Andrea Mitchell steps in it again: (+ defends Bob Woodward)

Imus got wind of her flopping around about her previous statements regarding Joseph and Valerie Wilson on his show 11/12, so he had her back on to clarify. She was fumbling and stumbling throughout the segment. It's "hard work" to carry water for the administration. Whether you like him or not, Don has one of the only shows that is able to get politicians and journalists on and he will ask them some tough questions that other outlets will not. Do you think Chris Matthews would hold her up to any kind of scrutiny?

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Her answers were ridiculous and she almost steps in it again as Imus asks her about this exchange.

Murray: Do we have any idea how widely known it was in Washington that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA?

Mitchell: It was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger. So a number of us began to pick up on that. But frankly I wasn't aware of her actual role at the CIA and the fact that she had a covert role involving weapons of mass destruction, not until Bob Novak wrote it.

(Rough transcript. Anyone want to write a transcript?)

Imus: It seems unclear what you said and perhaps you can clear it up about what you said back in Oct. of 2003---

Mitchell: I have been trying to figure out "what-the-heck" I was talking about, frankly. There is confusion because I am confused.

Imus: So when you told Alan Murray of CNBC, that it was widely known that his wife worked for the CIA-(interruption)--what were you drunk?

Mitchell: I don't even remember the deal...

(later)

Imus: His question seems plain...Imus: What this suggests to me is that you knew she worked at the CIA, but you didn't know what she did there. Isn't that fair-did you know that?

Mitchell-(garbled)

Imus: Why did you say that Andrea?

Mitchell: I messed up...(later)

Imus: Russert was a little short with me---almost like he was trying to hide something....

Imus laughing: I realized-well this is an unfair thing to say, I was gonna say- all you folks in Washington are all in bed with one another, but that would be an awful thing to say....

I can't agree with you more on that point. Listen to Andrea discuss Booby. She says Bob Woodward is a great journalist who made one "teenie-weenie" mistake. Notice she spews the beltway company line that they told him casually about Valerie and says that it wasn't "something important until it became important." I agree with Imus, she is drunk.

Andrea: Bob Woodward is a terrific reporter, there is no one like Bob Woodward. He has done extraordinary work---(later) If people make one mistake in the course of a thirty five year career when they have been bullet proof---

Then she says that we don't know if Libby is lying. I'm too tired to go on.....

Ann Coulter sticks up for her good buddy Andrew Dimbart while appearing on Sean Hannity's show last night:

"The whole key to this story is that Andrew Breitbart was set up. He was sent a tape that, as we now know, was massively out of context. It did look like this woman was saying something racist. When she first said it was taken out of context . . . we've heard that before from politicians telling racist jokes. This is the first time in world history it was literally taken out of context.

"It was a lovely speech. Of course the White House reacted that way -- of course you reacted the way you did. Anyone would have. I think Breitbart ought to reveal his source, because he was set up. This was a fraud. The person who sent the edited tape has to know what the full speech said, and whomever sent only that segment to Andrew Breitbart is the one who should apologize to Shirley Sherrod.

Now, think about that. Remember what happened to Dan Rather and 60 Minutes after they used documents that may have been forged as a basis for a story about George Bush's National Guard non-service?

Apparently the Big Hollywood principle is to run the most sensational thing you can find without even questioning its veracity. This is particularly interesting that Big Dim also ran this without identifying the person who supplied it, making it even less likely that the source stood behind the video. Why were they anonymous, anyway?

Because Dimbulb knew the story was a fact-free hatchet job. After all, that's the kind of thing he likes best.

"GasLand" is the most important and politically incendiary documentary we've seen since "Sicko". Kudos to HBO for showing this Sundance award winning film; do whatever you can to make sure you (and everyone you know) see it. (You'll never quite get over the shots of officials insisting there's nothing harmful in the drinking water, juxtaposed with a scene of fire coming out of someone's tap water. And of course, officials consistently decline to sample the water they keep insisting is "safe".)

The film focuses on damage to water supplies done by the high-powered natural gas mining process known as "fracking," and the shameless efforts by industry and politicians to cover it up. It's all too resonant with what just happened in the Gulf. (The energy industry has already issued a point by point rebuttal. Fox says he's putting together his own response.)

This story is of special interest to people like me who live in the NY-NJ-PA watershed that supplies clean drinking water to nine million people, because industry is now drilling in the Marcellus Shale in northern PA, thought to be the site of massive gas deposits.

Near the end of the film, Josh Fox interviews John Hanger, PA's secretary of environmental protection, who says look, you're on the other side of a camera, you're not the person who has to sit here and make these hard decisions. And he's right -- we as a nation have some hard choices to make about how we get our energy, and why. What price are we willing to pay?

(In a jarring epilogue, Fox notes that shortly after they spoke, the state's Department of Environmental Protection announced massive layoffs.)

Here's one review:

Narrating a first-person account, Fox relates how a natural gas company made him a lease offer for $100,000 from a natural gas company to explore on his land, which includes the house his parents built in Pennsylvania's Delaware River Basin abutting upstate New York.Fox begins to do his own research on drilling, and leaves countless unreturned messages with natural gas drillers like Halliburton.

Congress' 2005 Energy Policy Act, crafted by former vice president (and ex-Halliburton exec) Dick Cheney, exempts the hydraulic fracturing drilling process used by natural gas companies (known as "fracking") from long-held environmental regulations such as the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Freed from customary laws, natural gas companies have drilled like wildcatters in 34 states where huge shale fields contain gas deposits.

Once Fox learns that his beloved Delaware River watershed is being targeted by drillers as part of the massive Marcellus Shale field, he goes on the road to track down residents living near drilling sites. This is seat-of-pants investigating that yields astonishing and disturbing findings, not least of which is how the residents can customarily light a flame near their tap water outlet and set the polluted water on fire. As Fox ventures west, to Colorado, Wyoming and Texas, states riddled with natural gas drill sites, he documents horror story after horror story.

The primary cause is the cornucopia of toxic chemicals, blended with water, which must be used in fracking. Infrared-camera footage records venting of polluting gases coming off drill rigs, crushing the myth that natural gas is "clean" and a greenhouse solution. In vivid animation and graphics, Fox illustrates how the continent-wide explosion of fracking projects threatens watersheds and river basins, the source of drinking water.

For all of its engaging information, the film itself is a piece of beautiful cinema, rough-hewn and poetic, often musical in its rhythms and about as far from the "professional" doc that's the stock-and-trade of Sundance, where "GasLand" is vying in the U.S. competish. The marriage of sound and image (Fox joins Matthew Sanchez on lensing, and Brian Scibinico on sound) veers between nightmarish moods and lyrical reveries, even while the camera peers into the faces of government and corporate officials.

A combo of fest and grassroots exhibition, with viral networking, is part of the pic's goal to push for new federal controls on fracking (now being considered in Congress). But if a film can ever enact social change, which is rare, the potency of "GasLand" suggests that this may be that film.

Howard Dean is Doing What Dems Need: Shaking Things Up

via Atrios via TPM: ..."The Republican Party took weeks to finally admit that it was responsible for some of the most outrageous campaign flyers in the last election. The Washington Note was the first to post these -- and Howard Dean, on his blog, was one of the few politicians (then withdrawn from the race) to roundly attack these flyers that said Democrats would BAN the Bible and turn that respective state (Arkansas, West Virginia, Ohio, and several others) into bastions of homosexuality. And now Dean is being clobbered by his own party for asserting that the Republican Party is mostly Christian, mostly white, and mostly male?! ..read on"

Only in politics can you tell the truth and get hammered. Do I think he needs to be a bit more precise. Yes. Also, the more they attack what Dean says the less effect it will have. 24/7 is devoting segment after segment on Howard Dean. After awhile the producers will grow tired of it as well the people they are trying to influence, and the only entertained members will be the rabid fundamentalists.

Shiite-Kurd Talks Collapse

via the All Spin Zone

I'm not quite sure why anyone thought this "coalition" thing was ever going to work anyway. And for my money, as long as convicted con man and Jordanian fugitive Ahmed Chalabi is still in the game, the whole thing remains a Negroponte-controlled farce.

From Reuters:

Talks between Kurdish leaders and a Shiite bloc to form the next Iraqi government have collapsed three days before the country's first fully elected parliament meets, senior politicians said today...

...Ahmad Chalabi, a leading member of the Shiite bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, returned empty-handed on Saturday from a trip to Iraqi Kurdistan to try and save the proposed Kurdish-Shiite alliance.

...Kurdish politicians went further, saying the Shiite alliance was trying to blame them for the crisis that has paralysed decision-making in a country plagued by guerrilla bombings and starved of investment needed for rebuilding.

Meanwhile, the bloodbath continues.

Whose Values?

Religion has been cited as a big factor in the recent presidential election. The exit polls found that 22 percent of voters cited "moral values" as the key to their vote. Of course, we welcome the "moral values" discussion in politics, but the question some Christians are raising is which values and whose values.

Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace has been receiving daily opportunities to shape the national debate and to make sure that social and economic justice is named as a "moral and religious value," and that war and peace are "life" issues too. The Reverend Jim Wallis is scheduled to speak about "moral values" this coming Sunday on "Meet the Press."

Only 51% of Americans have moral values?

Speak out about YOUR values....click here> My Moral Values

I can understand the confusion for some Americans who do not understand what Baby Paul's beliefs really stand for. The media does a terrible job when it comes to explaining the positions our politicians take. And they are even worse when someone like Poppa Paul takes the podium because they either don't spend the time researching a fringe type figure, are afraid to expose their views publicly, or feel it's not worth the effort to do so.

But for any liberal who does know the difference, especially a smart one like Robert Scheer really makes me shake my head.

He wrote a piece in The Nation called: Who's Afraid of Rand Paul?

I understand his frustration absolutely at what has happened since the 2008 election, but Scheer is either too angry to think straight or he's being played for a sucker. He writes:

How bad could it be to have another irascible Paul in the Congress?

How bad? Very, very, very f'n bad.

I imagine he's seen Baby Paul's appearance on Rachel Maddow already.

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(How quick is Baby Paul backtracking now?)

If Scheer cringed, was it because he actually thought Paul would make a good Senator and he just looked really bad on TV or was it awakening to the fact that he had let himself get conned? Paul worships at the alter of anti-government, free markets and big business (He hates that the ladies have rights too) and after watching the oil spill nightmare, I bet Rand is still against regulating Big Oil. I'm waiting for a reporter or pundit to ask him that question. I won't get into every problem Baby Paul represents to our country if he becomes a Senator, they are too numerous to write down here.

Just so you know, one of the reasons I call Rand 'Baby Paul' is because of the nepotism that has fueled his run at office.

After almost five years of blogging, I admit to a certain cynical level of outrage fatigue. I expect politicians to be pandering asses and I expect journalists to be stenographers at best. But this moment on Meet The Press kicked my butt out of my complacency and squarely right back to outrage.

One of the newer memes that Republicans have been floating to paint the Democrats (and in particular, this administration) as weak on terror and defense is to suggest that by giving a suspect his Miranda rights is to somehow weaken our ability to catch terrorists.

Excuse me, but WTF???? So following the "rule of law" (something that the Republicans claim they are for) is now making us weak? By what measure? The insinuation is that these suspects clam up when they know they have a right to remain silent. Well, do we think they don't know that already? Gregory apes the RWNJ of saying that once a suspect is "lawyered up", our ability to get information stops. Even with Holder confirming that Shahzad continues to talk to authorities after acknowledging his Miranda rights, somehow this is still a concern?

Let's be clear. Shahzad, despite his alleged attempted acts, is an American citizen. That he has a Middle-Eastern surname does not mean that his rights as an American should be forfeited. Was there discussion of not giving Roeder his Miranda rights when he killed Dr. Tiller? Or Tim McVeigh when he successfully bombed the Murrah Building? Why not? The "changing nature" of the threats we face is not limited to the color of someone's skin. And even more importantly, not every person arrested is guilty of the crime of which they are accused. Can we really say that modifying Miranda rights on a case by case basis will result in better justice?

Proving once again that the White House responds to those who are the loudest and most fear-mongering over what's right and most grounded in our justice system, this law is an affront to all Americans. If any citizen's rights can be adjusted like this, we are all threatened by it.

Transcripts below the fold:

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1) Social Security, at current rates, is not expected to run short of money before 2037.

2)The simplest way to "fix" Social Security, if you're worried about a "problem" 27 years in the future, is simply to remove the contribution limit. End of problem. Period. Social Security is not in crisis.

3) The reason politicians want to "fix" Social Security is to increase the SS surplus, so they can use it for other things.

4) Medicare has more serious issues. However the simplest way to fix healthcare in the US is to move single payer, which would reduce healthcare per person by one-third. It has worked for every other country in the history of the world that has done it. It will work for the US. Since we've admitted now that everyone deserves health care, and since it's cheaper, and better, why not use the next round of healthcare to fix Medicare by fixing health care?

The unspoken entitlement is the US military. The US spends about half the entire world's military budget. There is, actually, no one in the world who can invade or seriously threaten the US in any fashion. (Is Canada going to invade? Mexico?) You can easily slash the military budget in half and still be so far ahead of any possible combination of enemies that it isn't even close.

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