Putin's grip on Russia: Over the two-plus decades since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Vladimir Putin has been in charge for more than half the time. Currently prime minister, he is running for president—again—in the March 4, 2012 elections. The ex-KGB officer served as the nation's president from 2000 until 2008. After two four-year terms, Putin then stepped into the role of prime minister, while his former chief of staff, Dmitri Medvedev, took over the presidential gig. Is it totalitarianism redux? Current Russian law mandates that no president may serve more than two terms consecutively; by leaving the presidency without really leaving the top of the Kremlin, it looked like Putin was smoothing his eventual path back to his old seat. He and Medvedev confirmed as much last September, admitting that they'd agreed years ago that Medvedev was to function merely as a "seat-warmer" president.

Meanwhile, former KGB officers—including some of Putin's former pals in the notorious intelligence agency—have been assigned top Kremlin posts. And Putin has encouraged a number of policies that hearken back to Soviet days: He's overlooked a culture of corruption and extortion, cracked down on free speech, and has persistently degraded social benefits, especially for the elderly and veterans. Interestingly, Putin's popularity, and that of his party, United Russia, has since declined dramatically.

What's happening now? The latest large-scale demonstration is set for Moscow on Saturday, February 4. In anticipation, some pointed anti-government art has been zipping around Russia's interwebs and beyond. A few examples: a Putin speech dubbed over a Lego video, a Titanic parody, and a lewder version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movie poster. Protesters have also put together a resolution listing their movement's demands, which include annulment of the December 4, 2011 parliamentary election results, new elections that are free and fair, and the release of imprisoned activists. Some have predicted that protest turnout on February 4 will be lower than it was during December's massive rally, due to even colder temperatures. According to the protest movement's Facebook invite, however, more than 27,000 people have pledged to attend. Russian publications are also predicting disunity at Saturday's rally. With presidential candidates from each of the four other political parties scheduled to speak, the protests are likely to be a sum of divergent groups—nationalists, liberals, and leftists who can agree on being anti-Putin…but not much else.

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2/4/2012 5:00:00 AM

Breast cancer foundation Susan G. Komen for the Cure has reversed its decision to stop funding cancer screening referrals by Planned Parenthood, according to a letter from founder Nancy Brinker first obtained by Tom Benning at the Dallas Morning News and posted on the organization's website.

The letter reads in part:

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It's not entirely clear what this means. Since their initial announcement on Tuesday, Komen representatives have offered an avalanche of shifting explanations for their decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood. Those justifications have ranged from a new policy forbidding funding any organization if it or one of its affiliates was under any kind of government investigation to arguing that the problem was that some Planned Parenthood affiliates offered referrals instead of mammograms. But other organizations that received grants from Komen (such as Penn State) were not held to the same standard regarding investigations, and the probe of Planned Parenthood, initiated by an anti-abortion Republican congressman, was seen by critics as political witch hunt. There are problems with the referral argument, too. As my colleague Kate Sheppard wrote on Thursday, criticism of Planned Parenthood over not performing mammograms was something of a "red herring," because "If you have health insurance and a primary care physician or gynecologist, that is generally the person who will refer you for additional care if they find reason for concern after an initial screening. But if a woman doesn't have insurance or a regular doctor, clinics like Planned Parenthood are her point of entry."

Given what Komen officials have said about their new standards requiring direct services, Friday's letter leaves one big question—whether Planned Parenthood meets Komen's criteria for future grants—still unresolved. Komen has not responded to journalists' requests for clarification, telling the Washington Post's Ezra Klein that its statement "speaks for itself."

Throughout the backlash, Komen's leadership insisted its decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood was not political. Although Brinker herself is a former Bush administration official and has given thousands of dollars to Republicans over the years, Komen has not been widely seen as a partisan organization. But Karen Handel, Komen's senior vice president for public policy, is a former Republican secretary of state from Georgia who is avowedly anti-abortion. A report from Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic suggested the Planned Parenthood decision had been "driven" by Handel, and the new standards were a mere pretext for eliminating Komen's funding for Planned Parenthood. (No retraction or correction has been made, and Goldberg says he stands by his reporting.) On Friday morning, Goldberg posted internal memos from Komen instructing employees on how to properly spin the decision.

The outcry seems to have helped fundraising at both organizations. On Thursday, both Komen and Planned Parenthood announced large donations, with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledging $250,000 to Planned Parenthood and Brinker saying that contributions to Komen were up "one hundred percent."

UPDATE: A Komen board member tells the Washington Post's Greg Sargent that "It would be unfair to expect the group to commit to future grants."

UPDATE II: Planned Parenthood sends out a statement saying:

In recent weeks, the treasured relationship between the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and Planned Parenthood has been challenged, and we are now heartened that we can continue to work in partnership toward our shared commitment to breast health for the most underserved women. We are enormously grateful that the Komen Foundation has clarified its grantmaking criteria, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Komen partners, leaders and volunteers. What these past few days have demonstrated is the deep resolve all Americans share in the fight against cancer, and we honor those who are at the helm of this battle.

