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July 18, 2008

Misleading Headline of the Week: This. Is. Obama!

The front page of the Gray Lady makes my Friday. Headline:

"Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy"

First piece of advice? Tonight we dine in HELL!

In other news Gandalf and Frodo are advising Senator McCain.

Now on the San Francisco Ballot: The George W. Bush Sewage Plant

It's the mother lode of all potty jokes: In November, San Francisco voters will decide whether to rechristen the city's Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant as the George. W Bush Sewage Plant.

So great is the pun potential--Cleaning up Bush's mess! Memorializing the president of the affluent with effluent!--that Keith Olberman covered the issue with the help of a comedian and newspapers are dropping stinkers too (LA Times: "San Franciscans' Planned 'Tribute' to Bush Stirs Some Muck"). The website of the initiative's sponsor, the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, says, "No other president in American history has accomplished so much in such a short time." So much, well, you know.

In the spring the members of the Presidential Memorial Commission began circulating a petition in support of the measure, often in city parks, while wearing Uncle Sam outfits and blaring patriotic music from a boom box. Yesterday the San Francisco Department of Elections certified that they'd turned in enough valid signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot, opening a new chapter in the time-honored tradition of wacky San Francisco ballot measures.

Not everybody in the city supports the idea. Officials at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission say the plant is an award winning facility. (A more fitting memorial would be the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin, which in February spilled 2.7 million gallons of poop water into San Francisco Bay). San Francisco, after all, cleans up its own shit just fine.

AFRICOM: State Dept., USAID Concerned About "Militarization" of Foreign Aid

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), an organizational construct intended to unify the entire African continent (except Egypt) under a single U.S. commander, is due to become fully operational September 30. As described by the Pentagon, it will be a new sort of animal, a combatant command "plus," that will have the ability to mount military operations, but which will rely primarily on "soft power." AFRICOM "will support, not shape, U.S. foreign policy on the continent," Theresa Whelan, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, told a House subcommittee on Wednesday. But despite official assurances, concern is mounting that AFRICOM could stray from its "supporting" role to become the new center of power for U.S. activities in Africa. The issue is central to the ongoing debate over the new command's proper place.

At this week's hearing of the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, the first of two scheduled hearings on AFRICOM, General Michael Snodgrass and Ambassador Mary Yates, both members of the command's nascent leadership, assured lawmakers that AFRICOM is "a listening, growing, and developing organization dedicated to partnering with African governments, African security organizations, and the international community to achieve U.S. security goals by helping the people of Africa achieve the goals they have set for themselves." And to its credit, AFRICOM has gone out of its way to calm fears that it represents a new imperial push into the Dark Continent. (It even hosts a blog to keep the public informed of its progress.) AFRICOM's primary purpose, say proponents, will be to coordinate with the State Department and USAID in the pursuit of "stability operations"—one of the Pentagon's latest enthusiasms, encoded in Directive 3000.05, which places humanitarian and relief operations on a level plane with combat missions. (You can read my earlier piece on the subject here.)

But even AFRICOM's good intentions cannot disguise the geopolitical realities that compelled its creation. It's not about doing good works in impoverished countries for their own sake; It's about national interest. Countering China's growing military and economic influence in Africa and assuring access to some of the world's last remaining oil reserves top the list. (The United States now imports just as much oil from Africa as it does from the Middle East.) Terrorism also figures into the equation—primarily the elimination of ungoverned spaces terrorists might call home.

Not that these are unreasonable goals. On one level, the U.S. military's ability to adapt is impressive. But problems could arise if AFRICOM begins to lead policy rather than follow it. A report released yesterday by Refugees International shows that, in the years since 9/11, the Pentagon's slice of the nation's foreign aid budget has ballooned at the expense of more traditional providers, like USAID. From the report:

Although several high-level task forces and commissions have emphasized the urgne need to modernize our aid infrastructure and increase sustainable development activities, such assistance is increasingly being overseen by military institutions whose policies are driven by the Global War on Terror, not by the war against poverty. Between 1998 and 2005, the percentage of Official Development Assistance the Pentagon has controlled exploded from 3.5% to nearly 22%, while the percentage controlled by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shrunk from 65% to 40%.

As for foreign military financing, the Pentagon's bread and butter, "more than half of the FY09 budget request... is for just two countries—Djibouti and Ethiopia—considered key partners in the continental War on Terror."

AFRICOM has countered criticism of its "militarization" of foreign aid with reminders that its command structure will include representatives of other federal agencies, such as State and USAID, to ensure that policy is still guided by civilian authorities. This, for example, explains Ambassador Yates' appointment as "deputy to the commander for civil-military activities." But though the Pentagon had planned for 25 percent of AFRICOM's headquarters staff to come from federal civilian agencies, it recently revised the requirement down to just 4 percent, citing difficulty on the part of partner agencies to spare staff for inter-agency assignments. As the GAO's John Pendleton told the House subcommittee:

Although DOD has often stated that AFRICOM is intended to support, not lead, U.S. diplomatic and development efforts in Africa, State Department officials expressed concern that AFRICOM would become the lead for all U.S. government activities in Africa, even though the U.S. embassy leads decision-making on U.S. government non-combat activities in that country. Other State and USAID officials noted that the creation of AFRICOM could blur traditional boundaries among diplomacy, development, and defense, thereby militarizing U.S. foreign policy... Nongovernmental organizations are concerned that this would put their aid workers at greater risk if their activities are confused or associated with U.S. military activities.

Such concerns are overblown, says Whelan. "The intent is not for DOD generally, or for [AFRICOM] at the operational-level, to assume the lead in areas where State and/or USAID have clear lines of authority." Instead, AFRICOM will simply "allow the DOD to better coordinate its own efforts, in support of State Department leadership, to better build security capacity in Africa."

Messiah Watch: Obama as Neo

Apparently, Barack Obama is referred to sardonically as "The One" within the McCain campaign.

Sorry — that's actually pretty funny.

Obama Loses One Fundraising Advantage

We've covered the fundraising beat a little bit recently. Here's a new piece of news: Obama may be shifting to a more conventional top-dollar fundraising model. Washington Post:

Sen. Barack Obama reversed a three-month fundraising slide by raising $52 million in June... Obama's campaign would not say how much of his total was raised from small donors who gave online, and official reports are not due to be filed until Sunday. But an examination of his campaign schedule — which has been packed with high-dollar fundraising events — would suggest that he relied less on Internet donors than he did in February, when he took in $55.4 million...

The shift has been noticed by top Obama fundraisers, who have been busily planning the kind of big-money events the candidate was able to bypass in the heat of the primary campaign. Several said in interviews that the campaign is no longer seeing the kind of online bonanza that occurred during Obama's long battle with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, when more than $1 million was flowing in each day.

One of the advantages Obama is seen as having over McCain is his freedom from fundraisers. The theory goes that because Obama raises so much cash online, he can spend his time holding rallies instead of high-end fundraisers, thus improving his chances of winning and decreasing his dependence on fat cats.

I've asked the Obama campaign if they are seeing a decrease in small donors. But the WaPo's analysis of Obama's schedule suggests that no matter what the numbers say, the "freedom from fundraisers" advantage has been lost.

Part of a Peace Group? Might Want to Take a Look Around...

This is pretty horrifying. Here's UPI:

Undercover Maryland state troopers infiltrated three groups advocating peace and protesting the death penalty — attending meetings and sending reports on their activities to U.S. intelligence and military agencies, according to documents released Thursday.

The documents show the activities occurred from at least March 2005 to May 2006 and that officers used false names, which the documents referred to as "covert identities" — to open e-mail accounts to receive messages from the groups...

The [targeted] activist was identified as Max Obuszewski. His "primary crime" was entered into the database as "terrorism - anti govern(ment)." His "secondary crime" was listed as "terrorism - anti-war protestors."...

The documents, which include intelligence reports and printouts from the database, show that several undercover officers from the state police's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division attended meetings of three groups: Mr. Obuszewski's group; the Coalition to End the Death Penalty; and the Committee to Save Vernon Evans, a convicted murderer who was slated for execution.

The documents show at least 288 hours of surveillance over the 14-month period. The undercover officers attended at least 20 organizing meetings at community halls and churches and a dozen rallies against the death penalty, including several at the state's SuperMax jail in Baltimore.

Though everything the activists planned was peaceful and lawful, reports UPI, "information about the protesters and their activities was sent to seven agencies, including the National Security Agency and an unnamed military intelligence official."

Air Force Design Divas Request First Class 'Comfort Capsules'

Flat screen TVs, leather chairs, cherry wood, "aesthetically pleasing" carpeting and wall and ceiling treatments—sounds like the makings for some mack daddy digs, huh? Members of the Air Force brass thought so too, as they oversaw two programs designed to provide senior military leaders with luxury aircraft accommodations costing millions of dollars, some of it diverted from counter-terrorism funds.

According to records obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, which calls these first class upgrades "a gross misuse... of taxpayer dollars," only "world class" accoutrements would do when it came to Senior Leader In-Transit Comfort Capsules (SLICCs)—"comfort" was later changed to "conference"—and Senior Leader Intransit Pallets (SLIPs), readymade senior officers' quarters that can be loaded onto a variety of military cargo planes.

After receiving the first of four SLIPs that were requisitioned, at an estimated cost of $1.66 million, General Robert McMahon, the Air Force's deputy chief of staff for logistics, installations, and mission support was apparently less than satisfied with the finished product and requested that additional funds be spent to bring the accommodations up to his standards. "He directed that the leather be reupholstered from brown to Air Force blue leather and to replace the wood originally used to cherry," POGO's executive director Danielle Brian wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday. These changes alone cost an additional $113,000—about $84,000 of that to redo the four seats in each SLIP. A financial update [PDF] on the SLIP and SLICC projects in March noted that "cost increases have virtually all been in the area of materials and other non-labor costs due to the expense of SLICC/SLIP components and costs incurred by changing design details that were previously finalized."

As Brian points out in her letter to Gates, paying millions for a handful of tricked out cabins seems a wee bit egregious given the "deplorable state" of the seat pallets used to transport the troops. She writes, "This case is just the latest in a long string of examples which illustrate a disconnect between the senior leadership of the Air Force from the increasingly pressing needs of servicemen and women (including those inside the Air Force) in the current and likely near term conflicts our country faces."

Next Week: The Overseas Obama Extravaganza

Get read for all Obama, all the time.

The three network anchors will travel to Europe and the Middle East next week for Barack Obama's trip, adding their high-wattage spotlight to what is already shaping up as a major media extravaganza.

Lured by an offer of interviews with the Democratic presidential candidate, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric will make the overseas trek, meaning that the NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts will originate from stops along the route and undoubtedly give it big play.

John McCain has taken three foreign trips in the past four months, all unaccompanied by a single network anchor... Some 200 journalists have asked to accompany Obama on the costly trip, which will include stops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the campaign will be able to accommodate only one-fifth that number.

There are rumblings among the punditry (see MSNBC's First Read, for example) that Obama is risking the appearance of arrogance: the tour through Europe feels like a victory tour and the visits with Iraqi and Afghani leaders in front of thousands of cameras seem to ignore the fact that Obama doesn't have much of a record here — he has only been to Iraq once before, and he has never visited Afghanistan. The right is already using this line against him. Charles Krauthammer today: "The Audacity of Vanity."

I'm of the mind that if Obama can appear cool, comfortable, and presidential in a foreign environment, it will underscore his capability at a moment where there are doubts about McCain's. While no one is going to believe that Obama has impeccable foreign policy credentials because he makes one overseas trip, it may emphasize his competence.

As for the McCain campaign, it knows it's in a tough spot next week. NBC News is reporting that McCain's advisers acknowledge they may have to "fight for scraps that fall off the table" when it comes to media coverage. Considering how things have been going lately, keeping McCzechoslovakia out of the spotlight might be a good thing.

An All-American Advertisement

The above ad is running on the Washington Post website. It's sponsored by the Renewable Fuels Association, which is the national trade association for the U.S. ethanol industry. I find it interesting because it is clearly an attempt to integrate ethanol into an all-American image. The ad could be called "Blonds, Babies, and Biofuels." (Or, "Babes, Babes, and Biofuels.") All it needs, in addition to the young mother and her smiling tot, is an apple pie cooling on the roof of the car and a flag waving in the background.

Ethanol is far from perfect, a fact we've been writing about for ages. But because it's produced by hard-bitten farmers in places like Iowa, it's probably the renewable energy source most likely to be integrated into our sense of national identity. And that's a start. After ethanol, hopefully we can move onto the stuff that works.

Gramm and McCain Still Close Pals? That's Good News for Dems

Robert Novak reports--and his reporting is not always spot-on--that John McCain has forgiven Phil Gramm after Gramm called America a "nation of whiners" and dismissed current economic troubles as nothing more than a "mental recession." According to Novak, "Gramm will continue as an adviser and surrogate" for McCain. Gramm is still cochairman of McCain's presidential campaign.

This reporting counters recent news stories that Gramm has been nudged aside within McCainland. If it is true, Democrats can only respond this way: good! Gramm is a wonderful--and deserving--target for Dems and the Obama campaign. But not only because his out-of-touch remarks seemed to reflect the inner thinking of McCain and his advisers. Gramm represents much of what has gone wrong with the economy. As chairman of the Senate banking committee, he championed relentless deregulation that led in part to the subprime mess and to the Enron debacle. After leaving the Senate, he then became a lobbyist and executive for Swiss bank giant UBS. (Remember when McCain used to blast lobbyists?) These days UBS is in the news for allowing wealthy American clients to park money off-shore (perhaps illegally) to avoid taxes.

So McCain was happy to recruit Gramm for his campaign--despite his past record, ideas, policies, and lobbying activity--and look to him for economic advice. He saw nothing wrong with Grammonomics. That's the issue, more so than Gramm's impolitic comments. And if Novak is right--and that may be a nice-sized if--the Gramm issue remains, for Phil Gramm remains within the warm embrace of John McCain.

UPDATE: On Friday, Gramm quit as cochairman of the McCain campaign. Maybe Novak got it wrong. But Gramm did not say he would no longer be advising McCain.

Polling the Ohio Pols

Barack Obama and John McCain may be sparring over several different issues—Iran, Iraq, health care, immigration—in their fight for the White House, but, at least in swing states Ohio and Florida, one issue trumps them all: the economy.

An NPR poll conducted with the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard's School of Public Health shows (.pdf) more than 50 percent of respondents in both states say their pocketbooks will be the most important issue guiding their votes in November. When pollsters combined respondents' first and second most pressing concerns, the economy showed up 70 percent of the time.

This could bode well for Obama and his fellow party members, especially in Ohio, where some counties face unemployment rates of more than eight percent. "It does help the Democrats," says Johnnie Maier, chairman of the Democratic party in Stark County, Ohio, which historically has acted as bellwether county in presidential elections. "When George W. Bush took office, we had a budget surplus. We didn't have a housing crisis. Now we're replacing what used to be living-wage jobs with part-time jobs at places like Wal-Mart—a major Chinese importer. It's beyond a mess."

The Democrats in Columbus second that sentiment. "There isn’t a stunt, a gimmick or an attack ad in the book that can save John McCain and the Republicans if Ohio voters walk into the voting booth thinking about their jobs, their mortgages, their gas tanks or their grocery bills,” Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Alex Goepfert wrote in an email.

But, as Ohio GOP spokesman John McClelland told me, "John Kerry made the economy his central issue in Ohio four years ago, and he lost. Ohio’s economy will not be revived by raising taxes on small businesses and taxing energy, and that’s exactly what Barack Obama plans to do."

The Florida Republican Party also downplayed the notion the economy will help the Democrats there. "It doesn't necessarily help them," says Katie Gordon, a spokeswoman. "I can't speak for Senator McCain, but we've supported tax cuts and we're taking on the insurance industry to lower property insurance rates. When voters go to the polls, they're going to remember that. And I think they'll remember Senator McCain has advocated that same type of platform—lower taxes and lower spending—that hit them right in their pocketbooks."

For more on what Florida's thinking, watch this video from Miami's recent Live From Main Street town hall:

—Steve Aquino

Diddling While America Burns

This must have been how the peasants felt, watching Nero fiddle a merry tune while Rome burned.

Gasoline approaches $5 a gallon, runs on our banks are just barely averted, the war on terror drags on and on and what are we obsessed with? A magazine cover, now that the New Yorker's suddenly embraced satiric ones, and Bernie Mac's barely funny jokes at an Obama fundraiser. Imagine...a comedian making luke warm fun of the probable next Prez's marital woes. Heavens!

Do our problems seem so insoluble that we don't know what else to tackle but inanities like this? The only good that can come of this puerility is the fodder it provides for those of us who teach journalism (students, see: what not to do). It's twaddle like this that makes good journalism so much more precious. Wanna feed your brain instead of swaddle it in crap, wanna encourage journalists to produce more of it? Here are three items not to miss.

First, check out this bloggingheads.tv discussion between Michelle Goldberg and Rebecca Traister, two of my favorite young, outside-the-box feminist journalists. They expand my thinking and piss me off in all the best ways.

Then read this article in this week's New Yorker, instead of just about its cover. It's an utterly fascinating, very detailed history and analysis of a young Obama making the journey from idealistic neophyte to squinty-eyed professional politician.

I'm somewhat afraid of him now, even as I realize that only after such a process could anyone, let alone someone like Obama, be a stone's throw from the Oval. If you want to really understand the man who may well be our next president, a president in some of the most perilous times we've ever faced, don't miss articles like this one.

You can't read, or listen to, these while you're driving, and you might just have to miss that TMZ video of some stupid celeb buying cheez doodles, but it's well worth it.

If you really want to do your job as a thinking adult and voter, read this Nation piece by Kai Wright. She, too, did something that I just love to hate: She's forcing me to admit that maybe, just maybe, I didn't know what the hell I was talking about when I wrote this about the mortgage debacle.

The subprime crisis isn't simple. It isn't about wanna be Donald Trumps buying McMansions. Rather, it wasn't just about that. I had plenty of working class relatives, as early as the 80s, making fools of themselves and losing their homes refinancing at terms they refused to understand and spending the money on trips to Bermuda, shoes and big screen TVs. But now it's clear that there was a clear pattern of deception, hard sell, and outright fraud in these loans. And that they were specifically targeted at poor, elderly blacks, and black neighborhoods.

You have to read all the way to the end for the proof I found most staggering, but the fact remains that blacks depend, to a far greater extent than others on their home equity as the basis of what scant wealth we hold as a community, and there was a concerted, ruthless effort made to defraud us; check out the parts, near the end, about how the Yellow Page-sized mortgage documents were forged to show retirees who were actually pulling in $2000 a month as fixed income being shown to have monthly incomes of nearly $5000.

Grandma and Grandpa Washington didn't prepare those documents, IndyMac did—then sent ruthless MBAs to their ghetto homes to pressure them into signing. Entire black communities have been decimated, our future generations bereft of any low-dollar amount inheritance ever in the offing (1 in 4 whites receive a bequest while only 1 in 10 blacks do. Even then, blacks get only half as much).

I have more reading to do on all these issues, but wading through the mega pixels of brain-killing nonsense we readers seem to prefer has me more determined than ever to do so.

July 17, 2008

When W Talks Down

Try this one on for size: W wouldn't dare talk down to his citizens by suggesting they drive less and conserve near $5/gallon gas. From Politico:

"I mean, you know, it's interesting what the price of gasoline has done," Bush said at a news conference in the White House press room, "is it caused people to drive less. That's why they want smaller cars: They want to conserve. But the consumer's plenty bright. The marketplace works."

"It's a little presumptuous on my part to dictate how consumers live their own lives," the president added. "I've got faith in the American people."

Unless, of course, the American people are women who want to control their own bodies.

Now that I think about it, it seems to me that his psycho statement is a serious signal that Bush is in so deep with the corporate-crook mafia, especially the ones profiting from the Iraq War, that he doesn't even dare pay lip service to anything that might leave him with nobody but his own mama in his corner. C'mon, he could beg us to drive less, to (hee hee) take the bus, to urge that our city and state governments develop mass transit systems. Then he and the other bwanas could chuckle and elbow each other as they watched the broadcast in their country clubs and mansions. "Good one, George. Good one." Is he so afraid of ticking off the oligarchs that he can't even pretend to care how the little people live?

What else explains this kind of double speak? God forbid the president tell Americans to listen to good advice on gas consumption.

Now check this out, from Women's eNews:

The White House is trying to define emergency contraception as abortion. And require family planning facilities to hire practitioners regardless of their views on abortion and contraception, including emergency contraception.

Under the draft proposal, federally funded hospitals and clinics that provide family planning services would be required to promise in writing that they will turn a blind eye to health care providers' views on abortion and certain kinds of birth control, such as emergency contraception...

In other words, health care providers would have the right to refuse to provide patients with comprehensive information about abortion or birth control even if they ask for it.

Now, these are the same folks who fought for the right of faith-based organizations' receiving public funds to employment-discriminate against non-believers.

Unbelievable the hypocrisy of the loony right these days. The two stories separately are mind boggling, but together?

You have to wonder exactly flavor Kool-Aid these kooks are drinking these days. Just how much hypocrisy is enough before the electorate wakes up?

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Fed

How comforted should we feel by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's pronouncement that the country's largest mortgage-finance companies are in "no danger of failing"? Or this week's rebound in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae shares?

Not as comforted as Congress now appears to be. No, we don't have 25 percent unemployment, or the bread lines of the early 1930s, but anyone who lives in Indymac's hometown of Pasadena, California knows we're seeing bank runs. And while it's all well and good for the SEC to restrict the short selling of Fannie, Freddie and primary bond dealers, when whole countries are dumping US stocks and bonds, something more drastic is required.

The bottom line is that Fannie and Freddie's problems didn't happen overnight. The rating agencies have had Fannie on credit watch since 2004. In mid 2003, Freddie announced it had misstated earnings by $5 billion in years past. All that, notwithstanding the fact that the volume of mortgages they backed shot through the roof between 2003 and 2005.

As government sponsored entities, the finance industry and its investors have loved Fannie and Freddie. They are the perfect mortgage guarantors: too important to fail, too big to monitor for rising risk and loss. That must change.

Maybe Fannie and Freddie should be nationalized, as was FDR's 1938 intent when he created Fannie to help American homeowners get back on their feet after the Great Depression. Or maybe loan re-negotiation should be made mandatory on the part of lenders, so they get some money back rather than risk further damage to the overall system with unnecessary foreclosures.

One clear need: Legislate total transparency and accountability for every mortgage loan extended, packaged and traded for all the parties who come into contact with them.

Above all, it's time for those who continue to blame the 'whiner' borrowers to understand that the extent of credit damage in the system is way beyond the unpaid mortgages of subprime loans. The entire lending, banking and trading community has borrowed itself into this corner, bringing the rest of the economy down with it. The fix has to be strong, regulatory, meaningful and lasting.

This is uncomfortable for everyone in Washington, but ignoring it will not make it go away. Meanwhile, addressing the short and medium term problem of keeping the bigger institutions afloat—or at the very least, people's deposits safe—will require new funding sources (especially if foreign central banks slow their footing of our debt.) Unfortunately, that will also mean higher taxes and cutting the war in Iraq. McCain and Obama should make that connection.

—Nomi Prins

Nomi Prins is a former managing director at Goldman Sachs and frequent contributor to Mother Jones.

Pre Pre-Negotiations?

With the media and international affairs observers focused on the Bush administration's decision to send a US envoy to international nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva this weekend, this detail in a wire report out of the Turkish capital Ankara today is interesting. From the AP, who's in Turkey today? White House national security advisor Stephen Hadley. What's he doing there? According to the AP report, talking about Iran. And who is coming to Turkey tomorrow? Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Now, Turkey has been playing the role of mediator - for a long time secretly, and recently openly - in indirect proximity talks between long time adversaries Israel and Syria. One wonders, is Turkey hosting some sort of pre pre-negotiations now between the US and Iran?

One former State Department official tells me that is unlikely. "It seems highly improbable… If only because it would undercut (or worse) the prospective Jalili-Burns meeting on Saturday. Mottaki is far less influential, so why would you have a more senior [US government] official do a sit-down with him?"

But Abdullah Akyuz, Washington president of the Tusiad Turkish business association, tells me Turkey and its ruling Ak party has been playing a growing role as mediator between Iran, Syria, and the West.

A former White House official tells me it strikes him as plausible. "I believe anything is plausible at this point," he said. "While Hadley would be a level higher and bring the prestige of the White House into play, a huge step was already taken in sending [Undersecretary of State for political affairs] Bill Burns to Geneva. Moreover, [Secretary of State] Condi [Rice] may want the prestige of the White House invested so that she is not the focal point of conservative wrath.

"[Rice] often employs the 'are you betraying the president?' argument stopper whenever she is contradicted or challenged," the former White House official continued. "So she would be eager to ensure Bill Burns' mission doesn't leave her standing alone as the target in the crosshairs of conservatives, and to get the investment of the Oval Office into her policy."

For his part, another former State Department official says he doesn't think Hadley's visit to Turkey has to do with Iran. "Nor would he use the Turks as an intermediary with Iran."

Turkish daily Sabah reports: "Hadley was in Ankara yesterday and gave messages on the meeting with Iran: 'There will not be any negotiations unless Teheran quits their uranium program.' ... Hadley sent messages to Iran before the meeting in Geneva and held a confidential summit with the security consultants of nine countries, members of NATO. Hadley said: 'We did not sign a confidential agreement with Iran. The US minister of foreign affairs assistant William Burns will go to Geneva for showing our diplomatic efforts and the gravity of our suggestion to Geneva.'"

More here.

(Photo of US national security advisor Stephen Hadley and Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, via Turkish daily Zaman.)

Expanding the Map: Obama Money Funneled to Key State Parties

The Democratic Party has set up a fundraising mechanism that automatically funnels ~~a portion of every dollar Barack Obama raises~~ some of the money Obama raises* to state parties in 18 states. Here's Roll Call:

The new fund, the Committee for Change, will parcel a fixed percentage of the contributions it receives to each of the 18 state parties, infusing those parties with new federal dollars and a list of new donors who can be helpful in future campaigns.

Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the DNC, says this move has the power to strengthen the party long-term. "This is going to help us build the party up and down the ticket in all of those states," he said.

Here's the important part. Check out the list of states: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

A number of these are standard swing states: New Mexico (Bush by 1 percent in 2004), New Hampshire (Kerry by 1), Iowa (Bush by 1), Michigan (Kerry by 3), Ohio (Bush by 2), etc. But a number are solid red states that haven't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in years, and tend to produce lopsided Republican victories.

Alaska? Bush 61, Kerry 36. Georgia? Bush 58, Kerry 41. Indiana? Bush 60, Kerry 38. North Dakota? Bush 63, Kerry 36.

But Obama is not Kerry, and the political environment of 2008 is not the political environment of 2004. The Democratic Party is betting on three things. (1) Obama's appeal to independents in these states means tying him to downticket Democrats actually gives those Dems a chance to win for the first time. (2) Obama may not win in these states, but a little extra cash might make them competitive, thus forcing John McCain to campaign and make ad buys in places he previously thought safe. And (3) the political environment is so bad for Republicans right now that if there is any time where Democrats can bring new voters into the fold, it's now. Using this money to build out party operations will be helpful in 2008, but also in 2012 and 2016.

*Clarified with the press team at the DNC. Donors who write checks to the Obama campaign directly will have their money put to Obama and Obama alone. But donors who write checks (presumably larger donors) to this Committee for Change will see their money divided between Obama, the DNC, and the 18 states.

Republican Donors Starving Downticket Candidates to Feed McCain

Interesting observation from MSNBC's First Read:

McCain really doesn't have a money problem. In fact, as Rick Davis bragged last week, money isn't going to be the issue many thought it would be just two months ago. Why is this? It appears many Republican donors are buying into the argument that the ONLY shot Republicans have of winning anything is the presidency. And this is hurting Republicans running for the House and Senate where Democrats are dominating on the financial front. Yesterday, the DSCC released a list of 11 races being held in GOP-held seats, and the Democrats were nearly on par or ahead in every race, according to the most recent fundraising report. Question: Are we seeing the reverse '96 effect taking place inside the GOP? In 1996, the word went out that Dole was a lost cause, and all of the GOP's resources went to saving House and Senate candidates in order to preserve their control of Congress.

Obama raised $52 million in June, while the DNC raised $22.4 million. Together, they reportedly have $92 million cash on hand. McCain raised $22 million in June, with the RNC adding $25.7 million. Together, they have $95 million on hand.

So yeah, McCain is hanging tough in the money race. We'll see if that continues into the general election period after the conventions.

White House Threatens Veto Over Expanded Intelligence-Sharing With Congress

On Wednesday, the House passed the Intelligence Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2009 (H.R.5959), which, once reconciled with its Senate counterpart, will travel up Pennsylvania Avenue for the president's signature. It's unlikely to get it, though, for the bill has become the latest flash point in the White House's ongoing battle to expand executive power.

The bill contains provisions calling for prohibiting detainees from being interrogated by contractors (like at Abu Ghraib); the establishment of an inspector general of intelligence; regular reports to Congress on the nuclear weapons programs of Iran, Syria, and North Korea; and a regular National Intelligence Estimate on Syria's WMD programs. More controversial, though, and more troubling to the White House, it mandates that the president provide members of the House intelligence oversight committee with expanded access to secret information about intelligence activities (such as classified legal opinions, risk assessments, and cost estimates), and requires that the intelligence community brief the committee on all covert actions that were in effect as of April 24, 2008. The bill details a punishment for White House non-compliance: 75 percent of the budget for covert actions will be withheld.

The White House is not pleased by this, and released a document (.pdf) on Wednesday morning making clear its objections. The threat to limit funding for covert operations until congressmen are briefed, the document says, "is inconsistent with the statute that expressly authorizes limited notice to Congress in exceptional cases and would undermine the fundamental compact between the Congress and the President on reporting highly sensitive intelligence matters—an arrangement that for decades has balanced congressional oversight responsibility with the need to protect intelligence information." As for the demand to up the flow of classified information to congressional oversight committees, the White House says it "goes beyond any legitimate oversight function" and simply encourages "micromanagement of [Intelligence Community] activities." If the bill makes it to the president's desk with any of these provisions attached, "senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill."

This is not the first time that an intelligence authorization bill has run smack into White House instransigence. It's now been three years since Congress and the White House have been able to reach an accommodation. Why? "This administration wants maximum authority and maximum discretion," says Steve Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, who blogs at Secrecy News. "It lashes out at any semblance of checks and balances." Even if Congress presents few obstacles to the White House having its way. "Up until now, oversight has been pretty crappy!" says Aftergood. "I think that's the problem... Information sharing is indispensable to the oversight process. If we want congressional oversight, the committees need access to this basic information."

Meantime, if Congress, as is expected, yields to pressure from the the White House, as it has done the last three years, the intelligence community need not worry about its budget for undercover operations. As has become routine, the funding provisions (minus the new proposals) will be attached to an unrelated bill and signed into law. And, once again, the Bush-Cheney White House will have thwarted congressional oversight.

July 16, 2008

Primary Sources: Gitmo Interrogations (Video and Memos)

We knew Gitmo had juvie, but this video really hammers home just what 'juvenile interrogation' means. From the Guardian, above is the alleged first live action peek into a Guantanamo interrogation. The subject? Sobbing Canadian 16-year-old (at the time) Omar Khadr.

Knowing how we got to this point doesn't make it any more palatable. But it does make this treasure trove of internal memos and primary source documents I stumbled across recently while fact-checking even more revealing.

For example, check out the 'milder' options listed in this Joint Task Force Guantanamo 2002 internal memo (PDF) which starts with "SUBJECT: Request for Approval of Counter-Resistance Strategies":

"Switching the detainee from hot rations to MREs...forced grooming (shaving of facial hair, etc.)...Using detainees [SIC] individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress."

Even more poignant is this passage from the infamous 2002 Bybee memo (37 page PDF):

It is our understanding that your Department is considering two basic plans regarding the treatment of members of al Qaeda and the Taliban militia detained during the Afghanistan conflict. First, the Defense Department intends to make available a facility at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba ("GTMO"), for the long-term detention of these individuals.

There's something about looking at the actual memos that preceded everything we know now that makes these primary source documents particularly painful—and important—to examine.

—Nichole Wong

Washington's Iran Pivot: How Big a Shift?

Even as some Washington observers were still marveling at the Bush administration’s decision to send a diplomatic envoy to international nuclear talks with Iran to be held in Geneva this weekend, some analysts and close administration associates cautioned that the Bush administration really had not changed its underlying demand that Iran halt uranium enrichment before agreeing to sustained negotiations, and that the new diplomatic approach could be stillborn.

"If [Tehran agreeing to] zero enrichment is the expressed [US] objective, then this could be dead on arrival," said Trita Parsi, president of the pro-engagement National Iranian American Council. "If [the US] is more flexible, and will consider something along [former US diplomat Thomas] Pickering’s plan," for an internationally supervised nuclear enrichment facility in Tehran, then the talks might have some momentum, he said.

"Nothing has changed," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Wednesday. “If they don't accept this offer, one, there will not be negotiations and two, there will be additional sanctions."

“The substantive position remains unchanged -- substantive negotiations on the issues await Iranian suspension of uranium enrichment,” said Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. US Iran envoy William J. “Burns will personally reinforce that message and join the Europeans in hearing the response.

“The US and our allies are against unconditional negotiations,” Zelikow continued. “Our main allies, like our government, don't believe that talking is an end in itself. Otherwise we'll talk and talk; they'll build and build. Not a formula likely to relax tension.

“Instead talks have to be part of a plausible strategy, a means to an end,” he continued. “The objective is to stop Iran's nuclear enrichment. The chosen strategy, at this time, is still to bring maximum peaceful pressure on the Iranian regime to make that choice.”

“The challenge for Iran is to convince everyone that our goal is being realized (note the grammar here, as this is a continuous process that extends indefinitely into the future), and that means building confidence first through a suspension of enrichment while we work out arrangements that achieve our goal with extremely high confidence,” said one US official closely involved with Iran policy in an email. “If Iran wants to create a nuclear weapon, as many suspect, then they will resist the necessary measures to convince us that our goal is being realized and this will go nowhere fast. Keep your eye on that ball and you will know where this is going. But if the Iranians have decided to declare victory and work this out, then much is possible.

“Diplomacy is the art of letting the other guy have your way,” he added. “Let’s see what happens next.”

(Photo of Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William J. Burns, courtesy of the State Department.)

John McCain's Looming Seniors Problem

Social Security was not a battle John McCain wanted to fight. The Arizona Senator has avoided putting out a concrete plan on Social Security (his website, for example, doesn't have a section on the issue), and he has been less than exact in his public comments on the subject throughout the campaign.

Unfortunately for him, his flub last week in which he described the basic funding mechanism of Social Security as a "disgrace" — "Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today, and that's a disgrace, it's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed" — has given labor unions and seniors' groups, in conjunction with the Democratic Party, the opportunity to highlight McCain's past support for President Bush's highly unpopular plan to privatize Social Security.

On a conference call with reporters today, a coalition of groups similar to the one that fought Bush's privatization initiative in 2005 announced that they would mobilize their supporters and members in the hopes of informing voters nationwide of the fact that, as AFSCME International President Gerald McEntee put it, John McCain wants to "gamble with Social Security." In addition to an online campaign, they plan to have volunteers protest McCain events in the near future. Many will be holding yellow signs provided by the DNC that say "Hands Off My Social Security" on one side and "My Social Security Is Not a Disgrace" on the other. According to a spokesman for the coalition, they will be "heavily incorporating the anti-privatization message on the road at each of the nearly 150 stops on the Bush Legacy Tour." The DNC has made a video highlighting McCain's record on Social Security to accompany the campaign.

McCain opened himself up to these attacks by refusing to take a firm position on the issue. In fact, Social Security appears to be one of an increasing number of issues where McCain has multiple positions at the same time.

In June, McCain said, "I'm not for quote privatizing Social Security, I never have been, I never will be." He makes similar comments frequently. Also this year he said, "I will not privatize Social Security. It is a government program and it's necessary. But it's broken! And we gotta tell the American people that we gotta fix it. But my friends I will not privatize Social Security and it's not true when I'm accused to that."

But in March, McCain told the Wall Street Journal:

Q: In 2000, you campaigned for president on a plan to use a part of payroll taxes to create Social Security private accounts. Now your Web site talks about accounts as "supplements" to Social Security. Why the change?

A: Actually, I'm totally in favor of personal savings accounts and I think they are an important opportunity for young workers. I campaigned in support of President Bush's proposal and I campaigned with him, and I did town hall meetings with him.

In October 2007, in a presidential primary debate, he said, "We need personal savings accounts." In 2004 and 2005, he repeatedly praised privatization and campaigned with the President for the President's privatization plan.

Today, the closest McCain will come to articulating a position is this: "I would like for young workers — younger workers, only — to have an opportunity to take a few of their tax dollars, few of theirs, and maybe put it into an account with their name on it."

Is that close enough to privatization to freak out seniors? Quite possibly. Especially if they realize that all the money youngsters put into personal savings accounts would ordinarily be going to them. And the coalition of labor and seniors' groups that spoke today on the conference call are going to do everything they can to recreate the magic of 2005, when they convinced not just seniors but a wide swath of Americans that privatization — or anything like it — was too much of a risk to Americans' retirement security to be undertaken. As AFSCME President McEntee said today, "We've got some experience on this."

Lieberman: Trading Facts for Fear To Help McCain

On Wednesday, Senator Joe Lieberman went on Fox News (where else?) to blast Barack Obama for sticking to what Lieberman called a policy of surrender in Iraq. And he slammed the presumptive Democratic nominee for his upcoming trip to Iraq:

He's already decided his position. He's not going to listen to Petraeus. He's not going to listen to our troops. He's not going to listen to his own eyes with what he sees there. I think that's not the kind of leadership we need in the Oval Office.

Listen to his own eyes? It's as if Lieberman was channeling George W. Bush. But put that aside. Lieberman was trotting out again his I-know-Iraq-best stance, as he continues to be a leading surrogate for John McCain on the war and terrorism. But why should Lieberman have any standing on these matters? He can be as uninformed about national security as McCain (who several times confused Shia and Sunni). Two weeks ago, Lieberman appeared on Face the Nation and said,

But we need a president who's ready to be commander in chief on day one. Senator McCain is....Why? Because our enemies will test the new president early. Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. Nine-eleven happened in the first year of the Bush administration. John McCain is ready to take the reins on January 20th, 2009. He doesn't need any training.

Was Lieberman right in his history? Do the evildoers really mount terrorist operations to test new presidents early in their terms? I put this question to Peter Bergen, a journalist who is an expert on al Qaeda and terrorism. (He's written two good books on al Qaeda.) Bergen replies:

The planning cycle of these ops militate against the idea that they were planned to test the new president. 9/11 was on the drawing board in 1996 and serious planning began in 1999.

There is no doubt al Qaeda would like to test a new president with an attack but they also hoped to test President Bush in 2006 with the plan to blow up seven US and Canadian planes leaving the UK. Had it succeeded this would have been a 9/11 style event six year into Bush's two-term presidency.

Similarly, Ahmed Ressam arrived in the United States in December 1999 from Canada, planning to blow up LAX airport in the waning days of Clintons presidency. Luckily he was arrested, but the attack was supposed to take place in the final days of the Clinton presidency, not because of presidential politics but because that was when the plotters were ready. And also Xmas in LAX probably meant more potential victims.

So the al Qaeda operations Lieberman cited were likely not planned as tests of a new president. And al Qaeda certainly did not cook up the Millennium Bomber operation as a test, given that Ressam and his comrades could have waited a few weeks and attempted to blow up the Los Angeles airport once George W. Bush was in office. Bergen also left off his list the USS Cole attack, which occurred on October 12, 2000--that is, toward the end of the Clinton presidency, rather than at the beginning of his successor's.

Thus, by citing 9/11 and the 1993 WTC bombings as an indication that terrorist will aim to strike the U.S. soon after the next president hangs new curtains in the Oval Office, Lieberman was mangling the historical record to scare people into voting for McCain. As the chairman of the Senate homeland security committee, he should literally know better--about the planning of these al Qaeda operations. But were Lieberman to stick to established facts, he'd have a tougher time fear-mongering.

What's Next for Gitmo?

Now that detainees held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have the right of habeas corpus, members of one congressional body are asking, how will that work?

While the Supreme Court, with its decision in Boumediene v. Bush, granted prisoners held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo the right to their day in court, many questions remain unanswered—including whether the Boumediene decision applies to "enemy combatant" prisoners held by the US in facilities other than the famed prison camp in Cuba. On Monday, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, an entity of Congress also known as the Helsinki Commission, asked the guidance of three experts in a packed hearing room. (Though officials from the departments of justice, defense, and state were invited to testify, none attended.)

Much of the argument against granting full rights under US and international law to enemy combatants centers on the possibility those prisoners will "return to the battlefield" if released. While that's an acknowledged risk, said Jeremy Shapiro, research director for the Brookings Institution's Center on the United States and Europe, there's more to consider.

"The question of whether a returned detainee poses a danger needs to be weighed against the danger that the existence of Guantanamo is doing every day in creating recruits for terrorism," he said. "It is not simply the case that you will release somebody into a static pool of terrorists. The problem of Guantanamo, the image of Guantanamo, is creating in Europe and the world is, I would argue, on a daily basis adding to our terrorism problem."

Matthew Waxman, now a Columbia Law School professor, served as the Pentagon's chief legal adviser on detainee issues, where he earned the ire of David Addington, the famed enforcer for Vice President Dick Cheney. Waxman's transgression? Insisting that Pentagon guidelines on detainee treatment incorporate language from the Geneva Conv