Supreme Court Rules On Minnesota Senate Race: Window Closes On Norm Coleman

In what may very well be the death knell for Norm Coleman’s time in the U.S. Senate, the Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously dismissed one of his last legal objections to the recount process.

In a five-to-zero decision, the court rejected a Coleman campaign lawsuit that sought to block the course of the recount due to concerns that some ballots had been counted twice. It was the Minnesota Republican’s last legal angle for making up the 47-vote deficit he currently faces against Al Franken.

Coleman had argued that in the process of recounting, some precincts had accidentally counted both the original ballots and duplicates that were used for those original ballots that couldn’t be properly scanned. But the campaign asked only for the state to look at 25 specific counties, suggesting that the argument was politically and not legally motivated. Moreover, it couldn’t provide evidence that voting tallies during the recount exceeded those on Election Day — which would have been the obvious result of duplicates being counted.

With this issue, seemingly, out of the way, the recount process will come to an end once the state and both campaigns decide what to do about improperly rejected absentee ballots. That should come in early January. And while it would be foolish to predict how the counting and disbursement of these 1,600 ballots would proceed — the two camps have agreed on principles by which the process will be conducted — it seems likely that the results will favor Franken.

Franken’s campaign has been pining to have these wrongfully rejected absentee ballots counted from the beginning of the recount process, suggesting that they believe the votes will favor Franken. It is more common for Democratic voters to make clerical errors on their absentee ballots than it is for Republicans.

All told, the window through which Coleman was looking to hold unto his Senate seat just became measurably narrower.

UPDATE: Not entirely surprising, the Coleman campaign says a lawsuit challenging the results of the election is now a near certainty. According to the Hill:

The Coleman campaign had claimed [duplicate] ballots, created by local election officials to mirror original ballots that were somehow damaged, were sometimes counted twice by accident, and should not be included.

“We are deeply disappointed in that result. The Supreme Court decision virtually guarantees this election will be decided with an election contest,” Fritz Knaak told reporters on a conference call on Christmas Eve. “There’s no question, I mean no question in our minds that [a lawsuit] will happen now.”

Should the Coleman campaign file a contest, which it must do within seven days of the end of ballots being counted, the election results cannot be certified and no one will be sworn in when the 111th Congress meets January 5.

Read more: Franken Coleman, Minnesota Recount, Coleman Recount, Norm Coleman, Al Franken, Supreme Court, Franken Senator, Minnesota Supreme Court, Minnesota Senate Race, Mn Senate Race, Politics News

Obama Blagojevich Report: Team Claims Exoneration

Barack Obama’s chief counsel declared on Tuesday afternoon that only one member of the President-elect’s staff — incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel — had any communications with embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his staff since Obama’s election.

Emanuel’s interactions, moreover, were not in any way improper, Obama’s aides stressed, and the transition team was fully compliant both with the law and the U.S. Attorney’s investigation into Blagojevich’s alleged pay-for-play scheme.

“No one in the Obama circle was aware of what was going on in the governor’s office until he was arrested,” said Greg Craig, Obama’s counsel. “They found out what the Governor was doing the same time the American public found out about it.”

While Craig and spokesman Robert Gibbs debriefed reporters, the Obama transition team put out a five-page report detailing the extent of contacts between the Illinois governor, the President-elect, and their respective staffs.

Read the full text of the Obama report.

As was reported over the weekend, incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel had been in touch with Blagojevich and his chief of staff, primarily about the replacement process for Emanuel’s own congressional seat but also about various Obama replacements.

At some point in mid-November, the Obama internal review states, the president-elect discussed potential “qualified candidates” for the Senate seat with Emanuel and senior adviser David Axelrod. “Those candidates included Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Jesse Jackson, Jr., Dan Hynes and Tammy Duckworth. The President-Elect understood that Rahm Emanuel would relay these names to the Governor’s office as additions to the pool of qualified candidates who might already be under consideration. Mr. Emanuel subsequently confirmed to the President that he had in fact relayed these names. At no time in the discussion of the Senate seat or of possible replacements did the President-Elect hear of a suggestion that the Governor expected a personal benefit in return for making this appointment to the Senate.”

Axelrod and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett both “did not have any contacts with the Governor or his office but are included in the report,” Craig’s findings say. But there is enough back-channel conversation involving Jarrett — mostly second-hand discussion about Blagojevich’s scheme — to possibly create public relations issues for her down the road.

According to the report, Jarrett had one contact with Blagojevich, during a National Governor’s Association Conference in Philadelphia in early December — “over three weeks after she had decided not to pursue the Senate seat.” Jarrett did speak to Tom Balanoff, the head of the Illinois chapter of the Service Employees International Union, who relayed to her that he had spoken with Blagojevich about her being named Obama’s replacement. Balanoff also related that Blagojevich was, perhaps, interested in heading the Department of Health and Human Services in the new administration.