The crucial question remains whether or not that partnership actually exists after today, or whether this is just a more amicable divorce.

    

2/3/2012 11:27:01 AM

When it comes to manipulating charitable giving for personal and political ends, Newt Gingrich wrote the book. In 1997, his charity work won him the dubious distinction of being the first House speaker ever disciplined by his peers for ethical wrongdoing. Congress fined Gingrich $300,000 in connection with claiming tax-exempt status for "Renewing American Civilization," a college course he'd taught for political purposes.

Gingrich has been at it again. Over the past two years, a Gingrich charity called Renewing American Leadership paid $220,000 to Gingrich Communications, one of his for-profit companies. The purchases included books authored by Gingrich, such as The Fight for America's Future and Rediscovering God in America. Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, told ABC News that the arrangement violates the spirit of how nonprofits are supposed to work.

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2/3/2012 5:01:00 AM

Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which recently announced that it is ending grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening because of a controversial investigation launched by an anti-abortion Republican congressman, currently funds cancer research at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center to the tune of $7.5 million. Like Planned Parenthood, Penn State is currently the subject of a federal government investigation, and like the Planned Parenthood grant, the Penn State grant appears to violate a new internal rule at Komen that bans grants to organizations that are under investigation by federal, state, or local governments. But so far, only the Planned Parenthood grants appear to have been cancelled.

An internal Komen memo written by President Elizabeth Thompson and obtained by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic states that if "an applicant or its affiliates" is under investigation "for financial or administrative improprieties by local, state or federal authorities," then "the applicant will be ineligible to receive a grant." Penn State, the Pennsylvania university that the Hershey center is affiliated with, is currently under investigation by the federal government over the sexual assault scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who has been indicted on multiple counts of sexual abuse of children. In 2008, the Komen foundation awarded a five-year, $7.5 million grant to the Hershey center to study treatments that could reduce the risk of breast cancer.

Under the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, university officials are required to "issue a timely warning if a reported crime represents a threat to the campus community." The Department of Education announced that it was investigating Penn State over possible Clery Act violations last November, and a Penn State spokesperson told Mother Jones that the investigation is ongoing. The Komen foundation has not yet responded to a request for comment. 

Komen's founder, Nancy Brinker, is a former Bush administration official who has given almost $200,000 to Republican officials over the years, and Karen Handel, Komen's top lobbyist, is a pro-life Republican who was elected secretary of state in Georgia. Komen officials have insisted that Brinker and Handel's right-leaning politics weren't a factor in the decision to cut off funding, but Goldberg reported that the new grant standards were written as a pretext for denying funds to Planned Parenthood, and that the decision was "driven" by Handel.

Brinker, appearing on MSNBC Thursday afternoon, denied the decision had anything to do with politics.  "I'm troubled that it's been labeled as political. This is not a political decision," Brinker said.

    

2/2/2012 2:56:11 PM

Matt Steinglass on our decade-long nation-building mission in Afghanistan:

Nothing in my life has made me as pessimistic about development aid as the course of the American intervention in Afghanistan…I think I've seen figures showing that foreign aid was actually greater than the country's entire GDP in 2011. That sounds impossible, but I'd imagine it reflects the fact that foreign aid is often spent on salaries for Western consultants and equipment from donor countries, so it never really enters Afghanistan at all.

…The romantic vision of the transformation of Afghanistan involved passionate Westerners with graduate degrees donning local garb and riding on donkeys to dirt-poor villages to educate their girls and extend their agriculture. But Westerners with graduate degrees don't much want to sit around on donkeys in dirt-poor villages, particularly not when the Taliban will kill them for doing so. They want to ride out to the village in an SUV, train some locals to teach the girls (or better yet, train some local trainers), drive back to the city, hit the gym and turn on the laptop. Besides which, they have to turn on the laptop, because the congressional subcommittee has told USAID to mandate that they report monthly on progress in 37 different categories of target indicators in exchange for their NGO getting the grant.

Et cetera. I saw this last night, but couldn't think of anything really worthwhile to add to it. I wanted to link it up to the lessons we supposedly all learned from E. F. Schumacher several decades ago about the appropriate scale of foreign aid projects in Third World countries, but I just don't have the chops for that. I also wanted to link to an article I read a few years ago about the immense delicacy of interfering with local economic patterns, which runs the risk of wrecking key incentives and cultural practices built up over centuries, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen it or what country it was about. Which is too bad, because it was a great piece of eye-opening writing.

So that's a great big fail from me on the foreign aid front. Instead, I'll leave you with this observation from Andrew Sullivan:

Yesterday, I get a text from one of my friends, a former Special Ops guy who was one of the first to learn how to ride a horse, grow a beard and disappear into the mountains of Afghanistan in 2001. It read:

Are we leaving afghanistan. No way we are that is awesome.

