Russell Tice: [The NSA] monitored all communications

(Via Emptywheel)

First, Tice's description of the program confirms everything we have surmised about the program. The program:

* Established the means to collect all American communications
* Analyzed meta-data to select a smaller subset of communications to tap further
* Conducted human analysis of those messages

That is, the Bush administration used meta-data (things like length of phone call that have nothing to do with terrorism) to pick which communications to actually open and read, and then they opened and read them.

Watch the Olbermann interview - it'll get you by the vitals.

Anthony Bourdain and I have something in common

(From his interview in DCist)

Okay, I'll just say it. I think the [Spain - on the Road] show is f***ing awful. Mark Bittman comes off unsympathetic to say the least. Bringing someone who cannot or will not eat jamon [Gwyneth Paltrow] to Spain is a misjudgment. My crew grinds their teeth with rage looking at the crummy production values. Bad camera work, bad sound, bad direction. The whole thing sucks. It's unfortunate. It's mesmerizingly awful.

H/t to GOOD blog

Word of the day

(Via The Big Picture)

Clive Thompson gives us a word for our times:

Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth.

The winds of change

I'm sure most will focus on the more tangible aspects of the change in administration - like, say ordering the Guantanamo judges to halt pending cases or some such-

-but I'm loving this simple change to the White House website - the first day in office, the Obama administration has swapped the site's robot.txt file.

Under the Bush administration, the file spanned 2,400 lines of disallow listings (i.e. all you well behaved robots, don't scan these directories).

Under the new file added by the Obama web crew, the file is two lines long - (it tells robots to exclude the /includes/ directory).

Har! You wonder what gov geek has been jonesing to flip that file so bad.

(H/t to Kottke.org)

Best speech of the day

Rev. Joseph Lowery puts everyone to shame:


Amen.

(Transcript on WaPO)

Sen. Kennedy taken from inauguration in ambulance

This from TPM:

MSNBC showing video of Kennedy being loaded into an ambulance, with wife Vicki joining him. Sen. Hatch telling MSNBC's Kelly O'Donnell that it appeared to be a seizure, but that Kennedy was later conscious and able to communicate.

MSNBC has more.

Neal Katyal as Deputy Solicitor General?

He of Hamdan? in the SG's office? Likin' that.

(H/t to Emptywheel)

Inauguration footnotes

...courtesy of The Onion:

January 20, 2008 - Bush Dies Peacefully In His Sleep

January 20, 2008 - Hillary Clinton Mouthing Along To Presidential Oath

Got this from Snopes:

"When I was in my routine training for the Israeli army as a teenager, they discovered completely by chance that I was a lethal sniper. I could hit the target smack in the center further away than anyone could believe. Not just that, even though I was tiny and not even much of an athlete, I was incredibly accurate throwing hand grenades too. Even today I can load a Sten automatic rifle in a single minute, blindfolded."

Guess who?


I'll give you one extra hint: she's a she.

That'd be Female, grew up in Israel, and short.

Ideas?
















Dr. Ruth Westheimer

Seriously.

Down goes Khyber

The Long War Journal is reporting Pakistan has closed the Khyber...again.

Thank makes five times since September - and Pakistan is moving units south to deal with India.

Want to bet our next round of negotiations with Pakistan will be a bit heated?

Scooter-watch

Mr. Marshall reminds me that there are about 24 hours until Pres. Bush loses the power to pardon.

The question is, will he - or won't he?

Late edit: CBS is reporting that Alaska's Murkowski wants the President to pardon Ted Stevens. As if.

Foreclosure USA: Now in handy mashup form

RealtyTrac.com has posted foreclosure data for 2008 in a searchable format.

You can do custom searches, too.

Here's a snap of the Chicago area:

Map a single result and zoom out to see the groupings.

(H/t to The Big Picture)

See how last year treated your hometown.

Data you can touch

I should spend more time watching stuff from TED.

Here's a great demonstration of how data can be used to convey complex information rapidly.

