Video Clip O' Humor

Jon Stewart on Porter Goss and the CIA

Video

It would make more sense for the government to keep extending unemployment benefits until the recession lets up, because the effects of this poverty-inducing trend are far more harmful to the long-term economy than putting out cash now to keep people afloat:

Reporting from Washington -- Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers.

Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.

Many of the additional retirements are probably laid-off workers who are claiming Social Security early, despite reduced benefits, because they are under immediate financial pressure, Goss and other analysts believe.

The numbers upend expectations that older Americans who sustained financial losses in the recession would work longer to rebuild their nest eggs. In a December poll sponsored by CareerBuilder, 60% of workers older than 60 said they planned to postpone retirement.

Goss said it remained unclear whether the uptick in retirements would accelerate or abate in the months ahead. But another wave of older workers may opt for early retirement when they exhaust unemployment benefits late this year or early in 2010, he noted.

The ramifications of the trend are profound for the new retirees, their families, the government and other social institutions that may be called upon to help support them.

On top of savings ravaged by the stock market decline and the loss of home equity, many retirees now must make do with Social Security benefits reduced by as much as 25% if they retire at age 62 instead of 66.

"When the recession ends and the economy bounces back, there may be a band of people for whom things will never be the same again. They'll still be paying the price for 10, 20, 30 years down the road," said Cristina Martin Firvida, director of economic security for AARP, the nation's largest membership organization for people 50 and older.

DOWNLOADS: (1891)

PLAYS: (3541)

Embed

Sean Hannity couldn't have been too pleased last night when his "All American Panel" -- which he usually manages to keep nicely docile -- took a decidedly liberal detour on the subject of Nancy Pelosi's charge that the CIA lied to her.

First, Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, pointed out the obvious:

Why do we think that she is the liar?

Regina Calcaterra, a Democratic consultant, promptly chimed in:

It's a smokescreen. I think this is a smokescreen by Republicans, because Republicans are concerned about Congress holding the Truth Commission, which you know is going to be the parallel to the 9/11 Commission.

Later, Hostin raises the really relevant point:

The issue here is that everybody knows that waterboarding is torture. And that was an approved policy. It is torture! Everyone knows that. And that was the policy of the Bush administration. Why don't we talk about that?

Indeed. Because on Planet Wingnuttia, claiming that "Nancy Pelosi knew about it too" justifies the policy.

The bizarre thing about making this a "he said/she said" issue is that we already know for a fact that the CIA lied to Pelosi about the torture.

Marcy Wheeler points out that (as she's been reporting for weeks,) we already have documentary evidence that "when the CIA briefed Pelosi and Goss on September 4, 2002, it told them that waterboarding was not being employed."

Yet this was in fact a lie. Because we also know from Lawrence Wilkerson that the CIA had been engaging in waterboarding since at least February of that same year. As Marcy observes:

While we can't be sure of the date when Cheney started ordering people to be waterboarded even after they were compliant, we know this order had to have occurred before February 22, 2002--because that's when al-Libi first reported on ties between Iraq and al Qaeda.

... So sometime in February 2002--when Bush was declaring that the Geneva Convention did not apply to al Qaeda and when Bruce Jessen was pitching torture to JPRA--Cheney was personally (according to Wilkerson) ordering up waterboarding. The DIA immediately labeled the result of this session of waterboarding probable disinformation.

The Beltway pundits have been eager to cast Pelosi as a liar. (Wayne Simmons just called Pelosi a "pathological liar" on Fox.) Is Bob Graham a liar too? We're taking the word of the disgraced Porter Goss over the sitting Speaker of the House?

And gee, guess what we're not talking about here. Sonny Hostin, say it again:

The issue here is that everybody knows that waterboarding is torture. And that was an approved policy. It is torture! Everyone knows that. And that was the policy of the Bush administration. Why don't we talk about that?

When I first read this report, I admit that I got angry. Then I got smart. Look carefully at the names named in this report. Isn't it interesting that the WaPo reporters made sure to point out the Democrats in attendance when Congress was still operating under a Republican majority? Hmmm....who do you suppose could have leaked this story to the press to perhaps deflect from their own negative stories?

No matter how you slice it, there's some serious 'splaining that needs to be done, but the lopsidedness of this article makes me more than a little leery of its accuracy.

WaPo:

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.[..]

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.[..]

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Breaking: Porter Goss resigns

updated with video

From CNN:

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT

Goss: " I believe the agency is on a very even keel, sailing well," I honestly believe that we have improved dramatically."

Here's the AP story.

Did the personnel at the CIA have a smile on their faces today?

(h/t David Edwards)

Hookergate

Josh Marshall:

"Here at TPM HQ we were listening to the president's announcement. And the talking heads on CNN were speculating whether Goss's departure might be part of Josh Bolten's 'new blood' shake up in the Bush administration. I don't suppose it has anything to do with the fact that Goss is neck deep in the Wilkes-Corruption-and-Hookers story that's been burbling in the background all week. We don't know definitely why Goss pulled the plug yet. But the CIA Director doesn't march over to the White House and resign, effective immediately, unless something very big is up"

More here...

Porter Goss: Turf War?

Laura Rosen: "The story line until today has been far different: that much of the operative camp of the Agency perceived Goss as a political enforcer, someone who wasn't seen to be looking out for them but for the White House's interests; that Goss was rather passive and out of touch and overly delegated day to day affairs to his staff, "the Gosslings," led by the fiercely partisan Patrick Murray. I don't believe I have ever heard from people in that world a sense that Goss was looking out for them...read on"

Drum: "So what's the deal?--But now, out of the blue, we're supposed to believe that Bush woke up Friday morning and suddenly decided that some previously unreported bureaucratic turf war finally needed to be stopped?"

Larrry Johnson: "A former CIA buddy tells me that Porter's main problem, however, is a key staffer who is linked to both Brent Wilkes and the CIA's Executive Director, Dusty Foggo. My friend also said that it is highly likely that the Goss staffer did participate in the hooker extravaganza. Goss, politician that he is, probably recognized that even though he did not participate in the sexual escapades and poker games, his staffer's participation created a huge problem for him that would be difficult to escape...read on

It'll be interesting to see how the media responds if Dana Priest or another journalist (James Risen) is arrested for printing leaked material. Also, I wonder how will CIA employees react if Porter Goss continues giving polygraphs to intimidate them. Glenn Greenwald has more.

Keller's Thoughts on DC's Leaking

I've been calling and emailing journalists to try and get their reactions about the possible fallout for reporters since Porter Goss has been polygraphing the CIA for leakers. A certain drumbeat is going around that journalists should be questioned and put into jail. A few at the Washington Post have said, " no comment." One reporter from Congressional Quarterly said: "It would not only be a gross abuse of power but a violation of the very first Amendment."

Fishbowl DC has Bill Keller's full email response:

"Whatever the reason, I worry that we're not as worried as we should be. No president likes reporters sniffing after his secrets, but most come to realize that accountability is the price of power in our democracy. Some officials in this administration, and their more vociferous cheerleaders, seem to have a special animus towards reporters doing their jobs. There's sometimes a vindictive tone in way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries and in the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors. I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values they profess to be promoting abroad....read on"

Murray Waas:

"And did those leaks damage national security? The vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) made exactly that charge tonight in a letter to John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. What prompted Rockefeller to write Negroponte was a recent op-ed in the New York Times by CIA director Porter Goss complaining that leaks of classified information were the fault of “misguided whistleblowers...read on”