I ALWAYS shed a little tear when I hear this song…
so sue me….
Obama ’s Wholesale Sellout to the Politics of Fear
Cloture, Feingold, FISA, FISA+OBAMA, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Politics of Fear, Telecom ImmunityI’m still in a shocked state from witnessing Obama and Hillary prove today who was the better Democratic candidate. With Obama’s wholesale selling out to fear and politics and even approving cloture on FISA so as not to allow a filibuster, tells me all I need to know about this candidate of change.
I’ve got to tell you Obama-Heads that every once in a while , I get a good vibe when I think about what putting Mr. Obama in charge of this once decent nation would say to the rest of the planet.
After reading and hearing some of the most snarky, mean, hurtful and convoluted critiques of Mrs. Clinton over the past year it still stings to have to start coming around and landing in the Obama camp. It has to be done though and you’re either on the [Democrat] bus or you’re off the bus.
Thirty years of “Oh, all politicians are corrupt” bookended with the other classic”There’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats” put the Grover Norquist/Irv Kristol nail in the coffin when good/smart guy Albert Gore was defeated by a dry-drunk clunkhead who deserted his military duty.
In seven years, George Bush managed to thoroughly ruin my little Avril Rose’s America and I’ll never forget that.No offense to Luke Russert but deciding to become an Independent just means that the GOP triumphs. I understand why all you Ron Paul-heads and Dennis Kucinich-Heads and John Edwards-Heads really liked your candidate , I truly do-but we’ve got to get this country back into the hands of a party that will stop the dangerous direction that we’re All heading in.
I worry about this obviously good person Barack Obama and always have because of the well-known corrupting power that the District can have on a person. This FISA capitulation/aiding and abetting in the destruction of the Fourth Amendment is devastating. Is this some tough-guy Chicago Politics scheme to Criminally go after the Telecoms after he’s in office, as John Dean and Keith Olbermann posit?
Does Rezko, Donald Young, Larry Sinclair and blackmail do the trick? Did some Senior Adviser convince him to abandon all principles merely to ensure that McCain couldn’t call Obama a friend to the tayerists? Again, Obama claimed that he would even veto a cloture on Immunity for the Telecoms as well as the actual bill so color me stunned.It just might take a little while longer now to step onto that bus , that’s all
U.S. Military to Patrol Internet
Stories
The U.S. military is looking for a contractor to patrol cyberspace,
watching for warning signs of forthcoming terrorist attacks or other
hostile activity on the Web. “If someone wants to blow us up, we want
to know about it,” Robert Hembrook, the deputy intelligence chief of
the U.S. Army’s Fifth Signal Command in Mannheim, Germany, told United
Press International.
In a solicitation posted on the Web last week, the command said it was
looking for a contractor to provide “Internet awareness services” to
support “force protection” — the term of art for the security of U.S.
military installations and personnel.
“The purpose of the services will be to identify and assess stated and
implied threat, antipathy, unrest and other contextual data relating to
selected Internet domains,” says the solicitation.
Hembrook was tight-lipped about the proposal. “The more we talk about
it, the less effective it will be,” he said. “If we didn’t have to put
it out in public (to make the contract award), we wouldn’t have.”
He would not comment on the kinds of Internet sites the contractor
would be directed to look at but acknowledged it would “not (be) far
off” to assume violent Islamic extremists would be at the top of the
list.
The solicitation says the successful contractor will “analyze various
Web pages, chat rooms, blogs and other Internet domains to aggregate
and assess data of interest,” adding, “The contractor will prioritize
foreign-language domains that relate to specific areas of concern
… (and) will also identify new Internet domains” that might
relate to “specific local requirements” of the command.
Officials were keen to stress the contract covered only information
that could be found by anyone with a computer and Internet connection.
“We’re not interested in being Big Brother,” said LeAnne MacAllister,
chief spokeswoman for the command, which runs communications in Europe
for the U.S. Army and the military’s joint commands there.
“I would not characterize it as monitoring,” added Hembrook. “This is a
research tool gathering information that is already in the public
domain.”
