Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Kit Bond appeared with Senator Diane Feinstein, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to discuss the disclosure of a second, secret Iranian uranium enrichment facility:

Bond’s demeanor during this interview illustrates the dilemma that faces erst-while moderates in the age of radical fringe Republicanism. On the one hand,  he is not a total ideologue so he strives for the appearance of rationality:

… I think that the election riots and the continuing unrest in Iran shows that there’s a significant body of Iranian people who don’t like the direction that they’re going.

And that’s why I think that strong economic sanctions, which have to be applied by the world community, not just us – we can make an impact – are the best way to go.

To get an idea about how much Bond is leaning toward the center here, contrast his statement with the rabid diatribe by former counselor to the Bush State Department, Eliot A. Cohen, that appeared in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.  Cohen states unequivocally that:

Pressure, be it gentle or severe, will not erase that nuclear program. The choices are now what they ever were: an American or an Israeli strike, which would probably cause a substantial war, or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear, over a longer period of time.

In comparison to such knee-jerk neocons, Bond seems positively sane.  

On the other hand, however, lest Bond’s more virulent fellow Republicans get the idea that he’s a weak sister, he does have to rattle his rather moribund sabre just a little and make a feint in the direction of the diplomatically inclined Obama administration. On the topic of Iran’s recent short-range missile tests, he declares in his best testy, elder statesman mode:

Today’s action in firing the missiles is really a poke in the eye to those who think that diplomatic efforts and agreements and inspections are going to change the way that Iran is going.

Has anybody ever implied that diplomacy or inspections unaccompanied by some source of leverage constitutes a viable strategy?  Or is Bond implying that sanctions are just a necessary run-up to military action (while somehow managing to agree with Secretary Gates that military action would be futile)?  Perhaps he is a little annoyed that Obama is so skillfully using the fact of Iran’s supposed intransigence to try to wrench cooperation from the Russians and Chinese.

Or, perhaps he’s just dancing around the issue trying to appear tough. Poor Senator Bond!  Trying to be responsible when you live in a nest of two-headed vipers must be stressful in the extreme.  No wonder he plans to retire.

Incidentally, if you you would like to fill in the holes in this interview with an alternative point of view, take a look at what Glenn Glenwald has to say.  He makes a good argument for exercising caution about the media coverage of Iran’s new facility, as well as the breathless alacrity with which our politicians, Democratic as well as Republican, have jumped on the bandwagon for what must seem to all of them a sure-fire political bet.

There’s been lots of press about Congress cutting off funds to ACORN, but that money is so not the issue. Forgoing 53 million dollars over fifteen years is not going to break ACORN. What is hurting them is that local charitable organizations fear becoming radioactive if they give ACORN funds. Those charities are cautious about being tarred unjustly, though they may know very well how much good ACORN does in the community.

Some of them have had close ties with ACORN for years. For instance, the St. Vincent de Paul church runs a charity that dispenses money to help low income people, the disabled, and the elderly with clean up, painting, even some lawn mowing. ACORN, through its network of members, finds the folk who need and deserve these services and puts them in touch with St. Vincent de Paul. If that kind of cooperation stalls or if charities like the United Way cancel contributions to ACORN, people who are already having a rough go of it are going to face even tougher times. When Republicans hurt ACORN, they’re spitting on poor people.

I spent a couple of hours at the ACORN office recently, observing how the staff spends its time. In the (not so) luxurious digs pictured below the fold, they had a staff meeting, and afterwards, James Houston (pictured at right with Ann Chilson) and Roszina Jones-Williams (pictured above with Mike Green) began calling members. A large part of their job is to find out what the members need and help them organize to get it, as well as to educate them about the sorts of help that are available to low income people from the government and from various charities. They collect $10 monthly in dues from their members and provide a wealth of services.

Jones-Williams explained that homeowners might be concerned, say, about nearby nuisance properties. Perhaps someone is parking his car in his yard or there’s a vacant building that has become a gathering place. She counsels them on how to deal with that. Or perhaps she tells people who want to buy their first home or who have been in their first home less than three years about tax credits HUD offers worth ten percent of the amount of the home’s value. HUD also offers home improvement funds for low and moderate income people.  

