Court rules against FCC on net neutrality

When I read the headline, my heart sank. It sounded so alarming that a Federal District Court ruled against the FCC, finding it didn't have jurisdiction to issue net neutrality regulations for broadband providers. Was hearing the death knell for freedom of expression on the interwebs and pondering what price the gatekeepers would now exact for access.

Fortunately, Balkinization eased my fears. Apparently this is a smallish technical issue that can be remedied fairly simply by legal standards. So hope is not lost yet, but all the more reason to keep this issue alive in the public discourse. It's one of those quiet issues that could easily be ceded to the corporations when no one is looking. Which is why the free wheeling internets are so valuable in the first place. Because someone is always watching.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Yet another broken promise

Well so much for the "new transparency" in government. This embrace of secrecy is all too familiar.

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

This is exactly what we voted against. And we already had this argument with Bush. He lost in court -- twice. Yet the Secret Service is denying requests for public information on the same damn grounds that the president needs to be able to have secret meetings that can't be divulged without compromising national security.

For crying out loud, then they should have their secret little tete-a-tete's outside of the White House. It's beyond nonsenical to suggest that anyone going into the White House that is of great interest to nefarious types wouldn't already be under some kind of surveillance, so the only people who won't know what's going on are ordinary citizens. And as Obama was so fond of reminding us during the campaign, it's the people's house. Not his.

This isn't change we can believe in. Hell, it's not even a change and all these little incidents are adding up. I'm beginning to wonder if Obama wants to be a one term president after all.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

An encyclopedia of scandals

A lot of people linking to this Fran Rich column and flagging the creepy covers Rumsfeld used on his secret briefing reports. But the big story, that has been and still is being effectively ignored by the media, is the Pentagon's domestic psyops program using the retired generals.

What happened on Jan. 14 was the release of a report from the Pentagon’s internal watchdog, the inspector general. It had been ordered up in response to a scandal uncovered last year by David Barstow, an investigative reporter for The Times. Barstow had found that the Bush Pentagon fielded a clandestine network of retired military officers and defense officials to spread administration talking points on television, radio and in print while posing as objective “military analysts.” Many of these propagandists worked for military contractors with billions of dollars of business at stake in Pentagon procurement. Many were recipients of junkets and high-level special briefings unavailable to the legitimate press. Yet the public was never told of these conflicts of interest when these “analysts” appeared on the evening news to provide rosy assessments of what they tended to call “the real situation on the ground in Iraq.”

The report was widely cited to "debunk" Barstow's exposure of the program. Then only a couple of weeks ago, the Pentagon withdrew this "exonerating" report and scrubbed it from its website. It barely rippled the news cycle.

Network news operations ignored the unmasking of this last-minute Bush Pentagon cover-up, as they had the original Barstow articles — surely not because they had been patsies for the Bush P.R. machine. But the story is actually far larger than this one particular incident. If the Pentagon inspector general’s office could whitewash this scandal, what else did it whitewash?

Good question and one that Americans deserve an answer to sooner than later. I understand and even empathize to some extent with Obama's desire to avoid this debate, but as Rich points out, the vast corruption of the Bush regime is just too big a story to simply close the book without a public reading.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Obama releases torture memos, won't prosecute CIA

After much internal wrangling, the Obama administration decided to release the Bush era legal memos that authorized torture of prisoners. Obama indicated he wasn't interested in prosecuting the CIA agents who conducted the torture during interrogations.

I'm okay with that. The agents were relying on legal opinions from the DOJ. Prosecuting them makes as little sense as having scapegoated the guards at Abu Ghraib for following orders from higher-ups. The people who authorized the torture are the ones that should be prosecuted, though I think it's unlikely they will be. Still, it at least exposes the Bush regime's criminality and explodes the myth that the memos could never be released on national security concerns. It's better than nothing.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Worth reading

I'm pimping nationalization of the failed investment banks at DetNews today so if you want the longer versions, click the link at the bottom of the post. Otherwise, here's some links to mostly short takes on the latest news from around the intertubes.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz, lays out a plan to fix the failed investment banks in this 10 min. video interview. He seems to be saying either let them fail or nationalize the management since we already nationalized the debt. Of course he doesn't actually use the "N" word. [via]

Matt on Obama's reasons for not wanting to follow Sweden's example to nationalize.

