GOP Wants to Purge Hagel

post from Crooks and Liars on 10 June 2007 05:30:31 PM. © Crooks and Liars

MyDD:Diarist ptmflbcs at Dailykos alerted me once again to important chapter in the story of the modern Republican Party: the current right-wing primary challenge to Senator Chuck Hagel by Attorney General Jon Bruning. This is something of a Lieberman-Lamont story on the GOP, only in reverse. But the parallels aren’t perfect, [...]

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Fox News' Kelly misquoted Edwards to suggest he
cited Hilton affair in "two Americas" comments

post from Media Matters for America on 10 June 2007 05:24:36 PM. © Media Matters for America

Discussing celebrity heiress Paris Hilton's jail sentence onthe June 10 edition of Fox News' Fox& Friends Sunday, host Greg Kelly stated: "[A]ccording to[Democratic presidential candidate]John Edwards, this kind of drives home his point about two Americas. He saidthis on the campaign trail: 'I still believe,' he said, 'withregard to Paris Hilton, that we have two Americas.' " Newsday columnist James P. Pinkertonresponded: "[I]f by ... twoAmericas, you mean the[...]

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FDL Book Salon Welcomes Murray Waas and Jeff
Lomonaco

post from Firedoglake on 10 June 2007 05:00:44 PM. © Firedoglake

(Welcome to FDL Book Salon, where today we are privileged to have Murray Waas and Jeff Lomonaco online with us to discuss The Unived States v. I. Lewis Libby. As always, please keep the discussion on point. The Salon today is being introduced by Jeff[...]

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f-lomonaco/

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Midday Open Thread

post from Daily Kos on 10 June 2007 04:52:28 PM. © Daily Kos

Sorry this is late and empty - some links should be added soon but for now, at least have some open thread to use.

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Tech Help Central: How to Disable the "Snap
Preview" Function on MyLeftWing

post from My Left Wing - Front Page on 10 June 2007 04:45:50 PM. © My Left Wing - Front Page

I'm taking the highly unusual step of posting a technical help bulletin, simply because:

1. So many people are complaining about slow load times/freezing of browsers on MyLeftWing;

2. I want to make sure everybody sees this.

The problem may be due to the new "snap preview" function that causes links to pop up like a little cartoon balloon.

But help is here: you can disable "snap preview".

Here's how:
To disable this feature, follow this link:

http://www.snap.com/...

The good folks at Lifehacker explain what Snap Preview does and how to disable it (albeit temporarily):

Disable Snap Previews on web sites
We all have our internet pet peeves - those minor annoyances that web sites throw in our faces. One of mine is the Snap Preview, a feature that pulls up a small, in-browser pop-up preview of a linked site when you hover over it. To me they're like the equally obtrusive (and annoying) advertisements that take up half your browser window and cover up content.
Luckily, it's not all that difficult to get rid of them. You just need to go to the Snap website and download a cookie that deactivates all of those preview windows. Install it, refresh any offending sites, and you'll be clear of those irritating little bubbles. It'll only work until you clear your cookies, so keep that in mind.

Source: http://lifehacker.co...

Hope this helps!

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http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=17195

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Open thread

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 10 June 2007 04:34:00 PM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

Joe is getting ready to watch the Sopranos. Don't disturb him. I'm watching the Tony Awards, which is something I don't normally do, but a friend mentioned last night that they were going to be on, and I'm feeling like I need a bit more culture.

And in honor of the Sopranos, I'm posting a few photos I bought in Sicily years ago. They're actually photo-negatives of some kind, on glass plates. I thought they were cool, but never figured out how to see what they were until now - I scanned them and used Photoshop. So here's to some very old Sicilians, long lost.

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Genuinely Disturbed

post from Eschaton on 10 June 2007 04:24:00 PM. © Eschaton

Indeed.

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Memo to Byron York: Going To Jail Pending Appeal
Is The Norm, Not The Exception

post from TalkLeft on 10 June 2007 04:09:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Writing in The Hill, Byron York laments the fact that Judge Walton is "determined" to send Scooter Libby to jail pending his appeal:

At sentencing this week, Walton also said that he saw no reason why Libby shouldn’t be behind bars sooner rather than later — in other words, that he should begin serving his sentence while his appeal is underway. Why the hurry? These days it’s often the case that when a defendant is judged no danger to society and no danger to flee the country, he is allowed to remain free on appeal.

Tom Maguire seconds the motion. I had the same thoughts when I first heard this. But we were all wrong. I think it is due to the fact that York, Maguire and I are not well versed in criminal law. You see, going to jail pending appeal is the norm, not the exception. The relevant statute says:

b) Release or Detention Pending Appeal by the Defendant.—
(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), the judicial officer shall order that a person who has been found guilty of an offense and sentenced to a term of imprisonment, and who has filed an appeal or a petition for a writ of certiorari, be detained, unless the judicial officer finds—

.....(B) that the appeal is not for the purpose of delay and raises a substantial question of law or fact likely to result in—
(i) reversal,

(ii) an order for a new trial,

(iii) a sentence that does not include a term of imprisonment, or

(iv) a reduced sentence to a term of imprisonment less than the total of the time already served plus the expected duration of the appeal process.

So it is the norm that there be immediate jail time, not the exception. For a civil litigator like myself, this stands things on it head. But such is the system.

