I was on Morning Joe talking about the White House campaign to silence its critics and set them up as scapegoats for Democratic losses in November. Joe Scarborough asked me why people on the left are upset, and I said it’s because people don’t like it when the President says one thing and does another.

There has been a 19 point shift in the margin of support among Hispanics from Democrats to Republicans since July, per Gallup. That’s AFTER the passage of the Arizona immigration law in April:

Those numbers kept dropping even after Eric Holder said the Justice Department would sue to oppose the Arizona law.

People don’t like it when they feel like they’ve been played. Deportations have increased under the Obama Administration:

Instead of doing anything about that, Robert Menendez introduced another “comprehensive immigration bill,” and went on the Sunday talk shows touting the fact that they could bring it up in the lame duck or new session.

As Dave Dayen said, “allow me to contain my laughter.”

I wrote earlier that in the era of “big data,” it’s easier for issue advocates to see when someone’s actions don’t match up with their words. Anyone can watch Joe Biden on the Rachel Maddow Show on September 15, and hear him say “we have enough votes to sustain support for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Vote [sic]. And we’re just gonna push it as hard as we can.”

Maddow then asked why the President doesn’t suspend DADT discharges in the mean time:

MADDOW: [W]hy not suspend the discharges of people under the policy now, pending that Defense Department review? Why keep kicking people out now while all of this movement is happening towards ending the policy?

BIDEN: Because that is the compromise we basically had to make to get the votes to finally repeal it.

“Because that is the compromise we basically had to make to get the votes to finally repeal it.”

Well, that didn’t work, did it? They didn’t even have the support of the Democrats in the Senate, let alone the Republican votes needed to prevent a filibuster. Both Lincoln and Pryor helped DADT go down to defeat.

So either Biden got played, or he lied. Either they didn’t have the votes in the first place, or they couldn’t hold them. In either case, there is nothing preventing the President, as the Commander in Chief, from suspending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell discharges pending the Pentagon review if he’s sincere and that’s what he really wants. He could do it today.

Obama says liberals are hurting Democrats and depressing turnout when they criticize him. Well, he’s not up for reelection in November, and we’re doing plenty to support Democrats. We’ve raised nearly $40,000 for Russ Feingold in the past week alone.

But right before an election is the time that the public is supposed to express their concerns and hold their representatives accountable. That’s why we have elections in the first place. It’s the last chance people will have to push their elected officials on how they plan to vote on the Catfood Commission’s recommendations in December, which members of the commission say will include cuts in Social Security benefits. A bill that Obama plans to sign.

Anyone who tells people to be silent now is telling you to give up your last chance to fight to keep Congress from voting to reduce the deficit on the backs of senior citizens.

But Obama’s not talking about the fact that people are unhappy about his Catfood Commission plans. He says that people expect too much too soon, but that’s a straw man. That’s not what’s happening at all.

People understand when they’re being played. And they don’t like it.

There is a belief amongst many of the Iraqi elite, as well as other Arab politicians, intellectuals and journalists, that the U.S. is conspiring with the Iranians on the issue of Iraq, and that there is a plot to divide the region. The allegation is that America is concluding a deal with its Iranian counterparts, to persuade Tehran to cooperate with America and the West on the subject of its nuclear program [in exchange for allowing the Iranians to politically intervene in Iraq]. This was already offered by the Iranians to the West, in particularly the Americans. Therefore Washington, according to those skeptical of U.S. intentions, does not see the harm in Nuri al-Maliki renewing his post for a second term, at the expense of other Iraqi components.... An Iraqi living in Washington, who is familiar with the decision-making circles there, tells me that those who are closely involved with the Iraqi issue, and specifically within Vice President Joe Biden’s team, are of Kurdish origin. Therefore, how can they not know the Iraqi area, and what is going on there? The source, although not a supporter of conspiracy theories, added that picture soon became clear: The Americans will hand over Iraq to the Iranians, .... As a senior Arab official told me: “Do you believe what they say, and ignore what is happening on the ground?” It is difficult for one to believe conspiracy theories easily. However, what is happening in Iraq today is highly serious, .... a fatal mistake on the part of the Americans, even if one assumes that their intentions are genuine. Washington’s fatal mistake was to accept Iranian interference, and to deal with it as inevitable. This helped to legitimize sectarian conflict in the region. If a country such as Lebanon, can cause a headache in the region for America,... how about Iraq?..."

photo: bazylek100 flickr

Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, is full of the same insider tales of government gossip as his previous books. One reads Woodward to pick out the various gems strewn along the way, cognizant that even those are the products of spin manufactured by the various principals involved. A particularly interesting nugget concerns the way the intelligence agencies passed on information about their torture program to the incoming Obama administration.

Woodward spends precious few pages on this subject, and the anecdotes involved can’t be relied upon to provide a real study of just what went on. But the couple of stories provided are juicy enough.

According to Woodward, on December 9, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama was shepherded into a tiny SCIF office to meet with CIA Director Michael Hayden and Director of National Intelligence Michael O’Connell. “Hayden sat directly across from Obama at a table so narrow that they were uncomfortably close to each other.” Obama had brought Joe Biden, Jim Jones, Greg Craig, and “several others.” Hayden and O’Connell reviewed various top secret clandestine and anti-terrorism programs, secret operations against North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, etc. Craig was apparently “shocked” when Hayden told Obama’s group that the U.S. “owned” the political structure and security forces of Iraq.

Be that as it may, Hayden, who apparently ran the briefing, got to their review of the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation RDI program at the end of the meeting. While Obama apparently sat mostly impassively, Biden and the others were not convinced by CIA claims they got promises of “no torture” from the countries to which they sent kidnapped victims in the “war on terror.” Hayden also noted that the CIA “black sites” had been shut down and “all the prisoners transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. This timeline conflicts with the claim by Obama that he had closed the black sites himself in his early executive order on detentions. [cont'd]

Then the discussion wheeled around to the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” EIT At this point, Woodward’s narrative gets a bit confusing. Hayden tells Obama that, per a 2006 finding by President Bush, only six of the 13 original EITs remained in use. Woodward reminds us of the original 13 in an endnote. They are Dietary manipulation; Forced nudity; Attention grasp; Walling slamming the prisoner into a wall multiple times ; Facial hold; Facial or insult slap; Abdominal slap; Cramped Confinement; Wall standing a kind of stress position ; Stress positions proper; Water dousing; Sleep deprivation; and Waterboarding. What happened to the insects in a box, Bob? Woodward does describe the sleep deprivation in a way consistent with my contention in May 2009 that “sleep deprivation” was always combined with stress positions, shackling, partial nudity or humiliation, and dietary manipulation or partial starvation. This aspect of sleep deprivation, never totally emphasized by Woodward in the main text of the book, must be kept in mind when Woodward has Hayden tell Obama that the attenuated version of the EITs which includes sleep deprivation are more than enough to “break” “suspected terrorists” in “less than a week.”

Obama asked what the remaining six EITs were? And Hayden’s reported answer appears to veer off from the EITs.

Hayden said: Isolation of the detainee; noise or loud music; and lights in the cells 24 hours a day. There was limited use of shackles when moving a prisoner or when the prisoner was a danger. In addition, blindfolds were used when moving prisoners or when the prisoners might gain information that could compromise the security of the facility.

“David, stand up please,” Hayden said to David Shedd, the DNI’s deputy director for policy. Shedd rose. Hayden gently slapped his face, then shook the deputy DNI.

It was as rough as what might happen in “Little League football,” Hayden said. [pg. 54]

From reading this account, apart from the hilarious bit of play-acting with the ever-obliging David Shedd, it’s difficult to see what six of the EITs were retained, and what, besides waterboarding, was eliminated. For one thing, Hayden’s reply focuses on techniques that were not part of the EITs — isolation, sensory overload, and partial sensory deprivation — while demonstrating by a slap to O’Connell’s deputy that “Facial or insult slap” was still in use.

Hayden then makes his play to keep “these methods” under an Obama administration, because “the very existence of the interrogation program was more important than its content.” The CIA director told the President-elect, “Terrorists would know they faced a more severe interrogation if picked up by the CIA than by the military, which used the Army Field Manual.”

But how would the terrorists know this, when even I can’t figure out what exactly the U.S. intelligence agencies do? Woodward quotes Hayden in an unintentional moment of self-revelation. For the CIA, the form is more important that the content. The “terrorists” don’t really know, but they believe they know they can expect something terrible, something especially bad. The point of this is to engender fear. And fear is an essential component to psychological torture. It enhances the effects of sensory overload and sensory deprivation, and contributes to the psychological breakdown of the victim. This is not a theory, but was the conclusion of years of research by the U.S. government into interrogation and torture. The use of SERE trainees as experimental subjects for coercive interrogation and techniques did not begin in 2001 or 2002 — it began at least over 50 years ago.

In 1956, in the pages of an obscure academic journal, Sociometry, I.E. Farber, Harry F. Harlow, and psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West published a classic work on interrogation, Brainwashing, Conditioning, and DDD Debility, Dependency, and Dread BCD . It was based on a report for the Study Group on Survival Training, paid for by the U.S. Air Force. See West LJ., Medical and psychiatric considerations in survival training. In Report of the Special Study Group on Survival Training AFR 190 16 . Lackland Air Force Base, Tex: Air Force Personnel and Training Research Centers; 1956. This research linked Air Force “Survival” training, later called SERE, with torture techniques, and as we will see, use of such techniques by the CIA, something we would see again decades later in the Mitchell-Jessen “exploitation” plan.

BCD examined the various types of stress undergone by prisoners, and narrowed them down to “three important elements: debility, dependency, and dread”.

Debility was a condition caused by “semi-starvation, fatigue, and disease”. It induced “a sense of terrible weariness”.

Dependency on the captors for some relief from their agony was something “produced by the prolonged deprivation of many of the factors, such as sleep and food… [and] was made more poignant by occasional unpredictable brief respites.” The use of prolonged isolation of the prisoner, depriving an individual of expected social intercourse and stimulation, “markedly strengthened the dependency”.

Dread probably needs no explanation, but BCD described it as “chronic fear…. Fear of death, fear of pain, fear of nonrepatriation, fear of deformity of permanent disability…. even fear of one’s own inability to satisfy the demands of insatiable interrogators.”

…. This form of carrot and stick torture may not seem that sophisticated, but it is the use of basic nervous system functioning and human instinctual need that makes it “scientific”. The need for sensory stimulation and social interaction, the need to eat, to sleep, to reduce fear, all of these are used to build dependencies upon the captor, using the fact that “the strengthening effects of rewards — in this instance the alleviation of an intensely unpleasant emotional state — are fundamentally automatic” [p. 278]. This impairment of higher cognitive states and disruption and disorganization of the prisoner’s self-concept, producing something like “a pathological organic state”, was subsequently modified and used by the CIA in its interrogations of countless individuals. If more brutal forms of torture sometimes were used, especially by over-eager foreign agents or governments, DDD remained the gold standard, the programmatic core of counterintelligence interrogation at the heart of the CIA’s own intelligence manuals.

Now Bob Woodward is not going to explain all that. Being a stenographer for spooks and politicians, he offers very little analysis at all. His fable of how Obama got briefed on the use of torture by the CIA, and Obama’s subsequent decision to ban all the EITs and utilize the Army Field Manual may bear some elements of truth. It seems certain Obama knows very little if any of the historical material I adverted to above. And Barack Obama, like much of America, may not know that the Army Field Manual contains the very techniques that Hayden said the CIA was using isolation, sensory overload, sleep deprivation, driving up of fear . The operative word here is ignorance: ignorance about what has gone on and is going on.

This nation has not gotten the full truth about this country’s torture program, past, present, and plans for the future. As the commentators latch onto the upcoming election with ever-greater avidity, it appears certain that these issues will get shoved even farther onto the back burner. We can’t let that happen. The City of Berkeley has announced that October 10-16 will be “Say No to Torture Week.” I’ll be participating with a slew of other celebrities, bloggers, psychologists, and political activists to make it clear that “the community finds it unacceptable for an American torture apparatus to remain operational while those responsible remain unaccountable.” What is your community doing?

Image Courtesy of Suzanna's Sketchbook

A week ago I chose to mark my return to this blog by taking exception to a trend that seemed to be emanating from leading voices in the Progressive movement. In this case I was referring to Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher calling out the President for his antagonistic comments directed at his base during a Connecticut fundraiser. I have to admit now that in that post I was just getting my feet wet again and had not paid extremely close attention to all of the issues leading up to this moment. Issues that taken in full context explain the resentment and dissatisfaction.

Today another leading Progressive voice and one I also greatly respect and have paid close attention to going back to my early days of blogging, Peter Daou formerly of The Daou Report , did the hard work in laying out the case for this Liberal revolt against the President.

With each passing day, I’m beginning to realize that the crux of the problem for Obama is a handful of prominent progressive bloggers, among them Glenn Greenwald, John Aravosis, Digby, Marcy Wheeler and Jane Hamsher. Jane, who has been a friend for years, has become an increasingly controversial figure and I won’t use this post to litigate the claims for or against her.

Virtually all the liberal bloggers who have taken a critical stance toward the administration have one thing in common: they place principle above party. Their complaints are exactly the same complaints they lodged against the Bush administration. Contrary to the straw man posed by Obama supporters, they aren’t complaining about pie in the sky wishes but about tangible acts and omissions, from Gitmo to Afghanistan to the environment to gay rights to secrecy and executive power.

The essence of their critique is that the White House lacks a moral compass. The instances where Obama displays a flash of moral authority – the mosque speech comes to mind – these bloggers cheer him with the same fervor as his most ardent fans.

Some will dismiss them as minor players in the wider national discourse, but two things make them a thorn in the administration’s side:

a they have a disproportionately large influence on the political debate, with numerous readers and followers — among them major media figures

b they develop the frames and narratives that other progressive Obama critics adopt and disseminate

I’ve argued for some time that the story of Barack Obama’s presidency is the story of how the left turned on him. And it eats him up. You know it from Robert Gibbs, you know it from Rahm Emanuel, you know it from Joe Biden and you know it from Obama himself.

The constant refrain that liberals don’t appreciate the administration’s accomplishments betrays deep frustration. It was a given the right would try to destroy Obama’s presidency. It was a given Republicans would be obstructionists. It was a given the media would run with sensationalist stories. It was a given there would be a natural dip from the euphoric highs of the inauguration. Obama’s team was prepared to ride out the trough s . But they were not prepared for a determined segment of the left to ignore party and focus on principle, to ignore happy talk and demand accountability.

As president, Obama has done much good and has achieved a number of impressive legislative victories. He is a smart, thoughtful and disciplined man. He has a wonderful family. His staff many of whom I’ve worked with in past campaigns are good and decent people trying to improve their country and working tirelessly under extreme stress. But that doesn’t mean progressives should set aside the things they’ve fought for their entire adult life. It doesn’t mean they should stay silent if they think the White House is undermining the progressive cause.

How can one argue with that?

