How many layers of lies?/Updated– now with the real poop!

The disappearance and reappearance and hopefully-soon re-disappearance of Gov. Mark Sanford is interesting only from the standpoint of how many people told how many layers of lies over the few days that this sordid, petty tale played out. This seems to be the rough sequence of statements issued about the Governor after his disappearance last Thursday.

His wife said he had some writing he wanted to do

His staff said he wanted to have some time alone

His wife said she didn’t know where he was

We were told his car was at the Atlanta airport

Sanford’s staff said they talked to him and he was fine

We were told he was hiking the Appalachian trail

Sanford’s staff denied that they had talked to him

His staff said he had told them where he was going

A federal agent said that he had been seen boarding a plane

On being greeted at the airport by a reporter, Sanford said he was in Argentina alone

Sanford said he was driving along the Buenos Aires coastline

Sanford said that this was his only time cheating

Sanford said that he wasn’t formally separated from his wife

Now, Sanford says he was on a tryst with an Argentine firecracker. There are two miles of industrial coastline to drive along in Buenos Aires. His wife kicked him out of the house and asked him not to come back, which would seem to mean he was separated from her.

And we learn (thank you, PW) that the affair goes back a year or so. Not to mention that his love prose is at least as schlocky as that of the rest of us and probably more so.

His wife was lying. His staff was lying. The state police were probably telling the truth. The federal agent was probably telling the truth.

I would bet that Sanford is lying even still. If he hadn’t been caught at the airport, I’m sure he would be.
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Update 2: from Thomas Kaplan of Vanity Fair:

Sanford brought his unique brand of fiscal conservatism back to South Carolina in 2003 when he became governor. The next year, the Republican-led state House overrode 105 of his 106 budget vetoes. In response, Sanford stormed into the statehouse carrying two piglets to protest what he called pork-barrel spending. It seemed like a good photo-op—until the piglets defecated on him, at which point it became a great photo-op.

Sounds like the piglets knew who brung ‘em.
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Update 3: La Nacion has identified the lady as Maria Belen Chapur, “a Buenos Aires executive.” Evidently, she worked as a reporter around the time of 9/11. I’m sorry for her teenage sons, for whom this has got to be slightly worse than death.

The best healthcare system in the world. In the world!

Thanks to Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine (via Christy Hardin Smith, via Avedon) for publicizing this C-Span clip of Robin Beaton, RN.

Click here

A Mistake On The Régime’s Part?

If the idea was to make it look like the US was backing the protesters, it doesn’t make sense to expel British diplomats. That just muddies the waters. Then again, the British oil companies were the main beneficiaries of the US-engineered coup overthrowing Mossadegh in the 1950s, so it’s not as if we and they haven’t ever before been allies together against the Iranian people.

No comment

(Image found on Bartcop)

Jane Hamsher Has A Job For You

Your mission, should you choose to accept it (and you really should) is to whip the Democrats into shape on health care.

Read, then do. It’s the most fun you’ll have that doesn’t involve Crisco!

The beauty of it is that it gets the legislators publicly committed to a public stand — and that makes it harder for industry lobbyists, who depend on us not knowing how our congresscritters will vote:

Legislative vote counts are one of those things that the Web can transform. They’re typically closely held — counting is an insider’s art — and deliberate ambiguity is a key negotiating tactic. Legislators who would prefer to vote no, for instance, might be willing to be the last vote, for a price. So while this has the effect of pushing members toward Obama’s position, it also shines a spotlight on members who might prefer to stay uncommitted, or to wait for details and compromises.

You know what to do.

Heard on the public airwaves

DemocracyNow hit the trifecta: charter schools, deep packet inspection (wiretapping), and a detailed analysis of a number of cases of innocent men held at Guantanamo.

On Charter Schools, Stanford University has come up with a new report called The Credo Report (interesting choice of names) which looked at 16 states. They found charter schools very slightly underperforming traditional schools, which is bad news for the movement, since it is promising improvements. Arne Duncan is trying to spin this by saying, well, yes, if we got rid of all the bad charter schools, they would be better than public schools. Of course, if we properly funded and did oversight on bad public schools, they’d be better than charters. Anyway:

this study reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well as their TPS counterparts. Further, tremendous variation in academic quality among charters is the norm, not the exception. The problem of quality is the most pressing issue that charter schools and their supporters face.

but with a surprising twist:

two subgroups fare better in charters than in the traditional system:
students in poverty and ELL students.

