Christopher Hitchens: "I just think that if she (Hillary) knew how it made her look, sort of alternately soppy and bitchy, she'd stop it. But she can't help herself, can she? She just can't."
Tim Russert to Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan: "Thank you both for writing and thinking and talking with intelligence." 4.05.08 video

1. District Level Caucus Voting

You can be a part of making history this year by participating in the local caucuses to select your delegate to the National Convention. To see who is running in your District go to http://www.cadem.org/site/c.jrLZK2PyHmF/b.3919821/  - and then click on your congressional district and the presidential candidate of your choice.

Any registered Democrat in the Congressional District may attend these caucuses vote for either Obama or Clinton delegates. You may register on-site as a new Democratic voter. You may arrive and vote anytime after 2:00 pm but you must be in line by 3:00 pm in order to receive a ballot. You are not required to stay for the entire time. You can only vote in one caucus and you MUST vote in the Congressional district where you are registered as a Democrat.

For more info see “Delegate Selection FAQ” at http://www.cadem.org/site/c.jrLZK2PyHmF/b.3993161/

A list of Hillary Clinton caucus locations is at http://www.cadem.org/site/c.jrLZK2PyHmF/b.3990341/ Barack Obama caucuses can be found at http://www.cadem.org/site/c.jrLZK2PyHmF/b.3990337/

2. State and Local Candidates and Propositions

For a list of state and local candidates and propositions go to http://www.sddemocrats.org/2008_candidates.html

3. Walt Handelsman: Those were the days (animation)

http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/opinion/walthandelsman/blog/2008/04/animation_those_were_the_days.html

4. The 11th Hour

“as we destroy nature...we will be destroyed in the process...there's no escaping that conclusion ...”

The 11th Hour begins by taking a look at the causes of global warming before exploring solutions, from eating organic to building with solar power. Although there isn’t a lot of new information for environmental experts, DiCaprio and his team have assembled a thought-provoking primer for neophytes and potential activists.

DVD 4.99 at http://www.amazon.com

5. Poll: 61% of Historians Rate the Bush Presidency Worst

In an informal survey of 109 professional historians conducted over a three-week period through the History News Network, 98.2 percent assessed the presidency of Mr. Bush to be a failure while 1.8 percent classified it as a success.

Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other 41 American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history. Another 35 percent of the historians surveyed rated the Bush presidency in the 31st to 41st category, while only four of the 109 respondents ranked the current presidency as even among the top two-thirds of American administrations. Robert S. McElvaine 4-01-08 http://hnn.us/articles/48916.html

6. ACLU Argues That Ashcroft Can Be Held Accountable For Wrongful Detention

SEATTLE – The American Civil Liberties Union is arguing today in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held personally responsible for the wrongful detention of an innocent American, Abdullah al-Kidd. The ACLU is also arguing that the federal material witness law cannot be used to preventively detain or investigate suspects without sufficient evidence that they have actually committed crimes.

The appellate court hearing in al-Kidd v. Ashcroft comes after a U.S. district court in 2006 found that the material witness law may only be used when an individual is genuinely sought as a witness and where there is a real risk of flight. The court also ruled that the law does not allow an end-run around the constitutional requirements for arresting someone suspected of a crime.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft appealed the ruling and has asked for immunity from liability. 4/8/08 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/34818prs20080408.html

7. Mark Fiore: McCain Iraq 2008 (animation)

http://www.markfiore.com/McCain_Iraq_2008_0

8. Bush officials mount campaign against media shield bill

The Bush administration is campaigning against legislation that would allow reporters to protect the identities of confidential sources who provide sensitive, sometimes embarrassing information about the government. 4.03.08 http://www.wlfi.com/Global/story.asp?S=8116445

9. From the DAILY GRILL

"The Bush administration will use its authority to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations to finish building 670 miles of fence along the southwest U.S. border by the end of 2008."-- AP, 4/2/08

VERSUS

"[P]eople who are here illegally...have got to comply with the law." -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, 4/2/08



"From June 2007 through February 2008, deaths from ethno-sectarian violence in Baghdad have fallen approximately 90%. American casualties have also fallen sharply, down by 70%." -- Sens. Lieberman (I-CT) and Graham (R-SC), 4/7/08