“Mr. Balanoff did not suggest,” the internal report states, “that the Governor, in talking about HHS, was linking a position for himself in the Obama cabinet to the selection of the President-elect’s successor in the Senate, and Ms. Jarrett did not understand the conversation to suggest that the Governor wanted the cabinet seat as a quid pro quo…”

As for the HHS topic, “[Jarrett] viewed that as a ridiculous proposition and waved it off,” Craig said to reporters. “She found it to be a random comment on the face of it, ridiculous, and dismissed it as such.”

The section on Axelrod helps explain a statement he made on the scandal that created some confusion. “After the election, the President-elect discussed — with Mr. Axelrod and Mr. Emanuel — a number of individuals who were highly qualified to take his place in the Senate. Mr. Axelrod was under the impression that the President-elect would convey this information to the Governor or to someone from the Governor’s office, which explains why Mr. Axelrod gave an inaccurate answer on this subject to questions from the press.”

One other newsworthy bit: Craig said that the decision to delay the issuance of the report was made strictly by Patrick Fitzgerald’s office. They were worried about the damage it could cause to their investigation.

“This report was provided to the U.S. attorney’s office today,” said Craig. “It was ready for delivery actually on December 15, when I met with the U.S. Attorney and he asked me on that occasion to hold off out of concerns that by releasing this report we might have some impact on his investigation.”

Read more: Obama Absolution, Obama Greg Craig, Obama Internal Report, Greg Craig Robert Gibbs, Blagojevich Affair, Obama Blagojevich, Politics News

Virginia M. Moncrieff: US-Backed Militias: New Strategy Against Taliban Will Face Same Old Challenges

A new multi-million dollar strategy, with the impressively bland title Afghan Social Outreach Program, has just been approved by Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai. ASOP, funded by the Pentagon and based on The Awakening program in Iraq, will deliver radios, phones, and large amounts of cash given to tribal elders as a bribe to work with government officials and not with the Taliban. (Apparently, there is also a necessity to hand out even more weapons — the country is lousy with them, but we always need another gun).

ASOP will work in Afghanistan’s vast and rugged rural terrain, where most of the country’s 31 million people live, usually in abject poverty and fear. The porous landscape, which can soak up and “disappear” insurgents quicker than you can turn over an APC engine, is one of the major enemies in the war against the Taliban — a strategic nightmare for patrolling troops.

The aim of ASOP is to mobilize elected village officials into bases to ward off insurgents, creating solid blocs of law and order, and to send intelligence of Taliban activity directly to Kabul. Tribal chiefs and senior clerics will also select local men to form militias, which will be armed and trained.

With violence soaring — the last 12 months has seen more Afghans and foreign troops killed and more suicide bombings and kidnapping than any other year since the start of the war — senior NATO and Afghan officials defend the move. They cite growing rural despair and the entreaties of senior Taliban members who want to defect to the government, and who will be part of this new move to reconcile villages held by the Taliban.

David Lang

Mr. Jelani Popal, head of the Independent Directorate of Local Governance, which reports directly to President Karzai, will oversee ASOP. He knows what he’s up against. In addition to the Taliban, he says, “there is a problem of corruption, warlords and the drug mafia.” Mr. Popal wants to fight against the grinding poverty and lawlessness that characterizes most rural people’s lives, and he acknowledges that such issues alienate people from their government — and lead them into the arms of the Taliban.

Law and order is a major concern in Afghanistan — and those who are charged with protecting it fail miserably almost 100% of the time. The Afghan National Police (ANP) force may not be the most corrupt in the world, but it is certainly tilting for the title. (I was in Mazar e Sharif recently working with a local journalist on a story about police taking bribes of one and two cents from local indigent beggars at the mosque.)

With few credentials needed to become a beat cop — no formal education qualifications and just eight weeks training — the police are a good landing ground for those desperate for work and desperate for cash.

It is not the police force’s job to do counter-insurgency work. As the International Crisis Group said in the recent damning report on the Afghan police force: “Too much emphasis is still placed on using the police to fight the insurgency rather than crime. The ANP is ill equipped for this role and has been targeted by the Taliban, with 1,200 killed in 2007 and a similar toll expected in 2008. The goal of the Afghan government and the international community should be a national police force able to uphold the rule of law, and thereby help tackle the root causes of alienation that drive the insurgency.”

But is a poorly trained militia, consisting of young men from high-unemployment areas with no official government role really the answer?

Andy Worthington: The Ten Lies of Dick Cheney (Part Two)

In Part One of this article, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, examined Dick Cheney’s recent interview with ABC News, in which the Vice President presented a detailed defense of the administration’s national security policies, throwing down a very public gauntlet to critics of torture, Guantánamo, illegal wiretapping and the invasion of Iraq. Part One focused on Cheney’s lies regarding the use of torture and the implementation of warrantless wiretapping, and this second part examines his lies regarding Guantánamo and the invasion of Iraq.

