Fact-esque

"You don’t cheat. You don’t lie. You help your neighbor."

In light of Obama's announcement on FOX News that Republican regulatory policy is preferable to actual regulation of industry, I want to point to some related items.

Melissa says not so much.

The NYT article about "wise man" and moderate foe of regulation, Robert Rubin, paints the picture of a financial supergenius, who just can't figure out where everything turned to mud but who knows that he didn't have anything to do with it.

Dean Baker puts his finger on the development of the "New 'Capitalist Man'".

Paradox wishes that anyone would be up front with the American voter.

Thank goodness last week's 30 Rock (episode 213, Succession) made its look at the disaster of America's corporate culture bearable by being fall-down funny. 

And, finally, take a minute to read the NYT obituary of John McConnell:

A son of a steel worker, Mr. McConnell, who was known as Mr. Mac, championed the idea that workers should partake in their company’s success and set up an employee profit-sharing plan in 1966.

His views were recognized by Mother Jones, a magazine for progressive causes, which in 1986 named Worthington Industries one of the best companies to work for in the United States. Fortune magazine also gave the company that distinction four times.

John Henderson McConnell was born May 10, 1923, in New Manchester, W.Va., then known as Pughtown. He grew up during the Great Depression, and that experience helped define his business philosophy.

“It just came natural,” Mr. McConnell told The Columbus Dispatch in an interview in 1996. “You don’t cheat. You don’t lie. You help your neighbor.”

McConnell was exactly the sort of person Grover Norquist was talking about when he said this about the Democratic base:

"Yes, because in addition their demographic base is shrinking.  Each year, 2 million people who fought in the Second World War and lived through the Great Depression die. This generation has been an exeception (sic) in American history, because it has defended anti-American policies.  They voted for the creation of the welfare state and obligatory military service. They are the base of the Democratic Party. And they are dying."

Except for the trademark Norquist Crazy, it's hard to argue with him.  The people who remember the lessons of the last great depression and corporate excesses are dying and, from the looks of things, a leader isn't stepping up to inspire anyone to replace them. 

Obama and the Details - Finally

You know the old saying "The Devil is in the details"? That's why politicians like to stay as general as they can - so they don't get tied down to the pesky things when their house o' cards collapses. But Barack Obama has been soooo general, so loosey-goosey, that his managers decided he had better let people know that all his high-flown rhetoric had, like, some connection to real life. That (and his loss in Rob's home state of PA) has led to some Clinton-esque changes in BO's campaign style in Indiana. Can't say as how I'm all that impressed, tho.

[I]n a noteworthy shift, the Illinois senator is trying to reach working-class and middle-class voters by arguing more explicitly that the reform ideas driving his campaign can address the economic troubles that threaten their way of life. Supplanting lobbyist influence with citizen activism, uniting the country beyond petty partisan gamesmanship and bringing more candor to government, he argues, are not just abstract goals, but concrete steps that can level the playing field and lead to a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth.

"When we push back the special interests, when we unify the country, when we speak honestly with the American people about our challenges, there's nothing we can't accomplish, nothing we can't do," he said here. "When we unify the country, we will change our economy."

Sounds good, don't it? But that first part - "When we push back the special interests, when we unify the country"? that part? - I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I mean, this from the guy who just recently - a couple of goddamn months ago, fer chrissake - did a backflip and three rollovers to accomodate the "special interests" who wanted Panama as a haven for extortion and tax evasion, and a Peru that was safe from trade unions. BO was so far from "push[ing] back" those "special interests" that he was more or less break-dancing as part of Special Interests Puppet Day.

What gets me about Obama is just that: his marvelous rhetoric is backed up by its appalling opposite action. What precisely does he want me to "unify" around? An even freer hand for corporations already run amucK? I mean, name one thing - not words, not a proposal, an actual vote, say - that shows BO "push back" even one "special interest". Just one. Please.

Anybody?

And yet this is the kind of stuff he's saying he'll do:

He gave as an example his plan to broadcast on C-SPAN the meetings he would hold with industry representatives and congressional leaders to push health-care reform. "If you see a member of Congress who's carrying water for the drug companies instead of carrying your water, you'll be able to hold them accountable," he said in Anderson.

