Very disappointing Qs in today’s hearing. They’re not laying a glove on P&C.

I kind of liked the statement Biden made at the end of the day about their stamina exceeding their good judgement. That’s a keeper.

I can hear it now: “I’m the decider, and I decide what’s best. And what’s best is for my crony Osama to remain free. I pick al Qaeda in Iraq. Gonna ride my bike now.”

Petreaus keeps pointing to the fact that AQI overplayed their hand. Leading to the following Q that no member of congress would ask: Is that the substance of your antiinsurgency strategy: wait for the enemy to screw up?

Oh yes, and P&C keep mentioning the importance of provincial elections. So when Muqtada wins big, watch them do to him what they did to Hamas in Gaza.

I thought Obama’s query similarly stoned P/C and neither of them were willing to answer. Likewise Boxer’s question. I missed Bayh & Durbin …

As we have seen before, questioning in House hearings is a lot less on point than it is in Senate hearings. I believe the question time is even shorter than it is in the Senate (3 vs 7 minutes?) and the House Republicans are an even bigger group of slavish tools than their Senate counterparts.

It’s such a painful thing to watch, isn’t it? SIGH

I heard Skelton say 5 minutes. And he runs a tight ship. Biden let senators drone on and on.

I so wish that we could run all the Dem Senators and Reps through a media training bootcamp — where they could learn t be more pointedly effective and less drony. But I doubt their egos would allow for it. Imagine if hearings were run with questions like those from Sen. Whitehouse or Sen. Feingold or any number of other folks who keep their rambling confined to those times when it’s tactically and empirically useful, and otherwise just sak really tough questions…

bom dia, pups

can’t get much of an in depth line of questioning with 5 mintues.

*sigh* bring on the olympic torch news

btw, the House committee also has a briefing scheduled for this afternoon on the state of US ground forces. That might be more worth watching, because a number of the committee folks have really dug in on this issue in the past.

epu’d and o/t

raw story has put up their link on the Miss. Justice ‘developing’ from earlier

raw story

curiouser and curiouser

Morning Christy and all,
Didn’t someone say the war won’t be the lead issue this fall?
Judging from the # of comments about the hearings yesterday on this site yesterday could they be wrong?

Did I mention that we lost 13 of our finest since Sunday and that I would like somepeace now , damn it
Have a good spring day all….

So when Muqtada wins big, watch them do to him what they did to Hamas in Gaza.

yeah, the popular vote is not BushCo’s version of Democracy.

I guess their hubris is such that they don’t understand how their constituents view their performances.

I never had much formal media training, but it didn’t take long for me to learn how to make my replies brief but full of information. It’s not that hard; they just don’t try.

Gosh, if only we knew someone who had some connections with people on the Hill.

see you pups in a bit, going back to sleep. for some reason, i’m extremely sleepy

where they could learn t be more pointedly effective and less drony.

Hellfire Christy…that’s what they think we pay them for, drony and obtuse.

Two traits of an highly ineffective Senator… (gee, could I write a book or what?)

Petreaus keeps pointing to the fact that AQI overplayed their hand. Leading to the following Q that no member of congress would ask: Is that the substance of your antiinsurgency strategy: wait for the enemy to screw up?

It is a very Republican ploy to grab a narrative and stick to it no matter what. The success of the surge is a myth. It has been largely irrelevant to what has been happening in Iraq as the current uptick in violence shows but this doesn’t stop Petraeus and Crocker from claiming success for it where they can, demand more time despite its supposed success, and warn darkly of everything going to hell if we leave again despite the supposed success of the surge.

Can you say “puppet”?

Staying in Iraq “until we win” begs the question, Win what? Once there is this much devastation the game long since has ended and there are only losers, all around. It’s like Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The cleric says: And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, “O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.” And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats and large chu…

Republican ploy to grab a narrative and stick to it no matter what.

A very successful tactic, since the corporate media blasts it far & wide.

It is painful to watch.
Why do they conduct these hearings in the manner they do?

These guys are asking for the blood and treasure of this country in support of a tragically failed policy. Yet, it looks like they are the ones being put upon, because the visuals on TV are so damn bad.

You would think after the Ollie North fiasco, they would have rethought how they do these things. Having a one bunch of windbags preening in front of a person in uniform while the other group of windbags is licking his boots gets you nowhere.

This Rep. Joe Wilson bears no resemblance to our favorite Joe Wilson.

Staying in Iraq “until we win” begs the question, Win what?

This was what Obama was getting at yesterday in asking how C&P defined success in Iraq. How McCain and Lieberman, Bush and Cheney, C&P define it would keep us there forever. No more AQI. Stable democracy, etc.

I never had much formal media training, but it didn’t take long for me to learn how to make my replies brief but full of information. It’s not that hard; they just don’t try.

You get it. Congresspeople don’t. Like bad actors who got their one time polite round of applause, they keep milking the audience long after their welcome.

A very successful tactic, since the corporate media blasts it far & wide.

Only inside the Beltway. Nothing they say or spin has any effect on the 60-70% of Americans who think this war was a mistake and want us out of Iraq within 1 year.

Someone in an earlier thread said that Crocker spoke both Arabic & Farsi. Does that mean he knows how to say um and ah in 3 languages?

But it did have an influence for the first 5 years of the W Admin, and that’s all he cared about-beating his father out by getting reelected.

There’s no way that withdrawing from Iraq can jeopardize the success of the surge (i.e., the reduction in U.S. combat casualties).

No, but his skill as a Polyglot Prevaricator is unsurpassed!

Mmmmmm….big bowl of fruit salad for lunch — strawberries, blueberries, bananas and cantaloupe. Topped with some vanilla yogurt. Feel the surge of antioxidants… *g*

Petreaus keeps pointing to the fact that AQI overplayed their hand.

This is all the more maddening since, as John Nance pointed out almost a year ago, AQI has always been at best a bit player in Iraq. Gee, do you think the Michigan Militia has overplayed its hand?

HO- HUM….. house shows less spine than senate - who knew? so sad - we are officially fucked!!

Here is what is pissing ME off (and I want the questions asked): Why does Petraeus, Crocker (and everyone else for that matter, reporters and politicos) keep specifically referring to Sadr and his Mehdi Army as “Iranian backed” while ignoring the even bigger level of “backing” for the Badr Brigades and the Maliki government?

I want this line of questions asked:

General Betrayus, who are our allies in Iraq?
Is not the Maliki government and his very close associates, the Badr Brigades, very close to the Iranian government?

Is not the Badr Brigades, our ostensible allies (by our own choosing) trained and equipped in large part by Iranians?

Who engineered the recent “peace” (relatively speaking of course)? Was it not the Iranians directly?

Is not Sadr an Iraqi nationalist? Can you prove that the Iranian influence on Sadr and his Mehdi Army is greater than the Iranian influence on the Badr Brigades?

Is not the bulk of the reason for reduced violence in Iraq these last 6 months or so actually due primarily to two things, Sadr’s self-imposed ceasefire AND complete ethnic cleansing of various Bagdhad neighborhoods? Is it not true that violence had started declining, precisely for the two reasons I just cited, before the so-called “surge” began?

Those questions are just for starters.

I had cream of celery & potato soup with spinach & tarragon, that I made last September & froze. Last of it, I’m sorry to say.

I think it was Feingold who asked Petty, “Has the surge made America safer?” He hemmed and hawwed and when asked again gave a weak, unconvincing, “Yes.”

You should be in charge.

Ooooh — now that sounds lovely. Your own recipe or from a particular book? And either way, wanna share it, because now you’ve given me a craving. *g*

was this on the hearings list ???

one of the KBR Rape Victims scheduled to testify today to Senate Comm on Foreign Relations

checking listings now

Tom Petty? Did he say we won’t back down?

Preserving the Harvest, which has a lot of good recipes–I’ve made about 5 or 6 from the book. If you don’t want to buy it, email me & I’ll type in the recipe for you.
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Book.....038;sr=1-1

I can’t imagine the generals of WW2 behaving as these people do. George Patton would have smacked Crocker and then called him a liar.
Those were giants - these are tiny little people with huge ambitions who are unfit to be a private never mind a general.

This reminds me of this mention at TPM:

Although the Justice Department has the legal authority under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act to prosecute sexual assault cases against civilians employed by contractors in Iraq or Afghanistan, the DOJ has failed to prosecute a single case.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi.....7.php#more

these are tiny little people with huge ambitions assholes

Editorial suggestion for you to consider.

I am laid up with strep throat today, but reading or rereading Naomi Klein’s shock therapy. When I get to page 286 where Rumsfeld gives a pseech to senior Pentagon senior staff (the day before 9/11), that Pentagon beaurocracy is the “enemy” and Rumsfeld decides to he wants to slash staff of every dept. by 15%, and even privatize medical care for the military, I see red. In my opinion the 90s privatization, outsourcing movemont of the Bush and Clinton years was a disastor. It also makes me hopeless. If we have all these Warbucks barons like Halliburton, etc. How are we ever going to get out of Iraq?

Excellent - even better - thanks

Bush and his shrublets confuse voting with Democracy. There is a little more to it than simply “majority rules.” They still have not learned that, but purple fingers make for happy teevee images.

Gnawing on fruit myself, Mrs. Smith.

How do you know it’s strep rather than an ordinary cold? I think I have the latter, but it’s all stuck in my throat and you’re making me reconsider. No fever though.

Yesterday, either Petraeus or Crocker said that AQI is funded and directed by AQ in Pakistan/Afghanistan.

What more needs to be said to make the case that we are in the wrong frikkin’ country….morons. You can keep cutting off the tail of a salamander, but it will grow it back.

I think it’s all BS anyway….they are terrified of a couple thousand people in a country of 23,000,000…what a crock.

Oil and strategic control of the region is why we are there. Period.

Ooooh — I think I have that book. But I missed that recipe in it…will have to go and look…

Uh, it’s going around. Ive been babysitting my nieces. It’s been going around daycare. Their regular babysitter had it, her husband has it. My sister had it twice . . . And now I have an appointment with the doctor.

Anybody have a link to today’s Petraeusapalooza?

My sister tested positive the second time around with no fever.

Pet name for Petraeus meaning small-minded. Definitely not Tom.

But if you want to feel feverish ECahn, try reading or rereading Shock therapy.

www.cspan.org

cspan 3

Oh dear. I’ll give it another day or two & if it’s not better, see a doc. I haven’t been around anyone who had it, at least as far as I know.

Once was enough! I’m still struggling thru a very good book about the history of empires after Tamerlane. It’s too heavy to read when I don’t feel well, though.

Privatize. That word should be banned from any and all consideration when it comes to military (at least) OR to social services.

I just finished watching The War Tapes last evening. Good documentary filmed by soldiers in Iraq themselves. During one part, a soldier is commenting on how the entire war seems geared to make money for Cheney’s Halliburton (his words). He comments on the fact that a military driver makes something like $27,000/yr while the KBR drivers, the privatized “money savers” are paid over $150,000/yr to do the same job.

How the fuck is privatizing everything so that the same service otherwise performed by either military or GS personnel a money saving change when those who replace the military and GS personnel are paid 4x the amount for the same exact service?! The soldier then films a “foreign national” driver as a comparison to what the KBR drivers (all under the US umbrella): his truck is totally screwed up, the passenger door practically off its hinges from a wreck or blast, the windshield totally gone. The soldier comments that because he is a foreign national driver, his life isn’t worth shit, not even the $200 it would take to replace the windshield, while the KBR drivers are coddled and paid up the yingyang.

Ban privatization. It is cheaper for the government to provide services through trained personnel who are paid at GS wages and in a non-profit manner than by people strictly motivated by profit maximizing motives.

Christy, you are my hero.

I don’t guess the hearing are on yet.

The monetary advantage of the privatized force is thought to be the fact that you don’t have to provide employment to them after the conflict is over. And no long-run retirement and medical benefits. Of course, the rationale falls apart if you have a 100 year war, per McCain.

Then there’s blowback to consider. Supply creates its own demand. So these guys come back to the U.S. & go into police work, with all the brutal tactics that they bring back. Or they go help create conflicts elsewhere in the world.

I have happy news - Jackie Speier won the Lantos seat yesterday with 75% (!!!) of the vote.

Also Glenn Greenwald’s book is a #278 at Amazon.

per Foreign Relations Committee -

KBR Rape Victim hearing was not streamed - transcript of the hearing will be available within days from Govt Printing Office

here is Opening Statement from Mrs. Mary Beth Kineston, Former KBR Contractor

Opening Statement (pdf)

fyi - Justin Rood; TPM Muck alum, now with ABC News is all over this story so we may see a transcript sooner than later

Naomi Klein also wrote that Chimpy as governor of Texas wanted to privatize welfare and that there was a bidding war between Lynn and Dick Cheney’s respective companies, then actually Clinton put the kibbosh on that. But Chimpy was still drooling at getting his dirty hands on federal gov. and shared the same outlook as Rumsfeld pretty much. So Texas also has privatized prisons as well. Really revolting stuff with abusive guards. And the thought of what makes a CEOs bonus? Cost plus advantages?

Yay!

Petraeus/Crocker/Bush logic: The only way out is to stay.

Hey I don’t think it’s a bad thing to hire temps if you have a backload of a project, but military . . . makes me think Warlord profiteers (Cheney for example) and ruthless mercenaries, among other things.

I have happy news - Jackie Speier won the Lantos seat yesterday with 75% (!!!) of the vote.

It is happy news. We’re so lucky to have her. There were no viable alternatives and she’s so great. So it isn’t a default situation at all. People actively want her to represent them.

Are you in San Mateo Co?

Catching up to comments here. Christy, a media boot camp is a stellar idea. Wellstone Action does stuff like that, but Wellstone Action with an overlay of, say, Olbermann, Galloway, Moyers — jeez, are they really not doing this?

That is sick. Especially the low value placed on foreign nationals’ lives. There is also Greenwald’s Iraq for Sale. KBR charging the military $100 for doing one laundry bag or something like that.

Hi guys, I’m still catching up. Did anyone report yesterday on which goopers questioning P/C were up for re-election? I was surprised that they would question the great and well respected general so pointedly and I supposed their jobs were on the line…but maybe not.

just so ya know - Texas did privatize Food Stamps (intake and distribution) abject failure so bad contract was revoked in 3/07 by gooper Comptroller

linky

Listening to this morning’s democracynow.org, which is all about what you ask.

it is total SLAUGHTER,and chaos there….how can we tolerate this do nothing congress? 2006 was supposed to be a watershed

Add Jeffrey Feldman of Frameshop to the mix for lessons on framing the issues.

National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, June 6-8. I think I read that Jane is part of this, along with other notables including Naomi Klein, Bill Moyers, Arianna Huffington, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Van Jones, Copps and Adelstein (the two good guys on the FCC) and more. This doesn’t apply directly to questioning of Bush’s boys re Iraq et al, and yet it does.

I’m supposed to be a Dem convention delegate sames days as this conference, and trying to figure out where I can do myself (and by extension, maybe others) most good.

Teddy SanFran,called it last nite…get Fukkin Gates to testify to this MORASS,and…………… CONDILIAR

i would love to go to that,Glenn Greenwald,and Katrina

Good link. Texas ground zero for shock therapy in the US? Any word on privatized prisons?

Say more, please. I only know Lakoff’s work in the framing world.

Come to my fair city! Help us fumigate in advance of Republican convention!

simple….and get your talking points going to ALL CONCERNED,remember yestiddy…..shorter pubes…..love you ambassador,and general,why is badass Iran directing horrors in Iraq?……that is what i heard over,and over,and over

thanks!

Here’s my 2 cents on privatization! Since it’s my tax money I should have something to say.

Privatization of services can work in specific situations unrelated to war so the state of war is not the primary purpose in the business model. If a company transports cargo around the world, they could deliver to Iraq and the military take it from there.

The contract should be for a specific short time period so performance can be reviewed. If a contract was for three or six months, the contract firm knows this is a short stint and is not open-ended. It wouldn’t be in their interest to keep the war going. They max out at six months.

Any service that is for a long period of time could be taken on by the military. This would offer job training for those in the military and can be useful when their four years are over.

Privatizing has lots of middle men that add to the cost. When a company is created for the purpose of being a military contractor, to stay alive they must keep wars going around the world. War over - business over. Bad business model.

will do….we need to engage…EVERY COMMON PERSON,on the street at,the pump,and at the veggie counter of the grocery store…it works!

I have a very academic book on the Ottoman empire that I read slower than a snails pace.

Check out his website at www.frameshopisopen.com

talk to strangers…engage them,in our STRUGGLE….(not to be confused with Mein Kampf)

yea thats fine,but we are killing off A WHOLE GENERATION of Iraqis and breaking our own army

The Lantos seat has quite a history. So pleased Jackie won it but I expected as much. Well deserved.

Yes. Live in RC - the warm part of the Peninsula. Have lived here since 1960. I know that you are so lucky to have Jackie for your rep and she will do a great job.

I think Hitler actually borrowed from socialists language while hating socialism/communism, hence the National Socialists.

Please do blame the General. The Clintons are a lot more responsible for this mess than he is.

We could also blame them for the sinking of the Titanic, the eruption of Mr. St. Helens, and the collapse of the Roman Empire, if you like.

Responsible for what? Privatization? Yet the Chimpenfuhrer/Cheney/Rumsfeld/ were the ones who took this to a whole new level of fraud, waste and abuse.

If they really wanted to inform themselves and the American public, they would hire a highly skilled trial attorney, allow the attorney the time and resources to prepare, sequester the two witneses, swear one in at a time and grill the living hell out of each of them for about 8 hours each.

Of course, they don’t want information. They want face time. It sickens me.

I go to RC often to visit my daughter and granddaughters. It is toastie there. I love the old downtown area with all its charm. For years it was one of the best kept secrets in the Bay Area but now is discovered. You are lucky to live there.

The college course I listened to on Hitler’s empire (will find the link because it is really excellent) said that Hitler chose the name of his party to try to appeal as many groups as possible, but when you string them all together, it’s an incohate mish mash.

yea ,iirc,……….

and…lookee here!

from huffpo
What will end up being the most famous quote of the Iraq war? Remember, Bush did not actually say “Mission Accomplished.” Perhaps Cheney’s “final throes” will win the prize. . But increasingly, as the significance of Gen. David Petraeus grows (seemingly by the minute), I have come to believe that it might up being his once-obscure 2003 remark: “Tell me how this ends.” It was cited again today by Andrew Bacevich in his New York Times op-ed

Bill Clinton made my soup cold.

yea,their was a masterframer

framing . . .

the Dems could spend a day with Christy, Jane and Digby complete with complimentary juice and crackers

many a firedog has these posts seared in their noggin

Jane Hamsher On Image

Jane Hamsher On Image 2

mui1
Here’s the link to the course.
http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/co.....px?cid=805

oops meant there

Doctors time. Take care eCahn, strep is going around, and NY state and CT tend to share the same plagues. I’ll never forget this weird illness the babies got which was named an upstate NY town. Blisters on the back of the throat.

If MoDo intends to go back to reporting, she needs a few more swings in the batting cage. Reporting from a back row in the Senate gallery, sitting next to “three…grim-faced, chanting women dressed in black hooded cloaks, white makeup and blood-red hands” makes her think that she is witnessing a poorly performed MacBeth. But then she declines to say whether MacBeth and his Lady were in the room or further down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Unsurprising for a representative of a “newspaper” that puts Chris Matthews on its Sunday magazine’s front page, she repeats the standard MSM talking point that poor St. John the Divine was merely befuddled - by what: senility, self-interest, greed for power, she doesn’t say - and got confused.

John McCain seemed to repeat his recent confusion over tribes, mistakenly referring to Al Qaeda again as a “sect of Shiites” before correcting himself and saying: “or Sunnis or anybody else.”

[No cite for MoDo; her column lives with the other usual suspects.]

Always one to give credit where it’s due, (but preferring to accept cash), MoDo reminds us why cats don’t run in packs:

You know you’re in trouble when Barbara Boxer is the voice of reason.

“Why is it,” she asked, “after all we have given…for the Iraqi people, but it’s the Iranian president who is greeted with kisses and flowers?”

To which Ambassador Crocker gave us his version of balanced MSM reporting - when Cheney visited Iraq, he got kisses too.

The General is not responsible for that. The Clintons supported, and still do, all of which you and I complain. I thought Petraeus was quite effective and truthful in in his testimony before Congress. Did the Clintons ever ask any probing or effective questions of anyone testifying about Iraq before Congress?

Cheney= Lady MacBeth imo

I love living here. Used to live in Millbrae but this is much warmer. I live out where Marineworld used to be - of course, it’s land fill and if we have the “Big One” who knows where I will land - if at all.

Merci eCahn, now I gotta run so I can be on time to wiat a half hour and read people magainze. Ugh.

“Out. Damned. Despot!”

OT

Good God. What the fuck is wrong with Florida?

“Florida lawmakers pass take-your-guns-to-work law”

Before the summer is over, my guess is that many people in the sunshine state will die at work from gunshot wounds. And by “many,” I mean more than one.