Don’t tell the truth if you want to keep your job in the Obama Administration

Posted: March 13, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Civil Liberties, Democratic Politics, Hillary Clinton, torture, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics, Wikileaks | Tags: , , , , , , | 27 Comments

P.J. Crowley

PJ Crowley is gone as Hillary Clinton’s right hand man at the State Department simply because he spoke the truth to a small audience at MIT last week. From CNN (emphasis added):

P.J. Crowley abruptly resigned Sunday as State Department spokesman over controversial comments he made about the Bradley Manning case.

Sources close to the matter [said] the resignation, first reported by CNN, came under pressure from the White House, where officials were furious about his suggestion that the Obama administration is mistreating Manning, the Army private who is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Virginia, under suspicion that he leaked highly classified State Department cables to the website Wikileaks.

Speaking to a small group at MIT last week, Crowley was asked about allegations that Manning is being tortured and kicked up a firestorm by answering that what is being done to Manning by Defense Department officials “is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.”

Crowley did add that “nonetheless, Bradley Manning is in the right place” because of his alleged crimes, according to a blog post by BBC reporter Philippa Thomas, who was present at Crowley’s talk.

But that wasn’t good enough for our authoritarian President, who cannot abide criticism of any kind–at least from the liberal side of the aisle.

House Speaker John Boehner can question Obama’s American citizenship, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell can say his main goal is to prevent Obama’s reelection, but let a State Department official question whether torturing whistleblower Bradley Manning is appropriate or smart policy, and he’s gone in the blink of an eye.

The writing was on the wall after President Obama’s cold and unfeeling remarks about Manning at his press conference on Friday.

“I’ve actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards,” Obama said, suggesting some of those procedures were to protect Manning’s safety. “They have assured me that they are.”

Because the best way to find out if a crime is being committed is to ask the people who are perpetrating the crime, right?

Obama is the Commander and Chief of the armed forces. He could order the Defense Department to stop torturing Manning today. But at this point we’ve all learned not to expect any human decency or leadership of any kind from this man. He has now explicitly put his stamp of approval on the psychological torture of an American citizen, who has done nothing more than reveal war crimes committed by the U.S. military.

P.J. Crowley, who apparently does possess some human emotions and empathy, dared to speak his mind at a private meeting and when the word got out, Obama canned him.

According to Politico, Hillary Clinton wanted Crowley gone anyway and this just “controversy” speeded things up.

Crowley had been on the outs with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and rarely accompanied her on her travels abroad. Michael Hammer, President Barack Obama’s NSC spokesman, had been sent to State earlier this year, with the plan for him to succeed Crowley, sources said.

Is that the White House pushing the blame off on Hillary again or is it really true? I honestly don’t know, but I have some strong suspicions.

In a statement Sunday, Crowley notably made no apology for his remarks, but acknowledged that they made his continued service untenable.

“The unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a serious crime under U.S. law. My recent comments regarding the conditions of the pre-trial detention of Private First Class Bradley Manning were intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discreet actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership. The exercise of power in today’s challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values,” Crowley said.

“Given the impact of my remarks, for which I take full responsibility, I have submitted my resignation as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Spokesman for the Department of State,” Crowley said.

Clinton said in a statement that she accepted Crowley’s resignation “with regret.” His service, she wrote, “is motivated by a deep devotion to public policy and public diplomacy, and I wish him the very best.”

Best wishes to Crowley. I hope he lands a job where he is allowed to speak the truth and doesn’t have to defend torture.

Saturday Night Chai Therapy

Posted: March 12, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , | 11 Comments

We’ve had so much doom and gloom in the headlines lately, that it’s hard not to wonder if there’s something to that urban myth about 2012 being the end of the world after all! I thought we could use an open thread to relax and share some recipes.

My mother is from Kashmir, and I grew up hearing her talk about Kashmiri “Kahwah“ every time I brought a new variety of green tea home.

Kahwah is traditionally made in samovar kettles like the one to the right, but you can make it with a regular kettle, too. And, don’t worry about finding the Kashmiri tea leaves as listed in the recipe below. My mom’s reaction to the Chinese green tea leaves was always to call it Kahwah, so I figure the taste must be pretty close.

For convenience’s sake, my family and I often just use Stash Kashmiri Chai Green tea bags, no milk, to achieve the Kahwah effect. They’ve got the spices added in there already, so it’s ready to go, just boil, brew, and enjoy. I rarely put sweet in my tea, but once in awhile I’ll add a trace amount of a fancy honey variety (like vanilla bean or Hawaiian) to give it a silkier feel.

But, here’s a proper recipe, from Bella Online:

KAHWA (Spiced Kashmiri Green Tea)

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Kashmiri Green Tea (loose leaf variety is best)
2-3 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1 stick of cinnamon (2” long)
2-3 cloves
2 slices of fresh ginger, lightly crushed
8-10 almonds, blanched & finely chopped (or you could use pistachios if you wanted)
sugar, to taste (or you could also use your favorite flavor of honey)
1 good pinch of saffron – optional
a drop or two of rose water or rose essence – optional

METHOD:

In a medium saucepan on medium high heat, combine 3 cups of water along the cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, cloves and fresh slices of ginger. Bring to a gentle boil, remove the saucepan completely from the heat and add the tea leaves. Mix well to combine and allow the tea to steep for about 4-5 minutes. Then strain the tea into a teapot. Now add the sugar (or honey) along with saffron, nuts and rose water. Stir well to combine all of the ingredients and let the tea sit for 2-3 minutes before serving.

VARIATIONS:

If you have organic edible rose petals available, feel free to add a few in along with the other spices.

Feel free to add a few strips of orange peel as well along with the other spices.

You could also add a mint leaf or even tulsi (Indian holy basil) to the tea along with the sugar and nuts.

I’d love to hear one of your favorite chai or coffee rituals, but any kind of recipes you want to share in the comments are welcome. Have at it and Enjoy!

Exactly How Stupid is Michelle Bachmann?

Posted: March 12, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, just because, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 37 Comments

Michelle Bachmann

Have you heard the latest imbecilic quote from Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann? During a speech in New Hampshire this morning she said the following:

“What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty,” Bachmann told the audience. “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.

“And you put a marker in the ground and paid with the blood of your ancestors the very first price that had to be paid to make this the most magnificent nation that has ever arisen in the annals of man in 5,000 years of recorded history.”

Um…no. Lexington and Concord are in Massachusetts. Do you suppose she knows that the Boston Tea Party took place in Massachusetts too? I’m guessing no. The Boston Globe has more:

The remark demonstrated a surprising lack of basic facts about the historic events from which Tea Party derives its name. It is likely to go down as one of the bigger missteps of the early primary season.

Bachmann is touring the country and testing the idea of running for president. With her strong conservative views and sharp one-liners, she has gained a big following around the country. A number of people from Massachsuetts drove up to Nashua for the later fundraising event.

“We see you on Fox all the time! Keep up the good work!’’ called out Valerie Lallas, a retrired [sic] teacher from Lynnfield, as Bachmann signed autographs after her speech.

“I’m on CNN, too,’’ Bachman replied.

“But we don’t watch CNN,’’ Lallas said.

Her fans aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed either.

What are your favorite stupid politician quotes? Dig them up and post them in the comments. Or treat this as an open thread.

Saturday: Solidarity, Sisterhood

Posted: March 12, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Economy, Hillary Clinton: Her Campaign for All of Us, morning reads, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 74 Comments

Good morning, gleaners!

Grab your morning brew, and let’s go!

Wisconsin

  • It’s farmer-labor day today at the WI Capitol building, starting at noon, complete with a “tractorcade.”

Hillaryland

(second link will take you to an AFP report on Hillary’s remarks at Friday’s Women in the World conference in NY. See also her remarks at the 2011 Women of Courage event for more.)

  • This week–on International Women’s day no less–our advocate-in-chief helped to launch a Global Partnership on Maternal and Child Health, bringing a long-neglected development goal further out of the shadows. Brava, Madam Secretary!

(see also Hillary’s 100 Women Initiative. If you don’t know what it is, click and find out.)

— Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, introducing the president of Kyrgyzstan at a State Department event.

Women’s Rights

  • See here for RH Reality Check’s exhaustive coverage of the latest developments from yesterday. Also, Minkoff Minx wrote to her Georgia state representative, Stephen Allison (R-8) and received a letter from Rep. Allison that you might find of interest. Scroll to the end of the post to see it.
  • My $0.02 on Allison’s response: The excuse that the most draconian of these bills will never pass is baloney. The rise of mini-Stupaks in states across the country has built up a momentum in the war against women, and that momentum is helping to get other horrible versions of these bills passed. Furthermore, the preponderance of such nonsense legislation clearly indicates a concerted effort to use women and their civil rights as a tool of division and distraction from the economy, degrading those rights in the process and blocking unfettered access to reproductive healthcare for women–all women. The rich will get their safe abortions on demand one way or another, and we all know it.

Tired of hearing about Charlie Sheen?

Economy

  • Bernie Sanders introduces The Emergency Deficit Reduction Act. Sanders’ press release says the bill would a) create a 5.4% surtax on millionaires, yielding up to $50 billion annually for the US Treasury, and b) end tax breaks for Big Oil, yielding about $3.5 billion a year in new revenue. Thank you, Bernie Sanders!

CLICK TO GO TO ECONOMIX

US Politics: 2012

  • US News & World Report says wedge issues are back just in time for the 2012 electoral cycle. In other news… Water? Yep, wet as ever. (When did wedge issues ever leave?)
  • Here’s a derivative piece if ever there was one… Cameron Lynch says Barack Obama is the “Surprisingly Silent President.” This echoes Ruth Marcus last week suddenly discovering that Obama is the “Where’s Waldo” president. Obama told America who he was from 2004 to 2008. The creative clueless class was too busy chattering away and creating “a different kind of politician” narrative to take note that Obama was telegraphing very clearly that he would make an indifferent kind of president.

Civil Liberties

King hearings

  • Adam Serwer (via the American Prospect) has an important read up that puts it all in perspective… Good Cop, Bad Cop: “On counterterrorism, the only difference between Republicans and Obama is rhetorical.”

Disaster in Japan and Elsewhere

(Also, Crowley confirmed his comments about Manning to The Cable:”What I said was my personal opinion. It does not reflect an official USG policy position. I defer to the Department of Defense regarding the treatment of Bradley Manning.”)

  • See the NYT’s photojournalism blog — Lens — for dramatic shots of the devastation from the 8.9 quake and tsunami in Japan, as well as other harrowing pictures from around the world yesterday, that tell the story of tragedy and strife.

Environment

  • “The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century. Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature. Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less dependent on nature’s services in a world of close to seven billion people.”

–Achim Steiner, the executive director of UN Environment Programme

This Day in History (March 12)

  • First fireside chat: “It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail.” –FDR, 1933 (even FDR sounds like he’s saying Solidarity forever!)

What Kind of Liberal are You?

  • Take the quiz. I’m a “Working Class Warrior.” How about you?
  • I mostly linked to this silly quiz so I could share this priceless bumper sticker quote from the first question: “May the fetus you save be gay.”

Song of Protest for Saturday

Extra verse added to the PPM version: “Show me the famine, show me the frail, eyes with no future that show how we failed, and I’ll show you the children with so many reasons why there but for fortune, go you or I.”

I’m turning the Saturday reads over to you in the comments… Take the quiz and let us know how you score, share a song, link us to what’s on your blogging list this weekend…and have a great day!

[originally posted at Let Them Listen; crossposted at Taylor Marsh and Liberal Rapture]

Disaster in Japan

Posted: March 11, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Breaking News, Foreign Affairs | Tags: , , | 36 Comments

Last night, a 8.9 quake and tsunami hit Japan. Tsunami waves have hit Hawaii and are now hitting Washington state.  The worst damage is in the northern sections of Japan.  There is a worse danger looming that I wanted to mention here if you haven’t heard.  The Japan earthquake has shut down two nuclear plants and the core is not cooling in one.  This is a potentially dangerous situation. The U.S. is now rushing coolant to Japan at the request of the Japanese government.

Yet even light was on short supply, with nuclear power plants shutting down after fires broke out at some of the facilities and raised concerns of potential radiation leaks. Millions of buildings around Tokyo were reported without power.

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck northeast Japan at 2:45 p.m. local time, collapsing buildings 240 miles away in Tokyo, triggering a 30-foot tsunami that swept away everything in its path, and killing at least 300 people already. Hundreds more remain missing, including 100 crew on a lost fishing boat.

The plant experienced a fire.  People in the area are being evacuated. No leaks have been reported so far but again, CNN said that the core is not cooling so they are preparing for the worst.

About 5,800 residents near a Tokyo Electric Power Co. atomic plant were ordered to evacuate because of a possible radiation leak and the failure of the cooling system after Japan was struck by a powerful earthquake.

People within 3 kilometers (2 miles) of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were told to evacuate, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said in Tokyo today. Residents within 10 kilometers were told to stay indoors, said Ryohei Shiomi, a spokesman at the Emergency Information Center of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Emergency power supply at the 4,696-megawatt plant 210 kilometers north of Tokyo failed after the quake triggered automatic shutdowns of the reactors, officials at the trade ministry’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told reporters without identifying themselves. Power is needed to keep cooling the reactor to prevent rising pressure and damage, they said.

A battery, which can last about eight hours, is being used to cool the reactor for now, the agency officials said. Another six batteries have been secured, and the government may use military helicopters to fly them in, they said.

CNN has just reported that radiation is rising in the Fukushima Daiichi plant. A refinery has also exploded.

Natural Gas prices are already on the rise in UK.

U.K. natural gas prices soared Friday after a major earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, shutting down nuclear plants and raising expectations that the country will import more liquefied natural gas as a replacement power source.

But with the global gas market so well-supplied, and the length of the nuclear plant outages unknown, the gains could prove short-lived, traders said.

Winter gas contract prices had risen to 68.8 pence per therm by 1420 GMT, around 4% higher from Thursday.

At least two nuclear power plants on Japan’s Pacific coast shut down following the 8.9 magnitude quake that hit the country Friday morning, leaving market watchers wondering as to the extent of the damage.

“The problem is there are a whole bunch of nuclear outages, which I’d think would be out for at least three to four weeks,” said a London-based trader.

Japan’s last major earthquake in 2007 caused an extended shutdown of the country’s largest nuclear power plant, sending the country scrabbling for LNG suplies as it sought alternative means of power generation.

However, the current rally in the natural gas market may be premature. The extent of the damage to nuclear facilities is still unknown and the market is better-supplied than it was a few years ago.

Unlike in 2007, the market today is oversupplied, said Noel Tomnay, head of global gas at Wood Mackenzie.

Japan quake area map from the BBC

Casualties from this quake/tsunami now number in the hundreds and may rise.  Japan has requested help from the US.  The navy is sending ships there now.

There are some amazing images at The Atlantic.  Videotapes of the moments during the quake and tsunami can be found at the NYT at the Lede Blog.

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