the use of state secrets under the bush administration was unprecedented, and now, it´s precedent is the status quo. obama, who railed against this, hides behind it.

Good luck overturning anything in congress, you need super majorities now!

No, turning off extraordinary renditions has no consequences. It´s supporting torture. If I order a man to murder someone, I´m as guilty as the murderer.

It´s not easy, but it´s completely possible, and could be done. But it´s not going to be done, because they don´t want it to.

So Obama is doing pretty much everything exactly the same. Considering Bush stopped torture in 2003, I´d say near identical.

If you'd like to try to make everything seem black and white, and give the Kaperbole "they're all the same" line, go right ahead. But politics is never, ever, 100% black and white.

This

And as I said earlier, that specific aspect, I generally agree. ObamaCo was good at first about putting more information out there, but then they closed up shop, which I did not like at all. If that is what Greenwald was even getting at. If we are talking about defense and intelligence-related secrecy, that is a different story.

Contrary to popular belief, Congressmen don't make that much money. They have about enough to pay their mortgage in their home district, rent an apartment in DC (which is expensive), and that's about it. The ones who are rich were either already personally rich, or got rich after they left office.

You guys think they're just sitting on their ass or something?

Their compensation comes in more forms than salary.

They make a very good salary, by the way.

Now let's add in their health care benefits, which outclass mine by far and I work for Blue f***ing Cross...and some of these benefits NEVER end for them.

So contrary...while they may not be compensated in "pure money", they are better compensated than most anyone you know.

So you say we should perhaps make Congress's health care plan more like that of the rest of America's? Since the Senate bill requires Congress to enroll in the health care exchange system they're setting up, I assume we now have your support?

$174k, although with the cushy benefit package you mentioned, but we're talking about some pretty senior positions here. That's in the range of an SES (a GS-15 in DC probably makes around $130k). That's a nice salary especially for a single person, but you'll never get rich working for the government. Well-compensated sure, but not rich.

Forcing them onto private exchanges isn't the same as forcing them onto the government option.

You know damn well the senate/congress wants no part of that bill so long as the public plan applies to them, which is why it doesn't...and why they would have to be on "exchanges", which means exactly nothing.

And you will never have my support of any kind of government run option. And I find it funny they don't say they have to be on the public plan -- but on an exchange -- which could be exactly what they have now. That exchange system will have all levels of plans, some more affordable than others. Do note they want no part of their government run plan.

I think there are cases that it´s clear the US screwed up and is now only holding them to save face and justify the techniques.

and no, i don´t think they are doing enough to move these cases forward, and no, I don´t see GITMO closed down by Jan. 20

They've already more or less admitted it's not happening by Jan. 20. There's so much involved with these cases.

I'm married and if I made 130k + benefits I'd be very well off. Depending on how you define rich, I could be rich making that money. In comparison to the richest people in the world...no, but 130k+ for me, I'd be rich, yes. But being rich had nothing to do with my point.

They're paid a lot for what they do. And I'm friends with a congressmen, so I know what they do and what they consider "work".

we should pay them $20,000! then special interest money surely wouldn´t be a problem! What´s that pining about trying to attract the best talent?

I think they should be paid something fair, and 20,000$ isnt it, either. But neither is 130+ considering their benefits package alone is probably worth 70k a year.

Washington DC/MD/Northern VA has one of the highest costs of living in the nation (if I did the same job you had here, I'd probably make 20-30k more and we'd have the same standard of living), and like I said earlier, they have to pay for an apartment in the DC area and a place in their home district. I don't think their compensation is unreasonable at all really.

Fox has an interesting take on how pie charts work.

Well according to Obama's team, if they make anything through their spouses or outside sources, they would be defined as rich.

I don't think that's true: and if it is, they will put the House version in place, because there's no way they accept that. I had read somewhere that it's not the same as what you and I will be forced into.

Sigh

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term" - Dana Perino

That's such an intellectually dishonest and cheap way to score political points. Then again that's the only thing the Bush Administration can actually claim credit for.

And it sort of ignores 9/11. Read the quote again.

Yeah that too. lol.

I don't know where else to put this, but still funny http://comixed.com/2009/11/18/comics-comic...nkoma-biden-jr/

http://www.slate.com/id/2236558/

lol at Maureen Dowd suggesting Obama become more like Palin. She is good for about 1-2 stupid comments per week.

lol John Wooden Legs



via Andrew Sullivan via HP
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_...ecking-ctd.html

It's obviously clear that there was absolutely no fact checking done on her book prior to publishing.

fact checking??? why start now?

So not just a mis-attribution, but a completely opposite connotation of the quote. Impressive.

Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP

Something that needs to be pointed out now and again for people who think more blood is the answer.

The vast majority of those people are innocent (although the US isn't solely responsible for all those deaths obviously, but those numbers are conservative estimates on the Muslim side), and people wonder why we have image problems in certain parts of the world and why nobody takes us at our word when we say we're there to help. War doesn't help in most cases. We can be our own worst enemy.

Plus most of the people that died in Iraq from the UN sanctions were children.


Madeleine Albrights response to a May 11, 1996 60 Minutes question about the over half a million children killed by the Iraqi sanctions
Death of 500,000 Children 'Worth It'

"It’s a hard choice, but I think, we, think, it’s worth it."

