The law: It's not for 'people like us'

David Broder has lost his mind.

At least I hope so -- that would be the charitable explanation for his Washington Post column urging President Obama to let sleeping torturers lie. But I don't think that's the case.

NO, I THINK there's another explanation for rhetoric like this:

Obama, to his credit, has ended one of the darkest chapters of American history, when certain terrorist suspects were whisked off to secret prisons and subjected to waterboarding and other forms of painful coercion in hopes of extracting information about threats to the United States.

He was right to do this. But he was just as right to declare that there should be no prosecution of those who carried out what had been the policy of the United States government. And he was right when he sent out his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to declare that the same amnesty should apply to the lawyers and bureaucrats who devised and justified the Bush administration practices.

But now Obama is being lobbied by politicians and voters who want something more -- the humiliation and/or punishment of those responsible for the policies of the past. They are looking for individual scalps -- or, at least, careers and reputations.

Their argument is that without identifying and punishing the perpetrators, there can be no accountability -- and therefore no deterrent lesson for future administrations. It is a plausible-sounding rationale, but it cloaks an unworthy desire for vengeance.

Obama has opposed even the blandest form of investigation, a so-called truth commission, and has shown himself willing to confront this kind of populist anger. When the grass roots were stirred by the desire for vengeance against the AIG officers who received contractual bonuses from government bailout funds, Obama bought time by questioning the tactic. Quickly the patently unconstitutional 90 percent tax the House wanted to slap on those bonuses was forgotten.

LOOKING FOR SCALPS? Wait a minute. Just wait a minute. U.S. and international law prohibits torture of captured combatants, with penalties ranging up to death if the torture is fatal. Furthermore, the United States has led prosecution of torturers from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in the wake of World War II, sending those individuals to prison for years. Or worse.

I think this example is interesting. An American military commission, in 1947, tried four Japanese defendants for war crimes committed against U.S. prisoners. Among the war crimes? Waterboarding.

Of course, Japanese war criminals had nothing on your average Texas sheriff.

In 1983, the San Jacinto County sheriff and three deputies were charged with -- and convicted of -- waterboarding prisoners to elicit confessions. The "lawmen" all went to prison for a long, long time.

As the judge said in federal court as he passed sentence: ''The operation down there would embarrass the dictator of a country.''

But not, as it turns out, a certain president of the United States hailing from the Lone Star state.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I gather what American interrogators did to "enemy combatants" in the name of the American people does embarrass David Broder. Just not enough to prosecute Bush Administration figures for acting just like Hitler's and Tojo's henchmen . . . or sadistic Texas lawmen.

No, according to Broder, war crimes just aren't that big a deal when it's Americans committing them. Or ordering them. I'll bet the venerable pundit also wonders why the world hates us.

Probably, in the fever swamp of his Beltway consciousness, Broder believes the world -- like the left-wing Washington ideologues and the provincial populist yahoos -- just harbors an "unworthy desire for vengeance." Vengeance identical to that we took against the Nazis and Japanese for their World War II atrocities, no doubt.

What were we thinking back then?

Couldn't Harry Truman see he was engaging "in a retroactive search for scapegoats"?

It's all so clear. At least to Broder:

That way, inevitably, lies endless political warfare. It would set the precedent for turning all future policy disagreements into political or criminal vendettas. That way lies untold bitterness -- and injustice.

IF ONLY President Truman had had the wisdom and foresight of David Broder, ace columnist of The Washington Post, we might have spared ourselves six decades of poisoned relations with Germany and Japan. Who knows? Perhaps we even could have turned those fierce enemies into close allies.

Oh, wait. . . .

Nevertheless, the point remains for the oracle Broder: Justice is never its own reward. Justice may or may not be useful depending upon what one's ulterior motives happen to be.

Like Pontius Pilate -- his philosophical brother two millennia removed who famously asked "What is truth?" -- Broder stands before verifiable, objective truth and muses "What is justice?"

Obviously, he figures justice must be radically different today for civilized people -- D.C. insiders with whom he's shared drinks and bon mots -- than it was for uncouth Nazis and wild-eyed Japanese fanatics of the 1940s.

Or for some Buford Pusser gone wrong in Bumf*** Tejas.

AND THE REST of us who figure the law is the law is the law . . . and that no man stands above it? In the world of David Broder and his Washington cronies, we're just so many grass-roots vigilantes, full of "populist anger" and hell-bent on vengeance.

No, in BroderWorld, the elites stick together against the rabble -- those crazy folk talking crazy talk. Really, what nut came up with foolishness like "government of the people, by the people, for the people" anyway?

Obviously, some rube who didn't know who his betters were.

Flu Fest?

You have to wonder whether epidemiologists, amid this Age of Swine Flu suddenly upon us, are looking at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival right now and starting to panic just a little.

After all, hundreds of thousands of partying drunk people -- jamming to the music in close quarters -- don't cover when they cough.

From MSNBC, the latest on the sudden maybe-epidemic:

Worries that the new swine flu strain that has killed as many as 68 people and sickened more than 1,000 across Mexico has “pandemic potential” increased with the announcement that the virus has spread to Kansas and likely to New York City.

On Saturday, two new cases were confirmed in Kansas — the first U.S. cases outside of California or Texas. An additional case was confirmed in California. And New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said tests showed that eight New York high schoolers had a type A influenza virus that was "probable" swine flu.

Samples have been sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for further testing to see if they are indeed the unusual H1N1 strain of swine flu; results are expected Sunday. The students showed only mild flu symptoms and are feeling better.

"What is concerning about this is that it is likely swine flu and second that it is spreading person to person," Frieden said. He added, "We have seen no increase citywide in flu-like cases."

About 100 students at the private St. Francis Preparatory School in the New York City borough of Queens became sick last week, prompting the tests.

The Kansas cases involved two adults living in the same house; one is still ill and the other is recovering. One of the patients recently traveled to Mexico, flying in and out of Wichita.

NBC News has also learned there are suspected cases in Minnesota and Massachusetts. The total number of U.S. cases stands at 11 confirmed so far.

'Be prepared for uncertainty'
It may be too late to contain the sudden outbreak, warned the CDC, which has stepped up surveillance across the United States. "We are worried," said the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat.

“We don’t think we can contain the spread of this virus,” said Schuchat, Interim Deputy Director for Science and Public Health Program. “We are likely to find it in many other places.”

3 Chords & the Truth: Eschew the malodorous

This week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth reinforces the central premise of this audio endeavor: There are two kinds of music -- good and bad.

The bad, we don't mess with.

And that's all I have to say about that.

WHAT? YOU WANT to hear more about this week's edition of the Big Show? Alrighty, then. . . .

We at 3 Chords & the Truth are firmly committed to the proposition that there's only two kinds of music -- good and bad. The bad is not worth our time or attention.

Can you think of any other ways for me to say it? That's the deal, and it's not particularly long winded or complex. Mainly, there's lots of wonderful music in the world, spanning many genres, and we think you ought to hear as much of it as possible.

There's also a fair amount of crap floating around out there. That, we shun.

But I repeat myself. Again.

THIS WEEK on the Big Show, we get in a Motown state of mind, and we also span a world of tunage across several genres and 66 years . . . all in a single set. And it works.

You'll be enlightened! You'll be amazed! You'll come back for more!

That's because we're not your average radio show -- mainly because we're not on the radio. And because we don't need no stinking convention . . . no stinking preconceived notions about what we can and can't play.

Like I said, there's just two basic rules around here. Good stuff we play. Bad stuff we don't.

Just that simple.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Kew-kew-kew! What's wrong with Mamou?

Would you like to know why, ultimately, it's a good thing we have the American Civil Liberties Union, no matter how much some of its legal advocacy might rile us?

IT'S BECAUSE there's lots of dumbass, thin-skinned, bullying cops in lots of backwater burgs in various undercivilized states who think nothing of using their police powers to torment, for example, terminally ill critics.

The scene: Mamou, La. The crime, according to the Lafayette Daily Advertiser: a letter to the editor of the Ville Platte, La., newspaper.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court, Bobby Felix Simmons said he e-mailed the Ville Platte Gazette in May after learning that Mamou Police Chief Greg Dupuis had allegedly received a DWI and abused his authority. The e-mail included those allegations, as well as questions about why the paper had not written a story about the matter.

Later that month, Simmons said he was arrested at his home in Franklin. Officers said he was being arrested for "criminal defamation" and that they were acting on a warrant from the Mamou Police Department. Once in the Franklin jail, Simmons alleges that he was not able to bond out because it was against Dupuis' wishes.

The lawsuit goes on to say that Simmons was later driven to the Mamou jail, where he was allegedly placed in an empty cell and was not offered food, water or medication. About a half-hour later, he was brought to the parish jail in Ville Platte and allowed to bond out.

According to the suit, Simmons has a terminal lung condition and requires breathing treatments every four hours, but authorities in both Franklin and Mamou refused to provide medical treatment.

Named as defendants in the suit are the city of Mamou, Dupuis and Mamou police officers Todd Ortis, Albert Moore, David Charlie and Lucas Lavergne.
Following Simmons' arrest, Dupuis was quoted in the Gazette as offering a $500 reward for anyone found to be "spreading rumors" about him, according to the suit.

AND YOU THOUGHT the Dukes of Hazzard was just a TV show. No, as it turns out, the fictional Hazzard County, Ga., was a rather liberal sort of place.

Unlike Mamou. There, it looks like Boss Hogg, Roscoe P. Coltrane and Josef Stalin have been rolled into a single law-enforcement package.

One with a decided mean streak. Which, I suppose, makes me a marked man.

Then again, I suspect Boss Dupuis just might have a leeeeeeetle extradition problem on his hands.

Let them eat newsprint!

I can't decide whether this moment in journalism -- this moment in the history of capitalism -- is a Billie Holiday cum Blood, Sweat and Tears moment or, perhaps, a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young moment instead.

Is the continuing evacuation of journalists out of American journalism just another instance of "them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose -- so the Bible said, and it still is news"? Or is this more like an economic Kent State, corporations figuratively gunning down folks' livelihoods because somebody's got to pay for the sins of the "best and brightest" . . . except, of course, for the best and brightest?

Richard Nixon had the pointless Vietnam War; Sam Zell has a mountain of debt leveraged against the revenues of the Chicago Tribune and the whole damn Tribune Co.

MAYBE . . . just maybe, it's both. Cue Neil Young (loosely rendered):

Tin bankers and Sam Zell's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This spring we all hear the drummin'.
Fifty fired in Chicago.

Gotta get down to it.
Bankers are mowing us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew them and
Found their lives all unwound?
How can you run when you know?

WEDNESDAY, Zell's Tribune purged 53 staffers from its newsroom -- probably meaning nearly that many will never work in journalism again. Fifty-three of the people who on Tuesday brought the news to Chicago readers, on Wednesday wondered how they'd pay the bills . . . put Junior through school . . . put food on the table.

Fiddle-dee-dee. Layoff, layoff, layoff; this layoff talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream.

Fortunately for them -- so as to avert any party screaming -- a whole bunch of Chicago Tribune muckedy-mucks will have millions and millions in bonus money to tamp down their high-society anxiety. It's all in Crain's Chicago Business:

On the same day the Chicago Tribune cut 53 jobs from its newsroom, its parent Tribune Co. asked a Bankruptcy Court to approve of $13.3 million in bonuses and other incentive payments to 703 employees.

