If Chris Matthews only had a brain

Chris Matthews is paid around $5 million a year by the kind folks at General Electric/MSNBC to pontificate on politics and to essentially act as a guardian of the establishment. So it makes sense that he would be not only stunningly, offensively ignorant of American history, but that his ignorance would be displayed in such a way as to flatter the ruling elite. In that respect, Matthews is typical of the DC commentariat -- he makes up in blind worship of power what he lacks in actual knowledge -- as he displayed during his most recent appearance on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, where he claimed that not only had the Kennedy clan saved us from nuclear war (after bringing the world to the brink of it due in part to the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion), but that they actually "created the civil rights movement." Sorry Rosa Parks!

Though the stupidity starts at the beginning of the clip, the mind-numbing, make-your-brain-hurt ignorant adulation of the political class begins about three minutes in:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Chris Matthews
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

The problem with folks like Matthews, and the very thing that makes him so attractive to politicians and his corporate paymasters, is that they envision all social progress as something bequeathed to us mere peons by the state and our betters in the halls of Congress and the White House. Our benevolent political leaders -- presidents and senators, kings and queens -- in the view of the these courtiers are the drivers of history, with we serfs merely along for the ride.

That it was the people, through protests, boycotts and open defiance of state-backed discrimination that forced the government to grant concessions to basic human decency if only to head off the prospect of an actual revolution (and to counter anti-American Soviet propaganda) is apparently lost to this class of professional flatterers. To claim the civil rights movement was “started” by a bunch of white aristocrats from New England reveals an incredible historical ignorance and bias in favor of the powerful, and ignores the fact that watershed events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Greensboro sit-ins, all aimed at protesting government-backed segregation, occurred while John F. Kennedy was busy hanging out at country clubs enjoying the favored pastime of the idle rich and years before he became president.

That history is comprised of little more than the actions of elites is a view held not merely by U.S. officials and media sycophants, mind you. For instance, a few months ago I attended a luncheon here in DC where an aide to a Canadian premier remarked to those around him that Lyndon Baines Johnson had gotten a bad rap from ungrateful Americans given all he had done for minorities in this country, evidenced by the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Since it is rude to eavesdrop -- and ruder still to call someone a f_cking idiot from across the table at these sorts of functions -- I held my tongue, but couldn’t help but wonder if this official had ever considered the civil rights of those tens of thousands of African-Americans and other minorities drafted and sent off to kill and be killed in the jungles of Vietnam, much less the millions of Vietnamese who suffered the liberatory aftermath of the U.S. munitions dropped on their homes and schools.

Pondering these sorts of questions is probably why I’m just some small-time reporter with a blog, though, rather than a highly paid celebrity commentator. That said, here’s what a I propose: that from here on out, the term “Chris Matthews” become synonymous with “pompous, historically ignorant windbag” -- if it isn't already. Come on folks, through the power of the people we can make this happen.

The Matt Yglesias Comedy Hour

Matt Yglesias, a blogger for the liberal Center for American Progress, is one of most well-known and prolific writers on the left (or what passes for it) out there. On any given day you can find him opining on any number of topics, from the NBA draft to urban land-use policy to the war in Afghanistan. But did you know that he’s also a comedian?

The fact of the matter is that the outcome of the 2006 elections improved the quality of governance in the United States. And so did the outcome of the 2008 elections. Governance improved because politicians were replaced by other, better politicians. The same method—replace existing politicians with new, better politicians—can continue to reap improvements in the future.

From the use of the cliched “the fact of the matter” to the embrace of electing more and better rulers as the chief means of affecting social change -- and the conspicuous lack of examples illustrating how exactly the “quality of governance” has improved since the Democrats took over all three branches of the U.S. government -- Yglesias has penned a truly scathing sendup of technocratic liberalism and its proponents. I tip my hat to you sir!

Trust-busting in Afghanistan

In March, President Obama’s top antitrust official announced that “that the administration would restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share,” according to The New York Times.

At the time, I remember wondering how this stated new policy was consistent with Obama’s support for the bailout of insolvent Wall Street financial institutions -- the greatest single transfer of wealth in U.S. history -- considering that letting companies like AIG fail would actually have been a step toward a more competitive financial services industry that rewarded firms based on performance, not political influence. But alas, it’s now clear the likes of Goldman Sachs, Obama’s top corporate campaign contributor, were never to be the target of the new trust-busting administration.

Rather, as Scott Horton at the Huffington Post reports, the U.S. government is focusing its attention on the true threat to America’s market system: “Raymond Azar, a 45-year-old Lebanese construction manager with a grade school education.” According to Horton:

Azar and a Lebanese-American colleague, Dinorah Cobos, were seized by "at least eight" heavily armed FBI agents in Kabul, Afghanistan, where they had traveled for a meeting to discuss the status of one of his company's U.S. government contracts. The trip ended with Azar alighting in manacles from a Gulfstream V executive jet in Manassas, Virginia, where he was formally arrested and charged in a federal antitrust probe . . . .