Dan Rather was on Rachel Maddow last night, apparently he spent a good part of the month in Afghanistan last night, and of course he's parroting a lot of the "there's no point" line that seems to be talking head CW these days, but he did talk about noticing a surge in what he calls soft power - the military and NGO's working together to build useful structures for communities, creating bottom up leadership.

I don't claim to know a lot about this conflict, but it seems to me if the strategy has changed to squeezing out the Taliban and giving population centers in risky areas of Afghanistan tools to survive and grow (which is how the Taliban gain legitimacy in areas they initially control btw) I think we've found something that works. The goal in Afghanistan seemed unclear the last few years, now the goal seems to be shaking out to a somewhat stable and mostly harmless state and then we leave, hopefully with it in better shape than when we left. If what I understand to be the case is the case, it seems a pretty reasonable strategy and one with a pretty well defined goal especially in contrast to many of our recent foreign engagements.

Let's be honest that had more to do with the leadership of Iraq than the sanctions. I don't believe food aid or medical supplies were restricted due to the sanctions.

That's always been the way to go, unfortunately State only has a fraction of the resources DoD does and then we expect soldiers to be able to do diplomatic/humanitarian/police work and then wonder why they take so long/get poor results/fail outright.

We have this strange obsession with military power in this country, and completely unrealistic expectations of what our military can do for us. It's there for one reason, an unfortunate reason that should be avoided but is necessary nonetheless: to kill a lot of other people really fast.

Personally I wouldn't count the sanctions, but parsing out and rationalizing ends up being Orwellian doublespeak since the people who die don't care about the rationalizations (although in this case I would guess they blame Saddam, and not the US). However, the post-invasion deaths, even the sectarian violence we weren't directly involved in, we're ultimately responsible for, as much as I hate to admit it. That's what happens when you go into a major city and get rid of the police. Yeah you primarily blame the neighbor who robbed you, but the guy that eliminated the protection has to share some blame too.

Regarding the Afghanistan thing, I've had some fascinating conversations lately with a couple people who know the situation there personally. One is a reporter who has spent time there, the other is a co-worker who is of Pashtun descent and has family in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

There are multiple themes from both of them, but two were in common, and stick out to me.

One, is that they believe the system of government needs to be more federal - NOT more NATIONAL. Basically, in many generations past, Afghanistan did have a central royalty, but they really were there by builing regional coalitional support. Much like a federal situation. Each region was very autonomous, and nominated their own representatives to the central ruling government. What is happening now is, Karzai is CHOOSING the regional representatives FOR those regions, thus defeating the purpose. This should change.

The other is, what we did in Iraq, but haven't really done in Afghanistan, is invest in infrastructure. The US spent something like $150B on infrastructure projects in Iraq. Afghanistan's government asked for $30B of infrastructure work, and got less than half that. Infrastructure means jobs, economy, transportation, and all sorts of things that would ally the regions with the US effort. It may seem like a bribe, and it kind of is, but it is likely to be very effective. This should be done as well.

This article recognizes skepticism on Afghanistan and tries to explain continued involvement http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009...worth_the_fight

Ah details.

There are hundreds of pieces written about this. Here is one, that has a break down of the effects of the sanctions.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/105/effects-of-sanctions

You are addressing an effect, I am addressing a cause.

The sanctions themselves didn't lead to food and medicine shortages in Iraq, the government in Iraq did.

There are a few articles out there along these lines and its refreshing to see a more nuanced approach to whether or not this effort makes sense. There's too much polarity in our thinking.

Either Afghanistan is the new Germany/Japan or its the new Vietnam in the punditocracy - and there seems to be no middle option of what it could be.

I don't think the goal of the US is to nationbuild like they did in Germany or Japan. And I don't think the goal is to prop up a failed state like it was in Vietnam. I think the goal is to provide them building blocks to create a relatively stable state and on the other hand protect Pakistan from destabilizing itself.

I wasn't originally going to read it but it acknowledges up front that there are reasons to be skeptical and says there isn't any one tangible thing to point to. I still lean towards "it's a waste of time" but I understand the arguments in favor.

It made it harder for them to trade for food and medical supplies. Those are just two things that were a problem. There are other issues that were created by the sanctions. Such as water purification. Chlorine and other chemicals were banned and those were needed to help clean the water.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) survey noted that almost half the children under 5 years suffered from diarrhoea, in a country where the population is marked by its youth, with 45% being under 14 years of age in 2000.

Well, the UNSC did say they'd lift the sanctions if Iraq disarmed. Iraq didn't disarm so the sanction weren't lifted.

Kinda gotta split the blame on that one between the UN and Saddam.

There is no split. The blame is squarely with Saddam and his buddies.

The majority of it, yeah, but if you look at the big picture and see how we were playing some realpolitik hardball with Saddam (only a couple of years ago he was an ally and we were all wink-wink about his intentions to invade Kuwait) and the more I think about it the more I realize how bad of a strategic mistake the whole thing was. We should've either done it, and gone all the way to Baghdad and gotten it overwith, or just left it alone.

Agreed on your first part, if you go far enough back, Saddam's very presence and strength is partly the fault of the west. Kind of like the Israel/Palestine problem is ultimately caused by the creation of the Israeli state in the first place.

But I completely disagree on the first Gulf War aspect. I think Bush I handled that exactly the way it needed to be handled.