Following up on today's dueling discussion threads about bad assumptions based on gender...
What's the worst assumption someone has ever made about you, for any reason at all?
Question of the Day
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Speaking of disablist language...
Care of The Frisky comes the jaw-dropping 10 Types Of Female Emotional Cripples.
As we’ve stated previously, we all have issues. And yes, that includes the womenfolk. Even though we feel that women may be more open to tackling the emotional obstacles that cripple them, there are still a lot of ladies out there rolling around in wheelchairs or soliciting a man to push them.Wow. And that doesn't even begin to get into the actual profiles of the "Female Emotional Cripples."
Ami will admit that throughout much of her 20s she used an emotional wheelchair to help her get around. But she made it her mission to get up and walk again. And that she did with quite a bit of time and effort. She doesn’t walk perfectly ... but she’s moving. And just to be clear, perfection is not the goal. It’s our responsibility as mature women to be aware of our emotional obstacles and to manage them. We may never totally eradicate them but we must do what is necessary to stay healthy and keep on walking (or at least limping) through life.
Which I will leave you to dissect in comments.
Don't worry, btw. There's one for the lads, too.
Daily Dose o' Cute
Video Description: I needed a new pair of boots, which arrived last night. The box was, naturally, the Greatest Thing Ever as far as the cats were concerned, who spent the entire evening hopping in and out of the box. Plus some Dudz in the background. Set to Billy Joel's "Root Beer Rag."
Also last night, Sophie, who has been desperate to cuddle with Dudley since he first arrived, hopped up on the sofa with him and gave it a go:
Video Description: Sophie hops up on the couch and curls up next to Dudley's snout. And then, as if realizing, "Holy shit, I am the same size as this beast's head! Erm, maybe this was a bad idea." she has second thoughts and hops down into the aforementioned box, where she regards him contemplatively from a distance. And within the safety of her cardboard fortress.
Quote of the Day
"At what point does 'it gets better' stop and 'it is better' set in?" -- Deirdra Kiai, progressive game developer whose Life Flashes By is now in beta.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Pentagon Report on DADT
The long-awaited Pentagon report on the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell was released this afternoon. The whole thing can be read here.
Igor's got the Top 9 Findings from the report and notes:
in a press conference announcing the results of the Pentagon's 10-month review of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, Working Group co-chairs Defense Department General Counsel Jeh C. Johnson and Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, concluded that the risk of repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell to overall military effectiveness is low and Gates even urged Congress to act on repeal before the Courts overturn the policy.One of their recommendations for implementation of the repeal is allowing "service members who have been previously separated under Don't Ask, Don't Tell [to] be permitted to apply for reentry into the military." Blub.
"Now that we have completed this review, I strongly urge the Senate to pass this legislation and send it to the president for signature before the end of this year," he said.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's executive director and Army veteran Aubrey Sarvis comments: "This exhaustive report is overwhelmingly positive and constructive. The Pentagon validated what repeal advocates and social scientists have been saying about open service for over a decade. Still, some initial resistance may come from one or more of the service chiefs – the very leaders who will be charged with implementing this change. Those chiefs will need to salute and lead in bringing about this needed change. Fortunately, the chiefs have already made it clear they will do precisely that if Congress acts. Now, it's up to the Senate to make repeal happen this year."
Come on, Senators. Do the right thing.
Contact your senators and ask them to repeal DADT now.
Commenting Reminder
Please remember that disablist language is prohibited by the commenting policy. Just this morning, I have had to redact "moron," "spaz," and several uses of "idiot" from comments.
Variations on "crazy" when what you really mean is that someone is being unreasonable, unfair, rude, bigoted, ignorant, or just generally an asshole are also violations of the commenting policy, as is the use of "lame" as a synonym for "uncool."
I recognize it can be challenging to excise these extremely common words from your speech; I was not particularly sensitive to disablist language when I first started blogging. But to ensure this is a safe space for readers who are alienated and marginalized by disablist language, everyone needs to make a sincere effort to be vigilant while commenting.
Thanks.
[Note: This policy is not up for debate.]
USA: Beacon of Stupid - I'd Rather Believe Rubbish Edition
You have to give one thing to Texas state senator Leo Berman. He's a man of principle. See, when you're principled, you can stand tall in the face of clear and documented facts and wave your cognitive dissonance flag high by doubling down on every piece of false information you've ever heard. And when it comes to taking issue with Obama's citizenship status, Leo Berman is gonna try to kick those facts' asses!
Enter Anderson Cooper, who repeatedly hits Berman with twin laser-beams of accuracy and reality, and makes him look like the total fuckneck that he clearly is (transcript below the fold):
[H/T to Raw Story]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tonight the birthers are back.The Supreme Court rejects a case today about the president's citizenship but a Texas lawmaker apparently isn't listening. He has a new bill based on birther doubts about where President Obama was born. How does he reconcile his birther beliefs against the facts? We're "Keeping Them Honest." And it's an interview you don't want to miss.
Also Senator John McCain in the landmark Pentagon study due out tomorrow on "don't ask don't tell." We're going to trace Senator McCain's shifting stance on repealing "don't ask don't tell" including his newest remarks he made yesterday that the policy is working just fine. Now, agree or disagree with the policy tonight, we check the facts. Is he stretching the truth to make his case and "Keeping Him Honest" as well?
And "Crime & Punishment" the alleged terror teen caught according to authorities trying to set off what he thought was a car bomb at a Christmas-tree lighting. We've got the inside look, beat by beat, minute by minute; how the feds discovered him, played him and ultimately took him down.
We begin as always "Keeping Them Honest." In a moment you're going to hear a Republican legislator in Texas, a guy named Representative Leo Berman who once demanded that presidential candidates produce a birth certificate in Texas to get on the presidential ballot. It's a bill based on his doubts about President Obama's birth in Hawaii. It's an interview you're not going to want to miss.
Now, we should point out that the U.S. Supreme Court just today rejected another appeal challenging Mr. Obama's U.S. citizenship. Texas isn't the only state though, with this kind of legislation.
In April, the Arizona House of Representative passed similar legislation requiring a candidate to show a birth certificate in order to get on the ballot. It failed to pass in the state senate. At least two other states are considering the idea though.
We -- before we talk though, with Representative Berman I just want to walk you over the wall here and get a couple of things out of the way so we're all sort of on the same page. Take a look over here. This is an official copy of President Obama's birth certificate from the State of Hawaii. They call it a Certification of Live Birth -- that's what it says up there.
Now, the state went paperless nine years ago so the original is now in electronic form on a server in Hawaii, according to Hawaii authorities. This is what they send out when someone requests a birth certificate from the State of Hawaii.
Now, take a look on the -- first of all on the back of the official copy is a stamp from the Hawaii State Register. Doubters claim the certificate is unsigned and therefore bogus, but in fact, this stamp -- that's how they do it in Hawaii.
Now take a look at this they also claim, if you read on the Internet, that this document doesn't have a raised seal which actually as you can see even in this photograph it does. Now the photographs, the way we know that they're accurate is they were taken by the nonpartisan group, FactCheck.org. They saw the actual document. They took the photographs of it back at Obama headquarters in Chicago in 2008. The campaign had apparently requested it from the State of Hawaii the year before in 2007.
But, if you cruise the Internet, you'll find all sorts of other documents online, like this one, which purports to show Mr. Obama was actually born in Kenya. This is a faith -- fake birth certificate. Now, you wonder, how do we know this is a faith one -- fake one?
Well, take a look at this. It actually gets the name of the country wrong. It says "Republic of Kenya" right down here. But it wasn't actually called the Republic of Kenya back then. There's a lot of this kind of stuff all over the Internet.