Experts say Islamic extremist groups like al-Qaida use the Web for
propaganda and fundraising purposes. Although the extent to which it is
employed in operational planning is less clear, most agree that
important information about targeting and tactics can be gleaned from
extremists’ public pronouncements. Hembrook said the main purpose of
the contract is to analyze “trends in information.” The contractor will
“help us find those needles in that haystack of information.”
The solicitor says the contractor’s team will include a “principal
cyber investigator,” a “locally specialized threat analyst” and a
“foreign-speaking analyst with cyber investigative skills,” as well as
a 24/7 watch team.
The contractor will produce weekly written reports, containing “raw
data and supporting analysis.” The addresses of the Web page sources
will be “captioned under alias to preserve access,” says the
solicitation. Experts have noted in the past that publishing the
addresses of some extremists’ sites has led to them being attacked or
moving. However, the contractor will “consider releasing specific (Web
page addresses) on an as-needed basis … if explicit threat
materials or imminent threat to personnel or facilities are
discovered.”
The contractor also will notify the command immediately “upon receipt
of any and all stated or implied threats that contain timing and/or
targeting information relating to personnel, facilities or activities,
and to specifically designated areas of concern.”
While declining to comment on the specific solicitation, Ben Venzke,
CEO of IntelCenter, an Alexandria, Va.-based company that monitors
Islamic extremist propaganda for clients including U.S. government
agencies, said it was “common” for the military or other agencies to
employ contractors “to support their own work on these issues.”
“What most people don’t get,” he said, “is that (each agency or entity)
has their own very specific requirements. … They are looking for
one type of thing in particular.”
Venzke explained that while an analyst for a big-city police department
might be looking at extremist Web sites for certain kinds of
information, their requirements would be different from those of
intelligence analysts looking for evidence of trends in extremist
targeting or ideology, which in turn would be different from those
concerned — like the Fifth Signal Command — with force protection.
“There is some overlap,” he said, “and you always have to work to
minimize that, but generally, there are so many different …
pieces you can look at … it’s not duplication.”
'Sister Green,' Who Died on Hospital Floor, Was Mother of Six
StoriesWoman who died on hospital floor called ‘beautiful person’ – CNN.com
Woman who died on hospital floor called ‘beautiful person’
NEW YORK (CNN) — To people around the world who have seen the video, Esmin Green is a symbol of a health-care system that seems to have failed horribly.
Green, 49, is shown rolling off a waiting room chair at King County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, on June 19. She lands face-down on the floor, convulsing.
Surveillance video captures her lying on the floor for more than an hour as several hospital workers see her and appear to ignore her. She died there.
But to fellow members of her church, she was known as “Sister Green.” Together, they served as a family for her in the decade after she left Jamaica for New York.
Green left six children in Jamaica — the youngest now 14. She had been sending money home. VideoWatch ‘Sister Green’ in church »
Her oldest daughter, 31-year-old Tecia Harrison, told CNN that she cannot bear to think of her mother’s last moments.
“I haven’t seen it, and I don’t think I have the heart or mind to watch it because that’s my mother there,” Harrison said. “That’s the woman who gave birth to me 31 years ago. I cannot watch that.”
Green was involuntarily admitted to the hospital’s psychiatric emergency department June 18 for “agitation and psychosis.”
Friend Peter Pilgrim says he saw Green a few days before her death. He says she was struggling with losing her job at a day care center and had been forced to move out of her apartment.
“Esmin Green is a beautiful person,” he said. “She has a good heart. She loved people, and she loved children.”
Green’s pastor says she had been hospitalized with emotional problems once before and recently appeared to be in distress again. So the pastor called 911, a decision that haunts her.
Upon her admission, Green waited nearly 24 hours for treatment, said the New York Civil Liberties Union, which released the surveillance video of the incident Tuesday.
Her collapse came at 5:32 a.m. June 19, the NYCLU said, and she stopped moving at 6:07 a.m. During that time, according to the organization, workers at the hospital ignored her.
