Illegally Leaking Classified Data Isn’t “Aggressive Journalism”

10:40 am EST February 23rd, 2012 | Media | 50 Comments

ABC’s Jake Tapper makes what I think is a bad comparison here as he takes the Obama administration to task for praising “aggressive journalism” while at the same time pursuing prosecutions against those who have leaked classified data. Tapper tells White House spokesman Jay Carney that “You want aggressive journalism abroad; you just don’t want it in the United States.” But an apple is not an orange.

Leaking classified information is illegal, and you should be prosecuted for doing so. I thought the Bush administration was right to prosecute leakers like this (by the way, they were doing the leaking themselves – Bush, Scooter Libby). Even if you believe that there is a moral right to releasing the classified data, it is a crime.

Now, I’ll certainly agree that the government classifies far too much information. The way to the heart of this problem is a policy of selective classification, whereas the government currently errs in favor of far too much secrecy.

VIDEO: Who Doesn’t Need A Gun That Can Take Out A Helicopter?

5:10 pm EST February 13th, 2012 | News | 42 Comments

Yes, you can buy a gun powerful enough to take out a helicopter. Without a background check. This is insane.

Hundreds of thousands of guns are for sale, on hundreds of websites. We responded and set up meetings at popular shopping malls. We bought everything from a police-grade pistol to a semiautomatic assault rifle. We did it over and over again, even hinting that our buyer is a criminal.

Within 12 hours, we bought eight dangerous guns – even a 50-caliber weapon so powerful it could take down a helicopter.

Remember, at gun stores, background checks are required, but online – nothing. Believe it or not, in most states it’s completely legal.

The Tea Party Loves Socialism, Fakes Otherwise

11:25 am EST February 12th, 2012 | Conservative | 43 Comments

Conservatism is a fraud.

This interesting article from the NY Times backs up what many on the left have said for some time. The right is jam-packed with hypocrites when it comes to the social safety net. They aren’t, in fact, rugged individualists out of some Ayn Rand novel, but in fact just like everyone else — benefitting from the safety net they demonize as socialism.

Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government.

He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region’s long-serving Democratic congressman.

Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice.

Moron. All of them. It’s all about “mine, mine, mine” when in fact all of us are paying for their collective assistance. Conservatives claimed it was a “straw man” when President Obama talked about tea party protestors yelling that the government should get out of their social security, but it is a very real thing. Just like those Republican members of congress who described the stimulus as tyranny, but were right in front of the cameras when stimulus projects opened in their district.

I hate that these people are so hypocritical, that they’ve got an army of morons who — if they just stopped to THINK for a second, could make this country even better.

Conservatives Dead Set On Repeating 2004

6:25 pm EST February 11th, 2012 | Conservative | 6 Comments

It is downright eerie the way conservatives right now sound like liberals in 2004. From the NY Times report from CPAC:

The Republican nominee, it seemed, mattered less in their efforts to mobilize than their intense dislike of President Obama. In dozens of interviews at the conference, which was scheduled to end Saturday afternoon, people expressed preferences for Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum or, less often, Newt Gingrich or the absent Ron Paul. But every one of them said the same thing, often in the same words: “Anybody but Obama.”

I hope they keep down this road, because it is a loser strategy. In 2004, I was convinced that all the Democratic party needed was a warm body in order to beat Bush. And in John Kerry, that’s what we got and not much better.

The thing is, Mitt Romney is worse for the right than Kerry was for Bush. Kerry was at least consistently center-left throughout his congressional career. His major deviation was his vote in favor of the Iraq War, and even then he was in the majority of wrong-minded Senate Democrats.

Romney, on the other hand, has no record of consistency as a conservative. He’s been pro-choice, anti-Reagan, anti-assault weapon, and on and on and on.

The swing vote in America can smell it when the base is unenthusiastic about their nominee, and that sort of sentiment has legs. If the GOP base has to prop up a candidate whose core convictions change like a “lubricated weathervane” (as Jon Huntsman described it) — people will see that.

In 2004 we on the left assumed the mass of America hated Bush with the same intensity we did. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case in the fall of 2004. It took Bush’s second term to completely turn the country against him (besides about 20% of the dead-enders at least). That was too late, the damage had already been done because we didn’t go with our hearts in 2004 for a nominee.

The vitriol is enough to get you to about maybe 40%. But it isn’t enough to win an election. So I hope the GOP keeps on down this road, but I’m not exactly looking out for their best interests.

Why Do Liberals Support Drone Strikes?

12:42 pm EST February 8th, 2012 | National Security, Terrorism | 29 Comments

There is a little bit of garment-rending in progress about a new Washington Post poll that shows liberals strongly supporting the government’s program of using drones to take out terrorist targets. I don’t quite understand the confusion.

When it comes to taking out terrorists not on U.S. soil we have three options:

1. Let them go free
2. Use drones, incurring collateral damage
3. Put troops on the ground, putting soldiers at risk along with incurring collateral damage

The option of using international cooperation to round up these guys — the preferable option — is simply not viable in Pakistan, where much of this activity is taking place. As the Bin Laden operation showed us, terrorists are able to operate within a stone’s throw of Pakistan’s government without them lifting a finger to stop it. Their government is an impediment.

So, faced with those three options, we’ve opted for the drones. They are not perfect by a long stretch, but after over a decade of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is the least bloody option that kills terrorists.

I’m not surprised that even among liberals, this is a strategy that meets with approval.

The numbers go down slightly if the target is a U.S. citizen, but again most of us view an American working with Al Qaeda on foreign soil as just another agent of that organization.

(It’s worth pointing out that the usually deceptive Glenn Greenwald writes about drone strikes saying, “Obama has used drones to kill Muslim children and innocent adults by the hundreds.” I don’t deny that innocent people have been killed by drone strikes, but Greenwald writes it like these people are intentional targets. They aren’t. Those of us who support the drone strikes shouldn’t pretend as if they are clean weapons, but those opposed should be honest as well.)

I totally understand the dangers in giving the president the sole power to designate terrorist targets. I’m not comfortable with that much power residing in the executive office. I would trust Barack Obama with that power, but not George Bush, so I don’t trust any president with it.

But I think the view of many who have these positions opposed to drone strikes and the like take a dispassionate view of this conflict that most don’t have. While we shouldn’t let emotion cloud things, we also can’t discount the unique toll of Al Qaeda-based terrorism on America’s psyche.

People want to get these guys, and it appears as if these drones are one of the best ways to get the job done, regardless of who the president is.

P.S. For what it’s worth, I still support closing the prisons in Guantanamo Bay and have found the sniveling opposition from Republican and Democratic lawmakers to closure to be disgusting. My guess is the death of Bin Laden and kill/capture of other Al Qaeda have made people less anxious about the war on terror and that’s why Gitmo closure isn’t the sticking point it once was. Still, we should close it.

Weekly Standard Rolls Out The Iraq Argument For Iran

12:48 pm EST February 5th, 2012 | Foreign Policy | 39 Comments

Did you enjoy the Iraq War? Well, the Weekly Standard wants to do it again, with a new article arguing that sure, Obama got Bin Laden killed and has arrested or killed 20 of the most wanted Al Qaeda terrorists, but never mind because Iran is part of the Axis of Evil. No, seriously.

Let us look at Iran. Although the administration and our European allies appear to be getting much more serious about rigorous sanctions against the Islamic Republic because of its quest for nuclear weapons, the White House has shied away from the possibility that Tehran will respond with terrorism, not negotiations. Perhaps the most stubborn wish in U.S. foreign policy has been the three-decade-old bipartisan determination to engage with and moderate the Islamic Republic. Ever since Ali Khamenei put on Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mantle as guardian of the revolution, Western observers have wanted to describe him as “pragmatic” and “moderate,” even though his outpouring of virulently anti-American speeches, let alone the crackdowns and killings he’s unleashed at home since 1999, might engender skepticism. Iran’s much vilified and lampooned president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is probably less hardcore—even on the villainy of world Jewry—than Khamenei is.

The Obama administration is dealing with Iran as the rogue state it is, working with the international community to try and get them in line. The Standard is arguing here for a return to the Bush era where the U.S. government used the magical terrorism wand to short circuit any and all discussion in order to do stupid things like invading sovereign nations based on cooked-up intelligence. It doesn’t work, gets Americans killed, and makes the world less safe.

Conservative foreign policy has discredited itself thanks to its adoption of this kind of useless strategy, and we’d be stupid to adopt it or even acknowledge it as a viable option.

Equal Polarization, My Ass

11:38 am EST January 27th, 2012 | Politics | 213 Comments

One of my new favorite phrases is “not tethered to facts.” That comes from ABC reporter Jake Tapper doing a write-up of a new ad campaign from the conservative Americans For Prosperity targeting President Obama. It’s a nice way of saying “you lying ass.”

The phrase “not tethered to facts” came to mind when reading this Rick Moran piece lamenting the supposed equal polarization of the two major political parties in America. Bonus points to Moran for writing this post at PJ Media (aka Pajamas Media aka Open Source Media), which is a cesspool of conservative nonsense.

The idea that both parties/movements in America are equally extreme is a well-worn media meme and one that the right often rides. It also happens to be quite untrue. In reality, we have a right dominated by the hard right and a left created out of a coalition of the hard left, center-left, and centrists (who often echo the center-right). Look at the standard-bearers for both parties. Republicans picked George W. Bush, an evangelical conservative who appeared to honestly believe all the trickle down and privatization nonsense he was peddling. Democrats picked Barack Obama, who pushed a pay freeze of federal salaries while passing an economic stimulus bill that contained a considerable amount of tax cuts.

You don’t even have to go to the presidential level. In congress, Republicans have a Kentucky conservative leading them in the Senate along with John Boehner in the House, who thunderously opposed health care and subjected the traditional raising of the debt ceiling to an exercise in tea party hostage-taking. Go back further and you’ve got Sen. Bill Frist diagnosing Terry Schiavo over video tape and Tom DeLay jamming right-leaning legislation through the House.

On the Democratic side, while Pelosi is a “San Francisco liberal,” her top lieutenant has been Steny Hoyer — a moderate Democrat. When Democrats ran the House, contrary to conservative rhetoric they didn’t pass socialism. Since they’ve taken back the House, Boehner and Co. have passed far more legislation governing women’s bodies than there was equally socially liberal legislation passed under Pelosi’s leadership.

Senate Democrats are led by Harry Reid, a moderate on most issues who appointed conservative-leaning Democrats like Kent Conrad and Max Baucus to lead important committees. This led, in the case of health care reform, to a lot of the progressive-leaning legislation being ripped out in the final bill.

The two parties and movements are not equally extreme. The right is rhetorically led by Rush Limbaugh, a minority bashing advocate of the harshest brand of conservative economic and security policy. Even the top liberal voices in the media — people like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, etc. — practice at best FDR-style liberalism which isn’t nearly as radical as what Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and company say on a day-to-day basis.

The thesis is simply untrue. We have a center-left movement/party on one side and a right-wing party/movement on the other.

Some Crazy Stuff That Happened In World War II

3:59 pm EST January 24th, 2012 | Books, History | 4 Comments

So I’m reading this book about World War II that’s really great. It’s called All Hell Let Loose by Sir Max Hastings and is a re-telling of the story of World War II with the addition of tons of first-person observations from people experiencing the war.

Some interesting stories I’ve found so far.

* A Russian soldier holed up in a farmhouse during the Russian invasion of Poland went outside to go to the bathroom to do number 2. In the process, he was shot in the leg. He ran back to the farmhouse and didn’t go the bathroom for another 7 days.

* A woman waiting for rationed food in the blockaded city of Leningrad had her food stolen by a man in line behind her. The starvation had reached such a crisis point that she reached down his mouth and pulled out what was left of the food in order to take it home for her family.

* In order to combat the problem of desertion in the Russian army, Stalin devised a strategy where Russians would approach the German line with their hands raised in a “surrender” position. Then, when they got close to the Germans, they would throw grenades. The Germans began responding to surrendering Russians by shooting them. Russian soldiers learned this, and what their fate would be if they surrendered to the enemy.

Maryland Republican Campaign Funds Used To Defend Voter Suppression

2:58 pm EST January 24th, 2012 | Maryland | 1 Comment

Bob Ehrlich used his campaign money to pay for the defense of now-convicted vote-suppression activist.

A campaign account maintained by former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) was used to pay more than $100,000 last year to law firms involved in the criminal defense of his 2010 campaign manager, Paul E. Schurick, on charges related to voter suppression.

Schurick was convicted in December by a Baltimore jury of four counts stemming from an Election Night robocall that prosecutors said was intended to mislead black voters into staying home.

A campaign finance report filed this week by Ehrlich lists payments to at least two law firms known to have worked on Schurick’s defense.

I wonder if people donating to Ehrlich’s campaign thought the money they donated would go to this cause?