That Orlov sure is a downer.
You sorta hope he's wrong, but kinda suspect he's right.

Posted at July 6, 2008 4:52 AM in response to The USSR had the US beat all along

AP's Liz Sidoti has been called out before as a "McCain shill" here at TPM:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/fake-gaffe-courtesy-from-ap-ri.php
You have to wonder just what is up with The Associated Press.
Maybe they really do have Obama confused with Osama.

Posted at July 4, 2008 4:40 PM in response to "Oh, yes - with sprinkles!"

Scientific: By letting the facts speak for themselves, you've shown admirable restraint.
Take comfort in the fact Jesse and his kind are a rapidly vanishing breed.

Posted at July 4, 2008 3:41 PM in response to Jesse Helms is dead.

It actually makes perfect sense. The 18% who don't think America's the best place to live are the ones who are being denied liberty and justice.
Forty-one per cent realize those people are being screwed, but since it isn't them they join the 41% who don't think anybody is getting screwed to declare that the U.S. is the best place to live.
And it is -- for them.

Posted at July 4, 2008 3:24 PM in response to Compartmentalization

To clarify, by "There's much to dislike about this bill," I mean that I dislike much of it.
As a furriner, my rights are also affected.
The bill appears to spell out that the government has an unfettered right to tap all my communications that happen to be routed through U.S. hubs.
So I don't mean to sound nonchalant.
And you're right that retroactive immunity, though the hot-button issue for most, is a fairly minor part of the problem.
I have no evidence for this, but my suspicion is that one aim of this bill might be to create a legal framework for surveillance practices that have evolved and grown over the years, in some cases dating back before George Bush or 9/11.
One might argue that passing a flawed law is preferable to continuing to operate in legal murkiness.
You, I suspect, would say any program that can't conform to the 1978 law should simply be scrapped.
That principled stand is unlikely to prevail politically.
It's little consolation, but the bill does call for re-evaluation by the end of the coming presidential term. If security fears have receded by then, moves to beef up legal oversight could succeed.
Sorry to come across as an apologist for the bill.
I'm really not; I'm just trying to logic out the rationale behind congressional support for it. I doubt constitutional scholar Barack Obama simply despises the 4th amendment.

Posted at July 3, 2008 8:12 PM in response to FISA Amendment Is Now Redundant

Has the surge worked? Of course not; it couldn't possibly work.
The goal supposedly was to give the Iraqis a period of calm within which to establish stability and effect political reconciliation.
Well, a certain stability was indeed reached -- a balance point that factors in the presence of 150,000 foreign occupying troops.
But since virtually everyone in Iraq wants them out (despite misgivings about possible civil war) and fully expects them to leave, there is no incentive to make any permanent political accommodation based on the current balance of power.
Notice how the U.S. has been unable to strongarm through its desired status-of-forces agreement. And those American oil-industry service contracts announced last week also seem to have hit a bit of a roadblock.
The U.S. occupation of Iraq has entered the lame-duck phase (doubly so because of the likely change in the White House).
All sides are settling into defensive postures from which to run out the clock.
As U.S. troops leave, there may be a spike in violence, but my guess it will be short-lived. Local deals and compromises will prevail.
In any case, there is no alternative.
Only a near-complete withdrawal will allow the Iraqis to hash out the kind of government and society they want. Don't count on it resembling or being "built on" anything the U.S. occupation has put in place.

Posted at July 3, 2008 6:49 PM in response to 'The Surge' is working!!! At least for a little while...

This ruling is important, but it's an interim one that does not settle any of the lawsuits being heard.
And since this particular suit is directed at the government itself, not at a phone compay, it in no way impacts the issue of telecom liability.
It seems to me the telecoms' bottom-line defence has been that they reasonably believed the wiretap requests were legal, not that they actually were legal.
I understand that you are saying the "compromise" bill is no longer needed to reassert the exclusivity of the FISA law. But such a reassertion is still a good thing; Bush and Cheney are slow learners.
And that is just one of the rationales that congresscritters are citing for backing the FISA changes.
There's much to dislike about this bill, over and above retroactive civil immunity. And the backroom way it was cobbled together doesn't inspire confidence.
But it does bring the wiretap program back within a legal framework.
Communications technology has changed explosively over 30 years; it's hard to argue that 1978 legislation remains perfectly sufficient to regulate today's surveillance possibilities.

Posted at July 3, 2008 5:40 PM in response to FISA Amendment Is Now Redundant

Like the interminable Democratic primary campaign, Genghis, this too will pass.
But not until next week.
How Obama finesses his position during the Senate debate will affect his long-term standing among his hardest-core supporters.
Until the vote is over and done with, it's pointless to ask them to move on.
And whatever you do, don't tell them to "get over it." They hate that.

Posted at July 3, 2008 3:04 AM in response to FISA

Anthony Lake is just one of many foreign policy advisers Obama has designated.
I believe Susan Rice has the candidates ear on all major issues, and Samantha Power will be rehabilitated as soon as it's expedient.
These are pretty cool heads; don't read too much into the thinking expressed by a single member of Obama's advisory panel.
I'm sure as president he'll sound out Brzezinski and Allbright bright, too -- then make his own decisions. That's all you can ask.
And it's 100 times better than what happens now.

Posted at July 3, 2008 2:20 AM in response to Nader for President!

No, it's about oil all right.
Look at the biggest U.S. allies in the region:
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia.
Democracies? Not so much, and I don't see any serious U.S. push for them to become so.
Israel is democratic only if you ignore the inconvenient fact that it has held up to 4 million Arab non-citizens under military occupation for half a century.
So I don't buy any democratic dream as the U.S. motive in the region.
But as neocon idealist Paul Wolfowitz noted, Iraq and Iran float on a sea of oil.
Occam's razor.

Posted at July 3, 2008 1:51 AM in response to High Cost Of Gas - Was Planned All Along - To Have Reason For War with Iran