Daou goes on to enumerate the major transgressions that have distanced Obama from those that put him in power and at the top of the list is the targeted killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen believed to have had ties to al-Qaeda. You must read his piece in it’s entirety to get the full picture but suffice to say it is clear and disturbing.

The question this left me thinking is can Obama possibly redeem himself? Even if he were to turn around tomorrow and with the stroke of a pen by Executive Order take away his own power to carry out these acts which would certainly be a good start would it be enough to salvage his image with the Left?

Only time will tell but maybe a good beating in November – which appears likely – along with the exit of his heavy, Rahm Emanuel, might offer him the opportunity to begin the process of reconciliation.

One can only hope.

photo: spike55151

This is, as Gerry McEntee might say, “Bullshit!” Via Ben Smith, McEntee praises Rahm on the Chief of Staff’s way out of DC and endorses him for mayor of Chicago:

“If I lived in Chicago, I would vote for him for mayor,” said Gerald McEntee, the president of the giant public workers union AFSCME.

McEntee clashed with Emanuel over elements of health care legislation and has at times been a critic of the Obama Administration from the left. But while many in his wing of the party remain bitter at Emanuel — and plan to campaign against him for mayor of Chicago — McEntee said that Emanuel’s record was, on balance “for progressive forces and ideas.” [...]

McEntee also recalled backing Emanuel’s 2006 efforts to take back the House of Representatives.

“For our aid and participation in that effort, particularly working close with him, he on two different occasions sent me a cheesecake from Eli’s,” McEntee said, referring to the Chicago eatery and adding that the aid had not amounted to “coordination.”

Anyone know what kind of presence AFSCME has in Chicago? Cause then this would make sense.

Finally, it appears as though McEntee doesn’t want to be left out of the “buck up” chorus of late.

Asked for a message about Rahm to skeptical allies on the left, McEntee echoed Joe Biden: “Suck it up.”

Come on, what is it? It’s bullshit!

Fuckin’ AFSCME.

photo: El Tekolote flickr

Privately, the closed wallets of Democratic billionaires like George Soros and Peter Lewis is all that the poobahs of the DC fundraising world have been talking about for weeks. But now it’s hit the New York Times:

Many wealthy Democratic patrons, who in the past have played major roles financing outside groups to help elect the party’s candidates, are largely sitting out these crucial midterm elections.

Democratic donors like George Soros, the bête noire of the right, and his fellow billionaire Peter B. Lewis, who each gave more than $20 million to Democratic-oriented groups in the 2004 election, appear to be holding back so far.

“Mr. Soros believes that he can be most effective by funding groups that promote progressive policy outcomes in areas such as health care, the environment and foreign policy,” said an adviser, Michael Vachon. “So he has opted to fund those activities.”

I personally can’t wait till the White House press office releases Obama’s speech to millionaires in Greenwich calling Soros and Lewis “ungrateful whiners.”

The donors’ reluctance stems from a variety of factors, including pessimism about the party’s prospects in November, but also President Obama’s strong condemnations of this kind of independent activity, both during the 2008 campaign and after he was elected.

For those who would like a translation of this rather cryptic passage, it refers to the fact that after Obama got the party nomination in 2008, the campaign’s finance director, Steve Hildebrand, called around to big donors and shut down independent expenditure operations. In part because they felt that Progressive Media, the largest of them, was staffed with too many people who had been Clinton supporters. But they also wanted to control all the money through the campaign directly. In August 2008, Hildebrand reversed himself, calling donors and telling them it was okay to donate to 527s, after the campaign started getting hammered by GOP independent expenditures. Obama campaign insiders later said that calling the big donors and telling them not to fund the IE’s was the “biggest mistake” they made.

Somewhere, Tom Mattzzie is laughing uncontrollably.

For Mr. Soros, who was also a big donor in 2006 and 2008, it is a matter of being more focused on pushing to get the policy outcomes he wants than on the electoral process, Mr. Vachon said.

Two of George Soros’s biggest issues are torture and weed. He’s been called “the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization,” and shortly after Obama took office his Open Society Institute started pushing for a commission to investigate America’s use of torture since 9/11. Obama and Harry Reid poured cold water on the idea of a torture commission, and the administration “firmly opposes marijuana legalization.”

The attention of Mr. Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance, also appears to be elsewhere this year. Jennifer Frutchy, who advises Mr. Lewis on his philanthropy, said he was focused at the moment on “building progressive infrastructure and marijuana reform.”

“That’s just where his head is right now,” Ms. Frutchy said.

Two billionaires — and the majority of those under age 29 — enthusiastically support marijuana legalization. Maybe appointing former Clinton Drug Czar Rahm Emanuel to be Chief of Staff, the guy who threatened doctors with jail time for prescribing marijuana to their patients, was not the swiftest move. [cont'd.]

For donors, there is certainly an element of fatigue from giving cycle after cycle, as well as an economic squeeze brought on by the recession, the operatives said. But some more ideological donors are also upset that the Obama administration has not been more aggressive in pushing a liberal agenda.

Translation: Gay men, pro-choice women and environmentalists are probably the three biggest issue-based donor groups for the Democratic Party, and all three are absolutely ripshit at the way the Democrats have squandered their majorities. They’re also furious at the veal pen outfits that collaborated with the Democrats and gave them cover for their actions and have cut them off, too. Guess that weekly invite to the Common Purpose meeting turned out not to be such a hot ticket after all.

Labor unions are still promising to spend large sums of money backing Democrats. But they are not keeping up at this point with the flood of money going to Republican-leaning organizations.

So, let’s see if I have this straight. After the unions put hundreds of millions into getting Obama elected, and they get played on EFCA, the Democrats lay the blame off on ConservaDem Senators like Blanche Lincoln. So the unions spend $10 million trying to send a message to Lincoln, working within the Democratic party to support a primary opponent.

When Lincoln wins, “senior White House officials” are instantly calling journalists to taunt the unions as “absolute idiots” who “just flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toilet on a pointless exercise.” Which creates huge problems for unions at the local level when it comes to putting money into political races in the future because members are always dubious about such outlays to begin with.

Then Robert Menendez, head of the DSCC, sends out a memo cheering Lincoln’s victory over “special interests in Washington” — the unions. Chuck Schumer goes on to the floor of the Senate and applauds Lincoln for “fighting Wall Street with one hand, and unions with the other.” Nonetheless, Menendez says he expects labor’s “support, you know, financially” in “all of our races across the country.”

The Democrats could have passed legislation that would have doubled union membership by now. They didn’t.

What could possibly have gone wrong with this scenario? I have no idea.

Big donors from Wall Street, including hedge fund executives and investment bankers, are also angry at the administration.

Sucking up to our Wall Street overlords while dog whistling to your base is not as easy as the GOP makes it look.

It also appears, however, that Republicans have outmaneuvered their Democratic counterparts since the Citizens United decision. They have taken advantage of Democratic broadsides against the ruling, which have inevitably had an effect on the attitudes of Democratic donors.

Mr. Obama devoted one of his weekly radio addresses this month to the effect he said untamed special interests were having on the midterm election. “We can see for ourselves how destructive to our democracy this can become,” he said. “We see it in the flood of deceptive attack ads sponsored by special interests using front groups with misleading names.”

Several Democratic strategists said the White House’s denunciations had made entreaties to prospective donors trickier.

So, the President is out there saying that the post-Citizens United IE’s are “politics at its worst,” and that the decision “gave special interests the power to spend without limit — and without public disclosure — to run ads in order to influence elections.” Why wouldn’t big Democratic donors want to jump right in and have that thrown at them? I dunno. You tell me.

Belatedly, some additional Democratic third-party efforts are shaping up. An organization called Commonsense Ten is emerging as a conduit for large checks directed toward Senate races and recently went up on the air with television advertisements in Missouri and Washington State.

“Belatedly.” Yeah, because nobody could’ve seen this coming.

Over all, though, the group is talking about spending, along with its partner organizations, about $5 million, with commitments from donors so far for about half of that.

In contrast, American Crossroads and its affiliate, Crossroads GPS, the biggest Republican-oriented group involved in Senate races, has said it is well on its way to raising $50 million for this election.

What if someone had had the foresight to anticipate the impact of the highly unpopular Citizens United decision, and used their party’s majorities in Congress to pass legislation that would have made it difficult for big corporations to hide political money in the Chamber of Commerce or Karl Rove’s $50 million independent expenditure operation without disclosure? What if there was a party that had gone to the mat trying to control corporate influence over politics rather than trying to exploit it, and given themselves at the very least a solid campaign issue for 2010?

The bigger problem for the Democrats, however, is not that Lewis and Soros are sitting it out — it’s that Lewis and Soros are considered “lead donors.” Where they go, other donors follow. If they decide to sit it out, so will others.

The complaints that Soros and Lewis have are the same ones expressed by all those hippies that Robert Gibbs, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have been punching. It’s a malaise felt by the entire progressive base, who can’t be spurred into action by being told to “buck up.”

I’ll tell you one thing, though. As pissed off as people are, it’s going to be nothing compared to the rage that will be unleashed if the Catfood Commission’s recommendations to cut Social Security benefits gets passed — and Alice Rivlin says the “stars are aligned” for it to happen. They could snap the spine of the Democratic party completely with that one.

B*** me, Biden: Biden tells liberal base: 'Stop whining' 27 Sep 2010 Vice President Joe Biden on Monday urged Democrats to overcome their differences and support their candidates at the polls by telling them to "stop whining." During a fundraiser for New Hampshire Democratic candidates for the House and Senate, Biden said that Democrats should "remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives. This president has done an incredible job. He’s kept his promises," according to a pool report. [See: 1 Million Strong in the Professional Left.]

Image Courtesy of Suzanna's Sketchbook

A week ago I chose to mark my return to this blog by taking exception to a trend that seemed to be emanating from leading voices in the Progressive movement. In this case I was referring to Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher calling out the President for his antagonistic comments directed at his base during a Connecticut fundraiser. I have to admit now that in that post I was just getting my feet wet again and had not paid extremely close attention to all of the issues leading up to this moment. Issues that taken in full context explain the resentment and dissatisfaction.

Today another leading Progressive voice and one I also greatly respect and have paid close attention to going back to my early days of blogging, Peter Daou formerly of The Daou Report , did the hard work in laying out the case for this Liberal revolt against the President.

With each passing day, I’m beginning to realize that the crux of the problem for Obama is a handful of prominent progressive bloggers, among them Glenn Greenwald, John Aravosis, Digby, Marcy Wheeler and Jane Hamsher. Jane, who has been a friend for years, has become an increasingly controversial figure and I won’t use this post to litigate the claims for or against her.

Virtually all the liberal bloggers who have taken a critical stance toward the administration have one thing in common: they place principle above party. Their complaints are exactly the same complaints they lodged against the Bush administration. Contrary to the straw man posed by Obama supporters, they aren’t complaining about pie in the sky wishes but about tangible acts and omissions, from Gitmo to Afghanistan to the environment to gay rights to secrecy and executive power.

The essence of their critique is that the White House lacks a moral compass. The instances where Obama displays a flash of moral authority – the mosque speech comes to mind – these bloggers cheer him with the same fervor as his most ardent fans.

Some will dismiss them as minor players in the wider national discourse, but two things make them a thorn in the administration’s side:

a they have a disproportionately large influence on the political debate, with numerous readers and followers — among them major media figures

b they develop the frames and narratives that other progressive Obama critics adopt and disseminate

I’ve argued for some time that the story of Barack Obama’s presidency is the story of how the left turned on him. And it eats him up. You know it from Robert Gibbs, you know it from Rahm Emanuel, you know it from Joe Biden and you know it from Obama himself.

The constant refrain that liberals don’t appreciate the administration’s accomplishments betrays deep frustration. It was a given the right would try to destroy Obama’s presidency. It was a given Republicans would be obstructionists. It was a given the media would run with sensationalist stories. It was a given there would be a natural dip from the euphoric highs of the inauguration. Obama’s team was prepared to ride out the trough s . But they were not prepared for a determined segment of the left to ignore party and focus on principle, to ignore happy talk and demand accountability.

As president, Obama has done much good and has achieved a number of impressive legislative victories. He is a smart, thoughtful and disciplined man. He has a wonderful family. His staff many of whom I’ve worked with in past campaigns are good and decent people trying to improve their country and working tirelessly under extreme stress. But that doesn’t mean progressives should set aside the things they’ve fought for their entire adult life. It doesn’t mean they should stay silent if they think the White House is undermining the progressive cause.

How can one argue with that?

Daou goes on to enumerate the major transgressions that have distanced Obama from those that put him in power and at the top of the list is the targeted killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen believed to have had ties to al-Qaeda. You must read his piece in it’s entirety to get the full picture but suffice to say it is clear and disturbing.

The question this left me thinking is can Obama possibly redeem himself? Even if he were to turn around tomorrow and with the stroke of a pen by Executive Order take away his own power to carry out these acts which would certainly be a good start would it be enough to salvage his image with the Left?

Only time will tell but maybe a good beating in November – which appears likely – along with the exit of his heavy, Rahm Emanuel, might offer him the opportunity to begin the process of reconciliation.

One can only hope.

Diplomatic efforts intensified to try to get Israel to extend the partial freeze on Israeli settlements construction in the occupied West Bank.

Abbas: "Even if talks break down, and they won't, my beloved people will not resort to violence ...."

...And the winner is? Netanyahu!

Uprooted Palestinian

By Scott Creighton | American Everyman | September 25, 2010

I just have to ask, is there anything, anything, that billionaire Sumner Redstone’s progressive propaganda tag-team of Jon Stewart & Steven Colbert won’t do to help turn the supposed left 180 degrees from positions they held during the previous administration?

I have written several times about Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert turning into blatant propagandists since the Chosen One took office.

For example: there’s the time Jon Stewart played the MEMRI TV video demonizing Palestinians, Steven Colbert’s recent revolting sucking-up to globalist Joe Biden, there was Stewart’s story about the South Park episode psyop involving Revolution Muslim which turns out to be run by a “converted” jewish ex-settler from the West Bank, Steven’s sycophantic groveling and rebranding the Afghan occupation just after Obama took office, and then of course Stewart’s ambushing of Rod Blagojevich which I thought was a pretty funny position for a “progressive” to take after he practically gave back rubs and “happy endings” to each and every neocon that has come on his set to pimp their new books or try to re-brand themselves as anything but the war criminals they are. That list includes but is not limited to Bill Kristol, Ari Fleischer, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Thomas Friedman, Tom Ridge, and John Yoo. Each and every one of the previously named neocons and or war criminals, Jon Stewart treated with more respect than he did Rod Blagojevich who’s only crime was to threaten Bank of America if they didn’t live up to the conditions of the banker bailout bill.

Recently these two progressive shills have each taken on a new directive which certainly lives up to their pathetic performances in the past.

Jon Stewart is now involved in what he calls the “Million Moderates March” and the premise of this is that everyone who is anyone in America these days is a “centrist” or a “moderate” and that only the “fringe” are getting any attention.

Centrism i,s of course, just another name for the Washington Consensus, which is neoliberal/DLC “New Dem” corporatist fiscal ideology.