But if you want to find the facts, it's not that hard. You just have to want to find the facts. Plenty of Americans are confused about or simply divided on this subject.
Take a look at this latest CNN poll that we have, this from July 16-21. Twenty-seven percent surveyed, more than one in four believed President Obama definitely or probably was not born in the United States. Seventy-one percent believe President Obama definitely or probably was born in the United States.
Now, look, having an opinion is one thing. And, thankfully, we live in this great country where people can think whatever they want. But creating legislation on false information, that's something we think is our job to point out.
Representative Berman, who was just re-elected, is proposing a new law in Texas. Section 1, Subsection D of his bill, HR-295, reads -- and I want to show you what it reads right here -- it says: "The secretary of state may not certify the name of a candidate for president or vice president unless the candidate has presented the candidate's original birth certificate indicating that the person is a natural-born United States citizen."
Now, there are a lot of constitutional questions about whether a state can really even make a law like this that affects a presidential race. But we wanted to talk with Mr. Berman about the basis of his proposed bill. He doesn't mention President -- President Obama, but it's clear where the idea for the bill came from.
I talked with Representative Berman earlier this evening.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Representative Berman, you've said this bill is needed because -- and I quote -- "we have a president who the American people don't know whether he was born in Kenya or some other place." Do you personally believe that President Obama was not born in Hawaii?
LEO BERMAN (R), TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Well, you know, I really don't know.
If you look at my white hair, you can tell I have been around for a while. And I have known everything about every president that I have come across for the last 70-some-odd years. I don't know anything about President Obama. I wish I did.
COOPER: How can you say that?
BERMAN: But there's nothing to prove.
COOPER: How can you say that, though?
BERMAN: Excuse me --
COOPER: Because, I mean, there is a -- a birth certificate. There's a certificate of live birth, which is what the State of Hawaii sends out. We're showing a picture of it to our viewers. It's got a raised seal. And it's got the stamp of the -- the -- the -- the health register from the state.
Why -- why isn't that good enough?
BERMAN: Well, because it's not an original birth certificate. It doesn't show the parents' place of birth. And, also, we know for certain that President Obama's father was born in Kenya. Since he was born in Kenya, in -- that was a British protectorate. President Obama was born in 1961.
And with his father being a British citizen, at least, President Obama, we think holds dual citizenship.
COOPER: Well, actually, technically that's not correct.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: He may have been born with dual citizenship because of the technicality of his father being under the British -- a British subject, being from Kenya, but he automatically lost that in -- in -- when he -- at the age of 23, as anybody -- anybody does.
And -- and to say that that document is not -- BERMAN: How do you lose that?
COOPER: To say -- it's just -- it's the way it happened.
To say that that document, though, is not the original birth certificate that is what the state sends out when anybody asks for a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii. And it's accepted by the U.S. State Department as valid for a U.S. passport.
And -- and the Hawaii state health director has acknowledged that, back in 2008, she has -- and I quote -- "personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Senator Obama's original birth certificate on record, in accordance with state policies and procedures."
BERMAN: Well, you mentioned the State Department. Now, let's talk about the State Department.
COOPER: But -- no, no, first, do you --
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: We haven't seen --
COOPER: -- do you not acknowledge that the state of Hawaii has the original birth certificate? The health director there says it. The governor of Hawaii says this is not an issue.
The governor of Hawaii, who is a Republican, was quoted as saying: "I had my health director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records at the Department of Health. We issued a news release at the time saying the president was, in fact, born at Kapi'olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that is just a fact."
Is she lying?
BERMAN: Well, my question to you, then Anderson, is why -- did you see it? I would like to see it.
COOPER: Well, you can go --
BERMAN: And I would also like to see President --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You can go and see it. The nonpartisan fact-checking organization FactCheck.org, they -- they looked at it. It has a raised seal. They say it's legit.
BERMAN: A raised seal could be put on by any type of machinery.
But what I'm saying is where are the president's passports? Where are his travel documents? Where are his school records? Why don't we know anything at all about a president who has such a radical agenda? There is a radical agenda. And I would like to know something about the President of United States.
COOPER: Well, let me -- let me ask you about that --
BERMAN: The State of Hawaii --
COOPER: -- because have you seen --
BERMAN: Sure.
COOPER: -- George W. Bush's transcripts from college?
BERMAN: I could see anything I want from George W. Bush.
COOPER: Actually, sir, you couldn't.
BERMAN: I can go right online and get it, yes.
COOPER: No, actually, sir, you couldn't.
BERMAN: Yes.
COOPER: Under -- under federal law, you're not -- the -- those -- the schools cannot release that information. And President Bush refused to release that information from Andover and from his time at Yale.
Someone actually leaked the Yale records illegally, but, actually, he refused to release them.
But, sir, again, you haven't answered any of the facts on this which I have -- I have -- I have brought up to you. The state of Hawaii has --
BERMAN: You haven't answered me. You haven't -- tell me, where are his passports?
COOPER: I am answering it. The state of Hawaii, for a fact, has verified the original birth certificate is there. When you -- if you request one, as the Obama campaign did, what they are sent is the certificate of live birth. It's the short form. It's what they send out. Hawaii doesn't send out the long form.
Yet, for some reason, in this man's case, it's not acceptable to you.
BERMAN: Well, let me -- let -- let's say it is acceptable to me.
Now, let's answer -- let's get on to another point. Where are the president's passports and his travel records which got him to Pakistan in the early '90s, when no U.S. citizen could get to Pakistan at all?
COOPER: Sir, where did you hear that?
BERMAN: Where are his college records?
COOPER: Sir, where did you hear that?
BERMAN: Why can't we see anything?
COOPER: Sir, where did you hear that?
BERMAN: We can't see any personal documents about this president.
COOPER: Sir, I don't mean to contradict you.
BERMAN: I'm sorry?
COOPER: I -- I respect you. And I respect, certainly, your service to this country, but where do you get your information? Because that -- that -- what you have just said is factually incorrect.
BERMAN: I'm getting my information the same place you are getting your information.
COOPER: Ok.
BERMAN: I want to see a passport that got the president --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Well, how do you know the president traveled to Pakistan, what did you say, in the late '90s, late '80s?
BERMAN: I think it -- late '80s, early '90s. That's common knowledge.
COOPER: That's actually not true, sir.
BERMAN: Everybody knows he traveled to Pakistan -- he had a passport -- when --
COOPER: Right.
BERMAN: -- U.S. citizens couldn't travel to Pakistan. So, which country --
COOPER: Ok. Sir, he traveled to Pakistan --
BERMAN: -- did he --
COOPER: Sir, he traveled to Pakistan in 1981, and -- and when he was a student. And -- and, actually, Americans could travel to Pakistan then.
In fact, I -- we have an article from "The New York Times" from 1981 from the travel section about the joys of traveling in Pakistan. You needed a -- American citizens, I think they needed a 30-day visa, but American citizens could go and travel in Pakistan. That's just an Internet rumor that you're spreading.
BERMAN: No, it's -- it's not an Internet rumor that I'm spreading. I'm sorry, it's not.
COOPER: Sir --
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: It's not. No, it's not.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Barack Obama went to Pakistan in 1981, when Americans could go there. It -- it is an Internet rumor that Americans couldn't travel there. And you had the dates completely wrong. You're saying the early '90s.
BERMAN: I've got a report here from the Congressional Research Service and their legislative attorney, Jack Maskill (ph). And there's a lot of good information here.