5) On the prisoners in Guantánamo

When Jonathan Karl mentioned that President Bush had said that he wanted to close Guantánamo two years ago, and asked, “Why has that not happened?” Cheney said, “It’s very hard to do. Guantánamo has been the repository, if you will, of hundreds of terrorists, or suspected terrorists, that we’ve captured since 9/11. They — many of them, hundreds, have been released back to their home countries. What we have left is the hardcore. Their cases are reviewed on an annual basis to see whether or not they’re still a threat, whether or not they’re still intelligence value in terms of continuing to hold them. But — and we’re down now to some 200 being held at Guantánamo — that includes the core group, the really high-value targets like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

THE LIE: Cheney’s description of the remaining prisoners as “the hardcore” is typical, but by no means accurate, as the Vice President has always claimed that those in Guantánamo are “the hardcore” or “the worst of the worst.” Just two weeks after Guantánamo opened, on January 27, 2002, he told Fox News, “These are the worst of a very bad lot. They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans, innocent Americans, if they can, and they are perfectly prepared to die in the effort.” And last July, on CNN, he said, “I think you need to have someplace to hold those individuals who have been captured during the global war on terror. I’m thinking of people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed … There are hundreds of people like that, and if you closed Guantánamo, you’d have to find someplace else to put these folks.”

Given that around 80 prisoners have been released since Cheney made this last pronouncement, it’s clear that his talk of “hardcore” prisoners is a repeated lie, adjusted according to how many prisoners are actually held at Guantánamo.

In addition, Cheney’s unsubstantiated claim about the remaining prisoners ignores the fact that, as I explained at length in The Guantánamo Files, and have repeatedly described in articles (most recently here), the majority of the prisoners at Guantánamo were captured not by US forces, but by their Afghan and Pakistani allies, at a time when the US military was offering substantial bounty payments for “al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects.” Moreover, they have never been screened adequately to determine whether they should have been declared as “enemy combatants” — not on capture (when they should have received Article 5 battlefield tribunals, according to the Geneva Conventions), not in the prisons in Afghanistan that were used to process them for Guantánamo (where the orders were that every Arab was to be sent to Cuba), and not in Guantánamo itself. The tribunals established to review the status of the prisoners in Guantánamo relied almost exclusively on woefully generic information, and on confessions obtained through the torture, coercion or bribery of other prisoners. As former insider Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham has eloquently explained, the entire process was designed not to provide justice, but to defend the administration’s blanket assertions that the prisoners were “enemy combatants.”

6) On the prisoners’ rights

Cheney continued, “Now, the question, if you’re going to close Guantánamo, what are you going to do with those prisoners? One suggestion is, well, we’ll bring them to the United States. Well, I don’t know very many congressmen, for example, who are eager to have 200 al-Qaeda terrorists deposited in their district. It’s a complex and difficult problem. If you bring them onshore into the United States, they automatically acquire certain legal rights and responsibilities that the government would then have, that they don’t as long as they’re at Guantánamo. And that’s an important consideration.

THE LIE: In this statement, Cheney’s lie, which reveals his disdain for the Supreme Court, is his claim that, as long as the prisoners are in Guantánamo, they don’t have “certain legal rights.” As far as the Supreme Court is concerned, the pretence that Guantánamo was beyond the reach of US law, and that the prisoners could be held without rights, was demolished in June 2004, when the highest court in the land ruled in Rasul v. Bush that Guantánamo was “territory over which the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction and control,” and that, because the prisoners denied that they had “engaged in or plotted acts of aggression against this country,” and had “never been afforded access to any tribunal, much less charged with and convicted of wrongdoing,” they had habeas corpus rights; in other words, the right to challenge the basis of their detention before an impartial judge.

The administration then persuaded Congress to remove these rights in two appalling pieces of legislation — the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 — but the Supreme Court restored their habeas corpus rights in another landmark case in June 2008, Boumediene v. Bush, and made sure that Cheney could not persuade Congress to remove them again by ruling that this time their rights were constitutional.

The prisoners have therefore had “certain legal rights” since June 2004, although it is clear that Cheney still does not regard Supreme Court rulings as having any impact on the President’s whims as the Commander-in-Chief of a self-declared war without end.

7) On conditions at Guantánamo

Next, Cheney said, “These are not American citizens. They are not subject, nor do they have the same rights that an American citizen does vis-à-vis the government. But they are well treated.”

THE LIE: It is hard to conceive of a manner in which the prisoners at Guantánamo are “well treated.” A dedicated PR machine has attempted to make out that they are all coddled and well-fed, but the truth is that, unlike convicted criminals on the US mainland, who watch TV, have opportunities to socialize, receive family visits and have regular access to reading and writing materials, the prisoners in Guantánamo — who have never been charged with a crime, let alone convicted — are deprived of almost all “comfort items” to relieve the crushing monotony of their daily lives and the desperate uncertainty of their fate. They have, for example, never received a single visit from their loved ones, they are still hurled into isolation cells or beaten by armored response teams for the slightest infraction of the rules, and if they protest their seemingly endless imprisonment without charge or trial by embarking on hunger strikes, they are force-fed in the most brutal manner, even though force-feeding competent prisoners is illegal.

