Kos and Harold Ford Jr. on Meet the Press

Karl Rove To Resign

Karl Rove's math

It's easy to count Karl Rove's successes: The election of George W. Bush, the reelection of George W. Bush and the tax cuts, deregulating of industry, preemptive war and Supreme Court appointments that came with the above. But while the last couple of years have been marked by one notable Rove victory -- he wasn't prosecuted in the Valerie Plame case -- the man the president called "The Architect" has had a rough ride since voters handed Bush a second term in 2004.

It wasn't supposed to be that way.

As Bush began his second term, he promoted Rove from "senior advisor" to "deputy chief of staff," a move that, the Washington Post explained at the time, merely confirmed that Rove "was really behind virtually everything." In his new but not-so-new role, the Post's Peter Baker wrote, Rove would reign over "an expansive portfolio cutting across virtually the entire policy spectrum" as the president "retooled his staff to focus on his ambitious second-term agenda of restructuring Social Security, rewriting the tax code and spreading democracy around the world."

A month later, the New York Times' Richard Stevenson piled it on: "As Mr. Bush pushes doggedly ahead with his battle to add investment accounts to Social Security, he is betting heavily on Mr. Rove's well-chronicled political skills to build public support, hold Republicans together and overcome intense Democratic opposition ... Mr. Rove is assuming a more expansive role, bringing the same intensity to the big issues in Mr. Bush's second-term agenda that he brought to the president's re-election campaign."

When we took Stevenson to task for writing such a "valentine" to Rove, a fellow Timesman wrote to tell us we'd been wrong to do so: "Until now, I had not seen the [Social Security] campaign laid at Rove's feet. Maybe there have been pieces, but none with this prominence. So if the [Social Security] push fails, as it seems is happening, then this piece is an important piece of the picture about Rove, his influence, his successes and his failures."

Prophetic? It was. Despite Rove's "well-chronicled political skills," Bush's campaign to "reform" Social Security went exactly nowhere. As for the other big-ticket items in Bush's "ambitious second-term agenda"? Last time we checked, the tax code hasn't been rewritten since 2004, and all that talk of spreading democracy around the world has pretty much run aground in Iraq. In between, Bush tried -- with a lot of help from Rove -- to reform the nation's immigration laws. That didn't work either.

And then there's the small matter of 2006. Just days before the midterm congressional elections, Rove scoffed when NPR's Robert Siegel told him that the polls weren't looking so good for the Republicans. Rove said he saw more polls than Siegel ever could, and that the polls he was seeing would "add up to a Republican Senate and a Republican House." Rove sneered: "You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math. I'm entitled to 'the' math."

Rove's math was wrong, but he never was. Asked by the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot to name his "biggest error" over the years, Rove said it was not working fast enough to oust Republican members of Congress who had been tainted by scandal. Translation: They lost the election for us, not me.

-- Tim Grieve



Hey Karl! Would A More Honest Reason For Leaving Kill You?
by Kathleen Reardon
Aren't you nearly nauseous about this "spending more time with my family" reason for leaving? Were these guys oblivious to their families before? Isn't theirs the family values party? Karl Rove's son is at college.


Finding True Rove - And That 'Book-Reading' Contest With the President
by RJ Eskow
We may never know exactly why Karl Rove chose this moment to resign. The only thing we know for certain is that the reasons he gave weren't the real ones.

You Say You’ll Change a Constitution, Well, You Know…

You Say You’ll Change a Constitution, Well, You Know…

By Christopher Platt

I looked up John Lennon’s lyrics for this article last night. Funny, when you GOOGLE, “You Say You Want a Revolution,” the breadth of the folks who have misappropriated that song’s opening line for their own work is pretty stunning. I looked up “Revolution” because I had a wonderful daydream yesterday, and came out of it singing the old Beatles’ song for the first time in 35 years. But I couldn’t put it all together until I typed this line of the song in atop this page. See, Lennon wasn’t calling for a revolution. Quite the reverse. He was trying to tone down the rhetoric in angry times. Well, you know, we all wanted to change the world. And angry times are here again. I think this nation needs some kind of peaceful changing of the guard. An awful lot of power is accruing in the Executive Branch these days, and nobody in our pathetic Legislative Branch seems especially eager to do anything to stop it.

There are still 17 months to go until our national process of renewal happens again. And my growing fear is that this time around, that hard-won Constitutional process, abrogated on the way in, back in 2004, may be abrogated permanently on the way out in 2008. You know, I’ll bet good money I’m not the only one who feels this way, either.

And last week there was that wonderful Viagra-like vision: A bunch of Blue-tinged people hugging themselves with glee. I refer to the YearlyKos show for Progressives and Liberals in Chicago, wherein I saw hopeful citizens from around the country proudly come together to hear the same olde crap from the Democratic candidates, who were there to vie for our support. So, let’s see… Hillary still wants to take money from special interests. So does John. Barack wants to bomb the shit out of Afghanistan -- and Pakistan, too, if it doesn’t shape up. Dennis wants to impeach Dick, which would be a wonderful place to start if Nancy hadn’t already told us that “Impeachment is off the table.” Chris came into Chicago with Bill O’Reilly’s blood on his hands – good work, Chris! But somehow, I’m not impressed. It’s all about the Internet, so it’s all good, but I think we need someone more assertive and, well, more decisive.

I guess all this was what led to the daydream I had. Oh, factor in the recent news story that George Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, had actually plotted a fascist coup d’etat against FDR …

In the daydream, I’m watching the White House from across the street. A dozen enormous, white, stretched Hummer Limos glide up to – and right through – the gate. Car doors open and out spill a hundred tough-looking men in white fluffy-bunny suits, heavily armed with colorful Super Soakers ($17.99 at Toys-“R”-Us). They quickly overwhelm the security forces on guard at the White House and slip inside. A blindingly white helicopter hovers overhead – clearly flouting the government’s No-Fly Zone, with a variety of antennas bristling from its fuselage. There’s a name splashed boldly along the side of the chopper, but I can’t quite make it out.

The air is crackling as these antennas give off some kind of jamming signal to prevent word getting out about what’s happening at the White House. In five minutes, all resistance has been silenced, or at least thoroughly moistened (although, truly, they didn’t seem up for a fight). Another ten white Hummer limos drive up, and more Bunny-suited men jump out, taking up positions around the perimeter of the grounds, while a second helicopter joins the first overhead.

Finally, the biggest damn’ white stretched Hummer ever, drives up. It’s way too long to turn into the curved driveway, so it pulls in and stops next to the side entrance where bemused tourists are still lined up, waiting to get in. The back door opens and out strides a man clad all in white. His walk exudes confidence, and the sneer on his face when he confronts the damp, defeated White House guards is evident even from a block away. He turns to look back towards the street where I’m standing, and smiles. And now I recognize him. Jesus! It’s Donald Trump! I can see his shiny gold helmet from here. Oh wait. That’s his hair.

The Donald strides into the White House and, after a decent interval, emerges with several of his white rabbits, who are leading out two hunched-over figures with those embarrassing plastic handcuffs binding their wrists. Omigod! It’s Bush and Cheney! A few more minutes and more bunny troopers emerge, dragging Karl Rove, David Addington, and their entourage of evil, similarly bound. They are all made to stand silently IN a PEACH TENT the bunny brigade sets up by the driveway

Trump, looking triumphant, gestures to a beautiful blonde perched on the fender of his über-Hummer. She’s wearing a different kind of bunny suit, by the way. She puts her fingers together -- and blows. A sharp, short whistle, and a half-dozen TV network vans screech to a halt behind the line of limos. It’s a press conference. The Donald is saying that these guys swore to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," but then did just the opposite – and how there was no other way to get these goons out of the building, and out of power, in a peaceful, timely way – for nobody else has Trump’s superior intellect, dazzling leadership and interpersonal skills, and borrowing clout.

A big Step Van is backing up to where they are assembled. It is clad IN PEACH paint. And the name TRUMP is emblazoned on its flanks – ahhh! That was the name that I couldn’t make out on the choppers. Trump tells the reporters that, after their fair trials, all those found guilty likely will be working at something special for the next few years. Under the strictest supervision, they will be tasked with cleaning up – literally – Walter Reed Hospital, to make it worthy of caring for the thousands of America’s wounded that they are personally responsible for. Their friends, assistants and loyal supporters (now, apparently, being rounded up elsewhere in Washington and around the country by other rabbit regiments) will, if convicted, be sent to New Orleans, to live out their days in mold-infested FEMA trailers, spending every remaining day of their lives cleaning up the long-festering mess they should have taken care of after Hurricane Katrina.

America is being returned to Americans. The nattily dressed tourists waiting to enter the White House are told that the recent edict banning visitors wearing flip-flops, tank tops and other casual clothing has been rescinded. It’s their house, too, after all. Trump personally hands out fuzzy-bunny slippers to the tourists, and the crowd erupts in a ragged cheer! Now, Trump turns to the dejected miscreants, cuffed and miserable. He grabs Bush by the arm and shoves him into the van clad IN PEACH paint. Now, don’t get ahead of me here, people. He grabs Cheney and flings him into the vehicle, too. He puffs out his barrel chest as only the The Donald can, smiles, and proclaims, “You’re fired!”

And I found myself standing there with a smile, singing, “Don't you know it's going to be… alright, alright, alright.”

Caveat Elsie!

Caveat Elsie!

By Christopher Platt

Last month, I found myself sitting on a bale of hay, listening to a nutrition expert discuss how deadly milk and dairy products are for adult humans. Now, I’ve heard talks with that message before, and I consider myself well-read enough on the subject to separate the curds from the whey, but what I was hearing now was completely different, and totally compelling. Full disclosure: I am a cheesaholic. In fact, I relish dairy products in all their myriad forms. But I am now trying to reconcile (or even, reform) my milk-fed existence in light of what was said that day.

This discussion was part of the program on the beautiful summer day I was visiting the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary (www.woodstockfas.org), a wonderful institution located eight miles out of that famous upstate, upscale, New York community. As their name implies, this is a haven for rescued or rejected (or escaped) farm animals, critters that were destined to end up on someone’s plate. It was started a few years ago by a young couple, Jenny Brown and Doug Abel, two filmmakers who finally took one-too-many hidden cameras into one-too-many slaughterhouses. The result was this lovely place, where what once could have been your dinner – my dinner -- now roams around the grounds without fear of being eaten. Cows, pigs as big as sofas, chickens (broilers and egg-layers), goats, sheep, and much, much more, come here to live out their natural lifespans in peace.

The man who was speaking that day was George Eisman, a Registered Dietician considered an expert on vegan and vegetarian living. Good thing, as Doug and Jenny, and many of the other visitors there were committed vegans.

(By the way, if you vegans are so damn’ smart, could you please come up with a better name for yourselves? Vegan sounds like what Trekkies would call a resident of a planet circling the white dwarf star Vega. I suppose we could call you Vegalones – with a soft G sound – but then you’d all sound like you were Italian.)

George’s presentation, as I’ve said, was compelling. Not only because of what he said, but how he said it. Not the crusading exhortations one might expect in such a venue, but rather, spoken softly as by a teacher with a small class of bright, skeptical students. The presentation allowed me to focus on the enormity of what he said. Dairy, said George, is a tremendous health risk for human adults. Not because of its fat content, but because milk products are full of growth hormones. “Ooooh!” I thought, “Those nasty dairy companies, adding that stuff to nature’s most-perfect food!” But, no, these growth hormones are natural – they belong there. Every milk-giving creature (humans included), George pointed out, has its milk laced with growth hormones. When animals are young, the hormones are there to – you guessed it – help them grow. But, at some point, animals are weaned from their mother’s milk, and never drink it again. They have all the growth hormone they need, for life.

But humans, it transpires, are the only higher mammals that continue to consume milk and milk products after we are weaned. And that’s the crux of the problem, you see. Every cheeseburger, every milkshake, every latté, is dumping growth hormones into our bodies that we no longer need. Hormones are extremely powerful chemicals. A tiny amount goes a long way. And so what does growth hormone do in a body no longer able to assimilate it? It causes growth – growth of fat, and explosive growth of other tissues as well. Things we call tumors. Cancer. Yikes! In case I hadn’t gotten the message, George cited research indicating that growth hormone might even be more carcinogenic than dioxin, the active ingredient in Agent Orange.

George noted that for much of human history, adult humans didn’t consume milk and dairy products, and even today, much of humanity is still lactose-intolerant – they can’t digest the sugar found in milk. Regular dairy consumption is a fairly recent development, maybe the last 5,000 years or so, and then mostly in northern latitudes where the climate is right, and where industrialized nations have created both a huge dairy industry and the means to produce, preserve and distribute the products before they go bad. As lactose intolerance waned here, coincident with the rise of factory dairy farms, that’s roughly when the West’s twin epidemics of cancer and obesity really took off. Perhaps there’s a connection?

George cited T. Colin Campbell's landmark research in China, which has no dairy industry, and where an estimated 90% of the people are lactose-intolerant anyway. In the USA, Dairy Central, if you will, the incidence of breast cancer in women is 1 in 33, and of prostate cancer in men, a horrendous 1 in 7. In China, breast cancer strikes 1 in 10,000 women. Prostate cancer afflicts just 1 in 50,000 men. That’s quite a difference, isn’t it? The inference is that it is mainly our consumption of dairy that makes the (fatal) difference.

Here’s another point George made, almost as an aside. This is an important reason not to eat meat, but not one you’d expect to hear from a zealot. As meat animals are herded down the chutes at slaughterhouses, the noise and smell of the frightened animals being killed ahead of them set off bursts of adrenalin that floods the bodies of these poor beasts. Adrenalin is another very powerful chemical, the so-called “fight-or-flight” hormone, and it has inundated the tissues of these animals at the moment of their death. And we eat it later. Doesn’t take much adrenalin to do its job, and we are, many of us, consuming it on a regular basis, when we don’t need it in our bloodstreams. Please tell me, if you can, that this isn’t doing anything strange and awful to us.