I'm not asking for a lot. I'm asking for simple information about the President of the United States. The news media, they --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: So -- so, is his travel to Pakistan in the Congressional Research Service information there?
BERMAN: Yes. The major news -- the major news media will not answer any of these questions. Why won't you put this out factually?
COOPER: Sir, I'm asking for where you got that information.
BERMAN: Why won't you show us the long birth certificate or the passport? And why didn't the United States Congress -- we have 535 members of the United States Congress. They are the only body of the federal government in a Constitution that really should be vetting the president of the United States --
COOPER: Ok.
BERMAN: -- because they take an oath of office in which they will support and defend the Constitution against -- of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and they will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, so help me God.
COOPER: But, sir, again, just --
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: Not a single member of the --
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: -- United States Congress raised their hand when they were counting the electoral votes in 2008 --
COOPER: Ok. BERMAN: -- to say, show us. I want to see it.
COOPER: Sir, just of the points you -- of the points you have raised, the factual points to -- to -- I mean, you're basing legislation on stuff that's basically just rumors and -- and stuff that's been proven to be false.
I mean, you -- you say that -- that President Obama didn't release college records. That's true. He hasn't released college records. But, under federal law, the schools can't release them, and he doesn't want to, for whatever reason. And you know what? George W. Bush didn't want to, for whatever reason, from Andover and from Yale.
You didn't seem to object about that. You've raised medical records issue, that he didn't fully release his medical records. Well, you know what? John McCain didn't fully release his medical records either. They both did in a very limited way.
BERMAN: Am I wrong when I say that the President has employed many, many lawyers and is spending millions of dollars to keep all these records from public view?
COOPER: Well, actually, sir, we don't know exactly what -- what -- what he spent the money -- first of all, I'm not sure it's millions. I think the record I saw was one-point-something million. And we don't know that the bulk of the work that the lawyer, the law firm he has obtained is -- is directed to this.
He's certainly being sued by a couple of people, and those lawsuits have gone nowhere. And, yes, he's -- he's, you know, paying lawyers for that. But we don't know if that -- all that money has gone for that. We just -- we just factually don't know that, so we can't say what -- what exactly --
BERMAN: Have the major media actually gone into an investigative mode to see if the president --
COOPER: Sir, this has been looked at for --
BERMAN: -- is really entitled --
COOPER: -- for years and years.
BERMAN: -- to be the President of the United States?
COOPER: And -- and no court has supported this. Most legitimate, you know, observers of this, most people in the country have moved on from this and say, look, the President is a -- is a United States citizen.
BERMAN: Oh, I don't think most people have moved on.
I think either 50 percent -- even CNN polls have shown that 50 to 60 percent of the people of the United States do not believe that the President is eligible to be holding that office. COOPER: Sir, again, I'm sorry to -- to keep --
BERMAN: That's your own CNN poll, isn't it?
COOPER: All right, sir, ok, I have the CNN poll right here.
I hate to -- I hate to keep reading this stuff.
The CNN poll from July 16-21, all Americans, question, was Barack Obama born in the U.S.? The number of Americans who said definitely or probably, the percentage was 71 percent, definitely or probably no, 27 percent.
So, according to this poll, if you believe this poll, 71 percent of Americans believe probably or definitely that Barack Obama was born in the United States.
Admittedly, 30 -- 27 percent who don't believe it, that's a lot. That's a big number. But -- but, again, just factually, you haven't shown me any fact that proves he's not and -- and -- and you haven't been able to answer anything of -- any direct thing about the facts that you have brought up that have been wrong.
BERMAN: May I -- may I say that no major media has shown me any facts either?
I'll give you my public mailing address, and you can send me the facts, if you would like to. But no one will send me the facts --
COOPER: Ok.
BERMAN: -- the State Department, the public media, I mean the major media. I haven't seen anything yet. And I would like to see it. And I do extensive reading.
COOPER: But how much of this is about -- purely about politics? Because look, you -- you -- you are a good person, and you've served your country remarkably in the military, and you're a public servant now.
But you're basing legislation on things which have been disproven. And you've said -- in the past, you said -- and I quote -- "I believe that Barack Obama's God's punishment on us today."
Is this just about politics? That you don't like this guy, and, therefore, you're raising these objections about him?
BERMAN: Well, it's -- it's a lot more than politics.
Like you said, I did serve my country. And there is a lieutenant colonel who will be court-martialed in mid-December for refusing an order from a president who he believes is not the commander-in-chief of the United States military forces.
We also have a case in the U.S. Supreme Court -- I think it was started either yesterday or today -- based on the same information that we're discussing right now.
COOPER: But so far, the Supreme Court has batted down attempts to -- to get -- I mean, most -- all courts have rejected these arguments. This -- this is going nowhere, other than in a few state legislatures.
BERMAN: Well, it's in the Supreme Court today, isn't it? Have they already completed the case?
COOPER: It -- it got thrown out. It got thrown out. They're not going to take it.
BERMAN: Was that today?
COOPER: Yes, that was today.
BERMAN: Because I was listening for it.
COOPER: Yes. No, that was today.
BERMAN: Ok. I didn't hear. I will have to -- I will have to check on it.
COOPER: Yes.
Well, I -- I appreciate you coming on. If you could send us the Congressional Research Service document you have that talks about then young Mr. Obama traveling to Pakistan with the dates you gave us, I would appreciate if you would send it to us.
Leo Berman, Representative Leo Berman, I appreciate your time, sir. Thank you.
BERMAN: It's a pleasure. Thank you very much, Anderson.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, Representative Berman, as we mentioned, we asked him to send us the copy of the Congressional Research Service report that he mentioned that talked about Pakistan. He didn't send us the report itself, which -- we actually found it on our own.
And, when you read through it, it actually concludes that the doubts that have been raised about the president's citizenship really don't hold water. That's what the Congressional Research Service report concluded.
Instead, what -- what Representative Berman sent us, what he was actually talking when he cited the CRS report was actually a critique of that report by a blogger. And in the critique -- critique that Mr. Berman sent us, the blog actually made no mention of President Obama's travel to Pakistan.
We did our own research. We found another article by the same blogger which did mention President -- then Barack Obama's travels to Pakistan in 1981. That much was correct. The blogger, however, said Mr. Obama couldn't have used a U.S. passport for that trip because Pakistan was on the United States' no-travel list in 1981.
That's just not true. An American could get a 30-day visa to travel in Pakistan in 1981. And that fact is easy for anyone to check.
Yikes
[Trigger warning for sex-related invasion of privacy.]
William Vasilakos, who was arrested in Stamford, Connecticut on Aug. 16, 2008 on a breach-of-peace charge and detained overnight, has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the arresting officer, Michael Presti, nicked Vasilakos' cell phone from the station and forwarded "racy photographs and videos" of Vasilakos and his girlfriend discovered on he phone.
According to the federal complaint, Presti kept the phone with him instead of leaving it with the police department, then forwarded eight messages to his own phone.Quite obviously, not all police officers behave in this way, but this is hardly the first time I've had occasion to post about a story like this in six years of blogging.
Vasilakos was outraged when he later saw the material had been sent to an address he did not recognize, [Vasilakos' attorney Norman Pattis] said.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. district court. Vasilakos is a plaintiff along with his girlfriend at the time, Maria Saltsides. The only defendant named in the suit is Presti.
Pattis said Stamford police investigated Presti's conduct and there were disciplinary proceedings, but he was not aware of the outcome.
Not long ago, someone tried to run the old "what's wrong with women who don't report being sexually harassed/assaulted" rap on me, and I was just a Wall of No. I absolutely cannot tolerate listening to that shit anymore.
