Wednesday’s Mini-Report

September 26, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* MSNBC: “Bomb attacks killed 57 people and wounded more than 120 across Iraq on Wednesday as suspected al-Qaida militants stepped up a campaign of violence coinciding with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In a mainly Shiite district of southwest Baghdad, twin car bombs killed 32 people in one of the biggest attacks to hit the Iraq capital in weeks.”

* WaPo: “The Defense Department is seeking an additional $42.3 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total request for 2008 to nearly $190 billion, according to prepared testimony Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is to present to Congress this afternoon.”

* Good idea: “It’s a pretty belated idea — what with $6 billion worth of Pentagon contracts under criminal investigation — but today, freshman Democratic Sens. Jim Webb and Claire McCaskill are introducing an amendment to the defense appropriations bill creating an independent, bipartisan commission to study the contracting process for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The eight-member commission would be staffed by appointees of the Congressional leadership, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense.”

* For someone with a background in academia, Condi Rice makes the strangest historical analogies: “Rice told Fox News that Zarqawi was ‘diabolically brilliant’ and his loss was devastating to Al Qaeda in Iraq, much as the loss of Grant and Lee would have been to the Union and Confederate armies. ‘When you hear people say … ‘If you kill one of them, they’ll just replace him with another leader,’ remember that that’s like saying, ‘If you take out Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant, well, they’ll just replace them with another leader.'” Retired Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar said, “I think the analogy doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

* Reed Walters, the district attorney of LaSalle Parish pursuing charges against the Jena Six, explains his reasoning for the legal controversy in an NYT op-ed. It sounds fairly reasonable — until you realize he charged the Jena Six with second-degree murder, a detail he ignores. attempted second-degree murder, which Walters brushes past far too quickly. Since the severity of the charges are at the heart of the controversy, the op-ed shouldn’t have given this aspect the short shrift.

* After Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb) broke party ranks, the Senate Rules Committee sent Hans von Spakovsky’s nomination to the Federal Elections Commission to the Senate floor.

* On top of all the other action on the Hill today, the Senate voted 75-23 “for a non-binding endorsement of his plan to partition Iraq into three separate states with Baghdad as a federal capital.” The measure was the brainchild of Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).

* Bush lectured the U.N. yesterday on human rights and oppression, which struck some in the audience as ironic, in light of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, secret prisons, rendition policies, and holding detainees indefinitely without charges. “At first read, it’s little more than an exercise in hypocrisy. His words about human rights ring hollow because his credibility is nonexistent,” said Curt Goering, the deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA. “The gap between the rhetoric and the actual record is stunning. I can’t help but believe many people in the audience were thinking, ‘What was this man thinking?’ ”

* It’s been several months since the scandal at Walter Reed broke. Have conditions improved for injured U.S. troops returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan? Not really.

* On a related note, there’s new evidence that the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury from exposure to bomb blasts “are even more devastating than previously believed.”

* When Ahmadinejad told a Columbia University audience that there were no gay people in Iran, the audience laughed at him. When the transcript of the event was posted on Ahmadinejad’s official website, the exchange on gays was omitted.

* Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) hit Al Franken for not condemning MoveOn.org’s “betray us” ad. Today, Franken hit back: “Bush and his allies in Washington have blocked increases to veterans’ benefits, refused to be held accountable for the mistakes that ruined our military’s efforts in Iraq, and dodged every effort to bring our troops home. Instead of solutions, Norm Coleman offers political games and pointless attacks. As a satirist, I find the whole thing ridiculous. But as a Minnesotan who wants to bring the troops home, I also find it sad.”

* According to the U.S. Marshals assigned to protect him, Michael Mukasey, Bush’s Attorney General nominee, is a lousy boss.

* Are our efforts to combat climate change already too little, too late?

* Fox News is nothing if not subtle — Iran has now been labeled a “ticking bomb.”

* I had a weird server glitch overnight, and if you sent me an email between 10pm (eastern) last night and 5am (eastern) this morning, I didn’t get it. Please re-send.

* And finally, don’t forget that the latest in a series of Democratic debates will be held tonight in New Hampshire. The event, moderated by Tim Russert, begins at 9pm (eastern), and will be aired live on MSNBC. Assuming I can stay awake, I’ll have a full report in the morning.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Well..let’s always remember that the South lost with Lee. I’m sure if he had been killed they still would have lost….and that Grant could have been replaced by..uh..Sherman with no great change in philosophy..in fact Sherman may have been an improvement..

Maybe Condi meant to say Zhukov was irreplacable..she is a Soviet expert. What a strange woman.

  • Unblievable that Nelson would support Von Spakovsky. Whether or not you’re from Nebraska, you should call Nelson to express your outrage:

    Tel: (202) 224-6551

    Then contact your own Senator and ask him to lean on Nelson.

  • Retired Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar said, “I think the analogy doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

    I don’t know enough to have as good an opinion on these things as they do, of course, but if he’s talking about the difference between a conventional war and fighting an extremely multi-faceted insurgency, I guess I see the point he’s trying to make. I just don’t know enough to know whether to agree with him. If Zarqawi really was a great leader, then great leadership is a rare, valuable commodity, and that’s that- there’s not much more to say about it.

