A little bad news: this is coming too

The ACLU has discovered a little-noticed, largely undiscussed, and extremely dangerous provision inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act as it was being marked up by the House Armed Services Committee last week.

The provision, Section 1034 of the act, would quite literally commit the US to what amounts to endless war all over the world and empower the president (that is, this and every future president) to use US military forces virtually anywhere in the world at virtually any time - including, potentially, within the US itself and against US citizens - without the need for any further authorization.

The NDAA provides authorization for spending money on the military and other "security" related areas; as such, it is what's called a "must-pass" bill - because of course (of course) no one wants the military to not have buckets - hell, truck-fulls - hell, freight trains-full - of money to spend. Which is why the section, inserted quite literally during a midnight markup session by committee chairman Buck McKeon, with no hearings and virtually no debate even within the committee, is so ominous: No one, or at least far too few, will vote against the bill because of this one provision.

What does the provision do?

Under the guise of a “reaffirmation” of authority, Section 1034 of the Chairman’s mark for the NDAA would give the President unchecked authority--and if the section constitutes a declared “war,” possibly the unchecked duty--to use military force worldwide against or within any country in which terrorism suspects reside. ...

The President would be able to use this authority--or might be required to use this authority--regardless of whether there has been any harm to United States citizens, or any attack on the United States or any imminent threat of any attack. There is not even any requirement of any threat whatsoever to the national security of the United States.

Note again: It is unchecked authority "to use military force worldwide against or within any country in which terrorism suspects reside." Not even "operate," but merely "reside." There is no requirement there be an attack or a threat of an attack on the US or its citizens; indeed, there need be no threat at all. The only requirement is that "terrorism suspects" are present.

Such attacks do not need the cooperation or even passive approval of the host government and there is no geographical limit. What's more, there are no objectives given, making it difficult at best to determine just when and how this authorization would expire.

I am not exaggerating: This is a proposal for a conscious, deliberate abdication of Congressional responsibility and authority which would place all legal control over the US military in the hands of a single person who - considering the difficulty presented by finding a nation where there are no "terrorism suspects" present - would be authorized to use that military essentially at any time, in any place, in any way, to any extent, for any length of time they choose. And it may well pass.

So much for my burst of hope.

A little good news: it's coming

I keep saying it - it's coming. It will come.

Full marriage equality will come, full legal equality for LGBT people will come. A time will come when overt bigotry will be no more acceptable here than overt racism is now.

A majority of Americans say in a new poll that same-sex marriage should be legalized, marking the first time for such support since Gallup began tracking the issue in 2004.

Support for gay marriage jumped nine percentage points to 53%, largely due to an increase from independents and Democrats, the Gallup survey showed. ...

The new Gallup Poll showed 69% of Democrats and 59% of independents now support same-sex marriage, both double-digit increases from last year's survey. Nearly 3 in 10 Republicans, or 28%, support gay marriage -- the same showing as last year.

(The necessary adjective "overt" in connection with bigotry, especially considering all the dog-whistling going on with the die-hard birthers, is also why I said full "legal" equality rather than full equality. But don't harsh my buzz.)

Of course, there's still crap like the "don't say gay" bill that has passed the Tennessee Senate - which provoked this brilliant rejoinder from George Takei (Thanks, Daisy!) - but even those are starting to feel like desperate attempts to hold back the tide. Meanwhile, there are more and more occasions like this one from February, where a high school in Minnesota tried to prevent a lesbian couple who were both elected to a "royalty court" for a school pep rally from entering together - only to back down in the face of a suit and then witness the student body cheering as the couple entered.

As Martin Luther King was fond of saying, paraphrasing the early-19th century minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Sometimes the arc is hard to perceive - Parker himself said "My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve." - but, damn it all and despite all my fears and pessimism and
failing hope, it is there.

A little good news: awakening from a coma

Finally, some folks are wising up. Finally, some people are realizing that when it comes to political and social power, words alone won't cut it and even criticism, unconnected to action, is unavailing.

AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka, who heads of one of the nation's most powerful labor unions, today[, Friday,] called current state and federal budget proposals a "despicable canvass of cruelty" and warned of consequences for politicians who even indirectly support them.

"It doesn't matter if candidates and parties are controlling the wrecking ball or simply standing aside," said Trumka in an address at the National Press Club. "The outcome is the same either way."

I have for I don't know how many years been saying is that there comes a point where even what is supposedly "pretty good" is simply not good enough - and when the best you offer people is the hope that with you things might get worse more slowly than they otherwise might, when your best argument is "god forbid" the "other side" should win an election, that is not good enough.

"If leaders aren't blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families' interests, working people will not support them. This is where our focus will be - now, in 2012, and beyond," [Trumka] said.

The message, clearly aimed at the O crowd and the rest of the Dimcrats, came down to "If you're not there for us, we won't be there for you." Damn well about - in fact, past - time. Now we just have to see if it's more than words.

Eugene V. Debs famously said "I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don't want and get it." Let's hope that labor has at long last absorbed that wisdom.

Just sayin'

A lot of the current thinking on both the pro-freedom and the anti-freedom sides of the abortion debate is that the current Supreme Court may be of a mind to overturn Roe v. Wade - certainly, "the Roberts court" has shown a great willingness to overturn precedent when it suited the ideological agenda of its most reactionary members, despite the lying professions of great love for stare decisis they made during their confirmation hearings.

So the anti-freedom forces in a number of states have been pushing for harsher and harsher restrictions on a woman's freedom to choose. Scott Lemieux, writing at The American Prospect earlier this month, reported that

[f]rom January to March, state legislatures passed 15 laws restricting abortion rights and introduced more than 900 others.

The anti-freedom thinking is that those who support the right to choose will either swallow the new rules - thus limiting abortion rights - or challenge them, opening a legal path leading ultimately to the Supreme Court.

A recent example that illustrates how far this has gone comes from South Dakota. A new anti-freedom bill, signed into law on March 22 and to go into effect July 1, requires a personal consultation between the woman and the doctor who is actually to perform the procedure followed by a 72-hour waiting period and the requirement that the woman "receive counseling" from a "pregnancy help center," which are sham outfits whose goal is to talk women out of abortions.

Beyond the obvious burdens placed particularly on poor women by these rules, the absolutely creepy condescencion oozing out of the bill's supporters is nauseating:

For example, Governor Dennis Daugaard said that "I hope that women who are considering an abortion will use this three-day period to make good choices," which is generally the kind of language a parent uses to address a child they think is behaving foolishly. I expect we're pretty clear on what Gov. Dog's-arse thinks is a "good choice."

Meanwhile, Rep. Roger Hunt, main sponsor of the law, says that "Women need to just be reminded of the fact there is a natural, legal relationship between them and their child." Now it's not even an "unborn child," it's a "child." I mean, "unborn child" is asinine enough on its face: There is no such thing as an "unborn child." If it's not born, it's not a child. Or is a caterpillar an "unborn butterfly," a tadpole an "unborn frog," and an egg an "unborn chicken?" But this is beyond absurd.

And oh yes, women must be "reminded" of their "relationship" with "their child." Women, the poor dears, just don't understaaaand about relaaaationships. We have to remiiiind them.

And by the way, as of early this month, not a single one of these "pregnancy help centers," including ones that pushed for the bill, have registered to provide the legally-required counseling. Is this because they think the bill won't go into effect due to a court challenge - or do they think it's a means to prevent any abortions by preventing anyone from fulfilling the requirements?

Anyway, one of the reasons I brought this up was because I wanted the chance to say this:

I've always hoped that when one of these putrid things such as the South Dakota bill is introduced, someone in the legislature of whatever state it is would rise and say:

I want to propose a friendly amendment. As my colleague wishes only to insure that women make fully informed decisions[, as is invariably the claim], I'm sure they will happily incorporate this amendment into their bill.

My amendment does two things: One, it replaces every occasion of the incorrect term "unborn baby" or "unborn child" with the medically- and scientifically-correct "fetus." This includes any statement any physician or other provider is required by this law to present or say to the patient.

And two, it requires that in addition to the information presented to the woman about her fetus, she also be fully informed at the same time as to the emotional, physical, and financial risks of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.

In fact, let's go the whole way: Let's require that every physician be required to fully inform every female patient of child-bearing years of the relative risks of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting on the one hand and abortion on the other.

Again, as my colleague insists that the true purpose of this bill is to enable fully-informed decisions, I'm sure there will be no objection to this amendment.

It would be fun to watch the reaction - especially as I'm quite sure the anti-freedom forces know that the physical risks of pregnancy and childbirth clearly exceed those related to abortions.

Footnote: South Dakota is also that state that in February actually considered a bill that could have made the murder of abortion providers "justifiable homicide."

Footnote to the preceding

You know what is the saddest thing about the Indiana Supreme Court finding that "modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence" means you can't resist illegal police entry to your home?

They may be right. From the New York Times:

The police do not need a warrant to enter a home if they smell burning marijuana, knock loudly, announce themselves and hear what they think is the sound of evidence being destroyed, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in an 8-to-1 decision. ...

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said police officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches by kicking down a door after the occupants of an apartment react to hearing that officers are there by seeming to destroy evidence.

What happened was that some police in Lexington, Kentucky, saw a drug deal in a parking lot and went into an apartment complex looking for a suspect. They pounded on the door of the wrong apartment and heard what they claimed were sounds making them think that evidence was being destroyed.

They kicked the door in and found marijuana and cocaine but not the original suspect, who was in a different apartment. ...

The Kentucky Supreme Court suppressed the evidence, saying that any risk of drugs being destroyed was the result of the decision by the police to knock and announce themselves rather than obtain a warrant.

"Warrant?" replied SCOTUS. "What is this 'warrant' thing of which you speak?" On Monday, the Court ruled that

police had acted lawfully and that was all that mattered. The defendant, Hollis D. King, had choices other than destroying evidence, Justice Alito wrote.

He could have chosen not to respond to the knocking in any fashion, Justice Alito wrote. Or he could have come to the door and declined to let the officers enter without a warrant.

“Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame,” Justice Alito wrote.

Now, the police said they went to that apartment because they smelled burning marijuana. Are we supposed to accept that if King had opened the door and said "You can't come in" that the police, in the face of an even stronger smell of marijuana (assuming their original claim to be true), would simply say, "Oh, okay," and leave?

Or that if they at that point had said they had "probable cause" to enter, Alito would have disagreed?

Or that if someone had gone to get a warrant while cops remained just outside the door, that if in that time they "heard sounds" that made them think "evidence was being destroyed" and the broke down the door, Alito would have disapproved?

Are you joking?

Besides, what constitutes a sound that gives rise to a fear of evidence being destroyed? Of that, Jon Walker at Just Say Now, who tipped me to this news, makes this observation:

The flushing of a toilet, running of a faucet, opening of a plastic bag, ripping of paper, turning on of a stove burner, or even the sound of foot steps if the officer can claim he “believed” the suspect was moving toward a fireplace (which may or may not exist) are all sounds the police use to say they had the suspicion that evidence might be destroyed. I can also assure that almost anytime the police start loudly knocking at the door late at night they are going to hear some noises they could label as reasonable suspicion.

To see how inane this decision is, consider this part of it:

“Where, as here, the police did not create the exigency by engaging or threatening to engage in conduct that violates the Fourth Amendment,” [Alito] wrote, “warrantless entry to prevent the destruction of evidence is reasonable and thus allowed.”

In other words, the fact that the police did not threaten to forcibly enter illegally made it legal for them to forcibly enter.

The only dissenter, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, nailed it:

“The court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in drug cases,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. “In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant.” ...

“How ‘secure’ do our homes remain if police, armed with no warrant, can pound on doors at will and, on hearing sounds indicative of things moving, forcibly enter and search for evidence of unlawful activity?” she asked.

Indeed.

Footnote: One other thing to point out here is that all these sorts of decisions inevitably, invariably, rely on one assumption: Police always tell the truth and never falsify their reports or their descriptions of events.

I got this bridge, y'see, and it's at a really great price....

The coming darkness

Okay, this is from several days ago but I haven't seen it get much attention and it really does boggle the mind and really really does deserve notice. It's from this past Thursday, when the Indianapolis Star reported this:

People have no right to resist if police officers illegally enter their home, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in a decision that overturns centuries of common law.

That's right: The state supreme court of Indiana has ruled that if police illegally force their way into your home, you have no right to resist. You must stand aside and allow them to do it.

Say what?

There must have been some good reason, there must have been. So what was the reasoning, what was the powerful, overwhelming logic that drove the court to "overturn centuries of common law?" Well, here's one part (and hold on for the second part; it's even better):

The court argued that "allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved." Note that it doesn't say that the way to avoid "unnecessarily escalat[ing] the level of violence" is for the cops to follow the law, to follow the rules, no no no; rather, it is for you to passively submit when they break the law and ignore the rules.

And what's your recourse? Sue the cops, says the court.

Seriously?

Yeah, seriously. That's the remedy.

In what higher dimension?

So if cops illegally force their way into your home your only recourse is to sue them - assuming you can even bear the costs involved in pursuing such a suit and by some combination of miracles you have both a judge who isn't going to dismiss on a "good faith" defense (the "Gee, I thought I could" defense) and a jury that won't be swayed by "Do you want your police to be second-guessing themselves when they're out there every day, risking their lives, to protect you and your children from the criminals, rapists, and terrorists? Well, do you?" That's your recourse.

Yeah, I'm sure that will be a real deterrent.

Oh, but there's still the second part, and yes, it's even better:

"We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," [Justice Steven] David said.

Leave aside the creepy notion that it can be legitimate "public policy" to ignore your rights and get to the meat. Because, yup, you got it: According to the Indiana Supreme Court, our "modern" legal understanding of the Fourth Amendment says you have no right to resist an "unlawful police entry" into your home.

You have no right to resist illegal actions by police. You have no right to resist abusive state power. Oh, you have a "right" to "protest" after the fact, provided, again, that you have the considerable sums of money required to file such a protest - but no right to resist. Instead, our "modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence" says, you must submit.

And even if you have the fortuitous combination of finances, judge, and jury necessary to make you whole, what of all the others who don't? Power given to the state is power given over all, over everyone. Recourse for the one is recourse just for the one and for no one else. And that is exactly what the court has established here.

This is very bad - especially as state supreme courts often look to decisions of other state supreme courts for guidance. Yes, this is very bad.

Footnote Eins: It was a big week for the Indy Supremes. Two days before that decision, that is, last Tuesday, the court ruled that cops serving a warrant may enter a home without knocking if they decide circumstances justify it. Previously, they needed a judge's permission; they needed, that is, a so-called "no-knock" warrant.

Now, they don't and they can decide for themselves without any oversight. Which means that now, in Indiana, this would be fine.

I remember back in the I'm pretty sure it was the Nixon administration when "no-knock" warrants were first discussed - and the whole idea was regarded as controversial. Now, it's just another day at the office - or, rather, the police station.

Footnote Zwei: The only hopeful sign in this was that comments at the IndyStar site about the article were all but universally negative and often harshly so.

Another post mortem, B

This time, take a moment to remember how right after 9/11 Osama bin Laden was, in our minds, world public enemy #1.

Then remember how when the Shrub gang couldn't find him he got downplayed. Downplayed so much that Bush himself once said he didn't know where bin Laden was and didn't much care.

Remember how bin Laden was "in hiding," "on the run," "living the life of a fugitive." Remember how he was "out of the loop," how he'd been reduced to a figurehead, how it was now Ayman al-Zawahiri who was the real mastermind. Remember how it was pointed out that bin Laden was so isolated that the compound where he was found had no internet or landline phone connections and how they wouldn't use cellphones because they'd learned how the location could be traced - so his only connection to the outside world was a single trusted courier.

After remembering all that, notice that now that they got bin Laden that suddenly he is again being portrayed as having been a major, a central, even the central figure in anything and everything that had the name al-Qaeda pasted on it right up to the day he was killed.

Though hunted and in hiding, Osama bin Laden remained the driving force behind every recent al-Qaida terror plot, U.S. officials say, citing his private journal and other documents recovered in last week's raid. ...

His personal, handwritten journal and his massive collection of computer files show he helped plan every recent major al-Qaida threat the U.S. is aware of, including plots in Europe last year that had travelers and embassies on high alert, two officials said.

So he's gone from figurehead to head figure, from out of the loop to CEO, in the space of a few days. Why? Because it's good PR, that's why. Because now that he's been caught, it's politically useful to maximize his influence and control, thus making his death that much more of a victory.

All these reports are bullcrap. How can I be so sure that bin Laden was, in fact, a figurehead, a respected "father figure," rather than having any operational control? One good reason is that buried in the 13th graph of that same story is something that flatly contradicts the lede:

Officials have not yet seen any indication that bin Laden had the ability to coordinate timing of attacks across the various al-Qaida affiliates in Pakistan, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq and Somalia, and it is also unclear from bin Laden's documents how much the affiliate groups relied on his guidance. The Yemen group, for instance, has embraced the smaller-scale attacks that bin Laden's writings indicate he regarded as unsuccessful. The Yemen branch had already surpassed his central operation as al-Qaida's leading fundraising, propaganda and operational arm.

So he couldn't coordinate anything, it's "unclear" how much others relied on his advice (some of which was outright rejected), and another branch had already become bigger and more influential.

How that translates into Osama bin Laden being "the driving force" behind every recent al-Qaeda plan is rather hard to understand. But the point is, we're not supposed to think it through that far.

Meanwhile, CIA drone strikes into Pakistan continue.

Another post mortem, A

Two final (at least for now) observations on the death of Osama bin Laden.

First, here, is that the attack on the compound where bin Laden was holed up was repeatedly described as a “firefight.” For example, White House press secretary Jay Carney said ""There were many people who were armed in the compound. There was a firefight." He also told reporters that the commandos were "met with a great deal of resistance."

An unnamed senior defense official claimed that "For most of the period there, there was a firefight." And CIA Director Leon Panetta said "It was a firefight going up that compound."

Of bin Laden himself, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said "He was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in." Brennan also claimed that bin Laden was “hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield."

Um, yeah. Except none of that was true. It came out not long after that the attackers met far less resistance than the administration originally claimed. In fact, only one man even fired a gun at them. He was quickly killed, after which the SEALs swept the two houses in the compound, in the course of which they killed three more people, none of who, it appears, were armed.

That's not counting bin Laden himself, who also was unarmed.

What's more, it developed he was not “hiding” behind anyone; what happened is that when the SEALs entered the room where bin Laden was, a woman - probably one of his wives - rushed them. At one point the story was they shot her in calf; later it was said they said grabbed her because they were afraid she might be wearing a suicide vest.

Bin Laden, again, was unarmed. So why was he shot twice? Because, we were told, even though he was unarmed, he "resisted." He was shot in first in the chest and then in the face because he "resisted." But how did he "resist," especially how did he continue to "resist" after being shot the first time? At first, the White House wouldn't say.

But then it came out that the "capture contingencies" involved in the operation

related to a possibility thought to be highly unlikely: a humble and abject surrender, in which the al Qaeda founder would put his hands up, raise a white flag and beg not to be shot.

So simply failing to "beg not to be shot," is "resistance."

Clearly, that didn't sound good. So there was a lot of shifting of shuffling. Leon Panetta said bin Laden made "some threatening moves that were made that clearly represented a clear threat to our guys. And that's the reason they fired." But wouldn't say just what those "moves" were.

That wasn't so good, either, So then it became that the commandos feared he was reaching for a nearby weapon. Later it became he “lunged” for a weapon. Which still left the issue of how he continued to "resist" (or reach or lunge) after being shot in the chest at close range.

Somewhere around this time Jay Carney said he would no longer provide details of the operation.

Gee, I wonder why.

A Footnote to a Follow-up

This follow-up, to be exact:

One of the things I mentioned in the previous post was "testosterone-driven posturing" visible in the celebrations in the wake of the announcement of Osama bin Laden having been killed. The truth is, I was genuinely disturbed by some of what I saw. ...

[T]he whole, the overall, sense was one of "America kicks ass, man!" It was "We got 'em, man!" It was "Hey, loser! You suck!"

It's nice to find that there were others who felt the same and who, after "the initial giddiness settled a bit," got support from still others. Maybe we're not quite as far gone as I thought. Hope springs and all that.

Footnote to the preceding, Everything You Need to Know in One Word

In this case, everything you need to know about what's wrong with our major news media. Quoting from the previous post:

White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan confirmed that this was not a kill-only mission....

Um, what? He confirmed it? Not "said" or "stated" or "agreed" or "repeated," but "confirmed?" So even in the face of contrary information, contrary sources, whatever the "official" source says is to be taken as true? The default position is that the "official" position is the true and correct one and the more "official" it is the truer and more correct it is?

With news media so deferential to power, no wonder Americans continue to be so woefully uninformed.

A follow-up to the follow-up

In response to the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said bin Laden "epitomized evil" and had been "brought to justice." In addition to holding that the Nazi gas chambers or the killing fields of Cambodia still clearly outclass anything bin Laden dared dream of (and finding it noteworthy that a database on the World War II Holocaust went online on the same day as Reid's statement), the fact is that bin Laden was not "brought to justice." He was killed.

In fact, a Reuters report by Mark Hosenball said that the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound was a kill mission, that capturing him alive was never in the cards.

But oh no, we can't have that! Americans are too pure for anything like that! Or so an unnamed administration official insisted:

“No U.S. forces go in and, if someone surrenders to them, will kill them,” the official says. “There was a presumption that it would likely end in a kill,” the official continued, citing the U.S. government’s expectation that Bin Laden would resist capture. “But to say that it was a kill mission is wrong.” ...

White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan confirmed that this was not a kill-only mission.... ”We certainly were planning for the possibility, which we thought was going to be remote,” Brennan said of capturing Bin Laden alive. ”If we had the opportunity to take him alive we would have done that.”

So it wasn't a "kill" mission, it was merely a mission in which any outcome other than a kill was "remote."

Thus, there was a kill despite the fact that by the White House's own description, bin Laden was unarmed.

Oh but wait! He may have been unarmed, but he "resisted." He was shot in the chest and the face because he "resisted." How did he resist, especially how did he continue to resist after being shot the first time? The White House outright refuses to say. Maybe this is why:

In planning the operation, a senior U.S. defense official told a background briefing, "there were certainly capture contingencies, as there must be." But U.S. officials said that the "capture contingencies" related to a possibility thought to be highly unlikely: a humble and abject surrender, in which the al Qaeda founder would put his hands up, raise a white flag and beg not to be shot. There has been no evidence presented that anything like this happened.

So simply not being afraid to die, failing to "beg not to be shot," is "resistance." Really. It is. Really.

"Resistance does not require a firearm," [White House spokesman Jay Carney] said. "I'm sure more details will be provided as they become available."

Or as soon as they come up with a good story about how "about two dozen Navy Seals and CIA enablers" were unable to overpower one unarmed man.

"Not a kill mission," my ass.

Follow-up

No, not a Footnote, a follow-up.

One of the things I mentioned in the previous post was "testosterone-driven posturing" visible in the celebrations in the wake of the announcement of Osama bin Laden having been killed. The truth is, I was genuinely disturbed by some of what I saw.

One reason is a bit hard to explain clearly, although Pamela Gerloff, writing at the Huffington Post, makes a good run at it: I simply can't find it in myself to celebrate the death of a human being. I don't care who it was. I can feel relief at a death (sometimes even, for example with my mother, who suffered for years before she died, a grateful relief), I can be glad they are off the scene, I can even in some cases feel - as Canadian PM Stephen Harper said he felt in this case - "sober satisfation." But outright pleasure? No. Not me.

But that is precisely what a lot of the celebrants showed: outright pleasure. Not relief, not a sense of greater safety or security, not a sense that things might be better for us and the rest of the world, nothing about the future. No, just pleasure. Out in the streets chanting "USA! USA!" and singing "nah-nah-nah-nah, hey hey hey, goodbye," used by winners to mock losers.

Which is what it came down to. I have seen films of, I head read accounts of, my folks told me some stories of, the spontaneous celebrations that broke out on V-E Day and V-J Day. And yes, while there were people out in the streets waving flags, the entire atmosphere was one of joyous relief: I'm going home! Or My husband/father/son/brother is coming home! It's over!

But not here, not this time. There was no sense of relief, no sense of "things will be better now." No, the whole, the overall, sense was one of "America kicks ass, man!" It was "We got 'em, man!" It was "Hey, loser! You suck!" What we saw on those streets was not patriotism, it was jingoism.

No, not everyone was guilty of that; of course not and don't be silly. But enough. Enough, in fact, that the truth is that it expressed a constant underlying current in American thinking, one that puts me in greater fear of our future as an at least reasonably free society than Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda or any of the other lesser-known outfits ever did or could. Al-Qaeda can kill us, it can even kill a lot of us, but it - but terrorism - is utterly incapable of killing who we are as a people, utterly unable to kill whatever ideals to which we still cling. We can only do that to ourselves. And I fear that there are far too many among us who are more than willing to do precisely that.

Two other things for now:

One is the question of what difference bin Laden's death will make in terrorism in the world. (Note well that here I am using "terrorism" in the media-approved sense of "non-state" terrorism, under which governments, which have terrorized more people than the "terrorists" by orders of magnitude, need not apply.) The answer is: Probably none at all, either one way or the other. It will make no more difference than the capture of Saddam Hussein made a difference in post-war Iraq.

One reason is that years ago, al-Qaeda was already being described more as a "brand" than an organization, more an ideology than a particular group. If you wanted to feel yourself part of this "great campaign," you called yourself al-Qaeda. It has been years since there was some central coordination in what were described as (or even self-claimed to be) "al-Qaeda" attacks. What's more, bin Laden himself had for some time been pretty much out of the operational loop. He was more a figurehead than a controlling influence, marking the effect of his death as psychological rather than practical. Which means that you've gone from a living symbol to a dead martyr. I doubt it will make a difference.

The other thing is that I knew as soon as I read that the original tip that lead, years later, to locating bin Laden came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed while he was in a secret CIA prison in Eastern Europe, I knew that the after-the-fact justifications for torture would be close behind. And indeed they were:

The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.

"We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.

See? See? Torture good! Secret prisons good! All because one tiny, at first glance irrelevant, bit of information (the nickname of a courier) was combined with years of patient intelligence and investigative work to produce a flashy result that ultimately will very very likely not make a damned bit of difference - and even though that information was not gained through torture but through "standard interrogation."

But who cares? America kicks ass, man!

Actually, There Is A Footnote: In the time between when he authorized the strike and when it actually got underway, PHC* visited the tornado-ravaged area of Alabama, spoke at a college commencement, distributed his one-liners and the correspondent's dinner, and played a half-round of golf. Say what you want about him (and I have and will), you gotta admit, he's got a good poker face.

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey

The news that will blot out everything else for the next several days

Apparently, Osama bin Laden is dead, killed by a US special ops team that raided a mansion where he had holed up some 100 km outside Islamabad.

I'll withhold certainty for a few hours: Remember the several times we "got" Saddam Hussein, at least one of which involved a body, before we finally did. Still, the claim is that DNA tests have already been done and the O. team seems in general more cautious about this kind of announcement than the Shrub gang was, so it's most likely correct.

The expected jubilation and testosterone-driven posturing have already broken out in the streets and the domestic political gains and losses are already being tallied.

I'm sure there will be more to say and more than enough voices to say it, but I wanted to get this out there now:

President Barack Obama warned Americans on Sunday night to remain vigilant even after the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and while there are no known credible threats, the risk of attacks remains.

On an occasion like this, the expansion of executive authority, the extra-legal military interventions in Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya, the torture regime, the secret prisons, the wiretapping, the growth of the Department for the Protection of the Fatherland, the whole widening apparatus of the national security state, freezes - for just one instant, its power, its legitimacy, suspended for less than a breath. Then it relaxes and carries on.

So there is one major difference between the capture of Saddam Hussein and the killing of Osama bin Laden: The national security state hoped Saddam's capture would be the end of that war. That same national security state is hoping that bin Laden's death will not be the end of this one.

A few random thoughts, #4

Updated A headline on an AP article from a couple of days ago, in the wake of the White House's release of Barack Obama's so-called "long form" birth certificate read:

Some blacks see racism in 'birther' questions

Well, duh and dammit, of course it's racism. Of course it is. Of course the whole "birther" crap was code for "He's not one of us - you know, us." Of course it was, as the article says,

a high-level manifestation of the idea that when a black person accomplishes something great there must be something wrong.

Bottom line is that of course it was a way to say "No way a nigger could be president!" without having to actually say it or even admit thinking it.

You don't have to endorse Barack Obama to acknowledge that, you don't even have to like him, either politically or for that matter personally. If any of you have hung around here for any length of time, you doubtless know that I am no fan of his, what with having dubbed him President Hopey-Changey for his position that pretty words should be enough for us and Generalissimo Hope-Changey for his spitting on the Constitution and all.

Yet throughout this business my reaction to demands he "show us the birth certificate" has been, in essence, "Why the hell should he?" Similar issues about "natural born citizen" have come up before but never went anywhere, indeed they sank so quickly that most people won't even remember the question was ever asked: For example, John McCain was born in the Canal Zone and Barry Goldwater, GOPper candidate for president in 1964, was born in Phoenix in 1909 - three years before Arizona became a state. In both those cases, questions were briefly raised about their constitutional eligibility for the presidency but quickly disappeared at least in part because the media wouldn't take them seriously.

So what is the difference this time? Why were supposedly "responsible" outlets like CNN seen asking the White House press secretary why Obama didn't release his "long form" birth certificate?

The difference this time, as should be painfully obvious, is as plain as night and day - or, to be more exact, black and white.

So the real question here is neither one of support for Barack Obama nor one of if there was racism involved in birtherism, but why does recognizing that latter fact seem to be so damned hard to do? Why is acknowledging even thinly-veiled racism seem so hard? Why does it seem so many of our "leaders" in both government and media are afraid to say do that?

Instead, in the face of any attempt to call out the birthers, the far too-common response has been more along the lines of "How DARE you say that!" How dare you, that is, point out the lies in the lies. How dare you point out paranoia in the paranoia. How dare you point out the racism in the racism.

Why? For some, the reason is that they share the racism. For some others it's that they hope to politically or financially profit from the racism. For still others it's simple cowardice, a fear of a cost associated with rejecting the racism.

But for yet others, and perhaps the greatest number, it's a matter of just not wanting to deal with it. Of just wanting to ignore it. Of living in denial.

But racism is a disease, a social disease. You can't wish it away; you can't ignore it away; you can't deny it away. And it won't go away by being polite to it.

Yes, the birther movement was driven by and drew its energy from racism, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged. Period. And the new calls about college records and other crap are also driven by and draw their energy from racism. Period, That the racism has to try to be clandestine, to hide behind code words and appeals to unspoken base fears, is a measure of how far we've come as a culture. That birtherism exists is a measure of how far we still have to go.

Footnote: Tom Tancredo has claimed on his radio show that the White House deliberately held back release of PHC's so-called "long-form" birth certificate in order to make GOPper leaders look ridiculous.

If that's true, it worked like a charm, didn't it, Tommy?

Updated with Another Footnote: Writing in the Boston Globe back on April 14, Joan Vennochi noted that Mitt Romney has not released his birth certificate, as a result of which we don't actually know what his real first name is! OMG! Could we accept a president with a fake name? Show us your papers!

Yes, it's silly; yes, it won't go anywhere; yes, that is the point.

Thanks to Mad Kane for the tip.

And One More Footnote: On a more serious note, watch this. Seriously. I mean it. Do. I'm a white guy in his 60s which is relevant in that it means the whole birther crap didn't move me in the same very personal, very visceral way that it did those who have felt directly the repeated slaps, the daily jabs to the soul, that living in a society still marked by racism will bring.

A few random thoughts, #3

Andrew Leonard wonders, How hard can it be to tax the rich? In Salon last week he pointed to several strands of evidence - perhaps most tellingly that Paul Ryan's own constituents booed him when he said we do tax the rich - that together clearly indicate a willingness on the part of Americans to see the rich pay more.

But as far as I'm concerned, "tax the rich" is lame. Tax the rich? Screw that. Soak the rich!

Hell, screw soak the rich, impoverish the rich. Let them live like the rest of us - and I mean actually like the rest of us, living one missed paycheck from financial disaster (and maybe 32% interest rates) and for who cutting back means skipping going to the movies, not skipping flying to the Cannes Film Festival this year.

The simple fact, the simple moral truth, is that as long as there are those who don't have enough, there are others who have too much. That doesn't mean everyone has to have the same - but it does mean by all that is just that everyone must have enough.

A few random thoughts, #2

Updated So PHC* has "reshuffled" his national security team: Defense Secretary Robert Gates is retiring this summer. He's to be replaced by Leon Panetta, now head of the CIA. Panetta is to be replaced by Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of US forces in Afghanistan. Petraeus will be replaced by his deputy Lt. Gen. John Allen, formerly a commander in Iraq. And there's a new ambassador to Afghanistan: Ryan Crocker, whose last post was as ambassador to Iraq.

In short, this is no change at all. In terms of policy or impact, it's utterly meaningless. The same faces with the same attitudes, just in different chairs. It's just musical chairs where you don't take one away. Why this is supposed to make any difference is a mystery to me - because the fact is, shuffling the deck doesn't mean much if the deck is still stacked at the end. Nor does it mean anything if you're still playing with marked cards.

Footnote: I wonder if any of the inevitable encomiums that will greet Gates' retirement will mention that he was deputy director of the CIA during the Iran-contra scandal, during which the CIA actively and illegally aided the Nicaraguan contras while at the same time lying to Congress about arms dealings with Iran.

Updated with Another Footnote: Via Glenn Greenwald, I learn this: In 2006, Shrub nominated Gen. Michael Hayden to be the new director of the CIA.

Democratic Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein [said]: "You can't have the military control most of the major aspects of intelligence. The CIA is a civilian agency and is meant to be a civilian agency."

Nancy Pelosi added that "I don't see how you have a four-star general heading up the CIA." Then-Sen. Joe Biden said he was worried that a CIA lead by a general would "just be gobbled up by the Defense Department."

Think there's any chance of them raising such objections now?

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey

A few random thoughts, #1

Bank of America - Why the hell are they still in business instead of being crippled by a massive consumer boycott driven by sheer disgust? - has announced that it's "penalty rate" on its credit cards, that being the rate they can hit you with if you are late shelling out the bucks, may be as high as 29.99%. And they're not even the highest: HSBC's penalty rate could reach 31.99%.

My gosh, doesn't the word usury have a meaning any more? Seriously, has it been excised from the dictionary? I mean, it's still there in mine but is it out of date? Is there no rate that is considered too high? No rate so high that it shocks the conscience?

Now, they say the rate would only be applied to future purchases, not old ones - but while I can't state this as fact not having seen the actual "agreement" (That's another great term, like this is supposed to be something the terms of which you actually sat down and negotiated with the bank.) but what do you want to bet that it says that future payments will be applied to old balances first, so that any new purchases will sit there gathering that 30% interest - 30% interest - the whole time?

Oh, but don't ever forget the most important thing: If you get hit with a 32% interest rate, it's all your fault.

To avoid those penalty interest rates, credit card users simply need to make payments on time, advises [Greg] McBride[, a senior financial analyst with Bankrate.com].

Says McBride: "People complain about the penalty interest like they complain about speeding tickets. If you don't want the ticket, then don't speed."

And Howard Dworkin, founder of Consolidated Credit Counseling Service, offers this sage advice:

"The best option is to use cash. If you don't have the money, don't buy. This way, you don't have to worry about what credit card companies do, and you'll never accrue credit card debt."

Yep, it's your fault. Because if you can't pay cash, you don't buy it. (I wonder if Mr. Dworkin owns a house or a car. Or ever uses a credit card, for that matter.) Because it's all your fault, you spendthrift slacker. After all, we all know that people don't fall behind on their bills because they get sick or lose their jobs, oh no - it's because they just have no self-control. That's what we are to believe.

One other thing: Precisely because most people who fall behind on their bills do indeed do so because of real-life problems, it means that these unconscionable rates are most likely to be imposed on the people least able to pay them, trapping them in a cycle of economic serfdom.

Even so, don't you peons dare try to blame corporate greed. Your masters have told you otherwise and you must remember that just like every other assault coming from The Free Market (pbui), it's all your fault.

RIP

This happened a couple of days ago, but I just learned about it tonight.

Elisabeth Sladen has died of cancer at the age of 63.

For those of you - and I expect there are a good number - who don't know who she was, Lis Sladen was best known for her portrayal of Sarah Jane Smith, one of the longest-running and most popular "companions" to The Doctor on the long-running BBC scifi-fantasy series, Doctor Who.

And if you can't figure out why I'd mention this, I suggest you re-check my email address.

Footnote to the preceding, This is More Important Div.

So what could be more important related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster than BP's overall scumminess? How about this:

One of the big questions investigators wanted answered is why the blowout preventer (or BOP) failed. The blowout preventer is the device, big as a double-decker bus, that sits on top of the wellhead that is supposed to seal off the well in the event of a blowout. It contains a series of rams that are supposed to be triggered in such an event that slam together with sufficient force to stop the flow of oil. Sounds good. Even looks good on paper. In fact, as CBS News put it a month after the disaster,

[t]o hear some industry officials talk, these devices are virtually foolproof.

Apparently, "industry officials" are - gasp - bullshitting us again.

First, know that BP's claim that the BOP was "tested to industry standards" is a lie:

[W]histleblower Mike Mason disclosed BP had been aware that BOP testing results were being falsified for years in Alaska. Mason disclosed that the standard five minute test to determine if the device could withstand high levels of pressure was only applied when state and federal regulators were present (50% of the time). The other half of the time, BP would reduce the testing time to 30 seconds and falsify the records to indicate that it underwent the full testing.

But here's the real point:

Why the blowout preventer didn’t work has been the subject of intense speculation and several congressional and private investigations. The primary cause for that failure, according to the Norwegian consulting firm Det Norske Veritas, was the blowout preventer's "blind-shear ram" – a massive set of steel jaws intended to completely cut through the drill pipe, crimping it in the process and sealing the well.

The reason the shear ram's jaws failed was because they encountered a situation for which they were not designed – a "buckled" section of drill pipe, bowed sideways by the enormous pressure of oil thrusting upward from miles beneath the earth, the investigators said in their final report to the Interior Department and the US Coast Guard,

released late last month.

In case that's not clear, let me make it plain: Blowout preventers do not work!

They are unreliable under exactly the sort of conditions under which they would be necessary. In Fact, according to former oil industry executive Bob Kavnar, in 2009 Det Norske Veritas said underwater BOPs failed 45% of the time. Put another way, blowout preventers are virtually guaranteed to stop a blowout - so long as there is no blowout to stop. If there is, the device can be knocked off kilter and instead of being "virtually foolproof," it becomes virtually useless.

Even beyond that, the device failed to work in more ways, not just in ram failure:

The blowout preventer below the doomed Deepwater Horizon oil rig had trouble triggering emergency disconnect functions when the rig lost control of the well....

Control pods with electronic and hydraulic cables use batteries to disconnect from a rig in emergency situations whenever power and communications to a rig are lost. That happened last April 20 on Deepwater Horizon, but the rig never disconnected from the well.

This despite the fact that the company that made the BOP, Cameron International, bragged that their model had more safety redundancies than other models.

And to, to use an old phrase, cap the climax, here's the kicker: The feds knew the things didn't work. They knew all along.

- Accident reports from the U.S. Minerals Management Service, a branch of the Interior Department, show that the devices have failed or otherwise played a role in at least 14 accidents, mostly since 2005.

- Government and industry reports have raised questions about the reliability of blowout preventers for more than a decade. A 2003 report by Transocean, the owner of the destroyed rig, said: "Floating drilling rig downtime due to poor BOP reliability is a common and very costly issue confronting all offshore drilling contractors."

It's worth going over those points again: Both government and industry have been questioning the reliability of blowout preventers for over ten years. And in that time, the devices have failed repeatedly. But still, even knowing that, even knowing about the failures and the questions, the feds granted permits for deep water wells, permits granted on the basis of "safety procedures" that the feds knew were inadequate, relying on a technology they knew was prone to failure. And even worse, they are still doing it: They continued to issue drilling permits based on the use of blowout protectors and safety procedures that pre-date the disaster.

They knew and they know - but apparently, they just didn't and still don't care: Kavnar says that the "tightened safety rules" so proudly promoted by the White House do not address the fact that the technology itself is fundamentally flawed. They don't care any more than they cared in 1998 when they decided that the devices needed to be tested only half as often as previously, a relaxed requirement that continued right through those accidents "mostly since 2005" and even through the industry's admission that "poor BOP reliability is a common and very costly issue."

So here's the question: Who or what do you think the government was protecting? The environment? The Gulf? The people and culture of the Gulf Coast? Or the oil industry?

As another old saying has it, some questions need only be asked.

Footnote: Just in case you want to think that deep-water drilling disasters are the only issue at hand here's news that

[a] government list obtained by The Associated Press shows that in addition to 27,000 oil and gas wells that were sealed with cement and abandoned without any regular monitoring, another 3,200 old wells have quietly been left unused without any cement plugging to help prevent leaks.

Without those plugs, there is little to prevent powerful leaks from pushing to the surface, so these wells could be an even greater environmental threat than wells that have been sealed and classified as either temporarily or permanently abandoned. ...

[This] means up to three-fifths of the 50,000 wells ever drilled in the Gulf have been left behind with no routine monitoring for leaks.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement resisted releasing the list for months on the grounds that it wanted first to "verify" it with the industry, even though the FOIA says requested records should be released as is except for redactions allowed or required by law, a description which surely does not cover "we want to check with Exxon-Mobil and the rest first." The agency finally released what it later claimed was an "unverified" list; the "verified" list is still unavailable.

BP = Big Putz

As I'm sure you know, Wednesday, April 20, was the first anniversary of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. A year later, it appears that all we have gained are tarballs and lies.

There is a lot of happy talk about how the Gulf Coast is "recovering" or even, in some extreme formulations, "has recovered." It "wasn't the catastrophe some predicted," we're told, as if the idea that it wasn't as bad as it might have been makes everything okay.

But even if it ultimately develops that it wasn't as bad as it might have been, it was more than bad enough: Eleven workers were killed in what Lawrence O'Donnell accurately labeled "corporate homicide." Seventeen more were injured. The well gushed oil for nearly three months, spewing out nearly 5 million barrels - over 200 million gallons - of crude oil in the largest marine oil spill in history. And the glib dismissals of environmental damage we hear now draw on a well of ignorance, wishful thinking, and deceit, with only the proportions varying speaker to speaker.

[T]he Gulf of Mexico and its coastal wetlands are vastly complicated ecosystems. Scientists had incomplete information on them before the BP oil spill ... and it will be years before they can start to draw conclusions about the impact of the millions of barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf.

Indeed, it has been known by researchers for months that the real damage, damage much more significant than that visible so far, will only become apparent over time as the oil and other pollutants from the leak work their way through the biosphere. Simply put, anyone who claims that the damage was limited or gone or is over or whatever is either lying or they don't know what the hell they are talking about.

And there is good reason to think that even the more obvious aspects of the story are far from over. For one thing, BP - apparently with the collusion or at least quiet approval of local and federal officials - is still restricting access to public beaches in the area a year later. Mac McClelland of Mother Jones magazine reported this the end of March:

Like some lame iteration of Groundhog Day, the hundredth time I try to pull onto the Elmer's Island access road from Highway 1 in southern Louisiana—some 200 days after the last time I tried it—I am, once again, stopped. Last year, it was cops blocking the road. Now it's private security hired by BP.

"You have to get permission from central command to come on here, and then you'll probably have to be escorted by an official," the security guard tells me.

"How hard is it to get permission?"

"Usually pretty hard." She says a local reporter couldn't get through recently.

The company's excuse for this is a steaming pile of transparently bogus claims about "safety" because "there are workers present" even when there aren't and without explaining how the threat to safety arises or if it's the workers or the reporters who are at risk. In other words, they are making the claims without even bothering to pretend that they are not lying through their fucking teeth, without even bothering to pretend that what they are really trying to do is block public knowledge of "the occasional tarballs, big as a kid's head, that [still] wash onto the shore."

Meanwhile, the money that BP promised to do research in the Gulf to check for and monitor environmental damage has still not materialized nearly a year later, with the result that important research aims - such as establishing baseline data - have already been lost.

Oh, and remember that $20 billion claims fund BP set up supposedly under pressure from the White House? Last December, Kenneth Feinberg, who is administering the fund on behalf of BP, expressed his hope that "half the money would be more than enough to pay all the claims.” Feinberg, who last month was ordered by US District Court Judge Carl Barbier to stop calling himself “neutral” or “completely independent” of BP in light of the fact that his law firm is being paid $850,000 a month to oversee the fund, has certainly been doing the job his paymasters would desire: So far, the fund has paid out $3.8 billion - less than 20% of the total available - amid charges of slow responses, repeated instances of "lost" paperwork, backlogs, underestimation of costs, and small payouts, charges serious enough that lawsuits have been filed in Florida and Louisiana alleging fraud and negligence in the handling of claims.

Feinberg says that the processing delays are all the claimants' fault, insisting that most of the 130,000 outstanding claims don't have the necessary documentation, insisting it even in the face of repeated cases of people describing submitting the same documents multiple times only to be repeatedly told by fund officials that their materials could not be found. In a statement that caused multiple Gulf Coast jaws to hit the floor, he defended his small payouts - they averaged about $20,000-25,000 - by saying they were based on the assumption that the Gulf Coast would be fully recovered by the end of next year. Which, even if it were by some miracle to prove true, would be irrelevant to the families and businesses damaged by the criminal negligence shown in the spill by BP and its partners, families and businesses that may well not make it until that time.

There may be a method to this madness, however: A little-noticed provision in the agreement to establish the fund said that any funds not distributed by the end of 2012 revert to BP. Stalls, sluggishness, and small payouts all work to BP's advantage.

Even at that, BP wants more. It actually says, if you can believe it, that Feinberg has been overly generous and on Wednesday,

[t]he oil giant filed lawsuits in New Orleans against Halliburton, which provided the cement for the well; Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig; and Cameron International, the company that made the blowout preventer.

Add in the fact that despite all the supposed deals and "accepting responsibility" bullcrap, US taxpayers will likely be on the hook for something like $10 billion in cleanup costs, it comes out that ultimately, if BP has its way, it may be the only agent involved in this environmental disaster that does not bear a cost for what was done to the Gulf of Mexico and to the people and the environment of the Gulf Coast.

The award for Least Self-Aware Statement of the Month goes to...

...Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who, reacting to Lady GaGa's new song and video "Judas" which he had neither heard nor seen, said

"She has now morphed into a caricature of herself."

Accepting the award on behalf of Mr. Donohue is Rep. John Boner, whose recent claim to be exercising "leadership" in the House was a top contender for the coveted Spit-Take Award.

I play one on TV

Updated Little light on the posting the past few days - overall, I've been doing better on my pledge to average a post a day - but there is a reason.

I've taken on a bit of a challenge: I've begun doing a weekly half-hour show of political commentary on my local cable TV outlet. Just me and a camera (or two) as I rant on about whatever it is that has me outraged or excited or annoyed or whatever that week. I flippantly described it as "a lefty Glenn Beck minus the chalkboard and the paranoia." We did the run-through on Friday; the first taping is on Tuesday.

The show is called "The Left Side of the Aisle" because we really couldn't use my preferred title, which was "Not the Glenn Beck Show." Another possible title was "And another thing...," which I had previously used in the print version of Lotus, but I decided to reserve that for occasions when I want to end the show with something that seems more silly or inane than serious (this post from the other day being a good example) or for some geeky thing and yes I do intend to include some science bits.

Although I hope to develop the show more in the weeks to come with some better production - some graphics and other eye candy, even some cutaways, etc. - right now it is, again, pretty much me in front of a backdrop doing what I do best: shooting off my mouth. The folks at the station were pretty excited about it; the guy who heads up the station told me he thought it would "get people talking," which is of course part of the idea. (He also thought it might spark someone else to want to do a show on the other side - which is of course part of the idea of public access TV, so that's cool too.)

This is going to be a real task that is going to take a good deal of work on my part. (Q: How much territory you can cover if you are talking pretty much continuously for 30 minutes? A: An effing lot.) So while I still intend the keep to that once-a-day (or more) average, those long analytical pieces for which I am justly renowned worldwide will be rather fewer until I can get this doing-a-show stuff settled into a pattern.

Wish me luck. I expect I'll need it.

Updated with the news for those who have wondered about being able to see the show that I found out today that the station is setting up streaming video of its cablecast on its website. It should be available "soon" - but of course we all know what "soon" can mean in practice. Anyway, when that is done I will post the info for the website and the cablecast schedule.

Footnote to the preceding

In an article on the House passing the GOPper budget, AP had this to say:

The vote sets up the Republicans' next round of confrontation with Obama and Democrats over must-pass legislation to allow the government to borrow more money to finance its operations and obligations to holders of U.S. bonds. For the first time, Obama acknowledged that raising the debt limit is "not going to happen without some spending cuts" insisted upon by Republicans and some Democrats.

Some people call what PHC* is doing "negotiating" or even, in the course of the boot-licking and butt-kissing that followed his Wednesday speech, "defending liberal values."

I call it "surrender on the installment plan."

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey

A tale of two articles

Last week, NBC anchor David Gregory, commenting on what he saw as PHC*'s 2012 campaign strategy, said this:

[H]e sounded very much like a Republican talking about the need to cut spending. ... He wants the American people to know ...that he is in line with what a lot of Americans want, which is less government, trimming down the size and the scope of government.

Now, in fact, according to repeated opinion polls (scroll down at the link) and even what we kept getting told was the "message" of the 2010 elections, what people are most concerned about is the economy and jobs, not "less government." Even so, Gregory expresses the views of the media elite, the pundits who are convinced that what they are most concerned about (since they do not depend on government services the way scores of millions of us do) is what everyone else is most concerned about.

So I found it bitterly amusing that these two news items appeared on the same day, Friday: One reflected the inside-the-Beltway wisdom that the real battle is over who can make their cuts in federal programs seem more in line with "what Americans want," which is, they say, "less government."

A bold but politically risky plan to cut trillions of dollars from the federal budget is coming to a House vote, with insurgent Republicans rallying behind the idea of fundamentally reshaping the government's role in health care for the elderly and the poor.

The other told a little tale of what "less government" would mean in the real world.

Half the meat and poultry sold in the supermarket may be tainted with the staph germ, a new report suggests.

The new estimate is based on just 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey purchased from grocery stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Flagstaff, Ariz. and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. ...

The new study found more than half the samples contained Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that can make people sick. Worse, half of those contaminated samples had a form of staph that's resistant to at least three kinds of antibiotics.

This is not, I suppose, an ideal example as proper cooking pretty much takes care of the bacteria present, but it still should serve as a reminder - particularly since the FDA came into existence amid public outrage about adulterated and mislabeled foods and drugs - a reminder that "less government" includes by definition even less regulation, even less oversight, of corporate America than exists now; it means even less environmental, health, and worker safety protection; it means looser standards with fewer inspectors to enforce them. Maybe before we buy into the "trimming down the size and the scope of government" meme we should all re-read The Jungle.

Long Footnote: Admittedly, when asked directly if the federal government has "too much power," without any connection to how worried they are about that, an overall majority of those in a March Gallup poll said yes despite a rather sharp divide among Dems, GOPpers, and independents - and despite, I'd add, the overly-general nature of the question, which limits its usefulness: For example, I'd say the feds have too much power to invade privacy, too much power to wage war without public input and even over public opposition, too much power to hide secrets and conceal crimes behind "national security" excuses, too much power to restrict civil liberties; overall, the "security state" has too much power. But I'd also say the feds don't have enough power over, enough control over, for example, the corporate state.

Still, the point here is that even if people think as a general principle the federal government has "too much power," it's not something that they are overly concerned with; it's not something that registers high (or even low) on the list of immediate concerns. The "size of government" exists for most people as a philosophical question, not a political one.

On the other hand, it is worth noting that in that same Gallup poll, there were three groups that even larger majorities said had "too much power" and in those three cases, majorities of Dems, GOPpers, and indies all agreed. Those groups are big business, the banks, and lobbyists - the very people who would become even more powerful under "less government." When was the last time you heard some media pundit explaining how "Americans want" limits on the power of corporations and banks?

Thanks to Jobsanger for the link to the poll.

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey

Be afraid, Chapter Way Too Many Now

The spreading use of arbitrary, useless security theater, practices that serve less to "protect" than to advance the ability of the state to invade the privacy of citizens at its whim, has again come to self-parody.

A Kentucky couple said Wednesday that they want the Transportation Security Administration to change how it screens children after their 6-year-old daughter was frisked at the New Orleans airport.

Yup: They patted down a 6-year old, including the fingers-in-the-waistband treatment, leaving the girl crying in its wake. If that doesn't seem idiotic to you at first glance, add the fact that

Martin Macpherson, the director of the London-based Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, said he is not aware of instances when terrorists have used children as young as 6 in an attack.

Which means the pat-down was pointless and stupid by any standard.

Here's what got me, though: The TSA says the officer followed proper procedure. However, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, says the search was "in clear violation of TSA's explicit policy not to conduct thorough pat-downs on children under the age of 13."

Hey, TSA: How can someone acting "in clear violation of ... explicit policy" be following "proper procedure?"

Footnote: The TSA claims it's "reviewing" its procedures - which is always the line we get in response to the latest nonsense to keep us compliant until the next nonsense.

There are pinkos everywhere

Updated In perhaps the silliest fake controversy since Tinky Winky and as further proof that old right-wing inanities never die, they just find a new target, comes the news that

A J.Crew ad that shows a top designer painting her young son’s toenails neon pink has some parents and doctors seeing red. ...

“This is a dramatic example of the way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity,” psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow wrote in a FoxNews.com Health column about the ad.

Media Research Center’s Erin Brown agreed, calling the ad “blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children.”

“Not only is Beckett likely to change his favorite color as early as tomorrow, Jenna's indulgence (or encouragement) could make life hard for the boy in the future,” Brown wrote in an opinion piece Friday. "J.Crew, known for its tasteful and modest clothing, apparently does not mind exploiting Beckett behind the facade of liberal, transgendered identity politics.”

So mother shares some silly fun with her young son and - what? It's the end of civilization? I think painted toenails are even dumber than painted fingernails, which I think are dumb on anyone of either gender at any age, but it takes the sweaty imagination of the true right-winger to turn pink toenails into some kind of liberal plot to destory all they hold dear.

This was too much even for Fox News Twitter users, a majority of who agreed that the critics are overreacting. The temptation now is to say or course they were overreacting; overreacting is what they do.

Updated with the best comment on the whole affair, from one Michael Reynolds and found at Outside the Beltway:

Thank God when my mother applied my fingernail polish it was tweed color. Pretty sure that’s why I’m straight.

Yeah, that must be it.

Are you seriously going to tell me you didn't see this coming?

If you didn't, then you haven't been paying attention for the past few decades.

The U.S. may consider sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force that could aid the rebels, the former U.S. commander of the military mission said Thursday, describing the ongoing operation as a stalemate that is more likely to go on now that America has handed control to NATO.

But Army Gen. Carter Ham also told lawmakers that American participation in a ground force would not be ideal, since it could erode the international coalition attacking Moammar Gadhafi's forces and make it more difficult to get Arab support for operations in Libya.

So what was explicitly ruled out before is now merely "not ideal." And if the "stalemate" continues, how long will it be before "not ideal" becomes "under consideration?" How long after that before there are orchestrated leaks by anonymous "official sources" of "on-going planning" for sending in the Marines "just in case" it proves "unavoidable" even as "the debate continues within the White House?" And then how long before there are "last chances to avoid direct military action?"

On April 30, 1970, Richard Nixon announced a US "incursion" (his word) into Cambodia, a significant expansion of the already-unpopular Vietnam War (and part of what turned it into the Indochina War). His administration was stunned by the reaction: Mass protest almost literally exploded on campuses across the country, leading as many as 500 colleges to close down at least temporarily due to student strikes. More than 1,000 demonstrations took place. About a quarter-million people (100,000 in DC and 150,000 in San Francisco) turned out on just a week's notice to protest the invasion. Within days, Nixon had to declare a quick end to the "incursion."

Ever since then, the operatives of the national security state have worked on ways to enable them to act without causing the shock that produces massive protest. The result has been that as a general rule, the bigger the commitment or the more opposition that is expected, the more gradual the roll-out so by the time it actually happens, the public has come to expect it and be resigned to it. Sort of like the classic "frog in a pot of boiling water" story.*

Part of the inuring process here has been the talk of "humanitarian" actions, the only goal being, we were told, to "protect civilians." But what such "protection" entails has already advanced from a "no-fly zone" to what I said over a week ago

bears less the marks of humanitarian protection of non-combatants and more the marks of choosing sides in a civil war.

Those marks have only become deeper in the time since: In his testimony on Thursday, General Ham openly referred to A-10 fighters being used for close air support for ground forces and on Sunday the rebels said NATO airstrikes helped them drive Qaddafi's forces out of Ajdabiya.

The war in Libya, for us, is not about protecting civilians. It's about overthrowing Qaddafi. The insurrection merely provides a convenient cover.

The reason for the step-by-step buildup to the ground troops which the general run of opinion says will be needed to do that is easy to come by: People don't want another war.

An AP-GFK poll found that 48 percent approved or leaned toward approving US involvement [in a Libyan air campaign] while 50 disapproved or leaned toward disapproving. Similarly, a Quinnipiac poll found 47 percent opposed, with only 41 percent in support. [Both polls were from the end of March.] ...

The same AP poll found the American people have little stomach for mission creep in Libya, with 78 percent opposed to sending in American ground troops.

So if you're going to escalate, you have to turn what could be an angry 78% into a passive 78% by getting them so used to the idea that when it finally happens, the reaction will be "Oh, really? Well, we've been expecting it."

The use of "protecting civilians" as a meme is, admittedly, an effective one because it allows supporters of the war to present themselves not only as pragmatists and "clear-eyed" people who "understand the real world" but as morally superior to war opponents who would "stand by while people get slaughtered."

For example, over at Daisy's place, when the war first started she expressed some skepticism over it. Someone responded that they couldn't "really agree or disagree" and "I don't have a horse in the race." However, he wanted to point out that not acting could also have consequences.

In response, I made what I thought was a very gentle observation.

While it's easy to understand [his] underlying frustration (both doing something and doing nothing have consequences) and thus the desire to "care less," the fact is when faced with that choice you don't get to opt out. You have to accept that, as he says, either way has consequences and then make the choice you think is best.

Disapproving of death by creating more of it rarely if ever seems a good course to me. The fact that "their" side always "kills civilians" while "our" side "inflicts collateral damage" with the accompanying impression that those killed on "our" side are somehow deader than those killed on "their" side only, at least to me, emphasizes that rarity.

There is already too much death in the world. I don't want to see us add to it.

Upon which, that very commenter, who previously said he "could care less" about the issue, not only endorsed the "mission" but hauled out the hackneyed "armed robber attacking the little old lady in the house next door" argument, where, as I put it in a further comment, "tackling, arresting, or otherwise restraining someone" but without killing them is equated with "cruise missiles, bombs, and strafing runs as if the difference was merely a matter of scale."

Which, I think quite bizarrely, he insisted it is, thus making arresting one individual morally the same as killing hundreds if not many more (Are we supposed to forget that there were people inside those tanks? Apparently that depends on who was in them.) and making objection to the war identical with reciting "a dissertation on Ghandi [sic]" while a "violent predator ... dismembers granny."

Thus does killing become the same as not killing, a billy club come to have the same effect as a bomb, and ground troops "that could aid the rebels" come to be the same as impartially and humanely "protecting civilians."

Seriously: You really didn't see this coming?

Footnote: As I write this comes news that the African Union has supposedly worked out with Qaddafi an agreement "in principle" for a ceasefire, delivery of humanitarian assistance, and the opening of talks toward "political reforms necessary for the elimination of the causes of the current crisis."

I don't know how seriously to regard this; Qaddafi has previously declared and immediately violated ceasefires. Since latest reports indicate his forces have (again) been pushed out of Ajdabiya - thanks for NATO "just protecting civilians" airstrikes - he could use the momentary lack of street fighting as an opportunity show his sincerity by ordering a unilateral stand-still ceasefire, where his forces hold their positions but don't try to advance. I certainly hope for that but my advice is, don't hold your breath.

In any event, there is little hope for such a settlement since the rebels, whose bottom line demand is Qaddafi's ouster, will likely regard this, quite possibly correctly, as just stalling for time and refuse to accept it. So the war, which has largely become a stalemate with neither side able to advance very far, will go on and references to "boots on the ground" will likely increase.

I wonder how many grannies (and sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters) have been "dismembered" so far?

*Actually, the "frog in the pot of boiling water" thing is a myth: Beyond a certain point, the warmer the water, the more energetically the frog will try to jump out even if the water is heated very slowly. Still, the myth serves as a good illustration of the political process being used.

A few passing thoughts, #6

Updated Speaking of lizard brains and thinking, the right-wing war of the former on the latter continues apace.

In the first three months of 2011, nine creationism-related bills have been introduced in seven states—that's more than in any year in recent memory.

The states are Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, along with Oklahoma and Tennessee with two bills each. Four of the nine, covering three of the states, died in committee but the rest are still moving through the various state legislatures and some are given good chances of passing.

The level of understanding of the science involved can be seen in the words of Texas state Rep. Bill Zedler, who defended his bill to enable the teaching of so-called "intelligent design" (by banning "discrimination" against those who advocate it) by asking when was the last time someone found that a tornado had made a watch.

And there is Florida state Sen. Stephen Wise, who asked "Why do we still have apes if we came from them?"

I've often wondered why the fact of evolution is so hard for right-wingers to accept. It can't really be just the bizarre notion of Biblical inerrancy when the number of such true believers is clearly surpassed by those who deny the scientific facts. It seems to me, ultimately, that a lot of it is just an old-fashioned "ick" factor: They are so tied to the idea of a unique specialness in being human, so emotionally invested in the concept of their own separate, superior station, that they just can't abide the notion that we are in any way connected to other animals, even if any direct link exists in pre-history. It's a matter of "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"

On the other hand, it could be that they just can't help it, the poor dears. A study at University College, London, compared the brains of people who self-identify as liberals and conservatives. The liberal brains tended to be bigger in an area that deals with processing conflicting information while the conservative brains tended to be bigger in an area that processes fear and recognizes threats. So all the rejection of evolution is kind of like a grown-up - well, make that "older" - version of being afraid of the dark.

Footnote: The National Center for Science Education is a good resource.

Updated with the paragraph about different brain structures.