Anyone who wonders why a survivor of sexual assault might be disinclined to report it need look no further than the lesson taken from this story: Because the Rape Culture is alive and well in police departments, too.
I certainly don't intend to imply that should discourage people from reporting sex crimes. It shouldn't, because there are lots of awesome cops and prosecutors who really do a great job. But should or shouldn't isn't the issue. The issue is that it does deter some people.
Because you don't know what you're going to find when you walk in the door of a precinct or dial 911.
You could find Detective Olivia Benson, or you could find a cop who treats your cell phone videos as his own private porn.
Fetch Me the Smelling Salts!
And get me to the fainting couch tout de suite! Never have I been so alarmed, nor had such a vicious case of the vapors, as upon hearing the SHOCKING news that MSNBC is not, in fact, a leftwing version of Fox News. Heavens to Murgatroyd!
Media experts and public opinion data indicate [that the two news channels are not equal ideological opposites].I eagerly await Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore the Myth That Both Sides Are Just as Bad.
Those who cover media and follow television news contend that Fox News has a clearer political bent than MSNBC, strong ties to the Republican party, and a clear conflict with the paid employment of at least five potential GOP presidential candidates.
There is also the matter of Fox's recent $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association. Add to that the leadership of Roger Ailes -- a veteran, hard-line Republican operative -- and the differences are much stronger than some would like to admit.
"Intellectually, are they more honest than Fox, I think they are," Eric Deggans, media critic for the St. Petersburg Times, said of MSNBC. "I saw that Fox was more consistent in reflecting a right wing tilt than MSNBC was in reflecting a liberal tilt. I think Fox is much more evolved in what it does than MSNBC does, in reflecting a political bent, it being right-wing."
...Alex S. Jones, executive director of the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, agreed. "There is no question that the affinity between Fox and the Republican Party goes all the way to Rupert Murdoch, which in my view is not a good thing," Jones said. "One is sort of unrelentingly partisan and the other is more of an equal-opportunity basher. They are not equivalent, they are both advocacy, but not equivalent."
...James Rainey, media reporter at the Los Angeles Times, said a key difference is the degree to which Fox News overlaps opinion with news. ... Rainey also pointed to Ailes' impact, adding: "There is no other news operation that I know of that has a Roger Ailes in charge, someone who is steeped in political activism and political rhetoric. His philosophy pervades everything they do at Fox. If there is someone equivalent to Roger Ailes at MSNBC, I would like to see who it is."
..."Are Fox News and MSNBC the same? The short answer is no," declared Pam Fine, journalism professor at the University of Kansas and a former managing editor at The Star-Tribune in Minneapolis and The Indianapolis Star. "Fox is run by a former political operative and the company is unabashed in its support for Republican candidates ... Another important question is which organization does a better job of providing consequential reporting on events and issues? MSNBC would have to be given the edge."
Seriously. Repeal DADT Already. This Is Ridiculous.
Most service members surveyed don't care about DADT repeal:
A majority of U.S. service members surveyed do not care if the law banning openly gay and lesbian troops from serving is repealed, according to a source knowledgeable with the results of the Pentagon study. Members of Congress are to get an advance look at the study Tuesday.Fully 70% of respondents said that lifting the ban would have positive, mixed, or no discernible results.
The number opposing lifting the ban -- known as "don't ask, don't tell" -- fearing negative results "is very small when compared to those who say it will have positive or mixed results, or no effect at all," the source explained.
Repeal! Jeezus.
Today's WikiLeaks Round-Up
New York Times—Cables Depict U.S. Haggling to Find Takers for Detainees: "American diplomats went looking for countries that were not only willing to take in former prisoners but also could be trusted to keep them under close watch. In a global bazaar of sorts, the American officials sweet-talked and haggled with their foreign counterparts in an effort to resettle the detainees who had been cleared for release but could not be repatriated for fear of mistreatment, the cables show."
Washington Post—WikiLeaks founder could be charged under Espionage Act: "Federal authorities are investigating whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange violated criminal laws in the group's release of government documents, including possible charges under the Espionage Act, sources familiar with the inquiry said Monday. ... Former prosecutors cautioned that prosecutions involving leaked classified information are difficult because the Espionage Act is a 1917 statute that preceded Supreme Court cases that expanded First Amendment protections. The government also would have to persuade another country to turn over Assange, who is outside the United States."
CNN—Calling leaks 'damaging,' Bush says Wikileaks will hurt U.S. relations:
Former President George W. Bush joined a chorus of U.S. officials calling any leaks of sensitive government information "very damaging," telling a forum at Facebook headquarters that Wikileaks' recent release of 250,000 documents may significantly hurt Washington's image abroad.Reminder: He does, however, like outing our own spies to get political retribution against their husbands who question the veracity of his case for wars of choice.
"It's going to be very hard to keep the trust of foreign leaders," the nation's 43rd president said of the documents on issues ranging from Iran to Honduras to Turkey. "If you have a conversation with a foreign leader and it ends up in a newspaper, you don't like it. I didn't like it."
And speaking of the Bush administration's unethical/criminal activities, it's interesting how liberals who wanted BushCo. held accountable were dismissed as ideologues and hysterics by the same media who are now calling for Hillary Clinton's scalp and demanding accountability of the Obama administration, even though, as the editors of the New York Times quite rightly note: "What struck us, and reassured us, about the latest trove of classified documents released by WikiLeaks was the absence of any real skullduggery. After years of revelations about the Bush administration's abuses — including the use of torture and kidnappings — much of the Obama administration's diplomatic wheeling and dealing is appropriate and, at times, downright skillful."
Which is not to say there's nothing objectionable or embarrassing among the documents. But still. The double-standard is breathtaking.
Discussion Thread: For the Ladies
What has someone wrongly assumed about you because you are a woman? (Or because they first wrongly assumed that you are a woman.)
Did your dad just assume you wouldn't be interested in sports? Did your mom just assume you wanted to be in a beauty pageant? Did a boyfriend just assume you love heart-shaped jewelry? Did a teacher just assume you were bad at math? Did a friend just assume you want a huge wedding with the white dress and towering cake? Did a boss just assume you were going to get married and have babies, so you didn't really want or need that promotion...?
Have you been assumed to like pink, enjoy musicals, love haircare products, get manicures, enjoy shopping, love shoes, be a good cook, be willing to do all the housework, laugh at other women, not eat, be attracted to men, be scared of spiders, not be ambitious, defer to men, want children...?
What are the stereotypes of womanhood/femininity that have been erroneously attributed to you?
[This thread is for anyone who identifies as a woman, as female/feminine/femme, or as male or androgyne but has a relevant story by virtue of having been read as female. The equivalent thread for male stories is here.]
Discussion Thread: For the Gents
What has someone wrongly assumed about you because you are a man? (Or because they first wrongly assumed that you are a man.)
Did your dad just assume you would be interested in sports? Did your mom just assume you wouldn't want to wear her wedding dress? Did a girlfriend just assume you love beer? Did a teacher just assume you were good at math? Did a friend just assume you were gay because you didn't objectify women as a pastime? Did a boss just assume you weren't gay, and told you to bring your girlfriend to the office holiday party...?
Have you been assumed to like NASCAR, hate musicals, be disinterested in grooming products, like hunting, hate shopping, be unwilling to do household chores, prefer singlehood to partnerhood, resent monogamy, eschew affection with other men, not like vegetables, be attracted to women, not be scared of spiders, not want female friends, not be feminist, not want children...?
What are the stereotypes of manhood/masculinity that have been erroneously attributed to you?
