TODAY'S TOPICS: FISA and Press, Whiners, McCain v. Veterans, China/Taiwan, Stolen Election 04', Enviro Troubles

WHAT'S REALLY BEHIND FISA...STIFLE DISSENT, SILENCE THE PRESS

The law, passed under the guise of national security, ostensibly targets people outside the country. There is no question, however, that it will ensnare many communications between Americans and those overseas. Those communications can be stored indefinitely and disseminated, not just to the U.S. government but to other governments.

This law will cripple the work of those of us who as reporters communicate regularly with people overseas, especially those in the Middle East. It will intimidate dissidents, human rights activists and courageous officials who seek to expose the lies of our government or governments allied with ours. It will hang like the sword of Damocles over all who dare to defy the official versions of events. It leaves open the possibility of retribution and invites the potential for abuse by those whose concern is not with national security but with the consolidation of their own power.

SNIP

I spent nearly 20 years as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, as well as other news organizations. I covered the conflict in the Middle East for seven years. I have friends and colleagues in Jerusalem, Gaza, Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, Baghdad and Beirut. I could easily be one of those innocent Americans who are spied on under the government’s new surveillance authority.

The reach of such surveillance has already hampered my work. I was once told about a showdown between a U.S. warship and the Iranian navy that had the potential to escalate into a military conflict. I contacted someone who was on the ship at the time of the alleged incident and who reportedly had photos. His first question was whether my phone and e-mails were being monitored.

What could I say? How could I know? I offered to travel to see him but, frightened of retribution, he refused. I do not know if the man’s story is true. I only know that the fear of surveillance made it impossible for me to determine its veracity. Under this law, all those who hold information that could embarrass and expose the lies of those in power will have similar fears. Confidentiality, and the understanding that as a reporter I will honor this confidentiality, permits a free press to function. Take it away and a free press withers and dies.

-- Chris Hedges was part of the team of New York Times reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for reporting on global terrorism

VIDEO SECTION

Watch Mccain stumble and bumble over his stand on a woman’s health issue…and expect no media backlash in response. In fact, they all yuck it up over his ignorance! Can you imagine if Obama couldn’t answer a question like that? If Obama gives a funny look it’s a headline story. The double standard has reached comical (if it wasn’t so serious) proportions. In case you were wondering, McCain voted against a bill in 2003 that would have required health insurance companies to cover prescription birth control…just as Viagra is!

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/10/media-laughs-as-mccain-stumbles-on-serious-womens-health-question/

And this may be the gift of the campaign to Obama…all he has to do now is run with it:
Yesterday, in an interview with the Washington Times, former Sen. Phil Gramm, the so-called "econ brain" of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), remarked that the United States has "sort of become a nation of whiners." "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day." "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said. Yesterday afternoon, McCain said that Gramm "does not speak for me," despite the fact that Gramm's comments mirror what McCain said in April: "A lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological." Gramm's apparent desire to keep to a minimum discussion of the real and painful effects of the nation's stalling economy is not surprising, given that he shares the same harmful conservative ideology as McCain and Bush. Gramm played a key roll in gutting many of the institutions designed to keep the economy sound.

Serving Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee between 1999 and 2001, he "routinely turned down Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt's requests for more money to police Wall Street." Later, he "pushed to end oversight" of energy futures trading for a key campaign contributor and his wife's onetime employer, Enron. Around the same time, "Gramm pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that decimated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms." The financial maneuvers enabled by Gramm's legislative measures would become "the heart of the subprime meltdown." More recently, it was revealed that Gramm was "being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he was advising McCain about his economic policy." But while Gramm is able to insulate himself, and even profit from, the negative effects of his legislative and lobbying record, the vast majority of Americans are not so fortunate.

And yet, Obama is supposed to be the "elitist? Watch him knock it out of the park:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/10/top-mccain-econ-adviser-we-have-sort-of-become-a-nation-of-whiners/

And again, this SHOULD BE a headline story, as McCain is busted by a Vietnam veteran, on camera, for his abysmal record on veteran’s issues. Yes, you heard me correctly, McCain has a horrible record on VETERAN rights issues. Worse, McCain is caught in a bald faced LIE about that record, as he has the utter gall to claim he has a “perfect” record by all veteran groups, that he has received all their “awards”, and that they all endorse him. In each of these cases, the truth is nearly opposite of what he’s saying, ON CAMERA, in this clip.

WATCH! (Since the media won’t cover this, I think its time for Obama to take the gloves off and start making McCain’s lying an issue in this campaign!):

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/08/mccain-gets-testy-with-vet-over-gi-bill/

And McCain’s total lack of knowledge about the economy, highlighted by is incredibly ignorant rants against Social Security of late, has gotten the attention of CNBC’s Jim Cramer…the guy that has that stock market show all about making money. Well, as annoying as he is, I give him credit for doing what no other corporate media is…calling McCain out for being the idiot he is…this is great:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/11/jim-cramer-on-mccains-lack-of-any-knowledge-whatsoever-about-economics/

If the mainstream media had been paying closer attention, this week could have sunk John McCain's presidential campaign.

Here’s an excellent breakdown by McCain Watch: “In just the last four days, McCain called the most important entitlement program in the U.S. an "absolute disgrace," his top economic adviser described the American people as whiners, McCain released an economic plan that no one thought was serious, he flip flopped on Iraq, joked about the deaths of Iranian citizens, and denied making comments that he clearly made—TWICE. All this before Friday! Yet watching and reading the mainstream press you would think McCain was having a pretty decent political week, I mean at least Jesse Jackson didn't say anything about him.

Any one of these incidents and comments would dominate the news cycle if they came from the Obama campaign. Yet McCain barely gets a mention. The press like to see themselves as political referees - neutral observers that call them like they see em'. But they want this to be a horse race and so all the calls right now are going one way. How else can you explain the furor last week over the Obama "refine" comment - which represented zero change in Obama's position on Iraq - and the "swift boat" mania over Wesley Clark's uncontroversial comments (psss... by the way McCain exploits his POW experience in just about every ad - yet he says he doesn't like to talk about it).”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-bergmann/the-week-that-should-have_b_111983.html

The great Congresswoman Barbara Lee (from the East Bay) is interviewed by Will Pitt of Truthout. This “my friends” (I’m doing my McCain impression right now) is what a real progressive and courageous politician sounds like:

http://www.truthout.org/video/interview-with-rep-barbara-lee

Karl Rove flees the country…time to arrest that motherf*****. We may actually get to see that day! Watch democratic congresswoman Sanchez discuss possible next options in forcing Rove to testify regarding his role in the sting operation orchestrated by Republicans in Alabama to arrest and jail, Democratic Governor Don Siegelman.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/91181/

ARTICLE SECTION

I like that general concept developed here by Robert scheer that other nations are realizing its just not in their best interest to fight...and true strength won't come from wasting resources on weapons and war, as we are doing here, but instead through investing in their own country and people while choosing peace over war. The case study here is China and Taiwan's progress of late.

