Voter ID Laws ‘A Clear Attempt By Republicans To Stop Democrats From Voting’

from ThinkProgress

On April 28, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID law, which guards against supposed fraud by requiring voters to show identification. The decision came despite the fact that “the record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history” — and despite the fact the law tends to suppress voter turnout by minorities and poor people.

Commenting on the decision on last night’s “Bill Moyers Journal,” legal scholar Jeffery Toobin explained that the “real agenda” behind voter ID laws is “to help Republicans”:

I thought it was a bad decision, but a predictable one because it was a very clear attempt by Republicans to stop Democrats from voting. I don’t think there’s any doubt about what the motivation was of that law. … The real agenda was to help Republicans.

Video here.

The Snare of Privilege

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
NYT Week in Review

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Wellesley ’69, Yale Law ’73 and the first lady of the land for eight years, is suddenly a working-class heroine of guns and whiskey shots. Barack Obama, Columbia ’83 and Harvard Law ’91, visits bowling alleys and beer halls and talks about his single mother who lived on food stamps.

John S. McCain III, United States Naval Academy ’58, the son and grandson of admirals and the husband of one of the richer women in Arizona, chases after the conservative, anti-elite religious base of the Republican Party, and prefers to talk about the “cabin” at his Sedona weekend retreat rather than the Phoenix home lushly featured in the pages of Architectural Digest in 2005.

In an increasingly populist country, it’s not surprising that all three presidential contenders have been sprinting away from the elitist label for much of this primary season. But do they really expect to get away with it?

More to the point, should they? Don’t voters want the best and brightest, and best-credentialed, rising to the top?

Not exactly. Americans have been ambivalent about elites since the nation was founded by revolutionaries who were also, in many cases, landed gentry. And status and wealth still play an outsize role in our supposedly classless society.

(Continued here.)

Appeasement’s Taint Is All in Hindsight

By ISAAC CHOTINER
NYT Week in Review

In an era when much of the 20th century’s lexicon of geopolitical stock phrases — Iron Curtain, “collaborator,” “enemy within” — has lost the power to stir passions, the last 10 days have proven once again that cries of “appeasement” still resonate.

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals,” President Bush said before the Israeli Parliament. “We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement.”

The White House claimed publicly that the reference was to those — including Jimmy Carter — who had met with Hamas, but an administration official acknowledged to reporters that the remarks were meant as a swipe at the probable Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, who has proposed meeting autocratic world leaders “without preconditions.”

John McCain seconded both the president’s use of the word appeasement and Mr. Bush’s warning about displaying weakness to enemies. “Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,” Mr. McCain said, referring to the British prime minister who met with Hitler in Munich and ceded Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to the Nazis. Mr. Obama responded in short order, arguing that it was in fact Mr. Bush’s policies, supported by Mr. McCain, that had made the United States weaker and its adversaries (in particular Iran) stronger.

Lost in what was widely seen as the opening salvo of the fall campaign was an understanding of what appeasement actually meant 70 years ago.

(Continued here.)

Love freedom, and beware the buzzword

Back in 2001, McCain said that a person couldn't talk policy to the Current Occupant for more than 10 minutes and then his mind wandered and he was anxious to talk about baseball. His impatience with detail was apparently a factor in the disastrous move to disband the Iraqi army. I hope he gets to spend some time in his presidential library in Dallas and catch up on what he missed out on.

Garrison Keillor
Chicago Tribune

The Current Occupant tossed Nazis into a speech and likened those who would negotiate with terrorists to those who tried to appease the Nazis, an awkward comparison, since Nazis were self-defined and wore the swastika proudly, and terrorists are anybody we nominate to be terrorists, who may include terrorists, people who know terrorists, people named Terry or people with wrists.

One reason Guantanamo is kept top-secret is so you and I won't know how many innocent people have been locked up there and how little the bureaucracy cares about innocence, which might remind people of the Nazis.

The Nazis have served us well as an embodiment of evil even after they're all dead and buried, thanks to movies with cruel men with bad skin and guttural voices—and the word itself, which has an ominous buzz to it, unlike the gentle "communist," a cousin to "communion" and "community," though when it comes to outright hard-core evil, communism outdid the Third Reich hands down. Stalin was the most murderous man in the history of the world, having had a larger victim pool to work with, and yet "Stalinist" is not the epithet it should be.

That's because communism was exploited for short-term political advantage after World War II by Richard Nixon and other weasels of the right, much the way "terrorist" is today, to scare people into acceding to unprecedented secrecy and concentration of power and freedom of bureaucrats from any accountability whatsoever.

(Continued here.)

Misreading the Arab Media

By LAWRENCE PINTAK, JEREMY GINGES and NICHOLAS FELTON
NYT

“ARABIC TV does not do our country justice,” President Bush complained in early 2006, calling it a purveyor of “propaganda” that “just isn’t right, it isn’t fair, and it doesn’t give people the impression of what we’re about.”

The president’s statement, along with the decision by the New York Stock Exchange to ban Al Jazeera’s reporters in 2003, is a prime example of how the Arab news media have been demonized since the 9/11 attacks. As a result, America has failed to make use of what is potentially one of its most powerful weapons in the war of ideas against terrorism.

For proof, in the last year we surveyed 601 journalists in 13 Arab countries in North Africa, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. The results, to be published in The International Journal of Press/Politics in July, shatter many of the myths upon which American public diplomacy strategy has been based.