Hans Rosling showing the behavior of populations over time for a variety of data. Fascinating.



Inspiring, too - and not just the data, but how it is presented. Great stuff.

Nothing to see here folks, move along

The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General has released their report on the military analyst program

• Examination of Allegations Involving DoD Public Affairs Outreach Program (PDF, 10MB) [This report was withdrawn in May of 2009 by the DoD]
  

Not surprisingly - they found nothing wrong (emphasis added):

We determined that those activities were conducted in accordance with DoD policies and regulations.

[snip]

...we found the evidence insufficient to conclude that [Retired Military Analyst] RMA outreach activities were improper. Further, we found insufficient basis to conclude that [Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs] OASD(PA) conceived of or undertook a disciplined effort to assemble a contingent of influential RMAs who could be depended on to comment favorably on DoD programs.

With regard to RMAs who had ties to military contractors, extensive searches found no instance where such RMAs used information or contacts obtained as a result of the OASD(PA) outreach program to achieve a competitive advantage for their company. Of the 70 RMAs that we examined, we found that 20 (29 percent) had some type of corporate association. We examined publicly available contracting information involving RMA-affiliated companies to identify any pattern of contract award or contract type that might indicate an irregularity. We did not isolate such a pattern and concluded that further investigative work into this matter was not warranted.

I'm eager to hear what David Barstow has to say in response (especially since 17 of the report's 85 pages are Barstow's article).

Late edit:  While the investigation may have been given limited scope, the report's Appendix J - Interviews with News Networks, gives you a sense of the rigor of their investigation:

We requested interviews with the official responsible for the news divisions at five networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and NBC. All declined our request for an interview. ABC, CNN, and FOX provided formal written responses to our inquiry. NBC forwarded copies of their responses to Congresswoman DeLauro and the New York Times. CBS provided “off the record” remarks.

 Here's the rest of Appendix J, in its entirety:

In general, the written responses stated that the networks relied on the RMAs for their expertise, knowledge and experience in military matters. The networks considered the RMAs as outside consultants, expecting them to be “ultimate insiders,” fully using contacts and access to ongoing events in DoD. Three networks discussed their requirement for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. There were no negative connotations concerning the role of the OASD(PA), and one network representative pointed out that “just because the Pentagon had a public relations effort that suggested military analysts be courted, does not mean that every analyst fell for the effort.”

We interviewed three media professionals that formerly held executive positions with the networks: a former president, an executive producer, and a bureau chief. The interviews provided several unique perspectives.

• The networks retained military experts to augment their correspondents.
• RMA and anchors/network correspondents conducted extensive preparation prior to appearing on-air.
• Different venues (morning shows, Sunday morning news shows, nightly news) provide different opportunities to broadcast a message.
• The networks performed no polling or research on RMA appearances.
• RMAs were not journalists and demonstrated a “home-town bias” towards the military.
• Over time, some RMAs provided opinions on policy, going beyond commenting on military operations.

RMAs represented a unique group. Many were “credentialed” media and paid by networks without having to satisfy journalist requirements. As retired military, they received retired pay from DoD but were perceived by the American public as free to speak their mind. They were provided access to senior DoD officials and were expected to remain apolitical in a situation where politics were part of the terrain.

Late Edit: (May 8, 2009) The report has been withdrawn by the DoD because:

[an] internal review concluded that the report did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.

BoA WTF?

I know, I know, get a life, but Friday is when they dump the bad news...

The Baseline Scenario deconstructs the sweetheart deal that Bank of America just got.

Hooray, we've doubled down on BoA. Another 20 billion invested and another govt gurantee of BoA's Merrill assetts - to the tune of $108 billion.

Paulson's hipshooting again. What a freaking joke.

Why we know nothing

(via The Big Picture)

Alisa Miller of PRI shows us how distorted our TV news coverage is.

And she uses pretty pictures.

Et tu, Strib?

