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SEC Claims Information Opacity, But Media No Longer So Concerned With Transparency

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

It seems that not even the truth can possibly overturn the narrative that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have brought transparency to Washington. Last Wednesday I wrote about how the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill Obama signed into law last month contains a provision exempting the Securities and Exchange Commission from Freedom of Information Act requests. Such an exemption would surely have been grounds for a media outcry during the Bush administration, yet apart from The Wall Street Journal and CNN, only blogs have been following the developments. The latter opted simply to parrot the administration’s claims without challenge. Other media ouetlets, such as National Public Radio and MSNBC, completely ignored the controversy, in stark contrast to their extensive coverage of the Bush administration’s attempts to curtail the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. NPR’s Don Gonyea said “When conflicts arise over what should or should not be open, the administration does not hesitate to invoke the memory of 9/11. And while it’s true that 9/11 changed the security landscape, it’s also true that the administration was tightening the control of information much earlier . . .” Some journalists are simply accepting the official SEC double-talk at face value. Unlike The Wall Street Journal , which actually bothered to talk to people familiar with the SEC and the bill, CNN just repeated what Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said in her letters, starting off their story with: “The Securities and Exchange Commission was not seeking a blanket exemption from public information laws . . .” Contrast this “see no evil” approach with CNN’s coverage of similar controversies during the Bush administration. In August of 2007, CNN’s Jack Cafferty covered the Bush administration’s attempt to exempt the White House Office of Administration from FOIA, noting the administration’s claims that certain federal officers were exempt from the law. “What do you suppose is in the millions of missing White House e-mails that President Bush doesn’t want anyone to see?” Cafferty asked, rhetorically. And in March of 2004, CNN analyst Ron Brownstein hammered home the alleged lack of transparency in the Bush administration, as evinced by its stance on FOIA. “They’re [the Bush administration] very tough on executive privilege in general, and on the flow of information more broadly than that,” Brownstein claimed. “Everything from the Freedom of Information Act to the Cheney Commission on Energy.” But with Obama in office, CNN doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned about the SEC’s apparent disdain for transparency. All it’s doing is reprinting talking points, after all. MSNBC, another news outlet that has yet to devote a single word to the SEC exemption, was also far more concerned with openness during the previous administration. Mike Barnicle, guest-hosting Hardball in 2007, said in reference to Bush’s Office of Administration: “The White House says the Freedom of Information act doesn’t apply to the office that handles their e-mails, even though their Web site says it does. Are they breaking the law?” Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow claimed on the day after Obama’s inauguration that secrecy was “the hallmark of the Bush years, the thing that often made Bush administration law-breaking possible because nobody knew it was happening. The best tool that we, the people, have to break through government secrecy is often the Freedom of Information Act. It was treated as an annoyance, an obstacle to be overcome by the Bush administration.” Again, these are a concerns this cable network has yet to extend to the SEC. Chairwoman Schapiro has written letters to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Ct) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Ma) explaining that the law doesn’t really exempt them from responding to FOIA requests. She asserted that entities regulated by her agency under the new financial “reform” legislation must “be able to provide us with access to confidential information without concern that the information will later be made public.” Schapiro claimed in her letter that the provisions in question are “not designed to protect the SEC as an agency from public oversight and accountability.” The mainstream press has apparently decided to take her word for it. How nice of them. It’s not like federal bureaucrats have ever failed to follow their agency’s guidelines . . . This press’s attitude, of course, stands in sharp contrast to just a few years ago, when members of the media were outraged by Republican attempts to restrict FOIA requests. Many in the media have, like NPR, decried the Bush administration’s use of 9/11 to curtail transparency, but thus far no one has criticized the current administration’s use of financial reform for the same goals. The double standard is telling.

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SEC Claims Information Opacity, But Media No Longer So Concerned With Transparency

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FOX News Analyst States Bush/Cheney Should Have Been Indicted

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

In an interview with Ralph Nader on C-SPANS Book TV, Fox News' senior judicial analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, made some pretty amazing comments considering who his employer is. For starters he state unequivocally that Bush/Cheney should have been indicted for “torturing, lying and arresting without a warrant”. From the article: “Nader was curious about how this applied to the Bush administration. “What about the more serious violations of habeas corpus,” wondered Nader. “You know after 9/11 Bush rounded up thousands of them, Americans, many of them Muslim Americans or Arabic Americans and they were thrown in jail without charges. They didn't have lawyers. Some of them were pretty mistreated in New York City. You know they were all released eventually.” “Well that is so obviously a violation of the natural law, the natural right to be brought before a neutral arbiter within moments of the government taking your freedom away from you,” answered Napolitano. “So what President Bush did with the suspension of habeas corpus, with the whole concept of Guantanamo Bay, with the whole idea that he could avoid and evade federal laws, treaties, federal judges and the Constitution was blatantly unconstitutional and is some cases criminal,” he continued. “What should be the sanctions [for Bush and Cheney]?” asked Nader. “They should have been indicted. They absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrant,” said Napolitano. Finally someone on the “other side” says what the rest of us have been saying for years. http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0712/fox-legal-analyst-bush-indicted/ added by: Mark701

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Most Transparent Administration Ever Makes Effective Reporting from Gulf a Felony