According to papers filed by his lawyers, Azar was threatened, subjected to coercive interrogation techniques and induced to sign a confession. Azar claims he was hooded, stripped naked (while being photographed) and subjected to a "body cavity search."

On a ride to the infamous Bagram air base in Afghanistan -- site of the torture-homicides involving U.S. interrogators exposed in the Oscar-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side -- Azar contends that a federal agent pulled a photograph of Azar's wife and four children from his wallet. Confess that you were bribing the contract officer, the agent allegedly said, or you may "never see them again." Azar told his lawyers he interpreted that as a threat to do physical harm to his family.

You will be relieved to know that Azar -- who “has the unlikely distinction of being the first target of a rendition carried out on the Obama watch” -- remains in federal custody.

(via Brian Doherty)

When is a coup a coup?

The Center for International Policy's Adam Isacson, who has been chronicling the Obama administration's efforts to station U.S. troops on bases throughout Colombia, highlights this revealing exchange from earlier this month between a reporter and State Department spokesman Robert Wood regarding the U.S. government's conspicuous refusal to declare the overthrow of Honduras' democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya a "military coup":

MR. WOOD: [W]e’re going to continue to try to convince both parties and go from there. But a coup took place in the country, and –

QUESTION: Well, you haven’t officially legally declared it a coup yet.

MR. WOOD: We have called it a coup. What we have said is that we legally can’t determine it to be a military coup. That review is still ongoing.

QUESTION: Why does it take so long to review whether there’s a military coup or not?

MR. WOOD: Well, look, there are a lot of legal issues here that have to be carefully examined before we can make that determination, and it requires information being shared amongst a number of parties. We need to be able to take a look at that information and make our best legal judgment as to whether or not –

QUESTION: It seems to be taking a very long time.

MR. WOOD: Well, things take time when you’re dealing with these kinds of very sensitive legal issues.

Having majored in English in college, I am ill-prepared for deciphering the language of government and State Department flacks. Indeed, my lack of education in bureaucratic legalese does not permit me to fully comprehend how Robert Wood can concede Zelaya was overthrown in a coup -- defined as "the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group" -- but at the same time claim it an unresolved question whether said overthrow was a military coup. My confusion is compounded by the widely reported and undisputed fact that it was the (U.S. School of the Americas-trained) Honduran military brass which forced Zelaya into exile.

In other news, a spokesman for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the department has concluded that the sun rises in the East, but that officials are still "carefully examining" whether it sets in the West.

How liberals learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

A long, long time ago liberals pretended to care about the deaths of foreigners at the hands of the U.S. military, with chants of “Bush lied, people died” dominating protests -- since hilariously appropriated by right-wing reactionaries -- and Daily Kos diarists penning morally righteous denunciations of the American empire. Then something changed: Barack Obama was elected.

Since that fateful day, while the Democratic rank-and-file say they oppose Obama’s wars, it doesn’t appear to be a pressing concern to the quasi-professional online activist set, which spends more time documenting the antics of (and shouting fascism! in response to) Sarah Palin and her painfully ignorant groupies than opposing the president’s escalation in Afghanistan or his undeclared war in Pakistan. In this respect, donkey partisans are merely following the example of their erstwhile anti-war leaders, who seamlessly segued from campaign promises to bring the troops home in 2006 to appropriating ever more funds for the imperial adventures they once claimed to have vehemently opposed.

Proving that partisans on both ends of the spectrum are incapable of being parodied, progressive activists attending “Netroots Nation” this weekend -- a conference where upper-middle class liberal bloggers come to learn how to become “a media star” by following the “tools and techniques used by professional actors to create star presence” (taught by a “media trainer to performers and successful progressive candidates”, which sounds a tad redundant) and to be flattered by Democratic politicians hungry for campaign donations -- gave Obama’s presidency a 95% approval rating, according to a poll (pdf) conducted there.

This comes despite Obama's apparent disavowal of a single-payer healthcare system, a top priority of the Democratic base, his aforementioned imperial escalations, and his denial of habeas corpus to those accused of acts of terrorism. Obama does, however, typically speak in complete, coherent sentences, which to the average liberal is more than enough to “restore America’s standing in the world."

Digging deeper into the poll of Netroots conference attendees, one sees that but one brave soul just 1 percent (which comes out to about two people) declared ending the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan their top priority (who let Cindy Sheehan in?). This lagged behind other liberal priorities, such as: “Working to elect progressive candidates in the 2010 elections”; “Working to enact President Obama's agenda generally”; and of course, “Countering right-wing attacks on Obama and his agenda.”

As historian David Beito writes of the would-be power brokers of the liberal blogosphere, “If the antiwar movement ever makes a comeback, it won't be because of them.”

The top priority of the Netroots crowd? “Passing comprehensive health care reform”, which -- while I understand the status quo is a catastrophic mess -- seems a tad curious in light of the president’s promise to cut health care costs by but a meager 2 percent and his refusal to back what many progressive activists believe to be the answer to our corrupt corporatist system. It also strikes me as indefensibly nationalistic since -- and hear me out -- putting healthcare reform ahead of dismantling the warfare state implicitly signals that one values cutting their health care bill by a few percentage points more than stopping their government from using their tax dollars to kill and maim poor foreigners. Call me crazy, but I say any professed liberal humanitarian should abide by the rule, “first, do no harm” -- meaning, at the very least, stop killing people.