Bob Peterson of Rethinking Schools gave a powerful rebuttal, demolishing EdSec Arne Duncan’s record and pointing out that charter schools, contrary to the assertions of the Credo Report, cherry pick by dumping students with behavior problems. In Illinois, 15% of traditional classrooms are special needs children, while only 10% of charters are.

Deep Packet Inspection means searching mail/phone/FAX/etc. for keywords (but “words” could include, for example, the ISP, the type of program used to generate the transmission, or the time of day) and referring them to a police agency. Siemens and Nokia set up a centralized system for Iran’s government, which is how they have managed to all but shut down communications. China uses a decentralized system. The US has the capability and it’s legal, according to Josh Silver of FreePress.Net.

I know for a fact that deep packet inspection is used by at least one ISP, which used it for a time to block transmitting things like the link to the Cornell University site on the Constitution! The potential for abuse in a society so completely dependent on electronic communication is enormous.

The segment on the innocence of many Guantanamo detainees added some important detail to what we know. Andy Worthington delivered such a solid exposition that I’m adding him to the links. The case of Abdul Rahim, who was tortured by Al Qaeda and held in a Taliban jail, only to be seized and transferred to Guantanamo was particularly moving. The Syrian government is unlikely to accept him, so as the final (or so we hope) indignity, he will become a stateless person, forever separated from his family.

More Clueless Heartlessness from Republicans

Republicans continue to prove that “stupid” and “evil” are not mutually exclusive.

Tom Davis of Virginia declared that people who can’t get insurance coverage because of pre-existing condtions should just get themselves a job with a major employer where they won’t be excluded from the coverage pool.

Mr. Davis, I will type this slowly in hopes you can read it. Major employers are not exactly begging people to take jobs with them. They are, in fact, shedding jobs, not creating them. The unemployment rate, in fact, is the highest it’s been in years, and likely to go even higher. Your “solution” is not realistic.

The solution to the health-care crisis is not to rely on “major employers” to provide health insurance for the people lucky enough to have jobs with them. The solution is to develop a health system that doesn’t rely on the job market and on profit-making corporations, because neither of those will protect the wellbeing of the people who need health care.

That’s reality. Face it.

The stolen Iranian election

Via Juan Cole, Chatham House gives chapter and verse on why they think the election was stolen. Prof. Cole says that The Nation will have a piece by Robert Dreyfuss summarizing the evidence, and here it is.

Tuesday Morning Republican News Roundup

– This is just what I was talking about when I talked about the Republicans making Ahmedinejad smile.

– RE: Governor Sanford — Might I suggest checking around Fire Island or Christopher Street, instead of the Appalachian Trail? Might be a lot easier.

– Oh. My. Goodness. You’re slipping, Pat — ten years ago you would have caught this.

Diving klaxon

Anuj Gangahar and Michael Mackenzie, FT

Growing pessimism about the prospects for a global economic recovery sent stock and commodity prices tumbling on Monday while new data showed that leading US corporate executives were cashing out of their share holdings at a rapid pace…

“The smartest players in the US stock market – the top insiders who run public companies – are not betting their own money on an economic recovery,” said Charles Biderman, chief executive of TrimTabs.

Smartest players? Well, the ones with inside information, anyway.

David Wilson, Bloomberg:

U.S. and European stocks are destined to fall below March’s lows if bear-market history is any guide, according to Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank AG.

Share prices tend to hit bottom “at extremely cheap levels” relative to earnings during so-called secular bear markets, Reid wrote five days ago in his first equity strategy report. Secular bears consist of multiple rallies and declines, with each slump producing lower valuations than the prior one.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s price-earnings ratio since 1900, based on data compiled by Yale University’s Robert Shiller and cited in Reid’s report.

Shiller calculated the P/E ratio at 6.6 in September 1982, just before the 1980s bull market started. The gauge sank to less than six in the depths of the Great Depression and at the beginning of the 1920s. This year, it has stayed above 13.