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Effectively reporting on the Gulf oil spill is now a Class D felony, punishable by a fine of up to $40,000. That’s right, the most transparent administration in history has made it a felony, effective July 1, to get within 65 feet of what the Coast Guard determines are essential recovery efforts. According to Anderson Cooper, officials tried to up that number to 300 feet. Cooper, who claimed federal officials prevented CNN on two occasions from taking photographs in the gulf, seemed frustrated when he reported on the new laws the day they went into effect. The press is “not the enemy here” he pleaded. The new policies, he said, make it “very easy to hide failure, and hide incompetence.” Cooper also let loose this zinger: “Transparency is apparently not a priority with [Coast Guard Commandant] Thad Allen these days.” Ouch (full video and transcript below the fold – h/t Ron Robinson ). This is but the latest in a string of incidents that seem to have much of the country — and if Cooper is any indicator, at least a few journalists — questioning the sincerity of candidate Obama’s pledges of transparency, openness, and respect for the press. But these new regulations on press coverage of the spill have not garnered as much attention as perhaps they should — certainly not as much as similar moves during the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina (a fact that Cooper notes). Shortly after the Hurricane hit, according to the Washington Post , “FEMA refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas, saying they would take up valuable space needed in the recovery effort and asked them not to take pictures of the dead.” The Post touted claims that the FEMA policy was “in line with the Bush administration’s ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war” — clearly drawing a comparison to other Bush policies rife with accusations of politically-motivated censorship. So far, the Post is silent on the criminalization — a much stronger statement of administration policy than the refusal to allow embedded reporters on rescue efforts — of media coverage in the Gulf. With a scant few exceptions, the legacy media are silent on the issue. But for his part, and to his credit, Cooper issued a heartfelt call for more press transparency: …the Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches — 65 feet. Now, in order to get closer, you have to get direct permission from the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans. You have to call up the guy. What this means is that oil-soaked birds on islands surrounded by boom, you can’t get close enough to take that picture. Shots of oil on beaches with booms, stay 65 feet away. Pictures of oil-soaked booms uselessly laying in the water because they haven’t been collected like they should, you can’t get close enough to see that. And, believe me, that is out there. But you only know that if you get close to it, and now you can’t without permission. Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges. What’s even more extraordinary is that the Coast Guard tried to make the exclusion zone 300 feet, before scaling it back to 65 feet. Here is how Admiral Allen defends it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ALLEN: Well, it’s not unusual at all for the Coast Guard to establish either safety or security zones around any number of facilities or activities for public safety or for the safety of the equipment itself. We would do this for marine events, fireworks demonstrations, cruise ships going in and out of port. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: So, this is the exact same logic that federal wildlife officials used to prevent CNN on two occasions from getting pictures of oiled birds that have been collected, pictures like — like the — well, that we’re about to show you which are obviously deeply disturbing, pictures of oiled gulls that we just happened to catch. Suddenly, we were told after — after that day we couldn’t catch it anymore. So, keeping prying eyes out of marshes, away from booms, off the beaches is now government policy. When asked why now, after all this time, Thad Allen said he had gotten some complaints from local officials worried people might get hurt. Now, we don’t know who these officials are. We would like to. But transparency is apparently not a high priority with Thad Allen either these days. Maybe he is accurate and some officials are concerned. And that’s their right. But we’ve heard far more from local officials about not being able to get a straight story from the government or BP. I have met countless local officials desperate for pictures to be taken and stories written about what is happening in their communities. We’re not the enemy here. Those of us down here trying to accurately show what’s happening, we are not the enemy. I have not heard about any journalist who has disrupted relief efforts. No journalist wants to be seen as having slowed down the cleanup or made things worse. If a Coast Guard official asked me to move, I would move. But to create a blanket rule that everyone has to stay 65 feet away boom and boats, that doesn’t sound like transparency. Frankly, it’s a lot like in Katrina when they tried to make it impossible to see recovery efforts of people who died in their homes. If we can’t show what is happening, warts and all, no one will see what’s happening. And that makes it very easy to hide failure and hide incompetence and makes it very hard to highlight the hard work of cleanup crews and the Coast Guard. We are not the enemy here. We found out today two public broadcasting journalists reporting on health issues say they have been blocked again and again from visiting a federal mobile medical unit in Venice, a trailer where cleanup workers are being treated. It’s known locally as the BP compound. And these two reporters say everyone they have talked to, from BP to the Coast Guard, to Health and Human Services in Washington has been giving them the runaround. We’re not talking about a CIA station here. We’re talking about a medical trailer that falls under the authority of, guess who, Thad Allen, the same Thad Allen who promised transparency all those weeks ago. We are not the enemy here.

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Most Transparent Administration Ever Makes Effective Reporting from Gulf a Felony

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On PBS, Oliver Stone Loved Hugo Chavez Calling Dubya the ‘Devil’: ‘It’s True’

