Later On

They were against it, now they’re for it—and so clear is the reversal that people are commenting on it:

Dana Milbank:

In their quest to thwart President Obama, Republicans do not fear the hobgoblin of consistency.

For much of this decade, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, now the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, led the fight against Democratic filibusters of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees. He decried Democrats’ "unprecedented, obstructive tactics." To have Bush nominees "opposed on a partisan filibuster, it is really wrong," he added. He demanded they get "an up-and-down vote." He praised Republican leaders because they "opposed judicial filibusters" and have "been consistent on this issue even when it was not to their political benefit to do so."

So now a Democratic president is in the White House and he has nominated his first appellate judicial nominee, U.S. District Judge David Hamilton. And what did Sessions do? He went to the floor and led a filibuster…

Nina Totenberg:

The Senate votes Tuesday on whether to end a Republican filibuster of President Obama’s first judicial nominee, David Hamilton. The story of the Hamilton nomination is just part of a larger judicial nomination picture that shows the president slow on nominating judges and Republicans adept at stalling tactics.

Hamilton has served for 15 years as a federal district court judge in Indiana. He is so widely respected that Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican, strongly endorsed his nomination, as did the state president of the conservative Federalist Society. At the confirmation hearing, Lugar praised Hamilton’s "brilliance," "fairness" and commitment to law. "He is the type of lawyer and the type of person one wants to see on the federal bench," Lugar said.

Lugar, noting that he had made a similar introduction of now-Chief Justice John Roberts at his confirmation hearings, used the words of the nation’s founders to warn his Senate colleagues against allowing "the pestilential breath of faction to poison the fountains of justice."

Tuesday, Lugar is expected to be among just a handful of Republicans who will vote to end the filibuster of Hamilton’s nomination.

It takes 60 votes to end a filibuster and allow an up-or-down vote on a nomination. Democratic filibusters of some of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees so infuriated Republicans that they threatened to do away with the century-and-a-half-old rule, using an end run that came to be known as the "nuclear option."

In 2005, Republicans spoke for days about the insult of the judicial filibuster, calling it unconstitutional. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, now the Senate Republican leader, said in 2005 of the Democrats: "For the first time in 214 years they’ve changed the advise and consent responsibilities to advise and obstruct."

North Carolina’s Richard Burr, like many other Republicans, said the debate was about "fairness" and "about principle and …. allowing judicial nominees an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor."

And the man who is now the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, contended that "the Republican leadership have been consistent on this issue even when it was not to their political benefit to do so. We have opposed judicial filibusters and have not supported them."…

The GOP: the political equivalent of acid reflux.

Via Kevin Drum, an index to Sarah Palin’s book.

Again, Steve Benen:

The prospect of transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay to a maximum-security prison in Thomson, Illinois, generated an interesting response from a Republican state lawmaker who represents a neighboring area.

Representative Jim Sacia of the state’s 89th District accused Republicans in Washington — including Senate candidate, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill) — of risking thousands of local jobs in their demagoguery of the detainee issue.

"My thinking on this is extremely positive," Sacia told the Huffington Post. "If we lose this opportunity. All I can think of is we literally are idiots. I mean that sincerely."

"I understand I’m on different pages of music with others in my party. First of all this should not be a partisan issue in anyway. If President Obama brings the detainees on U.S. soil and we sit here with a brand new state-of-the-art, max security prison, sitting vacant for the last eight years, and pass on an opportunity to sell it to the federal government, which we would fill it with 1,500 regular prisoners and 800 detainees, what is the problem? The building was designed to do that.

"The only reason we have rhetoric now is because of the closing of Gitmo," Sacia concluded. "It makes no sense at all. This is a tremendous opportunity and we would be idiots to waste it."

As Sacia, a former law enforcement official, sees it, the proposal could bring thousands of jobs to an area that has "suffered unbelievable economic hardship."

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), meanwhile, is taking a different tack. Kirk, hoping to generate support for his 2010 Senate campaign, is grandstanding on the issue, arguing without evidence that locked up terrorist suspects would endanger Illinois residents.

In other words, as far as Jim Sacia is concerned, Mark Kirk is the "idiot" who wants to waste the economic opportunity.

The congressman’s cheap tactics may end up costing him support and credibility. The Chicago Sun-Times editorialized this week, "Kirk’s scare talk might do him wonders with the GOP base, but it won’t convince a single terrorist that this nation has a backbone."

