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Really Quite Remarkable

read about the former postman (!) Dave Toole at his website

"She's hunted moose. That's pretty impressive to the people in Massachusetts."

– Mitt Romney, without any hint of humor, explaining to Andrea Mitchell why Sarah Palin appeals to Massachusetts voters.

via Cunning Realist

The Real McCain (as opposed to McCoy)

It's November 19, 2004, a mere two weeks after the election that returned George W. Bush to power, and Senator John McCain has traipsed off to New Hampshire to give a speech calling for 50,000 more troops to be sent into the quagmire of Iraq, press flesh and raise money for an expected run at the presidency in 2008. John Sununu, former New Hampshire governor and Bush family consigliere, wryly quipped about McCain's junket to the Granite State, "What took him so long?"

The press corps, already bored with Bush and election post-mortems, tags along. McCain's the darling of the moment, the opinion press's favorite senator, a media-made maverick, who was sedulously courted by both John Kerry and George Bush. McCain, true to form, flirted with them both and sniped at them both, but in the end remained wedded to the GOP, even as the party fell further under the sway of neo-cons and Christian fundamentalists that McCain publicly claims to abhor.

But that's all part of the McCain profile. He is the senator of the hollow protest. McCain is nothing if not a political stunt man. His chief stunt is the evocation of political piety. From his pulpit in the well of the senate, McCain gestures and fumes about the evils of Pentagon porkbarrel. He rails about useless and expensive weapons systems, contractor malfeasance, and bloated R&B budgets.

But he does nothing about them. McCain pontificates, but never obstructs. Few senators have his political capital. But he does nothing with it. Under the arcane rules of the senate, one senator can gum up the works, derail a bad (or good, though those are increasingly rare in this environment) bill, dislodge non-germane riders, usually loaded with pork, from big appropriations bills. McCain is never that senator. He is content to let ride that which he claims to detest in press releases and senate speeches.

A recent example. In late October, McCain went on 60 Minutes to decry a footnote in the Defense Appropriations Bill of 2004 that transferred billions of dollars from so-called Operations and Maintenance accounts for US troops in Iraq to porkbarrel projects, such as gold mines and museums, in the states of powerful senators. In his stern voice before the cameras, McCain made congressional looting sound like a treasonable offense. But what he failed to disclose is the fact that he actually voted for the bill. Not only that, he was personally approached by each senator who wanted just such a transfer of funds and gave it his seal of approval.

McCain the Maverick is a merely a fine-honed act, underscored by these kinds of casual hypocrisies.

more from Jeffrey St. Clair at Counterpunch

The Backstory Behind the Conflict in Georgia

Many Western analysts have chosen to interpret the recent fighting in the Caucasus as the onset of a new Cold War, with a small pro-Western democracy bravely resisting a brutal reincarnation of Stalin's jack-booted Soviet Union. Others have viewed it a throwback to the age-old ethnic politics of southeastern Europe, with assorted minorities using contemporary border disputes to settle ancient scores.

Neither of these explanations is accurate. To fully grasp the recent upheavals in the Caucasus, it is necessary to view the conflict as but a minor skirmish in a far more significant geopolitical struggle between Moscow and Washington over the energy riches of the Caspian Sea basin – with former Russian President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin emerging as the reigning Grand Master of geostrategic chess and the Bush team turning out to be middling amateurs, at best.

The ultimate prize in this contest is control over the flow of oil and natural gas from the energy-rich Caspian basin to eager markets in Europe and Asia. According to the most recent tally by oil giant BP, the Caspian's leading energy producers, all former "socialist republics" of the Soviet Union -- notably Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan -- together possess approximately 48 billion barrels in proven oil reserves (roughly equivalent to those left in the U.S. and Canada) and 268 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (essentially equivalent to what Saudi Arabia possesses).