[This thread is for anyone who identifies as a man, as male/masculine/butch, or as female or androgyne but has a relevant story by virtue of having been read as male. The equivalent thread for female stories is here.]
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Vetiver: What is your favorite feminist song and/or album of all time?
(Also welcome: General recommendations about feminist artists/bands.)
For me, it rarely gets better than Nina Simone declaring: "I got my hair, on my head / My brains, my ears / My eyes, nose, and my mouth / I got my smile / I got my tongue, my chin / My neck, my boobies / My heart, my soul, and my back / I got my sex / I got my arms, my hands / My fingers, my legs / My feet, my toes, and my liver / Got my blood / I got life."
Yes, ma'am.
Photo of the Day
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs speaks about the release of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks during his briefing at the White House in Washington November 29, 2010. The United States deeply regrets any disclosure of classified information, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday in her first comment on the release of State Department cables by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks. [Reuters Pictures]That's a pretty good Brickin' It face, Gibbs, but you're still no Scott McClellan.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Actual Headline: Calling All Men! 10 Gifts Your Lady Secretly Wants.
Actual Sub-head: "Buying a gift for your wife or girlfriend doesn't have to be stressful. Here are ten ideas."
Actual Lede: "OK, so that gift card you got her last year was great because she got to pick out whatever she wanted, but here's a hint: Picking out an actual gift for her will win you more points. Sound daunting? Never fear, YourTango is here! We've got some ideas that'll please even the pickiest lady but won't make your wallet cower in fear."
I love the idea that if I don't swoon for a fucking curling rod, then I'm even worse than "even the pickiest lady." Yow.
With sites like Etsy and eBay and Amazon and pretty much everywhere else now offering a "Wish List" or "Favorites" feature, gift-buying does not have to be a mystery. If Iain hasn't managed to glean something I want using the Ladies' Ancient and Mysterious Gift-Discerning Technique I taught him (listening and paying attention), he peeks at my favorites on Etsy or wherever for inspiration or buys something straight from the list. Magic!
And it has nothing to do with trying to figure out what "women" want, and everything to do with knowing what Liss wants. Imagine that.
Random YouTubery: Ready...FIGHT!
Video Description: An epic battle between two cats and two hooded crows set to Alan Silvestri's Predator score.
[Thanks to KBlogz for passing that along.]
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Oh, Snap!
Shaker Lauren forwards the pdf of a real court document featuring an exchange between Bennet M. Epstein, an attorney who requested possible time off, and US District Judge Kimba Wood (whose name may be familiar from "Nannygate"). Epstein explains he may need time off to celebrate the birth of his grandchild...if it is a boy:
Should the child be a girl, not much will happen in the way of public celebration. Some may even be disappointed, but will do their best to conceal this by saying, "as long as it's a healthy baby". My wife will run to Philly immediately, but I will probably be able wait until the next weekend. There will be happiness, though muted, and this application will be mooted as well.Came Judge Wood's handwritten reply:
However, should the baby be a boy, then hoo hah! [Yiddish for "a big fuss"] Hordes of friends and family will arrive from around the globe and descend on Philadelphia for the joyous celebration mandated by the halacha [Jewish law (citation omitted)] to take place during daylight hours on the eighth day, known as the bris. [Hebrew for "covenant", for the Covenant of Abraham, i.e. ritual circumcision, joyous to everyone except, apparently, the baby.] The eighth day after December 3rd could be right in the middle of the trial. My presence at the bris is not strictly commanded, although my absence will never be forgotten by those that matter.
Mr. Epstein will be permitted to attend the bris, in the joyous event that a son is born. But the Court would like to balance the scales. If a daughter is born, there will be a public celebration in Court, with readings from poetry celebrating girls and women.Hee.
Someone Has to Care
[Lyrics available here.]
Such a great fucking song. I've been listening to it on a loop all day.
Daily Dose o' Cute
"Pleeeeeeeeease can we go to the dog park?! PLEASE!!!!" (The answer was yes.)
"Rub the big white fluffy belleh! RUB IT!"
Monitor Cat, Monitor Cat / Does whatever a Monitor Cat does...
Matilda, Queen of All She Surveys.
Priorities
So, as you may have heard, President Obama has announced a two-year pay freeze for federal workers as a partial solution to the exploding deficit—and the very first paragraph of this New York Times piece underlines two pretty ginormous problems with the policy:
President Obama announced a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers on Monday as he sought to address concerns over sky-high deficit spending and appeal to Republican leaders to find a common approach to restoring the nation's economic and fiscal health.Problem #1: The Republican leaders to whom he's trying to appeal are the same jackasses who got us into this mess, so their stamp of approval on any solution ought to be a red flag that it's garbage.
Problem #2: That little adjective—civilian. It means uniformed military employees are exempt, because, if they weren't, all the people who didn't give a fuck when George W. Bush zeroed out funding for soldiers with traumatic brain injury, as but one of nine gazillion examples, would start screaming about how Barack H. Obama doesn't sufficiently support the troops.
Which is not an argument in favor of freezing troops' salaries, by the way.
But it does highlight the fundamental indecency of this administration's unwillingness to even entertain the idea of cutting the defense budget—by which I mean the exorbitant funding of large-scale weaponry and mechanical beasts designed for wars we'll never fight—before it freezes the salaries of workers who are tasked primarily with keeping the country running.
Including the administration of social services currently being strained to their breaking points by desperate people who are losing their jobs and healthcare and homes and ability to be self-sufficient, because our priorities include continuing to fight
Terrorism a go go
As you may have heard, Mohamed Osman Mohamud was arrested on Friday night for attempting to detonate a dummy bomb, which he believed to be real, around Pioneer Courthouse Square here in Portland during the annual Holiday Tree Lighting. We very nearly went on Friday, only changing our minds because we didn't want to do the drive (or, rather, the drive home in the traffic).
The story, based on information released so far from the FBI affidavit, is that last August Mohamud contacted a person unknown in Pakistan discussing going there to fight. Person1 gave him contact for Person2. Person2 was apparently the person to get him overseas. He was unsuccessful in contacting Person2, though he tried for some time to do so. In June of this year, the FBI went to him pretending to be associates of Person1. Over the next few months they met regularly with him, offered him help and money, provided the bomb itself after telling him to mail them supplies, and they also offered the chance to refuse or back out--which he did not take. The Oregonian has a time line:
2009Something that's always stood out to me--and it turns out, several others--is that they went to him in June. Why? Why wasn't surveillance enough when, essentially, nothing else was happening? Why couldn't they wait for him to attempt to do something criminal on his own without their help? They did have him under surveillance after all, it's not like he would have gotten very far.
August: Mohamed Osman Mohamud e-mails unindicted associate one (UA1) in Pakistan.
December: In code UA1 and Mohamud discuss "traveling to Pakistan to prepare for violent jihad."
2010
Early months: Mohamud makes multiple attempts to contact a second unnamed associate (UA2) but uses the wrong e-mail.
June: Undercover FBI employee contacts Mohamud, posing as an affiliate of UA1.
July 30: The undercover FBI employee meets Mohamud in Portland; Mohamud says he thought of putting an explosion together but needed help doing so.
Aug. 19: Two undercover FBI operatives meet Mohamud in a Portland hotel. Mohamud says he has identified a potential bomb target: the annual Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Sept. 7: The two operatives meet Mohamud again at a downtown Portland hotel. One agent tells Mohamud to do "what's in your heart." The agents ask Mohamud to buy bomb parts and find a "place to put the bomb."
Sept. 27 and 30: An undercover FBI operative receives bomb parts in the mail from Mohamud.
Oct. 3: Two FBI operatives and Mohamud meet at a Corvallis hotel and discuss logistics and the need for Mohamud to leave the country after the explosion.
Nov. 4: The three meet in Corvallis, travel to remote Lincoln County and detonate a test bomb. Mohamud gives the agents a thumb drive with maps and instructions for the attack. "I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured," Mohamud says.
Nov. 18: The operatives and Mohamud drive from Corvallis to Portland to scout the area and identify a spot Mohamud thought would inflict the most casualties.
Nov. 26: The FBI operatives show Mohamud an inert bomb in the back of a van. Mohamud says it is "beautiful." At 4:45 p.m. they leave a Portland hotel and drive the van to a parking spot designated by Mohamud. From a different location, Mohamud twice tries to detonate the inert device by dialing a cell phone. Agents arrest him.
Source: Criminal complaint filed Friday by FBI Special Agent Ryan Dwyer
I said in Saturday's Open Thread comments:
Someone asked Sam Adams (PDX mayor) on Twitter why they didn't just stop and arrest him beforehand. The answer that Adams got from the FBI was that he had to try and detonate the bomb to be charged.My skepticism, which has grown since, was written out much better by Glenn Greenwald yesterday (emphasis his):
According to NPR: "Authorities allowed the plot to proceed in order to build up enough evidence to charge the suspect with attempt."
All of this sort of bothers me in that, per the FBI, he was unsuccessful in his attempts to move forward with his plans until the FBI stepped in and offered him help to get his plans going.
Obviously he was some sort of problem (hence the surveillance--which is not yet detailed when or why he initially came under it) but he didn't appear to be going anywhere with it until he had FBI help. No, I don't think he was "set up" but it still seems...I dunno...odd. Would he have even done anything except stew in his thoughts and try and send himself overseas if the FBI hadn't intervened and now we have a terrorist setting off dummy bombs?
What's missing from all of these celebrations is an iota of questioning or skepticism. All of the information about this episode -- all of it -- comes exclusively from an FBI affidavit filed in connection with a Criminal Complaint against Mohamud. As shocking and upsetting as this may be to some, FBI claims are sometimes one-sided, unreliable and even untrue, especially when such claims -- as here -- are uncorroborated and unexamined. That's why we have what we call "trials" before assuming guilt or even before believing that we know what happened: because the government doesn't always tell the complete truth, because they often skew reality, because things often look much different once the accused is permitted to present his own facts and subject the government's claims to scrutiny. The FBI affidavit -- as well as whatever its agents are whispering into the ears of reporters -- contains only those facts the FBI chose to include, but omits the ones it chose to exclude. And even the "facts" that are included are merely assertions at this point and thus may not be facts at all.Do I think the FBI is lying? No. I'm not suspicious, I am skeptical. Skeptical that this whole ordeal didn't end up being akin something like what happened with Farooque Ahmed, who wanted to go to Afghanistan and join Taliban-allied fighters there and is now accused of wanting to bomb the metro. He didn’t get anywhere, as the guys he thought were his co-conspirators were FBI agents. From court documents it seems the plot was as much idea the agents as Ahmed. As asked in Newsweek: "If that's true, then are terrorists really planning to bomb the subway in Washington, or is that just a fantasy of the Feds?"
It may very well be that the FBI successfully and within legal limits arrested a dangerous criminal intent on carrying out a serious Terrorist plot that would have killed many innocent people, in which case they deserve praise. Court-approved surveillance and use of undercover agents to infiltrate terrorist plots are legitimate tactics when used in accordance with the law.
But it may also just as easily be the case that the FBI -- as they've done many times in the past -- found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a "Terrorist plot" which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI's own concoction. Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts -- and an uncritical media amplifies -- its "success" to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government's vast surveillance powers -- current and future new ones -- are necessary.
There are numerous claims here that merit further scrutiny and questioning. First, the FBI was monitoring the email communications of this American citizen on U.S. soil for months (at least) with what appears to be the flimsiest basis: namely, that he was in email communication with someone in Northwest Pakistan, "an area known to harbor terrorists" (para. 5 of the FBI Affidavit). Is that enough to obtain court approval to eavesdrop on someone's calls and emails? I'm glad the FBI is only eavesdropping with court approval, if that's true, but certainly more should be required for judicial authorization than that. Communicating with someone in Northwest Pakistan is hardly reasonable grounds for suspicion.
Second, in order not to be found to have entrapped someone into committing a crime, law enforcement agents want to be able to prove that, in the 1992 words of the Supreme Court, the accused was "was independently predisposed to commit the crime for which he was arrested." To prove that, undercover agents are often careful to stress that the accused has multiple choices, and they then induce him into choosing with his own volition to commit the crime. In this case, that was achieved by the undercover FBI agent's allegedly advising Mohamud that there were at least five ways he could serve the cause of Islam (including by praying, studying engineering, raising funds to send overseas, or becoming "operational"), and Mohamud replied he wanted to "be operational" by using exploding a bomb (para. 35-37).
But strangely, while all other conversations with Mohamud which the FBI summarizes were (according to the affidavit) recorded by numerous recording devices, this conversation -- the crucial one for negating Mohamud's entrapment defense -- was not. That's because, according to the FBI, the undercover agent "was equipped with audio equipment to record the meeting. However, due to technical problems, the meeting was not recorded" (para. 37).
Thus, we have only the FBI's word, and only its version, for what was said during this crucial -- potentially dispositive -- conversation. [...]
So, really, nothing about this makes me feel any better (emphasis mine):
After a week of public criticism for heightened security at airports, the White House suggested that the incident Friday in Portland may require federal action that some citizens might find objectionable.Portland, by the way, is not a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. City council voted to opt out of it in 2005.
"The events of the past 24 hours underscore the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad," Abrams said. "The president thanks the FBI, Department of Justice and the rest of our law enforcement, intelligence and Homeland Security professionals who have once again served with extraordinary skill and resolve and with the commitment that their enormous responsibilities demand."
Today Mohamud will appear in federal court for his arraignment. He will be represented by Stephen Sady, an attorney who volunteered to defend prisoners at Guantanamo.
I am very interested in what will come out in court over the course of the trial. I hope that zealousness for Safety!™ didn't make a mountain out of a molehill, or rather, make an arrestable terrorist setting off a dummy bomb out of an otherwise disaffected (and yes, apparently angry and violence-fantasizing) young man who may not have amounted to anything in terms of actually being a terrorist otherwise.
Quote of the Day
"Fixing Iraq or Afghanistan ends up taking precedence over fixing Cleveland or Detroit."—Retired US Army colonel and professor of international relations at Boston University Andrew J. Bacevich, Sr., whose new book, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, argues that "the nation's national security leaders have put the U.S. on an unsustainable path to perpetual war," pointing out the oughtta-be-obvious fact that perpetual war renders us unable to invest in our own communities and thus leaves us vulnerable in ways masked by rhetoric about nebulous terrorist threats.
(Previous Bacevich being smart.)
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud sponsors of Liss & Deeky's Text-a-Thon to Save Fun Garbage Television 2010.
Recommended Reading:
Happy Blogiversary to Elle!
CL: Humiliation and Healthcare [TW for institutional transphobia in healthcare system]
Sarah: Disalienation: Why Gender is a Text Field on Diaspora
Asher: Flying in the USA [TW for discussion of TSA enhanced security procedures]
Kitten Liberation: The Animal Rights Group That Shall Not Be Named is at it again. [TW for objectification of women, disembodiment, TSA enhanced security procedures]
Andy: Chicago Mayoral Candidate Gery Chico Reaches Out to Gays, Expresses Support for Civil Union Bill
Living ~400lbs: Poverty's Link to Diabetes
Shark-fu: A bitch is back!
