The Texas Observer observes something at NN

I have grieved over the loss of progressivism at the Texas Observer -- my friend Juanita's writing there notwithstanding -- but Melissa Del Bosque, who attended the blogconfab wrapping up in Austin today has a report worth repeating. I'll emphasis the cogent parts:

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based legal advocacy organization hosted a panel Saturday afternoon on Guantanamo and Habeas Corpus and what the president can do in the first 100 days of his term to restore the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

As Americans we are hooked on the idea that any problem can be solved with 10 simple solutions or in some given number of days. Yesterday, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke plugged his 12 solutions for our national security crisis at his panel.

The consensus on today’s panel, however, from the lawyers and journalists present was that it would take more than one hell of a push broom and 100 days to clean up George Jr.’s mess. The picture was bleak: our Constitution is in tatters and the Supreme Court and Congress have descended into an Alice in Wonderland world where right is wrong and up is down.

Admittedly, it was depressing. Still it was energizing to see a large room nearly filled with extremely concerned and pissed off citizens. At one point, an attendee stood up and asked what bloggers and activists could do to turn the sinking ship around.

Panelist Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (yes his book was plugged at the panel) encouraged attendees to spend less time behind the computer and more time in the streets protesting.

Scahill saved his most scathing remarks for Democrats in Congress, including Barack Obama, commenting that instead of defining themselves as a real opposition party they had undermined efforts to hold Bush’s administration accountable. “Bush is operating in an enforcement-free zone inside the United States and outside the United States,” he said.

Scahill warned that the U.S. was in the midst of the most radical privatization agenda in history with a record number of private contractors carrying out government duties around the world. To illustrate this, he reminded the audience that Blackwater and Dyncorp were at the moment guarding Senator Obama as he toured Afghanistan and Iraq.

ACLU Lawyer and panelist Jameel Jaffar, told the audience that it was wrong and dangerous to blame Bush for everything. He cited the Supreme Court and Congress as miserable failures when it came to defending our Democracy and the Constitution.

“Ultimately, it will take more than a change in Administration to effect the change we want,” he said. “The most important thing in the first 100 days is to set up a truth and accountability mechanism like the 9-11 Commission,” he suggested.

The take home message was that American citizens need to keep a close eye on their government — now more than ever — and hold political leaders accountable. This includes Barack Obama, no matter how badly Democrats want to see him in the White House.

Scahill exhorted the crowd — many of them not surprisingly Obama supporters — to cheat on their love affair with Barack Obama with a little bit of conscience.

“John McCain and a head of lettuce could get the same number of votes,” he said, drawing laughs from the crowd. “Now is when you really need to hold Obama’s feet to the fire, because he needs your votes and he needs your money — he won’t need them after November.”

Forget that "Blackwater guarding Obama" part for the moment. As George W Bush helpfully reminded us almost four years ago, there comes an accountability moment, one time and one time only, in each presidential cycle. It's called Election Day.

The guy who appoints Supreme Court Justices for life gets a four-year contract with no corporate board oversight (at least not when Democrats are in charge). Probably the least we ought to do, as shareholders and all, is point out his mistakes to him when he makes them. Especially since he hasn't quite earned the promotion yet.

You've had that experience if you've worked for any corporation: you've worked hard, spent long hours at the office, paid your dues, kissed the right asses, there's a slot open -- or about to open; that dumbshit is going to get fired soon enough-- but the boss makes you keep toiling away for months or even years waiting for the promotion.

Just to make sure you don't fuck it up after he promotes you. Like the last guy. You know what I'm talking about (and it ain't Dubya).

If we don't hold Obama accountable for our convictions now, do you really think Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are going to after January next year?

Honestly, this is how the Democrats could screw the pooch in 2010, or 2012 at the latest. Do you actually believe that Obama and and a veto-proof Congress are going to turn on a dime in six months and stop the wars? They're going to bring our soldiers home from Iraq, negotiate a peace with Iran, have the good fortune to be on watch when we capture Osama, free the wrongly imprisoned in Guantanemo and force Karl Rove to testify?

Then lower gasoline prices and create millions of new jobs and fix the financial markets and all else that's wrong with our economy? And the climate?

And thereby win the love of a grateful and still mostly conservative nation?

That's a big to-do list. Shit needs to be fixed, cleaned up, some bad practices need to be ceased (torture and warrantless spying on Americans and holding corporations accountable and blahblahblah). I just don't think they can get it all done. I don't think they even want to try to fix or clean up some of it. Call me crazy.

I don't know, maybe we all should just go back to watching Dancing With the Stars. Sorry I bothered ya.

Sunday Funnies (that magazine cover edition)

Another sign

A friend in Jefferson County sends this:

"A taxpayer voting Barack Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."

A number of drivers on Twin City Highway Thursday might have seen this message on the sign in front of Bob Costilow Realtors. And at least one was offended.

"They put themselves in a crossfire," said Jevyn McDowell, who passed the sign on the way to her job. "We had our primary elections and Obama came out on top. I'm an African-American, and it looks like (Bob Costilow Realtors) is comparing black folks to chickens."

Bob Costilow, company owner, said that was not what the sign meant.

"I don't agree with what Obama proposes for taxes," Costilow said. "No more. No less."

Costilow said one of the main things he finds appalling about Obama's tax plan is his stance on the capital gains tax.

"When you sell your house, under current tax laws, you do not have to pay any capital gains tax," he said. "My view is that I don't want any more taxes."

...

"I saw it in an e-mail on a sign put up by a State Farm agent in Mandeville, La.," he said. "I loved it. I have gotten some calls about it, and some of them were even congratulatory in nature."

But McDowell said she feels that Costilow was intending to be offensive to the black community.

"To me, that is more offensive than that magazine cover," she said, referring to a recent issue of The New Yorker that had a drawing of Obama on the cover in a turban with an American flag burning in the fireplace, among other things. "People at any company should not be openly offensive when it comes to politics, religion or sexual preference. As a consumer, if I was needing to buy or sell a home, I would certainly not go to that realty company."

Costilow said that he is not out to offend anyone, but if they get offended, he doesn't care.

"I don't give a damn," he said. "We have free speech in this country, and if it fluffs somebody's feathers, I'm sorry. I don't agree with Obama's tax plan."

I don't know Mr. Costilow, but I know someone who does and reports that he is as big a jerk as you would gather just from reading this article.

Hope business is booming for you over there, Bob.

A sign

You can make your own here.

An interview with Gen. Time Horizon

Q.: General, recently you changed your name from "Artificial Timetable" (or Timetable for short, or Art for real short) to "Time Horizon". What gives?

G.T.H.: Well, the surge is workin', it don't look like we're goan hafta fight 'em over here instead of over there, here meanin' home, the good ol' US of A that is, and we dam shore ain't goan cut n' run.

Q.: What does that have to do with you suddenly changing your name, General?

G.T.H.: Well it don't got nuthin' ta do with that liberal socialist Hussein Obama, that's fer shore too.

Q. Mr. Obama is supposed to meet with you in Baghdad sometime this weekend, according to John McCain yesterday. Most American officials have visited Iraq without public announcement in order to avoid alerting terrorists to their arrival. Why did McCain announce his political rival's trip ahead of time to the media?

G.T.H.: Well hell, he wants to win the election. This is war and we can't let the terrists win.

Q. Obama has been in favor of a timetable for withdrawal all along. Hasn't the Bush administration, under pressure as well from Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki, simply decided to face reality?

G.T.H.: What reality you talkin' 'bout, Willis? This is an asspirational goal, to draw down troop strength in Iraq so we can send 'em to Afghanistan to get killed and maimed. And we're also goan need fresh meat for the coming battle with Iran.

Uh, forget I said that last part.

NYT Op-ed: Israel will attack Iran

Sometime between November and January -- which presumably means with George Bush's approval and the assistance of United States military forces. So overlook, for a moment, the horror of handing off another war to President Obama, this one could very likely go nuclear:

Israel will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war — either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb.

Gee. What do you suppose that will do to gasoline prices?

It's that stormy time of year again

And T.S. Cristobal has caught the attention of the best hurricane tracker around. By the middle of next week it could potentially be Category 1 or 2 and on a collision course with Texas. It's not too early to have gas in the car, a few supplies stocked in just in case you need to shelter in place, and an evac plan.

You don't want to get stuck in the world's worst traffic jam like last time, do you?

Not NN'ing

One long weekend at the hottest time of the year in Austin was enough for me.

Vince is doing duty at KXAN and has a nice Watergate-across-the-generations post up, with John Dean and Joe Jaworski photo'd together.

Karen Brooks is doing a good almost-live-blog -- here she is with the Obama Grrl -- Eileen is too, and BOR is taking the point, as usual. Last night's parties here, some aggre-posting from Phillip here. Pictures here.

The Godfather is pulling his weight as well.

Update: Non-Texans have some things to read; Todd Beeton from MyDD has Wesley Clark and Howard Dean's keynote live-blogged. Booman says it's hot.

Scenes from last night

and the final All-Star clash at Yankee Stadium:

New Jib-Jabbery

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"A near universal lack of recall"

Must be the Ambien:

A "striking lack of recollection" by White House and military officials prevented congressional investigators from determining who was responsible for misinformation spread after the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, a House committee said Monday.

Although military investigators determined within days that the onetime NFL player was killed by his own troops in Afghanistan following an enemy ambush, five weeks passed before the circumstances of his death were made public. During that time, the Army claimed Tillman was killed by enemy fire.

Also:

The committee says that in their quest to find out when officials first knew about the possibility that Tillman's death was not due to enemy fire, they were "frustrated by a near universal lack of recall," according to the report.

The committee interviewed several senior White House officials including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, communications director Dan Bartlett, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan, and chief speech writer Michael Gerson.

"Not a single one could recall when he learned about the fratricide or what he did in response," says the report.

Perhaps a large public outcry could result in their firings. Oh, right.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers told the committee that he learned by the end of April that Tillman's death was possibly due to friendly fire, but that he could not remember whether or not he passed that information to Rumsfeld.

Members of Tillman's platoon, however, knew "almost immediately" that Tillman had been killed accidentally by fellow Rangers, according to the report. Within days of his death, Colonel Craig Nixon, a top officer in Tillman's battalion, passed on that information to the commander of the joint task force in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChyrstal, who in turn sent a message to top generals, including General John Abizaid, commander of CENTCOM. ...

"I felt that it was essential that you received this information as soon as we detected it in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman's death become public," McChrystal wrote on April 29th, 2004.

A deputy commander of SOCOM told the committee that as soon as McChrystal's message was received, Tillman's family should have been notified.

Yet on the same day that McChrystal sent his memo warning that officials may be making erroneous statements, Tillman was posthumously awarded the Silver Star medal for "gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States".

Damned erroneous statements. Not just Tillman, either:

The committee also examined the circumstances surrounding the misinformation that was released following the capture and rescue of Private Jessica Lynch in Iraq in 2003. Sensational media reports attributed to military officials erroneously said that Private Lynch had engaged insurgents before her capture, firing until she ran out of ammunition. But as in the Tillman investigation, the committee said that it was hampered due to a "pervasive lack of recollection" about how that misleading information got released.

This is that "fog of war" thing, isn't it?

Person Jessica Lynch

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"Asian stocks fall as confidence in U.S. financial system erodes"

That's a great headline to wake up to, now isn't it?

I suppose if I owned any Asian stocks I might be concerned, but I'm not even all that worried about my bank's 35% drop in stock price yesterday, as it prepared to report a second-quarter loss, laid off workers, and "moved to reassure investors that it was sufficiently capitalized".

I mean, whaddya gonna do? Make a run on the bank? Pull out all your money and hide it in the mattress, or bury it in the back yard?

It's all just a mental recession anyway, right? Why should I -- or anyone else -- whine about it?

Really now: don't the Republicans deserve continued stewardship of the nation's economy? They got us in this ditch, they can get us out (that's something I heard about four years ago, I believe).

Oh well, maybe we can drill ourselves out of it.