The facts have persuaded me that this war needs to come to an end. But the most persuasive arguments I have heard have come from my friends who have served there. Every single one described "nation-building" there to be about as insane as, well, a 51st state on the moon. All of them wanted to find and kill the men who attacked the US a decade ago—and go home. Since Obama took office, they have been granted their wish: almost all the al Qaeda leadership dead, and bin Laden's bones being picked dry by fishes.

Our exit from Afghanistan is going to be messy and bloody. Republicans are going to have a field day no matter what. But our only other option is, almost literally, to stay there forever. The idea that the United States was ever going to remake Afghanistan in a few years or even a few decades was a ridiculous pipe dream, and it still is. We've now accomplished our military mission there about as well as it ever could have been accomplished, and it's time to leave.

It was endless jingoism from the right combined with cravenness from the left that turned our presence in Vietnam into a fiasco of world historical proportions. LBJ was simply unwilling to stand up to insinuations that he was soft on communism, and the end result was 60,000 Americans dead and, eventually, the exact same takeover of South Vietnam that would have happened in 1954 if we had let it. There was simply no way that even a massive military presence was ever going to change Vietnamese nationalism or reform Vietnamese corruption in a few years—or a few decades.

Thankfully, President Obama now seems to understand this. The jingoism from the right may be different this time—today's Democratic president is accused of being soft on terrorism, not communism—but if history isn't exactly repeating itself, it's certainly rhyming. Obama succumbed to this conservative braying a couple of years ago when he doubled down on Afghanistan, but apparently he's smart enough to realize that it's better to weather the inevitable right-wing jeremiads about appeasement than it is to turn into another LBJ.

I don't think that escalating in Afghanistan was ever the right call, and I doubt that an extra few years of war has made a serious dent in the Taliban, in Afghanistan's culture, or in the politico-tribal realities that have always governed the country. But if that was even a little bit unclear a few years ago, it's simply indisputable now. We've done enough damage to Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is dead, Al Qaeda is all but destroyed, and the Taliban is as weakened as it's ever going to get. It's long past time to come home.

    

2/2/2012 1:12:49 PM

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Most Americans won't need a justification to watch Sunday's game, but if you're a TomDispatch.com reader you might think, even in passing, that celebrating the holiest day of violence, consumerism, and class warfare on your couch is a betrayal of your values or a waste of your time. You might even imagine that it would be better to take a hike, read a book, or meditate.

Not this Sunday, buster. It's an election season. You need to watch this game to fully understand how jobs, religion, leadership, and healthcare dominate every American contest.

1. Joe Hill will be playing: Where else will be you be able to watch more than 100 young men, most of them African-American, working for high wages in a totally unionized shop? True, their jobs are dangerous (more on that later) and relatively short-term (typically three or four years), but they are also high profile. They can lead to TV gigs, even political office. Buffalo Bills quarterback Jack Kemp became a Republican congressman and vice-presidential candidate. The former New England Patriots running back and ESPN analyst Craig James is currently running for the Republican nomination for Senator from Texas, although to less than universal acclaim.

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2/2/2012 1:54:18 PM

A day after Mitt Romney was slammed from all sides for declaring he's not "concerned with the very poor" (because they enjoy such a swell safety net), why would he accept an endorsement from celebrity-birther, .001-percenter Donald Trump and appear at the magnate's Las Vegas casino to do so?

The first words that come to mind are: too soon. Such a move will only reinforce the meta-narrative that Romney is far removed from the 99-percenters. It will also associate him with a fellow who was humiliated by Barack Obama last spring, when the president at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner eviscerated Trump with humor the same weekend he was secretly overseeing the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Trump's unfavorable rating last spring—before his birther crusade crashed and burned—was 47 percent.

But Romney may not have had a choice. This morning, several media outfits—Politico, the New York Times, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution—were reporting that Trump was going to endorse Newt Gingrich. This suggests The Donald was talking to both camps to boost his leverage as he was negotiating a deal. (Quelle surprise!)

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2/2/2012 12:21:25 PM

In 2010, Mitt Romney and his wife gave just under $3 million to charity, or about 15 percent of their $21.6 million income. That's a sizeable sum even by 1 percenter standards, which is why Romney's backers say it's unfair to castigate him for exploiting tax loopholes. "Mr. Romney's taxes reveal the most generous charitable donor to run for president in recent memory," writes National Review's Mona Charen.

But generous towards whom? Just over half of Romney's 2010 giving went to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Romneys didn't have much choice there: The church requires Mormons to tithe 10 percent of their income to remain members in good standing. The rest of the money went to the Tyler Foundation, a 501(c3) nonprofit funded exclusively by the Romneys. Though most of its donations defy criticism, others aren't exactly middle of the road.

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2/3/2012 5:00:00 AM

Tuesday's news that Susan G. Komen for the Cure is ending funding it provided to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings has led to increased scrutiny of Komen's staff, which—as I reported previously—includes a federal lobbyist who pledged to defund Planned Parenthood while campaigning for governor of Georgia.

