New Look

As you can see, I have been playing around with the look of my blog. I thought it was too generic before, as I was using a standard template. What do you think? I can change it back very easily, if necessary, so feel free to be critical.

New Crap Factor Blog

I decided to create a new blog for my Bill O'Reilly feature: [link]

The Crap Factor - Week 1

Today I received my first issue of Bill O'Reilly's weekly newsletter "The Spin Stops Here." It was actually quite difficult to find the content. After sifting through two independent commercial advertisements, ads for the O'Reilly factor television and radio shows, ads for "Premium Membership," an ad for "Bill O'Reilly for Kids," an ad for Bill O'Reilly T-Shirts, and self-congratulatory statements claiming to have single-handedly forced a judge to change his sentence for a child molester, I eventually found a link to his actual column. Here are his statements, and my responses:

1. Liberalism is not gaining traction in North America, evidenced by polls which show Americans support the nomination of Judge Alito by a "wide margin."

My response:
What does he consider to be a "wide margin?" According to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup 54% of Americans support Alito, with a +/- 3% margin of error [link]. The "wide margin" for that poll is barely larger than the margin of error. These results were identical to the Washington Post-ABC News Poll [link].
Result: 100 % Crap - His statement is simply untrue.


2. Liberalism is not gaining traction in North America, evidenced by Canada elected a conservative prime minister.

My response:
While it is true that Canada's party did gain 25 seats in this election, O'Reilly neglects to mention the corruption scandals which have plagued the liberal party, or the fact that the New Democratic Party, Canada's socialist party, gained 10 seats. He also neglects to mention that the conservative party is still far from a majority, with only 124 out of 307 seats.
Result: 40% Crap - His statement was true, although misleading.

3. The president's "terror warrior" poll numbers indicate that liberalism is not gaining traction in North America.

My Response:
What the heck are the president's "terror warrior" poll numbers? Apparently that is a phrase that he made up, but I assume he means Bush's approval rating regarding terrorism. According to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, a whopping 52% of Americans approve of the way Bush is handling terrorism, with a +/-3% margin of error [link]. Based on that, it can't even be said with any certainty that even a majority of Americans approve of the way that Bush is handling terrorism.
Result: 100% Crap - His statement was simply not true. He needs to learn what they mean by margin of error.


4. Liberalism could not be gaining traction in North America because 51% of Americans would not vote for Hillary Clinton for president.
My Response:
In that poll [link], the most popular Democratic and Republican candidates were Hillary Clinton and Condoleza Rice. 16% said they would definitely vote for Hillary Clinton, compared to 14% for Condoleza Rice, and the total number of people who would at least consider voting for Clinton was 48%, compared to 52% for Condoleza Rice, which is within the +/- 4% margin of error for the poll. Additionally, 48% said they would definitely not vote for Condoleza Rice, which is within the margin of error for Clinton's 51%.
Result: 100% Crap - His statement is untrue because the leading conservative candidate has virtually the same numbers.

5. The New York Times op-ed columnists Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and Frank Rich published 148 "anti-Bush" op-ed pieces in the last 13 months, representing 47% of their work.

My Response:
What percentage of Bill O'Reilly's work would you guess is anti-anti-Bush? My guess would be well over 50%. Additionally, there's a reason their work is published in the Op-Ed section. It is opinion, and they don't claim for it to be anything else, unlike Mr. O'Reilly, who's "No Spin Zone," where he pretends that his opinions are spin-free news.
Result: 70% Crap - His response may be factually correct, I could not verify it, but regardless, his statement is mostly crap for pretending his opinions are news, and for saying that people who don't agree with him have no place even in the opinion section. Note: I was tempted to give him a 90% crap rating on this statement, as I believe 90% of his supposed news is really anti-anti-Bush opinion.


6. Ted Kennedy's attacks on Samuel Alito made his wife cry.

My Response:
Samuel Alito's wife did not start crying during Kennedy's questioning of him, but rather when Senator Lindsey Graham asked him if he was a closeted bigot [link], presumably in response to Kennedy's questions regarding Alito's affiliation with the organization Concerned Alumni of Princeton.
Result: 50% Crap - We don't know why she cried, but it is a fact that the tears were a direct response to the question by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.


7. Americans remain uneasy about terrorism.

My Response:
I can't argue with that, although I do think that this is largely a result of Bush's policies. That's just my opinion, however, so I won't hold that against him here.
Result: 0% Crap


8. Democrats poll far below Republicans on terrorism.

My response:
This is true, but this article is about liberalism, not about Democrats, which I would hardly equate with liberalism. Additionally, according to a CBS News poll, when asked whether the Democratic party or the Republican party would do a better job of writing laws to find terrorists without violating the average person's rights, 42% chose the Democrats and only 33% chose the Republicans [link].
Result: 20% Crap - His statement is true, although again misleading.

9. Democrats don't put forward concrete solutions to vexing problems:
a. How would they respond if Iran "continues to develop nukes?"
b. How would they deal with Iraq?

My Response:
Iran can't "continue to develop nukes" because they haven't been developing nukes. They removed the seals on IAEA equipment for nuclear research which they claim is related only to energy production, and not nuclear weapons, but the point is that they just did this last month. Admittably, it is true that the Democrats often don't put forward a clear and concise agenda, but the problem with O'Reilly's arguments is that he is comparing the Bush administration, a single entity, to the entire Democratic party. Of course there is more unity among a single entity than there is among the many Democratic senators and congressmen. Each Democratic candidate had his/her own beliefs. It is only valid to compare specific Democrats with specific Republicans, or to compare the two parties as a whole. For some concrete solutions to vexing problems, I refer you to Senator Obama's statements on Iraq [link].
Result: 60% crap - He has a point about a lack of unity for the Democratic party, but he is still trying to compare apples and oranges.


10. The "left-wing media" hurts Democrats by "making celebrities of loons like Cindy Sheehan and Harry Belafonte."

My Response:
Of course I know who Cindy Sheehan is, but I had to look up Harry Belafonte. Apparently, the reason O'Reilly thinks he is a "loon" is because he is an activist who opposes Bush and supports Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez. I have great respect and admiration for Cindy Sheehan, and I refer her detractors to this Rolling Stone interview [link]. As for Harry Belafonte, the fact that he supports Chavez definitely makes me like him. On to his main point, if it were in fact true that the media made celebrities out of them, how does this hurt the Democrats? They are not Democrats. O'Reilly apparently implies that independent-thinking individuals think that Sheehan and Belafonte are loons, and that these independent-thinking people don't like the Democrats because they don't call them loons. Well, I can't speak for all independently-thinking people, but I would guess that the radical idea that they are "loons" is fairly limited outside of O'Reilly, and his followers who would rather let O'Reilly do their thinking for them.
Result: 100% Crap

Average for the week: 64%
I predicted 90%, so Letterman was much closer with his 60% guess.

Justification for Wiretaps Without Warrants?

In arguing in favor of the warrantless wiretaps, the Bush administration defends its actions, for the most part, by just saying that they have the authority. Simply believing they have the authority to do something is not justification enough bypass the FISA court, which has been in place for 26 years.

The FISA court has rejected only 6 out of the Bush administration's 5,645 requests, and modified only 179. That means that 5,460 requests, or 96.7% of all requests for wiretaps were approved without any modification.

In order to get a warrant from the FISA court, it is only necessary for the Bush administration to show probable cause that the subject of the surveillance has ties to a terrorist organization. In the 22 years the FISA court existed before the Bush administration, only two out of 13,102 requests were modified. Additionally, they can seek warrants retroactively for up to 72 hours after a wiretap has begun.

So the question remains, if the subjects of the Bush administration's surveillance really do have ties to Al Qaida, why not get a warrant? The FISA court has essentially been rubber stamping 96.7 percent of all requests since the Bush administration took office.

The Bush administration has committed so many abuses of power, I have lost count. It really is time to start talking about impeachment.

A "California-Style Energy Crisis"

The group Citizens Organized for Reliable Electricity [link], an organization funded almost entirely by Commonwealth Edison [link], has produced a television commercial [link], claiming that in order to avoid a "California-Style Energy Crisis" it is necessary to remove the price limits on electricity rates, and allow Illinois utilities to buy power on an open market. These statements are extremely misleading, as the reason for the California energy crisis was manipulation of energy markets by utility companies.

Electricity deregulation is an extremely complicated issue. This complexity allows electric utilities like Exelon (ComEd) and Ameren, the two largest power companies in Illinois, to deceive the public and politicians into thinking that furthur deregulation would be a good thing for everyone, when in reality, it would be a good thing only for Com Ed, etc. and their shareholders.

Before deregulation, electric utility companies were regional monopolies, meaning that one large company owned all of the electricity generation, transmission, and distribution within a geographic area. Prices were set by governmental agencies, so in order to maximize their profit, utilities had to minimize the cost to supply electricity to their customers. It was in the best interest of the company, as well as customers, for there to be a robust, reliable electricity delivery system.

Under deregulation, the large utilities are split up into separate generation, transmission, and distribution companies, and ultimately, the customer is supposed to have the freedom to choose from many different companies to purchase power. Deregulation is driven by a belief that a free market will ultimately lead to the best product, produced in the most efficient way, because such a product is the most profitable. In reality, because the the tremendous cost of starting an energy company, deregulation rarely leads to significantly increased competition, and the results are what was seen in California.

During California's energy crisis, Enron and other power companies manipulated the energy market to increase their profit. One scheme had Enron purchasing power at low, regulated prices in California, and selling it at higher rates outside of the state. As a result, there was not enough energy to supply California, and roaming blackouts resulted [link].

Ultimately, the energy crisis in California was the result of manipulation by energy companies. ComEd's claims of an impending California-style energy crisis are at best unfounded, and at worst, a threat of market manipulation by ComEd if it doesn't get it's way. Governor Blagojevich rightly opposes Com Ed's plan [link], and I encourage everyone to send him a letter, urging him to do everything in his power to stop ComEd [link].

An Un-American Plan for Election Financing: Why I Still Like Al Franken

Throughout American history, the notion that financial status should be equated with political power has been pretty consistent. Originally, only property owners had the right to vote in this country [link]. Nowadays, corporations donate millions to political parties, and spend even more on lobbying. Good financing does not necessarily guarantee a candidate victory, however, a lack of financing is certainly a guarantee of failure. This is the American way. In the case of Buckley V. Valeo in 1976 [link], the Supreme Court declared mandatory limits on campaign expenditures to be contrary to the First Amendment. In essence, it is unconstitutional to stop wealthy candidates from exercising the advantages that their wealth provides.

It seems to me that publicly financing elections would be the most influential legislation since FDR's New Deal. Can you imagine candidates looking out for the actual interests of their constituents, rather than the interests of the lobbies which support them?

I am not saying that all politicians are necessarily slave to the wealthy contributors who support them (although I am sure there are many who are), but a party who's platform can not find substantial financial backing is certainly doomed to fail. In order for a candidate to be successful, he or she must be acceptable to a party, and parties can not exist without financial backing. Those with wealth will not support a party which supports candidates who don't serve their interests. The result of this is to concentrate power in the hands of only those who have been deemed acceptable by individuals and other entities with wealth, and to limit the discourse to issues which do not threaten the dominance of the wealthy supporters. These entities are for the most part corporations and other similar groups, with a few notable exceptions such as labor unions and interest groups, whose influence has faded significantly in recent decades.

Of course, Al Franken is hardly the first person to mention something like this, and it has actually been successfully enacted in some states, but what I like about him, unlike most other Democratic pundits, is that he is not content focusing only on the talking points of the party, but rather tries to work within the party to set a more progressive agenda. Another example of this is the issue of national health care, which Franken adamantly supports unlike the Democratic Party.

Wire Taps and Journalistic Responsibility

Journalist bias is a very difficult thing to demonstrate, but I have repeatedly argued in the past that most bias is a very simple result of financial influences. All news media is industry, and is therefore a slave to profits, just like every other industry. That doesn't entirely explain the current trend with the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping. Take this quote from a recent article, sent to me with much thanks from the most brilliant (and hottest) reporter that I know:

"The White House has come under attack for the eavesdropping since The New York Times reported in December that Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance without warrants on the phone calls and e-mails of perhaps thousands of Americans following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The surveillance affected calls between the U.S. and overseas if one party had suspected ties to Al Qaeda." [link]

At what point did it become a proven fact that the surveillance took place only "if one party had suspected ties to Al Qaeda?" These wiretaps are top secret. There would still be a question of their existance, if the NY Times had not published an article about it [link], and that article always qualifies such statements as "according to officials..." etc. No one outside the NSA and the Bush administration knows the real extent of the illegal surveillance. According to NBC, the Pentagon has been spying on Anti-War groups such as the Quakers [link], and the ACLU is suing the FBI for spying on Greenpeace and other activist groups [link]. The only reason we have to think the NSA wiretaps are limited to those with actual "suspected ties to Al Qaeda" is because that is what the Bush administration will admit to. Do we have any reason to believe them to such an extent that journalists print their statements as fact, despite convincing evidence that their statements may be false?

Judicial Oversight and the Limit of Executive Power

Comment from Jose Sr.
"As stated in the article first linked to your essay: "A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the NBC report about the database. However, he said: "The Department of Defense uses counterintelligence and law enforcement information properly collected by law enforcement agencies. (Note the word "Properly"...)"The use of this information is subject to strict limitations, particularly the information must be related to missions relating to protection of DoD installations, interests and personnel," he added.The Pentagon has already acknowledged the existence of a counterintelligence program known as the "Threat and Local Observation Notice" (TALON) reporting system.This system, the Pentagon said, is designed to gather "non-validated threat information and security anomalies indicative of possible terrorist pre-attack activity." Now, I ask you, Jose, is the Government spying on you, or are you spying on them? All of this while our ememy is trying to kill us in our homes, workplaces and shopping malls.
Sincerely,Jose Sr "

All of the covert activities of the Bush administration have been carried out without any independant review. The secret wiretaps, for example, have been, and are continuing to be carried out without any warrents or outside agency monitoring their activities.

The primary point is that these acts are not carried out purely in defense against terrorists, and we have only their word that they are operating "properly." There is evidence to indicate otherwise. The ACLU, for example, has obtained documents which they claim demonstrates surveillance on many peaceful groups including Greenpeace and the Quakers [link,link].

Throughout our history, new threats to this country have routinely been met by new demands for expanded power of the executive branch, and in almost all cases, they have led to abuses. Below is a brief collection of information on specific violations resulting from power left unchecked by external review:

1980's
1. Nicaragua - The Reagan administration throughout the 1980's participated in overt and covert operation to destablize the democraticlly elected government of Nicagarua, primarily by funding right-wing terrorist groups like the "Contras" to carry out attacks against the civilian population. When public support forced an end to the official support of these groups, weapons were secretely sold to Iran and the funds wen't to continue the support of terrorist activities in the "Iran-Contra" scandal [link].

1970's
1. Operation Minaret - NSA created a list of individuals who were associated with anti-war and civil rights groups, and conducted surveillance on them [link]

1960's
1. COINTELPRO - An extensive illegal counterintelligence program involving numerous state and federal agencies, including the CIA, FBI, and Army Intelligence, directed against critics of the government, including anti-war groups, the NAACP, and Martin Luther King Jr.
COINTELPRO history [link]
PBS Bill Moyers article COINTELPRO Again? [link]
Nixon's surveillance of John Kerry [link]

2. Operation Chaos - Illegal CIA intelligence gathering within the United States against groups opposed to the Vietnam war.
A History of Operation CHAOS [link]
Excerpt from Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States [link]

1950's
1. Operation Shamrock - Illegal covert effort by the National Security Agency to intercept virtually all domestic and international telegraph communications [link].

2. McCarthyism - An extensive effort carried out by Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin, as well as others, against left-wing subversives, as well as Democrats who supported the New Deal policies of FDR.
Link to numerous governemtn documents related to McCarthyism [link]

1940's
1. House Committee on Un-American Activities - Investigated subversives, made unfounded accusations against subversives, and assumed guilt based on association with groups and individuals.
History of House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) [link]
HUAC and censorship of Hollywood [link]

2. Internment of Japanese Americans - More than 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated from their homes along the west coast to camps in more isolated areas.
A History of the Japanese-American internment camps [link]
A photographic exibit about Japanese Internment at the University of Utah [link]
Link to information about a PBS documentary about children living in the camps [link]

1920's
1. The first Red Scare - after WWI, a smear campaign was carried out against social dissidents. More than 16,000 people were arrested and held without trial.
A brief history of the first Red Scare [link]
Link to photo archive of first red scare (1918-1921) [link]


Note: As a result of the covert surveillance under COINTELPRO, Operation Shamrock, Operation Minaret, and Operation CHAOS, the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance act was passed in 1978 to limit domestic surveillance. Among other things, it set up a secret court to approve warrants for wiretaps. That is the reason that Bush's current wiretapping is clearly unnecessary and illegal, since warrents obtained through the FISA court are Top Secret, and can even be obtained retroactively for 72 hours after a wiretap has begun.

Ariel Sharon

I am sure that a lot of my fellow progressives would rejoice in the death of Ariel Sharon in the same way that conservatives and others rejoiced in the death of Yassir Arafat. Sharon is directly and indirectly responsible for the massacre of thousands of Arabs [link]. He seems to have had an unwavering commitment to Israeli expansion through violence. George W. Bush called him a "man of peace," which, in the long standing tradition of American conservatives, means precisely the opposite.

And yet, in recent years, he has orchestrated a plan for disengagement from the Gaza strip. I have very little doubt that the plan was nothing more than an attempt to isolate Palestine in Gaza and eventually annex the entire West Bank. Even so, his plan would eventually result in a Palestinian state, which is a huge concession for a conservative. I may not like the man, but I am concerned that there may not be others within Israel who both have the support of the people, and the same willingness to compromise on expansion. Of course, I said the same thing about Yassir Arafat when he died, and I could not have been more wrong. I just feel that both sides have suffered long enough. I do believe that it is wrong for Israel to continue to occupy the West Bank, however, Sharon's disengagement plan seems to have brought about at least a temporary peace. Admittably, it appears to have fallen apart somewhat in recent months, but with him there seems to be hope for peace.

Letterman Vs. O'Reilly

I haven't watched Letterman very regurlarly since I was about 12 years old, but based on what I saw last night, I might have to start watching more often. After being dissapointed by nearly three weeks without a new episode of The Daily Show, I felt starved for political commentary, and when I saw that Bill O'Reilly was on Letterman, I decided to give it a chance. I guess part of what made it so great was that I was expecting Letterman to be like all good late-night talk show hosts are supposed to be - very polite, allowing the guest to say basically whatever he wants with no real argument.

I was unable to find a transcript of the interview, but from the show's website, you can see a clip from the interview [link]. It started with O'Reilly's comically ironic "War on Christmas" argument. He claims that political correctness has forced the media and other industries to use the phrase "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." The irony, of course, is that he is not fighting for the freedom of individuals to reference the Christian holiday, but has proposed boycotts of companies to try to force them to use Christmas themes, and therefore eliminating their freedom to be anything but Christian. Letterman rightly called O'Reilly's argument "crap."

Then they move on to the war in Iraq and Cindy Sheehan, and the interview ends with Letterman saying to O'Reilly, and I'm paraphrasing from memory, "I'm not smart enough to argue with you point to point on this... but I think 60% of what you say is crap."

Well, I think that I am smart enough to argue with O'Reilly point to point, so I have decided to subscribe to his weekly "The Spin Stops Here" newsletter and, when I have time, I would like to make exposing his lies and ironies a somewhat regular feature of this blog. Bill O'Reilly is an excelent example of conservatives who name their actions after the exact opposite of what they are. Much like Reagan's "War on Terror" actually meant using terrorist tactics to attack civilians in Nicaragua, O'Reilley's "No-Spin Zone" is actaully nothing but "spin." My guess is that Letterman's estimate of O'Reilly's crap factor is a bit low. I predict it will be somewhere in the 80-90 percent range.