A lesson the US is going to have to embrace at some point or else we are finished. We simply can't address the deep and entrenched problems our country faces (from health care to education to poverty) if we keep spending our treasure and lives on wars and weapons...this is an age old fate of imperialist powers: they overstretch themselves and become consumed with power and dominance rather than focusing on getting our own "house in order".

A few clips first:

You can’t trust the Chinese. I don’t care if you’re talking about those communists on the mainland or the other guys on Taiwan; they just won’t follow the war-games script that our weapons hawks had counted on. Their mutual passion runs not to matters of tired politics but rather on the lust of venture capitalists. To the Chinese, irrespective of past allegiances, the prospect of war has come to be viewed as counterproductive, and they now have the confidence to show it.

SNIP

That peace has broken out is a nightmare scenario for America’s military hawks in desperate need of an excuse for soaking up more than half of the U.S. government’s discretionary budget. There was real panic when Mikhail Gorbachev formally ended the Cold War and George H.W. Bush announced a 30 percent cut in military spending in 1992. Then came the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the wildest peacetime spending spree in history. No one in power noticed that the expensive weapons were designed to defeat an enemy that no longer existed.

SNIP

Fomenting fear of China is essential to making the case for the whole range of high-tech war toys that no longer have a legitimate military purpose. But it’s a sick joke. We are paying the Chinese the interest on the money we borrow from them to build very expensive weapons to counter weapons the Chinese have no intention of building. The latest word from the Pentagon is that “[t]he Intelligence Community estimates China will take until the end of this decade or later to produce a modern force capable of defeating a moderate-size adversary.”

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/09/10239/

As the election approaches, I’m going to occasionally remind everyone how the 2004 election was stolen so we are all prepared for them to try it again. In this case, here are some of the details on how Latino voters were targeted and disenfranchised in Ohio in 2004…one of many ways the GOP “steals elections”..

A few clips:

On the eve of the 2004 presidential election, the Republican Party threatened to challenge the qualifications of 35,000 registered voters in Ohio, and went to court to secure their right to do so. For the most part, this turned out to be a smokescreen, or what Steven Rosenfeld has aptly called a "perfect football fake." Not only did it force the Democratic Party to send its own voting rights advocates to inner-city polling places to defend the challenged voters, but it served as a distraction that allowed other methods of voter disenfranchisement to escape detection.

Voters in Cleveland and Akron went to the wrong voting machines, intended for a different precinct, on which the candidates' names were listed in a different sequence, which caused their votes to be shifted from Democrat John Kerry to Constitution Party candidate John Peroutka, Libertarian Michael Badnarik, Reform Party candidate Ralph Nader or Republican George W. Bush. Voters in all the urban punch card counties were given ballots already punched for a third-party candidate, thus ruining ballots expected to be punched for Kerry. And we have powerful evidence that Latino voters in Cleveland were intimidated into leaving the polling places without ever receiving a ballot at all.

http://www.truthout.org/article/a-lesson-from-2004-ohio-election-how-latinos-were-disenfranchised

SO FOR ALL YOU WHINERS…WHAT’S THE BIG PROBLEM??? Here are 10 real examples of how Americans are hurting in the current economy:

HOUSING FORECLOSURES INCREASING: As a result of the subprime lending crisis, "housing foreclosures nationwide were up 50% in June compared with the same month in 2007." In California alone, foreclosures have reached an average of 500 per day.

HOMELESSNESS INCREASING: The number of homeless people in America over the age of 50 is "steadily increasing."

HEALTHCARE COSTS RISING: According to a report by the Government Accountability Office, "health-care costs are growing much faster than the economy." Costs are rising so significantly, some Americans are delaying retirement.

GAS PRICES RISING: The national average gas price is $4.09, up 33 percent from this time last year. Gas prices are now expected to hit "$4.25 by the fall and then stay at more than $4 a gallon until the end of 2009."

JOB LOSSES INCREASING: In the first six months of this year, a total of 438,000 jobs have been lost, bringing unemployment to 5.5 percent. The CEO of Bank of America commented, if unemployment continues to rise, "all bets are off."

FOOD COSTS RISING: "U.S. food prices rose 4 percent in 2007" -- the fastest rise in 17 years -- and as a result, food stamps have considerably less buying power.

HEATING AND ELECTRICITY COSTS RISING: Heating oil costs across the North are expected to be "up 60 percent from last year," and utilities across the country are "raising power prices up to 29%."

REAL WAGES DECLINING: "Slower wage growth and faster inflation has led to falling real hourly and weekly earnings for most workers."

LEISURE SPENDING DECLINING: As a result of the rising cost of living, Americans are "tightening their belts and thinking twice about spending extra bucks on entertainment and leisure products."

VALUE OF DOLLAR DECLINING: The dollar "has been declining steadily for six years against other major currencies, undercutting its role as the leading international banking currency."

ENVIRONMENT SECTION…NOT GOOD…

Antarctic ice shelf 'hanging by thread': European scientists

In "a troubling sign of global warming," European scientists say that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica appears to be breaking up. The European Space Agency said yesterday that satellite images show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is "hanging by its last thread," which could "put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk."

"Current events are showing that we were being too conservative, when we made the prediction in the early 1990s that Wilkins Ice Shelf would be lost within 30 years. The truth is, it is going more quickly than we guessed." In the past three decades, six Antarctic ice shelves have collapsed completely -- Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf.

END

A third of reef-building corals threatened with extinction: scientists

A third of reef-building corals worldwide are threatened with extinction due to climate change and water pollution, according to the first global assessment on the marine creature by 39 scientists.

Destructive fishing and the degradation of coastal habitats also posed threats, said the study published Thursday involving the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Conservation International.

TODAY'S TOPICS: Solomon on Obama, "Moving to Middle", Goodman on Columbia, FISA, Feingold, Kennedy, McCain

“Senator Kennedy managed to make it back from treatment for cancer, but Senator McCain couldn’t be bothered. Senator McCain, who wants to be our next President, has skipped this vote three times now. Clearly, he’d rather hide than face up to the insurance industry. You can do that when you’re in the U.S. Senate, maybe voters should leave him there.”

-- Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) puts out a statement ripping McCain (who also is now completely misrepresenting Social Security and how its funded…this guy is scary)

“I sit on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, and I am one of the few members of this body who has been fully briefed on the warrantless wiretapping program. And, based on what I know, I can promise that if more information is declassified about the program in the future, as is likely to happen either due to the inspector general report, the election of a new president or simply the passage of time, members of this body will regret that we passed this legislation. I am also familiar with the collection activities that have been conducted under the Protect America Act and will continue under this bill. I invite any of my colleagues who wish to know more about those activities to come speak to me in a classified setting.