People don’t even know that money is available without someone actively working to get the word out. And often, those programs require that long, sometimes puzzling application forms be filled out. Maybe Ann Chilson will be the one to help an applicant with his questions about the form. Or James may help residents organize ward meetings and invite Mayor Slay to attend and listen to their concerns, perhaps in the form of pleas for more money for home repairs. Sometimes Roszina’s job is to explain to residents who their aldermen are and how to contact them about various issues. Or, James may talk with a new homeowner about contributing to the neighborhood by taking good care of his property.

So much of what ACORN accomplishes in low income neighborhoods is aimed at keeping property values up and crime down, so that the people who live there will have safe, stable communities.

One crucial way to accomplish that is just to keep homeowners from foreclosure. ACORN staffer, Mike Green, has been advising people stuck with adjustable rate mortgages, where the rate may have soared from 3 percent to twelve percent, about how to get the mortgage refinanced to something manageable. Sadly, while the national organization is deliberating about how to deal with Republican attacks, that program has been put on hold. But people are still calling for help. People are still losing their homes. The most Green can do for them currently, though, is give them the name of another organization that might–despite long waiting lines–find time to counsel these desperate homeowners.

Another highly useful program, assistance with tax preparation, has been canceled for the coming year. The IRS says it initiated the cancellation and ACORN claims it made that decision and informed the IRS. Whatever. The point is, according to an ACORN representative:

“Acorn is now one of the I.R.S.’s largest free tax assistance providers, and we are disappointed that we won’t be able to serve the tens of thousands of families that would look to us this coming tax season.”

Despite the setbacks, though, Glenn Burleigh, Ann, Mike, James and Roszina–and ACORN workers all over the country–get on with their dogged help for those that need it. They continue to attend health care reform rallies and to demonstrate outside AmerenUE headquarters over Ameren’s outrageous 18 percent rate hike request. This winter, they’ll be explaining to people who can barely make the rent how to get some help with utility bills. Indeed, they’re training various volunteers throughout the metro area in helping people get utility bill assistance.

They stay sane–even good humored–in the face of the current demonization. When I was in the office, Ann was chuckling about the health reform lies. She’s a Brit, and she said that she kidded her mother: “You know that hip replacement you got last year, Mum? You didn’t get it. According to Republicans, it couldn’t have happened.”

You know what I think would help their mental health? I mean, besides Glenn Beck keeling over with a heart attack? A sudden infusion of cash. Feel free to cheer them up.

There’s been a bit of discussion about transparency when it comes to polling by Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com and Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com.

The mechanics of executing a scientific random sample poll are relatively straightforward, the logistics are a nightmare. The people involved need to understand what they’re doing (duh) and what it takes to get valid results.

You don’t need a massive building and gigantic corporate infrastructure to pull off an accurate poll, though the available logistical support inherent in those entities can help a lot. What is absolutely essential is a thorough understanding of the science and the art of polling and a phone bank (or other contact system) with intelligent well trained interviewers. Mom and pop operations can produce good stuff, it’s just that it’s a really tough grind to do it with a relatively small number of people day in and day out.

Transparency when you publicly release your data is very important. The thing is though, if a candidate’s campaign spends a small fortune on a poll and releases the data to the public they’ve just given their opponent some of the benefits of the poll for free. The crosstabulations in a campaign poll are used for voter targeting. See the conflict?

But, when you publicly release the results there’s an obligation to release a minimum amount of information about your methodology so the public and others in the opinion research business can gauge the validity of the those publicly released results.

Why bother? Without methodological transparency the authority conveyed by a poll labeled as such, which may or may not have actually been executed with a valid methodology, can have significant influence on the media and the public at large.

From 1994:

AAPOR Finds Frank Luntz in Violation of Ethics Code

Wednesday, April 23, 1997 — The Executive Council of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) announced Wednesday that a 14 month investigation found pollster Frank Luntz violated the Association’s Code of Professional Ethics and Practices.

AAPOR found Luntz, who heads the Luntz Research Companies in Arlington,Virginia, repeatedly refused to make public essential facts about his research on public attitudes about the Republicans’ “Contract with America.” In particular, the AAPOR inquiry focused on Luntz’s reporting, prior to the November elections in 1994, that his research showed at least 60 percent of the public favored each of the elements in the GOP “Contract.” When later asked to provide some basic facts about this research, Luntz refused.