Judge Walton is not having a fit of pique when he applies the law as he is here. The problem is the law, not Judge Walton. Sometimes, folks like me, York and Maguire shoot from the hip without knowing what we are talking about. And criticize public figures unfairly. This was one of those times.

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On Meet the Press, Gerth and Van Natta
cling to falsehood about Clinton's criticism of Bush on war

On the June 10 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press, Jeff Gerth, co-author of HerWay: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton(Little, Brown & Co., June 2007), again claimed that prior to June 2006,Clinton "didn't accuse" President Bush "of misusing theauthority" granted him by the 2002 Authorization For Use Of MilitaryForce Against Iraq. In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, she did precisely thatin an interview more than two years before.In Her Way,Gerth and[...]

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Iraq: The Post Occupation Occupation

After years of fighting post-hostility hostilities, military officials are now planning for the post-occupation occupation. As Thomas E. Ricks of the Washington Post informs us:

U.S. military officials here are increasingly envisioning a "post-occupation" troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout, but aims for a smaller, longer-term force that would remain in the country for years?
? It is based on officials' assessment that a sharp drawdown of troops is likely to begin by the middle of next year, with roughly two-thirds of the current force of 150,000 moving out by late 2008 or early 2009.

The assessment that a sharp drawdown is likely to begin in mid-2008 may be a false assumption.
Go Long

As currently envisioned, the "long force" would consist of a 20,000 man reinforced mechanized division, 10,000 advisory troops to train and work with Iraqi forces, a headquarters and logistics element of 10,000 personnel and some civilian contractors.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others have taken to calling this the "Korean model," though most analysts agree that the situation in Iraq has very little in common with Korea. We have spent over fifty years in South Korea in support of a cease-fire agreement. This has been relatively successful because the belligerents have by and large cooperated with the peace agreement, and because they are sovereign nations separated by a defined border. U.S. troops in the south are not in the middle of a multi-sided Hobbesian conflict as they are in Iraq, and the South Koreans want us in their country whereas most Iraqis want us to leave theirs.

Our ability to safely withdraw troops from Iraq will depend on significant and lasting decreases in violence levels as well as political progress within the Iraqi government. Neither of those things appears imminent. We have to ensure that whatever number of troops we leave in Iraq will be able to defend themselves and maintain their line of communication and supply through Kuwait. Before we can draw down to 40,000 troops, we have to determine "ground" conditions that will allow sufficient force security and logistics support, and those conditions may be impossible to determine.

What's more, any drawdown will be a gradual one. As Ricks points out, even if a total pullout were the goal, it could take a full year to accomplish. We could conceivably be 20,000 troops into a pull out only to discover violence increasing, thus requiring yet another surge to quell hostilities, and find ourselves right back at square one. Keep in mind that the original plan was to have only 30,000 troops left in Iraq by fall of 2003. Also keep in mind that Iraqi forces still show little sign of being able to manage that country's security situation.

Officials in Baghdad don't take think the "September deadline" for showing progress in the "surge" plan is realistic. Ricks says that some of them quietly suggest that they really have until January 20, 2009 before they'll need to put the smaller force in place.

Whether they'll be required to resort to the smaller force will depend on the 2008 election results. If a war-friendly Republican candidate wins the White House and the GOP takes back, say, the Senate, we may still have pre-surge numbers of troops in Iraq for at least one more political cycle.

And there may be a convenient excuse for keeping up the troops levels in Iraq. Iran has warned that its missiles can reach U.S. bases in Iraq, implying they will use their missiles on those bases if the U.S. initiates an attack on Iran.

We have no way of knowing what Iran's nuclear intentions are. The administration insists that Iran wants nuclear weapons. Iran insists it only wants a nuclear energy program. Even if Iran is lying, it won't be capable of producing nuclear weapons before the Bush term expires, so any missile attacks on U.S. ground forces would involve chemical, biological or conventional warheads (and I'm not entirely convinced Iran has chemical or biological weapon stockpiles).

But even a mere conventional warhead missile attack on American bases--whatever set of circumstances might prompt them--could have a devastating effect on a much reduced U.S. force in Iraq, especially if Iran also managed to close down the Straits of Hormuz. With that sea line of communication cut off, reinforcement of the troops in Iraq would be next to impossible, and all kinds of bad things can happen in a scenario like that.

Relationships between the U.S. and Iran aren't likely to improve during the Bush tenure. Iran could conceivably become the rationale for keeping troop levels in Iraq robust. If the rhetoric and saber rattling become bellicose enough, even the most dovish 44th president we could possibly put in office might not be able to avoid an expansion of hostilities in the Gulf region.

Yes, that sounds like a paranoid doomsday scenario, but it's one that we need to consider because that's the course the Bush administration and its supporters have been steering throughout its existence, and they show no indication of shifting their rudders.

On Sunday's Face the Nation, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) told host Bob Schieffer ?I think we have to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq.?

In this regard, Lieberman is lockstep with his hawkish pal Dick Cheney, whose staff members have spread the word that he thinks diplomacy with Iran is pointless, and with leading neoconservatives like Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan whose aim is to create a total, indefinite and intractable war with as much of the Muslim world as they can draw into it.

So when you hear news of planned drawdowns in Iraq or diplomatic efforts with Iran, don't let our guard down. The neocon hawks still have the ear of the great decider, and you have to watch all of them like, well, like hawks.

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at Pen and Sword.

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