Publicly, all I can say is that I have serious concerns about how those activities may have impacted the civil liberties of Americans. If we grant these new powers to the government and the effects become known to the American people, we will realize what a mistake it was, of that I am sure. If Congress short-circuits these lawsuits, we will have lost a prime opportunity to finally achieve accountability for these years of law-breaking. That's why the administration has been fighting so hard for this immunity. It knows that the cases that have been brought directly against the government face much more difficult procedural barriers and are unlikely to result in rulings on the merits."

-- Russ Feingold on the tragic FISA vote...I just can't figure out why Obama would vote for it...it's immoral, its horrible strategy (just look at how much bad press he's getting for it), and its bad for our country

"We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama's shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games."

-- New York Times Editorial headlined "New and Not Improved", now we are seeing exactly what I said would happen if Obama started to "move to the center"…IT DOESN’T WORK!!!

VIDEO SECTION

Naomi Klein applies the shock doctrine to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the food crisis, and other world “events’ being exploited by the imperialist, corporate, fascist, and wealthy elite:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/10/naomi-klein-the-shock-doctrine-applied-to-anwr/

The great Russ Feingold talks FISA - and the sad moment for our country its passage represents – with Rachelle Maddow:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/09/countdown-russ-feingold-talks-about-fisa-a-sad-moment-for-our-country/

Three cheers for Ted Kennedy for making it to the Senate to ensure Medicare payments to doctors would not be cut. This was a critical, short term “victory” for the Democrats in the continuing battle in thwarting Republican attempt to dismantle everything the New Deal and the Great Society created…such as a social safety net, Medicare, Social Security, and so on…

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/09/kennedy-returns-to-senate-floor-to-usher-in-medicare-vote/

I’ve got to say, I’m a bit dumbfounded by Jackson’s comment that he wants to cut Obama’s nuts off…not very Reverend like if you ask me. I don’t see how this does Obama much damage however. In fact, if anything it helps him, as it makes him look less like the “scary black” activist, and more like a moderating voice urging personal responsibility, which for many, is exactly what they want to hear.

I do think Jackson has a point (not the cutting off his nuts part), in that while Obama “moves to the middle” he is in danger of watering down the power and truth of his words. In the case of speaking to African American issues, I have no doubt that he’s talking more about so called personal responsibility issues than he is the larger structural and systemic injustices of our system, and how that system creates and perpetuates a permanent black underclass. This is what has made Jackson upset...nonetheless, he should know better…

Rachelle Maddow discusses the latest largely meaningless “campaign drama” that is sure to get way more attention by the corporate media than it deserves:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/91072/

ARTICLE SECTION: The Obama Dilemma, Columbia

Well, I think we can all agree – after watching Obama’s campaign falter in the past two weeks – that “moving to the middle” not only was never a valid strategy, but its even less of one now. We must remember, the country has moved left, on issues from the war, to health care, to the environment and many more. But more to the point, it goes far beyond Left versus Right, its about authenticity and strength versus duplicity and dishonesty. Voters are hungry for, as demonstrated by Obama’s initial rise, someone that will stand up for what’s right and refuse to pander or sellout their principles in the name of political expediency.

Not only that, the media and the right wing are watching like hawks to pounce on “flip flops”, regardless whether they are legitimate or not, like never before. Therefore, as soon as someone like Obama (McCain meanwhile flip flops on every core issue known to man without any reporter saying anything) starts to shift his rhetoric and positions AT ALL he is going to be attacked for it. So why do it? Not only is the country NOT looking for yet another jelly fish politician, our opposition is LOOKING to attack democratic candidates for those very shifts! This of course plays right into the traditional frame of Democrats being weak too!! Further, by moving to the center, Obama undercuts the very “brand” that brought him to the party, and thereby risks deflating the energetic base of young people, progressives, and minorities that were inspired precisely BECAUSE he was “different” (ala opposing the war from the beginning!).

As we now see, throughout the media the new narrative is as I said it would be: Obama is weak, he's flip flopping, and he's losing support from those that put so much faith in him. And I'm not even getting into how such "moderating" hurts the long term effort to change our system and restore economic and social justice to our country. Worse, he has allowed McCain to seize the attack, while simultaneously stripping Obama of some of the credibility he needs to effectively attack McCain for his “flip flops”. All the while, his core supporters, people like me, are becoming disillusioned…and for him to win he will need the people and their energy.

On that note, read the great Norm Solomon on Obama, moving to the center (as I have also said, Obama was fairly centrist to start with), and why we must not only keep on his ass and make him a better candidate, but also not lose sight of the prize: preventing what would be a catastrophic McCain Presidency (think Supreme Court and Iran).

A few clips:

As an elected Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention, I've been hearing from people who are upset by the recent direction of the campaign. Some were always a bit skeptical of Obama, but are becoming much more so. Others have been strong supporters from the outset…

Obama and his top advisers will have to gauge the importance of such deflation and waning enthusiasm. A key factor in the election will be the extent to which the Obama campaign can pull off a massive mobilization of voters. Deflated constituencies don't mobilize as well as inspired ones.

SNIP

Some progressives, now disaffected, might consider the prospect of Obama falling short on Election Day to be his problem, not ours. But this isn't about Obama. It's about whether the levers of power in the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court along with it, are going to be redelivered into the hands of the right wing for yet another four years.

We're facing the historic imperative of keeping McCain out of the White House. If major progressive change is going to be feasible during the next several years, defeating McCain in November is necessary. And insufficient. The insufficiency does not negate the necessity. Under a McCain presidency, we'd be back to square one, where we've found ourselves since January 2001. Putting Obama in the White House would not by any means ensure progressive change, but under his presidency, the grassroots would have an opportunity to create it.

http://www.truthout.org/article/obama-and-progressive-base

I’m so glad Amy Goodman wrote this short piece reminding everyone – in the midst of all the celebration over the Columbian rescue – just how corrupt their government is, successful rescue or not. This is especially important to remember in light of the fact that a major “free” trade agreement is being pushed between our countries, and that McCain has some unseemly connections with the worst elements of their government.

A few clips:

Colombia has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid outside of Israel and Egypt. Amnesty International USA has called for a halt to all support for Colombia, saying ” … torture, massacres, ‘disappearances’ and killings of noncombatants are widespread, and collusion between the armed forces and paramilitary groups continues to this day. In 2006, U.S. assistance to Colombia amounted to an estimated $728 million, approximately 80 percent of which was military and police assistance.”

