According to their argument such testing increased the likelyhood of a false positive. In more exact statistical language, it increases the expected number of false positives in any given tested population. Thus there was more likelyhood of panic. But the problem with this logic is that a false positive is just as probable in sampling testing as it is in full testing. And if a single measurmement is used as a proxy for a hundred cattle, false positives carry one hundred times the weight. Each false positive is 100 times as likely to cause consumer panic. In other words, if one wished to cause panic with a single false-positive, one would test fewer cattle, not more. The issue of concern, therefore, cannot be false positives, but real ones. Full testing is 100 times more likely to detect a real problem when a single cow in a large population has a health problem.
From a statistical point of view, the Agriculture department’s sampling plan performs perfectly only when the number of actual cases of a problem is identically zero. Or when all cows from a population suffer from exactly the same health problem. Or when it is acceptible that people die of tainted beef once in a while. We know that the first premise is sometimes not the case. We know that the second almost never is the case. When these two premises are false, then the Agriculture department depends upon the third.
If the marketplace is willing to pay a premium price for beef that includes in its qualities more extensive testing, why should the Agriculture department stop it from doing so? More eztensive testing certainly does not deny consumers of a safe food supply. Nor does it burden suppliers who succeed in avoiding disease. Could it be that the department is so controlled by special interests that it is willing to sacrifice consumer health and confidence to increase the bottom line of large agribusiness interests? Oh, and by the way, what is the probability of a false negative?
If the 2008 presidential election were held today, according to this poll discussed at Angus Reid, Obama would poll better than any of the likely Democratic candidates against four likely Republican candidates McCain, Giuliani, Romney, Thomson. Edwards and Clinton essentially tie for second. Interestingly, the poll also imagines Richardson as a candidate. He does not poll strongly, but his candidacy has been all but completely ignored by the M$M. And in light of that fact, his numbers might be viewed as being strong. The party has nominated candidates who have done worse.
Q How central a role did Rove play in the U.S. attorney business? That’s what everybody wants to know. Was he the main guy drawing up the list?
THE PRESIDENT: Just look at the facts as they’ve come out.
Q It’s unclear.
THE PRESIDENT: There has been plenty of testimony, plenty of hearings, plenty of statements. And one thing is for certain, that there was no wrongdoing done.
What, I wonder, does Dubya believe constitutes wrongdoing? At one level there is the argument that there is no law that prevents one from politicizing the DOJ. There is no law preventing the president from putting party hacks in US attorney offices. Dubya’s own administration was careful to rewrite the law so that the president could avoid the vetting and approval process. Nor, I suppose does Dubya consider lying to Congress illegal so long as it serves his own political purposes. And anyway, how does one party prove that a second party actually does remember?
How about the destruction of records in a criminal investigation? All of Rove’s e-mails were subjects of the Libby investigation. Their destruction is almost certainly illegal. Lost, stolen, destroyed, or not, failure to produce them constitutes a crime. How about obstruction of justice?
There is no question that appointments of US attorneys ought to have Congressional vetting and approval. The Patriot Act provision that allows otherwise is certainly a violation of the spirit of the Constitution’s carefully calibrated balance of powers, even if there is no court precedent that establishes it as unconstitutional.
In fact, creating a system of US attorneys that is unconstitutionally constituted risks not only politicizing justice; it risks Constitutional challenges of all cases brought by such attorneys. That would bring the justice system to a grinding halt. I wonder if that is precisely the effect the writers of the Patriot Act and the MCA had in mind?
There has been plenty of testimony. There have been plenty of hearings and plenty of statements. And one thing is certain: if we remember only our lawful behavior and we forget our unlawful behavior, wrongdoing is pretty much all that’s been done.
The experience of listening to Ron Paul can be like listening nails on a chalkboard. But by discussing the most important issue of the 2008 election he may be transforming the debate that frames the next election. His argument is that policy has consequences. Bad policy has undesirable consequences. And it is time for Rudy and fellow Rethuglicans to face up to the truth.
Ron Paul then give t Rudy Giuliani a list of books to read before the next presidential debate:
Imperial Hubris - Michael Scheuer
Dying to Win - Robert Pape
Blowback - Chalmers Johnson
If everyone did as Paul suggests, it would change the election outcome. And much for the better.
Who says Mr Bush has no sense of humor? Today when asked about the ongoing DOJ hearings and the steady leakage that accompanies a sinking ship, the president assured the country that there was an internal investigation at the White House and “If there is wrong doing it will be addressed.” We’ve heard that one before. How many times has the White House sent the fox to guard the henhouse? One almost wonders whether there are chickens left to guard.
Then he complained:
“This investigation is being drug out.” For political purposes.
What we heard was: ” ‘vestigation? ‘vestigation? We don’ need no stinkin’ ‘vestigation!”
Mr President: we can only dream that some day you may learn that when knowledge is produced using the usual investigative processes, it is painstaking, grueling, and slow. But such work produces knowledge that much more closely resembles the world of fact and reality than convenient proclamations and whimsical fancies produced by an isolated narcissistic authority figure or his whirling constellation of sycophants.
In the first five minutes of this hearing, we learned that in Ms. Goodling’s view, Paul McNulty, the Deputy Attorney General, misled the Senate in his testimony about the limited role of the White House, when he personally knew otherwise. We also learned that Mr. McNulty withheld information from the Senate which had the effect of concealing Senator Domenici’s role in the termination of Mr. Iglesias. Ms. Goodling also admitted to taking inappropriate political considerations into account when hiring non-political DOJ employees.
Second, in what I believe may have been the bombshell revelation of the hearing, we learned the Attorney General made public statements that Ms. Goodling believed were inaccurate and that he appeared to be engaged in “coaching” witnesses after the fact, in direct contradiction to the Attorney General’s testimony that he had gone out of his way not to speak to any of the fact witnesses. This coaching made Ms. Goodling feel, in her own words “uncomfortable.” This raises the most serious questions to date about the conduct of the Attorney General.
Third, we learned the White House was intimately involved in the process of terminating the US Attorneys, from the beginning through final sign off, and Ms. Goodling believes Mr. Rove was involved in the process.
Fourth, Ms. Goodling admitted that laws were violated with regard to the consideration of the hiring of career employees at the Department of Justice. By her own terms, she admitted she “crossed the line” with regard to the hiring of Assistant US Attorneys and Immigration Judges.
Fifth, we learned that there indeed was a ninth US Attorney on the firing list, Mr. Graves from Missouri. Again, this contradicts the testimony of the Attorney General on this matter.
This is where it gets interesting; The attorney general is contradicted by an underling who portrays him as tampering with a witness in an investigation. Said witness also claims to having been set up by her boss McNulty.
At this point there is no question that someone has lied under oath to the committee. Goodling, according to Conyers was not being very guarded in her testimony. She appeared “loquatious” and she appeared unhandicapped by failures of memory. This makes her a more credible witness than the Attorney General.
What were Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi thinking when they reached a “compromise” on funding the Iraq war? The bills they wrote are inscrutible. They evidently allow congressbots plausible deniability even while they actually vote to support a very expensive failed and unpopular political distraction. “Yes means no.” Or vice versa. It was not to this end that Americans voted Democrats into office in 2006.
Supporters will feel betrayed and opponents will remain unconvinced. It appears to be the most self-destructive policy course they could take. My guess is that the reasonable sixty percent of Americans who want out of Iraq are thinking:
“For the love of (your deity’s name here) stand on principle for once! Say the war is an expensive, destructive and divisive distraction and we are not going to pay for it any longer. Just say NO! ”
It was flawed in its overestimation of the health of institutional power in Iraq, but the Iraq Study Group came as close as any American institution to recognizing the cold, hard facts of the Iraqi situation. In its realistic estimation, if America was to deal effectively in Iraq it needed to deal effectively with Iraqi power-brokers. Whom it implied to the most effective was Muqtada al-Sadr. No leader had broader support or a more effective organization. Yet this was who the Americans avoided most assiduously.
Today we learn that almost three years agothe US set up secret peace talks with al-Sadr and then tried to kill him. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. And maybe there were then or are now elements who want the occupation to continue as it has, creating a place of perpetual turmoil, destruction and despair in order to justify an occupation.
We also learn today that al-Sadr is actually beginning to show promise of bridging the gap between Sunni and Shia Could it be that common hatred of an illegal and increasingly brutal US occupation is forcing Iraqi foes to unite to push the invaders out? How ironic it would be if the ploy the neocons attempted against democracy in America - the creation of an external foe - caused the failure of their pet project in Iraq? Sometimes history has its little laughs on injustice.
Don’t Blame Bush Paul Krugman suggests that Bush is just behaving in a manner consistent with Republican ideals. And that most of the Republican candidates evidently share those same ideals.
Wolfie The Great Ten reasons we’ll miss Wolfowitz as World Bank President. Heh heh..
The Voter Suppresion Project One argument for it at Alter Net An encyclopedic overview at dKos A provocative if not substantial interview of Greg Palast on how Rove may have stolen the next election. It’s fun to Google Greg Palast with the term voter fraud, BTW.
Bush Administration Lawlessness Media Matters examines a long string of entries in major M$M calling Bush administrations lawless. It then asks why we haven’t gotten around to doing anything about the problem.