From the Washington Post:

Just a heads-up.

One of my great discoveries over break was that fifty-three Frontline reports are online.

These I watched over break and suggest: The Persuaders

ANNOUNCER: It’s everywhere you look. BOB GARFIELD, Columnist, Advertising Age: You cannot walk down the street without being bombarded. ANNOUNCER: They call it a “clutter crisis.” NAOMI KLEIN, Author, No Logo: Consumers are like roaches. You spray them and spray them, and after a while, it doesn’t work anymore. We develop immunities. ANNOUNCER: And the multi-billion-dollar advertising industry is in a desperate struggle to break through. JOHN HAYES, Chief Marketing Officer, American Express: We don’t just come forward with what we want to sell, we engage you with things that you want. ANNOUNCER: Advertisers have blurred the line between programming and product. SCOTT DONATON, Editor-in-Chief, Advertising Age: It’s advertising that people not only will tolerate but will actually go in search of. ACTRESS: ["Sex and the City"] The way God and Madison Avenue intended. ANNOUNCER: But how is advertising affecting our lives and the world around us? MARK CRISPIN MILLER, New York University: Once a culture becomes entirely advertising-friendly, it ceases to be a culture at all. ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE– DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, FRONTLINE Correspondent: –ask me this all the time. What about the environment? ANNOUNCER: Correspondent Douglas Rushkoff takes you inside the changing world of The Persuaders.

Is Walmart Good for America?

ANNOUNCER: There’s never been a company like it. Prof. GARY GEREFFI, Duke University: Wal-Mart is probably the broadest and most powerful company in U.S. business history. ANNOUNCER: Its everyday low prices benefit millions of Americans. BRUCE BARTLETT, National Center for Policy Analysis: Wal-Mart has really given an increase in income to every American. ANNOUNCER: But some say it’s a bad bargain. STEVE RATCLIFF: It’s putting people out of work, that’s what it’s doing. ANNOUNCER: Tonight, correspondent Hedrick Smith investigates how Wal-Mart is changing the American economy– HEDRICK SMITH, FRONTLINE Correspondent: The Chinese guys bought the big machine? ANNOUNCER: –following the trail of low prices in America to low-cost production in China– DONALD HAY, Entrepreneur: I said, “Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. The next one’s China. I got to get here.” ANNOUNCER: –tracking the nation’s growing trade deficit– YVONNE SMITH, Port of Long Beach: Wal-Mart’s our number one customer. HEDRICK SMITH: Wal-Mart’s your number one customer? YVONNE SMITH: Number one customer. ANNOUNCER: –and examining the growing controversy over the Wal-Mart way. ALAN TONELSON, U.S. Business & Industry Council: The lowest prices have to lead to the lowest wages and to job loss and to lower living standards. ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE, Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

Secret History of the Credit Card

ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE: The average American family has eight. JIM MUELLER: “Zero percent for life on transfer balances”— ANNOUNCER: Credit cards, plastic money, have become both a necessity and a ticket to a better life. [television commercial] ACTOR AND ACTRESS: Hawaii! BEN STEIN, Actor/Author: A credit card is an extraordinary, unbelievably great convenience for the consumer. ANNOUNCER: But the credit card industry plays by its own rules. Prof. ELIZABETH WARREN, Harvard Law School: I don’t know any merchant in America who can change the price after you’ve bought the item, except a credit card company. ANNOUNCER: Credit card banks earn record profits. LOWELL BERGMAN, FRONTLINE Correspondent: MBNA’s profits last year— one-and-a-half times that of McDonald’s. EDWARD YINGLING, American Bankers Association: Well, McDonald’s didn’t do too well last year. ANNOUNCER: But the profits come at a price. ANDREW GUILE, Consumer: Now they’ve raised my rate to 19.98, and I have not been late ever. PAT WALLACE, Bay Area Better Business Bureau: There are irritated, unhappy, dissatisfied customers in this industry. Prof. ELIZABETH WARREN: They are the new loan sharks in America. DUNCAN MacDONALD, Fmr. Citibank General Counsel: I certainly didn’t imagine that someday we might have ended up creating a Frankenstein. LOWELL BERGMAN: Frankenstein? What do you mean, Frankenstein? ANNOUNCER: Tonight, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman and The New York Times investigate the secrets of your credit card .

Karl Rove– The Architect

ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE: Karl Rove had a master plan. MIKE ALLEN, The Washington Post: He was the architect. His hand was in all of it. ANNOUNCER: It took 40 years, but he changed the political landscape. POLITICAL OBSERVER: Karl Rove came to town with one goal, and that was this massive Republican realignment. ANNOUNCER: How did he do it? And what does it mean for America? POLITICAL OBSERVER: Karl Rove wants a permanent Republican majority. POLITICAL OBSERVER: He’s the God inside the machine. ANNOUNCER: Tonight, FRONTLINE and The Washington Post examine Karl Rove: The Architect.

The Torture Question

ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE: There was a lot of soldiers that had digital cameras at Abu Ghraib, and they would take pictures of literally everything that they would do. ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE, the story about what really happened in cell block 1A. Spc. ANTHONY LAGOURANIS, Interrogator, US Army, 2001-’05: Part of it is, they were trying to get information, but part of it is also just pure sadism. ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE: They felt righteous in doing it, and that’s what made it really dangerous and diabolical. ANNOUNCER: With exclusive interviews— ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE: And this escalated all the way to make them fear that rape could be performed on prisoners. ANNOUNCER: —and never before seen footage. GI: [home video] We’re all mad! We’re all mad! ANNOUNCER: How high did it reach? Gen. JANIS KARPINSKI, Cmdr., 800th MP Brigade, 2003-’04: General Sanchez put his finger in Colonel Pappas’s chest and told him he wanted the information. ANNOUNCER: And what does it reveal? Gen. RICHARD MYERS, Joint Chiefs Chairman: We’ve dealt with that. If it was only the night shift at Abu Ghraib, it’s a pretty good clue that it wasn’t a more widespread problem. Sen. JOHN McCAIN (R), Arizona: This isn’t about who they are, this is about who we are. ANNOUNCER: Where else did it spread? Spc. ANTHONY LAGOURANIS: It’s not at Abu Ghraib, it’s all over Iraq. The infantry units are torturing people in their homes. ANNOUNCER: FRONTLINE exposes the dark secrets behind “The Torture Question.”

There’s been a lot of questioning as to what the actual evidence is against lawmakers that Abramoff will be able to provide in order to implicate them for their actions. Further, there remains in some circles questions as to what actually happened, what was the nature of the corruption. This week an article in Time Magazine seeks to start that explanation.

The article focuses on the soon to be famous emails between Scanlon and Abramoff. For two such smart guys you’d figure they’d try to be a little more covert in their dealings, although I suppose when your party is doing the wiretapping you really have little to fear. The email in question here regards a donation of $10,000 to the NRCC from SunCruz Casinos.

On Oct. 20, 2000, the e-mail records show, Scanlon sent Abramoff Scanlon’s draft of a statement praising Adam Kidan, a co-owner of SunCruz Casinos, a Florida gambling-boat company that Abramoff and Kidan had bought the month before, after a public dispute with the previous owner. Abramoff and Kidan, who have since pleaded guilty in Florida to fraud in connection with their financing of the SunCruz purchase, hoped that Ney’s positive statement would “let people know that SunCruz now was in honest hands,” according to a source familiar with the case. In an Oct. 23 e-mail, Abramoff proposed throwing $10,000 at the NRCC in the form of a SunCruz check signed by Kidan. The money was sent within days, and Ney got credit within the G.O.P. for raising it. Ney then inserted praise for Kidan into the Oct. 26 Congressional Record.

The entire Abramoff scandal has raised questions as to whether this is merely a case of corruption being built upon legally reported campaign donations. In fact a conversation I recently had took this same vein. However, as the Time article continues to point out through the comments of a government expert on criminal law: “Contributions are lawful only if made in support of a lawmaker’s policies. They are clearly illegal as part of a prenegotiated deal involving a quid pro quo.”

That doesn’t sound good for the cabal of corruption atop Capitol Hill. This issue is separate from legal donations, or even the perks of being a lawmaker. This is a direct contribution for an action that had nothing to do with the legitimate function of Ney in his role in Congress and upon performing this favor, he was credited with a $10,000 check to the NRCC to which he must fundraise to certain levels in order to retain his chairmanship. Does not this also speak to a greater corruption within the GOP that runs our Congress? Are chairmanships based upon successful fundraising efforts? It would make sense to me that the best qualified person should sit on each committee, but this corruption and crooked way of doing business just goes deeper and deeper.

This is huge, over from Black Box Voting Forums. A test election held in Florida allowed hackers to completley change the election requiring only the same kind of access needed by volunteer poll workers all over the country

.Finnish security expert Harri Hursti, together with Black Box Voting, demonstrated that Diebold made misrepresentations to Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the “memory card” (the credit-card-sized ballot box used by computerized voting machines. A test election was run in Leon County on Tuesday with a total of eight ballots. Six ballots voted “no” on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thompson and by Harri Hursti voted “yes” indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be hacked. At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A “zero report” was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes. The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied “ender card” was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine. Correct results should have been: Yes:2 ; No:6 However, just as Hursti had planned, the results tape read: Yes:7 ; No:1

Time to dump these machines.

Or so the White House thinks. First Bush admits that we had bad intel for Iraq, but that it was a good invasion anyway. Now, he admits that he authroized the spying on of Americans.

I can’t be the only person who just shakes his head at this. Just because you admit something doesn’t make it right, you actually have to do something to fix it, you know retribution. I mean last time I checked a murderer didn’t go free by simply saying “yeah, well I did it.”

Also, finals are over so more posting.

The CIA Leak case is of course not over, and now Raw Story is reporting that tomorrow Fitzgerald may seek an indictment on Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. From the article, here’s the important part:

In a bid to keep Rove out of Fitzgerald’s crosshairs, Luskin recently told Fitzgerald that he had a conversation with Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak in February 2004 where she inadvertently revealed that Rove had been a source for her colleague Matt Cooper. Luskin said this prompted an exhaustive search for evidence that Cooper and Rove spoke. The search turned up an email Rove had sent to then Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley just minutes after his conversation with Cooper in which he told Hadley what they had spoken about. Luskin said he promptly turned over the email to Fitzgerald and that led Rove to change his testimony. A week ago, Fitzgerald briefed the second grand jury hearing evidence in the leak case for more than three hours. During that time, he brought them up to speed on the latest developments involving Rove and at least one other White House official, the sources said. The attorneys refused to identify the second person.

Well maybe Fitzmas will come closer to Christmas after all. This of course is important because people already forgot that Fitzgerald wasn’t limited to the first grand jury at all, not sure how that meme ever got started.

Good graphic on the Washington Post’s website called “Abramoff Spread the Wealth.”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday refused to spare the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, a death row inmate. I had been hopeful about this all week. I am plainly against the death penalty and Williams has done a lot of good in jail. Many have spoken about redemption and whether one can get it, and I believe this man has really done good things not as a show but out of a legitimate and serious change of heart. Life in jail is no fun time and I abhor that we as a society put anyone to death, especially someone who seems to be benefiting society a great deal now.

Good Talk Left post on the matter.

According to Think Progress:

On Tuesday — three days before Veterans Day — House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-IN) announced that for the first time in at least 55 years, “veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees.”

Happy Veterans Days guys. Remember my Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ 11th) was the chair of this committee but then was removed when he tried to raise objections to under funding the VA hospital system as we marched to war. Apparently his replacement has no problem with that nor with denying veterans the chance to speak before Congress.

Talkleft has more evidence of the hypocrisy of the Bush camp including George W. Bush noting that in 1999, Governor Bush said that lying during a press conference was an impeachable offense. By that standard, President Bush would have been impeached before the Iraq invasion was launched.

Good Lord, where do these people come from, and why do we bother finding them? This young duo tours around California singing their songs of White Nationalist Pride. Just read the story.

Bob Taft, the governor of Ohio, has plead no contest to breaking state ethics laws. Even by democrats there appears to be few calls for him to resign or be impeached. It appears that he will serve out the remainder of his term despite these actions. I’m not sure how the people of Ohio think- but I’ll wager that in NJ there might be come call for our governor to resign if he was convicted of a crime while in office.

I am not sure thought that his is the motivation of the Dems in Ohio; I think it may be fear toward angering the swing voters, so the strategy is to allow the guilty verdict to speak for itself. However, I am not foreign to the benefits of him staying in office. If Taft resigned, a new governor with a (presumably) cleaner record would take over. However, now Democrats face a scandal that can be used to our advantage in the Ohio state elections, especially in what appears to be a larger GOP scandal that I do not really understand. I think that there should be a lot of talk from the Ohio Dems about this scandal; it should be constantly spoken about. This, without a call for resignation may allow for the Dems to be in the best position possible next year for state and house races. Overall, a careful strategy pointing out faults and scandal without upsetting swing voters will put Ohio more in play.

One could argue that we should have an impeachment trial that will bring up everything we want and allows for more potential. Considering our recent success in Ohio, how crucial that state was in 2004 and how its dynamic is changing, we should put our gamble on a more aggressive stance. I am just not sure it gains us anything. If Taft resigns or is removed from office we get a cleaner Republican who will turn around and run for governor. If we just continually bring up the corruption, we gain all that without the formality of a trial that will alienate some voters. I think what we need is a democrat primary race that is not very bloody— that gets a unified democratic candidate quickly. Then we can turn around and fight a state GOP that is floundering in its own corruption headed by a convicted criminal.