Waterboarding Said To Have The Ability To Send Interrogators Back In Time

Why exactly is LAist taking the bait on the latest right-wing claim that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had to be waterboarded 183 times in one month in order to get the intelligence to foil the plot to blow up Los Angeles' Library Tower in 2002? One fairly glaring flaw with this logic is, um...

The first reason to be skeptical that this planned attack could have been carried out successfully is that, as I've noted before, attacking buildings by flying planes into them didn't remain a viable al-Qaida strategy even through Sept. 11, 2001. Thanks to cell phones, passengers on United Flight 93 were able to learn that al-Qaida was using planes as missiles and crashed the plane before it could hit its target. There was no way future passengers on any flight would let a terrorist who killed the pilot and took the controls fly wherever he pleased.

What clinches the falsity of Thiessen's claim, however (and that of the memo he cites, and that of an unnamed Central Intelligence Agency spokesman who today seconded Thessen's argument), is chronology. In a White House press briefing, Bush's counterterrorism chief, Frances Fragos Townsend, told reporters that the cell leader was arrested in February 2002, and "at that point, the other members of the cell" (later arrested) "believed that the West Coast plot has been canceled, was not going forward" [italics mine]. A subsequent fact sheet released by the Bush White House states, "In 2002, we broke up [italics mine] a plot by KSM to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast." These two statements make clear that however far the plot to attack the Library Tower ever got—an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush's characterization of it as a "disrupted plot" was "ludicrous"—that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn't captured until March 2003.

I don't even think this "means justifying the ends" argument is germane when you're talking about breaking domestic and international laws. But as has always been the case with the torture apologists, their evidence for "success" on this score breaks down upon the slightest scrutiny. As Emptywheel, who's been all over this story, notes, even on the "ends justify the means" scale, there is no point to torture.

We already have a way to assess how much intelligence we got directly from torturing Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: the 9/11 Report. After all, the 9/11 Report integrates a huge amount of information from interrogation reports, and cites them all meticulously. As early as June 6, 2003, the 9/11 Commission asked for, "“all TDs and other reports of intelligence information obtained from interrogations” of forty named individuals, including Abu Zubaydah and (apparently) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and they used what they got in return to write their report. So if there was useful information in those reports, they presumably got it [...]

And in the case of Abu Zubaydah, such an assessment is horrifying.

In the entire 9/11 Report, just ten pieces of information are sourced to Abu Zubaydah's interrogation reports.

Ten.

And there are several other damning details that come from this analysis. One of the ten pieces of intelligence that appears in the 9/11 Report--regarding Abu Zubaydah's role running terrorist training camps--came from July 10, 2002, before the CIA first received oral authorization to use torture. Thus, it either came from persuasive, rather than coercive, techniques. Or it came from treatment that had not been legally approved.

It's horrifying enough to have apologists justify torture because of the benefits, while discounting the costs. The fact that they lie about it is just the icing on the cake.

You'd Think This Would Merit A Mention

I don't know if you've been following this Michael Mukasey story, and if you haven't been reading Glenn Greenwald, I don't know how you would be able to follow it. At a speaking engagement in San Francisco, Mukasey asserted without proof that the Bush Administration knew about a phone call from a "safe house" in Afghanistan into the United States prior to 9/11, but couldn't eavesdrop on the call because of FISA's requirement for a warrant. On its face, this is completely untrue - under FISA you could get the warrant after the fact. However, what's more crucial is that nobody in the government or the agencies in a position to know about this phone call have any idea what Mukasey is talking about. And so once again, we see a Bush Administration official lying about a terrorist threat in order to gather massive unchecked powers for the executive.

Members of the 9/11 Commission doesn't know about this story. The House Judiciary Committee doesn't know about this story and wants some answers from Mukasey. And now, 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton is denying that any such call took place.

In light of Hamilton's amazing comment, could journalists possibly now report on this story? One of two things is true about Mukasey's extraordinary claim about how and why the 9/11 attacks occurred. Either:

(1) The Bush administration concealed this obviously vital episode from the 9/11 Commission and from everyone else, until Mukasey tearfully trotted it out last week; or,

(2) Mukasey, the nation's highest law enforcement officer, made this story up in order to scare and manipulate Americans into believing that FISA and other surveillance safeguards caused the 9/11 attacks and therefore the Government should be given more unchecked spying powers.