I’d also suggest dismantling the domestic police state should take precedence, still I suppose America’s record number of incarcerated do get some form of free government healthcare.

Meanwhile, though liberal activists may no longer be all that concerned about taxpayer-funded murder in far-off lands, CNN reports an almost poetic coincidence: “President Obama will take a brief hiatus from his health care push on Monday and turn his focus to the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan.”

On the road

I'll be driving cross-country over the next week, beginning in Albuquerque and -- barring any life changing incidents in the desert -- ending up back here in DC. That means you shouldn't expect any long-winded pieces about U.S. policy toward Iran or why you should read Lysander Spooner.

You can, however, follow my exploits on Twitter.

Eric Cantor blasts U.S. interventionism

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) is a hawkish conservative lawmaker who strongly supported the Bush administration's militaristic foreign policy and has blasted President Obama for being insufficiently imperialistic. That's why it was so surprising when, during a trip this week overseas, Cantor sounded off on the U.S.'s interventionist policies abroad, noting that "I don't think we, in America, would want another country telling us how to implement and execute our laws."

Of course there's the obvious catch: Cantor "objected to U.S. criticism of Israel's eviction of two Arab families from housing in eastern Jerusalem earlier this week."

When it comes to Israel clearing Arabs out of East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers, Cantor empathizes with those who defy American foreign policy. When it comes to other countries' internal affairs, umm . . .

"The Administration’s silence in the face of Iran’s brutal suppression of democratic rights represents a step backwards for homegrown democracy in the Middle East," Cantor said. "President Obama must take a strong public position in the face of violence and human rights abuses. We have a moral responsibility to lead the world in opposition to Iran’s extreme response to peaceful protests."

It's almost as if Cantor's views on foreign policy are -- and get ready for this folks -- a tad . . . inconsistent, almost as if he doesn't mind human rights abuses committed by U.S. allies, expressing moral indignation to such abuses when it serves the interests of American hegemony. Shocking, I know.

Paging Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart is a funny and intelligent guy, but ever since his weepy America-has-finally-fulfilled-its-promise performance upon the election of Barack Obama, he hasn’t been quite the same -- epitomized by his disappointingly pathetic apology for the perfectly sensible (thus politically unpopular) statement that President Harry “Hiroshima” Truman was a war criminal.

While interviewing Newsmax.com writer Ronald Kessler earlier this week, Stewart -- though brilliant and scathing when he’s on -- had another cringe-worthy outing, apparently forgetting that Barack Obama is not the nice guy with a great smile he once interviewed, but the commander-in-chief, the head of a global empire -- a guy who okayed the deaths-sans-trials for over a dozen Pakistanis within days of taking office.

Responding to Kessler’s comment that “Obama [smokes] on a regular basis, despite his claims that he gave it up,” Stewart appeared to forget these uncomfortable facts (a shockingly prevalent phenomenon among Obama boosters), telling Kessler:

Stewart: Now that seems okay with me. I’ll take that.

Kessler: You’re a smoker?

Stewart: I was a smoker for 20 years. And I prefer that to... bombing countries. I’ll take a smoker.

Well Jon, with Barack Obama you get both a president that smokes and a president that bombs sovereign countries without so much as a declaration of war. Since taking office, Obama has overseen hundreds of Pakistani deaths from attacks that he's signed off on, in addition to the hundreds of Afghan civilians who have died to further the U.S. goal of -- wait, we’re still waiting for a blue ribbon commission to get back to us on what that is.

To refresh your memory, here’s a woefully incomplete list of just some of our peace president’s overseas contingency operations:

January 23, 2009:

Barack Obama gave the go-ahead for his first military action yesterday, missile strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan which killed at least 18 people.

May 6, 2009:

US-led air strikes have killed dozens of Afghan people, the Red Cross said today as the Pentagon launched a joint investigation into what appeared one of the deadliest incidents and heaviest civilian losses so far at the hands of coalition forces.

Rohul Amin, the governor of Farah province in west Afghanistan, where the bombing took place during a battle on Monday and Tuesday, said he feared 100 civilians had been killed.

June 23, 2009:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An airstrike believed to have been carried out by a United States drone killed at least 60 people at a funeral in South Waziristan on Tuesday, residents of the area and local news reports said.

August 1, 2009:

The widening war in Afghanistan between Taliban militants and American-allied Afghan forces is taking an increasingly heavy toll on civilians, with 1,013 killed in the first six months of 2009, up from 818 during the same period in 2008, according to a United Nations report released Friday.

Explosions and suicide attacks carried out by anti-government forces, including the Taliban, caused a majority of the civilian deaths, killing 595 during the period, the report said. Of the 310 deaths attributed to pro-government forces, about two-thirds were caused by American airstrikes.

August 5, 2009:

A US air strike has killed a wife of the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, delivering a message to the notorious militant commander that western and Pakistani pursuers are closing in on him.

