Republicans are evil and corrupt
Democrats are spineless and corrupt
The media is biased and corrupt
discuss...

(powerpoint slides strongly encouraged)

Obama's in Afghanistan

There is bad weather preventing him from having a face to face with Karzai

They are meeting via video conferencing

WheelsFellOff wrote:
(powerpoint slides strongly encouraged)

Another dollop of potential good news.I'll take it where I can get it these days.

dajafi wrote:Another dollop of potential good news.I'll take it where I can get it these days.

your mention of Brooks' 12/3/10 op-ed needs to be brought into the ongoing conversation somehow (I don't know how, so I did it the way I did it)

Combine that with Ezra changing his mind, saying the fiscal commission was kind of a success, and the president's weirdly quiet reaction to it all (because he's hatching something big), and maybe we're going somewhere.

Dennis Prager thinks Cee-Lo being nominated for multiple Grammys is the fall of society because the song is called Fuck You.

Though I guess this belongs in the "old guy acting really old" thread.

dajafi wrote:One generally doesn't stake out a position one wouldn't be happy to end up with, is my larger point. The Republican ideal for this lame-duck session seems to be:
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--no ratification of the New START treaty
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BTW, in case anyone missed it...

Putin said on the Larry King Live yesterday that with no New START, Russia will "have to react somehow" (meaning building up and stockpiling more nukes). "Russia will be simply obligated to ensure its security with different means, including the deployment of new strategic complexes, new nuclear missiles," Putin said. "That's not our choice. We don't want that to happen. But this is not a threat on our part. We simply want to say that this is all we expect if we don't come to an agreement."

And Medvedev said tuesday in his annual address to both houses of parliament "Either we reach agreement on missile defense and create a full joint cooperation mechanism, or, if we don’t go into a constructive agreement, a new phase of the arms race will begin. And we will have to make a decision on deploying new means of attack."


Maybe the plan to stimulate the economy is a new arms race with the Ruskies?

I really do wonder sometimes if the GOP's actual strategy is to bring about The Rapture.

Swiggers wrote:I really do wonder sometimes if the GOP's actual strategy is to bring about The Rapture.

Maybe, since they could see it as the only way to defeat immoral godless liberals for good.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:In other news... the wikileaks guy (Julian Assange) is in hiding, they thinks in the UK. Wanted in Sweden for sex crimes (raping two women). Interpol has issued a "Red Notice" warrant.

Well, now he's actually being charged (rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion) and an arrest warrant has been issued. Arrest by British police expected in days.

philliesphhan wrote:Dennis Prager thinks Cee-Lo being nominated for multiple Grammys is the fall of society because the song is called #$&! You.

Though I guess this belongs in the "old guy acting really old" thread.

Prager fascinates me, as does talk radio in general. I'm not talking about Prager's content or anything. There's nothing to talk about there, particularly in a mixed political ideology group like this (it's pretty black and white) - but I wonder about marketing strategy. If you have a competing talk radio station, you have to find something to fill during Limbaugh's time. Do you put someone out there that's going to compete, or do you just find a filler? The local "competing" stations seem to try and compete a bit - Bill Bennett against Mike Smirconish, Laura Ingraham against Beck - like, it seems to me they said "Lets try and get shows will compete for audience share". I haven't heard Prager for easily 3 or 4 years, but I suspect in his case they just need to fill three hours of airtime.

Best take I've yet read on WikiLeaks

In Washington’s polarized political environment, Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on a few things: That the government, in the name of fighting terrorism, has the right to listen in on all of our phone conversations and read our e-mails, even if it has no compelling reason for doing so. That the government can use machines at the airport that basically conduct the equivalent of strip searches of every passenger. That the government, for as long as it wants, can withhold any information from the public that it decides is in the national interest and is classified. And that when someone reveals this information, they are reviled on all sides, with the press corps staying silent.

I recall during the Clinton administration when Republicans expressed outrage over a White House health care task force holding “secret” meetings and not releasing the names of attendees or the topics of discussion. And then not many years later, Democrats expressing similar outrage at the Bush administration’s secrecy when it held private meetings related to energy policy. Now both sides have gotten together to attack WikiLeaks over the opposite situation: They are criticizing the Internet watchdog for openly releasing information related to how our government conducts foreign policy.
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When did we decide that we trust the government more than its citizens? And that revealing the truth about the government is wrong? And why is the media complicit in this? Did we not learn anything from the run-up to the Iraq war when no one asked hard questions about the justifications for the war and when we accepted statements from government officials without proper pushback?

My own sense is that we should err on the side of telling the truth, even when it’s inconvenient or when it makes our lives—or the business of government—more complicated. And that people who tell the truth should at the very least not be denigrated.

Note the author.

Matt Dowd's like a year or two away from being the left's Dick Morris

I don't know - where's my right to privacy in all this? Where's my right to not have my government's secrets exposed? This last round of leaks were leaks for leaks sake, no matter how extreme you are. It's indefensible bull shit

jerseyhoya wrote:Matt Dowd's like a year or two away from being the left's Dick Morris

I don't think so. I've seen him on TV quite a bit, and he's still pretty solidly Republican. I think he's more like the guy who advised McCain pre-2008--not Weaver, the California-based Republican strategist who's now writing screenplays. Mike something. Strong partisan but still able to exercise critical thinking and acknowledge reality, even when it goes against The Message. So he's probably on the outs with the Party.

