Rumsfeld attacks Woodward (on Facebook, no less) after Woodward criticizes Rummy's book as a bunch o' lies

From Joan Walsh at Salon:

Rumsfeld's memoir has come in for plenty of criticism, but Woodward, a writer and Beltway player known for deference to the powerful, eviscerates it. He calls "Known and Unknown" "one big clean-up job, a brazen effort to shift blame to others -- including President Bush -- distort history, ignore the record or simply avoid discussing matters that cannot be airbrushed away. It is a travesty, and I think the rewrite job won't wash."

By mid-afternoon, Rumsfeld had replied: Not in an Op-Ed, or a statement to reporters -- but on his own Facebook page, à la Sarah Palin.

Mr. Woodward has demonstrated a regrettable tendency to put his storyline ahead of the facts….Woodward has been repeatedly accused of "tilting the facts," "misleading remarks," "disingenuous statements," and placing "book sales above journalism."

The well known story about Bob Woodward is that he practices what is derided as "access journalism," whereby he favors those who provide him with information and gossip and leak against their colleagues. Those who refuse to play along, such as Donald Rumsfeld, then pay the price.

Snap!

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The Klan feels misunderstood

I'm somewhat disturbed by the woman who says she has "mixed emotions" about the Klan canvassing her town.  Mixed emotions?  It also seems odd that the police chief and the mayor refused to comment for the story - here's a comment: We abhor them and wish they would go away. How hard is that? Read the rest of this post...

New Left Media short documentary on Wisconsin - it's good, as always

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Huckabee backs away from birther claim, badly

We reported earlier this evening that GOP presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee went on a diatribe about how Obama was raised in Kenya and that makes him anti-British.  Obama was not raised in Kenya.  But that didn't stop Huckabee.

Now Huck claims it was all a mistake, he meant Indonesia.  Really?  Because Huckabee explained how Obama's childhood in Kenya impacted Obama's understanding of a specific Kenyan revolution (I had to to look it up).  The revolution was in Kenya, not Indonesia.

Huckabee had clearly thought this entire "Obama influenced by evil Kenya" script out in advance, so there's no way it was just a slip of the tongue.  The entire thing was about Kenya.

Not to mention, where does fat white boy get off knocking people who's roots include other countries?   Hello, welcome to America, Mr. Huckabee.  Then again, that would be attempting to putting a logic overlay on something deeply illogical: pandering to racism and visceral hatred in an attempt to woo the votes of the crazy people who make up a growing segment of the Republican party.

As Daily Dish notes, while Huckabee may seem affable enough, he's really not.  And if he has to pander to racists to climb his way to the top of the GOP, then racist he will go. Read the rest of this post...

Huckabee goes birther, claims (wrongly) that Obama was raised in Kenya

Cuz, you know, all African-American men were raised in Kenya.

Huckabee truly has to be a bit thick to say this kind of thing. Obama grew up in Indonesia, among other places. Not Kenya. How could he not know that, after all the discussion of Obama's heritage the past several years?  Then again, going on Malzberg's show - man, is there any outlet crazy enough for Republicans NOT to go on it?

More from AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field:

Mike Huckabee goes for the Birther vote, with an anti-colonialist bankshot. Media Matters:

Speaking on WOR's The Steve Malzberg Show, Huckabee -- a Fox News host and potential presidential candidate -- said that "one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American ... his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British are a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."

Obviously Obama did not grow up in Kenya. Huckabee goes on to dodge actually demanding for President Obama's birth certificate because the Clinton machine would have found it if there was something amiss.

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Bristol Palin inks book deal for her 'memoirs' - she's 20

Sounds like a riveting story. Personally I've been dying to know more about who the real Bristol Palin is and what she believes in. Who won't want to line up to drop $25 on this?

It's official: Bristol Palin has a book deal.

The daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has signed with William Morrow to publish "Not Afraid of Life," to come out this summer. Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, announced Tuesday that the memoir would provide "an inside look at her life."