VERSUS

"Iraqi deaths rose from a low of 568 in December and 541 in January to roughly 721 in February to more than 1,082 in March. ... US troop deaths have also crept up, from 23 in December -- the lowest number since 2004 -- to 40 in January, 29 in February, and 38 in March." -- Boston Globe, 4/7/08

10. Media Matters: CNN's John King uncritically repeated McCain campaign's false attacks on Democrats

On the April 2 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, guest host John King uncritically reported that "[i]n a statement, a McCain spokesman took a shot at the other party, saying, 'Americans can't afford the Democrats' liberal agenda to raise taxes, nationalize health care, cut off trade, and crush the economy under big government.' " But McCain's statement included significant falsehoods and misleading claims, which McCain has promoted and which the media have frequently reported without challenge. Indeed, King did exactly that, simply reading McCain's claims. http://mediamatters.org/items/200804030007

11. Bush is depicted as foul-mouthed frat boy in new Oliver Stone movie

Oliver Stone's new film, W, portrays George Bush as a foul-mouthed, dried-out drunk with a baseball obsession and a difficult relationship with his father.

Filming is expected to begin any day in Louisiana. The movie should be in cinemas before Mr Bush leaves office next January.

Stone says the film won't be an anti-Bush polemic. Rather, as he told Daily Variety, it will be "a fair, true portrait of the man that asks the question: how did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?" Leonard Doyle 4.09.08 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bush-is-depicted-as-foulmouthed-frat-boy-in-
new-oliver-stone-movie-806333.html

12. Border Fence Trumps Law

Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all.

Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom. 4.08.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/us/08bar.html

13. Late-Night Political Jokes for Dems

"Last week, John McCain visited his old school. In high school, he studied Latin. Did you know that? Well, he had to, that was the only language spoken." --Jay Leno

"John McCain is now crisscrossing the United States campaigning. Or, as they're calling it, Antiques Roadshow." --Jay Leno

"According to a new poll that just came out -- this is hard to believe -- 81% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. 81%. The other 19% own gas stations." --Conan O'Brien

"Hillary said she attended out of respect for Dr. King's civil rights legacy, and also because she feels a special allegiance to a fellow sniper victim." --Bill Maher

"I feel for John McCain. He has a tough road to hoe now. He's trying to distance himself from George Bush. First off, by completing sentences with punctuation." --Bill Maher

"McCain came out this week with a list of 20 possible running mates. He would not reveal the names of all of them, but he said they all share certain traits, like knowing CPR. ... He said he wants someone who is ready take over on day two." --Bill Maher

"The ambassador to Iraq said today there has been an economic revival in Baghdad. Well, it's nice to see Bush's economic plan working out somewhere." --Jay Leno

"John McCain has not been using Secret Service protection. He's the only one. He's not using it. See, apparently, he has Life Alert." --Jay Leno

"We have the Italian Stallion on the show tonight -- Hillary Clinton, ladies and gentleman. As you know, in Philadelphia the other day, Senator Clinton said she is a lot like Rocky Balboa from the movie 'Rocky.' Is that a good idea? Don't we already have a president like Rocky? I mean, isn't eight years of a guy who talks like he's been hit in the head too many times enough?" --Jay Leno

"John McCain said he's putting together a list of possible vice presidential candidates. In fact, yesterday, McCain said he had 20 names on his vice presidential list. And today, he had to cut it back to 18 when he found out Calvin Coolidge and Woodrow Wilson are already dead." --Jay Leno

"Actually, learning more and more about John and Cindy McCain. He's on this big biography tour, so you can learn about him. I guess his wife Cindy is worth over $100 million because the family made money selling Budwesier beer. Budweiser beer distributor, $100 million. So he has a wife 20 years younger than him, free beer, unlimited money -- I think I speak for all guys when I go, why is he running for president?" --Jay Leno

"John McCain, by God, has one of those 3 am phone calls. In this one, it's 3 am and he just gets up to go to the bathroom." --David Letterman

"John McCain has been campaigning all over the country this week. Yesterday, McCain gave a speech in Florida. He was in Florida. The Florida speech was at 2:30 in the afternoon 'cause McCain was the after-dinner speaker." --Conan O'Brien

"I like John McCain. He reminds me of a guy who spends a lot of time in the yard with a hose." --David Letterman

"He's looking for a vice presidential running mate. ... He needs a guy who is conservative, understands the economy and knows how to operate a defibrillator." --David Letterman

