The Scary World of John Hindraker

By Cernig

Someone set of a tiny explosive device outside the Times Square Armed Forces Recruiting Station in New York in the early hours of this morning. Despite the fact that the bomb was more bang than blast, not even shredding the old army-surplus ammo box it appears to have come in, the NY Police described it as an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) - which while technically true evokes parallels with IED's in Iraq and this device bore the same relationship to those things as a Times Square pigeon has to a T-Rex.

Predictably, the wingnuts are pissing themselves with fear over the possibilities.

John Hindraker at Powerline headlines his post "ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS OR CODE PINKERS?" (Yes, all in caps. I'm just amazed there weren't twenty exclamation points too.)

A.J. Strata doesn't even stop to seriously consider the Islamists - he knows who the real enemy is. "Who Would Bomb Recruiters In NY City? Lunatic Liberals Of Course".

And Ed Morrisey proves his rationality has sailed into the sunset with his move from the Captain's Quarters into the boiler room at Hot Air.

Given the escalating protests over military recruitment, it seems inevitable that people would bomb those who seek to protect the nation and fight our enemies.

I have to agree with John Cole - the logical gap in that sentence, that anti-war protests must inevitably turn to violence, is a veritable yawning chasm. Mind the step.

At least Confederate Yankee, who has his own impromptu analysis which shows just how much of a squib the bomb was, mentions the only evidence of any connection whatsoever to anyone at all and says clearly that he thinks it's unlikely any anti-war group was responsible. That evidence is the only evidence anyone has right now.

Law enforcement officials are looking into whether the suspect is the same man who threw explosive devices at the British and Mexican Consulates in the early morning hours in the past couple of years.

In October, witnesses told police they saw a man on a bicycle throwing a small black powdered device at the Mexican Consulate in Midtown. In May, 2005, a similar incident also occurred at the British Consulate building. No one was hurt in either of those two incidents.

Law enforcement officials said a preliminary review shows Thursday's explosion was caused by a can filled with some sort of explosive powder.

"In 2005, 2007, dummy hand grenades were used and the explosive, black powder, was put into those grenades and that caused the explosion," Kelly said. "Here, it may be similar powder -- we still have to determine that. But it was placed in an ammunition box. That was the carrier for the explosive. There was no grenade."

Mexico isn't even involved in Iraq or Afghanistan. James Joyner feels the evidence just points to "a thrillseeker with no real political agenda."

Lets see now - the evidence tying this to a lone wacko on a bike is circumstantial ("the size of the blast, the time of day, and a bicycle"), but the evidence tying it to an anti-war movement or Islamist group is...um...nil.

Must be Code Pink or AQI then.

Welcome to the Scary World of John Hindraker.

FISA fight back on the front burner

By Libby

I'm so depressed over this that I avoided posting about it all day. Fortunately that gave Glenn Greenwald time to assemble the sorry facts on the Democrats' hopelessly self-destructive handling of the long expected capitulation on FISA.

Nicole Belle provides the proper outrage and assembles the coverage along with the action links. We probably still have the rest of the week to express our disgust, politely of course, to our faithless Representatives.

Meanwhile, McJoan has the latest on the corporate lobbying and discovers the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) is opposed to immunity. I find that a little encouraging. I think there's still some chance we could derail this backroom deal if we push back hard enough one more time.

McCain Kisses Base Ass On Torture

By Cernig

Yes, the great maverick puckered up and planted a big one on the collective posterior of extreme Right torture fandom today.

Today, the Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, containing a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that establishes one interrogation standard, requiring the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and banning waterboarding.

Just hours ago, the Senate voted in favor of the bill, 51-45.

Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a former prisoner of war, has spoken strongly in favor of implementing the Army Field Manual standard. When confronted today with the decision of whether to stick with his conscience or cave to the right wing, McCain chose to ditch his principles and instead vote to preserve waterboarding

Apparently, McCain's experience as a POW is only for telling stories at campaign stops. But at least Lockheed - the company that owns the company that provides priately contracted interrogators at Gitmo - will be happy and keep McCain's campaign funds flowing.

In the annals of political flip-flopping, this is one of the headliners. Such an utter lack of principle as to be able to turn on a dime and deny what he himself has been saying for years means no-one who isn't part of the goose-stepping Right - especially leader's of other Western nations - will ever believe a word out of his mouth again. Ferchrissakes, don't let this man anywhere near the Oval Office.