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Here’s another slightly dated example of leftist America-bashing on the taxpayer-funded airwaves over the patriotic holiday weekend. PBS talk-show host Tavis Smiley interviewed leftist director Oliver Stone on July 2 about his Hugo Chavez-smooching documentary South of the Border. Stone denounced Hillary Clinton as “an agent of the old empire game,” and when Smiley nudged Stone about Chavez’s remarks, Stone insisted he loved it when Chavez called Bush the Devil: “I think that’s a great comment. I think it’s true….He is the devil. He was.” Smiley didn’t simply celebrate Stone (as he did, with say, Van Jones, boldly professing he would take a bullet for Jones ), but he was gentle in bringing up some hard questions. He suggested he didn’t really want to dwell on the Bush-as-Satan stuff: SMILEY: If I’d wanted to, I could have done this. I didn’t want to waste our time doing it, but because the stuff is so easily found all over the internet – you know where I’m going with this. You know, on the regular, there are statements made by Chavez that cause people in this country to shudder, all kinds of things, about everything that Chavez – as you know, he’s not shy about speaking his mind. So he has made all kinds of comments about all kinds of things. None of those statements give you reason to believe that he’s gone a bit off the range? STONE: No, no. Listen, I was with him not too long ago. I was with him in 2007 and 2009. I mean, he’s under attack, but he’s a free man and I think sometimes he speaks without perhaps – he’s a big bear of a man. He’s gruff, you know, and he sometimes speaks off the cuff. He is a popular leader, but he serves the people. He’s not corrupt in any way. I find him a free soul. SMILEY: Off the cuff remarks, off the wall remarks, two different things. You think they’re off the cuff, not off the wall? STONE: Well, I don’t know which ones you’re referring to. I mean, if he’s calling Bush – “the Devil was here yesterday” – you know, I think that’s a great comment. I think it’s true. I mean, at that point, Bush was going to war in Iraq against the wishes of the majority of the United Nations. By the way, as somebody has pointed out, Chavez at the U.N. that day got the most longest applause of anybody there at the entire sessions. It’s quite something. So North America has made a big issue of everything he says, but, you know, Bush is the one who started the war. The coup d’etat of 2002, you know, was initiated by the Venezuelan oligarchy and supported and abetted by the U.S. and we make that very clear in the film. SMILEY: I’ll recall that comment about Bush as long as I live. As you may have heard – STONE: – Well, he is the devil. He was. Smiley deserves some credit for questioning around the edges about Chavez’s dictatorial tendencies, even as Stone denied it all as ridiculous. When Smiley asked whether Obama was different than Bush, he complained it was “Bush lite,” and knocked Hillary Clinton: You know, Hillary was down there a few weeks ago and there she was trying to separate Ecuador from Venezuela. She’s an agent of the old empire game. It’s a dead end for us. We keep overreaching. We want to control anybody who steps out of line, which is a regional power…. We are saying – basically, you know what it is? The pact for the New American Century, remember from the 1990s, when Bush and Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz, wrote that pact about the American unilateral control of the world. We will brook the appearance. We will not allow for the emergence or any military or economic rival. I went into that in the W film I did on Bush. This is our policy and, whatever Obama says, this is what he’s pursuing in Afghanistan. There’s been no real change in that policy. We have our empire; we are number one. We are the world’s policemen and we will not brook an interference in that. The tone is lighter; the words are lighter, but it’s a soft power. It’s not strictly anti-American to knock President Bush or Hillary Clinton, but Stone had a more generic critique of “our empire,” and overall American arrogance in global affairs: STONE: The U.S. has knocked off so many reformers over the last hundred years, but they’ve all emerged independently. Except for Castro, they all went down, every single one from Guatemala, Panama, Brazil, Chile, constantly. This is the first time we have not been able to do anything. Hopefully, this is going to stay stable, but right now we’re fighting actively to get rid of them. SMILEY: You’re not naive, obviously. You like shaking things up, don’t you? STONE: No, I like – SMILEY: Yeah, you do. Come on. STONE: If I were, I’d be more political. I’d be more overt. SMILEY: This isn’t political and overt? STONE: Well, I like making movies. I love feature movies, as you know, but documentaries are fresh and they keep me humble and they keep me in the field. If I can contribute a little light to the worldwide cause and alert people in our country as to what our empire is really doing , I think I’d be doing some good in my life.

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On PBS, Oliver Stone Loved Hugo Chavez Calling Dubya the ‘Devil’: ‘It’s True’

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Sarah Palin: ‘You Don’t Wanna Mess With Conservative Women!’

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

In a new video out today, Conservative bombthrower Sarah Palin sends a warning message to big-government liberals: “You thought pitbulls were tough? Well, you don’t wanna mess with the Mama Grizzlies!” The video celebrating Conservative women’s activism was released by Palin’s political action committee, SarahPAC. “It seems like it’s kind of a mom awakening in the last year and a half,” says Palin, as clips of women activists at political speeches and Tea Party rallies flash over the screen. “Where women are rising up and saying ‘No — we’ve had enough, already.’ Because moms kind of just know when something’s wrong.” The inspiring message in the video contrasts with attacks against Conservative women that are regularly launched by media and political figures on the left. In May, liberal talker Mike Malloy called Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., a “phony-ass broad” and a “skank.” Last October, Keith Olbermann referred to Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin as “a mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” And last September, Ed Schultz dismissed the brilliant attorney and former State Department official Liz Cheney as “daddy’s little girl” — a reference to her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

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Cox Reporter Rips Right-Wing Luminaries for ‘Rumor’ About Offshore Drilling Plans in Cuba, Burns Herself

