Cedric: Wally and I thank him for the edit. He's trying to save the feature and it's on an idea that we brought to the edition.
Wally: Brought to the edition and announced would be in it at our sites.
Ava: But announced with Kat, C.I. and my backing. Wally, Kat, C.I. and I were on the road last week. I believe it was Friday morning when they found the problem -- they were on the phone together doing their joint-entry -- and Wally showed it to us and we said, "We'll back you on it." I'm adding that just so no one thinks, "Well Cedric and Wally just steamrolled over everyone!" They had our support and that was more than enough in terms of number to ensure that we tackled it. What I think happened is that we overwrote it in various drafts and that what Jess is really going to be doing is simplifying it.
Jess: Correct.
Jim: A short article Dona's planned for us to work on after this is something I'm going to ask about. C.I., in Friday's snapshot, you really let Barbara Slavin and Diane Rehm have it. You want to talk about that?
C.I.: I'll toss to Elaine, she's already written about it.
Elaine: Yeah, I wrote about it Friday. C.I. had just finished using the study group as a test audience and getting their feedback, delaying the snaphot by over 90 minutes. She was then rushing off to a quiet spot to dictate it but checking messages and returning calls -- I was walking along with her -- when an NPR friend called about Rehm's show and C.I. said she already had the quote to use and noted it was one speaker and obviously Iraq was barely discussed. Then the NPR friend starts filling C.I. in on the show and C.I. has to make an hour's time to listen to the actual broadcast. So the snapshot is now delayed by approximately three hours. I know for a fact that if they'd have talked about Iraq on that broadcast, what went in the snapshot wouldn't have gone in but they didn't talk about Iraq and while being silent on Iraq made time for crackpot fantasies. That is why C.I. called them out. They could have done the same thing they did and given five or six minutes to Iraq and C.I. wouldn't have said a word let alone led with a blistering critique of the show.
Jim: And that explains the how it came to be and that's good, but what I'm getting at is C.I. ripped them apart, rightly, for declaring they knew where Osama bin Laden was. C.I. went on at length about how no one knew where bin Laden was and they wasted our time with that nonsense. And then on Saturday, the big news is Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, is telling the press that the US has no intelligence on where bin Laden is and hasn't had it in years. Just at random, Dallas, if you could copy and paste some links from Google News and I'll paste them in here when I type this up, but there are a ton of outlets reporting on this story.
Gates: No US intel on bin Laden for 'years'
msnbc.com - 4 hours ago
"We don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is. If we did, we'd go and get him," Gates said in excerpts released by ABC.
No Bin Laden information in years, says Gates BBC News
Gates: No good intel on Osama bin Laden in years The Associated Press
Bin Laden's location unknown for 'years:' US AFP
ABC News - Press TV
all 1,318 news articles »
Jim (Con't): And I quote you, C.I., on Friday: "Barbara, grab your passport and, yes, Annie Grab Your Gun, and get your ass over there. Over where? Where ever it is from one moment to another that Barbra 'knows' Osama bin Laden is. Take your ass, take your gun and get the hell over there, Big Girl. Reality, Barbara Slavin doesn't know where Osama bin Laden is -- a point Diane Rehm should have made -- but it isn't it interesting that Barbara's claims support further war? And isn't that really the point of your claims, Barbara? You really want to be the next Judy Miller? Really? And what about you, Diane? You going to keep letting guests claim to know where Osama is and use that 'knowledge' to launch a verbal attack on a country? You going to do that? And delude yourself that you've informed the public? How very, very sad." I mean, wow. So did you know Gates was going to make his announcement Saturday when you wrote the snapshot?
C.I.: No. First, he's making it later this morning. Although it will probably air on every where but on the West Coast by the time this goes up. But he's making it later this morning on ABC's This Week. Now this was talk in DC all week. That someone needed to ask Gates that question. We were in DC for most of last week, to attend hearings and other things. So this was the DC party circuit chatter. That it needed to be asked. I had no idea anyone was going to ask or had asked. I'm not sure when George taped his interview for This Week. But it just ended up being one of those lucky moments. I state very clearly what is known, that no one knows where bin Laden is, and I just happen to get lucky that the George's interviewed Robert Gates and he's saying that no one knows.
Jim: So in a fair world, on Monday, Diane Rehm would apologize for wasting everyone's time with sorry speculation about bin Laden which was unfounded when she couldn't been discussing Iraq.