Komen's founder is pretty conservative, too. Komen CEO Nancy G. Brinker, who founded the foundation in memory of a sister who died from breast cancer, was the chief protocol officer for the United States from 2007 to 2009 under the George W. Bush administration, and before that served as his ambassador to Hungary.

Brinker is also a major Republican donor, and has given more than $175,000 to Republican candidates and the Republican National Committee since 1990, according to donor data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Her late husband, Norman Brinker, was the chairman of Brinker International Restaurants, which owns the chains Chili's, Maggiano's, and Macaroni Grill. Norman Brinker gave more than $440,000 to Republicans between 1990 and his death in 2009.

As RH Reality Check pointed out Wednesday, Komen's board also includes a staunchly anti-abortion member:

Second, sitting on Komen's Advocacy Alliance Board is Jane Abraham, the General Chairman of the virulently anti-choice and anti-science Susan B. Anthony List and of its Political Action Committee. Among other involvements, Abraham helps direct the Nuturing Network (sic), a global network of crisis pregnancy centers known for spreading ideology, misinformation and lies to women facing unintended pregnancy. Also on the board of Nuturing Network (sic) is Maureen Scalia, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

This is all to say that perhaps the Planned Parenthood decision isn't all that big of a surprise, given the politics of people involved with Komen. The flap might end up benefiting Planned Parenthood in the end, however. The group has raised more than $400,000 since the news broke, a spokesman said Wednesday afternoon.

    

2/1/2012 2:05:28 PM

Update, Feb. 3: On Friday, multiple reports from activists inside Syria described massive shelling and an army offensive in the central Syrian city of Homs. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts the casualty figure at over a hundred, and claims many hundreds more are injured; other estimates have the body count at 200 and climbing. Activists report that "nail bombs" were used by the army during a mortar attack on the Khaldiyeh neighborhood. The reports come 30 years after the infamous Hama Massacre was conducted by the Syrian army over the course of four weeks in February 1982 (the operation was ordered by President Hafez al-Assad, father and predecessor to Syria's current ruler Bashar al-Assad).

The UN Security Council is scheduled to convene Saturday morning to discuss a much-debated draft resolution on Syria. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that same morning in Munich.

Here's a rundown of the deteriorating situation in Syria:

The basics: Syria is an Arab country with more than 22 million people; it borders many of the major players in the Middle East (Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey) and is roughly the size of North Dakota. Syria famously lost the Golan Heights to Israel in 1967, during the Arab-Israeli war; negotiations between the two countries have been minimal in recent years. Like many countries in the region, Syria's main export is oil. Unlike Saudi Arabia or Iran, however, Syria's oil reserves are relatively small; it ranks 33rd in the world. Syria is home to a smorgasbord of ethnicities and religions: Arabs, Kurds, Christians, Sunnis, Alawites, and Druze. The capital, Damascus, is a bustling metropolis (many believe it to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world) but is not the site of the country's most significant protests (though rebels captured parts of the city in late January). That city, Hama, is the country's fourth-largest, with fewer than 1 million occupants.

What's happening now? Ever since last March, Syrians, especially those in the country's central region, have protested the iron-fisted government headed by Bashar al-Assad. During the first week of August the Syrian army began a brutal campaign to control Hama, using tanks and troop assaults to kill citizens in a seemingly indiscriminate manner. The situation has continued to escalate in 2012. In late January, rebels known as the Free Syrian Army, reportedly took control of a portion of Damascus' suburbs. On January 31, Syrian government forces, according to Reuters, "reasserted control" of the Damascus suburbs. Elsewhere, in Homs, a central-Syrian town with more than a million people, Syrian government forces killed nearly 100 people—activists say 55 civilians were killed—on January 31. The Free Syrian Army has fought on, asserting that "half of the country" is now effectively a no-go zone for Assad's security forces. Since November, at least 3,000 Syrians reportedly have been killed.

Who's in charge?: Assad has ruled Syria since 2000. His father, Hafez al-Assad, a member of the Baath Party, came to power in 1970 after leading a bloodless coup. Assad's family came from a minority religious sect: the Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam. Thirty years ago, Assad launched one of the most brutal massacres in the modern history of the Middle East: His troops killed nearly 20,000 people in the city of Hama. In 2000, Hafez Assad died, and Bashar took over. To some, the shift from Hafez to Bashar suggested an opportunity (albeit a limited one) for Syria to become a more politically moderate society. Last year, Vogue magazine perpetuated that notion with a widely remarked profile of first lady Asma al-Assad published during the height of the Arab Spring. It stated that Syria was "the safest country in the Middle East." Clearly that couldn't have been more off-base, with Bashar apparently intent on following in his father's footsteps.

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2/2/2012 5:00:00 AM

Lots of numbers have been thrown around since Mitt Romney (finally) released his tax returns last week: the 13.9 percent tax rate, nearly $43 million income in two years, 10 percent tithing to the Mormon Church. We've collected the best tidbits and wackiest facts here—as well as Romney's spin efforts—to help you keep score. With research and web production by Tasneem Raja.