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Rush has spent a considerable portion of today’s broadcast ripping into this article by Christine Stapleton of Cox Newspapers, and rightly so, for the first three of the four opening paragraphs that follow: Despite the warnings of Dick Cheney, George Will, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, the Russians are not drilling for oil off Cuba. Neither are the Chinese. In fact, no one — not even Cuba — is drilling for oil off Cuba. The pesky and persistent rumor, bubbling back up with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, is still nothing more than a pesky and persistent rumor — aired in 2008 by former Vice President Cheney (who got the misinformation from conservative columnist Will), repeated on Fox News and recently revived by conservative radio commentator Limbaugh, who told his listeners 10 days after the spill: “The Russians are drilling in a deal with the Cubans in the Gulf. The Vietnamese and Angola are drilling for oil in the Gulf in deals with the Cubans.” However, as oil from BP’s exploded well continues surging from the Gulf floor and washing onto Panhandle beaches, the rumor is poised to become fact. Repsol, a Spanish company, expects to begin drilling off Cuba in 2011, according to published reports and oil-industry analysts. Companies from at least 10 other countries, including Russia and China, are negotiating or already have signed lease deals to drill off Cuba. It’s as if Cheney, Limbaugh, and Will have been making things up out of thin air all along, nothing at all has happened until now, and they’re all of sudden just getting lucky. Horse manure. Stapleton’s comeback would more than likely be, “I’m right, because no one is drilling right at this very moment.” Well, ma’am, if you’re going to get that technical, I will too. This Wall Street Journal story notes that Repsol did some drilling in 2004, and then stopped after results were disappointing. So the Spanish company isn’t about to “begin” drilling, it’s going to “resume” doing so. And while we’re at it, Ms. Stapleton, a person doesn’t issue “warnings” about what is happening, they do so about what’s coming. So when you try to claim that the conservative trio was claiming that substantial drilling was already occurring two years ago, anyone reading and listening in context knew that they meant that the Russians, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Angolans — and for that matter, Petrobas , the Brazilian-owned oil company in which George Soros has hundreds of millions of dollars invested (how did she miss that?) — are attempting to work out and in several cases have worked out arrangements with the Cuban government that would or will lead to drilling operations. The linked article also notes that: Cuba’s portion of the Gulf of Mexico (Click image at top right to enlarge — Ed.) has been divided into 59 blocks, of which 17 have been contracted out to companies including Spanish oil giant Repsol and its partners, Malaysia’s Petronas, Brazil’s Petrobras, Venezuela’s PDVSA and PetroVietnam. Shazam! They already have contracts (for what that’s worth in dealing with Fidel Castro’s communist workers’ paradise). Rush also pointed to this Associated Press item from July 2006 carried at the Washington Post. From here on out, say a growing chorus of experts, America will pay a price for maintaining its 45-year trade ban with the communist nation — a strategic and economic price that will have negative repercussions for the United States in the decades to come. What has changed the equation? Oil. To be more specific, recent, sizable discoveries of it in the North Cuba Basin — deep-water fields that have already drawn the interest of companies from China, India, Norway, Spain, Canada, Venezuela and Brazil. This, in turn, has reheated debate in the U.S. Congress and the Cuban-American community on an old question: Has the time finally come to shelve the embargo — given America’s need for more sources of crude at a time of rising gas prices, soaring global demand and the outbreak of war in the Middle East? Thus, there has been interest in Cuba’s oil for four years. This, along with the contractual arrangements cited above, makes the existence of plans to drill in Cuba far more than the “pesky and persistent rumor” Ms. Stapleton cited. Ms. Stapleton should have put a hold on the bashing and stuck to reporting the relevant facts. Instead she chose to insult informed readers’ intelligence by taking cheap and ineffective shots at people who have been proven right time and time again — including this time. Your loss, ma’am. Graphic found at the Palm Beach Post . Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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Cox Reporter Rips Right-Wing Luminaries for ‘Rumor’ About Offshore Drilling Plans in Cuba, Burns Herself

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CNN’s Headline News Channel to Air Unprecedented FULL Hour to Animal Rights on Monday, July 5 2010, 7:00PM ET (4:00PM PT) | "Jane’s Fight for Animal Rights"

Posted on July 3, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| 217 Comments

July 3, 2010 CNN to Air Hour-Long Special on Animal Rights By Nathan Runkle CroppedJaneVelez.jpg Jane Velez-Mitchell – a fierce force for animals – will dedicate an unprecedented full hour to animal rights this Monday on “Issues.” The special, titled “Jane's Fight for Animal Rights” will air on CNN's Headline News Network on July 5th at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Jane will be speaking with representatives from many major animal protection groups, such as the Humane Society of the United States, In Defense of Animals, Sea Shepherd, Farm Sanctuary and Mercy For Animals. The episode will feature MFA's Willet Dairy and Conklin Dairy Farms investigations, including interviews with Nathan Runkle and an MFA undercover investigator. Topics to be covered include: * The Gulf oil spill and its impact on animals * The Ohio ballot initiative and nationwide movement to give farmed animals basic legal protections * The fight against a monkey-breeding facility in Puerto Rico * Nevada's wild horse round-up Jane will also welcome special guests, Bob Barker, Pierce Brosnan and Jorja Fox of CSI. Enthusiastic viewer response in the past has enabled Jane to continue her animal rights coverage, and we all want fantastic ratings on this upcoming special. So, please tune in this Monday and ask all of your friends and family to do the same! If you TiVo or DVR the show and watch it within three days, the ratings still count! Your viewer comments also count, so click here to leave a comment right after the show, or even before the show to thank Jane for fighting the fight for animals. added by: EthicalVegan

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Why the Taliban is winning in Afghanistan