He's going to broadcast corporate meetings? on CSPAN? about healthcare? Whoo. That's entertainment. Won't want to miss that.

But nothing about regulating the virtually unregulated Big Pharma? Nothing about negotiating to get the lowest possible drug prices? What? Do we have to do all the work? Is he going to get tough with anybody? (see previous post)

See, the reason this is important is that the Democratic nominee will almost certainly win the election and be our next president. McCain is going gangbusters with the 30% of Dead-Enders but can't get arrested outside the Yacht Club. And Democratic registrations are soaring.

Like hundreds of others, their quests led them to the Wake County voter services office this month to register as Democrats for the first time. The line of newcomers that snaked across the checkered tile floor was emblematic of those that have formed across the country this year: black voters, young voters, lifelong Republicans switching parties -- all registering in record numbers, and all aligning as Democrats.

Elections Director Cherie Poucher waited for them behind a counter with a jar of pens and a 10-inch stack of registration forms. She had hired 10 people from a temp agency to help handle the rush on this final day of North Carolina voter registration. Now, as she watched four more people file through the door, Poucher wished she had hired more.

"In 20 years," she said, "I've never seen anything quite like it."

So it matters if BO is a fraud - at the moment he's got the numbers on his side and will likely be the nominee. If he's the nominee, he'll most likely win.

Aaargh.

Why am I obsessing over this, anyway? Obama, Hillary - we're getting the DLC again no matter what.

Still, it helps to be prepared if you understand there's a major dichotomy between BO's words and actions. You won't be quite as disappointed if you know upfront he's a fraud.

How Bad Were the Mortgage Scams? This Bad

This started out being an update to the previous post on the mortgage industry but I decided it really deserved its own space.

The WaPo's "Personal Finance Columnist", Michelle Singletary, has written - hang onto your hat - an investigative piece on the shady practices of mortgage lenders and come to the conclusion that it was - and is - much worse than we thought. Look at this:

You may better understand the problems with the mortgage-processing system by looking at CashFlow Strategies, formerly called Financial Independence Group, which was run by Georgia-based businessman Frederick C. Lee Jr. This case highlights how state- and nationally regulated financial institutions can fail to verify that borrowers are working with licensed loan officers.

Lee has been banned from arranging loans in Maryland and Georgia because neither he nor his companies were licensed for such activity. And yet, in violation of those orders, people working for Lee have continued to arrange mortgage loans that for many borrowers are inappropriate, according to sources and company documents. Equally disturbing is that these borrowers are paying fees on these loans that many consumer advocacy groups would call predatory.

Several Maryland homeowners acknowledged that they gave personal information to people working for CashFlow in order to get their loan applications processed. Some said they knew the loan originators used to work for Financial Independence; others said they were unaware. Candice Thompson, whose business card says she's a CashFlow marketing representative, assured one Maryland loan applicant that she was licensed and that the company was free of any legal troubles.

"Yes, I am licensed and no the company isn't under investigation," she wrote in a text message.

Thompson is not licensed as a loan officer in Maryland, according to state officials. The company is under investigation.

In a subsequent text, Thompson said she didn't have to be licensed in Maryland because she worked for Home Savings of America, which is based in Little Falls, Minn.

"we r federally chartered we don't have 2 follow state guidelines!" Thompson wrote.

Dirk Adams, chief executive of Home Savings, said that Thompson was not employed by the bank and that Home Savings had no business relationship with CashFlow.

There's lots more and what it amounts to is that these people have very little shame and no remorse to speak of. If they aren't prosecuted, they'll go right on doing it.

With Lee's history of regulatory run-ins, one would think financial institutions would avoid doing business with him. And yet Lee has continued to do business with banks and licensed mortgage brokers who fail to detect questionable actions by him and the people working for his companies.

Last year, Wachovia, the fourth-largest U.S. bank, funded 196 loans totaling about $54.2 million that Lee brought to the financial institution, according to an e-mail sent to Lee by Scott Davenport, a former national account executive with Wachovia.

"With the majority of the volume conducted in the 3rd and 4th quarter of last year, you easily would have been No. 1 with a full year of volume," Davenport wrote to Lee in the e-mail, its veracity confirmed by Wachovia. "Let's keep up the great work and push for a great 2008."