Two missiles from an unmanned drone plane struck a house near Makeen in South Waziristan, a Mehsud stronghold near the Afghan border, last night, killing at least two people and wounding several others.

Unfortunately, like many of his fellow American liberals, it would appear Jon Stewart values soothing rhetoric about human rights (and torture bad!) over actual policy.

Obama weighs economic warfare against Iran

One reason Iran has been unwilling to agree to any deal over its nuclear program that would outsource its uranium enrichment to other countries is the fact that it fears its energy supplies being threatened by unfriendly powers, much as U.S. politicians speak glowingly of "energy independence" as a means of promoting national security. It also helps that for decades Iran was exploited by imperial powers such as Russia and Britain, the latter which for a time held a de facto monopoly over Iran's domestic oil production.

So if you're a U.S. policymaker seeking to allay Iran's concern that giving up its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium will leave its energy production at the mercy of unfriendly foreign powers, what do you do? Well if you're the Obama administration, according to the New York Times, you threaten to blockade Iran's importation of refined gasoline, upon which it is dependent:

The Obama administration is talking with allies and Congress about the possibility of imposing an extreme economic sanction against Iran if it fails to respond to President Obama’s offer to negotiate on its nuclear program: cutting off the country’s imports of gasoline and other refined oil products.

The option of acting against companies around the world that supply Iran with 40 percent of its gasoline has been broached with European allies and Israel, officials from those countries said. Legislation that would give Mr. Obama that authority already has 71 sponsors in the Senate and similar legislation is expected to sail through the House.

One wonders (not for long, mind you) whether your typical American lawmaker has ever pondered how the average American would respond were another country proposing a similar act of aggression against the U.S. That Venezuela's Hugo Chavez subsidizes oil for the poor in the the United States (in between often hyperbolic denunciations of U.S. policy) and is still seen as a poster-child for the merits of reducing this country's dependence on foreign oil should offer some insight on the matter.

However, the Obama administration appears to be endorsing National Security Council member Dennis Ross' strategy of pursuing diplomacy as a means of making acts of war more palatable to the so-called international community, in this case exploring ways of blocking importations of refined gasoline into Iran -- which Newshoggers' Steve Hynd notes would necessitate a naval blockade and "would be an unequivocal act of aggressive and illegal warfare under international law" -- a form of economic warfare that produced misery in Iraq, but little in the way of regime change. (For some odd reason, whether they're being bombed or embargoed, people tend to side with the those claiming to defend them -- however poorly -- rather than the people conducting the bombing raids and blocking the importation of basic goods.

Unfortunately, as Hynd observes, Obama's reported consideration of an act of war against Iran over a nuclear weapons program international inspectors and his own intelligence agencies say does not exist doesn't appear to be eliciting the same sort of outraged reaction from Democratic politicians and partisans that might have been expected in the past, with coverage of the silly-things-right-wingers-say dominating much of the conversation.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports:

The U.S. Defense Department wants to accelerate by three years the deployment of a 30,000-pound bunker-buster bomb, a request that reflects growing unease over nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea.

-----

Accelerating the program “is intended to, at the very least, give the president the option of conducting a strike to knock out Iran’s main uranium enrichment capabilities,” said Ken Katzman, Middle East military expert for the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

Combined with Obama's actions on everything from gays in the military to drone attacks in Pakistan, one could be forgiven for believing the Republicans still control all three branches of government.

Our pathetic press corps

With wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan, what questions did our esteemed White House press corps choose to ask at today's briefing with Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs? Hint: it had something to do with a guy named "Gates", and not the one who heads up the Defense Department. Though in my great mercy I have deleted the answers -- as well as a few questions about something called "health care" (don't worry, I have no idea what that's referring to either) -- here's a list of the hard-hitting questions the profoundly silly, self-styled "journalists" who attend these sorts of briefings asked about the most pressing news item of the day:

Q Polls, two of them. One on health care showing 46 percent disapproving of the president's handling of health care. And then on the Gates issue, with 41 percent disapproving. Different poll, but 41 percent disapproving of how the president is handling -- handled that incident.
Is this something that --

Q Forty one disapproving of how the president handled the Gates --

Q Is this something that you all are worried about? They're coming at the same time. The Gates incident is pulling away from attention on health care. Even the president said that.

Q Actually he said it, I believe it was, yesterday, didn't he, that people aren't talking about health care as much?
Maybe I'm wrong.

Q Well, it's pulling down his approval ratings, particularly among working class --

Q Among working class, right, his --

Q I'm just telling you what the polls said. So I'm wondering if you're worried about it and what you guys can do about it.

Q Two questions, Robert, first one having to do with the Gates-Crowley meeting today. If we're not going to be able to listen to the conversation and the three men are not going to talk to the press afterwards --

Q Well, but you're not going to orchestrate it here at the White House is all I meant. But --

Q Okay. But the -- I guess the question is, the president said he wanted --

Q -- the president said he wants this to be a teachable moment.

Q How do you envision this being a teachable moment?

Q I guess I could just request, I'm sure on everybody's behalf, that we find out and have as thorough a debrief from you as possible, so that we can make it as much of a teachable moment as possible.