Posted on July 3, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

One of them asked me, 'Why do you hate us?' I replied, 'Because you blow down our doors, enter our houses, pull our women by the hair and kick our children. We cannot accept this. We will fight back, and we will break your teeth, and when your teeth are broken you will leave, just as the British left before you. It is just a matter of time.'” What did he say to that? “He turned to his friend and said, 'If the old men are like this, what will the younger ones be like?' In truth, all the Americans here know that their game is over. It is just their politicians who deny this.” The defeat of the west's latest puppet government on the very same hill of Gandamak where the British came to grief in 1842 made me think, on the way back to Kabul, about the increasingly close parallels between the fix that Nato is in and the one faced by the British 170 years ago. Now as then, the problem is not hatred of the west, so much as a dislike of foreign troops swaggering around and making themselves odious to the very people they are meant to be helping. On the return journey, as we crawled back up the passes towards Kabul, we got stuck behind a US military convoy of eight Humvees and two armoured personnel carriers in full camouflage, all travelling at less than 20 miles per hour. Despite the slow speed, the troops refused to let any Afghan drivers overtake them, for fear of suicide bombers, and they fired warning shots at any who attempted to do so. By the time we reached the top of the pass two hours later, there were 300 cars and trucks backed up behind the convoy, each one full of Afghans furious at being ordered around in their own country by a group of foreigners. Every day, small incidents of arrogance and insensitivity such as this make the anger grow. There has always been an absolute refusal by the Afghans to be ruled by foreigners, or to accept any government perceived as being imposed on the country from abroad. Now as then, the puppet ruler installed by the west has proved inadequate to the job. Too weak, unpopular and corrupt to provide security or development, he has been forced to turn on his puppeteers in order to retain even a vestige of legitimacy in the eyes of his people. Recently, Karzai has accused the US, the UK and the UN of orchestrating a fraud in last year's elections, described Nato forces as “an army of occupation”, and even threatened to join the Taliban if Washington kept putting pressure on him. Shah Shuja did much the same thing in 1842, towards the end of his rule, and was known to have offered his allegiance and assistance to the insurgents who eventually toppled and beheaded him. Now as then, there have been few tangible signs of improvement under the western-backed regime. Despite the US pouring approximately $80bn into Afghanistan, the roads in Kabul are still more rutted than those in the smallest provincial towns of Pakistan. There is little health care; for any severe medical condition, patients still have to fly to India. A quarter of all teachers in Afghanistan are themselves illiterate. In many areas, district governance is almost non-existent: half the governors do not have an office, more than half have no electricity, and most receive only $6 a month in expenses. Civil servants lack the most basic education and skills. This is largely because $76.5bn of the $80bn committed to the country has been spent on military and security, and most of the remaining $3.5bn on international consultants, some of whom are paid in excess of $1,000 a day, according to an Afghan government report. This, in turn, has had other negative effects. As in 1842, the presence of large numbers of well-paid foreign troops has caused the cost of food and provisions to rise, and living standards to fall. The Afghans feel they are getting poorer, not richer. There are other similarities. Then as now, the war effort was partially privatised: it was not so much the British army as a corp

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Robert Redford Blames Cheney for America’s ‘Failed Energy Policy’

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Actor Robert Redford lambasted America’s energy plan that he claimed led to the Gulf disaster, laying the responsibility at the feet of former Vice President Cheney. Appearing Monday night on “Anderson Cooper 360,” Redford blamed the Gulf oil spill not only on BP, but also because of the “failed” energy policy that led to this disaster. ‘There’s a lot being said about BP, and there’s a lot of truth that’s finally bubbling up to the surface,” Redford acknowledged. “But what I’m more interested in is – is looking at it from a historical point of view and trying to connect some dots about how we got here.” “Look, I think one of the reasons we’re in this problem is because we have not only a failed energy policy, but we have an energy policy – because of the way it was designed, and who it was designed by, Cheney – it’s sick and it’s dangerous.” Redford, who supports Obama’s drilling moratorium,  mandated that America must shed its current energy policy and adopt a new one. He rebuked the present policy as an unholy alliance of sorts between Congress, the government, and Big Oil. He gave the example of the US Minerals Management Service (MMS) as an example of a government agency that was asleep at the wheel in its oversight of oil companies. “Look, all that stuff has come out, and it’s painfully obvious what’s happened – the corruption that came with MMS as a result of Dick Cheney and how he engineered this whole thing,” he maintained. Redford’s solution? Get rid of former Vice President Dick Cheney – who’s been a private citizen for 17 months now – and his cronies. “You’ve got to get rid of Cheney and every – and all the horses he came in with. You’ve got to get rid of his energy policy. It’s bad for our health. It’s bad for our economy. It’s bad for our future.” A transcript of Anderson Cooper’s interview with Robert Redford, which aired on June 21, at 10:22 p.m. EDT, is as follows: ANDERSON COOPER, host: As you look at BP’s response to this spill, what stands out? I mean — I think, for a lot of people on the ground here, it’s the lack of transparency that we have seen. What surprises you about the way BP has handled this so far? ROBERT REDFORD: Nothing. What I’m kind of interested in here is, you know, there’s a lot being said about BP, and there’s a lot of truth that’s finally bubbling up to the surface. But what I’m more interested in is — is looking at it from a historical point of view and trying to connect some dots about how we got here. And, you know, when you stop and think about BP’s promises and the consequence of the collusion between government, Congress and big oil companies, what you get is what we’ve got: a failed energy policy — a terrible energy policy — that allowed this to happen. And so, I think, I’m interested in seeing if we can get to the public, connect the dots as to how we got here because we — there have been other disasters despite what they’re saying that have happened. COOPER: It’s interesting because — I mean, Senate Republicans told the President last week, look, focus on the oil spill right now, not on an energy bill. They say the President can’t afford any distractions until this is under control. You say the opposite. You say this is the time to focus on an energy bill. REDFORD: Look, I think one of the reasons we’re in this problem is because we have not only a failed energy policy, but we have an energy policy — because of the way it was designed by who it was designed by, Cheney — it’s sick and it’s dangerous. And any energy policy that’s designed behind closed doors with oil, gas and coal companies is bound to end up being a disaster of some sort. So, I think, we need a new energy policy. And I don’t think it’s next week, or next year or even — it’s now. If we miss this opportunity, we’re missing an incredible opportunity. And history will probably tell us that. So, get rid of this energy policy. It’s a disaster. COOPER: Do you think President Obama has shown leadership in that direction? I mean, he talked — he didn’t really give any details last week about what he wants to see in an energy bill. Were you satisfied with what you heard? Or were you looking for more specifics? REDFORD: No, I wasn’t satisfied with what I heard. I’m somewhat sympathetic to what the guy’s dealing with because he had all these other issues that were paramount when this thing came forward. And I don’t think he or the administration was quite prepared. Nor do I think BP was prepared. Nobody was prepared. I think he’s trying to do the best he can, but I think he’s got to do more. And I think if he thinks that he’s going to push something through with any kind of bipartisanship, I think it should be clear by now that there’s so many voices coming at him from the other side — the voices that, for me, is coming out of the Ice Age, you know, that he should forget about that. He better grab this moment. And I think the public is going to have to push him to push Congress. But he better push them. COOPER: Obviously, around here, the drilling moratorium, the deepwater drilling moratorium is hugely unpopular. There are a lot of jobs at stake here, there’s people suing in courts to try to get this thing overturned — although that seems unlikely to happen. We’ll have a ruling probably by tomorrow. You, obviously, I’m guessing, support the moratorium. Why? REDFORD: Well, I support the moratorium, because I think there’s so many disasters that have occurred in the past when we’ve been lied to about the fact that they would not happen. They have happened. Why have they happened? Because of the collusion between government, Congress and the big oil companies. So, I think — look, we’re not going to get rid of oil. I mean, we should accept that. I accept it. I worked in an oilfield as a kid. But I think what we’re asking for now is a new energy policy. And I think that — I’m totally sympathetic to the people in the Gulf who have lost their jobs, their way of life, environmental devastation and so forth. I understand the voices that want to not have a moratorium because they think it’s going to help jobs. But I think the first thing that should happen is that we have got to figure out — first of all, make sure BP pays every dime that’s owed to these people. My heart goes out to the people on the Gulf. And they need to be paid. And Obama has to push them to do it. Second, we’ve got to figure out how it happened. Why did this happen when we were told over and over again it wouldn’t happen? COOPER: And in terms of oversight by the government — I mean, clearly, the government, both under the Bush administration and even under the Obama administration, have not done as much in terms of reforming MMS. I mean, MMS, which has now been renamed today, has essentially, you know, been kind of a lap dog. REDFORD: It has. Look, all that stuff has come out, and it’s painfully obvious what’s happened — the corruption that came with MMS as a result of Dick Cheney and how he engineered this whole thing. You got to get rid of Cheney and every — and all the horses he came in with. You got to get rid of his energy policy. It’s bad for our health. It’s bad for our economy. It’s bad for our future. And I think the administration has to step up, get tough, get quick, and be very clear about what they’re prescribing. I think they have to be very clear about why there should be some moratorium, like should Shell be allowed to drill up in the Alaskan refuge? No, not yet. We got to get some facts in order first. COOPER: Robert Redford, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. REDFORD: You’re welcome.

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Rudy Giuliani, MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Eviscerate Joe Scarborough for Blaming Bush for Oil Spill

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) and MSNBC anchor Dylan Ratigan on June 17 joined forces to lambaste “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough for continuing to defend President Barack Obama’s handling of the BP oil spill. Scarborough presented a litany of arguments in Obama’s defense, but Giuliani and Ratigan countered with specific examples of the president’s failed leadership. Regurgitating liberal talking points, Scarborough blamed the crisis on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. “We hear that we had the technology to stop this,” Scarborough claimed. “In 2002, though, Dick Cheney and his energy task force said, ‘No, we’re not going to take an extra step.'” Giuliani responded with an eviscerating counter punch: “It’s important to know as part of the history of this but the reality is, he’s been president now for 18 months. It’s about time we stopped blaming Bush.” Scarborough thought that the former New York City Mayor would credit Obama for securing from BP a $20 billion victim compensation fund, but instead Giuliani criticized the president. “I say it was a good deal for BP,” retorted Giuliani. “If I can put even a tentative limit on the liabilities, I’ve helped save my company.” “Democrats only wanted $10 billion,” claimed Scarborough. “You can’t say something nice about the president?” “The president has so mishandled this that it will be impossible for me to even describe how horribly handled this was,” argued Giuliani. “BP would be more than willing to give $20 billion to get themselves somewhat off the hook.” When pressed by Scarborough, Giuliani gave a detailed explanation for how he would have handled the crisis differently: First of all, the first thing I would have done is to bring in experts from the industry who are independent source of advice for me…If your father or mother were sick, you would go get a second opinion from an expert doctor. Not from an academician which is what he did. Go ask the question. Has anyone done remediation before? Has anyone done it better than BP? Bring them in. Make them your eyes and ears. Have them watching everything. Maybe they could have gotten the estimate right of the amount of oil that was coming out. It was horrendous. This is a horrible case of malpractice, negligence, gross negligence. They were off by 60 times. That had to infect every wrong judgment you make. Instead of crediting Giuliani for articulating a coherent plan, Scarborough attempted to deflect and politicize the issue, wondering whether the “malpractice” was “shared by both political parties and the entire Washington establishment over 15 years that has allowed oil companies to drill in areas where they have no backup plan if something goes wrong?” Ratigan rushed to Giuliani’s defense, railing against Obama for failing to consult independent industry experts at the beginning of the crisis: I actually completely agree with the mayor which is we can talk all day about the problems but until you actually address the matter of the fact that oil continues to go into the Gulf of Mexico, and there are other ways to deal with it that have not been brought in, or have been brought in too late–that is shameful. When Giuliani took aim at Obama for addressing the oil spill as a political problem, Scarborough jumped to the president’s defense. “It is a political problem,” exclaimed Scarborough. “It’s a substantive problem, but it’s a political problem!” “He’s just dealing with it as a political problem,” countered Giuliani. “That’s why he went down there only a couple of times at the very beginning. Didn’t take charge. We had Gibbs saying for three weeks that BP was in charge. The speech last night, Obama said the federal government’s been in charge from the beginning. Well, nobody ever told anybody that for the first four weeks. Maybe they were in charge in secret.” Scarborough then claimed that Obama took charge early on, making the oil spill the “top priority for this government,” but Ratigan disagreed, proclaiming, “My biggest criticism of this administration which is why I agree with the mayor when it comes to the response is the incredibly incompetent appearance of the containment strategy.” The transcript of the segment can be found below: MSNBC Morning Joe 6/17/10 8:04 a.m. JOE SCARBOROUGH: $20 billion. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That’s pretty good. RUDY GIULIANI, former New York City mayor: Even nowadays that’s real money. That’s real money. SCARBOROUGH: Let’s give the president– DYLAN RATIGAN: Unless you get it from the Federal Reserve, in which case it’s not real money. SCARBOROUGH: Mr. Mayor, let’s make headlines, let’s give the president credit right now for being able to get $20 billion from BP without a single lawsuit being filed. What do you say? BRZEZINSKI: Come on. SCARBOROUGH: That’s pretty good. GIULIANI: I say it was a good deal for BP. BRZEZINSKI: Why? GIULIANI: Divide it by four or five years. What do they make per year? Jim would know this. JIM CRAMER, CNBC anchor: They make $6 billion per quarter. GIULIANI: If I can put even a tentative limit on the liabilities, I’ve helped save my company. SCARBOROUGH: But they haven’t done that yet. They did not waive liability. GIULIANI: But that’s a pretty good indication of it’s going to be hard to get above that $20 billion. It gets them– SCARBOROUGH: Democrats only wanted $10 billion. You can’t say something nice about the president? BRZEZINSKI: There’s nothing nice here? SCARBOROUGH: You can’t say, “Mr. President, good job of getting $20 billion?” GIULIANI: The president has so mishandled this that it will be impossible for me to even describe how horribly handled this was. SCARBOROUGH: He got $20 billion from people in my backyard. That’s pretty good, isn’t it? GIULIANI: He would have gotten with the same leverage in a second. BP would be more than willing to give $20 billion to get themselves somewhat off the hook. Unfortunately, they stepped all over it with a comment that the CEO made. SCARBOROUGH: What would you have done differently as far as substance goes? GIULIANI: Every single thing from day one. First of all, the first thing I would have done is to bring in experts from the industry who are independent source of advice for me. I met with some of the– SCARBOROUGH: The president didn’t do that? GIULIANI: Two days ago I had dinner in Houston, with several people who were top people in the industry. Never reached out. Never, never asked, gee, has Shell done this before? Has Exxon done this before? If your father or mother were sick, you would go get a second opinion from an expert doctor. Not from an academician which is what he did. Go ask the question. Has anyone done remediation before? Has anyone done it better than BP? Bring them in. Make them your eyes and ears. Have them watching everything. Maybe they could have gotten the estimate right of the amount of oil that was coming out. It was horrendous. This is a horrible case of malpractice, negligence, gross negligence. They were off by 60 times. That had to infect every wrong judgment you make. SCARBOROUGH: Isn’t that malpractice, though, shared by both political parties and entire Washington establishment over 15 years that has allowed oil companies to drill in areas where they have no backup plan if something goes wrong? DYLAN RATIGAN, MSNBC anchor: I’ll do you one better. The American people consume four gallons of gasoline for every gallon of gasoline that exists on the Earth. We have the biggest subsidized cost of energy. We have a false price for energy in our country to this day. The cost of the wars is not in the cost of energy. The environmental liability is not in the cost of the energy. None of the liability associated with our lifestyle is actually priced in. For capitalism to work, you actually have to be paying the actual price that represents the actual cost. So if we were actually paying the real cost of energy, we would be incentivized, believe me, to come up with something else. But because of the government and the culture of political expedience subsidies of energy costs everybody’s happy to take it so we hire BP to the tune of $6 billion a quarter to figure out–which is not easy, by the way–the technology to drop 18,000 feet beneath the ocean surface to suck oil out so we can continue to enjoy our lifestyle. If you ask me whether it’s the obvious failure in the government–MMS is obviously conflicted. Whether it’s the obvious fact that we built a sports car that could basically do anything. They had the technology to go to the bottom of the sea but they didn’t have a braking system, no way to turn it off which is incredibly reckless. And you put it all together. You find yourself in a situation where everybody’s pointing fingers but no one is containing the spill. So I actually completely agree with the mayor which is we can talk all day about the problems but until you actually address the matter of the fact that oil continues to go into the Gulf of Mexico, and there are other ways to deal with it that have not been brought in, or have been brought in too late–that is shameful. SCARBOROUGH: Do you agree that there are because we have been are defending this White House saying on substance for the most part they’ve gotten it right, do you agree with the mayor that actually they haven’t gotten it right? CRAMER: I think the mayor is dead on when he says that if they had known that the spill could be 60,000 barrels, which was available if you talk to the former heads of Exxon or if you talk to Boone Pickens, which you asked me to do. (Inaudible) GIULIANI: And the people in the industry believe that he hasn’t talked to the industry because they’re bad guys. (Inaudible) GILUIANI: A bunch of bad guys. CRAMER: They’re all bad actors. GIULIANI: And from the point of view of crisis management, this is an F. You couldn’t have done it worse. Some day Harvard will do a study on if you have a crisis like this, these are the things that Obama did wrong. Here are the things to do right. I could go on and on; that was the first mistake that he made. The second mistake that he made was to kind of treat this as a political problem. Which he was doing right up until the speech the other night. Treat it as a political problem. SCARBOROUGH: It is a political problem. It’s a substantive problem, but it’s a political problem! GIULIANI: He’s just dealing with it as a political problem. That’s why he went down there only a couple of times at the very beginning. Didn’t take charge. We had Gibbs saying for three weeks that BP was in charge. The speech last night, Obama said the federal government’s been in charge from the beginning. Well, nobody ever told anybody that for the first four weeks. Maybe they were in charge in secret. SCARBOROUGH: Well, the president said himself though on April 22nd. BRZEZINSKI: Yes. I just pulled up that. SCARBOROUGH: On April 22nd he called all the agency heads in and he said, “Okay, listen. This is going to be very bad.” It’s before–it’s before the thing blew out of the water and said this is the top priority for this government. We have to focus on it. This is job number one. RATIGAN: Where is the containment strategy? GIULIANI: That’s worse because if this was job number one look at the horrible–if this is job number one which I don’t think it was because the president was off on vacation twice during all of this, if this were job number one– SCARBOROUGH: Did you go on vacation Mr. Mayor? GIULIANI: Did I go on vacation as mayor? No. SCARBOROUGH: Isn’t that a cheap shot? You never went on vacation? GIULIANI: Not in the middle of a crisis. SCARBOROUGH:  Ronald Reagan went on vacation. George W. Bush went on vacation. GIULIANI: Not in the middle of a crisis. This is the second time the president has done that, and I resent it. On Christmas day when we had Christmas bombing, he was on vacation. Remained on vacation for 11 days. SCARBOROUGH: It was Christmas! GIULIANI: He is the President of the United States of America. SCARBOROUGH: They got microphones in Chicago. GIULIANI: On Christmas evening, the first year that I was the mayor, I left my house and went to the hospital and I spent five hours there because I was the mayor of New York City and I should be on the spot taking charge of something from the very beginning. This has been a gross failure in crisis management. Could not have done it worse. SCARBOROUGH: Okay. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to–   GIULIANI: : And you shouldn’t be on vacation when a crisis is affecting the country. RATIGAN: There are two problems here. One is the capping of the well which I think is BP’s problem. BP obviously was negligent in the construction of dealing the well. There’s a totally unrelated problem, which is the containment problem. And in order to deal with the containment problem, that is the government’s problem and you have to know what the flow rate is accurately and early in order to have a containment strategy. So my biggest criticism of this administration which is why I agree with the mayor when comes to the response is incredibly incompetent appearance of the containment strategy. SCARBOROUGH: That’s not monday morning quarterbacking? I mean, who knew? RATIGAN: The oil is still coming out, Joe. They could still bring–Matt Simmons knew. T. Boone Pickens knew. Booms, put booms around it. Drop a curtain. Put super tankers in the middle and start sucking the oil out. (Inaudible) RATIGAN: Booms, curtain, super tanker. Super suck technology. Next question. GIULIANI: And actually, Joe, it is worse if you’re right and they were in charge from the beginning because if they were in charge at the beginning they really didn’t know what they were doing. I actually don’t think they were in charge. I think their real failure was they trusted BP. And they shouldn’t have trusted BP but they trusted BP. SCARBOROUGH: And let’s just say that has been our one critique on substance that perhaps they–two things. One, they trusted BP too much from the beginning. Two, they made a political calculation that if “we go down there, we own the story. It’s not BP’s story. It’s our story.” That is a critique I think we’ll hear for some time. And can we go right now? Because this is a fascinating conversation. You’re actually the first person that’s come on this show and when I’ve challenged them give me substance. Actually you three guys, you’re talking specifics about what the president should have done. Let’s go to the barni-cam right now. Mike Barnicle. Is he wearing the white sox right now? Are you listening to this? MIKE BARNICLE, MSNBC contributor: Yeah I am. SCARBOROUGH: We’ve got three guys here that are loaded for bear. And they’ve got some specifics. What do you think?                          BRZEZINSKI: Taking shots. BARNICLE: Let’s place all of our faith in BP because they’ve done such a great job. They’re still using the same instruments on oil spills that they were using in California in 1969. If British Petroleum, which they used to call themselves, or any of these oil companies were in charge of technological advancements in our society we would still be using a rotary phone and looking at a 12-inch Bendix TV set. (Inaudible) SCARBOROUGH: Do we have the cameraman from “24” now? Mike Barnicle brings up a point but let me ask you again in the role of devil’s advocate. We hear that we had the technology to stop this. In 2002, though, Dick Cheney and his energy task force said, “No, we’re not going to take an extra step.” GIULIANI: I have no idea what Dick Cheney did, you know, five or six years ago. SCARBOROUGH: Isn’t that important to know? It’s part of the story. GIULIANI: It’s important to know as part of the history of this but the reality is, he’s been president now for 18 months. It’s about time we stopped blaming Bush. RATIGAN: Hang on, Mr. Mayor. I don’t mean to interrupt you but the North Sea has a totally different set of safety standards–totally different governmental standards. These standards have to be taken into consideration. –Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.

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Rudy Giuliani, MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Eviscerate Joe Scarborough for Blaming Bush for Oil Spill

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