Pam: Back home after my slice-and-dice adventure.
Leave your links in comments...
Assess Hollywood
In case anyone's forgotten, I hate Dr. Drew Pinsky. So it was with much ugh that I read the news HLN is giving him his own primetime show to debut this spring.
A certified physician who specializes in coping with addictions, creating healthy relationships and navigating struggles between parents and children, Pinsky will be reflecting on the news stories and newsmakers HLN covers throughout the day and providing relevant observations and perspectives.Yeah, great. I can't wait to see Professor Emeritus from the Dr. Bill Frist School of Diagnosing People Via the Teevee doing his version of Access Hollywood in which he not only reports on the comings and goings of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and other "bad girls" but also helpfully adds his "insights" about their mental health and mercilessly slut-shames them with a look of faux compassion on his smug fucking face. Barf.
Dr. Drew tells CNN, "I'm looking forward to becoming part of the HLN family and digging deep to bring out the stories behind the stories that people are talking about."
Gee, I hope he does interviews. It would be great to see him sit down with Mischa Barton or one of the Olson twins for a trenchant-as-hell interview where he asks penetrating questions like, "Isn't it horrible what a horrible person you are?"
One of the things I most despise about Pinsky is that he actively feeds a culture in which young women in particular are encouraged to eat each other alive with judgment and shaming. Part and parcel of that horseshit is women viewing one another as competitors and/or each other's moral police, both of which significantly undermine female solidarity, which is the most important bulwark against female exploitation and oppression.
He also actively encourages young people (young women in particular, by virtue of his involvement with the extremely popular Teen Mom franchise on MTV) to have an unhealthy deference to authority, urging young people to work on relationships with parents (and partners) that are deeply dysfunctional and frequently abusive, even when there is no evidence that the toxicity is likely to change.
Pinsky's not even uniquely bad. He's just another anti-feminist authoritarian who shouldn't be anywhere near advice-giving to young women. Or anyone else, frankly.
WikiLeaks Open Thread
I'm not even finished reading everything I want to read about the latest WikiLeaks controversy, in which 250,000 confidential US diplomatic cables, mostly from the last three years, were leaked and published. But here are a few relevant links to open up discussion...
New York Times—Cables Obtained by WikiLeaks Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels:
A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.There's much more at the link.
...The disclosure of the cables is sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and American ambassadors around the world have been contacting foreign officials in recent days to alert them to the expected disclosures. A statement from the White House on Sunday said: "We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information."
Among their revelations, to be detailed in The Times in coming days:
¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal, 'they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons,' he argued."
...¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of "Let's Make a Deal." Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be "a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe."
¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan's vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money "a significant amount" that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, "was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money's origin or destination." (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
...¶ Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official "that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
New York Times—A Note to Readers: The Decision to Publish Diplomatic Documents: "As a general rule we withhold secret information that would expose confidential sources to reprisals or that would reveal operational intelligence that might be useful to adversaries in war. We excise material that might lead terrorists to unsecured weapons material, compromise intelligence-gathering programs aimed at hostile countries, or disclose information about the capabilities of American weapons that could be helpful to an enemy. On the other hand, we are less likely to censor candid remarks simply because they might cause a diplomatic controversy or embarrass officials."
I might be more admiring of those principles were we not still embroiled in a war for which the NYT helped the Bush administration cook the case.
Other links of interest:
Rep. Peter King (R-Hyperbole) calls the release of the documents "worse even than a physical attack on Americans, it's worse than a military attack," and suggests that "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [should] declare Wikileaks a foreign terrorist organization."
McClatchy: Officials may be overstating the danger from WikiLeaks.
CNN: WikiLeaks: 'Surprised' by scale of U.S. espionage.
The Guardian (who provided the cables to the NYT): How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked and US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis and US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment.
And Greg Mitchell is live-blogging the media coverage.
Your Morning TSA Security Round-Up
And now the media meme has become: All you hysterics are so full of shit.
New York Times—A Media False Alarm Over the T.S.A.: "If a squadron of mad scientists surrounded by supercomputers gathered in a laboratory to try to conjure a single news topic that would blow up large, they could not touch the T.S.A. pat-down story. ... But then, in the real world, nothing happened."
Washington Post—TSA says Thanksgiving travel went smoothly: "TSA plans to release final details later today, but if statistics from last Wednesday are any indication, things should have gone well over the weekend."
ABC—Were concerns over TSA security procedures hype? Travelers say 'No Problem': "Despite concerns earlier in the week about the pat downs and body scans causing back ups, things seemed to go off without a hitch."
NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! NOTHING TO SEE HERE! MOVE ALONG!
Except: "So far, more than 400 scanners have been deployed at 70 airports around the country, with plans for some 1,000 to be installed as the system is fully enforced."
And: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has received over 900 complaints in the month of November from travelers who have been subjected to the Transportation Security Authority's (TSA) new 'enhanced' screening procedures."
Also this little thing: "[Fred H. Cate, privacy expert in the Indiana University] said that the new search policies violate long-held social and legal norms about personal privacy. Even though searches might detect wrongdoing, we reject them on the basis that the 'solution' is worse than the 'problem'."
I suspect, with no evidence to back up my suspicion aside from a lifetime of observation about how things like this play out, that TSA employees were told to turn it down a notch during the holiday weekend, possibly through the holiday season, and that when the system starts being "fully enforced" with 1,000 scanners across the nation, whatever objections there are will be buried beneath ten metric fucktons of "Oh, we already did that story and decided anyone who complains is a hysterical traitor."
Anyway, it's certainly been interesting watching privileged white men get OUTRAGED! about being treated like women, and men of color, get treated all the time. Yeah, it's not fun having your body treated as public property, groped without your explicit consent, searched without cause, and exposed to a government-sanctioned experiment that may have negative physical ramifications, and then being dismissed as an overwrought hysteric who's just looking for something to get mad about, is it?
I'm sure it's too much to ask that these gentlemen remember that the next time they're inclined to tell a woman, or a man of color, to suck it up and stop whining about how they're treated—and how that treatment affects their quality of life, sense of self, and regard for the sincerity of promises made about equality in this alleged land of the free.
Open Thread
Hosted by Polkaholix.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by awesome polka bands.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround is brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Dudley's Goofyloungers with extra leg room.
A Blog Around The Clock: Are you going to listen to someone today?
PalMD: Listening
Maud Newton: Stop the clocks: how Twain celebrated Thanksgiving
Geek Feminism Blog: From comments: women in science, their history as told by… men?
Hadas Shema: Who writes health news?
FemaleScienceProfessor: Novel Retraction
Ideas in Food: Pumpkin Noodles
Share your links in comments!
Daily Dose o' Cute
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
...peek-a-boo!
So You Think You Can Launder
Tom Delay, aspiring dancing star and professional criminal, was officially convicted of money laundering and conspiracy to commit said laundering. "The Hammer" could be facing quite a long stay in the big house:
Mr. DeLay faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge. [...] Judge Pat Priest has wide discretion in sentencing the former majority leader, who was known as “The Hammer” for his no-holds-barred style during 20 years in the House of Representatives. Mr. Delay could be sentenced from 2 years to 20 years in prison for the conspiracy count, and from 5 years to 99 years, or life in prison, for the money-laundering count.Damn those activist judges.