Q And back to the Gates event today at the White House, why not allow the press to get closer to the table, to be able to at least, you know, have some sort of conversation or something with the parties involved?

Q Right, but that's if they want to. But typically when you have events --

Q You know, I do want to follow up on that.
I mean, typically there are events that happen here at the White House. We're invited in. We get a chance to either ask questions of the parties there. And if they choose to come out, we can get additional information from them.
In this case, we won't have anything there and most likely won't get anything when they come out.

Q But what about on the earlier part?
What about the president? I mean, why is the president in a cone of silence on this? You're saying, those two can come out and talk, but he can't? (Off mike) -- teachable moment. Why -- what's the lesson that he wants to teach?

Q But why doesn't he see this as an opportunity, if he wants to make it a teachable moment, to come out and talk and teach what he learned, what he wants the nation to learn?

Q Well, just to stay on it for one second, I mean, not that I'm arguing against any coverage, but you are availing yourself of the picture. So presumably you want a photo but not any further content from the president.

Q If you could, provide us some more logistics of the event this evening. Apparently you've decided you don't want to splash beer on Malia and Sasha's picnic table, which is probably a good thing.
Can you talk about --

Q The picture we're going to get appears to be the three principals. But there are a number of people coming here, by my understanding. Are they all going to get together? What are you doing with the other guys?

Q You've got police-union officials coming as well.

Q Robert, going back to Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates, what do you hope -- tomorrow morning when you wake up, what do you hope you will have accomplished?

Q Well, besides -- what do you hope you will look back --

Q -- what do you hope to -- what's your best-case scenario for looking back and saying, "We accomplished this last night. We were able to" --

Q Can it be a teachable moment if the American people do not hear something that several of them -- several sides have asked for, including Professor Gates, at least? And that's the word "apology" during the conversation today.

Q I had a question on the health care thing yesterday, but on the Gates thing, the president has said that he wants this to be a teachable moment, regardless of who --

Q So he said he wants this to be a teachable moment. Regardless of who first proposed it, he's, through his surrogates, called these guys from the White House. But is he the teacher in this teachable moment?

Q Dialogue about what?

Q But how is that teachable for everybody? How is that teachable for the nation, if it's just about an incident between two men?

Q Well, some people think it's an incident about racial profiling. Some people think it's an incident about disrespect for police. Some people think it's -- I mean, there are a million different things that it could be a teachable lesson about. And we're not getting --

Q You say it's a teachable moment. About what? Communication? I mean --

Q We wouldn't have imagined they'd be here and we wouldn't hear anything that was going to happen from the president. (Laughter.)

Q No I really -- he's not using this as an opportunity.

Q The only thing we're hearing -- is a teachable moment example is that we're going to get a photograph out of it, or some film. I don't understand. I mean --

Q Do you think the coverage has been good, that people have been covering this issue? You said there's been a lot of coverage. Is that a good thing?

Q (Off mike) -- how much more you could get if he came out and talked to us.

It's days like these that I'm not so much saddened by the fact that much of the establishment media appears to be dying off as I am by the fact that it hasn't already died.

Grand Old Hypocrisy

Sentient beings may find the claim that conservatives have no interest in using the force of government to shape people's behavior a bit amusing in light of their positions on the war on drugs, reproductive rights and a million other social issues. But just as Glenn Beck suddenly discovered the evils of centralized power when a black man became president, Republicans on the House Science & Technology Committee are claim to have rediscovered their long-dormant opposition to the government telling people what to do now that it's the Democrats doing the telling.

As a GOP press release informs us, a bill being considered by the science committee this week would establish a “social and behavioral sciences research program” aimed at coming up with ways to encourage Americans to use less energy. While a seemingly benign if perhaps questionable use of taxpayer money, “Many Republicans at the markup fundamentally disagreed with the notion that changing Americans' behavior is a role that the federal government should play.” Hold your laughter.

According to the press release, Florida Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart engaged in a little philosophical musing at the hearing on “the nature of the relationship between Government and the people".

“Do we need the Federal Government to start dictating every aspect of our lives? Is there no limit to what the role of the Federal Government should be; even going to the extreme of trying to change our behavior, because the American people are not capable of turning on a light and turning it off?”

While I for one appreciate his sticking up for my god-given right to keep my incandescent bulbs on 24/7 and heat my house with open-air kitten fires, I find it odd Diaz-Balart's fear of the federal government was nowhere to be found when he voted to pass the Military Commissions Act -- granting the president the unilateral authority to strip those accused of terrorism of any right to protest their imprisonment -- to ban flag burning, to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act and to prohibit online gambling. Diaz-Balart has also vigorously opposed any effort to allow Americans to trade with the residents of Cuba or to travel to that country. And last I checked, he does not believe consenting adults should be allowed to imbibe in substances he disapproves of.

In other words, while he opposes the oppressive hand of big government encouraging Americans to reduce their energy use, Diaz-Balart has no problem with said government spying on its citizens without a warrant, instructing them on the morally correct ways to spend their money and free time, and dictating to them where they can and cannot travel (almost like a communist government).

