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Iraq Veterans Hit GOP For Aiding Terrorists With Oil Money

By Brad Johnson on Feb 4, 2010 at 5:15 pm

In a series of hard-hitting television ads, a liberal veterans advocacy organization challenges Republican lawmakers for blocking clean energy legislation that would cut oil funds to terrorists. As part of a $2 million television ad campaign, VoteVets has released a national spot as well as ones targeting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) for their opposition to climate and clean energy legislation. Other ads challenge representatives in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and South Dakota. As the spots point out, each member has taken thousands of dollars from oil companies that have operations in nations like Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria, and Algeria. The national ad explains the connection between our dependence on oil and terrorists like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab:

Terrorists. They’re trying to kill Americans at home and our troops abroad. And who’s footing the bill for the attacks against us? Oil money. Filtered through secret organizations in the Middle East and countries like Iran. When oil money hands up in the hands of our enemies, Americans pay the ultimate price. We’ve got to protect ourselves and end our dependence on foreign oil. Tell Congress: Pass the Clean Energy and American Power Act now.

Watch it:

The local spots are unflinching, featuring local veterans of the Iraq War. Veteran Benjamin Cossel, of Pine Bluffs, WY tells Sen. Barrasso to “decide whose side he’s on” — the terrorist-enabling oil companies that have given him $50,500, or the American people:

For thirty years, we’ve been warned about the danger of spending billions of dollars oil. The United States military calls it a major threat to our security. And on Christmas Day over Detroit, we were reminded again how oil money can support terrorism against us. But even today, Sen. John Barrasso won’t break our addiction. And he won’t break his own. Call Sen. Barrasso. It’s time for him to decide whose side he’s on.


Read more

Alyssa

I Guess I Should Say Something About the Academy Awards, Huh?

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 4, 2010 at 4:47 pm

Academy Confetti by aronski.
Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy aronski.

So, as I mentioned on Monday, I don’t like awards shows very much, and I tend to think that the Academy Awards are particularly guilty of being boring in between the announcements.  But, because Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are hosting, I will watch.  And because I watch movies, I have some opinions about who should win in some of the categories.  Namely:

-Best Picture: The Hurt Locker was the first truly good movie about the wars America is fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, a film that manages to be both profoundly moral (usually a dead weight for films) and exhilarating.  The cinematography is lovely, whether it’s capturing the vibration of gravel off the ground when an IED explodes in the movie’s first scene, or the man-on-the-moon stride of a bomb diffuser in the movie’s last shot.  The writing is precise, sharp, harsh, and sometimes funny.  It’s an astonishing movie, and more than any of the other nominees which are anchored in specific times and smaller stories, likely to inform the movies that follow it in attempting to figure out America’s current Long Wars.

-Best Director: There’s an extent to which I feel like what James Cameron did with Avatar goes considerably beyond a traditional directorial role.  Folks are still debating whether 3D will become a standard in action movies because of Avatar, but I think there’s no doubt that the technological innovations he pioneered in the movie will have a significant impact on the look of film.  So there’s an extent to which I think he should win Best Director: my criteria for these awards are weighted heavily towards staying power and impact.  However, I would prefer for Kathryn Bigelow to win.  She directed what I thought was genuinely the best picture of the year.  On some level, I’m not sure how you disconnect the Best Director category from the Best Picture Category, but that’s just me.

-Writing (Adapted Screenplay): I thought about this one hard, since I have a weakness for things that are based on British serial television shows, and I thought In the Loop was the best of those adaptations to come along this year (sorry State of Play and Edge of Darkness).  Also, one of my friends did some consulting work for the movie.  But I thought District 9 was the most outrageously original screenplay of the year, one totally unafraid to confront both disgust and pathos in really moving ways.  And since Sharlto Copley was regrettably omitted from the Best Actor category, and there’s no way it’ll win for Best Picture, D9 deserves the victory here.

But, like I said, I mostly just watch this stuff for the spectacle.  I have a hard time getting invested.

Security

McConnell Claims Larry King Is ‘Better’ Than U.S. Interrogators At Questioning Terrorists

By ThinkProgress on Feb 4, 2010 at 4:46 pm

Ever since Nigerian Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab’s failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, Republicans and conservatives have been attacking and politicizing the Obama administration’s response. Many have been whining that Abdulmutallab had not been properly interrogated and that valuable information has been lost. In an attempt to bash the Obama administration, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) today denigrated U.S. counterterrorism officials:

MCCONNELL: This was a person who was trying to blow a plane out of the air from Nigeria. It’s clearly a case for the military and for our intelligence people, not for the U.S. court system. What happened? He was given a 50 minute interrogation, probably Larry King has interrogated people longer and better than that. After which he was assigned a lawyer who told him to shut up. That is not the way to deal with someone in the war on terror.