In sum, milk is really important for young fast-growing mammals, like cows, although its effect on humans is less benign. That’s for sure. Two years ago, I met a newly arrived calf at the Woodstock sanctuary. It was as big as, well, a calf. Last weekend, I was reintroduced to what is now a 1,000-lb bull that stands as tall as I do, and looks bigger than a compact car. Now, the Masai warriors of Kenya are famous for drinking a concoction of cow’s milk mixed with cow’s blood (a double-whammy!). Those guys are really, really tall. And really, really fierce!

I honestly don’t know if all George told us is factually rock-solid, scientifically proven, and true. I DO know that what I heard has the ring of truth. I’ll just report, you decide. I also know that I plan to learn much more about this subject, and so should you. I’m not yet ready to have a bowl of leaves and beans, George Eisman’s favorite meal, but that cheeseburger, loaded with both adrenalin AND growth hormone (the tissues of slaughtered dairy animals are also suffused with growth hormone, so you can leave off the cheese), well, it just doesn’t sound so yummy anymore, dammit.

# # #

The Birds and the Bees – and the Bugs

The Birds and the Bees – and the Bugs

By Christopher Platt

I took a little ride in the country yesterday. Top down, I drove north out of Manhattan on the Palisades Interstate Parkway, to Bear Mountain and Harriman State Park, about an hour out of the city. Drove slowly around there for an hour, enjoying the lakes, trees, mountains and abundant sunshine. I came back down from Bear Mountain on the Taconic State Parkway. Trees and more trees, rivers, lakes, streams, for at least 90 out of the 110 miles I put on the car. When I got home and pulled into the garage, I noticed something I’d seen before, although today, for some reason, it made more of an impression. After four hours driving through the woods, there was not one single bug squashed on my windshield. None on the front bumper, none on the hood, either. No bugs. On a hot summer day in New York State.
It wasn’t long ago that such a drive would have resulted in a windshield coated with tiny, crushed carcasses that were, frankly, a bitch to clean off. Whole automotive product lines have sprung up to meet this need, which – in some areas of the planet, is serious enough to create hazardous driving conditions. Not today. Not here.
And I realized something else. In all my time driving through the woods, there were virtually no birds, either. I was surrounded by forests, mountains, the mighty Hudson River. There should have been birds in abundance. Once I left the rock doves (that’s pigeons to you) of Manhattan behind, I saw nothing but three Turkey Vultures the entire day. Wasn’t long ago on such a drive that you would see or hear dozens of birds – Blue Jays, sparrows, finches, warblers, a robin or two, nuthatches, cowbirds, catbirds, grackles, crows, starlings, tufted titmice, cardinals, red-winged blackbirds, and many, many more. But, not today. Not here.
Okay, I hear you saying, too bad about the birds, but what’s so bad about not having to scrape those nasty bugs off your windshield? Normally, I’d agree with you, but, ecologically speaking, this total absence of bugs is very disturbing. It also could be one reason there were no birds, either. Let me explain. Insects are a vital part of our ecosystem -- unlike ourselves. Insects eat and destroy smaller organisms that could do us much harm. Some carry disease, but other, predatory species actually consume some of the bad actors. Insects, in turn, are food for larger creatures – many birds, bats, fish and small mammals depend on insects as a food source. The beautiful Purple Martin, for example, the largest of the swallows, has a reputation for eating thousands of mosquitos a day. In reality, it probably eats way more dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, katydids, mayflies, cicadas, beetles, flies, wasps, midges, and flying ants. No insects, no Purple Martins. And those same insects are the food supply for many other birds, too. I don’t know about you, but projecting my day’s drive into next year’s dire headlines, a world without birds would be a depressing place.

In fact, the new edition of Audubon Magazine talks at some length about the decline in numbers of common birds across America. It’s real. It wasn’t just me.

A few months back, we read a lot about how honey bees were disappearing, hive populations crashing or established colonies seemingly departing the area for parts unknown. The potential disaster from the decline of just this one species of insect could be immense. Bees don’t just pollinate decorative flowers and wildflowers, they also pollinate the flowers of many fruit trees. Apples, cherries, pears, plums, peaches, apricots and so on, including many citrus varieties. No bees, no fruit. No almonds, either, and there are many other crops we take for granted that depend on bees.

Well, you get the idea. There’s more to the birds and the bees than just a discussion you need to have with your pre-teen. Let’s cut to the chase, skip to the worst-case scenario, the “end of all life as we know it” scenario. Nearly ten years ago, a terrific writer named Charles Pellegrino penned a scary science fiction novel entitled “Dust.” As the novel opens, the hero, a paleobiologist, leaves his home on Long Beach Island, New York, for work one morning, and drives off unaware of the deadly plague sweeping over the island behind him. A thick black dust, like soot, is spreading unchecked, devouring every living creature and thing in its path. Turns out, it’s a carnivorous swarm of common bed mites that have “gone amok” as reviewer Susan Dunman put it. Even worse than this horror, she says, “the disappearance of flies, mosquitoes, bees, lightning bugs, ants, butterflies and frogs point to a severe breakdown in the entire ecological system, heralding dire consequences of biblical proportions. The demise of whole insect populations removes essential functions such as pollination, fungal control and organic decay. While rivers choke with rotting carcasses, crops wither from lack of pollination and uncontrolled fungal growth.”
The premise is thought-provoking. Dunman notes that Pellegrino asks “… a deceptively simple question -- what would happen if all the insects in the world began to die? After centuries of fighting the pesky critters, humans finally get their wish when bugs mysteriously disappear. But just as with King Midas' gold, there is a horrible curse within the granted wish, and the absence of Earth's lowliest creatures has cataclysmic repercussions for the rest of the food chain.”

I don’t have the answer to this question, but I suggest that the question is worth asking, and sooner, rather than later. Habitat destruction, pesticides by the mega-gallon, an environment in shambles. Pellegrino’s tale seems logical on its face, and he provides plenty of footnotes to back up the facts he presents in the novel. However, the way his scientists solve the crisis is very “Jurassic Park,” and may not be possible yet with today’s technology. It’s bad enough having a world without fruit, without birds. I like not having to clean my windshield, but -- if it came down to a choice between a clean windshield and the end of civilization… pass the Windex, will you?

# # #

Chrysler to Daimler: “Drop Dead!”

Chrysler to Daimler: “Drop Dead!”

By Christopher Platt

I wish Cerberus Capital Management good luck with their 80% stake in Chrysler from Daimler-Chrysler. I certainly wish them more luck than I had last year when I tried to buy Chrysler. Oh, wait! I mean when I tried to buy A Chrysler. Until I heard that Cerberus was trying to buy the company, I thought my 2006 experience with Chrysler was an aberration, a result of trying to interact intelligently with a series of comically and chronically inept Chrysler employees at all levels. Now, I know that their ineptitude was merely a ruse -- corporate terrorism on a small scale. What Chrysler has done to Daimler, however, amounts to a “scorched-earth” plan – that is, unconventional corporate warfare on a grand scale.

I don’t use the word warfare lightly. Didn’t we win World War II? What were these defeated Germans doing here in the USA, buying up one-third (the smallest third, but still) of the Big Three. Wrong question. How can a small fish get a big fish to spit it back up again? That’s the right question.

The scorched-earth weapon has been used since at least ancient Roman times, and usually means literally torching the whole countryside to deny its bounty to the enemy. The Romans used it. Rome’s enemies used it. Sherman used it on his march to Atlanta during the Civil War. Russia and Germany both used it during World War II. America used it in the Vietnam War, employing Agent Orange to defoliate jungle regions, denying cover to our enemy. Iraq used it when they ignited Kuwaiti oilfields as they retreated in the first Gulf War. And Chrysler has used it since Daimler absorbed it against its will in 1998. The dowry Daimler paid back then was $36 billion—for a company it would happily palm off on the first bidder for just $7.4 billion, nine years hence.

My family always had – and loved -- Chrysler cars, as far back as I can remember. The blue 1951 Dodge… the 1956 Dodge Royal in black, pink and white – we called it “the Good-and-Plenty car”… our 1957 Plymouth Belvedere (just like the one unearthed in Tulsa last week)… our 1961 Chrysler Windsor. The cars didn’t last that long back then, but they all were Chryslers. The first family car I bought was a 1983 Dodge Omni. Then, I bought a 1989 Jeep Cherokee, which I still drive. To us, and other enthusiasts, Chrysler was always notable for its designs, its engineering, its “firsts.” First streamlined car – the Chrysler Airstream (1934)… first four-wheel disc brakes (1949)… the “hemi” engine (1951)… first pushbutton (what fun!) automatic transmission (1956)… first cruise control (1958), and many more innovations, besides.

Unfortunately, Chrysler also was the first American automaker to need a huge bailout from the private sector – a 100-year, $250-million loan from Prudential in 1954… another $1.5 billion loan soon after – and was the first US car builder to get bailed out by the federal government, with the landmark 1980 $1.5-billion loan guarantee engineered by Lee Iacocca. With this wondrous mix of can-do American engineering knowhow and can’t-do, running-around-with-their-hand-out financial acumen, it’s no wonder Chrysler has always been the boom-or-bust company it’s been.

Let’s look at my attempts to buy the first Daimler-Chrysler creation with any sex appeal at all. The 2-door, 2-seat Chrysler Crossfire was supposed to be symbolic of the new “partnership,” marrying existing Mercedes/Daimler technology with Chrysler’s appealing design concepts. I can imagine Chrysler execs telling their new bosses, “How’s this for synergy? We’ll use your out-of-date platform for the Mercedes SLK, which you’re abandoning anyway, topped by our version of a ’30’s boat-tailed roadster body. Then, we’ll stuff the high-performance version – the SRT6 – so full of horsepower and torque that the car will blow the doors off any production sports car on the road. But we’ll keep it simple in the cockpit, no gadgets or widgets to drive up costs or do anything to challenge Mercedes’ rep as technology leaders. Then, we’ll tell the car magazines what a hot car we cobbled together.” And, as the smug Germans smiled benevolently upon this show of fealty from their American lackeys, one Chrysler guy turns and whispers to the guy next to him, “… and then we’ll make sure almost nobody can find one, let alone buy one.”

I tried for six months in 2006 to get behind the wheel of this little speedster, frustrated at every turn by what seemed a company determined to make me just go the Hell away. In the NY Metro area, it’s not often possible to get a test drive for a car simply by walking in off the street. Most dealers want you to make a reservation. I found a dealer in Queens, with a salesman who said, “Sure! Come in next Saturday, and we’ll take it out for a spin!” Only, that Saturday, when I showed up at the appointed time, the salesman was off for the day -- and the dealership had returned their only Crossfire to Chrysler because it hadn’t sold in a reasonable time. I found another dealer in Westchester – but he only had the underpowered roadster version – and I was looking for the SRT6 convertible. Tried the Chrysler dealer in Manhattan. Same thing. And the sales manager there actually called me back to ask why I wanted a test drive. He told me, “I’ve never test-driven any car I’ve ever bought, and it’s always been alright.”

I contacted the Crossfire division people at Chrysler HQ, who told me there were no Crossfires available in the northeast for test drives (no kidding!), did I want to just go ahead and order it? I did not. Finally, months later, I found a dealer in Brooklyn who had two Crossfires – one SRT6 roadster, and one convertible with the small engine. Could I test-drive them? Sure. I went out there and they actually put me behind the wheel of a nasty-looking (that’s good!) black, 2005 Crossfire roadster SRT6. We pulled out onto Kings Highway and I stomped on the gas. In less than five seconds, I was doing 60 and had to stomp on the brake for the red light. Light turned green. Stomped on the gas. Up to 60. Stomped on the brake. What fun (Not!), going herky-jerky up Kings Highway. Can I please take this bad boy out onto the Belt Parkway and turn it loose for a couple of minutes? Sorry, no. So I turned around and drove it back to the dealership. I said, “Okay, that wasn’t bad. How about getting me a 2006 version to try?” That IS a 2006, they said – and that’s when I told them how full of crap they were, because the 2006 model had changed the brushed chrome windshield frame this one had for a body-colored surround. Get me a 2006 SRT6, I said, and we can do business. They told me how hard that would be, and was I SURE I didn’t want the 2005 they had – they’d give me a great price. So I went out to look at it again. Opened the hood. Saw components with labels indicating they had been manufactured in 2004. And I saw the beautifully machined SRT6 aluminum valve covers covered with corrosion. Do you know how long a car has to be sitting outside, or maybe under water, for there to be that much corrosion on milled aluminum? This was apparently a “Katrina car,” dried out, cleaned up, and trucked north after the hurricane battered New Orleans.

So I walked away and did not look back. Turned to my other choice of hot, sexy, 2-seat convertibles from another manufacturer. Not so much a car as a big hit of testosterone in a very pretty can. Ordered a 2007, custom-made to my specifications, and it was delivered on-schedule two months later. My first non-Chrysler car in 30 years.

See, until Cerberus, I thought my experience was just Chrysler being stupid. Now, I know it was Chrysler cleverly sabotaging itself – scorching the earth (its loyal customer base) to make the company, and its once-vaunted cars, utterly worthless to its new Teutonic corporate masters. And so it has. I’m wondering if maybe Cerberus, that mythical, three-headed dog, didn’t have all three of its mythical heads up its mythical butt when they cooked up this deal. Are you guys nuts? Chrysler workers don’t even want to make cars anymore. Before the sale was finalized, Chrysler offered buyouts to hourly workers to cut its payroll. They hoped just 4,700 workers would take the offer. Instead, 6,400 raised their hands. Remember, Cerberus, not only are you taking on a car company for $7.4 billion, but you are also assuming pension obligations costing $17 billion. What a bargain! So, I wish you a lot of luck – if all Chrysler wanted was to get back into American hands again, you may have a shot.

# # #

The Only Thing We Have to Fear

The Only Thing We Have to Fear …

By Christopher Platt

There was one scene in Michael Moore’s Sicko that I haven’t yet seen anything written on, but it sure rang my bell. It wasn’t something that bears directly on managed care, but it was a breathtaking comment, nonetheless. Moore asks a French person about their healthcare system, and the Frenchman says something like, “The difference is, here, the government is afraid of the people, but in the United States, the people are afraid of the government.” Wow! I thought. Isn’t that the truth? Here we are in the erstwhile “Land of the Free,” where the government wiretaps and otherwise eavesdrops on its own citizens, where people are reputed to be disappearing into foreign gulags, where habeas corpus is summarily suspended without a whimper from our legislators, and where we are told that speaking out against the war is the same thing as speaking out against and not supporting our troops. It’s NOT, by the way, but our government keeps telling us it is.

I began to consider whether Americans are afraid of their government – and there are many reasons we SHOULD be afraid … very afraid. There are certainly documented instances of people losing their jobs, or families, or their citizenship, sometimes even their lives, because they chose to speak out against our American government. Yet, despite the inherent dangers of standing up to this singularly repressive regime, people ARE speaking out, and, afraid or not, they are finally beginning to be heard. I think Moore’s Frenchman was wrong. Are we wary of those monsters in Washington? Sure. Afraid? Maybe not so much. Look around, not just here at Huffington, but at other Blog sites, other news and opinion sources, and you’ll see there’s a lot of dissent lately, and its getting louder, and more widespread, and even more – gasp! -- mainstream. It’s not just Keith Olbermann, anymore. Even the New York Times joined the growing drumroll of dissent, saying, “It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.”
In fact, I’d bet that a government that tries so hard to stifle dissent is more afraid of us than the other way ’round. What’s indisputable is, that it has desperately tried, for as long as I can remember, to MAKE us fearful, if not of itself than SOMETHING ELSE because, as advertisers and marketers know, FEAR sells even better than SEX. Fear is what sold us, albeit temporarily, on the Iraq War. Call it a bad impulse buy, if you will. And the FEAR campaign persists: Oh, if we don’t send our children to be blown up over there, the terrorists will follow us home … Oh, if you aren’t with us, you’re with THEM … Oh, I have a “gut feeling” (no hard evidence) that we’ll suffer a serious terrorist attack this summer. Heckuva job, Mikey!
Look, 50 years ago, some genius in our government came up with the “duck-and-cover” campaign. For those too young to remember, this was what our response as citizens was to be to save ourselves when the Russian atomic bombs were headed our way. As schoolchildren, we would leap up at the raucous sound of the air raid sirens, dive under our wooden desks, and cover our heads with our hands until the All Clear signal sounded. Did I live in fear then? You bet! Some of us, even as children, had seen film of the fiery devastation wrought by nuclear weapons, and here was our government, in the words of the imminent philosopher Lewis Black, “In the middle of a nuclear F**K attack, making me hide under kindling!”
The Orwellian approach is to keep the masses in a constant state of fear and anxiety. Why? Because, while we’re on our hands and knees, covering our heads, we can’t see what our government is up to – and we won’t be likely to dispute anything our government does in the name of protecting us. And we didn’t, for the longest time. But it wasn’t fear of the government as much as it was fear CAUSED by our government. So we Baby Boomers (and now you know the OTHER meaning for that appellation) grew up in a constant state of stress and anxiety. I’d be willing to bet real money that this was the time when the nation’s obesity, heart disease and cancer epidemics really began, not to mention our soaring cholesterol rates.
Okay, the Cold War ended, and our government had to come up with another thing for us to fear besides the commies. Hmmmm, let’s see. Can’t do space aliens, Hollywood already covered that. Can’t be African-Americans, or Catholics, or Jews – they’re all mainstream now, and we need their votes. Ahhhh, how about crime? Drugs? I know, how about terrorists? Everybody’s got some of them, and we can switch from nationality to nationality, ethnic group to ethnic group and religion to religion anytime there’s signs of Terrorist Fatigue! And they’re all coming here to challenge our way of life! Yikes!
Well, it worked, didn’t it? Because they were right! While we were hiding under our desks, a different breed of terrorists hijacked our government right out from under us. Now, we’re terrorized by our own government, and we can fear eavesdropping, wiretapping, imprisonment without trial (or even charges filed), or worse.

After 50 years of this crap, I, for one, am getting damn’ sick and tired of being told all the things I should be afraid of. I don’t need to hear one more time about the threat of terrorists following our troops home. I don’t need to hear about unsubstantiated “gut feelings,” either. Ho-Hum! But I suspect the “gut feeling” gambit was trotted out last week because with all the threats, precious little evidence or proof has been exhibited to back them up, and they wanted to keep stoking the fires of fear. Fear is an amazing thing. Some people are very sensitive to it – perhaps overly so. I live in New York City – target of choice of any self-respecting terrorist. And when we come home at night to find the door triple-locked, chained and bolted, we ask, “What happened? Was there another apartment robbery in Phoenix (or Honolulu, or Miami, or Minsk) today?” Just shove our case of duct tape up against the door, will you?

And then there’s Ron Paul, one of the more-interesting presidential candidates, who was reported to have said the a few weeks ago that we should watch out for our government creating a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-like incident, to justify launching air attacks against Iran. Whew! Did he really say that? I’m not saying he’s full of it, mind you, but I wish he wouldn’t stoop to the same fear-mongering tactics of the guys he’d like to replace.

The sad thing is, these harbingers of doom, those war-loving guys with no military experience like Bush, Cheney, Michael “Guts” Chertoff, or Tailgunner Joe Lieberman, could be right. But, so what? What can we do to prevent it, anyway? I don’t hear of the people of Israel being told every day that terrorists are planning a major attack. Of course they are! They know it, and yet, somehow, they carry on through frequent, random carnage that we can’t even imagine here. So shut up, already! Remember the Chicken Little effect.

Moore’s Frenchman is wrong. We fear plenty, but we evidently still don’t fear criticizing our pathetic excuse for a government. And our government must still be afraid of us, too. Why else try so hard to distract us and shut us up? On the other hand, it’s hard to tell if it is afraid of us, or it’s just too stupid to know what the people will do if provoked beyond a certain point. There’s Congress, where I heard their recent, abysmal public-approval numbers dismissed by old-timers, who said, “Nobody ever likes us anyway, so what’s the difference?” And that sounds a lot like those guys atop the food chain in the Executive Branch (although some of them don’t know that’s where they are), who have never, ever, given a rat’s ass what the public thinks, and so have taken it upon themselves to try to consolidate power and shut out legitimate, lawful expressions of disagreement and disapproval. When our legislators say, as they have several times, that they won’t bother even trying to impeach these guys because they can’t see it leading to conviction, I’m thinking that stupid trumps afraid. And that’s scary.

U.S. Life Expectancy Shorter

Shuffling Off To Crawford

by Frank Rich

How a "Good War" in Afghanistan Went Bad

Going . . . Going . . . Gun

Coming soon to a country near you.....

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

August 12, 2007
China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People
By KEITH BRADSHER

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 9 — At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.

Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.

Security experts describe China’s plans as the world’s largest effort to meld cutting-edge computer technology with police work to track the activities of a population and fight crime. But they say the technology can be used to violate civil rights.

The Chinese government has ordered all large cities to apply technology to police work and to issue high-tech residency cards to 150 million people who have moved to a city but not yet acquired permanent residency.

Both steps are officially aimed at fighting crime and developing better controls on an increasingly mobile population, including the nearly 10 million peasants who move to big cities each year. But they could also help the Communist Party retain power by maintaining tight controls on an increasingly prosperous population at a time when street protests are becoming more common.

“If they do not get the permanent card, they cannot live here, they cannot get government benefits, and that is a way for the government to control the population in the future,” said Michael Lin, the vice president for investor relations at China Public Security Technology, the company providing the technology.

Incorporated in Florida, China Public Security has raised much of the money to develop its technology from two investment funds in Plano, Tex., Pinnacle Fund and Pinnacle China Fund. Three investment banks — Roth Capital Partners in Newport Beach, Calif.; Oppenheimer & Company in New York; and First Asia Finance Group of Hong Kong — helped raise the money.

Shenzhen, a computer manufacturing center next to Hong Kong, is the first Chinese city to introduce the new residency cards. It is also taking the lead in China in the large-scale use of law enforcement surveillance cameras — a tactic that would have drawn international criticism in the years after the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989.

But rising fears of terrorism have lessened public hostility to surveillance cameras in the West. This has been particularly true in Britain, where the police already install the cameras widely on lamp poles and in subway stations and are developing face recognition software as well.

New York police announced last month that they would install more than 100 security cameras to monitor license plates in Lower Manhattan by the end of the year. Police officials also said they hoped to obtain financing to establish links to 3,000 public and private cameras in the area by the end of next year; no decision has been made on whether face recognition technology has become reliable enough to use without the risk of false arrests.

Shenzhen already has 180,000 indoor and outdoor closed-circuit television cameras owned by businesses and government agencies, and the police will have the right to link them on request into the same system as the 20,000 police cameras, according to China Public Security.

Some civil rights activists contend that the cameras in China and Britain are a violation of the right of privacy contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Large-scale surveillance in China is more threatening than surveillance in Britain, they said when told of Shenzhen’s plans.

“I don’t think they are remotely comparable, and even in Britain it’s quite controversial,” said Dinah PoKempner, the general counsel of Human Rights Watch in New York. China has fewer limits on police power, fewer restrictions on how government agencies use the information they gather and fewer legal protections for those suspected of crime, she noted.

While most countries issue identity cards, and many gather a lot of information about citizens, China also appears poised to go much further in putting personal information on identity cards, Ms. PoKempner added.

Every police officer in Shenzhen now carries global positioning satellite equipment on his or her belt. This allows senior police officers to direct their movements on large, high-resolution maps of the city that China Public Security has produced using software that runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system.

“We have a very good relationship with U.S. companies like I.B.M., Cisco, H.P., Dell,” said Robin Huang, the chief operating officer of China Public Security. “All of these U.S. companies work with us to build our system together.”

The role of American companies in helping Chinese security forces has periodically been controversial in the United States. Executives from Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems testified in February 2006 at a Congressional hearing called to review whether they had deliberately designed their systems to help the Chinese state muzzle dissidents on the Internet; they denied having done so.

China Public Security proudly displays in its boardroom a certificate from I.B.M. labeling it as a partner. But Mr. Huang said that China Public Security had developed its own computer programs in China and that its suppliers had sent equipment that was not specially tailored for law enforcement purposes.

The company uses servers manufactured by Huawei Technologies of China for its own operations. But China Public Security needs to develop programs that run on I.B.M., Cisco and Hewlett-Packard servers because some Chinese police agencies have already bought these models, Mr. Huang said.

Mr. Lin said he had refrained from some transactions with the Chinese government because he is the chief executive of a company incorporated in the United States. “Of course our projects could be used by the military, but because it’s politically sensitive, I don’t want to do it,” he said.

Western security experts have suspected for several years that Chinese security agencies could track individuals based on the location of their cellphones, and the Shenzhen police tracking system confirms this.

When a police officer goes indoors and cannot receive a global positioning signal from satellites overhead, the system tracks the location of the officer’s cellphone, based on the three nearest cellphone towers. Mr. Huang used a real-time connection to local police dispatchers’ computers to show a detailed computer map of a Shenzhen district and the precise location of each of the 92 patrolling officers, represented by caricatures of officers in blue uniforms and the routes they had traveled in the last hour.

All Chinese citizens are required to carry national identity cards with very simple computer chips embedded, providing little more than the citizen’s name and date of birth. Since imperial times, a principal technique of social control has been for local government agencies to keep detailed records on every resident.

The system worked as long as most people spent their entire lives in their hometowns. But as ever more Chinese move in search of work, the system has eroded. This has made it easier for criminals and dissidents alike to hide from police, and it has raised questions about whether dissatisfied migrant workers could organize political protests without the knowledge of police.

Little more than a collection of duck and rice farms until the late 1970s, Shenzhen now has 10.55 million migrants from elsewhere in China, who will receive the new cards, and 1.87 million permanent residents, who will not receive cards because local agencies already have files on them. Shenzhen’s red-light districts have a nationwide reputation for murders and other crimes.

Church learns vet was gay, cancels memorial

How a new GOP president could be worse than Bush

By Joe Conason

The GOP’s Big Health Scare

By Joe Conason —

Listening to the Republican candidates for president warn against “socialized medicine,” you might believe that national health insurance is really a plot to institute Soviet rule in the United States.

Rudy's Five Big Lies About 9/11

by Wayne Barrett













9/11 workers outraged by new Rudy claim

Randy Newman: A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country

Saving The Romneys

The Rise and Rise of ‘Netroots Nation’

Think Again by Eric Alterman

The success of the second Yearly Kos convention bodes well for the future of both the blogosphere and the mainstream media.

Will the real Colin Powell stand up?

The White House fears that the former secretary of state will finally tell the truth about planning for the Iraq war.

By Sidney Blumenthal

New Deal for 2007

The Minneapolis bridge disaster invites America to consider a new New Deal, Katrina vanden Heuvel writes. We must not only rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, but also address glaring income inequality, and repair the damage done by a Bush administration hostile to the notion that government can serve the public good.

HBO: White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

HBO Documentaries Online features show descriptions, interviews, video clips, and scheduling information.

The Failure of Antigovernment Conservatism

by Paul Waldman

Issues like children's health insurance and maintaining our infrastructure offer progressives the opportunity to finally say, without fear of disastrous political consequences, that sometimes government is not the problem, it's the solution.

The Terror America Wrought

Robert Scheer remembers the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, connecting the dots between that attack and US actions in Iraq sixty-two years later.

War Going Horribly—for Iraqis

By Amitabh Pal

There's something of a whiff of racism in claiming that the Iraq War is not going too badly because American casualties have been marginally lower last month. What about the Iraqis?

Gingrich: We're losing "phony" "war on terror"
by kos

Gingrich is once again straying from the officially sanctioned GOP playbook:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday the Bush administration is waging a "phony war" on terrorism, warning that the country is losing ground against the kind of Islamic radicals who attacked the country on Sept. 11, 2001.

A more effective approach, said Gingrich, would begin with a national energy strategy aimed at weaning the country from its reliance on imported oil and some of the regimes that petro-dollars support.

"None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war," the ex-Georgian told a group of about 300 students attending a conference for collegiate conservatives.

Newt went on to make the case for Democratic control next year:

"We were in charge for six years," he said, referring to the period between 2001 and early 2007, when the GOP controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. "I don't think you can look and say that was a great success."

And he continues to talk as if he wants to take on the pygmies currently running for the nomination of his party:

"I believe we need to find leaders who are prepared to tell the truth ... about the failures of the performance of Republicans ... failed bureaucracies ... about how dangerous the world is," he said when asked what kind of Republican he would back for president.

So to recap -- Gingrich says Republicans were horrible at governance, that we're losing the Iraq War, and that Bush's "war on terror" formulation is, as Edwards has argued, a fabrication.

A surge of phony spin on Iraq
By Juan Cole

Or Harry and Chuck pass the buck

The New York Times
August 7, 2007
Editorial
The Fear of Fear Itself

It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress — now led by Democrats — caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security.

There was plenty of bad behavior. Republicans marched in mindless lockstep with the president. There was double-dealing by the White House. The director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, crossed the line from being a steward of this nation’s security to acting as a White House political operative.

But mostly, the spectacle left us wondering what the Democrats — especially their feckless Senate leaders — plan to do with their majority in Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control president.

The votes in the House and Senate were supposed to fix a genuine glitch in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping on electronic communications that involve someone in the United States. The court charged with enforcing that law said the government must also seek a warrant if the people are outside the country, but their communications are routed through data exchanges here — a technological problem that did not exist in 1978.

Instead of just fixing that glitch, the White House and its allies on Capitol Hill railroaded Congress into voting a vast expansion of the president’s powers. They gave the director of national intelligence and the attorney general authority to intercept — without warrant, court supervision or accountability — any telephone call or e-mail message that moves in, out of or through the United States as long as there is a “reasonable belief” that one party is not in the United States. The new law all but eviscerates the 1978 law. The only small saving grace is that the new statute expires in six months.

The House handled this mess somewhat better than the Senate, moving to the floor a far more sensible bill. Mr. McConnell certified that the House bill would address the problem raised by the court. That is, until the White House made clear that it wanted to use the court’s ruling to grab a lot more power. Mr. McConnell then reversed his position and demanded that Congress pass the far more expansive bill.

In the Senate, the team of Harry Reid, the majority leader, gave up fast, agreeing to a deal that doomed any good bill. The senators then hurriedly approved the White House bill, dumped it on the House and skulked off on vacation. Representative Rahm Emanuel, the fourth-ranking member of the Democratic House leadership, said yesterday that his party would not wait for the new eavesdropping authority to expire, and would have a new, measured bill on the floor by October. We look forward to reading it.

But the problem with Congress last week was that Democrats were afraid to explain to Americans why the White House bill was so bad and so unnecessary — despite what the White House was claiming. There are good answers, if Democrats are willing to address voters as adults. To start, they should explain that — even if it were a good idea, and it’s not — the government does not have the capability to sort through billions of bits of electronic communication. And the larger question: why, six years after 9/11, is this sort of fishing expedition the supposed first line of defense in the war on terrorism?

While serving little purpose, the new law has real dangers. It would allow the government to intercept, without a warrant, every communication into or out of any country, including the United States. Instead of explaining all this to American voters — the minimal benefits and the enormous risks — the Democrats have allowed Mr. Bush and his fear-mongering to dominate all discussions on terrorism and national security.

Mr. Bush claims that he has kept America safe since 9/11. But that claim ignores the country’s very real and present vulnerabilities. Six years after the 9/11 attacks the administration has still failed to secure American ports, railroads and airports from terrorist attack, and has put the profits of the chemical and nuclear-power industries ahead of safeguarding their plants.

Mr. Bush also worries Democratic strategists by talking about “staying on the offensive” against terrorism, but it was his decision to invade Iraq that diverted resources from the real offensive, the one against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Mr. Bush’s incessant fear-mongering — and the Democrats’ refusal to challenge him — has had one notable success. The only issue on which Americans say that they trust Republicans more than Democrats is terrorism. At least those Americans are afraid of terrorists. The Democrats who voted for this bill, and others like it over the last few years, show only fear of Republicans.

The Democratic majority has made strides on other issues like children’s health insurance against White House opposition. As important as these measures are, they do not excuse the Democrats from remedying the damage Mr. Bush has done to civil liberties and the Bill of Rights. That is their most important duty.

Beyond Disaster

By Chris Hedges —

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Mideast observer warns that the situation in Iraq is about to get much, much worse, whether we stay or leave.

Exclusive Caught On Tape: Clinton Rips Murdoch WSJ Deal

Congressional Democrats Quietly Accomplish Big Things

Kos: "We Are in the Mainstream of America"

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, known to webbies and the folks here in Chicago simply as Kos, doesn't have a direct connection to YearlyKos. Though the event bears his name, it was started by followers of his website, DailyKos.

Because of his high-profile spats with Bill O'Reilly and others, Kos is often the center of attention on the blogosphere, but he's remained mostly out of sight here at the McCormick Center. In a press conference today — one of his few ventures into the spotlight; a speech tonight will be another — Kos specifically pointed out that the focus is the 1,500 folks in attendance, the "super-engaged activists" that are rapidly changing politics and campaigns.

"This really is democracy in action. This is regular Americans using technology to get engaged in politics," said Kos. Never one for understatement, he continued, "And anybody who attacks that, I think, hates democracy. I think it's that simple."

While fiery rhetoric like that won't keep Kos out of the spotlight for long, what's far more important is opening up the system, he says. "For those who want to engage, [the blogosphere] is the ideal medium. Before, if you wanted to be engaged in politics, you were limited to writing a check, or watching a 30 second political spot, or voting on election. Maybe you got to lick envelopes. Now people are realizing that they have a say in politics." And it's probably most important for those that live in deep red or deep blue states. "[The political establishment] would only pay attention to you is if you were in a battleground district. You had activists nationwide who wanted to engaged, but were shut out of the process." Now, through Politics 2.0, the people are a part of that process.

And the people want change. Asked what he wants to hear from the presidential candidates appearing later today, Kos downplayed the importance of his opinion and his priorities. But he did say, "I want to make sure they understand that there is a hunger for change. And that is not necessarily about working together and bipartisanship. This is about changing the country, taking it in a new direction."

And that's not so radical. "At this moment in time, we are in the mainstream of America on iraq, on health care, on education, go down the list," said Kos. The polls indicate he's right — the country wants out of Iraq, it wants expanded health care, it wants stem cell research and reproductive choice. Maybe the mainstream doesn't want to be associated with Kos and his claims that his opponents hate democracy, but they are far closer to him and the Kossaks than they realize. With the trails being blazed here in Chicago, they can let the power-holders know.

- Jonathan Stein

Lieberman v. Feingold and the Constitution
by John Nichols

The Senator from Connecticut leads the charge to expand Bush's spying authority; the Senator from Wisconsin--who still respects checks and balances--objects.

Leahy Snaps at White House Stonewaller

Bush lackey Scott Jennings gives Sen. Pat Leahy the broken-record treatment, which has become so familiar. Witness Leahy’s frustration break as Jennings refuses even to describe his duties: “Let’s not be too contemptuous of this committee. ... You work at the White House. You’re paid for by taxpayers. You work for the American people. I’m just asking you what kind of work you do.”

Watch it:

Baseball After the Boss

by Franz Lidz

George Steinbrenner transformed the economics of America's pastime. Now with his health declining, who will take over the New York Yankees and what will it mean for the sport? — The gates have finally opened.

In the name of safety, liberties erode...

washingtonpost.com

Senate Votes To Expand Warrantless Surveillance
White House Applauds; Changes Are Temporary

By Joby Warrick and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 4, 2007; A01

The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.

The 60 to 28 vote, which was quickly denounced by civil rights and privacy advocates, came after Democrats in the House failed to win support for more modest changes that would have required closer court supervision of government surveillance. Earlier in the day, President Bush threatened to hold Congress in session into its scheduled summer recess if it did not approve the changes he wanted.

The legislation, which is expected to go before the House today, would expand the government's authority to intercept without a court order the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States who are communicating with people overseas.

As currently written, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act already gives U.S. spies broad leeway to monitor the communications of foreign terrorism suspects, but the 30-year-old statute requires a warrant to monitor calls intercepted in the United States, regardless of where the calls begin or end.

At the White House, where officials had voiced concern about that requirement, a spokesman praised the Senate vote and called on House leaders to quickly follow suit. The legislation will "give our intelligence professionals the essential tools they need to protect our nation," spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Democratic leaders expressed disappointment about the result, but they pointed to language that would require lawmakers to reconsider the key provisions in six months.

"My Republican colleagues chose to rubber-stamp a flawed administration proposal that fails to provide the accountability needed in the light of the administration's past mismanagement of key tools in the war on terror," said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

Sixteen Democrats and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) joined all 43 Republicans in supporting the measure, which is nearly identical to a proposal prepared by the Bush administration. "We're at war. The enemy wants to attack us," Lieberman said during the Senate debate. "This is not the time to strive for legislative perfection."

Privacy advocates accused the Democrats of selling out and charged that this bill gives the government more authority than it had under a controversial warrantless wiretapping program begun in secret after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Under that program, the government could conduct surveillance without judicial oversight only if it had a reason to believe that one party to the call was a member of or affiliated with al-Qaeda or a related terrorist organization. This bill drops that condition, they noted.

Democrats "have a Pavlovian reaction: Whenever the president says the word 'terrorism,' they roll over and play dead," said Caroline Fredrickson, Washington legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, predicted that the bill's approval would lead to the monitoring of ordinary Americans by the National Security Agency, which conducts most of the government's electronic surveillance. "If this bill becomes law, Americans who communicate with a person abroad can count on one thing: The NSA may be listening," he said.

Congressional Democrats and the White House clashed throughout the day not only over the scope of the changes in the law but also over whether the other side was bargaining in good faith. Democrats said they were convinced that their proposal met key the demands of Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) quoted him as saying that the bill "significantly enhances America's security."

But Republicans cited a letter from McConnell yesterday afternoon calling the proposal unacceptable and warning that it would prevent him from protecting the country adequately from terrorist attacks. That assertion in turn prompted charges by Democrats that the White House had overruled McConnell in an effort to gain political advantage by painting their party as weak on terrorism.

"We did everything he wants," Brendan Daly, spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said of McConnell, "and now he says he doesn't like the bill. They didn't move the goal post; they moved the stadium." Pelosi herself accused the Republicans of not caring "about the truth."

White House officials disputed Democrats' account of the tentative deal, and Republicans said McConnell's objections were justified by the Democrats' decision to subject more surveillance to oversight by a special intelligence court than the administration wants.

Adding to the drama was Bush's pressure on lawmakers to stay in Washington until a new measure is passed. The president said he opposes Congress's adjournment for its summer recess this weekend unless it approves "a bill I can sign." Presidents have the power to call Congress into emergency session to consider matters of national importance, although the power is rarely used.

"We have worked hard and in good faith with the Democrats to find a solution," Bush said at a news briefing after a meeting with counterterrorism officials at FBI headquarters yesterday morning. "But we are not going to put our national security at risk."

The administration and congressional Democrats agree on the need to update the FISA statute to reflect the realities of 21st-century telecommunications, including the ever-expanding digital world of e-mail, podcasts and text messages.

White House and intelligence officials have sought a broad overhaul of the act to allow spy agencies to listen in on terrorism suspects quickly, without having to apply for a court order, as is required for surveillance that targets U.S. residents. But Democratic leaders say the administration's proposals could lead to broad searches of phone calls and e-mails by ordinary Americans without judicial review.

"Given the experience of the last few years, we are reluctant to give blanket authority to any president, most especially this one," said a senior Senate aide familiar with negotiations on the surveillance bill.

White House officials complained that Democratic proposals do not give them a crucial tool: the ability to begin wiretapping without having to go to a court. "Every day we don't have [this wiretap authority], we don't know what's going on outside the country," a senior White House official said. "All you need is one communication from, say, Pakistan to Afghanistan that's routed through Seattle that tells you 'I'm about to do a truck bomb in New York City' or 'about to do a truck bomb in Iraq,' and it's too late."

The administration has been negotiating with Democrats for weeks over the issue, but talks intensified as Congress prepared to adjourn this week. Last year, the administration mounted a similar high-pressure campaign on the eve of a congressional recess, to revise legislation governing the interrogation and trial of detainees.

Adding to the urgency for the administration is a secret ruling by a FISA judge earlier this year that declared surveillance of purely foreign communications that pass through a U.S. communications node illegal without a court-approved warrant -- a requirement that intelligence officials have described as unacceptably burdensome.

Staff writers Josh White and Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.

Why Kos Is the New Rush

E. J. Dionne Jr.

Just as Rush Limbaugh aroused passionate opposition on the left, so has Markos Moulitsas become the object of conservative rage.

White House Briefing : Bush's Optimists Club
Dan Froomkin (washingtonpost.com)

...officials in an inquiry into what the administration knew about the friendly-fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman."The aides are Dan Bartlett, former White House counselor; Scott McClellan, former press secretary, and Michael Gerson, former speechwriter. The...

Bush's non-exit exit strategy

By Joe Conason

Bill Maher: Chickenhawk Down

Impeaching Alberto Gonzales
By Joe Conason —
While politicians of both parties have repeatedly denounced Alberto Gonzales for public mendacity and abuse of office, a few of them finally have stepped up to do what must be done.

The Unflappable Speaker
By Marie Cocco —
Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the demeanor of someone who leads a Congress suffering from the worst public disapproval in contemporary polling history.

Keeping Enemies Close--And the Saudis Closer

Robert Scheer explores Bush's real motives for the $63 billion arms deal with Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The three stooges

The president won't fire Alberto Gonzales. He needs him to protect White House secrets, including the scheming roles of Cheney and Rove.

By Sidney Blumenthal

No End in Sight
Antiwar candidates should book screenings of this indictment of the war in Iraq in every swing state in the country.



Official Website
www.noendinsightmovie.com/