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October 5, 2007

Indian American Politics Look A Lot Like Pro-Israeli Politics

Recently, Indian American politics have been garnering attention in the mainstream media. The New York Times and Washington Post report that Indian American political groups such as the US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) look to pro-Israeli lobbies like AIPAC and AJC as models. This collaboration is nothing new. At a joint AJC and USINPAC reception in 2003, Congressman Tom Lantos stated that Indians and Jews "share a passionate commitment to respect for others, for the rule of law, and for democracy," and that "lately we have been drawn together by our joint fight against mindless, vicious, fanatic Islam."

Lantos and the USINPAC may speak on behalf of Jews and Indians respectively, but they have a strange take on Jewish American and Indian American politics. For example, in 2005 the State Department revoked Gujarat Chief Minister Narenda Modi's U.S. visa for his complicity in an anti-Muslim pogrom in the state of Gujarat, which killed approximately 2,000 people and displaced 98,000 Gujarati Muslims. The USINPAC called the visa revocation an "unfortunate incident."

The USINPAC also takes a strong stand against "Islamic terrorism," to which they argue India is victim, yet they remain curiously silent about the terrorism carried out by the Indian state. They haven't said a peep about human rights violations carried out by the Indian armed forces in Kashmir over the past decade. Instead, they market India as a "remarkably harmonious nation."

The similarities to AIPAC and AJC are fairly remarkable. For all of their talk about stopping "Islamic terrorism," they conveniently don't mention the illegal occupation and ongoing colonization of Palestinians or Israeli state terrorism against Palestinians.

Sanjay Puri, USINPAC's chairman, says that "we will use our own model to get to where we want, but we have used them [the Jewish community] as a benchmark." Looks like the USINPAC hasn't quite found their own model yet. As they continue to mirror a certain strand of pro-Israeli Jewish American politics, they show that they woefully lack their own vision.

—Neha Inamdar

House Dem Bill Would Deny Telcos Retroactive Immunity for Domestic Snooping

Congressional Quarterly's Tim Starks reports:

Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Thursday that the bill [governing electronic surveillance] would not grant retroactive liability protection to telecommunications firms that cooperated with government surveillance efforts since the Sept. 11 attacks, which Republicans say is essential.

Reyes also said he favors a requirement that intelligence agencies secure a warrant for monitoring communications involving U.S. citizens in the United States beyond a short emergency period, even if the target of the surveillance is a foreigner located outside the country.

But Reyes did not specify whether the legislation would mandate individual warrants in all cases, as civil liberties advocates are seeking, or broader, programmatic court approval for international surveillance. ...

But, Starks reports, Senate Dems may cave:

Senate Intelligence Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., is negotiating legislation with Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., with an eye toward marking up legislation Oct. 18. No details have been made available about that bill, but civil liberties advocates are worried that the Senate measure will include retroactive liability protection for telecommunications firms.

Of Pork Chops and Politics

In the 90's, on a rare trip back home, I found myself the guest of honor at an old school Negro feast, the kind my arteries hadn't encountered since I'd left home - Prissy and Mammy might have slaved over that spread. Mustard greens. Ham hocks and butter beans. Cornbread. Fried chicken. Peach cobbler. Mac and cheese. Pound cake that actually weighed more. Red and blue Kool-Aid. But, for some reason, it was the fried pork chops that got me. The involuntary grunt of pleasure I made swooning over that table both embarrasses me as I type this years later and reminds me that I need to schedule a trip back home soonest. But, it would have been self-destrctive to have more than seconds and I somehow managed to drag myself away. That moment came back to me this morning because I had just such a pavlovian, gut deep response when I ran across this. It made me so happy deep down in my soul, I was bouncing in my seat and cackling like a cave woman.

Chicago's mayor is hiding behind his city attorney to keep the names of officers accused of excessive force out of the public's hands. "That would be up to her ..," the mayor said. "She is a lawyer. I'm not the lawyer for the city." Under court order, they've turned over a list but -get this!- with all the names blacked out, Soviet style. But at least now we know that, "the top four were members of the controversial Special Operations Section. All had 50 or more misconduct complaints over the last five years. The top 10 special operations officers on the list had a total of 408 complaints lodged against them.

Also Wednesday, a group of religious leaders and family members of two men fatally shot by Chicago police joined one alderman in calling for a hearing on police-involved shootings,...The report found that of the 85 police-involved fatal shootings since 2000, nine officers had been sued for at least one other allegation of misconduct, and five for more than one."

