it was all a lie, cont.

They were also complete morons with no concern for the long term health of the institutions they ran. From the Boston Globe (c/o TPM):

WASHINGTON - Just months before the start of last year's stock market collapse, the federal agency that insures the retirement funds of 44 million Americans departed from its conservative investment strategy and decided to put much of its $64 billion insurance fund into stocks.

Switching from a heavy reliance on bonds, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation decided to pour billions of dollars into speculative investments such as stocks in emerging foreign markets, real estate, and private equity funds.

The agency refused to say how much of the new investment strategy has been implemented or how the fund has fared during the downturn. The agency would only say that its fund was down 6.5 percent - and all of its stock-related investments were down 23 percent - as of last Sept. 30, the end of its fiscal year. But that was before most of the recent stock market decline and just before the investment switch was scheduled to begin in earnest.

No statistics on the fund's subsequent performance were released.

It's like they were trying to destroy the government.

Bush's midnight regulations: a laundry list

10 gallon tip to Chuy for finding this. Some of them are real howlers.

What a jackass.

Chicago politics

Awesome:

Mayor Daley made it dramatically clear Monday what he thinks of recent accusations from Gov. Blagojevich that the city is to blame for a potential CTA fare hike.

"Cuckoo," Daley said in a high-pitched voice.

For what it's worth, from what I've read on the subject Blagojevich did screw Daley here. The CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) has been hit hard by higher gas prices and less money coming in at the state level (contrary to President Reagan's misguided beliefs, the only things that "trickle down" are budget shortfalls). CTA pushed hard and finally won a sales tax increase in the statehouse to help with their budget problems, but then out of nowhere the governor went and slapped an addendum to it mandating that CTA let seniors ride free.

This is the way of state and local politics. Irresponsible governors make themselves look good by rolling the tax burden downhill to mayors or forcing them to take on extra burdens so the governor can look good for the cameras. The mayors then have to do the dirty work of raising property taxes or lobbying the state government to raise sales/income taxes to pay for basic services like public transportation, sanitation, roads, police, etc., as well as the new governor-mandated services, which makes the mayors look extra bad.

When irresponsible governors become presidents, they do the same thing: cut taxes at the federal level to win votes, and make up the shortfall by sending less money to the states while also issuing them new responsibilities-- you may have heard Howard Dean refer to them as "unfunded mandates"-- to makes themselves look good, forcing state governments to raise taxes to deal with the new deficits. Sound familiar?

the Obamafication of Republican foreign policy, part 3

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.

The classified orders signal a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and after months of high-level stalemate about how to challenge the militants’ increasingly secure base in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Barack Obama, August 1, 2007 (via Reuters):

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said on Wednesday the United States must be willing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan, adopting a tough tone after a chief rival accused him of naivete in foreign policy.

Obama's stance comes amid debate in Washington over what to do about a resurgent al Qaeda and Taliban in areas of northwest Pakistan that President Pervez Musharraf has been unable to control, and concerns that new recruits are being trained there for a September 11-style attack against the United States.

Obama said if elected in November 2008 he would be willing to attack inside Pakistan with or without approval from the Pakistani government, a move that would likely cause anxiety in the already troubled region.

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.

John McCain thought Obama's idea was "naive" at the time. Wonder what he thinks now?

For those of you keeping score, the Bush Administration is already quietly adopting Obama's foreign policy positions on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, and McCain has himself adopted Obama's position on Afghanistan after chiding him for it. This, then, makes the fifth time the Republicans have mocked Obama's foreign policy only to appropriate it as their own later. Or, as it was expressed 4 years ago, being against it before they were for it.

It's not a flip flop, however, because John McCain was a POW.

Hookers and blow, indeed

Ladies and gentlemen: the latest in a long, long line of Bush Administration scandals. From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

“A culture of ethical failure” besets the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.

The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.

When we said the Bush Administration is in bed with the oil companies, that's not quite what we meant.

But it's pretty close.

Bush: McCain's treatment not torture

Interesting. I can't believe I didn't think of that!

Bush to Curveball: "Give me a whopper!"

The LA Times tracks down the infamous "Curveball." It ain't pretty:

"He was corrupt," said a family friend who once employed him.

"He always lied," said a fellow Burger King worker.

And records reveal that when Alwan fled to Germany, one step ahead of the Iraq Justice Ministry, an arrest warrant had been issued alleging that he sold filched camera equipment on the Baghdad black market.
...
Alwan didn't share all his secrets. He didn't disclose that he had been fired at least twice for dishonesty, or that he fled Iraq to avoid arrest. But he did tell some whoppers that should have raised warnings about his credibility.

