dismissively accused his fellow Texan of not understanding how Washington worked. During his presidency, Bush was criticized by conservatives for adopting what they considered liberal policies on immigration, education funding and growing the size of government.

Likewise, Barack Obama is emerging as a pragmatic liberal who is willing to challenge members of his own party and left-wing special interest groups in pursuit of reforms he believes in.

Obama has challenged teachers unions by stressing accountability in public schools, pushed back against immigrant rights groups by continuing the Bush policies of workplace raids and speedier deportations, flummoxed civil libertarians by continuing some of the Bush anti-terror policies having to do with detentions and domestic surveillance, and angered the anti-war left by increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan.

But health care reform could be the last straw. The main sticking point to Congress passing a reform package has turned out to be something as simple as whether the government should provide a public option for people who can't afford health insurance. Liberals say absolutely yes. Conservatives say absolutely not. Moderates, as usual, are on the fence.

As Obama made clear in his address to Congress on Wednesday, he supports a public option. Yet he also isn't willing to sacrifice a deal if he can't get one. The president will take half a loaf rather than walk away with an empty plate.

But, frankly, that won't satisfy the most left-wing members of the Democratic Party. Several liberal Democratic House members, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus, have drawn a line in the sand and said: "No public option, no bill." They refuse to negotiate, and they don't feel they should have to, because Democrats control majorities in the House and the Senate.

True enough. But what the left-wing hardliners are missing is that the Democrats in Congress are so fractured, with such divergent views on health care, that they have the entire ideological spectrum represented in their own party.

Despite feeble attempts by the media and Democratic strategists to portray Republicans as the obstacle to health care reform, it has been clear all along that Obama's main problem is trying to please both liberals and conservatives within the Democratic Party.

So, the president used his speech to Congress to offer a little rhetorical flourishing to each camp. Obama made hash of his position by assuring the left that he wanted a public option, then assuring the right that he could live without a public option, and then coming back around and assuring the left that he wouldn't give up on getting a public option.

Obama said this: "I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can't find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice. And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need." But earlier, discussing a public option, he said this: "It is only one part of my plan. ...To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end -- and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal."

It's no wonder that so many in the liberal base are falling out of love with the president. So much so that there is even faint talk of an insurrection if Obama doesn't straighten up and fly left. Recently, during an appearance on a cable TV show, Washington Post columnist Gene Robinson discussed the political costs for Obama if the public option is dropped from the health care bill. They included the possibility of a primary challenge in the 2012 presidential election. Said Robinson, "You don't want to see the progressive caucus in a foul mood."

For a pragmatic liberal trying to get back to the center and convince voters that he doesn't want to represent the left wing or the right wing but the whole bird, having to fight off rebellion in his own party over the health care debate wouldn't be all bad. In fact, it could be just what the doctor ordered.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/11/navarrette.obama/index.html

Shocking, just shocking enhanced interrogation worked

Grandpa — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:00:05 -0700

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/910mqq...

What the CIA Documents Show
Yes, Virginia, enhanced interrogation works.
by Stephen F. Hayes

It's not very often that there is agreement between the leadership of the American Civil Liberties Union and officers at the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA jealously guards the nation's most highly classified secrets; the ACLU is a crusader for government transparency. CIA operatives risked their lives to capture al Qaeda terrorists; the ACLU would risk ours to set them free. The CIA is dedicated to defending America; the ACLU has spent millions defending al Qaeda.

But a growing number of CIA officials--both current and former--are in agreement right now with the ACLU about some of the most-sensitive information the U.S. government has obtained in the eight-year war on terror.

The ACLU has been fighting in the courts for years for the release of a wide range of documents related to the CIA's interrogation programs. It was in response to ACLU lawsuits that in April the Justice Department released four memos written by lawyers in the Bush Justice Department. And the Obama administration's recent release of the 2004 CIA inspector general's report on the interrogation of terror suspects also came in response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request. CIA director Leon Panetta and a small army of agency lawyers fought vigorously against releasing any documents, but they lost those battles to Attorney General Eric Holder and his boss, the president.

But now there's a push from within the CIA to declassify and release even more information about the CIA's enhanced interrogation program. CIA officers believe that making public additional details will

end the debate over the efficacy of the program, and so they are pushing to have hundreds of pages of highly classified documents declassified and released, including a detailed response to the IG report, two internal reviews of the interrogation program undertaken by respected national security experts, and perhaps even redacted versions of the raw interrogation logs.

For years, Bush administration critics demanded the release of the May 2004 report by CIA inspector general John Helgerson. The 109-page review of the enhanced interrogation program was supposed to demonstrate conclusively that abuse was routine and that enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) are ineffective. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow called the report the "Big Kahuna." The Washington Post's WhoRunsGov blog took to calling the IG report the "holy grail" and said that staffers for congressional Democrats told him it would "detail torture in unprecedented detail" and "cast doubt on the claim that torture works."