Ezra and Atrios on the Big Shitpile.

How wingnut zombie lies are born.

I don't know if I just noticed him or if he's new but I'm liking Glenn Thrush enough to start reading Politico regularly again. Let them filibuster. Personally, I think they should make them do it.

I try to use this word sparingly but nothing else will do here. Fuck. Validating the endless detention of 'enemy combatants.' I don't like the sound of this. Especially hot on the heels of the administration's stance upholding the state's secret defense in that Brit's trial. I knew Obama was going to disappoint on war policy, but I didn't expect to get let down quite this hard.

Glenzilla so it's not short, and you knew this already, but a good rundown on how the Bush regime gamed the press.

Funny Krugman. Return of the shrill.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]

Anal retention (bonuses)

Relentless arrogance. Morgan Stanley and Citigroup's Smith Barney received at least $60 billion in government bailout funds. They're now set to give out retention packages to their 'top executives.' Rumor has it the total cost will be as much as $2 to $3 billion. And they're going to base the retention (please don't call them bonuses) packages on the 2008 figures instead of using the merger date as the criteria.

"I think I can hear you clapping from here in New York," Gorman joked during the call, after announcing that the payments would be linked to '08 performance. "You should be clapping because frankly that is a very generous and thoughtful decision that we have made. We spent a lot of time kicking this around. We could easily have done it from the point of closing, which is obviously going to be somewhere in the latter half of this year or around the middle of the year. But we just decided... that it was right thing to do, to give you that certainty that it would be based off '08. '09 is a very difficult year... So that degree of anxiety, which many, many of you have emailed me about... is now off the table."

Am I the only gagging here? Meanwhile the companies are commited to making $1.1 billion worth of budget cuts as part of the merger agreement. Read that to mean that the cubicle workers will be terminated so that the top brass can keep their chauffeurs.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]

Big Pharma fights oversight

This is irritating.

The drug and medical-device industries are mobilizing to gut a provision in the stimulus bill that would spend $1.1 billion on research comparing medical treatments, portraying it as the first step to government rationing.

Read that to mean Big Pharma doesn't want you to find out the latest name brand pill they're advertising on the TV, is ten, or a hundred times more expensive than the pill it replaced when the patent ran out. It's an old industry trick. Change the formulation just enough to get a new patent so you can justify the cost under R&D. Profits before effectiveness always. A neutral study could end that game.

It's a good expenditure. As one industry puts it, "Comparative research has the potential to tell us which drugs and treatments are safe, and which ones work. This is not information that the private sector will generate on its own, or that the industry wants to share." Big Pharma would prefer you not trouble your beautiful minds with such mundane details and have already assembled a strike force of lobbyists to fight it. It's in all our best interests if they lose.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]

Give the people what they want

The smug blitherati of the Beltway, self-appointed keepers of the conventional Beltway widom, insist daily that they know what Americans think. The polling suggests otherwise. It seems a majority of Americans don't want us to torture, do want to see Gitmo closed, want due process in US courts of law, even for alleged terrorists and think the Bush White House should be at least investigated to determine the extent of their illegal activities.

The only Americans who don't want this are the elite media and staunch Republicans. Shocking. Think it has anything to do with complicity?

Update: Barack gets it. He shut down the secret CIA prisons today.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]

Hello Accountability

Goodbye executive privilege. Via watertiger:

For Immediate Release January 21, 2009
EXECUTIVE ORDER
- - - - - - -
PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish policies and procedures governing the assertion of executive privilege by incumbent and former Presidents in connection with the release of Presidential records by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) pursuant to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, it is hereby ordered as follows:

... Executive Order 13233 of November 1, 2001, is revoked.
BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,

Mojo explains the significance.

"[Obama]'s putting former presidents on notice that if you want to continue a claim of executive privilege that [Obama] doesn't think is well-placed, you're going to have to go to court," says Anne Weismann, the chief counsel for Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW).

