Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation Poll: Minor
drops all around

post from Daily Kos on 29 March 2011 11:00:01 AM. © Daily Kos

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU (3/25-27, MoE: ±3.1, registered voters, Obama trendlines 3/17-20, all others 3/10-13):

A minor drop for President Obama, but as I like to remind people, these little one-week shifts don't mean much?particularly since all the motion in this poll is so small. There's almost always going to be a little gyration, though. As we've explained in our methodology statement, PPP (our pollster) weights according to gender, age, and race?but not according to party ID. Unlike these other characteristics, party ID is purely self-identified, and it's very easy to change (pissed at the Dems one week? tell the pollster you're an independent). Weighting according to party ID might produce smoother-seeming trendlines, but it's really not a wise idea.

If you drill down into the poll's internals, you can usually see why certain numbers changed. The question always is whether these changes are meaningful. So I can tell you that our sample is bit more conservative than last week, which is almost always going to hurt Obama... but increased conservative displeasure is also partly responsible for the downtick in the Republican Party favorables. Good for the goose, huh? I'm far from ready to make any pronouncements on either of these fronts, but as always, it's worth watching these developments over a longer time-frame to see if they amount to anything.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/zS5KmizW2Ro/-Daily-Kos-SEIU-State-
of-the-Nation-Poll:-Minor-drops-all-around

Digg this

This Could Be The Biggest Bull Market of the Next
Decade

post from Jutia Group on 29 March 2011 11:00:00 AM. © Jutia Group

It's going to touch everything.

It will make a difference in what we eat, where we travel, how we heat and cool our homes, even how much we save and spend.

Actually, these sorts of changes are already taking place. But over the next decade, the effects are likely to be felt . . . → Read More: This Could Be The Biggest Bull Market of the Next Decade

Read The Full Article:
http://jutiagroup.com/20110329-this-could-be-the-biggest-bull-market-of-the-next-
decade/

Digg this

Let's go serfin' now, everybody's learnin' how

post from Crooks and Liars on 29 March 2011 11:00:00 AM. © Crooks and Liars

enlarge America has had a lot of "So it's come to this..." moments over the past decade and the headline from this Fortune article gives us year another one:

Unpaid jobs: The new normal?

Yes, America, we've reached a point where our major business publications are asking whether it will soon become "normal" to work for absolutely no compensation whatsoever. The article itself is a tragically hilarious exposé of corporate greedheads who feel all tingly when they think about growing rich off of free labor. Just look at this:

"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative," says Kelly Fallis, chief executive of Remote Stylist, a Toronto and New York-based startup that provides Web-based interior design services. "From a cost savings perspective, to get something off the ground, it's huge. Especially if you're a small business."
In the last three years, Fallis has used about 50 unpaid interns for duties in marketing, editorial, advertising, sales, account management and public relations. She's convinced it's the wave of the future in human resources. "Ten years from now, this is going to be the norm," she says.

OK, so pick your jaw up off the floor and take a look at that first sentence again:

"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary..."

Well, yes. People who work for no money can't afford to buy food and are generally hungrier.

"...so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative..."

"...this one guy, who redesigned my entire website for a bag of Doritos last week, I got him to literally lick my boot. He actually licked it! I thought that only happened in the movies!"

Like others who have used unpaid labor, Remote Stylist's Kelly Fallis recommends beginning with a very specific job description and conducting a thorough hiring process to screen out people who aren't going to give their all for nothing.
Candidates who respond to Fallis' postings on Craigslist and Facebook must fill out a detailed email questionnaire and undergo two rounds of phone interviews and three in-person interviews.

I can only imagine what these grueling tests consist of. My quess: Fallis has her two Doberman Pinschers take a ginormous dump on a silver plate. She then instructs job candidates to eat it. Those who swallow their pride (and a whole lot else!) will get the job. Those who refuse? BUH-BYE!

Those who join Remote Stylist, whether they are students or out-of-work 20- or 30-somethings, must agree to a four-month run and sign a hiring contract. She asks interns to commit 30 hours a week; she has been burned in the past by people who were trying to juggle a paid job with their commitment to Remote Stylist.

When you commit to Remote Stylist, you commit to living on the roof of a Taco Bell and to feeding only on pigeons and rats who get caught in the nearby heating ducts. Everything else must be sacrificed.

John Lovejoy, managing director of multimedia fundraising company Nomadic Nation, received 300 responses for an editor position and 700 cameraman applications after only one week of advertising a project to drive from Germany to Cambodia in plastic cars. Not only were the positions unpaid, but successful candidates had to pay their own expenses. One editor and two cameramen ended up quitting before the end of the trek due to rough conditions and 16-hour workdays. In retrospect, Lovejoy says, "I would screen a little bit better and make sure they understood that this wasn't a vacation."

Very true. Lots of people get paid while they're on vacations, after all.

This, then, is the Grand Future our corporate masters have in mind for the American worker: A bunch of poor suckers so desperate for any kind of work that they'll agree to be modern-day serfs. And luckily for them, the GOP has decided to adopt their strategy by telling Americans that we should be willing to take massive pay cuts so that our corporate masters will deign to hire us again. Something tells me this won't go over well in Real America once they figure out what's really up.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/brad-reed/lets-go-serfin-now-everybodys-learnin-ho

Digg this

Revenge Of The Bush DOJ: Mukasey's War Against
The Obama Administration

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 29 March 2011 10:56:07 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

Bush administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey has regularly used platforms on the op-ed pages of major newspapers and as a guest on cable and broadcast news programs to serve as an attack dog seeking to undermine President Obama, his administration, and in particular Attorney General Eric Holder on a wide variety of issues. Most recently, Mukasey has slammed the Obama Justice department for bringing a discrimination lawsuit against a school on behalf of a Muslim teacher who resigned after her request for time off to make hajj, a religious pilgrimage observant Muslims must take, was denied.

Mukasey Targeted DOJ OverReligious Discrimination Suit

Mukasey Said He Would Not Have Brought SuitAs AG, Asserted That "You Really Have To Question The Motives" Of Obama DOJ. Fromthe March 28, 2011, edition of Fox News' Fox& Friends:

CARLSON: I posed the question at the end of the last block, whatwould Michael Mukasey have done as attorney general, and the answer is?

MUKASEY: The answer is Michael Mukasey would nothave authorized the bringing of this lawsuit.

CARLSON: Why?

MUKASEY: Because the Justice Department haslimited resources, and you bring cases that havemerit and that are clear winners. This is neither.
[...]
CARLSON: I'm thinking to myself, Mr. Mukasey, that schooldistricts right now have no money, and the idea that we would create this sense of entitlementacross our nation when everyone is trying to make budget cuts -- it justdoesn't seem to add up in my mind.