At 6:35 a.m., the tape shows a hospital employee approaching and nudging Green with her foot, the group said. Help was summoned three minutes later. VideoWatch the surveillance video »
In addition, the organization said, hospital staff falsified Green’s records to cover up the time she had lain there without assistance.
“Contrary to what was recorded from four different angles by the hospital’s video cameras, the patient’s medical records say that at 6 a.m., she got up and went to the bathroom, and at 6:20 a.m. she was ‘sitting quietly in waiting room’ — more than 10 minutes since she last moved and 48 minutes after she fell to the floor.”
The medical examiner’s office says it is still trying to determine what caused Green’s death. Her medical records will be the focus of an investigation. Hospital documents say she was “awake and sitting quietly” at the very moment she was actually struggling on the floor.
The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which oversees the hospital, released a statement Tuesday saying it was “shocked and distressed by this situation. It is clear that some of our employees failed to act based on our compassionate standards of care.”
James Saunders, a spokesman for the corporation, said seven employees have been fired or suspended: the chief of psychiatry, chief of security, a doctor, two nurses and two security guards.
A Health and Hospitals Corporation spokeswoman said it was aware of the discrepancies in Green’s record when it began the preliminary investigation June 20.
The corporation pledged to put “additional and significant” reforms in place in the wake of the death.
A federal investigation is also under way, looking into abuse allegations at Kings County that were detailed in a lawsuit in 2007.
In May 2007, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Mental Hygiene Legal Service sued Kings County in federal court, alleging that conditions at the facility are filthy. Patients are often forced to sleep in plastic chairs or on floors covered in urine, feces and blood while waiting for beds, the groups allege, and often go without basic hygiene such as showers, clean linens and clean clothes.
The lawsuit claims that patients who complain face physical abuse and are injected with drugs to keep them docile.
The hospital, the suit alleges, lacks “the minimal requirements of basic cleanliness, space, privacy, and personal hygiene that are constitutionally guaranteed even to convicted felons.”
Among the reforms agreed to in court Tuesday by the hospital are additional staffing; checking of patients every 15 minutes; and limiting to 25 the number of patients in the psychiatric emergency ward, officials said.
In addition, the hospital said it is expanding crisis-prevention training for staff; expanding space to prevent overcrowding; and reducing patients’ wait time for release, treatment or placement in an inpatient bed.
Artie Lange and Baba Booey Attacked in Afghanistan
StoriesNo Injuries Reported as Convoy is Attacked After USO Show
Howard Stern comics bombed, no joke
Thursday, July 3rd 2008, 4:00 AM
Howard Stern pals Gary Dell’Abate and Artie Lange came under fire after performing a comedy show in Afghanistan.
Howard Stern nearly lost his closest cohorts in Afghanistan this week.
Stern’s Sirius radio show producer Gary Dell’Abate, show regular Artie Lange and comedians Nick DiPaolo, Jim Florentine and Dave Attell had just finished a comedy show for troops in Kandahar when the base came under attack.
“Everything was going fine until the end,” a friend of the comics, who heard from them by cell phone, tells us. “They were all done with their sets, and they were headed in a car convoy to a meet-and-greet elsewhere, but they only made it about 20 yards.
“The military base they were on came under mortar fire, and the convoy was turned around.”
Troops led the comics into a secure bunker, where they all waited for a very unfunny 35 minutes as the shelling continued.
Eventually it stopped, and the comedians, all uninjured, went on to continue the USO/Armed Forces Entertainment tour at other undisclosed locations in the Persian Gulf. Tony Burton, Dell’Abate’s rep, confirmed the incident but couldn’t comment.
Before they left for Afghanistan, callers like lawyer Dominic Barbara phoned in to the Stern show and wondered if the comics, especially those like Dell’Abate, who has children, should be risking their lives.
But Dell’Abate seemed most concerned about the 22-hour flight to the country, saying he’d never flown longer than seven hours.
Lange seemed most worried about what material they could use, given the Army’s orders not to make jokes involving President Bush, sex, race, religion, drugs or drinking.