Let the FOIA requests begin...

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]

Congressional Oversight

I don't know if this will go anywhere. I'm cynical enough to think it most probably will turn out to be little more than political theater but, at least it offers some small ray of hope that the Bush regime might be held accountable for its crimes.

In one of the first acts of the 111th Congress, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers proposed legislation to create a blue-ribbon panel of outside experts to probe the “broad range” of policies pursued by the Bush administration “under claims of unreviewable war powers,” including torture of detainees and warrantless wiretaps.

I know blue ribbon panels have traditionally had about the same impact as the ever popular sternly worded letter. Certainly, remembering what good the 9/11 Commission or the Iraq Study Group did, doesn't give one much cause for optimism, but still, maybe this time with a new president and a Democratic majority, it might amount to more than merely creating the appearance of concern.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]

Hand me the tinfoil, honey...

GOP IT "guru" Mike Connell, has been killed in a plane crash in Ohio. He wasn't just any guru, he was deeply connected to every GOP related scandal from the stealing of the vote in Ohio, to the "lost emails" related to the Attorney Purge, to the fraudulent prosecution of Don Siegelman. In fact he had just been deposed in the Ohio vote fraud case and was ready to testify despite having been threatened by Karl Rove, if he "didn't take the fall."

It's also useful to remember that the court just ordered the White House to take steps to retrieve the "lost emails" that covered the period of Katrina, the attorney purge and the outing of Valerie Plame. Connell is said to have hosted some of the accounts on servers in Chattanoga, TN through another of his related companies Coptix. Which leads me to recall that odd alleged April Fool's joke that had the distinct feel of a distraction tactic at the time.

My co-blogger at Newshoggers, Ken Anderson collects the relevant links to the backstory and the analogy to Forrest Gump is apt. Connell was literally present at the scene of every Bush family related crime for at least a decade. Details of the crash are sketchy but Connell is reported to have been alone in the plane and an experienced pilot. That reminds me of the death of Paul Wellstone who died in a similarly odd crash just as he was winning a race against Norm Coleman.

Add to that the other mysterious plane crash deaths listed at the last link and excuse me while I put on my tinfoil suit. I don't think just a hat is enough for this one. Further, considering that Al Franken is now winning the recount against the same Norm Coleman, let me give Al a bit of unsolicited advice. Stay the hell out of small aircraft.

[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]

Our predictable press

I saw the headline on this Politico piece at Memeorandum and my first thought was, "I wonder who wrote this piece of crap -- Ben or Jonathan? It was both and I correctly predicted it was crapola. It's not even worth reading. The only "Big risks for Obama in Blago scandal" is that lazy elite journos like themselves will spend days repeating Republican demands for Obama to do something to make himself look bad for their benefit. I might remind them that the GOPers aren't in charge anymore and maybe they could ignore clearly partisan efforts to make this the "next Whitewater." Yes, now that we have a Democratic administration, we can expect a resurgence of media fixation on the old invented scandals and endless comparisons to Clinton.

Too bad they can't muster up the same level of fascination with the Bush administration's ongoing sabotage of every apparatus of governance. That still barely rates a passing mention.

Meanwhile, Obama is calling for Blagojevich's resignation. That seems to me to be all that should be required of him. It's not really his problem, much as the GOP, and apparently the media, would like it to be.

The question of Fitzgerald's tenure however is legitimately raised in this context but I've thought for some time, long before the indictment, that Obama was planning to keep him on. I didn't see any reason why he wouldn't. Fitz has proven himself to be a good and truly independent prosecutor.

Update: I should have scrolled down further. I see Steve Benen has already beat me to this theme and as usual, says it better. Click over to get his take and links to more media malpractice.

[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]

Weighing Obama

The White House has helpfully issued a two page memo titled Speech Topper on the Bush Record for those in the administration that may be having a little trouble coming up with good things to say about Bush's self-designed fairytale legacy. Meanwhile, the GAO released a 150 page list of Bush engineered horror stories that will be confronting the incoming Obama administration when they take office. [pdf] There is virtually no governmental agency that is not entirely screwed up by incompetency and outright sabotage of the public interests.

