Sarah Palin Turns Pro

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Paul Begala
July 3, 2009 - Huffington Post

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I wish Hunter S. Thompson had lived to see this.

As Hunter said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Sarah Palin makes Mark Foley, the congressman who sent filthy emails to pages look almost normal. She makes David Vitter, the senator who was hanging out with hookers, look almost boring. She makes Larry Craig, caught hitting on a cop in a men's room, look almost stable. She makes John Ensign, the senator who was having an affair with a staffer, look almost humdrum (and compared to the rest of the GOP whack-jobs, he is). And she makes Mark Sanford, the governor with the Latin lover, look positively predictable.

It was an almost impossible mission, but in resigning from office with 17 months to go in her first term, Sarah Palin has made herself the bull goose loony of the GOP.

Let's stipulate that if there is some heretofore unknown personal, medical or family crisis, this was the right move. But Gov. Palin didn't say anything like that. Her statement was incoherent, bizarre and juvenile. The text, as posted on Gov. Palin's official website (here), uses 2,549 words and 18 exclamation points. Lincoln freed the slaves with 719 words and nary an exclamation; Mr. Jefferson declared our independence in 1,322 words and, again, no exclamation points. Nixon resigned the presidency in 1,796 words -- still no exclamation points. Gov. Palin capitalized words at random - whole words, like "TO," "HELP," and "AND," and the first letter of "Troops."

Gov. Palin's official announcement that she is resigning as chief executive of the great state of Alaska had all the depth and gravitas of a 13-year-old's review of the Jonas Brothers' album on Facebook. She even quoted her parents' refrigerator magnet. (Note to self: if one of my kids becomes governor, throw away the refrigerator magnet that says: "Murray's Oyster Bar: We Shuck Em, You Suck Em!") She put her son's name in quotations marks. Why? Who knows. She writes, "I promised efficiencies and effectiveness!?" Was she exclaiming or questioning? I get it: both! And I don't even know what to make of a sentence that reads:

*((Gotta put First Things First))*

Ponder the fact that Rupert Murdoch's Harper Collins publishing house is paying this, umm, writer $11 million for a book. Ponder that and say a prayer for Ms. Palin's editor.

I'm no latter-day Strunk & White, just a guy who was struck by Palin's spectacularly rambling and infantile prose. It bespeaks a rambling and infantile mind. But perhaps not. Perhaps this is all a ruse. Perhaps Gov. Palin wants us to believe she's an intellectual featherweight who is slightly shallower than an actor on High School Musical. Maybe she's trying to throw us off the trail.

Naah. A lot of people thought that about George W. Bush. He couldn't be so block-headed, they said. He couldn't be as childish and churlish as he came off. Oh yes he could. And so, too, might Ms. Palin be as vapid and puerile as her inane statement suggests.

We will know. In the fullness of time (and I predict, not much time) we will know. Again and again in her statement, Gov. Palin returned to the nettlesome ethics inquiries that have been visited upon her since she signed on to be John McCain's running mate. No doubt they are annoying. But does anyone believe that's why she's resigning? No, there's more to this story. And Ms. Palin's resignation only increases the chances that we will all know the rest of the story soon. Or, as she might put it:

We will all KNOW the "rest of the Story" *((SOON!))*

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Paul Begala is a political commentator providing insight "from the left" on CNN's programs including Inside Politics. Begala was formerly co-host of Crossfire, CNN's political debate program. Serving in the Clinton administration as counselor to the president, he helped define and defend the administration's agenda and served as the principal public spokesman.

Letter to Obama from a Dying Man

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With an Introduction by Paul Rogat Loeb

Robert Gordon
July 3, 2009 - CommonDreams.org

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My friend Robert Ellis Gordon is dying of lupus, with months left to live. He's spent more than a decade teaching writing to prison inmates, written a terrific book called The Fun House Mirror from those experiences and crafted a rave-reviewed novel, When Bobby Kennedy was a Moving Man, on Kennedy being sent back to earth to determine whether he deserved Heaven or Hell.

I often quote something Robert said to a group of fellow prison teachers, which seems an apt metaphor for any effort at change: "Some of the people we work with will already have redeemed their lives. Others, no matter what we do, will be back in here again. And for some, our efforts will make all the difference. We will never know which group is which, but that should not serve as a deterrent to our efforts."

Robert just wrote this open letter to Obama, challenging him to reach for his deepest levels of courage in being honest about what we face after decades of pillaging our economy. I'll miss his wise voice.

-Paul Rogat Loeb

Dear Mr. President:

I am one, among millions, who recently received an email regarding your health care plan. Mr. Plouffe's email requested personal stories.

As a fifty-five year old man who has lived with a rare and serious illness since 1989, and who was recently referred to hospice, I am, I suppose, no less qualified than others to write about the challenges and unlooked-for blessings that accompany a fatal disease.

Upon reflection, however, I realized my story would be less compelling than others. For I come from a generous family. True, we were raised to make our way in the world and I started to work at age fourteen. Some forty years later, however, when it became evident that I could no longer hold down a job, my family cut back on their expenses so that my basic needs would be met. Hence I will not die, as thousands of my counterparts do, alone and anonymous in a hospital room or in the streets.

So? I deleted Mr. Plouffe's email and returned to the task at hand. But deleted or not I was distracted by the email, so much so that I left the computer and took my dog for a walk. At the park, as I tossed the squeaky ball to Rose, I asked myself a question: if given the opportunity to write a letter to the President -- a letter in which illness and impending death served a larger agenda-- what would I say to him?

The answer was immediate and impassioned: "Please level with the people. Now."

What do I mean by level? And why this sense of urgency?

The urgency stems from the peril I see in an unbalanced presentation of your economic scenario. I do not mean to suggest that you speak only of the most dire predictions. We need a substantive message of hope. It's been a long forty years since we heard one. But authentic hope, as you know better than most, is founded upon truth. You had the courage to speak it throughout your campaign, and the magnitude of your victory revealed a public yearning to hear it.

In order to sustain the trust of the people, it is imperative that you continue to feed this yearning. That you do as you did in your speech on race: speak to us as adults. Speak even more deeply from the heart as well as the head. Above all, speak in the spirit of Judge Learned Hand: "The spirit of liberty is the spirit of not being too sure.

So even as you speak words of hope and quell our fears with your steady presence, let us know that you proceed in the spirit of not being too sure because you cannot be; because no one can be; because a global economic meltdown is unprecedented in scope and nature.

Tell the people, as FDR did, in a style that is true to yourself, that there's no panacea for this catastrophe. A catastrophe that was decades in the making and is not yet fully understood. And that your approach, therefore, must be a flexible one that allows for a sliding scale of eventualities, among which is the possibility-remote or not-- that this economic Katrina may outrace your best efforts to both remedy the cause and mitigate the effects.

What is to be gained by leveling with the people now? And what are the consequences if you do not do so?

Your most precious resource, Mr. President, is neither your brilliance nor the elegance with which you wield the language. Your most precious resource is your credibility.

The consequences of an unbalanced presentation, one that tilts too heavily toward the rosy?

No adverse consequences if that scenario unfolds.

But if worse continues to lead to worse as numerous economists predict, and you deny yourself political cover by not allowing for that eventuality?

Your popularity will prove thin and short-lived. You will lose your credibility. Quickly. And once relinquished, it can't be restored.

Should you lose your credibility the people will, at the least, dismiss you as yet another president in a long line of presidents who opted to not be statesmen. As for your ability to summon our better angels? That remarkable gift will be squandered.

And that's the best case scenario, Mr. President.

The worst?

If , in the absence of a credible President, tens of millions-millions who are ill-prepared for adversity-find themselves living in a state of deprivation and want? And if fear of the unknown starts feeding upon itself?

The people may, as they have in the past, turn to a leader who uses the energy of ignorance and fear to summon our darkest impulses. We don't have to travel back to the Trail of Tears to recognize our capacity for looking the other way while our government pursues a policy of genocide.

We don't have to travel back to the torture and murder of Emmett Till to recognize our capacity for denying the humanity of a child.

Joe McCarthy's sheet of paper?

Ancient history.

A mere nine months ago John McCain chose a running mate who proved masterful at inciting fear and hatred of "the other." And if worse continues to lead to worse in the absence of a credible president, the hatred we saw on the periphery of her crowds could move to the center and burst into flames that consume our better angels as they fan out.

On June 2nd the headline for the New York Times lead story ran beneath this headline: "Obama Is Upbeat For G.M. Future On A Day Of Pain."