8) On the Military Commissions at Guantánamo

Cheney continued, “They also have the opportunity, and the process has just started now to be heard before a military commission with a judgment, fair and honest judgment made about their guilt or innocence, to be represented by counsel provided through that process.”

THE LIE: I have covered the Military Commissions in depth over the last year and a half, and at no point has it ever been demonstrated that the system dreamt up by Cheney and Addington in November 2001 is “fair and honest.” Every defense attorney appointed by the government has risked his or her career by openly criticizing the system, and several prosecutors have resigned in protest at what they regarded as a rigged system, the most significant being Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor, who complained of political interference, and Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who complained that evidence vital to the defense was routinely withheld. Both stories were covered in detail in my article, “The Dark Heart of the Guantánamo Trials.”

Other problems include the fact that two prisoners who were juveniles when seized (Omar Khadr and Mohamed Jawad) have been put forward for trials, despite the fact that no juvenile has been put forward for a war crimes trial since the Second World War, and despite claims that the allegations against them are rigged, and several insignificant Afghan prisoners have also been charged. Moreover, the prisoners regarded as particularly significant (the alleged 9/11 co-conspirators, for example) have been allowed to make a mockery of the system, and on the eve of the Presidential election, a man named Ali Hamza al-Bahlul was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for his association with al-Qaeda, even though he refused to mount a defense. In the rest of the world, that would be referred to as a show trial.

9) On the alleged recidivism of released prisoners

Cheney was asked about the danger of closing Guantánamo “too soon,” shortly after the following disturbing exchange took place:

Jonathan Karl: So when do you think we’ll be at a point where Guantánamo could be responsibly shut down?
Dick Cheney: Well, I think that would come with the end of the war on terror.
Jonathan Karl: When’s that going to be?
Dick Cheney: Well, nobody knows. Nobody can specify that.
Jonathan Karl: But basically it sounds like you’re saying Guantánamo Bay will be open indefinitely.

Cheney said, “Well, if you release people that shouldn’t have been released, and that’s happened in some cases already, you end up with them back on the battlefield. We’ve had, as I recall now — and these are rough numbers, I’d want to check it — but, say, approximately 30 of these folks who’ve been held in Guantánamo, been released, and ended up back on the battlefield again, and we’ve encountered them a second time around. They’ve either been killed or captured in further conflicts with our forces.”

THE LIE: The claim that 30 former prisoners “ended up back on the battlefield” is a staple of Pentagon propaganda, even though it has never been backed up with evidence. Instead, as the Seton Hall Law School noted in a report last December (PDF), the Pentagon regarded speaking out about Guantánamo as “returning to the battlefield” (as in the case of three Britons, Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul, who were involved in a film about their experiences, The Road to Guantánamo).

The Pentagon has also conveniently ignored the fact that at least six Taliban fighters were released because the US authorities had refused to consult with their Afghan allies. In 2004, officials in Hamid Karzai’s government blamed the US for the return of Taliban commanders to the battlefield, explaining that “neither the American military officials, nor the Kabul police, who briefly process the detainees when they are sent home, consult them about the detainees they free.”

The true number of prisoners who have “returned to the battlefield” is certainly less than the number quoted by the Pentagon — and by Dick Cheney — although it should also be noted that, even if it were correct, a recidivism rate of 6 percent is considerably lower than in any other US prison, and indicates, of course, that a large number of those released were not terrorists or militants in the first place.

10) On the reason for invading Iraq

Turning to Iraq, Jonathan Karl said, “You probably saw — Karl Rove last week said that if the intelligence had been correct, we probably would not have gone to war,” and Cheney responded, “I disagree with that. I think the — as I look at the intelligence with respect to Iraq, what they got wrong was that there weren’t any stockpiles. What we found in the after-action reports after the intelligence report was done and then various special groups went and looked at the intelligence and what its validity was, what they found was that Saddam Hussein still had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. He had the technology, he had the people, he had the basic feedstocks. They also found that he had every intention of resuming production once the international sanctions were lifted.”

THE LIE: Brazen to the end, Cheney has clung to the WMD deception as though it had ever been anything other than an excuse for regime change following the illegal invasion of a sovereign country, driven by a deranged desire to gain geopolitical supremacy and establish an ill-defined facsimile of the American political and economic system in the heart of the Middle East.

No one credible agrees with Cheney’s assessment of Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities — or his intentions — and in addition, of course, Cheney has a colourful and reprehensible record of bullying the intelligence agencies into finding reasons to invade Iraq, and promoting the fiction that Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain “yellowcake” uranium ore from Niger.

Moreover, two of Cheney’s particular enthusiasms — the torture of prisoners, and the invasion of Iraq — came together when Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the head of the Khaldan military training camp in Afghanistan (which had little connection with al-Qaeda) was captured and sent to Egypt to be tortured, where he made a false confession that Saddam Hussein had offered to train two al-Qaeda operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons. Al-Libi later recanted his confession, but not until Secretary of State Colin Powell — to his eternal shame — has used the story in February 2003 in an attempt to persuade the UN to support the invasion of Iraq.