With research and web production by Tasneem Raja.

    

2/1/2012 5:00:00 AM

Thirty-four years ago, Newt Gingrich summed it up. In a speech to College Republicans—shortly before he would win his first election to Congress—the future speaker had a piece of fundamental advice for the young and impressionable GOPers: "I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal, and faithful and all those Boy Scout words."

Nasty—that was a critical component of Gingrich's formula for political success. And through the 1980s and 1990s, as Gingrich wielded his nastiness to overturn the Democratic order in Congress and seize the people's House for the GOP, he was hailed by Republicans. Now, following his 47 to 32 percent loss to Mitt Romney in the Florida presidential primary and Gingrich's promise—make that, threat—to pursue this nasty nomination contest all the way to the convention in sweltering Tampa in August, the Republican Party has a monster-of-its-own-creation in its china shop. (Imagine a Tasmanian devil in Tiffany & Co.) Despite Romney's 15-point comeback victory, it seems that the GOP will still be burdened and discombobulated by the Wrath of Gingrich. During his concession speech Tuesday night—which was light on the concession—Gingrich vowed to contest every primary and caucus, as his supporters held up signs that said, "46 STATES TO GO."

It's not uncommon for political losers to hang on longer than they should. (See Rick Perry.) So Gingrich's vow to ignore the play-nice-and-get-out pleas of the Republican establishment and battle all the way to the summer is not surprising. But if he is serious about vengeance, he will have to cling on for longer than a week or two. February's primaries—Nevada and Maine (February 4); Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri (February 7); and Arizona and Michigan (February 28)—hold few opportunities for the goblin of Georgia. These states are Romney-friendly and not well-suited for Gingrich's fire-breathing and not-so-coded rants against food stamps and Saul Alinsky. If he wants Romney's blood, he will have to stay in the hunt until at least Super Tuesday, where he can try to work his dark magic on his home state of Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Idaho. Alabama and Mississippi come a week later.

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1/31/2012 8:05:19 PM

For data crunchers and political reporters on the money trail, today is something of a holiday. Call it Super-PAC Tuesday.

Below are the highlights from Super-PAC Tuesday, from Colbert's mystery donors and Jon Huntsman's daddy's money to Restore Our Future's top funders. Super-PAC disclosures span the second half of 2011, while traditional campaign disclosures cover the final three months of last year. We'll be updating this throughout the day. And if you have tips or questions, leave them in the comments section or email us at scoop (at) motherjones (dot) com.

Mitt Romney Crushes in Campaign Cash

Breaking down the balance sheets of GOP presidential hopefuls.

Sorry, Santorum. Mitt's Our Man

$150,000: Amount donated by Consol Energy, a Pennsylvania-based giant whose board of directors includes on Rick Santorum, to pro-Romney super-PAC Restore our Future.

$0: Amount donated to the pro-Santorum super-PAC Red, White, and Blue Fund.

WHO'S BACKING OBAMA'S NOT-VERY-SUPER-PAC?

Here's a look at some of the folks throwing bucks at Priorities USA Action:

$150,000: William Little, Jr., chairman of George Little Management, LLC, a company specializing in high-profile trade shows and networking platforms.

$100,000: Steven Spielberg, co-principal at Dreamworks Animation and director of such films as Jaws, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, and that godawful Indiana Jones installment with aliens and a nuclear-blast-proof refrigerator.

$100,000: John Law, managing director at Warland Investments, a real estate firm in Cypress, California.

$50,000: Lenny Mendonca, director at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. He also serves on the board of The New America Foundation and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

$15,000: Orin Kramer, a general partner at the New York-based Boston Provident who was dubbed the "King of the New York Obamasaurs" by The New York Observer in 2008.

$10,000: Joseph Falk, a public policy consultant for mega law firm Akerman Senterfitt in Miami. He is on the board of directors of the Victory Fund, a PAC dedicated to electing openly LGBT candidates to public office.

Obama's Bundlers

Breaking down the biggest rainmakers funding Obama's reelection effort.

Notable Obama bundlers:
Vogue editor Anna Wintour ($500,000 or more)
Actress Eva Longoria ($200,000 to $500,000)
Scandal-ridden financier Jon Corzine ($500,000 or more)
Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg ($500,000 or more)
Hollywood producer and executive Harvey Weinstein ($500,000 or more)
Actor ("The Wire," "Treme") Wendell Pierce ($50,000-$100,000)

Golden Parachute

When Tim Pawlenty quit the race and endorsed Mitt Romney, the latter got an energetic, polished surrogate. The former got a fat check from Romney’s fundraising machine to pay off campaign debt.

Who's Your Daddy, Jon Huntsman?

70 percent of the money raised by pro-Hunstman Our Destiny PAC came from one man—Jon Huntsman Sr.

