« June 1, 2008 - June 7, 2008 | Main | June 15, 2008 - June 21, 2008 »

June 13, 2008

Q&A: Gitmo Lawyer Shayana Kadidal on SCOTUS Ruling

Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney of the Guantánamo project at the Center for Constitutional Rights, isn't afraid to voice his opinion on the latest SCOTUS ruling in favor of Guantanamo detainees.

Below, excerpts from his conversation with MoJo reporter Stephanie Mencimer:

Mother Jones: Just as a refresher, since it seems as though the administration's rationale is constantly shifting, why exactly does the Bush administration want so desperately to keep the detainee cases out of federal civilian courts?

Shayana Kadidal: The whole point of creating Guantanamo was to create a black hole to avoid oversight by the courts. They can't justify the detention of these guys in federal court.

It's fundamentally an interrogation camp, not a detention camp. They never intended to prosecute and punish them.

MJ: By failing to afford the detainees basic due process rights, not to mention using torture, the Bush administration has succeeded in the extraordinary feat of making Americans feel sorry for the people held at Guantanamo, even though the detainees are supposedly extremely dangerous terrorists out to destroy us. Do you think that the five Supreme Court justices who voted for the detainees were also swayed by the stories about the detainees going crazy after six years in solitary confinement and other allegations of abusive treatment?

SK: The innocence narratives have finally started to catch on. The court finally started to realize that there are scores of innocent people being held there. The notion that there are innocent people down there who have not had a day in court really radiates off the page of the opinion of the majority.

MJ: But Justice Scalia writes at one point that the majority opinion will "almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." Is there any reason to believe that he's right?

SK:The assertion that the criminal justice system isn't set up to handle these cases is nonsense. We have successfully tried in U.S. District Courts the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, the Cole bombers, and the Kenya embassy bombings. There are a million ways of dealing with this problem.

MJ: How soon could the detainees be released?

SK: For most of these guys, we often joke, the day the government has to come to defend the evidence against them is the day after they will get released.

[Note: For a backgrounder on all things Guantanamo, read The Torture Index.

Tim Russert, Dead at 58: Remembering One Q&A with Cheney

Tim Russert suffered a heart attack at NBC News' Washington bureau on Friday afternoon and died at the age of 58. As he was eulogized on air by NBC colleagues Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, David Gregory, Howard Fineman, Keith Olbermann, and Andrea Mitchell, I thought of a moment when he tried to give Vice President Dick Cheney a decent grilling days before the invasion of Iraq.

That March 16, 2003 edition of Meet the Press was a good moment for Russert. By this point, it was clear George W. Bush was committed to attacking Iraq. Still, Russert hurled sharp queries at Cheney, questioning several fundamentals of the Bush-Cheney case for war. Cheney did manage to slip by--but only because he was willing to deny reality:

MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators….

MR. RUSSERT: The army's top general said that we would have to have several hundred thousand troops there for several years in order to maintain stability.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I disagree. We need, obviously, a large force and we've deployed a large force to prevail, from a military standpoint, to achieve our objectives, we will need a significant presence there until such time as we can turn things over to the Iraqis themselves. But to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement.

MR. RUSSERT: We've had 50,000 troops in Kosovo for several years, a country of just five million people. This is a country of 23 million people. It will take a lot in order to secure it.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, but we've significantly drawn down our forces in Kosovo and in the Balkans…..

MR. RUSSERT: Every analysis said this war itself would cost about $80 billion, recovery of Baghdad, perhaps of Iraq, about $10 billion per year. We should expect as American citizens that this would cost at least $100 billion for a two-year involvement.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I can't say that, Tim….

There were plenty of times when Russert--like most prominent figures in the media--could be criticized. But this was one of many instances when he posed the right questions and did so in a vigorous and facts-based manner. He did not succeed in forcing Cheney to speak candidly about the challenges of the Iraq war, but, then, Russert was responsible only for the questions he asked, not the answers the politicians gave.

Is Exxon Out of Gas?

ExxonMobil announced this week that it plans to sell off 2,200, or nearly 1/5, of its 12,000 gas stations because they aren’t profitable enough. This, from the world's biggest oil company, after having posted the largest yearly profit ever—$40.61 billion—that’s almost $1,300 every second. With the average price at the pump having recently breached the $4/gal mark, an increase of more than one dollar from a year ago, you'd think that the money would continue flowing.

But apparently our oil companies are feeling the shift in the winds.

Though many Americans are hit hard by high gas prices, it's increasingly difficult to ignore the ones who are finding alternatives. These days more and more people are commuting by mass and public transit systems, as well as by carpool and bike. Many more are turning to hybrids or filling their tanks with biofuels. And as this latest sell-off suggests, even our oil companies are transitioning. CNN quotes Ben Soraci, the U.S. director of retail sales for ExxonMobil, saying, "As the highly competitive fuels marketing business in the U.S. continues to evolve, we believe this transition is the best way for ExxonMobil to compete and grow in the future."

This may mark the beginning of our energy industry transitioning out of oil. The question remains, what are they transitioning to?

—Jesse Finfrock

Photo used under creative commons license.

Report: Rove Talks "Fairly Regularly" With McCain Camp; Getting Six Figures From Freedom's Watch

In a new National Journal article (not available online), writer Peter Stone dives deep into the conservative establishment and gets campaign staffers, movement operatives, and the ubiquitous "strategists" and "consultants" to talk about Karl Rove's current role in presidential politics. The takeaway? Rove is back. In fact, he probably never left. The campaign that is trying to prove it's not a second coming of George W. Bush is using the President's former chief strategist on a regular basis.

Stone says not to be fooled by Rove's hesitance to be identified with John McCain publicly.

...away from the spotlight, Rove has been busy pitching in by giving informal advice to McCain’s team and spending a considerable amount of time as an outside adviser to Freedom’s Watch, the conservative political group that is expected to spend tens of millions of dollars to help elect House GOP candidates. William Weidner, a Freedom’s Watch board member, recently told National Journal that Rove has offered strategic advice to both the group and its major financial backer, Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson. Weidner, president of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which Adelson chairs, called Rove "an invaluable asset" to the group....

While the top of McCain's campaign won't admit to extensive conversations with Rove, fearing that Rove is too closely associated with the Bush Administration and its worst scandals, some folks are willing to spill the beans off the record.

"Generally speaking, Rove's advice is action-oriented and useful," said another senior consultant to the McCain camp. "It's always well received." This McCain adviser noted that Rove talks periodically to Black and a few other top campaign aides on several key matters. "It can be policy ideas, messaging ideas, fundraising prospects, or people who need calls from someone in the campaign." Rove is "part of the information network that the campaign has," this adviser said, adding that Rove talks fairly regularly to such key people as Wayne Berman, a major fundraiser for McCain; Nicolle Wallace, a communications adviser; and Steve Schmidt, a senior aide.

And Rove is even more deeply involved with Freedom's Watch, the internally troubled right wing group that seeks to make trouble for Democrats throughout the campaign season.

[William] Weidner [a Freedom’s Watch board member] stressed that Rove has been "very generous with his time and ideas. He gives up his time for those things he believes in."

Two GOP strategists said they have heard that Rove has worked out a private consulting deal with Adelson; this arrangement, one strategist reported, pays Rove in the mid-six figures for giving speeches and providing assistance to Freedom’s Watch on labor union issues, a top priority of the group.

A Right-to-Lifer and the GOP's Nursing Home Dilemma

When Ken Connor was on Capitol Hill earlier this week, it was clear that people in his party deeply wish that he would go back to worrying about the unborn. The conservative Christian Republican trial lawyer had come to Washington to testify in support of a bill that would ban the use of mandatory binding arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts. Most nursing homes today, as a condition of admission, require vulnerable elderly people and their families to waive their right to sue a facility in the event of a dispute. Instead, they must take any complaints about medical malpractice or abuse to a private arbitrator, chosen and paid by the nursing home, in secret proceedings where any awards are much lower than they would be from a jury. The arbitration agreements are often buried in a stack of complicated paperwork, where in some cases, they have been signed by blind people and those suffering from Alzheimer's.

The nursing home arbitration bill is one of nearly a dozen Democratic-backed measures introduced in Congress over the past year that would ban mandatory arbitration in everything from new car contracts to meatpacking company agreements. With the backing of the powerful AARP, it's also the most likely of the lot to pass, and thus, pave the way for Congress to ban mandatory arbitration altogether. After all, if Congress deems the practice unconscionable for seniors, businesses will have a tough time arguing that it still ought to be forced on everyone else. That's why Republicans really, really don't want to vote for the nursing home bill, and one reason Connor's advocacy is making them squirm.

Connor sues nursing homes for a living, as a lawyer at a big-time plaintiffs' firm known for supporting Democrats. Just last month, Connor won a $2 million verdict against Sunrise Senior Living in California for letting an elderly woman develop fatal bedsores. So when he testifies on the Hill, Connor is essentially representing the nation's trial lawyers, who see mandatory arbitration as a threat to their livelihood. As such, Republicans would love to dismiss Connor as just another greedy trial lawyer. But Connor's religious-right bona fides simply make that impossible.

For three years, Connor served as the president of the Family Research Council, a leading social conservative outfit, and became a rock star among the GOP’s evangelical wing when he went to work in 2004 for then-Governor Jeb Bush to defend a Florida law that would have prevented doctors from removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. For Republican legislators, Connor has moral authority. He also gives money to many of them, so Republicans have to tolerate him, even as he forces them into a corner where they have to chose between devotion to industry and devotion to God and life.

While the GOP views trial lawyers as its mortal enemies, Connor doesn't see any contradiction between his profession and role as family values crusader. Instead, he sees his lawsuits against nursing homes as an extension of the work he did in the Schiavo case. "Removing the feeding tube, letting Teri Schiavo starve to death," he said in an interview, "I see this all the time with the elderly." Connor believes that the frail elderly are second only to the unborn in their suffering due to what he sees as a prevailing "quality of life" mindset, as opposed to one focused on the sanctity of life. He says he's witnessed bioethicists in Florida argue that if an elderly person suffers from dementia, there would be nothing wrong with hastening his or her demise. "If you call yourself a Christian, you have an obligation to fight for social justice," he says, noting that, "It's much easier to make the case for the elderly than for the unborn."

Connor has now testified twice in Congress over the past year in favor of banning mandatory arbitration, and will be back again next week to testify in the Senate on a parallel nursing home bill co-sponsored by Florida Senator Mel Martinez, the former head of the Republican National Committee. Connor’s performance Tuesday before the House subcommittee on commercial and administrative law shows why many Republicans in the Senate are probably dreading his appearance.

With a full shock of white hair, ruddy face and powerful voice, Connor is as much televangelist as lawyer. It's obvious why juries love him. He testified to an unusually full house about some of his experiences with nursing homes: "All too often, the story is the same: avoidable pressure ulcers (bed sores) penetrating to the bone; wounds with dirty bandages that are infected and foul smelling; patients languishing in urine and feces for hours on end; hollow-eyed residents suffering from avoidable malnutrition, unable to ask for help because their tongues are parched and swollen from preventable dehydration; dirty catheters clogged with crystalline sediment and yellow-green urine in the bag."

He described a nursing home industry that routinely faked medical records and staffing documentation to cover up for its shoddy treatment of its frail residents. And while Connor invoked the standard trial lawyer arguments about the need to keep the courthouse open to those who've suffered at the hands of heartless corporations, he did it in distinctly evangelical language. "Our society,” he said, “is rapidly embracing a quality-of-life ethic in the place of a sanctity-of-life ethic. But, old people do not score well using quality of life calculus and they perform poorly on functional capacity studies. They cost more to maintain than they produce and they are vulnerable to abuse and neglect by unscrupulous nursing home operators who are willing to put profits over people."

"I promise you that if these injuries and damages happened somewhere like Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, there would be no end of congressional hearings," he added. "If you believe that wrongdoers ought to be held accountable for their actions, you ought to support this bill."

Even before Connor opened his mouth, Republicans on the committee were trying to minimize the impact of his powerful testimony and to avoid looking like heartless corporate shills not fully committed to “life.” Florida Rep. Tom Feeney, an ardent abortion foe who has a perfect pro-life voting record, according to the National Right to Life Committee, kicked off the hearing by saying that there is "no more elegant spokesman" on this issue than his "good friend" Ken Connor, who "sounds like Plato when talking about most things." Feeney went on to say, though, that while Connor excelled at the "ethos and pathos" elements of Platonic rhetoric, he perhaps failed on the "logos" part.

Feeney's philosophy lecture was intended to suggest that his fellow legislators should not be swayed by Connor's emotional appeal and should instead listen to the voice of logic sitting next to Connor at the table: Gavin Gadberry, a lawyer from Texas who defends nursing homes from the likes of Connor. The Republicans couldn't have picked a smarmier witness to support the nursing home industry's position. Compared with Gadberry, Connor sounded like Jesus Christ himself.

As the lobbyist for the Texas nursing home industry, Gadberry represents some of the nation's worst nursing homes. A 2002 study by the House Committee on Government Reform found that nearly 40 percent of Texas nursing homes had violations of federal regulations that caused harm to nursing-home residents or placed them at risk of serious injury or death. More than 90 percent didn't meet federal staffing standards. Texas nursing homes may have been the inspiration for the widespread use of arbitration clauses because their poor treatment of the elderly had spawned a cottage industry of litigation. At one point, plaintiffs were winning compensation in an unheard of nine out of 10 lawsuits against nursing homes. Rather than fix the nursing homes, at the urging of the industry (represented by Gadberry), Texas essentially got rid of the lawsuits with a 2003 tort reform measure that makes it virtually impossible to sue a nursing home on behalf of an elderly person today. (Connor's firm closed its Texas office as a result.)

All of which made Gadberry's claim that Connor's anecdotes were rare events dubious at best. He insisted that arbitration is "more efficient" than traditional litigation and that the pending bill would "discriminate" against the industry. But Connor fired back: "The nursing homes that are providing good care don't need pre-dispute binding arbitration." Gadberry's suggestion that arbitration was a benefit to elderly nursing home residents didn't go down well with the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Linda Sanchez, a Democrat from California, whose siblings, to her dismay, recently signed an arbitration clause to put her father into a nursing home. ("God forbid anything should happen," she said after the hearing.)

Still, Republicans demonstrated that, despite making nice with Connor, they probably weren't going to get on board. In a desperate attempt to find an alternative to the bill, the committee's ranking Republican, Utah Rep. Chris Cannon, at one point suggested that nursing homes install granny-cams, so that the residents’ loved ones could keep an eye on them remotely, as a way of improving the quality of care, rather than eliminate arbitration clauses.

Connor thinks the Republicans' performance on the issue illustrates what’s wrong with his party these days. "[Republicans] failure to support this is, in my judgment, a failure of first principles," he said in an interview after the hearing. He noted that “Republicans would be the first to say we should hold the welfare queen responsible," but they never hold corporations to the same standards. "Protecting wrongdoing has become what our party is all about,” Connor added. “And they wonder why they're getting their clocks cleaned on the electoral map. The hypocrisy is breathtaking."

Obama vs. McCain on Taxes: A Simple Video Explanation

I don't say this often, but one of the major news networks did a really good job of digging into policy recently. Specifically, CNN was excellent when discussing the effects the Obama tax plan and the McCain tax plan would have on different income brackets. The numbers make things simple to understand:

This puts the lie to many McCain campaign claims. The most brazenly false ones are from McCain economic adviser and failed Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who claimed that Obama has not proposed "a single tax cut" and wants to "raise every tax in the book." "Everything he’s proposed is a tax increase, not a tax cut," she told Fox News. That's self-evidently false, if you (1) know anything about Obama's economic plan, which centers around a $1,000 tax cut for working families, or (2) have watched the video above.

The point here is not to get into a "our tax cuts are bigger!" argument, because tax cuts don't substitute for sound economic policy. And "tax relief," which the Obama campaign likes to say it is offering everyday folks, is most commonly used as a right wing framing device that justifies tax cuts for people who don't need them. Obama's economic proposals include much more than tax cuts: he is also proposing a stimulus package, help for struggling homeowners, and greater and more effective oversight of the financial sector.

But people tend to focus more on taxes than on any of those things, so let's make sure everyone knows how Obama and McCain stack up. The differences are stark.

Update: More here for those who want to dig deeper.

Why Is Carly Fiorina—a Symbol of Corporate Excesses—McCain's Favorite CEO?

When John McCain wants to talk economic policy with voters—especially female voters—he sends out Carly Fiorina, a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, a senior adviser to McCain's presidential campaign, and chairwoman of the Republican National Committee's Victory Fund. For example, days ago, after Barack Obama accused McCain of proposing an additional $300 billion in tax breaks for "big corporations and the wealthiest Americans," Fiorina appeared on CNN to defend the Arizona senator. (She first claimed that Obama was wrong to say that ExxonMobil would receive additional tax breaks from McCain, but then she acknowledged McCain's tax cuts for all corporations would cover big oil companies.) And this week, McCain dispatched Fiorina on a speaking tour in Ohio and Pennsylvania targeting female voters. She's even been mentioned as a possible McCain running mate.

But why should anyone listen to—let alone vote for—Fiorina?

Her stint as a corporate titan was more mixed than master-of-the-universe. In 1999, Fiorina took over Hewlett-Packard, the troubled computer company, becoming one of the top women in Corporate America. Previously, she had built a successful career mostly in marketing and sales at AT&T and Lucent, but she had the not-so-good fortune to be taking the helm of an engineering-driven tech company as the tech boom was ending. Her solution to HP's ailments was controversial: buying Compaq. She pushed the $19 billion acquisition over the opposition of many HP stockholders, including, most notably, Walter Hewlett, the son of the company's founder, who argued the merger would not make HP more competitive.

At HP, Fiorina developed the reputation of a manager who knocked heads together—or who chopped them off. And there were massive layoffs during her tenure. In 2003, the company announced it would dismiss almost 18,000 people. (That year, the firm posted a $903 million loss on $56.6 billion in revenue.) When the outsourcing of jobs turned into a national political issue, Fiorina became the poster-girl for an industry campaign aimed at blocking any legislation that would restrict a company's ability to can American employees in favor of workers overseas. She and executives from seven other tech companies issued a report that argued that any such measures would hurt the U.S. economy. The best way to increase American competitiveness, they declared, was to improve schools and, yes, reduce taxes. At a Washington press conference, Fiorina said, "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs." The remark did not go over well with critics of outsourcing, who have ever since used it as an indicator of corporate insensitivity.

Fiorina's stint at HP was marked by other moments of controversy. In March 2004, after HP shareholders voted 1.21 billion to 925 million to expense stock options, she opposed the move, essentially opting to stick with accounting practices (that were used by other corporations) that did not reveal a company's true value. That same year, Forbes reported that Hewlett-Packard was "among many other U.S. companies that kept offices in Dubai and were linked to Iranian traders there." The article suggested that HP and other countries were skirting export controls to trade with Iran. And in early 2005, Fiorina announced that pop star Gwen Stefani would join the HP design team and work on the company's line of digital cameras.

Fiorina wasn't around long enough to see her Plan Stefani to completion. In February 2005, she was pushed out of HP. The company's board, with which she had been battling for years, had had enough of her. The Compaq merger had not yielded the benefits—improved shareholder returns and greater profits—she had promised. At the time of her dismissal, Hewlett-Packard stock was trading at about the same price as when she first unveiled the Compaq deal. Eighty percent of the company's operating profits were coming from its old-line printing business. She had not succeeded in reviving HP as a computer-selling powerhouse. The day she was dumped, the company's stock price rose 7 percent. That was Wall Street exclaiming, Hooray. As Robert Cihra, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners told Money magazine, "The stock is up a bit on the fact that nobody liked Carly's leadership all that much. The Street had lost all faith in her and the market's hope is that anyone will be better."

A Business Week post-mortem noted,

Management experts say Fiorina, through the Compaq acquisition, created a good executive team with a can-do attitude. That helped a rank-and-file, engineering-focused organization consider how to market products instead of simply making them. But the charismatic leader refused to delegate operations to top lieutenants managing HP's far-flung divisions. What's more, she had a tough time getting them to work together....

As a result, many of the execs who came to HP through Compaq have jumped ship since the merger. That left Fiorina with much the same slate of HP'ers who were in key positions before the blockbuster deal.

Larry Magin, technology analyst for CBS News, observed,

There is plenty to criticize about Fiorina's tenure at HP. At this point, the changes that Fiorina made didn't turn out so well for the thousands of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq employees that were laid off and the millions of HP stockholders who lost equity since she took over. HP stock is worth less today than it was in 1999. Dell and IBM stock has increased in value.

But Fiorina did fine for herself. She departed the company with a $21 million severance package. "I doubt very much that she's worried about making ends meet," Magin cracked.

In her 2006 book, Tough Choices, Fiorina defended her management of HP and claimed the firm's subsequent successes were a result of changes she had implemented. But it had been a rocky tenure at best. Nevertheless, McCain is deploying Fiorina as a surrogate on economic policy and as an ambassador to women voters. But in this time of economic insecurity, there's not much about Fiorina's time at HP that can be reassuring to voters (female or otherwise) experiencing financial jitters. After six years at Hewlett-Packard, she ended up symbolizing not one but at least three corporate excesses: outsourcing, M&A-mania, and golden parachutes. Workers and shareholders did not prosper during her reign, but Fiorina made millions, got a book deal, and now is a top PowerPointer for a presidential candidate. She's a real American success story—for corporate Republicans.

June 12, 2008

A Blog To Watch: Young People Pushback

The good folks at Campus Progress have launched a flashy new group blog, Pushback, for and by progressive young people. Editor Rob Anderson describes it as "sort of like MTV’s reality show The Real World before it got really trashy: an experiment in which we jam strangers into a confined space and ask them to share with the world their thoughts, their ideas, and their work."

Aiming to keep The Real World analogy on the up and up, Pushback contributor Matt Zeitlin immediately posted this survey from the MIT-Wellesley Journal of Campus Life:

But it's not just sex, people, they've got politics, too. Check it out.

Video: Live From Main Street Minneapolis

FYI, if you ever find yourself wondering how independent progressive media in Minneapolis feel about playing host to the GOP convention this fall, wonder no more. They were pretty vocal about it earlier this week for Laura Flanders:

You can watch the full video here. Next up: Miami in July.

GOP Claims China Drilling Off Cuban Shores; Actually, That's False

To gin up support for off-shore drilling, the Right has an ace up its rhetorical sleeve: the Chinese in Cuba. Here's Vice President Cheney.

"[O]il is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. We're not doing it. The Chinese are in cooperation with the Cuban government... Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply. Yet Congress has said... no to drilling off Florida.''

"Even the communists" is a nice flourish. Mix the red scare with the yellow scare and get Uncle Dick's own Orange Scare. Guaranteed to freak out Americans concerned about their energy security. Here's House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), piling on:

"Even China recognizes that oil and natural gas is readily available off our shores; thanks to Fidel Castro, they’ve been given a permit to drill for oil 45 miles from the Florida Keys."

Adds House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), "Right at this moment, some 60 miles or less off the coast of Key West, Florida, China has the green light to drill for oil in order to lower energy costs in that country."

Problem is, that's all false. Like, completely false. China is not currently drilling off the shores of Cuba; in fact, it doesn't even have a off shore drilling contract. What is does have is a permit to drill on Cuban land. "China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period,'' Jorge Piñon, an energy expert at the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy, told the Miami Herald. In fact, it is not yet drilling on Cuban land, either. The Herald added:

China's Sinopec oil company does have an agreement with the Cuban government to develop onshore resources west of Havana, Piñon said. The Chinese have done some seismic testing, he said, but no drilling. Western diplomats in Havana told McClatchy that to the best of their knowledge there is no Chinese drilling offshore.

The Congressional Research Service also debunks Republican claims:

"While there has been some concern about China’s potential involvement in offshore deepwater oil projects, to date its involvement in Cuba's oil sector has been focused on onshore oil extraction in Pinar del Rio province through its state-run China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation. (Sinopec)"

In a Democratic-controlled Congress, off shore drilling is not going to expand any time soon. But the war against dishonest bombast never stops.

(Photo of oil rig by flickr user Bryan Burke used under a Creative Commons license.)

Post-Jim Johnson, Does Obama Need a "Change Ombudsman"?

Here's an item I posted at CQPolitics.com....

A friend of Jim Johnson, the Washington player who resigned Wednesday as an unpaid veep-vetter for Barack Obama, tells me that Johnson woke up that morning, looked at the newspapers, saw that he had become a front-page problem for Obama--after The Wall Street Journal a few days earlier had reported that Johnson had received too-sweet home loans from Countrywide Financial--and made the snap decision to quit. By the end of the day, Johnson, who had canceled appointments he had lined up for the day, had left Washington and was in Sun Valley.

It was a quick end to the controversy. Obama fans can be encouraged by the fact that decisive action was taken fast. But Obama initially defended Johnson. So perhaps Obama himself was hoping to ride this one out, even though the episode had the potential to undermine his message of change.

The selection of Jim Johnson was itself troubling--whether or not Johnson did anything wrong regarding his dealings with Countrywide. He's a longtime Democratic Party insider, a "big-business Democrat," as Craig Crawford put its, who headed Fannie Mae in the 1990s and forged a close relationship with Countrywide. He's no agent of change in Washington.

The Democratic Party is full of "wise" men and women who jump between government jobs, campaigns, and well-paid private gigs. They can be campaign strategists one year, and corporate consultants or lobbyists the next--or sometimes, as in the case of Mark Penn, both at once. They are part of Washington's permanent establishment. And some will be making a beeline to the Obama campaign, now that he's the party's presumptive nominee.

To keep his message of change clear and honest, Obama is going to have to say no to these folks, even though they might come with experience and the best of intentions. He's already told Democratic lobbyists they cannot contribute to his campaign. And he will have to extend the rope-line further. Here's a suggestion: he should designate within his campaign an aide to be a "change ombudsman." This person will vet the vetters and everyone else working at a high level for the campaign to make certain none are agents of the status quo.

I'm being only semi-facetious. The Obama campaign will be growing now that he's the all-but-nominated nominee and absorbing Hillaryites and others. Someone on the Obama staff ought to be watching so that no other "big-business Democrats" are placed in positions where their mere presence could undercut Obama's overall message.

Obama's going to have a tough time working and calculating his relationship with the party establishment. (Remember all the corporate-sponsored sky boxes at past Democratic party conventions?) Some party insiders have gotten used to doing well in addition to doing good. Jim Johnson, for instance, was an advocate of extremely generous compensation packages for CEOs, made his own bundle at Fannie Mae, and benefited from accounting manipulations there (though he was never accused of wrongdoing).

Johnson is a warning for the Obama campaign. Beware the consummate Washington players who stock campaigns, transition teams, and administrations. Many are not in it for the change.

Obama/McCain Voting Blocks Already Established?

I know it's foolhardy to read too much into any single poll, but I thought the demographic groupings on display here are interesting. I wonder if the allegiances of these subgroups will hold through November. MSNBC:

Obama has opened up a six-point advantage over McCain (47%-41%) in the latest NBC/WSJ poll... Obama leads McCain among African Americans (83-7), Hispanics (62-28), women (52-33), Catholics (47-40), independents (41-36) and even blue-collar workers (47-42). Obama is also ahead among those who said they voted for Clinton in the Democratic primaries (61-19). Meanwhile, McCain is up among evangelicals (69-21), white men (55-35), men (49-41), whites (47-41), and white suburban women (44-38).

White women are viewed as a crucial swing vote — Republicans almost always win white men, but whichever party takes white women usually takes the White House. Currently, Obama beats McCain among white women 46-39.

McCain ≠ Bush Becomes Harder With Discovery of New Quotes

Liberal bloggers spend a fair amount of time pointing out that John McCain is a lot like George W. Bush. But now two quotes have emerged in which John McCain himself argues he's a lot like George W. Bush, making his task of distancing himself from the President that much harder.

Quote 1, June 2005, Meet the Press:

RUSSERT: The fact is you are different than George Bush.

SEN. McCAIN: No. No. I–the fact is that I’m different but the fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush.

Quote 2, May 2003, Your World with Neil Cavuto:

"The president and I agree on most issues. There was a recent study that showed that I voted with the president over 90 percent of the time, higher than a lot of my even Republican colleagues."

I mean, c'mon. This isn't hard. McCain once said of Bush, ""[H]e has more than earned our support. He has earned our admiration and our love." Bush reportedly supported McCain in the Republican primary because McCain was "best to carry forth his agenda."

McCain's attempts to distance himself from Bush aren't just an uphill climb. They're an uphill climb with a monkey on his back and one of these tied to his leg.

SCOTUS Rules Gitmo Detainees Can Challenge Detention in US Civilian Courts

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Guantanamo detainees yet again. According to the AP, SCOTUS ruled today that "foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts."

In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

It was not immediately clear whether this ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some of whom have been held more than 6 years. Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

We may finally see some progress on this issue. Twice before, the Supreme Court has ruled prisoners at Guantanamo held without charges can go to American civilian courts to ask that the federal government justify their detention. Both times, Congress has changed the law to keep them from doing so. But in both instances, Congress was controlled by Republicans and the White House was occupied by George Bush. With Democrats in control of Congress and two presidential candidates who favor the shuttering of Gitmo, we may finally begin down the path to justice sometime in 2009.

Background on the case is available here. For the recent Mother Jones cover package on detainees and torture, see here. For an inside look at Guantanao, check this out.

June 11, 2008

Citizens of Lesbos Finally Taking Action Against Name-Stealing Gay Women

Oh dear.

A group of plaintiffs from the Greek island of Lesbos begins their quest in court today to stop gay women from calling themselves lesbians.

Presumably they will have to sue in every nation in the world (except Iran, of course). More:

"We are very upset that, worldwide, women who like women have appropriated the name of our island," said Dimitris Lambrou, a magazine publisher who is one of those bringing the complaint with other islanders. "Until 1924, according to the Oxford English dictionary, a Lesbian was a native of our isle," he said. "Now, because of its new connotations, our womenfolk are unable to call themselves such and that is wrong."

...Lambrou insists he has "nothing against lesbians" who flock to Eressos — a resort on the island that is famed as the birthplace of the 5th century BC poet Sappho — and whose contribution to the local economy has been considerable.

Via the very excellent AMERICAblog.

What If the Stimulus Bankrupts the Government?

Dear IRS,

I am writing to ask whether I may return my 2007 stimulus payment of $89.43. I read today that this payment has contributed to a record-breaking federal budget deficit for the month of May—a whopping $166 billion—and feel that it is my patriotic duty to return my windfall to keep the bankers in Dubai from foreclosing on major American landmarks. I can survive without it, and certainly wouldn't feel good about spending the extra money knowing that my kids will still be paying interest on it well into their old age. Besides, eighty bucks won't do much for this rotten economy so you might as well keep it where it could do some good. Maybe you can use it to catch some tax cheats.

Thanks.

McCain on Whether Cheney Could Serve in His Administration: "Hell, Yeah"

John McCain has been on both sides of a lot of issues. He hated social conservatives leaders; then he embraced them. He opposed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy; now he supports them. He said Roe v. Wade shouldn't be overturned; now he says it should.

So it's not surprising that McCain has had a diversity of views about Dick Cheney. In early 2007, when he was gearing up his presidential run, McCain was critical of Cheney, saying, "The president listened too much to the Vice President... Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and, most of all, the Secretary of Defense."

But in 2004, when McCain was campaigning for the Bush-Cheney ticket, McCain said Cheney is "one of the most capable, experienced, intelligent and steady vice presidents this country has ever had."

And most disturbingly, McCain told a Cheney biographer in 2006 that he would want Cheney serving in his administration, should he be elected president:

"I will strongly assert to you that he has been of enormous help to this president of the United States... I don't know if I would want him as vice president. He and I have the same strengths. But to serve in other capacities? Hell, yeah."

If the Democrats are smart, this will be in every advertisement from now until November. (H/T TP)

Will the Iraqi Government Destroy Half of McCain's Campaign?

John McCain and George W. Bush argue that maintaining high levels of U.S. troops in Iraq is essential for the security of Iraq, the region, the world, and, of course, the Untied States. But that does not seem to be the position of Baghdad.

In recent days, there has been a spate of news reports on the troubled negotiations between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government concerning the under-construction agreement that will govern the presence of U.S. troops and military bases in Iraq. The Washington Post reports on the front page:

Top Iraqi officials are calling for a radical reduction of the U.S. military's role here after the U.N. mandate authorizing its presence expires at the end of this year. Encouraged by recent Iraqi military successes, government officials have said that the United States should agree to confine American troops to military bases unless the Iraqis ask for their assistance, with some saying Iraq might be better off without them.

"The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq," said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite politician on parliament's foreign relations committee who is close to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "If we can't reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say, 'Goodbye, U.S. troops. We don't need you here anymore.'"

See the disconnect? McCain and Bush insist that we have no choice but to keep a large number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. But Iraqi pols allied with the government look at U.S. troops presence as something that is optional. If these Iraqis can have the Americans there on their own terms, it's fine. If not, their position is, bye-bye.

It's within the Iraqis' rights to set whatever terms they desire. Iraq supposedly is a sovereign nation. (This week, Maliki visited Iran.) But the Iraqis' approach to the negotiations undermine McCain and Bush's defense of the current policy. McCain says it's crucial that the United States remains in Iraq and wins the war. Iraqi leaders are indicating that it ain't so crucial that the U.S. troops stay. (This morning on a conference call with reporters arranged by the Barack Obama campaign, former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig noted an "irony": the Iraqi parliament is deeply immersed in the negotiation of this agreement, yet the Bush White House refuses to involve directly Congress in the agreement.)

So what might happen to the McCain candidacy if the talks--which are supposed to lead to an agreement by the end of July--fail and Iraq gives Bush the boot? McCain won't have a war to promote any longer. And he won't be able to depict Barack Obama as a defeatist surrender-monkey who will yank out troops precipitously and endanger every single family in the United States. In other words, half of McCain's campaign will be gone. (On the Today Show this morning, McCain said that "General Petraeus is going to tell us" when U.S. troops can be withdrawn from Iraq. McCain seemed oblivious to this recent news and the possibility that Iraqis may tell the United States when to withdraw.)

If the talks do collapse, one possibility would be a year-long extension of the current U.N. mandate covering the U.S. troops presence in Iraq. That could keep the status quo in place. Yet if it comes to that, the signal from the Iraqi government will still be, we don't want you here in the way you want to be here. Such a development will not help the war-is-all candidate.

McCain Before: 100 Years; McCain Now: Whatever

McCain has wised up. When asked when troops could come home from Iraq by Matt Lauer on the Today Show, McCain elected not to say "100 years" or "a thousand years." Instead he said, "that’s not too important." Here's the video, with the context of his statement in full:

McCain's statement is both callous and out of touch: the troops certainly want to know if the war they are fighting will be over at some point, and the American people overwhelmingly want the troops home within the next two years. There is a hunger, I think, to know that are some point this failed adventure in the Middle East will be behind us and America can reset its priorities.

But the more important point is this one: "that's not too important" is equivalent to saying we should have troops in Iraq for "100 years." This isn't a flub. It's McCain's vision for the Middle East. He thinks we can have a long term presence in Iraq — bases, troops, jets — the way we do in South Korea and Japan. As long as casualties are down, we can have troops there for 100 years, 1,000 years, or 1,000,000 years. It's just "not too important."

But this is a misreading of the Middle East so fundamental that one is surprised a self-proclaimed national security expert like John McCain doesn't recognize it. Osama bin Laden has said that one of the main reasons he declared war on the United States is because it has bases on Muslim soil; in fact, Saudi Arabia became a target for terrorism because of the royal family's friendly relationship with our country. All 100 years in Iraq is going to mean is 100 years of turmoil that denies the people of Iraq the chances to regain normalcy in their lives.

And moreover, a long term presence in Iraq inhibits our ability to suppress the Taliban in Afghanistan, to defeat extremists in the war on terror, and to invest our tax money in important priorities here at home.

No Wacky Father-Son Congressional Match Up in NY; Political Humorists Cry a Single Tear

What a shame. This wonderful little GOP disaster has reportedly been diverted. Seriously, if you don't know what I'm talking about, click the link just for the picture.

June 10, 2008

The Most Serious Antiwar Candidate in '08

Is it former Republican Congressman and current Libertarian Party presidential nominee Bob Barr? Here's what Barr said today at an event sponsored by the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran, where he was joined by lefty California Reps. Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey (via Reason):

"Neither Sen. McCain nor Sen. Obama can be trusted to keep the peace," says Barr.

The potential consequences of war, Barr explains, "include attacks on our troops stationed in Iraq, threats to the Gulf oil trade, terrorist attacks around the world, subversion of friendly Arab and Muslim governments, destruction of the democracy movement within Iran, and enduring hostility towards America throughout much of the world." To risk paying such a price without attempting to deal directly with the Iranian regime "would be counterproductive, costly, and dangerous. Even as our hand-picked and supported Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq talks with Iranian leaders, and even as the Olmert government in Israel talks with the Assad regime in Syria, the Bush Administration refuses to engage one of the largest and most important countries in that part of the world – Iran. This makes no sense."

Moreover, notes Barr, a former House member, "the power to declare war on Iran lies with the Congress, not the president." Unfortunately, presidents have routinely abused their role as commander-in-chief of the military. "The president is to direct any war, but the Constitution vests the power to decide if there will be a war in the legislative branch," emphasizes Barr.

Can anyone imagine Barack Obama talking like this, especially now that we're into the general?

Evangelicals Hold Their Breaths as Baptism Numbers Drop

In our current issue Debra Dickerson writes approvingly of Christine Wicker's new book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation, which makes the case that evangelical Christians are not as multitudinous as they—or the media and the religious right—have made themselves out to be. In her number crunching, Wicker found that the Southern Baptists have been making some generous estimates of their flock: They've claimed to be 16 million strong, but she estimates the real number of devoted churchgoers is 4 million or fewer. Now, USA Today reports, there are new indications that the church is losing demographic ground:

"We have peaked," Southern Baptist statistician Ed Stetzer wrote in an online commentary on the latest statistics from 2007. "...For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline."

What worries Southern Baptist leaders even more than the membership numbers is a steady decline in the conversion ritual that gave their denomination its name — baptisms.

Annual rates of baptisms have steadily declined not only in recent years, but also during the past 35 years. In 2007, Southern Baptist churches reported 345,941 baptisms. That's down 12% from 2002 and 22% from 1972.

The church is worried enough that it's launched a website, wearesouthernbaptists.org, to rebuild its brand.

Fun With Excel: How Has Age Played In Presidential Elections Since 1789?

There's already been some good examination of how much the age gap between John McCain and Barack Obama will matter in November. ThingsYoungerThanMcCain.com, for example, is doing the yeoman's work of listing the many, many items—like lubricated condoms and the LP record—that are younger than McCain.

And the folks at the Pew Research Center conducted a poll in February that found 26 percent of registered voters think John McCain is too old to be president (the number jumps to 32 percent when voters are told that McCain is 71).

We know that Barack Obama will be 47 on election day and McCain will be 72, meaning that 2008 will see a larger age gap between the top two presidential candidates than any of the previous 55 presidential elections. So here's my question: how has age played in presidential elections in the past? Let's look at a chart (takeaways at the bottom):

Takeaways: Bob Dole was really old when he ran in '96. In 1896 William Jennings Bryan was really young—just 36—and he lost. (Does this explain why McCain compared Obama to Bryan last week?) Sixty-five-year-old James Buchanan administered a spanking of young 43-year-old whippersnapper John Fremont in 1856.

Biggest takeaway: Statistically, candidates who are slightly older—by an average of 2.2 years—have been winners.

Readers: do you see any meaningful trends that I've failed to notice here?
(h/t to Cape Breton University's Stewart McCann for the data)