Buck Naked Politics

Global Warming "Over-Hyped"? And How Much Hype Would be Just Right?

Posted by Damozel & Cockney Robin | What, please, do people who argue that global warming (and specifically the role of greenhouse gases in accelerating or creating it) is "overhyped"?  Can somebody explain this? They're not arguing that the science is wrong or untrue; they're saying that the people who are worrying about the potentially imminent end of life as we know it are being alarmist---"Chicken Littles", one blogger says disdainfully---rather than dealing with the issue in an adult, mature, looking-at-all-sides-of-the-science fashion. Or so we infer. 

So here's what we want to know:  If there is a 20% chance that the consequences could be 20% as bad as Al Gore thinks they will, doesn't this generation have a duty to take whatever action it can to try to prevent the consequences to the next?   

Is Waterboarding Torture? Part 4: Schooling Mukasey

Posted by Damozel | I've written several posts on the subject.  But the blog "Liberty Does Not March Abroad" sums up the evidence for the benefit of Michael Mukasey, who still doesn't seem sure.  I really liked this, so am quoting it in full:

It was used in the Spanish Inquisition, but Michael Mukasey is not sure it is torture.

It was used by the Gestapo during WWII, but Michael Mukasey is not sure it is torture.

It was used by the Khmer Rouge after the Vietnam War, but Michael Mukasey is not sure it is torture.

John McCain, a Vietnam PoW, says it is torture, but Michael Mukasey is not sure it is torture.

A five minute read of its Wikipedia entry, which cites references for all of the above, provides ample evidence it is torture, but Michael Mukasey is not sure it is torture.

Michael Mukasey is the President's nominee for Attorney General of the United States. Now Democrats are not sure about approving that nomination.

Is Waterboarding Torture? Part 3: Let's Ask the Experts

Posted by Damozel |  If Rudy Giuliani and Michael Mukasey---who allegedly finds waterboarding sort of "repugnant" but still isn't sure it's torture---just need to know what waterboarding is really about in order to decide, Malcolm Nance and Kaj Larsen are prepared to fill them in on the details.  In fact, Kaj Larsen has arranged for those who aren't sure what is involved to see it live.

Malcolm Nance was a "former master instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy  Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego.  He has "personally led, witnessed, and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people."  (New York Daily News)  According to Nance, the interrogation manuals used at SERE were the basis for the techniques now being used against terror suspects. (New York Daily News)

Nance knows the waterboard "personally and intimately." (New York Daily News)  He has undergone it himself "at its fullest."  And he would like for Mukasey and others to know:  it is most definitely torture. (New York Daily News)    To administer it, "[o]ne has to overcome basic human decency to endure causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you questioning the meaning of what it is to be an American."(New York Daily News)   Still not convinced?  Here's his description.  Read it and try putting yourself there:

Hello to the Newest Member of the Vast, Left-Wing Conspiracy!

Posted by Damozel | Hurray!  John Cole of Balloon Juice has made the leap across the great divide from Republican to Democrat.  I'm always happy when someone with a centrist or moderate bias and a powerful line in disputation joins up. Cole writes:

"Say Hello to the Newest Member of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.  I had finally had enough of the bullshit during the Graeme Frost escapade.... I had intended to register independent, but when I got there to do it, I had a moment of clarity- there seemed to be no point leaving the Republican party in protest and joining the unwashed masses. If I really was going to protest, it made no sense to not commit to the opposition party. Besides, as a Republican all these years, I never had any problem voting for libertarians, Democrats, etc., I don’t see why being a Democrat will change anything.

$54 Million Pants Judge Loses His Job As Well

 Posted by Damozel | As this blog's sole soppy liberal, I never feel as happy as those who temper their mercy with justice when someone gets served "just deserts."  In fact, I feel a bit sorry for (former) D.C. Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson, at least till I contemplate the devastating  consequences of his $54 million lawsuit against one small business [backstory here and here].

Will it surprise anyone to learn that the pants litigation was just a symptom of a larger problem (WaPo)?  According to an anonymous source, the decision of Commission on Selection and Tenure of Administrative Law Judges found, after reviewing his decisions and audiotapes of proceedings over which he presided, that he did not demonstrate "appropriate judgment and judicial temperament." (WaPo)  I admit I am curious to about the details.  He also displayed a "combative" disposition with his colleagues and supervisors. (WaPo)  Yes, I find this pretty easy to imagine.  

