MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

The "I" in Joe Lieberman (I-CT) stands for "Israel." Lieberman's primary political aim - although he'd never admit it, and it is just possible that he isn't quite consciously aware of it - is not the safety of the US, but the safety of Israel. Lieberman wants us to stay in Iraq - not because of the somewhat fanciful threat of al Qaeda in Iraq staging significant attacks in the US, but of the much more realistic threat of them staging attacks in Israel. And he wants the US to attack Iran - a country which has made no meaningful threats against the US but has made numerous threats against Israel.

Like AIPAC, Lieberman contends the interest of the US and of Israel are the same. They aren't, and they have never been. But my question is: is he just an ally of AIPAC, or is Lieberman something more?

It's long been known that Lieberman is an orthodox Jew. What is not known is what kind of Orthodox Jew he is.

A very significant faction of the West Bank settlers movement believes that holding onto the West Bank - indeed, reannexing all of the territories Israel held in its heyday thousands of years ago - must be accomplished as a precondition to the coming of the Messiah. They also believe that when the Messiah comes, Israel will be ruled by rabbis - i.e., will become as theocratic as Islamic fundamentalists expect Muslim countries to be. There is, in fact, very little difference between the theologies of these groups - except that the Muslims think the Jews (indeed, all non-Muslims) are inferior, and these Jews (following Kabbalistic teachings) think Muslims (indeed, all non-Jews) are less than human.

What does Lieberman believe?

For some time, some Israelis have welcomed the support of groups like Christians United for Israel. This group are Messianic Christians, and like the West Bank settlers, they believe that Israel must be recreated in order for the Messiah to come. They see the outcome of the Messiah's return somewhat differently than do the West Bank settlers - particularly the war of Armaggeddon in which all non-born again Jews are destroyed. I can't believe that the West Bankers don't know what these Christians have in mind for them ultimately - so I'm sure the West Bankers are joyfully (as they think) "using" these Christians to facilitate their political clout in the U.S. That would be consistent with their Kabbalistic view that Muslims, Christians and secular Jews are "donkeys" who will carry the Jewish Messianists to their triumphant end.

I don't know if Lieberman thinks they're "donkeys. I do know that Lieberman spoke to this group recently. Among the things he said to them were: "You reject the temptation of moral relativism. You understand that there is a difference between good and evil, between eternal and temporal, between Israel and other nations . . ." And: "America is a faith-based initiative. We are not endowed by the great thinkers of the Enlightenment but endowed by our Creator ... Anyone who tries to separate American government from faith, is doing something profoundly unnatural."

Read all of it in Glen Greenwald's Salon column. There's a lot more of it, which Lieberman actually posted on his website. Here are some interesting comments aside from mine. Unqualified Offerings. AlterNet. If you want more, Google it yourself.

Three things occurred to me. 1) I said this a long time ago. It's not that I'm smart - it's just that I tend to follow where logic leads. 2) Glen Greenwald is what AIPAC defines as a "self-hating Jew" - that is, any Jew, like me, who doesn't agree with them. 3) I wonder what would have happened if Gore/Lieberman had been allowed to take office. Was Lieberman a Manchurian Candidate? Why doesn't some reporter with the resources find out? Because it seems to me Israel - or at least the Israelis I am speaking of - are better off with Bush in office than they would have been with Gore; that is, unless Lieberman was an effectual secret agent.

Allow me also to direct you to my novel "The Tenth Cow", which is podcast at podiobooks.com and deals with the underlying subject - rather well, if I do say so myself. Which I do.

SUSPICIOUS

Does anyone find it suspicious that it is NOAA's National Hurricane Center which disputes the findings of independent studies that hurricanes have increased not only in strength but in numbers because of ocean warming, much of which is due to human activity (NOAA calls this "sloppy science")?

Is there anything left on which we can trust this government to tell the truth?

NO COMMENT

Here are two items from Saturday's newspaper business section:

Second quarter GDP rises 3.4%, the best growth in more than a year.

Stock market drops 500 points.

No comment.

ENEMIES

This one I really love.

The US ambassador to Iraq last week told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Baghdad residents were getting 1-2 hours of electricity a day - down from 5-6 hours earlier this year, never mind before the war. Great rebuilding job we're doing over there.

But in giving out this info the ambassador was breaking State Department - that would be Condi - policy to no longer give out info on the hours of electricity Baghdaders are getting. They have replaced that info with a measurement of the total Iraqi electricity generation - which actually has nothing to do with how much electricity any Iraqi gets the use of. Reconstruction officials decided to do this because they are winding up U.S. involvement in rebuilding Iraq's power grid.

