Thomas Friedman on Tim Russert (CNBC)

Thomas Friedman was on CNBC’s “Tim Russert“ this weekend, Sept 22, 2007, and this is one of those shows that I’ll have to watch again, at least the second half. The clarity of what he has to say is very compelling and I think we should be listening. He has taken the gloves off his treatment of our president, he is calling for a revolution in our energy policy and he’s got an intriguing view on climate change and the green ”revolution.“

I don’t know if one can find a copy of this episode online or not, the CNBC site seems pretty sparse; however, I think this show may run on CNBC later this week. It’s worth watching.

Immunity for Warrant-less Wiretaps?

I've read three recent articles about the warrant-less wiretaps and this is another case where our system of checks and balances seems to be threatened:

Newsweek ran a story, by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, on MSNBC.com titled: Case Dismissed?
The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to know about 

Glenn Greenwald pretty much repeated the story titled, “Former Clinton officials lobby for amnesty for FISA lawbreaking” on Salon.com.

And the New York Times also ran a related story, by James Risen, titled Warrantless Wiretaps Not Used, Official Says.  Why can't the FISA court be adapted and why is there so much pressure to immunize everybody from any form of judicial oversight and responsibility for past actions?

Since when are we supposed to trust only one branch of our government to protect our interests?

As for the telecom companies, remember, Qwest Communications stood up to the Bush administration’s warrant-less wiretapping when the other communication companies rolled over.

If there is anything I believe in, it's accountability.

Edwards, Clinton and Fundraising

I think campaign finance reform is the bedrock of any fundamental change in the way our government operates. I don’t consider speech and money as equivalent entities but donating money is considered a form of protected speech. What happened to the ideal where the there is a competition of ideas and the best ideas win? Too idealistic?

The John Edwards campaign is taking aim at the Clinton campaign over a fundraiser. You can read about it on several sites but there are couple of blog entries at MSNBC and NYT. I’m not aligned with any candidate yet but this whole issue doesn’t pass the sniff test for me.

Here is a list of some organizations that might help add some perspective:

The Center for Responsive Politics
Taxpayers for Common Sense
Porkbusters
Common Cause

Checks and Imbalances

Here is another story, by the FInancial Times, where it appears politics is getting in the way of our government trying to police itself. I’m probably more sensitive to this because of my dismay over the K-Street Project, the US Attorney’s firings, Alberto Gonzales and the general lack of accountability in Congress and our government in general.

In this case it is “chief internal watchdog” of the state department that seems to be getting in the way.

I want to avoid adding too much commentary in this blog but I think this is another reason why Americans need to demand more clarity and accountability in our government. Our system of checks and balances seems to be crumbling, slowly before us.

The Moral Price of Leaving Iraq

The following was an notable excerpt from Anderson Cooper 360 on Sept 14, 2007. Michael Ware, CNN Correspondent, raised some great questions to consider about our responsibility with regard to Iraq:

GRAPHIC: U.S. opinion of war in Iraq, September 7-9. Favor, 34 percent; oppose, 63 percent.

COOPER: Those were some of poll numbers that greeted General Petraeus as he testified in Washington this week. Support for the war, now in its fifth year, has been declining. And as we learned this week, there are still going to be large numbers of U.S. forces here going into next year's elections.

You're going to hear politicians trying to come up with solutions, though there are no easy solutions at all for what's happening here. The end game, that's what we want to talk about with CNN's Michael Ware, who joins me now here in the Green Zone.

In the United States, some, mostly Democrats, want a date set for withdrawal. They say, those who support that, that it would pressure the al Maliki government, it would pressure the Iraqi military to stand up faster. Would it?

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's a dream-like state. Anyone who's telling themselves that is absolutely deluding themselves. Maliki's under no pressure from the presence or not of American forces. I mean...

COOPER: Really? He's not under pressure from American forces?

WARE: No. Whilst America, on the one hand, is propping up his regime, on the other hand, they don't answer to the Americans. They don't feel beholden to the Americans. And they have a ready-made sponsor waiting in the wings to step into the American vacuum, as the Iranian president this week himself said.

So the presence of American troops is meant to serve U.S. interests, Western interests. They're not necessarily the interests of the government that America has created.