Rather than being the enemy, most Arab journalists are potential allies whose agenda broadly tracks the stated goals of United States Middle East policy and who can be a valuable conduit for explaining American policy to their audiences. Many see themselves as agents of political and social change who believe it is their mission to reform the antidemocratic regimes they live under. When asked to name the top 10 missions of Arab journalism, they cited political reform, human rights, poverty and education as the most important issues facing the region, trumping Palestinian statehood and the war in Iraq. Overwhelmingly, they wanted the clergy to stay out of politics. And, aside from the ever-present issue of Israel, they ranked “lack of political change” alongside American policy as the greatest threats to the Arab world.

(Continued here.)

Democrats use quick Senate session to stop Bush from making recess appointments

By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press

May 23, 2008

WASHINGTON - The Senate is famed for its longwinded debates, but on Friday it took Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown just seconds to stop Republicans in their tracks.

With the Senate entering the first day of its Memorial Day recess, the Ohio senator was briefly in the chair, before a near-empty chamber, to gavel in and gavel out what is called a pro forma session. Without that procedural move, the Senate would technically be adjourned and President Bush could install administration officials or judges as "recess appointments" — without Senate confirmation.

"That's the fastest I've ever done it," said Brown, who like other freshmen does duty as presiding officer when the Senate is in regular session. He said he didn't realize until he got there that the prayer and Pledge of Allegiance, which usually open a session, were dispensed with for pro forma meetings.

"I'm willing to do it," Brown said of showing up when nearly every senator has already left town. "We're not going to let them get away with that kind of abuse of power."

According to numbers provided by the Senate historian's office, Bush had made 165 recess appointments by last fall. That's when Democrats started blocking them with pro forma sessions.

(Continued here.)

In McCain Campaign, a Lobbying Labyrinth

By BARRY MEIER
NYT

Rick Davis, the manager of Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign, is a typical Washington insider in many ways, having long worked as both a lobbyist and a political operative along the intersection of politics, policy and money.

Now Mr. Davis is overseeing new lobbyist-related guidelines that the campaign has issued in an effort to safeguard Mr. McCain’s reputation as an opponent of special interests. The plan, among other things, bars “registered” lobbyists, those who must file disclosure reports listing their clients, from working on the campaign.

Mr. Davis, who last worked as a registered lobbyist in 2005 and took a leave from his lobbying firm in 2006, appears to meet those guidelines. Still, his own business dealings in recent years — roles that include consultant and investor — extend beyond lobbying and illustrate the limits of the guidelines in defining what it means to be selling expertise and helping to provide access.

Take Mr. Davis’s involvement with one of his lesser-known lobbying clients, an Israeli company, Imagesat, which sells satellite imagery. Along with lobbying for it, Mr. Davis became a consultant to a private investment firm that had a financial stake in it. That connection opened the door for him to get in on the ground floor of other investments made by the firm, Pegasus Capital Advisors.

(Continued here.)

Watching Ohio and PA

Joshua Micah Marshall
Talking Points Memo

I'm intrigued by the series of veep selection polls SurveyUSA released last week, putting Obama up against McCain with different vice presidential possibilities in a few key states. As noted previously, I'm skeptical about the significance of the veep matchings because I think much of the variance is simply a matter of name recognition. But each poll also has a straight head-to-head match without other names attached.

In Ohio, SUSA has Obama beating McCain by 9 points.

In Pennsylvania, SUSA has Obama beating McCain by 8 points.

In New Mexico, SUSA has Obama tied with McCain.

In Virginia, SUSA has Obama beating McCain by 7 points.

(Continued here, with hotlinks.)

On The Eve Of The General McCain Is Lagging

by J Ro, Sat May 24, 2008
from MyDD

Every once in a while, I like to put things in perspective.

John McCain has had three months to run unopposed. Since locking up the Republican nomination in February, he's been free to tour the country, pander to his base, and fundraise without much media scrutiny. But as the primary wraps up and the media gets its nose out of the Democratic fight, it's becoming painfully clear McCain hasn't made a lot of the time that was given to him.

Since February, John McCain has been doing two main things: making speeches and raising money. He hasn't been particularly good at either of them.

He's made numerous "big" policy speeches - on topics such as the economy, foreign policy, and the environment - and taken a few choreographed "tours" around the country - his environmental tour, his "forgotten places" tour. By and large, these media events have been received with mixed reviews. His economic proposals have been ridiculed as being half-baked. And his town halls and speeches have been met with hostile crowds.

Overall, McCain has done little of what he was supposed to be doing:

* McCain's fundraising numbers for April were slightly over half of Obama's: $18 million to $31 million.
* In the uncontested Republican primaries, McCain has been subject to a significant protest vote from dissatisfied GOP voters.
* McCain's tracking poll numbers haven't improved against Obama, even without opposition.

There are other troubling indicators, too.

* Over the last week, the vaulted McCain brand has taken a big hit. McCain has had to fire high-profile lobbyists from key positions in his campaign, and is currently re-vetting his entire staff. More resignations are likely.
* McCain has had to reject two pastors who's endorsements he sought, bringing into question his judgement and pissing off religious conservatives.
* It looks like McCain will have a spoiler on the right in the form of libertarian Bob Barr.
* And, as Todd Beeton points out, the sitting Republican President and the Republican nominee can't fill a stadium for a fundraiser in McCain's home town!