The payments are “vitally necessary” to reward employees for a difficult year and motivate them during the current year, according to Tribune's motion filed with the court Wednesday. The top ten executives in the company are not eligible for the payments.

On Wednesday the Chicago Tribune’s difficult year continued, as it cut staff in its latest bid to reduce expenses amid continuing advertising declines, the newspaper’s editor said in a memo.

"With today’s actions, we are making the leap to a newsroom structure that we believe is sustainable barring further significant declines in advertising revenue," Editor Gerould Kern said in a memo to staffers obtained by Crain's. "While some are leaving now, others will join the newsroom over time as we invest in new skills necessary to grow in the future."

Wednesday’s layoffs leave the Trib with 430 workers in its newsroom, Mr. Kern said.

SOMEBODY DONE GONE and took the word "unseemly" right out of Webster's dictionary, didn't they?

For the love of God, the fictional O'Hara family -- Scarlett included -- treated their slaves better than Corporate America treats the country's workers. It's not just a journalism thang -- wait till The Man gets through with the auto workers.

And, soon enough, you.

WE LIVE in an era when not only is the American worker thoroughly expendable -- at least so the suits think -- but also when the "brights" obviously feel some compulsion to rub the faces of the "right-sized" into the detritus of their former livelihoods.

And as the rendering of the middle and working classes into rich men's portfolios continues apace, we're going to really find out what pieces of meat we are.

For, you see, the Culture of Death isn't just for fetuses. Our society is aborting the already-born with reckless abandon . . . in all kinds of ways.

¡Viva la Revolución!

Blind cable channel finds acorn, drops F-bomb

Mrs. Favog is always getting on me about the F-word. She contends there is no proper use of "fudge" (not its real name) except, of course, when she "fudges" up and lets it slip in the heat of the moment.

Just kidding. She's generally mortified she let it slip.

My lowdown, sinful self, however, contends that some uses of the F-bomb are wholly appropriate as a means of conveying gravity and figuratively slapping the listener in the face, shaking him by the lapels and saying "Listen, dammit!" Of course, 99 percent of my personal use of "fudge" is completely gratuitous and, thus, unjustifiable.

EVERY NOW AND AGAIN, though, you run up against a completely justified F-bomb. Shepard Smith just accidentally unleashed one when discussing America's official torture program on the Fox News Channel.

Unfortunately for Shep, it was on live television. Fortunately for Shep, it was on cable TV, so it's not going to cost his bosses a big-time FCC fine.

And fortunately for viewers and connoisseurs of journalism, Shep's performance means there might be hope for "Faux News" after all.

But if Shepard Smith's head does roll due to his on-camera performance, you have to wonder whether it would be over a heaping helping of "fudge" . . . or because he came out foursquare against torturing in the name of God, Mom, apple pie and Chevrolet.


HAT TIP: Your Right Hand Thief.

Kill virtual baby, si. Pass virtual gas, no.

Talk about your "killer app."

Baby shaking is all the rage among the no-self-control set, so we knew it was only a matter of time before some techno sk8r punk app developer brought a prison-free version of it to your iPhone, all for the low, low price of 99 cents.

Not surprisingly, the "Baby Shaker" program made it into Apple's App Store, which deemed a virtual whoopee cushion too tasteless to be sold. Slightly more surprisingly, Apple pulled it after child-welfare groups raised holy hell.

THE FOLLOWING Culture of Death Minute is brought to you commercial-free by Suzanne Choney and MSNBC.com:

A controversial program for the iPhone called "Baby Shaker" was added to, then pulled from, Apple's App Store this week after protests about the program's offensive nature dealing with a deadly serious subject.

Child protection groups were outraged by the 99-cent app for the iPhone and iPhone touch, which encourages those frustrated with babies' crying to shake them, or in this case, shake their devices to change drawings of a crying baby to a calm one.

Apple, "which notoriously and routinely rejects new apps from developers with a 'rigorous' vetting process, nonetheless apparently allowed this horrible application to be sold through its store," said the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, whose aim is assist in the research of new developments for children with pediatric acquired brain injuries such as Shaken Baby Syndrome.

"Not only are they making fun of Shaken Baby Syndrome but they are actually encouraging it. This is absolutely terrible," said Marilyn Barr, founder of the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome and a board member of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation.

Apple, asked about why the Baby Shaker app was approved and how long it was available before being pulled, did not answer those questions.

"It was removed today," was the only statement Wednesday from Natalie Kerris of Apple.

Sikalosoft, listed as the developer of Baby Shaker, could not be reached for comment.

OH, AND ABOUT that rejected virtual-fart app? Apple has standards, you know:

The company has been criticized by software developers for not allowing other kinds of programs, such as those that pass digital gas, into the App Store.

Such apps ultimately were approved, although the developer of one, "Whoopie Cushion," was first told by Apple that his program did not "comply with Community Standards,” programs that have “any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.) or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

NOW, if someone were to develop a Capitalist Shaker app, they might be onto something.

Apocalyptic is the new normal

If this doesn't scare you spitless, you're an idiot.

"THIS" WOULD BE the following dispatch from The Wall Street Journal:

Pakistan's Taliban seized control of another district in the country's northwest just 70 miles from the capital after consolidating their hold on the Swat Valley, according to local government officials and residents.

The latest Taliban advance into the Buner district has spurred fears that a controversial peace accord, which allows the militants to enforce sharia law in Swat, has emboldened them to expand their influence.

Militants have been moving into Buner since the Swat peace deal was signed with the government in February. But starting Tuesday night they seized control of the entire district, which has a population of more than one million people, local government officials and residents said. Heavily armed militants, streaming in from neighboring Swat, occupied government offices and set up their own checkposts. Terrified residents fled their homes.