Helgerson was well known inside the CIA as a critic of the detention program, and his report reflects those views. But while Helgerson sought to avoid declaring that the EITs worked--writing that measuring their effectiveness was a "challenge"--the weight of the evidence he presented points directly to that conclusion.

Two examples. The report noted of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, mastermind of the USS Cole attack: "Following the use of EITs, he provided information about his most current operational planning and [redacted] as opposed to the historical information he provided before the use of EITs." And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man behind the 9/11 attacks, "provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the waterboard," reports that were largely "outdated, inaccurate or incomplete." After the application of EITs, the IG report notes KSM became "the most prolific" and "preeminent" source of intelligence on al Qaeda, revealing names and locations of al Qaeda leaders and details of coming plots.

In his 2004 report, Helgerson recommended bringing in an outside group to review the program. CIA director George Tenet delegated the task to the directorate of operations. Concerned about sharing details of the top secret program, officials "outside" of the interrogation program but still inside the CIA were selected to do the review. The team's findings are known inside the agency as the "rebuttal," and they argue that the program worked even more unambiguously than the IG report suggested.

In 2005, Porter Goss, who had replaced Tenet as CIA director, ordered a second independent assessment of the program. He sought to put together a small, bipartisan team of national security experts from outside of the CIA. More than one person, including former Republican senator Warren Rudman, turned down the request to serve. (The reasons given most often were lack of time and subject-matter expertise, but several intelligence officials suspect the real reason for the reluctance was a fear of having to conclude, in writing, that the controversial program was a success.)

The two men who finally agreed to conduct the review are both respected national security heavyweights. John Hamre was deputy secretary of defense under Bill Clinton from 1997-2000 and currently serves as chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Gardner Peckham, a veteran of Capitol Hill, worked on foreign policy and national security issues for high-ranking congressional Republicans, including Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich, and as the top legislative liaison for Secretary of State James Baker and the director of legislative affairs at the National Security Council under Brent Scowcroft.

They were read into the program in the spring of 2005, and the two spent the summer poring over mountains of information: analytical products from the Counterterrorism Center, legal briefs from the Justice Department and the CIA's general counsel, memos about the program's challenges and successes, top secret cables from the field, even the highly classified raw interrogation logs with details about the application of EITs and the intelligence they yielded. Only the detainees themselves were off-limits to Hamre and Peckham.

The two wrote separate reports evaluating the program, focusing on one question at the center of the debate over enhanced interrogation: Did it work?

Officials familiar with the reports say that Hamre's study was heavily analytical, data-driven, and cautious. These sources say that while Hamre stopped short of endorsing the interrogation techniques and wondered whether the information could have been extracted in other ways, he confirmed that the EITs elicited valuable information.

Peckham's review of the materials found that the program was well run and successful. The use of enhanced interrogation techniques generated a large volume of high-quality information, Peckham concluded. It was the use of EITs that led directly to this massive body of fresh intelligence--information that almost certainly prevented attacks and saved lives.

The most controversial materials being sought today in the declassification push are the logs compiled by interrogators as they sought to extract information from detainees. Those in favor of declassifying them believe they demonstrate--in the day-by-day accounting of the application of the techniques and the intelligence generated--just how valuable the enhanced interrogations were. (The logs would have to be heavily redacted to protect the identities of those involved in the program and the foreign intelligence services that helped the CIA.)

But other supporters of the EIT program are urging caution about what material is released. They say that the cost of winning the political argument would be too high.

"If you give the logs themselves, what a horrible precedent we have set," says Mike Rogers, a Republican representative from Michigan and former FBI special agent. "You can't just tell your enemies how you do what you do. What we think we know and what we know are different things. Confirmation is intelligence."

That is the official position of the CIA, too (if not that of many of the agency's officers). In a 33-page filing on August 31 that seeks to block ACLU efforts to require the release of additional information related to the interrogation program, Wendy Hilton, a CIA classification official, argued that further disclosures would cause "exceptionally grave damage to the national security."

The USG is aware that al Qaeda and other terrorists train in counter-interrogation methods. Public disclosure of the questioning procedures and methods used by the CIA as part of the detention program would allow al Qaeda and other terrorists to more effectively train to resist such techniques, which would result in degradation of techniques in the future. If detainees in USG custody are more fully prepared to resist interrogation, it could prevent the USG from obtaining vital intelligence that could disrupt future attacks targeting US persons and property.

