If you haven’t fixed your clocks already, it must have been a rough night.
Consider this an open thread.
And for the gaming dorks- FROST SHOCK.
by John Cole| 92 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
If you haven’t fixed your clocks already, it must have been a rough night.
Consider this an open thread.
And for the gaming dorks- FROST SHOCK.
This post is in: Politics
I really don’t understand what the big deal about all this is:
The Justice Department’s inspector general has prepared a scathing report criticizing how the F.B.I. uses a form of administrative subpoena to obtain thousands of telephone, business and financial records without prior judicial approval.
The report, expected to be issued on Friday, says that the bureau lacks sufficient controls to make sure the subpoenas, which do not require a judge’s prior approval, are properly issued and that it does not follow even some of the rules it does have.
Under the USA Patriot Act, the bureau each year has issued more than 20,000 of the national security letters, as the demands for information are known. The report is said to conclude that the program lacks effective management, monitoring and reporting procedures, officials who have been briefed on its contents said.
Details of the report emerged on Thursday as Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and other officials struggled to tamp down a Congressional uproar over another issue, the ousters of eight United States attorneys.
So a few bad apples screwed up some forms when issuing a subpoena? Big deal. You don’t have anything to worry about unless you are guily, anyway. Hugh Hewitt said so.
In all seriousness, the problem is not that there were abuses and mistakes made under this system- that is to be expected. There will always be mistakes and errors in every human endeavor. The real problem lies in the expansion of the program post 9/11.
Getting worked up about the ‘mistakes’ is misguided. The bigger problem is that this program exists in its current form, period.
by Tim F| 80 Comments
This post is in: War
Did the House just vote on the bill that will drive drive Joe Lieberman permanently insane? Opinions vary.
The point will become moot if Harry Reid does him in first:
The Reid Joint Resolution builds on the longstanding Democratic position on Iraq and the Levin-Reed Amendment: the current conflict in Iraq requires a political solution, Iraq must take responsibility for its own future, and our troops should not be policing a civil war. It contains binding language to direct the President to transition the mission for U.S. forces in Iraq and begin their phased redeployment within one-hundred twenty days with a goal of redeploying all combat forces by March 31, 2008. A limited number of troops would remain for the purposes of force protection, training and equipping Iraqi troops, and targeted counter-terror options. A full description of the Reid Joint Resolution is attached to this release.
Reid is probably feeling feistier than Pelosi because this bill by itself will never break a filibuster. Then again, if Reid tacks it onto the appropriations bill like Pelosi did then it might not have to.
Stay tuned.
by Tim F| 83 Comments
This post is in: War
House Dems finally get their out-of-Iraq plan off the ground.
In a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats unveiled legislation Thursday requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the fall of next year.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the deadline would be added to legislation providing nearly $100 billion the Bush administration has requested for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[…] As described by Democrats, the legislation will require Bush to certify by July 1 and again by Oct. 1. whether the Iraqi government is making progress toward providing for the country’s security, allocating its oil revenues and creating a fair system for amending its constitution.They said if Bush certified the Iraqis were meeting these so-called benchmarks, U.S. combat troops would have to begin withdrawing by March 1, 2008, and complete the redeployment by Sept. 1.
Otherwise, the deadlines would move up.
If Bush cannot make the required certification by July 1, troops must begin a six-month withdrawal immediately. If Bush cannot make the second certification, the same six-month timetable would apply.
In essence Bush gets his war money on the condition that we get out of Iraq by late 2008 at the latest. With the idea of pulling out of Iraq Beatles-popular with Americans the Dems are hardly going out on a limb with this. If anything the plurality to slight majority who favors immediate withdrawal will be disappointed.
If Bush vetoes the bill he won’t get any war money. The Senate GOP can always filibuster to similar effect. With public opinion violently set against the Republican position I doubt that those up for reelection in ’08 have much wind for a fight over this.
At least one Republican has plenty of wind:
Within an hour of Pelosi’s news conference, House Republican Leader John Boehner attacked the measure. He said Democrats were proposing legislation that amounted to ”establishing and telegraphing to our enemy a timetable” that would result in failure of the U.S. military mission in Iraq.
This comes close to the stupidest criticism I have ever heard. Unless America plans to stay in Iraq forever (we don’t. right, Rep. Boehner?) we will eventually “telegraph to the enemy” that we are leaving. If we follow the appropriate withdrawal procedure the Army will start packing its bags six months or more before the actual departure date, which the non-retards among our “enemies” will recognize immediately. You can’t slip 200,000 Americans and equipment out of a foreign country unnoticed.
Then there is the small matter of those who could use some advance warning. Supposedly Iraq has a sovereign government whose security will be (slightly) impacted by losing the bulk of our Army. Leaving without giving Maliki or his successor enough time to plan for the adjustment borders on criminal. Telling the Iraqi government, of course, more or less implies telling America’s enemies since the distinction often amounts to the difference between a hobby and a day job.
Boehner also declares that strategy should be set by Gen. David Petraeus and not “politicians” like Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha. Really? Think about what happened when Gen. Casey, David Petraeus’s predecessor, resisted the idea of expanding our presence in Iraq. The president fired him and swapped in a general who would do it. Despite the C-in-C title that Bush & co. repeat like a mantra, George Bush is a civilian. Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha are civilians. If he hadn’t blown his Congressional majority on corruption and demagoguery (and had even a vestigial interest in overriding his President) Boehner would also be a civilian with legitimate influence on military policy. Maybe Boehner wants to live in a country where military generals dictate strategy to the civilians; I don’t.
Any way you cut it John Boehner would serve himself better by sitting this one out.
***Update***
On reflection, this ought to be called the Pulling the GOP’s Nuts Out Of The Fire bill. Everybody knows that staying in Iraq will break the GOP’s back in ’08. Most congresscritters, especially Republicans, are desperate for a way out but can’t stand the thought of losing face.
Voila – let the Dems force us out of Iraq. It will cauterize the GOP’s gaping wound just in time for the ’08 elections and let the same GOPers who refused to exercise even the most minimal oversight when the war was underway blame the Dems for losing Iraq. It’s a two-fer.
Further, the Dems will own whatever bad things inevitably come from pulling out of Iraq. If his party doesn’t own the fallout then the President has less of a reason to open diplomatic channels with Iraq neighbors Iran and Syria. Say that the region does fall into chaos. Now it’s the fault of Congress who didn’t let the president send in eleventy jillion fresh boots to force the Sadrists to make nice with the Sunnis and then shoot their way into Tehran and tear down the statue of Hitler. It could have happened!
It seems appropriate to describe this bill as a politically dumb and policy smart. If it works I have a hard time not seeing the Dems pay a significant price for doing the right thing.
****Update 2***
Or the bill could be more meaningless posturing. Generalissimo Kos Subcomandante Kagro X is skeptical.
by Tim F| 34 Comments
This post is in: Military, Republican Stupidity
I am a very lazy blogger don’t have huge wads of free time so check out these links which (surprise) support the general narrative that I have sketched out since the Walter Reed scandal broke.
Start with Steve Benen for context and useful links.
Rep. Don Young (R-bridge to nowhere) C.W. Bill Young (R-FL) now claims that he knew all along but he was afraid to do anything about it. Get a load of his reasoning:
“We did not go public with these concerns, because we did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war.”
No doubt wounded troops lying in pools of their own urine appreciate Young’s concern for their morale.
John Aravosis has a telling catch – Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN), former chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, wants to dismiss Walter Reed as political noise. Buyer is half right in the sense that the scandal probably have never happened if it wasn’t for cynical gamesmanship. A little over two years ago Buyer replaced Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) as the panel chair after Republican leaders accused Smith of trying to spend too much money on medical care for the troops.
Fred Kaplan has more at Slate about how the administration’s total disinterest in doing the job right impacts every aspect of this war.
by John Cole| 87 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
I don’t have much to say about this story (I have not followed it too closely), but I do have to say that I would be a complete failure as a blogger if I passed up the opportunity to use this headline.
Consider this an open thread.
*** Update ***
One serious question, though. Is this guy still in the Marines, and how is this going to work ouy under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?”
This post is in: Politics
Ouch:
But none of the alternatives look any better. Mitt Romney is the most freakishly transparent liar I’ve ever witnessed. His party is desperately reliant on playing the Christian card on election day, but most traditionalist Christians deny that his religion counts as Christianity. He can’t decide which state he’s from, invested major resources in barely winning a Conservative Political Action Committee straw poll last weekend, and, for his trouble, managed to snag the endorsement of Ann Coulter at the same time she was calling John Edwards a “faggot.”
That was entirely too much fun to read.