Dang. The Minneapolis Star Tribune files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

(H/t TPM)

President Bush is resting comfortably in Bethesda Naval Hospital

With Pres. Bush's increasingly desperate attempts to get the media's attention - I feel like somebody should tell him to relax: You're not being ignored, Mr. President. Oh, sure - you're a despised lame duck whose every utterance is grammatical genocide - but we're still interested in you as a person.

And okay, the mainstream media is all-Obama, all the time - but America can still follow G.W.B.'s post-election progress in its Finest News Source.

I give you - the "resting comfortably" series:

• November 12, 2008 - Bush Tumbles Wildly Down Washington Monument Staircase
  
  
• November 19, 2008 - Crocodile Bites Off Bush's Arm
  
  
• November 28, 2008 - Bush Passes Three-Pound Kidney Stone
  
  
• December 4, 2008 - Bush Dragged Behind Presidential Motorcade For 26 Blocks
  
  
• December 8, 2008 - Bush's Eyelid Accidentally Nailed To Wall
  
  
• January 6, 2009 - Single-Engine Cessna Crashes Into Bush
  
  
• January 14, 2009 - Spider Eggs Hatch In Bush's Brain
  

Cheer up, Mr. Almost-no-longer-the-President, we haven't forgotten you.

Like the sound of that

Obama Adviser Presents Plan to Alter Global Financial System

A top economic adviser to the incoming Obama administration unveiled a plan today to radically rethink the global financial system, including a host of measures that would dramatically expand government control over banking and investment in the United States.

[snip]

A top economic adviser to the incoming Obama administration unveiled a plan today to radically rethink the global financial system, including a host of measures that would dramatically expand government control over banking and investment in the United States.

The proposal offers 18 major recommendations that would insert government regulators into the board rooms of financial institutions as never before. The plan recommends vastly increased oversight of major banks, going as far as to recommend the end of an era of mega banks whose size makes their failure potentially catastrophic to the global financial system. To limit their size and scope, banks, the document states, should be prohibited from managing hedge funds or private equity funds.

In addition, major mutual funds should be required to operate as commercial banks, subjecting them to stricter government oversight. Those that choose not to comply should be forced to sell only relatively safe financial instruments offering investors low risk, and, most probably, limited room for outsized profits.

The document suggests that rating agencies should also face a battery of government regulators.

Okay... I'm going to try thinking happy thoughts for awhile now.

(Don't screw this up for me.)

The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many

The sinking feeling I've had about this bailout is not something I have the chops to back up. The basic gist has been this suspicion that the stated goals of the TARP and Fed actions have been different from what they are actually after.

This has been the subtext of a lot of things written about how the TARP and the Fed’s bailout maneuvers have been playing out. Federal aid was being distributed to many to disguise the condition of a few. Everyone gets money so we can’t guess who needs it most.  AIG is shored up to help its ailing creditors – creditors who positions are not disclosed.

Well The Baseline Scenario is out there saying this, and doing it from a position of knowing something. Were I to know, instead of merely suspect – I would want to be saying something like this:

I think that TARP’s primary purpose is to protect the financial system against the collapse of any systemically critical financial institutions (I leave it to others to define what those are, but Bank of America definitely is one, GMAC I’m skeptical about), and it has suffered from three main problems: 

1. The initial round was too small, with banks only getting 3% of assets or $25 billion, whichever was smaller - which is why Citi and now B of A have had to come back.
2. The terms were too generous; I can make an exception for the first round, but I don’t understand why Citigroup 2 and GMAC were so favorable to shareholders.
3. Except for the very generous initial round, it’s just a pile of money to be used in ad hoc deals, not a comprehensive program with a coherent strategy, so no one is quite sure how or if it will be able to protect the financial system.

The people this crap was sold to are expecting this money to prop up an ailing financial system - not save a few well connected financial firms.

We come out the other end of this thing with bigger banks who are underwritten by the government, and I expect we'll just be queued up for the next time Wall Street decides to stick us with the bill.