Further, the idea that Republicans don't believe in using the force of government to change Americans' behavior is hilariously unfounded -- witness the GOP's (and the Democrats') penchant for using the tax code as a vehicle for bribing people into choosing one particular, socially acceptable form of relationship -- heterosexual marriage -- and for economically discriminating against those who choose one of the scores of possible alternatives.

Hypocrisy may know no bounds in politics, but politicians could stand to be a little less brazen about it.

Clinton breaks with Kerry on Iran

Earlier this summer Senator John Kerry (D-MA) hinted at a possible change in U.S. policy when the Massachusetts Democrat -- chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a lawmaker more likely to echo administration talking points than openly challenge them -- told the Financial Times that Iran has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful energy purposes, calling the Bush administration’s stance against such enrichment “ridiculous”.

While many reasonably believed Kerry’s position signaled a new stance from the Obama administration, with the FT having earlier reported that such a change in policy was indeed under consideration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put the notion to rest in an interview over the weekend on Meet The Press.

“My view is you hope for the best, you plan for the worst,” Clinton told host David Gregory, continuing:

“Our hope is -- that's why we're engaged in the president's policy of engagement toward Iran -- is that Iran will understand why it is in their interest to go along with the consensus of the international community, which very clearly says you have rights and responsibilities. You have a right to pursue the peaceful use of civil nuclear power. You do not have a right to obtain a nuclear weapon. You do not have the right to have the full enrichment and reprocessing cycle under your control.

David Gregory might have noted that international inspectors and the U.S. intelligence community do not believe Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, but he didn’t.

The sanctimony about the “international consensus” from an administration that continues to assert the right to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely without charge, meanwhile, is a bit rich, if to be expected. Perhaps the most newsworthy aspect of the interview, however, was Clinton’s declaration that Iran has no right to have the “full enrichment” of uranium under its control -- a position Kerry vehemently denounced in the interview with the FT as just more “bombastic diplomacy” and “wasted energy,” adding that Iran has “a right to peaceful nuclear power and to enrichment in that purpose.” Though Kerry was referring to the Bush administration at the time, his remarks drive home the fact that the Obama administration is electing to continue some of the most-criticized policies of his predecessor, with Clinton outdoing even Condoleeza Rice in terms of her "altogether steelier and more terrifyingly hawkish persona."

Worth noting is that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the U.S. government is actively undermining by providing nuclear fuel to non-signatory and known proliferator India, states that parties to the agreement (like Iran) have an “inalienable right . . . to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination”. With that in mind, Clinton's statement that Iran has no right to enrich uranium indicates the Obama administration believes it can reinterpret an international treaty to its liking, the actual text of the agreement be damned.

David Gregory might have noted that rather salient fact, but he didn't.

Hey buddy, need a car?

"Go out and buy a car! CARS.com! We're -- it's on! Let's do it."

-- Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, speaking at a July 27th event to kick off the government's so-called "cash-for-clunkers" rebate program aimed at encouraging debt-ridden Americans to purchase new automobiles.

"You can drive off the lot in a new car today, no money down," LaHood said. "We'd be crazy to offer these amazing deals for long."

He declined to characterize the new government incentives as a going-out-of-business sale, telling reporters he preferred to see them as a great opportunity for consumers who don't need "costly add-ons" like extended warranties.

A Department of Transportation spokesman told reporters later that the public should take advantage of "this fantastic limited-time offer," adding he was "pretty sure" he could get you a free undercoating for "little to no charge."

New administration, same disinformation

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at the Economic Club of Chicago on July 16th, declared that Iran's "determination, apparently, to seek nuclear weapons" is the most worrisome situation in the world, becoming the latest Obama administration official to fearmonger about a nuke program the U.S. government's own intelligence agencies say doesn't exist:

I would say that the one [situation] that I think is the most difficult -- and it was difficult in the Bush administration, and it's difficult in this administration -- is the problem of Iran. And it is Iran's determination, apparently, to seek nuclear weapons, the inability of the international community to affect their determination to do that, and how you deal with that -- and where all of the outcomes are negative. If they achieve one, the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is very, very real. And if some action is taken to prevent them from getting one, the consequences of that are completely unpredictable, and likely very bad.

So if we -- we, the international community -- it's not just the United States that faces this problem. After all, Iran is going to have missiles that can deliver nuclear weapons to people in their region a lot sooner than they're going to have the capability to deliver one to us. And this is one of the messages that I've delivered to the Russians over the last two or three years, is that -- is that they're a lot closer than we are.

While Gates' suggestion that the fallout of military action to stop Iran's nuclear program would be "likely very bad" is welcome, he should feel reassured by the fact that the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says he has not seen "any evidence" Iran is developing nukes.

And though Gates implicitly connects Iran's missile development program with a presumed nuclear weapons program, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair struck down such a suggestion in congressional testimony earlier this year when asked by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) whether "Iran will be developing a nuclear weapon to go along with these . . . delivery vehicles".