Dozens of hooded fighters carrying rocket launchers and machine guns ransacked the offices of international aid and development agencies working in the district and took away their vehicles. Some employees of the agencies were also briefly taken hostage. The militants set up their headquarters in the town of Buner after driving out government officials.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday the Taliban advance poses "an existential threat" to Pakistan and urged Pakistanis world-wide to oppose a government policy yielding to them. Pakistanis "need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents," Mrs. Clinton said in testimony before a House committee.

BEFORE YOU SHRUG and withdraw once more into your Wii cocoon, the significance of the Journal's report is found on The Daily Beast in a post by author Gerald Posner:

The Taliban advance should be causing high Richter-scale reactions inside the Obama White House. Counterterrorism officials have long warned that al Qaeda is desperate to obtain weapons WMD. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is in play if the Taliban insurgency should unseat the government of Asif Ali Zadari.

Pakistan has been a member of the nuclear club since in 1987. Intelligence estimates are that the country now has between 50 and 100 nuclear missiles that can travel 1,200 miles. That places much of India, Saudi Arabia and Eastern Iraq within range. With slight improvements in the rockets’ booster phase—not a difficult technological advance—Jerusalem could be hit.

Pakistan straddles a fault line between secularism and fundamentalism. Many Pakistani military and intelligence officers are markedly more radical than the centrist Zadari and openly supportive of Osama bin Laden. Pakistan’s equivalent of the CIA is still enraged by the central government’s abandonment of both the Taliban and the Kashmiri Jihadis. Fundamentalist religious schools—of which Pakistan has more than any other country—churn out thousands of radical Islamists, and outlawed militant parties regularly resurface with new names.

(snip)

A Pakistani government led by Sunni fundamentalists could launch a nuclear attack on Iran's Shia provinces, long-time foe India and definitely Israel. Economic upheaval in the West would be assured by nuking oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. You think the stock market looks bad over the last two years? Let a Taliban spokesman announce that Mullah Omar has his finger on the Islamic Bomb.

LET US FERVENTLY PRAY the world's big international players -- Britain, the United States, Russia and China -- are at this moment planning a joint military operation to seize, if need be, and destroy Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Because if they aren't, and if Pakistan falls to the Taliban, we can be pretty sure -- one way or another -- this is The End of Everything. At least Everything as we have come to know it.

Actually, a complete Wall Street meltdown would be only the half of it . . . particularly if the Taliban were to nuke the Saudi oil fields.

If the Taliban take over Pakistan, and its nuclear arsenal is still there . . . al Qaida will have The Bomb, and America could someday lose a major city. What's far more likely than that is the prospect of nuclear war on the Indian subcontinent, because India and Israel can't (and won't) live with the imminent threat of annihilation at the hand of nutwagon Islamist goons.

Jesus, mercy. Mary, pray.


HAT TIP: Crunchy Con.

How stupid can you get?

This stupid, proving there's never a dull day when you work for the New Orleans Times-Picayune . . . even if you're covering Covington, La.

A Covington jewelry store owner and five teenagers were arrested Monday night after police responded to the store where a make-believe armed robbery was being carried out and videotaped as part of a school project, authorities said.

A witness called police about 4:45 p.m. after seeing what appeared to be an armed robbery at Expressions in Gold jewelry at 842 North Collins Boulevard, Covington Police spokesman Capt. Jack West said.

The caller said two teenagers had put on ski masks, got an assault rifle and a pistol out of the trunk of their vehicle, and went into the store, West said. The teens pointed the weapons at the people in the store, and the witness saw the people raise their hands into the air, he said.

Police arrived within 30 seconds, and the SWAT team was called out, West said. A police sniper was in position before store owner Janet Deluca came outside and said the group was simply making a movie, he said.

The video was being shot as part of a school project, West said.

When officers went inside and asked to see the firearms, the teenagers said they did not have any weapons, West said. After further questioning they showed officers where they had hidden the guns in the store, he said. Officers confiscated an SKS assault rifle, according to the police department.

JUST WHAT THE HELL did these kids -- not to mention the jewelry-store owner, who's old enough to know better -- figure people would think when they saw young people get out of a car, put on ski masks, draw weapons and run inside?

The damn fools are lucky they didn't get shot.

The cop in the WGNO television report was right -- if the numskulls had told the police what was up and gotten a permit, there would have been no problem . . . and no bystanders would have been making panicked phone calls to 911.

At a bare minimum, it should have been made clear to passers-by that a movie was being filmed.

BUT NO. The little darlings do something idiotic, get arrested by rightly ticked-off Covington police officers, and they (along with their equally foolish parents) are wondering why they're in dutch with the law.

Here's why: It's because they scared people witless, endangered officers and others as police descended upon the scene at breakneck speed, diverted city resources from preventing actual crime, and wasted what was, I'm sure, a not-insignificant amount of taxpayers' money.

Really, what were they thinking? And what are they thinking now, all incredulous that they're in trouble?

What, that New Orleans is the only place folks might reasonably assume there was a violent crime being committed when they see such? That only black folk rob people?

I'm almost sorry the cops didn't rough the little twerps up (and that goes double for the alleged "adult" of the bunch) just for the hell of it.

Almost.

The Divine Comedy (Central)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
We Don't Torture
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Again, what does it say about us that the most cogent, honest commentary in the American media comes from Comedy Central?

BE THAT AS IT MAY, I think there is one clear-cut, indisputable observation we can make about both those who run and those who observe United States of America: Torture Regime. The main thing American elites take away from their excellent educations at excellent schools is ever more witty, smooth and sophisticated ways of denying a fundamental thing their mamas told them when they were 4 or 5 -- that two wrongs don't make a right.

And what part, exactly, of waterboarding Kalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in a month just screams "Mama would be so proud"?

Well, maybe if Mama were Eva Braun or Ma Barker. . . .

The Good Book warns us "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." Al Qaida isn't the only bunch who ought to be scared s***less on that count.


HAT TIP: Catholic and Enjoying It

Benedict Harman

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What do you call a congresswoman promising to intervene with The Man on behalf of alleged spies for a foreign government, but who never has to face the music because the president needs her to defend his dubious domestic-spying program?

In Washington, apparently, you call it business as usual. You call it your government at work . . . for other people.

YOU CALL IT the hottest item on the CQ Politics website:

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman's help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, "This conversation doesn't exist."

(snip)

It's true that allegations of pro-Israel lobbyists trying to help Harman get the chairmanship of the intelligence panel by lobbying and raising money for Pelosi aren't new.

They were widely reported in 2006, along with allegations that the FBI launched an investigation of Harman that was eventually dropped for a "lack of evidence."

What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.

And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for "lack of evidence," it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush's top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.

Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House.

As for there being "no evidence" to support the FBI probe, a source with first-hand knowledge of the wiretaps called that "bull****."

"I read those transcripts," said the source, who like other former national security officials familiar with the transcript discussed it only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of domestic NSA eavesdropping.

I USED TO THINK the Washington back-and-forth between Democrats and Republicans was a case of Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber. Now, I'm thinking it might be more a case of Spy vs. Spy.

Baton Rouge High to Obama: HELP!!!

Well, there's one thing about growing up in Louisiana -- and being exposed to public education in Baton Rouge. You certainly have stories to tell.

The story of my alma mater, Baton Rouge Magnet High School, just won two students there second place in C-SPAN's StudentCam 2009 competition.

See, you can't make this s*** up.

Silly Sunday

DiMaggio isn't Italian for 'gopher' is it?

"Check me if I'm wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers, they're going to lock me up and throw away the key."

"Not golfers, you great git! Gophers! The little, brown, furry rodents!"

"We can do that; we don't even have to have a reason. All right, let's do the same thing, but with gophers!"

FAST FORWARD 29 years. Put Bill Murray on the golf course . . . again.

And be afraid. Be very afraid, sez MSNBC:

Actor Bill Murray hooked a tee shot so badly during a Pro-Am event on Friday that the ball sailed across a street next to the hole and hit a woman in her front yard. She was knocked to the ground and had to go to the hospital.

Murray was on No. 9 at the TPC Tampa Bay during the first round of the Outback Pro-Am when he hit Gail DiMaggio as she was watching the tournament.

He was playing with Hal Sutton, Jeff Sluman and Fred Paglia. They continued while Murray's caddy took him in a cart to the woman's yard, where paramedics were attending to her. Tournament officials said DiMaggio was lying on the ground, but conscious and moving.

"I wasn't sure I was in bounds or not," Murray said. "And I saw this NBC golf cart coming at me and he said, 'I hate to be the one to tell you this but you hit a lady. She's down on the ground.' That is, you know, sobering."

Murray said DiMaggio was taken to a local hospital.

"She was overjoyed when she saw me because she said she had come out to see me and her husband had just said, 'I hope he hits it over here,' " said Murray, who did not finish his round.

GOPHERS, you great git! Gophers!

A tortured interpretation of the law

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It would appear the United States' long Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union -- and Korean War experience fighting the Red Chinese -- was extremely important in at least one respect.

IT TAUGHT US how to be just like what we purported to abhor, according to a Washington Post report on just-released U.S. government memos on "enhanced interrogation."

The newly released Justice Department memos place medical officials at the scene of the earliest CIA interrogations. At least one psychologist was present — and others were frequently consulted — during the interrogation of Abu Zubaida, the nom de guerre of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, a Palestinian who was captured by CIA and Pakistani intelligence officers in March 2002, the Justice documents state.

An Aug. 1, 2002, memo said the CIA relied on its "on-site psychologists" for help in designing an interrogation program for Abu Zubaida and ultimately came up with a list of 10 methods drawn from a U.S. military training program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE. That program, used to help prepare pilots endure torture in the event they are captured, is loosely based on techniques that were used by the Communist Chinese to torture American prisoners of war.

The role played by psychologists in adapting SERE methods for interrogation has been described in books and news articles, including some in The Washington Post. Author Jane Mayer and journalist Katherine Eban separately identified as key figures James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two psychologists in Washington state who worked as CIA contractors after 2001 and had extensive experience in SERE training. Mitchell, reached by telephone, declined to comment, and Jessen could not be reached yesterday.

The CIA psychologists had personal experience with SERE and helped convince CIA officials that harsh tactics would coerce confessions from Abu Zubaida without inflicting permanent harm. Waterboarding was touted as particularly useful because it was "reported to be almost 100 percent effective in producing cooperation," the memo said.

The agency then used a psychological assessment of Abu Zubaida to find his vulnerable points. One of them, it turns out, was a severe aversion to bugs.

"He appears to have a fear of insects," states the memo, which describes a plan to place a caterpillar or similar creature inside a tiny wooden crate in which Abu Zubaida was confined. CIA officials say the plan was never carried out.

Former intelligence officials contend that Abu Zubaida was found to have played a less important role in al-Qaeda than initially believed and that under harsh interrogation he provided little useful information about the organization's plans.

The memos acknowledge that the presence of medical professionals posed an ethical dilemma. But they contend that the CIA's use of doctors in interrogations was morally distinct from the practices of other countries that the United States has accused of committing torture. One memo notes that doctors who observed interrogations were empowered to stop them "if in their professional judgment the detainee may suffer severe physical or mental pain or suffering." In one instance, the CIA chose not to subject a detainee to waterboarding due to a "medical contraindication," according to a May 10, 2005, memo.

Yet, some doctors and ethicists insist that any participation by physicians was tantamount to complicity in torture.

"I don't think we had any idea doctors were involved to this extent, and it will shock most physicians," said George Annas, a professor of health law, bioethics and human rights at Boston University.

IF WE ARE STILL a nation ruled by law and not the strongman of the month, there will be consequences for those whose tortured interpretation of federal and international law permitted the torture of "high-value" detainees.

That includes George Bush and Dick Cheney.

If there are no consequences for serious violations of federal and international law, the consequence of that inaction will fall upon the rule of law itself. We will indeed be a banana republic with nukes. Or perhaps much worse.

3 Chords & the Truth: Let the sun shine in

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, we look at dreams. Broken dreams and the "losers" who once dreamed, but no more.

People like, for example, Fantine in Les Miserables. She had a dream; it turned into a living hell:

But the tigers come at night,
With their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart,
And they turn your dream to shame.

IT HAPPENS. A lot.

And we declare people "losers" a lot, too. We take one quick look and throw them onto the refuse heap of life. A lot of the time, we're very wrong on that score -- not that we ever know it amid the utter certainty of our judgment.

But sometimes . . . sometimes we get to find out just how wrong we are. The clouds of our cynicism part, and the sunshine breaks through.

OF COURSE you've heard of Susan Boyle by now, and you've probably seen the video from Britain's Got Talent, too. There it is above this post, in case you haven't . . . or just want to watch it again and rejoice in having your prejudices smashed to bits. Go ahead and watch, because there's an amazing backstory.

See, that's the sunshine parting the clouds.

This week on the Big Show, we're all about the sunshine -- all about a long musical exploration of the topic. And it's all because we were just gobsmacked by a bright ray of the stuff, and it feels pretty damn good.

Sunshine. Maybe that's what Winston Churchill had in mind when, during the darkest days of World War II, he said:

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

ESPECIALLY WHEN the enemy is ourselves. If we give into the darkness, we'll never see the sunshine on the other side. Never get to prove so many people so horribly wrong . . . like Susan Boyle did.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

It's ruff being a writer nowadays

Used to be you had to be able to read and write to get a book deal.

Sky News reports times have changed:

His remarkable journey to the White House has already captivated a global audience and now he will star in his own children's book.

Barack Obama gets a walk-on part, but it is his new best friend Bo who has been given the central role in his own shaggy dog story.

The book Bo, America's Commander In Leash will be released next week, despite the Portuguese water dog being barely days into his role as First Puppy.

Mascot Books, a small independent publisher from Virginia, has rushed out the title to capitalise on the world media coverage of the Presidential family's new pet.

LET'S HOPE BO doesn't piddle on Jay Leno's couch during the book tour.

Change Texicans can believe in

Well, Barack Obama did campaign on the theme of "change" -- I'm sorry, "CHANGE."

BUT I'M NOT SURE what Texas Gov. Rick Perry talked about Wednesday at an Austin "Tea Party" protest was what the president had in mind. The Associated Press has the details:

Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

He said when Texas entered the union in 1845 it was with the understanding it could pull out. However, according to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Texas negotiated the power to divide into four additional states at some point if it wanted to but not the right to secede.

Texas did secede in 1861, but the North's victory in the Civil War put an end to that.

AS THE GREAT modern-day prophet Walker Percy wrote, "The center did not hold." We're seeing that come true more and more every day. Selah.

Woody Allen no match for Dov's bar

It takes a freak.

To make one feel intense sympathy for Woody Allen.

Briefly, American Apparel for a week supplemented its advertising menu of oversexed, barely-clad youths with New York and Los Angeles billboards featuring a still of Allen, dressed as an Hasidic rabbi, from his 1977 film "Annie Hall." Allen, who never gave his permission for his image to be used in the ads, took umbrage and sued for $10 million.

American Apparel -- caught dead to rights in what would seem a pretty straightforward copyright transgression -- has opted upon a scorched-earth defense, centering on the premise that Allen's image isn't worth much because the old perv ruined it himself.

HERE'S THE STORY from The Associated Press:

Now the company plans to make Allen’s relationships to actress Mia Farrow and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn the focus of a trial scheduled to begin in federal court in Manhattan on May 18, according to the company’s lawyer, Stuart Slotnick.

“Woody Allen expects $10 million for use of his image on billboards that were up and down in less than one week. I think Woody Allen overestimates the value of his image,” Slotnick said.

“Certainly, our belief is that after the various sex scandals that Woody Allen has been associated with, corporate America’s desire to have Woody Allen endorse their product is not what he may believe it is.”

(snip)

Slotnick said it was not a cheap shot to bring up Allen’s sex life in a lawsuit over the billboard and Internet ads.

“It’s certainly relevant in assessing the value of an endorsement,” he said, noting that Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps lost endorsement power after a photograph surfaced of him using marijuana.

OY VEH. One is tempted to think the eccentric-yet-genius director has it coming . . . until you realize that even dirty old men have the right not to have giant garment companies profit off their image gratis.

And when you go to the trouble to learn a little about American Apparel and its horndog founder, Dov Charney, you are suddenly and strangely compelled to make a hysterical YouTube video demanding everybody "LEAVE WOODY ALONE!"

Let's put it this way: If it's sexual ethics we're worried about, Woody Allen may be Miles Monroe with youngish tastes, but Dov Charney is Pee-wee Herman with a hunger for his female employees. Among other things.

You need to be eased into the weird, wild world of the World's Biggest Hypocrite, so let us start here:

Mary Nelson is one of three women who filed sexual harassment lawsuits against Charney last year. Keith Fink is often on the other side of this debate, hired by companies trying to ward off harassment litigation.

Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline correspondent: You do workshops for employers telling them how to avoid sexual harassment cases.

Keith Fink, attorney for Mary Nelson: Quite often. I’m a pretty entertaining guy.

Mankiewicz: And you give out a bunch of guidelines for people to sort of live by if they wanna stay out of a courtroom.

Fink: Absolutely.

Mankiewicz: How many of those guidelines were broken at American Apparel?

Fink: Every single one of them.

(snip)

Mankiewicz: Mr. Charny’s been pretty open about the fact that he’s been involved personally with a number of his employees.

Fink: Open. Brazen. Yes.

Charney has talked to reporters from the New York Times, Business Week and Jane magazine about his intimate relationships with women who work for him. “I’m not saying I want to screw all the girls at work,” he was quoted as saying in Jane, “But if I fall in love at work it’s going to be beautiful and sexual.”

By all accounts, the women who have sued Dov Charney for sexual harassment—including Fink’s client Mary Nelson—were not intimately involved with him. But Nelson and the two others claimed the boss shocked and disgusted them with dirty talk and gestures, creating what some lawyers call a phrase you’ve heard before, “a hostile work environment.”

Mary Nelson started working as a wholesale salesperson at American Apparel in 2003 when she was 31. Over the next year and a half, she claims in her complaint, her boss made her work life miserable with unwelcome sexual comments and suggestive signals. And she says she was dismissed after she complained.

In the videotaped deposition, over several days, her lawyer grilled Charney about all of it.

Fink (deposition): Did you ever, at work, refer to women as “sluts”?

Charney: In private conversations, where such language was generally welcome.

Fink: Do you view "slut" to be a derogatory term?

Charney: You know, there are some of us that love sluts. You know, it’s not necessarily—it could be also be an endearing term.

Fink: An endearing term. Is that something you call your mother?

Charney: No. But it’s maybe something that you call your lover.

Fink (Dateline interview): I’m very difficult to floor me. That floored me when I heard his explanation that “slut” is an endearing term.

Charney freely admits using a number of explicit terms for female body parts—including the “C” word.

Charney: During the period when she worked, did I use the word c***?

Fink: In the workplace?

Charney: Absolutely, as she did.

Fink: I didn’t ask you if she did.

Charney: I’m telling you a little more. I’m volunteering a little more ha ha [sticks out tongue].

The company argues in the freewheeling creative environment of American Apparel, it’s not inappropriate to use foul language.

And in fact, a recent court decision might back that up: this spring the California Supreme Court ruled that an assistant scriptwriter on the NBC sitcom "Friends" could not proceed with a sexual harassment lawsuit. The court ruled that lewd language was permissible in a creative workplace generating scripts with sexual themes.

Charney hangs explicit vintage magazines on the walls of his retail stores. He even posed for one ad himself in the magazine “Sweet Action.” To Charney, it’s all part of an unconventional vibe he says is the very essence of his hip young company.

Charney: I believe that we work hard to create an environment of freedom.

And in the world of Dov Charney, freedom can sometimes mean dressing down at the office.

Fink: At the workplace in the years 2003 and 2004 how often in the work week would you be in your underwear?

Charney: There were months I was in my underwear all the time. It became very common.

I THINK, in reference to American Apparel's defense against Woody Allen's lawsuit, that is commonly referred to as "the pot calling the kettle black." But this -- again, from Dateline NBC -- is where the concept breaks new ground:

If you think it’s outlandish that a boss would make that comment, even in jest, consider this: when Claudine Ko, a reporter for Jane magazine was spending time with Charney in 2004 to research a profile, she says the CEO pleasured himself in front of her.

Claudine Ko, reporter for Jane magazine: On one hand, I was shocked. But, on the other hand—no, I—I was shocked.

Ko says it happened several times, always at Charney’s apartment after a few drinks. She makes no apologies for her decision not to excuse herself when her interview subject pulled down his pants. She says she was just trying to show readers the real Dov Charney, and she says she was a willing observer.

Ko: I did not feel sexually harassed. You know I knew -- I felt comfortable knowing that if I asked ‘em to stop it, he would.

And that’s not the only thing she reported seeing Charney do outside the office.

Fink: Do you remember [bleep] giving you oral sex in front of the reporter?

Charney’s lawyer: Objection; privacy. Direct the witness not to answer.

Ko: He and his—one of his assistants engaged in sexual relations. You know, at no point did I ever think I’m gonna walk out of this room or I am uncomfortable. I just thought, “This is gonna be a fantastic story.”

American Apparel describes what happened between the reporter and Charney as “consensual sexual exchanges” and says that Charney and his assistant with whom he was involved at the time thought their activities would be kept private. The company calls it “a social situation which...unfortunately was exploited in order to sell magazines.”
The reporter says that’s wrong, saying Charney was well aware the whole thing could end up in print.

Ko: You can do what you want but just remember, I’m a reporter and I’m going to be writing a story at the end of all of this.

In her story, Ko reported that the sexual encounter she witnessed between Charney and his assistant appeared to be entirely consensual. She also says she interviewed many American Apparel employees, who all seemed happy with their jobs and didn’t consider their boss a pervert.

Ko: If you go to the headquarters, it’s not like you go and you see people having sex on the production floors. It’s not just, like, you know, all out debauchery.

But of all the strange things that may or may not have happened between Dov Charney and his subordinates, perhaps the strangest involves what he wore for part of a business meeting at his L.A. home which plaintiff Mary Nelson says she attended.

Fink: He recalled you wearing a sock on your penis while Ms. Nelson was in your home is that correct?

Charney: The product is called a [bleep] sock.

For the record, Charney says he doesn’t recall whether Mary Nelson was present at the infamous sock meeting, but he says there wouldn’t be anything wrong with wearing the item in front of her. He says he was simply modeling a potential new product.

Fink: Does it cover the entire buttocks?

Charney: No. But neither does a thong.

BELIEVE ME, the NBC report was a sanitized version of the Weird, Wild World of Dov Charney. Here are some excerpts from the actual article in Jane, courtesy of the Jewilicious blog:

I asked him how he relaxed. Oral sex he says, settling into a chair behind a cloud of smoke. “I love it . . . I am a bit of a dirty guy, but people like that right now.”

Explaining exactly how the rest of the night unraveled is somewhat difficult. Let’s just say, the female employee helped him “put on a show” for me. I watched, trying to be objective, detached -- sorta like a . . . war reporter?

Ko goes to Charney’s pad late one evening for an interview session:

Soon enough he loosens his Pierre Cardin belt.
“Are you going to do it again?” I ask.

“Can I?” he says adjusting himself in his chair.

And thus begins another compulsive episode of what Dov likes to call “self-pleasure,” during which we casually carry on our interview, discussing things like business models, hiring practices and the stupidity of focus groups.

“Masturbation in front of women is underrated,” Dov explains to me later over the phone. “It’s much easier on the woman. She gets to watch, it’s a sensual experience that doesn’t involve a man violating a woman, yet once the man has his release, it’s over and you can talk to the guy.”

Ko claims that in the month she spent with Charney, she watched him pleasure himself eight or so times. She ends the article by describing how she leaves Charney in New York, interview completed, and hails a cab. “Then as I step into the depths of the backseat, I realize I don’t want this trip to end just yet.”

AMERICAN APPAREL'S lawyers have a lot of damn nerve. Just like Dov Charney has a lot of damn problems -- the first of which is being a pervert.

Suddenly, poor old Woody Allen is starting to look a lot more normal. And like a much more sympathetic character.

Leave Woody ALONE!!!

King of the boob tube

Blago, King of the Jungle. I'll see your "reality TV" and raise you projectile vomiting.

That seems to me to be a fitting response to the news that NBC has signed the indicted former governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, for its latest reality show, I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here. No, I'm a viewer . . . get me out of here.

ANYWAY, the network thinks Blago's notoriety will garner good ratings for the summer series, which will air four nights a week. Natch, everything is pending court approval.

Personally, in this case, I would welcome a little judicial activism in the name of preserving what's left of our culture. Revoking the ex-governor's bail might be nice.

If you can take it, read this from James Hibbard's The Live Feed:

Given Blagojevich's notoriety following his arrest on federal corruption charges, he's bound to garner some curiosity tune-in for the network. Celebrity is produced by Granada, which signed the governor for the show pending the court's approval.

Official Celebrity description: "Ten celebrities of various backgrounds will be dropped into the heart of the Costa Rican jungle to face challenges designed to test their skills in adapting to the wilderness and to raise money for their favorite charities."

THERE'S A small problem with the charity deal, of course. (And isn't it funny how we will countenance the most insipid things so long as "charity" gets a cut?)

You see, Rod Blagojevich's favorite charity is Rod Blagojevich. Thus the criminal charges.

Sigh.

Aye, there's the rub!

A lesson for managers everywhere to remember in these tough economic times: If you run off all the people who produce the product you're trying to sell . . . you won't have anything to sell.

This is particularly applicable to the print and broadcast arts, where the temptation is to fire, fire, fire to cut costs in the midst of collapsing advertising revenues. Newspapers (and radio) are fast reaching the point where there's not going to be enough staff to produce enough of a product that their remaining readers (and listeners) might care to bother with.

No audience, really no advertising.

THIS LESSON is being presented in distilled form right now at the Omaha Community Playhouse, the nation's largest community theater. In the name of tight finances and organizational efficiency, the theater's executive director and board decided to pick on "creative."

They asked the theater's artistic director, who also is one of its two principal directors, to resign. That he did.

What they didn't count on was his declining to direct various shows on a freelance basis. And what they also didn't count on was the other principal director turning down a pruned-down version of his job, then quitting in solidarity.

Nor did they count on three-fourths of an upcoming production's cast to take a hike as well.

THAT'S WHAT you call an "epic fail." But wait! There's more! And it's not even intermission yet.

Cue the Omaha World-Herald:

The staff shake-up at the Omaha Community Playhouse could drive a financial stake through the nonprofit theater's heart.

The simultaneous departures of directors Carl Beck and Susan Baer Collins from the playhouse has stirred new concerns — both financial and artistic — for "A Christmas Carol," the theater's biggest revenue producer.

Jerry Longe, the professional actor who has played Scrooge on the playhouse's main stage for the past three years, said Monday that he would leave his role if Beck and Collins leave the playhouse.

Both have said they plan to leave. They hired him for the role in 2005.

"I can't imagine doing that show without Carl directing," Longe said. "I can't imagine that show is even going to go up without Carl and Susie, who know the magic of it.

"But I'm still hoping for a reconciliation of some sort."

The 33-year hit holiday show in which Longe stars, written by former playhouse Executive Director Charles Jones, earns more than one out of every five dollars in the theater's budget. It has generated publicity and millions of dollars since 1976 and is crucial to the playhouse's artistic identity and financial stability.

Longe stepped into the shoes of Dick Boyd, who played 818 performances as Scrooge before retiring from the role at age 83. The crowds have since warmed to Longe. He had the added boost of a show makeover — new sets, costumes and special effects — when he started as Scrooge.

"It would break my heart to not do Scrooge again," Longe said. "But we have to move on."

Playhouse Executive Director Tim Schmad declined to comment on the developments regarding "A Christmas Carol." He said he would wait for an open forum, at 5:30 this evening in the playhouse's main auditorium.

OOPS. You can't sell nothing, guys.

Methinks somebody's going to lose their job over this one. And it's not going to be the directors, who already quit, or the volunteer actors, whom you couldn't fire if they hadn't already walked.

It's got to happen, because the Playhouse now finds itself facing a dilemma worthy of Hamlet.

"To be, or not to be: That is the question."