MoA was born on June 30, 2004.

ACLU has a mostly redacted copy of the Presidential Advance Manual (pdf) which tells staff and volonteers how to prepare for Bush’s speech events. Excerpts from the not redacted bits (emphases as in the original):

Cont. reading: Bits from the Presidential Advance Manual

The New York Times carries a small story about another rift between the U.S. and the United Nations.

The U.S. claims that hard currency money for United Nations agricultural programs in North Korea was spend in a way that bolstered the North Korean regime.

The U.S. delivered "samples of papers" from 2001-2002 to the U.N. that claim that payments were made by the U.N. to some companies that ended up with the North Korean regime. Curiously, those papers included computer vendor codes only in use at the U.N. since 2004.

Cont. reading: Pot Smoker Falsely Blames U.N. – Again

In 1988 a Pan Am jumbo exploded on its way from London to New York and crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland.

In the official version, the Libyan dictator Gaddafi was seen as the culprit. The deed was said to be a response to the U.S. bombing of Libyan cities in 1986. A lot of pressure, including United Nations sanctions, were put on Libya. In 2000 it finally agreed to allow a Libyan agent to be tried in the case in a Scotish court. Libya also paid some reparations. It is now again a friend of the "west" with newly signed oil and gas contracts between "western" companies and Gaddafi.

But the case against the Libyan agent Megrahi was based on doubtable evidence and one shady witness and is now going to appeal:

Cont. reading: Lockerbie Blame Shifts As Needed

With regard to Congress subpoenas and today’s White House claims of Executive Privilege (pdf) MoA commentator Uncle $cam predicts:

The Senate will now rise for the daily invocation, pledge of allegiance and buggering.

If it does go to the SCOTUS I’m curious if a Roberts court would consent to hear the case on an expedited basis or if it would drag out till at least the end of next year.

My guess: right now the entire Bush system is trying to hold it’s breath until the end of his term on everything. Don’t pull the troops out, let the next president do it and take the blame for losing the war, –that is if they don’t decide to stay by bombing Iran–, fight all subpoenas to their buddies on the Supreme Court, with as many delaying tactics as possible in between. It’s all a delaying tactic.

And the dems will let them, because they do not want to diminish their chances for that executive power, even though they might and probably will lose.

I agree with that and want to emphasize the possibility of the dems losing the next elections. Maybe not in terms of Congress seats, but the Presidency is certainly not secured for them.

The 2008 election season will be about Iraq, Iraq and Iraq. The Democrats will have to argue for leaving Iraq asap or they will lose their base. But that leaves their flank open for "soft on …" attacks.

To preempt such Democrats must show agressiveness towards their enemies and to do so now. The obvious enemy, despised by a huge majority of the people, is the Bush/Cheney regime. The Dems have to attack that enemy fast and furious.

That and only that can invalidate the otherwise guaranteed and justified election slogans of "Dems soft on …" kind. Don’t disregard such slogans. Security, even undefined, is a very basic concern for most people. Mixed with a few terror alerts, "soft on…" claims are very, very effective.

by Bea

Re: The possibility of Gaza being passed to Egyptian control and the West Bank to Jordanian control, the (predictable) response from the Arab world appears to be no way:

Egypt, Jordan and other Arab countries understand that Gaza cannot remain outside of consensual Palestinian control. This is the case not only because agreements between Israel and the PA define Gaza as an inseparable part of Palestine, but because no Arab country wants to relieve Israel of dealing with Gaza as long as the occupation continues, and no Arab country believes Abbas can rule Gaza under present conditions. Responsibility for the needs of 1.5 million people imprisoned in Gaza might end up on their doorstep either through the need to make donations or domestic public pressure to save Gaza.

Egypt and Jordan want to return the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian problem to the Palestinians and go back to acting as advisers, mediators or exerters of pressure. Thus, they need Hamas and Fatah to reconcile.

Cont. reading: Developments in the Israeli-Palestinian Embroglio

News & views …

Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, under diligent supervision by Congress, ordered the CIA to conduct various illegal operations.

The activities included mass domestic wiretapping, failed assassination plots (Fidel Castro et al), successful assassination (Patrice Lumumba et al), mind-control experiments, illegal drug handling, cooperations with Mafia gangs, infiltration of citizen movements, abduction, spying on and manipulating journalists, partisan political support. All these crimes happend within the U.S. as well as abroad.

The now published but still heavily censored selective collection of CIA brummagem family jewels only includes documents up to 1973. Most of the plots described were already known. Where are the other, the real ‘family jewels’?

And do you believe that the praxis of illegal activities by the CIA and other government agencies has been discontinued after 1973?

If you do, please contact me immediately at ExclusiveOffer@BridgeSales.com.

At yesterday’s press briefing the press corps and White House spokesperson Dana Perino were collectively speculating about Cheney’s position in the executive and/or legislative branch.

MS. PERINO: The executive functions are given to him by the President. For example, the Vice President’s paycheck comes from the Senate. So these are — that’s an interesting constitutional question.

Ms. Perino, dear press corps, please let me help with some scientific background:

A fundamental postulate of Cheneyism, which manifests itself in the Federalist Society Uncertainty Principle, is that no vice presidential phenomenon can be (to arbitrary accuracy) described as a "classic executive position" or as a legislative position but rather the micro-political situation is best described in terms of executive-legislative duality.

MS. PERINO: I think it’s a little bit more complicated than that.

Yes, sure Ms. Perino – let’s dig a bit deeper:

The Federalist society uncertainty principle is a consequence of this picture. The amplitude of the executive position associated with a legislative position corresponds to its position, and the process length (more precisely, its Fourier transform) is inversely proportional to momentum. In order to localize the executive position so as to have a sharp peak (i.e., a small position uncertainty), it is necessary to incorporate executive positions with very short process lengths, corresponding to high momenta in all directions, and therefore a large momentum uncertainty. Indeed, the Federalist Society Uncertainty Principle is equivalent to a theorem in functional analysis that the standard deviation of the squared absolute value of a function, times the standard deviation of the squared absolute value of its Fourier transform, is at least 1/(16π2) (Folland and Sitaram, Theorem 1.1).

MS. PERINO: Maybe it’s me, but I think that everyone is making this a little bit more complicated than it needs to be.

That is indeed a possiblity – see your previous quote. But here is an example you probably can relate to:

A helpful analogy can be drawn between the executive position associated with a quantum-political legislative position and a more familiar executive position, the time-varying spokesperson position associated with, say, a sound bite. It is meaningless to ask about its releventness at a single moment in time, because the measure of releventness is the measure of a repetition recurring over a period of time. Indeed, in order for a spokesperson position to have a relatively well-defined relevantness, it must persist for a long period of time, and conversely, a spokesperson position that occurs at a relatively well-defined moment in time (i.e., of short duration) will necessary encompass a broad (ir)relevantness band. This is, indeed, a close mathematical analogue of the Federalist society uncertainty principle.

MS. PERINO: Okay, you have me thoroughly confused, as well.

Oh, sorry. But that’s the point of the uncertainty principle. Isn’t it?

Two days ago the NYT had a page A1 report on Iran Cracks Down on Dissent. It ran with a photo of a man being manhandled by the Iranian police.   

Michelle Malkin and the usual bunch of warmongering folks jumped to the story with additional pictures.

But the story was wrong and the NYT did "correct" the story, though you will only find the correction when you somehow go back to the original article linked above.

Cont. reading: Hidden NYT Correction on Iran Lies

When Josh Marshall portrait Cheney in early 2003 he found him to be proven wrong on most the issues he touched. Marshall traced this back to a particular mentality:

Cheney is conservative, of course, but beneath his conservatism is something more important: a mindset rooted in his peculiar corporate-Washington-insider class. It is a world of men–very few women–who have been at the apex of both business and government, and who feel that they are unique in their mastery of both. Consequently, they have an extreme assurance in their own judgment about what is best for the country and how to achieve it. They see themselves as men of action.
…
[A]nyone who doesn’t agree gets ignored or, if need be, crushed. Muscle it through and when the results are in, people will realize we were right is the underlying attitude.

The current Washington Post series on Cheney (Part I, Part II, more to follow), has lots of interesting and sometimes breath taking anecdotes of Cheney’s and his consigliere Addington’s actions. They fit the analysis Marshall wrote four years ago.

Cont. reading: Hunting For Cheney’s Head?

Video, Anderson Cooper, June 20, 2007

Aside from the lack of geographic knowledge, CNN does not even recognize its own numbers.

Cont. reading: Lessons in Geography

How will the Cheney and Olmert administrations now solve the problem of the still legaly existing and popular elected Hamas government in Palestine?

The Palestinian Pundit has a relevant translation:

This news item appeared today in the reputable Al-Akhbar paper in Lebanon.

It says that the decision for decisive action against Hamas in Gaza has apparently been taken at many levels involving local and outside powers. The military component of the plan will be what Olmert will outline to Abbas, Abdullah and Mubarak next Monday in Sharm El-Sheikh, in Egypt.

Cont. reading: Coming Soon – Total War On Gaza

There is a new order out from the Cheney administration that any U.S. enemy in Iraq is now to be called ‘Al-Qaeda’. As Glenn Greenwald points out, Bush himself and various reports have said on the record that only some 5% of the resistance in Iraq is of ‘Al-Qaeda’ ideology or has franchized that brand.

Cont. reading: The ‘Qaeda’ Mania

Cont. reading: News & Views …

Pat Lang points to a Krauthammer op-ed in which the neocon ideologist burps:

Gaza is now run not by a conventional political party but by a movement that is revolutionary, Islamist and terrorist. Worse, Hamas is a client of Iran. Gaza now constitutes the farthest reach of the archipelago of Iranian proxies: Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Mahdi Army (among others) in Iraq and the Alawite regime of Syria.

This Islamist mini-replica of the Comintern is at war not just with Israel but with the moderate Arab states, who finally woke up to this threat last summer when they denounced Hezbollah for provoking the Lebanon war with Israel.

Lang sees the use of "Comintern" here as a pure propaganda tool. As communism is gone, (Iran supported) Islam is build up as the new goonyman.

But there could be more than just pure propaganda and the defense industry’s need of some enemy here.

The neocons and their economic ideological brethrens, the neolibs, may fear Islam as a danger to their radical capitalism.

The "moderate Arab states," the collection of U.S. friendly dictatorships, all act capitalistic in their outward relation. But they are not necessarily open as markets to western companies or business models. U.S. mortgage companies hardly fit this rejection of usurious interest in the Koran.

"…
O you believers, fear God, and renounce the excess of usurious interest, if you really believe. If you do not follow this ruling, you may expect the hostility of God and of his Messenger. If you repent, you will retain your capital, neither harming anyone else nor suffering harm yourselves. To a debtor in difficulty, grant a delay until his situation improves. And if you renounce your rights that will be better still." (Q.2, 275-280).5

Basic Islamic jurisprudential understanding of economics, i.e. the ideology of Islamic economics, has quite some aspects that are incompatible with capitalism.

It seeks an economic system based on uplifting the deprived masses, a major role for the state in matters such as circulation and equitable distribution of wealth and insuring participants in the marketplace are rewarded by being exposed to risk and/or liability.

How could any decent disciple of the Chicago school NOT strive to fight against this? Especially the "liability" point would certainly not rhyme with yesterday’s Supreme Court decision.

Therefore, could there be some perceived fear that a caliphate, a group of nations with a common Islamic economic understanding, is a severe threat to the global rule of the robber-baron guild?

Could there be some reason based in economic ideology that drives the swing of the Krauthammer against some new "Comintern"?

Please let me know your thoughts.

—
An interesting side-point. A major modern work of Islamic economy was written by Muqtada al-Sadr’s father. In Iqtisaduna ("Our Economics") Sadr senior:

rejects capitalism’s notion that private property is justified in its own right, arguing instead that both private and public property originate from God, and that the rights and obligations of both private individuals and rulers are therefore dictated by Islam.

Could this explain some of the vitriol that is constantly spew against the keeper of this flame, Sadr junior?

The Israeli dis-information site Debka rumors about a third and fourth carrier to move on Iran.

Nearly unnoticed Congress yesterday declared all but open war on Iran. The House passed Resolution 21:

110th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. CON. RES. 21

Calling on the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.
…

And if the U.N. doesn’t act the U.S. will have to take on the burdon alone …

Cont. reading: Progress in the War on Iran

The Washington Post sees the Iraqi government falling apart:

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician often mentioned as a potential prime minister, tendered his resignation last week in a move that reflects deepening frustration inside the Iraqi government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Cont. reading: Iraq Roundup

Once a while I read Bill Rogio’s blog The Fourth Rail. Rogio is on the right side of the political spectrum, like in deep bush land. But his mostly military posts are sometimes bordering on being  interesting and his commentators are outright funny.

On a recent thread of his about the division size attack on Baqubah, I stumbled over this comment by one Tony:

Cont. reading: MSM Undermines Morale on the Home Front.