Quick, Hide The Data!

By Cernig

If your economy is tanking and it's your policies that are to blame, what do you do?

Well, if you're the Bush administration, you drop all that bad news down the memory hole.

Forbes has awarded EconomicIndicators.gov one of its “Best of the Web” awards. As Forbes explains, the government site provides an invaluable service to the public for accessing U.S. economic data:

This site is maintained by the Economics and Statistics Administration and combines data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, like GDP and net imports and exports, and the Census Bureau, like retail sales and durable goods shipments. The site simply links to the relevant department’s Web site. This might not seem like a big deal, but doing it yourself–say, trying to find retail sales data on the Census Bureau’s site–is such an exercise in futility that it will convince you why this portal is necessary.

Yet the Bush administration has decided to shut down this site because of “budgetary constraints,” effective March 1.

This was the only government website that centralised all the data on economic indicators, so now if you want to find out how the economy is doing you're going to have to work harder at finding out. Or you could subscribe to the email list and the government will charge you money to find out how they're handling your economy.

Bush Steals Purse

By Cernig

Not content with stripping the Treasury only to hand it to his pals as corporate welfare, Bush has now stolen Congress' power of the purse. According to Bruce Fein, deputy AG to Reagan, in the Washington Times today:

Jan. 28, 2008, is a date that will live in congressional infamy. Congress surrendered the power of the purse over national security affairs to the White House.

President Bush appended a signing statement to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 denying the power of Congress to withhold funds for establishing permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, or to control its oil resources. The statement tacitly averred that Congress was required to appropriate money to support every presidential national security gambit, for example, launching pre-emptive wars anywhere on the planet or breaking and entering homes to gather foreign intelligence.

....The National Defense Authorization Act's restrictions on President Bush in Iraq were no novelty. Congress has repeatedly legislated to constrain the president's projection of the military abroad or has otherwise overridden his national security policies.

...Yet Congress acquiesced. It did not pass a resolution disputing Mr. Bush. It did not threaten impeachment. It meekly surrendered its national security relevance. Under the precedent it left undisturbed, the president could flout congressional prohibitions on spending funds to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, to invade North Korea, to conduct military offensives in Iraq, to install an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, or to assist Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

A combination of congressional inertness and imbecility has crippled the power of the purse to check executive abuses and craving for perpetual war. Mr. Bush is now crowned with more power than the Stuart kings.

Welcome to the Sixteeth Century, folks.

Who's Afraid Of Congress? No-one

By Cernig

Glenn Greenwald posts to his usual high standards today as he notes the lack of consequences for ignoring Congressional subpoenas - a lack entirely engineered by Congressional Democrats themsleves.

Since the White House announced to the world that it considered Congress' subpoenas to be laughable and worthless, what has happened? Exactly what Miers and Bolton knew would happen if they ignored the subpoenas: absolutely nothing of any consequence. Both Committees voted to issue contempt citations to the two officials, but Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi -- for months and months -- have refused to bring the matter to the floor for a full vote, a requirement for a witness to be held in contempt.

And there's more of the same on the way because Pelosi and Reid think that contempt citations would "would 'step on their message' of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks". Despite Congress' investigative role being at least as important as its legislative one in the eyes of the Framers and other likeminded political theorists, the Dem leadership are unwilling to live up to their duty - unless it happens to involve baseball.

The Bush administration aren't the only ones who have nothing but contempt for this spinelessness. Count me in too.

Canada Bows To US, Israel Pressure On Torture Warning

By Cernig

Remember the news the other day that the Canadian government had placed both the U.S. and Israel on an internal list for diplomats of nations that torture while speaking from the other side of its mouth publicly?

Well, they've now brought public and private claims into harmony - by removing both nations from the private document. (H/T Moderate Voice)

Canada’s foreign ministry, responding to pressure from close allies, said on Saturday it would remove the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured.

Both nations expressed unhappiness after it emerged that they had been listed in a document that formed part of a training course manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats.

Over at TMV, Jill Miller Zimon points out the glaringly obvious:

Of course, the factual questions still remain: what methods of interrogation are used and do they or don’t they constitute torture or abuse?

Well, let's put it this way - any other nation using the methods known to be used by the U.S. and Israel is also on the list and will stay on the list.

What a spineless move by Canada's conservative government.

