TGIFriday Reads

Good Morning!

Democratic Senators Udall (NM) and Bennet (CO) have proposed a bill to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United finding. I’m not sure how far it will get, but it’s something to fight for.

“As we head into another election year, we are about to see unprecedented amounts of money spent on efforts to influence the outcome of our elections,” Udall said. “With the Supreme Court striking down the sensible regulations Congress has passed, the only way to address the root cause of this problem is to give Congress clear authority to regulate the campaign finance system.”

The proposed amendment would grant Congress and the states the authority to regulate the campaign finance system, but would not dictate any specific policies or regulations.

“The Supreme Court’s reversal of its own direction in the Citizens United decision and other recent cases has had a major effect on our election system,” Bennet added.

“State legislatures and Congress now may not be allowed to approve even small regulations to our campaign finance system. This proposal would bring some badly needed stability to an area of law that has been thrown off course by the new direction the Court has taken.”

Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) have co-sponsored the legislation.

“If we are going to preserve a government responsive to its citizens, we need commonsense reforms that give the American people a full voice,” said Merkley. “This Constitutional Amendment is essential for the people to be heard.”

Will this be the first in a series of moves to get influence money put up by huge corporations out of our democracy?  Here’s some more information via The Big Picture.  It even includes nifty graphs!!

I’ve been watching a developing story between Israel and Iran that’s truly disturbing.  Here’s an article at HuffPo by MJ Rosenberg that indicates there are many people that believe that Israel may launch a preemptive attack on Iran and that some are actually pushing for it.  There’s little evidence that an attack is imminent, but even in our House of Representatives there appear to be folks that are laying groundwork for US involvement.

Accordingly the House Foreign Affairs Committee hurriedly convened this week to consider a new “crippling sanctions” bill that seems less designed to deter an Iran nuclear weapon than to lay the groundwork for war.

The clearest evidence that war is the intention of the bill’s supporters comes in Section 601 which should be quoted in full. (It is so incredible that paraphrasing would invite the charge of distorting through selective quotation.)

It reads:

(c) RESTRICTION ON CONTACT. — No person employed with the United States Government may contact in an official or unofficial capacity any person that — (1) is an agent, instrumentality, or official of, is affiliated with, or is serving as a representative of the Government of Iran; and (2) presents a threat to the United States or is affiliated with terrorist organizations. (d) WAIVER. — The President may waive the requirements of subsection (c) if the President determines and so reports to the appropriate congressional committees 15 days prior to the exercise of waiver authority that failure to exercise such waiver authority would pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the vital national security interests of the United States.What does this mean?

It means that neither the president, the Secretary of State nor any U.S. diplomat or emissary may engage in negotiations or diplomacy with Iran of any kind unless the president convinces the “appropriate Congressional committees” (most significantly, the House Foreign Affairs Committee which is an AIPAC fiefdom) that not engaging with Iranian contacts would present an “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the vital national security interests of the United States.”

To call this unprecedented is an understatement. At no time in our history has the White House or State Department been restricted from dealing with representatives of a foreign state, even in war time.

Here’s information on public debate and polls  in Israel that show about dead even support for attacking Iran. It’s scary to think that while we have been hoping to wind down US involvement in the region there are many people working to amp it up.

All week Israel has thrummed with talk of launching a military strike on Iran.  It began with published hints that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to move forward on plans to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, a pre-emptive move that he, along with his defense minister, Ehud Barak, long have been described as advocating. Word that mooted aim might be moving toward action came from Nahum Barnea, the most respected columnist in the country, whose heads-up ran across the front page of the weekend edition of Yedioth Ahronoth.

Next came solemn but elliptical remarks from members of his inner cabinet, which would have to approve an air strike on a foreign country. “This strike is complex and intricate, and it is best not to talk about how complex and intricate it is,” Eli Yishai, the interior minister and head of the religious Shas party, was quoted saying.  “This operation leaves me sleepless.”

(READ: Smart power? Not in the Middle East.)

What followed seemed to confirm that something was indeed afoot in the top levels of government: A flurry of senior ministers began shouting that these things should not be discussed in public. “Debates like this cannot be held in front of the camera,” said Dan Meridor, whose portfolio is intelligence and atomic energy.  “It’s as if we’ve lost our minds here.”  Benny Begin, another Likud member of the inner cabinet lamented “there has never been a media campaign like this. It’s a crazy free-for-all….simply disgusting.”

What’s actually happening is far from clear, and perhaps meant to be that way.  There could be actual fire – a fuse being lit by a country that, after all, sent jets to knock out nuclear installations in Iraq and Syria, albeit with no warning. Or all this could be not fire but smoke, a rustling of papers meant both to unnerve Iran and steel the resolve of global powers to enforce punishing sanctions against it.

 The Nation‘s Jackson Diehl asks “Will Israel really attack Iran?”

The discussion got started this time in a relatively dramatic way: with a banner-headlined story in one of Israel’s best-read newspapers, under the byline of one the country’s most renowned journalists. Nahum Barnea normally writes a column for the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, but last Friday he produced a bombshell story under the headline “Atomic Pressure.”

His main point: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, are determined to attack Iran, and are pressuring Israel’s reluctant military and intelligence chiefs to go along.

“Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are the two Siamese twins of the Iranian issue,” Barnea wrote. “A rare phenomenon is taking place here in terms of Israeli politics: a prime minister and a defense minister who act as one body, with one goal.” Barnea’s story quickly touched off a frenzy in the Israeli media, which have followed up with several intriguing reports in recent days. Several accounts described a major Israeli air force exercise at a NATO base in Italy over the weekend, which was said to include all of the types of planes Israel would use in an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

On Wednesday, the newspaper Haaretz reported that Netanyahu was working to assemble a majority in his cabinet in favor of a strike and had recently won over his previously skeptical foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. And Iran’s own media weighed in: The state news agency quoted the defense minister as saying that the United States as well as Israel would suffer “heavy damages” in the event of an attack.

So why is this coming up now? Could an Israeli attack really be imminent? Iran, after all, has not shown any sign of launching a breakout to produce a bomb; even if it did, most experts in Israel as well as the West have said it would take the regime a year or more to complete a bomb.

Haaretz reported that Netanyahu and Barak were focused on an upcoming report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, due on Nov. 8, that is expected to offer new information about Iran’s attempts to develop designs for warheads and delivery systems. Other Israeli reports have speculated that any attack by Israel must occur before the winter months, when cloudy skies might complicate strikes from the air. Iran’s recent steps toward opening a new underground facility for uranium enrichment that is buried under a mountain, and possibly immune to air strikes, could also be a factor.

In reality, Israel is unlikely to launch any attack without the support of the United States, which could easily be drawn into the regional conflict an air strike would trigger. Like the Israeli military establishment, the Pentagon opposes any such venture — and it’s hard to imagine President Obama signing on. If he acts in the coming weeks or months, Netanyahu would risk a rupture in the alliance that is the ultimate guarantor of Israeli security.

I’m hoping this analysis is right.

Herman Cain obviously knows nothing about running in major elections where your past behavior will get dug up by some one.  His campaign is considering suing Politico.  It’s fun to watch all this intraRepublican antics.  Politico is well known to have Republican sympathies and it gave the campaign adequate time for damage control.  He better get ready to stuck a fork in his own buns cause they look way done and this looks like an act of major desperation.  Just wait until some of the women start telling their side to this.

A Herman Cain aide said Thursday that the Cain campaign is considering its legal options over the original Politico story, which revealed that the former head of the National Restaurant Association was accused of sexually harassing at least two women during his tenure in the 1990s.

“This is likely not over with Politico from a legal perspective,” a campaign official told the Post, stopping short of explaining what exactly he meant by taking legal action against the publication.

Politico’s Executive Editor, Jim VandeHei said in a statement:

“We have heard nothing from the Cain campaign. We stand confidently behind every story Politico reporters have written on the topic.”

A number of press outlets have confirmed the settlements, allegations, and behavior concerning Cain’s tenure at the National Restaurant Association. It seems to me that some folks just don’t get the idea that women would like to work in environment free of coercion and tensions.  There’s been a number of Republicans–including operatives familiar with the situation–that seem to get this.  Two settlements and numerous rumors and accusations show that this story is more than just a he-said she-said story.  I’m still surprised that the Cain campaign seems offput by the entire situation. If he thought it was significant enough to tell his wife and campaign staff during a senate run, he should’ve seen this coming a mile away and prepared for it months ago.  This continual reversion to the story is suspicious too.   This isn’t going away until a lot more stuff sees the late of day.  Here’s Politico with even more details about one of the cases.  One woman felt her job was at risk if she didn’t go along with his behavior and requests.

The new details—which come from multiple sources independently familiar with the incident at a hotel during a restaurant association event in the late 1990s—put the woman’s account even more sharply at odds with Cain’s emphatic insistence in news media interviews this week that nothing inappropriate happened between the two.

In recent days sources—including associates of the woman and people familiar with operations of the restaurant association—have offered new details of the incident.

The woman in question, roughly 30 years old at the time and working in the National Restaurant Association’s government affairs division, told two people directly at the time that Cain made a sexual overture to her at one of the group’s events, according to the sources familiar with the incident. She was livid and lodged a verbal complaint with an NRA board member that same night, these sources said.

The woman told one of the sources Cain made a suggestion that she felt was overtly sexual in nature and that “she perceived that her job was at risk if she didn’t do it.”

“She is a pretty confident individual, and she was pretty upset,” the source, an acquaintance of the woman, said of her demeanor after the encounter with Cain. “Not crying, but angry.”

She described it as an “unwanted sexual advance” to the other source. The woman took the matter immediately and directly to the board member because “she wanted this fixed,” the source said.

So, that’s the major stories that I’ve been reading about today.  What’s on your reading and blogging list?