PAF loves cats

But I'm really glad I'm 15 times bigger than they are.

At any lesser ratio, these guys are formidable creatures indeed.

More on the Israel Lobby

from the thoughtful and well-informed Stephen Zunes:

There is no question that the Israel Lobby is one important factor influencing U.S. policy in the Middle East, particularly regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not, however, the only factor or the most important factor.

There is also no question that the Israel Lobby has made informed debate on U.S. support for Israeli policy far more difficult than it would be otherwise and, as a result, has made it much harder for peace and human rights activists to make as much headway in challenging U.S. policy as we would otherwise be able to do. However, while this is certainly not insignificant, this is very different than the assertion of Mearsheimer and Walt that U.S. policy would be considerably more enlightened without the Lobby’s influence.

The US is, after all, an imperial power. The neocons and the Israel Lobby are, in that sense, as much a symptom as a cause.

He's baaack

When Rambo returns, you know Uncle Sam is losing a war somewhere and our hyper-masculine militarized culture needs a dose of viagra. And beautifully timed so that we have the season of "peace on earth" out of our systems and we're ready to start the new year with some glorious gore. I feel more manly already.

The Wicked Queen's sinister plan

We're not talking poisoned apples here, kids:

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.

Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The F.B.I would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau.

The names were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. “The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven per cent are citizens of the United States,” he wrote.

“In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus,” it said. ...Hoover’s plan called for “the permanent detention” of the roughly 12,000 suspects at military bases as well as in federal prisons.

Hoover was such a patriot, he was willing to sacrifice our most basic rights to keep this country free. If only we had more like him.

Oh wait, we do!

P.S. And the "queen" part, that's just fine by us. Hoover was a consenting adult who should not have been closeted and locked into a self-loathing and self-destructive homophobic ideology. Homophobia, anti-communism and compulsory patriotism are not strangers after all.

Just for Mike Huckabeee

As an "ideological secularist" and "fanatically twisted fringe" element, PAF is happy to support publicly endorsed and institutionally supported Necrophilia. Yeah baby, that's right at the top of my agenda. Makes a dandy bumber sticker, too.

On the other hand, I can think of worse things to do with our tax dollars (like for example waging unnecessary wars and creating hundreds of thousands more cadavers for Mike Huckabeeee to fantasize about).

More Huckabeee here.

Adventures in Jesusland

NYT on Creationism Institute for training (drumroll please) science teachers:

HOUSTON — A Texas higher education panel has recommended allowing a Bible-based group called the Institute for Creation Research to offer online master’s degrees in science education.

The action comes weeks after the Texas Education Agency’s director of science, Christine Castillo Comer, lost her job after superiors accused her of displaying bias against creationism and failing to be “neutral” over the teaching of evolution.

The state’s commissioner of higher education, Raymund A. Paredes, said late Monday that he was aware of the institute’s opposition to evolution but was withholding judgment until the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board meets Jan. 24 to rule on the recommendation, made last Friday, by the board’s certification advisory council.

Henry Morris III, the chief executive of the Institute for Creation Research, said Tuesday that the proposed curriculum, taught in California, used faculty and textbooks “from all the top schools” along with, he said, the “value added” of challenges to standard teachings of evolution.

“Where the difference is, we provide both sides of the story,” Mr. Morris said. On its Web site, the institute declares, “All things in the universe were created and made by God in the six literal days of the creation week” and says it “equips believers with evidences of the Bible’s accuracy and authority through scientific research, educational programs, and media presentations, all conducted within a thoroughly biblical framework.”

It also says “the harmful consequences of evolutionary thinking on families and society (abortion, promiscuity, drug abuse, homosexuality and many others) are evident all around us.”

Asked how the institute could educate students to teach science, Dr. Paredes, who holds a doctorate in American civilization from the University of Texas and served 10 years as vice chancellor for academic development at the University of California, said, “I don’t know. I’m not a scientist.”

What a state. What a country!

Representatives Wexler, Gutierrez, and Baldwin call for Cheney Impeachment Hearings

John Nichols writes in The Nation:

Three senior members of the House Judiciary Committee have called for the immediate opening of impeachment hearings for Vice President Richard Cheney.

Democrats Robert Wexler of Florida, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin on Friday distributed a statement, “A Case for Hearings,” that declares, “The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution. The charges against Vice President Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.”

In particular, the Judiciary Committee members cite the recent revelation by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan that the Vice President and his staff purposefully gave him false information about the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert agent as part of a White House campaign to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson. On the basis of McClellan’s statements, Wexler, Gutierrez and Baldwin say, “it is even more important for Congress to investigate what may have been an intentional obstruction of justice.” The three House members argue that, “Congress should call Mr. McClellan to testify about what he described as being asked to ‘unknowingly [pass] along false information.’”

Adding to the sense of urgency, the members note that “recent revelations have shown that the Administration including Vice President Cheney may have again manipulated and exaggerated evidence about weapons of mass destruction — this time about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”

Corporate Power and Energy Policy

NYT:

Pared-down energy legislation cleared the Senate on Thursday by a wide margin after the oil industry and utilities succeeded in stripping out provisions that would have cost them billions of dollars.

The legislation still contains a landmark increase in fuel-economy standards for vehicles and a huge boost for alternative fuels. But a $13 billion tax increase on oil companies and a requirement that utilities nationwide produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources were left on the floor to secure Republican votes for the package.

The tax measure and the renewable electricity mandate were included in an energy bill that easily passed the House last week. But industry lobbyists focused their attention on Republican members of the Senate and on the White House, which repeatedly threatened to veto the bill if the offending sections were not removed.

...Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth Action, accused Senate Democrats of “capitulating” to Senate Republicans and the White House.

“When the Republican leadership and the polluter lobby have blocked important legislation, Senate Democrats have been all too willing to move in their direction,” Mr. Blackwelder said in a statement. “The result is that the two most positive provisions of the energy bill — a clean energy mandate and a tax package reining in handouts for fossil fuels and promoting clean energy — are being removed, while detrimental provisions, such as a radical five-fold increase in unsustainable biofuel use, remain.”

Jews ≠ neocons

Glenn Greenwald:

A new survey of American Jewish opinion, released by the American Jewish Committee, demonstrates several important propositions: (1) right-wing neocons (the Bill Kristol/Commentary/ AIPAC/Marty Peretz faction) who relentlessly claim to speak for Israel and for Jews generally hold views that are shared only by a small minority of American Jews; (2) viewpoints that are routinely demonized as reflective of animus towards Israel or even anti-Semitism are ones that are held by large majorities of American Jews; and (3) most American Jews oppose U.S. military action in the Middle East — including both in Iraq and against Iran.

Tex refusal protest

Chris Hedges has decided that he can no longer in good conscience pay taxes that fund America's wars. This is a deeply admirable decision, defended with both clarity and passion. Why aren't we all tax refusers, or in jail for some form of civil disobedience?

PAF has been arrested for CD before, part of a protest against an earlier war. It made me feel a little better, kind of. Business as usual over our dead bodies, goddamit. For about 15 minutes, our protest action impeded the ability of federal civil servants to get to their offices through the front door of the building. Then we were politely arrested and taken in a police bus to be booked in the police department auditorium. Whether we liked it or not we got our names in the paper. A few people thought we were heros, we were villified by many more, but most ignored us. All of us took personal risks to do this. I truly believed my career was at risk. And what did we accomplish? We risked arrest for political reasons. We fucking courted arrest. We were arrested. The war went merrily on, and almost no one noticed or cared about what we had done.

Over the years I have come to think about this as a moral statement that I believed I needed to make at the time. We felt better about ourselves for having made the statement and for having taken some risks to do so. But it was certainly not politically effective in any way whatever. In short, it was as much about me and my fellow protesters as it was about the war.

I admire Chris Hedges for doing what he is doing. He is taking much more serious risks than I did, or than I would be willing to do, especially now that I am a parent. I wish him well. But I think these sorts of individually defiant gestures are unlikely to stop the war or change the direction of the country. Having said that, I must also confess that I have no better answer. Perhaps that makes me one of the Good Germans.

Establishment Dems complicit in torture?

Your opposition party at work:

According to the Washington Post, since 2002 leading Democrats lawmakers received "about 30 private CIA briefings, some of which included descriptions of waterboarding, overseas rendition sites, "and other harsh interrogation methods." Officials present at some of the meetings, told the Post that the reaction from legislators "was not just approval, but encouragement."

More here.

American as Apple fucking Pie

Death Squads, Disappearances, and Torture