Wish That I Knew What I Know Now

post from Ezra Klein on 28 June 2006 10:34:00 AM. © Ezra Klein

Noticing that "Rush Limbaugh likes to go to one of the underage sex capitals of the world with a bottle of Viagra in one hand and God knows what in the other," Digby sighs: Nonetheless, one thing I have learned...[...]

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Lieberman has Another Fan

post from Eschaton on 28 June 2006 10:25:00 AM. © Eschaton

Racist Michelle Malkin.

Nice friends you've got, Joe. Hannity, Malkin, ...

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Malaria

post from Eschaton on 28 June 2006 10:21:00 AM. © Eschaton

What Yglesias says. I'll be happy to hand the procurement responsibility over to the Defense Department and let them give the contract to Halliburton for cost+1000% if that's what's necessary to get the war-obsessed on board.

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Senate likely to vote on net neutrality today

post from AMERICAblog on 28 June 2006 10:07:00 AM. © AMERICAblog

See who hasn't made up their mind yet and voice your opinion. The anti-neutrality crowd would like you to believe that the Big Telcos will be honest and fair with the internet but looking at how they've trampled on our privacy, actively providing the government with information without warrants and considering the market dynamics of the telecom industry (prices on a steep decline even with GOP anti-competition help) I just don't see them as honest brokers at all. Also, looking at how this GOP dominated Congress and administration have botched everything they touch, I'd rather they not get involved with this situation.

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The most fact-free accusation yet - the "treason"
of the New York Times

post from Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald on 28 June 2006 10:05:00 AM. © Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald

An important article today in The Boston Globe reports a self-evidently dispositive fact in the controversy over the "treasonous" disclosure by The New York Times and other newspapers of the Bush administration's financial surveillance program -- namely, that none of those articles disclosed any meaningful operational information that was not already in the public domain:

But a search of public records -- government documents posted on the Internet, congressional testimony, guidelines for bank examiners, and even an executive order President Bush signed in September 2001 -- describe how US authorities have openly sought new tools to track terrorist financing since 2001. That includes getting access to information about terrorist-linked wire transfers and other transactions, including those that travel through SWIFT.

"There have been public references to SWIFT before," said Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003. "The White House is overreaching when they say [The New York Times committed] a crime against the war on terror. It has been in the public domain before."

Indeed, a report that [former State Department official Victor] Comras co-authored in 2002 for the UN Security Council specifically mentioned SWIFT as a source of financial information that the United States had tapped into.

The report by Comras referenced here is the same one cited in my post yesterday to demonstrate that it was already public knowledge that the U.S. has access to and actively monitors financial transactions effectuated through SWIFT. In the Globe article, even Bush's own former high-level terrorism official makes clear that nothing in the Times report disclosed any significant operational information not previously in the public domain. And the Globe article identifies multiple other instances in which similar information was publicly disclosed by the Bush administration itself as a means of boasting about its anti-terrorism record.

I watched probably six or seven news programs since Friday which discussed the traitorus acts committed by the Times, all of which were chock full of shrill accusations that the Times had committed "treason" and deserved criminal prosecution, if not worse ("treason" is, of course, a capital crime, the punishment for which -- as is ingrained in everyone's brain -- is execution, not imprisonment). And yet, I never once heard any of the esteemed journalists or pundits mention any of these facts. While I had known (and previously posted) that President Bush had repeatedly disclosed details about our counter-terrorism efforts in order to win re-election (including our efforts to monitor terrrorists' banking transactions), it was not until I began reading about the issue in the blogosphere yesterday did I learn that it has long been public knowledge that we monitor international banking transactions through SWIFT, among other banking systems.

For anyone who is accusing the Times of "treason," or claiming that they harmed national security, what is the answer to this question:

What, specifically, would a terrorist have been willing to do on June 22 [the day before the banking story was published] that he would not do on June 23 as a result of the Times' article?

The same question has been repeatedly asked, but never answered, with regard to the "treasonous" Times disclosure of the warrantless eavesdropping program:

What, specifically, would a terrorist have been willing to do on December 15 [the day before the NSA story was published] that he would not do on December 16 as a result of the Times article?

Prior to the "treasonous" Times articles, The Terrorists already knew that we were eavesdropping on their international calls and monitoring their banking transactions -- because that information was previously, and repeatedly, put into the public domain, often by the Bush administration and President Bush himself. What the Times revealed is the lack of oversight and checks on these intelligence-gathering activities, not the existence of the activities themselves, which were already well known.

That is why not a single person who ever sermonizes righteously about the traitors at the Times can ever identify what ought to be the first fact that is identified when accusing someone of harming national security -- namely, the disclosure of facts which (a) would enable the terrorists to avoid surveillance detection and (b) was not previously known. Those facts simply do not exist, which is why nobody ever identifies them.

One of the programs to which I subjected myself over the weekend was Chris Wallace's show on Fox. The little panel he assembled talked about the treason of the Times for five minutes or so. Brit Hume snarled angrily the entire time as he ranted about the arrogant and treasonous impulses of the New York Times. Bill Kristol repeatedly advocated criminal prosecution against the Times for helping the terrorists to win The War against us. Mara Liasson spat out meaningless neutralties designed, as always, to show how reasonable she is. And Juan Williams, the only one on the panel to "defend" the Times, did so by stupidly claiming that disclosure of the program was actually a good thing because now The Terrorists know that we are watching the SWIFT program and they can't use it anymore. What a coup for us!

Anyone watching this Fox show (or reading virtually any article on this topic) would simply assume that the Times disclosed super-duper top secret information about how we monitor banking transactions which was not previously known to The Terrorists, and would further assume that the Times article provided a never-before-disclosed blueprint for The Terrorists to evade detection.

And it wasn't just on Fox. Every show I watched on which the question of the Times' treason was playfully bandied about all tacitly assumed that the Times disclosed helpful information to The Terrorists, and the only question was whether they should be hanged, imprisoned, or merely despised by all Decent People for having done so. (Surprisingly, even Kevin Drum operates from the same false assumption that the Times disclosed the never-before-known fact that we monitor SWIFT transactions and makes the same argument as Williams made -- that the Times helpfully took away SWIFT as a financial instrument for terrorists). Except just as was true with the Times "disclosure" of the "Terrorist Surveillance Program," the core factual assumption is plainly false. There was not a single non-public fact disclosed by the Times that would enable The Terrorists to avoid surveillance detection, and nobody ever bothers to identify any such fact when engaging in these wild accusatory rituals.

Yet again, The Boston Globe demonstrates what real journalism is supposed to do -- subject claims by the Government and its loyalists (in this case, claims that the Times disclosed information that will help the terrorists commit terrorist attacks) to skeptical scrutiny, and then report facts which have been concealed that undermine the Government's claim. That's the definition of the core journalistic purpose.

This is not a complicated matter. Nobody who is making these accusations can identify a single specific act that Terrorists would have engaged in before that they will now avoid. That, by itself, does not merely undermine, but destroys, the claim that the Times harmed national security. Any "journalist" who allows those accusations to be made without pointing out that fact are, to put it mildly, acting quite irresponsibly.

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Senate Committee Launches Taxpayer-Funded
Misinformation Campaign About Gore Movie

post from Think Progress on 28 June 2006 09:46:00 AM. © Think Progress

Your tax dollars are being used to fund a misinformation campaign about Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued a press release headlined “AP Incorrectly Claims Scientists Praise Gore’s Movie.” It doesn’t substantiate the claim. The AP contacted 100 climate scientists, including noted “climate skeptics,” [...]

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Not Only the Times

post from Eschaton on 28 June 2006 09:42:00 AM. © Eschaton

It shouldn't fall on Greg Sargent, toiling away on his blog, to point out that aside from the frightening precedent that the Bush administration is setting by going after a media outlet, they are, in fact, completely full of shit on the issue.

Stand up, media, stand up... I've watched too many in the media stand by or even cheer it on when the right manages to collect a media scalp. Even if you "behave," they'll still come for you.

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um, ew

Roll Call.

Rush Job. Rumors were swirling around Capitol Hill and beyond Tuesday that Rush Limbaugh is dating actress Mary Lynn Rajskub, who plays Chloe O'Brian on the Fox series "24." Though that still doesn't explain the unauthorized bottle of little blue pills (shhh, Viagra!) that customs agents found in Limbaugh's luggage at Palm Beach International Airport on Monday.

The conservative radio talk show host hinted on his show Tuesday that he went on a boys-only trip with the cast of "24." Chloe is no boy. If you saw the papers over the weekend, including The Washington Post, there were photos of Limbaugh planting a big kiss right on Rajskub's lips during a dog-and-pony event at the Heritage Foundation.

No one at Heritage seemed to know whether Limbaugh and Rajskub were more than photo-op kissing buddies. A spokeswoman for Heritage who asked not to be named told HOH, "Nobody knows. Several people have been asking today. I have no idea."

Our guess is, probably not. Though why would Rush take Viagra on a boys-only trip?

The woman in question.

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Wanker of the Day

Assrocket.

I'll add that Gore's movie is already the #7 documentary of all time, and will almost definitely take the #5 spot, if not higher, before its run ends.

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GOP House leaders will devote rest of Congress to
far-right special interests, will lock up House with debates on guns and abortion

Because what America really needs right now is more guns on the streets. And the biggest problem facing our troops in Iraq is abortion in America. The Republican controlling the US Congress aren't even pretending to address the problems of regular Americans anymore. They're afraid they may lose their seats in the fall elections so they're trying to pass every piece of special interest legislation they can, before it's too late:

Other bills are certain to spark controversy.

One would to strip the Supreme Court and other federal courts of jurisdiction over cases challenging the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance. The legislation is a response to a 2002 Appeals Court ruling that held the pledge is unconstitutional because of the presence of the words "under God." A federal judge made a similar ruling last fall, citing the appeals court precedent.

Another measure would block the payment of attorney fees in challenges to the display of the Ten Commandments in public areas and other, similar church-state lawsuits.

An abortion-related proposal would require that some women seeking to end their pregnancies be informed the procedure "will cause the unborn child pain" and they have the option of receiving drugs to reduce or eliminate it. A separate measure would ban human cloning, a prohibition that cleared the House in the previous Congress.

Two measures relate to the rights of gun owners. One would prohibit the confiscation of legal firearms during national emergencies, barring practices such as the one that officials said arose in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit.

The measure is backed by the National Rifle Association, which has hailed the recent passage of a state law in Louisiana. "The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina became the proving ground for what American gun owners have always feared: the day that government bureaucrats throw the Bill of Rights in the trash and declare freedom to be whatever they say it is," Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, said in a statement posted on the organization's Web site.

Yes, for Republicans that was the true lesson of Hurricane Katrina. Not enough guns.

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