Any safety fears he may have had surely disappeared when he heard how desperate the troops are for entertainment. In fact, when the soldiers heard they were getting a show, they were ecstatic, according to the Stern fan site Marksfriggin.com.
So far, Scarlett Johansson, Robin Williams, Kid Rock, Toby Keith, Morgan Freeman, Jessica Simpson, Kelli Pickler and bands O.A.R. and Five for Fighting have been among the few courageous enough to go to the war zones to bring soldiers a bit of cheer.
But Stern himself may have had the last word on the tour when he joked, “Why is Gary going, anyway? He’s not even funny.”
No worries: Dell’Abate is serving as the tour’s emcee.
This Just In: Obama Completely and Utterly Sells Out To Fear
Glen Greenwald, SalonGlenn Greenwald in SALON
Obama adviser Greg Craig: adding insult to injury
In today’s New York Times, James Risen — who won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing Bush’s illegal NSA spying program — has an article on Obama supporters who are criticizing Obama for his FISA reversal and attempting to defeat the bill Obama supports. The article quotes Jane Hamsher, Markos Moulitsas and myself and features the very innovative effort by Obama supporters to use his campaign’s social networking tools to urge Obama to oppose the FISA bill (more on that campaign here). For his article, Risen spoke with Obama adviser Greg Craig, a partner at the Washington law firm Williams & Connolly, and this is what Craig told Risen:
Greg Craig, a Washington lawyer who advises the Obama campaign, said Tuesday in an interview that Mr. Obama had decided to support the compromise FISA legislation only after concluding it was the best deal possible.
“This was a deliberative process, and not something that was shooting from the hip,” Mr. Craig said. “Obviously, there was an element of what’s possible here. But he concluded that with FISA expiring, that it was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire.”
Craig’s statement is flat-out false. FISA — enacted in 1978 and amended many times to accommodate modern communications technology — has no expiration date. The Protect America Act, which Congress enacted last August to legalize warrantless eavesdropping on Americas, had a 6-month sunset provision and thus already expired back in February, restoring FISA as the governing law. Thus, if Congress does nothing now, FISA will continue indefinitely to govern the Government’s power to spy on the communications of Americans. It doesn’t expire. What Craig said in defense of Obama is just wrong.
I emailed Craig this morning about his comments (here) and when I received no reply, I called him, left a message, and he called me this afternoon. After I read him his quote, explained that FISA won’t expire, and pointed out that his comment in the NYT therefore made no sense, Craig paused for awhile and then said that he meant that the “warrants under FISA would expire in August,” and Obama supported the FISA “compromise” to prevent that from happening. When I asked Craig if he was referring to the surveillance orders authorized by the Protect America Act that allow the Government to spy with no individual warrants (which have a one-year duration and do expire in August), Craig said that this is what he meant, and that Obama wanted to avoid having those surveillance orders expire.
While that last version at least generally comports with reality, it makes no sense whatsoever as an explanation for Obama’s FISA position. Back in August, when he was seeking the Democratic nomination, Obama voted against the Protect America Act. Therefore, had Obama had his way, there never would have been any PAA in the first place, and therefore, there never would have been any PAA orders possible. Having voted against the PAA last August, how can Obama now claim that he considers it important that the PAA orders not expire? How can he be eager to avoid the expiration of surveillance orders which he opposed authorizing in the first place?
I asked Craig that question several times and received completely incoherent replies, after which he started insisting that he already answered me and had nothing else to add (he then changed the subject to talk about the “improvements” the current bill achieves over the Rockefeller Senate bill). The fact is that there is no answer. In the past, Obama has opposed the type of warrantless eavesdropping which those PAA orders authorize. He’s repeatedly said that the FISA court works and there’s no need to authorize eavesdropping without individual warrants. None of that can be reconciled with his current claim that he supports this FISA “compromise” because National Security requires that those PAA orders not expire and that there be massive changes to FISA. It’s just as simple as that.