Upbeat on a day when the lives of 21,000 autoworkers and their families were shattered.

Upbeat on a day in which the closing of seven plants will translate into tens of thousands of shattered lives in other sectors of the auto industry.

Upbeat on a day when the Times ran an editorial devoted to yet a new wave of home foreclosures.

There's a dissonance here, Mr. President. And even from the standpoint of political calculation- of the coldest Machiavellian calculation-this dissonance does not have to be. Last November the people rejected the politics of fear, rigidity, half-truths and lies, and embraced the politics of unity and truth. This was a tribute to our ability to discern and to the authentic nature of your message. A message of hope to be sure, but one that calls not for ease but sacrifice. And perhaps above all we came to appreciate a creative and compassionate vision that is tempered, at long last, by reality. Your vision represents the best and perhaps last hope for our children and for theirs.

You forged a bond with the people, Mr. President. But the glue hasn't set and the glue will not set if you do not re-calibrate your message.

The last and most important question: what is to be gained by leveling?

Perhaps the best way for me to address the positive, the potential for realizing your vision, is to circle back to Mr. Plouffe's request, and speak to you in personal terms about the lessons of illness and impending death.

You may be familiar with this quote from the poet, Sylvia Plath. "If only you could see me forge my soul, fighting and fighting to forge my soul."

Sylvia Plath succumbed to her despair, committed suicide in 1963. But her words still stand, maybe now more than ever, as tens of millions face the potential, at least, of entering the forging fire. And should that come to pass the people will look to you, just as the British looked to Churchill, for guidance, solace, and above all hope in the midst of their despair.

And where does my twenty-year dance with the fire fit into all of this? Where do you and I intersect? What have I learned that could possibly be of use to the President of the United States? What have I learned that might help this good man forge the soul of a nation?

Maybe something. Maybe nothing. But for what it's worth I offer a glimpse of my journey and a couple of nuggets I've picked up along the way.

The first nugget?

That we forge our souls not for ourselves but in order to be better disciples of compassion.

And how does an obscure writer and former prison teacher make a contribution this late in the day with a timeline, in all likelihood, of months?

Below, an excerpt from a recent note to the doctor who saved my life on numerous occasions over the past two decades.

... Suffering may teach but it is not an end in and of itself. And when the pain abates, during windows of peace, I write.

I have a book to complete before I die. It is different from the others. I want to leave something behind that may serve as a source of solace to a reader here or there; a reader who wrestles with despair during this era of incomprehensible suffering.

All those high-risk infusions? The fatal infection you warn me about? And my choice to continue, to run the risk, in order to buy time to write?

Like any man I fear a painful death. But after receiving Extreme Unction on multiple occasions, I no longer fear death itself. What I fear is a life not well-lived. And the best way for me to do so during the time that remains is to complete that manuscript.

It's just my body (not my soul) that is weary...

So that is my final task: to forge my soul on the page. I may die before I finish. Or I may risk all on the page and find that my skill is wanting; that the story implodes on itself. But if I fail in this task, I will do so in obscurity.

Because you sit where you sit, you don't have that luxury.

What you do have is the opportunity and responsibility to explain how we got here and enumerate the full panoply of outcomes.

If the rosy scenario comes to pass? The people will know, by dint of your honesty, that you are neither above nor below but of them.

And if worse continues to lead to worse? If tens of millions find themselves living at the extremes of deprivation and want? And you've retained your credibility?

The dreams you've resurrected may still be realized. Realized in ways and to a degree that would be unlikely during less uncertain times.

You'll be able to protect us, protect the children, from those who would prey upon fear and unleash violent thought, language and deed.

And as this economic Katrina continues to strengthen? As the people become increasingly aware that economic security is not a birthright? And are overwhelmed by a sense of vulnerability?

As the people walk through the fire together, the differences so artfully exploited by your predecessor will assume their proper perspective. And compassion may well fill the void. Shared adversity has a way of doing that.

And after the worst has passed, Mr. President? And the people, having been tempered by the fire, emerge stronger and more compassionate? Emerge with a visceral understanding of what it means to be dispossessed?

That, Mr. President, is when your vision may be realized. For the people who revealed a desire to serve at the outset of your candidacy, during times of relative prosperity, will still be here when the fire is extinguished. But the people will not be the same. They'll be more able and willing to answer your call. And their progeny will learn through their example.

This is not to say that the fire is pleasant. At times it's excruciating. I know that well. At times I want nothing more than to escape, and it is only faith that sustains me. Faith in God, yes, but also in man. Indeed, as I approach the River's edge, the distinction between divinity without and divinity within seems merely to be one of choice. And a simple choice at that: towards violence or towards compassion.

This is your hour, Mr. President.

I, like you, am both a child of God and a member of the body politic. And as I ready myself to leave this bittersweet world, I want you to know that it affords me much peace to know that you are the President. A President who quietly rescued the Constitution. Who can forge the nation's soul if the need arises. And who re-ignited the flame of hope and compassion months before the general election. A flame that was muted but not extinguished some forty years ago.

And this speaks to the most important lesson I've learned from my twenty-year dance with the fire. Certainly all people wish and deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. But the human heart is bigger than that. We wish, as well, to experience our magnanimous natures, the divinity within. This is what Gandhi knew and tapped into. This is what my favorite saint knew: "It is in the giving that we receive." And this, Mr. President, is what you know.

So. A dying man's prayer for you and the nation: that the light that burns so brightly in you and your family will extend through generations. And if the children of the children choose to be their brothers and sisters' keepers simply because they listen to their hearts; hearts that tell them they're here to improve the lot of others?

Well, they may never know it was you who reminded their forbears of who they truly are. They may never even know your name.

But what of it?

If the words you spoke on election night come to fruition, they will not bring an end to suffering. But they will bring forth the better angels of which you speak; of which the last great candidate for president spoke.

And when I hear you summon our better angels forth, I hear echoes of the poet Robert Kennedy quoted on the darkest night of his brief campaign. And what greater legacy could he ask of you, and you, in turn, ask of us, than a renewed commitment to the age-old call to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world?

Sincerely,

Robert Ellis Gordon
Seattle, Washington

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Robert Gordon is the author of When Bobby Kennedy Was a Moving Man and The Funhouse Mirror: Reflections on Prison. He's written for Esquire, the Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, Ploughshares, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and taught writing in Washington State prisons, juvenile institutions and inner-city high schools. He wrote Funhouse Mirror while undergoing chemotherapy, collaborating with six of his incarcerated students to let their voices be heard. The book won the 2000 Washington State Book Award. As one critic wrote of Bobby Kennedy, "Gordon's vision is at once radical and healing. It teaches us a little about Heaven and a lot about Hell."

Palin resignation splits GOP

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Jonathan Martin
July 04, 2009 - Politico.com

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Sarah Palin's jaw-dropping announcement that she is quitting her job as Alaska governor before finishing even her first term has divided Republican ranks and the wider political community in a very familiar fashion.

Many establishment GOP operatives and political commentators of various stripes were withering, both about the decision and the way she announced it—in a jittery, hyperkinetic news conference that rambled between self-congratulation and bitter accusations at the foes she says are eager to destroy her.

The performance, by these lights, adds credence to the claims of some associates that Palin—burned by the intense scrutiny on her and the crossfire that swirls around her—is so fed up that she's ready to get out of elective politics. Even if it's only the small stage of Alaska politics she hopes to escape, skeptics say Friday's events also diminished and perhaps even demolished what was left of her viability as a 2012 presidential candiate.

But her defenders believed an unorthodox move, even if risky, has a clear logic and may only further increase her standing with conservatives who don't care what establishment figures in or out of the GOP think. Leaving the governor's office at the end of this month leaves her free to travel the country, command large speaking fees, and begin the process of rallying her devotees without pesky home-state opponents criticizing every move.

These varied reactions were an echo of the debates that have followed Palin every step since her nomination as John McCain's running mate ten months ago—a surprise that turned out to be just the first of many surprises served up by one of the most colorful and polarizing American political figures in a generation.

At the heart of these conflicting interpretations, say people close to Palin, is a woman who is herself deeply conflicted about her brief past in national politics and how to leverage her sudden fame for the future.

Some of her trusted outside advisers were not informed of her plans to suddenly resign from office until today – they thought she was only to announce she would not run for re-election.

Fred Malek, a longtime Republican fundraiser and Palin ally, played host to the governor and her husband, Todd, less than a month again in Washington and said it was "so clear to me that she was terribly unhappy with the position she was in and the role she was playing."

He didn't learn of Palin's decision until he got a phone call from the governor this morning, when she cited the pressures of a job that had become consumed with FOIA requests and ethics investigations and the demands it taken on her family and national political prospects.

Another prominent GOP source who is close to Palin, who also had no inkling of Palin's decision to quit until today, said: "Things had piled up pretty steep on her."

Meg Stapleton, Palin's Alaska-based spokesperson, called it "a fighting move."

But even Stapleton acknowledged that the job Palin said she loved during the press conference had become a drag

"It's a liberating feeling…she can't get out of there soon enough," said Stapleton.

But liberation comes at a potentially steep price. These include brutal reviews from many Republicans, who believe that quitting mid-term in the fashion she did amounts to political suicide.

"There is just no good way to say quitting has made her more qualified to run for higher office," said veteran GOP pollster Glen Bolger.

Until Friday, after all, Stapleton and others close to Palin had been saying for months that the governor would take an Alaska-first approach and eschew national affairs. The hope was to compile more of a record and develop more policy authority.

"I think Sarah Palin is on the verge of becoming the Miami Vice of American politics: Something a lot of people once thought was cool and then 20 years later look back, shake their heads and just kind of laugh," quipped Republican media consultant Todd Harris.

Even those who were less critical of her choice were taken aback by Palin's rambling, hard-to-follow news conference by the side of a lake outside her home. The performance had shades of Richard Nixon's "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore" news promise in 1962, as well as Mark Sanford's bizarre exercise in self-revelation just last month.

Palin mixed analogies to herself as a basketball player who knows "when it's time to pass the ball" with bitter commentary against "political operatives [who] descended on Alaska—digging for dirt" as part of a "superficial, wasteful political bloodsport."

"Palin is at her best when she's being folksy but there is no way to be folksy when you're resigning as governor," said veteran GOP strategist Dan Schnur.

She portrayed her resignation as a selfless choice done for the good of Alaskans.She said they will now be free of the expensive and distracting—and she said bogus—ethics inquiries generated by her new prominence. "Some Alaskans, maybe they don't mind wasting public dollars and state time, but I do," she said.

But some believe Palin, for all the loose and improvisational feel of her news conference, was making a calculated guess that she is now bigger than Alaska's small and remote political stage can handle.

With a recent book deal and ability for paid speaking engagements giving her great financial freedom, reasoned GOP communications strategist Carl Forti, "If she wants to run for national office it makes sense to get out of Alaska and around the lower 48. Resigning makes that possible."

Malek and some of her other outside advisers expressed skepticism that she would run for president in 2012, but others saw in the move today the beginnings of a national campaign.

"She's now made sure that she is entirely a movement candidate," said veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum. "She brings no real experience to the table at all, but now this frees her up to carve out her own Goldwater-like movement."

And then there is a practical matter, Shrum noted: Palin and her husband, with five children of their own and a new grandson, will likely never have to worry about money again.

"She could make more in two weeks on just speaking fees than in the rest of her time as governor," said Shrum.

The move may also be pragmatic if Palin really does want to lay the groundwork for a presidential run.

"I don't think you can do a competent job of being a governor of a state next door to Russia and run seriously for president of the United States," said Charlie Cook. "It's hard enough to do one of those two, let alone both. While Bill Clinton ran while being governor of Arkansas and George W. Bush as governor of Texas, Little Rock and Austin are not that far by Cessna Citation or Gulfstream from New Hampshire or Florida or California."

And, Cook noted, there is little political upside to being a governor during difficult economic times, when the options usually range from tax or fee increases to budget cuts.

"Bailing out early may avoid making some of those tough decisions," said Cook.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and an outspoken Palin defender, acknowledged Palin's move was "an enormous gamble" but said it could prove smart.

"Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues--and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska," said Kristol.

Stapleton cited issues Palin was passionate about – energy, national security and free enterprise – but indicated that the governor was being vague about what she planned to do next for a reason.

"Those blanks need to be filled in," said Stapleton when asked specifically what Palin planned after turning her office over to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.

"The Commission Has Been Road-Blocked": Republicans' War On The FEC

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Pete Martin and Zachary Roth
June 30, 2009 - TPM Muckraker

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Last fall, James Ross, a New York City resident and a donor to several Democratic organizations, received an unusual letter. "Your name has been put in our database," Ross was told. "We are monitoring all reports of a wide variety of leftist organizations. As your name appears in subsequent reports, it is our intent to publicize your involvement in your local community. Should any of these organizations be found to be engaged in illegal or questionable activity, it is our intent to publicize your involvement with those activities."

The letter was signed by Howard Rich, a publicity-shy New York real-estate investor and the founder of the conservative activist group Americans for Limited Government. Rich and his group were accused by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee of illegally using Federal Election Commission disclosure reports to obtain the names and addresses of political donors in order to discourage them from making contributions -- a violation of election law. In April, three of the FEC's six commissioners voted to open an investigation into the matter. But the commission's three Republicans opposed a probe. The FEC deadlocked 3-3, and no action was taken against Rich.

That's happened with increasing frequency at the FEC lately. Election-law experts, supporters of campaign-finance regulations, and even some members of the commission itself are expressing growing concern about a string of cases in which the three Republicans on the commission -- led by Tom DeLay's former ethics lawyer -- have voted as a block against enforcement, preventing the commission from carrying out its basic regulatory function. As the normally mild-mannered Washington Post editorial board wrote recently: "The three Republican appointees are turning the commission into The Little Agency That Wouldn't: wouldn't launch investigations, wouldn't bring cases, wouldn't even accept settlements that the staff had already negotiated."

Craig Holman of Public Citizen told TPMmuckraker the commission is currently "defunct." (The FEC's press office declined to make any of the commissioners available for interviews.)

FEC watchers say the commission's three Republicans -- Donald McGahn, Matthew Petersen, and Caroline Hunter, each nominated by President Bush -- are acting out of philosophical opposition to the very idea of regulating campaign money. "It's the Republican caucus that actually believes there shouldn't be campaign-finance regulation," said Holman. "It is ideological. They are ideologically opposed to the purpose of the Federal Election Commission."

It may also have become personal. At an open meeting of the commission last week, there was barely concealed animosity between the Republican and Democratic commissioners, according to one attendee.

The result of this dysfunction -- along with the growing likelihood that the Supreme Court will soon strike down key aspects of campaign-finance law -- could be to dramatically increase the influence of money in political campaigns going forward. "The severe ideological split on the Commission raises the question of whether it will be able to function effectively as an enforcement agency in the upcoming election year," Brett Kappel, an election lawyer with Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease told TPMmuckraker via email.

Rick Hasen, an election-law expert and a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, was blunter. "If things remain the way they're going, the campaign-finance rules come 2010, come 2012, are going to be much looser," he told TPMmuckraker. "Money's going to be able to play a much larger role than it has in the past."

Hasen continued: "If we don't fix the FEC very soon, we're going to go into the next election cycle with everyone knowing they can do whatever they want to do, and the Federal Election Commission won't clamp down on them."

"A Glorified Congressional Committee"

How did we get to this point?

At the root of the problem is the fact that, although officially the president nominates commissioners, in practice the job has been left to the relevant party leader in the Senate -- which means responsibility for picking Republican commissioners falls to GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell, the long-time point man for his party's opposition to campaign-finance regulation.

Things originally reached an impasse in December 2007, when the tenure of GOP recess appointee Hans Von Spakovsky, as well as two other recess appointments, expired. But McConnell -- whose office did not respond to TPMmuckraker's request for comment for this story -- refused to confirm any replacements unless Spakovsky, a prominent supporter of efforts to create obstacles to voting for poor people and minorities, was confirmed.

That left the commission with only two members -- it needs four to take action -- which was fine with McConnell, since it meant the commission was hamstrung. Eventually, in May, the impasse was broken when Spakovsky withdrew his nomination, and a full slate of replacement commissioners -- including McGahn -- was nominated.*

McGahn had been general counsel for the National Republican Congressional Committee, before serving as a legal adviser on campaign finance for Tom DeLay, both during the Jack Abramoff affair and when The Hammer was indicted for campaign-finance violations in Texas. Judging by comments McGahn has made about the role of the commission, he doesn't appear to conceive of it as the kind of powerful, independent enforcement agency that supporters of regulation think we need: "You're gonna appoint your guys to make sure you are taken care of." McGahn told the author of a 2003 academic study of the commission, as reported at the time by Roll Call (via Nexis). "The original intent was for it to be a glorified Congressional committee. That's the way I see it."

In other words, he's just McConnell's kind of guy. "Don McGahn was appointed to approve [public funds for McCain], and has since essentially shut down the agency," said Holman. The FEC, he said, has been made "ineffective" -- and not by accident. "This is what McConnell had in mind."

David Donnelly of Public Campaign agreed. "Clearly the commission has been road-blocked," Donnelly told TPMmuckraker. "There's a bloc on the commission led by Don McGahn that wants to take campaign-finance law in the wrong direction."

Indeed, since McGahn's appointment, the FEC's three Republicans have voted in a string of cases against enforcement, blocking the commission from taking action -- and often provoking unusually outraged responses from the commission's Democrats.

"A Refusal To Enforce The Law"

In addition to the Howard Rich case, here are a few more examples:

• A case in which the Chamber of Commerce was accused of illegally contributing $3 million in 2004 to bankroll the November Fund, a 527 group that had failed to register as a political action committee, despite having no advertised purpose other than to attack then vice-presidential candidate John Edwards over his past as a trial lawyer. In their Statement of Reasons after the vote against enforcement, Democratic commissioners Ellen Weintraub and Cynthia Bauerly wrote (pdf): "Our colleagues' refusal to accept the signed conciliation agreement with the November Fund amounts to a refusal to enforce the law."

• A case in which Wal-Mart was accused of having managers give presentations informing employees that the Employee Free Choice Act, if passed, would hurt Wal-Mart and its employees, and that the law would be passed if Democrats won Congress and the White House in 2008. As the Wall Street Journal revealed (sub req.) in August 2008, some presenters went off-script to attack EFCA and Barack Obama directly. In a report to commissioners, FEC employees said Wal-Mart later acknowledged "even more egregious" violations than those exposed by the Journal. But the commission's Republicans voted against opening an investigation even to determine whether violations of law had occurred.

• A case in which George Soros was accused of failing to report $272,000 associated with sending brochures to advertise an anti-Bush book during the 2004 presidential campaign. The Republican commissioners argued that the cost of the mailing list Soros used was not an independent expenditure. In response, Democratic commissioner Ellen Weintraub wrote (pdf): "One cannot do a mailing without a mailing list. It seems obvious to me that the distribution list is part of the distribution cost."

• A case in which Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and Kem Gardner, a Utah real estate developer, were accused of violating campaign-finance law after Gardner chartered a plane for $150,000 to fly about 200 Romney supporters from Utah to Boston to make fund-raising phone calls. The commission's Republicans claimed there was no proof that the Romney campaign had asked Gardner to charter the flight, and thus it wasn't certain that this was a campaign expense. But Democratic commissioners Weintraub and Cynthia Bauerly maintained that the flight was an obvious campaign contribution. "This was not a difficult case," they wrote.

"The President Has To Decide"

Of course, the one person who could do the most to get the commission back on track is President Obama. To do so, experts say, he could push to change the commission's structure -- perhaps by moving to a single commissioner -- making it more difficult for an anti-enforcement faction to block action.

But in early May, reformers' hopes that Obama is committed to a more pro-enforcement commission took a hit when he nominated John Sullivan to replace Weintraub, whose term has expired. "By nominating Sullivan, [Obama] basically sent the signal that at this point he's willing to go along with the status quo," said Hasen. Sullivan is a labor lawyer who has in the past argued against campaign-finance regulations on behalf of the SEIU.

Most experts believe that the White House supports stronger campaign-finance laws as a goal, but, with a host of other issues on its plate, is reluctant to pick a fight with the GOP Senate leader. "They're picking their priorities, and they don't want to take on Mitch McConnell right now," said Hasen. "I consider that unfortunate."

Holman agreed. McGahn's term, abridged by the Spakovsky holdup, has now expired as well, and Holman suggested that Obama could play a more active role in nominating McGahn's replacement -- as the president would be within his rights to do -- rather than leaving it to McConnell. "The president has to decide," said Holman. "He's either going to go with Mitch McConnell's appointee and render the FEC functionless, or he's going to break tradition and bring the FEC back to life."

The choice the president makes will likely help determine the level of influence that big money wields in electoral politics into the future. That seems like an issue worth spending some political capital on.

(Turn it up) Zen Moment of the Weekend

Taking anti-immigration rhetoric to a new xenophobic low – and citing Hispanic birth rates as proof – the so-called Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has released a report essentially finding that illegal immigrants playing their radios, probably loudly, are the reason for high energy consumption and carbon emissions that threaten the planet. Who knew?

From the report: "America's massive immigration-fueled population growth was the single largest contributing factor to the nation's increased energy consumption and carbon emissions over the past 35 years."

- Abby Zimet, CommonDreams.org

http://sev.prnewswire.com/oil-energy/20090701/DC4125201072009-1.html

Sarah Palin Resigns As Governor, Wolves Everywhere Celebrate

Insane Republican's at it Again!!!

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Smearing The Census

July 2, 2009 - ThinkProgress.org

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The 2010 Census will be sent to every American household as mandated by the Constitution. Despite the importance of this decennial event, a number of right-wing figures have begun spinning conspiracy theories about the Census and what the government does with the data it collects. RNC Chairman Michael Steele said last month that President Obama intended to use the Census as part of what he called an "ongoing political campaign." Right-wing talker Neal Boortz declared, "I will respond to the Census, but the only information I will give them is the number of adults who live in my household."

Former Bush speechwriter Meghan Clyne warned that the Census Bureau is "forcing Americans to disclose sensitive information about their finances, health and lifestyles," despite the fact that she gives similar information to the IRS on her tax form every year. So far, the most visible and vocal figure in this baseless fear-mongering campaign has been Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who has been trashing the Census with false and uninformed claims in an attempt to improve her standing with the right wing of her party. An anonymous Republican senator has placed a hold on Obama's nominee to direct the Census, Dr. Robert Groves, which is delaying mission-critical preparations for 2010.

THE 2010 CENSUS:

The 2010 Census will count "everyone residing in the United States: in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas," as mandated by the Constitution. But the importance of the Census goes far beyond a simple tally of the U.S. population. Conducted since 1790, officials use the data gathered to apportion the seats in the House of Representatives; "distribute $300 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year"; define local school districts; and make many other urban planning decisions including "where to provide services for the elderly, where to build new roads and schools, or where to locate job training centers." To ensure the most accurate count possible, Americans are required by law to fill out the Census.

For the first time, the 2010 Census will make use of wireless handheld computers "with the ability to transmit collected data back to the Census Bureau in near real-time." Further, for the first time, the Census will count same-sex married couples. The Bush administration had ruled out recognizing such couples, citing the Defense of Marriage Act, but the Obama administration reversed that decision last month. The Census has "been simplified to include only 10 questions, the shortest in the survey's 219-year history" with the longer American Community Survey sent to a small subset of Americans to collect more detailed demographic information. Contrary to right-wing claims, the Census Bureau is prohibited by law from sharing non-anonymous data with any other individual or federal agency.

CONGRESSWOMAN MICHELE BACHMANN'S LIES:

Bachmann began her anti-Census campaign in mid-June, declaring on the Washington Times radio show that she would illegally refuse to answer any Census question beyond "how many people are in our home...because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that." Bachmann said that she could not trust the government with any more information than that because "ACORN has been named one of the national partners...and they will be in charge of going door-to-door and collecting data from the American public." The community organizing group ACORN -- one of the contemporary right's favorite boogeymen -- has indeed been named one of over 250 "national partners" in the 2010 Census. But as an ACORN official explained to ThinkProgress, the organization "will not have any role in collecting Census responses." Rather, as PolitiFact explains, the role of ACORN and other national partners will be to "simply promote the availability of temporary Census jobs."

Anyone who applies as a result of promotional work done by organizations like ACORN will be "required to go through a background check that includes an FBI name check and fingerprint check so that felons are not hired to work on the 2010 Census." Despite this, Bachmann continued to make her outrageous claims in subsequent media appearances. On Fox News, she claimed her reluctance to fill out the Census stemmed from a fear that the data would be used to "round up" Americans. She also falsely claimed that the Census Bureau does not ask if respondents are American citizens. Bachmann's fear-mongering was roundly mocked by comedian Stephen Colbert and harshly condemned by the largest newspaper in her home state of Minnesota. Finally, Bachmann's conspiracy-laden concerns have become too much for even her Republican colleagues in the House. Yesterday, three of the four House Republicans on the subcommittee that oversees the Census released a statement calling
her boycott plan "illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country." The members first attempted to dissuade Bachmann privately, but to no avail. As one GOP source told CongressDaily, "As long as Fox News keeps calling, she's going to keep going."

BACHMANN'S ANONYMOUS SENATE ALLY:

A lower-profile, but arguably just as significant issue, confronts the Census in the Senate: "With little more than six months before the start of the next count, the Census Bureau still doesn't have a director." This is occurring even though the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs unanimously approved Groves, Obama's nominee, nearly two months ago. The full Senate has yet to vote on Groves because one anonymous member has placed a hold on his nomination. Before being nominated, Groves served as director of the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center and before that served as the "Bureau's associate director of statistical design from 1990 to 1992."

Mother Jones speculated that the hold was the result of right-wing fears that Groves might use statistical-sampling to adjust the Census results. As the Wall Street Journal explained, Groves "was among a group of Bureau officials who advocated [the use of sampling] after it became evident that the 1990 Census had failed to count nearly five million people." Indeed, despite agreement among social scientists that sampling would be a more accurate way to conduct the Census, the right wing has long feared the use of such sampling. Polling expert Nate Silver explains that this fear stems from the likelihood that such adjustment would better represent harder-to-count Americans living in urban areas who are more likely to vote Democratic. But this fear is unfounded, as Groves has already ruled out the use of such techniques in both the 2010 and 2020 Census. If that were not enough to mollify the anonymous senator delaying mission-critical preparations for next
year's Census, the Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional the "use of statistical sampling methods to obtain population figures for determining how many of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives go to each of the 50 states" in 1999.

Ignoring Propethic Predictors

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Ralph Nader
July 2, 2009 - CommonDreams.org

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I've wondered often why people who go to "town meetings" held by campaigning politicians rarely ask fundamental questions.

Here is one that should have been asked of presidential candidate Barack Obama: "If you get to the White House, will you appoint to top positions Americans who have a track record of making the right decisions in their respective fields?"

"Of course, I will," Obama would have undoubtedly replied.

Of course, he did not when it came to the collapse of the corrupt Wall Street casinos and the bailout of these gamblers by the American people. Obama chose the very Wall Streeters and Wall Street servants who were involved in, condoned, or profited from the speculative binges that led to the biggest government bailout scheme in world history. The President's explanation is that he wants experienced people who know how Wall Street works. Yeah, right! In reality, he wanted political cover.

Something very important is missing when even people who are part of the ruling establishment are ignored, marginalized, or ridiculed even though their detailed, public warnings prove to be all too accurate.

Consider billionaire, Ross Perot. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Ross, as everyone calls him, was right on General Motors, right on NAFTA trade, and right on the federal deficits.

In 1984, he joined the Board of Directors of GM after selling his successful company, EDS, to the auto giant. He could scarcely believe how stodgy, bureaucratic, and insensitive GM executives were in running the company. He tried to shake up the boys at the top to meet the fast-growing competition from Asia and Europe.

The GM brass couldn't stand Ross "at large" probing up and down the company, so in 1986 they bought out his shares in return for him leaving the Board.

Two years later, reflecting on his experience at GM with a reporter from Fortune, Perot called the "General Motors system a blanket of fog that keeps people from doing what they know needs to be done."

Warming up, Perot continued: "One day I made a speech to some senior executives. I said, 'Okay, guys, I'm going to give you the whole code on what's wrong. You don't like your customers. You don't like your dealers. You don't like the people who make your cars. You don't like your stockholders. And, to a large extent, you don't like one another. For this company to win, we're going to have to love our customers. We're going to have to stop fretting about dealers who make too much money and hope they make $1 billion a year though us. The guys on the factory floor are the salt of the earth-not mad-dog, rabid, burn-the-plant-down radicals. And all this sniping at one another-the financial guys vs. the cars guys-is terribly destructive.'"

GM didn't listen to Ross. Now, after a long, relentless slide, GM is bankrupt, abandoning their workers, two thousand of their dealers, and their customers' grievances. Moreover, GM is into the U.S. taxpayer for over $70 billion.

Perot devoted much of his 1993 published book Save Your Job, Save Our Country to NAFTA and trade. Looking back, he was right most of the time. NAFTA cost more U.S. jobs than it created, generated a huge U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, and mainly benefited the "36 businessmen who own Mexico's 39 largest conglomerates or over half of Mexico's Gross National Product."

The border-located maquiladora factories have high worker turnover and squeeze the laborers in often unsafe conditions for little pay.

Here is how Perot described the scene behind the boasting of Washington, DC, and corporations about the large increase in trade after NAFTA:

"Most of the goods produced in the maquiladoras are shipped into the U.S. market. Consequently, most of the so-called trade between the U.S. and Mexico is not trade as trade is commonly understood. Rather, it is primarily U.S. companies shipping their own machinery, components, and raw materials across the border into their Mexican factories and then shipping their finished or semi-finished goods back over the border into the U.S."
A good deal of the U.S. auto industry went south after NAFTA, leaving workers and communities stranded in Michigan and other states. Bankrupt Chrysler is planning to move a modern, award-winning engine plant in Wisconsin to Mexico after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts.

On Perot's nationally-televised deficit warnings (with charts), what more need be said? Even he did not envision what would pile up after his clarion calls. The burden on the next generation and the tax dollars diverted from our country's needs to pay the interest on these trillions of dollars of debt were pointed out again and again nearly twenty years ago by the Texas entrepreneur. He even has a website (perotcharts.com) updating the red ink.

In Bush's and Obama's Washington, there is no room for Perot to gain visibility and recognition.

It is one thing for the Washington politicians to ignore prescient progressive commentators, like William Grieder, who have been prophetically right on. It is quite another escape from reality to turn their backs on leaders within the business establishment itself.

There are many like Perot who must be watching the day's news and saying "we told you so, but you didn't listen then and you are not listening now."

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Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.

Chamber of Commerce Launches $100 Million Campaign to Protect Wall Street's Power at Our Expense

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The CoC is the world's most powerful lobbying machine and it's working to make sure our money gets funneled to corporate execs.

Zach Carter
July 2, 2009 - AlterNet

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Perhaps the greatest public deception surrounding today's financial meltdown is the notion that it is unique -- a once-in-a-lifetime crisis that reflects bad luck rather than any fundamental problem with the U.S. banking system's sway in global politics.

The truth is that throughout the 1980s, the major money center banks were in much the same situation they find themselves in today.

But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to spend $100 million on a lobbying push to tell you the otherwise. It's a very careful strategy designed to ensure that Wall Street maintains the power to hijack the economy and demand epic bailouts from ordinary citizens as a reward for its own greed.

The name may sound like a coalition of your friendly neighborhood small-business proprietors, but in truth, the CoC is the world's most powerful lobbying machine for the corporate executive class.

Between 1998 and 2009, the CoC's campaign contributions dwarfed those of every other interest group in the United States -- over $447 million, more than double the next closest political influence peddler, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. If you add up the total contributions of Exxon Mobil, tobacco giant Altria (formerly known as Philip Morris) and GE, you won't even get close to what the CoC spends on congressional favors.

"The Chamber," as the group ominously refers to itself, opposes key issues like universal health care, expanded unionization, efforts to curb global warming and even pay restrictions for the CEOs of bailed-out banks. Their new lobby assault is an attack on regulation and any other attempt to control the economic wrecking crew in the U.S. banking sector.

"Our biggest worry is the issue with the Congress and then the follow-on regulations," CoC President and CEO Thomas Donohue said in a recent Fox News interview. "We supported the TARP funds, we supported issues to clear up the issues on General Motors, because this is a most extraordinary time. But now it is a moment to say 'OK, we've gone there, let's stop.' "

Donohue's argument is simple. With the economy on the verge of collapse, the government needs to funnel trillions of dollars to failed businesses just this one time, and then leave corporate execs to their own devices once the storm passes. Of course, Donohue's story is also a complete lie. Big bank bailouts have happened before, and without radical changes to the government's oversight of the financial sector, they will happen again.

In 1982, JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citibank were all facing financial ruin. They had made billions in expensive, high-interest loans to developing nations in Latin America, and the nations simply could not afford to repay them. These loans accounted for more than double the amount of money that the banks had set aside as a cushion against losses, according to FDIC data. Accounting for the loans accurately would have meant filing for bankruptcy.

"They were a lot like subprime mortgage loans," says William Black, a senior bank regulator from the 1980s, who now teaches law and economics at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. "They were never very good loans to begin with, so the borrowing never made a whole lot of sense."

But compliant U.S. regulators didn't make the banks record losses on the loans that were never going to be paid back. Between 1982 and 1987, no major money center bank realized any loss on a loan to a nation in Latin America. As the crisis dragged on, the International Monetary Fund eventually stepped in, amid heavy negotiations between foreign governments, the banks and the U.S. Treasury Department.

"The banks were permanently in conversation with IMF or the Treasury, it was part of the game," says Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, who served as finance minister for Brazil during the height of the debt crisis. "The debtors had to negotiate with this coalition."

The Treasury Department was intensely devoted to protecting the interests of U.S. banks and refused to sign off on rescue plans that required banks to reduce the amount that foreign governments owed. To make sure that banks were paid, the Treasury and the IMF worked out a plan where the IMF served as a bailout conduit, funneling money from the U.S. Treasury to the major banks such as Citi and Bank of America.

"Whenever the accountants are about to say to Citi, 'you have to recognize a loss,' the U.S. increases its contribution to the IMF, the IMF promptly makes a loan to Brazil, and Brazil promptly makes a payment to Citi," Black says.

"In a lot of ways, the IMF really can be blamed for this whole story," says economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "They always wanted to lay down the law for everyone else, but when it comes to the banks, they're happy to come to the rescue."

Eventually the Treasury and the IMF began orchestrating "troubled-debt restructurings" between banks and overburdened nations. The result was an under-the-table bailout achieved by exploiting weak accounting rules.

Here's how the scam works: Banks get to say they've made a lot of money when they issue a loan with a 20 percent interest rate -- a lot more than if they extend the same loan with a 5 percent interest rate. Even if the borrowers have no hope of repaying these loans over the long term, bank executives get to pay themselves huge bonuses for a few years based on these illusory, short-term profits. But when the borrower finally runs out of financial rope, the bank is supposed to book a big loss -- the loan is not being paid back. It has extended money that is never coming back.

Under a troubled-debt restructuring, U.S. banks agreed to reduce how much foreign governments owed them on a particular loan. Instead of demanding their full 20 percent payment, they would dramatically reduce the payment -- to say, 5 percent.

But the IMF and the U.S. Treasury didn't require the banks to reflect these changes on their accounting statements -- so far as their balance sheets were concerned, the banks were still receiving a full 20 percent payment. Since they had previously accounted for these loans at full value, the banks were actually losing money and marking accounting statements as if they were still raking it in. The IMF and U.S. regulators were bailing them out.

This is precisely the dynamic that Donohue and the CoC want to preserve: CEOs book giant bonuses on debts that can never be repaid, and then turn to the taxpayer when the bet inevitably turns south.

But while the IMF went to great lengths to placate big banks, it was much harder on the countries who received its "assistance."

When the IMF provided countries with emergency funding, it attached a brutal set of strings to the loans known as "austerity measures." These were basically severe restrictions on government spending. For developing countries, much of this spending takes the form of absolutely crucial poverty-alleviation programs that provide basic necessities to citizens. Cutting off these funds meant deepening the recession and forcing the most vulnerable members of society to bear the brunt of the blow.

The IMF's economic strategy here was essentially the opposite of what President Barack Obama is doing with today's economic stimulus package. Instead of boosting government spending to make up for the drop-off in private-sector demand and counteract the recession, foreign governments were required to cut back dramatically, making the recession worse.

The IMF never imposed any penalties on the banks it bailed out. Management teams were not forced out, shareholders continued to enjoy high returns and no reforms in bank-lending practices were required.

This wasn't just unfair. It taught the banks that they could book big short-term profits on risky loans and rely on governments and the IMF to save them if the bets ever went bad. Economists call this phenomenon "moral hazard" -- the tendency for actors to behave recklessly if they are insulated form the consequences of their bad bets.

"We continuously propagate the moral hazard by bailing these institutions out," says William Darity, an expert on the Latin American Debt Crisis, who teaches economics at Duke University. "It always struck me as odd that we're more willing to sacrifice the moral hazard issue on the side of these big lenders than on the part of the borrowers."

So it's no surprise that today the big banks are coming back to both the taxpayers and the IMF for support. After gorging themselves on a different kind of predatory, high-interest debt -- the subprime mortgage -- banks find themselves on the brink of collapse.

And once again, with the global economy in crisis, political leaders in the U.S. and Europe want to bolster the IMF's funding to give it a broader role in the international bank bailout scam. Obama has pledged $108 billion in fresh financing for the global finance machine.

The irony is that the IMF's own destructiveness nearly wiped it out entirely. By 2007, the IMF had just $10 billion in loans outstanding, down from $105 billion four years earlier, as countries simply refused to work with the lender.

But despite a host of promises and rosy press releases from the IMF about its plans to treat countries fairly, its standard policies remain in place.

"The major source of demand for those funds is East Europe, and that's really a story about bailing out the banks," Baker says.

When the dot-com bubble burst earlier this decade, banks went searching for other places to charge high interest on loans, and Eastern European economies were a prime target.

Today, with the global economy slumping, banks are watching the mirror image of the U.S crisis unfold in developing countries. Here, banker excess fueled a massive recession. In much of Eastern Europe, the recession brought on by troubles in the U.S. is fueling a financial crisis -- the banks aren't getting paid because the economy is slowing down.

The IMF is still up to its old tricks. According to an analysis by Bhumika Muchhala of the Third World Network, the IMF has attached similar austerity measures it has used for decades to the emergency loans it made in 2008 to Georgia, Ukraine, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Pakistan, Serbia, Belarus and El Salvador.

If we give money to the IMF, we know what will happen: Eastern European nations will be forced to cut social-welfare programs and pay off big banks in the U.S. and Western Europe.

"I think the IMF could serve many purposes, but not without changing very significantly, and I don't see those changes happening," says Aldo Caliari, coordinator of the Rethinking Bretton Woods Project for the think tank Center of Concern.

The IMF helped create today's economic crisis by teaching U.S. banks that wrecking the economy could be profitable. We shouldn't give them money to do it again. But the argument launched by Donohue and the CoC is even more laughable. In the eyes of "The Chamber," the government's proper role in the economy is to funnel public money to corporate executives.

If we don't ban fake profits and fake bonuses, the bailout cycle will never end.

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Zach Carter writes a weekly blog on the economy for the Media Consortium. His work has appeared in the American Prospect, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and on CNBC.

FBI says Saddam's weapons bluff aimed at Iran

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JoAnne Allen
July 2, 2009 - Reuters

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Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader.

"Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction.

He believed Iraq was being threatened by others in the region and must appear able to defend itself, the report said.

The FBI reports, released on Wednesday, said Saddam asserted that he was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for blocking the return of UN weapons inspectors who were searching for WMD.

"In his opinion, the UN inspectors would have directly identified to the Iranians where to inflict maximum damage to Iraq," according to the documents obtained and released by the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute.

Saddam began a bloody border war with Iran in 1980 that lasted until 1988, during which Iraq used chemical weapons.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush launched the Iraq war in 2003, citing a threat of weapons of mass destruction from Saddam's government, but no such weapons were ever found.

FBI special agents carried out 20 formal interviews and at least five "casual conversations" with the former Iraqi leader

after his capture by U.S. troops in December 2003, according to the documents.

Saddam, identified as "High Value Detainee #1," shared Bush's hostility toward the "fanatic" Iranian mullahs, according to the FBI records of conversations from February through June 2004 between Saddam and Arabic-speaking agents in his detention cell at Baghdad International Airport.

Saddam also denied any connections to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who he called a "zealot," and cited North Korea as his most likely ally in a crunch, according to the documents.

He also takes personal responsibility for ordering the launching of SCUD missiles against Israeli targets during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, because he blamed Israel and its influence in the United States for "all the problems of the Arabs," the reports said.

During the interviews, Saddam rejects some examples of what he viewed as myths, like his purported use of body doubles. According to the notes, Saddam said he could recall using the telephone only twice since March 1990 and that he communicated primarily through couriers.

Saddam was executed in December 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court for the killing of 148 Shi'ite men and boys following a 1982 assassination attempt.

TOON

10 Outrageous Climate Opposition Claims

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We already knew that climate action opponents were, shall we say, special. They've spent years denying the reality of global warming and doing everything possible to delay action.

But, last week's floor debate put their tortured reasoning in the Congressional Record.

We've compiled 10 of the most outrageous comments from the floor last week. Yes, they're bizarre. But, it's important to keep in mind that we are very likely to see much more of this as the bill moves to the Senate.

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10) "Wake up, America. There hasn't been any global warming, which is what we heard over and over and over again – there hasn't been any global warming for 10 years." – Rep. Dana Rohrabacker (R-CA)

No warming for 10 years? Well, not exactly true. 1998 was the 2nd hottest year on record while 2008 was only the 8th hottest. So, if you only look at those two years, you might assume there hasn't been any warming. But, 2005 was the hottest year on record and the warmest decade on record is 1998 through 2008. The trends are clear. The planet is warming. Period.

9) "You want to talk about a massive new welfare program for energy? It's in here too… It's a whole new welfare program for energy." – Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR)

If you want to talk welfare, what about the hundreds of billions the oil, gas and coal industries have received in subsidies and tax breaks over the years?

8) "God has put us on this Earth as responsible stewards of these resources, and we ought to use them responsibly. This bill does not do it. In fact, it does nothing good. The only meaningful thing that it might do is provide a relatively meaningless photo op for our President in December in Copenhagen as he stands to brag about what America has done while the leaders of India and China laugh at us behind his back." – Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX)

We look forward to working with Rep. Conaway to strengthen this bill and to fight for the strongest possible international global warming treaty later this year.

7) "Energy producing states like Oklahoma will be economically punished and devastated." – Rep Tom Cole (R-OK)

Rep. Cole should have a look at climate models showing that Oklahoma could spend nearly the entire summer with 100+ temperatures by the end of the century. Talk about devastating.

6) "We should not be the first lemming to jump off the cliff." – Rep. Doc Hasting (R-WA)

That's an interesting point given that the U.S. is the only industrial country in the world that never ratified the Kyoto global warming treaty and that much of Europe is operating under a carbon cap right now.

5) "[For some, this bill is an] economic death sentence." – Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA)

As opposed to the current economy in which we are held hostage by our reliance on foreign oil and in which only last summer we saw gas prices exceed $4/gallon.

4) "The whole point of cap-and-trade is to make fossil fuels, or 85 percent of the energy we consume, more expensive." – Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA)

No, the point of this bill is to cap global warming pollution, put Americans back to work building out our clean energy future, and free us from our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.

3) "Do you want to throw away the economic prosperity for nothing, because that's what this bill does. And for what, to satisfy the twisted desires of radical environmentalists." – Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)

With millions of Americans out of work and the economy in recession, it might not be the best time to talk about "throwing away our economic prosperity" or to support the status quo.

2) "[This will bring us back to] hunting and gathering." – Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)

Yeah, when we look at solar panels, hybrids and windmills, that's exactly what comes to mind – hunting and gathering societies.

1) "The idea of human induced global climate change is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated out of the scientific community. It is a hoax… We need to be good stewards of our environment, but this is not it, it's a hoax!" – Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA)

A global conspiracy involving thousands of scientists taking tens of thousands of measurements on everything ranging from ice core samples to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to sea level rise, hundreds of governments around the world working to address global warming pollution, dozens of science academies that have endorsed the reality of global warming and urged action, as well as hundreds of millions of people around the world who have joined the movement to promote global warming action.

And, we're all coordinating our activities to push this hoax because…?

- Environmental Defense Action Fund

2010 species pledge set to fail: conservationists

A soldadinho-do-araripe from Brazil.

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July 1, 2009 - AFP

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The world's paramount authority on species loss has warned that pledges to roll back the threat to biodiversity by 2010 were running into the sand.

The goal set by UN parties under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 "clearly will not be met," Jean-Christophe Vie of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) told AFP.

In its new report, issued on Thursday, the Swiss-based IUCN said Earth was hurtling towards a mass extinction.

Out of 44,838 species on the IUCN's famous "Red List", 869 are considered to be extinct or extinct in the wild, it said.

This tally rises to 1,159 if 290 critically endangered species that are tagged as possibly extinct are included.

Nearly one third of amphibians are at risk of being wiped out through habitat loss, fungal infection and other risks.

More than one in eight birds are threatened with extinction, with Brazil, Indonesia and oceanic islands spearheading the peril. Nearly a quarter of mammals, especially hunted species in Asia, face a similar threat.

"Overall, a minimum of 16,928 species are threatened with extinction," IUCN said in a press release.

"Considering that only 2.7 percent of the 1.8 million described species have been analysed, this number is a gross underestimate, but it does provide a useful snapshot of what is happening to all forms of life on Earth."

The IUCN analysis, Wildlife in a Changing World, was issued just before a deadline governments set themselves to evaluate their success in achieving the 2010 target.

Vie, deputy head of the IUCN's species programme, called on governments to tackle the biodiversity crisis with the same urgency with which they tackled its economic crisis.

"Economies are utterly dependent on species diversity. We need them all, in large numbers. We quite literally cannot afford to lose them."

He added: "Governments should put as much effort, if not more, into saving nature as they do into addressing the economic and financial sectors."

Nobel Laureate 'Abducted' by Israeli Navy

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Mel Frykberg
July 1, 2009 - Inter Press Service

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RAMALLAH - Twenty-one international peace activists were seized by Israeli naval frigates in international waters Tuesday as their boat 'The Spirit of Humanity' tried to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The activists, including former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Irish Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire, and nationals from 11 other countries were part of the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) efforts to break Israel's naval and border blockade of Gaza.

The activists were taken to Israel's Ashdod port and from there to detention cells at Ben Gurion international airport in Tel Aviv where they await deportation.

"They simply kidnapped the passengers," said FGM founding member Greta Berlin. "I call on the Israeli occupation forces to release our people immediately. It's funny. What are they going to do? Deport us? The last place we wanted to reach was Israel."

The Spirit of Humanity left Cyprus Monday after receiving security clearance from the Cypriot authorities. It was carrying three tonnes of medical supplies and some toys.

The boat was intercepted by naval gun vessels in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The crew was warned that if they did not return to Cyprus they would be fired on. The boat refused to follow the Israeli order, and continued to make its way to Gaza.

The Israeli navy then jammed the boat's instrumentation, blocking its GPS, radar and navigation systems. The aid boat was surrounded by several naval gunboats until armed naval commandos forcibly boarded it and towed it back to Ashdod port.

"We didn't come with guns and weapons, but just with humanitarian aid, in an attempt to break the siege of Gaza and to tell the apathetic world about what is happening in the Strip, especially after the last war," FGM chairperson Huwaida Araf said in an interview with the Nazareth-based radio station Al- Shams.

"This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip," said former presidential candidate McKinney.

"President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that's exactly what we tried to do," she added.

"The aid we were carrying is a symbol of hope for the people of Gaza, hope that the sea route would open for them, and they would be able to transport their own materials to begin to reconstruct the schools, hospitals and thousands of homes destroyed during the onslaught of Operation Cast Lead," said Maguire, who won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in Northern Ireland.

"Our mission is a gesture to the people of Gaza that we stand by them and that they are not alone," she added.

The U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement has sent a number of siege-breaking vessels to Gaza with aid supplies in an endeavour to not only deliver desperately needed goods but also to draw international attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

According to an International Committee of the Red Cross report released Monday, Palestinians living in Gaza are "trapped in despair".

Thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed during Israel's December-January war are still without shelter despite pledges of almost 4.5 billion dollars in aid, because Israel refuses to allow cement and other building material into the Gaza Strip, the Red Cross report says.

The report says hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of their patients due to Israel's disruption of medical supplies.

Israel allows only a limited amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Items such as chocolate, cigarettes, fruit juice, pumpkin, schoolbooks, clothes, toys, seedlings and musical instruments are amongst the many items banned.

Several of FGM's vessels have managed to reach the stricken coastal territory with supplies, but others have been forcibly stopped.

The last vessel, also with McKinney on board, was rammed by an Israeli naval vessel several times. The badly damaged boat was forced to limp to Beirut port as it began to take water.

While most of the activists aboard Spirit were due be deported, several of the activists hold Israeli passports, including Huwaida Arraf.

Arraf, a law lecturer, was born in the U.S. to a Palestinian family from within Israel's Green Line, or internationally recognised borders. She is also a U.S. citizen.

Deporting her could be problematic, and she may face court for attempting to enter Gaza. Israeli law bans Israeli citizens from entering the coastal territory.

Several attempts by IPS to contact Arraf in detention were unsuccessful. FGM reported that it had also been unable to contact activists on their cell phones in detention.

Meanwhile, Berlin vows to continue trying to break Israel's siege on Gaza.

"It isn't over till the fat lady sings. They took our boat, so we'll get a freighter. Israel has no right to keep 1.5 million residents under siege, to occupy Gaza, and to turn it into one big refugee camp."

Judge Overturns Bush Administration Logging Rule

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Jeff Barnard
July 1, 2009 - The Associated Press

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GRANTS PASS, Ore. - A federal judge has struck down the Bush administration's change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests.

"I am hopeful that this is the last nail in the coffin to (President George W.) Bush's assault on our public forests," said Pete Frost, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, which represented plaintiffs in one of two cases challenging the rule.

At stake was a provision of the National Forest Management Act that required maintaining viable populations of species that indicate the health of an ecosystem, such as the spotted owl. The Bush administration changed the rule last year so it required a framework of protection, rather than maintaining viable populations of wildlife.

The ruling marked the third time federal courts have turned back attempts to change the 1984 version of what is known as the viability rule within the National Forest Management Act.

The judge wrote that an environmental impact statement done by the Forest Service "does not evaluate the environmental impacts of the 2008 rule," and the agency failed to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to consult with other federal agencies on whether the rule changes would jeopardize the survival of endangered species.

Instead, the Forest Service argued that the rule changes themselves had no direct environmental impact until they were applied to specific projects.

The judge admonished the Forest Service for simply copying legal arguments already rejected in two court rulings into their latest justification for the rule change.

Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said in an e-mail that he could not immediately comment on the ruling.

Andy Stahl, director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics in Eugene, said until the National Forest Management Act was enacted in 1976, the Forest Service had wide latitude to do as it pleased with little oversight - a situation the Bush administration hoped to recreate.

After President Bush was elected in 2000, his administration systematically worked to increase national forest logging by changing the rules for enforcing environmental laws, but was consistently turned back by federal court rulings.

"This court decision sends the Forest Service back to square zero and upholds the promise ... that forest plans be meaningful and they actually protect forests," he said.

TOON

The Military Invades U.S. Schools

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In Chicago, there's a push to replace public schools with military academies. This model may soon spread to the rest of the country.

Brian Roa
July 1, 2009 - TruthOut.org

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For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago's Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term "occupation" because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA's opening.

Senn students are made to feel like second-class citizens inside their own school, due to inequalities. The facilities and resources are better on the RNA side. RNA students are allowed to walk on the Senn side, while Senn students cannot walk on the RNA side. RNA "disenrolls" students and we accept those students who get kicked out if they live within our attendance boundaries. This practice is against Chicago policy, but goes unchecked. All of these things maintain a two-tiered system within the same school building.

This phenomenon is not restricted to Senn. Chicago has more military academies and more students in JROTC than any other city in the US. As the tentacles of school militarization reach beyond Chicago, the process used in this city seems to serve as a model of expansion. There was a Marine Academy planned for Georgia's Dekalb County, which includes 10 percent of Atlanta. Fortunately, due to protest, the school has been postponed until 2010. Despite it being postponed, it is still useful to analyze the rhetoric used to rationalize the Marine Academy. Many of the lies and excuses used to justify school militarization in Chicago and Georgia may well be used in other cities as militarism grows.

Not for Recruiting?

A favorite lie used to defend the expansion of military academies is that they are not used to recruit for the military.

"This is not a training ground to send kids into the military," Dekalb Schools' Superintendent Crawford Lewis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March. Those same words could have come straight from Col. Rick Mills, director of military academies and JROTC in Chicago, who explained away recruitment in a similar fashion.

"This is not a recruiting tool, but a way to help students succeed at whatever career they might choose," Mills told the Chicago Tribune.

Yet military academies receive money from the Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD would be derelict in its responsibilities were that money not spent as an investment in future soldiers. Accepting the claim that there is no recruiting in military academies makes about as much sense as allowing gangs to fund and operate within schools, on the assumption that they won't recruit on school grounds.

Moreover, since military academies are staffed with ex-service members (many don't even require valid teaching certificates), students are likely to receive career advice that favors a military path.

There are more blatant examples of recruiting at RNA. The cadets - the label applied to students at military academies - have taken a school-sponsored field trip to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Furthermore, last year the school hosted Adm. Michael Mullen, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen told the cadets that the Navy was a "great career choice." RNA has hosted ten admirals in their short four-year history.

In addition to these direct tactics, the academies use more insidious approaches. A military culture permeates these schools. Students dress in uniform, receive demerits, and are introduced to the military hierarchy and way of life. For example, I have witnessed students marching with fake rifles. This cultivation of a militarized mind is the best explanation for why 40 percent of all Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program graduates wind up entering military service. This statistic is especially telling, considering that less than one percent of the population has served in the military at any given moment since 1975.

The Choice Argument

Military academies are promoted as an option within the public school system for parents. We heard it from Arne Duncan (ex-CEO of CPS and current secretary of education) and we hear it from Dale Davis, public information officer for the Dekalb County School System, who calls the military school "an addition" for parents to consider. Compare that with what Colonel Mills said in December 2007 in the Online News Hour: "The purpose of the military academy programs is to offer our cadets and parents an educational choice among many choices in Chicago Public Schools and to provide an educational experience that has a college prep curriculum, combined with a military curriculum."

We must dissect what kind of "choice" parents are given. If one's only choices are a school in desperate need of repair or a shiny new military academy, parents will often "choose" the "better" school.

The unbalanced funding presents an incredibly difficult decision for many parents, as Marivel Igartua, mother of a cadet inside the Naval Academy, told me. She didn't want to have to send her daughter to RNA, but she felt squeezed into the choice because her area school was in such bad shape. The unequal allocation of resources, which favors military academies, can serve as a form of economic coercion upon parents.

If public schools were given the resources they need to improve, then we could offer parents a more real choice.

Military pushers also argue that the academies are a popular option among parents. According to Mills, quoted in In These Times in 2005, "These kinds of programs would not be in schools if there weren't kids who wanted it, parents who supported it and administrators who facilitated it."

Arne Duncan claimed there were waiting lists filled with children hoping to attend a military academy. However, CPS has never released the so-called waiting lists, and concrete numbers tell a different story. RNA's goal for student enrollment for this year was 500-600 students. RNA finished the year with 376 students. Where's the demand?

Military Academies in the Context of Dismantling Public Education

Viewing militarization in the broader scope of "school improvement" can provide a helpful lens. In Chicago, military academies often represented one offshoot of a general plan to break down public education and replace it with charter schools and contract schools, siphoning public money to business people and "nonprofits." However, these "chosen" schools don't perform any better than public schools. A recent Chicago study compared ACT scores between charter schools and neighborhood schools, and no statistically significant difference was found. There was a difference in the number of English language learners and special-needs students accepted. Charters received fewer of both students. We see the same dichotomy with Senn and RNA.

What may be more problematic is that sometimes the charterization movement masks hidden agendas Sometimes the hidden agenda is union busting. Sometimes it's gentrification. Sometimes it is militarization. We have seen all of these hidden agendas in Chicago. We all agree that public schools are in desperate need of renovation and repair. But simply demonizing public schools as failing without giving them the resources to succeed - and replacing them with experimental schools - is unjust.

The push to destroy public schools and replace them with military academies and charter schools was further facilitated under the mayoral control of schools in Chicago. Mayoral control means that a city's once publicly elected school board is replaced by mayoral appointees partial to the agenda set forth by the mayor. In Chicago, it also meant replacing the school superintendent, who was legally mandated to have public education experience, with a CEO, who is only mandated by his scruples. Duncan served as the CEO for several years. He helped administer and finish off the largest militarization of a school system in the US, under the banner of "school improvement."

If we look at the history of Chicago's "school improvement" plan, we can see the hidden agenda pushed by the charter movement. According to Pauline Lipman, writing in Substance News in 2005, it is a plan whose blueprint was ripped from the Commercial Club of Chicago, a conglomerate of Fortune 500 companies in Chicago. Schools are closed and reopened while students are shuffled around to other schools, which are often performing worse than their original school. Little regard is paid to the education of the majority of students, almost all of them poor, black and Latino/a. Simply put, Chicago's plan is not a school improvement plan. It is the dismantling of a public good for the benefit of a chosen few. School militarization was accelerated as this plan was being implemented in Chicago.

The pushing of similar plans can be expected throughout the US now that Duncan is secretary of education. With the stimulus bill's $100 billion in emergency aid for public schools and colleges, Duncan is in an incredible position of power. He could use it to promote renovation and increase resources to existing public schools. Or he could spend it on costly privatization and militarization, squandering our tax money and endangering our children's futures.