AAPOR holds that researchers must disclose, or make available for public disclosure, the wording of questions and other basic methodological details when poll findings are made public. This disclosure is important so that claims made on the basis of opinion research findings can be independently evaluated. Section III of the AAPOR Code states: “Good professional practice imposes the obligation upon all public opinion researchers to include, in any report of research results, or to make available when that report is released, certain essential information about how the research was conducted…”

Yep, that “Contract on America” has had a significant impact on our national consciousness. At the very least we should all be given the opportunity to judge if that influence is valid or not.

Would that I could say, with any self-satisfaction, that at least I’m not from Minnesota, the state that hatched Michele Bachmann, or from Iowa, a state that gets to claim both Charles Grassley and Steve King, or from Texas–omigod, where to start? with Bush or DeLay? (who is currently ruining Dancing with the Stars for me).

But we Missouri progressives can’t afford to be smug. Not with Roy Blunt, Cynthia Davis (with guffaw-inducing foibles too multiple to bother linking to any one of them), Tim Jones, and a host of others. And in case home grown isn’t embarrassing enough, we import nutballs: Joe Wilson will be speaking next weekend in Springfield to the Missouri Republican Assembly, which bills itself as the “Republican Wing of the Republican Party”.

More of the same about misinformation and the Faux News Channel.

On health care reform – via Think Progress and the Great Orange Satan:

First thoughts: Obama’s good, bad news

Posted: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 9:16 AM by Domenico Montanaro

….Here’s another way to look at the misinformation: In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly. But it would be incorrect to suggest that this is ONLY coming from conservative viewers who tune in to FOX. In fact, 41% of CNN/MSNBC viewers believe the misinformation about illegal immigrants, 39% believe the government takeover stuff, 40% believe the abortion misperception, and 30% believe the stuff about pulling the plug on grandma. What’s more, a good chunk of folks who get their news from broadcast TV (NBC, ABC, CBS) believe these things, too. This is about credible messengers using the media to get some of this misinformation out there, not as much about the filter itself….

“…not as much about the filter itself…”

Au contraire, mes amis. Watching television news does make you stupid. It’s just that some networks make you more stupid than others.

That is now, this was then (September 13, 2007): Repeat it enough and some people will believe it’s true

…Program on International Policy Attitudes, October 2, 2003 [pdf]

….An analysis of those who were asked all of the key three perception questions does reveal a remarkable level of variation in the presence of misperceptions according to news source. Standing out in the analysis are Fox and NPR/PBS–but for opposite reasons. Fox was the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions. NPR/PBS are notable because their viewers and listeners consistently held fewer misperceptions than respondents who obtained their information from other news sources.

The table below shows this clearly. Listed are the breakouts of the sample according to the frequency of the three key misperceptions (i.e. the beliefs that evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found, that WMD have been found in Iraq and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq) and their primary news source. Fox News watchers were most likely to hold misperceptions-and were more than twice as likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions. In the audience for NPR/PBS, however, there was an overwhelming majority who did not have any of the three misperceptions, and hardly any had all three.

The sad part? Viewers of CBS had almost the same tendencies towards misperception as viewers of the Faux News Channel.

There you have it, watching certain cable television networks will make you really stupid.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Seems Kit Bond, in his best huffing and puffing style, has thrown a noisy little tantrum and resigned from the Senate Intelligence Committee panel charged with reviewing CIA Interrogation policies. He claims that the appointment of a federal prosecutor by Attorney General Eric Holder might bias the hearings and lead to a general unwillingness on the part of CIA officers to be forthcoming about their possible, past misdeeds:

“Had Mr. Holder honored the pledge made by the President to look forward, not backwards, we would still be active participants in the Committee’s review,” the ranking Republican on the intelligence panel, Sen. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, said in a statement. “What current or former CIA employee would be willing to gamble his freedom by answering the Committee’s questions? Indeed, forcing these terror fighters to make this choice is neither fair nor just.”

Bond’s resignation doesn’t seem to bother panel chair, Dianne Feinstein, who has indicated that the panel will complete its task with or without bipartisan contributions. Perhaps one reason for her equanimity might be relief that she won’t have to deal with the overt bias that Bond himself displays when he speaks about the temerity of the DOJ in investigating individuals whom he salutes as “terror fighters.”  

Bond might just be worried, good Republican soldier that he is, that when faced with hard evidence about what the CIA actually did, he could find himself in a very hard place. He himself might be forced to condemn his beloved terror fighters.  Can’t somebody please explain to the senator that there is a word for governments that allow secret intelligence agencies to run amok, and that word is “dictatorship”?  

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) posted a link via Twitter to a video of remarks she made on the floor of the Senate critical of the earmarking process:

I think this does a decent job explaining some of the problems with earmark process. http://bit.ly/9tsro about 2 hours ago from web

The date on the video is September 23, 2009.

….The amendment that I’ll be offering speaks to what I see as a very fundamentally flawed process in our appropriations in Congress. I am, uh, not in the majority in this body as it relates to the subject of earmarks. I realize that I am, um, one of very few in my party and a few more, but not a whole lot, on the other side of the aisle that don’t participate in the earmarking process. My amendment is calling into attention, I hope, how this process is flawed. And why we need to change the process.

There are two, there are many problems with the process, but two of ’em I’m gonna speak briefly about today. One is, the process is fundamentally unfair. Um, it’s, it’s rather mysterious, uh, how much money gets set aside for earmarks and who does it and where it happens. It’s even more mysterious as to how the decision is made as to how the earmarks are distributed among the members. Uh, I would point out that in looking at the appropriations bills that we’ve handled so far it’s very clear that the process is heavily weighted towards the members that serve as appropriators. I get that. Um, that’s part of the culture that has grown up around earmarking. That is, is if you’re an appropriator you’re entitled to get more. I’m not sure that’s a good way to spend public money. But I think it’s important to point out that that is the process. Um, fifty percent of the earmarks in this bill, of all the earmarks in this bill, are going to the members of the committee. Last week it was even more egregious. I don’t think most members realize that when we voted on the Transportation, uh, the T-HUD bill last week, the Transportation the Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill last week, in the transportation part of the bill there was one point six billion in earmarks. Over fifty percent of that money went to four members, four states. So, out of fifty states four states got more than half of all the money. Well when I tell that to people in Missouri they go, “Huh, how does that happen? How can that happen?” And I frankly don’t have a very good answer for ’em.

The other par…, problem I’d like to call to the attention of my colleagues today is not just the process as it relates to how earmarks are distributed, but what we, where these earmarks come from. This money is not growing on a secret tree somewhere that we’re harvesting. Uh, it is, they’re coming out of programs. They’re coming out of budgets. And one of the things that I’ve found most troubling is that many of these earmarks are coming out of competitive grant programs or formula grant programs. ….

….Taking money out of a formula fund to earmark takes it from a predictable process based on merit to a very unpredictable process based on who ya are. The same thing with competitive grant programs.

The amendment that I will offer, uh, basically wipes out the earmarks in one of these competitive grant programs. The program I’m referring to is a great program. It’s called “Save America’s Treasures”.

Half of the money this year will be earmarked. Leaving only ten million for a competitive program. So if your state doesn’t get an earmark, either in the House or in the Senate, in the bill then the chances of your state getting any money out of this program have been cut in half. It’s only ten million dollars for the whole country for these grants which are to restore America’s treasures, historic treasures, across the country. That, that, that’s a problem.

The hijacking of public money for earmarking from the competitive grant bus is going on everywhere. Um, and let me give you another couple of examples. Last week when we did the Transportation Housing Urban Development appropriation there were two good examples. They are, uh, programs that began to provide competition to valued programs across the country. The first one, is the Neighborhood Initiative. And that is at, at HUD, the Housing and Urban Development department. In nineteen ninety-eight Congress created this program.

There were no earmarks in the program at all in nineteen ninety-nine. None. After Congress created the program. So, beginning in two thousand and one, however, every dime in this program, under the Neighborhood Initiatives Program, has gone to earmarks. Once again, a competitive merit process morphs over into a completely earmarked process.

I just think that compet…, competition is a good thing. And this isn’t about a bureaucrat somewhere sprinkling fairy dust and supplementing their judgment for the judgment of Congress. In fact the examples that I have given are programs that were designed to be competitive, and in two of the three instances, they were designed to be competitive by Congress itself. And then somehow they have morphed over into a pecking order of priorities based on someone’s seniority or the committee they serve on or even if they’re in some political trouble. It seems like to me a goofy way to spend money, especially the public’s money….

“…I just think that compet…, competition is a good thing….”

It’d be really nice if that also applied to health care reform, don’t you think?