It’s bad enough that Obama is supporting a new warrantless eavesdropping scheme. They should just candidly admit that he changed his position rather than feeding incoherent and insultingly false rationalizations to the public — whereby they throw around the terms “National Security” and “balance” enough times and hope that nobody notices or cares that what they’re saying makes no sense. One of the strengths of the Obama campaign has been a willingness to have adult discussions about complex political issues, assume a fair amount rationality and intelligence on the part of the voting public, and avoid manipulative, obfuscating sloganeering like this. It’s just adding insult to injury to resort to nonsensical justifications of the type Craig put into the New York Times today.
Just to get a flavor for how fundamental a reversal is Obama’s FISA position, here is what Obama said back in February when accepting Chris Dodd’s endorsement:
We know it’s time to time to restore our Constitution and the rule of law. This is an issue that was at the heart of Senator Dodd’s candidacy, and I share his passion for restoring the balance between the security we demand and the civil liberties that we cherish.
The American people must be able to trust that their president values principle over politics, and justice over unchecked power. I’ve been proud to stand with Senator Dodd in his fight against retroactive immunity for the telecommunications industry. Secrecy and special interests must not trump accountability. We must show our citizens — and set an example to the world — that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient. Because in America –- no one is above the law.
Here is what he said back in January:
Ever since 9/11, this Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.
The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.
No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people — not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed. . . .
A grassroots movement of Americans has pushed this issue to the forefront. You have come together across this country. You have called upon our leaders to adhere to the Constitution. You have sent a message to the halls of power that the American people will not permit the abuse of power — and demanded that we reclaim our core values by restoring the rule of law.
It’s time for Washington to hear your voices, and to act. I share your commitment to this cause, and will stand with you in the fights to come.
And obviously, his vow last October to “support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies” can’t be reconciled with his vow to “support” such a bill now.
The issue is not — as one extremely confused Obama-cheering blogger put it — that Obama has done “something contrary to what conventional wisdom as dictated by a small coterie of prominent bloggers agrees with,” nor is it — as an equally confused, Obama-cheering Ed Kilgore put it — that Obama is “stray[ing] from Democratic Party orthodoxy or from strict down-the-line partisanship” by “expressing heretical thoughts on FISA” (incidentally, it’s amazing how the rule of law, the Fourth Amendment and accountability for Bush lawbreaking have now — in service of defending Obama — all been instantaneously reduced to nothing more than quirky, self-absorbed, petty blogger “dictates,” and Obama’s disregarding of those core political values is a bold demonstration that he won’t be held hostage to anyone’s narrow partisan demands).
The issue is that Obama has repeatedly, over the course of the last year, made emphatic commitments and clear statements about his core political values that are completely irreconcilable with his support for the FISA bill. It’s possible to recognize that someone is just a “politician” and still trust that they’re telling you essentially the truth about what they think and what they’ll do. One hard-core Obama supporter explains that here.
As I said, it’s bad enough that this is being done. Eventually, the sting of what Obama and Democrats generally have done will diminish somewhat for many people. But for those who have sat by watching the Bush administration and its followers exploit complexities over spying issues in order to issue one false claim after the next to justify his lawbreaking, having the Obama campaign issue factually false and/or incoherent explanations to justify Obama’s conduct only makes matters worse, not better.
From Secret Deals With Big Oil in The White House to Permanent Bases in Iraq
Stories Engel: Permanent Bases Would Technically Be Iraqi With U.S.
‘Tenants’ As ‘A Face Saving Device
On Thursday, the UK Independent’s Patrick Cockburn reported on “a secret deal being
negotiated in Baghdad” that “would perpetuate the American
military occupation of Iraq indefinitely.” According to Cockburn,
the deal result in American soldiers being stationed on permanent bases in Iraq:
Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US
troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations,
arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise
Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending
conflict in their country.
On the same day, NPR’s Diane Rehm asked
NBC News Middle East correspondent Richard Engel about the report.
Engel said that as part of “a face saving device,” the
bases would technically be Iraqi and “U.S. troops would reside on
them as tenants”:
ENGEL: That’s the question, is it permanent bases or is it not, and the details of this have not been published. The
U.S. and Iraqi officials I’ve spoken to say they would not be
U.S. permanent bases in Iraq, they would be Iraqi bases and that U.S.
troops would reside on them as tenants and may even have to pay some
sort of nominal rent, so there would be a face saving device.