This, of course, is disturbing enough, but as David Rose explained in an article in Vanity Fair that coincided with Cheney’s recent ABC News interview, al-Libi was not the only torture victim spouting nonsense about Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

According to two senior intelligence analysts, Abu Zubaydah, the facilitator for the Khaldan camp, who, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was subjected to torture — including waterboarding — also made a number of false confessions about connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, beyond one ludicrous claim which was subsequently leaked by the administration: that Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were working with Saddam Hussein to destabilize the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. One of the analysts, who worked at the Pentagon, explained, “The intelligence community was lapping this up, and so was the administration, obviously. Abu Zubaydah was saying Iraq and al-Qaeda had an operational relationship. It was everything the administration hoped it would be.”

However, none of the analysts knew that these confessions had been obtained through torture. The Pentagon analyst told David Rose, “As soon as I learned that the reports had come from torture, once my anger had subsided I understood the damage it had done. I was so angry, knowing that the higher-ups in the administration knew he was tortured, and that the information he was giving up was tainted by the torture, and that it became one reason to attack Iraq.” He added, “It seems to me they were using torture to achieve a political objective.”

This is the end, for now, of my tour through the dark, unjust and counter-productive world fashioned by Dick Cheney and his colleagues and close advisers in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but I hope — as disturbing rumors begin to swirl — that it serves to confirm how a Presidential pardon for the Vice President would, effectively, be an endorsement for some of the cruellest manfestations of unfettered executive power and disdain for the rule of law that the United States has ever experienced.

Yvonne R. Davis: Senator Coleman, Give Yourself Two Christmas Presents - Acceptance & Peace

Dear Senator Coleman,

Despite what happens to you during this most contentious war for the U.S. Senate Seat in Minnesota, I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I am writing you from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I am away from my family, friends and the snow in Connecticut, but I plan to spend a very beautiful, warm and relaxing holiday in Zanzibar. While I am taking the ferry over later today to spend the night, I plan to review my life in 2008. I will look at all of the incredibly smart things I have said and done to win with others and myself, but also the stupid decisions and mistakes I have made that have cost me. Mostly I’ll ponder about how to peacefully reconcile my present with my future.

Sir, I want to know if you would kindly consider giving yourself two Christmas presents this year - 1. Acceptance of what is meant to be wrapped in a big white bow and 2. Peace of Mind dressed in gold wrapping paper with yellow ribbons.

During President George W. Bush’s first term, I remember seeing you at the White House a number of times. I did not know who you were, but I knew you were with Bush because he always acknowledged you and you always spoke to him after the events. Like the other power guys in the room, you were one of the first ones to talk to him. Afterwords, there was always this big laugh at something the president usually said. I know it sounds odd that someone observed you so carefully, but it should not come to you as a surprise since the people of Minnesota have watched you more closely. Since that time, your relationship with the White House changed dramatically. You critiqued the president’s handling of the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina. At this point, it does not even matter what your status with Bush is. He’s leaving and you are trying to hang on to power by nearly any means necessary.

Now, after the most historic presidential election of Barack Obama, it is Christmas and Hanukah Season, and you still don’t know if you won or not. The State Supreme Court shot down your most recent campaign lawsuit that sought to block the course of the recount due to concerns that some ballots had been counted twice.

I can only imagine how terribly painful it must be to fight so hard to win. Sleepless nights and early morning rises are probably most difficult. I have noticed the signs of aging on your face due to the stress of trying to prove you deserve this Senate seat. I am sure you talk endlessly with your loved ones, campaign staff, friends and anyone who will really lend a listening ear why this nightmarish election against inexperienced comedian like Al Franken is so laughable. It must be difficult to think that perhaps the ultimate shaggy dog story might be on you for losing this seat to someone who either might become a great junior Senator or a big joke like your former Governor Jesse Ventura.

Then again, you might win and then have a national press conference with your family by your side. You may have the opportunity to show that great smile of yours once again, and thank the people of Minnesota for their patience and understanding over this bitter and oh so ugly battle. In as much as this could happen, will you still have peace of mind if you win? Will you still feel like you won with the dignity and pride of winning a seat to serve Minnesotans?

If you lose, can you be like your colleague Senator John McCain and rise out of the ashes like he did? Can you find that place in your heart that leads you to an even greater purpose for your future once you figured what really happened? Are there lessons you can teach others about the true agony of defeat? Please don’t be upset by my questions. These questions can be applied to any leader at any given time.

I am comforted to know that you stated that life goes on should you lose. I just only hope it was more than just words. I am not advocating that you give up or thrown in the towel, but whatever the outcome, I hope you can look into the eyes of the people of Minnesota with reconciliation and a new self awareness.