(emphasis added)

Neither Davenport nor Wachovia gave a righteous shit that Lee was in all kinds of legal hot water or that his numbers might have been badly fudged or that he was lying and ripping off his customers and the law was right on his tail. Screw all that. He made $$$. On paper (that's all it takes, I guess. The $$$ doesn't have to be real as long as the transfer to my bank account is). Let's keep our priorities straight, people.

Singletary concludes:

With major financial institutions failing to vet the people who bring them loan applicants, it's no wonder we ended up in this mortgage mess.

***

[B]ased on my investigation of one mortgage operation, which has continued to arrange loans despite state sanctions, what's needed is more criminal prosecution, not another commission with little power. After all, we're talking about loan officers responsible for explaining mortgage products, some of which have complicated terms and high fees, the types of products that have led this nation into its current economic mudslide.

(emphasis added)

Not only does it not look like there are prosecutions in the offing, industry lobbyists are effectively working to strangle any change in the regulations that might put a stop to the continuing theft that has so enriched them. And we're bailing these guys out...why? Because they convinced a few legislators with a need for campaign funds and not too many scruples about where they come from that, "gee, everything will be so much worse if we go down"?

Bollocks.

Here's the merchant bankers' argument:

"I know we stole everything in your house but the walls, but look: the walls are still standing. A little shaky, maybe, but they haven't fallen down. Yet. If you don't let us rip off everything in your neighbors' houses as well, we'll have to come back here and take your walls, too. Then you'll have nothing. Isn't a little something better than nothing at all?"

It's an absurd argument but with our legislators and blind watchdogs it's good enough - when the bankers are leaking money all over their office floors....

Screw jail. Line 'em up against a wall and shoot 'em.

Deamonte Driver Didn't Die in Vain

Last year I wrote about a boy named Deamonte Driver who died of a toothache because his Medicaid provider mailed his forms to the wrong address. It was a scandal, as it damn well should have been. His lawyer said this:

“I certainly hope the state agencies responsible for making sure these children have dental care take note so that Deamonte didn’t die in vain,” said Laurie Norris, a lawyer for the Baltimore-based Public Justice Center who tried to help the Driver family.

(emphasis added)

Well, for once it turns out he didn't.

NOTHING CAN make amends for the death of 12-year-old Deamonte Driver. He was the Prince George's County boy who died in February last year as the result of an infected tooth. But the terrible story of his death has been a powerful prod to Maryland lawmakers to make sure that no child's life is ever again in jeopardy because his or her family can't find or afford dental care.

Even when state dollars are scarce, the recently recessed General Assembly managed to come up with millions to improve dental care for poor children. "Everything we asked for, we got," health official Harry Goodman told the Post's Mary Otto. The money will help remedy problems, revealed by Deamonte's death last year, with Maryland's Medicaid dental program. Foremost was the unwillingness of many dentists to treat children covered by Medicaid because of the state's historically low reimbursement rates. It's instructive -- not to mention intolerable -- that fewer than one-third of Maryland children eligible for Medicaid were able to see a dentist in 2005.

The legislature came up with $7 million in state funds, to be matched by federal money, to boost reimbursement rates as part of a three-year strategy.

It came too late to help Deamonte but not too late, we hope, to help the thousands of other kids who need dental care their parents can't afford. The money is useful, gawd knows, but who's going to stop the bureaucracy from screwing up again? Anybody can make mistakes but the kind of mistakes that kill people generally come from an attitude that it doesn't really matter what happens to these people anyway, so why go the extra mile? And that attitude comes down to the workers straight from the Top.

For almost 8 years we've had a Top that has gone out of its way to send every possible signal that poor people are a waste of food and if they die that would probably be best as it would decrease the surplus population and keep govt expenses down. It's no surprise, then, that screw-ups happen. Maybe the surprise is that given the almost universal disgust of the Bush Administration with poverty programs in general and Medicaid in particular (the SOB vetoed SCHIP, remember), there haven't been a lot more deaths tied to bureaucratic inattention or sloppiness.