COOPER: But the U.S. can pressure them to some degree, no?

WARE: It can and it's trying that. It's failed abysmally until this point. Right now the greatest stick that America has, that it's jabbing this government with, the only thing that's forcing them to even pretend to meet any of the benchmarks on de-Ba'athification or reconciliation is that America is now supporting the Ba'ath insurgency. It's supporting the Sunni tribes, and this is terrifying this government.

This government's trying to block it at every turn. Iran has said that you're going to pay a severe price if you keep doing this, but it's the only thing.

COOPER: You know, there are a lot of folks in the United States who say, look, why should the U.S. troops be here? I mean, why should Americans be losing their lives here when Iraqi politicians are going on vacation and are not even passing, you know, reforms that would work towards reconciliation, which would seem -- I mean, everyone seems to admit that's essential for progress here.

WARE: And that's right. And that's not going to happen. You may get it on the surface. You may get some bells and whistles, but you're not going to get true reconciliation, no matter how much people are working to...

COOPER: Still too much hatred and too much desire for retribution?

WARE: And too much vested interest. I mean, it doesn't suit peoples' agendas to come together in the middle. And there's external players all around this country who don't want to see that happen, and they're having much greater affect here than America is.

COOPER: Those who support the U.S. effort here say that American troops should stay because they're a vital national security interest here. If American troops did pull out in great numbers, withdraw totally, even, say in the next year or so, do we know for sure what would happen? Or is it a roll of the dice?

WARE: No one knows for sure. But one thing that we can count on is the blood will flow. And American foreign policy interests will suffer such a withering blow I'm not sure that they would be able to recover from this region.

America can leave tomorrow, as long as it's ready to pay the price. And let's not forget: everyone wants the American sons and daughters to go home. But this is a dilemma facing liberal America. You can do that, but you're going to have such death and misery on your conscience.

There is a moral imperative here. America chose to invade. America created this environment that's not just hurting the Iraqis but it's hurting American interests. It's fuelling al Qaeda and fuelling Iran. You can walk away from that, but it's not without price.

Bush extends State of Emergency

Why do we need to go into our 7th year of a State of Emergency?

Something doesn’t sound right about this as it is reminiscent of what dictators have done to consolidate power. I always thought states of emergency were meant to give a president short term authority to address a crisis until Congress could convene. Has our government not adapted enough yet to address the threat?

What is the meaning of this and where is the analysis of its purpose and implications? What am I missing here?

Partisan Brain Study

Michael Krasny hosted a topic on his program, “Forum” (produced by KQED), Thursday, Sept 13, 2007 on a “new psychological study [which] appears to show that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives. The program examines the study, which gives new meaning to the terms ‘right brain’ and ‘left-brain.’"

Mr. Krasny’s guests were:
• David M. Amodio, professor of psychology at New York University and author of the study
• Jack Glaser, professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley
• Jonah Goldberg, editor at large of the National Review Online, columnist at the L.A Times and author of article, "Hard Wired Right"

Interested readers can download an MP3 of this show from the KQED website.

I am a big fan of Krasny’s show and find him to be an exceptionally prepared host who probes issues with a depth that is both refreshing and informative.

Fallon on Petraeus

I was very surprised to hear that there was another “Iraq report” in the works and it was being developed by Petreaus’ superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (Centcom). Why haven’t we heard of that report?

I suppose it might be because Fallon called Petreaus "an ass-kissing little chickenshit". There are multiple reports on this story but I liked the one from the Asia Times though the Washington Post broke it.

What happened to the chain of command?

FT: US suffers decline in prestige

There are those among my circles who have been lamenting the decline of America’s “moral authority and power” but until now I have only had anecdotal evidence to validate this claim. This morning the Financial Times published an article titled “US suffers decline in prestige”. The article is reporting on the 2007 Strategic Survey by the non-partisan International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The article leads off “The US has suffered a significant loss of power and prestige around the world....” It’s a short article and one I think we should all read as we prepare for the 2008 election.

The survey is available only to members or for those who purchase individual copies but the reader can download an executive summary.

NYT: Former Law Advisor Speaks Out on Bush

Time to add another “legal scholar with sterling conservative credentials” to the ranks of Bruce Fein who are expressing their concerns over the expansion of presidential powers during the Bush administration. Jack Goldsmith was a previous head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2003 and 2004. He has published a new book called “Terror Presidency: Law and Judgement Inside the Bush Administration”

The New York Times published a review titled “Former Law Adviser Speaks Out on Bush” in its Arts section on Tuesday, September 11, 2007.

You can find the book at Amazon.com.

Colin Powell on Terrorism

On the Monday, Sept 10, edition of Countdown while talking with “New York Times” columnist Frank Rich, Keith Obermann recited the following quotation of Secretary/General Colin Powell from a recent “GQ” article:
“What is the greatest threat facing us now?  People will say it‘s terrorism.  But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system?  No.  Can they knock down a building?  Yes.  Can they kill somebody?  Yes.  But can they change us?  No.  Only we can change ourselves.  So what is the great threat we are facing?”
What was that other quotation? “All we have to fear is fear itself!”

Unity08

A few weeks back I became aware of a group called Unity08. The agenda of this group is, as I understand it, to elect a hybrid Democratic/Republican ticket to appeal the vast majority of America which is basically centrist or independent.

I really haven’t given this group a lot scrutiny but I think it is worth a look. Is this a viable strategy to end the polarization of our political process? I don’t know but at least someone is taking a new tact. For an interesting view on American’s involved in Unity08, look at the results from their first position poll. I found a few surprises.

Iraq's crisis comparable to Darfur

This morning, in my World News Briefing from the Financial Times, I found the following summary of a news report:

Four years after a US-led invasion that was sold to the public partly on humanitarian grounds, Iraqis are suffering from a man-made catastrophe comparable in scope to the tragedy in Darfur.

I’m not sure what this says about our future strategy in Iraq but it does not reflect well on our handling of the occupation. Hopefully, I’m not getting too political here but three questions came to my mind when I read this:

1. If the people of Iraq have their basic needs provided won’t that help fulfill our mission?
2. What is in the best interest of the Iraq people?
3. What is our moral obligation?

You can read the full article on the Financial Times website.

Presidential Advance Manual

This is a story that shouldn’t be overlooked. When I first heard of it on Keith Obermann’s Countdown, I was surprised and disappointed.

White House Manual Details How to Deal With Protesters

Several news organizations, including the AP, ran a follow-up story titled “Feds Pay $80,000 Over Anti-Bush T-Shirts.” I guess we should ask: What are reasonable restrictions on free speech or is this another case of eroding rights? Read and decide for yourself.

There is some indication that the Clinton administration wasn’t entirely clean in this regard but, from what I’ve been able to discern, it never rose to this level. Last week’s episode of “On the Media” also had a segment on this issue.

It all makes me think of the Clash’s song from Combat Rock titled “Know Your Rights:”

"You have the right to free speech
As long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it."

Why everyone should watch the CA housing market

California is a state that draws a lot of attention, both good and bad. It’s massive economy and expensive real estate make it both a notable, though sometimes, outlying factor in national issues. On Saturday, Herb Greenberg wrote his own notable piece in the MarketWatch Weekend Investor section of the Wall Street Journal. The title of this column is Don’t Own a Pricey California Home? You Had Best Still Watch That Market.

The article focuses on the comments of Stephen Levy, Senior Economist at the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. Levy asserts something that has been worrying me for some time: “There’s a limit to what people can afford.” On the surface, that seems so obvious that it’s not worth stating but for some reason the housing market, the California one in particular, seems to have ignored that fact. However, Levy (and Greenberg) expand on how this translates to the economy as a whole and I think this is well worth reading.

Unless you have a paid membership to WSJ.com, you won’t be able to read the column but I found a reposting of it at the blog “The Future of Real Estate”.

Before this goes sounding like doom and gloom, I spoke with a money manager recently who laid out several important positive factors in our economy:

• Inflation is still low
• Corporate profits are still strong
• Corporations have a lot of cash and clean balance sheets
• Corporations and executive insiders have seen the current situation as an opportunity to purchase their own stock.

It seems obvious that we have shifting and competing forces in our economy and it’s not clear to me which force or forces will become dominant. It’s worth watching, both for our own financial health and also as the 2008 election moves closer.