Read the whole sordid capsule version at the first link at least, but here's a shorter version:

Department of Homeland Security: Failed leadership. No plan to integrate emergency efforts with other agencies in event of a crisis. Wasting bucketloads of money. Programs under its management, including TSA, FEMA, immigration and the Coast Guard have no effective policies to protect from potential attacks or disasters.

Department of Defense: Just as inefficient as it's ever been, only now with more crony corruption. No effective plan to rebuild troop and mission readiness.

Department of Agriculture: Still passing out big bucks to non-farmers and mishandling "high-consequence biological pathogens" at laboratories carrying out agency-funded work.

Department of Veterans Affairs: Completely failing to meet the needs of veterans.

Environmental Protection Agency: Policy decisions being influenced by industry groups. Total failure in safety enforcement.

Department of Commerce: Census bureau = epic failure. (Sidenote - Lieberman chairs the Senate committee in charge of overseeing this agency.)

Department of Energy: Failed leadership, inept project planning and rife with crony corruption.

Department of Transportation: Epic across the board failure. Wanton spending, failure to solve transportation problems and no Supertrain.

General Services Administration: Poster agency for incompetency. Doesn't repair the properties it owns, owns properties it doesn't need and another hotbed of crony corruption on leasing practices.

Worse yet, this is not even close to a comprehensive list. It only addresses the bare minimum of bad pratices and doesn't touch such issues as the politicalization of the DOJ for instance.

Everybody has to do what they think is best to advance the progressive, or whatever cause, they believe in. But this is why I'm willing to cut Obama some slack. It exhausts me to just think about the sheer weight of what Bush has ruined in the last eight years. I can't imagine being tasked with trying to repair it and unlike our current Thief in Chief, I believe Obama genuinely feels that weight and is trying to lift it. I don't know how exactly to help him, and I'm not advocating giving him a totally free pass, but I'm just not inclined to add to his burden as long as he's making a good faith effort to carry it himself.

[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]

Senate Dems set to screw progressives - again

I think John Cole is right. Much as I appreciate Leahy and Bernie Sanders calling for Lieberman to resign his chair, historically when Leahy fronts for our side with lofty rhetoric, it's a pretty good sign that the Senate 'leadership' is about sell us out. I think they'll let him keep it.

The secret ballot on Tuesday that will decide Joe Lieberman's fate pisses me off. I think they should go on record but I understand how politically delicate that can be and am willing to compromise on that point. I'm even willing to let Joe stay in the caucus, although it's certainly not my preference.

However, if they don't strip him of his gavel on the DHS Committee, it will be too big a betrayal to ignore. Lieberman cast his lot with the GOP two years ago and didn't look back. He actively sought to undermine the Democratic candidate and his public statements about President-elect Obama are unforgiveable. Furthermore he refused to use the power of his chair to exercise oversight over the current administration. He must suffer some consequence in the interests of accountability.

Progressives poured their hearts and their wallets into this election to give the Democrats their majority. To allow Lieberman to carry on as if nothing had happened, especially since we all know had McCain won, Joe would have joined the GOP and never looked back, would not only be a betrayal of the mandate progressives delivered to the Dems, it would be a validation of the GOP tactics that have so divided and ruined this country. Reid and the rest of the Democratic powerbrokers would do well to remember that the knife cuts both ways. What we did to the GOP in 08 can be also be done to the dead wood in our own party in 2010 and beyond.

Update: Of course the 'logic' the insider Democrats will be using is that punishing Lieberman will somehow insult moderate Americans. Glenn debunks that point nicely.

So, to recap: Moderate voters are going to rise up in rebellious outrage if the Democrats don't award a powerful Chairmanship to a Senator who espouses positions which most Americans hate; who spent the last year vigorously campaigning for the political party that, for the second straight election, got crushed; and who is widely disliked even in his own state.

And Jim Henley makes the important point that nobody but us poli-junkies are really going to care. But I would add, we're the ones that cared enough to work the GOTV efforts and pushed back hard on the false narratives. Our contributions made a difference and our influence is still growing. The Democratic establishment ignores that at their own peril.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]