"While campaigning in Pennsylvania yesterday, Barack Obama told an eight-year-old boy if he wants to be president, he should work hard in school, get good grades and find a job that helps people. To which President Bush said, 'That's an April Fool's joke, right?'" --Jay Leno

"The London Daily Telegraph says that more and more Democrats now believe their candidate for president should be Al Gore, not Hillary or Barack. And today, President Bush said, 'Well, if Al Gore can run again, that means I can too, right?'" --Jay Leno

"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke ... speaking before Congress warned we may be headed towards a recession. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Let me guess, the real estate market not looking too good either." --Jay Leno

"And Bush's secretary of housing announced he's stepping down. Well, sure, now that no one has a house anymore, he's got nothing to do." --Jay Leno

"Yesterday on the campaign trail, John McCain gave a speech at the high school he attended in Virginia. McCain told the senior class, 'What a coincidence! You graduated in '08 and I graduated in '08.'" --Conan O'Brien

"You know who I like is that John McCain. You folks like John McCain?. ... He looks like the guy at the hardware store who makes the keys. He looks like the guy who can't stop talking about how well his tomatoes are doing. He looks like the guy who goes into town for turpentine. He looks like the guy who always has wiry hair growing out of new places. He looks like the guy who points out the spots they missed at the car wash." --David Letterman

"The Washington Post reports that John McCain is having trouble raising enough money for his campaign. Plus, every time someone does donate money to McCain, he puts it in a card and sends it to his grandchildren." --Conan O'Brien

14. Bill Maher: A New Rule - Chill Out (video)

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/04/a_new_rule.html

15. DNC Returning $$ To Disgruntled Donors

A Democratic source tells On Call that the Democratic National Committee is returning as much as $175K to donors dismayed with the party's handling of the Florida and Michigan primaries. The source says the exact amount will be reported in the April 20 FEC filing. Jennifer Skalka 4.04.08 http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2008/04/heads_up_dnc_re.html

16. 81% in Poll Say Nation Is Headed on Wrong Track

A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off. DAVID LEONHARDT and MARJORIE CONNELLY http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/us/04poll.html

17. Saturday Night Live - A Message from the Clinton campaign (video)

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/play.shtml?mea=237272

18. Poor get poorer as recession threat looms: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The gap between rich and poor in many states has broadened at a quickening pace since the last U.S. recession, which could make it difficult for low-income families to weather the current economic downturn, according to a report issued Wednesday.

Since the late 1990's average incomes have declined 2.5 percent for families on the bottom fifth of the country's economic ladder, while incomes have increased 9.1 percent for families on the top fifth, said the report from the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Economic Policy Institute.

The result is that the average incomes of the top five percent of families are 12 times the average incomes of the bottom 20 percent. 4.09.08 Lisa Lambert http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0838901420080409

19. Evidence Grows of Drug Use on Detainees

There can be little doubt now that the government has used drugs on terrorist suspects that are designed to weaken their resistance to interrogation. All that’s missing is the syringes and videotapes.

Another window opened on the practice last week with the declassification of John Yoo’s instantly infamous 2003 memo approving harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects.

Yoo advised top Bush administration officials that interrogators could employ mind-altering drugs if they did not produce “an extreme effect” calculated to “cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality.” Jeff Stein 4.04.08 http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000002697912

20. Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? Trailer (video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjxXX70_R0A&eurl

Morgan Spurlock discusses his new film at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW3GEt1DI7Q&feature=related

21. Letterman: Great Presidential Speeches - 1-88 Duh (video)

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/04/188_duh.html

22. John McCain on Veterans

What he said: Whatever our commitments to veterans cost, we will keep them, as you have kept every commitment to us. The honor of a great nation is at stake.

What he did:

• Voted AGAINST an amendment providing $20 billion to the VA’s medical facilities. [5/4/06]
• Voted AGAINST providing $430 million to the VA for outpatient care “and treatment for veterans,” one of only 13 senators to do so. [4/26/06]
• Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.5 billion by closing corporate loopholes. [3/14/06]
• Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.8 billion by ending “abusive tax loopholes.” [3/10/04]
• Voted AGAINST a $650 million increase in veterans’ medical care funding. [8/1/01]

Lamont (D) 51
Lieberman (I) 37
Schlesinger (R) 7

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/13/124925/928

26. McCain Girls: Here Comes McCain Again (video)

The McCain Girls working overtime to ensure that their candidate never, ever gets elected, by anyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqiWrKkILOU&eurl