Steve Benen at Political Animal:

Among members of Congress, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) has long stood out as a man a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Two weeks ago, he argued that health care reform proponents are trying to kill off senior citizens before they warn young people about the evils of the Democratic agenda. A few weeks before that, Gohmert argued that expanding hate crimes protections would lead to a legalization of necrophilia, pedophilia, and bestiality. He then compared those who disagree with him to Nazis.

And while Gohmert’s name is not quite as familiar as Steve King’s and Michele Bachmann’s when it comes to the House Stark Raving Mad Caucus, he’s clearly making a play for notoriety.

….Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas suggested yesterday that Democrats may actually want another terrorist attack because rebuilding the city would create jobs.

"You’ve got subways, tunnels, bridges all subject to terrorism. And unless they’re trying to create a new jobs bill by allowing terrorism back in New York then this is insane. And even that would be insane."

Last night, Gohmert said that "it is extremely helpful to have a community organizer in the White House because you’ll need lots of community organization in order to adequately evacuate massive areas of the most densely populated area in America."

This is the same Gohmert who appeared on a radical radio show in July to argue that the government may try to control what Americans eat and where we can live. He’s also endorsed the "Birther" legislation.

In May, Gohmert told his colleagues, "We are going to borrow more money from the Chinese to possibly give them money back to create habitats for wild dogs and cats that are rare. There is no assurance that if we did that we wouldn’t end up with moo goo dog pan or moo goo cat pan."

The guy has "future member of the House Republican leadership" written all over him.

Steve Simon in the NY Times:

THE Justice Department’s decision to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, in a federal court in New York City has elicited several criticisms. Most are pointless, but one — the idea that it will give a terrorist a platform from which he could stir up support in the Muslim world for his radical views — is well taken.

First, let’s dispose of the straw men. John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, accused the Obama administration of “treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue” — as though “law enforcement” is an epithet. In truth, the White House’s counterterrorism team is composed largely of the same professionals who battled terrorists under President George W. Bush. They are generally in sync with the White House’s insistence on a strategy that uses law enforcement where appropriate and military force in places, like Afghanistan, where conspirators can’t be arrested by federal agents driving Fords.

Others complain that Mr. Mohammed might take advantage of quirks of the criminal justice system and go free. That’s highly unlikely. First, he has already confessed to the crime; and, given the zero acquittal rate for terrorists in New York previously, any anxiety about a “not guilty” verdict seems unwarranted.

John Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer, argues that the trial would be an “intelligence bonanza” for our enemies. Also unlikely. Our prosecutors are certain that there is enough unclassified evidence to make their case. Moreover, the most prized intelligence is recent, specific and actionable. Al Qaeda today is most concerned with discovering when and where the next drone missile attack will take place in Pakistan, information not likely to be disclosed during a trial about a conspiracy hatched more than a decade ago.

Which brings us to the idea that allowing Mr. Mohammed to take the stand will give him a soapbox. The truth is, if the trial provides a propaganda platform for anybody, it will be for our side…

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The Semogue 2000 is gradually breaking in. I got two good passes of lather today, and a quick trip back to the Tabac for the third pass created more great lather instantly. The red-tipped Gillette Super Speed is a good one for me, and with a previously used UK Wilkinson blade, it delivered a very fine shave with no nicks or problems. Master Lilac Vegetal is quite pleasant, unlike the Pinaud version.

Steve Benen at Political Animal:

Tara McKelvey has a fascinating item in Boston Review on diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of particular interest was an anecdote from Paul Sullivan, an analyst in the VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration.

Sullivan was working as an analyst at the Veterans Benefits Administration in Washington in early 2005 when he was called to a meeting with a top political appointee at the VA, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Michael McLendon. McLendon, an intensely focused man in a neatly pressed suit, kept a Bible on his desk at the office. Sullivan explained to McLendon and the other attendees that the rise in benefits claims the VA was noticing was caused partly by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who were suffering from PTSD. "That’s too many," McLendon said, then hit his hand on the table. "They are too young" to be filing claims, and they are doing it "too soon." He hit the table again. The claims, he said, are "costing us too much money," and if the veterans "believed in God and country . . . they would not come home with PTSD." At that point, he slammed his palm against the table a final time, making a loud smack. Everyone in the room fell silent.