Rebecca: Just to jump in here while I have a second, cranky baby in my arms, Elaine wrote about something recently at her site -- watch it'll be me that wrote but everyone knows how bad my memory is -- about how C.I. never hesitated to take a stand and the reason's include that she will be proven right. Maybe not today, maybe not this week, but time will tell, time is on her side. And this is the perfect example. I wasn't with C.I. when she was dictating Friday. I was taking a break -- C.I. was holding my little girl and I was enjoying being Rebecca and not Mommy for a few minutes. But reading it, and knowing C.I., I can hear her voice in my head and how she was speaking when she dictated it and my point is, when she's that firm in her convictions, she's always backed up, it's like the universe gifts her with sources and backing in the days that follow something like that. Remember, she was calling out the VA in the lead up to the scandal of the tuition and living checks for veterans. That scandal had not broken and she was calling it out and, boom, there it was. That's just the way life works out for her. And, if I can add one more thing because I will get e-mails, this may be all I say because my daughter is getting a tooth and she's old enough to talk now so she will be complaining -- as she should, it hurts getting a new tooth. So if I'm not participating in the rest of the roundtable, that's why before anyone e-mails and asks me on Monday, "Why didn't you say more?"
Jim: Okay. So Rebecca's making the argument that C.I. benefitted from synchronicity. Elaine, I'm coming back to you. At The Nation, Jeremy Scahill asks, "Is Erik Prince 'Graymailing' the US Government?" Last week, you wrote "The Curious Mister Erik Prince" and I thought you might want to comment.
Elaine: Sure. First off, a friend at Vanity Fair asked me to note that and this was after C.I. had been asked. C.I. didn't want to get into it for a number of reasons so I grabbed it. Erik Prince reveals to Adam Ciralsky, for the article "Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy," that he's worked for the CIA in the last years. He feels he was outed by Congress. When I wrote my piece, I was just going by what C.I. had told me but I've worked my own sources since then -- on the DC social circuit -- and they back up what C.I. found. Which is that Erik Prince was outed by members of the intelligence community. Let me stress that is the talk. That doesn't mean it's true. But Prince is convinced it's Congress and has offered nothing to explain why he believes that. He may have solid information. But the consensus is that it was the intel community, parts of it, which outed him. It's a war within the intel community. So that's that and in terms of Scahill's article, of the headline anyway, I hope so. I would hope anyone who felt compromised would leverage any information they had. I would. If I were in Prince's shoes, my attitude would be, "Take me down, I'll take you all down." What is it Jane Fonda says in Cat Ballou? "I'll make Sherman's March To The Sea look like a cakewalk."?
Jim: And regards to Blackwater's actions?
Elaine: Blackwater is a firm of War Criminals. That's not the issue though. I don't know if Scahill gets it or not, others on the left that I've read do not get it -- I'm a leftie so I have no idea what the right's saying on this. But when they burned Prince, when they outed his CIA work, they declared war and it became scorched earth. Leaving aside his own crimes, he's got every right to go after them with everything he can. But I'm not a fan of the CIA, so those who are might feel differently.
Jim: Anyone disagree with Elaine? Stan? Mike?
Stan: No. I don't like Prince. Elaine doesn't like him either. I'd be happy with him behind bars for life. But that's not really what's going on right now. What Elaine's talked about here and written at her site is about an inter-mural competition within the CIA. And I agree with her that Erik Prince now has every right to hit back as hard as he can. And, like Elaine said, if I was him, you better believe I would.
Mike: Yeah, I know a little bit more about this than what's in this discussion and what's up at Elaine's site because I live with Elaine so I overhear conversations, for example. So what I would add is that Erik Prince was betrayed by elements of the CIA, the CIA he worked for, that's pretty sad. It's be like they were all Boston Red Sox and started turning on each other or something. But once someone turns on you, you have every right to turn on them, in my book, you do. So if he wants to go after them or leverage them to get the best whatever for himself, go for it. What's really interesting is that, and I'll go there and I know that Elaine and C.I. already knows this and have discussed and so have other people, but what's really interesting in the 'coverage' of all this is how Blackwater CIA ties are not really being addressed. Blackwater's ties to the CIA pre-date the sudden exposure of Erik Prince as CIA. And I would further point out that Erik Prince wasn't one of two with CIA ties in Blackwater leadership, there were a lot more. In many ways, Blackwater was most likely a CIA operation. And if Jeremy were smart, Jeremy Scahill, he'd take that as a tip off to start looking into some of Blackwater's activities not in terms of crimes only, but in terms of off the book money laundering.