"I don't think those missile developments, Senator McCain, prejudice the nuclear weapons decision one way or another," Blair said, continuing:

"I believe those are separate decisions. The same missiles can launch vehicles into space, they can launch warheads, either conventional or nuclear, onto land targets. And Iran is pursuing those for those multiple purposes. Whether they develop a nuclear weapon, which could then be put in that warhead, I believe, is a separate decision which Iran has not made yet."

Bail out . . . cancer?

Don't get me wrong, I understand the message they're trying to get across in this ad in the DC metro, but if you actually think about it -- do you really want to bail out lung cancer? I know I'd sure be happy to see it go the way of Lehman Brothers.



Now, if only the government would stop bailing out economic cancers . . .

Chuck Todd: Proud Stenographer

When it comes to cable news reporters, MSNBC's Chuck Todd is no better or worse than any of his colleagues, by which I mean he is perfectly adequate at his job -- which is to regurgitate whatever establishment Washington tells him. Still, I'll give him some credit for agreeing to allow Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com the opportunity to make him look like a complete and utter fool in an interview in which his defense for dismissing calls for an investigation into Bush-era torture practices as divisive and "very dangerous" amounted to this: don't blame me, I just repeat what I'm told (and pass it off as my own "objective analysis)!

My favorite part of the interview -- and there were several to choose from -- may have been this exchange, where Todd contradicts himself in the span of a minute in seeking to defend the unitary executive:

Todd: Look at the US attorney thing. What did we find out during this whole US attorney scandal? There was no doubt the White House, the previous White House was trying to play politics with US attorney selections. That has been proven. Except what did we also find out - it was perfectly legal. . . .

[snip]

Greenwald: Chuck. First of all, the question of whether or not crimes were committed in the US attorneys case is still a pending matter before several federal courts.

Todd: And I believe it should be investigated--

Hi-larious stuff. Do listen to the whole thing (or read the transcript) for perhaps the clearest example yet of everything that is wrong with the establishment stenographers who pass themselves off as "journalists" here in the imperial capital.

Somebody doesn't like me

Readers of this blog may not be aware that I am an agent of the Iranian regime. But Rabbi Daniel Zucker, an adjunct professor at Long Island University and long-time apologist for the anti-Iran terrorist organization known as the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK), has a lenghty and hilarious denunciation of me as such because I had the temerity -- and naivete, apparently -- to point out in a recent piece for AntiWar.com that his beloved MEK is widely considered a terrorist cult.

The back story: late last month two American congressmen, Reps. Bob Filner (D-CA) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), held a press conference in Washington, DC to call on the U.S. government to offer support to the MEK in an effort to overthrow the Iranian regime. As I wrote in my piece, the lawmakers’ call was rather astonishing given the fact that the U.S. State Department notes the MEK “was responsible for the assassination of several U.S. military personnel and civilians in the 1970’s. Further, as the Council on Foreign Relations observes, “Until 2003 the MEK received funds, arms, and state sponsorship from Saddam Hussein.” Indeed, during the eight year Iran-Iraq war, the MEK even allied itself with the Iraqi dictator’s regime to kill its fellow countrymen, a fact that I noted in the article likely did not endear them to the Iranian public.

And while the MEK's defenders have claimed the group's designation as a terrorist organization was a political gesture meant to appease the Iranian government, the Council on Foreign Relations suggests a less conspiratorial reason: "its attacks have often killed civilians." In fact, the more one reads about the MEK the clearer it becomes the group's exclusion prior to 1997 from the list of groups considered terrorist organizations by the U.S. government was the actual politically motivated decision.

But according to Zucker, had I done my homework and not relied on “an old State Department report” -- dated April 2007 -- I’d have known that the MEK has “renounce[d] violence” since 2001 and is in fact innocent of all terrorism charges. To bolster his case, he cites the benign-sounding “Iran Policy Committee,” which the website Sourcewatch helpfully points out “is a pressure group meant to influence US government policy towards Iran . . . made up of former White House, State Department, Pentagon and CIA officials.” Many of its principals are also “affiliated to AIPAC and its related think tanks," which should give you a good idea of where Zucker is coming from.

Still, Zucker claims that while the MEK did “indeed receive Hussein’s support”, it came “in the form of asylum from the mullah regime in Tehran”, because Saddam was of course well known for protecting political dissidents (he was just that kind of guy). That the MEK was willing to murder their fellow Iranians -- and helped suppress uprisings among Iraq's Shia and Kurdish populations -- I’m sure was just an afterthought.

“It would behoove Davis to study a little bit of Iranian history, at least of the last 30 years, before venturing to write about Iranians”, Zucker continues, taking me to task for following “the regime line that the [MEK] undermined its credibility with the Iranian masses by fighting against the regime in the Iran-Iraq War. However, he fails to explain how the [MEK] has so many supporters inside Iran that it can continually supply the West with revelations about Iran's secret nuclear and missile programs, as well as extensive lists of Iranian agents in Iraq.”