Even if she's right, the argument is somewhat ironic. The Obama administration has made public hundreds of pages of documents that describe--in precise detail--the methods used to elicit information from terrorists. Didn't those previous disclosures result in the degradation of U.S. intelligence capabilities on interrogations? And the White House announced last week that future interrogations would be conducted under the guidelines of the Army Field Manual--in effect telling our enemies what we will and will not do.

And that, along with the Justice Department investigation of the CIA program, is why some intelligence professionals want more information out now. "Almost all of the good information came from waterboarding and the other EITs," says a former senior U.S. intelligence official. "Once they broke, they broke for good. And then they talked forever."

Members of Congress vacation on the Taxpayer Dime

Cassandra57 — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 07:57:46 -0700

* PUBLIC POST *

From the Wall Street Journal:

When 10 members of Congress wanted to study climate change, they did more than just dip their toes into the subject: They went diving and snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. They also rode a cable car through the Australian rain forest, visited a penguin rookery and flew to the South Pole.

The 11-day trip -- with six spouses traveling along as well -- took place over New Year's 2008. Details are only now coming to light as part of a Wall Street Journal analysis piecing together the specifics of the excursion.
.....
The South Pole trip, led by Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.), ranks among the priciest. The lawmakers reported a cost to taxpayers of $103,000.

That figure, however, doesn't include the actual flying, because the trip used the Air Force planes, not commercial carriers. Flight costs would lift the total tab to more than $500,000, based on Defense Department figures for aircraft per-hour operating costs.

Lawmakers say the trip offered them a valuable chance to learn about global warming and to monitor how federal funds are spent. "The trip we made was more valuable than 100 hearings," said Rep. Baird, its leader.

Full story at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124967502810515267.html

Bill to end unlisted phone number fees is put on hold

amybdk — Wed, 06 May 2009 08:23:45 -0700

The consumer-oriented measure faced certain defeat in the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, where it had been heavily lobbied by phone firms, says state Sen. Fran Pavley.

By Marc Lifsher
May 6, 2009

Source

Reporting from Sacramento -- For the second time in two years, the powerful telecommunications industry has blocked a consumer-oriented bill that would have barred companies from charging land-line customers for unlisted numbers.

On Tuesday, state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) put on hold for this year a bill that would have eliminated monthly unlisted-number fees. The measure faced certain defeat in the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, where it had been heavily lobbied by dozens of advocates for telephone and cable television companies.

"We didn't have enough votes," Pavley said, noting that the telecommunications industry has "a high degree of presence in the Capitol and spends a lot of time meeting with members."

Although she strategically put off action on her proposal until 2010, Pavley made it a point to tell the 11-member committee and a hearing room packed with industry lobbyists that the "core policy issue" behind her bill was "about protecting privacy rights."

About half of all California residential telephone users opt for unlisted numbers, and they should not have to pay for a privilege already granted by law to customers of cellphone and small land-line phone companies, Pavley said.

Telephone carriers, which have given at least $1.6 million in political contributions in the last 15 months, counter that there's a strong economic argument for charging for unlisted numbers. They contend that fees are needed to offset the costs of publishing White Pages phone books and providing directory assistance services, which are required by law.

"If unlisted numbers are free, fewer people would be inclined to list their number," said Timothy J. McCallion, Western regional president for Verizon Communications Inc., the state's second-largest phone carrier. A decline in the value of the White Pages directory or its elimination altogether could lead to lost jobs, McCallion warned.

According to the energy committee's analysis of the bill, not collecting charges for unlisted services could prove costly to the state's four largest phone companies.

The state's biggest, AT&T Inc., would lose about $50 million a year in revenue. Frontier Communications Corp., a small company that operates near Sacramento and in Northern California, said it would give up $1 million of its $38 million.

AT&T, with about 7 million residential lines, collects $1.25 a month for an unlisted number. Verizon, with 4 million lines, gets $1.50 a month, as do Frontier and SureWest Communications, another small Sacramento-area company.

Pavley warned that those rates, though modest now, could quickly climb if they follow the experience of other states, which charge as much as $5.50 a month for an unlisted number.

Phone companies have failed to provide hard evidence that they would incur continuing costs by not listing someone in the telephone directory, Pavley and consumer groups said. The public has strong views about privacy, Pavley said, and people don't like the idea of paying money to protect that basic right.

Pavley said she planned to spend the next eight to 12 months taking her crusade outside the politically charged halls of the statehouse.

"To level the playing field," she said, "you need to get the public to pay attention."

The Blackout

jaimisthejam — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:35:20 -0700

My first time wearing this floppy hat!! I embellished this H&M short sleeve cable knit cardigan to look like a Topshop cardigan I wanted...but was out of my range at $90. It cost me $30 for mine! http://theladythecatthewardrobe.blogspot.com Forever 21 dress H&M cardigan Forever 21 floppy hat Thrifted belt H&M wedges Forever 21 sunnies