Jim: Okay. Elaine any comment? C.I.?
Elaine: Mike's stating what's a very popular opinion on the DC social circuit. It may be correct, it may not be. He didn't make up anything he said.
C.I.: I was going to say "no comment" but hearing Elaine's remarks made me realize someone may attack Mike for his comments. In which case, I've heard what Mike just talked about, I've heard it repeatedly last week in DC. From friends in the press and friends in the government. Other than having Mike's back, I have no comment on that issue.
Jim: Okay, The Nation has a poll up right now: "How credible is Obama's promise that troops will return from Afghanistan in 2011?" The choices are "a) The surge was engineered with withdrawal in mind, so that will ensure a prompt start to the process. b) Even if some troops withdraw, that's not the same as a complete homecoming. c) It's too early to tell. How can we know how the escalation will affect the situation? It could go either way. d) It doesn't matter what Obama tells us--our military presence in Afghanistan will endure for years to come." And put quotes around that but please note that I added the "a," "b," "c," and "d." Betty, if you were taking the poll, what would you respond?
Betty: I wouldn't. I wouldn't take the poll. D is the best option offered but where in those option is "Barack promised he'd close Guantanamo by now and he didn't"? Where's that option? The choices they give you act as if Barack might be lying but it's not his fault if he is. I'm so sick of that pathetic magazine.
Jim: For what it's worth, "d" was the most popular choice with 65% of the voters. Barack made an idiot of himself with his surge speech. Or he revealed his true nature. Regardless, following that speech, whose reaction most delighted you and most appalled you? Betty, you can jump in on this again if you want, and I'd also like to bring in Kat and Ann and Cedric for sure.
Ann: You know, I should say someone like a Barack groupie who finally woke up but I'm just not feeling generous. I'm not. I'll go with Justin Raimondo (Antiwar). I didn't agree with everything he said, I'm left and he's not, but I did agree with the basic points and I'd rather applaud someone who's told the truth about Barack all along than applaud someone whose lying helped get us into this mess.
Jim: Ann, if I can stop you, last week we were rushing so I didn't follow up. But let me do it now. E-mails were coming in about people being surprised by revelations at your site, things you'd written, about how you voted for Ralph Nader not just in 2008 but repeatedly prior. I'd asked you about that and some other stuff last week and we defocused and missed that point.
Ann: Oh sure. You know Betty usually says it more than anyone ever realizes probably, I'm talking about Betty really sums up the Black experience and when she speaks here and I read it, as I have for years now, I'm nodding my head because she's describing my life. And she's talked about how Black voters are so taken for granted by the Democratic Party -- and that's not changed just because a bi-racial man's in the White House. But all the things Betty's pointed out, I agree with and that's why I'm really not a Democrat. I'd love to be Green but you're going to have to show me a party with some guts and guts is not stroking Barack or gently calling him out. So what I am, politically, is an independent. The Democratic Party is not left enough for me and the Green Party is too weak. I could see myself easily becoming an anarchist when I hit retirement age. I'm not joking. I was a Democrat for about three minutes in third grade and, ever since, then my views have been so much more left than the Democratic Party. And while some people believe they can change the party from within, I don't. And I'm not going to waste my time trying. And before anyone gets their feelings hurt and wants to e-mail on that, I am talking about me. I am not telling you what to do or how to live your life, nor am I judging you. My husband is a dedicated and determined Democrat. I don't think less of him for that. I'm just not able to take that trip, sorry.
Jess: If I can jump in here for just a second, I think if there's a surprise over this it's two-fold. First, Cedric is known online for being such a staunch Democrat. He campaigns for the party in his area and does all this stuff. And second, if there's a surprise, it's also a realization probably because I wasn't surprised. Ann's basically talked about this in bits and pieces here. She usually doesn't say a great deal in roundtables but if you piece together everything she's said in the roundtables, you see that she's basically been talking about this all along. I wasn't surprised by it at all. When she started blogging about it at her site in depth last month, I just kind of nodded and realized that she'd pretty much addressed it here but she was going into more depth.
Cedric: I would agree with everything that Jess just said.
Jim: Were you surprised when you got to know her that she wasn't a Democrat?