SNIP

The Huffington Post and The New York Times recently reported another McCain connection to Colombia. His top adviser, Charlie Black, resigned in March as chairman of the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm BKSH & Associates in order to work full time on the McCain campaign. Since 1998, BKSH has earned $1.8 million representing Occidental Petroleum, which has controversial oil operations in Colombia. Occidental worked with a military contractor and the Colombian military to counter pipeline attacks. In December 1998, the Colombian military dropped a bomb on the village of Santa Domingo, killing 11 adults and seven children. According to the Los Angeles Times, Occidental “supplied, directly or through contractors, troop transportation, planning facilities and fuel to Colombian military aircraft, including the helicopter crew accused of dropping the bomb.”

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/10/10268/

Economists Tricked Into Supporting McCain's Plan?

On Monday, John McCain's campaign released a statement signed by 300 economists who "enthusiastically support" his "Jobs for America" economic plan. There's just one problem.
Politico reports, "Upon closer inspection, it seems a good many of those economists don't actually support the whole of McCain's economic agenda. And at least one doesn't even support McCain for president."

In interviews with several signatories, Politico found that, "far from embracing McCain's economic plan, many were unfamiliar with—or downright opposed to—key details. While most of those contacted by Politico had warm feelings about McCain, many did not want to associate themselves too closely with his campaign and its policy prescriptions."

END

WHITE HOUSE ISSUES VETO THREAT ON BIPARTISAN HOUSING BILL FOR LOW-INCOME VETS: The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a veto threat yesterday against the Homes for Heroes Act, which would provide housing assistance for low-income veterans. The bill, introduced by Rep. Al Green (D-TX), passed 412-9 in the House Wednesday; a Senate companion bill introduced by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has 10 sponsors. The act authorizes $200 million for veterans' housing and support services, requires the Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide at least 10,000 rental vouchers a year available for homeless veterans as well as a comprehensive report on homeless veterans to be made each year. The Statement of Administration Policy released yesterday stated that the White House opposes provisions requiring that builders of veterans' housing pay prevailing wage and that Bush's "Senior Advisors would recommend that he veto" the bill. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and that veterans make up 23 percent of all homeless people in America.

Yesterday, the House approved legislation "designed to ensure the preservation of e-mails by the White House and other federal agencies." The measure "passed 286-137 in the wake of accusations that the White House had failed to preserve internal e-mails." The White House has threatened a veto.

"Home foreclosure filings jumped 53 percent in June from a year earlier," according to real estate data firm RealtyTrac. Though they were down 3 percent from May, "foreclosures are expected to rise further."

Gulf Stream Coach, a leading U.S. trailer manufacturer, "failed to disclose to Hurricane Katrina evacuees or the government its internal findings that formaldehyde in some units exceeded a federal health standard by as much as 45 times in 2006, its chairman acknowledged to Congress yesterday."

Tomorrow, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) plans to introduce a single article of impeachment against President Bush "for taking our nation and our troops to war based on lies." Last month, Kucinich presented 35 impeachment articles against Bush, which have been sent to the Judiciary Committee.

TODAY'S TOPICS: Global Warming Cover-Up, Maddow, Feingold, Iraq Govt. = Timetables, Kerry

Unfortunately I'm really under the weather these past few days so my post is going to consist of mostly pasting...

One quick note on Obama: I thought he was especially good in the past couple days on the issue of Iraq, the economy, and on Latino issues, among others. But will get to that another time...

“Maybe that’s a way of killing them.”

-- John McCain yesterday responding to report that $158 million in cigarettes have been shipped to Iran during George W. Bush’s presidency despite restrictions on U.S. exports to that country.

VIDEO SECTION

Rachelle Maddow - subbing for Olbermann these past few days - details a few more "Bushed"...such as the fact that even the Iraqi government wants a timetable now:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/08/countdowns-bushed-oops-you-thought-i-was-serious-when-i-said-that-edition/

Senator Russ Feingold gives a blistering speech on the FISA sham on the Senate Floor...may the 4th Amendment rest in peace:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/08/feingold-on-fisa-sham-bill-senators-should-take-a-real-hard-look-at-whether-they-want-to-be-associated-with-such-an-attack-on-the-rule-of-law/

John Kerry visits Face the Nation and as expected, anything he says about John McCain (and he dismantles him) is challenged as an attack on poor old grumpy gramps McSame as an attack on his integrity. Good thing he's got the media working for him, because the facts can't stand this guy:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/07/face-the-nation-mccain-media-bias-example-759/

And watch - as well as sign the petition - yet another brilliant short video by Director Robert Greenwald on Fox News's racism...in particular their continual racist attacks on Michelle Obama:

http://foxattacks.com/michelle?utm_source=rgemail

Cheney Cans Climate Change (Go Boxer! Yet another impeachable offense)

Last October, Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee about the "Human Impacts of Global Warming." Gerberding told the committee that global warming "is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans," but she gave few specifics, instead focusing on the CDC's current preparation plans. Soon after Gerberding delivered her testimony, CDC officials revealed that the White House had "eviscerated" her testimony by editing it down from 14 pages to four. The White House initially claimed that Gerberding's testimony had not been "watered down," but White House Press Secretary Dana Perino later admitted that the Office of Management and Budget had removed testimony that contained "broad characterizations about climate change science that didn't align with the IPCC." In a letter responding to questions by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) yesterday, former EPA official Jason Burnett revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the Council on Environmental Quality pushed to "remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change." During a news conference yesterday, Boxer chided Perino's previous claim that the edits were made in order to align the testimony with the IPCC. "This was a lie," said Boxer. The White House, however, refused to admit wrongdoing. "We stand 100 percent behind what Dana said," White House spokesperson Tony Fratto told reporters.

WHAT'S MISSING: The White House's deletions, which were "overwhelmingly denounced" by scientists and environmental health experts, included "details on how many people might be adversely affected because of increased warming and the scientific basis for some of the CDC's analysis on what kinds of diseases might be spread in a warmer climate and rising sea levels." The cuts made by the White House included "the only statements casting the health risks from climate change as a problem, describing it variously as posing 'difficult challenges' and as 'a serious public health concern.'" At the time, Perino claimed that "the decision" was made "to focus that testimony on public health benefits" of climate change. "There are public health benefits to climate change," asserted Perino. But in his letter to Boxer, Burnett said that the reason for the cuts was to "keep options open" for the EPA to avoid making an endangerment finding for global warming pollution, which was required by a recent Supreme Court ruling. In a statement yesterday, Boxer tied the editing of Gerberding's testimony to the recently-revealed effort by the White House to keep a formal EPA endangerment finding "in limbo" by refusing to even open the e-mail from Burnett that contained the document. They're "obviously related," said Boxer.

WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS 'NOTHING UNUSUAL': Defending against accusations that the White House is "recklessly covering up a real threat to the people they are supposed to protect," Fratto claimed that the Bush administration did nothing improper in editing the testimony. "There's absolutely nothing unusual here in terms of the inter-agency review process, whether it's testimony, rules or anything else," Fratto told the Washington Post. He added that "the process exists so that other offices and departments have the opportunity to comment and offer their views." But it's apparent that the level of editing involved in Gerberding's testimony was out of the ordinary. In October, a CDC official told the press that while it was normal for testimony to be changed in a White House review, the changes made to Gerberding's testimony were particularly "heavy-handed." In an interview with CNN yesterday, Gerberding said that she "wasn't aware that there had been any edits" to her testimony until she "got to the hearing." Gerberding maintained that she did "the very best" she could to "answer the senators' questions honestly and openly." Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, refused to comment on the allegations against Cheney's office, simply saying, "We don't comment on internal deliberations."

CHENEY'S MALIGN ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE: In his letter to Boxer, Burnett revealed that Cheney's office had also objected in January to congressional testimony by EPA administrator Stephen Johnson that "greenhouse gas emissions harm the environment." According to Burnett, an official in Cheney's office "called to tell me that his office wanted the language changed." Such actions are not unusual for Cheney. Since taking office, he has taken "a decisive role to undercut long-standing environmental regulations for the benefit of business" while undermining any real action to combat climate change. In December, after Johnson "answered the pleas of industry executives" by announcing his decision to deny California the right to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles, it was revealed that executives from the auto industry had appealed directly to Cheney. EPA staffers told the Los Angeles Times that Johnson "made his decision" only after Cheney met with the executives. Since February 2007, Cheney has quietly maneuvered to exert increased control over environmental policy by federal agencies -- particularly the regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

More on the White House Suppression of Key Global Warming Document (some a little redundant from above, but some not)

A ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that details both the threat of global warming and our ability to address the problem has been suppressed by the White House since December. This document, produced in response to a "monumental" Supreme Court mandate, includes a "multimillion-dollar study conducted over two years" that finds "the net benefit to society could be in excess of $2 trillion" if strong carbon dioxide emissions standards for the automotive industry are issued. The proposal to increase today's fuel economy standards by 50 percent from 25 miles per gallon to 38.3 mpg by 2020 is stronger than those included in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, which called for a 40 percent increase. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson used the signing of the act as the public excuse to reject the findings of his staff and block California's proposal to regulate greenhouse tailpipe emissions. In fact, congressional investigations have revealed that officials in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) refused to open the email containing the EPA plan and that Johnson has been stonewalling to prevent disclosure of President Bush's role.

$2 TRILLION BENEFIT: As first revealed by the Detroit News, an advanced model used by the EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) foundthat iincreasing fuel economy standards by 4 percent a year would have a net benefit to society of $1.4 to two trillion dollars by 2040. The benefit is strongly tied to the price of gasoline. Using the latest estimates from the Energy Information Administration, the EPA study assumed that gasoline prices would get no higher than $3.50 a gallon. Those figures are already outdated, as gasoline prices have reached an average of $4.09 a gallon, and oil prices are nearing $146 a barrel. With higher gasoline prices, the benefits of high carbon dioxide standards would be even greater. Consumers are responding already to the spiking price by moving away from gas guzzlers. Detroit automakers have suffered hard sales declines: "Ford Motor was down 28 percent in June, General Motors was off 18 percent, and Chrysler dropped 36 percent." Toyota likewise fell 21 percent. Only Honda Motor, with its fleet of fuel-efficient vehicles, saw any sales gains.

NEW STANDARDS: The ruling prepared by the EPA in December, after being rejected by the White House was pared down and recrafted as an "Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" -- a draft version with a request for further rounds of public comment, thus delaying any implementation until the next administration. Even after major cuts from the December version, this document makes a mockery of Bush's claim in April that applying the Clean Air Act to global warming pollution "would have crippling effects on our entire economy" and be a "glorious mess." In fact, the ruling finds "technology is readily available to achieve significant reductions," "the benefits of these new standards far outweigh the costs," and the new standards "would result in substantial reductions" in greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, under the terms of the 2007 Energy Act, NHTSA proposed gas-mileage standards that the Center for Biological Diversity criticized for being kept low "through a number of bizarre assumptions, including asserting that gas will cost $2.36 per gallon in 2020 and $2.51 in 2030." In contrast, the automotive industry -- after arguing they "acted in good faith" to develop the law -- is challenging these standards saying the NHTSA implementation "goes beyond what it is technologically feasible and economically practicable" and will create "net social costs."

INTENSE BATTLE: Johnson testified before Congress on May 20 that he would issue this rulemaking draft by the end of spring. (A version acquired by The Progress Report is dated May 30.) The Detroit News reported that the EPA proposal would be published June 23, but an "intense private battle" between OMB officials and the EPA has blocked publication. According to published reports, the political appointee in charge of the plan, Jason K. Burnett, stepped down because of this "collision course between the agency and the OMB." As the Wall Street Journal reported, the OMB "has asked the EPA to delete sections of the document that say such emissions endanger public welfare, say how those gases could be regulated, and show an analysis of the cost of regulating greenhouse gases in the U.S. and other countries." The OMB instead "wants the document to show that the Clean Air Act is flawed and that greenhouse-gas regulations should be developed under new legislation," reflecting the public stance taken by Bush. The EPA's findings raise serious questions about whether Bush’s statements to the American public were made in good faith and why he asserted executive privilege on June 20 to block the congressional investigation.

NEWS CLIPS

Iraqis Demand Timetable For Withdrawal (a major opening for Obama)

On Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki raised the prospect of "setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington." During an official visit to Abu Dhabi, the capital of United Arab Emirates, Maliki told a gathering of Arab ambassadors, "Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty." The new emphasis on sovereignty may reflect Maliki's growing confidence in the Iraqi army, which some analysts suggest is unfounded, after recent victories against al Qaeda in Iraq. It also reflects the pressure that Maliki is feeling from members of his parliamentary coalition, as well as from Iraqis themselves, many of whom oppose the continued U.S. presence. Since President Bush has consistently opposed any timetable for withdrawal, claiming that it would "embolden our enemies," Maliki's statement setting the stage for a possible conflict between the demands of the Iraq people and Bush's plans for basing troops in Iraq. The U.N. mandate authorizing the U.S. presence in Iraq expires at the end of 2008.