We are the 30 Percent

Where’d the rest of Our Destiny PAC’s money come from? A quick sampling:

$250,000: Peter Arnott, chairman of the California investment management firm, Research Associates.

$150,000: The Walton family (WalMart).

$40,000: Craig Mckaw, Seattle telecom entrepreneur and cofounder of the Free Willy Foundation, which covered the living expenses and relocation costs of Keiko the Killer Whale. (His wife, Susan, chipped in another $40,000).

You Can't Buy Friends

Top strategist Ed Rollins left Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign in early September and proceeded to spend the next four months trashing it, famously telling reporters: "If I would have Googled her, I would have found out she had 6 chiefs of staff in 5 years." Which makes that payment in Bachmann's last quarterly filing sting that much more: $30,000 to one Edward J. Rollins of New York, New York. All told, Rollins was paid $120,000 by a campaign he helped sink, and which is currently $1,055,924 in the hole.

Who's Laughing Now?

Two fake presidential campaigns. One undisputed fundraising champion.

Colbert's "Heroes"

The famous, and not-so-famous, donors to Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow

$1: Harry Ballsagna 7190 Ridgegate Dr, Gladstone, Oregon 97027-1180

$25: Pat Magroin 9756 Prospect Ave Lakeside, California 92040-4114

$10: Ibin Yerkinoff P.O. Box 1315 Levittown, Pennsylvania 19058

$1: Frumunda Mabalz 5364 Ballyduff St. Fitchburg, Wisconsin 53711

Sources: All super-PAC data appear in Federal Election Commission disclosure forms filed by the committees. Obama bundler data was published by the Obama reelection campaign.

    

1/31/2012 12:47:51 PM

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Ever since December 27th, war clouds have been gathering over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow body of water connecting the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean and the seas beyond. On that day, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi warned that Tehran would block the strait and create havoc in international oil markets if the West placed new economic sanctions on his country.

"If they impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports," Rahimi declared, "then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz." Claiming that such a move would constitute an assault on America's vital interests, President Obama reportedly informed Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Washington would use force to keep the strait open. To back up their threats, both sides have been bolstering their forces in the area and each has conducted a series of provocative military exercises.

All of a sudden, the Strait of Hormuz has become the most combustible spot on the planet, the most likely place to witness a major conflict between well-armed adversaries. Why, of all locales, has it become so explosive?

Oil, of course, is a major part of the answer, but—and this may surprise you—only a part.

Continue Reading »

    

1/31/2012 12:54:49 PM

As soon as April, millions of Wisconsinites will vote on whether to oust Gov. Scott Walker—a rising Republican star and arguably the most polarizing governor in politics today—just two years into his first term in office. Walker's recall election is a referendum on his hardline conservative agenda, including curbing collective bargaining rights for state workers and slashing education funding. For Walker himself it's a pivotal moment in his young political career.  

The recall fight is also a crucial test for the tea party, the populist movement that helped elect Walker in 2010, vigorously defended him during last winter's protests over his anti-union "budget repair" bill, and has been organizing to prevent his ouster. The movement's support is flagging, its clout dwindling, its buzz mostly gone. But now, tea partiers at the state and national levels are rallying around Walker's recall defense, hoping a victory could bolster the movement in a critical election year. A defeat, on the other hand, would give ammo to liberals and conservatives alike who say the tea party is all but dead.

In recent months, the Tea Party Express, a national organization, and the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama, a tea party-linked political action committee, have waded into the recall fight, blasting out more than a dozen emails to supporters and launching a $100,000 "money bomb" fundraiser to help defend Walker. They argue that the outcome has national implications for the 2012 presidential election; a Tea Party Express email to supporters in January announced that Wisconsin is "Ground Zero for the Battle Against Obama's Liberal Agenda."

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1/31/2012 5:00:00 AM

In an interview with CBS 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta revealed more about the secret process the Obama administration uses to kill American citizens suspected of terrorism without trial. According to Panetta, the president himself approves the decision based on recommendations from top national security officials. 

"[The] President of the United States obviously reviews these cases, reviews the legal justification, and in the end says, go or no go," Panetta said. 

"So it's the requirement of the administration under the current legal understanding that the president has to make that declaration, not you?" Pelley asked. Panetta replied, "That is correct."

The process by which national security officials determine whether or not American citizens suspected of terrorism can be killed remains opaque. The administration has leaked information about certain targets, but it has never released the legal justification for doing so, nor has it explained the system by which members of the National Security Council reportedly decide to put an American citizen on a so-called "kill list." In October, Reuters' Mark Hosenball wrote that the president doesn't necessarily explicitly approve strikes—instead, the attacks go forward unless the president objects.

Panetta's explanation of why he believes killing an American citizen without due process is legal wasn't exactly comforting. Here's the exchange:

PANETTA: Without getting into the specifics of the operation, if someone is a citizen of the United States, and is a terrorist who wants to attack our people and kill Americans, in my book that person is a terrorist. And the reality is that under our laws, that person is a terrorist. And we're required under a process of law, to be able to justify, that despite the fact that person may be a citizen, he is first and foremost a terrorist who threatens our people, and for that reason, we can establish a legal basis on which we oughta go after that individual, just as we go after bin Laden, just as we go after other terrorists. Why? Because their goal is to kill our people, and for that reason we have to defend ourselves.

PELLEY: They're not entitled to due process of law under the Constitution of the United States? They lose their citizenship if this administration decides they're a terrorist?

PANETTA: If this person wanted to suddenly raise questions about whether or not they're a terrorist, and they were to return to the United States, of course they would be entitled to due process. That's something we provide any US citizen. And for that matter frankly any terrorist who is arrested; we provide due process to that individual as well. But if a terrorist is out there on the battlefield, and the terrorist is threatening this country, that person is an enemy combatant, and when an enemy combatant holds a gun at your head, you fire back.

Panetta's explanation isn't much more complex than "when we say someone is a terrorist, then we can kill them, because they're a terrorist." The entire point of due process, however, is to determine whether or not someone is actually guilty. The defense secretary's metaphor—that you can fire back when someone "holds a gun to your head"—might justify killing an American citizen who is fighting on an actual battlefield, like Afghanistan. But it suggests violence as an appropriate response to an imminent threat, rather than the actual circumstances under which say, radical cleric and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki appears to have been killed.

President Obama just signed a bill that, if not for its many administrative loopholes, would "mandate" military detention for non-citizen terror suspects apprehended on American soil, so it's not accurate for Panetta to state that "any" suspected terrorist apprehended by the US receives due process. The vast majority of the nearly two hundred detainees at Gitmo have never been charged with anything, let alone tried and convicted. Osama bin Laden was the admitted leader of a group engaged in an armed conflict against US troops in Afghanistan; concrete evidence that al-Awlaki was more than a front for extremist propaganda has never been aired.

There's also an Orwellian element to Panetta's argument that anyone on the US kill list should simply turn themselves in and get a fair trial. As Glenn Greenwald reminds us, we only know that al-Awlaki was on the kill list because his name was leaked to the press. Any other Americans who might be on the list have no way of knowing they've been targeted absent leaks from administration officials or the sound they hear right before they're annihilated by a Hellfire missile. (Even calling friends, family, or a lawyer to turn yourself in could be the act that gets you killed.) If such an individual did know he was on the list, how exactly is he supposed to believe he'd have due process after giving himself up, given that he's already been sentenced to death by the administration? Is a fair trial even possible under those circumstances?

    

1/30/2012 2:13:45 PM

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Exclusive: New Iranian Commando Team Operating Near US

(Tehran, FNA) The Fars News Agency has confirmed with the Republican Guard's North American Operations Command that a new elite Iranian commando team is operating in the US-Mexican border region. The primary day-to-day mission of the team, known as the Joint Special Operations Gulf of Mexico Task Force, or JSOG-MTF, is to mentor Mexican military units in the border areas in their war with the deadly drug cartels. The task force provides "highly trained personnel that excel in uncertain environments," Maj. Amir Arastoo, a spokesman for Republican Guard special operations forces in North America, tells Fars, and "seeks to confront irregular threats..."

The unit began its existence in mid-2009—around the time that Washington rejected the Iranian leadership's wish for a new diplomatic dialogue. But whatever the task force does about the United States—or might do in the future—is a sensitive subject with the Republican Guard. "It would be inappropriate to discuss operational plans regarding any particular nation," Arastoo says about the US.

Okay, so I made that up. Sue me. But first admit that, a line or two in, you knew it was fiction. After all, despite the talk about American decline, we are still on a one-way imperial planet. Yes, there is a new US special operations team known as Joint Special Operations Task Force-Gulf Cooperation Council, or JSOTF-GCC, at work near Iran and, according to Wired magazine's Danger Room blog, we really don't quite know what it's tasked with doing (other than helping train the forces of such allies as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia).

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1/30/2012 1:49:17 PM

The A-10 Warthog, an endangered species US Air Force

Military traditionalists and aviation fan boys, you might need to sit down for this: In its zeal to stay relevant and (sort of) save bucks, America's flying corps is ridding itself of some of its cheapest, most reliable attack jets in favor of an overpriced, underperforming boondoggle of an aircraft.

The Air Force announced plans on Friday to cut five squadrons of A-10 attack jets (as well as a number of cargo aircraft) in the hopes that they'll ultimately be replaced by the notoriously expensive F-35 fighter program.