"Bristol gives readers an intimate behind-the-scenes look at her life for the first time, from growing up in Alaska to coming of age amid the media and political frenzy surrounding her mother's political rise; from becoming a single mother while still a teenager to coping as her relationship with her baby's father crumbled publicly — not once, but twice," according to Morrow.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Let's face it. Bristol's claim to fame is having had premarital sex with her boyfriend and then getting pregnant out of wedlock.  If that's what counts as a life worthy of a William Morrow memoir, then it's an indication of how low our country has sunk both culturally and politically.  (Nothing wrong with teen moms, but they certainly haven't earned memoir status simply because they got pregnant - oh, that's right, Bristol also appeared on "Dancing with the Stars.  Let that girl into Mensa.)

It's not entirely clear why Sarah Palin, who's been playing generally to the far right, would push her daughter (and does anyone doubt that mommy was behind this?) to become the next Murphy Brown, queen of unwed momhood.  Then again, so long as it gets the family name in print, Palin never met a news story, or a scandal, she didn't like.

It's the perpetuation of the Republican fetish with ignorance and trash.  The Jerry Springer-ization of the GOP is near complete. Read the rest of this post...

Anti-union vote moves to Ohio

This anti-union attack looks even worse than the GOP-proposed legislation in Wisconsin. Once again, why are Republicans blaming the unions for what we know was a Wall Street economic crisis?

The Ohio Senate is expected on Thursday to consider a revised version of a bill to end collective bargaining for public-sector workers, and union members gathering outside the Statehouse here Tuesday morning said they were bracing for the worst.

“This is going to get passed and people will sit back and say, ‘What happened?’ ” said Mark Horton, a retired firefighter who is treasurer of the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters. “Once it’s done, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle.”

Unlike similar legislation in Wisconsin, which exempts police officers and firefighters, the Ohio bill includes them — and is controversial for that reason.

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Obama DoJ prosecutes CIA whistleblower using information gathered on reporter James Risen

Scott Horton has the story:

As noted previously, candidate Barack Obama promised to protect whistleblowers who come forward with information disclosing government waste, abuse, and inefficiency. Unfortunately, President Obama has done exactly the opposite. Obama’s real policies are exposed in documents filed in the prosecution of former CIA agent James Stirling.

According to federal prosecutors, Stirling was the source behind reports published by New York Times reporter James Risen (identified as “Author A” in its pleadings) that exposed a horribly botched, indeed hare-brained plot by the CIA designed to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program. In particular, one chapter in Risen’s book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, describes a CIA-authored scheme to use a Russian double agent to deliver to the Iranians a set of technical drawings that had been carefully doctored so as to be worthless. However, the double agent turned on the CIA in the end, disclosing the flaws that had been built into the design. The end result: the CIA operation had actually advanced Iran’s nuclear project. So what was the purpose of the strenuous U.S. government effort to punish Stirling for making it public? Justice contends that the disclosure harmed national security. But the decision to go after Sterling seems to have more to do with his violation of the intelligence community’s code of omertà, under which no agent ever speaks about another’s mistakes.

Horton correctly notes that the move to prosecute Stirling is based on information gathered about Risen, a member of the press. Politico:

In a motion filed in federal court in Alexandria, Sterling’s defense lawyers, Ed MacMahon Jr. and Barry Pollack, reveal that the prosecution has turned over “various telephone records showing calls made by the author James Risen. It has provided three credit reports—Equifax, TransUnion and Experian—for Mr. Risen. It has produced Mr. Risen’s credit card and bank records and certain records of his airline travel.”

The revelation alarmed First Amendment advocates, particularly in light of Justice Department rules requiring the attorney general to sign off on subpoenas directed to members of the media and on requests for their phone records.

Back to Horton and Eric Holder:

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Holder repeated to audiences, including once in my hearing, that the Justice Department would tread lightly on the First Amendment rights of reporters. Subpoenas issued against reporters would need the attorney general’s approval, he pledged. So did Holder approve the Department’s secret seizure of Risen’s personal records?

There's more in Horton's piece, including a nice link to Glenn Greenwald's take.

Thank you, Team Change (but Only If I Feel Like It). See you in 2012.

GP Read the rest of this post...

David Gregory misrepresents union contracts in 'discussion' with AFL-CIO chief Trumka

Like Frank Rich, I'm going to roll two points into one combined post.

The first point — watch AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka discuss the unrest in the Midwest, as Cairo comes to Wisconsin. Note the willingness to negotiate. (Over-willingness? You decide.)

The second point — watch David Gregory show Trumka all of the respect his class thinks Trumka deserves — by completely misrepresenting the situation he describes. Play the clip (it's short), then try to figure out what's dead wrong about Gregory's question.

Did you get it? Gregory describes a world in which politically active unions put "their people" (my phrase) into office, then extract financial promises (pensions and health care) "that won't come due until well down the road" (his phrase).

That's a pretty ugly picture; almost looks like corruption, grabbing other people's money like that. And as a bonus, he sneaks in the phrase "take responsibility". Nice.

If you didn't know that those financial "promises" (pensions and health care) simply give back to union members their own money, and not the state's, you'd think Gregory was describing an actual problem. David Cay Johnston:

Somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not.

Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin' s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

How can that be? Because the "contributions" consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages -- as pensions when they retire -- rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services.

More from David Cay Johnston here.

Union members negotiate a total compensation package that includes salary, pension contributions, and a health care plan. They could take it all in salary, or defer some salary to get the other two. Either way, it's their money. But deferred compensation is a killer — you can't get it back if no one knows it's yours.

Making sure no one knows it's yours — that's where people like David Gregory come in.

David Gregory is just pretending to host a news show. He's actually using that segment as a platform to (1) Misinform his audience; (2) Spread the anti-Wisconsin myth that's current among his class (millionaire celebrity newsblonds; with these "facts" he's certainly no reporter); and (3) Attempt to score points against a "union boss" (the GOP's phrase) on national television.

You might even speculate on a fourth goal: If Gregory succeeds in embarrassing Trumka, there might be an extra treat in his own lunchbox one day in the future. After all, you don't get to be a millionaire newsblond (I know, I'm being kind) by ignoring the billionaire who writes your checks.

This is the David Gregory who went dancing one night with Karl Rove — and loved it. A made man. Just sayin'.

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Fecal matter on 3/4ths of shopping cart handles, E. coli on half

The test sample was very small but still, this is disgusting.

Every day, parents blithely drop their toddlers into the baskets of shopping carts, never giving a moment’s thought to who might have had their hands on the handle last. Preliminary results from a new study show that may be a mistake.

Researchers from the University of Arizona swabbed shopping cart handles in four states looking for bacterial contamination. Of the 85 carts examined, 72 percent turned out to have a marker for fecal bacteria.

The researchers took a closer look at the samples from 36 carts and discovered Escherichia coli, more commonly known as E. coli, on 50 percent of them — along with a host of other types of bacteria.

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Judge issues TRO in Wisconsin

Unfortunately, we have no background whatsoever on what this lawsuit even is, what the basis of it is, what the rationale is, hell, when it was even filed, or what the judge actually decided (since he/she appears to leave wiggle room for kicking people out of the state capitol at the close of business every day). So, here's the link to the court's order issuing a Temporary Restraining Order against something, while I go attempt to reinvent the wheel, since no one is bothering to get this information out there in a usable format.  It's only the biggest union issue in the country right now, folks - perhaps we should have a tad more organization.

Sigh.
(H/t, if you can call it that, to DefendWisconsin) Read the rest of this post...

Boehner on public workers: 'We've given them a machine gun and put it right at the heads of the local officials'

The Speaker speaks of machine guns, local officials and public workers:

Seriously. That's the image we get from the man who is third in line to be President.

Wow.

The GOPers go to great lengths to demonize the workers in this country. It's appalling.

My parents were both public employees. I never saw them aim machine guns at the heads of elected officials. I saw them work hard to put food on the table and get their kids through college. That's what people want. They want to be able to take care of their families. The Republicans and the oligarchs they represent could care less about real people. And, we're seeing more and more evidence of that every day.

Seriously, how did Boehner even come up with that statement. He's sick. Read the rest of this post...

100,000 oil disaster claims may never be paid by BP

Not that it comes as much of a surprise. Louisiana officials thought they had an agreement with BP to pre-fund critical projects to rebuild the fishing industry but the terms there have also changed.

BP has reneged on promises made in November to negotiate early payments to Louisiana to help rebuild oyster beds, repair damaged wetlands and build a fish hatchery to allow the state to respond immediately to the collapse of commercial fisheries in the wake of the BP Gulf oil spill, state officials said Monday.

Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority chairman Garret Graves and Department of Wildlife & Fisheries director Robert Barham said the state will instead scramble to find millions of dollars to begin the work itself, then bill BP for the costs.

"BP has clearly changed their approach," Barham said. "All we've asked is for them to do what they said they would do in their commercials, be here for the long haul and make it right."

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In Wisconsin, police now blocking entrance into State House

The AFL-CIO claims there have been windows welded shut (where is the fire marshal?) to block supplies being handed over to protesters. There have been a few photos floating around online showing what looks like bolted shut windows rather than welded, but bolted windows sound as dangerous as well. Blocking access to the state capital is a violation of state law, if the law means anything. More from David Dayen at FireDogLake.

As you can see, they are really cracking down on access, and particularly what can be brought into the building. They have tried to make it very uncomfortable for people to stay, forcing them to sleep on jackets or the bare floor. They have restricted medical supplies and slowed the supply of food. But according to the CCLC, they are going well beyond these rules and basically blocking access to the building. And this comes after the police told protesters that they would be allowed back in at 8am.

Blocking access to the Capitol building is illegal under the Wisconsin state Constitution:

Article I, §4 – ANNOT.
The legislature cannot prohibit an individual from entering the capitol or its grounds. 59 Atty. Gen. 8.

Article I, §4
Right to assemble and petition. Section 4. The right of the people peaceably to assemble, to consult for the common good, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, shall never be abridged.

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Journalist access curtailed in China following protests

The protests have been small the last few weeks but the government in Beijing is not taking any chances. Protests in the distant countryside are one thing, but when they come to Shanghai or Beijing, it's a major problem for the government.

China appears to be rolling back some press freedoms it introduced ahead of the 2008 Olympics, barring foreign journalists from working near a popular Shanghai park and along a major Beijing shopping street after calls for weekly protests in those spots appeared online.

Foreign journalists who tried to take photos or shoot video on Beijing's Wangfujing shopping street on Sunday were told they needed special permission to work there. An Associated Press photographer was told Tuesday that the area near People's Square in Shanghai was also off-limits.

The restrictions put the popular leisure spots on par with Tibet as out-of-bounds areas where foreign reporters need special permission to work, and come after journalists were attacked and harassed while working in the areas over the weekend.

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US, UK plan no-fly as France delivers supplies to free Libya

Besides the no-fly zone - which is a good idea - the UK is also discussing the possibility of sending weapons to the anti-Gaddafi forces. Organizing and sending in a peace keeping force sounds like a much better option than throwing more weapons into such an environment. The Guardian:

Britain is working on plans for a military no-fly zone over Libya and is considering whether to arm the opposition forces in the east of the country.

David Cameron, the prime minister, said the UK is "taking the lead" on steps to isolate the "illegitimate" Gaddafi regime.

In a statement to the Commons, Cameron said north Africa and the wider Middle East was at the "epicentre of momentous events" sweeping through the region and that "hopes and aspirations which have been smothered for decades are stirring".

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