"I was a little bit surprised," Sullivan said, recalling the incident. "In that one comment, he appeared to be a religious fundamentalist." For Sullivan, McLendon’s remarks reflected the views of many political appointees in the VA and revealed what was behind their efforts to reduce costs by restricting claims. The backlog of claims was immense, and veterans, often suffering extreme psychological stress, had to wait an average of five months for decisions on their requests.

McLendon denied the incident took place, but nevertheless told McKelvey that he believes PTSD is "a made-up term," which has "taken on a life of its own." She added that McLendon, in talking about the issue, "pounded the table with the side of his hand more than ten times, hitting it so hard that the wooden surface shook."

As Atrios put it, "It’s like the job recruitment process [in the Bush administration] involved advertising for ‘the worst people ever born in the history of the universe.’"

It’s disheartening to think that the Bush administration put some of these people in key positions of authority and responsibility in the first place.

Went a block farther. The genesis of this effort may be of some interest: I was sitting in my chair, late at night, ruminating, and it struck me that—obese and doing no exercise beyond blogging, reading, cooking, and watching movies—I was deliberately committing slow suicide. I didn’t like the sound of that at all, and decided to take action. I’m going for “spry,” and I have indeed dropped a couple of pounds, maybe more. (I won’t know for sure until I weigh on Saturday.) Besides the walking, I now fix a good lunch, cut it in half, and have half for lunch, half for dinner.

Spanish moss in Pacific Grove:

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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that each cat is in possession of a unique personality. If you have n cats, you will observe n different personalities.

Last evening, for example, I was reflecting that Molly is a much more demanding master than Megs. Megs is pretty much an easy-come-easy-go, what-goes-around-comes-around, you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-not-scratch-yours kind of master—lots of give and take.

But Molly wants things just so, and if they’re not, she’s in a snit. Or sometimes she’s in a snit for no reason at all—or, alternatively, demanding to be hugged right this minute. And if the phone or the laptop is why attention is not being paid—well, it’s pretty easy to bite those things into submission.

Interesting story by Zachary Roth at TPMMuckraker:

A top Republican political fund-raising and outreach firm gives convicted felons access to political donors’ credit-card information, according to three former employees.

Minnesota-based FLS Connect uses low-wage workers to make fund-raising calls for a bevy of prominent GOP clients. And many of those workers — including those responsible for processing credit-card transactions — have felony convictions, the former employees said.

In response, FLS Connect co-founder Jeff Larson, a Karl Rove protégé, told TPMmuckraker that the firm would undergo a review from an outside, independent auditor "to ensure the highest standard of confidence in our processes."

Last month, the founder of a different Republican outreach firm, Bonner & Associates, was hauled before Congress after his company sent forged letters to lawmakers on a key legislative issue. Nothing like that has come to light at FLS, but in interviews with TPMmuckraker, the former employees described a company whose business practices might come as a shock to the well-heeled Republican donors from whom it solicits money. FLS fundraisers, encouraged by supervisors to cut corners in pursuit of donations, routinely mislead potential contributors, say the former employees. And many workers in the company’s Phoenix office are ex-cons, who are paid not much more than minimum wage, lack benefits, and work in squalid conditions…

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Apparently some few conservatives are not so terrified of the idea that terrorists may be in American prisons—good thing, too, because quite a few of them are. Or maybe it’s just terrorist suspects (the men in Guantánamo) who are so frightening to most of the GOP. But I applaud the outbreak of common sense. Christina Bellantoni writes at TPMDC:

Three prominent conservatives warned in a joint statement against Republican "scaremongering" on Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying the prison in Thomson, Illinois would be fine to handle them.

Former Republican Congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, have teamed up to urge the Gitmo detainees be taken to the U.S.

"The scaremongering about these issues should stop," Barr, Keene and Norquist wrote.

"Civilian federal courts are the proper forum for terrorism cases," they wrote. "Civilian prisons are the safe, cost effective and appropriate venue to hold persons in federal courts."

"Likewise the federal prison system has proven itself fully capable of safely holding literally hundreds of convicted terrorists with no threat or danger to the surrounding community," they wrote. "We are confident that the government can preserve national security without resorting to sweeping and radical departures from an American constitutional tradition that has served us effectively for over two centuries."

Read the full letter here.

Here’s how to begin using miso.

