Author: Jonathan Schwarz

The Real News, a year-old attempt to create a TV channel funded by viewer donations, has been doing some fantastic reporting on politics internationally and here. And I don’t just say that because I want to work for them.

Below is their new segment on Rep. Robert Wexler’s push to hold impeachment hearings for Cheney. Their site has a ton more great stuff, including pieces on Afghanistan, Canada knuckling under to the U.S. on torture, and the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

An explanation of the rationale behind the Real News is here. Just because there’s no journalism like this on CBS or ABC or Fox doesn’t mean—in a world with the internet and satellite TV—there’s no way it can be done and reach an audience. But it does mean we have to pay for it. (If you’re so moved, you can donate to the Real News here.)

And…if you haven’t already, it’s still well worth your time to sign the Wexler Wants Hearings petition. Wexler’s efforts actually are getting the congressional leadership’s attention.

This seems like a good moment to remember this section of The Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind:

As the meeting in Mr. Cheney’s office progressed, it became clear that the vice president was ready to weigh in on what the president should do to bolster the economy, and his standing with voters worried about the economy, as the second half of his term began. A package of tax proposals, led by a 50% cut in the individual tax on dividends, had been all but buried since Mr. O’Neill took his stand against it in early September…

After the midterms, though, Mr. O’Neill could sense a change inside the White House…Now Mr. Cheney mentioned them again, how altering the double taxation of dividends would provide some economic stimulus. Mr. O’Neill jumped in, arguing sharply that the government “is moving toward a fiscal crisis” and then pointing out “what rising deficits will mean to our economic and fiscal soundness.” Mr. Cheney cut him off. “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” he said.

Mr. O’Neill was speechless, hardly believing that Mr. Cheney — whom he and Mr. Greenspan had known since Dick was a kid — would say such a thing. Mr. Cheney moved to fill the void. “We won the midterms. This is our due.” Mr. O’Neill left Mr. Cheney’s office in a state of mild shock.

Without the Bush administration’s giant tax cuts for the richest people in America, the government would have more room to maneuver now. The options that remain today are less palatable.

Another important effect of the tax cuts is that a fraction of them will be used by recipients to support political resistance to any constructive actions to deal with our current problems. So it really was a win-win-win.

Are you the kind of weirdo who thinks Congress should investigate when the Pentagon essentially fabricates a video of U.S. ships being “threatened” by Iran? Just because it could, you know, lead to a massive war based on lies? (Gareth Porter has an excellent run down of how things happened, here.)

If you are such a weirdo, you can contact Congress via Just Foreign Policy.

I particularly enjoy the excruciating stupidity of the American media when it strikes its “deep expertise” pose. I’ve been reading up on astronomy, they say, and I wonder how, as president, you’d deal with the way the sun orbits around the earth.

For instance, here’s Charlie Gibson, moderating the recent Democratic debate in New Hampshire:

CHARLIE GIBSON: I want to go to another question. And it really is the central one in my mind in nuclear terrorism. The next president of the United States may have to deal with a nuclear attack on an American city. I’ve read a lot about this in recent days. The best nuclear experts in the world say there’s a 30 percent chance in the next 10 years.

One thing Gibson didn’t do when he “read a lot about this” was TO READ ANYTHING. If you feel like reading the study he’s referring to yourself (pdf), you’ll find that:

1. The question wasn’t whether there would be nuclear terrorism in a U.S. city. Rather, it was “In your opinion, what is the probability (expressed as a percentage) of an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in the next 10 years?” I.e., they were asked about the use of nuclear weapons anywhere by anyone, including by governments or outside the US or both.

2. The mean response was 29.2%. However, the median was lower, at 20%.

3. Among the 85 “best nuclear experts in the world” surveyed was Robert Joseph, a notorious hardliner who was on the National Security Council for four years before replacing John Bolton as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Joseph supervised the section on Iraq’s WMD in the 2003 State of the Union, and was responsible for the uranium-from-Africa claim.

Others inhabit the Bush administration’s Dr. Strangelove-flavored penumbra. There’s Richard Allen, who’s on the Defense Advisory Board; Frank Carlucci, of the Carlyle Group and Project for a New American Century; and James Woolsey, Patrick Clawson, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Fred Ikle, all well-known for their role with PNAC and similar places.

GIBSON: Really, the central question in my mind is feet. I’ve been reading a lot about feet in recent days. And the best experts in the world say people each have nine feet. What would you do about this as president?

AND: On the same general subject, Sam Husseini makes a much more important point.

David Swanson explains how we’re committing suicide by election:

There must be a Star Trek episode (if there’s not, there should be) in which all the best minds in the leftist political opposition on some planet are diverted into an obsession with a virtual reality game, leaving all the right-wingers free to drive the planet into inevitable war and destruction. A game is a harmless thing when not put to such use. Elections are a fundamental pillar of democracy when not put to such use. That makes the case I want to argue all the more difficult. My thesis is that, if we do not change our thinking, elections are going to be the death of U.S. democracy.

Read the rest.