This is very serious. From the Justice Department's response to Greenwald it's clear that this call was not hypothetical, at least according to Mukasey. So we're left with either a lie or a cover-up. And at the minimum we're left with a use of fearmongering and the threat of terror to frighten Americans into loosening their grip on their civil liberties. And we know that these new executive powers have been abused and mishandled to expand the national surveillance state.

It's shocking to me that these abuses of executive authority haven't become a main argument in the Presidential race thus far. They have the bully pulpit to force attention on these egregious illegalities, from rendition to torture to illegal surveillance to legal theories abrogating multiple Constitutional amendments and international law. Look at the consequences from such actions, for example in the case of John Yoo's memo asserting the right of interrogators to torture.

The exact circumstances surrounding the dealings between Haynes and Yoo that led to the development of this memorandum are unclear. However, it is clear that Haynes had previously authorized the use of the torture techniques, and had secured an order from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld authorizing them.

Following the implementation of these techniques, more than 108 detainees died in detention. In a large number of these cases, the deaths have been ruled a homicide and connected to torture. These homicides were a forseeable consequence of the advice that Haynes and Yoo gave.

The introduction of torture techniques destroyed America’s reputation around the world, dramatically eroded a system of alliances that generations of Americans fought and labored to sustain and build, and provided the basis for a dramatic recruitment campaign for terrorist groups who are the nation’s principal adversaries in the war on terror. Yoo’s and Haynes’s conduct dramatically undercut the security and safety of every American. And equally, Yoo and Haynes demonstrated by their conduct contempt for the rule of law and the principles for which hundreds of thousands of Americans shed their blood in prior conflicts.

This Mukasey lie is a symptom. It's not an isolated incident. It's been the goal of this Administration to do whatever it takes, break whatever law necessary, to aggrandize power to themselves. They will clearly kill for it. They will clearly terrorize for it. And one would think the media would catch up to this reality.

Rice For America

It occurs to me that I never wrote about my meeting with Oklahoma Senate candidate Andrew Rice at a house party in Venice last weekend. Apparently the Oklahoma GOP is calling it some kind of dark secret, but somehow I found out about it and I'm not invited to anything. Furthermore, they claimed that Dianne Feinstein and Henry Waxman were on hand, which isn't true. I did see my state Senator Sheila Kuehl, my state Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, and LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl. But I guess they aren't big enough to term the event "a “Who’s Who” list of the most liberal Democrat’s in California." On the plus side, I suppose I'm one of those "liberal Democrat's" (jeez, they're a political organization, can't they hire a copy editor?).

Rice is a 35 year-old former divinity student (he has a Masters in theology from Harvard) who wasn't all that involved in politics until after 9/11, when his brother died inside the World Trade Center. Afterwards he devoted his life to social causes and became drawn into the world of public policy. He worked in the grassroots for a few years, behind the scenes on such projects as ensuring the creation of the 9/11 Comission. In 2006 he was elected at the age of 33 to the Oklahoma State Senate from Oklahoma City. In his speech he emphasized his proud Democratic ideals (though I'm a little upset that the word "Democrat" isn't on his fliers, I know it's Oklahoma but at some point we have to be proud of the signifier), particularly in the areas of ethics reforms, economic justice and fairness, and renewable energy solutions for Oklahoma. That last bit is significant, because he's going up against James Inhofe, public enemy number 1 for the environmentalist crowd. Inhofe's delusional rants denying the existence of global warming, which he called the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on Americans, has generated notoreity and publicity, but not the good kind. In fact, both of Oklahoma's Senators, Inhofe and Tom Coburn, are from the grandstanding, angry, wackadoo school of Republican politics. That state REALLY lost the lottery on this one.

However, even Coburn has come out and said that the war in Iraq is a mistake. Inhofe, when asked about it, said that "he couldn't have said that," moving him even further to the fringe than... Tom Coburn. At the gathering, Rice noted that Inhofe has been an elected official for 41 years - "that's six years longer than I've been alive." The nutball quotes from Inhofe over the years could fill a book, but my favorite was a story I heard at the event from an Oklahoma local. Howie Klein heard it too.

Someone I met from Tulsa told me a very interesting story about Oklahoma Secretary of State Susan Savage. Well, actually the story is about Oklahoma's crazy U.S. Senator, James Inhofe. And it isn't another "crazy Inhofe" story. This one is a "nasty Inhofe" story. I mean everyone I've ever met from Oklahoma has been polite and courteous; so this one kind of surprised me.

While Susan was mayor of Tulsa her daughter Emily's 8th grade class went on a school trip to Washington, DC. The school had arranged for the kids to meet a member of the Oklahoma congressional delegation. It turned out to be Senator Inhofe. When he came forward to address them he asked if Emily Savage could raise her hand. Nervously, she did.

"Emily's mother is the mayor of Tulsa," the senator told her classmates. "I try to work with her and do what's right for the people of Tulsa but Emily's mother believes in killing babies."

When Emily got home and told her parents what happened they thought she must have misunderstood Inhofe. Susan called the teacher who had chaperoned the trip and was aghast to learn that Emily didn't misunderstand anything. She called Inhofe and told him that if he ever came near her daughter again or said anything to her she would seek a restraining order in court. Which is exactly what the long-suffering folks in Oklahoma should do in November.

Inhofe's grandstanding and outrageousness has hurt him in Oklahoma. His approval ratings are below 50%, and Rice keeps him under 50 in a head-to-head matchup, too. That's the danger zone for incumbents. If the environmental groups see promise here, you know they'll jump in hard as well. Plus, you have to love a guy whose wife is named Apple. That's right, Apple Rice. Which I believe I've gotten at Thai restaurants from time to time.

Expanding control of the House and Senate is going to be very important this year, although it's getting almost no attention thus far. Rice is obviously a long-shot, but in a map-changing scenario anything is possible. I'll be posting a lot more on Congressional races as the year goes on.

Well, It Certainly Sounds Like An Independent Investigation

Michael Mukasey taps a career prosecutor to investigate the destruction of the torture tapes:

The CIA acknowledged last month that it destroyed videos of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects. The acknowledgment sparked a congressional inquiry and a preliminary investigation by Justice.

"The Department's National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation," Mukasey said in a statement released Wednesday.

Mukasey named John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee the case.

Durham apparently went up against the FBI and sent a bunch of public officials in Connecticut to prison, so he's not afraid of taking on the government. He's basically acting as the US Attorney for eastern Virginia because that USA, who would normally have jurisdiction over the CIA, recused himself. And the head of the CIA, Michael Hayden, has also recused himself, along with John Helgerson, the CIA Inspector General.

This has all the earmarks of a legitimate independent investigation, but with the Bush Administration nothing is assured.

UPDATE: It's interesting that this is coming out on a day when 9/11 Commission co-chairs Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton reiterated in the New York Times that the CIA stonewalled their investigation and lied to their commission.

UPDATE II: Conyers seems unhappy, wanted a special counsel and thinks the scope of the investigation is too limited. I have to agree to an extent that the Justice Department has defaulted on its ability to independently investigate the White House. So the Congress should engage in a parallel probe.

Torture Tape Update

So after belligerently trying to shut down the House Intelligence Committee investigation over the detroyed torture tapes, and faced with imminent subpoenas which would have bipartisan support, the CIA and the Justice Department relented, offering documents and allowing the CIA's top lawyer, John Rizzo, to testify to the committee. Whether or not they'll allow Jose Rodriguez, who is the prime subject for a committee subpoena, to testify is an open question. It's a minor victory for the separation of powers, but I stress minor. And so far, based not only on the documents given to the committee but also testimony from Michael Hayden, it looks like Abu Gonzales and John Bellinger advised against destroying the tapes, adding to other accounts that Harriet Miers advised against destruction as well. Only one lawyer known to have been present at the discussions is left out: David Addington, Cheney's lawyer. It was obvious that Addington would be the figure most likely to argue for their destruction, seeing as he's bathed in the light of Fourthbranch and believes himself to be not bound by any laws, a Javier Bardem-in-No Country For Old Men kind of person, if you will.