MUKASEY: It doesn't add up in mine either, and youreally have to question the motives of somebody who would press a matter likethat at a time like this whether they're interested in simply a matter ofreligious observance, or whether it's just an attempt to provoke an argument.

CARLSON: And if you were the judge and this camebefore you, you would do what?

MUKASEY: That's what the summary judgment ruleswere put there for. [FoxNews, Fox & Friends, 3/28/11]

Mukasey: DOJ Case Is A "Real Legal Reach." TheWashington Post reported on March 23,2011:

The lawsuit, filed inDecember, may well test the boundaries of how far employers must go toaccommodate workers' religious practices - a key issue as the nation grows moremulticultural and the Muslim population increases. But it is also raising legalquestions. Experts say the government might have difficulty prevailing becausethe 19-day leave Khan requested goes beyond what courts have considered.
"It sounds like a verydubious judgment and a real legal reach," said Michael B. Mukasey, who wasattorney general in the George W. Bushadministration. "The upper reaches of the Justice Department should becalling people to account for this." [Washington Post, 3/23/11]

This Is Only Mukasey's Latest Attack OnHolder And The Obama DOJ

Mukasey'sVerdict: "Obama Is Mishandling The War On Terror"

Mukasey: Obama Is "Abandoning TheDemands Of Reality To The Attractions Of Fantasy" And Putting America "AtRisk." Inan op-ed for The Washington Examiner headline "How Obama is mishandlingthe War on Terror," Mukasey wrote of President Obama:

On his first day in office he signed proclamations declaringthat detention at Guantanamo would end and that the CIA interrogation programwould be abolished, limiting interrogation techniques to those set forth in theArmy Field Manual, long available to all including terrorists on the Internet.
He appointed a Homeland Security secretary and an attorneygeneral who rejected both the language and the legal norms of the war onterror.
When an army major screamed "Allahu Akhbar" beforemurdering 13 soldiers and wounding others, he told the country not to jump toconclusions about the man's motivation. The attorney general announced threedays later that the scheduled military trial of the planners of 9/11 would beabandoned in favor of civilian prosecution.
When a terrorist with a concealed bomb concealed tried to blowup an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, instead of being treated asa possible intelligence asset he was read his Miranda rights and treated as acriminal defendant.
The administration appears to be abandoning the demands ofreality to the attractions of fantasy, and placing the country and its citizensat risk in the process. [Washington Examiner, 2/16/11]

TryingTerror Suspect In Civilian Courts

Mukasey Criticizes Obama's DOJ For DecisionTo Try Guantanamo Prisoners In Civilian Courts. Inan October 19, 2009, op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Mukasey wrotethat "Civilian Courts Are No Place To Try Terrorists," criticizing the Obamaadministration for their plan to do so:

The Obama administration hassaid it intends to try several of the prisoners now detained at Guantanamo Bayin civilian courts in this country. This would include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and other detaineesallegedly involved. The Justice Department claims that our courts are wellsuited to the task.
Based on my experiencetrying such cases, and what I saw as attorney general, they aren't.
[...]
Nevertheless, critics ofGuantanamo seem to believe that if we put our vaunted civilian justice systemon display in these cases, then we will reap benefits in the coin of worldopinion, and perhaps even in that part of the world that wishes us ill. Ofcourse, we did just that after the first World Trade Center bombing, after theplot to blow up airliners over the Pacific, and after the embassy bombings inKenya and Tanzania.
In return, we got the 9/11attacks and the murder of nearly 3,000 innocents. True, this won us a greatdeal of goodwill abroad--people around the globe lined up for blocks outside ourembassies to sign the condolence books. That is the kind of goodwill we can dowithout. [Wall Street Journal, 10/19/09]

Mukasey Critical Of DOJ's Charges AgainstTerror Suspect. In an op-ed in The Washington Post,Mukasey criticized President Obama's Department of Justice for taking what hebelieved to be a weak stance with regard to the charges filed against suspectedterrorist Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri:

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri,who by his own account came to this country most recently in 2001 to helporganize a second wave of attacks after the Sept. 11 atrocities, received ajail sentence on Oct. 29 that could free him within six years. This againprompts the question of whether it is wise for the administration to cancel themilitary trials of those held at Guantanamo Bay and charged with planning theSept. 11 attacks and, instead, to bring them to the United States to be chargedanew and tried in civilian courts.
[...]
Despite the evidence on thehard drive of Marri's computer, other evidence, and the bold statement in theJustice Department press release that accompanied the indictment that the case"shows our resolve to protect the American people and prosecute allegedterrorists to the full extent of the law," Marri was charged not withoffenses related directly to terrorism, which could have exposed him to lifeimprisonment, but, rather, with material support offenses. Marri's guilty pleaon April 30 was heralded with a Justice Department press release conceding that"[w]ithout a doubt, this case is a grim reminder of the seriousness of thethreat we as a nation still face," but offering the consolation that"it also reflects what we can achieve when we have faith in our criminaljustice system and are unwavering in our commitment to the values upon whichthe nation was founded and the rule of law." [Washington Post,11/6/09, via Nexis]

Mukasey Said Ghailani Trial "Puts A Great BigTarget" On New York City. From the January 9, 2010, edition of Fox News' JournalEditorial Report:

GIGOT: You think it's a mistake in general tohave brought -- overall, to be bringing the case here in New York.
MUKASEY: It's a huge mistake not only for reasons ofsecurity surrounding the trial, but because it puts a great big target on acity that's already a great big target, and that is New York. New York is thebiggest stage in the world. It gives that stage to the terrorists on trial. Andit also gives that stage to their friends who may want to make a dramaticstatement in the form of a terrorist act.
GIGOT: Why do you think the administration isdoing this? Because they must understand these risks.
MUKASEY: I don't read minds. I can't hypothesize agood reason they would do it. [Fox News, Journal Editorial Report,1/9/10]

Mukasey: Civilian Courts Are "NotThe Right Place" To Try Terrorists, Holder Is "Making The Wrong Choice." From anappearance on the March 25, 2010, edition of Fox Business' America'sNightly Scoreboard:

DAVID ASMAN (HOST): Appreciateit. You've had a lot of experience not only as attorney general, but as judge,trying some of these cases. Do civilian courts work at all when trying some of these terrorists?
MUKASEY: At all, yes? Dothey work better than alternatives? No. They're not the right place for it, fora whole variety of reasons.
ASMAN: Does that mean they should be totallyeliminated? We should just have military courts?
MUKASEY: No, I think weought to retain flexibility about where the best place to try each particularcase is. That ought to be our choice, not a result of some policy decision thatputs an iron -- an iron gate between the defendants and any other system.
ASMAN: So your problem with the currentadministration's position, at least that of Eric Holder, is he's making thisblanket judgment rather than being specific about who should and who should notbe tried in civilian court?
MUKASEY: Correct, to theextent that's he is being specific about it, he's, I think, making the wrongchoice.
ASMAN: Well, let's be specific about whowe're talking about, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the masterminds of 9/11, byhis own admission. Also, the man who cut off the head of Daniel Pearl, a formercolleague of mine at the "Wall Street Journal." This is one of theworst of the worst. Does this guy deserve anything close to a civilian trial?
MUKASEY: Forgive me forarguing with the question. But it's not so much a matter of what he deserves,as it is a matter of what law should provide for people who do the kind ofthing that he does, for the reasons that he does it, in the way that he doesit, with the organization that he does it. We've spent a couple hundred yearstrying to civilize the rules of war to make it clear that, if you carry armsopenly, wear a uniform, follow a recognized chain of command, you don't targetcivilians, you get treated as a prisoner of war. You're entitled to all therights of a prisoner of war. If you commit an isolated crime, or even as partof a criminal organization, you get taken to court.
What the government is saying is that if youdo none of those things, if you don't follow any rules, if you are a completebarbarian and somebody who has essentially defined himself outside any rules atall, then we've got a better deal for you. You get the same treatment as a guywho held up a 7-Eleven.
ASMAN: Right, or even Charlie Manson.
MUKASEY: Even CharlieManson.
[...]
ASMAN: So what would you tell -- say I wasEric Holder. What would you say? Eric, you've got it wrong? Where specificallydo I have it wrong, sir?
MUKASEY: You have it wrong in taking people who --every rule of organized society and every rule that we've been trying todevelop for the last many hundreds of years, taking those people who, on somereadings of the law, have no rights at all, but at a bare minimum, have --should have access only to a military tribunal where there is limited access toevidence, where the rules of evidence are tailored so as to allow receipt of classified information, so as to allow evidence to bepresented that might not pass the test of -- the very strict test of thefederal court. That is a forum specifically designed for these people. It iswrong to take them from that forum and to put them into a forum where you tryordinary criminals and imperil the information, imperil the location where itis being tried, imperil the judge, the jurors and everybody else.
ASMAN: And the United States ofAmerica.
MUKASEY: And theUnited States of America. [Fox Business, America's Nightly Scoreboard,3/25/10, via Nexis]
Mukasey Said Ghailani Verdict Was"Less-Than-Satisfactory Outcome" To "Very Unwise And Dangerous Gambit." Appearingon PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer to respond to Ahmed Ghailani beingfound guilty of conspiracy for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings,Mukasey had this exchange:
MICHAEL MUKASEY: It'sa less-than-satisfactory outcome to what I think was a very unwise anddangerous gambit, which was to take this prosecution -- this case, we alreadyproved that the courts could be used to try this specific charge.
Two defendants were tried in this casealready in the Southern District of New York and convicted a couple of yearsago. This man was undercharged, not only in this case, but for other acts aswell, including being a document forger, a bombmaker. He was so well trustedthat he was the cook to Osama bin Laden.
He was ready to start his military commissiontrial at Guantanamo. All of that was shut down, so that he could be broughthere, and essentially used as an example, as it were, of being able to takesomebody from Guantanamo, bring him here, and conduct a trial, even though thistrial would in no way be comparable to the trial of KSM. And even thatexperiment went aground.
RAY SUAREZ (HOST): Please expand, if youwould, on your idea that the outcome tells us something about the process. Wouldyour view of a civilian venue for this case be different if he had beenconvicted on 100 counts, instead of one?
MICHAEL MUKASEY: No,but I think what it does is illustrate the dangers and the -- in this case, theunnecessary dangers, of using a civilian system that excluded a good deal ofthe evidence against him, obviously didn`t include all of the charges that werepending against him a before military commission.
That was totally unnecessary in this case. Ithink it also sends a very bad signal to the rest of the world in general andto our adversaries in particular, which is that, if you obey the laws of war --that is, you carry your arms openly, you wear a uniform, you follow arecognized chain of command, and you don`t target civilians -- then you`reentitled to be treated in a particular way as a prisoner of war.
But if you violate all of those rules, bygolly, we`re going to treat you even better. We`re going to give you afull-dress trial. And that, I think, is a very unwise and dangerous message tosend. [PBS, NewsHour, 11/18/10, via Nexis]

Detainment Of The Alleged Christmas Day Bomber

In WSJ, Mukasey Highlighted "Gaffes"In Response To Christmas Day Bomber, Wrote There Was Little To "Applaud" In TheOfficial Reaction. Ina January 6, 2010, Wall Street Journal op-ed, Mukasey wrote:

There was much to celebrate in the providential combination of anincompetent terrorist and surpassingly brave passengers and crew who saved 288people aboard Northwest Airlines flight 253 on Christmas Day. There is a lotless to applaud in the official reaction.
Well-deserved mockery has already been heaped on themove-along-folks-nothing-to-see-here tone of the administration's initialpronouncements--from Janet Napolitano's "the system worked," toPresident Obama's statement that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was an"isolated extremist." This week brought little improvement.
[...]
But it isnot so much these gaffes as what they appear to reflect that gives seriouscause for concern.
[...]
What the gaffes, the almost comically strained avoidance of suchdirect terms as "war" and "Islamist terrorism," and thefailure to think of Abdulmutallab as a potential source of intelligence ratherthan simply as a criminal defendant seem to reflect is that some in theexecutive branch are focused more on not sounding like their predecessors thanthey are on finding and neutralizing people who believe it is their religiousduty to kill us. That's too bad, because the Constitution vests "theexecutive power"--not some of it, all of it--in the president. He, and thoseacting at his direction, are responsible for protecting us.
There is much to worry about if they think that the principalchallenge of the day is detecting bombs at the airport rather than activelysearching out, finding and neutralizing terrorists before they get there. [WallStreet Journal, 1/6/10]

On Fox, Mukasey Criticized Handling OfAbdulmuttalab. Fromthe January 9, 2010, edition of Fox News' Journal Editorial Report:

PAUL GIGOT (HOST): You wrote this weekthat you don't think that Abdulmutallab should have been charged as he wasright after he was arrested on criminal charges in normal criminal court. Whynot?
MUKASEY: The principalquestion is timing not so much where he ultimately wound up, it's secondary.But he should have been taken initially, designated an unlawful enemy combatantor, in the current parlance, an unprivileged....
GIGOT: Belligerent. [Fox News, JournalEditorial Report, 1/9/10, via Nexis]

Mukasey Criticized Obama Administration For"Treat[ing] Abdulmutallab As A Criminal Defendant." Ina Washington Post op-ed, Mukasey wrote:

