MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: August 5, 2007

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August 11, 2007

Gay by Choice? Yeah, What If?

Alright, so Bill Richardson was confused. He looked it in the gay rights' forum the other day when Melissa Etheridge asked him whether he thinks homosexuality is a choice. He said yes; she rephrased the question, and he said yes again. Then, yesterday Richardson spent the day backtracking. All of which has created quite a hubbub.

My question is, does the gay rights movement really want choice to be the nexus of the fight? Asking whether you think being gay is a choice is kind of like asking whether you think there's life in other galaxies. Asking for an opinion on science isn't so useful; scientifically we just don't know for sure yet. Whatever your answer is, it's your opinion, nothing more.

And if the answer to that question is indeed a proxy for belief in equal rights, as this hullabaloo suggests, then what happens if the science ends up showing there is choice involved in sexual preference?

Whether being gay is a choice, to me, isn't the crux of the issue. Yes, it would make the fight for equal rights much cleaner (and I believe it someday may), but I would rather see Etheridge ask Richardson whether he believes that people should be afforded differential treatment based on whom they love? Make that the platform, force humanity to the fore, and let science, if it turns out to show genetic predisposition, strengthen the argument.

Somehow the religious right has co-opted the gay-by-choice meme and owns this pro-choice movement. How about the left sticks to its right-to-choose guns here? That choosing whom we love, same sex or opposite, is a "lifestyle choice" regardless. I mean, where is the science proving we are born straight by default? The argument could be made that there are plenty of gay folks out there choosing to be straight, do they then have fewer rights in their straight relationships?

Think about it, and fire back.

August 10, 2007

Giuliani Exposed: Terrorism Record Based on Lies

Wayne Barrett's Village Voice article titled "Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11" ought to be required reading for anyone thinking about the GOP presidential primary.

Here are the facts: Giuliani focused little on terrorism while mayor of New York in advance of 9/11, failed to prepare the city for an attack in any significant way, prioritized his petty personal needs over the advice of experts when constructing an emergency response command center, and didn't supply first-responders with the equipment they needed — all of these facts from Barrett's article are supported by former Giuliani aides and members of his NYC administration. More importantly, all of these facts directly contradict the strongest-on-terrorism image Giuliani presents on the campaign trail. Terrorism is Giuliani's "best" issue, and he consistently lies about his record.

Barrett's article is a portrait of a man willing to accept illegitimate praise and eager to spread legitimate blame. As Barrett writes, "naked revisionism" is the name of Giuliani's game. Have a read.

MoJo Deadline Today

News of Mother Jones’ new Washington, D.C., bureau—the first major news bureau to be opened by a U.S. media organization in years—is being noticed by the MSM. Click here for a piece by the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz.

If you’re just tuning in to this change, we’ve expanded our D.C. bureau from 2 to 7 journalists. Our plan is to dig even deeper into the most important stories from the nation’s capital and to have the results land with more impact in the media and political worlds.

Why this matters plays out virtually every day in the news stories trumpeted the loudest by the mainstream. A case in point is Newsweek’s current (August 13) cover story—“Global Warming is a Hoax*,” by science correspondent Sharon Begley. It is absolutely an important story, fingering “the well-funded naysayers who still reject the overwhelming evidence of climate change” and the special interests that fund them.

That there is a well-funded denial industry won’t, of course, be any shock to Mother Jones readers—MoJo’s cover story on ExxonMobil’s multimillion-dollar support of the climate change deniers was published in April 2005. A year later, the MJ feature was nominated for a National Magazine Award for public service, and Al Gore plugged it on “Fresh Air” —the story received a lot of attention from people who pay attention. Still, out in mass media land the insidious effects of the denial spin doctors have continued to muddle public understanding of the scientific consensus, thanks in significant measure to the history of big media (like Newsweek) giving credence to the deniers.

Point #1 is obviously that two and a half years is too much lag time between when a big public interest news story is broken and it’s, uh, accepted by the MSM. But point #2 is that we (that is, Mother Jones, other independent media, and you) are in a great position to change that.

So that’s what we’re doing: putting more reporters on the most significant public interest stories and making full use of all of the cheap and powerful new media tools around us to bust the BS. In doing that, we can respond to BS and spin quickly, debunking it before it becomes the conventional wisdom of the MSM.

Here’s who we’re putting on the scent:

• Laura Rozen, who’s covered national security and foreign policy as a senior correspondent for the American Prospect and on her blog, warandpiece.com, as well as in the pages of Mother Jones.

• Stephanie Mencimer, the author of Blocking the Courthouse Door, an investigation into conservative and corporate attempts to limit corporate liability and to restrict people’s access to civil court remedies through “tort reform.”

• Bruce Falconer, who joins Mother Jones after working for several years as a staff editor and writer on international assignments for the Atlantic Monthly.

• And Jonathan Stein, who started at Mother Jones in San Francisco 18 months ago and helped produce the “Lie by Lie” timeline as one of the lead researchers on the project.

Together with Jim Ridgeway and Dan Schulman, they make up a crew of smart, independent journalists who bring years of savvy reporting experience to the job. Get used to seeing their names; they’re already posting online, including on the MoJoBlog and in Washington dispatches. Click to see some entries by Ridgeway and Schulman, Rosen, Falconer, and Stein.

This is an ambitious project for Mother Jones. We need to raise $60,000 in the next few weeks to complete the D.C. bureau. If you value original reporting that makes an impact on politics and media, I hope you’ll make a tax-deductible donation.

It's also why we've pulled together some cool prizes to give you an extra incentive to hit the "donate" button. But time is running out, the deadline for our campaign is midnight tonight, Friday, August 10, 2007 for you to make a gift and be entered to win a super prize.

If you've already made a contribution, thank you very much. But if you haven’t, please take a moment now to do so.

Jay Harris
President & Publisher

Dear God, We Really Are Going to War With Iran

President Bush's proclamations that Iran is meddling in Iraq and will face severe but unnamed consequences if it continues to do so have become so common they have almost faded into the background of the national discourse. But this should grab your attention:

Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.

Dick Cheney has a solid record of using force judiciously and wisely. Surely everyone within the administration is listening to him, right?

Thankfully, no. According to the McClatchy report linked above, Secretary of State Condi Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates both object to expanding the war outside Iraq's borders. In response, Cheney is calling on his friends at the think tanks and in the media to help him. Writes McClatchy: "The debate [in the administration] has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media... The Bush administration has launched what appears to be a coordinated campaign to pin more of Iraq's security troubles on Iran."

As it happens, the Post had an article yesterday about that "drumbeat of allegations." It details how Bill Kristol, Michael Rubin, Norman Podhoretz, the Heritage Foundation, and others are making a military attack on Iran part of the Overton window — that is, part of the range of acceptable policy options.

Honestly, the best part of the 2008 election won't be getting Bush out of office. It'll be keeping the globe's citizens safe from Dick Cheney. That man never should have had the most powerful military in the history of the world at his disposal.

August 9, 2007

Finding the Leaders Among Us

Think we're short on leaders? Then become one. Bill McKibben's put out the call through StepItUp.org for an event on Saturday November 3rd.

McKibben asks us to forward his call far and wide, to anyone who might possibly be interested. "We're not really an organization, and we don't have lists of names—we depend on people like you to take the initiative." Hope you can help. JULIA WHITTY

Here's the full letter.

If we’re going to deal with global warming, then we need to go beyond politicians who say the right words and find champions who will actually do the tough work to transform our energy economy. This is an invitation to take one Saturday this fall and use it to build a movement, a movement strong enough to finally put this issue on the table where it can no longer be ignored. If everyone can do this work in their neck of the woods, it will create the momentum that we desperately need.

Here's the idea. On Saturday November 3, a year before the next election, we're asking people to organize rallies large and small in their communities. Each one should take place in some spot that commemorates great leaders of the past. Some of these will be nationally famous--people have already committed to climbing New Hampshire's Mt. Washington, gathering at the site of the Lincoln Douglas debates, even rallying outside the Rhode Island church where John F. Kennedy was married. Others will be locally celebrated leaders--there'll be a rally, for instance, honoring Navajo elder and activist Roberta Blackgoat, who inspired the fight against coal development on tribal land. But we need hundreds more, gatherings in places that bear the names of people who did the right thing in a moment of great need. You'll know the person that makes sense in your city or town—they don't need to be saints, just true leaders, the kind who, faced with the great issues of their day, didn't punt or compromise.

Once you've got your rally registered on www.Stepitup07.org we'll help you gather a crowd, and invite the politicians from your neck of the woods. We want to ask every Senator and Representative, and every candidate for those offices, to come to these rallies, along with state and local officials. Once they're there, we'll present politicians with the four "1 Sky" priorities prepared in the last few months by climate campaigners across the country. They are: an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, and a Green Jobs Corps to help fix homes and businesses so those targets can be met. Basically, we want to find out who is simply a politician, and who's ready to be a leader.

We know these gatherings will be effective. In April, with the help of thousands of people (most of them brand new to organizing) from across the country, we organized 1,400 rallies in places that showed how climate change would affect our lives. Those events were key in putting the demand for real action--80% cuts in carbon emissions by 2050--square in the middle of the Washington debate. But a movement needs to keep moving, and calling for real leadership is the next step.

Don't worry if you've never organized anything before--you're not putting together a March on Washington, just a gathering of scores or hundreds in your town or neighborhood. It needn’t be slick; homemade is just fine. Put your imagination to work: what would Lincoln do? How would Dr. King take on this challenge? This is a celebration of leadership, and a celebration should be joyful—as focused on the new economies and communities we can create as on the threats we must avoid.

These rallies will be local, but they'll also have national impact. The website will help draw people to your action, and then on Nov. 3, we'll be gathering pictures and video from around the country so that by nightfall we'll have a good online slideshow of how America feels. We'll do our best to make sure that every candidate is firmly on the record about their plans. By the time the day is done, you'll have helped change the political landscape.

The best science tells us we have barely a decade to start the fundamental transformation of our economy and to lead the world in the same direction or else, in the words of NASA's Jim Hansen, we will face a "totally different planet." (He went on to say that the "1 Sky" priorities "describe just the kind of trajectory we need" to start solving the problem). A decade's not very long—we've got to get going.

I know you've already done the obvious things, like changing some of the lightbulbs in your house. Screwing in a lightbulb is important; screwing in a new federal policy to deal with climate change is crucial, especially if we're ever going to regain enough credibility to help lead the world toward a stable climate. November 3 will be a powerful day, and you can play a vital role. Please sign up on the website to start an action—and thank you so much for caring enough to be a leader yourself.

The Man Behind the Utah Mine Collapse

The six miners now trapped in a coal mine in Utah were working for Murray Energy, whose owner has become one of the most outspoken—and unhinged—spokespeople for coal power in the last year, as the dirty energy source has come under increasing scrutiny. Coal is the largest single contributor to greenhouse-gas pollution—but Mr. Murray denies that fossil fuels cause global warming.

Murray has used his platform as spokesman in the tragedy to continue his defense of the industry. On Tuesday, he delivered what the Washington Post called "a general paean to coal," threatening that, "Without coal to manufacture our electricity, our products will not compete in the global marketplace…and people on fixed incomes will not be able to pay for their electric bills."

Murray also adamantly denied that the "retreat" method of mining which was used in the section that collapsed had anything to do with the accident. Retreat mining involves taking the last bits of coal from pillars that hold up the roof, and result in—ideally controlled—collapses. Murray has blamed the collapse on an earthquake, though seismologists say vibrations were caused by the collapse, not vice-versa.

Murray's unconventional approach has drawn criticism from the Democratic chairs of two House committees that oversee labor issues. Reps. George Miller and Lynn Woolsey pressed the Labor Department to assume the spokesman role because Murray's statements do "not meet [the] standard" for such emergencies.

But it should be said that the Democrats and Mr. Murray have no love lost. Murray has given heavily to Republicans, including, according to the Post, $100,000 last year alone from his political action committee to GOP congressional candidates.He has used his ties with important Republicans—particularly Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose wife, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, oversees mine safety—to avoid facing the music for safety violations. The Utah mine's safety record was fairly average, despite fines for safety violations in the hundreds of thousands, but nationally, Murray's mines have a shoddy safety record. When confronted in 2002 with safety violations, Murray threatened to have the inspectors fired, referring to his close friendship with McConnell. "The last time I checked," he said, "he [McConnell] was sleeping with your boss."

Great guy, huh? Would you trust him with your life?

Google Reveals Everything Important About America

For the first time since February, Google has updated its Google Trends database, allowing me to give you an up-to-date look at our nation's most important issues--or at least its most important internet searches, which we all know is the same thing.

War

Iraq: blue / Star Wars: yellow / Halo: red / World of Warcraft: green

When it comes to war, this easily generated chart shows fantasy war has been a more popular Google search this year than real war, except in late April and early May when the "Iraq" search term (blue) claimed fleeting victory over "Star Wars," "Halo" and "World of Warcraft." My guess is that kids were kicking the video game habit for a moment while researching end-of-semester term papers on foreign affairs disasters. If you run the search yourself and look at the localized stats, you'll see that the only cities where "Iraq" won were Washington, DC (of course) and Columbus, Ohio. Will somebody from Columbus explain? On the other end of the scale, Salt Lake City dominated each fictional war category. But then, I'm not sure Salt Lakers consider Star Wars to be fiction. (Mormons believe Native Americans descended from the 12 tribes of Israel, and before that, Jedi Masters). Anyway, combining all three fantasy wars leaves Iraq totally dominated. As for other real wars, the "Global War on Terror" doesn't even rank, but I'm not sure that bothers me seeing how GWOT is only slightly less fictional than World of Warcraft.

Climate Change

Global Warming: blue / Hummer: red / Air Conditioning: yellow / Al Gore: green

As of late July, after dominating the field for months, "global warming" has fought "Hummer" to a bitter draw. Meanwhile, "air conditioning" was lying in wait during the cool spring months, only to crank up in May and blow past "global warming" in June in a cloud of CO2 emissions from dirty coal plants in the sweltering South. "Al Gore" came to the rescue when he announced a surprise Live Earth concert on July 7th, but within a week he had dropped to the bottom of the pack. (Al: We need more concerts. Can you play tambourine on a tour with Willie?)

The Presidential Election

Hillary Clinton: light blue / Barack Obama: red / Rudy Giuliani: green / Fred Thompson: yellow / Ron Paul: dark blue

The internet has spoken: Ron Paul will be the next president. Everyone else might as well pack up and go home, because this 71-year-old libertarian from Lake Jackson, Texas is on fire with the power of bored IT workers Googling him on lunchbreak. And Digging him, and searching for him on Technorati, and demanding him on Eventful and befriending him on MySpace and pumping him on Meetup and submitting more questions to him than any other candidate during his rockstar appearance in Silicon Valley at Google Talks. Pretty much anywhere you look in cyberspace, he's kicking ass. Nevermind that he wants to abolish the IRS, the Department of Ed and the EPA. They're already irrelevant. . .

The Role of Government

Government: blue / Google: red

This is why Silicon Valley rules America.

People Picks up on Hypermiling Guru

The just-released August 13, 2007, edition of People magazine features stories on Star Jones' weight loss, Britney Spears' custody battle, and ... hypermiling? That's right, People has exactly 1 page covering the slightly wacky, fuel-effecient style of driving of Wayne Gerdes, the obsessive hybrid owner we featured in the magazine earlier this year.

Gerdes, the "king" of hypermiling, who glides his way toward 100 mpg in an ordinary Honda Accord, shares tips on how to use big rigs to reduce air resistance, and how to slow down without braking, in our article, but with People, readers learn about fuel-efficiency obsession on one page and the summer's hottest strapless dresses on the next. What would we do without People?

British to U.S. Forces in Afghanistan: Get Out

Guess who British forces in southern Afghanistan see as creating an intolerably high number of civilian casualties? If you guessed the Taliban, you're wrong. If you guessed the Americans, you've been paying attention for the last four years. Are we really making things worse, not better, in both halves of our Middle Eastern misadventure?

From the New York Times:

A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in recent weeks that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had caused was making it difficult to win over local people.

The Times tells the story of an Afghani man whose village lost 20 people in an American airstrike launched after Taliban fighters passed through. Six of the dead were family members; the living did not fare much better.

His son, Bashir Ahmed, 2, listless and stick thin, seemed close to death. The boy and his sister Muzlifa, 7, bore terrible shrapnel scars. NATO doctors had removed shrapnel from the boy’s abdomen at the time of the raid and had warned his father that he might not survive, but two months later he was still hanging on.... His wife lost an arm, and the children’s grandmother was killed, he said.

...He said that he opposed the Taliban, but that after the bombing raid the villagers were so angered that most of the men who survived went off to join the insurgents.

So American airstrikes are driving civilians into the arms of the Taliban. And what can the British forces on the ground use to make survivors forget their grief and not turn against the westerners? A few measly bucks.

Maj. Dominic Biddick, commander of a company of British soldiers in Sangin, is making a big effort to ease the anger and pain as his men patrol the villages. He has a $5,000 good-will fund and hands out cash to victims he comes across, like the farmer whose two sons were shot in the fields during a recent operation.

The magnitude of that insult is unimaginable. The dishonor and the disgust a father must feel when offered cash (in some amount under $5,000, no less) to compensate for the loss of two sons — that's truly brutal.

The total number of civilians dead in the region of Helmand this year has been estimated at 300, "the vast majority of them caused by foreign and Afghan forces, rather than the Taliban," according to the Times.

El Paso Opens Largest Inland Desalination Plant

Yesterday El Paso marked the opening of what will be the world’s largest inland desalination plant, a project 15 years in the making that will aim to provide water for the nearly million residents of the area for the next 50 years.

Most desalination outfits are in coastal areas, for obvious reasons. This one will pull water from an aquifer of brackish water yet untapped hundreds of feet underground. The project costs a cool $87 million and will require multiple wells and several dozen miles of pipeline to connect the aquifer to the plant. Backers hope the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant will serve as a model for inland cities and water supply.

The driving force behind this project—and the reason Texas was able to secure $27 million in federal funding—is the expansion of Fort Bliss, the city's Army base, which is set to grow by more than 20,000 troops by 2011. Fort Bliss is already the second largest military installation in the country (next to neighboring White Sands Missile Range), covering an area roughly the size of Rhode Island.

Reminiscing the Cold War Over Guam

According to news reports (here and here), two Russian Tu-95MS bombers flew to Guam yesterday, where Russian Major General Pavel Androsov said they "exchanged smiles" with the U.S. fighter pilots who scrambled to meet them. "It has always been the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet [U.S.] aircraft carriers and greet [U.S. pilots] visually," Androsov told reporters today at a news conference. "Yesterday we revived this tradition, and two of our young crews paid a visit to the area of the base of Guam."

Such long-haul (and politically charged) flights were common during the Cold War, but were suspended after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin, flush with oil money, has apparently ordered the flights to resume as part of a push to reinvigorate the Russian armed forces. Yesterday's sortie began at a Russian airbase near Blagoveshchensk in the Far East and flew a 13-hour round trip to Guam. According to Reuters:

President Vladimir Putin has sought to make Russia more assertive in the world. Putin has boosted defense spending and sought to raise morale in the armed forces, which were starved of funding following the fall of the Soviet Union...

Ivan Safranchuk, Moscow office director of the Washington-based World Security Institute, said he saw nothing extraordinary in Moscow sending its bombers around the globe.

"This practice as such never stopped, it was only scaled down because there was less cash available for that," he said.

"It doesn't cost much to flex your muscles ... You can burn fuel flying over your own land or you can do it flying somewhere like Guam, in which case political dividends will be higher."

The bombers give Russia the capability of launching a devastating nuclear strike even if the nuclear arsenals on its own territory are wiped out.

Newspapers 'Pay It Forward'

Minneapolis has been on the minds of many since the devastating events of last week. But being on people's minds wasn't enough for some; one newspaper took it a step further. To hear more about the benevolence of the media industry, continue reading this post on our arts and culture blog, The Riff.

Glenn Greenwald Will Not Be Hired by Brookings Anytime Soon

Glenn Greenwald's mini-discourse on the completely fallible Foreign Policy Community is the smartest and most thought-provoking thing I've read this week. Attendant readings include the Samantha Power memo that spurred Greenwald's thinking and and the Matt Yglesias blog post that echoes Greenwald and adds another angle.

Joe Biden: Consider Criminal Charges Against Administration

Joe Biden recently sat down with Newsweek to discuss his presidential campaign and his thoughts on 35 years in the Senate. When asked about impeachment, Biden said he's against the idea because impeachment proceedings would paralyze Congress and take the nation's focus off other, more important matters. But he has a pretty stunning Plan B.

The alternative, and it's taken me time to think through, I think we should be acquiring and accumulating all the data that is appropriate for possibly bringing criminal charges against members of this administration at a later date.

Somebody call Elizabeth de la Vega! She's already made the case.

Oh, and you can put to rest those rumors that Biden, who is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of Washington's most informed foreign policy experts, is campaigning in order to be named Secretary of State.

I promise you, I don’t want to be secretary of State.

Clear enough? He's also a longtime member of the Judiciary Committee, so maybe instead of running State, Biden can be in charge of those criminal prosecutions.

August 8, 2007

Turkey, Iraq Unite in Opposition to PKK

I've written recently (here and here) about rumors that the Turkish military may be preparing to go after PKK fighters based in Iraqi Kurdistan. The latest news is that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have signed an agreement to take on PKK forces based in northern Iraq's remote Kandil Mountains, near the Iranian border. As Maliki told a gathering of reporters in Ankara:

We found a mutual understanding with the Turkish side about the need to co-operate to confront the activities of all terrorist organisations in Iraq, including the PKK... There was agreement to unite our joint efforts to find a solution that will end, eliminate, and cancel [the PKK's] presence on Iraqi territory through shared action by both parties.

So, is it really going to be that easy? Should we write off the PKK altogether? Nope, not according to Time's Andrew Lee Butters in Beirut. You can read his thoughts here.

Primaries in Early States to Move Up Even Further

The WSJ's Washington Wire notes that the primary insanity is still getting worse.

[New Hampshire and South Carolina] are moving up their presidential primary dates earlier into January, according to a prominent South Carolina Republican.... That likely will force Iowa — always protective of its party caucuses as the first-in-the-nation nominating contests — to make good on its vow to move their date from next Jan. 14 into pre-Christmas December.

Pre-Christmas December! We're talking almost a full year before the general election, which at this point will probably just go to whichever party is least sick of its candidate. And let's not even begin on the pointlessness of the conventions, which used to officially choose a nominee amongst legitimate contenders and will now be a hollow media event (sorry, an even more hollow media event) a full seven months after the first primary.

(H/T Kevin Drum)

August 7, 2007

Kids Say Food in McDonald's Wrappers Just Tastes Better

Whether it's milk, carrots, or apple juice, kids ages 3-5 think food just tastes better when wrapped in the golden arches of McDonald's, a recent study finds.

To learn more about the study, continue reading this post on our science and health blog, The Blue Marble.

House Energy Bill Marks Significant Progress on Environmental Goals

I mentioned a few days back that the Democratic House leadership skipped YearlyKos in order to pass a sweeping energy bill. I would be remiss not to point you to some details of the legislation. Here's a news story on the bill, here's an in-depth summary from Nancy Pelosi's website, and here's the bill's actual text in pdf form.

Don't Fear the Reefer

A story by Dan Eggen in this morning's Washington Post notes that the FBI has abandoned its time-worn policy of automatically disqualifying job applicants who have used drugs. According to the Post:

Old guidelines barred FBI employment to anyone who had used marijuana more than 15 times in their lives or who had tried other illegal narcotics more than five times.

But those strict numbers no longer apply. Applicants for jobs such as analysts, programmers or special agents must still swear that they have not used any illegal substances recently -- three years for marijuana and 10 years for other drugs -- but they are no longer ruled out of consideration because of more frequent drug use in the past...

FBI officials say the move is simply an acknowledgment of reality in a country where, according to some estimates, up to a third of the population has tried marijuana at some point.

Even with its relaxed standards, the FBI remains tougher on former drug users than other federal agencies, most notably the CIA. Those wishing to work for "the Company" are evaluated holistically, "with any history of illegal drug use being one factor considered in a careful assessment process," according to CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano.

Anybody got a lighter?

Republicans Flub the Facts at Iowa Debate

Do you use factcheck.org? You should. Its mission is to... well, its mission is in its title. Here's what it had to say about the Republican debate (the millionth debate, right? Or the millionth and one?) that occurred on Sunday.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed U.S. job growth had been nearly 17 times faster than Europe's. Actually, European Union employment grew faster than that of the U.S. last year. Romney's source for the information told FactCheck.org that he himself would no longer use the figures.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani accused Democratic candidates of "appeasement" toward Islamic terrorists. In fact, leading Democratic candidates have spoken out strongly against terrorism.
Sen. John McCain claimed American families spend $140 billion of their income preparing federal income tax returns. We find no support for that figure, which the Internal Revenue Service puts at $19 billion.
Rep. Tom Tancredo claimed illegal immigrants "are taking a large part of our health care dollars." But the independent Rand Corp. estimates that undocumented immigrants account for 1.5 percent of health care spending or less.

The site follows these summaries with longer and more substantive debunkings of the candidates' claims. And, as it turns out factcheck.org has hit the Republicans before and even chided the Democrats. Must-read material after any debate, I would say.

Effective Bullies and Propagandists, Lousy Journalists

Uh, and how many stories should The Weekly Standard be obliged to recant? Starting perhaps with this Cheney favorite?

Got Sarin? Here's a Band-Aid

This morning I was among a lucky few DC subway commuters to receive a bundle of safety information from a Metro representative. It included an "Emergency Guide," published by the Washington Post several years ago, several pamphlets detailing what to do in the event of a terrorist attack on the subway, and (my favorite) a pocket-size first aid kit, complete with Band-Aids, antiseptic towelettes, and antibiotic ointment. Now I'm ready for anything!! I suppose it makes sense to raise "awareness," but, geesh, reading the literature does remind you how screwed you'd be if you got stuck in one of those tunnels with a cloud of Sarin. Whatever you do, I guess you shouldn't leave the train car. As the Emergency Guide warns:

Seen through the windows of a speeding train, a Metrorail tunnel is little more than a blur of blackness and lights. Outside the train, on foot, it's a complex and treacherous place, riddled with hazards that can cause injury or instant death.

Thank goodness for my new moist towelette...

August 6, 2007

Fujimori Might Slip Away, Again

Former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori might once again escape the law. For the last year, Peruvian authorities have sought Fujimori's extradition from Chile for human rights abuses he oversaw during the 1990s, but it’s not looking good. A Chilean judge denied Peru's extradition request last month. Peru, of course, immediately appealed the decision. And Peruvians living in Chile also filed separate criminal charges hoping to tie up Fujimori in the courts rather than allowing him to flee should Peru's appeal fall through.

The South American strongman seems to always be escaping the law. In 2000, a corruption scandal forced Fujimori to flee Peru allowing the South American nation to confront Fujimori's human rights violations with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission similar to South Africa's. Meanwhile, Fujimori's Japanese descent afforded him safe exile in Japan from where he faxed in his resignation. During his exile, international arrest warrants building on the commission's findings were issued by Interpol and Peru. But despite the possibility of capture, Fujimori attempted to slip back into Peru via Chile in 2005. And to run for president, no less. Chilean authorities apprehended him as the two countries have an extradition treaty.

But last month, a Chilean Judge turned down Peru's request. Seemingly as a last resort, Peruvian ex-pats filed the new criminal charges, although, to no avail. Last week, the charges were quickly dismissed and it looks as if Chile's supreme court could take three or more months to decide Fujimori's fate. Without new charges, or some other divine hand, it looks like Fujimori might be back in Japan for Christmas.

—Rafael Valero

Turkey To Issue "Final Warning" to Iraq

I wrote last week of a secret plan to send U.S. Special Forces troops to hunt down Kurdish PKK rebels in the mountains of northern Iraq. The plan was first exposed by columnist Robert Novak. Well, in this morning's Washington Post, Ellen Knickmeyer reports that the Turkish political establishment and military have agreed that the time for action against Kurdish rebels has come. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will visit Ankara tomorrow for discussions with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Knickmeyer writes that the Turkish leader will deliver "a final warning" for Maliki to act against PKK guerillas based on the Iraqi side of the Turkish-Iraqi border. One analyst quoted in the article said that a Turkish incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan could took place as early as August or September.

Meanwhile, Xinhua, the Chinese press agency, reports that Maliki could sign a cooperation agreement with Erdogan during their Ankara summit. According to one Turkish official quoted in the article, "We [asked the Iraqi authorities] to sign a cooperation agreement on counter-terrorism, and they welcomed the offer. They two countries are now working on a draft agreement... There is a chance to sign the agreement during Maliki's visit, if it is completed on time." No word on how the regional government in Iraqi Kurdistan feels about this...

As for U.S. participation in a drive to oust the PKK from Iraq, Novak's column may have altered the political calculus. According to The Journal of Turkish Weekly, published by Ankara's International Strategic Research Organization:

Sources close to the Turkish military say the military did not look warmly to the idea of a joint covert operation with the Americans to capture PKK leaders in northern Iraq because they felt even the gossip of such a plan would be leaked and would drive the terrorist leadership deeper underground thus preventing planners from monitoring their whereabouts.

They feared exactly what happened after the Washington Post leaked a story that American officials had briefed senior congressional members about a planned joint operation to capture leaders of the PKK terrorist organization holed up in the northern Iraqi mountains.

They said the news leak meant such an operation had now become null and void.

Even as the U.S. schemes to expel the PKK from Iraq, the organization's Iranian arm—known as PJAK—is looking to the Americans for help. Rahman Haj-Ahmadi, the group's leader, is visiting Washington this week. In a weekend interview with the Washington Times, he appealed to the U.S. government for support:

We obviously cannot topple the government with the ammunition and weapons we have now... Any financial or military help that would speed the path to true Iranian democracy, we would very much welcome, particularly from the United States.

Both the PKK and PJAK are based in the Kandil mountain range in northern Iraq. More on this as it develops...

CREW Files DOJ Complaint Against John Boehner

Early last week House Minority Leader John Boehner appeared on Fox, telling Neil Cavuto that "we have a serious problem with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" and vowing that "Republicans are not going to leave this week until this problem is addressed." Indeed, congressional Republicans and the administration forced Democrats to act on FISA before members of Congress departed for the August recess and succeeded in passing legislation, signed by the president yesterday, that allows the NSA to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign communications and people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States."

During his Fox appearance, Boehner told Cavuto that a FISA court judge had issued a ruling "over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States." By revealing the secret ruling, Boehner may have divulged classified information, a prosecutable offense. To this end, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington just filed a complaint with the Justice Department, requesting an investigation into whether Boehner broke the law by discussing the FISA court ruling publicly.

From CREW's release:

Rep. Boehner apparently made his remarks to Mr. Cavuto in an effort to blame Democrats for failing to pass legislation overriding the court’s decision, stating: “The Democrats have known about this for months. We have had private conversations, we have had public conversations that this needs to be fixed. And Republicans are not going to leave this week until this problem is addressed.”

Notably, Minority Leader Boehner has previously expressed strong concerns over illegal leaks for political gain. In discussing a long-running court case regarding an illegally intercepted phone call that Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) released to the media, Rep. Boehner stated: “When you break the law in pursuit of a political opponent, you’ve gone too far. Members of Congress have a responsibility not only to obey the laws of the country and the rules of our institution, but also to defend the integrity of those laws and rules when they are violated.”

One Person Who Won't Be Voting For Giuliani: His Daughter

Slate breaks the story today that Rudy's own daughter would rather Barack Obama become president than her own dad.

According to the 17-year-old Caroline Giuliani's Facebook profile, she's supporting Barack Obama.

On her profile, she designates her political views as "liberal" and—until this morning—proclaimed her membership in the Facebook group "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)." According to her profile, she withdrew from the Obama group at 6 a.m. Monday, after Slate sent her an inquiry about it.

So his son hates him. And his daughter won't vote for him. And then there are the two ex-wives who, one imagines, will have plenty to say about him, especially Donna Hanover.

He may go by "America's Mayor" but Mr. Family Man, he ain't.

August 5, 2007

Cunningham Co-Conspirator U.S. National Security Asset?

Big hints that alleged Duke Cunningham co-conspirator Tommy Kontogiannis is experiencing highly unusual treatment from the U.S. government. You can read my theories here and here. But in sum, it's becoming increasingly hard not to believe that Kontogiannis is some sort of long time U.S. government national security asset.

More here.

— Laura Rozen

Let the Warrantless Wiretapping Resume

It's official: The Protect America Act is on it's way to the president's desk and, once it arrives, you can be sure it will be signed promptly so the administration can resume its warrantless eavesdropping program (legally this time). Last night 41 House Democrats sided with their Republican colleagues to pass the measure, greenlighted by the Senate on Friday, which revises the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), allowing the NSA to intercept foreign communications without obtaining a court order. Troubling to civil libertarians and the House Democrats who voted against the legislation is the wording in the bill, which seems just vague enough that U.S. citizens and domestic communications could still be swept up in the surveillance net, which was the whole problem with the first incarnation of the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. According to the bill, electronic intercepts involving people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" are fair game. The question is what constitutes "reasonable belief" and can the intel community be counted on to adhere to this standard, particularly after the FBI's well publicized abuses of its FISA authority.

Another question that's worth asking is why the Democratic leadership—Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in particular—allowed their caucus to be rushed into action on this bill, bowing to pressure from the White House and congressional Republicans, who have been agitating for a FISA fix.

As recently as three weeks ago, it was my understanding that the Democrats were going to take up FISA in the fall, after Congress returned from the August recess. Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said as much during a hearing I attended in late July that explored the implications of the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Al Qaeda. After the committee's ranking member Pete Hoekstra spent the better part of his opening statement lambasting the Democrats for their inaction on FISA ("we have over a week before Congress goes on recess; Al Qaeda is not going to take a break"), Reyes