Ben Wyskida: Shearer’s Strange Broadside

We couldn’t let Harry Shearer’s post Tuesday, (”New Orleans Faces The Nation“) pass without a reply. Shearer’s strange broadside took The Nation magazine (and by extension the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute) to task for our publication of Katrina’s Hidden Race War, an 18-month investigation that exposed a series of racially-motivated vigilante shootings and alleged misconduct by law enforcement in New Orleans.

In his post, Shearer accepts the general thesis of The Nation’s article, which revealed these crimes. He goes after a couple of details about the piece, calling them lies. (We stand by the piece in full.) But his main criticism of our investigation is that it wasn’t something else, specifically an investigation into the role of the Army Corps of Engineers and their culpability in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In short, Shearer attacks The Nation for writing an expose about race violence and police brutality in New Orleans and not on his preferred subject.

What Shearer proposes is, in fact, a worthy investigation. The Nation, in our extensive coverage of Gulf Reconstruction including a book and two special issues on Hurricane Katrina, has reported on the issue at some length. But Shearer’s broadside belies a lack of understanding about investigative journalism. When a reporter uncovers details of an atrocity (in this case a self-appointed militia shooting with impunity) the role of a vital and vibrant investigative media is to provide the resources and support necessary to ferret out the truth. The role is not to say “thanks, but please conduct a wholly different investigation,” or to suppress those details. To criticize an investigation because it brought to light racially motivated shootings and possible police misconduct instead of bringing to light misdeeds of the Army Corps is unfortunate and short-sighted.

In an introduction to Katrina’s Hidden Race War, The Editors of The Nation wrote that “Hurricane Katrina still stands as a symbol of our elected officials’ brutal indifference to the lives of poor African-Americans. If we as a nation are ever truly to transcend race, tolerance for racist violence in our midst must come to an end.” We are heartened by the initial response to Katrina’s Hidden Race War, as thousands have joined a campaign at Color of Change demanding an investigation, over 125,000 have viewed a companion video, and Congressman Conyers has signaled his concern and interest in the matter. Yesterday the New Orleans Police released a terse statement, pushed to do so by public pressure from the media scrutiny. This response offers the hope of accountability. Perhaps Mr. Shearer would prefer to read about something else. But for those involved in these tragic incidents, there is no doubt that they should be reviewed in full.

Ben Wyskida directs publicity and syndication for The Nation.

Jewish Groups Convene For Obama Transition Meeting

High-ranking officials with Barack Obama’s transition team met for roughly two-and-a-half hours with a wide-range of Jewish groups that encompassed nearly the entire ideological spectrum.

The meeting, which involved 29 organizations ranging from hawkish (Zionist Organization of America and, to a lesser extent, AIPAC) and conservative (the Orthodox Union) to Democratic (the National Jewish Democratic Council) and progressive (J Street, Peace Now), took place in the transition’s Washington D.C. office on Thursday afternoon.

Reflecting the variety of viewpoints at the table, a host of foreign policy and domestic topics were raised for discussion. Disagreements between the groups were aired before the Obama officials, which included deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, public liaison Michael Strautmanis, Jewish outreach coordinator Dan Shapiro, and aides Tonya Robinson and Eric Lynn.

On several occasions, the Obama team was pressed to define the president-elect’s position on a paramount issue to Jewish groups: U.S. policy towards Iran.

“They assured us, as the vice president-elect has said, that the Iran/nuclear issue is one of the things at the very top of the agenda,” said an attendee. “They repeated the idea that we should be focusing on it diplomatically and not just militarily. Some of the more right-wing groups were saying that it can’t be carrots and no sticks, that we are running out of time…. The Obama team said [in response] that preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is an issue that the president-elect, as he’s made clear during and after the election, considers a primary concern. It is not something that will fall off the radar.”

Participants in the meeting, which was first reported by Politico’s Ben Smith, also addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Pretty much everybody in there but a handful of people were for a two-state solution,” said an attendee. Obama’s positions on energy and health care received attention as well.

“On domestic issues, except for some of the orthodox groups, it sounded like a cheerleading session for the transition team’s format,” said the source.

What stood out, above all else, was not any particular policy statements, but rather the gathering of such ideologically disparate groups under one roof. The meeting, the attendee noted, was very much in line with the Obama campaign’s stated mission to listen to a whole host of opinions when it comes to formulating foreign policy.

“The fact that they took time to do this,” said the source, “and that they did this with senior transition people, was deeply appreciated.”

Read more: Jewish Organizations, Obama Transition, Obama Jews, Obama Foriegn Policy, Transition Team, Obama Iran, Obama Israel, Obama Jewish Groups, Iran Policy, Barack Obama Iran Statement, President Obama, Iran, Politics News

Obama Media Strategy Insight: Ignore The Page , Politico

So, the paragraph that everyone’s dining out on from this weekend’s coming New York Times Magazine profile of President-elect Obama’s communications guru Robert Gibbs appears to be this one:

The paradox of this scene was that the Obama campaign’s communications strategy was predicated in part on an aggressive indifference to this insider set. Staff members were encouraged to ignore new Web sites like The Page, written by Time’s Mark Halperin, and Politico, both of which had gained instant cachet among the Washington smarty-pants set. “If Politico and Halperin say we’re winning, we’re losing,” Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, would repeat mantralike around headquarters.

Now, look. I think you’re really kidding yourself if you think the Obama campaign straight-up ignored the Politico. I’m quite sure they were dutifully fed the Obama camp’s talking points on a regular basis. Nevertheless, the statement “If Politico and Halperin say we’re winning, we’re losing” is not entirely hyperbolic.

Some examples? Roger Simon’s repeated, dubious defenses of Sarah Palin’s debate performances come to mind as precisely the sort of content that caused the Obama campaign precisely zero concern. Simon penned a addlepated valentine to Palin’s debating that basically boiled down to: “By not soiling herself onstage, Palin was the big winner.” He followed it up with similarly goopy, out-of-the-loop defenses on TV, such as this exchange with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Here she is, Governor Palin, on the office of the vice presidency. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. SARAH PALIN (R-AK), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that’s not only to preside over the Senate and will take that position very seriously also. I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: OK. I want to know what you both think about what 00 I mean, I thought for a moment I was hearing “precious bodily fluids” there.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: All of a sudden, a candidate — a candidate for president — vice president of the United States is talking about a new expansive role for the vice presidency in presiding over the Senate.

Roger, you have been defending her performance tonight. Explain what she is up to here.

SIMON: You know, that was like the 86th minute of the debate or something.

MATTHEWS: Yes. I was paying attention.

SIMON: Yes. Was America?

Ha ha. As it turns out, America was paying attention, silly goose! The debate had been billed as THE geek show of the political season, after all! Polls conducted by CBS and CNN after the debate declared Biden the decisive, double-digit winner, and, at her next opportunity, comedienne Tina Fey leveled Palin’s performance by putting all the things that Simon missed in his analysis (especially Palin’s strategy of answering questions with answers that did not in any way relate to the question) on high-contrast display. Americans paid attention to that, too! What Americans managed to reject in large numbers was the notion that Palin’s debate performance elevated her, or her ticket, in any meaningful way.

Of course, that the Obama camp ignored “The Page” makes even more sense, because The Page is just an incoherently written website geared towards tricking people into making as many ad-revenue-generating clicks as possible. But, specific to the matter of “if they say we’re winning, we’re losing,” I recall noting a well-documented example of this phenomenon. In a week where John McCain said multiple conflicting things on the state of the economy, got slagged by a slew of prominent conservatives for selecting Palin, complained about the rough treatment he received on The View, had one surrogate banished for suggesting that he lacked the acumen to run a corporation, had another surrogate make a perplexing statement about how the candidate had invented the Blackberry, and topped it all off by picking a bizarre fight with Spain, Mark Halperin declared in the biggest and most colorful fonts he could muster that “McCain Wins The Week.”

So, yeah. I’d totally put The Page on fade, too. And now that the election is over, I’d wager that most people are following this aspect of Robert Gibbs’ media strategy.

Read more: Politics News, Obama New Media Sites, Gibbs New Media Site, New York Times Magazine, Gibbs Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs Obama, Robert Gibbs Debate, Gibbs Nyt Magazine, Robert Gibbs, Obama Message, Barack Obama, Gibbs Political Message, Media News

Arlene M. Roberts: Forging an Equity Agenda Aimed at Inclusion Across America

Over the next several weeks, as President-elect Obama and his transition team prioritize issues to be addressed by the new administration, I urge them to give due consideration to an equity agenda.

There is no better time for implementing an equity agenda than now. Unemployment rates keep rising each month, the foreclosure crisis is at a peak, and prices for basic necessities such as food are increasing at alarming rates. According to reports, 37 million people live in poverty and an additional 40 million people live below 200 percent of the poverty level. Many more are one paycheck away from poverty. All it takes is one health crisis or a downsizing at the office.

Recently I attended a policy forum hosted by The New School featuring Angela Glover Blackwell as the keynote speaker. As founder and chief executive of PolicyLink, Ms. Glover is an advocate committed to advancing economic and social equity. At the Center for American Progress , she has served as co-chair of the project “Hope, Opportunity and Mobility for Everyone (HOME)”. Ms. Blackwell defines equity as just and fair inclusion. She went on to say, “An equitable society is one in which everyone can participate and prosper. In other words, equity creates a path from hope to change.” Before the evening was over, Ms. Blackwell had outlined the framework for an equity agenda:

Earned Income Tax Credit: This credit should be expanded so that large families are now eligible for enhanced benefits and individuals without children are covered.

Child Care: According to Ms. Blackwell, “In this country, where you live has become a proxy not only for opportunity but also for longevity and quality of life.” We should expand child care provisions and work towards increasing programs such as Head Start.

Create Opportunity for All: Make sure young people go to college. Strengthen programs such as Youth Build which gives youngsters a second chance if they’ve had a troubled childhood.

Provide Second Chances: Support should be provided for individuals attempting to reintegrate into society. This is of particular concern when you consider the rate of incarceration of black men has jumped 50% since the 1950s.

Safety Net: Adequate provisions should be put in place for individuals who are unable to work due to mental illness or drug addictions.

Invest in Urban and Rural Areas: Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen the failure of infrastructure in major centers — manhole explosions in New York City, bridge collapse in Minnesota, and the devastating effects of hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans. We need to invest in large cities by providing efficient mass transportation systems, and offer broadband services in rural areas.

Fresh Food and Greenmarkets: In Ms. Blackwell’s opinion, one true indicator that you’ve reached a low-income neighborhood is the absence of a grocery store. But this need not be the rule. The state of Pennsylvania has adopted the Fresh Food Financing Initiative which can readily be adopted and implemented at the federal level.

According to Ms. Blackwell, there should be no more ‘wars on poverty’ since these are the first to be eliminated when hard times hit. Rather, programs should be implemented as a matter of ‘good government’. When we solve problems for the most vulnerable, we solve problems for everyone.

Bob Burnett: Obama’s Experiment

On November 4th, Barack Obama was elected President as the result of the most effective political campaign in American history. The election of American’s first black President was a tribute to his skill as a community organizer and the tenacity of his ten million volunteers. Now Obama plans to harness their energy in a novel experiment in democracy.

On December 13th and 14th, Obamacons were invited to “Change is Coming” house parties across the United States. From all reports these meetings were wildly successful; those held in the San Francisco Bay Area were oversubscribed and anyone who was tardy emailing their RSVP often had to travel more than fifty miles to find an available slot. At the Berkeley meeting I attended, most of the sixteen participants had worked in local phone banks calling voters in swing states. Several of us had traveled to Colorado, Nevada, or Ohio to be part of the massive Obama field operation.

The directive from David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, was for house party participants to “Discuss the issues that are most important to you, what you can do to support Barack’s agenda… and how you can continue to make an impact in your community.”

My group spent most of three hours talking about six domestic issues and the omnibus subject of foreign policy. Perhaps because the gathering was held in Berkeley, the environment garnered the most attention. Most of the concerns arose from the perspective: “we are running out of time to address global warming.” Participants shared an orientation to “think globally and act locally.” They trusted Obama to make independent decisions without being co-opted by lobbyists from multinational corporations or energy companies.

As was to be expected, participants were worried about the economy and believed the current downturn is the most serious financial crisis since The Great Depression. They expected President Obama to launch a massive effort to create jobs by an investment in the nation’s infrastructure. They argued that he would to well to simultaneously raise the minimum wage so that it becomes a “living” wage. While the Berkeley group recognized the necessity of economic bailouts, they were outraged that so far the process appears to favor corporate executives and stockholders rather than workers. They believed the receipt of federal funds should be contingent on strict rules, such as cessation of stock dividends and executive bonuses. There was a consensus that the financial industry needs to be re regulated. Several participants bemoaned the lack of attention to homeowners faced with foreclosure.

The Berkeley group members saw their concerns about the environment and the economy as closely related to national energy policy. They expect President Obama to accelerate a conversion to green energy sources and to launch a green jobs program to make public facilities energy efficient. Several participants noted retrofitting public/commercial buildings will spur employment.

There was agreement that Obama should push forward with a national healthcare initiative but not a consensus he should adopt the “single payer” model. Obvious first steps include expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), recently vetoed by George Bush, and lowering the eligibility age for Medicare.

House party participants expected President Obama to expand early childhood Education as well as the college tuition loan program. We anticipate Obama will reverse the human rights abuses perpetrated by George Bush: end the practice of torture, close Guantanamo, reinstate habeas corpus, reign in the “imperial presidency,” and restore check and balances in Washington.

A long discussion about foreign policy brought little consensus but recognition that the Obama administration faces many daunting challenges including withdrawal from Iraq and pacifying Afghanistan. There were strong words about the Bush Administration’s “hands off” approach to Israel. Participants agreed that America needs to “lead by example” and this is the most important role Obama can play: be a leader we respect.

While intellectually satisfying, the Berkeley house party I attended didn’t answer the question: where does the Obama movement go from here? After we’ve summarized our responses to the seven policy areas, these will wend their way to David Plouffe and the Obama organization. But what happens next is unclear. How is Obamcon participatory democracy going to work?

Perhaps it will be an extension of the MoveOn model: my Berkeley group seemed ready to support 2009 Obama legislative initiatives through public demonstrations plus phone calls and emails to recalcitrant Congress people. Perhaps Obama-style democracy will emphasize community service; if Obamacons are going to think globally and act locally, then the enthusiasm generated by the Obama campaign could be funneled into local service projects, such as support for local food banks or homeless shelters.

It’s not yet apparent where Obama’s participatory democracy experiment is going. But what is clear is that millions of Obamcons are still pushing for change.

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