IRAQIS STRESS RETURN OF FULL SOVEREIGNTY: The Bush administration has pushed hard to get a long-term agreement signed by the end of July, but this prospect seems increasingly unlikely. Many Iraqi parliamentarians have resisted supporting an agreement that they say is being negotiated in secret, with an American administration that is on its way out. "I don't know anything about this agreement and neither does parliament," said Ezzedine Dawla, a Sunni MP. The temperature was raised again several weeks ago, when a U.S. special forces unit shot and killed a cousin of the Prime Minister in a raid in Maliki's hometown of Janaja, in Karbala province, an area supposedly "under full Iraqi control." "Iraqi authorities say the raid was conducted without their knowledge or coordination." Last week, Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari stressed that recognition of sovereignty should be the central concern of any agreement, declaring that there will not be "another colonization of Iraq." Zebari also announced on Monday that "security contractors working in Iraq will no longer receive immunity from prosecution," voicing a major Iraqi demand. Acknowledging the approaching deadline, Zebari cited three options: "Either we conclude a status of forces agreement; or we have an interim agreement until a SOFA can be completed; or we go back to the Security Council at the end of the year and ask for another extension." Late on Monday, Maliki's office released a statement indicating his support for the second of those options, a U.S.-Iraqi "memorandum of understanding" that would extend the presence of American troops for a short period of time.

SOME GREAT NEWS

OIL TYCOON T. BOONE PICKENS BECOMES WIND POWER BOOSTER: T. Boone Pickens, the "legendary Texas oilman, corporate raider, shareholder-rights crusader, philanthropist and deep-pocketed moneyman for conservative politicians and causes" is becoming wind power's most prominent booster. Believing that "cheap and easy oil is gone," he is "bankrolling what his aides say will be the biggest public policy ad campaign ever" to promote the "Pickens Plan" for "cutting the USA's demand for foreign oil by more than a third in less than a decade." Pickens, now constructing "the largest wind farm in the world" in the Texas panhandle, wants the United States "to produce enough wind power within 10 years to divert 20% of the natural gas now used to fuel power plants for use in cars and trucks." Pickens's 4,000-megawatt wind farm, the equivalent of four coal-fired plants, will go online by 2011. His "out-of-the-box thinking" has garnered praise from Sierra Club president Carl Pope, but the American Petroleum Institute calls the plan "gimmicky." In testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month, Pickens called on Congress to assist the rapid deployment of a national network of high-voltage transmission lines tied to wind and solar power. The nation's electric grid, "the source of one-third of U.S. global warming emissions," needs to be modernized for both the large-scale projects favored by Pickens as well as the "millions of distributed energy devices such as solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and smart appliances" that represent a clean energy future.

Think Fast

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is considering legislation to cease funding of Karl Rove-type advisers in future administrations. "Why should we be using taxpayer dollars to have a person solely in charge of politics in the White House?" Waxman said. "Can you imagine the reaction if each member of Congress had a campaign person paid for with taxpayer dollars?"

There is "a growing body of evidence" showing "that alcohol abuse is rising among veterans of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq." Experts and studies say "the problem is particularly prevalent among those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder." "Increasingly, these troubled veterans are spilling into the criminal justice system."

The Bush administration "didn't pursue hundreds of potential water pollution cases after a 2006 Supreme Court decision that restricted" the EPA's "authority to regulate seasonal streams and wetlands." In a March 4 memo, the EPA's enforcement chief said that "there were 304 instances where the EPA found what would have been violations of the Clean Water Act before the court’s ruling."

"High levels of formaldehyde found in trailers provided to Hurricane Katrina evacuees on the Gulf Coast probably resulted from cheap wood and poor ventilation in designs used by manufacturers." The revelations confirm "the role that manufacturers' practices and weak federal regulation played in the public health disaster after" the hurricane.

ACLU: ADMINISTRATION 'CONTROLS AND SUPPRESSES' WAR INFORMATION: Yesterday the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released "thousands of pages of documents related to Navy investigations of civilians killed by coalition forces in Iraq." The documents were obtained from the Navy through a Freedom of Information Act request and reveal that the Bush administration and Defense Department have gone "to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," the ACLU noted. The practices detailed in the documents include "inviting U.S. journalists to 'embed' with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review; paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort; and erasing journalists' footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan." Appearing on the Daily Show last month, CBS Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan said that "no one really understands" the situation in Iraq, saying: "Tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead American soldier. What does that look like? Who in American knows what that looks like?"

TODAY'S TOPICS: Moving to Middle Myth, Shultz, Maddow, Olbermann, Torture, Global Warming, Dukakis, Hitchens

I'm behind on my posts so I'm just going to get up what I have while I have moment...

VIDEO SECTION

Three cheers for Ed Shultz for tearing into a right wing propagandist on Larry King…this is the kind of toughness I’d like to see a whole lot more of from the left…

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/05/ac360-ed-schultz-calls-out-cliff-may/

Rachelle Maddow does Bushed…some real doozies here:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/04/countdowns-bushed-justice-departments-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-edition/

Watch good ole’ Michael Dukakis dismantle Michael Steele on Fox News…they thought Dukakis would be easy prey for the right wingers on Fox, but they forget, the guy was really smart…he just got blindsided in 1988 by the first “modern day GOP character assassination campaign”…which is now their norm. Watch him…

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/03/hc-steele-v-dukakis-showing-up-to-a-fight-unarmed/

And this was good to see…war supporter Christopher Hitchens agreed to be waterboarded for a piece he wrote for Vanity Fair…and filmed it. This line from his article sums up what he discovers perfectly:

“If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.”

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/02/hitchens-gets-waterboarded-believe-me-its-torture/

Olbermann discusses Obama’s faith based initiative with Barry Lynn (who's always GREAT) from Americans United. FROM ALTERNET: Lynn argues that we should go back to the pre-Bush administration policy towards religious social services. Before Bush, churches and other religious groups could compete for federal dollars on the same footing as any other groups. Many did. Bush changed the rules to let faith-based organizations discriminate against clients and staffers in ways that a publicly-funded secular service provider would never be allowed to do.

Bush's faith-based agenda isn't pro-faith or pro-charity, it's a sop to the most reactionary elements of the religious right. Mainline and progressive religious organizations don't need a license to discriminate. If Obama wanted to help liberal and mainline churches, he'd abolish the special rules for bigoted religious groups and let all social service providers compete on an equal footing again.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/90200/

NEWS CLIPS

A former CIA agent contends that CIA officials "ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb." The agent, who sued the agency in 2004 after being fired, filed a motion on Friday requesting that the government "declassify legal documents describing what he says was a deliberate suppression of findings on Iran that were contrary to agency views at the time."

GLOBAL WARMING

According to Republicans this is no doubt another conspiracy by “BIG SCIENCE”:

Extinction risks vastly underestimated: study

Some endangered species may face an extinction risk that is up to a hundred times greater than previously thought, according to a study released Wednesday. By overlooking random differences between individuals in a given population, researchers may have badly underestimated the perils confronting threatened wildlife, it said.

END

White House Suppresses Key Global Warming Document

A ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that details both the threat of global warming and our ability to address the problem has been suppressed by the White House since December. This document, produced in response to a "monumental" Supreme Court mandate, includes a "multimillion-dollar study conducted over two years" that finds "the net benefit to society could be in excess of $2 trillion" if strong carbon dioxide emissions standards for the automotive industry are issued. The proposal to increase today's fuel economy standards by 50 percent from 25 miles per gallon to 38.3 mpg by 2020 is stronger than those included in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, which called for a 40 percent increase. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson used the signing of the act as the public excuse to reject the findings of his staff and block California's proposal to regulate greenhouse tailpipe emissions. In fact, congressional investigations have revealed that officials in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) refused to open the email containing the EPA plan and that Johnson has been stonewalling to prevent disclosure of President Bush's role.

Conservatives Filibuster Medicare Patients (Pure evil...)

On Thursday, Senate conservatives blocked a bill that would have averted a 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors. The bill, which would have canceled a reduction in Medicare fees and increased doctor pay by 1.1 percent, passed the House last week 355-59. But the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the bill by only one vote. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was the only senator to miss the vote, besides Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who is undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. The bill had proposed offsetting the increased doctor pay by reducing payments to Medicare Advantage's private fee-for-service insurers, a provision opposed by the White House. In a "misleading" move, the Bush administration announced this week it had asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to delay making payments to physicians until July 15, giving the Senate time to pass another bill after the July 4th recess. Yet as Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) explained, the administration was simply following existing law, and it is "misleading the public by claiming" to help ameliorate the negative effects of a legislative move it endorsed.

SENIORS SUFFER MOST: The recalcitrant position of the conservatives and the White House creates real victims. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, Senate conservatives "are playing a dangerous game of chicken. The only losers will be Medicare patients, old people." "A lot of physicians will limit the number of Medicare patients they will see" as a result of the pay cut, said Dr. Lee Schoeffler, a Tulsa, OK ophthalmologist. A poll by the American Medical Association found that 60 percent of physicians "said they would limit the number of new Medicare patients they would see if a cut took effect." Even as doctors sought to ward off the latest cuts, the CMS announced Monday the legislation would mean Medicare payments to doctors would undergo a further drop another 5.4 percent in 2009. It is not just Medicare patients and doctors who will feel the pinch. "Most private insurance companies will begin reducing their reimbursement rates to doctors because they use Medicare as a benchmark" in setting their rates. "It doesn't hit just Medicare," Schoeffler said. "It works its way down into every part of the community."

HERSH: CHENEY 'PRIVATELY' SAYS HE WANTS U.S. TO STRIKE IRAN: Earlier this week, in an article called "Preparing the Battlefield," the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh reported that the Bush administration has been escalating covert operations against Iran. On MSNBC yesterday, Andrea Mitchell asked Hersh if the United States is "planning military action" against Iran or "planning to support Israeli military action?" "What I can tell you is we're loaded for bear," he said. "And we've been looking at it for three years. Hersh added that Vice President Cheney "privately" is against an Israeli attack because the United States will "be blamed anyway." "What he says privately is, 'we can't let Israel go because, first of all, they don't have the firepower, we do,'" Hersh said. Though Hersh says Cheney only conveys this view "privately," he has made a similar argument at least once before in public. On Jan. 20, 2005, Cheney went on the "Imus in the Morning" show and said, "Israel might do it without being asked," leaving the world to clean up "the diplomatic mess afterwards."

The Washington Post reports, "More than 900 cases alleging that government contractors and drugmakers have defrauded taxpayers out of billions of dollars are languishing in a backlog that has built up over the past decade because the Justice Department cannot keep pace with the surge in charges brought by whistle-blowers."

TORTURE SECTION

TORTURE ADVOCATE JOHN YOO MISLED CONGRESS TO CAST ASPERSIONS ON CRITIC'S CREDIBILITY: Last week, while testifying before Congress, former Justice Department lawyer and torture advocate John Yoo sought to discredit torture critic Philippe Sands by suggesting Sands had lied about interviewing him. "I can say that he did not interview me for the book," said Yoo. "So I didn't quite understand why he would tell the committee that he had actually interviewed me." Rep. Steve King (R-IA) used the allegation to claim it "would perhaps reflect on the veracity" of all of Sands' allegations. But, as MoJo blog points out, Sands never actually said he had "interviewed" Yoo for his book. Rather, Sands said, "Over hundreds of hours I conversed or debated with many of those most deeply involved. They included…the Deputy Assistant Attorney General at DoJ (Mr Yoo)." Indeed, Yoo and Sands had debated torture at the World Affairs Council in 2005. At MoJo Blog, Brian Beutler wrote that though perjury might not be the appropriate word, Yoo's goal was likely "to discredit a critic who's brought to light a great deal of damning information about the Bush administration and its allies."

JUDGES CRITICIZE GOVERNMENT'S FLIMSY EVIDENCE IN DETAINEE RULING: Yesterday, an appeals court released unclassified sections of its ruling in the first case to review the government's secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. The opinion, which is "likely to guide federal judges in weighing evidence in up-coming hearings" for other detainees, not only invalidated the designation of Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Uighur, as an "enemy combatant," but also determined that a military tribunal relied on highly questionable evidence to justify his six-year detention. The judges found particular concern with the military assertion that evidence was reliable simply because it was repeated in at least three separate documents, comparing the government's legal argument to the nonsensical 1876 Lewis Carroll poem "The Hunting of the Snark." "Lewis Carroll notwithstanding," the court wrote, "the fact that the government has 'said it thrice' does not make an allegation true." Justice Merrick Garland, one of the judges on the appeals court panel, also expressed skepticism about the evidence used against Parhat because at least some of it appears to have been offered by the Chinese government, which has a record of persecuting ethnic Uighurs.

Militants "killed more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in June than in Iraq for the second straight month," underscoring the Taliban's "growing strength." A Pentagon report last week "forecast the Taliban would maintain or increase its pace of attacks, which are already up 40 percent this year from 2007 where U.S. troops operate along the Pakistan border."

MOVING TO THE MIDDLE MYTH:

This is a really good breakdown of what I have argued on this blog for so long. Moving to the "mythic middle" on core issues doesn't help a candidate get elected AND it hurts the longterm image of the party, while often simultaneously undermining progressive positions while giving undue credence to conservative ones. Sure, there are occasionally times in which one must slightly moderate a stand perhaps, or at least, to intentionally downplay a particularly "out of the mainstream" position, but generally speaking, its a historically proven failed strategy, and a failure of conscious too.

I know the old "move to the middle logic". At it's core, its about a lot more than just sacrificing often times the most important core principles of the party and its base, it also serves to portray the democrat as someone that won't stand up for what they believe in. And worse, it doesn't actually move "swing and low information voters" anyway, as they are the last kind of voter that is suddenly going to switch candidates because of their flip on issues like NAFTA and FISA (as vast majorities OPPOSE THEM and Low information voters don't understand them!)! In fact, these kinds of voters are "swung" by strength, perceived honesty, leadership, and authentic. How does demonstrating that yes, you are just a politician that will change core positions to get elected A. ignite the base? B. inspire young voters that are longing for something "different"? or C. persuade these low information swing voters that you are "authentic"???