What’s also trying to be worked out is what’s the exact
U.S. mission. Would they be able to conduct independent operations
without the advice and consultation of the Iraqi government and that
has been a point of contention.
After Cockburn’s report was released, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq,
Ryan Crocker, tried to quash talk of permanent U.S. bases, telling
reporters that “it is not going to be forever.”
But Crocker also spoke of a situation that could comport with
Engel’s “face saving” description, claiming that
“there isn’t going to be an agreement that infringes on
Iraqi sovereignty.”
Transcript:
REHM: Here’s an email from James asking about an
article published today in the Independent in UK by Patrick Coburn and
it’s entitled, Revealed: Secret Plan To Keep Iraq Under U.S.
Control. Do you know about this?ENGEL: I don’t know the article, but I know Patrick Cockburn,
he’s a friend and a fine reporter. Is this, I’ll take a
look at the article.REHM: Just published today and our communicator in Raleigh says, “why has this not received more attention?”
ENGEL: I know what he’s talking about. This is the strategic
long term agreement that is being negotiated between Iraq and the
United States. This is a deal that is supposed to be, and we have
reported it, I think NBC News was the first to report this, it was, it
is a long term strategic alliance that is being hammered out, mostly in
secret in Baghdad. And that has many, many Iraqis concerned, it has
some U.S. officials concerned as well. The U.S. negotiators that
I’ve spoken to who are involved in this insist that it is not a
treaty, that it will not commit large numbers of U.S. forces to Iraq
for a long time, but it does clarify what the role of U.S. forces will
be for a long period going forward.REHM: I.E.
ENGEL: That’s the question, is it permanent bases or is it
not, and the details of this have not been published. The U.S. and
Iraqi officials I’ve spoken to say they would not be U.S.
permanent bases in Iraq, they would be Iraqi bases and that U.S. troops
would reside on them as tenets and may even have to pay some sort of
nominal rent, so there would be a face saving device. What’s also
trying to be worked out is what’s the exact U.S. mission. Would
they be able to conduct independent operations without the advice and
consultation of the Iraqi government and that has been a point of
contention.DOZIER: I know a member of Crocker’s team has been working on
this for about a year behind the scenes. And one of the major sticking
points is what law will apply to U.S. troops, how much will they be
able to do on their own, how much will they have to…they want of
course the rights that they have right now, to stage their own
missions, their own raids, without getting anybody’s say so, just
informing, “We’re headed off, we’re going to do
this.” The Iraqis are pushing for approval of everything and also
that Iraqi law would apply to soldiers, Marines who conduct violent
acts.
Kos Jumps a Shark
Stories[Ed. note: I’ve liked Markos since I used to read his baby blog and before he basically
invented the Netroots. With that said, this may not just be his “Jump the Shark” moment but it may also be some of the worst writing in the history of the game]
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
Rewarding good behavior
by kos
Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 11:05:46 AM PDTSo many of you are upset that I pulled back my credit card last night, making a last minute decision to hold back on a $2,300 contribution to Obama. Let me explain further:
First of all, obviously Obama is a great candidate who is running a great 50-state race. That much cannot be denied. But he’s had a rough couple of weeks.
First, he reversed course and capitulated on FISA, not just turning back on the Constitution, but on the whole concept of “leadership”. Personally, I like to see presidents who 1) lead, and 2) uphold their promises to protect the Constitution.
Then, he took his not-so-veiled swipe at MoveOn in his “patriotism” speech.
Finally, he reinforced right-wing and media talking points that Wes Clark had somehow impugned McCain’s military service when, in reality, Clark had done no such thing.
All of a sudden, there was a lot of cowering when, just days ago, we got to read this:
When Mr. Wenner asked how Mr. Obama might respond to harsh attacks from Republicans, suggesting that Democrats have “cowered” in the past, Mr. Obama replied, “Yeah, I don’t do cowering.”