Rudy Giuliani: Evolving into a Caricature of Himself

Posted by Damozel | He said---and I am betting it was a crowd pleaser:

This is the world we live in. It's not this happy, romantic-like world where we'll negotiate with this one, or we'll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we'll invite (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad to the White House, we'll invite Osama (bin Laden) to the White House,...Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball."  (Breitbart.com) 

Some Democrats are offended.  Not me.  I love watching him evolving into a cartoon political candidate.  Berke Breathed couldn't make this stuff up.    But even though that one is pretty good, it will never top---he'll probably never top---his discourse on freedom, which even George Orwell couldn't have made up or Eric Cartman have surpassed:

"Cheney in a Pant Suit"

Posted by Damozel | Courtesy of One Good Move ("I Thought These Things Might be Clues") ---my favorite source for  video clips---I located this clip from Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher.   During it, you can hear Andrew Sullivan call Hillary "Cheney in a pant suit" and General Wes Clark trying to school Bill on the subject of  Iran and sternly shutting down any attempted interruption.  I can't help wondering how the world would be different if he'd got the nomination instead of John Kerry. What was it they didn't like about Clark again?  Oh yes: he didn't blink often enough.  Remind me why that was supposed to be a bad thing?

Anyway, Sullivan scoffs at Clark's "Clintonism" and voices are raised....

See other Real Time clips here.

FEMA's Media Mishap: Bad Judgment or The Absence of Judgment?

Posted by Damozel   | Here's the question.  Would you rather have the federal agency that is principally charged with emergency management be run by:

(1) People who think it's okay to get the agency's message out by staging a news conference at which its own employees pretend to be reporters and ask only questions the agency is prepared to answer? or

(2) People who who are so naive that they don't think it really matters to the public whether reporters are asking the questions at an event billed as a "press" conference so long as the information they want you to have gets out?

Following the revelations in the press concerning the staged FEMA news conference,  its second in command, Deputy Administrator Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson Jr., has apologized for four paragraphs on its behalf. "We are reviewing our press procedures and will make the changes necessary to ensure that all of our communications are straight forward and transparent." (The Washington Post)

But of course the problem isn't the lack of transparency or straightforwardness, but the fact that the participants in the conference (including FEMA's Deputy Administrator) straightforwardly and transparently assumed that a staged press conference would---from the public's standpoint--- be just as good as a real one.  The problem is that either it didn't occur to the organizer and participants that this conduct crosses the line or that it possibly did occur to them, but they went on and crossed it anyway.  I still don't know which it was.

Is Waterboarding Torture? Part 2: Schooling Rudy

Posted by Damozel | If Giuliani really does (as he claimed) need schooling as to whether waterboarding is or is not torture, Dr.Allen S. Keller, Director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture is prepared to fill him in:

Waterboarding involved tipping a person back, covering his mouth with a cloth and repeatedly pouring water over the cloth to make him gag and experience a drowning sensation. If it is done long enough, Dr. Keller said, there is a risk that the person may drown or have a heart attack(New York Times). 

And John McCain, the only "frontrunner" among the Republicans I can stomach, said the Giuliani and any other candidates who are unsure whether waterboarding is torture "should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”  McCain also said  that Giuliani's views on torture reflect his "inexperience." (New York Times)   Yes, that's going to leave a mark.

Giuliani: Is Waterboarding Torture? "It Depends on Who Does It."

Posted by Damozel | To be strictly fair, he also said whether it is torture also depends on "how it's done."  You can read the transcript in which he says this right here at The New York Times' Political Caucus. And, to be even more fair, he also says, or seems to say, that he really doesn't know how it's done.  He said:

It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it. I think the way it’s been defined in the media, it shouldn’t be done. The way in which they have described it, particularly in the liberal media. So I would say, if that’s the description of it, then I can agree, that it shouldn’t be done. But I have to see what the real description of it is. Because I’ve learned something being in public life as long as I have. And I hate to shock anybody with this, but the newspapers don’t always describe it accurately....Sometimes they describe it accurately. Sometimes they exaggerate it. So I’d have to see what they really are doing.” (New York Times Political Caucus)

I wish he'd get someone to give him a demo then, if he really needs more information to know.... 

Democrats: As Gullible as the Opposition?

Posted by Damozel |  Having just posted my comment on the lamentable partisan struggles over S-CHIP, I found this article by Mike Soraghan from The Hill concerning the Democrats' battle for voters' hearts and minds:  "Internal Dem memo faults party message." 

According to Dave Helfert---a former Appropriations spokesman who now works for Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii)---the problem isn't (as I had speculated) that actual voters and the constituents who sent these people to Congress are fed up with their playing partisan politics on our time; it's that they aren't properly framing their messages.  "'Why are we defending [the State Children’s Health Insurance Program] instead of advocating a ‘Healthy Kids’ plan?'", he wrote in an email that went out to all Democratic press secretaries and communications directors.(The Hill).

Ah so, that's the problem:  the party's leadership doesn't think its constituents are as guilelessly credulous and easy to manipulate as the Republican leadership (seemingly correctly) thinks its constituents are.  Or, as Menken put it and Republican rhetoric-masseur Frank Luntz can confirm, "no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." (The Hill)   That was my first thought.  My second was:  Could Helfert be right? 

Oil Market Roil: A Threat or a Promise?

Posted by Damozel   |  The Bush Administration has said that increasing sanctions against Iraq are meant to prevent war. (Washington Post)  Of course, Condoleezza Rice also said that Bush is "committed to a diplomatic course on Iran," but she added that U.S. patience is "not limitless, and allies need to know that." (Washington Post)   

And we've all heard that one before, haven't we?   Or, as Leo Drollas -- the deputy executive the Center for Global Energy Studies -- put it "[I]t's like a crash happening slowly." (Washington Post) 

Oil traders are saying that even the threat of an attack---even a small chance of one--- would create a huge run-up in oil prices because speculators and investment funds would bid up the price of oil.  (Washington Post)  Meanwhile, oil prices closed at a record high as the US tightened its sanctions and the escalating tension between Iraq and the Kurds and uncertainty about OPEC's output also did their bit to raise the price to $90.46 per barrel. (Washington Post)   

While this is probably nice for people who own a few million barrels, it isn't nice for people whose business depends on the availability of oil at affordable prices....   

House Passes Revised Children's Health Care Bill Against Unedifying Backdrop of Partisan Politics

Posted by Damozel    | The House has passed yet another version of the children's health bill, "after hours of partisan warfare."  (Washington Post) Sadly, the Democrats still haven't been able to draw in enough Republicans to override the promised veto by the always consistent President Bush. (Washington Post)  And, as always, W is the living proof that Emerson was right:  A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.  On the other hand, he is reliable.  You always know where he is going to plant his tattered, shrunken, faded little "red states only" version of the American flag.

Update: A Plague of John Galts? More on "The Ron Paul Wars...."

Posted by Damozel | ...to borrow Andrew Sullivan's phrase.   Primate chatter is always going to entail a certain amount of chest-thumping, roaring, shrieking, and jeering.  As a species, we're just basically obnoxious.  And the blogosphere is just primate chatter writ large.

But even by the low standards which prevail on the blogosphere, Paul's supporters often exceed the limits of acceptable tenacity.  It interests me to see certain conservative blogs---even some known for unabashedly spinning all discussion to accord with the blogger's own political agenda---are becoming a bit fed up with the perpetual campaigning of Paul's supporters.  So now the conservative blog RedState has seen fit to ban discussion of  Paul by his "shills," whether in their diaries or their comments.  So exceedingly exasperated did they become that they actually (come closer; it's too shocking to speak aloud so I'll whisper in your ear) accused Paul supporters of being "a bunch of liberals pretending to be Republicans." [Red State].

That's right, friends, RedState---described by Justin Gardner of the centrist Donklephant as "the conservative version of Daily Kos"---not only banned any discussion of Ron Paul at their website, they pinned the scarlet "L" on their fellow Republicans.   Why?  You can read for yourself: 

Fred Thompson on the Right to Die

Posted by Damozel | The best answer to certain hard questions is no answer.  The only course of action when confronted with them is the painful exercise of one's best judgment or best guess.  And so---amazingly---I find myself in complete agreement with Fred Thompson.

Thompson's stance on the right to die will appeal to civil libertarians, regardless of party or preferred punditry.  It will also appeal to anyone who has ever dealt with the issue at first hand.   Having lived through a child's death himself, he said that "neither federal nor local governments should play any role in making a family's end-of-life decisions."(ABC News)

""I had to make those decisions with the rest of my family," Thompson said. "And I will assure you one thing: No matter which decision you make, you will never know whether or not you made exactly the right decision...making this into a political football is something that I don't welcome, and this will probably be the last time I ever address it. It should be decided by the family. The federal government -- and the state government too, except for the court system -- should stay out of these matters, as far as I'm concerned."(ABC News) 

I once had to make the same decision myself and can therefore now understand---though not a fan-- why he brushed off a question about the Schiavo case during his recent trip to Florida....

Jon Stewart to Gen. Ricardo Sanchez: "Now You Tell Us"

Jon Stewart notes that Ret. General Sanchez seems to have a bit of a different opinion from General Sanchez. 

Sanchez:  "There is nothing happening now....that would give us hope." 

And why did he wait to tell us? "The last thing that you want is for currently serving officers to stand up to the political leadership."

AG Nominee Mukasey Calls Torture "Antithetical to What America Stands for"

Posted by Damozel | Even though I've been pretty under the weather today, and disinclined to blog, this is too important not to address. 

Michael Mukasey---a nominee with strong bipartisan backing---has taken a strong and unequivocal stand on torture.  Senator Patrick Leahy (remarking with bitter irony, that the 2002 "torture memo" signed by Office of Legal Counsel Chief Jay Bybee, is "one of the greatest things in the history of this country"), questioned him specifically on his view of the Bybee memo.  Mukasey said that it was "worse than a sin, it's a mistake."(TPM)   

He compared the use of torture to the "barbarism" of the Nazis that the U.S. opposed during World War II.  "We didn't do that so that we could then duplicate it ourselves."  (TPM)   He also said:  "We don't torture, not because it's against this or that law or this or that treaty.... It is not what this country is about; it is not what this country stands for; it is antithetical to what this country stands for."  (video)

 

Romney's Pick for National Security Adviser Would Torture 'in a Heartbeat.'

Posted by Damozel | TPM has an article which contains a portion of an interview with Retired General James 'Spider' Marks, Romney's pick for National Security Adviser.  The quote comes from a November 8, 2005 interview.  Marks, a CNN analyst, acknowleged that he would torture a prisoner 'in a heartbeat' to try to get information to save a soldier or a civilian even though:

1. He is convinced that with the majority of prisoners it doesn't work.
2. He thinks it should be illegal. 

And by 'torture' he doesn't mean  wimpy 'aggressive interrogation techniques' such as waterboarding and 'head-slapping' which the Bush Administration seems to think don't really cross the line.   By 'torture' the former interrogation teacher and CNN consultant  evidently meant a knife in the leg.   And now that he's no longer an analyst for CNN, he's Romney's pick for National Security Adviser.   

Here's what he said during a November 8, 2005 interview:   I've been telling myself that I've read it wrong, that it is quoted out of context, that it didn't mean when he said it what it now seems clearly to mean to me when I read it.  But in case I've got that wrong, I've put the parts I like best in bold because, General, I've seen that movie too. 

Michelle Malkin: Alive and Undaunted in Malkinland.

Posted by Damozel | By now, leftward-tilting Fox lovers like me have learned---with what regret!---that cutely wild-eyed right-wing cheerleader Michelle Malkin has quit The O'Reilly Factor.  Geraldo Rivera was a bit brisk with her, it appears, chiefly over her stance on immigration, which Rivera finds repugnant.  An apology or 'apology' he subsequently made to her on 'The Factor' was, in her words, 'a complete farce.'  (Think Progress) But there is a bright side:  "You can catch me on other Fox News shows and read my daily blog posts and weekly columns at MichelleMalkin.com." (Think Progress)   

Well, there's a relief.  I read her blog from time to time.  Sometimes I need a little break from reality as I know it and a little insight into the fear and panicky fury underlying all the vitriol that's coming (even at moderates like me who would prefer a bipartisan world where we all join hands) from the Far Right.  I like seeing the ingredients of Malkin's diatribes while they're still boiling away in the cauldron, as it were. So I like knowing that MichelleMalkin.com is there for me.

And I'm so sorry that Rivera was rude to her.  As I said, he was a bit terse.  Specifically---this is according to Crooks and Liars----he said, doubtless among other things:  “Michelle Malkin is the most vile, hateful commentator I’ve ever met in my life."  (Crooks and Liars)      Harsh!  And there's more:

Rush Limbaugh Auctions Off Crucial Historical Document (for Charity)

Posted by Damozel | Ha ha ha ha!  Rush Limbaugh is offering a crucial historical document for sale on ebay!  He is challenging each of 41 Senate Democrats to match the winning bid.  Can you guess what the document is?   Can you?  Well, can you?  Here's a hint: as South Dakota Moderate says, it's right up there with the Constitution.   The winning bid on this one-of-a-kind not-to-be-missed document is $45,100 and there are three days left.  Step up, my Dems!   Besides, it's for charity!  And freedom!  And the First Amendment!   And Jesus!