27. Hillary Clinton - Mad as Hell! (video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcdnlNZg2iM&eurl

28. Joe Scarborough: Iraq:Three Trillion Dollar War (video)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23996532#23996532

29. The Naked Campaign: Plotholes (video)

Steve Brodner draws John McCain’s war story. 4.08.08 http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/nakedcampaign/plotholes/?xrail

30. Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis (video)

In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of "generational mission" -- the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement -- to set it right. Gore's stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates' climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future. April 2008 http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/243

31. More Iraqi Blogs

http://www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/
http://twentyfourstepstoliberty.blogspot.com/
http://www.last-of-iraqis.blogspot.com/
http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/

32. Iraq: Six Months At A Time (video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suNqiAgE1kw

2. Paul Krugman: Voodoo Health Economics

Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. John McCain has had cancer in the past. Last weekend, Mrs. Edwards bluntly pointed out that neither of them would be able to get insurance under Mr. McCain’s health care plan.

It’s about time someone said that and, more generally, made the case that Mr. McCain’s approach to health care is based on voodoo economics — not the supply-side voodoo that claims that cutting taxes increases revenues (though Mr. McCain says that, too), but the equally foolish claim, refuted by all available evidence, that the magic of the marketplace can produce cheap health care for everyone.

As Mrs. Edwards pointed out, the McCain health plan would do nothing to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to those, like her and Mr. McCain, who have pre-existing medical conditions.

The McCain campaign’s response was condescending and dismissive — a statement that Mrs. Edwards doesn’t understand the comprehensive nature of the senator’s approach, which would harness “the power of competition to produce greater coverage for Americans,” reducing costs so that even people with pre-existing conditions could afford care.

This is nonsense on multiple levels. 4.04.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/opinion/04krugman.html

3. Gary Brecher: How the U.S. Just Got Schooled by a 'Rag-Tag' Neighborhood Army in Iraq

What happened in Iraq this week was a beautiful lesson in the weird laws of guerrilla warfare. Unfortunately, it was the Americans who got schooled. Even now, people at my office are saying, "We won, right? Sadr told his men to give up, right?"

Wrong. Sadr won big. Iran won even bigger. Maliki, the Iraqi Army, Petraeus and Cheney lost.

For people raised on stories of conventional war, where both sides fight all-out until one side loses and gives up, what happened in Iraq this past week makes no sense at all. Sadr's Mahdi Army humiliated the Iraq Army on all fronts. In Basra, the Army's grand offensive, code-named "The Charge of the Knights," got turned into "The Total Humiliation of the Knights," like something out of an old Monty Python skit.

Thousands of police who were supposed to be backing up the Iraqi Army either refused to fight or defected to Sadr's Mahdi Army. In Basra, the Iraqi Army was stopped dead and clearly in danger of being crushed or forced to retreat from the city. In Baghdad, Sadr's militia was rocketing the Green Zone non-stop -- not a good look for the "Surge is working" PR drive -- and driving the Iraqi Army clean out of the 2.5-million-strong Shia slum, Sadr City. And in every poor Shia neighborhood in cities and towns all over Iraq, local units of the Mahdi Army were attacking the government forces. 4.04.08 http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/81147/

4. Jason Linkins: Disclosure Of Torture Memo Fails To Grab Traditional Media's Attention

What if they disclosed a torture memo and nobody cared? This week, an 81-page memo, authored by John C. Yoo, who was a deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice at the time of its creation, was declassified and made public. The memo, which, among other things, was used as the rationale for authorizing the torture of government detainees, has long been held to be a savage reimagining of the structure of the Executive Branch and its authority, hostile to the traditional checks and balances that circumscribe the President's authority. And that's stating the matter diplomatically. A less kind observer might conclude that the memo was a legal abomination which tortures the accepted body of Constitutional law along the way to glibly authorizing a Grand Guignol of authoritarian power that our nation's founders would find abhorrent. With these high stakes as the prologue, you'd have to imagine that the disclosure of the memo would be of pre-eminent importance to the media.

You'd be wrong. The extent to which this story, the questions it raises, and the impact it has on our lives failed to resonate in the sphere of the traditional media is distressing and disturbing. Non-traditional media did much better, but the fact that this matter did not acquire a portion of the mass-media megaphone makes one worry that by this time next week the matter will be forgotten. But in many quarters of the Fourth Estate, the waters of Lethe are already being poured. 4.03.08 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/03/disclosure-of-torture-mem_n_94984.html

5. David Sirota: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

I’ll admit it: I used to admire John McCain.