Could’ve fooled me, and maybe he is. Maybe what looks like cowering to me is really part of that “moving to the center” stuff everyone keeps talking about. But there is a line between “moving to the center” and stabbing your allies in the back out of fear of being criticized. And, of late, he’s been doing a lot of unecessary stabbing, betraying his claims of being a new kind of politician. Not that I ever bought it, but Obama is now clearly not looking much different than every other Democratic politician who has ever turned his or her back on the base in order to prove centrist bona fides. That’s not an indictment, just an observation.
Now I know there’s a contingent around here that things Obama can do no wrong, and he must never be criticized, and if you do, well fuck you! I respect the sentiment, but will respectfully disagree. We’re allowed to do that here. But fair notice — I will never pull a Rush Limbaugh and carry water for anyone. Not for the Democratic Congress, and not for our future Democratic president. When anyone does something I don’t care for, I will say so. I’ve never pulled my punches before, so why start now?
Obama will be fine without my contribution, and he may even still get it before this thing is said and done, but it would be at a time when he has done something positive. That’s called rewarding good behavior. And if that opportunity fails to arise because Obama goes on a Sister Souljah’ing rampage, then no worries. Chances are good that the DNC would get the money instead. But at this time, I simply have no desire to reward bad behavior. Some of you don’t care about his behavior, or don’t think it’s bad behavior, or whatever. I didn’t ask any of you to follow suit, and don’t care whether you do or not. I didn’t pull him from the Orange to Blue list. I’m not going to start praising Nader or Barr. I’ll still vote for him. Yadda, yadda, yadda. At the end of the day, I’m pretty irrelevant in the whole affair. Obama is going to raise a ton of dough and win this thing whether I send him money or not.
Ultimately, he’s currently saying that he doesn’t need people like me to win this thing, and he’s right. He doesn’t. If they’ve got polling or whatnot that says that this is his best path to victory, so much the better. I want him to win big. But when the Obama campaign makes those calculations, they have to realize that they’re going to necessarily lose some intensity of support. It’s not all upside. And for me, that is reflected in a lack of interest in making that contribution.
That’s it. No need to freak out. It is what it is. Others will happily pick up the slack. We’re headed toward a massive Democratic wave, and what I decide to do with my money means next to nothing, no matter how much hyperventilating may happen on this site’s comments and diaries about it all.
And if for some crazy hard-to-see reason my money actually is important to the Obama campaign, then they can adjust their behavior to get it.
The New York Times Blog Reacts to Sy Hersh's Latest Act of Journalism
StoriesJune 30, 2008, 12:10 pm
Mixed Reactions to Report on U.S. Moves Against Iran
More
than two years after his reporting stoked worries that there might be
another American war in the Middle East, Seymour Hersh is getting a lot
of attention with another installment in this week’s New Yorker titled “Preparing the Battlefield.”
In 2006,
his major revelation was that the United States had accelerated
military planning against Iran. His new article focuses on a “major
escalation” of covert activities against Iran following a finding, or
declaration, signed by President Bush late last year. The operations
are detailed by anonymous sources (read the full article here), including one who provided the big picture:
“The Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear
ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime
change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and it involved
“working with opposition groups and passing money.”
Congressional leaders on intelligence,
including some key Democrats, have backed the finding by approving $400
million to carry it out, the article said. Already there are fervent
protests on left-leaning blogs similar to those voiced after the warrantless wiretapping program was revealed: “But what about Congressional oversight?”
The larger concern, of course, is whether the White House is laying
the groundwork for an attack before the Bush administration leaves
office.
While the article states that “clandestine operations against Iran
are not new,” it also says there are “serious questions” in Congress
about whether American forces are going too far. Since the Bush
administration does not seek oversight for covert military activities,
Mr. Hersh wrote that “Congress has been given only a partial view of
how the money it authorized may be used.”
The administration, the C.I.A. and lawmakers declined to comment on
the report, but Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq,
responded on CNN on Sunday. “I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are
not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or
anywhere else,” he said.