Contrary to what the WhiteHouse homeland security adviser and the attorney general have suggested, if notsaid outright, not only was there no authority or policy in place under theBush administration requiring that all those detained in the United States betreated as criminal defendants, but relevant authority was and is the opposite.
[...]
Thestruggle against Islamist extremists is unlike any other war we have fought.Osama bin Laden and those like-minded intend to make plain that our governmentcannot keep us safe, and have sought our retreat from the Islamic world and ourrelinquishment of the idea that human rather than their version of divine lawmust control our activities. This movement is not driven by finite grievancesor by poverty. The enemy does not occupy a particular location or have aninfrastructure that can be identified and attacked but, rather, lives in manyplaces and purposely hides among civilian populations. The only way to prevailis to gather intelligence on who is doing what where and to take the initiativeto stop it.
Therewas thus no legal or policy compulsion to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminaldefendant, at least initially, and every reason to treat him as an intelligenceasset to be exploited promptly. The way to do that was not simply to havelocally available field agents question him but, rather, to get in the roompeople who knew about al-Qaeda in Yemen, people who could obtain information,check that information against other available data and perhaps get feedbackfrom others in the field before going back to Abdulmutallab to follow up wherenecessary, all the while keeping secret the fact of his cooperation. Once hisformer cohorts know he is providing information, they can act to make thatinformation useless. [Washington Post, 2/12/10]

Mukasey Accused Holder Of HavingA "Pre-9-11 Mindset" for Handling Of Abdulmutallab. Discussingthe Obama administration's handling of alleged Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Mukasey Had the followingexchange on the February 12, 2010, edition of Fox News' On the Record:

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN (HOST): Is it your beliefthat this administration or this attorney general is weak in his approach andputting us at a greater risk by virtue of the method that's being employed bythis administration in this instance?
MR. MUKASEY: I don't want to use inflammatory terms like"weak" and so on. I think it's a mistake in policy. I think youcan't think about this as a criminal case. That's the pre-9/11 mind-set. We'veprosecuted criminal cases before September 11th. After September 11th, themind-set should have changed. The paradigm should have changed. And to goback to view each case as a criminal case rather than as a wartime incident inwhich you're interested in gathering intelligence and then concerning yourselfwith prosecution later on, that's where I think the error is.
And I don't want to start calling peoplenames or saying they're weak and so on. I just think they've got the wrongpolicy in place.
MS. VAN SUSTEREN: Well, I guess, I mean, Iunderstand that. I wasn't suggesting to be a flamethrower or anything. But ifsomeone makes a mistake, you know, we could differ in how we think thingsshould be accomplished. But if our difference of opinion, one creates a hugerisk for us and one does not, that's very different. And are you saying thatthe current administration is just doing it in a different way than you woulddo it? Or this presents a real and imminent problem for our security?
MR. MUKASEY: Well, if you tease this out and apply it in thefuture, then it's bound to present a risk. Back in the '90s, we hadsomething called the Bojinka plot in which al Qaeda planned to blow up severalairliners over the Pacific simultaneously. We don't know that this guy wasn'teither test flying a second edition of the Bojinka plot or perhaps one of many.We certainly didn't know that when he landed. And to treat each of these thingsas a one-off and simply as a prosecution could prove very dangerous. [Fox News,On the Record, 2/12/10, via Nexis]

Closing Guantanamo Bay Prison

Mukasey Criticized Obama's DecisionTo Close Guantanamo.From the January 9, 2010, edition of Fox News' Journal Editorial Report:

GIGOT The president did say this week thathe's no longer going to be sending detainees back to Yemen where, obviously,they have an active al-Qaeda cell. Do you agree with that decision?
MUKASEY: In so far as it goes?
GIGOT: Yes.
MUKASEY: Sure.
GIGOT: But he's going to send them toThompson, Illinois, instead. Do you agree with that one?
MUKASEY: No. , and my prediction is they're notgoing to agree with it either once they see the difference...
GIGOT: The detainees?
(LAUGHTER)
MUKASEY: Correct -- between Guantanamo and Thompson,Illinois. I've been to Guantanamo. It compares favorably with most mediumsecurity, forget maximum security, medium security federal prisons. It isremote, secure, and humane and when they get over there and find out they're ina freezing facility of cinder block and don't get to play soccer in the sun,you're going to hear a lot of complaints about prison conditions. You're goingto see a lot of lawsuits relating to prison conditions. You're going to see aton of lawsuits addressed to that, habeas petitions and so forth. It's going tobe a lawyer's feeding frenzy. [Fox News, Journal Editorial Report,1/9/10, via Nexis]

Language Supposedly Used ToDescribe Terrorism

Mukasey Slammed Administration For LanguageThey Supposedly Use To Describe Terrorism. From the January 8, 2010, edition ofFox News' Fox & Friends:

GRETCHEN CARLSON (CO-HOST): But Judge,hasn't the tone of terror changed in the last year since this president cameinto office? In other words, the CIA is now going to be investigated for all ofthe things that they did in the way in which they questioned people.
Why in the heck would anyone go out of theirway now to question people in a harsh way?
MR. MUKASEY: That's an excellent -- that's an excellent question.And the answer is that nobody would -- or people certainly would be hesitant todo it. I think there are people who are enormously dedicated, who in a crisiswould do what they had to do, but they will certainly be a lot more hesitantnow than they would have been earlier.
We're not even calling things terroristattacks. We're calling them man-caused disasters. And we're not involved in awar on terrorism. We're involved in a foreign contingency operation.
In fact, if they had designated this guy forquestioning by the military, they would not have called him an unlawful enemycombatant. They would have called him an unprivileged something or other.They've got another term for it. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/8/10,via Nexis]

Investigation Of CIA OperativesFor Alleged Torture Of Detainees

Mukasey Reportedly Attacked Holder ForDecision To Reinvestigate CIA Operatives For Alleged Torture. From a January 31Weekly Standard article:

Mukasey, who presided over the trial of the 1993 World TradeCenter bombers, is as experienced as any American jurist when it comes to thewar on terror. It is therefore significant that he finds Holder's handling ofnational security matters worrisome. In August 2009, Holder authorized thereinvestigation of CIA operatives who had employed enhanced interrogationtechniques on terrorist detainees. It had the feel of a witch hunt: Careerprosecutors who investigated the interrogators under the previous administrationhad concluded there was no basis for a criminal prosecution. A year and a halflater, the Holder reinvestigation is still dragging on. "I have to believe thatthe effect on people involved in national security is devastating," saysMukasey, "in part because the cases were closed before." Imagine the impact ona CIA operative who is told, " 'There is no basis for prosecution.' And thensomeone shows up and says, 'Not so fast.' "
Mukasey, moreover, finds it "amazing" that Holder "conceded hedidn't read the [career] prosecutors' memo" that recommended againstprosecution. He remarks ruefully that "in a sense that is comforting" to CIAemployees that there was not something troubling in the memo. But, of course,it is small consolation that the nation's chief law enforcement officer doesn'tbother to read relevant documents before making a decision with long-termpolicy implications. [Weekly Standard, 1/31/11]

Handling Of "Radical Islam"