Cedric: We go to the same church and actually, at the start, she was going with a relative who was sick. When she started going, she was going because she was giving a ride to sick relative who attends the church. So we did the slow circle and the nods and the smiles for a few weeks before we spoke. But I knew that the worst she could be was a liberal Republican because she wouldn't keep coming to my church otherwise. We are a left wing church. I also knew, back when the Green Party was about to dump Cynthia McKinney, back when they thought they had Ralph Nader for about two days, she mentioned then that she might vote for Cynthia.
Ann: Because I thought she'd ditch the Greens. I'm not impressed with the Greens. I heard that ridiculous debate that KPFA aired. Ralph and Cynthia were the only intelligent people there. The young woman, she might grow up into someone worth supporting. But everone else? They didn't sound like leaders. It was embarrassing to think this was the cream of the crop for the Green Party. But, again, I'm no fan of the Green Party. They're like the Dems little sister trying to imitate the Dems.
Cedric: So, he said exhaling, I knew she wasn't a Democrat fairly early on. And that was fine. We actually match up on the issues. She just thinks -- and she's not wrong -- that there's too much corporate money and corporate corruption in the Democratic Party. And I also agree with her on Justin's column. I'm not in the mood to applaud any Johnny-Come-Latelys who spent months and months pimping Barack. Screw you all. Screw you, Michael Moore. You should have known better. That's my take anyway.
Kat: Outside the community? I'll go with Cindy Sheehan (Cindy's Soapbox). And I agree with Cedric and Ann, there's no point in applauding people who spent the bulk of 2009 and all of 2008 saying, "Touch the flames, they're so pretty!" They got burned last week, I don't feel sorry for them. We all got burned as a result of their lies and whoring.
Wally: If I could jump in, I'd just note that I agree and I'd single out Chris Floyd (Empire Burlesque) as someone commenting last week that was worth noting. And he is someone who called it out back when it was needed. He was never a member of the Cult of St. Barack.
Jim: Okay. Ruth, Marcia and Ty, I'm going to try to get you three on marriage equality. But I want to address a new poll that came out and found that young people continue to support Barack. It was conducted by Harvard's Institute of Politics and, PDF format warning, on it.
C.I.: Excuse me, I'm jumping back in. Since the voting age was lowered to 18, I don't think anyone's considered a 26 to 29 year old voter a "young voter." For the record, because I did see that poll, this is a poll of people from the ages of 18 to 29 and it's being called "young voters." Another thing to be aware of is that we're talking about a highly educated, wealthy group making up the sample and your clue on the wealth aspect is that something like 70% of the respondents stated they had health care. I belive 5% percent refused to say. But right there, when you've got 70% of your polling sample saying they've got health care, you're dealing with an upscale group of people. Almost 60% were employed and less than 25% were married. In terms of gender make up, I believe it came close to mirroring the overall US stats, with more women being in the pool. In terms of race, White Anglo was over-represented but that wasn't due to African-Americans or Latinos being under-represented. It was due to the fact that they only had those three categories in their sample. Meaing Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, etc. were not in the polling. That's just some background on their pool of respondents before anyone starts tossing out a hypothesis.
Jim: Thank you.
Mike: No one's speaking. I've not seen the poll. My guess is that people responding don't know what they're talking about. They're young, everyone's supposed to love Barry O so they're saying they do because they're lemmings. That's my guess.
Jim: Hmm. I'll toss to C.I. on that.
C.I.: Me? Mike's guess? Yeah, I believe that can be backed up in the data itself. Jim, do you have the poll in front of you?
Jim: Yes.
C.I.: Okay, well correct me if I give the wrong figures because I haven't looked at in some time. But I believe it was 58% of respondents stating they approve of Barack's performance. Did they really approve? Mike's guess is "no." The data actually can back up Mike because they're asked then to evaluate Barack's performance on various areas -- such as the economy -- Barack never makes it to 58% on any of the categories. He doesn't even make it to 50%. I believe his highest score is 44% which he receives on both health care and the economy. His lowest score, 38%, is on the federal budget. Again, Jim check my numbers.
Jim: No, you're correct so far.
C.I.: So the point being, if 58% think he's doing an outstanding job, then what is he doing an outstanding job on because on every area they grade him, they grade him at 44% or less. I know some outlets, the idiots at The Nation, for example, have spun this poll but Mike's guess is actually more accurate than what the outlets have done with the data.