(Continued here, with hotlinks.)

Dunkin’ Dumbasses

By: SilentPatriot
from CrooksandLiars

(Title borrowed from John Cole.)

File this under: “we now know why McCain is ignoring Michelle Malkin.”

A new Dunkin Donuts ad featuring Rachel Ray sporting a tattered white scarf has the wingnuts in a tizzy, with Michelle Malkin leading the charge. You have to be deranged to see this ad and come to the conclusion that Rachel Ray is a secret Yasser Arafat-loving, terrorist-sympathizing threat who must be stopped for the sake of civilization. Take a glimpse with me into the warped mind of a lunatic fringer:

Michelle Malkin - Of donuts and dumb celebrities:

Is Ray’s blunder worth boycotting DD over? I’ll be interested to hear the company’s take. At this point, I’m going to give the management the benefit of the doubt. They have braved boycott threats and attacks over their lonely, principled stance against illegal immigration. Given their pro-rule of law, America first position, I highly doubt the executive offices are filled with moonbats who endorse Ray’s keffiyeh chic.

Charles Johnson @ Little Green Footballs - Mainstreaming Terrorism to Sell Donuts:

I didn’t believe this story when people first started emailing about it; but sure enough, its true. Dunkin Donuts, the venerable old fried dough seller, is the latest American firm to casually promote the symbol of Palestinian terrorism and the intifada, the kaffiyeh, via Rachael Ray: Dunkin’ Breakfast Choices.

Pam Geller, when shes not demanding Obama be drug tested (seriously) - Rachel Ray, Dunkin Donuts Jihad Tool:

Have you seen Rachel Ray wearing the icon of Yasser Arfatbastard and the bloody Islamic jihad. This is part of the cultural jihad.

John McCain may have terrible judgment when it comes to war and lobbyists, but he’s got Malkin figured out just right.

(More here.)

McCain's Ethical Dilemma: Campaign Filled With Lobbyist Kingpins

Thomas B. Edsall
The Huffington Post

The steady disclosures of past lobbying activity by campaign aides, and the struggle to minimize firings, continue to plague John McCain's presidential campaign -- but the reality is that these problems only get worse the deeper anyone digs. There you'll find an anti-cigarette tax campaign on behalf of Lorillard Tobacco and a full-scale campaign to persuade the US Senate to approve use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste site.

McCain has sprung a trap on himself, demanding exceptionally high ethical standards for public officials, while simultaneously turning his campaign operation into a home for some of Washington's lobbying kingpins -- men and women who specialize in just the influence peddling McCain has repeatedly deplored.

On his own campaign web site, McCain declares:

"Too often the special interest lobbyists with the fattest wallets and best access carry the day when issues of public policy are being decided.... [McCain] has fought the 'revolving door' by which lawmakers and other influential officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special interests they have aided....As President, John McCain will see to it that the institutions of self-government are respected pillars of democracy, not commodities to be bought, bartered, or abused."

(Continued here.)

Worries in G.O.P. About Disarray in McCain Camp

By ADAM NAGOURNEY
NYT

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign is in a troubled stretch, hindered by resignations of staff members, a lagging effort to build a national campaign organization and questions over whether he has taken full advantage of Democratic turmoil to present a case for his candidacy, Republicans say.

In interviews, some party leaders said they were worried about signs of disorder in his campaign, and if the focus in the last several weeks on the prominent role of lobbyists in Mr. McCain’s inner circle might undercut the heart of his general election message: that he is a reformer taking on special interests in Washington.

“The core image of John McCain is as a reformer in Washington — and the more dominant the story is about the lobbying teams around him, the more you put that into question,” said Terry Nelson, who was Mr. McCain’s campaign manager until he was forced out last year. “If the Obama campaign can truly change him from being seen as a reformer to just being another Washington politician, it could be very damaging over the course of the campaign.”

The ousters of some of the staff members came after Mr. McCain imposed a new policy that active lobbyists would not be allowed to hold paying jobs in the campaign.

(Continued here.)

Obama's Secret War Profiteering Tax

by Greg Palast | May 23, 2008
from SmirkingChimp

I can't make this up:

In a hotel room in Brussels, the chief executives of the world's top oil companies unrolled a huge map of the Middle East, drew a fat, red line around Iraq and signed their names to it.

The map, the red line, the secret signatures. It explains this war. It explains this week's rocketing of the price of oil to $134 a barrel.

It happened on July 31, 1928, but the bill came due now.

Barack Obama knows this. Or, just as important, those crafting his policies seem to know this. Same for Hillary Clinton's team. There could be no more vital difference between the Republican and Democratic candidacies. And you won't learn a thing about it on the news from the Fox-holes.

Let me explain.

In 1928, oil company chieftains (from Anglo-Persian Oil, now British Petroleum, from Standard Oil, now Exxon, and their Continental counterparts) were faced with a crisis: falling prices due to rising supplies of oil; the same crisis faced by their successors during the Clinton years, when oil traded at $22 a barrel.

(Continued here.)

Obama/Edwards overwhelms any McCain ticket in Ohio

Ohio VP Matchups
SurveyUSA

Here’s the table of matchups from Ohio, where before asking about Vice Presidential possibilities, we find Barack Obama leading John McCain by 9 points.

(Click here for graphic.)