An email from the Center for American Progress:

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the five Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks will be facing justice a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center buildings. In one of the "highest-profile and highest-security terrorism trials in history," Justice Department prosecutors will seek out the death penalty for the self-described mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the four others. What made Holder’s announcement so significant is that the venue will be a U.S. federal court, rather than the military commissions favored by the Bush administration. "I am confident in the ability of our courts to provide these defendants a fair trial, just as they have for over 200 years," said Holder. "The alleged 9/11 conspirators will stand trial in our justice system before an impartial jury under long-established rules and procedures." The New York Times called the Attorney General’s decision "bold and principled" and the Center for American Progress’ Ken Gude said it was "a victory for the rule of law and the American system of justice." Many conservatives, however, rushed out knee-jerk statements condemning the decision, claiming that it imperils American security and won’t deliver a proper verdict. But not only are they ignoring the long-standing precedent of prosecuting terrorists in U.S. courts, they’re insulting the U.S. legal system and essentially saying that America’s laws aren’t strong enough to administer justice.

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Very interesting column in Salon by Michael Lind. From the column:

… Could anything be more foreign to America’s enlightened 18th-century liberal and republican traditions than this toxic compound of collectivism, nativism, Spartan militarism and theocracy?

The very idea of a pledge of allegiance, in any form, is completely at odds with what is often called "the American Creed," inspired by the 17th-century philosopher John Locke’s theory of natural rights and government by popular consent. The concept of "allegiance" is feudal. In medieval Europe, the liegeman, or subject, pledged allegiance to his liege lord. But in Lockean America, there is no government outside of society to which the members of the society could pledge allegiance, even if they wanted to. As the scholar Mark Hulliung explains Lockean liberal theory in "The Social Contract in America: From the Revolution to the Present Age" (2007):

There is a social contract by which the people bind themselves to one another, but no subsequent political contract [between people and government]. The rulers hold power temporarily, as mere "trustees" of the people … What the people give they can take away whenever they please, because they are bound by no contract between governors and governed.

In a republic, the people should not pledge allegiance to the government; the government should pledge allegiance to the people…

Read the whole thing.

A perfect shave today—not sure why. I used my brand new Koh-I-Noor boar brush, the one with the aluminum handle. The brush to its left is my other Koh-I-Noor boar brush, which I liked so much I decided to go for the pro.

I got a very good lather from the Tryphon Florida Water shaving soap, and the Edwin Jagger Lined Chatsworth did a fine job with a Gillette Swedish blade of several shaves. I did have to return to the soap to get more lather for the final pass, but this is the brush’s first use, after all.

And although the bottle has lost its label, that is Murray & Lanham Florida Water that I used as an aftershave. Wikipedia notes in its article on Florida Water:

Florida Water is an American version of Eau de Cologne, or Cologne Water. It has the same citrus basis as Cologne Water, but shifts the emphasis to sweet orange (rather than the lemon and neroli of the original Cologne Water), and adds spicy notes including lavender and clove. The name refers to the fabled Fountain of Youth, which was said to be located in Florida, as well as the “flowery” nature of the scent.

Steve Benen at Political Animal:

A Senate measure to help wounded veterans is on the verge of passing, and that’s clearly a positive development. There’s just one problem.

The urgently needed legislation consolidates more than a dozen improvements in veterans’ health care — most notably a new assistance program for family members who wind up providing lifelong home nursing to severely disabled veterans. These vital caregivers — who sacrifice careers and put huge strains on their own mental health — assume an obligation "that ultimately belongs to the government," Senator Daniel Akaka, the bill’s chief sponsor, properly notes.

The measure also expands benefits for women veterans who suffered sexual trauma on duty, extends veterans’ care in rural areas, tightens quality control at V.A. hospitals, and ensures that catastrophically disabled veterans will not be charged for emergency services in community hospitals.

Sounds great, right? Senators seemed to think so — it sailed through committee with unanimous support. But it’s currently stuck, because right-wing Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma refuses to let it advance. As he sees it, the five-year, $3.7 billion price tag for the veterans’ program is too high a price unless is offset by budget cuts elsewhere.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) noted the strange standards Coburn applies to these spending bill — Coburn doesn’t care about paying for the war itself, but he balks when it comes to caring for the vets when they come home. "Where was he when we were spending a trillion dollars on the war in Iraq?" Reid asked. "That wasn’t paid for. I didn’t hear him stopping the bill from going forward at that time. I think he should become more logical and understand we have people who are suffering."

Or as the NYT editorial put it this morning, "Sheer embarrassment should drive the senator into retreat as he trifles with veterans’ needs and burnishes his petty role as Dr. No."