The plan is bound to be controversial. Imagine an unstoppable commercial Learjet with a full-automatic cannon in its nose and an iron bathtub surrounding the cockpit. That gives you some idea of the A-10's appearance and performance. Nicknamed the Thunderbolt (though most salty service members call it a Warthog, since that nose cannon kind of looks like a snout), the A-10 was developed in the Cold War to fly low and slow and destroy Soviet tanks. After 9/11, war planners realized the A-10's close-air support capabilities made it an ideal tool to defeat insurgents, too; by 2010, 60 of the planes had fired more than 300,000 rounds of ammunition in combat over Iraq (as well as flown a handful of propaganda-leaflet drops), with an 85 percent success rate [PDF]. The plane has done equally well in Afghanistan and Libya.

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1/30/2012 12:50:11 PM

One evening this past October, I went prospecting for natural-gas man Trevor Rees-Jones at the posh Hilton Anatole in Dallas. He was there to receive the Robert S. Folsom Leadership Award, a philanthropic prize that in recent years has gone to the likes of Laura Bush and former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman. Unlike these prominent Texans, Rees-Jones is not widely known outside his hometown. If the name sounds familiar, it's probably because he shares it with the British bodyguard who survived Princess Diana's fatal car crash. The Trevor Rees-Jones that I came to see is the billionaire founder of Dallas-based Chief Oil & Gas and perhaps the fastest-rising star in Republican big-money circles.

Photo: Scott Womack

The dinner's PR people had promised me tickets, then changed their minds and, with apologies, yanked them. So I called up my sister, a Dallas debutante of recent vintage, to help me crash the thing. As we strolled through the Hilton's cave-like lobby in cocktail attire, we saw a troop of young Boy Scouts milling about. One of them inquired about our destination and then helpfully directed us to the event's open bar. An Eagle Scout himself, Rees-Jones has donated millions of dollars to scouting causes.

A few days earlier, Rees-Jones' high school acquaintance, the renowned GOP bundler Jim Francis, had thrown him a party with guests that included George W. Bush. Now Francis' broad-shouldered son, Jim Jr., was holding forth in the lobby about a Lenin statue that once stood outside his burger joint. (Inscription: "America Won.") It was eventually sold on eBay to some guy in Arkansas. "Perfect!" someone exclaimed. "That's where it should be!"

We all laughed at the Clintons' expense. I then asked Francis if he thought Rees-Jones would go all in on the 2012 presidential race. "Oh, yeah!" he gushed before realizing he had no idea who I was. "Uh, I think a lot of the big political backers are waiting to see what happens," he added vaguely. "I think it will be a real interesting year."

I'd been trying to speak with Rees-Jones for more than a month. I'd even shown up at Chief's headquarters, but nobody would see me. Recognizing the CEO by his ruddy complexion and Regis Philbin hairstyle, I approached the bar where he stood flanked by a towering bodyguard with a Band-Aid on his neck. With slight trepidation, I introduced myself, asking if we might arrange a time to talk. His face reddened. "I've been advised of your agenda, so I don't think that's gonna be possible," Rees-Jones snapped in a West Texas drawl that belied his Ivy League education. His sideman moved closer and my sister and I turned heel, working our way past a tightening cordon of security.

A pity, for had we stuck around, we could have caught Karl Rove taking the stage beside a large model pump jack and oil derrick to do some prospecting of his own. Rees-Jones "is what servant leadership is all about," Rove said, throwing a bone to the Christians in attendance, though a society blogger covering the event emphasized his saltier extolments: George W. hadn't made it to the dinner, Rove explained, because he was angry that Rees-Jones always beats him when they go mountain biking together. "He rides the president's sorry ass into the ground every time."

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1/30/2012 5:01:00 AM

As Republican primary voters head to the polls in Florida on Tuesday, both GOP front-runners have endorsed a policy that would contradict existing law and could disenfranchise millions of voters across the country.

During a recent debate, both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney supported getting rid of bilingual ballots when the topic was brought up by the moderator. "I would have ballots in English," Gingrich said. "And I think you could have programs where virtually everybody would be able to read the ballots." Romney agreed. "I think Speaker Gingrich is right with regards to what he's described," he said.

That wasn't much of a stretch for Gingrich, who once called Spanish "the language of living in a ghetto." Yet their glib demand for English-only ballots would require amending the Voting Rights Act and doing away with hard-won legal requirements that have existed for decades. It's a sharp turn away from the Bush administration, which despite a spotty civil rights record filed more ballot access cases on behalf of non-English speakers than any administration had before.

"We used to have poll taxes, we used to have whites-only primaries, we used to not let women vote," says Myrna Perez, senior counsel with the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. "Policies that would make our ballots less accessible to Americans based on what language they speak would be at odds with that historical arc towards expanding the franchise."

Bilingual ballots are no abstract issue in Florida, which has a sizeable population of Americans whose first languages are Spanish or Haitian Creole. "The Haitian population is a voting bloc, the Hispanic community is a voting bloc," says Carolyn Thompson, a Florida-based activist with the Advancement Project, a civil rights group. "They pay taxes, they've won the right to vote in their language."

Under the 1975 revision of the Voting Rights Act, communities whose non-English speaking populations reach a certain level have to provide voting materials in alternate languages.

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1/30/2012 5:00:00 AM