At any rate, do you disagree with what he's saying here--that the government's right to privacy keeps expanding while ours as citizens keeps shrinking?

He was a Democrat for most of his professional life before becoming a Republican in 1999 so he could work for Bush's presidential campaign. He left the party during Bush's second term over Iraq/the realization that he was more marketable as an independent "former Bush adviser" than a generic GOP hack. He's not a strong partisan in any sense of the word. That doesn't make him wrong. Just saying I noted the author, and it doesn't mean what you're implying it means.

As for the WikiLeaks stuff, I don't understand how erring on the side of telling the truth translates to excusing the complete transparency/no secrets (and breaking the law) approach. There are professions where secrecy is essential. Talking to a therapist or attorney/client privilege, etc. I think diplomacy is right up there; countries aren't going to be frank with us if they think their comments are going to be splashed on the front pages worldwide. I don't get how this is a tell the truth/restore trust in government lesson.

I might have been confusing Dowd with McKinnon.

I now remember that he was a Dem--albeit a Texas Dem--who did cross over because he was so taken with Bush's bipartisan geniality, or manly swagger, or something. So I get your point.

I still think he's correct on this one, and he's not the only center/right voice asserting as much. That Gates and Clinton seem to view this as something less than a huge deal--that the leaks themselves, to me, actually seem to paint American diplomats in a relatively favorable light--reinforces my sense that we're better off knowing these things than not.

A large part of my frustration here is that we seem to have a totally co-opted corporate media which somehow has come to view its role not as informing the public about what its government is doing to support informed democratic decision-making, but rather to perpetuate its own access by serving as a buffer between power and voters. This is the real problem with the press, not the "bias" stuff thrown around by both sides.

You used to live in DC, jh; surely you saw, as I did, that the Post was an equal-opportunity sycophant whoever was in. CNN is exactly as bad, as are the (less important) newsweeklies; the NYT and WSJ are slightly less awful but still generally poor. It's almost enough to make one respect MSNBC and FOX, both of which at least might fulfill the press watchdog role so long as it happens to serve their partisan interest.

jerseyhoya wrote:As for the WikiLeaks stuff, I don't understand how erring on the side of telling the truth translates to excusing the complete transparency/no secrets (and breaking the law) approach. There are professions where secrecy is essential. Talking to a therapist or attorney/client privilege, etc. I think diplomacy is right up there; countries aren't going to be frank with us if they think their comments are going to be splashed on the front pages worldwide.

I find this a very weak argument against wikileaks and the associated publishing papers. I can't imagine that you engage in a process like diplomacy without being fully aware of the risk of secret confidences being broken. It may cause diplomats to be more cautious in their procedures, but it's hardly going to stop folk talking to you. and if it wasn't wikileaks, someone was going to get this information at some point. If it was that easy to access, you'd have to assume that most of the intelligence agencies round the world have a fair idea of this content anyway.

It's a poor argument that attacks the consequences of a systematic weakness, and not the weakness itself. Obviously, since the leaks happened, there will be a review of how to prevent it in future. A foolish administration might review procedures to the point where it prevents information sharing. That would be bad for ye guys. You would like to think sane heads have prevailed (given that these leaks happened ages ago, and that the US government has been preparing for this moment for months). If not, well, more fool ye.

What amazes is me is that there wasn't nearly the same fuss about the information they dumped about the american military a bit back. That had just as much volume and content to be explored.

On a seperate note, assange made the following point in a Q & A session with the guardian yesterday, which I thought was a powerful one:

For the past four years one of our goals has been to lionise the source who take the real risks in nearly every journalistic disclosure and without whose efforts, journalists would be nothing.

the only way you learn anything in this world is when someone talks. Everything else is guesswork. Investigation can point you to the right sources, but ultimately, be you an intelligence officer, a diplomat, a reporter or a member of the police, you've got to get someone talking or leaking. I don't see how a country which frequently shouts from the heights the importance of the first amendment, a country which has in place legistlation to protect whistleblowing employees of the state, can do anything other than shrug and take the publicity hit of the leaks on the chin.

I would never argue that secrecy does not have a place in modern society. Neither would I argue for the protection of secrecy at all costs. The latter fosters an environment where people feel untouchable and can cast the consequences of their actions in a light which makes them feel good about themselves, no matter the cost to others.

VoxOrion wrote:I don't know - where's my right to privacy in all this? Where's my right to not have my government's secrets exposed? This last round of leaks were leaks for leaks sake, no matter how extreme you are. It's indefensible bull $#@!

Hey, it's not just you losing out. Conservative government a couple of months back said that they were left with no choice but to continue paying out for two carriers which the military don't want and a recent defence review said was unnecessary. Today we find out that prior to the election, liam fox, conservative minister for defence, was running to the US and bending over backwards to buy shit loads of fighter planes from ye, which were meant to go on said fucking carriers.

There's a lot of interesting stuff there. It's as much about china's recent actions as it is america, about the ongoing state of yemen and assessing the ability of Morgan Tsvangirai. It may be the american window on how the world is running, but it's still a window on what happens behind the scenes, and for that alone I'm glad of its existence. It helps me better inform myself about a lot of different places, not just america.

It's easy to say that most of this stuff was common knowledge anyway., and as the papers process the cables, more increasingly I'm finding this information is about the nuts and bolts of dealmaking around the world, the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the various world powers. To someone like Kruker, most of this is probably not new. to someone like me, who does not have the time to pursue research in these areas, it's a boon.