I’m also reminded of something House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said just a year ago, "[T]here is a clear distinction between saying you support the troops and backing up those claims with genuine action."

A variety of veterans’ groups have organized an effort to urge Coburn to let the Senate vote on the benefits bill. VoteVets.org has posted an online petition on the effort.

Very interesting article by David Dobbs in the Atlantic Monthly. The blurb:

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people.

Read the article—especially interesting, of course, to parents who have orchid kids.

Take a look.

Interesting article by Christof Koch in Scientific American:

Surely there must have been times in high school or college when you laid in bed, late at night, and wondered where your “free will” came from? What part of the brain—if it is the brain—is responsible for deciding to act one way or another? One traditional answer is that this is not the job of the brain at all but rather of the soul. Hovering above the brain like Casper the Friendly Ghost, the soul freely perturbs the networks of the brain, thereby triggering the neural activity that will ultimately lead to behavior.

Although such dualistic accounts are emotionally reassuring and intuitively satisfying, they break down as soon as one digs a bit deeper. How can this ghost, made out of some kind of metaphysical ectoplasm, influence brain matter without being detected? What sort of laws does Casper follow? Science has abandoned strong dualistic explanations in favor of natural accounts that assign causes and responsibility to specific actors and mechanisms that can be further studied. And so it is with the notion of the will.

Sensation and Action
Over the past decade psychologists such as Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard University amassed experimental evidence for a number of conscious sensations that accompany any willful action. The two most important are intention and agency. Prior to voluntary behavior lies a conscious intention. When you decide to lift your hand, this intention is followed by planning of the detailed movement and its execution. Subjectively, you experience a sensation of agency. You feel that you, not the person next to you, initiated this action and saw it through. If a friend were to take your hand and pull it above your head, you would feel your arm being dragged up, but you would not feel any sense of being responsible for it. The important insight here is that the consciously experienced feelings of intention and agency are no different, in principle, from any other consciously experienced sensations, such as the briny taste of chicken soup or the red color of a Ferrari.

And as a plethora of books on visual illusions illustrate, often our senses can be fooled—we see something that is not there. So it is with the sensation of intentionality and agency. Decades of psychology experiments—as well as careful observation of human nature that comes from a lifetime of living—reveal many instances where we think we caused something to happen, although we bear no responsibility for it; the converse also occurs, where we did do something but feel that something or somebody else must have been responsible. Think about the …

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Very interesting article by Alex Lickerman, MD:

I once came up with a metaphor I thought perfectly captured the sheer mass of material my classmates and I were expected to memorize in our first two years of medical school: it was like being asked to enter a grocery store and memorize the names of every product in the store, their number and location, every ingredient in every product in the order in which they appear on the food label, and then to do the same thing in every grocery store in the city.

When I look back now I can’t imagine how any of us were able to do it. And yet we did. The mind’s capacity to store and recall information is truly wondrous. Since I attended medical school we’ve learned a lot about memory and learning. Though much of what follows are techniques I used to survive my first two years of medical school, much of the science that proves they work is new.

STRATEGIES FOR REMEMBERING

1. Become interested in what you’re learning. We’re all better remembering what interests us. Few people, for example, have a difficult time remembering the names of people they find attractive. If you’re not intrinsically interested in what you’re learning or trying to remember, you must find a way to become so. I have to admit I wasn’t so good at this in medical school. The Krebs cycle (I provided the link only to prove how immensely boring it is) just didn’t excite me or relate to anything I found even remotely exciting (though I made myself learn it anyway).
2. Find a way to leverage your visual memory. You’ll be astounded by how much more this will enable you to remember. For example, imagine you’re at a party and are introduced to five people in quick succession. How can you quickly memorize their names? Pick out a single defining visual characteristic of each person and connect it to a visual representation of their name, preferably through an action of some kind. For example, you can remember Mike who has large ears by creating a mental picture of a microphone (a "mike") clearing those big ears of wax (gross, I know—sorry—but all the more effective because of it). It requires mental effort to do this, but if you practice you’ll be surprised how quickly you can come up with creative ways to create these images. Here’s another example: how often do you forget where you left your keys, your sunglasses, or your wallet? The next time you put something down somewhere, pause a moment to notice where you’ve placed it, and then in your mind blow it up. If you visualize the explosion in enough detail, you won’t forget where you put it. Remember: memory is predominantly visual (unfortunately, I can’t think of a good image to help you remember this fact right at this moment).
3. Create a mental memory tree...

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