I.e., after having failed to restore Iraqi power, they no longer think the measurement of their failure is relevant. Someday someone is going to explain to me why we allow people to get away with things like this.

So Baghdadis sit in the dark and stare at the all-lit-up Green Zone. It's a miracle they don't all want all of us dead. How long would New Yorkers stand for something like this before they hauled the mayor out of Gracie Mansion and hung him from a lamppost?

And you don't get why we have enemies?

BURIED

A company named Aggregate Industries NE Inc. has agreed to pay $50 million and plead guilty to criminal charge of conspiracy to defraud the federal government by providing substandard concrete to the Boston Big Dig. This compares to the $105 million the company was paid on the project.

Why did they settle? Because the agreement allows them to avoid debarment by the Federal Highway Administration. That means they can continue to receive federal and state highway contracts. And the way America works these days, they will get more contracts.

Let's put it this way - anyone in the federal or any state government giving these guys another contract ought to be buried under their product like Jimmy Hoffa was. 'Course, no one who gave Halliburton contracts got buried under their shit.

REGRETS

Bush is going to ask Congress to OK the sale of $20 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia. Israel doesn't like it, but is going to approve the deal because we are going to give them $30 billion in arms. That's give, not sell.

So let's see - we are going to further arm the country that invented Islamic extremism and whose jihadist citizens make up most of the "foreign fighters" in Iraq, and the country whose mess with the Palestinians is most responsible for our terrorist fears. All to confront Iran, which has done nothing at all to us.

This power diplomacy is too complicated for me. Unfortunately, it's also too complicated for the Bush administration. I guarantee we will regret doing this when the results come in - just as we regret giving all those Stinger missiles and all that combat training to bin Laden so he could defeat the Soviets.

Oh, I forgot - we don't regret that.

ZOMBIE

Cheney needs a new battery? Can you imagine what the world would be like if science had not perfected procedures for keeping that man alive?

Did it ever occur to you that the reason Cheney's so evil is that he's a zombie, one of the undead? That it's medicine which has resulted in his death's putrifaction being only moral, not physical? All these nice Republicans kept saying he'd changed in recent years. Sure, because now he's a dead man walking. That apparently often results in a nasty disposition.

Where's an ethical doctor when the world needs one? If it were me, I'd tell Cheney I'd run out of replacement batteries.

DRUNK

Drunk astronauts? This would not have been conceivable in the 20th century. But in the corrupt 21st, where you can do anything you want, drunk astronauts of emblematic of what's wrong with all of us. Things keep going on this way, the next thing you know they'll be stowing fifteen year old girls away on the shuttle for hot sex.

THE TRUTH

The plan proposed by Charlie Crist (Republican governor of Florida)to compel utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is being attacked because it will cost consumers money by members of what political party? Anyone hazard a guess?

Gee, it's so easy these days to know where politicians stand. All you have to do is decide where YOU stand, and then it's easy to know how to vote.

So - what's more important, your pocketbook or the health of your kids and their kids?

Ah, don't bother to answer. You wouldn't tell me the truth.

THE NEXT ONE

Charges against one of the doctors allegedly involved in the UK car-bombing "plot" were dropped today in Australia, the prosecutor calling the charge a mistake based on bad information from Australian police, and saying there was no reasonable chance of conviction.

That means that out of the eight doctors originally charged, only three are still facing those charges. Once again, a hyped "terror attack" turns into shit.

Why would anyone give any credence to the next hype, or the next? Or anything anyone associated with the US or UK governments says?

CARTOONS

Romney and Giuliani are backing out of CNN's Republican YouTube debate, citing "scheduling problems." Some Republicans are urging them to participate, saying that if they don't they will appear to be afraid of the internet. They're not afraid of the internet. They're afraid of direct and meaningful questions our "polite" press won't ask.

Romney is making a bit of a snob thing of it. He says it's demeaning for a presidential candidate to have to answer a question from a cartoon. But I think questions from cartoons are entirely appropriate. After all, it's cartoons who will be answering them.

PIKER

Sports corruption and scandals all over the place? This is a shock?

Money justifies everything these days, and money's huge in sports. But these doofuses have not invented corruption - they've just gotten the general message. If you indict sport figures for lying, corruption, fraud and other bad behavior, you are indicting yourself for either helping to create the climate or doing nothing to fight it.

You're just as guilty as they are. They ought to be admired. They're making a whole lot more money off corruption than you probably are, piker.