In the case of Obama, my problem isn't with just one of his shifts independently (outside of FISA), it was the message that all his "moderating" sent together. I'm talking about NAFTA, his ads about welfare reform and tax cuts with the now ever present flag lapel pin, its about his support of the supreme court decision on hand guns in DC, its about his opposition to the courts decision NOT to expand the death penalty, its about his desire to expand the faith based initiative, its about his insane speech to AIPAC, its about his naming of Walmart defender and clintonite Jason Furman as his chief economic adviser, and its about him selling out Wesley Clark as somehow attacking John McCain's patriotism, which is so patently untrue that its laughable...I was offended to have people compare what Clark said to the Swift Boaters!!! (update: he seems to have come to his senses on the Clark issue now...)

I should qualify some of the above issues, as I have always said that Obama is actually a centrist, so in the case of a few of these disappointing positions, they aren't necessarily him "moving" anywhere, but actually what he believes...which is also unfortunate :)

GLENN GREENWALD on "move to the middle"...I'm posting the piece nearly in its entirety:

So what, then, is the basis for the almost-unanimously held Beltway conventional view that Democrats generally, and Barack Obama particularly, will be politically endangered unless they adopt the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism and National Security, which — for some reason — is called “moving to the Center”? There doesn’t appear to be any basis for that view. It’s just an unexamined relic from past times, the immovable, uncritical assumption of Beltway strategists and pundits who can’t accept that it isn’t 1972 anymore — or even 2002.

Beyond its obsolescence, this “move-to-the-center” cliché ignores the extraordinary political climate prevailing in this country, in which more than 8 out of 10 Americans believe the Government is fundamentally on the wrong track and the current President is one of the most unpopular in American history, if not the most unpopular. The very idea that Bush/Cheney policies are the “center,” or that one must move towards their approach in order to succeed, ignores the extreme shifts in public opinion generally regarding how our country has been governed over the last seven years.

One could argue that national security plays a larger role in presidential elections than in Congressional races, and that very well may be. But was John Kerry’s narrow 2004 loss to George Bush due to the perception that Kerry — who ran as fast as he could towards the mythical Center — was Soft on Terrorism? Or was it due to the understandable belief that his rush to the Center meant that he stood for nothing, that he was afraid of his own views — the real hallmark, the very definition, of weakness?

By the time of the 2004 election, huge numbers of Americans already turned against Bush’s position on the War and ceased trusting him even in the realm of National Security. Thus, the defining claim of Bush’s 2004 acceptance speech at the GOP Convention — the central distinction he drew between himself and Kerry — was not that his National Security views were right, but rather, was this:

This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism — and you know where I stand. . . . In the last four years, you and I have come to know each other. Even when we don’t agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand.

Bush’s ability to project “Strength” came not from advocacy of specific policies, but from his claim to stand by his beliefs even when they were politically unpopular.

For that reason, isn’t the perception that Obama is abandoning his own core beliefs — or, worse, that he has none — a much greater political danger than a failure to move to the so-called “Center” by suddenly adopting Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies? As a result of Obama’s reversal on FISA, his very noticeable change in approach regarding Israel, his conspicuous embrace of the Scalia/Thomas view in recent Supreme Court cases, and a general shift in tone, a very strong media narrative is arising that Obama is abandoning his core beliefs for political gain. That narrative — that he’s afraid to stand by his own beliefs — appears far more likely to result in a perception that Obama is “Weak” than a refusal to embrace Bush/Cheney national security positions.

What’s most amazing about the unexamined premise that Democrats must “move to the Center” (i.e., adopt GOP views) is that this is the same advice Democrats have been following over and over and which keeps leading to their abject failure. It’s the advice Kerry followed in 2004. It’s why Democrats rejected Howard Dean and chose John Kerry instead.

And in 2002, huge numbers of Congressional Democrats voted to authorize the attack on Iraq based on this same premise that doing so would enable them to avoid looking Weak on National Security. The GOP then based its whole 2002 campaign on attacking Democrats as Weak on National Security and the Democrats were crushed — because, having accepted rather than debated the GOP premises, there was no way to challenge GOP National Security arguments. What makes Democrats look weak is their patent fear of standing by their own views.

A Washington Post article last week on Obama’s move to the center included this insight:

“American voters tend to reward politicians who take clear stands,” said David Sirota, a former Democratic aide on Capitol Hill and author of the new populist-themed book “The Uprising.” “When Obama takes these mushy positions, it could speak to a character issue. Voters that don’t pay a lot of attention look at one thing: ‘Does the guy believe in something?’ They may be saying the guy is afraid of his own shadow.”

The central problem is that if Democrats embrace the GOP framework of National Security — that “Strength” means what the GOP says it means — then that framework gets enforced and perpetuated, and it’s a framework within which Democrats can’t possibly win, because Republicans will always “out-Strength” Democrats within that framework. It’s only by challenging and disputing the underlying premises can Democrats change the way that “strength” and “weakness” are understood.

The Democrats had such a smashing victory in 2006 because — for the first time in a long time, and really despite themselves — there was a perception (rightly or wrongly) that they actually stood for something different than the GOP in National Security (an end to the War in Iraq). Drawing a clear distinction with the deeply unpopular GOP is how Democrats look strong. The advice that they should “move to the center” and copy Republicans is guaranteed to make them look weak — because it is weak. It’s the definition of weakness.

The most distinctive and potent — one could even say exciting — aspect of Obama’s campaign had been his aggressive refusal to accept GOP pieties on National Security, his insistence that the GOP would lose — and should lose — debates over who is “stronger” and more “patriotic” and who will keep us more safe. The widely-celebrated foreign policy memo written by Obama’s adviser, Samantha Power, heaped scorn on Washington’s national security “conventional wisdom,” emphasizing how weak and vulnerable it has made the U.S. When Obama took that approach, he appeared to be, and in fact was, resolute and unapologetic in defending his own views — the very attributes that define “strength.”

The advice he’s getting, and apparently beginning to follow, is now the opposite: that he should shed his prior beliefs in favor of the amorphous, fuzzy, conventional GOP-leaning Center, that he should cease to insist on a re-examination of National Security premises and instead live within the GOP framework. That’s likely to lead to many things, but a perception of strength isn’t one of them. One of the very few things in the universe with a worse track record than America’s dominant Foreign Policy Community is the central religious belief of the Democratic consultant class and Beltway punditry that Democrats, to be successful, must shed their own beliefs and “move to the Center.”

-- Glenn Greenwald