I seriously doubt that Stewart is correct in that assumption considering so many people are suffering under this economy, but since he recently had to grovel at the ultimate neoliberal’s feet Bill Clinton , its not surprising that he would come out with this “move to the center” propaganda. Also interesting to note that he announced this new propaganda effort the same day he had Clinton on his show.

What is surprising is that Stewart chastised the radical left for holding such beliefs as “George Bush is a war criminal” and called to “restore sanity” on Oct. 30th 2010.

He later labeled it a “Million Moderate March.” The purpose, he said, is to counter what he called a minority of 15 percent or 20 percent of the country that has dominated the national political discussion with extreme rhetoric. He tarred both parties with that charge, mentioning both the attacks on the right against President Obama for being everything from a socialist to un-American and on the left against former President Bush for being a war criminal. Glenn Greenwald

Greenwald also noted Stewart’s history of aiding neocons with their image rebranding and book sales, though he doesn’t draw any conclusions about it like I do. Very polite of him if you ask me.

… but far more important than tone, in my view, is content. For instance, Bill Kristol, a repeated guest on The Daily Show, is invariably polite on television, yet uses his soft-spoken demeanor to propagate repellent, destructive ideas. The same is true for war criminal John Yoo, who also appeared, with great politeness, on The Daily Show. Moreover, some acts are so destructive and wrong that they merit extreme condemnation such as Bush’s war crimes . Glenn Greenwald

Personally, I have to agree with Mr. Greenwald in that certain actions merit extreme condemnation like impeachment and imprisonment and to that list I would like to toss out 1. lying 935 times to justify an illegal war which has killed over a million Iraqi people and dislocated about 4 million others, 2. creating false documents Niger Yellow Cake like the neocons at the Office of Special Plans did to justify an illegal war, 3. torture, 4. rendition, 5. secret prisons, 6. CIA backed mercenary death squads 7. depleted uranium spread across Iraq … I mean, if these actions don’t merit calling George W. Bush and several of Jon Stewart’s recent guests a war criminal, what does?

Is turning a blind eye to such atrocities and war crimes really “sanity” or is it something else?

“After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Taguba wrote. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” Glenn Greenwald

It’s clear that Stewart is doing his part to help the globalist regime in charge whitewash the past 10 years. He’s actually helping to rewrite our collective history on these matters and turn “moderate” progressives, those with their heads buried in the sand, against those “fringe” elements who tried to demand justice and accountability from the previous administration. If anything proves Jon Stewart’s complicity in the globalist criminal actions, this is certainly it.

Colbert is certainly not being left out in the cold either. He just recently “testified” before a congressional sub-committee in congress speaking out in favor of the precursor to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill being pushed by the Obama/Clinton regime but it was actually a holdover from the George Bush administration, that little tidbit they don’t like to mention too much these days. They also don’t like to hear the word “amnesty” tossed out in these congressional hearings, judging from a Democrat’s behavior.

Colbert’s presence at the hearing was insulting to say the least.

His presence was insulting to the congress members who were there and insulting to any intellectually honest American who would be offended that a paid comedian who has been shilling for his globalist boss would actually be asked to join in on any part of a serious discussion of the matter.

John Conyers, to his credit, asked Colbert to submit his “testimony” for the record and excuse himself before the hearing took place. He politely reminded Steven he had nothing of value to add to the discussion, but Colbert couldn’t resist the spotlight and all the play he could get out of the stunt, so he remained but he was clearly shaken that someone there reminded him in public that his presence was nothing more than a PR stunt. He felt foolish and it showed. It was an embarrassing thing to watch, and if you absolutely have to, here it is.

Colbert’s qualifications for being at the hearing was apparently centered around the fact that his film crew and he went out to an upstate New York farm where they filmed him acting like a completely spoiled, lazy American who couldn’t do the work a 65-year-old man sitting on his ass and picking beans in the field could do. Of course, the 65 year old man is here illegally so somehow that makes him capable of doing something a 30-year-old unemployed American can’t do. That’s pretty much the sum total of Stephen Colbert contribution to the discussion.

unemployed Americans can’t do the work this 65-year-old Mexican can do while sitting on his ass in a field

The Ag Jobs Bill this committee is discussing is an effort supported by big US agriculture and other major corporations and in essence it would create an official 2nd class citizen status in America for these seasonal migrant workers and give them credit for the years they have worked in the agricultural industry toward a “path toward citizenship” in short - coming to America illegally to work for slave-wages for 3 years would put them ahead of Mexicans who apply for citizenship legally and have to wait for 6 to 8 years for a green card . It would also help create an increase in surplus labor which would certainly only serve to drive wages in the agricultural sector to near record lows. But it’s not only the agriculture industry that would be effected as Dr. Carol Swain pointed out during the committee hearing since many of the illegals once here, migrate out of the fields and into other, low skilled jobs, which only serves again to create a labor surplus in those fields and thus even more reductions in pay. The bill will give these slave-citizens the right to organize, a right they actually already have, but since the head of the UFW is clearly in bed with big agriculture here in America, that is like giving autoworkers the “right” to be represented by the UAW… and we all know what that has been good for recently.

Colbert’s testimony has been widely panned and with good reason.

Colbert’s “testimony” was painful to watch and adding insult to injury were his two staff members sitting behind him who clearly understood their little stunt wasn’t going as well as they had imagined it would. Life’s a little harder when you don’t have a studio audience being prompted by electric signs to laugh and applaud when they are told to. It’s also harder when your boss is sitting in front of you pretending like he had something to add to the hearing when he didn’t.

“Maybe this Ag Jobs bill would help. I don’t know. Like most members of congress, I haven’t read it. But maybe we could offer more visas to the immigrants, who, let’s face it, will probably be doing these jobs anyway. And this improved legal status might allow immigrants recourse if they’re abused. And it just stands to reason to me that if your co-worker can’t be exploited then you are less likely to be exploited and that itself might improve pay and working conditions on these farms and eventually Americans may consider taking these jobs again.” Stephen Colbert

In the history of convoluted logic, this stands in a seminal position in our recent congressional record, right up there with the healthcare bill being called the best thing for Americans since the New Deal, I suppose.

The Ag Jobs bill is easy to find so there is no excuse for Stephen Colbert not to have read it, since it is the subject of his “testimony” before congress. The man had zero qualifications for being there and the least he could have done is read the bill. But he didn’t.

Basically, the bill itself is a holdover from the Bush administration that was tweaked and then submitted in May of 2009 just after the new neoliberal regime took office. It establishes a legal 2nd class citizen role by handing out what they call “blue cards” to certain migrant agricultural workers which locks them into a subservient role similar to the old feudal state. They basically have to take what they are given and STFU because if they get tossed out of the program, fired from the job, they get deported back to Mexico with nothing.

And it’s not just them. The bill creates a “derivative” legal status for the “blue card” worker’s wife and children which essentially means they can’t be deported even if they are here illegally, just so long as the worker behaves himself. Imagine the threat of having yourself and your entire family deported simply because you speak up for better working conditions or more pay. Quite a threat to be leveled at the worker, quite an incentive to take what he is given and shut up… and this is what the “progressive” left and Stephen Colbert are fighting for?

That’s neoliberalism folks.

This country has struggled for 200 years to earn the rights of each and every human being; to end the idea that there is a second class citizen status in America. People have marched, protested, fought and died for that principle. And here we have the “progressive” champion Stephen Colbert arguing for the creation of a second class citizenship of slave workers in America.

If you really want to understand what this is all about, you should have a listen to the testimony of Dr. Carol Swain from Vanderbilt University, a labor rights expert and activist of over 20 years. She used to be considered a hero on the left when she was railing against the injustices of the Bush administration but now that the Obama/Clinton neoliberal regime has taken office, she is vilified on the right AND left for fighting the same good fight.

Unlike Colbert, Dr. Swain has earned her right to testify before congress on this subject and her words prove it.

“I contend that America does not have a shortage of agricultural workers, instead we have a manufactured crisis by some who would like to ensure a steady supply of cheap labor and in some cases labor that bi-passes the H2A and H2B visa programs. … these unemployment numbers indicate there are native agricultural workers actively seeking employment in the sector… America cannot continue to bring in low skilled workers to compete with the most disadvantaged Americans…. nor can it continue to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. Often surplus labor that starts in the fields migrates into other industries. Without surplus labor, employers would be forced to pay higher wages and many would be forced to improve substandard working conditions… the UFW ‘Take Our Jobs” initiative has not, in my opinion, made a serious effort to recruit American workers, this is a publicity stunt…. the rapid influx of cheap labor from foreign countries creates an over-supply of labor that works against the interests of native workers, it depresses their wages, it reduces their opportunities, and it deters employers from investing in native human capital…. this is a disgrace. Congress needs to reform immigration and they need to protect the most disadvantaged Americans.” Dr. Carol Swain

Once this bill is passed, and it will be, it’s impact on the already suffering disadvantaged in America will be staggering. There is also nothing that states that other industries won’t push for a similar bill regarding the H2B workers. The bill calls for the agricultural workers to put in 150 days per year and that of course frees them up to work in other industries the remaining 200+. The spouses of these workers will also be free to work in the country under their “derivative” status, which of course will only help to further undermine native workers wage structure even more.

There is nothing humanitarian or “progressive” about this bill, yet that won’t stop the “moderates” on the left from getting behind it simply because Stephen Colbert showed up at congress and made a fool out of himself. And that of course was the whole point.

As the neocon/neoliberal agenda moves on, shills like Stewart and Colbert are doing their part to re-brand the cruelty and inhumanity of their corporatist agenda to make it palatable to their audience; the left. These two recent propaganda efforts only prove how tightly the threads of “centrism” are woven in our dominating culture.

But they also show something else. That it only takes a few minutes, a little research and effort, to expose the fraudulent nature of their work. The emptiness that fills their words. While Stewart argues for the whitewashing of the Bush regime’s history and Colbert clowns for the creation of an indentured servant class of slave labor, each and every remaining liberal gets a little closer to seeing them for what they are; a clearer picture of the puppets and their masters.

We won’t be fooled again.

In 1976, the Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, WI, was the number two beer maker in the United States, its roughly $600 million in sales almost equal to that of industry leader Anheuser-Busch. But trouble loomed. The growing popularity of name-brand light beers, increased availability of niche and foreign brews, and a change in Schlitz’s brewing process, done to make its namesake beer cheaper to mass-produce, all were taking a toll on the market share of “the most carefully brewed beer in the world.”

So, in the Summer of 1977, an new CEO at Schlitz abandoned their heretofore successful “Go for the Gusto” slogan, and turned to the ad men of Leo Burnett to craft a message that would help increase the brewer’s short-term profits the time between investment and payback was apparently too long for new management . What the boys from Burnett produced was a campaign that will live in infamy:

The commercials varied from one featuring a Muhammad Ali-like boxer with a full entourage to a rugged outdoorsman with his pet mountain lion. In each of the four commercials, an off-camera voice asked the lead characters to give up their Schlitz beer for another brand. The commercials, as Richard Stanwood, at the time Burnett’s director of creative services, would later recall, were meant to be “interruptive.”

At the screening of the new commercials, the Burnett people watched as the boxer told a disembodied voice that he was going to knock him “…down for the count” for even suggesting a switch from the Schlitz label. The outdoorsman in one of the following commercials told his pet mountain lion to calm down after his choice of Schlitz beer was also challenged and snarled back to the animal, “Just a minute, babe. I’ll handle this.”

. . . .

The reactions to the commercials once they went public were almost immediate; people hated them. Burnett officials were appalled at the reaction.

. . . .

Ten weeks after the commercials first began to air, Schlitz management ordered them pulled. Soon after, the Leo Burnett ad agency was fired by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company.

The short-lived run of commercials would go down in advertising history as “The Drink Schlitz or I’ll Kill You” ad campaign.

Though perhaps just the most obvious symptom of a systemic problem, the campaign sounded the death knell for “the drink that made Milwaukee famous.” Within a year, the company was in the red; by 1982, Schlitz had lost 90 percent of its market share. The company was sold, and sold again, and by the turn of the century, the brand had virtually disappeared from taps across the country.

I wanted to show you an example of these admonishing ads; I waded through hours of YouTubes to find one I really did , but, alas, it seems that when Schlitz pulled these ads, they really pulled them. Fortunately, as luck would have it, I was watching “The Rachel Maddow Show” last night, and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell did a remarkable reenactment:

We’ve been scared. We’ve been hiding behind shower curtains. It’s time to get out there and campaign about the good stuff we’ve done. . . .The opposition is being influenced more and more by wackos. . . . Our base ought to wake up. And anybody who’s watching this show who thought they might not vote ‘cause they are a little disappointed over this and a little disappointed over that, get over it. The stakes are huge; we gotta get out there and vote.

OK, maybe that’s not quite as good as the Schlitzing we got last week from White House barback Joe Biden “Get in gear, man. . . . [Progressives] better get energized because the consequences are serious.” , but both spots have clearly been crafted by the same m ad men. In either case, the message is clear OK, maybe “clear” is not the best word, but bear with me–I’ll start again. . . . . In either case, the message is clear: Vote for Democrats, or else!

I don’t believe that Rendell or Biden—or, for that matter, President Obama, who has also gone for the gusto lately—threatened to kill us, or even hurt us all that much though I hear punching is much in vogue , but they are making a dire threat all the same.

[Bachmann terror overdrive! . . . after the jump.]

Bachmanns and Issas and Boehners, oh my!

What they are threatening is vague—“investigations” of some unnamed sort, “more of the same,” “wackos” and “Tea Party Republicans”—but it is meant to be scary. And what they are saying through these threats is that if any of this terror comes to pass, we’ll know whom to blame: those nitpicky, “glass half empty” voters of the professional and amateur left.

Blame game aside, for argument’s sake, let’s take the Democrats’ strategy at something like face value. Is this, as implemented, a winning campaign?

To begin with, examine the “or else.” “Investigations” and “subpoena power” are probably meant to remind us of Clinton’s second term, when a newly emboldened Republican majority brought the Congress to a standstill with impeachment hearings and a trial. I would be first to express my disgust with what that vintage of Republican majority did–it was conniving, irresponsible, and inexcusable. But, do Democrats really want to remind America about what was at the center of that impeachment? In a year when GOP sex scandals are ripe and bountiful, why give folks an excuse to shrug and say, “Both sides fuck around?”

Then there is the “more of the same” or “reversing back to the same” threat. My first thought—or my thought about what some of the truly disenfranchised might think—is, “Which same? The bad economy from before we elected Democrats, or the bad economy from after?” And there is even a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that says, flat out, that most Americans don’t believe Republicans will do the same things they did the last time they held power.

And what about those “Tea Party Republicans?” Evidently, some consultant has told Democratic insiders that this is messaging gold, because darn near every Dem surrogate within six feet of a microphone has used the term. Meanwhile, everyone from anonymous White House officials to the President himself has told reporters the strategy is to tie Republicans to the “extremist” Tea Party.

Rachel Maddow praised this move in the same show that featured Rendell, and criticized some inside the party who expressed dismay and warned of a backlash. While I will agree with Maddow that you do not need to refrain from calling the GOP “extremists” because you might have some chance of negotiating something with them if you do nevergonnahappen , I have my doubts about the amount of benefit you will gain from drawing a circle around the “Tea Party” and the GOP.

Plenty of polls show Americans are dissatisfied with the sitting government at near-record levels. While not every race has proven to fit neatly into the “anti-establishment” storyline, it seems clear that positioning oneself as separate or different from the Washington establishment is a consistent talking point. The GOP crashes that have the national media rubbernecking from Nevada to Delaware are the result of a minority, yes, but a dedicated, enthusiastic minority, mobilizing to vote for relative outsiders over more established government hands.

So, why, in a year where being affiliated with any Beltway power structure is seen as political deadweight, are the Democrats falling all over themselves to tell voters that the previously stale, establishment GOP has been taken over by a fresh group of populist outsiders? How is it that we are to automatically believe that this new crop of “wackos” will do the same things as the old-timers that the Tea Partiers worked so hard to replace?

From a messaging perspective, you can see the inherent contradiction. And a contradictory, confusing message is likely a failing one. Confusion breeds inaction, and inaction is not the answer to the Democrats’ all-consuming enthusiasm gap.

That giant sucking sound

I have already gone on at some length about how an election is not a situation where you can hope to win by simply “sucking less” and it is sucking less that is still very much underneath most of the Dem messaging . You have to leverage your benefits, and those benefits have to be apparent. Voting is not compulsory in the US, and if the choice for many is between “sucks” and “sucks less,” staying away from the polls is a very understandable third option. That leaves the truly motivated, the enthusiastic Tea Partiers, if you will, to dominate an almost certain low turnout election.

In 1976, there were fresh choices for beer drinkers, and Schlitz’s reaction was to abandon their core identity as well as their winning formula. They chose to eschew long-term investment for short-term profit, and when threatened by fast-weakening consumer enthusiasm, they decided to threaten their consumers right back. Threatening consumers did not work for Schlitz, and that was in a category where people pretty much understand the immediate benefits of their choices.

For Democratic leaders, threatening unenthusiastic voters with vague pictures of doom and gloom, when much of what the voters see right now is already pretty gloomy, is not going to “wake up” very many of the rank and file. Promising little else in terms of benefits if Democrats stay in power—little beyond “there’s more to do”—does not provide enough positive motivation to engender enthusiasm.

Interestingly, in 2008, Pabst, the current owners of the Schlitz name, began to reintroduce Schlitz, selling the benefits of its back-formulated, pre-1970s taste. In that same year, Americans elected a president who asked them to vote their hopes and not their fears. That was a winning strategy. Why, only two years later, has that president and his party chosen to ask us or, more like, order us to vote our fears?

No sour grapes for fundraiser Joe. photo: jurvetson

This is just pathetic:

Vice President Joe Biden travels to Boston Wednesday, where he’s scheduled to team up with Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.

A Democratic source tells CNN that the event is a fundraiser for the two-term Democratic senator, who faces a very difficult re-election bid this year.

Blanche Lincoln just joined Republicans to scuttle the defense bill, and with it the DREAM Act and DADT repeal–both purportedly Administration priorities to say nothing about the Defense bill itself . Moreover, no amount of money is going to get Blanche out of her electoral hole this year. And her patrons, the Waltons, have plenty to give her all by themselves, without picking the pockets of Boston liberals.

So why is Joe Biden wasting some of his precious time and political capital helping a woman who, yesterday, broke with the party on the defense bill? Is this Administration so dysfunctional it can’t even demand discipline from those it’s financially supporting?

Last night at the Pyramid Club in Philadelphia, President Obama said “when I hear Democrats griping and groaning and saying, ‘Well, you know, the health care plan didn’t have a public option;’ and I don’t know, ‘The financial reform — there was a provision here that I think we should have gotten better’; or, ‘You know what, yes, you ended the war in Iraq, the combat mission there, but you haven’t completely finished the Afghan war yet’; or this or that or the other — I say, folks, wake up.”

This is the man who ran for 2 years on “bipartisanship” and against the politics of divisiveness, who wanted to reach his hand across the aisle in the spirit of “hope” while we sat there slack jawed at the idea that he could get Republican buy-in on…well, anything.

Obama has now done an about-face and is running against his own 2008 messaging campaign. He has seen the enemy, and it is the GOP: “This is not some academic exercise,” he told the audience. “As Joe Biden put it, don’t compare us to the Almighty; compare us to the alternative.”

I heard Biden on the Rachel Maddow show, and I’m not sure I understand the theory here. You’re not supposed to criticize the health care bill, or the President himself, because if you do, it means that it could depress turnout in the November election and the Republicans would take the House, and that would be the worst thing that could possibly happen.

“Because the consequences are serious for the outcome of the things we care most about,” said Biden right before he said “we have enough votes to sustain support for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Vote [sic].”

Okay, fair enough. We’ll let slide for the moment the questionable assumption that it depresses voter turnout if the base criticizes the President, but it doesn’t depress voter turnout if the President criticizes the base — considering 86% of Democrats supported the public option, and 6 in 10 Americans now oppose the war in Afghanistan.

The argument spins out of the logic turn completely right when Tim Kaine flips his shit because Democrats in conservative districts are running against Obama to save themselves.

From Chet Edwards’ new ad:

“When President Obama and Nancy Pelosi pressured Chet Edwards, Chet stood up to them and voted against their trillion dollar health care bill and no to cap and trade,” says the ad’s narrator.

Glenn Nye, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, Joe Donnelly — they’re all running ads critical of Obama and the health care bill in their strongly conservative districts. Evidently nobody wants to hear it from them either, and they’re not liberals by any stretch of the imagination.

But if, as Biden says, “the consequences are serious for the things we care the most about,” that should be okay, right? I mean, the goal is to keep Democrats from losing their majority in the House, yes?

Following the Obama/Biden logic, one would think. But DNC chair Tim Kaine went on Fox news and blasted these Democrats, saying “I think they’re crazy.”

[Cont'd]

Now I’m confused. Because we women and LGBTs and Hispanics and anti-war activists etc etc have been told over and over again that the Democratic party has to have a “big tent” and allow conservative Democrats to “represent their districts,” since the most important thing is having a Democratic majority in the House because as we all know, the alternative is unthinkable . So shouldn’t these members of congress also be allowed to do what they need to do to keep their seats? I mean, if the goal is keeping Darryl Issa from having subpoena power.

At least Steve Hildebrand, who was Obama’s finance director, admits what he wants when he demands that Democrats like Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin stop running against the President, calling them “cowards”:

JONATHAN KARL: And is that what you see people doing though because they’re afraid this vote is going to be used against them. In fact it’s already being used against them by Republicans they’re running away from it, running away from the President.

STEVE HILDEBRAND: Yeah, and the fact that they’re cowards in such a serious way. I mean, is this about their reelection or is this about helping people? What are they in politics for? What are they in government for, if they’re not in government to help people? They should simply get out. They shouldn’t run for reelection. And we should put people in there who are strong leaders, who want to do something to help people. That health care bill is going to help young people, old people, poor people, middle-income people. It’s vitally important to this country and any one of them that walks away from it, isn’t proud of that vote, is a coward.

Obama isn’t actually on the ballot this time, so it isn’t neck that’s on the line. Nonetheless, Hildebrand thinks that Democrats should be willing to lose their seats in key swing districts that could cost them their majority in the House rather than criticize the health care bill, or the President, because it isn’t all about their “reelection.”

Bottom line: you can’t have it both ways. If Obama and Biden truly do believe what they’re saying, that keeping Darryl Issa from having subpoena power is the most important thing this November, then Democratic members in conservative districts who have been running reactionary campaigns for years to hold down those seats should also be able to criticize the President and the health care bill if that’s what it takes.

And if that’s not okay with them, then “holding the House” and keeping Darryl Issa from having subpeona power is not what they really care about. It’s just being used as an excuse to silence criticism they don’t want to hear.

Progressives got what they got with this administration because they didn’t sit quietly in the veal pen and clap on command. They fought for the things they care about, like Audit the Fed, Elizabeth Warren, student loan reform and derivatives regulation. And the best time to be pressuring politicians is right before an election. That’s when they have to listen to you.

November 3, not so much.

So to all the electoral politics rocket scientists who have come to the conclusion that the best strategy for winning in November is to hector the base about advocating for the issues they care about — you might want to have a group meeting and rethink things. Poll after poll continues to show that the health care bill is an albatross wrapped around the party’s neck this November, and this brilliant plan to lay responsibility off on “liberal critics” for coming up short at the polls makes everyone involved look thin skinned, desperate and weak.

It may give you something to say in the spin room on election night, but it won’t save one seat. And nobody but the crazies swimming around in the party bilge water will really believe it.

Fresh from a stunning primary victory in Delaware, Republican Christine O’Donnell said yesterday she can win a Senate seat in November with or without help from party officialdom in Washington....

Oh, ABSOLUTELY! That is WHY SHE WON the PRIMARY!

And I know all the political hacks in the corporate media are denigrating her; however, that is PART of the APPEAL this year!

When the ESTABLISHMENT ATTACKS you it can ONLY HELP!

Her win was among the last hurrahs of a turbulent primary season in which the political horizon seemed to expand for Republicans, despite a series of upsets sprung by Tea Party-backed challengers.

Or perhaps BECAUSE of them, you biased piece of crap?

The Republicans need a gain of 10 seats to win control of the Senate this fall, and 39 seats to take a majority in the House....

They may not get the Senate in the upcoming riggings, I mean, elections; however, they DEFINITELY take the HOUSE in a FAIR ELECTION!

Other prominent Republicans, however, reacted warily to O’Donnell’s win over veteran US Representative Mike Castle, whom they had recruited as the party’s best chance of winning the Senate seat long held by Vice President Joe Biden.

“This is not a race we’re going to be able to win,’’ said Karl Rove, who was the principal political adviser to former President George W. Bush as well one of the leaders of a multimillion-dollar independent organization trying to fashion GOP majorities in Congress.

Isn't it GREAT that Karl Rove is giving AID and COMFORT to Democrats?

Yes, I want to see some Democrats TOUTING the WISDOM of Karl Rove!

I want to see them LINE UP with what Karl Rove says!!!

Yesterday, O’Donnell said: “It is doable without the support of the Republican Party.’’

So are you, sweetie, even thought the MSM is hammering you with MTV clips from 15 years ago.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee initially greeted her victory with a brief statement issued in the name of an aide rather than the customary praise from Senator John Cornyn, the Texan who heads the group. But in a statement at midday, Cornyn said he had offered O’Donnell his personal congratulations and the organization would send her campaign a check for $42,000, the maximum it is allowed for expenses that may be officially coordinated with the candidates.

Translation: getting the Senate back is more important. They will railroad her into the party apparatus when she gets there. She will probably get the worst committee assignments in the whole place.

Cornyn was vague on whether the party committee would also launch the type of independent effort that is already underway in Kentucky and is reserved for the most competitive races. Such efforts can run into millions of dollars in states where the cost of television advertising is high.

Yup, no help for little Chrissy -- which means she needs in that voting booth.

Maybe the WOMEN'S GROUPS will LEND HER a HAND?

Mitt Romney applauded O’Donnell for a well-run campaign and urged Republicans to support her candidacy.

Democratic National Committee chief Tim Kaine told NBC’s “Today’’ that O’Donnell’s win was a further sign of the “civil war’’ in the Republican Party.

They never learn!

Come November Republicans will fall in line and angry independents will put her over the top.

And there you see the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Where are the LIBERAL "insurgents" of the Democrat party?

A week later the U.S. Government took action against nine websites suspected of promoting copyright infringement by seizing their domains. The targets were mostly movie streaming sites, but it later became apparent the The Pirate Bay and MegaUpload had also been considered. They have escaped for now.

Taking the domains of suspected sites has proven to be a highly effective tool to shut down sites that are considered illegal, and today a group of US senators proposed legislation to make this a standard procedure.

If signed into law, the “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act” pdf via TL would allow the Department of Justice to file a civil lawsuit against the domain owners. If the courts decide that a site is indeed promoting copyright infringement, the DOJ can order the domain registrar to take the domain offline.

“The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act will give the Department of Justice an expedited process for cracking down on these rogue Web sites regardless of whether the Web site’s owner is located inside or outside of the United States,” Senator Orin Hatch said.

According to Senator Hatch the new legislation is needed because the Internet has “become a tool for online thieves to sell counterfeit and pirated goods, making hundreds of millions of dollars off of stolen American intellectual property.” When and if the proposed legislation will be signed into law will be decided later.

Aside from the classic ‘pirate’ websites the proposed bill can be an effective tool to take the whistleblower site Wikileaks offline, the domain at least. After all, Wikileaks posted thousands of files that are owned by the United States.

If the proposal is accepted it will change the Internet and how domain names are controlled for good. Thus far, no central Government has the power to take over domains. This power belongs exclusively to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICANN .

As if he saw it coming, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom already warned against the legislation that was proposed by US senators today.

“If governance were to become the exclusive province of nation states or captured by any other interests, we would lose the foundation of the Internet’s long-term potential and transformative value,” Beckstrom said last week.

The other interests would be those of the movie studios and record labels in this case.

The MPAA has already applauded the introduction of the bill and offered their full cooperation. “In the coming weeks, we look forward to working with Chairman Leahy and the Senate and House committees to help strengthen the bill,” MPAA’s Bob Pisano said.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Yesterday, he did that.

Previously. I suggested that the White House needed to get their newest employee out on teevee, talking to the middle class.

For the White House, not only do they need to fulfill whatever promises they made to Warren. Just as importantly, though, if they don’t actually use the fact that they finally have someone who can speak for and to the middle class without the kind of gaffes that Joe Biden inevitably makes to their advantage they will be really hurting themselves. Is Warren booked for the Sunday shows this weekend? If not, why not?

Either the White House or Warren herself made sure she did the round of news shows to talk about her appointment.

As I said earlier, it pays to be cautious about such things.

But–as Rachel Maddow pointed out–at the very least the White House now has a person who can and will, relentlessly, speak about the concerns and challenges of the middle class.

And that–all by itself–is a vast improvement on what the Administration had yesterday.

Elizabeth Warren photo: david shankbone via Flickr

I’m cautiously optimistic with the dual appointment of Elizabeth Warren to be Assistant to the President and to work at Treasury to set up the Consumer Financial Protection Board.

Frankly, no one knows what this appointment will mean in practice except perhaps Obama, Warren, and Timmeh Geithner. And no one knows how well Warren will negotiate the inevitable bureaucratic battles ahead, particularly with whomever replaces Rahm.

But I’m optimistic for two reasons. First, I have a lot of trust in Warren herself. She’s proven her ability to surprise her opponents in bureaucratic battles thus far. I also suspect though don’t know for a fact that she negotiated the Assistant to the President position as protection against anything Timmeh and Larry Summers might try. She seems to have demanded certain things with this nomination. And gotten them. And–as DDay linked earlier–she has expressed confidence that this is a win.

The President asked me, and I enthusiastically agreed, to serve as an Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He has also asked me to take on the job to get the new CFPB started—right now. The President and I are committed to the same vision on CFPB, and I am confident that I will have the tools I need to get the job done. [my emphasis]

So given the respect I have for Warren, I take her at her word that she will have the power to make of CFPB what it needs to be.

The other reason I’m cautiously optimistic is because the Chamber of Commerce is screaming like a stuck pig over these developments. Which, in my book, is generally a sign that something good has happened.

All that said, the appointment of Warren just means that both the White House and activists have more work to do. For the White House, not only do they need to fulfill whatever promises they made to Warren. Just as importantly, though, if they don’t actually use the fact that they finally have someone who can speak for and to the middle class without the kind of gaffes that Joe Biden inevitably makes to their advantage they will be really hurting themselves. Is Warren booked for the Sunday shows this weekend? If not, why not?

As for the rest of us, one of the reasons I think Warren was successful in negotiating what she sees as a successful resolution to this position is because her broad support was very clear to the White House. A wide group of people made it clear that Warren was the only acceptable candidate for this position.

If we get complacent, it’ll be a lot harder for Warren to do what she’d like to do with the position.

Progressives finally won something from this Administration. Maybe. But we’re only going to be able to keep it if we continue to make noise.

Vice President Joe Biden made room in his busy schedule Wednesday to appear on “The Rachel Maddow Show” to address the much-reported enthusiasm gap between fired-up Tea-publicans and a disappointed Democratic base. How do I know that was his reason? He said so:

What I’m doing. . . one of the reasons I wanna be on your show is to tell the progressives out there, you know, get in gear, man. First of all, there’s a great deal at stake.

No duh. Really? Progressives are the ones that need to be reminded that there’s a great deal at stake?

But wait, there’s more. Biden then launches into a list of Democratic accomplishments—tobacco regulation, hate crime laws, insuring kids SCHIP, I presume—you will excuse me if I don’t transcribe every word, Joe does go on a bit, you know —none of them, as best I recall, ones that were first enacted during the Obama Administration [on this point, I stand corrected, but that raises other questions], and tries to contrast this out-of-date list with, well, for lack of any specific point, let’s call it the Republican alternative:

If they take over the House and the Senate, don’t kid yourself. They’ve made it really clear. Pete Sessions said [if the GOP takes over Congress], “We’d have the exact same agenda.” And look, there is a lot at stake here, and our progressive base, you have–you should not stay home. You better get energized because the consequences are serious for the outcome of the things we care most about. And I didn’t mention half the stuff we’ve gotten done.

Actually, Mr. Vice President, you didn’t mention a single thing that your administration or this Democratically controlled 111th Congress has gotten done. You are just telling progressives out there that they “better get energized,” that they “get in gear,” that they “should not stay home” come November.

Why? Because. . . because. . . Pete Sessions!

Joe Biden is not saying Democrats need an excited progressive base to win in November, and here is what the administration is going to do to excite them; Biden is saying Dems need an excited base—so the progressive base damn well better get excited. Period.

Don’t believe that the same folks that swept into the White House on a wave of popular enthusiasm could now be pitching this piss-poor woo? Biden was given a chance to clarify. He said that Obama is a gifted politician, but he didn’t “fall out of the sky.” Instead:

What he [Obama] brought out of the sky, down to earth, were really significant progressive goals that have been met.

Wait, what? He brought us goals? Obama gave us the goals? Progressives haven’t been articulating goals since. . . when now? 2006? 2002? 1932? 1916? . . . 1899? OK, maybe Biden just phrased that badly–but still, Joe, what goals have been met, exactly?

Sorry, I interrupted. Mr. Vice President, please continue. . . .

What he [Obama] brought out of the sky, down to earth, were really significant progressive goals that have been met. More to do, more to do. And so I think it’s time for our base to say, “Hey man, take a look, this opposition is for real.”

OK, again, the progressive base hasn’t been warning about the opposition? It has been the progressive blogosphere, far out in front of any Democratic Party organ, that has been telling the establishment that they had created space for the Tea Parties by aligning the White House too closely with the banksters. It was progressives that begged for a bigger stimulus, a jobs agenda, and health care reform that actually helped people and did so before the midterm elections. Jane, early on, warned folks not to take the Tea Party movement movements? too lightly. She, Jon, Scarecrow, David, and a host of others on FDL have all pleaded for Democrats to move more aggressively or else incur the wrath of a nervous electorate.

Why, just last night, I tweeted:

O’Donnell & Paladino’s GOP victories should remind prematurely giddy Dems that GOTV will be everything in November.

Does that sound like the twitterings of a guy that does not think “this opposition is for real?”

But that is not the narrative that Biden, his administration, or the Democratic leadership wants to tell here. Joe didn’t come out saying that progressives had the right idea, and though Dems had stumbled out of the gate, from here on it would be full speed ahead; “More to do, more to do,” doesn’t come close. Make no mistake, what Joe Biden was doing last night was blaming progressives now for Democratic losses later.

Maddow, maybe out of deference, maybe out of amnesia, took Biden’s frame as a given and asked, Why hasn’t the needed progressive awakening happened organically?

Joe invokes his grandpa, then reminds us that a lot of people are hurting, and that folks are angry and don’t want to make a choice. He recalls the words of Kevin White Mayor of Boston, 1968-1984 : “Don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. . . .”

Joe liked that quote, so he repeated it:

“Don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. . . .” People haven’t wanted to make that choice, they don’t want to focus yet. . . . . It’s like, “I don’t want to be bothered–I’m angry.” . . . but they’re gonna now, watch them. . . starting the beginning of October, they’re gonna focus. And the alternatives are stark between a Democratic-led House and Democratic-led Senate and a Republican-led House and Senate. . . . We are going to retain control of the House, we are going to retain control of the Senate because, when the American people focus on the alternative, it’s gonna be absolutely clear to them that there is no alternative.

Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, I was a consultant—of the branding and marketing variety–and Biden’s performance reminds me of some of my worst clients from those days. These guys and gals would sit behind the two-way mirror watching focus groups, and they would deride the respondents and curse about how their stupid target consumers were wrong—wrong!–about their product. It was the consumer who was doing a bad job of understanding the product. It was the consumer that was not paying attention to the right things. It was the consumer that had failed to understand the benefits of these clients’ brands.

Those were not successful brands. And without a change in their point of view, they didn’t become successful brands.

Let me put it this way: Joe Biden is your cable provider screaming that they are better than the phone company, and you know they are better than the phone company, and if you don’t know that, no matter what your experience, then it is your problem, you fucking idiot.

Compelling messaging, huh?

It didn’t work for my clients, and it won’t work for the Democrats.

It is not enough to say, “C’mon, you know how bad the other guys are.” It is not enough to say, ”Buy my product, or else.” It is not enough to say as Jon Stewart pointed out to DNC Chair Tim Kaine , “They suck worse.”

If you want to bridge the enthusiasm gap, it is you, Joe Biden, President Obama, national Democrats, that have to provide the enthusiasm. And the reasons for all of us to be enthused.

Another lesson from my consulting days: it is never good to be the “not” brand. That is, it is never good to define yourself as “not the other guys.” By doing that, you are dependent on them. By doing that, they define the space. All that is left for you to do is react to your competition.

In a competitive marketplace—especially in one where you don’t have to buy, where you could just opt to stay home—you have to give people a reason to commit. You need to articulate a distinct benefit.

You need to give folks a reason to vote for you; not just against them.

Without demonstrable benefits—or at least the promise of them—there is no enthusiasm. The winners of the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries should understand that.

But benefits were not what Vice President Biden was selling to Rachel Maddow and her presumably progressive audience on Wednesday. Biden went with fear and loathing, blame and bluster. That strategy didn’t work for my clients in boom times, and it won’t work for Democrats now.

So, Joe, uh–how did you put it?—get in gear!

Thanks for the Senate seat, Teabaggers!

The latest Public Policy Polling D results suggest that Christine O’Donnell faces an uphill battle in her race for Vice President Joe Biden’s old Senate seat in Delaware. In a poll of 958 likely Delaware voters conducted this weekend, PPP found that Democrat Chris Coons leads O’Donnell 50 percent to 34 percent. [...]

The principle challenge O’Donnell faces is convincing Delaware voters that she is qualified to be a U.S. senator. According to the PPP survey, 49 percent of the electorate doesn’t believe that O’Donnell is fit to hold public office. In head-to-head matchups, Castle would have garnered 30 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Republicans, and 45 percent of Independents, compared to 54/16/27 for Coons. We see very different numbers for the O’Donnell/Coons race, with O’Donnell getting just 13 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of Independents, with 61 percent of Republicans backing her. Even if she manages to get Republicans to come home, she’ll still trail Coons who will presumably get a number of undecided Independents and Demcorats .

And the Palinization of the GOP continues.

photo: Zaldylmg on Flickr

A story by Jason Leopold and me, currently up at Truthout, reports that a Department of Defense Office of Inspector General investigation into allegations of drugging of detainees, completed almost exactly a year ago, was nevertheless hidden from public knowledge for months. Its results remain hidden, labeled classified. This is especially strange as this document was publicly requested by no less than now-Vice President then Senator Joe Biden, along with Senators Carl Levin and Chuck Hagel, after a couple of articles in 2008 — one by Jeff Stein and one by Joby Warrick at the Washington Post — blew the whistle on dozens of reports of alleged drugging of detainees.

The finished report, entitled “Investigation of Allegations of the Use of Mind-Altering Drugs to Facilitate Interrogations of Detainees,” had been published on September 23, 2009. It was recently posted as finished at the OIG’s website see 09-INTEL-13 . I know that when I was looking for the progress of the report as recently as last February, for an article I was writing at the time, the investigation was still listed as “in progress.” It also went under another title: “Possible Use of Mind Altering Substances by DoD Personnel during Interrogations of Detainees and/or Prisoners Captured during the War on Terror” Project No. D2007-DINT01-0092.005 . That listing has since expired.

Today I asked Vice President Biden’s office for comment, and am awaiting reply. But on the face of it, no one seems to want to talk about this report. Human rights workers and attorneys who were familiar with the fact of the investigation were quite surprised when I informed them the report had been finished twelve months ago! Multiple FOIA requests have now been made, but I don’t hold out much hope for getting answers to the basic questions around the many charges of drugging of detainees. This administration’s claims about greater transparency seem quite thin, especially when it means investigating their “war on terror” and detainee prison system.

As the Truthout article reports:

More recent accounts of drugging by detainees include charges by Abdul Aziz Naji, who was forcibly repatriated to Algeria from Guantanamo July 2010. Naji told an Algerian newspaper that detainees at Guantanamo were forced “to take some medicines for three months to drive them crazy, loosing [sic] memory and committing suicide.” According to an important exposé by Scott Horton at Harpers last winter, at least one of the three Guantanamo prisoners that DoD claimed committed suicide in 2006 had needle marks on both of his arms. According to Horton, the Obama administration has refused to open an investigation into these mysterious deaths, which allegedly took place at a previously unreported black site at Guantanamo, known informally as Camp No.

What could drugs have been used for?

[Cont'd]

It’s fairly well accepted and documented that the CIA at least used drugs for sedation of prisoners during rendition. Drugs could also be used to enforce compliance in prison, or to “soften up” prisoners for interrogation. Of course, the never-ending search for a “truth drug” may be in play here, as well as sinister kinds of experiments, akin to the MKULTRA or Edgewood Arsenal drug experiments of old. The U.S. veterans who were used as guinea pigs by the Army at Edgewood have been fighting a lawsuit for damages against the government for some time, with some recent successes in moving the case forward. See this website for more details and links to the filings.

And the drugs used? Jose Padilla’s chief federal defender asserted in a 2007 legal motion that Padilla was “was given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide LSD or phencyclidine PCP , to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations.” Hank Albarelli suggested what some of them could be in an article which I also co-authored last June:

Recent reports concerning the CIA and Army have both organizations experimenting on a selected basis with a new mind altering drug whose effects are described as “incredibly mind altering yet at the same time allowing subjects to adhere to a sufficient sense of sanity thus allowing better opportunity for truth inducing techniques…” The drug, described by one former intelligence official as “ETX,” is said to last for “about 48-hours.”

We can’t really know what’s being given. Probably because doping up prisoners is supposed to be illegal, they are keeping whatever came up in the Inspector General’s investigation secret. Use of drugs on prisoners is a war crime — even though the Army Field Manual allows giving drugs for interrogations as long as they don’t cause “permanent” or “lasting” harm or damage. An older ban against “chemically induced psychosis” was dropped when the new AFM was adopted in September 2006. Given the AFM usage, it would appear that drugs could be used abusively, as torture, and still not meet the “legal” criteria of same. No wonder a Senate Armed Service Committee staff person told their press person “that the OIG investigation ‘did not substantiate allegations’ that mind altering drugs ‘were used for interrogation purposes’ on detainees.” That would leave use of hallucinogenic drugs to disorient prisoners and produce compliance prior to interrogations to be considered legal.

So the Obama administration doesn’t want pot to be legalized, but they’re okay with giving mind-altering drugs to prisoners on some level , and keep top-secret any information about government investigations into abuses. What a damaged and insane society we live in!

Only protests from an outraged citizenry will change such criminal actions — done in your name, by the way — to make the world safe for democracy U.S. corporate profits.

Many top Republicans, who fear O’Donnell would make a weak, unsteady candidate in the general election, are now reportedly considering pulling financial support from the state.

Oh, so THAT is the way you STAND BEHIND the VOTER'S CHOICE, establishment?

Didn't RON PAUL get the same KNIFE in the BACK?

You know, if the ESTABLISHMENT and CORPORATE MEDIA are so VOCIFEROUSLY VITUPERATIVE then they MUST BE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT!

Republicans once considered Delaware one of their best shots at picking up a Democratic seat, the one held by Vice President Joe Biden for 36 years.

“We weren’t in the race just to come close. We were in this to win big, and win big we did,’’ O’Donnell told supporters. “Don’t ever underestimate the power of ‘We the people.’ ’’

But their victories could rob Republicans of chances to unseat Democrats and take control of the Senate, political analysts and some Republicans contend.

These are the SAME CONVENTIONAL WISDOM ANALYSTS that are CONSISTENTLY WRONG, right?

Tea Party movement candidates have elbowed the GOP to the right, making it more difficult to appeal to the general electorate and independent voters, who are often key in general elections.

The MSM is acting as if NOTHING HAS CHANGED in AmeriKa these last few years.

They are REALLY DELUDING THEMSELVES and it is SAD!!

They could also end up costing Republicans the chance of winning what they considered touchstone seats — that of Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who is now leading in polls against his Tea Party-backed opponent, Sharron Angle, and that associated for decades with Biden.

Why would Nevada voters care what you think, establishment?

Related: Tea Party Takes Angle on Harry Reid

Reid better rig those machines.

The fiercely contested races in Delaware and New Hampshire capped a raucous and unpredictable primary season. With the slate of candidates nearly complete, both parties now sprint toward November’s crucial midterm elections, with several variables determining the balance of power in Washington.

As if it mattered. They just SWITCH SIDES! The SAME INTERESTS are SERVED no matter which party is in power.

Republicans have a good chance of winning the 39 seats needed to retake the House majority, according to election observers, and previously were given a shot at gaining the 10 seats needed to take the Senate as well.

Related: Clinging to the Senate

But the GOP hopes hinge on whether conservative insurgents are able to translate their grass-roots momentum into independent votes, whether Democrats are able to motivate their base, and whether President Obama can once again be an effective campaigner....

There is that WORD AGAIN!!

I didn't know little Chrissy O'Donnell was TRYING to KILL out TROOPS!

Also see: 2006 All Over Again

That's not very effective campaigning, is it?

The Senate race in Delaware illustrated the deep fissures within the Republican Party, which is still trying to figure out how to harness the enthusiasm of the Tea Party movement....

Related: Slow Saturday Special: Tea Bags Steeped in S***

America's False Choices Beckon

Yep, GIVING the MOVEMENT a BAD NAME -- as any CONTROLLED-OPPOSITION, COINTELPRO operation would!

O’Donnell will now face Chris Coons, a county-level executive who was unopposed for the Democratic nomination....

According to a Rasmussen Reports poll earlier this month, Coons was 11 points ahead in a potential match up with O’Donnell. By contrast, Castle was 11 points ahead of Coons.

“There’s just a lot of nutty things she’s been saying that just simply don’t add up,’’ Karl Rove, the Republican strategist, said in a television interview on Fox. “I’m for the Republican, but I’ve got to tell you we were looking at 8 to 9 seats in the Senate we’re now looking at 7 to 8. In my opinion, this is not a race we’re going to be able to win.’’

Related: Primary Party: Prom Night

I guess Karl didn't want to dance.

And it looks like RACHEL MADDOW just found herself a NEW FRIEND, huh?

Yes, let's see Democrats and WOMEN LINE UP with KARL ROVE!

And they have the NERVE to CRITICIZE the choices of "Tea Party people?"

*********

With high unemployment and low approval ratings for President Obama, Republicans have been bolstered by high turnouts and an energized electorate.

And the corporate media is doing EVERYTHING IT CAN to douse the fire of revolution in this country.

But often, Republican primary voters have not heeded the advice of the establishment and have chosen political novices over incumbents and long-established politicians.

Yup, and then the CORPORATE MSM DUMPS all over them!!

That is how they RESPECT the WILL of the VOTERS after they make it all seem like such a big deal about our ability to self-govern in a democracy and "change" things?

Ever notice the POLITICIANS only seem to CARE ABOUT YOU when ELECTION TIME rolls around?

In Utah, Senator Bob Bennett lost to a political newcomer with Tea Party movement ties, Mike Lee. In Kentucky, ophthalmologist Rand Paul defeated the party-backed Secretary of State Trey Grayson.

Related: Not Like Father Like Son

And last month, Tea Party -backed Joe Miller defeated Senator Lisa Murkowski....

Related: Clinging to the Senate

In other primaries:

? Twenty-term Representative Charlie Rangel of New York won decisively despite ethics allegations against him by the House Ethics Committee. His primary challenger was Adam Clayton Powell IV, whose father Rangel defeated 40 years ago to win the seat. Rangel, who rose to become chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, only to give it up in the midst of the ethics investigation, will be heavily favored to win the general election.

Related: Charlie Rangel's Farewell Party

I guess not, and how DISAPPOINTING!!

Yeah, when it comes to the DEMOCRATS doing the RIGHT THING and DISPATCHING one of their own slime-ball establishment candidates they REELECT HIM!

Just goes to show you that RACE and GENDER do NOT GUARANTEE VIRTUE in politics as the conventional myth implies !

? Also in New York, Rick Lazio, a former representative who had lost to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the US Senate in 2000, was trounced by political newcomer Carl Paladino, a wealthy developer with Tea Party movement support, for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Lazio had once held a lopsided lead in the polls. Paladino now faces Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who will be the favorite....

Message: ESTABLISHMENT OUT!!!!

--more--"

Then again, I suppose it is JUST ME!!!

Go ahead and KEEP YOUR ESTABLISHMENT, Americans!

Then you get EXACTLY the GOVERNMENT you DESERVE!!

I would say time for a NATIONAL STRIKE and OCCUPATION of D.C. and STATE CAPITOLS as in days past until we GET WHAT WE WANT; however, Americans do not seem inclined in that direction so KEEP YOUR DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED CONGRESS and your ESTABLISHMENT! After all, they have SERVED YOU SO WELL with the JOBS, HOUSING, and INFRASTRUCTURE of your country!!

Btw, WHERE were the DEMOCRAT OBJECTIONS and FILIBUSTERS all those years they held a minority in the Senate? How come BUSH'S PROGRAMS were NEVER FILIBUSTERED? Why is it REPUBLICANS are the only ones who OFFER RESISTANCE? Why is it Republican resistance WINS and Democrats DO NOT?

In the last two days two guides have taken me through the geography of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, and I’m staggered. I wonder why this monstrous structure is not better known, even to people like me, who study the conflict. I wonder how it is that American reporters are not describing the racist devouring of Jerusalem every day in our newspapers and showing it every night on our television news. I wonder why our politicians, or our liberal Democratic ones anyway, are not holding angry press conferences in front of the repulsive separation wall as it lunges to separate a Palestinian village from virtually all its connections to the outside world, so as to privilege the lifestyle, and short commute, of Jews in the new development on the hilltop above them.

I wonder why Rabbi Arthur Waskow, who calls for boycotting the “pharaoh” of BP as a response to the destruction in the Gulf, cannot see the Pharaoh’s works right here and call for boycott. I wonder how it is that Ethan Bronner of the New York Times, who lives in West Jerusalem, could give lectures back home about covering the story and lament the remote possibility of Palestinians moving back into Arab houses in West Jerusalem when the only real movement and dispossession, eastward, is in front of his eyes; and millions of Palestinian ambitions are blighted by lack of freedom of movement and constant insults to their human rights. And believe me, if a fraction of what the Palestinians are experiencing were happening to Jews, it is all we would hear about.

But let me try to be a little more reportorial. 

What I’m seeing is the result of 40 years of Jewish colonization of one of the jewels of world civilization. During the 43-year occupation, the Israelis have essentially constructed a system of spears radiating out from Jewish West Jerusalem into Palestinian East Jerusalem, and on into the West Bank. These new Jewish neighborhoods are designed to solidify Israeli control over greater Jerusalem in the event of any possible division of the place in a two-state solution, but more important, to make Jerusalem into a Jewish city by choking off the Palestinian life of this international city.

And yes, I imagine, there is a security component to the thinking too. They want to kill us, we have to keep them behind fences.

The choking-off is what I saw in my tours. As this colonization progresses, it takes more and more village land around the city and throws out more infrastructure to serve the colonists, special roads and high barbed wire fences and walls to protect the drivers and their communities. The infrastructure isolates more and more Palestinians from one another. You can tell Palestinian villages from the black water vessels dotting the rooftops—because their water is shut off for days at a time. So when Jeffrey Goldberg, pushing the Israeli side in the U.S., says that Gilo is just a neighborhood in Jerusalem, well it is actually a white stucco fortress/colony built on the outskirts of southern Jerusalem on Palestinian village land, and now requiring more of that land so as to expand, with plans to build a wall right through the neighboring village to protect the colonists from the farmers in the valley. And again, all of this on land that international law says is Palestine’s.

Homes are routinely demolished in that village facing Gilo, so as not to prevent the colony’s growth; and as you travel through Greater East Jerusalem you often see the rubble of Palestinian buildings, Palestinians who dared to try and develop their communities. The Israeli authorities come in and destroy the houses or businesses. Even as the Israelis expand a colony nearby. Rubble and palaces. In a word, systemic racism.

Maybe the most pitiable sight I saw yesterday, inside the West Bank but close to the north Jerusalem colonies of Ramot and Ramat Shlomo, is the hilltop tomb of the prophet Samuel, which is worshiped by Jews and Muslims. The tomb is both a mosque with a minaret and a Jewish place of worship. Well when we visited, busloads of Jewish schoolchildren were arriving and Israeli soldiers were in the tomb davening and Hasidic boys were descending, too. A moving sight. We must have seen 150 religious Israelis.

And meantime the Islamic portion of the tomb is dead. The door is chained, pigeons fly into the outer rooms, the Palestinian who runs a store there told us that the authorities had shut down the minaret. There are no Palestinian worshipers.

Alongside the tomb is a Palestinian village in the West Bank, but the occupation has now cut this village off from the rest of Palestinian life in the West Bank. The school serving the village—that is the photograph at the top of this post—is a one-room building. At this point in our travels, my wife walked away for a few minutes so that our Palestinian friend who lives under these conditions all the time would not see her feelings.

And this is a National Park. An Israeli National Park for the tomb of Samuel, inside Palestinian territory! Do you think the Israelis are ever going to part with this colony? Of course not. We are in the West Bank, the home of the Palestinian state, and these Jews will be here forever.

Now let me remind you that the Israeli settlement nearby, Ramat Shlomo, is the one that pissed off Joe Biden in the spring, when he blew up at Netanyahu over the latest construction orders. Biden got really angry. He said you’re endangering American lives. There was a showdown, and in the end what happened, Obama swallowed it.

Still, you can see why Biden was pissed off. This situation is monstrous and racist. If our politicians were not hogtied by the Israel lobby, they would be bringing reporters with them to the tomb of Samuel and saying, Is this right? This is happening with our tax dollars? They are making a National Park inside Palestinian territory and choking off all Palestinian access to the place! Are you crazy?

Our politicians would declare that the road to peace in Jerusalem doesn’t lead through Baghdad or Tehran-- no the road is right here in Jerusalem, and it is blocked by Israeli bulldozers.

Now I mentioned a minute ago that my wife hid her feelings from our Palestinian friend, and I want to unpack this somewhat. The Palestinians live with this all the time. They have the boot stuffed down their throat at every turn. Even the educated professionals, their horizons are blocked off, their aspirations. Academics can’t travel, even into Jerusalem; and when I say, Oh they can't sustain this, my friend responds, They have sustained it as long as I can remember. You cannot normalize this oppressive situation. The polticians talk about all the businesses thriving. Well the Palestinian people are always trying. The Palestinians are not defeatable, and they are always struggling for this and that. You see beautiful restaurants inside the occupation, lovely hotels, good book stories. But it is not a flourishing life. It is not the life that these people would make for themselves if they had any real freedom. If they were able to compete and cooperate as equals with the Israelis, you would see something entirely different.

So they live with this daily humiliation and they stuff their souls down inside their chest somewhere and one day they bring in friends from the United States and show them around, and a visitor is so overwhelmed by the oppression that she starts crying and has to walk away. Well you understand that it is a little rude to show your friend just how pitiable life here seems to us.

I don’t know how they live with this, my wife said later, and of course you ask that question. The other day we met a man who works in Sheikh Jarrah, right up from the house evictions that happened last winter, a funny Palestinian, my wife and he were joking around a lot, when I said to him, “Are they still living in the tent down there?” I meant the Palestinians who had been thrown out of their houses in Sheikh Jarrah and were living in a tent in the road.

The man’s smile disappeared. "I don’t know.“
 

"Well it’s just a block away."

“I’ve never been there. It would make me sick. And then I would have to walk away and there would be nothing I could do about it. So I’ve never seen it."

Imagine feeling so helpless, and feeling that powerless over your own fate and the life of your society that you avoid knowledge of the fierce conditions. Jews were like this during the advance of anti-Semitism in eastern European cities, they tried to ignore it.

And that’s why my wife walked away, she didn’t want to seem a complete tourist of someone else’s suffering.

My rage at this situation is directed at my own community, American Jews, who have allowed this to develop. I can think of only a few responses to Jerusalem that I can honor. Earlier this year Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights visited Jerusalem and came back and gave speeches about the colonization and said the two-state solution is finished. Jeff Halper came to the States more recently and described the endless process of house demolition. And Charney Bromberg came back and told a Columbia University audience that this situation reminds him of apartheid.

These are exceptional statements. Liberal Zionists generally can't face this reality; and our politicians are mute and even the fairly-good piece that Isabel Kershner did on the colonization of East Jerusalem a couple of months back in the Times didn't convey the monstrous reality. No, liberal Zionsts are are concerned with preserving Israel against the "demographic threat"-- a possible Palestinian majority. When you see what Jewish control has meant for non-Jewish residents of Jerusalem,  that seems a particularly filthy euphemism.

If you appreciate this on-the-ground reporting from Israel/Palestine - please donate to Mondoweiss today.

Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to Mondoweiss through the Nation Institute.

A hat tip to Monty Python’s legendary Spanish Inquisition sketch.

[The White House Oval Office]
Biden [anxiously pacing the room]: Mr President. Mullah Omar, you know, the one-eyed Taliban leader, he just said we have to get the hell out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. And he said the Taliban were winning the war.
Obama [contemplating a basketball]: No wonder I cannot run a business here. Why can’t these COINistas bring me Omar’s head on a plate? Even I know he lives in Quetta. And why can’t they track Osama bin Laden? What are these Special Forces doing, watching Mad Men on cable?
Biden: Mr President, believe me, it’s we who are winning, not them.
Obama: Oh no, no, no, Joe. Get a grip on this AfPak business. The COINistas want nation-building and war against the Taliban, which for them is the same as al-Qaeda. You want only counter-terrorism against al-Qaeda on both sides of AfPak. Whatever we do, we will get clobbered in the November polls. I need a narrative arc of victory here, Joe!
Biden: Mr President, you did finish the Iraq War last week …
Obama: I was not awesome enough, Joe. Besides, Bush did it before me, and it didn’t work.
Biden: I’m afraid there’s more trouble ahead, Mr President. The Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth were in congress and at the National Press Club telling everybody that the Twin Towers collapsed in near free-fall because of pre-set demolition explosives. It says here, Mr President, and I quote, “An international team of scientists found nanothermitic composite material in World Trade Center dust, providing the first hard evidence of the presence of advanced pyrotechnics or explosives in the disaster debris.” They want a Grand Jury investigation of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Mr President.
Obama: For Heaven’s sake Joe, can you imagine if I decided to reopen 9/11? Did you see that poll last week where a majority of Republicans said, let me see if I remember correctly, that I “definitely sympathize with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world”? Who are these people? Whatever I do I’m a racist, a communist, a radical Islam-hugger … I didn’t expect a kind of USAian Inquisition.
[Jarring chord. The Oval Office door flies open and messianic Fox News host and self-appointed God's spokesperson to the US Glenn Beck enters, flanked by former vice-presidential candidate and Tea Party icon Sarah Palin, former speaker of the house and aspiring presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, former US ambassador to the UN and aspiring presidential candidate John Bolton, Texas energy conglomerate billionaires the Koch brothers, and Glenville, Florida fringe extremist Christian pastor Terry Jones, a mini-Koran burning in his hands in homage to his proposed, then aborted, International Burn-a-Koran Day on 9/11.]
Beck [bombastic]: Nobody expects the USAian Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise … surprise and fear … fear and surprise … Our two weapons are fear and surprise … and catchy sound bites … Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and catchy sound bites … and an almost fanatical devotion to God … Our four … no … Amongst our weapons … Amongst our weaponry … are such elements as fear, surprise … I’ll come in again.
[The Inquisition exits]
Obama: I didn’t expect a kind of USAian Inquisition.
[Jarring chord. The group burst in, minus Terry Jones, who had his hands burned by his burning Koran.]
Palin [squeakily]: Nobody expects the USAian Inquisition! We love weapons! Oh you betcha! We have so many of them, fear, surprise, catchy sound bites, an almost fanatical devotion to shooting wolves from my helicopter, these nice red leather pumps … And I can see Russia from my house! Oh, darn! [To Bolton]: I can’t say it – you’ll have to say it.
Bolton: What??
Palin: You’ll have to say the bit about “Our chief weapons are …”
Bolton: [rather impatient]: Nah, let’s get on with it, we gotta rush to the part where we frame all Muslims as neo-nazis.
[The group bundles outside again]
Obama: I didn’t expect a kind of USAian Inquisition.
[Jarring chord. The group enters]
Bolton: Er … Nobody … um … expects … Nobody expects the … um .. the USAian … um …
Beck: Inquisition?
Bolton: I know, I know! Nobody expects the USAian Inquisition. In fact, those who do expect know that we can’t be at the mercy of terrorists, we have to reclaim the date of Sep 11 from these deceptive Islamic supremacists, and that’s why I’ll be running for President in 2012.
Gingrich: OK! OK! OK! Stop! Stop. Ah! … our chief weapons are surprise … blah blah blah. Alright. Glenn, read the charges.
Beck: You are hereby charged that you did on diverse dates commit heresy against the US flag. You are a racist … a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, the white culture, I don’t know what it is. You are a Muslim. You were not even born in the US. You are a servant of Islam …
Gingrich: That’s enough. [To Obama] Now, how do you plead?
Obama: This is ridiculous. Of course I’m innocent.
Gingrich: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! [diabolical laughter]
The Koch brothers [surreptitiously]: We’ll soon change your mind about that!
Bolton: Fear, surprise, and while we’re at it, at war with all servants of Islam, which is taking over the world and it is now the US’s turn to fall. Hush, Glenn, grab the prayer rug!
[Beck produces a stinky prayer rug he got from a Special Forces officer who bought it on Chicken Street in Kabul for $10. Gingrich looks at it and clenches his teeth in an effort not to lose control. He hums heavily to cover his anger]
Gingrich: You … Right! Make him hug the rug.
[The Koch brothers make a pathetic attempt to rub the rug against Obama's lap]
Gingrich: Right! How do you plead?
Obama [imperturbable]: Innocent.
Beck: Ha! Right! Newt, don’t you think he should kneel down and pray?
[Gingrich stands awkwardly, shrugs his shoulders]
Gingrich: I …
Beck: [gritting his teeth] I know, I know you can’t.
Gingrich: I …
Beck: Just pretend for God’s sake. Ha! Ha! Ha!
[Gingrich dreamily grabs the rug and lays it on the floor. Fuzzy focus, dreamy soundtrack... Cut abruptly to the group torturing US Sec State Clinton]
Beck: Now, old woman – you are accused of heresy on three counts – heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, and heresy by action – four counts. Do you confess?
Clinton: I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m accused of. Don’t you ever watch my press conferences?
Bolton: Ha! Then we’ll make you understand! Glenn! Fetch … the Islamic cushions!
[Jarring chord. Beck holds out two Islamic-green, made in China cushions]
Beck: There you are. Can you believe they sell these in Manhattan only a few yards away from Ground Zero?
Gingrich: Now, old lady – you have one last chance. Confess the heinous sin of heresy, reject the works of the ungodly – two last chances. And you shall be free – three last chances. You have three last chances, the nature of which I have divulged in my previous utterance.
Clinton: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Gingrich: Right! If that’s the way you want it – Bolton! Poke her with the Islamic cushions!
[Bolton carries out his pathetic torture]
Gingrich: Confess! Confess! Confess!
Bolton: It doesn’t seem to be hurting her. I always thought this woman was evil.
Gingrich [angrily hurling away the cushions]: Hmm! She is made of harder stuff! Glenn! Fetch … the comfy mosque!
[Jarring chord. Beck pushes in a miniature comfy mosque - a model of the Islamic Center projected for Ground Zero]
Gingrich: So you think you are strong because you can survive the Islamic cushions. Well, we shall see! Give her the comfy mosque!
[They roughly push the comfy mosque into Clinton's lap]
Gingrich [with a cruel leer]: Now – you will be prostrated in front of the comfy mosque until dinner, with only a cup of green tea at sunset. Time to pray, lady! [aside, to Beck]: Is that really all there is?
Beck: That should be enough.
Gingrich: I see. I suppose we make it worse by shouting a lot, do we? Confess, woman. Confess! Confess! Confess! Confess!
Palin [squeakily]: I confess!
Gingrich: Not you!

Eid al-Fitr, a joyous holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, this year falls around Sept. 11. Muslim leaders fear that their gatherings for prayer and festivities could be misinterpreted by those unfamiliar with Islam as a celebration of the 2001 terrorist strikes....

And the MSM is not helping one bit!

The Islamic Circle of North America, which organizes Muslim Family Days at the Six Flags amusement park in several cities around Eid al-Fitr, this year planned nothing for Saturday, Sept. 11, because of the anniversary. A founder of Muslim Family Day, Tariq Amanullah, worked at the World Trade Center and was killed in the attacks.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a Washington-based civil rights group, is urging mosques to review the group’s security guidelines, including clearing brush where people could hide and installing surveillance cameras.

“The issue I can sense brewing on hate sites on the Internet is, ‘These Muslims are celebrating on Sept. 11,’ ’’ said Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesman for CAIR. “It’s getting really scary out there.’’

The exact date of Eid al-Fitr this year is not yet known. Muslims follow different authorities on moon sightings and astronomical calculations to decide when a holiday begins. In North America, the eid could fall on Thursday, Sept. 9, Friday, Sept. 10, or Saturday, Sept. 11.

It is one of the two biggest Muslim holidays of the year, often compared to Christmas in its significance and revelry. The other major holiday is Eid al-Adha, at the end of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

Muslims who rarely attend congregational prayer fill mosques to overflowing on Eid al-Fitr.

What do you mean rarely attend?

Papers had us all believing they were rabid 5 times a day.

Mosque leaders often rent hotel ballrooms or convention centers to handle the crowds. Families wear their best clothes, exchange gifts, plan special meals with friends and relatives, sometimes decorate their homes inside and out, and organize carnivals for children.

In predominantly Muslim countries, the celebration can last for three days. But because of work and school obligations in the United States, American Muslims generally attend congregational prayer on the day of the holiday, then continue the festivities over the next weekend or two.

We suck.

If it were a Jewish holiday we would shutting down.

Most mosques usually intensify security around Ramadan because of the attention the month brings. This year, leaders have grown especially concerned about safety. In recent months, mosques around the country have faced protests and vandalism.

See: Terrorists Strike Tennessee

The debate over a proposed mosque and Islamic center near ground zero has become a national issue.

Related: New York Praying to Make Mosque Go Away

Maybe after today.

Yet well before these recent tensions, American Muslim leaders saw trouble ahead when they checked the calendar....

Why?

Muslims didn't do 9/11; Israel did.

9/11: Mosques and Memories

Morning Prayers at the Mosque

Muslim Obama Celebrates 9/11 Mosque

Yeah, he's one of 'em, Amurka.

Thanks for helping to ruin the party, MSM.

“There are two strains of thought,’’ Hooper said. “One is that Islam should not be blamed for 9/11 and that Muslims should not have to alter their religious practices, and that if you do, that shows some kind of guilt; and the other is, ‘Hey, let’s show a little sensitivity.’ ’’

Yeah, because they didn't do it!

I know it's hard to accept, God knows I know; however, it is the TRUTH!!

9/11 was an INSIDE JOB carried out primarily by Mossad and elements of the U.S. government.

The convergence even feels uncomfortable for some Muslims. “On one hand, 9/11 is a very difficult day for us, and on the other hand, Eid is like our Christmas — it’s a day for celebration,’’ said Zeba Iqbal, executive director of the Council on the Advancement of Muslim Professionals....

Yeah, why don't you cancel that this year, too.

The speakers, who included a rabbi, a Catholic priest, a Quaker, several Protestant ministers, and a Muslim leader, likened the recent stabbing of a Muslim cabdriver in New York City and plans by a Protestant Florida pastor to burn a Koran to the persecution of religious dissidents in Colonial-era Boston....

How far we have come, 'eh?

A statement, which was drafted by religious leaders last week and signed by more than 1,400 people online as of late yesterday afternoon, condemned “the cynical use of misinformation and fear-mongering by various politicians, commentators, and media outlets to stir up anti-Muslim prejudice for political or other ends.’’

I do it every day on this blog when I critique the Muslim-hating, war-promoting papers.

********

Addressing the crowd, Abdul Cader Asmal, past president of the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland and the Islamic Council of New England, drew a distinction between “Islamophobia,’’ which he called “a well-obfuscated, shameless demonization of Islam,’’ and the rational fear Americans and Muslims everywhere have of terrorism.

“Up to now, Islamophobes, with their fear-mongering, have enjoyed a good measure of success,’’ Asmal said. “But now, an increasing number of decent, fair-minded Americans . . . are slowing their momentum and coming to support . . . their Muslim fellow citizens.’’

It is because many of us have LEARNED the TRUTH about 9/11.

Several speakers likened the opposition to the mosque in New York to the persecution their own faiths endured in the past. Rabbi Eric Gurvis of Temple Shalom in Newton recalled that, 60 years ago, when his congregation tried to purchase land to build a synagogue, attempts were made to stop the sale.

Yeah, well, I really don't want to hear anymore about the poor Jews.

Jesus!

And the Rev. Walter Cuenin, the Catholic chaplain at Brandeis, called on Boston Catholics to remember their forebears were persecuted by Protestants.

At least the Protestants aren't pumping the poopers of the altar boys.

Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, did not attend the event, but in a blog post Aug. 13, he expressed support for the proposed Islamic center in Manhattan. Muslims, he wrote, “have a right to practice their faith,’’ and the mosque “near the site of the attack can be a very important symbol of how much we value religious freedom in this country.’’

NEW YORK — The group of Muslims planning to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque near ground zero appears plagued by divisions that raise questions about the future of the project....

Representatives of some of the project’s backers said they have just started trying to raise the estimated $100 million needed to build the center, and the millions more required to run it...

And here the MSM made it seem like it was opening today!

NEW YORK — This 9/11 is more political and contentious than the eight before it, with grieving family members on opposite sides of the mosque battle....

Still, there were signs yesterday that religious tensions were abating, and that hushed tones would replace the harsh rhetoric that threatened to overshadow the commemoration of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, Pa.....

As on other 9/11 anniversaries, official ceremonies were planned at the three locations where the terrorists struck. Obama will be at the Pentagon, Vice President Joe Biden will go to New York, and Michelle Obama and Laura Bush will travel to Shanksville.

Obama said at a White House press conference that Sept. 11 would be an excellent time for the country to reflect on the fact that there are millions of Muslims who are American citizens, that they also are fighting in US uniforms in Afghanistan, and “we don’t differentiate between ‘them’ and ‘us.’ It’s just ‘us.’ ’’

Biden will attend the largest commemoration, at a park near ground zero, where 2,752 people were killed after Muslim extremists flew planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Houses of worship in the city will toll bells at 8:46 a.m., when the first plane struck the north tower, and three more times to mark the moment the second plane hit the south tower and to observe the times each tower fell....

Fell kind of fast, didn't they?

Vice-President Biden, Defense Secretary Gates, Adm. Mullen, Gen. Mattis at change of command ceremony in Iraq, Sep. 1, 2010. photo: Joint Chiefs of Staff via Flickr

In an interview on the PBS NewsHour last Wednesday, Joe Biden was unwilling to contradict the official narrative of the Iraq War that Gen. David Petraeus and the Bush surge had turned Iraq into a good war after all. That interview serves as a reminder of just how completely the Democratic Party foreign policy elite has adopted that narrative. .

The Iraq War story line crafted by the Petraeus and the new counterinsurgency elite in Washington assures the public that U.S. military power in Iraq brought about the cooperation of the Sunnis in Anbar Province, ended sectarian violence in Baghdad and defeated Iranian-backed Shi’a insurgents.

In reality, of course, that’s not what happened at all. It’s time to review the relevant history and deconstruct the Petraeus narrative which the Obama administration now appears to have adopted.

The Sunni decision to cooperate in the suppression of al Qaeda in Iraq had nothing to do with the surge. The main Sunni armed resistance groups had actually turned against al Qaeda in 2005, when they began trying to make a deal with the United States to end the war.

At an Iraqi reconciliation conference in Cairo, November 19-21, 2005, leaders of the three major Sunni armed groups one of which was a coalition of several resistance organization told U.S. and Arab officials they were willing to track down al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and deliver him to Iraqi authorities as part of a negotiated agreement with the United States. The Sunni insurgent leaders were motivated not only by hatred of al Qaeda but by the fear that a Shi’a-dominated government would consolidate power and exclude the Sunnis permanently unless the United States acted to rebalance its policy in Iraq.

Two months later, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad actually entered into secret negotiations with the three major Sunni insurgent groups 2006, as later reported by the Sunday Times and confirmed by Khalilzad. The Sunni leaders even submitted a formal peace proposal to Khalilzad. They insisted on a “timetable for withdrawal” as part of the deal, but it was “linked to the timescale necessary to rebuild Iraq’s armed forces and security services”, according to Sunday Times. cont’d.

Khalilzad cut off the negotiations in February 2006, because such an agreement would have conflicted with a broader strategy of standing up a Shi’a army to suppress the Sunni insurgency.

The major Shi’a factions, determined to eliminate any possible threat to its power from the Sunnis in Baghdad, unleashed death squads, mostly from the Mahdi Army, in Sunni neighborhoods across the entire city in 2006 and early 2007.

The result was the defeat of the Sunni insurgents’ political-military bases in Baghdad, and the transformation of the capital from a mixed Sunni-Shi’a city into an overwhelmingly Shi’a city, as shown dramatically in this series of maps, based on U.S. military census data.

As a result, by late 2006, the Sunni leaders were feeling much more vulnerable to Shi’a power. Col. Sean McFarland, U.S. Army brigade commander in Al Anbar province throughout 2006, found Sunni sheiks expressing “[a] growing concern that the U.S. would leave Iraq and leave the Sunnis defenseless against Al-Qaeda and Iranian-supported militias….”

It was that fear of the Shi’a power that drove local Sunni decisions to join U.S.-sponsored Sunni neighborhood armed groups in Anbar.

The sectarian violence in Baghdad began to abate by August 2007, but not because of additional U.S. troops as the official narrative of the war suggests. It was because the Shi’a had accomplished their aim of confining the Sunni population to relatively small enclaves in Baghdad. That relationship between the achievement of that aim and the reduced violence was noted by the September 2007 National Intelligence Estimate.

The main Petraeus conceit about his strategy in Iraq is that it defeated a Shi’a insurgency that represented an Iranian “proxy war” in Iraq. But the main premise on which that claim was based — that Iran was backing “rogue elements” of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army — was simply a psywar ploy by Petraeus and his staff. The objective of the “rogue elements” line was to divide the Mahdi Army, as military and intelligence officials admitted to pro-war blogger Bill Roggio.

The official narrative suggested that Iran exerted political influence in Iraq by supporting armed groups opposing the government. In fact, however,Iran’s key Iraqi allies had always been the two Shi’a factions with which the United States was allied against Sadr — the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq SCIRI and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party. They had both gotten Iranian support and training during the war against Saddam, and the fiercely nationalist Sadr had criticized SCIRI leaders as Iranian stooges.

The al-Maliki government had no problem with Iranian training and financial support of the Mahdi Army in 2006, when the Mahdi Army was eliminating the Sunni threat from Baghdad. But once it was clear that the Sunnis had been defeated, the historical conflict between Sadr and the other Shi’a factions reemerged in spring 2007.

The Iranian interest was to ensure that the Shi’a-dominated government of Iraq consolidated its power. Iran’s “supreme leader” Ali Khamenei told al-Maliki in August 2007 that Iran would support his taking control of Sadr’s strongholds. Later that same month, al-Maliki went to Karbala and gave the local police chief “carte blanche” to attack the Sadrists there. After two days of violence, Sadr declared a six-month “freeze” on Mahdi Army military operations August 27, 2007.

By late 2007, contrary to the official Iraq legend, the al-Maliki government and the Bush administration were both publicly crediting Iran with pressuring Sadr to agree to the unilateral ceasefire – to the chagrin of Petraeus.

Al-Maliki launched the attack on Mahdi Army forces in Basrah in March 2008 in the knowledge that Iran would back him against Sadr. And when it went badly, he turned to Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard official in charge of day-to-day Iraq policy, to force a ceasefire on Sadr. Soleimani told Iraqi President Talibani that Iran supported al-Maliki’s efforts to “dismantle all militias”, and Sadr agreed to a ceasefire within 24 hours of Iran’s intervention.

So it was Iran’s restraint — not Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy — that effectively ended the Shi’a insurgent threat.

It was Soleimani who had presided over the secret April 2006 meeting of Shi’a leaders that had chosen al-Maliki as Prime Minister, after having been smuggled into the Green Zone without telling the Americans. And that was only one of a several trips Soleimani made to the Green Zone over a two-year period without U.S. knowledge.

But Biden doesn’t want to know this and other historical facts that contradict the official narrative on Iraq. For the Democratic foreign policy elite, staying ignorant of the real history of the Iraq War allows them to believe that deploying U.S. military forces in Muslim countries can be an effective instrument of U.S. power.

The main Sunni armed resistance groups actually turned against al-Qaeda in 2005, when they began trying to make a deal with the US to end the war. US ambassador Khalilzad actually entered into secret negotiations with the three major Sunni insurgent groups in Jan 2006, as later reported by the Sunday Times and confirmed by Khalilzad. The Sunni leaders even submitted a formal peace proposal to Khalilzad. They insisted on a “timetable for withdrawal” as part of the deal, but it was “linked to the timescale necessary to rebuild Iraq’s armed forces and security services,” according to the Sunday Times. Khalilzad cut off the negotiations in Feb 2006, because such an agreement would have conflicted with a broader strategy of standing up a Shi’a army to suppress the Sunni insurgency. The major Shi’a factions, determined to eliminate any possible threat to their power from the Sunnis in Baghdad, unleashed death squads, mostly from the Mahdi Army, in Sunni neighborhoods across the entire city in 2006 and early 2007. The result was the defeat of the Sunni insurgents’ political-military bases in Baghdad, and the transformation of the capital from a mixed Sunni-Shi’a city into an overwhelmingly Shi’a city.

The main Petraeus conceit about his strategy in Iraq is that it defeated a Shi’a insurgency that represented an Iranian “proxy war” in Iraq. But the main premise on which that claim was based, that Iran was backing “rogue elements” of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, was simply a psywar ploy by Petraeus and his staff. The objective of the “rogue elements” line was to divide the Mahdi Army, as military and intelligence officials admitted to pro-war blogger Bill Roggio. The official narrative suggested that Iran exerted political influence in Iraq by supporting armed groups opposing the government. In fact, however, Iran’s key Iraqi allies had always been the two Shi’a factions with which the US was allied against Sadr: SCIRI and Maliki’s Dawa Party. They had both gotten Iranian support and training during the war against Saddam, and the fiercely nationalist Sadr had criticized SCIRI leaders as Iranian stooges.

The Maliki government had no problem with Iranian training and financial support of the Mahdi Army in 2006, when the Mahdi Army was eliminating the Sunni threat from Baghdad. But once it was clear that the Sunnis had been defeated, the historical conflict between Sadr and the other Shi’a factions reemerged in spring 2007. The Iranian interest was to ensure that the Shi’a-dominated government of Iraq consolidated its power. Iran’s “supreme leader” Ali Khamenei told Maliki in Aug 2007 that Iran would support his taking control of Sadr’s strongholds. Later that same month, al-Maliki went to Karbala and gave the local police chief carte blanche to attack the Sadrists there. After two days of violence, Sadr declared a six-month “freeze” on Mahdi Army military operations Aug 27 2007.

By late 2007, contrary to the official Iraq legend, the al-Maliki government and the Bush administration were both publicly crediting Iran with pressuring Sadr to agree to the unilateral ceasefire, to the chagrin of Petraeus. Al-Maliki launched the attack on Mahdi Army forces in Basra in Mar 2008 in the knowledge that Iran would back him against Sadr. And when it went badly, he turned to Gen Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard official in charge of day-to-day Iraq policy, to force a ceasefire on Sadr. Soleimani told Iraqi President Talabani that Iran supported al-Maliki’s efforts to “dismantle all militias,” and Sadr agreed to a ceasefire within 24 hours of Iran’s intervention. So it was Iran’s restraint, not Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy, that effectively ended the Shi’a insurgent threat. It was Soleimani who had presided over the secret Apr 2006 meeting of Shi’a leaders that had chosen al-Maliki as prime minister, after having been smuggled into the Green Zone without telling theUS. And that was only one of a several trips Soleimani made to the Green Zone over a two-year period without US knowledge.

They couldn't call him an insurgent, though.

The political insurgents have taken hold in the Grand Old Party, unseating lawmakers, capturing nominations for open seats, and forcing Republicans to recalibrate both their campaign strategy and issues agenda. Out is talk of delivering federal dollars back home; in is talk of fiscal discipline....

I guess that is why they are removing some of them.

"AFL-CIO gears up to help Democrats keep majorities

Also see: Labor's Empty Threat

Executive Payday: Raytheon Rewarded by Labor

I'm tired of the frauds of Labor in AmeriKa.

In his comments, Trumka framed the midterm elections as a choice between working to improve the economy under Democrats and Obama or returning to the days “when Wall Street and corporations ran wild and controlled the agenda.”

They BUY OFF BOTH PARTIES so STOP IT with the FOOLEYS!!

And how bad is it in AmeriKa when LABOR LIES to you!?

--more--"

Democrats are still fighting amongst themselves:

"Defeated Democratic US Senate candidate Jeff Greene is suing two Florida newspapers for libel over articles Greene says cost him votes....

--more--"

Also see: The Boston Globe's Primary Concerns: Fun For Florida Democrats

Interesting that Greene wasn't an insurgent, huh?

And shouldn't Democrats be backing each other?

"GOP relying on political neophytes to retake Senate; Anti-D.C. wave fuels campaigns" by Matt Viser, Globe Staff | September 5, 2010

WASHINGTON — They are political newcomers — some buoyed by personal wealth, others running on little more than populist heat — who have tapped the anti-Washington vein of the American electorate. But while they are riding high on voter discontent, these candidates, who are crucial to GOP hopes of retaking the Senate, are among the least politically experienced contenders in a generation.

From Tea Party-backed Sharron Angle in Nevada, who is attempting to unseat Senate majority leader Harry Reid, to former wrestling executive Linda McMahon in Connecticut, who is up against the state’s longtime attorney general, eight candidates styling themselves as outsiders are running neck-and-neck with more entrenched Democratic opponents.

They are not insurgents yet?

See: Harry Reid Hates Hispanics

Reid on the Run in Nevada

One For the Ladies

Burying Blumenthal

Ordinarily, their inexperience would be an impediment; but this year, the dynamic is far more volatile.

Several are insurgents who bucked their party to win primaries, forcing Republican leaders into an awkward embrace as they start to pour money into the campaigns of candidates they didn’t recruit.

Unless most of these candidates win, it will be difficult for Republicans to match their historic victory of 1994, when they humbled Democrats halfway through President Bill Clinton’s first term by snatching control of the House and Senate. But in interviews, several said they are confident that the political fervor that helped them win tough primaries will propel them to victory in November.

“People have woken up,’’ US Senate hopeful Ken Buck, a county-level district attorney and GOP nominee in Colorado, said in a telephone interview last week. “What’s motivating me is what’s motivating a lot of the grass roots: Being mad at D.C.

“Republicans are every bit to blame as Democrats for the mess we’re in. More and more, people now are questioning the party establishment.’’

That is why most Americans are in an INCUMBENTS OUT kind of mood.

Also see: Democrats Suffering Sophomore Slump

While political analysts increasingly predict the GOP will win back the House, the Senate is a more elusive prize....

That means the party’s success hinges on the fortunes of candidates like Buck, Angle, McMahon, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina in California, and millionaire businessman Ron Johnson in Wisconsin — all newcomers to big-time politics who are seeking seats held by Democrats.

Related: Ladies Night in California

Additionally, Tea Party-backed Rand Paul in Kentucky and former state representative Marco Rubio in Florida are gunning for must-win open seats previously held by Republicans.

I'm not a Rand Paul fan.

Joe Miller, a Tea Party-backed candidate who has never held office, beat out the establishment favorite, Senator Lisa Murkowski, for the Republican nomination in Alaska.

For these candidates, the lack of political credentials is a selling point, as they seek to stoke the unrest that fueled Republican Senator Scott Brown’s stunning upset in this year’s special election in Massachusetts....

With unemployment numbers continuing to rise, and President Obama’s popularity continuing to fall, incumbents once considered safe are now fighting for their political lives. But analysts also said that having so many novices could backfire because such candidates are often untested and can be prone to gaffes and misstatements....

That may matter to the chattering class, but we don't care out here.

You MAKE MISTAKES and you are ONE of US!

If the MSM HOPS on them even MORE!

Democrats are plotting to win over independents by branding the GOP insurgents as far out-of-the-mainstream, pointing to the number of Tea Party-backed Republican nominees as evidence of the party’s lurch to the right....

Sorry, but YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE with us INDIES!!

And I knew it was ONLY a MATTER of time before the OFFENSIVE WORD insurgents was used to describe a POLITICAL DISAGREEMENT in an ELECTION!

The Democrats’ field is far more politically experienced. Six of their candidates in competitive races are incumbents — with a combined 86 years in the upper chamber — and the others are former representatives, governors, or other state officials.

That translates into LOSSES this year!

Republicans are actively promoting their fresh faces.

“We’ve got some new blood in here, let’s see what happens,’’ said Jody Dow, a Republican National Committee member from Massachusetts. “This country was made on people who didn’t think the way everyone else did.’’

In one new ad in Wisconsin, Johnson’s wife and three children read from scripts to tout how good he is before Johnson breaks in with a wry smile.

“Obviously I’m not a professional politician, and they’re not professional actors,’’ he says. “We’re just a Wisconsin family worried about our country.’’

That's right! The GRASSROOTS of the PARTY is GOOD PEOPLE!

That's why Beck and Palin are trying to CO-OPT the movement!

The National Republican Senatorial Committee last week pledged $2.5 million to help Rubio in a heated three-way race in Florida. There are more announcements planned over the next few weeks, probably in states like Colorado and Nevada — hotly contested races where non-establishment candidates won primaries.

“In all of these races we’re working with all these campaigns and have great relationships with them,’’ said Brian Walsh, committee spokesman.

Twice over the last three decades Republicans have successfully taken the Senate majority by riding a wave of unrest. In 1994, for example, Republicans captured eight seats from Democrats, nearly all of which were won by candidates who had previously held elected office. In 1980, Republicans gained 12 seats, five of which were won by political novices.

You see the TREND, right?

Democrats currently control 59 votes in the Senate and, because Vice President Joe Biden would break a tie vote, Republicans need a net gain of 10 seats to gain a majority....

Unless JOE LIEBERMAN decide to make a SWITCH, right?

And after SUCH FAILURE with the MAJORITY the Democrats DESERVE to LOSE IT!

Now, after seven year, another US President, Ben Obama, had lied by asserting that he is pulling 50,000 ‘combatant soldiers’ out of Iraq, while keeping the remaining 50,000 ‘non-combatant soldiers’ to stay put in Iraq to carry-on Fouad Ajami’s prediction – the security of Israel.

The loser in this war like wars in Afghanistan and Lebanon is mainly the Iraqis and the Americans. Let us count some of the losses during the last seven years of Iraqi adventure for Israel.

1. More than 6,000 American killed and over 100,000 wounded. Iraq has lost over one million people since the Washington’s wars begining in the 1990s.

2. Iraq war has already cost to taxpayers over US$745 billion and expected to reach one trillion dollars soon.

3. America has lost its credibility within the Middle East countries. This was told to Benji Netanyahu last year by both Mullen and Joe Biden. The vacuum has been filled by Iran, Turkey and Syria. Ahmadinejad, Sheikh Nasrallah and Erdogan have become the most popular Muslim leaders among the Arabs.

Israel in the meantime has attacked Lebanon, Gaza and Turkish vessels – but fears more for its survival than post-Iraq War. Now, it’s pushing Ben Obama to start new wars in Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan and Iran for Israel’s survival.

Let us not forget, the ‘Israel-First’ Jew in Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, who told Dubya Bush that “Iraq War will pay for itself”. John Bolton, the ‘half-Jewish’ neocon repeated the same line in 2006. According to Brain Hicks, author of ‘Profit from the Peak’ revealed in 2008 that US forces in Iraq are costing US$923 million per week on fuel consumption alone.

Lately, many of the neocons mostly Jewish are blaming the Islamic Republic for the Washington’s failure in Iraq. Israeli poodle,General Petraeus told ‘Israel-Firster’ Senator Joe Leiberman during a Senate testimony on April 8-9, 2008 that Iran is behind the murder of hundreds of US soldiers and NOT Israelis in Iraq.

Just imagine what it would cost American taxpayers if their leaders decide to repeat their mistakes in October 2001 and March 2003 in Islamic Iran to please the Israel Lobby.