TOOL

Fascinating. In order to justify his actions, Bush has to blame attacks in Iraq on al Qaeda - thus making himself al Qaeda's most effective propaganda tool.

I TOLD YOU

From my post of 12/19/06:

As America seems to be beginning to return to rational thought, John McCain turns more and more to what used to be called the "conservative base." After kissing Falwell's butt he's making the neocon's war arguments.

But it's amazing, isn't it, how small that "base" has become. (Or maybe it always was that small and was blown up out of proportion by our sensation-seeking press, or by our fears of what it might do - sort of the same type of irrational fear that followed 9/11.)

So John McCain is very busy marginalizing himself. He's made the wrong political judgment - although he probably never had any choice. People were desperate to see him as a maverick, because they couldn't stand the Establishment; and he has such a nice way of speaking and comes across so earnest. Well, he still comes across earnest, but now he looks misguided. That's what happens to a "maverick" who is anything but.

R.I.P.

I hope.

WHY DON'T WE KNOW?

NPR's "On The Media" reports that there are more private contractors than troops in Iraq. Which means that even if Bush is compelled to remove every soldier, he still has an army there over which there is no oversight. Or is there no oversight? Either Bush is in the position to operate as a warlord, running his own private unconstitutional war, or Congress is complicit and we just don't know it. Keeping in mind that Congress has to be authorizing payment of these contractor's invoices, it seems more likely that Congress is complicit - unless they are so criminally negligent that they have no idea where the money they are authorizing is going.

Who is running the liaison between the government and these contractors? Who is telling the contractors what to do? What are the contractors telling the government to do? How many contractors have been killed? If none, why are the insurgents focused on the soldiers and not the contractors? How many Iraqis have the contractors killed. And, more importantly -

Why don't we know any of this?

KEEP IT UP

Bush's claim of executive privilege on documents relating to Pat Tillman's death is incredibly stupid - that is, assuming Democrats have any balls. Because what Bush has done is handed the Dems the perfect example of overreaching, and turned arguments over details into an argument over principle which could, if the Democrats pushed it, move toward impeachment, and certainly into a battle in the courts.

Democrats should bang on this as hard as possible. And they should discuss impeachment - because if it is discussed, and justified, it begins to sound like less a radical move and more like the logical end to the Bush mess. It may be that impeachment does not become possible in the remaining eighteen months - but how can pushing it hurt Democrats now, particularly when recent polls show a majority in favor of impeaching Cheney and a pretty good sized minority in favor of impeaching Bush?

Keep it up. It's working.

THE PEOPLE WHO MATTER

Okay, I've got the answer. Here it is:

If we are going to leave our troops generally on the ground in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, we need to accompany them with a sincere, well-funded and well-regarded (by those who have to implement it) effort to rebuild and/or create the kind of infrastructure in those countries which has tended to lead elsewhere to civilizing the population. It is not for us to determine whether or how Iraqis or Afghans use that infrastructure; if they choose not to, there's nothing we can do. But the tools for a better life must be in place if we are to have any chance of diverting the natives from the entirely destructive mindset they have displayed for years. Otherwise, there is no point in trying with troops to bring the locals security, since a secure life of nothingness is not something they're going to sign up for.

Assuming none of the above will happen - it hasn't in four years - then our troops must be pulled off the streets in both countries. We must stop training their armies. The only sense in which what happens in either country is our concern (leaving aside the moral obligation created by our destroying those countries, which I am afraid we must abandon) is if it is a direct threat to our interests.

By "our" I mean America's - not Halliburton's, not Bush's and not any other entity which does not represent all of us.

Our troops should be concentrated in relatively safe areas. While this is going on, there should be a serious discussion of - which ends in agreement on - which potential events amount to a significant challenge to our national interest. Once that list is prepared, any occurring event which is on it should trigger our military response. That would include any border incursions by people we don't want to take over Iraq or Afghanistan, response to attacks by jihadists, etc. It would not include policing sectarian strife, looting or anything else. We should have done that years ago. It's too late now.

Troops should not have to serve more than two tours in total in both countries. It would be better if they served them consecutively, to get the benefit of their experience.

That's it.

If I can figure this out, why can't the people who matter?

MODERATE?

After seeing the result of the bullshitting they got from Roberts and Alito, Congress should be smart enough not to confirm Dr. Holsinger as Surgeon General. No Bush nominee can be taken at his or her word. Judge them by what they've done or said elsewhere and the decision should be easy.

As a matter of fact, at this point Congress should refuse to confirm every Bush nominee for any post. Or are we to assume that Bush suddenly turned moderate?

NOT MUCH

On Friday, the New York Times reported the Bush administration's assertion that the Iraqis had made "satisfactory" progress on eight benchmarks. The Times then completely failed to analyze what "satisfactory" meant and what progress - actually none - had in fact occurred.

There are two possible reasons for this failure. One, the reporters were lazy. If so, any story they write should be discounted and boycotted. Two, the paper instructed them not to analyze.

In Hollywood a screenwriter who doesn't like what the producer does to his script can demand that his name be taken off the film. If these reporters were told what not to write, basic self-respect should have compelled them to take their names off the story.

But that's not the kind of self-respect you see much of these days

BLOOMBERG

Bloomberg's launching of speculation that he may run for president may have a very healthy consequence: candidates from both parties may have to look at their positions and find some ways to make more sense.

But Bloomberg running as an independent would be a disaster. Having abandoned the Republican party, we can assume he won't get Republican votes. So all he can do is pull away independents and Democrats, and his victory is about as likely as rocking horse manure. What he will do is at a minimum confuse the election completely, and probably throw the election to the Republicans.

The problem is there's no way to punish the guy for doing it. There weren't many ways of punishing Ralph Nader other than to hold him in contempt - but Bloomberg is too rich to feel your disdain.

And so we have reached the point where, between Bushes and Bloombergs, there is no accountability for ruining the nation - and that is the greatest tragedy of all.

The only hope for Democrats - for all of us - is the appearance of a candidate who is so philosophically and personally powerful that Bloomberg gives it up as a waste of time. I doubt any such human being exists - which is the greatest indictment of our education system and parental morality I can think of.

CONTEMPT

Harriet Miers is guilty of contempt of Congress. If Congress doesn't push for a criminal conviction, they might as well admit they can't do anything.

I doubt Bush is technically guilty of contempt of Congress for instructing Miers not to show up for her hearing. The most that he could be charged with is accessory before the fact.

But that Bush is contemptuous of Congress is indisputable. Impeachment is the way to deal with that.

CO-OPTED

Like everything else that ever actually meant something good, "green" has been co-opted. It's a new breed of hype.

Homebuilders are hawking green buildings. Is this because they care about the environment all of a sudden - or because it gives them a sales pitch to use when everything else has gone flat and worthless.

Maybe people will remember that the true "green" thing is to leave the land alone. Yeah, right.

JOB NOBODY WANTS

It appears there's a nationwide shortage of recruits for police departments. Like the army, they're lowering their standards.

Looks like another job nobody wants. Perfect for illegal Mexicans, no?

N'S

So the NAACP has officially buried the N-word. I hope they get their message across to their brothers, who are much more free with the N-word than anyone else.

Of course, the brothers say they're the N's, so they can call themselves or each other whatever they like. They just don't want to hear anyone else use it.

It occurs to me that Jews don't call themselves or each other sheeny or kike; I don't believe Italians call each other wop or guinea; I'm pretty sure the Chinese don't call each other chink. So why do the brothers call each other N's?

I think they use the word to keep themselves bound together and separate, and to remind themselves that they are under attack from whites. But the attack these days is a new thing - it's not rejection, it's acceptance, but acceptance of only those blacks who want to assimilate. I think blacks understand quite well that whites are willing to assimilate blacks who share white values, while isolating blacks who aren't into that. I think they know that unless they behave like whites they are going nowhere in this world - with the rare exception of the sports or entertainment figure who hangs on to his identity. I think they are defining their own under-culture, setting up values they can actually attain.

Again - if they had effective leaders, we might be seeing a revolution. But they don't, so we won't. But they won't stop calling each other N's.

CIVIL WAR?

It is utterly beyond me how the White House can claim executive privilege regarding the testimony of Meirs and Taylor before Congress when the White House has offered to let them talk to Congress as long as it's not on the record or under oath.

The executive privilege - if there is any - is as to information developed in the relationship between the summoned witnesses and the White House. If the White House is willing to let the witnesses talk to Congress, they've either waived the privilege or admitted there isn't any. It makes no difference whether the testimony is compelled or voluntary; if the information is given, the privilege is waived.

There is a point, however, to White House obstruction; if the information is given on the record, the witnesses may be less likely to stonewall or lie. The White House wants its witnesses to retain those opportunities.

Frankly, I don't know why the White House offered to let these women talk to Congress at all. They should be pretty confident that their executive privilege argument will prevail in the courts they have shaped as their guardians.

But it seems to me that if the Supreme Court sustains Bush, and there is no legal or political way to get at the truth, the preconditions will have been set for what is essentially a revolution, or civil war.