He claimed, for example, that the son of his former boss, Basil Latif, secretly headed a vast weapons of mass destruction procurement and smuggling scheme from England. British investigators found, however, that Latif's son was a 16-year-old exchange student, not a criminal mastermind.
...
In early 2002, a year before the war, he told co-workers at the Burger King that he spied for Iraqi intelligence and would report any fellow Iraqi worker who criticized Hussein's regime.

They couldn't decide if he was dangerous or crazy.

"During breaks, he told stories about what a big man he was in Baghdad," said Hamza Hamad Rashid, who remembered an odd scene with the pudgy Alwan in his too-tight Burger King uniform praising Hussein in the home of der Whopper. "But he always lied. We never believed anything he said."

Another Iraqi friend, Ghazwan Adnan, remembers laughing when he applied for a job at a local Princess Garden Chinese Restaurant and discovered Alwan washing dishes in the back while claiming to be "a big deal" in Iraq. "How could America believe such a person?"

This guy was a primary source for George W. Bush's prewar WMD claims. Remember the mobile weapons labs in Colin Powell's UN presentation? All Curveball.

it's official: Bush lied

From McClatchy (who else?):

WASHINGTON— A long-awaited Senate Select Intelligence Committee report made public Thursday concludes that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made public statements to promote an invasion of Iraq that they knew at the time were not supported by available intelligence.

A companion report found that a special office set up by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld undertook "sensitive intelligence activities" that were inappropriate "without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department."
...
“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate," Rockefeller said in a statement.

Among the reports conclusions:

* Claims by President Bush that Iraq and al Qaida had a partnership "were not substantiated by the intelligence."

* The president and vice president misrepresented what was known about Iraq’s chemical weapons capabiliies.

* Rumsfeld misrepresented what the intelligence community knew when he said Iraq's weapons productions facilities were buried deeply underground.

* Cheney's claim that the intelligence community had confirmed that lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 was not true.

Frankly, I have nothing more to say about this.

Hogwash. Hogwash! Hogwash.

McClatchy, formerly Knight-Ridder, has consistently been the best press outfit in its reporting on Iraq, standing head and shoulders above everyone else. They took a moment last week to bitchslap Brian Williams, Charles Gibson, and the rest of 'em. I think it's gonna leave a mark.

what happens if he says, "Make me!"?

dKos takes a break from obnoxious candidate-shilling and sockpuppetry to let Kagro X explain to us just how willing the president is to undermine separation of powers and even the Rule of Law, and not just in order to keep his own fat out of the fryer, but even merely as a guy who doesn't believe he can (or should) be stopped.

Riffing off of what Kagro X is arguing here, I think this is what makes it so difficult for Congress to battle the president effectively on matters of potential criminal misdeeds in the Executive. The president doesn't give an inch, he doesn't compromise, he doesn't believe in comity or bipartisanship, or oversight, for that matter. Every single move they make will be fought to the last man, every request will be denied, every demand will be stonewalled, because George W. Bush doesn't believe in governing: he believes in winning. The federal government, to him, is not a governing body that hammers out compromises in order to work together according to the will of the people; rather, it is a battleground where the Forces of Good battle the Forces of Liberal to the death, where one side must Win and the other Lose, where willingness to compromise is a sign of weakness and the desires of the masses are not something to legislate, but something to be reshaped in the Battle of Messaging that takes place right after the legislative Victory.

It's like trying to run a congress with Beowulf as president.

Furthermore, he has been convinced by the neocon cabal in the White House that, once he sends troops into another country, he is virtually omnipotent until the conflict is over. And enough Republican senators have bought into his bullshit that they will filibuster every bill he doesn't like, and vote however he wants them to on every bill, and use every legislative maneuver in the book to defeat bills he doesn't like.

How do you fight such a monster? One of 2 ways: 1. you capitulate to it, appease it until it leaves, trying to eek out as many little wins as you can get without really angering the behemoth so that it destroys as little as possible in that time-- and pray to God that another monster doesn't take its place-- or 2. you set your jaw, steel your gaze, and resolve to fight it to the death, even if that means jeopardizing the entire system, because you cannot allow it to go undefeated, you cannot allow the theory of the Unitary Executive to go irrefuted, you cannot let future presidents think that this sort of behavior is permitted.

