National reporters want to know about it. More here.
Archives for November 2006
Open Thread
Shout, shout, let it all out.
Vote Suppression
Usually when a party descends into hackish dirty tricks they make a minimal effort to hide their responsibility. Trials and investigative reporting eventually bring out the truth, but by then who cares? The vote is done.
Surprising maybe one person who never leaves RedState, the GOP has kicked off a massive campaign of automated calls meant to deceive voters into thinking that they come from the Democratic candidate. Everybody hates robocalls and the calls come in repeatedly during dinner or early hours in the morning and they often take several minutes to get the the part where you find out that the thing was paid for by the RNC. Voters who get these decide, understandably to stay home. Josh Marshall has the full story.
The GOP doesn’t care if you know. They don’t care that local GOP candidates think the tactic is disgusting. The calls are going out everywhere (NH, PA, KS, CT, NY, IL, more from the AP)and it violates significant campaign laws, which means that the FEC will eventually level some truly impressive fines. As if the GOP cared about that.
If you live in a contested district the odds are fairly good that you have more information than I do. When you get a call, do this:
* Record the call, making sure that you get the end where the RNC announces its sponsorship.
* Record the phone number.
* Make sure that Metro desks at your local newspaper, TV stations and radio stations hear about it. If you know anybody who has also received the calls, have them call in as well.
* Contact Josh Marshall with the details and the phone number, especially if you live in a state not listed above.
* Tell EVERYBODY you know. The only thing that will kill this is word of mouth. In fact, outrage about this behavior (interrupting people repeatedly during dinner, waking them up repeatedly at ridiculous hours) should spark a major backlash. But that will only happen if people know about it, so start calling around now.
Again, if you know anybody who woke up at 3 AM to take an irritating automated phone call make sure he or she knows that the call came straight from Ken Mehlman at the RNC. Let’s help revolting behavior get the reward it deserves.
***Update***
Much more about what you can do here. Also read this diary, which may have ID’d the perpetrator.
We now know that the bogus robocalls are a single coordinated campaign targeting fifteen races: CA-04, CA-50, CT-04, CT-05, FL-13, ID-01, IL-06, IL-08, KS-02, NC-11, NH-02, NY-19, PA-06, WA-05. If you know of any more please leave the information in the comments.
***Update 2***
A more thorough list of targeted races at TPM. The perp is definitely Conquest Communications of Richmond, Virginia.
***Update 3***
Kelleher did what any right-thinking person who was being driven half out of their minds by unsolicited phone calls would do. She called Farrell’s headquarters in Westport to ask them to stop.
The person who answered the phone said the calls weren’t coming from Farrell headquarters. A Farrell aide later told us they launched their first robo call Wednesday featuring Paul Newman saying all nice stuff about his old friend.
Farrell’s headquarters referred Kelleher to the opposition, the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) in Washington, D.C., (202 479-7000, in case you want to call), where a spokesman said they were responsible for many of the calls.
“I called the number they gave me, but when I asked if they could take me off the call list they just laughed at me,” Kelleher said.
***Update 4***
The Economist‘s new blog equates Google bombing with saturation robocalling. The false equivalence fallacy strikes again.
What Happened In Iraq?
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan
– John F. Kennedy
Via Djerejian, Ahmad Chalabi blames the neocons:
“The real culprit in all this is Wolfowitz…They chickened out. The Pentagon guys chickened out…We would have taken hold of the country…We would have revitalized the civil service immediately. We would have been able to put together a military force and an intelligence service. There would have been no insurgency. We would have had electricity. The Americans screwed it up…In Wolfowitz’s mind, you couldn’t trust the Iraqis to run a democracy… We have to teach them, give them lessons….We have to leave Iraq under our tutelage. The Iraqis are useless. The Iraqis are incompetent [in Wolfowitz’s mind]….What I didn’t realize was that the Americans sold us out.”
Neocons blame the administration:
According to [Richard] Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush. Perle says, “The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn’t get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don’t think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty.”
Administration supporters blame the Generals:
In a Wednesday appearance on CNN, Boehner was asked for his view on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the U.S. policy in Iraq. “There are a lot of people who want to blame what’s happening in Iraq on Donald Rumsfeld, but when you look at the transformation that our military has been through, it’s nothing short of remarkable,” Boehner said. “The fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge.” Boehner acknowledged that “there have been mistakes along the way,” but did not blame Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld, Boehner said, has been pushing the military to transform, but the uniformed military leaders have resisted. “You have to understand that the generals who have been in charge of the Pentagon have been very resistant to change,” Boehner said.
Practically every retired General blames Donald Rumsfeld, as do the major newspapers serving the US military:
Just days after President Bush publicly affirmed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s job security through the end of his term, a family of publications catering to the military will publish an editorial calling for the defense secretary’s removal.
The editorial, released to NBC News on Friday ahead of its Monday publication date, stated, “It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.”
Time‘s Blog of the Year blames the Iraqi people:
Unfortunately, though, more was required of the Iraqi people than just voting. The situation called on them to elect leaders who would work in good faith for national reconciliation, rather than tilting substantially in the direction of one sectarian faction. The Iraqis failed to do this when they voted in the Shia-militia-friendly Maliki government, thereby making it difficult, if not impossible, for the U.S. to work with the current government to curb sectarian violence.
Greenwald responds:
What makes Paul’s excuse-making extra disgusting is that — like so many of these war advocates who are blaming others for this debacle by claiming that it’s all due to past mistakes by other people which they never criticized at the time — Paul praised Maliki’s election in April as the key event for achieving “national unity”
Unsurprisingly, practically everybody involved with the glorious clusterf*ck in Iraq has switched into desperate damage-control mode. Michael Leeden’s personal dodge (Supported the invasion? You must mean some other Michael Leeden) is particularly funny for its mix of mendacity and flopsweat. Pity the poor schmuck too dim or personally invested in Iraq to even admit the existence of blame to deflect:
Woodward says that no matter what has occurred in Iraq, Mr. Bush does not welcome any pessimistic assessments from his aides, because he’s sure that his war has Iraq and America on the right path.
“Late last year he had key Republicans up to the White House to talk about the war. And said, ‘I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.’
History will not be kind.
Tony Snow’s Favorite Fallacy
See if you can spot it:
Q The possible timing of this, just before the elections — some people might be skeptical of that?
MR. SNOW: Are you smoking rope? (Laughter.) Are you telling me that in Iraq, that they’re sitting around — (laughter) — I’m sorry, that the Iraqi judicial system is coming up with an October [sic} surprise?
Q November.
MR. SNOW: A November surprise? Man, that’s — wow.
Caught that? Let’s try again. Dick Cheney obviously endorses waterboarding, which everybody but Dick Cheney considers torture:
In an interview Tuesday with WDAY of Fargo, North Dakota, Cheney was asked if “a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives.”
The vice president replied, “Well, it’s a no-brainer for me, but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture. We don’t torture. That’s not what we’re involved in.”
Snow replies:
Tony Snow denied that Cheney had endorsed water boarding.
“You know as a matter of common sense that the vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding. Never would, never does, never will,” Snow said. “You think Dick Cheney’s going to slip up on something like this? No, come on.”
Now you have the basic workings of a Tony Snow script. Instead of answering an undeniable, obvious question, act like it’s the most ridiculous thing that you’ve ever heard. Who would believe that the president’s middle name starts with W? Ridiculous. Somebody must be huffing glue.
A while back I pointed out, via Joe Gandelman, that Tony Snow was the first wingnut press secretary. Looks like I didn’t know the half of it.
The Hussein Verdict
We already know that Iraq bowed to US pressure and scheduled Hussein’s guilty verdict to run right up against our midterm elections. Guilty, sentenced to death, the whole nine yards. At least give the political appointees who enginnered this result some points for chutzpah.
None of that particularly counts as news. Whether Iraq hangs Saddam, cuts his head off or leaves him in jail until he dies of liver disease we have had him in custody for years and the chances of Iraq’s former dictator ever going free hover somewhere between zero and laughable. Even if we released him little to nothing would change. Saddam’s control centered on his aura of fear, the feeling that the very idea of opposing him might get you killed. One picture of Saddam mostly naked, unshaven in a dirty cell and it’s safe to say that the aura is gone for good. Plenty of Sunni leaders have kept their warlord street cred and it strains credulity to think that they would willingly step aside for Captain Underpants. The ink is already dry on Saddam’s role in history.
But about the news. You, me and a retarded magpie can see the political timing here so the odds are fairly good that sharper members of the press can see it. Think they will take offense at getting manipulated in such a brazen fashion? The oft-disappointed voice of hope in me says yes, but I’ve long since learned to ignore the pesky little bugger. Headlines will blare, corners will turn and Iraqis will welcome the brave new Saddam-free world with the customary IEDs and car bombs.
***Update***
Hanging. Shocker.
All Your Memories Are Belong To U.S.
The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the “alternative interrogation methods” that their captors used to get them to talk.
The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets and that their release — even to the detainees’ own attorneys — “could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage.” Terrorists could use the information to train in counter-interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information about their methods and plots, according to government documents submitted to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Oct. 26.
The battle over legal rights for terrorism suspects detained for years in CIA prisons centers on Majid Khan, a 26-year-old former Catonsville resident who was one of 14 high-value detainees transferred in September from the “black” sites to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many detainees at Guantanamo, is seeking emergency access to him.
The government, in trying to block lawyers’ access to the 14 detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees’ experiences are a secret that should never be shared with the public.
So by my estimation, this means that the Bush administation can:
1.) Snatch whoever the hell they want off the street, as long as they claim they are a terrorist suspect.
2.) Take them to a secret prison, informing no one and offering no due process.
3.) Beat them indiscriminately, using “alternative interrogation methonds” (but we don’t torture!)
4.) Once they figure out they have the wrong guy, they make it illegal for him to speak about his treatment.
Ain’t America grand!