CapitalistImperialistPig

Josh Marshall notes: Ever wonder why it seems like we are enduring a repeat of the Nixon Administration? Now we know. From Bob Woodward's new book, via War and Piece: A powerful, largely invisible influence on Bush's Iraq policy was former secretary of state Kissinger. "Of the outside people that I talk to in this job," Vice President Cheney told me in the summer of 2005, "I probably talk to Henry Kissinger more than I talk to anybody else. He just comes by and, I guess at least once a month, Scooter and I sit down with him." (Scooter is I. Lewis Libby, then Cheney's chief of staff.) The president met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making him the most regular and frequent outside adviser to Bush on foreign affairs... OK, so we have to stay in Iraq not just because Bush can't admit that his attempt to retrieve the family honor (hah) in Iraq is a failure but because Kissinger is still trying to prove that he shouldn't have been a...

Frank Cesno of CNN had a long piece on Donald Rumsfeld. It was critical, but balanced, and had the advantage of interviews with Rumsfeld, JCS chief General Peter Pace, and many of Rumsfelds toughest military critics. One section struck me. Rumsfeld sets great store on transformation - using modern information technology and precision weapons. I think it was Pace who said that in WW II it took 3000 bombs to destroy a bridge (on average). With modern technology, a single bomber could destroy fourteen (or some similar number) of bridges on one mission. We certainly saw some of this in Israel's latest Lebanese war. As of now, the technology has decisively shifted the balance of power to the military of the technologically advanced countries. I wonder if that advantage will last. We have seen technology move from the frontier to the consumer in less and less time. Will it really continue to be true that the ability to do precision mass destruction will remain confined to the adv...

I hope nobody took my previous post as an indication that I think a lot of prominent conservatives are perverts. It seems that some prominent conservatives are racist white supraemist perverts. The second most powerful editor at The Washington Times is a white supremacist racist who says blacks are "born genetically 15 to 20 IQ points lower than a white person" and that abortion is necessary "to keep the black and minority population down in this country." His wife, Marian, confirmed this, on the record, in an interview with reporter Max Blumenthal for the Oct. 9 issue of The Nation magazine. Francis B. Coombs Jr., the managing editor of The Washington Times, a major media ally of the Bush administration, is described by multiple newsroom sources in Blumenthal's piece as an unreconstructed "racial nationalist" and a hater of blacks and Jews. He also seems to have a sexism problem.

So Rep Foley (R-Fla) sent a bunch of incriminating emails to a sixteen year old former House page. He's history. Josh Marshall notes one little problem. The page reported this to Rep Alexander (R -LA) about eleven months ago, and he claims he told Republican House leaders about it at the time. So why were Hastert, Delay, and or Blunt protecting this pervert child molestor for ten months?

The US took a giant step away from our Constitution and the rule of law today when Congress voted to eliminate Habeas Corpus, permit torture, and disregard the Conventions against war crimes, at the disgression of the President. They did this despite the unanimous opposition of the Judge Advocates General of the military services, who said this would endanger American soldiers and hurt the war on terror. Habeas Corpus, the right of the accused to demand a hearing on the charges against him, is the seven century old foundation of rule of law - the so-called "Great Writ." So why did Congress do this? Not because of any imminent threat to the Country, but because of the threat to Republican Control of the Congress. By packing their bill with unjust an un-American features they hoped be able attack Democrats who voted against it as "soft on terror." It will likely work. Many Dems in close races voted for it, thereby earning them the lasting hatred of hard core be...

The President's press conferences lately have taken on an increasingly schizophrenic quality as reality diverges further from his narrative. For the most part, the press has scrupulously ignored this, but Dan Froomkin (Bush's Imaginary Foe) of the Washington Post saves some of his paper's tattered honor with this analysis: President Bush's angry nonanswers to two straightforward questions yesterday were among the best illustrations yet of his intense aversion to responding to his critics' actual arguments. Rather than acknowledge and attempt to rebut the many concerns about his policies, Bush makes up inane arguments and then ridicules them. Froomkin exhibits some examples: Q Thank you, sir. Even after hearing that one of the major conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate in April was that the Iraq war has fueled terror growth around the world, why have you continued to say that the Iraq war has made this country safer?" "PRESIDENT BUSH: I, of c...

A Bushite characterized his opponents as members of "the reality based community." I suppose that makes him and his co-believers members of the unreality based community. In quantum mechanics intermediate states that don't satisfy the conservation laws (energy and momentum, for example) can contribute to transition amplitudes. Similarly, the unreality based community has contributed immensely to causing the US to transition from widely respected military and economic superpower to crippled giant. Recent consensus intelligence estimates have concluded that the Iraq fiasco has increased the threat of terrorism and been a boon to terrorist recruitment and that we are pretty much screwed in Iraq, whatever we do now. To top it off, the World Economic Forum has dropped the US from first to sixth in global competitiveness. Why? Kevin Drum Reports: The WEF said the best performing countries were distinguished by their competent economic stewardship.... Oh. Right. I guess th...