Mukasey's Criticism Led Fox'sKilmeade To Say He Has A "Consistent Problem" With Holder. From theJanuary 31, 2011, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

BRIAN KILMEADE: You also have aconstant -- consistent problem that's really disturbing you, the way the attorneygeneral, Eric Holder, has done his job.
MUKASEY: Well, I don't know that I'd personalize itthat way. I think he's made a number of policy decisions that I really takesharp issue with. Including the way he proposes to treat terrorists whom wecapture.
KILMEADE: Right.
MUKASEY: And the way he proposes to handle it.
KILMEADE: Yes. Here's an example of AttorneyGeneral Eric Holder, the man who took your job -- how he wants to handleradical Islam.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Radical Islamcould have been one of the reasons. There are a variety of reasons why --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was radical Islam one ofthem?
HOLDER: There are a variety of reasons whypeople do these things.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you uncomfortableattributing any of their actions to radical Islam? It sounds like it.
HOLDER: No, I don't want to say anythingnegative about a religion. In things racial, we have always been and we, Ibelieve, continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards.
Concern I have about the law that they havepassed that I think it has the possibility of leading to racial profiling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you read the Arizonalaw?
HOLDER: I have not had a chance to -- I'veglanced at it, I've not read it.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
KILMEADE: That states your case, doesn't it?
MUKASEY: Well, those clips are not reallyreassuring.
KILMEADE: Right. And is that one of thereasons why you want to speak out about it? Are you concerned?
MUKASEY: Well, I -- I don't -- I was approached foran interview. It's not that I'm itching to speak out but I have concerns aboutthe way the Justice Department has approached certain terrorism issues andcases. And in particular, how they've -- they propose to deal with unlawfulcombatants. Proposing to treat them as if they were ordinary criminals. [FoxNews, Fox & Friends, 1/31/11, via Nexis]

Interrogation Restrictions

Mukasey: Release Of DOJ Interrogation MemosIs "Unsound." In an April 17, 2009, op-ed published in TheWall Street Journal, Mukasey and Michael Hayden, director of the CIA duringthe Bush administration, criticized President Obama's declassification andrelease of Justice Department memos. He wrote:

The Obama administration hasdeclassified and released opinions of the Justice Department's Office of LegalCounsel (OLC) given in 2005 and earlier that analyze the legality ofinterrogation techniques authorized for use by the CIA. Those techniques wereapplied only when expressly permitted by the director, and are described inthese opinions in detail, along with their limits and the safeguards applied tothem.
The release of theseopinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound as a matter ofpolicy. Its effect will be to invite the kind of institutional timidity andfear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, andthat we came sorely to regret on Sept. 11, 2001.
[...]
Soonafter he was sworn in, President Barack Obama signed an executive order thatsuspended use of these techniques and confined not only the military but allU.S. agencies -- including the CIA -- to the interrogation limits set in theArmy Field Manual. This suspension was accompanied by a commitment to furtherstudy the interrogation program, and government personnel were cautioned thatthey could no longer rely on earlier opinions of the OLC.
Althoughevidence shows that the Army Field Manual, which is available online, isalready used by al Qaeda for training purposes, it was certainly thepresident's right to suspend use of any technique. However, public disclosureof the OLC opinions, and thus of the techniques themselves, assures thatterrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. governmentcould do to extract information from them, and can supplement their trainingaccordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques as theyhave the ones in the Army Field Manual. [Wall Street Journal, 4/17/09]

New Black Panthers Party Case

MukaseyReportedly Suggested Holder Was Trying To "Whitewash" Allegations Of Race-BasedJustice At DOJ. Froma January 31 Weekly Standard article:

With regard to the NewBlack Panther party controversy, incoming House Judiciary chairman Lamar Smithhas dispatched a letter to Holder demanding answers to questions and documentsrelating to political appointee Julie Fernandes's instructions to civil rightsattorneys not to pursue voter-intimidation cases or enforce provisions of federallaw designed to prevent fraud against black defendants. Mukasey isflabbergasted that the attorney general would declare in a New YorkTimes interview that in effect "there is nothing to see." Mukasey says,"I can't see how he would bring himself to say such a thing. There are investigationspending"--by the Justice Department'sinspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility. The case againstthe New Black Panthers for intimidating voters at a Philadelphia precinct in2008 was already won when Holder's team ordered the charges dropped; famedcivil rights attorney Bartle Bull deemed it "the most blatant form of voterintimidation I've ever seen." Says Mukasey, with a measure of indignation, "Itseems to me you don't whitewash such a thing." [WeeklyStandard, 1/31/11]

Charges Against Al-Marri

Mukasey Criticized DOJ For Not ChargingAl-Marri With "Offenses Related Directly To Terrorism." Critical Of DOJ'sCharges Against Terror Suspect. In an op-ed in TheWashington Post, Mukasey wrote of the charges filed against suspectedterrorist Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri:

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri,who by his own account came to this country most recently in 2001 to helporganize a second wave of attacks after the Sept. 11 atrocities, received ajail sentence on Oct. 29 that could free him within six years. This againprompts the question of whether it is wise for the administration to cancel themilitary trials of those held at Guantanamo Bay and charged with planning theSept. 11 attacks and, instead, to bring them to the United States to be chargedanew and tried in civilian courts.
[...]
Despite the evidence on thehard drive of Marri's computer, other evidence, and the bold statement in theJustice Department press release that accompanied the indictment that the case"shows our resolve to protect the American people and prosecute allegedterrorists to the full extent of the law," Marri was charged not withoffenses related directly to terrorism, which could have exposed him to lifeimprisonment, but, rather, with material support offenses. Marri's guilty pleaon April 30 was heralded with a Justice Department press release conceding that"[w]ithout a doubt, this case is a grim reminder of the seriousness of thethreat we as a nation still face," but offering the consolation that"it also reflects what we can achieve when we have faith in our criminaljustice system and are unwavering in our commitment to the values upon whichthe nation was founded and the rule of law." [Washington Post,11/6/09, via Nexis]

Health Care Reform

Mukasey "Applaud[ed]" Court Decision FindingHealth Reform Unconstitutional. From the January 31, 2011, edition of Fox Business' Cavuto:

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: And at thishour, the federal government couldn't be more stunned or desperate. The WhiteHouse vowing to appeal but increasingly finding its prospects unappealing.That's because a federal judge in Florida today finding the very core of thehealth care law itself to be unconstitutional. Says Congress simply went toofar.
U.S. district Judge Roger Vinsonruling that the government can't require Americans to buy health insurance.That it is not only a stretch it is illegal. And since the individual mandatecan not be severed from the rest of the legislation, that indeed it is thelegislation, so that makes the legislation null and void. And toast. For now.
Because this thing is almostdefinitely going to the Supreme Court. Hard to say how that will go. Here'swhat we know right now. The single biggest piece of legislation since the newdeal is indeed looking sick, very sick.
And my next guest says rightfullyso. Former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey applaudingthis decision. Attorney general, thank you for being with us. What do you makeof this?
MICHAEL MUKASEY, FMR.U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, it is really fairly simple. What the judge said isif this is constitutional, if the government, the federal government canrequire that people do something, then there is no limiting principle. Theycould require that you, if you have a certain income that you buy a GeneralMotors car or buy a house with certain level of insurance. I have hypothesizedthat because inactivity leads to bad health they could issue a pedometer toeverybody and make them get up off the couch or face a tax. [Fox Business, Cavuto,1/31/11, via Nexis]

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.mediamatters.org/~r/mediamatters/latest/~3/qK2gXMDjjYo/201103290014

Digg this

New Low Fox & Friends Hosts Conspiracy Theorist
Cashill To Peddle Claim That Ayers Wrote Obama's Memoir

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 29 March 2011 10:37:05 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

Fox & Friends hosted WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill to promote his discredited conspiracy theory that Bill Ayers wrote President Obama's memoir, Dreams from My Father. Cashill has a long history of pushing insane conspiracy theories about Obama.

Fox& FriendsHosts Cashill To Push His Conspiracy Theory That Ayers Wrote Obama's Memoir

Fox& FriendsHosts Cashill To Promote His Conspiracy Theory That Ayers Wrote Dreams FromMy Father.On March 29, Fox & Friends hosted Cashill to promote his claim thatAyers wrote Obama's memoir, Dreams from My Father. During the interview,co-host Steve Doocy asked Cashill, "[W]hy isn't the mainstream media touchingthis with a 10-foot pole?" Co-host Gretchen Carlson ended the interview bypromoting Cashill's book, saying, "Well, if you want to know more about theseclaims, check out Jack Cashill's book, Deconstructing Obama." From Fox& Friends:

DOOCY: For the second time in lessthan a year a half, controversial professor Bill Ayers is making the claim thathe, Ayers, wrote President Obama's book Dreams from My Father. Listen tothis:
[begin video clip]
AYERS: I wrote that - Dreams from MyFather.
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: Yeah, we know that.
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: You wrote that?
AYERS [video clip]: Yeah, and if you couldhelp me prove it, I'll split the royalties with you.
[end video clip]
CARLSON: All right, so was it a joke, or washe being serious? Joining us now is the author of Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America's FirstPost-Modern President," Jack Cashill. Good morning to you, Jack.
CASHILL: Hey, goodmorning, Gretchen. Good morning, Steve.
DOOCY: Good morning.
CARLSON: So, when you hear that - it's notthe first time that Bill Ayers has done this. Is it a joke, or is he beingserious?
CASHILL: It's a joke, but the joke is on theWhite House. This is the third time he's done it, but it's the first time hedid it on camera. He knew the camera was pointed at him, and he did it at aparticularly critical time. And that is when we're going to launch a militaryattack on Libya, which he is not at all pleased with, nor is the hard left. Andin a sense, I think it's a shot across the president's bow. I think he'ssaying, hey, I know something about you, and I'm prepared to talk about it ifyou don't play ball with me.
DOOCY: And Jack, do you have any doubtin your mind whether or not the president of the United States wrote his book?
CASHILL: I have no doubt that Bill Ayers wasthe primary craftsman behind Dreams From My Father, and an interestingtwist on this, too, is that earlier in that clip, he disassociates himself fromthe second book, Audacity of Hope, which he says was a hack politicalbook -- and it was, it was written by committee. And --
DOOCY: Right. But, Jack, how can you - I mean, that'svery damning to say that somebody else wrote the president's book. You have anyevidence?
CASHILL: Oh, I have a ton of evidence. It'sall between the pages of my book, Deconstructing Obama, and when you seeit all accumulated, Steve, when you see chapter after chapter after chapterafter chapter, the textural evidence is so powerful it's undeniable. And thenthere was also the confirmation by Christopher Andersen in his book Barackand Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage, and he has no skin in thatgame.
CARLSON: Let me ask you this, Jack. So let'ssay Bill Ayers did write that book.
CASHILL: Yes.
CARLSON: Why do we -- why does it matter? AndI know that you also believe that if he did, some of the stories are notexactly truthful, and how does that play into everything?
CASHILL: Well, first of all, it mattersbecause the whole myth of Obama's literary genius is built around the book Dreamsfrom My Father, and that's taken away. It also throws into doubt Obama'sability to tell the truth, because he said he scarcely knew this guy. It alsoputs the, you know, a terrorist wandering around in the head of Barack Obama.
But what's even more important is that thestory they tell in the book Dreams from My Father is contrived to alarge degree. And they, you know, Obama, Ayers, slash admits as much,especially about the first two years of Obama's life. What we know for a factis that there was no Obama family. That he and his mother lived in the state ofWashington the first year of his life while Barack Sr. was back in Hawaii. Whenthe family returns to Hawaii, he's gone. Barack Sr. is gone to Harvard. Thewhole fabricated family life is--doesnot exist.
DOOCY: Jack, why isn't the mainstream mediatouching this with a 10-foot pole?
CASHILL: They're afraid of this story. Imean, because they have so much vested interest in, you know, upholding theObama agenda. Not only that, but in, theyput up so much personal emotional equity in Obama's genius. There's a lot ofvery smart literary people who should have seen this on the first read of Dreamsfrom My Father, and they didn't. It's transparent he's not a writer.There's no paper trail before this book, and what paper trail there is showshim to be like a C-minus student in a freshman comp class. You don't go fromthat to writing the best-produced, best-written memoir ever by an Americanliterary figure.
CARLSON: Well, if you want to know more aboutthese claims, check out Jack Cashill's book, DeconstructingObama. Jack, thanks for your thoughts this morning.
CASHILL: Gretchen, thanks. Steve, thank you,too.
DOOCY: You betcha. Thank you, sir. [Fox News'Fox & Friends, 3/29/11]

ConspiracyTheory That Ayers Wrote Dreams Has Long Been Discredited

Oxford Don Conducted Computer Study,Found Claim To Be "Very Implausible." The Sunday Times of Londonreported on November 2, 2008, that Peter Millican, a philosophy don at HertfordCollege, Oxford, who "devised a computer software program that can detectwhen works are by the same author by comparing favourite words andphrases," was contacted by Republican activists who offered him $10,000 to"assess alleged similarities" between Dreams From My Father and Ayers' book Fugitive Days:

Millicantook a preliminary look and found the charges "very implausible". Adeal was agreed for more detailed research but when Millican said the resultshad to be made public, even if no link to Ayers was proved, interest waned.
Millicansaid: "I thought it was extremely unlikely that we would get a positiveresult. It is the sort of thing where people make claims after seeing a fewcrude similarities and go overboard on them." [The Sunday Times, 11/2/08]

Millican:Previous Analyses Commissioned By CashillAnd Others "Seem Badly Flawed." Millican wrote in a separate November 2,2008, Sunday Times commentary:

MySignature system acquired some publicity this year through its involvement in aheated debate about Coleridge's alleged authorship of a translation of Goethe'sFaust. So some Republicans were keen to make use of my expertise to help themin their quest to unmask Ayers as the hidden puppet master behind the Obama of1995.
Theperson who came up with this strange theory is Jack Cashill, an American authorwho claimed to find striking similarities between Dreams from My Father andAyers's 2001 memoir Fugitive Days.
Thetrouble with these sorts of claims is that they are far too easy to make: takeany two substantial memoirs from the same era and you are likely to be able topick out a fair number of passages that have some similarities. Unless thesimilarities are really close (and they weren't), just listing them makes nocase at all, even if it might be enough to persuade some readers.
Cashilland friends -- who were convinced but aware that more evidence would be neededto convince others -- enlisted teams of analysts to try to give the theory asolid statistical basis. All of these analyses supposedly delivered positiveresults, but they seem badly flawed.
[...]
Bob-- the man who brought me into all this -- seemed sincerely interested ingetting to the truth about Cashill's dramatic allegation. He supplied me withthe relevant texts and a number of appropriate "controls"
Somepreliminary tests, using various data measures and a range of powerfulstatistical facilities that were recently added to Signature, indicated nothingthat would give Obama any cause for concern. So I felt that any analysis I didwould be far more likely to put an end to the story than to substantiate it, byproviding objective data against what looked like partisan allegations. [TheSunday Times, 11/2/08]

CashillHas Pushed Numerous Other Insane Obama Theories

Cashill:"Where's The Birth Certificate?" On the March 18 edition of Fox News Radio's Kilmeade& Friends, Cashill stated that a reportershould ask Obama, "Where's the birth certificate?" During the interview,Cashill said that "we know more about George Washington's first few years thanwe know about Barack Obama's." [Fox News Radio's Kilmeade & Friends,3/18/11]

Cashill Suggests Barack Obama Sr. Isn't Really Obama'sFather.In a January 20 WorldNetDaily column headlined, "Just who is really Obama'sfather," Cashill suggested that Barack Obama Sr. is not Obama's father and thatObama may actually be "the illegitimate son of an American black."From Cashill's column:

Then,too, those who have read "Dreams" are almost invariably surprised bythe fond memories Ann's father, Stanley Dunham, has of his putative son-in-law.These memories do not deceive.
Aphoto taken on the occasion of Obama Sr.'s celebratory departure from Hawaiishows a smiling Stanley Dunham -- looking all the world like a young BarackObama Jr. -- standing right next to the African guy who allegedly knocked uphis 17-year-old daughter and is now abandoning them. As the father of twodaughters, this doesn't smell right at all.
Oneof my correspondents -- let's call him Frank Hardy -- is convinced that theDunham family left for Hawaii abruptly right after Ann's graduation in June1960 because Ann was pregnant. He makes a good case.
Ifa black guy had impregnated Ann, this would explain the family's abruptdeparture to Hawaii, the one state in the union where a mixed-race baby couldgrow up almost unnoticed. It certainly explains the move to Hawaii better thanthe dreamy rationale Stanley Dunham offers in "Dreams."
Thisscenario makes sense of any number of other details as well, like Ann's angryresistance to the move, her mother's willingness to quit her job as an escrowofficer in nearby Bellevue, Wash., Ann's poor performance in her limitedfirst-semester courses at the University of Hawaii, her failure to enroll forthe second semester and, most of all, her otherwise inexplicable return toSeattle in August 1961 -- if not earlier.
True,to make this scenario work, which we have to add one major variable, but it isa credible one. Imagine Ann coming home from class one day in Hawaii in fall1960 in one of her all-concealing muumuus -- she had written friends thatmuumuus were worn on campus -- and telling her father about a charming,larger-than-life Kenyan in her class.
Thescheming Stanley befriends Barack Sr. and enlists him in his plot. He explainsthat a boy named Barack, the legitimate son of a Kenyan, could move throughAmerican life more seamlessly than a boy named, say, Stanley, the illegitimateson of an American black.
Stanleytells Barack Sr. that he can make it worth his while. Ann understands. As toBarack Sr., he has to contribute nothing to the proceedings but his name --with his "son" born in February 1961, not August.
Amarriage license from Maui -- the county specified in the divorce papers --assures that no marriage announcement will appear in the Honolulu papers. Annwill leave in time for the 1961 fall semester at the University of Washington-- perhaps months before -- and she will not return until Obama Sr. leaves forHarvard. [WorldNetDaily, 1/20/11]

Cashill:Frank Marshall Davis "Quite Possibly" Had Sex With "UnderageObama." In a March 10column, Cashill wrote that "drunken poet" Frank Marshall Davis was"plying the underage Obama with alcohol and quite possibly sex." FromCashill's column:

Onthe Hawaii front, Obama had to worry too about what [Chicago Tribune reporterDavid] Mendell would learn about poet, pornographer and card-carrying member ofthe CPUSA, Frank Marshall Davis.
Thatrelationship between Obama and Davis is succinctly illustrated in the poem"Pop," which was published under the 19-year-old Obama's name in a1981 edition of an Occidental College literary journal.
Instinctivelyprotective of Obama, reviewers to a person decided that the "Pop" ofthe poem had to be Obama's mother's father, Stanley Dunham, the man Obamacalled "Gramps."
Nota one of them asked the most basic question: Why would Obama name a poem aboutthe man he called "Gramps" "Pop"?
RebeccaMead, writing in the New Yorker, unhesitatingly describes the poem as a"loving if slightly jaded portrait of Obama's maternal grandfather."
Obamabiographer David Remnick makes the same point, "'Pop,'" he says asthough a given, "clearly reflects Obama's relationship with hisgrandfather Stanley Dunham."
Moreoblivious still is British poet Ian McMillan. "There's a humanity in thepoem," he writes in the Guardian, "a sense of family values andshared cultural concerns that give us a hint of the Democrat to come."
Familyvalues? What family? Roman Polanski's? The "Pop" of the poem is adrunken poet who is plying the underage Obama with alcohol and quite possiblysex. [WorldNetDaily, 3/10/11]

Cashill:Frank Marshall Davis "Cannot Be Ruled Out" As Obama's Father. In a February 7,2010, American Thinker column pushing his claim that Barack Obama Sr.may not be Obama's father, Cashill wrote that "[s]ome have theorized" thatDavis is Obama's father, and that "[t]his theory, though tenuous, cannot beruled out." From Cashill's column:

In any scenario, Obama had at least one blackparent, and if it is not Obama Sr., who then is it? Obama offers a possibleclue in Dreams:
I was intrigued by old Frank, with his booksand whiskey breath and the hint of hard-earned knowledge behind the hoodedeyes. The visits to his house always left me feeling vaguely uncomfortable,though, as if I were witnessing some complicated, unspoken transaction betweenthe two men, a transaction I couldn't fully understand. The same thing I feltwhenever Gramps took me downtown to one of his favorite bars, in Honolulu'sred-light district.
The "Frank" in question is FrankMarshall Davis, a black communist, pornographer, and poet who had abandonedChicago for Hawaii. In "Pop," it should be noted, the Pop character"recites an old poem" just before the reconciliation and reeks ofwhiskey. Davis would have been in his mid-seventies at the time. Some havetheorized that Davis, in fact, is Obama's father and the "Pop" of thepoem. This theory, though tenuous, cannot be ruled out. A grandson can lookmore like his maternal grandfather than his father. That happens. And then,too, there is Davis's Chicago connection. [American Thinker, 2/7/10]

CashillPushes Wild Theories About The "Murky Circumstances Of Obama's Birth." In his February 7,2010, American Thinker column, Cashill wrote: "Both the 'Dunham as father' andthe 'anonymous black father' scenarios would make the Obama camp wary ofsharing Obama's actual birth certificate." Cashill further promoted claimssurrounding Obama's birth by fellow WorldNetDaily columnist and Obamaconspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi. From Cashill's column:

Jerome Corsi of WorldNetDaily has found additional evidencethat argues against Obama's birth to Ann Dunham in August 1961. As the recordsclearly show, "Stanley Ann Dunham" enrolled for classes at theUniversity of Washington at Seattle on August 19, 1961, fifteen days afterObama's presumed birth. It defies all logic -- and logistics as well -- thatDunham would have flown her newborn across the Pacific, found an apartment anda job, and enrolled at school all within two weeks of the birth.
[...]
It seems altogether possible that theprogressive and adventurous seventeen-year-old Dunham was impregnated by ablack man while the family was still living in the Seattle area. If so, thispregnancy could have prompted the family to uproot to Hawaii, where no one knewthem and where mixed-race babies were more accepted. According to the Andersenaccount, whose source was Maxine Box, "There were loud arguments betweenfather and daughter -- fights that sometimes turned violent." Ann did notwant to go.
Both the "Dunham as father" and the"anonymous black father" scenarios would make the Obama camp wary ofsharing Obama's actual birth certificate, either because Dunham was not Obama'smother, or, if she were, because Obama was born much earlier than August 4,1961. [American Thinker, 2/7/10]

CashillPushes Theory That Obama Is Using Phony Social Security Number. In a March 17WorldNetDaily column, Cashill advanced conspiracy theories about "Obama'smysterious Social Security number":

Whileout promoting my new book, "Deconstructing Obama," I have been askeda few times about Obama's mysterious Social Security number.
Notknowing enough to speak authoritatively, I chose to swim upstream through thedata flood and head for the source.
HereI found a no-nonsense licensed investigator from Ohio named Susan Daniels.Widowed at 30 with seven children, Daniels went back to school and eventuallyemerged as a certified paralegal.
[...]
Thisbeing the case, I asked Daniels to guide me through the data mine field andhelp me ascertain what we know for sure about the world's best-known SocialSecurity number - 042-68-4425.
"AllI can say," says Daniels of 042-68-4425, "is that it's phony and[Obama] has been using it, with it first appearing on his Selective Servicedocument in 1980."
Danielssent me a copy of the hand-written application of the individual who held thenumber immediately before Obama's, 042-68-4424. The applicant, Thomas Wood,died at age 19, which is why his information isavailable.
Wood'sSocial Security number was issued sometime between March and May of 1977. Obamawould turn 16 in August of that year. Wood lived on Glenview Drive inNewington, Conn., the state from which all "042s" applied. Obamalived in Hawaii.
[...]
Otherthan the 1980 Selective Service registration, the first time Daniels could findObama using the "042" number was in 1986 in Chicago.
As to how Obama may have secured that number,it is possible that he turned to his radical friends for advice. [WorldNetDaily,3/17/11]

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.mediamatters.org/~r/mediamatters/latest/~3/-7HUSmnpX_Q/201103290013

Digg this

Rolling Stone Advances Afghan Kill Team Story

It took a whistleblower to bring down the kill team, but senior Army leadership knew from battlefield reports and complaints from the local population about their exploits. It took a long time for them to act. So while there's some solace in the fact[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/fkFuESZO4D8/

Digg this

Rasmussen pushing group trying to dismantle
Affordable Care Act

dice for cheating

Rasmussen apparently isn't even trying to appear non-partisan, any more.

The national group (with Texas roots) backing efforts to replace federal health care programs with interstate “health care compacts” is the newest sponsor of the “Daily Update” from polling firm Rasmussen Reports — with Monday’s email containing survey results critical of federal policies and ‘Obamacare.’
Advertisements for the Health Care Compact Alliance, whose leadership includes Houston construction mogul Leo Linbeck III, are plastered all over Monday’s email from Rasmussen, containing the results of two surveys, one showing that nearly 70 percent of respondents are “Still Angry At Government’s Current Policies” and one showing that 58 percent “Now Favor Health Care Repeal.

What a shock. The polling is done by Rasmussen, apparently for the Alliance, and are certainly outliers. The majority of major polling done in the past month shows a much more even split between support for the law and support for repeal, including a KFF poll. The same poll found that, rather than anger being the predominant reaction to the law, confusion is the most common response.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/ROVPN8l8VK0/-Rasmussen-pushing-gro
up-trying-to-dismantle-Affordable-Care-Act

Digg this

Milwuakee Is Still Number One in Segregation

Segregation now, segregation forever?

Seems that way; American apartheid lives. And Milwaukee is number one ... again. (Denvir. Salon, citing John Paul DeWitt of CensusScope.org and the University of Michigan's Social Science Data Analysis Network)

Some 45 years ago, Karl Taeuber, Professor of Sociology, Emeritus (University of Wisconsin-Madison [Off campus]) and Alma F. Taeuber devised a method to measure racial segregation: The Taeuber index.

The Taeuber index was a momentous intellectual break-through, quantifying racism and providing a means of delivering rigorous social scientific evidence for many housing discrimination law suits in the 1960s-70s-80s when fighting racism was a pursuit taken up by many sectors of American society.

Now-a-days, as likely as not, if one reads about the Taeuber index, the cite is likely from some rightwing think tank taking issue with the existence of segregation, the method of measuring it in housing, and the proposition that racism is the cause.

Fighting racism remains a long fight, for academics like the Taeubers, for all of us.

As Taeuber said to me some six years ago after the death of Kenneth Clark [whose work on racism is cited in Brown v. Board of Education]: The branches on the tree of racism extend high, and the roots run deep.

True, but as I consider giants in fighting racism like the Taeubers, the Panthers, SNCC, and our children today: Total victory over racism remains certain.