The Spineless Supports the Irrelevant
HEADLINES
The Relevance of an Irrelevant President
Judge Mukasey and the Senate Confirmation Hearings
Turkey Approves Attacks in North Iraq
Blackwater May Be On Its Way Out
Economy: Bank of America Net Falls 32%
Media Conglomeration and Collaboration
A Spineless Congress
Democrats continue to prove they don’t have a spine, much less know what one is. From the Washington Post:
“Senate Democrats and Republicans reached agreement with the Bush administration yesterday on the terms of new legislation to control the federal government’s domestic surveillance program, which includes a highly controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program, according to congressional sources.
Disclosure of the deal followed a decision by House Democratic leaders to pull a competing version of the measure from the floor because they lacked the votes to prevail over Republican opponents and GOP parliamentary maneuvers.
The Washington Times’ piece today indicates just how weak the Democratic Congress is.
House Democrats, confounded by a Republican procedural maneuver that would force an embarrassing vote on terrorism, yesterday called off a vote on an electronic-surveillance bill that the White House opposes.
Republicans would have forced Democrats either to vote to effectively kill the bill that restricts federal wiretap power or to vote against authorizing the government to spy on Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist groups.
They’re scared to death George Bush is going to resort to name calling. What brave and courageous Patriots our Democratic Leaders are.
Not only do the major telecom companies get immunity, so does the entire Bush administration. Congress is about to let the Bush administration get away with the most egregious lawbreaking by any president in history.
FISA isn’t the only area Congress continues to be ineffective.
Lawmakers Shudder at Tax Increase To Fix AMT
Almost a year after vowing to protect millions of middle-income families from a special tax meant for millionaires, Democratic leaders are still struggling to find ways to raise the billions of dollars needed to fix the problem.
In a series of meetings and interviews yesterday, lawmakers reiterated their determination to prevent the alternative minimum tax from imposing a major tax increase on 23 million American households this year.
The Relevance of an Irrelevant President
President Bush’s news conference yesterday.
President Bush on Wednesday criticized a Congress that has not “managed to pass many important bills” and is “just getting started” on funding bills.
At the beginning of a White House press conference, Bush launched an attack against Democrats for not doing enough to get the nation’s business done.
“There’s little time left in the year, and Congress has little to show for all the time that has gone by,” the president said.
Bush hammered Democrats on sending him State Children’s Health Insurance Program legislation that they knew would be vetoed, trying to make changes to legislation updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and failing to pass appropriations bills.
“Congress has more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic ally in the Muslim world, especially one that’s providing vital support for our military every day,” he said.
Asked if it was all the Democrats’ fault that bills are not moving, especially with regard to veto threats from the White House on several key pieces of legislation, Bush said he believes it is.
“I’m not part of the legislative branch,” the president said. “All I can do is ask them to move bills. It’s up to the leaders to move the bills.”
And by all means, don’t miss Mr. Bush’s narcissistic statements position on remaining relevant.
Judge Mukasey and the Senate Confirmation Hearings
From the Washington Post:
Attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey said yesterday that he would chart an independent path for the Justice Department after the tumultuous tenure of Alberto R. Gonzales, testifying that he would not be afraid to disagree with the president and would resign rather than implement policies that he believed violated the Constitution.
Mukasey, appearing for the first day of hearings before a generally friendly Senate Judiciary Committee, also said the president cannot use his powers as commander in chief to “override” prohibitions against using torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading conduct in the interrogation of prisoners.
“Are you prepared to resign if the president were to violate your advice and in your view violate the Constitution?” asked Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). Mukasey responded: “That would present me with a difficult but not a complex problem. I could either try to talk him out of it or leave.”
See TPC’s post regarding Mukasey’s response on torture
You may want to check out the live blogging done yesterday by Glenn Greenwald or The Gate (Part I, Part II).
Mukasey’s first dilemma? (WSJ - sub. req.)
Michael B. Mukasey, the former federal judge expected to win confirmation as attorney general, vowed to end allegations of political meddling at the Justice Department by ensuring that hiring decisions are made without regard to partisan affiliation.
A test could come quickly. If confirmed, he will soon have to decide what to do about the stalled nomination of Craig Morford, the acting deputy attorney general who, until recently, appeared set to get the nod to be the Justice Department’s No. 2.
Mr. Morford, a 48-year-old former assistant U.S. attorney in Cleveland, has been the department’s parachuting troubleshooter for years, and he hasn’t been afraid to ruffle feathers. In August, when he was named as acting deputy, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales gave him a mandate to act like a chief operating officer hired to fix a company in crisis. That was one month before Mr. Gonzales resigned from the top job.
Iraq, Iran, and the World
Turkey approves attacks in north Iraq.
By an overwhelming margin, Turkey’s parliament on Wednesday authorized military raids into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels who have attacked Turkish targets.
The vote added to rising tensions in the region, with Iraqi Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, going on high alert, although senior Turkish officials indicated that no invasion was imminent.
Blackwater may be on it’s way out.
A State Department review of private security guards for diplomats in Iraq is unlikely to recommend firing Blackwater USA over the deaths of 17 Iraqis last month, but the company probably is on the way out of that job, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Blackwater’s work escorting U.S. diplomats outside the protected Green Zone in Baghdad expires in May, one official said, and other officials told the Associated Press they expect the North Carolina company will not continue to work for the embassy after that.
Putin: Iran dialogue better than sanctions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that direct dialogue was a better way of easing the diplomatic crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions than the threat of military force or sanctions.
Putin, speaking at an annual question-and-answer session, brushed aside a reported plot to kill him on a visit to Tehran last week.
Bhutto Returns to Pakistan After 8-Year Exile
Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister, arrived in Pakistan this afternoon, ending her eight-year exile in a return that is expected to reconfigure the country’s already unsettled political landscape.
She stepped down onto the tarmac at Karachi airport at around 2 p.m. local time after a flight from Dubai, wearing a green shalwar kameez — a traditional Muslim outfit — and white headscarf, the colors of the Pakistani flag.
‘Chemical Ali’ is transferred to gallows site in Iraq
The man known as Chemical Ali for ordering poison gas attacks against the Kurds in the 1980s has been flown by helicopter from a U.S. base to a site near a prison gallows in Baghdad, according to an Iraqi police official, suggesting that his execution was imminent.
The prisoner, Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein, was sentenced to death on June 24 for his role in the Anfal campaign that killed as many as 180,000 Kurds.
Iraq’s Important But We Can’t Forget the Economy
Bank of America’s Net Falls 32% On Write-Downs, Trading Losses (WSJ - sub. req.)
Bank of America Corp. posted a 32% drop in third-quarter net income as the company recorded $247 million in write-downs related to leveraged buyout loans, $607 million in trading losses and sharply higher credit-loss provisions.
Shares slumped in premarket trading, falling to $48 from Wednesday’s close of $50.03.
The nation’s No. 2 bank by market capitalization, which hadn’t given write-down and loss projections guidance like many of its rivals, reported net income of $3.7 billion, or 82 cents a share, compared with $5.42 billion, or $1.18 a share, a year earlier. In addition to the write-down and trading losses, Bank of America recorded $2.03 billion in credit-loss provisions, compared with $1.17 billion a year earlier. Revenue fell 12% to $16.3 billion.
Media Conglomeration and Collaboration
FCC Chairman Offers Ownership Plan
Media conglomerates are probably the greatest danger to freedom of the press and maintaining a true Fourth Estate. One needs to look no further than FOX News Noise to understand why.
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is proposing a plan that would wrap up by the end of the year the long-running debate over how many media properties a company should be allowed to own in a single market.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s proposal would allow for public comment on the proposed rules in mid-November and a commission vote on Dec. 18.
Among the rules that are potentially on the chopping block is a ban on one company owning a newspaper and broadcast station in the same market. The rule is of particular interest to Tribune Co., which is the subject of a pending buyout led by real estate magnate Sam Zell.
Group of Net, Media Companies To Announce Copyright Guidelines
Look out YouTube, Blip, etc.
A group of Internet, media and technology companies plans to announce today a set of guidelines they have agreed on aimed at protecting copyrights online, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The companies supporting the principles include CBS Corp., Dailymotion, Microsoft Corp., NBC Universal, News Corp.’s Fox and MySpace units, Viacom Inc. and Walt Disney Co., the familiar person says. Notably absent is Google Inc., which had been in discussions about possibly joining the group, people familiar with the matter say.
The guidelines are meant to address copyright-related issues that have flared up as user posting of content — particularly video — to the Web has boomed.
The agreed-upon principles include using technology to eliminate copyright-infringing content uploaded by users to Web sites, and blocking any infringing material before it is publicly accessible, says the person familiar with the matter.
Google on Monday unveiled technology it has been testing to automate the identification of copyrighted material on its YouTube video-sharing service. It said the technology cannot yet prevent infringing content from being posted initially, though it can pull flagged content off the site “in a matter of a few minutes.”
Viacom in March sued Google, alleging willful copyright infringement by YouTube and claiming over $1 billion in damages. Google has said that it complies with U.S. law by removing any infringing video clips when requested by the content owners.
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