The article refers to “a secret military task force … operating in
Iran” and an anonymous member of Congress drawing the line thusly: “No
lethal action, period” inside the country. Senior American officials “may not tell the ambassador everything” going on inside Iran, Mr. Hersh suggested on CNN on Sunday.
The Iranian government seemed to be observing the back-and-forth
with great interest. Press TV, a satellite channel sponsored by Iran’s
state-run television operation, quickly published reports on the piece, Mr. Crocker’s reaction and a more run-of-the-mill threat from an Iranian general who announced that the military was “digging 320,000 graves for invaders.”
The article by Mr. Hersh, who uncovered the My Lai massacre in
Vietnam in 1969, prompted outrage on the left and dismissals on the
right. “IT’S HERSH,” Redstate, a frequent critic of Mr. Hersh, wrote. “COME ON!” The blogger was referring to some criticisms that he has a tendency to inflate information that is critical of the government.
Several bloggers seemed aware of the issue, warning readers that the
important news on Congressional approval of the covert operations seems
to be mixed with less reliable information.
Regarding one part of the article that mentions a meeting held by
Vice President Cheney on “how to create a casus belli between Tehran
and Washington,” Isaac Chotiner of The New Republic asks,
“Why is this buried at the very end of the piece? Why is not followed
up on even slightly?” And Foreign Policy magazine’s lead blogger, Blake
Hounshell, linked to the New Yorker story with a reservation: “Let’s just say that it’s far from certain the United States is doing what he claims.”
Laura Rozen, a national security writer, included further caution on a source quoted several times in the article, Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel.
“In the end, I just don’t think the Bush administration is trying to
seriously destabilize the Iranian regime or change it,” Ms. Rozen
wrote.
The conclusion echoed a news analysis in The New York Times a day after it reported that Israel had held a military exercise seemingly aimed at Iran.
As it happens, Ms. Rozen asked several experts about the possibility
of a U.S. attack on Iran for an article on MotherJones.com just before
the Hersh piece emerged. With sound bites like “very, very unlikely,” “quite low,” “less rather than more likely,” there was far less alarm than in The New Yorker.
But there were quite a few caveats in their comments as well,
reflecting that no outsider to the decision-making process can judge
the matter with assurance. And in any case, there’s a wild card:
Israel. Or as Jacqueline Shire, one of the analysts talking to Mother
Jones, said: “In short, who knows?”
Settlement in NY lawsuit over NBC's 'Predator'
StoriesNEW YORK (AP) NBC Universal has settled a $105 million lawsuit
brought by a woman who claimed ”Dateline NBC: To Catch A
Predator” led her brother to kill himself after camera crews and
police officers showed up at his home in a televised sex sting.
”The matter has been amicably resolved to the satisfaction of
both parties,” said a statement released by both sides.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Patricia Conradt’s lawsuit had claimed her brother, an assistant
prosecutor in suburban Dallas, fatally shot himself after he was
accused of engaging in a sexually explicit online chat with an
adult posing as a 13-year-old boy.
The lawsuit claimed NBC ”steamrolled” authorities to arrest
Louis William Conradt Jr. after telling police he failed to show up
at a sting operation 35 miles away.
NBC was working with the activist group Perverted Justice on the
sting, in which people impersonating children established online
chats with men and tried to lure them to a house, where they were
met by TV cameras and police.
In February, a federal judge issued a scathing ruling in the
case, saying a jury might conclude the network ”crossed the line
from responsible journalism to irresponsible and reckless intrusion
into law enforcement.”
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said the lawsuit contained
sufficient facts to make it plausible that the suicide was
foreseeable, that police had a duty to protect Conradt from killing
himself and that the officers and NBC acted with deliberate
indifference.
New episodes of ”To Catch A Predator” ended in December, with
the future of the series uncertain.
”Right now we are working on other investigative stories
focusing on national security and the economy,” NBC spokeswoman
Jenny Tartikoff said in an e-mail. ”If we do more, we want to make
sure we are complementing past investigations not just repeating
them.”
The New York Herald Sun 