Or maybe there have been and we just haven't heard about them. This is the Bush Administration after all, in league with a media that doesn't like to, you know, embarrass him any more often than they have to. Which means way less often than they should.

Or maybe the majority of Medicaid workers are fighting the Bush system the same way the mothers and kids have to. Maybe they work harder to overcome the extra obstacles because despite the Bush Edict on the Efficacy and Admirability of Social Darwinism, they actually care. I'd like to believe the latter.

In any case, Maryland's legislators deserve major kudos for the way they jumped in to make sure that what happened to Deamonte can never happen again, and were willing to back that up with real $$$.

Send them some love. We get good news so seldom....

Mukasey Tells CIA: "Go Ahead and Torture Prisoners. It's OK With Us"

It can't come as a surprise to very many of us at this point that Michael Mukasey's Justice Dept is bending over backwards to supply the CIA - and presumably the military - with excuses to justify torture.

The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law.

(emphasis added)

It's bullshit, of course. Surely the president can't contravene the Geneva Convention on his own hook just because some interrogator tells him he's sure a prisoner will give up something about an attack on a US target if we almost drown the sucker? And since when does any politician get to decide under which circumstances he'll obey the law and which ones he won't?

Well, actually, as Glenn Greenwald explains, since McCain stage-managed the MCA.

There are two reasons, and two reasons only, that the Bush administration is able to claim this power: John McCain and the Military Commissions Act. In September, 2006, McCain made a melodramatic display -- with great media fanfare -- of insisting that the MCA require compliance with the Geneva Conventions for all detainees. But while the MCA purports to require that, it also vested sole and unchallenged discretion in the President to determine what does and does not constitute a violation of the Conventions. After parading around as the righteous opponent of torture, McCain nonetheless endorsed and voted for the MCA, almost single-handedly ensuring its passage. That law pretends to compel compliance with the Conventions, while simultaneously vesting the President with the power to violate them -- precisely the power that the President is invoking here to proclaim that we have the right to use these methods.

(emphasis in the original)

Read the whole post for Glenn's parsing of the legal anguage and what it means, but what concerns me here is a) the justification is baloney -

Some legal experts critical of the Justice Department interpretation said the department seemed to be arguing that the prospect of thwarting a terror attack could be used to justify interrogation methods that would otherwise be illegal.

“What they are saying is that if my intent is to defend the United States rather than to humiliate you, than I have not committed an offense,” said Scott L. Silliman, who teaches national security law at Duke University.

But a senior Justice Department official strongly challenged this interpretation on Friday, saying that the purpose of the interrogation would be just one among many factors weighed in determining whether a specific procedure could be used.

“I certainly don’t want to suggest that if there’s a good purpose you can head off and humiliate and degrade someone,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was describing some legal judgments that remain classified.

- and b) that there seems to be some sense on the part of the press (the NYT's Mark Mazzetti, in this case) that poor Mr Bush has been agonizing for months over just where the boundary lines should be.

Determining the legal boundaries for interrogating terrorism suspects has been a struggle for the Bush administration.

No. It hasn't. What the Bush Administration has been struggling with is the lack of acceptance among the American public that the US ought to become a nation that tortures prisoners. Neither he nor his two AG's has varied as much as an iota from their originally stated goals as laid out in the infamous John Yoo memo:

• Anything goes.
• The Geneva Convention is "quaint" and may safely be ignored.
• The president has the power to decide what is and isn't torture.
• The president has the power to decide when torture may or may not be used. No other legal authority needs to be considered, no treaty needs to be obeyed, no international law is relevant. Just the president.

I suspect that may all hold true only if the president's name happens to be Bush or Cheney, but never mind. The point is that the MCA made that thinking legal, and NO ONE (except good ol' Chris Dodd) has suggested the MCA needs to be scrapped (or amended at the very least), not even our two vaunted Democratic candidates. Not even after:

Legislation that was approved this year by the House and the Senate would have imposed further on C.I.A. interrogations, by requiring that they conform to rules spelled out in the Army handbook for military interrogations that bans coercive procedures. But Mr. Bush vetoed that bill, saying that the use of harsh interrogation methods had been effective in preventing terrorist attacks.

(emphasis added)

So even the excuses - the excuses the American people have yet to buy into - have remained the very same excuses they started with, only now Bush has given them the force of law and a new AG has stepped up to repeat the same failed arguments made by the old, hopelessly flawed AG.

That doesn't add up to Mr Bush ever having a second thought about any of this except maybe how to sell this pile of manure to people who don't want it, now or ever.

Apparently we have a new media narrative: Bush the Thoughtful, Bush Who Agonizes Over Tough Decisions. And Bush the Thoughtless, Bush the Stubborn, Bush the Emperor who never questions a decision once he's made it no matter how wrong it proves to be, that Bush is retired as if he'd never existed.

Of course, for our reality-challenged media he never did.

Mortgage Industry Whines That New Regulations Are Too Tough

In the teeth of the worst financial crisis we've faced since the Crash of '29, a crisis brought about - as we've demonstrated time-and-again - by a mortgage industry and merchant bankers so greedy for quick and humungous profits that they couldn't be bothered with details like, you know, laws and ethics and stuff, or even bother to check if their borrowers would likely ever be able to pay them back (which didn't matter to them because they intended, like a bookie laying off a big bet by a bad customer, to sell the paper before the ink on the signatures was dry), the same damn people we just bailed out to the tune of $$$30BIL$$$ have had the unutterable gall to complain about new regulations being "too tough".

Ugh.

The mortgage industry, facing the prospect of tougher regulations for its central role in the housing crisis, has begun an intensive campaign to fight back.

As the Federal Reserve completes work on rules to root out abuses by lenders, its plan has run into a buzz saw of criticism from bankers, mortgage brokers and other parts of the housing industry. One common industry criticism is that at a time of tight credit, tighter rules could make many mortgages more expensive by creating more paperwork and potentially exposing lenders to more lawsuits.

To the chagrin of consumer groups that have complained that the proposed rules are not strong enough, the industry’s criticism has already prompted the Fed to consider narrowing the scope of the plan so it applies to fewer loans.

(emphasis added)

Let's translate that, shall we? Here's what it means in English:

"Hey! You know, some of these loans are actually getting paid off despite the insidiously smarmy terms we worked out and we stand to make a bunch of money off them. And you want to switch the rules around so we'll lose some of that lovely moolah (which was, after all, the reason we threw the economy into a tailspin and threatened the stability of the world's financial system) on the new loans just because we lost $$millions$$ on the old ones and you had to throw us $$$30BIL$$$ worth of bones?

"In a pig's eye, you socialist moron! We're keeping that bread and if you try to take it away, we'll make what's left of your life so miserable you'll wish you were married to Lindsey Lohan."

Wanna know what those new rules they're fuming about actually are? Dig it:

The plan presented by the Fed was proposed by its chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and Randall S. Kroszner, a former White House economist in the Bush administration who is now a Fed governor and leads the Fed’s consumer and community affairs committee.

The plan would not cover existing mortgages but would apply only to new ones. It would force mortgage companies to show that customers can realistically afford their mortgages. It would require lenders to disclose the hidden fees often rolled into interest payments. And it would prohibit certain types of advertising considered misleading.

(emphasis added)

"Aaaargh! What??!! Hold down our customer base to only the people who can afford to buy the homes we're selling them? Tell them about the hidden charges? Worst of all, stop lying??!!That would ruin us!"

Poor babies. So of course:

Earlier this month, as the comment period was about to close, the Fed was deluged with more than 5,000 comments, mostly from lenders who said the proposals could affect loans that have not presented problems. Some bankers and brokers also said the rules would discourage them from lending to some creditworthy borrowers.

The plan was criticized in separate filings by three of the industry’s most influential trade groups — the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America. More modest concerns about some of the provisions were also raised by the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors.

(emphasis added)

The usual suspects making the usual excuses so they can go right on practicing the scam that put us in this hole in the first place. And we bailed these criminals out? Why?? So they could keep on keepin' on and run us into an economic ditch it will take decades to recover from?

Yeah. That's right.

The Congress hasn't caved yet (though the Democrats' recent proud history would suggest it's only a matter of time) but the Fed is already wavering, ready to go down.

These bankers and lenders are clearly followers of Moloch, who never says "quit". As long as there's a short-term profit to be made, they don't give a damn if they ruin the planet, you know, later on - after They've Got Theirs.

They should be ashamed, but they're not. We should be ashamed for putting up with them, but we're not.

They're going to take us all down with them and none of them will ever suffer a moment's pause because of it.

This is America, and making $$$ - consequences be damned - is what it's about. Got that?

The Boy Who Cried "Nucular Threat!" (Updated)

The NYT's David Sanger - along with everyone else in MediaLand - is dutifully reporting the Bush Administration release of old photographs purporting to prove that "the building in Syria that Israel destroyed in an airstrike last year was a nuclear reactor constructed with years of help from North Korea."

Oh, yeah? Question:

Is there any reason at all whatsoever to believe this isn't another hoax cooked up by the Bushies to a) confirm Israel's questionable intelligence and motives for the attack and/or b) get Syria on the list of Enemies to Be Invaded (where Donny Rumsfeld had already put them as early as a press conference in March of '01)?

Answer: Not really.

[A]fter a full day of briefing members of Congress, two senior intelligence officials acknowledged that the evidence had left them with no more than “low confidence” that Syria was preparing to build a nuclear weapon. They said that there was no sign that Syria had built an operation to convert the spent fuel from the plant into weapons-grade plutonium, but that they had told President Bush last year that they could think of no other explanation for the reactor.

(emphasis added)

Electricity, mayhap? In the early stages, at least, there isn't much difference between a reactor to be built to produce electricity and a reactor built to produce weapons-grade plutonium.(1) But the defense guys couldn't think of another reason.

In any case, who's to say the photos are legitimate? Who says they are?

Why, the Bush Administration, that's who. The single least credible government this side of Darfur. The govt who ordered then Sec of State Colin Powell to go to the UN with dramatic photos of supposed weapons labs that turned out to be frauds. Give me one good reason why any of us should take seriously yet another blatant forgery by this untrustworthy president? Hell, give me one good reason why I shouldn't automatically assume this isn't a forgery?

More or less stymied in its drive to Iran, is the Emperor jinning up a new enemy to concentrate on? Or is this merely the beginning of an attempt to justify widening the so-called War On Terror to include every nation in the Middle East unfriendly to Israel (and by extension, the US)? That's something they've been aiming at since before 9/11 gave them the excuse they were looking for.

Ultimately, the "evidence" reached the Bushies through - who else? - Israel, which is anxious for some reason to explain its attack. Juan Cole is way dubious.

This story seems to me fishy. Syria is a poor state. Where would it have gotten the money for a reactor? Why exactly are there doubts that North Korea was involved? How much of the intelligence is from US sources and how much from Israeli? The latter are highly politicized. The head of Mossad in 2002 expressed confidence that Saddam was close to getting nukes.

Moreover, while I am against proliferation of nuclear weapons, the idea that the Israelis can just bomb anyone's innocent research or civilian power reactor any time they like for no good reason is scary. The Israelis rejected the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and broke with international consensus to acquire by hook and crook British, French and US nuclear secrets and built dozens, perhaps hundreds of nuclear bombs, provoking the nuclear weapons race in the region.

The real question is the timing of the announcement, since the bombing happened a long time ago. It is suspicious to me that the announcement was made just after a spy for Israel was arrested in the US who had stolen US nuclear secrets. Is it diversionary?

As good a reason as any, I suppose. It's just like the Rove-trained Bushies to leak a meaningless story guaranteed to get the attention of the usual media nitwits in order to sneak something else by them that's much more important.

Can't we, just this once, assume the story is bogus and ignore it? I mean, how many times does Bush have to lie before we stop believing everything he says? If the Boy Who Cried Wolf got a deal like that, his poor villagers would still be chasing wolfish shadows on the empty Steppes.

(1) Juan Cole noticed this, too: "I have been disappointed that more nuclear engineers in the US do not express themselves publicly on what is likely and unlikely."

Update: Glenn Greenwald, who has been on MediaLand's ass lately, notes that once again, with few exceptions (Sanger being one, however modestly), the major press powers reported the release of the photos with practically ZERO skepticism.

There are multiple reasons why substantial skepticism is warranted concerning the Bush administration's claims that the structure which Israeli jets destroyed inside Syria last September was a nuclear reactor Syria was developing with the aid of North Korea. Such skepticism, however, is difficult to find in most (though not all) American press accounts, which do little other than repeat Government claims without challenge.

Th[e] Associated Press article, for instance, is 32 paragraphs long, yet it contains little other than unchallenged assertions by the Bush administration, using the now-familiar media conventions for disseminating government claims -- i.e., quoting administration accusations without challenge and then granting completely unwarranted anonymity to "intelligence officials" to echo those accusations....

***

There are all sorts of reasons beyond those for extreme skepticism here. After flamboyantly announcing that they had actual video of North Korean nuclear scientists inside the Syrian building, it turned out that the "video" was merely a compilation of rather unrevealing still photographs patched together, in Colin-Powell-at-the-UN fashion, with ominous narration making accusations with a level of certainty completely unmatched by the "evidence" itself. The one "smoking gun" photograph from the video -- the alleged North Korean head of that country's reactor fuel plant standing in Syria (in a sweat suit) posing next to the head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission -- seems to raise more questions than it resolves....

IOW, here we go again. Despite years of taking heat for swallowing Bush PR elephants whole while straining mightily at anti-war gnats, and for open, gullible cheerleading during the run-up to the war and ever since, it seems our conservative media machine hasn't learned much of a lesson. It still repeats unfounded administration talking points with NO independent verification and little or no questioning no matter how unbelievable those statements may appear to be.

Is war with Syria next on the Bush docket after Iran? If so, MediaLand will be there to help him sell his lies, misdirections, and manipulations, and to spread his propaganda for him.

"Gullible" doesn't even begin to cover self-destructive behavior like this wholesale media denial and self-administered blindness to Bush's snake oil. I think we need a new Media. This one doesn't seem to be helping us much.

The Last Word on the Last Word: "Bitter"

Some of you may still be unaware that the fafblog! is back after more than a year's absence. It has a new look but the same hysterical players and the same twisted insights. Witness the most recent post as Giblets explains why Obama's "bitter" comment is the final end of all the final endings of his candidacy.

Well Giblets knows the real Americans of the heartland, Barack Obama. He has flown over them and driven past them and grimaced amiably in their direction on the way to hotel rooms on numerous occasions, and in that time he has come to appreciate their primitive yet unique culture. These salt-of-the-earth folk don't need your condescending liberal elitism to tell them how they feel! They need Giblets's condescending conservative elitism to tell them how they feel! These people aren't "bitter." Far from it! America's impoverished working class are a chipper and cheerful lot, prancing and scampering about their foreclosed homes and crumbling industrial sectors with a spirit of adorable pluckiness, smiling and laughing through their unemployment and their black lung disease like a pack of hardscrabble leprechauns!

So there. As a charter Gloom-and-Doomer, I'm almost ashamed of myself. Go read the rest, as well as the post called "Were We Wrong?" in which Giblets explains that it certainly wasn't a mistake...to blow up the moon.

So for the last five years all the liberals and the hippies and the nattering nabobs of normalcy have been coming up to Giblets and going "Was the war a mistake Giblets?" and "Are we losing the war Giblets?" and "Oh look at all the dead people Giblets, maybe we should stop the war." And the correct answers to these questions have been "Shut up," "Shut up you traitor," and "We'd be winning already if you'd just shut up." But Giblets is a patient Giblets and is willing to entertain even the most tedious requests of his dullest subjects, especially if it gets him published columns in Slate and The New York Times. So was Giblets really wrong? Was the war a mistake? Were we right to blow up the moon?

Oh sure, it's easy to look back now with our twenty-twenty hindsight and our armchair quarterbacking and whine and moan about how it all went wrong. But what about the case for blowing up the moon at the time? For literally dozens of years the moon had menaced Western Civilization with its eclipses and its werewolf hordes and its sinister seduction of our seas, all the while dangling its massive stony bulk above us with nothing but universal gravitation standing between the free world and a cold and moony end! Oh, the usual crowd of peaceniks and anti-kill killjoys would have had America stand idly by and do nothing, leaving frightened children and Brookings scholars to tremble under their beds at night while our nation's nocturnal nemesis threatened once again to plunge from the heavens and squish us all, but 9/11 taught us that we can't wait for danger to become dangerous before we pre-re-endanger it back! And by defeating the moon America would ensure not only its own security, but the destruction of al Qaeda's deadly space laser, the liberation of the moon men from the terrible tyranny of the Crater King, and the second coming of Astro-Jesus!

And that's just the beginning. All Hail Fafblog!

Hillary Forced Obama to Go on FOX

Now that Obama has decided to be a guest on FOX, Big Tent Democrat brings up one of my chief concerns about an Obama presidency.   He says:

I also understand why Obama is dissing the Netroots now. They will never criticize him anyway. Why should he pander to them then?

I'm hoping that if Obama does become president, the Left hammers him relentlessly to do the right thing but I'm guessing they won't because they are in love, because hammering relentlessly is hard and expensive work and because the Right will smash him so completely every day he is in office that the Left will feel like they have to defend their guy even as he capitulates over and over again in a vain attempt to enact any progressive policy he may actually be interested in.    That's all pessimistic guesswork of course so here's some more:  If Clinton wins the presidency, I have a feeling the Left will be happy to hold her feet to their fires even as the Right tries to smash her every day.   I'm thinking that's another good reason to want her to win. An angry Left is much more valuable to me than one that thinks they've got their savior in the White House.

New Study on Bush Administration Monkeying with Science

We've known for a long time that the Bush Administration has been heavily censuring and "modifying" any scientific results or decisions they didn't care for from govt depts like the FDA and EPA - especially the EPA, because the science almost never favors, you know, continuing to pollute or the upside of lead and PCB poisoning, which corporations like GE favor like the dickens.

A new and exhaustive study by the Union of Concerned Scientists has discovered that the Bushies' politicization of science went a lot further than we thought. The EPA has been all but muzzled by the Bushies, and morale there is in the sewer.

More than half the Environmental Protection Agency scientists who responded to an independent survey made public yesterday said that they had witnessed political interference in scientific decisions at the agency during the past five years.

The claim comes from a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit advocacy group that sent questionnaires to 5,500 EPA scientists and obtained 1,586 responses. Among the scientists' complaints were that data sometimes were used selectively to justify a specific regulatory outcome and that political appointees had directed them to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information in EPA scientific documents.

"Things are not as they should be at the EPA," said Francesca Grifo, director of the group's scientific integrity program. "Scientific findings are being suppressed and distorted; 889 scientists personally experienced at least one type of political interference. . . . Scientists are being pressured by outside interests."

(emphasis added)

Did you get that? Out of 1600 responses, almost 900 reported "inappropriate interference" in the EPA by the administration or the corporations it protects. It's a staggering number, and it means we have a lot to be scared about: as both consumers and citizens, we've had no protection to speak of since Bush was elected in 2001. Not if that protection would hurt corporate profits - and it always hurts corporate profits. Take greenhouse gas emissions, for instance:

[A] congressional committee recently reported that EPA staff members had determined in December that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health, but the regulatory process stalled after the EPA forwarded the findings to the White House.

The EPA also drew fire last month for weakening its new limits on smog-forming ozone after a last-minute intervention by President Bush. And Johnson was criticized for his decision in December to deny California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, overruling the unanimous recommendation of the agency's legal and technical staffs.

(emphasis added)

So our Moron-in-Chief thinks he's a scientist now? He doesn't understand the scientific reasons for fire but he's deciding how much poison cars can spew from their tailpipes?

Oh, right. He was an oil man. He knows, alright - knows how much new limits would cut into corporate profits. Therefore, limits are baaaaad.

Henry Waxman, who complained about Bush screwing with science for years when he was in the minority, has had enough. He's scheduled a hearing for Grifo to lay out and explain her findings.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter to Johnson yesterday telling him to prepare to answer questions about the survey findings at a hearing next month.

"These survey results suggest a pattern of ignoring and manipulating science in EPA's decision making," Waxman wrote.

Or maybe not so much EPA's decision-making as Bush's corpo-political re-imagining of what those decisions should have been to keep his rich friends happy.

So C+ George Bush is running the EPA now? Oy. No wonder we're dying like flies.