[H/T to ThinkProgress]
Dolphins Rule
CNN correspondent Randi Kaye visits the Baltimore Aquarium to watch dolphins check themselves out in a mirror—and it's pretty much the most adorable thing ever.
[Transcript below.]
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spend a day with a dolphin and you're quickly reminded of why they've always captured our imaginations. They are playful, sociable, and just incredibly fun to be around. But scientists say there's a lot more to these animals and they're just beginning to understand the intricate thinking of these so-called big-brain mammals.
KAYE (on camera): Here you go, Nani (ph). Good girl!
We came here to the Baltimore Aquarium to see just how intelligent dolphins are. You see them playing with their trainers all the time. But scientists who study them say there's a lot more happening there than just play. That their intelligence actually rivals ours.
Here you go.
KAYE (voice-over): To see up close what has scientists so excited, we climbed down into a tiny underwater lab with a window into the aquarium, where scientist Diana Reiss puts a two-way mirror up against the glass. The dolphins can't see us, but Reiss can study how the dolphins react to the mirror.
DIANA REISS, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK: We used to think we were the only species on the planet that could think. And now we know that we're amongst many thinking species. So the questions are no longer can they think, but how do they think? And what's amazing is, in this capacity, with giving them mirrors, it looks like they're doing a lot of things very similar to us.
KAYE: Reiss has been studying dolphins' behavior for 25 years.
REISS: Most animals don't even pay attention to mirrors. So if you put a mirror in front of your dog, most dogs won't even look in a mirror. Cats don't pay much attention. Other animals do pay attention but never figure out it's themselves. They think it's another of their own kind.
KAYE: But dolphins do figure it out.
REISS: And not only do they figure out that it's them, but they show interest to look at themselves. So one thing is to understand it's themselves, it's a whole other thing to say I want to look at myself. I want to see what my face looks like or what does it look like when I turn upside down and blow a bubble.
KAYE: We saw in awe as this group of dolphins explored themselves before us, unable to ignore the mirror. Several did hang upside down.
REISS: He's upside down. He keeps on doing that. He's going to get wild now. He's being very innovative. Watch this. (INAUDIBLE) show.
KAYE: Other dolphins opened their mouths and stuck their tongue out. They put their eye on the mirror to get an even closer look.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Not convinced yet? Wait until you see some of the other experiments. We're watching dolphins in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Have you ever watched your pets when they see their reflection in a window? What do they do? They usually slap it, right? They think it's another animal. But what about dolphins? Our Randi Kaye has been checking their reactions under water.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): Take a look at this video of an earlier experiment from 2001. Scientists mark this dolphin on the side with a black pen, but did not mark the other. When released, the dolphin with the mark swims directly to the mirror and turns the mark towards the mirror, like he's trying to take a look at what's been done to him. The unmarked dolphin doesn't show the same behavior.
Dolphins aren't the only big-brain mammals who recognize themselves. Elephants do too. Watch what happens when Reiss tested them at the Bronx Zoo. This one with a white x marked on his face turns towards the mirror, over and over, to take a look.
Back at the Baltimore Aquarium, Reiss is now focusing her research on younger dolphins.
REISS: Bo is five.
KAYE: Just like human children, younger dolphins make lots of movements and watch their reflection. They quickly learn they are watching themselves.
KAYE (on camera): What are you trying to figure out with the younger dolphins?
REISS: So we're trying to figure out at what age, at what developmental age do they start figuring out that it's them in the mirror? And when are they showing interest in the mirror?
KAYE (voice-over): Foster, who is three, started recognizing himself in the mirror about the same time toddlers do, when he was about a year and a half. Reiss says some dolphins pick up on it at just six months, much earlier than children.
REISS: This is Spirit. Now Spirit's testing this. She's still figuring this out. And what's funny is, we recognize this because it's so similar to what kids do, what chimps do. It's amazing. And they go through the same stages. These are animals that have been separated from us for 95 million years of evolution. Big brains, processing things in similar ways.
KAYE: With a mirror providing a window into the dolphin's mind, Reiss believe she is discovering that their super high levels of intelligence are in many ways much like our own. And if that's true, the question is, what does that tell us?
REISS: In the end, what this tells us is that we need to look at these animals in a new light with a new respect and really provide much more protection in terms of conservation efforts and welfare efforts for these animals. And also appreciate that we're not at the top anymore. We're not alone. We're surrounded by other intelligence.
KAYE (on camera): Oh, wow. So smooth. She's beautiful.
KAYE (voice-over): Remember the old saying, that it always seems like dolphins are smiling at you. Well, maybe they are.
Korea Crisis Round-Up
Christian Science Monitor—North Korea says on 'brink of war' as US, South Korea prepare for military exercises: "Officials in North Korea have warned that they are on the brink of war with the South, as the United States and South Korea prepare to conduct a joint training exercise in the Yellow Sea."
Washington Post—Many in LA's Koreatown decry island attack: "Residents in the bustling Los Angeles sector that is the largest Korean enclave in the United States are decrying the North Korean attack on a South Korean island as they phone relatives for updates from the country many once called home."
Korea Times—Parties diverge over approach to NK:
A day after adopting a bipartisan resolution denouncing North Korea for its deadly attack on Yeonpyeong Island, ruling and opposition legislators sparred Friday over the "right" North Korea policy.New York Times—South Korea Reassesses Its Defenses After Attack: "Responding to growing public criticism after a deadly North Korean attack, President Lee Myung-bak accepted the resignation of his defense minister on Thursday and announced changes in the military's rules of engagement to make it easier for South Korea to strike back with greater force, especially if civilians are threatened."
Speaking at an extended party meeting, Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) said "The Lee Myung-bak administration is incapable in terms of security, with no ability to adequately prepare for and respond to a North Korean attack." He added that, "War can never be the solution, and we should follow the way of peace. There is no better security than peace."
Rep. Chung Dong-young, a member of the DP's Supreme Council, said that "The attack on Yeonpyeong Island has proven that the Sunshine Policy is the best policy for ensuring peace on the Korean Peninsula." Chung urged the government to shift its North Korea policy.
The DP is affiliated with the late former President Kim Dae-jung who was the architect behind the Sunshine Policy of engaging the North. Despite the bipartisan resolution on North Korea, the main opposition party has consistently been critical of the Lee Myung-bak administration's relatively hard-line stance toward the North.
The ruling opposition Grand National Party (GNP) responded to the DP's criticisms. Rep. Kim Moo-sung, the GNP floor leader said, "We are in a quasi-state of war, and we should be united in what steps we will be taking next."
CNN—S. Korea names new defense minister amid war rhetoric from the North:
South Korea named a new defense minister Friday to replace the official who resigned Thursday amid heavy criticism due to North Korea's sinking of a warship in March and Tuesday's deadly shelling of an inhabited island.A CNN crew were the first western journalists to visit Yeonpyeong Island and examine the destruction.
South Korea's government nominated Kim Kwan Jin as defense minister, a Blue House media official told CNN.
The National Assembly will hold a confirmation hearing before Kim formally takes office.
Former Defense Minister Kim Tae-young, a former general, resigned after coming under heavy criticism for the sinking of the South Korean war ship Cheonan and again after North Korea struck Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday.
The appointment comes amid continued war rhetoric from North Korea, which said Friday that South Korea and the United States are recklessly pushing the Korean peninsula toward war by scheduling a joint military drill for this weekend.
"The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war due to the reckless plan of those trigger-happy elements to stage again the war exercises targeted against [North Korea] in wake of the grave military provocation they perpetrated against the territorial waters of [the North Korean] side in the West Sea," said the North's official KCNA news agency.