Michael Chertoff Wets His Pants Again

By Cernig

Homeland Security chief Michael "the gremlin" Chertoff was most scared of European terrorists before he was most scared of homegrown terrorists, and now he's most scared of terrorists from Europe again - all inside two months.

At the beginning of December he said that America should concentrate on screening incoming travellers from Europe because it didn't have the homegrown terror threat Europe did. Then by mid-December he had decided that "There's probably a greater risk in terms of likelihood from a homegrown attack than from a massive international attack."

Now it's mid-January and he's flip-flopped again:

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said he is "increasingly worried" over terrorist threats to the United States originating from Europe.

"I have to say the biggest threat comes from overseas and one of the places we are increasingly worried about is Europe," Chertoff told the BBC Wednesday.

This from the man who, last Summer, famously hyped the terror threat based on nothing more than his "gut feeling" but when very gently pressed said the region that most scared him was South Asia.

Do you think he sleeps with a nightlight in case the Osama in the closet comes to get him?

Playing Ostrich, Redux

By Cernig

Today, I'm very glad I'm not a Democrat.

I and a very few others told you to ask them the damn question, to hold their feet to the fire. But everyone said that the Dems were different, that they could be trusted not to take Dubya's low road. See where that took you?

It isn't better Democrats you need, it's a clean slate.

Top Republican Threatens Security Spending Revolt

By Cernig

"Hey, Dubya, the cheerleaders are revolting!" "Yeah, I know, but if they keep voting the way I tell them to they can be as revolting as they wish."

Maybe not for much longer, says one senior Republican.

The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, normally a Bush loyalist, is threatening not to support certain administration spending priorities if counterterrorism funding to police and firefighters is cut.

After learning of Bush administration plans to slash counterterrorism funding for police, firefighters and rescue departments across the country by more than half next year, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the president should not expect his support on major votes in the future.

``This is not the direction I want my party to go in,'' King said Monday. ``If this is their mentality, I'm not going to support the budget. I'm not going to support their spending priorities.''

Perhaps Bush would do better to court Democratic congresscritters instead of attacking them for doing what he wants done. That's the truth behind the spin over the Iraq budget, according to the AP:

The measure orders that troops start coming home in 30 days - a requirement that Bush is already on track to meet as he begins reversing this year's troop buildup in Iraq. And the 2008 goal to have most troops home is a nonbinding goal, which means Bush could ignore it.

So it would not tie the hands of military commanders, as Bush suggests, nor would it force a change in strategy, as Democrats say.

What a bunch of jokers on the Hill - like either King or the Dems are really serious about standing up to the Decider. Oh, it is to laugh. And as usual "the people" are the butt of the joke.

The Torture Never Stops

By Cernig

Alan Dershowitz - what an ass.

Marginal Democratic candidates certainly benefit from moving to the left on national security issues, but serious candidates--candidates who want to have any realistic chance of prevailing in the general election--must not allow themselves to be pushed, shoved or even nudged away from a strong commitment to national security.

...Although I am personally opposed to the use of torture, I have no doubt that any president--indeed any leader of a democratic nation--would in fact authorize some forms of torture against a captured terrorist if he believed that this was the only way of securing information necessary to prevent an imminent mass casualty attack. The only dispute is whether he would do so openly with accountability or secretly with deniability. The former seems more consistent with democratic theory, the latter with typical political hypocrisy.

He then goes on to disprove his own point:

Recently, Israeli security officials confronted a ticking-bomb situation. Several days before Yom Kippur, they received credible information that a suicide bomber was planning to blow himself up in a crowded synagogue on the holiest day of the Jewish year. After a gun battle in which an Israeli soldier was killed, the commander of the terrorist cell in Nablus was captured. Interrogation led to the location of the suicide bomb in a Tel Aviv apartment. Israel denies that it uses torture and I am aware of no evidence that it did so to extract life-saving information in this case.

But what if lawful interrogation failed to uncover the whereabouts of the suicide bomber? What other forms of pressure should be employed in this situation?

But what if Alan Dershowitz realised he had just given an actual real counterexample - one where there was a ticking time-bomb and no torture seems to have been used - before going on to posit an entirely unreal "what if"? It's not logic, it's a pavement pizza. Would his brain explode as he realised just what mental farting he was committing to print in the single most well-read forum of the conservative press? This is a man who says he wants a Democrat in the White House and is the self-professed most capable legal mind of our time?

(Oh - and a quick note for Alan and every conservative who ever breathed - just because Bill Clinton says something stupid, that's no reason for Democrats to roll over and agree with him. Marching in submissive lockstep with the Decider is a Republican trait.)

Meanwhile, ABC has a report on very real, very not ticking time-bomb torture, contracted out to foreign governments by the CIA at the behest of the Bush administration. Cables from CIA personnel to Washington, recently declassified, show clearly that false confessions were wrung by Egyptian interrogators from a known Al Qaeda member by beatings and by effectively burying him alive for 17 hours. The cables were sent a year before the Bush administration began telling the world "torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture."

Knowingly sending someone - even a criminal, even a terrorist - to be tortured is a crime under international and U.S. federal law. That should be the starting point for any debate, not hypothetical time-bombs. Does the U.S. wish to withdraw from those treaties - e.g. the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Torture Convention), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - and thus throw out the rule of law in favor of rogue statehood, or doesn't it?

Let's have that debate - and make sure that the nation knows which side of the line the Republicans have chosen to come down on.

Dems Ensure Motion To Impeach Cheney Goes Nowhere (Updated)

By Cernig
Updated Below

According to The Swamp, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will move to table Dennis Kucinich's to impeach Cheney on the basis that it would split the Democratic Party.

"[House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] and I have both said impeachment is not on our agenda," Hoyer told reporters. "That does not make a judgment on that issue."

Kucinich, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, has gathered 21 co-sponsors for the articles of impeachment that he first introduced in April. Seeing war with Iran on the horizon, the Ohio congressman now plans to reintroduce the measure this afternoon as a privileged resolution.

Kucinich alleges that Cheney misled Congress and the American public into the war in Iraq, and is trying now to mislead lawmakers and voters into a war with Iran.

"The Vice President is cherry-picking intelligence and selectively using facts in a manner that does not portray the complete picture," Kucinich said today in a statement. "The best option to prevent an unnecessary war with Iran is to impeach the Vice President, the lead cheerleader of the war."

Hoyer did not address the substance of the measure.

Hoyer has backing from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers who said ""If the speaker were to let this thing out of the box, considering the number of legislative issues we have pending, it could create a split that could effect our productivity for the rest of the Congress."

Like Republicans' recalcitrant, peevish obstructionism and a White House with a newly discovered fondness for the veto weren't already ending productivity already. Honestly, do any of these spineless clowns think they're going to be allowed to produce anything except rubberstamps for Republican wars while Bush and Cheney are still incumbents? Do none of them care that they're enabling criminals - not just to escape justice but to continue running their country?

Update For once, I agree with Captain Ed's conclusion on the Mukasky nomination (if not how he gets there). It fits perfectly to this issue too:

this exercise just confirms for the Democratic Party base that their Congress has assumed a mostly-supine position vis-a-vis George Bush. What an absurd piece of political theater. As Casey Stengel once said of the Mets, can't anyone in the Senate Democratic caucus play this game?

Indeed.

Update this one's an all-round victory for the Republicans. not only did the spineless wimp Hoyer indeed moved to table the resolution - and then got a shock as, half-way through the vote, Republicans started voting to force a debate and show up the spineless Dem reps for what they are - wimps without the courage to stand up for their convictions.

Midway through the vote, with instructions from the GOP leadership, Republicans one by one changed their votes from yes — to kill the resolution — to no, trying to force the chamber into a debate and an up-or-down vote on the proposal.

At one point there were 290 votes to table. After the turnaround, the final vote was 251-162 against tabling, with 165 Republicans voting against it.

"We're going to help them out, to explain themselves," said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. "We're going to give them their day in court."

Democrats countered by offering a motion to refer the proposal to the House Judiciary Committee for further study, effectively preventing a debate on the House floor. That motion passed by a largely party-line vote of 218-194.

where it will be quietly sunk without trace.

Cue massive hilarity and much back-slapping from Republican circles for making the Dem leadership jump through hoops so easily. As Captain Ed said earlier, "can't anyone in the Senate Democratic caucus play this game?"

Only 84 Dems voted against tabling then. I would like to thank them for some gumption on this issue. I'd also like to endorse Kevin Hayden's idea that the netroots "muster a chunk of change for Kucinich to send a message of approval to our Congressional leaders".

(Here's Kuchinich' speech today on his congressional website.)

Update 2 I just have to share this graphic, via Matt at Comments and originally from Democracy In Action. Says it all.