Research conducted for WCMH-TV Columbus and WCPO-TV Cincinnati.

CUBA: Foundation warm to Obama's ideas

BY CASEY WOODS, ALFONSO CHARDY, AND BETH REINHARD
Miami Herald

The prominent Cuban-American organization that Republican President Ronald Reagan once counted on to secure victory in Florida was electrified on Friday by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In a lunchtime speech to the Cuban American National Foundation, Obama offered a new Cuba policy approach to an audience accustomed to presidential candidates coming to show solidarity, but not to challenge the long isolation of the island's communist government.

Obama, greeted by a standing ovation and scattered chanting of his campaign slogan, ''Yes we can,'' touched on one of his more controversial ideas: a willingness to meet with Cuban leader Raúl Castro.

''I know what the easy thing is to do for American politicians . . . Every four years, they come down to Miami, they talk tough, they go back to Washington and nothing changes in Cuba,'' he said.

"After eight years of the disastrous policies of George Bush, it is time, I believe, to pursue direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions.''

(Continued here.)

Obama would take California in November, Times/KTLA poll finds

Clinton would also defeat McCain in the fall, but by a smaller margin. The survey comes less than four months after Obama's loss in the state primary.
By Cathleen Decker
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 24, 2008

Less than four months after losing the California primary, Democrat Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain in projected November general election matchups, a new Los Angeles Times/KTLA Poll has found.

Obama, the Illinois senator who has inched close to his party's nomination, would defeat McCain by seven points if the election were held today. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, whose fortunes have faltered since her Feb. 5 drubbing of Obama in California, would eke out only a three-point victory, the poll found.

The poll appeared to illustrate that Democrats, at least in California, are gravitating toward the candidate who is broadly expected to eventually seize the party's mantle. Obama now runs better against the Arizona senator than does Clinton among many of the groups that powered her victory in the state, among them Latinos, Catholics and those without college degrees.

Although exit polls in recent primaries elsewhere have shown Clinton supporters reluctant to embrace Obama as the nominee, there was little of that sentiment evident in the California poll. But the survey could not measure whether time had eased partisan passions or whether Californians were predisposed to embrace either Democrat.

Overall, Obama led McCain 47% to 40% among registered voters, while Clinton led McCain 43% to 40%.

(Continued here.)

Rove Subpoenaed Again

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, May 23, 2008

The House Judiciary Committee yesterday sent former White House political guru Karl Rove a new subpoena to add to his document collection. It makes a matching pair with the subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee that he's been ignoring since last August.

Both relate to investigations of Rove's role in the politicization of the Justice Department and the possibly politically-motivated firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

The House investigation is particularly focused on allegations of selective prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. And because Rove -- now a celebrated pundit and columnist -- has been so outspoken in denying any involvement with the Siegelman case, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers argues that Rove's refusal to appear at a public hearing and testify under oath is particularly inappropriate.

But there seems little doubt that Conyers will run into the same wall that has thwarted his Senate colleagues. The day Rove was supposed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he didn't bother to show up. And the White House made the extraordinary claim that he has absolute immunity from congressional oversight. As I wrote in my Aug. 2 column, Karl Rove's Immunity, the law does not appear to support anywhere near such a broad assertion. Traditionally, courts have recognized that the president's right to confidentiality must be balanced against Congress's legitimate oversight needs. But no matter. The White House asserted it -- and the Senate folded.

(Continued here.)

Canadian teen discovers plastic-bag-devouring microbe

Eoin O'Carroll | 05.23.08
Christian Science Monitor

As part of a science fair project, a Canadian teenager has come up with a way to get plastic shopping bags, which normally take up to 1,000 years to decompose, to break down in as little as three months.

Daniel Burd, a 16-year-old high school student in Waterloo, Canada, reasoned that, because plastic eventually degrades, there is probably some some microorganism out there that breaks it down. If that microbe could be identified, you could expose higher concentrations of it to plastic and break it down faster.

So Mr. Burd did just that. The Waterloo Region Record explains his experiment:

First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees.

(Continued here.)

The Wisdom In Talking

By John F. Kerry
Washington Post
Saturday, May 24, 2008

As President Bush commemorated Israel's 60th anniversary by attacking Barack Obama from overseas, here at home he found an all-too-frequent ally: John McCain.

When Bush accused "some" -- including Obama, Bush aides explained -- of "the false comfort of appeasement," McCain echoed this slander.

"What does he want to talk about with [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad?" McCain asked, fumbling to link Obama to the Iranian president's hateful words. Soon, a GOP talking point was born.

Lost in the rhetoric was the question America deserves to have answered: Why should we engage with Iran?

In short, not talking to Iran has failed. Miserably.

(Continued here.)

Poor ticket sales, expected protests scuttle Bush-McCain fundraiser at Phoenix Convention Center

Phoenix Business Journal - May 23, 2008

A Tuesday fundraiser headlined by President Bush for U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is being moved out of the Phoenix Convention Center.

Sources familiar with the situation said the Bush-McCain event was not selling enough tickets to fill the Convention Center space, and that there were concerns about more anti-war protesters showing up outside the venue than attending the fundraiser inside.

Another source said there were concerns about the media covering the event.

Bush's Arizona fundraising effort for McCain is being moved to private residences in the Phoenix area. A White House official said the event was being moved because the McCain campaign prefers private fundraisers and it is Bush administration policy to have events in public venues open to the media. The White House official said to reconcile that the Tuesday event will be held at a private venue and not the Convention Center.

Convention Center personnel confirmed the event has been canceled at their venue.

Tickets to the event were to range from $1,000 to $25,000 for VIP treatment. Money was to go toward McCain's presidential bid and a number of Republican Party organs.

Anti-war protesters were planning to be out in force. President Bush's job approval rating stands at 31 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.com.

The McCain campaign referred questions on the fundraiser change to the White House press office. (Comment: Huh?)

© 2008 American City Business Journals, Inc.

2 Inquiries Set on Pentagon Publicity Effort

By DAVID BARSTOW
NYT

The inspector general’s office at the Defense Department announced on Friday that it would investigate a Pentagon public affairs program that sought to transform retired military officers who work as television and radio analysts into “message force multipliers” who could be counted on to echo Bush administration talking points about Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and terrorism in general.

The announcement came a day after the House passed an amendment to the annual military authorization bill that would mandate investigations of the program by both the inspector general’s office and Congress’s investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office.

The G.A.O. said it had already begun looking into the program and would give a legal opinion on whether it violated longstanding prohibitions against spending government money to spread propaganda to audiences in the United States.

The Defense Department suspended the program last month, just days after it was the focus of an article in The New York Times. The article described an ambitious Pentagon campaign to cultivate dozens of military analysts as “surrogates” to generate favorable coverage of the administration’s wartime performance. The analysts, many with undisclosed ties to military contractors, were wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior government officials.

(Continued here.)

Clinton Remark on Robert Kennedy’s Killing Stirs Uproar

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
New York Times

BRANDON, S.D. — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defended staying in the Democratic nominating contest on Friday by pointing out that her husband had not wrapped up the nomination until June 1992, adding, “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”

Her remarks were met with quick criticism from the campaign of Senator Barack Obama, and within hours of making them Mrs. Clinton expressed regret, saying, “The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy,” referring to the recent diagnosis of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s brain tumor. She added, “And I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive.”

Still, the comments touched on one of the most sensitive aspects of the current presidential campaign — concern for Mr. Obama’s safety. And they come as Democrats have been talking increasingly of an Obama/Clinton ticket, with friends of the Clintons saying that Bill Clinton is musing about the possibility that the vice presidency might be his wife’s best path to the presidency if she loses the nomination.

(Continued here.)

270 Illegal Immigrants Sent to Prison in Federal Push

By JULIA PRESTON
New York Times

WATERLOO, Iowa — In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.

The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.

The convicted immigrants were among 389 workers detained at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in nearby Postville in a raid that federal officials called the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.

Matt M. Dummermuth, the United States attorney for northern Iowa, who oversaw the prosecutions, called the operation an “astonishing success.”

(Continued here.)

From the same issue of the NYT: Immigration Officials Arrest 905 in California Sweep

The Unraveling

by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank
The New Republic

The jihadist revolt against bin Laden.

Within a few minutes of Noman Benotman's arrival at the Kandahar guest house, Osama bin Laden came to welcome him. The journey from Kabul had been hard, 17 hours in a Toyota pickup truck bumping along what passed as the main highway to southern Afghanistan. It was the summer of 2000, and Benotman, then a leader of a group trying to overthrow the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, had been invited by bin Laden to a conference of jihadists from around the Arab world, the first of its kind since Al Qaeda had moved to Afghanistan in 1996. Benotman, the scion of an aristocratic family marginalized by Qaddafi, had known bin Laden from their days fighting the Afghan communist government in the early '90s, a period when Benotman established himself as a leader of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

The night of Benotman's arrival, bin Laden threw a lavish banquet in the main hall of his compound, an unusual extravagance for the frugal Al Qaeda leader. As bin Laden circulated, making small talk, large dishes of rice and platters of whole roasted lamb were served to some 200 jihadists, many of whom had come from around the Middle East. "It was one big reunification," Benotman recalls. "The leaders of most of the jihadist groups in the Arab world were there and almost everybody within Al Qaeda."

(Continued here.)

States of Nature

by Jeffrey Rosen
The New Republic

How George Bush's legal war against the environment backfired.

In their long-standing campaign against environmental protections, American conservatives have taken a kitchen sink approach: First they exalted states' rights and attacked the Environmental Protection Agency; later, they reversed course, attacking states' rights and exalting the EPA. The only consistent objective was to thwart regulation, and the only question was which strategy would be most effective in achieving that goal.

But their political opportunism may soon come to haunt them. By abandoning their strict states'-rights principles for a broad view of the EPA's authority, conservatives have boxed themselves into a corner. If Congress and the White House are in a more environmental mood after November, conservative anti-environmentalists may find that they have laid the legal groundwork for their ultimate defeat.

The debate among conservatives over the best strategy for pro-business environmental policies has been raging for three decades. During the Reagan and first Bush administrations, the states'-rights strategy initially prevailed. In a series of legal challenges, conservatives embraced a pre-New Deal vision of Congress's power to regulate the environment. They insisted that the Clean Air Act, which instructs the EPA to "protect the public health" by regulating ozone and particulate matter, was an unconstitutional delegation of regulatory authority. In a federal appellate opinion in 1999, Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. embraced this radical argument. (He was the same judge who had called for the resurrection of the "Constitution in Exile"--a reference to judicial limitations on federal authority that had been dormant since the 1930s and that would have called the EPA itself into question.) But, in 2001, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court disagreed. (In a separate concurrence, only Clarence Thomas indicated that he would be amenable to similarly radical arguments in the future.)

(Continued here.)

Speaking to the enemy

May 22nd 2008
From The Economist print edition

Sometimes it makes sense; sometimes it doesn't; sometimes not talking can be appeasement

EVERY noun enjoys its 15 minutes of fame. Some get more fame than they deserve. In America's foreign-policy debate one that has been bandied about too much lately is “appeasement”. When he spoke to Israel's parliament on May 15th, George Bush blasted those who sought “the false comfort of appeasement” by negotiating with terrorists and radicals in the Middle East. Barack Obama assumed the barb was aimed at him. He in turn accused Mr Bush and John McCain, the Republican candidate, of “hypocrisy and fear mongering”.

Mr Obama had it right. Speaking to the enemy is an ordinary part of diplomacy and does not on its own amount to appeasement. In Munich in 1938, Neville Chamberlain's sin was not that he talked to Adolf Hitler, but that instead of standing up to him he sold Czechoslovakia down the river. Had the British prime minister then been Winston Churchill, the outcome of the meeting, and the history of the world, might have been different. In January 1991 in Geneva, for example, America's secretary of state talked face-to-face to Tariq Aziz, a nasty piece of work who was Saddam Hussein's foreign minister and is currently on trial for murder. But nobody has ever been silly enough to accuse James Baker or the president who sent him (one George H. W. Bush) of appeasement. And that is because instead of letting Iraq keep Kuwait, which it had just invaded and annexed, Mr Baker told Mr Aziz that America would throw Iraq out by force if it did not leave. Hardly appeasement.

(Continued here.)

How the “good war” could fail

May 22nd 2008
From The Economist print edition

America needs to lean much harder on Afghanistan's President Karzai

IN CONVENTIONAL wisdom it is the “good war” that was neglected to wage the bad one in Iraq. Afghanistan's Taliban regime had provided al-Qaeda with a haven and refused after the attacks of September 11th to give its leaders up. When America invaded there was no twisting of intelligence, as in Iraq, and no great rift at the United Nations. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both say that one reason to pull American forces smartly out of Iraq is to reinforce a war that is not only more justified but also—given enough troops—more winnable.

The conventional view contains some truth. But whatever the respective merits of Iraq and Afghanistan, it needs adjusting in one vital respect. The NATO forces in Afghanistan are too small, but that is not the chief threat to the West's purposes there. The weakness and corruption of Afghanistan's elected government matter more. This weakness, moreover, is not the inevitable product of Afghanistan's poverty and backwardness, even though these things play a part. It is the result of a failure of political will in Kabul and in Washington. Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai is not doing as much as he should to build an effective administration. And George Bush is not doing as much as he could to twist Mr Karzai's arm.
Stalemate and worse

As our briefing this week reports (see article), the military campaign against the Taliban is going reasonably well in parts of the country. Despite having the use of an invaluable cross-border sanctuary in the Pushtun tribal areas of Pakistan, Taliban fighters have little chance of grabbing any major town or city. An American-led campaign of assassinations has picked off many of their experienced commanders. The Taliban prefers now to avoid frontal clashes and concentrates on laying roadside bombs. For the time being, the danger is less that the government will lose more land to the insurgents, more that the war will settle into a stalemate, one in which the Taliban controls much of the countryside in the Pushtun belt and Mr Karzai's government runs the rest.

(Continued here.)

Every word a lie

Spencer Ackerman
ThinkProgress

Ah, once again: the stakes in Iraq. From Bush’s speech at Fort Bragg yesterday:

Some of our fellow citizens wonder whether the mission in Iraq is worth the cost. I strongly believe it is. And here is why: The enemy has made clear that Iraq is the central battleground of the great ideological struggle of our time. This is a struggle between those who murder the innocent to advance their hateful objectives and those of us who love liberty and long for peace. We saw that these enemies — what these enemies intend for our country on September the 11th, 2001 — and we must do everything in our power to stop the enemy from attacking us again.

Withdrawal from Iraq before we have achieved success would embolden al Qaeda and give them new safe havens from which to plot attacks on the American homeland. Withdrawal before success would embolden Iran in its nuclear weapons ambitions and its efforts to dominate the region. Withdrawal before success would send a signal to terrorists and extremists across the world that America is weak, and does not have the stomach for a long fight. Withdrawal before success would be catastrophic for our country. It would more likely — be more likely that we would suffer another attack like the one we experienced on September the 11th. It would jeopardize the safety of future generations. And we must not, and we will not, allow that to happen. (Applause.)

Every word of this is a lie. The U.S. military’s own intelligence collection in Iraq recognizes that Al Qaeda is a miniscule fraction of the insurgencies and that what foreign fighters are in Iraq are there because our occupation has radicalized them. Gen. Petraeus, like the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus, said yesterday that the next attacks “on the American homeland” will come not from Iraq, but from Pakistan, where the actual Al Qaeda senior leadership remains unmolested. Note as well the hollowness of Bush’s terms. Terrorists will be “emboldened” by withdrawal? They’re terrorists — that’s plenty bold, sir. What’s worse then their “emboldening” is us providing them with the targets they want in the places they want, like Iraq.

But worst of all is Bush’s line that “the enemy has made clear that Iraq is the central battleground of the great ideological struggle of our time.” You know who used to speak like that? KGB director Yuri Andropov, a true believer in the Brezhnev Doctrine. It led him right into Afghanistan. Notice that there’s no more Soviet Union.

How the US dream foundered in Iraq

By Michael Schwartz
Asia Times

On February 15, 2003, ordinary citizens around the world poured into the streets to protest President George W Bush's onrushing invasion of Iraq. Demonstrations took place in large cities and small towns globally, including a small but spirited protest at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Up to 30 million people, who sensed impending catastrophe, participated in what Rebecca Solnit, that apostle of popular hope, has called "the biggest and most widespread collective protest the world has ever seen".

The first glancing assessment of history branded this remarkable planetary protest a record-breaking failure, since the Bush administration, less than one month later, ordered US troops across the Kuwaiti border and on to Baghdad.

And it has since largely been forgotten, or perhaps better put, obliterated from official and media memory. Yet popular protest is more like a river than a storm; it keeps flowing into new areas, carrying pieces of its earlier life into other realms. We rarely know its consequences until many years afterward, when, if we're lucky, we finally sort out its meandering path. Speaking for the protesters back in May 2003, only a month after US troops entered the Iraqi capital, Solnit offered the following:

We will likely never know, but it seems that the Bush administration decided against the "shock and awe" saturation bombing of Baghdad because we made it clear that the cost in world opinion and civil unrest would be too high. We millions may have saved a few thousand or a few tens of thousand of lives. The global debate about the war delayed it for months, months that perhaps gave many Iraqis time to lay in stores, evacuate, brace for the onslaught.

Whatever history ultimately concludes about that unexpected moment of protest, once the war began, other forms of resistance arose - mainly in Iraq itself - that were equally unexpected. And their effects on the larger goals of Bush administration planners can be more easily traced. Think of it this way: in a land the size of California with but 26 million people, a ragtag collection of Ba'athists, fundamentalists, former military men, union organizers, democratic secularists, local tribal leaders and politically active clerics - often at each other's throats (quite literally) - nonetheless managed to thwart the plans of the self-proclaimed New Rome, the "hyperpower" and "global sheriff" of planet Earth. And that, even in the first glancing assessment of history, may indeed prove historic.

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Where are those Iranian arms in Iraq?

Asia Times
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - The United States military command in Iraq continues to talk about an alleged pipeline of Iranian weapons to Iraqi Shi'ites opposing the US occupation, implying that they have become dependent on Iran for indirect-fire weapons and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

But US officials have failed thus far to provide evidence that would support that claim, and a long-delayed US military report on Iranian arms is unlikely to offer any data on what proportion of the weapons in the hands of Shi'ite fighters are from Iran and what proportion comes from purchases on the open market.

When Major General Kevin Bergner was asked that question at a briefing on May 8, he did not answer it directly. Instead, Bergner reverted to a standard US military line that these groups "could not do what they're doing without the support of foreign support [sic]". Then he defined "foreign support" to include training and funding as well as weapons, implicitly conceding that he did not have much of a case based on weapons alone.

Bergner's refusal to address that question reflects a fundamental problem with the US claims about Iranian weapons in Iraq: if there are indeed any Iranian rockets and mortars and RPGs in the arsenal of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army's stand-off weapons, they represent an insignificant part of it.

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Obama: Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs Responsible For Rise In Hate Crimes Against Hispanics

The Huffington Post

At a fundraiser in Florida Thursday night, Barack Obama accused anti-immigrant crusaders Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh of "ginning things up" to such an extent that there was a rise in hate crimes against Hispanics last year.

"A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There's a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year," Obama said. "If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it's not surprising that would happen."

Politico's Jonathan Martin writes that Limbaugh addressed Obama's remarks on his radio show today and said that the remarks hurt his feelings.

"I actually don't believe this. Barack Obama, in my own state, raising money for his presidential campaign called me xenophobic at a fundraiser," Limbaugh said. "I thought this guy was the unity candidate? Calling me a Xenophobe? Responsible for hate crimes? My feelings are hurt here."

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Clinton Invokes RFK Assassination

By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton invoked the memory of slain Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy as she explained her persistence in the Democratic race on Friday, saying that although the media and the Barack Obama campaign have been trying to usher her from the race, "historically, that makes no sense."

"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California," Clinton said in a meeting with the editorial board of the Argus Leader, a newspaper in South Dakota.

Her advisers later said she was using the historical reference to note that campaigns have stretched until the summer before, not to suggest that Obama might be assassinated. In the previous sentence, she had also noted that her husband's campaign in 1992 lasted until June as well.

But in a campaign in which voters have voiced concerns about the safety of the first African American front-runner in history, it was a surprising choice of words by Clinton, whose best hope for seizing the nomination now would be a major setback for Obama. Clinton has already faced harsh criticism for allegedly exacerbating racial divisions in the nominating process.

(Continued here, with video.)

Obama says he would meet with Cuba's leaders

Carol J. Williams and Johanna Neuman
LA Times

Barack Obama wants "direct diplomacy" with the Castro government in an effort to bring democracy to Cuba. One critic calls the view "wishful thinking."

MIAMI -- Sen. Barack Obama called today for "direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike," saying he would meet with Cuba's Communist leaders in hopes of advancing democracy on the island.

In a luncheon speech to the most powerful Cuban exile group in the country, the Illinois Democrat vying for his party's presidential nomination also said he would immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances.

"It's time for more than tough talk that never yields results. It's time for a new strategy. There are no better ambassadors for freedom than Cuban Americans," he said, noting the prospects for influencing Cuba's political course by engagement and example.

The annual Cuban Independence Day banquet of the Cuban American National Foundation cheered Obama's avowed commitment to fostering democracy in Cuba. But the audience showed its wariness of his talk of meeting with Cuban leaders. Mere handfuls applauded that statement from among the crowd of at least 500.

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The truth comes out

Clinton, Defending Nomination Battle, Cites R.F.K. Assassination

By Katharine Q. Seelye

SIOUX FALLS, S.D.– Senator Hillary Clinton apologized for referring to the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 as a reason she should continue her battle with Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.

Mrs. Clinton’s initial remarks came during meeting with the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board. She was responding to a question about calls for her to drop out of the race. The editorial board meeting, in advance of South Dakota’s primary on June 3, was carried live on the Argus Leader’s Web site.

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” Mrs. Clinton said, dismissing the idea of dropping out.

Mr. Obama learned of the remark when he was traveling to a rally in South Florida. He was not expected to publicly discuss it, aides said. Instead, the campaign issued a one-line statement.

“Senator Clinton’s statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign,” said Bill Burton, a campaign spokesman.

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Franken-Coleman Race Is Going to the Blogs

By MONICA DAVEY
New York Times

EAGAN, Minn. — On a laptop at a kitchen table in this cheery Twin Cities suburb, headlines ripping into Al Franken, the satirist whose campaign for the United States Senate is seen as one of the most competitive in the nation, are written up day after day for “Minnesota Democrats Exposed,” a political blog created by a former Republican Party researcher.

Michael B. Brodkorb, the blog’s creator, is a former Republican Party researcher who has worked on campaigns of some of this state’s top Republicans. His critics say the Web site’s claims, screamed in red uppercase letters, are often breathless, far-fetched, painfully partisan.

But Minnesota Democrats Exposed has dealt several blows to Mr. Franken’s campaign lately: revelations that he owed $25,000 to the State of New York for failing to pay workers’ compensation insurance and that his corporation was in forfeiture in California. Mr. Franken has since paid the debt.

With only weeks until the state Democratic Party’s convention, where Mr. Franken is expected to win the party’s endorsement to run against Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican incumbent, people here disagree about how much these financial questions will matter to voters in the fall.

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The Dogs of War

NTY Book Review
By RAYMOND BONNER

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
By Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris.
286 pp. The Penguin Press. $25.95.

After the abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib was exposed in April 2004 by The New Yorker and “60 Minutes,” the Bush administration sought to portray the reprehensible misconduct as the work of a few bad apples. Seeming to underscore that verdict was the fact that soldiers took pictures of themselves, smiling, holding thumbs up, with the naked, dead, abused and humiliated prisoners.

Unfortunately, the truth, which emerges with painful clarity from “Standard Operating Procedure,” is that what happened at Abu Ghraib was not only tolerated but condoned and encouraged. Harsh treatment wasn’t punished; it was rewarded. When First Lt. Carolyn Wood of the Army was in charge of the interrogation center at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan in 2003, she established a policy that allowed prisoners to be held in solitary confinement for a month, to be stripped, shackled in painful positions, kept without sleep, bombarded with sound and light. Three prisoners were beaten to death on her watch. She was awarded a Bronze Star, one of the armed forces’ highest combat medals, promoted to captain and sent to Iraq.

At Abu Ghraib, a Marine Corps lawyer and an Army lawyer witnessed prisoners being suspended from their cell doors. Occasionally they expressed mild concern, but over all they said nothing, which was taken as “implied consent.” When a prisoner interrogated by the C.I.A. died from the beatings, a “parade of senior officers” viewed the corpse. Army medics cleaned up the body, and the official reason given for the death was a heart attack.

Sometimes just for fun, Cpl. Charles Graner and other guards hauled prisoners out of their cells, stripped them, punched them, put sandbags over their heads and forced them to masturbate. Soldiers gleefully snapped photographs.

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In preparation for the Republican National Convention, the FBI is soliciting informants to keep tabs on local protest groups

from The City Pages

Moles Wanted
By Matt Snyders

Paul Carroll was riding his bike when his cell phone vibrated.

Once he arrived home from the Hennepin County Courthouse, where he’d been served a gross misdemeanor for spray-painting the interior of a campus elevator, the lanky, wavy-haired University of Minnesota sophomore flipped open his phone and checked his messages. He was greeted by a voice he recognized immediately. It belonged to U of M Police Sgt. Erik Swanson, the officer to whom Carroll had turned himself in just three weeks earlier. When Carroll called back, Swanson asked him to meet at a coffee shop later that day, going on to assure a wary Carroll that he wasn’t in trouble.

Carroll, who requested that his real name not be used, showed up early and waited anxiously for Swanson’s arrival. Ten minutes later, he says, a casually dressed Swanson showed up, flanked by a woman whom he introduced as FBI Special Agent Maureen E. Mazzola. For the next 20 minutes, Mazzola would do most of the talking.

“She told me that I had the perfect ‘look,’” recalls Carroll. “And that I had the perfect personality—they kept saying I was friendly and personable—for what they were looking for.”

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