During the Soviet era, the oil and gas output of these nations was, of course, controlled by officials in Moscow and largely allocated to Russia and other Soviet republics. After the breakup of the USSR in 1991, however, Western oil companies began to participate in the hydrocarbon equivalent of a gold rush to exploit Caspian energy reservoirs, while plans were being made to channel the region's oil and gas to markets across the world.

read the rest of Michael T. Ware's trenchant analysis at TomDispatch

Nation's Poorest 1% Now Controls Two-Thirds Of U.S. Soda Can Wealth

WASHINGTON—A report on growing disparities in the concentration of U.S. aluminum-can wealth, released Tuesday by the Department of Commerce, revealed that 66 percent of the nation's recyclable assets are now held by the poorest 1 percent of the population.

According to the sobering report, the disproportionate distribution of soda-can wealth is greater than ever before, and has become one of the worst instances of economic inequality in the nation's history. Data showed that over-salvaging of cans by a small and elite group of can-horders has created a steadily growing and possibly unbridgeable gap between the rich and the mega-poor.

"Although our nation's upper middle class actually consumes the most beverages, a staggering percentage of these cans wind up in the hands of a very few," said economist Cynthia Pierce, who worked as a consultant on the three-year, $14 million government study. "It's a troubling trend. And as a tiny fraction of the population continues to maintain its stranglehold on redeemable can wealth, it's a trend that shows no sign of slowing."

According to Pierce, the study points to a distinct economic advantage for the most can-affluent—those who possess the resources necessary to collect, transport, separate, and accumulate more and more cans than the rest of the population.

"Members of this exclusive group come from exceedingly poor backgrounds and have access to outrageously low levels of education, which makes them much better prepared to reap the benefits of digging around in garbage," Pierce added.

more on this elite group of up-and-comers in The Onion

Sweet Connection

This preoccupation with refined carbohydrates and their exclusion from diet may look odd, but the evidence confirming the significance of removing or moderating their intake continues to mount. Nature, via Science Daily, has published research from Dr Zane Andrews of Monash University (and others) showing that appetite-control cells are damaged over time, with carbohydrates and sugars playing an important part in that damage process:

Dr Andrews found that appetite-suppressing cells are attacked by free radicals after eating and said the degeneration is more significant following meals rich in carbohydrates and sugars.
‘The more carbs and sugars you eat, the more your appetite-control cells are damaged, and potentially you consume more,’ Dr Andrews said.

Interestingly, the effects start to occur from early adulthood:

‘People in the age group of 25 to 50 are most at risk. The neurons that tell people in the crucial age range not to over-eat are being killed-off…
…A diet rich in carbohydrate and sugar that has become more and more prevalent in modern societies over the last 20-30 years has placed so much strain on our bodies that it’s leading to premature cell deterioration,’ Dr Andrews said.

via Knackered Hack

Reckless Indeed

I've been thinking all day about McCain's surprising (shocking really) selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, and the more I think about it, the more absurd it seems to me. There's no question that, relative to John McCain and some prior notable presidential candidates, Barack Obama isn't all that experienced.

That said, he's been a member of the U.S. Senate for the last four years, and during that time, he's had to grapple seriously with every issue, domestic and foreign, that he'll have to deal with if he's elected president. He's traveled the world and met with most major foreign leaders. And by all accounts, he's a very intelligent and curious person who has a deep understanding of policy issues. Indeed, he has significantly more experience dealing with national and foreign policy issues than several recent presidents did when they took office (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).

But Palin's level of experience is not even in the same ballpark. She became the governor of the 3rd smallest state in the union after John McCain launched his current campaign for president. And prior to that she was the mayor of a town of 9000 people (and according to this TNR writer, seemed to be in over her head even then). Furthermore, there's no evidence whatsoever that Palin has ever given much thought to any national, much less foreign policy issues. She has no record of scholarship and no record of having voiced opinions on major issues.

That makes her, by a country mile, the least qualified person to ever find her way on to a national ticket, a reality that McCain's age and health history makes all the more significant.

And it would one thing if she was someone that McCain knew well and could vouch for. But it was reported today that McCain only met Palin once--and briefly at that--before choosing her to be his running mate. Yet he's willing to put her one heartbeat away from being the leader of the free world?

That's really hard to take seriously. In fact, it can't be taken seriously. It's a transparently political move, a gimmick. And it's reckless as all hell. Maybe Sarah Palin would be a brilliant leader, but McCain certainly doesn't know that. He doesn't know her at all. What does that say about his judgment? It says he's willing to take a major gamble on behalf of the country, and that's scary. That's not a quality I want in a president.

via Anonymous Liberal

Candidate of Change? Not.

I've received a few e-mails from readers wondering why I would be critical of Obama, when the alternative would be such a disaster. To be clear, I agree that a McCain Presidency would be a continuation – if not a deepening – of the national nightmare which the U.S. has experienced for the past seven years. However, I do not believe that it is healthy to pretend that Obama will make dramatic changes in our system of government. In fact, I see rapidly mounting evidence that it will, for the most part, be (corporate) business as usual, and in some ways that is more insidious than the brazen transgressions of the Bush administration.

Gary Leupp provides just one on many recent examples of what I mean:

I will tell you having visited Israel just a month and a half ago, their general attitude is, ‘We will not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.’ My job as president would be to try to make sure we are tightening the screws diplomatically on Iran, that we mobilize the world community to go after Iran’s nuclear program in a serious way. … We have to do it before Israel feels its back is against the wall.

– Barack Obama, 8/25

The candidate of “change,” having just selected the ultimate Washington insider as his running mate, again makes clear how thoroughly he embraces the Lobby and the foreign policy establishment.

He might have said:

Well, as I understand it, the National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007, which represents the consensus of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies including the CIA, stated with a high degree of confidence that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Some Bush administration officials, especially those around Vice President Cheney, act as though they know that there is one and it threatens the whole world. But they’ve pulled that act before, haven’t they?–scaring us all about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction which, it turned out, didn’t exist.

I visited Israel a month and a half ago, and I know there are some people there who see Iran as their main enemy. They’d like the U.S. to bomb Iran. But I frankly question their judgment. My foreign policy will be based upon my administration’s assessment of America’s interests, which do not include antagonizing more Muslim nations or reinforcing the perception that the U.S. gives Israel everything it wants, even as it ceaselessly expands illegal settlements on the occupied West Bank and— lets’s speak frankly—treats Palestinians as blacks in South Africa were treated under apartheid.

I’d like to remind you that in the summer of 2003 the Iranian government through the Swiss ambassador to Tehran proposed talks with the U.S. The Iranians were willing to exchange support for the Arab League proposal for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine, withdrawal of military support for Hamas and Hizbollah, and resolution of U.S. concerns about its nuclear program in exchange for normalized diplomatic and trade relations with the U.S. Although Secretary of State Colin Powell was interested in the offer, Vice President Cheney rejected it out of hand. The initiative was not even reported in the press at the time.

read on at Dissident Voice

Corporate Media Bias: An Egregious Example

TIME FOR THE AP TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR.... About half way through Barack Obama's convention speech last night, he told his audience, "That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now. So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am President."

He did just that, with an emphasis on depth. Taxes, healthcare, energy policy, education -- Obama left little doubt about what he would do if elected. Indeed, the emphasis on details, which his detractors have said is a weak point in his campaign, was hard to miss. Chris Cillizza said, "Obama's speech was more substance than style; more specifics than rhetorical flourish." Greg Sargent said the speech "was strong because of its specificity." Robert Gordon and James Kvaal added, "In its depth and detail, his speech resembled a State of the Union address more than a typical stump speech."

And yet, there was the Associated Press, doing what it's been doing far too often: parroting the Republican line.

Barack Obama, whose campaign theme is "change we can believe in," promised Thursday to "spell out exactly what that change would mean."

But instead of dwelling on specifics, he laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer. [...]

The crowd at Invesco Field cheered deliriously, but Republicans almost surely will decry the lack of specifics.

This is utter nonsense. Obama detailed his policy vision in a way few convention speeches of the modern era have. What, exactly, did the AP's Charles Babbington expect Obama to do? Break out a chalk board and some pie charts? Start reading white papers?

read on in the Washington Monthly

The Important Question

Lawyers for an Ethiopian national who lived in Britain -- housed at Guantanamo since 2004 and now scheduled for a military commission trial for war crimes -- have asked a British court to order the British government to provide Mohamed's lawyers with information about Mohamad's interrogations in Pakistan and Morocco. Last week, the British High Court of Justice concluded that British intelligence officers had unlawfully assisted the United States in interrogations as part of an unlawful incommunicado detention. Mohamad also alleges that he was tortured, and that the confessions he gave -- the principal evidence in his war crimes trial -- were the subject of unlawful coercion. He is seeking Britain's evidence of his interrogations.

Today, the State Department sent an e-mail that was provided to the British court, arguing that the disclosure of the information would cause "serious and lasting damage to the US-UK intelligence-sharing relationship and thus the national security of the UK."

Which is no doubt true: If the UK court publicly reveals that the United States rendered Mohamad to Morocco and Pakistan in order that he could be tortured, the U.S. government will be none too pleased, and will naturally be reluctant to trust the British in the future with secret evidence of torture and other war crimes. Which will in turn mean that the U.S. will be much more wary about conscripting the British to assist in such crimes.

The important question, of course, is whether "lasting damage" to that sort of unlawful US-UK "relationship" is something that we should regret, and that the British court should endeavor to avoid.

via Marty Lederman's and Jack Balkin's blog

Biden

Moira Whelan makes an important, subtle point about Obama's choice for VP:

I, like others, have been impressed with his mastery of the broad range of national security issues and his early identification of emerging challenges. He knows how various factors fit together and his judgment is for the most part, excellent.

But what has impressed me most, for years, is his staff. He knows how to pick ‘em, and that’s no small thing. Brilliant people come and go in DC, but rarely do they also have the ability to pick quality staff the way Biden does. His folks always are among the brightest from a policy standpoint, but also possess a sophisticated political acumen. It’s a rare but valuable combination. I’ve had the privilege of working for, and with, many of these folks, and count them among my friends. I’ve always gotten the sense that their boss respected them for their abilities and listened to their ideas rather then them simply having to implement his. They were encouraged to push hard and dig deep on issues. They were challenged by Biden, but in a good way. The Boss reads, talks to experts, and asks questions. He challenges his staff and calls them to the carpet. Why? Because the most important thing is to get the answer right and to be honest about the challenges we face.

As a result of having a staff that is so good, Biden is almost never behind the curve of policy developments. He’s proactive, not reactive.That’s a huge strategic advantage, and as a result, becoming a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is a badge of validation among foreign policy folks. Further than that, you’ll hear from many foreign policy experts how closely they work with Biden. They’re not making it up. Biden counts on a broad range of people to get the job done right. Many, many people feel they have influence on his approach and as a result when the final product is announced, they feel invested, but the view is all Biden, and usually better. Biden collects the best. Simple as that.

This translates in a big way to an executive branch position. If Obama-Biden is the winning ticket, lots of people will be brought in to reverse the reckless policies of the past 7 years and put America on the right track. With such a small window of time and so much to do, picking the right people is critical. Biden recognizes talent, and has learned how to pick people with sound policy judgment but who can also navigate the interagency, and the multiple political roadblocks thrown in the path of even the purest of intentions. This could be his greatest contribution to an Obama administration.

If Obama-Biden takes command on January 20, it will be with the most talented people available to implement what needs to be done, not just the people who campaigned well.

via Democracy Arsenal

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