Back from Nicaragua

But still not home. I'm in DC recouperating after 48 hours at GWU Hospital and an unexpected appendectomy. Hopefully, I'll make it to the SGAC retreat for some of the more important bits. Give me a ring if you know my number.

Off to Nicaragua

I'll be in Nicaragua for 10 days, celebrating anniversaries of the revolution and the Lutheran congregation I've visited twice before. I'll be sure to blog about it afterwards, but don't expect anything here until at soonest the 26th.

All the way to the top

When the Abu Ghraib torture tactics first became known, a common suspicion on leftie blogs was that the source for these heinous acts was not the MPs from Maryland, chastised as thrill-seeking frat boys (glad I wasn't in those critics' frats - yikes), but rather someone high within the chain of command. looks like we were right:

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani -- the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- were used at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee.

Why Rove might actually lose

It's been easy to become cynical over the past few years, as every seemingly obvious Bush administration failure, from the fixed intelligence leading to the war in Iraq to the torture once we got there, has blown over in the media without consequence. The Plame scandal seems to be playing out differently. The press is actually managing to ask questions. Of course, there's no guarantee a 20-something white woman won't disappear or get eaten by a shark tomorrow and end this whole affair, but for now, things are looking up. Here's why:

As Harry Shearer, via Atrios, explains,

Despite the admirable cloaking of all this in the garment of "the American public," the White House press corp's anger is based on one thing: Scott McClellan lied to the Whitte House press corps. The President, the Vice President, the Army and Navy football teams, the Secretary of State--all of them can lie to any or all of the planets in the solar system, and hey, that's politics. But, stand at that podium, and lie to those people, and let them eventually find out about it, and, brother, you got trouble.

For an excellent refresher on those lies to the press corps, I turn to Common Dreams' reference to the LA Times:

Sept. 29, 2003

Q: You said this morning, quote, "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved." How does he know that?

A: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. ... I've said that it's not true. ... And I have spoken with Karl Rove.

...

Q: When you talked to Mr. Rove, did you discuss, "Did you ever have this information?"

A: I've made it very clear, he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was.

...

Oct. 10, 2003

Q: Earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

A: I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.

Anybody have links to the Daily Show?

I don't have cable, so I missed tonight's. From all accounts, it was a good one.

Too late for Bush

The Poor Man has a great post on the Plame scandal, and why it's too later for Bush to make a move.

Two years ago was the time for the President to get serious about his administration undermining national security. What he did was, he did nothing for a couple months; then, when the story gathered some momentum, he flashed his “I’m going to lie to your faces now, bitches” grin, and promised to get to the bottom of it. Then, he promoted Rove.

Why won't the White House speak?

Isikoff, via Atrios, has it exactly right:

I think the problem that the White House has is the public statements that they made at the time in which they completely dismissed the notion that Rove or anybody else in the White House had anything to do with the outing of Valerie Plame, totally ridiculous I think was Scott McClellan's line that he gave to reporters.

Now, since, McClellan is refusing to answer any questions, saying we can't talk about it, it's an ongoing criminal investigation. The problem is they already had talked about it, and the question that is being asked is, are those previous statements still operative?

Rove's going down

Story:

For two years, the White House has insisted that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a CIA officer's identity. And President Bush said the leaker would be fired.

But Mr. Bush's spokesman wouldn't repeat any of those assertions Monday in the face of Rove's own lawyer saying his client spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified in a newspaper column.

Fire him. And then lock him up.

Pullout

I hear that the Brits have a plan to get most of their troops out of Iraq next year, and the Pentagon does, too.

There was a time when I would have welcomed such news. I hesitate now, though. I think we've got to have some responsibility for restoring the country, since we've done so much to break it. The world will be in trouble if the current pack of murderers manages to bomb its way into power.

But then, I don't want my friends to die there. I think I'll have a hard time asking those I know to stay for the sake of people I don't.

Plame

I'm still trying to get a handle on the full implications of what's going on with the investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame (Ambassador Wilson's wife) as a CIA agent.

What's clear to me is that someone in the White House used their access to classified information, namely Plame's status as a covert agent, in a political strike against the ambassador (this was in retribution for Wilson criticizing the Bush administration for ignoring his report that it was unlikely that Iraq had purchased uranium). Via Hunter at Kos, a Washington Post reporter's story about the attack:

On July 12, 2003, an administration official, who was talking to me confidentially about a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities, veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction.

I didn't write about that information at that time because I did not believe it true that she had arranged his Niger trip. But I did disclose it in an October 12, 2003 story [here] in The Washington Post. By that time there was a Justice Department criminal investigation into a leak to columnist Robert Novak who published it on July 14, 2003 and identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative. Under certain circumstances a government official's disclosure of her name could be a violation of federal law. The call with me had taken place two days before Novak's column [here] appeared.

I wrote my October story because I did not think the person who spoke to me was committing a criminal act, but only practicing damage control by trying to get me to stop writing about Wilson. Because of that article, The Washington Post and I received subpoenas last summer from Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor looking into the Plame leak. Fitzgerald wanted to find out the identity of my source.

Now, it seems clear to me that there is no defense, as Pincus tries to provide, in the source "practicing damage control." The minute PR maneuvering becomes a legal defense to treason, I'll eat this blog. It doesn't matter why anyone who knew Plame was CIA revealed that information, it was illegal.

This whole thing smacks of the irresponsible vindictiveness that has pervaded the Bush administration in its defense of its Iraq war. And if revealing national secrets for political purposes doesn't count as Hating America, I don't know what does.

Scary future

Found this article in the Plain Dealer this morning. Had a very frightening graph on savings vs. consumption in the US:



The PD had a better headline, which highlighted that the changes in spending over the last years reflect not just poor decisions by consumers, but increasing costs of necessities that have not been matched by increases in income.

It would be interesting to see this chart broken down by tax brackets to see what the story is for rich and poor segments of society. Is everyone spending more than is reasonable?

It would also be interesting to see how the spending breaks down. What percentage is related to debt? How much is necessary? How much is frivolous?

In any event, the near lack of savings since 2001 should be an alarming reminder of the need for a retirement safety net like social security.

Blair: Pinko Leftie Traitor?

Well, that's what he'd be called if he'd been an American and said we should address the root causes of terrorism. People who had the same insight after 9/11 were and still are labeled as terrorist-sympathizers, non-supporters of the troops, and generally anti-American. That label may be a bit hard to stick on the war's staunchest supporter in all of Europe.

Finally

The retrial of the McDonalds AIDS discrimination case has come out with the plaintiff on top. McDonalds should have been too ashamed of themselves for their first horrific act to have appealed the damages awarded Rich, but with two juries now having ruled that they discriminated, I hope they'll think twice about another appeal.

CAFTA and meds on NPR

Was just listening to KQED, heard that tomorrow they'll be discussing the impact of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on pharmaceuticals in Latin America. From the clip they played as a preview, sounds like it'll be good.

CAFTA contains damaging intellectual property provisions which would prevent the use of generic drugs, even to fight the AIDS pandemic. This is a product of selfish lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry, and should not be allowed to become law.

DC Vote Scores

From a press release:

On Saturday, July 2, the Third Committee of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly passed an amendment that calls on the United States Congress to grant the residents of Washington, DC, equal voting rights in Congress with an overwhelming majority voting for the measure. The United States is the only country in the OSCE where residents of the nation's capital are denied full representation in the national legislature.

Around this time of year, I often read the Declaration of Independence. I always find a good deal of irony in it. That any US citizen is denied voting representation in Congress is an affront to the values we hold sacred in this country, values which have spread to other freedom-loving nations. It's good to see some people are cognizant of the injustice inherent in disenfranchising DC.

Trouble in the White House?

Over at Kos, Armando has an interesting idea about the reasons for a prosecutor's push for testimony in the Plame investigation, even after the Time reporter's notes have been released:

Excuse me folks, but this prosecutor smells blood.

Now who's blood remains to be seen.

But this type of zealous righteousness from US Attorneys is often seen when they are lied to. Perjury is what it smells like to me.

Oh, I hope, I hope, I hope. There's nothing I'd like to see more than the disintegration of the Bush administration over their foolishly vindictive abuses of power.

Universal Healthcare

I find myself discussing healthcare more and more lately. It pops up frequently when talking about AIDS issues, since making good healthcare available to everyone is such an obvious moral imperative in that context. But general political discussions are leading to it more and more, and some interesting ideas have come up.

First, I've heard several times that the drive for universal healthcare will be from corporations sick of paying ridiculous premiums. This makes some sense, if we assume that companies have their economic self interest in mind. I know a lot of you economists are scratching your heads on that one - of course they do, right? Well, look at environmental laws: corporate America has lobbied hard against these, yet has a lot to benefit from less-polluting, and therefore more efficient, processes. Getting corporations to realize what's good for them is hard, since they're run by ideological people. This prings me to the second point.

Conservatives don't like universal healthcare like they don't like welfare; they are ideologically opposed to spending on it. There is no explicit conservative argument against spending, though, because certain areas of the budget are free to grow exponentially under conservative rule. I think we need to frame the issue differently, then.

Why is defense spending OK but healthcare spending not?

We have a collective defense because:
1) there are outside threats which pose a risk to many Americans
2) we recognize the importance of defending ourselves
3) defending against these threats is absurdly expensive for one person to do alone

Those all sound like characteristics of healthcare to me.

I don't have a missile battery or tank in my backyard, but I am expected to figure out healthcare on my own. I'm not sure I see the big difference.

GW still not Union

SEIU has their say in my email. Will the Hatchet ever talk to them?

GWU DENIES DEMOCRACY: Representatives of SEIU Local 500 are condemning the refusal by George Washington University to recognize the new union of adjunct faculty. A majority of the nearly 700 part-time GWU faculty, including adjunct professors, voted for SEIU 500 in a secret ballot election last October that was certified by the National Labor Relations Board on June 10. On June 29, GWU informed SEIU 500 that the university, based on an arcane and legalistic argument, would neither recognize nor negotiate with the union. Calling GWU’s action “unconscionable and undemocratic,” Christopher Lornell, a GWU adjunct professor and union supporter said “It’s a blatant attempt by the University to interfere with the legal rights of employees to be represented by a union of our choosing. Our vote was a decision that was arrived at by a democratic vote in a government supervised election.” Added SEIU 500’s Lewie Anderson, “If George Washington University thinks they can flaunt the law and trample on the democratic rights of their employees then they are sadly mistaken.” The union has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB against George Washington University. SEIU 500 represents 10,000 members in Montgomery County, Baltimore, Howard County, Washington, DC, and Anne Arundel County. Its members work in education, public service, and community services.

Get the Union City email newsletter here.

Hypocrisy

Wonderful - the Omaha World-Herald, a newspaper in Nebraska, editorializes that there should be federal shield laws protecting the press's anonymous sources, and at the same time publishes the secret identity of a plaintiff in an ACLU ten-commandments case, complete with his license plate, the make of his car, and his employer. I knew people who worked for the ACLU, and they regularly received death threats. I can't imagine what this guy will have to go through because of the paper's ridiculous invasion of his privacy. They should be held responsible for whatever harassment occurs. Moreover, they should have realized that freedom of speech is hampered by such revelations of concealed identities of people speaking out, and should be shamed for having the gall to argue for their own freedom whilst impinging on that of another.

Live 8

Seemed like a great set of concerts. I've grown pretty cynical about these things, and was pretty doubtful about the possible effect of such mass-media extravaganzas even before I'd turned on my TV to watch. I'm disappointed, I guess, in the notion that the future of the world ought to be determined by a bunch of millionaire rock-stars rather than activists rooted in the communities relying on change. Bono seems a poor substitute for Dr. King.

That being said, it would doubtless be a better world if all, or at least more, mass media were fashioned with the noble aims of yesterday's concerts. For that I must applaud the performers, and hope that their message is received by the millions of fans they brought. The world needs the change they purported to be after.

Pictures

I've posted pictures of the C2EA Youth ACTION Institute:

And the camping trip some coordinators, staff and attendees went on afterwards:

Enjoy.

I'm Back

I'll post photos sometime soon. Until then, what the hell?!

How did the world explode while I was away? Why are we being plunged into the messiest, most bitter of political battles, that of an O'Connor replacement, rather than the less pivotal one of Rehnquist's? I left contact with the world just as the Court's session ended without the Chief's exit, and I thought all was well. Now Roe is in jeopardy, and this time there'll be federal laws forbidding abortion. Specter better deliver on his promise of moderation, or a lot of us will be getting screwed.

And what's this flag-burning amendment doing? I'll be buying flags in bulk if it gets through. If we don't stand for freedom, our flag is worth nothing anyway; it ought to be retired, in that case, and burning is the best way I know to do that.

The country is lost right now.