Month: May 2009

The truth of the matter is, being secretary of war in a time of war is a very painful thing … How can you like a job when you go to Walter Reed and you know you sent those young men and women in harm’s way? Every single person in combat today I sent there and I never forget that for a second. I don’t enjoy my job.

— Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a 60 Minutes interview scheduled to air this weekend.

In this week’s National Journal poll of Washington Beltway insiders, 57 percent of Republican said that former vice president and current torture industry spokesperson Dick Cheney has hurt the party with his current round of press appearances. Only 33 percent thought he had helped the cause, while 5 percent said he’d had no effect and another 5 percent gave a cryptic “don’t know” answer.

Here are some comments Cheney’s fellow party members made about his media blitz and its negative effects:

“The message on interrogation techniques is right. The messenger is not.”

“He seems determined to vindicate his decisions and policies even if it damages the GOP’s recovery. And it has.”

“Anything that reminds the public of the Bush administration harms the party’s ability to turn the page. If he’d had any concern for his public image when he was in office, he wouldn’t have to worry as much about defending his reputation now.”

“There is nothing Dick Cheney can say or do to help the Republican Party today. The best thing he can do is disappear for the next 10 years.”

“Let’s face it: The guy doesn’t know anything about winning elections outside of Wyoming.”

“Not even a close call. With Cheney out there, Obama doesn’t even need to remind the American people about the mess that was the Bush years.”

“Cheney represents the grumpy intolerance that has come to characterize the GOP. Get off the stage!”

They wouldn’t be treated any better in the United States, and they wouldn’t have the tropical breezes blowing through.

— Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), quoted by the Washington Post, making a very compelling case for the continued detention of prisoners at the military facility in Guantanamo Bay.

From Eurosurveillance:

What is R?
The growth rate of an epidemic is determined by two factors: the number of new persons infected by each case and the time from start of infectiousness in one case to start of infectiousness in the secondary cases caused by him/her. The first factor is called ’reproduction rate’ and is usually denoted R. If the disease is spreading in a population that is totally susceptible the term ’basic reproduction rate’ (Ro) is used. R is the product of four terms: the risk of transmission in one single contact between an infectious and a susceptible person, the frequency of such contacts in the population, the duration of infectivity of a case, and the proportion of susceptibles in the population.

If R >1 this means that each case infects more than one new person, and the outbreak is likely to continue. If R < 1 the outbreak will eventually die out, even if there may be a number of cases before that. The time from infectiousness in one case to infectiousness in his/her secondary cases is called ’generation time’ (Tg) and is basically a biological constant, even if its exact value depends on how it is estimated.

Studies estimate the H1N1 virus to have an R factor of 2.2 to 3.3; seasonal influenza is estimated at 1.2 to 1.4

Values for the factors that determine R can be calculated on the basis of scientific knowledge of the disease, its context of transmission, and the immunity status of the population. However, during an epidemic an R value usually has to be derived from the analysis of the epidemic curve or by the study of transmission chains.

Several studies have now tried to estimate R (or Ro) and Tg for the new influenza A(H1N1) virus from Mexican data. In the one published in this issue of Eurosurveillance [1], the authors use one exponential fitting and one real-time estimation model to arrive at an estimate of R between 2.2 and 3.1. This is higher than the value found in an article in Science [2], which estimated Ro to be 1.4-1.6 using three models: one exponential fitting, one genetic analysis, and two standard SIR models for a confined outbreak in La Gloria. Another analysis of the minor genetic changes in the virus over time arrived at a Ro estimate of 1.16 [3].

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I have to tell you, I really thought it was much ado about nothing, but I think we all learned an important lesson. I learned to never again pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA bracket. It won’t happen again. And President Crow and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.

— President Obama, in a speech at Arizona State University, joking about the controversy that erupted when the school decided against conferring an honorary degree on the new president.

In the ongoing series of interviews in which he desperately tries to defend the idea that his torture regime was legal, Dick Cheney’s rhetoric is becoming increasingly dark and paranoid:

“We fail to recognize the fact that we’re alone out there in terms of trying to achieve the objective of forcing the Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons,” Cheney said…

The former Vice President characterized the Iranian goal in negotiations on ending that country’s nuclear program as mere stalling for time, and the Europeans as trying to “restrain the U.S.” from military action.

“Everybody’s in a giant conspiracy to achieve a different objective than the one we want to achieve,” Cheney said.

The negotiations are “bound to fail unless we are perceived as very credible” in threatening military action against Iran, he said.

“Most of the other nations out there are willing to live with a nuclear-armed Iran” he said, citing France, Germany and the United Kingdom in particular.

It’s clear from the half-dozen or so interviews Cheney and his daughter Liz have given in the past few weeks that the Cheneys are desperate to prevent any sort of investigation in the torture program Cheney and other top Bush administration officials designed and implemented in 2002.

What may be less clear is the true extent to which Cheney was involved in the day-to-day operation of torture activities. A new report out today indicates that Cheney suggested waterboarding an Iraqi official whom he believed to have knowledge of a connection between al Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime.

Weeks of ridicule over the teabagging movement’s clueless branding apparently has not yet killed it. In fact, there are now two separate efforts to lay claim to the movement that had a brief start as a grassroots effort before quickly being commandeered by powerful Republicans who astroturfed it into a series of anti-Obama rallies held on April 15. Despite being promoted nonstop on the GOP’s television channel, Fox News, the rallies only attracted about 250,000 people nationwide.

First up is a pair of Republican governors — Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Rick Perry of Texas — who will hold what is being billed as Teabagging 2.0 — er, sorry, Tea Party 2.0 — today. Funny thing is, they are literally phoning it in:

Hoping to recapture the grassroots energy of last month’s “tea parties,” Republican Govs. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Rick Perry of Texas will host a tele-town hall Thursday that’s being dubbed “Tea Party 2.0.”

The Republican Governors Association said it is expecting 30,000 people to participate in the town hall, which will take place roughly one month after the much-publicized anti-tax tea party rallies held in hundreds of locations across the country on April 15, the tax filing deadline.

Sanford and Perry will each speak for several minutes before opening up the town hall to up to an hour-long question and answer session.

RGA Executive Director Nick Ayers said that while the effort Thursday will be on a smaller scale than the April tea party rallies, it still represents “a great opportunity to mobilize that support.”

Gov. Perry garned nationwide publicity during the April 15 events by suggesting it would be legal — albeit treasonous — if Texas were to decide to secede from the Union again.

Separately, the American Family Association, a group that has raised millions from the poor and uneducated by inflaming anti-gay bigotry, has announced that it is also taking over the teabagging movement, according to D.C.-based writer Ron Moore:

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Well, of course, then it was somebody else fleeing the Republican Party ….

Last Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the majority whip and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, said this:

DURBIN: And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.

Flash forward to today:

The U.S. Senate blocked consideration of a 15 percent cap on credit-card interest rates, as lawmakers continued debating ways to limit lenders’ fees and changes to contracts with consumers.

Senators voted 60-33 to invoke budget rules that killed the proposal, by Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent. Sanders said the action was needed to stop banks from routinely charging 25 percent to 30 percent on credit cards.

“When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they’re not making credit available, they’re engaged in loan- sharking,” Sanders said.

Instead,they’ll pass a treacly thing that will be difficult to enforce:

The [alternative bill that will likely pass] would require credit-card companies to give 45 days’ notice before increasing an interest rate. It would prohibit retroactive rate increases on existing balances unless a consumer was 60 days late with a payment. Companies would have to restore the original, lower rate if a cardholder stayed current six months after a late payment.

Thanks for nothin’.

Here’s a list of the Democrats:

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