The problem is that, in Congress, where you have to have at least a majority to do anything and nearly half the body is already working for the president, if you can't get your whole caucus to commit to the latter strategy, you're forced to accept the former.

"Wasn't that, like, the Bay of Pigs thing?"

This woman has a high profile job in the Executive Office explaining presidential decisions and opinions to the press and voting public.

Suffice to say it has not gone well.

I guess that's what you get when you hire Olive Snook to be your press secretary.

fiscal responsibility in George W. Bush's world

Truly sick. From KDKA in Pittsburgh (c/o TPM):

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

Dear God, please make Brian Williams run a segment about this tonight.
Dear God, please make Brian Williams run a segment about this tonight.
Dear God...

outed and offed

Oh my God! From Larry Johnson, former CIA agent and classmate of Plame:

In 2004 the FBI received intelligence that Al Qaeda hit teams were enroute to the United States to kill Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Valerie Plame. The FBI informed Valerie of this threat... As the mother of two pre-school children, her first thoughts were about protecting her kids. She took the threat seriously and asked for help.

When the White House learned of these threats they sprung into action. They beefed up Secret Service protection for Vice President Cheney and provided security protection to Karl Rove. But they declined to do anything for Valerie. That was a CIA problem.

Valerie contacted the office of Security at CIA and requested assistance. They told her too fucking bad and to go pound sand. They did not use those exact words, but they told her she was on her own.
...
So if you have wondered why Joe and Val are a little pissed off, this might help shed some additional light on the matter. Not only did the Bush Administration out a covert intelligence officer working on the most sensitive national security issues in a time of war, but when that officer faced a direct threat to her life and her family’s safety because of that public exposure, they did not do a goddamn thing to help.

Apparently Plame recounts this story in her new book, Fair Game. I heard Terry Gross interviewing her yesterday, and when conversation turned to the Bush Administration and the exposure of her identity to the Prince of Darkness, Plame actually dropped the T-bomb ("treason"). That's a pretty serious charge to be throwing around,* and I don't know that I've ever actually heard someone in a non-elected, non-appointed government office use that word before.

My guess at the time was that someone she knew and had been working closely with had died because of that exposure. She was mad as hell.

*-- Not that Plame's characterization of the outing of a covert CIA operative is necessarily wrong or right, mind you; it's just that it's much stronger than the language I think most people are accustomed to hearing.

Bush Administration tried to cow Chris Matthews

This is very interesting, and I very seriously hope some enterprising reporter takes this up. From the Examiner (c/o ThinkProgress):

After praising the drafters of the First Amendment for allowing him to make a living, he outlined what he said was the fundamental difference between the Bush and Clinton administrations.

The Clinton camp, he said, never put pressure on his bosses to silence him.

“Not so this crowd,” he added, explaining that Bush White House officials -- especially those from Vice President Cheney's office -- called MSNBC brass to complain about the content of his show and attempted to influence its editorial content. "They will not silence me!" Matthews declared.

Are we going to have to add intimidation of national media figures to the list of the Bush Administration's unpunished crimes?

Worst. Idea. Ever.

From the BBC:

US Army snipers in Iraq are ordered to "bait" areas with explosives and ammunition and then kill whoever picks them up, according to court documents.
...
"Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it," he said.

"If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against US Forces."
...
Within months of the "baiting" programme being introduced, three snipers from Capt Didier's platoon, which was attached 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, were charged with premeditated murder after using "drop items" to make shootings appear legitimate, according to the Post.

What is this, Operation Elmer Fudd?

I'm sure it's been asked already, but if you were walking down the street and saw a cartridge of bullets on the ground, what are the chances you would pick it up?

benchmarks

Ever wondered what those benchmarks are that the president and congress keep talking about? Luckily someone did the work of finding them, which rather interestingly was a significant amount of work:

(A) The United States strategy in Iraq, hereafter, shall be conditioned on the Iraqi government meeting benchmarks, as told to members of Congress by the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and reflected in the Iraqi Government's commitments to the United States, and to the international community, including:

(i) Forming a Constitutional Review Committee and then completing the constitutional review.

(ii) Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Baathification.

(iii) Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources of the people of Iraq without regard to the sect or ethnicity of recipients, and enacting and implementing legislation to ensure that the energy resources of Iraq benefit Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Kurds, and other Iraqi citizens in an equitable manner.

(iv) Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions.

(v) Enacting and implementing legislation establishing an Independent High Electoral Commission, provincial elections law, provincial council authorities, and a date for provincial elections.

