Past Peak: October 2006 Archives

Matt Taibbi writes in Rolling Stone that the current Congress is the worst ever:

These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula — a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.

How did they do it? In five easy steps, say Taibbi. Read his explanation here.

Posted by Jonathan at 04:47 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Blacklisting Air America

Media

Media Matters has obtained an internal ABC Radio Networks memo that lists nearly 100 advertisers who demand, according to the memo, that "NONE of their commercials air during AIR AMERICA programming."

Among the advertisers blacklisting Air America are Bank of America, Exxon Mobil, Federal Express, General Electric, McDonald's, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and the U.S. Navy.

Posted by Jonathan at 04:26 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Tuesday Gumpagraph

Today's Gumpagraph. Kent is 'Gumpa' to his grandson Sebastian.

Posted by Jonathan at 09:07 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Officials said Tuesday that Iraqis have agreed to develop a timetable for progress in stabilizing Iraq. So there you have it. There's now a timetable for establishing a timetable. Welcome home, boys! — Amy Poehler

Posted by Jonathan at 09:04 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 30, 2006

51%

Karl Rove's GOP ruled like they had a mandate, despite getting into office by the thinnest of margins. Billmon explains:

There is nothing in the record of the past six years that suggests building a broad majority coalition has ever been the objective of the Rovian political project. Just the opposite, in fact. The goal has always been to create a narrow, but solid, majority — a dependable 51% or 52% — that would leave the GOP machine in firm control but reduce the need for the kind of moderate compromises required to hold a broad coalition together. Thus the overwhelming emphasis on keeping the conservative base energized and motivated, no matter what. As long as the base is on board, the extra 12 or 15 percentage points needed to reach a majority can always be picked up one way or another — without having to cut too many non-conservatives a slice of the pie. Or so the theory holds.
It's really just a redneck variation on the old Leninist strategy for a party dictatorship — if the GOP machine can control a majority of conservatives, and conservatives can control a majority of Republicans, then Republicans should be able to control (barely) a majority of the voters, and thus the country. [Emphasis added]

They don't care about mandates. They care about power, power that doesn't depend on consensus, coalition, or compromise. People marvelled when Bush squeaked into office and then acted like he'd won by a landslide. But the rules had changed.

It's a thug's game now, a game for pirates, cutthroats, and cold-blooded killers. I doubt very much we've hit bottom. They've got the election machinery well in hand, and November 7th may just turn out to be the bummer of all time. I hope I'm wrong.

Posted by Jonathan at 09:56 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

The Simple Logic

Digby sums up the choice November 7th:

Let's say you have a problem. You have the choice of two people to solve the problem — the one who caused the problem, refuses to admit it even is a problem and won't change anything even as the problem grows worse — or the other one. Which do you choose?
That's the simple logic of this election.

QED

Posted by Jonathan at 09:49 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Monday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 09:46 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

President Bush has authorized the building of a 700-mile fence. A 700-mile fence they're going to build between the United States and Mexico...That's a pretty long fence. I'm thinking to myself, I just hope there's a way Halliburton can make some money off of this deal. It would be nice to throw something their way for a change. — David Letterman

Posted by Jonathan at 09:36 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 29, 2006

Letterman v. O'Reilly — Round Two

Media

This is awesome. Bill O'Reilly gets pummelled by Dave Letterman. Video at Crooks and Liars. The usual blowhard condescension from O'Reilly, but Dave's having none of it. Not to be missed.

Sample Letterman lines:

I didn't say we're a bad country, I didn't say Bush is an evil liar. You’re putting words in my mouth. Just the way you put artificial facts in your head.

And:

You raise some points, but the truth of it is, a reasonable person can't believe what you're saying.

Go watch. It'll brighten your day.

[Thanks, Paul]

Posted by Jonathan at 02:25 PM | Comments (2) | Link to this

Funny How That Works

According to Media Matters, the verdict in Saddam Hussein's trial has been postponed until November 5, two days before the midterm elections:

The Bush administration has a long history of timing national security-related actions with the political calendar, and the media should be asking if it has done so again. The verdict of the Saddam Hussein trial, which was originally scheduled to be announced on October 16, 2006, has been postponed until November 5, 2006, just two days before the U.S. midterm elections.
Given the importance of the midterm elections, the administration's documented history of manipulating Iraq and terrorism announcements for political gain, and the heavy influence of the U.S. on the Iraqi court, David Brock, President and CEO of Media Matters for America, today called on the media to question the new date set for the release of the Saddam verdict. [Emphasis added]

Could anything be more transparent, more blatant, more obvious? Imagine the howls for his blood had Clinton had this.

Posted by Jonathan at 02:03 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Sunday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 01:46 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

This is a bleak time for the Republican Party. You know you have trouble when the least embarrassing guy in your group is Arnold Schwarzenegger. — Jimmy Kimmel

Posted by Jonathan at 01:42 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 28, 2006

Thinking About Stem Cells

Ethics

[Still on vacation, but here's a re-post of something I wrote a couple of years ago. With Rush and the right whining about Michael J. Fox campaigning for embryonic stem cell research, it may be worth revisiting.]

Last night, I heard part of a radio interview with Dr. Steven Clark, an immunologist and medical ethicist on the University of Wisconsin faculty of Human Oncology. The topic was embryonic stem cell research. Clark’s in favor of it, including the cloning of human embryos that enables the process.

What made the interview especially interesting was the fact that Clark is a political conservative and evangelical Christian. Yet he had that wonderfully refreshing attitude shared by all good scientists: you don’t fudge the data, and you think things through for yourself — logically, not dogmatically.

On the question of whether human life begins at conception, he had this to say: Ultimately, the question isn’t when does life begin. The question is when does one have a moral obligation toward that life. Embryonic stem cell research involves taking cells from a five-day-old embryo, which, as he said, is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence and has no brain, no life history, no identity.

But, opponents of stem cell research would say, that five-day-old embryo has the potential to become a fully-developed human being. Don’t we then have a responsibility to accord it the same moral status as a fully-developed human being?

Clark offered a down-to-earth thought experiment that cuts right through the dogma. Imagine, he said, you are walking by a stem cell laboratory and you see that a fire is raging inside. You see a person lying unconscious on the floor inside and, nearby, a tank containing some number of five-day-old embryos. Which do you save, the person or the embryos?

Let’s make the scenario even more clear-cut. Suppose what you see are a dozen trapped children and a petri dish containing 13 five-day-old embryos. There are more embryos than children. Which do you save, the children or the embryos? Faced with this choice, not even the staunchest fertilized-egg-equals-human-being dogmatist would hesitate to save the children.

This thought experiment illustrates exactly the choice that faces us. I.e., there are living human beings with a variety of maladies who could be saved by research and therapy utilizing stem cells. Do we save them, or do we save the five-day-old embryos?

Posted by Jonathan at 02:29 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

1-866-OUR-VOTE

Vote Fraud

Americans reading this, I'll assume you're planning to go vote on the 7th. Here's a phone number to write down and put in your wallet: 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Call it if you encounter suspicious or fraudulent behavior. My guess is that fraud will be rampant. It will be impossible to keep them honest, but every little bit helps.

[Thanks, Matt]

Posted by Jonathan at 02:06 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Saturday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 02:03 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Bush is getting rid of the phrase, "stay the course." That was his phrase for the entire war. Maybe the phrase should have been, "Find bin Laden." Do you miss the old days when the phrase was, "Stay under the desk?" — David Letterman

Posted by Jonathan at 01:59 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 27, 2006

Into 5GW

Global Guerrillas War and Peace

The nature of war is changing rapidly, morphing into what might deserve to be called "fifth generation warfare". Read John Robb's discussion, here. No point in my summarizing it: it couldn't be more succinct. The US leadership doesn't understand what's happening to them, and they are doomed therefore to fail. Being a "superpower" no longer guarantees victory, if it ever did. It's more likely a case now of "the bigger they come, they harder they fall."

Essential reading.

Posted by Jonathan at 04:30 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Friday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 04:15 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

The election is two weeks away and there are rumors the Republicans are getting ready for an election night disaster, which would be a first — a disaster they were actually prepared for. — Bill Maher

Posted by Jonathan at 04:08 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 26, 2006

On The Road

Travelling for the next four days, so posts are likely to be spotty. I'll try to get something up tomorrow, though. Stay tuned. Thanks.

Posted by Jonathan at 03:45 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Thursday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 09:22 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

They were talking to President Bush about what he likes to do in his spare time. He said what he likes to do is get on the Internet and he Googles. He likes to look at satellite photos of his ranch. Well, great. How about looking for Osama bin Laden? — David Letterman

Posted by Jonathan at 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 25, 2006

Staying The Course

Iraq Politics

Awesome video (via AmericaBlog):

They were for "stay the course" before they were against it. Has a familiar ring.

Posted by Jonathan at 05:33 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

World's Coral Rapidly Dying

Environment

60% of the world's coral may be gone in 25 years. AP:

Researchers fear more than half the world's coral reefs could die in less than 25 years and say global warming may [be] at least partly to blame.
Sea temperatures are rising, weakening the reefs' resistance to increased pollutants, such as runoff from construction sites and toxins from boat paints. The fragile reefs are hosts to countless marine plants and animals.

"Think of it as a high school chemistry class," said Billy Causey, the Caribbean and Gulf Mexico director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"You mix some chemicals together and nothing happens. You crank up the Bunsen burner and all of a sudden things start bubbling around. That's what's happening. That global Bunsen burner is cranking up." [...]

Last year's coral loss in the Caribbean waters supports predictions that 60 percent of the world's coral could die within a quarter century, said Tyler Smith of the University of the Virgin Islands.

"Given current rates of degradation of reef habitats, this is a plausible prediction," Smith said.

More than 47 percent of the coral in underwater study sites covering 31 acres around the U.S. Virgin Islands died after sea temperatures exceeded the norm for three months in 2005, said Jeff Miller, a scientist with the Virgin Islands National Park. [...]

Up to 30 percent of the world's coral reefs have died in the last 50 years, and another 30 percent are severely damaged, said Smith, who studies coral health in the U.S. Virgin Islands and collaborates with researchers globally. [...]

The researchers said global warming was a potential cause of the abnormally high sea temperatures but was not the only suspect in the reefs' demise.

What causes disease in coral can be hard to pinpoint and could be a combination of things. Other threats include silt runoff from construction sites, which prevents the coral from getting enough sunlight, and a record increase in fleshy, green algae, which competes with coral for sunlight.

"Climate change is an important factor that is influencing coral reefs worldwide," said Mark Eakin, director of NOAA's Coral Reef Watch. "It adds to the other problems that we are having." [Emphasis added]

This is the sort of thing that should be front page news all over the world. But because it's happening in (relatively) slow motion, it barely gets noticed. In planetary terms, however, a quarter century is the blink of an eye. For 60% of the planet's coral to disappear that quickly, we have to be skating on very thin ice indeed. How many dead canaries in the coal mine will it take to get our attention?

Posted by Jonathan at 09:45 AM | Comments (2) | Link to this

Wednesday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 08:35 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

It seems a lot of things about Republicans happen to be coming out now, only after they've done them. — Jon Stewart

Posted by Jonathan at 08:33 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 24, 2006

Cindy Sheehan Considers Forming A Third Party

Activism Politics War and Peace

Joshua Frank interviews Cindy Sheehan at GNN:

Joshua Frank: Cindy, we are in the armpit of another election season and it seems that the mainstream antiwar movement is rallying behind the Democrats once again, hoping if the Dems can just recapture the House that the Republicans will finally be held accountable for all their horrible faults. Impeachment will follow and the war will end. What do you think? Where do you stand on all of this?
Cindy Sheehan: I hold very little hope that, due to the utter corruption of our electoral system, and the Republican reign of terror and fear against the American public, the Democrats will even take back one or more Houses of Congress.

Even if the Democrats take back the lower House, the potential Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) has already said that impeachment would not be "in the cards." Rep. John Conyers (D-Mi) has also backed off of impeachment rhetoric. Since Bush has said over and over again that the troops aren't coming home while he is president, it is up to us to make sure that his presidency is cut short.

We all know that the Vietnam War ended when Congress cut its funding. There is a bill that has been sponsored by Rep. Jim McGovern, (D-Ma) HR4232 that cuts funding to leave our troops in Iraq, but he has very little support and even a smaller chance of getting it to the floor for a vote. I believe that most representatives don’t support the bill because they will be accused of "not supporting the troops." I believe that it is not supporting the troops to leave them in that nightmare.

Although I admire the Democrats on many issues, when it comes to war and peace, most get their pockets lined by the same corporate interests.

No matter which party has control of Congress come November, we the people have to keep the pressure up to stop the current course our country is taking.

Frank: You are currently serving on the Board of Directors for the
Progressive Democrats of America, a pro-Democrat organization that calls for reform of the Democratic Party from within. The PDA consistently ignores progressive antiwar alternatives to the Democrats. Do you think that such a position could actually hurt the antiwar movement? Should we instead be supporting antiwar candidates who want to hold both parties accountable?

Sheehan: I think that the PDA endorses candidates based on their entire platforms. Of course, I only care about candidate's record on the war and what they say about peace. I prefer to call our movement a "peace" movement, because "antiwar" is too narrow.

I think it would be great if we didn't need a PDA, if all Democrats were progressive peace candidates, but we know they are not.

I would vote for a Republican if they were calling for the withdrawal of troops and for impeachment, and I definitely think a viable third party could rein in the "two" parties we have now.

We will never have a viable third party, though, as long as we vote out of fear and not out of integrity. Instead of voting for the "lesser of two evils" we should be voting for a candidate that reflects our "beatitudes" and not the war machine's. [...]

Frank: I've heard a rumor that you may be looking to start your own third party. Is that true?

Sheehan: Yes, it is true. I think that to save our democracy our country needs a viable and credible third party. This nation was founded on rule by a few rich white males, and for all intents and purposes, we are still ruled by a corporate elite.

We need a third party that will represent all the people, not just the wealthy. [Emphasis added]

Cindy Sheehan is the kind of figure who could mobilize the passionate support needed to make a meaningful third party possible. She's the closest thing we have to a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi.

Her energy is the energy of peace, not of angry opposition. It's what we all hunger and thirst after. It's what the world desperately needs. And it's time for a woman to lead.

I hope she goes for it.

Posted by Jonathan at 10:40 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Tuesday Gumpagraph

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Today's Bush Joke

Elections are only a few weeks away and it looks like the Republicans are going to lose a lot of them. I guess desperate times require desperate measures. [On screen: RNC's TV ad depicting another terrorist attack by Osama bin Laden, followed by a reminder to vote 11/7]. Let me get this straight. Osama bin Laden is threatening to attack America again, so what we should do is vote for the people who haven't been able to catch him for the last five years? — Jimmy Kimmel

Posted by Jonathan at 09:09 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 23, 2006

Perspective

9/11, "War On Terror" Humor & Fun Politics

Doonesbury (via Bruce Schneier) explains faulty risk assessment and the politics of fear:

First cartoon
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh

A voice of reason.

Posted by Jonathan at 04:43 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Two Weeks To Go

Politics Vote Fraud

Bush and Rove talk like they're convinced they can't lose control of the Congress. NYT:

Mr. Bush has been saying for months that he believes Republicans will keep control of the House and the Senate, and he is not changing his tune now, even if it means taking the rare step of rebuking his own father.
In an interview shown Sunday on ABC News, Mr. Bush was asked about a comment by the first President Bush, who said this month that he hated to think about life for his son if Democrats took control of Congress. "He shouldn't be speculating like that, because he should have called me ahead of time," the president said, "and I'd tell him they're not going to."

The president's professed certainty, shared with outside friends and advisers, is a source of fascination among even his staunchest allies. In lobbying shops and strategy firms around town, the latest Republican parlor game is divining whether the White House optimism is staged, or whether Mr. Bush and his political team really believe what they are saying. [...]

Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove are discounting predictions of Republican demise in part because they believe they have turned out wrong before. "I remember 2004," Mr. Bush said in the interview shown on "This Week." "I was history as far as the punditry was concerned."

Mr. Rove has told associates that the party's turnout machinery, through which the White House will continue to pump an unrelenting message against Democrats on taxes and terrorism, gives Republicans an advantage of four to seven percentage points in any given race. Though Democrats call that too generous, they acknowledge that it accounts for at least a few percentage points. [Emphasis added]

They could be faking it. They could be in denial. Or, they could know something we don't: that the election's already in the bag, courtesy of electronic voting. The incessant harping on a supposed 4-7 point Republican advantage based on their GOTV ground game preps the conventional wisdom for explaining, post-election, why the polls once again mysteriously turned out to be so wrong. Let's hope not, but it is a measure of how far we've sunk that we even have to entertain such thoughts.

Posted by Jonathan at 12:32 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

2800

Iraq

US troops killed in Iraq as of today: 2800.

And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. For what?

This is already the deadliest month for US troops in the past year — with another week to go.

No end in sight.

Posted by Jonathan at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Monday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 09:14 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

A consumer watch group has released its annual list of the most dangerous Halloween costumes. Apparently, the most dangerous thing for kids to wear this year is a congressional page blazer. — Conan O'Brien

Posted by Jonathan at 09:11 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 22, 2006

"As If In A Trance"

Rights, Law

Keith Olbermann says what needs saying (via Crooks and Liars, who has the video):

And lastly, as promised, a Special Comment tonight on the signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.
We have lived as if in a trance. We have lived as people in fear.

And now — our rights and our freedoms in peril — we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American legacy. For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from. [...]

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done, to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that "the United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values" and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens "Unlawful Enemy Combatants" and ship them somewhere — anywhere — but may now, if he so decides, declare you an "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" and ship you somewhere — anywhere.

And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteria ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was President.

And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" — exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends to use it, nor who he intends to use it against? [...]

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies, that imperil us all. [...]

Better to watch it all, here. Outstanding.

Posted by Jonathan at 05:33 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Sunday Gumpagraph

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Today's Bush Joke

Do you believe how self-destructive this Congress has become? This upcoming election is not an election, it's an intervention. — Jay Leno

Posted by Jonathan at 05:16 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 21, 2006

Men From Mars

Iraq

An excellent short film from the Guardian and BBC, Iraq: The Real Story. It pretty much demolishes all the talk of Iraqi security forces "standing up" so US forces can "stand down". The US troops in the film might as well be men from Mars, stomping around Iraq pretty much devoid of any understanding or empathy for the people they are supposedly liberating.

Guerrilla wars are won by the superior use of minds, not of weapons. One of the soldiers in the film says US forces will never be able to leave Iraq because Iraqis are "too lazy". But it's the Americans who appear to be too lazy to even try to understand the reality of what they see around them. Learning another language, absorbing new customs and political facts of life, fitting into an alien cultural milieu, those things are hard work. Way too hard for Americans.

Posted by Jonathan at 02:03 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Saturday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 09:34 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

President Bush now says there are similarities between Iraq and Vietnam. Of course, the big difference is, his dad could get him out of Vietnam. — Jay Leno

Posted by Jonathan at 09:32 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 20, 2006

The Net @ Risk

Science/Technology

Bill Moyers presents an examination of the Internet and the battle over net neutrality. Video. I haven't finished it yet, but so far it's excellent. Check it out.

You will be amazed by, among other things, how backward US Internet service is compared to other advanced nations because the telecom industry here calls the shots.

Posted by Jonathan at 06:46 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Growth Industry

Election outcome experts.

Posted by Jonathan at 03:10 PM | Comments (2) | Link to this

Friday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 08:29 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

The president had a press conference this week and he said that the U.S. has no plans to attack North Korea. And then he added, "Like having no plan ever stopped me before." He has something even more deadly in store for them — we're going to bring them democracy. — Bill Maher

Posted by Jonathan at 08:26 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

October 19, 2006

Shame

Iraq

Stop what you're doing and read this.

Shame on us all.

Posted by Jonathan at 09:40 AM | Comments (3) | Link to this

Thursday Gumpagraph

Posted by Jonathan at 09:35 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke