« June 8, 2008 - June 14, 2008 | Main | June 22, 2008 - June 28, 2008 »

June 20, 2008

Does Investigation of the Pentagon’s Channel to an Iran Contra Arms Dealer Continue?

When Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence presented the final installments of the committee’s long-awaited pre-war intelligence investigation to the press earlier this month in the Senate gallery, they demurred when reporters’ asked them if they intended to pursue possible charges against Bush administration officials whom the Senators said had exaggerated the case for war based on the intelligence available to them. “Nothing else would get done, on Clean Air, FISA, anything,” committee chairman Sen. John “Jay” Rockefeller (D-WV) explained why the committee would not pursue such charges. “If we pressed for that, it would be like impeachment.”

But there are signs that further federal investigation of at least one aspect of the committee’s inquiry may continue.

Mother Jones has learned that one subject of one of the recent Senate Intelligence committee reports has told associates that he has hired a defense attorney in connection to a federal investigation. Pentagon official Harold Rhode, a long-time civilian employee of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessments, who participated in controversial meetings with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar in Rome and Paris, did not respond to messages sent to his home and Pentagon emails inquiring about the Senate’s report on the Ghorbanifar channel, and questions over a possible federal investigation involving him and the hiring of an attorney. Calls to his home went to a fax machine and he did not answer his Pentagon office phone over the past several days.

The Senate report found that former Reagan administration consultant and Iran contra figure Michael Ledeen had brought two Farsi-speaking Pentagon officials -- Rhode and Larry Franklin -- to a December 2001 meeting in Rome with two unidentified Iranians as well as Ledeen's old Iran contra interlocutor Ghorbanifar, the subject of a CIA burn notice. Also attending the Rome meetings was at least one official with the Italian military intelligence service SISMI, which provided logistical support and a location for the Rome meetings. The Senate report found that Rhode later went to Paris for a second meeting with Ghorbanifar in June 2003 -- several months after then deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley had ordered Ledeen and the Pentagon to shut down the Ghorbanifar channel.

Revelations that Iran Contra figures Ledeen and Ghorbanifar were involved in a new channel to the Bush administration set off alarm bells throughout the US government, and prompted multiple inquiries into whether the channel amounted to an unauthorized covert action and a possible counterintelligence threat. The latter issue was never resolved, after a top Pentagon official shut down the counterintelligence inquiry only a month after it had begun.

But the allegation that Rhode had hired a defense attorney raised the possibility that the issue may still be under investigation.

“The Justice Department has to decline to comment on that,” a spokesperson for the department told Mother Jones Friday, after checking on a reporter’s query about a possible Justice Department investigation involving the Pentagon official.

A person who answered the phone in the office of Andrew Marshall, Rhode’s boss at the Pentagon Office of Net Assessments, said he couldn’t comment on Rhode’s status or a possible investigation, and referred a reporter to Pentagon public affairs.

“Unfortunately, we have nothing for you on this,” a Pentagon spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin said.

One clue as to the origin of a possible federal investigation pursuing the US officials’ channel to Ghorbanifar is contained in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report (.PDF) on the Rome meetings. The report refers to a Department of Defense Inspector General investigation of the same matter (that report remains classified), as well as to a Defense Department Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA) investigation of the Pentagon officials’ meetings with Ghorbanifar.

The CIFA investigation was halted only a month after it began by then Defense Department intelligence czar Stephen Cambone, the Senate report found. The CIFA report raised the possibility that “Ghorbanifar or his associates are being used as agents of a foreign intelligence service to leverage his continuing contact with Michael Ledeen and others to reach into and influence the highest levels of the US government.”

The Senate Intelligence committee report concluded that the decision to end the counterintelligence investigation of the Ghorbanifar channel was “premature,” and criticized the Pentagon for not pursuing CIFA’s recommendations. Among the counterintelligence office's recommendations, that a comprehensive “analysis be conducted of the counterintelligence implications related to the ability of Mr. Ghorbanifar or his associates to directly or indirectly influence or access U.S. government officials.”

The Justice Department would not comment on whether it is pursuing a counterintelligence investigation related to the case.

A spokesman for the Defense Department Inspector General (DOD IG) could not comment on whether the Defense Department Inspector General’s office had recommended that the Pentagon meetings with Ghorbanifar be referred for further investigation. In theory, a person familiar with the process explains, the DOD IG would refer a matter to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service if its audit found possible allegations of a criminal violation. The Defense Criminal Investigative Service would pursue its own inquiry before deciding whether a criminal investigation is warranted, and referring it to the Justice Department.

The Senate Intelligence committee report determined that the Pentagon meetings with Ghorbanifar were inappropriate, but neither unauthorized nor illegal. Indeed, it found that the meetings had been authorized by Hadley, and then deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, among others. According to the committee report, Rhode remained an employee of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessments. Franklin left the Pentagon in 2005 after being indicted in a separate case. Ledeen had no official role in any capacity at the Defense Department during the Bush administration, the Senate report said.

Illustration: Steve Brodner, for Mother Jones.

The MoveOn Decision: Don't Freak Out

Barack Obama is not unilaterally disarming.

You can be forgiven for thinking that he is. It's the most natural response when you see the report that MoveOn.org is shutting down it's 527, and raising and spending money only through it's PAC.

In a letter to supporters, MoveOn.org chief Eli Pariser explained the decision:

in light of the new politics offered by Barack Obama, I've come to believe it's time to close the 527 forever—and to challenge organizations on the right to do the same thing.

That means that we won't raise any money for our election work from foundations, unions, or even individuals who want to give over $5,000. It's an all-in commitment to the small-donor way of doing things. But the time is right to take the leap.

Obama got the DNC to give up fundraising from PACs and lobbyists, and now has one of the progressive movement's leading independent groups sacrificing its ability to raise funds through its 527, which can accept big money from labor unions, foundations, and rich donors with fat wallets. Instead, MoveOn will accept money exclusively through its PAC, which can only take money from individuals or groups donating less than $5,000. Are other independent groups next? Will the entire progressive movement neuter itself in a quest to raises its standards to match Obama's?

The answer is no. Consider what MoveOn is sacrificing. According to Pariser, the group hasn't run any activities through its 527 since the 2004 elections. Of the $46 million MoveOn has raised since 2005, only $1.02 million has come in the form of donations larger than $1,000. No donations have been larger than $5,000. (George Soros did donate $2.5 million in 2004.) At this point, MoveOn effectively has no large-donor program to sacrifice. It can continue doing the work it is doing without interruption.

In that sense, this announcement was a formality, or a play for some positive press. What it really does, however, is underscore how well positioned progressive are to play in Barack Obama's Washington. It is a movement that (with the exception of the occasional Soros) is built on the backs of thousands of small donors who, in truth, are better for the movement. The expected return on their investment always remains the same: the advancement of progressive principles. Large donors have expectations that can shift if the government's ability to win them power or money changes. Barack Obama wants small donors to be the power brokers in his charge to the White House; in that sense, the movement he leads was already custom-built for him.

(Photo of Barack Obama by flickr user mfajardo used under a Creative Commons license.)

FISA Amendments Pass

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 passed moments ago in the House by a vote of 293-129.

Joining the significant majority were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and House Intelligence Committe Chairman Silveste Reyes. An angry John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, opposed it.

The bill will in practice provide legal immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the President Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) through a provision that will result in the dismissal of lawsuits that might have shined some light on the particulars of the administration's warrantless wiretapping activities. It does mandate an Inspector General report on the particulars of TSP, but whether that mandate survives the president's signing statement pen remains to be seen.

During the floor debate, most of Democrats who supported the legislation pointed to a provision that makes FISA the exclusive arbiter of the nation's wiretapping activities--a provision which will allow the supporters of the bill to express their shock and disappointment when this or any future president decides to ignore the law anyhow.

Now the bill moves over to the Senate where all of these, and other provisions will be debated further.

Helpful Microcosm of Obama v. McCain on Taxes

We've compared Obama and McCain on taxes before, but if you want a neat summary of how heavily weighted McCain's policies are to the rich, check out the charts at the Wonk Room that illustrate how much the presidential candidates and their families will save under their respective tax plans. Did you know John and Cindy McCain will save $373,000 under the McCain tax plan? Barack and Michelle Obama save just $6,100 under the Obama plan.

What to Make of a Recent Israeli Military Exercise: Interview with Israeli Intel Correspondent

While many people are concerned about whether the Bush administration plans to carry out a parting shot strike on Iran's nuclear program before it leaves office, most policy experts in and out of government I've interviewed think that is unlikely, for a lot of reasons. But the U.S., of course, is not the only actor to consider.

Today came reports that Israel carried out a large-scale military exercise over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece earlier this month that clearly seemed to have Iran in mind. More than 100 F-16 and F-15 fighter planes and rescue helicopters were involved in the Israeli military exercise, according to Pentagon and other US government officials cited in a report today in the New York Times. "Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran’s nuclear program," the paper reported. The exercise was so large, U.S. officials told the paper, it was implied that Israel wanted not only Iran, but the US and other allies, to be aware of it.

I asked Yossi Melman, intelligence correspondent for Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, and co-author of The Nuclear Sphinx of Iran, how to interpret the reported Israeli military exercise (Israeli officials have not commented on it). I also asked him about Israel's timeline for contemplating a possible go-it-alone strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, should diplomacy, international sanctions and other measures be judged to fail.

Mother Jones: How to interpret the exercise?

Melman: The Israeli Air Force and all the other agencies are preparing tentative contingency plans. This has been going on for many many months. Israel's air space is limited, so you need to fly over the sea, but to practice you also need land. To do it over Turkey will not be sufficient (1500-1800 km) and politically sensitive. So there is an Israeli Greek security agreement [for this purpose] and that's what they are doing.

Now does it mean an imminent attack? Far from that. I don't see at the moment an Israeli cabinet which has the nerve to take such a decision. But as I wrote in my book and in my newspaper and in various international forums recently, Israel will probably do it as a last resort.

MJ: What is Israel's thinking on timing?

Melman: Of course they will wait. Israel will never do it before having some sort of understanding (tacit or not) with the U.S. administration. If they decide to do it, it will not be before spring - mid 2009 most probably, end of 2009, unless they realize something dramatic is boiling up in Iran. I think they will wait also for Iran's presidential elections to see if [Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] is reelected. (Those Iranian presidential elections are May or June 2009).

MJ: Do you think there is a possibility that increased diplomacy and international sanctions could succeed? I was at a forum today where both speakers - including Patrick Clawson - who you've interviewed - expressed some degree of mild optimism that reinvigorated multilateral diplomacy might succeed to persuade Iran to some sort of agreement on its nuclear program. And that it would be far preferable to the military option. Former Israeli intelligence chief Efraim Halevy has also expressed the belief that negotiations with Iran could succeed. What are your thoughts about this? And indeed, about the highly politicized question in the U.S. presidential race about whether Washington should pursue direct diplomacy with Iran? (before contemplating such "last resort" options)?

Melman: I favor direct talks between the U.S. and Iran. But I am very pessimistic about the success of any talks or diplomacy. As long as China and Russia are not part of the loop no diplomatic pressure would succeed. Yet there is a need to exhaust the diplomatic path, if only to show domestic audiences that the West is not trigger happy or a war monger.

The Policy Side of Obama's Public Financing Opt-Out

As David and Jonathan have mentioned, Barack Obama has announced that he will opt-out of the public financing system for the general election.

It seems obvious, as David noted in his article, that Obama's decision was made for political expediency and was not the principled stand his campaign is hoping people will see it as. The media has done a good job of covering the political side of this story. Obama is making a politically expedient decision and essentially going back on his "Yes" answer to a questionnaire that asked whether he would forgo private financing if his opponents did the same. But the other part of this story, the policy side, is sorely missing.

Obama may be making excuses when he says the public financing system is broken, but he's right. It seems inconceivable that the Supreme Court will allow limits on Swift Boat-type political speech anytime soon. 527s and their ilk are likely to remain legal, and to continue impacting elections. Money will still matter. To expect otherwise wouldn't just be naive, it'd also be missing half of the point.

The difficulty is not that there is money in politics or that people pay money to put political ads on television. The problem arises when politicians become dependent on money from certain lobbyists or bundlers or PACs or individuals. Obama has taken a big step towards rectifying that conflict of interest by refusing money from PACs and federal registered lobbyists. Just as important, he has asked major Democratic donors to avoid funding outside groups and give money exclusively through the campaign.

Taken together, the focus on small donors, the refusal of PAC and lobbyist money, and the attack on independent Democratic groups point to an entirely new way of funding a campaign. Obama has already been praised by the right for understanding and valuing free market solutions and for saying that government isn't always the answer to social and economic problems. In this case, the Obama campaign seems to have accepted that money is in politics to stay, and that attempts to remove its influence will inevitably be subverted by forces like the 527s. By opting out of the public financing system, Obama is acknowledging that money will always play a crucial role in American politics. But by discouraging donations to independent groups, focusing on small donors, and refusing PAC and lobbyist money, he's also trying to insure that money plays the right role in American politics.

Florida Republican Calls Out McCain on Offshore Drilling

There are so many problems with John McCain's idea that we're going to use offshore drilling to alleviate high gas prices and get us out of our current energy pickle.

First, there isn't all that much oil to be found in the continental United States and sucking it out of the ground won't lower prices substantially. Second, there are no ships available to serve new rigs. Third, oil companies currently have leases for some offshore drilling that they aren't using. Fourth, it will take seven to ten years before we can actually get at the oil off American shores, if we were to start drilling today. Fifth, it presents serious environmental concerns.

It's an ineffective attempt at a quick fix. In so far as it keeps Americans from thinking about and coming to terms with long-term structural changes that will actually solve the energy crisis, it's an incredibly damaging idea.

You don't have to be a Democrat to understand this. Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a Republican, is calling out McCain:

"For anyone to represent that someone drilling off the coast in Florida is going to lower gas prices here or anywhere in this country is disingenuous and a flawed argument," he said. "Oil drilling could take 10 years before any oil is pulled out of the ground, and there are a large number of leases held by oil companies that are not being exploited now. We can’t say we need more until we’ve exploited those."

H/T Think Progress.

McCain Stretching the Truth in Support of Offshore Drilling Pander

John McCain went before a group of oil execs and reiterated his support for the (potentially successful) offshore drilling pander. To bolster his case about the safety of offshore rigs, he argued that "not even Hurricane Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston."

That's an old conservative myth and it makes for easy blogging. The claim is demonstrably false.

Update: It's pretty offensive that McCain is using Katrina as a political prop, considering his miserable record on hurricane recovery.

June 19, 2008

In Florida Legal Case, Blackwater Demands Taliban Treatment

There's no telling how the Iraqi legal system would have dealt with last September's shooting incident in a Baghdad traffic circle, during which Blackwater operators killed 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded 24 others. It never got the chance to weigh in because U.S. contractors—thanks to a last-minute order passed by the outgoing Coalition Provisional Authority—are immune from Iraqi law. That's how Blackwater prefers it... and perhaps with good reason; Iraq's legal system is not known for fair and principled jurisprudence. Just look at the footage of Saddam's execution.

It may seem strange then that Presidential Airways, a Blackwater sister company also owned by Erik Prince, is arguing in a Florida courtroom that its contractors in Afghanistan should be tried under Islamic Sharia law—you know, the legal code of the Taliban. The case deals with a 2004 incident, detailed in a memorandum (.pdf) released last October by Rep. Henry Waxman's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in which contractor pilots took a low-altitude joy ride through an uncharted area of the Afghan mountains, colliding with one of them and killing everyone aboard, including U.S. soldiers. The families are now suing Presidential Airways for damages.

So, how does Prince reconcile subjecting Presidential Airways pilots to local law, while simultaneously arguing that his contractors in Iraq are above it? Here's his answer, according to the Raleigh News & Observer:

Prince was asked to justify having a case involving an American company working for the U.S. government decided by Afghan law.

“Where did the crash occur?” Prince said. “Afghanistan.”

Joseph Schmitz, Prince’s general counsel, said Presidential Airways was asking the federal judge to follow past U.S. cases where courts have applied another country’s laws to resolve damages that occurred overseas...

In April, Presidential asked a federal judge in Florida to dismiss the lawsuit because the case is controlled by Afghanistan’s Islamic law. If the judge agrees that Afghan law applies, the lawsuit would be dismissed. The company also plans to ask a judge to dismiss the lawsuit on the constitutional grounds that a court should not interfere in military decision-making.

The National Transportation Safety Board has blamed the crash on Presidential for its “failure to require its flight crews to file and fly a defined route,” and for not providing oversight to make sure its crews followed company policies and Pentagon and FAA safety regulations.

So, Mr. Prince, where did the September shootings occur? Iraq. Not like that matters when you treat the law like a buffet table. The Florida legal case is true to form for Blackwater, and indeed for the rest of the private security business: with no universally applicable laws to reign them in, firms like Blackwater are free to pick and choose which ones they'll follow. Sometimes, when convenient, those laws appear to include the ones passed down from the Prophet Muhammad.

The Science of Gayness: Does it Really Matter?

As California same-sex couples lined up to get married, so did the protesters. But more and more, the battle over homosexuality has moved from the social studies department to the biology classroom. A study published this week showed that gay men and straight women's brains are symmetrical, while straight men and lesbians' brains are asymmetrical. Also, gay men and straight women's amygdalas (the part ruling aggression and fear) have similar connective patterns.

So what does this mean? According to the lead researcher, Ivanka Savic, it's "robust" proof that there are biological differences between gays and heterosexuals. But even Savic admits that the study can't tell whether these differences are genetic or the result of the fetus getting too much or too little testosterone while developing in the womb.

Truth is, we still don't know what (if anything) actually causes gayness. And even if there is a genetic "switch" that makes a kid gay or straight, for females, it doesn't really seem to matter. Women, as we've reported earlier, have a habit of sliding through a few sexual orientations throughout their lifetimes. One study tracked 79 women who described themselves as "non-heterosexual." After 10 years, 30% of the subjects were lesbian, 29% were bisexual, 22% wouldn't label themselves and 7% were straight. And even those that identified as lesbian occasionally slept with men.

Some right-wingers are supporting the scientific pursuit of a gay gene in hopes that it could be fixed before birth. Aside from the questionable ethical implications about such a pre-birth intervention, to me the search seems moot. Even if there is a "gay" gene, I doubt that having it would mean that one would be definitely, 100% gay. Some people have the gene for Type 2 diabetes but because of environmental factors will never develop the condition. A gay gene could work in similarly, and inevitably, some people will be gay despite lacking the gene. And while we're looking for genes, what about the bisexual gene or the transgender gene?

Science may answer some questions, but it's not going to tell us exactly why some people are gay. And it's definitely not going to tell us whether they should be able to get married.

McCain Hypocrisy on Obama's Opt-Out Decision

The McCain campaign has sharply criticized Barack Obama's decision to become the first general election presidential candidate since the 1970s to opt out of the public financing system, a decision Obama can afford because of his stunning success with hundreds of thousands of low-dollar donors. As David notes at the link above, the McCain campaign said Obama's decision "undermines his call for a new type of politics."

But McCain, a longtime foe of Big Money in politics, once had a friendlier view of presidential fundraisers like Obama.

Here he is on the Fox News show "On the Record," in January 2004:

"I think it's wonderful that Howard Dean was able to use the Internet, $50, $75, $100 contributions. That's what we want it to be all about. We want average citizens to contribute small amounts of money, and that's a commitment to a campaign. So I'm for that. I think it's a great thing. I think the Internet is going to change American politics for the better."

And here he is on MSNBC's "Hardball," in June 2004:

"The Internet is generating more and more people involved in the political process with relatively small campaign contributions, $50, $75. That's wonderful. No longer can an office holder call up a CEO or a trial lawyer or a union leader and say, I need $1 million. And, by the way, your legislation is up before my committee again."

FISA, Compromised

A few moments ago, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer released what he refers to as a “bipartisan” “compromise” bill: The FISA Amendment Act of 2008, which he authored along with Jay Rockefeller, Kit Bond, and Roy Blunt (respectively, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence committee, and the House Minority whip). The word “bipartisan” is technically indisputable. The word “compromise”, by contrast, is a total farce.

The most controversial elements of the February legislation were provisions that would have allowed the White House to wiretap American citizens without a warrant, and that would have immunized telecommunications companies from participating in the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program back in the halcyon days when warrantless wiretapping was unquestionably illegal.

Here’s how the new bill deals with the immunity question.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a civil action may not lie or be maintained in a Federal or State court against any person for providing assistance to an element of the intelligence community, and shall be promptly dismissed, if the Attorney General certifies to the district court of the United States in which such action is pending that…the assistance alleged to have been provided by the electronic communication service provider was in connection with an intelligence activity involving communications that was authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007.

That’s the game. Non-profit groups like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation can sue the telecoms if they want, but if Attorney General Michael Mukasey says “presto”, the lawsuits must be dismissed.

As for the nitty gritty of surveillance powers the bill authorizes, here’s what the ACLU says: “This bill allows for mass and untargeted surveillance of Americans’ communications…. The process by which this deal has come about has been as secretive as the warrantless wiretapping program it is seeking to legitimize.” And the media blackout over the last few months is testament to that. None of Congress’ civil liberties stalwarts partook in these negotiations. Neither John Conyers, nor Patrick Leahy–chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees respectively–got a say. Nor did Sens. Chris Dodd or Russel Feingold. Nor did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Leahy says “the legislation unveiled today… is not a bill I can support.”

Nonetheless, it looks very much as if Pelosi–who has substantial power to control what does and does not appear on the floor of the House–will allow this to come to a vote.

I’ll keep my eye on the comings and goings.

Brian Beutler is the Washington correspondent for the Media Consortium, a network of progressive media organizations, including Mother Jones.

Obama Opts Out of Public Financing: Promise-Breaker or Reform-Shaker?

In the decades after Watergate, the basic thrust of campaign finance reform was this: limit the flow of big-money private contributions to candidates. No more bags of money for the pols. Now, only donations of up to $2300 from individuals are acceptable. And in the presidential race, there is public financing: the nominees--if they agree to forgo fundraising--receive full underwriting of their general election campaigns. This year that subsidy is about $85 million.

This system has been an imperfect reform. There have been loopholes. Well-heeled private interests have poured money into independent efforts to support a preferred candidate or, more often, blast that candidate's opponent. And parties could raise money, while corporations could donate unrestricted amounts to presidential conventions. So the opportunity for one side to outspend the other (using unlimited donations from wealthy individuals, corporations or unions) has remained. The influence of big money has not been eradicated. Still, presidential candidates, once nominated, could focus on campaigning, rather than cash-hunting.

Now comes Barack Obama.

He has run for president as an agent of change who slams the money-talks ways of Washington. As an Illinois state senator and as a U.S. senator, he has passed reform measures. Yet on Thursday, in an email to his supporters, he announced that he would not participate in the public financing system in the general election, despite an earlier promise to stay within this system. He will be the first major presidential nominee to reject public financing for the general election since Watergate. Instead of relying on that check from the U.S. Treasury, he will continue his record-setting fundraising operation. John McCain's campaign immediately and predictably proclaimed that this decision "undermines his call for a new type of politics" and will "weaken and undermine the public financing system."

Obama said:

It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections. But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.

Obama is clearly doing what's best for his political prospects. No doubt, Obama, who has raised about $265 million so far (while McCain has raised $97 million), can pocket hundreds of millions of dollars in the general election. So by eschewing the public financing system, he will have far more dollars to deploy--and be able to double, triple or quadruple what the McCain campaign raises and spends (presuming McCain keeps within the system).

But the story here is deeper than the simple narrative, Obama-sells-out-reform. His campaign, relying on Internet fundraising, has broken records in the number of small donors it has attracted. It has been far more populist than other major campaigns when it comes to fundraising. As Obama put it, "Instead of forcing us to rely on millions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, you’ve fueled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, $20, whatever you can afford. And because you did, we’ve built a grassroots movement of over 1.5 million Americans." Sure, Obama did receive a significant amount from maxed-out contributors and bundlers, but he has mobilized small contributors like no one else. Given that the goal of the reform system was to prevent big-money backers from getting their hooks into a candidate, are its restrictions less relevant for a candidate who does so well with small donors?

When the system was first designed, few could imagine an Internet-dominated world in which it would be possible for a candidate who motivates millions of voters to haul in so much from non-fat-cats. Are these rules then obsolete? And considering that Democrats have often been at a disadvantage when it comes to big-bucks fundraising (though not lately), should a Democratic nominee walk away from an advantage in people-power fundraising? After all, if literally millions of citizens yearn to make a small contribution to a campaign that aims to undo the work of the Bush administration, why stop them? Isn't that small-d democracy at its best? And Obama's decision will put him in a stronger position to pressure independent groups from raising and spending unlimited amounts to support him or attack McCain. If he does draw in $300 million or so in campaign donations, Obama will not need these outsiders. McCain, however, will. Even though McCain has said he does not fancy independent spending in campaigns, he will be less able to lean on these players (say, this year's Swift Boaters) to cease and desist. Assuming that McCain will rely on the public subsidy of $85 million, the GOP will somehow have to cover the $200 million-plus gap between the McCain campaign and the Obama campaign.

Obama can be pegged a flip-flopper on this front. And the McCain camp is right: he's setting a precedent that will weaken the system. Longtime reform advocate Fred Wertheimer says,

We had hoped and expected that Senator Obama would stick with the public pledge he made to accept public financing and spending limits for the presidential general election, if he was nominated, and if his Republican opponent also agreed to accept public financing and spending limits for the general election. These conditions have been met.

We do not agree with Senator Obama's rationale for opting out of the system. Senator Obama knew the circumstances surrounding the presidential general election when he made his public pledge to use the system....

Senator Obama's decision to opt out...make it all the more important for Senator Obama to personally make clear to the public in no uncertain terms that if he is elected, one of the early priorities for his Administration will be enacting legislation to repair the presidential public financing system.

The argument that the Obama campaign has created a parallel system of public financing through its Internet small donor fundraising does not hold up. ...Larger contributions and bundlers already have played an important role in financing the Obama presidential primary campaign and may well do so in the general election....

It is true that Obama has used bundlers and accepted money from big donors. But he has indeed demonstrated the potential of a new model. And Obama is one of three lead Senate sponsors of legislation that would improve the presidential public financing system, particularly for presidential primaries. This bill would give primary candidates public matching funds of $4 for every $1 raised, covering only individual contributions of $200 or less. Under this reform, the importance of smaller Internet contributions would be maximized and the primaries would become less a money-chase than they have been.

Does Obama's decision mean he's a phony, or is his embrace and mastery of small-donor fundraising an indication he is truly a vehicle for change? Ultimately, his move will be judged expediently. Political foes will brand him a business-as-usual promise-breaker. His supporters will cheer his hard call and celebrate his grassroots and netroots successes as a democratic (and Democratic) triumph. As for nonpartisan reformers, they will have to keep on pondering the implications for reform and clean elections in the brave new world of the web. And whatever happens in November, Obama will not have the excuse of having been outspent. This self-proclaimed candidate of change will be the most well-financed-by-the-voters politician in the history of the United States.

Under the Radar: The Child Abuse Bill Swap

Below is a guest blog entry by MoJo author Maia Szalavitz:

Congressman George Miller recently introduced strong legislation to fight abuse in teen boot camps and other "tough love" residential facilities. But the version that passed the House Education and Labor Committee in May is not the version that will be voted on by the House Tuesday.

A new "bipartisan" draft of HR 5876, the "Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008," has been submitted instead. And the provision most likely to hold these programs accountable and reduce abuse—a "private right of action" which would allow parents and children to sue the facilities in federal court and receive reimbursement for attorneys' fees—has been removed. Why?

Despite thousands of reports of abuse in such programs—including torturous tactics like food deprivation, sleep deprivation, vicious and extended emotional attacks, sexual humiliation and punitive use of isolation and restraint—the programs have remained unregulated and have suffered few legal consequences.

"There have been few lawsuits in the past and this bill won't help future lawsuits and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't understand the nature of the problem," says Phil Elberg, the only attorney who has won victories for children who were abused but did not die in these programs. In a profile I wrote of him for Mother Jones recently, Elberg said that the private right of action could allow him to devote himself full-time to fighting these abuses, but he says now that the new version won't even help him with his current cases.

Another problematic change in the legislation is the inclusion of child psychiatric hospitals and public residential programs under its rubric. This will increase its scope and thus reduce the chances that any particular violator of the regulations will be sanctioned. It will also legitimize the programs, by including them in the same category as psychiatric treatment, which can only use drugs that meet FDA standards for safety and effectiveness—while there is no requirement for these programs to prove they are safe and effective before they are sold to parents.

"I fear that if this bill is continually diluted we'll see a farce of a system of accountability that will only legitimize programs without providing real protection," says Kathryn Whitehead, a program survivor who testified at the hearings related to the bill, and heads the Community Alliance For the Ethical Treatment of Youth, "We will inevitably see the continual growth of harmful programs - many of which will demonstrate a lack respect for collaborative care between youth and provider and further obstruct the movement away from dehumanizing care and institutionalization."

Fortunately, the bill does still include provisions for national standards, a federal ban on the use of "acts of physical or mental abuse designed to humiliate, degrade, or undermine a child's self-respect," and on the use of punitive restraint and isolation.

"Realistically, my hope is that the Department of Health and Human Services will set standards at least on par with [those] set by Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, like the right to have money, belongings, phone calls, and mail," says Whitehead, adding that the standards must provide a way to inform teens of their rights "to access to a phone to contact an advocate. Youth need to know that abuse is not therapy."

It's frightening that the new version of the bill now incorporates two of the three demands made by the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP), which represents the industry. When "tough love" first began to appear in residential programs for youth and adults with addictions, state regulators passively let abuses continue and for decades failed to shutter even programs that used practices like keeping patients awake for 72 hours and gagging teens with Kotex.

"What I fear from passage of a watered down law is that everybody concerned would file it under done and done, congratulate themselves on a fine job and move on to other concerns," says Cynthia Clark Harvey, who testified at the hearings about the death by medical neglect of her daughter Erica in the Catherine Freer wilderness program, "The industry took at least twenty years to metastasize into its current form. It's going to take a strong effort, delivered over a period of years, to radically transform this abysmal mess."

If the standards are set high and the regulators actually punish violators, the new law could make a difference—and at the very least, it will provide some information to parents about the risks these programs carry and the fact that abusive practices are not therapeutic. The legislation is not expected to be introduced in the Senate until after the election. There's no reason to expect that this version won't pass the House—but only time will tell if the compromise version will actually reduce abusive treatment.

—Maia Szalavitz

Maia Szalavitz is the author of "Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids," and Senior Fellow at stats.org.

Posted by Laura McClure on 06/19/08 at 9:51 AM | | Comments (2) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Why the Offshore Drilling Pander Might Actually Work

It's a pander, no doubt, but it might be a successful one. Why? Because people don't know that it won't reduce gas prices. Check out these numbers from a recent Rasmussen poll:

In order to reduce the price of gas, should drilling be allowed in offshore oil wells off the coasts of California, Florida, and other states?

67% Yes
18% No
15% Not sure

If offshore oil is allowed, how likely is it that the price of gas will go down?

27% Very likely
37% Somewhat likely
21% Not very likely
6% Not at all likely
8% Not sure

I'll only add that this whole thing may not matter in the long run because offshore drilling seems bound to be one of those election-season issues that flare up for a few weeks and then disappear, never to be heard from again. Remember the gas tax holiday that we all went bonkers over?

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 06/19/08 at 7:59 AM | | Comments (13) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

How You Know McCain's Offshore Drilling Reversal Is a Pander

It might seem obvious that McCain's new-found support for offshore drilling is a pander: after all, the federal government itself says that if you were to drill all over the continental United States, you'd find enough oil to last America just two and a half years, meaning we're not talking about a long-term solution. Moreover, offshore drilling will cause only a marginal impact on prices, and even that tiny impact won't be felt for another seven to 10 years, according to the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade group that points out that production cannot start right away.

But maybe McCain didn't check the numbers. Is there any other way you can tell that offshore drilling is actually pointless, and serves only as a base election-season pitch to voters angry about high gas prices? There is. There are no ships.

As President Bush calls for repealing a ban on drilling off most of the coast of the United States, a shortage of ships used for deep-water offshore drilling promises to impede any rapid turnaround in oil exploration and supply.

...the world's existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years. Some oil companies have been forced to postpone exploration while waiting for a drilling rig, executives and analysts said.

Demand is so high that shipbuilders, the biggest of whom are in Asia, have raised prices since last year by as much as $100 million a vessel to about half a billion dollars.

“The crunch on rigs is everywhere,” said Alberto Guimaraes, a senior executive at Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company that has discovered some of the most promising offshore oil but has been unable to get at it.

Even if we did lift the moratorium on offshore drilling, we wouldn't have the equipment needed to actually take advantage. If McCain knows this and is supporting offshore drilling anyway, he's pandering. If he doesn't know this, he needs to go back to public policy school.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 06/19/08 at 7:39 AM | | Comments (3) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

June 18, 2008

Simon Mann In Full: African Coup Plotter Points Fingers

You wouldn't know it from the American newspapers, but if you click on virtually any British news site today (try here, here, and here), you'll read of a courtroom drama currently unfolding in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in which British mercenary Simon Mann is casting blame far and wide for the failed 2004 coup plot that aimed to topple the local dictator, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Details of the coup itself are already widely known, the subject of numerous magazine articles and several books, but in case you missed it: In March 2004, Mann was arrested along with 70 other mercenaries while their plane was refueling on the tarmac of an airport in Zimbabwe during a brief, late-night stopover while en route from South Africa to Equatorial Guinea. The mercenaries were carrying with them 61 AK-47s, 20 light machine guns, 50 heavy machine guns, 100 RPGs, along with tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition—equipment they said they intended to use to secure a mine in the Congo. The Zimbabwean authorities didn't buy it, and Mann spent the next several years in a Harare prison. He was later released for good behavior, but immediately extradited to face criminal charges in Equatorial Guinea, where, if convicted, he could serve up to 32 additional years in prison.

Today in the Malabo courtroom, testifying in his own defense, Mann seemed eager to bring down his co-conspirators, if only perhaps to lessen his own sentence. The Eton-educated, former British special forces officer gave detailed accounts of the plotters motivations—namely, to replace Obiang with a new president who would give conspirators a cut of the country's sizable oil wealth—as well as the leadership structure of the conspiracy.

Among Mann's accusations:

Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, not only invested in the coup, "he came on board completely and became a part of the management team."

Ely Calil, a British businessman who made his millions negotiating oil concessions in Nigeria, was the "boss" of the coup attempt.

The governments of Spain and South Africa signed off on the coup and made arrangements to recognize the new government, had the conspiracy succeeded. In effect, the coup was "like an official operation" with a "green light" from both governments.

Spain secretly offered to send a contingent of Civil Guards to help safeguard the new government after Obiang's ouster.

A South African intelligence liaison said President Thabo Mbeki intended to call the new president of Equatorial Guinea after the coup to offer his support.

Both the Spanish and South African governments quickly denied Mann's allegations, but, says Mann, "their involvement was clandestine, and they will never admit it." Meanwhile, Thatcher and Calil remain free.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Podknox.

Posted by Bruce Falconer on 06/18/08 at 1:15 PM | | Comments (2) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

New Details About Life in Gitmo Don't Bode Well For GWOT

McClatchy is running an excellent series this week on US overseas detention centers, focusing on the abuse, carelessness, and mismanagement that have encouraged global terrorism rather than deterred it. What's new here are the details: the news organization accumulated eight months worth of interviews, collected a number of primary source documents, and put together in-depth profiles of recently-released detainees. The specifics of these men's stories take on additional significance in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent ruling on detainees' habeas rights: Due process seems a lot more important when you realize that every day an innocent person spends in Guantanamo is essentially an al Qaeda recruitment opportunity. Things are so bad that even the former US commander of the camp acknowledges that we've more or less enabled our very own terrorist sleeper cell:

Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, until recently the commanding officer at Guantanamo, acknowledged that senior militant leaders gained influence and control in his prison.

"We have that full range of (Taliban and al Qaida) leadership here, why would they not continue to be functional as an organization?" he said in a telephone interview. "I must make the assumption that there's a fully functional al Qaida cell here at Guantanamo."

The commander's assumption, if true, adds another layer of complexity to the detainees' status—how do we handle the release of someone who was innocent of terrorism when we picked them up, but is now eager to work for al Qaeda? If, as alleged, such cases are common at Guantanamo, then the administration has created a self-justifying system that will be extremely difficult to disrupt. Unless we completely overhaul that system, we're stuck with this Catch-22.

Posted by Casey Miner on 06/18/08 at 12:50 PM | | Comments (3) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

National Review Lamely Attacks Mother Jones To Lamely Defend Phil Gramm

Is this the best a prominent conservative writer can do?

In the latest issue of National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru claims I penned a "hit piece" on Phil Gramm, the cochairman of John McCain's presidential campaign. Ponnuru does so in an article that accuses Mother Jones, Salon, Huffington Post, The Nation and Keith Olbermann of "smearing" Gramm with the threefold mission of discrediting Gramm, McCain, and deregulation. (Gramm, when he was the Republican chairman of the Senate banking committee, was the king of financial deregulation.) Ponnuru has little to say about the fact that Gramm is now an executive at Swiss banking behemoth UBS, who has lobbied Congress on behalf of the bank. Is it appropriate for a campaign official to be working for a foreign-based transnational? Several lobbyists have had to depart the McCain campaign because they toil for private interests. Does Ponnuru believe they should be welcomed back?

But on to his specific complaint about the article I wrote about Gramm. The piece focused on what I called a "sly legislative maneuver" pulled by Gramm in December 2000 that "greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown." During a week of chaos in Washington--Bush v. Gore was being decided by the Supreme Court, and Congress was trying to pass quickly an omnibus spending bill--Gramm attached to that massive spending bill a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. That bill deregulated financial instruments known as "credit default swaps," which, according to Michael Greenberger, who directed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's division of trading and regulation in the late 1990s, have been at "the heart of the subprime meltdown,"

Here's what Ponnuru wrote about that article:

The newest charge against Gramm is that the... 2000 legislation on the regulation of futures included a provision that deregulated "credit default option swaps." David Corn issued an indictment in Mother Jones, headlined "Foreclosure Phil":

Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. . . .

Credit default swaps are essentially insurance policies covering the losses on securities in the event of a default. Financial institutions buy them to protect themselves if an investment they hold goes south. . . . Because of the swap-related provisions of Gramm's bill -- which were supported by Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury secretary Larry Summers -- a $62 trillion market (nearly four times the size of the entire U.S. stock market) remained utterly unregulated, meaning no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed.

"Utterly unregulated" is an overstatement, but it is not necessary to get into the details to see the problem with Corn's account. To believe that Gramm was pulling a "sly legislative maneuver," you would have to think that Greenspan and Summers -- Clinton's Treasury secretary, that is -- were in on the conspiracy. In which case Gramm's claim to be "lead perp" looks pretty thin.

As right-of-center blogger Tom Maguire has pointed out, the credit-default provision of the law actually emerged from a Clinton administration working group.

Note that Ponnuru does not deny that the deregulation of swaps was one cause of the subprime mess. (In fact, as I reported in the article, UBS, explaining its $37 billion in subprime-related losses, pointed to credit default swaps.) Also note that he does not deny that Gramm was the legislator responsible for making this measure a reality. As the fellow who tacked it on to the must-pass spending bill immediately before the bill was to be voted on, he certainly can be assigned authorship. The commodities deregulation bill prior to Gramm's maneuver had been considered dead--even by Gramm himself.

Ponnuru has been reporting on Washington long enough to know that shoving a bill into a must-pass appropriations measure at the last minute qualifies as a "sly" move. Here's how a 2006 report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations--then chaired by Republican Senator Norm Coleman--put it: "The [commodities deregulation bill] was passed by both the House and Senate on December 15, the last day of the 106th Congress, as part of an omnibus legislative package involving 13 appropriations bills and several authorization bills. There was no opportunity for debate on any of the significant provisions." As one congressional aide told me about the measure's passage, "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it."

Ponnuru's logic is wanting. Just because Greenspan, Summers, and a Clinton administration working group also wanted to see swaps deregulated does not mean that Gramm did not pull a fast one. By the way, not everyone was on the swaps-deregulation express. Arthur Levitt, then the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, testified before a joint hearing of the Senate agriculture committee and Gramm's Senate banking committee that the wholesale deregulation of swaps would be dangerous: "In my judgment, the risk of this regulatory approach is simply unacceptable for America's investors. Moreover, I think there is no apparent public policy justification for this far-reaching provision." And Congress, through its normal deliberations, had not seen fit to pass the commodities bill.

Gramm slid the commodities into the spending bill at a hectic moment when few were paying attention. In classic Capitol Hill fashion, he exploited the situation. Does Ponnuru believe this style of governance is good for the Republic? As the guy who orchestrated this backdoor maneuver, doesn't Gramm qualify as lead perp? To award him that title doesn't mean there weren't other perps as well. In fact, it suggests there were.

Conservatives often spout off about responsibility and accountability. But Ponnuru wants to hand Gramm a pass. It was his bill (cosponsored by a few others). It was his action that turned the bill into law. It was the subsequent rise of unregulated credit default swaps that helped create the conditions for the subprime crisis. I encourage readers to review my article and Ponnuru's and decide which deserves to be labeled a "hit piece."

Posted by David Corn on 06/18/08 at 10:29 AM | | Comments (3) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Michael Gerson Has a Complete Lack of Self-Awareness

President Bush launched a war of choice against a country that posed no imminent threat to the United States by misrepresenting intelligence to the American public (or by not vetting intelligence fully enough and not seeking dissenting opinions, if you want to be kinder). That war of choice led to the death of over 4,000 young American men and women and the dismembering and disfiguring of 30,000 more. The number of Iraqis dead counts in the hundreds of thousands, most just civilians. Anti-Americanism has increased dramatically around the world, in both states we count as allies and as enemies, and terrorism has gone up along with it. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, black sites, rendition, waterboarding, and torture exacerbated all of these problems. Americans saw photos of detainees that our soldiers had hooked up to wires or attacked with dogs. President Bush threw fuel on the fire with a bellicosity and an insensitivity that helped turned even his own country against him. "Bring 'em on." "Now watch this drive." "Nope, no weapons over there."

But former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, creator of the phrase "axis of evil," needs you to understand — incivility is key. Incivility will ruin this country.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 06/18/08 at 8:35 AM | | Comments (7) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Flood of Divorces Begin Due to Gay Marriage in CA. That's How This Works, Right?

Heterosexuals were running wild in the streets of DC this morning, divorcing each other left and right. The reason? Yesterday was the first full day of gay marriage in California, and now the decline of marriage has set in.

Come to think of it, my grilled cheese sandwich was a little off last night. And I woke up with a crick in my neck. Must be the gays.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 06/18/08 at 8:19 AM | | Comments (12) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape |