McCain crosses picket line to appear on Leno.
McCain crosses picket line to appear on Leno.
Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani crossed a Writers Guild of America picket line for a joint appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Former Massachusetts Mitt Romney, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee also crossed the WGA picket line in the past month for apperances on Leno.
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Glenn Beck’s Rants Against ‘Juan McCain’ Would Not Be Welcome At RedState.com
Glenn Beck’s Rants Against ‘Juan McCain’ Would Not Be Welcome At RedState.com
Discussing last night’s GOP debate on his radio show today, Glenn Beck and fill-in host Pat Gray mocked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by derisively calling him “Juan McCain.” Beck, who considers McCain’s sponsorship of a comprehensive immigration bill and the Mexican background of his national director of Hispanic outreach to be “an audacious slap in the face to the American people,” proudly advertised the segment in his daily e-mail to listeners today:
During the segment, Beck also commented on a new campaign by the National Council of La Raza that targets him and Lou Dobbs for their rhetoric, which La Raza believes “demonizes immigrants and Hispanic Americans.” Beck suggested that La Raza’s campaign to get him off the air “before the election” may be “connected” to McCain. Listen to the segment:
La Raza isn’t the only group that doesn’t appreciate Beck’s brand of Latino-phobic humor. On the conservative community blog RedState.com today, Leon H. Wolf posted a message to “commenters,” that it is “not fine, okay, or within the bounds of the rules” to “use Latino names as an insult.” Wolf says users will be “banned for doing it” at Red State:
What is not fine, okay, or within the bounds of the rules, is to use Latino names as an insult. We are speaking, specifically, of “Jorge Arbusto” and “Juan McCain,” although it’s certainly possible that others are floating out there or may yet be invented. Allow me to clue anyone who thinks these names are funny or clever in to something: racism isn’t clever or funny. If you think you’ve really zinged someone by calling them by a Latino name, that’s a pretty reliable (nearly infallible, in fact) indicator that you don’t like Latino people.
Since he can’t help showing his “disdain for Latino people,” CNN host Glenn Beck would apparently be banned from posting on one of the top conservative blogs.
UPDATE: On Beck’s CNN Headline News show last night, Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist compared La Raza to the KKK while smearing the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Hours After Siding With States On Emissions Waiver, Romney Flips And Backs The White House
Hours After Siding With States On Emissions Waiver, Romney Flips And Backs The White House
Last month, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson denied California a waiver that would have allowed 16 states to implement landmark automobile greenhouse emissions reductions.
In last night’s Republican presidential debate, all four candidates said they supported California’s efforts. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney emphasized that states should “be able to make their own regulations with regards to emissions.” He confirmed again later in the debate:
Q: Just so I’m clear, you said you side with the states. That means you side with Governor Schwarzenegger —
ROMNEY: I side with states being able to make their own decisions, even if I don’t always agree with the decisions they make.
Watch it:
But Romney didn’t want to side with the environment for too long. The AP reports that “[a]fter the debate,” — and after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — “Romney’s campaign issued a statement in which he said that the federal government, not individual states, should set limits on carbon emissions.”
Romney’s alleged support of California’s emissions waiver is further discredited by the fact that on Jan. 4, he was skeptical of states’ efforts in an interview with the Detroit News Editorial Board:
[The energy bill] does maintain the distinction between light trucks and automotive (standards), which is encouraging, although it leaves open the door to states putting in place tougher standards and the EPA putting in place additional regulations.
For Romney, every problem has multiple answers.
UPDATE: Romney’s statement below: More »
Fox News political contributor Karl Rove.
Fox News political contributor Karl Rove.
President Bush’s close political adviser Karl Rove will reportedly be joining Fox News as an on-air contributor to be “used throughout Super Tuesday coverage.”
$3 million per minute hour.
$3 million per minute hour.
Royal Dutch Shell “reignited anger over excessive profits today” after revealing it made $27.6 billion in 2007 – “a new record for a UK company.” AmericaBlog notes that this number is the equivalent of $3 million per minute hour.
UPDATE: Commenters have noted that the rate is $3 million per hour, not minute. The correct per minute rate is roughly $51-52K per minute. We regret the initial error.
State Dept. Official: Prioritizing Wars Is Like Choosing ‘Which One Of Your Kids You Like Best’
State Dept. Official: Prioritizing Wars Is Like Choosing ‘Which One Of Your Kids You Like Best’
Last month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said, “In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must.”
Today in a Senate hearing, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher about Mullen’s comment and “whether or not we’ve neglected Pakistan and Afghanistan because of our overemphasis on Iraq.”
Boucher, however, refused to prioritize Afghanistan or Iraq. He instead compared having to choose between Iraq and Afghanistan to Feingold having to choose between one of his children:
Boucher: Sir, I mean, which of your kids do you like best?
Feingold: I’m sorry.
Boucher: Sir, I mean which of your kids do you like best?
Feingold: I think it’s more, I think it’s really more, I don’t, I don’t, think it’s as simple as that. I think — this is the core question of whether we can get our priorities right in this country about this war.
Boucher: Here’s the way I would explain it.
Feingold: These are not identical.
Watch it:
Boucher’s equation comparing war with children underscores why this administration can’t pull out of Iraq and focus on Afghanistan — it is so emotionally invested that it views the Iraq war as its baby.
Officials have clearly pushed aside Afghanistan for Iraq, although admitting so isn’t politically popular. “[P]riorities matter and in order to determine priorities one has to determine where is the greater concern,” said Feingold.
A report released this week by the Atlantic Council concluded, “Afghanistan remains a dangerously neglected conflict in a Washington transfixed by Iraq.” Two other reports also put out this week came to similar conclusions.
Transcript: More »
ABC Publishes Hit Piece Against Bill Clinton, Peddles Right-Wing Misinformation On Global Warming
ABC Publishes Hit Piece Against Bill Clinton, Peddles Right-Wing Misinformation On Global Warming
This morning, ABC’s Jack Tapper published this sensational headline: “Bill: ‘We Just Have To Slow Down The Economy’ To Fight Global Warming.” The Republican National Committee quickly latched onto the story, claiming that a “‘tax-it, spend-it, regulate-it’ attitude would really bring the economy crashing down.” Matt Drudge peddled the article on his site.
The problem is, Bill Clinton never said that. In fact, he said just the opposite. Clinton said, “The only places in the world today in rich countries where you have rising wages and declining inequality are places that have generated more jobs than rich countries because they made a commitment we didn’t. They got serious about a clean, efficient, green, independent energy future.”
Even conservative blogs the Corner and Hot Air recognized Tapper’s article as shoddy journalism. Instead of apologizing, Tapper is now defending his egregious post by insisting that addressing global warming will in fact slow the economy, whether Clinton said it or not:
This is the much more important issue here. Any serious effort to reduce greenhouses gases will have an impact on the economy and, initially, that impact could be negative.
Unfortunately, Tapper has run aground of the facts yet again. In reality, the cost of doing nothing far exceeds the necessary cost of addressing climate change. And addressing climate change has already been proven that it can also energize the economy:
– Green Technologies Have Already Created Jobs: In 2004, the ethanol industry created 147,000 jobs in all sectors of the economy and provided more than $2 billion of additional tax revenue. There are 1,500 current and promised jobs in the wind energy industry in Iowa. [Daniel M. Kammen, Testimony to US Senate Environment and Public Works Commte, 9/25/07; AP, 12/31/07]
– Increasing Fuel Economy Standards Creates Jobs: Increasing the average fuel economy of America’s new autos to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 would would save consumers $25 billion at the gas pump and increase U.S. employment by 170,800 jobs in the year 2020. [Union of Concerned Scientists]
– Renewable Electricity Standard Saves Consumers Money: A 20 percent national renewable electricity standard by 2020 would save consumers $10.5 billion on energy bills through 2020, growing to 31.8 billion by 2030. [Union of Concerned Scientists]
Tapper appears to have neither the time nor the policy background to figure out the facts.
U.S. military unprepared for homeland attack.
U.S. military unprepared for homeland attack.
A new report by the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves finds that the “U.S. military isn’t ready for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces don’t have the equipment or training they need for the job.” More than 88 percent of Army National Guard units are not combat-ready today.
Hume laughs at idea of Americans being beheaded.
Hume laughs at idea of Americans being beheaded.
During the “Political Grapevine” segment of Fox News’s Special Report last night, host Brit Hume noted the negative criticism that the town of Brattleboro, VT has received for a petition calling for President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to be arrested. Chuckling so much he could hardly contain himself, Hume recounts how “one caller from Minnesota” told the town clerk “he’d like to see terrorists cut off the heads of town officials.” Watch it:
State Dept. Official On Afghanistan: ‘Nobody Can Tell Me It’s Not Going In A Positive Direction’
State Dept. Official On Afghanistan: ‘Nobody Can Tell Me It’s Not Going In A Positive Direction’
In a Senate hearing today on Afghanistan, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher proclaimed, “There is progress. It’s going in the right direction.” Boucher said Afghanistan now has “a government that works fairly well,” a “quality” police force, a growing “cell phone market,” and even residents who are “furnishing houses.” He concluded:
So, I see all these efforts. Nobody can tell me it’s not going in a positive direction.
Watch it:
Yesterday, however, three major reports said just that, each concluding that the situation in Afghanistan is eroding quickly. “Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan,” said a military report chaired by ret. Gen. James Jones and Thomas Pickering. Boucher said he partly “disagreed” with the conclusions of the reports, which said:
Jones-Pickering Report: “The progress achieved after six years of international engagement is under serious threat.” [LINK]
Atlantic Council Report: “Afghanistan remains a dangerously neglected conflict in a Washington transfixed by Iraq. … On the security side, a stalemate of sorts has taken hold.” [LINK]
National Defense University Report: “It is our assertion that the current Afghan government and its allies, principally NATO and the United States, are not winning the battle in the civil sector.” [LINK]
Over the past year, the situation in Afghanistan has dramatically deteriorated. Violence has jumped 27 percent. Suicide bombings rose to 140 in 2007, compared with five between 2001 and 2005. Coalition and Afghan civilian casualties have reached “the highest level since 2001.”
Chafee bashes GOP and Dems who voted for Iraq war.
Chafee bashes GOP and Dems who voted for Iraq war.
In his upcoming memoir, titled Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President, former Rhode Island senator Lincoln Chafee (R) “excoriates [President] Bush and his GOP allies” for exploiting “wedge issues,” but also “saves some of his harshest words for Democrats who paved the way for Mr. Bush to use the U.S. military to invade Iraq”:
Chafee was the only Republican senator to vote against prosecuting the war. “The top Democrats were at their weakest when trying to show how tough they were,” writes Chafee. “They were afraid that Republicans would label them soft in the post-September 11 world, and when they acted in political self-interest, they helped the president send thousands of Americans and uncounted innocent Iraqis to their doom.
“Instead of talking tough or meekly raising one’s hand to support the tough talk, it is far more muscular, I think, to find out what is really happening in the world and have a debate about what we really need to accomplish,” writes Chafee. “That is the hard work of governing, but it was swept aside once the fear, the war rhetoric and the political conniving took over.”
Homeless vets to protest O’Reilly.
Homeless vets to protest O’Reilly.
Earlier this month, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly claimed that there aren’t “many” homeless veterans, challenging John Edwards for saying that there are 200,000 such vets. The Huffington Post reports that in response, homeless veterans are planning to protest O’Reilly today:
Now, a group from Fitzgerald House, an “organization representing homeless veterans,” plans to bring their fight for recognition to Fox’s doorstep. They plan on visiting the Fox News Channel Studios today at 3:00 pm, and will come carrying a petition signed by 17,000 people demanding an apology from O’Reilly for his ignorance and abuse. In a press release, Brave New Films and Fitzgerald House say thay “have found that it is very easy to locate homeless veterans and are willing to help O’Reilly find them if his desire to help homeless vets is sincere.”
Brave New Films took up O’Reilly’s “challenge” and spoke to some of these homeless vet here.
Cheney Pushes For Telecom Immunity: ‘We Haven’t Violated Anybody’s Civil Liberties’
Cheney Pushes For Telecom Immunity: ‘We Haven’t Violated Anybody’s Civil Liberties’
Yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared as a guest on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and used the opportunity to stump for retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that illegally spied on American citizens:
CHENEY: People who don’t want to — I guess want to leave open the possibility that the trial lawyers can go after a big company that may have helped. Those companies helped specifically at our request, and they’ve done yeoman duty for the country, and this is the so-called terrorist surveillance program, one of the things it was called earlier. It’s just absolutely essential to know who in the United States is talking to Al-Qaeda. It’s a program that’s been very well managed. We haven’t violated anybody’s civil liberties. It’s in fact a good piece of legislation.
Listen to it:
In Cheney’s mind, breaking the law and engaging in illegal conduct apparently aren’t violations of civil liberties.
Telecoms should not be let off the hook because Dick Cheney says they did “yeoman duty for the country.” They chose to break the law and profited greatly from doing so. (At least one company refused to comply with the Bush administration’s request because it knew the actions were illegal.) As Glenn Greenwald explains, the proper course is to permit these companies to present to a court whatever evidence they relied on to justify their activities and let a judge decide:
If telecoms were really these poor, “helpless” victims unable to defend themselves, the solution isn’t to bar anyone from suing them even when they break the law. The solution, if that were really the concern, is simply to add a provision to FISA enabling them to submit that evidence in secret, the way classified evidence is submitted to federal courts all the time.
Matt Renner reports that Third Way, a non-profit “progressive” think tank, is taking Cheney’s side and working to pass retroactive immunity for the telecom companies.
UPDATE: Marcy Wheeler tracks Dick Cheney’s evolving language on FISA.
Transcript: More »
January shows signs of backslide in Iraq security gains.
January shows signs of backslide in Iraq security gains.
“There are growing signs of backsliding in Iraq,” writes Spencer Ackerman today. According to “Iraq security statistics over the past 13 weeks,” roadside bomb explosions in Baghdad “have ticked up slightly to 131 in January from 129 in December — and the last week of January is not included in these latest figures.” Additionally, “the week ending on January 25 saw seven suicide explosions Iraq-wide, the most since the week ending Dec. 21, 2007.”
Laura Bush’s popularity drops.
Laura Bush’s popularity drops.
A recent Pew Research Center poll finds that First Lady Laura Bush’s favorability rating has dropped “sharply” in recent years, right along with her husband’s numbers. Once “almost universally liked” (with a 70 percent approval rating in Aug. 2004), just a slim majority of Americans (54 percent) now have a favorable impression of the first lady.
Bush shrugs off plummeting international reputation.
Bush shrugs off plummeting international reputation.
In an interview with Roll Call’s Mort Kondracke, President Bush “utterly dismissed international opinion polls showing declining approval of the United States.” “When it comes to, where do you want to live, many people [say], ‘I’d like to live in the United States,’” Bush proclaimed. A reality check for the President:
Bush also told Kondracke, “absolutely, we are stronger” now than in 2001. Kondracke added that Bush said “even in areas where he failed to get what he wanted — as in Social Security and immigration reform — his ideas eventually will prevail.”
ThinkFast: January 31, 2008
ThinkFast: January 31, 2008
A new poll finds that Americans have “a decidedly dour view of how things are going in the country” and “great expectations for the next president’s ability to get things done.” “Fully three-quarters” of the public believe the president has influence over health care costs, and “two-thirds of those under age 35 believe it’s still possible to change the way Washington works.”
Next week, President Bush is expected to call for deep cuts in Medicare and Medicaid in this year’s budget, as lawmakers will have to work to “spare doctors from a 10 percent cut in Medicare fees that would otherwise take effect on July 1.”
Yesterday, Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and Linda Sanchez (D-CA) demanded that former attorney general John Ashcroft testify “about his appointment to oversee a Justice Department corporate settlement.” Their letter asks Ashcroft to appear at a Feb. 26 hearing, noting that he had ignored previous requests.
Gen. David Petraeus will likely call for an operational “pause” in withdrawals when he testifies before Congress in April. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and top military officers have said “they would like to see continued withdrawals throughout this year, but Bush has indicated he is likely to be guided by Petraeus’s views.”
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), who co-chairs the Progressive Caucus, said she will “reintroduce legislation calling for a troop withdrawal from Iraq and urge leadership to move the measure in the wake of the economic stimulus package that has been the center of attention for several weeks.” More »
Mukasey: ‘I Don’t Know’ Whether Bush Has Violated FISA
Mukasey: ‘I Don’t Know’ Whether Bush Has Violated FISA
In today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Mike Mukasey refused to answer whether Bush had violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act under the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
Under questioning from Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Mukasey said he “can’t contemplate” a situation where President Bush would assert “Article II authority to do something that the law forbids.”
Specter shot back, “Well, he did just that in violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act…didn’t he?” Mukasey continued to hedge:
MUKASEY:I think we are now in a situation where [that issue] had been brought within statutes, and that’s the procedure going forward
SPECTER: That’s not the point. The point is that he acted in violation of statutes, didn’t he?
MUKASEY: I don’t know whether he acted in violation of statutes.
Watch it:
Specter explained that the question was a no brainer, as FISA “expressly mandates you have to go to a court to get an order for wiretapping. There’s really no dispute about that.”
The New York Times famously revealed in 2005 that Bush has allowed spying “without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.”
As the contentious FISA legislation moves forward in Congress, Mukasey’s flacking for the administration’s illegal surveillance is deeply unsettling.
Transcript: More »
24 Hours After Touting Clean Coal In SOTU, White House Drops Ambitious Clean Coal Project
24 Hours After Touting Clean Coal In SOTU, White House Drops Ambitious Clean Coal Project
President Bush has long touted clean coal technology as a potential solution to global warming. In 2006, he insisted that the United States is “spending quite a bit of money here at the federal level to come up with clean-coal technologies.” During Monday’s State of the Union address, Bush said, “Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions.”
Yet just 24 hours after his SOTU declaration, Bush’s Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman indicated the White House was pulling the plug on the ambitious FutureGen project, a clean coal plant that was touted as “the cleanest fossil fuel fired power plant in the world.”
In a meeting with lawmakers from Illinois — where FutureGen was set to be installed — Bodman “all but drove a stake in” the $1.5 billion project:
[Rep. Timothy] Johnson [R-IL] said Bodman told the group that he planned to disband FutureGen and go “in another direction.” At one point, Johnson and Bodman snapped at each other. At another, U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago Democrat, told Bodman that “the first action taken by the president after the State of the Union was a series of broken promises.”
“In 25 years on Capitol Hill, I have never witnessed such a cruel deception,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said, hinting at the administration’s political considerations for the project’s demise. “When the city of Mattoon, Illinois, was chosen over possible locations in Texas, the secretary of energy set out to kill FutureGen.”
Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Robert Sussman notes that companies and governments around the world have committed to supporting FutureGen. “It would be a blow to future international public-private partnerships if the Bush administration were to allow these commitments to languish,” said Sussman.
UPDATE: The Washington Post reports that the Illinois lawmakers intend to appeal the decision to President Bush, and that Durbin “might block nominations to fill two key vacancies at the Energy Department.”
UPDATE II: DeSmogBlog and Gristmill have more.
Key 9/11 Commission Staffer Held Secret Meetings With Rove, Scaled Back Criticisms of White House
Key 9/11 Commission Staffer Held Secret Meetings With Rove, Scaled Back Criticisms of White House
A forthcoming book by NYT reporter Philip Shenon — “The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation” — asserts that former 9/11 Commission executive director Philip Zelikow interfered with the 9/11 report.
According to the book, Zelikow had failed to inform the commission at the time he was hired that he was instrumental in helping Condoleezza Rice set up Bush’s National Security Council in 2001. Some panel staffers believe Zelikow stopped them from submitting a report depicting Rice’s performance prior to 9/11 as “amount[ing] to incompetence.”
Relying on the accounts of Max Holland, an author and blogger who has obtained a copy of the forthcoming book, ABC reports that Zelikow was holding private discussions with White House political adviser Karl Rove during the course of the 9/11 investigation:
In his book, Shenon also says that while working for the panel, Zelikow appears to have had private conversations with former White House political director Karl Rove, despite a ban on such communication, according to Holland. Shenon reports that Zelikow later ordered his assistant to stop keeping a log of his calls, although the commission’s general counsel overruled him, Holland wrote.
Zelikow flatly denied discussing the commission’s work with Rove. “I never discussed the 9/11 Commission with him, not at all. Period.”
After completing his work with the 9/11 Commission, Zelikow was hired by Condoleezza Rice as Counselor at the State Department. He resigned from that position in late 2006. In 1995, Rice and Zelikow co-authored a book entitled, “Germany Unified and Europe Transformed.”
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