To paraphrase the UFO poster from “The X-Files,” I wanted to believe.

Specifically, I wanted to believe the guy talking tough about campaign finance reform was committed to getting money out of politics. This was the Arizona senator who in 2002 taped a radio ad praising his state’s “clean elections” system. It provides public money to candidates so they don’t have to finance campaigns with corporate contributions—the kind given in exchange for legislative favors. McCain’s support for clean elections, I thought, proved he wanted to end corruption.

But by the time the senator showed up here in Colorado last week for a fundraiser at Denver’s Petroleum Club, I knew I had been duped.

As The Washington Post reports, McCain is now “assiduously courting both lobbyists and their wealthy clients, offering them private audiences as part of his fundraising.” He has more lobbyists as fundraisers than any other White House contender, and he allows lobbyists to simultaneously work in his campaign and represent business clients. In fact, the Post reported that his chief adviser “said he does a lot of his [lobbying] work by telephone from McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus.”

Such antics have run that “Straight Talk Express” into the ditch of hypocrisy. 3.03.08 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080403_confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man/

6. Safeguarding Electronic Voting

After the bungled voting and vote-counting in Florida in 2000, Americans agreed that the nation’s voting systems had to be upgraded. With a presidential election fast approaching, there is a real danger of another meltdown — this time because of the flaws in electronic voting.

This week, a House committee approved a good emergency bill, sponsored by Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, that would help fix the problems. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, should schedule a vote of the full House as soon as possible.

After the 2000 election, Congress made money available to the states to replace the punch-card machines that produced Florida’s infamous hanging and dimpled chads. Unfortunately, many states bought untrustworthy, paperless electronic voting machines. Experience has shown that these machines do not always record the votes that are cast and that they sometimes flip votes from one candidate to another. Expert studies have also proved that they are highly vulnerable to vote theft.

The answer to these problems is voter-verified paper trails — paper records of every vote. After an election, the totals on the machines can be compared with the paper records. If there is a discrepancy, the paper records become the official results.

Most states, including New York, California and Illinois, now have laws requiring voter-verified paper trails. Unfortunately, many states still do not. If electronic voting fails in any of these states this fall, it could cast doubt on the entire election.

Mr. Holt’s bill would make money available to states to convert to paper-based electronic voting before Election Day. It would also provide funds to conduct audits of paper records to ensure that the results from the computerized machines were correct. Ideally, these steps would be mandatory — no state should be able to conduct federal voting that does not meet minimum standards of reliability. The Holt bill would do a lot of good, however, by at least making it possible for states that want to fix their systems to do so.

Americans need to know that when they vote this November they’ll be getting a new, fairly elected president — not another lawsuit. 4.04.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/opinion/04fri2.html

7. Fear of Regulating

To understand the White House’s blueprint for regulating the financial markets, start with what the Bush administration did not do. It did not offer America a plan to respond to the ongoing credit crisis or to the Federal Reserve’s dramatic intervention to prevent the collapse of Bear Stearns. It certainly did not provide a roadmap for avoiding this sort of meltdown in the future.

It’s probably useless to hope for anything better from Bush administration officials. They are complicit in the credit crisis because the anti-regulatory ethos and practices of the administration fostered the conditions for the debacle. It’s difficult to solve problems of one’s own making and impossible to respond effectively if you don’t first face up to your role in causing them. The administration apparently prefers to perpetuate the myth of self-policing, self-correcting global free markets, rather than own up to the fatal flaws that are now so evident in that myth.

In the end, Mr. Bush’s regulatory blueprint will allow him to leave office with that ideology intact — in his mind at least. The real work will be left to others. 4.03.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/opinion/03thu1.html

8. Fox and the henhouse

The Department of Energy's bungling on the Yucca Mountain project continues.

Or is "bungling" too nice a word?

On Thursday, the DOE's inspector general revealed that the agency had failed to properly document why it chose a law firm riddled with conflicts of interest as the recipient of a $100 million contract to help prepare a license application for the nuke dump.

The firm, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP, represents 11 nuclear utilities that are suing the government for not having already taken the spent waste off their hands.

In other words, the DOE hired a firm representing those with a vested interest in pushing the Yucca Mountain project to prepare the application that must be approved before the dump can open.

Fox, meet the henhouse. 4.04.08 http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/17290659.html

9. Glenn Greenwald: The U.S. establishment media in a nutshell

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to "domestic military operations" within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

"Yoo and torture" - 102
"Mukasey and 9/11" -- 73
"Yoo and Fourth Amendment" -- 16
"Obama and bowling" -- 1,043
"Obama and Wright" -- More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)
"Obama and patriotism" - 1,607
"Clinton and Lewinsky" -- 1,079

And as Eric Boehlert documents, even Iraq -- that little five-year U.S. occupation with no end in sight -- has been virtually written out of the media narrative in favor of mindless, stupid, vapid chatter of the type referenced above. "The Clintons are Rich!!!!" will undoubtedly soon be at the top of this heap within a matter of a day or two. 4.05.08 http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/05/media/index.html

10. Charley Reese: Strategic Manure

Sen. John McCain is already spreading the old "strategic interests" fertilizer along the presidential campaign trail while pretending to be an expert.

Let's hope he really can explain what interests require us to maintain troops in Germany and Japan 63 years after the end of the war. What exactly is the purpose of those troops? Are we expecting the Mongols to descend on Japan? Does he expect the Cossacks will ride across the plains to attack Europe? Does he think that two of the greatest economic powers on Earth – Japan and Europe – are too poor to defend themselves? The old boy is living in the past.

When American politicians talk about strategic interests, they are talking about just what I called it, manure. We have no strategic interests in the Middle East whatsoever. We wish to buy oil there. Last time I checked, those countries that produce oil were selling it to any country willing to buy it, whether that country had troops in the area or not. Since oil isn't edible, there's not a heck of a lot you can do with it if you don't sell it.

As for the nuclear nonsense, both Iran and our own intelligence agencies say that the Iranians are not interested in developing nuclear weapons. But suppose they were. Who cares? I'm much more concerned about the nuclear weapons in Russia, China, India, Pakistan, France, Great Britain, the U.S. and Israel. http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese443.html

11. Jameel Jaffer: Notes on torture

Since 2003, my organisation, the American Civil Liberties Union, has been litigating for the release of government documents concerning the abuse and torture of prisoners at Guantánamo and other US facilities overseas. The litigation has resulted in the release of more than 100,000 pages, including interrogation directives, witness statements, autopsy reports, and legal memos. One of the most important of these documents was released to us this week.

The document (pdf) is a legal memorandum authored in 2003 by the office of legal counsel, part of the US justice department, for the department of defence. The memo reinterprets statutes to argue that an act does not rise to the level of torture unless it inflicts the kind of pain associated with "death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant bodily function". It argues that, even if a statute bars a particular interrogation method, the president has the authority to ignore the statute. And it argues that, even if an interrogator were to be prosecuted for torture, the interrogator would be able to defend himself by arguing that the torture was not inflicted maliciously but rather as a means of obtaining information.

The memorandum is a disgrace, not just morally, but legally as well. In fact it's not really a legal memo at all. Its interpretations of federal statutes range from the implausible to the absurd, and it repeatedly ignores or mischaracterises well-settled supreme court precedent. Ultimately it's a political document, with a clear political agenda: to dismantle every possible restraint on the president's power. 4.05.08 http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jameel_jaffer/2008/04/notes_on_torture.html

12. Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes: $3 trillion may be too low

President Bush has tried to give the impression that the $3 trillion dollar estimate of the total cost of the war that we provide in our new book may be exaggerated.

We believe that it is, in fact, conservative. Even the president would have to admit that the $50 to $60 billion estimate given by the administration before the war was wildly off the mark; there is little reason to have confidence in their arithmetic. They admit to a cost so far of $600 billion.

Our numbers differ from theirs for three reasons: first, we are estimating the total cost of the war, under alternative conservative scenarios, derived from the defence department and congressional budget office. We are not looking at McCain's 100-year scenario - we assume that we are there, in diminished strength, only through to 2017. But neither are we looking at a scenario that sees our troops pulled out within six months. With operational spending going on at $12 billion a month, and with every year costing more than the last, it is easy to come to a total operational cost that is double the $600 billon already spent.

Second, we include war expenditures hidden elsewhere in the budget, and budgetary expenditures that we would have to incur in the future even if we left tomorrow. Most important of these are future costs of caring for the 40% of returning veterans that are likely to suffer from disabilities (in excess of $600 billion; second world war veterans' costs didn't peak until 1993), and restoring the military to its prewar strength. If you include interest, and interest on the interest - with all of the war debt financed - the budgetary costs quickly mount.

Finally, our $3 trillion dollars estimate also includes costs to the economy that go beyond the budget, for instance the cost of caring for the huge number of returning disabled veterans that go beyond the costs borne by the federal government - in one out of five families with a serious disability, someone has to give up a job. The macro-economic costs are even larger. Almost every expert we have talked to agrees that the war has had something to do with the rise in the price of oil; it was not just an accident that oil prices began to soar at the same time as the war began. 4.06.08 http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/joseph_stiglitz_and_linda_bilmes/2008/04/3_trillion_may_be_too_low.html

13. Robert Scheer: Painful Performance

General Betray Us? Of course he has. MoveOn.org can hardly be expected to recycle its slogan from last September, when General David Petraeus testified in support of escalating the US war in Iraq, given the hysterical denunciations that worthy group received at the time. But it was right then--as it would be to repeat the charge now.

By undercutting the widespread support for getting out of Iraq, Petraeus did indeed betray the American public, siding with an enormously unpopular President who wants to stay the course in Iraq for personal and political reasons that run contrary to genuine national security interests. Once again, the President is passing the buck to the uniformed military to justify continuing a ludicrous imperial adventure, and the good general has dutifully performed.

So why are we surprised? Why do we expect the generals to lead us on the path to peace when that is the professional task of statesmen and not warriors? It is an abdication of civilian control of the military, the basic principle of American constitutional governance, to assign a central role to an active-duty general to make the decision to end the war. It betrays the legacy warnings of our two most famous wartime generals, George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower. 4.09.08 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/truthdig

14. David Rovics: The truth about the 9/11 'truth movement

If you bother slogging through the volumes of books and stacks of documentaries that "9/11 Truth" people will foist on you if you let them, you will find that most of them are propaganda pieces and most of the "experts" are not experts in relevant fields.

When you do look beyond this mass of misinformation for real experts, you will easily find pilots who can discount the claims of the Truthers that maneuvering the planes into the towers was a particularly challenging thing for people with only a little flight training to pull off. You will easily find mechanical engineers familiar with the structural flaws in the design of the WTC that allowed it to collapse in the first place, and physicists who can explain why such large buildings would appear to be imploding as if in a controlled demolition, or why people on the scene would have thought they were hearing explosions, etc.

My purpose here is not to disprove all the hypotheses presented by the Truthers and their propaganda pieces – if you want to look into "debunking the debunkers" yourself, there is plenty of information out there, and Popular Mechanics' issue on the subject is a good place to start. 4.02.08 http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=69564

15. J. Goodrich: Soppy and Bitchy

That sounds like the beginning of the name list for the seven dwarves. What would the others be called? Weepy, clingy, bossy, whiny and harpy?

Sadly, they are not some of the seven dwarves, but adjectives Christopher Hitchens attached to Hillary Clinton's recent behavior, adjectives which one would not use to describe a male politician under any realistic circumstances I can imagine. They are "female" adjectives, as are most of the ones I chose to fill in the list of my imaginary seven adjective dwarves.

Now, if you employ female adjectives in describing a female politician you are probably viewing her in a gendered light, picking and choosing among the various stereotypes that tend to be attached to being a woman. This might not be worth pointing out if political pundits did the same thing as often with male politicians, and if there were an equally interesting repertory of matching "male" adjectives. But, alas, that is not the case. 04/06/2008 http://www.thenation.com/blogs/passingthrough?bid=769

16. Marie Cocco: Seven Years of Scandal

WASHINGTON—The latest plot twists are stunners, even as they unfold against the scandalous backdrop of the Bush administration’s sorry regulatory record.

On a single day last week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee aired testimony from Federal Aviation Administration inspectors who discovered gross safety violations at Southwest Airlines—and were rebuffed by their superiors when they tried to force compliance with basic rules. Across the Capitol and at almost the same hour, the Senate Banking Committee was probing why neither the Treasury Department nor the Securities and Exchange Commission—or any other individual or agency in the government—could see the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns coming until it was hard and fast upon them and a $30 billion taxpayer-backed loan guaranty was needed to bail out the Wall Street giant.

A few days earlier, Labor Department investigators reported their findings on the role and performance of the Mine Safety and Health Administration in the Crandall Canyon Mine disasters in Utah that killed nine men last August. The mine safety agency was “negligent in carrying out its responsibility to protect the safety of miners,” the report said. It also failed to demonstrate that its approval of a risky method of coal extraction “was free from undue influence by the mine operator.”

If all of this is insufficient cause for alarm, there is always more. The Environmental Protection Agency has stacked its expert review panels with scientists who have ties to the chemical industry, according to a preliminary inquiry by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Meanwhile, the EPA removed a public health scientist from a review panel after she testified publicly about the hazards of a fire retardant that is suspected of causing cancer.

There is little surprise left when someone—a whistle-blower, a member of Congress, a scientist who has been muzzled—reveals fresh insight into the evisceration of health and safety regulation or the retaliatory thrusts the Bush administration takes against those who dare complain. Seen in historical context, the meltdown of the credit markets, the unseemly Wall Street bailout and the shock that federal overseers seemed to display when it all cascaded upon them are merely a larger part of an ugly pattern. “Was someone asleep at the switch?” a puzzled Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked of the financial wizards who came before the banking panel.

Not exactly. It is more accurate to say the switch has been turned off. 3.08.08 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080408_seven_years_of_scandal/

17. James Goldsborough: Oxymoronic Foreign Policy

Whoever the Democrats choose to run against him, we know what to expect from McCain. "If I cannot convince the American people that Iraq is a worthy cause," he says, "I lose." Here’s how he put it in Los Angeles:

"It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible and premature withdrawal."

Substitute the word Vietnam in that sentence, and you get to McCain’s true thinking. He believes in military solutions where there are none. "I look for the shadow of Vietnam in every prospective conflict," he told the VFW in a 2000 campaign speech, and apparently always finds it. For McCain, politicians, not the military (or the American people) lost the Vietnam War. In his autobiography, he describes as "senseless" and "illogical" the limiting of bombing in Vietnam to military targets. "We thought civilian commanders were complete idiots."

It is an argument for total war, war that makes no distinction between combatants and civilians, one that knows no limits. For McCain, there was a bombing and occupation solution in Vietnam, and so must there be one in Iraq.

Someone else once said the same thing. His name was Tacitus, who said of Rome’s insatiable appetite for conquest:

"They make a desert and call it peace."

And look what happened to Rome. 4.10.08 http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/04/10/opinion/02goldsborough041008.txt

18. Joe Conason: Are We Closer to ‘Victory’?

Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq, is more candid than his publicity agents. Unlike the senators and editorial writers who claim that the glorious “surge” should be hailed as one of the most successful military campaigns in history, he warns that the escalation’s achievements are mixed at best—or, as he put it, progress on the ground is “uneven” and “fragile and reversible,” with “innumerable challenges” remaining to be addressed.

His caveats cannot dampen the enthusiasm of the politicians and pundits who would maintain the occupation of Iraq and even expand our aggressive presence in the Middle East. Selling that policy requires propaganda proving the surge is succeeding and that if we only stay long enough, spend enough money and sacrifice enough young men and women, then someday we will achieve a great victory. “We are closer,” says the general, carefully.

Yes, everything is getting better and better every day in Iraq—and it will always be getting better and better, even if we have to stay for a hundred or a thousand years. 4.09.08 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080409_are_we_closer_to_victory/

19. No answers, no goals, no exit

Beyond domestic politics and presidential blame-shifting, the unreality that pervaded the testimony of Petraeus and Crocker grew out of their inability - or reluctance - to account for the political and humanitarian conditions inside Iraq. Petraeus has been implementing counter-insurgency tactics. But apart from the badly battered remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq, there is no American war against Iraqi insurgents.

Instead, sectarian militias - which include the national police dominated by followers of the anti-American Shi'ite cleric Muqtada Sadr - are sharpening their knives, waiting for US forces to leave, and preparing to wage bloody battles for power. The recent assault on Sadr's forces in Basra was a foreshadowing of power struggles that will erupt not only between Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs, but between opposing factions in each community, and also between Kurds and Arabs in northern Iraq.

None of these impending civil wars is a conflict America can win. And there is little evidence that the continuing US presence is bringing any of them closer to a solution. 4.10.08 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/04/10/no_answers_no_goals_no_exit/