Additionally, a CIA lawyer has put to rest Hayden's ridiculous concern that the tapes were destroyed to protect the identities of the agents involved. There are ample ways to blur out faces or obscure identities, he said, plus they were in the hands of the CIA the entire time, and "If a tape is not safe in the CIA, we’re in trouble."

The 9/11 Commission is weighing in as well, claiming that the tapes were withheld from them prior to their destruction. This is almost the harmonic convergence of Bush Administration secrecy, because so many different groups, including Congress, independent panels like the 9/11 Commission with the force of law, and even the courts have been stonewalled. In the case of the 9/11 panel, the administrators are looking to see whether the CIA violated federal law.

A seven-page memorandum prepared by Philip D. Zelikow, the panel’s former executive director, concluded that “further investigation is needed” to determine whether the C.I.A.’s withholding of the tapes from the commission violated federal law.

In interviews this week, the two chairmen of the commission, Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, said their reading of the report had convinced them that the agency had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission’s inquiry.

What may not pan out is the court case that some thought would pry open more documents into further view.

A federal judge appeared reluctant Friday to investigate the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes while the Justice Department is conducting its own inquiry.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy is considering whether to delve into the matter and, if so, how deeply. The Bush administration is urging him to back off while it investigates.

"Why should the court not permit the Department of Justice to do just that?" Kennedy asked at a court hearing.

Can I answer that? Because they're hopelessly partisan and implicated in the investigation at the highest levels?

It's very unclear where all of this is going. My goal would be to see Addington forced out of the shadows.

We Need Better Democrats

The saddest thing about this giveaway on FISA and crossing out of the Fourth Amendment is that the Congress was just starting to get its sea legs. They passed 9/11 Commission recommendations that will ensure all containers will be checked at the ports. They passed S-CHIP expansion in both Houses under threat of a Presidential veto. They passed a clean energy standard in the House that would raise the mandate for renewable sources of electricity to 15% by 2020 for the first time EVER. They passed the most sweeping ethics and lobbying reform in a generation. They pushed the Republicans on Iraq and set the stage for a long month of them listening to their constituents.

But despite these successes, all anyone will remember (myself included) is that they got trash-talked into sanctioning unaccountable data mining on Americans.

A Mad Final Dash

It's been like cutting ice, but on a couple fronts, the Democratic Congress has finally broken through the Republican roadblock on a couple major issues, and I hope they can now break the media filter and explain this to the American people.

The bill incorporating most of the 9/11 Commission recommendations have been sent to the President with veto-proof majorities. The bill includes some border security measures to get Republican votes, meaning that this will be the end of illegal immigration!... or at least the continuation of immigrants overstaying tourist visas, which is how most of them arrive in this country anyway.

This bill actually fulfills a Kerry campaign promise, mandating screening of all cargo at the ports, which the White House is of course resisting, because they're not interested in passing security. But they got Congress to remove language allowing TSA personnel to collectively bargain, so I guess they figured they screwed the working man enough to allow them to sign it. And overall, the bill does represent progress.

Also, the House passed a raft of bills aimed at helping veterans returning from Iraq. The Senate passed a veterans health care bill last week, so this may see passage. Of course, many of the recommendations of the Dole-Shalala Commission need to be implemented by the executive branch, meaning that they won't.

There should be some other initiatives passed this week before the August recess (the Iraqi Parliament is just practicing American-style democracy!), so we'll see how it shakes out.

Depending on Civic Illiteracy

People know what impeachment is. They probably didn't before 1998, but someone was shining the President's Willie and even Access Hollywood covered it, so impeachment got tossed into the cultural lexicon (in completely the wrong way, of course; it means something vague like "when meanies want to get rid of the President because they don't like him").

What people know little about is the machinery of the Congress, the whole business of cloture votes and filibusters and open rules and motions to recommit. They have no idea that the Republicans are systematically gumming up the works and Democratic leaders aren't doing a good enough job of informing the public, nor is liberal talk radio focused on it, and even if they were it's not a big enough megaphone and nobody involved in it is having illicit sex (except David Vitter). So the President can make wild, simple claims like "Congress isn't passing their spending bills on time" when last year's Republican Congress didn't pass a SINGLE spending bill. Republicans have a faith in the essential ignorance of the American citizen, and so they think they can obstruct with impunity:

I wonder how many Americans understand that you can’t pass legislation in America with 50% of the votes in Congress? How many of them understand that, outside of budget resolutions, you need 60 votes in the Senate? That a filibuster isn’t a matter of Jimmy Stewart talking himself ragged for hours on end, but of merely declaring an intention to filibuster? And that this is done for all but the most routine matters? With the result that the 60-vote minimum is no longer reserved for occasional high-profile issues, but has been institutionalized for virtually all legislation of any consequence?

I figure maybe 2%.

As Steve Benen says, the GOP thinks it can play this gambit, obstructing every effort at progress (on Iraq and on everything else) and then blaming the Democrats for not getting their agenda passed. The only time this could break down is if the Democrats or their allies do a better job of explaining this tactic in broad terms. 9/11 families writing a letter is a good start (although it should be a press conference):

Dear 9/11 Families and Friends,

The bill implementing many of the remaining 9/11 Commissions recommendations is stalled because Senate Republicans have blocked an important ‘next step’. It is called a conference, where the House and Senate hammer out their differences on bills and is therefore a cornerstone of our democratic legislative process.

The bill in question, (S.4), is called Improving America’s Security Act. When enacted, it will improve security on the home front. It is long overdue for passage and as a consequence, American lives remain at risk.

Please voice your strong opposition to this partisan stall tactic. Call, email or fax Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office. Tell him to stop blocking the Conference on S.4. Tell him to let the bill move forward!

I just heard the President in his sham press conference lament about how hard it is for the Iraqis to pass legislation. At the same time he's yelling at Democrats for not getting laws passed. This is ridiculous and the obstructionism must be exposed.

The Problem Is Obstruction

What the Broderellas of the world (and apparently, the Mario Cuomos as well) don't seem to understand is that the critical issues facing the country, the ones that practically the whole country wants the Congress to solve, are simply being held up by Republicans. They have every right by virtue of their place in the Senate to hold up those bills, but it's clear to me that they're doing it, not out of principle or considered belief, but because this whole "Congress doesn't do anything" theme is a political winner. Republicans in the Senate have already this week blocked lobbying reform, implementing the 9-11 Commission recommendations and the Employee Free Choice Act. The energy bill got through but not with everything that people wanted, because conservatives blocked major portions of the bill.

All of these "post-partisans" are interested in doing the work of the American people, yet the Democrats are clearly trying to do that as well, even on Iraq, and they're being blocked by the minority. These high Broderists seem to want to forget that there's such a thing as minority rights in the legislative arena. They act like, if Michael Bloomberg or one of their other deities were President, suddenly all conservatives would stop being conservative and start voting for major changes against all of their stated positions. This is old-fashioned Congressional gridlock, and I'm not saying it's good for the system. But there's no magic quick fix to it either. The answer is to put electoral pressure on the folks that are vulnerable, which the Democrats are doing by continuing to hold votes. If we get more and better Democrats in place, suddenly all of these things Broderites want to see will be implemented, but that won't be good for them either because the dirty fucking hippies will be in charge.

P.S. I like what Reid said about Lugar and friends making noise about Iraq. Less noise, more action was essentially his message.

We Need Some Accomplishments.

People in the blogosphere have called this a hit piece, but there's some substantive truth to it, and you can't just reference polls showing that nobody likes George Bush in order to rebut it. The fact is that the Democrats did run on a specific agenda that has vastly broad public support. And half of that agenda has been passed by both houses of Congress, and has been waiting for a conference report for several weeks. I'm getting a little antsy:

The "Six for '06" policy agenda on which Democrats campaigned last year was supposed to consist of low-hanging fruit, plucked and put in the basket to allow Congress to move on to tougher targets. House Democrats took just 10 days to pass a minimum-wage increase, a bill to implement most of the homeland security recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, a measure allowing federal funding for stem cell research, another to cut student-loan rates, a bill allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare, and a rollback of tax breaks for oil and gas companies to finance alternative-energy research [...]

The minimum-wage bill got stalled in a fight with the Senate over tax breaks to go along with the wage increase. In frustration, Democratic leaders inserted a minimum-wage agreement into a bill to fund the Iraq war, only to see it vetoed.

Similar homeland security bills were passed by the House and the Senate, only to languish as attention shifted to the Iraq debate. Last week, family members of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, gathered in Washington to demand action.

"We've waited five and a half years since 9/11," said Carie Lemack, whose mother died aboard one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. "We waited three years since the 9/11 commission. We can't wait anymore."

House and Senate staff members have begun meeting, with the goal of reporting out a final bill by Memorial Day, but they concede that the deadline is likely to slip, in part because members of the homeland security committees of both chambers, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the two intelligence committees all want their say. The irony, Lemack said, is that such cumbersomeness is precisely why the Sept. 11 commission recommended the creation of powerful umbrella security committees with such broad jurisdiction that other panels could not muscle their way in. That was one recommendation Congress largely disregarded.

The Medicare drug-negotiations bill died in the Senate, after Republicans refused to let it come up for debate. House Democrats are threatening to attach the bill to must-pass government funding bills.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has proposed his own student-loan legislation, but it is to be part of a huge higher-education bill that may not reach the committee until June.

The House's relatively simple energy bill faces a similar fate. The Senate has in mind a much larger bill that would ease bringing alternative fuels to market, regulate oil and gas futures trading, raise vehicle and appliance efficiency standards, and reform federal royalty payments to finance new energy technologies.

I think a lot of people have assumed that those House bills were passed into law already, so I'm skeptical of the conclusion that Democrats are paying the price for this... yet. And a lot of this can be attributed to the fact that legislation moves much more slowly in the Senate, where you have to have 60 votes to get anything passed, and that's just a fact of life. But the tax breaks on the minimum wage bill have been reconciled. The 9-11 Commission recommendations bill has been passed. And so has a stem cell bill which Bush has vowed to veto (but we're very close to an override there). There needs to be some political capital spent on getting these bills to the President's desk. I know Democrats can be an unruly lot and everyone wants their say. But Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have garnered tremendous party unity this session, and some of that must be expended to shepherd these bills through. You can add the hate crimes legislation that passed the House to that as well.

Here's the alibi part of the story:

Democratic leaders remain hopeful that a burst of activity will put the doubts about them to rest. They have promised to pass a war funding bill and a minimum-wage increase that Bush can sign, to complete a budget blueprint and to finish the homeland security bill by Memorial Day. The House wants to pass defense and intelligence bills, its own lobbying measure and the first gun-control legislation since 1994, which would tighten the national instant-check system for gun purchases. The Senate hopes to complete a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws.

That's a tall order. I hope they're up to it.

I Believe Everything Terrorists Say

The oddly-timed-to-throw-everyone-off-the-scandal-track multiple confessions from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has everybody on the right a-twitter. I'm reminded of the immortal words of David St. Hubbins.

“I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human, than someone who doesn't believe anything.”

At the risk of believing everything I read, I should mention that the 9-11 Commission Report showed KSM to be a braggart who wanted to call attention to himself as the most powerful terrorist in the world. So his confessing to every terrorist attack known to man, and a few that are unknown, must be taken with a couple grains of salt. OK, enough grains to fill the Great Salt Lake. I have no doubt that KSM is a terrorist, but he's not leaving US custody ever, so he has no reason to defend himself and a reason of self-aggrandizement among the terrorist community to lie.

UPDATE: Breaking! KSM fired the US Attorneys! He also shaved Britney Spears' head, captured the Lindbergh baby, sunk the Lusitania and invented the Segway. And CFBs. And he won the Zimbabwean election. And domesticated fire.

Stop Hating America

Bob Geiger lists the 38 Senators, Republicans all, who voted against implementing the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission and protecting the country from nefariousness. It was far more important to them that TSA screeners don't get limited union protections than that all Americans get homeland security protections. Got it.

Those Republicans voted against this:

• Enhanced information sharing between different branches of government and between federal, state, county and local governments.

• Interoperable Communications-provides funding to ensure that different branches of first responders (i.e. firefighters and police) can communicate with each other. Their inability to do cost lives on 9/11.

• Cracks down on loopholes in visa waiver law that enable terrorist travel.

• Strengthens biosurveillance, private sector preparedness

• Enhanced disclosure

That'll make a hell of an ad in 2008. Won't it, Sens. Sununu, Chambliss, Domenici, McConnell, and Hagel? (yes, Chuck Hagel, shining light to bipartisans everywhere, hates working people and doesn't want America to be safe)

Union Yes

Airport baggage screeners will get collective bargaining rights under legislation now passed by the House and Senate. I'm glad to see labor reasserting itself around MEMBERSHIP issues, both in this action and the Employee Free Choice Act. The White House can veto either or both, but they'll essentially have to show contempt for working people and, in the case of the 9-11 legislation, value corporate profits over homeland security.

Matthew Yglesias wonders why Democrats are so responsive to union issues and not issues of Iraq, national security, foreign policy, stopping torture and domestic spying, etc. And he gives the answer:

Not that I begrudge the unions their influence, either. They won it fair and square -- with organizing, with money, with volunteers, with discipline, with clear requests, etc. As you see with any influential group, securing influence takes work. Sadly, there are virtually no institutions of any consequence organized around providing a progressive take on the substance -- as opposed to labor procedures -- of national security issues. And until that changes, you'll keep having what we have today; a Democratic Party with very clear ideas about whether or not airport screeners should be represented by unions, but very hazy ideas about how to deal with Iran.

That's absolutely true, but starting to change. I think what VoteVets.org is doing with StopIranWar.com is very important and key. They've already spurred Jim Webb to action, as he introduced a bill restricting all funding for any strike on Iran without Congressional authorization. That's a good start, but as Yglesias says, it'll take years and a lot of money. Unions have manpower and moneypower, and they can provide infrastructure in practically all 50 states. There isn't going to really be anything like that in the foreign policy sphere, unless possibly you mobilize veteran's groups and provide them with all the support they need to be a political factor.

They Just Hate People

The Bush Administration and 36 Republican Senators showed their true colors today when they saw fit to hijack our nation's security to ensure that airline screeners remain underpaid and overworked. It is embarrassingly clear that the Republican Party is a party that hates people, and would rather expose them to risk from terrorism than allow them to get ahead. Indeed they save their angriest, most vicious and hateful threats for the working people that built and sustain this country. If Democrats simply let people know about this, raised awareness of the Republican contempt for anyone who gets their hands dirty or cashes a paycheck every week, they would never lose an election again.

President Bush and his Senate allies will kill a Sept. 11 antiterror bill if Congress sends it to the White House with a provision to let airport screeners unionize, the White House and 36 Republicans said Tuesday.

"As the legislation currently stands, the president's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

Senate Republicans swiftly backed up the threat with a pledge by more than enough senators to block any veto override attempt.

"If the final bill contains such a provision, forcing you to veto it, we pledge to sustain your veto," they wrote to the president. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., planned to offer an amendment to strip the provision from the bill.

Listen to what the Republicans are saying here. If you allow screeners to collectively bargain with their employers, to give them the opportunity to leverage their labor the same way all federal employees can, to utilize the free market in the same way businesses and governments do every day, we will stop all attempts to make the country more safe.

This is what is less important than the scourage of letting airline screeners unionize:

Other measures in the bill would improve rail and aviation security, provide funds for state and local emergency communications systems, improve intelligence sharing between federal, state and local officials, and expand a visa waiver benefit for favored countries.

The Republicans would rather NOT improve rail and aviation security.

They would rather NOT give funding to state and local emergency communications systems, systems which would be deployed first in the event of any incident or catastrophe, either natural or man-made.

They would rather NOT improve intelligence sharing at all levels.

They would forego all of these efforts to actually make America safer, if it means that a security screener might make $2 more an hour and get better health care. They would rather deprive security screeners who are on the front lines the peace of mind that comes with knowing you can pay your bills.

And this is not isolated. The Bush Administration has vowed to veto The Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow any worker to join a union without fear of intimidation or harrassment or losing their job. The bill will also likely face resistance in the Senate to reach a filibuster-proof majority. The vast majority of Republicans hate people who work. The trade policies they favor sell working people out and eliminate their jobs. The labor policies they favor reward union busting and mass firings of union organizers and sympathizers and practices designed to hinder free choice. The business policies they favor increase the stratification between rich and poor, doling out billions in corporate welfare while shrinking the social safety net. The bankruptcy policies they favor essentially eliminate bankruptcy protections for working people. The health care policies they favor do little more than create tax shelters for the wealthy, doing nothing for the 47 million uninsured. The anti-poverty policies they favor do nothing to alleviate poverty, and indeed have left record numbers of Americans in severe poverty, the highest levels in 32 years, and have created a culture of meanness toward poor people that indirectly leads to things like sport killings of the homeless.

But this is the last straw. The Republicans would make us less safe to guard the bottom line of the corporate paymaster to whom they subcontract out the airline screening operation. They could not stomach the sight of a working man or woman being able to own a house or a car, or provide for their children. They HATE PEOPLE, anyone who works for a living.

Let me show you Michael Chertoff's defense of this absurdity, and while I don't think any commentary is needed I'll provide some.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that allowing screeners to unionize would impede the department's quick response to possible threats. (because they've been so quick to respond so far -ed.) Fast redeployment of screeners, such as in response to Hurricane Rita and the failed London plot to blow up airliners, cannot wait for negotiations, he said. (see, it's been negotiations slowing them down all along! Or not.)

Chertoff said screeners are as much on the front lines in the war against terror as military troops (and we need to treat them just as badly by depriving them of equipment and health care).

"Marines don't collectively bargain over whether they're going to wind up, you know, being deployed in Anbar province or in Baghdad," (and that's why they're still in Iraq at all, since most of them agree with the American people in wanting redeployment) Chertoff told reporters after a briefing with senators. "We can't negotiate over terms and conditions of work that goes to the heart of our ability to move rapidly in order to deal with the threats that are emerging."

The talking point here is that screeners have to be quickly deployed to places where threats emerge. So they can screen the wreckage, you see. I don't even know what this means. Is the plan to shuttle screeners all around the country when a threat alert goes to red? Are screeners on 24-hour alert?

No, of course not, the answer is explained in one sentence.

Other federal employees have collective bargaining and whistle-blower protection rights.

Other federal employees have the right to organize, and the Republicans want to keep it away from airline screeners. They don't want to have to pay anyone what they're worth. And they'd rather torpedo pending antiterror legislation than do it.

This is an embarrassment that we live in a country where this isn't the only news. Democrats should be talking about this for the next three weeks and shaming these Republicans who put profit over security. The campaign ads should be cut. Democrats are not perfect in this regard; we have our own corporate wing. But Republicans are BOUGHT AND PAID FOR by corporate interests. Anyone who isn't on the side of working people in this country ought to make that fact well-known. And the Democrats can do it for them.

Fortunately, Howard Dean is calling out those who don't support working Americans.

Regardless of where you live or what you do, labor unions are our first line of defense for worker's rights. What do they fight for? Raising the minimum wage. Improving labor standards. Expanding health care benefits. Every day, millions of Americans work hard and play by the rules but are still struggling to get by. Democrats understand the important role that labor unions play to fix this crisis.

Congress is set to debate a bill that will restore American workers' right to freely choose whether or not to form a union. Call on the White House to join the Democratic majority and support the Employee Free Choice Act.

We should be shaming the Republicans at every opportunity with this, over the EFCA and the threatened veto of 9-11 legislation. We have two major parties in this country, and one of them actively hates the vast majority of people who live here.

I'd say that's a campaign issue.