(vi) Enacting and implementing legislation addressing amnesty.

(vii) Enacting and implementing legislation establishing a strong militia disarmament program to ensure that such security forces are accountable only to the central government and loyal to the Constitution of Iraq.

(viii) Establishing supporting political, media, economic, and services committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan.

(ix) Providing three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations.

(x) Providing Iraqi commanders with all authorities to execute this plan and to make tactical and operational decisions, in consultation with U.S commanders, without political intervention, to include the authority to pursue all extremists, including Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.

(xi) Ensuring that the Iraqi Security Forces are providing even handed enforcement of the law.

(xii) Ensuring that, according to President Bush, Prime Minister Maliki said `the Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation'.

(xiii) Reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security.

(xiv) Establishing all of the planned joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad.

(xv) Increasing the number of Iraqi security forces units capable of operating independently.

(xvi) Ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected.

(xvii) Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenues for reconstruction projects, including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis.

(xviii) Ensuring that Iraq's political authorities are not undermining or making false accusations against members of the Iraqi Security Forces.

Apparently the White House submitted a report to Congress (.pdf) yesterday outlining their progress on these goals. It's worth having a look. They claimed "satisfactory" progress on 8 of the 18 back in July, and now 9 today.

The secret: "satisfactory" progress is defined on p. 10 of the report as whether or not there is a "positive trajectory" from January. That is, the Bush Administration is counting any improvement of any kind whatsoever as "satisfactory progress," no matter how insignificant.

intelligence, and the lack thereof

It's worth mentioning that, when I was home, I got into a protracted argument with a hyperconservative friend of mine about whether or not we should've gone into Iraq, and his case (that we were right to do so) was based solely upon the credibility of the intelligence that Saddam had WMD. It was, so far as I could tell, the one thread he could hang on to in order to justify his hawkishness in 2002, and all my points about weapons inspectors being convinced that Saddam didn't have anything wouldn't budge him.

If there are a lot of people out there who think like him, and I'm pretty there are, this revelation is a big deal. Bush trusted a conman over one of Saddam's inner circle, and he did so because, as one of George Tenet's deputies says to the CIA agents trying to get the truth out:

"You haven't figured this out yet. This isn't about intelligence. It's about regime change."

Like something straight out of a Tom Clancy novel.

between Mattel and the GOP,

our kids are in deep trouble. From the Washington Times:

The nation's Medicaid directors yesterday told the Bush administration that its new restrictions on the federally funded State Children's Health Insurance Program will limit the number of children covered.

In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt, the National Association of State Medicaid Directors said the new standards reduce flexibility, making it difficult for states to expand coverage.

The Democrat-led Congress is moving to override the new standards and cover families earning several times the national poverty level. Democrats say a country as wealthy as the United States should better care for its children.

Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to shift the nation toward socialized health care.

So it's all quite reasonable, really: the Republicans are simply saying that it's worth it to cut off health insurance to middle-class kids if it means we don't have "socialized medicine," right? So these millions of kids get no more checkups and, if they get sick, their parents (or in some cases, parent) are at the mercy of the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies who have caused 46% of the nation's bankruptcies these last few years, but it's a small price to pay to be able to say our medicine isn't "socialized," right? C'mon, who's with me?

and now we know why the Petraeus report was planned for Sept.

Because casualties rates drop EVERY year in August.

More casualties than last year, however, people. Remember that.

projection?

But...but...I thought it was the Democrats who were always in disarray and who have no core principles??? From the Washington Post:

Boehner has convened a group of allies and confidantes to work on GOP "branding," an exercise designed to restore an identity to a party that many voters no longer see as holding a core set of principles.

"We're trying to look into our conscience and define ourselves, and as we define ourselves, decide how we can best communicate that to the rest of the world," said Rep. John Carter (Tex.), the Republican conference secretary and one of the effort's participants. "In other words, what are Republicans?"

Funny that the press has been telling us for years now that precisely the opposite is true, that it is the Democrats who don't know what they stand for. Had anyone else heard a peep about major fissures in the GOP before the House Minority Leader himself came out and said there were fissures? Because I don't remember much from that angle.

And look who just came down with the so-called "Bush Derangement Syndrome," that thing that people get when they get disillusioned with the president and thus become mentally ill: Peggy Noonan:

What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

As one might expect, Noonan is crying because the W doesn't want to punish people for the crime of being Mexican as much as she does.