Stopped Clock Is Right Alert

And this time it's a big one. Dick Cheney may not be my favorite person, and he has done some pretty execrable things in his political career.

He is however one of the more enlightened Republicans on the subject of gay marriage.

Speaking at the National Press Club for the Gerald R. Ford Foundation journalism awards, Cheney was asked about recent rulings and legislative action in Iowa and elsewhere that allowed for gay couples to legally wed.

"I think that freedom means freedom for everyone," replied the former V.P. "As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don't support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. ... But I don't have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that."

Which is funny, because I honestly want to see which Republican is going to attack Cheney's position on gay marriage first.

It doesn't begin to make up for the horrific things Cheney has done. But even he is human, and has a lesbian daughter who he cares about enough to think she should be able to get married.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

John Cole asks:

What major manufacturing do we have left in the United States?

We don't. The US has reached a critical collapse in manufacturing base. Those jobs aren't coming back, no matter what Obama or anyone does. They will be replaced by low-paying service jobs or temp jobs with little or no benefits.

No modern economy can survive without manufacturing, and in the last 30 years we've killed it.

Ground Control To Helicopter Ben

Dean Baker: We don't need a new systemic risk regulatory agency. We already have one, the Fed. The guy in charge of it? Fire his ass.

Firing Bernanke is not just a question of justice, although the millions of workers who have lost their jobs because of his mistake may see it that way. It is also an essential step in creating regulators who are actually held accountable for the quality of their work and therefore have a reason for taking their job responsibilities seriously.

As things work now, there is no risk for simply going with the flow. If you just repeat what everyone else is saying, and it turns out to be wrong, the Washington elite steps in for you with a supportive chorus of "who could have known?"

However, if a regulator were to step out line - imagine someone at another regulatory agency began to openly challenge Alan Greenspan and warn about the enormous danger created by an $8 trillion housing bubble - then they would be risking their future career path and their current job. It is an extremely rare public servant who will put their career path in jeopardy to promote the public good.

This is why none of the other regulators could see an $8 trillion housing bubble. They would have borne enormous career risk to make an issue out of the bubble after Alan Greenspan and Co. at the Fed had said that everything was fine.

It is not the responsibilities of the regulatory agencies that needs to be changed, but the incentives for the regulators. If the regulators face no sanction for just going along - even when they thereby get it horribly wrong - then they will always just go along.

In short, if we want regulators that actually police against systemic risk rather than ignore it, then we have to fire the regulators who failed horribly in the past. If we are serious about getting a real systemic risk regulator then Ben Bernanke must go.

Works for me. As long as we're holding people accountable, how about the guy that failed to see an $8 trillion problem and in fact made it much, much worse?

Why Did GM Go Bankrupt?

So why is GM filing for bankruptcy today?



Here endeth the lesson. Note that is for domestic brands, not imports. Less than 20% of American cars are GM. The company's market share including imports is much, much smaller.

GM also announced up to 20,000 job cuts today as it's closing 14 facilities.

A Law Enforcement Issue

Ann Freidman has a very informative article on what Congress's reponse to the George Tiller murder should be. Long story short, there are federal laws on the books protecting abortion clinics and their employees from harassment -- but surprise! -- during the Bush Administration, these laws and the task force Janet Reno created to enforce them went MIA.

From the immediate post-Roe years to the mid-1990s, clinic violence and blockades were a constant threat. After Dr. David Gunn was assassinated in 1993, Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which specifically banned such acts as blocking clinic doors, trespassing, making violent threats, arson, vandalism, stalking clinic employees, and other forms of violence. Many of these acts were illegal already, but the law made clear that targeting a clinic with these crimes merited a federal response.

While FACE improved the situation (the number of clinics experiencing severe violence dropped from 52 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2000), it didn't succeed in ending the violence. Attacks against women's health clinics -- both those that provide abortions and those that do not -- continued throughout the Bush years. According to the National Abortion Federation, since 2000 abortion providers have reported 14 arsons, 78 death threats, 66 incidents of assault and battery, 117 anthrax threats, 128 bomb threats, 109 incidents of stalking, 541 acts of vandalism, one bombing, and one attempted murder.

Add one murder to that list.

The last time an abortion provider was murdered, when Dr. Barnett Slepian was killed in 1998, it was a wake-up call to the fact that passing the FACE Act wasn't enough. Attorney General Janet Reno established the National Task Force on Violence against Health Care Providers, which committed the Department of Justice to enforcing FACE, coordinating information on national anti-abortion extremist groups, funding clinic safety efforts, and training local law enforcement. The following year, the White House budget requested $4.5 million to beef up security at abortion clinics. But other than finally bringing James Kopp, Slepian's killer, to justice in 2003, the task force was largely dormant for eight years under the Bush administration.

Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement responding to Tiller's murder, promising that "Federal law enforcement is coordinating with local law enforcement officials in Kansas on the investigation of this crime, and I have directed the United States Marshals Service to offer protection to other appropriate people and facilities around the nation." He also pledged to take steps to prevent related acts of violence. Obama expressed that he was "shocked and outraged" by the killing. Neither mentioned the FACE Act or reviving the task force.

Make no mistake: the targeting of abortion clinic employees with intent to bring about political change is the very definition of terrorism. The difference between murdering abortion providers to in effect eliminate abortion and terrify clinic employees and their families and those who murder Iraqi or Afghan officials in order to in effect eliminate democracy is only a matter of degree and location. It's still terrorism. It's going on in America right now.

This was a terror attack on American soil, folks. We already have laws on the books...let's enforce them.

[UPDATE] As Atrios points out, somebody in the Obama administration got the message loud and clear.

Knocking Heads On The Norks

Ahh, good to see our neocon buddies are more than willing to have us get into our third fourth ahh screw it next war, this time with North Korea.

In light of North Korea's recent nuclear and missile tests, international leaders are pondering how best to proceed, weighing a series of unsatisfying options. On Fox News yesterday, Bill Kristol presented the same idea he always presents when faced with a national security challenge.

Kristol explained, "I don't rule out the possibility of us deciding -- and I think it might be wise for us to decide -- to knock out a few. They're apparently rolling a long-term missile to a base to test another one, long-range missile to test another one. You know, it might be worth doing some targeted air strikes to show the North Koreans, instead of always talking about, 'Gee, there could be consequences,' to show that they can't simply keep going down this path."

Brit Hume, on the same program, endorsed Kristol's proposal, but said he "can't imagine" the Obama administration actually launching a military strike on North Korea. (They follow Newt Gingrich, who began urging strikes in April, calling on the administration to use "lasers" to attack North Korea.)

Matt Yglesias noted, "Kristol doesn't even attempt to say what he thinks this will accomplish. He just kind of tosses it out there for no reason because arguing that the United States should start wars is what he does."

Yeah, let's just send a few missiles into Pyongyang. I'm sure that'll shut Kim Jong-Il up real fast, before he decides to start lobbing his own nifty missiles at other Asian capitals.

Also, that won't draw China into this mess with their huge army and their own missiles and air force or anything. But the Village Neocons do love their wars so. What's another conflict when you have three on your plate already? Just add to the Pentagon budget.

Reaping Whirlwinds

In probably the least-surprising story of the year, the Kansas City Star is reporting that the suspect held in Sunday's murder of late-term abortion doctor George Tiller at Tiller's church is a man named Scott P. Roeder who -- surprise! -- belonged to a right-wing anti-government militia movement and viewed the murder of abortion providers as justifiable homicide.(emphasis mine)

"I know that he believed in justifiable homicide," said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. "I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn."

Dinwiddie said she met Roeder while picketing outside the Kansas City Planned Parenthood clinic in 1996. Roeder walked into the clinic and asked to see the doctor, Robert Crist, she said.

"Robert Crist came out and he stared at him for approximately 45 seconds," she said. "Then he (Roeder) said, 'I've seen you now.' Then he turned his back and walked away, and they were scared to death. On the way out, he gave me a great big hug and he said, 'I've seen you in the newspaper. I just love what you're doing.'^"

Roeder also was a subscriber to Prayer and Action News, a magazine that advocated the justifiable homicide position, said publisher Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines, Iowa.

"I met him once, and he wrote to me a few times," Leach said. "I remember that he was sympathetic to our cause, but I don't remember any details."

Leach said he met Roeder in Topeka when he went there to visit Shelley Shannon, who was in prison for the 1993 shooting of Tiller.

"He told me about a lot of conspiracy stuff and showed me how to take the magnetic strip out of a five-dollar bill," Leach said. "He said it was to keep the government from tracking your money."

Roeder, who in the 1990s was a manufacturing assemblyman, also was involved in the "Freemen" movement.

"Freemen" was a term adopted by those who claimed sovereignty from government jurisdiction and operated under their own legal system, which they called common-law courts. Adherents declared themselves exempt from laws, regulations and taxes and often filed liens against judges, prosecutors and others, claiming that money was owed to them as compensation.

In April 1996, Roeder was arrested in Topeka after Shawnee County sheriff's deputies stopped him for not having a proper license plate. In his car, officers said they found ammunition, a blasting cap, a fuse cord, a one-pound can of gunpowder and two 9-volt batteries, with one connected to a switch that could have been used to trigger a bomb.

Jim Jimerson, supervisor of the Kansas City ATF's bomb and arson unit, worked on the case.

"There wasn't enough there to blow up a building,'' Jimerson said at the time, ``but it could make several powerful pipe bombs...There was definitely enough there to kill somebody.''

Well apparently he's being held because he's suspected of doing just that. All the warning signs were there, this guy was a hard core domestic terrorist with a record of anti-government activity, exactly the kind of right-wing nutjob Bush's Homeland Security department issued a report about.

But the Wingers said it was another sign of fascism that the Obama administration dare to worry about the "politically motivated exaggeration" of the threat of right-wing domestic terrorists. These are the same folks who say if waterboarding saves a single American life, then we're bound to torture people for information.

So how many late-term abortion providers have to die before the Right realizes the screaming hatred they direct at the groups they don't agree with has consequences? After all, there's only two left in the country now.

StupidiNews!

• An Air France Jet bound from Rio de Janerio to Paris has vanished from radar off the coast of Brazil.
• A European company has signed the Octomom and her 14 kids to a reality TV show deal.
• President Obama plans to give a major speech on Islam and America on Thursday in Cairo.
• Chrysler has won approval to sell its assets to Fiat and move ahead with its plan to emerge from Chapter 11.
• This week is the E3 2009 Expo in Los Angeles as the gaming industry reveals its new surprises.

Last Call

Tomorrow will indeed be GM's deadline day for declaring bankruptcy.

Heralding a new and uncertain era for the No. 1 U.S. automaker, GM will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York before the start of trading, according to sources with direct knowledge of the preparations.

Government support for GM is expected to total up to $60 billion. Nearly half of that money has already been extended this year in emergency aid.

President Barack Obama plans to speak on the auto industry at 11:55 a.m EDT (1555 GMT) on Monday, according to his official schedule, as the federal government prepares to take a majority stake in the once-mighty company.

After Obama's remarks, GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson is due to hold a news conference at the offices of the New York law firm that handled the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy is the most carefully orchestrated Chapter 11 filing in the history of American business.

So now the blame game begins...what killed GM? Was it run into the ground? Did they make cars Americans didn't want? Were they forced out of business by competitors?

Pay attention to the reasons given. I'm betting few, if any, are the full story.

Will Anyone Rid Me Of This Troublesome Abortion Doctor?

...the Wingers said about Kansas physician and late-term abortion specialist George Tiller.

Today, we saw the results of the seeds of hate sewn by the Right.

George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions, was shot to death on Sunday as he attended church, city officials in Wichita said.

Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions since the 1970s, had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion, particularly in Kansas, where abortion opponents regularly protested outside his clinic and sometimes his home and church. In 1993, he was shot in both arms by an abortion opponent but recovered.

He had also been the subject of many efforts at prosecution, including a citizen-initiated grand jury investigation. In the latest such effort, in March, Dr. Tiller was acquitted of charges that he had performed late-term abortions that violated state law.

The shooting occurred at around 10 a.m. (Central time) at Reformation Lutheran Church on the city’s East Side, Dr. Tiller’s regular church.

To many people, the man that killed George Tiller is a honest to God American hero. It was just a few weeks ago that the President spoke at Notre Dame about a new dialogue and direction on the abortion debate.

The Wingers have responded with "It sure is a shame that filthy baby killer was gunned down in church."

[UPDATE] Salon has more on Bill-O's crusade against George Tiller...a man he has featured on "The O'Reilly Factor" 28 times as "Tiller the Baby Killer."

This is where it gets most troubling. O'Reilly's language describing Tiller, and accusing the state and its elites of complicity in his actions, could become extremely vivid. On June 12, 2007, he said, "Yes, I think we all know what this is. And if the state of Kansas doesn't stop this man, then anybody who prevents that from happening has blood on their hands as the governor does right now, Governor Sebelius."

Three days later, he added, "No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands. But now so does Governor Sebelius. She is not fit to serve. Nor is any Kansas politician who supports Tiller's business of destruction. I wouldn't want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day. I just -- you know ... Kansas is a great state, but this is a disgrace upon everyone who lives in Kansas. Is it not?"

This characterization of Tiller fits exactly into ancient conservative, paranoid stories: a decadent, permissive and callous elite tolerates moral monstrosities that every common-sense citizen just knows to be awful. Conspiring against our folk wisdom, O'Reilly says, the sophisticates have shielded Tiller from the appropriate, legal consequences for his deeds. It's left to "judgment day" to give him what's coming.

And indeed, somebody took it into their own hands to judge George Tiller.

Paging Dr. Galt

Hugh Hewitt's argument against Obamacare is that thousands of doctors will simply retire or leave practice if it passes, causing such a critical shortage of physicians that America's life expectancy will decrease precipitously, and that Blue Dog Dems must be made to understand that they have to rise up and kill the bill before it reaches the Senate in order to save America.

Whatever happened to "First, do no harm?" Thousands upon thousands of docs will "Go Galt" if Obamacare passes? I understand and sympathize that being a doctor is arguably the most important job out there, with life and death hanging in the balance on a daily basis.

But I'm supposed to believe doctors will simply quit being doctors because Americans without insurance options are given insurance options?

If it really is all about the money, then retiring early seems rather stupid, doesn't it?

It's illogical GOP fearmongering, like everything else they do.

Last Call

A well-dressed thief walks into an upscale Paris store, brandishes a gun, and gets away with millions in jewelry.

Ahh, the city of lights...

Building A Wall

Israel seems rather annoyed that Obama is sticking to his guns on the Israeli settlement issue. Clearly both sides are setting boundaries here: Israel fully expects Obama to cave under pressure from the Israel lobby, and Obama clearly expects Israel to deal with the fact that Obama is a different President.

These two notions are not mutually compatible. One or the other is going to have to give. As D-day points out, the GOP is a little busy calling Sonia Sotomayor a racist bigot governed by her menstruation cycle, but as soon as the Wingers figure out what's going on, the attacks on Obama will begin in earnest:

It's really fascinating, and I honestly don't know how it'll play out. The wingnuts are preoccupied with calling a circuit court judge a racist right now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Wurlitzer ramp up on this before too long. Expect some stories about the Black Muslim in the White House siding with the Palestinians, when in actuality, Obama is siding with the Israelis by insisting on the only avenue for progress. Bully for him.

But Israel doesn't want peace. Netanyahu will continue to build those settlements and dare Obama to do something about it. Obama and Hillary Clinton can insist all they want, but they are going to have to bring real pressure on Bibi to get anything done.

And as soon as they get that, the "Obama the Israel Hater" campaign will go full speed ahead.

Petraeus Drops A Bomb

Naturally, Army Generals tend to do that kind of thing, but David Petraeus did it on FOX News.

The head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, said Friday that the US had violated the Geneva Conventions in a stunning admission from President Bush’s onetime top general in Iraq that the US may have violated international law.

“When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it’s important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those,” Gen. Petraeus said on Fox News Friday afternoon.

Petraeus made the comment in the context of being asked about the Bush administration’s so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The now-Central Command chief said he believed that banning the more extreme techniques had taken away “a tool” employed by “our enemies” as a moral argument against the United States.

Petraeus didn’t say which parts of the Geneva Conventions he thought he and other administration officials had violated.

Now, in one sense it could be a slip. in another sense, our top General in Iraq just admitted that the American military has committed international war crimes.

Not "if". Not "others say we have". It's "We have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions". That's devastating. We are bound by international law to investigate and prosecute based on this.

Yet...nobody seems to have caught this other than the lefty blogs, and Petraeus goes on to say that he not only believes that we violated the Geneva Conventions on torture, but that Gitmo should be closed, and that terrorists should be tried in courts of law...basically everything I've been saying for the last several months.

And yet both the President and the Wingers are suddenly ignoring the guy. Talk about a Friday Night News Dump.

My opinion of David Petraeus up until now has not been very high. All that has changed dramatically in the space of a five minute interview with FOX.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Jay Leno bid his farewell after 17 years on The Tonight Show with "Goodbye, I'm not going anywhere."
• An off-duty black cop was shot and killed in Harlem by another NYPD officer.
• A Miami judge awarded $1 billion in damages to a man who tracked Che Guevara for the CIA, but collecting the money from Cuba may be impossible.
• California will officially be broke on July 29th unless major budget changes are made.
• Senate Commerce Committee chair Jay Rockefeller takes on web loyalty programs that charge people monthly fees without their knowledge.