Jim: Thank you. And back to Mike. Mike you ended up with a guess that the data can back you up on. Any thoughts?
Mike: Well, I think I know that group, I'm of that group. I see a lot of Barack's Cult on campus and they don't follow the news. I mean, forget beyond the headlines, they're not even following the headlines. They are an uninformed group. And that's the way it is, I don't know what else to say. Most of us went to college, right? I think we all have gone, I'm still in college, but we know how it is. You've got to go to classes, you've got to study, you may have to work a job, you're trying to live a life and there's just not all the time in the world. And current events aren't always something that the entire student body's paying attention to. That's reality.
Dona: And Mike, I'm so glad you spoke freely and that we covered this topic but we now need, Jim, to wind down with Ty, Marcia and Ruth.
Jim: Okay. Dona's saying we're running out of time. Marriage equality. Last week, the state of New York said no to marriage equality. Ruth, you blogged about this in "Another blow to equality" so why don't you kick it off by explaining what happened?
Ruth: Alright. New York's state senate took a vote on whether to support marriage-for-all or not? They decided not to. The final vote was 24 state senators in favor of marriage equality and 38 against it. Following the vote, Governor David Paterson stated he understood the anger and outrage over the vote and that it was not over. For a number of people, it felt over.
Marcia: For me it does. I mean how many defeats is the LGBT community going to have to suffer? It's been one right after the other including all of Barry's homophobe supporters in California and homophobic Barry himself refusing to call out Proposition Nine. But it's been nothing but defeat, defeat ever since, or that's how it feels. And it feels like we're going backwards and backwards and we have no leadership on the issue and the White House is screwing us over on everything from Don't Ask Don't Tell to DOMA -- neither of which have been repealed. So I'm honestly really angry and that may just be me.
Ty: No, it's not just you. That's how my boyfriend feels as well and, to be honest, things are rough right now between us. We toyed with the idea of getting married before the Prop 8 vote, we live out here in California, at C.I.'s. We didn't think Prop 8 would pass and we weren't ready to get married. But Prop 8 did pass and if we had gotten married our marriage would still be valid. But because Prop 8 passed, we now can't get married. And the fact that we didn't then is becoming a sore spot with my boyfriend. It's becoming a sore spot, it's becoming a real problem. Our relationship has lasted how many years now? And we lasted his staying in New York when I moved out here to C.I.'s. And it's deepened and all of that. And we can't get married. Any man and woman can get married even if they just met hours before. But we can't? The anger Marcia's feeling, the anger's she talking about, that's how my boyfriend feels and that's how a lot of gay people are feeling right now. It's becoming very obvious that there's a strong movement to make sure we are not included in the country we live in. And like Marcia, I blame Barack Obama and his damn cult because they've done nothing to help us and everything to hurt us. And a lot of gay people around the country are under a lot of stress because of this crap.
Marcia: I have a couple I'm friends with who live in New York, upstate, and they were really happy about the vote because they're a lesbian couple and they've been together about five or six years and they were so excited. They just knew it would pass. And they could get married. And that meant so much to them. Then it didn't pass. And when it doesn't pass, which straight people may not be grasping, when it doesn't pass, you can't just say, "Well, these things take time." Gay people know that, thank you very much. But more importantly, this is such a huge rejection of our lives. This reject us on every level and rejects our relationships. And the problem's Ty's having, I know couples breaking up in part over the stress that's going on as we have one defeat after another. Because you have one person who's trying to be upbeat and maybe is upbeat and the other doesn't want to hear it because these votes are so insulting and hurt so to the core of who we are.
Ruth: I am really glad that Ty and Marcia are speaking about this. I knew some of it from Marcia and I was glad she felt comfortable talking to me about it because she is my very good friend. I was also glad because if she is feeling that way, others are as well and I am a glass is half-full type person. Once I knew how much it really shook someone's faith and belief system, these votes against equality, I stopped trying to be the cheerleader on "It will come, just wait, it will come." And no one needs this old grandma playing cheerleader anyway. My grandson Jayson is not going through this but he is young and new to the dating scene and all of that. People like Ty, and Marcia especially, have been waiting, have seen changes, were told change was coming and just got a homophobic president who will rub up against homophobes but does nothing for gay Americans. So it is very distressing.
Jim: And on that note, we'll wind down. This is a rush transcript. The e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.