Boo ya! Does it get any better than this?

So gleeful I could barely find the keys, I was halfway through a blistering post in the same amount of time I'd been halfway through a Simpsonian snoutful of fried pork chops that day. But just as I realized, sadly, I had to step away from the pork chops, I knew, sadly, I had to step away from that post. Post-Imus and -the Jena 6, like much of the black community, I'm focused on helping figure out a pragmatic way forward for the community and scorching frontal attacks don't seem like the path; they end dialogues, not begin them. If we're truly invested in any kind of 21st Century Civil Rights Movement, we'll have to exercise an unflinching self-control no matter how juicy the inducement to be rash. No matter how tantalizing the racial porn. That means our leaders and that means us as individuals.

Overarchingly, there were two things that the Movement was: non-violent and thoroughly strategized. My problem with the Jena 6 was the lack of restraint on the part of some of its leaders and, most of all, that the poster victims had engaged in violence and had had previous run-ins with the law. The movement wouldn't have touched them with a ten foot pole. If you think Rosa Parks was the first sister to refuse to give up her on seat on a segregated bus, let alone one in Montgomery, you've got a lot of reading to do. The Brown girls? Folks noticed the segregation in Topeka long before them. Those public faces and test cases were very, very carefully chosen and orchestrated, the off stage maneuvering as intricate as a ballet. Are we capable of less when things are so much easier? The black legions that boarded those buses for the Million Man March a dozen years ago, and Jena, Louisiana a few weeks ago are looking for wise leadership (at every level. No Messiahs, please) and substantive ways to be involved beyond protest. My fear is that we'll find neither. We didn't after the March. We haven't since the Movement.

You don't get to be a Chicago pol by being either naive or inexperienced, so I'm betting that they're thinking strategically about how to manage this situation for maximum public benefit, for instance, seriously entertaining explanations justifying police secrecy. Trading the names, for now, for a much-wanted hearings on police-involved shooting, for innovation and experimentation in community policing, sentencing and the like. And let's not forget money for local programs. From my reading, the leaders in Chicago are mostly avoiding incendiary rhetoric and tactics, though I have no doubt they're capable of either if the time comes. So I'm hopeful. What else can I be? I link to articles about job training for ex-cons and 'take back the night' events in inner cities and argue against group think. I try not to make things worse. Like most blacks, what I do mostly is remain watchful for good leaders to emulate. The ones who know when to step away from the pork chops.

GOP Tries to Steal Election; Democrats Do Something

The New York Times yesterday offered up an interesting new take on the California ballot measure that has garnered a great deal of media attention as of late, suggesting that its probable demise next month will be largely due to a shock-and-awe style assault on it by supporters of Hillary Clinton. The initiative would redistribute California's electoral votes by congressional district, effectively handing Republicans 20 free points in the otherwise blue state. The measure, sponsored by a Republican law firm, has been linked to supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani. Surprisingly, however, opposition has come not from grassroots internet stalwarts but instead from influential supporters of the Clinton campaign.

The snappiest analysis comes from Bruce E. Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who the article quotes as saying that "Clinton's people have taken the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military strikes against hostile nations and applied it to domestic campaigns."

The article attributes the bulk of the tactical work to Chris Lehane, a former member of Bill Clinton's administration and a Democratic heavy-hitter with enough influence to rally national Democrats, state Democrats, and the Democratic mayors of three major California cities to an unprecedented level of active opposition. But why this sudden vigilance, when normally it takes an outcry from local and internet activists to elicit even general condemnation from the elite—never mind actual action? Is this a sign that Clinton's people simply don't want to take the risk of losing those votes, or a long-awaited expression of moral certitude? Let's hope it's the latter and that our Democratic Congress takes the hint.

—Casey Miner

Why Online Education Will Never Replace the Classroom Experience

The University of Phoenix, a for-profit online school, recently hired this guy as an adjunct English professor. Among other things, he allegedly ogled a student's chest while teaching in Virginia public schools, something that should be a little harder to do over the Internet...

Outrages, Outrages Everywhere But Not a Word Gets Written

I'm with Dahlia: what's with the QT on Sophie Currier?

A columnist whose work I all but inhale, Slate's Lithwick wondered recently why women, let alone feminists, had assumed radio silence about a story which makes its own gravy: Harvard Med's Sophie Currier won a landmark appeal allowing women everywhere (probably) to have extra break time to express milk during the grueling, nine-hour medical boards. This story's got everything: motherhood, McDoctors, babies, boobies and plain old boobs on the lower court. So offended they were that mothers hesitate to traumatize their infants (and risk turning their milk ducts into infected milk duds) by all of a sudden one day withholding the goods. Speaks volumes about our real interest in 'family values' and the plain old value of women: I'm here to tell you that breasts become a special kind of hell when you need to breastfeed and can't. Breastfed babies tend not to like it either, so the fact that we're talking about doctors here adds a lovely layer of surreality. So why didn't the 'breastfeed til puberty' crowd board buses for Boston while female pundito-activists bumrushed the blogosphere? (It fell to the whip smart Bill Mahr to take a stand (it's at the end of the clip) on this prickly issue, though it precedes Currier and is tangential to the issue of work-related breastfeeding.)

You should read Lithwick for her excellent analysis - to prove her point, I had never even heard about the case until her piece - but a larger point needs to be made. It's the cheapest trick in the book to go looking under bushes for the one measly outrage your enemies missed while picking up their cleaning one day, but every now and then the bullshit flag simply must be thrown; both feminists and the family values crowd either chickened out or played politics with this one.

Note to Mel: People Love Bill

What's that old adage about how generals are always fighting the last war?

Republicans have apparently based their presidential fundraising strategy almost entirely on fanning fears of another Clinton presidency. The Washington Post reports that the Republican National Committee has been sending out fundraising appeals to supporters with a photo of Bill and Hillary stamped "4 More Years?"

Apparently chairman Mel Martinez and the RNC brain-trust missed the memo noting that thanks to Bush, the Clinton years look pretty darn good today, what with the budget surplus, peace, grownups at FEMA and all. Is it any wonder Republicans haven't been inspired by these appeals to dig deep?

Well, "Happy" May Be a Stretch

Best quote of the day, from GOP strategist Ed Rollins on why the Republicans lag nearly $100 million behind Democrats in presidential fundraising:

"The Democrats, they're out there, they're hungry. We just got fat, dumb, and happy."

Turning Tutu Away

What issue could possibly cause a university to disinvite Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the ever-grinning South African human rights crusader, from giving a talk on peace and nonviolence? As Scott Jaschik at InsideHigherEd reports, an Israeli/Palestinian issue did. The University of St. Thomas in Minnesota rescinded an April speaking invitation to the Nobel Peace Prize winner because criticisms he made of Israeli policies were judged to be "hurtful" to some Jewish people. Tutu's main crime was uttering the name Hitler during a 2002 speech in Boston about Israel's occupation of the West Bank. But while the Zionist Organization of America criticized Tutu for his "vicious libel that Israel is comparable to Hitler," Jaschik points out that interpretation is a stretch.

Tutu references Hitler in a part of the speech, delivered to the Palestinian ecumenical group Sabeel, where he encourages the audience to challenge the U.S. "Jewish lobby" and reminds them that radical change is possible:

"People are scared in this country [U.S.], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful, very powerful. Well, so what? ... The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end, they bit the dust."

Tutu's use of the phrase "Jewish lobby" is regrettable, mainly because the pro-Israel lobby he is referring to is not made up exclusively of Jews (remember Texas preacher John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel?). But one minor slip five years ago is hardly grounds for blacklisting him. It's also worth noting these dialogue-squashing disinvitations aren't the province of one particular group or ideology. Witness the University of California's recent stay away order to former Harvard president Larry Summers.

—Justin Elliott

U.S. Military Faults Blackwater in Shooting Incident

It looks like military sources on the scene of the Nisoor Square massacre support the horrifying descriptions put forward by the Iraqi government and by the New York Times. (That Times article is a must-read, by the way.)

"It was obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong," said the U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident remains the subject of several investigations. "The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. And none of the IP or any of the local security forces fired back at them," he added, using a military abbreviation for the Iraqi police. The Blackwater guards appeared to have fired grenade launchers in addition to machine guns, the official said.

Of course, none of this stopped the Pentagon from handing Blackwater another contract. But it may lead to the beginnings of oversight.

Senate Session Southern Style: State Senator Punches Peer

Chaos in the Alabama State Senate! After Democratic State Sen. Lowell Barron of Fyffe called State Sen. Charles Bishop of Jasper a "son of a bitch," Bishop responded by punching Barron in the face. Watch the video!

And just to double the funny, the Calhoun County GOP actually gave Bishop — the puncher, not the punched — a trophy of a boxer. He deserved the honor, said the local party, because of the extent to which Bishop went in the "defending of womankind."

Update: I'm going to use this as an opportunity to post one of my favorite videos from YouTube. It's two politicians from the Czech Republic sorting out their differences. Note the subtitles.

Widestance Forever!

Larry Craig is sticking around, even though his guilt was reconfirmed yesterday. Craig, who earlier said that he would resign if his guilty plea was not withdrawn, released a statement making it clear he intends to serve out the rest of his term.

"As I continued to work for Idaho over the past three weeks here in the Senate, I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively," Craig said. "I will continue my effort to clear my name in the Senate Ethics Committee -- something that is not possible if I am not serving in the Senate."

Republicans are not happy. "It's embarrassing for the Senate, it's embarrassing for his party," said Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada.

This is completely awesome.

Senators Write Letters & Demand Torture Docs

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee Jay Rockefeller writes to acting attorney general Peter Keisler, asking why the New York Times has copies of secret torture memoes that the Justice Department has so far refused to turn over to the appropriate Congressional oversight committees, among them his.

Letter below:

October 4, 2007

The Honorable Peter D. Keisler
Acting Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Mr. Acting Attorney General:

The New York Times published an article today entitled “Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations” that describes the classified opinions provided by the Department of Justice on the legality of the CIA’s interrogation practices, as well as the internal deliberations surrounding those classified opinions. As Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence I have repeatedly asked the Department of Justice to provide those classified opinions; the Department of Justice has never provided a formal response.

This letter reiterates my longstanding request for the opinions of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel analyzing the legality of the CIA’s interrogation program. In particular, please provide the principal classified Office of Legal Counsel opinions issued since December of 2004 on the legality of CIA’s interrogation program. This should include Office of Legal Counsel opinions assessing the legality of the CIA’s practices under section 2340A of the U.S. criminal code, which implements the Convention Against Torture; the substantive provisions of Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture; the Detainee Treatment Act; Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions; and the War Crimes Act, as amended by the Military Commissions Act.

The Department of Justice’s failure to provide the Intelligence Committee with any of the Office of Legal Counsel’s opinions on the CIA’s interrogation program calls into question this Committee’s ability to oversee the CIA’s program. If the Department of Justice refuses to provide even those public officials charged with oversight of the program information that is critical to an appropriate assessment of the program, why should the public have confidence that the program is either legal or in the best interests of the United States? I find it unfathomable that the Committee tasked with oversight of the CIA’s interrogation and detention program would be provided more information by the New York Times than by the Department of Justice.

I appreciate your prompt response.

Sincerely,

John D. Rockefeller IV

Chairman

October 4, 2007

Long Arm of the Law May Finally Reach Blackwater

The legal black hole in which private contractors have been operating in Iraq may be narrowing. Earlier today, the House voted overwhelmingly in favor of a measure that would extend the reach of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) to include any contractor (or subcontractor, at any tier) working outside the United States for any federal agency in any place where the U.S. military is engaged.

This is the second proposed revision of MEJA since 2000. The law initially covered only civilians working directly for the U.S. military overseas. A 2004 amendment expanded its jurisdiction to include employees of any federal agency supporting a DOD mission abroad. But the law still does not apply to civilians working in areas not directly related to the U.S. military.

Blackwater operators involved in the September 16 shootings in Baghdad, which left 17 dead and another 24 wounded, were protecting U.S. diplomats under a State Department contract. It is therefore unclear whether the incident would fall under MEJA's jurisdiction. All contractors are immune from Iraqi law.

This loophole would be closed by the bill—sponsored by David Price, Democrat of North Carolina—that passed the House today by a margin of 389 to 30; all dissenting votes were cast by Republicans. A similar measure is expected to come before the Senate. If senators vote in similar numbers, any veto from President Bush could be easily swept aside.

The White House issued a statement yesterday, opposing Price's bill as carrying "unintended and intolerable consequences for crucial and necessary national security activities and operations." An AP reporter asking for clarification was referred to the Justice Department, which refused comment.

For its part, the private military industry appears to be in favor of Price's bill. The International Peace Operations Association, an industry trade group, has expressed its support, as did Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince in his testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday.

Why I Hate the Blue Angels

I loathe the Blue Angels. Always have. Maybe it's the screaming noise pollution. Or maybe it's the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on what is essentially a PR stunt. I used to think it was mostly those things, when for the past 10 years, I have had to brace myself for oohs and ahhs on the streets of San Francisco when the Angels come to town.

But now I hate them even more, and less. More because I now have a cousin who's an Air Force pilot who's flying real fighter jets in a real war in Iraq. It's one thing to waste millions of dollars during peacetime, but wholly another to do so when we are sinking hundreds of billions into a war of desperation.

And less because, well, the Armed Forces are desperate for recruits. So the show of speed and acrobatics serves an actual purpose these days. The military needs to spread the patriotic flame amongst everyday citizens, whether it's the Navy's Angels above the Golden Gate or the Marines handing M16s to kids in Times Square. Without a draft recruiting tactics have to become more and more creative. I am not hoping for an onslaught of enlistments necessarily, but it would be nice if we all woke up and realized what the stretch of our military means for those currently fighting, and, who knows, the buzz of a fighter jet might be just the thing to wake us up.

The Democratic Hack Gap

I just want to echo Ezra Klein's thoughts on what he calls the "Democratic hack gap."

Here's what he means. Ann Coulter, that crazy-eyed banshee who moonlights as a conservative commentator, recently said, "If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democratic president. It's kind of a pipe dream, a personal fantasy of mine."

Soooo, that's pretty nuts. But liberals won't make a big deal out of it for two reasons: (1) they just want Ann Coulter to go away, and pulling their hair out over her latest piece of insanity will just draw more attention to her, and (2) this quote is obviously out of Coulter's quasi-tongue-in-cheek rhetorical register, and because it appears half-serious liberals feel stupid arguing its merits.

Fair enough. But Ezra points something else out. He writes, "There'll be a fair amount of meta commentary on why this doesn't make it into the papers, or get the sort of coverage that the "Betrayus" ad did, but not a lot of genuine, direct outrage that would actually launch it into said papers. But there should be. It's a despicable thing to say."

He could just as easily replace "genuine outrage" with "phony outrage" — functionally, it's the same thing. We need more Rush Limbaughs on the left, the argument goes. More Sean Hannitys and Michelle Malkins. Dare I say, more Ann Coulters.

Whether or not we'd still want to be liberals if we shared our political space with the likes of those is up for debate (we don't win just for playin' nice, folks), but the fact that the hack gap exists cannot be denied.

Larry Craig to Stay Guilty

News out of the Minnesota airport bathroom today. The judge in the Larry Craig circus/retrial took one look at the Idaho Senator's attempt to withdraw his guilty plea and said, "No way, buster."

"The defendant, a career politician with a college education, is of at least above-average intelligence," the judge wrote. "He knew what he was saying, reading and signing."

No word on whether Craig will now (finally) resign.

We are all Uncle Toms Now

It's ridiculous being black.

You have no idea how much time it takes and the stupifyingly asinine conversations one must have. Like whether or not Don Imus' "nappy headed 'hos" comments were, like, problematic. Or, I dunno, Isaiah Thomas saying its bad for white men to call black women bitches but a brother's gotta do what a brother's gotta do. And, oh lordy, the Uncle Tom libretto we're forced to sing every few months. At least this time, the lyrics have changed a tad but the basic storyline is every bit as improbable as an opera's and equally impervious to the ebb and flow of modernity. Now comes Dr. Boyce Watkins, our latest soloist.

On CNN recently, he called Juan Williams "a happy Negro" for defending Bill O'Reilly's infamous comments about his visit to Sylvia's restaurant. O'Reilly had confessed himself surprised, and reassured, that black people behaved well in public and exhibited proficiency with tableware. Williams is right that O'Reilly's comments were less racist than clumsy. He might also have added, 'a paternalistic pat on the head,' a problem from which O'Reilly could have saved himself had he the self-awareness to end his remarks by saying "and boy am I ashamed for having subconsciously believed that black people are so different from me." And, maybe, "Given the public stances I take on race, how could I have lived this long without spending quality time in the 'hood?" But whether or not O'Reilly is racist is irrelevant. The point is whether or not a black person may disagree with the party line without having his black card pulled and his ghetto pass revoked. Apparently not.

For Watkins, "Seeing Williams sitting there congratulating O’Reilly for his bigotry reminded me of the Negro in the white suit defending “massa” at all costs." Since when did slaves, even trusted house slaves, wear white suits? Methinks he's conflating Uncle Ben with Uncle Tom; even we can't tell each other apart. But I digress.

The notion that a 'real' black person holds a particular set of beliefs or applies a particular analytic framework to social issues—god! I am so over this—is pernicious, but even more importantly, stupid and intellectually paralyzing.

The hyper-analytic in me, though, just loves the deliciousness of the 'happy Negro' edifice. Let's take it apart, shall we?

A 'happy' Negro must a) have a false consciousness b) borne of internalized oppressed and self-hatred which c) leads him to crave the approval of white folks. Otherwise he couldn't be happy, seeing as how life is so hideously difficult for us modern Negroes. Ergo, a rational Negro must be a miserable, no wait!, an angry Negro. Like Dr. Watkins.

Alabama Sends Dems to Jail, Republicans to the Senate

Anybody know anything about Alabama politics? Because it appears U.S. Attorneys and various judges in Alabama took a far-reaching series of corruption cases that implicated both Republicans and Democrats and prosecuted only the Democrats. The result? Former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman is in jail, and and former Republican Attorney General Jeff Sessions is now U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions.

It's a big Time investigative report titled "Selective Justice in Alabama?" and one gets the sense Time's editors really wanted to leave that question mark off the end but didn't have the guts.

Poll: 27% of GOP Voters Would Choose 3rd Party over Rudy

A while back, we mentioned that evangelical leaders had gotten together and agreed to consider a third party candidate if pro-choice, pro-gay rights Rudy Giuliani got the GOP nod.

Maybe that decision reflected widespread sentiment amongst their base, or maybe the base is mimicking the thinking of the Christian right's honchos. Either way, a new Rasmussen poll shows 27 percent of Republican voters would rather vote for a third party candidate (from the Christian right) than for Rudy.

Not good news for a guy who makes the case, on the campaign trail, that he is the only Republican that can beat the Democrats.

White House Gives UK Troops a Big Middle Finger on the Way Out of Iraq

Huh, that's odd. I thought you weren't supposed to criticize the troops. But I guess it's okay if you're the White House and the troops you are criticizing are (1) not from this country, and (2) pulling out of the war. From the UK's Daily Telegraph:

The [senior White House foreign policy official] added that Britain would always be "the cornerstone" of U.S. policy towards Europe but there was "a lot of unhappiness" about how British forces had performed in Basra...

"Operationally, British forces have performed poorly in Basra," said the official. "Maybe it’s best that they leave. Now we will have a clear field in southern Iraq."

Thanks for the help, chaps!

North Korean Nuclear Deal Shows Wisdom of Diplomacy, Idiocy of John Bolton

Michael Hirsh of Newsweek, who got it exactly right on Petraeus long before the General's much-ballyhooed congressional testimony, hits the lesson of this North Korean nuclear deal right on the head.

Hirsh explains why we couldn't have done this deal a year ago:

The real difference is one of attitude: a willingness to give even an evil tin-pot dictator like Kim Jong Il something he can take away from the table. In his case it seems to be mostly respect that Kim is looking for. That he can never have, but in an effort to avoid war and the horrors of nuclear proliferation... it may just be worth it to pretend. To grit one's teeth, normalize relations and live with his odious regime a little longer. Yes, what Kim is doing may amount to "nuclear blackmail," as the Bush administration once called it. But it's not as if this negotiation is going to set a precedent for every other rogue nation; it took North Korea 50 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to build the popgun nuke it detonated last October.

The difference in attitude has everything to do with the absence of John Bolton, who is, not surprisingly, spitting on the deal as a commentator for Fox News. With his hawkish, don't-give-an-inch approach, Bolton essentially torpedoed any productive talks with North Korea, the very talks that have now created Bush's only significant foreign policy achievement.

Scratch that. There was a previous achievement: getting Libya to dismantle its WMD programs. Now, that had a lot to do with years of work by the international diplomatic community and little to do with the White House. But nevertheless, if you read Hirsh's article, you'll find that Bolton almost found a way to ruin that, too.

Hirsh goes on to explain that we need a willingness to go tit-for-tat with Iran.

Today there are back channels (like the one led by former U.N. ambassador Tom Pickering) and side channels (like the one being conducted by U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker). What we don’t have is a senior U.S. envoy who can put all the issues on the table with Tehran at the same time.

Hopefully, this success with North Korea will show the remaining hawks in the administration that war needn't be the answer with Iran.

Another Key GOP Senator Retiring, This Time in New Mexico

Citing concerns about his health, New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici has announced he will not seek reelection in 2008. The six-term Republican (second most senior, to Alaska's Ted Stevens) was one of Capitol Hill's most powerful players when it came to matters of the budget.

This is just the last in a series of Republican retirements in the Senate and the House. Other retirements include Republican Sens. John Warner of Virginia, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Wayne Allard of Colorado. Larry Craig, of course, has his own problems.

Possible Democrats to succeed Domenici, according to the AP, are Representative Tom Udall, Albuquerque Mayor Martin J. Chavez, and state Lt. Gov. Diane Denish.

If Udall gets the nod, it could be a big year for his family. The son of former congressman and presidential candidate Mo Udall, Tom is the cousin of current Colorado Rep. Mark Udall, who will likely vie for the Senate seat being emptied by Allard.

Update: Karen Tumulty in Time points out that the filing deadline for this race is February 8. That means if NM Gov. Bill Richardson does poorly in the Feb. 5 national primary, he can drop out of the presidential race and try for Domenici's seat. Richardson will be term-limited out of the New Mexico governorship in 2010.

Update: Udall says he's out.

October 3, 2007

'School of Shock' Gets Facebook Group, College Activism

Our current issue's cover story, on a facility in Massachusetts that uses electric shock to discipline special needs and other kids, "School of Shock," has garnered a huge onslaught of responses, prompting legislation in two states and getting literally hundreds of comments on our site. One reader, Brandeis University student Nathan Robinson, was especially outraged by the painful electric shocks administered to autistic and retarded students at the school, and decided to take action himself.

Robinson, who will graduate in 2011, convened an impromptu, late-night meeting of Brandeis students to make fliers and talk about the issue. In the process, the students formed a Facebook group (Massachusetts Students United Against the Judge Rotenberg Center), which now has more than 300 members. Robinson holds regular meetings where concerned citizens coordinate an old-fashioned letter-writing campaign. The group, Robinson says, is trying "to spread the word among students as best we can."

Read more about Robinson's efforts here, and our story on the school and related articles here.

Blackwater by Numbers: A Statistical Index

In a rare appearance before Congress yesterday, Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince answered questions about his company's operations in Iraq; by mutual agreement, details of the September 16 shootings in Baghdad, which reportedly left 17 Iraqis dead and another 24 wounded, were not discussed. The following statistics were culled from Prince's testimony, as well as from various internal Blackwater documents obtained by Congressional investigators.

Total number of Blackwater "movements" (i.e. protected convoys) In Iraq since 2005: 16,000

Number of movements in 2006: 6,058

Number of times Blackwater operators fired their weapons in anger: 38

Number of reported movements so far in 2007: 1,873

Number of times Blackwater operators fired their weapons in anger: 56

Percentage increase: 400

Number of Blackwater operators killed in Iraq: 27

Number of Blackwater-escorted dignitaries killed in Iraq: 0

Number of warnings given before Blackwater operators shoot to kill oncoming drivers: 7 (lights, sirens, air horns, hand signals, pen flares, shots to oncoming car's radiator, "spider web" shot to windshield)

Average compensation paid by U.S. military to families of Iraqis killed by mistake: $3,000

Compensation paid by Blackwater for "random death" of an "innocent Iraqi citizen" in 2005: $5,000

Extra compensation: $2,000, "given the nature of the incident," followed by the fact that the Blackwater operator "failed to report the incident, causing the family additional pain."

Compensation paid to family of an Iraqi vice presidential guard killed by a drunken Blackwater operator in the Green Zone last Christmas Eve: $20,000

Penalty exacted on Blackwater operator: Termination of employment, cost of plane ticket back to U.S. ($1,630), and forfeiture of outstanding pay ($7,067), of Fourth of July bonus ($3,000), and of Christmas bonus ($3,000)

Total financial penalty for killing Iraqi vice presidential guard: $14,697

Compensation originally suggested by a State Department official in response to Blackwater's accidental killing of an Iraqi bystander in December 2006: $250,000

Compensation actually paid: $15,000

Blackwater's reasoning: "A sum this high will set a terrible precedent. This could cause incidents with people trying to get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family's future."

Number of security companies now operating in Iraq: 170

Value of Blackwater's federal contracts in 2001: $736,906

Value in 2002: $3.4 million

Value in 2003: $25 million

Value in 2004: $48 million

Value in 2005: $352 million

Value in 2006: $593 million

Total value of all Blackwater contracts at the end of 2006: $1 billion

Percentage growth since 2001: 80,453

Current number of Blackwater's federal contracts, according to Erik Prince: "More than 50."

Percentage of Blackwater holding company Prince Group's revenue derived from federal contracts: 90

Number of Blackwater helicopters downed in Iraq in 2006: 3

Average daily pay for a Blackwater operator, according to Erik Prince: $500

Daily pay, according to government invoices: $1,221.62

Number of State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security agents in Iraq: 36

Number of Blackwater operators in Iraq, primarily engaged in guarding U.S. diplomats: 1,000

Number of Blackwater administrative support staff for company's Iraq operations: 50

Blackwater tooth-to-tail ratio (i.e. number of trigger pullers to support and administrative staff): 20:1

U.S. military tooth-to-tail ratio, according to Erik Prince: Anywhere from 1:8 to 1:12

Blackwater's profit margin: 10.5 percent

Erik Prince's income in 2006: "More than a million dollars."

Amount Erik Prince has contributed to the GOP and Republican candidates: $225,000

Number of Erik Prince's sons, heirs to the Blackwater fortune: 5

Slogan chanted by Code Pink protesters as Erik Prince departed hearing: "War criminal"

Sen. Clinton's ACLU Score Takes A Bit Of A Dive; Obama's Stays About the Same

In April, I reported on the most current ACLU scores of some senators, and Sen. Hillary Clinton had a score of 83%. The new scores have been pubished, and Clinton's latest score is 67%, 16 points down from last time. Clinton voted for the Baucus/Tester Amendment, which defeated a motion to table the Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which expands Real ID legislation. She also voted against the Bennett Amendment (which passed), which removed from the Lobbying Transparency and Accountability Act a provision which would have made grassroots lobbying very difficult and mired in paperwork.

Clinton voted against expanded government spying powers, for cloture that would have permitted consideration of a vote to restore Habeas Corpus rights, for cloture to allow a vote on the Kennedy-Smith amendment (expansion of hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation, gender identification, gender, and disability), and against the use of government-issued photo ID cards by voters.

Sen. Barack Obama has a score of 80%, and Sen. John McCain has a score of 50%, which appears to be an improvement over his last score of 33%, but there's a catch: McCain was absent for 2/3 of the votes.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid has maintained his 67% score. In the past, the leader of the Senate Democrats had scored as low as 40%.

Bush Slammed for Vetoing SCHIP

As you probably know, President Bush today vetoed an expansion of health insurance for the children of the working poor. He's been attacked, rightfully, across the blogosphere and across the country. But I haven't seen an attack as powerful or as seemingly manipulative as this one.

(H/T Think Progress)

New Poll: Obama Inspirational But Can't Win

A new Washington Post poll today has a few interesting nuggets that help answer that nagging question of the current presidential campaign: "What happened to Obama?"

Buried deep in the data is a question about which presidential candidate has the best chance of winning the White House next year. Hillary Clinton stomps on all the closest rivals, with 57 percent of the poll respondents favoring her. What's interesting, though, is that the runner up, with 20 percent, is John Edwards. Perhaps this is to be expected. After all, he's run before. But given his fundraising prowess and media prominence, it's surprising to see that Obama comes in a distant third in this category, at 16 percent. By comparison, 37 percent of those polled thought Obama was the most inspirational candidate, compared with 41 percent for Clinton and only 14 percent for Edwards.

Obama's poor showing in the polls on the electability question is probably fatal. People obviously love Obama, but don't think he can win in '08. The Post doesn't ask why people believe that, but it's hard to imagine that race isn't a big factor. It's not that Democrats won't vote for an African-American, but that they don't believe Republicans will.

One question the poll can't answer: If Obama can't win, why are so many people giving him money?

Posted by Stephanie Mencimer on 10/03/07 at 7:29 AM | | Comments (6) | E-mail |