Watch it:

It seems McConnell would rather try to score political points by undermining the work American counterterror officials are doing in the field, particularly in Abdulmutallab’s case, where key information has actually been gleaned. In fact, reports surfaced this week that Abdulmutallab “has been cooperating for days” with the FBI. But this isn’t the first time a Republican has tried to attack the administration by insulting U.S. agents. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that getting information from Abdulmutallab was “blind luck.”

According to the Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman, former FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan, who has interrogated al Qaeda members, said “What would you expect from Mitch McConnell? … They just don’t know what they’re talking about. They really don’t“:

“People keep talking about Mirandizing as if it’s a preventive measure, getting someone to shut up, but most critics have never been in position [to] have to Mirandize one,” Cloonan said. “It’s to keep pristine information you’ve already gotten and to have a prosecutable case. It’s not the end of an interview. … They’re gonna get all kinds of information from this guy.”

In fact, Abdulmutallab’s family members convinced him to provide information to U.S. authorities, an outcome that resulted from U.S. counterterror agents working in Africa “to gain an understanding of the subject.” “The intelligence gained has been disseminated throughout the intelligence community,” a senior administration official said. “The best way to get him to talk was working with his family.”

Yglesias

Fun With Plurality Voting

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 4, 2010 at 4:45 pm

Cohen, Scott Lee, 2010 3 inch celluloid

Josh Marshall notes a bit of a problem:

It turns out the winner of the Democrats’ lieutenant Governor’s primary in Illinois has a pretty nasty assault rap for attacking his girlfriend back in 2005. According to police reports he slammed her head against a wall and left “mild abrasions from [a] knife wound” on her neck and “minor scars on her hand from her trying to defend herself against the arrestee swinging the knife at her.”

How could the Illinois Dems have been that stupid? Well, by and large they weren’t—but there were six candidates in the race. IRV systems where people list candidates in order of preference aren’t perfect, but they at least do help avoid this sort of thing.

Justice

O’Reilly: I Don’t Care If Gay Americans Serve, ‘Just Don’t Talk About It And Don’t Be Coming Out Or Whatever’

By Igor Volsky on Feb 4, 2010 at 4:30 pm

Last Friday, Bill O’Reilly hosted a panel discussion about such hot “culture warrior” issues as President Obama’s call for the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and CBS’s decision to run a pro-life ad during the Super Bowl. During the DADT portion, O’Reilly asked “does anybody care about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ anymore’ and opined that “the only way I care about this is if the military brass would say, ‘look in our culture, with the military recruiting mostly conservative people…they’re not comfortable with openly gay people in the barracks.”

“It’s not about anti-gay,” he insisted. “It’s about being comfortable in the barracks. It’s not about anti-gay. I’ve seen polling that shows that most military people just don’t want openly gay people”:

OREILLY: I never objected to Bill Clinton’s vision, that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was okay. Just don’t talk about it. And don’t be coming out or whatever.

Watch a compilation:

While it’s unclear if O’Reilly’s concerns have been assuaged by the testimonies of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen or the opinion polls that suggest that a majority of conservative families who attend church at least once a week actually support the repeal, his argument that deliberately hiding one’s sexuality somehow improves morale does not hold up to real world experience.

As Danny Kaplan notes in this Foreign Policy magazine article about Israel’s successful integration of openly gay and lesbian troops into the armed forces, “Despite what military officials want to ask or insist on not asking, and despite what gay activists want soldiers to tell about their sexuality, most straight soldiers are not interested in hearing it, and many gay soldiers are not interested in telling it. They simply are what they are and find ways to function together. Policies restricting the participation of gay soldiers paradoxically make sexuality a more salient issue.” “The paradox is that when gays are allowed in the military, but not allowed to identify as such, everyone becomes suspected of being gay,” Kaplan writes. “It is no wonder that a rise in sexual harassment and homophobic crimes have been reported in the U.S. military ever since the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was introduced.”

Former Army officer Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) — a co-sponsor of legislation to repeal DADT — believes that O’Reilly argument — the idea that straight troops are just “not comfortable with openly gay people” — is really suggesting that American service members are “less professional and less mission capable than service members of other foreign militaries,” like Israel and 24 other nations. “As a former army officer that’s an insult to me and to many of the soldiers,” he said during a recent hearing.

(H/T: NewsHounds)

Politics

Hatch blasts ‘liberal groups’ for ‘misconstruing’ his position on DADT: ‘I certainly do not support repeal.’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Feb 4, 2010 at 4:00 pm

zzhatchYesterday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) surprised many by suggesting that he was open to repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT). Explaining that he saw both sides of the issue, Hatch told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that he “believe[d] there are very outstanding, patriotic gay people who serve in the military. … And they shouldn’t have to lie about being gay.” When Mitchell asked whether he would vote for repeal, Hatch left the door open, saying, “Well I don’t know about that, I’d have to look at it.” His comments were quickly picked up by liberal and pro-gay rights blogs, leading some to speculate that this “significant development” meant there was more support for repealing DADT in the Senate than previously thought. But today, Hatch made clear that he does not support repeal and attacked “liberal groups” for “misconstruing” his position:

“It’s deeply regrettable that liberal groups are misconstruing my position on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ for activist purposes. I certainly do not support repealing this policy,” Hatch’s statement on Thursday said. [...]

“What I said was that I want to see Adm. Mullen’s report. This is a controversial issue with inflamed passions on both sides,” Hatch said.

“Over the years, the views of the military officers and experts, whom I respect, have said that repealing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ would make life for our troops more difficult — especially as our armed forces wage a global war on terrorism,” Hatch said.

(HT: FDL)

Yglesias

Our Strange Constitution

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 4, 2010 at 3:58 pm

founding_fathers

I’m not even slightly surprised to find out that the Obama administration has some kind of process in place to assassinate American citizens who it’s decided are in cahoots with terrorists. I was always raised to appreciate the “out of control spies” genre of movies and to assume that they represent a certain level of insight into what’s going on. But the story reflects a pretty odd feature of our political system, namely that the president seems most empowered in precisely those areas of governance that ought to give you the most concern about tyrannical abuses.

If the President wants to do something like implement a domestic policy proposal he campaigned on—charge polluters for global warming emissions, for example—he faces a lot of hurdles. He needs majority support on a House committee or three. He also needs majority support on a Senate committee or three. Then he needs to get a majority in the full House of Representatives. And then he needs to de facto needs a 60 percent supermajority in the Senate. And then it’s all subject to judicial review.

But if Scooter Libby obstructs justice, the president has an un-reviewable, un-checkable power to offer him a pardon or clemency. If Bill Clinton wants to bomb Serbia, then Serbia gets bombed. If George W Bush wants to hold people in secret prisons and torture them, then tortured they shall be. And if Barack Obama wants to issue a kill order on someone or other, then the order goes out. And if Congress actually wants to remove a president from office, it faces extremely high barriers to doing so.

Whether or not you approve of this sort of executive power in the security domain, it’s a bit of a weird mismatch. You would think that it’s in the field of inflicting violence that we would want the most institutional restraint. Instead, the president faces almost no de facto constraints on his deployment of surveillance, military, and intelligence authority but extremely tight constraint on his ability to implement the main elements of the his domestic policy agenda. I think it’s telling that the US has generally not advised countries engaged in a democratic transition (think Germany and Japan after WWII or Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, etc. after the fall of Communism) to imitate our form of government.

Security

Pregnant Immigrant Is Deported By Man Posing As A Federal Marshall

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Feb 4, 2010 at 3:45 pm

A local news station is reporting that a man posing as a federal officer abducted a pregnant immigrant, Cherrie Bell Hibbard, in California last month, took her through airport security, and put her on a plane back to the Philippines. Officials report that Gregory Raymond Denny drove Hibbard to a U.S. Border Patrol station claiming that he was going to deport her. Border patrol officials refused to take her into custody because they could find no warrant in her name. Denny then drove Hibbard to San Diego International Airport, where he escorted her through security to her gate, removed her handcuffs, and commanded her to get on the flight.

Watch the report:

 

Denny isn’t the first civilian to pose as a federal agent and exploit the the fears of the immigrant population. In Tennessee, a newborn infant was abducted from his immigrant mother by a woman posing as an immigration agent. The abductor threatened to arrest the mother and then attacked her with a knife before taking her four-day old baby. A Rhode Island man has been charged with posing as an immigration attorney and later as an immigration agent who threatened his “clients” with deportation after defaulting on his promises of legal aid. One of the most violent cases this year involved three anti-immigrant extremists who allegedly dressed up as law enforcement officers who forced their way into a home in rural Arizona where they are said to have murdered a Latino father and his 9-year-old daughter.

While federal authorities certainly aren’t to blame for these criminal acts, they are responsible for creating the environment of fear and intimidation in which these crimes are successfully committed. Federal agents have been known to break down doors and raid houses without the legal authority to do so. Parents have been separated from their children and immigrants have been apprehended and deported without ever having access to a telephone, visitations, or legal counsel.

Hibbard is married to a U.S. citizen and was in the process of obtaining her green card.

Yglesias

GOP Turning Pro-Bank Stance Into Big Bucks

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 4, 2010 at 3:14 pm

225px-John_Boehner_official_portrait

It’s not a secret that dating back to the 1990s, the financial services industry has tended to be one of the more Democratic-leaning business groups. But as the Wall Street Journal reports that’s all changing. Bankers who gave money to Obama are sad to discover that the White House isn’t in their pockets:

Wall Street executives who supported Mr. Obama during the presidential campaign said there had been growing signs of discontent. These Democrats predicted that the unease would depress fund raising as the 2010 election heats up.

One major Democratic fund-raiser on Wall Street said that some people who raised money for Mr. Obama’s campaign felt burned. “They put themselves on the line internally with their companies for Obama, and now they look stupid,” this person said.

Conversely, the GOP policy agenda of bailouts, deregulation, and opposition to taxing bankers is reaping financial rewards:

Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio made a pitch to Democratic contributor James Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan, over drinks at a Capitol Hill restaurant, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Boehner told Mr. Dimon congressional Republicans had stood up to Mr. Obama’s efforts to curb pay and impose new regulations. The Republican leader also said he was disappointed many on Wall Street continue to donate their money to Democrats, according to the people familiar with the matter.

A spokeswoman for J.P. Morgan declined to comment.

“I sense a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of buyer’s remorse on Wall Street,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the second-ranking House Republican and a top Wall Street fund-raiser for his party.

Obviously, the policy issues are going to continue to be contentious. But there’s a surprising amount of confusion about the basic interest-group politics here. Conservatives are trying to position themselves as in line with populist anti-banker sentiment, while also sipping cocktails with Jamie Dimon and pitching him on how they deserve more cash in exchange for their valiant defense of banker interests.

Politics

Issa Says Democratically Elected Democratic Congress Is ‘Exactly The Same’ As Kazakhstan’s Dictatorship

By Zaid Jilani on Feb 4, 2010 at 3:07 pm

issa5 Tuesday, during a hearing of the Helsinki Commission — an independent U.S. agency charged with promoting security and economic cooperation with eastern Europe and central Asia — that featured Kazakh foreign minister Kanat Saudabayev, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) showed contempt for human rights by telling Saudabayev that Kazakhstan’s nature as a virtual dictatorship doesn’t concern him because “Washington, D.C. is exactly the same” because it is controlled by Democrats:

ISSA: I want to share with you something here today. Washington, D.C., is exactly the same. This is a one-party town, even though there are people who are not Democrats. And this town has decided to have representation, at least one member of the council, who is chosen simply to represent minorities.

Of course, Democratic-controlled Washington, D.C., is not the same as Kazahkstan. The central Asian country is classified by the CIA as an “authoritarian” state with “little power outside the executive branch.” While Saudabayev “is in Washington speaking about Kazahkstan’s committment to democratic norms” as part of his country’s bid to lead the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the independent press in his country continues to face “harassment … and physical assault,” and Freedom House ranks it as one of the least free countries in the world, tied with Saudi Arabia.

The United States, meanwhile, is ranked by human rights and democracy promotion groups as one of the freest countries in the world. And unlike Kazahkstan’s government, Democrats were democratically elected to power in both 2006 and 2008. While Issa may be upset that voters rejected his political party at the polls, it is an insult both to people who voted those Democrats into power and to Kazakh human rights activists fighting for a more democratic Kazakhstan to compare the Democratic Congress to the current Kazakh regime. (HT: Harper’s)

Update

EurasiaNet chides Issa for using “the occasion for partisan political purposes, attempting to equate the political situation in Kazakhstan with that of the United States.” DCist has a different take, writing that Issa’s comments were pointing to “the District’s system of government as a model for what emerging democracies can do to ensure that minority political parties are represented.”

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