It’s been crawling around my crowded noggin that the net neutrality debate in the United States is curious since the internet belongs to the entire world. Internet doesn’t exist in a vacuum and whatever laws congress enacts to deal with this will have an affect on all transnational websites. Many of these are commercial enterprises with a consumer base in the United States. So I’ve been wondering if the big telcoms’ actions could be construed as an impediment to the profitability of these transnationals under Article XI of the WTO charter:

Article XI*: General Elimination of Quantitative Restrictions

No prohibitions or restrictions other than duties, taxes or other charges, whether made effective through quotas, import or export licences or other measures, shall be instituted or maintained by any contracting party on the importation of any product of the territory of any other contracting party or on the exportation or sale for export of any product destined for the territory of any other contracting party.

This is the same rule that has allowed Chiquita to dominate the European bananna market, helped the U.S. impose GMO corn on Africa, and threatens the Canadian fresh water tables.

Any lawyers in the group that might want to comment on whether this could be applicable?

Polling is now closed for O'Reilly's stroll through eternal damnation (see previous post for results). Looks like he'd better stock up on KY.Inspired by the DoD's broad-based rejection of Santorum's lies claims that we found WMDs in Iraq years ago (video here), please take a moment to vote in the latest poll (right sidebar).

It’s happened. They’re onto us. Abort!

I am but a low-level operative in Kos’s netroot army. I do whatever he tells me to. The other day, I received a communiqué that I was to rub green jello on my head and parade around Times Square. I didn’t want to, but I am unable to question the orders of our great leader Kos.

But seriously, centralizing opposition to a solitary villain is always a technique employed by the weak minded. If only person X was gone then the masses would crawl back in their holes and quit agitating. This is how people justify assassinations. We’re equally guilty of it on the left by assuming if only Rush Limbaugh or George Bush would crumble then this national madness would end. It won’t. And the blogosphere would thrive with or without the Great and Powerful Kos.

ATR catches a PSA from Chevy Chase for Impeachment. Check it out.

If you missed PBS’s “The Dark Side” expose on how Cheney stole the White House, it will soon be available online here.

Would you be at all surprised to find out how dumb ignorant people are in this country? The NRA wages gun war with the United Nations.

Ahh, Georgie-Porgie defacing the U.S. flag in Vienna. Again. Good thing we have the ever-so-important flag amendment pending.

New Pentagon budget enough to give every man, woman, and child on this planet $61.

GOP kills another bill to provide oversight to Halliburton.

More gay animals!! SEED outlines 450+ species of animals that engage in homosexual behavior. Somebody better call Pat Buchanan to put a stop to this! Also, never, ever forget homosexual necrophilia in the Mallard duck.

Kentucky government bans blogs! Seriously. TPM has the breakdown.

AmericaBlog recently posted a response to the latest GOP argument on “lie and die” in Iraq:

...White House officials say will be a central line of attack against Democrats from now through the midterm elections: that the withdrawal being advocated by Democrats would mean thousands of troops would have died for nothing, would give extremists a launching pad from which to build an Islamo-fascist empire and would hand the United States its must humiliating defeat since Vietnam.

Unfortunately, we've already got all three. George Bush's lies and incompetence have already killed 2,500 American soldiers. It's hard to spin their deaths as a good thing when they were killed by a president's folly. Second, Bush's incompetence has turned Iraq into an Islamo-fascist state that we now can't do anything about. And finally, George Bush's incompetence has handed us our most humiliating defeat since Vietnam.

However, I don’t agree that Iraq is merely a choice between “cut and run” or “stay and die.” There is a third option which; one which many of swollen American pride may find distasteful, but is really the best move. Simply put, out presence in the region has become an extreme liability to global security and we must immediately recuse ourselves from the command post. Today. Eat some humble pie and go to the UN, ask them to assume operational command with complete autonomy, and offer them our unconditional support in terms of manpower, equipment, money, expertise, or whatever.

Yes, we will look foolish. Bush might have to cut an inch or two off his swagger. But a little humility will go a long way towards resolving this perpetual quagmire.

It’s been a helluva week for Repugnicans on Capital Hill. In the proud tradition of Marie Antoinette, the GOP has once again informed the subjugated masses that they must remain content with the crumbs they have. The debacle began earlier in the week with the rejection of an up or down vote on the long overdue minimum wage increase:

The 52-46 vote was eight short of the 60 needed for approval under budget rules and came one day after House Republican leaders made clear they do not intend to allow a vote on the issue, fearing it might pass.

So much for all the snarking about due process on up and down votes spewing from the GOP's talk-holes during the judicial hearings. Of course, the AP had an alternate spin:

The Republican-controlled Senate smothered a proposed election-year increase in the minimum wage Wednesday, rejecting Democratic claims that it was past time to boost the $5.15 hourly pay floor that has been in effect for nearly a decade.

Yes, 2006 is an election year and therefore this take is at least truthy. But the article fails to mention that Democrats have brought this issue up each and every year for nearly a decade:

The Senate vote marked the ninth time since 1997 that Democrats there have proposed — and Republicans have blocked — a stand-alone increase in the minimum wage.

Obviously this is a hot issue and has sparked a lot of righteous indignation. So I’m not going to engage in a debate in this particular post about the merits of raising the minimum, nor am I going to waste ink rebutting the fallacious arguments against it. Bottom line is that forcing employers to pay a fair, living wage is something that’s long overdue and the GOP knows it.

Nevertheless, we all saw it coming so I can’t be too surprised. But yesterday, they decided to further disenfranchise the majority by refusing to extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 complaining that it “unfairly singles out nine southern states for federal oversight.”

The intensity of the complaints, raised in a closed meeting of GOP lawmakers, surprised Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his lieutenants, who thought the path was clear to renew the act's key provisions for 25 years. The act is widely considered a civil rights landmark that helped thousands of African Americans gain access to the ballot box. Its renewal seemed assured when House and Senate Republican and Democratic leaders embraced it in a May 2 kickoff on the Capitol steps.

But many Southerners feel the law has achieved its purpose and become more nuisance than necessity in several respects. They have aired those arguments for years, but yesterday they got a boost from Republicans scattered throughout the nation who are increasingly raising a different concern: They insist that immigrants learn and use English.

I spent some time last summer working with Dr. Bernard LaFayette, one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s advisors who played a key role in getting the bill passed. According to him, the timeline set on the Act was intentional; a measure that would ensure the issue remained a topic of public debate until such time that debate was no longer necessary. As the last three elections have taught us, this is not that time.

Perhaps this is simply an election-year tactic to fan the flames of xenophobia ushered in by Bush’s anti-Mexican stance. Either way, I am left with only the assumption that the GOP has thrown all prudence to the wind and are shunning even the appearance that they care about minorities, the poor, women, etc. In other words, they seem to be counting on the fact that the top 1% of the country, with the help of talk radio, FOX News, et al will be enough to help steal another election.

Matt Continetti argues:

Inside Crashing the Gate, Armstrong and Moulitsas write that the top liberal blogs grow at a geometric rate, and that, "by late November 2005, the top seventy or so liberal blogs, led by Daily Kos, garnered about 60 million page-views every month." In Blog, his book on the phenomenon, the right-wing blogger Hugh Hewitt writes that "Kos gets 1.6 million--that's million--visitors a month."

For blogs, those are large numbers. For politics, however, they are small. Assuming there are 1 million regular readers of Daily Kos throughout America, that is still only 1/280th of the population--and only 1/59th of the number of people who voted for John Kerry in the last election. It is a tiny fraction of the American electorate.

The blogosphere is certainly encroaching on the mainstream, but is far from there yet. However, as Ezra points out, absolute numbers in this sense are meaningless. Reaching a wide audience may produce a certain degree of influence, but is worth zilch unless translated into action. The netroots have certainly proven to be a motivated base and have cultivated dramatic inroads into equalizing the monetary war-chest between parties, have brought critical issues to the fore, fact-checked the hell out of the MSM, and organized dedicated activists throughout the country.

However, Continetti’s argument is pertinent to the extent that all base-movements are lacking. Preaching to the choir and motivating an electoral base is certainly a vital function of progressive media. However, like any mainstream movement, the blogs are doing a less than adequate job in reaching out to the disinterested. We tend to forget that in every presidential election, no candidate has received a majority vote. In fact, by a 3-1 margin, We the People have chosen ‘none of the above’ for every election in my memory. Until we start making inroads with the 60% of the country who don’t feel their vote matters, we will continue to battle it out for votes among the existing politically engaged.

Bottom line is that there is a helluva large group out there just waiting to be drawn in on issues that matter to them. The first to do that will win in a landslide.

Rus Suskind (the guy who brought you this) was on “The Situation Room” yesterday to promote his new book, “One Percent Solution”. You can check out the video here . This guy released a litany of accusations against Team Chimpy including:

• The U.S. intentially bombed Al-Jazeera
• Bush personally ordered the torture of a mentally retarded terrorist.
• The CIA timed the release of a Bin Laden tape in 2004 to coincide one week before the elections. UPDATE: Looks like they’re at it again.
• Dick Cheney has essentially assumed the role of president from Day 1.
  

Regarding the latter, you owe it to yourself to check out the PBS documentary, "The Dark Side" which airs tonight. It promises to be an exhaustive expose on how Dick Cheney seized the presidency after 9-11.

According to Bart Gellman's review of Ron Suskind's new book the following things are true (hat tip to TPM):

• Al-Qaedist Abu Zubaydah was captured in March 2002.
• Zubaydah's captors discovered he was mentally ill and charged with minor logistical matters, such as arranging travel for wives and children.
• The President was informed of that judgment by the CIA.
• Two weeks later, the President described Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States."
• Later, Bush told George Tenet, "I said he was important. You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" and asked Tenet if "some of these harsh methods really work?"
• The methods -- torture -- were applied.
• Then, according to Gellman, "Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty."
• At which point, according to Suskind, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target."
  

This is the entire problem with a doctrine of torture (besides of course that it justifies others to dismiss torture conventions). The only scenario under which the Right claims justification is the so-called ticking-bomb – where there is an imminent attack somewhere and torture is the only way to garner information in a timely fashion.

I reject this argumentation on the grounds that any information produced under torture is unreliable and actually serves to waste time. Either the captured operative actually has pertinent knowledge, in which case they are likely zealous and will lie or die before giving it up. Or they have no direct knowledge in which case they will also lie in order to appease their captors. Either way, what we end up with is increasingly convuluded information making it far more difficult to suss out the accurate and functional intel.