Me: Frank Lynch

Home
(Current commentary)

These are my mundane daily ramblings.
For something less spontaneous, I maintain The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page (over 1,800 Johnson quotes).

Email:
frank
dot
lynch2
at
verizon
dot
net

It should have been done a loong time ago. Today Bush announced that troop rotations would be cut back, from fifteen months to twelve, as well as balancing time at war with time at home.

Funny how this happened: when the Democrats raised this in the Senate, the Republicans wouldn't let it come to a vote. And the brass were silent about the pressures on families from extended time at war until after the measure was blocked.

But now that the Democrats are no longer seen as forcing this issue, Bush is all for it. Of course, he's probably pleased as punch to have Petraeus give him liberty to continue troop levels into the next President's term, giving him the chance to blame whatever resolution occurs on his successor.

Honor. Integrity. Back to the Oval Office, and you're witnessing it!
Link | | | 10:28 PM | Home
 

Bloomberg's congestion plan is frustrated. I'm not happy about this in the least, but my disappointment would be mitigated if the vote had actually gone to the Assembly floor, rather than jettisoned by the Democrats in a backroom discussion. I would really have appreciated some acocuntability here.

Those who were really against it should have been proud to vote it down, right?

I'm also not pleased with Sheldon Silver's determination that it made no sense to bring it to the floor because of inadequate Democratic support: as the Times notes, the plan was supported by a "number" of Republicans. Silver not bringing it to the floor sounds too reminiscent, for my tastes, of Dennis Hastert's refusing to allow votes on measures which would have passed if a sizeable number of Republicans would have combined for a majority with the Democrats. In Hastert's view, a bill need the support of the majority of the dominant party to proceed.

Shunting aside congestion pricing without a vote does no one any good, unless you're a shiftless pol.

(Disclosure: I work for a marketing research company, and a number of my group's clients are in transportation.)
Link | | | 8:35 PM | Home
 

For what it's worth. The good news is that a letter from Abraham Lincoln went for $3.4 million in an auction. The bad news is that the domain name "pizza.com" was worth $2.6 million.

I guess it's all about finding the right buyer: the domain name is probably a business expense, a tax write-off, and half of that will be paid for through reduced taxes as a result. I sure hope those tax dollars will be made back.
Link | | | 9:25 AM | Home
 

Enough with the dancing around, says Conyers. Is Attorney General Mukasey playing politics with wiretapping restrictions again?

Here's the back story: the 9/11 Commission thoroughly investigated everything it could about pre-9/11 intelligence, and although it found a number of dots waiting to be connected, did not uncover any interests in conducting wiretaps which were frustrated by FISA laws. FISA laws don't require a warrant to conduct wiretapping: you can wiretap without a warrant, just apply for the warrant within 72 hours. (It's this flexibility which ensures that our national security won't be compromised over procedural issues.) For one undisclosed reason or another, the White House has wanted even more flexibility, and has wanted to expand its powers so desparately that it got the telecom companies to do some stuff which, if not illegal, was risky enough that it faces lawsuits from liberty defenders like the ACLU. And in order to get the telecom companies retroactive immunity for undisclosed actions, the Administration has vetoed legislation which has extended wiretapping powers when it hasn't included immunity.

The Administration has been so unhappy with the restrictions, also, that National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has, on at least two occasions, twisted the truth to get legislation through Congress. (Once he claimed a German plot was foiled under looser regulations; in fact, the intel was collected under the tighter laws. On another occasion he claimed we'd be at risk if a new law wasn't immediately passed, but life went on and we still got the intel he claimed would dry up.)

The latest is that AG Mukasey has claimed that we were prevented from wiretapping conversations coming out of Afghanistan pre-9/11 because of FISA restrictions. Citing 9/11, of course, is like turning the amps up to eleven. But as Glenn Greenwald pointed out this morning, FISA was no hurdle. And furthermore, no one he spoke to on the 9/11 commission inidcated any awareness of what Mukasey was claiming.

So what's up? Greenwald said he couldn't get enough people to comment, but that the story needed some momentum and further digging. Cue John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, a man known for taking no guff, and even less with the Democrats in charge of the House. Today his committee sent a formal letter to Mukasey:

[A]ccording to press reports, in response to questions at a March 27 speech, you defended Administration wiretapping programs and proposals to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by referring to a pre-9/11 incident. Before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, you stated, "we knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went. You’ve got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn’t come home, to show for that."

This statement is very disturbing for several reasons. Initially, despite extensive inquiries after 9/11, I am aware of no previous reference, in the 9/11 Commission report or elsewhere, to a call from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States which, if it had been intercepted, could have helped prevent the 9/11 attacks. In addition, if the Administration had known of such communications from suspected terrorists, they could and should have been intercepted based on existing FISA law. For example, even assuming that a FISA warrant was required to intercept such calls, as of 9/11 FISA specifically authorized such surveillance on an emergency basis without a warrant for a 48 hour period. If such calls were known about and not intercepted, serious additional concerns would be raised about the government’s failure to take appropriate action before 9/11.

The questions — all good ones — follow that, and I recommend you click the link. Can't wait for Mukasey's answers. (And I want to know how good my Senator Schumer feels about greasing Mukasey's nomination, too.)
Link | | | 8:54 PM | Home
 

"It's more complicated now." You know, it's not like we needed more evidence that Bush's foreign policy was rudderless. But this whole thing with Basra last week was exactly that, evidence of a sad, twisted joke played on the American people. First, when Maliki gave a "72 hour deadline" for Sadr's militias to put down their guns and then extending the deadline, he sounded like that parent finding lots of fractions after "two," having told the child he was counting to three.

The Iraqi nation is obviously not prepared to defend itself against its current threats, and the fraudulence of Bush's 2004 claims about how rapidly they were increasing their capabilities should now be clear to every one in America, if it isn't already:

The failure of Iraqi forces to defeat rogue fighters in Basra has some in the military fearing they can no longer predict when it might be possible to reduce the number of troops to pre-surge levels.

"It's more complicated now," said one officer in Iraq whose role has been critical to American planning there.

Questions remain about how much Bush and his top aides knew in advance about the offensive and whether they encouraged Maliki to confront radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr.

Was this, then, like the Bush administration making Bhutto feel good about returning to Pakistan? Wouldn't surprise me in the least, given the "nobody could have anticipated" wisdom of this Administration.

And with McCain showing how clueless he was about the origin of the ceasefire, why, we just can't imagine the glories we'd experience should he ascend to Bush III.

The GOP is just. so. brilliant.
Link | | | 10:09 PM | Home

Leningrad Cowboys Go America. Or Alabama. Or Sweet Home Alabama. Along with the Red Army Chorus.

Don't know if you know the Leningrad Cowboys, but you should, their movie was an art house in-joke when it came out, and quite the hoot. (A little tomfoolery for you for today; hat tip to boing boing.)
Link | | | 9:17 PM | Home
 

Back to top.