MORE QUESTIONS

Q: Which would you be least likely to do with $500:
a. Buy an iPhone
b. Self publish a book
c. Buy a month's worth of groceries
d. Buy two tickets to see The Police in concert?

Q: Is Al Gore the Bob Dylan of this century? The Abbie Rubin? The David Merrick?

Q: Do you think the little man in the White House
a. Saw Live Earth
b. Smirked when Al Gore came on
c. Should have done either
d. Should have done both?

QUESTIONS

Q: Why would you stop a war costing $12 billion a day when your friends were getting a large part of that cash?

Q: Why would you buy a car just because it had an auxiliary input for your iPod?

Q: Why would you buy a car which didn't have one?

Q: Why wouldn't you give up your position as head of the National Hurricane Center when your entire staff says they can't work with you?

Q: When Bill Proenza says he has lots of support outside of the National Hurricane Center, who do you suppose he's talking about?

Q: Noting Proenza is from Texas, like just about everyone else Bush has appointed to anything - are there any political arrogant pricks left in Texas, or are they all in the Federal government now?

Q: Is there the slightest chance someone from Texas may be president in 2009?

Q: If so, would it be okay if I killed myself now?

Q: Why don't we take the fence they're building on the Rio Grande and wrap it around the whole state of Texas as a security measure?

Q: If Texas' day is about to end, where will the next set of arrogant political pricks come from?

Q: Where was the progressive equivalent of Clear Channel when all the mom-and-pop radio stations went on the block?

Q: If progressives offered a good price, would Clear Channel sell them a station?

Q: Is Congress going to hold hearings on the Bush administration's September gutting of wetland and streams regulations?

Q: If they do hold hearings, will it do any good?

Q: Is anything going to be left of the government in January, 2009?

Q: Which idiots actually believed that changing the army's policy in Iraq to clear, hold and rebuild and then leaving the holding and rebuilding to the Iraqi army would work?

Q: Don't the ninety million people who cast votes in the poll on what are the new seven wonders of the world have anything better to do?

Q: Are those same people still on line to buy iPhones?

Q: Don't the people who care about illegal Mexican immigration have anything better to do?

Q: What are the names of the people who really believe immigration is a security issue?

Q: How long has Allen Dershowitz been psychotic?

Q: Did NBC title a story on the Glasgow car bomb "The Doctor's Plot" with the intention of raising a connection to Stalin and the gulags?

Q: How many Americans have heard of The Doctor's Plot? I mean, the real one?

Q: Is the Live Earth world concert going to generate a movement, or just allow a lot of people to feel good about actually doing nothing about the problems the concert refers to?

Q: Is anyone responsible going to figure out that the reason why music albums are not selling while downloading of individual tracks is increasing is that no one knows how to write ten good songs?

Q: If you knew that the international space station's drinking water had been processed from urine, would you want to be an astronaut?

Q: How come the Jaguar, which used to look like the Ford Taurus, now looks like the Chevy Camaro?

Q: Name one reason why anyone actually surprised by the recent Supreme Court rulings should be allowed to appear in public - I mean, even in a line for a movie?

NO CONCLUSIONS

The following were the largest recipients of contributions from Pro-Israel PAC in the 2006 Congressional elections:

Jon Kyle, R AZ 84,500
Dianne Feinstein, D CA 31,500
Joe Leiberman, I CT 49,500
Bill Nelson, R FL 53,500
Clay Shaw, R FL 21,005
Melissa Bean, D IL 19,680
Mark Kirk, R IL 66,064
Dennis Hastert, R IL 16,200
Richard Lugar, R IN 32,250
Mike Pence, R IN 11,000
Ben Cardin, D MD 17,500
Steny Hoyer, D MD 28,500
Ted Kennedy, D MA 12,000
Debbie Stabenow, D MI 55,296
John Kline, R MN 10,000
Trent Lott, R MS 13,000
James Talent, R MO 36,010
Conrad Burns, R MT 29,500
Ben Nelson, D NB 46,500
Shelley Berkley, D NV 36,750
Robert Menendez, D NJ 24,500
Hillary Clinton, D NY 37,118
Joseph Crowley, D NY 10,500
Elliot Engel, D NY 22,000
Kent Conrad, D ND 52,600
Mike DeWine, R OH 31,000
Rick Santorum, R PA 46,950
Bob Casey, D PA 10,000
Tom Delay, R TX 26,000
George Allen, R VA 19,000
Eric Cantor, R VA 26,500
Thomas Craig, R WY 11,000

Some of these names are fascinating.

I draw no conclusions.