  • The NYTimes article does mention attempted 2nd degree murder. Nyhan has updated his post to mention that (nobody was ever charged with murder, because nobody died). You can attack the article for other things, but he does acknowledge that there was a charge of attempted murder.

  • ” Reed Walters, the district attorney of LaSalle Parish pursuing charges against the Jena Six, explains his reasoning for the legal controversy in an NYT op-ed. It sounds fairly reasonable — until you realize he charged the Jena Six with second-degree murder, a detail he ignores.”

    The link is blocked by my office web filter, but every account of the case that I’ve read has said that they were charged with attempted murder, not actual murder. There’s a big difference there. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that they would have been charged with actual murder since the victim obviously did not die.

  • I guess the problem with the Condi quote is it exagerrates the effect of removing Zarqawi if you compare him to the head of a conventional military organization, because leadership tends to be more effectively in an organized, hierarchical group than in an unorganized, fluid organization. From how I understand it, Zarqawi was even more the head of a disorganized mob than of a guerrilla army. Also, somparing him to Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant probably exagerates his ability, because Lee particularly is considered one of the greatest military men of all time, whereas we don’t know about anything in particular in Zarqawi’s background that qualifies him as the Napoleon of insergencies or terrorist groups.

    I guess I agree with the Gen. that Condi doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

    However, I did comment something similar to what Condi is saying a little while ago here. My point, though, was that it’s not meaningless to take out terrorist leaders just because they will be replaced. That’s a far cry from saying that one of them was a Grant or a Lee.

  • I’ve now read Mr. Walters’s op-ed and would like to add a bit to my comment above. Frankly, I think Mr. Walters’s discussion deserves a lengthier response than the flippant and inaccurate dismissal that you offer here. First of all, Mr. Walters’s piece clearly acknowledges that he charged five of the Jena Six with *attempted* second-degree murder– not actual murder– at about the middle of the article; it does not “ignore” that fact as you state. Second, it sets forth a pretty plausible case for the decisions he has made so far, both with respect to the noose incident and the charging of the Jena Six. Perhaps in retrospect the attempted murder charge was not appropriate to the facts, but competent prosecutors take aggressive positions in charging on a daily basis, and aggressive prosecution of violent crime is not generally a bad thing, or indicative of racial animus.

  • Senator Ben Nelson D-Neb. added to the list of worthless beltway democrats. Just like Diane Feinstein breaking with the party to get another right wing appeals judge to the senate floor for a vote here comes Ben Nelson to send a man to the Federal Elections Commission who is most notorious for squashing the democratic voter. Spakovsky is that mealey mouth from DoJ who single handedly tried everything he could come up with to disenfranchise democratic voters and Nelson, a democrat, votes to get this Bush nomination to the senate floor. FEC 6 yr appointment?…what the hell was Nelson’s reasoning on that one. “I’m an elected democrat who wants to make sure more democrats don’t get to vote?” Obviously Nelson has been bought or bribed. What possibly could he have been thinking? What does he offer in the way of an explanation. Fienstein admitted she didn’t even read Southwicks record but depended on Trent “run for you lives the terrorists are attacking DC” Lott for advice on how to vote. She trusted a republican over her own party. The two of them are worthless as democrats, allowing more of these roaches to infiltrate our system of Justice.

  • On top of all the other action on the Hill today, the Senate voted 75-23 “for a non-binding endorsement of his plan to partition Iraq into three separate states with Baghdad as a federal capital.” The measure was the brainchild of Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).

    Biden?
    Is he a Dim or Repug?
    I can’t tell the pricks from perps anymore…

    True or False:

    Both parties believe they have the right to play God in another man’s land.
    Both parties can’t understanding why “insurgents” want to blow American soldiers apart.
    Both parties think that it is holy to lie us into Iraq and “betray us” into staying there.

    I see reality differently:

    Iraq is not your country.
    The majority of people there…. and here… don’t want you in Iraq.

    Suggestion:
    Leave.
    Now.
    Go home Yankee…
    Go fix New Orleans or something…
    I doubt you can…
    But maybe you could at least hum a few bars.

  • Regarding DA Walters and agressive prosecution. This is the third incident to make headlines recently of agreesive prosecutors and the damage they cause. The DA in the Duke case and the AG in the New Orleans hospital staff being the other two. And there are many others that don’t make headlines. They Do Not work for the People as the Defendants are people themselves. Prosecutors largely work for their own careers and offices. They need to be reigned in, which will be difficult considering the institutional influence of the legal establishment. Perhaps at a later date these anti-Democratic positions can be done away with completely. All parties at a trial should be entiltled to the same automatic representation.

  • ***This space intentionally blank ***
    ———-Crissa

    Seems your “website” is right up there in supporting ignorance, child. Did someone kick you out of the foxnoise sandbox again?

    Inquiring minds want to know….

    And no, Crissie—there are no longer any fundamental differences between Dems and Reskunks. They are both enablers of a criminal administration that has openly engaged in the rape of the Republic.

    A rape well worth the price of avenging.

    And vengeance, it has been said, is a dish best served cold….

  • Regarding Al Frankens statement to his opponent:
    “Bush and his allies in Washington have blocked increases to veterans’ benefits, refused to be held accountable for the mistakes that ruined our military’s efforts in Iraq, and dodged every effort to bring our troops home. Instead of solutions, Norm Coleman offers political games and pointless attacks. As a satirist, I find the whole thing ridiculous. But as a Minnesotan who wants to bring the troops home, I also find it sad.”
    I find it amusing that the role of, Truth-Teller” has once again devolved to the ‘Court- jester’ and I say this all good will toward Mr. Franken, whom I consider one of the more honorable men of these times.
    It’s interesting to me that the last time the court-jester was able to speak to power was during medievel times when rulers had more or less absolute power. The fact that the same court jester can now run for public office is a sign of progress, I suppose. Perhaps a prerequisite for public office should be a SUCCESSFUL career as a stand up comedian, (not an actor).
    David Chisholm

  • It is also worth mentioning that Mychal Bell has 4 prior convictions for battery. Are the protesters and charlatans hoping he’ll be released into their communities? Sorry, there’s no racial element to the charges, no matter how much anyone wants to find one.

  • Finally, the federal courts have gotten around to looking at the amendments to FISA past in the wake of 9/11 and are finding that they don’t pass Constitutional muster. Here is the latest.

    PORTLAND, Ore. – Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
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    U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, “now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”

    Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield sought the ruling in a lawsuit against the federal government after he was mistakenly linked by the FBI to the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.

    The federal government apologized and settled part of the lawsuit for $2 million after admitting a fingerprint was misread. But as part of the settlement, Mayfield retained the right to challenge parts of the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the authority of law enforcers to investigate suspected acts of terrorism.

    Mayfield claimed that secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Aiken agreed with Mayfield, repeatedly criticizing the government.

    “For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised,” she wrote.

    By asking her to dismiss Mayfield’s lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general’s office was “asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so.”

    Elden Rosenthal, an attorney for Mayfield, issued a statement on his behalf praising the judge, saying she “has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation’s most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one’s own home.”

    Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said the agency was reviewing the decision, and he declined to comment further.

    Mayfield, a Muslim convert, was taken into custody on May 6, 2004, because of a fingerprint found on a detonator at the scene of the Madrid bombing. The FBI said the print matched Mayfield’s. He was released about two weeks later, and the FBI admitted it had erred in saying the fingerprints were his and later apologized to him.

    Before his arrest, the FBI put Mayfield under 24-hour surveillance, listened to his phone calls and surreptitiously searched his home and law office.

    The Mayfield case has been an embarrassment for the federal government. Last year, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog faulted the FBI for sloppy work in mistakenly linking Mayfield to the Madrid bombings. That report said federal prosecutors and FBI agents had made inaccurate and ambiguous statements to a federal judge to get arrest and criminal search warrants against Mayfield.

  • “The Defense Department is seeking an additional $42.3 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total request for 2008 to nearly $190 billion, according to prepared testimony Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is to present to Congress this afternoon.”

    Heads up. This is the main event — this and the regular defense appropriations bill, I believe. Let’s hope MoveOn.org can contain their, ummm, enthusiasm (and perhaps refrain from blundering in like the bewildered bovine in the proverbial china shop).

  • > For someone with a background in academia, Condi Rice makes the strangest historical analogies

    For someone who was brought up in the South, it’s not that surprising at all. General Lee is considered just a half-step down from Jesus — in fact sometimes I think they picture Jesus with a white beard. He is revered as a man of style and class and honor and as a great traditional Southern Gentleman — like many figures of legend, the exact details are too bothersome.

  • “* Are our efforts to combat climate change already too little, too late?”

    This is right-wing claptrap.

    The Foreign Policy piece you link to was written by Paul Saunders and
    Vaughan Turekian, two former members of the Bush Administration, one of whom is now the executive director of the Nixon Center. It reflects the latest right-wing talking points, after the right gave up arguing that the observed global warming wasn’t happening. The idea is to derail any hard policy decisions because, they claim, warming will continue anyway.

    There is certainly a scientific consensus that the momentum from carbon emissions thus far will continue warming. There is also a thoroughly peer-reviewed International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on ways to mitigate climate change.

    Jim Hansen, one of the world’s most respected climatologists, said two years ago that he gave us ten years to bend the upward curve in carbon emissions, or we risked passing some thresholds that would tip the atmosphere into a completely new state. The thousands of scientists who have participated in the IPCC process tell us we probably still have some time to buffer the planet and ourselves from the devastating warming that business as usual would lead to.

    Saunders and Turekian want us to throw up our hands, drive Hummers, and start building the climatic equivalent of fallout shelters. That way lies catastrophe. We have a moral imperative to change our habits and redesign and rebuild our infrastructure to lower use of fossil fuels.

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