That fighting against one’s own countrymen in a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people might undermine the MEK’s credibility within Iran is not something I feel needs citation, but what the hell. As the Jamestown Foundation notes -- observing the obvious -- “The [MEK’s] alliance with Iraq's former Baathist regime during the Iran-Iraq war was a huge strategic blunder from which they could never hope to recover. The sight of [MEK] forces aiding the Iraqi war effort turned them into perennial traitors in the eyes of most Iranians. This perception of the [MEK] still persists, more than 15 year after the ending of the war.” Put another way, "the MEK is universally hated in Iran," as Mideast professor Juan Cole succinctly puts it.

As for the MEK’s ability to provide the West with “revelations about Iran’s secret nuclear and missile programs,” I'd just point out that the U.S. intelligence community doesn’t actually believe Iran has a secret nuclear program, as Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified to Congress in March and which I’ve pointed out ad nauseam ever since.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the MEK has thanked Zucker for his slavish devotion to the group by inviting him "to Paris to address the 2005 and 2006 President Maryam Rajavi Freedom Convocations," as he notes in his bio. Rajavi is the leader of the MEK and declares herself "Iran's future president for the transitional period following the mullahs' overthrow."

Judge Sotomayor: no threat to the establishment

In his opening statement at Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered a surprising -- and scathing -- indictment of the future Supreme Court justice's record:

She's agreed with Republican colleagues 95 percent of the time. She has ruled for the government in 83 percent of immigration cases, against the immigration plaintiff. She has ruled for the government in 92 percent of criminal cases. She has denied race claims in 83 percent of cases, and has split evenly on employment cases between employer and employee.

Oh wait, that's supposed to be a good thing.

As the inimitable IOZ writes, "the truthteller of the whole circus has been Chuckles Schumer, who reassured us all when he guaranteed that our new justice will reliably side with power, kill orphans, skin puppies, worship at the altar of Molech, etc., etc., gracias, amen."

That a nominee for the state's high court will invariably side with the powerful over the powerless is to be expected -- that's why they've been nominated. It's just refreshing to hear as much so readily admitted by Sotomayor's congressional supporters.

Related: "Judge Sonia Sotomayor Denied My Appeal and I Spent 16 Years in Prison For a Crime I Didn't Commit" (Alternet)

More stimulus? No thanks

I'll leave the debate over whether the U.S. needs a second federal "stimulus" bill to others, but let me just say this: if another massive spending bill means the DC government will be digging up and repaving the road outside my apartment again at three in the morning, then I don't care if we all have to eat cardboard and drink potato juice for the next decade -- no more stimuli!

It should also be noted that several of the roads the DC government is repaving were already in fine shape, having been repaved rather recently, but are being redone because the stimulus money needs to be spent within a matter of months. The government is essentially paying people to dig holes and then refill them, in other words, which doesn't strike me as an all that prudent recipe for economic revitalization.

The casual corruption of the corporate media

Earlier this month Politico's Mike Allen broke the stunning-in-its-brazenness story of The Washington Post promising access to top Obama administration officials and its own journalists to corporate lobbyists in exchange for "sponsorships", to the tune of up to $250,000, of off-the-record "salons" hosted at the home of publisher Katharine Weymouth. This revelation provoked a justifiable outrage even in establishment journalism circles, as news organizations are typically expected to at least maintain the pretenses of editorial independence. But as highlighted by MediaBistro, no such outrage has been forthcoming from Cathy Merrill Williams, publisher of The Washingtonian, a pretentious DC rag that purports to be "the region’s top source of information for dining, shopping, entertainment, and personalities."

Rather, Williams defends the Post's Weymouth for trying "something new" -- "All businesses make mistakes especially when searching for a new business model" -- and takes to task those "sanctimonious", "naval gazing" journalists who "want immunity from thinking about business" and dared criticize the innovative Weymouth for seeking to save the institution of journalism. In the process, however, Williams reveals just how sickeningly incestuous establishment Washington can be; indeed, the entire defense of Weymouth reads as little more than an attempt to get invited to the Post publisher's next cocktail party. Consider the following lines (complete with bullshit non-sequitur) defending the Post's efforts to sell access to "those powerful few", which Williams dismisses as but a harmless attempt to "reinvent an institution in an industry that is crumbling":

The fact is there is a great demand among advertisers to meet in small group settings of all kinds - not just to try to affect legislation, but to sample a new vodka or hear about a resort. Rather than dissect who sent what email when at the Post, perhaps the reports should spend some of their time, energy and talent figuring how to responsibly tap into new revenue streams including live events.

I suppose Williams believes this defense of the coziness between the major news media and their corporate backers exonerates the publishers of elite -- and failing -- publications like her own (she, like Weymouth, is also a legacy hire), but to people outside the DC bubble the idea of journalists and advertisers meeting after hours to sample fancy new liquors and to talk about their recent trips to the French Riviera probably does little to reassure them that the media has their interests at heart, or is even aware of what those interests may be. Also, as a reporter myself, I'm more interested in all that truth-to-power stuff that is noticeably absent from Williams' dissertation on the future of journalism. But I take it that makes me part of the problem.

Still, I guess I should defer to the publisher of The Washingtonian given her publication's storied commitment to journalism, as evidenced by one of its most recent hard-hitting cover stories: