I agree with Amanda Marcotte

...an Austin blogger over at Pandagon. This is pretty interesting:

I get email

This one is from Michael Steele, head of the Republican National Committee:

Dear dan,
I hope Arlen Specter's party change outrages you. It should for two reasons:

First--Specter claimed it was philosophical--and pointed his finger of blame at Republicans all over America for his defection to the Democrats. He told us all to go jump in the lake today.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe a word he said.

Arlen Specter committed a purely political and self-serving act today. He simply believes he has a better chance of saving his political hide and his job as a Democrat. He loves the title of Senator more than he loves the party--and the principles--that elected him and nurtured him.

Second--and more importantly--Arlen Specter handed Barack Obama and his band of radical leftists nearly absolute power in the United States Senate. In leaving the Republican Party--and joining the Democrats--he absolutely undercut Republicans' efforts to slow down Obama's radical agenda through the threat of filibuster.

I'll say it as well. Republicans, go jump in the lake. Then have a picnic by the lake. Maybe tell some jokes. It's time for the grownups to clean up your mess.

Sincerely,
Radical Leftist (a.k.a 68% of Americans)

Fitting that on day 99...

... Arlen Specter becomes 59 of 99...paging Senator Franken.

What Digby Said

Read this:

Kilmeade's belief that nobody should be allowed to have an opinion backed up with experience or knowledge tracks perfectly with the conservative movement, on a variety of subjects. We shouldn't listen to scientists on climate change, or health professionals on health care, or weapons inspectors on Iraq. The plural of data is not anecdote.

BTW - the plural of data is...data.

Torture

The torture story is unfolding pretty quickly. the liberal blogosphere is really doing an outstanding job of putting the pieces together as well as advocating for investigation. For the most part, the best I can do is link to some of the better analysis (as well as old fashioned news reporting) from time to time.

I suggest starting with this from Daily Kos:

So much information about the Bush administration's torture policies and rationales has surfaced in recent days that, contrary to the secrecy meme of those days, we are now in danger of suffering from TMI - too much information.

So I thought it would be helpful to put together a timeline of known facts, reports and claims to try to give some chronological perspective to it all. As with any such collection, the selections are somewhat subjective, but I have tried to be fair (but not balanced; this isn't a sporting event) in including what is known, admitted or reasonably validated. And - for once - I will leave speculation to the comments.

Digby

All day I've been seeing torture apologists all over TV frantically trying to block this particular line of inquiry. They know that it's potentially the most explosive revelation of all. If the White House ordered torture to try to get the prisoners to falsely confess to links between al Qaeda and Iraq ... well all bets are off.

Marcy Wheeler

Whether you believe Obama is impeding investigation or playing 11 dimension chess to set it up without looking like the bad guy, his policy on FOIA has already begun to open up the floodgates that may enable public opinion make this happen.

Marcy Again

But, as we know, that's not how waterboarding was done in practice.

The IG Report noted that in some cases the waterboard was used with far greater frequency than initially indicated, see IG Report at 5, 44, 46, 103-04, and also that it was used in a different manner. See id. at 37 ("[T]he waterboard technique ... was different from the technique described in the DoJ opinion and used in the SERE training. The difference was the manner in which the detainee's breathing was obstructed. At the SERE school and in the DoJ opinion, the subject's airflow is disrupted by the firm application of a damp cloth over the air passages; the interrogator applies a small amount of water to the cloth in a controlled manner. By contrast, the Agency Interrogator ... applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee's mouth and nose. One of the psychologists/interrogators acknowledged that the Agency's use of the technique is different from that used in SERE training because it is "for real--and is more poignant and convincing.") [my emphasis]

They got approval for SERE techniques. But they had already formally decided to far exceed the guidelines used in SERE.

Greg Sargent

Robert Mueller, who was appointed by Bush in 2001 and remains FBI director under Obama, delivered that assessment at the end of this December 2008 article in Vanity Fair on torture:

I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?

“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”

That stands in direct contrast to Dick Cheney’s recent claim that torture has been “enormously valuable” in terms of “preventing another mass-casualty attack against the United States.”

You’d think that this sort of thing would throw a bit of a wrench into the Bushies’ campaign. But as Charles Kaiser notes, these types of statements haven’t really broken through the media din.

And finally from the Washington Post:

But several top Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, are pushing back. A day after they sent a letter to Obama arguing that any investigation criminalizes political differences on national security, McCain and several colleagues applied more pressure on the White House through a round of interviews on TV news programs.

(emphasis added)
You have got to be kidding me. First off, what does "criminalizing policy differences" even mean? It sounds to me like they're saying that American and international law is just an opinion to be considered and discarded at will. I think there's a real chance that McCain would have been a worse president than Bush. Of all people, I would have expected him to have moral clarity on torture...

Funny thing about liberals

My observation so far is that conservatives will fall in line behind their leader no matter what he does or says. Liberals or progressives on the other hand are convinced that their leaders will sell them out at the earliest opportunity and interpret actions and words in the most negative way possible. While I get a little tired of all the cries of "traitor" and "sellout", it pretty much negates the argument I get from conservatives that I don't know the "real truth" because I only get info from the "Obama-loving liberal media" (hmm...[blank]-lover! where have I heard that before?).

I won't go into a diatribe about how the news media in the US is owned by large corporations and how that biases their product to the benefit of those corporations (such as profiting from war, via government contracts). But, I will say that there is a striking difference between watching Fox continue to cheerlead for the last administration's torture policies and watching Olbermann or Maddow take President Obama to task for not calling for criminal investigations into those policies. I think that a lot of the angst on the left is a product of getting their asses handed to them by the conservatives for most of the last 40 years, but the instinct is correct: question authority.

quick hits

read this:

Oft-cited, yet still worth recalling, is the spot in his book The Audacity of Hope where Obama wrote: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." At least as importantly, Obama is a master of speaking and acting in ways that gravitate to the center of political gravity.

We should be hard at work at the grassroots to move that center of political gravity in progressive directions, which requires speaking truth about power -- a far different endeavor than reflexively defending or vilifying Obama.

It should be axiomatic -- for commentators who refuse to be partisan hacks, for activists with progressive commitments, for anyone determined to elude Orwellian doublethink -- that presidential actions and policies should be assessed and supported or opposed on their merits.

and this:

For years, media stars ignored the fact that our Government was chronically breaking the law and systematically torturing detainees (look at this extremely detailed exposé by The Washington Post's Dana Priest and Barton Gellman from December, 2002 to get a sense for how much we've known about all of this and for how long we've known it). Now that the sheer criminality of this conduct, really for the first time, has exploded into mainstream political debates as a result of the OLC memos, media stars are forced to address it. Exactly as one would expect, they are closing ranks, demanding (as always) that their big powerful political-official-friends and their elite institutions not be subject to the dirty instruments that are meant only for the masses -- things like the rule of law, investigations, prosecutions, and accountability when they abuse their power.

Emphasis added.

Texas, home of the hardboiled morons

First, take the creationists:

And Patton has the unmitigated gall to declare that it’s a lie to assert the reality that the overwhelming consensus among scientists is that evolution is as much a fact as anything in science is.

Given the extent of his lying, it would make perfect sense if you came to the conclusion that even his professions of religious belief were also a lie, that in fact all he cares about is political legitimacy for his lunatic, far-right ideas.

That's something I've always wondered about those who go against the teachings of their religion in the name of said religion. For example, if you're hustling your sheep for cash in the name of Jesus, doesn't that mean that you have contempt for his teachings?

Then there's governor "good hair" and his band of merry idiots in the state legislature.

After Gov. Rick Perry's recent comments about some Texans talking secession from the union made national news, legislators are considering issuing a "cease and desist" order to the federal government.

"This state prefers, to the greatest extent possible, to control our own destiny," said Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, one of several members co-sponsoring the measure. "We prefer that federal government limit the amount of federal mandates it forces upon the people of Texas."

As Jon Stewart says "I think you're confusing tyranny with losing."

Stewart mocked Andrew Breitbart, a former editor of the Drudge Report, who now runs his own Web news portal, for saying that since Obama became president, his children’s public school no longer used the term ‘St. Patrick’s Day’ but rather, ‘Potato Day.’

“I’m not Irish but I’m not sure ‘Potato Day’ is more politically correct than St. Patrick’s Day. I think it might be worse,” laughed Stewart before going on to say:

“And while President Bush was the one who started the bailout, nationalizing an insurance company, added a $17 trillion drug prescription entitlement program, had a government-mandated public school initiative, literally titled ‘No Child Left Behind,’ wiretapped citizens without warrants, created secret internment camps in international waters behind the reach of our justice system and allowed his vice president to live in a netherworld between the executive and legislative branch…Only now with the advent of ‘Potato Day’ has tyranny come to our shores.”

Stewart advised angry Republicans that they were "confusing tyranny with losing." “Now you’re in the minority, it’s supposed to taste like a sh** taco.”

I have nothing to add...

Come in Earth, can you hear me?

Some days it's hard to live in Texas, even in Austin. I work for a technology company that is in the process of offshoring as fast as they can, both personnel and manufacturing plants. We've had continuous rounds of layoffs for the last 3 years. The CEO took the opportunity last year to host a McCain rally featuring Phil "degregulatin'" Gramm on company property. To top it off, yesterday and today I had to listen to the emboldened wingnuts yammering about "tea parties".

I've worked here 10+ years. For eight of those years, shrubby was the President. The wingnuts were loud and proud and the rest of us kept the topic to actual work (what a concept). Since the election, the wingers were pretty quiet...until yesterday.

I know of four or five people in my area who blew off business meetings to head on down to San Antonio (home of the gullible dumbass) to worship their hero Glenn Beck. Some of those "left behind" were busy calling to get all the updates.

By the way, if you want a chuckle some time, Google "San+Antonio+flouride".

Anyhoo...today they are all back in the office feeling good (except for the hangovers) and talkin' loud. Here's what I found out today:

1. Conservatives rarely "rally" as they all have jobs. The same guy bragging about this was minutes later telling someone to make a Friday meeting early since he's out the door at 2pm every Friday. I guess the thousands laid off from this company in the last few years have all been liberals.

2. There were (I freaking kid you not) *black helicopters* hovering over the San Antonio teabagathon taking pictures with "facial recognition software". Just...wow.

Texas better get blue in a hurry or I'm out as soon as the economy picks up. Doug Sahm, Stevie Ray, Freddie King and Lightnin' Hopkins only have so much hold from the grave...

On a related topic, I went on foxnews.com last night to see what was going on. In the "You Decide" section they had the following question:

YOU DECIDE: Will Washington Respond to Tea Party Message?

My response:

SuxToLose says:
April 15, 2009 at 10:00 pm
What message?? Is it that you don’t think that 95% of Americans deserve the Obama tax cuts? Or is it that federal income tax should be abolished, thus defunding the military? Or is the message that it’s not fair that the “conservative movement” is wasting away? Gee, why would Obama ever call you bitter?

Just curious.

but alas, the teabaggers didn't want to play.

Burma news

I'm fortunate to live in an area with a Burmese Theravada Buddhist Vihara. The monks and the Burmese community have contributed greatly to my (and my family's) spiritual development and understanding of the world.

Even before I came in contact with people from Burma, I was aware of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. My introduction to her election and subsequent imprisonment came via the film "Beyond Rangoon". While it was certainly a Hollywood creation, it piqued my curiosity.

Having spent time with Burmese people and learning of the deep roots of the Buddha's teachings in their society, I can say that it is particularly tragic that they would be subjected to military rule (and that they were very vulnerable to it as well).

Last year, Burmese monks staged peaceful protests of the military government. They were subsequently brutalized and in some cases murdered.

The U.S. State Department is now reviewing America's options for more effectively bringing about change in Burma. As this article explains, this is an issue with no readily apparent solution:

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced recently that the United States was reviewing its policy of sanctions against Burma's government, it marked the final recognition of a global failure to modify the behavior of one of the world's most repressive regimes.

"Clearly, the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta," Clinton said during a visit to Asia in February. "Reaching out and trying to engage them hasn't worked, either."

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has written several books about Burma, her situation and meditation. Here's an excerpt from an interview she conducted. She's still under house arrest nineteen years after being democratically elected the leader of Burma.

Texas Music

Ok, getting back to it. If you don't know, Bobby Keyes is a Sax player from Texas who has played with hundreds of acts over the years. He's probably best known for his work with the Rolling Stones. During their classic '68-'72 run, any sax you heard on their albums was played by Bobby Keyes.

I found this vid on YouTube. It's Bobby playing with the Stones stage crew (guitar techs, etc.) in a hotel bar in Singapore (where I spent a couple of days last week).

On the Road

Spent a week in D.C with the family and wrapping up a week in Penang, Malaysia. ready to get home. Will post pix as time permits. Getting good dose of BBC live reporting of the G20 summit. My President rocks the free world...